Austin Fischer's Blog

Every year the same book comes out. It tells us to be radical, to get serious about Christianity, to be followers and not fans. It is usually written by a famous evangelical pastor. It usually sells well.

There was a time when I devoured these books. I couldn’t get enough of them. I still think there is some kernel of truth in these books, but I’ve come to realize that I could not get enough of them because they were cotton-candy. They hit the tongue and make grand promises but evaporate before you even have time to chew. So you take bite after bite, book after book, hoping the next bite will finally satisfy, will finally change things. But it won’t. Long term, it produces indigestion.

So if you’re tired of cotton-candy indigestion, tired of sporadic spasms of passion that perpetually and predictably flame out, heed the invitation:

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

And you who have no money come, buy and eat.

Come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without cost.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread,

And your wages for what does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me and eat what is good,

And delight yourself in abundance.” (Isaiah 55:1-2)

Water to Wine is a splendid book about this—Brian Zahnd’s journey from cotton-candy and watered down grape juice to wine. He took his church with him and it was painful (I’m sure it still is at times), but once you’ve tasted the good stuff, there’s really no going back.

What is the good stuff? Religion. Yep—I know the word has fallen out of favor and there is a whole industry that uses religion as a negative foil to spirituality, and some claim Jesus came to end religion. The point is sometimes taken, but quite often it is little more than a rhetorical smokescreen that leads people down dead-end streets, wanting to follow Jesus but having no clue how to actually do it. In fact, I’d say that pretty well describes many Christians I know—a sincere desire to follow Jesus, but besides reading their Bibles (and the yearly book telling them to get radical), they don’t know what to do about it. Their spirit is willing, but their flesh is weak.

Properly understood, religion is a way of life that orients the soul to God. Spiritual disciplines, sacraments, simple constancy, patience, an ear to the past, an eye to the future—this is religion at its finest and it doesn’t just create mystics; it gathers up orphans and widows (James 1:26-27). I’ve seen so myself.

Evangelical pastors, leaders, and elders should really read this book. It says what you have wondered. For example, “We’re in a situation where it is often very difficult, if not impossible, for a pastor to make spiritual progress while being a pastor.”[1] We don’t have time for spiritual progress because spiritual progress is usually slow, meandering, inefficient—in other words, it is hell to those steeped in the ideology of consumer Christianity. Slow, meandering and inefficient are tough sells. So we pastors get to choose: gain the world or lose your soul. Or better yet, lose your soul while you’re pastoring but work long enough to have a good pension and then venture out in search of your soul when you retire. You’ll have time for a soul then.

There is another way, but it isn’t for wimps. Fine wine isn’t for wimps. It takes patience and discipline. But I think Brian is right:

Water turned to wine

The mystery is the time

It takes for my own transformation

A slow and painful fermentation

With a soul like crushed grapes

I’m a dusty bottle in God’s cellar

But the winemaker knows his craft

He makes all things beautiful in their time

Hallelujah![2]

The book is a wonderful read, so pick it up and let it ferment.

[1] Water to Wine, 181.

[2] Ibid., 191.

Last year, The New Yorker featured an interesting piece on U2 called “The Church of U2.” It came on the heels of their new album (Songs of Innocence) and is a must read for any fan. It examines U2’s deep but conflicted relationship with Christian faith, suggesting it’s the prime source of their artistic genius.

The article gets particularly interesting toward the end as the writer begins to not so subtly make the case that the quality of U2’s music began to dip when the band matured in their faith:

“U2’s best songs were written during these years—roughly from 1986, when they began recording “The Joshua Tree,” to 1997, the year “Pop” (which is actually very good) was released. But there was a problem: the songs depended for their power on the dramatization of Bono’s ambivalence about God…

U2 have continued to write songs of doubt (“Wake Up Dead Man,” off “Pop,” is especially good). But they are no longer wild, ludic, and unhinged in the way they talk about God. There used to be something improvisational and risky about their spirituality—it seemed as though it might go off the rails, veering into anger or despair. Now, for the most part, they focus on a positive message, expressed directly and without ambiguity…

The story of U2 might be this: having begun as a band that was uncertain about the idea of pursuing a life of faith through music, they have resolved that uncertainty. Their thin ecclesiology has become thick. Today, they are their own faith community; they even have a philanthropic arm, which has improved the lives of millions of people. They know they made the right choice, and they seem happy. Possibly, their growing comfort is bad for their art…”

I gather the author of this piece thinks it novel and even provocative to suggest a “maturing” faith is bad for art, but it strikes me as a terribly predictable proposal. That the best art is born from the cauldron of damnation, despair, and doubt has become a virtual truism in many circles. Great artists live on the edge of death and insanity. The truly great ones kill themselves, or at least try. Such is the price of artistic genius. If you don’t attempt suicide, you need to try harder.

And of course, damnation, despair, and doubt can produce great art, but so can faith, hope, and love. In fact, I’m inclined to say bliss, by its very nature, is teeming with much more creative power than the avant-garde nihilism that animates (or dis-animates) much current art. I, for one, find hopelessness (even assertive hopelessness) numbingly lazy and boring. You can have Deleuze and de Sade. I’ll take Bach and Tolkien. All of which leads me to a song by one of my favorite modern songwriters.

David Ramirez has a deep but conflicted relationship with faith, at least to the degree his lyrics are autobiographical. For my money, his best song is “The Forgiven”, a song that explores the relationship between musician and audience.

They love me for being honest, they love me for being myself

But the minute I mention Jesus, they want me to go to hell

It’s hard to find a balance, when I don’t believe in one

When you mix art with business, you’re just shooting an empty gun

You’re just a songwriter, you ain’t a preacher

We came to mourn you, not to look in the mirror

Sing about those hard times, sing about those women

We love the broken, not the forgiven

These words not only strike me as true, but far truer than truisms about the feral creative powers of doubt and anger. Mature art is not always teetering on the edge of violence and depression, pulsing with the dithyrambic rhythms of despair. Mature art tells the truth, plumbs the depths of hell, descends into the squalor, but it also inspires goodness and beauty. I’m not talking about the saccharine strokes of Thomas Kinkaid. I’m talking about the harrowing of Hades.

None of which is to deny that many prefer brokenness to forgiveness (I would venture that most certainly do), but this is a poor way to evaluate whether or not something is good art. Perhaps our fascination with terminal brokenness is indicative of an impoverished imagination, not the artistic fecundity of despair.

Personally, I think Songs of Innocence is one of U2’s best albums, precisely because they have ventured into the abyss of doubt and come out the other side with faith—not a childish faith, but a childlike faith. Wisdom, says David Bentley Hart, is the recovery of innocence at the end of experience.[1] And by this measure, wisdom dictates good art will not only plunge into brokenness but also push through it into the wild, ludic, and unhinged realm of forgiveness. By this measure, art can have no greater aspiration than faith.

[1] David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God, 331.

A clip is circulating of Robert Jeffress, pastor of FBC Dallas, using Romans 13 to argue that the Christian response to the Paris attacks is “borders and bombs” (see it here). I had a few people ask me about it and it got me curious about Romans 13, so I went back to my trusty New Interpreter’s Bible to see what the trusty N.T. Wright has to say about it. Below is a summary of Wright’s commentary, with a few reflections on them and Jeffress’ comments in light of them.

Wright argues that, despite some understandable arguments to the contrary, Romans 13 is in fact a general statement about ruling authorities. In essence, in this time between the times where God’s new world is on its way but not quite here, government is something God has put in place to preserve some measure of justice and order and to prevent the world from falling into complete anarchy and chaos. To disagree with this general sentiment is to endorse actual anarchy, which, on the whole, is far worse than government, even though government can certainly go horribly wrong.

That said, this is a general statement about governments in general and Paul, obviously, is not writing government a blank check, much less telling Christians they should obey government no matter what. A quick perusal of the book of Acts reveals a very complex relationship between the Christian and “government.” The apostles clearly defy their rulers when their rulers ask them to do something that violates faithfulness to Christ (Acts 4:23-31). Paul harshly condemns the high priest, and while he (kind of) apologizes for speaking so sharply once he is told he is speaking to the high priest, he certainly doesn’t take back the content of his rebuke (Acts 23:1-5).

And this is the tension Paul is negotiating. He has said things (both here in Romans and elsewhere) that subvert the gospel and rule of Rome and Caesar. He has made it clear that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. Wright’s proposal is that all of this could have led many Christians into a sort of over-realized eschatological anarchy in which Christians try to overthrow government in the name of Christ. He points to the riots under Claudius and Jewish revolutionaries as examples of actions the early Christians might be tempted to emulate. That, claims Wright, is why Paul is saying this particular thing to these particular people: “Romans 13:1-7 issues commands that are so obvious that they only make sense if there might be some reason in the air not to obey the civic authorities.”[1]

In summary, Romans 13:1-7 is a general statement about the general good of governments, spoken to remind Roman Christians that even in a world where Jesus and not Caesar is Lord, Caesar still has a place: “This is Paul’s basic point—government qua government is intended by God and should in principle command submission from Christian and non-Christian alike.”[2]  So far, so good. Now things get tricky.

In Wright’s mind, Romans 13 is of very little relevance to issues of just war; issues of nations going outside their borders to employ violence in the name of justice: “Romans 13:1-7 is about the running of civic communities, and the duty of Christians toward them. It does not mention or allude to the interactions between difference civic communities or nations. It was because of this that later Christians developed a theory of ‘just war’ to argue at a new level that under certain circumstances it may be right to defend the interests of a nation or community, by force if necessary…”[3]

Simply put, when we ask Just War questions of Paul in Romans 13, we are asking questions Paul might not have the ability to ask. Obviously, the modern notion of the nation/state was simply not something for which Paul had a category.[4]  So while we might well make reasonable arguments for Just War, we cannot use Romans 13 to do it, at least not in simplistic fashion. This seems to be precisely what Jeffress is doing—taking massive hops, skips, and jumps that fail basic principles of exegesis. That or he has worked through it and just fails to show his work.

Another question we wish Paul addressed directly here is what to do when the governing authorities are evil and wicked and clearly violating God’s justice. This question is particularly important for us, living as we are in the blood-stained aftermath of so many totalitarian governments. We, rightfully, cringe at the notion of Nazi Germany being a “servant of God” to whom we should submit.[5] And as our African-American brothers and sisters have pointed out, it is clearly not always the case that rulers are only a cause of fear when you are doing wrong. Sometimes they are a cause of fear if your skin is a certain color.

While Paul fails to directly address this question, we ought not pretend he was naïve to its existence. Paul knew what it was like to suffer before authority wielded in unjust ways; as did Christ. We’re left to speculate, but given the example of Paul and Christ, it seems Christians have strong ground to rebel against the injustices of government, all the way to the point of martyrdom, but not to the point of anarchy (though I’m very open and sympathetic here to the criticisms of many liberation theologians who claim this doesn’t go far enough, at least in some circumstances). Again, the general “God-ordained-ness” of governments does not assume governments always act justly and are above rebuke. Martin Luther King Jr.’s rebellion against state and local governments is one such example.

Finally, a point where I feel Wright doesn’t swing and miss so much as he fails to swing all together…

The tension of Romans 12:14-21 and Romans 13:1-7 is palpable (and they flow straight in to one another). In Romans 12:14-21, Christians are told to bless those who persecute them, never pay back evil for evil to anyone, never take vengeance. It is said in absolute terms. Then comes Romans 13 and its words about God bringing wrath on evildoers via government. How do we reconcile this?

Wright contends Romans 12:14-21 condemns private vengeance, which can be individual or corporate (in the form of, say, a lynch mob).[6] Given that he feels “private vengeance” can also be corporate, we should be clear that private doesn’t just mean personal, but any vengeance done by “illegitimate” authorities.

And here’s why I feel Wright fails to swing. He seems to imply that Romans 12:14-21 is a piece of general advice to all people; namely, vengeance/wrath “is the point at which the authority [government] must do what the private individual may not do.”[7] But (and here’s the key point) Romans is not a letter filled with general advice to all people; it is a letter written to Christians. Romans 12:14-21 is not advice for all private individuals; it is advice for all Christians. Paul is not saying, “Government inflicts the wrath that private individuals aren’t allowed to.” Paul is saying, “Christians do not take vengeance; government does.”

This of course begs that nagging question regarding a Christian’s relationship to government and whether or not a Christian, who is never to pay back evil for evil to anyone (12:17), can faithfully participate in a government that is called to do this precise thing (13:4). It is difficult for me to imagine Paul telling Christians to never repay evil for evil to anyone as “private individuals” and then forget about all that when it came to participating in government. Or in Jeffress’ terms, I cannot imagine Paul telling Christians, “As individuals, advocate turning the other cheek. As American citizens, advocate bombing the hell out of ISIS.”[8] It is tough to avoid the conclusion that Romans 13 most likely says something close to the exact opposite of what Jeffress claims it says.

There are no easy answers here, and perhaps that’s why Wright decides to let the pitch go by.[9] Some find arguments from silence compelling (i.e. Peter doesn’t tell Cornelius to quit his job as a centurion, ergo, God is ok with it). I do not. Scripture’s clear words against Christians participating in violence make a much stronger argument than a silence or two. Others have suggested Paul could not conceive of the possibility of a Christian serving in government, given his historical situation. I think that’s probably true, and we’re left to work through the implications. Others point out that there are non-lethal ways of enforcing justice and bringing wrath on evildoers and Christians should work in government to move government in that direction. I’m open to that.

Personally, I’m very sympathetic to those who fear what would happen if Christians radically embraced non-violence and withdrew from government to whatever degree involvement in government was involvement in bearing the sword in the name of vengeance. I don’t quite know what that would mean or look like. It scares me. But our fears do not get to neuter what the text says and a Christian response to Paris deserves better exegesis. Perhaps we will find sound, Christian reasons to buck (what appears at least) to be the clear teaching of Scripture, but if we are to do so, we need to be far clearer about the grounds for such a decision.  

In the end, I’m just another person with no easy answers but the failure of many Christian leaders to clearly articulate the questions is frustrating. My suggestion: if we want to see some bombs dropped, then let’s cancel the next presidential debate and instead get Jeffress, Wright, and Hauerwas in a room together!

[1] Wright, NIB, Romans, 722.

[2] 719.

[3] 720.

[4] 716.

[5] Or to feel the dilemma even more, if Romans 13 is a blanket divine endorsement of the authority of all governments, it’s difficult to see how ISIS is not a legitimate government appointed by God.

[6] 723.

[7] 721.

[8] To be fair, I’m assuming Jeffress thinks Christians can and should participate in government, but given that his Twitter tag for the clip explained his words as the Christian response to the Paris attacks, I think it’s a safe assumption.

[9] It probably also has something to do with his Anglican sensibilities.

Monergism (“one work”) is the belief that God works alone in salvation. It’s usually set against synergism, which is the belief that while God alone does everything in working for our salvation, humans must cooperate with grace in some form or fashion (the cooperation itself, of course, possible only because of grace).

Monergism is an integral part of Reformed soteriology, because without it Reformed folks feel humans could boast in their salvation and steal God’s glory—two unpardonable sins. As James Montgomery Boice has said it, those who reject monergism cannot give God alone the glory: “They cannot say ‘to God alone be the glory,’ because they insist on mixing human power or ability with the response to gospel grace.”[1] One gets the sense that for many, monergism is not only true but also necessarily true.

I’ve discussed monergism in other places (in my book in particular), used to affirm it, and I understand how people think the Bible teaches it. I think they’re wrong and find it curious the early Church Fathers didn’t teach, especially it if it was so essential and Paul, allegedly, clearly taught it. As the great Calvinist theologian Loraine Boettner states, with laudable honesty: “The earlier church fathers…taught that salvation was through Christ; yet they assumed that man had full power to accept or reject the gospel…They taught a kind of synergism in which there was co-operation between grace and free will.”[2]

I know of very few historical theologians who would even begin to contest Boettner’s claim (and again, Boettner was a Calvinist), so I think advocates of monergism have a good bit of explaining to do here. But again, in all sincerity, I understand how people think the Bible teaches it.

But what I would like to point out is that you don’t need monergism to prevent human boasting or protect God’s glory. Nope—all you need is a healthy doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing)…or better yet, creatio continua (continuing creation).

From early on,[3] Christianity affirmed God created the universe from nothing and without necessity and that the whole of space-time is dependent, moment by moment, on the superabundant source of being that is God. Existence itself is grace—a gift, unforeseen and unnecessary and gratuitous, given anew in the unfolding of each moment in which there is something instead of nothing:

“It is the condition of absolute contingency that defines creaturely existence. Every finite being is groundless, without any original or ultimate essence in itself, a moment of unoccasioned fortuity, always awakening from nothing…”[4]

“All-that-is and all-that-has-been and, indeed, all-that-will-be is given existence by an Ultimate Reality that is other than what is created.”[5]

“The power of life stands outside us and is given to us.”[6]

God doesn’t need creation.

Creation actualizes no latent potential in God.

God, from all eternity, is an infinite, vibrant, dynamic, and endlessly creative triune community of abundance, delight, peace, feasting, revelry, and joy.

As such, all that is exists in an irreducibly gratuitous fashion and creation is an expression of God’s primordial generosity; a generosity Jesus taught us to call love.

Which brings us back to monergism.

I am deeply grateful for the Reformation. Several harmful trajectories had formed and the Reformation was a much-needed corrective to them. But the dogged focus on the inner mechanics of the soteriological mystery set, in my opinion, another harmful trajectory in which the horizons of the gospel were narrowed and monergism started attempting to say what creatio ex nihilo had already said far better; namely, that EVERYTHING is a gift of grace, to be received with open hands and wide-eyed wonder.

Because creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua prevent human boasting and protect God’s glory far more effectively than monergism, accomplishing and exceeding what monergism aspires to with effortless beauty and grace. Because when one realizes every creature—not to mention space-time itself!!!—is sustained, nanosecond by nanosecond, by the wild and unconditioned generosity of God, monergism is simply unnecessary. It might still be true, but it is not necessary. The infinite God, Being behind all being, does not need monergism to protect his glory.

This won’t end any debates on monergism and you can still make a biblical case for it (though I think you can make a better case against it), but perhaps it can halt some of the hand-wringing and help Reformed folks understand why, to a great many of us, monergism is well-intentioned but misguided small potatoes in a universe breathing grace.[7]

[1] Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?, 167.

[2] The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, 365.

[3] See Langdon Gilkey’s outstanding Maker of Heaven and Earth for an examination of the historic consensus on creatio ex nihilo.

[4] David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, 250.

[5] Arthur Peacocke, The Music of Creation, 7.

[6] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, 137.

[7] I’m reminded of Kevin DeYoung’s review of my book, wherein he was a bit miffed that I so easily shrugged off the supposed importance of monergism. I can only say that in any theological world where there is a robust doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, monergism simply isn’t essential.

The book of Job saved my life. I’m only half-joking.

As I mentioned previously, I was in college and the bigness of the world came crashing in on me, and through a series of events I still can’t completely explain, my faith just got up and slowly walked out on me. It was as if a fog of doubt and confusion came creeping over me, suffocating my faith little by little. And I went months without going to church, months without uttering a single prayer, months without reading a single word from the Bible…except for Job.

We meet Job in chapter 1 and basically learn that he’s a great guy who’s doing everything right and everything is wonderful in his world. But that all changes when Satan burns Job’s world to the ground. This is Job 1-2. Satan destroys everything Job holds dear—his family, his health, his wealth—and Job response is remarkable and yet, curious. You’ve heard it quoted before, Job 1:21: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed by the name of the Lord. “ As he watches his life burn to the ground, Job praises God.

Strangely enough, a lot of people tend to stop reading Job at this point, so they think the moral of the story is something like:

“God, sometimes, takes everything from us, but we should praise God anyways, and get over it.”

And that might be the moral of Job if Job stopped at chapter 2—but Job doesn’t stop at chapter 2. In fact, the story of Job has barely even begun at chapter 2—there are 40 more chapters to go. And here’s what happens.

Job gets tired of pretending—he gets tired of pretending that he’s ok, tired of pretending he’s certain God is wonderful, tired of pretending that it’s all good his life has been burned to the ground. Job unleashes and let’s God have it. He barrages God with doubts and accusations and borderline blasphemies. He says stuff like this…

Job 7:11,17-20: “Therefore I will not keep silent—I will speak out of the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul…What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Will you not look away from me for a while and leave me alone so I can swallow my spittle? If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of men?”

Job 9:16-18,20: “If I summoned God and he answered me, I don’t believe he would listen to my voice. For he crushes me with a storm and multiplies my wounds without cause. He will not let me catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness…though I am innocent, he will declare me guilty.”

So Job is saying stuff like that, and then he’s got these three friends and every time Job speaks and let’s God have it, they say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa…Job…you can’t say that to the big guy. You can’t talk to God like that. You can’t doubt like that. So, you know, just praise God, don’t doubt, and get over it. Quit causing a scene.”

Praise God, don’t doubt, and get over it.

So they go round and round, when finally…God shows up…in a whirlwind. And God puts Job in his place—no doubt about it (38:2-3). But what’s really interesting is what happens next. God turns to Job’s friends—his friends who were telling him to praise God, don’t doubt, and get over it—and this happens:

“It came about after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.” So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job.” (Job 42:7-9)

Did you catch that? God says that Job—the guy who has verbally harassed him for 35 chapters with doubts and accusations—has spoken rightly of God. Whereas Job’s friends—who told Job he can’t talk to God like that, who told Job to praise God, don’t doubt, and get over it—have spoken wrongly of God and God’s wrath is kindled against them. What in the world could this mean? How has Job spoken rightly? He’s said all sorts of terrible and wrong things?

Interpreters are often puzzled here, but perhaps Job has spoken rightly (in some measure) in the sense that he had the courage to speak honestly. Job spoke rightly in the sense that he tells God the truth, even when the truth is laced with anger and skepticism. While everybody else is talking about God and insisting Job should just praise God, don’t doubt, and get over it, Job is demanding to talk to God. As Job himself says it with provocative faithfulness: “Though He slay me, I will still hope in him. But nevertheless, I will argue my ways before him.” (Job 13:15)

Job saved my faith because he taught me to stop trying to convince myself that I don’t have doubts and start telling the truth about them. He taught me that I don’t have to be afraid of my doubts—that my doubts aren’t a virtue or a vice, they’re not something to be proud of or ashamed of, they don’t make me a saint or a sinner.[1] Job taught me that what really matters is what I do with my doubts. Will I stuff them down and fake it, or will I bring them before God and others and tell the truth about them?

The times are changing, and your faith had better learn to change with them. Because if not, you’ll fake it till you get tired of faking it, and then your inner skeptic will win and you’ll give up. Faith evolves or it dies—I’ve seen it again and again.

That said, what we learn from Job is that faith’s evolution is really just a return to its roots. Because biblical faith has always been willing to ask the tough questions, to live the doubts, and to wrestle with God. That’s what we do—because we take our faith too seriously not to. We are children of Israel—the people who wrestle with God (Genesis 32).

And we don’t demand or expect certainty—because we’re little, bitty humans, living in the universe of a really big God. And on top of that, you don’t need certainty to have faith. All you need is a bit of trust and a willingness to commit and act despite uncertainty. That’s what faith is. As Daniel Taylor says it, “If I doubt and yet still commit, then I have faith. Faith is believing and committing to something despite uncertainty.” And that brings me to one last thing.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus says we have to become like children if we want to enter into the kingdom…

When I was a little boy, I spent most of every day asking my parents questions. And if you’ve got a little boy, it’ll come as no surprise to you that most of my questions were about who would win in a fight: who would win in a fight between dad and Hulk Hogan? Or more paradoxically, who would win in a fight between God and Godzilla? These are the questions that haunt a 5 year old. And this is what kids do with their parents.

So it occurs to me that when Jesus tells us we need to become like children if we want to enter into the kingdom, he’s not telling us that we’d better pretend we’re certain, and hide the questions, and fake it. Are you kidding me?—that’s not what kids do.

No—rather he’s inviting us, begging us, welcoming us to ask the questions, all the questions, even the big, ugly ones like who would win in a fight between God and Godzilla. That’s what I want my son, Wyatt, to do with me, and I’d be crushed if he thought he had to hide his doubts and questions from me. I want to be the first person he comes to with them, not the last.

And this is the childlike trust at the heart of the biblical faith: a willingness to barrage God with all of our questions and doubts…because we love him, and he loves us too, and so…who else are we gonna ask if not our Father who art in heaven?

[1] Hebrews 11:1 and James 1:6-8 are often referred to in order to support the idea that faith is about certainty and doubt is a terrible vice. Hebrews 11:1 is notoriously difficult to translate so I encourage people to simply look at the people of great faith mentioned in chapter 11 and see if their faith included being certain. The answer to that is obvious: no. Abraham, Sarah, and Moses were saints of great faith, but they most certainly were not certain. Read their stories. As to James 1:6-8, I think the vice in view is “double-mindedness” more than doubt. This refers to conflicted loyalties more than epistemological uncertainty.

For thousands of years we assumed that Earth was the center of the universe. That the sun and moon and stars and whatever else there was out there revolved around the Earth. And that the earth itself was stable and unmoving—completely at rest. After all, it certainly seems that way when you step outside and stare out into the universe.

But now we know that none of this is true. Now we know that well, we’re tiny little ants, who live in a tiny little corner of this huge planet…which is spinning around its axis at a thousand mph…while orbiting the sun at the center of our solar system at 66,000 mph…a solar system which is itself flying around our galaxy at 450,000 mph…which is itself hurling through the universe at a couple million mph! Do you ever trip and fall and don’t know why?

That’s why.

We thought we were the kings of the cosmos, but we’ve discovered we’re more like ants on a rollercoaster. We’ve discovered the universe is a whole lot bigger and we’re a whole lot littler than we ever imagined.

It reminds me of the words of that great prophet, Bob Dylan:

Come gather ’round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You’ll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you

Is worth savin’

Then you better start swimmin’

Or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin’.

Now the times are always a changin’, but it certainly seems to be the case that in the 50 years since Dylan penned these prophetic words, the times have been changing at a rate never before seen in the history of the world. In particular, technology has created, for all intensive purposes, a new world. You click a few buttons and in a few minutes you can learn more about the world than previous generations could have hoped to learn in an entire lifetime.

Think about it. Our ancestors interacted with a small handful of people each day—their family and maybe the family that lives in the cave down the street. But you and I interact with hundreds, if not thousands of people on a daily basis—because of cars and planes and TV and internet, we bump up against people from all over the world all the time.

And as we’ve bumped into all these people from all over the world, we’ve discovered something; namely, that we disagree with each other about an awful lot of stuff—food and clothes and politics and religion. Think about something that you’d be willing to stake your life on; something you believe so deeply that you’d be willing to die for it. Got it? Well no matter what that something is, somebody else is willing to die for their belief that you’re wrong about that.

I was in college when the bigness and diversity of the world came crashing in on me. The claims of science and other religions started ringing in my ears and I realized that there were a lot of voices out there claiming to have the truth. And as all those voices ricocheted around in my head, I got more than a little confused, and for the longest time I just didn’t know what to do with it—the skepticism and the doubts and the questions. Many people are in the same place—on and off the fringes of faith because they just don’t know what to do with their skepticism.

This series is for skeptics, which probably means it’s for all of us. Because most of us have a skeptic down in us, somewhere and sometimes. And so before we go to the Bible to let it show us what to do with our skepticism, we need to talk for a second about what faith isn’t.

Your faith is as strong as you feel certain about it—this is the way many of us have been taught to think about faith.[1]

To have faith is to be certain that what I believe is true. So certainty = strong faith and skepticism = weak faith. And when you think about faith this way, it’s pretty clear what you’re supposed to do with your skepticism: you better pretend it’s not there and push it out of your mind and heart so that you can get back to feeling certain, because that’s what it means to have faith, that’s what God wants from you: certainty.

Now maybe you’ve never had anybody come right out and say that to you, but if you’re anything like me, this is the way you’ve been taught to think about faith. And there are lots of problems with this—two in particular.

#1- You Can’t Be Certain

I can only assume that most of you reading this are human beings. And so, fellow human beings, the first problem with the whole faith = certainty idea is that, well, we’re all human beings…which means we simply cannot be certain about much of anything.[2]

Think about it. We’re painfully finite, limited, fallen creatures who know far less of reality than we could ever even begin to comprehend. We peek at the infinity of the universe through a tiny pinhole, during a very brief space in time. And no matter how long we live and how much we learn, what we don’t know will always greatly outweigh what we do know.

So you can stretch for certainty all you want, but it will always lie beyond your reach. Because you’re a human, and that means you don’t get to be objective or certain. And that leads to the second big problem with the idea that faith = certainty.

#2- It’s Crazy

Trying to convince yourself that you’re certain of something that you know good and well you can’t actually be certain of…is crazy!

Case in point. Greg Boyd tells a story about a young father with a young family who learned he had an incurable form of brain cancer. So a group gathered together to pray for him and before they started praying, someone reminded them how God rewards those who have faith and so everyone needed to push aside all of their doubts and believe that God was going to heal this young father.

So…if they could convince themselves that God was going to heal him, then God would in fact heal him. This young family’s future hinged on the ability of a group of people to convince themselves they were certain God would heal this man.[3]

And all of a sudden, Greg realizes just how ridiculous all of this is, and an image pops into his head: it’s God, holding this young father hostage, with a gun to his head. And God says, “If you convince yourself you’re certain that I’ll heal him, he lives. But if not, he dies.”[4]

How sadistic and crazy is that!? How sadistic and crazy is a god who runs the universe like that!? And yet, that’s the way many of us tend to think about faith. It’s this bizarre psychological game in which we try to convince ourselves that we’re certain about things that we simply can’t be certain about.

Because if faith is the ability to convince yourself that something is true, then blessed are the Bigfoot hunters for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Some of you have lived your whole life thinking that the healing of loved ones, that the answering of prayers, that your eternal destiny hinges on your ability to play this ridiculous psychological game. And I’m sorry you’ve lived with that burden, and I’m happy to tell you that’s not the way God does things, so you can quit trying to convince yourself that you’re certain—that’s not your job.

And so for our next installment, we’ll turn to the book of Job and let it teach us what to do with our skepticism and what faith really looks like.

[1] Greg Boyd does a great job unpacking this idea in Benefit of the Doubt.

[2] An idea I explore in chapter 9 of my book, Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed.

[3] Mark 11:24 is often appealed to in support of this way of thinking. While on the surface it can be taken that way, a deeper look at the text in the context of the wider teaching of Scripture makes it clear this cannot be taken at face value. I’ll have to leave it there for now.

[4] This is recounted in Benefit of the Doubt.

“Worship should not be a concert.”

It’s a common sentiment in many of the circles I run in, and in many ways I couldn’t agree more. The loud music, the blinding lights, the seamless transitions, and, God help us, the smoke machines. It can be a bit ridiculous, and not just as a matter of good taste, but as a matter of good theology. It feeds the ideology of the market and the religion of the consumer. It can condition people to be observers of a show instead of participants in worship of the triune God. None of this is good. Many churches that were once on the cutting edge of modern church worship have realized this and are moving back toward more measured and intentionally liturgical expressions of worship. And to all of this I say, Amen!

However…I would like to speak a few words in defense of worship as a concert.

A few days ago I went to see U2 in Chicago. I love U2. I think they’re the greatest band in the world. I think there are two types of people in this world: people who love U2 and people who suck. Our tickets were in the pit, because while observing a U2 concert from a seat is special, experiencing a U2 concert in the pit is a riot. We had a riot. Singing “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with 30,000 other people at the top of your lungs. It is sacramental stuff.

Not too long ago, I went to another concert and the experience was, well, different. For whatever reason, the band decided they wouldn’t play any of their best songs but would instead play a whole set full of obscure stuff no one knew. They also failed miserably to bring the audience into the concert. Some bands know how to do it and some don’t.

Which brings me back to worship as a concert.

It seems to me that worship doesn’t need to be less like a concert so much as it needs to be less like a bad concert and more like a good one. Because if you think people don’t participate in concerts, I suspect you’ve never been to a great concert. At a great concert you get immersed, you lose yourself, you feel connected to the people around you, you feel alive. It’s like you’ve stepped into a different world. And that’s what worship is too: an excursion into God’s real world of revelry, peace, and joy; an excursion that reminds us that behind the veil of things, God’s real world is always at hand.

I think there are all sorts of ways to do worship right. I can dig the high liturgy of my Catholic and Episcopal friends and I try to learn from it and incorporate it into the worship at my church. I grew up in a church with a huge, traditional choir and love hearing the swell of voices unaided by instruments. I have deep concerns with the worship of churches that barrage people with thoughtless light shows and smoke machines.

But when it is done with scrupulous intention and generous accessibility, I think worship could do much worse than being like a concert. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that many would benefit greatly if our worship was more like a great concert instead of less like one.

A month ago I was in Nepal. Here is something I wrote the day of the earthquake.

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“Another earthquake will probably happen soon.”

I didn’t think too much about it when he said it to me. I was exhausted after a hike to Shivapuri—a beautiful peak in the hills surrounding the Kathmandu Valley—and could barely keep my eyes open on the bumpy journey back into town.

I was fond of our guide. He was quiet but friendly and we chatted for a good portion of our 15-mile hike. It started when I asked if he’d ever seen a tiger in the wild. He had. I barraged him with questions about Nepali wildlife and the Himalayas for the next few hours.

Kathmandu is densely populated. Buildings upon buildings upon buildings. When you run out of “out”, you have to start building “up” and that was what worried him.

Every seventy or so years, a massive earthquake hits Nepal. The fault line that produces the splendor of the Himalayas also produces earthquakes. He knew they were overdue for another one and that when it happened, the buildings would come tumbling down and the damage would be catastrophic.

He was the first person I thought of when I woke up this morning. My phone was binging over and over, so I begrudgingly rolled over and picked it up. An earthquake hit Kathmandu—a big earthquake. Two plates in the belly of the earth shifted and the top of the world trembled. The official death toll at that moment was 111, but I knew it would be much higher. Just a month earlier, I had seen the buildings upon buildings and I shuddered as I imagined them tumbling to the ground.

The second person I thought of was a group of people—the children at an orphanage we had visited. They lived a high rise building on the outskirts of Kathmandu, surrounded by green fields where they ripped and ran and played soccer. What if their building collapsed? My stomach churned.

Right about then, my wife came into the bedroom with our 7-month old son for my favorite ritual—him crawling around on our bed in the morning with a million watt smile and eyes full of curiosity and wonder.

It was a beautiful day—70 degrees, cloudless. My brother in law was getting married in a few hours and I was performing the ceremony. We had much to be thankful for.

It was a strange moment.

Here I sit with my son as he crawls over me, smiles at me, babbles to me. Moments like that make faith easy. Of course it’s all going to be ok. Of course there is a God of infinite love and goodness at the heart of things. How else could I explain a moment like this?

But on the other side of the world, fathers are digging through the rubble for their sons. Many will not be found.

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen.”

That’s what Frederick Buechner says and in moments like this I don’t know what else to say. How do we hold it together—the beauty and tragedy? Some look at the world and see only the veil of death. Some see only the beauty of creation. But how do we glimpse the beauty of creation through the veil of death? Is it even appropriate to do so?

I got out of bed and went outside to give myself some space to process things.

“God—please give me the eyes of Easter.”

That was the prayer that came to me over and over. The eyes of Easter have seen tragedy—they’ve gone to hell and back. They’ve bore the full burden of reality, in all its misery and suffering. They do not look the other way to preserve the saccharine bliss of naiveté. They stare death in the face.

And yet they are eyes that have glimpsed an empty tomb—an empty tomb that makes promises so big and deep and wide that the hopes of those who glimpse it are forever haunted by intuitions of resurrection.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps. Nevertheless, I’m asking for them.

I have no bulletproof syllogism for why you should. I can understand if you think it irrational and irresponsible, because I’ve seen the world from behind those eyes too.

I can only say that when I glimpse the world behind Easter eyes, I see something that makes sense—something that makes sense of both beauty and tragedy. Creation groans in its bondage to suffering and death. Things weren’t supposed to be this way. Something is terribly wrong. Damn the indifference of those who say otherwise.

But there is also so much beauty, so much love, so much wonder. The problem of good has just as much bite as the problem of evil. Is the empty tomb too good to be true? My Easter eyes tell me it’s too good not to be true.

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. What do you see?

I see an empty tomb.

Our staff is reading through the Psalms together. This week, I was assigned Psalm 17, and as usual (as our youth pastor likes to point out), David is telling God what to do.

He starts out with his typical chutzpah: “Hear a just cause, O Lord, give heed to my cry.”

David is confident his cause is just, his lips are truthful, and his way is peaceful (17:1-5). And he’s confident Yahweh knows it. So because his cause is just and Yahweh knows it, he’s confident Yahweh will grant his request.

It’s not terribly surprising that David’s request is that Yahweh will deliver him from his enemies with Yahweh’s sword (17:13). David is, after all, a man of a different age. Save me and kill my enemies—this is what ancient people tended to ask of their gods. Clearly there are still many ancients among us.

Despite my uneasiness toward David’s violent proclivities, I can place it in its proper space in time, and his cry for deliverance resonates deeply with me. I know what it’s like to feel surrounded by enemies. I know what it’s like to know that I am right and they are wrong. I know the desire to take refuge in the shadow of the almighty, but another shadow falls upon this psalm when I read it.

The shadow of Uriah.

Use your imagination and picture it:

David cries out to God with righteous conviction, reminding God of his justice, integrity, and peacefulness. And this prayer rises up to heaven…where God and Uriah sit side by side.

God and Uriah listen to David’s prayer together, glancing at one another from time to time with knowing amusement, chuckling here and there at the sheer absurdity of it all.

David…a man of justice, integrity, and peace!? The pot-marks of healed arrowhead wounds across Uriah’s torso beg otherwise. David is no such thing, and one would presume that, in more honest moments, David knows it (and many of the psalms indicate that he most certainly does).[1]

And yet here he is, making these comically self-righteous claims. Why? Perhaps because the good news of God was simply much better than he could have ever imagined.

Situated where we are—on the other side of Golgotha—we are privy to a view David never quite had. David, at times at least, hoped Yahweh would deliver him because he was a man of justice, integrity, and peace. And across religions, most have believed (or wanted to believe) the universe is tilted in favor of the just. And that certainly would be good news.

But as we approach Good Friday, we are reminded that the news is even better than that. For on Friday, we remember that the universe is not tilted in favor of the just so much as embracing of the unjust; that is, we remember that God desires to embrace the unjust in the arms of love. There are holes in his hands to prove it.

And if the shadow of Uriah falls upon David, the shadow of Jesus falls upon us all.

So if we want to take refuge in the shadow of the almighty, let us first remember: it’s a refuge for sinners. After all, the good news is not that we are good, but that we are loved.

[1] And of course to be fair, it’s probably the case that David is referring to his righteousness in a particular case with a particular opponent and not a blanket righteousness. That said, David has a certain tendency to see himself as “in the right.”

A Holy Week Reflection

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What does he think as he hangs there?

What memories fill his mind? What emotions flood his soul?

A strange thing—divinity crucified. An impossible thing—one would think. But there he hangs.

Not a very divine thing to do.

Does he perceive the absurdity? Does his blood boil? What does he think as he hangs there?

It’s no easy task trying to glimpse the thing from behind his eyes and feel it from inside his heart. But his words beckon us to follow them back into the abyss from which they sprang.

He speaks to God, a scoundrel to his left, his mother, his friend, and his tormentors.

He forgives, he promises, he agonizes, he thirsts, and he gives up. What does he think as he hangs there?

The question bursts with infinity. But surely, we must say, he thinks it is real. The grieving mother, the repentant thief, the splinters in his back, the gagging on his own tongue, the godforsakenness of it all.

It is real and it means something.

Such a strong temptation—to flood the abyss of Golgotha with the light of explanations. There are certainly worse things one could do.

But first, let us pause and see the thing itself.

God hangs.

It is real and it means something.