This summer I spent several weeks together trying to see the Good, the True, and the Beautiful with a group of students. These ideas are important if only because we ultimately find them in the Mind of God. Our quest begins with the fear of the Lord and it ends in our seeing God. This is the advice I gave those students at the end of the summer.

When we look at problems like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita such humility stands us in good stead. We can only hope to see God as Job did when he said (42:5), “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you, therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Easy answers will not work. Answers that are good but not part of our own experience are not effective either. We need to experience what we claim and not just talk about it. How?

First, try to fill your life with beauty. Look at your room. Is it orderly? Does it contain art or is it a self-indulgent statement about self? Now look in the mirror. Do you look like a clone or are you dressing for your body type and God-created personhood? Try to decorate and dress to please God and to create lasting beauty.

Take an art class that is not required. Listen to classical music and to good contemporary stuff even if you have to go off the normal track to find it. Most of all go to live theater and live concerts. Avoid expensive shows and find the authentic concerts done by folk for the love of art.

Second, walk humbly before God. You had a chance to grow this summer. Not everybody had this chance, but they were given other gifts by God. What can you learn from them? Hesitate before saying what you “know.” Begin with listening and you can never go wrong.

This is especially true in dealing with authority in your life. How can you honor them? Do not presume to teach them. Instead honor what God has done in their lives and is doing in yours because of their willingness to send you to something like the Academy.

Don’t lecture your teachers. Listen to them. Ask good questions. If they attack the faith, then ask better questions! They may kill Socrates, but they can never silence his questions!

Third, remember that all three parts of your soul matter. You have a head: use it. Don’t fall back into the habit of consuming hours of media a day. Try to read as much as you surf the web or watch videos. Don’t let your heart grow cold as you learn. Read your Bible and pray every day. Every day. No excuses.

As you face the fall, you will be tempted to go back to easy answers. Avoid those. Instead, go for answers to the Bible and to great Christian leaders. Ask your pastor to point you to some of those. Good places to start are John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Chrysostom, and Justin Martyr. These are not easy authors, but they actually have something to say worth the time.

The rise of the Church of Nigeria is good news, important news, and will change the world for millions of souls on the planet. How many papers will cover it?

HT: the brilliant Warnock.

I want to clarify that when I worry about the birth rate in the nation I am not suggesting that the fault is all in this generation.  Sometimes those of us who worry about this kind of thing sound like twenty-something people are selfish Scrooges wishing for no more Tiny Tims.

Our culture makes it very hard to get married. It is often impossible to make it on one pay check. Check out the taxes government takes from anyone who might be able to do so. We keep trying and failing. Student loans to get the college union card strap many young adults.

My generation failed as role models. Who wants to marry when Mom and Dad are divorced or in a loveless marriage? Many young adults are harmed by the bad examples we have been. Many of us are trying to do better, but we have much to redeem.

The lack of children is a large scale problem that says more about culture than any individual. It certainly cannot be solved by individuals making bad choices for themselves. Society makes it hard to get married until late in life. To me that, not hedonism in the young or any such problem, is the root of it.

Another important point to balance my worries is that not everyone is called to marriage.

One of the most pious men I know is called to celibacy. Another very wonderful woman is celibate because she met no man that would have been appropriate to her gifts and calling. Her gifts and calling are very great and she is the model of a true lady. Not only is singleness a calling, but it can also be as much a bloodless martyrdom as marriage is for the married.

Being single is a great gift and calling. The traditional church has a very high view of the person who is faithful to that calling and reserves its highest positions for the celibate single person.

Belief in demons is not just vital philosophy (as an affront to naturalism) and it is not just good theology (following the demands of Scripture). It is also a vital part of the cosmic poem or story.

Stories matter. Good stories move us and they explain the world in which we live. Bad stories, like the Darwin myth, do the same thing but point us in the wrong direction. Good stories have a cleansing effect on the soul making it ready for the next truth. Any good story can cleanse, heal, and teach. A good fictional story can lead us to truth as can history. Of course, reality matters and so fiction has limits that truth does not.

Christianity is a story. It is a true story and the greatest story that can be told. As such it has perfect balance and accounts for all our demands and hopes both empirical and emotional. Devils are necessary for the emotional wholeness of the Christian story. That is one powerful reason to think they exist if (as we believe) Christianity is the “greatest story ever told.”

The nature of evil demands the existence of evil.

It is impossible to pray for the destruction of any human soul. Created in the image of God, we cannot ultimately hate any human. I am deeply opposed to the philosophy of Osama Bin Laden. I think his actions in advocating terror wicked and that he should be brought to justice. Despite this my deepest prayer for him is that he repent and in receiving earthly justice find heavenly mercy. He has sinned in time, his sin is in the past, and he still has a future. As a temporal being, he can change and so be redeemed. All of us who know our sinfulness are thankful that change is possible. We can become different than we were.

Yet the wound in the cosmos is so deep, deeper than even human evil can cause, that something else, someone else, must be held responsible. The Incarnate God can take on Himself human sin, but there is a cosmic going wrong that demands the severe mercy of justice. It is not just human evil, which is temporal and so can be forgiven, that we find in the horror of 9/11. There is a diabolical evil that is one with the evil of the concentration camps, the gulag, and any other place where bad and horrid things happen. There is an offense that is a stink in the celestial city. This stench comes at certain times and in predictable ways. It seems the work of an infernal intelligence.

Against such an evil godly wrath and hatred is appropriate. The devils provide the element of the story that allows for this wrath and hatred to have an object. The men who fell short, who sinned, who were used by wickedness are not appropriate subjects for this perfect wrath. Blind rage against the “machine” is not directed enough and also inappropriate. Gravity did not know what it did. It did harm, but did not mean to do so. Our sense of justice demands someone, not just something, to assault.

There exists beings, persons, that knew what they wanted and what they were devoted to do it. They stood by and laughed when humans died. They stand outside of time and are find what delight they know in pain and suffering. Against them, beings that cannot turn because they experience no time at all, God is turned in righteous rage. Against them we battle fully and without stint. We battle not against flesh and blood for they use flesh and blood.

Devils are doomed for the wrath of High Heaven is turned against them. They fill a necessary place in the story: a personal evil that faces pure justice. No man need look at the Twin Towers and believe that the real intelligence behind the evil will ever escape. Bin Laden may find mercy, but Lucifer never will.

Of course the wise man does not rejoice in this fact or presume on it. Once the Devil himself was a being so great in God’s order that we would have trembled at his beauty. Even now in his fallen state, there is much of the shattered light of Heaven in him. For the sake of that light, we fight against him with appropriate humility. We fight in the Name of the Lord and (thank God) not in our own power. As Jude reminds us even Saint Michael rebuked the Devil in the Name of the Lord. So it should be with us.

May God rebuke him we humbly pray. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

the evangelical outpost: Countdown to GodBlogCon: “Countdown to GodBlogCon”

Can you afford to miss history?

The two extremes of our culture are on display in how they deal with demons. Our culture is awash in the assumption that smart people are all naturalists. Naturalists believe that nature is “all there is, was, or ever will be” (to paraphrase Carl Sagan). As a result many folk have intellectual guilt when they trust their own observations and decide that matter and energy in mindless motion cannot account for all they see. However, since our government schools will not allow the intelligent discussion of the Divine (or the infernal) most Americans are left to construct their own theology. Men and women will do theology even if forbidden to be educated in the science and so we are left with notions of the supernatural no more sophisticated than references on the Simpsons and movies can make it. This leads to near-insanity as religious groups who cast out demons of fat, philosophy, and just about anything else testify.

Can we believe in demons without going mad? The simple answer is yes. All traditional Christians have believed in demons and the stronger the church age the more sane the discussion. It is when the church is in decline that you get the half-Christian rants of folk like King James (yes that King James) on the doctrines of witch craft and demons. Normal Christian ages are in contact with main stream church thinking and so develop a moderate approach to the supernatural.

What is that? It is a view that keeps four things in mind.

First, God is good and is the author of no evil. Demons were created by God and so are not perfectly evil. They exist so there is goodness them. No evil being can be perfectly evil (logically) since existence comes from a good God. So as was mentioned by a previous post, the Devil and demons are not the opposite of God and His holy Angels. They are degenerate angels . . . good code gone bad to become the worst virus in the operating system of the cosmos.

Second, some evil is caused by fallen nature. The fine workings of the cosmos were messed up by human sin. As a result people are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fecundity becomes cancer. The design of the Universe is consuming itself. Demons need not be blamed for this sort of evil.

Third, if demons act, they act through control of the soul of a man. Demons are not material. They may be able to imitate bodies, but they are never really incarnate. They do not really understand human feelings (as the Incarnate God does) and so are not able to love us. (Angels are not cut off from the Divine so they can experience love of humanity through their love of a God who does know our state.)

I have seen things not best accounted for by natural events. I have personally seen exorcisms that brought relief to the person involved. If demons are real, and the witness of Scripture is plain that they are, then being open to intelligent (though diabolical) agency in some areas is logical. I would suggest that good pastoral discernment be applied when evil seems beyond the normal capacities of the person involved. “Big” showy manifestations like those in the film (and those sometimes found in the Bible) are real, but may not be the most serious kind. Demons do not want to be found out. Their control must be subtle or can be removed.

In my tradition, the Sacraments of the Church are means of grace to keep the spirit of man fresh and alive. For all Christians the grace of God is available as a power the Devil and his hosts cannot bear.  Frequent, meaningful worship is a good way to avoid the sort of easy-to-manipulate spirit demons like. I would also advise avoiding evil. To go to an evil place or to intentionally engage in evil activity is always an invitation for bad things to happen. Frequent confession of sin and a humble heart are places unkind to the diabolical.

Our chief personal foe in the Church is never any human being. Every human being, no matter how low, has a chance at redemption and the image of God stamped in his soul. The only intelligences beyond redemption (of which we are aware) are devils.

Our naturalistic culture prides itself on its reason, but the best selling books and movies are hardly ever secular. When Dan Brown can write a book that justifies the worship of Lucifer, then there is a yearning for spiritual things that is not being met. The Devil is happy to meet it as the consumption and control of human souls is the only selfish pleasure he can know. To ignore him, or become overly concerned about him, is all the same to him. I dislike even this post as the diabolical delight in any press no matter how negative. Their cause is hopeless, lost, and foolish. The redeemed need not fear the devil for Michael the great angel and all the hosts of heaven are enough to guard the elect of every nation. Behind the Heavenly Hosts stands the All Powerful, All Wise, and (best of all) Loving Father. In the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ every devil in the air must flee and bow the knee.

Jesus Christ is Lord!  



Ritual bias alert: The film that provoked this discussion was made by a Biola graduate.

The erudite Joe Carter dislikes my views on civil religion. Here is my response.  

I defer to no man in my dislike for Jean-Jacques Rousseau. First, he is a figure from French history not named Joan. We can therefore assume that he is a fuzzy minded hypocrite. Second, he was in fact a fuzzy minded hypocrite. So let’s have nothing to do with Jean-Jacques.

I am also all in favor of knowing philosophical roots of ideas. In fact, that is my profession. But surely Mr. Carter nobody in rural West Virginia for the last one hundred and fifty years had anything like a glimmer of what Jean-Jacques Rousseau had in mind when they practiced civil religion?

Like Burke and Aristotle I have a great dread of philosophy in politics. Philosophers are always looking for the Big Picture and Being Consistent, but human relations and government are an art and not a science. In this I agree with Aristotle and Burke and not with Plato or the French Guy.

I am from the old tradition of “muddle through” and not from the “make it a consistent to the intellectuals” school of thought. In fact, in his quest for Philosophical Order in government, isn’t it Carter who betrays America’s Anglo-heritage for French “rigor.”

Give me George III, mad is a hatter, rather than Napoleon with a mind as clear as crystal. Give me a nation with lots of old traditions and funny corners not all of which can be made orderly and I will show you a free state. Everyone knows they still pray in school in West Virginia and promote religion. Nobody cares much even if it is not (strictly speaking) legal. Actually stopping it would rend the very fabric of our state. It would be like asking Utah to actually treat the Mormon faith like “everything else.” It isn’t going to happen at a social cost we are willing to pay. Meanwhile we muddle through with leftists knowing that rural Utah will come with a cost and right-wingers knowing that they will pay a cost for the culture of Berkeley.

Civil religion is like that in the actual US experience. We are overwhelmingly Christian and just about everyone treats the Divinity of civil religion as the Christian God. That is our mental image when we pray. We are allowed that mental image. In fact, in most places it is tacitly encouraged (muddle). Part of our liberty is an ability to understand “God” as being (mostly) the God mentioned in the Constitution (”in the year of Lord”) while allowing those who opt out (Jews and Moslems) enough latitude to do so since the main secular function of the deity is still served.

We have many good citizens who are Jewish or Muslim and Americans accept that they understand “God” differently. Why? Because in the tradition of Burke and America our civil religion acts more as a limit on government and a tip of the hat to the origin of our liberties than as the Establishment of a Secular God. The God of Jews and Moslems is enough like the Christian god to fill that role.

Can one be a good American and a Hindu? Yes, if he or she is willing to admit that there is a higher power (filled by the place holder name God) from whom rights come.  

Can one be a good American and an atheist? Yes, if one is willing to accept that one has a world view inconsistent with the founding documents of the state. He or she will have to pretend in court that man has free will and in politics that there are rights that come from something Higher than government. If they can do that (and most atheists do in practice), then they are functional theists.

Civil religion is therefore some of what Christians believe, but not all of it. It is like getting people to admit that Atlantis exists, but not forcing them to name the largest city. It is something . . . and it has a mostly protecting role that it can play for all persons . . . even those who dislike it.  

First, the pro-life movement is alive and well in Arizona. It looks pretty dominant at a state level outside the executive branch. This is a tribute to the savvy organizers and the political maturity of the grass roots folk I met. What a pleasure to be on the same team with such folk!

Second, if the pro-life movement lost charismatics and Catholics it would be in trouble as far as workers go. Where are Reformed churches? Where are the Orthodox?

Third, everyone wants the Democrat Party to be open to their views. Many do not trust Republicans and would be happy to “go home.” There have been some positive moves on the part of the Democrat Party, but these are then negated by the leadership. Most people I chatted with have no real hope the Democrats will ever be anything other than the “Culture of Death” party.

Fourth, the movement is still very white. Other than speakers the room was not very diverse (despite efforts by the pro-life groups). I think this a bad thing. It does not reflect the country, the Church, or the pro-life majority in America. What can be done? It is clear groups are trying so it is not from want of desire or effort.

Fifth, the pro-life cause is very well led in Arizona. The leadership is aggressive, smart, and well organized. If only these folk ran FEMA!

(Finally, on a personal note Todd and Jen Wright are just amazing!)

A Mistake about the Pledge

The chief error of good hearted people who think the words “under God” do not matter in the pledge is their low view of “civil religion.” Academics can hardly say “civil religion” without sneering and thoughtful Christians often fall into the same trap. Because civil religion is not Christian, orthodox Christians feel it does not go far enough. After all, they like to point out; the god of the Pledge might be some wicked Hindu deity.

Worrying about this in a nation that is culturally overwhelmingly Jewish and Christian seems a bit silly. I am willing to allow for the tiny percentage of the population to understand God in (what I take to be) odd ways to keep civil religion going.

Why? Civil religion in the United States limits the power of the state. It is not the positive affirmation of one religion, but recognition that there is a realm where the secular cannot go. It is more negative than positive in terms of what it affirms.

The state recognizes by civil religion that there is other, a God, who has given humankind rights and ability that they cannot touch. You do not have to be a Christian to believe this or even a monotheist. It should comfort even an atheist who loves freedom. It also allows Christians and other monotheists (Jews and Moslems) to swear allegiance to the state in good conscience. Since we do the bulk of tax paying, fighting, and working in this nation, this seems a good idea. I do not expect my pledge of allegiance to be a Creed, but I do expect it to acknowledge that most free men of the West owe their first allegiance to a Creed and not a state.  

I will not swear absolute allegiance to the state. I view the “under God” clause as making the same point as the Declaration of Independence. It limits more than it affirms. My rights do not come from the state. They come from the Creator. The state cannot take away what it did not give. My allegiance to the state is qualified. My obedience will be limited by the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.

That radical view is at the heart of the American experiment. When we were engaged in an all out war with a godless system that demanded total allegiance from its citizens, the US government wisely inserted “under God” into the pledge to make clear what had always been understood. My duty to the state is not absolute.

These words have not led to a theocracy, but their overt removal (after they were added) will suggest that the modern secular state will brook no rival. That would be a bad idea for the vast majority of Americans who will not say, “Caesar is Lord.”

We have no King but King Jesus.

I am speaking on the morrow at the Arizona Right to Life Conference. Hope to see you there!

Disneyland Rides by Religious Tradition

In order to lighten the national mood, or do my part in it, I have decided to do some research on which Disneyland rides should be favored by various Christian religious groups. Following hours of field study and reading, the following list is correct to the best of my knowledge. I have given only a brief reason for each of my choices. Rest assured a book could have been written.

(In fact, some Radical Orthodox theologian is free to use this as the basis for his/her seminary dissertation “Constantine, Milbank, and Walt: A Biblical Purging of the Hegemony of the Neo-Platonic Disney Ride in the Imagination of the Late Twentieth Century Evangelical with Special References to Ordination of Womyn and the Oppression of the Animals.”)

Ride for All Calvinists:
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
No matter what you do, you end up in Hell. It is reported that some elect riders end up in Club 33 at the end. The rest of us have no way to confirm this.

     Presbyterian Secondary Ride:
          Indiana Jones Adventure
     In which you discover that no matter what you do, you look in the eyes of the idol. This leads you through hundreds of pre-programmed variations that feel free, but are not. At the end of the ride you discovery you can have wealth, worldly wisdom, or eternal life. You cannot have more than one. The ride decides. There are frequent splits in the ride track.

Lutheran Ride:
Splash Mountain
     A ride in which you begin wondering what can be so frightening in this particular ride, slowly see your own character leading straight to a fearful doom, but then discover that a terrifying plunge leads straight to your Laughing Place. All of this happens without your ever moving as you are carried along by the Water of the ride.  

Anglican Ride:
     Alice in Wonderland:
     It is an English ride after all and that is always cool. Follow a questionable character down a theological hole on an aging ride system and end in post-modern confusion. Did I mention it is English?

     Episcopal Church USA Secondary Ride:
          Mad Tea Party:
     It will be fun to spin in circles until everyone gets sick!
     
Continuing Anglican Secondary Ride:
     Frontierland Shootin’ Exhibition
     Having already paid once for your ticket, you get to pay again in order to take shots at pesky varmints that never seem to go away.

General Dispensationalist Ride:
     Mickey’s House and Meet Mickey
     In which you travel by foot through a series of discrete rooms each of which builds up to and naturally leads to the next. At times one wonders if the ride is not a bit unsophisticated for modern tastes, but there are so many delightful details that one soon forgets this fear. In the End, it culminates when some guests are taken away to Meet Mickey. As a result throughout the ride one is aware and eagerly anticipates a great future work for the original Disney character.

Evangelical Feminist Ride:
Peter Pan’s Flight
     A popular ride with long lines in which all the men are children or child-like, this ride begins in a full nursery, heads whimsically over the edge into Darkness following a charming if irrational leader, thus leaving the nursery empty.

Baptist Ride:
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
In which we discover that one can only become a Real Boy by giving up smoking, pool playing, and drinking.

     Southern Baptist Secondary Ride:
     Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
     Where it is proved once and for all that nobody understands the Southern point of view, but where our Heritage is appreciated, the sound is very good, and the message even better.

Catholic Ride:
     It’s a Small World
     People from all nations gather together. The guest travels in one very stable boat, carried along by very pure Water, but the music in the ride is very annoying.

     Vatican II Catholic Secondary Ride:
     All of Disney’s California Adventure
     See it is like this: the old Park is just not cool anymore. It is hard to get teen agers to go. If we build a new park and leave out all the old characters, then we will be cool. Kids will love us. The fact that no one comes at the moment to the new park is not the fault of the new park but of the old park. Maybe we should close the old park?

     Latin Mass Secondary Ride:
     Davey Crockett’s Explorer Canoes
     This ride is not fun. In fact, it is hard work. Who expects a ride to be fun? Hard work is no more than park goers have always done. It was good enough for Walt. They don’t build rides like this anymore.

Orthodox Ride:
Jungle Cruise:
     An original Disney ride often overlooked due to its flashier neighbors, it contains the best script in the park which can cause you to further appreciate classic animatronics and overlook residually offensive items because of the ride’s age.

     Russian Orthodox Secondary Ride:
     Pirates of the Caribbean
     The most creative ride in the park and it was built by Walt! It is therefore old, beautiful, but full of disreputable characters you should not like but often do.

     Greek Orthodox Secondary Ride:
Storybook Land Canal Boats
This is a place that contains the best of all the other lands where one admires the age of the ride, the perfect preservation of the parts, its beauty, but secretly wonders if it is not just a bit slow.

     Antiochian Orthodox Secondary Ride:
     Gadget’s Go Coaster
     The best roller coaster in the park for its size, but that means it is pretty small.

Pride will often cause me to judge the sins of others, but not my own sins. However, fear of judgment will also often cause me to refrain from judgment when the time has come to judge.

If Jesus lived in an era when He needed to say, “Judge not”, most philosophers need to be reminded to judge. I often take (and I think I am not alone in this) Jesus words that I will be judged with the judgment I use as a good excuse for letting every sinner off the hook in the vain hope that my own sin will be excused. At least in my community for every self-righteous person, there are ten who will be up in arms at any condemnation of anyone.

We are a guilty age. What better explains the rush for gay marriage which few gays will use, than a desire for someone, anyone, to tell guilty people they are good? It will not work. It never works. Plato was right when he says that even if we are never punished for our guilt our souls are harmed. How I wish I could take back the bad things I have done! It does no good if others do not judge. Our souls judge us and find us guilty.

So it seems to me that our culture is far more in danger of never thinking anything divine judgment than in coming to an overly hasty conclusion that there is God in the whirlwind. We are so eager to hear the still small voice that I think we would miss a Divine shout.

Of course the good news is that we can be born again. The Holy Spirit can give us a new start and heal our self-inflicted wounds. God help me to hear the Divine pleading whether it comes softly or loudly!

Is a Natural Disaster a Sign of God’s Judgment?

This Sunday should the pastors of America thunder out a call for repentance based on the hurricane? If a television evangelist says that the hurricane is “God’s judgment” on somebody, is automatically he wrong to do so?

What does a great natural disaster say about God’s will for America? Recently, I have had students troubled in spirit as they ask these questions. These folk are not asking questions about the “problem of evil.” They understand that the existence of a good God is compatible with natural evils in the world. (For more information see C.S. Lewis The Problem of Pain.) Instead, these Christians want to know if there is a message for us in the storm.

Christians have a Bible that makes arguments regarding divine intention and natural disasters. The book of Amos is an example it says:

Amos 1:1 The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which
he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the
days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the
earthquake.
  Amos1:2 And he said, The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his
voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn,
and the top of Carmel shall wither.

The example of Job’s friends complicates the picture. The friends, perhaps using the examples of the prophets, say, “If bad things happen to you, then you must be bad.” This simplistic idea is so attractive that God dedicated a whole book of the Bible to refuting it. Sometimes bad things happen to good people for their good. God uses this life as a great school for souls. The tests He sends are often very difficult, but they are always just. How can we tell what is happening?

The easy way out is to say that God’s judgments are so inscrutable that we can never say anything about them. There is some wisdom in this. Over time history can make a good guess about the purpose of God. His providence is not utterly inscrutable to men with divine Revelation to guide them, but perspective and humility are sound guides in attempting to make out the dim pattern of His work in space and time.

The lesson of Scripture does seem to indicate from the Old Testament to the New that some individuals are called to attempt to make a call. These prophetic men stand in the midst of the storm and try to discern God’s purpose. They may not be right, but they should be allowed to a voice. We are not naturalists after all. God may speak to men and nations in the mighty wind or in a small and gentle voice. Lay Christians must trust their responsible leaders to make this call.

One problem, of course, with the American church is that we have too many self-appointed prophets and leaders who claim to speak for the church. Times like this are a powerful argument for ordination and church order. If someone claims to speak with the voice of the apostles what are his credentials? If one speaks as a prophet then where is the school of the prophets where he gained his credentials? It is no accident that the most irresponsible claims in such situations come from the self-anointed and the self-important. When I hear such men, I think of the early church leader Ignatius and want to ask, “Who is your bishop?” In other words, who checks up on your ministry? On the strengths of working in a strong community like Torrey and Biola University and going to a good parish like my own is the ability to be accountable.

The hard fact that our culture does not want to face in a disaster is human guilt before God. We are all guilty, even the youngest child. That sounds harsh to modern ears, but it just tells a profound truth. Even the youngest child will soon have a sense of being “out of synch” with the cosmos. God would warn us, guide us, keep us from harm, but our broken state keeps us from hearing His kind voice. We go where we should not, build as we should not, and stay where we should not. We abandon the weak that He wished us to save. Our problem is not just what we do, but who we are. We need salvation and restoration to wholeness.

Natural disasters come in part because we are foolish. We do not attend to God’s voice or we take risks that are not worth the cost that eventually must be paid. We are sometimes like teenagers that surf on top of their cars at high speeds and then curse the car when they fall off and hurt themselves. Building a great city without proper protections is not the fault of a good God, but of fallible men. Sometimes we are unwise and then we blame the Wise for our folly.

Of course this is not the whole story. Some natural disasters and some suffering is not the result of human folly. There is disaster that comes as a test to those who are wise in so far as human wisdom is concerned. It tests their mettle and helps them grow. No suffering in God’s universe is His perfect will. It is all the result of the brokenness of the cosmos. It is all part of His plan to make it whole again.

This is not a pain that He administers from a distant as some great machine. No. This same God that must bring difficulties to us has come down and experienced maximum pain. He sends the storm with compassion because He suffered from the storm. He does not just feel our pain, but is willing to take our pain to Himself.

We are not the first Christians to ask these questions. Augustine had to deal with these issues in terms of a great man-made disaster. When Rome fell, many made the too-easy judgment that it had been caused by abandoning the old gods for Christianity. Christians sometimes too quickly argued that Rome had fallen for obvious depravity. Augustine pointed out that the just and the unjust had suffered in the fall of Rome. Like the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk, the seemingly more wicked were being used to punish the less wicked! How could that be? His massive City of God is must reading at such a time. It is not a page too long to deal carefully with such hard questions.

The good news is that there is hope. Augustine could write his great work as his culture died. He wrote in a language of that culture with the faith that there was a Divine Plan. He was right. We can trust in the same divine Providence to bring us through the human muddle that now surrounds Katerina.

Whatever we do God is at work in our folly bringing comfort, creating good from bad, and healing wounds. Even the dead who have died in the Lord go to a better place where race, poverty, and social standing do not matter.  

Perhaps the safest posture in a time of national calamity is wide spread repentance.

God’s perspective is that of eternity. Many sins which a community must judge harshly in order to maintain civil order may count for less in the judgment of Heaven. After all the petty selfishness that keeps the pastor from finding a deeper level of grace may be just as serious to God as any other sin. No community should try to make selfishness illegal for that would lead to an intrusive state. Any positive gains would be offset by the greed and overreach of a too powerful government.

God need no limit Himself in that way. He is not corrupted by absolute power. His goal is to root out all sin in the cosmos using the most merciful means possible. His righteous actions therefore seem to fall on the “just and the unjust” because in His eyes all of us have so much to learn.

What was God doing in this storm? I am no prophet or the son of a prophet. However, we can be sure that God is bringing good from it. He is calling our nation to examine itself. How do we treat the poor? Why are our cities government so corrupt? What should the Church be learning? We can all cry with the publican:

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

The Death of a Brave and Lonely Man

Fox News is reporting the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Rehnquist led a lonely battle against the culture of death and against the excesses of modernity. He was a moderate by the standards of history, but a conservative on a court drunk with its own power. Only in our time could a man who “found a place for religion’ in the public square be considered on the edge. His kind is so rare that it is impossible to imagine a better Chief Justice. We can only hope for his equal.

The ancients said that no man is happy until he is dead, only then can the measure of his life be taken. Eternity will judge the man, but that Highest Court will also report that in the culture of death at the end of the twentieth century his was a consistent vote for life.

May his soul and that of all that faithful departed rest in peace.

The story coming out of the South has been an international disgrace to our beloved nation. In this “once upon a time,” the bad guys are winning. The malcontents and the whiners are telling the tale and harming our nation.

There are three responses possible for an American.

We can tire of all the bad news and go do something else. Bad news is unpleasant and Americans react to unpleasant news like a Victorian lady to a bad smell. Ignore it and perhaps it will go away.

We can feel sorry and watch more bad news. Like most moderns we can confuse watching television with doing something. We can blog about it until we reach personal catharsis without attacking.

The alternative is to act. Some are close enough to volunteer. All of us can pray. Most of us can give.

Or we can act by tearing about the already fragile social fabric of our nation. Instead of a big tent of people united by in a patriotic cause, we can cling to whatever tattered piece of our national conscience we think we can keep for “our side.”

Some have decided to use this disaster to attack our President and our leaders. A time will come to reach measured judgments about the response to this disaster. Now is not that time. Information is too scarce. To rend at our leadership, state or national, at this moment will slow down relief, increase the probability of further problems, and solve nothing. It is the way of the pundit and not the hero.

A few thugs have decided to profit from disaster. Some of these thugs roam the streets of the bleeding cities. Some sit in board rooms and meditate the profits they can make by gouging consumers. This is the way of the barbarian, whether in street clothes or a tie, and the only response from a civilized community is to reject such a path.

We must rally around our President, the governors of the states impacted, and the leaders of the local communities involved. The brave soldiers in Iraq are fighting for America on foreign soil. We can fight for America at home. The result will be a stronger, more united, and more compassionate nation.

A hungry child has no political party. Poverty does not make a man less a human being. Hurting parents have no race. We must extend God’s love to all.

In this way Americans can show how healing can begin from a great tragedy. We have not begun well, but we can finish well.  We can change our direction and reach the “happily ever after.”

Let’s make it happen. My suggestion is here.