Spirituality Column #311
October 30, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

I am a Jesus-believing sinner at the foot of the Cross who hesitates when marking the “religious preference” box on personal information questionnaires.

“Roman Catholic,” “Orthodox,” “Protestant,” and maybe a blank beside “Other,” typically are the Christian choices.  Rarely – in fact I think never – have I seen a box that simply says “Christian.”   Since “Christian” is all I really want to be, whenever possible I check “Other” and write in “Christian.”  It’s minor mischief that makes me smile.  Here endeth the rebellion.

This is not to disrespect those who check a different box.  I deeply appreciate Christianity’s rich and diverse doctrinal history – John 1:14, Christ on the Cross, Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension, the Pentecost, the Apostles, the Revelation, the church fathers, the canonization of the Bible, the heresies, Rome, Constantinople, Orthodoxy, the Council of Nicaea, the Great Schism, the Reformation, the Great Awakenings, the Evangelical Movement and on up to Humanae Vitae, the modern Popes, televangelism (for better or worse), and contemporary worship.

It is of great intellectual comfort to my own faith knowing that smart, spiritual humans have been thinking, interpreting, praying and writing about Christian doctrine for 2,000 years.  What I encounter on any given day as a Christian, including any given Sunday at worship, may be refreshing, enlightening, and new.  But I know that Christianity is old, that God is eternal, and that Jesus is more than an idea.  Jesus, the person who is also God, is the perfect and complete image of God’s original plan for a Creation that glorifies.

Fallen humans are errantly prone to heap superfluous constructs – i.e., legalisms – upon otherwise simple faith in Christ; faith that should lift us atop God’s foundational glory of love, grace, mercy, freedom, and joy.  Too often that faith becomes buried beneath worldly systems and suffocated by sin, fear, guilt, works, and sadness.

I mourn for churches that sacrifice the truth of the Bible for the weight of tradition, and lament churches that perilously ignore tradition while over-worshipping expedient scripture paraphrases.  I shake my head when churches promote worldly and off-point dogmas of “Jesus as Homeboy” or the “Prosperity Gospel of Me and My Needs.”  The “living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9) created, loves and pursues humanity.  We are to love God, pursue His truth in Christ, and share that truth, that spirit, in love and service, with others.  Christ should be the center of all.

By believing in Christ, I am not burdened with having to believe in anything else.

All I have to do is mark “Christian.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wanted to avoid the timely and tendentious topics of Halloween tomorrow and the election next week.  “Boo” if you must, but absolutely – for Heaven’s sake – vote.

Spirituality Column #310
October 23, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

Polling Data and God’s Truth

Spirituality Column #309
October 16, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

Forgive Me for Asking, But …
By Bob Walters

When asked “What’s Jesus done for you?” many Christians quickly answer, “He died on the cross to forgive my sins.”

True enough.

But if we honestly believe that answer – that Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins – why do so many of us still pray daily for God’s forgiveness?  Forgiveness has already happened, and that idea is as plainly and clearly presented as any in the Bible.  Over and over (Romans 6:10, Hebrews 7:27, 10:2, Jude 1:3, etc.) the New Testament instructs us that Jesus died “once for all” – for all mankind, for the forgiveness of all sin, and for the restoration of all creation.

My email pen pal Bob recently opined that asking Jesus for forgiveness again and again is akin to asking Jesus to go to the cross again and again.  Jesus has been there, done that, and is sitting in Heaven with the scars to prove it.  We’re forgiven, already; not by our request but by God’s grace and Jesus on the cross.

In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly offers forgiveness (Matthew 9:2), claims the authority to forgive (Matthew 9:6), and commands us to forgive (Matthew 18:35).  But humanity asking “for forgiveness” is not something Jesus ever mentions.  Nor is it something mankind ever thought of asking for.  The Jews of Jesus’ time believed their divine deliverer would provide spectacular, triumphant, and righteous military power, not humble, servant-hearted, and righteous forgiveness of sinners.

Jesus tells us to pray, repent, be baptized, and to follow him (Mark 1).  For our salvation we are to love God, trust Jesus, rely on the Holy Spirit, and both love and forgive our neighbor.  But from the cross, our forgiveness through Christ is eternal and ongoing – a “done deal.”  Continuing to ask Jesus “for forgiveness” seems ungracious, tantamount to doubting His word, His promise, His authority, His power, His love.

But still … we sin, feel guilty, and reflexively pray for forgiveness.  Isn’t it far better to recognize and repent of sin, and then – with faith and perseverance – strengthen our relationship with the one risen Lord?  We do that by building, growing, learning, nurturing and trusting in Jesus Christ: that He is who He says He is, has done what He says He has done, and will do what He has promised to do.

My teacher George recently remarked that many Christians are addicted to praying for forgiveness.  I’d never heard it put quite like that.  Certainly, prayer is good, but our prayers should reflect our total trust in the grace of Christ Jesus.

For what is grace if not forgiveness?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) doesn’t pray for God’s forgiveness; he thanks God that His forgiveness is eternal.  Peace and mercy to all.

Spirituality Column #308
October 9, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters


Whither America?  Everybody I know has an opinion on whether America is or should or must or must not be a “Christian” nation.  I think we should be a nation of free individuals loving God and others.  I also think that it is very, very apparent that freedom in Jesus Christ provides the essential, animating moral foundation for democracy.

A global missions team recently told our Sunday school class that Europe has the lowest Christian conversion and baptism rate on the planet.  What could be a better advertisement against “official,” government-taxed religion?

God’s grace, mercy and love are free gifts through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.  That’s freedom, and no government should tax it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays for Europe … and America.

Spirituality Column #307
October 2, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Logic and reason may be the twin towers of worldly intellectual life, but faith and freedom are required to experience and apply the wisdom of God.

We can thank the ancient Greeks for modern mankind’s obsession with physical evidence, reverence for forensic consensus, and stubbornness against accepting the truth of faith.  “Truth” credited to Socrates (469-399 B.C.), Plato (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and championed by philosophers through the ages, grips both the highest reaches of contemporary academia and mankind’s simplest common sense.

That “truth” in a nutshell?  Things are only true if one can explain them.

It is among Satan’s cleverest deceptions, convincing humans that ultimate truth a) resides inside each of us and b) is limited to what we can prove to others.  God, desiring love and faith above all, bestows intellectual freedom on us to discover His truth.  Some people do find God through Christ, but many find only themselves, or the world’s pleasures, or despair, or confusion.  Some find only emptiness.

Absent faith in the ultimate goodness of God, the truth of Jesus Christ, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, countless thinkers have busied themselves trying to make sense of the world by worshipping explanations or devising systems.  They attempt to explain that which is unexplainable without faith in God; we mistakenly think ultimate truth will include a clear explanation.  Not so.

In the world’s realm of evidence, power, and self-examination, the Gospel of Jesus Christ doesn’t make sense.

God became human?  Prove it.

Almighty God, in the person of His own sinless son Jesus the Prince of Peace, died a violent sinner’s death on the cross to … free mankind from sin?  Be serious.

Christ’s resurrection assures believers eternal life?  Who have you ever seen “resurrected”?

God did all this to save the weak?  This life favors the strong and powerful; if God exists, He (or She) favors them.

Historical ironies abound.  Greek philosophy flowered in the intertestamental years between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi (circa 500 B.C.) and the birth of the ultimate authoritative teacher, Jesus.  From then until the 18^th century A.D., academic and intellectual investigation was overwhelmingly devoted to discovery through the infinite lens of Christ’s wisdom.  Today, the academy satisfies itself – restricts itself, actually – with the pocket magnifying glass of man’s knowledge.

In Greek-educated Paul’s 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, esp. v19, “the learning of the learned I will confound,” God declares the folly of intellectually “going it alone.”

Of course, we are free to think differently.  But it’s not wise.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is studying 1 Corinthians Wednesday nights at E91 church (class open to all) with former Cambridge University lecturer Dr. George Bebawi.