House With or Without a Foundation

I like to watch House. I haven't particularly known why. He's vulgar, impetuous, misanthropic, atheistic and so intelligent he thinks he's right all the time, which he isn't, and right often enough to make him annoying.

Today, as I watch the umpteenth rerun of House, I finally realize why I like to watch him:

He's what I would be except for the grace of God. Pathetically reliant on my own conflicted reason and rationale. Yet there is a more sure way and as I am submitted to God in the intent of His perfect way, I can see clearly the futility of this conflicted sinful nature that yet calls flames of judgment to lick the bottom of my feet as I press on toward God's perfect peace in His glory.

And may it be that I never look on such characters as House and consider myself any better lest I become the Pharisee who thanks God he is not like the sinner.

The Mind of God in the Believer

Continuing on my observations regarding the duplicity of the human mind, I have to ask myself what causes the desire to assent, or even to submit, to truth once truth is understood? If I assent, I at least acknowledge that something is true whether I choose to alter my actions accordingly. To submit to the truth is to reevaluate the impact of that truth on all other beliefs currently held, discarding false beliefs and adopting new beliefs altered by the revelation of truth. This represents a fundamental change in presuppositional structure on the ideological level that serves to harmonize intellectual and experiential presoppositional structures.

To be sure, a similar effect can be observed by similar submission to a lie as though it were true whether the individual realizes the lack of veracity of the lie or not. I submit that truth is intrinsically discernable as such and indoctrination into false ideologies involves the intentional and deceptive disharmonization of the intellectual and experiential as though there were no contradiction.

Brian Burgess spoke along these lines a couple of weeks ago at church:

Inasmuch as truth is intrinsically discernable, I ask the question: by what means do we submit to it? There is no experience, no intellectual consideration, and no manner of human physiology that we can observe contributes to the inclination to do so. I have a study of faith on the back burner for a very long time. What is considered by many to be definitive of faith is Hebrews 11:1. The NASB and ESV both translate it:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The NIV puts it a little simpler:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

I wouldn't call this definitive of faith, but rather particular to it. In other words, I believe scripture has a much broader take on faith than this single statement, but this certainly holds true of faith. It's like saying that my car is convenient transportation for me. "Convenient transportation" is not definitive of my car, but is rather a key factor in understanding my car. However, my car is more than simply "convenient transportation". It's a sangria red 2002 ZX3 Ford Focus with a 5-speed manual transmission. If I gave you its VIN, that would be definitive as it would certainly make it distinct from all other sangria red 2002 ZX3 Ford Foci with 5-speed manual trannies.

In 1859 Jean Francois Gravelot, billed as The Great Blondin, performed a series of tightrope acts above the Niagara Falls. One was to push a wheelbarrow across. Given some of his other stunts on the rope over the falls, such as cooking breakfast, doing laundry and carrying his business manager on his back, this was not particulalry remarkable. However, the crowd loved it nonetheless and urged him to do it again. He asked if they thought he could carry a person in the wheelbarrow and they shouted their excited belief that he could. When he invited anyone to get in the wheelbarrow, he had none willing to volunteer.

I have no doubt that every person in the crowd honestly believed that he could push a person successfully across the rope in the wheelbarrow. However, none of them had the faith to trust their life to him. In the New Testament the words translated "belief" and "faith" are the same, notably in James 2:19,20 where a distinction between belief and faith is made.

Skip Cartin talked about this a couple of weeks ago:

For the believer in Christ, the primary motivator is the Holy Spirit. He reveals truth to us. He also gives us the desire for Him. One debate I had with a Muslim centered around a discussion of the Christian doctrine of the trinity. As the discussion progressed to who God is in the person of the Holy Spirit and how He indwells believers, I talked about how He reveals God to those He indwells. The Muslim stated (probably tongue in cheek) that I had the Holy Spirit and could understand these things, but he only had his own mind to think with.

David Moss, also a couple of weeks ago, expounded on this in Sunday School:

The theme of self-evaluation is prevalent in all these messages. The Holy Spirit makes us more self-aware. We become aware of our motivations more and more as we daily submit to His leadership. Without the Holy Spirit, the will of a man is bound only to the intellectual and the experiential presuppositions. There is no freedom in that. No one can make a choice outside of God's created order. No freer can a man's mind be than to be in intimate communion with his Creator. The Holy Spirit frees our will. Truth is compelling. A will so freed by God's Holy Spirit is free to chose truth over limited experience. If Reformed theology can be explicitly summed up in the five points of Dortian Calvinism, then the implicit sixth point is that not one of the elect is saved unwillingly. As such I would argue that faith once committed to action is irrevocable.

And by what power do we live in this difficult world? Skip ended the sermon I excerpted above with this:

On a final note, these series have been going on in my church for some time. This unified message was not planned and the same message has been taught in different forms for a few weks now in my Sunday School as wel as in both Sunday morning and evening sermons. I think God's trying to tell us something.

When Does Life Begin?

You're out of touch if you haven't heard any arguments in the historic and ongoing abortion debate. Here are some of the different opinions on when life begins:

1. Conception - when the sperm fertilizes the egg
2. Heartbeat - when the baby's heart begins to pump blood
3. Nervous system activity - when the baby can feel pain
4. Viability - capacity to exist unaided outside the womb
5. Birth - the point the body of the baby fully emerges from the birth canal or is surgically removed from the uterus by C-section (this is the view that supports partial-birth abortion)
6. Breathing - when the baby is sucking air, aided or unaided.
7. When the child is wanted - this supports euthanasia where the baby can be killed as though the preganancy was aborted (apparently Obama's view since he supports allowing surviving babies of botched abortions to die)

The problem with all of these views is that the arguments are made purely on existential grounds. Most of my fellow pro-lifers quote the Bible, which is good, but they don't follow the foundational logic of the Bible when they move to the debate on when life begins.


Jeremiah 1:5

5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."


Psalm 139

13 For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother's womb.
14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.


Consider also the definition of life. Many understand the Biblical definitions of death. There is the death of the body, but the soul is not annihilated. Spiritual death is not complete destruction; spiritual death is separation from God. The same distinction can be made with life. We know that animals have life. Genesis presents them as "living" although they do not have the same spiritual relationship with God that we were created to have. They are physically alive, but they have no spiritual life. Human beings have physical life, but more importantly, we have souls that will not cease to exist. Even more importantly, for the children of God He has given eternal life that although our bodies may die momentarily, we cannot die and will be raised up as Christ was raised up from the dead.

Even before we were born, there are passages that hold a view that we yet existed in our fathers' loins.

Existential arguments fall apart. We look for a moment in time when life begins to support an understanding of our reverence for the gift of life that God has given us and the corect observation that we were created in the image of God. But when does this life begin? If it begins at conception, it seems reasonable to place the value on the unique DNA. "Here," we say, "is the indication that this is no mere piece of dead flesh. It is unique from the mother.

However, what do we say of identical twins? If the uniqueness of the DNA is all-important, then identical twins are not two people, but one. Therefore, if this argument is true we could expect to discover which is the right one and kill the other. After all, the other is no better than a clone.

Take the importance of DNA to the other extreme. If DNA is all-important, should we not mourn the death of each cell that dies on our bodies? Each cell of my body contains a complete set of my DNA. It's amazing to think that each of us started off as a single one of these cells. So, if I slough off a few skin cells, an important part of me has died in the process because each one of those cells contain all of who I am in them. When I urinate, dead blood cells are taken away from my body. Each one of them carries my essence in their DNA, or so the argument goes, so I should mourn their loss. Do we not mourn the loss of an entire appendage when something is amputated? Why not a measly few cells?

Philosophers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche taught us that existence preceeds essence. That means that the things of this temporal world determine the truth value of any concievable intangible thing. This stands contrary to what Plato considered in his idea of the logos. He held that there is a world where everything is perfect and this world is a mere shadow of that world and the logos was a particular manifestation of these shadows. This implies that the perfect, or ideological, world is foundational to the imperfect, or temporal, world. John agreed to some extent when he defined logos in the person of Jesus Christ.

So, if our life in these bodies is temporal and God gives is eternal life, then is the eternal not foundational to the temporal? To argue otherwise is to deny our Creator. That's why existentialism is fundamentally atheistic. So, what is life in this temporal world? Do we identify a nere begninning and ending for pragmatic purposes? If it is merely a pragmatic exercise, then we have the cart before the horse. Without life, there is no need for pragmatism. Pragmatism exists for the purpose of serving life and therefore cannot adequately define life.

Rather, intent is the method whereby life is manifest in this world. Intent is the stuff of spirituality. We know the Bible where we are told that the law can only condemn us. The difference between following the law and being righteous is intent. The difference between spiritual life and death is the intent of the Creator to His creation. The difference between life and death in the body is the response of creation to the intent of the Creator. His intentions are not fully known to us, but we can only respond to what He has given us to know. Our existence is not ours, but the manifestation of our spiritual essence, for some death and for some life, but for all a body to bear this truth in temporal life.

Therefore, it is not simply that there are people who no longer exist or who do not exist yet, but all people ever have an absolute condition of earthly life for the purpose of glorifying God, whether spiritually alive or dead. If one is a singe cell, one is alive. If one loses many cells through natural processes throughout one's life and yet bodily lives, one retains an existential center of existence for the purpose of bearing God's eternal purpose in life. It is not the body that is the center of life, but the Spirit of God who gives life. That's why abortion is wrong. Life does not begin. Life is given.

Elizabeth Wall - The Measure of a Life

For those of you who have been waiting, this is the graduation memorial video for Elizabeth Wall. Her mom narrates.



I wasn't sure about the quote from Tozer toward the end and the more I pondered it the better I liked it. It fits well with the song the family sings: "In Jesus' name we press on." On toward a new day tomorrow? No, but on toward a new day today. This is the measure of a life - not that our hope is in the future or that our hope is in the past, but that the hope of Christ is for now. We press on as though to win the race, not hoping for the trophy, but that our steps continue. For we don't reach the end of the race by forgetting that we have another step to take right now. And we don't ever reach the end of a life that is eternal. Emmanuel, the Christ, is with us now. His salvation is available to us now to be sure, but beyond that we are His presence and those to whom we minister present an opportunity to minister to Christ in them. It's no mistake that my previous post is about how we minister to each other. The difference we make in each other's lives is the measure of our life in Christ - not that there is any extravagant and immediate evidence as though to say, "Look at my good life!" But the measure is that which God uses of us in our weakness. I've always had a heart for the underdog. Maybe that's why sports don't interest me much: I always pull for the loser. Competition is okay and comeuppance is short lived, but the losing team that sticks it out bravely has the greater award.

What is the measure of Elizabeth's life? Not that it was short. Not that it took a lot of resources to keep her alive as long as she was. She made a difference in the lives of her immediate family. She made a difference in her church. She made a difference in the children to whom she ministered the gospel. she made difference in the lives of the community at large. She has made a difference in my life even now. May she make a difference in yours.

Why Surrogacy is Not Choosing Life

Newsweek ran an article about the use of surrogate mothers recently. They spun the practice in a positive light. Why spin it in a positive light if no one objects? Well, many object - including Christians who are also pro-lifers. You would think that pro-lifers would be all about surrogacy. After all, here are people who want to make babies rather than kill them.

One could argue that in an age where babies are being killed in utero by the millions that there would be no need for surrogate mothers. There are orphanages around the world full of kids that need good parents. There are kids in the Unites States that need good parents. These are good considerations. It's a needed minisitry to open a home to children. However, this argument is utilitarian rather than foundational.

"Choosing life" is an oxymoron. The Author of life is the only one qualified and capable of "choosing" it and He chooses to give it to whom He will. Abortion is requested for many reasons and is almost always an unwillingness to sacrificially submit to the needs of another, for that's what parenthood is. Surrogacy is the solution to fulfill the felt need to propogate using one's own genetic material. Both abortion and surrogacy are selfish endeavors and controvert a principle that life is sacrificial. Inasmuch as God is the Author of life and we gain life only by being in communion with Him, He demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. This death gives life, and not life that is a mere breath upon the earth, but life eternal. How much more should we, creatures of the Creator, likewise endeavor to live sacrificially and in submission to Him and even the least of His people if we have this life?

Otherwise, the dead know nothing.

The Rhythm of Life

My old drama instructor encouraged me and my fellow thespian hopefuls to perform with rhythm. As we rehearsed, she would clap her hands to indicate the tempo into which we were to place our actions on stage. Inasmuch as art imitates life, the art of acting must imitate the natural rhythms of life.

My high school band director taught me everything from how to appreciate and interpret music from the Romantic period to the philosophies of jazz improvisation. His lesson was that music, with its vast variety of rhythms, tempos, tones and timbres, is a form of acting. That its artistic imitation of life had a sense of rhythm: the placement of events in time with a certain regularity; the dramatic tension and release of melodies and harmonies.

God created order in this universe. Although we have polluted it with our rebellion against God, His creation yet breathes, inhaling and exhaling, and its heart beats. All this is still evident through the fog of our sin.

The following presentations are good examples of the art that imitates the rhythm of life.

Stomp Out Loud:




Animusic


This was "Animusic - 06 - Acoustic Curves"
The Animusic series is a fantastical rendering of various types of instrumental music. There are too many to include, so I offer this index of what I have found:

Animusic - 01 - Future Retro
Animusic - 02 - Stick Figures
Animusic - 03 - Aqua Harp
Animusic - 04 - Drum Machine
Animusic - 05 - Pipe Dream
Animusic - 06 - Acoustic Curves
Animusic - 07 - Harmonic Voltage

Animusic 2 - 01 - Starship Groove
Animusic 2 - 02 - Pogo Sticks
Animusic 2 - 03 - Resonant Chamber
Animusic 2 - 04 - Cathedral Pictures
Animusic 2 - 05 - Pipe Dream 2
Animusic 2 - 06 - Fiber Bundles
Animusic 2 - 07 - Gyro Drums
Animusic 2 - 08 - Heavy Light

Animusic - Beyond the walls

A Significant Life

Do you sometimes feel as though you go through life trying to do your best for God, yet relatively unnoticed?

This weekend, I'm participating in a play at church entitled, "A Significant Life." It was written by our own Katie Hatchet. A lady named Mary Brandon who has labored in relative obscurity in her church has passed away. We hear about her from an otherwise unconcerned couple who go to church with her as they sit and watch a news and entertainment program featuring great people who have also recently passed away. Among these is a senator whose life has been transformed, a US soldier who died heroically in Iraq, a great Olympic athlete from Russia and a famous football star who had become an associate pastor. At the end, we learn how these people are Mary's great legacy. I play one of the newscasters and sing the final song, "Faces", as Mary stands among the saints whose eternal lives were due in part to God working through Mary's faithful life. The lyrics of the song I sing sum up the play nicely:

FACES

I dreamed my life was done
And I stood before God's Son
It was time to see what my reward would be
With love He reviewed my life
To count what was done for Christ
For that was what would last eternally

See I'd done my best to share
that Jesus really cares
And He would save if they would just believe
Oh but seldom did harvest come
So few did I see won
Until the Lord said, "Turn around and see."

CHORUS
Then He showed me the faces of the ones who'd come because of me
So many faces that my life had led to Calvary
All those years I though nobody saw as I labored in lonely places
That's when Jesus smiled and showed me all the faces.

He said, "Though you did not see the yield"
"You were faithful to plow the field"
"And other times you helped me plant the seed"
"No matter how small the task"
"You did just as I ask"
"And thanks to you these souls have been set free"

CHORUS

And for those years you thought nobody saw as you labored in lonely places
One day He'll smile and show you all the faces
You'll see their faces

29 Years Old This Month

It's snowing today in Statesville, NC. The snow is sticking some, but not much. There are patches of slush and it can be just a little messy. I'm fighting a cold. But the precipitation has reminded me of snowier days. The blizzard of '78 in Ohio was great time to be a kid. I remember even the graders were snowed in so that school was canceled. Mom was a school teacher and I remember going with her when the teachers were called back to prepare the school to reopen. Between the drifts and the piles of snow made by the graders, the school had to be accessed initially through second-story windows.

While these memories are nice, it was actually the start of a whirlwind year and a half that marked the beginning of my life in Christ. I already touched on my failures as a young adult earlier, but I recently considered the turmoil my family went through in this short amount of time and was astonished to realize that it had never occurred to me before. It had always been to me a series of unconnected situations that I had always treated simply matter-of-factly.

The winter of the blizzard, Mom and Dad had decided to follow my aunt and her family south to North Carolina. Dad had been back home from medical school a few years, had done internship at the Brethren Home and had been working for an orthopedic surgeon in Versailles. However, he had looked and found an orthopedic surgeon to work for in Statesville, NC. While he was down there, the car came in need of repair and mom took the car to the dealer. The dealership was perhaps a mile east of home and mom walked home in the snow. As she walked, he leg began to hurt. She went to get it checked out and the doctor discovered cancer.

About this same time I had been quickened to accept Christ while listening to a preacher on the radio one evening and had asked my mom about baptism. She took me to speak with our pastor, Rev. Dearing, and I was baptized in February in our church, Cedar Grove Church of the Brethren, in the country near Palestine. That was 29 years ago, hence the title.

My aunt Wilma had come up from North Carolina to stay with mom, my brother and I while she began treatment. However, it was hard for two families to be spread out so in this situation. We had planned to move after the school year, but now needed to move earlier. We moved into Wilma's basement in Lexington, NC and into a new culture. The people in North Carolina were - and are - wonderful. The scope and sequence of school curriculum was a year or two behind that of Ohio. I was already a top student, so school was nothing. I focused on learning the culture instead. We also started attending my Aunt and Uncle's church in Lenoir, the Church of God of Resurrection Hope. At my Aunt's house, I slept in a roll-away next to the sump pump. I still remember looking across the basement at where my mom slept and seeing her remover her wig before she went to bed. She would never grow hair again.

That summer, my Aunt's family and my family bought a house in Statesville big enough for all of us. Some of the members of our church in Ohio built a massive trailer and brought all of our stuff from the house in Ohio. We enrolled in yet another school that fall. Not long after school started, on a Saturday morning, Mom was taken home. We had a viewing here in Statesville and took her back to Ohio to be buried at our church there.

With medical bills piled up and a bad sale of the house in Ohio, we were not well financially. I thought nothing of it because we had been on a shoestring budget before when Dad was in medical school. However, I remember growing out of my clothes and wearing high-waters with patches and holes to school. Mom had made clothes for us before. At school, most of the kids were kind enough, but some were not. I also learned what racism was. I had no idea before. Greenville, Ohio, at the time was racially homogeneous at the time and I had never met anyone who wasn't Caucasian. However, I knew there were people who were not. One of my favorite cartoons was Fat Albert. In Lexington, most of my teachers were of African heritage and all the kids got along well with each other. The only problem I had was with a white bully who picked on me just because I was the new kid. Even in Statesville, I had friends that were white and black both and didn't think anything of it. Some of the kids were wealthier and they ignored me, which didn't really bother me. However, the one instance I learned about racism was when one silly black kid asked where I was from.

"Ohio," I replied.
"Hawaii!?! You ain't from Hawaii! You're Puerto Rican and I'm gonna beat you up!"
"No. I said 'Ohio', not 'Hawaii'."
"I don't care. You're Puerto Rican! Meet me in the cemetery after school so I can beat you up."

Well, I didn't show up. I didn't want to fight him. He called me a coward later, but never pursued it. I'm not Hispanic, but I am a mostly-Caucasian mutt. There's only one race anyway - the human race. I had a crush on one of the rich girls for a time, but ended up good friends with this sweet black girl named Carla who I sat with in math class and sang with in the glee club.

My dad had his own romantic inclinations. Not a few weeks after mom died, he started dating. He would bring his dates to meet us. He ended up dating my future step-mom who was going through a divorce. (She wasn't unkind to her ex-husband and we even took up with him some. He died indigent from health problems a few years ago and my dad and step-mom had an open-door policy with him. He gave my wife and I a coffee maker for our wedding that we still use today.) They didn't marry right away and we moved into her apartment with her and her son, who was only a few months younger than I. After the school year, my Dad's boss bought a house that he rented to us and we moved yet again - and changed schools yet again - and changed churches yet again. We joined my step-mom's church, St. John's Lutheran Church in Statesville.

So, the tally in one and a half years: One birth (my spiritual one), one death (my mom), four moves, four school changes and two denominational changes. A mess. Like the weather. Actually, it's starting to melt - and raining a bit. The forecast is for it to freeze. We'll see. The snow eventually melted from the blizzard and the events of that year and a half stabilized. However, the effects of both have changed who I am today.

"For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God." 2 Cor 4:15

"...always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father" Eph 5:20

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Rom 8:28

My wife grew up at St. John's Lutheran Church. I was in youth with her older siblings. She was only 3 when I first saw her. Years later, after I returned from the marines, we fell in love and were married at St. John's. My parents are still members there. My wife's parents are still members there. Had it not been for all the turmoil of 1978-79, I wouldn't have the wonderful family I have today. I tell my kids about the grandma they will never meet on this side of eternity and consider that they wouldn't be here if she hadn't died.

My wife and I have moved on to a church that has a system and practice of theology we agree with and through which we can minister. I still fill in as the minister of music at the early service at St. John's on occasion. However, because of the experiences of that one and a half year period I have not been constrained to allow ecclesiastical distinctions to cloud my theology.

The snow is all but gone. Such is winter weather in the south. God is good. And 29 years later, I can declare that He is faithful to fulfill all that He has promised. He has formed me, melted me and used me in the crucible of this fallen world, and He continues to do so even today.


But I still have a cold. I hope I can sing Sunday.