The Electron God...

In the following quote the author outlines a number of provocative possibilities for a "believer" to develop a conception of reality that is grounded in an internally consistent and intellectually honest world view combining the essentials of scientific theory with a fundamental belief in the Divine. I especially enjoyed his use of scientific illustrations to create such strikingly unique parallels with a belief in a "Higher Power"... this line of thinking parallels a conversation between Jana and I about the things she is learning in her Chemistry class this summer... 

"The fact that nobody’s actually seen an electron, and that trying to imagine one ties our minds in knots, has led some physicists and philosophers of science to wonder whether it’s even accurate to say that electrons do exist. You could say that with electrons, as with God, there are believers and there are skeptics.

The believers believe there’s something out there—some “thing” in some sense of the word “thing”—that corresponds to the word “electron”; and that, though the best we can do is conceive of this “thing” imperfectly, even misleadingly, conceiving of it that way makes more sense than not conceiving of it at all. They believe in electrons while professing their inability to really “know” what an electron is. You might say they believe in electrons even while lacking proof that electrons per se exist.

Many of these physicists, while holding that imperfectly conceiving subatomic reality is a valid form of knowledge, wouldn’t approve if you tried to perform a similar maneuver in a theological context. If you said you believe in God, even while acknowledging that you have no clear idea what God is—and that you can’t even really prove God per se exists—they would say your belief has no foundation.

Yet what exactly is the difference between the logic of their belief in electrons and the logic of a belief in God? They perceive patterns in the physical world—such as the behavior of electricity—and posit a source of these patterns and call that source the “electron.” A believer in God perceives patterns in the moral world (or, at least, moral patterns in the physical world) and posits a source of these patterns and calls the source “God.” “God” is that unknown thing that is the source of the moral order, the reason there is a moral dimension to life on Earth and a moral direction to time on Earth; “God” is responsible for the fact that life is sentient, capable of good and bad feelings, and hence morally significant; “God” is responsible for the evolutionary system that placed highly sentient life on a trajectory toward the good, or at least toward tests that offered the opportunity and incentive to realize the good; in the process “God” gave each of us a moral axis around which to organize our lives, should we choose to. 

Being human, we will always conceive of the source of this moral order in misleadingly crude ways, but then again you could say the same thing about conceiving electrons. So you’ll do with the source of the moral order what physicists do with a subatomic source of the physical order, such as an electron—try to think about it the best you can, and fail. This, at least, is one modern, scientifically informed argument that could be deployed by the believer in God."

(The Evolution of God by Robert Wright)

- S.

Getting a Brain for the Postmodern Straw Man...

It has been a while since I posted a blog... The following post was written as a response in the comment section of a recent post on author Peter Rollins' blog. Peter Rollins' Blog

I appreciate the provocative and unapologetically confrontational nature of Peter’s original post! As with others who replied, I immediately recognized the clearest example of who who the author was referring to in his critique of preachers who promote the idea of “a cage-fighting, bodybuilding Jesus” [ie. Mark Driscoll, whose podcast I enjoy despite significant doctrinal and ideological disagreement]…

Rollins direct refutation of such poorly crafted theological posturing is a beautiful thing and I hope we can see more of it in the future. I've run across too many examples in recent years of neo-Reformed Piper disciples spreading some truly toxic rhetoric to characterize the ideas of people like Peter Rollins, Brian McLaren, and Rob Bell [ex. Driscoll's unapologetic use of critical hyperbole in generalizing that McLaren's writings that are both heretical and “destructive to the church.”] I have been waiting for a long time for the the wrongly accused (or perhaps a few of their capable surrogates) to just the type of rebuttal Rollins gave in his blog to push back against the rampant straw man characterizations of postmodern and emergent theological ideas often being peddled in particular corners of the church (ex. Why We’re Not Emergent by DeYoung & Cluck and Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church by D.A. Carson are some of the worst examples I've run across in recent years].

More of us must be willing to clearly articulate and defend genuine articulations of postmodern/emergent theology compared with the misrepresentations of our ideas by some in the conservative/evangelical/Reformed/fundamentalist camp that has risen up in recent years. The common progressive tendency is to search for the good in an opponent’s arguments and attempt to build a consensus on whatever points of agreement can be found. Unfortunately, the argument with Driscoll and the like are rarely made in good faith and often shift abruptly to a false categorization or misrepresentation of the true nature of the disagreement.

Can anyone actually point to a single example of even the most passionate emergent progressive who would actually describe their beliefs to include the theological caricature of Jesus of Nazareth bearing the slightest resemblance to the effete embarrassment Driscoll usually describes as the limp-wrist, feminine postmodern Jesus with "product in his hair? NO! This is a make-believe sketch Driscoll is projecting upon emergent/postmodern theology that has been created and repeated ad nauseum, despite bearing ZERO resemblance to any objective reality among REAL emergent/postmodern believers. It’s long past the time for more people to characterize such arguments as the misrepresentative mistakes they truly are.

Perhaps we can finally respond with a “Great Rebuttal” to this wave of false witnesses. I've got my finger's crossed!

- S.

Change we can believe in...

The quote was taken from the preface of a play by John Patrick Shanley that was also made into a movie currently in theaters.  I like how the writer acknowledges that it can often be a frustrating, scary, and painful experience for us to truly change, but we have to do it anyway.  

"It is Doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things.  When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he's on the verge of growth.  The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you've gone the wrong way and you're lost.  But this is just emotion longing for the familiar.  Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind.  Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present."

- John Patrick Shanley

Doubt: a parable

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.  You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.  So don't try to get out of anything prematurely.  Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way."

- James 1: 2-4 (The Message)

Selah.

- S.  

Left holding the bag...

I find the following quote particularly insightful as more of us wake up to the toxic consequences of political and religious divisions that are based more on convincing others we are right than actually BEING and DOING right in our own lives.

"It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas and slogans and myths that in the end one is left holding the bag, empty with no trace of meaning left in it.  And then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to make the meaning be there again by magic.

Gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people.  The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real.  In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything."

- Thomas Merton

"Just then a relgious scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus.  "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?"  

He answered, "What's written in God's Law?  How do you interpret it?"

He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence - and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself."

"Good answer!" said Jesus.  "Do it and you'll live."

- Luke 10: 25 - 28 (The Message)

Selah.

- S.

Apocalypse Now and Later...

The following passage from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis is particularly insightful in light of current events and the days of reckoning that lie ahead for the people of the United States.  

"... I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does.  When that happens, it is the end of the world.  When the author walks on to the stage the play is over.  God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else -- something it never entered your head to conceive -- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?  For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.  It will be too late then to choose your side.  There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up.  That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not.  Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.  God is holding back to give us that chance.  It will not last for ever.  We must take it or leave it."  

 "If you decide that it's a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you'd rather serve—and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you're now living. As for me and my family, we'll worship God."  

- Joshua 24:14  (The Message)

- S.

A house of cards on a bed of sand...

“The dollar isn’t secured by anything,” Igor Panarin said in an interview transcribed by Russian newspaper Izvestia today. “The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche; this is a pyramid, which has to collapse.” 

Igor Panarin

Professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

"These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.

"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.  These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock."  

Jesus of Nazareth 

Matthew 7: 21 -25 [The Message] (paraphrase) 

God help me deny the impulse to allow the fluctuations in my culture's affluence to determine whether or not I can be thankful.  Blessings to you over the holiday weekend.

- S.

Waste Not, Want Not...

"You are move evil than you have ever feared, and more loved than you have ever hoped." 

- Mark Driscoll 

Death By Love

My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

(Romans 7: 20-25) The Message

Selah.

I'm amazed by Paul's honesty in this passage.  The man responsible for writing a large portion of the New Testament confesses to facing a crippling spiritual weakness he can't seem to overcome no matter how hard he tries.   Paul pulls back the curtain on his own frailty, revealing the universal battle between the light of God and the darkness of sin that exists within every follower of Jesus (myself included).   

Paul reminds us that our failures will not have the final word.  With love from the Father, grace from the Son, and strength from the Spirit, another outcome is possible.  God is the ultimate conservationist, taking the parts of our lives that look like garbage and recycling them into opportunities to distribute his grace and display his glory.  Through this miracle of transformation, we can fulfill life's highest calling: to receive mercy for our sins and to share mercy with others.  We can finally be free from the same tired old methods of being "Christian".

No more spiritually corrosive distractions used to numb the pain of our unconverted failures.  No more vague and formulaic prayers mumbled toward the ceiling that leave us feeling empty and alone.  No more force feeding ourselves endless strings of sermons in the hopes of achieving morality by osmosis.  No more... no more... no more... 

May God help us trust in His power to transform our absolute worst into something great.  May God lead us to receive the redemption found in Jesus Christ.  May be God be proven true, and every man a liar.

- S.