Living Christian(ly)

The Christian life is about realignment. We are realigning our way of "being" from a focus on ourselves to a focus on God and others. This realignment can occur because we are already treated as if the realignment is complete; because of Jesus, we are seen as having achieved what will take us a lifetime (and more) to actually work itself out into our external reality. Often times, however, we trade the reason for our realignment with the results of our realignment, and end up in a mess.

The common approach towards realignment in the modern church is to focus on people's behavior and what they do. If we can get them to live the way that God calls us to live, then it is relatively unimportant what they actually think about it. The world will be a better place simply because we are all living according to God's ideals. In some cases this consists of teaching people to live according to the moral standards of God: don't use bad language, treat other people kindly, read your Bible, pray, serve in the church, and things like that. In other cases, it's teaching people to live according to the social standards of God: do not tolerate oppression, care for the poor, fight against injustice. Getting people to do is more important than getting them to understand. And this lack of understanding has led to, well, a lack of understanding of what it actually means to be a Christian.

When I was in grade school, we were taught how to do math by teaching us facts about math. Two + Two = Four. As long as you memorized these facts, you could get yourself to the correct answer. The math curriculum my children are going through thirty years later has introduced some significant changes in how math is taught. Rather than simply teaching the facts of math, they are trying to teach the theory behind it. Why does Two + Two = Four? In other words, the reason that Two + Two = Four is just as important as the end result. It's the modern equivalent of "showing your work". How you got to the answer is just as important as the fact that you got to the answer at all.

Modern Christianity has traded the reason for the result and so most people assume that as long as they are acting like Christians (living out something similar to the values listed above) they are Christians. Jesus teaching, however, stands in start contrast. He makes clear that it's entirely possible to be doing all the right things, but miss the main point. Our "realignment" is only possible because Jesus has made it possible. If we attempt realignment without Jesus, it doesn't actually work in the long run.

What we need to do is remember that the only reason that we can realign our deepest desires, our deepest affections, and our deepest loves, is because Jesus has already done it perfectly in his life, death, and resurrection. As a result, we can actually begin to live a life that is truly in alignment with the way that Jesus calls us to live: loving God, and loving others.

Happiness

What if you could actually do whatever it was that made you happy?

I don't mean the freedom to go out to dinner whenever you wanted, purchase whatever your heart wanted to purchase, or snub a person just because you don't feel like talking. I'm talking bigger, purpose level stuff. What if you could actually enjoy life, day in and day out, doing exactly what you always wanted to do, feeling fulfilled in your work or daily life, finding that your joy was overflowing with each passing moment?

That sounds like a fairytale, and in some ways, it is. The fact is that even if you actually got what you wanted, and you could do, day in and day out, whatever it was that you most loved to do, hard moments were going to come and there would be seasons of sorrow. I was reminded this past week that Solomon himself said this in his letter of Ecclesiastes, after having lived a storied and privileged life if there ever was one, that in spite of having the ability to do and attain whatever he desired, he found that at the end of the day it was all meaningless.

There is a Christian thought that says that the chief end of man is the enjoyment of God; that is, once we have come to taste the pleasure of our salvation that is found in Jesus, we will increasingly grow in our delight of him so that, in the end, our greatest pleasure is giving honor and praise and glory to God, through whom we have received this great joy. I would never argue this theologically; in fact, quite the contrary. It is one of the principled themes that guides my life. We must find great joy in God himself, through Jesus Christ, or our faith is worthless. Why would I want to put my confidence in something that robbed me of pleasure? This is contrary to my entire being; I know, without having to learn it, without having to be taught it, without anyone having to tell me, that in my innermost being I will pursue whatever is most pleasurable to me. When I choose to pursue something otherwise, it feels profoundly off, like choosing the wrong path at a fork in the woods.

We are so guided by pleasure, in fact, that there are times when we are not even aware that we are doing it. There are times where the initial decision doesn't appear to be for our own pleasure at all, but the outcome is far more desirable. In other words, we choose the difficult path now because the long term reward is far better. There is something about us that knows the decision will end in pleasure even if, in the moment, our senses tell us otherwise.

I have sat on the exit row on an airplane on more than one occasion and every time I have listened to the flight attendant tell me that, should I choose to sit there, I would be responsible for ensuring that the other passengers made it safely out the door and down the slide, in the event that an evacuation was even possible (something I always assume will probably not be the case). I believed that the appeal the attendant was making was to my reason, and indeed, that is true to a certain degree. We human beings have the ability to choose against our natural instinct to save ourselves, and instead hang back in a dangerous position in order to let other people go on ahead to safety. That is a uniquely human characteristic, that we can choose reason over instinct. Yet, there is another factor at play as well, and this is the appeal to our pleasure.

It is our natural instinct towards pleasure that I may say unites us with the creation itself. My dog might choose the safety of my own family over his own family, much the same as I might choose the safety of the other passengers over my own, but this has nothing to do with reason. My dog puts my family first because his instinct is to serve; to say it another way, it is his pleasure to do it.

You might wonder how it is possible that there is any pleasure at all from putting ourselves in danger, or how remaining in danger is more pleasurable than running on to safety, but consider the outcome in either case. If we decided to disregard our responsibility and jump out of the exit door before anyone else had a chance, we would probably survive, along with at least a few others. Indeed, it is entirely possible that everyone would survive, and our act of cowardice would be inconsequential to the outcome. But we would have to live with it; we would have to live with the knowledge that we bailed out in what may have been the greatest moment of responsibility to others we have ever faced. It would have been a great displeasure to us to have to live under that shadow; we would be safe, but we would also be ashamed.

On the other hand, had we taken our responsibility seriously we may end up dead. Perhaps we would survive, in which case we would be lauded a hero. But if we did die, at least we would have had the pleasure of knowing that we went out helping others; we would still be lauded a hero, we would just not have the knowledge of it. Nevertheless, most would say, better to die as a noble person than to live as a coward.

The point of the story is simply that, even if we didn't immediately recognize it at the moment of decision, the end result was that our pleasure would be increased. It brought us more pleasure to set aside our inherent self-interest in order that others would be led to safety. We may not have known it when we sat in the exit row (a decision largely made for our own pleasure and increased leg room) and we may not have immediately known it when our exit services were actually required, but when it was all over and as many as could be saved were off the plane, we would have remarked that it was "our pleasure" to assist however we could.

So our pleasure is our chief motivation; God is our chief end. This truth has led many people to learn contentment and joy despite their circumstances. Many Christians, despite tremendous difficulty and suffering, can nevertheless say that they have joy because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. It was worth whatever they had lost! It was like a treasure in a field that they sold everything to get. Yet I would argue that despite the theological truth, and the experiential reality of having enjoyed Christ in spite of suffering (and having seen Him enjoyed by others), the dimension of our pleasure that we have too quickly set asunder in our modern era is the reality of our humanity.

I have come across many people, and I may include myself in this, who have found themselves in unpleasant circumstances, but rather than change the circumstances for their pleasure have instead attempted to will themselves towards joy in Christ. I wonder how often Jesus might have curiously suggested that they simply change whatever it was that they did not like.

Indeed, there are moments where we cannot change what brings us displeasure, humanly speaking. We cannot simply will away cancer or decide not to have it. In those moments, we will be glad to know that we find our great joy in Christ. But what of the person who is miserable because they do not live near their family, or the person who is miserable in their job, or the person who lives in a place where they have no friends, or attends the church that they do not enjoy? To what degree are we expected to find joy in Christ in circumstances where our joy might be renewed simply by changing something?

Perhaps we assume that making a decision based purely on whatever will make us happy is unspiritual. I would argue that this is precisely the case, and precisely the reason we should do it. In one sense, we know that all of life is spiritual; that is, there is nothing that is not in some way affected by our relational status with God the creator of the universe. But in another sense, we are flesh and blood; we are irrevocably "earthy" in our existence and unmistakably unspiritual, which is exactly how God intended it to be. If it is impossible for us to separate the spiritual from our decision making process, it is equally as impossible–and equally unwise–for us to separate our humanity from the decision making process. We may even find that it is our earthly situation that is robbing us of our spiritual joy in Christ!

I was asked the question once whether I felt like I would be disobeying Jesus if I did not plant a church. "What a spiritual question!", I thought. Of course, I had no answer to it, as I hadn't really considered whether or not Jesus' call to me was one that I could obey or disobey, or whether he would be pleased or displeased with my decision. To that point, I had simply considered that this is what I should do. I had weighed the alternatives. This seemed right. It seemed like something worth exploring. By the time this person had asked me whether or not I would be disobeying Jesus, I really didn't know. I supposed that I could be perfectly obedient to Jesus doing any number of things, but this was the one that, for now, seemed to be the right one. I don't even know what I answered when the person asked.

Standing where I am now and considering the question through the lens of hindsight I see the deep flaw in it. To me, it spiritualizes what is in many ways a very human question: what do you want to do, and why are you doing it? For as much as Jesus calls us to come and die to ourselves so that we can live for him, it is also a deep truth of the good news that Jesus meets us precisely where we are. I would suggest that the way we can know a call is from Jesus is if the outcome fills us with great pleasure.

In fact, I may go so far as to say that I am convinced that Jesus greatest call on us is to whatever it is that will bring us the most pleasure.

It is important to understand that that Jesus knows better than we do what will bring us pleasure. There are dark desires of my heart that may fool me into believing that they will bring me pleasure, and in the moment, they might, but in the long run, will lead to my destruction and actually rob me of joy. Whereas, a temporary denial of that quick pleasure will lead to lasting joy. Jesus desires my greater pleasure, the one that fills me with lasting joy, and not a temporary high.

Yet there are many things in life that bring great joy and are not sinful, or guilty pleasure, or pleasures that are fleeting, but are good, God-given pleasures that are flawed because we are flawed but are good because God in his mercy has made sure they remained good. If your family is anything like mine is is deeply flawed and yet it is good. I live in and with a community of people who are deeply flawed and yet profoundly good. I live in a town with deeply flawed leadership and yet, somehow, by God's grace, is still good. There are good things that abound around us and that bring me great happiness.

There was a moment in my life when I would have moved anywhere for God, and many times did. (I am thankful that God has not called me to international missions, and I am not sure how I would have responded if he had.) We moved to many different states and cities, and would have moved to many more, in order to pursue the calling that we felt he had placed on our lives. Why did we do that? It was our great pleasure! There was something about the continual call, the next step, the bigger ministry. We weren't bound by time, place, or relationships. We would go wherever God called!

But was that more or less spiritual than our current desire not to ever move again, desiring that we stay here for a very long time, even if it means ministering in relative obscurity for the rest of our lives? This, too, is our great pleasure. To remain in a place where our children are loved, where we are cared for, with people that we love, with people that we care for. You might ask, what if Jesus has called us to great influence? I would suggest that Jesus has not called us to influence; he has called us to joy.

And so I return to my humanity and my joy and pleasure and family and all the things that make me me and you you. What are we doing or not doing under the misguided belief that Jesus has called us to contentment despite our displeasure? Perhaps Jesus has called us away from our displeasure so that we will find our contentment. I have run into those who lived in displeasure because they felt they were called by God to do so; I can't help but wonder if they are missing his purest call. Maybe contentment means deciding to take a lower paying, less influential job simply because it is near family, and family makes us happy. Maybe it is to not take the next promotion because it would mean more time away from home, and home makes us happy. Maybe it would be to move to the shore, because the shore makes us happy. Maybe it would be to move to a small town by a lake in the woods, because nature makes us happy.

Jesus has called us to pleasure in Him. What I am suggesting here, for myself and for you, is that if we really found our deepest satisfaction in Jesus, we would find ourselves far more free to choose whatever makes us happy in this life. Do you want to find another job? Find another job. Jesus is okay with it. Do you want to move closer to family? Then move. Jesus is just as much there as he his here; you may find him to be more pleasurable when you are near those you love. Actually leaving behind all those things that Jesus calls us to leave behind so that we can pursue him means that we don't have to feel like we are bound by those things anymore; instead of feeling enslaved to a job or to a location or a place or whatever, we are actually freed from the bondage so that we can enjoy them. Jesus doesn't just bring us spiritual joy; he frees us to experience human joy as well; the type of joy that comes from sitting next to a brook or fishing on a quiet pond or hiking a mountain or turning off our cell phone and just sitting there, unreachable for the rest of the world, playing a game with our kids, reading a book, doing a puzzle.

Finding our joy in Jesus reveals a freeing truth: Jesus doesn't need us to save the world. He's already done it. Which means that you can go and enjoy Him, forever.

Connecting the Discriminatory Dots

As Christians, we want our institutions like private, Christian colleges, to be able to set a standard of conduct for the employees of the organization that, as employees, they must agree to abide by. This includes both conduct related to the job (the employee may not teach heresy, as the organization defines it) and moral conduct unrelated to the job but which the institution assumes the employee either implicitly supports by their presence, or has agreed to support in their behavior even if it conflicts with their personal view. All are welcome to apply. All are welcome to disagree. But if an employee takes the job, there are certain mandates which they must adhere to. If they find that they can no longer adhere to them, the organization has the right to terminate the employee and the employee has the right to resign. As a result, Christians do not believe that this is discriminatory.

Our Government, as an institution, wants to set a standard for the conduct of it's employees that the employees must agree to abide by, which include conduct related to the job (the employee must issue marriage licenses, how the government defines them) as well as conduct unrelated to the job but which the government assumes the employee either implicitly supports by their presence, or have agreed to support in their behavior, even if it conflicts with their personal view (the employee will support President Obama, even if they didn't vote for him and hate his policies). All are welcome to apply. All are welcome to disagree. But if the employee takes the job, there are certain mandates which they must adhere to. If they find that they can no longer adhere to them, the government has the right to terminate the employee and the employee has the right to resign. As a result, many Christians think the Government is being discriminatory.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that we should be more careful in calling something discriminatory when we want the right to be able to do ourselves, lest that (real and important) right be taken from us.

Recapturing our Joy

The train of thought went like this:

I was somewhat sullen after a long summer, filled with more challenges and tragedy than I could have possibly expected.

I thought back to when I was feeling really fulfilled in my work and ministry, and remembered that it was earlier this year.

What was I doing then? I was writing more frequently–nearly every day, in fact. I was working up to something; writing was an outlet not just for my own joy but also for the burden I felt to share what God was doing in the world and how we should think about it.

I didn't feel like I could have that joy again.

And then I remembered the first post that I had written when I got back into writing. It was titled, "restarting and the Christian life." I read it again, and remembered. Sometimes you just need to get back on the horse.

The most shocking thing to me, perhaps, is that I got away from it to begin with. Why did that happen? What squeezed out the most joy-filled part of my day, the part I really looked forward to, the part that made me feel like every other part of the day was worth it? Of course I'm speaking about a work day here, not the day generally. There are plenty of things to make the day, each day, worth living, even if I were to place the general calling of the Christian that gave my life purpose to the side. A wife, children, the blessing of provision, and on it goes. Yet most of us go to work day in and day out and we can say that we love our work but what we mean is that we love spects of our work and we endure the other aspects of it because they allow us to do the things that we really love.

A friend of mine who is an exceptional communicator and pastors his church well through that gift said to me that he loved preaching so much on Sunday that he endured the meetings throughout the week just so that he would have a chance to do that. That sentiment resonates.

Somehow that thing that I really enjoyed, and felt like I was fulfilled in, got squeezed out. Life does that. We need to protect the things that give us joy, or they get bumped to the side. I think it's for the same reason that our most important relationships tend to get neglected; we assume they will always be there, so we don't invest much in them. Then we find that they have deteriorated. Or we find that we aren't doing the things that bring us joy anymore, because life took over.

That joy need to be recaptured.

There are things in your life that used to bring you joy. Maybe it was a particular activity, maybe it was a relationship. Maybe you used to find joy in reading, but you haven't read in a while. Maybe you used to find joy in your marriage, and you wonder where it went. Many times we are concerned we may never get that joy back. The answer, I think, is just to press in. Start reading. Begin the activity. Invest in the relationship. Just do it.

You may find that the joy can be recaptured after all.

Equality & Law Enforcement

Back when the events in Ferguson, MO were going down, I had a conversation with someone where the person admitted that he couldn't figure out why things transpired as they did. On the one hand, he couldn't figure out why a man might get shot or even hassled by the cops. On the other hand, he couldn't figure out why the end result would be rioting. This kind of thing didn't happen in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Of course it doesn't, I told him, because the people in Saratoga Springs, where he was from, were wealthy.

Let me be clear: that is not intended to be a character statements about wealthy people. There is no shortage of sin and brokenness at every level of affluence. Wealthy people commit just as many, and quite possibly more, crimes than poor people. Wealthy people are often just as rude to the cops and sometimes, distrusting in different ways. The reason that things like Ferguson don't happen in Saratoga Springs is not because the people are better or more moral or more ethical. It is because in Saratoga, the people have the money to keep the police just.

If a police officer in Saratoga Springs hassles someone unjustly, it's likely that the person he is hassling has the financial means to right the wrong, should it be necessary. Even if the person he hassles doesn’t have the means, the general community does, and they aren’t going to tolerate even the possibility of being hassled or treated unjustly. The police officer understands that his authority and power are held in check by the very people that he is called to police. If he does not do his job, he might lose it; if he takes advantage of his job, he might also lose it. The people in a wealthy city like Saratoga Springs have at least as much power as the police officer, and as it turns out, that’s the only scenario in which law enforcement can truly operate effectively.

Again, law enforcement can only function effectively in a society where the citizens have just as much power as the law enforcers. There is actually a biblical principle for this that comes up over and over again throughout the Bible, because it’s based on the very character of God himself. The principle is this: True biblical submission can only take place in the context of equality. 

In the New Testament, there are authoritative/submissive commands for various relationships. Husband and wife, employer and employee, parents and children, and so on. Some people misunderstand those passages and attempt to do away with "authority/submission" language to soften the blow; in other words, they deemphasize the structure, in order to draw attention to the equality. Others misunderstand those passages by attempting to emphasize the authority/submission language, and often end up losing the value of inherent equality. To understand it properly requires that we view these commands through the Biblical lens which does not emphasize one over the other, but actually demonstrates that true authority/submission can only happen within true and real equality. 

The early missionary and writer of much of the New Testament, Paul, emphasized on more than one occasion the equality of all people in the sight of God, while also emphasizing that within that equality there is a mutual submission that consists of authoritative roles and submissive roles. As it turns out, this is the most clear reflection of the nature of God, where we find that God is both equal with himself–that is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all equal in their divinity and in their power and in their essence–and yet, are also submissive to one another, so that the Son is submissive to the Father's will and the Holy Spirit is submissive to the Father and the Son. Submission can only exist in the context of equality.

A healthy society, therefore, will emphasize the equality of law enforcement and the citizens. In a society where the law enforcement has all the power, you will end up with a domineering police state that hassles it's citizens without repercussion, and carries out it's "justice" inequitably amongst the people. Such is the case in many lower income areas, where the people do not have any power to keep the police in check. On the other hand, a state where law enforcement is deemphasized and disrespected also ends up with just as much injustice. Those with access will bend the law to their will, and the officers of that law to boot. The officers will end up serving some, and neglecting others. Instead of a balance of power, the people have the power (by which I mean, the wealthy people), the law enforcement become their pawns, and ultimately just as much injustice ensues.

No, there is only one way that law enforcement works in a healthy society, and that is when both the enforcer and the enforcee recognize their equality and thus their equal share of power. Both parties therefore enter into a mutually beneficial agreement; you will respect me, as a person, and my sovereignty, yet will nevertheless enforce the societal laws that we all agree on.

So why do "things like this not happen" in Saratoga? Because in Saratoga, there is a balance of power between those with the legal power and those with the financial power. They hold one another in check. In Ferguson, and in almost all places where we see this type of unrest, they do not hold one another in check. One side has all the power, and it's not the people. It's law enforcement.

That's why injustice happens, and that's why people respond in anger. They have no other choice. They have no other power. The only way to get something to happen is to get noticed, and hopefully, they will see justice.

If you can't understand why they would do that, my guess is, it's because you have other ways to fix the problem.

Can a Christian Smoke Marijuana? Maybe.

Within my lifetime there has been a significant shift in the cultural perspective on marijuana usage. Just today, as I sat in Starbucks sipping my decaf coffee (I didn't want to abuse the drug caffeine), I was simultaneously reading a forum discussion between Pastor's on the subject of whether or not Christians should smoke weed and eavesdropping on a conversation between people next to me who were discussing their perspectives. Both parties at the table next to me discussed the rampant drug use in the high school that they were familiar with; one of them said, "Marijuana has replaced alcohol as the drug of choice. It's so much safer! It's all natural, too." The other (apparently after the other person had left, because I wasn't watching them and there was no response), gave the traditional perspective: "It's so dangerous...it's a gateway drug."

The shift in cultural perspective means that in some parts of the country, recreational marijuana use is legal, and in all likelihood the rest of the nation will follow this trend. Many Christians have refrained from using marijuana simply because it has been illegal; as that will no longer be the case, they are actually forced to have a perspective on it and think through why a Christian should abstain or not abstain. If you live in one of those areas where it is already legal, there's a good chance the discussion has already come up: should a Christian smoke marijuana?

Let me say up front that I am not talking about medical usage of marijuana. Marijuana is proven to relieve the symptoms of some ailments, and the research has increasingly demonstrated potential value in cases such as epilepsy. A friend-of-a-friend uses it for just this purpose, and claims that it's the only thing that works to keep him from the seizures that he's had since he was born. My assumption is that he's telling the truth, and that if it works, more power to him. But that's a post for a different day. In this case, I'm talking about recreational use specifically.

The first place the Christian looks to see if there is any instruction or guidance on the subject is the Bible. So long as marijuana was illegal, the discussion on whether or not a Christian should partake was really just a question of whether or not a Christian was obligated to follow the laws of the land. Since the Bible makes clear that they should, the Christian response to marijunana was similarly black and white. If it is legalized, then that argument becomes moot. And since marijuana usage is not specifically addressed in the Scripture, we have to turn to related issues to determine whether or not it's use is acceptable. Those two related issues are the Bible's teaching on alcohol usage, and the teaching on sobriety generally.

Alcohol & Sobriety 

Although there are differing perspectives within the Christian community on whether or not a Christian should ever drink alcohol, it is an issue that should fit solidly into the "conviction" category of beliefs. A conviction is a belief that a Christian has that is addressed by Scripture, but not in a way that makes the conclusion obvious. As a result, our convictions–although informed by Scripture–are often heavily influenced by our personal experience, and thus we can come to different conclusions and still remain friends without attempting to dismantling the other person's faith. 

The Bible does address alcohol usage, but does so in a way that leaves open the option for Christians to drink. Those in favor of having the occasional drink point out that Jesus first miracle was turning water into wine; those opposed to drinking alcohol point out that the main point of the miracle had to do with purification, not wine drinking, and in any case because Jesus allows something doesn't mean he condones it. In his letters, Paul would encourage the early Christians to "remain sober-minded"; this is the teaching that seems to be behind Paul's exhortation not to get "drunk like the pagans, which leads to debauchery". If there is a clearly-expressed biblical principle related to alcohol, this is it. The Christian should maintain his wits about him; he or she shouldn't voluntarily submit their mental focus to anything that would negatively impact their sobriety.

The reason for this, I think, has less to do with the results of being under the influence, and more to do with the opportunity cost of the loss of sobriety. The results are certainly important, as Paul points out: getting wasted often leads us to make very unwise choices, sometimes to the point that we don't remember we made them. Those effects are temporal, however. They are for this life only. The greater tragedy is the opportunity cost of the loss of sobriety; that is, when we are not sober-minded, we will be ill-equipped to share the Gospel if an opportunity arises. This gets to the heart of Peter's exhortation to the believers in his first letter: always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that you have. There is much that this could mean, but it certainly includes the understanding that the Christian person should be always ready to share the Gospel, and anything that would inhibit our ability to do that should be put aside. Thus, the desirable state of mind for the believer is the one in which he or she is sober and ready to make a defense of the Christian faith.

So then, we are left with these two principles: first, that the usage of alcohol itself is never condemned, and second, that what is condemned is anything that would cause us to lose our wits. If we take the first principle to mean that alcohol usage is allowed, then certainly the guiding principle should be the second: there are limits to God's good creation! The Psalmist remarks that wine gladdens our hearts (Psalm 104), but the wise teacher of the proverbs reminds us that it can also lead us astray; to follow it would be unwise. (Proverbs 20)

These are the two principles that I would apply to the recreational usage of marijuana. Will it cause you to lose your wits? Can you occasionally smoke marijuana and still be in a state of mind to share the Gospel? If so, then I cannot see a biblical reason that it would be disallowed. This is not to say that it would be wise to smoke marijuana. That is a different question and one that I have very little interest in answering at this juncture. Everyone makes unwise choices, and often with regularity. What I'm interested in is what God thinks about it. And as far as I can tell based on what he has chosen to reveal, the best we can do is develop a personal conviction on the issue. We can decide for ourselves based on the Scripture and encourage others to see things how we see them, but we're not allowed to chastise someone for choosing differently than us, if they at least understand what the Bible teaches. If God wanted to be clear, he certainly could have been. But he wasn't. And that means that as we apply what he has told us, we might not all agree. That's what makes it a conviction, rather than an essential.

And at the end of the day, we can still all get along.

Speculating on Jesus: Reliable Sources?

The final challenge that might be presented in light of the recent survey previously referenced is the challenge of whether or not the source material of Jesus life is to be trusted. By way of reminder, the survey indicated that most Americans believe that Jesus was a historical person who existed, but the opinions about what he was actually like or who he actually was varied greatly. This means that for the modern American Christian, the chief concern is not proving that he was, but who he was. This means, first, that Jesus is someone that we should care about beyond the typical historical figure. Second, it means that we need to know where to look to find out more information about him. And then finally, we need to determine whether that source material can be trusted.

As I mentioned in the last post, this third question is only posed when we realize that the source material about Jesus (his biographies) unashamedly present a man who believed that he was God. His claims were not just universal in nature, but they were actually universal truth claims about himself. If he really was God, if he really did do the things that he said, then it has tremendous implications for our life today. So much so, that if we can't rightly ignore what he said according to his biographers, then the next best thing to do is question the source altogether. Perhaps the accounts have been embellished. Perhaps, over time, the accounts have been changed to present a figure that said more than Jesus ever actually did.

This argument is quite easy to dispel, of course. Simply, if you were trying to soften the blow of Jesus' claims, or you were trying to make him more acceptable to the skeptic, you would have dialed down his claims, not ratcheted them up. In this case, Jesus' biographers would have made his words more offensive, more outlandish, and ultimately more crazy–unless they were true and he actually said them. We must keep in mind that it is recorded, extra-biblical, and fully accepted history that this group of people called Christians were being mercilessly persecuted by Rome, and particularly by the emperor Nero. Even if we wanted to make the highly unlikely and somewhat illogical argument that all of these early Christians were delusional, persecution that led to death certainly would have cleared out the insane from the sane. Instead of shrinking this group of people, however, it actually grew.

It's helpful to remember that these were first and second generation Christians who were being killed. Some of them may have been alive during Jesus ministry; most almost certainly had parents who were alive during that time. They faced this persecution precisely because they believed that the message of Jesus was true. He really did say what he said he did. He really was who he said he was. 

The Gospel writers fall into this group of people who, again, were first or second generation Christians. Three out of four definitely saw the ministry of Jesus. One of them, Luke, may not have, and perhaps that is what prompted his thoroughly researched biography that he claims to present to a person named Theophilus. Nevertheless, it behooved all of them to account for Jesus life as it actually happened. There was no benefit to making the story more than it was. They were already going to lose their lives on account of Jesus and who he was. Better to die for the real Jesus than someone they made up. Furthermore, the early church consistently verified these accounts of Jesus life as being accurate and truthful accounts of Jesus life.

All things being equal, a group that believed a known lie–and make no mistake but that the central moment of Jesus life, the resurrection, would have been a known lie were it not actually true–may have continued to propagate that truth so long as it led to pleasurable results. That is, assuming that the first disciples made up the outlandish story of Jesus rising from the dead, so long as it had pleasurable results the group might have just gone on propagating that story. What did it matter, so long as the results were good? Yet this is not what happened. While it did, for a time, produce pleasurable results, the fact is that the more one believed the message, and the more that one shared the message and lived out the implications to this truth, the less desirable the results became. If you really believed it, and you shared it, and you were obvious about the message of Jesus resurrection, you were threatened, arrested, and beaten, almost from the jump. If the resurrection–again, the single act that motivated the early church to advance–were not true, the disciples would have known that it wasn't true. At some point, someone would have cracked. At some point, a second or third generation follower would hear the story, not having seen the resurrection for themselves, and said, "this is crazy", and eventually the movement would have died. Of course, the other possibility is that the resurrection is not a lie at all, but an actual historical event that took place. Quite frankly, this is the direction that all of the notable information points. The movement really did happen. Cowards became courageous. The government and the religious leaders–two major powers who wanted nothing more than for this Jesus character to go away–never presented the body, despite knowing exactly where they put it because they guarded it with soldiers.

In the end, we might find that the message of Jesus' biographies, and the claims that he made about himself, are either outlandish or they are old fashioned. We may find that they are offensive. But none of these are the central question that we ought to ask. The question is, are they true? Did Jesus actually say and do these things? Are the Gospel accounts trustworthy? Given the historical context (not to mention the harmony of the four accounts), it seems that it would be more reasonable to ask why we wouldn't trust them. No one had anything to gain by fabricating these stories. The government didn't want to advance the message. The religious leaders never wanted to think about Jesus again. The Christians knew they would be killed for writing the things that they wrote. The only reason you'd write them is if they were, at the end of the day, actually the things that Jesus said and did, and if, at the end of the day, you were willing to stake your life on their truth. And that's exactly what the writers did.

Speculating on Jesus: Where to look?

Given that the vast majority of American's already believe that Jesus was a historical figure, the challenge for the Christian person is to define who Jesus was, rather than that he was. The fact that he existed is assumed to be true, but this raises several difficult questions. The first question, "Why should I care?" is covered in this post. We must clarify for ourselves and for those around us why we should have any interest in researching who Jesus actually was; what is it that makes him stand out from all the other historical figures that we could study? This, of course, leads to the second question. If our interest in Jesus is piqued, where should we actually turn to find out more about him? That is the topic of this post.

For now, let's set aside the third question that I presented in the first post on the subject. That question, "how can I trust what I'm reading?", is so important to this second question that I debated whether or not it should come first. Upon reflection, however, I decided that it was better to set it aside for now and simply address what the material related to Jesus life actually says. As we approach Jesus to find out more about him, I think that we will find that our assumptions about him are that he is fairly innocuous; the image that we have is of a kind, caucasian gentleman with a lamb cast around his shoulders. Surely this Jesus cannot be much of a bother; this Jesus won't demand much from us. He is safe. As such, questions of whether or not we should put our confidence in what is actually recorded about Jesus won't really arise until after we've examined the material and found that, far from being innocuous, he is actually quite dangerous; far from demanding little, his claims are actually quite demanding. If not for us, at very least for the way in which we view the world. After coming into contact with who Jesus actually is and what Jesus actually teaches, we find that–if we are to trust him–we cannot go on the same way we have been prior to this moment. Everything changes if what is said about Jesus is true. And that is the point where most of us will be awoken to our senses and we will actually ask the question, "should I trust this material?" And when we ask it, then we will answer it. Until then, we'll just consider where we should look.

The place to begin, of course, is in the four account of Jesus life that are often referred to as "The Gospels". These four accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each take a particular perspective in writing about Jesus, and each of them has a particular audience in mind. They were written by four different authors at four different time periods. Yet despite those differences, we find an amazing cohesiveness between the four books. If we begin with these accounts, there are at least two things that we will begin to see; to data points, if we can call them that, as we discover who Jesus actually is.

First, we'll discover what the very early followers of Jesus though about him. Two of the writers are Jesus disciples (Matthew & John), one of them is a close follower of Jesus who would later spend time with Peter (Mark), and the other is a historian who spent extensive time researching Jesus life and traveling with the Apostle Paul. Certainly, their perspective on who Jesus actually was ought to be important to us. They were the ones who saw him, walked with him, heard him, and ultimately believed in him. These four biographies of Jesus life give us all that we need to make a clear determination of what the early church thought about Jesus: namely, that he was Savior and Lord.

Second, we'll discover what Jesus thought about himself. Jesus was not shy about making radical claims about his identity, and his biographers do not soften these claims. This in itself is worth noting. If the early followers of Jesus knew that he made claims about himself that they did not believe were true, they would have taken great claims to scrub them from the record, as it were. Yet they didn't do that. This indicates that, not only did they believe Jesus, but it also gives us confidence that Jesus believed these claims about himself as well. The most outrageous claim, and the one that finally got him sent to his death (at least from the religious leaders perspective), was that he was God, the creator of the universe. Again, this is an outrageous claim that, were you or I to make it, would make us look like absolute fools. Indeed, Jesus would have looked like a fool too, had he not proved it with his death and resurrection–or at least, that's clearly what his early followers believed about him.

Once we have come into contact with what the early church thought about Jesus, and what Jesus believed about himself, we turn our attention to the next question: what did Jesus believe about the rest of the universe? Or, what did he believe about God? What was his belief about how the world operates, and why it was that he needed to come and offer some sort of salvation? We'll find in short order that what Jesus believed, and the "scripture" that he used, was the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians would refer to as the Old Testament. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus opens to the center of that Scripture and claims that he is ushering in the fulfillment of all that it promises; at the end of his ministry, Jesus takes time to show that everything that was written in the Hebrew Bible pointed towards him. At very least, what we learn from this is that Jesus viewed the Old Testament as trustworthy. They were so trustworthy, in fact, that not only did God deliver them to his people so that they would know what it was that he expected of them, but then, in a great cosmic act of mercy, fulfilled the demands himself. This is the reason why Jesus can say to his followers that the only way to get back into God's good grace, as it were, was through Him. He was the gate into the life you've always wanted, that you've always tried to create. 

Finally, we come to the implications. What does this all mean? For that, we turn to what Christians refer to as the New Testament. A collection of letters and teaching that were written by the very early church leaders and distributed amongst the churches. They, too, were considered authoritative and trustworthy. In the letters we find the early church leaders instructing the people on how the fulfillment of God's law ought to impact our lives, today. One thing that stands out: the expectations of God still matter, it's just that our failure to live up to them isn't held against us. The good news of Jesus is that since he has fulfilled them, our failure to fulfill them will never be held against us again, so long as we put our confidence in his efforts rather than our own. It was unacceptable to the early leaders that you would want to have Jesus, but disagree with him about what he viewed as sin. You couldn't have it both ways. If you acknowledged that Jesus was God, Lord, and Savior, then you also had to agree that what Jesus believed about how God intended the world to be (evidenced through Jesus' scriptures and his own teachings) was actually true. You couldn't claim to follow Jesus, but reject what he taught, even if those teachings led to some discomfort in our lives.

This discovery is what causes most people to stop and question whether or not this source material can be trusted. After all, there are only two ways to make Jesus safer than he actually is. The first is to reinterpret what Jesus said so that it fits our pre-conceived agenda. This is the theological equivalent of having our cake and eating it too; we like the idea of Jesus, but we simply cannot accept what he taught about sin, sexuality, divorce, money, or anything else for that matter. I'll take the free gift of salvation, but functionally I'll reject the reason salvation was necessary in the first place. Surely, things cannot be that bad. The great danger of this softening, or "safening", of Jesus is that it's almost always an inside job. It comes from Christians who know that they cannot totally disparate the text, or the Bible as a whole quickly becomes untrustworthy. Better instead to reinterpret what Jesus said so that it is more palatable for the modern person. The trouble with this approach, however is that it requires us to assume that what was written about Jesus is supposed to be cryptic in nature and it's only we who have discovered the hidden code. Jesus wasn't quite as serious about sin as we make him out to be, see, we have finally discovered it. Of course, if we believe anything about the Bible, we know this is highly unlikely to be true, since it is God's word evealed to us, and a hidden or cryptic meaning would not be much of a revelation at all.

Finding that we cannot simply reinterpret Jesus claims so that they fit with what we wish he would have said, we move on to the second approach to making Jesus safe, and it is simply to question whether or not the text can be trusted at all. And this is the question I alluded to at the beginning of this post. This is when our sensibilities kick in: when we realize that what Jesus is actually calling us to is much more than simply believing he was a moral teacher or an all around good guy. Jesus claimed that he was God, that God required perfection, and that anything less than that resulted in death and eternal separation from God. "Death" is the equivalent of separation from ourselves; our souls are separated from our body. "Hell" is the equivalent of separation from God; our souls are separated from the life-giver. Yet Jesus also claimed that he was the solution to that separation. We could either try to fix the problem ourselves, or we could trust him to fix it on our behalf. Those are the two options that he presents. And if they are true, then it means that he is infinitely more important than perhaps we have previously assumed. But it can't be true, can it? Surely, his biographers must have gotten it wrong. Surely, these texts can't be trusted.

And that will be the next challenge that we will have to answer.

Speculating on Jesus: Why Should I Care?

In yesterday's post, I referenced a recent survey that indicated that while the vast majority of people in America believe that Jesus was a historical figure, we have vastly different opinions on what he was actually like. The good news is that, even in a post-Christian America, very few people are questioning the historicity of Jesus insofar as he was an actual person who walked the earth. This means that the challenge for the Christian has much more to do with who he was, than that he was, since the second piece is taken as a given for the vast majority of people we will come into contact with. This challenge, though, has at least three parts. The first one is why anyone should even care. Jesus being a historical figure is one thing; that he has any relevance to my life or that I should have any concern over who he was, taught, or did, is a different thing altogether.

I mentioned that, as simply a historical figure, most people have as much knowledge about–and interest in–Jesus as we do any other historical character we might name. Our functional knowledge of Jesus is about the same as our knowledge of Alexander the Great or Napoleon Bonaparte. We know their ethnicity, a rough sketch of what they did, and that's about it. As far as learning more about them, well, that's for the historians. Why should we feel any differently about Jesus?

The main reason I think we should care is because the chief difference between Jesus and most other historical figure is that Jesus is one of a handful of people in history who made universal claims. What Jesus claimed to be true wasn't just true for people in his day, but was presented as true for everyone, in all times, in all places. This is typical for other religious teachers, as well: Muhammad, Gautama Buddha, etc. Their claims transcend their historic footprint. Even here, though, Jesus is different.

The claims that Jesus makes are more than just universal truth statements; they are universal truth statements about himself. Jesus didn't just claim to have a message from God, he claimed to be God. Jesus didn't just claim to have the secret to transcending the natural order of life and death, he claimed to be the secret to transcending the natural order of life and death. Jesus didn't just claim that there was a message of "getting right with God", he claimed that he was the message of getting right with God. Jesus didn't just preach; he practiced what he preached by prophetically claiming that he was going to die and rise again, and then dying and rising again. This is why Jesus stands out. He didn't just claim that he had a new way of religious living figured out; he claimed that the was the new way of religious living, and called people to put their confidence in him rather than in their own efforts. In other words, Jesus stands out from all other historical figures because he was one of the small group of people making universal truth claims; he stands out even further from that group, because the claims he was making were about himself. His teaching was so radically different from even the teachers in the same historical category, that it should cause us to go deeper than his historical existence.

The second reason, however, has to do with the people around us everyday who have been impacted by this message. Even if all we think about Jesus is that he was a historical religious figure who taught people how to live "right", it would be difficult to deny the power of his teachings. Tens of billions of people in the last two thousand years have made it a point to attempt to live according to his teachings. Countries were built on these principles, or in defiance of these principles. The message–even if it is only a self help message–continues to inspire people to live selfless lives. I would argue that Jesus teaching were significantly more than just a self-help message, but even if they aren't, the very fact that so many people throughout history have said that his claims are the basis for their worldview ought to be enough to get us to inquire what it was that he actually said. That should be enough, I think, to at least take a cursory glance at his life and teachings and see if they have any relevance to our life today.

One final thing that may help with this first challenge, specifically for those who claim to already believe in Jesus. Do you have any desire to inquire further into his life and teachings? There are a lot of people who claim to believe in Jesus who have little to no idea what he actually said, taught, or did. They have accepted Jesus based on the historical claim that he existed, but have not actually considered what it is that they actually believe about him (or what he believed about himself.) If that's the climate of the church–where we, functionally, believe that Jesus existed but have little interest in finding out more about him–we should not be surprised when that is the climate of culture as well. Perhaps if you want the people around you to be interested in who Jesus is or what he said, the place to begin is taking a serious interest yourself!

Speculating on Who Jesus Actually Is

Jesus Christ has made a cameo in hundreds of pop culture places, from The Da Vinci Code to South Park. But, although the character of Jesus has certainly been fictionalized, satirized and mythologized over the centuries, the vast majority of Americans still maintain that he was a historical figure. More than nine out of 10 adults say Jesus Christ was a real person who actually lived (92%).

Barna Research Group, April 1, 2015. https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/714-what-do-americans-believe-about-jesus-5-popular-beliefs#.VSQ4Bc7maow

That Jesus was a historical figure who actually existed is a difficult fact to deny. My guess is that the reason a very small percentage claimed that he didn't exist is either because of apathy or ignorance; either they don't really care one way or the other, or they simply don't know and have just assumed that he was made up. In any case, Barna's recent survey results reveal that Jesus' existence will probably not need to be argued when you talk to your skeptic friends about Jesus.

That said, Barna's survey also revealed that people have very different ideas about what Jesus was like. Differing opinions on topics ranging from Jesus divinity to whether or not he ever "sinned" (insert your own definition of sin here) mean that even though we mostly agree that Jesus existed, we don't all agree on what he was actually like. This is fertile ground for the Christian to do some thinking: how do we know what Jesus is like? How can I be sure that what I think I know about Jesus can actually be trusted? If Jesus really existed, what type of a person was he?

The first challenge the Christian will face is moving people from the point of acknowledging Jesus existence to actually inquiry of what he was about. This is a bigger challenge than it seems. You might wonder to yourself why in the world someone wouldn't care what Jesus was really like, but insert any other historical figure into the discussion and ask yourself...do you care? How many history books have you read recently? How many historical figures have you inquired about? The truth is that most people in America know approximately the same number of facts about Jesus as they do about Napoleon or Alexander the Great. We know their nationality, a little bit about their story and what they did, and that's it. Not only do we have a very limited knowledge of who they actually are, but most of us feel no pressing need to dig any further. Why should we feel any differently about Jesus?

A second challenge the Christian will face is how we actually go about finding out more about Jesus. The easy answer is "the Bible", and more specifically, the four accounts of Jesus life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Simple enough on the surface, but it raises a third challenge: how do we know that those accounts can be trusted? After all, we know going in that the Gospel writers were clearly biased. The writers were either one of Jesus twelve disciples themselves (Matthew, John), a close follower of Jesus and probably very close acquaintance of a disciple of Jesus (Mark with Peter), or a very close acquaintance to the famous Apostle Paul (Luke).

These three challenges become the central challenges for the Christian looking to engage the world with what they actually believe, and I think ought to be of primary importance to anyone who claims that Jesus actually exists. First, why should I care about Jesus? Second, where do I find out more about him? Third, how do I know that those accounts can be trusted?

Unless we have an answer to those questions, I think that whatever we believe about Jesus will be little more than speculation.

Why the Resurrection Matters

Another Easter Sunday has come and gone and with it, the temptation to let the "Resurrection" fade into the background much the same as Christmas fades into the past and we are left paying off our credit cards from over-celebration. We don't celebrate in the same fashion for Easter. Despite the attempts to commercialize it with the Easter Bunny, new outfits, and candy, it still remains primarily a religious holiday that isn't recognized by people other than those who identify with Christianity. Yet the temptation to move on with our lives and compartmentalize the truths of the resurrection is just as much of a temptation as it is to throw out the wrapping paper and mentally move on to the next big event.

Easter is fundamentally different than Christmas, however. While the events of Christmas are incredibly important and contain a great deal of doctrinal truth, they don't stand on the same level as the events of Easter. In fact, the events of Christmas have no value whatsoever apart from Easter, since the death and resurrection of Jesus are the culmination of everything that he came to accomplish. If they never occurred, then his birth, life, and whatever else occurred would still have been interesting, miraculous, potentially life-altering even if we chose to use Christ's life as an example, but not near as important as they are because of the events of Easter weekend. I'm not sure if the importance of the resurrection can be overstated: if it doesn't happen, there is no hope, there is no ultimate salvation, and practically there is no foundation for the church. The first two points are theological in nature and I won't address them here. It is that last point–the practical necessity of the resurrection for the church–that I want to address.

As we examine the broader culture (at least of America) it's easy to notice that there are some very sharp disagreements regarding how we view various cultural issues. Pick any issue you'd like, and chances are you can find not just diverse views on the subject, but polarizing views. Our tendency is to believe that these disagreements are themselves the problem, but they aren't. They are a symptom of the problem. The real problem, as it turns out, is that we are standing on fundamentally different foundations.

Imagine that the two of us were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we began to describe to one another what we see. To a certain extent, our descriptions may seem similar. We might describe a deep gorge, the relative color of the dirt and clay, the vastness of what we are viewing. As we go further in our descriptions, however, they inevitably begin to diverge. One of us argues that the canyon is a thousand feet deep, the other says it is only a couple of hundred feet. Perhaps we argue about the vegetation, or what it is that makes it so beautiful, or how the sun sets–or rises–on the opposite end of the canyon. Soon we would find that our disagreement is so sharp, that it is impossible for us to figure one another out. We end up completely polarized, convinced that the other person is a lunatic.

Of course you may have already figured out the problem. We are viewing the same canyon, but from two different vantage points. Where we are standing makes all the difference in recognizing why it is that we disagree on our perspective. Once we understand that we are not even fundamentally seeing the same things, we can come to terms with the fact that we disagree.

This is why the real issues of culture have nothing to do with our perspectives on the issues, and have everything to do with the foundation on which we are standing. Christians in particular have taken for granted that for the vast majority of the history of the United States, most of the population stood on a similar foundation. Call it "Judeo-Christian values" or whatever you wish, but really it was just the foundation that there was a God and that we could find out more about him in the Bible. I don't assume that the entirety of the country was Christian, let alone religious, but at very least the foundation was roughly similar. Thus, if there were disagreements on certain subjects, they weren't extreme. We might be arguing about the color of the clay in the canyon, but at least we are looking at the same clay.

Unfortunately that foundation has shifted and the vast majority of culture is no longer standing on the same foundation. This is the effect of post-modernity that claims that there are no universal truths. One of the impacts of this was the supposed destruction of the meta-narrative, which is by it's nature a comprehensive truth claim. Of course the theory falls on it's head. Even saying that there is no universal truth is a comprehensive truth claim about how the world works, it simply shifts the responsibility for decision making to the individual, rather than the universal. Again, claiming that every decision is up to the individual is a universal claim. Thus the meta-narrative was not done away with, but simply changed, and as a result, we find that when we are describing what appear to be similar issues, they are not the same at all. Those of us who are Christians are standing on an entirely different foundation than those who are not-Christians, and vice versa.

This in itself is not a bad thing, it is just something that simply "is". If anything, it provides an opportunity for Christians to have more clarity about what it is that they actually believe. I also think that it should provide Christians more opportunity to have grace with skeptics, since we ought to understand that the issues is not a disagreement, per se, it is a foundational issue. We are not standing on the same footing. We aren't looking at the canyon from the same angle. I can't expect my skeptic friend to see the world from the same perspective that I do, unless we first understand where it is that we are standing.

All of this brings me back to the church, and my original point about the practical need to remember the resurrection. Over the past decade, at least, and perhaps longer than that, post-modernity has come into the church in a variety of ways. The easiest entry way has been to offer differing perspectives on traditional Christian perspectives. Some of those perspectives have been healthy and offered appropriate correctives in the church. Like all institutions (and individuals, I might add), when you have held onto a particular belief long enough, you typically end up abusing it in it's application. For example, the longer you believe you are a safe driver, the less likely you are to use your seat belt. The better you are at a particular activity–skiing, for example–the more likely you are to push the limits verging into the unsafe, even for an expert. The same goes for churches. What might begin as a helpful doctrine or tradition can end up being abused in the long run, in desperate need of correction and a reminder of where the application should begin and end. Other perspectives, however, have not been corrective in nature, but downright incorrect. As a seminary professor said, "the only corrective to bad theology is better theology." Unfortunately many of the critiques in the last decade have not been better theology, but just more bad theology from a different perspective. The pendulum might swing to embrace it, but it doesn't mean that we are any better off. Change for changes sake is not necessarily a good thing. So how do we combat these perspectives? The answer is the resurrection.

The resurrection provides Christians with the foundation on which unity can be built as a church, for at least two reasons. The first reason encompasses both Jesus death, and resurrection, which puts all Christians on the same plane. If Jesus death and resurrection are real, historical events that happened and on which Christianity is based, so that faith and confidence in those events is essential to being a Christian, then the very nature of them mean that all of us arrive into this new kingdom of God on the same train. No one gets in on their own power. No one is more righteous than another. In fact, we all have the same righteousness from the same savior and get in on the same ticket.

The second reason that the resurrection is necessary is that it proves that Jesus is the king of this new kingdom, and thus, he gets to set the expectations. I believe that one of the chief reasons that some of the sharp disagreements that the church has experienced with the culture have become sharp disagreements within the church itself is that many within the church have unwittingly shifted their foundation. This was more evident than ever in the week leading up to Easter when a variety of articles were published claiming to come from Christian sources, but as I examined them, I noticed that they weren't Christian at all. They claimed to have a similar value structure, but they so minimized the death and resurrection of Jesus that those two events were no longer the foundation on which they based the rest of their so-called "truth". Realizing that meant that I could accept their conclusions at face value–as the author's opinion–but also realize that they weren't Christian perspectives, even though they claimed to be. It has become increasingly easy for people in the 21st century church to disagree with Jesus, or try to change his words to fit our meaning, and the reason that we can do it is because we, essentially, deny the power of the resurrection or take it to mean something it doesn't mean. The resurrection is not hope just for hope's sake; it is hope because it revealed that Jesus really was who he said he was. Jesus really was God incarnate who had the ability to defeat death on our behalf. The power of the resurrection wasn't limited just to him; it's a power that all who put their faith in Christ have access to. Far from being just some nebulous, ill-defined hope, it is a hope that very clearly identifies Jesus as God of very God, and King of every King. In other words, if we believe the resurrection is true, we don't get to disagree with Jesus.

As believers, then, the starting point for our unity must be the resurrection of Jesus. This is what gives him His claim to authority, as well as clarifying for us why we don't get to be authoritative in our own right. The Resurrection is the foundation on which the Christian views the rest of the world. When we stand on the power of the Resurrection, then we may still discuss and dialogue about what, exactly, Christ believed, but we don't get to disagree with Jesus or the rest of the Bible, or interpret it to fit our cultural milieu or cultural understanding at the time. Rather we stand on the authority of Christ himself.

If there are sharp disagreements in the church, I am much less interested in knowing what you think about the disagreement, and much more interested in knowing what you think about Jesus. Is he the risen Lord, or not? If he is, then you and I can both submit our opinions to his. If he isn't, then we're not on the same foundation to begin with, and I don't care much that you disagree with me. We'll never agree on what the canyon looks like so long as we are standing on different lookouts.

This is why we can't put Easter in the past. Easter Sunday, and what it represents, are not just a day in the life of the church calendar, but the foundation on which every day must be built. To the extent that we remember that, we'll have a united church. To the extend that we forget it, we'll be divided. It might really be as simple as that.