Thoughts

Below is an appeal letter to Governor Newsom that I sent just now that urges him to allow places of worship to remain open. Governor Newsom: I write to you today to urge you to allow places of worship to remain open under safety guidelines. As you may know, mental health has been a great concern during this pandemic. Talk to any mental health professional, social worker, pastor, or school teacher, and you will learn the impact this has had on our emotional well-being. In our church alone, we have seen the tragic emotional consequences of the pandemic. This impact is not, however, limited to anecdotes. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in mid-August that anxiety- and depression-related symptoms “increased considerably” in the United States between April and June of this year, with “40.9 percent of respondents [having] reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition,” including a ten-percent increase in thoughts of suicide compared to the...

As a friend told me about a conversation she had with one of our pastors about whether animals go to heaven, she told me about the Hebrew word nephesh ("soul"). I wondered, then, what the difference was between soul and spirit. After a little research, I came across what many seem to agree is a main difference. The soul of a person is that person's being--personality and life--while the spirit is that part of us that connects with God. There are several verses that refer to spirit in this way:* "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14) "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ." (1 Corinthians 3:1) "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly p...

Please note that the following thoughts are only my observations. Please consider the evidence you see in the behavior of both parties for yourself. In our politically polarized climate, I was thinking about how Democrats and Republicans are different, and where those differences come from. Democrats seem to place more hope in institutions, and seek to reform those institutions when there is something wrong in society. Hence, there is more willingness to levy taxes to offer more social services as a support to those with less than others. They see the state as a way to equalize society. Thus, evil, to Democrats, seems to be a social issue: if there is a problem in society--poverty, racism, climate change, etc.--it is a problem with the structure of society and must be addressed as such: repair the system, and you will solve the problem. They are generally accepting of a larger state bureaucracy because they believe that increased accountability within a state structure will prevent evi...

My pastor wrote a letter to our congregation today seeking prayer for the family of George Floyd and the officer responsible for his death, among other requests, encouragement to guard against becoming jaded against the world we live in, and to help us be receptive to what we can do during this crisis. I wrote a short response in support of him, which follows. "I was thinking this morning about our role in this as Christians. This is a moment when white, African American, and other Christians can together display the power of Christ and the gospel over racism: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:38) We are all servants of the same God, and all made in his image. To see you empathize with African Americans publicly is healing. I'm encouraged that, as Martin Luther King, Jr., said, we as a church can be like the early church: a thermostat and not a thermometer, th...

Like other Christians, I've wondered how it could be true that God both directs the course of history and gives humans the freedom to make their own choices. More specifically, I asked the common question, "Do we choose salvation, or does God choose it for us?" Calvinists in the Reformation argued that God determined, or predestined, who would be saved and who would not be saved, but like many others, this led to what I thought of as an unjust God because it meant he condemned some and saved others. Putting aside for the moment this false assumption of God's possible injustice-- indeed, none of us deserves salvation, and God's choosing salvation for anyone is a grace those saved didn't deserve-- what I ultimately wondered about was God's sovereignty versus our free will. In my late teenage years, I thought I had solved the problem easily with a single verse: Romans 8:29, which reads, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the i...

*Note: In the following post, I am heavily influenced by a pastor named Bob Shirock. Specifically, Shirock writes about Solomon's response to the pleasures he experienced in life in Ecclesiastes, and observes that we can enjoy pleasures in life if we accept them as God's gifts, and if we express our gratitude in their enjoyment. He cites Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 and 1 Timothy 4:1-5. I’ve noticed something about pleasure: the highs can be followed by lows. This sounds obvious, but what I mean is that times of joy and fun in life's pleasures are wonderful, and can lift your spirits for a time, but they can be followed by a disappointment that comes from the realization that they are short-lived and will not satisfy us in the long-term. I’m calling this a pleasure hangover. We gain happiness for a time, but see that this happiness is temporary. We therefore feel a subsequent low that leaves us still longing. It reminds me of a theme in the life of C.S. Lewis: sehnsucht , or a wist...