Spirituality Column #385
April 1, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Several religious movies currently are being marketed to Christian audiences and I haven’t seen any of them.  Yet.

Noah is a blockbuster mega-movie open everywhere, evidently trading-in God, morality and biblical accuracy for a morally modernistic, enviro-fascist, “man is bad–save the earth” secular romp.  Its trailers and reviews suggest a heavy “moral” message but its script never actually mentions God.  The film opens with the words, “In the beginning, there was nothing.”

“Nothing?”  Really?  Oops.

Open any Bible to Genesis 1:1 and you’ll read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Removing God from the beginning of a Bible story is a cataclysmic theological fumble and a reliable “tell” that this movie isn’t about God’s truth, it’s about man’s philosophy and politics.  The Pope graciously received and blessed star Russell Crowe recently, but didn’t bless the movie.  Another “tell.”  I’ll pass.

Son of God is a feature-length Jesus-centered re-cut of 2013’s TV miniseries, “The Bible,” which overall was very well done.  But I have to tell you … I never watched the last of the six installments.  That would be the Jesus trial, crucifixion, death, and resurrection episode.  Ever since Passion of the Christ (2004), I simply ask Jesus for His graceful forgiveness that I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.

Son of God catches grief in some Christian quarters for taking doctrinal liberties with the biblical story, but that’s not why I’ll avoid seeing it.  I already know what happened and reliving the visual violence will not buttress, increase or intensify my faith.

The movie I definitely plan to see is “God’s Not Dead.”  I admire the pluckiness of a college student who refuses to comply when a professor instructs his class to write the words “God is Dead.”  The trailer samples the climactic debate scene where the student challenges the professor with, “Why do you hate God?”

The film promises thought-provoking entertainment.

“Heaven is for Real” was a charming “what if” book about a little boy visiting heaven.  I’m sure it will be a charming movie.  It’s outside most biblical purview, but the sentiment that heaven is a real place, well, I’m all for that.  It’s out at Easter.

Two smaller films with local flavor will be available soon, I hope.  “Ragamuffin” is about deceased Indiana Christian musician Rich Mullins who wrote the song “Awesome God.”  Rich’s brother Dave was a local staff minister, and Rich’s close friend Sam Howard pastors The Gathering in Carmel.  “The War Within” was written by Indy Star cartoonist Gary Varvel and produced by Brownsburg’s House of Grace Films.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who rarely goes to movies, will report back on “God's Not Dead.”  Also, for information on a local screening of “Ragamuffin” April 12, see www.east91st.org.

Spirituality Column #384
March 25, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters



Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) ponders “What Would Jesus Do?” and answers, “Things that I cannot.”

Spirituality Column #383
March 18, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Among the great metaphysical prescriptives attending the worldly aspirations of contemporary humanity, the simple, humble, heartfelt therapy of searching for Jesus Christ is rarely recommended.

Instead we assert: “I need to find myself.”

That’s what we think.  Jesus can wait; first I need to find myself.  But is there a more succinct statement of the ego-centric Baby Boomer aesthetic?  A more apt credo of “Me Generation” self-absorption?  A more deceptive distillation of modern man’s misdirected and ultimately empty search for life’s meaning?  A more gobbledy-gook filled section of the book-selling industry?

No, “finding myself” is absolutely as pervasive a modern philosophical cornerstone – not to mention big business – as it is a devastatingly disruptive flaw in spiritual priorities.  The marketplace of ideas, including best-seller lists, are full of secular self-help psycho-babble and self-actualizing personal-esteem literature.  “I must find and love myself before I can love others” is how it often goes.

Here I’d like to interject a rebuttal, borrowing a song lyric Johnny Lee wrote in 1980: We are “looking for love in all the wrong places …”

Some years before 1980 – actually several centuries before – the German monk Thomas à Kempis compiled what is recognized as the second-best-selling book of all time behind the Bible.  The book, from the early 1400s, is “The Imitation of Christ.”

“The Imitation,” like the Bible, has much to say about denying self and the superiority of seeking Jesus.  The book is short and blessedly modernized in language and punctuation.  Its message of faith in Christ is very accessible to the average reader.

Its message is also very hard, and very non-Baby-Boomerish.  And for the committed Christian, it is very, very convicting.  Thomas pulls no punches.

In the book’s second section, the eighth sub-title is “Loving Jesus above all things.”  Thomas begins: “Blessed is he who appreciates what it is to love Jesus and who despises himself for the sake of Jesus.  Give up all other love for His, since he wishes to be loved alone above all things.”

Granted, Thomas is a monk describing a monastic life.  Few folks can relate to that.  But “The Imitation” is a Christian classic because it so purely describes the primacy of Christ over all things, and in all things.   I am to worship thee, not me.

Thomas continues, “If you seek Jesus in all things, surely you will find him.  Likewise, if you seek yourself, you will find yourself – to your own ruin.”


One saves, the other dies.  The grace is God’s, the choice is ours.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reminds that whoever loses his life for Jesus’s sake, will find it (Matthew 10:39).

Spirituality Column #382
March 11, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

"Don't have anything to do with foolish or stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone ..." – The Apostle Paul to young Timothy, 2 Timothy 2:23-24

Paul was alone in a Roman dungeon, his death drawing near.  Out of loneliness for his friends and deep concern for Christians persecuted by the Emperor Nero, Paul penned this advice to Timothy.  Whether dealing with evil desires, bad theology, or Roman tyrants, Paul stressed the importance of not being resentful.

"Gently instruct,” Paul continued, “hope that God will grant them repentance leading to knowledge … that they will come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”

Non-believers love it when Christians don’t argue back, but hate it when Christianity hints its silence is because the non-believer is in the throes of Satan.  While a non-believer likely – indignantly – proclaims “You can’t judge me!”, Paul is merely telling the Christian to exercise discernment.  Paul continues:

“… There will be terrible times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. … [they] are never able to acknowledge the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:1-7)

Whew.  And this was written 2,000 years ago.  Think the Bible is out of date?  Have you watched a newscast lately?  It requires a progressively stronger and stronger stomach – and spiritual numbness – to pay close attention to our current national political and cultural conversation.  Anywhere one looks in society – politics, finance, entertainment, academics, science, social structures, civil rights, even sports – a communal blind eye ignores obvious biblical instruction.  We are culturally inundated with what G.K. Chesterton a century ago called “truisms that aren’t true.”

Just last week, American columnist Peggy Noonan noted “the eroding end of the idea that religious scruples and beliefs have a high place that must culturally and politically be respected.”  I agree.  Religion – Christianity – isn’t finally about obedience or argument; it’s about glorifying God and selflessly loving and serving our neighbor.

Paul offers several expositions of worldly wrongness juxtaposed with divine temperament – Romans 1:11-31, Galatians 5:16-26, Ephesians 4:17-5:21, Colossians 3:1-17, and others.  All are instructions relevant in today’s world.

All are God talking to us.

Are we listening?  Are you?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), mea culpa, argues way too much.  Noonan also wisely wrote, “The truly tolerant give each other a little space.”  Amen.

Spirituality Column #381
March 4, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

“The joy of the Lord is our strength” - Chris Tomlin, Holy is the Lord

The pursuit of happiness to which our culture declares utmost, unrelenting personal priority truly has a rather earth-bound and second-rate quality about it.

It’s joy that we should be shooting for.

The question arose in Bible study a couple years ago about the difference between joy and happiness.  I honestly can’t remember if I came up with it on my own or read it somewhere, but I said, “Happiness is a symptom, and joy is a condition.”


We chase happiness in this life, but it’s joy that hearkens the eternal.  With joy in the Lord, we possess hope, peace, strength and love that supersede the cheers and fears of earthly life.  We can be happy in the moment, but not fearful at the same time. 

I like “happy,” don’t get me wrong, but it connotes a comfort-focused, secular, self-indulgent, human, temporal “I got mine” tone that falls short of divine glory.

Happy isn’t a terrible symptom, but joy reeks of God’s unconditional love.

And that’s a strength.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) who is pretty sure he came up with that “symptom / condition” line on his own, appreciates the classics.  Bach wrote “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” and Beethoven wrote “Ode to Joy.” Modern music includes “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”  Tomlin’s lyric comes from Nehemiah 8:10.