The HEATHblog: To love at all is to be vulnerable...

The HEATHblog: To love at all is to be vulnerable...

Professor Stans and the Arguement that Couldn't

Professor Stans rubbed his sweaty hands together and wiped them on his slacks. He was admittedly nervous but his excitement was the more dominant of his emotions. Finally he would have his opportunity to share his findings with the university and then hopefully the world. He walked out to the lectern on the stage already prepared for his presentation. Taking his place he looked out at a packed auditorium full of anxious students, faculty, alumni and some of the more prestigious of the local community. His nervousness no longer present he allowed his excitement to move him now as he began, "Ladies and gentlemen, friends and colleagues it is my humble opinion that I have here tonight the task of revealing that scientific method is no longer a method to be seen as reliable. It is more our culture's over confidence and blind reliance on past tradition that continues to provide strength and sustenance to this invention of long ago." The confident professor then begins to attempt to prove to his hearers the frailty and unreliability of the scientific method in the data he has acquired from his experiments over the past few years. Stans ends with a very eloquent closing statement and expecting a roar of applause receives nothing but silence cascading from disappointed and annoyed faces.

It is no mystery why Stans fails to captivate his audience. His entire argument is a contradiction for he attempts to prove that scientific method is an unreliable means of coming to truth by using scientific method!

There are many who would say that they believe there can be no God because there is so much injustice and evil in the world. How is it that we understand what injustice and evil are and look like? Where do we learn and gain our standards in regard to right and wrong and good and evil? We are Westerners and are greatly influenced by the Biblical definitions and standards. Most of us, as Timothy Keller points out in his book, “The Reason for God”, reject the “Christian” God when we say there is no God.

Like professor Stans and his critique of scientific method, we take for granted the Christian worldview we stand on and use it to say that Christianity is false. If Christianity is false then so is our standard of justice and good for they belong to Christianity. If we abandon our standards and definitions we also abandon the foundation upon which our skepticism stands.

Christianity is not only the worldview from which we know what justice is, it is also the worldview that offers hope in injustice, the promise that humanity can overcome it. Jesus suffered at the hands of injustice and has called his people to suffer as well. This suffering, ironically, is to result in the end of injustice.

Without Christianity we have no standard for justice nor do we have any hope or means to endure and eradicate injustice.

Mission in the Mess

This is a sermon I did on Youth Sunday at Hope Presbyterian last July (09). We have much to learn from the church's first deacons about suffering through the mess for the glory and mission of God fulfilled in Jesus.

Jesus vs. Hitler: Responding to accusations made by Jedi Mind Tricks

A Christian Resistance

One of the darkest times in our modern history is without equivocation, Hitler's campaign of terror and murder known as the Holocaust. A blog consisting of online articles being copied and pasted by Jedi Mind Tricks suggests that Christianity itself was responsible for this atrocity. I find it amazing that such a disregard for history and for the teachings of Jesus, whom they say they love, would come to the public so candidly; For to have such an ignorance should be an embarrassment to their entire organization. There was in fact a powerful resistance against Hitler and his regime. This resistance funded underground escape plans (much like the underground railroad, which was also a Christian project), produced political pamphlets and staged protest, founded anti nazi schools and even plotted assassination attempts on Hitler. This resistance was made up primarily of Christian men and women.

One example of such a Christian was a man named Dietrich Bonehoffer. Though his father (Karl Bonehoffer) was a philosopher, Dietrich decided at an early age to enter into the Christian ministry. After traveling abroad for some years he returned to his Germany to find it in Nazi hands. He joined with Christian scholars like Karl Barth and Martin Niemoller to establish the Confessing Church, a church devoted to the destruction of the Nazi regime! Bonehoffer headed up the seminary started by the Confessing Church, a school for those pastors and ministers made illegal by the government for speaking and acting against the Nazis and Hitler. In 1939 he joined a group of high-ranking officers and military intelligence in a plot to overthrow the nationalist regime by killing Hitler, this plot failed. He was arrested in 1943 when money used to help Jews escape Switzerland was traced to him. He was executed at Flossenburg, a concentration camp just three days before the liberation of the city.

Hitler's Religion

Hitler believed in a syncretistic religion of Catholicism and Darwinian Evolution. He believed that the human race was originally two races, a white pure and good race, and a dark barbaric evil race. These two races warred against each other and eventually the dark race was able to mate with the white race and thus pollute the "true humanity". This is NOT at all Christianity, and that at least is obvious.

Hitler was a super villain in that he was intelligent enough to take over an entire government and persuade a nation of people. One tactic used was to pose as a "Christian". With nearly his entire populace confessing to be such this made sense. Many who followed the true philosophy of Jesus were never convinced by Hitler and in fact stood against him; the Confessing Church mentioned above is only one such example.

Christianity vs. Secular Humanism

Jedi Mind Tricks attempts to blame Christianity for the holocaust, or at least copy and paste online articles that do so. It is under the oppressive reign of secular humanism however that millions in our century have been slaughtered whether it is through the "progressive" plan of Stalin's "collectivization of agriculture" or Mao's policies responsible for the deaths of 30 million. The problem of oppression in American Samoa as exposed by the Jedi Mind Tricks track 'Shadow Business' is but one consequence of secular humanism. Hitler was like his peers: a tyrannical leader with a secular humanist vision of the world.

The Christian philosophy is responsible for freedom and liberation. Jesus himself talked at great length with his disciples and audiences concerning political oppression. He taught how to deal with great tyranny, how to strip the weapon of de-humanization from Rome's arsenal. Ghandi credited Jesus with his methods for dealing with British oppression. Closer to us, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. entered his campaign against racism and injustice due to his conviction that the philosophy of Jesus must prevail against the evil of his day. Hitler and Jesus, far from being together whatsoever in thought and practice, have become the figureheads in our day of opposing forces and kingdoms. Hitler of the Kingdom of evil and death, Jesus as the head of the New World marked by justice and life.

Jedi Straw Men

As a Hiphop artist and a fan of Jedi Mind Tricks I am bewildered as to why Jedi has such hostility against Christianity. I have read their recent blog, 'Jedi Mind Tricks vs. Christianity?' and this work fails to explain or answer any questions. In this blog they say it is because of the right wing oppressors in our culture who claim to be Christians and indeed even use his name to attempt to justify their wrong doings. This way of dealing with tyranny is not effective however because they are building a straw man and simply attacking their own creation. So they neither deal actually with those who agitate them (right wing religionist) and they do not in any way critique the philosophy of Jesus. Jedi Mind demonstrates a grave lack of understanding historically, as demonstrated above. The "Christianity" discussed by them simply does not exist.

Recently Jedi released a blog containing ten reasons why "Christianity" is a fraud or invalid or whatever. Not one of these ten reasons was an actual portrayal of Christianity, but ten parts to a shadow Christianity built by Jedi so that they could break it down and pat themselves on the back and even get props from fans for doing what no one has succeeded in doing in two thousand years, killing Jesus and his movement. Though the straw man lay lifeless, at least until it is resurrected by Jedi the next time they feel the urge to critique "Christianity", Jesus and his movement still remain alive and well.

Authentic Christianity

In order to understand Christianity one must look to its leader, Jesus of Nazareth. What did he say and do? What was his philosophy? What did he think concerning himself and his vocation? Who are his people?

In the beginning…

In Genesis is recorded the early history of humanity and Israel. It was written to a people raised as slaves in the Egyptian culture who needed to be reminded and retaught about the one true God and his purpose for making them his chosen people. It tells of the creation of the world by the one true God, contrary to the Egyptian myths, and of the exile of humanity from the Garden due to disobedience. It is this theme, the exile of humanity, which lays central in the story of Hebrew scripture.

Abraham was selected by God to be the father of a chosen nation. This nation, later to be called the nation of Israel, was to be given a special relationship with the creator. They were to have the very word of God (the prophets) and true worship (Temple) and their purpose, like a light on a hill, was to be the nation through which all the other nations would see and worship Yahweh, the one true God, and thus be restored from the exile pronounced on them through their common parents (Gen. 3, 12 & 15).

The political atmosphere

There was a problem however with using Israel to bring about the restoration of humanity from exile: Israel was sinful and in exile too, just like the rest of humanity! This is why Israel fell into exile under Babylon; they could not remain faithful to their God who called them. From Babylon to Assyria to Rome, Israel up to the Second Temple period (the time of Jesus) remained under the oppressive control of a pagan nation.

Jesus grew up in an air reeking with the scent of rebellion. Many had come before and after Jesus claiming to be the one to lead Israel against her enemies and again restore her to political autonomy. Jesus had a radical and different plan from all others however. He understood that the main issue wasn't Israel's oppression under Rome, though he hated this, it was the exile that all of humanity was victim to since the entrance of evil into the world. Rome, Greece, China, all nations and peoples were in need of restoration and reconciliation with the one true God. Indeed Israel's exile shadowed that of all of humanity.

This understanding explains the why Jesus employed the methods he did. He was not only here to free Israel from political tyranny; he was here to break the power and rule of evil in the world. To repay evil with evil, or rather to react to evil with evil is not how one defeats evil, in fact such a habit perpetuates it. If anyone was to overcome evil it had to be with love and freedom.

Cosmic solution: A New World

Jesus went to a Roman Cross in order to set humanity free from evil and death. His willing death was more than a sacrifice out of protest; it was the solution to the cosmic problem of evil. Facing evil and its penalty, death, allowing them to do their worst to him he exhausted them. Taking upon himself the wrath of a just and holy God for the sake of his people, he delivered them from destruction.
Hence it follows in Christian doctrine that at his resurrection Jesus inaugurated a new world. This world is antithetical to the world of corruption and evil. It has life and freedom as its badge rather than death and oppression. All who have faith in the Jewish Messiah as not only a deliverer for Israel, but as the savior of humanity, will find themselves citizens of this great new world, the world of resurrection. Indeed, all who believe in Jesus have their identity in him and are therefore the new Israel; and this Israel will never experience exile.

Being citizens of the new kingdom established by Jesus, Christians are the means through which his kingdom expands and conquers the old. This is possible because Jesus has sent them his Spirit and power. Jesus was the new temple of God, his people as well serve as the dwelling place for the God's Spirit. This means they have the same power of resurrection: like Jesus, his people are to stand against evil and exhaust it.

Conclusion

Jesus taught and demonstrated that military might and violence is not able to usher in his kingdom, for these are things of the old world. There is absolutely nothing within the authentic philosophical system of Christianity that could justify the Holocaust; in fact, Christianity has the responsibility to stand against such evil and atrocities and will be the power to end them once and for all and it has been demonstrated that when it is applied freedom and life result. It is impossible that Jesus could have anything to do with the system of thought that influenced Hitler. It is plausible however that the prevailing secular humanism of his day and ours served as the foundation for his crimes.

The Holocaust is but one of the events in our recent history that should alarm us as to the disasters which await the old world of sin and death. It is only in the Kingdom of God headed by Jesus that any can find refuge from such heinousness.

The Idea of Youth Ministry

“Youth ministry is a good idea. But there's a better idea...it's called Church.”
-Mike Yaconelli

There has for a long time it seems been an opinion in Christianity, particularly in the west, that it is important to be able to communicate the Christian worldview in a way relevant to the different people groups and demographics in our churches. This has evolved in our day into churches having an elderly ministry, a young adult ministry, a singles ministry, a ministry for those who are married, as well as many others. I believe these have their benefits and of course it should be no secret that I believe, like Mr. Yaconelli that a ministry for our youth is a good idea.

Teenagers today live in a very different world than you lived in when you were in middle school and high school. They live in a very different world from when I was in high school (class of '99). They have never had to wait more than an hour to develop photos, they never have known a time without the Internet or even cable modems! They would much rather text than talk and are deeply dependent on personal digital assistants (PDA) for their social connections. They are bombarded with a secular humanistic understanding and view of the world through the media (movies, television, radio, Internet) that tells them that they have the right to be free and do whatever they want with their bodies, their money, their lives, though this way of living is not at all free, but a life in slavery to sin. The kicker here is that they are seeing that this way is something that not only works but is the most prominent in their world.
Now enters the youth worker. He has the task of competing with the culture and demonstrating that it is full of lies and deceit. He must show them that the new world of Jesus is what they really long for as humans and through his work he has secured for them a place there. I believe that in our day we need to realize that though youth ministry is a good idea, we need to know that the better idea is the Church. Our local church is a community built upon a very deep and trusted foundation. We are a physical manifestation of the universal and glorious Kingdom of God. We are called to reflect our great God's beauty and justice in a dark, messy and hurting world. We need to allow our Lord's prayer to come true in our churches, that we would be one as he and the father are one (John 17:22&23), so that we would be known by our love for one another.

As your Youth Director, I believe that the only hope I have for a successful ministry and program is if I can show the youth that they are not just part of a youth group, they are part of this community of faith. Beloved, I need your help to do this. The time of thinking youth ministry is enough is over. Our Lord has great desires for our youth and for our church.
We must ask ourselves and one another two questions: What does it look like to plug the kids into the life of the church? What does it look like for our community, our local church to be plugged into the lives of the youth? God's word is very clear that the community of faith is to be active in teaching and demonstrating his Law to our youth. For example we read in Deuteronomy 6:6&7, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” When children are baptized in the presence of the congregation we are pretty much reaffirming our commitment to carry out the huge task assigned to the people of God in these verses. It is never solely the parents responsibility to raise their children, not when they are part of the Christian community. It is not solely your Youth Director's job either. We are all committed to this. There are a few practical ways in my opinion we can as a community plug into the lives of our youth and to plug our youths into the life of the church.

One way is to volunteer your time for interacting. Our youths need meaningful close relationships with adults in addition to their parents. Some things will always be effective no matter how much technology seems to distinguish this generation: camping, fishing, shopping, lunch, amusement parks, zoos, concerts, all these are but a few activities that make for great opportunities to pour into the life of a youth.
Meeting with one another for the purpose of praying for our youth is another way we can plug in. Paul teaches Timothy that prayer is a means through which God accomplishes his purposes from government to the individual salvation of people (I Timothy 2:1-4). He desires to work through our prayers in the lives of our youth, so please pray!

And finally, demonstrating the truth of God's glorious gospel to our youth. They are watching us so let us show them how great our God is. The Christian is one rescued from the kingdom of darkness by the victorious work of Jesus (Colossians 1:13). We are united in that wonderful act and it no longer matters what color we are, how we were raised or how much money we make, we are all now the same people, the New Humanity. Let us love one another and may we strive for love and peace above all else. We are known by our love for one another and evil works primarily through the destruction of relationships and divisions in the community of faith. Our youth need to learn the gift of loving in diversity and showing grace and mercy to their fellow image bearers and they will follow our examples.

Stangers: Thoughts on Immigrants and Shalom

“You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers…”
Deuteronomy 10:19

About an hours’ drive from my Church in Clearwater Fl is a little town called, Wimauma. There is a community of migrant farmworkers there made up mostly of families who must pick and harvest to survive. They live below the poverty level, most are not legal aliens, have no health insurance and are over charged for rent by their land lords. They are hard working and seeking a better life for them and their families, one they believe cannot be had in their own countries. Beth-El is a mission there dedicated to serving the needs and families of the migrant farmworker. They provide food and clothing for the families, health, and legal advice, education for the children and an adult high school. In addition to all these services, Beth-El provides a message of hope through the Gospel of Jesus. There is a congregation that meets there for worship and fellowship; like Koinonia Farm before them, Beth-El is a real and living “demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God”.

Beth-El has helped me to see a real need in our culture to obey the Law of God in regards to the stranger in our land, the alien or immigrant. Exodus and Deuteronomy record God’s vision for strangers. He loves them and desires to include them in his people and to show them that they are humans and therefore created in his image and have his special attention. He charges his people to love them as he does and to care for them as their own family, for indeed we are all one under God. Israel is also given another motivation for seeing the immigrant as one they love; Israel was once a people of immigrants and strangers in Egypt. Indeed, Israel’s beginnings under Abraham were as a nomadic tribe. Wherever they went they were strangers and passers through.

If there is anything we have in common as a nation with ancient Israel it is that we too are a nation of immigrants and aliens. My great, great grandmother was a member of the Blackfoot tribe and I have ancestors from Ireland and England, how can I look down at an immigrant from Mexico or Guatemala without looking down also at my ancestors? And not to mention how can I treat the immigrant with prejudice and injustice and say I love God and his law? I wonder can these same questions be posed by our nation as a whole? We all have ancestors that had to come through Ellis Island in order to give us citizenship in this great nation. Do we actually believe that we as Americans can afford to shun the stranger?

Another point I would like to draw from the example of Israel is that like her we are all born in exile. An angle with a flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden signifies our desolate state as a species. We were created to reflect God’s image of beauty and justice to the world and each other, to live forever with our great God as his children and stewards. We are however not permitted into the Garden ever again. We wander aimlessly through existence without purpose, without our humanity. Is it any wonder that when we are awakened by his grace that we experience such fullness in our lives never before present? It is the victory and provision of Jesus that opens up the Garden once again, in him we return home to our God and to our humanity. Our salvation is therefore dependent on God’s kindness to us as strangers. We cannot know him unless he discloses himself. We remain a stranger until he reaches down and adopts us into his kingdom. I believe then it is the duty of those given grace to inspire our nation of immigrants to a greater compassion for the strangers in their land. To love God is to love our neighbor, whether they are across our street or across our borders.

Urban Shalom: God's Vision for the Hip-Hop Culture

There has been a lot of debate as to whether Hip-Hop culture is a legitimate sub-culture and therefore a people group. I will not attempt here to retrace the arguments within these intense dialogues, this is after all just a blog and one of my dear friends and veteran bloggers reminds me of my blogging weakness…”you need to be better disciplined in the art of brevity”. So in the spirit of that wisdom I will simply say that I am a real person from the Hip-Hop culture. We are a real people group and in need of Shalom as much as any other people group. We have our history, forms of expression, politics, traditions, ect. I highly recommend a book by my good friend Tommy Kyllonen, pastor of Crossover Church in Tampa, FL entitled, ‘Unorthodox: Church, hip-hop, culture’ for a great intro to the origins of hip-hop as a movement and as a culture. One more suggestion would be William Branch’s (a.k.a. Ambassador) articles on the Church’s mission to the Hip-Hop culture especially his responses to Craig G. Lewis.

Shalom is God’s vision for humanity and the world he has created as reveled in the Hebrew Torah, Wisdom Literature and Prophets. It is his plan to bring this world “back to rights” from the perverted thing it has become since evil’s appearance into it. Shalom is the world as it was created to be, should be now and indeed will be; a world of justice, right relationships and delight (see Nicholas Wolterstorff’s essay, ‘Teaching for Shalom’ in Educating for Shalom). Indeed the ushering in of this beautiful world is the primary vocation of everyone who would call themselves a follower of God in Jesus.

The Urban culture is no exception to the desperate need for Shalom, nor has God exempted us. Rather he has called many of us to himself and has charged us to live out his vision on the streets of our city. The Hip-Hop culture like the first created culture began as a beautiful thing. It sprang out of the need to deal with poverty and the rampant gang problem in the Bronx. Peaceful rallies gave birth to a new sound from a DJ’s turn tables. Peace, love, unity and respect were the cries of this new vision for the community. And it results were evident. Young people desired college and continuing education for the purpose of peace. They were studying music to be better DJs and MCs and professors and business owners and doctors, ect; A very different looking generation than the one full of gang bangers just a few years older.

Some say that Hip-Hop has evolved into a very different thing since its humble beginnings in late 70s Bronx NY. I would argue that what they see in the mainstream, the millions of dollars a year globally influential industry, is something different entirely. Yes it has its connections to Hip-Hop, like I have connections to my Father, but my Father and I are distinct people and responsible for our own persons. So this modern day Rap industry founded on completely different philosophies and principles as Hip-Hop is a distinct movement. Also I believe it is important to point out that the people of the Urban culture are not being helped by the success of the rap industry, but rather this industry profits from that which enslaves urbanites. Hip-Hop has its foundations in a desire to see the urban culture overcome what binds them.

So what does this have to do with Shalom? The Church has a missional vocation. The people of God have the same ministry Christ left them when he ascended. We have his Spirit and word to empower and equip us for that task left to us, to go into all the world and build Shalom. The Hip-Hop culture is still dealing with the same problems of the 70s and 80s and 90s and more. There is profit in the positive and non-violent messages of Hip-Hop. Education, very much promoted by the early movement is a very important tool in the battle against racial prejudice, poverty and violence. History has taught however that these good things are not enough. And though she still communicates these cries for her people, Hip-Hop’s voice has been made a whisper in our day. Hip-Hop, like all other cultures, needs and has always needed the good and benevolent rule of Jesus over her. It is the Gospel and all it entails that can deliver the Hip-Hop culture from all her oppressions. This should be evident on a mass cultural level with the Gospel’s influence of the civil rights movement, a movement very close to the Hip-Hop culture.

So what is God’s vision for the Urban culture? His vision is the same for us as it is for all of humanity, that our cities be full of love and respect, of justice and beauty. When the Hip-Hop culture comes into Shalom, and I believe it will, all will see the original vision of the Hip-Hop movement fulfilled and much more:

• 
  Behold, I will create
  new heavens and a new earth.
  The former things will not be remembered,
  nor will they come to mind.
  But be glad and rejoice forever
  in what I will create,
  for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
  and its people a joy.
  I will rejoice over Jerusalem
  and take delight in my people;
  the sound of weeping and of crying
  will be heard in it no more.
  Never again will there be in it
  an infant who lives but a few days,
  or an old man who does not live out his
  years; he who dies at a hundred
  will be thought a mere youth;
  he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered
  accursed.
  They will build houses and dwell in them;
  they will plant vineyards and eat their
  fruit.
  No longer will they build houses and others
  live in them, or plant and others eat.
  For as the days of a tree,
  so will be the days of my people;
  my chosen ones will long enjoy
  the works of their hands.
  They will not toil in vain
  or bear children doomed to misfortune;
  for they will be a people blessed by the
  LORD, they and their descendants with them.
  Before they call I will answer;
  while they are still speaking I will hear.
  The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
  and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
  but dust will be the serpent's food.
  They will neither harm nor destroy
  on all my holy mountain,"
  says the LORD.