SENSORY WORSHIP

Here are some thoughts I recently sent to our pastors concerning worship.

We have been beginning to re-envision ways to enrich our worship experiences, and the aspect that grabbed my imagination, considers the use of our five senses. I have given a lot of thought over the years regarding worship, and the ways we can draw our whole self/ all ourselves into glorifying God and making ourselves aware of His presence. For what other reason did God give us senses than for the purpose of communication, relationship (with Him, others, and Nature), and discovery?

Over the past many years, some of my worship experiences have been in other congregations. One deeply meaningful relationship I had thirty years ago was with a Franciscan community/monastery in Salzburg, Austria. Aesthetically, the place of worship had a profound impact on me. Actually, much of Europe with its Gothic Cathedrals, and Baroque churches affect me positively. One of the things I noticed was the way light was used, meaning the natural sunlight streaming through windows: whether stained glass or plain glass. Even the colors used: primarily reds and blues, could affect one a certain way, and elicit a sense of the transcendence of God. I was disappointed in the absence of high windows that could let in sunlight when our sanctuary was built. Since we rely 100% on electricity and man-made lighting arrangements, it does something to our worship…almost as if we have too much control. It doesn’t leave the opportunity open for God to suddenly roll back a bank of clouds and have rays of light suddenly illuminate a sanctuary, where before all was cast in shade and muted light. I’m sure that few people (if anyone) had thought of that when the sanctuary/worship hall was designed, but I think about things that way…a bit odd, perhaps. All of this is to point out that the use of LIGHT, not just colors, or visual effects, can be very important. Light sources are also important, not just images or pictures that are visible because they reflect light. Candles, Sunlight, Lamps, etc…

When we gathered a week or so ago for pizza and visioning/dreaming, I wrote a few notes. These are some rough notes that can be fleshed out as time goes on:

Worship engages us with the Arts that engage our senses:
Visual Arts (sight)== includes color (such as banners that reflect the various seasons in the church calendar), imagery: banners, 3D (depth as well as form); LIGHT—such as lamps, muted lighting, and even darkness (as in tenebrae service), as well as candles, direct sunlight, etc…
Musical/Audio Arts (hearing)== includes a variety of music and singing: also various instruments (like violin, trumpet, flute, piano, guitars, I wish we had an oboe!!!) Audio can also involve choral readings like last week with the scripture. Possibly (if the Reformers among us can stomach it) chant or responsive readings, choral responses to psalms. Our hymnal has quite a collection at the back. Let’s use the hymnal more. Praise songs address the affective/emotional domain, but less the cognitive/intellectual domain which hymns address more profoundly. Worship should not only help us to feel well—feel closer to God, but also think well—think more profoundly, theologically about God.
Kinesthetic Arts (touch, movement)== Raising hand, bending our knees, learning perhaps a song with hand motions—let the woman who knows sign language teach us all one song totally in sign language as we sing it (something simple). Do we ever bow our heads or kneel? It’s scriptural, but also Roman Catholic, so Protestants have veered away. Even making the sign of the cross. Popish, perhaps, in some peoples eyes, but a lllloooonnnnnggggg standing tradition of the Church Universal: making the sign of the cross. I wonder how much we can dare without turning some people off? Does raising our hands in worship and praise scare some people away? Perhaps, those who fear Pentecostals. Would crossing oneself shock someone else??? Questions to explore as we continue to look into the depth of worship.
Another kinesthetic practice could be in dance (liturgical dance and otherwise) as well as drama, plays, skits, processions up the aisle.
Aromatic Arts (smell)== This is where I remember the incense within an Episcopal Church I attended our first year of marriage. AH! Frankincense and myrrh. Think about the pungent worship Israel had as they offered those smoky burnt offerings to the LORD. And think of the psalmist who wrote of offering incense and prayers…. I wonder what we could do here. I think I would be reticent for the practice seems so Catholic, but it is quite powerful, and I have heard that the sense of smell actually deeply affects and strengthens memory of events. Once you can associate a smell with an event, person, or place, and you can smell that again, the memory of it comes flooding back. One has to just be careful of allergies, or of being too over powering. Perhaps scented candles?? Fragrant potlucks? More flowers? Rose scented air freshener?
Epicurean Arts (taste)== Obviously in worship the thing that comes first to mind is Communion/Lord’s Supper/Eucharist. Bread and Juice. Question: is Wine forbidden by the Covenant, or just not used? Wine is a far more powerful and authentic element than juice: both in taste, in symbolism, in tradition.
How else could taste be employed? The ancient church had love feasts: we have potlucks upon occasion, or other dinners. I think it would be helpful to our community to gather together to eat far more often. Make potlucks, dinners, seders, etc worshipful.

Okay there you have it. A few notes that explore Sensory Worship (not worship of the senses, but worship by and through the senses).

Yours, PETE

Check out Churchrater.com

I recently discovered a website entitled Churchrater.com . Check it out. It is directed or managed by a friend of mine, Pete Walker, who's a George Fox Seminarian. There is some real interesting dialogue going on concerning all sorts of things affecting congregations: Gays in the Catholic Church, how Hospitable (or not) Churches are towards Children, a number of comments about various churches--often first time visits--across the country, etc. There's also a new movement a foot: BICBW. It stands for "But I Could Be Wrong." Membership to this movement of one's willingness to admit, and submit, to one's finitude and the possibility of error when pontificating, is totally FREE, and one needs only to end one's communication with the following postscript: BICBW.

Sins of omission and commission

There are a few variations to The Lord’s Prayer, particularly in the section about asking God to forgive our debts/trespasses/sins. Our new pastor has been leading us in the Lord’s Prayer, over the past few weeks, by using the phase “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” rather than the phrase “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” that had been used by our congregation for many years.

When I think about the differences between debts and trespasses, I am reminded of some differences between various types of sins. Most often, I suppose, we think of sin as an active transgression: something that we do that is wrong. Theft, murder, adultery, deceit, arrogance, violence, etc. All those things are included in the broad umbrella of trespasses. Trespassing has come to mean something rather narrow: namely stepping onto someone else’s property without permission (quite often to do harm or appropriate something that doesn’t belong to oneself.) But what of debts? Our pastor pointed out the limiting connotations associate with debts in which our mind thinks in financial terms. Forgive us our debts sounds like a college student reneging on a student loan that he owes and had made promises to pay. However, I think that the whole idea of debts deals, rather, with what we owe people in terms of basic human transactions: love, compassion, generosity, the fruits of the Spirit. Our prayer, “forgive us our debts,” is an acknowledgment that we often fail to share these fruits of the Spirit with others. Sin is not just an active transgression, at times like this, but also a passive inaction when we should have acted: something that we did not do that would have been right. The Book of Common Prayer captures this in the confession: “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”

These sins have been called sins of omission (debts) and commission (trespasses). When we “commit” sins of omission we aren’t really committing anything at all. We actually are omitting to perform something that God would have us do. We fail to do something we ought to do through apathy, carelessness, lack of conviction, laziness or selfishness. If we consider the fact that God has given certain spiritual gifts, we actually sin if we fail to employ those gifts, practice and use those talents. In Jesus’s parable about the 5, 2 and 1 talents, it is the person who buried his talent and didn’t use it even slightly that was censored, punished and removed from the community or a relationship with his master. Burying his talent was a sin of omission: he had a debt to his master and refused to “pay” it by employing his talent.

If the sins of commission are more obvious, the sins of omission are more insidious. They lull us into a false sense of sinlessness. We can imagine someone objecting, “But I haven’t done anything wrong!” The question isn’t always whether or not one has done something wrong. More importantly is the question: What have I done that is right? How have I intentionally, deliberately and passionately embraced my calling? How fervently have I strained my ears to hear His voice, His whisper? How much have I expended myself to fulfill the one debt remaining (Romans 13:8), the love of one another, or “the carrying of each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) which is the fulfillment of the law of Christ? The sins of omission are so often linked with that cankerous spiritual malady, indifference. When we withhold grace, forgiveness, compassion, or mercy, we rob our neighbor of his very breath, we deny him food, drink, hope, friendship, meaning. This is no small insignificant thing. It is truly insidious because we will not find ourselves throw in jail because of it. There are no laws of the state that threaten us with imprisonment if we turn a blind eye to a neighbor in need. No, we may not be thrown into prison, but there is a Place we may very well be thrown out of. “And between us and you a great chasm has been fixed” (Luke 16:19-31).

It is best to pray that God would forgive us all our sins: both debts and trespasses.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Spiritual Gifts: Our Spiritual DNA

Our church congregation (McMinnville Covenant Church) has started a two-month-long emphasis on spiritual gifts. Our pastors are preaching and leading worship with that emphasis in mind, and our small groups are exploring the topic. I’ve done this before: the scriptural passage from 1 Corinthians 12 is rather familiar. It’s used in either talking about spiritual gifts or likening the Christian Church (and all its scattered, dispersed congregations) to a Body. A Body of Broken Bones, in the words of Thomas Merton, deeply in need of healing, a body of fractured bones in need of being set in order.

I guess that these two things have a lot in common, really. Our spiritual gifts exemplify the way we flesh out our part or function in the Body of Christ. Our spiritual gift is our particular gene on the whole DNA genetic code of the Body of Christ. Our human DNA is made up of billions of genetic markers, genes along the many strands of chromosomes. I would liken our spiritual gifts to one of those genes that carry the biological information that leads to the specialization/specification of a particular body part, particular body tissue that performs a particular function for the mutual benefit of the entire body. Our spiritual gift is that specific purpose or function for which we are designed by God, to fulfill a unique, particular, and specific work in the Body of Christ, which is the Church. But not just for the edification of believers and fellow sojourners with whom we agree. No, much more we are given specific gifts for the redemption and health of the whole earth. Earth: meaning both Nature and World. Nature: meaning God’s Creation of the natural world including the environment and ecosystems that balance the interrelationships between plants and animals, fungi and protists. World: meaning Humanity’s creation of societies, civilizations and cultures in cooperation with or rebellion against God’s intended purposes and Will.

Today our pastor used the image of a beautifully wrapped gift. It lay on our altar: wrapped in spangled gold and silver paper, bound by gilded thread and bow. It looked like the kind of gift you’d eagerly open first, or expectantly save for last. Yet what if you gave such a gift to someone dearly beloved: an aunt or grandmother you wished to especially honor and they decided not to open it, not to actually receive and use the gift hidden within? How your heart would ache with rejection and sorrow.

Our pastor reminded us that Gifts are given in order to be opened. Opened and put to use. God has carefully—essentially even—given us gifts that are at the center of our being. They are at the center of our identity and character, making up the spiritual DNA of our souls. We are given at least one gift to be developed like a gift of paint brushes, paints and canvass. Such spiritual gifts are useless lying within a box. But taken out and held within the hand of the painter, they begin to bring color, form, mystery and marvel to those who will behold the painting that is generated. Each painting is impossible without the brushes, oils and canvass. Our spiritual gifts are just such tools or instruments. Our gifts or talents are meant to be seen and utilized, for what use is a Sundial in the Shade? (as Ben Franklin once quipped). God’s gifts are carefully chosen according to how He has shaped us. Our gifts are unique. We are each one of a kind. Are we using our gift precisely as God would like it used for the best benefit of all other people?

We aren’t just supposed to look at the pretty ribbon and crisp paper on the outside of the box. We must (our sanctification depends upon it) unwrap our gift and employ it for God’s glory and the world’s most desperate needs.

Perhaps the question for each of us is this: is there a gift that God has given us that we have left unwrapped, adorning the living-room coffee table of our lives? Perhaps we think that the wrapping paper, ribbon and bow are just “too nice” to unwrap or rip apart. We need to realize that the gift is inside. The wrapping is just for show, for the presentation of the gift. WE MUST GET ON WITH IT! Rip away the glitz of that giddy reception, the magic and mushiness of that moment it touched our fingertips, and we felt the heft of it in our hands. The paper must come off! The ribbon be discarded! And then we must use it. Let it get worn, dented, scuffed, dirtied, torn, used and abused in service (oops, …um … at least used real well).
God’s spiritual gift to us is tied in with our calling, our vocation. Perhaps we first recognize that gift or set of gifts when we first perceive God’s calling to us in our vocation. In the best of all possible worlds, God’s vocalization is our vocation. God’s calling is our life’s work, gift, purpose and finally, consummation.

Exploring Intelligent Design in the Church.

Recently I purchased a book by Lee Strobel entitled The Case for a Creator. The book features various interviews with scientists in various fields: biology, biochemistry, astronomy, cosmology, etc... What struck me is the great amount of scientific evidence for the existence and action of a Creator. Perhaps Christians have been going about it all wrong, trying to get Intelligent Design to be taught within public schools. Frankly, most of the evidence is quite recent, and quite above the heads of most high schoolers. In fact I was having trouble comprehending the cosmological evidence. What it comes down to, however, is that there is a great deal of evidence out there that makes the most logical sense in the context of creation by an Agency outside of nature.

One of the most convincing arguments is found in the Big Bang theory, and another has to do with all the fine-tuning there is in physics for the existence of life, but the arguments most appealing to me have to do with how suitable the Earth is for us. There are so many various ways that the Earth is completely ideal for the sustaining of life, and how many things that could have been different that would have simply made life impossible. Obviously the naturalists just say that we got lucky, or that all the happy coincidences just came together here, so enjoy it--or exploit it--while you're alive in your pitiful, meaningless existence.

When it comes down to it, the intelligent design debate is about interpretation. How do you, or I, or any given scientist interpret the data, the evidence. Naturalists and Evolutionists will simply refuse to grant intelligent design because they a priori dismiss anything supernatural. If you start off saying that God is impossible, you will have to invent hypotheses and theories in order to account for the Big Bang evidence, or the evidence from the complexity of cells, of the genetic information packed in DNA, or the astronomical improbability of having a terrestrial planet 93 million miles from a medium sized yellow star in the safest position within a spiral galaxy (hundreds of light years away from black holes, supernovae, high concentrations of cosmic rays, etc...), a planet with the right balance of air to sustain life, covered with water that not only permits life by regulates the temperature of the whole planet: a planet, furthermore with an appropriate tilt of the axis and rotation period that allows with seasons, night and day within a span of hours that neither superheats or supercools one side of the planet.... Each of these aspects could very well be different: completely and radically more hostile and devastating to life. Yet all these ideal conditions coincidence: the number of individual conditions is staggering. Given only ONE condition awry, and life would be impossible as we know it. Impossible for probably any life outside of bacterial existence.

I believe the scientific evidence overwhelmingly points to a Creator who literally thought of everything in order to make a world that not only supports life, but enables an astonishing diversity of life, filled with beauty, depth, meaning, and purpose. It is mind boggling thinking that there are people who not only are unimpressed by the countless ways our world is balanced and life-friendly, but also refuse to acknowledge that all of this is a gift from God. People like Betrand Russell have long lamented our pitiful existence and embraced a meaningless nihilism and though they don't believe in hell either, they fashion their own lives in such a way that they only know hell: that of their own despair and alienation.

Intelligent Design does need to be taught. In the churches. Adults need to learn these things.

Reflections on “Imago Dei” (The Image of God) and Evolution: The Naturalist versus The Super-naturalist.

Not long ago a couple events coincided within the span of one week: an article on Naturalism and Intelligent Design written by my brother (a pastor) in his church’s newsletter, and a challenge from a fellow small group member who is working on an article on what it means to be made in the image of God. Perhaps to some people the issues seem unrelated, but I think they are related. An excerpt from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall, as well as a few excerpts from C. S. Lewis’s Miracles have formed some of my thinking, as well as a sincere desire to address the ongoing debate within public schools whether to allow Intelligent Design theories to be taught within our Science classes. I hope this hasn’t scared you away, as a reader. Perhaps you’re wondering which camp I’ll land myself in. I hope that is enough to keep you interested.

The first couple chapters of Genesis are considered the Creation chapters. In much abbreviated language the Creation of the Earth is depicted, along with the especial Creation of humanity as residents of Earth. Some people might hope I would say figurative or metaphorical language instead of abbreviated, but I don’t think those words would be accurate. A metaphor is figurative language that compares two quite different things by mentioning one particular quality they both appear to possess. To say: “Zach is a cheetah on the track” would be to use a metaphor indicating Zach is a fast runner, not to imply he’s a great cat. However to say that “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind’ and it was so.” (Genesis 1:24) is not to use a metaphor. It is to say, however, that these creatures: namely the entire Animal Kingdom (and all subsequent phyla, genera and species), were created intentionally and specifically by someone outside of Nature. I say that the Genesis narrative uses abbreviated language because it doesn’t intend to be scientific in the least. Indeed the order of events is highly suspect as well. The creation of plants (on day three) could hardly have preceded the creation of planets (on day four) as well as another particularly important celestial sphere, the sun, in so far as we are knowledgeable that plants manufacture their own food through photosynthesis, a process entirely dependent on light: particularly sunlight. Immediately the reader might surmise that I am fully entrenching myself in the Naturalist/ evolutionary camp as I call into question the scientific soundness of the Genesis account. To which I would wholeheartedly assent that the Bible in no way purports to be a scientific manual. But I do not think it meant to be metaphorical here either. It was simply stating, in massively abbreviated form, that there was and continues to be an intelligent design behind Nature and the things that have come into being. To that I likewise wholeheartedly concur.

The Genesis account goes on to say that humanity is created in the image of God: Humanity is the Imago Dei. “Then God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes: “There is no transition here from somewhere or other, there is new creation. This has nothing to do with Darwinism: quite independently of this man remains the new, free, undetermined work of God. We have no wish at all to deny man’s connection with the animal world: on the contrary. But we are very anxious not to lose the peculiar relationship of man and God in the process.” (Creation and Fall, McMillan Co., 1959, p.36) The Genesis story tells about the purpose of humanity’s creation, not biologically how it came about. The Genesis passage speaks of humanity as being given originally a unique gift by God, unique among all the creatures. We are granted a relationship and responsibility “to rule” over the rest of creation, and we are created in His image. What that “image” is exactly, has been debated for years: our freedom of will, our ability to create, our ability to love sacrificially, our possessing a soul or spirit are among various interpretations, none that are exclusive of one another.

But not long after receiving this gift of creation and formation in His image, being God’s reflection, humanity decided to reject the gift and grab a position, a power, an ability. We said we will be like God “knowing good and evil.” This acquisition of knowledge was and continues to be a usurpation—a desire to be equal with God. It is a desire to wrest our future from the Creator so that we might establish an alternative based on our ambition. We act as if we are like God and act as if God does not exist, or is inconsequential at best. In some primordial past we became “sicut deus”: like God by our own power, lifting up the acquisition of knowledge, and judging between good and evil. Nonetheless, our original creation in the image of God was/is something unique among the created order, something that sets us apart and now, unfortunately, (through a primal estrangement called “the Fall”), at odds with the rest of the natural order.

The issue of “imago dei” (being created in the image of God) leads inevitably to the present controversy in our society between a creation-centered view of the Earth and a naturalist-evolutionary-based view of the Earth.

Within our schools and universities we have two competing world views currently embroiled in the science debate: intelligent design versus naturalism/evolution. Both of these viewpoints or positions of inquiry begin with certain presuppositions. The naturalist scientific community has denounced intelligent design as pseudo-science that is being used by fundamentalist Christians to push a literal interpretation of the Bible. The creationist supernaturalist scientific community has denounced evolution as a presumptuous, anti-religious theory rife with gaps in proof and logic that flies in the face of the facts that cry out evidence that there is order and design, balance and benefits, cooperation and complexity within Nature, on the Earth, throughout all living creatures. Such complexity, interdependence and balance cannot be adequately explained without the presence of a Creator Whose purposes aren’t simply random.

I will be frank in stating I find myself apparently with feet in both camps. Some might say my heart dwells in the Creation camp and my analytical mind in the Evolution camp. I could be denounced as a fence sitter. Biblical literalists might ask how I can believe dinosaurs lived 160 million years ago and uphold scientific theories dating the Earth’s age at over 3 billion years. You see, I’m not a Young Earth adherent. But at the same time I am a supernaturalist, not a naturalist. In other words I don’t believe that all that is in Nature (the evident world comprehended empirically through our five senses) came about by itself, randomly, haphazardly, accidentally, only by chance and through an interminably lucky process of natural selection.

A Naturalist believes that every finite thing or event must be explicable in terms of the Total System (which we call Nature.) In other words only Nature exists. Any cause happens from within the system. “The Naturalist believes that a great process, or ‘becoming,’ exists ‘on its own’ in space and time, and that nothing else exists… The Supernaturalist believes that one Thing (Being) exists on its own and has produced the framework of space and time and the procession of systematically connected events which fill them. This framework, and this filling, he calls Nature.” (C.S.Lewis, Miracles, p. 14). Now it may be argued that I have taken my thoughts completely away from Science and dove head first into Philosophy. This is true, but so have many scientists, because they cannot succeed in doing their work in a “vacuum.” To be an evolutionist, for example, is to be a philosopher, of sorts. One may find many separate fossils that show various bone structures, impressions of feathers or scales, and unwittingly—or very wittingly—desire to fill in the gaps with assumptions of mutations, gradual change and natural selection of the most efficient mutations, that most fortunately keep getting passed on to subsequent progeny. Finding and describing the fossils is science, while speculating and prescribing a necessarily blind, unguided chance randomness that links two separate fossils is philosophy, just as speculating and prescribing a necessarily intelligent design guided not by chance but by a purposeful Designer is philosophy. I would submit that the desire of scientists to exclude philosophical wrestling with the implications of fossil records diminishes scientific inquiry rather than purifies it.

Much of the reading I have done on Intelligent Design (particularly by Michael Behe) is not original research, but a description of multiple biological processes that must necessarily coincide in order for a function, such as vision, to occur. He calls this irreducible complexity. Although I don’t think these interpretations of scientific findings proves intelligent design in any definitive, undeniable way, yet I do affirm they are enough for me to nod my head in agreement: life remains a mystery, but there are enough fingerprints strewn across the Earth to point to the Culprit of Creation, Who dodges us, hides behind the Periodic Table and crouches within Relativity and Entropy.

Is Intelligent Design Science? It all depends on what individual scientists will allow into the dialogue. So long as scientists see inquiry as a linear, lock-step process of question, hypothesis, plan, observation and analysis, then perhaps no. But once scientists allow questions of purpose, as well as reflections on complexity, balance, and intuition, then perhaps the evolutionists won’t fear the proponents of intelligent design. It can not be denied that many scientists do believe in God, but do they believe in Creation? Do they believe that evolutionary processes may be an explanation for how an ageless God tweaks His Creation over time, much like an artist’s style my ‘evolve’ or change over time, simply because the artist desires to try something new. Conjecture? Most definitely, but it makes more sense to me than assuming every change is random and accidental simply because I’m not allowed to mention God.

For instance, how could an eye just blindly evolve? Evolutionists say that it started with photosensitive cells that mutated to primitive depressions in the head near the simultaneously evolving brain. From there successive mutations added increasingly beneficial components (while not having any other component lost through unfortunate mutations…) Consider, however, that is it possible for this to happen over countless millions of years, creatures holding onto the possibility that eyesight will eventually be achieved once some random cells mutate into the lens, and others mutate into the iris, the cornea, the vitreous humor, and the retina complete with rods and cones. All must coincide, exist at once, simultaneously for vision to occur. The evolutionists insist that successive stages of “improving vision” must have occurred as successive beings needed differing degrees of vision. But such reasoning is philosophy. It’s assuming that accidental mutations have left us with so many benefits, and every other mutation (those involving literally millions of dead-ends) must have all died off, without fossil records. Where are the fossil records of millions of botched mutations: those with a tenth of an eye, or those that made it a bit further with an eighth of an eye, or those lucky mutations that lasted 500 million years with a half an eye? Or how about the creatures that had the lucky chance to have the eyes evolving right, but unfortunately didn't have the digestive system evolving at the same time, so they died out? And how did the eye evolve? How did the body ‘know’ that things could be perceived visually, that there are things out there worth seeing, in focus, and in color? To be bombarded with photons does not mean one will evolve eyes. Earthly creatures have been bombarded with cosmic rays, x-rays, infrared rays, radio waves and a broad assortment of electromagnetic radiation for just as long (say a billion years) and no cells have ever mutated to perceive these things. Such belief in the beneficence of the purely accidental and capricious takes a leap of faith that the theist has no trouble taking because the theist believes there is a Designer, a Creator, a God Who desires and intends vision for some of His creatures—especially all the moving ones that aren’t microscopic. In all of this I have only considered one organ. Imagine all the organs together, which must simultaneously work together: circulation system, neural system, lymphatic, skeletal, digestive systems, and so on. It is from these reflections that the theory of irreducible complexity arises. This doesn’t even begin to tackle the grand questions: How did life begin? How does it continue? How does the arrangement of four molecules in DNA lead to textures of skin, colors of hair, the heart that pumps, the bile that oozes, one’s ability to laugh, the tone of a singer, or the wrath of a despot?

Science in itself can be simply an intellectual discipline used to efficiently discover the way things work in the natural world. Obviously Science isn’t meant to discover the way things work in the supernatural world. Scientists, however, get into trouble when they disavow the supernatural world, and say that only the empirically perceived natural world exists, ala our five senses, then try to relegate to the natural world all cause and effect, building systems to explain how things work while implying they have figured out why things work. If evolution (as a theory of gradual change over time) can simply be used by scientists as a descriptive, heuristic device that outlines biological adaptations within species and genera, and how creatures are related to each other, then well and good. But once scientists begin imagining a planet (unique within the cosmos) in which this all necessarily happened by accident, and that ‘happy coincidences’ for the mega-trillionth time keep occurring that are not ever intended or designed by a Maker, leaving us with a most remarkable, but completely accidental Earth, then evolution ceases to be a descriptive theory and becomes a prescriptive theory. Naturalism takes the place of theism as a belief system that drives and prescribes knowledge, filling in all the blanks and gaps with assumptions that somehow continuing evolution weeded out all the bad mutations (called natural selection) and kept only the good mutations.

C. S. Lewis wrote: “No, it is not Christianity which need fear the giant universe. It is those systems which place the whole meaning of existence in biological or social evolution on our own planet. It is the creative evolutionist….who should tremble when he looks up at the night sky. For he really is committed to a sinking ship. He really is attempting to ignore the discovered nature of things, as though by concentrating on the possibly upward trend in a single planet he could make himself forget the inevitable downward trend in the universe as a whole, the trend to low temperatures and irrevocable disorganization. For entropy is the real cosmic wave, and evolution only a momentary tellurian ripple within it.” (C.S.L., God in the Dock, W.B.Eerdmans, 1970).

But that is enough for now. Just some random ramblings in the continuing dialogue? Or did I design them that way? Someone might quip, it doesn’t matter, they aren’t intelligent anyway. To which I smile, and reply, “Perhaps.”

New Wine

Our Worship Pastor, Ted Yuen, preached this morning. "Fasting, Feasting, and Fermentation." Hmmm, sounds like a Good Friday/ Easter Vigil juxtaposition. The long and short of it is this: We all yearn for more in a church experience.

When I was younger I often heard that Christians were hypocrites: saying one thing and doing another. I now do not think that most Christians are hypocrites, or at least the vast majority of those in my congregation, but I do think that most of us only go just so far in our Christian walk. We are timid Christians. A bit more than Sunday-only-Christians, but not radical Christians. The word 'radical' comes from the Latin root 'radicalis' and 'radix' that means "root". To be a radical means to get to the root of a problem, an issue, the core of humanity. So we shy away from radical Christianity. A radical faith. It would demand too much. And I share that fear.

Pete Walker, a friend of mine, gave me the honor one day of calling me a radical. I only wish I deserved the accolade. Perhaps I may be becoming one. I think that my problem (that stops me short from becoming at my very roots the truest of Christ-followers) is fear and my sense of propriety. As our worship pastor preached and talked today, I wanted to stand up (literally!) for him, stand beside him and invite others to stand up beside him when he was preaching about new wine in new wineskins. But I remained in my seat, voicing a muted "Amen" at times because I didn't want to stand out or be conspicuous.

We have a very basic problem as Christians in America: Comfort. We want to be comfortable and we like being comforted. One of the congregations in town invites people to its services with the promise that they will find it 'fun, relaxing and inspiring.' Now when I saw this invitation (that one may guess might include an espresso bar in the foyer, and an upbeat band weaving harmonies together on the front stage) I thought that I never recalled hearing that discipleship, as presented by Jesus or any of His apostles, was supposed to be "fun." Fun: we worship it. Every kid in school will lament and deem their cause just that what's wrong with school is that it isn't fun enough. Fun has become the chief contemporary virtue: indeed the litmus test of a viable and valid experience. If something isn't fun, it isn't okay.

You see, fun is something that happens outside of us. It happens to us. Like Disneyland: we pay an admission and want to experience fun: entertainment, diversions, surprise and excitement. And in our church experience we desire the same thing. So much of worship has become performance based. We come into the sanctuary to the uplifting beat of drums, strumming of guitars and the jingle of tamborines. It's a love-in. It's groovy. It's comfortable. Everyone pours themselves a cup of java, saunters in with their blue jeans and polo shirts, relaxes in their cushioned pews, laughs and chats with their neighbor and then has the worship team do music to them and for them. One song flows seamlessly into another song, even prayers have background music. It's nice, no denying it. And very comfortable. And...maybe...just maybe too comfortable.

I don't know. What am I arguing for? Less comfort? Wooden pews within drafty, cold sanctuaries where hellfire-and-brimstone sermons are pounded (not expounded) from the pulpit? No coffee, no praise band, and a cappella hymns? No. I'm not. I'm not saying that contemporary praise songs deaden a living faith. But I believe I am saying that a performance based worship (that is increasingly more pervasive throughout evangelical churches) may be more insidious, or at least dangerous to our maturation as Christians, than has been heretofore granted.

Our problem is that we want things outside of us to change and improve. But change only really occurs if it takes place within us. We want more out of the church, but too often we refrain from putting more into the church. We want to receive, but withhold our whole-hearted giving.

We want God to perform or change things, but would really rather not be the instruments of his transformation. We want to be "done to" but not "done through." Too often our cry is this: "Do something to me, Lord, but please don't try to do something through me."

Fermentation

Jesus is putting new wine into new wineskins. The new wine is His Spirit, His sovereign salvific will. New wine is too potent for old wineskins. If the new wine is His Spirit, indeed, Himself, what are we to say is meant metaphorically by wineskins? Jesus cautioned about old wineskins, by which we can guess He meant the old way, the old rituals, the law and its rigid structure, or perhaps the traditions of the Pharisees that kept people oppressed. But what do old wineskins mean for us today? Century old rituals? Rites and Creeds? or perhaps church structures, hierarchy and organization? Are these old wineskins outside of us, or are they us ourselves? Are the old wineskins the church or religion at all? Perhaps all these things need renewal...most importantly ourselves. Nonetheless, unless I am renewed and consent to His making me a new creation, I will burst once His Spirit dwells within me. Perhaps I must burst and be destroyed. Every old wineskin must be discarded for a new wineskin.

God wishes to ferment within us His Spirit and Power and Purposes. He doesn't so much want to do His will to us, act on us, but wants to use us as New Wineskins to hold His fermentation process (called sanctification) in and through us. He wants to expand us and transform us. Our problem is we don't really want enough. We don't want God to go far enough. We've placed humility in the wrong location. It should be in our egos, but we've placed it in our wills: the place of our volition. We aspire too little. Instead of desiring to have ferment within our oaken souls the choicest of Pinot Noirs we settle for Welches grape juice cocktail: not even 100% unfermented juice.

And so I am reminded of some lines from T. S. Eliot's poem, "Little Gidding":

The one discharge from sin and error,

The only hope, or else despair

Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre--

To be redeemed from fire by fire.

We must burst. We MUST be destroyed. WE MUST DIE. And be consumed by the Fire that is Inexorable. There can ultimately be no comfort in that, or at least at first. Death precedes Life Eternal. "For our God is a consuming Fire." All that is shakeable MUST be shaken so that only the unshakeable can remain. (Hebrews 12: 27--29) We are called to a much more dangerous, exciting, upsetting and resetting life of discipleship. To follow Jesus is a summons to war, to battle the forces of evil and redeem the people of God. To follow Jesus is the challenge of a lifetime, the mountain unscaleable, the depths unfathomable. Jesus demands, extols, admonishes, exhorts, woos, confuses, upholds and lays low, revolts and redeems, and only when we need it, comforts. But only He knows if we need comforting. Most times, I think we don't.

New wine in new wineskins. Yes. Amen.

Christian Unity: More thoughts

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism…
Is this only wishful thinking, a pipe-dream, or is it an eternal truth, a reality that is grounded in the eternal nature of the Logos? The question that makes many Christians blush is this: When will there be Christian Unity?

I believe that questions about Christian Unity are intricately tied to questions and responses to Christian Community. There can be no Christian Unity without a Christian Comm(on)-unity. Our unity as Christians arises out of our ability and calling to enflesh and practice Christian Community. In his book, Gemeinsames Leben (Life Together) Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

“Christiliche Bruderschaft ist nicht ein Ideal, das wir zu verwirklichen haetten, sondern es ist eine von Gott in Christus geschaffene Wirklichkeit, an der wir teilhaben duerfen.”
(Christian brotherhood is not an ideal that we must somehow make happen, but rather it is a reality, created by God in Christ, that we are allowed to participate in.)

Christian Unity, like Christian Community, exists in and through, because of and for Jesus Christ as the Living Logos and Son of God. He is the mediator of all our lives. He is the purpose and end of our hoping and striving, discipline and worship. Though outwardly we have signs that present evidence to the contrary, yet there exists out of time as well as couched within time One Lord, One Faith and One Baptism. There is not one Jesus for the Church of Rome, and another that visits Canterbury. There are not many Jesuses, one each for the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Assemblies of God. No, He is whole and not split into pieces. He is the Only One through whom we relate to each other and love each other. “Der einzige Mittler” (the only mediator)

What we need to do, therefore, if doing is the proper perspective, is to allow Jesus to do in us and through us all that He has planned for us. The One-ness of the Body of Christ, the Universal Church through all ages, exists although we close our eyes to it, or act against it.

There is One Body, but as Thomas Merton pointed out: It is a Body of Broken Bones:

“As long as we do not permit His love to consume us entirely and to unite us in Himself, the gold that is in us will be hidden by the rock and dirt which keep us separate from one another.
As long as we are not purified by the love of God and transformed into Him in the union of pure sanctity, we will remain apart from one another, opposed to one another, and union among us will be a precarious and painful thing, full of labor and sorrow and without lasting cohesion.
His physical Body was crucified by Pilate and the Pharisees; His mystical Body is drawn and quartered from age to age by the devils in the agony of that disunion which is bred and vegetates in our souls, prone to selfishness and to sin.
As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a Body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them.” (New Seeds of Contemplation)

Visible and viable Christian Unity is thwarted by sin that comes in a multitude of forms: arrogance, intolerance, narrow-mindedness, among others. Christian Unity is also being thwarted by our reluctance to really listen to each other, hear each other’s words, liturgy, theology, concerns, music, prayers, hopes and frustrations. We also are failing to value the same things. There are numerous issues on which we have not come to agreement: abortion, capital punishment, involvement in war or pacifism, environment stewardship, economic responsibility and which system of economics is most just. Obviously, we also haven’t come to agree on the essentials of theology: doctrine about the Trinity, about Christ, His atonement for our sins, how he saves us, whether we need saving, how depraved we are, or whether we can speak of an original blessing. We disagree on baptism, whether we think one can be baptized in the ignorance of one’s infancy or must wait for a personal decision as a youth or as an adult. We don’t even agree on the amount of water! (Thankfully we are not concerned with its temperature or its clarity!) We disagree on the rest of the sacraments as well, or even if they are sacraments. Some of us refer to them as ordinances. What about Communion/ the Lord’s Supper/ the Eucharist/ the Breaking of Bread? We find no consensus on its name, let along the mystical nature of the Event. How is Christ within the Elements: are they transubstantiated, consubstantiated, or just blessed by human hands and remain a memorial to His vicarious suffering? In the baking of the bread, must we use wheat flour or may a wafer of rice suffice? Should we pour wine into the chalice or stick to grape juice? These are just some of the issues that divide us, and push us away from embracing more fully our Christian Unity.

But there are things that we can do, and ways to broaden our understanding of what other Christians value. We must each endeavor to begin an ongoing dialogue with as many brothers and sisters of other denominations and expressions of Christianity as possible. We must talk with, worship with, pray and sing with Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestants of all traditions: Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Evangelicals, Charismatics, and Fundamentalists, among the many I could name. Dialogue is essential. All sides sharing, desiring to understand and grant that other persons may have legitimate differences that are based on taste, past experiences or viewpoints that do not exclude them from membership in the Kingdom of God. Each of us may hold a particular belief or doctrine that falls within the boundaries of orthodoxy that our brother or sister does not understand or find necessary to embrace.

I would propose that each of these areas of concern be included in our ongoing dialogue, a dialogue that will resemble increasingly less a debate:

Abortion: Is abortion immoral in all cases, or are there some instances that would make it allowable. Is it a matter of choice of a woman’s sovereignty over her body and womb, or is it a matter of God’s sovereignty over all our bodies and the bodies that we carry within our bodies?

Capital Punishment: Do we further violence or discourage violence by killing someone who has killed someone? Are we consistent in our message? Does the execution of a notorious murderer, rapist or traitor help bring about the Kingdom of God, or help the greatest number of people? Does it perpetuate a culture of violence? Does it teach forgiveness, or does it teach natural consequences of one’s actions? Or can it do both?

Environmental Stewardship: The Psalmist proclaims that the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. What is our responsibility to the conservation of earth’s natural resources, the environment, the land and soil that we farm, cultivate, plant and harvest from? What is our responsibility to preserving species, do as little harm as possible and preserve the habitats to as many creatures as God has created? Are creatures created that can justifiable be driven to permanent extinction so that we may harvest more forests just so we can have bigger houses or more land for temporary crops? What about our insatiable need for oil and other fossil fuels? Can we do without SUVs and Hummers, vans and monster pickups and seek out others to carpool with in order to save gasoline and keep costs in line for each other?

Consumption, Economics, Materialism, Capitalism or Socialism: Most of this issue comes down to concerns about needs and wants and how those are supplied.

Wendell Berry upholds and practices what I would call a Pro-Creation philosophy. This Pro-Creation ethic and practice includes elements from what are commonly called Pro-Life, Social Justice, Environmental Conservation, and Agrarian/Rural-based values. His approach, boldness, wisdom and depth as an authentic American statesman and philosopher give us a model towards bridging the issues that separate and bifurcate our society.
Wendell Berry writes in Citizenship Papers:

“The confusion between needs and wants is, of course, fundamental. And let us make no mistake here: This is an educated confusion. Modern education systems have pretty consciously encouraged young people to think of their wants as needs. And the schools have increasingly advertised education as a way of getting what one wants; so that now, by a fairly logical progression, schools are understood by politicians and school bureaucrats merely as servants of ‘the economy.’…. How do we know when we have passed from needs to wants, from necessity to frivolity?”

Such a statement serves as only a springboard for further thought. As the Body of Christ we are obligated to seek answers, not so much to definitively describe a lifestyle that uniformly will dictate needs and wants to all individuals, for that would be socialism at its best, and totalitarian communism at its worst. Uniformity is not Unity. Community leads to Unity, and Community embraces diversity. Differences of taste and of aesthetics. But Community also expects, even necessitates, sacrifice, sharing of resources, generosity, and interdependence.



These thoughts must suffice for now. Beginning thoughts in the dialogue towards Christian Unity.