Prayers of a Feather

Prayer is an important part of most religious traditions. To cut to my real point here, I'm irritated with how most Christians have come to understand prayer. How we pray to God says a great deal about how we understand God, and the formal group prayer model leaves much to be desired. We would never consider talking to one another in choral form, both because it indicates what we're saying is incredibly scripted and because, frankly, it would be painfully annoying. Find an example in scripture where Jesus sits down and prays with people as a group. In the Gospels, prayer seems to be something done in private. Whether in the form of a parable where a tax collector begs for forgiveness (Luke 18:9-14), times where Jesus himself goes off to pray such as in Gethsemane, or in the explicit instructions given by Jesus regarding prayer:

"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." - Matthew 6:6-8

We are instructed to pray continuously (1 Thessalonians, 5:17), but that order seems meaningless if it means we are to stand silently as someone else prays in our stead, or carry around a lengthy tome of prayers to be read in unison. The whole point of prayer is to communicate with God. In prayer we speak to our parents about how things are going in school, or what difficult decision we are about to make in life. Choral performances are for audiences, not for personal conversations. Audiences do not respond to the content of the words, nor can they provide meaningful feedback. The words are not personal in a choral endeavor, or in one person praying on behalf of a group. A speaker is designated in a political forum, not in a family. By praying in this way, we sacrifice personal communication and our relationship with God in the hopes that generic things said "correctly" will have more impact. It feeds our fear by allowing us to avoid the divine. It transforms God into a politician watching a play rather than a parent watching a child play.

Prayer should be, as Jesus instructs us, a private and personal interaction. An honest moment for us to communicate with God to request something of importance, seek wisdom, or simply continue our relationship. Praying together can do none of these things. There is power in prayer, and there is great power in a great many people praying for the same thing, but they must each pray it for themselves.

A Humble Need to Breathe

Before I begin, let me note that this post is more personal in nature rather than explicitly theological. My experience may be valid for others, but if you are looking for an academic argument, you'll need to look elsewhere.

You know how you don't need to think about breathing to keep doing it? And for the most part we don't think about breathing until we're having trouble doing it? Well I've had (metaphorical) trouble breathing as of late, and I desperately needed to find out why.

Since middle school, I knew that someday I would end up going to seminary and becoming a pastor. The feeling I had was that there were other things I needed to do first. The really funny thing is that ever since I left the natural course of becoming a minister, it has felt as though my life is slowly falling apart. Going to college was fine because I needed a bachelor's to get into a Masters of Divinity program anyways, and given that I majored in Religion, nothing was out of place. At least not until Senior year. I realize now that my real internal struggles started when I failed to apply for my graduate studies right then.

Instead, I started working. I needed a break from academia, and I needed to make sure I was in a position to keep a steady income flowing while my wife entered grad school. Now, eighteen months out, gainfully employed with good benefits and well on my way to paying off debts, everything is wrong. I spent eight years with a flooded scheduling, worry about classes, homework, two jobs at a time, multiple organizations and volunteering, and I rarely if ever felt stressed. Now, with one full time job and no other meaningful obligations, and have developed a medical disorder related directly to stress. The problem I knew full well: I'm not doing what I need to be doing. The more difficult question to answer what I was supposed to be doing.

I briefly considered doing an evening MDiv program, but as my decent job became more and more unbearable, I realized I needed something with more volume. While visiting some friends I casually mentioned that I had considered entering seminary, and was flabbergasted at the response. Everyone present, including some very nonreligious individuals, supported the idea, saying it would be a perfect opportunity for me. It was at that point that everything really clicked in my head.

I had been waiting for a dramatic call, something sudden and supernatural. The problem is that my call never sounded like this. I was designed for this end. Like breathing, my ministerial calling was so natural that it never registered as the distinct call I was looking for. Instead, it was not until I stopped moving in that direction that I realized where I needed to be. Having a good job, opportunities for advancement, solid benefits and plenty of free time were killing me. The problem isn't that these are bad things, but that they weren't for me. I apparently have an allergy to having a normal life. Thus, I stopped breathing.

I write this having just finished my first step in applying to seminary. While my job continues to stress me out, and the rest of my life has not miraculously put itself back together yet, there is a sudden peace in my mind regarding the future. Having found myself in violation of assuming to know the mind of God, I have returned to humbly ask for forgiveness and for a full breath once again.

Omnipotent or Omnibenevolent

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus 341-270 BCE

I don't think there is a single, simple answer to this question which will satisfy everyone. However, I think there are a few useful approaches to this which are certainly valid.

First, I think some of what we label evil is not really evil. There are so many things which we fear, things we don't understand or simply can't control, and we often label these things evil when in fact we are condemning only our shortcomings. Death is the prime example: on what grounds should a Christian really be concerned about death? Certainly evil can cause death, but the issue then is not death itself but what brought about that death. If we really live a life of faith, trusting in God to see us through each day, then we can give up so many things that make us anxious, stressed or angry.

Second, I think a great deal of what we call evil is simply humans pushing the constraints of the environment we were made to fit in. Overpopulation is really the biggest portion of this in my opinion. Take for example earthquakes. If humanity continued to exist as hunter-gatherers, how much would we realistically be affected by earthquakes? Very, very little. In theory a tent could fall down and kill someone, but it would be fairly unlikely. Earthquakes kill people because in order to cram an inordinate number of people and stuff into a small area you have to build up, and that means there's heavy stuff to fall down on you. So many issues we run into are only problems because we have tried to live far beyond the functioning principles of the world given to us. It's as though we're building a sand castle on the beach right up against the water and then are angry when the tide comes in and destroys it. If we simply built it farther away, it'd be fine.

Third, and now I'm going to start getting a little deeper, I think the largest chunk of evil is a matter of choice. While I know many people feel this answer is just an easy way to escape the problem at hand, that it is almost cliche, I can't deny the intuitive sense that it makes to me. What makes us fascinating as creatures is precisely that we can make choices, and that those choices have real ramifications. If evil did not exist as a choice, then there is really no choice being made. There is much more power in choosing to do the right thing when the wrong choice is a clear option than when all the choices are basically the same. Choices where each option is basically the same are mundane: what should I eat for dinner, do I want to sweep the floor or do the dishes first, etc. There are decisions involved, but the consequences of those decisions are minimal. As beings made in the image of God, we hold the power to help shape the future of the universe. While God certainly has preferences on how we do that, to deny us the choice to commit evil is to take back the very gift that makes us unique.

Fourth, and somewhat related to choice, how we choose to organize ourselves socially, politically and economically may have a great impact on evil. Consider for a moment the issue of farm subsidies. Certainly, it is a great injustice that children die by the thousands each day due to starvation. The problem is, how do we fix this? One option is to provide large quantities of food to areas with high rates of malnutrition at particularly low prices through subsidizing farming. This ensures cheap food to countless people who might otherwise starve. However, this also may (and does) take the place of consuming locally grown crops. Given that most countries which suffer from substantial starvation problems are predominantly agrarian, the inability of farmers to sell their crops because cheap US grown food is available can have dramatic impacts. It may, in fact, drive them out of business, forcing them to also rely on imported food to survive. It is estimated that if the US were to end farm subsidies, global food prices may rise up to 15%, reducing access to affordable food well beyond its current levels. Not only is this a great example of the difficulty of policycrafting, but a fantastic example of how politics, culture and economics collide to produce a variety of evils no matter what choice is made.

Finally, while Epicurus' quandry is very well phrased, it relies on a number of questionable assumptions. For instance, what if the phraseology is based on an inherent semantic error? It's formulation is grammatically correct, but what if talking about evil in this way (or God in this way), is inherently nonsensical at some level. Noam Chomsky once used the phrase "Colorless green dreams sleep furiously" to illustrate the problem of semantics. The sentence is structured correctly, with each component following the rules of grammar. However, it still doesn't make any sense. Multitudinous metaphorical notions may be generated in an attempt to extricate linguistic value from it, but in reality, it means nothing. Something that is colorless cannot be green, nor does the notion of color generally apply to dreams, nor can dreams sleep, nor does one typically think of applying the term furiously to sleeping (fitfully and furiously are by no means synonymous). Perhaps our understanding of evil, while somewhat intuitively sensible, is in actually much more like this sentence: structured correctly, but lacking in substance. Perhaps, as a completely distinct assumption, Epicurus assumes that there is no value in the presence of evil. While I certainly believe evil is to be minimized or overcome, perhaps it is in that minimizing or overcoming that we find our purpose and our meaning, thus making evil an important part of developing a sense of what is good.

Personally, I find most of the common explanations for evil to be less than ideal, either because they don't really explain evil in any real way, or because their explanations create implications which open up avenues to wholly new options for evil. For instance, the free will argument only works to explain away evil if one also assumes that God does not in fact know what choices we will make (see my earlier post about the nature of time and the meaning of "in the image of God"). Otherwise, God is still responsible for evil, just in a much more devious way. Without denying foreknowledge, one is simply saying that God knew from the beginning that all these evil things would happen and just kept going. The "greater good" argument does perhaps have some merit, but not only does it fail to explain evil at a smaller scale, it can actually be used to endorse a plurality of evils if they may result in some positive outcome.

Evil exists: this fact is difficult to deny, particularly from the perspective of Christianity. What is necessary to understand is that evil cannot win the day. Faith, hope and love abideth, and all stand in defiance to the evil of this world. If we live with these, we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death and yet fear no evil. Such is our calling.

The Earth's Age

A friend of mine was asking me the other day about my thoughts on the age of the Earth, and therein essentially my view on creationism/evolutionism and the book of Genesis. As an Old Earth Christian who takes Genesis as more of a parable than a history book, I usually end up having to justify myself to both sides of the spectrum. My least favorite people to argue with are "Young Earth Scientists" who seek to scientifically justify a "literal" Biblical timeline. Following are critiques which summarize the most frequent proofs proffered by the individuals and why I take issue with them.

Proof by analogy is problematic: I have yet to hear someone criticize evolution without attempting to compare some effect of evolution to some impossible scenario. Unfortunately, the value of any such argument is inherently tied to the accuracy of the analogy, and good analogies for anything of substance are hard to find. David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published in 1779, annihilated any hope for proving the existence for God on the basis of analogy summarized by a phrase Christians must openly admit: there is simply nothing like God. Immanuel Kant, perhaps the seminal philosopher of all Western thought ever since, spent his entire career developing a way of thinking which could still accommodate God within the basically irrefutable context of Hume's dialogues. Even so, over two centuries later, people continue trying to use the same logic, and for whatever reason, people keep listening.

Proof by misuse is much more problematic: There is a book published by a young-earth scientist which makes the argument that a great part of what's wrong with evolution is that it has been used to support racism. While I am well aware that evolution has been used to justify racism, genocide, and a wide array of other ills, I would be very careful as a religious person to avoid postulating the argument that such usage invalidates the idea itself. Religion in all its forms certainly trumps virtually any other idea on the grounds of devastation through misuse. Evolution is a process through which changes occur in organisms. It is not designed to prescribe a path of action, nor does it come with a built in philosophy. Evolution says nothing about God save that he must be patient, and Christianity says almost nothing about how God chooses to do the things He does.

Proof by abuse of definition is contemptible: The most common arguments I hear come out of this movement rely on using very particular definitions. They create a single, unwavering definition of Christianity, then produce an equally rigid definition of evolution, and then somehow stand amazed that these two definitions conflict. I generally disagree with both definitions proffered. While scripture is full of historical truths and facts about humanity and the world around us, it is not at all times explicitly literal. To deny metaphor to scripture is to undermine the beauty of the psalms and the wisdom of the parables. What is gained if Genesis is literal rather than metaphorical? Neither rendition changes how we live in the present, and I'm fairly certain we won't be quizzed on it before the gates of Heaven. What we gain from the book is wisdom. If it is literal, than that wisdom is present, but I would argue shallow. An allegorical history is both beautiful in its ability to bestow an understanding of who we are without needing to sift through irrelevant data regarding unimportant events. If Genesis is history in the modern understanding of the word, then it is mostly meaningless. It has nothing more to offer then a list of events which transpired. If it is allegory, then the depths of its mystery can be endless, just like God Himself.

Litigious Creeds

I remember in High school (or was it middle school?) when my Roman Catholic friends were trying to memorize the Nicene creed. While I certainly had read it before, and knew the basic tenants of which it spoke, I was certainly thankful that my church had no such requirement. Not only because I'm a little lazy, but because I don't feel the need for such an extensive creed. I do understand the desire for specificity, but I can confidently assert that it is doctrine which has caused most of the conflict within the church, as well as a great deal of its apathy. As the church expends energy on developing a more accurate mission statement, it loses sight of its actual mission.

I'm not saying that anything goes: just because something is permissible it does not make it beneficial (1 Corinthians 10:23). I really do believe in minimum standards and the need for discernment. However, from what I see in the Bible, God prefers to have some room to do crazy things no one expects. As creeds move from being general to specific, they attempt to limit what God can do, and that's always a bad idea.

The early Church, while perhaps not thrilled with diversity of opinion, was accepting of it. The Sermon on the Mount was used as the basic instructional material for new converts, people were expected to believe that Jesus was an important guy, that how one lives is more important than simply that one lives, that it is crucial for all of humanity to act in love towards one another, and some other general rules. People could debate details on all of these (and they did endlessly), but as long as people stuck to the general rules, and were willing to discuss matters, the details were ultimately irrelevant.

In many ways, I think Greek Life is a good example of how the Church should look. Being a fraternity man myself, I realized early on that despite plenty of problems, the Greek system overall had the right idea. There are hundreds of different organizations: some national, some regional, some local. Each of these groups has a specific focus, unique rituals, bylaws, and leadership. However, no Greek would deny that members of a different house are not Greek. Every Greek knows that people outside the system don't care if you're a Theta Chi or a Tau Kappa Epsilon. Sure, some chapters do things they shouldn't do, and are rightfully punished both from within the Greek system and outside of it, but at no point is the issue not a Greek issue.

The Church desperately needs this kind of unity. Sure, different denominations operate different ways, have a different style of worship and a different creed, use different standards for leadership, but they are still part of the same Christian family. Honestly, does it really matter if I think that God created everything in 6 literal days or not if I accept Christ and prayerfully seek to express compassion to the world? Does it really matter if I believe the Bible to be precise and literal or to be divinely inspired if, in either case, I take it to be the most accurate representation of God's will for humanity? I really doubt that on judgment day we'll be given a scan-tron test full of questions about doctrine and Bible knowledge. God really doesn't strike me as the standardized test type. I think He's much more interested in whether or not we fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, visited those in prison, and overall heeded His instructions for us. One of the most revered men in scripture is Abraham. The question I ask is this: was Abraham a hero for attempting to sacrifice his son, or because he did what God told him to do? The difference is between legalism (one of the great sins of the Pharisees) and faith. From what I can tell, faith always wins.

Honestly, I think Christian infighting is more about fear than anything else. So long as we don't agree on what God wishes, we can't be expected to enact it. If we keep changing the goal, we can never be behind schedule in accomplishing it. Lengthy and specific creeds not only give us something to fight about, but make it so that when we're not fighting, we're trying to figure out what the creed actually means. I love debating theology, and I do have an elaborate and somewhat specific set of principles which I believe, but I would never codify them and expect everyone to live by them or face judgment. According to Romans 14:5-10,

"One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one days special does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat."

We will all answer to God, not to the Nicene Creed, or the Apostles Creed, or any church mission statement or doctrinal document. There is absolutely nothing wrong with particular beliefs, seeing one day as more sacred or some kind of food as inappropriate. What is wrong is believing that you are God, and can declare these things to be true for all.

Curbside Prophets (need a real job)

If you are ever tempted to stand up on a public bus to proclaim some aspect of your faith, may I vehemently recommend that you NOT. On my way home from work today, I heard a man sitting a few rows behind me quietly asking the person next to him about Jesus. While I generally find this approach to be obtuse, I could at least initially admire his devotion. Then he addressed the entire bus, proclaiming God's disdain for homosexuality. When challenged on his judgmental attitude, he attempted first to sidestep the attack by claiming that people will sit quietly by when evil is spoken, but suddenly become agitated when truth is spoken. He then spent a few more minutes defending his original statements as non-judgmental before getting off the bus with a final "Jesus loves you all."

In what universe is that an effective approach to witnessing? Regardless of what he was talking about (which I'll post on soon), did he really expect to convince anyone who didn't already agree with him of anything? Did he really think that because of his threats of hellfire another soul would find salvation? Maybe I'm off the mark here, but I see a plethora of problems with this approach. What this gentleman probably believed to be an desperate plea for his beloved brothers and sisters to act in righteousness was at best ineffective, at worst (and much more likely) painfully counterproductive.

First, I would like to point out that it is generally difficult to have a thoughtful exchange of ideas among a large group, unless that group essentially exists for that very purpose. In case it wasn't painfully clear, buses do not exist for that purpose. Most people on the bus would rather keep interaction to an absolute minimum. In fact, this applies to the majority of people in public areas. While plenty are perhaps open to having meaningful discussions, even they are generally offended if you approach them with that assumption in mind. Productive conversations, especially unanticipated ones, are best left to very small groups, such as perhaps the person sitting next to you. I have had plenty of meaningful conversations with the person sitting next to me, but never from a podium.

Second, framing a conversation with threats of hellfire is not likely to win you many supporters. Damnation doesn't scare people who don't believe in it, nor those who don't believe they've done anything wrong. What it will do is indicate that you are more interested in fearmongering than an open discussion of values and ethics, which will cause most people to assume there is no use in attempting to have a meaningful conversation with you. I do believe that there is room for discussion of judgment, but it should generally be left to discussions among Christians, not as a threat against those outside. I could go into a long discussion about "judge not lest ye be judged," but I'll save that for another time.

Third, if something does compel you to loudly proclaim judgment in public, don't claim peoples' negative reaction to your comments as justification. While doing the right thing in many circumstances will get you in trouble, it does not mean that anything which gets you in trouble is the right thing. Yes, the truth will upset people much of the time, but so will lies, personal attacks, ignorance and arrogance, and none of these things merit reward.

I wish to conclude by emphasizing that while faith is absolutely personal, it is certainly not private. It is something to be lived out and discussed, but like so many other things in life, how we choose to live it and discuss it is critically important. I was once on a panel discussing issues facing modern Christianity, and one matter brought to my attention was evangelizing and missions work. While I agreed with the rest of the panel that the Church has a very questionable history in these areas, filled with regrettable and indefensible actions, I made it clear that it is no less crucial now than ever. What Christianity needs is not to abandon all attempts at witnessing out of fear, but to learn new and wholesome ways to show what Christianity is really about. Simply because we can no longer waltz into the marketplace and begin proclaiming the word of the Lord, we should not abandon living as imitators of Christ, seeking to show love and compassion to the world. We need fewer curbside prophets, and more creative ones.