I spent the past couple of weekends with my good friends in Cleveland, OH. I was the guest speaker at 707, and they’ve posted my first message online. You can listen here:
Or you can watch the video of the whole service here:
How many of you are dieting currently? Just wondering. Anyone experiencing any anxiety over the fact that swimsuit season is upon us? Is it just me?
We live in strange times. Tyra Banks, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss are all famous because they happen to be taller than 5′9″, have high cheekbones, long legs, thin ankles and straight but not too prominent noses.
In our world how you look is who you are. We are completely preoccupied with physical externals like beauty and wealth — visible signs of status. That’s why the biblical story of Esther is so interesting. Here’s a young woman who is chosen to be Queen simply because of her good looks. She wins a beauty contest and becomes Queen to a frat-boy King — a man obsessed with image maintenance.
But she demonstrates that a person’s character is far more important in God’s economy than a person’s physical appearance.
As we move into the summer, it’s important for Christians to think through how we deal with people and beauty and beautiful people and physical appearance. Ask yourself: Do I treat people differently based on how they look?
Karen Lee-Thorpe wrote a book a few years ago called Why Beauty Matters. She cites a study in which 48% of American women say they feel “wholesale displeasure” about their bodies. In other words, they don’t like one thing about how they look. Many of the others surveyed say there was at least one thing they would like to change about their appearance.
Fathers tend to be more involved with attractive babies. Adults smile more and hold pretty babies more than babies that are judged plain by independent observers. This starts very early in life, and children can learn quickly that attractiveness is often the key to affection.
Do you treat people differently based on how they look? Do you pay more attention to people who are physically attractive by our society’s standards? Do you reinforce the message that physical beauty is the key to affection and attention?
Let’s be honest about this stuff.
Do you ever show any kind of reverse discrimination? Do you ever assume that because someone is pretty they must be shallow? If someone is attractive but shy do you assume they’re stuck up? If you’re with someone who is more attractive than you, do you ever find yourself becoming competitive or jealous?
God’s community must be different from the world. In God’s community, who you are is more than just how you look. This is a good place to begin drawing a distinction between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this World: We do not treat people differently based on how they look.
We’ve talked about this briefly before, but it was a long time ago. One of the most intriguing arguments for the existence of God came from a French monk who lived during the Middle Ages. His name was Anselm, and he had been heavily influenced by Augustine’s thought that a person must believe first in order to understand. Following Augustine, though, Anselm also believed that once a person believed, their faith would necessarily seek understanding.
His explanation of why God must exist is often referred to as the “ontological argument”.
Anselm (1033-1109) was born in Aosta, Piedmont — in modern Italy. He entered the Benedictine monastary of Bed, in Normandy, when he was 26. He went on to become the prior and finally the abbot there, before being named the Bishop of Canterbury (1093-1109). Though he remained Bishop until he died, he spent the majority of that time in exile because of his constant bickering with kings over the balance of power between church and state.
He was the first great theologican of the midieval period and founded a school of thought known as Scholasticism. The church was gaining political power and momentum, but Anselm brought theology back to the foreground and restored it to its place of prominence by allowing philosophy a distinct role in theology. During the centuries after Roman rule had crumbled throughout Great Britain — The “Dark Ages” — monastaries became great centers of learning and culture.
Anselm was once asked by the monks in his monstary if he could prove the existence of God. He set out to provice a “proof” that would work by reason but which would line up with his Christian faith: “The rational mind alone of all creatures is able to mount an investigation of the supreme being.”
Eventually, he produced the Monologion in 1071. It was a huge book that basically asserted that since we can see degrees of goodness in the world, these forms of goodness must ultimately come from an Ultimate Form of Goodness — which we can call God. Sounds a little like Plato. Unfortunately, the book was so difficult to read that the monks asked him if he could sum it up — preferably in one sentence.
This stumped him for some time until one evening, during Mass, it came to him. A year after the publication of his enormously unreadable Monologion, Anselm produced the Proslogion (originally titled “Faith Seeking Understanding”). There he defines God as “that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought”.
Basically, the argument goes like this:
It’s a frustrating argument, isn’t it? One critic said it’s like watching a magician pull a rabbit out of his hat. You don’t exactly know how the rabbit got in there, but you’re pretty sure the magician had more to do with it than magic or the rabbit did.
So, what do you think? Did Anselm express the obvious? Or did he just define God into existence?
The Christian understanding of God grew out of the Jewish understanding of God. The Hebrew Bible declares in the Book of Deuteronomy:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
According to this great statement (known as the Shema), we can learn several things about this God. For example, he is not one of many gods. He does not fit into a polytheistic system like the Egyptian, Greek or Roman gods. Jews and Christians — along with Muslims — are monotheistic.
We also learn that this God is personal. He is not some distant, unapproachable, cosmic force. He can actually be engaged relationally. In fact, that’s what he wants — to be in relationship with us individually and collectively.
From a further reading of the Old Testament we find that this God is:
CREATOR. He made the world. The Bible begins with the concept that, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Early Christians claimed that God created the world ex nihilo (“out of nothing”). This claim was made more for philosophical reasons than for biblical reasons. It was important for them to show that God was first and foremost in the universe, that God was distinct from creation and that all creation is completely dependent upon him for its existence.
LORD. God is Ruler and King of everything there is. As such, he alone is worthy of worship.
SELF-SUFFICIENT. God has no need. He is not dependent upon anything in order to exist or to be God. We exist because God created us, but God simply exists. God is also eternal — having neither a beginning nor an end.
HOLY. God is totally other, mysterious, terrifying. The more we become aware of God’s character, the more we see our own flaws and imperfections. As a result, we are overcome with an awareness of our need for forgiveness.
GOOD. Fortunately, the Christian God is good. God created a world that was “very good” and is still basically good even though it’s been marred by the introduction of sin and evil. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God is pictured as a Father — unlike the Muslim God, Allah. Specifically, in the New Testament, Jesus calls God “Abba”, which was a word similar to “Daddy”. Because God is not needy, his love for us is not conditioned on our response to him. He does not love us in order to get anything in return; he simply loves because he is loving. He is not good so we will be good to him; he is good to us because he is good.
This is the God whose existence philosphers and theologians like Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas have tried to prove. For the next few days, we’ll look at how some have tried to prove and disprove his existence. For today, look back through the list of qualities above and think through the implications of such a God. When we try to talk to non-believing people, are we sure this is the God we’re telling them about?
What does it mean to be made in the image of a God like that?
The hype surrounding The Da Vinci Code is finally starting to die down, but the questions raised by the novel and movie will not go away anytime soon. Just look at some of Amazon.com’s bestselling books on Christianity: Misquoting Jesus (a book about how we cannot trust the New Testament documents because they’ve been altered); The Jesus Papers (a book about how Jesus conspired with Pontius Pilate to fake his death); The Jesus Dynasty (a book about how Jesus’ father was really a Roman soldier and the religion he founded became a family business until Paul interrupted James’ attempts to rule the church).
The average Christian in America cannot tell you how we got the Bible, and — when pressed to give an answer about why they believe what they believe — can maybe muster a catchy but ineffective slogan like, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”
With all that in mind, I’ve put together a one-day seminar examining the evidence that has led me to accept the Bible as a credible record of actual, historical events. If you’re interested in hosting this seminar, leave me a comment here or send me an email.
For centuries, philosophers and theologians have struggled with proving the existence of God. Some of the greatest thinkers of all time have wrestled over this issue at length, because proving God exists is vastly different from proving anything else.
If God exists, he does so in a way that is different from, say, a tree or a fish. If God exists, he must exist beyond our senses. We can’t smell God or hear him or taste him (I know the Bible verses — let’s not pick nits here, please — they don’t mean God can actually be tasted in the same way a lemon can be tasted).
Really, now we’re dealing with two questions: (1) “Does God exist?”; (2) “How does God exist?”
These two questions keep philosophers and theologians up at night and have since the time of the Ancient Greeks — probably before them, even. There are three players in the ancient world who take the best runs at answer the questions: Plato, Aristotle and Augustine.
Let me explain what Plato believed. Wait…no…it’s too much. Let me sum up.
Plato (who was the first person we know of to use the term theologia) believed in two worlds: the world we can see and another world we cannot see. The world we can see is a cheap imitation of the world we cannot see. All the trees here on earth are inferior copies of the one real tree that exists in this other world. The greatest and most ultimate thing in this unseen world is “The Form of The Good”. For Plato, that was God.
Aristotle was a student of Plato, and he believed that the world we can see is the real world. But he also believed that everything that exists has two parts: material and structure. He understood that there must exist something (or someone) outside of the system so material can be given structure. He named that something/someone “The Unmoved Mover” and attributed all change and motion in this world to it. For Aristotle, that was God.
Augustine (who we’ve talked about before) believed that there had to be an “Ultimate Truth” to account for all the universal truths in the human mind. For Augustine, that was God.
The problem here is that all three of these definitions of God are philosophical definitions. As a result of them, we know little or nothing of the character and nature — the theology — of God. Platonic and Aristotelian thought was incorporated into Christianity so early theologians could have the vocabulary they needed to be taken seriously, but we still don’t know what kind of God these philosophers and theologians were trying to prove.
The simple answer is that they were trying to prove the existence of the Christian God; they believed that God to be the one, true God. Their assumption was that they could gain an understanding of the character and nature of the Christian God through the revelation found in the Bible. They also trusted the faith they found in their own experiences with this God.
But they needed more than revelation and faith (and so do we) if they were going to make their claim credible to the rest of the world. They needed to use reason in harmony with revelation and faith.
Revelation and faith provide the framework within which reason can do its work.
Wow! That was heavy for a Friday afternoon! Lots to chew on over the weekend.
I had a conversation with a guy last night who says his boss at work is trying everything he can to maintain his belief that there is no God. From the description, it sounds like the boss is really grasping at straws. The guy was earnestly asking what I would say to the boss, and how he could try to pursuade his boss that God does exist and has spoken into human history.
It’s an interesting thing to think through. How do you prove anything?
2 + 2 = 4
Can you prove it?
I love my wife.
Can you prove it?
Water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit.
Can you prove it?
God exists.
Can you prove it?
Proving something means demonstrating certainty where there has been uncertainty. Anyone who watches CSI knows that the show usually hinges on proving something. Today, in labs across the world, people are doing research, trying to prove some theory before their grant money runs out.
Some kinds of proof are easier to accept than others. Mathematical proof, for example, is generally accepted as certain. You can demonstrate that two plus two is four. Scientific proof is merely considered “highly probable”. You can demonstrate that an experiment works out the same way every time you’ve performed it in the past, but you can’t demonstrate that it will continue to work out that way every time you perform it in the future. In science, there’s always room for doubt; so, you can’t ever really say something’s scientifically true for absolute certain.
Now, what about philosophy? Is it possible to talk about “philosophical proof”? Philosophy deals with all the different ways of thinking in the world. These ways of thinking have morphed and mutated as cultures have given way to other cultures, and our understanding of the world has changed — sometimes for the better — sometimes for the worse. We may still ask some of the same questions the Ancient Greeks or the early Christians did, but it’s unlikely that we’ll accept their reasoning as infallible. We have different presuppositions than they did, and it’s going to take some interpretation of their reasoning before we accept it.
So, where do we begin?
I’ve been meaning to tell you that we got a dog a few weeks ago. The Easter Bunny brought us jelly beans and a puppy. He’s an Australian Shepherd, and his name is Coco. The first name the girls came up with was Princess, but then they realized that Princess had “boy parts” so they changed his name to Coco.
He’s pretty good with the girls. They’ve done everything short of dress him up as Barbie, and he just rolls with it.
Well, yesterday we took him for a walk down to the swim/tennis area of our neighborhood. No one ever plays tennis down there, so I figured I’d run him around on the courts while the girls dipped their feet in the pool. I found a tennis ball and started throwing it around for him to chase. He loves playing fetch.
Then I started throwing the ball against the wall — kind of playing “keep away” from the dog. I’m throwing the ball against the wall, letting it bounce a couple of times and throwing it again — like when I was a kid pretending to field ground balls. Coco is going nuts trying to get the ball.
I toss one a little lower than the rest, and the ball is bouncing right into my hand. I pull the ball up into the air to throw it again — and at the exact moment I grip the ball, Coco bites down on the ball — inadvertently grabbing the fleshy part of my middle finger (between the first and second digits) in the process. Puppy teeth are a lot sharper than grown-up doggy teeth.
A trip to the emergency room and five stitches later….
I saw the movie Saturday evening. The theatre was about 80% capacity. I was surprised how many people brought their kids with them. There’s stuff in the movie I wouldn’t want my children to see.
I didn’t think it was very good. It was really long, and it felt like it ended three times. It just kept going and going and going. Ron Howard softened it a lot, and that made the story weaker, I think.
The movie wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t very good, either.
Still, I spoke with some folks this weekend who went out and protested. They made signs about how The Da Vinci Code crucified Christ all over again. They handed out tracts to anyone who came close and shouted at people who stayed far away. I don’t think they deterred anyone from seeing the movie — it did more than $77 million over the weekend.
And it’s still got me scratching my head over what a Christian response to this ought to look like. Most of the people who have talked to me about this have suggested what amounts to “religious” responses. But few of those people have suggested anything distinctively Christian.
A Christian is someone who has made a commitment to following Jesus, to imitating him in his thoughts and values and actions. So, when we ask what a Christian response to The Da Vinci Code should look like, we’re really asking WWJDWDVC: What Would Jesus Do With The Da Vinci Code?
Maybe it’s just me, but I have a hard time imagining Jesus picketing or being so casual with the language of crucifixion. I have a hard time imagining him handing out tracts or shouting at people from a distance. Those tactics seem too meanspirited and impersonal for what I know of Jesus’ character and personality.
So, what do you think? WWJDWDVC?
Boycott? “Other-cott”? Ignore it? Embrace it?
Lots of folks are suggesting different responses to the release of Sony Pictures’ The Da Vinci Code. Some will picket and protest; others will say we ought to thank Dan Brown. Millions will wait in line and pay their money today to see what all the hype is about. Millions will wait for the movie to come out on dvd. I wonder how many people stayed up until the wee hours of this morning trying to finish reading it before they go see it tonight!
There are plenty of Christians who think we’re making more out of this than necessary. I’ve gotten email from folks saying, “It’s just fiction!” That’s naive and potentially dangerous — especially in light of some of the research coming out. According to George Barna, 53% of American readers of the novel say the book has been helpful in their “personal spiritual growth and understanding”. More than 2,000,000 Americans say the book has changed their belief system some. More than half of the readers in Great Britain say they are now more likely to believe Jesus was married and had a child than they were before they read the book.
So, whether it should or not, whether you believe it could or not, The Da Vinci Code is more than fiction. I agree with Time Magazine editors who say it’s “moral influence”.
As the Christian community and Christian individuals think through how we ought to respond, I want to challenge us to think clearly by asking a question:
What makes a response uniquely Christian?
If we boycott, “other-cott”, ignore it or embrace it — how are any of those distinctively Christian responses?