The Road to Hell

I've started going to The Flood, and I really enjoy it. One of my favorite things is the imagery that they use. the current series is called "Ten Thousand Years: Ancient Stories of Amazing Grace" and the image they've chosen to represent that is the Bristlecone pine tree. It looks something like this:

Bristlecones are the oldest living things on earth. They're thick, hardy, and gnarly. Like Grace.

Today's sermon told the tale of Cain and Abel, but approached the story from a different angle. The pastor read the verse where God tells Cain, "Sin is crouching at your door..." Matt likened this to a predator lying in wait for the prey to come along. and then he asked us, "What is your crouching sin?"

He warned us that it's probably not the sin you think of immediately. It's probably way subtler. More rationalized. 

And then he began giving examples: 

-"I'm not bitter towards men. I'm just hurt and I'm trying to make wise decisions for the future."

-"I'm not a workaholic. I'm just trying to provide for my family, and make more money so I can help others."

-"I'm not stingy with my money. I'm just trying to be a good steward of what God has given me."

-"I'm not obsessed with the way I look. I'm just trying to make healthy choices for my life."

All those things sound really good. And even your motivations sound okay. But as Matt listed them off, I felt knives dive and twist in my chest. Each point was another notch- another cut. It hurt, because I do this.

I rationalize my sin.

See, these things sound okay because I'm giving great excuses for them. But the focus in each case is still on me, not on God. Cain's sin was self-pity and rationalizing.

My sin is no different.

But God's infinite grace is great!

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,
Freely bestowed on all who believe!
You that are longing to see His face,
Will you this moment His grace receive?

Beauty the Villain

(A brief Aside: in the course of this article, I express ideas which I don't actually believe simply to make a point. It's called satire. Please don't send me hate mail for being an evolutionist. I am, in fact, not. In addition, I'm aware that I oversimplify a few matters here, but it's necessary. Trust me-- I didn't want to write a dissertation today!)

A few days ago, I was discussing with a friend the idea that beauty could not have evolved, or that it would offer little reproductive advantage in the grand scheme of natural selection. Birds sing. They sing as a mating call. But there's no reason why a female bird should find a male's song pleasing. There is no gene, as far as we know, for preferences.

Likewise, there's no reason that a peahen should be pleased by the bright and daunting plumage of a peacock, nor is there any reasonable explanation of how having said plumage makes the male a better reproductive choice than anyone else.

There are beautiful mollusks that live at the bottom of the ocean. They have no eyes, and they can't perceive their breathtaking colors. The colors give them no special adaptations over their less attractive counterparts. And in our day-to-day adventures, we never would encounter them, so they give no advantage to anyone else.

Moreover, the ones which live within grasp of humans, you would expect, would evolve to be less attractive, since that gives them the advantage of being left alone on the beach, and not picked up and taken home, where they wither and die.

Attractiveness to the eye stimulates chemicals in the brain which are associated with the reproductive hormones. We know this. But consider this example: researchers discovered about five years ago that in male fruit bats, the size of the gonads is inversely proportional to the size of the brain. Interestingly, this gave reproductive advantage to both categories of males. Some females were attracted to the size, and they chose the males whose reproductive capacity was more obvious. The males with larger brains, however, were often able to “charm” females into mating with them. So the females who were less shallow, if you will, chose males who were more intelligent, giving their offspring a higher chance of propagating said brainpower, while the females who selected well-endowed males gave their own offspring larger reproductive organs. This polarization of traits means that mediocre males with neither larger testes nor larger brain are selected out of the population!

How all this affects us is a bit less obvious, but important nonetheless.

Imagine, for a moment, a lovely caveman community. It's spring, as we know, in the spring a young caveman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love (1). Now without useful language, only minor grunts, a caveman (We'll call him Og) is not able to express his affection for a certain lovely cavewoman (aptly named Gra). Now, he has two choices: either take her by force as his wife, or convince her to come willingly. What's to stop Gra from choosing Gron, the strongest caveman in town, as her mate? Not to mention, Gron has a reputation of taking whomever he wants, and no one can stand up to him. Poor Og! Will he ever find love?

One day, as he is walking along the sandy shore, Og finds a round rock-looking object. It has a pretty flower design on it, and is quite nice looking. He thinks Gra will like it, so he takes it and gives it to her. Something important has just happened! Og has given the first gift! And now, Gra has a sentimental attachment to the sand dollar and, by proxy, to Og!

Later, Og finds a flat piece of bark. He smears some flower color on it, and again gifts it to Gra. First piece of art!

We now have a reproductive reason for art to exist.

But there's a major problem.

Let's fast-forward several thousand years. We've seen art develop from conjugal gifts. Probably first it was used to secure mates. As time went on, trade began to flourish, and art was no exception. Someone figured out that he could make the art and trade it for goods and services: the first professional artist! (the first corporate sellout as well?)

Cave drawings became a way to communicate, as well as decoration. Rocks were scarred with designs. Paints developed. Stories were told. Suddenly beauty was a commodity and it bled into everything: household tools had to be attractive. Precious stones developed value. And the human body became an expression of art as well when we mixed needles with ink.

Swords were embellished, breastplates stamped with images. Clothing became colorful. And in the Renaissance, our view of beauty developed even more. The early naturalists turned back to nature and smiled on it. They began to paint serene landscapes. Over the next five hundred years, our opinions on beauty were refined. Earth is beautiful. We established National Parks and Reserves to preserve that beauty.

But somewhere along the way, beauty turned against us.

As we discovered more of the world, we began to appreciate nature far above humanity. When we told the story of Earth, we cast ourselves as the villain, the invader, the rapist arriving on the scene and violently destroying what is pure and beautiful when left alone. In the words of Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park: "What's so great about discovery? It is a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world."

As such we vilified the human race, to the point where we are now blaming and berating ourselves for the very climate changes which seem historically to favor evolution, especially speciation, AND which have yet to prove their detriment.

So in the past century or so, our perception of beauty has created a situation where in favor of preserving the beauty of the Earth, we are almost willing to destroy ourselves.  Beauty has saved us, and condemned us. Beauty has become a villain, seeking to annihilate the human race rather than see Earth overdeveloped and species destroyed because of our selfish needs.

But I have one question:

When we are gone from Earth, who will be there to appreciate its breathtaking beauty?

Let's Get the Men Back

Dockers just started this awesome ad campaign calling on men to "wear the pants" again. To man up, if you will. While I'm perfectly happy being single (yes! finally!), I do appreciate a good strong man who knows how to treat people. So, in support of Dockers, I'm calling all men.

America: A World Traveler's Review

Today is the first anniversary of my return from my 20-month stay in Kenya. It was a formative time in my life, and it undoubtedly changed my worldview fundamentally.

But coming back to the US was much harder than going to Kenya in the first place. I said this today to a friend, and didn't realize the truth of it until I heard it from my own lips.

See, when you're going to another country you expect everything to be different. When I first went to Kenya I expected nothing to be the same as it was back home, and it greatly eased my transition there. Not to say that my life was easy in Kenya. Oh, no, the culture shock came much later when I dealt with deep root issues, rather than the surface customs and language issues.

But none of this compares to the reverse culture shock... the shock of returning. The shock of coming home, and finding that it's no longer home.

Has America changed? Yes. But I have changed more. I am less patient with our cultural obsession with the little things, and I want always to find the bottom line. I've ceased to care about our minor theological disagreements, and strive to see the Gospel preached and lived out in the lives of Christians. I've found that so many aspects of my life before no longer matter. I do not try to maintain thin, shallow, meaningless acquaintances. I strive to develop deep, accountable relationships where we foster the love of Christ deeply in each other's lives.

US culture seems to revolve around maintaining a cloud of shallow relationships, which we can then use or ignore as we see fit. Our individualism cripples us from real community or accountability, and prevents us from being truly honest with each other.

In the film "Anchorman" (which you probably shouldn't see, but which I was forced to, because it's based in my hometown, San Diego), the main character at one point says to a woman, "I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal." How poignantly this illustrates what I've come to see at the REAL, the foundational American dream. The reason we desire a decent job and a family with 2.4 kids, a nice car, and a house with a white picket fence is that it communicates to the people around us that we are "kind of a big deal". It tells them that we've achieved success, and that for this reason we deserve their respect.

The American Dream is simply a cry for attention-- a deep-seated desire to matter to someone. What we're really saying is, "Pay attention to me! I'm valuable as an individual!"

We've lost grasp of our identity because we've become so individualized. Fix your own problems. Deal with your own issues. Support yourself. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Don't depend on anyone. Don't ask for help. Don't whine about your troubles.

But this is not the Gospel in Scripture. This is not the way of the followers of Jesus. We are called to be One Church, not a church of ones. To be interdependent, not independent. But all the people I meet, Christians especially, feel so utterly alone.

And when we are alone, we cannot be a church.

So, as I recover from returning to the US, and from the breakup that left me wondering if I'll always be alone in a romantic sense, I realize that the loneliness in my life has nothing to do with romantic company. It has everything to do with the lack of people with whom I can be real, be honest, be accountable.

God has provided me with several close friends with whom I can be real, and who do value me.

To you friends: Deanne, Andrea, Brad, Dave S, Ben, Daniel, and Sharee, thank you for being there.

I encourage you who read this to seek out Godly friends as well, because it is only together that we can be the living, functioning Body of Christ.

The Hope-Thief

I'm up way too late. I can't sleep, mostly because I'm doing something we're explicitly told in Scripture not to do: worrying.

I'm worrying because it seems to me from my perspective that things are not working out. It seems to me that though God promises to provide for me, He isn't. It seems to me that the only reason I'm alive is that I simply haven't died yet.

And it occurred to me tonight that maybe I should just hurry up and kick off, because God's not using me right now, and all my time is spent trying to make ends meet, and I feel like I don't have time or means to further the Kingdom because I can't afford dinner or fuel.

Whenever I hear sermons about how I need to do more for God's Kingdom, I feel guilty and frustrated because I would love to do more, but I have no chance. I have plenty of time to volunteer somewhere, but can't afford the fuel to drive there. I can barely make it to work and back every day, and anything extra puts me closer to zero.

I feel so abandoned by God. I cry out to Him and try to trust Him, but all I get is silence... or trite recordings of old sermons intended to make me feel compelled to do more.

But I'm done doing. I lose sight of the spiritual because my physical needs are not being met. And then I feel guilty. This is the edge of despair.

I'm looking over this precipice, into the deep abyss, and the abyss isn't even staring back. My hope is reduced to shards that cut me when I try to put them together. Every time I sink deeper, I think it can't possibly get any worse than this. But then it does.

I keep waiting for the falling to stop. To find myself in the arms of Jesus, who bears my burdens and provides for me.

And still I wait.

America is not the new Israel.

I was bored Sunday night so I went to College Group with a friend. It was fun, and not too college-y. It definitely was a younger crowd than I'm used to, though.

At the end of the night, I had a lovely just-behind-the-eyes headache and I just wanted to go home and go to bed. So, I told my friend and she said, "Sure, let's go." I got my stuff and went to find her. She was in the kitchen, talking to one of the young guys that attends (young=18). She was asking him what church he was attending. He answered vaguely and then mumbled something about "many churches". So my friend asked, "Which ones?" and he hung his head. Here it was-- we'd come down to it. "Do you want to know the truth?" he asked.

The three of us in earshot nodded.

"I'm afraid to tell you because you'll judge me."

We rolled our eyes and told him to just tell us.

"I haven't been to church in eight years."

Now, none of us leapt on him. None of us lashed out in "righteous" anger. We simply asked, "Why?"

At first he said it was because he works on Sundays. Then it was because his dad stopped going. And then because of the hypocrisy in the church. As we asked more questions, his reasons got deeper and angrier.

We spoke to him of scriptural mandates, of fellowship, of ordinances, of service. All the reasons why he needs to be in a church and not just getting his spiritual meals from College Group. But he kept asking silly questions, side-tracking us, creating hypothetical situations for us to address, and putting up straw men that he could knock down.

Finally I said to him, "Look, the bottom line is that if you don't want to go to church, you're going to find reasons not to go. So the ultimate question is: what don't you like about church?"

He couldn't answer. Or wouldn't.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday, one of our coaches was giving a little morning devotional and he was talking about how we need to get this country "back to its Christian roots". He used the verse that everyone uses, 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." He used it to say that we as Americans can get back our status as a Christian nation if we just follow these simple steps.

Now, I don't care what you say about the Founding Fathers, this is NOT and never was a "Christian Nation". Sure, we were founded on "Judeo-Christian principles", but that doesn't make us a Christian nation anymore than putting Bible verses on my desserts make them Christian cupcakes. A nation can't be Christian. Sorry. And when we equate Christianity with American patriotism, we do the Gospel a disservice. We imply that the verses we quote apply to America. But they don't. They apply to the church. And the church is universal.

But there's a bigger problem with this mindset, and it's one that relates back to the young man not going to church. It's the idea that if we can just get people to behave a certain way, we can "reattain" status as a Christian nation, and then we'll be on the right track.  But let me clear something up for you: this world, the United States of America included, is under the dominion of Satan.

Regardless of how ethically we can get people to behave with our gun rights campaigns and our laws banning gay marriage, all we're doing in those cases is sending people to Hell feeling good about themselves.

Because behavior modification will never change anyone's heart. And if we focus on good behavior, we miss the point of the Gospel.

If we're concerned about getting people into our churches, or preventing the gay agenda from entering our public schools, or allowing students to wear an American flag t-shirt at school, then we're forgetting that what these people really need is Jesus.

Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't stand up for what's right. Absolutely we should. But expecting the world to act like Christians is ridiculous. Because they're not.

Maybe we should start acting like Christians and then people would, "see your good works and glorify our Father in Heaven."