Winnowing

August 14, 2011 under inthenews, theology

I will winnow them with a winnowing fork at the city gates of the land. I will bring bereavement and destruction on my people, for they have not changed their ways. — Jeremiah 15:7 (NIV)

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. — Matthew 3:12 (NIV)

When God talks about winnowing through his prophets Jeremiah and John, he is talking about a harsh and devastating process that, when the dust settles, reveals the grain of the true crop.

The point of a harvest is to get grain. The point of winnowing is to get grain. But because God obviously works with people and not plants, we might ask, “What kind of grain is God after?” I think that the Bible makes it plain: people who, placing their hope and belief in Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit and are empowered to love God and one another.

I’ve run across a couple of articles recently that I can only understand by looking through them using the lens of a harsh winnowing. They are from the mainstream media, and they are about the church. (I take it as a given that when the mainstream media looks at the church, they do not understand it. Probably because *I* do not really understand it, and I’m in it! But many things don’t take spiritual insight to see, they just take a pair of eyes…)

First, from the BBC, an article about how pastors in the Dutch church have stopped believing in God.

[Rev. Klass Hendrikse's] book Believing in a Non-Existent God led to calls from more traditionalist Christians for him to be removed. However, a special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out. [emphasis mine]

It’s an article well worth reading, although it is heartbreaking… Just reading some of the quotes from various people makes me shiver.

“God is not a being at all… it’s a word for experience, or human experience.”
…
“The Church has to be alert to what is going on in society,” he says. “It has to change to stay Christian. You can’t preach heaven in the same way today as you did 2,000 years ago, and we have to think again what it is. We can use the same words and say something totally different.” [emphasis mine]
When I asked Rikko whether he believed Jesus was the son of God he looked uncomfortable.
“That’s a very tough question. I’m not sure what it means,” he says.
…
They believe that only through adaptation can their religion survive.
The young people at Stroom West write on plates the names of those things that prevent earth from being heaven – cancer, war, hunger – and destroy them symbolically.
The new Christianity is already developing its own ritual.

We have to ask the question, “What is the grain?” If the grain is destroying cancer, war and hunger, a zombie church can continue to limp along. If it is human validation and support, a zombie church can limp along. If the grain is caring and loving, a zombie church can limp along (even though it has no real power or ability behind it).

But if the grain is belief, then there can’t even be any limping here, because the question, “Is Jesus the Son of God?” is not a difficult question to understand.

There is an aspect to this story that the BBC doesn’t cover though, and that is winnowing. What will happen to such a church? Will it flourish or will it dwindle? If the North American church is any indication, such a church is going to dwindle down to just a few orthodox believers, because if you try and take God out of the church, there’s not much left to stick around for.

We’ve tried “just being nice” to each other (for many generations). The problem is that it doesn’t work.

There is a pain to winnowing. The BBC can’t talk about the pain of winnowing, because although this is a terribly painful winnowing, the pain comes from an unfilled longing for God. The pain comes from everyone who walks into a church looking for some kind of comfort from God and who is turned away by a pastor who only offers a human experience.

This will be a slow winnowing because it will take a while for all those who come for human experience to realize that they can get a more enjoyable human experience (without all the religiosity) down at the pub. For those who came from the pub after finding it empty, well… I can only hope God leads them to a believing church. Eventually those left in the church will be those who believe.

The second article is from the CBC. It talks about pastors in the US who have lost their faith. Particularly, it talks about how they are trapped – because their culture, their family and their community are all bound to the religion. They feel they can’t confess their lack of faith, because they feel they would devastate their families and congregations.

It’s interesting that they can’t trust their congregations to respond in a loving and caring fashion. It’s interesting that they don’t believe a congregation has the certainty and strength of faith to handle a pastor’s disbelief graciously. By embracing an overwhelming “Christian” culture, the church has cut itself off from the ability to gently and kindly replace a pastor who doesn’t believe. (Wouldn’t it be nice if we could manage to not ostracize someone who is struggling in faith?)

Do we really just believe because our pastors do? If our faith is only based on whether or not someone else believes, that’s pretty fragile (and essentially unchristian).

But I thought it interesting that in one case, adherence to a secular culture is winnowing the church, and in another, adherence to a “Christian” culture is producing another winnowing. In either case, having pastors who don’t believe makes for a pretty scant harvest.

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Disorder Above and Below

August 10, 2011 under inthenews, thehumancondition, theology

Two stories about disorder on the BBC yesterday, one in the heavens and on on earth.

The first, an earthly lament about the rioting in England. An anguished headline,

What turns people into looters?

Joe is quizzical by zimpenfish, on Flickr

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licenseby  zimpenfish

What turns people into looters…

Let’s take a look at the hidden narrative in this headline.

We are not bad people, we are not looters! We get turned into them. Ordinarily we are just fine until something external comes over us. Like a prince before an evil witch, we are turned into slimy amphibians.

We have what looks from every angle like a dilemma. How can ordinary people turn into lawless ruffians over the course of five minutes? Where is the witch? What did it?

Of course, the sensible answer is that people didn’t change or turn into anything.
The sensible answer is that the same people only needed the right set of circumstances in order to behave in a new way.

That is disorder below; what about disorder above?

Well, it turns out we are managing to clutter up outer space with alarming amounts of junk. What a mess! The space junk we’re leaving up there is dangerous and it’s smashing into other junk and making more junk and it’s stopping us from putting even more would-be junk up there!

Oh dear! Whatever shall we do?

Joe is quizzical by zimpenfish, on Flickr

Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licenseby  zimpenfish

We’d like to get rid of it, the scientist says. But no one is building a system that can clean it up!

Why not? Well, it’s pretty simple. A system which can remove busted satellites from space can also remove non-busted satellites from space. All our governments are nasty, suspicious and afraid of the fallout of building such a system. Diplomatically, it’s unfeasible.

Why? Because they all know what they themselves would do with it, if they had the circumstances to get away with it.

We question why a little bit of social disorder causes us to take up arms against each other (we’re all such decent, ordinary folk!), but if we actually stop to take a look at ourselves, the heartbreaking truth is obvious.

We can’t even take out the trash for fear of one another.

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Trust

August 8, 2011 under theology

Wherever love has been, it leaves an engraving of trust. Trust is the silhouette of love.

When I think of people I trust, the people who come to mind are the kind people; the judicious people, the caring people – the loving people. I know that they will do me good and not harm.

Am I afraid of a kind word or an unkind one?
Do I avoid people who are patient with my failings or those who are impatient?
Do I trust someone who is quickly angered?

When the apostle Paul says that perfect love casts out fear, he’s not tossing about airy fairy words – he’s describing a real dynamic of relationship. Wherever love is, trust is. Wherever love is, fear is not.

People say that a relationship needs trust, and trust is a good indicator of a healthy relationship, because it shows whether love is there. It’s easy to find where we have not previously been loved because we only need to look around and see where we refuse to trust. To suffer unlove is to be sinned against. Robbery, brutality, legalism, lusting, contempt… These are the sins that destroy all trust because they are the acts that are unloving.

Of course, to “be loved” we need to receive love. We won’t trust unless we choose to receive. When I look around and say, “I don’t trust anybody,” is there any other answer but that I have been unwilling to receive love from anyone? Is everyone else really as evil and small minded as I picture them?

I think about this when I look at God. How much does he love me? How much do I trust him? The only thing in the world that can separate me from the love of God is my own choice. And then I am not so much distant from it as ignorant of it. But ignorance is enough to build fear and mistrust. If I don’t give God permission and say, “Carve this on my heart.” my heart will remain untouched, because considerate God doesn’t touch our hearts without permission.

But when we do let him pick up his tool to engrave a picture in us, he does. His tool is love,and he engraves his own picture.

Ubi charitas et amor
Deus ibi est

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False Hopes

August 4, 2011 under personalinthepubliceye, theology

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles…  – Isaiah 40:31

Boy oh boy, If putting something on a bookmark could make it real, no Christian would ever be tired! How often have I seen this particular gem on a fridge magnet?

Sadly, what no motivational bookmark ever bothered to point out to me is that this verse is a conditional. It describes a dynamic that exists for those who hope in the Lord. It was only recently when I was thinking about the kinds of things that I hope in, when it occured to me that the “hope in the Lord” bit might actually make a difference.

Actually, what struck me most of all was how incredibly destructive false hopes are. We all have them. You know what yours are. Here are some of mine:

  • I hope all the barriers to my project at work will spontaneously vanish.
  • I hope the girl of my dreams will walk up to me and pour out her undying love for me.
  • I hope my boss will give me a big bonus, “just because”.
  • I hope I will pass my second driving road test without having to practice my parking.
  • I hope that stupid thing I did will just not have happened so I don’t have to say, “I’m sorry.”

Honestly, wouldn’t all these be fantastic? Hey, they are all fantastic – pure fantasy. (They also all involve no work on my part. Hmmm, I wonder what’s behind that…) Basically there’s a huge part of me that just wants to sit and be showered by love, wealth, comfort, prestige and fortune, without no action required from me.

The only problem is… these hopes are false. They’re not going to happen. As pleasant as it is to sit and dream about how nice things would be if they did happen, they won’t. But they’re more than just fantastic.

They’re draining.

Can I tell you what it does to my gut when my project is weeks past deadline because I was busy hoping that barriers would disappear when I should have been taking action? I don’t think I want to. But it makes me feel tired at the end of the day.

Or how it feels to be at loose ends in a lonely house, eying the telephone and wanting her to call, even though there’s no chance of it happening, because you never broke the ice? Now there’s a mean brand of neurosis not worth sharing. I’ve never seen *that* on a Christian bookmark. It’s not particuarly invigorating.

How about the boundless joys of not apologizing, and the day you realize that people are far away because you’ve been pushing them away with your own pride?

It might be most apt to say that things like these are little pockets of death that creep into my life.

Neil Anderson talks about desires and goals; things we want and things we set out to get. He talks about choosing wisely the things we set out to get, because if ever they are unattainable (“blocked goals”) we get angry, frustrated, disappointed, crushed, worn out, jaded… We shouldn’t bank on things we don’t control, on things which hinge on other people’s choices and actions.

Wanting what we can’t have is a tiring business, and picking our hopes has a massive part to play in how much bounce we keep in our bungee.

I feel a little bad because this post comes entirely from a negative direction – talking about false hopes, things I need to be rid of, little bits of death, things that drain me.

But in some way, highlighting these things is encouraging, like a trudging man looking down and seeing for the first time a ball and chain binding his ankles, and asking “How can I be free of this?”

It’s once we start seriously asking God, “How can I be free of this?” and listening to his response that things become exciting and invigorating.

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Authority, Heroism, Transcendence

July 27, 2011 under thehumancondition, theology

About Where the Wild Things Are, Lila writes,

“The tragedy of 21st century N.A. is the weak/seared conscience, superego, Parent–or whatever your favourite psychobabble would dictate. We suffer from too many friends and not enough heroes.”

It’s a very astute observation. (But I don’t know if it’s fair to call out a seared conscience as *the* tragedy of 21st century N.A. :-P  )

I can’t claim to have a finger on the general cultural pulse (I swim in very small circles), but I can testify that in technical arenas where people pride themselves on being “rational”, there is often a general disregard for authority.

When you deconstruct human systems from either a post-modern or naturalistic persepective, it is difficult to find a basis for any kind of real authority. Both naturalistic and postmodern views make the question, “Why should you be the boss of me?” difficult to answer.

In either world personal experience is paramount. A naturalistic approach gives very little basis for elevating anything else, and a postmodern approach confines our mandate to only being concerned with ourselves. In the one, only we exist. In the other, no one has the right to transcend. The idea that we require assistance from outside ourselves (a hero to save us) is blasphemous in either framework. Friends become important because heroes are either fictional or illegal.

Heroes hold authority. Heroes say (usually wordlessly), “You ought to be like me”, but in our one current approach there is no “ought” and in the other it is an unforgiveable sin. The film The Incredibles illustrates this sentiment nicely; in it, the initial charge brought against superheroes is, “You are just extra-strong people like us with no transcendent role or mandate. Furthermore, you are flawed and do not serve the public good, so we will sue you for the harm you cause.”

Looking back at Where the Wild Things Are, the best solution is for authority to lay down the discipline that draws the sting of wildness. This doesn’t mean wiping out exuberence (are Dads ever fun?), but it does mean directing it… and curtailing devastation. Of course, in the film’s world, no such father exists for Max, and no such king exists for the Wild Things. There’s no hero to be found.

It doesn’t make sense to me, however, to set up heroism and friendship as direct foils. In a comic-book world of super-powerful entities, the distance between a hero and a villain is a measure of compassion.

Heroes care, they are involved and present. Heroes struggle with the pain that comes from being close to injury. It hurts to bear someone else’s burden. Heroes weep for lost lives and ask, “Could I have done more?” while the villain taunts, “Why do you waste your time with the weak?”.

Does transcendence preclude friendship?
My entire faith is based on the certainty that it doesn’t.

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Science Worship – Exhibit A

July 18, 2011 under theology

I like Seth Godin’s stuff but I don’t agree 100% with everything he writes.

In this post he conflates professionalism with continuous improvement, and then he conflates continuous improvement with scientific observation.

He contrasts the professional (scientific) approach with a naive one (as opposed to an ‘amateur’ one, because “money isn’t the point”). His message is that if you’re not being scientific, you’re being naive.

I don’t think his message is necessarily wrong – science is a wonderful tool towards making us productive. But it’s his conflation that struck me, because it says something about the assumptions of our day. Continuously improving means continuously getting better, and if you’ve been reading this blog recently you probably know I’m tremendously shy about any usage of the words, “good” and “better”.

Especially as they pertain to science.

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Compassion in a Digital era

June 21, 2011 under theology

If you get angry and slap somebody, is it a bad thing?

If you get angry and slap two somebodies, is it a worse thing?

How about if you slap a baby?

How about if you slap a poor person?

How about if you slap 50,000,000 people but it’s over the internet?

Jesus goes to some length to teach that sin is not necessarily a matter of harm or external effect, but that it is an internal condition of the heart. (Of course, what internal condition doesn’t somehow manifest externally? Also, how much more corrupt do we need to be to slap a baby?)

This is helpful to think about when we step into the internet. Legalistic interpretations of sin and guilt tend to creak, groan and show holes when presented with a power multiplier such as a blog or a tweet. How much penance do you need to do if you manage to insult 50,000,000 people at once?

Now, we can’t say, “God looks at my heart, I don’t have to worry about others being offended.” God wants us to have compassionate hearts. What does a compassionate heart do when it realizes it’s offended 50,000,000 people?

The internet makes it very easy to not be compassionate. We have the chance to interact in a faceless, disconnected manner. This is ironic, because the internet is a power multiplier where we can shout to many, many people. It is perhaps the most important place for us to be compassionate.

I got to thinking about this from this story where Roger Ebert tweeted something which, while probably true, probably apt, and probably what a lot of people were thinking, was not particularly compassionate.  It proved hurtful to someone who was grieving.

Now, I know he didn’t mean to salt the wounds of someone in mourning; it probably never occured to him that his tweet would be read by the dead man’s friend. But it wasn’t compassionate.

On the internet, we never know who we’re talking to (howdy, stranger!). It’s a medium which is surprisingly easy to miscalculate. But we have a responsibility to always guard how we talk, and that doesn’t take any special calculation or esoteric knowledge.

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

Especially on the internet.

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All the Science in the world

May 24, 2011 under thehumancondition, theology

… can’t make men good.

We can eradicate a disease but we can’t free ourselves from the fear that someone will use it against us as a biological weapon.

The kicker is, someone might; worse things have been done. It is a rational fear. What value does science place on a human person or on a human life?

Even the cold hearted “survival of the species” so often touted as our genetic purpose is not a scientific value but a human one tacked on to scientific belief. Science is blind to virtue.

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The law

May 22, 2011 under theology

If no-one can stop you tweeting in violation of a super-injunction, does that mean it’s okay to do it?

How about tweeting election results before the polls close?

If something can’t be enforced, should there ever be a law against it?

It’s a sad day when lawmakers have to worry about what is enforceable. I know – every day is a sad day. It’s a sad day when the conversation focuses on, “No-one can stop the news going out on twitter” and “Is it possible to punish the violators?”

It’s a sad day because injecting a single word – honour – into the conversation clarifies things immensely. It is dishonourable to flaunt the law and the privacy of others (even if they’re professional footballers). The penalty for ignoring the court (even on twitter) is contempt of court, and rightly so.

Part of the purpose of law is to uphold honour, to reward the honourable and punish the dishonourable. In the same way, the purpose of law is to uphold love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. We expect our laws to be aligned along these virtues, to reward and encourage them. In a good system of law, you can pick any crime and it is immediately apparent where it violates one of these virtues.

Hard-nosed cynicism notwithstanding, the point of law is to legislate morality.

This is a dangerous opinion. If legality is tied to righteousness, it means when we build a legal system, we need to explore and understand righteousness. This is politically and socially dangerous, especially in a society whose prevailing philosophy says that righteousness does not exist.

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SMBC 2225

May 21, 2011 under curios, thehumancondition

Good stuff.

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