| |
Habits
of
the
Mind--the
Christian
mind
invading
sacred
and
secular
space,
essays
that
lift
Christian
discourse
above
our
fading
cultural...
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
March 3, 2007
Why the skepticism and
hatred for Evangelical political activism?
Political pundits, media talking
heads, journalists, and bloggers have been
offering their take on the republican loss in
November and whether the conservative moment,
led by (so-called) cultural neo-cons and the
evangelical right, has, at the most, begun to
recede, or at the least, just hit a temporary
block. In fact after listening to
hours—literally—of conservative talk radio, I
have discovered that not all conservatives like
or approve of evangelicals. Evangelicals are
hated, railed against, maligned, loathed,
vilified, and even laughed at by media.
Non-evangelical conservatives use evangelicals
when it suits their agenda. Liberals loathe
their very presence in the arena. People and
politicians are judged and criticized based on
their relationship to evangelicals, evangelical
leaders (so-called and self-anointed [James
Dobson, Jerry Farwell, et. al.] and anything
that seems to cross that tall, church-state wall
of separation. Despite the current rhetoric, I
have a different take on the matter worth
considering.
Full essay>>
Send to a friend,
click here |
|
| |
February 26, 2006
Preoccupied with life’s peripheral issues,
forgetting the essentials
Life’s lessons often come from
most
unusual sources. For me, one such lesson
came during a driver education session. I was
sixteen. And it was not a good session.
It was spring, 1974. On a
winding New Hampshire road, traffic was backed
up behind me for at least a mile. Apparently, I
was driving too slowly. Eventually the
instructor found a safe place for me to pull
over. The car immediately behind us pulled over
as well. Not a good sign.
The driver didn't even look at
me. With noticeable frustration and anger he
directed his comments to my instructor. “If the
guy can't drive, get him off the road!”
The irate motorist returned to
his car and the line of traffic continued to
file by. I was mortified. My emotions must
have registered on my face.
“Relax,” the instructor said to
me; “we'll get back to driving in a moment.”
Right then I wasn't sure I wanted to drive—ever!
The instructor gave me time to
settle down. Finally he asked, “You know what
your problem is?”
Yeah,
I thought to myself, I
can’t drive!
“You are concerned about staying
between the yellow center line and the white
side line,” the instructor continued. “As a
result, you drive too slowly and weave back and
forth. You are concentrating on the road right
in front of you. Try this: Look where you want
to be going.”
Look where you want to be going.
Good advice. It helped me
through driver education and to be a reasonably
safe driver ever since. It's also good advice
for contemporary North American Christians.
Our culture tends to make us
overly concerned about the road immediately in
front of us. Everything from TV sitcoms that
solve problems in thirty minutes to fast‑food
restaurants and instant‑cash machines put
pressure on us. They force us to define
ourselves by how we respond to and feel about
the immediate—the temporal.
Our own moment in time places
certain pressures on our churches, and on us.
There is temptation to accommodate ourselves
with the status quo, to identify with the
hedonistic and self-absorbing culture around
us. We want to feel comfortable in modernity.
We dislike feeling alienated from our
surrounding culture, from our democracy. But if
we succumb, we will be robbed of our persevering
joy—and the power of true Christian identity.
We must place our confidence not
in the world or the things of the world (1 John
2:15‑17; Romans 12:1‑2) but in the essentials of
our faith: the person of Christ, the cross, and
the resurrection. Only in doing so can we
restore our identity. Only in doing so will the
Church be able to persevere amid the tensions of
life.
A wise Christian once made an
interesting observation: For the unbeliever, joy
is peripheral and suffering is fundamental; but
for the believer, suffering is peripheral and
joy is fundamental. Why is that true? For the
unbeliever, as Ravi Zacharias observed, the
peripheral issues are answered and the
fundamental ones are left unanswered. But for
the Christian, the fundamental questions of life
are answered and the peripheral ones are
unanswered.
Regrettably, much of the
Christian community seems to have lost this
basic perspective. We have lost our joy because
we have switched the poles of our existence. We
have succumbed to our culture's fascination with
the now, the immediate. As a result, we are
preoccupied with the peripheral issues of life,
forgetting the essentials. And this causes us
to define both our Christian and church
identities by the peripheral issues we face
rather than by the eternal, fundamental
realities of Christ's death and resurrection.
Repeatedly Paul expresses his own
sense of joy throughout his writings.
Repeatedly, as in the Letter to the Philippians,
he asks the congregation to share in his joy
(Philippians 1:4, 18, 25‑26; 2:2, 18, 29; 3:1;
4:4, 10). Paul, as he writes to virtually all
of the churches, attempts to refocus the
Christian community's attention back on
the essential, fundamental aspects of the faith:
the person of Jesus Christ, the cross and the
resurrection. These are the essentials, the
things that address the fundamental aspects of
life. It is when Christians take their minds
off of them, when they concentrate on the
details and peripheral matters, do we act and
become like the unbelieving community around us.
Like my first experience at
driving, when we pay attention to the lines
aside us and we are paying so close attention to
the road right in front of us, we end up weaving
back and forth. Getting caught up in the
details, the peripheral, we lose the sight (and
insight) of the essentials.
© Chip M.
Anderson
Words’nTone
Adapted from my book,
Destroying Our Private
Cities, a lay-commentary on
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. For more
information on the Book and a free-downloadable
chapter,
click here.
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
October
24, 2005
As
long as “why” is in our vocabulary
Intelligent
Design vs. Evolution, a debate raging today. As
in the days when evolution was attempting to
gain acceptance, there is much resistance to
this new approach to understanding our origins.
Those who hold dear the evolutionary theory are
resistant to consider ID, nor do they actually
consider it worth debating. The debate,
nonetheless, is good, even if for the sake of
debate, clarity, positing new ideas, keeping
everyone in check and honest.
I have been
drawn back into the debate, little by little,
through certain online discussion groups. I
have plenty of issues with the theory of
evolution (and it is only a theory by the way),
mostly because there are still gaps and
inconsistencies with the theory. I find it
interesting and amusing that humans, if they
have evolved from primordial slim, through eons
and eons of time, are the most questioning of
species. And, it has been noted, in the midst
of modern, technological and scientific times,
spirituality is on the rise. Actually, this is
not to be unexpected. As long as “why” is in
our vocabulary, a randomly made universe will
not answer the deepest questions of the human
soul.
“Why is
there pain? Why is there suffering?” The
cruel, heartless evolved universe and the
evolutionary theory has no comfort, not answer
to give (except survival of the fitness, of
course).
C.S Lewis,
again a household name with his Narnia hitting
the Big Screen, once suggested that only human
beings spell pain the way we do. He wrote, we
are not satisfied to posit merely the reality of
pain; rather, we ask the question within a moral
context. Why?
We should
not be deceived in thinking that pain’s
existence necessarily draws the conclusion that
God does not exist. If this were a valid
conclusion we would be content with simply the
description of pain. Rather, pain leads to
larger questions of the soul: Why?
Asking the question implies someone has
the answer. We are not stoics asking this
loaded, moral, very human question of the
corporeal, amoral,
randomly-designed-by-accident-universe. No. We
expect an answer. We expect someone to
explain.
Questioning why is as ancient as Job and his
story of suffering and conflict.
Interestingly, long before there was
“evolution,” ancient writers, such as the author
who penned Job’s story, used intelligent design
as a reasonable answer to life’s questions.
God used an argument from design to help Job
understand and come to grips with his own pain.
How can a righteous, innocent man suffer? Why?
Why? Why? Job shouted. Eventually God broke
the seemingly one-sided conversation and appeals
to Job with the details and intricacies of the
universe, His created universe.
In a series of sixty-four questions God
presented Job an intelligently designed, yet
mysterious, universe. Job could not argue
against the splendor. The Designer who had
designed this world could also bring design out
of his suffering. Job could now see the purpose
for all of life through the eyes of God.
It does not take a Ph. D. in physics to know
that everything that exists points to a
designer. Insanity might cling to the concept
that a dictionary just happened through eons of
time and as a result of an exploding printing
press. Silliness prevents us from believing
that a watch developed after shaking a box of
metal parts. This is why we do not cry out to
the randomness that evolutionists want us to
believe exists in this uncreated universe. We
do not shout at chance, “Why!” A
randomly designed universe does not comfort the
tormented soul. Never has. Never will.
Some might enjoy the playground of
self-actualized (survival of the fittest) ethics
and the aimless moral climate that a randomly
designed universe can offer. But all is dashed
when we encounter suffering and pain. Chance
does not answer back. Nor can it. For some,
perhaps, determinism brings the illusion of
comfort, but that is not the experience—or
need—of most human beings. There is no answer
for our pain from a universe randomly designed
by no-thing. Evolution and its theory of the
universe is not a satisfying answer to the
longing questions of why. No wonder
spirituality is on the rise, even as this ID vs.
evolution debate continues to make headlines.
There is a reason why the ancient story of Job
still answers our questioning souls, after all
these years, even now in a postmodern,
technological era. Like Job we need to begin to
understand the questions of pain and suffering
by hearing from the Designer of the Universe.
Once you see His design, Job’s final words to
God will be your own: “I know that You can do
all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be
thwarted…I have heard of You by the hearing of
the ear; but now my eye sees You.” There is
Someone who can answer our
Why?
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
January 8, 2005
Elvis
and the face of Jesus
It’s my mother’s birthday today, and if he were still
alive, it would be Elvis’ birthday, too. (And
don’t forget Todd’s, too!). It is already four
years into the new century and Elvis seems to be
showing up again and again (as an imposter, or
maybe the real deal—who knows). Elvis Presley
remains the most certified artist in the history
of recorded music: 80 gold, 43 platinum, and 19
multiplatinum records.
Lester
Bangs
said of the king
of Rock and Roll: “Not Sinatra, not [Mick]
Jagger, not the Beatles, nobody you can come up
with ever elicited such hysteria among so many.”
Elvis’ calendar birthday is January 8th.
However, amid a hot and muggy Memphis night, on
August 16, 1977, one of the last century’s most
influential cultural icons suffered an
humiliating death. Struggling everyday with
substance abuse and pumped up on more drugs than
a Pharmacy, insomnia plagued him. The king
picks up a book and tells his girlfriend he was
going to the bathroom. Hours later, the girl
friend awakes to discover Elvis has not returned
to bed. Concerned, she makes her way to the
bathroom only to find the king, unconscious on
the floor, the book left open.
So many have speculated on how this man of great talent
and drive could end up this way. But that
night, whatever drug invested condition he was
in, the king of rock and roll left this earth
while reading The Scientific Search for the
Face of Jesus.
Let’s move from the aroma of death in this Memphis
bathroom to another palace of another king, this
one in London, England. We are listening to
King George VI’s Christmas Eve address to the
British Commonwealth. His closing would be
etched into the memories of England’s leadership
at the close of World War II and the difficult
days that lay ahead: “I said to the man at the
Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may
walk safely into the unknown.’ He said to me,
‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand in
the hand of God, and it shall be to you better
than the light, and safer than the known’.”
As he spoke his listeners were unaware that the king was
dying of cancer. Although, provoking the nation
to a higher calling, they were his own, for his
own life, for a place of reference in a place of
suffering and uncertainty.
The King’s words remind me of Isaiah the
prophet’s own words in 50:10:
“Who is among you that fears
the LORD, that obeys the voice of His
servant, that walks in darkness and has no
light? Let him trust in the name of the
LORD and rely on his God.”
Whether it is a real King or a lonely drug saturated soul
masquerading as king, the only legitimate hope
that makes sense is the hope that comes from
God, the hope for life and beyond death.
With sting of death staring them in the face, both the
King of England and the king of Rock and Roll
needed to hear the Apostle Paul’s words: “For
God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of
darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to
give us the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Christ.” The king of pop
culture, in his last seconds on earth, was
reading about the search for the face of Jesus
Christ. A little known fact, but one very
insightful to the heart’s longing. With a
culture of a thousand distractions for boredom
(none of which ultimately work) and seemingly
multiple reasons for disbelief, it will be the
face of Christ that haunts us of a reality we
all need.
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
December 15, 2004
A lost element in our Christmas story: a reality
check
We underestimate our unbelieving
neighbors and friends. We dismiss the
possibility that, in their own way, they might
actually be seriously seeking answers—ultimate
answers about life, faith, and death. Often, it
is our particular version of Christianity that
is rejected or held in suspicion.
Christian sociologist Os Guinness
writes that to the believer Christianity “was
once life's central mystery, its worship life's
most awesome experience, its faith life's
broadest canopy of meaning...” But, today, he
laments, no matter how passionate or ‘committed’
an individual believer may be, Christianity
often amounts to little more than a private
preference, a spare‑time hobby.
This modern version of
Christianity is significant when we consider how
non-believers view Christianity. For serious
seekers, such spare-time faith is not a solution
to their deepest needs. Christianity must be
more than a cozy warm blanket, something more
ultimate to raise us up above our needs.
Amid the glad tidings often
associated with the Christmas story is an
oft-missed dose of “reality” etched into
biblical scene. Along with shouts of exultation
from shepherds, homage from wise men, praising
God by angels, there is another voice: “a voice
heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children…refusing to be
consoled, because [her children] were no more”
(Matt 2:18). These are strange words coming in
the midst of this joyous occasion. Yet, they
are a reminder that lament and despair grip the
human experience.
The first time we meet Rachel is
that delightful moment when she thought she
would be marrying the love of her life, the OT
patriarch Jacob. But the story turns quickly to
despair: Her father tricks Jacob into marrying
her older sister, Leah, first. Then to make
matters worse, Leah has eight sons as Rachel
remained childless and we hear her weigh the
depths of her barrenness. God eventually takes
Rachel’s reproach away by giving her a son,
Joseph—Israel’s future deliverer. But, while
giving birth to her second son she hears news
that Joseph, her first-born, had been murdered.
Then we learn that “Rachel
began to give birth and had great difficulty”
and reflecting on her anguish, she names her new
son “trouble” (Benjamin) and
dies and is buried by the roadside on the way to
Bethlehem.
The original Christmas
narrative—the one that is inspired and finds a
place in Scriptures—forces the reader back to
the Rachel story, compelling us to include
lament in the Christmas story. Certainly the
Gospel writer wants us to know that God has sent
his Son to be the deliverer of all mankind.
Yet, Rachel and her cry seep into the first
Christmas story. We need to know that despite
joyous strains elsewhere, some refuse to be
comforted except by God’s own intervention.
The Gospel story is pictured in
Rachel’s cry, that is, of God’s Son ending up on
a cross, rejected, and dying the cruelest of
deaths. The reality of life, its pain and often
unfairness, demand that one must turn to the God
of Golgotha, who alone can provide the relief,
the comfort that is not simply mere
sentimentalism or a “spare-time” religious
experience. No other hope other than God’s work
in Christ can penetrate our deepest hurts or
pierce our loneliest moments, or lift us above
our needs. Amid the tinsel and cheerfully
wrapped presents, let us remember Christ’s birth
wasn’t to increase retail, but to bring good
news that would meet the deepest needs of the
human experience. Our unbelieving, skeptical
friends and neighbors deserve no less.
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
November 28, 2004
Two worlds at a
time
November 22, 1963, is a date
etched into the American psyche. It was on that
date that US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. It just so
happened that two other famous people died that
same day within hours of one another: C.S.
Lewis, Christian writer and apologist, and as
well, Aldous Huxley, novelist and critic of
Christianity.
In his book Between Heaven and
Hell Peter Kreeft presents a fictitious,
after‑death conversation between these three men
in what Kreeft terms “that other world.” Before
Huxley appears, Kreeft has Lewis and Kennedy
talking. At one point the conversation turns
toward religion.
“I did not really have time for
religion,” Kennedy confesses to Lewis. “I had
to live in one world at a time—one at a time.”
Lewis' eyes pan the “room” where
the two of them are waiting. “Obviously, Mr.
President,” Lewis replies, “it is two worlds at
a time.”
Therein is the difficulty. The
non-Christian, even in the face of constant
evidence, continues to deny that we live in two
worlds at a time. And, that’s the humor of
Kreeft’s “waiting-room” drama, JFK has died and
is still alive—in some room, somewhere, with the
famed British writer, C.S. Lewis. On the other
hand, Christians forget the same lesson: The
Christian lives in two worlds at the same time.
But our tendency is to live now “according to
this world” and let the eternal world wait. Our
preference, too, is for one world at a time.
Christians are tempted to pattern
their lives after the “flesh” because that makes
us more comfortable with the one world that we
can touch, taste and handle. It is “this world”
that gives us outward affirmation for measuring
our spirituality and our church ministry, even
our self-worth.
In the early church-world, there
were those who patterned their Christianity
after what is contrary to the cross of Christ.
As a result, the life of the church and the
gospel itself was put at risk. It is
instructive, in Philippians 3:18, that Paul
warns of “enemies of the cross of Christ”
rather than simply “enemies of Christ.” You
see, the cross reveals not only our weakness,
but also God's method for evaluating
everything (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16‑21;
Philippians 2:6‑11). The cross is God's utter
contradiction to human wisdom and power.
Christians, in this day and age, are
uncomfortable with this, and thus, we, too, can
become enemies of the cross when our method for
evaluating spiritual growth (whether personal
growth or church growth) is patterned after the
“success and strength” models of our American
culture.
Those who have “confidence in the
flesh” are not patterning their Christian lives,
their ministries, their church congregations
after the gospel. Our American culture confers
award, merit and prestige on those who
demonstrate success and strength. But in the
end, any spiritual formation that puts
“confidence in the flesh” is hazardous, both for
the individual and the Church. Our patterns of
thought and behavior are to stem, not from our
earthly existence, but from our heavenly
citizenship.
In Paul’s day, those who name
Jesus, rather than Caesar, as Lord were in
immediate tension with Rome (i.e., the State).
Their faith in Christ had put their Roman
citizenship in question. But, Paul is telling
them their identity must stem not from Rome or
from the local culture but from heaven.
The Greek word for citizenship is
politeuma. Its first meaning is a
commonwealth or state. But it can
also mean a colony of foreigners who outside
their native country, but one that lives
according to the laws and principles of, not the
country they live in, but of their native home.
The Christian should understand that the measure
for spirituality and church growth must be
according to the principles of their new
homeland—heaven (see Philippians 1:26‑3:21).
The object of our devotion is not
heaven itself, but the Savior who will come from
heaven (not Rome!), the Lord Jesus Christ. This
Lord is the one who has “everything under his
control.” The Christian community might be in
tension with its surrounding culture, but the
Object of our faith, Jesus Christ the Lord, not
the flesh and not the culture, is to be our
confidence for all of life.
When we use our culture's
measurements for success, our sanctification
takes on elements destructive to personal
spirituality and our Church life. The Christian
community must be alert for teachings (whether
from Christians or secular society) that affirm
our culture's expectations rather than the
gospel's. Calvary Church pastor Ed Dobson
remarks:
I think we are losing the culture
war, not in the public arena, but within the
Church. Until we renew what it means to be
a Christian in the Church, we won't have
credibility to speak to the world (my emphasis).
Certainly our message needs to be
relevant to the times. But we do not
necessarily achieve relevancy by imitating our
culture. As someone once remarked, the Church
must raise itself above the fate of a dying
culture if it is not to share that fate.
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Adapted from my book, Destroying Our Private
Cities, a lay-commentary on
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. For more
information on the Book and a free-downloadable
chapter, click here.
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
September 19, 2004
The middling of the Christian faith
Ever wonder where the “middle
class” came from? Some of us middling people
are subject to a cultural and historical
identity crisis. To date, there hasn’t been a
solid definition offered. But, we are sure an
important group—politicians vie for our
attention and vote, marketers are dependent on
targeting us for their products. One would
think we are a very powerful group.
Problem is,
it is not because we possess power that
politicians and advertisers compete for our
attention. No, it is our insatiable desire to
feel we need something new, bigger, better—this
works for politicians who promise us something
better and for advertisers who promise us
something new and improved. It is the
middle class habits, culturally, socially, and
economically that make us middling people so
important to politicians and advertisers.
These cultural habits are a problem, however,
for the Christian middle class community, for we
share these habits as well. As a
consequence, there is a cost
for the middling of the Christian faith.
full essay>>
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
September 13,
2004
I do have three new Rough Cuts in
draft form, and one other Habits essay as well.
I don’t know how some of my fellow Christian
bloggers and websites writers have the energy
and time to write and post on a regular basis.
I have two more books in idea form with various
levels of notes and research done. I have a
notebook, a journal I carry with me, with plenty
of ideas and notes and thoughts, but very little
time for crafting them into legibility (is this
even a word?).
I spend time browsing around the
Christian website world, and I often wonder why
am I even attempting this…it costs me money I
don’t have and time I could be giving away in
other forms to other things and people. One
thing I have noticed—we have lots of
information, us Christians do, literally at our
figure-tips and with the click of a mouse. I
must be fool-hearty to think I can bring another
weighty, worthwhile voice to this already large
array of Christian “postings.”
I am most bothered by one thing,
however, that keeps me going: With all this
knowledge, insightfulness, and creative
presentations by a wide range of Christians
bloggers and website writers, why isn’t their
revival? As Leonard Ravenhill once wrote, why
does revival tarry? I met the man once. While
at college in the 80's, I was gathered with him
and a few other students to pray right before he
spoke at one of our student deeper-life
meetings. I still can’t believe he asked me to
pray! In his book, Why Revival Tarries?,
Ravenhill perhaps answers my question:
Today God is bypassing men --
not because they are too ignorant, but
because they are too self-sufficient.
Brethren, our abilities are our handicaps,
and our talents our stumbling blocks!
And, let's face it, we don't like
being bypassed! Ravenhill also writes:
Ah! brother preachers, we
love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs,
reformers: our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys,
Asburys, etc. We will write their
biographies, reverence their memories, frame
their epitaphs, and build their monuments.
We will do anything except imitate them . We
cherish the last drop of their blood, but
watch carefully the first drop of our own!
And to add more to our injury, a
Neil Postman quote also seems to be another way
of answering my question:
But one worries, nonetheless,
that a generation of young people may become
entangled in an academic fashion that will
increase their difficulties in solving real
problems -- indeed, in facing them.
I am reading through the history
books of Israel, the Samuels and Kings. One
thing I notice, even when the writer tells us
that a king is good and follows Lord and is
pleasing like king David, there are some words
that seem always to follow:
...the people were still
sacrificing on the high places.
Personally, I haven’t figured out
the answer to why revival tarries, but I am
reminded here of how much of what we are doing
is, just that, our doing. With all the light we
shed on our culture, we continue to bow before
it. We like our cultural high places, too.
Perhaps, this is one reason why God’s chosen
design to advance his gospel is wrapped up in
little (and I do mean little) bodies of
believers in every community in big and small
places. But we’ve even turned them into high
places where we are more like our culture and
less counter-cultural, and more reliant on our
modern technology and business-sense than the
Spirit of the Lord.
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
August 22, 2004
Only
qualified for worship
I am always bothered by comments
that diminish corporate worship, and especially
comments that make the local church seem like a
business or some entity trading commodities. My
goodness, everything about the church militates
against it being a business. Now granted a
group of business-like people can change a
church into a business, but it then ceases to be
God’s body, the church. On this subject, I was
impressed by some turn of phrases by David
McCarthy, author of a new book called
The Good Life: Genuine
Christianity for the Middle Class.
“The center point of our
relationship with God is corporate worship.” No
other event describes best the true, biblical
picture of both the church's nature and its
mission. McCarthy continues:
The church is the body of
Christ. Go to a church as it prays and look
around. You will see it, the subversive
friendship of God’s hospitality. You will
see Pharisees congratulating themselves for
their own righteousness. You will see tax
collectors and those who cheat on their
income taxes. You will see sinners. You
will see many saints, but you will see
adulterers, thieves, liars, petty
embezzlers, and colossal hypocrites. You
will see elderly folks and kids who
misbehave. You will see the kind of people
whom God has befriended. This is no
photo-op with the president. It is not
lunch with the CEO. The church is not the
kind of gathering that bodes well for
running an efficient corporation or
effective government. It is not the kind of
gathering that many think is most valuable
for church growth or for proper political or
social mission of the church in the world.
However, it is precisely the kind of
gathering that represents God’s people.
As McCarthy concludes, “What are
these people qualified to do except worship?”
Exactly!
They can gather, confess
their sins, ask God’s mercy and be changed
by God’s friendship. They can hear the word
of the Bible and God’s story told. They can
share the gift of God’s presence. They can
break bread and drink from the cup of the
crucifixion. They can be bound to each
other…
The church ain’t no business.
But it is God’s way in this world. The
corporate gathering of God’s people, Sunday
after Sunday, expressed in local congregations
all around the globe, from the sun’s rising in
the east to its setting in the west—this is
God’s sign, his miniature, his diorama of his
world-wide mission and plan of grace.
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
Comment On the Table
(1)
|
|
| |
July 1, 2004
The causes of poverty, my kids, and killing the
ogre
I
am amazed at the capacity of my kids to grasp
the importance of things. When we watch TV, the
news, or even a movie together, I like asking
them questions. After a scene, or news item, or
some choice words from the actors, I will often
ask my kids: “What just happened?” Or, “What is
significant about that?” I ask some question
that taxes their observation and critical
thinking skills. And, more often than not, they
have good answers, and even sometimes “out
think” me, catching something I missed!
I
am on the United Way of Norwalk & Wilton Board
of Directors. Last week, we held our annual
meeting. This particular United Way is
undergoing a shift in its approach to serving
the surrounding community. The Chief Executive
Officer had a story to remind us of this new
direction. It is called The Ogre Story.
The story had an impact at the annual meeting,
but it was later, at home, when I read the story
to my kids that moved me.
The three youngest were sitting on the couch,
all ready for school. I turned off the morning
cartoons and asked them to listed to the story
and tell me what is the point. Here’s what I
read to them:
A villager is walking by the
river early one morning. The villager looks out
into the water and sees a baby floating down the
river. Horrified, the villager races into the
water, grabs the baby, and brings the baby to
shore. The baby is fine.
Relieved, the villager looks back
into the water and sees another baby floating
down the water. The villager again dives into
the water and rescues this baby as well. Once
more, the villager looks into the water . . .
and sees dozens of babies floating down the
river.
The villager calls out an alarm,
and the entire village comes running to the
river to rescue as many babies as they can
before the water carries them away.
This is a village that is
mobilized. Every villager is at the river,
trying to save the babies from the
water. This is a village that is
improving lives. Many of the babies are being
saved.
But the babies keep on coming . .
. because no one is going upstream to put a stop
to the ogre that is throwing the babies into the
water in the first place.
I asked, “Ok, what’s the point?”
Robert, eight, said, “You have to go up stream
and stop the ogre.” Amanda, who is eleven and
more accustomed to Daddy’s little games,
replied, “If
you don't solve the problem you will continue to
have to save babies, or whatever the problem
does.” I was impressed. Not only were they
willing to sit and listen, they got it.
Our United
Way's new approach is attractive to me: looking for the Ogres, that is, the
causes of our community’s social issues and
problems. If we don’t, as our United Way CEO
said, “Otherwise,
we will be pulling babies out of the water
forever.” Yes, pulling babies out of the
water—that is addressing the results of the
causes—is still a good thing. But, in order to
make “lasting changes,” substantial changes in
our community, we must identify the causes and
spend our energy is changing them.
This is also what attracts me to
Community Action. As many of you know, I am the
Director of Planning for a mid-sized Community
Action Agency in Southwestern Connecticut. Some
of my more conservative friends are suspect, not
so much of me, but of the social service world.
Of course, there are wasteful spending and dead
end programs, but like any business, there is
always need for such things to be corrected and
changed. Nonetheless, in the big picture,
Community Action is a good investment. Like
The Ogre Story, Community Action’s
thirty-five plus years of existence and purpose
is validated by its mission:
to alleviate the causes of
poverty in distressed communities with
special emphasis on community and economic
development activities.
Indeed, this is a good
investment, namely supporting an endeavor that
seeks to alleviate the causes of
poverty—stopping the Ogre. I am reminded of a
question asked by one of the national leaders of
Community Action: “Does God care about community
action?” This question pointed me back to my
relationship with God, His Church, and His
Gospel. Of course I believe that God cares
about the goals and mission of community action,
for they are, indeed, redemptive and biblical--even
if the philosophy and activities are produced by
the state. I am moved to wonder why the church—even the
conservative Evangelical wing of the
church—isn’t characterized and known by its own
community action? In light of God’s redemption
and the cross of Christ, we of all people should
understand the need to get at the causes
poverty.
The martyred leader of the
Nicaraguan church, Bishop Oscar Romero, once
observed: "When I feed the poor, they call me a
saint. When I ask why the poor are poor,
they call me a communist." Perhaps this is why
we would rather “save babies” than deal with the
causes, the ogres. As someone has asked, “What
would Jesus do to help the homeless and the
hungry?" I would add: and not only just
through you personally and through the direct
assistance of your church, but what is the
church—your church—actively doing to try to
alleviate the causes of poverty?
William Sloane Coffin, who served
for eighteen years as Chaplain of Yale
University, pointed out that "A person's mortal
character, sterling though it may be, is
insufficient to serve the cause of justice,
which is to challenge the status quo, to try to
make what's legal more moral, and to take
personal or concerted action against evil,
whether in personal or systemic form." In other
words the "'theological individualism” (read our
propensity for privatized faith) that under
girds much of the conservative Christian
community is unbiblical, namely that "public
good doesn't automatically follow from private
virtue."
It seems Christian love or
charity is somewhat comfortable with “saving
babies.” But as a Christian community we should
be harnessing our capacity (our earthly talents
and resources) and our “riches in heavenly
places” to eliminate the causes of
poverty, to discover the Ogres in our
communities and stop them. This would force our
churches to think past themselves, their
buildings and budgets, the numbers and comfort.
This would make churches redemptive communities,
displays of God’s purpose in Christ. My kids
get it. I am hoping our churches will, too.
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
Comment On the Table
(1)
|
|
| |
May 19, 2004
Growing the
best corn
"Seek the welfare
of the city where I have sent you into exile,
and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its
welfare you will have welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).
Claire Gaudiani,
in her book The Greater Good, presents an
argument that it is philanthropy that actually
drives the American economy. Unlike any other
country in the world, Americans, overall, are
more generous with their resources and as a
result have help to create a way of life that is
fuller and more prosperous for the majority of
its citizens than any society on the planet.
She points out “Among others, economists Lester
Thurow and Robert Barro and management
consultant Peter Drucker concur that investments
in human capital make the greatest impact on
long-term productivity of the society” (33). In
fact, she posits that it is American
philanthropy that has the potential for “saving
capitalism.”
Now, it is not my
interest to save capitalism, nor to save the
American way of life. But it is my within my
interests to figure out ways that our Gospel can
penetrate the lives of people. One thing that
has always bothered me is why evangelical
churches are not willing to invest in the
community or communities that surround them. In my brief review of
Sidewalks in the Kingdom,
I wrote: “God instructed Jeremiah, ‘Seek the
welfare of the city where I have sent you into
exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for
in its welfare you will have welfare’ (29:7).
Imagine creating an approach to church life,
church growth, and evangelism based on seeking
the welfare of the city--the city (or
neighborhood) that your church represents?
Imagine.”
I understand that
we live in a corrupt world, as John the Apostle
tells us, that is passing away. This statement
was not to lead the church away from caring
about the society around them, but to remind the
church its existence is not dependent on the
world (because the church will not pass away).
Nonetheless, the church is yet still called to
be “salt and light” to this dying world, to our
own fading culture. My new vocation in the
human service world, where everything I do seeks
to invest and develop human capital from among
at-risk and vulnerable populations, is driving
me toward—what I think is—a more biblical view
of the Kingdom of God and the life of the
church.
After reading my
short plug for
Sidewalks in the Kingdom,
my good friend Pastor Eric Marx shared a story
that has impacted his own church ministry in
Iowa:
James Bender
in his book How to Talk Well
(New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1994)
relates the story of a farmer who grew
award-winning corn. Each year he entered
his corn in the state fair where it won a
blue ribbon. One year a newspaper reporter
interviewed him and learned something
interesting about how he grew it.
This reporter
discovered that the farmer shared his seed
corn with his neighbors. "How can you
afford to share your best seed corn with
your neighbors when they are entering corn
in competition with yours each year?" the
reporter asked.
"Why sir,"
said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind
picks up pollen from the ripening corn and
swirls it from field to field. If my
neighbors grow inferior corn,
cross-pollination will steadily degrade the
quality of my corn. If I am to grow good
corn, I must help my neighbors grow good
corn."
He
is very much aware of the connectedness of
life. His corn cannot improve unless his
neighbor's corn also improves.
So
it is in other dimensions. Those who choose
to be at peace must help their neighbors to
be at peace. Those who choose to live well
must help others to live well, for the value
of a life is measured by the lives it
touches. And those who choose to be happy
must help others to find happiness, for the
welfare of each is bound up with the welfare
of all.
The
lesson for each of us is this: if we are to
grow good corn, we must help our neighbors
grow good corn.
I can almost
hear our Lord say, “Go and do likewise.”
© Chip M. Anderson, with help
from my friend Eric Marx
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
May 10, 2004
We feel
comfortable with our democracy
Woody Allen once quipped, “It’s
not that I am afraid to die. I just don't want
to be there when it happens.” Often Christians
can take a similar attitude toward spiritual
growth. “It's not that I am afraid of spiritual
growth,” they say. “I just don't want to be
there when it happens.”
H.G. Wells once called Buddhism
the “best religion.” But he admitted it could
only flourish in a warm climate.
Wells was not poking fun at Buddhism. He was
commenting on Westerners' preference for
comfort. Our modern version of Christianity is
also unfavorably disposed toward discomfort.
But any theme that gets as much space in the
Scripture as suffering does should have our
careful, reverent attention.
Suffering is no more avoidable
than breathing. But let's face it. Today we
view life through the lenses of comfort,
personal rights, and material affluence. Our
culture is collapsing under the weight of a
thousand rights and needs. Meanwhile, that same
weight has become a millstone around the neck of
Christian spirituality, church-life, and
discipleship.
Our churches are filled with
disappointed, disillusioned Christians. Many
float from church to church, from one self‑help
book to another, from one get‑healed‑quick guru
to another. They search for the “power” that
will release their pain and unleash their
happiness. The problem is not the gospel or the
power of God's Word. The problem is our
preference for comfort. (Well, at least it is
my problem!)
It seems that Christians, today,
are more apt to shrink spiritually than to
grow. In his book, New Rules, Daniel
Yankelovich observes:
You are not the sum total of your
desires. You do not consist of an aggregate of
needs, and your inner growth is not a matter of
fulfilling all your potentials. By
concentrating day and night on your feelings,
potentials, needs, wants and desires, and by
learning to assert them more freely, you do not
become a freer, more spontaneous, more creative
self; you become a narrower, more self‑centered,
more isolated one. You do not grow, you shrink.
Much of our problem rests in our
inability to reconcile our culture's call to
comfort with the biblical texts calling us to
suffer. And that's the scandal of contemporary
Christian life.
We have a generation of
Christians who cannot say with Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, “Praise God for this prison.”
They cannot identify with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's
conviction, “When Christ calls a man, He bids
him come and die.” They cannot understand the
depths of A.W. Tozer's comment, “It is doubtful
whether God can bless a man greatly until He has
hurt him deeply.” The Bible, I fear, is much
closer to Solzhenitsyn, Bonhoeffer and Tozer
than we like to think.
We have a Christianity and a
church-life that is designed to help the
believer to be comfortable with himself or
herself, and to help their faith to fit nicely
in our democracy. There is a temptation to
accommodate ourselves with the status quo, to
identify with our democracy. Don’t get me
wrong, I love our form of government. I am only
(beginning) to question whether my conflicts (my
perchant for avoiding suffering), my uneasiness
with how my faith works in our democracy is a
result of wanting to feel more comfortable in
western, American modernity. I fear we dislike
feeling alienated from our surrounding culture,
so we choose a faith that reflects more our
contemporary, democratic values rather than
following the Way of the suffering Messiah, the
way of the cross.
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Adapted from my book,
Destroying Our Private
Cities, a lay-commentary on
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. For more
information on the Book and a free-downloadable
chapter,
click here.
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
April 26, 2004
It’s all about
access
It’s almost that time again here
on the East Coast. The Beach. Walking at low
tide. Maybe even getting a tan. Beaches are
great place to be during the hot days of
summer. But, not for some people—some are not
welcome at certain beaches. Apparently,
Greenwich, CT isn’t the only place where the
unwelcome mat is out.
full essay>>
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
April 12, 2004
God’s
own fool
Everything is backwards. The
good die young. Evil outlasts the virtuous. The
wicked thrive. Everything is upside-down. The
weight of what’s wrong can overwhelm the
God-sensitive soul. Like the Psalmist our feet
can slip, we can lose our foothold (Ps. 73:2)
when we consider the unfair, backward dealings
of the world.
4
They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.
5 They are free from the burdens
common to man;
they are not plagued by human ills.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.
7 From their callous hearts comes
iniquity;
the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.
8 They scoff, and speak with malice;
in their arrogance they threaten oppression.
9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.
I read in the papers and watch on
TV the meaningless acts of rage, wartime horror
stories, families in despair, depressed children
over family tragedies of illness, death, and
divorce, and the world of substance abuse
killing the souls of men and women, children and
families. This is not the way it is supposed to
be.
Some ask me, “Where is God?”
Some just out rightly say, “God is dead, gone,
finished, absent, never existed anyway…” Even
for the believer, life can be a constant
reminder of what the world could be like if God
did not exist. Yet, still believing…there is a
God who acts in the history and the mundane of
human existence. It seems to me foolishness,
even in the face of the worst evil can unleash,
to think that everything is just left to
chance. I think of Steve Turner’s poem, aptly
called “Chance.”
If
chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear
State
of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is
but the sound of man worshiping his maker.
This cannot be the answer we must
admit to… But here’s the rub, even the answer
to the questions of meaninglessness,
hopelessness, confusion, and redemption seems
foolishness to “those without ears to ear.”
One morning, on my drive to work,
I listened to Imus (in the morning) commenting
on Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the
Christ.” He wasn’t being critical of the
Passion, but his flippant word-bite, “If I were
God, I just won’t have done it that way”
(meaning the cross) spoke volumes about our
so-called human wisdom. Meaning: Imus would
have chosen some other means other than
crucifying his son to save mankind. Well,
that’s the point. It took what looked like
foolishness to man to answer the questions of
evil, goodness, heaven, life, and hell. It took
the foolishness of Jesus to fix this world where
“everything is backwards” and to redeem you and
me. Yes, it took a fool to make everything
right side up.
Michael Card’s song (of some
years back), God’s Own Fool, came to mind
as I listened to Imus’ comment. Read the words
and some Scriptures that shows insight and might
help make sense out of this sometimes
overwhelmingly senseless world:
It seems I've imagined Him all of
my life
The wisest of all of mankind
But if God's holy wisdom is foolish to man
He must have seemed out of His mind
1
Corinthians 1:18-25
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to
those who are perishing, but to us who are being
saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the
intelligence of the intelligent I will
frustrate.’ Where is the wise man? Where is
the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this
age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the
world? For since in the wisdom of God the world
through its wisdom did not know him, God was
pleased through the foolishness of what was
preached to save those who believe. Jews demand
miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but
we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to
Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those
whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's
wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than
man's strength.”
For even His family said He was
mad
And the priests said a demon's to blame
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane
Mark 3:22
“And He came home, and the
multitude gathered again, to such an extent that
they could not even eat a meal. And when His own
people heard of this, they went out to take
custody of Him; for they were saying, ‘He has
lost His senses’.”
Mark 3:22
“And the scribes who came down
from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by
Beelzebul,’ and "He casts out the demons by the
ruler of the demons’.”
John 8:48
“The
Jews answered and said to Him, ‘Do we not say
rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a
demon?’”
John
8:52
“The
Jews said to Him, ‘Now we know that You have a
demon’.”
John
10:19-20
“There
arose a division again among the Jews because of
these words. And many of them were saying, ‘He
has a demon, and is insane; why do you listen to
Him?’”
When we in our foolishness
thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
When we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God's own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well
1 Corinthians 3:18-20
“Let no man deceive himself. If
any man among you thinks that he is wise in this
age, let him become foolish that he may become
wise. For the wisdom of this world is
foolishness before God. For it is written, ‘He
is the one who catches the wise in their
craftiness’ and again, ‘The
Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise, that they are
useless’.”
1
Corinthians 4:10
“We are
fools for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in
Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are
distinguished, but we are without honor.”
So come lose your life for a
carpenter's son
For a mad man who died for a dream
And you'll have the faith His first followers
had
And you'll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say
you must know
Have the courage to say "I believe"
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see
John
9:39-41
“And
Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this
world, that those who do not see may see, and
that those who see may become blind.’ Those of
the Pharisees who were with Him heard these
things, and said to Him, ‘We are not blind too,
are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘if you were blind
you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We
see,’ your sin remains.”
When we in our foolishness
thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
When we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God's own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well
And so we follow God's own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well
No one in Scripture said bearing
witness of the Gospel was easy. In fact, the
few times Scripture does speak of
Gospel-telling, it says martyrdom is expected.
It is tough being a fool in this world.
Sometimes it leads to a cross. But I for one,
will continue to “believe the unbelievable” and
will continue to show how Christ’s foolishness
is the answer to the deepest questions of life.
(Thanks to Stuart, whose web page
gave me the idea of putting Scripture to Card’s
song.
http://incolor.inebraska.com/stuart/fool.htm#5)
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
April 5, 2004
Guess who's
coming to Easter
The “religious” holidays still
bring the crowds to church. As for Easter,
people are actually willing to get up and go to
church at 6:30 in the morning, and like someone
has said, “Almost like they want to be there
with the women to see the empty tomb.” For some,
it will be their first time since Christmas.
And, you would be surprised who is among our
Easter morning visitors.
As for me, I like the opportunity Easter
presents—one of those special Sundays in the
calendar when the potential for visitors, first
timers, and non-churched family guests naturally
increases. We do not even have to work at it. It
just happens. Oh, of course, churches plan
special things to aid in getting them to choose
our church; plans for making them feel welcomed;
plans to “up-it-a-notch” with an emphasis on
evangelism.
Allow for some pre-Easter musing on this
opportunity.
full essay>>
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
March 22, 2004
The making of the
beautiful
A wise man once observed: For those who do not
believe in God, joy is peripheral and suffering
is fundamental; but for the believer, suffering
is peripheral and joy is fundamental.
One cannot escape the dueling experiences of
suffering and joy any more than one can escape
the necessity of breathing. Regularly, we are
prompted through personal experience to raise
the question of pain and suffering. Reconciling
the existence of pain and suffering with our
insatiable desire for joy and comfort is a
burdensome task. We even become more perplexed
when we see someone in the midst of suffering
and there is joy, confidence, even radiance
despite the affliction.
Annie Johnson Flint, a lady who lived most of
her life in pain, has left such a testimony. As
a child, she was orphaned. Later, embarrassing
incontinence left her body frail; she was
weakened by cancer, and eventually, deformed by
rheumatoid arthritis. She was incapacitated for
so long that she needed several pillows around
her body just to cushion the raw, bedridden
sores. And yet, the title of her autobiography
was The Making of the Beautiful.
One of her best-known poems reads:
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow
greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors
increase;
To added affliction, He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed e’re the day is
half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving has only begun.
His love has no
limit, His grace has no measure,
His power has no
boundary known unto men;
For out of His
infinite riches in Jesus He giveth, and giveth,
and giveth again.
For the most
part, I will admit that suffering and pain will
always remain somewhat unexplainable, but some
will find the mysterious ability to raise above
afflictions no matter how
slight or severe. No
wonder the unbeliever is left in awe and
bewilderment at such lives like Annie Vincent
Flint or
Joni Eareckson Tada.
Again, for the
unbeliever, the peripheral issues of life occupy
his or her attention, and the fundamental ones
often go ignored. However, for the Christian,
the fundamental questions of life are answered
(life, death, God, salvation, heaven, who am I,
etc.) and the peripheral ones can be left
unanswered. This is why the unbeliever has
problems with pain and suffering in this world.
In fact, a hurting or suffering person will
often turn a deaf ear toward any answers of
“why” until they begin to recognize that God,
the cross, faith, and salvation must become part
of the answer. Like the Psalmist, we must cry,
“Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides
Thee, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and
my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my
heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73).
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Originally written for a
RZIM
Slice of Infinity radio broadcast
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
March 15, 2004
The lion and the
stream
Although most will admit a
spiritual thirst exists, many are either
ignorant of why it exists or where such a thirst
can be filled. I find that most simply refuse
to acknowledge that God has something to do with
their spiritual thirst. More information may
contribute little, however, to making sense of
modern man’s spiritual thirst. At times, simply
hearing a story will often do more to reach the
mind than an elegant argument.
The scene comes from The
Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis. Jill, one of
the children, meets Aslan, the Lion, for the
first time. In the story, the Lion is the
symbol for Jesus Christ. Let’s listen in:
When Jill stopped, she found she
was dreadfully thirsty… …[T]here was perfect
silence except for one small persistent sound.
She listened carefully and felt almost sure it
was the sound of running water.
Jill…looked around her very
carefully. There was no sign of the Lion; but
there were so many trees about that it might
easily be quite close without her seeing it …
But her thirst was very bad now, and she plucked
up her courage to… look for that running water.
…she came to an open glade and
saw the stream, bright as glass… [A]lthough the
sight of the water made her feel ten times
thirstier than before, she didn’t rush forward
and drink. She stood still as if she had been
turned into a stone, with her mouth wide open.
And she had a very good reason: just this side
of the stream lay the Lion…
“Are you not thirsty?” said the
Lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the Lion.
“May I—could I—would you mind
going away while I do?” said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a
look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at
its motionless bulk, she realized that she might
as well have asked the whole mountain to move
aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of
the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
“Will you promise not to—do
anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.
“I make no promise,” said the
Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that,
without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
“Do you eat girls?” she said.
“I have swallowed up girls and
boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities
and realms,” said the Lion.
“I daren’t come and drink,” said
Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst,”
said the Lion.
“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming
another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and
look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream,” said
the Lion.
Most admit spiritual thirst
exists, and today, many are indicating a need to
fulfill this thirst. However, many are left
“dying for thirst” because they are afraid of
dealing with God Himself. “There is no other
stream.” Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me
shall never thirst.”
© Chip M. Anderson
Words’nTone
Originally written for a
RZIM
Slice of Infinity radio broadcast
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
March 6, 2004
You meet all
kinds
You meet all kinds on airplanes. Just ask the sociologist from New York
who found himself seated next to a young man
decked out in multiple earrings, a fascinating
hairdo, and ripped jeans. As they talked, the
man perceived that the younger man had also
clothed himself in a “modern,” value-free
attitude toward life.
As the plane leveled off high above the earth, the sociologist decided
to have some fun. He said to the young man, “I
was talking to the pilot before we took off. He
told me some real mind-blowing things. This is
a real swinging airplane. They really hang
loose, you know. None of this bit about no
drinking when flying. In fact, they smoke pot
right up there in the cockpit. They’re probably
having a great party up there right now.”
full essay>>
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
March 2, 2004
The “Passion” and the
marvel of forgiveness
“So, what do you think of the ‘Passion of
Christ’?” I get that a lot. For the record, I
have not seen it. I will most likely only go
because my daughter asked if she could see it.
I, personally, can wait for the DVD. I think
the question is more about the hype than the
movie. So, I usually reply, “It’s just a
movie.”
Like the discovery of the
Shroud of Turin and
finding Noah’s Ark in the Turkish mountainside,
some will be moved toward Christ by the movie
and some will be moved to truly appreciate the
Biblical account. However, many will still
continue to reject the Gospel despite the vivid
visual details and compelling acting. Worse,
some will all the more hate Christianity and
continue to see it as a religion of intolerance
and anti-Semitism. (I might add, some will just
plainly enjoy the movie, because it is just a
movie.)
Every writer and director
has one’s own personal reasons for producing a
film, ranging from entertainment to propagating
a worldview. I don’t know what was in Mel
Gibson’s heart. Nevertheless, one thing he said
was absolutely on the mark: "This is a movie
about love, hope, faith, and forgiveness. [Jesus] died for all mankind, suffered for all
of us. It's time to get back to that basic
message. The world has gone nuts. We could all
use a little more love, faith, hope, and
forgiveness."
Perhaps what bothers people
the most is that this is coming from a Hollywood
elite, one of the supposed gang of cultural
definers. Some find the Christian faith true
and use literature or song to tell the
world—e.g., C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity,
Handel’s Messiah. Some just tell their
neighbors. Mel chose to tell us through a movie.
I don’t know what the movie
will ultimately produce (financially or
spiritually). But one thing I know is that
Gibson is right. In an era where the results of the
“God is Dead” philosophy are finding fruition,
it is nice to find some that still understand
the need of the human heart: forgiveness.
Many, however, will
continue to dismiss the need for forgiveness.
Dismissing guilt is a modern phenomenon equal to
its first cousin, the irrelevancy of God. The
two go hand in hand. If the “Death of God”
mentality has had devastating social
consequences, a world without God can leave us
personally devastated, for there can be no
forgiveness for our own guilt.
We find entire
industries created specifically for making us
"feel O.K. about ourselves." Our culture, in
its pursuit of guilt relief, appropriates the
language of Christianity without its
substance—or power. Despite disbelieving that
we are “sinners” first, our culture is
therapeutically obsessed, desperate for
something to deal with our guilt. However,
nothing really works. Evidence the multiplying
clinical and popular remedies marketed to us
today.
Forgiveness is a gift–by
definition, unearned. I cannot earn or work for
forgiveness. I may learn to live with my past,
may understand it more fully, but I cannot be
truly forgiven—especially by Something that does
not exist.
Nonetheless, only God can,
through the gift of forgiveness, redeem the
past, and make one whole again. In this, Gibson
is right: The cross of Jesus Christ demonstrates
in all its vivid impact, the marvel of
forgiveness as a starting point. Despite the
cultural need for tolerance and acceptance, this
is unique to the Christian faith.
The simple words of an
elementary school teacher express the marvel of
this forgiveness (a poem, "A New Leaf" by
Kathleen Wheeler):
He came to my desk with a quivering lip, the
lesson was done.
“Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher? I’ve
spoiled this one.”
I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted
and gave him a new one all unspotted.
And into his tired heart I cried, “Do better
now, my child.”
I went to the throne with a trembling heart, the
day was done.
“Have you a new day for me, dear Master? I’ve
spoiled this one.”
He took my day, all soiled and blotted
and gave me a new one all unspotted.
And into my tired heart he cried, “Do better
now, my child.”
Although the cross and passion of Christ shows
evil at its ugliest, it offers a new beginning
in the most profound sense of the term. The
grace of forgiveness—the passion and marvel of
forgiveness, because God Himself has paid the
price, is a Christian distinctive and stands
splendidly against our hate-filled, unforgiving
world. God’s forgiveness gives us a fresh
start.
© Chip M. Anderson
Wordsntone
Send to a friend,
click here
Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
February 23, 2004
“Men without
chests”
There is
always
a
price
to
pay
for
losing
our
God-ward
underpinnings.
When
we
attack,
ridicule,
or
relinquish
concepts
of
absolutes
(or
its
cousin,
objective
truth),
we
by
necessity
abandon
any
sense
of
right-ness
(except,
of
course,
what’s
“right”
for
me).
Over
forty
years
ago,
C.
S.
Lewis,
in
an
essay
entitled
“Men
without
Chests,”
unmasked
the
intolerable
notion
that
there
are
no
transcendent
values
for
us
to
follow,
implying
that
we
only
live
in a
material
world.
If
we
are
only
the
sum
total
of
our
physical
parts,
our
behavior
and
actions
and
thoughts
are
only
responses
to
glandular
juices
produced
by
our
inter-action
with
the
world
around
us.
Such
a
way
of
viewing
human
existence
is
perilously
dangerous,
for
it
can
produce
horrific
consequences.
full essay>>
Send to a friend,
click here Put your comment
On the Table
|
|
| |
Return to the top of the page
|
|
| |
Habit SUBMISSIONS
Essays can
be just about anything, but need to
focus on applying the Christian faith in
some way. Essays can be on
biblical topics, issues facing us,
church-matters, evangelism and outreach,
social issues and activities, or even an
essay on a new book or article just
published. In particular, Habit
essays need to show the Christian mind
at work. I am also interested in
essays on "best practices" for
Christians getting involved with social
service or community action.
If
you have a book you have published,
Words'nTone would be glad to consider an
essay about your book. You can
submit an excerpt or a self-review.
Essays
can be 900-2000 words in length.
Please
send the essay in the text of an email
to
chip@wordsntone.com.
|
|
|
