On Hospitals and Christianity

Update: I realized I didn't cite the source of the email quoted below, and thought you might benefit from knowing it's from Voice of the Martyrs found here.

As a pastor, I make visits to hospitals a lot. And as usual, I think about my surroundings with respect to my very deeply held convictions.

In my experience, most hospitals have a Christian foundation. In Denver alone, I usually visit Adventist or Catholic or Presbyterian hospitals with strong Christian convictions about care for the whole person, body and soul. When I lived in Tennessee, there were Baptist and Methodist hospitals. Today as I was visiting a patient in St. Anthony's (Catholic) Hospital, this thought struck me: how come I've never seen Mormon or Islamic or (insert any other world religion here) hospitals?

Now, they may very well exist around the world. Any reader could check my ignorance on that fact. But in America, it's undeniable that the best human healthcare has Christian origins. That's interesting, especially in light of a few things:

1) That an ignorant complaint often lodged against Christians are that they are too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. And,

2) That most of what I read on persecuted Christians around the world happens at the hands of Muslims.

On one hand, simple historical data will tell you that Christians have always had a robust view of earth and heaven, perhaps the best view of all worldviews. It was Christians that founded hospitals, started science (because the world was orderly and empirically testable because God made it that way), started classic charity organizations (Red Cross, Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc.), helped abolished slavery in the British empire (Wilberforce), and many many other examples.

On the other hand, many Christians in the world need hospital care because of the violence ingrained in Islam. I get a prayer email for persecuted Christians every week. Consider Friday's email:

IRAN -- Muslims Turning to Christ -- VOM Contacts

The Voice of the Martyrs contacts report that Muslims are coming to Christ in record numbers in Iran. Despite increased persecution in recent months, believers in Iran are courageously sharing Christ with Muslims and lives are being changed. Pray the new believers will grow in their faith. Ask God to protect and encourage believers in Iran. Pray believers will use their testimonies to draw nonbelievers into fellowship with Christ.

ETHIOPIA -- Muslims Attack Somali Church Leader -- International Christian Concern

On Aug. 21, Mohamed Ali Garas, a prominent Somali church leader and convert from Islam, was beaten by Muslims in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, according to International Christian Concern. Mohamed was walking to his new home when two Somali Muslim men struck him on the head with a wooden club and knocked him to the ground. The men continued hitting and kicking him in the chest and stomach. Mohamed had fled to Ethiopia from Somalia in 2005 after Somali authorities attempted to arrest him. He had also recently moved to a new neighborhood in Addis Ababa because Somali Muslims threatened to attack him. At last report, Mohamed was being treated at a local hospital for his injuries. In recent months, Somali Christians living in Ethiopia have come under increased attacks from Somali Muslims. A Christian man was assaulted in July for reading a book critical of the Prophet Muhammad. A Somali pastor in the Ethiopian capital described this latest attack as "an apparent attempt to scare the Somali Christian community in Addis Ababa who consider Ethiopia a safe haven from religious persecution." Ask God to give Mohamed healing. Pray that his attackers will be brought to justice. Pray that he and other Somali believers facing persecution in Ethiopia will continue to trust the Lord to guide and embolden them as they serve Him.

TANZANIA -- Evangelist Arrested in Zanzibar -- Compass Direct News

According to Compass Direct News, in early August Tanzanian security agents arrested Peter Masanja, an evangelist in Zanzibar's southeastern town of Paje. Earlier this year, Peter invited members of the Pentecostal Church in Zanzibar to hold church activities in his home. This angered local Muslims, who believed he was planning to establish a church on his land. His wife grew concerned after Peter failed to return home one day. After searching for several days, his wife learned Peter had been arrested and imprisoned. Local pastors tried to meet with prison authorities about Peter's arrest, but were told that the person in charge of the prison was away on business. Pray that Peter will be released. Pray also for his family, that their faith in Christ will grow stronger during these difficult days. Ask God to equip Christians in Tanzania through His grace to demonstrate His love and forgiveness amid great opposition.

Islam and Christianity seem to be at vast differences in caring for the peoples of the world. I hope you will join me in having your eyes open to the truth and for praying for persecuted peoples all over the world, whomever they may be.

Bumper Sticker Theology: Use of Violence?

Dear reader, sorry I have been negligent in posting lately. It surely has been a busy summer and blogging took a backseat for a time. But I've got some new bumper stickers for you; I'm sure you've come across them. This week, Jesus and his ethics come strictly into view. One by way of the Mohatma and another by way of Passivism. One I saw this week, and the other was recommended to me.

Gandhi, waxing philosophical in the 20th century takes a page out of Jesus' playbook. He had to, because he didn't have the theological resources to use his Buddhism (or was it Hinduism?) as it came to human oppression. So what kind of ethics did he borrow from Jesus? I point you to the sermon on the mount, the greatest expression of individual human ethics ever recorded: 

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well... Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

Matthew 5:38-42

Jesus' ethics were so hard; they're not of the light and fluffy ethics we so often hear about. Gandhi studied Jesus carefully. He loved Jesus' ethics. The essence of these hard statements is that a follower of Jesus is to do whatever it takes to do the opposite of retribution. Don't payback, love extravagantly. This is hard. The Mohatma's clever wordplay on Jesus' ethics is a challenge to us all. Do not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). Do you know anybody that does this on the highway, at work, or in the home?

And so Gandhi is challenging our violent notions for retribution. No doubt Gandhi meant this in a broader sense than Jesus did. Jesus is talking about individual ethics in the sermon on the mount- how a follower of Christ is to behave to other individual humans. Is Gandhi extrapolating the principle, then, beyond it's intended purposes to create a movement for non-violent and passivistic resistance on a state or corporate level? I think so, but before we fully answer that question let's look at the next bumper sticker.

This one reads "When Jesus said 'Love your enemies', he probably didn't mean 'kill them'." Someone else seems to be reading the Bible. I direct you to the verses right after we just left off in the sermon on the mount:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven...And if you great only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?..."

Matthew 5:43-48

Wow. Jesus is a hard man to follow. Don't just tolerate our enemies but love them too? Again, it is important to distinguish the fact that Jesus is talking about individual ethics here, clearly evidenced by greeting enemies and praying for them. So how are we to take this bumper sticker in light of Jesus' ethics?

I assume too that this bumper sticker is making a statement about passivism. It is more holy, more righteous, to not engage in war than to engage in war, so goes the argument. This is a valid opinion, and Christians are divided on it. Some Christians, such as anabaptists and Mennonites, would concur with these ethics. War is indeed unjust and Christians ought never to engage in it. Other Christians, standing in the tradition of the great theologian, Augustine, believe that there are some just causes for war, and it can be so engaged in under certain pre-conditions. This theology is developed from a few biblical places, most notably in Romans 13. It is indeed the theology that I subscribe to.

Simple analogies will explain: if someone came up to my mother or sister or wife, and began to physically abuse them, and I found this out, my defense mechanism would probably be in the line of as much physical abuse on the perpetrator as possible. If the fight were to carry on, death of the perpetrator may result. The Bible, in many places, distinguishes between "killing" and "murder." Thou shalt not murder, but if thou must, under hard circumstances, thou may inflict harm if it results in greater justice.

That being said, I love these bumper stickers anyways. Most people don't take the Bible seriously these days. Most people don't take Christian ethics in the marketplace of ideas seriously these days. At the very least, hopefully these bumper stickers spark others to actually read the Bible, the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7), and think about what it means in public discourse and policy. So that's a start.

But the other issue is this: there's way too many fundamentalists out there, "Christian" or Muslim. There is no justification for the individual and cold-blooded murder of another: whether it's the murder of an abortion doctor, or the senseless murder of thousands of people in buildings, trains, and Jerusalem market places. Clearly, Muslim fundamentalists do not subscribe to the sermon on the mount.

But I admit that this is a hard and messy issue. I submit to philosophical humility in our use of violence, but also realize that violence is the only language that evil people understand.

Bumper Sticker Theology: God and Bigness

I hope you are enjoying the mundane ruminations of this rush hour philosopher. I just keep seeing this bumper sticker about God, and my mind gets going. Here's the newest iteration:

It reads: God is too big to fit into one religion.

It's a nice thought. Many in our cultural ethos just want all people, all world religions, to simply get along. We state a proposition about God that must be true since we should all be nice to each other. This is a good desire. It is a thought that many people feel subconsciously even if they don't put it on a bumper sticker.

Too bad it's false. Let me submit to you an idea: what if only one religion said that God was as big as he possibly could be? That He created time and matter and the entire known and unknown universe? What if this religious worldview posited that God was indeed infinite, self-existent, and totally distinct from all known things? If this were true, would any other religion be needed to make God bigger? If one religious worldview claimed that God was as big as possible, would any others be needed?

No. And a few religious worldviews make this claim to God's bigness, and they're the monotheistic heavy-hitters: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. As a matter of fact, Anselm of Canterbury in the 12th century said as much in his argument for the existence of God. A rudimentary way to state his argument might be: think of the biggest, most outlandish thing you could possibly think of. If you can think of it, it must be God. And because you can think of it, God must exist.

Other religions, though, point to the smallness of God. Pantheistic (everything is god) and monistic (everything is unified into an impersonal force) kinds of religious views found in New Age, Hinduism, and forms of Buddhism assert this. God isn't a person, but an impersonal force found in everything, the grass just as much as humans. All take part in the godness of the world. This is an immanent, or small, view of deity. And then note the distinction, God can't be both personal and creator of the world in an open system and also an impersonal interpenetrating oneness with all things in a closed system. Both can't be true, so to say that God is too big for one of them is to assume that these ideas of God are the same, or that they contribute to a larger picture of whatever God is. They are contradictory views. They do not make anything bigger. They make everything a mess of common sense.

And that's the irony here: if you want a big God then be a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Christian. I suppose you could believe in a God of your own making, but then you'd be saying that God is big enough for one person, and that'd contradict your own point.

If you want an impersonal godness (ie Atman is Brahman), then look into Eastern religions. If you want no god, then become an atheist. And if you want a personal God, then you'll have to rule Islam out. The essence of Christianity is that God is the biggest thing possible but He's also intensely personal.

Notice, then, that Christians aren't trying to fit God anywhere. We're simply trying to get a grasp on how He's revealed Himself already- in history, in nature, and in the inner witness of the human heart. We're not claiming an exclusive view of God for our religion. God is doing that, claiming an exclusive view of Himself to the whole world. He's saying He is definable in true ways, with real attributes, and in big ways.

And he's saying that He's a person, with characteristics and attributes becoming of a person, He's saying he can be known. And He's saying He's the biggest thing going. Christians call him Jesus.

Movie Review: The Book of Eli

Disclaimer and Explanation: For those who have not seen the movie and wish to do so, I recommend that you do not read this post as many details of the plot including its resolution will be revealed. This post is written with the substantial input and co-authorship of Eric Emeott.

Is the Bible the most important book in world history? Do its truth claims mean more to human existence than anything ever written? Even more, could God have possibly revealed himself truly through the occurrences of history and the resulting record of the Bible?

These are the questions that the movie The Book of Eli addresses with intriguing results. The story is set in Western America in a post-apocalyptic world where we see a man (played by Denzel Washington-we don’t know his name is Eli until the end of the film) on a journey of survival. He is rummaging for food and water as he goes about killing smaller animals. It is not until a little later that we realize this man is on a mission, a mission to the West, where some unknown salvation awaits.

On his journey Eli encounters many obstacles. Naturally, he runs into bandits and looters, but his biggest enemy is a man named Carnegie who knows the power of his mission. That mission is not just that Eli will get to the West, but that he will get this book to the West. Carnegie knows that power of this book: “It’s not just a ___ book, it’s a weapon aimed straight at the hearts and the minds of the weak and desperate.” Carnegie and Eli are thus set at odds for the remainder of the movie.

What is in this book that is so important? The careful observer will know 10-15 minutes into the film. That’s because Eli recites the book’s contents often, and as the movie goes along his references go from more obscure to more overt. By the middle of the film, Eli recites the 23rd Psalm to his companion. It is at that point we realize that Eli is carrying the world’s last known Bible, as all the world’s Bibles had been destroyed in the war that wrought the apocalypse. People blamed the war on the Bible and its followers, and so they were destroyed (Does that mean this is the first insidious message from Hollywood that the Bible and Christianity aren’t responsible for all the world’s known atrocities?).

Without giving away the end of the movie or it’s more nuanced conflict, I do want to note how much this movie is bathed in Christian symbolism. Eli has apparently been traveling for 30 years or so, and much of it in the American West desert, which harkens Moses and Israel. By the end of the movie, Eli finally gets to leave that desert and get to the West, where he has to cross the Bay and get to Alcatraz where salvation awaits. This moment harkens Joshua and Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land by crossing of the Jordan River. Eli eventually is accompanied by a girl named Solara as they shepherd the Bible to the West, which harkens Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem with the Christ-child in womb. And without giving away too much of the plot, a major motif is how we walk by faith and not by sight.

Furthermore, the movie is bathed in Scriptural references. Eli quotes Genesis before a major bar fight. Eli quotes the Sermon on the Mount to explain his giving away of the book. And on top of Scripture, Eli also prays throughout the movie.

The movie also plays on a profound light and dark motif, but you’ll have to wait until the end to really discover why. Let’s just say it relates to faith and sight. Of the 3 nights we are with Eli, we only physically see him wake up twice. However, both of these times he is sleeping in shadows/darkness and it is beams of sunlight that actually move into the darkness that are the actual things that wake him up for him to continue on his journey. In addition to this, we often see him look up into the sky, directly at the sun as if he is looking for direction. The sun always sets in the west and that is where he followed it, to the west. I think the sun is somewhat a representation of God. It led him on his journey, it woke him up constantly, and people were always wearing sunglasses if they were in the presence of the sunlight.

But by the end of the movie, Eli makes it to the Promised Land, Alcatraz. Alcatraz is essentially a haven for world culture and civilization. It includes a major library and a printing press. And it was God who told Eli to go there so that the Bible could be preserved.

Some of the negatives of the movie include explicit violence, although violence is not glorified by the film. Eli only and ever fights out of self-defense. There’s also some strong language and some minor sexual themes. The biggest negative is that once the Bible is re-printed, its lasting image is placed on a bookshelf by the Quran, which seems to devalue the Bible to some degree by comparison. But the Bible is in the center of that shot, and much bigger than the Quran. Perhaps the writer is making a comparative statement of importance and worth in world history?

But these negatives aside, every person who wants to deal with the seriousness of religious claims should see this movie. While the movie never explicitly mentions the chief and central point about Christian truth-claims (namely that of Jesus’ death and resurrection and atonement in the place of all humanity), it piques the mind enough to find out for oneself. But I do not want to devalue this message. It’s why the book was written in the first place.

So is the Bible the most important book in world history? Do its truth claims mean more to human existence than anything ever written? Even more, could God have possibly revealed himself truly through the occurrences of history and its record in Christian Scriptures?

To those questions, The Book of Eli gives a resounding “yes.”

Lions and Tiger and Hume, Oh My!

On Sunday, Brit Hume, Fox News commentator, suggested that Tiger Woods become a Christian because the Christian faith offers a better path to forgiveness and restoration (the implications were both for now and eternity, it seems). Here's Brit Hume, explaining himself to Bill O'Reilly:

I can already hear the postmodernists up in arms. And it doesn't really matter what kind of postmodernist you are, either. Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, or others who subscribe more to relativism than to the rigors of their own professed worldview would be and are offended by Hume. "How dare he promote his own faith on television!? You wouldn't want an atheist or a Muslim doing the same thing, would you?"

Well, yes, I would. If we actually had an honest dialogue about truth claims and what different worldviews said about God, humanity, and human liberation/salvation, we'd actually be discussing something real. By perpetually avoiding the religion topic or pretending that all world religions or worldviews are the same, we've watered down religion and public discourse in the process. And for that matter, if all we're suggesting is that Tiger Woods go to counseling and take some pills, then we've already fallen prey to a more naturalistic worldview anyways. Why should naturalism always win?

Imagine if we actually had an honest evaluation of worldviews on television. Let's take the Tiger Woods example. How does each faith respond to his circumstance? (If I misrepresent anyone's view, please let me know. While having a cursory knowledge of many worldviews, I cannot claim to be an expert in most of them).

Christianity: Tiger Woods has offended both God and his fellow humans. He should seek forgiveness from both of those places. And no matter how much he tries to be a better person, he cannot by his own will. He simply must admit his weakness and trust in Christ for his ultimate redemption.

Buddhism: Both pleasure and pain are illusions. Tiger should seek a higher plane of consciousness and remove himself from all desire. It was his desire for erotic pleasure that has brought him so much pain in the first place.

Islam: The Holy Book does not forbid polygamy. In many cases, it is encouraged. Tiger's only mistake was to not make these women his spouse before having an affair with him. But as it was an adulterous affair, Tiger must be put to death according to the laws of the Qu'ran. At least that's what occurs where Shar'ia law is practiced.

Atheism: Big deal. Marriage is a process constructed by humans. It is simply a construct of our own sociological patterns. What Tiger did was wrong, sure. But let's not crucify him for his mistake or suggest that his answer is spiritual. This is all there is.

I admit that this is a simple list. But it remains true nonetheless. Let's have that panel. Let's debate the truth-claims of world religions. For my money, Christianity will always have the most appropriate theological and philsophical response to the human condition. You go, Brit Hume!