As Christians, we tend to throw around the word forgiveness quite a bit, but I wonder - do we really and truly grasp the depth and difficulty behind what TRUE forgiveness is? Jesus tells us we're to forgive 70 x 7 times, which means we forgive wholly and completely. But what does this look like?
On the one hand, our tendency is to go, "Fine, I forgive you, but don't ever darken my doorstep again." Can we really truly forgive, but still keep the relationship broken? Or does forgiveness entail at least in part repairing the relationship?
When God says he forgives us, is he saying, "I forgive you, but I want nothing to do with you"? No, that's not really forgiveness then. Forgiveness in the eyes of God is a large part of putting us back into right relationship - both with Him and with one another. It means relationship is being restored.
Yet - this issue can get quite complicated when you're dealing with someone who has really, really hurt you and wronged you in some fashion. If they come seeking forgiveness, what do you do? You know the dangers of letting them back into your life if they haven't actually changed.
And I suppose that's another element of forgiveness... has the behavior stopped? One of my seminary professors put it this way: sometimes you have to let them hang on the cross for a while before you forgive them. To illustrate his point... should a woman who is being beaten by her husband have to just accept the abuse and say, "Well, I know he's human, so I forgive him?" Or rather, does an intervention need to take place first? A confrontation where his sin is placed before him and the demand made that it stop before we can forgive? But now comes the question - when the behavior stops, and forgiveness can happen - what does that mean for the relationship? Is it fully restored now? Do they pick up where they left off? Does it move forward in new ways? Or do they part company and go their separate ways?
Is not forgiveness about engagement, not disengagement? Case in point - I had someone who harmed me very deeply 15 or so years ago, and did a lot of things that, in my view, made ANY form of relationship that wasn't hostile impossible. 15 years later - he's asking for forgiveness. What do I do? Give him his desired absolution and tell him to go on his way? Has he truly changed, and how do I know? Can I forgive him without knowing whether the behavior has altered? Do I have to engage him in some fashion in order to find out so that true forgiveness can really and truly occur? (My sneaking suspicion is that the behavior has NOT changed, he's just looking to ease his conscience... and is it my place to give him that absolution so he can feel better about himself and what he does?) Is not forgiving without the demand that the behavior stop just further enabling the person, making them think it's okay to hurt people, because well - they'll be forgiven anyway?
We Christians live in a tension - that tension of our "left and right" kingdoms. The right kingdom being the spiritual kingdom where Christ reigns supreme, where forgiveness is complete and we have been put right with God in this kingdom. The left kingdom, however is where sin still is not only present, but continues to run a-muck. It is the temporal world in which we currently live and reside. In this kingdom, the problem of human sinful behavior is still at the forefront of every relationship we're in. Christ has been our "intervention" to put us back into right relationship with God and ultimately with one another - but even there, death is still a necessity in order for "new creation" to occur and that "right relationship" to be fully restored. We cannot fully enter into the "right kingdom" unless we first die to ourselves and are raised to new life.
Yet, as Christians - we're still called to live as "new creations" as best we can. So how do we, in our limited, sinful ways, still realize that "new creation" in our relationships with others through forgiveness? If I forgive, does it not mean that I now have to trust as well that there has been a change in this individual? And if there IS a change, then doesn't that mean we are now open to engage in a newly restored and healed relationship, albeit a very different relationship than before?
Is this possible?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Shepherd's Voice
This coming Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday: the speech Jesus gives about the thief trying to steal his sheep, but his sheep know his voice. During this week's sermon brainwave, Rolf Jacobson told a story about this farmer who raised sheep. He was at the fair and talking with this guy about his sheep. When he got home, he discovered strange tire tracks and went in and discovered his sheep were gone. A few weeks later he went to the fair in the next county and discovered his sheep, which had been re-tagged. But as he approached the pen, the sheep began to bleat - they recognized their true shepherd.
This story hit home for me today when thinking about the thieves that come in and steal us from God. For those who don't know, I lost my cousin this last Friday to alcoholism. The "thief" that stole my cousin came in the form of a Jack Daniel's bottle - offering an escape from pain, an escape from loneliness, and the potential for "happiness" at the bottom of a bottle. This is a story that is told far too often in this world. I don't make excuses for my cousin - he made his choices, he sought these things out long ago and opted to go down this path. Once alcoholism got its talons in him, leaving that lifestyle behind was virtually impossible. That is how addictions work - you allow them to enter into your life, and they take over it in ways you never imagined. These addictions lead to other things - lying, denial, violence, etc. Whether he really wanted help or not for his problem, I'll never know. And there are waaaay too many family systems at play for me to go into all the things that played a part in this destructive path. And they're all a moot point at this juncture.
My cousin was so entrenched in the thief's den that it took his life. But two days before we pulled him off life support, we called in a chaplain who said a prayer around his bed. Now my cousin had been placed in a drug-induced coma in order to manage the pain and was unable to breathe on his own. Prior to the prayer, his heart had been racing around 98 bpm, he was twitching and struggling... as the chaplain proclaimed the love of Christ and the comfort of our Heavenly Father, he visibly relaxed and his heart rate dropped down to 74 bpm. He remained much calmer and more peaceful for the next few days until we pulled him off the ventilator and he died.
What I take away from this, however, is the power of the Shepherd's voice. There is no doubt in my mind that the Shepherd's voice broke through all of the sedation and made it's way to my cousin. He was not a particularly religious individual, never went to church, wasn't big on prayer, etc. etc. - but I know he occasionally talked about how he felt God had become too removed from our everyday lives. Of course, when he spoke of these things, they didn't always ring true for those of us who knew him best, for those of us who had seen his ugly side. For those of us who were not as in denial over my cousin's addiction. They seemed like very empty words coming from someone who acted and behaved in ways that were anything but representative of Jesus Christ.
However - perhaps, looking back, there was an important truth my cousin was speaking whether he recognized it or not. Christ has been removed from the daily lives of many. Christ had been removed from his life for a very long time.
But at the end - he still knew the Shepherd's voice.
This story hit home for me today when thinking about the thieves that come in and steal us from God. For those who don't know, I lost my cousin this last Friday to alcoholism. The "thief" that stole my cousin came in the form of a Jack Daniel's bottle - offering an escape from pain, an escape from loneliness, and the potential for "happiness" at the bottom of a bottle. This is a story that is told far too often in this world. I don't make excuses for my cousin - he made his choices, he sought these things out long ago and opted to go down this path. Once alcoholism got its talons in him, leaving that lifestyle behind was virtually impossible. That is how addictions work - you allow them to enter into your life, and they take over it in ways you never imagined. These addictions lead to other things - lying, denial, violence, etc. Whether he really wanted help or not for his problem, I'll never know. And there are waaaay too many family systems at play for me to go into all the things that played a part in this destructive path. And they're all a moot point at this juncture.
My cousin was so entrenched in the thief's den that it took his life. But two days before we pulled him off life support, we called in a chaplain who said a prayer around his bed. Now my cousin had been placed in a drug-induced coma in order to manage the pain and was unable to breathe on his own. Prior to the prayer, his heart had been racing around 98 bpm, he was twitching and struggling... as the chaplain proclaimed the love of Christ and the comfort of our Heavenly Father, he visibly relaxed and his heart rate dropped down to 74 bpm. He remained much calmer and more peaceful for the next few days until we pulled him off the ventilator and he died.
What I take away from this, however, is the power of the Shepherd's voice. There is no doubt in my mind that the Shepherd's voice broke through all of the sedation and made it's way to my cousin. He was not a particularly religious individual, never went to church, wasn't big on prayer, etc. etc. - but I know he occasionally talked about how he felt God had become too removed from our everyday lives. Of course, when he spoke of these things, they didn't always ring true for those of us who knew him best, for those of us who had seen his ugly side. For those of us who were not as in denial over my cousin's addiction. They seemed like very empty words coming from someone who acted and behaved in ways that were anything but representative of Jesus Christ.
However - perhaps, looking back, there was an important truth my cousin was speaking whether he recognized it or not. Christ has been removed from the daily lives of many. Christ had been removed from his life for a very long time.
But at the end - he still knew the Shepherd's voice.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Snake on a Stick vs. Christ on the Cross
I know I haven't written on this for a while, but just haven't felt the muse - until I started reading over the texts for this week. Granted, I did write a pretty in-depth paper on John 3 for my Gospel of John class several years ago, but I decided to spend some time this week really looking at the "serpent vs. cross" imagery that gets played out here.
The bronze serpent story in Numbers 23 I've always found to be a fascinating little story - albeit a somewhat bizarre story. Why Jesus would pick up this particular event to illustrate the meaning of being "born again/from above" is particularly intriguing. Of course the commentaries on workingpreacher.org and the like will point us to the fact that in both cases, the snake on a stick and Jesus being lifted up on a cross make us realize that in order to be healed, we have to look to these instruments of death.
(Just a quick background for those who might be unfamiliar with the story - the Numbers text is about the Israelites grumbling against God yet again and then being bitten by snakes. God tells Moses to hold up a bronze serpent and if they turn and look at it, they'll he healed of their snake bites. In John 3, Jesus then states that likewise, the Son of Man must be raised up and in order to be healed, people must turn to him in faith. The more obvious and predominant point within this is that in both cases, we must face these instruments of death, these instruments of our own demise - our own sin, brokenness, etc. in order to be healed. And of course, Jesus offers something greater than Moses - he offers eternal healing).
Much more could be said about all of that. But for the purposes of this posting, I really want to concentrate on this whole bronze serpent imagery. It got my mind whirling about all the things I know about serpents and serpent imagery. As many of you know, my father is a physician. So I grew up seeing images of serpents on sticks all the time since the "Staff of Asclepius" is the universal symbol for most medical associations that deal with patient care (ie: the American Acadmey of Family Physicians). When my dad became a Family Physician, he was given a pin that he wore on the lapel of his jackets and lab coats of a snake wrapped around a stick. This was a familiar image to me that I didn't think too much about for a very long period of time.
However, as someone who loves history, mythology, ancient cultures and of course, theology, I find this all so intriguing because of the juxtaposition of the "serpent" imagery in the ancient near-east as opposed to how the Bible deals with this same serpent image. Just in case anyone is unaware of this point, the serpent in the ancient near east was a symbol of wisdom - dating back to ancient Mesopotamia where evidence of serpent worship abounded. In fact, the single serpent staff appears on a Sumerian vase from about 2000 B.C. representing the healing god Ningishita. The Greeks picked this up later and transformed it into the healing god Asclepius. Healing and wisdom are intrinsically tied together in the image of the serpent even today.
Yet, the serpent--this enigmatic symbol for worldly wisdom--is also what appears in the Garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve. The temptation is to embrace the wisdom the serpent has to offer, to potentially know all the things that God knows. Now, this is not to say that wisdom in and of itself is a bad thing - Proverbs points us to the fact that wisdom, when used in its proper form, is indeed something to strive for.
But in the case of the Garden of Eden, the Biblical message takes on a very radical point here: the worldly wisdom that is so worshiped by both ancient civilizations and our own is also the very thing that brings about our downfall and death. The knowledge itself is not the problem. The wisdom itself is not the problem. The problem is - we worship it. Many would say we would never worship a snake - how silly is that? But we DO worship knowledge. We worship worldly wisdom. We hunger for it - we seek it out and at times, we trust it far more than we are willing to trust God (I count myself among probably the worst of these!)
Like the Israelites, we've been "bitten" by our trust in worldly wisdom, by our trust in the ways in which we seek out "worldly" healing. Moses indeed held up the bronze serpent and the people were healed of the venom - but something that is important to note about this particular store... it was not a permanent fix. It put a band-aid on the problem, but didn't fix it. Death would still eventually come for the Israelites. Their immediate ailment was removed - but their state of being had not changed. They would return to their grumbling and would return to their sinful way of living.
Jesus now gives us a compare and contrast. The serpent vs. the cross. Both are instruments of death in their own way. The serpent brings death because it represents everything worldly that we embrace. Yes, that wisdom can help us in this world - we've used its wisdom to prolong life, cure diseases, etc. These in and of themselves are not "bad" things. But like the bronze serpent - it was not a complete healing. It still can't cure that one problem we all face. I think back to what the serpent said to Adam and Eve - "you will not die." A truth mixed with a lie. Death might not have been immediate - it may have been put off... but ultimately, death would eventually be the end result of trusting the serpent rather than God.
Our medical profession today goes to great lengths to not make a liar out of the serpent's words. They do everything they can to try and circumvent the process of death and spend their lives dedicated to trying to find ways to extend life. Again, I am not suggesting in and of itself this is a bad thing - but we're talking here about trust issues. What do we put our trust in? Do we trust our medical professionals... do we trust worldly wisdom... or do we trust God?
Jesus on the other hand holds something else up. He holds up the cross. Now, the cross is also an instrument of death. It was where the worst criminals were sent to die. Yet, it is this very foolish image that God now says we must look to for healing - but not necessarily worldly healing. Jesus says those who look upon the Son of Man lifted up and embrace him in faith will be given the gift of "eternal life." While the snake/worldly wisdom might provide a type of healing, it is only temporary. It is not eternal. The foolish image of the cross, however, provides something more complete. It is how relationship with God is restored. It is how we are spiritually healed and made whole again.
The world seems to be faced with two choices - follow the snake on a stick and the healing it offers, or God on a cross and the healing He offers. It has become clearer to me now why Jesus pulled upon this story to try and explain the concept of being "born again/from above."
Jesus states earlier in the text that we all must be born of both water and spirit when he's telling Nicodemus how one enters the Kingdom of God. It would thus seem that the bronze serpent parallels the "water" element Jesus is discussing - the physical world we live in. (For all humans are "born of water" - just ask any mother who's given birth the reality of this. As does Nicodemus since his immediate question is how one returns to the womb to be "reborn.") However - to be born of "spirit" as well is the point Jesus wants to drive home, and is the point that Nicodemus doesn't get for two reasons.
First, Nicodemus doesn't get it because he's Jewish, and his understanding of "salvation" revolves around the physical nationalistic type of salvation that one was expecting the Messiah to usher in. For Nicodemus, a physical salvation of Israel was not tied to issues of the hereafter. The second reason is popular Greek Platonic thought separated the "physical" from the "spiritual" to the point that the physical/material world was seen as "bad" and the "spiritual" was what one would strive for. Either way, for Nicodemus, "both" water and spirit together was a somewhat baffling concept (and still is for many who are incapable of comprehending the incarnation, of God becoming flesh).
Jesus is introducing the idea that BOTH are necessary, both are good, and both are a reality - we need the physical AND the spiritual. So he continues his juxtoposition of physical and spiritual by pointing out the two types of healing: the physical healing one receives from worldly things, represented by the serpent and his wisdom. The second type of healing that must be melded with the first is the cross - in all its utter foolishness is the true Wisdom of God. So while physicians, etc. are indeed important and are necessary in our physical, material world, we must incorporate the whole package - the physical with the spiritual. Because to rely and trust solely on the physical leads to incomplete healing. It is insufficient. The healing Moses could provide through the bronze serpent falls woefully short of the healing that God provides through Christ on the cross. So while we do not shun the old snake on a stick, our trust does not lie there. It lies in Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.
"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1Pet. 2:24)" The cross has been transformed so that it not only represents death to us, but also death to that which brought death, nullifying its effects - because we always remember that the cross was the curse, for "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" (Galatians 3:10) But the resurrection is the promise that overcomes the curse.
The bronze serpent story in Numbers 23 I've always found to be a fascinating little story - albeit a somewhat bizarre story. Why Jesus would pick up this particular event to illustrate the meaning of being "born again/from above" is particularly intriguing. Of course the commentaries on workingpreacher.org and the like will point us to the fact that in both cases, the snake on a stick and Jesus being lifted up on a cross make us realize that in order to be healed, we have to look to these instruments of death.
(Just a quick background for those who might be unfamiliar with the story - the Numbers text is about the Israelites grumbling against God yet again and then being bitten by snakes. God tells Moses to hold up a bronze serpent and if they turn and look at it, they'll he healed of their snake bites. In John 3, Jesus then states that likewise, the Son of Man must be raised up and in order to be healed, people must turn to him in faith. The more obvious and predominant point within this is that in both cases, we must face these instruments of death, these instruments of our own demise - our own sin, brokenness, etc. in order to be healed. And of course, Jesus offers something greater than Moses - he offers eternal healing).
Much more could be said about all of that. But for the purposes of this posting, I really want to concentrate on this whole bronze serpent imagery. It got my mind whirling about all the things I know about serpents and serpent imagery. As many of you know, my father is a physician. So I grew up seeing images of serpents on sticks all the time since the "Staff of Asclepius" is the universal symbol for most medical associations that deal with patient care (ie: the American Acadmey of Family Physicians). When my dad became a Family Physician, he was given a pin that he wore on the lapel of his jackets and lab coats of a snake wrapped around a stick. This was a familiar image to me that I didn't think too much about for a very long period of time.
However, as someone who loves history, mythology, ancient cultures and of course, theology, I find this all so intriguing because of the juxtaposition of the "serpent" imagery in the ancient near-east as opposed to how the Bible deals with this same serpent image. Just in case anyone is unaware of this point, the serpent in the ancient near east was a symbol of wisdom - dating back to ancient Mesopotamia where evidence of serpent worship abounded. In fact, the single serpent staff appears on a Sumerian vase from about 2000 B.C. representing the healing god Ningishita. The Greeks picked this up later and transformed it into the healing god Asclepius. Healing and wisdom are intrinsically tied together in the image of the serpent even today.
Yet, the serpent--this enigmatic symbol for worldly wisdom--is also what appears in the Garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve. The temptation is to embrace the wisdom the serpent has to offer, to potentially know all the things that God knows. Now, this is not to say that wisdom in and of itself is a bad thing - Proverbs points us to the fact that wisdom, when used in its proper form, is indeed something to strive for.
But in the case of the Garden of Eden, the Biblical message takes on a very radical point here: the worldly wisdom that is so worshiped by both ancient civilizations and our own is also the very thing that brings about our downfall and death. The knowledge itself is not the problem. The wisdom itself is not the problem. The problem is - we worship it. Many would say we would never worship a snake - how silly is that? But we DO worship knowledge. We worship worldly wisdom. We hunger for it - we seek it out and at times, we trust it far more than we are willing to trust God (I count myself among probably the worst of these!)
Like the Israelites, we've been "bitten" by our trust in worldly wisdom, by our trust in the ways in which we seek out "worldly" healing. Moses indeed held up the bronze serpent and the people were healed of the venom - but something that is important to note about this particular store... it was not a permanent fix. It put a band-aid on the problem, but didn't fix it. Death would still eventually come for the Israelites. Their immediate ailment was removed - but their state of being had not changed. They would return to their grumbling and would return to their sinful way of living.
Jesus now gives us a compare and contrast. The serpent vs. the cross. Both are instruments of death in their own way. The serpent brings death because it represents everything worldly that we embrace. Yes, that wisdom can help us in this world - we've used its wisdom to prolong life, cure diseases, etc. These in and of themselves are not "bad" things. But like the bronze serpent - it was not a complete healing. It still can't cure that one problem we all face. I think back to what the serpent said to Adam and Eve - "you will not die." A truth mixed with a lie. Death might not have been immediate - it may have been put off... but ultimately, death would eventually be the end result of trusting the serpent rather than God.
Our medical profession today goes to great lengths to not make a liar out of the serpent's words. They do everything they can to try and circumvent the process of death and spend their lives dedicated to trying to find ways to extend life. Again, I am not suggesting in and of itself this is a bad thing - but we're talking here about trust issues. What do we put our trust in? Do we trust our medical professionals... do we trust worldly wisdom... or do we trust God?
Jesus on the other hand holds something else up. He holds up the cross. Now, the cross is also an instrument of death. It was where the worst criminals were sent to die. Yet, it is this very foolish image that God now says we must look to for healing - but not necessarily worldly healing. Jesus says those who look upon the Son of Man lifted up and embrace him in faith will be given the gift of "eternal life." While the snake/worldly wisdom might provide a type of healing, it is only temporary. It is not eternal. The foolish image of the cross, however, provides something more complete. It is how relationship with God is restored. It is how we are spiritually healed and made whole again.
The world seems to be faced with two choices - follow the snake on a stick and the healing it offers, or God on a cross and the healing He offers. It has become clearer to me now why Jesus pulled upon this story to try and explain the concept of being "born again/from above."
Jesus states earlier in the text that we all must be born of both water and spirit when he's telling Nicodemus how one enters the Kingdom of God. It would thus seem that the bronze serpent parallels the "water" element Jesus is discussing - the physical world we live in. (For all humans are "born of water" - just ask any mother who's given birth the reality of this. As does Nicodemus since his immediate question is how one returns to the womb to be "reborn.") However - to be born of "spirit" as well is the point Jesus wants to drive home, and is the point that Nicodemus doesn't get for two reasons.
First, Nicodemus doesn't get it because he's Jewish, and his understanding of "salvation" revolves around the physical nationalistic type of salvation that one was expecting the Messiah to usher in. For Nicodemus, a physical salvation of Israel was not tied to issues of the hereafter. The second reason is popular Greek Platonic thought separated the "physical" from the "spiritual" to the point that the physical/material world was seen as "bad" and the "spiritual" was what one would strive for. Either way, for Nicodemus, "both" water and spirit together was a somewhat baffling concept (and still is for many who are incapable of comprehending the incarnation, of God becoming flesh).
Jesus is introducing the idea that BOTH are necessary, both are good, and both are a reality - we need the physical AND the spiritual. So he continues his juxtoposition of physical and spiritual by pointing out the two types of healing: the physical healing one receives from worldly things, represented by the serpent and his wisdom. The second type of healing that must be melded with the first is the cross - in all its utter foolishness is the true Wisdom of God. So while physicians, etc. are indeed important and are necessary in our physical, material world, we must incorporate the whole package - the physical with the spiritual. Because to rely and trust solely on the physical leads to incomplete healing. It is insufficient. The healing Moses could provide through the bronze serpent falls woefully short of the healing that God provides through Christ on the cross. So while we do not shun the old snake on a stick, our trust does not lie there. It lies in Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.
"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1Pet. 2:24)" The cross has been transformed so that it not only represents death to us, but also death to that which brought death, nullifying its effects - because we always remember that the cross was the curse, for "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" (Galatians 3:10) But the resurrection is the promise that overcomes the curse.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Conversations with an Atheist: Are Christians Causing Their Children to Become Atheists?
Don't ask me how it is I always find myself in these situations where I'm having discussions with atheists and whatnot. But, I do. (I think in part it must be through facebook and the fact that I'm back in touch with people from my "past life" who were frequently not of the religious ilk)
At any rate, I'm having a discussion with this atheist and just asking some basic questions about why he's an atheist, and the response was not a huge surprise, but it made me start thinking that once again, the Christian church has failed to convey the proper message when it comes to God. He started out with what I now see as the "standard" atheist rhetoric. You've probably heard it as well... God is just a human idea, the bible is just a bunch of man-made stories, and while Jesus had some nice ideas about being kind to one another, that was about all he was good for.
Naturally, he had not come up with this stuff all on his own. It took a combination of the Christian church and the ideas of Richard Dawkins to turn him off. Growing up, he had listened to the stories of the bible, about creation, the tower of Babel, etc, an as he grew older and was faced with more "logical" ideas like evolution, he had to begin disregarding the Bible as a whole. Then he read one of Mr. Dawkins' books called "The Selfish Gene" that talked about the "meme," which essentially is this idea that religious ideas are simply a genetic "mimicry" that we humans are pressured into culturally. Apparently, belief in God is merely a disease that just gets transmitted from one generation to the next. This he embraced and became an atheist.
Now we can demonize Mr. Dawkins all we want for spewing such ridiculousness out there, but really, it's not Mr. Dawkins' fault. It's our own. Why did this young man go searching for an "alternative" to the bible in the first place? Because of how it was presented. In his mind, given what he was learning in school, the bible seemed completely whacked and didn't deal with the reality of the scientific world.
Now this is not an argument for or against the idea of evolution - but I am thinking we need to find new ways to present these biblical stories to our children so that they aren't so "outlandish" in many ways. For instance - the six day creation account. Rather than focusing so heavily on the fact that it "only took God six days" to create the heavens and the earth, perhaps focusing on the fact that God created an orderly world should be the emphasis. (Besides... as I recently noticed myself, the whole "day" issue seems to not be what the authors were after when they mention the evening first, then the morning, "the first day." Should be reversed, morning, THEN evening, not the other way around, if we want to really take the whole six day thing literally.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not interested in watering the stories down, but maybe we need to start presenting them in ways that are a little more "realistic" in the face of what they're going to learn in the public school systems. I know I for one, if I ever were to have children, really wouldn't want my child growing up thinking Samson was a great biblical "hero," given he was anything but! As I've grown older and studied the bible more, I've realized the vast majority of the stories I heard when I was a child from the bible rarely captured the over-arching idea/theme of what was being conveyed in the story. Now granted, sometimes, the idea is a little too "adult" for our children to grasp, but maybe the story of David, rather than making him out to be this great and wonderful king, we should dirty him up a little...make him a little more "human" like he is in the bible and make the message be about how despite how much David screwed up, God loved him anyway.
This may not solve every problem we have or prevent every Christian youth who turns their back on faith from doing so, but I'm thinking something needs to be done in this area. I'm running across far too many people who have grown up Christian and become atheists because the bible simply isn't real enough to them. So maybe the solution is retelling these stories in ways that better fit our context and culture.
Because if you actually read Mr. Dawkins' ideas, they aren't any more logical or even scientifically "provable" in any way. They're simply a modern "alternative" for people who just don't think the bible is relevant. Given the choice of the two, they turn to Mr. Dawkins.
Thoughts/ideas?
At any rate, I'm having a discussion with this atheist and just asking some basic questions about why he's an atheist, and the response was not a huge surprise, but it made me start thinking that once again, the Christian church has failed to convey the proper message when it comes to God. He started out with what I now see as the "standard" atheist rhetoric. You've probably heard it as well... God is just a human idea, the bible is just a bunch of man-made stories, and while Jesus had some nice ideas about being kind to one another, that was about all he was good for.
Naturally, he had not come up with this stuff all on his own. It took a combination of the Christian church and the ideas of Richard Dawkins to turn him off. Growing up, he had listened to the stories of the bible, about creation, the tower of Babel, etc, an as he grew older and was faced with more "logical" ideas like evolution, he had to begin disregarding the Bible as a whole. Then he read one of Mr. Dawkins' books called "The Selfish Gene" that talked about the "meme," which essentially is this idea that religious ideas are simply a genetic "mimicry" that we humans are pressured into culturally. Apparently, belief in God is merely a disease that just gets transmitted from one generation to the next. This he embraced and became an atheist.
Now we can demonize Mr. Dawkins all we want for spewing such ridiculousness out there, but really, it's not Mr. Dawkins' fault. It's our own. Why did this young man go searching for an "alternative" to the bible in the first place? Because of how it was presented. In his mind, given what he was learning in school, the bible seemed completely whacked and didn't deal with the reality of the scientific world.
Now this is not an argument for or against the idea of evolution - but I am thinking we need to find new ways to present these biblical stories to our children so that they aren't so "outlandish" in many ways. For instance - the six day creation account. Rather than focusing so heavily on the fact that it "only took God six days" to create the heavens and the earth, perhaps focusing on the fact that God created an orderly world should be the emphasis. (Besides... as I recently noticed myself, the whole "day" issue seems to not be what the authors were after when they mention the evening first, then the morning, "the first day." Should be reversed, morning, THEN evening, not the other way around, if we want to really take the whole six day thing literally.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not interested in watering the stories down, but maybe we need to start presenting them in ways that are a little more "realistic" in the face of what they're going to learn in the public school systems. I know I for one, if I ever were to have children, really wouldn't want my child growing up thinking Samson was a great biblical "hero," given he was anything but! As I've grown older and studied the bible more, I've realized the vast majority of the stories I heard when I was a child from the bible rarely captured the over-arching idea/theme of what was being conveyed in the story. Now granted, sometimes, the idea is a little too "adult" for our children to grasp, but maybe the story of David, rather than making him out to be this great and wonderful king, we should dirty him up a little...make him a little more "human" like he is in the bible and make the message be about how despite how much David screwed up, God loved him anyway.
This may not solve every problem we have or prevent every Christian youth who turns their back on faith from doing so, but I'm thinking something needs to be done in this area. I'm running across far too many people who have grown up Christian and become atheists because the bible simply isn't real enough to them. So maybe the solution is retelling these stories in ways that better fit our context and culture.
Because if you actually read Mr. Dawkins' ideas, they aren't any more logical or even scientifically "provable" in any way. They're simply a modern "alternative" for people who just don't think the bible is relevant. Given the choice of the two, they turn to Mr. Dawkins.
Thoughts/ideas?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)