The random technotheolosophical blogging of Reid S. Monaghan
Many people have been told the story of that wonderful prehistoric ape named Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis). Found some 33 years ago in Ethiopia, she has been the cuddly ancestor we descended from long ago on the African plains.
Well, just when you want to feel safe in knowing that favorite monkey you came from...news comes back that Lucy is no ancestor at all.
Just for Fun
1. I am among the few, the proud, the 36% of brave wikipedia users in America.
2. How to know your ticket price is TOO HIGH for the local soccer game:
3. Christian people...quick pointer...Don't EVER design crap like this. People do not think this is cool - it is goofy.
Source - Drew Goodmanson in a presentation on church communication - Yes, he used it as an example of what not to do in communication
There are times in life when something truly exceeds the expectations you had for it. Recently, my daughters (5 and 3) and I were pleasantly surprised. I love good resources for teaching children and walking through biblical and theological themes with them. Unfortunately much of what is out there for kids can be a bit cheesy, not as gospel centered, and many times has illustrations that make Jesus look like a white European woman in a dress. When I read about a new kids Bible endorsed by Tim Keller, a pastor of whom I think quite highly, we ordered it up in one of the those wonderful little brown Amazon.com boxes. What arrived was actually quite delightful.
The Jesus Storybook Bible is written by Sally Lloyd-Jones and is illustrated by Jago (one word named people are usually cool...or weird...in this case cool). The title of the book is very appropriate as this is a book of Bible stories. The difference here is that the stories are all told from a christological standpoint with Jesus the foreshadowed rescuer in every narrative. To be honest the understanding of theological typology in the Old Testament demonstrated by Lloyd-Jones is wonderful and her writing causes the reader the feel the expectation of a coming Messiah with great anticipation. Jesus is found on every page, subtly anticipated in every story. Indeed, the subtitle of the book "Every story whispers his name" is very accurate for the text written by Lloyd-Jones. It should be noted that this is a narrative based closely on biblical content, but not a translation of the Scriptures. I do not think this detracts from the work but the term "Bible" might throw some people.
Here is an excerpt of the delightful prose:
“It’s like an adventure story about a young Hero who came from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne, everything to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that have come true in real life. You see, the best thing about this story is—it’s true. It takes the whole Bible to tell this story. And at the center of the Story there is a baby. Every story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle—the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture. And this is no ordinary baby. This is the Child upon whom everything would depend. This is the baby that would one day—but wait, our story starts where all good stories start. Right at the very beginning...”
The illustrations are both age appropriate and fun for children but also culturally sensitive. In other words, the pictures are enjoyable and Jesus looks like a guy who was likely a middle eastern Jewish carpenter. Jago's style is unique and creative, with almost all of his work done digitally. You can see a sample by clicking on the following image.
Finally, I would recommend this for anyone to read to familiarize with Christ-centered, redemptive-historical, narrative theology. The text is engaging and serious enough for all ages to gain from it. I highly recommend the fathers out there to read this to their children. There will be benefit to all involved. Tim Keller sums this up well so I will let his words end the review.
I would urge not just families with young children to get this book, but every Christian—from pew warmers, to ministry leaders, seminarians and even theologians! Sally Lloyd-Jones has captured the heart of what it means to find Christ in all the scriptures, and has made clear even to little children that all God's revelation has been about Jesus from the beginning—a truth not all that commonly recognized even among the very learned.”
Dr. Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, NYC
The web site for the book is very informative and you can find an author interview, samples, ordering information, etc. on the site. Here is the basic 411: Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007) - Hardcover, 352 pages ISBN: 0-310-70825-7 $16.99 US $22.99 CAN £9.49 UK age: 4 and up reading level: 9-12 suitable for all the family
Today's guest post is from Tim Dee's Fact of the Day:
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CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
The word philosopher conjures up an image of an ancient Greek with a long beard and an entourage of young followers. In this fantasy world, they sit around and issue aphorisms. But the reality is that philosophers can be just as petty as the rest of us. This can be seen most clearly in the conflict between the analytic and continental philosophers.
But first, let me talk a little about those two terms, and it's worth noting that it's tough to generalize about the two schools, but let me try anyway.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, philosophy had stalled out. They had been asking the Big Questions - existence, non-existence, God, being, ethics - for a long time, and they had started spinning their wheels.
On the analytic side, one philosopher, Bertrand Russell, had grown tired of the whole thing, and he decided to strip philosophy down to its logical roots. One young Austrian, Ludwig Wittgenstein, started showing up at Russell's lectures, and the two quickly became friends. Shortly after, Wittgenstein locked himself in a cabin in Norway and wrote a book entitled the Tractitus Logico-Philosophicus, which effectively boiled language down to its bare logical elements.
Wittgenstein's book sent shockwaves through the world of philosophy, and Russell decided that this was the new way in philosophy. The Tractitus attempted to make philosophy less fuzzy; if Wittgenstein and Russell had their way, philosophy would no longer be a brazenly unscientific inquiry into the Big Questions, it would be an extremely scientific dissection of language. This grew into the analytic school. The analytic philosophers sought to break language down to its barest elements. If there was any room left for the fuzzy in analytic philosophy, Wittgenstein blew it away with the last line of the Tractitus, which has since become a manifesto to analytics: "what one cannot speak of, one must remain silent about." That means that philosophers couldn't ask the Big Questions anymore.
Meanwhile, on the continent (hence "continental") another movement was going on. Edmund Husserl, a spunky German Jew (who was later booted out of academia during the Nazi period), put together a number of disciplines - math, psychology and philosophy - and came to the conclusion that there was no objective reality. Everything, Husserl contended, was subjective. This meant that the things that seemed scientific and mathematical to the analytic philosophers were actually just as flaky and ephemeral as the Big Questions.
Because, to the continentals, everything was subjective, one had to talk about the Big Questions in light of history. Thus, philosophers became involved in the moment. They began to write history books and political books, and they began to leap across disciplines. If there is one person who sums up the continental movement, it is Michel Foucault, a French philosopher who has used history as a means of exploring philosophy.
So the battle lines are drawn between the analytics and the continentals, and the two do not get along. Since the 1970s, the rift has grown, and now the two will rarely even hold conferences together.
But what makes this spat different is the technique that the analytics have found to push out the continentals.
In 1989, Brian Leiter, a hard-core analytic, published a set of philosophy program rankings, known as the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR, for short). In 1996, the PGR went online, and shortly thereafter it became orthodoxy.
There's just one problem with the PGR: Leiter slanted it toward analytic philosophy. Thus, programs with excellent analytic departments, such as NYU and Rutgers, were highly rated, while programs with superior continental departments were bumped to the bottom, or left off altogether. For instance, in 2006, Emory's program, which boasts a top-notch continental department, was simply not ranked. On the PGR's website, Leiter has posted an essay that amounts to a defense of the relevance and importance of analytic philosophy, and it dismisses continental philosophy in passing.
Stories began to circulate about the effect of the PGR: tales of professors hired or fired in an attempt to impact rankings became commonplace, and finally Richard Heck, then a major analytic professor at Harvard, became worried that the PGR was bullying continentals out of philosophy. A group of professors joined Heck and posted a petition, but the damage had been done. Attempts to set up rival rankings for continental programs--such as the Hartmann Report--failed to gain traction.
The net result of all of this is that analytic philosophy runs the show in America these days. They get the best graduate students, the best rankings, the most funding, and the most clout. It has little to do with the merits of the two philosophical systems; it has everything to do with the state of the modern university.
The folks at Apple and all the Mac OSX fanatics love to mock windows and gloat about how secure the MacOS is in comparison. Many have said that this is only because nobody is trying to hack it.
It turns out that a guy entered a Mac Hack contest and was able to hack one in less than 30 min. Here is an exerpt:
The hacker that won the challenge, who asked ZDNet Australia to identify him only as "gwerdna", said he gained root control of the Mac in less than 30 minutes.
"It probably took about 20 or 30 minutes to get root on the box. Initially I tried looking around the box for certain mis-configurations and other obvious things but then I decided to use some unpublished exploits -- of which there are a lot for Mac OS X," gwerdna told ZDNet Australia .
According to gwerdna, the hacked Mac could have been better protected, but it would not have stopped him because he exploited a vulnerability that has not yet been made public or patched by Apple.
Apparently apple just sent out a patch to all Macs with 25 security patches...twenty five. I wish Microsoft would make a commercial that has the nerdy "PC guy" smack the hip cocky mac guy around.
On the Vista front, Samsung has announced a new hybrid hard drive which will couple nicely with Vista and provide significant performance and major boosts to laptop battery life.
There a strange idea associated with modern life that I want to explore a bit. My oldest daughter, Kayla, and I have discussed it as a word began to creep into her mind and vocabulary. The word and idea is that of "luck" or "good fortune" and the way this is looked upon in culture. We are a people who love to talk about being lucky - whether it is when we get a new job, win a few bucks on a scratch off lottery ticket, or meet that special someone to walk down the aisle with. When good times roll, American people feel and they usually talk about it.
My noodling on this one goes back to the very early days of of being a Christian guy. In college there was a zealous Jesus guy who just would not use the word "luck" or the well wishing phrase "good luck." Now remember, I was sports guy so avoiding the phrase "good luck" is quite an accomplishment. Saying "good providence" never seemed to work for me and avoiding use of the word "luck" is tough to do in today's vernacular. It can be done - I hardly ever use the word, but to be honest I don't want to sound like a weirdo just to avoid the term. But this is a reason I avoid using the concept of luck - not just because I believe in God's providential leading of the affairs of humanity - but because I find the term to be a philosophically vacuous term. For me, there is simply no such thing as luck, and I find the term to be technically meaningless. Lets look first at how it is used, then what it reveals truthfully about the human heart, and then try to redeem the feelings we have when we talk about being lucky.
First, we use the term good luck to describe outcomes that we interpret to be pleasant, advantageous to our current life goals/aspirations, or when something "good" comes our way that did not necessarily have to be. We use the term as we look out of the mass of humanity that is not always experiencing such wonderful coincidences, so we feel a thankfulness and gratitude that we are lucky today even though we see so many who are "less fortunate." But if we begin to ask questions we quickly see that the concept is meaningless. The Scottish skeptic David Hume, whom I quoted at the beginning, was right about one thing, to ascribe causal powers to "chance" or "luck" betrays our ignorance of true causes. Frankly, when something good happens today, many people simply do not have a clue why it is so...so we chalk it up to karma, rabbits feet, or literally our lucky stars. What does this reaveal about us, this love affair with the empty idea of luck? I find it tells us quite a bit. Lets turn to the human heart and find what we see in ourselves.s
In ascribing things to luck we are betraying some things which are fundamental to us being human. First, we believe in objective, real goodness that comes to us at times. We certainly know that there is a difference between good and bad, pleasant things and evil things, and this knowledge is a huge indicator as to the nature of the universe. This is the first indicator that luck is a sham. We know something good has come our way. Second, we do not have any idea why this has happened to me and not someone else. We know it does not have to be this way. Instead of winning the lottery, you could just as easily get hit by a bus today. Not knowing the source of something happening, we feel thankful, we feel blessed. Yet not knowing who to thank - we just say we are "lucky," feel good about that and move on in our bliss. But if we stopped and asked the "why questions," at least every now and then, we would have to face a different reality. Either the world is under a control that is not our own - for instance, God is providentially guiding all things towards his desired ends. Or the world is completely out of control and the winds of cursing can as easily befall us as the lucky winds of the day.
Additionally, we also feel a sense of duty to others in the midst of our good fortune. We see this in western culture - a duty is felt to others, but many times it is not out of charity or love, but out of guilt that "we have it so good" and "others have it so bad." With a belief that the world is run be chance, human accomplishment is diminished and human misery is emptied of any meaning. So we feel good about our luck, but we feel bad about feeling too good when others are getting screwed. Most of the time we just raise taxes to feel like we have done something. But what this feeling of duty reveals is an innate sense of justice. So luck betrays our deepest desires to be thankuful and the universe to be just. But these two feelings accord with belief in God, but have no grounding in the secular worldview. For that matter, thankfulness is a strange idea in the pantheist worldview where all is one and all is divine. You thank everything and in doing so, thank no-one.
So what is luck? Luck is nothing at all - an empty word to wrap around human experience which is related to us being created by God. I believe people in more secularized Western Culture have a love affair with "fortune" and "luck" because it is a way to avoid reality and continue in what Socrates called an unexamined life. Such life is empty and trite - and will be tossed onto the rocks when the winds of the world change one's fortune. For the secular mind, when you have "good luck" there is nobody to thank, but feeling lucky and sharing this with friends may do the trick to keep you moving. We feel deeply a sense of gratitude but thanksgiving is personal and the secular view is that the universe and its events are impersonal. The other side of the coin is equally void. When you have "bad luck" there is nobody there to blame, and you are left empty. Here we see the strange occurrence of people getting angry at the God in whom they do not believe. Steve Turner wrote a satirical poem called Creed whose postscript exposes the emptiness of chance in the face of tragedy.
If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.
So I don't believe in Luck - it is an empty concept, for both the theist and the atheist. For the theist, we know there is a personal aspect to the universe charged with the purposes of God. A belief in luck or chance is out of place in the mouth of the believer. I believe God is active in the affairs of men and any bit of goodness and any bit of pleasant circumstance, I properly call it a blessing and not "good luck." Any bit of pain, suffering, or evil that befalls my path I believe first came to me through the hands of a good God - I can endure because the end of the story is not the pain, but the things which will be accomplished in and through it. For the atheist, every event may be explained through a series of causal relationships that did not favor anyone, but just took place. You win some, you loose some - but there is nobody running the games. So when you feel a deep gratitude, just drop back into the lucky chair - it is an easier place to be and not have to think about the deep mysterious of human life and reality.
As Hume exhorted us - we can do better than saying all things happen "by chance" as if chance has the causal power to do anything at all. Yet to take away luck is to either fill the universe with purpose or to empty it of all universal meaning. Most don't want to make that choice today - after all, American Idol is on again this week and Sanjaya's luck just ran out!
I have waited many hours before even beginning to write down my thoughts and feelings regarding yesterday's atrocious murders on the campus of Virginia Tech. Yesterday was a very odd day for me. I was personally laid up in bed with illness, unable to do much of anything. I prayed quite a bit, fielding phone calls from friends, listened to voice messages from many more, and refreshed my web browser often to see the latest news. Many of you may not know that Kasey and I spent some six years in Blacksburg, a place that we still consider in many ways "our home." We had several miscarriages there, had our first two children there, connected deeply with the local church there, ministered there, loved there, and some ways left a part of our souls in that little Southwestern Virginia town.
Watching the images on TV and on the net for us was more than surreal - it was very real. West AJ, the site of the first two murders, was on my normal route from athletic facilities, to Cochrane dorm where many athletes lived, to the West End dining facility where I ate many a meal with students. I can still see in my mind the doors of West Ambler Johnson from the windows of West End. The hokie stone buildings, the green grass of the drill field, all echoed the joys of work with human beings on that campus. It is all to real for me. Norris Hall is a stone's throw from the philosophy classes I took on campus, where I experienced September 11th with a group of students in class that cold Tuesday morning in 2001. So many good, right, and true things took place in my soul on that campus, and in the lives of many students there. God is at work there - then, and now, but in such a different way on this Tuesday morning. It is all too real to me.
Yesterday, evil visited the campus at Virginia Tech. Yes, I am sure the normal tripe about the shooter being crazy, insane etc. will be offered. We like insanity and sickness for our own much better than we like evil and depravity. The fact that 33 young people died of gun shot is no stranger to the inner city hospitals of America, but this is different for enlightened civilized western culture. Here the shootings were not in the ghetto, but on the campus. Here the shootings were among the elite, educated, the height of the civilized world - the university. Our view of ourselves as moderns cannot bear the weight of such inhumanity happening amidst the halls of learning. Our schools should be safe, this should not happen and so we are shocked that it did. So now the normal media circus and blame game has begun in typical fashion while no one seems to be stopping to examine our own souls. The worldview of Scripture is much different than that of mainstream western culture. We see ourselves as good, pure, civilized with only the bad apples of ignorance, poverty, and lack of education letting us down. Yet are we that good? Or are we in need of grace, forgiveness, transformation? Something is afoul in the heart of the human race, though we numb ourselves with entertainment and material possessions to not have to face this any more. The reality is that a human being murdered 33 of his fellow souls yesterday, even his own life. What are we to do? Many will blame God, many will go to him, many perhaps might hear the voice of Jesus through it all, most will blame others, weep, and wonder what is happening in this thing called life.
What did Jesus say in the midst of tragedy? It is both shocking and liberating to read. It is not as kind as you may hear from a grief counselor, nor as crass as you will hear from the talking heads pointing their fingers. But in his words we see reality - the world indeed is fallen, and those in it depraved. But in his own suffering of violence we can be changed, redeemed yet the cost is high to humanity. It requires looking in the mirror, being honest about our sin, and coming needy to God. I will let him speak for himself:
There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”Luke 13:1-5
Our paths ahead are no doubt lingered with atrocities, our own mortality, and the call of the gospel receive grace from God. How do we make sense of wickedness? We do not. Evil is to life as a contradiction is to reason - it simply is out of place, twisted, and grotesque. Yet until we acknowledge the verity of Jesus' words “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him...For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” we are no further along than we imagine ourselves to be. This is a moment not for pessimism, but for hope - but hope not that we humanity will save itself and we shall never have to see the face of darkness again on the earth. No, our solace, hope, and triumph must come from our maker - the one who can transform and redeem our darkened hearts...even during the days that threaten to crush the soul and lead us to despair. Yet repentance and faith are humiliating to us when we would rather blame others and exalt ourselves. We would make the world better you see - if it were not for THEM, the world would be a better place. So we remain self-deceived in the midst of our pain and confusion.
When God visited this world in flesh, it is not surprising where he went and what he had to undergo. His blood was spilled and splattered on ancient soil so that the blood of the living might be redeemed. Let not this time pass in vain.
Please pray for our friends in Blacksburg, there are many burdens to bear and move love to give, grief and mourning to be shared...in just such a time as this. Friends on the ground in Montgomery county, Kasey and I are praying for you and love you very deeply. We are deeply sorrowful and ache with all of you.
JP Moreland, one of the top evangelical philosophers in the world has joined the blogging world. This is a site to bookmark no doubt. I'll be checking to see if he writes on issues related to Philosophy of the Mind...
I have respected and benefited greatly from Moreland's works...he has been a valuable guide on many issues for me...though I diverge from him on issues of contra-causal libertarian free will.
Here is his site over at the Scriptorium.
My boys Rhett and Link ended up getting third place in the TurboTax Tax Rap contest over at YouTube. My wife and I picked the one who would win the grand prize...the 2nd place guy's deal I thought was pretty weak. I would have had Rhett and Link #2. For those of you who don't know Rhett and Link are videographers, comedians, musicians, etc. who work to connect others to the gospel of Jesus Christ through creative efforts.
Good job guys...here is the congratulatory version of their video:
The following were notes given as supplementary essays along with the message Idolatry! - Habakkuk 2:18-20 given at the Inversion Fellowship on April 12th 2007.
The Role of Things in Our LivesAmerican Christians can get caught into thinking that idolatry is something that happened in the ancient past or perhaps today in far away lands. After all, the religious landscape of our lives is not littered by gold statues dedicated to the gods nor are we silly enough to believe a creation of our own hands can really helps us. Or are we? AW Tozer rightly observed something about idolatry:
Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place. 1
Additionally, a revealing passage of Scripture that sheds light on our own hearts is found in a shocking passage in Ephesians chapter 5.
4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
If we are covetous, are we idolaters? Yes. Coveting is an interesting sin found in Scripture. Before defining it I would just note that it is one of the Ten Commandments and therefore central to the moral law of God. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s—Exodus 20:17. Wanting stuff that other folks have is coveting—it is a movement in our hearts towards being captivated with people and things we do not have. The apostle Paul equates coveting with idolatry and nails us American folk right between the eyes. Our culture is built around consumerism and the creation of needs and wants that we must fulfill by having more and more and more. The advertising industry prays on the covetous nature of our hearts by showing us things that we don’t have and how our lives are impoverished because we lack them. This builds in us until we feel we must have something—many times building up piles of debt as our badge of honor in our consumerist pursuits. So, should we all live on the ground under an oak tree possessing nothing but the clothes on our backs? Is it an evil to have things in our lives? Of course not—but if we do not examine our hearts regularly and fill them with other loves, the materialistic urge in America will sweep us into twisted idolatry which leaves our souls parched, empty and spiritually bankrupt.
There are no easy rules to give that will solve this issue for us. We must be guiding by biblical principles that we value and guarding the loves of our own hearts. I believe that if we have to sin in order to have something or if we would sin if something was taken from us, we are looking into the face of an idol. I love a quote from the ancient theologian Augustine of Hippo when reflecting on the role of things in our lives. He uses a great illustration of an engaged couple to illustrate:
Suppose brethren, a man should make a ring for his betrothed, and she should love the ring more wholeheartedly than the betrothed who made it for her….Certainly, let her love his gift: but, if she should say, “The ring is enough. I do not want to see his face again” what would we say of her?...The pledge is given her by the betrothed just that, in his pledge, he himself may be loved. God, then, has given you all these things. Love him who made them.2
All things may be received in thanksgiving and not worshipped and loved to the point of stealing our love for God. We live in a world of personal hoarding and lifestyle building which amputates generosity and treasuring Christ above all. Jesus teaches us that where your treasure is, there is your heart also (Matthew 6:21) and I believe far too many of us in America treasure our comfort, our security, our social status, our homes, our cars and our stuff at too high a degree. Our treasure must be Jesus, for he is the only person we can love unreservedly with no fear of idolatry. For he is God—and we can recklessly give ourselves to him. Any thing can become an idol and all things may be used for the glory of God. It is a matter of the heart that must be examined. My fear is that we far too often skip the examination and just swipe the credit card.
On Idolatry — Pluralism, Monotheism and Jesus ChristIdolatry can be defined in a simple fashion: Idolatry is ultimate devotion, trust, or allegiance to anything that is not God, it is the worship of someone or something other than God. One of the central claims of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths is that there is but one God. The sixth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, in what is known as the shema, bellows forth this truth: 4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And the shahada, the first pillar of Islam forthrightly states: Ashhadu an la ilaha illa 'llah; ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulu 'llah" : "I witness that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. All of the great monotheistic religions claim that there is but one creator God. From the very definition of monotheism, any other god that is not God is an idol—something falsely worshipped by human beings. In a world that wants us to believe that all religions are equally valid, or even equally true, Jesus Christ stepped on to planet earth claiming to be the incarnation of the one true God. This was divisive in Jesus’ times, so much so that it got him killed. It remains divisive in our world today—as the worship of Jesus as God seems narrow to many secular minds and blasphemous to religious ones. For instance, thinking Jesus is the unique way to the Father (John 14:6; Acts 4:12) brings charges of intolerance and bigotry from the crowd which teaches all religions are valid ways to “the divine.” Additionally, Muslim believers call the Christian worship of Jesus shirk, which is defined as an unforgivable sin of associating anything [partners, helpers, other gods] with Allah. The Qur'an accuses Christians for their belief that Jesus is Lord and God, calling them unbelievers (kafiroon) and idolaters (mushrikoon), or those people who are committing shirk.3 So idolatry is real and worshipping anyone other than the triune God of the Bible is called idolatry in Scripture. Yet we realize that the gospel is for all people and all idolaters. All who will come humbly by faith to lay down idols will be accepted by God. Hindus, Muslims, materialists, the greedy, the secular, the hypocrite, the church person. All the needy may come. Jesus is an open door for all that the Father draws to him and any that come he will in no way cast out (See John 6:35:51).
Self-Esteem, Pride and God-CenterednessPride and Idolatry are intricately related to one another in the human heart. It is pride that says to God “I do not need you, I can do it on my own.” Out of this posture flows the creation of “new gods” which the person may worship. Be they the gods of religion, materialism, or self-exaltation, the heart of pride will create new objects of worship. In this short essay I want to explore the relationship between self-esteem, pride, and a God-centered view of life.
Our culture has been on a decades long crusade to increase the “self-esteem” of young people. In fact, for many years we have stated this to be one of the most important aspects of growing up, having good self-esteem. A recent study was completed by a group of scholars that attempted to take a state of the union, so to speak, of the self-esteem culture of young Americans. This study’s results were recently published in an article on the Boston Globe website.4 In the study, Jean Twenge, author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before," said we have raised a generation of self-centered young people who can “tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism, and favor self-promotion over helping others.”5 The Scriptures however have a very different view of things. We are never told to be self-oriented or to esteem ourselves more and more highly but rather to look to the interest of others.
I think we need balance in thinking about self-esteem. On one hand, we are made with built in value due to our creation in the image of God. Each one of us is a unique, wonderfully knitted, tapestry and design of God. I like the way some of my friends used to say it: “God don’t make no junk.” Yet the reality is the modern self-esteem movement is really a cloaked version of an old enemy—the sin of human pride. It exalts humanity and says “look at me, look how wonderful I am.” This is far from the teaching of Scripture which teaches that each of us is fallen, depraved, and marred by sin. The biblical view of humanity is both lofty and lowly; it depicts man as the beautiful crown and pinnacle of God’s handiwork, yet fallen and rebellious and deeply flawed. The cure for the pride that comes from making self the center of things is the gospel, the good news which places God at the center of all things.
Let’s look very briefly at the god-centeredness of all things in Scripture:
For our pride to be defeated we do not need to think more of ourselves, we need to see ourselves as we really are. We need to see ourselves as finite and created beings owing our existence to someone else. We do not even exist “by ourselves” but only because God wanted us to. We need to see our sin in light of the perfect law of God which exposes the sickness of our hearts. Then we need to see the utter hopelessness of saving ourselves through good works, through religion, through any sort of self created, self help, morality. As we see this we need to see that God has done everything to save us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the wonderful story that God the Father, through the work of God the Son on an executioner’s cross, applied to sinful creatures by the work of the Holy Spirit has fully saved us, bought us out of slavery to sin and death, reconciled us with God, and is currently transforming us. In doing so he forever removed self from the center of the universe so that all glory and praise and honor go to God. Not to us, not to us, but to your name be glory! (Psalm 115:1) When this happens, we can see God slay our pride in the shadow of a cross. A cross that is not a testimony to how great we are or how wonderful we are, but that God was wonderful and gracious enough to pour out love and grace upon the undeserving. And we respond in praise, in the worship of God rather than idols, and receive a joy and peace that transcends all understanding. I will close with some words that the apostle John used to end his first epistle. Words that are addressed to the humble, not the proud; some very loving and gracious words that I will echo here for me and you:
Little children, keep yourselves from idols...
Reid S. Monaghan
Notes:
1. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco: HaperCollins, 1961), 3-4.
2. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969) p. 326 (Tractate on the Epistle of John, 2:11) - Emphasis added.
3. See Shirk at the Index of Islam at http://www.answering-islam.org/Index/index.html accessed April 11 2007.
4. See David Cary, Study finds students narcissistic — Says trend among college youths can harm society, Associated Press, February 27, 2007 http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/02/27/study_finds_students_narcissistic/ - accessed April 11th 2007.
Crossway has is releasing a flood of new formats of the English Standard Version Bible. Here is a short list from the ESV Blog.
The ESV Literary Study Bible approaches the Bible as literature and shows how the application of literary tools of analysis helps tremendously in reading and understanding the Bible. Readers are introduced to the literary features of each book of the Bible and to each section within each book.
While traditional Bibles are reference books, this is truly a reader’s Bible. The format (single-column, black-letter, 8.5-point text, no section headings) and commentary make it ideal for private devotional reading, for preachers and Bible teachers, and for use in group Bible studies.
Download a 16-page brochure (1.3MB PDF) with sample pages from The Literary Study Bible. $49.99, available in Fall 2007.
The ESV Large-Print Pew and Worship Bible will be available in three colors (red, blue, and black to match the current Pew and Worship Bibles) in summer 2007.
Two New Wide Margin Reference Bibles
The ESV Wide Margin Reference Bible will be available in Black TruTone and Portfolio Design TruTone (both for $54.99) covers in late summer 2007.
My very favorite: Two New ESV Journaling Bibles
The ESV Journaling Bible will be available in natural leather ($75.00) and plum ($34.99) covers in late summer 2007.
The ESV Journaling Bible allows readers to interact with the Scriptures as they read and study them. Its 2-inch ruled margins allow plenty of room for reflections, prayers, praises, and the like. The rules in these new Bibles have slightly more space between them than the ones in the original Journaling Bibles.
My review of the ESV Journaling Bible is here.
Cowhide Leather Thinline Bible
The ESV Thinline Bible will be available with a stylish, high-quality cowhide leather cover. The flap for closing and strap for tying make the new cover of this popular Bible even more distinctive.
Coming late summer 2007, this Bible sells for $69.99.
Finally, the folks at Crossway have an ESV Twitter out for those of you who are Twittering...
If you are a user of the Logos Libronix software (sorry MacIdolaters, the Mac version is in the works but not out just yet) and do any sort of preaching, the following Addin looks just great.
Sermon File Addin Here is the description from Logos' web site:
Convenient
Copy and paste your sermon or illustration from Microsoft Word, another word processor, email, or a web page. Or import a lifetime of sermons from the MS Word files (or any HTML formatted files) on your hard drive.
The Sermon File Addin grabs the text, formatting, and automatically hotlinks Bible references within your text! Just key in a few optional details like title, date, topics, and Bible passage to easily find things later.
The addin remembers topics and tags you've used in the past and suggests them as you type, which helps keep your index clean and consistent over time.
FlexibleYour sermons and illustrations can be formatted and structured the way you want. You can apply standard topics or invent your own. Add tags to organize your sermons and illustrations by duration, occasion, rating or any other attribute you can think of!
PowerfulSermon File Addin applies the power of the Libronix Digital Library System to the task of organizing your illustrations and sermons.
That's right...we're unleashing several million dollars' worth of technology on your sermon file!
Your sermons and illustrations are compiled as two separate books within the Libronix Digital Library System. These books are fully indexed and searchable by word, phrase, topic or Bible reference.
Greek, Hebrew and other language text within your book of sermons or illustrations is recognized, so you can KeyLink to a lexicon. You can even embed links to other resources within your digital library.
SerendipitousThe old joke says that when you get to a certain age you can hide your own Easter eggs. But regardless of age, we've all experienced the feeling "I know I have a clipping somewhere that relates to this topic." Or the sinking feeling of "I wish I'd found this in my files a week ago!"
The Sermon File Addin provides the solution: your sermons and illustrations will show up in Passage Guide reports. So when you're studying a passage you will be alerted to every relevant illustration and sermon you've written or collected…and never again forget that you were saving it for just such a time!
In fact, you could say that Sermon File Addin facilitates serendipitous discovery.
Looks like a good deal at $49.00 bucks...I'm going to read up on it a bit more and may take the plunge today. Personally, I try to use electronic sources for everything - I seldom keep paper articles and illustrations. I use the web, store/archive stuff I write electronically (always on two hard drives), and footnote using ISI's EndNote (which is now out on the Mac) To be able to search all my past teaching with Logos tricked out search technology is compelling indeed.
Keeping up with the Tech Lingo Jones
Here is a fun article on Net language. If you really want to be in then check out NetLingo.com Just in case you have a need to know what twittering means.
New Get a Mac Ad - Macidolaters Rejoice!
The Mac and the PC Flashback to their younger years in the latest rendition of the Mac/PC ads by Apple Inc. Macs and iPods are cool, but Apple consistently puts out the suckiest mice.
Pink Zune Now Available
Yes, put your sleek black iPod away...I know you have been waiting for this.
By now most everyone has heard much about the recent remarks made by Talk radio and television host Don Imus. Imus hosts the popular syndicated show Imus in the Morning which is distributed by Westwood One and MSNBC. If you have not heard what went down on the Imus show a week or so ago, I'll catch you up on the story.
Basically, Don Imus and his producer were doing their show commenting on various items in the news etc. They began to discuss the recent NCAA Women's Basketball Championship game when they turned to the Rutgers women's team and rained out some terrible insults. Now Imus is one who has insulted people plenty in the past - a display of the lack of civility in our culture where the ad hominem reigns. An AP article on the incident records the following:
While Imus has used his show to spread insults around — once calling Colin Powell a "weasel" and other times referring to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as a "fat sissy" and former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, an American Indian, as "the guy from `F Troop'"
The comments that followed have brought outrage across America from people from all walks of life. You can hear the comments at YouTube. In light of his misinformed perception of the ladies from Rutgers, he referred to their tatoos and called them "nappy-headed hos." Since then there has been a firestorm of media attention, Imus has offered his apology, has been suspended by the network for two weeks, and sponsors have dropped the show, and may be fired from his job. There is much talk going on about speech, racism, culture - and hopefully some good will come from all of this. In light of this I want to comment briefly on the situation as well.
The Remarks In Themselves
First of all, the remarks in themselves are deplorable and disgusting. This is the case from several angles which we don't want to overlook. The remarks were derogatory and racist. Nappy headed and hos were directed at the black women on the court - everyone knows this and this is a primary reason for the outrage. The remarks were made about women he did not know, are young college women, who did not deserve to be used to try and make a joke. As has been seen, these women on the Rutgers team, black and white, are women who are of high character and esteem. The comments of Rutgers head coach C. Vivian Stringer are revealing:
Before you are valedictorians of their class, future doctors, musical prodigies, and yes, even Girl Scouts," she said. "They are young ladies of class, distinction, they are articulate, they are brilliant, they are gifted. They are God's representatives in every sense of the word."
The Rutgers women had just over achieved at the highest level of their sport. They had accomplished something very remarkable in the world of women's basketball, and some guys tried to have fun at their expense. One of the tests of human action is that people should not be treating as means to other ends. People have value due to what they are. I can only guess how the mothers and fathers heard Imus' remarks - I know how this father's heart would have felt.
Imus is a White Man
I have read some commentaries which try to shift this conversation from what it is to a commentary on the nature of discourse in rap music and the black community. This sort of language is common in media, music, and popular views of women in the black community. I even watched some guy's video complaining of the "hypocrisy" of the black community. For some reason, we as white people fail to see at times that our words and actions carry different weight with black people because we are white. We forget that for hundreds of years white folk enslaved black folk. We forget that just a generation ago in the south, Jim Crowe still strutted down the streets. We forget that white people still have a sick supremacist view of their culture over others and that comments like those from Imus confirm many of our black brothers and sisters heartfelt suspicions. That this is just the way white people are. In listening to the Imus clip, you hear a guy trying to sound ghetto in talking about the Rutgers team, trying to be hip and funny. Are these remarks appropriate if they come from a black rapper? Of course not. Are they more loaded when they come from the mouths of white folks - absolutely. People fail to see this.
I sensed a similar frustration this week in reading a tragic commentary about the state of black men in American in the Tennessean. At the bottom of this passionate plea by a black man for more men to mentor and help guide the young brothers of the world were some of the most asinine comments I have read. You can read it all here. My conclusion sometimes is that people can be so culturally blinded that they don't give a rip about their neighbors. It is hard not to get frustrated with a white culture that hides from other people in the "the right neighborhoods" all the while looking down on a culture and people enslaved by our forefathers for centuries. When people say "why are they like that?" "Immigrants do better in life in just a few years in America...Why is that?" I just want to go nuts.
Moving Forward
I always believe that grace and forgiveness along with appropriate consequences is the way forward. Our racial conversation in America, with all its pain, awkwardness, ignorance, sin, and joys must continue. We need to get to know each other better, listen, repent, change, share, empower, pray, weep, and hope for a better day. I know the stupid stuff I have said to my black sisters and brothers; I know how many folks misjudge me. As the dominant culture in America, my plea to my white sisters and brothers is to care about people, hang out with folks, be willing to not "defend yourself" or dismiss what is said by others. We need to listen...no, we need to "HEAR" from our neighbors. We then need Jesus - to forgive our sins and move us forward to lay our lives and agendas down for one another in love.
If you are one of the conservative, white guys out there who thinks Imus is being made an example of, that folks are "overreacting", being hypocritical and you are privately angry about it...I do pray you may reconsider your views. This is not about being PC - it is about civility and respect for all who are created in the imago dei.
Technology
Just For Fun
Theological Reflection
Apparently Intuit has a TurboTax Tax Rap Contest going on over at YouTube. Two of my friends have, in my opinion, put out an excellent candidate. So check it out and then use the link below to vote for Rhett and Link.
Vote for Rhett and Link here...
Batman has the bat cave. Some folks in Middle Tennessee had the weed cave. A short description:
Law enforcement officers in Tennessee make the greatest underground discovery since Tutankhamen’s tomb was unearthed in the Valley of the Kings. Under this ordinary house is a marijuana grow-op unlike any you have ever seen. Within the caves of middle Tennessee, growers constructed a complex of offices, living quarters, restroom facilities, and a climate-controlled forest of over one thousand cannabis plants.
The design on this thing was pretty extensive...check out the pics here. It looks like some keen minds were being used for misguided purposes.
(HT - Challies)
Telling one's sort of life story on your blog...a bunch of Christian bloggers are doing so this week so I figured I would throw my hat in as well. Here is a short vignette of how I became a follower of Jesus and where his paths have taken my life.
I grew up in a home of good values and stability, but God, Jesus, or the Bible were not a topic of discussion or practice. As I got a bit older I was the type of person who would try to disprove the existence of God and thought Jesus was just a crazy religious leader or some sort of political revolutionary. I thought these things about Jesus without really knowing anything about him. Growing up I did really well in sports, school and leading what most would call a pretty sweet life. I was quarterback of my high school football team, state champion and High School All American in wrestling, and was quite successful academically. The end of my senior year in high school I stood atop a victory stand as one of the best wrestlers in the state of Virginia. I stood there with all these accomplishments yet I really didn’t know what I was doing in life. I was living what Socrates called an unexamined life.
I received a scholarship to go to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and went off to pursue a degree in Physics. During my freshman year in college I continued to do pretty well. I made the starting lineup on my college wrestling team and maintained a 3.2 grade point average in my studies. This was a miracle on our wrestling team. Then I met some Jesus people and began to wonder why they believed in what they did. I met a guy named Mike Echstenkamper, the director of UNC’s Athletes in Action, the athletic division of Campus Crusade for Christ. Mike asked me a strange question, “where does God fit into your life?” I told him I didn't really care too much about God but my curiosity allowed me to agree to talk with him further. I had the idea I would confuse him during our discussions with intellectual arguments, hoping to discourage him about his personal beliefs and convictions. Throw out inflationary big bang theory and quantum indeterminacy and mess with the preacher guy. This is when I felt God came to me in the place I was vulnerable and hit me in the gut. He knew I would attempt to logically deny what Mike was saying so he enabled my heart to hear what he was saying. Mike talked about sin; I knew I was not perfect; I had lots of proof for that. He explained how God had sent Jesus to the earth to pay the penalty I deserved for my sin so I could be forgiven and consequently become part of the family of God. God had created me and loved me enough to allow his Son to die in my place. I understood what he was saying and a week or so later I bowed a knee to follow Jesus. School soon ended and I went home, back to the homestead where I didn't know any Christians or anyone I could talk with about the stuff going down in my life spiritually. When I went home I lived the way I had in the past; I drank quite a bit, got in bunch of fights (undefeated) and partied.
The end of the summer came and I headed back to school and the party continued. Then I hit bottom. I was arrested after some fisticuffs outside of a bar in Chapel Hill and it seemed as my life was rapidly unraveling. My coach talked to me, verbally chewed me up and spit me out. He threatened to kick me off the team and told me to come back to practice two hours later after he made his decision about my future. Those hours were the longest of my life. I called a close friend on the team...he was not home. I called home; my mom who was always home, was not there. I felt more alone than I ever had, and then God spoke to me and comforted me with the fact that I wasn't alone at all; Jesus was with me and had not left me and never would: God spoke into my soul what I later found out accords with Hebrews 13:5--God has said "Never will I leave you never will I forsake you" I knew that I wanted to stop playing around, give the whole game to Jesus, my lord and God. I began to learn the Scriptures and how to follow him. As a guy studying the hard sciences with a bunch of skeptical friends, I had a bunch of questions and wore out both people and books with them. My outlook on life totally changed. God had given me a passion I knew a call to ministry very early after my conversion and will hit that next.
During my last year of college I remember spending some down time in the track stadium at Fetzer Field at UNC. I had finished a run and was waiting on the guy who was discipling me. I remember laying down and was in prayer and sensed that God had significant plans for my life and that I needed to beg him for humility every day. I knew he was calling me to gospel ministry but I wasn’t sure where. After college I knew a few things. I loved the college sports scene; I loved the gospel and lost knuckleheads. So it only made sense to go in to ministry in the world. I feel God desires to have bold people who will speak and live for the glory of his Kingdom in strategic areas on earth; I felt sports was one of those areas. I have been an athlete for almost my entire life and realize the impact which athletes have on the world. I also feel the burden for a lost world confused in its own intellectualism; so I wanted to begin my ministry on the college campus where future leaders could be found. Given a boldness to stand firm for the faith once for all entrusted to the saints and an eagerness to preach the gospel, my wife and I went into ministry with Athletes in Action in 1996.
We spent 2 years in training at the University of Kentucky – sort of like purgatory for a UNC graduate – where we helped start a new ministry. My main team was soccer players. I hated men’s soccer (my wife was an All American women’s player so that was cool) at the time and thought God was messing with me, but he ended up saving about half the team that year. It was fun and I now like men’s soccer quite a bit. After our training we wanted to open up an AIA ministry where there was nothing going on, a place where my wife and I could also coach in our sports. We ended up moving to Virginia Tech in 1998 and had a great six years there. God did some really great stuff during our time and our ministry grew to one of the largest AIA gigs in the US. I also became a regional director in that season and served nationally in several capacities. We also started a summer project in the Czech Republic to engage atheists with the gospel and train students to engage people and culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
After spending eight fruitful years with Athletes in Action I received a phone call in January 04 from a guy at Fellowship Bible Church in Nashville, TN. He was a friend of a few of my buddies who had planted a church in 1996. He was looking for a college/singles pastor. I laughed at him because I thought singles ministries were silly get-a-date clubs which I wasn’t interested in. He said that it was more an opportunity to build a young adult community in the gospel and lead them on mission. We also talked about my long term dreams to engage our cultural moment with robust Christian thought and apologetics. In spring of that year I resigned my position with AIA to move to the Nashville area to join the team at the church. I had been growing in ecclesiological conviction away from the parachurch and the move felt right for that reason as well. Yet the main reason I made the move was to be mentored by a church planter and work under a slightly older guy, who was a go get it type, who could mentor me and be a friend. To make a very long story short, things did not go real well with that plan. Many things happened which were a bit unexpected and I never seemed to fit in with the culture here...but I prayed to be faithful. The ministry I was called to start (Inversion) has gone well and I dearly love the people. I also have some other minor roles at the church. I have done a little Sunday morning preaching, taught theology/apologetics, encouraged towards ministry with the poor etc. Yet it has been tough being here. I prayed about moving to finish my seminary degree in Louisville and then move forward in God’s call on my life. I was pretty convinced we needed to move again to go to seminary, knock it out, and then plant churches. But God kept us here for another season. The passion for church planting began to arise over the course of my 2.5 years at Fellowship. I had always been doing start-ups, loved leading and the idea of integrating some divergent passions. I love being with diverse people, teaching at both street level and academic, and building things. So now we are praying to move into church planting in the future. We are sure there are many hills called “difficulty” ahead of us, but we know God’s calling and ministry will move forward as he sees fit…
CNN has a story running about Internet Worship services and consuming/experiencing/participating in teaching and worship through web sites.
What do you think? Do you think we should have chart in the chat room? Church by twitter? Church in Second Life?
Personally, I think the church should utilize technology heavily in its ministry. Podcasts, vodcasts, member sites, databases, video, etc to facilitate its communication and ministry. However, it seems to me that the "church" or the "ekklesia" is a gathered people. Disembodying church seems to be a horrible idea as God has made us embodied creatures in community.
What do you think?
The following were notes given along with the message Woe to Him! - Habakkuk 2:6-17 given at the Inversion Fellowship on March 29th 2007.
A Comparison of Karma and Divine Judgment
There are several views of the world which populate the human landscape each of them wrestling with the various questions we face in our existence. One of the most perplexing issues is that of our own mortality. In fact, death has been said to be the great equalizer, the fate of the rich and powerful and the poor and destitute alike. One of the great mysteries is what happens when we die. Various beliefs have been held throughout time regarding life after death, but none greater than the big two. The eastern philosophy of karma/reincarnation and the widely believed philosophy of divine judgment. People in our culture today are fixated with the idea of Karma. You see it in the obsession of a regular guy named Earl on television, in the writings of Oprah Winfrey show superstar Gary Zukov, and it even appears in a line of Ben and Jerry’s low carb ice-cream.1 In our culture Karma has become kool and divine judgment is well, too judgmental for many. In this little essay, I want to compare the two and actually show that judgment is much more humane and coherent, though the consequences perhaps more severe.
Karma 101
Karma is one of the main tenants interwoven in the diversity of philosophical views from the east. Eastern philosophy is a literal smorgasbord of ideas, practices, and religious concepts, but there are a few ideas which are universal in the various systems. The Law of Karma, the endless cycle of reincarnation, and the oneness of all things are common threads throughout the various genres of eastern thought. The law of Karma will sound familiar in part to people in the west. At its most basic level it is a teaching that says that all our actions, whether good or bad, have consequences. These consequences form a chain creating your reality into the future. What you do, the choices you make literally “create” your future. The idea of Karma goes beyond a mere understanding that “whatever a man sows, he also reaps” for Karma extends between subsequent lives and existences. Each person builds up positive or negative Karma over the course of this life which then determines their subsequent lives after being reincarnated. A person moves “up” through a succession of being in the lives they live with the hope of escaping the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, which is known by the term samsara. If you have bad Karma you may come back as a dung beetle, good karma may have you return as an upper class Brahman Hindu. So judgment is seen in the movement “upward” and “downward” in this chain of existence. Many western people fail to see that reincarnation is not a good thing to the eastern mind, but a cycle from which the soul desires to escape, to be absolved into the oneness of the universe finally eliminating the illusion of individual existence. I find the karmic view offers true insights on several fronts. First, it acknowledges that we do indeed reap what we sow and our actions do have consequences. Second, it realizes that our actions and choices are moral in nature. Though the eastern view sees good and evil as two sides of the same coin, part of one reality, it is in the view of Karma that eastern philosophy is a bit more honest. Good is good and bad is bad and you better work towards the good or your Karma gauges will be spinning in the wrong direction. Though many put forth the view of Karma as a pathway towards moral living without any view of judgment, Karma has some serious bad Karma of its own.
Problems with Karma
There are several major philosophical and theological problems with Karma but I will only elaborate here on a very short list. First, Karma is a sort of score card for your life, where your good and bad tally up against each other. The problem I see in this is that there is literally “no one” there to keep score. Who is watching your life? Usually the answer is that the universe has a built in law that regulates these things, but there is no discussion on how this could be the case. If your good and bad “add up” it seems that somewhere this reality must be “known” by someone. This makes sense in a world in which God himself is taking our lives into account. Second, the law of Karma knows absolutely no grace. It is an unforgiving brutal taskmaster by which your life is determined by your previous lives. If you have a bad run now, it could be the result of previous incarnations where you were a real jerk. The problem is you know nothing of your former lives and are sort of screwed by them. There is no grace extended to sinners by Karma, sin becomes a millstone around your neck forever and ever through perhaps infinite reincarnations. Finally, there is an unexpected, but inevitable unjust result of Karmic thinking. You would think that this view only holds one responsible for our actions, but in fact it has unbelievably unjust societal consequences. Think about it. Who are the good guys in this life? The ones who had good Karma in previous lives. Who are these people? The upper classes, the “successful” people, the wealthy and the rulers are in their stations in life because they were good in past lives. So it is no coincidence that the Hindu system of caste, where the poor and low caste “deserve” their station in life and should not aspire better, arose from a Karmic philosophical tradition. They are working out bad Karma; these are the views that made the high caste Brahman in India, oppose the work of Mother Teresa with Indian low caste untouchables. She was interfering with them paying for their karma by serving them and helping them. The god of Karma, is the god of caste, which is a system of long term systemic oppression of those who were bad in previous lives nobody knows anything about.
Judgment 101
The biblical view of life after death is a bit different. Like the view of Karma, our actions, both good and evil have consequences, but in our view God is the observer and judge of our lives. He treats us as responsible moral agents in relationship to Him, creation, and other people. We are responsible to God and others for our actions and their consequences. All persons, rich or poor, “successful” or not, powerful or not are all completely equal and responsible for their lives. We live this life before God and when we die our lives will be judged by God and his appointed one, his own Son Jesus Christ. He does not show favoritism in that he will take our sins into account and does not turn a blind eye towards the wrong done on the earth. Wonderfully, the God who is our judge chose to take our place and receive the judgment we deserve for our sins. It is in the gospel that God extends to us the hand of mercy and grace, the very one who will judge our wrongful deeds, against whom we have committed sin, is the one who pays our debt and freely forgives. This is the view of the Bible. God treats us as responsible human beings but willingly provides payment for our sins, atonement is the biblical word, so that we can be reconciled with God and be judged as righteous because of the work of Christ. The book of Hebrews teaches us that it is appointed for a man to live and die and then face judgment. We either face God in our sin or with an advocate and substitute for our sin. Jesus is the one who delivers us from just wrath and judgment of God and all glory and honor goes to him.
The path of Karma makes you the one who receives glory for your good and blames everything bad on the sinner. In the gospel we see that God works by the law of the Spirit of life to set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. You might even say he sets us free from the tyranny of the taskmaster of Karma. 2
Would God Sing a Mocking Song?
In this chapter a strange thing occurs. The prophet Habakkuk is given a vision from God. This prophecy is ultimately from God through the prophet. In this vision the nations of the world which had fallen to the Chaldeans rise up in concert to mock the Chaldeans proclaiming the judgment of God upon them in a series of poetic Woes. This is a bit strange because the literary genre of the passage is in the form on an ancient near eastern taunting song. Sort of a poetic, grown up nanny, nanny, boo-boo kind of deal. So at first glance it appears that God is actually mocking the Chaldeans through this song from the nations. This has made some a bit uncomfortable.. Is this a cool thing for God to do? Mock people? After all, he is a loving God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (See Exodus 34:6 Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Psalm 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2). In studying this passage I even found a diverse opinion on the matter in the commentary. Yet it is clear from both the literary genre and the rest of Scripture that though God is merciful and loving, he also will in no way clear the wicked. The prophet Nahum reminds us of this as he opens his prophecy: The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. (Nahum 1:3a). O. Palmer Robertson has some good words for us on what God is doing here:
It might appear beneath the dignity of God to embarrass the proud before the watching world. But a part of his reality as the God of history includes his public vindication of the righteous and his public shaming of the wicked. His glory before all his creation is magnified by the establishment of honor for the humble and disgrace for the arrogant. In this case, the shame of Babylon shall be as extensive as its conquests. All of them, all those nations conquered by Babylon, shall join the mockery. Even the tiniest of nations shall rehearse these sayings without fear of reprisal.3
Lest we become arrogant and proud reading this, we must not forget the devastating reality that we ourselves have no moral high ground to mock anyone. We ourselves are not better than the Chaldeans; if not for the grace of God in Christ, we ourselves would not arrive at any sure fate. David Prior gives a great reminder here:
The heart of God is broken both by the suffering of the violated and by the sinfulness of the violator. The woes are torn from that broken heart in holy indignation. It is our job, not to take the moral high ground, but to express the holy heart of God…That is the tone and thrust of these five woes in Habakkuk.4
Before we go pronouncing our own woes and singing our own mocking songs, we should be humbled by the gospel and compelled to share Jesus with those around us. For us and our friends our prayer is to humble ourselves before the foot of the cross and allow God to be the only one who publically humiliates the wicked in his time.
A Tough Question of Responsibility Before God
An objection can be made at this point in the book of Habakkuk. God has raised up the Chaldeans to do his will in the earth. Namely, to bring disaster and judgment upon the wayward people of Judah. God then holds the Chaldeans responsible for their sinful actions, which he used to accomplish his purpose. Do you feel the tension? How can God blame them when he sovereignly used them for his purposes? At this point we must remember a few things. First, the Chaldeans, though raised up on the world scene by God, were human beings and not puppets. Second, in conquering the nations around them, including Judah, they were doing exactly what they wanted to do. They did what their hearts desired most—namely to exalt themselves and brutally conquer others. So we must see that there are two levels of willing and acting at play, that of God and that of human beings. God allowed them to continue in their desires to conquer and destroy. His hand did not hold them back, but his hand in no way forced them to do something other than what they wanted to do. So the Chaldeans are guilty, even though their guilty actions were used, in a larger framework, to fulfill the purposes of God.
For both the will of God and will/desires of people to be connected, theologians have puzzled for years on how this works. The Scriptures are very clear on two points here. God is sovereign over all things, using both good and evil for his good purposes. Second, human beings are responsible for their actions before a completely just and holy God. If God is in Sovereign control over people and nations, then he wills all things for his purposes. If God holds us accountable our actions are very much “ours” and will be judged accordingly. This has led many theologians and thinkers to suggest the kind of “free will” that humans posses to be “freedom of desire” or “freedom of inclination.”5
Simply put, our hearts always do just what we desire most , and our decisions are not random and without causes. In this view, a human being, without the work of God in her life, would persist in sin and rebellion (See Romans 3). It is only when God’s grace changes us in the gospel that we now desire God and his ways and are set free to live for him. Understanding that we have the freedom to do our deepest desires demonstrates that God is right in judging the Chaldeans’ sins and it also shows us how God is still Sovereign. He in no way is caught off guard by the “free will decisions” of people who some say are spinning his world hopelessly out of control. The Bible presents a God who is big enough to use the evil of people in his purposes, but in no way relieves us of our responsibility for our sins. Yet there is the offer of full pardon in the work of Christ. Take it! Then thank God every day for him.
Notes:
See Karb Karma at http://www.benjerry.com/our_company/press_center/press/bfyfactsheet.html
For more on Eastern philosophy you can read the sections by LT Jeyachandran in Norman Geisler and Ravi Zacharias, Who Made God? And Answers to Over 100 Tough Questions on Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003). Additionally, though I heartily disagree with his views of election and predestination, Paul Copan’s Chapter Why Not Believe in Reincarnation from That’s Just Your Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001) is an excellent treatment of the problems in Eastern philosophy.
O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990), 185. Emphasis Added.
David Prior, The Message of Joel, Micah & Habakkuk: Listening to the Voice of God (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1999), 244.
For more on this kind of freedom see Bruce Ware’s God’s Greater Glory—The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005) for the best treatment of God’s providence and evil as well as a treatment of the shortcomings of Libertarian/Contra Causal understanding of free will. For those who are bold you can take up Jonathan Edwards Freedom of the Will—very difficult reading, but worth it for those who wade in.
