Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #826 (9-13-22), “Naturally at Odds.” Not everyone is a candidate for the Christian hard-sell, but sticking up for the truth is basic to Christian faith.  See the column below.  Blessings!  Bob

(P.S. – RE: Paragraph 4, I am now aware that the Colts tied at Houston, 20-20 in OT, and Will Power won the Indy Car title on Sunday at Laguna Seca. Cheers.)

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Spirituality Column #826

September 13, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Naturally at Odds

By Bob Walters

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist.  But at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.” – Werner Heisenberg, 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics, theory of quantum mechanics.

I often run into my engaging and friendly neighbor Jeff on my evening walks with our little dog Kramer. Jeff is a sports fan, knows a lot about auto racing, has two kids in budding journalism careers, and was a college lecturer in philosophy and writing.

Jeff’s obvious life interests closely mirror my previous (and I might add, long ago) career in sports writing and sports / auto racing media relations, so our conversations are lively.  I’ve worked with a lot of people he’s read about.

Truth be told, while I stay in touch with a handful of good friends from my sports days, for the most part I truly no longer “follow” sports.  For example, as I write this on Saturday, I know it is the opening weekend of the NFL but have no idea who the Colts are playing, or where.  I couldn’t tell you who is leading (or won?) the Indy Car points.

As I mentioned last week, in retirement I now drive a school bus.  I still write a lot, and virtually all of my writing is about faith life in Jesus Christ: this weekly column, our weekly Mustard Seed Bible study packets, a monthly sermon / service at a senior living center, an occasional church communion homily, and various correspondence.

Plus, I’m reading all the time – virtually all of it “religious stuff” or cultural / political commentary.  Like Dolly Parton once said, “I have opinions about everything and everybody,” but here, to preserve the focus, we stick to the central topic of life in Christ.

Which brings us back around to my evening walks with Kramer.

Jeff is a wise, erudite, chatty, and world-worn guy … with no use for God.

We encounter folks often, don’t we, who are not candidates for the Christian hard-sell?  Jeff is one of those guys.  He knows of my Christian writing, but I think the only thing of mine he’s ever read is a Dale Earnhart obituary I wrote in 2001.  Jeff knows I believe in Christ and for now that’s enough.  We intellectually spar and laugh.   

In a recent evening chat Jeff mused, “You should talk to my brother,” who I was surprised to learn is a Christian minister … though in a denomination not noted for its, um, biblical precision.  My knee jerk question to Jeff was, “Does your brother believe the Bible?”  And Jeff’s (not his real name) knee jerk answer was, “Yes … but not literally.”

“Good Lord,” I responded.  “You’re not supposed to believe it literally.  Does your brother believe the Bible is true?”   “I suppose he does,” was Jeff’s smiling response.

Sigh.  That’s about par for philosophers; they think it is their job to be the definers and purveyors of truth, when that job belongs to Jesus Christ.  The Bible is stories, poetry, parables, metaphors, symbolism, allegory, history, God’s word … and the truth. 

But, “Jesus lived, died, was buried, and resurrected?” That’s one “literal” part folks reject, but the fact of the resurrection – its literal occurrence – is the cornerstone of faith, forgiveness, and salvation. If that’s not literal and true, there is no Bible or Church.

It’s an unfortunate development of the past 150 years, as theology has tried to compete academically with science, that “proving the Bible literally” has become a thing.

Faith is lived, not proven. It’s what philosophers would call a “category mistake.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) invited Jeff to church; Jeff still prefers CBS News.

Spirituality Column No. 530
January 10, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

God is Still Here
By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column No. 503
July 5, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column No. 500
June 14, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

It’s OK if you miss church once in a while.

I missed it for nearly 30 years and never once remember feeling like I needed an excuse not to go.  I just didn’t go and couldn’t imagine why I should.  I didn’t need the social structure, figured “higher meaning” could be found lots of places and while I knew the basic “Jesus” story I wasn’t actively believing it, seeking it or living it.  Church wasn’t worth the hassle and I spent no energy conjuring excuses.

Over the last 15 years though the opposite is true; it is a rare Sunday I’m not in church and I need a pretty good excuse not to go – the Indianapolis 500 a couple weeks ago, a recent unexpected but welcome overnight family visit.  It’s great not feeling a need to explain anything to anybody.  God knows where we are.

Neither, I believe, is God the least bit interested in excuses.

And that’s today’s point: our entire modern, Western cultural experience revolves around and is centered on the bargains and excuses through which we negotiate our earthly lives in America’s generally free capitalistic and democratic republic.  Faith, at least faith in Jesus Christ, is an ever-diminishing dynamic of our overall social economy even though Jesus is the very foundation of all human freedom.

Capitalism and politics are based on often-less-than-transparent negotiation and self-interested cooperation.  You know, “the art of the deal.”  Western academia has effectively eliminated the notion of divine authority, preferring private agendas and relational fashion to academic rigor grounded in God’s objective truth.  Science may own the academy but offers only a veneer of technical explanation, not a depth of ultimate truth.

Consider how different our moral lives would be if our everyday default behaviors were based in truth and love rather than the prideful, bargain-hunter shallowness of temporal comforts and secular trends.

Look around and tell me if I’m wrong: the predominant American social, political, economic, intellectual and entertainment experience involves a vigorous, excuse-laden negotiation for earthly comforts, not the humble pursuit of a relationship with God.

My long-time aversion to religion, I finally realized, was seated in my unwillingness to surrender not just Sunday mornings to church but my entire life, love, trust and aspirations to the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ.  Jesus flies in the face of practically everything else we hold dear; because everything else is about me.

That’s sinful self-centeredness, not an excuse.

The Gospel calls to something as small as any one of us, but points to something as big as God.  Earthly aspirations are trifle by comparison.

What’s your excuse for not thinking as big as God?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends trusting God, not negotiating with Him.

Spirituality Column #482
February 9, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

“You are to bring onto the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.” – God to Noah, Genesis 6:19

News of the 21^st century’s latest politically correct, cultural insult – “binary” – was buried in a lower right hand corner of an inside page of an inside section of a recent weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Brighton College in England, it seems, abolished gender distinction in its mandatory male-female school uniforms comprised of slacks, blazers, shirts, ties and skirts.  Now any student can wear any uniform piece any time, depending upon how one is identifying, gender-wise, that day.  That’s being “gender fluid.”

If you object? You’re being “binary.”

The WSJ item, tucked away in placement obscurity, quoted British journalist Melanie Phillips in the U.K. Spectator offering the following morsel of common sense: “It’s dangerous to tell all children they’re ‘gender fluid.’”

“Once upon a time,” Phillips began, “‘binary’ was a mathematical term.  Now it is an insult on par with ‘racist,’ ‘sexist,’ or ‘homophobic,’ to be deployed as a weapon in our culture wars.  The enemy is anyone who maintains that there are men and there are women, and that the difference between them is fundamental.”

So, “binary” is the new thing you don’t want to be called.  I appreciate the linguistic heads-up for all of us who live as though God really, really wasn’t kidding when he made humans – and pretty much all animals – “male” and “female.”  “Binary,” Phillips points out, is a “distinction accepted by the vast majority of the human race.”

To that I say, “Amen.”  Before fairly recent days, I’m guessing the “gender fluidity” idea may have seemed too ridiculous to bother categorizing.  Men, women, male, female…is how things are, going back to the ark, Adam and Eve and Creation.  It’s how generations reproduce.  Darwin and his evolutionary progeny have never improved upon, nor replaced, “binary” reproduction.

Arrange the test tubes, laboratories, science, ethics, academics and social engineering any way you want – it still takes male parts and female parts to make baby parts.  Life isn’t “created” afresh; it’s regenerated, and the generators are male and female.  Only God “creates” life.

The man-woman thing is a cosmological, biological truth some wish to redefine as sociological, psychological fiction.  Gender confusion, same-sex sex, mixed sexual desires, etc., aren’t new; they are addressed in humanity’s best, oldest, most reliable handbook, the Bible.  And never, we note, in a way that suggests “gender fluidity” is a good or “fluid” option.

Our fullest humanity requires biological function in agreement with psychological identity; sacrificing either for the sake of the other moves humanity toward death, not life.

Walters’ (rlwcom@aol.com) point here is life, not choices.

Spirituality Column #386
April 8, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

If you believe in Jesus Christ, go see the movie “God’s Not Dead.”

If you do not believe, marginally believe, or are honestly on the fence or confused by Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the Cross, religion, church, Creation, salvation or any particular purpose at all for human life, I really hope you see “God’s Not Dead.”

Here’s what will happen.

Believers will clap, cry, cheer, identify, murmur, nod, smile, sneer, shake their heads and finally breathe a sigh of Hallelujah! that a God movie “gets it right.”  The movie is our whole culture in a classroom, our pain in a crucible, and our joy in a compelling story.  It’s a wonderful exposition of describing the reason for our faith in Christian truth in the setting of courageous every-day ministry.  I left smiling broadly.

The not-so-into-Christianity viewers in the theater, first of all, will either be annoyed by the Christian believers’ reactions or possibly embarrassed for them, thinking them naïve or dull-witted.  But on the screen they’ll see very recognizable, every-day, secular anti-God culture in an unusual environment – an environment that returns intelligent, loving, on-point fire from the Christian position.

Typically, whether in the media, entertainment, or academics, the secular passes for truth and the worldly gets a pass.  Rather than being defensive, “God’s Not Dead” plays Godly offense in a smart, determined, informative and powerful kind of way.

What I’d say to a non-believer is that “God’s Not Dead” depicts what Christians really think, do, pray for, believe and go through on a daily basis – both good and bad.  I hope they understand that the argument, rationale, faith, courage, worldly fallenness, anger, love, fear, and self-centered sin depicted in the movie applies dramatically to both Christians and non-Christians.

Christian’s aren’t saved because they are better people – we surely are not.

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 #294
July 3, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters
Author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.”
    – Sir Winston Churchill

Democracy is a funny animal.

I can’t think of another form of government that so thoroughly, broadly, and top-to-bottom intrinsically frees and animates both the best and worst aspects of human nature.

Humanity’s best aspects are those we get from God – love, serving others, the greater good, duty, humility, generosity, honesty, mercy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.  Galatians 5:22-23 calls these things “fruits of the spirit,” and Jesus is God’s perfect example of humanity.