On Puppies, Pain, and Everlasting Life

It’s been a long couple of weeks. We had a stomach bug make a slow trip through the house; during that our puppy got badly hurt and had to be put down. It’s been a physically and emotionally draining couple of weeks.

At times like these it’s good to remember that “the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Rom 8:20-22).

As we groan through the labor pains, we look forward to the day when God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev 21:4).

Life on this planet is hard sometimes, but we can trust in three things:

God is in control, and He has a reason for the way things are. And He has promised to make it right in the end.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).

The Bible and Capital Punishment

The Bible and the Ballot Box 2

If we want to be faithful followers of Jesus, we have to let our faith inform every aspect of our lives – not just what we do on Sunday. Nowhere is this more important than how we, as citizens of a republic, let our faith shape how we vote and otherwise influence our government.

Few political issues cause as heated arguments between Christians as capital punishment. Both sides argue from the Bible. Both sides approach the issue with a great deal of passion. I have no illusions about changing anyone’s position, but there is one side in this debate that commonly calls the other’s compassion and devotion to Christ into question. My goal is to convince that group – those opposed to the death penalty – that the other side is making a reasonable and biblically acceptable stand.

The Mosaic Mandate
We should start this discussion by addressing the elephant in the corner:

“If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death” (Lev 24:17).

The Mosaic Covenant required the death penalty for quite a few offenses. Yet none of us really wants to start imposing capital punishment on rebellious children – well, occasionally, but I get over it quickly. How can we use the Law to impose the death penalty for murder but not cursing your parents, adultery, or Sabbath breaking? We can’t. That’s ok, because we are not part of that covenant – and praise God!

But we can take two important concepts from Moses. First, capital punishment is not murder. The same God who said, “Do not murder,” also prescribed death as the punishment for many crimes including murder. There is a difference. That doesn’t mean we have to employ it, but the death penalty is obviously not murder.

The second thing we take from the Law, and related to the first, is, since God instituted the death penalty, capital punishment is not inherently immoral. Too often liberals have said just the opposite, but liberal Christians cannot make that statement without impugning the Almighty Himself.

The Noahic Covenant
Long before Moses, God gave a command to Noah:

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Gen 9:6).

Many have framed their argument against the death penalty around the inherent dignity and value of all human life. Here we see God using the same basis for the institution of capital punishment. He says, because human life is so valuable, the appropriate punishment for taking a life is to forfeit your own.

This passage is also in the Old Testament, but we cannot cast this aside as easily. The Mosaic Covenant was binding on the nation of Israel. This is clearly presented as a universal statement. And if this no longer applies to us, does God’s promise to never again wipe out humanity with a flood (v 8-11) also expire?

The Roman Rulers
If the OT were the sole support of capital punishment, those who oppose it on biblical grounds would have a better case. The truth is, though, the NT specifically mentions capital punishment:

“For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong … if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:3-4).

The sword only serves one function. If this is not talking about capital punishment, what can mean?

This passage is more striking when you look at the preceding paragraph:

“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (12:19).

Leave room for God’s wrath. The ruler is an agent of God’s wrath.

Forgiveness on the Mount
There is one other elephant in the room. Jesus, in fact the whole NT, has a lot to say about forgiveness and revenge:

“But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt 5:39).

I think when Jesus told us to forgive and not take revenge, He meant exactly what He said. But He didn’t mean anything more than what He said.

Jesus tells us how to live life as a subject of His kingdom. But His commands do not tell us how to run a country. As a matter of fact, if you run a criminal justice system according to this principle, you cease to have a criminal justice system.

As Greg Koukl has pointed out, if we can’t give someone the death penalty because “Jesus would forgive,” we also can’t give them life in prison. We can’t give them five years, five days, or five minutes in prison. We can’t even give them a $5 fine. We have to forgive. If Jesus didn’t mean that we can’t have any criminal punishments, then He didn’t mean we can’t use the death penalty.

The Silent Church Fathers
My final appeal will be, again, to tradition. If Jesus’ instructions to forgive require discontinuing capital punishment, we should expect the early church fathers to mention that. They took Jesus’ commands on this topic very seriously – even to the point of a radical pacifism.

The fact is they didn’t talk about this much. The only references I could find to the death penalty in the first couple of centuries of the church were from Tertullian who complained about unjust application of it to Christians but seemed to assume it was a legitimate punishment in the state’s arsenal.

So What?
In an earlier piece I said you shouldn’t vote for someone who holds a position you are convinced is recklessly immoral. But I also don’t think you should reject someone for a carefully considered position you disagree with.

I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind about supporting capital punishment here. In truth, you can be a conservative and reject capital punishment, or you can believe it should be used sparingly. You can reject it as no longer necessary or as an overly dangerous tool in our flawed legal system. I find it justifiable and occasionally necessary but in dire need of serious reform.

The question is not whether you can support capital punishment. The question is whether you can see how a reasonable person could believe that capital punishment is acceptable biblically. If you can do that, then this is not an issue that should drive you away from voting for a candidate.

The next Bible and the Ballot Box will enter into the always-unpleasant battle over abortion.

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Related:
The Bible and the Ballot Box 1: Helping the Poor Biblically
Politics, Religion, and Brotherly Love
Voting for Candidates You Disagree With
Capital Punishment Reform
Immigration Reform and Christianity
Christianity and the Environment: 7 Principles
7 Principles and 1 Hot Topic

Obama, Alexander, and the Gospel

After being sick for a couple of days I get out of bed, turn on the computer, and find out that Sen. Obama has pronounced that we all should teach our kids Spanish. Sooo many things I could say about this, but I want to focus, at least here, on two aspects – let’s call them the civil and the gospel.

Civil Suicide
Alexander the Great conquered a huge chunk of the world by military might. After he conquered them, he Hellenized them – he made them Greek. How did he do that? He changed their language. A language and a culture are intertwined, and you cannot grasp one without the other. This is true even when you technically speak the same language – have you ever encountered the Queen’s English?

Normally, immigrants to a country learn the tongue of their new country. For our nation to choose to teach our children the language of the immigrants would be to loosen our grip on our culture – and there is a distinct American culture, despite what some may say. It would also lessen the motivation for those immigrants to learn the American common tongue. All in all, it’s a bad way to run a society.

Gospel Mandate
Even though it’s a bad civil policy, it’s probably essential for Christians to do just what Sen. Obama has suggested. The number of souls that speak only or mostly Spanish in this country is staggering. While it may make good sense to urge them, for their own sakes, to learn English as quickly as possible – and as loving neighbors we should do that – it is more important to reach out to them with the gospel in whatever language they will be able to understand.

Sometimes the needs of the country and the needs of the Kingdom conflict. When that happens, we have to err to the side of the Kingdom. If we can do that without supporting stupid, self-destructive public policies, we should; if we can’t, then we do what’s right and let the chips fall where they may.

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I'll have some more to say about this at My Three Cents.

New blog

I've started up a new blog, My Three Cents, as a place for all my ponderings and, especially, RedBlueChristian posts that don't really fit here. You might check it out some time.

Review: The Reason for God

Tim Keller’s The Reason for God has been called Mere Christianity for postmoderns. Since he’s a pastor in New York City, one would expect he’s had plenty of practice dealing with young postmoderns and has probably been able to refine his answers based on what does and doesn’t get through to them. That’s why I was looking forward to reading this book.

Once I got my hands on it, however, I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to like the book, I really did, but frankly it’s just not that well written. Parts of it are well-written. Parts of it are beautiful. But in quite a few places Keller leaves you wondering what his point is.

I’ve gotten in the habit of writing a summary sentence or two of a chapter after I read it. Doing that with this book I caught myself filling in material – making my summary say what he meant to say, but not what he said. I could do that because I knew the argument he was making.

I think that may be why so many people are raving about this book – well-read Christians can and will fill in the gaps. You know what he’s trying to say, and you help him say it. The problem is that this book is aimed at non-Christians. They do not know what he is trying to say, so when he fails to make his point clear, they’re going to come away going, “Huh?”

Individual chapters (not all, but more than a couple) fail to come to a clear point. Moreover, the book reads like it should have a single argument running through it – especially the second half – but Keller fails to make that happen. He sums up the material pretty well at the end of the book, but I’m afraid it will be too late for many readers – by that point they may have lost interest or just been hopelessly confused.

The frustrating part of this for me was that I could see how a few more paragraphs could have turned this book into something great. As it is, it’s something … not bad.

That was the negative. Here’s the positive.

There are a lot of gems in this book; I’ll probably quote more than a few in the coming months. Here are a couple:

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies…” (p xvi)

“…[Violent] fanatics… are so not because they’re too committed to the gospel but because they’re not committed to it enough.” (p 57)

He has some truly great chapters as well.

Chapter 12, “The (True) Story of the Cross,” explains the atonement in a way that is easy to understand and faithful to orthodox theology yet avoids common vocabulary that sets us up for the “divine child abuse” complaint.

Chapter 14, “The Dance of God,” is a beautiful explanation of the Trinity that ties evangelism, social justice, community, art, and caring for the environment into a thoroughly trinitarian gospel. It is well worth reading.

In the end, I’d say this book is a good reference for Christians – as an example of talking to pomo seekers and of translating Christian theology into everyday language. I wouldn’t recommend giving it to a non-Christian to read solo, but if you can read it with them and help them see what Keller is trying to say, it might be helpful.

must read
recommended
worth reading {{
not worth reading
avoid it like the plague

Helping the Poor Biblically

The Bible and the Ballot Box 1

If we want to be faithful followers of Jesus, we have to let our faith inform every aspect of our lives – not just what we do on Sunday. Nowhere is this more important than how we, as citizens of a republic, let our faith shape how we vote and otherwise influence our government.

I don’t know many people who would deny that the Bible has a lot to say about the poor and how we should treat them. The question is do we actually know what it has to say? What does the Bible tell us to do for the poor?

The Bible’s instructions regarding the poor can be loosely divided in two categories: charity and justice.

Charity
The first command regarding charity in the Mosaic Law is "If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy… charge him no interest” (Ex 22:25).

The next is this: “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest… Leave them for the poor and the alien” (Lev 19:9-10).

Self-sufficiency: These and other biblical commands regarding charity show two interesting features; first, we see a preference toward helping the poor take care of themselves rather than just receiving charity.

In some cases, God’s people are told simply give to the poor. The needy were given the OT tithe every three years (Deut 14:28-29), and Jesus told his followers, “Give to the one who asks you” (Matt 5:42), but there is a biblical emphasis on self-sufficiency rather than dependency. Even as the NT church was instructed to take care of the poor, they were also told “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thess 3:10, emphasis added) – i.e., a person should do what he can for himself.

This philosophy appears in later Christian and Jewish works. Maimonedes called it the ladder of charity: “The highest degree of charity…is he who strengthens the hand of his poor fellow Jew and gives him a gift or [an interest-free] loan or enters into a business partnership with the poor person.”

Likewise in the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, church leaders were instructed to provide “to the widows the care of husbands; to those of suitable age, marriage; to the artificer, work; to the unable, commiseration; to the strangers, an house; to the hungry, food…” (4.1.2, emphasis mine).

Both traditions thought it preferable to help the able-bodied poor find work and maintain dignity and self-reliance.

To the individual: Secondly, the commands in scripture are aimed at the individual. Yes, these commands were given to a community, but each individual was responsible for carrying them out, and he was answerable to God alone for his failure to do so.

In the NT, it appears at first glance that the fledgling church of Jerusalem made a group effort to take care of the poor (Acts 4:32-5:11), but even there the individual made the decision (5:4) with the apostles simply coordinating the effort.

It’s also worth noting that, where the local church was taking care of the poor, the onus was on an able-bodied individual to take care of his extended family and keep the burden off the community (1 Tim 5:3-8).

Redistribution?: Completely missing from the Bible is any suggestion that some central body (e.g., the government) should take people’s money or property and give it to the poor. For some reason Luke 12:33 (and similar verses) is popular to quote as supporting liberal social policies. But when Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor,” that does not give you license to sell your neighbor’s possessions.

Justice
But what about “justice?” Social justice is the cry of many politically active Christians today, and justice is an important principle in the Bible. But what does justice mean?

Jeremiah, one of the prophets who cried out for justice, wrote, “Woe to him to builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying for their labor” (22:13). Here, “justice” seems to be paying your laborers.

The OT is full of commands to treat the poor and the alien properly. This is justice:
“Do not mistreat an alien” (Ex 22:21).
“Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan” (Ex 22:22).
“Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight” (Lev 19:13b).
“Do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly” (Lev 19:15b).
“Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity” (Lev 19:35).

These commands are about treating everyone fairly, not taking advantage of anyone, not defrauding people because they are weak. According to Jeremiah 22 and Ezekiel 18 and the other prophets, this is being “just,” not giving the poor money.

Modern liberals who say “justice” in these passages is government redistribution of wealth are reading their own definition of justice into the Bible.

Summary
To summarize, regarding the poor the Bible instructs us to be
1) A community of individuals who
2) if possible, help the poor provide for himself,
3) if it’s not possible, provide him his daily needs,
4) and make sure that the poor is denied neither wages he is due nor justice in court.

So what?
So what’s the purpose in all this? Lately the Christian Left has been accusing the Christian Right of ignoring the Bible on any issues other than abortion and same-sex marriage.

The truth is there is no biblical mandate to enforce charity upon society as a whole or upon the individual taxpayer. Each individual will answer to God for how he regards his possessions and the poor, but you can’t make a biblical case that the government has a responsibility to step in and pick up the slack.

That is not to say that we can’t, as a society, decide that we want to take care of the poor in that way. But you cannot accuse conservatives of ignoring the biblical mandate to take care of the poor. In fact it is the liberal position that strays from the Bible. Until the reform of the nineties – created by Republicans in Congress and signed by a more conservative Democrat – the system even discouraged people on welfare from working. That is the unscriptural policy.

The conservative approach to helping the poor via personal charity and tax policies that encourage economic growth (i.e., job creation) seems to be well within the scope of the biblical picture.

So to the people wondering if they can be conservatives and Christians, on this issue, the answer is yes.

The next “Bible and the Ballot Box” will look at the issue of capital punishment.

Part of Can I Be Christian and Conservative?

Do Denominations Disprove Christianity?

When dealing with skeptics you may hear, “If Christianity is true, why are there so many denominations?” Or “How can Christianity be ‘the truth’ if you can’t even agree amongst yourselves?”

This person wants to claim that the theological differences between various groups of Christians proves that our beliefs are inconsistent. That’s obviously not true, but it can be hard to explain why off the cuff.

We can’t deny that Christians disagree with each other on a lot of things. We disagree about how to govern a church, how to worship, and how salvation works. We argue about authority, tradition, and money. We differ over when Jesus is going to come, how Jesus is going to come, and what is going to happen when Jesus comes.

But we do not differ over the presence of sin, the need for a savior, the fact of the cross or the resurrection, or whether Jesus will return. We know what the Good News is, who needs to hear it, and what will happen to those who don’t accept it.

In short, the basics of Christianity are accepted by pretty much everybody, and the fact that we cannot agree about a variety of secondary issues has no bearing on whether or not the core tenets of the faith are true.

I Don’t Believe in the Heathen in Africa

I don’t believe in the heathen in Africa. I know that sounds odd. I mean I don’t believe in the sob story often posed as an objection to the exclusivity of Christ.

I’m sure you’ve heard it: If someone can only go to heaven by believing in Jesus, what about the heathen in Africa (or South America or New York) who’s never heard of Jesus?

I don’t think such a creature exists. Oh, there are people who die having never heard the gospel. And, frankly, the Bible says they have enough information that God feels He can hold them accountable for their choices.

But I don’t think people go to hell simply because no one got to them with the gospel. You don’t have to be a Calvinist to believe that if there is someone who would believe, the gospel will be delivered.

In Kings, Naaman was sent to Elisha by a girl in the right place at the right time. In Acts, the Spirit sent Philip to the Ethiopian who was ripe for the harvest and Peter to Cornelius, the God-fearing centurion. The same happens today as people in Muslim countries have dreams sending them to find Christian missionaries. I have no doubt it has happened for 2000 years.

If you’re feeling called to go to Africa, you may be the one who will be sent to the next Naaman or Cornelius. If you’re not feeling called to Africa, you may be the one who is sent to the family across the street.

Either way, we don’t need to spend a lot of energy worrying about those poor folks in the far corners of the world. "The Lord knows those who are His.”

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Image by Brett Jones from Flickr

A Composite Gospel

Sometimes history can shed a little light on the present.

If I understand it correctly, the philosophy of Gnosticism can be summed up as “spirit is good, matter is bad.” They viewed the material world as a prison from which we should seek release. Gnostic Christianity was an attempt to blend this view with Christian teachings.

The result was a variety of views that contradicted mainstream Christian teaching. One taught that Christ did not have a physical body, another that Jesus was just a man infused with the Christ-spirit. Still another said Jesus’ physical body died to release his spirit from the material realm.

Of course, if matter was bad, a physical resurrection – for either Jesus or us – was not a desirable thing, so they spiritualized the gospel to be enlightenment and freedom from the physical world.

Though they had access to the Jewish and Christian writings, they rejected most of these and created their own. After all, if the physical world was bad, anything that suggested that Jesus, or the Father, had a hand in creating it wouldn’t work. Some even taught that the God in Genesis was a different god from the Father of Jesus.

How did this lunacy come about? People took the philosophy of their day, Gnosticism, to Christianity rather than getting their philosophy from it. Despite what Christian texts said, their philosophy said matter was bad, so they had to reinterpret the gospels and the gospel to get a religion than made sense to their philosophy. And wackiness ensued.

If I understand it correctly, the philosophy of postmodernism in a nutshell is a radical skepticism about our ability to discern what is true. As people take this philosophy to Christianity, perhaps the Gnostics can serve as a warning. Not all human philosophies are fatally flawed, but we should be more skeptical about the tenets of the philosophy du jour and how it can relate to a religion that has been ironed out over the course of two millennia.

Already there is a great deal of concern over the church that is emerging from the fusion of postmodernism and Christianity. This task requires caution and a great deal of humility about more than just epistemology.

A Christian in a Lexus and Other Perplexing Thoughts

If you go to church in a middle or upper middle class area, next Sunday count the number of luxury cars in the parking lot. Aren’t there better ways for a Christian to use his money than to buy a Lexus? If you bought a Toyota or a Ford, how many people could you feed or clothe with the difference in car payments? Does that matter?

A Witness to the Rich?
In church, I’ve actually heard preachers and teachers defend Christians living expensive lifestyles. After all, they say, someone has to witness to the rich. But is living just like them the way to witness to the rich? What if they saw people who make as much money as them living simple lifestyles while being radically generous with their income and counting it blessed? What kind of witness would that be?

Motives?
At the risk of being unkind, I wonder why preachers say things like the above. Do they really think that is appropriate? Are they afraid of offending, even driving away, the affluent in their congregation? Are they afraid of losing their tithes? Why are churches always struggling to find more money? Are they doing things that they don’t need to do? If so, why?

What About Value?
Back to the Lexus, there are times when spending a little more now saves you money in the long run. When does that happen? Where do you draw the line? If a $25,000 car lives twice as long as a $12,000 car, is that worth the extra? What if a $50,000 car lives twice as long as a $25k car? The same question applies to shoes, clothes, and computers. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for. Where does that end? At what price does that no longer matter?

Where Does It End?
If I decide to live less “affluent,” how far do I go? If I really wanted to, I could live without air conditioning. Should I? Is it wrong to buy news socks when I could sew up the old ones and give away the money? Which would do better for my soul, to by a book on Christian spirituality or to give the $20 to a poor person?

My Kids or Yours?
Is it right to spend money to make sure my kids have pesticide-free vegetables, or should I worry more about the child who doesn’t have enough to eat at all? If the latter, how far do I go – healthy food is expensive, should we live off cold cuts and mashed potatoes so other kids can eat rice? At what point do other people's needs outweigh the needs of my family? Is this kind of thing why Paul said it would be better if we didn't marry?

I don’t have the answer to a single one of these questions. I’d appreciate any thoughts anyone has about any of this.