Tuesday, December 26, 2017

580 - Go Ahead and Live It, Part 4

9:16 AM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #580
December 26, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Go Ahead and Live It, Part 4
By Bob Walters

"How many observe Christ's birth-day! How few, his precepts. O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments." - Ben Franklin (1743)

 With Christmas now ever-so-slightly in the rear-view mirror, what shall we do?

Drive away at high speed from the joy and repentance proper to celebrating the incarnation of God, or do the right thing and load Jesus in the car with us?

Just let’s not pack away Jesus with the rest of the seasonal ornaments.  The fun of Christmas – the “lights and cookies, gifts and guests” way we celebrate it, I mean – frankly would get boring if it happened all the time.  By the end of December I’m ready to have the house back to normal, the schedule slowed down, and for life to go on.

But whether we see Him or not, invite Him into our lives or not, or accept his gifts or not, Jesus is right here with us.  And not just as a perpetual, corrective, behavior-monitoring “Elf on a Shelf.”  No, the hunt is on and Jesus – seeking us – invites all to join His divine safari of salvation, love of God, and love of others.

Too many folks have it stuck in their heads that those “Commandments” Mr. Franklin mentions are a litany of fun-killing, life-throttling rules enforced by a wrathful God who is grumpily waiting for us to stumble so He can punish us and send us to Hell.  The “Holidays” – the Christmas we cheerily celebrate – provide a comforting notion of loving warmth and home, certainly lacking the same terrifying, mortal-combat aesthetic of much Christian “Commandment” enforcement.  What’s truly terrifying and mortal isn’t God’s Commandments; it is Satan’s attempted claim on our souls.  God invites us to share His glory; Satan endeavors to kill it.

Sure, history is pock-marked with awful things Christians have done, mostly to other Christians.  When legalism, sin, fear, and punishment control the enforcement of faith, great damage is done to humanity.  Once the Romans were done killing the early Christians, many martyrs for the faith since then have died at the hands of Christians.

Properly understood, God’s commandments to humanity exist not to trip us up but to help us get along.  It was Pharisaical legalism that Jesus sought to undo, and that same off-point legalism has been a dispiriting, ugly, and sadly constant component of Christian religion.  Loosely masked as “Commandments,” they are more accurately described as man-made points of false, judgmental, and controlling legalistic doctrine.

Of course any light, merry holiday is better than that mess.  Satan has infected both the “Holidays” and “Commandments” with deceptions not of God’s design but of mankind’s pride.  Take Christ out of Christmas and love out of God’s Commandments and it is easy to see why folks pack-up religious Jesus with the lights and ornaments.

But what if we “keep” Jesus out, and love him with all our strength, hearts, souls, and minds all year long?  And love our neighbors?  And humbly repent of our sins?

We’ll discover that, thanks to Jesus, humanity is united to God forever, that divine love cannot be destroyed, that Christ is in every member of our bodies, that no joy matches the joy of God’s forgiveness, and that heaven’s bond of love is indissoluble.

That would be much bigger than a “birth-day”; that would be a life worth living.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) believes God is serious about His image, i.e., us.
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Monday, December 18, 2017

579 - Go Ahead and Say It, Part 3

4:33 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #579
December 19, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Go Ahead and Say It, Part 3
By Bob Walters

My very favorite Christmas curmudgeon is not the fabled “Grinch” of cartoons and movies but my very real-life friend and Christian mentor Dr. George Bebawi.

Now there is a guy – a pastor, teacher, Bible translator, and a man deeply blessed with many spiritual gifts of intellect, experience, and communication – who doesn’t like modern Christmas.  It is enlightening to find out why.

Let’s start, for our purposes, with all the Christians who embrace the infinite love of Christ, who participate in the divinely and humanely giving spirit of the season, and who embody the family-strengthening sentimentality of home and church traditions.  They annually encounter the inexplicable, ineffable peace of this holy season marking the arrival of the baby Jesus, give thanks to God for His infinite Love, and will renew their striving to maintain an attitude of goodwill toward all of humanity all year long.

George certainly loves all these people too; heck I’m one of them and so are a whole, whole lot of my friends, his friends, your friends … a lot of all of our friends.  But George also very keenly notes the secular, symbolic, stultifying intrusion of snowmen, sleigh rides, reindeer, blow-up lawn ornaments, shopping delirium, and spiritual dysfunction into what properly should be, could be, ought to be, a most sober, reverent, reflective, and yes joyous commemoration of God’s greatest gift to mankind: Jesus.

Cultural Christmas winds blow us too easily off the Godly, serious course of Christ and we instead land on the far shore of a massive, man-made party full of emotion and bereft of theology.  The “true meaning of Christmas” amounts to far more than “a baby in a manger and presents under the tree” yet goes undigested in the swirl of busy commercialism and then out the door with the used gift-wrap.  We should – but we don’t – take absolute ownership all the time of the Jesus gift we are given.

If we read Luke 2 for the warm-fuzzy manger scene (shepherds, angels, glory, etc.) but have not absolutely understood the eternal, hard-target impact of John 1:14 – “and the Word became flesh” – we miss the point.  The Incarnation of Christ – the light of hope for all mankind manifested in Jesus – burns brighter than any holiday display.

The past couple weeks I’ve poked a bit of fun at Catholic priest Desmond O’Donnell of Northern Ireland, who recently said, “Don’t say Christmas.”  I am a career public relations guy and therefore a champion of getting the names right so yes, by all means, let’s say “Christmas.”  But Father O’Donnell, like George, has a point about not saying “Christmas” because so many people miss the holy point, which is Jesus Christ.

George, a world-renowned scholar of church history, presented an academic paper in Toronto a couple weeks ago on the brief but masterful fourth-century Christian commentary, “On the Incarnation” by St. Athanasius of Alexandria who describes the enormity of God’s gift without a hint of celebrating Christmas.  George gets it.

Jesus is about relationship and morality; about love, salvation, and truth.  He restores us to God for good and for all eternity.  So if that is what your season’s greetings intend, then by all means go ahead and say it: “Merry Christmas!”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) will email George’s paper to you upon request.
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Monday, December 11, 2017

578 - Go Ahead and Say It, Part 2

4:22 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #578
December 12, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Go Ahead and Say It, Part 2
By Bob Walters

One of the great things about a secular, non-religious, “Season’s Greetings” celebration is that there is almost nothing serious to fight about once we get past Black Friday riots over flat screen televisions at big box retailers.

Turns out the real stumbling block is the actual “reason for the season” – the Christ Child, the incarnation of God, the promised savior of all mankind, the divine love of our heavenly father, and the peace that passes all understanding.  On Jesus; that’s where we can lay blame for our contentious, materialistic, dehumanizing “holiday” division. And it’s funny – odd – from whence some of the criticism emanates.

There was the Irish Catholic priest who recently said, “don’t say ‘Christmas,’” because it’s in secular shambles having been co-opted by sinners.  And a Jesuit brother (another order of the Catholic priesthood) advised “don’t press too hard on ‘Christ in Christmas’ out of respect to other religions and viewpoints.”  We witness unforgiveness and self-righteousness on the one hand, and point-missing diversity on the other, which, you see, trumps the love, peace, truth, joy, celebration, and glory of Jesus Christ.

Therefore we mustn’t - we can’t – promote religion at Christmas.  Irony overflows.

And speaking of Trump, my heavens, did you happen to catch the lighting ceremony of the National Christmas Tree (video link below) on Dec. 1?  I don’t know who writes the president’s stuff but, politics aside, his address could have been the dedication of the Christmas tree at any Bible-believing church in America.  President Trump preached a theologically proper sermon, actually affirming “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” right there in the politically correct tornado alley of Washington D.C.

The major media, unsurprisingly, barely covered it, though they could have had a heyday hammering the President for such an insensitive gaff – “Jesus?!?”  Maybe they judged it to be silly non-news, but I thought it was news he said it, and was glad he did.

It was a fresh breeze for Jesus amid the swampy, stagnant, political D.C. air.

Now, it’s true that nowhere in the Bible is there any mention of “Christmas,” nor in the New Testament any call whatsoever for feasts, festivals, or holidays.  Celebrations had been vital to Jewish law in the Old Testament because Covenant law demanded it.  The New Covenant of Faith in Christ tells us to celebrate Jesus in our hearts – always – by loving God, loving our neighbors, and joining with humanity in fellowship.

So is Christmas holy?  It’s easy enough to Google “Christmas History” and learn everything one could want to know about how traditions developed over the centuries.  Truth is, Christmas was never a very big deal until the mid-1800s, and “blew up” over the ensuing century as its not-so-holy commercial, capitalistic potential blossomed.

Modern Christmas certainly can hurt Christian witness; a distraction from Christ’s true message and mission.  But amid a world seemingly dedicated to ignoring Jesus – exactly what Satan wants – sharing a sincere, heartfelt “Merry Christmas” feels right.

So I’m saying it.  Merry Christmas!

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) shares this video: Lighting the National Christmas Tree
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Monday, December 4, 2017

577 - Go Ahead and Say It, Part 1

5:50 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #577
December 5, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Go Ahead and Say It, Part 1
By Bob Walters

I noticed it about this time last year.

In the frenzied American air of last December’s worldly, transactional, holiday shopping season there appeared a startling and seemingly miraculous free gift.  It was a newly-found public ease among shoppers, shopkeepers, waiters, whomever, of exchanging that most basic, sincere, traditional, and holy of seasonal utterances.

“Merry Christmas.”

People I didn’t know randomly said it to me.  I smiled and said it right back.

“Praise God,” I’d think to myself.

Since the 1970s, “Happy Holidays” and “Season’s Greetings” – perfectly fine, fitting, and long-standing seasonal euphemisms – have been at first overwriting and then undercutting the public expression of a simple and heartfelt “Merry Christmas.” The ascendance of cultural pluralism and political correctness these past decades – plus the vigorous and parallel attempt in politics, academia, and mass media to either ignore God altogether or at least secularly recalibrate and redefine God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and all that Christianity means to humanity – conspired to remove Christ from Christmas.

It doesn’t take a genius to see what happened to change that in late 2016. Seismic American political events shook virtually everything everybody thought they knew about who, exactly, the American people were.  The quake seemed less about who won and lost at the top of the presidential election ticket and more shock and awe at a revelation of the unimaginably possible: the freeing effect of a precipitous citizen-led electoral break from the juggernaut of recent American “intellectual” groupthink.

Why not rebel further and say “Merry Christmas”?

The 2016 pre-election political polls were unbelievably, calamitously wrong.  And I honestly pray – and wonder whether – recent, much-ballyhooed polls about people and their fading Christianity are just as wrong.  Is Jesus more in our hearts than polls reveal?  I sense – I hope – He is.  He can be.  Saying “Merry Christmas” can’t hurt.

One thing I do know is that polls have no effect on the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ.  Another thing I know – because it is everywhere in the Bible – is that few people will “get,” i.e., accept, the whole Jesus thing even though John 3:16, in Jesus’ own words, says His grace and eternal salvation are a gift to all of humanity: Republicans, Democrats, right, left … you know, anybody who is a sinner.  Name and claim that.

“Merry Christmas” is the kindest thing I can say to anybody.  Jesus came into this world to give, not to get; to save, not to condemn; to love, not to exclude.  And any one of us can help Jesus share that gift with a simple yet profound nod, “Merry Christmas.”

A Catholic priest in Ireland last week said not to say, not to use, nor even refer to the word “Christmas” because – the priest said and the media enthusiastically reported – “Christmas” has been co-opted by the worst, greediest, least Godly people in society. 

But that is exactly who Jesus came to save.  So, I’m sayin’ it. 

Merry Christmas!

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) predicts “Merry Christmas” next will become a political more than religious football, but urges all not to fumble or punt Jesus. 
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Monday, November 27, 2017

576 - Sweatin' the Details

4:28 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #576
November 28, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Sweatin’ the Details
By Bob Walters

“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.” – Jesus speaking to the Disciples, Luke 12:2

Bible-reading Christians are well aware that God’s judgment awaits each of us in the land beyond death.

And it won’t be like some private conversation in the principal’s office discussing a classroom indiscretion, with a follow-up note going home to Mom and Dad.  Far scarier than that, from God’s judgment seat our entire life’s detailed list of willful activities is broadcast point-by-point on the open airwaves; all of our good deeds and all our bad deeds will be revealed to everybody.  Good deeds? Great! Bad deeds? Uh-oh.

Exactly how this judgment seat drill all plays out, and when, and with what effect – Heaven or Hell? – is not something I can begin to understand.  But I do know that shining the bright light of heavenly truth into the litany of my own life’s darkest moments and decisions isn’t going to come close to being overshadowed by some meager listing of the things I got right.  Shame will run rampant over pride; it always does.

The Bible is consistent in its insistence that “all will be known” in the end.  And by the variety of Bible verses on the topic, it seems likely that not only will everything be known – good and bad – about each one of us, but that everything will be known about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as well.  That’s going to be very, very interesting.

Luke 12:2 listed above seems more likely to refer to this second scenario of the revelation of the truth of Jesus and of his grace and ministry of salvation.  This and similar verses (Luke 8:17, Matthew 10:26-33, and Mark 4:22) appear to be more about the lampstand of Christ’s light overcoming, specifically, the darkness of the Pharisees’ unbelief, but in the long-run this includes all non-believers.  Jesus is telling those near him not to fear the Pharisees, because His own truth which includes Heaven, grace, love, and mercy will ultimately win out.

Then there are the verses where Paul variously describes the judgment seat (as in 2 Corinthians 5:10, 1 Corinthians 4:5, and Roman’s 2:16) plus John’s prophecy in Revelation 20:11-12.  On that seat the privacy that comforts, cushions, and hides our earthly transgressions will be stripped away.  Excuses, at that point, are null and void.

Today’s culture, academia, politics, and news media offer an impossible-to-pin-down daily mosaic of shameless conventions and shaming accusations.  Over here, these God-denying, humanity-nullifying abominations are perfectly OK.  But over there, God-fearing, life-affirming, scriptural truth is not.  Worldly pride and shame vacillate.

On that subject of this life’s pride and shame, it recently occurred to me that they really won’t be an issue for believers on the judgment seat and beyond.

Why?  Well, three reasons.  First, our sins are covered by Jesus; the principal’s door remains shut and no note goes home.  Second but more importantly, our faith and trust in Jesus assure us of His mercy.  And third, minus our pride and shame, we too – finally – will be as merciful as Jesus.

Those are details to celebrate, not to fear.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) anticipates a merciful heaven … details to follow.
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Monday, November 20, 2017

575 - Excellent Advice

4:23 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #575
November 21, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Excellent Advice
By Bob Walters

It takes some discipline, I’m discovering, to disconnect the lies of this world from the truth of Jesus Christ.

Look at the news, any poll, culture, politics, education, science … shoot, look at religion … and the heyday of boorishness, deceit, incivility, disingenuousness, misinformation, overreach, and miscreance is surely upon us.

Satan has to be doing a happy dance.  There’s an old saying, “No news is good news.”  Today it’s, “Bad news is the only news.”  Everywhere we turn, the merchants of panic ply their trade.  Love your neighbor? No!  Tell him he’s wrong!  And not safe!

Pick your persuasion – liberal, conservative, leftist, elitist, gender fluid, binary, American, first world, third world, Christian world, Muslim world, rest-of-the-world, ad infinitum – and I cannot imagine there is a person in a corner of this earth’s human race who surveys the publicly visible horizons of society who says, “Golly, this is going well.”

The Bible says in Philippians 4:8, “Whatever is … excellent … think about such things.” Instead, today’s world hands us a steady diet of whatever initiates anxiety with Satan as its cheerleader.  We have wandered so far afield from the Creator in whose bosom our own nation was founded that our national narrative is consumed not with excellence but with overwrought, overthought resentments and under-taught simple civics and kindness.  It does not have to be this bad.  Here’s how I know.

Jesus, you see, is impervious to polls.  What “73 percent” of scholars or millennials or senior citizens or whoever think, just isn’t news to Jesus; He already knows.  Satan’s best day is when he can shake a Christian’s faith, scoring a supposed victory against God’s glory by robbing Him of a human soul.  But of course the one thing Satan knows that most of the world seems to refuse to know is the final score: that God wins, that Jesus is God’s son the Christ Who is the perfection, truth, creativity, and glorious final victor of all eternity.  None of that changes no matter what a poll says.

Satan hates that, I’m sure, but he also knows we are free to pick a side … of which there are only two: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit … or not.  And guess who is semi-permanently waiting next to “not”?  Trust me … it’s not a third-party write-in, it’s not evolution, it’s not some man-conjured philosophy, and no, it’s not “nothing.

Satan’s best lie is that “man should be and can be God.”  A close second is, “if the world is this bad, there is no God.”  We swallow Satan’s hate-mongering and God-robbing poison in this life with ignorant enthusiasm; and he loves the polling numbers going his way.  But there is an antidote that we already possess: God’s love, Christ’s sacrifice, and the Spirit’s knowledge.  Humanity can counter Satan’s poison with its faithful consumption of and confidence in the goodness of Jesus.  

He’s got this.

Satan will continue to surround us with awful, “How dare you!,” love-killing outrage, but there exists sufficient grace, truth, and peace to forgive, love, overcome, and settle our hearts to pursue, strive for and connect with God’s excellent things.

And Jesus is the most excellent thing God gives us.

Nurture the discipline to call on Him first.  It’s excellent advice.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is thankful for the truth of Jesus.  Amen.
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Monday, November 13, 2017

574 - Get Real

4:34 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #574
November 14, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Get Real
By Bob Walters

“Nobody in the West can be wholly non-Christian.  You may call yourself non-Christian, but the dreams you dream are still Christian dreams.” – Don Cupitt, Philosopher of Religion, Scholar of Christian Theology, Author, Atheist and Life Fellowship holder at Emanuel College, Cambridge University, England

Leave it to an atheist theologian – a formerly-ordained Anglican curate and career-long Christian “non-realist,” no less – to exist within this stated bundle of oxymoronic footings and perhaps unawares express a valuable truth of modern liberal politics and culture.  A more Christ-centered way to put this would be:

“You can run but you can’t hide.”

As virtually all of the Western world’s public (and many non-public) colleges in the last century have replaced “Theology” departments with secularly correct departments of “Religious Studies” – thus absolving scholars of the too-often humiliating need to publicly profess Christian faith – since the 1960s Cambridge’s ancient school for priestly training is host to Cupitt, one of Britain’s most prolific and well-known non-God, non-Jesus, non-Holy Spirit purveyors and media darlings of Religion Without God.

Personally, I don’t blame Cupitt’s empty faith on Cambridge, because that school also produced and for many years was home to my fervently faithful and brilliant Christian brother and mentor Dr. George Bebawi, who was a divinity lecturer there.  When I asked George about Cupitt, whom he knew, George assured me that Cupitt was never considered a major intellectual player nor given a teaching job.  Family financial contributions to the school, he explained, account for Cupitt’s presence there.

Forty books and a broadcast career later, Cupitt is commercial evidence of the secular world’s spiritual thirst for “something greater” in this life without the intellectual entanglements and ultimate reality of Jesus Christ.  The notion of One True God is an absolute buzz-killer for today’s progressive liberals who seek spiritual meaning without accepting God’s objective truth. Hope for a Christian is the ultimate good and eternal home we have in Christ.   Secular “hope” – consider the energy expended on today’s non-Christian political agendas – is assigning one’s untethered cultural expectations to worldly political programs.  Its creed declares: “Mankind can fix its own problems.”

Good luck with that.  Secular religion offers no redemptive “endgame,” what Christian theologians call the eschaton, i.e., “How it all ends.”  As we read in Revelation, the Christian “end” proves Jesus is real, God wins, and through God’s grace and love humanity is rescued from its sin by faith in Jesus Christ.  Secular theology’s “end” offers nothing more real, true, permanent, or moral than the next election, debate, or protest.

The seeds of God’s truth are everywhere, and I believe John 3:16 is correct in saying Jesus came for all humanity, so let’s not leave anyone out.  Cupitt’s “Christian dreams” are God’s seedlings, and God’s harvest means eternal Jesus is looking for us.

The reality is: religion without God is as imaginary as love without relationship.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) offers evidence of “secular religion”: just look at the next “coexist” bumper sticker you see. God is whatever you want, or not.
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Monday, November 6, 2017

573 - Performance Anxiety, Part 2

5:28 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #573
November 7, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Performance Anxiety, Part 2
By Bob Walters

“For in The Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” – Romans 1:17

As a young Catholic seminarian, priest, and monk, Martin Luther spent ten miserable years trying to confess enough of his sins to feel worthy of God’s redemption.

It was no picnic for the other priest, either, hearing Luther’s hours-long sin  confessions of even sins he wasn’t sure he had committed, but they crossed his mind so Luther confessed them too, and then wondered about sins he might commit.  It was exhausting and Luther was depressed; he could not be good enough for God.

Luther was certainly no obscure, crazed ascetic as legend sometimes implies.  He was a near-legendary student, became a monk, was quickly elevated to Wittenberg University’s theological professorship, was the local church’s priest, and while still in his twenties was pastoral overseer of eleven churches.  Luther even visited Rome early on as an emissary for his local archbishop in Saxony, Germany, on a matter of Church control and politics. Yet he still couldn’t pray his way to perfection; couldn’t work his way to redemption, couldn’t confess enough sin to be rid of it.

But Luther had done one specific and unique thing upon entering seminary that few others did, and it was what ultimately delivered him from depression and re-ordered the Church: Luther took the Bible he was given upon entering seminary and read it – something few priests did – and then applied it and preached it.  That would get my vote for the greatest thing Luther did: he brought the Bible back into western Christianity.

His famed Ninety-Five Theses of 1517 were really just points of discussion, not rebellion, and written in Latin, like Bibles of the age, so few people could read them.  The Theses focused on Indulgences (paying the church for “time off” in purgatory), not the whole of Catholic tradition and doctrine.  But when others translated the Theses into German, and Luther himself translated the Latin Bible into German (New Testament 1522, Old Testament and Apocrypha in 1534), and Gutenberg’s printing press provided unprecedented mass production of these documents, soon the entire continent – including England - was scrutinizing, protesting and reforming Christian practices.

It is a deeply rich, complex, and continuing story.  To me the touchpoint is Luther’s personal struggle with “not being good enough for God” but finding the answer – e.g. Romans 1:17 – in scripture.  Even today, sincere, Biblically savvy Christians struggle with obedience, guilt, and shame, pleading for Godly knowledge and assurance that “they are good enough” and have “done enough.”  Such personal angst often leads to sinful judgment of others’ “works” in a wrong, downward spiral of personal pride.

Are we good enough for God?  No, not as we are, because God is perfect and we are sinful.  But each one of us is created by God, in His image, in His love, for His glory.  So be thankful first that God gave us the free will to seek and love Him, to believe in Him, and that He sent Jesus as our saving Christ who covers our sins and overwrites our earthly unworthiness into eternal glory.  Our righteousness before God is a free faith thing, not an anxious human performance thing.  Luther read all about it in the Bible.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves church but lives by faith in Jesus.
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Monday, October 30, 2017

572 - Performance Anxiety, Part 1

4:57 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #572
October 31, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Performance Anxiety, Part 1
By Bob Walters

Oh, how we Christians stupidly worry if we are good enough for God’s redemption.

How can we prove our faith?  Earn His love?  Glorify His name?  Get into heaven?  Repent of our sin?  Avoid His wrath?  Live a perfect life?

“What am I supposed to do to be redeemed?”

Well, if it makes you feel any better, Martin Luther was worried about all those same things 500 years ago. His answer?  There’s not much we can do; the heavy lifting of human redemption is up to God.  How did Luther know?  The Bible told him so.

Unless one vigorously avoids all contact with church history – and there are people I know and love who think “church history” was a Billy Graham Crusade that came through town 20 years ago – we might be aware that today, October 31, 2017, is the 500th anniversary observance of the game-changing Protestant Reformation spurred by Luther’s plea for Roman Catholic doctrinal clarification in 1517.

The humble but quirky German monk unintentionally turned the Christian world upside down by simply inviting an academic and theological dialog to delineate church, individual, and divine redemptive roles in “working out our salvation” (Philippians 2:12).

And no, it wasn’t an “Occupy Wittenberg” hissy-fit style protest when Luther’s succinct proposal for discussion –his much-heralded Ninety-Five Theses – appeared on the church door at Wittenberg Castle in Germany.  The door was the school’s “bulletin board,” and most likely the notice was pasted, not nailed, to the door by the custodian.

Luther was Wittenberg University’s professor of theology as well as the local pastor and also overseer of several parishes in that region of Saxony.  At issue was the Church’s practice of “indulgences” whereby one could purchase for oneself or one’s deceased relatives – either with money or by visiting collections of holy relics – relief from time in purgatory, the Catholic traditional doctrine of where souls go after death to atone for earthly sins before, leading to redemption and then proceeding on to heaven.

Luther – a clergical rarity in his era in that he actually studied the Bible – had vast theological doubts about this Church interference with God’s plan of redemption.  Luther also knew, having visited Rome just a few years earlier, that the spiritual state of the church was in near shambles due to six consecutive 15th-16th century Popes – Leo X being the latest and last – who had scandalously misled the Church of St. Peter.

While in Rome, Luther also discerned that the central priesthood had descended into a cynical, works-oriented, theologically vacant, biblically empty, say-the-Mass-as-fast-as-you-can-to-get-it-over-with pastoral morass.  It was an awful era in western Church history.

Deeply pious and deeply concerned with his own repentance and redemption, Luther was an academic prodigy and biblical scholar with questions, not a rebel with a torch. Next week we’ll cover a few salient takeaways of how this humble monk’s sincere desire to please God shook and revived the deepest foundations of Christianity.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sides with Luther and the Reformation, but notes the tremendous service the revolt provided in restoring the dignity of the Catholic Church.
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Monday, October 23, 2017

571 - Truth Be Told

4:35 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column #571
October 24, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Truth Be Told
By Bob Walters

For the peace and comfort of those within earshot around me, I rarely sing in church.

It’s a cross I bear; I can’t sing.  I try, I can’t, I don’t.  ‘Wish I could.

Many of those nearest and dearest to me sing – or once sang – very well.  Our Sunday lunch group / Small group – all choir members but me – is a restaurant show-stopper when it sings Happy Birthday to one of our gang (yes, it sounds best on my birthday because I’m not joining in).  My dad sang in his college choir, and my wife toured Europe with hers. My younger son John sang in the top notch Carmel (Ind.) High School “Ambassadors” competition show choir and performed the character “Will” in the musical “Oklahoma.”  My elder son Eric plays some guitar and has led worship.

They say talent skips a generation.  Well, here I am. Call me “Skip.”

Psalm 100 notwithstanding  – “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. … come before his presence with singing” – I enjoy and am thankful, really, listening to the hymns and praises of singers who sing well.  My heart is singing right along, even if my mouth isn’t.  But sometimes my lips can’t help but join in, and Friday this past week was one of those times.

Halfway around the world in the Muslim country of Qatar on the Persian Gulf east of Saudi Arabia, Pam and I were visiting Eric and his wife Lindsey in Qatar’s truly astonishing and opulent capital city of Doha where they live and work.  The Middle Eastern city’s amazing sights, modern architecture, traditional culture, frenetic bustle of endless infrastructure projects, and the anticipatory community buzz of prestigiously hosting the 2022 World Cup soccer championship concoct a breathless civic pride and sense of purpose not adequately communicated in words (or even in song).  Doha is a happening place; Gulf States political blockade – and 100-degree heat – or not.

And though it was a great trip, this isn’t a travelogue.  It’s a Christian cry of hope from my singing heart, sharing with you that on Friday – the Muslim world’s holy day, Friday-Saturday is their weekend – we found in Doha a small but robust Christian congregation of 150 or so souls packed into an unmarked building with whom we were able to worship.  Even in a land hostile to the Gospel, the Truth was being told.

We sang hymns we knew, praised the Lord we know, heard the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached, and prayed that others too would learn and know.

We shared joyfully in this small but bright point of light, praising Jesus’ name and – understanding where I was; the most meaningful part of the trip – joining these resolute and courageous Christians lifting my own voice in song as loudly as I could.

Truth be told, it was a joyful noise.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) and wife Pam flew home Sunday, the first day of the workweek in Qatar and the Muslim world. As they thought of stateside friends securely going to Sunday church, Eric dropped them off at the airport on his way to work. Though the Qatari government tacitly allows the Friday church to meet and operate, still, the worship leader begins by being sure everyone knows where the emergency exits are.
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Monday, October 16, 2017

570 - The Easy Life

4:42 PM | Posted by Bob Walters | | Edit Post
Spirituality Column No. 570
October 17, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The Easy Life
By Bob Walters

I honestly didn’t expect that becoming a Christian would make life easier.  Then upon opening the Bible, I learned that Jesus promises over and over again that it won’t.

And it doesn’t.  Read the Gospels.

But what following Christ does – when done properly – is make life more understandable and provide the greatest depth of opportunity imaginable for intellectual growth, personal freedom, community power, truth-driven foresight and the unparalleled joy of truly loving and serving others.  That is the glimpse of God’s Kingdom we see in Christ; that is the truth the Holy Spirit was sent to communicate to humanity.

It only took me 47 years of this life to catch on.

Everything I thought I would dislike about religion – the rules, the obedience, the judgment, the narrowness, the mystery, the reliance on hard-to-understand scripture, the seeming irrationality of believing things you can’t see, the surrender of self-will to God’s will, going to church, church people, etc. – were all things that I discovered either aren’t really true or, if true, aren’t really a burden.  Not in Christianity, anyway.

No doubt, the world we live in promises to remain a rough and tumble affair.  And religions through the ages – including some parts of Christianity – have lined up errantly on the side of rules and definitions that require the cancellation of personal growth: you must not ask questions, you must not doubt, you must not disobey.  Or? We will kill you.

Perhaps less scary but equally useless are religions – including some parts of Christianity – that promise only “good things” in this life like wealth, health, and stature.  These are the deceitful lies of pride from Satan, not the humble promises of the living, eternal, and divine Christ.

Loving, relational, and sacrificial faith are unique, key, but often underappreciated aspects of Jesus.  And the reason that the true purpose of Jesus – to reunite us with God the Father – is often lost, I think, is that the world is focused on sin, control, guilt, blame, fear, greed, suspicion … it’s a seemingly endless list, but note that these are all things of which Satan is a champion, and all things that cover over God’s great power of love with virtually the same effectiveness that the power that Christ covers over sin.

Christ, we learn, is the embodiment of grace; not turmoil.  So much of the world – often with boundless but baseless vigor – confuses, badly defines, or flat-out denies good and evil, right and wrong, wise and foolish, and even smart and stupid, reducing humanity’s ability to properly attach its fallen pieces to the eternal fabric of Christ.

Surviving this world isn’t about making this world easier, because you can’t.  But in making life’s burdens easier even when they are inexplicable, frightening and maybe even crushingly unfair, no survival tactic tops a close relationship with Christ.

When we hold Jesus close, we realize He holds us even closer.

It’s as easy as that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) didn’t know what to expect when he became a Christian; neither did he ever expect to truly become one, nor how easy it would be.
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