Category: random thoughts

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50 Degree Day

I smiled when I looked at my weather app today.

Today the temperature hit 50º for the first time in 2018!

One of the things I love about Wisconsin is that it actually has four seasons. Being raised in Alabama we didn’t really have four seasons. There are a ton of great things about Bama that I love. I love the food I was raised on. I loved seeing peanut and cotton fields and dogwoods blooming in the woods. I love seeing and smelling the marshes and waterways of Mobile. I love driving down Government Street in Mobile Alabama with the road canopied by the live oak trees. I love being able to buy boiled peanuts at a gas station.

BUT the lack of real changing seasons wasn’t one of the things that I loved about Alabama (specifically Lower Alabama – the southern part of Alabama for all those not actually from LA).

It was (and is) hot in Alabama! Bearably hot in the Spring, unbearably hot and muggy in the Summer, back to bearably hot but still muggy in the Fall, and mainly hot, with a brief moment of cool humid weather in the Winter. So my Alabama self moved to the MidWest and learned the joys of true changing seasons.

C.S. Lewis has a great passage in “The Screwtape Letters” concerning God (The “Enemy” in the Screwtape Letters”) creating humanity to love the changing seasons. He wrote:

The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating pleasurable. But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.

I love the consistently changing seasons.

When Pam and I moved here we were informed of a wonderful, unofficial holiday that used to be celebrated by the students and professors of UWSP. The first day to reach 50º classes were unofficially canceled (i.e. the students and professors both just winked and nodded and didn’t show up for classes) and everyone just enjoyed the outside by cooking, sitting around outside, and doing what they do in Wisconsin (this usually means drinking). I didn’t understand the big deal at first. After my first Winter I realized how glorious the first 50º actually is. I walked around without a coat for most of the day and found myself thinking how hot it was.

It was a glorious 50º day! Yeah! Spring is coming!

 

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Clark Stinks

One of the things that I really appreciate about Clark Howard is how adamant he is about confronting his own errors. He encourages those he works with and those who listen to him to correct him when he is wrong. As a method of doing this he setup a message board with the wonderful url clarkstinks.com for people to discuss when they believe that he has given bad advice. Each week his staff picks some of their favorite “clark stinks” moments and Clark discusses them on his radio show/podcast. This is literally a weekly segment of his show. I love that he is this open to other people’s criticism, rightly or wrongly, to acknowledging when he gives bad advice, or makes a mistake.

I trust Clark Howard much more, rather than less, because of the fact that corrections are regularly a part of his show. Unfortunately for many the exact opposite reaction is the first and only thing that comes to mind. Instead of admitting their failures, mistakes, or mere ignorance they often “puff up” and deny the truth. Even worse sometimes they even blame the one who pointed out the error. Everyone gets things wrong. The people I trust the most admit this fact and don’t hide from their mistakes. Clark Howard is one such person. He is a great example of how to get better by recognizing when you get something wrong.

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Stotting

Every so often on my blog I bring up signalling theory. I’ve mentioned it here, here, and a few other times. I am sure that Pam, Adam, and Noah would tell you that I bring up signalling theory as a part of around one third of all my conversations. There may be some truth to this. I am fascinated by the idea of so many of our actions and choices (from what we wear, to what or if we drive, to who we vote for) merely being a means of signalling that we are part of one group or not a part of another group. I am a free will kind of guy, but that doesn’t mean that I believe that the majority of our choices are actually volitional.

Today I listened to a podcast that talked about stotting within the animal kingdom, specifically with gazelles on African savannas. Stotting involves the animal springing high into the air, typically with all four legs in a “relatively stiff position and the back may be arched with the head pointing downward”. There are quit a few possible reasons for this behavior, one of which is what is called an “honest signal“. Honest signals “are traits, including structures and behaviours, that have evolved specifically because they change the behaviour of receivers in ways that benefit the signaller.” In this case, jumping very high says to any predators around that the animal is in good health and will not be an easy target. That is why it is worth it to the prey animal to waste precious time and energy randomly jumping high into the air, in hopes of convincing predators they it isn’t worth their effort to try to capture them.

Years ago Christianity Today came up with this wonderful Beards of Ministry chart.

Of course, we aren’t prey animals on an African savanna. We aren’t trying to signal predators that we will be able to outrun them. Therefore, I believe we need to consider the choices we make and why we are making them. Very often we are extending our limited resources to signal that we are part of one group or not a part of another group, for reasons that aren’t very good. Do I have Apple products because I actually like and/or need Apple products or is it just a way of signaling that I can afford them, even when I can’t? Do I use android products because I prefer them or is it just to signal that I am not one of those Apple people? Did I grow a beard because I wanted to or did I want to grow a beard because I like to think of myself as a neo-reformed evangelicals and beards are an identifying characteristics of neo-reformed evangelicals. Do I home-school my kids because it is best for my particular kids or am I doing this because homeschooling signals the social group to which I belong or signals that I am a “good Christian”? Do I read in coffee shops because I enjoy doing so or do I enjoy doing so because I want to be seen as someone who reads in coffee shops? Why did I buy a vehicle designed for extreme off-road activity when I will never take it off-road for fear that its paint will mess up?

Stotting and signalling are fine and effective for gazelles worried about predators. It can be a very useful expenditure of resources. Unfortunately, for us such expenditures often just put us in holes of our own making and separate us from other people who also bear the image of our Creator.

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Forgiveness & Rachael Denhollander

Forgiveness is not a passive act. The first step of forgiveness is actually recognizing and declaring that something is evil. After all, if an act isn’t wrong there isn’t really anything to forgive. It might be a cultural faux pas or a stupid action, but those things don’t need forgiveness because blunders in etiquette, clumsiness, and ignorance don’t purposefully hurt someone. Forgiveness on the other hand deals with actions that result in harm. This harm might be societal, relational, physical, or any number of other ways but it is still harm.

As a follower of Jesus I am called to forgive because and as I have been forgiven by God. “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). I believe the reason for this is not just for the restoration of relationship but also for the destruction of evil. Forgiveness defeats evil by not allowing evil to have the last word. Forgiveness starts with either the victim, the perpetrator, or both recognizing that real harm was done by the perpetrator. Evil was done and that needs to be acknowledged.

Unfortunately I know of which I speak in regards to being hooked.

This is why forgiveness isn’t just “letting someone off the hook” as we so often use the phrase. Actually I think often what people want in forgiveness is to forget that the “hook” is there at all and pretend like everything is ok. Unfortunately i have experienced a few hooks in my hand. Taking care of the issue is a very painful event. Forgetting the hook is there doesn’t solve the problem. Since there is a barb in the hook you have to push the hook forward through the skin. You can’t pull it back out because the barb will continue to catch your flesh as you pull it backward. So you push the point all the way through the skin and then cut the barb off so you can remove the hook. Removing the hook hurts like “a big dog”, but it is the only way that you’ll ever be free. That’s what true forgiveness does, it frees both the victim and the perpetrator from the evil that has been done and that only happens when the evil is “pushed” into the light. And boy does that hurt.

I think this is where we, as those needing forgiveness, often struggle. We fail to realize or don’t want to realize that an initial part of receiving forgiveness involves acknowledging the harm and evil of what we have done. We don’t want to actually confront what we have done as evil. We just want to be able to ignore it and have it forgotten. That’s not forgiveness though.

Forgiveness is removing the power of sin and part of that is done by acknowledging the action for what it was … evil. For the perpetrator this might sound like , “when I broke our family apart that was evil.” “When I hurt you that was evil.” For the victim it might sound like “what you did to our family is evil.” Those are powerful confessions that actually begin the process of freeing both the victim and the perpetrator from the evil that was done. That’s not a passive. That’s not being a doormat.

Yesterday we were given a good example of this during the sentencing hearing of Larry Nassar. Rachael Denhollander’s statement during the sentencing hearing part of Larry Nassar’s trial is a powerful example of calling evil what it is as a part of forgiveness. Her statement can be found here. I want to quote part of it:

Rachael Denhollander reading her statement. She is one brave person.

In our early hearings. you brought your Bible into the courtroom and you have spoken of praying for forgiveness. And so it is on that basis that I appeal to you. If you have read the Bible you carry, you know the definition of sacrificial love portrayed is of God himself loving so sacrificially that he gave up everything to pay a penalty for the sin he did not commit. By his grace, I, too, choose to love this way.

You spoke of praying for forgiveness. But Larry, if you have read the Bible you carry, you know forgiveness does not come from doing good things, as if good deeds can erase what you have done. It comes from repentance which requires facing and acknowledging the truth about what you have done in all of its utter depravity and horror without mitigation, without excuse, without acting as if good deeds can erase what you have seen this courtroom today.
If the Bible you carry says it is better for a stone to be thrown around your neck and you throw into a lake than for you to make even one child stumble. And you have damaged hundreds.
The Bible you speak carries a final judgment where all of God’s wrath and eternal terror is poured out on men like you. Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found. And it will be there for you.
I pray you experience the soul crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me — though I extend that to you as well.
Throughout this process, I have clung to a quote by C.S. Lewis, where he says, my argument against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust. But how did I get this idea of just, unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he first has some idea of straight. What was I comparing the universe to when I called it unjust?
Larry, I can call what you did evil and wicked because it was. And I know it was evil and wicked because the straight line exists. The straight line is not measured based on your perception or anyone else’s perception, and this means I can speak the truth about my abuse without minimization or mitigation. And I can call it evil because I know what goodness is. And this is why I pity you. Because when a person loses the ability to define good and evil, when they cannot define evil, they can no longer define and enjoy what is truly good.

Every now and then as a pastor and chaplain I talk with people who think forgiveness means pretending that their evil act didn’t happen. “I just want things to go back to the way they were.” But they can’t because, to use the hook analogy again, pretending the hook is gone doesn’t actually remove the hook. Such pretending doesn’t defeat the evil. Forgiveness does defeat evil by acknowledging what our actions were, selfish, hurtful, evil. Still for both the victim and the perpetrator it hurts like a big dog.

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The Radical Reformation & Authority – Part #2

Sunday night I posted the first part of this lengthy post (The Radical Reformation & Authority – Part #1).  In summary of that post, the Radical Reformation had a more expansive view of the priesthood of all believers that for some led to an extreme distrust of institutional authority and often led to the institutional authority distancing itself still further from the laity, which became a vicious cycle reinforcing itself. This may have taken place 500 years ago but its influence continues to shape us.

So let’s consider what I believe to be a modern example the distrust of institutional authority that has its roots located within the the Reformation. We have plenty of people who have randomly proclaimed themselves to be experts. Health “experts” whose only experience with health is that they were born with genetics that make them attractive to the majority of the population. Financial “experts” who have gone through several bankruptcies and proclaiming that they can teach us how to get rid of our debt and gain wealth, while failing to mention that the way they are removing their debt and building their wealth is by us buying their books and attending their lectures.  Medical “experts” whose education has come from the University of Google which can be anything from great things like Google Scholar to stupid things like stupid.com. We have any number of other fields in which people proclaim themselves “experts” because they can since we don’t trust institutions.

So often the reaction we see from the institutional authorities to people turning to these self-proclaimed “experts” is a closing in of the authorities to further separate themselves from the laity in their field. Often instead of listen to the real fears and questions of the people they serve the institutional authorities turn a blind eye to those they are supposed to be serving and rely on positional authority to buttress their positions, rather than listening to their clients who are being woo’d by the self-proclaimed “experts” and eve worse sometimes outright charlatans.

In my opinion, a fair number of multi-level marketing companies (I’m not saying all MLMs) are entirely based off of these two phenomenons of the mistrust of institutional authority and the institutions responding by reinforcing their positional authority and credentials. I’ll use medical science as an example. First, convince your prospective client that they can’t trust what medical science is telling them because their physicians, hospitals, pharmacists, and others are only in it for the money. Second, convince your client that you are actually an expert and more scientific than their physicians, hospitals, pharmacists, and others because you took some weekend course, and yet somehow you aren’t actually just in it for the money. Finally, watch as your prospective clients bring this information to their physicians, hospitals, pharmacists, and others who respond by dismissing the client’s concerns and chasing the client back to you.

You can probably think of a few examples that fit in here. I can think of some examples of people who I wouldn’t trust taking care of Pam’s cats (which wouldn’t take a lot of trust because their cats and therefore no great loss 😁) who have become “experts” and try to convince others turn to them for advice on very important matters. These very same “experts” often talk a good game on but don’t actually live out in their lives.

My saddest personal example comes for when I was working a side-job years ago at a store that Pam to refers to as a yuppy-hippy store. What Pam meant about this was that all the products the store sold where earthy and organic, while also being costly so they signaled that you were wealthy because you could afford them. I would fill in at this store a few hours every now and then. Mostly I read because the store was very rarely busy and didn’t have a lot of stocking or other work. Anyhow one day a lady who was obviously weak from ill health came into the store and straight forwardly said to me, “I need to know which essential oils cure cancer.” I was dumbstruck as she told me that she had reached a point where her physician had told her there weren’t many other options for treatment and didn’t respond to well to this poor lady when she started sharing alternatives with him that she had found on Google. She was so desperate she had entered a store she didn’t know and was willing to trust a clerk she had never met.

By the way, friends and acquaintances who sell essential oils (I don’t think there are many of y’all) I have nothing against y’all’s essential oils or you selling them. I think essential oils often smell great.

Some people intentionally and unintentionally take advantage of the type of desperation and mistrust that the woman in my story had. The old-fashion “snake oil salesmen” understood how to use our tendency in America not to trust institutional authority. Our modern versions understand this also. Usually it just cost us poor saps a little money and time. Sometimes it costs us much more.

Of course, questioning institutional authority can and very often is a VERY good thing. There is a great deal of institutional authority that needs to be questioned.  The Reformation proved this. Today there are still tons of examples of credential authorities using institutional authority as a way to shut up or literally abuse the ones that they are supposed to be helping. Pam and I were talking tonight about some of the crimes that have been committed recently by people who had organizational power. Evil has been done by people being controlled by individuals using institutional authority as their cover. Larry Nassar and the abuse he inflicted on so many young ladies involved in USA Gymnastics is just the latest example of institutional authority being used as a means of evil. Questioning the positional authority of credentialed individuals in these institutions helps to keep us all honest and safe.

Another example that I want to consider comes about when those in authority react against “the laity” bringing in information to them. Using medical science again it is an important truth that a patient is the expert of his/her own body. Unfortunately some physicians (institutional experts) fear this. Patients may bring them information they found from good sources and bad sources. Often it doesn’t matter whether the sources are good or bad science. The very act of someone questioning their authority is beyond the pale, so they shut it down.  Pam’s subglottic stenosis journey is an example of this (you can, and should, read about her journey here). “I’m the physician and I know best” is not a good answer when a patient is bring questions about their own treatment. When credentialed experts rely on positional authority rather than earned authority terrible things frequently happen. Ironically, shutting down the patient oft encourages the mistrust of the physician’s positional authority and encourages the patient to go to quacks who will actually listen to the patient. As I said this thing is often a self-reinforcing cycle.

There is so much about the Radical Reformation for which I am thankful. Especially their expansive view of the priesthood of all believers. I am very thankful for the questioning of institutions and the power they can claim in our society. We grew our fear of organizational power from the influence of the Radical Reformation’s extreme view of the priesthood of all believers. It may have started with the church but it has long since expanded into all the institutions in our lives. There is good to that but they is also danger. It creates a very fertile soil in which quacks and self-proclaimed experts grow. Sometimes this leads to serious harm. During the Radical Reformation it led to some of the best and worst of faith. My faith tradition wouldn’t exist without the Radical Reformation. There was also some very seriously messed up faith practices that came out of the Radical Reformation. The best and the worst often have the same source. The same is true today. We may be five centuries and an continent away from them but they still influence us.

SIDE NOTE – I am generally not a fan of long blog posts. I think part of this is because I have more difficult proofing them (already one of my weaknesses) in the longer format. I apologize for how long these two posts have been and, therefore, how many grammatical mistakes I am sure are found within the posts. Of course, this is just a hobby for me so you should stop complaining about my grammar. 🙂

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The Radical Reformation & Authority – Part #1

Right now I am watching the Vikings/Eagles NFC Championship game fearing that I will have no team to pull for in the Super Bowl (How can I pull for the Vikings or the Patriots). Therefore, to keep my mind off of the possibility of having lots of people over to our home to watch a game of two teams that I really don’t like I thought I would post about an area of influence from the Radical Reformation that I see all around us.

Before I begin I will paraphrase and mashup Amos 7:14 and Dan Carlin and say that I am neither a historian, nor the son of a historian, but I am a fan of history. In other words, I am speaking very much as a lay person here. I will leave it up to Rob Harper to correct my errors in discussing the influence of elements of history and Kirby Goidel in my brief “rabbit chasing” into political theory. So I will begin.

When we talk about “The Reformation” we are actually talking about three interlocked reformations that began in the 16th century. The three different reformations are:

  • The Magisterial Reformation – made of of Lutheran and Reformed thought and supported by the princes in their areas. The Magisterial Reformation consisted of thinkers who said to themselves “The Roman Catholic Church is beyond reform and therefore we will separate replacing the Roman Catholic elites with our elites”.
  • The Catholic Counter Reformation – obviously made up of Roman Catholics. The Catholic Counter Reformation may have saved the Roman Catholic Church. A lot of people in power agreed with the arguments of the Magisterial Reformation and the Roman Catholic Church began to loose a large number of people. So RC thinkers took this opportunity and reformed the practices and various theology that supported those corrupt practices. The reforms led to a Catholic resurgence from a pending collapse and the RCC kept its elites in power in many places and maintained support form many monarchs and members of the second estate.
  • The Radical Reformation – made up .primarily of thinkers who thought that the Magisterial Reformation didn’t go far enough in following what was written in the Bible. So the RR went further … often much further. This is why we have the saying “The Catholics hated the Protestants, the Protestants hated the Catholics, and EVERYBODY hated the Radicals.”

Of the three reformation movements the Radical Reformers held the most extreme view of the Priesthood of All Believers and this led to them often rejecting almost all institutional religious authority. In my opinion, the best parts and the worst parts of the Reformation come out of the Radical Reformation. I am a big fan of the RR even though things like Münster rebellion came through it. The best and worst often come through the same thought.

The Radical Reformation’s rejection of institutional, especially religious institutional,  authority was a threat to the stability of all the city states and kingdoms in Europe. If you could say that anyone, regardless of pedigree, could interpret scripture and it might be as good, or even better, than the interpretation of your priest, bishop, or pope it wouldn’t be a much bigger step to start thinking that anyone could make political decisions as good as your sheriff, mayor, prince, or king. Ultimately this step was taken and democratic republicans run by ordinary people replaced the “divine right to rule” of monarchies. Thank you Radical Reformation.

Like I wrote earlier, I believe the best and worst often come through the same thoughts. One of the great things that came out of the RR was the questioning of authority. So much of the institutional authority, both sacred and secular, at the time was corrupt and desperately needed to be questioned. The authorities served themselves and not the people. The “priesthood of all believers”, as understood by the radicals, led to ordinary people realizing they could think and act and this led to the correction of many of the abuses. Of course, it also led to a couple of not so good results also. In my opinion two examples of the bad result were:

  1. The institutional authority that didn’t reform on its own had a tendency to dig in and really force institutional authority until it was itself forced to reform.
  2. Any “Joe Blow” who could string a couple of sentences together could suddenly reject the institutional authority and proclaim him/herself an expert and authority for other people to follow.

Both of these things can be very destructive and often feed upon one another. Any “Joe Blow” being able to proclaim him/herself an authority often leads to the mistaken belief that just because everyone has an equal right to interpret scripture and make choices based on those interpretations that therefore everyone’s interpretation and acts based on those interpretation are equally good. This can and has led to some seriously out there interpretations and actions. The institutional authority often reacts to these “Joe Blows” by pulling inward on itself and excluding anyone who doesn’t fit their criteria or have the correct credentials. This led to and still does lead to the authority separating still further from the non-experts. A the time the clergy separated further from the laity, making the divisions even greater than they already were. Which then fed into people being even more open to the self-proclaim “Joe Blow” experts who were not separating themselves from the ordinary people.  People don’t usually follow wackos when tthey feel like they are actually being engaged by the institutions of which they have long been a part. And the cycle fed on itself and still does.

I will separate this post here because I don’t like writing very long posts and this is now one such post. Tomorrow I will write about the subject that this historical discussion is meant to point toward. For you see, I believe that so much of the danger of the separation of medical science and alternative medicine has its roots in the inherent distrust of institutional authority that can be traced back to understandings of the great doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. The experts don’t listen to the laity because of fear and anger at the “Joe Blows” and this leads to more people listening to the random self-proclaim “Joe Blow” experts.

SIDE NOTE – The Eagles won! This means that I now have someone to cheer for in the Super Bowl. Yeah!

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Speaking Versus Preaching

Today I spoke at an all-staff meeting for one of the companies for which I chaplain.  I was asked to speak on one of their core values (they would call it a family value), “open and honest communication”. So I presented on effectively communicating using Aristotle’s model of communication. I personally tend to think that people generally better remember and implement presentations that have humor in them so I wrote out my presentation in a manner that would try to get people laughing as we talked together about effective and unprofitable communication. Thus I used big printed heads of Aristotle and Justin Bieber to walk through the model (Sender, Medium, Receiver).

I believe the presentation went well for two reasons. First, because I communicated in the manner I had hoped to communicate all the points I was hoping to address. Second, because a large number of the team members told me how much they enjoyed my lecture. I am thankful for the second reason but I was also surprised by how I was caught off guard by  being told how much someone enjoyed the presentation.

I am used to preaching most weeks but people respond to a sermon different than to other presentations. I don’t usually have someone tell me that they “enjoyed” a sermon. They might say how grateful they were for a message, or how it specifically related to their life, or they might add a point to the message that relates in another manner. If you are at a traditional church it wouldn’t be surprising to have a lot of people tell you that it “was a good sermon pastor” but they aren’t going to say they enjoyed it. That’s just not what you usually say about a message. So it threw me off.

I believe I generally preach in a manner that is at least not completely snooze worthy for most of the people listening. Still, when I preach people usually express whether or not the message was meaningful for them not just that they enjoyed the message. Meaning, not enjoyment, is what I am used to hearing about.

Which is why hearing people say that “enjoyed” the presentation threw me off at first. I was grateful that they enjoyed the message, after all who wants to be told “I really didn’t enjoy your presentation.” Still I had a small knew jerk reaction every time they said the phrase to me. Seriously, I wanted to correct them and say “no what matters was this meaningful for your life.” That was my own insecurities and thankfully my mom raised me to be polite. So I simply said “Thank you, I appreciate that you enjoyed it.”

SIDE NOTE – If you are wondering what’s up with the lady’s face on the left of the photo I blurred it to protect the innocent.

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Whoever Has Ears to Hear

At lunch today Adam and Noah were talking with Pam and me about the music of Kendrick Lamar. I know who Kendrick Lamar is but I don’t really know any of his music. I do know that both my boys really enjoy his music. So we listened to a few of his songs while we ate some wonderful pesto chicken sandwiches that Pam made for lunch and talked about what they liked at his music.

One of the things that brought up several times was how often one of songs would sound like it was about one thing when it was actually about the exact opposite. For example, here’s an article talking about his song “Swimming Pools (Drank)” being treated as a drinking  song even though it is actually an anti-drinking song. Apparently he does this with whole albums. I say apparently because I’m not cool enough to know. It reminded me of The Police song “Every Breath You Take” being used as a love song when it is actually about a stalker. Instead of a love song, it is a VERY dark song.

I was really enjoying the whole discussion until Adam said “It kind of fits in with all the times Jesus said ‘Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear‘ and how quite often we think we hear one thing but it is because we aren’t actually listening to what is really being communicated.” I love my kids but I do feel inadequate when they come up with better illustrations of Jesus’s words than I do. ARGH!

Obviously I will be using this in sermons in the future and will not be giving credit to Adam. 😉

SIDE NOTE – The Saints/Vikings games ending was absurd.

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The Imago Dei Calls for the Rejection of Racism

Every now and then at Tapestry I talk about my friend and former “thread” Joel. Joel studied soil science at UWSP. Some people may use the saying “as dull as dirt” but Joel finds dirt fascinating and when he speaks about soil I realize that I suddenly find soil fascinating too. He believes (rightly so) that soil is amazing and therefore he expects to find interesting stuff in soil and looks for that which is interesting.

I post fairly often on this blog concerning the Imago Dei. Genesis describes humanity as being created in the image of God, the Imago Dei (Genesis 1:26). If you are human then you bear the image of God. That image might be bent or smudged or scarred but underneath those scars, dirt, and deformities is the image of our Creator.

Jesus tells a story of people doing and not doing things for Him in the 25th chapter of Matthew. In the parable that Jesus is telling the King, representing the Son of Man (i.e. Jesus), says the following to those who have helped Him.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. (34b-36)

Why were they helping Jesus by helping “the least of these brothers and sisters” of Jesus? Well because they were brothers and sisters of Him because they were image bearers. To see the image of God in them and to react to that image was to see and serve God. This is also why He curses those who do not help Him.

Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. (v. 41b-43)

The image of God was right in front of them, they didn’t see it, and they didn’t respond  to the Imago Dei. Therefore, they have turned their backs on God Himself.

This is why racism has to be called what it is – evil. It is looking at someone who bears the Imago Dei and ignoring that image by considering that person as less than. When we look at others we should see our Father and our Brother Jesus because they bear image of the triune God. Regardless of skin color, culture, citizenship, or language, we are all image bearers.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that all of us live a life that reflects the image we bear.

So let me get back to my friend Joel. Since, he is looking for amazing stuff when he looks at soil he sees it for the amazing, life-encouraging substance that it is. He then helps other people to see soil as amazing. I’m not trying to put words in Joel’s mouth but I believe that if he saw some one seriously damaging soil he might say them them, “Hey, don’t treat soil like that because it is amazing and we depend upon it.”  When you see soil as an amazing, life encouraging substance how could you not respond?

As a follower of Christ I should be recognizing the image of my God in those around me and responding to the Imago Dei. When I see or hear someone treat another image bearer as less than I have to stand up for that person because he is an image bearer. “Don’t you see the image of our Creator right in front of you? That person right there bears the Imago Dei! To treat her as less than is to insult and hurt the One Whose image she bears! That’s evil! Your actions are evil!” When we see someone hurting the image of the God you love how could we not respond?

Discussing immigration is not a racist thing, but immigration discussions can be turned into a excuse to deny the image of God in people who are different than us. Such discussions can be used to declare others as less than us. My friend Scott, who is an immigration attorney, often posts on his Facebook page concerning how messed up the current immigration system can be. Improving the immigration system is a good thing. Treating those made in the image of our Creator as less than is evil. Those of us who claim to be followers of Christ should constantly be focusing our eyes to see the image of our Lord in those around us and we should  fight for the sanctity of life for ALL who were created in His image.

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Word Time Traveler & Living Faith

If you want an interesting link for wasting some time you might enjoy Time Traveler by Meriam-Webster. I first heard about this link via the podcast 99% Invisible. If you haven’t listened to 99% Invisible before I would recommend you checking into the podcast. Anyhow Time Traveler is a feature of the online version of the Meriam-Webster dictionary that lists the year of the first occurrence of various popular, and at one time popular, words. Language is a living thing and thus constantly changing. Words die, are born, and change meaning throughout time as we and our culture do also.

Time Traveler shows just a sample of words first used within certain years, but looking through the years you can see modern trends and values take shape. You can also see older trends and values that we have moved away from, both for the good and bad. We call languages that don’t change “dead languages” and in reality at least our understanding of them continue to change as we discover more concerning word meanings and how they were used. Koine Greek (the Greek with which the New Testament is written) has been a living language since around 300 AD (It was used as an official language in Byzantine for much longer but let’s not go there) but our understanding of Koine continues to grow and improve.

“Dead languages”  come from dead cultures while living languages come from living cultures. Living languages and cultures change because the circumstances and environments they are located within change. This doesn’t mean rejecting our core values, rather it means letting our core values expand into areas that we hadn’t considered at before. Our country’s Founding Fathers wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” at a time when they had a very wrong understanding of who a man was and wasn’t, and didn’t understand that it should be “that all people are created equal”. The value was already there but our understanding of it changed in a very good manner.

The same should be true with our faith. Our understanding of the core of our faith should expand and grow. That doesn’t mean the actual core of our faith changes but our understanding of that core changes. It should widen into areas that we had never considered before. This isn’t change for change’s sake. It is allowing our faith to grow. If my faith had a “time traveler” feature and I could go back and look at some of the things that I believed when I first became a follower of Jesus I know that I would laugh and possibly cry about those beliefs. I believed Jesus is Lord back then but I didn’t have as broad of an understanding of what that meant. There are changes that can lead us away from the core of our faith, but that doesn’t mean we should avoid change. Instead it means that we have to constantly be making sure that our understanding of and, more importantly, our love of Jesus enlarges into more of our lives.

Living things change. Living faith does too.