a merry schismatic christmas (part 4)

for much of my life i thought it was sinful to enjoy living on earth and to desire that life here wouldn't end. there were times in life where the idea of heaven just wasn't appealing compared to life here. there was always this dichotomy between the "spiritual" and the "worldly" or "fleshly." the goal of the christian was to become more spiritual and less worldly, and to long for the day when we could leave this place. this jumps right into where i left off, because to me, the gospel and salvation was always about getting to a place. we were saved so that we could go to heaven some day. everything was about going to place A or place B. and our ultimate mission was to get as many people possible to go to place A. the ideas of getting to a place and the emphasis on the spiritual versus the worldly are some of the perceptions i've been referring to.

the christmas before last-- the one where i said i was a little nervous because we bought our mom's mars hill's worship cd-- i went anne's family's prepared. at the time, i was reading a book by grand rapids theological seminary professor michael wittmer called heaven is a place on earth: why everything you do matters to God. i brought this book because it corrects many of the misperceptions i mentioned above, and wittmer, being a professor of systematic theology at a highly respected christian university, wouldn't be viewed as some off-the-wall heretic spouting off "questionable" teachings. i never needed to break it out, but part of me kind of wishes i had. in it, wittmer describes how creation, under the weight and damage of sin is, at it's core, still good; and that God hasn't given up, but is restoring it:

"like a stone tossed into a pond, the corrosive curse of sin rippled out to destroy the entire world: human society, the animal kingdom, and even the ground itself began groaning beneath the weight of sin. life on earth degenerated to quickly that within a few generations God ordered a great flood to wipe out everything, save only pairs of every animal and handful of people.
now place yourself in God's shoes. what is your next move? I doubt you would scrap the world, admitting that it is broken beyond repair. if you did, wouldn't you be conceding victory to satan? you would be admitting that satan had won, for the sin he introduced has overpower your good creation, making it irretrievably evil. no, if you are God, you will never concede that. instead, you will forcefully strike back at Satan with you plan of redemption (Genesis 12-Revelation 22). not content to merely snatch a few souls from this mess and leave everything else to the devil, you will not rest until you have redeemed every last corner of your good creation from evil's grasp. (heaven is a place on earth pg. 187-188)"

wittmer goes on to cite acts 3:21 where peter say christ must remain in heaven until the time has come for God to restore everything, or when paul says christ is reconciling all things whether on earth or in heaven to himself. what i really brought the book for, however, was for the part where wittmer explains 2 peter 3:10-13 which says:

"10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid
bare. 11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness."

wittmer explains that in the 16th and 17th centuries: "the best available greek manuscripts of 2 peter 3:10 read that "the earth and all of its works will be burned up." this is how every translation of that period, including the KJV rendered this verse. it is easy to see how whole generations of christians learned from their bibles to expect a future fire that would annihilate the entire world." (heaven is a place on earth pg. 202)

once again, the issue of perception springs up, in that, centuries of misinterpretation have lead to a misperception concerning the fate of earth. wittmer goes on, "however, scholars have since discovered older, more reliable greek manuscripts, and these texts say that rather than burning up, "the earth and all of its works will be found." instead of being destroyed, this term "found" implies that the quality of our works will be "laid bare," discovered for all to see. Much like gold passing through a smelting furnace, the good that we do will be purified while our less noble efforts will slough off. read this way, peter's vision of a coming conflagration seems to be a purging rather than annihilating fire. (heaven is a place on earth pg. 202)" wittmer then discusses the comparison of this judgement by fire to the noahic judgement by water which is mentioned in 2 peter 3:6-7. this comparison is important because the flood did not destroy the entire earth, but instead, destroyed the evil that had upon it accumulated.

so creation remains good, but evil is real and has disfigured it. that, i believe, is the biblical view and is one key misunderstanding of many american evangelicals. the second misperception i want to hit is the emphasis on "the spiritual" versus "the physical." whenever i go to anne's parent's house i always notice, "sky angel." sky angel is kind of like christian cable tv only it's a dish. like, "christian music" and "christian movies" and "christian dietary supplements" sky angel is part of the vast christian subculture market. this split of secular and christian, or even the idea of one's "spiritual life" is a further misperception that obstructs conversation. and like the misperception that creation is evil and is waiting for coming destruction, this too is unbiblical...



but why and how did this split occur? recently, the eminent scholar n.t. wright was interviewed by TIME concerning his new book surprised by hope. the interview is on the unbiblical idea that the goal of the christian life is to die and go to heaven. wright corrects that by explaining that heaven is an intermediary state and that the ultimate goal is the resurrection of the dead for life on the restored earth. in this interview wright also explains how the influence of platonic thought has created the dualistic way american christians view reality. this is a great interview which i'm thankful that wright did so that i don't have to attempt to explain these ideas myself. here's a few quotes:

Wright: "There are several important respects in which it's (going to heaven when you die) unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation. "

"Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom."

"The New Testament is deeply, deeply Jewish, and the Jews had for some time been intuiting a final, physical resurrection. They believed that the world of space and time and matter is messed up, but remains basically good, and God will eventually sort it out and put it right again. Belief in that goodness is absolutely essential to Christianity, both theologically and morally. But Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential."

the whole interview is great, not that long and explains a lot. for so many years i struggled to make sense of the point in taking care of the earth and desiring for things to change in spite of the belief that everything was going south anyways and God was just going to destroy it all. i struggled with the separation of the sacred and the secular. much of it seemed so arbitrary and didn't make a lot of sense. i wondered if there was this big piece i was missing and, in fact, there was; and now that i've found it things have never been more clearer. but, unfortunately, i'm learning that what's clear for me isn't clear for others.

jesus in the ER

this morning i read romans chapter 3. i admit that there are verses that i just don't like. romans 3:10 particularly stands out: "there is no one righteous, not even one." what a downer. humanity sucks. and because we suck so much and we can never achieve God's righteousness we're condemned to hell. another thing that i must admit is that i'm not particularly a fan of the word, "righteousness." when i hear that word all i can think of are people like john macarthur or charles spurgeon or john calvin. in fact, isn't that central to calvinism, that humanity sucks? not only do the associations i make with that word make me want to cringe, but what the hell does, "righteousness" even mean? i hear it get thrown around a lot but, honestly, i wonder if the people who love to use that word so much could really unpack it. and i'm not just talking about giving the textbook definition.

last night i had to make a trip to the ER for something that turned out to be nothing. the ER on a late saturday night is an interesting place indeed. it's kind of a cross between a half-way house and a prison. when we got there i overheard a nurse mention that there was a trauma, and that somebody had been shot. i wondered if it was a robbery or just some macho idiots acting like morons at a dance club. we (anne and i) were there for four hours. while we were there, there was a drunk guy laying on a gurney in the hallway about 15 feet from our door. the entire time, he kept yelling, swearing and complaining, and at one point he called his nurse a, "fat fucking slut" and told her to, "suck his cock." during one of his tirades he started complaining that he had to pee. i just looked at anne and said, "if i were his nurse i think i would be like, ok, sure, pull down your pants so i can cath you." at another point he started calling out asking for some water, which, why, after what he called his nurse, does he think she'd give him some water? he was also spitting on people; he was just a mess.

at 4 am when we finally left we were heading for the door when we got stuck behind a large group of loud, cocky, kids who were probably in their late teens and early twenties. one of them was the patient and he had his arm in a sling. his friends were laughing and joking about his injury and one of them said something to the effect of, "it's no big deal, you're a soldier (as in a gangsta/thug. not a literal military soldier)." i started wondering if he was the trauma.

the entire time i was there i had this brewing hatred for that drunk and then those kids as we were leaving. i would have loved to get in that drunk's face and tell him what a miserable, piece of shit that he is, as evidenced by him being there in the first place; and that he deserves to go thirsty and he should just piss on himself. i wanted to walk up to those kids and tell them that, in spite of their arrogance, they are worthless pieces of shit, who are a stain and burden on our city, and that it would take all my strength to conjure up any sense of tragedy if they were all gunned down that night. what's more, i think it would be a safe bet that if i did that and people were around they would applaud me, or at least, secretly be cheering me on. by societies standards i am a good person. i am hard-working, faithfully married, law-abiding, church-going and if i said those things it would be true in the minds of people who share those same characteristics. but there is no one righteous, not even one.

i wonder what jesus would have done in that ER. would he have gotten the drunk some water? what would he say, or how would he interact with those kids? jesus forgave the very people who put him to death. he washed the feet of the person who betrayed him. i wonder if, when he said "when i was thirsty you gave me something to drink," there were any stipulations about whether the thirsty person was nice or drunk and angry? i tend to think of righteousness as following all the right rules. to me, it's always been a very legalistic term. but if by looking at jesus we see the righteousness of God on display, then righteousness means being gracious, sacrificial, serving, patient, slow to anger, full of hope and joy, humble and giving. and, yes, i have to concede that compared to those standards, humanity does kind of suck and God's righteousness is, indeed, beautiful.

i confess...

• when i'm at work and it's really busy, i get mad at the patients. sometimes i get mad when they're demanding morphine thinking to myself: in the civil war days all people had was a shot of whiskey and a stick to bite down on as the doctor was sawing their limbs off. other times i'm mad at a patient for being alergic to a popular drug, making me have to go out of my way to get a drug that we barely ever use and, therefore, is in some random god-forsaken place, or worse, we have to get it from another hospital. but most of all i get mad when i have to fill a patient's order for an insane amount of drugs that no human being should be allowed to consume in one day only to have to credit all those drugs back to that patient's account the next day because, well, as it turns out no one can consume that amount of drugs in one day. i know it's wrong on a number levels that i actually get mad at people for being sick or injured. i know it isn't their fault, but i need to project my frusteration onto something and they're just such easy targets. weak and injured people usually are.

• i just got done reading the book of acts and i'm on to romans. i admit that when i read paul i hear him speaking with charleton heston's voice in the ten commandments. i try my best to picture him as a short dark-skinned jewish man speaking in greek, but it just doesn't work.

• i'm really into the band vampire weekend. and i discovered them from watching MTV, which i find incredibly disturbing.

• i start spring arbor tonight. i secretly hope i'm going to find it to be very easy. i also hope it doesn't cut into my blogging like it did last semester. we'll see.

happy valentine's day anne

last night anne got home and placed a valentine's day gift on the coffee table. it sat there for god knows how long and i never saw it. i sat on the couch with it sitting right in front of me. anne just kept laughing and i couldn't understand why. i started getting frusterated, and she finally had to inform me that there was something in the room i wasn't seeing. she bought me a new bag of starbucks and two cd's. it was extremely thoughtful, and i felt horrible because i didn't get her anything because i thought our coming weekend in chicago was how we were celebrating v-day. so i just wanted to post a quick message expressing how thankful i am for her and how much i love her.

a merry schismatic christmas (part 3)

to talk about what the gospel is is tricky, because one's understanding of the gospel is directly linked to their eschatology. so to argue about what the gospel and salvation are one has to get into what they think "the end" will look like. the gospel that focuses on a get-out-of-hell-free ticket is often dubbed the "fire insurance" gospel. it is a gospel that pictures the world as a sinking ship and the job of the church to get people onto lifeboats before the ship goes down. this view of salvation and the gospel tends to be pre-occupied with death and the future. it tends to have a negative view of creation and is generally resistant to a gospel that focuses on, "changing the world." this is the dominant view of the gospel/salvation/eschatology among conservative american evangelicals, and is the view of the our (anne and i) families.

last year for christmas we bought our mom's mars hill's (our church) worship cd. this made me a little nervous. our church takes a very different view of the gospel/salvation/eschatology than the view of our families, and many of the songs and readings on this worship cd express this view. our church believes in "holistic" salvation, and the term "holistic" tends to creep most american christians out, conjuring up new age images. we put emphasis on changing the world, and therefore, our church also takes a here and now perspective to salvation and the gospel rather than being focused on the future or post-mortem existence.

we also take a different view of the ship. rather than the ship going down, we believe that God is invading and redeeming the ship, and that some day God will completely restore the ship and take command. we believe that when God created the ship he said that is was good, and good it remains even though it is distorted by evil, chaos, destruction and injustice. so rather than having a doomsday focus on the world and current events, we see God's kingdom expanding and invading this reality. God's intentions aren't to destroy his creation, but destroy the evil, chaos and injustice that it is mired in. God is restoring and renewing, culminating in a merging of Gods kingdom and earth (rev. 21:2-4). for most of my life i didn't perceive the gospel this way. i shared the same perceptions as my family, and sometimes it's difficult for me to remember what that was like.

these two perspectives-- the ship going down versus the ship being restored-- not only color how we read certain passages of scripture, but influence how we see the world and live our lives. for instance, one has a much easier time bypassing the recycle bin if they believe that this place is destined to go up in flames. if one is fixed on escaping this world via death or rapture, then it's easy to slip into a mentality that believes it's ok to just enjoy one's suburban lifestyle whilst others strive to make ends meat or starve, because, in the end, the only things that matter are "spiritual things." outside of creating an opportunity for a miniscule number of people to pray the sinner's prayer this world and life aren't worth much. in fact you'd think the sooner it's destroyed the better, because as of right now billions of people are being churned out whose destiny is kindling for the flames of hell.

a merry schismatic christmas (part 2.5) -more thoughts on perceptions

these perceptions create huge roadblocks to conversation. because they're so complex and people are often so entrenched in them, it's exhausting to even begin to peel back the layers. we were out to eat one time and my dad flat out asked me why i don't think the end times are near. how do you even begin to answer a question like that? it's a question that gets not only into eschatology, but what the kingdom of God is, historical context, hermeneutics, and the essence of God's relationship with humanity and his creation. it's quite an intense conversation to have over an hour or so dinner. likewise, these perceptions about who jesus is, what a christian is, and a christian's role in the world are covered in cultural, historical, political and sociological layers. compound that with the fact that these beliefs, opinions, values and sentiments are embedded into our being, and if anyone dares question them they are not just questioning an idea or belief they are questioning us. for all of us, our beliefs are connected to who we are. some of us are better at separating ourselves from them than others, but at some level all of us will abandon defending the veracity of our beliefs and begin defending ourselves.

7 random facts

1. i am a pharmacy technician.
2. i will begin attending spring arbor university.
3. i wish i had more time to blog.
4. i have an amazing wife who i love dearly.
5. i wish i kept in better touch with some of my friends.
6. i am exited about starting a new business with my wife.
7. one of my dreams is to see the world.

i am tagging no one because all the people i know in the blogosphere have already been tagged. i am finally getting somewhere with the next installment in my series, so that will be up soon. i also have another series i'm working on, but i plan on finishing it before i begin posting, so stay tuned!