Dumb things we do

Jesus wasn’t crucified debating the age of the earth, but surprisingly this has become the hill to die on for some. If our goal is to persuade people to accept the validity of the Bible and believe in Jesus, I’m unconvinced that arguing about the age of the earth is productive -- we need to ask ourselves, do we want to lead people to Jesus or do we want to drive them away?

The argument over the age of the earth is pointless, in fact it is counterproductive to stubbornly insist we know better. We risk too much credibility when we stake our identity on asserting a definitive date and we ruin our reputation by trying to manipulate this inconsequential topic into something spiritual.

The Bible is inerrant and trustworthy. It has insights on nature, weather, nautical patterns, agriculture, ancient geography, and astronomy, yet the Bible is not a science textbook — therefore when we demand people agree to a specific age of the earth (which is immaterial to salvation) we do not draw people to the cross, we drive them away.

We need to remember the Bible is an inspired book, mainly about theology and worship. The Old Testament foretold, but withheld a specific date for “when” the Messiah would arrive. The New Testament predicts Jesus will return, without offering the exact date of “when.” A similar consideration is applicable regarding our opinion on the age of the universe.

Skeptics are right to dismiss us as anti-intellectuals when we misuse the Bible to make the case the universe is around 10,000 years old. The argument that the earth is only between 6000-10,000 years old seems disingenuous to me, I doubt our true motives; instead of proving the earth is young what we are really attempting to say is, “See, the earth is too young for evolution to be true.” Ouch.

Science isn’t the enemy of faith, agreeing the earth could be older isn’t heretical, instead believers become the enemy of faith when we make unsubstantiated conjectures about irrelevant topics that the Bible is silent on. It’s possible to disprove Darwinism, we don’t need to concern ourselves with guesstimating the irrelevant age of the world to address misguided and flawed evolutionary theories.

Instead of speculating on the age of the earth we should be asking non-believers, “Why is there a universe rather than nothing?” Why did life randomly “appear” and where are the supposed transitional fossils bridging the species?

We could also ask, why is DNA so complex and deeply encrypted with information, it obviously required intelligence in its design. We could also ask, why do we possess an overabundance of imagination & intelligence? Comprehending trigonometry or quantum physics doesn’t help us gather food, reproduce, or avoid the saber-tooth tiger. Our breadth of brainpower is unnecessary in the race for survival of the fittest.

Who really cares how old the universe is -- it’s not an ethical, moral, or legal matter and we are not defending the integrity of the Bible when we argue for something the Bible is silent on. That there is a universe which began with all the laws of physics instantaneously in place reveals a conscious choice was made to begin the cosmos, requiring a Creator.

Jesus seemed indifferent to the age of the world, nor did He compel us to debate it, instead He asked that we help Him save it. Arguing about the age of rocks doesn’t draw people to the Rock Of Ages.

Why would experts want you to distrust your memory...?

Presently, the results of the recent Midterm elections are dominating the news cycle -- shining a spotlight on the polarized state of our Nation. Don’t worry, you’ll forget all about these midterms soon enough.

You know there are other stories circulating as well, even though politics usually roars the loudest. While we are being distracted by arguments over the economy, immigration, and the future of healthcare, one subject keeps slipping under the radar. There is a subtle yet insidious small stream of information trickling throughout the media: Your memory, or more to the point, your undependable memory.

Sly efforts to undermine the confidence in our memory are slowly chipping away our confidence in our ability to recall the truth. If you haven’t heard the reports of how poorly we remember the facts yet, a simple internet search will surely leave you discouraged. Study after study reports how “notoriously unreliable” our memory is. Experts claim we generate details which are outright false, but “feel” correct.

Reach back in time and try to remember a period of time when our minds weren’t celebrated and considered trustworthy. I’d say from the 1700’s to the early 1990’s, the human mind was considered the most powerful and capable entity in the universe. Sure, the age of enlightenment had its faults, but the capacity for the mind was unquestioned. No longer is this the case in our “postmodern” milieu.

The recent Kavanaugh hearings are just one example of how “unreliable” our memory is. People on both sides of the “aisle” used faulty mental facilities to their advantage, after all these events were 35 years ago..., so the actual events would be fuzzy and hard to remember. Then, there are news reports and studies constantly being released detailing how we misremember our childhoods. Consider how parents and children remember tragic events differently in a family crisis. Therefore, the experts insist, we can’t trust our fickle minds to much of a degree of accuracy.

With the radical rise of relativism in the past few decades (that being the idea that there is no such things as absolute truth and what’s true for you isn’t true for me) the latest fatality to a Biblical Worldview is our mind. I’m guessing if you noticed this, you might not have stopped to ask what is the motivation to discredit our mental recall and the ability to trust our memory. There are similar attacks on the veracity of recorded history too. These biased perspectives have an agenda, not to uncover Truth, but to create disequilibrium, doubt, and disillusionment.

I’m of the opinion that certain people will seek to convince us we can’t trust our memory or history for the sole purpose of destroying the integrity of the Bible, and especially the reliability of the Gospel accounts. As you may recall, the Gospels weren’t written within months of the ministry of Jesus, but were recorded in written form decades afterwards.

I predict the onslaught attacking our memory and its reliability will increase rapidly over time. More and more people will become convinced that their memories are unreliable, and over time, this will erode their trust in the Scriptures. Is there an legitimacy to this attack?

Since you’ve misplaced your keys and forgotten important appointments, you might be wondering if our memories are as bad as the experts say. But then again, you’ll be hard pressed to find any contemporary who was aware of JFK's assassination that day who can’t tell you where they were when they heard the news. Same thing for those who remember 9/11. Just like the way you remember your wedding day or the last moments spent with a loved one on the day they passed, certain moments are etched on our minds with precision. Sure, you don’t remember what you ate last Saturday, but you’ll never forget the time you had food poisoning while you were on vacation.

Again, my opinion is there is a concerted effort to undermine the confidence in our memory ultimately with the goal to discredit the Bible. Not only do I believe are our minds more reliable than the experts claim, there’s the overlooked fact that the Scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit. Yes, human hands wrote down the sacred text, but as fallible as the individuals might have been, they were guided by God. This, along with the massive amounts of internal consistency throughout the Bible, gives me great confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible.

Can we debate issues without misusing the Bible?

Chances are, you’ve recently had a disagreement with someone over the border/immigration situation. My guess is, both of you were passionate about whichever stance either of you took. It’s good to have firm convictions, but can you share your convictions without condemnation? And more importantly, can we debate issues without misusing the Bible in the process?

You see, I’m not so much interested in your stance or even in sharing my position here regarding the border, as much as I am in a greater principle which is at stake: How most of us attempt to use the Bible to backup our views. Do you find it interesting how nearly everyone who is commenting on both sides of the border crisis, whether is about the families who were separated or how we should treat refugees, they are all referencing the Bible to convince others of their stance?

You might be asking, “But shouldn’t we backup our perspectives with the Bible?” It might sound heretical, but maybe not -- at least not in the way most people mean. For example, the question, “How do we know when the Bible actually supports what we think?” is more than likely the wrong question, and it’s that type of thinking that gets us in trouble. Instead, we need to ask, “Are our thoughts in line with the Scriptures?” not the other way around as in “Does the Bible support my stance...?”

Why is it tricky to “use” the Bible, for example, to backup our position on the border? For starters, as far as governments and nations go, the Bible was written in a different context and cultural situation than ours. Namely, the ancient world of Bible-times was governed by Theocratic governments and dictatorial empires. Those forms of government were very dissimilar to our modern day democracies, and lest we forget, America is a Republic.

So, if you say the Bible instructs us to obey our government, we are all in trouble in America since we rebelled against Great Britain during the Revolutionary War... And if you say, the Bible commands us to treat refugees a certain way since the children of God were wanders, that’s tough to support too since not many of us can trace our lineage to those who wandered through the desert for forty years.

It is extremely difficult to “use” the Bible to defend a political position on most of our current events. It’s nothing new for people to twist the Bible to say whatever they think is the most accurate point of view. The fact is, in America during our Civil War we had preachers on both sides of the Mason-Dixon who were guilty of cherry-picking passages of Scripture to support their views on slavery.

It requires humility to submit to God’s word, not a hostile heart that is aggressively trying the be the champion of truth. Please don’t misunderstand me, I believe in absolute truth, and I think relativism has done more harm than any other ideology, but most of the people who think they have a monopoly on the Truth are usually the most judgmental and mean-spirited people I’ve ever met.

To interpret the Bible and to apply it to our everyday life is a prayerful enterprise. We need to ask questions based on which genre we are reading because the Bible has many styles of literature: Narrative, Law, poetry, wisdom, apocalyptic, Gospels/parables, epistles. We need to also ask questions about the author and the audience, asking what did a passage mean to the original audience comes before asking what does it mean for us.

It’s healthy to acknowledge we could be mistaken about many of our opinions on a host of subjects. It’s healthier still to immerse ourselves in the Scriptures and study the Bible in such a way that it guides our thoughts, not the other way around. If you are opening up the Bible to find a verse that supports what you already believe, close your Bible and open your heart to the Spirit.

Sadly, our nation is presently divided and polarized into extreme ideological camps, both on the “Right” and “Left” over a multitude of issues; the border issue is merely the latest debate du jour. It may be unfortunate that these days we can’t even have a civil dialogue about our views with the “opposing” side, but actually, the real tragedy happens whenever we recklessly wield our Bibles like a hammer.

Are Christians blocking "church growth"

How do you feel about the lack of enthusiasm most people seem to display when it comes to church?  Many Christians lament the fact that, overall, North American church attendance has been steadily dwindling for years.  Some church-goers blame this decline on our decadent/depraved culture, others blame technology and our resulting lowered attention spans (read: church is boring), and others fall back on the Bible passage that says in the end-times, things will go from bad to worse.  

But, could we as believers be to the ones to blame for the universal lack of the church's growth? Perhaps where we've traditionally focused our attention has been detrimental to the Kingdom's growth.  So much of our "in-house" arguing/disagreements on the part of modern-day believers has relatively little to do with what Jesus taught about, or what lost people focus on.

Part of maturing spiritually is growing in the ability to reflect on our transformation and to see areas where we need to submit even more to the Spirit's leading.  It's my opinion that far too many of us waste time and energy on fruitless pursuits which will not win people to Christ, in fact I'd go as far as to say our corporate passions have pushed people away.

For starters, too many believers politicize church.  Regardless of your political affiliation, folks on both sides have merged politics and faith.  And, if you don't vote their way, you aren't voting for God's candidate.  An honest survey of the Bible will quickly reveal that there weren't many Godly leaders and most of the governments listed in the Bible were not led by believers.

How does our unhealthy obsession on politics damage our testimony?  Think about the strife & separation it's causing amongst believers, and then step back and think how outsiders view our insane divisiveness.   We have to stop allowing our political views from spilling over into our churches, and we need to quit this fantasy that we know is best for the world when it comes to the realm of government.  We can't even "govern" our congregations very well, how could we be so arrogant to think we can influence a less important organization like a temporary earthly government?   

The next area we might be faltering in is our immature attachment to church-property.  If you can’t imagine church without the church building, then we should stop and think.  If your faith, energy, and time are consumed by a church building and your rituals are constructed around programs, you might suffer from a case of religious pietism.

The question becomes then: Are you more in love with your religion than He Who reigns -- have you become more attached to the form of your religion than He Who forms us?

But, one might think, so much good happens within this structure.  Is it helpful, or is it a crutch we've become overly dependent on.  The age old church battle over change is a joke.  We argue over the color of the carpet while lost souls perish.  We’re acting like the staff on the sinking Titanic, rearranging the deck furniture while the lifeboats remained empty.  

If you can't imagine practicing the Christian faith apart from programs and parking lots or if the building dictates the majority of your decisions, there might be a problem.  I know these are unpopular opinions I'm sharing, but how much longer can we continue down this path before we realize what we are doing is counterproductive?  

But Craig, you are wrong! you may say. There are several churches with fabulous foyers and positive programs that are growing!  Actually, what we are doing in Christianity is shuffling the deck.  We've simply moved one herd from one location over into another pen, but the flock isn't expanding.  What's happening? People leave one church and go to another, without any net gain for the Kingdom.  Sure, maybe we are retaining Christians in the Kingdom, though that's doubtful, but are we reaching really lost people?  Nope, not really, not like we should be.  

What we win people with is what win them to.  In other words, what we try to attract people with is what they become.  If we win over their hearts with God's love and grace, then we help them to attach to Jesus.  If we win people over with programs, rituals, and stained glass, then we have lost our purpose and we have missed the mark because their loyalty will last only as long as the facade we've won them to does.

The church I read about in the New Testament never got involved in politics, they didn't own church buildings -- instead they focused on being disciples sharing the story of the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus.  They were Spirit led people who believed the return of Christ was eminent.  And somehow, all of that was attractive to a debased culture that deified their Emperor.  

Are we reaping the fruits of an embittered and estranged culture?

I’m being vulnerable here -- I’m really struggling with our culture’s current milieu. Basically, lately, I’m feeling spiritually exhausted by our extremely divisive circumstances. I think our actions, attitudes, and what we are doing to ourselves collectively, is taking it’s toll on us.

We’ve entered an emotionally dark and cynical cycle. We are distancing ourselves from people we disagree with and we’re losing our ability to dialogue. It’s hard to find peaceful examples of people offering respect and tolerance to others who happen to think differently.

My observation is, we are hatefully funneling people into “silos” as we easily jettison them, casting them into opposing camps and applying derogatory categories to people with opposing ideologies. Just like strip-mining leaves a barren landscape in its wake, and just like harvesting grain leaves a field full of empty stalks, America is truly at risk of looking far different than any of us dreamed of or wished for because of our major disdain for people who aren’t “just like us.”

Lately, our polarized nation has been castigating and hurling insults across political party-lines and across our liberal-conservative spectrum. It seems like we can’t find any middle ground anywhere in our country, and everyone labels everyone else as a threat or an enemy.

This world is draining us of our compassion and joy whenever we find ourselves positioning people as winners and losers, or, when it comes down to an “us versus them” mentality. As good as many people are in the world around us, and with the many blessings we experience, there is still a great amount of evil and suffering we are exposed to, and sadly many Christians are adding to the vitriol too. Just check in on social media if you doubt that last sentence.

We cannot sustain this hatred and animosity forever; something has to give. What will give first? More than likely, our faith. Faith can survive persecution, pain, and destitute times. But faith can’t endure for long when it’s being poisoned or when it’s not being fed and nurtured. These are toxic times. We are in a spiritual famine.

Our capacity for faith is like a sieve, therefore, our faith “reservoir” needs to be replenished often. For example, simply participating in a worship service or two every year (like only going to church at Christmas & Easter) isn’t sufficient for sustaining spiritual growth. We need to pray consistently, sing often, share in the Table together as we take the bread and the cup continually, etc.

The difficulty is, anything we do repetitively/habitually has the danger of becoming a mindless act and we tend to go into autopilot mode. Or worse, mandating that people attend services every time the doors are open, becomes deadly and legalistic. Yet, the repetition of all things spiritual is what we need most when the world changes all around us, albeit with balance.

Here’s where it gets difficult, because we have a situation of sorts that supersedes all of the anger and slander our culture is propagating. We, as believers, seem to have grown apathetic and we need to grow spiritually, particularly if we are going to be a beacon of hope to a lost world. So, it looks like we need more maturity. How do we do this? How do we develop further as followers of Christ?

We need to be challenged. But we resent being told what to do, and we resist being challenged.

The Church is a multifaceted, supernatural miracle, it is God’s chosen people, His bride, His redeemed flock. God gives us the church to shape us, encourage us, bless us, and also to stretch us, to wake us up, to help us see the eternal. Sadly, what happens when a church begins to challenge us to see the world through a different lens, we balk and get offended and we, like an ill mannered rebellious child, we pout. Therefore, the very avenue or channel that helps us grow in our time of need is shunned.

Here’s where we in the church kind of fumble things. We don’t have a great track record at motivating people gracefully; we tend to shoot our wounded. Part of the problem is, many churches forget that contending for the faith doesn’t mean being contentious. We don’t need to be mean, combative, negative, or sour to get our message across. You know, we don’t have to be hateful to spread the message of love.

These truly are desperate times. You might be thinking therefore, maybe we need to be more aggressive, and if we offend someone, well then, the ends justify the means. After all, didn’t Jesus offend people? And, isn’t it true, there’s no sugarcoating some truths, and handholding only goes so far. My dear friend Bruce once shared a quote with me which I’d like to pass on to you, “Jesus offended the mind, in order to reveal the heart.”

Jesus wasn’t cavalier when dealing with with people’s hearts, and carrying a Bible doesn’t give us licence to run roughshod over the people we disagree with. Jesus was known to embrace the whores and thugs while simultaneously chastising the religious crowds filled with self-righteous people who thought they knew their Bibles. Which brings me to my point, let’s not ever hammer people with our Bibles. Consider John 5:39-40, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." If the doctrine you follow isn’t life-giving, or if your Biblical stance doesn’t elevate love and help draw people to Jesus, you need to rethink your theology.

May we hold to the integrity of the Scriptures, while humbly approaching people we aren’t aligned with, with the goal of unity, peace, and love for everyone. Go out of your way to let the Bible shape you and let God’s Holy Spirit guide you as you let down your guard and let other people into your circle.

Do you really know how to treat refugees? Let me guess, you used the Bible to support your views

Our government's recent immigration ban sent shockwaves across the globe and it has polarized an already divided nation.  As a result, many people are citing Scripture on how we should treat refugees. The reality is, we need to be more careful when we try to use the Bible to support our contemporary political stances.  The politics of Ancient Israel and those of the Greco Roman world, bear little resemblance to our American Republic.   

Without understanding the historical and political context of any passage of Scripture, we risk misrepresenting the original idea of the text.  Here’s where it gets dicey, especially since it’s nearly impossible to use logic and reason when dealing with emotional circumstances.  The Bible, especially the Old Testament, wasn’t penned in a democratic culture.  The Old Testament was delivered during a Theocracy, and the New Testament was written under the rule of emperors.  

It’s a poor student of the Word who views ancient passages through the filter of their contemporary culture, we are called to do just the opposite.  We must filter our modern day life through the lens of the Scriptures.  Bridging the two worlds together is possible, but it comes with more than a little effort.  

Another problem, perhaps even a greater issues, is the way some people cherry pick passages of the Bible to support their views on any given stance.  So, for example, when people quote from the book of Leviticus to support the idea that we should offer all refugees a special treatment, it’s an interpretive mistake to not also realize two important facts.  There was a specific context that made sense to the Israelites, a personal experience which they understood, since they once were refugees, and secondly, their borders weren’t fully established yet.  They would be expanding their borders, the Israelites were entering the process of acquiring more land while forcefully expelling six particular nations, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  

Why would God command the Israelites to remove these six nations from the soon to be inherited Promised Land?  Those six nations were ruthless, violent, dangerous, and pagan people who would harm the Israelites in many ways.  Destroy those seven nations and love the sojourner were commands that were given simultaneously to the ancient nation of Israel, like a two-sided coin.  It’s disingenuous to only polish one half of that coin.  

Back to Leviticus, especially Lev 19:33-34. “33 When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”  This is pretty cut and dry.  Be kind to the people passing through your country, love those who are displaced or relocating.  But just a few verses before this passage in Lev 19:28, the Israelites are prohibited from getting tattoos.  And in the next chapter, Lev 20:10, people who commit adultery are to be put to death.  Why would we, culturally, pick one part over the others to obey?   

Something else to consider.  The New Testament, which was written under the reign of dictators and emperors, has specific guidelines for believers when it comes to submitting to their government, see the first part of Romans chap 13 for example.  Our government has well established laws on establishing citizenship.  There are real established borders.  We need to respect these laws, and we should probably expect people who want to join us to respect these principles as well. But are our laws fair?

The Bible isn’t merely filled with warm fuzzy affirmations of do-gooding, it’s complex and it’s easily used to justify any stance we want to take, when we don’t take the time and exert the effort to understand it.  Nearly 100% of the Old Testament commands on how to treat refugees are tied to the principle, “You know what it felt like.” Read them and see if each of the passages also remind the Israelites of their painful past.  

But what about the general command to love our neighbors as ourselves?  I can't argue with that. But what is America’s track record of showing compassion for indigenous tribes, of taking care of our elderly, of housing our homeless, and protecting abused peoples already?  

By this point, you might be wondering about my views on the current refugee crisis.  It doesn’t matter what I think about how we should treat refugees if I cherry pick which subcultures I want to defend.  I think it’s a huge mistake, attempting to apply the doctrine of Love only when it’s popular, defiant, or hip, while we continually neglect tons of people who are already in need.    

If that didn't make sense, watch this and maybe you'll get the point: