Reaching the fallen man

Matt and I had a great discussion last night about one of our pastor's quotes. The statement read:

"As Christians we love talking about the benefits of the cross, but we are generally unwilling to grapple with the reality of the fall."
Dr. Rod Casey

The topic came up because we were talking about worrying. I'm the one in our relationship that doesn't worry. Matt tends to be the worrier. But, Matt said that he would get so frustrated growing up because he was a worrier. He also grew up in a good Christian home along with a devout extended family. He was made to feel like he didn't have adequate faith because he worried. In reality, we both agreed, that this has more to deal with the human factor than with lack of faith.

Why is it that Christians like to paint pretty pictures about our faith and life, and neglect the fallenness of man? Faith plays into both aspects, I believe.

One of the things that irks me is when the Christian community gets all up in arms about TV shows or movies or music that isn't necessarily ideal. You know what? Life on Earth isn't exactly ideal. And to complete dismiss secular media as lacking in any value or truth telling is detrimental to our purpose of reaching people for Christ. Sure, I'd like to see or listen to more values-based, family-centric media, but if we completely ignore that other side, how can we even attempt to reach those who aren't?

Truth can be spoken in the secular as well, not just in the Christian form (whatever that means).

When I Say, "I Am A Christian"

Piet, our pastor, quoted this poem at the service yesterday. I think it's right on as far as how I feel about my beliefs and what non-believers should know.

When I Say, "I Am A Christian"
When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not shouting, "I've been saved!"
I'm whispering, "I get lost! That's why I chose this way"

When I say, "I am a Christian," I don't speak with human pride
I'm confessing that I stumble-needing God to be my guide

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not trying to be strong
I'm professing that I'm weak and pray for strength to carry on

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not bragging of success
I'm admitting that I've failed and cannot ever pay the debt

When I say, "I am a Christian," I don't think I know it all
I submit to my confusion asking humbly to be taught

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not claiming to be perfect
My flaws are far too visible but God believes I'm worth it

When I say, "I am a Christian," I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartache which is why I seek His name

When I say, "I am a Christian," I do not wish to judge
I have no authority--I only know I'm loved

Copyright 1988 Carol Wimmer

Journaling

I was encouraged by our Recovery class leaders to start journaling. According to Dana and Kim, journaling will help us identify and process through feelings we experience throughout the day or in the past. As a warning, I'll be doing some of that on my blog as I think about things. What happens a lot, for me at least, is that I think about things and need to write it down, but I'm at work. So, the easiest way for me to process is this blog.

I'd like to initiate this whole journaling process with my thoughts on this weekend's service at church. Piet kicked off a 2-part series on trust, titled The Speed of Trust, that spoke to my core. Piet talked about how trust is built in relationships and how it's directly linked to being a person of integrity. The message gave me so much to think about in terms of integrity, character and competency. The latter two being keys to defining a person of integrity. Piet challenged us to be more proactive about becoming people of character and competency. To be proactive about how that all plays out in our daily lives. From waking up in the morning to the alarm clock, eating breakfast, spending some time with God, and so on. Piet talked about how easy it is for us to break commitments to ourselves and how broken promises are hindering our development of integrity in our lives. He definitely gave enough for people to chew on and process.

Piet reinforced his message with a verse that fit perfectly into all of this.
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." (James 1:22 NIV)

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This weekend's message: The Speed of Trust, Pieter van Waarde (mp3)

God is not Great

One of the most popular books today is one written by Christopher Hitchens called God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Not being an atheist myself, I've been curious about its' evolution throughout the years. Of course, not being an atheist I won't support books of this nature by buying one. But, if you caught the Wall Street Journal on July 16th (republished by USA Today), Peter Berkowitz wrote an interesting and excellent review of Hitchens' most recent work. It's a bit lengthy so I'm only going to share a few clips of the article (a link to the article is at the end of this post).

I knew books of this nature made quite a bit of money, so I wasn't surprised by these numbers. According to Berkowitz, "...one stunning new development under the sun is that promulgating atheism has become a lucrative business. According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, in less than 12 months atheism's newest champions have sold close to a million books...Profitability is not the only feature distinguishing today's fashionable disbelief from the varieties of atheism that have arisen over the millennia. Unlike the classical atheism of Epicurus and Lucretius, which rejected belief in the gods in the name of pleasure and tranquility, the new new atheism rejects God in the name of natural science, individual freedom and human equality."

"Messrs. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and the rest have some fair claim to novelty. But not where it really counts. They contend that from the vantage point of the 21st century, and thanks to the moral progress of mankind and the achievements of natural science, we can now know, with finality and certainty, that God does not exist and organized religion is a fraud. The disproportion between the bluster and bravado of their rhetoric and the limitations of their major arguments is astonishing," writes Berkowitz.

This is where it gets good.

"It must be said that Mr. Hitchens is simply incapable of uttering or writing a dull sentence. And it should be added that only a very daring or very foolish person would throw down the gauntlet on an issue so close to Mr. Hitchens's heart...But his arguments do not come close to disproving God's existence or demonstrating that religion is irredeemably evil..."

He closes the review with this:
"Mr. Hitchens is by far the most erudite and entertaining of the new new atheists. But his errors and his excesses are shared by the whole lot. And these errors and excesses have pernicious political consequences, amplifying invidious distinctions among fellow citizens and obscuring crucial differences among believers world wide.

"Playing into the anger and enmities that debase our politics today, the new new atheism blurs the deep commitment to the freedom and equality of individuals that binds atheists and believers in America. At the same time, by treating all religion as one great evil pathology, today's bestselling atheists suppress crucial distinctions between the forms of faith embraced by the vast majority of American citizens and the militant Islam that at this very moment is pledged to America's destruction.

"Like philosophy, religion, rightly understood, has a beginning in wonder. The most wonderful of creatures are human beings themselves. Of all the Bible's sublime and sustaining teachings, none is more so than the teaching that explains that humanity is set apart because all human beings -- woman as well as man the Bible emphasizes -- are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

"That a teaching is sublime and sustaining does not make it true. But that, along with its service in laying the moral foundations in the Western world for the belief in the dignity of all men and women -- a belief that our new new atheists take for granted and for which they provide no compelling alternative foundation -- is reason enough to give the variety of religions a fair hearing. And it is reason enough to respect believers as decent human beings struggling to make sense of a mysterious world."

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Source: The New New Atheism Peter Berkowitz