Musings on the Great Worth of the Lost: A Wesleyan’s Perspective of Humanity

To the Reader: This is an extremely long blog post. It is probably not what most people see as conducive to one sitting, so I have broken it up into sections so you can return...

Part 1 

In light of who we are before God, it is easy to beat ourselves up, to look at one’s self and say, “I am a worthless sinner, but praise God for abounding in love and grace to save a wretch like me.” The rhetoric goes on and on: “God owes me nothing… I am nothing… I have nothing to give…” Now, calling myself a wretch because of the totally depraved state of my sinful being is, in a very great sense, true and proper. I am a guilty sinner in need of grace. However, I wonder if this sort of thinking has led us to holding a lower view of humanity as a whole than is warranted.

It is an easy logical step to say, “Well, the reasons I see myself as a wretch are derived from qualities I share with every other human being walking the planet; therefore, I am warranted to think of them as wretches as well.” I think we often do make this step, and I think it leads to conclusions concerning others that are less than Christian in their essence. The question that this raises is this: Does the Bible afford us the right to think in such a way, to think that humans (especially the lost) are merely despicable? If our view of our fellow human is lower than perhaps is warranted, can this low anthropology not misshape our theology?

Consider this: If the lost are merely despicable beings, rotten to the core, with nothing of worth within their being, why are we obligated to love them? I think the answer: “Because God says so!” is lacking. Why would God have us love a purely sinful being? In a previous post: “Making ‘Sense’ of Calvinistic Election…” (Perhaps I should have entitled it, “Trying to Make Sense of Calvinistic Election,” as I never really did make sense out of it), I attempt to discuss the character of the lost and show the reformed objection to my views. I think the point is worth restating here:

Whenever I, or any other person, provide any amount of dignity to the lost, we are immediately countered by the fact that the lost are utterly depraved and as such my value of the lost is misplaced. In a recent discussion with a [Reformed] friend, I was chastised for appealing to children or the tribesmen who are never given the chance to respond. This attempt at a corrective of my view of such people was characterized by the fact that the children and tribesmen in question are utterly despicable and evil. If this was not an attempt to justify their plight as damned without hope of grace, I cannot imagine why it was brought up.

While the Bible certainly takes occasion to put us in our place, to remind us that we are sinners before a just and Holy God, there are usually two sides to the coin that we must consider. The other side of this coin: The Bible often affords humanity with such dignity that for me to do any less would be presumptuous and arrogant:

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast             set thy glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the [God], and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)

Here the Psalmist is pondering a great question: How can a God so great care for beings that seem so insignificant in the grand scheme of things? Part of the writer’s consideration is that God has actually made man just below Himself (Note: The KJV as I quote here actually uses the term “angel” in v 5, but notes that other translations use God, which is perhaps a more literal reading). How can he say such a thing? How can he afford such dignity to humanity? That is precisely his question: “God, why do you care about us? Why give us such privilege? Why love us so?” The psalmist certainly sees greatness within humanity. Not just God fearing people, but in the race as a whole. He is considering how God sees man at the present, not just in the future. He is not just saying, God you once made us great. He is saying God you made us great!

Consider what Jesus tells us about loving others: We are to love neighbor and enemy. So, let me ask you this once again: If it were the case that nonbelievers are totally and utterly evil, black to the core, with no goodness whatsoever in their being, no worth, no dignity,which was the position my Reformed friend was taking in the portion I quoted from my previous essay, why should I be told to love pure evil. Is that not sinful? Once again, it is not just that God says so. He is not an arbitrary God. There is good reason to love the lost.

Part 2

There must be something loveable about these persons. Does this mean that they are not sinners, not capable of utter horror. Well, yes. But, there can be silver in the midst of dross. A being can be a guilty sinner, and yet exude goodness from within.

As a father, I know this to the deepest depths of my being. My daughter, a baby still, almost two years of age, has yet to have a conversion experience. She was born inheriting my sin nature. I can see pride and selfishness in embryonic form within her. She is broken and, without Christ, she will be lost. But, that does not mean that even prior to her becoming a Christian, she does not abound with good and Godly qualities. She most certainly does. That I see the imago Dei emerging from her being is an everyday occasion. Love and joy burst forth from the seams of her being, and no one can ever convince me that she is utter evil. You might as well walk away if you ever want to say such to me. It would be best that you do.

So, what is my point?

Simply put:

We need not have an extremely low and impoverished anthropology to hold a high and proper theology that elicits awe and humility to the greatest degree possible.

In other words, I need not see humanity and the lost people of the world as despicable smut, nor do I need to forever see myself as a mere pile of crap covered in the snow that is Christ (as Luther put it). As I have said before, Christ is more than spiritual Febreze. Because of sanctification we Christians are more than mere sinners saved by grace, and because of the inherent grace given by God and His image within all humans, as fractured and damaged as it might be, we all, even the lost, have real worth. That they are in need of Christ and are dead without Him need not be denied for me to say that there is something in them worth saving. I can afford humanity with dignity in my mind without doing injustice to the high place God is to have in my thoughts and beliefs.

Let’s move a little off topic for a moment:

To counter my statement that the lost has goodness in them, one might wish to go a little off topic and talk about human works, which, while not being the human itself, represent the human and his or her capabilities. The point is often made that God sees our actions apart from Him as filthy rags, that all our attempts to do good are not really good. Because of our low anthropology, we hold a view that humans are fully incapable of doing anything that reflects goodness within. This ignores that we are image bearers, broken as we are, and it denies God’s working in us even before salvation through prevenient grace, wooing us to His Beloved Son through the Holy Spirit.

Some persons have questioned Christians about the goodness they see in this or that person. It is often a common sort of statement: “I know X, and X is an atheist. Yet, X does so many benevolent acts, more than the Christians that I know. X works at the soup kitchen. X gives money to the needy. X opens his home to all in need. X feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and looks after orphans and widows. Are they not doing good?”

What is the response? From many Christians the answer is pure dismissal of the obvious: That that person is exhibiting Godly traits of kindness, love, compassion and grace. Instead a response is formed because persons think they are defending a biblical stance that states nonbelievers cannot exhibit signs of the image of God: “Well outwardly the deed is seemingly good, but it is not of God and is not good at the heart of the matter.” I’ve heard this time and time again, and have even said it myself, but it is not as warranted as I once thought. Humans are made in the image of God and grace is given even before salvation, so how is it that it cannot be expressed? Yes we are broken, but even a broken watch is even right twice a day! As many, I used Isaiah 64:6 as backing my assumption that nonbelievers cannot really do good: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Does this settle it? I think not. Better put: Does this actually tell us that humans are incapable of doing good things if they are not Christian?

The prophet is discussing our state before God. We are unclean, which in the ancient Hebraic context means that we cannot approach God. He makes the point that not even our attempts to do good can cleanse us for they are “as if” they are dirty, which is different than saying they are dirty in themselves for one thing. So, in other words, they are incapable of taking away sin. They do not have saving quality: A filthy rag cannot remove filth and make us clean. To offer God any act of good will and genuine effort, even if assisted by his prevenient grace (more on this in a moment) as an offering for the atonement of sins is to offer to God a base and insulting gesture. We cannot save ourselves. So, these works are called filthy rags when they are offered for atonement. But, apart from atonement, we need not make degrading commentary on their existence.

Are they filthy in and of themselves? Is everything a human does before he is saved a filthy gesture of a seemingly righteous motive? Is the person who saves another’s life not doing good if he is yet to be a Christian? I think he is doing good. The point Isaiah is making is that it is not an act that will save us. It cannot make us clean. Doing good does not replace doing wrong. Good can be done, and it can be good in and of itself, and will remain a good work especially if it is not offered up as a reason God should save the person because it does not negate prior guilt.

To better understand my point, take for instance Cain’s offering to God in the Genesis account.  He offers God the fruits of his labor (Genesis 4:3). Now, we are reminded that God’s creation, although subjugated to the fall, is still a good creation. Thus, the fruits and vegetables gathered by Cain in and of themselves are not inherently evil. In fact, if anything, they are inherently good.  He has produced a good crop. His work has been good. However, for Cain to suggest that what he has created through his labor, a harvest of fruits and vegetables, is sufficient for the remission of sins is an insult. They are as filthy rags then.

Part 3

So, once again, the question arises: can a nonbeliever do good? I think so. The deed is not worthy of the remission of sins, but it comes from a place within the being that is still grounded in love, truth and beauty because of the image that remains, as broken as it might be. God extends his prevenient grace out to the lost, even before they have been converted, working in their heart to bring them to truth. Is it not possible that because of this grace, the person realizes something of what is right and good and acts upon it even before fully committing to Christ and being filled with the Spirit? I think so. And if it was the prompting of the Spirit, how then do we say it is not good. In fact, it could be this action that God uses that leads the doer to repentance, seeing that he or she want to dedicate this life to the cause of God. But, meaningful goodness, as Isaiah points out, can only be sustained by grace, and God wants this person to give his whole life over so that the goodness within can be fully restored and salvaged from the grips of death. Otherwise it will perish and disappear.

The issue is that the goodness that remains is in the clutches of death, and God is on a rescue mission. He wants to save the lost because they have something savable, a worth given to them by God’s image and grace.  

What makes a human being? It is not simply a living body. Bodies vary in all ways. Some do not even have full bodies. So, it is no one part of the body. A human must have a body, but that does not make them fully human. It is the image of God that makes us humans. So, we are broken humans, but humans nonetheless, because the image has been damaged by our sin. Has that image been devastated? Yes. Is it utterly gone? I think not, otherwise would we even be human anymore? God wants to restore that brokenness for it is worth restoring.

So, I submit that humans have worth. All humans have worth, at least at some point (I assume a person can give themselves over totally to sin and refuse God’s grace: the reprobate). If humans have worth, and that worth is worth loving, then how could God predestine any of them, with no power to choose otherwise, to Hell? To bring beings into existence with the express purpose of designating the being to eternal damnation seems cruel. If you assert that God loves all, wants all to be saved, then how can you assert that he would not offer grace, but send some to Hell without ever a genuine chance of salvation?

I once heard it said: Calvinists try to answer the question: How does a sovereign God demonstrate His Love, while Wesleyans try to answer the question: How does a God of Love demonstrate His sovereignty. God is Love, and He loves all humans because they are lovable. He would not condemn an object of love to eternal punishment without giving that object of love a chance to love Him back. I base all this on the evidence of the revealed Scripture, not on conjecture. So, when I say, “How could God do so-and-so,” if I base that question upon what God has already revealed, the retort “Where were you, O man,” need not be offered. That was a question for persons who were without revelation, simply speculating on God. I am not merely speculating. I am asking this question in light of Scripture. Moreover, to simply relocate this to the realm of mystery is to ignore the question. I am saying, “This is revealed by God, that He loves all and wants all to be saved.” 

Being the Bearer of Bad News

 Here is some food for thought…

There are times in our lives that we simply have to accept the inevitable. Sometimes our plans do not line up with God’s, and His will is going to win out. We simply need to learn to gracefully bow out of the competition before we get too hurt.

Simply put, there are some pills we simply must take.

Now consider this…

There are times in our lives that we are used by God to deliver the inevitable to that person, who must eventually accept reality. In other words, sometimes we must be that agent who delivers what the recipient will consider bad news.

Simply put, there are some pills we simply must administer.

Further consider this…

While God calls persons in positions of great responsibility and power to administer His will, often times, we have the freedom to decide how we will give the news, and, we must remember, the end does not always justify the means. In other words, we know what the right decision is, but we mustn’t think that we have the right then to dole it out as we please.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but:

As the administrator of the pill, we often decide whether or not we give it as an oral capsule or a suppository.

We can leave a person with his or her dignity by asking them to swallow the news down in a timely fashion, or we can just force it upon them in an inconsiderate manner, for lack of a nicer way of putting it.

Often times, we hate being the bearer of bad new. Other times, we rather relish the opportunity. As a Kingdom people, Christians that must inform another about a decision that he or she will find unsavory must allow grace to abound. This is not just a suggestion for the person who is more than ready to deliver the news to the other who simply “deserves” the news, but to all in positions of authority. Sometimes, we simply neglect to consider the alternatives, and how best the medicine might be administered, and instead we protect our own hearts over the one whose heart will really break when the news is given.

It is like the doctor that hates telling family members when they have lost a loved one. He simply does not think he can bear the responsibility, so he simply and matter-of-factly blurts out the news and walks away. Yes, it might be hard for him, but it pales in comparison to the heartbreak of the recipients, and his news, although necessary to deliver, is given in such a way that its delivery only adds to the pain.  He should be more willing to hurt for the sake of others, sharing in the burden of bad news by being there for the bereaved.  

Sometimes the pill is simply hard to swallow, no matter how much we care for that person to which we must give the news. However, we have an obligation as people of the community of grace, to be as gracious as possible. We must not be so caught up in our own concerns that we forget to protect the heart of the other.

Never should we, wittingly or unwittingly, tell them to “Shove it.” If you catch my drift…

Against Piper’s Suggestion That Jesus Must Have Just Killed at Least 39 People

Note: There is certainly more to say, but I am exhausted by this discussion. I feel I need a little time to think and rethink the implications of what has been said. For now, I will just leave you with my initial thoughts with the understanding that I will more than likely refine and adjust after I have allowed my emotions to subside. As I often say to protect my ego after posting something without much proofing. Please forgive any errors/typos, I hope to recharge and revisit this soon.

“If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command.” –John Piper, Fierce Tornadoes and the Fingers of God

Here we sit, mere days after precious lives have been lost, and instead of acting pastorally, giving a hurt American community hope in God in spite of tragic loss, hope that death is not the final say so, Piper decides to take this very sensitive opportunity to deliver an insensitive response. Instead of hope in God in light of tragedy, John Piper suggests God is the cause of such. Is this the sort of message that needs to be given in difficult times? John Piper thinks so. I for one, do not. But, I often feel like a small, Wesleyan fish in a huge Reformed pond. Not only do I think certain truths are better used at certain times, I simply believe Piper is wrong in general. However, for lack of space, my argument at present will not be an alternative view, but a demonstration of a lack of warrant in Piper’s. While I can hardly fathom a reason why it could be the case, maybe Piper is right in his assumption that God sent the tornadoes as an ordained act of His sovereign reign; however, Piper’s defense for such leaves much to be desired. My purposes here are to suggest Piper try again. If he wishes to suggest the onus for these deaths are upon God and are not the sheer result of a fallen world and sin, as most death seems to be, then he needs to do a better job of defending his point than a pithy 800 word essay that assumes too much from the Scripture he uses for proof texting. If you are going to hide behind a blog in order to tell hurt persons that (Lord forgive me for even typing such) Christ has just killed their relatives, then you have a responsibility to not mention your premises in mere passing, but to explicate them in full. Until then, I refuse to make such bold assumptions, and I hope most persons who read this post refuse to do so as well.

Addition for clarity:   I want to make myself clear from the outset. Nowhere in this blog am I suggesting that God cannot or does not control weather as an act of judgment. Instead, I am merely suggesting that there is not sufficient ground for an a priori assumption that God has to be the cause of every natural disaster directly. Piper’s argument is not that it is possible God killed 39 people, but that He did. He assumes as much because of the premise that all natural disasters have to be of God, for nothing within the created order has such power. I find this highly speculative. First of all, where is this suggested anywhere in Scripture? Second, although it is feasible that God caused the recent tragedy, we cannot make an assumption that suggested He must. If it is the case that God has to be the direct cause for such events, then every disaster that has befallen humanity due to some uncontrollable, cataclysmic event is the result of God’s divine hand. Are we warranted to say such? While we might be warranted to assume He permitted such events, there does not seem to be biblical evidence to suggest He directly orchestrates all such events. On the other hand, if it is the case that God is not always the direct agent of causation for all disaster, but sometimes the result is due to the fallen nature of the world under sin or is the result of Satan’s actions, then to attribute all tragedy to God would be blasphemous, for we would be attributing the work of sin and/or the devil to God. While it is possible that Piper is correct about this one event, his argument also suggests that all such events are of God, and, if even only one is not such that God is the primary agent, Piper has a very big problem on his hands and has led many astray. My concluding that Piper believes God to be the author and agent of this recent disaster is not based on one mere excerpt from his blog. Instead, it comes from the whole tenor of the argument and from the explicit statements he says at the end, to which I refer later in this blog. I also demonstrate that there is a high possibility that not all such events are the direct actions of God.

First, Piper opens with a list of Scripture that is to somehow cement within our minds that God controls all violent acts of nature (Hosea 13:15; Exodus 10:19; Jonah 4:8; Psalm 107:25; Matthew 8:27), that nothing else in existence has the means to cause such destruction. I guess God built the atomic bomb as well. The issue here is that these Scripture merely state that God can control nature, not that He always does. We live not only as fallen creatures, but we live as beings in a fallen creation, which groans for redemption as well. To suggest that God has to be the author of such destruction does not come from biblical evidence, but from the logical conclusion of Piper’s heady, systematized theology, which suggests that for God to be sovereign He must control all events. This is not the result of biblical theology, but is the result, as I argue elsewhere of a systematic theology, which forces the adherent to ascribe all things to God. Since Piper holds to such claims and even champions them, he apparently feels the need to defend such claims, especially after tragic, nationally known events. 

But back to Piper’s biblical examples of God being the agent of causation, let us narrow our focus for a moment. Considering the gospel accounts concerning Jesus calming the storm, it would seem strange to assume God the Father set a storm in motion only to have the Son rebuke the storm. This seems to be a house divided if there ever was one. The response is not, “Who is this that the Father would obey Him?” Instead, the response attributes the storm to nature itself, “Who is this that the winds and waves should obey Him” (Matthew 8:27). One could respond with an argument from silence that suggests that God caused the storm precisely so that Jesus could demonstrate His divine nature, but, once again, this would trivialize the act, much like a man paying an attacker to stage a rape against a woman, so that he could look like a hero once he stops the attack. It simply appears to be deception: The ancient Hebraic culture would not have assumed God caused the chaotic weather, so they would never make the connection that it was a set up.

After giving a list of Scripture that suggests that God has the ability to control weather, none of which suggest he causes all events of nature, he turns to Job. In order to continue the argument that God is the One who directly causes devastation, Piper discusses the winds that came to kill Job’s children, and Piper seems to praise Job for his response to the devastation: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1:21). This is an utterance coming from a man who God still has much to teach.  The whole story of Job demonstrates that Job had much to learn about His God. So, taking something Job says of God in the very beginning of the story as being pure, theological gold is less than warranted. Yet, this verse is misused in eulogies almost every day. In response to such narrowed use of this portion of Scripture, Dr. Ben Witherington III writes the following after the loss of his own daughter:

The words “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away,” from the lips of Job, are not good theology.  They’re bad theology.  According to Job 1, it was not God, but the Devil who took away Job’s children, health and wealth.  God allowed it to happen, but when Job said these words, as the rest of the story shows, he was not yet enlightened about the true nature of where his calamity came from and what God’s will actually was for his life — which was for good, and not for harm.

Simply that Job attributes his extreme loss to God, does not make it the case (also see Job 7:20, 13:24, 21:7). Let us not theologically trivialize true loss by suggesting, “While it looks bad, it really is the good will of God that we should suffer loss” What Job experienced was true loss, real pain, and the result of sin in a fallen world, and he was really honest in his expression, feeling that God was against him. Those of us who read the story to the end, a privilege Job did not have when he made his statement, and see it is actually Satan acting against Job, should dare not attribute such to God, and we should not simply say, “Well, God means well.” To say, “God works all things for the good of those who love Him,” (Romans 8:28) is not to say that God causes all those things that He in turn uses for good. Instead, God’s redeeming nature can cause the suffering Christian to grow even in light of true evil’s impact. As Joseph said to His brothers, “What you intended for evil, God has intended for good” (Genesis 50:20). That the event was evil is not denied, but there is recognition that God can use such situations to further sanctify the believer. If Satan is capable of such destruction, yet our assumptions ignore this fact and immediately attribute all disaster to God, we might find ourselves at fault for blasphemy, attributing the acts of Satan to those of a good and loving God. While Piper might not be guilty of such, he seems to be playing fast and loose with his assumptions.

Perhaps we do not want to agree with Dr. Witherington in saying that Job was mistaken when He said, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away,” (Job 1:21), although I tend to agree. But, perhaps instead we want to assume God did take something away, but are we to assume that what God took away was all of Job’s belonging and even Job’s children through the direct acts of “natural disaster?” This is not what the text seems to suggest. Instead, if we can say God took anything away from Job, it would be His “hedge of protection” (Job 1:10) so that it is Satan who then takes from Job all that he holds dear. In this passage, Satan suggests that Job is only loyal to God because God has provided above and beyond for Job by protecting Job against Satan. All that befalls Job hereafter is the work of Satan. God allows it, for all that happens must be allowed, but it was not of God--and, yes, I am referring to the “natural disasters” that befell Job.

If we wish to affirm Piper’s statement quoted at the beginning of this blog: “If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command,” we have to say that God caused the devastation of Job’s family. Don’t allow the language of Piper’s quote to have you imagine he might not be saying God caused the recent disaster, but merely permitted it, for Piper is also so bold to defend the following question, “Why would God reach down his hand and drag his fierce fingers across rural America killing at least 38 [now 39 since an infant has passed] people with 90 tornadoes in 12 states, and leaving some small towns with scarcely a building standing, including churches?” It is this question that Piper sets out to answer, adding, “We do not ascribe such independent power to Mother Nature or to the devil.” In other words, "This was God." While Piper might not ascribe such power to Satan, the book of Job seems to do so:

“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied.  “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.  But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”

                        Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. (Job 1:9-11)

While Satan petitions God to strike Job, God’s response is not to then turn and smite this righteous man. Instead, He allows Satan to do as he will, demonstrating Job’s goodness is not predicated upon Job’s understanding of works righteousness. Immediately following this allowance, Job’s sons and daughters are killed by a violent wind. The assumption should be that Satan attacked. It is only obvious that such is the case, unless we assume God does what Satan wishes and causes evil to befall Job by His own hand. This is clearly not the case. So, Piper suggesting that Satan has no such power to cause great winds seems to be in contradiction to what is happening in Job 1. Once again, Piper assumes it is God’s finger that ripped through the homes of many Americans just a few days ago because only God could do so, and while I allow for now that he might be right (although my assumption is that he is not), I also contend that he has not sufficiently considered the alternative, that evil is a destructive force that often befalls humanity in considerable ways.

To suggest that only God can perform such powerful acts such as storms, earthquakes and the like is silly, unless, of course, one’s theology forces one to suggest that God’s sovereignty forces Him to be the cause of all that happens, which is Piper’s stance, it seems. God’s power extends to such greatness that He can cause universes to exist. A storm is small potatoes and to suggest evil can cause such destruction does not threaten God in the least. How can we make such claims? What if I said,  “No man is powerful enough to murder another. Only God can give and take life.” Does it make it any less true that murders are the culpable agents of the causes for murder? Absolutley not. Does the fact that murders happen make God the cause; does it make God a murderer? No. To say something as whimsical as God alone has the power to control weather might sound nice, but it is simply untrue and leads to unwarranted assumptions concerning His character that Christians then have to unnecessarily defend.  With scientific advances, even humans impact weather. If we were to set off a nuclear bomb, or a series of bombs, inside the earth that caused great devastation, we need not say, “Whoa, that must have been God.” Likewise if a fallen creation produces a devastating wind because of natural consequences of the order of things (otherwise, how did meteorologist predict such would happen), we need not blame God a priori.

In the next section of his blog, Piper seems to move further and further away from his defense of God being just while being the cause of the devastation. Instead, he begins to discuss results, as if the ends justify the means. Piper begins to discuss the Luke 13:4-5 passage in which Jesus discusses the death of those whom were crushed by the tower of Siloam. Piper’s point is to suggest that the deaths of those in the path of destructive forces serve as a warning to the rest of us, and this story in Luke seems to suggest Jesus took occasion to make such a point. However, how does this then suggest that God caused the event? That it reminds us of our finitude, and that such a reminder can be beneficial, does not mean God justly caused a disaster that would otherwise be evil. If this event is to be analogous to recent disasters, Piper once again must be assuming that the tower did not fall for any other reason than God’s mighty hand pushing it over. Such is never suggested in this passage.  Instead, a more natural reading would be that Jesus simply takes occasion to use the tragedy to make a point of correction to unwarranted assumptions concerning the cause of destruction. During this time, it was often assumed that evil befell persons because they had sinned perhaps worse than others, that we all could avoid such by being “good enough.” Jesus is simply saying that this is not the case, but it is the case that if we do not repent then we all shall perish, whether by such dramatic causes or by simply dying of old age. In the end, perishing is perishing. Let us not fool ourselves. The point is that we are all going to suffer termination one way or another if we repent not. In other words, we are no better off simply because the tragic event did not directly impact us. It is not proof we are sinless. Once again, the present discussion is whether or not God causes natural disaster. In the end, this Lukan passage is so far removed from the present discussion that to import it in as a backing for God’s destructive nature seems dishonest.

Piper ends the section by saying; “Every deadly wind in any town is a divine warning to every town.” If we are to assume this is a justification for God touching His finger to the earth so that it ripped through the homes of several American families, then we can put Piper’s statement thusly: “God did not simply permit evil to befall people with the result that persons would be reminded of our finitude and need for God [as seems to be a natural reading of the Lukan passage], but that God Himself touched His finger to earth, killing several, so that some might be so fortunate to know we need Him.” This is an ends justifying the means approach that seems to be forced upon this situation. Like so many things Hyper-Calvinistic, this can be construed as something great for those spared, but not so good for those who were not. On the other hand, that God allows such to happen, with the result being that some take stock of their own finitude is different than that He causes the devastation of some for the benefit of others.

There is a very clever philosophical slight-of-hand maneuver that is often used (by many Reformed thinkers, certainly not all) to rebut such claims as I am making, namely that there is a difference between permitting and ordaining/causing. Reformed persons might suggest that there is really no difference and that Christians must own up to the fact that God causes everything. To demonstrate this claim, Calvinist will often suggest that the onus for all things is still on God since He could possibly stop every event. This ignores causation. While God’s permitting evil to befall Job, the people at Siloam and the recent victims of the tornadoes might be unsavory to us still, we must not suggest that God’s allowance of attack only pushes the issue of God’s onus back a step. In other words, we cannot simply say, “Well God could have stopped Satan from attacking so that God is still responsible for Job’s loss.” The result of such is that many reformers task does not become a question of who is to blame, but how is God justified in doing such. I would submit that suggesting God only permitting destruction is not the same as saying God ordains such. Saying God ordains and causes such an event places Him as the direct agent and even the coordinator of evil, while His permitting such does not have to suggest He fixed the events or set them in motion. The question of causation cannot be avoided by the simple statement that whatever is caused could be nullified by God. The cause is still the cause.

As C.S. Lewis often suggested, if God were not to permit sin from ever having its affect upon the earth, we would not need salvation from sin. It is because sin is destructive that we need freedom from such bondage. God’s allowance of sin in the world does not create a philosophical problem that makes God the culpable agent no matter who causes such destruction. Instead, the onus for sin’s destructive place in the world lands squarely on humanity’s shoulders. In the end, Jesus is not saying, unless you repent the Father will crush you with a tower.” He is simply saying, “Sin will take occasion to finally terminate your being if you do not repent.” Jesus seems to suggest the onus to be on us. Jesus is not defending a destructive God. He need not do so.

In his final section, Piper ends his thoughts with the following statement:

Jesus rules the wind. The tornadoes were his.

But before Jesus took any life in rural America, he gave his own on the rugged cross. Come to me, he says, to America — to the devastated and to the smugly self-sufficient. Come to me, and I will give you hope and help now, and in the resurrection, more than you have ever lost.

You can show your partnership in suffering, and help lift the load, at Samaritan’s Purse.

John Piper cannot pass up the chance to bash humanity by suggesting that we are smugly self sufficient. So, although Piper suggested we cannot know the ins and outs of God’s judgment, he cannot help himself from accusatory statements, even if they are not the cause. He seems to miss the point that Jesus suggests that not all evil is the direct result of the victims’ sins, but the natural result of a fallen world. In other ridiculous words, Piper suggests Jesus devastated these people, but if you wish to be more benevolent than He and lift the burden He caused to befall these people, you can help by giving to the Samaritan’s Purse. This is theologically bankrupt. Jesus said this of His own purpose: “I came to give life, and give life abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus died so that we do not have to die.

In these words, John Piper makes the bold assumption that it was God the Son who killed all the people in the storms. While he wishes to argue in his third section and also in his second section that God’s ways are inscrutable, in other words, we cannot decipher why God would do such, Piper nonetheless ironically tries to give at least some defense as to why God would do such. In the end, God’s ways are not our ways for sure, but Christian’s should not use such as a crutch to say, “Well, God sure did a number on them, and, while I might hate it myself, He has His reasons.” Piper uses statements in Job and Romans to suggest that, while we do not understand, it is not our place to question. This would be accurate if God indeed killed 39 people and we knew not why, but that this is the case is inconclusive to say the least. Christians should not feel silenced by Piper’s use of the texts suggesting we simply cannot understand why God would do such, for he conveniently forgets to mention the texts that tell us more about who we are, as Christians, concerning our understanding: “Who has known the mind of the Lord as to instruct Him, but we have the mind of Christ.” Paul is suggesting that we have a deeper insight as Christians than mere surface understanding. While Job cannot comprehend the inscrutable actions of God, Christians have at least some advantage over this position in that the Love of God resides within us, giving us some insight into His ways. This is not to say we can know all of what God is up to, but it seems to suggest that we do not have to be completely befuddled. If the Christian mind God has given me seems to rail against something as being not of God, I have good reason to think I am right. I should not simply say, well God did it and I have to live with it. I have the privilege to test situations and persons to see if they testify of God or demonstrate evil. Once again, this is not to suggest that this particular event was not as Piper insists, but it is to suggest we are given the grace to discern for ourselves if this testimony is of God. We do not simply have to write it off.

In the end, Piper’s argument is lacking in many ways. First, his selection of Scripture fails to suggest, as he assumes it does, that God controls all natural events, including disasters. Second, that God would allow evil to befall humans does not mean that he had to cause such. There is no suggestion that God justifies sin so that he might better us. Instead, in light of sin, God’s grace works against sins natural tendency to destroy and instead takes opportunity to redeem, even though we are the culpable party. Thirdly, while we all will perish, disaster is not proof that God is punishing some for the sake of others. Instead, as Christ suggests, death is a sobering reminder that sin is real. Nowhere is this a reminder that God causes sin, evil or all disasters. Finally, Christ came to give life, not to take it away. Moreover, if Christ were the cause, who are we to go against his action in order to restore the devastation by giving to Samaritan’s purse.

So, I say again:

Try again. -TM

Losing Traction: Part Two, Reviewing Bass’s Take Upon the Decline

In my last post, I acknowledged the admittedly hard, cold fact that the American Church is on the decline. In my personal experience as a Christian minister, I can tell you that this is not a blow to my pride that I must try to soften as much as I possibly can. Instead, it is a saddening fact that I feel I must expose if there is any hope for the future, not just for the church, but for those the church is supposed to impact. We are the salt and light in a tasteless and dark world. Christians must be concerned for our own health, not for the sake of self, but for the sake of others.

A few days after writing my previous post, “Why is the American Church Losing Traction,” a friend of mine sent me a link on Facebook to an article in the Huffington Post. We had been discussing the issue from our own differing perspectives, and here was yet another perspective from a differing point-of-view. While we all disagree on the “why,” we all acknowledge the “what,” the American Church is spiraling downward.

The title of this particular article read: “The End of Church.”* The author, Diana Bass, was also acknowledging the current tendencies of our American culture to move away from “religion.” Yet, per my last blog, I believe Bass’s title to be a bit premature. First of all, while the church in America is certainly on the decline and will be on the margins by the year 2050 if current tendencies hold, certainly we cannot assume that we are seeing outright extinction. Moving from the social norm to a small minority is one thing; total nonexistence is another. Now, this might be a Christian minister’s attempt to be optimistic. I hope not.

Second, and perhaps more pertinent, I must once again note, mainstream writers are intent on focusing on the decline here, while failing to acknowledge Christianity’s exponential growth elsewhere. Even while the Christian community is losing numbers in one area of the world, namely here in the United States, it is growing at such a rate elsewhere that the faith as a whole is actually increasing. Let me be clear, this is not just “church talk.” I am not just repeating some cliché idea you hear bantered about the halls of church, “Well, you’ve heard of the conversions in Africa haven’t you. Thousands a day!” While this might sound like ungrounded Christian optimism, according to peer-reviewed research in the realm of academia, the hard numbers demonstrate a growth. Thems the facts, as they say.

In other words, the terms “end” and “death,” which are used throughout this article, are a bit premature at best, and can be very misleading at worst. Yet, this does not negate that the church has a problem right here right now, and Bass has some very interesting comments to make that we should consider. While I assume Bass and I would almost certainly disagree upon many topics such as the nature of Christianity and the direction in which the faith should move, we are seeing the same data, and some of the information she brings to light helps shed light upon my last post. So, let’s dig in.

The first statement that caught my attention was spot-on and rife with irony: “For decades, mainline Protestants have watched helplessly as their membership rolls dwindled, employing program after program to try to stop the decline.” I would only add to this that, along with programs, the church is also resorting to marketing. The United Methodist Church, the denomination that I officially belong to as a lay man (not my ordaining body), has for some years now tried to regain its status in America through commercials and sloganeering: “Open Hearts, Open Doors, Open Minds.” Such attempts have not proven fruitful. It is not that the church has just not figured out the right marketing strategy or program, it is that people are not looking for such. In fact, it is the programming of which persons are so annoyed. Persons do not want programs; programs that came to replace church education and practice, are the exact problems that have caused our decline in the first place. So using such programs in order to draw persons in is quite ironic. People are looking for a faith that changes life, a point Bass makes and one that we will discuss presently. Speaking about labels, Bass states:

Americans are extremely warm toward "spiritual but not religious" (30 percent) and, even more interestingly (and perhaps paradoxically), the term "spiritual and religious" (48 percent). While "religion" means institutional religion, "spirituality" means an experience of faith. Large numbers of Americans are hankering for experiential faith whereby they can connect with God.

While the tenor of Bass’s entire article seems to suggest that the movements of American sensibilities upon religion are new, exciting, and evolutionary, I would argue that the want for “experiential faith” is nothing new. Moving back only a few centuries, we can note that John Wesley often spoke of Christianity, at its core, as being an “experimental faith.” While there is no need to examine the full etymology of the term “experimental,” it is obvious from its use by this 18^th century thinker that the word he would use today would be “experiential.” The New Testament clearly demonstrates Christianity as a new way of life. The movement of the church to devolve into merely an institution of programs and marketing is the emerging church. If we do move towards a more experiential faith, it will not be an evolving, but purification from “progress.”

In the above quote Bass also demonstrates that the average American is not simply becoming irreligious and naturalistic. It is not as if Americans have a sense of evolving as persons who understand faith as outmoded and academically inferior. In fact, there is a large faction of persons who still want for spiritual connection. It is not simply that Americans are through with faith in things unseen. If it were the case that deepening knowledge has made our want for faith superfluous, pluralism would not be on the rise. Instead, the trend would simply be a shift to atheism and naturalistic thought: “But,” as Bass points out, “nearly half of Americans appear to hope for a spiritual reformation -- or even revolution -- in their faith traditions and denominations.”  Instead of leaving belief in a deeper reality behind post-modern persons are simply dabbling in various faiths, trying to fill their need for a deeper connection, and where the church is more attentive to real needs, instead of denominational concerns, progress is made.

There are successful individual congregations -- Catholic or Protestant, mainline or evangelical, liberal or conservative, small or large -- everywhere. But the institutional structures of American religion -- denominations of all theological sorts -- are in a freefall…They are still trying to fix institutional problems and flex political muscle instead of tending to the spiritual longings of regular Americans…Americans are not rejecting faith -- they are, however, rejecting self-serving religious institutions.

Bass seems to point out an interesting fact, and I wonder if there is another possible outcome that this could produce beyond Bass’s assumption of an ending of the church. While I do not believe Christian-based faith communities that have a deep desire for experiential faith are new, they might be relatively new in America, although, as I alluded to earlier in mentioning Wesley, such a presence has existed in America before, at least during the early Methodist movement. Maybe, instead of an end, some persons are leaving denominationalism in hopes that “self-serving” church institutions will catch a hint that people are hungering for something much more authentic, and the church will remerge stronger than before. This has happened in Australia. According to a conversation I had with Brian Edgar, a Christian ethicist in Australia, while denominations still exist in Australia, persons do not decide on attending a church based on the name over the door. Instead, persons test the churches on an individual basis. In other words, people go to churches that promote true Christian life, not denominationalism. Perhaps, and I simply say perhaps, if the church in America can realize this truth, that it is not about marketing or programs, but about experience, then maybe there is hope for the church. I do not think this is absolutely outside the realm of possibility. As Bass points out, there are individual churches within many traditions that are successful.

In the end, Bass suggests that our present culture “expresses a grassroots desire for new kinds of faith communities.” In one way, I find this statement oxymoronic, especially when the author seems to be simply equating the American church with Christianity as a whole. How can we be expressing a “grassroots” desire for something “new”? On the other hand, I can agree that many American persons are craving something that can be largely unavailable in many mainline churches today, a promotion of experiential faith. As I stated in my last blog, one of our biggest problems is our lack of want to theologically educate our communities on what it means to be a Christian. Instead, we just give them things to do, programs as it were. This is entirely lacking. Persons do not inherently know how to live within a culture. They must be taught. The church has an ontological responsibility to teach others what it means to live out the faith.

*Bass, Diana.(Feb. 18, 2012). “The End of Church.” Huff Post Religion, Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-butler-bass/the-end-of-church_b_1284954.html

My Audrey’s Little “Uh-Oh:” From Utter Sadness to Sanctification

Have you ever experienced one of those moments when your emotions overwhelmed you in a time you would never expect them to do so? That happened to me last night while I was lying in bed with my wife and daughter. I found myself extremely sad. Along with the sadness, I felt a sense of embarrassment, assuming if someone knew what warmed the tears in my eyes, he or she would find the cause extremely silly. The event seemed so out of place at the moment that I did not even mention it to my wife, maybe for the concern I might just lose my grip entirely if I spoke of the reason my heart was melting in my chest.

“Uh-oh, Mommy…. Uh-oh, Daddy…” I hear these phrases uttered from my daughter’s lips more times in a day than I care to count. Usually, Audrey voices her concern with this phrase when she drops something, bumps her head, or the like. In other words, she is recognizing, at nineteen months, a mistake, something that should not or does not have to be, “Uh-oh…” So there we lay, the three of us in the bed, because Audrey is ill and cannot find comfort. She is tossing and turning, and I cannot do anything to help. That was bad enough, but what happened next absolutely broke my heart.

As she tossed and turned, she whimpered, her congested chest and sinuses making lying down in any position uncomfortable. Then she tugged at her ears and said, “Mommy, ears… ears, Mommy…” It was obvious that she was in pain. Maybe the congestion was taking its toll on her sinuses so much so that it was putting pressure on her ears. It might have not been related to her sickness at all. She is, we think, also cutting here two-year molars, just adding insult to injury. Whatever the cause, she was suffering. In the grand scheme of things, this is no big deal. All babies fall ill sometimes, and they all cut teeth. But it was the reaction of her innocence that broke me down to sadness and even anger if I am honest.

“Uh-oh, Mommy… Uh-oh, Daddy…” As she tugged on her ears, she kept expressing her feelings with the phrase, “Uh-oh.” Think about the word choice. She knows “ouch,” and she also knows how to express pain by simply crying. Instead of choosing to say, “Ouch, Mommy… Ouch, Daddy,” instead of simply crying, she chose to say, “Uh-oh.” In other words, “This pain I feel is not natural. It is a mistake. Something is simply wrong with this situation.” I am not being overly sensitive here. I know my daughter, and I believe at the depths of my being, this is what she was communicating. As I said, in the light of all the real suffering in the world, this was nothing: A little Tylenol, and presto! She feels better. But the simple fact that she hurt isn’t the rub here; is it?

 As elementary a level as it might have been, my daughter came to recognize and express the human condition in her little, heart-felt, “Uh-oh.”  She knew that the pain she was feeling was not right. It did not have to be so. What breaks my heart all the more is that, while she recognizes it does not have to be so, she does not know why it is now the case that it is so. While she feels it in her being, she still, in some years to be, has to come to know our fall, a reality I do not want her to come to know. She has to learn of her exile from Eden. My heart melted in the knowledge that this is just the beginning of my daughter coming to know that all is not right in the present reality, and anger even filled my heart as I realized that sin is so pervasive that it will not leave her alone with a cold and tooth ache.

It took some time of real grief and anguish, but oh the joy that continues to fill my heart when I realize she will also hear the good news of Jesus Christ and His love for her. No one can take that away. The cruciform heart that led Christ to the cross, which is the same heart at the core of the Father and the Spirit as well, loves Audrey in her brokenness, like this heart loves every child born into this broken world, and one day, when she chooses Him for her Lord, her little “uh-ohs,” will become, “halleluiahs.”

I know this: As my heart melted in my chest from Audrey’s little “uh-ohs,” God’s heart melted as well. I am a father, but He is the Father. The goodness dimly reflected in my love, shines forth from Him at every moment. What my fatherly love draws to the surface of my broken heart is already at the core of His. In her little cries, I am sanctified, becoming more and more like my heavenly Father. My selfish heart fades away, as all my concern and love is lavished upon Audrey. God hears our cries, but He need not be moved to tears to be pulled from selfishness into outwardly focused love. This is just Who He is, and it is who He is making me in the most unexpected ways.

I can only hope that my heart would continue to bleed in love for the hurting children of the world, the hurting children in all of us. It is in the furnace of this love, the love afforded to us by His grace, that we are purified. As much as it hurt, I am glad that I was not too obtuse to hear the depths of her little “uh-oh.” It was not merely a recognition of pain, but of hurt on a deeper level, a recognition that not all is right. I can hardly wait for the day that I share with her the love that calls her out of this reality into His great adoption.

Lord, continue to sanctify me unto entirety through the little “uh-ohs” of the world. Amen

Why Is The American Church Losing Traction?

“We have to learn how to evangelize and plant churches again, and do it from the prophetic margins, not the center, of culture.” –Dr. Timothy Tennent

I was first introduced to the term ‘Christendom’ as a referent to any place in which Christianity has pervaded culture due to a dense Christian community when I read “The Next Christendom” by Larry Jenkins. These communities are those in which Christianity does not exist on the margins, but is a majority view highly acceptable by persons of that region. In a more strict sense, the sense I was more familiar with, this term refers to an official church state, but the broader term, in relation to the more narrowed sense, makes a great, correlating claim about the area being considered.

If we are labeling a state or nation with the term ‘Christendom,’ even while that country is not officially Christian by governmental proclamation, we are saying much about what we think this area of the world is like, and we are saying it is something like the official states in some sense. First, as stated above, we are suggesting that this is a place where Christianity is highly accepted and even assumed to be socially superior to other religions or worldviews. Moreover, since this is a state in which Christianity is not persecuted, it is a place where Christians can relax and interact openly in politics and cultural decisions as a Christian. It is a place where being a Christian, in an openly religious sense is not difficult.

As nice as this is, it does come with dangers, and this is where I think lumping these sorts of nations in with official church states is fitting. Tragically, being declared Christian by association with a certain culture leads to nominal Christianity and to an erosion of evangelical priorities. Whether one is declared Christian in the Constantinian sense, or one adopts Christianity because it is a social norm, a muddling of church and state can lead to true faith taking a back seat. Note that I am not saying that Christendom is or is not a totally negative phenomenon. That is a topic for another time. I am simply pointing out the fact that Christendom comes with its risks. Social engineering often replaces moral formation, and true faith is replaced with religious pretext.

Unfortunately, we are seeing the fallout of a failing Christendom project right here in America. It is not only illustrated by the daily decline of evangelical Christianity in the West, a place where Christianity used to be an assumed reality for almost every citizen. It is seen in the failings of the church in holding our ground due to the blindness of many church leaders to the fact of the condition of our society. There is a glaring neglect for missions and evangelism in so many churches still today, even while our part of the world is the fasting growing mission field in existence.

I have heard so many speak of feeling blessed to have lived in a time when morality in America was taken for granted. While ‘bad people’ were present, the vast majority of Americans had a respect for one another, at very least as a social pretext. I acknowledge that this was surely a blessing in a lot of ways, but, in some ways, I feel blessed to have been raised during the fallout, where TV is full of pornographic images, even on regular cable, where men openly treat women like objects, and women speak with tongues formally reserved for the most base individuals of society.

I certainly do not say this for shock value, nor do I delight in the openness in which people of today participate in immorality. Instead, I see a blessing in the fact that I have not been made delusional by a past that no longer exists except, perhaps, as a façade in certain areas of the country. Nor am I victim of to that which some of the older generations fell prey, which is lethargy and negligence due to ill-conceived assumptions. Christendom can lead to unwarranted assumptions concerning the need for effective evangelism, or lack thereof. In a culture in which everyone is assumed Christian, our missional call as the church takes a back seat. This is surely a huge problem here in America.

There was a time in which I almost fell into this line of thinking. I was only a child, perhaps just before the fallout in my area of the world, which might of held on a little longer, but I can remember coming home from Vacation Bible School in a panic. I figured if I were really called to evangelize to the lost like the Bible says I should, I would have to become a missionary, because everyone in my world, so I thought, was a Christian. It did not take much time out in the real world for me to become disillusioned. Unfortunately, there are those of generations past that are still living in the past because they do not interact on a social level with younger generations that are giving way to pluralism. Instead, these older generations grew up in an assumed Christian culture where missional thinking was fanatical or exotic, and church programs and social events replaced effective evangelism. For many, the church gathering on Sunday morning is as it always has been, a nice sermon, some songs, shaking of hands, and a filling lunch with acquaintances, and the true state of Christianity and the surrounding, declining culture is easily ignored. The assumption of a Christian norm still persists.

For my generation, at least those involved with the surrounding culture, we can no longer assume, as once was the norm, that those we engage with on the streets are Christian. Pluralism is on the rise, and evangelical Christianity in America, as has already taken place in Europe, is on the decline. Older generations who still are involved with the same friends they have always had, the ones they grew up with, do not see the lash back against Christianity amongst members of my generation, but people my age see it everyday.

Why is Christianity losing traction? In our comfortable Christendom, we lost discipline. Comfort led to nominal religion. Christian education is almost oxymoronic in many minds. The church lost much of its missional talent and we no longer have persons who are willing or educated enough to address a non-Christian, post-Christendom world. Frantically, my generation is trying to make up for lost time, the time in which we should have been discipled to have a missional heart and real intelligence.

The church by and large does not know how to be on mission right here at home. For too long we took for granted the state of the culture, and we are having a hard time fighting for the faith in this postmodern, pluralistic society. We do not know how to live on the margins, to be those ostracized for our opinions, and this only compounds the issue and makes us more and more marginalized. In our blessed comfort, we unwittingly became indolent and forgot catechesis, the raising up of disciples through disciplined, robust Christian teaching.

So, when my friend comes to me frustrated that his church is more concerned with fixing the television in the social hall than they are with working with a failing budget that gives little in the way of missions, and this friend only sees a sense of entitlement coming from an older Christian concerned with secondary concerns over the true mission of the church, my response is not merely to say that this is one bad egg amongst well-intentioned Christians. The question my friend is asking of this church leader is a common question that my generation has concerning many of our superiors: “How can you not see that you are not focusing on the mission of the church.” It is a matter of living in two different worlds. We grew up during the fallout. Many leaders older than us are still living under old assumptions. It is not a matter of one individual being stubborn or one being more intuitive or idealistic. It is a matter of generational assumptions, perspectives, and experiences.

Certainly, we have gained much from our elders, and many of our elders are just as missionally minded and exponentially wiser than many of my generation. We owe much to those who raised us up. But, now we have something to offer back, a new perspective, a call to regain our missional purpose. We need to call attention to the real state in which our American finds itself. Some truly do not realize how bad it is out there. All is not lost, but we must fight.

-TM

The Effectiveness of Prayer

“If God knows all that has ever been, all that is, and all that ever will be, including the little desires of my human heart, then what is the logic behind petitioning prayer? How can I change anything?”

This is certainly a human question that arises often in many of our minds. It is an issue of logic, and logic often serves us quite well. So, it can seem counterintuitive to the logical mind of the devout Christian to petition God for anything. Even so, He asks us to pray nevertheless, even saying such things as, “Give us this day our daily bread.” In other words, “Lord, please provide for me those things I need for sustenance, for without You, I will perish.”

Now, we might suggest that such a petition is to be given so that we might remind ourselves of our utter need for God, that prayer becomes a didactic tool God gives us so that we can verbally acknowledge our dependency, and this certainly might be the case, but not merely so. Prayer is more than cathartic; it is effective (I Chron. 28:9; Matt. 21:22; Luke 11:9-13; James 5:16).

Now we have reached a seemingly paradoxical reality. Before we pray, God knows all that ever will come to pass. Nonetheless, the Bible suggests that our prayer has an actual effect upon reality. A basic response might be to suggest that God has answered our prayers beyond eternity, that time as we know it is not a limiting factor upon God.

I have another response to the Christian who questions his or her need to pray based on a theological understanding of the pervasiveness of God’s knowledge and, perhaps, will. While the one making this argument might within his or her own mind be suggesting a limitation on the human end, suggesting that because we are limited by our place in space and time we cannot effect the decisions of an eternal God, what the person is really suggesting is a limitation in God’s ability.

If we suggest that God’s nature is such that it limits our ability to affect reality through prayer, and yet we note that God says that He wishes for us to pray, what we are saying in effect is this: “While God might wish for us to make meaningful petitions, He cannot respond to the prayers of finite man due to His eternal nature.” In other words, God’s nature is a limiting factor upon what He can do. Is this the case? I do not assume so…

Think about it.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:16

-TM