Tagged: Christianity
The Apologetic for Those Who Believe in Active Spiritual Interactions, as if We Still Live in Bible Times
Some Christians believe that because the Bible records instances of exorcism, that that must mean there are humans walking the earth right now who have need of exorcism.
There is a problem with the initial reasoning, but I want to pass by that problem in favor of how to handle the conversation. Not just handle, but triumph.
If some well-meaning Christian in your life is shocked that you can believe the Bible is true and simultaneously not believe that we should spend any time on the concept of unclean spirits and demons etc., then simply respond, “I’m not the one who doesn’t believe. It’s you who doesn’t believe in these things.”
At this point, they’ll naturally fein shock and say, “What?! I am the one who does believe.”
Then you just say, “Then show me. Which one of our friends has an unclean spirit? Which one has a demon? Which church member does everyone know is the veritable town drunk of the dark spirit world? Point them out to me, please.”
They can’t, they won’t, and while it may not seem like they’re persuaded, rest assured that you have won.
The problem isn’t all of us who don’t “believe” such things are the same as they were back then. The problem is the people who claim to believe it, actually don’t believe it.
What they do believe, apparently, is everything the preacher says. Which is a problem.
And one other thing about this topic. Make sure to include that you think it is weird (‘cuz it is) that they would view it as a Christian behavior to convert someone into seeing demons and unclean spirits. “No, thank you.” “Thanks anyway.” “I’m fine with giving up that search from the start.”
The Fallout Is Not The Attack: Stay Focused—Especially When The Devil Is Involved
When is the last time you read a definition of the word “number”? Probably never, right?
Have you ever read one of the earliest definitions? Also “no”. I get it.
Nichomachus of Gerasa, around the time of Jesus, wrote, “Number is limited multitude or a combination of units or a flow of quantity made up of units; and the first division of number is even and odd.”
His overall task (as he saw it) was to defend the study of abstractions, like math—for its own sake. He writes, “Evidently, the one which naturally exists before them all is superior and takes the place of origin and root and, as it were, of mother to the others.”
In sum, within “science”, since arithmetic is first, it is greatest. So study it, he argues.
What I want you to see in this is the concept of order. Geometry is second to arithmetic because we can’t speak of geometry without using arithmetic terms and concepts.
The reason I want you to focus on “order”, Christian, is that headlines today include the removal of the Bible from some public school libraries.
Like all news, this event is published with the hopes of being sensational. And it certainly is. (Though I suspect many of us who brush the dust off the cover of our Bibles from time to time would save much of the sacred content until our children are teenagers.)
But we need to temper this sensational event (and future iterations of it) with the knowledge that this banning of the Bible is merely fallout of the attack (largely successful) against the Bible that has been ongoing for at least decades.
I say again, order.
Time for the gut punch.
Do you read the Bible to your kids and family?
My daughter, H-, from my first marriage isn’t talking to me right now. She’s thirteen and lives in a different town. We used to read the Bible as a rule before reading anything else.
Now in my second marriage and family, I tried some dinner time Bible reading for while (maybe a month), but the nature of my job kept interrupting it and “life gets in the way”, so that went by the wayside. (Never discount the sheer difficulty of the Bible.)
All the while, I created a Bible study podcast, mostly to help me study, but also with the idea that it’s easy and anyone could use it.
But it has been probably a good year or so since I’ve opened the actual Bible with my family. (I do have an old children’s Bible type book that I made it a point to read in full to my toddler and I am still reading it to my 1 year old from time to time.)
Finally, I can tell you that my church-going parents read us the Bible less than 5 times while we were kids.
The banning of the Bible at public school libraries is fallout, folks. The real attack is on our hearts, “hearts” in the Biblical sense.
The fallout is not the attack. The attack is real. The devil is real.
But so is our champion, Jesus the Christ, Yahweh our God, and the Holy Spirit.
Don’t be distraught.
But surely use the sensational event the way the LORD intends you to—repent! Begin anew. Read the Bible to your family. Make time.
(Comment below if you want recommendations on where to start. I’d be happy to offer ideas.)
I Had It All Wrong
I used to think of emotions, instincts, logic, reason, and other types of decision making as choices. I had it all wrong.
Now, I don’t know if there is a hierarchy, as in, “Reason is better than emotion,” for example. I don’t know if there is ultimate worth, as in, “At least I can say that reason guided my life.” I cannot say for sure that these traits are building blocks, as in, “Only after mastering emotion can you learn to reason.”
What I do know now, and know for certain, is that for those who do not act upon reason, it is not because they are avoiding reason. It is because they cannot reason. For these folks, using reason is as unavailable as flight is to a jack rabbit. Sure, they might end up “reasoning”, but they certainly didn’t flap their wings.
This is unfortunate.
But it is not the end of the story.
Life goes on. That’s the end of the story.
What shall be done in the time remaining? How should one communicate with those without reason? How should one live with them?
It calls to mind a line from Tolstoy. He wrote something like, “I could not follow any of the two women’s conversation. But I knew it had to be about something because it was unending.”
Next blog: What to do if your wife is happy everywhere but at home, and then invites her non-English speaking mother to stay at said home with no departure date?
Two More Bald Eagle Encounters
The first one was nearly one month ago, but I haven’t found time to record it.
Here’s what I know. Of late I have been struggling with consistency. I know giving 100% really sets me apart, but I also have come to believe it is exhausting. So I don’t. I turn on and turn off at my choosing. I don’t know why I do this. It has been a long time since I have given 100% all day long and I think I have built up an unnatural fear that I will tire out. And I don’t like being tired.
But the bald eagle has got me rethinking my stance.
I saw this particular creature soaring over the roadway on a drive back from Wisconsin to Minnesota, as usual. But the singular thing I noticed this time was how, while riding the wind in what first appeared as a leisurely, effortless manner, the eagle’s neck was in fact strained forward and down as it hunted.
As a fellow rider of the wind, I have special insight into the three dimensional abilities of flight. The eagle and I can just descend a few inches and get a closer look, no neck strain. No effort. (If we wanted to.)
But no. This raptor isn’t looking for leisure. He was looking for food. And all creation knew it. Think of it. Neck strain instead of descending. Wow. What a lesson.
The second encounter was just last night. It had similar traits to one a few months back. Remember the headless eagle? Yep, that’s what happened again to me. I saw what looked like a brown box in the middle of the divided highway. With the new Metallica album blasting from the car speakers, I was already in a good mood.
\m/ Smile as it burnz to the grounnn-dah/The perfeck don’ wann chuu arounnn-dah! \m/
And then it happened. Surely before I would’ve suspected the blessed bird could’ve heard and singled out the music coming from my car stereo as I approached speedily, this apparent brown box’s head(!) popped up and look towards me. I say “looked towards me”, not “looked at me”. No, he wasn’t offering interest to me. He just recognized good music. The look in his eye as I passed was, “Rock on, Good Citizen.”
Metallica Is A Worthy Teacher
The most common reason I have given to any who will listen, as to why I don’t feel the need to attend church or really believe in church attendance since attending seminary is, “I need to either be learning or teaching, if I am involved with a group.”
Learning or teaching.
Listening to Metallica’s new album is learning from the experts. Learning proportion, learning dedication, learning timing, learning discernment, learning rock \m/, and learning love. There is also something subtle to note in their interviews. Metallica is probably the most qualified teacher on the topic of instinct. So add learning instinct to the list.
For this reason, listening to 72 Seasons is unlike listening to any other living band. Their catalog will be studied for eternity, like Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. Their behind the scenes footage (of which there is no end) will also be scrutinized without end. And these studies will satisfy.
Want to hate Metallica? Easy. Just dig a hole, put your head in, and have a friend fill it.
Pay any other amount of attention to this musical sun and the result is adoration.
Metallica is a worthy teacher.
Fellow Christians: NewsFlash—He Wasn’t in the Tomb for 3 Nights
Any mind reads the passages foreshadowing the length of Jesus’ stay in the tomb and thinks, “Umm, that doesn’t match.”
Any modern mind is correct. It doesn’t “match”. The math doesn’t add up.
Additionally, there is a concept I see floating around as I peruse “reasonable” or “rational” Christianity defense websites which compares the calendar of Bible cultures with our calendar. This comparison is literally an exercise in futility. Don’t be duped, Believers. (Pro Tip: If a Christian pulls out a dry erase marker, white board, easel, or pad of paper and pen to explain their point, stop listening. Diagrams and visual aides are not necessary to understand Christian truths. Back to the timeline claim.)
Jesus compares the event to Jonah’s “three days and three nights”. And then every record of the resurrection (“Early! Early Sunday morning—He got up!!) has words which describe that he was only in the tomb for what may be best called two periods of night/dark. Not even the original Jonah account in the OT records the start and stop time of Jonah’s stay in the whale.
This is not a theological problem and I’ll prove it to you. The proof is contained in this tip when discussing with skeptics.
Next time the issue comes up, try this.
“Let me ask you this. Let’s skip to the end and pretend you’re satisfied with the answer to the ‘3 days’ problem. With me? Just imagine I said words and you found them sufficient. After this, how do you propose to handle the ‘heart of the earth’ problem?”
I’m serious. We have all these Christians and non-christians walking around debating how to count, and there is a mutual claim that the individual/being in question will be in the “heart of the earth” for the time period in question.
A practically uniform tenet of the faith is the explicit claim that a borrowed, above-ground tomb was used. Jesus definitely did not have any earth thrown atop his body.
Moreover, even if he would’ve been buried “six feet under”, and even with the analogical heart being located slightly to one side of the top half of the body, the “heart” of planet Earth is proportionally far deeper into the dirt more than a mere six feet.
In the end, the “solution” to both is the same.
And the LORD God Almighty owes you nothing more, by way of explanation, than you’ve had all along. Use your brain, Christians. Getting these moments with skeptics right is serious.
(Also, never forget that no skeptic has a problem with a Christian who honestly says, “Good question. I haven’t thought about that before. I don’t know.” Skeptics have a problem with BS and stupidity.)
Follow-Up
Yesterday’s post, which I used to criticize some mom’s BS claim that she was “praising God in every situation, good and bad” after the shooting, garnered a welcome two commenters. Today I wanted to publish my response to the second commenter because I like it. Enjoy!
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My declaring that this person’s reaction wasn’t sincere is not only an accurate assessment, but necessary. I’ll prove it to you.
Because I wrote this little blog, you related, “…because it’s a Christian school.”
Does any part of scripture ever suggest Christians or Christian institutions, or the People of God in general (Jews/Christians throughout scripture) are on this planet with any special protection? No, no it does not. Never.
Is this “no special protection even though we’re on the winning team” a problem? Nope. It’s good theology. (Literate theology.)
So some lady offers a BS/superficial response, I truthfully call it out. Now you truthfully respond. Let’s keep the truth coming.
Do you actually believe we should praise god that murder occurred? No, no you don’t. So just say it. “God, I love ya, but I’m not in the mood for praising you right now. Not when these kids are getting killed. Not when these freaks are killing kids. I’m confused. I thought a Christian school would be safe. Why won’t you protect even a Christian school? You have my attention Lord. Answer!”
Biblically Informed School Shooting Reaction
Apparently one mom who spoke to the news has said, “We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”
I get it. Believe me, I get it. Many evangelicals are told to use these moments to point people to God, to tell people about Jesus.
And then there is the whole worry, “I said something publicly—will I have sounded churchy enough??” that many Christians live with.
We also can’t deny the idea that many folks are genuinely dumbstruck when evil hits close to home—especially when all along they thought they were supernaturally protected, either.
And let us not forget that communication is hard. Some big hearts and repentant worms are genuinely befuddled when the microphone comes their way. So this mother of apparently healthy kids (just talking to investigators still) rattles off something as stupid and trite sounding as, “We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”
Finally, this is a news story, a story meant to provoke and add hype—no matter the situation. It has obviously worked on me because here I am typing away. So I concede it is possible this mom is a terrible sample of modern Christian reaction to school shootings.
However, she is actually right in line with what I have all be hearing and reading after mass shootings for the last several years even from folks I know. So I think we can count her reaction as typical.
Here’s the thing. It isn’t honest.
Pop! Pop! Pop pop pop!! Blood. Screams.
“We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”
Speak from the heart, people! Pray!!
David, in recorded scripture that you all cherish soooo much, said, “Look and answer me, O Yahweh my God; Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death…”
Now we can debate whether suicide is the threat (“Answer or I do it!”), or just plainly stating that the enemy is about to kill him (You gonna do something here?), but the point remains, David had no issue speaking from the heart.
That was Psalm 13. Psalm 94 has, “O Yahweh, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth!”
Or “Kill ‘em all!” as Metallica might phrase it.
I don’t mind sharing here that my “prayer” since Sandy Hook got my attention has pretty much been—with surprising consistency—“My god! Where is it safe for my kids?”
In 2012, I didn’t know “my god” by name. After conversion to Christianity, I now specifically call to mind the god of the Bible, whether Yahweh/Jesus as the antecedent to “my god”. But in every case, the sequence is 1. School shooting. 2. “My god! Where is it safe for my kids?”
And that’s enough. Enough for me. And enough for Him.
Praising God for a school shooting? Gimme a break. No one believes that shit.
Why I Keep Watching the Ja Morant Story
I find every reaction story to Ja Morant’s stupid gang banger IG Live video fascinating. I keep watching YouTube clip after YouTube clip to try to discern how this is going to play out.
Are they spinning it to forgive and redeem? Are the spinning it to drop him from the pedestal? Are they closing options? Are they keeping options open?
I just can’t stop watching.
I know what all the major commentators think—they are fairly unanimous and all seem against crucifixion—and so now I am even curious what the YouTubers themselves think.
I even read all the comments, or most, and I skim the replies if there are quite a few.
Why? Why does this interest me so?
Because Ja Morant is my competition.
I am a dad.
I want my kids to be smart. I want my kids to be clean cut. I want my kids to have fun. I want my kids to be successful. I want the best for my kids.
But I would never commend anything Ja Morant does. Too many tattoos. Too stupid. Too flashy a hairstyle. Talks too much trash.
And yet kids see only, “Smart, cool, rich, successful, the best.” They feel that he has achieved what I preach.
So I just want to know what is going to happen and how everyone will think about it.
If he gets away with it, and doesn’t change substantially, then I lose. Or at least I have a very uphill battle.
If he gets meaningfully blackballed, then I win. Or at least I don’t lose all credibility in their mind.
We’ll see.
“The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.”
“Suddenly he follows [the harlot], as an ox goes to the slaughter.”
We’ll see.
I Hate That
Click bait, surely. But I don’t know how else to describe what happened.
I have two babies right now. A- is 2.5 and J- is 11 months. When A- was younger, I wanted to get her the classic shape sorter game/activity.
If you don’t know, they have many versions these days. The old red and blue one with yellow pieces is retro.
The one I decided upon is a blue dome with a knob or button thing on top that rotates the top half. So the shapes change each time the knob is depressed. A square/cube area becomes a top half triangle, bottom half cube. And the oval piece changes to top half concave thing, bottom half oval. You get the picture.
Anyhow, my wife and I have been embattled for some time now. (Not ever going to go into details here, sorry.) Almost every conversation becomes an argument. Well, I get on the floor with the babies tonight and start to play. I have been working a ton of late and this is a rare event these days.
I see my wife helping J- to put the cube in the cube space.
Good, I think.
Then I see her encouraging him to put in a wrong piece that happens to fit sideways into that same hole, but is clearly (by markings on the pieces themselves) not meant for that spot.
“That doesn’t fit there,” I exclaim, as if I believed the LORD could actually prevent J- from becoming Special Needs at this point.
“Yes it does,” my wife responds.
“What?” I ask, dumbfounded. “It may fit, but you don’t train the baby to put it there. The entire point is the right piece to the right spot.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure?? Because it seems like you just told me that ‘it fits’, even though it doesn’t?”
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With Metallica’s new album and tour announcements, I have been mentioning to a coworker that I may text him some songs as he is uninitiated. I haven’t yet. It’s actually a daunting task to share something so intimate.
As I wait and consider songs, I found myself listening to the radio today, and a perfectly poetic—in the “eternally powerful” sense of the word—rock song came on. It’s main lyric is, “I hate everything about you/why do I love you?”
This got me thinking. I know exactly what he means. Not because I hate everything about my wife, but because it’s a killer lyric. Here’s my attempt at a killer lyric.
I want my wife to think/She never thinks anymore
I hate that my wife won’t think/When she does think, I have seen good results—like with most people/I think
Why won’t she think?
Teaching our son the wrong way to do the game is tantamount to abuse
Abuse/Not because the game matters—though it does
Abuse/But because other kids (her son for example) didn’t or don’t have games
Abuse/Because it’s a complete waste of an opportunity
Abuse/And I hate that
Captain’s Log 