Monday, June 27, 2016

502 - What's the Big Idea?

Spirituality Column No. 502
June 28, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What’s the Big Idea?
By Bob Walters

Entertaining as it is to watch the “world order” rattle and roll through social media’s heavy chop of political, cultural and intellectual upheaval, love certainly takes a hit.
 
When we differ in opinion, we are not a sentient child of God; we are an idiot.
 
When we prefer familiar community-, state- and nation-sensitive governance to Global political regimens, we are not loved for nurturing coherent values and morals; we are a pick-your-phobic bigot.
 
When we are in fact mistaken – hey, it happens – we are not gently coaxed and coached to seek the truth more perfectly; we are sworn at and dismissed as ignorant.
 
Funny thing: “sworn at and dismissed” happens anyway when we tell the truth perfectly and are not mistaken.  “Ignorant”, as a pejorative, has become pervasive, relative and meaningless.
 
So here we are.  Social media provides nearly everybody these days with a unique-in-world-history opportunity to broadcast angst, epithets, profanity and insults.  It is easy to launch attacks against that which we do not love and to defend horribly the worldly things we do.  Naturally we postulate that our own erudite observations supersede anyone else’s power of forensic retort, but then discover the impossibility of constructing a foolproof argument, what with fools being so ingenious and all.
 
The larger-engine classic media – liberal or conservative; nutty or thoughtful – is no easier to trust for truth than an average citizen’s diet of online posts, tweets, snaps or whatever.  Access any social media website or mainline news feed and you’ll quickly find you are looking for love in all the wrong places.  Don’t think so?  Post an opinion.
 
This harkens consideration of the message of Jesus – the simplest, most important, most authoritative, most wide-ranging, shocking  and consequential message ever presented to mankind: Love God, love others, in Me you are forgiven, God loves you, and Heaven awaits those who hit “like.”  For those who don’t … God loves you anyway and will continue to pursue you because you are formed in the image of God.  But when you die and hitting “like” is no longer an option, you’re on your own.
 
And you won’t like it.
 
In His ministry, Jesus occasionally leveled Facebook-caliber ad hominem shots with observational invectives like “brood of vipers” and “faithless generation.”  But His big ideas were love, not ignorance; humility, not humiliation.  God’s son proffered the ultimate of ultimate big ideas: God’s glory is the entire purpose of life.
 
Recognizing our own stumbles – Jesus does – we should know our ultimate way home is paved with love and humility.
 
Too many of us throw bricks.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is glad Jesus only had to argue with the Pharisees, not some of the folks who post regularly on Bob’s Facebook feed. 
Monday, June 20, 2016

501 - God's Still Here

Spirituality Column No. 501
June 21, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

God’s Still Here
By Bob Walters

“More states have perished by the violation of their moral customs than by the violation of their laws. – Baron Montesquieu, France, 1734
 
Morality is always a hot topic in the civilized world.
 
As simple as Jesus Christ and the Bible try to make it, throughout history any number of governments, religions, doctrines, sects, philosophies and, these days, social science, academic despotism and cultural fashion have regularly conspired to define morality away from the eternal absolutes of God.  Humanity insists on capturing – redefining, really – a piece of God’s action.  It’s a story as old as Adam, Eve and Satan chatting in the garden.
 
Godly morality might be just simply this: to live one’s life in productive, creative, humble freedom for the overarching purpose of God’s glory; confessing faith with unwavering trust in Jesus Christ; by loving God, our neighbors, our enemies and the poor in coachable fealty to the Holy Spirit’s leading; and by holding reverently fast to confidence in the Bible’s truth.
 
Morality needn’t be as difficult to pull off as humanity again and again –and still – shows it to be.
 
Montesquieu, one of the 18th-century thinkers whose glowing philosophical intellect fueled the cultural firestorm of the Enlightenment, was no Christian moralist.  He and many others espoused the Enlightenment theology of Deism, asserting that in the beginning God did indeed institute His own set of physical and natural laws but then receded from earthly involvement leaving the laws of men up to the minds of men.
 
See what they did there?  They paved a humanist avenue defining morality without the encumbrance of, you know, actually worrying God was paying attention.   As we are now roughly three centuries into witnessing the behavioral fruits of kicking God’s plainly voiced morality into the subservient intellectual backwaters behind spuriously ascendant philosophical, political and economic systems far-removed from the primacy of God’s love … how would you say that’s going for us these days?
 
Granted, the United States is unique in that our founding documents avow humanity’s rights and freedoms to be ordained not by government but by God.  It says so – their Creator – right there in the first line of the U.S. Constitution.  Nonetheless today’s public moral discussion fiercely combats the assumption, presence, suggestion or mere mention of God’s uncontested eternal authority in moral truth.  The Enlightenment proclaimed that the proper behavioral underpinnings of culture were manmade “moral customs,” not God’s truth and love.
 
So I agree with Montesquieu’s observation, but say “Huh?” to his truth.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thought a moral discussion was timely.  Also, he never before knew how to spell “Montesquieu,” who by the way in the above quote was writing about the fall of the Roman Empire.  Feels familiar…
Monday, June 13, 2016

500 - A Thousand Excuses (Column No. 500)

Spirituality Column No. 500
June 14, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

A Thousand Excuses
By Bob Walters

It’s OK if you miss church once in a while.

I missed it for nearly 30 years and never once remember feeling like I needed an excuse not to go.  I just didn’t go and couldn’t imagine why I should.  I didn’t need the social structure, figured “higher meaning” could be found lots of places and while I knew the basic “Jesus” story I wasn’t actively believing it, seeking it or living it.  Church wasn’t worth the hassle and I spent no energy conjuring excuses.

Over the last 15 years though the opposite is true; it is a rare Sunday I’m not in church and I need a pretty good excuse not to go – the Indianapolis 500 a couple weeks ago, a recent unexpected but welcome overnight family visit.  It’s great not feeling a need to explain anything to anybody.  God knows where we are.

Neither, I believe, is God the least bit interested in excuses.

And that’s today’s point: our entire modern, Western cultural experience revolves around and is centered on the bargains and excuses through which we negotiate our earthly lives in America’s generally free capitalistic and democratic republic.  Faith, at least faith in Jesus Christ, is an ever-diminishing dynamic of our overall social economy even though Jesus is the very foundation of all human freedom.

Capitalism and politics are based on often-less-than-transparent negotiation and self-interested cooperation.  You know, “the art of the deal.”  Western academia has effectively eliminated the notion of divine authority, preferring private agendas and relational fashion to academic rigor grounded in God’s objective truth.  Science may own the academy but offers only a veneer of technical explanation, not a depth of ultimate truth.

Consider how different our moral lives would be if our everyday default behaviors were based in truth and love rather than the prideful, bargain-hunter shallowness of temporal comforts and secular trends.

Look around and tell me if I’m wrong: the predominant American social, political, economic, intellectual and entertainment experience involves a vigorous, excuse-laden negotiation for earthly comforts, not the humble pursuit of a relationship with God.

My long-time aversion to religion, I finally realized, was seated in my unwillingness to surrender not just Sunday mornings to church but my entire life, love, trust and aspirations to the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ.  Jesus flies in the face of practically everything else we hold dear; because everything else is about me.

That’s sinful self-centeredness, not an excuse.

The Gospel calls to something as small as any one of us, but points to something as big as God.  Earthly aspirations are trifle by comparison.

What’s your excuse for not thinking as big as God?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends trusting God, not negotiating with Him.
Monday, June 6, 2016

499 - Some Truth, not Same Truth

Spirituality Column No. 499
June 7, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Some Truth, not Same Truth
By Bob Walters

What I want to write about today – lovingly, I hope – is the current, pervasive state of media malfeasance that so accurately reflects and sadly but enthusiastically nurtures culture-wide religious ignorance.

There are two aspects to discuss.  One is the actual existence of truth and love revealed in Jesus Christ.  These are real things, really there, really important and really ignored by the snickering classes who deem actual Christ-centered, God-glorifying faith an intellectual embarrassment.  The other is the empirical non-faith knowability of religious doctrines and differences, also real, important and ignored.

“All religions are the same” is perhaps the most misinformed statement of any age yet seems to be the controlling narrative of modern public discourse.  Mention an obvious and observable difference attendant to a culture, race, nationality, gender, a private faith or a recognized religion and one has committed, at minimum, a boorish micro-aggression against the intolerant, hypocritical lords of political correctness.

Maybe this is so important for PC lords to control because truth is so freeing.

My thoughts today were triggered by the media coverage a month or so ago of the untimely and unfortunate death of the very talented musician “Prince.”  No, I wasn’t especially a fan, but on the other hand look up Prince’s 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame performance of the Beatles’ classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”  Arguably, you’ll see the greatest guitar solo of this or any age.  Of course, that’s an opinion, not truth.

Where the media botched it was reporting Prince as “Christian” without understanding the profound differences of Prince’s “Jehovah’s Witness” faith which says Jesus is love, yes, but also that Jesus was a man but not God.  The media shrugged its collective shoulders, not seeing the dangerous, salvational departure from the Christian Trinity.  Argue efficacy if you want, but don’t say, “They are the same.”

If the media covers, in no particular order, the Pope, the Roman Catholic Church, Islam, Muhammad Ali’s Nation of Islam (Louis Farrakhan, et al), the Dalai Lama, Buddhism, Hinduism, Billy Graham’s Evangelism, Bible Christians, Protestant churches, Anglican Bishops, Reformed electionists, predestined Calvinists, Latter Day Saints, Jewish traditions or the myriad Christian Orthodox doctrines – it takes intellectual rigor and more than a little philosophical and theological training to accurately describe, discern and report on, in context, whatever news they are making.

C.S. Lewis generously declares in “Mere Christianity” that there is some truth in all religions, but also rightly points out that Jesus is the only religious figure who says plainly, “I am… the truth…” (John 14:6).

Religious distinctions – and the Bible especially – are worth knowing and reporting on accurately.  That’s all I’m saying.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) majored in journalism in college; discernment came later.

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