A Perfectly Rational Story

1 Kings 18:20-39

“If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”

            This sounds so simple. It should be that simple. Who is the real God? Follow him. Except… most of us don’t get to run this kind of test. We just don’t. Instead, we get hints and wonders and little things that make us yearn for something better and a quiet assurance that such a thing is there. Most of us don’t get to see God hurling down lightning bolts from the heavens. This is a wonderful story and a difficult story for that reason.

            I mean, I love this story. I expect some of you do, too, because it is a story that is thoroughly modern (even if it is three thousand years old). What I mean by calling it a “modern” story is that the grounds that are established for God’s existence are thoroughly rational. Elijah sets the premise: Worship a God who actually does something. And then he goes about constructing a challenge where only the real God could succeed.

            He gives Ba’al every advantage. The home field of Mount Carmel. The weapons of choice: Ba’al being the god of fertility, what better advantage than lightning? He plays in front of the home crowd—four hundred of Ba’al worshipers. Elijah makes it so lopsided that the only way Yahweh—his God, our God—could possibly win is if he is real and Ba’al is not.

            I wish we could do a similar demonstration for you today. Wet down the altar and have a little competition between the God who we know in the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and all the other gods we have. Wealth, fame, sports teams, deer season... But this is not how God normally works. This story with Elijah is the exception and not the rule. Deuteronomy 6:16, which predates Elijah by hundreds of years, says “Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” which is exactly what Jesus quotes to Satan when he is tempted in the wilderness. The honest truth is that Elijah gets a free pass here that the rest of us do not. He gets to put God to the test in a way we cannot.

            This may be unfair, but it is also a reminder that, as much as we might think otherwise, we are not the heroes of the faith. God tends to work through nations, telling a big story, crafting a big plan. This is why that oft-quoted passage from Jeremiah, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to proper and a future with hope” (Jer 29:22) is misinterpreted again and again. It is not an individual promise to you and me but rather it is a national promise; a promise, we might say, for the whole body of Christ. Sometimes you won’t prosper. Sometimes you won’t be very hopeful. Sometimes—probably often—you’ll have a tough time crafting a rational test for God’s existence. This is not evidence against God; it is simply proof against your methodology.

How to read the Bible (courtesy of Genesis 1 and 2)

Genesis 2:4b-24

There are so many different ways to go here with the creation story that it’s hard to pick just one direction. So I’m going to fall back on what I do with this story when teaching Confirmation because I’m sure a few of you could use a refresher back to those days. Creation always comes up when we’re in our Old Testament year, obviously, since it’s the only sensible place a person can start when it comes to the Bible, but it also comes up in our 9^th grade capstone year a couple times when we talk about Heaven, Hell, and New Creation, when we talk about God, the Land, and the Environment, and maybe most importantly when we talk about the Word of God.

            These shouldn’t really be heated verses. Clearly the world was created, surely there was some kind of order to it, and human beings today are this wonderfully complex latest movement in the creation process. But because of how these chapters are read scientists get set against Christians and creationists against just about everybody. We use this chapter in Confirmation to talk about how we read the Bible and why that matters. So, on this Rally Sunday, with new programs starting up and the school year underway, I imagine few better times to talk about how Lutherans read the Bible than today.

            Of course, in saying this I should point out that individual Lutherans read the Bible in all sorts of ways. Moreover, I can’t even say that all Lutheran churches read the Bible in the same way. The Missouri Synod reads it differently than the ELCA, which reads it differently than the LCMC and NALC and all those other initialed churches. If you read the creation stories differently than how I’m talking about today I’m not saying you’re wrong; I’m just saying that you might be unorthodox (which some of you would see as a compliment anyway). Today I simply want to illustrate that what many Christians believe to be orthodox (or traditional) is not necessarily what has been orthodox in the Christian church for far longer than they’d imagine.

            Here’s what I mean: When we discuss Genesis 1 and 2 in Confirmation I open up by asking the students how many stories there are of the creation of the world in the Bible. This is universally met by blank stares just like yours right now. For most people it never occurs to them that there could be more than one creation story, because our overriding understanding of Genesis is that it is to be read like a history book. A history book would distill creation to a single unified story by way of retelling, to the best of historian’s knowledge, the way that things happened. No historian worth his or her salt is going to put two accounts side by side with completely different details. But that’s exactly what Genesis does! In fact, it’s the first thing that Genesis does! Immediately after giving us our traditional six day creation with God resting on the seventh day, the book turns to a second account of the creation with things occurring in a completely different order and less emphasis on the chronology but more on the importance of humanity.

Living in the grey: Are you wrestling or just lazy?

When I find myself deeply pondering an issue, whether in prayer or in silent thought at my desk, I tend to poke holes in both poles of opinion until I find the place where I can faithfully stand. This comes out perhaps most evidently in sermon-form. I tend to find myself pointing out one opinion and then an opposing one before often coming to the conclusion that neither of these work particularly well. This works with most contentious subjects because, well, there's a reason they are contentious. But I'm writing today to make clear that I hope I am cautious with this approach, because lately I have found many people who celebrate simply living in the "grey." They seem to enjoy existing between the black and the white for the sake of not being black or white; not necessarily because they have spent any reasonable amount of time or energy in prayer, meditation, or thought to come to the hypothesis that there is the most faithful place for them to be.

Five-Thirty-Eight recently ran a piece claiming that "Americans Aren't Becoming More Politically Independent, They Just Like Saying They Are" and I think the same is true of many things, especially concerning questions of faith. There are many people in the mainline church who really like the "grey." They really like pointing out the arrogance of standing at the poles, but then they don't offer a serious alternative. Living in the questions sounds great, but most people who successfully live in the questions already have a strong base of history and tradition on which to stand (here I'm thinking about my Jewish friends who participate in the serious practice of midrash). This is a very challenging place to be and to do so absentmindedly is folly. To merely state that a person is free to believe whatever they want is fine, but I'm always going to pay closer attention to the person who has struggled deeply with the questions than the one who has decided on a whim. Those who try to stay in the no man's land between polar sides of an issue are forced out when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, because to truly live in tension is to constantly question--not just the black and the white but also yourself.

Are you in this just to not take a side? Do you really believe anything?

I tend to find that living in that tension only works, especially as a religious person, when those grey areas are resolved with a promise that I believe in strongly. Again, this is why midrash works--it's done by those who are already deeply woven into the faith. I wouldn't recommend people blindly question every side unless you already understand a little of what it is that makes you who you are. This may sound backward, but it is merely to say that you aren't going to find your faith through questioning but questioning may deepen a faith that you already have. (And it leads to a wonderful question of where faith originates, which is well beyond the scope of this post, though I'd point you to Ephesians 2:8 as a starting point)

This is no exhortation to move from the middle ground to a position on one of the poles, and it's no suggestion that we need more out-spoken conservatives or liberals, or true believers of any sort. Rather, it's simply to point out that to say you enjoy living "in the grey" does not mean you are off the hook for careful and thoughtful reflection; in fact, I would say that much more is expected of you. It's one thing to be agnostic; it's another to be an agnostic Christian. The first I find potentially interesting; the second I find lazy.

Know yourself... or else you'll never know why Jesus had to come.

Scripture:Isaiah 42:1-9

I wonder how much we really know ourselves. On the surface that probably seems like a silly thought. Who could you possibly know better than yourself? But we played a little game with our Confirmation students—and I’m going to have you play it wherever you are in a minute. I want you to think about two things--to really think and pore over it--and, if you can, share them with somebody else. The two things are these: #1: What is something you are good at? And #2: What is something you need to work at or improve upon? Take as much time as you need to ponder.

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Was that easy? I think for most of us it’s a challenge, especially when we get to talking about what we need to improve. Most of us have stock answers to those questions: I really need to work on balancing my time better, or I really need to work on getting out more, or I really need to work on having a more positive attitude, but those answers are often only scratching the surface of what’s really going on with us. We have a hard time being introspective enough to know what we need to work on, because it’s scary to look at ourselves in the mirror so closely. In many ways our families and friends can answer those questions about us better than we can answer them ourselves.

Many of our societal problems are rooted in our unrealistic opinion of ourselves. As Bertrand Russell once said, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” To use biblical language, there’s a lot of pointing out specks in other peoples’ eyes and not a lot of acknowledging the log in our own. And what ends up happening in a world where we don’t know ourselves very well is that we get awfully defensive. Arguments escalate. Since we are not comfortable in the situation—since we aren’t very sure of ourselves—we overcompensate, and we become louder and brasher. We talk over others. We never listen. Listening is weakness, letting others talk is weakness, admitting there are things we don’t know is weakness.

The general rule of thumb is that the person who is loudest knows him or herself the least.

An argument for reading the parts of the Bible you don't like

“That’s not the God I believe in.” I’ve heard this phrase countless times in many different contexts. Sometimes it’s helpful. I remember our former presiding bishop Mark Hanson talking about meeting with people who don’t believe in God, listening to their stories of why they don’t believe, and then relating that the god they are describing is not the God he believes in either. Our conflicts over religion have a great deal to do with misunderstanding the kind of God that one another believe in. In that way this phrase is useful.

But in other ways I find it a cop out. For example: when it’s used by educated Christians who read the Bible until they find an attribute of God they don’t like, and then they explain that they don’t agree with that scripture because that’s not the God I believe in. This has always seemed backwards to me—I mean, how can you say that’s not the God you believe in when the God you believe in is revealed primarily through scripture? Aren’t you admitting that the God you believe in is only a reflection of the traits you define as “good”? Then, isn't God really only a reflection of you? It’s a pretty short jaunt from ignoring scripture we don’t like to making God in our image.

It bothers me even more when this comes from pastors, because most of them, like me, had to take vows in their ordination that contain a line that reads something like this: “The church in which you are to be ordained confesses that the holy scriptures are the word of God and are the norm of its faith and life…. Will you therefore preach and teach in accordance with the holy scriptures…?” Can we really take that vow seriously if we discount certain bits of scripture out of hand because of our preconceived notions of who or what God is?

I believe strongly in an open-minded approach to scripture, because I believe that all scripture exists to reveal God to us, and if that’s the case then what have we to fear from reading something that rubs us the wrong way? That doesn’t always mean that the Bible is clear or that we will like it; in fact, it pretty much guarantees the opposite; but it promises us that the Bible as we have it is sufficient for faith in the true God. Scripture might contain allegories and parables, events that are described as if historical even if they may not have ever happened, and even words of human people that conceal as much as they reveal, but God is found everywhere in the midst of it all.

In fact, I tend to believe that God is found particularly in the places we are challenged.

Inspired? Yes. Absolute and final... maybe not.

There's a billboard along I-29 that you can see driving north from Grand Forks toward the Canadian border. I see it about once a week or so when we make the trip down to the "big city," and it reads like this: "The Holy Bible: Inspired. Absolute. Final."

There's one thing I like about this sign--well, maybe two things. I like that somebody cares enough to put the Bible on a billboard; it sure beats other things that people are selling. And I like that they use the word: "Inspired" rather than "inerrant," though I'm a little worried that, to the people who put this up, they mean the same thing. But if I'm being honest I also must admit that putting this on a billboard opens us up to other billboards, like these (put up by atheist groups):

I mean... if the Bible is absolute and final those second category of billboards seem to have a point. The language we use to talk about God's word is so important, because if we use phrases like absolute and final we think we are suggesting that the Bible is above criticism, being God-inspired as it is, but it also means that we are bringing some massive assumptions to the reading of holy scripture, namely that one verse is as true as all others and interpreting one verse--or one story, or one idea--in the context of others is pointless. After all, that's what "final" means, isn't it? So we're left shouting one Bible verse, while others shout others. If we've already decided that the Bible is absolute and final, then why even think, why even read? Nobody is listening--why would they?--because they have the absolute and final authority.

That first billboard I see on a regular basis has Psalm 119:89 quoted in the lower right-hand corner, which I find mildly troubling.

Psalm 119:89 reads,
"The Lord exists for ever;
   your word is firmly fixed in heaven" (NRSV)

OK, that's fine. I get it. You're pointing out that scripture seems to say that the word is eternal, but let's stop for a second and consider why you are putting this verse on your billboard. It seems to me that you are more concerned with showing that your Bible is perfect and absolute than you are with telling people about God... or Jesus... or anything else. I'm sure that you feel like this will lead people to eventually discover that the Bible is a book about Jesus, but why not just come out and say that? Why do we feel the need to first establish the perfection of the biblical witness before actually confessing what the Bible leads us to believe? This feels like worshiping the Bible, which is just another form of idolatry.

Donald Sterling, racism, and the vacuous realm of little formed ideas

Donald Sterling doesn't seem like a very nice guy. Let's get that out of the way. Also, it's hard to sympathize with a person who makes prejudiced comments--and even more so when that person is filthy rich. He's basically your classic villain we are taught to hate, and honestly I have very little desire to fight against that perception. But what I want to do is give a little perspective on the lessons that can be learned from this situation. [If you don't know what I mean by "this situation" read here before going any further]

So, Donald Sterling said some rather stupid things about race in a private conversation that happened to be taped. There's no excuse for that. But I have to tell you: I've heard worse. I've heard it on the internet, but I've also heard it from people I know. I've heard racist jokes and comments that are terribly insensitive and naive. I've heard many stupid things said in my life. Admittedly, none of them from a person as rich as Sterling but I've heard them, and I'm sure I'll hear them again.

This doesn't mean it's OK. Actually, it means it's much worse.

An Ironic Sermon/Blog Post about the Cheapness of Words

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-11

            There are many things in life we never fail to undervalue. Among them are natural things—plants and animals; rain and snow—that we take for granted, and then there are personality traits—faithfulness and humility—things that we enjoy in other people but rarely repay in kind—and finally there is something closer to our essence as human beings that we also tend to minimize: our words. One of the great casualties of this busy world with all our talking heads, tomes of print literature, and innumerable websites is the thoughtful word. There are fewer and fewer poets, even as there are more and more bloggers. There are fewer great wordsmiths, even as there are more text messages composed each day than all messages in any format in any year prior to the 20^th century. Anaphorisms like “Talk is cheap” and “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me” are common and accepted.

            In the 21^st century you can say anything and find an audience. The more controversial, the better. The less time you spend considering other opinions, the more response you will get. When it comes to words we have made thoughtfulness and clarity expendable and too often consider the measure of an author her volume and provocativeness. Thoughtfulness doesn’t sell very well anymore, and so all words are cheapened; a casualty of our race to the lowest common denominator.

An intro to Revelation

Text: Revelation 1

            I’m going to start today with a bit of a warning and a promise: the warning is that this sermon will be more academic than most—and if you’re my wife who thinks that all my sermons are way academic, then this one may be a little too academic. Hence, the promise: I promise that the rest of the summer will not be just like this week. I think that when introducing something as strange to us, as the book of Revelation is, that I should take some time to explain what it is first. So, I hope you bear with me.

            I’m going to guess that some of you are a little uneasy about a summer full of Revelation. This is, after all, one of the books Martin Luther wanted to cut off the end of the Bible (you know, shake your Bible hard enough and hope those pages at the end just fall off). It’s the stuff we’ve given over to those Left Behind authors and doomsday prophets. That’s their area of interest; not ours. I remember a camp counselor friend of mine leading a devotion from Revelation in which he talked about Satan and the forces of darkness and the battle for sinners’ souls and these kinds of things with 8-12 year olds. I wanted to run and hide. These are the typical things you hear about this book, so I can’t blame you if you’re a little worried that you’ve signed up for a summer full of crazy things here at Grace-Red River

Why we rarely go to church: Pascal's Wager for the modern world

A quote passed through my Facebook feed earlier today that read like this, "I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there isn't // Than to live my life as if there isn't, and die to find out there is."

This is not exactly a new idea. In the 17th century, the mathematician, philosopher and physicist, Blaise Pascal, basically made the same claim, albeit far more philosophically and far less poetically. He argued for God's existence based on the logic of gain and loss in an argument famously known as Pascal's Wager. Here is his logic, quoted from his work, Pensées, first published in 1669.

1. "God is, or He is not"
2. A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
3. According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
4. You must wager. (It's not optional.)
5. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
6. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.

My philosophy professor in undergrad explained the wager in a chart that looked something like this:

Harry Potter and depths of understanding

It happened again. Another confirmation student, chilling in my office before class, pointed out Harry Potter on my shelf and said, "You're not supposed to have that in church." Barraged as I was by a dozen early teens taking up every corner of my office as they do on Wednesday afternoons before choir, I ignored the comment until later. That's when I wanted to start throwing chairs, because... well... who still thinks that?

Plenty of people, I guess. Plenty of people think Harry Potter is a manifesto on witchcraft and plenty of people think Christianity is about rules that keep us from having fun, and plenty of people think that our political leaders are good if they wear a certain party badge or bad if they don't. Plenty of people think like this. We like to talk about black-and-white thinking--and that is part of it--but it's more than that. This isn't just understanding that there is grey area; it is realizing there is depth--legitimate, awesome depth--behind so many things that we talk about in the church and in the world. We do ourselves a tremendous disservice when we only scratch the surface of a subject before making up our opinions.

The Sad Odyssey of the Discovery Channel

I have long been a fan of the Discovery Channel. I have even written about it before on this blog (as in right here), but I think those days are sadly at an end. It's been a long, slow and tedious fall from grace for the channel that was once about the only thing I would watch on television, and I wonder how it's gotten this far. I guess, as a mid-twenties male, this is one of the first things I will someday look back upon as the good ol' days, wondering all the while why they would leave behind what was so good for what is now so contrived and superficial. But before we get there it behooves me to start at the beginning--when things were good and Survivorman marathons frequent.

It was 2006 when the Discovery Channel and I began our close relationship, and oh, the good times we had! Those were simpler days. There was Cash Cab, a lightning-fast, if slightly dumbed-down, game show that took place in a New York City taxi cab; Deadliest Catch, the fascinating real-life story of crab fishing in the Bering Sea; Dirty Jobs, hosted by the always entertaining Mike Rowe; Man vs Wild, a fun, though definitely contrived and not at all realistic portrayal of survival in the wild; Planet Earth, the series that redefined how "nature" video was shot; Survivorman, which was basically a more realistic and far more interesting version of Man vs Wild; and, of course, Mythbusters, the crowning jewel of the Discovery lineup.

5 Things Christians should say

One of the latest trends in the mainline Christian blogosphere is to point out things that Christians shouldn't say: for a well-contrived example see here, or for a worse example see here. There's some good catharsis in pointing out the downright silly things that some people say in the name of Christ, but as with many things it is much easier to tear down than to build up. It's easier to suggest what we shouldn't say but harder to put forward positive suggestions. The danger is that we get to point where we're scared to say anything at all.

I don't always know how to say the things I want to say, even as I feel that accurate language is increasingly critical in these discussions, so I'm hardly the final or preeminent authority on things Christians should say. Nevertheless, I want to at least lead the conversation in that direction. I have some ideas of where to begin. I hope this is not the final word but just the beginning.

5 Things Christians should say

#1: My beliefs matter

I suppose it's possible to hear this as a rejoinder against the beliefs of others, but that is baggage that is implicit nowhere in the statement. It's only when we suggest that our beliefs matter over and against others that we run into trouble. My beliefs matter and so do yours. That's the start to a legitimate conversation. It doesn't put a value judgment on others while at the same time lifting up the value of what I hold dear. On some level, being a Christian is a life-or-death identity. That we can follow Christ and not have it impact every facet of our life may be the surest form of blasphemy. For that reason, the conversation has to begin with the gravity of faith. My beliefs matter--not more than yours, I can't answer that--but to me, yes, they matter dearly.

#2: The greatest power in the world is self-sacrifice


At the heart of the Gospel is this very simple ideology. This is made specific in Christ (which is appropriate since a philosophy alone without a lived reality has no saving power), but unfortunately even the person of Jesus is nowadays an arena of conflict. So, instead of arguing about historical aspects of Jesus--which tend to come down to matters of faith--one practical place to start is with the ultimate value of self-sacrifice. Jesus is crucial (pun intended) to our faith because we believe that he is the son of God. However, my experience is that most people already know that; they might not believe it but they at least know that it is an intrinsic matter of faith to Christians everywhere. What they don't understand is why we would believe that simply on the testimony of the Gospels. They couldn't tell you a single difference between Christian philosophy and Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam. It all seems the same. No doubt people have all kinds of reasons for their Christian faith so to sum it up as a matter of philosophy is no doubt oversimplifying and in most cases wrong, but I want to suggest that behind all the glitz and glamour there is a simple notion of self-sacrifice that pervades Christianity. It is not unique to the Christian faith, but Christianity more than any other religion or philosophy demonstrates how a reality drenched in altruism can look and impact the lives of believers. Self-sacrifice is the one power that the world does not understand.

#3: God will redeem all of creation

There's plenty in the Bible about those who will inherit the Kingdom of God and those that won't, which feeds directly into the who's in and who's out debates that make a mockery of the promise of salvation. Yet, for every instance where the Bible seems concerned with "individual salvation" there are countless examples of God moving toward fixing the whole picture; e.g. Romans 8:22-23, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies."

This is not to say that it is unimportant that Christ died for you specifically--in fact, it is somewhere near the heart of the faith--but it is also important that salvation is not only a one way street between you and God distinct from the tree of life from which you were conceived. Whether you want to admit it or not we are all tangled in a web of inter-relationship that extends from our physical self into the lives of others and the natural world. We are impacted both positively and negatively by those who have gone before; not to mention those who have taught and influenced us from birth up through today. We are also impacted by the weather and disease, astronomical features, technological innovation and pollution. The idea that God's redemption stops at the outer edge of my soul is ultimately limiting because it denies the relationships that make me who I am. This wider view of salvation also keeps us from asking impossibly banal questions like, "What happens to a villager in Africa who dies never hearing the Gospel?" We desperately need an expansive vision of God's saving grace that nonetheless refrains from falling into the trap of sweeping generalizations and instead offers redemption that we can experience in our person. Salvation must be both specific and wide-reaching.

#4: Truth is Jesus

Our world is undergoing a philosophical clash perhaps greater than any the past three hundred years. The actors in the debate are modernists and postmodernists, and the nature of the conflict is truth. Modernism asks "What is true?" to which postmodernism replies, "There is no absolute truth." End of discussion. Postmodernists in particular have a problem with the idea of overarching narratives describing the nature of reality, so it should be little surprise that they have a problem with Jesus making the radical claim that he is "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6). Catering to a postmodern world tends to bring Christians down an ever-widening tunnel toward meaninglessness. If a person has decided that there is nothing knit into the fabric of creation that unites our stories, then there really is not much more to say. In the face of nihilism Christians ought to stand up and own truth. What is truth? Not a concept, but a person. What is true? Jesus. Not just in some historical sense but as the very fabric of creation. You see, as Christians we don't simply believe that Jesus is real, but rather we believe something more fascinating and more foundational than that: we believe that Jesus is the key to everything--truly the way to God, the ultimate truth, and in fact life itself. It's a big thing. Seriously. When we talk about truth like it's only a list of historical happenings we limit Jesus. He is truth; the very groundwork of everything we experience in this life. Let's own that.

#5: Tell me about yourself

With all of the above said, it behooves us to remember to listen. I believe we should hold strongly to the convictions we have as if they are the most important things in the universe, but that is no excuse to assert my beliefs as if my point of view is the only one that matters. Listening is a lost art. I find that when I'm confronted with people with whom I disagree--even strongly disagree--I learn far more by listening than I ever do from walking away or talking over them. It's not that they bring me over to their point of view--from my experience that is rare--but I tend to find the reasons why I believe the way that I do in their arguments to the contrary. It's much easier to surround myself with like-minded ideologues who puff me up in the assurance that I know what I'm talking about, but this same crowd tends to discourage critical thinking. How will I ever dive deeper if I know I'm already right? My hope is that you think that you're wrong... or at least acknowledge the possibility. It will not lead you away from faith nearly as often as it will lead you deeper into it. That is a promise.

Against Cheating

There are few things in the world I hate more than cheating. I should probably state that forthright. If you cheat, you deserve the punishment that you get. It doesn't matter if you're cheating on your taxes, cheating on your spouse, or cheating on a test; cheating is one of my ultimate pet peeves. Allow me to diverge a bit in order to explain why.

This discussion has to start with how we value personal achievement. Our culture suggests that the most important things in school are grades and test results--particularly ACTs and SATs. The college selection process bears that out, and in some ways this makes a lot of sense. Objective, quantifiable results are much easier to judge en masse than subjective things like letters of recommendation. Those subjective items are often used only to break a tie when the objective results are equitable.

But this doesn't stop in college. We've been trained to achieve quantifiable results and that is precisely how we measure our worth. Work productivity is  measured in ones and zeroes--or dollars and cents. Those who labor count their worth in hours and minutes. Many people have a threshold to exceed, a goal to make. Whether it's in the workplace or in the gym, we often judge ourselves by personal bests, and always seek better, faster results. Games like chess have a numerical rating system. Play better and achieve a higher rating. That's the goal.

However, this obsession with tangible, numerical results has a sinister side.

We're willing to do anything to get those little edges. It starts out with cutting corners. In chess, for example, players may care more for winning than for learning. They may inhibit long-term gains for the sake of short-term successes. Does this sound like a student who works hard for a grade but doesn't care to retain any knowledge?

I thought so.

In the manufacturing world this approach leads to products of lesser standards that can be sold cheaper. It is the principle of "Walmart-ization." It's also cheating ourselves of achieving great things. Each of us can remember the kid in elementary school who was always cheating in gym class. "No, I wasn't tackled. My knee never hit the ground!" It's the same kid who was always claiming he wasn't hit by the dodge ball, the same kid who would claim that he caught the ball that clearly bounced before he could get his hands under it, and often it was the same kid who would look over others' shoulders in class.

We hated that kid, but worse still each of us had moments where we became that kid. I can remember sneaking answers on spelling tests in elementary school because I hated not being perfect. I was learning the great American tradition of cheating.

There have been two sports stories in the news lately that have brought this to mind for me in very different ways. The first happened last week when Joel Peralta, a pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, was ejected from a game for having pine tar inside his glove. For those unfamiliar, pine tar gives the pitcher a sticky grip, which allows for the ball to spin more on release, adding extra movement to pitches. Pine tar is one of several explicitly illegal substances for a pitcher to have on his person when he pitches. So, when the umpires went to inspect Peralta and found he was using the substance he was removed from the game (and later suspended by Major League Baseball). End of story, right? Well, not exactly.

Enter: this clip. The guys you hear whining are television commentators for the Rays, obviously infuriated, but at what? Were they upset that their pitcher had the audacity to cheat? Were they upset that the wool had been pulled over their eyes? Hardly. Their anger was toward the opposing manager, who broke one of baseball's "unwritten" rules and tattled on an opposing player. Now, the thing about unwritten rules is that they are, well, unwritten. The high and mighty attitude that the Rays commentators took is a clear indication of the cheating culture that believes we can do anything we want to gain a little edge, so long as it fits in the "unwritten" rules. Drive five miles an hour over the speed limit? It's an unwritten rule you won't be pulled over. Ask a cop who pulls over somebody going four miles over the speed limit, and they will tell you that the drivers are often indignant that they're doing nothing wrong. They are following an unwritten rule.

Besides being obnoxious, the Rays commentators are also blatantly wrong. Davey Johnson (the opposing team's manager in the Peralta ejection) had every right and, indeed, responsibility to aid his team in winning. Those are the written details of his contract to manage. If he believed Peralta was violating a written rule of the game then he was obligated to follow up on it. Written rules trump unwritten rules, because written rules have been agreed upon by all parties. Cheating is failing to follow a written rule, not an unwritten one. This may seem obvious, but in fact many people in baseball do not believe this. Amazingly, the Rays commentators and manager Joe Maddon were more concerned with who ratted them out than with the actual incident of cheating. They attempted to confuse the issue by leveling blame on Johnson and the Nats coaching staff for violating an unwritten rule of the game. Let me state this plainly: Maddon and the Rays commentators need to be told they are unequivocally wrong. Justifying cheating by attacking the opponent for pointing it out is the true cowardly move.

The second news story is the USADA allegations against Lance Armstrong. This is a complicated issue for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is important to point out that  Armstrong has never failed a drug test as far as we know (conspiracy theories notwithstanding). Secondly, the reality is that Armstrong probably did cheat in an era where a large portion of the peloton (a cycling word for the racers in the pro field) was doing just that. And thirdly, the USADA is hardly blameless in all of this. They seem more interested in condemnation than truth-seeking. A disdain for cheating does not mean we have a witch hunt whenever suspicions are aroused; instead, it means that we seek the truth without wavering. The USADA seems to have no such agenda.

If Armstrong cheated he deserves to have his titles taken away, but unlike Peralta there has been no clear burden of proof leveled against him. Cycling has been a more corrupt sport even than baseball, though just like baseball it has gone a long way to cleaning itself up in the last decade. Again, as in baseball, there have been significant ramifications from doping. The careers of clean athletes have been cut short because of the cheaters. Peoples' livelihoods have suffered. In a sense, cycling has been a microcosm of the cheating mentality in the larger world.

However, we don't solve these problems by making Armstrong a pariah for the doping age in cycling just as Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are for the doping age in baseball. The significant difference is that nothing has been proven in the case of Armstrong, and the USADA has gone out of its way to subject him to these allegations without releasing any additional evidence. Did Lance cheat? Probably. And in the end it is no real justification that "everyone was doing it." But the burden of proof remains on the accusers, and unlike Peralta there is as yet no proof to speak of.

So what can we learn? Firstly, I wish it were simple enough to say "Don't cheat." You shouldn't, but you have to realize that on your own. The single greatest effect of cheating is that you are minimizing your own accomplishments; you are selling yourself short in a misguided attempt to look better than you are. If you are not proud enough of the true you to face an accurate reflection of yourself then you are already well along the dark path toward self-pity.

My advice is this: Don't sell yourself short by cutting corners. If you're a runner add a couple seconds to your total; don't take them off. If you're a fisherman don't add weight to your fish. If you're a student take pride in the grade you got, not the grade you deserved (they happen to be the same thing anyway). In this life you will have countless opportunities to puff up your chest and follow the "unwritten" rules. Don't. The harder road is the road more worth traveling, because the fruits of your labor on that road will always taste sweeter.

The Christian's guide to fallacy: Episode 1

This series has been a long time coming (and when I say series I mean 1, 2, 7 or 25 posts... I don't know how many, it depends on how many of you read this and suggest that you like it). As a pastor, I cannot tell you how often I hear poor reasoning in my line of work. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that somebody who works frequently at the intersection of religious beliefs and politics in a culture full of internet trolls would run into senseless arguments. However, I am astounded at how often those involved in these conflicts neglect to point out the error in their opponent's argument, instead devolving into petty insults or stammering uncontrollably.

It struck me, finally, that we aren't very well trained in responding to a fallacious argument. We don't know on what grounds something doesn't make sense; we just know we don't like it. So here's my hope with this blog series: I want to demonstrate commonly used fallacies through the lens of arguments I hear directed towards Christians, from Christians or between Christians. These are, in short, the kinds of arguments I hear on a daily basis. In fact, all of them are a version of an argument I have heard at least once. This is one part theology, one part epistemology and one part just plain fun.
NOTE: Definitions for fallacies are taken from several sources, including Wikipedia and Cal-Fullerton.

Fallacious Statement #1: "When the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America passed a resolution allowing homosexual clergy, God sent a tornado to knock the cross off the church across the block."

Response- That is post hoc ergo proctor hoc: Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one. Please notice that illogical arguments often tend to be bad theology. They assume not only what God does but how to interpret God's will. Is it possible that God acts through the weather to send us a message? Yes, but short of divine explanation we cannot by measure of reason determine what that message is. Remember, the disciples were as close to Jesus as anyone and they never managed to understand what he meant by his parables. Who are you to think you know better? As a pastor at my home church pointed out, maybe God was upset that Central Lutheran wasn't tithing enough.

Fallacious Statement #2: "There are so few youth in church anymore. I am so sad that young people don't believe in God."

Response- That is a hasty generalization, which involves making a hasty conclusion without considering all of the variables. Another, inverse example of this would be: "Young people have such stronger faith than the older folks."

Fallacious statement #3: "I can believe whatever I want because all beliefs are equally valid."

Response- That is an appeal to ignorance, because the statement asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false. This is an awfully tricky one because it rolls both ways. A Christian could say --and we sometimes do--that the burden of proof is on the atheist, which would be equally fallacious. Rather, the key word here is whatever. Not all things are equally true simply because they have yet to be proven false. The triviality of a thing plays an important role, as in Russell's teapot.

Fallacious statement #4: "Either your church is traditional and conservative, in which case you are ignorant and hateful; or your church is free-thinking and liberal, in which case you are no different from an NGO and you don't actually believe anything."

Response- This is a false dilemma (black-and-white or either/or fallacy), which implies that one of two outcomes is inevitable, often citing both as having negative consequences.

One Shepherd, One Flock: Jesus on the Foolishness of Prejudice

Text: John 10:11-18

One of the earliest things we learn is how to tell things apart. This begins long before we ever step into a classroom, before Kindergarten or any kind standardized testing. We learn easy things first: this is mom and this is dad; this is red, this is blue; this is cold, this is hot. We need to know these things to stay safe, and just to get by in the world. You need to understand how thing A is different from thing B in order to understand anything particular about things A or B. Then, as we get older the distinctions grow wider and wider. By the time we are adults there seem to be infinite variations on a theme. Creativity is born out of seeing these distinct possibilities. In one famous—perhaps apocryphal—story, Abraham Lincoln once tried to close the US patent office because he believed everything that could be invented had been invented. The following 150 years have told a very different story.

            Making distinctions is crucial to invention, safety and critical thinking, so we tend to think categories are universally good. However, there are limits to their helpfulness. On moral issues, making distinctions can be downright tricky: what is right or wrong, “good” or “bad?” In making distinctions of judgment we need to be careful that we don’t confuse our view of a thing with ultimate truth. It’s one thing to argue over the greatness of sports team but quite another to caricature based on race, gender, or religious beliefs. For instance, we may call a warm day “good” or a blizzard “bad,” but that is a very different judgment than to have positive thoughts about a woman because of her race, or negative thoughts about a man because of his beliefs.

            Jesus gives us a cautionary example in talking about the Good Shepherd. Who is the Good Shepherd? The one who guards the sheep, but also the one who does not make distinctions within the flock. Jesus is the shepherd who protects and saves every sheep. And more to the point, Jesus values his own life only to the extent that he is willing to give it up for the sake of the flock. The sheep are all the same. One shepherd, one flock; and the flock is broader than you might think. Jesus says that he has other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These are not “white” sheep or “black” sheep; they are just sheep. No divisions, nothing to make them distinct. Sheep alone.

            In fact, in the entirety of this John 10 account, sheep are never mentioned in the singular. Never once does Jesus separate us into individuals who receive according to our own goodness or badness. We are anonymous but communal.

            It is we who have made all sorts of suggestions about who is worthy to be a member of the flock. It is we who have taken all manner of stances about a person’s “goodness” or “badness.” These may very well be necessary judgments to keep us safe, but Jesus isn’t talking about life as it is down here. He is talking about life as it one day will be; he is talking about not just an ideal but a reality beyond the veil of our lives.

            Jesus names a reality—he is the Good Shepherd, we are sheep—and he doesn’t care if we are big sheep or little sheep, ugly sheep or pretty sheep, sheep that are black or white, male or female, rich or poor.

            The kingdom of God rejects distinctions, because our primary identity is the body of Christ; not our names, not our memories, not our relationships or our identities.

            So if we believe this is true—that the kingdom of God rejects distinctions, things that separate us from one another, traits that we consciously or unconsciously consider “good” or “bad”—if the kingdom of God is a place where we are united as one flock—one body—then we do a poor job whenever we take sides down here. Our prejudice may take many forms. It may be biases along racial, gender, or class lines, but it is not only these. Anytime we believe ourselves to be of innately greater worth to God than another person we puff ourselves up as if trying to show the Good Shepherd that we’re the bigger sheep.

Notice, please, that Jesus doesn’t care.

This past week the Washington Capitols eliminated the Boston Bruins in game 7 of their opening round series in the Stanley Cup playoffs on a goal by Joel Ward, a forward who happens to be a black man playing a predominantly white man’s game. Within minutes, Twitter had erupted with racially charged epithets aimed at Ward.

It’s easy to condemn the people behind the tweets, and rightfully so. They displayed their ignorance, and worse still some of them remain defensive of their posts, trying to justify that “everyone was saying the same thing.” But behind the vulgarity, there is something in this circumstance that tells us about how we see the world. All of us distinguish between “us” and “them.” Why is it that the first gut reaction we have to Ward is that he is a black man? Because he is a minority in that sport? Perhaps. Nobody, as far as I know, mocked Ward for being from Ontario, or for his stocky build, or for wearing the number “42”. Instead, they saw two things—he plays for the opposing team and he’s black—and from those two details they were armed with enough previously learned prejudice to say some awful things. We all have our own categories for “us” and “them”. It is our associations with a thing—in this case, race and sports team affiliation—that cause us to fall off the boat.

This is important for us because we tend to ascribe to Jesus the same kinds of biases we feel ourselves. Isn’t it funny how the Jesus we believe in dislikes the same people we dislike? The reality, however, is that Jesus defies making even the simplest distinctions. Jew or Greek? Slave or free? Male or female? Neither, says Jesus. Why? Because those things we have created to separate one person from another are not applicable to the kingdom of God. Jesus doesn’t care if you are black or white, athletic or uncoordinated. That much should be obvious.

But what should also be obvious is that we do the kingdom of God a serious disservice when we continue to form judgments based on these arbitrary characteristics. If you think less of a person because they are short or tall, skinny or fat, old or young, black, white, Hispanic, or Asian, or because they are a man or a woman, then how can you have any hope of experiencing hints of God’s kingdom on earth?

Jesus came to break down those walls that separate us one from another, and Jesus died for you and for me and for all of us that can’t help but continue to make distinctions between those things that are good and those things that are bad. Jesus, thankfully, doesn’t care. We are his flock—one flock, one shepherd.