S.of the F. v. the G. R.

(Survival of the Fittest versus the Golden Rule)

Where does morality come from? How do humans decide how to behave? As a Christian, I would say that moral behavior is a product of my belief in a Creator God. But what if a person does not believe in God? What dictates his morality?

That’s a huge question. If people reject the Creatorship of God, then, if they’re honest with themselves, they also have to reject God’s pronouncement of what’s right and wrong. Some folks try to have it both ways by claiming that morality is a natural evolutionary step, but macro evolution, to my knowledge, says little about absolute rights and wrongs but quite abit about the importance of survival.

Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, quotes from a sermon by Phillip E. Johnson called “Evolution and the Christian Faith.”

 “‘If there is no Creator who has a purpose for your life, then there is no such thing as sin, … ‘Sin would mean that you are in a wrong relationship to your Creator. Well, you can't be in the wrong relationship with the particles. They don't care. So you don't need a Savior to save you from the consequences of your wrong relationship with the particles.’”Mattingly then concludes, “When you give away creation, you have given away everything.”[1]

That’s a pretty harsh conclusion, isn’t it? But I don’t believe we can deny the truth of it when we look around at what has happened in society since the theory of evolution has become the popular way to explain the existence of our world.

Evolution teaches that only the strongest, healthiest, and smartest survive, a concept that is completely incompatible with the concept of the Golden Rule.

“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12

Surprisingly, I’ve found that the Golden Rule is harder to teach than you might think. I mean, out of context, many people wouldn’t immediately assume that it was a text from the Bible. You could say it was just a good rule to live by. But in 20 plus years of teaching in one capacity or another, without the opportunity to back that statement up with a belief in God, it has little impact on individual behavior. The response I most often get when I try to explain the Golden Rule to one of my students is, “Why?” In fact, they often completely turn the whole concept around, “They’re not going to treat me the way I want to be treated, why should I be nice to them?”

You have to admit that by today’s standards, the Golden Rule is counter-intuitive.

The Golden Rule says, “Share.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “Take yours first and let the rest fend for themselves.

The Golden Rule says, “Lend a helping hand.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “If you can’t keep up, get out of the way.”

The Golden Rule says, “Look out for one another.”

Survival of the Fittest says, “Every man for himself.”

Counter-intuitive or not, our Creator has both told and demonstrated to us how we should behave as we represent Him.

“Your relation to God and your fellow men demands a change in your life. In the Sermon on the Mount the injunction of the world’s redeemer was: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” These words are of the highest value to us, a golden rule given us by which to measure our conduct. This is the true rule of honesty. Very much is comprehended in these words. We are here required to deal with our neighbors as we would wish them to deal with us were we in their circumstances.” (E.G. White, Testimonies of the Church, Volume 4, p. 359)

But without God, there are no such requirements. Facing each day without the belief that each of us is a special creation of the God of the universe, leaves each of us to find meaning and truth in our own way. And that has led to moral relativism and situational ethics – the belief that there is no absolute truth, no right and wrong and no consequences for poor choices.

Where does that leave us?

Well, according to William Watkins, it leaves us with ten core beliefs that govern the lives of those people today who claim there are no absolutes. (Try to wrap your brain around that!)

Anyway, here are The New Absolutes.

“(1) Religion interferes with freedom and must be banished from the public square.(2) Human life is valuable only as long as it is wanted.(3) Marriage is a human contract made between any two people, and can be terminated for any reason.(4) Family is any grouping of two or more people.(5) Sexual intercourse is permissible regardless of marital status.(6) All forms of sexual activity are moral as long as they occur between consenting adults.(7) Women are oppressed by men and must liberate themselves.(8) People of color should receive preferential treatment.(9) Non-Western societies and other oppressed peoples and their heritage should be studied and valued above Western civilization.(10) Only viewpoints deemed politically correct should be tolerated and encouraged to prevail.”[2]

Call me old fashioned or simple minded, but I prefer God’s Absolutes. God absolutely created each of us, loves each of us and wants to spend eternity with each of us. You know where I’m going with this:

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16-17

Now that’s an absolute, I can live with!

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[1] Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, from his column "Phillip E. Johnson”

[2] William Watkins, The New Absolutes (Bethany House, 1996)

Chicken vs. Egg?

I can remember really puzzling over that question, wondering how a person could actually know which came first. I believe I was well into my teens before I realized that, for a Christian who believed in the six days of Creation, it was a no-brainer.

The God Who created the world in six real, twenty-four hour days did everything in a carefully ordered way. He didn’t just start creating things willy-nilly – He followed a meticulously thought out plan. How do I know? Because 7,000 plus years since the Fall of Adam and Eve, the world is still so orderly that almost every part of it can be described in mathematical formulas.

Do you realize that almost everything in our world can be described by a single set of numbers? They’re called the Fibonacci numbers and the visual equivalent, the Golden Mean and is a sequence of numbers, starting with 0, 1 and continuing 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. Each new number equals the two numbers before it. This is only the first few numbers – they go on forever, but the ratio is 1.618033988749895… The whole concept gets pretty math heavy and I get pretty lost, but when I can see that rose petals wrap around their stem using that pattern, sea shells follow the Golden spiral, and so many things in nature contain the same ratio over and over again, I’m led to the conclusion that God laid out our world along very strict guidelines.

“John Polkinghorne, a theoretical physicist and a minister, claims that the equations that guide physics point to a Creator. Polkinhorne said, ‘Physicists are deeply impressed with the order of the world. It is rationally beautiful and structured, and the feeling that there is a mind behind it is a very natural feeling to have …. I think the feeling of wonder, which is fundamental to the experience of physicists … is fundamentally a religious experience, whether people recognize it or not.’”[1]

In Genesis 1, God worked from general to specific. He didn’t create an living thing until He had created a place where it could survive.

“Then God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.” Genesis 1:9-13

The whole Genesis account of Creation shows a thoughtful and concerned Creator who carefully built a beautiful home for His creations. Not even a blade of grass was created until the system to keep it alive was in place.

On the other hand, we have the theories of Charles Darwin built around his research on the Galapagos Islands. His ideas involve natural selection and don’t describe any logic or purpose just an on-going struggle for survival. If God were to use a theory like the one described by Darwin, He would have to be described as careless, wasteful and cruel to just pitch ideas for creatures out into the planet and see which ones survived.

That would be like me deciding to plant a garden in my backyard so I just gathered up a whole bunch of seed of all different kinds and just pitched them out into the yard. Then I just watched to see what would come up. I didn’t prepare the ground for the seeds or make sure the seeds went into the right kind of soil or in the right amount of sunlight. I didn’t worry about whether or not the seeds could even grow in my area of the country. If the plants made it, great, but if the weeds took over and none of them made it, that’s ok too. In my backyard, that would mean I’d end up with very little of anything edible, just Johnson grass and sticker burs. I would have wasted a lot of seeds.

Anyway, how would you feel about God if He was so indifferent about how things went on His planet? Would you be interested in worshipping Him? or praying to Him?

I believe that the way we picture Creation has everything to do with the way we picture God.

“Some theologians argue that God is not indifferent to natural evil, but, rather, God is limited in His very nature so that He is good but limited in power. Hence, while He desires to do something about the pain and suffering in the world, He is unable.
“A second option offered asserts that while God is all-powerful, His greatest desire is the complete freedom of the cosmos to self-create and self-determine. This freedom is said to be more important to God than imposing some kind of order or design on the universe. Advocates of this view tend to express God as being in a power-sharing relationship with the universe, with the universe participating in its own creation.
“A third option is Deism. In this view, God launches all the natural processes and then absents Himself like a disinterested, absentee landlord. While this God may have all power, He shows little or no personal interest in the affairs of humankind. In this construct, God is highly unlikely to personally interact or intervene with any particularity in the affairs of earth’s history.”[2]

What a blessing to know that our God is not limited in any way, that He maintains His control over the universe, and that He cares about each and every one of us.

I know I end with John 3:16-17 often, but I just don’t believe we can be reminded enough of how involved God wants to be in every aspect of our lives and that, more than anything else, He wants to spend eternity with us. Take just a couple more seconds and really read and think about every word. Each one was written just for you and for me.

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.
“For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16-17AMP

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[1] Pallab Ghosh, "Historic Hunt for 'God Particle,'" BBC News (9-10-08)

[2] Stephen Bauer, PhD, The Lesson in Brief and Learning Cycle, Lesson 2, Origins-Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide

An Accidental Life

When my sons were little, we spent a huge amount of time watching shows or videos about animals. And, initially that sounds awesome because then they were learning things instead of watching mindless kids’ shows (they watched those too). Nature shows are so much fun to watch – the photography is beautiful. Except that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had to throw in its mandatory this-animal-evolved-from-that-animal line. At which point I would feel the need to disagree with the voice-over out loud so that my children would not get the idea that I agreed with those kinds of statements. I did it so often that we could all recite my various responses together.

I have a huge problem with the theory of evolution … well, I have several, but my biggest problem with it goes beyond all of the scientific impossibilities and unlikelihoods of life just popping up out of nowhere. My biggest problem with the theory of evolution is that believing it changes the way a person sees themselves and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. I believe that so many of the things for which we are trying to find solutions are outgrowths of believing that life is merely the result of a biological accident.

In the interest of full disclosure, I went to public schools for most of my academic life and I worked in public schools first as a teacher and then as a school psychologist. My children also went to public schools. I grew up in a time when only the theory of evolution was taught in science classes and formal prayer was not allowed. So, that may all flavor my opinions to some extent.

One of the first side effects of teaching our children that they are nothing but biological accidents is the loss of the knowledge that each individual is inherently valuable. If we can no longer believe that we were knit together in our mothers’ wombs by a loving Creator God, then who are we? And why are we here? To fill the void of our value through our Creator and Redeemer, educators started trying to artificially produce self-esteem in each student. The self-esteem movement has become almost a joke – everybody gets a trophy for participating, teachers shouldn’t use red ink, don’t tell a student they’re wrong – but has not been able to instill in anyone a healthy knowledge that they were created and loved by God. Artificial value then has to come from how we look and what we have.

Unfortunately not everyone is considered beautiful and not everyone has the funds to buy the things that will make them valuable – expensive athletic shoes, clothes, fancy cars or any other thing that is considered a symbol of a person’s importance in society.

In my opinion, one of the reasons that bullying has become such a devastating problem is that children who have been artificially infused with self-worth have no positive way to maintain it and so try to build themselves up by pushing others down. Those who are being pushed down have no resources with which to protect themselves and are emotionally devastated, sometimes to the point of suicide.

A huge casualty of being taught we were accidents was morality. Teenagers who have been told they are nothing more than a step along the evolutionary ladder – just a little higher than monkeys, are no longer bound by the morals of individuals who were created just a little lower than angels.

“What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,” Psalm 8:4-6

That’s a very different way of thinking of humans than most people use, isn’t it? A being just lower than an angel has value, and purpose. A being just higher than a monkey has neither of those things.

One of the most tragic and heartbreaking of the consequences of being taught we are nothing more than glorified monkeys and have no intrinsic value in and of ourselves, is the proliferation and acceptance of abortion.

We no longer think of life like King David did:

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” Psalm 139:13-15

An inconvenient pregnancy is easily and thoughtlessly ended with little thought about what miracle is taking place. From there we can apply the same lack of value for life to so many other aspects of our society – school shootings jump immediately into my mind.

If we are nothing but biological accidents, where does that leave us? What is our purpose for being here? Who cares that we’re here? Our hearts and minds are essentially a vacuum that was supposed to be filled by God, but is now just empty and waiting for whatever comes along. 

“Those who leave the Word of God to account for His created works on scientific principles are drifting without chart or compass upon an unknown ocean. The greatest minds, if not guided by the Word of God in their research, become bewildered in their attempts to trace the relations of science and revelation. Those who doubt the records of the Old and New Testaments will be led to go a step further and doubt the existence of God. Then, having lost their anchor, they are left to beat about upon the rocks of infidelity.“The Bible is not to be tested by men’s ideas of science. Skeptics, through an imperfect comprehension of either science or revelation, claim to find contradictions between them; but rightly understood they are in perfect harmony. Moses wrote under the guidance of the Spirit of God, and a correct theory … will never claim discoveries that cannot be reconciled with his statements.” E.G. White, From Eternity Past, p.67

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John 1:1-5

How would you rather live your life?

A Thin Green Line

Thoughts on the Sabbath School lesson for 2.25.12

I am a Christian who believes that God created everything in six literal days and then literally rested on the seventh day. Having said that, I’m not sure that I’ve spent enough time thinking about how that should shape my interactions with the things that God created in, say, the first five days of Creation week.

That doesn’t mean that I’m in favor of strip-mining or mowing down the rain forest or anything like that, it’s just that I’ve never really thought about EVERYTHING coming from God’s own hand. 

Think about it for a minute.  God made it and then asked Adam and Eve to take care of it.  What was there to take care of?  Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned yet, so what was there to tend? 

Then there are verses like this one: 

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” Genesis 1:26-28 NKJV

People read the words “have dominion over” and “subdue it” and decide that we have the right to do absolutely anything at all to the planet and not worry about what the consequences might be.  I’m pretty sure though, that showing Creation who’s boss, is not what the Creator had in mind..

On a very small scale, it might be like when my aunt and uncle would go on their medical missionary trips every year.  They would ask me to “take care of things” while they were gone.  That meant water the indoor plants, feed the cat, and generally keep an eye on things.

What if, while they were gone, I decided that they didn’t need all those plants and pulled up half of them or that they needed a dog instead of a cat?  My aunt and uncle would not be pleased with my stewardship of their home, would they?

Does being stewards of Creation mean that we should value it above other humans or even God, Himself?  It seems kind of odd that, in general, the environmentalist movement is primarily made up of individuals who believe that life is governed by belief in the phrase, “survival of the fittest.”  While those of us who believe a loving Creator made the earth and everything in it for us, His children, really don’t get too worked up over saving the snail darter or whatever.

Shouldn’t we be the leading advocates for Creation and caring for the planet?  Is there a way to honor God by taking good of everything He made without putting His creation ahead of Him?

“The message reverberates through culture beckons us to ‘go green’ because we will look better and feel better and fit in …. [But as followers of Christ] we have deeper reasons to go green. We serve the Creator of the planet …. He created the earth and took the time to tell us his plan for it. The God of the universe has given us the great task of caring for our planet …. We have an operating manual for our planet right in front of us in the Bible, and we must allow that manual to change our thinking and behavior.” [1]Do we consider ourselves part of God’s plan for taking care of His Creation? Or are we here to get all we can out of it?  Did you know that God gave instructions that would have helped avoid the dustbowl of the early twentieth century?  It’s called (Are you ready for this?) the “Law of the Sabbaths.”

“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.” Exodus 23:10-11

Verse 12 goes on to remind folks to let their work animals rest on the weekly Sabbaths as well.  Interesting, the Sabbath is made for man, and man is then supposed to make sure that that little piece of creation stays healthy by sharing Sabbath rest with his animals and his land.

Imagine what might happen if one day out of seven, all unnecessary worked stopped.  What effect would that have on energy consumption and air pollution? Do you think it would be significant?  I don’t know, maybe?  I’m pretty sure it won’t happen, though.  Why? The same reason it quit happening in the first place.  Humans are selfish.

“Selfishness consists in dethroning reason from the seat of government and enthroning blind desire in opposition to it. Selfishness is always and by necessity unreasonable. It is a denial of that divine attribute that allies human beings to God and makes us capable of virtue. Selfishness dethrones reason and sinks human beings to the level of a brute. ...“It is a contempt for the voice of God within in him, and a deliberate trampling down of the sovereignty of his own intelligence. Shame on selfishness! It dethrones human reason, would dethrone the Divine mind and would place blind lust upon the throne of the universe.”[2]

Selfishness causes us to abuse the gifts God has given us, even the planet we live on.  Our selfishness has brought us to a place where we value ourselves, our wants and desires about anyone or anything else. We value our planet only for what we can get out of it. We don’t even value human life if it stands between us and something we want.  Our greed even causes us to injure our own bodies as we consume too much of the wrong things just because we want them, not because we need them.

As Christians we are in the unique position of protecting God’s Creation.  We know its true importance.  We aren’t caring for one random rock floating in random galaxy formed when a random star exploded.  We are stewards of an extravagant gift made especially for us by our God who loves us.  Every atom, every molecule was formed by His own hand and still bear His finger prints.

“… it was sin which marred God’s perfect work; …thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death, are all the result of disobedience to God. … see how the earth, though marred with the curse of sin, still reveals God’s goodness. The green fields, the lofty trees, the glad sunshine, the clouds, the dew, the solemn stillness of the night, the glory of the starry heavens, and the moon in its beauty all bear witness of the Creator. Not a drop of rain falls, not a ray of light is shed on our unthankful world, but it testifies to the forbearance and love of God.”[3]

Many of us would like to think that we don’t have to worry about the world around us because Jesus is coming soon.  But even before sin, Adam and Eve were to tend the Garden, what makes us think that we are any less responsible now?

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[1] Jonathon Merritt, Green Like God (FaithWords, 2010)

[2] Charles G. Finney in Principles of Love. Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 4.

[3] Ellen G. White, Testimonies of the Church, Volume 6, p 358

Holy Ground

Thoughts on the Sabbath School lesson for 2.18.12

How many hours of sleep do you get on an average night?  Do you get the full eight, or do you feel lucky to get five?  How many hours a week do you work (for pay)? How many more do you work at home? Do you ever feel really rested? I heard someone remembering being young and hating being told to go to bed … and wishing that someone would order him to bed now that he’s grown. 

Do you think our tiredness is really about lack of sleep, though? Yes, I know, people who live in “First World” countries tend to be sleep deprived, but is that really the issue? Maybe partly, but I believe we’re talking more about rest than about actual sleep.

Do you know that there’s a store in the Mall of America where you can buy a nap? (Well, there was one in 2005, anyway.  Don’t know if it’s still there.) Really, in this store, for a mere 70 cents a minute, patrons can, well nap, obviously, but they can also choose to 

“Escape the pressures of the real world into the pleasures of an ideal one.… listen to music, put their feet up, watch the water trickling in the beautiful stone waterfall, … and just take an enjoyable escape from the fast-paced lifestyle."[1]

I’m not sure that if I were paying 70 cents a minute, I could get real relaxed, but maybe that’s just me.  Anyway, I’m thinking just getting more rest is really the solution either.  I believe that our Creator knew what our minds and bodies needed and He provided for those needs when He created Adam and Eve.

Think about this for a second:  Adam and Eve were less than 24 hours old when God made the first Sabbath. 

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” Genesis 2:1-3 NKJV

There was no stress in their lives, no sin, no weakness, absolutely no physical need for rest. God certainly didn’t need any rest. Could it be that even without sin, humans weren’t complete without time spent building a relationship with their Creator? Even in a perfect world where Adam and Eve could speak to God face to face anytime, they needed a day that was “set apart?”  I think so.

I believe that everything God does is for our good, and Sabbath is no different. God didn’t make any other day holy; He didn’t even name any of the other days. It’s interesting to me that so many people can blithely forget something that God, Himself told us to remember.

“‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. … For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.’” Exodus 20:8-11 NKJV

When God blessed and made holy the Sabbath, He made it different from the other days.  I believe that if we are obedient, God will fill the Sabbath hours with an extra measure of His presence.  The Ark of the Covenant held the Mercy Seat that held the Shekinah Glory, the presence of the Lord.  It was set apart in the Most Holy Place of the earthly sanctuary.  The Burning Bush is another example of God making something holy because of His presence.  Remember what God said to Moses? 

“So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’“And he said, ‘Here I am.’“Then He said, ‘Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.’”  Exodus 3:4-5

I believe that the Sabbath is Holy Ground.  And just like Moses sensed the holiness of the area around the burning bush, and the Israelites understood the sanctity of the earthly sanctuary, we should feel the specialness of the Sabbath hours.

One author describes how special the Sabbath felt to him when he was a child:  

“When my mother lit the Sabbath candles, I would feel, almost physically, the Sabbath coming in, being welcomed, descending like a soft mantle over the earth. I imagined, too, that this occurred all over the universe—the Sabbath descending on far-off star systems and galaxies, enfolding them all in the peace of God.”[2]

Isn’t that a beautiful way to think of the Sabbath hours?

“But,” you say, “Saturday doesn’t feel any different than any other day of the week to me.”  Well, maybe that’s because we’ve forgotten what it feels like to stand on Holy Ground.

“It [the Sabbath] belongs to Christ.... Since He made all things, He made the Sabbath. By Him it was set apart as a memorial of the work of creation. It points to Him as both the Creator and the Sanctifier. It declares that He who created all things in heaven and in earth, and by whom all things hold together, is the head of the church, and that by His power we are reconciled to God. For, speaking of Israel, He said, ‘I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them’—make them holy. Then the Sabbath is a sign of Christ’s power to make us holy. And it is given to all whom Christ makes holy. As a sign of His sanctifying power, the Sabbath is given to all who through Christ become a part of the Israel of God....           And every object in nature repeats His invitation, “‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ Matthew 11:28.”[3]

“All heaven is keeping the Sabbath, … On this day every energy of the soul should be awake, for are we not to meet with God and with Christ our Saviour? We may behold Him by faith. He is longing to refresh and bless every soul. …“The Sabbath is God’s time. He sanctified and hallowed the seventh day. He set it apart for man to keep as a day of worship.“We need to cherish and cultivate a spirit of true worship, a spirit of devotion upon the Lord’s holy, sanctified day. We should assemble together believing that we shall receive comfort and hope, light and peace from Jesus Christ.”[4]

Let’s do an experiment. Friday, as the sun goes down, whether we’ve been observing the Seventh Day Sabbath your whole life, have never observed it before or somewhere in between, let’s bow our heads and ask God to give us a sample of what He created Sabbath to be.  Then, let’s take our everyday complacent shoes off of our spiritual feet and experience true Sabbath Rest.

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[1] www.powernapsleepcenters.com

[2] Oliver Sacks, "Brilliant Light," New Yorker (12-20-99), p. 60

[3] E.G. White, The Faith I Live By, p. 33

[4] Ibid. p. 35

Happy Accidents

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for 1.14.12

Has this ever happened to you?  You’re watching a wonderful nature program with fantastic film of some animal, all up close and personal.  The voice over is calming, resonant and sincere:

“Hummingbirds are the lightest birds in the sky. Of their roughly 240 species … the largest, an Andean ‘giant,’ is only eight inches long; the smallest, the bee hummingbird of Cuba, is just over two inches long and weighs a single gram.
“Delicacy is the trade-off that hummingbirds have made for their unrivaled powers of flight. Alone among birds, they can hover, fly backward, even fly upside down. For such small birds, their speed is astonishing: in his courtship display to impress a female, a male Allen's hummingbird, for instance, can dive out of the sky at sixty-one miles per hour … (Diving at 385 body-lengths per second, this hummer beats the peregrine falcon's dives … and even bests the space shuttle as it screams down through the atmosphere at 207 body lengths per second.)
“Hummingbirds' wings beat at a rate that makes them a blur to human eyes, more than sixty times a second …. They are little more than bubbles fringed with iridescent feathers—air wrapped in light …. In most birds, 15 to 25 percent of the body is given over to flying muscles. In a hummingbird's body, flight muscles account for 35 percent. An enormous heart constitutes up to 2.5 percent of its body weight—the largest per body weight of all vertebrates …. A person as active as a hummingbird would need 155,000 calories a day …. Each [hummingbird] is just a speck … yet each is an infinite mystery.”[1]

And then the voice says something like, “Millions of years of evolution have brought the hummingbird to where it is today.”  Essentially saying that this amazing and complex creature is nothing more than a happy biological accident. 

At that point I want to throw something at the television!  Don’t misunderstand, I believe the world is full of happy accidents:  hitting all green lights on the way to work, the elevator doors opening just as you get there,  and being able to get your phone out of your purse/pocket before it stops ringing.  Those could all be described as happy accidents, but a miraculous creature like the hummingbird?  I don’t think so.

The problem, for me, isn’t creationist or evolutionist, it’s who you believe came first – God or man? 

“[In his talks, author Phillip Johnson quotes] the Gospel of John, which states: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.’
“After reading this, Johnson asks: ‘Is that true or false?’
“Then he turns this Scripture inside out and creates a credo for use in sanctuaries aligned with the National Center for Science Education. It sounds like this: ‘In the beginning were the particles and the particles somehow became complex, living stuff. And the stuff imagined God.’
“After reading this, Johnson again asks: ‘Is that true or false?’
“Johnson argues that today's debates over science, creation and morality are, literally, clashes between people who believe there is scientific evidence that God created man and those who believe there is scientific evidence that man created God.
“‘If there is no Creator who has a purpose for your life, then there is no such thing as sin,’ he said. ‘Sin would mean that you are in a wrong relationship to your Creator. Well, you can't be in the wrong relationship with the particles. They don't care. So you don't need a Savior to save you from the consequences of your wrong relationship with the particles. …
“‘When you give away creation, you have given away everything.’”[2]

I’ve never heard the creation/evolution debate brought down to such a clear line before, but I believe he’s right.  If you give up the Creator, you also give up the Redeemer.  You also end up losing a clear cut reason for being here, and if you have no reason for being, no purpose, what’s left? 

But if God put us here because He has something for us to accomplish, that puts a whole new slant on things.

“Man is allotted a part in this great struggle for everlasting life; he must respond to the working of the Holy Spirit. It will require a struggle to break through the powers of darkness, but the Spirit that works in him can and will accomplish this. But man is no passive instrument to be saved in indolence. He is called upon to strain every muscle in the struggle for immortality, yet it is God that supplies the efficiency.”[3]

What would you rather believe, that you and I are the result of biological mutations that happily mutated their way into human beings or that a God who wanted companionship placed us on a planet made just for us?

“Dr. Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the SETI Institute, points out in his course ‘The Search for Intelligent Life in Space’ what conditions favor the development of life in the universe:  The system's star ("sun") must not be a giant star, because these burn out too quickly before life can fully develop.  The system's star must not be a dwarf star, because such a star locks in the close planets, meaning ‘one side of the planet forever faces its sun, resulting in horrific weather and unlikely venues for life.’  The system's star cannot be a double star, because the unusual gravitational forces created by a double-star sun might not allow stable planetary systems.  The system's star must not be a young star, because stars less than 1 billion years old have not had enough time, so astronomers think, for life to develop.
“Ideally, the planet would have a large moon, which creates active tides.
“The planet should have tectonic activity, which causes metals to be pushed up to the surface, since metals are valuable to technological civilization.
“The planet should have a large planet farther out in its solar system, which by its great gravitational pull cleans the inner solar system of deadly asteroids and comets.
“The planet should not have a highly elliptical orbit, which is unsuitable for incubating life.
“For life to live on the surface, the planet must have an atmosphere. ‘Very small planets lose their air, and very large planets tend to sport poisonous atmosphere. Earth-sized planets are ideal.’
“And it just so happens that all these conditions fit our earth!”[4]

Hmmmm, the creation of a loving God or a happy accident…I choose God; what about you?

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[1] Sy Montgomery, Birdology (Free Press, 2010), pp. 78-103

[2] Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, from his column “Phillip E.”

[3] E.G.White, Our High Calling (1961), page 91.

[4] From "The Search for Intelligent Life in Space" course outline (The Teaching Company Limited Partnership, 1999); submitted by Kevin A. Miller, Vice President, Christianity Today International

Concept Worship

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson dated 9.10.11

In case you don’t have compound eyes and can’t read today’s title, it’s “Concept Worship.”  Have you ever looked through old copies of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics and noticed the pictures of the concept cars they had?  I can remember seeing lots of them – some were supposed to float, fly, parallel park, all kinds of cool stuff.  But most of them didn’t ever get made.  There is a website I like to visit these days that has all kinds of other “concept” products like cell phones, kitchens, furniture, even concept houses.  They’re fun to look at, a concept product usually looks really amazing, but often isn’t terribly practical or useful. 

I think that sometimes worship can become kind of like that;  we have these great ideas about where and how and when to worship, but they don’t always translate very well into actual, real-world, practical worship.

The Bible story of the woman at the well is a great example of “concept worship.”  Jesus has just told the Samaritan woman all of the things about her life that she’d just as soon nobody talk about and she tries to change the subject by bringing up the running argument about where the appropriate place to worship was.

“‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’”  John 4:19-20

She was probably thinking that if she could get this Jewish Man into a discussion about worship, then she wouldn’t have to worry about what He would say about her life choices.

Jesus wasn’t going to get pulled in, though.  In just a couple of sentences, He let her know that the where was a whole lot less important than the how and the Who.

“‘Woman,’ Jesus replied, ‘believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.’”  John 4:21-24

Of course, the next logical question is, what is worshipping “in the Spirit and in the truth”?  and that’s a really good question.

My thinking is that it’s like concept and realization, idea and action, thought and deed, theory and practice, generalities and specifics.  See, it’s easy to talk a good game, but much more difficult to actually live it out.   Talking about general things like “love for our fellow men” or “taking Jesus to the world” is pretty easy.  But, what would either of those things look like?  How would anybody be able to tell if we were actually doing what we were talking about?  That’s much trickier to spell out. 

What tends to happen then is that many Christians end up doing is speaking in clichés that begin to become meaningless even to those of us who use them.  (Now, don’t get excited.  I don’t believe any of us do this maliciously, and it’s certainly not specific to Christians only. Every group of individuals who share common experiences do the same thing.)  The problem is, though, that we want to “spread the gospel,” a difficult thing to do if we are essentially speaking our own personal language.

Another downside is that the more we say these things, the less we think about what we’re actually saying and the more trivial they become, and that doesn’t just shut people out, it damages from within.

“Trivialization in the church, as in society, results in a loss of the ability to think. Christians are lured to view the world as the world views itself--uncritically and without a basis for understanding. Many of us find ourselves ‘getting along by going along.’ And the Christian community slowly, imperceptibly ‘moves two inches a year toward total decline.’”[1]

“We must be aware of trivializing the gospel, of presenting it in a form that compromises the radicality of its message. If someone is used to seeing or hearing ‘Coke adds life,’ he or she will, most likely, understand ‘Christ adds life’ in the same commercial way: Christ is just another consumer item vying for attention. Christ doesn't speak as crucified King, but as a tricky salesman; not as Lord of the universe, but as genius of the slogan.
“The slogan trivializes the message and suffocates understanding. So we must move beyond the slogan to the creed. A slogan-saturated society tempts us to demote the Christian faith to the level of a slogan. When we give in, we freeze our understanding at a commercialized level. We are satisfied with a starvation diet.
“But the truth of God is rich and full; our orthodoxy is full-orbed and comprehensive. We may credally summarize it without suffocating it with the trivial. We cannot bottle up and mechanically dispense the great truths of our Lord, but we can celebrate our doctrinal inheritance with joy.”[2]

It’s so easy to forget how important the message of Jesus Christ, our Creator and Redeemer, really is.

“The gospel is too readily heard and taken for granted, as though it contained no unsettling news and no unwelcome threat. ... It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.”[3]

I know that we need to be careful to not lean on our emotions to confirm our salvation, but wouldn’t it be tragic if we started sounding like Spock from Star Trek?  “Righteousness by faith is the only logical way to proceed, Mr. Smith.”  (You have to hear Leonard Nimoy in your head for that statement to work.)   I don’t see that being a terribly effective witnessing strategy.  I think the pointy ears would be pretty off-putting as well.

Really, though, when was the last time my interaction with Jesus moved me?  When did the knowledge of His love for me take my breath away?  When has my heart broken because of what I cost the Creator of the Universe?

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.  For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.”  John 3:16-17 The Amplified Bible

What a concept…

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[1] Don McCory in Eternity, (Oct. 1986). Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 2.

[2] Douglas Groothuis, "Creeds, Slogans, and Full-orbed Orthodoxy" (Radix, Fall 1985). Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 8.

[3] Walter Brueggemann in Finally Comes the Prophet. Christianity Today, Vol. 35, no. 9.