Thoughts

At some point in my tenure in the church, I was introduced to Christian apologetics, a scholarly discipline whose purpose is to defend the Christian faith. The intellectual nature and purpose of apologetics caught my interest as meaningful for two reasons: it would help me to understand the reasonableness of my faith, and it would allow me to sustain my worldview when challenged by others. This, of course, means that I came to Christian apologetics with a bias.* I ate it up. I read Mere Christianity , by C.S. Lewis, and wanted more; so I continued on to reading Lee Strobel, Ravi Zacharias, and eventually an old book by Gary Parker and Henry Morris called What is Creation Science? among others. Subconsciously, I thought of the debate in us-verses-them terms, and when it came to the debate between creation and evolution, I argued in favor of young-earth creation. The notion of a young earth was by no means new. Proponents like Tertullian and Augustine held to flood geology, the idea...

When you start to rappel into a mouth of the cave, you can only see down to a ledge thirty feet below. You find soon enough, though, that below that thin entryway next to the ledge is a chasm whose bottom rests another 135 feet down. Aware now of the magnitude of your situation, you want to believe that the wall you're brushing against will somehow catch you if your anchor comes loose. Still, you know better. This becomes all the more true as you descend past the wall and find yourself suspended in mid-air with nothing but your rope as support. You know intellectually that holding the rope will prevent you from going very far, but that doesn't stop your emotions from informing you that you just might die here in this artificially lit cave. Once you reach bottom and rebuke your emotions for being so presumptuous, you listen interestedly to a guide, who not only discusses cave formations (and even points out the likeness of formations to movie characters), but turns off the l...

The following represents how our trip to Haiti affected our team of eleven as a whole.... Set against a lush mountain landscape stood the palace. We passed it as we drove through Port-au-Prince-- the earthquake damage so extensive that it toppled the main dome from its stately place-- set in the center of beautiful green lawn, and fenced off from the rest of the city. It was, it seemed, a symbol of Haiti itself: a country so devastated by disease, malnutrition, poverty, and natural disaster as to shake its people from their stately place; still set amid such natural beauty; and yet so unknown by the outside world. At least, it was unknown to us. True, we expected to see poverty, we had heard of the AIDS and tuberculosis problems, and we knew there would be considerable damage from the 2010 earthquake; but all these things were intellectual, mere curiosities that gave us pause but failed to effect a true understanding of Haiti’s need. The trip through Port-au-Prince, in fact, was so...

I know I've written a lot over the past month about Haiti, but I have two more posts about it that I'd like to share. This one represents what I shared during a lunch today held at the church that sent our team to Haiti. It explains how the trip affected me personally.... I didn’t have many expectations going into our trip to Haiti last month, and I certainly didn’t think I would be affected emotionally in any way. I thought I was too mature for something like that. In my mind, I already understood that there were incredible poverty and need; and because of that, I resolved to be nothing more than an objective observer as we drove through the streets of Port-au-Prince. I would find out later that week, however, and especially after the trip, that I would be more affected than I realized. Interestingly, the impact Haiti had on me came just as much from what I’d read about it as it did from what I saw. I had been reading a book about a doctor whose goal was to eradicate tuber...

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment was an intellectual movement centered in France, but reaching into countries around the world. Historians differ on whether the Enlightenment came mainly through elite intellectuals known as philosophes (men like Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Montesquieu, and the baron d'Holbach), or whether the movement occurred through broader social changes in Europe. Whether narrow or broad, however, Enlightenment ideals represented a very visible secular shift in the western world. Among the themes of the movement in France were a clear disdain for secular and church authority (particularly absolutist government and the Catholic Church); boundless optimism that science and the human mind could bring about incredible social progress, and even perfection; and the promotion of religious and social tolerance. Traditionally, the Enlightenment is said to have had its climax in the French Revolution. The effects of the Enlightenment did not end with this revolution,...

Well, we put our dog to rest today. He was a golden retriever named Sam (short for Samson because of his size) who had a little Saint Bernard in him. Sam was alive for half of my life. Here are my memories of Sam: 1. My friend and I would play with him as a puppy by shoving him across our kitchen floor. He would sail across the entire floor and, in his puppy playfulness, run back toward us, apparently not knowing it would happen again. We would do this over and over. 2. My friends and I often came home for lunch in high school and would jump on my large trampoline. We would force Sam to join us. He didn't like it, but he did catch a little air. 3. I would wrestle with Sam and then pretend to be dead, at which point he would come to me, start to whimper profusely and finally start to lick my face until I gave up by petting him. 4. He would escape our front door and perform his business on our neighbors' lawns. We would have to chase him, but he was faster, and so he woul...

I’ll dive deep this time Because it will be last time I see my world this way Sights, feelings, and intentions are all blurred here Inside this vacant, anaerobic place I think I can stay long To float above desecrated silt And as I peer with disillusioned eyes I believe in what I see Until my frame, in one universal gasp, Forces itself upward To inviolate skies And as the air breathes himself into scarred lungs He shivers at how cold it is here While I, in shock, bristle at how I could be so thirsty In such great depths I’m better now Breathing And though I know I’ll be drawn again to that place I’ll remember in time That it wasn’t thirst I was feeling, But a desperate need for air.

I believe that those unwilling to extend grace to others have had a difficult time accepting it themselves. On the other hand, those who have a firm grasp of their own need for grace-- along with their acceptance of it-- not only empathize with others' shortcomings, but far more readily accept others in spite of those shortcomings. Far from acting bitter toward those who fail you or themselves, you're simply reminded of your own place in God's eyes. When you look at them, you're really looking at yourself. When you judge them, you judge yourself, and when you accept them, I believe it can be a sign that you understand God's acceptance of you (or at least a sign that you understand your own shortcomings). The idea of judgment is found throughout Scripture. For Christians, the most pertinent type of judgment is found in the notion of the judgment seat of Romans 14:10, called the bema . While in the gospels and Acts, it was used to refer to a raised seat from which a...

Plants grow in the direction of the sun. They aren't doing this consciously, but are genetically purposed to seek the thing that sustains them. Roots, too, grow deeper to find water when none is found shallow. Can't the same be said for us? Nietzsche said as much in his famous sentence, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." For the Christian, one's faith in God grows deeper when faced with hardship, because we look to him for comfort where there is none amid our own resources. I heard a sermon yesterday by a New York pastor named Tim Keller, whose message dealt with happiness. He highlighted Psalm One, which reads, 1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf ...

In under three hours, South Sudan will become the newest country on Earth. Its prospects are both hopeful and dismal. Now independent, the South can ostensibly control a key resource found within its borders: oil. Both sides' desire to control this resource-- discovered in the late 1970s and early 1980s-- has exacerbated a civil war that ended finally in 2005, a civil war that stood as the longest of the twentieth century. One of the reasons for the ongoing conflict, among a myriad of others, is Southerners' anger at Northern efforts to control their identity: for example, in 1983, President Jafar Nimeiri enacted what are called the September Laws, which applied sharia (Muslim religious) law to the whole of Sudan. These laws included the hudud , a group of harsh criminal punishments that include execution and amputation. This is part of what Ann Mosely Lesch contends is a Northern effort to force a common identity on a diverse population (something she calls the "contro...

Loneliness isn't an easy experience, but it is a universal one. Just as present as the need to endure it, however, is a balance that needs to be kept because of it. On the one hand is the need to be loved, and on the other, the need to be faithful to yourself and the values you know to be right. Whichever side of the scale is heavier at the moment will determine your behavior around (or without) others: if loneliness weighs heavier on your heart, you will be more likely to give more of yourself away, to compromise yourself because your need to feel accepted is more pressing at the moment; and if you're fulfilled by other circumstances in life (in my experience, the fulfillment that comes through work or service, rich relationships, or the need to think about things on your own), you will be more likely to hold to your values and rebuff challenges to them. There is a pride in one and not the other. It's as though remaining solvent is worth the loneliness. There are two roa...

I haven't really done much reading in theology, but a friend lent me a book on liberation theology, a theology which had its source in Latin America and stresses liberation of the oppressed (most importantly, but not exclusively, the economically poor). Especially because liberal theologians emphasize class conflict as a cause of poverty, and because they believe revolution to be the solution to that poverty, observers have interpreted it as Marxist. Liberal theologians themselves see the relationship to Marxism, but believe the "poor" to be broader in scope than Marx's proletariat. Marx's proletariat is a group of wage workers who do not own the means of production and who sell their labor to live. Liberal theologians would include the unemployed and underemployed as those needing liberation; and they also consider racial, ethnic, and gender oppression, albeit as secondary to economic oppression. Liberal theologians' emphasis on liberating the oppressed is ...

This Haiti thing is turning out to be bigger than just a single week-long trip. For a number of us, it's led to shifts in perspective, new directions of the heart, all of which differ according to how Haiti influenced us but all of which center on Haiti's varied needs. First, a team plans to go to the same orphanage again next summer at about the same time. Second, a member of the team is starting a fundraiser to send instruments to that orphanage. It already has a name, a nonprofit to receive contributions made to it, and even a Facebook group. A lot of people from the sending church, especially, want to help, a fundraiser at a local restaurant is in the process of being set up, and someone has already given a keyboard for the purpose. Third, the team is making three separate presentations about our trip to the church that sent us. It's like we're ambassadors for the orphanage at Haiti. Fourth, I talked to a fellow teacher today about the trip. She wanted to in...