Spirituality Column #268
December 27, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Hitch, Tebow, and God Almighty
By Bob Walters

Christopher Hitchens possessed a rare – one could say entirely unique – knack for writing.

His complex but nonetheless lucid, interesting, and grammatically perfect sentences presented all manner of philosophical, literary, historical, and political citations and comparisons in support of his razor-sharp, rational observations about the world and the people in it. His sentences constructed countless essays, articles and books – and fame – before he died December 15, 2011, of esophageal cancer.

Hitchens wore his atheism on his sleeve, writing God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything in 2007. It seemed to me he wrote desperately, as if hoping to argue eloquently enough to make God and religion just go away. Paradoxically, it was not uncommon for “Hitch” to refer to “the Almighty” as an existent, proper noun.

Tim Tebow possesses a rare – one could say entirely unique – athletic ability. It facilitated his entirely unanticipated success as the Plan B quarterback of the Denver Broncos. Tebow’s skills and leadership spawned a jaw-dropping string of Bronco wins this season. Flummoxed sports analysts relentlessly chattered that Tebow (shhh! … a devout, professing Christian) still lacked the proper skill set to be an NFL quarterback, but couldn’t figure out how to properly ask, “Is Tebow’s success a sign from God???”

Tebow wears his Christian faith on his sleeve, in his posture (“Tebowing” – kneeling on one knee, elbow on the other knee, forehead resting on the thumb-side of his fist, praying – is a “flash mob” fad), and he even used to wear it on his face (remember the Bible verses on his anti-glare below-the-eye cheek patches?).

Sportscaster Bob Costas recently pondered inconclusively on national TV, “There’s something about Tebow,” implying but not directly describing Tebow’s unbridled openness about his belief in and witness for Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. My thought was … “You may as well go ahead and say it, Bob, because that cat’s out of the bag: Christ’s light shines through Tebow’s witness. Amen.”

But what does that have to do with football? And where, exactly, do we suppose God is in all this? God is precisely where God always is – above it all, in us all, around us all, knowing all. The enormity of the Almighty transcends our ability to define God logically (hence: “Judge not,” Matthew 7:1, etc.), while the reality of Jesus Christ “given … for all mankind” (John 3:16), puts us with God eternally.

God loves us all; our own faith is the only variable. Tebow’s football success doesn’t prove God’s presence any more than Hitchens’ writing proves God’s absence.

God never, ever, fits into those kinds of boxes.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) mourns Hitchens’ passing and cheers Tebow’s passing. Tough loss to the Pats, though.

Spirituality Column #267
December 20, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 4
By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name … Jesus … Jesus Christ is Lord …” – Philippians 2:9-11

Let’s take a final look at the convolutions and ironies attendant to the general topic of “names” as they relate specifically to Jesus, Christmas, the Christ, the holidays and secular convention.

After that, those of us who so choose can go ahead and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, Happy Holidays and if we want, a partridge in a pear tree.

Our fearful, hyper-protective, offense-averse modern society annually ties itself in knots trying to celebrate Christmas without actually calling it Christmas. As believers in Christ we can relax. Christ is in our hearts and also at the right hand of the Father, always. Jesus is not confined to a date on the calendar. His name alone supersedes any holiday, and anyway the “why” of Jesus is more important than the “when.”

As for the “Christmas” name debate, I prefer not to be tied in knots, fighting battles that cannot be won and for which, really, there is no prize for winning. It seems a better strategy to dwell in the faithful assuredness of forgiveness that has already been won in Christ Jesus. I cannot argue my faith into someone else’s soul; and it follows that the same goes for trying to argue “Christ” into commerce or convention.

What I can do is to pray – frequently, fervently, and faithfully in the name of Jesus – that somehow my witness, my life, my example, my love, my works, my Merry Christmas, my whatever might somehow add up to a valid case for the peace of Christ being accepted in someone else’s soul; that in their hearts the Holy Spirit will work the miracles of grace, hope and the blessed peace of Christmas.

Satan, representing everything that is not Christ, wants to destroy that peace. The world’s – Satan’s – attack on Christ is nothing new, and the only way we can “fix” that is not to allow the world’s attack on us to rob the joy of our peace in the Lord.

Christmas is about gifts because Jesus Christ is about gifts – of His faithfulness, life, grace, eternity, freedom, inheritance, kingdom … and oh yeah, forgiveness. These are gifts open and available to absolutely everybody.

When we say Merry Christmas we’re offering all those gifts on behalf of Jesus.

That’s the power of His name.

And I’ll keep calling it Christmas because that’s what it is named in my heart.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, Lulu.com) believes peace exists exactly where each of us in our own heart allows Christ to exist. Merry Christmas!

Spirituality Column #266
December 13, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 3
By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name … Jesus … Jesus Christ is Lord …” – Philippians 2:9-11

Our just-published book Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, a five-year compilation of these weekly columns, is dedicated to longtime Indianapolis minister Russ Blowers (1924-2007).

Russ not only shepherded an enormous flock at East 91st Street Christian Church, but in his nearly 60 years of ministry was the WISH-TV 8 live “Chapel Door” pastor in the 1950s and 60s, was chairman of the Indianapolis Billy Graham Crusade in 1980 at Market Square Arena, and chairman emeritus of Graham’s 1999 Crusade at the RCA Dome. Billy and Ruth Graham stayed with Russ and Marian Blowers the first time the Grahams visited Indy in 1950.

“Everyone” knew Russ, and what just about everyone says they remember most about Russ is this: He never forgot a name. The second time one encountered Russ Blowers, Russ remembered their name from the first time. Russ loved Jesus and loved people. Russ’s most obvious expression of love for people in general and his congregation in particular, was that he remembered people’s names.

A large chunk of my career has been spent in public relations … a line of work where quite often Job #1 is to make other people feel important. A good place to start is to remember names. My name recall is so-so; Russ’s facility was dazzling.

So … names matter; which brings us to Philippians 2:9 and Christmas.

When the Apostle Paul tells the Philippians that Jesus is exalted by God as the “name above every name,” Paul is not saying “Jesus” is a name merely above earthly names like Bob, Russ, Pam, Eric, John, Joe, Sally, Sue, Jason and all the rest. Paul is saying that the name of Jesus Christ the Lord is the name above every name of God – YHWH, El Shaddai, Adonai, and so on. You know … those names.

The living God is exalting Jesus the Christ, His Son, as the Lord. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, the Eternal Savior, the Logos Creator, and He occupies the highest place with the name that is above every name. God says so.

Remembering the names of people is polite; remembering the name of Jesus Christ is holy. And while “Happy” has distinct, worldly limitations in a nameless, aimless, comfort-driven commercial “Holiday,” eternal joy and peace are found only in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Make mine “Merry Christmas.”

Walters’ (rlwcom@aol.com) book is available at www.Lulu.com. Type “Common Christianity” in the “Find” box and hit Enter. Buy several, give them as gifts, tell your friends! PS - Save 25% thru Wed Dec 14 use coupon code COUNTDOWN.

Spirituality Column #265
December 6, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 2
By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name … Jesus … Jesus Christ is Lord …” – Philippians 2:9-11

Awhile back I worked with a guy whose dad, who bankrolled the business, would occasionally forget or grossly mispronounce names of people I figured he (the dad) probably knew. Not to their faces, of course, but in conversation.

The guy once pulled me aside and explained, “When dad screws up a name, it means he doesn’t either like, trust or respect that person, or they’re expendable. He does it intentionally.” One day from around a corner I heard the dad refer to me as “what’s-his-name?” and knew it was time to move on.

So how do we treat the name of Jesus Christ? Do we forget it? Ignore it? Fear it? Trust it? Share it? Respect it? Love it? Make an effort to understand it? Make an effort to hide it? Find it expendable?

How we treat the name Jesus Christ, or any name, reveals much about our relationship with that person, place, or thing … or God. We can be assured that God knows our names, numbers the hairs on our head, and that the only thing God doesn’t remember about us is our sin, because the blood, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ – God’s son – covers those sins.

God also knows whether, in faith, we name Jesus Christ as our Lord.

There is unimaginable power in the name of Jesus Christ – the power of life, the power of forgiveness, the power of adoption, the power of knowledge, light, truth and eternity. The very power of God. As humans we tend to want the power to fix the “light and momentary” pains and troubles of this temporal, fallen-world, but that is truly nothing compared to the power of God in His eternal Kingdom.

This is all basic Sunday School stuff, which leads us to the wider cultural net of systematically taking the name of Christ out of Christmas.

Nowhere in the New Testament does it say Christ wants a holiday or a festival or a feast in his name … in Christ’s name we are forgiven for all time. Amen. We must confess Jesus Christ as Lord, all the time. Amen. Jesus Christ is in our hearts, all the time. Amen. How can any holiday be any more special than “all the time”?

The truth is … it can’t. But removing “Christ” from “Christmas” is an attempt to remove the name of Christ from public view …and that’s a likeable, trustworthy, respectable name that is – eternally – not expendable.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), author of “Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary” tweets at @CommonChristian.

Spirituality Column #264
November 29, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday above Every Holiday, Part 1
By Bob Walters

“Names don’t matter” is not a famous quote but it certainly is a common, criticism-avoiding and politically correct sentiment in modern society.

Call things whatever you want, we say. “Be open-minded.” Don’t be tied down to “old” or “traditional” names for things. Be free and express yourself however you want. Certainly we wouldn’t want to offend anyone so let’s not call people “names.” But hey, “What’s in a name?” (Romeo & Juliet, II ii), anyway? And we all can recite the time-honored schoolyard taunt rebuttal, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me.”

Yet … “names don’t matter” is the exact opposite of current social convention. Nothing in modern society matters more than names. Need proof? Just try calling Christmas “Christmas.”

You’ve likely noticed that we are currently amid the “Holiday Season”: Season’s Greetings, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday music, Santa Claus, presents, school “holiday” shows, winter break, and all that. Yep, it’s the holidays, and it’s all legal.

The official federal holidays we celebrate in this “Holiday Season” are Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November, another one on December 25th, and New Year’s Day on January 1. This leads me to write the following joke:

“Can you name the 10 official U.S. Federal Holidays?”
“Nobody can! Because you can’t say ‘Christmas.’”

Yep, 10 official U.S. holidays. I looked it up. They are listed in Title 5 of U.S. Code Section 6103. The 10 federal holidays, exactly as they are recognized and named by the United States government, are: New Year’s Day, the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Washington’s Birthday (official name – really – not “President’s Day”), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and, ahem, Christmas Day.

On Thanksgiving Day, names don’t matter. Leading up to Christmas Day, it seems, nothing else matters. As in, “Please, shop ‘til you drop and celebrate ‘til you pop but don’t call it Christmas!” At least … not in public.

Am I insensitive? On occasion – especially this occasion, Christmas – I suppose so. And yet, who is being insensitive? We strive mightily in current culture to be sure we don’t offend – with names – any person, any thing or any idea.

But it’s OK to offend, and even ignore, the name of Jesus Christ.

We’ll talk about that here over the next few weeks, without whining.

Clue: Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is heading toward Philippians 2:9. And in the spirit of helpful Christmas shopping hints, look for Walters’ book “Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary” at Lulu.com, ISBN 978-1-105-13454-8.

Spirituality Column #263
November 22, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Praying for Grandma’s Gravy
By Bob Walters

Thanksgiving dinner can be one of the spiritually richest and most comforting gatherings of the year – God’s bounty on our plates, loving family and dear friends at our reverently bent elbows.

Or, it can be a prickly, uneasy theatre of differing and generally incompatible intra-family opinions on relationships, culture, government, and God … simmering like grandma’s gravy that everyone hopes doesn’t get scorched by excessive heat or fractured by inattentive stirring.

Scenario One will likely have a rich pre-meal prayer of thanks for overflowing goodness and fellowship and abundance. It may or may not be a specifically religious prayer because not everyone’s spirit is connected, in an aware way, to a specific faith system. But don’t most of us just know, deep inside, that saying “Thanks” on Thanksgiving isn’t just an expression of appreciation? It’s an affirmation of the existence of God … whatever we understand that God to be. We look around the table, with love, and know that truth exists. God must be here somewhere. We are thankful.

Scenario Two can lead to the guests primarily being thankful when the meal is over and the ride home has begun. Even if family squabbles and political dissonance can be laid aside, the issue of whether God has a proper place at the table is a significant bellwether of enjoyable fellowship. This much I know from my long, previous experience as a non-believer – it feels real weird to pray to a God you truly do not know.

During the 30 years of my life I didn’t go to church, I wasn’t mad at God; I simply didn’t know him and didn’t really care. I know many people today who gave up their faith “for cause.” It might have been a church scandal, the personal sleight or transgression of an insensitive Christian, or the feeling of abandonment by God. To some people, the whole “God” thing just seems stupid. Often, non-believers are simply ambivalent.

I would urge my Christian brothers and sisters to gird up for Scenario Two by praying deeply for understanding, wisdom, courage and patience. We can never argue our faith into another soul; we can only be an example another soul could choose to emulate. And remember … most people don’t have a problem with Jesus; they have a problem with Christians, the church, or “religion.” You’re an ambassador for all four.

Keep “grace” – the pre-meal prayer – simple, but pray clearly with the conviction that thanks is something truly worthy to give to God. It’s the sincerity and the love that you show to God and to others that will rub off on the souls of lost loved ones.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) advises praying for people by name. It works.

Spirituality Column #262
November 15, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

WWJD? – No Ifs, Ands or Buts
By Bob Walters

Christians ask “What Would Jesus Do?”

A better question is “What DOES Jesus Do?” An even better question is “What does Jesus do that is a model for my life?” And an even better question than that is “What IS Jesus doing in my life right now?”

Asking what Jesus “would” do splits a couple of linguistically problematic hairs.

A common critique of “WWJD” is that it comes dangerously close to putting “me” in the place of Jesus. Becoming “like” Christ (Philippians 3:10), and actually being Christ, are two vastly, massively and dramatically different things. Jesus commands us to love God, not to be God (thanks to Satan, Adam and Eve learned that one the hard way). Jesus said, “Remember me,” not “Be me.” Be careful.

Also, the word “would” signifies what grammar class calls a subjunctive mood or “conditional” phrase; it implies “if” and introduces doubt. Jesus is not an “if,” He is eternally God and human. Sectarians debate the “nature” and personhood of Jesus after the resurrection but the Bible says He is eternally fully God and fully man.

That’s the final answer, mystery and all. “Jesus is,” not “Jesus if.”

Certainly our earthly, human lives are full of subjunctives, contradictions, ifs, ands, buts and maybes. I project my worldly pride and fight for my “rights” yet often realize later, I’m not in the right.

Other people see my failings, which robs my integrity, and I hate when that happens.

Jesus had perfect integrity and never wavered in his responsibility. Not one thing about Jesus was “proud” but everything about Jesus had integrity. Jesus came as a servant (in Greek, dulos, “slave”) without pride or rights, only responsibility to God. He was steadfast in that integrity, and the prideful Pharisees and many others hated Him for it. If we are shooting for “like Christ,” the starting line is to emulate the integrity of Christ’s commitment to God.

On the up-side, “WWJD” very importantly puts Jesus in our lives today, as in … “What Would Jesus Do … right now?” We don’t “carry that old rugged Cross” because of what happened, like the hymn says, “On a hill far away.” We carry our cross today because Christ is alive today, and because what Jesus did “once for all” with grace and passion on the Cross perpetually restores our eternal human relationship with God the Father … a relationship that perpetually renews with our ongoing faith in Christ.

Jesus is never past tense, and is never woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’.

Jesus is “I am.” Right now, and forever.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) observes that pride and rights are almost always about “me,” and that integrity and responsibility are almost always about God.

Spirituality Column #261
November 8, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Dividing Politics and Religion
By Bob Walters

On this off-year Election Day, let’s take an off-beat tour of America’s mix of church and state. The Bible gets first “ups.”

Jesus separated church and state long before the eighteenth century secular humanists identified and attached the inalienable rights of man to modernity. Rights, by the way, are not in the Bible; responsibilities are.

One can consider the entirety of the New Testament and understand the unique moral and creative wholeness of Christian freedom in Jesus Christ. Or, one can take the common Gospel verse “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:12:17, Luke 20:25), and see that Caesar (specifically here “Caesar’s money” or euphemistically “Rome’s man-made government”) and God play on different teams.

The apostle Paul declares the primacy of our “citizenship in Heaven” (Philippians 3:17, 20), but also invokes his own Roman citizenship in order to be heard (Acts 21:39) and then not to be executed (Acts 22:22ff). In Romans 13 Paul says government is ordained by God and that if we “owe taxes, [then] pay taxes” (verse 7).

While Paul seems to indicate the scary proposition that “Government is God,” he doesn’t, and it’s not. Jesus Christ is God, and Jesus plainly says that while both He (Jesus) and we (Christians) are “in the world,” neither He nor we are “of the world” (John 15:19, 17:14, 16). Christ commands that God is first, and that we are to love God and our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 19:19), and even to love our enemies (5:44).

What the United State Constitution and all its amendments describe is a political context within which the creative freedom of man and the God-ordained morality of “love others as we love ourselves” can prosper and thrive. Over 224 years they have mostly – though not always – thrived, but it is only in the Christian moral context that this kind of document is possible.

Democracy demands moral responsibility, which is different from the “fair” (read “blind”) application of “religious freedom” the secular modern world mistakenly equates and jingoistically describes as “all religions are the same.” They, um, aren’t.

Moral discernment is the first casualty of secularism, which replaces God’s moral truth – Jesus Christ – with man’s moral relativism.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, “Under God” we enjoy freedom and defend a “government of, by, and for the People.” It certainly can and will “perish from the earth” lest we understand, and understand soon, the indivisible equation of our citizenship both in Heaven and as Americans.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recently read about and laments Europe’s cultural disestablishment of Christianity. He is sure we’ll either learn from Europe’s example, or die the same spiritual death.