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"Thought Provoking Ideas . . ."
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That phrase describes the topic for this page. So if you're afraid to think . . . to ponder . . . to consider all the possible alternatives and implications of a belief or point of view, for fear of being provoked into revising or reconsidering your thinking . . . you'll probably want to move on to another Web page. But if you dare . . . read on!
"why" is a mark of a cult.
And in fact, asking "why" is what drives me
to seriously consider the existence of God.
On the other hand, asking "why" is what
continuously confronts me with the
inconsistencies between life on this planet
and what I am told to believe about the Creator.
Why do you think that is so?
"I remember a long night sitting in uncomfortable Naugahyde chairs in O'Hare Airport, waiting impatiently for a flight that was delayed for five hours. I happened to be next to a wise woman who was traveling to the same conference. The long delay and the late hour combined to create a melancholy mood, and in five hours we had time to share all the dysfunctions of childhood, our disappointments with the church, our questions of faith. I was writing the book Disappointment with God at the time, and I felt burdened by other people's pains and sorrows, doubts and unanswered prayers.
"My companion listened to me in silence for a very long time, and then out of nowhere she asked a question that has always stayed with me. 'Philip, do you ever just let God love you?' she asked. 'It's pretty important, I think.'
"I realized with a start that she had brought to light a gaping hole in my spiritual life. For all my absorption in the Christian faith, I had missed the most important message of all. The story of Jesus is the story of a celebration, a story of love. It involves pain and disappointment, yes, for God as well as for us. But Jesus embodies the promise of a God who will go to any length to win us back. Not the least of Jesus' accomplishments is that he made us somehow lovable to God."
That sounds sweet and simple, doesn't it? But many people who can agree easily with the statements about the story of Jesus, look at that question — "Do you ever just let God love you?" — and ask very sincerely, "How?!? What in the world does it mean to 'just let God love you?'" That's a pretty important question, I think — one that deserves more than a simplistic answer.
From The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey, Zondervan, 1995.
Has someone sent you a copy of the story about the philosophy professor and the piece of chalk? Click here for the rest of the story . . .
News Item: Racism is alive and well
in Southern Baptist churches.
Click here to get the facts.
The affects of Bible-belt churches on their culture (updated 11/14/99)
My own temptations tend to involve common vices such as lust and greed. As I reflect on Jesus's temptations, though, I realize they centered on his reason for coming to earth, his "style" of working. Satan was, in effect, dangling before Jesus a speeded-up way of accomplishing his mission. He could win over the crowds by creating food on demand and then take control of the kingdoms of the world, all the while protecting himself from danger. "Why move thy feet so slow to what is best?" Satan jeered in Milton's version.
I first found this insight in the writings of Dostoevsky, who made the Temptation scene the centerpiece of his great novel The Brothers Karamazov. The agnostic brother Ivan Kramazov writes a poem called "The Grand Inquisitor" set in sixteenth-century Seville at the height of the Inquisition. In the poem, a disguised Jesus visits the city at a time when heretics are daily being burned at the stake. The Grand Inquisitor, a cardinal, "an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes," recognizes Jesus and has him thrown into prison. There, the two visit in a scene intentionally reminiscent of the Temptation in the desert.
The Inquisitor has an accusation to make: by turning down the three temptations, Jesus forfeited the three greatest powers at his disposal, "miracle, mystery, and authority." He should have followed Satan's advice and performed the miracles on demand in order to increase his fame among the people. He should have welcomed the offer of authority and power. Did Jesus not realize that people want more than anything else to worship what is established beyond dispute? "Instead of taking possession of men's freedom, you increased it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its sufferings forever. You desired man's free love, that he should follow you freely, enticed and taken captive by you."
By resisting Satan's temptations to override human freedom, the Inquisitor maintains, Jesus made himself far too easy to reject. He surrendered his greatest advantage: the power to compel belief. Fortunately, continues the sly Inquisitor, the church recognized the error and corrected it, and has been relying on miracle, mystery, and authority ever since. For this reason, the Inquisitor must execute Jesus one more time, lest he hinder the church's work.
The scene from Karamazov has added poignancy because at the time of its composition, communist revolutionaries were organizing themselves in Russia. As Dostoevsky noted, they too would borrow techniques from the church. They promised to turn stones into bread and to guarantee safety and security for all citizens in exchange for one simple thing: their freedom. Communism would become the new church in Russia, one likewise founded on miracle, mystery, and authority.
. . . In a heavy irony, attempts to compel morality tend to produce defiant subjects and tyrannical rulers who lose their moral core. . . . Goodness cannot be imposed externally, from the top down; it must grow internally, from the bottom up.
The Temptation in the desert reveals a profound difference between God's power and Satan's power. Satan has the power to coerce, to dazzle, to force obedience, to destroy. Humans have learned much from that power, and governments draw deeply from its reservoir. With a bullwhip or a billy club or an AK-47, human beings can force other human beings to do just about anything they want. Satan's power is external and coercive.
"God is not a Nazi," said Thomas Merton. Indeed God is not. In Dorothy Sayers' play The Man Born to Be King, King Herod tells the Magi, "You cannot rule men by love. When you find your king, tell him so. Only three things will govern a people — fear and greed and the promise of security." King Herod understood the management principles Satan operates by, the same ones Jesus declined in the wilderness.
God's power, in contrast, is internal and non-coercive. "You would not enslave man by miracle; [you] craved faith given freely, not based on miracle," said the Inquisitor to Jesus in Dostoevsky's novel. Such power may seem at times like weakness. In its commitment to transform gently from the inside out and in its relentless dependence on human choice, God's power may resemble a kind of abdication. As every parent and every lover knows, love can be rendered powerless if the beloved chooses to spurn it.
The Master of the universe would become its victim, powerless before a squad of soldiers in a garden. God made himself weak for one purpose: to let human beings choose freely for themselves what to do with him.
This is some of the most profound writing I have ever read.
It doesn't answer all the questions! In fact, it explicitly forbids that. But it highlights the mystery and transcendence of God . . . something that is, of necessity, becoming more and more important to me.
From The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey, Zondervan, 1995.
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people who need it most." ~ Ennis Cosby |
A friend of mine who writes, directs, performs, produces drama, wrote that he was going to do a show on the famous missionary Hudson Taylor. In the course of doing research he found out that after Taylor died, his family (apparently his sister and brother-in-law) made an attempt to destroy all the information and materials that did not accentuate the "positive" or spiritual aspects of Taylor's personality. My friend wrote:
- In other words, they created a ficticious character . . . all for the sake of watching out for God's reputation. Furthermore, in the process they promoted that
ultra-spiritual, evangelical LIE that we all can live a spiritual life with little or no REAL sin. The good news is that in spite of his relatives' efforts, there are some decent, lucid and credible biographies of Hudson out there.
I had never heard the the story about Taylor's family doing a scrub job on him . . . but having read the "authorized" version of his story, I can believe it. And I wonder how many folks, besides me, have been frustrated up to their gills that they couldn't live a life like Hudson Taylor's, without ever finding out that even Hudson Taylor couldn't live a life like Hudson Taylor's?!
Care to read about my "personality type"?
Click here.
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