Tag: Christianity

Eternity On Our Hearts, II.

Dana @ Pen and Fire4 Comments

Previously:

Part I: An Existential Crisis 

Part II: What Pontius Pilate Asked
What is truth?

In Star Wars, Obi-Wan tells Luke Skywalker that the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.

Yes, our natural disposition, upbringing, and culture make certain belief and value systems more appealing to each of us. But does the uncertain, variable nature of our own hearts nullify the existence of an objective truth?

In our post-modern culture, many people think faith and belief are entirely functions of nature and nurture: biological and genetic hard coding, family values, and society. It’s come to be widely accepted that objective truth doesn’t really exist, or doesn’t matter, and you should just believe what works for you and makes you happy. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right?

While I agree that we are shaped by our culture and environment, truth cannot be confined or defined by these boundaries. If you say there is no absolute truth, you just made an absolute truth claim. If you say truth cannot be found, you just made a truth claim you believe you found. A worldview founded on subjectivity—where truth is relative, or every person can have his or her own truth—is fundamentally self-contradictory.

Consider these questions: Where did the universe come from? What happens when we die? Is there a God, and if so, what is He like?

“I like to think God is a kind, fatherly figure up in the sky who gives us an allowance of daily wishes.”

That sounds very pleasant, but unfortunately, that has no bearing or influence on the reality of things.

Ultimately, these questions have objective, factual answers, whether or not we know the answers, and whether or not we accept them. Truth is by nature exclusive—when something is true, it follows that anything contradicting that is false.

We tend to see questions like “What is our purpose and the meaning of life?” as subjective and up to each individual. But the reality is, if there is a creator God who made us for a specific purpose, trying to define our own purpose is empty and foolish. It’s like a potter who makes a cup, and the cup tries really hard to be a chair. No, really, you can sit on the inside! We cannot conform truth to our preferences and desires, but we must conform ourselves to truth. You can insist that 2+2 is 5 because you like that better, but you will be wrong, and on a test you will lose points.

Okay, but does objective truth necessitate the existence of God?

No one can definitively prove the existence of God. As humans, we are limited by our cognitive capacity, our finitude, and our physical and space-bound limitations. How can we prove Something or Someone beyond our dimension and narrow understanding? If we could “prove God,” wouldn’t He be limited and boxed in by the reach of our minds and reasoning power? We would then have a man-made idol, a human conception of god, not God Himself.

Certainly, it takes faith to believe in God. Truth cannot ultimately be reached by human rationality. It also takes faith to disbelieve in God—to look out at the universe and inwardly at our being, and to say everything came from nothing.

Consider you hear this news report: a tornado blew through a junkyard yesterday, and today we found a fully-functional Boeing 747 there, somehow pieced together from the random scraps of metal and trash that perfectly aligned and joined together as the winds swept through. Cockpit, controls, seats, wings, everything. Do you believe it? I mean, I guess it’s arguably a non-zero probability (depending on what kind of junk was in that junkyard), but the chances are so miniscule most of us would dismiss it.

How infinitely more complex is the universe? Or the human body?

This guy sums it up very well:

‎”Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It’s like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can’t trust my own thinking, of course I can’t trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”

—C.S. Lewis

Next time: Assumptions, axioms, and authority (because I like alliteration).

Eternity On Our Hearts, I.

Dana @ Pen and Fire8 Comments

Dear friends and readers: I am beginning a short, 6-7 part series of essays on the Christian faith. It’s a blend of apologetics, explanation, and thought experiment. I wrote it with a casual, conversational tone, and I hope its helpful and thought-provoking to both non-Christians and Christians. I’ll update regularly, since I’ve drafted the whole series. Thoughts and comments welcome throughout! [/end introduction to the introduction]

Part I: An Existential Crisis
What’s the point? 

In high school English class, they taught us to make our thesis clear in the introduction. I remember that all-important statement needed to come in the last sentence of the first paragraph, and it had to exhibit clarity, take a stand, and pave the way for all the trailing paragraphs. (If you wanted to make an A, at least.) A tall order for a single sentence. Anyway, those were the days before we learned that real writers, whoever they are, usually break the rules.

Well, this is my introduction, and since I’ve freed myself from those Scarlet Letter and Shakespeare spark-noting days, you won’t find anything much like a thesis here. It’s more of a philosophical and personal note—a motivation for my writing this series of essays, and a heartfelt hope that you will consider the content.

2016 turned out to be a bizarre year for many people I know, and the world at large. Perhaps it’s this strange conglomeration of farfetched world events, the stage of life many of my friends find themselves in, etc. etc., orchestrated by God’s providence, that opened the door for a number of thought-provoking conversations and correspondences. Conversations about politics, philosophy, purpose. Conversations with friends of different backgrounds and beliefs. They’ve forced me to wrestle with questions of my faith and worldview, and for that, I’m grateful.

Whenever we go beyond the superficial, our questions ultimately converge to a search for truth and meaning. Where did our universe come from? Is this life all there is? What happens when we die?

What’s the point?

In the halls of elite universities, I hear that question reverberate. We are frail, mortal beings, a vapor that appears for a time on this earth, and then vanishes. Sometimes, I desperately want to throw that question at people I know, pushing their kids into sleepless exhaustion and endless SAT prep, wondering if they remember we are all going to die one day. Harvard or community college, prince or beggar, engineer or janitor, at 35 or 90 years old—we are all going to die. And then what?

(My mom reminds me that would not be a polite thing to do.)

So instead, I felt led to write this: a series of essays explaining and defending the Christian faith, the only worldview, I believe, that consistently, truthfully and beautifully answers the deepest questions of humanity. The only worldview that sees the world and the human heart through, maskless and naked, and offers real hope—God-given, and not man-made.

A disclaimer, since this—like a high school English thesis—is obviously a tall order: I’m a poor, young grad student, not a biblical scholar or theologian. (You can probably already tell from my tone and overuse of parentheses, if nothing else). Nothing I say here is really original, but you’ll find it said by better and wiser people than me. (Many of them probably dead for centuries). But I wanted to write this, partly as a reference for myself, since much of this I gathered and learned and reasoned through over years and different resources—books, sermons, late-night philosophizing with friends. I wanted to consolidate the highlights in one place, and a lot of this content was informed directly by conversations with others.

This is also for you: my friends, both Christian and not. I hope it will encourage you. I hope it will make you think, and ask yourself hard questions. And I hope, by God’s grace, this might be a small stepping-stone on your journey to find truth.

Outside of the church, I have grown up and lived most my (short) life in a progressive, secular environment. I have listened to the anthems of post-modernism marching through our world. And something I’ve learned: even in our open Internet, free-speech touting days, we tend to hear what we like. Echo chamber. Donald Trump’s win suddenly made this phrase a phenomenon. But it’s true, there are such things as “Christian bubbles” and “liberal bubbles” and many more. Sometimes, when I flit in and out between the two, I step back and think of how something that can be spoken in passing, taken for granted, in one circle would be so shocking and senseless in the other.

If you are a skeptic, I simply ask you to consider these things, to question your own assumptions, to doubt your own doubts. We should all do that. I submit these thoughts and arguments to you humbly, but not without conviction, because I stand not on my own authority, feeling, or intellect, but on the Word of God.

Here’s an outline of what’s to come:

  • Objectivity and the existence of God
  • Assumptions and axioms we live by
  • The authority of truth
  • How can we know the Bible is true?
  • What is the Gospel of Jesus?
  • What is faith, and what are its ramifications?

 

* I drew the title for this collection from the following verse, which speaks to the eternal longing and God-shaped vacuum in our hearts:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

Maps in the Dark

Dana @ Pen and Fire2 Comments

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth.

I look around and wonder what we are, really. A mortal yarn that spins its life away with each second, each breath. A small beating, blood-colored muscle surrounded by a fragile cage of bones. Thump, thump. A frail fleshly body that houses an eternal weight of glory, made to worship and chase and love with an undimmed blaze that we have canned and isolated like preservatives with a shelf life. Here’s a candle for your career. A brief, colorful firework for your love story. A lamp for your Sunday religion, if you want it.

We have learned to make filters that cover our brokenness. What, I wonder, would we find, if we tore the layers away? Where is the raw, bleeding heart buried in the rubble?

A splintering world can’t be bandaged by human hands and machines. I want to shake you, when I see you drawing maps in the dark and sprinting through a maze with a cliff at the finish line. What good are these bits and bytes, these Babel-like structures, these soaring speeches if we all come to dust and ashes?

Still our hearts love these glints of gold, gleaming in the dull iron landscape of existence. Oh, how we live for that bright and elusive tomorrow, forgetting that all tomorrows will end in the grave. I suppose we must forget – because we are not human without hope. Hope that there is more, that the glimmers in the gray are not liars, but angels. Hope that we simultaneously cling to and crush because we love and hate holiness.

Before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 

The mad world spins on. But on the other side of the veil, glory dawns like a sunrise. And in the still, quiet moments, it calls to us.

The stone was rolled away. And He is not silent.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

Young, Reckless and Nonconformist – Religious Thoughts on “Blue Like Jazz”

Dana @ Pen and FireLeave a comment

BluelikejazzI finally read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, a few years behind its explosion onto the Christian book scene. I’m not very good at writing book reviews because I tend to get long-winded and dig a hole into one idea, but I felt compelled to share some thoughts. (For excellent and witty book insights, I recommend my friend Veronica!)

Miller is something of a controversial writer in Christian circles, often associated with the emergent church, but I believe he doesn’t consider himself party to that movement. His emphasis on feelings and experiences tend in that direction, though he holds to the depravity of man and the need for salvation. He speaks to an increasingly polarized culture and subcultures of Christianity, and for that I applaud the naked honesty and vulnerability in his writing, which inevitably garners critique from various groups. (And it has—I’ve skimmed the Goodreads reviews.) Needless to say, Blue Like Jazz comes with a host of strengths and weaknesses. I will say up front, though, that I don’t plan to rehash some of the widespread critiques I’ve already seen from many in the conservative, Reformed corner: he’s all about emotion, lacks a high view of Scripture, fuzzy on atonement, and on. I agree with a large part of the criticisms (not all), but at the same time, he’s writing more of a memoir, not a theological treatise. So I want to try to look at it as such.

What I Liked

He’s a good storyteller—humorous, compelling, honestly irreverent (which is sometimes refreshing, sometimes inappropriate), and surprisingly shrewd. Some reviews accuse the book of being nothing more than a meandering diary, but he manages to make that form engaging enough. I particularly liked his stories of living in Portland and attending Reed; it struck close to home for me, and he relates his tales in an up close, personal way, as if you were chatting over coffee in a hipster café.

Dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory. Living for something is the hard thing. Living for something extends beyond fashion, glory, or recognition. We live for what we believe.

He’s honest and real—in a way that can be scary and bold, as he gives a voice to universal but rarely spoken doubts, struggles, and desires. I do think he almost elevates the importance of self-expression and authenticity above objective Truth, but then again, the entire book is a product of his self-expression.

They are lonely. I’m not talking about lonely for a lover or a friend. I mean lonely in the universal sense, lonely inside the understanding that we are tiny people on a tiny little earth suspended in an endless void that echoes past stars and stars of stars. 

He has a sharp gaze into the human soul—I can’t quite compare him to C.S. Lewis, but I found some gems in the book that were reminiscent of Lewis’ insight. The unique edge Miller brings comes from the very different culture he grew up in, and how the severe rift between postmodern thought and conservative Christianity shaped his perspective. Having lived and breathed in both sorts of communities, his observations and struggles resonate with me (and I would guess, with many in our generation).

Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries, the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away. 

The Self-Addiction Cycle

Early in the book, Miller expresses his belief in human depravity, and he describes coming to the realization in a personal way.

“Do I want social justice for the oppressed, or do I just want to be known as a socially active person? I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I don’t have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself. I am not browbeating myself here; I am only saying that true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change would have to start with the individual. I was the very problem I had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read “I AM THE PROBLEM!”

He goes on to speak of our helpless, natural self-addiction many times over. He says, “The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: life is a story about me.” I couldn’t help but find it somewhat ironic that the overall theme of the book radiates with an intense focus on self. He repeatedly writes about his opinions and views almost as if they were a law unto himself—his dissatisfaction with relationships, with churches, etc. It made me wonder, “So how did the Gospel rescue him from self-absorption?” He speaks of the inestimable value of love and sacrifice, and how he found beautiful examples of that in the world outside the church. Perhaps this is where our theology comes into play, because I don’t see how one can truly begin to overcome the depth of depravity apart from bringing the full Gospel to bear—Christ’s substitutionary atonement for sin, and His righteousness alone credited to those who believe. I get the sense Miller has a strong grasp of the Gospel’s core, yet his book blurs a lot of lines. It leads me to ask: If he believes in the fullness and centrality of the Gospel, wouldn’t his writing display it?

In short, he shows a keen sensitivity to our innate self-obsession and he speaks of the need to grow in Christlikeness. I can’t help but think of John 3:30 – “He must increase, but I must decrease.” As the outcome of Miller’s conclusions, I half-expected and half-hoped his memoir would naturally grow in speaking more of the glories of Christ and the Gospel and less of himself. Not because “that’s what you’re supposed to do in a Christian book” but because “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).” He believes that wonder is the best worship of God, yet what aspects of God command his awe, and where is his authority for the character of God? I’m sure he can give an answer, and I wish he had in the book.

The Division of Head and Heart

Miller brings a flavor of mysticism to his view of God, denying the need or ability to rationalize the spiritual. His story is an interesting case study of many drawn to postmodern, emergent breeds of thought—young, highly intellectual and educated people who seek to divorce intellect from spirituality. It’s an odd but strangely trendy phenomenon in our culture today.

While many flying the flag of Christianity over the centuries have sought to make faith viable by shutting down science, compromising to science, co-existing in supposed contradiction yet peace with science, etc., biblical faith never needs or seeks to do that. The Truth is able to appeal to the heart, mind, and soul and withstand the test of being embraced by our entire being, without turning a blind eye or fleeing from tough questions. False religions are the ones that latch onto one part of our faculties alone with an iron grip (e.g. science-as-religion that speaks to the intellect exclusively; spirituality that speaks to the heart and emotions exclusively).

And yet, we are sinners, imperfect in all our ways, and none of us achieve that right tension of loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. Miller falls into the “heart and soul” camp more than the “mind,” but those on the opposite end of the spectrum can surely learn from his basking in the “pure and furious” love of God and compassion for the lost and needy. These things can be lost in a narrow focus on doctrine. At the same time, I think Miller’s love for and faith in the Gospel comes with the undeniable influence of postmodern thought, which favors experientialism over doctrinal conviction. But doctrine is not simply for intellect’s sake, and deep theology and knowledge of truth is the firmest foundation and fuel for abiding love. Love for the sake of love is meaningless in the end and will not hold up in the face of our sin and brokenness. I think Miller would agree with that.

In closing, I’d echo his own well-spoken belief:

“I don’t think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel.” – Blue Like Jazz

Against All

Dana @ Pen and Fire1 Comment

Against all intuition,
there’s a King that chose
a crown that bleeds,
and a God who wore
the frailness of humanity.

Against all expectation,
men scoffed and spurned
and crucified their Maker,
but it’s for these He died,
the wretch, the fool, the sinner.

CHORUS

I AM, the Word made flesh,
Your ways are higher than mine,
Your love is better than life.
We forsake all other gods,
it’s You alone we glorify.

Against all explanation,
He trampled over death,
broke the grip of the grave
and undid condemnation
for the bride He came to save.

Against all hesitation,
we tread the Savior’s path,
count all our treasures loss
to comprehend Your holiness
and marvel at the cross.

BRIDGE

Lord of light, I’m undeserving
of Your steadfast love.
God of grace, I’m so unworthy
but Your righteousness is enough.

CHORUS

I AM, the Word made flesh,
Your ways are higher than mine,
Your love is better than life.
We forsake all other gods,
it’s You alone we glorify.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Dear 21st Century

Dana @ Pen and FireLeave a comment

Nietzsche said, “God is dead.”
So you build castles in the sand,
play god in this godforsaken land,
and create a hollow eternity
within the shackles of mortality.

Darling, eternity reaches
beyond light and earth,
and the infinite has
neither end nor birth.

Hawking said, “It’s a fairy story.”
Heaven’s a poor man’s wish
and a rich man’s myth.
So feast, dance, drink your gin,
‘cause tomorrow, Death will win.

Darling, shades of gray
prove the black and white,
altars may seem antiquated
but Truth transcends time.

Shakespeare said, “Love is blind.”
It’s just sweet words and lies,
all good things have to die.
So chase the dream, chase the girl
everyone wants to gain the world.

Darling, the life we live
will echo in forever,
and you’ll find your heart
where you find your treasure.

Our Hearts Are Restless

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How I wish the heavens would thunder for you. But I wait, as the world spins on and years peel away, for God to melt the heart of stone. I can wait a lifetime; God knows I will not see a better day than that one, when the Light, slowly bleeding in now, tears across your skies like a scorched gold sunrise. Yet I live between the teeth of fear and hope. Fear that sovereign goodness and justice will cross my poor, imperfect love for you. Though I have no standing before Righteousness, no counsel to give Wisdom, no sorrow that outdoes the hell of the cross and divine desertion, I fear His glorious design will shatter me. But I hope. Hope that His Kingdom will storm into yours and raise the blood-colored Gospel flag. Hope is a small, fragile thing but we are black holes without it. When will you tear this veil, O God? As long as He gives me breath, I will plead before His gates. Like the Psalmists of old, I will hammer the halls of heaven with every appeal my weak heart can muster. Then I will sit, and wait upon the Lord. And pray. That God may splinter the shadows before your eyes. That His words—I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life—which have prodded against the steel ramparts of your mind for so long may charge through spirit and soul with holy conviction.

We are dust, yet eternity presses on our hearts. We are feeble, yet our stories glisten with splendor. They say there is no meaning, or we cannot know it, or the pervasiveness of evil denies it—but why, why, why do our very bones tremble at grace and our blood thrum for glory?

Surely, surely, there is a God whose love is better than life.

–

“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” – Augustine

The Circus

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They juggle ideology and guns like grim-faced jokers at a circus. Believe or die. Money can’t buy men like that, with murder strapped to their chest and convictions running red. So you’ll fight fire with fire till the whole world burns. Like slaves squabbling backstage for land and life. Like dust grasping for immortality. But eternity has no birth. Truth is a Word, and He says I AM.  Cast your knives and walk the wire, but He’s written the last act. Truth is a Word, and He became flesh. It is finished. He bled,

to cut the cord of death.

–

100 words. 

The Other Half of Eternity

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We gather here, a faithful few, against winter’s bluster and the Devil’s sure wrath. The musty scent of old library books lifts off the shelves and percolates the room. When the clock strikes and a golden haze of light cuts through the frosted windows we bow our heads and fumble for words and wisdom. We are small minds, grasping at the rough-worn edges of Infinity. Outside, the world is tilting and plunging into hell, but we are looking for the other half of eternity. To whom shall we go? We ask, like Peter. You have the words of eternal life.

–

100 words. I like drabbles. They’re short and sweet and force you to cut bad adjectives. Thoughts?