Runalong

For your Christmas enjoyment, my daughter has a lovely ASL interpretation of the Amy Grant song on YouTube. Check it out...

...for this guy. What an amazing story!

The ultrarunners group got into a rare discussion of spiritual issues recently. I stayed out of it until some misconceptions about "spirituality" vs "religion" cropped in. I wrote the following and to my surprise it had its intended effect as numerous runners wrote back to thank me for giving them a new perspective to consider...

I've been trying to stay out of this, but one small factual correction. This is a common misconception:
Spirituality is a goal. Religion is a means to it.

Spiritually and religion both have the same goal: a right relationship with God/god (however defined).

The difference is this:
Religion is when you do it in community, with others (think: Francis of Assisi)
Spirituality is when you do it by yourself, your way (think: Frank Sinatra)

America is highly individualistic and thus Americans tend to prefer "spirituality". Numerous sociologists have analyzed this phenomenon. We tend to look at various belief systems, pick and choose different elements like at a buffet, and create our own customized personal religion: this is spirituality (as distinct from religion). A little Buddha, a pinch of Jesus, a cup of Ayn Rand, a smidge of yoga, a dollop of Oprah, a bowl of organic food and there you go- your own personal faith-system! Spirituality generally makes no claims to present universal truth about anything (God, humans, right and wrong, etc); it's about "what's true for me" and what makes me FEEL spiritual. If any parts of it ever start to make you feel uncomfortable you can just chuck them and replace them with others (unless it is a nice warm "spiritual" sort of uncomfortableness).

Religion is messy. You have to deal with other people. It's called "organized religion" (disparagingly) because doing things with other people always requires a certain amount of "organization" - easily avoided if you keep your spirituality as a strictly private matter. Common and shared beliefs and practices require not doing everything your own way, submitting to ancient traditions and teachings, etc. "Submission" is historically at the very core of religion and is probably the main reason most Americans don't cotton to it. The beliefs of religion are considered by believers to be either universally true (as in Christianity) or at least binding on the community of faith (as in Judaism). Within religion, personal spirituality is considered a subset, not a substitute.

Who scares you more? Religious believers or the "new atheists"?

A professing non-believer makes the case that the latter are both more worrisome and less persuasive than the former.

As I said last week, some days I feel really good during my run and sometimes I feel old. The days I feel old are a harbinger of mortality and as such, are probably spiritually useful (silver lining and all that rot).

The days that I feel really good are spiritually useful also. For they are also harbingers, harbingers of immortality. When I'm running a long or tough course and all is clicking and I seem to be temporarily transcending my bodily limitations I get a three-dimension, all-five-sensual taste of what heaven will be like in my new sin-and-death-and-curse free body. It's one thing to know such things intellectually, but to actually be able to FEEL, coursing through my whole body, a sample of what that will be like is truly, in the most literal sense, glorious. And faith-building: it makes it a lot easier to rejoice that my real home is in heaven and that this world and this life will soon pass away.

Caveat: If you'd like to try this experiment at home- be forewarned: it takes a while to get there. But it's worth it.

You can listen to the two sermons from 2Samuel 11 & 12 here. I'll be preaching on Psalm 51 the next two Sundays.

That wasn't really the name of the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, but it's where it ended up. I hate to spoil the ending but if atheism IS rational, Hitchens stubbornly refused to show how it could be. Hitchens' arguments were the usual potshots that your local village atheist, teaching at the JC or pumping gas at the mini-mart, would offer. Wilson's responses centered on whether or not morality is an objective reality or a subjective sentiment, and the implications of either view, and on whether there is any reason to assign any value whatsoever to human thought if one accepts atheistic principles. Here's an excerpt from Wilson's end of the rope:

Take the vilest atheist you ever heard of. Imagine yourself sitting at his bedside shortly before he passes away. He says, following Sinatra, "I did it my way." And then he adds, chuckling, "Got away with it too." In our thought experiment, the one rule is that you must say something to him, and whatever you say, it must flow directly from your shared atheism—and it must challenge the morality of his choices. What can you possibly say? He did get away with it. There is a great deal of injustice behind him, which he perpetrated, and no justice in front of him. You have no basis for saying anything to him other than to point to your own set of personal prejudices and preferences. You mention this to him, and he shrugs. "Tomayto, tomahto."

I am certainly willing to take the same thought experiment. I can imagine some pretty vile Christians, and if I couldn't, I am sure you could help me. The difference between us is that I have a basis for condemning evil in its Christian guise. You have no basis for confronting evil in its atheist guise, or in its Christian guise, either. When you say that a certain practice is evil, you have to be prepared to tell us why it is evil. And this brings us to the last point—you make the first glimmer of an attempt to provide a basis for ethics.

You say in passing that ethical imperatives are "derived from innate human solidarity." A host of difficult questions immediately arise, which is perhaps why atheists are generally so coy about trying to answer this question. Derived by whom? Is this derivation authoritative? Do the rest of us ever get to vote on which derivations represent true, innate human solidarity? Do we ever get to vote on the authorized derivers? On what basis is innate human solidarity authoritative? If someone rejects innate human solidarity, are they being evil, or are they just a mutation in the inevitable changes that the evolutionary process requires? What is the precise nature of human solidarity? What is easier to read, the book of Romans or innate human solidarity? Are there different denominations that read the book of innate human solidarity differently? Which one is right? Who says?

And last, does innate human solidarity believe in God?

Here are links to part one and part two. From part two you can link to the other three parts.

And here is a link to excerpts from Wilson's book on the topic of atheism. He's a fine writer.

Update: If you are really interested in how secular philosophers try to solve the morality problem, here's a typical example. Once you wade through all the lingo and analyze his three concluding "lessons" you will realize that the author, as is typical of such attempts, basically is saying, "I really don't have a clue, but I can give you a nice survey of the various alternatives that have been proposed."

From Sunday's LA Times:

Just as Jews, during some traditional Passover feasts, ask God to bring down his wrath on the Gentiles who "don't know him," and many Christians believe that hell awaits those who don't subscribe to their faith, Muslims are led to believe that killing the enemies of Islam can be justified.

"Just as"? The Bible says, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone... Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay', says the Lord... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 13:14-21).

Leaving justice against evil-doers to God's ultimate judgment is not "just as" taking vengeance into one's own hands. Not even close.

These two studies say "yes"- you'll live longer and it's good for kids. I have mixed feelings about studies like these. On the one hand, the Bible teaches that most religions are NOT good for you. So there's that. And on the other hand, telling people today that something is good for them is practically synonymous with "eat your tofu" or "spend twenty minutes every day on the stair-stepper" - anything good for me must be boring or tasteless or worse, right? There's no JOY nowadays in things that are "good for you". Make yourself miserable, you'll live longer: If I'm miserable why would I want to?

Of course I believe that you can enjoy eating and exercise and other things that are truly good for you; including a lifestyle that follows Jesus passionately. But it seems like American marketers and promoters divide everything in two camps: Stuff you'll enjoy and Stuff that's good for you.

Actually, Stuff That's Good For You, is usually stuff that isn't pleasurable at first, but becomes more and more satisfying with time. And Stuff That's Bad For You is often stuff that offers immediate but shallow gratification with unpleasant and long-ranging side-effects.

If you live the way your Creator intends for you to live, things will go better for you than if you don't. But all religions are not created equal. And a spiffy life on earth is not the ultimate focus of Jesus' teaching.

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world," and "Render unto Caesar..." He never got involved in political battles and warned his disciples that "those who live by the sword will die by the sword." His final words in Matthew's Gospel are: "Go into all the world, making disciples... baptizing... teaching..."

Mohammed lead his followers in rogue military raids against other tribes; began slaughtering Jews almost as soon as he became a prophet; and encouraged his followers to be (literal) warriors for Allah. In his farewell address he said, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'There is no god but Allah'."

I think it would make a not insignificant difference if someone converted from following Mohammed to following Jesus, or vice versa.

This is how I answered the last time I was asked that question:

The evangelical view of salvation, which is basically what the Reformation was all about (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et al seeking to return to the earlier views of Augustine, Paul, et al after the medeival RCC made salvation works-based in order to control people): is that salvation is entirely a work of God, received by sinners as a free gift of God's grace and cannot be earned or deserved in any way.  Jesus paid for our sins on the cross (the atonement) and salvation is free to all who trust in His person and His work.   Once we are justified (a once-for-all-time event), i.e., our debt incurred by our sins against God is declared paid by Jesus, we cannot lose our salvation.  

To reiterate what I wrote before: our life as Christians is not meant to be a worrisome, "I wonder if I'm being good enough and doing enough to please God enough to let me in" (which presumably would be followed - after death- by "Hey look, we made it, we're the good people", resulting in a heaven full of at least semi-self-righteous people); but rather- "I don't and didn't deserve salvation any more than anyone else but Jesus paid for my sins and I've been adopted into God's family by grace and nothing I can do will ever cause me to be rejected"  This security leads to a life of gratitude, peace, joy and growing freedom from self-interest (no longer having to obsess over our own eternal prospects we can focus on serving others).   If you never quite know if God has accepted you there will also be a hesitancy to be grateful (hard to be grateful for something you don't know if you have), and a certain lack of peace and joy for the same reason.

And, as I hinted earlier, the whole theology is wonderfully spelled out in the hymn "Amazing Grace" by former slave-trader John Newton.

Scriptures which encourage believers to rest in the security of knowing they are fully and eternally accepted by God include (among many others):

(click here for references)

In that last reference the Greek word translated "know" (oida) refers to a settled, certain knowledge.