Why Christianity Makes Sense

I was on vacation last week. I was sitting on the side walk eating in little Italy at my favorite Italian restaurant—Paesano’s on Mulberry Street—when I met two couples from Canada. We struck up a conversation. It was 2:00 pm. They were drunk! I know they were drunk because after talking with them for a few minutes one of the women started saying, “Oh, isnt’ he cute? He’s so cute! I could listen to him talk all day” right in front of her husband. He did nothing but nod his head. “Oh, he’s so cute.” She kept saying. Anyone who calls me cute like that must be drunk. At any rate, the conversation went from food to religion then to tourism then back to religion again and as I got up to leave, I said, “Consider Jesus. Really! Consider Christianity. It makes sense.” They nodded their heads and she said once again, “Isn’t he cute.” I left and doubt they’ll remember much of our conversation, but why would I say Christianity makes sense? Over the past several years I’ve pondered that and came up with a short list of reasons it makes sense to me. This is not definitive but its something to build on. To me, Christianity makes sense because:

•A robust Christianity provides the best foundation for answering our deepest questions about life (like why are we here), our deepest wants, our deepest desires, our deepest needs.
 •Christianity is not rooted in some religious code of morality that we follow so that we can be better than others, but rooted in the belief that our best efforts at being moral end in failure and make us no different than others--therefore we all need a savior!
 •Christianity believes that while it’s a mystery as to why God allows evil to continue, he’s not indifferent to it. God takes our suffering and misery so seriously that he is willing to be involved in it personally through the life, death and suffering of Jesus Christ.
•Christianity believes that God wants to free us from the thing that enslaves us the most—the compulsion to make good things ultimate things and center our lives around temporal things that were never really intended to satisfy us—things that leave us empty.
•Christianity believes that people are full of goodness because we’ve all been created in the image of God---though every part of our lives is tainted by bad and sin.
•Christianity believes that because we are so flawed ourselves, it’s patently unfair to be judgmental of others! We must discern right from wrong and justice from injustice, but judgmentalism has no place in Christianity.
•Christianity believes in loving our enemies and those who are different or those who disagree with us, because God loved us when we were his enemies, and sent Jesus to die for us, so who are we to be hostile to others!
•And furthermore, since Christianity believes that God has revealed himself in time and space in the person and work of Christ, we humbly and tactfully invite others to consider what we claim to be the revelation of Gods truth because it makes more sense and answers more questions than other religious claims.

Honestly, the Christian religion is rooted in history, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and expressed in the church. The apologetic or defense of the Christian faith is not in logic or reason but in revelation! A revelation embraced by the church and embodied in the scriptures the church embraces as true and reliable. And because its rooted in revelation, Christians can relax when talking about it because the goal isn’t to prove it rationally but to show that it makes sense.

Agnes Laughs--A Resurrection Experience

Agnes laughs. She’s 94 years old and she laughs—all the time this lady laughs! I first met her in a training event at Calvary church during our first Leadership Summit. She laughed—if felt like she jumped—at me so hard that it startled me. I got a pretty cool adrenaline rush from it all. She laughed so hard at startling me that she doubled over. She laughs. Why? She delights in God. Seriously, this old lady loves Jesus. She laughs because of Jesus. Not the religious Jesus with the wimpy fair skin and the flowing brown hair and blue Scandinavian eyes but the Jesus that the Gospels talks about. That Jesus and his sacrifice for our sins has so captured Agne’s heart that she laughs. The playful side of the work of Christ on our behalf makes her laugh. The joy of the resurrection life makes her laugh.

Of course, the other side of that whole business is what theologians call the atonement. It is serious. God’s love for us cost him dearly. It wasn’t this sort of sentimental love found in refrigerator magnet theology. The eternal God lost, for a time, the infinite intimacy he’d had among the three members of this Triune community of One. While Christ hung on the cross for our sin, things got dark. God the Father turned his back on God the Son. That’s serious! But the other side of the coin is playful. God, in Christ, invites us into the joy and delight of this Triune being because of the cross (John 17:22-23).

Agnes has it figured out. She laughs—hard and long and loud. She says, “I can’t hear so well!” Then she laughs. No kidding!! I want to be like Agnes when I grow up. I want to laugh and because of the serious work of the cross I can!! C.S. Lewis, in his book The Last Battle in the Chronicles of Narnia series puts it like this, “There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.” Get serious and laugh. Its resurrection day!

The Topography of Terror

That was the title of the museum: The Topography of Terror. It was set up in the middle of a large urban lot filled with drab gray stones. (That’s expensive real estate) And in the middle of the drab gray stones was a drab steel building—very plain and modern and functional—but drab. A path wandered around the stones highlighting various historic sites but the drabness, the grayness of it all grabbed my attention. The historical setting of the building was also attention grabbing. It was the former location of the headquarters of the Nazi SS, and the Gestapo—the long arm of the Nazi party during the twelve years of Hitlers rule over Germany in Berlin. The museum was set back from a display located in the Gestapo’s exposed basement, highlighting the rise and fall of the Third Reich, the eventual rises of communism, and the creation and demise of the Berlin wall. The wall, which ironically bordered the property, was a prominent part of the display.

This museum, and the display it highlighted, took up nearly an entire city block. The irony of the location, the choice of stone, and the color were not lost on me. The German people were saying, “The bareness of this property, the ugliness of it, represents the bareness, the ugliness of this part of our history. It is barren, ugly, dark—but its part of us and we will let the world see what these kinds of choices lead to.” An ominous quote from Heinrich Himmler garnished the windows outside the building though, for the life of me, I for some reason didn’t write it down. The scene was quiet and surreal. Nearby was the site of Hitlers bunker—the place where he stayed and eventually committed suicide near the end of the war. It’s a parking lot now.

The logical and practical implications of the social Darwinism that led to the Nazi worldview are still practiced and at work in our world today. That people don’t seem to see that puzzles me. Inside the museum one can listen to speeches by Nazi leaders, like Himmler, espousing the reasons for their choices. As the war ended, and the Nazi leadership fled for their lives, many like Himmler, chose to commit suicide rather than explain, and then be held accountable for, the atrocities that they’d fostered on those they didn’t like. The hardest part in all of this is to recognize the Topography of Terror that resides inside each of us. Its not popular to say or think, and may even be offensive to some readers, but the topography of terror is resident inside the human heart. The heart—we can’t live without it and yet in it there is the potential for great evil. Sobering!!

Standards?--I’m Outraged!

“This is an outrage! Every woman should protest this move by sending a letter of protest to the president of that committee.” Susanah, from France, was reacting to badminton’s new dress code for women. The International Federation that governs badminton decided that women must wear skirts or dresses to play at the international elite level. One other observer from Germany noted that in reality, the international Badminton Federation’s choice to have the elite women wear more feminine atire was a cultural issue, since the majority of badminton players at that level are actually in Asian countries where values regarding modesty are different. He wondered if by being upset that we, in the west, were in fact placing our values on another culture. The German observer has an honest point!

It’s interesting to me that some of us in the self-righteous west are indignant to the point of outrage over whether or not a professional athlete should wear a certain kind of uniform. In this case the charge is that the uniform sexualizes women and would be offensive to some cultures. Wait a minute? Who are we in the west to protest sexualizing women?! The author of the article even justifies the use of bikini’s in beach volley ball because it’s easier to remove sand from a two piece than a one piece suit! Now if any uniform is sexually revealing and sexualizes women, it’s women’s beach volleyball. Why the double standard?!

The furor over a uniform that is normal, modest, and even attractive, for example, in the tennis world is humerous to me. Then again, even modesty is culturally relative. I’m not trying to be overly critical here (okay—maybe a little bit). It just makes me chuckle when western culture, which is so intent on being open and tolerant, acts intolerant and closed minded to the point of outrage, over things that aren’t really that big a deal. We can’t have it both ways. To me it shows the west’s duplicitous character. We in the west ultimately believe that we determine right from wrong. We in the west know truth from error. We, in our declarations and beliefs, have the world’s best interest in mind. But our overarching cultural naratives communicate that in reference to our own personal lives there is no right from wrong, of course, unless we determine what that right or wrong is. in which case there is a right or wrong, but then, not really, because someone can, at that point, foist their values on us and say we are right or wrong, but then, hey, wait a minute---that’s outrageous. Do you see my point?

All the International Badminton Federation did was expose what everyone intuitively knows—there are standards! Deep down inside we all know (dare I say want?) some standards—a right and wrong. And to say that anything, or anybody, that declares what those standards are places us in a moral straight jacket or violates our basic human dignity or freedom, ultimately means we lose the privilege of legitimate outrage!

Judgement Day

I saw the large bill board first in downtown Boston, the weekend of the marathon. JUDGMENT DAY—it declared. May 21, 2011. At first I thought it was a rock group, then I noticed the sponsors tag: Family Radio, neatly along the bottom and assumed it was a conference on May 21. It wasn’t until I got home to New York and saw that the world was going to end at 6:00 pm Eastern time on May 21, that I realized what was happening. “Here we go again,” I thought. “More fodder for those who think of evangelicals as losers and lunatics.”

Doomsday prophets like Harold Camping, the progenitor of the recent Judgement Day scare, have been around for a long time. In the middle part of the 19th century William Miller predicted that Jesus would return sometime between October 21, 1843 and October 21, 1844. They are still waiting. Millers followers eventually became what we now call the Seventh Day Adventists. He has about a half a page description of his sect in Kenneth Latourette’s 1500 page tome on church history. The failure of Christ to return then became known as the Great Disappointment. I’m sure Campings supporters feel a similar set of emotions now. According to the New York Times, people quit their jobs, quit saving college tuition for their kids, and came to New York to usher in the Rapture. In their minds there was no better place to do it than in Grand Central Station where they were lined up in the passage ways near the underground trains challenging people to repent! According to my daughter, they were pretty aggressive. I bet money that Camping will come out and say he got the math wrong and they’ll start the campaign all over again!

To me it’s a no brainer. The scripture says, “The secret things belong to God” and God alone (Deut 29:29)! There is mystery and transcendence in this faith we call Christianity. When people start putting dates on the return of Christ or speaking with absolute confidence about the nature and scope of events like the rapture, they cross a line as far as I’m concerned. Millions of dollars were spent on advertising something Jesus himself said no one will ever know (Mark 13:34). In fact, in his incarnational earthly presence, Jesus, himself didn’t know!

So what can we know theologically for sure? Jesus is going to come back some day and restore all things and part of that involves judgment (Acts 3:21). If you are a Christian, you believe at least that. It’s pretty basic I admit, and not near as sexy as JUDGEMENT DAY. But that is what Christians believe! And we believe it because of revelation—the Bible. We don’t believe it because we can mathmatically figure it out. There is an element of faith in any worldview including secular Atheism. All of us bank our eternal destiny on some faith based belief system. I’m a Christian because Christianity makes sense more than any other world religion. I’m not a Christian because I can prove definitively that the resurrection took place or that the bible is inspired or that God created by the simple command of his voice or that Jesus is coming back. Simply put, Christianity is different. God enters our world and does for us something we can’t do for ourselves. He dies a death we should have died and lives a life we should have lived. By faith in Jesus righteous record we avoid the negative side of judgment day—whenever it happens! There is no other world religion like it. And while I think that there are many good reasons to believe in Jesus and his message, I also realize that ultimately, it’s a faith based belief system. There is no bomb proof truth in this life! The only one who knows truth objectively is God himself.

I hope that as the world snickers, Christians will be sobered; sobered by the reality that lives are seriously disrupted, perhaps even ruined, by Mr. Campings disregard for the clear teaching of scripture. I believe in a judgment day and it is something we should take seriously. But how I as a follower of Jesus present Jesus and his message of hope and redemption will do as much to promote the cause of Christ as wreck it. Perhaps Mr. Camping should take his judgment day belief system seriously and re-evaluate his own wreckless behavior. In the end, he may find that the finger of God’s just judgment pointed at him. And that is a scary thought!

Addendum: After writing this blog, but prior to posting it Harold Camping came out with the new date for the rapture and judgment: October 21, 2011—my wife’s birthday. I think I'll take her out on the 20th! (Just kidding)

A Grief Delayed

On the way back from Seattle in June 2010, I visited my mom. She lives in Detroit and wanted me to help her finalize funeral arrangements—her funeral arrangements. The idea of meeting with my mom, who is very much alive, in the building where she’d be embalmed, laid out in a coffin, then stared at while being very much dead, was not a pleasant experience. The quietness of the funeral home amplified the reality that death is real, life is short, time and youth are fleeting, and that someday all of us will meet God one way or the other.

The process was fairly simple, we chose the funeral arrangements—including the coffin (the word coffin is a euphemism for the box they put you in when you die), then she gave them a check, and we left. It was uncomfortable as it was, but the whole thing turned surreal when, shortly thereafter, my mother asked me to do her funeral. I wish I could say that my mom and I had a close relationship. That is not entirely true. But the idea of doing her funeral just boggles my mind. I’m numb to it. Even as I type these words, I don’t feel what I know will be the emotional weight of this task when it finally becomes a reality. I’ve already begun to work on it including asking my mother what she wants said. I figure if I get a jump on it now, I’ll be able to go through with it when I have to because it will already be done.

The whole experience has made me think. But I can assure you it’s a “grief delayed.” Whenever there is loss or even the potential for loss of any kind you have grief. No one wants to grieve. Grief reminds us of reality. Some of us deny reality, deny the loss, deny the pain, but all that does is seal us alive in the tomb of our unrealized expectations and hopes. We live in the past or in an allusion or worse yet, we live in denial of what is often apparent to others and reality in the future. So how do I process grief and loss? Here’s a couple of thoughts from my Christian worldview.

First, as a follower of Christ, I cry out to God bringing the core of my pain to him. The writer of Psalm 137 said as much when he screamed, “Remember, O Lord… (Psalm 137:7).” I let God in on my grief! Second, I embrace my grief rather than run from it. Grief, while difficult, is a reminder that life is not as it should be. Someday, in the end, at the consummation of God’s Kingdom, all sorrow and tears will be done away. Until that time, I must look forward to my redemption with the deep groaning of grief (Psalm 137:1). Finally, I find my hope in God and the revelation of his Son Jesus. Jesus came, not to take away my grief, but to bear the burden of what caused it in the first place. Jesus work on the cross doesn’t change the reality that we’ll all feel loss, but it does change the reality that we’ll have to experience it forever. There is hope. That hope is not found in the revenge I may want to take out on those whose actions cause me to grieve. The writer of Psalm 137, who rightfully wanted justice, did not see that the way God dealt with justice was not by dashing the sons of the Babylonians against rocks but by dashing his own Son on the rock of Golgatha (Psalm 137:8-9).

Change in life is inevitable and with that change comes grief and loss and sadness and sorrow and anger and confusion. But for me, as a follower of Jesus, I have to learn to see that in every experience of grief there is the seed of reality and the seed of hope. I do not have to live the deluded life of our modern world’s obsession with self and things. If I take my faith seriously, I have the hope of a new life tomorrow with the equal possibility of a changed life today. That alone should make anyone at least consider whether or not Christianity is real because, in the end, we all are going to face death in others in in ourselves. It’s a grief delayed.

Bin Laden's Bye Bye

Osama Bin Laden met his demise this week at the hands of the Navy Seal elite Team 6. It set up a wave of celebration around the globe—mostly in the United States where Bin Laden had ruled as a King of Terror for years. He was 53 years old, born in 1957. From an age perspective, Bin Laden and I are peers. Other than that, the circumstances in our lives couldn’t have been more different.

I’ll admit that I experienced a smug sense of satisfaction late Sunday night when I got on line and read that Bin Laden was dead. It was even entertaining to read how it was done: the helicopters with the Seals rapelling into the compound and engaging in a fire fight. It could have been taken from a Tom Clancey novel. But something else has come to my mind in the wake of it all. I remember Bin Laden gloating over the destruction of the Twin Towers and the damage to the Pentegon. He was giddy with joy over the casualties. I also recall footage of Muslim children waving flags and shouting in glee over the events. Their version of Islam had given the big bad Americans a bloody nose and used the very freedoms we treasure to do it! They were tickled pink. I was insensed.

But now we are giddy with joy. We are shouting in glee. We are dancing on Bin Laden’s grave. And while I agree with the writer of the Proverbs, “…when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy” (Prov 11:10), I have found myself feeling a little unsettled over it all. We should be glad over the destruction of an evil man and so I am happy. In my opinion, Bin Laden was Hitler with a turbin. But this happiness, and the smug sense of inner satisfaction it has created in me, has given me pause. Its our turn to celebrate—its true. But for me personally, the celebration is also turning me appropriately inward. I need to check my own heart. Are there injustices that I unwittingly support without even knowing it that would make someone glad at my demise? Are there things that I do, that would cause others to say to me, “Don’t go away mad, just go away!” Am I blind to things in my life that are hurtful to others that in my own self-righteousness, I refuse to be aware of?

I’ve never been in a fire fight on a battle field or seen my friends heads blown off by an enemy bent on our destruction. But I have watched my neighbors grieve the senseless loss of their son on 9/11! And I watched in horror as those buildings came down and was repulsed by the joyful response to it from many Muslims around the world. I’ll never forget the smell that wafted through Queens as what was left of the towers burned underground.

I’m proud to be an American. I am grateful for the freedoms we have and promote. I’m glad that the guy responsible for the intrusive actions from TSA officials, that I face regularly at airports around the country, has met his end. But I’m also aware of how dark my own soul is. In my understanding of Christianity, the gospel gives me the tools to do the self reflection necessary to be honest with my own issues. So while I’m thrilled at Bin Laden’s just and untimely death, I’m also sobered by it all.