Culture Not Morally Neutral

            In a recent edition of The Chicago Tribune (“Family Helps Adopted Haitian Children Keep Their Spiritual Heritage,” www.chicagotribune.com) I read of a family from one of the northern suburbs who in 2002 adopted two children from Haiti, a boy and a girl.  Every night since the horrific Haitian earthquake four weeks ago, this couple has been leading their two children in voodoo prayers for the people of Haiti, invoking a spirit called Papa Legba.  The couple believes that the ritual incantations help “preserve their children’s ties to Haiti through a religion they argue has been misinterpreted and unfairly portrayed.”  With all due respect to this couple, who have done a wonderfully generous thing in opening their home and hearts to these children, if we study voodoo practices in depth at all, it really is hard to escape the conclusion they do not involve destructive contact with demonic spirits.  The conclusions this husband and wife draw about voodoo arise from a common American presupposition that all cultural and religious practices are basically neutral.  It is a function of political correctness that refuses to judge cultural practices as harmful or even evil.  However, even New York Times columnist David Brooks admits that Haiti’s practice of voodoo makes economic progress in that island nation difficult, because voodoo “spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile” (David Brooks, “The Underlying Tragedy,” www.nytimes.com).  Our prayer is that for his glory, Almighty God will free the Haitian people from superstition and animistic religious practices to believe the gospel, so that they might know the truth, and the truth would set them free (John 8:32).

 

Let God Sweat the Details

            There are two wonderful passages in the Book of Exodus that remind us God does not forget to take care of any of the details of our lives.  He really does have all the hairs on our heads counted (Matthew 10:30).  In Exodus 23:23-28 the Lord promises the Israelites that he will drive the Canaanite peoples out of the Promised Land.  However, in that day the land was filled with wild animals like lions.  The average Israelite might have worried that if the Lord really did drive the inhabitants out of the Promised Land too quickly, then wild animals might begin to multiply rapidly and take over the land.  The Lord, however, had not forgotten to think of this possibility.  “I will not drive them (i.e., the Canaanites) out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and wild beasts multiply against you” (Exodus 23:29).  By giving his people the Land of Canaan little by little, God would assure that the Israelites would be free from the threat of wild beasts.

            The second example of God’s care for the details comes from Exodus 34.  God in Exodus 34:23 repeats his command that all male Israelites are to appear before him at the Tabernacle for the three great annual feasts of the Jews: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.  “But,” the average Israelite male may have worried, “if I leave my family and my land to go up to the designated place for the three feasts, is it not likely that foreigners or criminals or even corrupt Jews might try to seize my land?”  Again, the Lord has thought of the details.  “I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year” (Exodus 34:24).  In other words, God was promising that during the absence of the males, he would protect their lands supernaturally. 

            These passages should encourage us that when God calls us to obey him in particular ways, we can be sure he has not only thought of the big picture but also about the details as well.  What a supremely wise, careful, and thorough God we serve!

 

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.”