Why a Casino is Bad for Muskegon

A casino is a bad idea for Muskegon or anywhere else. The most common claim in support of a casino, that a casino would boost the local economy, is only partly correct. According to an article in the Washington Post (hardly a conservative voice), while jobs are created, the increase in employment opportunities is measurable, but not earthshaking. While the data cited in the article are not fresh, one has no reason to suspect that the conditions surrounding a Muskegon casino would be any different.

There is a less obvious down-side to casino jobs. First, many of the jobs will be taken by workers at other jobs, destabilizing the workforce in general. Also, the type of jobs that are created are substantially non-productive. By that I mean that nothing is produced for the benefit of others except entertainment. A factory makes goods that people can use; a restaurant feeds people; an insurance company or bank provides useful financial services. A casino adds nothing to the economy; it merely shifts dollars from gamblers’ pockets to the tribes’ coffers.

Some argue that a casino would generate tax revenue. According to the Washington Post article, “[Indian] Casinos aren't even a particularly good source of tax revenue. [A University of Maryland report] notes that a number of studies have found that Indian casinos cannibalize business at nearby restaurants and bars, and in so doing actually reduce state tax revenue.” Even Uncle Sam gets left out of the take since Indian casinos don’t pay corporate income tax.

Indian casinos do participate in revenue sharing in lieu of paying taxes, but it is not clear that they fully compensate local governments. A report in MLive about the Little River Casino in Manistee found that, “The tribe's forked over $30,479,814 in revenue sharing to Manistee area governments since it opened a casino there in 1999.” This is about $1.8 million per year on average. Sounds like a lot until you consider this: “In Manistee, local revenue sharing board uses the funds to reimburse local units of governments for costs due to the casino -- i.e. law enforcement and emergency services -- and to provide a payment in lieu of property tax revenue. Any additional funds are divided by the local governments and have been used for a variety of projects”

A few people have said that casinos are a benefit to the many underprivileged Native Americans in the associated tribes. An article in a Native American media outlet questions this premise. “The idea that money just flows freely into Indian people’s hands is pure fantasy. Approximately 72 tribes give per capita payments from gaming revenue, ranging from hundreds of dollars annually to many thousands. Very few distribute large sums…. Actually, a 2008 report finds that tribal leaders don’t like to disburse cash, contending ‘large per capita payments lead to citizen dependence on tribal governments, undermine the work ethic, and discourage young citizens from finishing their educations.’”

Even if there are some benefits to a community from a casino, the biggest reason not to have one is social. The Washington Post article concludes, “Casinos also lead to a plethora of social ills, including increased substance abuse, mental illness and suicide, violent crime, auto theft and larceny, and bankruptcy. The latter three all increased by 10 percent in communities that allowed gambling.” Prostitution and sex-trafficking may also increase with the casino’s influence. Although there is little statistical arrest evidence, a survey conducted by UNLV found that, “Those classified as problem gamblers were, on average, … 260% more likely to hire a prostitute…. [and] 17% more likely than the average survey respondent to have paid for sex in the past year.”

As a Christian under a representative-type government, I recognize that I only have one vote when it comes to any policy decision. In the Muskegon casino decision, I don’t think I had any direct say whatsoever. However, as a Christian I do have the responsibility to be salt and light. I am taking this opportunity to say that I believe a casino in Muskegon will spread poison and darkness as opposed to salt and light. If there is anything more that can be done to stop a casino from being built here, I believe we should make every effort to do so. For Heaven’s sake.

I Asked God

I asked for relief from pain, and God said, “I allow the pain so that you will lean closer to me.”

I asked for protection from loss, and God said, “I allow loss so that you will understand how I feel when a lost soul slips into eternity.”

I asked for my desires, and God said, “I provide for your needs; I allow your desires to be unfulfilled so that you might pray more earnestly for the truly needy.”

I asked for prosperity, and God said, “Learn to be content with what you have, and you will come to know true prosperity in your soul.”

I asked how to love my enemies, and God said, “Love them as I do, and forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I asked for peace on earth, and God said, “As much as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”

I asked why bad things happen, and God said, “Don’t concern yourself with “why” questions; ask “what” questions: what can I learn; what can I do to help; what have I done to stop this?

I asked to know the purpose of my life, and God said, “Live justly, love kindness, and walk humbly in my presence.”

I asked God to change the troublesome people around me, and God said, “You need to change how you see them and love them as I do.”

I asked God to come closer to me, and God said, “If I seem distant, it is not I who moved away.”

Beware of Bowlegged Politicians

And the horse they rode in on. I suspect most of my readers are tired of anything to do with politics at this moment, just having finished the mid-term election cycle with its endless campaign commercials on TV and billboards and yard signs everywhere. In spite of the fatigue, I am going to rant about the sorry state of political “debate” in this country. Again. (See What's Wrong With Politics in America) I saw an evaluation of an interview of a newly minted New York politician that was so shot full of erroneous statements that I nearly became livid.

If the title of this piece has you stumped, it is drawn from the root meaning of the word “prevarication” which literally means bowed legs. Why does the physical condition of bowed legs serve as a metaphor for lying? Dictionary.com lists synonyms: “divergence from the right course, transgression… duplicity, collusion or a stepping out of line.” They also say it meant “to walk crookedly.” I like to think it may come from the idea that a weak set of legs compares to a weak set of facts on which a false stands.

There is no shortage of those who “walk crookedly” in the realm of politics. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and Donna Brasile are joined by the newly-minted Democrat representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York. What struck me this time was the utterly ridiculous nature of Ocasio-Cortez’s fabricated facts. The situation was all the more distressing given her college degrees in economics and international relations from Boston University. She is a poster child (age 29) for the working-class-kid-who-wants-to-make-a-difference crowd.

Ocasio-Cortez may also be proof that our higher education system is broken since she obviously has no clue how our economy works despite her degree in economics. If it’s not that, then she is one of the bowlegged politicians. Her story is so appealing, and she is so enthusiastic about her cause that I want her to be genuine. But the only way she can be excused for her stunning misstatements of the facts is to say she is ignorant. That, or she is a liar.

I must pause to say that I am not implying that only women lie or that only Democrats lie. There are plenty of male politicians from both parties who also walk crookedly. However, given the huge Democrat bias in our major news outlets, one supposes that any conservative liar would be treated to days if not weeks of media treatment. You don’t see much of that. True, they tried, “Bush lied; people died.” That charge was proven false when subsequent revelations of fact showed President Bush may have had erroneous intelligence reports, but that he acted truthfully with what he thought was true.

This brings me to the discussion of the essence of truth. Someone has said that perception is reality. This is correct only if one conceives of reality as a personal possession. The reality I possess under this scenario may not be the reality you possess. If one believes in absolute truth, one truth that is true for all, as Christians must, then perception is not reality. By definition, truth is that which comports with reality. That which is true for me must also be true for you. The facts must agree. Experience must prove it. (For more of my take on truth see  “True Lies,” “Liars Figure” and “The Truth about the Truth”)

People like Ocasio-Cortez are apparently disconnected from reality either by choice or by ignorance. The same distinction must have been apparent to Jesus when He reserved His harshest criticism for the hypocrites of His day. (Hypocrisy is a lie with legs; it walks crooked.) He told the Pharisees they were liars born of the father of lies. (John 8:44) Since Jesus was The Truth (John 1:14 and 14:6), lies are especially heinous to Him. Notice that He included liars among the vilest of sinners in one list. (Revelation 22:15)

I’d like to think that I hate lies mostly because I am being conformed into the image of the Truth. I’d also like to think that my fellow-Christians will keep their truth-detectors warmed up as we enter a season of shared power in the US Congress. There will be many more episodes like the shameful one that sparked this rant. As disciples of the One who is Truth, we must take a stand for truth. We must hold our representatives’ feet to the fire. Maybe the heat will un-bow their legs.

Christians are Responsible to be Politically Engaged

Daryl Fulp, a missionary in Guatemala and writer for Church Leaders, wrote an article on election day last week titled, “It’s Not Our ‘Christian Responsibility’ to Be Politically Engaged.” I am going to disagree with Mr. Fulp, so if you have had enough politics for the season (who hasn’t), click elsewhere.

Fulp’s position is that Jesus was apolitical, and he further suggests that the New Testament nowhere encourages political involvement. I will debate each point. First, Fulp’s examples of Jesus’ interaction with the civil systems of His day do not make the author’s point in my opinion. He correctly points out that the first century Jews were expecting (hoping for) a political savior. They hated the Roman occupation and dreamed of a military figure on a white charger delivering them from Rome’s bondage. Fulp is also correct that Jesus declined the role of political savior.

However, Jesus did not teach, as Fulp suggests, that his followers refrain from all political activity. On the contrary, the exact opposite can be inferred from the Scripture passage Fulp recites. Matthew records an incident when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus in seditious sentiments in the 22 chapter of his Gospel. They asked if they should pay taxes to Caesar, and Jesus famously said yes. Because Jesus also commanded more spiritual dues as well, Fulp thinks Jesus’ words forbid political activity.

I think the very point Jesus was making was that civil authority is owed their demands. The first century Jews had little or no right to participate in their government, but we do. We have both the duty to pay taxes and the right to enter the process which assigns those taxes. In a participatory government such as ours, part of rendering unto Caesar is giving service time to make the wheels turn. When Paul added to taxes due with, “revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed,” I believe he opened the door to political activity in our generation. It seems disrespectful and dishonoring to decline to participate in a system that is built on citizen participation.

In the last few weeks, the Scripture has been opened to me revealing that Jesus applied political language to the most intimate relationship He had – the Church. I recently posted, “What is the Church” detailing how the very word translated “church” (ecclesia) was a political term in Jesus’ day. I wrote, “In the Greek culture, for several centuries leading up to the coming of Christ, ecclesia referred the council of men who participated in the ruling government. This assembly made the rules that governed the actions of the citizens.”

The ecclesia, as the Romans practiced it and the disciples understood it, was a group of people who left their home culture and entered a conquered region with the express purpose of transforming it into a colony that reflected Roman culture, language and philosophy. The ecclesia took over where the Roman army left off. The army conquered the land; the ecclesia transformed the people. Jesus knew He was about to storm the “Gates of Hell,” and He was telling His disciples that they were going to continue His work.

I believe the purpose of the church, as Jesus instituted it, is to influence a “foreign” culture – the world – with the principles and properties of the “home” culture – heaven. The prayer Jesus once gave as an example says, “Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” [Note italics] The church commission is to establish Kingdom culture on earth. If that is not political, I don’t know what political is.

Mr. Fulp may be over-reacting to the over-zealous “Moral Majority” mindset that pervaded evangelical thinking some years ago. There was a false hope, perhaps even an un-Scriptural hope that Christians could take over the US government and make America a Christian nation. Fulp is right that our priority is to make disciples, not to remake government. Fulp is wrong, however, to suggest that Christians should not be involved politically. Any Christian who is moved to become engaged in the process that makes the rules can help influence other rule-makers to lean toward a system that is more, rather than less, conducive to Christian society.

I am blessed to live in a place where state and US legislative districts have Christian lawmakers. With their help, the forces of Lansing and Washington DC have done a few things right recently. Although I held my nose when voting for President Trump (see “Vote Anyway” and “Politics Stinks”), I am pleased to see that his administration has turned back many of the anti-religious-freedom policies of the former administration. Mike Pence had a similar effect during his term as governor of Indiana. Voting for these men was my duty, and it is my pleasure to see that America is more open to Christian activity because of their efforts.

I respect Mr. Fulp’s emphasis on Jesus call to another Kingdom not of this world. However, being a missionary to a politically charged region like Guatemala, Fulp must see that our call is not just to escape from the world, but to transform the world’s culture in any way we can. If escape was what our Heavenly Father had had in mind, I think salvation would have meant instant translation out of this world into Heavenly places. He did not intend that; we are here to bring His Kingdom to Earth. Let’s be about the Father’s business.

Open Letter to Any Woman I Might Meet

I will apologize before I say anything. I am an old-fashioned guy, and I am likely to say something inappropriate when we meet. I tend to say what I am thinking without considering how it might be misunderstood. I have always thought that honesty and openness in relationships were good character traits, but I have been told that sometimes I should be less honest, less open. Apparently, I open my mouth and my thoughts fall out and get me into trouble.

I am bringing this into the open (there’s that openness again) because of a recent occurrence that echoes an earlier discussion I had with my very Millennial daughter. Here’s the back-story. Both of my daughters have worked as servers in restaurants at one time. Their experience caused me to understand the rough conditions servers sometimes have and the low hourly wage they earn. One result of this knowledge is that I tip generously unless my server has apparently ignored me or otherwise provided poor service on his or her part.

The other common result of my familiarity with the challenges of the restaurant work environment is that I am usually very friendly, helpful, courteous, kind, and sometimes humorous with my server. Here is where the problem comes: my very Millennial daughter once accused me of flirting with our waitress. I was not consciously doing so, but my daughter saw it as such. Since my wife was also at the table at the time, I asked her if she agreed with our daughter’s assessment. She did. She agreed that sometimes my “friendliness” might be mistaken for flirting.

If I were to flirt with a waitress, I am not so brassy as to do it in front of my wife and daughter, which was my defense to them: I was not intending anything but to make a little light spot in what could be a heavy day for the poor waitress. My two daughters’ experiences taught me that there are plenty of customers who will be rude, crude, cheap and downright mean to their server. I don’t want to be that person; I want to do the opposite. The problem is that in today’s over-sexualized, harassment-sensitive society, a kind or complimentary word spoken innocently can be misconstrued.

I think I may have stumbled into the same tar pit in my part-time job in retail the other day. On Halloween, employees were allowed to dress in costumes. One young lady I had not previously met came to work as what I would call a witch or sorceress. Her costume and make-up were really stunning: purple hair, hat and dress right out of some fantasy tale, and a face transformed cosmetically. I complimented her outfit, asking if she was the good witch, Glenda, from the Wizard of Oz. She corrected me saying she was a character from a tale I do not remember.

Fast-forward a couple days and I saw “Glenda” (names changed to protect the innocent) in her regular attire and make-up. I made some comment about how nice she looked without the purple hair and weird face paint. I think she chuckled; I don’t honestly remember, but I walked away wondering if I had just flirted unintentionally. I did not get summoned to the office, nor have I been served with papers naming me in a harassment suit. I think I am safe.

The problem is that now I am especially self-conscious when I pass Glenda on the sales floor or see her in the break room. I ask myself if she is seeing me as that creepy old guy who flirted with her after Halloween. It’s silly, I know. But having spent years walking on eggshells in the academic world where one accusation by a female can destroy a male teacher’s career, I may be the one over-reacting.

It is an especially sad situation when so many people, not just young women, could use a kind word or a compliment. I don’t know how to talk to women anymore; actually, I never did; it’s just more dangerous to be awkward these days. Jesus’ words to his disciples came to mind in this situation: “Be wise as serpents but harmless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) Linking serpents and women may create a poor allusion, but the point seems to be that I should be careful what I say lest my dove-like intentions are received as the serpent’s hiss.

The easy solution to my dilemma is just to keep my mouth shut. However, there are plenty of other Bible verses that commend words of encouragement, random acts of kindness as some have called it. I can imagine refraining from any comments related to appearance. That’s a no-brainer. If I tell a woman that I am impressed with the way she handled a tough situation, might she think I am building a bridge for a pick-up line? Maybe I am just paranoid. Maybe I have absorbed too much of the sexualization that is everywhere these days.

If I may make a suggestion to women offended by certain male approaches, don’t make a complimentary remark from an old guy into something it may not be. In fact, even if a guy is angling for a date with you, that can be seen as a compliment too; somebody thinks enough of you to want to spend time with you. Lustful leering, catcalls and whistles have always been despised by women, I know. But maybe you could even receive them as clumsy compliments from guys without taste or manners. They’re still compliments. You can’t always control what a guy says to you, but you can control how you receive it. Am I wrong?

Ask the Right Question.

Yesterday I attended the memorial service for a young man who died from a drug overdose. One of the speakers suggested that given the deceased’s religious belief, one might ask why God allowed such an evil to occur. The speaker suggested that a better question might be why anything good ever happens given the fallen state of Creation and the deplorable condition of humanity in general.

Believers and unbelievers alike wonder why a supposedly good God would allow bad things to happen. Both camps will sometimes suggest that the Bible has been misinterpreted, and either God is not good, or that He is not powerful enough to stop the spread of evil. A true reading of the Bible does not support either one of these options; God is good, and He is all-powerful. This leaves the believer with an unanswered question.

The unbeliever is really asking a question that has no meaning if he honestly thinks there is no god. Since most unbelievers, and sadly, some believers, think that Creation is a myth, and that the material universe came into existence as the result of time and chance, asking a moral question is illogical. If there is no design to the universe, no moral imperative behind it, there is no such thing as good or evil.

Creatures that evolved through eons of time and chance mutation from ever lower life forms would not have any moral qualities. When a worm dies under to hoof of a passing cow, there is no question of evil; it’s just life. When a squirrel is snatched from a tree and eaten by a hawk, there is no question of evil; it’s just life. When a baby seal dies from exposure because he was separated from his mother, there is no question of evil; it’s just life. When tens of thousands of people die in the aftermath of a tsunami, there is no question of evil; it’s just life.

The other side of the coin for the unbeliever is the existence of fortuitous circumstances. (Notice I did not call them “good.”) If the cow misses the worm, or the hawk goes hungry, or the seal reunites with his mother, or someone escapes the raging ocean, there is no question of good; it’s just the time for chance to allow another day of life. A true agnostic or atheist cannot ask a moral question because it reveals a hidden belief that there is a standard of good and evil that can only come from an outside source.

Granted, the unbeliever may propose that society creates moral laws as a function of a higher level of intellectual evolution. This is an unsatisfactory explanation since there is a core morality that is evident in all societies in all eras that bespeaks an underlying code that preceded the supposed evolution of the human intellect. The framers of the US Constitution recognized this when they supported their cause based on certain unalienable rights drawn from what was then known as natural law, or as they believed, rights granted by a Creator: sanctity of life, freedom of operation, and property rights. I would add that familial loyalty is another moral quality also evident everywhere across the ages.

The real question is why any moral standards exist which incorporate the concept of good and evil. The unbeliever may resist an explanation that proposes a moral being of higher power than humans, but the believer realizes that therein lies the only acceptable answer. God created everything and declared it good. It was only after the creatures He created rebelled that evil entered the equation. The operative question then becomes, why God allowed rebellion. The easy answer is that humans were created with the freedom to choose not to obey. This is necessary if freedom of will is to mean anything. If His creatures had no possibility of disobedience, obedience to His standards would be meaningless.

Now I am ready to go back to the better question posed by the speaker at yesterday’s memorial service: why do we experience moral good in this fallen world? The answer is easy for a believer: God gives grace. There is something called general grace which provides rain for both the just and the unjust, the believer and the unbeliever. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat all come from the gracious provision of the Creator God. The concept of Earth as the “privileged planet” makes it clear that the very existence of life is only possible because of multiple exact “coincidences” which support life here. General grace is available to all.

There is another kind of grace, specific grace, which is only available to some. This grace is given as a gift to those who believe in the Giver, to those who place their trust in His graciousness. The family and friends of the deceased were told they would see him again because of the promise that those who trust God will spend eternity with him after life on Earth is over. It is tragic that the young man we were remembering yesterday had his life cut short (by our measure, not God’s) due to the evil that consumed him. That young man died struggling with an imperfection; he is now perfect.

That is the promise of grace. Imperfect people (the only kind that exist) are promised perfection on the other side of the grave. There is no sting in death because it is the door to perfection. There is no victory in the grave because the All-Gracious One overcame the grave and promised His followers the same thing. Today the young man we remembered sees that clearly rather than through a glass darkly as we do. By grace, evil is eventually overcome. The real question is whether a person will accept the grace that is freely offered or reject it. It is really that simple.

Music for the Soul

With what I am about to write, I risk offending someone. I hope all who read this will understand that I am hoping to open a dialogue, not cast criticism on anyone. I want all who read this to think more deeply about music and what it does to the soul of those who hear it.

I was brought up in a musical household, even though neither Mom or Dad played an instrument regularly. Every Sunday during our sit-down, stay in your Sunday clothes eat on the good china dinner, we listened to classical music on the phonograph. As we grew up, we were required to listen to an equal amount of “good” music to balance the popular stuff played on our transistor radios. We each had to take piano lessons as well as being encouraged to participate in a school ensemble of some type.

I hated my first eight years of piano lessons. Mom would not let me go out to play after supper unless I had practiced my piano lesson. In high school I took up the coronet, later the baritone, and found that my ability to read music (thanks, Mom) allowed me to advance to first chair in every band I played in. At sixteen I finally had an eccentric, but wonderful teacher who made me discover a love for classical piano music. A couple of the pieces I played for my senior recital will still fall off my fingers if I sit at a piano today. I can enjoy, or at least appreciate every style of music there is, from the old classical to the new electronica. Again, thanks Mom and Dad.

Because of my training and my broad tastes, I judge music more critically than most. I find that most contemporary musicians are either completely without talent, or else they hide behind electronic gadgetry to produce a muddled sameness of dull repetition. I admit to listening to so-called ambient music which embodies that last slam against popular music, but when I do, it is for mindless background. If I put real music on, like Bach or McCartney, it distracts me; ambient music stills my thoughts and helps me concentrate.

A Facebook friend posted an article by Jon Henschen that bemoaned the loss of musical intelligence or musical literacy. The author rightly blamed the chronic cutting of music from public education programs for this cultural demise. Henschen also decried the lack of obvious musical talent in the popular scene today. Even though every generation has “invented” its own music, I have trouble imagining people 300 years from now listening to punk rock the way many of us still enjoy J.S. Bach. Henschen suggests that the last real music was being written in the 1960s. Maybe that explains why young and old alike still crave the Beatles or Eagles or Simon and Garfunkle.

I was struck by Henschen’s article because of the lack of creativity in typical modern worship music: same chords, same patterns over and over and over. (Please! No offense intended.) Like the article said, most young people don’t have the training or the listening experience to fuel their creative engines. Unless I go back to Michael W. Smith or Phil Keaggy, I can’t think of a contemporary Christian artist doing really inventive things. (They aren’t exactly contemporary, are they?) I don’t even want to get started on the theological or psychological aspects of the repetition ad infinitum in many worship services these days.

Music is the language of the soul. It reaches a place that mere words cannot. Rhythm, melody, and harmony combine to affect our inner being. Martin Luther said, "Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world." Michael W. Smith writes, “forever, until the world ends, music is the most powerful language there is. It can transform your life on every level, not just the spiritual. It can help people reconnect with why they’re here.” I suspect Michael would agree that why we’re here is to worship God. Period.

Most of us are not as fortunate as the people of Leipzig to have for our worship music leader a J.S. Bach who said, "I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” Yet in this globally interconnected world, finding good music is as easy as… no, it is not easy. It takes training and gifting by the Holy Spirit. The task of the worship leader is no less a spiritual assignment than that of the one who prepares the message from the Word of God. The worship leader must find the music made by God, to paraphrase Bach.

It was Francis Schaeffer who wrote about the connection between truth and beauty. Because we worship the God who is Truth, we owe it to Him to make our music beautiful. I know we joke about making a joyful noise unto the Lord, but those who create what we offer in worship ought to have the natural talents and spiritual gifts to write truly beautiful music. Those of us standing in the room following the worship leader don’t have to have performance level voices – there is your “joyful noise.” But the worship leaders have the responsibility to seek out the best there is in music or write it themselves if they are capable. Anything less is an unworthy offering.

What is the Church?

The title of this piece is a question posed by our teacher, Bill Johnson, at Kingdom Life in Muskegon last Sunday morning. Bill asked us to say the first thing that came to mind when we heard the word “church.” There being a number of mature believers in the room, things like “community,” and “fellowship,” and “body” were shared. One person was honest enough to say that the first thing he thought of was a little white building with a steeple.

Truth be told, most Christians share a similar image with that man. Even though we know better, our language betrays us. If someone asks where you go to church, the question itself implies a geographical answer, and most will respond accordingly. Where is a certain meeting to be held? At church, again, a physical location. Even when Christians say my church does this, or my church has that, there is a sort of allusion back to a building in the minds of most people. Be honest.

As one would expect, last Sunday Bill confirmed the idea that the church is people, not places, but he went a step further in defining the purpose of the people known as “the church.”  The Greek word most often used in the New Testament for church is ecclesia (εκκλησια). He pointed to the literal meaning, “called out ones” which many of us already knew. Then he did something amazing (I say with all humility for someone who has studied the Scripture as long as I have): he told me something I didn’t already know.

In the Greek culture, for several centuries leading up to the coming of Christ, ecclesia referred the council of men who participated in the ruling government. This assembly made the rules that governed the actions of the citizens. This idea would have been in the forefront of his audience’s mind. So when Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 16:18 that the “Gates of Hades” would not be able to withstand the pressure of the church, the ecclesia, He was saying that the rules of order dictated by Him and established by His people would overcome the forces of darkness and evil. Wow!

The second thing Bill shared which I had not seen before is the use of another word which describes the church. Paul told the Philippian church that their “citizenship” (πολιτευμα) was in heaven (3:20). According to Thayer’s Greek lexicon, that word refers to “the administration of civil affairs… [or] the constitution of a commonwealth.” Once again, the church is a governing body. Bill also reminded us that Jesus most often identified His purpose as bringing the Kingdom of God or Heaven to earth. Kingdom (βασιλεια in Greek) implies rulership.

That all sounds great, but we know from other things Jesus said and from the rest of the New Testament record that it would not be easy, nor would the effort be unopposed. At one point, Jesus said that the Kingdom would be taken by force, and Paul regularly used words like “battle” and “fight” to describe the Christian endeavor. The disciples who heard Jesus’ declaration in Matthew 16:18 would have caught this more poignantly than most of us because Jesus’ use of “Gates of Hades” had a particularly sinister meaning in the First Century.

There may even have been a geographical/cosmic significance to what Jesus proclaimed. The events of Matthew 16 took place in Caesarea-Philippi, a region of the Trans-Jordan near Mount Hermon. This area had been recognized for centuries by the people who lived there before and during the Israelite occupation as the headquarters of their chief god, Baal. Long before Jesus used “Gates of Hades,” people were using the phrase to refer to the very spot on which He stood. It was considered the gate to the underworld where their “gods” lived and ruled. Against this, Jesus said, the church would prevail. Wow again!

There is one other thing I learned on Sunday: the Romans adopted the idea of ecclesia (along with many other Greek traditions) and used it to refer to the colonizers they sent to conquered territories. The purpose of the Roman ecclesia was to spread Roman culture and thinking in the new lands. This is a perfect description of the church Jesus foresaw when He gave last instructions to His followers in Matthew 28:19-20: “As you go into the world, make disciples of all nations, teaching them all I have commanded you, baptizing them.” Making disciples as Jesus commanded is giving people a new order of government to their lives; it changes their culture into one that follows the teachings of the Master. Baptizing them identifies them with their new Master in contrast to their old allegiances.

The true purpose of the church is imbedded in its very name: spread the rule of God; advance the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The denomination called "The Salvation Army" seems to get this. One of the branches of the church I grew up in, the Church of Christ, frequently makes a theologically significant statement in large letters on their buildings: “The Church of Christ Meets Here.” We might gather in a building or a house or on a street corner for some good purpose, but that is just a meeting. That is not “church.” Doing “church” is hitting the streets, the workplaces, the homes of those under the control of the enemy and introducing them to the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. True church activity translates people from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light. Church is a verb. Where do you go to church?

Ghost Buster (Holy Ghost, That Is)

Why do so many Christians, even whole denominations essentially ignore the Holy Spirit? Jesus said it would be better for His disciples if He went away (John 16:7) because He would send “another Helper” who would be “with [them] forever.” (John 14:16) Jesus referred to the coming Helper as the Holy Spirit several times in the immediate context. True, He also said He would come to be with believers as well as saying the Father would be with them. Peter used the appellation “Spirit of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:11) Paul doubles down with the terminology using “Spirit of God” and “Spirit of Christ” in the same verse, adding to the semantic confusion. (Romans 8:9)

My lifetime interest in language, particularly when it is Bible language, urges me to find semantic clarity. This is often elusive. What is clear is Jesus’ implication that the Presence He promised would be spiritual, not physical. This makes sense in the context of John’s record: the disciples were bemoaning the loss of Jesus’ physical presence, so He told them a spiritual presence would be an improvement. Whereas up until His ascension He could only be in one place at a time, after He was fully glorified, He could be with all believers all the time.

I suspect our difficulty with this concept stems from the doctrine of the trinity most orthodox Christians adhere to. Saying that the object of our worship is one being in three persons tends to make us humans compartmentalize the deity. God-the-Father sits on a throne ruling the universe; Jesus-the-Son became incarnate, then converted to a glorified state of some sort after His resurrection; the Holy Spirit hovers about omnipresent and inscrutable throughout the ages. This tri-furcation of the godhead is nowhere explicitly stated in the Scriptures. In fact, the muddled language to which I referred earlier tends toward just the opposite.

Michael Heiser makes a startling suggestion in his book, Unseen Realm. Trying to unravel the nature of the supernatural in the Old Testament, Heiser proposes that the Jews probably recognized several different “characters” or persons as the One God they held in such high esteem. The Hebrew text in various places clearly identifies Elohim, the Angel of the Lord, the Name of the Lord, and Yahweh (transcribed as “LORD” in most English versions) as the One God whom they worshiped. One of the most shocking occurrences has Jacob wrestling with a “man” who is finally revealed as being “god” in some mysterious way. Heiser says this does not diminish the essential nature of the Jews’ monotheism at all. Rather, it reveals their understanding that the God they worshipped made Himself known to them in a variety of ways.

What this shows us is that the Jews apparently had no trouble dealing with a fact that Jesus stressed to the Samaritan woman at the well: God is spirit. The failure of the Samaritans (and the Israelites at many times) was that they tried to bind their god to a physical location. Jesus said neither this mountain nor that can be singled out as the place where god is; God is spirit, and as such He is non locus orientis. Jesus implied that in times past God had in fact presented Himself to mortals in certain locations with different manifestations. Angels, burning bushes, thundering mountain tops each represented the Presence of God at one time or another. “The hour is coming, and now is here,” Jesus said, when God will no longer be identified with a location, but a condition: spirit. (John 4:23-24)

This tells me that to ignore the Holy Spirit is to ignore God. “Do not quench the Spirit,” Paul warned. (1 Thessalonians 5:19) The Holy Spirit is not some third person who appeared during the time the Apostles completed the written Word and then became subsumed in that written product. If you can set aside the trinitarian filter that orthodoxy has laid over the Scriptures, all sense of hierarchy in the Godhead is erased. God is fully present in any of the manifestations he chooses to make, with the one exception of the kenosis (emptying) Jesus underwent to become flesh, a condition which now seems to have been left behind.

If your trinitarian understanding is not rocked enough by Heiser’s half dozen different biblical expressions of the one God, wrestle with the “seven spirits of God” language of Revelation 3:1. It may be more profitable to simply stop trying to relate to God by number. I suspect that the heavenly numbering system is not a base 10 system anyway. We will probably be as surprised about that reality as physicists are fascinated by the discovery of perhaps ten dimensions swallowing our simple understanding of the three-dimensional world.

A.W. Tozer asks us to “make room for mystery.” He also quotes Augustine pleading with God: “Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it that Thou mayest enter in.” The Holy Spirit is not some scary ghost to be avoided. Neither is He a subordinate of the “real” God. The Holy Spirit is God, perhaps being God in His most essential nature: a spirit. The so-called charismatics may get too familiar with the Spirit, taking Him in the same way they take their morning coffee, but at the other extreme you have people almost frightened of what Tozer calls a “mystery.” I think you will find God somewhere in between the two positions. He is “unapproachable” (1Timothy 6:16), yet he invites us to enter His presence by the blood of the Son, our Savior with confidence (Hebrews 4:16).

Paul repeatedly urges his readers to be filled with the Spirit; to be led by the Spirit; to walk, pray and even sing in the Spirit. Theologians debate whether these phrases should be upper case “Spirit,” meaning God’s spirit, or lower case “spirit,” referring to the human spirit or a state of being spiritual. Upper or lower case, the truth is clear: God is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and truth. To paraphrase Augustine, our prayer must be: Lord, enlarge my soul so that your Spirit may enter in.

Think Supernaturally

One of my favorite churches (I know many) is Capital Church in Salt Lake City. On a regular basis, the pastor, Troy Champs, does a series called, “God and the Movies.” It is always interesting to hear what connections he makes with otherwise totally secular themes. This effort has inspired me to think about two of my favorite movies (or movie franchises) in a similar way.

Many people have tried to draw Christian themes from the Star Wars movies. Although the creator, George Lucas was raised Methodist, he identifies more strongly with Eastern religions, calling himself at one time, a “Buddhist Methodist.” Lucas admits to a strong influence by Joseph Campbell, a twentieth Century Literature professor who coined the term “monomyth” to propose that all literature is drawn from a single human story that transcends cultures and ages.

I believe Campbell was correct in principle; there is only one human story. He was wrong to ascribe the similarities across time and cultures to a pervading secular myth. The “true myth,” as Seth Steele of True Myth Media puts it, is the one recorded for all time in the Bible. The universality of the Bible story rests in its revelation of and by the one Sovereign Creator of all things. The creation, fall, and redemption epic that is the Bible finds resonance in every time and place because it rings true; it is the true myth.

Lucas capitalizes on this universality with the themes he develops in Star Wars. For this reason, it is possible to draw Christian analogies from the films. One of my favorite lines is from the tutor of young Luke Skywalker who has failed to psychokinetically raise his sunken star fighter. Luke says he will, “Give it another try.” In response Yoda, says with uncharacteristic firmness, “No! Do… or do not. There is no try.”

I cannot keep myself from comparing Yoda’s instruction to the Scriptural principle stressed by Jesus when he told His disciples, “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” The Lord followed that up with, “whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:23-24 ESV) Do, or do not. There is no try.

Another line from Star Wars always hits me as exciting Scriptural truth. When Obi Wan Kenobi is about to be killed by Darth Vader, he says, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Obi Wan knows that the physical body is a hindrance to the fullest expression of what he is supposed to be. If you will pardon my imagination, I can picture Jesus saying the same thing from the Cross. When our Savior’s earthly work was done, He was “struck down” only to become more powerful than His enemies could ever imagine.

This leads me to one more line from a far less popular movie, but one of my favorites nonetheless. The movie is Harvey, which is based on a play of the same name by Mary Chase. Briefly, the plot revolves around human interaction with a mythical creature called a pooka named Harvey. Late in the action, a psychologist who has been engaged to help a poor soul who believes he has been befriended by the pooka encounters his own pookalogical epiphany. Upon making this discovery, Dr. Chumley says, “Fly specks, fly specks! I've been spending my life among fly specks while miracles have been leaning on lampposts at 18th and Fairfax!”

I must agree with Michael Heiser, whom I have referenced before, that, like Dr. Chumley, we enlightened moderns have lost our appreciation for the supernatural. Heiser argues that the original authors and audiences of the content of our inspired Scriptures would have been completely comfortable with the idea that there is more to our existence than what we can encounter with our five senses. The supernatural realm, as Heiser calls it, is in constant intersection with our everyday lives, but we have lost touch with it. We concern ourselves with fly specks when unimaginable glories transpire right under our noses.

I tried to imagine the interaction between the natural and supernatural in my novel, Wings of Mentridar. It was easier for me to picture angelic intervention in the lives of “Bible characters,” than to see it today. Frank Peretti did a marvelous job in his darkness series showing how angels might be playing a part in our daily lives. The New Testament is clear that believers still have occasion to encounter “angels,” or supernatural beings (Matthew 1,2; Acts 5:19; Hebrews 1:7; 13:2). It is narrow-minded to exclude the supernatural from our thinking.

Apart from New Testament reports or fiction, I believe we should all try to have a more “supernatural” view of life. When Paul admonished the Colossian believers to, “Set your minds on things above” (3:2), I believe he had the supernatural in mind. The word “above” is used throughout the New Testament in reference to that which is spiritual as opposed to physical. Jesus counselled Nicodemus that he needed to be born a second time “from above.” (John 3:3 CEV). James insisted that true wisdom comes “from above” (3:17 ESV)

Neither Obi Wan or Yoda can be construed as Christian characters. Harvey the pooka is not a good example of angelic influence, at least not biblically speaking. In spite of that, I enjoy thinking about the “true myth” they represent, and I know my soul is enriched by my flights of fancy into the glory to which we are being transformed (2 Corinthians 3:18). Paul says, ““What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). The movies help me to imagine what Paul says I cannot imagine. I recommend it; after all, we are going to become “supernatural” someday.

The 3,000 Year-old Question

I could be wrong. (Those who know me are chuckling right here.) I could be, but I don’t think I am wrong. When I read the Bible front to back, it appears that God’s program proceeds without interruption for the most part. Oh sure, Adam’s sin interrupted what appeared to be the original plan for Eden, and mankind’s devolution leading to the flood caused a do-over of sorts, and Israel’s failure to be what God intended them to be led ultimately to the Cross and the final solution. But none of these course changes surprised God as evidenced by the fact that He explained at every stage what was going to happen next. In other words, He knew what He was doing. (Surprise!)

I am also aware that at any given point in the redemption timeline, those earth-bound players on God’s stage might have felt that God had lost His way. Adam lived some nine hundred years after being expelled from Eden and hearing the prophecy that his offspring would crush the Serpent’s head. How many hundreds of years did Noah preach righteousness before the flood caused Earth’s reboot? Joseph must have been frustrated by the decades he spent apparently out of the loop as a result of his brothers’ treacherous jealousy. Then his family languished in Egypt for 400 years waiting to return to the land God had promised them. Consider David, who was anointed king, but spent years running from Saul before he finally took the throne. Finally, the nation of Israel, or properly the remnant of the nation, did seventy years in Babylonian captivity, only to return to a diminished national state and sit in silence for 400 years.

I understand that God has His own time table. We are told more than once that with God, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day. Fine. However, it appears to me that His prophets explained what was going to happen in a more or less linear fashion, although it was often cryptic revelation. Looking back from our perspective, it all fits rather nicely, if somewhat drawn out. We get hints of God’s purpose occasionally. In the time leading up to the flood, God is said to have been striving with man; was he hoping for repentance? (Genesis 6:3) The 400-year sojourn in Egypt was because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet fulfilled. (Genesis 15:16) Paul suggests that the church age will end only when the fulness of the Gentiles has been brought into the Kingdom. (Romans 11:25)

If some millennial theorists are correct (I withhold judgment.), before we reach the end-stage with Eden restored and Heaven comes to Earth, at least 1,007 more years must pass, at which time a final, global/cosmic battle with evil will bring all things to completion. Do the math. In 2018, we stand close to 2,000 years from the Cross of Calvary and the institution of the Church. If the literal millennial theorists’ proposed tribulation started today, there would be another 1,007 years to the New Heavens and New Earth of Revelation 21. Now someone might begin to wonder about God’s timing again.

This might be God’s plan; after all, it is only three days on His divine calendar. But it is a wonder to me that in the popular literal millennial scheme, the Church, which Paul calls the mystery of God, hidden through the ages, is largely ignored, relegated to a parenthetical gap in the imagined timeline. There are those who believe the language of the millennial reign of Christ is meant to be figurative rather than a literal number of calendar years. This places the Church age soundly within Bible prophecy rather than floating in some unnoticed parenthetical silence.

There is something interesting for any who believe Bible prophecy, no matter what opinion they hold regarding the millennium: we are nearing the 2,000-year mark after the Church was founded. I am stepping outside of teaching or preaching here; what I am suggesting is pure speculation on my part. I will not join the likes of those who insist Jesus came in 1917 or those who were disappointed when 1988 (1948 + 40) came and went without the expected events. What I am doing is looking at the broad sweep of Biblical revelation and seeing roughly 2,000-year periods of God’s plan. It was approximately 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham. It was another 2,000 years to Jesus. And it has been 2,000 years since Calvary. Hmmm. I don’t pretend to know God’s mind in this, but wouldn’t it be sweet if we really are that close to the end of the prophecy?

One thing believers of every stripe can agree on: there comes an end. No matter what you believe about how the world will end, all agree that every individual will reach a point when time runs out. At that point, a person’s relationship to Jesus is all that will matter. Those who have chosen to follow Him will step into a glorious eternity; those who have rejected Him will learn that their poor choice has dire consequences with no escape clause. That point in time may be 1,000 years in the future, or it may be one day. To borrow from Francis Schaeffer, how should we then live?

Prisons of the Mind

There are prisons of the mind that are far more difficult to bear than any bars and walls man can devise. Paul talks about being in bondage to sin. You are a slave to whatever you choose to serve. (Romans 6:16) This is so easy to understand. If you lie, you are forced to cover the lie with another and another until you are bound by the lies you have told. Cigarettes, drugs and alcohol clearly bind those who become addicted to their seducing pleasures. It is the same with gambling, pornography, and even video gaming or Internet fascinations. You become imprisoned by whatever you give yourself to.

I am reading a book by John Ortberg called Soul Keeping. Ortberg correctly insists that the human soul, that critical part of our inward being, requires a center. We get to choose what we center our soul upon. Bob Dylan said it right years ago in the song, “You Got to Serve Somebody.” Dylan sang that it may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you are going to serve somebody. There are only the two choices. Anything that is not of God is of the Devil, God’s arch-enemy. There are things like alcohol or video games that are not evil in and of themselves, but when you make them the center of your life, that thing becomes evil, an idol to use Bible language, and everyone knows idolatry is a bad thing.

There are other ways to become imprisoned besides falling into sin or idolatry. It is quite easy to become enslaved by unhealthy attitudes, or stinkin’ thinkin’ as someone once called it. If you were raised by an abusive father or were without a father, for example, you may reject the idea of a good Heavenly Father. Your whole perception of who God is can become bound by your earthly experience. This leaves you outside of His adopted family and His gracious provision.

In the same way, you could be imprisoned by wrong thinking because you were raised in a home where God was discounted, and the philosophies of the world were embraced. This is easy to understand since it was the goal of Darwin and his many disciples to provide the theory of evolution as a way to escape human responsibility to the Creator. Most of us absorbed evolutionary thinking without realizing what it meant.

There are also those who may actually be Christians, believers, who allow themselves to be bound by belief systems that are not Biblical. Paul is especially hard on the people in Galatia, calling them foolish for abandoning the freedom of the Gospel of Christ and falling back into the bondage of salvation by works. (Galatians 3:1-4) This predicament is not unique to Jews. Many believers will assert that they are acceptable to God because they have lived a good life. These people are bound by the false assumption that God loves them because of what they do rather than whom they serve. This kind of thinking can make every day a struggle to be good enough.

Another sort of bondage is related to the idea of salvation by works. You may feel that you are not worthy to be loved by God. Psychologists refer to this as a poor self-image. This attitude highlights one of the strange paradoxes of the Christian faith. It is true that no one is worthy of God’s favor, yet He grants it to all who come to Jesus in faith. You don’t have to clean yourself up to present your life to God; while you were dead in sin and disobedient, Christ came to give you life. (Ephesians 2:1-5) The only people God can save are those who realize they are unworthy. You must nail your broken self on the cross of Jesus and give it up. That act initiates a transaction where your unrighteousness is traded for the righteousness of Jesus, God’ Son. (Romans 4:22-24) That act also qualifies you for adoption into the Family of God, otherwise known as the Church or Christ’s Body. (Ephesians 1:5)

A prison made of bricks and bars is an awful place. But even a person who is behind bars can become free in the most important way, by giving his life to Christ and gaining eternal freedom in Him. Conversely, a person who is walking freely about the world can be imprisoned by many things worse than bricks and bars. Paul reminded the wayward Galatians, “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free.” (5:1) I recommend that you do a “gut check” or perhaps it should be called a soul check. Are you “free indeed,” as Christ promised (John 8:36), or have you allowed something to enslave you. God opens prison doors; you have only to ask.

Worry is a Choice

I confess: I am a worrier. I don’t mean to be, but my constitution is such that I am always living some distance into the future. Sometimes that is a pleasant place to live when the prospects are clearly good. However, when the situation is unclear or clearly bad in some way, I tend to imagine what ill may fall. I rationalize this behavior by telling myself that I am simply preparing for the worst so that I am ready when it happens. I still live by the Boy Scout motto I learned when I was twelve: be prepared.

You can see, no doubt, that this is hooey. What I am doing is worrying about something that may or may not happen. “Be prepared” means taking your umbrella if the forecast promises rain or carrying chains in the trunk if you drive the mountains in winter. My little game of “what if” is just worry in a thin disguise. And worry is prohibited by my Master, a fact that was brought poignantly home to me this morning.

I listened to a sermon from Capital Church in Salt Lake City because I am away from home this Sunday. The guest speaker, Heather Zemple, preached on Matthew 6:25-34. That’s the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, “Do not be anxious about your life.” The Greek word translated “anxious” means to take care concerning something, also translated by some as “worry.” Heather correctly points out that anxiety can have chemical or psychological causes that require professional attention. This is not the kind of thing Jesus was addressing; He meant that I should stop playing “what if” with every little situation that does not appear to have a wonderful outcome. In other words, stop worrying.

My rational mind knows I am not supposed to worry. I don’t often harbor worried thoughts in my mind, but my gut does. I tend to center my worry subconsciously in my stomach. It can be quite uncomfortable. At one point some time ago, I was rushed to the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack, only to discover it was my gastro-intestinal system crying out with worry. This is frequently where ulcers come from. I have learned to listen to my stomach and to ferret out the fret that is causing the discomfort. This condition indicates that I have been inappropriately dealing with something that needs to be addressed.

Heather led me to the answer to the problem of worry. It is found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians where he counsels us to worry about nothing, but to pray about everything. (4:6) He follows that admonition with one of the best promises in Scripture: “And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hears and your minds in Christ Jesus.” In other words, worry is a choice; neither Jesus nor Paul would command us not to worry if that were impossible. It is our choice to worry about something, or to pray about it and trust God to work it out. We can choose to worry, or we can lean on God and have peace.

Heather wisely pointed out that this does not mean we will necessarily be delivered from all our troubles. The well-known twenty-third Psalm says the divine Shepherd is with us “when [we] walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Or as the popular song says, He will be with us through the storm rather than taking away the storm. Heather said if we trust God’s character, we can rest in the chaos. No worries. This does not mean we abandon our duties or escape into frivolous diversions. It means that we press on regardless of the circumstances knowing that God is in every circumstance working “all things for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

I received a wonderful confirmation of this lesson today. I have been trying not to worry that we may not have enough money to meet our obligations this month. After the sermon this morning, I confessed my worry and thanked God that He provides for me on a regular basis. When I checked the bank balance to see how far behind we would be, I discovered an automatic deposit that I had forgotten. We are fine, not rich, but fine. Back in Philippians Paul said that he had learned to be content, at peace, in whatever circumstance he was in. I am still working on that. For today anyway, I choose not to worry.

Why Bother with Church?

I have run across a number of people lately, several who are dear to my heart, who have bad feelings about going to church or they have stopped going altogether. The title of this blog is Why Heaven Matters, but today I want to explain why church matters. There is a direct link between Heaven and the Church of Christ, His body here on earth.

The simplest reason why believers should attend church is because it is commanded. The writer of Hebrews is addressing some believers who were falling short in certain areas of the Christian walk, and in the midst of his correction he makes the statement, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:23-25 Italics mine)

The second reason to be involved in church life is also hidden in the Hebrews passage above: “encouraging one another.” Some time ago I wrote a Bible study on the “one anothers” of the Bible; I counted 52 different places where the actual words “one another” appear in the New Testament or the concept is clearly intended. I categorized the many occurrences into five types, suggesting that our sharing in the Body of Christ falls into one or more of these: fostering peace and harmony with one another, encouraging one another, confessing to one another, loving or caring for one another, serving one another, and correcting one another. If we neglect meeting together, there is little chance for these important duties to take place.

If it is not enough to say church attendance is commanded, no doubt because of the many necessary responsibilities we have toward one another, there is one more reason I will mention: worship. I agree with all those who say that one can worship anywhere; in fact, I believe we are supposed to worship everywhere, if by worship we mean demonstrate our opinion that God is worthy to be praised. It is true that one can worship God on the golf course, on the lake, or in the woods. The trouble is that doing that to the regular exclusion of Sunday morning meetings is in violation of a clear command. The Bible has some pretty harsh things to say about people who offer worship to God while ignoring what He requires of His worshippers. Besides, there is something precious about gathering together with fellow-believers and joining in corporate worship, prayer, proclamation of the Word, and don’t forget the breaking of bread (communion) which Jesus also commanded to be done.

I sympathize with the negative feelings I have heard expressed by some. Three of the people I have recently heard from were hurt by people in the church at the very time they should have received comfort. A couple others have found it so frustrating to see little or no growth among their fellow-congregants that they see little use in continuing to attend. One person I know has fallen prey to the popular misinterpretation of our security in Christ, claiming that he “accepted Christ” as a child, and there is nothing he needs to do beyond that youthful confession.

The bottom line is that we don’t go to church expecting to find perfect people. Quite the opposite is true: we go to church because we are all imperfect people needing the support and guidance that the Body of Christ provides. If you or someone you know has fallen out of the habit of church attendance, consider this. Until we reach that glorious day when our flesh is totally redeemed by God’s grace at Heaven’s gate, the Church is the closest thing we have to Heaven on earth. I detest “church hopping” because of petty grievances, but there are plenty of churches out there who are “doing church” in a way that makes it worth attending. If you don’t have one, find one. It’s for your best in the long run.

For the Love of Cats

Everyone who knows me knows I don’t like cats. No, I hate cats. That same group of friends knows I have lived with cats as long as I have lived with my wife (47 years next month). This situation has created many lively discussions in our house, and several times I have sworn that the current feline resident would be the last. I’m still saying that; so much for my sovereignty.

I don’t really know why I hate cats. My father and his father both swore they hated cats; maybe I just picked it up from them. Goodness knows there was never a cat in our house to fuel my hatred. For that matter, the two dogs we had as pets were both outdoor dogs dedicated (supposedly) to bird hunting. I remember hunting twice with the first setter, but never with the spaniel before he ran away never to return. My mother had a parakeet for a short time, but that is the only non-human I remember living in our home.

I’m just not a pet guy. I have said it on numerous occasions: I don’t have enough room in my heart to love a dumb animal that requires constant attention and needless expense. Why bother? I fully understand the unconditional love that pets can shower on their owners with yucky wet tongues and snuggling furry bodies. I’m content to live without that kind of affection. Honestly, I prefer to be without it, thank you very much.

It seems fitting then that I am allergic to cat dander. What, you ask, have I been doing all these years with cats in the house? Sneezing. Blowing my nose. Rubbing my itching eyes. Granted, I am allergic to many other things as well, so my condition cannot be blamed entirely on the cat, but surely the feline-in-residence contributes to my suffering in no small way. Yet I put up with it. Why? Because I love my wife more than I hate her cat.

This brings me to the point of this soul-searching revelation. This morning I read Psalm 36 in my devotions. Verses five and six read, “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.” Man AND beast? I followed a cross-reference to Nehemiah 9:6 and found this: “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”

The birds, the beasts, and the fish in the sea rate preservation by the Almighty Creator. It is not coincidence that the last phrase brings up worship. Elsewhere Scripture reveals that, “The heavens declare the glory ofGod,” and “the trees of the field will clap their hands [at His coming].” In other words, all creation worships the Creator. It is not hard to imagine that the Creator loves His creation: “For God so loved the world…”

The Greek word most often translated “worship” in the New Testament also gives insight into the nature of the relationship between creation and Creator. According to Strong’s lexicon, Proskuneo (προσκυνέω), derives from a word, “meaning to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand.” Our approach to the Creator as the crowning beast of His creation is “like a [pet].” Epiphany! God views us not unlike the way we view our pets: the greater looks down upon the lesser with love, affection, care and protection. Oh my!

Now I see that if I am to be perfected into the image of my Savior, who came and dwelt among “His own,” then cared enough to give His life for them, I need to cultivate a love for cats. That would make me more like Christ. After all, Romans 5:8 tells me that, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” It would be inappropriate to say that God liked us before He saved us. He hates sin, but He loves sinners. I hate many of the things that come with being a cat, but I understand that I need to love the cat in spite of all that.

Sigh! This becoming like Christ thing gets harder and harder. Come here, Sadie; let me scratch your dandered little head.

Where is We?

I’m reading Philip Yancey’s book titled, Prayer: Does it Make a Difference? Page after page, I am struck by his insightful questions, although I expect to be disappointed by the absence of answers. Yancey admits this will be the case early in his ruminations. Still, I am reading on because the discussion about prayer and the examples of fellow-prayers draw me in.

At one point Yancey quotes Walter Breuggmann amid a discussion of the candor evident in many of the prayers we know as Psalms. Breuggmann says the candor is necessary because, “life is like that, and these poems are intended to speak to all of life, not just part of it.” He finds is jarring that modern worship songs are nearly all “happy songs,” a fact that seems to him to be inconsistent with the proportion of not-happy songs found in the Bible songbook known as Psalms.

The presence of happy songs is no surprise given the tendency of many modern Christians to believe that happiness is one of the benefits of being a believer. I discussed this sad misunderstanding previously (see Happiness and Joy), so I won’t belabor the point here except to say that I believe it is important for Christians to learn the difference between happiness versus joy. (Yes, Randy, there is a difference.)

I found myself agreeing with Brueggmann and going a step further: not only are most of our popular songs upbeat, they are almost universally written in first person singular (1PS). Ten of the top fifty Christian songs on Billboard today have the words “I, Me or My” in the title. At least that many more speak in 1PS, though it is not in the name of the song. Of the remaining songs, the majority speak in second person singular (2PS) as they are directed to God. A recent survey by song licensing agent, CCLI, reveals fourteen of the top twenty-four most popular songs in churches are in 1PS.

At first blush, this may not seem terrible: we sing about our personal relationship with God, so 1PS and 2PS are the most likely points of view. “Good, Good Father” is a perfect example: You (God) are this; I am that. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. However, if all I sing about is me and God, a large part of what it means to live as a Christian is missed. While a personal relationship with Jesus is essential, that relationship ultimately places me in a body, His Body, the Church.

Immediately someone will mention, “If We Are the Body” by Casting Crowns. But that song is a rebuke, and I don’t recall having heard it sung in church. Certainly, there are other examples of songs that speak to or about the corporate experience of being a Christian. However, as surveys show, they are not predominant by any measure. I suspect that the majority would also be “happy” songs as well.

This mistaken tendency to be self-centered and happiness-focused is not trivial. Jesus said the entire law of God rests on two commands: love God; love your neighbor as yourself. The self is to be taken to the cross daily, Jesus said elsewhere. James counselled that true religion is other-centered. Peter asks us to rejoice in trials. In Ephesians and 1 Corinthians Paul makes it abundantly clear that the gifts of ministry are given to individuals for the benefit of the body, not the individual.

Despite what the Alcorns and Bells of the world say, Christianity is not all warm fuzzies and happiness, at least not the Christianity that is portrayed in the New Testament. The joy (not happiness) we have is the joy Jesus had: He looked toward the joy “despising the shame"[and torture] of the cross. Over 50 “one-anothers” in the Bible call us to turn our vertical love for God into a horizontal love of those around us. First of all, Paul says, toward those of the household of faith (Gal. 6:10).

We need to keep singing those songs about the wonder of our salvation, but not neglecting to remember what our salvation is for. We were saved for a purpose: to love our neighbor. First those who sing around us, then those who dwell in the darkness just outside our church door. They need to know why we are singing.