thoughts on redemption

i began ESL tutoring this past monday. i use the word "tutoring" loosely, as i am pretty much teaching the refugee i am working with english from scratch. as of now we are learning our ABC's. i am pretty much trying to recall how i learned to read and write and teach him the same way. i, however, had one advantage: i could understand what my teacher was telling me! the most frustrating part of the night came at the end when i wanted to leave, but i also wanted him to understand that i was assigning homework for next time. what was so frustrating wasn't so much that he couldn't understand me, but that the woman who was also there tutoring his wife, who actually somewhat understands english, kept blowing me off when i asked for their assistance in communicating with him. she and his wife finally helped me tell him his homework, and it was an overall good experience. i have some ideas for next time and i'm looking forward to trying them out.

last wednesday i got to go to A.A. i had to write a paper for class on a treatment group. i was told that an A.A. meeting is more going to church than going to church is. i found this to be true. i noticed that the 12 steps mirror a conversion experience. it is essentially a bunch of people admitting how screwed up they are, openly sharing their stories, and helping one another quit drinking. there was complete openness and absolutely no judging. i couldn't help but to think that this was an example of people living how they were intended to live. at the end of the meeting everyone stood, joined hands, and said the lord's prayer together.

these two experiences are examples of God's redemptive work in the world. when we hear phrases like "God's redemptive work" we often get these super-natural images in our heads. we think the reconciliation of all things will come from God's super powers, or him bursting forth out of the sky or something. but instead it comes when we do things like teach a refugee english, or when a bunch of screwed up people come together and openly talk about how screwed up they are. that's what it looks like when christ makes all things new. i think some christians would read that and be disappointed, "but what about streets of gold and all the cool miracles?" they might say. i would say that it's time to get a new jesus.

random updates

things have been good and stressful. i hate when i get on these stretches where i don't blog, and in fact last weekend, anne and i, and some of our friends actually had a little discussion on why we blog. i blog because i want to be a better communicator and i believe blogging has contributed to be becoming one. and sometimes, like right now, i have to just force myself to write something because i know it will benefit me. and i also know that many times when i write a post, for whatever reason, it causes me to want to write more.

so life has been good lately. anne recently got a raise and, after she passes a test and receives some sort of insurance license, will get another one. at that point she'll become my sugar momma because she'll be officially making more than me. which i am fine with, because i know that someday, hopefully in the relatively near future, i'll be making more than her again :). which leads me to my next update which is i found out, yesterday, that i will probably be getting an internship at spectrum. interning there has been part of my plan all along because finding out about medical social work is what caused me to get into social work to begin with. this isn't to say that 20 years down the road i still want to be a medical social worker, but it's definatly a great place to begin a social work career, especially for a BSW. so finding that out made my day. it also gave me a boost of confidence.

my confidence in myself has been shaken ever since i decided not to pursue becoming a surgical technologist. for me, confidence is something that is very fragile. lately, i have been going through some serious doubting concerning my future because my interview with spectrum for my internship wasn't that great. i couldn't thoroughly answer some pretty easy questions. and spending all this time waiting to hear from them has made me doubt things even more. starting monday, i was about to embark on some serious internship hunting and take a spot where ever i could get one. thank God, that i won't have to, and hopefully things are all back on track.

so that's my life right now. i've been reading a lot. i knocked out the great gatsby right before christmas and i have been reading the jungle by upton sinclaire ever since. down the road, those two books are sure to give me a great post on capitalism. i've also been getting way into philosophy. hopefully i'll get some thoughts down in the near future. until then...

take the hell quiz

i found this quiz on the website of bible scholar edward fudge. i thought it was informative. check it out. for the answers click here

1. According to the Bible, the human being is:

a. a mortal body housing an immortal soul;
b. a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury;
c. a perishable creature wholly dependent on God for existence.

2. Two historical events which biblical writers use most often to illustrate God's
final judgment against the wicked are:

a. expulsion from Eden and the collapse of the Tower of Babel;
b. the fall of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Spanish Armada;
c. the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

3. Based on an actual event, the Bible uses the expression "eternal fire" to signify:

a. fire that destroys forever (Sodom and Gomorrah);
b. fire that cannot destroy what is put in it (Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego);
c. fire that continues to burn indefinitely (the Burning Bush of Moses).

4. The "brimstone" in "fire and brimstone" is:

a. a symbol of terrible torture;
b. burning sulfur that suffocates and destroys;
c. a preserving agent that keeps someone alive forever.

5. Throughout the Bible, "gnashing of teeth" denotes:

a. excruciating pain and agony;
b. gingivitis;
c. extreme anger and hostility.

6. When the Bible portrays "smoke rising" to warn of judgment,
we should think of:

a. people suffering horrible pain;
b. a completed desolation or annihilation;
c. a closed arena when cigarettes were still allowed.

7. When Scripture speaks of smoke rising "forever," it signifies:

a. a destruction that will be irreversible;
b. conscious torment that never ends;
c. a battery-powered rabbit that short circuited.

8. The "worm" in the expression "worm that dies not" is:

a. a maggot that feeds on something dead;
b. a symbol for a pained conscience;
c. a figure of speech standing for everlasting agony in torment.
9. Throughout the Bible, the expression "unquenchable fire" always signifies:

a. fire which burns forever but never burns up what is put in it;
b. fire which comes from a volcano;
c. fire which is irresistible and therefore consumes entirely.

10. The Old Testament's final description of the end of sinners states that:

a. God will put fire and worms in their flesh and they will feel their pain forever;
b. they will be ashes under the soles of the feet of the righteous;
c. neither of the above.

11. John the Baptist warned of "unquenchable fire," by which Jesus would:

a. burn up the "chaff";
b. torment the lost forever and never let them die;
c. purge sinners of all evil and then send them to heaven.

12. Jesus compared the end of the wicked to:

a. someone burning chaff, dead trees or weeds;
b. a house destroyed by a hurricane or someone crushed under a boulder;
c. all the above.

13. Jesus personally described Gehenna (hell) as a place where:

a. God is able to destroy both soul and body;
b. God will perpetuate the soul in everlasting agony;
c. Satan reigns over his evil subjects and tortures damned humans.


14. The phrase "eternal punishment" signifies:

a. punishment which occurs in the Age to Come rather than during this life;
b. eternal life in horrible agony and pain;
c. punishment which has everlasting results;
d. (a) and (c) but not (b).

15. The context and "punch line" of the story of the Rich Man and
Lazarus talk about:

a. what happens to the wicked after resurrection and judgment;
b. the urgency of responding to God while there is opportunity;
c. details about the "intermediate state" between death and resurrection.

16. Throughout his writings, Paul says that the lost will:

a. go to hell and burn alive forever;
b. die, perish, and be punished with eternal destruction;
c. go to heaven but hate every minute of it.

17. The New Testament uses the adjective "immortal" to describe:

a. the soul of every person, good or evil;
b. the resurrection bodies of the saved but not of the lost;
c. no human being now or hereafter.

18. The Jewish-Christian books of Hebrews and James contrast salvation with:

a. unending conscious pain;
b. inescapable destruction;
c. going "gently into that good night."

19. Peter's epistles say that the lost will:

a. be burned to ashes like Sodom and Gomorrah;
b. perish like brute beasts;
c. both the above.

20. John interprets his vision in Revelation of a "lake of fire" as:

a. a picture of indescribable, everlasting torture;
b. a place Eskimos might like to visit;
c. the second death.

on being a skeptical believer: beyond survival

everyone agrees that people are selfish, and that our basic instinct is survival and self-preservation. much of the time, the decisions we make are made so that we benefit in some way. in fact, the main driver of evolution is survival-- species adapt to survive. so a question i constantly find myself asking is: what if this is all just a survival mechanism? "this" meaning belief in God, and, in my case, christianity.

i've heard it argued that if one takes away the belief in God and the consequence of going to hell, then it would render all of life meaningless, and such a person could do whatever he or she wants. but this just isn't true is it? there are many atheists in this world, and probably most of them are quite moral people. but the argument is silly for other reasons as well. i've read somewhere that if a chimpanzee living, in whatever a chimpanzee community is called, starts going crazy and hurting other chimps, that the entire community will attack and kill the offending chimp. so apparently even chimps have a moral code. this is because we need morals or laws for our survival. if i want to live, one of the ways i can go about doing that is to make a deal with my fellow humans that i won't kill them if they won't kill me. that's called a law. yet humans aren't just individuals, humans are families, cultures, societies, nations, races, and a species. and survival is also driving the existence of the groups people live in, and ultimately the human race. families maintain their line; cultures are passed down; nations conquer other nations. and if humans want to survive as a whole, then humans must become organized and unified. one mechanism that accomplishes this task is religion. religion not only unifies, but it enhances laws. it turns laws into morals and values. if a person violates a law, then that person not only violates a law, but sins against the god of his people.

but the gospel of christ is different, right? the gospel is grounded in love, and not just any love, but agape. and agape is a self-sacrificial love. in other words, agape says we should give up our own happiness, and even our own survival, for others. jesus says, "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." this would really seem to run counter to the idea that religion is just merely a survival mechanism. but in thinking about this, i wasn't so sure. what if this is really about the survival of the human species? that we all have to give up something, sometimes our own life, for the survival of the human race? i've read somewhere that some scientists theorize that love evolved in mammals from the instinct that a mother has to protect her young. and while this picture of a mother protecting her young is beautiful to us and seemingly selfless, it's really about the survival of that species. it's actually somewhat selfish. didn't somewhere jesus liken himself to a mother hen giving up her life to protect her chicks? it seemed that you could really make a strong case that christianity is just another religion, and like all religions, it is nothing more than a grand evolutionary survival mechanism. then yesterday, i started thinking about something.

in the adam and eve story, adam and eve already had survival; they had the opportunity to eat from a "tree of life." in the story, however, they choose to walk away from this life they had where they lived in shalom with God, one another and creation, and become autonomous. they choose this path where they stop depending upon God, and instead decide that they want to make the decision about what is good and what is evil. after they do this, God blocks them from eating of the tree of life. why? one theory is that if they continue to live forever, they will do so living in the destructive consequences of their sin. their life would extend infinitely into a perpetual death. thus, in allowing them to die, God is actually having mercy on them.

sometimes it's just better to die. sometimes survival just isn't worth it. that is why people fight for the right to die. what the gospel is about isn't survival; it's about eternal life. and eternal life isn't just about quantity-- living forever-- it's about quality. deep inside all of us, we have this remnant of eden. we have this notion that there is some sort of ultimate existence; this ultimate way to live. we are all striving not to just survive-- survival is just a layer; a first step-- we are striving to live a life we cannot even put into words. and the gospel, the kingdom of God, is a glimpse into that better way of living that extends infinitely into the presence of God, who is the ultimate source of life.

so that's where i am now in my journey of faith and doubt. i'll post more as i continue thinking.