Friends: Dave Faust’s new book Not Too Old has a lively message for everyone. Here’s what it said to me. See the column below. The book is available at (links) Amazon and CollegePress+audio or at E91’s bookstore (a better deal, $20).

Have a great read … I mean, a great week! 

Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #910

April 23, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Living on Purpose

By Bob Walters

“Your soul gets a do-over when you accept Christ.” – Dave Faust, in his new book, Not Too Old.

Dave Faust’s new book, Not Too Old (Turning Your Later Years into Greater Years), is different: it is the first book on aging I have ever wanted to read.

Let me start by saying the above “soul” quote is cherry picked from one of Dave’s many informative sidebars (page 261) and is reflective of the book’s great information, advice, wisdom, memorable phrasing, and scriptural and human citations. You see, Dave – then senior minister at East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis – performed my baptism in 2001, when I was 47, and so was he. We are only a month apart in birthdays.

Anyway, Dave’s construct of a soul “do-over” resonates with me. I live it, with thanks, daily.

While that line struck a personal chord, the book is far more than merely an exercise in “Do you know Jesus?” It is a gold-mine of Christian, biblical, and this-world perspective on living long and living well, in faith and with purpose, on grief and compassion, on funerals, changes, and challenges.

The “senior citizen” basics – retirement, health, finance, wills, funeral planning, etc. – are addressed with Christian wisdom, but those topics are also available everywhere.  Call your HR department, doctor, financial advisor, lawyer, or funeral director. The marketplace info is the same.

But I’m telling you, this book on life’s later years is different because Dave is different.

After my baptism, I asked Dave to help me get involved at our church.  A month or so later I was invited to join the new “Facilities and Land Use Committee” to assess a church growth need.  The committee – Dave wasn’t on it – turned out to be mostly elders and other lions of the church who were burdened to figure out how E91 could accommodate 10,000 or more weekly attendees because Dave’s excellence as a preacher of Gospel Truth drew multitudes; he was different. The faithful flocked in. I was awed, and learned much about the church. Music, btw, wasn’t mentioned.

That was early 2002, and late spring Dave was called to become president of Cincinnati Christian University, his alma mater, and the committee’s work went fallow.  

Nonetheless, I stayed in touch with Dave as a friend, preacher, educator, and kindred fellow-writer over the decades which now gave me an enthused push to see what new he had to say on my heretofore discounted subject of “aging” about which I generally had been unenthused. Here’s why.  

I figure I already know how to get old – I’m scheduled to turn 70 in May (Dave in June) – and “aging,” previously in life, was not something on which I wanted to get ahead of myself.  Just like you (possibly), I believe I have become my own sovereign expert on the subject of “I am getting old.”

What Dave is an expert on, and so richly blesses us with in this 287 page book, is scriptural perspective and life stories and interviews that have made him a beloved preacher and pastor over 50 years.  Scripture abounds, interviews (Bill Gaither!) fascinate, and personal testimonies resonate.  The anecdote on E91’s now-departed Russ and Marian Blowers (page 258) made me sob fondly.

Dave and his wife Candy returned to the E91 family in 2014, when Dave felt his time at CCU had been fulfilled and E91 was in need of a friendly, familiar, calm, and steady assist in a turbulent time. At age 60, Dave returned as – and approaching 70 remains – E91’s Senior Associate Minister.

Dave says it was his journey into his 60s that sparked inspiration for the book.  His kindness-infused personality joins his writing gift for the “turn-of-a-phrase” fashioning a warmly enjoyable read.  There is scripture for virtually every paragraph, a study guide after each chapter, and familiar anecdotes about folks we know.  Not Too Old is not the same old thing about the same “old” thing.

Life and aging are intensely personal, and no two lives age in precisely the same way: surprises abound.  Not Too Old is a treasure chest of faith, what to say and how to say it, and what scripture says and doesn’t say about the final leg of life’s journey as our time heads into eternity.

God’s purpose pursues us to the end, and that is an encouraging message for any age.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that E91 is hosting a church book signing with Dave this Sunday near the Resource Room (bookstore). At church the books are $20 (cash, card, or check, including tax and eliminating shipping). But in this case, it’s about the message, not the money. 

Friends: Understanding God’s love is perhaps life’s greatest mystery and humanity’s greatest gift. The Bible tells us so.  See the column below.  Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #909

April 16, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Love is the Greatest

By Bob Walters

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:13

This verse, 1 Cointhians 13:13, is the one that hooked me my first day in church.

Russ Blowers was preaching – September 2, 2001 – on his 50^th anniversary of tending the flock at East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis. I was an unbeliever somehow in church (sitting in the back row), and Russ said, approximately:

“We learn faith from the past, we have hope in the future, but we have love in the present.”  Learning later that C.S. Lewis wrote, “… the present is where eternity touches time” (The Screwtape Letters), the idea, well, the reality, that God is Love, God is eternal, and God stepped into the present in the form of his Son Jesus Christ, solved Russ’s words and put my esteem of love’s stature in theology at the head of the line.

There are dozens of personal, corollary stories (rabbit trails, my wife calls them) that could stretch the above three paragraphs into days of self-reflection, but I recently learned something new – a brilliant perspective – on all that 1 Corinthians 13 says about love with a nearly perfect blending of Paul’s “fruits of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-23.

First Corinthians 13:4-8 says “Love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, not easily angered, keeps no records of wrong, does not delight in evil, rejoices in truth, and always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres.”

Galatians 5:22-23 says, “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

My friend Craig Streett, at a recent E91 Mustard Seed Bible class, shared the following handwritten card stuffed in his Bible from a lesson long ago.  Its precis was this: Love is the chief and true fruit of the Spirit, and all other fruits flow from love.

Note: this doesn’t divide the fruits, but we must never divide love, because God is love and we mustn’t divide God.  But what about Father, Son, Spirit?”  My advice is to consider the math problem of the Holy Trinity – 3 in 1, 1 in 3 – as multiplication, i.e., 1x1x1=1, that gives us a loving community of one, not a divided crowd of three. 

So, without division, notice how these two “truth” and “fruit” passages of Paul’s sync up pretty well when love takes the lead over all fruits of the Spirit. Here’s the note:

         “The fruit of the Spirit is love …

1.    Joy is love’s strength.

2.    Peace is love’s security.

3.    Longsuffering is love’s patience.

4.    Kindness is love’s conduct.

5.    Goodness is love’s character.

6.    Faithfulness is love’s confidence.

7.    Gentleness is love’s humility.

8.    Self-control is love’s victory.

Against such as these there is no law.”

When we see love’s fruits in our lives, we have love’s gifts in our hearts.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) believes this list originated with BibleProject.com. And ... next week we'll review Dave Faust's new book "Not Too Old, Turning your Later Years into Greater Years." Available at Amazon and CollegePress. E91 has planned a book signing session with Dave Sunday, April 28, where books will also be available.

Friends: Communion with Christ is an eternal, and also present, exchange.  See the column below.  Btw ... We are publishing the column on Sunday instead of Monday this week because - in case the eclipse or Purdue’s presence in the Final Four creates a cosmic singularity that shuts down communications or opens the rapture portal or whatever - this message needs to be out there.  Enjoy the  sky show, Go Boilers, and have a great week! Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #908

April 9, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

This Exchange Doesn’t Change – ‘He is Here’

By Bob Walters

“He's not dead, He’s here.  He came back and he said, ‘I am with you until the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:20), John Chapman Samples, Easter Communion, 2024

Our treasured friend and retired minister John Samples delivered this communion meditation Easter Sunday at our East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis. His words are trimmed for length, but this eternal message defies boundaries.  John is 93.  Consider his words …

“It is a time of communion ... community, union.  Communion.

“A lot has changed in the Lord’s Supper, the communion, the breaking of bread, through the years. And I’m old enough that I’ve seen a lot of those changes.   For instance, my grandfather, Logan Chapman, in rural Kentucky in the late 1800’s, had an acre vineyard and provided seedlings and clippings for other people in the area who wanted to have grape vines growing in their yard.  He was very generous about that. But he also from his personal grapes of wine provided the communion element for the blood of Christ in local churches.

“Once, on a group mission trip in a church in another country, their form of communion was a large brass cup that was passed among the people, the cup carefully wiped by servants after each person drank from it. But one of those in our group refused to take communion because they were just sure there would be a disease or bacteria of some kind on the rim.  Someone else in our group was quick to remind that what was in the cup was strong enough to kill any bacteria … and it was.  It was a fermented drink. 

“Here at E91 we used to pass open trays of bread and juice cups for communion, but Covid shut that down and we now use these individual, sealed, bread-and-juice communion kits. It was another of many changes over the years.

“However, what is exchanged between the believer and the believed does not change; it cannot change.  Communion – community, union – is a time when we come together as a body of Christ.  It is a time when we remember Jesus.  That’s what Jesus said … “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me.” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts).

“Sometimes communion isn’t just a little crusty piece of cracker and some weak grape juice. On one occasion, my wife Joyce and I were on a trip and found ourselves without what we needed for communion on Sunday morning, so we used a cheese cracker with peanut butter in it and a grape soda.  But it was not the elements that made the communion.  It was our hearts.

“As we share the communion service, be sure, be sure, that you are concentrating on the holy relationship with Jesus that gives us eternal hope and assurance.  And today, Easter, we celebrate the most important event in the total universe since the beginning of time – the resurrection – because Jesus who died for us gave us the privilege of knowing Him.

“And Jesus, our Lord and Savior, was scorned, beaten, and rejected by His own people.  He was denied and betrayed by his disciples, but He still went to the cross and became the perfect sacrifice for us.  But even all of that would have been just another religion in the making without the resurrection.  The resurrection is the reason, the cause, and the formation of our faith.  That is how we can communicate with Him, because He is here.  He is not dead; He is here. He came back and said, “I am with you until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).

“You know, there were other people crucified, mostly desperate criminals. The cross was a despicable symbol of shame and disgrace, until Jesus converted the image of the cross to a sacred, sacred image by His resurrection. Never fear, God is present.  And He is with us here today. Let us turn our hearts completely, lovingly to communicate with Jesus. 

“We can, because He lives.” – John C. Samples

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) gladly yields this space when a message this good exists.

And, just for the E91 family … if you heard mention of a northern Indiana “Logan Chapman Winery” in John’s Easter communion message, John reports that he was mistaken; it doesn’t exist.  There is a “Chapman Winery” in central Indiana, and a “Peoples Winery” in Logansport, Indiana, but no “Logan Chapman Winery.”  Still, “Logan Chapman” would be a great name on a wine label … 

Friends: There are winners and there are losers and I wonder if there will be sports in heaven.  No, seriously.  Meanwhile, I pray your Easter was blessed and Christ’s resurrection continues to resonate in your soul.  Have a great week!  Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #907

April 2, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Sporting Spirit

By Bob Walters

“I hate losing even more than I love winning.” – Jimmy Connors, 1970s tennis champ

“God loves to see his kids play.” Russ Blowers (1924-2007), preacher of the Gospel

Please don’t blow this off just because it seems like a dumb question: Will there be sports in heaven? This coming from a once-upon-a-time sportswriter … me.

This is something I’ve been thinking about, theologically and unsatisfactorily, for the past several months.  We’ll talk about eternal heaven in a minute, but first let’s start with sports, today’s 24/7/365 here-and-now-and-always presence of God’s kids at play.

Sports, overall, is as prominent a cultural idol as currently exists.  And we’re lucky.  We have time for sports because we have conquered most elements of human survival.  We can afford to worry about stuff that doesn’t really matter and oh, how we expend emotional energy on contests that neither affect us nor that we can control.

Note the pro-football jerseys in church on game days.  How’s your NCAA basketball bracket doing?  Is this finally Purdue’s year? (Breathe deeply, Boiler faithful.)  Baseball’s opening day last week marked the initiation of spring melding into the boys of summer.  It’s Easter, so the Master’s golf tournament, yea verily, draws nigh.

Closer to home, what’s up with your kids’ travel sports schedules? Or even the local, no-tryouts, everybody-gets-a-trophy, two-or-three-times-a- week rec leagues for baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, etc.?  How about … swim team! … sunrise practices and steamy hours in poolside bleachers? God loves to see his kids play; we’re just waiting for practice to be over. Breakfast is a pop tart; dinner likely a drive-through.

Sports breeds, and needs, a competitive spirit which I don’t really think we’ll need beyond the pearly gates.  It also develops confidence, strength, courage, character, and perseverance, all exceptional and needed virtues in this life; love dominates the next.

My central negative issue with sports comes to a point at the notion of “identity.”  I’ve never liked being call a “fan” of anything, although my own young life and well into adulthood was filled with tennis. I played, taught, officiated, and was a fan of the 1970s era pro tennis tour, most players of which (men and women) I called lines for at their tournaments in Indy.

So, I was a “tennis guy.”  Hence, I quote feisty champion Jimmy Connors above. 

My problem with our tenacious current cultural idolatry of sports, in the eternal view, is that our sports passions – you know, the “We’re Number One!” “Wait ‘til next year!” “We was robbed!” passions – don’t translate well into heavenly grace and love.

A few weeks ago, that “grace and love” part popped into perspective. Ah ha! If we want to examine the eternal worth of sports in our lives, it is not in the win-loss metric to be better than the other guy (or gal). In heaven – once we’re there – we’re all even-steven. We will play and not only enjoy ourselves; we’ll cheer the skills, grace, and passion of others. Beyond winning and losing is God – with a smile – watching us play,

I possess a “new heaven and new earth” view of the eternal (Revelation 21); i.e., heaven as a perfect, busy, sin-free earth as opposed to a vaporous, floating praise-fest.

Rewards? Yeah, but who knows what that means? Friend and pastor Dave Faust says of rewards, “Whatever they are, we won’t be disappointed.”

And there it is.

Sports with joy … without being disappointed?  How heavenly that would be.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was yelled at by most pro tennis players of the 70s.

Friends: Scripture, prophecy, and promises notwithstanding, Jesus was the only participant who understood Holy Week.  Easter blessings to all … He is risen, indeed.  Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #906

March 26, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Missed Signals, Part 2

By Bob Walters

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures.” – Luke 24:45

Everything that happened in Jerusalem to and around Jesus during Holy Week – what some Christians refer to as the “Easter Octave” which is the eight-day period from Jesus’s arrival on Palm Sunday to his resurrection a week later – was predicted in scripture, was anticipated by Israel, and was explained by Jesus … in His own way.

Still, nobody understood what was going on, really.  Why?

Because Jesus was not what anybody, especially the Jews, expected; Jesus is still not what the world expects or wants.  Mankind generally wants and covets “its own truth,” not God’s.  Israel was looking for a righteous, fearsome, divine warrior king to come and kill the Romans and to declare their kingdom Israel rulers over all the earth.

Instead, this infinitely and mysteriously wise teacher, this worker of miracles, this vexer of the Jewish leaders – with this new language of “God’s Son” – preached not the killing of one’s enemies, but of loving them and sacrificially loving all mankind.

The life and lesson of Jesus, properly understood, is to learn, know, believe, and live in God’s divine love, mercy, grace, freedom, forgiveness, redemption and adoption into the Kingdom of God.  Does this glorify God?  Yes.  But is is also the heavenly blueprint for a thriving and glorifying humanity that exists, acts, and lives as God intended.  The vision of Jesus is the vision of humanity as God created it to be.

Our fallen world does not operate on love, faith, trust, and righteousness.  We live in a transactional world of punishment, retribution, and power of our own sinful making … with the encouragement of Satan, the father of lies against God.

One day yet to come, the character of the Messiah the Jews wanted, will arrive in the thundering return of Jesus the Christ on a white warhorse (Revelation 19:10).  That is when God’s fearsome righteousness will be on full display for all the earth.

But that’s not why Jesus appeared as a man – as a Jew – two thousand years ago.  In God’s timing, it was time for humanity to return to God, and God’s chosen people Israel were unique in their knowledge of and faith in the one true God.  No other culture believed that.  In fact, all other cultures had long since wandered far from relationship with the Creator God.  Only the Jews had the scriptural key to humanity’s saving message of Jesus which would restore relationship with God.

But instead of recognizing, from their own scripture, the promised Messiah in his humility, sacrificial love, and grace, Jewish leaders were blinded to His message and threatened by His presence.  When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, taught the truth, vexed the Pharisees, and gave himself for a sacrifice, it was a message of God’s redemption for all mankind that was too shocking and too difficult to understand.

It was a week nobody but Jesus understood.  Until later.

“Why did it all have to happen that way?” many Christians ask.  Many more people don’t bother to ask the question.  But all the foretold events of Jesus’s life and of the Gospel events of His death and resurrection, were hiding in the plain sight of scripture.  It was God’s plan, and not until it had been accomplished was truth revealed.

The long and short of it is simply this: “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” says Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:26).

And while we are still trying to make sense of it two thousand years later, it is our faith in “Yes, He did” that we live out His mission and signal the world of His love.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures the truth is there whether you believe it or not.

Friends: The first Palm Sunday was a celebration that didn’t last because too many people were blinded to the truth.  Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #905

March 19, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Missed Signals, Part 1

By Bob Walters

“…because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Jesus, Luke 19:44

I try to imagine the raucous, palm-waving, salvation-promising, hope-expressing, Messiah-worshipping, “Palm Sunday” arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

Wouldn’t a reception like that – a cheering, Sunday throng of “your own people” – be terrifically encouraging? Yeah, maybe.  But not if you already know what Friday promises. And not if you realize the cheers are empty of understanding.

That loving cheering Sunday throng would be a bloodthirsty jeering Friday mob.

While specific timing is difficult to pin down in Jesus’s last couple of weeks before the crucifixion, tradition and Bible savvy tell a highly emotional tale of a highly emotional Jesus in His final earthly days. Jesus weeps loudly and bitterly twice prior to Jerusalem.

Tradition tells us, I think with adequate biblical back-up, that it was the weekend prior to the Triumphal Entry when “Jesus wept” for his dead friend Lazarus outside Bethany. Jesus then called a very much alive Lazarus out of the grave.  This communicated two astonishing facts to two different groups in two different eras.

First, the raising of Lazarus is what triggered the Jewish leaders, namely Caiaphas, to call for Jesus’s death: “it is better for one man to die” etc. (John 11:50). That was in Jerusalem the week prior to Palm Sunday; Jesus was condemned to die.

Second was the astonishing message to the Greeks, years later, who read John’s Gospel that “God,” i.e. Jesus, the Son of God, fully God and fully man, was capable of emotion.  The Greeks saw God as incapable of being moved to joy or sorrow, because that would give a human being power – if only for a moment – over God. Assumed to have been written late in the first century, John’s Gospel totally re-set the Greek view of who God actually was … and is. Even most of the Jews missed it.

It was evidence that God could indeed be “love.” As Barclay writes, “The greatest thing that Jesus did for us was to bring us the news of a God who cares.” Jesus wept.

Then we have Jesus approaching Jerusalem on that Sunday morning, riding a donkey.  But the cacophony didn’t begin in Jerusalem.  It began back in Bethany and Bethpage, where the donkey came from and the disciples telling its owner, “The Lord needs it” (Luke 19:34). Even there, onlookers put their cloaks in Jesus’s path, and the disciples began to sing loudly and praise Jesus joyfully.

A pharisee in the traveling crowd told Jesus to stifle the blasphemy of his disciples, who were hailing him as “king” and “Lord” and “the highest” (Luke 19:38).  But Jesus said, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40).

Then Jesus saw Jerusalem and wept a wailing scream of impending, devastating loss, but not for himself.  Jesus shrieked because he knew Jerusalem would fall, and its destruction would “not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”  God’s chosen people … had chosen destruction.

Israel’s time to recognize the promised Messiah had come … and would be gone with Jesus’s crucifixion a few days later. Even his Easter resurrection would not convince many Jews that Jesus was the prophesied and true Son of God, the Messiah Christ, and the promised Savior of all mankind.  Jerusalem missed the signals.

The adoring crowds of greeting largely had no idea of what would happen, nor all that Jesus knew.  It was an entry that, ultimately, was anything but triumphant for Israel.

But it was a triumph of Jesus’s will and obedience that freed all who believe.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) missed most of God’s signals for most of his life.

P.S. See Bob’s March 17 E91 Traditional Service communion meditation at the 34:00 mark of this LINK – E91 Traditional. E91 Executive Pastor Adrian Fehl leads the service (he had earlier mentioned snakes in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.).

 Friends: That faith is somehow separate from truth and reality is one of Satan’s great lies.  See the column below.  Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #904

March 12, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Faith as Truth

By Bob Walters

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” – Hebrews 11:1

“Truth” for the secular world is that which one can see, touch, explain, predict with confidence, and which generally, it thinks, does not require faith.

I mean, it DOES require faith, but only in one’s opinion or imagination; not God.

The whole ball game with God, Jesus, and the Spirit – in other words, with the idea of eternity, eternal life, eternal divine relationship, and humanity’s eternal participation in that relationship – requires little else but faith.

Life with God surprises us at every turn, and it is faith that allows us to see, touch, and explain God.  Maybe only to ourselves, but with the certainty of truth.

Humanity can and does have a zillion opinions about this eternal thing called God, but it all adds up, or rather combines in, manifests, and is known through, our life with Jesus and the central instruction of the Spirit: Love God, and love others.

That, my friends, is truth.  God’s truth.  Real Truth. True virtue sits at that table.

The secular world, by all accounts, hates this idea of being only a franchise of the truth, not the Holy Truth itself. It is faith, sureness, and hope in something we cannot see in a looking glass, philosophy tract, or lab experiment.  We imagine a “truth” abiding in our hearts, minds, and souls, but it is a table where the chairs constantly change.

Humans wonder what animates us, gives us life, gives us yearnings, creativity, aspirations, and a wonderful freedom filled with responsibility and purpose. In the life of a Christian, that’s easy: God does that with Jesus and the Spirit.  We get to participate.

In a life without God, these questions are worse than unanswerable: they seem irrelevant, silly, lacking in gravitas … unhelpful.  As if divine faith is unimportant, God is unproven, Jesus is a myth, the Spirit is a superstition, and the Bible is just an old book.

I know because that was once my life; it was my long-time intellectual narrative.

It is not a bad thing to reassess ones overall intellectual motivation, but I must confess that I didn’t arrive in church one day because I had some notion there was “more to life” than I already knew.  It just turned out it was there waiting for me.

First Peter 3:15 says we are supposed to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have.” In myself I’m satisfied with this reason: Jesus.  Why someone else may have faith is for them to decide, and for me to nurture and help them with as I can.  I certainly want to help, but faith is funny about who any particular soul allows into the inmost part of ones being. The Spirit rules.

It is easy for me to say that my life’s purpose is to glorify God, to participate personally in that glory, and to share, give, promote, exemplify, and help deliver God’s glory to others in love; ideally with kindness, gentleness, and respect.  I think that is the outworking of Matthew 22:39: “Love God, and love others as you love yourself.” 

Easy to share, yes, but it is the Holy Spirit’s job to imprint that truth on another soul.

The great thinkers of all religions, philosophies, generations, and cultures surround this notion of faith with the cloak of virtue: What is best for mankind?  Satan and his minions of course want broken virtue and chaos amid lies, but God’s great creative gift to humanity is a mind that wonders, “What is good? How do I know truth?”

It is this trust that virtue exists, is knowable, actionable, and true that is the gift of Jesus to all mankind. Thankfully, Jesus’ virtue is not a wavering human guidepost.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can explain his own faith, but probably not yours.

Friends: Job, in the Bible, sounds a lot like people today who are mad at God. Let’s talk about that.  Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #903

March 5, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Mad at God?

By Bob Walters

“In the land of Uz, there was a man named Job …” – Job 1:1

My new friend, correspondence pal, and “Finding Genius” podcast host Rich Jacobs (LINK) has somewhat recently germinated a deep personal interest in the Bible … something new to him in his adult life.  I can relate; I found faith, scripture, and Jesus at age 47.

Outside the podcast in our other communications, Rich has on occasion asked – or made poignant observations – about biblical, doctrinal, and theological matters. We had the following recent text exchange about the Bible’s book of Job …

RICH – I'm going through the book of Job, and Job sounds remarkably like people today who are mad at God and who come up with all kinds of reasons to impugn God's character.

BOB – ’Got an old column about that (LINK #82 6-3-08, With Friends Like These). P.S., notice that Job was only “patient” for a couple of chapters. His wife, not so much.

RICH – Read your link. I still have many questions... for instance: Why doesn't Job think about the devil as the cause of his misery, not God?

BOB – The most faithful witness is when you don't spend much time worrying about Satan. Job thought about God; he may not have known about Satan. Job wasn't Jewish, and wouldn't have known the Torah / Mosaic books. The lesson to learn from Job is to remain faithful and in communication with God, to seek and trust His righteousness. Our best play is to not rail at Satan – don't talk to him – but to stand and talk with God, i.e., Jesus, God’s light.

RICH – Many say the book of Job predates Genesis, but other elements in it put the writing perhaps after many Old Testament books. What did George Bebawi think?

BOB – Older than all, George was sure. Not "older than Genesis Creation," obviously, but Job predates Israel.  God was around long before the Jews.

RICH – Did George think that Moses wrote it? (fyi, George was Bob’s longtime mentor.)

BOB – Never asked him.  But the point isn't Moses; the point is God and righteousness.

RICH – I still don't understand the purpose of the book of Job. He apologizes to God and humbles himself after God chastises him, but there is no explanation as to why God allowed it or what happened with the devil after Job was restored.

BOB – It is a lesson about trusting God's righteousness, and our power to withstand and overcome Satan's attacks with that trust. God's message to Satan was that man is His Creation, not Satan’s.  Also, Job grew to more fully understood who God was. God wasn't just chewing Job out; God was revealing more fully who He is. It is also a lesson about who we listen to regarding faith. I notice that almost no matter how one expresses, shares, or shows their faith, someone will tell them they are doing it wrong (like Job’s friends). And often, the deep purpose of difficult scripture is only revealed to us after we marinate in it for a while. So... give it time.

RICH – Why was God more angry with Job's friends than with Job for complaining for 25 chapters?

BOB – Because they were giving Job bad counsel. Notice ... Job never gave up on God. It is OK to complain to God; it is misrepresenting God that Job's friends - and Satan - were guilty of. Job was not focusing on God’s righteousness, just his own misery. But Job kept talking.

RICH – Thanks. It seems like each book of the Bible is confronting, challenging, and somewhat scary to read and contemplate. In Job 38 (approx.), when God speaks to Job, it gave me the chills. Same as when Jesus speaks in the Gospels. I get a weird feeling - a bit of fear, mixed with awe, mixed with a seriousness beyond all seriousness.

BOB – Awe is good, btw. Not so much "shock and awe." But, "love and awe." Never forget ... God is love. We're miserable sinners (just ask anyone in church... they're happy to remind us!), but grace and forgiveness are gifts we mustn't ignore.

BOB (again) – And laugh a little. God's mirth is His most under-rated attribute. 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), after this exchange, went back to his NIV Study Bible and re-read its introduction to Job and Googled “earliest written Hebrew language.” Illuminating.

Friends:  What science reveals is “how”; what Jesus reveals is purpose. Last in a series.  Have a great week! Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #902

February 27, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I See Smart People, Part 3

By Bob Walters

“So we are left with the fundamental question and the incapacity of science to answer that question: Does life have purpose or not?” ornithologist/essayist Reverend Professor Andrew G. Gosler of Oxford in Coming to Faith Through Dawkins

Dr. Gosler wasn’t so much an atheist as a cultural Jew, i.e., non-Christian, whose depth of study and knowledge about birds – ornithology – provided an ideal scientific seat from which to calculate and critique Dawkins’ message of atheism and evolution.

And, in the process, Gosler found Christ.

One scientist to another, Gosler was not impressed with the argument genetic biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, author of the 2006 book The God Delusion, made for either evolution or atheism. Gosler’s essay in Coming to Faith, “Hearing God Through an Enchantment with Nature,” deftly points out not only holes in Dawkins’s science and atheistic polemics, but applies a science career’s worth of professional observations to note the overall backwardness of popular evolutionary assumptions.

If one knows nothing else of Charles Darwin’s 19^th century investigations and suppositions about Evolution and Creation, one knows “Survival of the Fittest.” Dawkins buys into Darwin, further claiming uncreated genetic preferencing leads to conflict and competition among species which led and still leads to biological development. 

Gosler’s investigations don’t reveal a God whose purpose of Creation is conflict, nor “the belief accepted within biology that exclusive and bitter self-interest underpins life.” Gosler’s study of nature revealed to him God’s “Shalom,” or peace. “Creation and sustaining of life is not of competition or conflict, but of mutual dependence. … Open-mindedness,” Gosler writes, “is the invitation to truth itself; openness to the Spirit.”

God’s Creation, you see, is meant to work together, not against the other parts.

Raw survival, if I may lean on C.S. Lewis’s rationalization of morality, implies that whatever organism is trying “to survive” has an interior intent and purpose.  That’s where Darwinism and Darwinists veer off course: they call creation a purposeless place, yet invoke the purposeful and moral quality of “survival” to explain purposeless-ness.

Gosler has a great example of biological complementarity among a species of birds, first noted by Maori tribesmen in New Zealand. The male and female huia birds mate for life and have vastly different shaped bills that allow a “knife and fork” utility as they feed each other and their nests.  “Rather than Darwin’s competition driving evolution,” Gosler writes, “they were the model of mutual dependence.”

Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath have provided a comforting service to the faithful in compiling Coming to Faith Through Dawkins. Gosler, who now is an Anglican priest (since 2018) and a third-order Franciscan, and eleven other essayists, smoothly describe their trips into and out of atheism, be it by science, experience, or philosophy.

Each essay called to my own mind specific friends and acquaintances who have rebuffed faith generally and/or Jesus specifically.  The over-arching weakness of atheism is its absence of purpose or cause, and concomitant denial of truth and reality.

Granted, not everyone thinks deeply, faithful or not. But I believe every life is enhanced by feeling purpose and knowing truth.  The created world, by God’s purpose, is gifted to be loving and relational; Jesus fixes the fallen state that clouds those gifts.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) resides squarely with those who see purpose in life.

Friends: This is about when atheists laugh ... nervously.  See the column below.  Also, a link to last week's "Finding Genius" podcast is below the column.  Blessings! Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #901

February 20, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I See Smart People, Part 2    By Bob Walters

“On its own, the word ‘Jesus’ seems to say both too much and (somehow) too little.” – Christopher Hitchens, from the afterword of his book, God is Not Great (2007)

We are actually focusing our attention on the recently published book, Coming to Faith Through Dawkins, but the late conservative polemicist Christopher Hitchens similarly energized the “New Atheist” movement of two decades ago.

Richard Dawkins, of course, is the noted British genetic biologist / atheist who famously wrote The God Delusion in 2006.  Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath, British Christian scholars and apologists, assembled Coming to Faith with twelve erudite essays from twelve New Atheists whose journeys let them to Christ, not oblivion.

This week and next, we will look at a few of these accomplished but generally non-famous essayists from a variety of countries, cultures, faith histories, generations, and academic interests, who clamped tightly onto atheism at one point or another in their lives.  What the essays give us are a dozen pictures of disciplined, deep-thinking, talented folks who arrived at the Cross – unexpectedly – after previously not believing it was there.

The Hitchens’ quote above, about ‘Jesus,’ drew a welcoming and large giggle from his (presumably) atheist book tour audience in Little Rock, Ark. On his way to the event, Hitchens had seen “an enormous black-and-yellow billboard bearing the single word jesus (sic),” he said, and introduced his talk with the billboard and the above quote.  Ashley Lande, a formerly LSD-taking atheist who grew into a published writer and artist whose work is shown internationally in large-city galleries, commented on Hitchens’ quote:

“I can almost hear that laughter: chattering, light, and adoring … but I also imagine in it a nervous edge. …while some of us can laugh off God, we cannot laugh off Jesus. …we can pshaw at the parting of the Red Sea, or at Noah, a lunatic building a boat ... But … laugh at Jesus, the rogue Jewish preacher condemned to death by torture, the fully human man with the spit of contempt mingling with sweat on his destroyed brow …?

“No … even the unbelievers, can’t laugh.”

Lande, a California girl who declared her teenaged atheism loudly to her Christian parents, is, like all the book’s atheist-turned-lucidly-Christian essayists, a life-long, deeply curious thinker about life’s purpose, spiritual reality, and the nature of truth.  I came to faith late, myself, but never recall the same lifelong, intentional, spiritual questions about God and religion as these essayists.  I didn’t think about God any more than I thought about accounting or Antarctica; I knew they existed but had neither interest nor questions.

Coming to Faith made me recognize my own lack of spiritual curiosity prior to finding Christ.  The book would have had no effect on me 30 years ago because I gave no serious thought to any religion.  Now I appreciate the book’s armory of rationally and spiritually arrived-at truth.  We all have family and friends who are too smart for Jesus, and we all want to share.

Case in point is the non-believing, adult godson of my church buddy Dave, a retired urologist who the past several years has taught our Adult Bible Fellowship (Sunday school) “Logos” class.  Dave sent a note early last week about his successful adult godson, educated at Princeton and Harvard, who announced to his Catholic family that he was an atheist.

Dave sent Coming to Faith to him, noting the essay by Judith Babarsky, a psychologist in Washington, D.C., who describes her road to Catholic faith heavily quoting G.K. Chesterton (one of my favorites), and Joseph Ratzinger’s (later Pope Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth.

She notes, “Atheism is an emptiness, a belief in nothing beyond the observable, [We too often] root ourselves in a timeline, in our own age, [rather than attaching ourselves] to a wisdom that is eternal.”  Dave’s godson is in his 40s, like I was when I found faith. I hope he does too.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) often notes his own surprise that upon first attending church at age 47 (OK, he was Episcopalian as a child) and growing into Bible study and Christian life, he found truth that was expansively intellectual and freeing, not a strait-jacketed prison.

PODCAST LINK: Discussing Paul The Apostle With Bob Walters

 

Friends: When thoughtful atheists discover saving faith in Christ … what happened? A really good book.  And below today’s column are links to my latest podcast with Rich Jacobs (Feb 2024), and archived columns about Valentine’s Day (2008) and Ash Wednesday / Lent (2010). - Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #900

February 13, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

I See Smart People, Part 1

By Bob Walters

“I have found the Bible to be more coherent than I ever imagined.” – from “Coming to Faith through Dawkins,” edited by Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath.

When renowned British biologist, atheist, and author Richard Dawkins published The God Delusion in 2006, his timing was nearly perfect. But his argument was flawed.

Smart people noticed and found Christ instead.

Good timing?  You bet.  Five years after 9/11 re-drew the secular argument for and against religion in general, the world pounced on what seemed to be the shaken underpinnings of faith.  The “New Atheism” berated a Christian “god” it pronounced unlikely to exist, and uncaring if it did, and castigated Islam, whose seeming calling card was mass murder and terrorism.  Dawkins set many, many people thinking.  God? Bah.

It wasn’t just 9/11. Christianity in the West, particularly Europe, seemed to be dying anyway. Previous decades saw church attendance dwindle, while cultural conversation rarely called on Christian values, scripture, or teaching to resolve myriad social ills.  The Enlightenment had finally won; man’s own mind had become the ascendent and even lone arbiter of truth and lie, good and evil, justice and injustice.

American religious polls also showed a marked decline in church attendance and influence, and by the mid-2010s the “Nones” – as in religiously “None of the above” – grew to a dominant slice of American faith, or rather, non-faith, life and perspective.

Public education throughout the West had ditched the Bible, Prayer, and Jesus in the 1960s, replacing scripture and prayer with Darwinism and secular social programs.  Popular culture became both king and queen, comforts became the goal of life, and Dawkins’ masterful command of biology and vitriol against God, religion, and believers made Dawkins a pop-culture, science-answers-all-questions millennial rock star.

Funny thing though.  Many atheistic thinkers noticed logical, practical, and philosophical holes in Dawkins’ best-selling Delusion book, and upon vigorous investigation of Dawkins, rather, discovered the vigorous comprehensibility not just of the One True God, the Bible, Church history, and Christian philosophy, but rethought their jeering atheism with well-thought-out reverence for Christ.  Reason to the rescue.

A month ago, I wrote about Coming to Faith through Dawkins (Link #895, 1-8-24, 'Atheism is Rather Simplistic')having only seen an interview about it. Now I’ve read the book and swear it is an apologist’s delight of why and how smart people find Christ.

Twelve smart people, to be exact.  Co-editor Alister McGrath, well-known British author and apologist in his own right, introduces the 2023 volume with a five-point appraisal of Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, cites other prominent “New Atheist” writers, notes the movement’s rise and fall, and explains the book’s structure and intent.

This volume rings loudly in my faith.  The twelve authors – each one presenting a stand-alone essay/chapter – say the smart stuff I wish I’d think to say.  They all bring salient perspective to modern culture vs. Christian faith, and are all current, working, writing, thinking professionals – academics, engineers, philosophers, pastors – very much alive, very much Christian, and very smartly observant of contemporary trends.

My guess is that like me, you’ve never heard of any of them.  I’d also hasten a guess that for the robust, thinking Christian, reading the robust, faith-settling thoughts of how the Bible became coherent to others deepens our own faith, peace, and grace.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) did the math and, God willing, column #1,000 should hit Tuesday, January 13, 2026. Let’s all try to make it. More on Dawkins next week.

PODCAST LINK: Discussing Paul The Apostle With Bob Walters

VALENTINE’S DAY: Valentine’s Day Column #66 2-12-08

LENT: Ash Wednesday / Lent Column #171 2-16-10