Love and Turn or Burn.

This has been a round a while, but it still is a good point to jump into.  What is love and how does it tie to evangelism.  People seem eager to claim Jesus as a paragon of their own moral definitions.  For example.

If there's one thing classic 80's music has taught me, it's to ask "what is love?"

Many have taken the meaning of this different definition of love within and without the church.  This meme started outside of the church and buys into our modern zeitgeist.  However ironically because of the definition difference of love between the church and the external world we agree on this picture but not the meaning.  We should love, but we define love differently.  The love being pushed outside the church is a simple self-affirmation. 

Love is not God (Adam4D)

This is what is horrible about secular and liberal Christianity.  It’s so nice it’s cruel, ignoring the peril of sin.  In this model Jesus would tell the Samaritan woman “I’m cool with what you did and there’s nothing wrong with it.  Go ahead and have a couple of wives too all at once.  Judge not you know just don’t hurt anybody”.  Yet that’s not what we see at all.  Jesus was loving and honest about her sin.  We are to be also warning of the judgment to come not ignoring it.  However some out of the church see us as otherwise, and some in the Church evangelize this way.  Let me demonstrate with a little retelling.

Jesus reclined at the well of Jacob waiting for his disciples.  A lone woman comes out and Jesus asked her to draw him some water.  She asked why he would ask such a thing being a Jew and she a Samaritan and a woman.  Jesus replies “go to your husband”.  She says “I have no husband”.  Jesus responds “Darn right, you’ve had five husbands you whore, turn and repent”.

What’s wrong with this picture?  We all know the story ( John 4) and that’s not how it goes. Jesus was far more compassionate in his honesty and treated her as a person.   She drew water during the day likely to avoid people who saw her as dirty.  She was even a Samaritan and would have no kind feelings towards a Jew.  Yet Jesus knew this, approached her and spoke kindly and honestly to her. The God who was too Holy for any but Moses to be in his presence came down to dwell among us, and here reached out to a woman living in sin.

Many so called Christians do not follow Christ’s model. Certain churches such as one we all know that’s not a church, not Baptist and yes is in Westboro are prime examples of this.  Turn or burn theology. 

A prime example of Christian love, just not in this universe.

Christ was only harsh when he had to be.  Namely to the Pharisees. I would posit that those who would treat the Samaritan woman are the Pharisees of our day.  Not the good models of Christ and the faithful disciples. Not the model of a God reaching out to save. I have heard homosexuals and those struggling with same sex attraction say of volatile picketers at gay pride parades say “if they are in heaven, I don’t want to be”.  That should be damning of our conduct and heartbreaking to say the least.  I don’t think many of those “Christians” are going to be in heaven either.  Not because Homosexuality isn’t a sin (it is Romans 1, Matthew to name a few) but because of the actions flowing from their hearts show what is in their hearts.  Just because somebody sins differently than I do, doesn’t make me their superior.

Peter is also an example of when to be harsh.  Likewise, his rebuke was to a false shepherd Simon Magus Acts 8:9-15).  The Gospel message of sin and redemption were not compromised but the individual was brought to see their need not with ad hominem hateful speech.  Rather with the message explained and lived out.  With the message proclaimed in word and deed.  Jesus ate with the sinners and while he no doubt spoke scripture he did not turn them away with angry speech.  He drew them in with his presence and his kindness and the truth of his words.  If they don’t see we care for them, why would they listen?

What did Jesus do?  He came, he taught, he fed thousands (Mark 6:30-44 Matthew 13:14-20)

 but he didn’t stop there.  He taught the Gospel, sin and redemption and was often hated for it (John 6.).  He humbled himself and lived it and showed those whom he reached for that he had no ulterior motive.  His words still offended but because of their truth not his conduct.  Let his words offend because they are his words.  His teachings and principles were unchanging and his conduct was loving and consistent.  He got to know people (he even went to parties).  He invested in the people and showed that they meant something.

Take the example in Matthews Gospel for example. In Mathew 9 Jesus calls Matthew while he’s sitting at his tax booth.  Tax collectors were considered cheats and traitors, Christ called him out that lifestyle and literally while he was sitting at such work.  Matthew and Jesus sat with possibly Matthew’s associates (fellow tax collectors and even prostitutes) and ate dinner with them (Matthew 9:9-13).  Matthew brought those he knew from his old lifestyle to hear the Gospel. 

You generally only eat with people you know today.  It was even more so then and still is in Middle Eastern culture, eating was intimate fellowship.  This is why the Pharisees look on this and ask the disciples “why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He is not just eating with them but investing in them personally. 

Jesus’ reply is profoundly deep and incredibly simple.  The doctor treats the sick.  The healthy, the righteous have no need for a physician.  He came to call sinners, which is good for us because none of us are righteous (Romans 3:10-23).  Who else would there be?

In saying “I desire mercy and not a sacrifice” Christ emphasizes the importance of living out faith.  Faith lived is far better than faith of ritual.  A doctor is a good analogy for a doctor cares for his patience and shares the truth of their condition. If a patient doesn’t know he’s ill or has not come to realize it, being harsh with a patient could mean his death. If a patient has a deathly illness and the doctor makes him aware of the fact he will likely run to the cure.

The flip side of turn or burn evangelism is the oft fatalistic mindset of the sinner outside of the church. I had a camper one summer whose mother told him “if I even set foot in a church I would burst into flames”.  This fatalism is not unheard of even among nominal Christians. Similarly I had a Catholic friend tell me once “the things I’ve done I’m going to hell”.  I wish I’d have told him “me too, but it’s not what I’ve done but Christ for me”.  I wish I could have that opportunity back. 

 If you're too sinful/dirty to enter a church because you'd burn up what am I doing in a church?  Look at the Samaritan woman, or the “sinners and tax collectors” Jesus ate with. Or Paul who was actively persecuting, even slaughtering the church.  Christ took it so personal as to ask “Why are you persecuting me” because that is what Paul was doing.  Or Peter even called himself a sinful man when confronted with who Christ is (Luke 8:8).

The Samaritan woman went home to tell everyone and the whole village drew near to hear from Christ.  Peter and Matthew were called from where they were to become disciples.  Living the love of God calls sinners out of this world to great purposes.  In the salvation of one the doors to many others become opened

  It is possible to make so much of one’s sin and to lose sight of God’s love and Grace.  Love truly is about wanting what’s best for another persons not just desiring to avoid unpleasantness.  This is why we can’t leave the world to its fate, we are called to love them.

This is why if we love we can't keep the Gospel to ourselves.

God calls all to repentance.  Religions aside from Christianity are man climbing to the top of a mountain where God is. We cannot reach the peak.  Christianity is God coming down, to look for sinners like you and me.  He came for the sick not the righteous otherwise he would not have come at all.  While most Christians aren’t turn or burn we often get lumped together and lampooned by a world already eager to call us bigots and phobes.

We’re presenting the Gospel not selling it.  The lost need to know they are lost and they need the Gospel.  So loving them is warning them of the peril of sin.  One of the horrors of Liberal theology is how it is nice to the point of cruelty, ignoring and denying the peril of sin.  They also need to know that they themselves are cared for.  For example, what would I do at a gay pride parade?  Would I bring a board with scripture? Depends on the scripture but yes I would share it with them.  I would bring food, water, provide a place to sit even a shoulder to cry on.   I’d show them the substance of my faith as part of the message.  The Gospel. It’s what a hurting world needs (Christians included).

EDIT:Spurgeon has a way with words.

Salt and Light: the failure of Theological Liberalism

The Episcopal church the ELC, the PCUSA are now joined by the United Methodist church in recognizing homosexuality. 

This year they allowed clergy to perform gay weddings.

The PCUSA did so itself fairly recently though they had been moving in this direction for a long time They just finally did so this year. It’s safe to say this is a trend that won’t soon end

This continues a trend of conforming to the world in order to save the world.  This compromising of the Gospel is disturbing.  This comes in spite of the recent pew poll numbers recently released

The recent Pew Poll shows how poorly this is working.  The increase in “nones” (not nuns) has continued to grow and liberal churches are hurting the most.  

Thinking on it, regarding liberal churches this came to mind.

Matthew 5:13-16

(Salt and Light)

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[b] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who  is in heaven.

Liberal churches have chosen to stop being salty, to put their light under a basket.  All because the salt and light offends.  The method became agree and go along with it to get along.  But that doesn't work because the Gospel is offensive and offends because it is true.

This contemporary emphasis on not hurting people and on avoiding offending people is just as empty as the liberalism it's pushed.  Treating  my beliefs as offensive offends me, offense is inevitable.  In sacrificing truth for relationships we have no truth in relationships.  It's not loving what these churches are doing.  Instead it is abandoning people to stay in the world all to not hurt their feelings.

You'll never get people out of the world if you become just like the world. Making themselves identical to the culture they make themselves irrelevant. If your message is "I'm okay you're okay out there" the response will  be "okay, I'll stay here".  Essentially it's like a doctor saying "there's nothing wrong with you and there never will be! Come see me every week!"  Only defecting evangelicals move over, and many more within their churches leave as there is no real incentive to stay.

The solution they apply sadly is, drink more of the poison. It hasn't worked thus far it won't work in the future. But they can't understand that since they are spiritually dead. They've ceased being Christians and become apostates.  It's not compassionate to hide the light that could save a dying world.  They're numbers and dropping and it's no surprise or mystery as to why. God has left them, because they have left him.  Though this kills their churches they may never see it.

They may continue until they simply go extinct. The PCUSA Reported losses for three years and has lost near 25% of its membership.  Two years ago they lost 8,000 down from 10000, and declared it a success. They have declined mightily by their own numbers 

“Total membership at the end of 2014 was 1,667,767. That’s compared to 1,760,200 at the end of 2013 and 1,849,496 at the end of 2012.”  

Unsurprisingly those numbers jumped again this year. Under no real logic does the approach make sense. Here is this years report where the losses are noted. The report from last year shows the same.

Indeed the denomination is well in the red for growth.

If people are getting the same message in the culture by the media and other institutions, why be troubled to wake up on a Sunday morning and hear the same message?  They simply cannot see the damage and foolishness of it for they are not being led by regenerate Christians.

Many have made note of this disastrous decline.

Though these Liberal "churches" are dying the evangelical churches grow The mainline is bleeding dry.

Though some evangelical churches continue to shrink such the LCMS and SBC they aren’t declining as harshly.  Cultic groups however also seem to be growing as the mainstream of Christian religion empties.  The Mormons and the Jehovah’s witnesses reported growth.  That is worrying, but they do so because they have what the Mainline lacks.  A theology of saving, albeit horribly corrupt they at least believe in something.

The church shrinks, but becomes more pure.  Some have posited it’s not the theology.  To some extent they have a point.  Desire for growth is huge. Method and desire are huge, but what about the why?

Without the Evangelical spirit of taking the Gospel to the corners of the world, is it really that surprising?  A church with mission to save will be richer in itself.  Evangelical churches that grow naturally do so because they are living out their theology.  Liberal churches don’t, because their theology is weak.  If there is no need to bring in numbers for eternity, why evangelize if nobody is in any danger?

Even in these times when the Gospel has enemies within the church God is drawing many to himself even using the disaffection with the spirit of the age to draw people to him.  People are asking the hard questions upon seeing the emptiness of the world today. Instead of giving in and being in and of the world we are to be in but not of the world.

That is how we are salt and light.  Even now, God calls out his people.  That should give us hope

as we continue to be the salt and light of the world.

Trends are telling but while God may work to bless a strong church with numbers but not always.  Joel Osteen's church is huge, but not because of the Gospel.  Will his church last? Not likely.  God sometimes deals with false churches by ending them (see revelation) other times by letting them be a snare.  Still the pattern has held true on a larger scale.  The spiritual reality behind the downfall of the liberal denominations is quite clearly apparent.
Still, if growth comes with the Gospel it is because of the Gospel.  If not it is not because the Gospel failed for it goes out to God's purpose and calls his elect.  The true measure of a Church is it's holding to the Gospel.  It may be over centuries, but those churches will thrive. Those that leave God lose God's favor.  That is what we're seeing today

http://adam4d.com/death-of-christianity/

A family model and a place in the Home

Our contemporary industrial family model has proven harmful to marriage and family.  The model early in the last century that kept woman at home all the time is viewed as pejorative to women (in it's own ways it was).  The blame has been attributed to Christianity and Christianity has been seen as degrading to woman.  In reality Christianity elevates women quite highly.  For example, it was not good for Adam to be alone even walking with God.  It wasn't until Eve was made by God that Adam had this need met.  Together Man and Wife bear the image of God even more perfectly than we perfectly do alone and only together can they fulfill the mandate to multiply and subdue the eath.  

In our fallenness however we have struggled to maintain a wholeness in our relationships between men and women.  We created a dichotomy where there should be unity between two complimentary parts.  So let it be known this is as much a critique of today’s “complementarianism” or strains of it.  Today we have reacted against an inaccurate and unbiblical model with one reactive and just as unbiblical. Let me start of with an illustration.

The Adam and Eve anachronism

          “Adam was sitting watching TV after a long day at work.  Eve looked out at him from where she was cooking and demanded “Adam, help me out and take out the garbage!  I've been watching the kids all day and cooking for you and I’m sick of not having any help around here!” Adam angrily replied “you’re not my mother!  I've been working hard all day to feed this family! It’s your fault you listened to the serpent in the first place!”

            The ludicrousness should be obvious to anybody, and it should extend further than the presence of a television.  The contemporary model that is both attacked by feminists and all too often affirmed by conservatives is anachronistic and contrary design in its own ways.  While it does contain the strength of affirming the differences between male and female it did so in an unhealthy way. The more radical liberation feminism is far off indeed, but many the Christian community seems to have bought into the dichotomy that “The Feminine Mystique” originally critiqued.  Both husband and wife used to do the same work together in the home .  Culture shied away from this more team oriented male leader model to completely split realms, observe the absurdity.

Don't forget the asbestos gloves too, you sexist

That was the new standard of modernism, but it's not the classical model of male headship.

Until the Industrial revolution took people out of their homes in the 19^th century and put everyone in factories, the family stayed and worked together in the home.  A butcher’s wife helped him be a butcher, a bakers wife helped bake and learned how to bake for herself.  There was division of labor, but more equally so especially in regards to business.  The wife would work with her husband in their house (where their business was) and he with her.  She would learn a skill that would help her should she be widowed and they would share in parenting duties in the house. teaching children their craft.

Division of labor has always existed and differed culture to culture. The chart below seems to indicate men did the jobs requiring their strength (showing an emphasis on necessity in my opinion).  This chart shows generalities and there are exceptions such as the Pawnee who assigned woodworking to women.  Yet even with this until the industrial revolution man and wife worked together in the home and out of the home.  The common task of running a farm or a business and raising a family was shared by both working together at home.  There are some who still hold to this pattern in Western society. The work of keeping a household and raising children was more equally shared.

Nancy Pearcey in her book Total Truth tells how she witnessed the older model coming across family owned businesses in Europe, bakeries in her case. While I was in Europe too I saw some vestiges of this remained, albeit ones that are growing weaker. A family I knew still made wine, but it had become a side business. We deviated from the original model and intention. Family, duty, and community were far more the purpose of marriage and family which were inseparable.  Today we split the family and it started with this dichotomy.

Trust me the old family model was way more chipper than American Gothic, but it still proves my point

This is exacerbated with today's view  that marriage (and all things) is primarily about personal fulfillment.  Today it's happiness that is seen as the ultimate good in a marriage.  Sadly not the others, but your own happiness is the underlying drive.  Why then get married or commit to a marriage if it's value is contingent on how you feel at a moment? This misperception of marriage is common even in the church having been absorbed from the culture.  Still it is the real difference between a biblical and the secular model. Happiness is the product of a good marriage but we have made it an ultimate thing.

The separation of man and wife has created a terrible situation.  For the first time in history, husband, wife and children are all living separate lives not just their own shared lives.  Family's spend far less time together. naive children likewise are learning not from wise elders but equally naive children their age which likely contributed to rampant sexual brokenness in our youth.  Such was the character of the stories and advice I heard when I was high school.  Advice was often "oh yeah I've done that" and therefore it was okay.  Long term consequences could be taught by adults.  Without adults however children are blindly feeling their way around making damaging lifelong mistakes. Often seeking elsewhere the attention they cannot get but desperately need from their parents.

The industrial revolution led to the further atomizing of the family.  Atomic family units are weakening to society as individuals break themselves off and tend towards pursuing pleasure.  This contributed and led to the sexual revolutions’ emphasis on personal sexual fulfillment (gratification) and todays debate about what marriage is.  If pleasure and self is central of course, what kind of relationship can be forbidden if it contains such things?

Is a woman's place in the home?  Well walk that back a second. Asked negatively that question often 

assumes the man's place is outside the home.  The man should be in the home too.  So of course a 

woman's place is in the home, just like a man's place is too.  In the old model as well, the men did not

get off scott free but missed out on the raising of their own children.

The old and new models were together unfair to the men too.  They were expected to not be at home and not invest in their family personally. It is also worth, noting the idea of a male and female sphere (keeping the woman in home and the man at work) grew out of the fact/value dichotomy.  Science vs Religion created two realms of truth and the notion of having a male and a female realm just seemed the natural outworking.  Yet instead of reclaiming the mutual sphere of united family life feminism reacted largely against this and did not bring husbands back into the home with the wife.

The more contemporary feminist movement became “have it all”. Have jobs and get out of the house like the men had.  However, men should not have had those expectations on them in the first place.  Women became what they hated and men have been forced to retreat and get out the way.  Instead of stopping at equality society has in some ways gone so far as to reverse the two roles that were too strongly opposed to begin with.  Women are encouraged to be what they want while choosing to be a stay at home mother in some circles is seen as somehow choosing to be oppressed.  Women are told to put off families, sleep around and pursue a career above all else.  In essence they're being told to be men before feminism, something even the men shouldn't have been.
Women have become the men they hated

This old new model of separation led to harm for both male and female.  It certainly lent itself to "Gender Arianism" which feminism rightly railed against.  To say or live as if women are ontologically (in being) less or inferior to men is to reflect the Arian heresy.  Having a woman stay at
home alone lent itself to this thinking and likely was even derived from it.  Men and women are equal in being and humanity.  Like the Godhead there does exist a heirarchy meant to be lived out in self-sacrificial love.

What is Gender Arianism you ask?
I also recommend C. Fitzsimmons Allisions' book "The Cruelty of Heresy" on this.


Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself it's Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands love you wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkly or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  he who loves his wife loves himself. 29  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church 30 because we are members of his body. 31 therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.  32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.  33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Christ died for his bride and conquered death for her, that doesn't sound sexist to me.

With such a huge hole in our modern industrial model, what’s the solution you may ask? I’m glad I asked for you.  Other than a better Gospel realization than even the older industrial male centered model I am not certain how but men and women need to be brought back together into the home in an industrialized world.  The temptation for society is payback and to reverse this with a reversed gender Arianism.  Reform and return to a model of male headship  that places both parents together is the only real solution.  The nuclear family needs to be restored and a belief that both partners are equal in being but with differing roles in hierarchy needs to be established.  Our atomic family structure with its over-emphasis on the individual and devaluing of family ties has led as it always does to hedonism and societal decay.   A trustee model where marriage and the family are sacred (in which civilizations flourish) or a domestic model (where family and individual rights are balanced) are the only two stable.  An atomistic model is the mark of a dying civilization. The traditional family must not just be “restored” but the creational design for the family needs to be realized at last in our fallen world.

My encounter with a modalist: The trinity, Sola Scriptura, Orthopraxi, Orthozoe, Orthodoxy

Some months ago I was wisely frequenting an internet thread on the Facebook group called "Calvinism: the group that chooses you" (not the one full of kinists).  While I did not take screen shots I made sure to record what was said.

I encountered a Modalist, the heresy that proclaims God is one person who manifests himself in three ways.  Often called Sabellianism/Modalistic Monarchianism: God is perceived in three different modes but is one person.  He simply shows himself differently at different times.  TD Jakes (a oneness pentacostal) for example:
"I don't like the term persons, I like to think of them as three manifestations."

His Churches statement of faith is
"There is one God, creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit

The idea being God is sometimes the father, sometimes the son and sometimes the Holy Spirit

The orthodox historic Christian position is God is three persons ( person being a center of consciousness, a self), one ousia (essence/substance),  three hupostases (distinct existences in the individual).

Orthodoxy can be thus expressed in a graphic.

Now to my encounter with a modalist.

He began by calling Trinitarians heretics in a thread  about JW’s.  This made logical sense considering the mutual denial of the trinity he shared with them. He was clearly a modalist, proclaiming God is one person not just one being. In fact he professed quite proudly that's what he was.  God had been the father, was the son and is now the Holy Ghost.  

People pulled texts and approached him systematically quite strongly but he persisted.  In his words anybody arguing for the trinity was  a fool for holding to 2000 years of heretical teaching.  I cannot remember how he approached the church being not just wrong but apostate for that time, but that was but one of the many holes he wasn't just ignoring but vehemently denying constituted an issue for him.

I knew that scripture wasn't working so I decided to go a different route.  I turned to arguing theology.

I opened with a probing question.

How does God relate if relationship is Alien? Why does Jesus pray? His reply was "he prayed to himself in heaven” (though such action implies persons to relate).  I talked person as a “rational self” not separate being hence the sharing in the essence and three hypostasis and one ousia. He with quite obvious disgust continued to deny the necessity of it and attacking the usage of the terminology.  Since the word wasn't in scripture, it mustn't be biblical. 

It became obvious he held to Sola scriptura,  both his problem and a point of agreement I decided to build on.

He did buy into a common mistake today, his Sola Scriptura was really Sola Ego.  His understanding was literally "All I need is me and the bible" (though of course he relied on a translation handed down from somebody interpreting the Greek). He relied on a translation, and inherited Sola Scripture as tradition but could see neither. Naturally then he read himself into the text to an unhealthy degree and was unaware that he was making scripture conform to him and not himself to scripture.He was twisting scripture in a vacuum and either unaware or intentionally doing violence to the text.

Here I had to fight him on his redefinition of Sola Scriptura.  I brought up how his reading like anybody else's is never in a vacuum as he inherits tradition and brings his own experiences with him.  I told him not to forsake tradition.  Scripture as ultimate not only authority which was the definition of the reformers.  Scripture does have to be interpreted and the council of the church should not be left out.  He just pulled back avoiding my point and replied“none of the apostles used the term person!” Exclamation points and all so you know he was seriously mad.

None of them used sola scriptura either as I pointed out (the term though had the meaning as I explained) but the concepts of both are found in scripture. To finish, I decided to make another pivot within theology.

 I ended by bringing up Baptism.  Why are we baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and not one or the current mode?

I was going to go to Jesus sending the Paraclete (always plan ahead) but he had backed off.  He finally had no answer because his very practice testified to the truth and a theology he had thoroughly denied.

If doctrine doesn’t work, go practice because it reflects doctrine and if one is off the other can testify to the truth handed down.   His baptism attested three persons as one being.  

The same problem was encountered by the Gnostics and the Arians alike in their own ways.  The Gnostics believed matter was evil and many that Christ never had a body (denying the incarnation). Yet they celebrated the Eucharist, an eating of bread and wine.  Arians baptized in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit but proclaimed them three different unequal beings.  It would mean baptizing in the name of a lesser deity, a created being.

How we live, how we practice can often expose how we really should speak and think as much as vice versa. If a persons theology does not reflect their practice there is a disconnect.  In confronting a heretic we can use their rites borrowed from the true church to show the truth.  We can likewise do so in the world today for those who cannot explain their ethic or their morality.  Like the modern humanist who borrows "good morality" from Christianity as he picks and chooses, heretics borrow the name and practices of Christianity.  

Orthopraxi (right practice), Orthodoxy (right doctrine/thinking) and Orthozoe (right life) are vital to living out one's faith.  If you can't make a point to a heretic in his deviation from orthodoxy, go to the other two. In this case I wen to Orthopraxi to show his religious practice exposed his devation from orthodoxy.

Likewise in your own life, if you have an imbalance in these investigate your theology.  

This just can't be shared enough

Sin, Shalom, and the created order

If I may, let me spoil 1-2 lines from Avengers age of Ultron
Tony Stark is confronting Ultron and remarks about how he's "trying to put the world at peace"
Ultron responds "I think you mistake peace for quiet".

We have a funny definition of peace.
But what is peace truly? Before one determines whether it is or not a time of peace one must define peace.  It is not as our contemporary western culture defines it "lack of conflict, namely war".  Such is a narrow and feeble definition watered down in meaning.  Peace is not just the absence of conflict and war.

Peace is the active presence of the good and the good alone.  It is the biblical Shalom. Sin and death are gone, and all is as it should be.  Evil is privation of the good and in true peace there is no such privation. There is no privation of the good and lack of God who is the fount of all blessing.  Rather there is an abundance of him and his presence.  Peace is really the paradise we yearn for and that which God intended.  When all is right in the world, then there is truly peace. Wholeness, harmony, a perfect peace.

The concept of shalom is decidedly eschatological as well. This is why in the end we don't look forward to being apart from our bodies.  We will not be incorporeal spirits.  Rather we will enjoy the new heavens and the new earth .

Revelation 21:1

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more"

We are a spirit and a body, and in the end death will be put under foot as we enjoy paradise as it was made  to be.

Sin is decidedly legal in offense to God.  It bears a legal punishment and inflicts relational harm.  Man was in the garden with God naked and unashamed but cannot be anymore.
What sin is, is a breaking in God's natural perfect order.  That which goes against God's design and intention (as a moral decision not morally neutral issues) is idolatry and declaring "I am a better God than you".  This includes first and foremost his law, but the consequences are likewise a break in shalom.  It is quite the irony that even in how we sin we must borrow from and distort what God has made and intended.

Sin is against not only our design but that of all creation.  To take a mechanism that is intended for only one purpose (to know and glorify God in creations case) and turn it for another purpose will make the gears of that mechanism lock/break and wear out the device.  Sin is not  only legal it is existential in it's ramifications.  Sin brought death in as both a penalty and a corrupting of God's original created order. God does actively punish, but The lapse in shalom  serves also as a punishment upon us. It is the natural consequences for sinning against God and corrupting the world.

Genesis 3

16 To the woman he said,
I will greatly multiply
your pain in childbirth
in pain you will bring forth children;
yet your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you
17 Then to Adam he said "because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, "you shall not eat from it;
cursed is the ground because of you
in toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
and you will eat the plants of the field;
19 by the sweat of your face
you will eat bread,
till you return to the ground
because from it you were take;
for you are dust
and to dust you shall return

Death is a result of a break in shalom, War and slavery are both likewise, and are indeed man's punishment for inventing such things.  Just war exists, but only as an extant  of God's justice and acts as a check against sinful aggression and further break.  There will be no more war, but God's justice will continue hence the eternal punishment for sin. The only Salvation is in Christ.

This is how God can be cause of "evil" as(Jonah 3:10  often translated disaster) describes when God "repents of the evil he was going to do".  The "evil" was really a justice, and evil in the sense of a misfortune in the Hebrew as a break of Shalom. It's the same word as evil but it means something different than we are accustomed to.  The tie though together with it's variation, should demonstrate quite well to us that evil is harmful and against God's intention because it is a violation of his law and design and therefore a violation of who he is.

In Judgment as in Jonah 3 it must be recognized that it is God's creation and he did no moral evil. In his sovereignty and justice over his creation he could bring about something in Hebrew thought that is thus described as an evil in the sense of being a break in harmony.

  This is how I can say utilitarianism is wrong.  S and M for example is a corruption of the intimate self giving love that is intended by God to be expressed in sex.   Sexual promiscuity no matter what it is (swinging, open relationships etc) whether agreed upon by partners or use of one's own body is wrong since it is a break in the intended purpose.  God is always wronged and those who engage in such things harm themselves.

The greatest and central break from which all others flow is sin, which is taking God out of his place
and setting up another thing as God (idolatry). The Garden of Eden demonstrates this.  Adam and Eve engage in the first human act of idolatry.  The curses in Genesis 3 are all the breaks in shalom that exist today and they are a consequence of sin itself.

Satan may have tempted only Adam and Eve to eat of the tree to be "as Gods".  The lie is that as far as we were made to, we already were as God.  Bearing his image and exercising dominion we acted as his representatives to and in creation.  To try and be like God wasn't only a lie but an attempt to become literally as God.  Clearly such an action takes man out of his designed place in an attempt to take a place man could not and definitively should not not have.

 All of creation suffers for man's breaking of shalom, but one day God will complete the work he's started in and through the church.  One day the kingdom that is now and is yet to be will be here in it's fullness forever.

Now why would I bring up Ultron and run with what he said?  To turn it on it's head.  The villain tries to make the world his view of peace and perfection.  He was a creature reflecting fallenness trying to set creation to the way it should be.  Do you see a problem here too?  Whether you are an artficial intelligence or a genius played by Robert Downey Jr. you cannot fix what is wrong with the world without breaking it another way.  Man broke creation, but it takes God to redeem it.

Every man made utopia ends up as hell on earth. Imperfect creatures cannot even see what perfection is meant to be but will taint his vision with his corruption. This should have implications for everything as we recognize our own fallibilty to fix the world and recognize our need for God and our place in the universe. Imperfect creatures cannot create perfection. It takes someone reigning that is perfection.  God alone reverses the curse.

In Revelation we see the tree of the fruit of life returned, in a river setting mirroring Eden, for it is a return to Eden.

Revelation 22:2
1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and the lamb, 2 in the middle of it's street.  On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding it's fruit in every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 there will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the lamb will be in it, and his bond-servants will serve him, 4 they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. 5  And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.

Death, a consequence of the fall is put under foot.


1 corinthians 15:24-26
24 then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to the God and father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power.25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 the last enemy that will be abolished is death.

And we will reign and dwell with him forever.
Revelation 21:2-4
2 And I saw the Holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying," Behold the tabernacle of God is among men, and he will dwell among them and they shall be his people, and God himself will be among the, 4 and he will wipe away every tear fom their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away"

A tale of two Atheists: The Moral objections of Hitchens and Fry

Atheism often rests on or makes moral claims.  I shall tell you of two and analyze their cases.

Christopher Hitchens before he died spoke about his trip to North Korea about Kim jung il, in which he compared the Abrahamic God to the egomaniacal dictator.  He reported that while in Sunday school he was told that the God of Christianity would be worshipped for eternity in heaven. Hitchens then proceeded to declare heaven on Earth to be the state of North Korea. Indeed in Revelation there is worship.  But that is not eternity.  In eternity to come we worship God in the New Heavens and the new earth.  Aside from mistaking the manner as do most Christians his argument misses more central things.

There are several key failures to his argument.  First and foremost is the nature of God.  God who created all things is worthy and deserving of all praise.   Furthermore we are created to praise God, not a human dictator which is why such regimes are naturally evil and corrupt.  When praising God we live out our purpose, and that is why it would be heaven to worship him forever.When we fail to worship God we make other things God.  We hunger for that connection like we hunger for food or thirst for water.  Hitchens in this sense may as well be saying he won't submit to the tyranny of food or water, for he was made with a need for those too.
  When you see God you can do nothing else but worship him as it is part of his nature.  Hitchens fails to understand the basic nature of God and heaven.  When man worships God, God is not being an egomaniac.  He is simply demanding the attention he deserves.   I read Brad Pitt make a similar claim.  Having grown up Christian he complained “it all seemed like it was about him”.  If I told Brad Pitt I did a great job in a role he played he would demand I not take such praise. Yet he cannot give God the true credit that is due him.  

He similarly oversimplifies the history of religion, overlooking how atheistic regimes have slaughtered millions upon millions.  He does show intelligence in recognizing interfaith distinctions are of incredible importance.  The cause of war is not religion though it like all possible points of conflict can bring out the evil of man.

 Christopher would be right about worship, save that worship actually belongs to God.  Worship derives itself from “worthship” to declare to someone what they are worth. A false God (which is what the Kims always set themselves up as) and which we all often are steal glory for themselves. The Kim family is not worthy of the worship they demand.  Kim Jung Il did not form mankind, he does not hold together the universe neither has any autocrat in history. Wrong worship is sin and Idolatry and that was what Hitchens saw.  It is not to be an egomaniac when one is accurately demanding credit and glory where they are due.  

It’s even less so when you hold the people together whom you created and extend your benevolence.  Kim absorbed and drained others, God gives himself and does so to a hating and undeserving creation. Kim would never die for his people, but our God did die for us.  The Kims are Creatures, God is creator.  A creature does not deserve the worship the Kim’s received.  God is Holy and other, and should be respected as such. 

North Korea was in name an atheistic state as Hitchens points out that still deified someone.  Hitchens however overlooks the obvious.  There is no religionless state for mankind since we are made to worship.  The question is not will we, but what will any of us worship and ultimately who and what that should be.

Onto number 2, Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry recently in an interview said that if he met God he would do something rather uncouth.  He would angrily tell God “what about the children with bone cancer?” and “righteously” shake his fist.  His argument too was based on morality. The logic goes  "If God existed, he wouldn’t let evil or pain or anything as such exist".  Worse yet and more brazenly he is stating essentially that even if such a God that would allow that did exist, Stephen Fry would make a more righteous and better God. 

Stephen misses some important things.  What about all the children without bone cancer?  Sure there are poor but how many people have their needs met?  Sure there are wicked people but what about all those who do meet justice?  The personal vendetta seems in many ways quite clear.  God gets all the blame for the bad, but can’t get any of the credit for the good.  The objector has to be put in a moral high ground yet to be moral we deal in absolutes that require God.

Most telling is how he declares God punishes us with what is truly corruption of God's design, and that he would prefer God be like the pagan God's.  For him any good God would have to live up to his standards.  His stipulation that God is somehow the creator of evil and inflicts innocent man with pestilence and illness is quite mistaken.
This is not scriptural

Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin came into the wold through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men because all sinned.

It is our doing, we have done this to ourselves.  Adam and Eve were cursed in Genesis 3 and we live the repercussions of our introducing sin into the world.  Death is not God's doing and it's existence does not prove his horridness but our continued common Grace and salvation proves his goodness to a rebellious people.

Further suffering does not make a person innocent and owed heaven.  All are born sinful and all sin which to a Holy God requires the punishment of Hell.  We can count it a blessing he sacrificed his own son (God himself) to take the wrath meant for us.

I do give him respect for being honest, atheism is indeed not about there not being a God but that if there is one, he must be stupid.

            Hitchens and Fry had to borrow from the Christian God to slap him in the face.  As atheists Hitchens and Fry believe in nontheistic evolution.  As such both must say that morality evolved locally.  In this view whether a group of people came together to make it up (and therefore did so by their chemical makeup) or not he simply can’t say his morality is any better.  All he can say at best  is that it is different, but not really since it's a value claim needing an absolute. 

Even this for him though relies on a chemically wired brain.  Who knows if he has it backward, after all it had no designer.  Since it all evolved by chance, morality and logic are relative.  There is no true epistemology at all, truth is unknown yet both claimed to know it.  In their system of belief the people they know have value, simply can’t.  Rather those children with cancer or those suffering in Korea are no more valuable than a turnip since the only difference is in the arrangement and composition of their atoms.  Such is inevitable without a source of absolute moral truth found in God. 

Yet they know those people have dignity and value.  Atheism is inconsistent with how atheists live. Most atheists are moral people but buy into the non sequitur “evil exists, no God would allow evil because no good can come from pain and suffering”.  Why does God get all the blame for any evil and not the credit for all the good in the world?  

What will you tell the person who is starving or the children Steven mentions?  Cheer up; you’re going to die anyway? Suffering becomes pointless, suicide a logical ends to a meaningless life. One cannot even say evil will be overcome, or that it definitively exists since there is no absolute standard.  Law demands a law giver, since it is asked by or about a person.  Without this ultimate stopping point truly, there is no truth at all.

God is the only necessary being, man is contingent.  For man to exist God had to first.  God is the office of creator, and with it judge due to God's role in originating and sustaining creation. The judgment that no God would allow a world with suffering is actually a usurping claim to be God in the sense of rendering judgment. It also supposes self-ownership, but we belong to God. It presupposes the person making the judgment has the knowledge and the place to judge good from Evil in this way.

What the person really is saying is that IF I WERE GOD, I COULD DO BETTER.  Moreover I am a God.  Sound familiar?  Genesis 3 details this same sin that is the root of all sin.  Desiring to be and living as one is a God.  Hitchens says as much when he calls religion slavery.  God for him is the tyrant and he wished to be his own God.  Sadly Hitchens did not realize man was made for God.  He chose to stay covered up and out of Eden rather than return on God's terms.

Tellingly Christopher says "I don't want that heaven, it would be hell for me".  And indeed it would be, because he would have to honor God and have to face the reality of who God is.  He sadly has now, but not in righteousness.  He bought a preferable lie.

 He bought into the lie that man can be his own master.  However such is never the case.  Either you live with Christ as King or a slave to sin and death (John 8:34, Romans 6:18-20).  God has dominion, whether we like it or not.  And it's for our good and blessing, whether we like it or not.

Man is not God nor is he all-knowing and powerful, So how can he say this with righteous and true judgment?  He cannot, but he does due to his broken relationship with God.  Man is made for communion with God, but due to the fall he has lost that close intimacy which is regained through the cross.  This is why man is so self-centered and oriented.

Such claims about suffering ultimately fall back personally on being a good person which cannot be absolutely defined.  Being a “good person” by human standards is works righteousness.   Man even starts off in the hole and has fallen short (Romans3:20-23).Even our thoughts are evil (Genesis 6:5).  Nobody is naturally or otherwise innocent like Mr. Fry and Hitchens assert.  

The only time a bad thing happened to anybody who was good, was on the cross.  And after that Jesus got the reward he deserved for his self-sacrifice.  
Fair gets us hell.  I wouldn’t ask for fair.  The question isn’t why does God not do what we call good, the question is why did a Holy God let me wake up this morning knowing what I thought not just what I did.  His goodness is inspite of ourselves not because of it.  But if we make little of God and much of ourselves we will put ourselves above him.

The same person going by works righteousness if in the seat of a judge wouldn't acquit or forgive the person being judged if they knew all about the person.  Nobody ever mends a relationship by saying “Look at how many times I didn't lie/cheat/steal or hurt you?  I can make it up.” You know better than to let such a thing slide, how much more does a Holy God? 
 No judge lets a criminal loose based on the fact that he’s “ a good guy” for doing a few good things when the evil he did demands justice, a price we could never pay ourselves.  Furthermore, if this is why you do the good things you do, then they aren't good at all.  They are done with you at the center and not done because of a need in the greater good, nor would they outweigh your sins even if they were.

In closing I’ll posit a few thoughts.  God is not like humanity, creation is a broken mirror.
I don’t believe in the God they don’t believe in either.  But that God isn’t the God of the bible.  Humanity may reflect God’s image, but it is horribly broken and corrupt.  Such is the case with Kim Jung Il, Christopher, Stephen and yes even myself.  We will never know ultimately why so many bad things happen.  God does demonstrate our need for him, and the existence of evil does that.  
Evil itself is privation and could be argued to exist as an idea, and a negation to the good.  The absence of something demonstrates the need for its presence.  Green seems more like Green when you've seen red, and black more black when you've seen white.  Evil is the absence of God, its existence shows our need for God, and the redemption in Christ would not be possible in a “perfect world”, for it would not be needed and we would not have that great unmatchable demonstration of love. Without suffering, without the fall we would not have the display of love and righteousness that God gives in the work of the Cross.

The state of the world is not because of God’s wicked hand (though he is sovereign over evil).  God does not originate evil but he has permitted it for his purpose.  I cannot claim to have such hidden knowledge as to why in all circumstances.

Evil is the break in Shalom, peace.  It is a greater peace than lack of conflict but the presence of good and blessing in all creation where the world is set right.  We broke that shalom first.  This is our doing and without the God of the Cross, there is no victory over it.  I have the certainty we will have shalom again. One day all tears will be wiped away and every knee shall bow.  Each knee will bow, but whether it is in loving fealty or begrudging anger depends on the person.  I mourn Christopher and pray for Stephen's sake, it is the former.

Philipians 2:8

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.


EDIT: It does occur to me that Steven Fry's admission that he'd be fine with a God more akin to the Roman Pagan Pantheon shows a key assumption.  He's more fine with a God that is more human, since such a God can make mistakes and be cruel.  This is a very personal slight at God.  If God is all knowing and omniscient then he cannot possibly allow any suffering (something Steven Fry wouldn't allow), unless he is also cruel and sick.  God therefore must admit he is such or stop dissapointing, or otherwise he simply is just like us (an admission by Mr.Fry about human nature).  In essence God is just an omniscient, omnipotent pagan God who just claims to be morally superior.
Though if he makes the point that "no good comes from evil/suffering" his argument poses a conundrum.  To truly hold to it the objector must affirm that his objection and atheism is not a good thing otherwise his conversion and objection can be counted as good that came from these things.  Even an Atheist believes Suffering and Evil serve a purpose and that purpose can be good, so why can't an all knowing God of the universe work these things towards a good? One beyond what we can fathom? For Mr.Fry  God can't be mystery or other and Fry is guilty of reading into God what he assumes a God of Love and all the omni's should be.  It's placing one self over God plain and simple.