the mask of oz

remembering how at bible school, one prof was notorious for tearing apart the presuppositions that these prairie kids fresh out of youth group and high school ISCF groups brought with them to their study of the scriptures...

by the end of the first term, there were always fewer Christians on campus! ha ha.

although at the time i found this incredibly challenging, i came to understand, over the years that followed, what this guy was doing... he was trying to coax us out of our warm, cozy caccoons where the inside walls were lovingly papered with old sunday-school papers from the 70's and pages from the comic-book version of the bible published by david c. cook in 1973. outside of that happy place was the real world. a place where real people had real questions arising from troubling everyday experiences- a place where a theological bumper-sticker bandaid just wouldn't stop the bleeding.

however, the thing that i still wrestle with today, just like then, is balance. on the one hand, i subscribe to a faith that, because all of the facts are not yet in, does not need to completely reason and qualify all ideas in order to exist; yet on the other hand, i cannot let myself become so accomodating that pretty much anything goes. steve taylor, a singer in the 80's described it well when he said 'you're so open-minded that your brain leaked out.'

i know that i'm not qualified to speak of higher criticism except as an observer. i work hard to qualify the things i teach, sure, but i recognize that this is simply my responsibility as a preacher... it has not been my life'swork. On any theologian's bookshelf there are whole books written by people who can read the ancient languages, who are well-versed in the ancient traditions, and have sat under the teaching of people who have entire wings in seminaries named after them. me? i have books written by people who have read books written by people who attended those seminaries. i understand this.

however, from my acknowledged place as an interactive observer, i have also seen how higher criticism has done much to strip the Bible of its authority among common people and scholars alike... it bothers me that we are so good at talking ourselves out of belief; so ready to be cynical; so eager to take the side of the sceptic rather than the mystic.

why is that? i have an opinion- but it's probably wrong because it oversimplifies things. here goes: i think that most of us are just not interested enough to actively pursue God's truth. it takes too much time and effort. too much reading. too much listening. too much praying. pick any spiritual discipline and you will probably find that it requires too much of us who are kinda comfortable where we are.

so 'when the weight of this world crashes down on you' (mark heard, circa '82) we are ill-equipped to face the barrage- defaulting instead to the sceptic's view, sitting with our face in our drink concluding 'there is no truth.'

actually, there is. the problem is that we are so unfamiliar with his revelation due to our lack of discipline that it is easier to speak of the mask of oz than to seek the face of God.
***

i realize that this post is incomplete-
but that is, after all, the freedom of a whole nother blog...

underzeal

after typing out a heartfelt salvation message in Icarus' comment line, ezekiel decided to start a blog of his own. to ezekiel's first post, icarus replied:
I for one hope you do try to convert me and others, as you said, it would really be wrong of you not to.

nice comment. it appears as though there are two things that irk (?) people about believers:
1) those being overzealous and underthinking...
2) those being (you guessed it) underzealous and overthinking...

the message and the mission must travel together as equal partners the way faith and reason must.

those being overzealous and underthinking are often pointed out and pointed at. no point going on about that here- plenty of blogs already chronicle the mistakes made in God's name.

but as to the problem of 'underzeal', i think that it begins to take root when the recipients of grace become so used to that gift of God's mercy that they lose their edge. instead of preaching the gospel (which is supposed to be, by the way, GOOD news but that is also a whole nother blog) of grace to those who have not yet freely received it, Jesus' beloved start preaching a gospel of permission. the fear of disagreement and the resulting apologetics that will ensue is just too great a risk, so the rescue mission that Jesus died to launch never leaves the training compound. it remains simply another good idea which can be taken up in discussion and debate, like a right-thinking foreign policy with no actual action or support.

so we end up with this passive-aggressive gospel that says 'well, i would have preached, but he didn't ask and i didn't want to force my views upon him. he had every opportunity to hear the gospel- i was ready to share, but didn't want to jeopardize the relationship we have by getting into religion stuff too soon...'

yet, when a person like icarus asks a heavy question, believers can find themselves in over their head because comfy sunday-school answers don't deliver the goods to someone who has already heard the rhetoric and is looking for something beyond that. people like icarus can be tough and intimidating, not because of anything malicious on their part, but because they ask questions which challenge the things that believers mightn't have ever questioned.

in my view, walking the faith journey side by side strengthens everyone involved in that journey in some way- if they let it happen.

us and them

from where i sit it's all the same
why can't i just be free?
because no matter what you say
you'll never make me see
as you speak your voice rises
so great is your commitment to rescue me from the 'other side'
sure my eyes are open
so to your reason they are blind

but let me try
try to make you understand
it's nothing personal- it's just the way i am
i've seen too much consistent inconsistency
too many things are said by those lacking credibility

a surrogate shepherd performs a three-point scream
mopping sweat from his brow he tells of a dream
how darkness and terror invaded his head causing some thrashing about on the bed
apparitions wielding financial prophecy tormented his temples chanting 'bankruptcy'
and so to the faithful he beckons today
that if they truly would follow they must join him in his crusade

nothing is heard
nothing is felt
only thoughts of the lunch buffet
and of loosening the bible belt

please- don't get on the defensive
i didn't mean to wound your pride
i just wanted you to see my side
there there sit back and take it easy
if it will make you feel better you can say a little prayer for me

so now we're in it, one on one
and it's your turn once again
('the other side' written in mr jazwal's math class)

***
then agrippa said to paul,
'do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a christian?'
paul replied,
'short time or long- i pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what i am, except for these chains...'
(acts 26.28-9)

***
Icarus said:
"I always hold that the only way to make progress on a certain topic is to pull away any BS and start from the very foundation. I don't know how successful my post was, as everyone seems to be firmly planted in their respective corners, but at least it generated some interesting dialogue."

it went down this way: an open-ended dialogue began with a letter questioning christians' adherence to the bible's claims of spiritual authority and divine authorship which generated a fair bit of interest (comparatively speaking) in the blogosphere. it resulted in some good discussion and debate which was facilitated responsibly by its insightful author/devil's advocate, depending on your position on the issue. at the end of its run, its author made the comment cited above concerning the fruitfulness of the post.

the fact that icarus questioned the success of his 'a letter to christians' post surprised me. i guess your view of a successful dialogue depends on your reason for initiating the discussion in the first place. you see, debates usually prove little apart from who the least incapabable candidate for election might be. debates polarize the mob and serve to strengthen the already held positions of the constituents, but do little to convince. if the post was intended to draw people from one side of the spiritual issue on the cyber-roundtable to the other, then its authorship was misguided.

as misguided, i might add, as two thousand years worth of passionate evangelical monologues intended to fetch the fallen from the flame. in the constituency of the soul, the life-changing dialogue takes place between creator and created, not between the created quibblers. although reason is one of the empowering faculties of humankind, it is not the only one and it certainly struggles in realms where the facts just aren't all there to be examined through scientific, logical or otherwise empirical methods. yet apologists work very diligently at convincing atheists and agnostics that the espoused doctrines are true when, in some cases, these are too mystical to be 'proven' apart from the personal proof that is established through the experiencial living of a life according to said doctrines.

i think that this is similar to trying to explain how thinking in one language works to someone who thinks in a different one. thought patterns and structures that seem natural (but are, in fact, learned from a time prior to earliest memory) for an anglophone are foreign to the francophone who is attempting to learn english as an addition to their existing means of relating to the world. at first it requires a lot of discipline and interpretation, but it eventually becomes something that people refer to as 'second nature.' however, it takes an incredible amount of time, practice and often immersion to cause one to move beyond their 'mother tongue' and truly embrace a new language and the effect it has on how that person thinks and processes information.

yet, the atheist tries to convince the christian that the language of 'simple faith' is shallow and intellectually inferior, while the christian tries to convince the atheist that the language of 'pure reason' is limited to the physical realm in its scope and experience. can anyone ever be bilingual, speaking both languages fluently? i believe so, but it takes more than one lengthy blog or one passionate late-night conversation at tim horton's to get there.

(note: this doesn't mean that i am against sharing diagrams depicting large chasms which are bridged by crosses, or setting up s.b.a.'s or 'praying the prayer' or whatever... although i DO draw the line at leaving bogus tracts that look like money on the table as a tip for the server upon leaving a restaurant- that's just wrong. i'm just saying that, in my life's experience, the people that i know are most impacted when i put my gospel gun in the rifle rack and just hang out with the understanding that if they ever want to go there i'm game. i won't dodge the opportunity to share Jesus' love with somebody, i just don't think anybody really likes being considered a project by someone who has the audacity to label them as 'lost.')

i think that the 'progress' in this case was to have so many different voices present in a dialogue that should matter to all of us, but sadly doesn't take place nearly often enough because people have trouble with basic ethnocentricity issues. we see those who hold differing views on things that are important to us as somehow on 'the other side' when, in fact, we are all on the same side... we're on the 'mortal life on fallen planet earth' side.

reissues

matthew said
For me, my faith in large part comes from using reason - if that makes sense. I look around and see autonomous, conscious beings. I then ponder the fact that random processes lead to disorder not order, and I think there had to have been supernatural intervention. I am an engineer, so maybe it's not a big surprise I think about the mechanics of things, but hey whatever floats my faith-boat right?

i have been reading a really neat book called 'the dancing wu li masters' by gary zukav. it is a slow read for somebody like me because, apart from my basic struggles with speedy reading in general, it is a self-proclaimed 'overview of the new physics' (which, as expressed in my lengthy blog the other day, is gonna be a challenge for me on many levels!)

yeah, well anyway, he puts this thing in there that i have had bouncing around in my head since i read it yesterday:

quantum mechanics is a branch of physics. there are several branches of physics. most physicists believe that sooner or later they will construct an overview large enough to incorporate them all.

according to this point of view, we eventually will develop a principle, a theory which is capable of explaining everything so well that there will be nothing left to explain... every occurance in the real world will be accounted for by a corresponding element in our final supertheory. we will have, at last, a theory which is consistent within itself and which explains all observable phenomena. einstein called this state the 'ideal limit of knowledge.'

i think that mr zukav and mr einstein are sitting at the local pub speculating upon how to address omniscience without the troublesome spiritual rhetoric that goes with the word.

zukav goes on to quote einstein a few lines later:

creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and then erecting a new skyscraper in its place. it is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. but the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.

i love this. i'm going to have it etched on a plaque and mounted on the wall of my office right next to the green pyramid poster from pink floyd's dark side of the moon. all of life seems to be about creating new theories as to what's really going on. we long to know who God is (let's not even try to speculate WHAT God is right now...) and yet we still haven't figured out who we are yet. so we exist- einstein's proverbial starting point personified- unable to get beyond ourselves long enough or far enough to actually see things around us because our vision is both eclipsed and limited by who what where when and how we are today... and from this point in time space and spirit we devise theories, speculating about how to somehow calculate the will of God.

i believe these things to the core of who i am:

• anything good is God's first
• everything bad is good perversed

what i find intriguing is how ready we can be to pursue the creation of a theory which explains everything, but how eager we are to speak in completely generic, nonpersonal terms about the coming to be of all that which defies our current explanations.

i went out to the church house where the citizens like to sit
they say they want the kingdom but they don't want God in it
(bono, 'the wanderer' collaborating with johnny cash on u2's 'zooropa' album)

i guess i'm not the only guy who thinks in rhyming couplets... at least we're not down at the pub trying to express our beliefs and observations in limmericks!

is it that solomon has once again been proven right concerning the newness of our experiences and their interpretations?

reason and the bubble boy

tell your story? that's tough if you're afraid that people will miss what you're really trying to say.

being that i kind of grew up in the church bubble, i have always tried to avoid the testimonial approach to discussing spirituality... it is too easy for people to default to the 'well, that's easy for you to say- you've never lived' setting. this is arguably the main reason why the life of Christ was one frought with pain and poverty as well as purpose... that no one would be able to default easily to the 'well that's easy to say if you're God' setting.

i've always been more interested in talking about Jesus because, quite frankly, he's more interesting- at least that has been my official line. playing an introspective game of twenty questions in the last little while, however, has brought to light something surprising to me... and although i would passionately argue to the contrary, i think that a simple truth about me is that i really hate surprises. you see, when icarus posted an invitation for any and all to share their personal journey towards God, i had already been stalled for awhile on this one.

i mean, it's all different when somebody asks isn't it? it presumably means that they actually want to know because they feel that it will somehow benefit their own journey. well then i am at a bit of a loss because a lot of my own defaults in this regard are probably faulty. to get past the insecurity and the control issues that are tightly held at bay and just trust another person to handle with respect that which is vulnerable and personal is a real challenge for me. although i have known this about myself for most of my life, i don't think that i truly realized what a stranglehold it all has had on my 'personal witness' until icarus asked me a month or so ago how i came to faith. i wanted to answer; i just wanted to do so with more than a personal chronology and a flimsy attempt at tracing some cause and effect.

the fact in all this murky emotional disclosure is that i think i might have made the gospel about me somehow. i am afraid of somebody dismissing Jesus because of my failure to articulate, in terms of my own life, how he has made a difference. i am afraid that an attempt at sharing a spiritual testimonial will come off like a sloppy endorsement- like that lame commercial about some headache remedy that i recall from my childhood: "i'm not a doctor, but i play one on t.v...."

i think i am also afraid of being personally evaluated on the basis of my life's story because it's not really flashy. if i'm going to be a t.v. commercial, i'd much rather be the "i liked it so much that i bought the company" guy. well, eventually you have to just say 'get over yourself' and take a shot at conquering your own stuff, because ultimately the gospel will move forward through the world with or without your help and endorsement... it comes down to whether you want to be part of that movement.

so my faith journey? growing up as a christian kid, attending youth group, going to bible college, getting married to a girl i met at bible college, gaining a degree in education, being redirected in my calling after a few years to begin pursuing ministry as a pastor, blogging about God incessantly... yada yada yada- who cares?

however, God has spoken truth into my life a number of times using numerous languages and voices. whether it has been through a book that i've been reading or a film that has crashed in unexpectedly or a dream at night or a conversation with a friend or somebody's sermon or somebody else's blog, i find my journey redirected as regularly as i have my antennae up high enough to pick up the signal. i guess that i would be categorized as experiencial in my faith journey because i draw a lot of guidance from as many of life's experiences as i can keep track of, always going back to the bible and those with whom i walk closest for the ongoing affirmation or clarification that i need in order to somehow survive the decisions i've made claiming to have been by the inspiration of this God to whom i have dedicated my life's breath

an example is as recent as yesterday when i read something in a blogger profile that bumped me over to a spot where i decided to try to tackle this whole testimonial thing again.

• Q: Your people want to make a statue in your honor. What will it be made out of and what victory will it commemorate?
  
• A: It will be a generic man, portrayed realistically and ideally, commemorating the victory of reason over faith.

'the victory of reason over faith'?

later on that evening, i had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a computer engineer guy that plays a mean bass guitar. we were discussing modern man's propensity to explain things, to identify things, to define things, to categorize things and ultimately to assess value to things so that they may be clearly priorized on some continuum... like that radiohead song: everything in its right place.

everything in its right place?

this approach to life is hard for me to lock into because on most days my world feels like a pandimensional ven diagram of perpetually changing, formless, shapeless, brilliantly coloured smells which momentarily share time and space with an infinite number of other like, yet distinctively unlike ones before everything changes again a nanosecond later, never to be repeated exactly, although similarities may exist between this instant and that one ten millenia and several light years away. because of random precision and irrational numbers, the odds of repitition are undefinable... and i'm okay with that- it just makes communicating with my friends the logicians really difficult. i wish i could think in a straight line, but the reality is that i can only approximate it for a very short time before getting a headache. i have one now.

but could i claim the same thing for my statue: the victory of reason over faith? i wish i could delineate some hierarchical difference between the two in order to determine which one would win over the other in a footrace, but i can't and i think that the ability to do or not do that comes down to our hardwiring. the best i can do is try to have the two walk side by side on the same road, letting each other converse together without finishing each other's sentences. i have no reason to not have faith. my faith is strengthened by all of the things that i cannot explain, in that in the unexplainable is my wonder, my fuel and my joy and my worship- is raison d'etre the same as reason?

this life is a rich one and i probably shouldn't be so eager to apologize for that- as if roadwear brings credibility or something. pain builds character, sure, but my faith has hardly been an opiate to buffer me against prejudice, family tragedy, mortality, betrayal, broken dreams, financial stress or anything else. what faith does is give me reason to carry on, defaulting control of the things that are so outside of my scope to a personal deity who desires a relationship with me in spite of all the stuff of pretension and pride that i carry around with me wherever i go, so that i am free to attend to the smaller details of one life and how it can be lived in spirit and in truth.

well there's a treasure at the end of this narrow road I'm traveling
and it gives me a purpose for my life
Jesus is my treasure- he's the reason that I am living
and he's gonna be my reason when I die
(Gary Chapman: Treasure, 1994)
***
there are three amazing books that explore these themes far more articulately than i can:
Finding Faith by Brian D McLaren
A Reasonable Faith by Tony Campolo
A Case For Christ by Lee Strobel