No Line…

One of the best parts of the last several days has been immersing myself in the new-ish U2 C.D., No Line on the Horizon.  It is amazing.

The jangle-jangle-jangle of the bass, the often sparse instrumentation, the use of harmonies in the vocals, the painos popping up at songs’ end… it all harkens back to U2 before The Joshua Tree. 

But it’s grown up, too.  Listening to it feels a bit like I’ve had this friend for years.   Though we have this really solid friendship we actually haven’t talked about some important issues in forever.  

This C.D. feels like returning to some conversational topic from long ago.  We’re still the same people, we still have some of the same things to say to each other, but we’re both grown up, some.  We own more of our own opinions.  We’re not as likely to slip into the oversimplicity of youth.  But at our core, we’re still the same people.  And I had no idea how much I had missed discussing this stuff with that old friend.

One of the elements I’ve most enjoyed being challenged by is the spiritual stuff.  When I fell in love with U2 I wasn’t a Christian.  When I became one this whole new vista opened up for me.

I remember the first time I heard “I still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” After accepting Christ.  When I heard this part I was so moved I almost had to pull over:

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Bleed into one.
But yes, I’m still running.

You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Oh my shame, you know I believe it.

But I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for.
But I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for.

There’s fodder in the lyrics of the new C.D.’s for bunches of blog postings.  But I’m not quite ready yet. 

Are you a U2 fan?  What do you think of the new C.D?  What are your thoughts about the spirituality expressed through the music?

I hope it’s worth the 20% she saved

A couple nights a week I work at this book store.

This book store offers a discount to teachers.   For items used in the classroom.

Tonight, I was chatting with this lady.  She was telling me how much her son was into World War II.  And she had another son that was seven.  She was talking about how she’s never waited this long to do her Christmas shopping before.

I rang her up and she produced the teacher discount card.  I did what they tell me to do: ask her if it’s for the class and then just take her word for it.

All of it was either appropriate for a seven year old or was World War II related. 

She stated that all of it was for the classroom.

There’s a level on which I truly don’t care.  I think it’s a stupid policy to be run that way.

But the thing that drives me crazy is this:

She teaches at a Christian school.

I don’t think that Christian’s are morally superior to anybody.  This incident clearly indicates that.

But I do think that whenever we advertise our faith comitment, we’d better be prepared to demonstrate that we hold ourselves to the standards we’re claiming.

This lady had no way of knowing where I’m at spiritually.  Her little display of hypocrisy could have been the thing that made the difference for me.

I know it’s not hip to be calling people out like this.  I guess I’m supposed to offer up the idea that I sin too.

And I do sin.

I guess I just want to offer up the idea that we have an extra obligation whenever we identify ourselves as Christians.  We need to expect that there is somebody watching.  And our displays — for better or worse– these make all the difference.

Ten Spiritual Realities That I’m thankful for

1.  I’m thankful that Jesus’ death created the possibility of a meaningful relationship with my maker.

2. I’m thankful that Jesus’ life was lived as an example so that I can figure out what God would do, and also as an act of solidarity with us.

3.  I’m thankful that we have to work, and trust, and grow; it’s not a one-shot magical transformation.

4.  I’m thankful that God is a God of the opressed, of the underdog, of crazy reversals of the world’s way of seeing things.

5.  I’m thankful (though baffled) by the idea that God invites us to create reality with him through service and prayer.

6.  I’m thankful that I’m allied with the global church in this effort.

7.  I’m thankful that I’m located in Fellowship Holden in this effort.

8.  I’m thankful for the ability to praise and worship.

9.  I’m thankful that God works through scientific laws, usually, and values thought as much as feeling.

10.  I’m thankful that I’ll spend eternity in God’s kingdom.

Anybody? Really?

3 John says this: “Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.”

Taken in context, there is at least one radical thing this means.  There might even be two radical things this means.  I’ll be interested to hear thoughts about that.

The context is that John’s writing about his plan to deal with an unloving person who calls himself a follower of Christ.  This guy isn’t being hospitable and open.

It seems clear: He’s saying that this guy isn’t a real follower of Christ.  He’s a poseur, an imposter.

The people I had a virtual temper tantrum about yesterday, those knucklehead folks that were out protesting when they should have been doing something to help a situation, in my opinion this applies to folks like them.  Or those boneheaded “Christians” who show up to protest at veternan’s funerals.  Or funerals of people who die of AIDS.

It’s kind-of reassuring and refreshing.  I’m called to love these people but I don’t have to identify myself with them.  I don’t have to answer for their foolishness.  They are doing evil.  They are not from God at all.

The other ramification, equally radical: there are millions of people who are from God who don’t even know it.  Some of them might even hate God, but they are still doing good.

I think that sometimes we Christians want to claim a monopoly on goodness.  If there’s not a cross on it, if it wasn’t purchased at a Christian bookstore, if it wasn’t endorsed by some pastor, then we are unsure about whether it was good.  It seems to me that this verse flies in the face of that.

What do you think?

How does God feel about homosexuality?

Last post, I shared the idea that I basically don’t think that there is enough evidence to really conclude just how God feels about homosexuality.  One of my favorite people in the world, Al, had some really interesting things to say in response.   I think that his comments are quite typical of a wide variety of people.  It’s been my experience that there is this whole population of people who love God and love people, people who are quite familiar with the arguments that suggest that God condemns homosexuality.

In the end perhaps this position is right.  Many people haven’t even heard the other side of the argument.  Al stated his perspective fairly and succintly.  He seemed quite interesting in hearing the other side.  I’ll do my best to present it here, with the caveat that I’m pretty much on the fence on this one, in many cases.  I’m not saying stuff that I 100% believe so much as I’m sharing stuff that gives me reason to pause and think that this is a pretty complex issue.  If you want to see the whole of Al’s response I’ll invite you to check out in the last post.  Here, I’m going to quote and respond to what seems to be the most important parts.  If I omitted something I hope he or somebody else will correct me.

Al said” I’m curious to hear some of the arguments that view God as pro-homosexuality, or at least He views it as a non-issue. Is God then also pro-gluttony or drug abuse, spousal abuse…etc. I’m not being sarcastic in any way either. I hope you read this with the understanding that I am a guy that is imperfect and fallen, and sometimes clueless about things.”

My response: The comparison between homosexuality and drug abuse or homosexuality and spousal abuse is getting the cart before the horse.  Perhaps it’ll turn out that homosexuality is a form of abuse.  But whether or not it is abuse at all is the very question at issue.  So setting up that comparison in the beginning, I don’t think that really does much. 

Al later said “I guess it comes back to my world view, and also what my view of the scriptures is. Part of my world view is that truth is absolute regardless of the time in history, the culture, or the popular agenda/opinion. Furthermore I believe that the Word of God is not an evolving document like the constitution. His word, as it says in 1Pt 1:24-25, abides/remains/lasts forever. It doesn’t fail, it never fades, it is eternal and always truth.”

I totally agree with this paragraph.  But I think that the truths in this paragraph needs to be balanced with what Al said before: we are all fallen.  Scripture is true, but we are all quite knuckleheaded.  I don’t think that scripture ever changes.  But I think that our understandings of scriptures do change.  Not because the truth is mallable, but because we are.   

Al says “From what I read it seems pretty clear that God has a problem with homosexuality. Any time it is mentioned, it is not in a good context or in an approving tone. Even in the NT it is not viewed as acceptable, but as sinful. So, why would that have changed now. Is it because we are so much more advanced and our understanding of cultures and language and science etc., etc. is so great that we have now become an authority to determine that something that was viewed as sinful is no longer. So, is cheating on my wife no longer viewed by God as sin?”

This, I think is really the heart of the issue.

First off, it’s good to draw a distinction (as Al does) between the NT and the OT.  With the OT, we often want to have our cake and eat it, too.  When the OT says something we like, we say “Jesus came to fufill the scriptures, not abolish them.” when it comes to something we don’t like (for example, dietary prescriptions) we say “Jesus established a new covenant.”

That said, most of the Old Testamony prohibitions that are often pointed as being anti-homosexual are in fact anti-rape, or anti-lust.  Christians who think that homosexuality isn’t prohibitted by the bible say that Sodom and Gomorah isn’t about homosexuality, as such.  It’s against sleeping around.

Many gay people feel quite set-up, rightly or wrongly.  This is what they say is the issue:

Christians claim that any sexual contact outside of marriage is wrong.  They also say that gay marriage is wrong.  It’s there position they are effectively forced into adultery because they aren’t able to get married.

I think this claim is really only valid if it turns out that God is o.k. with homosexuality in the first place.  If He is, then the idea of gay marriage seems o.k.  But I digress.

In terms of the New Testament, some very sophisticated and over-my-head discussions have gone on about translation.  My understanding is that the word that gets rendered as “homosexuality” in the epistles (I forget where, can anybody help me out?) is a word that is incredibly difficult.  It appears virtually nowhere else in the NT.  Proponents of homosexuality claim that this word would bettered be translated as “Temple Prostitute.”

I don’t have the knowledge or time to do this issue justice.  It is at the heart of the matter.  And I don’t feel like I have enough expertise to really unravel it all, anyway.   There are a variety of resources available on the internet. 

Al continues, “Can we argue that people feel that it is in their nature, oh yeah! My nature was to go after every chick that was out there and shack up. Had any of them been interested in me, I might have been with many, but that’s another story!:)

That was my nature. If I did not develop the understanding that this is not how God created me to be, but is an unfortunate side effect to my sinful nature, I would have continued in it even while I am married. I’m sure my wife would not approve, even if God did!”

My thoughts: It’s worthwhile to notice an important distinction between the attractions and lust that folks like you and me feel on the one hand, and the lust and attraction that gay folks, on the other hand, feel.

The distinction is that there is a ”legitimate” end to the experiences you and I feel.  You and I live in a world which states our sexuality is o.k.  It’s good to be attracted to the opposite sex.  Probably it says it too much, but that’s a different issue.  When all is said and done, you and I get to express our sexuality through the institution of marriage.

Al continues:   
“I have to work on keeping my body/flesh/sinful nature in check so I do not carry out the things that I so want to do. Is this any more or even any less the struggle that my gay brothers and lesbian sisters go through. My struggle with sin is ever present, just as it is for them, just as it is for an alcoholic, or someone who can’t control their eating. I am in no way condemning any sinner, because we are all born condemned due to our sin. I am for pointing all sinners to the wonderful cross that bids us all to come and die…die to ourselves, our wants, our desires- no matter how noble or un-noble they are – and find life in the Christ, who was our ultimate example of denial.”

 I guess that’s just it. If we want to call ourselves Christ followers, then we better get ready to deny ourselves and follow His example.”

My response is that nobody is suggesting that multiple partners are o.k.  The question is this: is gay monogomy acceptable to God?  And perhaps the related question: Is all the anti-gay “work” done by Christianity really just promoting gay promiscuity?

Al’s end was my favorite part:
I love you Jeff! I’m glad we’re friends, and I’m even more glad that we work together for eternal things.

I love you to, man.  You’re an awesome human being.  Thanks for calling me on this stuff.  Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong.  I’ll be interested to read your response.

The first way in which I’m an agnostic

Most people see an agnostic as somebody who doesn’t think there is enough evidence one way or another to settle the question “Is there a God.”

I want to be really clear here:

I’m stretching this definition, a little.  I don’t have any doubt whatsoever that God exists, that He is love, and that Jesus Christ was His son in a wholly unique way.

That said, there are some issues that I don’t think there is enough evidence on, either way.  There are some issues that I am agnostic about.  God’s existence isn’t one of them.

Homosexuality, however, is an issue I’m agnostic on. 

I’d go so far as to say I’m not sure that I’ll ever have enough information, in this life, to satisfactorily take a strong position on these issues.

Let me clarify what I am unsure on.  And then I will explain why I’m unsure of it.

I am unsure whether homosexual acts are acceptable with God.

I am unsure of how much God will hold accountable people who have never heard of him.  Or people who have only had negative interactions with Christians.

I say these things knowing that I’m going to tick off dear friends on both sides of these issues.  I invite them to post below.  But I have to say, all false modesty aside, I’m pretty sure I know most of the research, scripture verses, and arguments on both sides of these issues.

Here’s what I don’t know:

I don’t know what it’s like to be attracted to somebody of my gender. 

I know that I am attracted to women.  I know that this feels like the way I was born.  I know that it would be a major stumbling block if somebody told me that in order to be a good Christian, I had to not-be attracted to women.

We can play semantic games all day long.  We can say “It’s not the homosexual feelings, it’s the homosexual acts that are the sin.”  One of the problems with this claim, though, is that it’s an awfully big exception.  In virtually every other area we recognize that Jesus said it’s the condition of our heart that matters.  He quite specifically said that if we lust in our heart we’ve already comitted adultry.

I know that there are a number of passages of scripture that appear to condemn homosexuality.  I know that there are a variety of quite sophisticated arguments disputing these.  I know that on the surface, though, they appear to say that homosexuality is wrong.

I end up at this point shrugging my shoulders.  Back where I started, basically.

What is most important is I know that God is not a trickster.  He isn’t out to decieve us.  He is love.  He wants us to understand.

I can’t believe that so many people would be made one way, and then would have to live in denial.  Not just deny the acts.  But somehow figure out a way to deny the desire itself.

There are two possibilities.  I am not in any position to have any clue which is the truth.  I would have to be inside the heart and soul of someone who is gay to really know.

One possibility is that the wrongness of homosexuality is sensed by those who are gay.  Somewhere, deep inside, they know what they are doing is wrong. 

The other possibility is that it isn’t wrong, at all.

The alternative seems incomprehensible to me.  That people would be expected to figure out that they need to deny themselves, but not have any real way of figuring out.  God is loving and just and fair.

Identity and opposition

I’ve been contemplating how much we define ourselves by the people, things, and ideas that we oppose.

For example, it’s easy to say “I’m a Christian, so I don’t…”  Fill in the blank.  Often times we probably fill in that blank with lots of things we are wise not to do.   And other times we probably fill in that blank with things that are kind-of silly.  And of course, it’s not all about Christianity.  “I’m a Republican, so I don’t…”  “I’m a Democrat, so I don’t…”  “I’m a member of the middle class, so I don’t…”  “I belong to such-and-such a group so I don’t…”

There are some dangers, though to this.  The first danger is that as soon as things we are opposing ceases to exist, then so do we.  If my identity as a Christian is wrapped up in the idea that I don’t listen to punk music, what happens when punk music goes away?  At some point, I’m tetheting my faith to the whims of public opinion, as much as if I worshipped punk music.

I don’t want to start a debate about whether or not homosexuality or abortion are good things or bad things.  But I know that this is a single-minded obsession for some of my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I wonder about these people: What if they got what they wanted?  What if they managed to outlaw abortion, or even homosexual acts?  What if they managed to actually be able to enforce these laws and they did away entirely with homosexuality or abortion?  How long would the celebrations last?

I suspect for some of them, it wouldn’t last for very long.  Because I think that some people define themselves by these sorts of fights. 

There are all sorts of issues we use in a negative way to define ourselves.  I’m a good Christian because I don’t drink.  Or watch R-rated movies.  Or vote for pro-choice political candidates.  

More subtely, we emergents do the same thing in reverse.  It can be easy for me to define myself as a not-conservative.  I’m a good Christian because I don’t follow those silly legalistic rules of the traditional folks.  I’m a good Christian because I don’t seperate myself from the world.  I’m a good Christian because I don’t…

If we started considering Rob Bell’s opinion Orthodox and started looking at Pat Robertson as a heretic, it would be hard for me.  Some of my identity is wrapped up in not only affirming Bell’s opinions about a bunch of things, but I also have parts of my identity wrapped up in being against what Robertson says, just because he said it.

The definition of Holy is “To be set apart by God.” I used to think that what we were being set apart from is the world itself.

There’s a problem with this idea, though. 

The problem is that this is a self-defeating idea.  God wants us all to be holy.  If we made all of us holy we’d all be set apart by him, together.  That doesn’t really make any sense.

It’s a bit like a recipe.  Sometimes a recipe says you need 2 cups of something for the whole recipe.  You might need that something for two different parts.  Maybe it’s sugar.  And the sugar is needed inside the muffin and also for the crumby topping to the muffin.

It would make sense for the recipe to say “Set aside 1/2 cup”.  It would even make sense, (though be a little stranger) for the recipe to say “Set aside 1 1/2 cups”  But the recipe wouldn’t bother to specify “Set aside the whole 2 cups” If you started with 2 cups, you can’t set aside the whole of the 2 cups. 

If I hold on to the idea that holiness means to be set aside by God, it doesn’t seem like it could mean being set aside from other people.  Because at some point, we’ll all be holy.  And who are we set apart from then?

To be made holy must mean to be set apart from my own self desires, my own flaws, selfishness, and greed.

On the ground, it could end up looking the same.  I have a desire to fit in, to belong, to be one of the cool kids.  Holiness is being bigger than these desires.

So God might call out a person or a group to do something different.  In scripture, he often calls on the Israelites (and later, the first Christians) to act differently, to eat differently, to dress differently, to speak differently.

We always talk as if the idea is to seperate them from other people.  He’s making them holy by placing them in a different group. 

But what if we’ve got the cart before the horse?  What if all those things weren’t done to make them seperate from the other groups: what if they were done to seperate them from the worst parts of themselves?

And once they’ve been made holy, that group could serve as a shining example to everybody.  If they taught everybody what they learned through obedience to God, we could recapture a closeness that is so much more important than the tread mill of popular opinion.  The closeness we’d experience would be so much greater than the faux-closeness that they experienced before God went began the process of “seperating” his people from those around them.

Beliefs and Actions

Over at this outstanding blog, a really interesting discussion is shaping up.  The issue is Orthodoxy versus orthopraxis.

Orthodoxy means “right beliefs”.  For example, somebody might believe that the orthodox position is that Jesus is connected to God in some unique way.

Orthopraxis means “right actions” or “right practice”.  It’s the actions undertaken by a person.  For example, somebody might believe that to follow Christ means that we should be giving food to those who are hungry.

There are several unsurprising things about this distinction.  These unsurprising things include:

#1) People debate about which is more important.

#2) This debate often comes down with old school traditionalists on one side and the post-modern emergent side on the other.

#3) It’s not really as complicated a debate as all these Latin (Or are they Greek?) terms make it appear.

It seems to me that this is just a dressed up version of the question “What’s more important to Jesus: that we have the right attitude about things or that we do the right things?”  All the Catholic Vs. Protestant “Works vs faith” debates are really about this issue.

I know that often people say that our hearts are much more important than whatever things it is we do.   I know that they’ve got lots to back this position up.  But there’s two things that are worth considering before we jump to this conclusion.

The first is that we have a very different understanding of what it is to know something than Jesus contemporaries did.  The modern era has made an idol of a certain type of understanding.  The staggering successes of science have lead to us treating rational, logic based, intellectualized knowledge as the king.  When scripture speaks about knowing or believing a thing, it’s not the same sort of knowledge that we think of when we think about, for example, knowing that 7 X 7 = 49.

The second is this quote from the Book of James. 

“12Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

Faith and Deeds

 14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

 18But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
      Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

 19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

 20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless^[d]? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.”

It seems to me that almost any time the emergents are on one side and the traditionalists are on the other, it’s wise to assume that the truth is probably somewhere between them.  There’s some debates where both sides are equally right.

But there are some cases that you can’t have one side without the other.  There are some times that one side taken to far becomes an extreme that is wrong.  One of my favorite things about Jesus is when he steps outside of an either/or and looks at the big picture.  James seems to be following this tradition.

There are some things that we could have orthodox beliefs about which would change our actions.  If it turns out that the “right belief” about the nature of the atom is that it’s composed of quarks, this might be interesting.  But really, whether it’s quarks or strings or whatever, this isn’t going to change the ways I live my life.

I submit that orthodox beliefs about the nature of Jesus aren’t this kind of beliefs, though.  They aren’t abstract.  We couldn’t possibly hold orthodox beliefs without engaging in orthopraxy.  On the other hand, it seems clear to me that we won’t be able to identify the right practices if we don’t have the right beliefs in the first place.

I love the way that James expresses this.  I wonder if he had a sarcastic smirk on his face as he challenged someone to show them their faith without deeds.  Because it’s pretty much impossible to do this.  We can’t show anybody our faith except by their deeds. 

And I love how he uses the story of Isaac.  Even thousands of years ago, it was a temptation to sit around and intellectualize these things.  (Probably, if they’d had the technology, the people that James was talking to would have had blogs that read distressingly like my blog.)  It seems to me the whole point is this: stating beliefs is easy.  Acting on them, that’s where we’ll seperate the adults from the children. 

The truth

If somebody claimed “I am the Queelebegooten” or “The queelebegooten will set you free” It would be natural to want to know just what the word “Qeelebegooten” means… Even if we had a tenative, working definition of the word, we’d probably be quite curious, especially if one (or both) of these statements didn’t really connect with what we thought it was supposed to mean.

Jesus, of course, did not say “I am the Queelebegooten.”  Nor did he claim that the queelebegooten would set us free.  He claimed that he was the truth, though, and that the truth would set us free.

When we look at these claims with fresh eyes the first thing that we notice is that they are bold, striking, and provocative.  The seond thing is that he seems to be using the word “truth” in an unusual way.  Whole books have been written, whole courses have been taught, whole academic careers have been built on the question that was asked by a man who didn’t know what to do with Jesus.  “What is truth?”

I want to sidestep some of those questions.  I don’t think that I’ll establish some sort of noncontroversial epistemology right here and now.  Instead, I’d like to take a look at what we seem to generally mean by the word “truth” in our everyday lives.  I’d like to then compare this view with what Jesus said about it.

Usually, we use the word “truth” to point to some form of knowledge that is objective.  Something that can be verified outside of us, something that is independent of us.  If I was trying to determine which student cheated on a test where two kids came up with identical answers, I would tell them “I want the truth.”  Either Fred or Barney looked on the other’s paper.  This reality– this truth– wouldn’t change regardless of what I thought or said.  Truth, according to the way we normally use the word, is not something invented by us.  Nor is it something dependent on us.  Two plus two equals four.  That is the truth.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t normally say “What is the true interpretation of that poem” Because there may be more than one.  In framing the question that way, it implies that I think there is only one correct interpretation, and that this interpretation is not dependent on what I bring to the poem.

People who know more about sociology and history than I do say that this is a fairly new development.  We did not always define truth so narrowly.  Goings on in science and culture have lead us to where we are now.

Science has been incredibly succesful in the last couple hundred years in ways that are really easy to see.  We can now do things that we could never do before.  The every day lives of people in the first world today does not much resemble the lives of their grand parents.  It’s easy to see how we can go from “Scientific truth is one sort-of truth” to “Scientific knowledge is the best kind of truth” to “Scientific knowledge is the only kind of truth.”

Though science might have changed our lives, and though some of these are for the better, they don’t use the word “truth” the same way Jesus did.  No scientist can say “I am the truth.” He has only discovered it.  No idea can say “I am the truth” because, of course, ideas can not talk.  The best a scientist could do is to speak about her discoveries.  She might say “I have discovered a truth.”

And though a scientific idea might set us free from one thing, it will nearly inevitably enslave us to do something else.  Elictricity set us free from from depending on gas-based lamps but enslaved us to power plants and oil dependence and green houses gasses.  Lawn mowers and washing machines set us free from some types of household work but enslaved us to laziness. 

In setting us free from everything else Jesus (in Paul’s words) enslaves us to Him.  And this is as it should be. 

 Jesus view of truth is incredibly personal.  We can only find it in terms of relationship.  This is the very heart of why I think the post moderns are on to something.   Christianity has been living with this disconnect for atleast a couple hundred years.  Truth is not only objective and outside of us.  A relationship is not something that can be proven.  We can’t justify our faith as if it were some sort of geometric proof.

 

Freedom

O.K., but why?

There are very few things we do or feel that we can’t ask that question of.  The toddler “Why” game is annoying partially because it is nearly endless.  Nearly every single thing we do, we don’t do for it’s own sake.  We do it because it leads to something else which leads to something else which leads to…

I can’t say that things are even all that different in the spiritual realm. 

We read the bible.

Why?

So we can learn things about God, for example that he wants us to pray.  Once we learn this, we begin to pray.

Why?

Sometimes, we pray to share our sorrow with God.

Why?

Because God wants us to.

Why?

You get the picture.

Perhaps this is why Galations 5:1 grabbed me today.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Christ set us free?

why?

For freedom.

Isn’t this circular?

Yes, it is.  And what’s the problem with that, exactly?

There is something about freedom that is just so inherently good that being free can’t be explained.  It’s so basic that it doesn’t boil down to anything else.  There is no why.

How often do we feel set free by Christ?

Early on in our walk with Christ, probably so very often.  Later on… maybe not so much.  This is a natural time to ask what has became the refrain of this post:

Why?

Is it because there are buildings and organizations that call themselves churches, and these buildings sometimes are only distantly related to what they were supposed to be?  Do these human, fallen, imperfect organizations masquerade as Christ himself and burden us with the yolk of slavery?

Do we simply forget what our lives were like before Christ?

I don’t know.  But I’d be hard pressed to find many other claims, even in the bible, that a thing is so inherently good that we don’t need words to explain it’s basic goodness.  There are so many means, and so few ends, it seems like we ought to cling to them, hold on to them, because if we lose what we’re doing things for, everything else is a moot point.