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Christianity

// July 6th, 2009 // Comments Off // General

I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else. — C.S. Lewis

Benevolent Dictator

// February 27th, 2008 // Comments Off // General

If the dictator is perfectly benevolent and infinitely wise, then dictatorship is to be preferred over democracy.

If the dictator rules in a laissez-faire fashion regarding his subjects’ free moral agency, no one would rebel against him; there would be no motive for revolutionary regime change.

If the dictator had omnipotent power, but only ever chose to use it to empower his subjects to pursue their own passions, loves, and happiness, guiding and guarding them from all dangers without and within, then democracy would be a ridiculous suggestion.

This type of dictatorship describes the political reality described in the biblical pre-fall and post-millennium universe. Here in the present, inside this brief window of time, within the sin vaccination probationary era, there exist a few God-friendly governments. This writer would identify them as democratic republics with strong socialist sympathies. Examples would include the post WWII, pre-Reagan United States of America, and many of the current members of the European Union, notably Norway, France, and Sweden. These nations are God-friendly because they have made the sincere attempt to maintain for their society the values of religious liberty and social justice.
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Jesus Is All About Free Will

// October 3rd, 2007 // Comments Off // General

My conclusions about Christ, based on writings about him that I’ve been reading for the last 20-odd years, are that He created the human race with free will built right in. He did that in order that the love he wanted to share with us would be genuine and not forced (force being evidently incompatible with love). He seems to be the type of person who is all about love, learning, relationships, growth, and creativity, and not so interested in force, violence, death, destruction, or “power trips.” Oddly enough, though, very many who look into what he is all about don’t “get” him.

It seems that the human race was not the only creation of his; in fact a previously created species, which also had free will, has apparently fallen prey to the weakness that free will itself contains, namely power-addiction. A free moral agent can by the nature of free will obviously choose to do whatever it wants at any time; given that possibility, it was a statistical inevitability that a created agent would at some point make a self-destructive choice.

I’m sure he knew about the risks and weaknesses of free will before he let creatures loose in the universe who were vulnerable to the abuse of choice; at any rate, he seems to have had a contingency plan all along for healing those whose addiction to self-aggrandizement is not too far gone as to be beyond help. Incredibly, he has never forced anyone of his creatures human or animal to do anything against their will. He has chosen instead to give humans a very powerful set of sensory tools, a very high-order computational organic super-computer brain, and a recorded history of events to compare their current on-going experiences against.

Unfortunately, the first owners of human DNA totally screwed up the strains available to us by making early on some very self-destructive choices. And so here and now so many generations down the pipeline, our senses and brains have all they can manage to not be distracted by the constant chaos of our environment, which through unfortunate choices we ourselves are seriously damaging. It’s hard to think! Let alone make any kind of meaningful sense out of the crazy stuff that a world full of free moral agents all power-addicted and self-destructive and creative, and silly, and capable of the most beautiful profound statements about life, the universe, and everything!

He has entered into the human reality, the human home planet, even the human skin. He has had it all recorded with a pretty high degree of accuracy. And he has carefully availed himself of key opportunities to personally speak to various writers he hand-picked for their ability to relate to their readers. I think he was careful about that because he is so not about using force, and yet when he shows up the impact upon their senses he makes really blows them away. It must be mind-blowing to hear a word from God, especially when he utters some profound truth about yourself.

Given all of that, what are you going to do with Jesus?

The Worship of Power

// October 14th, 2006 // Comments Off // General

From Adventist Peace Messenger:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on 2 Corinthians 12:9:

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christians should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.

Brian McLaren comments on his recent travels:

In each country, I heard Christian leaders – Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Traditional Protestants, and Roman Catholics – express amazement and dismay at the relative silence of the church in the USA. They see us, by and large, as a prime example of Bonhoeffer’s lament about Christendom “adjusting itself far too easily to the worship of power.” We are giving offense, but sadly, the wrong kind. For example, they hear frequent defenses by Christians in the USA – not of the weak and poor, but of the strong and powerful. About torture and violence, about “pride of power,” they hear too little protest from too few of us. They know we are against terrorism, but they don’t know if we are against American empire and domination.

Lens of Scripture

// February 24th, 2006 // Comments Off // General

The Lens of Scripture: Historical Accuracy

Seeing history through a lens of bias is inevitable. From our conception onward, we are accumulating pre-conceived ideas about the world. Confronting your own biases & preconceptions is a vital step toward intellectual honesty. Acknowledging that we all see through biased lenses is powerful: it enables us to see and begin to shape our own prejudices. Accepting the responsibility to be in charge of your own character, especially your view of the world, is the first step to being able to make your view of the world more accurate.

Christian students of history owe their first allegiance to their Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. All notions of what is accurate or true or Truth are bound up in their relationship to the person called Jesus who is God and Creator and King. Therefore, to understand history accurately, the Christian must be willing to choose a Biblical bias. A Christian can have a Biblical worldview only if she or he is willing to replace other preconceptions with the great truths of God’s love, His creative power, and His interventions in human history.

A Christian student of history must be willing to look at historical events through the lens of the Bible, attempting to see “the course of human events” from God’s point of view. Even after admitting that we could never achieve God’s perfect comprehension of human history, we strive for that impossibly high standard in order to reach the most accurate view possible. In that effort, we allow God’s Word to comment, correct, and inform our view of “what really happened.”

The following Biblical facts should shape the Christian’s philosophy of history:

1. Humans are faulty. The Bible’s record of history exposes the faults of its main (human) characters. A Christian study of any part of human history would begin with that assumption, and not turn a blind eye to the faults of any human or human institution. No government, no leader, no tradition, no culture, or achievement should be allowed less than an intellectually honest, critical study. To the Christian, nothing (apart from God) is sacred.
2. “Something Better.” A Biblical view remains hopeful of progress. The promise of “something better” to come moves people to strive for something better in their future than they knew in the past. The positive and hopeful aspects of history are just as important to remember as the mistakes and disasters.
3. “Purpose-Driven” History. God’s telling of history (in Scripture, through prophets) always has a larger purpose than simple knowlege: Spurring us into action.
4. Biblical Activism. The Bible exposes good and evil. The Biblical idea of goodness has many sides to it, but certainly includes justice, compassion, kindness, and integrity. The many aspects of Biblical goodness can be summed up in the word “righteousness.” Many kinds of evils are exposed in the Bible, but some of the most recurring themes are exploitation, corruption, cruelty, and dishonesty. These might all be summed in the Biblical ideas of “unrighteousness,” “wickedness,” or “worldliness.”
5. Equality Is Ideal. The ideal society in the Bible is not restricted to the heavenly “afterlife” but should be something we strive for now, as much as is practical. Ideally, society should encourage righteousness, especially the aspects of it listed above. And society should actively discourage unrighteousness in all its members, especially in its leaders. Finally, equality and fairness are the hallmarks of a Biblically “just” society.