Christopher Hitchens

I just read about Mr. Hitchens' death, at the age of 62, from esophageal cancer. I loved reading him back when I was younger; even after converting, I still liked reading him and especially watching him debate. I must be honest: I've never watched a debate where anyone really managed to get the better of him. And that's the case even though I vociferously disagree with much of what he says.

I think what I liked most about his ideas were that, although he was flat out wrong on so many issues, all of his arguments stemmed from a deeply held belief in the value of freedom and the value of human life and well-being. And that matters. Honestly, I think he did Christianity a service as well - people like him make us sharper, make us question our assumptions. I know that in an ideal world everyone would know and love the God that made us, and "religion" would become a thing of the past. But we don't live in that world, and religion HAS done a great deal of harm - or at the very least, people acting in the name of their religion, including Christianity. And so Hitchens' arguments still are vital to the debate.

He was also clearly a courageous man, which one could see in his battle with cancer. He wrote several pieces on the subject of dying in a clear and honest manner, speaking of the fears and pains of the experience, and continued to write to the end. His last piece is here.

The Urgency of Today

Back on the topic of the early Christian writers -

Something else I've noticed about the early Christian church is its sheer urgency when dealing with the problems of the day. It's a language that echoes the bible so clearly. It's a language that makes it so clear that the kingdom of God has broken into the present age. Be careful or you might miss it. The old ways of living are no longer acceptable. It's a mindset that completely broke down all socioeconomic barriers, that had slaves and masters, men and women, all worshiping the same God side by side (I know that second one is a bit controversial, but the fact that men and women had different roles in the early church says nothing about their relative status in the eyes of God).

Now, I can see why in the present age this mindset has been all but lost. People are rightly skeptical of the form that Christian urgency has often taken throughout history - "do you know where you would go if you were to die tomorrow?", or "repent or we will have you executed" - and of course such tactics should certainly be abandoned. Most people today don't like having faith thrust upon them, and as a former Atheist I can both understand and very much sympathize with this mindset. However, this loss of urgency is far more pernicious in influencing the way the community behaves. As Jon Tyson is constantly pointing out, the spending, media consumption, and sexual behaviors of Evangelical Christians in this country are pretty much identical to those of the the non- (or nominal-) Christian population. What this says to me is that there is, even among a population that calls itself devout, something going badly wrong.

There seems to be a fundamental disconnect, in other words, between the power of the message, and how the church community is living out that message. And I see it in my own life. As I mentioned in my last post, despite the fact that I KNOW that the kingdom of God has broken into this world and that the power of God is very real, I still have a difficult time with prayer. The cares of the world intrude. We deal with societal problems, such as homelessness and hunger, that simply seem impossible to solve. We worry about being "taken advantage" of, of our well-meant gifts being misused and abused. And yet, that is exactly what the gospels tell us to do: to be generous to a fault, to allow our gifts and even ourselves to be abused, so that through our good actions the kingdom and Word of God might be spread.

I brought this issue up at my life group the other night, and the leader (who is also the pastor at my church) pointed out that in this world there is and always will be resistance. As he says, we live in "contested space". And this is of course true. But still, I think much of the church's failure to really live the message that we are so intent on spreading is a failure of our will to really change things as much as anything else, our love of personal comfort, of not wanting to endanger our circumstances. Or sometimes it's just plain old, simple fear. The other night on the subway I saw a man on the train wearing no socks. His outfit was dirty and he had a somewhat unpleasant odor - odds are quite high he was a homeless man, although I could not entirely tell for sure. I felt a strong urging inside me, to go talk to him, to offer him a couple pairs of socks. It is, after all, getting cold out. I can't change his circumstance, but I can at least help to keep his feet warm. And yet, I was too afraid. It galls me, honestly, that I can't even do something as simple as to offer help to someone with an obvious need.

So this post is not an accusation, really, or if it is, I am as much or more guilty of it as is anyone.

Prayer

I'm beginning to think that my biggest problem with Christianity (or rather, in the practice of it) is my lack of a prayer life. Prayer is one of those things I'm having a very difficult time understanding. Now, that's not to say I don't understand the necessity for it - given the things I believe, I must be insane NOT to pray regularly. I believe that a man named Jesus was both God and the son of God, and was, as he stated, there when the world was made. I believe he was crucified, rose again and ascended into heaven. And I don't mean those things in some sort of "spiritual" way; I am quite convinced that these are facts, that they actually happened in history. Personally, if I didn't believe these things, there's no way I could be a Christian. If the resurrection was just some sort of spiritual event in the minds of Jesus' most ardent followers, then, to paraphrase Paul, we are still in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:17). Therefore, I have to believe that God is working in the world, has shown his power in the world, and communes with his followers. Jesus was very clear on these facts, and in fact showed us the prayer we are to pray (the "Our Father" prayer).

And yet for some reason I still find something so difficult about prayer. I did spend a week trying to spend 30 minutes a day communing with God - this men's group I attend on Tuesdays challenged one another to do it. Without the promise to my fellows that I would do so, however, I stopped doing it after that week. I find it so difficult to keep one thought in my head, to focus on just abiding in the presence of God. I think part of it is the modern world - I am always flitting about the internet from one site to the next, doing some e-mail, reading an article on the Green Bay Packers, jumping over to my favorite blog (Andrew Sullivan's The Dish, for anyone who might be curious). That said, I used to occasionally play the same video game for as much as 8 hours straight. Or practice my cello for several hours at a go (back when I was more motivated to do such things). Or today, I regularly read the same book for hours on end. And yet prayer is elusive.

I often find myself suddenly feeling prayerful when I am feeling desperate, especially about finances (happens frequently). Or sometimes, on a more altruistic note, when I see someone or read about someone experiencing great pain or need. In other words, right now prayer seems to be stemming from a response to the immediacy of the world. And I'm not saying that this factor invalidates it in any way - indeed I see it as a welcome sign of my growing reliance on God to provide me with the resources to get by in a difficult, stressful city. And yet, there's something ultimately unfulfilling about a prayer life that is strictly based on need, and not on a desire to experience communion with the God who made me.

I've heard some say that it's like exercise - very hard at first, but the more you do it, the more you find you don't want to be without it. But I find that like many such things that require constant discipline, ardent resolutions to begin the difficult journey are quickly forgotten as the cares and distractions of the world settle back into their appointed spaces. I find that attempting to find discipline in my life is very difficult - at first I thought it was just a matter of removing the pointless distractions, such as video games and movies. But new ones quickly move in, maybe slightly less pointless but still shunting a mature prayer life to the side.

The Apostolic Fathers

These past few days, I've been reading a collection of works by people often called "the apostolic fathers" - or rather, the leaders and thinkers in the early church, whose ideas and traditions are often only one or two degrees removed from the apostles themselves (or not at all, as some of them heard/met Saint Paul, or those such as Papias, who was a disciple of John, and may in fact have been the one who transcribed his gospel).

What I've found most striking about this collection is that according to the editor and translator, quite a few of these writings were included by some in the canon of writings that comprise the New Testament. In fact, the only reason we have some of these writings is that they became parts of certain bibles. However, none of them were officially canonized, and so one might end up in a particular bible here and there, but no more, which is why many of these writings were lost for a long period of time; one, for instance, was thought to have been lost to the tradition around the 4th or 5th century, only to be rediscovered in then 17th.

I believe that reading these writings can give one a good insight into not only the mindset of the early church, but also into how the bible was compiled, by showing what WASN'T included. Pretty much every time I've heard people talk about how the bible was assembled (atheists, mostly) they talk about how it was political, and somewhat random. But the reality that I'm starting to see in the writings that didn't make the cut, as it were, when contrasted with the bible, a certain disruption in the narrative. Most of these writings simply do not fit into the picture, and had they been included, would have created some very difficult logical issues.

Let's take the Epistle of Barnabas, an early writing sometimes attributed to a certain companion of Paul's mentioned in Acts. However, the editor doesn't seem to agree, as apparently the views espoused by Barnabas in Acts on the Jewish people simply don't line up at all with the views expressed in the epistle. Regardless, what struck me in this writing is how the author is basically reinterpreting large parts of the Old Testament - he points out, for instance, that the purity laws involving food were always meant to have been metaphorical. He's basically stating that the Jewish religion, as it had been practiced for hundreds of years, was based on a completely invalid reading of their ancient texts. This simply doesn't work, especially when contrasted with the views of Paul, who saw a much more complicated narrative - Jesus was a fulfillment of the old law, not a correction to it. Had this Epistle been included in the canon (it was certainly written early enough, and was apparently considered), it would have created a large disagreement within the bible.

Another writing in this collection is the Shepherd of Hermas. It contains a lot of really good, practical advice for living as a Christian, and is an interesting read. According to the editor, it was most likely written sometime between 100-140, and was copied more widely than almost any other early Christian writing. In other words, it was quite popular and well-regarded. And again, one can see the reason it never made it into the bible. Within the book is contained a long list of commandments, with the "Shepherd" (Hermas' guide through his vision) basically stating that these were absolutely necessary to follow to attain salvation. This is in marked contrast with, say, Paul, who spends quite a bit of time talking about what the life of a Christian should look like, as opposed to creating a list of commands to follow. I supposed one might interpret the Shepherd's commands in the same light, but the wording seems to be far more imperative than Paul. This, again, would have thrown a big wrench into what is a guiding narrative in the New Testament, that of Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament law, and instituting a new way of living, that of love for God and our neighbors, as opposed to a list of rules to follow.

Now, I can well understand where these ideas come from. Early Christianity was surrounded by enemies on all sides, and even from within. There were factions that claimed there had been no literal resurrection, some that claimed Jesus was not a man at all but simply God in disguise (as opposed to both), some that the earthly realm doesn't matter, only the spiritual, and a whole host of other ideas, ideas which threatened to water down the movement, or perhaps change it entirely. Christians were being persecuted, tortured and executed, finding opposition everywhere they went. Thus, the greatest strength a Christian could find was in the unity and support of his or her community, both locally and as a whole, and any threat to this unity had to be stamped out. Thus one finds, in the first letter of Clement to the Corinthians, a member of a Roman church (possibly the leader, but the history seems controversial) admonishing some members of the church in Corinth to stay humble and trust the work of their elders. Apparently, some young blood had risen up and taken over the jobs of the elder presbyters. Or, in the letters of Ignatius, one sees constant pleas for the various churches to always follow the leadership of the bishop, so that doctrinal purity and unity of action would be maintained.

These writings contain a wealth of information on the early church, far too much to really go into here. One can see in them the rough basis for what was to eventually become the Catholic Church as we know it today (the ideas of Apostolic succession found in Ignatius - an unbroken line of church leaders, the first being appointed by the apostles themselves). They also flesh out what the early church valued, and show just how incredibly seriously they took their new-found faith. Back then, Christianity was for all of its membership a matter of life in death, not only in the next world but this one as well, and this shows itself well in what they wrote.

On Tim Tebow

As a football fan since roughly age 8 (I can remember 3 of Buffalo Bills' 4 Super Bowl appearances - not terribly relevant as today I am a Packer fan), it's been impossible for me to avoid the story of Tim Tebow. And I know for a fact that some people are sick of him and wish he'd go away, which he has far less control over than does his rabid fan base. Part of the reason he's been such a compelling story is that many commentators have said he will never make it in the NFL, and yet he has won 5 of his last 6 games. The other, of course, is that he is an outspoken Christian, quoting the bible both in the locker room and in interviews. Recently, the great former quarterback (and fellow Evangelical Christian) Kurt Warner said in an interview that he believes Tebow should spend less time evangelizing and let his good works do the talking (story here). Aaron Rodgers, the current quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, said something somewhat similar in his weekly ESPN radio show: "I feel like my stance and my desire has always been to follow a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, who said, 'Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.' So basically, I'm not an over-the-top, or an in-your-face kind of guy with my faith. I would rather people have questions about why I act the way I act, whether they view it as positive or not, and ask questions, and then given an opportunity at some point, then you can talk about your faith a little bit. I firmly believe, just personally, what works for me, and what I enjoy doing is letting my actions speak about the kind of character that I want to have, and following that quote from St. Francis.' (via Sports Illustrated's Peter King here)

Definitely a complicated issue. And while for the most part I tend to agree with Warner and Rodgers, I think it's nice to see a person in an entertainment industry so outspoken about his faith, so free of the fear that many might feel to truly speak his mind - clearly he thinks it more important to share his faith than to win endorsement deals. And it was gutsy of him to appear in a commercial during the Super Bowl that was clearly against abortion - to court controversy. Now, I'm not saying here that his fame gives him any special authority when talking about his faith; but the reality is that we are in a celebrity-driven culture, and if he is choosing to use that as a platform to express his faith, I say more power to him. It may eventually backfire, but if it does I'm sure he'll adjust the delivery of his message as time goes on - he is still of course quite young. Until then, I say keep it up, so long as it remains for God's glory and His alone.

A sad day in New York City

So it has just been announced that the Supreme Court will not hear the case about churches worshiping in schools. Story here.

It's a difficult thing, to be asked to leave a place you've called home. I can understand the discomfort that some have with churches in public schools; however, I fail to see any sort of harm it might do. As Caleb Clardy (pastor of Trinity Grace Brooklyn) pointed out this past Sunday, all of these churches are paying rent (albeit well below market value) to the school district. Certainly schools can always use even a little bit of extra income. Another point to be made is that I don't see how churches being allowed to use schools can in any way be seen as a government endorsement of religion. I in fact don't see how this isn't discrimination, as we are merely a public group who wishes to use an available space. Clearly the auditorium was not in use on Sundays, as we were granted the right to use the space. Now it will just sit there.

I do believe that the vast majority of judges operate in good faith and try to interpret the law as best they can (I'm assuming this case is no exception). And, perhaps if I had a better understanding of the intricacies of constitutional law in this country, I might even agree with the judges who upheld the city's right to evict the churches, if only on a legal basis. Still, this is a difficult ruling to swallow.

All of that said - God is faithful. Trying times can often push us to be better, more prayerful, more reliant on his good grace and less so on ourselves. I am learning that very thing in this, a very difficult financial time for me, and I am certain that churches in New York will also discover this to be true.

On Fundamentalism

Is there a more irritating phrase in existence than "The Bible says it, I believe it."? I've seen the bumper sticker on many cars, and heard it used in debates and sermons. Perhaps the most irritating thing about it is that it contains a very crucial grain of truth - as a believer I am convinced that the bible is the truest expression of reality that we are going to find, and thus is, for all intents and purposes, true. But what is truth? More importantly, what is biblical truth? For instance, there is what I've seen referred to as the "newspaper account" truth, in the sense that if I were to tell you that I attended church on Sunday, it would be a description (if very vague) of an event that in fact did occur. I could of course add details to this - that I played the cello in the worship band, which started rehearsal at around 8:45, and that the pastor wore a dark jacket and tie. Now, these details one could trust or not based on how they perceive my memory, but I am at least attempting here as best I can to provide a factual account, one that could be corroborated or not by witnesses. However, and this is especially important where the bible is concerned, there are also what I might call here allegorical truths, poetic truths, philosophical truths - those that express big ideas that are true, but perhaps not in the sense mentioned above.

Let's take, for example, what's been called "the Fall". Now, if one is to believe the literal, newspaper view of things, a woman ate an actual, literal apple in the garden of Eden, sin came into the world, and all of humanity was born from two people. I don't believe this story at all in that sense, as our best science has shown us that humanity's birth was a far more complicated matter taking a far greater amount of time. That said, does this mean that the story of the Fall is not true? Clearly not. Even by most non-Christian standards of behavior, man is a fallen race. By Christian (and many other religions) standards he is even more depraved. The story in Genesis very effectively tells us this truth, and beautifully depicts it by having Adam and Eve eat the apple that is supposed to grant the knowledge of good and evil, and it does exactly that. We have fallen not only because we fail to obey God's just rule, but also because we have tried to be like Him.

I think one of the best descriptions of the difficulty in understanding the truth of scripture is to be found in the Confessions of Saint Augustine. I don't have my copy with me (so I can't point out exactly where), but in the final 3 books he dissects the Book of Genesis, going so far as to devote quite a few pages to just the first couple sentences. He points out quite a few different meanings that could be gleaned from these passages, some of which he dismisses out of hand and others he deems far more likely. And that's just in the first few sentences.

I'd also like to point out a small logical difficulty I've discovered in the letters of Paul recently. There is an admonishment in the first letter to the Corinthians that women are not to speak in church (1 Corinthians 14:33). However, at the very end of the letter to the Colossians, buries in a list of greetings and acknowledgments, there is to be found thus: "Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house." (Colossians, 4:15, ESV). One could, I suppose, make the argument that she may have been just a hostess; that said, as is pointed out here, why would he then not greet the pastor? While there can be arguments made on both sides of the issue, this clearly throws a wrench into the whole "women may not speak in church" idea. As is often pointed out, the letters of Paul were letters to various communities, with differing issues. Some scholars have theorized that the women in Corinth were a chatty, gossipy lot and thus the admonishment was not so much to women in general but to THOSE women (certainly a contentious point). However, as can be found at the above link, there are a number of women church leaders mentioned in the new testament. If Paul had wanted these to stop, why encourage them? It seems odd, to say the least.

These are difficult issues, which is exactly my argument: reading scripture is a very difficult undertaking. And exactly how a Christian is supposed to behave is a very complicated thing to determine, if one is looking for rules to follow. As Paul states in Romans 14:13, "resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in your brother's way." The passage makes clear to us that we are to always operate, not according to some set code of rules, but in love for God and for our brothers and sisters in Christ. If you wish to live by the absolute letter of scripture, it almost becomes like the Judaism to be found in the Book of Leviticus (I phrase it thus because I realize that, just like Christianity, there are different sects of Judaism with some different practices), a religion with a great many rules and regulations; Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to create a new one, aside from "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind" (Matthew 22:37).