It's just a phase

   When I was in High School, I dated on and off but one thing never changed - I always got dumped.

   Yup, right around Valentines Day I knew it was coming - when spring rolled around it was time to say, "see ya later."  It got so routine I made up a song.  It was called "Valentines Day You Give Me The Creeps (you remind me my girlfriend is gone in six weeks).  Its a favorite.  Not really - it just reminds me of how fickle dating can be.

   In fact, the whole dating thing has a very interesting cycle.  I think it goes something like this:

Stage 1:  Somewhere around Middle School you either wake up to attraction.  It is very awkward and more group-driven than genuine.

Stage 2: In High School commitment never matches emotion; one year later you hate the girl you loved.

Stage 3:  In College you begin a transition of just having fun to looking for a mate.  It gets weird.

Stage 4:  Young Adult - you are newly married, totally in love and all kinds of plans.

Stage 5:  Love tested: Maturity, circumstance, selfishness, expectations and reality make you re-think everything.  Sadly, some walk away from commitment because it didn't match their expectations.

    What if faith and doubt are similar in their stages?

Stage 1:  As a child, when your parents tell you about God, you believe whatever they say.

Stage 2: Ardent believer:  my little girl will go to sleep at night with her hand over her heart saying, "I love God so much."  It is great, but I realize that she is only 5 and I would love to see that kind of devotion at 45 . . . but we'll see . . .

Stage 3: Teen years: questions start to get bigger than mom and dad . . . the kind of questions that only you are able to solve.

Stage 4:  As a young adult you build on your decision you made in the teen years.  You either build ideas around your faith or your skepticism.

Stage 5:  As an adult it is very unlikely that you will ever change your mind about what you believe (or don't believe).  There is a sense that you are done, mature or 'finished' thinking through things like faith.  You either divorce or you deepen your faith.

   It is sad that people come to this.  The truth is that we are never done learning and discovery is less of a linear cycle as it is a spiral that we continue on through our lives.  What if a person's divorce from God is a phase related to their stage of development?  You can read more by checking out Erikson's developmental stages or Marcia's or Fowlers, but it is an interesting question to think about:

"What if my doubt is a phase I am going through and faith is waiting on the other side?"

Hey people . . . I know this blog is about no arguments, but . . . *whispering* - Sam Harris is wrong.

Yes, the Sam Harris that says that following God brings the world's evils.  

Now, it is true that hypocrites and fakers ruin people's lives and cause evil havoc on this earth in the name of Jesus (see http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/clergyAbuse2-finalReport.pdf for a nauseating account of what priests did to young children in Philadelphia) if you aren't sure.  But those are not Christians . . . they are pretenders.  

But when you look up the deeds of people who take their faith seriously, it is refreshing to find people that are capable of changing the world.  This is a story of that kind of integrity . . . prompted by a talk from Andy Stanley.

Essentially, the story is about how between the 2nd - 4th century there were a series of plagues that had invaded ancient Europe.  These plagues had eliminated up to a third of the population of Europe - the normal citizens had learned long ago to just leave town.  In fact the most noted physician of Europe at that time, Galen, had left Rome for several years until it all blew over.  So how did people try to treat the infected?  "Victims were thrown out into the streets where the dead and the dying lay in piles." (Stark, 300)  Bishop Dionysius, writing in a letter at this time said that they "treated the unburied corpses as dirt." 

So what did the Christians in these cultures do?  Remember, this is a time in which Christians were not acceptable - they were irreligious weirdos (because they didn't worship the gods of the mainstream).  Did they skip town like everyone else?  No.  This marginal sect of Jesus-followers took care of the sick.  Dionysius notes that "in nursing and curing others transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead."  (Stark, 301)

In fact, it is likely that by taking care of the ill, Christianity grew during this time.  These early Christians nursed non-Christians back to health and these appreciative 'patients' became Christian and supplanted the previous population (Stark, 302; McNeill,108)  

This kind of others-centered altruism was typical of early Christians.  In the latter parts of the 4th century, pagan emperor Julian hated Christians, whom he called "impious Galileans."  Julian was involved in a campaign to get pagan priests back in popular demand. In a letter to one of these pagan priests, he compared pagans to what Christians do: "I think that when the poor happened to be neglected and overlooked by the priests, the impious Galileans observed this and devoted themselves to benevolence . . . the impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well."

This and other efforts by the Christians created a "miniature welfare state in the empire which for the most part lacked social services."  (Johnson, 75)   Even 'pagan' emperors note what Harris can't - genuine followers of Jesus, though far from perfect, are good and can be a force for good in the world.

Notes:

Johnson, Paul. 1976.  A History of Christianity. New York: Atheneum.

McNeill, William G. 1978. Revivals, Awakenings and Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Stark, Rodney. 2000. Religious Effects: In Praise of 'Idealistic Humbug.'" Review of Religious Research. Washington: University of Washington

"Men are Pigs" . . . or "If we really lived out faith"

I spent this last week having such deep and gut-wrenching conversations with people who are going through such horrible things in their lives.  Most of the problems were brought on by men who abuse alcohol or drugs and then abuse the people they claim to love.  Some lock themselves in their rooms, turn on the TV and turn off the world.  The rest of the family has dinner while one chair is empty.  


I am on a rotation of people who meet with those who are going through rough times and need someone to talk to.  This was my week.  The week to hear of self-centered and emotionally immature people who wreak havoc on the lives of the people that love them.  


Part of me wants to just smack them and get them somehow to wake up and see what great treasure awaits them if they realized that people love them and are willing to help them out of their own malaise.  But they turn to drugs or alcohol or other addictions that help soothe and medicate the pain they feel.  One person is scared about the growing anger they feel within.  Another is worried about the results of years of alienation.  Like I said, most of them were women who have been through terrible storms in life because of men who never grew up.  Men who chose to sulk, pout, hit, punch, verbally abuse or otherwise intimidate the people in their lives.  


It makes me want to hurt those people . . . to scream and holler . . . to threaten them to get a grip on life and stop hurting others.  But doesn't that just continue the cycle of intimidation and violence?  God, how do you do it?  How do you suffer through another day of these people hurting the innocent?


It is funny, my blog post from the other day on Facebook read, "Christians mess up everything" and an old cynical friend from high school reacted with a reply: "I agree."  Perhaps that was a touch of Catholic school speaking, but it is a day like this that I couldn't disagree with him more.  If people actually lived out the Christian faith this world would be different.  Christianity doesn't mess up the world - actors who play Christianity do.


Imagine a world where people never lied.  Never cheated - at school or on loved ones.  Imagine a place where no one stole from a store or from someone's marriage.  Imagine a world where no one was made a sexual object.  Everyone honored their parents and loved the hard-to-love.  Imagine a world where people put others' interests first.  


Christianity is a great idea . . . if we ever chose to live it.  


We hear so much about how religion divides and fractures people, but imagine a world where true faith was enacted.  It is possible.  Really.

#1 "The Proof Please?"

     In 2005, Oregon State Physics graduate Bobby Henderson got tired of attempts by Intelligent Design advocates to get Creation taught in schools.  So he started his own very popular religion - the religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM for short).  FSM, also known as pastafarianism, became a quick hit on the internet and FSM disciples across America began to gather to parody the Christian faith.  It's kind of funny.  They have slogans like "He boiled for your sins" or "WWTFSMD?"  or this interpretation of Michelangelo's "Creation of Man:" 
     




     Of course the premise for this comes from  the thought that Christianity is just like any other human-concocted idea . . . you have your Jesus from 2000 years ago and I have my FSM and both have the same amount of evidence.  Where's the proof?
     Now of course when we talk about 'proof' - we need to really put our finger on what it is we mean.  No credible historian would doubt the actual existence of a Jesus from Nazareth.  What is in doubt is whether what He said and did is faithfully preserved for us in a collection of highly biased sacred works we call the Gospels.  So what is it that we are 'proving?'
     Maybe it is the claim to have risen from the dead.  
     Isn't it interesting that the Romans or the religious Jews of Jesus' time who had the power to find His body and expose this whole thing as a sham never did?  Throw the body in a wheelbarrow, run it through Jerusalem and the whole thing is over.  Equally interesting that somewhere around the middle of the first century, story lines explode with the idea of people raising from the dead . . . physically.  According to Wright, this idea was nonexistent for centuries leading up to 50AD.  Suddenly it explodes in popular literature - as if a switch was turned on.  That and a hundred other "hmmm . . .  that's interesting" kind of thoughts we could spend time on.
     But it is actually this idea of 'proof' that is more interesting to deconstruct.  
     So what qualifies as evidence?  Is it enough to see it?  What if one person sees Jesus - is that enough?  Probably not.  For one person to see the proof would only produce a very enthusiastic convert.  Can you imagine?  Everyone else would be like, "so what'd He look like? Can I see too?"  Pretty soon you would have people questioning what it is that he really saw.  In time it would be dismissed.
     So maybe you have ten people witness the evidence of God - directly seeing Him.  Would that be enough?  Well, you would have to have at least five scientists.  The real miracle would be 5 scientists agreeing to the test!  But since scientific law doesn't allow for the supernatural, wouldn't the explanation of what they saw just be some naturalistic mumbo-jumbo?  "My cerebral cortex was highly excited by the positive emission of radiation from an external source" or something like that.  Don't think for a moment that 'proof' is what anyone wants.  It is a sucker's bet.  I mean, the religious Jews just wanted to talk with Jesus and get his story.  


     Yeah right, and half a day later He is hanging on a tree.


     The argument about 'proof' is a continuing illusion that collapses upon itself and I think that is why God is not in the business of obliging us.  I like that God doesn't give us what we want. I am glad that God is above it - that the 'proof' is subjective . . . an inside joke for the downtrodden and those that have no other place to turn.  For the junkie that has no pride to stumble over who has nothing else to lose.   For the kid that has no friends and just wants someone to talk to.  For the single mom that learned that she is getting laid off and that her ex is getting married in the same day.  These kinds of people aren't waiting for proof to discover that a relationship with God is real . . . they just need help . . . and they are ready to put their faith in something that seems ridiculous because they have nowhere else to turn.
     And once they step inside, they receive the proof that they never looked for and could never establish outside of themselves.  
     That is faith - the unproved proof.

#2 What you should doubt about your doubt:Belief in God has only messed things up in the world.

Why would you want to be a Christian? 

Christians are racist Republican homophobes who care more about their churches, Bibles and teaching creation in schools than they do about the things that really matter in the world.  In fact, it seems that everything Christianity touches wreaks of havoc . . . those big-haired preachers are all liars and hypocrites, Hitler rose to power using scripture, the church put us in the dark ages, teenage girls were burned at the stake for being 'witches' and of course the crusades . . . Christianity leaves a trail of disaster!

Alright, come on now . . . I hope we are all savvy enough to know how things can be manipulated.  Yes, these things are all true about people that claimed to be Christian and did horrible things.  But consider these facts just from six countries and only from the 20th century:

* 61 million Soviet citizens were killed under the atheistic communist regime of the USSR.

* Over 9 million people were murdered by the atheists under Joseph Stalin.  

* Pol Pots regime in Cambodia was atheistic and slaughtered almost 2 million people underneath him.  

* Some people estimate that almost 76 million have been killed because of their political and religious beliefs by Chinese rulers.

* The 20 year Ethiopian atheistic regime claimed the lives of almost 1.5 million innocent citizens.

* North Korea, an atheistic state, has killed over 3 million of its citizens.

Wouldn't we conclude from this alone that all atheists are murderous and treacherous little beasts?  Of course we conclude that communism is intellectually bankrupt, right?  In fact, we should probably come to the conclusion that atheism doesn't exist because the people who practice it are so morally reprehensible.  If atheism was really credible, there wouldn't be so many evil atheists.

Now of course these stats don't change the depth and inspiration of the Communist Manifesto.   The idea still has wonderful merit (everyone sharing with each other - property redefined as belonging to those who are in need).  It just tends to not work very well with humans.  In principle, it is a beautiful thought.  But I am not going to condemn Marx and Engels because a guy named Brezhnev used the Communist structure to murder innocent people.  

 . . . and neither should we judge the Christian faith because of the ignorant and evil acts of some who called themselves Christian.  

Doing it HIS way

So there is this kid who is aimless and unsure of what he wants to do with his life.  Son of a politician, he was kidnapped at 16 and carried away for 6 years to a strange Druid-kind-of guy who called himself Milchu.  It was weird.

They forced him into slavery and these turn of events can either push you closer to or further from God.  In Pat's case, he started praying . . . a lot.

Six years later while trying to sleep, he heard a voice that said, "your ship is ready" and fled his 'master.'  Over 200 miles away he found a ship that sailed back home to England.  He was grateful for the voice and so he started to study the Bible and get serious about doing something for God with his life.  So  what do you think God does?   Pat starts feeling like his calling in life is to go back to the place he was kidnapped and do good.

So he trains for 15 years and is sent across the sea.  Once he arrives, he shows up at Milchu's place and pays for his freedom.  Can you imagine?  

From that point on, he throws out the rule book on how to approach the locals.  The Catholic rule book at the time was to live outside the settlement and teach them all the stuff of the church (what to wear, how to talk etc).  Instead, Pat lives IN town, learns THEIR language and starts talking about God.  This would get him in trouble over and over with the church.

At first Milchu and his people weren't too impressed.  So Pat decides to get a little dramatic.  The Druid community has this huge festival once a year called Beltane in which a fire is lit and it is supposed to be the largest fire around.  So Pat gets in his mind to build a bigger one on the opposing hill.  It is enormous.  It totally eclipses the King's fire.  

Pat started getting his name out there.

Well, Pat spent the rest of his life loving these people that took him captive.  The church got mad at the ways he would do it (the church always does that).  But you and I would come to know him as St. Patrick.  No you know the rest of the story!

#3: But you didn't answer the question!

Okay . . . so some of you felt like I answered the question about why God waits to punish evil btut never answered the question as to why it is there to begin with.


Good point.


I thought that perhaps most have already heard the whole "God created us having free will" or God wanted our love so much that he gave us the freedom to not show it." Essentially God wanted people who would want to choose Him.  The only way to chose that love is to have a choice between God and 'not-God' or what we might call evil.


That seems to be the most popular answer in this kind of category - but it doesn't answer the question either.  Does that mean that God set up evil in the universe for us to choose between it and Him?  It reminds me of the Far Side Cartoon where God is standing over a cookie sheet in an apron with a huge globe about to go into the oven.  Around Him are cans of "light skinned" and "dark skinned" as if they are ingredients.  He is shaking a can labeled "jerks" and the caption in his thoughts is " . . . just to make it more interesting . . ."  Makes me laugh.


      So what do we make of it all?  How can we believe in a God who either introduces evil into the world (knowing that it would bring about universal suffering) or a God that is powerless against its introduction (in which case He is a bit weak).
     I think the answer comes from how we view the question.  Do we view it from the perspective that God acts within a certain set of acceptable behaviors and attitudes?  If we view it from this perspective we have every right to put God on trial and find Him wanting.  From this perspective we set up certain parameters that a being like God should be confined to.  When the reality wanders outside those boundaries, then we can either do one of two things: revise our understanding (toss out our pre-conceived ideas) or toss out God.  From this perspective, it is easy to see that we have tossed out God.
     The problem, of course, is that we are judging God by human standards of what is the right way and the wrong way for a God to act.  We immediately rush to judgment saying that there is no way that a perfect God would let evil into the world if He was perfect.  Are we experts in this area?  Is it possible that our sense of right and wrong is (appropriately) finite? 
     What if the idea of God allows for a deity that acts in ways that are completely wild and beyond our sense of what a God should and should not do?  Why couldn't God have allowed a will that deviated from His own to take form and tempt us so that we could have the power of choosing God over our own wills?  Why does it necessarily follow that a God who allows evil for the purpose of giving us free will is not a perfect God?  It is one thing to say that you don't want to follow a God that allows suffering in the world.  That is our right.  It is another to say that such a God couldn't exist.  That is our arrogance.
     Perhaps a healthy amount of doubt is good all around.  It is good to doubt preachers, teachers and (ahem) blog writers and disagree with what they have to say.  It is equally good to have doubts about God.  But . . . perhaps the best doubt is the one that we don't often indulge in - our perspective.  Perhaps we are the ones who have a limited and narrow view of God that we need to walk away from.