[+/-] I'm Going to South Africa

I'll be there for two months, leaving May 1. (Good gracious, that's tomorrow!) Shortly after returning I'll be going away to camps for the bulk of July and August. I'm not sure how much Internet access I'll have during this time. In the blogging-est case scenario I'll publish weekly-ish updates packed with exciting stories and pearls of wisdom. (Which would actually be pretty good for me. The astute reader will notice I haven't posted in over two weeks (I blame exams) and my wisdom is a bit hit-and-miss.) It's also quite possible that I'll be pretty scarce for the next four months. I recommend signing up with Feedblitz or Bloglines (in the sidebar) to be notified if and when new content appears.

It's a little bit scary to be going away to a strange and somewhat dangerous country for two months with a couple other guys not renowned for their good sense. Normally a don't do things like this, which is probably part of the reason I decided to go. I figure it's time I stepped outside my comfort zone and did something scary and awesome.

At this point the hardest thing about the trip for me is that it means missing the remainder of the playoffs, in which my beloved Oilers may actually win a series (or more!) for the first time in nine years. It doesn't help that our second round opponents, should we advance, would probably be the Calgary Flames. If you don't immediately understand the significance of a second round playoff series between the Oilers and the Flames, there's nothing I could say that would fully communicate the sense of loss I'm feeling right now. And while I'm sure this will be a wicked trip, if the Oilers win the Cup and I miss it I will probably never recover.

To summarize, I'm gambling two months, thousands of dollars, and more than three rounds of hockey playoffs that this will be a good and meaningful and challenging trip. I would appreciate your prayers, if you're the praying sort.

But someone once told me God is in Africa, so maybe I'll get to talk with him myself.

[+/-] Pain Revisited

Devout readers will remember my recent series on the problem of pain (parts I, II, III & IV), which is essentially the question of how gratuitous suffering can exist in a world governed by a powerful and loving God. In discussing this problem with Christians I've often been reminded that God cannot be judged by human standards. The Christian concept of God is a being so great in knowledge, power and love that his actions and motives cannot possibly be understood my mere mortals. Inevitably, any attempt to judge such a being by human criteria will be insufficient and inaccurate. "God has a reason we can't understand" is the answer to any unanswerable question, and no divine act is to (seemingly) monstrous to be excused by our ignorance. This is certainly a powerful defense, but what is it's price? Sam Harris (truthdig.com) makes the following observation (thanks to the Questioning Christian):

If God exists, either he can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities or he does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God's goodness in the first place.

I think he makes a good point. It doesn't seem possible to prove that a good God does not exist based on human experience, knowledge, and logic, but if theists wish to dismiss the argument on these grounds, they cannot then turn and offer their own empirical proofs in support of a good God.

But it seems that we do this all the time. Every week in my church people stand up and proclaim the goodness of God as it is evident in their personal life. No one qualifies these testimonials with the reminder that we don't understand God and it's quite possible that the things he does that seem good to us are actually evil. Nor should they.

I believe these experiences - apparent answers to prayer, encouraging thoughts, etc. - are good and valid, and I'm glad for the encouragement they seem to bring. But it's one thing to let your perspective and your experiences to encourage you; it's quite another to use them to persuade others of the validity of your beliefs. Debate and evangelism have their own set of rules.

We have a choice: either we can debate the existence of God using empirical evidence (recognizing that we cannot be certain about our conclusions) or we dismiss all such evidence. We cannot present our experiences as substantiation of God's goodness and not give credence to counterexamples.

[+/-] Whatever Befall

This is a story I wrote two years ago for a Bible School project. The writing is a bit embarrassing now (as all my old writing is) but for some reason I've decided to dredge it up and post it here, maybe because I've finally thought of the right ending for it (the last two lines). Two years ago I was struggling with many apparent intellectual problems with my Christian faith and wondering what might happen if I became utterly convinced that Christianity was irrational. This story was an attempt to put myself in that place and see what comes of it. Here she is:

I awoke in a place and time unfamiliar to me. My surroundings were hazy. My mind was muddled. I cannot say how long it took me to become fully conscious, or if indeed I ever was more than half awake, for my senses never regained their normal sharpness. My first coherent thought was that everything was wrong. I was not in my car. I was not in the hospital, or in my home, or any place familiar to me. Indeed, I doubted very much that my current location was familiar to any who walk upon the Earth. I came slowly to the realization that I was dead. Yes, that fit with what I knew. The icy roads, the blare of horns, the dimly remembered sirens and the dull pain. I recalled vaguely the perception of a comfort and warmth, and the rather detached feeling of my body giving in to oblivion. I was dead.

Far from clarifying the situation, this realization further compounded my confusion. I was not on Earth, at least, I felt only dimly the sensations associated with normal physical existence. My limbs felt leaden, my senses were dimmed, and I seemed to be in a thick fog. The ground beneath me was shifting, like fine sand, but I hardly felt its impression. Gravity, light, and sound were nearly muted. I noticed with some interest that I was not breathing, nor did I feel the need to. My heart, I perceived, was not beating. Yes, I was dead.

I soon gave up straining to move or interact with my environment. There was nowhere to go, nothing to see, and movement seemed to grow less natural by the moment. I concentrated on thinking. My mind, at least, still seemed sharp.

The questions returned. What was going on? How did I come to this place? Had I somehow become trapped or misplaced? Where was God? I became almost frantic in my frustration. How could this happen? Surely… no, this is not heaven. It could not be. But neither, I hastened to add, was it Hell. This was neither a place of torment, nor a glorious new dwelling. It was not the great reality that I had previously seen only as a dim reflection. If anything, this place was the dim reflection. It was almost nothingness. It was barren and shapeless, devoid of both pain and pleasure. What had become of me?

At least I still had some remnant of my emotions, though I reflected that this situation would have caused me exponential fear and frustration in life. My life. Perhaps that was the key. Had I done something to void my salvation? Had I doubted too much? Questioned too deeply? I had thought intermittently about my inevitable death, and yes, I had doubted my acceptance into paradise, but how could this have shaken my eternal security? I reviewed my knowledge of the Bible's teachings.

Nothing. I know it, I’m sure. There is no way this could happen. I’m clearly not in heaven, nor in hell, nor do I the vaguest idea how I came to be where I am. My theology does not allow for this sort of thing. I am a human being, made in the image of God. He knit me together, he knows my coming and my going, and is familiar with all my ways. He knows the number of the hairs on my head. I trusted in him. I placed my soul in his hands! My name was written in the Book of Life – how could it have been erased? How could I become misplaced? Was I lost in the cosmic bustle of a God too absorbed in great matters to notice the fall of one small sparrow? No – unthinkable. My God could not do such a thing. And yet here I am, a faded wisp of spirit wavering on the edge of nothingness. Where is God?

Perhaps I was wrong. Yes, it's obvious now – I've been deceived. Those preachers were fools, speaking of omniscient God and his ways, as if they knew the pattern of the universe. That book I read – always out of obligation, always out of duty and vague commitment – I saw now that it must be nonsense, the ravings and ramblings of the delusional hangers-on of a dusty lunatic, broken by toil and love and driven by mad courage. Foolish, contradictory nonsense, as I now saw. Jumbled and fractured by two thousand years of copying, two thousand years of bloated, corrupt bureaucracy, tweaking and twisting to pad it’s own pockets. How many years had I played their game! Lying to myself, beating my intellect into submission to my frail, grasping heart. Only idiots and fanatics degrade themselves thus, doting on a fickle heart at the expense of an honest mind. If I had only scraped the mud from my eyes I would have seen this sham for what it is: flimsy and foolish. But blindly I swallowed the lies, longing for a fairly-tale ending to a flawed life. My mind, had I allowed it, would have seen the madness of such a hope. What in life suggests such a happily-ever-after? The worse a man’s circumstances, the more his heart longs for heaven, and the more his head tells him it is absurd. I am a fool.

(In this way I brooded for some time – or so I supposed, for time is a tough guess in this place – but presently I quieted myself, and put my mind to work.)

I suppose I am now an atheist. I like the sound of that – it sounds like books and great buildings and the power of the human mind. An atheist is strong, proud, alone. An honest and discerning being, undaunted by the honey-lies of idealistic religion. Alone. Alone and unafraid. How fitting – indeed, natural – that I should be one: I who am certainly and truly alone.

But no, it was not true. I cannot make this claim, for I am neither great nor proud enough. I am low, wretched. No! Not wretched – too close to the groveling humility of the self-abased slaves of religion. (To think that I was once one!) Not wretched, but not great. I am a man, just a man, neither worm nor god, and I cannot claim the lofty crown of the intellectual atheist. My mind, too great for the degradation of religion is yet too small for the bold defiance of atheism. I am a man – what can I know? My mind is my greatest, my only asset, but it is insufficient for such a task as finding god. Such things surpass me, and I would be no less a fool to deny transcendent god as to confirm him. Besides, my current state of being is perhaps as far removed from atheistic nothingness as from Christian paradise. I see that the proud, defiant atheist is as much in the dark as the smug, slavish zealot. There is only one thing for a man to be (especially a man such as myself, doomed to this absurd semi-being.) I am an agnostic.

I know my limits. I make no outrageous claims, for who am I to speak of God? Perhaps there is such a being, or perhaps not, but it is beyond my skill to say. The one glaring clarity in my present state is that no one on earth knows a thing about the "life to come". Each religion and creed is proved equally wrong by my inexplicable limbo. But I do know beyond all doubt that the gentle Jesus of my youth is a fraud. I have the loneliness of an atheist with the lowliness of a religious lackey. The worst of both worlds, I suppose.

But this is odd – my heart betrays me. Treacherous, idiot heart! How can you, my downfall, the traitorous ruin of my honest mind, how can you yet interfere with me? How can you yet whisper your sweet poison in my ear? Fool! I would rip you from my chest with my own hand if only I could end your slanderous hope. What are you saying to me? Shut up! Shut up about your Jesus – I want no part in him. I trusted him, and look where he's left me! You were always on his side, and even now you have the gall to come gloating in my ruin! How dare you trust! How dare you cling to the shambles of that fairytale hope when all logic screams against you?

(I am furious now. My body is numb, but my mind howls and froths at my idiot heart. I strain against this maddening voice lodged in the core of my being, which even now speaks softly of a gentle shepherd and his lunatic love.)

How fallen I am! It seems that my years of mindless trusting have formed a habit so deep that it defies the cold facts of my monstrous new existence. I remember now, to my shame, how many times my heart-driven madness led me to beg safekeeping from that Jesus. How as a child I had lain in bed and wept with fear, swearing my life and strength to him if he would but give me peace. How as a young man driven by passion I had bound myself to him again and again, vowing to serve him forever, pleading him to seal me in his service. I need no explanation for my predicament – I have drilled my enslavement into my own mind over long years of devotion. I had made Jesus my identity, grafting him into my bones and spirit, and even now, with all his promises proved to be dust and gravel, I am stuck fast in eternal submission to him. I am not my own being. I have surrendered myself and am held fast to Jesus Christ, whether he is a god or a devil or merely a tortured fool like myself.

I am humble – if not in temperament yet still in status. I am truly a wretch, as I said so frivolously on earth. Who could be more wretched then a man who has seen his devastating blunder so clearly, yet chooses – no, is compelled – to continue in it? Was there ever such a wretch as I, driven in my heart to madness, crawling in the slime of psychosis yet aware of my state and appalled by my helpless abasement? Jesus, oh Jesus. (How shameless am I to call that name!) Jesus! Lord, Lord! Have mercy on me Son of David!

(At some point I come to feel that there are two voices in my head, and they are having a great argument. There are no words to explain such a thing, but I fell like a spectator in my own mind, listening to my two natures – doubt and faith – struggle for dominance.)

"Stop it! Have you no pride? You're only degrading yourself further."
"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry…"
"Idiot. You still cling to your dreams? All right, let's wait and see if he'll hear you."
"…He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire."
"Go on! You're a coward and a fool. But we've got time. Let's see if your God will save you."
"Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?"
"Always your faith is mixed with doubt. Perhaps that's why he abandoned you."
"But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength."
"Oh give it up! You make me sick with your sniveling."
"How long, Oh Lord? Will you forget me forever?"
"Forget it! You're a worthless, abandoned wretch! He does not love you!"
"Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint."
"Ha ha! I see it now. Isn't it obvious? We're in Hell."
"He will never leave you nor forsake you."
"Open your eyes! You are forsaken! You have been cast into Hell, and you'll rot here forever!"
"Oh God!"
"You can think, fool. What is Hell but separation from God?"
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
"That's right fool. You're finished. You are forsaken and you're prayers will not be heard."
"My God, my God…"
"He never loved you. He's always lied to you. He has betrayed and ruined you!"
"God! God! Oh Jesus, please!"
"He hates you! You are an object of his wrath! You are the plaything of a sadistic, unjust God."
"But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?"
"And who are you, you sub-human muck, to speak for him?"
"Oh God."
"Now be silent, slime. Shut your filthy mouth and rid your heart of that cursed hope."
"Who are you?"
"Who am I? You know who I am, wretch."
"You tempt me. You are Satan."
"Close, wretch, very close. I am you."
"How can that be?"
"Think, wretch. You are schizophrenic – all Christians are. You have added to your natural doubt and evil a grimy facsimile of goodness and hope. Do you wonder that you cannot function? You are at war with yourself! How can you maintain your sanity?"
"I can win. I can overcome you…"
"No! No, you fool! Look at yourself! Look at your festering soul! The whole universe reeks with your evil. Your sin and doubt are a plague that infects all creation and brings decay and death to everything it touches."
"But he loves me."
"No, he doesn't. Look around you. Think."
"I've looked. I've thought. It makes no difference. My heart is steadfast, and no amount of truth or reality can change my convictions."
"You are a fool."
"Oh hush. We've established that long ago. I can't help it, so I'll just have to live with it."
"You're just like every religious freak who ever lived. Every true Muslim or Hindu or Mormon or worshipper of Baal thinks as you do."
"You're probably right. But I can't help it."
"You are forced to think the way you do, as they are."
"Perhaps. Who can say?"
"Your precious God chooses a few to believe the truth, and the rest to rot in Hell."
"You may be right."
"And it appears that he has chosen you for Hell."
"So be it."
"Oh shut up, you arrogant, sanctimonious parrot! You talk big, but I feel your anger. You're filled with rage against him."
"I was. I often am. But I'm done with that now."
"You're afraid."
"No, I'm not. You know I'm not, and you know why."
"Do I? Humor me."
"I am not afraid because I trust him. It doesn't matter if he doesn't care, or if He doesn't exist. I trust Him and I love Him, and I can do nothing else. So who cares whether I'm in Heaven or Hell? All I can do is trust, and the rest is up to Him. And if He forsakes me, what concern is that of mine? I'm just his creation, and He can do with me what He wishes. But if I spend the rest of eternity in Hell, does that excuse me from loving and trusting Him?"
"You are mad. You are absolutely out of your mind. Fine, I give up. I cannot reason with you. I'm leaving forever."
"No, that is a lie. You'll be back, and we'll have this same argument again and again. The specifics will be different, but you'll never stop fighting me – unless my Lord comes for me and purges you from me forever."
"It will never happen. You will never be rescued, and I'll never give up. I had you so close to breaking, and you can't hold out forever."
"I suppose I couldn't, in my own strength. But God, it seems, has got a hold of me, no?"
"You're wrong and you're crazy. Good riddance, fool."

(Time passes, in the shifty way that it passes in this place. I reflect.)

This place is not so different from Earth. The distractions are stripped away and the laws of nature are muffled, but the laws of my heart and mind remain the same. And like Earth, the times of rebellion and doubt are quite similar to the isolation and fear of Hell, and the times of contentment, obedience, and surrender are not unlike the great communion of Heaven. I do not know if my Lord will ever come for me and take me from this place. I do not know if he even exists, or is merely the invention of my hope-sick soul. But I do not worry. I trust him. And it seems to me that I cannot do otherwise.

May I reach heaven's joys oh bright heaven's sun
Heart of my own heart whatever befall

[+/-] Judge For Yourselves

This made me laugh (thanks to Steve F). In my opinion, there is exactly one legitimate reason for not allowing women to be ministers in our culture, namely that the New Testament explicitly forbids it. While this isn't a big deal to me personally, I recognize that there are many people who for very good and honest reasons feel that such Biblical commands still apply to us today. As long as they follow these commands gracefully and apply their principle of interpretation consistently I won't argue with them.

But I probably will argue with them if they try to explain why this is still a good idea. I've heard all sorts of sweeping generalizations about the genders that attempt to explain why women ought not to "teach or have authority over" men. As far as I'm concerned, none of them hold water. (See the parody linked at the start of this post.) But as long as they can admit that their practices are based on their submission to the authority of scripture and not some empirically discernible and eternally applicable principle ("the very nature of things"), I certainly understand and respect their position.

My final caveat would be that if you're going to take Biblical authority seriously and you want to make judgments about what is and isn't cultural, it seems to me you ought to make an effort to understand the culture these commands originated in. And whether you're a traditionalist or not, if you want to tell other people that what they're doing is wrong because the Biblical laws regarding homosexuality or head-coverings or what have you very definitely are/aren't cultural and therefore don't/do still apply, you'd better be absolutely certain you know what you're talking about.

Case in point: a Messianic Rabbi explains his historical understanding of the passage that requires women to wear head-coverings here. I'm certainly no expert on first century Jewish culture, so I have no idea whether he's right. (And frankly, it's not a big issue for me.) But it annoys me that of all the Christians I've talked to who feel strongly that head-coverings are not cultural and must still be worn, none of them seemed to have any knowledge of the purpose and practice of head-coverings at the time of Paul's writing.

But perhaps I've just talked to the wrong traditionalists, or asked the wrong questions. I would be grateful if someone who disagrees with the Rabbi's understanding of head-coverings in the first century could present a historically informed argument for the timelessness of this command.