Spirituality Column No. 502
June 28, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

Spirituality Column No. 501
June 21, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

God’s Still Here
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 No. 499
June 7, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

What I want to write about today – lovingly, I hope – is the current, pervasive state of media malfeasance that so accurately reflects and sadly but enthusiastically nurtures culture-wide religious ignorance.

There are two aspects to discuss.  One is the actual existence of truth and love revealed in Jesus Christ.  These are real things, really there, really important and really ignored by the snickering classes who deem actual Christ-centered, God-glorifying faith an intellectual embarrassment.  The other is the empirical non-faith knowability of religious doctrines and differences, also real, important and ignored.

“All religions are the same” is perhaps the most misinformed statement of any age yet seems to be the controlling narrative of modern public discourse.  Mention an obvious and observable difference attendant to a culture, race, nationality, gender, a private faith or a recognized religion and one has committed, at minimum, a boorish micro-aggression against the intolerant, hypocritical lords of political correctness.

Maybe this is so important for PC lords to control because truth is so freeing.

My thoughts today were triggered by the media coverage a month or so ago of the untimely and unfortunate death of the very talented musician “Prince.”  No, I wasn’t especially a fan, but on the other hand look up Prince’s 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame performance of the Beatles’ classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”  Arguably, you’ll see the greatest guitar solo of this or any age.  Of course, that’s an opinion, not truth.

Where the media botched it was reporting Prince as “Christian” without understanding the profound differences of Prince’s “Jehovah’s Witness” faith which says Jesus is love, yes, but also that Jesus was a man but not God.  The media shrugged its collective shoulders, not seeing the dangerous, salvational departure from the Christian Trinity.  Argue efficacy if you want, but don’t say, “They are the same.”

If the media covers, in no particular order, the Pope, the Roman Catholic Church, Islam, Muhammad Ali’s Nation of Islam (Louis Farrakhan, et al), the Dalai Lama, Buddhism, Hinduism, Billy Graham’s Evangelism, Bible Christians, Protestant churches, Anglican Bishops, Reformed electionists, predestined Calvinists, Latter Day Saints, Jewish traditions or the myriad Christian Orthodox doctrines – it takes intellectual rigor and more than a little philosophical and theological training to accurately describe, discern and report on, in context, whatever news they are making.

C.S. Lewis generously declares in “Mere Christianity” that there is some truth in all religions, but also rightly points out that Jesus is the only religious figure who says plainly, “I am… the truth…” (John 14:6).

Religious distinctions – and the Bible especially – are worth knowing and reporting on accurately.  That’s all I’m saying.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) majored in journalism in college; discernment came later.

Column No. 498
May 31, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

Through the early chapters of the Bible, God’s covenant with Israel is constantly being defiled by the Israelites and constantly being renewed by God.

God never quits.

As we move on to the book of Psalms and  beyond, the great glory of the prophets is that they look forward – through God’s eyes – to the coming Covenant of Jesus Christ, which itself actually is renewal.  Even God was excited about it.

“… those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

Then comes Jesus, this Son of Man and Son of God, who would renew all things, set right all things, and change all things.  In Jesus was delivered a New Covenant of faith and grace, not laws.  God’s eternal love, truth, mercy and judgment were assured.  This Covenant of resurrection and glory led Jesus to the Cross, the Holy Spirit into the world and humanity into salvation.

Jesus is many things – the Word of God, authority of all creation, author of all wisdom, the savior of mankind freeing us from sin and divine condemnation.  Blessedly and forever, He is God’s gracious gift to a fallen world; the steadfast renewal of hope.

Yes, the Cross of Christ transformed everything about humanity’s opportunity for restored relationship with God, hope for life and love eternal.  But notice two things the Cross actually didn’t change: 1) God and 2) mankind.

God’s love is permanent, eternal and unchanging.  So too, sadly, are man’s unchanging sins of pride, greed and self-centeredness.  God made man free from the very beginning in the Garden, but from Adam and Eve onward we enslaved ourselves by misreading God’s ultimate goal and purpose: His own glory.  We used our freedom to try to be like God, rather than simply using it to love God.

So much of today’s Christianity – and by that I mean churches, traditions, preaching, doctrines, discipleship and the rest – forces a depressing, personal imprisonment dragging along our shame, mistakes, fears, weaknesses and sins for the sake of guilty obedience to a Savior whose stated mission is the joyous, uplifting opposite: to set us free in faith and trust.

Also beware the morally bereft Christianity telling us “whatever we do is OK” and that Jesus lives to provide us with health, wealth, comfort and earthly delights.

Both are awful lies.

“Joy in the Lord” is a real and wonderful thing; the ultimate renewable resource and an attainable blessing in this world right now and forever.

Trust the renewal of Christ and rest easy in His peace.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sees mercy and judgment as complements, not opposites.

Spirituality Column No. 497
May 24, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.” – Will Rogers

When I think back to my early adulthood and remember some of the truly moronic things I did and believed, it becomes obvious the opportunities for maturity and personal growth were overwhelming.

Without elaborating about various behaviors, please forgive me and just understand that these days I mainly prefer to look forward.  Christianity affords all of us with that gracious option, promise and hope.  As for random dopey things I believed, I suppose the best that can be said is that they help me today to empathize with those still reluctant to accept the many Godly eternal gifts awaiting our simple acceptance.

But the fact is I have grown and learned, and now possess an extensive “before and after” narrative regarding life outside of faith and new life burgeoning with faith.  Yes, I repented and was baptized, but I notice the repentance part never really ends.

It was in my late 40s that Jesus Christ became a personal reality to me.  Concurrently, the Bible began to make sense.  Church, Bible study and theological understanding became central spiritual and intellectual cravings.  A parade of Godly men and women suddenly, unexpectedly, graciously, appeared in my life.  Many of you reading this knew or know Russ Blowers, Dave Faust, George Bebawi, John Samples, Jackie Long and of course my wife Pam, whom I met at Russ’s funeral in 2007.  Several life-long friends “outed” themselves saying they had been praying for me all along.

Some friends didn’t get it, don’t want it, wish I’d quit talking about it.

We are all familiar with the annoying zeal of an ex-smoker eager to preach the evils of tobacco – confusing overbearance with love, mistaking intrusion with compassion, and very likely infusing new accomplishment with old pride.  Similarly, it is a fool’s errand to try to argue faith into an unwilling soul.  Love defies logic, Jesus is a mysterious truth, and God’s glory sadly too often remains hidden to blinded eyes.

This all is just a long way to say that God, despite His cosmic enormity and my own decades-long ignorance, has revealed Himself to be a very knowable commodity.  Jesus Christ is God’s divine light and truth, and the Holy Spirit animates our souls to embrace that light and truth. Logically but perhaps counterintuitively, part of that truth is that we are free to reject God’s love because love can’t be coerced.

But none of us has to remain ignorant about it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), an ex-smoker, prays for light and truth and in his younger days read collections of Will Rogers’ 1920s and 30s newspaper columns.  Rogers famously quipped, “I never met a man I didn’t like.”

Spirituality Column No. 496
May 17, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

By Bob Walters

“Christianity does not want to propose solutions for overcoming social difficulties; it wants to lead the individual person into the presence of the living God.” - Martin Mosebach

Do you ever entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, our Christian focus is aimed too broadly at the world and not enough at the bullseye of Jesus Christ?

I’d never heard of Martin Mosebach, but his recent words echo C.S. Lewis’s great line in Mere Christianity: “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.”  The point?  God has to be first.

Paired with Mosebach’s sentiment, let’s reflect on our proper aim as Christians.

Mosebach, a highly acclaimed German novelist, essayist and social observer born in 1951, is a Roman Catholic traditionalist famous for his support of a return to the pre-Vatican II (pre-1960s) Catholic liturgy.  He’s also a critic of Pope Francis’s aggressive social doctrines – issues and conversations for Catholics, not me.

What I as an evangelical take away from Mosebach’s statement is the simple truth of Jesus’s commandment to love others, and I am reminded of the frequent, nearly universal misinterpretation of Christian obedience.  Jesus left us very few rules but we nonetheless legalistically seek, conjure and judge countless ordinances we – and of course we believe, the world – should obey.

Jesus boils down God’s commandments to two: 1) Love God and 2) love others.  The often quoted “The Vine” passage in John 15 is Jesus’s final teaching before the Crucifixion.  As He and the disciples depart the Last Supper for Gethsemane, Jesus instructs, “This is my commandment, that you love each other as I have loved you.” (v.12).

Love is the commandment of Jesus, fruitfulness God’s promise, and fullness of joy the believer’s reward (John 15:1-17; 1 John 3-4).  Pretty simple.

When the resurrected Jesus issues another command to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19, the Great Commission), the next sentence is “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  Christians read the word “everything” and panic, but “everything” is a very, very short list: love God, love others, and spread the word.

A common Bible-class error is trying to make a rule-book of the parables of Jesus.  Those stories aren’t so much instruction about what to obey; they clandestinely describe the un-divine tarnish borne by the Pharisees on what they wrongly considered to be the “righteous” crown of their errant, self-begotten obedience.  They had made up their own enslaving, unrighteous rules, and Jesus shrewdly called them out on it.

Plainly, eternally, the example of Jesus is love, not rules.

That’s all the obedience we need.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is saying Jesus is easy; it’s the world that complicates things.