Constitutional Recognition of God's Providence

You might be amazed to know that the Preamble to the Constitution of the State of Illinois reads this way:

 

We, the People of the State of Illinois - grateful to

Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty

which He has permitted us to enjoy and seeking His blessing

upon our endeavors - in order to provide for the health,

safety and welfare of the people; maintain a representative

and orderly government; eliminate poverty and inequality;

assure legal, social and economic justice; provide

opportunity for the fullest development of the individual;

insure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense;

and secure the blessings of freedom and liberty to ourselves

and our posterity - do ordain and establish this Constitution

for the State of Illinois.

In this Preamble our State leaders amazingly acknowledge that the God of the Bible has in his providence supplied all the blessings we enjoy, and so we should both thank him as a people and continue to ask his blessings upon us.  My prayer is that as another election season in Illinois approaches, Almighty God might work in such grace that our leaders (and the people of this State) would be awakened to the fundamental truths expressed in the Preamble to our State Constitution!

 

 

The Bible and the Ancient Myths

            For several decades some scholars have argued that the ancient Hebrew religion evolved from the myths of other peoples and bears important resemblances to those myths.  In his new book entitled The Bible among the Myths (Zondervan Publishing House, 2009), however, Old Testament scholar John Oswalt demolishes these contentions.  Oswalt convincingly shows that the beliefs of the Israelites, enshrined in Scripture, are so antithetical to the myths of the ancient peoples around them, the Hebrew religion and the ancient myths cannot have anything like a common source.  The main difference is that while the ancient myths are all pantheistic, the Bible speaks of God as utterly transcendent, that is, as completely Other from his creation.  Oswalt frames his essential conclusion in these important words:

 

            In mythical thinking God is the cosmos—or, to put it the other way around, the cosmos is God.  The Source and the Manifestation are finally indistinguishable.  As we saw in the previous chapter, all the distinctive features of mythical thought flow form this principal, the principal we call continuity.

            In the same way all of the Bible’s understandings stem from one ruling principle: it is the principle of transcendence.  For the Bible, God is not the cosmos, and the cosmos is not God.  God is radically other than his creation.  This thought undergirds everything the Bible says about reality.  From start to finish, the Bible adamantly resists the principle of continuity.  God and the divine realm are not in any way a part of this world.  He is everywhere present in the world, be He is not the world, and the world is not Him.  He is other than the world; He is separate from it; it does not proceed from him as a somewhat blurred reflection; it is a creation that, by his permission, has a distinct existence of its own.

 

Oswalt, The Bible among the Myths, p. 81 (emphasis in original).    

 

God's Sovereign Grace and Spiritual Growth

            In his January 15 op-ed piece in The New York Times, columnist David Brooks brings a great deal of clarity to the question of how developed nations might best be of assistance to Haiti as it rebuilds from last week’s devastating earthquake (“The Underlying Tragedy,” accessible at www.nytimes.com).  In the course of his piece, Brooks cites a passage from the recently-published book What Works in Development, a refreshingly honest analysis in which a group of economists conclude that frankly we do not know exactly what sort of aid really helps developing nations.  My eyes were drawn especially to a quote from economist Abhijit Banerjee, who concludes with humility, “Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.”  That quote strikes me as true of spiritual growth for believers as well.  Are there means that God gives to us by which we can grow spiritually?  Absolutely-- means like daily prayer and Bible reading, regular fellowship with other believers, attendance at public worship, etc.  However, the key word in the quote is the adverb “ultimately.”  Yes, you and I do work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) by using the spiritual disciplines the Lord has given to us.  But when all is said and done, growth within our hearts is ultimately a matter of his sovereign grace.  In the end it is God who must work in me, both to will and to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).  This reality leads me to rejoice again before God’s throne, praising him for the goodness and power of his sovereign grace.      

 

 

 

A Christian Worldview and the Haitian Earthquake

            How should Christians think about the calamitous earthquake that shook Haiti yesterday, bringing more death and destruction to that poverty-ravaged nation?  For one, we mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15).  We ask the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3) to supply the mercy and comfort to grieving Haitians that he alone is able to provide.  Two, the church must open up in amazing generosity to help relieve the horrific human suffering we are witnessing on our television screens.  Such generosity is the “religion that is pure and undefiled before God” (James 1:27).  Third, and most important of all, we must heed the words of Jesus Christ our Lord recorded in Luke 13:1-5, where he warns us that calamities like this earthquake are not to be occasions for us to sit in judgment on those who suffer, but rather we are to understand from them that unless we repent, we likewise shall perish (Luke 13:3, 5).  In other words, Christ wants us as his followers to seize the opportunity provided by the earthquake to examine our hearts for sin and remember that apart from God’s grace in Jesus Christ, we would be subject to God’s eternal judgment.

 

Brit Hume-- Part 2

            New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has shown again in today’s piece why he is one of the most insightful political and cultural observers in America today.  His column concerns last week’s comments by television news commentator Brit Hume that the golfer Tiger Woods, whose sins and problems are well known, should turn to Christianity for forgiveness and salvation.  Hume’s comments were as follows:

 

He’s said to be a Buddhist; I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.  So my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”^[1]

 

The response of America’s cultural elites to Hume’s comments was swift and angry.  Douthat notes in today’s column that these responses have included denunciation of Hume and his remarks in no uncertain terms.

            What Douthat does best, however, is note the shift in American culture from religious pluralism to what I would call radical religious pluralism.  Religious pluralism is the classic American idea that under the First Amendment to our Constitution, every American should have the right to practice his or her religious convictions freely, and every religion has the right to compete with every other religion for adherents in the public square.  While we should never force our religious convictions on any other person, we should be able to argue those convictions before others.  However, the shift to radical religious pluralism says to people of all faith convictions (especially to Christians) that we should keep our religious convictions to ourselves.  Religious discourse has no place in the public square.  As Douthat puts it into today’s column (“Let’s Talk about Faith,” accessible at www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11doutaht.html), “the admirable principle that nobody should be persecuted for their beliefs often blurs into the more illiberal idea that nobody should ever publicly criticize another religion.  Or champion one’s own faith as an alternative.  Or say anything whatsoever about religion, outside the privacy of church, synagogue or home.”

            This is the difference between classic American religious pluralism and the modern version of radical religious pluralism.  As Douthat notes in the closing sentences of his column, “the debate that Brit Hume kicked off a week ago is still worth having.  Indeed, it’s the most important one there is.”

 

 

 

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^[1] Quote taken verbatim from the YouTube video of Hume’s remarks on “Fox News Sunday.”

Tiger Woods and Christianity, according to Brit Hume

            Brit Hume is a Christian and well-known news broadcaster who currently works as an analyst for the Fox Network.  On the program “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Hume was involved in a televised roundtable discussion that involved, among other topics, the golfer Tiger Woods.  Mr. Woods’ current troubles that arise from his numerous self-admitted acts of adultery are well-known, and when asked what counsel he would give the golfer, Mr. Hume replied with this amazing statement, which you can find easily on U-Tube:

 

He’s said to be a Buddhist; I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.  So my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”

 

As you might imagine, Mr. Hume’s comments caused the television critic for The Washington Post, Tom Shales, to write a blistering critique in yesterday’s newspaper.  What was interesting to me, however, is that Mr. Shales never challenges the underlying truth of what Mr. Hume said.  Mr. Shales nowhere in his column suggests that Buddhism does actually offer forgiveness or redemption, and that Mr. Hume is otherwise factually wrong.  In fact, it is not altogether clear from the column exactly what point Mr. Shales is trying to make, beyond expressing his deep offense that Mr. Hume, in Mr. Shales’ words, “stepped boldly up to the task of telling people what religious belief they ought to have” (“Brit Hume’s Off Message,” www.washingtonpost.com). 

            What concerns me is that Mr. Shales’ column typifies the radical religious pluralism that America’s elites have so thoroughly embraced.  Even when they are unwilling to challenge the truthfulness of Christian claims, as here, they assert that the public square must be so clear of religious discourse that Christians ought not to claim in public that our faith teaches truth that other religions simply do not possess.  Although Mr. Shales does not go beyond suggesting that Mr. Hume should apologize for his remarks, other cultural elites go so far as to suggest not only that Christians should not speak in the public square but that our First Amendment right to do so ought to be taken away from us.    

            In his column Mr. Shales poses this curious question: “He [Mr. Hume] really doesn’t have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?”  If by “authority” Mr. Shales means the mandate of America’s cultural elites like himself, of course Mr. Hume lacks authority in that sense.  However, Mr. Hume, like all followers of Jesus, believes he was acting under a far higher authority, that of Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who commands his people to carry the message of salvation in him alone to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18-20).  Clearly the “ends of the earth” includes, by God’s grace in this case, Fox Television.  Thank the Lord for Mr. Hume’s boldness to speak the truth.

 

The New/Old Pantheism

            New York Times columnist Ross Douthat noted in his December 21 piece (“Heaven and Nature,” accessible at www.nytimes.com) that Pantheism is the worldview that underlies the new hit movie Avatar, as well as most of the recent Disney animated films (Lion King, Pocahontas) and classic films like Star Wars.  Pantheism, which more technically is called Panentheism, is the idea that nature is god and god is nature.  Panentheists draw no distinction between their gods and the natural world, seeing them in continuity with one another.  The gods are all a part of the system of the material universe, and there exists nothing outside of that system. 

            What Douthat helpfully makes clear is that Panentheism as a worldview can offer no hope to human beings.  It assumes an incredibly naïve view of nature as, in the words of the movie The Lion King, a “circle of life.”  In fact nature is a circle of violence and death.  There is no more violent place in the world than one of our local forest preserves, where violence on an incredible scale takes place every day.  It is clear to anyone willing to see the truth that nature is out of balance and that something has gone terribly wrong with the natural order.  Because in the Panentheistic worldview there is nothing outside of that order, however, there is no hope in Panentheism for the rescue of the natural world or the human beings who inhabit it.

            The biblical worldview could not be more different from Panentheism.  It begins in Genesis 1:1 with an eternally pre-existing Creator who exists outside the universe and who made all material things.  The material universe is not a part of God, and he is not a part of it.  God did not create out of himself but rather out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3). God is thus the great Other. 

            Furthermore, the Bible teaches, this natural world is in disorder because of human sin, as described in Genesis 3 and Romans 1.  We have corrupted God’s perfect creation and thrown it into disorder with our deliberate rebellion against God’s good and loving moral law that he has written on our hearts (Romans 2:15; 3:23).  However, because God is outside the universe, and because he is perfectly holy, he is able to rescue us from ourselves and our sin.  And the wonderful good news is that is precisely what the Lord has done.  The eternal Son of God became flesh (John 1:14) in order to live the sinless life we cannot live and to die on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of all who, by God’s grace, would trust in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation.    

            As Ross Douthat explains, nature can offer us no ultimate hope.  Only the biblical worldview can do that.  Only in the Word-become-flesh is there hope to escape the tragedy we have made of God’s universe and of our lives.  But in Jesus is the greatest and deepest and truest hope of all.  “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

 

 

 

The Big Questions for 2010

            My friend Don Whitney, who teaches spiritual formation at The Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, has published a list of questions he commends to every Christian for consideration as we begin this new year of 2010.  Here are four of the 10 questions Dr. Whitney listed in his wonderfully thoughtful blog post:

 

1.       “What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?”

 

2.       “In what spiritual discipline do you want to make the most progress this year, and what will you do about it?”

 

3.       “What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?”

 

4.       “What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years?  In eternity?”

 

At the beginning of the year I always think back to the personal “Resolutions” Jonathan Edwards wrote in 1722-23, when he was 19 years of age.  Consider just resolution number one, on which the other 69 resolutions are all based:

 

“Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most for the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration.”

 

Note carefully that for Jonathan Edwards, those actions which are most for the glory of God and most for his own good and pleasure are the same actions!  This so for two reasons: 1) God’s people find their highest joy in living for God’s glory, and 2) as the Christian organization Desiring God Ministries likes to put it, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”