Western culture

Today, I read a quote of Justin Taylor’s blog from Malcom Muggeridge:

[I]t has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created

his own boredom out of his own affluence,
his own impotence out of his own erotomania,
his own vulnerability out of his own strength;

himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.

Nobody ever likes prophets…they tell the truth too often.  I think Muggeridge’s words will apply to Europe sooner than many realize.

On Terminators - Why we fear our Robots...

There is a literal avalanche of literature and film treating the subject of robots, robot wars and the rise of the machines.  There are technologists, philosophers and futurists who love to talk about our “mind children” and how we will evolve into our own creations.  The most recent Terminator installment seems to carry on this long tradition of wondering just when our toasters will tire of their carbon based masters and rise up against us.  The Cylons chasing the Battlestar, the machines plugging us into the Matrix and the machines chasing around Sarah and John Connor all reveal something quite insightful about our relationship to machines.  We are afraid.  Why is this?

We present ourselves in modern technological society as intelligent world shapers who through our technology will solve problems…even save the world. If we let Science run free and unhindered by luddite concerns or ancient ethical systems, we’ll create wonders with our ingenuity.  Yet we are still afraid.  Futuristic technology has its optimists and pessimists for sure. For examples, one only has to look as far as Ray Kurzweil’s wonderful immortality or Bill Joy’s fear of the gray goo. 

Apparently, a philosopher right here at Rutgers University, has been musing about whether robot warriors (aka terminators) will be our salvation.  H+ magazine recently interviewed said philosopher about the promises of robot based warfare, which is very much a reality today in some sense.  The interview is quite interesting in that it discusses how robots might make the  military more moral in its warfare.  One particularly interesting section is commentary on the work of Georgia Tech’s Ron Arkin in making super-moral, or more moral robot soldiers:

Robots might be better at distinguishing civilians from combatants; or at choosing targets with lower risk of collateral damage, or understanding the implications of their actions. Or they might even be programmed with cultural or linguistic knowledge that is impractical to train every human soldier to understand.

Ron Arkin thinks we can design machines like this. He also thinks that because robots can be programmed to be more inclined to self-sacrifice, they will also be able to avoid making overly hasty decisions without enough information. Ron also designed architecture for robots to override their orders when they see them as being in conflict with humanitarian laws or the rules of engagement. I think this is possible in principle, but only if we really invest time and effort into ensuring that robots really do act this way. So the question is how to get the military to do this.

So here is a scenario where our terminators could be programmed to “turn on us” if they don’t think the people are acting according to “humanitarian laws” (whatever those are and whatever side defines them). Interesting enough the famous laws of Robotics created by Issac Asimov read as follows:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Many of you may remember that these laws were the subject of the film, iRobot (the book also contains the laws, but the film does not represent the book).  The movie gives an interesting view on machine consciousness and how the three laws just might lead the robots to take over…for our own good of course.  Mechanized warfare is here and here to stay.  There will be robot warriors of some form or another, but the moment we think they can improve on human beings is the moment we forget that we are their creators.  As such, we are afraid - for bad gods we will make.

Mankind once feared its capricious pantheon of gods, now we fear ourselves and the work of our own hands.  We fear someday that they will be like us and rise up against us like our ancestor Cain.  We know our sins will follow us into them and even John Conner may be unable to save us.

Is this inevitable, no.  Is the pride of man such that we will likely create technologies which will continue to bring carnage and destruction on the earth - yes, very likely. Humanity has been telling itself that it needs to shake free of sophomoric ideas of sin and depravity, yet they remain in us. Checks and balances are needed because humanity is wicked. I am by no means a Luddite, but I do think we should give more care to that which we create. 

We are not gods and we know it, so we remain afraid.

Writing elsewhere...

I wanted to ask everyone to pray for me this week as I am developing some resources that are pretty important for the future of Jacob’s Well.  I am working on our basic teaching/discipleship resources which all new folk to the church will go through as they become members of our community.  It is challenging to know what to include or not include, how deep to go or how to keep it simple…anyway, I have been working on our whole process a bit today and was encouraged…and very humbled.  I would appreciate you guys prayers.  Here are the pieces of the puzzle I am working on…

• Discovery Lunch - an introduction to Jacob’s Well
• Gospel Class - some central teachings of Christian faith
• Mission Class - living on mission as the church, how we all fit together for his purposes

I also hope to get to a post on the ethical implications of robotic intelligence and terminators…but we’ll see…that may need to wait.

Ida - Missing Link or Missing Data?

Some of you have probably heard the hype about the new fossil named IDA that is being given press releases and parties in New York and London.  Now, I’m not going to get into a discussion of evolution here at this point as I have friends of all opinions on the matter (theistic evolutionists, Intelligent Design friends and even some creationists - gasp! update: and atheistic evolutionary friends)

What I do want to comment upon is doing good science.  Science is a slow, peer reviewed process that relies upon other people confirming so called “scientific breakthroughs and finds.”  So rather than throwing parties for Ida that include politicians and filmakers declaring this the greatest scientific find ever, one wonders why this is done before others review the paper.  Afterall, the sensationalist claims being made by those who have been studying Ida are not agreed upon by other paleontologists.  Yet maybe they are just haters that don’t want these other paleontologists to be rock stars.  This quote from an entry from the Wall Street Journal is insightful as many may not even find this to be “the missing link>”

Scientists won’t necessarily agree about the details either. “Lemur advocates will be delighted, but tarsier advocates will be underwhelmed” by the new evidence, says Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “The debate will persist.”

It seems religious zeal is at work by declaring this squirel sized extinct monkey the missing link to our long lost uncle. The scientific community can do better…

Jesus or the Jesus of Dan Brown?

Rous Douthat of the NY Times has an excellent opinion piece about the shallowness of American Christianity as related to the preachy thriller novels written by one Dan Brown.  I’ll let you mosey on over to the Times to read (you have to login), but I will share the last paragraph:

For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.

Personally, I am keeping Jesus - the wide eyed, loving, fierce revolutionary God incarnate.  Dan Brown’s Jesus is boring to me…very tame, normal.  One wonders if the Jesus imagined today by many would even have been killed. Dan Brown’s conspiracy laden, action packed fiction is fun to read, but his theology and his Jesus are fiction of a much more yawnable variety.  His Jesus could never have changed the world - the real Jesus is still doing so today.

Here at the POCBlog, we highly recommend Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for Jesus…and Star Trek for a good adventure flick.

On Virtues and Hope...

Our society and its intellectual forbearers historically focused on something called virtue. A virtue is a quality that makes something a good version of what it is. Take a knife as a simple example. A knife has certain virtues which make it a good knife. Sharpness would be a virtue for a knife according to its design. A virtue for a human being is a quality of character or quality of life that is typically a good thing. Vices would be qualities that are not so good.

Many thinkers have discussed character and virtue but none looms greater than the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle enumerated lists of moral and intellectual qualities that would be virtues for human beings and expounded upon these in his writings about the ethical life.¹ Historically, the Christian tradition has also focused heavily on the transformation of life and the cultivation of virtues. The work of the theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas built upon that of Aristotle in that he too saw that we possessed moral and intellectual qualities which should be understood to be virtuous. However, as a follower of Jesus and a reader of the New Testament, Thomas had much more to say. He added a discussion of what he called the theological virtues.

1 Corinthians 13 is a passage of the Christian Scriptures that is well known to many people. It is a poetic treatment of love (or charity) and its centrality in the life of those who follow Jesus. You may have heard this read at a wedding or seen it reduced to some Hallmark card type saying. The section actually ends with the following: So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Aquinas saw these as unique theological virtues that emanate from the grace of God shown to human beings. Faith was our choosing to trust/assent to the gospel and the teachings of the Bible. Hope was the result of that faith in that we trust in God for our final happiness and joy. Finally, a love for God (and the corollary of loving one’s neighbor made in his image) which comes from knowing him as God is the deepest foundation of our lives. Someday faith will be sight and hope will be realized in the Kingdom of Heaven, but love and relationship with God will remain forever. ²

As a follower of Christ, hope is a virtue, but not one merely created by moral self effort. We do not muster up hope from within ourselves but rather hope comes from trusting that God is in control of our lives and that he is loving towards his people. Such hope arises as we are given grace to believe and trust in Jesus’ work on a cross to bring us into loving communion with the Father. Hope therefore is a by-product which is dependent upon the object of our faith. What we put our ultimate faith in, our trust in determines whether we live in enduring hope or fall into cynicism and despair.

The following diagram illustrates the relationship between faith, hope and love and how these are related to who/what is at the center of our lives.

When we place our ultimate trust in money, relationships, health, influence, status, etc. hope will languish if any of these are lost. Our future is not secure in any fashion when we place our ultimate trust in that which is unstable, fading and temporary. All of these things are good and can be received with thanksgiving, but if any are made the center of life, an empty soul will result. Life itself will ebb away as the looming inevitability of death consumes all, yet if God is at the center, our faith in him births perpetual hope. Though life and money and health and status may fade and oscillate we have in Christ a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul (See Hebrews 6:13-20).

As we traverse our lives we must not give in to the ideas that say we must build on the foreign tongue of unyielding despair to find safe habitat for the soul. Rather we find our home in God and we speak the language of hope to our world. Our message is that God is reconciling people to himself through Jesus Christ, a message of hope for all who will believe.

Notes

1. See Books II-VI of Aristotle, W. D. Ross, J. L. Ackrill, and J. O. Urmson. The Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford (Oxfordshire) ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
2. A summary of Thomas’ moral philosophy and the theological virtues may be found here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aq-moral.htm

Big News from Palm/Sprint and The Red House

Palm Pre Available June 6th - $199.99 (with contract and after mail in rebate)

Its official, the Palm Pre will go on sale with Sprint on June 6th.  It looks priced right to me and you can charge is with no wires plugged in for another 69.99…the latter seems excessive…and cool. A sure dilemna for many tech heads.  Naw, they’ll just get it.

Red House - Passes 1 Million Views and picked up by the AP

It seems Rhett and Link’s “Red House” furniture store ad is getting crazy traffice on You, know who Tube.  The Associated Press picked up the story and it is now up on MSNBC.  Too funny.

Building Life on Despair?

The British atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell coined an interesting phrase in his 1929 essay A Free Man’s Worship; his ideas was that future life must only be built on the firm foundation of unyielding despair. This thought came by way of his philosophical interpretations of science:

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.¹

Russell was writing in a time where he was rejecting belief in God amidst a society that had a long Christian tradition. It was natural for there to be a sense of despair for those who had long thought the God and human beings were the center of the universe’s purpose.  His idea is that we must come to grips with the truth the we live in a chaotic universe, which has no overarching meaning or purpose.  All that exists is just matter and physical law…and nothing else.  Once one greets this despair in a courageous manner, he can realize how wonderful humans are and get on with life. 

The 19^th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche made similar commentary in his works. Nietzsche saw humans as being in need of a transition.  They needed to move from acting as beasts in the herd to a few people becoming superior men: perfected, bold and completely unrestrained creatures.  His view was that we must get over the infantile ideas about God and morality and will a greater future where a few great people rule the many.  Nietzsche knew that the world would struggle to “live without God” and penned the following words in his parable The Madman:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—-for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.²

Whereas Russell would choose to nostalgically worship the human struggle for compassion in an empty world of despair, Nietzsche would recommend power.  In either case, human beings would need to go through a gate of despair and confusion, in order to go to a higher history where hope is found in ourselves.  There is only one problem with this project.  When humanity looks into the mirror, he finds neither ultimate goodness nor a creature worthy of wielding ultimate power.  So he lives perpetually afraid; his gods have become weak, they look very much like himself.

Though it is hard to persuade many otherwise, the history of human beings is not one of pure goodness accompanied by a benevolent wielding of power. In fact, it is quite the opposite.  Human beings are quite capable of killing one another for a myriad of reasons and causes.  Some do it in the name of religion, others political ideologies, and others for just plain greed and power.  Some may love to retort that religion is the source of all intolerance and war.  This is a specious claim that holds no reality.  The fact is that human beings are the source of all intolerance and war and the non religious regimes of the 20th century are convincing proof that one does not need a “god” to pillage the world.  The murderous reigns of Stalinist Russia, the cultural revolution in China and the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge prove that man needs not belief in a god to destroy his neighbor, he only needs to erroneously act like he is one.

Hope is difficult to build on a lie—and building hope on the reality of the goodness of human beings is a particularly hard thing to do.  If the future belongs only to the whims of humanity and the torrents of nature, how can we have any confidence that things will go well.  In fact, it is fear which rises when we realize that we are alone.

• Will some strange animal born virus destroy us?
• Will we destroy the environment and bring catastrophe on us all?
• Will we blow each other to bits over land and labor?
• Will we be hit by a mammoth asteroid and go the way of the dinosaur?
• Will some alien race drop in to destroy us?

In the naturalistic worldview of both Russell and Nietzsche, we are quite hopeless in the face of such possibilities.  It is but a posturing to think that hope can be built on yourself.  Hope must aim towards the future, in a reality yet to come to pass. Yet the future is certainly unknown to us and it is far from under our control.  What is our destiny both personally and corporately? The answers from the realms of unbelief are hardly encouraging.  In fact, I believe they are filled with irrationality and dread.

The boastful unbeliever pokes at those who believe in God as if people of faith are somehow weaker and in need of a crutch for life.  My contention is that God is not a crutch in the human quest for hope, but rather God is like legs for those who wish to run. When we ask human beings to find hope in the brute reality matter/energy/space-time we send him on a perpetual goose chase, he will frenzy about but make little progress.  He is running without legs. 

When we speak of hope, we speak of the future.  We speak of hope amidst a world of disease, death, war and despair.  We speak in a strange tongue to those who only have hope for this life because our hope is not from ourselves, our goodness or our plans for the world.  Our hope is in God, his goodness and his ways in the world. We desire to place our trust in God as he holds the future, knows our destiny and guides us today in our relationship to creation and one another. Hope comes to us as a gift and a virtue due to our relationship with the living creator God and his work in our lives.  God has entered history, conquered death and given us new life in Jesus Christ. He is transforming us today, will transform our world and ultimately make all things new in the end. 

Notes

1. Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship—available online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1917russell-worship.html

2. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Madman—available online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/nietzsche-madman.html

Bart Ehrman on Colbert

Bart Ehrman has a great way of rehashing 19th century biblical scholarship and making it sound scandalous and interesting to those in the news media.  But Stephen Colbert was not having it…

Ehrman and his ideas have been well answered recently by Darryl Bock/Daniel Wallace and Timothy Paul Jones. We reccomend these works.

Why do you use...a PC?

OK, now it is time for all of you who use PCs to come out courageously and stand with courage among your sneering Mac friends.  They are not better than you, there are good reasons for using Windows.  List them here:

Why are you willing to say “I’m a PC”

Humour is allowed as are practical considerations…

Lions and Tigers and Bears...That's Why!

There once was a time when philosophers of western culture wrestled in deep contemplation about the ethical life.  What is good? What is right? What is true?  These questions led both the common man and intellectual to wrestle with deep questions of morality and virtue.  There was a desire to live according to a way that was truly good, not simply advantageous in the moment.  These days are long gone.

I was recently reminded of the impoverished state of ethical reasoning today in light of the reductions of philosophical naturalism. In the Chronicle for Higher Education, I read an essay where psychology professor David P. Barash meditates on our cultures obsession with sports.  The essay is entitled The Roar of the Crowd and me thinks Dr. B is not a sports fan.  The whole essay is a looking down on the raucous crowds herding in and out of grand stadiums cheering for their team.  Barash’s disdain can be heard in the opening of the article:

Marx was wrong: The opiate of the masses isn’t religion, but spectator sports. What else explains the astounding fact that millions of seemingly intelligent human beings feel that the athletic exertions of total strangers are somehow consequential for themselves? The real question we should be asking during the madness surrounding this month’s collegiate basketball championship season is not who will win, but why anyone cares.

Not that I would try to stop anyone from root, root, rooting to his or her heart’s content. It’s just that such things are normally done by pigs, in the mud, or by seedlings, lacking a firm grip on reality— fine for them, but I am not at all sure this is something that human beings should do. In desperation, if threatened with starvation, I suppose that I would root— for dinner. But for the home team? Never.

Wow, I think he is better than me. How silly of me to chant “Go Heels!” last month when the Tarheels triumphed in the Final Four. So what sort of reasons does Dr. Barash provide for us in his essay as to why we are so into the games of March Madness?  Lions and Tigers and Bears…what else. In the worldview of many intellectuals today, human beings are the process of blind, natural forces that simply exist and produce what they may. In such a view, moral values and human behaviors are something created by evolution and not something outside of us to which we owe some allegiance. Ethics (and all our behavior) is evolution, or a by product of environments.  In fact, the facile nature of discussions of “why we do anything” is often boiled down to Lions and Tigers and Bears…oh my.

Most of us can recall the scene from the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tinman walk through a forest in fear.  They are worried about the wild beasts that might be there to tear them apart - of course all they find is a cowardly lion.  Yet today’s evolutionary psychologist can tell you why you do everything by appealing to your ancient ancestor on the African savanna running hither and yon being chased by Lions and Tigers and Bears (or to be more precise, whatever predator which was chasing in that time/place).

Here is the beginning of Barash’s explanation as to why groups of bipedal apes go to sporting events:

For tens of thousands of years during our early evolutionary history, there was safety in numbers, just as there is today for ants, horses, or chimpanzees. A single herring, swimming fearfully in the cold Atlantic, or a lonely wildebeest tramping its solitary way over the African savannah, is vulnerable to a hungry tuna or lion. But that herring or wildebeest can make itself somewhat safer by sidling up close to another herring or wildebeest, if only because a potential predator might choose the neighbor instead. Better yet, get yourself near a pair of herrings or wildebeests, or a dozen, or a hundred. For their part, the other group members aren’t feeling “used,” since they have been figuring the same way. They positively invite you to join because your presence makes them safer, too. Very likely such evolutionary factors were operating among our ancestors. Groups also provided the opportunity for division of labor, made it easier for prospective mates to meet, and provided for the pooling of material resources (like food) and for sharing precious wisdom (where to find water during those once-in-50-year droughts).

In addition— and this may well have been especially important for early human beings— we doubtless benefited from group size when we became enemies to each other. Even as affiliative grouping undoubtedly contributed to our survival and success, it could well have created its own kind of Frankenstein’s monster: other groups. Although considerations of efficiency might have meant that our social units sometimes became oversized, it is easy to imagine how the presence of large, threatening bands of our own species pressured us to seek numbers to find safety.

Then it really becomes almost comical in the way he reduces the behavior of the unenlightened, mob following sports fan:

Certainly we can be bamboozled, induced to sit atop our various self-identified groups in an orgy of affiliation that makes the oystercatcher seem downright insightful. But it feels good because as we perch there, we satisfy a deep craving, indulging the illusion of being part of something larger than ourselves and thus nurtured, understood, accepted, enlarged, empowered, gratified, protected.

The observer of spectator sports cannot help but confront the odd underbelly of this passion: the yearning to be someone else, or at least, a very small part of something else, so long as that something else is Something Else, large and imposing, impressive and thus irresistible. That dark desire for deindividuation was felt for millennia by the herring and the wildebeest, and perfected by human beings centuries ago: interestingly, not by sports franchises but by the world’s military forces.

We love groups because we are afraid of lions, tigers, bears and other big groups of mean people.  We identify to feel safe, important even.  Now consider the evolutionary psychology of “doing the Wave”:

The Wave, which many fans say originated in my hometown of Seattle, is a good example. Even though they don’t get to swing a bat, throw a pass, or sink a three-pointer, fans have been inventive in providing themselves with ritualized, shared movements that further embellish the allure as well as the illusion of being part of the larger, shared whole, tapping into that primitive satisfaction that moves at almost lightning speed from shared, ritual action to a tempestuous sense of expanded self. One becomes part of a great beckoning, grunting, yet smoothly functioning, and, presumably, security-generating Beast. And for those involved, it apparently feels good to be thus devoured whole and to live in its belly.

And you thought you were having fun with your friends…silly psychologically naive human! In all seriousness, Barash does have some good insights in the article but his reduction of human beings make even his insights into group behavior a bit shallow. In the utility of sex and survival among our apish ancestors we find the answers to why we do everything: Why do we love? It helped us to pair bond to protect or progeny (which has selfish genes) from Lions and Tigers and Bears! Why are we worshipping creatures? We were afraid of the Lions and Tigers and Bears so we invented gods to help us! Why do we do anything at all? Human life and behavior is lions all the way down.

It seems to me that Mr. Barash may have a beast that he does find morally repugnant.  Perhaps a patriotic, sports fan in the military doing the wave. Yet where does Mr. Barash get off in his judgments? After all, if evolution made them all do it, it just is. He really should not push his morality on the flag waving sports fan. 

I like the old pagan reasoning about ethics and behavior much better than the new. At least the old pagans (like Aristotle) seemed to be searching for the truly good. Today, the new pagan just explains it all away and then makes moral judgments on those beneath his own evolutionary enlightenment. I find it all rather simplistic and intellectually boring; the telling of just so stories without much philosophical reflection. But maybe there are just more tigers under my bed.

Why do you use...a Macintosh?

This will be the first of several “Why do you use…” posts to hear from you guys as to why you use certain technologies and products. Here I want thoughtful reasons and pithy remarks - one without the other will not do.  Not just wise cracks, I really want to know real reasons…but make it fun.

I figured I would start off with one that I know some folk may want to weigh in on:

Why do you use a Mac? (note: the question is not “why do PCs suck”)

Drop your love in the comments…

On Prayer...

Prayer is the great privilege and joy of the believer in Christ but it can also be a source of frustration and mystery as we seek God. In one sense prayer is quite simple in definition - it is coming before God to speak with him and interact in relationship with him. On the other hand, it is hard to carve out time to pray and to understand how prayer functions. In this essay we will look very briefly at the vast subject of prayer in Scripture and in our lives. For those who want to read more I highly suggest Paul E. Miller’s new work A Praying Life.¹

For our brief purposes here we will take the following path together. First, we will look at some pagan understandings of prayer and how believers in Jesus can at times treat prayer in the same manner. Second, we will look at a few ways in which prayer is described in Scripture and then close with some guiding principles and practical suggestions relating to living a life of prayer.

Pagan Prayer

In many religions and philosophies of the world prayer is used to either please or appease some deity. Those who believe in multiple gods have always believed in prayer. If you prayed the right way, at the right times, with the right trinkets you could get a god on your side. Not a bad gig save one problem. There is one God who is sovereign ruler of the world and he does not exist to obey our commands or be manipulated by our “prayers” and rituals. There are several ways prayer becomes pagan even in the mouth of believers in Jesus. We’ll just look at three.

The first is something Mark Driscoll has humorously called piñata prayer. Prayer in this way treats God as if he is a big piñata in the sky. If we whack him with the stick of prayer, lots of candy and goodies fall out. Lets just say that prayer not just trying to get goodies out of God but many times we approach it this way. Second, is something I am calling dancing prayer. When I was a little kid we had a dog; a short haired miniature schnauzer named Gretchen to be more precise. My brother and I loved to make that dog dance in order to get a treat from us. We would make her jump on her hind legs, spin around and do back flips (well, maybe not). When she performed we would give her a treat. I think many times we can think if we do the right things, say the right prayers and dance a little that God will give us a reward for our performance. This is an odd way to see God, but we can get into that way of praying. If I pray “correctly” then God will give me treats.

The final way in which we can pray like pagans is what I’ll call Trading Places. In the early 1980s there was a movie where Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd “traded places” in life. Murphy was a homeless con man who became the rich tycoon and Aykroyd became the homeless guy. I think sometimes we think by praying we can “trade places” with God. We act as if we are God and can give orders to get what we want. We are his servants and we exist for his glory not the other way around. I know it is silly to think of prayer as telling God what to do, but that doesn’t keep us from doing it. There are even preachers on TV that encourage this sort of telling God what to do. If we do not want to pray in these ways, we must look at how Scripture presents a life of prayer. We’ll look at this issue by describing biblical prayer and then close with some practical stuff.

Biblical Prayer

In Scripture we find descriptions of people praying, recorded prayers, as well as commands and instruction about prayer. Although this will be far from complete there are several ways we see prayer described in the Bible. First, we see that prayer is approaching God and desiring to be relationally in his presence. In Psalm 42:1-2 we read the following:

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

We see the same idea in the New Testament in we are encouraged to approach the throne of God with confidence to find mercy and help in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). So prayer involves approaching God, through Jesus Christ, in the middle of the joys, pains, triumphs and sufferings of every day life. Secondly, prayer is seen as intercession and supplication, coming to God with petitions and requests. Philippians 4:6, 7 teaches us not to be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. We must remember, we do not come into the presence of God to command him, but rather to find mercy and help in our lives. Yet prayer does include making requests of our Father.

Third, prayer is a time to share our hearts cry with the Father. The Psalms are full of both thanksgiving and lament (sadness expressed). In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 we are commanded to rejoice and give thanks in all circumstances, whether good or bad. We can have confidence that nothing in our life is meaningless, even our suffering or the evil done to us by others can be redeemed by God. If we belong to Him, he will work it all out for his purposes in the end. Romans 8:28 teaches us that we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. We need to know this truth before our times of suffering as we are disoriented in our pain. When our friends are mourning we are instructed to “mourn with them” and not treat others’ suffering with frivolity. Yet Romans 8:28 is no trite phrase in the Bible; it is our greatest hope and his great promise in a world full of madness and sin.

Fourth, prayer is confession where we come before God to get honest about our sins and shortcomings. Confession is not telling God some secret that you are hiding from him. Believe me, God knows all things even the mistakes we make and the sin we commit against him and others. The word confession is actually a compound of the Greek prefix “homos” which means “same” and “logeo” which means “word.” It literally means, to say the same word. To confess means to agree with God about something, to say the same thing about our sin that he does and turn from our sin. It is to come clean and experience the grace and forgiveness of God purchased by Jesus. Confession restores closeness in relationship with God and keeps us from drifting away from him over time.

Finally, prayer is the fuel and language of relationship. Just as Paul begins Ephesians 1 in praise to God for his saving work, he follows it with praying for his friends that they would know God. Prayer is coming to God in hope as he is our Father. We come near to him he draws near to us. In the ups and downs of our lives what we need more than anything is a close relationship with God. He is the anchor in every story, the author of our journey and the one we trust to bring us safely home to his Kingdom in the end. Prayer is the expression of the human soul crying out for its creator. In Jesus Christ we have access to God as his kids and there is no other power who has greater control over our lives. As a brand new Christian I found myself wanting to pray, wanting to talk with God, wanting to learn his ways. Yet I didn’t have a clue. The following are just a few principles I have learned along the way that have helped me understand a life of prayer.

Prayer Principles

The first principle to keep in mind as we pray is that we are seeking the will of God for our lives, not just our own purposes. So many times we can hear “the will of God” and immediately jump to thinking about a detailed road map for our future. This is not what I mean by “seek the will of God.” What we ought to seek is how God desires our life to be lived in whatever circumstances as well as what sort of people he wants us to be. We find the will of God in his character and commands as revealed in Scripture. Jesus taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (see Matthew 6:9-13) and 1 John 5:14-15 promises that God hears and answers prayer that is according to his will. Here are some simple examples of prayers that would be according to the will of God:

God make me a good friend…God help me be more patient and kind…God help me to serve others…God help me leave my selfishness…God help me be a thankful person…God help me rejoice in you, even when my life seems to suck…God give me wisdom for the choices and decisions I face tomorrow…God provide for my basic needs…God open a door for your gospel with my friends…God help me be a better wife/husband, mother/father, sister/brother, daughter or son….God make me more like Jesus in my character and actions

Second, we need to come to God with the right motives. James 4:2,3 teaches us that we should not come to God with a selfish heart just asking God for stuff to fit our current passions. Oh God, if you don’t give me a boat, you must hate me! People do pray this way-DON’T. Third, when we pray, we must believe. We trust he is our good father who wants to hear from us and answer in the way the he deems best for us. Finally, we should not just come to God trying to get a spiritual buzz. Sometimes there are deep spiritual experiences, other times there are not. God’s presence is not your emotions. Paul E. Miller sums this up well in his excellent new book, A Praying Life:

You don’t experience God; you get to know him. You submit to him. You enjoy him. He is, after all, a person.²

As we close, I want just drop a few practical ways to help us to pray amidst our hurried lives.

Prayer in Practice

Did you realize that Jesus’ friends actually asked him to teach them how to pray? His reply, found in Matthew 6:9-13, has been called “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father”. Though many say this as a prayer from memory, his response is actually a pattern to follow. Looking at this pattern we find several things that we can include in our prayers:

• Hallowed be your name. We want to praise God in our prayers for who he is. We want to love him, respect him and honor him. Tell God what you love about him as you get to know him better.
• Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
• Give us this day our daily bread. Thanking God for life and provision.
• Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. We ask God to lead us in what is good, right and true.

The acrostic ACTS has helped many to remember some basics about prayer that are seen in Jesus’ pattern. The acrostic stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication and can be helpful in praying.

• Adoration-praising God for who he is, that he is our treasure and joy
• Confession-coming clean with our Father and receiving grace and forgiveness
• Thanksgiving-thanking him for good time and hard times
• Supplication-bringing your needs and the needs of others before the Father.

To close, I want to be honest with you. Prayer is hard. We are busy people who are surrounded by the hum of cars, trains, cell phones, IM, chats and social media. Furthermore, human beings are so intent on living apart from God that we don’t naturally want to pray. We pray when things go bad and ignore God when things are good. I am often amazed by my own self-centeredness and desire to do life on my own without the guidance and wisdom of God. Yet when I come to God in prayer I find life, relationship and hope for the day. I will leave you with an excellent quote about the effects of a prayerful life on the soul:

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love…³

When Paul began his letter to Ephesians he reminded them of the great work that God had done in saving them. Then he prayed. He prayed that they would have the most important thing in life-depth in relationship with God and an understanding of every good thing we have in him. We ought to pray in the same way for one another-that all of us would deepen with God.

Praying for you to that end and hoping that you seek your Father in prayer,

Reid S. Monaghan

Notes

1.Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting With God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, NavPress, 2009)

2.Ibid, 21.

3.Ibid, 25.

On Theosis

Some friends of mine from Jacob’s Well, aka The JW, aka JWeezy are kicking about the subject of theosis - which wikipedia defines for us as - theosis (written also: theiosis, theopoiesis, theōsis; Greek: Θέωσις, meaning divinization, or deification, or making divine).  Basically, it is a teaching that we in some way become partakers of the divine nature as we are transformed from sinners into new creatures in Christ.

Anyway, if you have never heard the word “theosis” - rejoice!!! you are not weird.  But for all the theological weirdos of the world, here is a reply that I sent to my good brothers.  I will ask them if they will be so kind to leave their thoughts here in the comments.  They had some good things to say. 

Oh yeah, one more thing - Jacob’s Well is nothing like this on Sunday mornings - well, maybe a little, we do like questions but we do the nerdy stuff offline (or er, on blogs too) and try to keep it real at church.

————————————————

Men,

I have enjoyed you guys’ thoughts and hearing your wrestle out loud about such issues. Deification is not a new issue in theology, but it is “new to us” in the sense that the West in general and western Protestantism in particular has not dealt with it using the Athanasian grammar. We have tended to talk of “Union with” Christ, sanctification as progressive (but Wesleys perfectionism has to be addressed I suppose) and glorification being to be made as much “like God” and participatory in his nature as a human can be. I know this discussion is primarily Pauline but Peter’s words in 2 Peter 1:4 seem quite relevant to the discussion as well - though I am guessing with all the hatred of Petrine authorship and the popularity of Paul/Justification that this text isn’t going to be playing much on the academic theology top 40.

My thoughts on this issue is to keep ourselves metaphysically separated but relationally in union with Christ and in communion with the triune God. Relational theology seems proper for Christians and taking these sorts of things metaphysically seems to produce massive problems.

• I am “one flesh” with my wife - this is a physical and relational reality but we do not become one person metaphysically
• Christ marries his church - he becomes one with her, but he remains head, we remain body - so there is union and distinction - the union must be understood relationally as to neither obliterate my identity or that of our Lord.
• We are partakers of the divine nature (Peter’s words are the strongest) in such a way to fully participate relationally in the divine life of God, but we share it “as a human” not as gods. We are filled with his fullness but we do not become all that he is.

Piper touches on Athanasius and “deification” a bit here.

As to justification and relating to theosis, I’ll just read like you guys are doing. I do think that our union with Christ, he in us and us in him is inseparable from salvation but I agree with Scott in not placing one facet of God’s saving act “at the center” - I am fine with having Father, Son and Spirit as the center…and as far as we are concerned, Jesus is at the center. He is the center of the Fathers action, his work on the cross is the redemptive outworking of the determined decree of God and he is the sender of the Spirit to glorify him and the Father. He is our relational touchstone.

To me to blend us too much in union will end in pantheism…which is a gross heresy. To speak to little about the intense knowledge God has for us and we for him in Christ is to not go far enough. So perhaps Jesus envelopes us with his love and being…he takes us fully in to himself without us becoming him and he becoming us (individually speaking, for in the incarnation he did indeed become “us”). So I like the metaphors in Scripture to speak of these things, but peering behind metaphors only seeks to make one lost.

• Bridegroom/Bride
• Head/Body
• Indwelt Temples
• The Intimate Family

These we ought to use well for in them God has stooped low and used human language, from human life to reveal to us “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” - Ephesians 3:19

Love you men

Reid

A History of the POCBlog (and How to kill your site on Google)

The Story of the POCBlog

Over the years little Power of Change has grown up a bit.  It began as a personal, hand coded site in 1996 where I would put newsletters for our ministry partners when Kasey and I worked with Athletes in Action.  I was a recent graduate in Applied Computer Science and liked programming.  Believe or not, the web was still new for many people and I wanted to learn the ins and out of HTML.  The went through several redesigns but remained primarily a site for friends, supporters and a place to distribute resources to others in ministry.

In 2004, I began simple blog with the free service “Blogger” and I soon found that blogging suited me pretty well.  Later on, I merged the Power of Change web site and the POCBlog and two became one. In 2006 I moved to the Movable Type bloggin platform with a re-design done by Mr. Tim Challies with some headers by my good friend Weylon Smith and the blog actually looked good and had some decent functionality for me.

Here are some pics from the Internet Archive for Power of Change.

Powerofchange.org - 1999 - Lots of images and hand coded JavaScript Flyovers

PowerofChange.org - 2001 - Simplified - Got rid of annoying flyovers…and introduced a funny little plant logo thingy

2005 Blogger Blog

2006 - MovableType 3.2 Site

Finally, this last week I did something rash - I did an unplanned redesign.  It had been three years with the old look and I had been wanting to try out Squarespace as I was hearing quite a buzz about the service.  Designing a web site takes one of two things - money or time (along with a little know how).  I was going to pay someone to do the redesign but I decided to give it a shot on my own with Squarespace.  Being a church planter and money still not growing on trees, I also decided to host my doman’s email with Google Apps Standard Edition.  Anyway, the redesign went really well and I finally got all my powerofchange email over to Gmail.  Yet today, I realized I did not think it through well enough…and I probably killed myself with Google Search.

How to kill yourself on Google

Most people know that the net runs on Google - if you want your site to be read and people to find you, Google is the best place to be known. You can Yahoo or Live Search all you like, but Google is the place you want to be found. I realized this morning, through a fun little conversation, that I probably just shot the POC Blog in the foot…in terms of Googleability. A friend of ours, not a previous reader of the POCBlog, told me this morning that she was googling to find the name of the kinds story book Bible that was endorsed by Tim Keller. She was so excited to tell me she found my review at the very top of her Google search and didn’t even know she was on my site until reading the review. She asked me how that happened, how did my review got to the top of Google. Then I thought for a second, uh oh…all my old site links are likely nuked now that I moved to Squarespace and the new POCBlog design.

You see, your site and pages rise in Google’s algorithm as people read and link to various content on your site. All the links that were well read on the POC Blog, now no longer exist (at least the precise URLs) in the new site. The content is all here still, but Google can no longer see it. So, thankfully, the POCBlog is a hobby to me and not my livelihood. I have never placed an ad on the site and have wanted to keep financial concerns away from my writing. 

Yet to show love to other bloggers, a few tips to keep your site pumping in transition.

• Keep your readers informed of your site’s coming changes.  Give at least a week’s notice on your current site that a new site is coming. If your RSS feed URL is going to change, let people know this and post the new feed before shutting down the old site. Give time for transition.  I gave mine a couple of hours - dumb.
• If possible, keep the blog archive links the same as previous links.  This is possible but requires some planning in setting up your new blog software.  This is most easily done if going from Blogger Site to Blogger Site, Wordpress to Wordpress, MT to MT etc. I didn’t do this - I imported every entry from the old POCBlog, but the links got structured differently with the Squarespace system.  Any site that linked to something you wrote in the past will now be a dead link and will its popularity within Google will be lost.  For instance, the ESV Bible Study endorsements page pulled something from the POC Blog and linked to it - that page has a new URL on the new site so that link from the ESV page is “gone.”

Overall, I blog, play with technology and babble about things technotheolosophical because it is fun and it keeps me dialed in with many friends.  Hopefully it is of some value to God’s world and Kingdom…after all, here comes a post on “theosis” - oh joy.

Theology and Practice

I am a big fan of both thinking and doing...in fact, I get frustrated with my own life if I don't do enough of either. Too much thinking and no doing accomplishes little...too much doing without much thinking accomplishes shallow things that blow away like the wind.  This week I found a couple of posts that called me towards depth in both

For Thinking

Paul Helm, with whom I studied in January, has a interesting post on the view about compatabilist middle knowledge.  Not sure I agree with him but he has me thinking. In this post he interacts with one of my favorite books, by one of my favorite professors...Dr. Bruce Ware. Happy thinking.

For Doing

Jonathan Dodson, who is planting a church in capital city of the great nation of Texas, has some great thoughts for doing.  In his post Simplified Missional Living Dodson offers some great insight for being a good friend and neighbor in your community.  Happy doing.

For all my Jacob's Well peoples I encourage you to read the Dodson piece, it will be very helpful as we continue to live our lives together on mission here in Jersey.  Life/Doctrine - Living/Thinking...this is where we are rolling in Ephesians as well.

Book Review - Unfashionable

 

 Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different
by Tullian Tchividjian (Author), Timothy Keller (Foreword)

When another new book came out talking about the issue of "Christians and Culture" I first wanted to yawn.  I read in this area quite a bit and did not think someone could improve on the good work being done by the likes of Os Guinness, Tim Keller, DA Carson, Nancy Pearcy, Cornelius Plantinga and even popular level authors like Mark Driscoll, Andy Crouch and Dick Staub. Being somewhat of a junkie in this area of study I went ahead and clicked the Amazon.com buttons and had Amazon Prime send Tullian Tchividjian's Unfashionable my way. I have been pleasantly surprised.

In many ways Tchividjian says little that is new in this discussion but what he does give us is a book that can be read by anyone.  So often Christ/Culture treatments can get lost in theory, making more arm chair quarterbacks than missional practitioners.  Tchividjian is a pastor, a guy who is shaping these ideas in a real community and it comes through loud and clear in this volume. 

The subtitle of the work gives his thesis right away: making a difference in the world by being different. Tchividjian's goal is both critical and constructive in this book.  He realizes that there are great perils for the church that chooses to mimic the world to the point that it simply IS the world.  He also realizes that the church must understand and know culture in order to be a resistance community within it.  Too often the church falls off a cliff in one direction or another becoming either worldly or absent among the people she is called to connect with the gospel. On page 81 he sums up well the difficulties of living as God's people in a world that is in rebellion with its maker:

We've found it easy, as Andy Crouch points out in his book Culture Making to condemn culture, critique culture and consume culture. All too often we are guilty of cocooning, combating or conforming.

Tchividjian seems to strive for the right balance. He advocates walking in the world as a peculiar, unfashionable people who are set apart as different even as we live among the various tribes of culture. 

Strengths

I found several things to my liking in reading Tchividjian's work.  First, it is very approachable and could be read by scholar, pastor or layperson. Furthermore, the book's division is very helpful and drew me into the work. He begins with a section entitled "The Call" which chronicles God's call on Christians to be different in the world.  He begins with his personal story of being a prodigal from a godly home who left the church for the party life on South Beach. His return was not because church was cool, but it was so different as to be compelling and attractive.  This brought me right into the work.  Following the autobiographical discussion was a treatment on how we need not to clamor to be so cool that we are no longer salt and light in the world.  His focus on this generations desire for transcendent reality and connecting with something bigger than the normal was helpful for me as we are forming a culture in the early days of a church plant.

The second part of the work, "The Commission", is also the most meaty and perhaps most controversial.  In this section Tchividjian, following many other thinkers, sees God's work through the church as comprising more than simply saving souls for heaven, but taking part in manifesting the Kingdom on earth. We sojourn to God's final consummating of all things building kingdom culture along the way. We are to participate in the cultural mandate to steward and rule creation and to manifest a Kingdom culture in the here and now. In no way does he mute a conversionist gospel that calls individual sinners to repent and find salvation in Jesus Christ. What he does advocate is calling the church, made up of these saved souls, to create and redeem culture in the time appointed for us. Some may find this difficult to see in the Bible (case in point is Tim Challies review of the same work) but I find it very much the story of the Bible.

1. God creates and give man stewardship and vice regency with him on the earth.  We are to populate and cultivate (See Genesis 1-2)
2. Our sin and rebellion brings curse on creation and the work of our hands...yet we are called to populate and create even after the fall, after the flood (See Genesis 9)
3. God's decree to redeem a people comes through his covenant promises, is culminated with Jesus and extends through his people bringing the gospel
4. God's church is a community that represents the good news of the Kingdom in space and time - it is to multiply and teach what Jesus taught to others - this includes working jobs, loving people, making babies and building new communities as God saves new people.
5. God will make all things new through Jesus in the end - the culmination of creation is a new heavens and new earth.

So I guess I am unsure of what Mr. Challies and others are objecting to when they say that creating culture or a cultural commission is lacking in the Bible. I don't see how Christianity can be lived otherwise. 

One note of warning. Though Tchividjian warns against it (see pages 62, 63) there are others in his tradition that have advocated, using some of the same Kingdom Now thinking, for theonomy. I am thankful that he actually deemphasises politics and only calls for cultural renewal through persuasion and never compulsion.  My fear is that sometimes the "bringing the Kingdom to earth" sort of thinking ends up relying on the work of woman and men rather than the final coming of Jesus.

Part 3 of the book that is simple entitle "The Community" and is a discussion of what a counter cultural community looks like. Drawing on Paul's letter to the Ephesians Tchividjian lays out how we are called to a different sort of life now.  We are teaching through Ephesians right now at our church and when we get to the second half of that book I will be rereading Tullian's observations and application of this epistle. 

Finally, Tchividjian provides a great bibliography/reading list for those interested in the discussion of Christ and Culture. All the usual suspects are there but having these in one place is a great blessing.  Furthermore, he cites works from diverse theological perspectives which is always a plus in this discussion. Case in point is that you find Timothy Keller and Stanley Hauerwas on the same list.  Now on to a very small weaknesses observed.

Weaknesses

To be honest, I liked the book and only noted one minor annoyance for me. On several occasions Tchividjian refers to the Bible as "a manual for life." Now I understand him to mean that the Scripture has guidance for everyday living but this metaphor can be a bit misleading to some and can lead to misuses of the Bible. The Bible is primarily a revelation of Jesus Christ, God's character and his work in redeeming all things. I have avoided "the Bible as manual" and "the Bible as playbook" in the past several years as it leads to Christians seeing it as a "how to book" rather than a book that reveals God, brings life and then calls us to live in wisdom in light of its teaching. My issue is with the choice of metaphor more so than how Tchividjian handles the Bible. 

Conclusion

Tullian Tchividjian has written a book that strikes a needed balance between punking out to being the "cool church" in the world and being an irrelevant enclave speaking to no-one but those within its own walls.  The book is not only a balanced treatment of Christians relating to culture, it will also be accessible to a broad audience. Though there are more meaty and scholarly treatments around, this volume is one I would hand to people in my church to see the holistic calling God has on our community.  We are to preach the gospel that saves sinners and then live as an inbreaking of a new Kingdom in the here and now.  This affects how we live, eat, work, play, study, think, recreate and create. The mandate God has on us is to make disciples - converts to Jesus Christ who learn from him and then participate in God's work until he comes again.  This means keeping the two hands of gospel proclamation (atoning work of Jesus that saves from sin, death and hell) and Kingdom demonstration (including shaping culture) alive and well in our midst.

Recommended...

Furniture for all people...

My boys Rhett and Link have another funny commercial running online...this one is a for a furniture store that sells furniture for black people, white people...and all people.

Bitterness...

Jonathan Phipps, my former colleague with the Inversion Fellowship just sent out an e-mail with a great quote on bitterness. The quote was from a message by my brother Ray McKelvey, now leading the teaching charge with the upside crew in Nashville.  Very strong truth here:

Bitterness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die...

I can't tell you how striking, simple and true that statement is...I have seen this first hand.  Ponder this well my friends and bring your bitterness to the cross of Christ and let it die - lest your soul languish under its weight.

Ordo Salutis - Guest Post by Scott C. Jones

Today we have a guest posting by Scott Jones - a friend of mine from Jacob's Well.  Scott did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University and then a ThM from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.

Enjoy - RSM

------------------------------------------------

Have you ever asked a doctor or dentist what they are about to do to you? I do this constantly. I don't like to be pricked, prodded, or generally be in pain without knowing why. Asking these sorts of questions allows me to anticipate and understand the pain I am currently experiencing. I imagine others feel the same way and like to generally know what is being done to their bodies before they lay prostrate on the surgeon's table or the dentist's chair. I wonder if you've ever had similar questions about the process of Christian conversion. What exactly happens when we are converted, saved, born again, come to faith, accept Christ, welcome Jesus into our hearts or whatever other term you'd use for becoming a Christian? You may be surprised to learn that Scripture actually suggests that there is a discernible and universal process to becoming a Christian. While the way in which we arrive at conversion varies widely in terms of circumstances and timing, the spiritual process of conversion - so Scripture suggests - is the same in each case. Read, for instance, Romans 8:29-30:

²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

These verses outline, in part, the process of salvation. However, the elements mentioned in these verses, so the rest of the New Testament suggests, are a partial list at best. As such, theologians have discussed for centuries about how exactly to order all the elements we'll discuss below. The largest disagreements concern the proper causal relationships between the various parts of salvation. The fancy Latin phrase that describes this classic teaching of the Church is ordo salutis (literally: order of salvation).

There are two prominent schools of thought on the ordo salutis, the Reformed view and the Arminian view. The classic Reformed order is (we'll outline each of these elements, in detail, below): election / predestination, followed by effectual call, regeneration, conversion, justification, sanctification, and glorification. The Arminian view is as follows: evangelistic call, followed by conversion, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. The crucial difference in these systems is primarily the ordering of conversion and regeneration. In the Reformed view, faith and repentance are solely possible if the unbeliever is first acted upon by God. God gives a person the spiritual ability to confess their sin and put their trust in Christ. In the Arminian view the initiative is taken by the individual, rather than by God. In this view, fallen humanity retains the ability to receive or reject the gospel within ourselves. In the Reformed view God, so to speak, flicks on the spiritual lights, while to the Arminian, we have the power to decide to flick the switch or not. Given that the New Testament seems to emphasize God's role in salvation and his initiative in calling us to himself (see below), I prefer the Reformed view. Let's look at each of the elements in the Reformed ordo salutis.¹

Effectual Call

The term itself - and related terms like predestination, unconditional election, and foreknowledge - refers to God's sovereign choice of believers. Those whom God has elected, he calls and his calling is always effective in bringing about repentance (thus, effectual call). Paul emphasizes the calling of believers to repentance throughout his letters, for example in 1 Corinthians 1:9, "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." So also, Eph 1:4-5, "even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will." Salvation is wholly the work of a sovereign God who chooses us solely out of grace and adopts us as his children not due to any merit we ourselves possess. God chooses and God calls.

Regeneration

Once God has called an individual to himself, God also provides the spiritual capacity to respond to that call. Here we are directed to such texts as John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" and Acts 16:14 in which God opens the heart of Lydia to hear the message of Paul. The concept of "new birth" or being "born again" is related to the doctrine of regeneration. As Murray puts it, "Faith is a whole-souled act of loving trust and self-commitment. Of that we are incapable until renewed by the Holy Spirit."²

Conversion

The call and new birth of the individual then leads to the act of conversion, normally spoken of in terms of faith and repentance. One scholar defines conversion as, "our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Christ for salvation."³ Acts 16:31 puts it simply, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Far from merely a mental assent to a set of facts, this belief is a complete reorientation of one's life. In James 2 we have the fullest explanation of what is meant by "faith" in the Scriptures. To summarize the argument of that chapter: saving faith is a faith that is evident in how one lives.

Justification

Because of our faith, the most radical of things happens: God proclaims that we are righteous before him. Exactly how and when this happens is a matter of heated debate in current Biblical scholarship. Some prefer to define justification as the reality that because of our faith, we are joined with Christ and given his righteousness as the basis of our acceptance before God. In short, when God looks at us, he sees Jesus and thus, we are acceptable before him.⁴ This view is most nearly expressed in 2 Cor 5:21, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Others prefer to see justification as something that follows our union with Christ. Acts of faith that result from our initial conversion provide evidence of our membership in the people of God.⁵ Such texts as James 2:21, in which Abraham is said to have been "justified" when he offered Isaac on the altar, are given to support this view. Whichever view is held, the reality that Christ's work on the cross provides the means for our being acceptable before God is an undeniable Biblical concept and a breathtaking reality. There are many other things that happen as a result of our union with Christ and Scripture uses myriad images to describe them including: adoption, redemption, propitiation, expiation, and reconciliation, among others.⁶

Sanctification

One of the great benefits of our salvation is the gift of the Holy Spirit. At our conversion, the third person of the Trinity comes to dwell in us and empowers us to begin living out the implications of our reconciled relationship with God. As a result of the Holy Spirit's presence, the believer now increasingly experiences the reformation of both her outward behavior and inward desires. The believer is encouraged to increasingly take advantage of this new way of life (Eph 5:18). The old patterns of sin and the enslavement to past desires are progressively replaced by new patterns of righteous living and a renewed passion for God's way of life (Galatians 5). As one of my seminary professors liked to say, the Christian is not guaranteed perfection overnight but progression over a lifetime.

Glorification

This is the final stage of our salvation in which we once and for all eternity are resurrected to new life in the new heavens and the new earth (Rom 8:23; 1 Peter 1:3-5). Aspects of this final stage include full, uninhibited communion with the Triune God (1 John 3:2), the perfection of our bodies (1 Cor 15:35-49), ultimate, lasting and unmistakable vindication (Rom 5:9-10) and our spiritual, moral, and intellectual perfection (Col 1:22; 1 Cor 13:12).⁷ This glorious truth is once again best framed by Murray who says of glorification:

God is not the God of the dead but of the living and therefore nothing short of resurrection to the full enjoyment of God can constitute the glory to which the living God will lead his redeemed.⁸

Conclusion

This is what has happened, is happening, and will happen to those who put their trust in Christ for salvation. No matter what circumstance brings us into his family, the reality of God's initiative and the remarkable benefits of the salvation he accomplished for us deserve nothing short of our utmost worship. If you are a member of the people of God, these are his benefits to you and we should live joyously and with great hope in light of them. There is nothing better than being called, regenerated, converted, justified, sanctified, and ultimately glorified by God. This is what it means to be the Church, this is who we are because of what Christ has done, what the Holy Spirit is doing and what God will do on the last day. Praise God for his grace to me, to you, to Jacob's Well and to all the people of God!

Praying that you share in the riches of God's salvation,

Scott C. Jones

Notes

¹ The classic reference on this system is John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1955)

² Ibid., 86.

³ Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1994), 709.

⁴ For this view see John Piper, The Future of Justification (Crossway: Wheaton, 2007), in which Piper defends a more orthodox view of justification, largely against Wright's view (see below).

⁵ For this view see N.T. Wright, Justification (SPCK Publishing: London , 2009), which is a response to Piper's book above.

⁶ For a description of each of these (and several others) see Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Death by Love (Crossway: Wheaton, 2008)

⁷ Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology 2^nd Ed. (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 1998), 1010-1011.

⁸  Murray, Redemption, 175.