The Grand Miracle

It is December 24 as I write this and I find myself unavoidably contemplating the Christmas holiday and what it means. Christmas falls on Tuesday this year, so yesterday was Sunday. The sermon was in regard to the virgin birth of Christ and how many folks in our world have difficulty with the very idea of miracles of any kind, let alone something like the virgin birth of Christ. Newsweek, in their usual anti-faith fashion, had as their cover story last week an article by a skeptic that was focused on how there are other non-Biblical stories about Jesus' childhood that are commonly rejected and so the virgin birth would also be rejected if it hadn't been repeated so many times. The article concludes that holidays and religion are fine for those who want them, but don't take them too seriously. To that I would say, to borrow from Scrooge: Humbug!

This is not to say that the virgin birth is not an issue. It is part of the Christian faith, and the faith most definitely involves miracles. As C. S. Lewis has said, it is indeed one Grand Miracle. Christmas,to me, gives us a glimpse of that thing that Lewis calls the Grand Miracle: the Incarnation of Christ. However, it is not the Virgin Birth that is the heart of that Grand Miracle. The Virgin Birth strikes me as primarily the pathway or mechanism. The miracle itself is much bigger than that, and those who gag at the idea of the Virgin Birth seem to me to have missed the point. For the God of the universe, who is outside of nature and beyond nature to take on flesh and enter into His own creation to make Himself known, and not just to make Himself known but to experience death in order to conquer death, that is a far greater miracle than for a virgin to conceive. Lewis calls this taking on of flesh, the Incarnation, the Grand Miracle because all the other miracles of the Bible either point to this, demonstrate it, or result from it. It is the heart of the issue. God became man to rescue man and to make God known. That is the specifically Christian miracle. Other religions have the occasional healing or other miracle here and there, but nothing like this. And the resurrection of Christ, which is rightly a matter of great focus in Christianity, depends on this Grand Miracle.

The virgin birth is, of course, consistent with this matter of the Incarnation of Christ. That God would come into this world through a pure vessel and would be different from all other men is required. But that is not the main issue. The issue is whether there is in fact someone much greater than nature, someone who is outside of the natural world and yet enormously concerned about this world and its people. And the issue then is whether that Someone did in history step into this world to save us from ourselves.

This is much greater than simply a virgin birth. Coming by means of a virgin birth is a small matter in this context. To reject Christianity based on a virgin birth seems to me rather like rejecting the idea of freedom and democracy because you don't like the foreign policy of America. It misses the point. If you are to reject something it should at least be on the basis of its central teaching.

That entire story of the Incarnation is what Christmas celebrates. It is indeed a Grand Miracle. In the midst of the tragedies of the world around us it reminds me that Christ also experienced tragedy and overcame it as a foretaste of putting tragedy behind us for good. And so I get a small glimpse of the Grand Miracle each year at Christmas. I hope you do as well. Merry Christmas!

Inflatable Christmas

They are all around us: Frosty the Snowman, Snoopy, Christmas trees, and a great many things that don't seem like they are about Christmas at all like rabbits and other animals. They spring up from the ground as darkness falls, as timers turn on fans that inflate them with air and turn on spotlights. Inflatable Christmas has arrived. The rabbi down the street now has an inflatable Hanukiah lamp in his yard, too, having been drawn in by it all.

I enjoy Christmas greatly. I enjoy Christmas trees and especially Christmas music. We generally attend at least 2 choir events for Christmas music and sometimes do more. I listen to the music in my car and with headphones in the gym. I enjoy many of the traditions of the season, including indoor decorations, but I do not like the 'inflatable Christmas'.

It was during my childhood that outdoor decorating with lights first became really popular. Businesses had done some of that prior to those years but private homes really did not get into that in a big way until the 1960's. Prior to then there would be doors with wreaths and  light poles wrapped with greenery or ribbon and some mailboxes that were decorated but not much beyond that. Then the electric lights took hold! I at first found them novel and sometimes nice, but it began to get overdone and gaudy over time. Nowadays I refuse to put up outdoor lights as I find most of it neither attractive nor in the true spirit of the season. The inflatable things strike me as even less desirable.

I don't write this to complain about the neighbors, though. I am not offended or angry about their decorations. Perhaps it adds some joy to the season for them. I find it more sad than offensive; it just seems to miss the point for the most part. Very little of it draws your thoughts to the way the entire world was changed by the birth of a baby in a remote corner of the ancient world, and that is the only reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

Perhaps the enchantment with the inflatable Christmas yard decorations will pass as a fad. I hope so. It is not a huge issue but it does make me think that we have our focus in the wrong place.

Advent and Miracles

The December 2012 issue of First Things magazine includes an article by Stephen Barr about randomness and whether the existence of randomness is somehow an argument against creation of the universe by God. He makes a good argument that it is not an evidence against a creator God, and along the way there are some brief comments about miracles as events that 'contravene' the normal laws of nature.  His article is a very good one in regard to the meaning of 'randomness', but I agree more with C.S. Lewis on the matter of miracles.

To 'contravene' a law of nature would mean to violate it or contradict it or oppose it. Lewis argues, though, that the miracles of the Bible do not so much violate nature as they add to it. For instance, there are 2 Old Testament instances of things that involve the sun, one where the shadow moves backwards as a sign to Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:8) and one where the day was extended for battle for Joshua (Joshua 10:13). Now to do this in contradiction to nature would involve something like reversing the earth's rotation (for the shadow) or slowing it down dramatically if not stopping it (for the extended day). Both of those would cause very severe consequences besides what is mentioned in the Bible, things like enormous tidal waves wreaking enormous destruction around the world. To prevent all of those effects would require a great many other miracles as well, miracles arguably greater than the one getting talked about in the text. There does not seem to be archaeological evidence of those 'side effects', though, and it would seem rather ham-handed of God to cause that kind of destruction in order to create a local event in Israel. But what if God added to nature instead of contradicting natural laws? What if He added light from another source to extend the day for Joshua? What if he added light from a different source and different geometry to change the shadow? Neither would involve global side effects and neither would contradict the natural course of the earth. The Bible says quite a bit about 'uncreated light' (as it is referred to in 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' by J.S. Bach) emanating from God after all.

I don't know what mechanism God used for those miracles, but it does seem to me that there could be mechanisms available to God that do not necessarily go against His own laws in nature, the laws of nature that He created. One can make similar arguments for the miracles of turning water to wine, healing the sick, and so on. It could well be that our current world includes only some of the possible 'laws of nature', more of which could be normal in the world the come, the world we call 'heaven'.  Miracles could be simply a glimpse of what will one day be 'normal'.

As we enter the Advent season I am reminded of the great miracle of Christ's birth, God taking on flesh to be born of a woman. God did not contradict the course of a normal pregnancy and normal birth; He did not create His Son out of the ocean waves like the pagan myths whose so-called miracles clearly contradict nature. He did not eliminate the need for a family for this Child to grow up in, a mom and a dad for guidance, a childhood to 'grow in favor with both God and man'. Instead He added a miraculous conception that did not contradict nature but added something new to it. He also added angels to announce it to those who had 'eyes to see and ears to hear', and magi to bring special provision for an otherwise poor family. 'Blessed are the poor'. That poor family, the family of Joseph and Mary, was blessed indeed! And blessed are we when we pause to contemplate these things in this miraculous season!

Arrogance and Meritocracy

The fall 2012 issue of The City includes a review of the book Twilight of the Elites:America after Meritocracy. The reviewer, Walter Russell Mead of Bard College, finds himself not as far left as the author but agrees with the author that the idea of rule by 'the best and brightest' doesn't work out the way we hoped it would. Jefferson thought that this would be a 'natural aristocracy' and would be the democratic alternative to the European inherited-aristocracy approach. The book points out that this natural aristocracy may not be as democratic as he hoped.

One key reason for this, according to both the book and the reviewer, is arrogance. The reviewer summarizes this point from the book like this: 'The new elites don't feel guilty about their power; they didn't inherit it. They earned it. They are smarter than everybody else and they deserve to rule---and in their own minds at least, they also deserve the perks that power brings. Money, fame, access: bring it on.'

This kind of arrogance strikes me as part of what I find so loathsome in the political left. As the reviewer above points out, there have been mostly 2 groups in the left: the populists and the social technocrats. The populists have tended to be working class or agrarian 'little people' who felt a need to band together against the 'monopolists' like Rockefeller, Morgan, and Carnegie, while the technocrats tend to be upper middle class or upper class reformers (many of them in the university). It is the technocrats that end up as the 'meritocracy'.  The 'little people' don't seem to recognize the disdain in which they are held by these technocrats. I have said before that some of my extended family who grew up during the Great Depression seem to still be voting for Roosevelt, and they are to my mind in this 'little people' populist stream who do not see how their values have been abandoned by the meritocracy.  The arrogance of the success of these technocrats along with the power that has resulted from their success at being 'the best and brightest' demonstrates that, as always, 'power corrupts'.

The review does not mention this but there is a similar arrogance on the political right, by those who earned their success in business rather than in the government meritocracy. Just as political elites feel no guilt about their power, these feel no guilt about their wealth. They earned it, they worked hard for it, they didn't inherit it, so bring it on! This is a different kind of  'meritocracy', one based on hard work and entrepreneurship rather than education and political savvy. I also find this kind of 'self-made man' attitude disgusting, and I have seen it too often in business executives.

 These 2 forms of arrogance, one on the political left and the other on the political right, seem to be two sides of  the same coin. That coin is arrogance based on the idea that we are the prime mover in life. The left hurls accusations at the business world that they 'did not do it' (in Obama's recent words); the right hurls accusations at the government technocrats for ever more efforts to remove freedom of decisions from the legislatures or individuals and into bureaucracies. Both sides have a point, but both sides are guilty of similar sorts of arrogance. Both kinds of arrogance have been all too visible in the current presidential campaign. Both are a danger to anyone seeking to follow Christ.

'Blessed are the poor in spirit' says Matt. 5:3; 'I am gentle and humble in heart' says Jesus in Matt.11:29. Humility displaces arrogance. The reviewer above, in discussing  the arrogance problem, points out that Thomas Aquinas noted that in the light of God's presence everything he had ever written was so much straw. Humility is based on recognizing the truth that God doesn't think any of us is all that smart, and the difference between the greatest and the least of us is quite small from His perspective. None of us has room for arrogance in God's presence, and that should enable us to see how very equal we are from His point of view. Humility is not based on some greatness of attitude on our part, but rather is based on the truth of how small we are compared to our Creator. 

Were we to recognize how small our differences are from God's viewpoint it would be a great equalizer and a great unifier. Unity demands humility. Our nation is very divided currently.  The sin of  arrogance on both sides of the political divide strikes me as a big part of the problem.

An Introvert's view of Evangelism

I wrote recently about introversion and extroversion and how much of the church, as well as our current modern culture, holds extroversion as an ideal. As a result much of the teaching on evangelism is tilted towards an extrovert's point of view and with an emphasis on using a salesman's approach. Much of what is taught about witnessing is structured around making a pitch, asking for the sale, and closing the sale. For instance, you talk through the 4 points of the Four Spiritual Laws or a similar outline, ask if they are ready to make a commitment, and if they are ready then you jointly do a prayer of commitment with the person and set up a follow-up time. This sometimes works out well for someone who has already been prepared by the Spirit, but other times it is not so appropriate and can be quite awkward at times. When it is done as a 'cold call' (again, the language of salesmanship) it is very often awkward and unfruitful and at times drives people away. So, I feel one has to be very sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit on this to back off when it should be backed off. I also think that introverts object to this kind of approach far more than extroverts.

Many folks who are focused on evangelism find this line of thought offensive themselves. They consider it a requirement to present the whole gospel as often as possible with little regard for whether they drive people away by their method. If the gospel is offensive, so be it, they reason; people took offense at Jesus, too. There is some validity to this in that we should be looking for those whom God has prepared to hear, and be ready to present Christ when that occasion arises. However, a great many who take this 'salesmanship' approach do not realize how many other Believers also find them to be offensive. They are more concerned about fulfilling their perceived obligation than in actually furthering the gospel message. Nor do they often realize how a sales approach by its very nature causes people to distrust them.

This is because to many folks, including me, any salesman is immediately suspect.  The basic motivation of any salesman is to sell as much as he can and to maximize his earnings. In a case of a commissioned salesman, his goal is to maximize his commission. That makes his goal automatically in conflict with his customer to a large degree since his customer seeks to pay the lowest price he can for what he wants. You tend not to trust someone who is trying to empty your wallet! I think that introverts in particular distrust salesmen, especially if they are very pushy in trying to 'close the sale'.

While someones acceptance of the gospel is not a commission, it is nonetheless true that some try to earn 'rewards' in heaven by doing evangelism, and some gain personal satisfaction in 'winning' as if it were a game or competition.  While these are not monetary payoffs, they can be emotional payoffs, and cause for the person to whom they witness to distrust them. Introverts in particular rarely will make a spur of the moment decision on something this important, requiring time to ponder and analyze it, as well as understand and learn about it. Being pushed by a salesman trying to close the sale is quite irritating to them as a result. At some point, after they have examined it, it is fine to ask for a decision, but not too quickly.

As a result, I think that a great many introverts find this kind of sales approach to the gospel to be demeaning to the gospel. In the first place many introverts will reject both the salesman and his message when pushed for a sale when they are not ready for that. Then there is also the fact that this sales approach often results in a partial understanding of the gospel that is really just 'cheap grace'. I think the sales approach to the gospel has strongly contributed to the idea that many folks seem to have that being a Christian consists simply of praying some simple prayer and then continuing to live your life the same way you always did.

This is not to say that never asking for a decision is OK. Most of us introverts still have to 'step up' to make the point that a personal decision is necessary. And it is still important to bring up the subject of the gospel and not just depend on our lives to be the witness. Explanation is still needed. But it does not make sense to me to essentially demand that somehow introverts must become extroverts in order to be 'good Christians'. There is more than one way to spread the gospel.

So, I think that true conversion requires a fundamental change of heart, and most introverts will not make that kind of decision in a sales-call situation. Most will distrust the salesman too much, and most will require time and thought to consider it fully. Extroverts may be more open to a sales approach just as they are also more open to being salesmen themselves than introverts are. However, even they need to be careful of avoiding a 'cheap grace' approach to the gospel.

The passing of a generation

My parents are both from large families, one having 10 siblings and the other 12. My father died 8 years ago and last week was the funeral of one of his sisters; of the 11 children just one remains alive now. My mother's sister passed away later during the night after the funeral home visitation for my dad's sister.  My mom is one of 13 (13 that lived; another 5 died in infancy or were stillborn) but now 5 of the 13 have passed and many of the others are in poor health. The generation of my parents is rapidly passing away.

This is yet another season of life it seems. We have been hearing about the veterans from World War 2 and how they all will soon be gone. My dad was one of those, having gone from Normandy to Berlin during WWII. Still, seeing so many in our extended family confront death does give pause to consider this season of life. When I finished college it seemed like everyone was getting married and there were tons of weddings to attend. A few years later there were babies being born to so many folks that it was hard to keep up with all the new babies among friends and relatives.  Now it seems there is another season, a sadder one that contains too many funerals.

As I have been looking back on the lives of my parents and their siblings I am reminded of what they lived through. They grew up in the Great Depression and then World War II. Their stories of what that was like formed the backdrop for much of what they sought to impress upon me and my generation about the value of work, the value of money, the importance of pulling together when things are hard, and about faith in the midst of trial and hardship.  I vividly recall sitting as child in my grandparents living room around the pot-bellied stove listening to the adults talk about the Depression, the war, the things they did to get by like trapping for furs, fishing and hunting to supply meat for the table, and the various trials and adventures of living on a farm in the Depression and during the rationing of the war. Yes, as in the John Denver song about 'Grandma's Feather-bed' they would also 'spit and chew' (King Bee twist tobacco was the chew of choice for my grandparents, as I recall). They wanted to spare us, their children, from those kinds of hardships but still hoped we would learn to share their values that were learned through that experience. In our family at least, the family itself was also highly valued and through our growing up my parents and their siblings made sure we often had reunions for the extended family to be together. For many years when a large group lived in the same area near Cincinnati we often had 3 or 4 reunion events every summer at Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day and Christmas. Many of my mom's brothers boarded with us for a while after finishing high school while they found a job and 'got on their feet', as they moved from the farm to the city to find work. That is what family was for.

The family is more scattered now in differing locations; reunions are rare; the kind of closeness we experienced as I grew up in the extended family seems to be a thing of the past. The funerals this past week reminded me of all that. Our busy lives seem to have less time for family, especially extended family. I don't know if that can be re-instituted but I do feel we have lost something. As these family members pass I pause to remember how they were an important part of my life and the life of our whole extended family. They will be missed by many of us. Their legacy remains in the lives they touched.

Introverts in the Evangelical Church

I just completed reading a book entitled  Quiet:The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.  The author is a former lawyer who was apparently successful (Harvard Law, affluent practice in New York) but unhappy with the match of her personality to her work and went on a search for a number of years to understand herself and introverts in general.  The book is not written from a Christian perspective: she is from a Jewish family and speaks about living with her boyfriend (unmarried) and makes some other comments that generally indicate a philosophy that seems to think that whatever comes naturally is 'good'; there is not much indication of any acceptance that nature could be fallen or sinful. Nonetheless she has done her homework on introversion and its counterpart extroversion and makes some good points.

I found the discussion of both the church and MBA programs most interesting. My disdain for MBA programs is well known among my close colleagues at work since I consider the content of MBA programs to be closer to a 'certificate' program than a true professional degree like law or medicine. The well-defined body of knowledge is just not there. In this book, the author's time exploring the Harvard MBA program and interviewing some students there betrayed yet another issue: a clear bias toward extroversion as if that were a skill.  It has been documented more than once that MBA students are much more likely to cheat than other graduate programs, and the glut of MBAs on Wall Street and their role in the 2008 financial crisis have raised questions about the integrity of the kinds of folks attracted to the 'elite' MBA programs. While the book does not resolve those questions it does reinforce a bias in those programs towards speaking out more than thinking deeply.  This idea of 'leadership' leaves a lot to be desired.

Her overall thesis is that around the start of the 20th century there was a major shift away from the historic 'culture of character' to a culture of impressions, in which the impression you make is more important than your overall character. Others have made similar observations, but she connects this to a shift to a more dramatic bias towards extroverts in leadership roles than had been prior to that time. Folks like Lincoln and Washington were likely introverts and may have been rejected as leaders in more recent times. I think this thesis has some merit, though it is probably not the whole story.

The section on the evangelical church, though she is an 'outsider' to the evangelical culture, also makes some good points. Much of the discussion is based on Saddleback Church where Rick Warren is pastor.  I have not been there, but she concludes that 'evangelical culture ties together faithfulness with extroversion'. Again, I think there is some truth to her assertion. It was clear to me back when I attended seminary that evangelical churches do not want pastors to be theologians or scholars so much as they want salesmen. Services leave little room for contemplation and quiet; some places make extroversion (specifically, an 'E' as the first letter in your Myers-Briggs personality assessment) a requirement for consideration.  At one point she quotes a senior 'priest' (since she is Jewish, it is not clear to me whether this was an evangelical church or not since most evangelical churches don't have priests, though a few do) advises his parishes 'if the first letter isn't an E ' in their Myers-Briggs, 'then think twice....I am sure our Lord was an extrovert!'  Then there is evangelism training, where everyone who is not making every chance contact into a presentation of the gospel is clearly unfaithful to the Great Commission!

She comments on how the church service at Saddleback reminds her of the 'Unleash the Power Within' seminar that Tony Robbins sells. Ouch! That is the seminar that tries to cajole everyone to do the 'Firewalk' (on hot coals) at the end (and recently lost a lawsuit due to injuries during one of those fire walks)!

I have concluded in recent years that some of my misunderstandings while growing up about what it means to be a Christian are as much a result of the cultural bias toward extroversion as they were to anything else. As a child, it was clear that a highly emotional and public 'conversion' was the preferred 'testimony', but that was not my experience. As a college student it was clear that doing 'cold call' evangelism was the preferred idea of a 'soul winner' but that was not how I came to faith nor was it the kind of witness that I saw bearing fruit among my friends. As I listened to evangelical preachers through the years, it has been clear that most are better at being salesmen than at being scholars. All of those display a bias to what the book calls 'the extrovert ideal'.

I have begun to think that perhaps the Reformed scholars, who are more scholars than salesmen, do better work in theology than most evangelicals because they have avoided 'the extrovert ideal'. In so doing, they actually have time to think instead of just talking all the time!

The Cheap Seats

I recently was in Wisconsin on business, arriving in Milwaukee mid-afternoon, The Brewers were in town and the colleague I was traveling with had not been to Miller Park there, so we decided to see the game that night. Neither he nor I are big Brewers fans but it was a perfect evening for baseball and so we decided that would be a fun way to have dinner, grazing at the ballpark instead of going to a restaurant. Also, we are both engineers and find the stadium with it's retractable roof interesting enough all by itself.

Arriving early at the stadium,  I asked at the ticket window what the cheapest seats might be. The agent started with the $30 seats but we quickly got down to the $15 level. I was still hesitating, as was my colleague. We were clearly out-of-towners so I don't know that he wanted to offer it up, but he finally allowed that there were a few other tickets available: the Bob Uecker Obstructed View seats. Those were priced at one dollar. These are limited in number in just one section of the park and only available at the door, they cannot be reserved in advance.

One dollar! Now that was more like what we had in mind! The name alone made me want them! Bob Uecker is something of a tradition in Milwaukee as he has done the radio play-by-play for the Brewers for many years and also played there briefly in his brief major league career. These seats are reminiscent of his seat up in the 'nose bleed' section in one beer commercial he did a number of years ago as they are in the top section of the stadium underneath the mechanism that opens and closes the roof. There are 2 large steel beams that hold up that mechanism, so this is the only small area of the stadium where a few seats have an obstructed view. They are right behind home plate, so they still are not such bad seats.

But since we were early we decided to sit down in the Terrace level during batting practice and we could leave if folks showed up with tickets for those seats. No one showed up, so we got some good seats for a dollar! Unfortunately, right behind us some folks showed up in about the second inning who were obnoxious, and one woman in particular was a combination of loud-mouthed, rude, and somewhat obscene all in one. Since she was at least 50 years old, I expected at least slightly more maturity. No such luck.

Since we had gone to game on a lark, and had finished grazing on brats and nachos, after 5 innings we had our fill of obnoxious ballpark fans. We had a 2 hour drive still ahead of us, too, so we left. I was reminded, though, of many things I have come to dislike about professional sports. In this case we avoided the ridiculous cost of tickets nowadays for a ballgame, but were unable to avoid the seemingly ever-present obnoxious drunken fans. When that is added onto the steroid-inflated players and the greed of both the players and owners I find myself less and less interested in professional sports as time goes on.  I enjoyed looking around this interestingly constructed stadium, the perfect summer evening weather that night, and even the junk food. But overall my feeling that the game has lost its way was reconfirmed.  So I will continue to be one who only very rarely visits a ballpark, even in the cheap seats.

Reflections on Cheap Grace

Reading the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer has given me a bit more insight into his comments about 'cheap grace' in his book The Cost of Discipleship that I did not appreciate just from reading about it in The Cost of Discipleship.

The first insight has to do with his Lutheran upbringing in Germany. Eric Metaxas, the author of Bonhoeffer:Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy comments on this several times, such as this: 'After four hundred years of taking for granted that all Germans were Lutheran Christians, no one really knew what Christianity was anymore' in Germany (page174 in the paperback edition).  Again in the opening of chapter 14, 'He (Bonhoeffer) had begun to see  that the overemphasis on the cerebral and intellectual side of theological training had produced pastors who didn't know how to live as Christians.' Again on page 249, 'But how could one hear the voice of God, much less obey, when prayer and meditating on the Scriptures were not even being taught in German seminaries? Neither were worship and singing taught.'  It is entirely possible that Bonhoeffer himself may not have been a born-again believer until after he had finished his doctorate, had served in churches, and then came to America for a time. In a letter Bonhoeffer wrote in 1936 he wrote this, '..something happened that changed and transformed my life to the present day. For the first time I discovered the Bible...I had often preached about it--but I had not yet become a Christian...Also I had never prayed or prayed only very little. For all my loneliness, I was quite pleased with myself. The Bible, and in particular the Sermon on the Mount, freed me from that.'  While he never became quite comfortable with the personalized faith of the German pietists, he clearly came to see that the 'Christianity' of much of the German church was not Christianity at all but rather a mere intellectual interest for some and even less than that for most. To call this 'Christianity' was cheap indeed.

Yet there was more than that, too.  There was also the way certain well-meaning evangelicals tried to convert Hitler by first appeasing him. One August Buchman,  a New York evangelical pastor and leader of the Oxford Movement  was a case in point. Buchman had tried to evangelize both Himmler and Hitler. Hitler, of course, claimed that it was God's Providence that was making him able to carry out his murder of the Jews, and in public often said things like his declaration in 1933 that he would make Christianity 'the basis of our collective morality' even as he was beginning to persecute the Jews and anyone supporting them. Yet Buchman would later state, 'I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism.' The ease by which Buchman was taken in by Hitler's pseudo-Christian propaganda was repulsive to those like Bonhoeffer who knew what was going on inside Germany. It cheapened the gospel enormously when it was offered up to Hitler as if it required no change, no repentance, no confrontation of the hatred that Hitler embodied.

When I first read The Cost of Discipleship I read it as an American for whom there had never been a state church in a nation that had never endured a Hitler. The free offer of salvation through grace by faith did not seem cheap to me. I did agree, though, that many who claimed to have 'accepted Christ' seemed to never have been changed by it, and that kind of grace did appear 'cheap' to me, and so I thought that was Bonhoeffer's main message. I think his message did include that, but the context of Nazi Germany also shows that it also was more than that. He objected to those who make God into a beggar to the likes of Hitler; those who grovel while putting pearls before swine and thereby make cheap that which in fact deserves the utmost respect. Hitler sought to use Christianity when it served his purpose even while killing those like Bonhoeffer who were truly Christian. To fail to recognize evil when it is before us and to make the gospel grovel before evil worldly power is to cheapen that which is beyond price. Bonhoeffer's opposition to Hitler and death as a result of that opposition embodied that view of a grace which is by no means cheap.

A few more Yosemite photos

Here are a few more favorite scenes from Yosemite National Park: The Grizzly Giant sequoia tree, a rainbow at the foot of Vernal Fall, and looking back toward Half Dome from the Tioga Road on the way to Tuolumne Meadows. The last one is a view towards Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View where we stopped for one last view of the valley as we were driving back to exit the park.

 

Yosemite Re-visited

When I talk about the National Parks in the U. S. with friends I usually mention that I think there are 3 that are unique in the world solely due to their natural splendor and the awe-inspiring handiwork of God on display there: those 3 are the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite.  Until last week I had only had occasion to spend a single day at Yosemite, in the Yosemite valley during winter when much of the park was closed due to snow. This time I, along with 3 family members, had a chance to spend about 5 days there in summer when the park was fully open, and this trip confirmed to me that indeed this is one of those 3 special places that all Americans should visit if they possibly can.

There are no doubt many other beautiful and awe-inspiring places in the world, most of which I will never visit. Yet, we know from those who do travel the world that the giant sequoias, the unique granite formations like Half Dome, and the dramatic waterfalls like Bridal Veil and Yosemite Falls are very, very special in the natural world. One thing that strikes me as I go through the Yosemite Valley is not just the uniqueness of specific features but the concentration of so many of them in a small area. With Bridal Veil Fall, Yosemite Falls (upper and lower), Vernal Fall, and Nevada Fall all close together in the valley, along with the giant formations of El Capitan, Half Dome, and the 3 Brothers all located in close proximity to each other the combined effect is literally jaw-dropping. The grand old hotel in the valley, the Ahwahnee, is named after the native American name for the valley  from the Miwok tribe which is said to mean ‘land of the gaping mouth’.  I agree: my mouth drops open reflexively when I drive through the valley and find one dramatic scene after another, a new one seemingly around every bend in the road.

While there we had a chance to do a day hike to Vernal Fall and part way to Nevada Fall. Above is a photo of Vernal Fall looking down from the John Muir trial. Below is a view from Glacier Point overlooking these 2 falls and Half Dome.  These are a small sampling of the many breathtaking scenes in the park. As I looked at both of these scenes I was reminded of Peter’s comment on the mount of transfiguration when he suggested building 3 tabernacles and just staying there! I do find it to be a place that is hard to leave, and I can appreciate why John Muir was so adamant in seeking to get the park expanded beyond just the valley to protect this amazing place.

The first time I saw it for a single day I knew that I needed to go back to spend more time there. Having re-visited it, I am even more convinced that this spot is unique and well worth the effort to go see it.

Bonhoeffer and the risk of state funding

I have been reading the biography of Deitrich Bonhoeffer recently. It is entitled Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Maryty, Prophet, Spy. It is sobering, to say the least, to read about the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the 1930’s. Over the past few years we have seen in the news numerous comparisons between the recession since 2008 and the Depression of the 1930’s. While the economic difficulties of recent times are by no means comparable to the Great Depression, the outcry of the political left would make you think that it is. In light of that rather indefensible hyberbole from those advocating ever more state spending and ever more state control of the economy, I have to admit some hesitance in bring up the subject. However, in reading Bonhoeffer I have been struck by the similarity of some things that Hitler did to consolidate his control with some of the things going on today.

Due to the economic collapse of the Weimar republic and the general feeling of the German people that they had been victimized by the Versailles treaty to end World War I, the people were all too willing to support Hitler’s moves. The fact that he was first elected democratically and then systematically moved to eliminate the democratic processes that elected him reminded me first of Iran and then of the things now going on Egypt and Libya. I have little hope that those recent overthrows of dictators will result in anything more than a different type of dictator.  So first I was reminded of how easy it is for new attempts at democracy to run amok, especially in situations where there is no heritage of democratic institutions. 

It is the story of how the German church was used by Hitler to his advantage, though, that was especially concerning to me. The German church had been losing its direction for at least a century before Hitler came along. Schliermacher had ushered in what we think of as ‘liberal’ theology, followed by Harnack and many others who had abandoned the deity of Christ, treated most of the Gospels as myth, and considered Jesus little more than a high-minded man who set a good example. They and their German schools of theology had led the way in rendering the German church little more than a psychological  support group. When Hitler began to co-opt the church for his own political purposes, most common folks in German had little understanding of what the gospel actually is  and as a result had no foundation to stand on. Nietsche and his concept of the Ubermensch (superman) had won out. The liberal theologians had removed the soul of the church before Hitler arrived; when he arrived, the church simply caved in and went along.  Today’s church in America has been slowly abandoning the historic reality of the scripture for many years and is getting to the point that it is no longer a voice that can confront the government to hold the government accountable. The scandals of child abuse, adultery,  lust for money in the ‘health/wealth’ preachers, and acceptance of the clearly immoral practices of abortion, homosexuality, easy divorce, etc. has rendered the voice of the church in America  nearly as impotent as it had become in German in the 1930’s.

A chill went down my spine, however, as I read about some specific Hitler moves beginning in 1933. The key was in putting limits on how state money could be used. In April of 1933 the Nazi’s barred Jews from being state attorneys in the patent office; then also in April they banned Jewish doctors from working in institutions funded by state insurance; they limited Jewish students allowed in state funded schools; then they banned Jewish dentists from institutions receiving state health insurance funding.  Since there was a state church in Germany, they soon banned anyone with Jewish ancestry from being ordained into the ministry regardless of if they had been raised Christian. One of Bonhoeffer’s seminary friends found himself in this problem.  Eventually they demanded that candidates for ordination take an oath of loyalty to Hitler before ordination; after all, the state paid the salary of these pastors.

I must admit that the constraints put on how the state money could be used began to remind me of how we now find ourselves in a situation where pharmacists who do not want to administer abortion pills are threatened, where some medical schools demand that all doctors in training take hands-on training in abortions, and where state funded universities demand that groups who oppose things like homosexuality and abortion must allow supporters of those things to join their groups or even run for office in those groups or be banned from the campus.  Many of these things are tied to receipt of state funds.

Bonhoeffer saw where this was leading with the Nazi state, and began opposing them in the 30’s; many of his friends and colleagues, even the eminent Karl Barth, did not.  I fear many of us today have the same sort of naivite about our own slow drift into the omnipotent state.

Defending gay marriage like slavery

Obama's announcement last week that he now favors allowing gay marriage was not particularly surprising to me in light of his political approach to the upcoming fall election, but the defense for it given by some of his supporters did come as something of a surprise.

The leftist parts of the church which have abandoned the idea of Biblical morality applauded him, as expected. What was not expected for me was how portions of the church that had claimed to maintain a Biblical view of morality decided to support his direction on this while at the same time admitting that it was in conflict with their moral compass. Some of those folks were interviewed on local television in Atlanta and said things like 'it's just legal stuff, it does not affect our morality'. Many of these folks were African American.

This point of view that somehow the law is not a matter of morality is one that creates much confusion. While it is true that to some degree not all things in the law are matters of morality, like some driving laws or tax laws, it is also true that most criminal law is inherently moral. Murder, stealing, assault, giving false testimony are all matters of both morality and law along with a great many other things. To think that gay marriage as a legal matter is 'just legal stuff' is to ignore the inherent moral nature of the law.

That alone is not what surprised me, however. What surprised me was hearing that kind of argument from African Americans in light of how very similar that argument is to some of the historic arguments that were offered in favor of legal slavery. Some who favored slavery allowed that African slaves were indeed human and would even admit them to some institutions like churches while still defending the idea that slavery could be moral. The equality of humans in the church and before God was one thing while economics was an entirely separate thing and slaves as legal property was 'just legal stuff'. It was shocking to me that African Americans would defend the legalizing of gay marriage with an argument so much like some of the arguments defending slavery.

Slavery is immoral. The arguments against it are fundamentally moral arguments. That was in fact the heart of the civil rights movement, the moral arguments. Gay marriage proponents seek to frame their arguments as civil rights arguments but have failed to be convincing in that effort because homosexual behavior is not inherent to the human condition in the way race is. Many in the African American churches of the U.S. recognize that and have therefore opposed homosexual marriage, and rightly so. To back away from that moral position now is to put their commitment to politics as a higher priority than their moral commitments. It is ironic that the arguments some have used to support Obama are so much like arguments used to try to keep them in slavery.

A day on the beach

We spent a few days at Hilton Head island recently, and I was reminded of the parable of the man who builds his house on the sand. That man, having built his house on the sand, found that when the storms came his house collapsed as the sand was washed away by the storm. Sand does not make a firm foundation. The day we drove over to Hilton Head from Atlanta was rainy and by the time we arrived it had cooled after the rain. It also was quite windy. The next day we went down to the beach and attempted to plant a beach umbrella in the sand. While the wind wasn't quite as bad as I imagine the raging storms to have been in Jesus' parable, it was still very windy; not quite like sitting in a sand storm but not exactly what you have in mind by the phrase 'a day at the beach' either. The umbrella, having no firm foundation, kept trying to blow away. We were able to keep it in place by sitting right next to it and holding onto it, but that was not exactly convenient. It just wasn't the kind of day at the beach we had imagined.

Now, I am not all that fond of the beach anyway. I'd rather be in the mountains than at the beach, but the beach is ok from time to time, in limited doses. I sunburn easily and don't really like being on the beach outside of the morning or evening for a walk. Being there to get wind-burned in addition to sunburned just adds to my overall negative viewpoint about the beach.

Still it was a reminder of lessons to be learned. As we left and saw the traffic jam headed onto the island I was reminded of how we seem to long for the beach despite the issues of being there. To me Hilton Head, in spite of the many awards for careful development, is too crowded and overbuilt. Since we had been there before the weekend, I was glad to be leaving as the crowd arrived. That crowd, though, wants to be at the beach! Seeing the dolphins swim by, eating the seafood, even spending a little (emphasis on 'little') time on the beach all have their appeal, even to me at times. My roots, though, just are not there. Like the umbrella, when the wind blows, I am ready to leave!

Easter and Pride

As Easter approaches I like to listen to Handel's Messiah, both the Christmas and Easter sections. One of the great things about that work is how the words come directly from Scripture. 'Worthy is the Lamb' stands out in the Easter portion, and the words come directly from Revelation  5:12, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.' One of the remarkable things about Christianity is that  Jesus' triumph over sin and death results from His humbling of Himself in self-sacrifice. His resurrection that we celebrate at Easter calls me to humble myself in view of His sacrifice and to confess that my pride is very often the main thing that keeps from experiencing God's presence.

In contemplating this I was reminded of the apostle Paul's words in Philippians 3 in which he recalls how as a Pharisee he had much pride in his own goodness but had come to realize that all of that was
'manure' (Phil. 3:8). He realized that based on Easter, on the death and resurrection of Jesus (Phil. 3:10).

So, after listening to Handel and contemplating this as I did my time on the treadmill, I was drawn to listen to a song by Caedmon's Call that I think captures this attitude of Paul. The song is entitled 'I Boast No More' and goes like this:

       No more my God, I boast no more
       Of all the duties I have done
       I quit the hopes I had before
       To trust the merits of Thy Son

       Now, for the loss I bear His name
       What was my gain I count my loss
       My former pride I call my shame
       And nail my glory to His cross

      Yes, and I must, I will esteem
       All things but loss for Jesus' sake
       Oh may my soul be found in Him
       And of His righteousness partake.

       The best obedience of my hands
        Does not appear before Thy throne
       But faith can answer Thy demands
       By pleading what my Lord has done.

All of this speaks to me of pride and my innate tendency to want to be my own savior. Easter confronts me with the reality of what God has done on my behalf and makes me ashamed of my pride. C. S. Lewis writes about pride as 'the complete anti-God state of mind' and that 'pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature'. Through pride I compete against God to be my own god, to provide my own salvation, to be the center of my own little universe.  Paul saw that in himself when he looked at the cross, when he comtemplated the events of that first Easter.

When I think about pride I often get upset, even angry, at what I see in the world around me. I don't like what I see on the athletic field, or what I see in politics, or what I see in CEOs. I don't like what I hear coaches teaching about pride or what I hear 'leadership' gurus saying about it. But all of that is outside of me and easy for me to criticize. At Easter I am confronted with my own pride and am challenged to lay it down at the cross in repentance, to seek the grace to say with Paul, 'no more'.

Fasting versus Abstaining

It is Palm Sunday as I write this and we are nearing the end of this year's Lenten season. This week's online version of Christianity Today has an article about fasting, noting that it is currently popular to fast for a cause. This year several groups have advocated fasting to show solidarity with the poor. At other times fasting has been recommended for a variety of reasons, including to use the food money you would have used as an offering for the hungry, or to free up time for prayer by saving the time used for food preparation. The article this week in Christianity Today  promotes the idea of fasting in order to gain more self-control and even to shape the desires of our subconscious. As I grew up my friends and neighbors who were Roman Catholic would not eat meat on Friday, which they referred to as a 'fast'.

These seem to generally be good causes. It is good to help the poor, to gain self-control, and so on. Yet, these various approaches to try to explain fasting illustrate how we as a culture have a difficult time relating to the very idea of fasting and how we continue to be confused about it. Today in our Sunday morning Bible study we were looking into the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 where Jesus tells His followers not to fast the way the 'hypocrites' do, who would put ashes on their faces and make a show of it, but rather to look happy and keep it secret from those around you. He said very similar things about prayer and about giving to the poor.  The Greek word used there in Matthew which is translated into English as 'fasting' comes from 2 Greek words, 'not' and 'to eat'; it is very much about not eating, not about a general idea of 'giving something up' for a time.  Fasting is clearly focused on not eating. Fasting is a different thing than abstaining.

This is not to say that there is no benefit to abstaining. The Jews were to continually abstain from some things like non-kosher foods; they were to periodically abstain from some things, like sexual intimacy during a woman's monthly cycle; they were on special occasions to abstain from some things, like leaven during Passover. These are not fasts; they are abstinence.

The only fast specifically prescribed in the Torah is for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In the description, in both Leviticus 16 and Leviticus 19, it is clear that the purpose is to 'humble yourselves'. The text does not even use the word 'fast', yet the Jews clearly understood it that way. The focus was on humbling themselves before God. This comes up again when fasts are called for by Ezra, by the prophets, and by David for himself (see Ps. 35:13 and Ezra 8:21).  Repeatedly in the Old Testament fasts are about one main thing: humbling ourselves in repentance. It is not about 'solidarity'; it is not even about self-control. It is about humbling ourselves.

As time went on this got muddled. After the Babylonian captivity, there were fasts to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and other things. By Jesus time, the devout were fasting twice every week. Long before this, in Isaiah's time it was clear that they had begun to miss the point. (See Isaiah 58:3-5). Jesus displeasure with fasting in His day sounds rather like Isaiah.

Abstinence still had its own place, though. Again, repeatedly in the Old Testament we see the reason for abstinence as being related to purity. So they 'purified' their houses from leaven before Passover; they did not eat 'unclean' animals; women would 'purify' themselves after their monthly cycle; and so on. The focus of abstinence was on purity, and the focus of fasting was on humbling ourselves before God.

The article calling for fasting to show 'solidarity with the poor' shows that the muddled thinking continues. I do not object at all to caring for the poor. I also think our culture could stand a great deal more self-control, as learned by abstinence. I just don't think that is the point in fasting. As I contemplate the arrival of Easter next week, I need to focus more on repentance than on 'solidarity'.

Money and forgiving

We have been studying the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew for several weeks in our Sunday morning Bible study at church, and that great sermon has a lot to say about both our personal piety and morality, and also about social justice. I have also been reading Timothy Keller's book Generous Justice, in part because of our study of Matthew. In the midst of this, we had our annual missions conference.

As part of the missions conference we had a missionary from Calcutta as guest teacher in our class one Sunday morning and he talked about the ministry there that tries to help young women who have been sold into prostitution. Some of them are sold by their parents when they are around 10 years old. Some get into debt and are without income and try to get some money to get out of debt, but the moneylenders can charge 10% per month (120% per annum) interest. The whole situation is so desperate as to be almost unbelievable, and yet it reminded me that the world they inhabit is not so different from the world Jesus' lived in (and probably closer to mine than I like to think about). These women have no skills, cannot read or write, and have no hope of getting out of debt. Once they are forced into prostitution most never find a way out. Many commit suicide.

As we heard about this we were about to discuss the part of the Lord's prayer that says 'forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors'. Some translations say 'transgressions' instead of 'debts'. It turns out, per F.F. Bruce in The Hard Sayings of Jesus that in Aramaic,  which Jesus normally used in daily life, it is the same word for either 'debts' or 'transgressions'.  But in Matthew 18, F. F. Bruce points out, Jesus also talks about forgiving one who 'sins' against you (Matt 18:21ff) by giving an example about money.
So it struck me that for these poor women in India who are forced into prostitution, what they needed to escape from prostitution in many cases was to have money debts forgiven.  If they heard Jesus talking about 'forgive us our debts', what would they hear?

If  someone was owed money by one of these poor women, and decided that if she could not repay at 120% annual interest then she should  be sold into prostitution,  would the Lord forgive a person like that? Until hearing from that missionary I would not have even  thought about the Lord's prayer that way. I would have automatically assumed that the Lord's prayer was only talking about 'transgressions' or 'sins' of personal moral failure, not about things like forgiving a money debt. But in some cases, like these women, forgiveness of a money debt is vital to moving out of a life of moral sin as well.

So, it struck me that our attitude about money affects not only our giving, but also affects our forgiving. If we will not forgive a money debt to keep someone out of prostitution, will we forgive a moral debt? I doubt it. In any case,  listening to the missionary gave me a new viewpoint on what it means to 'forgive our debts'.

Christian Singleness

It is clear that the concept of marriage in American culture is confused and broken from a Christian perspective. The acceptance of homosexual marriage, the high frequency of births out of wedlock, and the high divorce rate all speak to that brokenness, but those are merely the symptoms that show the underlying disease of having no concept of what marriage is. As Pope John Paul II pointed out in his theology of the body, marriage carries the image of God to reflect the communion of the Trinity in the communion of male/female together, and to reflect God's creativity in our procreation. The male and female bodies themselves bear witness to this purpose and the body itself has a 'spousal' meaning in its very design. As the pope put it, 'the definitive creation of man consists in the creation of the unity of two beings' as male and female. As a result, according to Genesis 1-3 and re-iterated by Jesus in Matthew 5 and 19, marriage can only be between male and female and 'man' (Hebrew 'adam) is in some sense incomplete when either male or female is alone. Timothy Keller and his wife Kathy raise this point as well in their book The Meaning of Marriage in which they ask how can long term singleness be a good condition if males and females are in some ways incomplete alone?

In their book, the Kellers point out some ways in which our current culture of singleness is broken. Many have lived through their parents' divorce and so have a certain fear of a failed marriage for themselves; many see marriage as primarily a way to gain personal gratification (sexual or emotional) instead of lifelong love, care, and devotion and they see other ways to that gratification outside of marriage now; many have an overly idealized concept of finding the perfect 'soul mate' and will never 'settle' for anyone who doesn't live up to their impossible, imagined ideal; others are insistent that they should never have to change (or grow) and must be 'accepted as they are' and can't bear the thought of having to accomodate some else's disagreements with their habits.  All of these are based on the idea that marriage exists to make them happy rather than to live out God's image and be shaped into closer conformity to that image (sanctification). It seems to me that any single person who remains single for any of these reasons is in fact incomplete and is failing to live out God's image.

The Kellers also point out that, perhaps for the first time, our culture no longer has a culturally supported pathway for singles to meet and marry.  We have no arranged marriages; we have no formal courtship culture; the 'dating' culture of my youth (which had many problems of its own) has died away. There basically is no established cultural pathway to support the finding of a marriage partner now.

Is it possible for choosing singleness to be in conformance with God's image and Word? Yes, but only under certain circumstances. The pope points out in his theology of the body that Jesus speaks to this in Matthew 19 in saying that 'there are eunuchs by nature, eunuchs by the will of man, and eunuchs for the kingdom of God'. That is, some are single for the purpose of total devotion to God's work, as Jesus himself was. Paul says some similar things in I Corinthians. But this is legitimate only under certain circumstances and for a small minority, says the pope, which include that it is voluntary, fully and joyfully embraced, is done as a gift of self to God just as in marriage both give themselves as a gift, is for the kingdom (not for personal autonomy), and bears spiritual fruit from the single vocation (rather than children).  Most singles today, including Christian singles, would not meet these criteria. In particular, a great many would prefer to be married but find themselves in a single culture that seems to have no cultural pathway to marriage and lots of fears and overly-idealized criteria for marriage. They are not 'eunuchs for the kingdom'; they are just stuck. These have not chosen singleness but are just stuck with it. For those who are stuck, certainly they can still be God's servants and continue to seek Him. Their unchosen singleness is not dishonorable or a prevention of obeying God. They will need to break out of cultural norms to find suitable ways to get to know potential spouses since our culture has abandoned making it a priority to have established pathways toward marriage. But the fact that they desire marriage is evidence that it really is something of an incompleteness.

So, it seems to me that our culture is broken in regard to both marriage and singleness. Many single Christians who are avoiding marriage as a result of fears, unrealistic idealism, or idolatrous individualism seem to me to be out of God's will. Marriage will always be an act that requires faith; now it also requires more initiative and creativity than in the past since our culture is not very supportive.

More on the theology of the body

As I mentioned last time,  the body of 'man' ('adam', or mankind) itself bears witness to its meaning by being both male and female. As Pope John Paul II pointed out, man bears the image of God not only in his humanity but also in the communion of persons as lived out in marriage. Marriage, then, has the purpose of making visible the image of God, both in the communion of love between husband and wife and in the natural creativity, bearing children, that flows from that communion.

This then is how the body 'speaks' to us. As there is an inherent meaning in our body, there is also a 'language' that speaks to us. When lived out in the image of God, it speaks truth. When lived out in rebellion to God, it speaks lies. In that way adultery and fornication attack the image of God.  In his reflections on this, the Pope noted that for the husband/wife bond to live out God's image it must be done in accord with what was taught in Genesis and re-iterated by Jesus: 'for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh'..This involved the complete gift of self to another, irrevocably.  It is not a complete gift if it is given to many others. That does not constitute 'cleaving' to the one. It is also permanent and irrevocable. Anything less is not a complete gift of self. Therefore the Bible says, 'what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.' God intends monogamy for life. Polygamy, adultery, and fornication all desecrate marriage, and in so doing desecrate the image of God in man. Homosexuality also desecrates God's image since it denies the meaning of the body as male and female and renders impossible the pro-creativity that reflects God.

 Both heterosexual sin and homosexual sin share a propensity to ignore the meaning of the body by reducing the object of desire into an object.  It is not possible to seek to live out God's image in our bodies, to make a complete gift of self, and to make the sanctification of our spouse as our goal and also to view them as an object for our own gratification.  To live out the meaning of the body demands a high view of the integrity and value of the person to whom we make the gift of self. It also demands a high view of how the body itself was created as male and female. Sexual sin, both of the heterosexual and homosexual variety, degrades this meaning, which the pope calls 'the spousal meaning of the body'.  You cannot live out God's image by using persons as objects.

This is one of the reasons that I refer to pornography as a lie. It treats people as objects, which is itself a lie even if they consent to such use. It also denies the very meaning of the body which can only be fulfilled in the monogamous, irrevocable gift of self within marriage, thereby telling another lie.

In their book The Meaning of Marriage, Tim and Kathy Keller raise this question: 'How can we claim that long term singleness is a good condition in light of the previous chapter's argument that males and females are in some ways incomplete without the other?" Good question, in light of the meaning of the body. We shall talk about that next time.

The meaning of our body

At Christmas I mentioned how the incarnation of Christ connects biology with theology, and gives witness to the fact that our bodies were created to bear the image of God. Christ is Himself the ultimate example of how He uses the body to make visible what is invisible, the spiritual and divine.

I have been reading lately in Pope John Paul II's transcribed talks about what he called the 'theology of the body'. In that teaching he goes back to Genesis based on Jesus teaching about marriage. Jesus also goes back to Genesis (see Matthew 19). In Genesis 1:26 it says that God created man (Hebrew 'adam) in his image, male ('is) and female ('issa). That is, the complete man was the combination of male and female. One of them alone was incomplete. The pope concludes that man carries the image of God not just in his humanity but also in the communion of persons in the union of male and female. Just as there is an intimate communion in the Trinity, so is there to be intimate communion in man by the union of male and female. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is naturally creative, resulting in man, so is the union in marriage to be naturally pro-creative, resulting in children. Just as the love of God in the Trinity is expressed in the giving of self, as Christ showed in giving Himself, so marriage is intended to bear God's image by the gift of self to each other. He concludes that this meaning of communion is carried to us not only by the Word, but by the body itself. As Adam recognized when he first saw Eve in chapter 2 of Genesis, he immediately recognized that she was intended to complete him. This message was clear from the body itself. So the pope concludes that the body itself has a meaning, and that meaning he calls 'spousal', 'the spousal meaning of the body'.  This also supports the very Biblical notion that we are a communion of body/soul, we are not just souls that happen to have a body temporarily. Just as Christ in His resurrected body shows how the body will be integral to our being in eternity, our bodies are integral to what it means to be persons, and integral to living out God's image on earth.

So then this means that marriage has a clear meaning. That meaning is not to make us happy, to give us companionship, or to provide self-actualization. Those are all aimed at individuals and the freedom and fulfillment of individuals, making self-actualization of the individual the highest good. This instead means that marriage is intended as a way to live out the image of God. The pope goes on to point out that it is possible to do this without marriage, as Jesus did, but that is not the norm. The norm is for marriage to be a way to live out, in the body, the complete/full image of God. And the work of marriage is sanctification.

I think he is right. In our focus on falling in love and happiness in marriage we have turned it into a self-centered thing rather than a self-giving thing. Jesus taught that to save your life you must lose it. Where should we look to learn what it looks like to give yourself away on a daily basis? We should grow up learning that in the home, observing it in marriage. If we hope to teach our failing culture the true meaning of marriage, we must re-learn it in the church first.