Heresy perhaps, but worth thinking about...

While reading "Against Celsus" by Origen, I came across Origen questioning: Why should one teach against a person being transformed to a good person even if he can not come up with any rationale for doing so? (Rough paraphrase I know, but check out Book One chapter 9.) While pondering this thought, I then asked myself, is this how Christ Followers should think of others who find ways of transforming themselves into better people, even if their way does not involve giving credit to Christ. Unfortunately I never came to a firm conclusion, but what I came up with was this.....

If all good things come from God, then if man finds a system of belief that teaches him to DO good that is apart from the religion of Christianity, is that ok? Will God honor the man's commitment to such a belief? For the Bible states that "every perfect gift comes down from heaven" (James 1:17), and is not wisdom a gift? It was a gift to King Solomon as we learn in 1st Kings, therefore we must conclude that wisdom is  most definitely a gift that comes from God. And Scripture teaches us that only God is good. Thus one can conclude two things: First is that God as a good personal entity, would only impart good wisdom to humanity, and second that good and perfect wisdom can only come from God, for only God can only know what good is seeing as He is the only good being in all of existence.

Therefore a Christian must wrestle with the fact of how do ungodly/pagan people do good? How do they come up with teachings that promote good? How does someone like Ghandi teach the same non-violence and love for others that Jesus taught during his time on earth? I find such a thought highly perplexing, maybe it means that God is working in ways that we could never imagine, maybe He is reminding us that not everyone who calls Jesus Lord will be saved, but rather those who do the Father's will. And sometimes this will of His is done by those who do not call Jesus Lord. Maybe this should humble those who claim to follow Christ, maybe being a follower of Jesus is more than saying the "right" prayer, or calling someone Lord without believing it. Maybe its about understanding that there is a higher power who shows us grace, and that we in turn are to show grace to others in return (Matthew 18-23-35).

So what happen to those who unknowingly serve Christ as in Matthew 25, are they condemned to Hell for all of eternity? Or does grace abound? Traditional teaching/interpretation of the Bible tells me tells me that the first scenario is what occurs, however the Words of Christ seem to tell a different story in the gospels. Maybe it is possible to serve someone/thing else while at the same time you feel you are serving Christ, and maybe the reverse is true also.

To end I must say I neither have the answer to the above questions above, nor do I believe that I will ever have the answers until the end of days. But what I do know is that Christ blood was shed for sinners, the question then becomes this: When it comes to being covered in the atoning blood, is it the words that matter, or the actions that matter, or somehow both?

Money, Greed, and God review: Part Three

                

                Sorry I have not posted in a while. But I have been spending quite a few hours helping my dad start a bread distributorship. Hopefully I will be able to post more regularly. Here is the review for Richards’ second chapter of Money, Greed, and God.

Richards’ refreshingly starts his chapter by pointing out the fact that if one were to read the Bible straight through, that the person would realize that caring for the poor is essential to the Biblical message given to humanity by God. Richard’s backs up his claim with numerous passages from both the Old and New Testaments. He then goes on to claim that in the end, one’s intentions won’t matter but whether or not one is successful in helping the needy. Richards then goes on to claim that many of the things we do, both as a nation and individuals, to help the poor are actually unsuccessful. As a result our failed efforts, as individuals and as a nation, are meaningless when it comes to our spiritual relationship both with God and with others. Richards then accuses those who are willing but incapable or helping as acting out so that they will feel good about themselves. To end the introduction section, Richards then tackles the issues that he believes actually hinder than help the poor, such as: the living wage, fair trade, foreign aid, and government run health care.

                To end the chapter, Richards’ goes on to say that it is not the government’s job to provide assistance to the poor. Rather it is the job of the church, the family, and the neighbor to help those who are needy. He then goes on to say that the Federal Government cannot afford to help out the needy. To do so he points to the fact that government spending has gone from 20 dollars a person in 1789 to 10,000 dollars a person in 2007 (figures adjusted for inflation). He then writes in a way that seems to shoulder the $9,980 dollar difference on welfare policies.

                I have some issues with Richards’ viewpoints in this chapter concerning the economic policies which he chose to look at. In fact, I could possibly write a whole chapter of a book on them. However to make things short, I am going to look at just one of them briefly, the Living Wage. In this chapter Richards’ completely trashes the idea of a minimum wage. Now, I am in agreement that the minimum wage laws are ineffective. However, the ineffectiveness does not stem with the minimum wage law itself but in reality the issue stems with those who are forced to pay the inflated wage. What the minimum wage law attempts to do is the force employers to pay a higher percentage of profits that they receive from their goods and/or services. However, this is not the case, rather than having to pay a higher percentage, business charge more for their products to cover the difference, thus making the value of the dollar less. Yet, it is interesting that Richards’ attacks the government as being at fault for causing the inflation. He puts no fault on those who already have plenty who continue to help cause inflation because they are unwilling to share more of the wealth that a company makes with the workers who help make the company what it is.

To me it is as if Richards’ is standing around, watching a guy getting punched in the stomach repeatedly which results in the guy having a stomach ache. Afterwards it is as if Richards sees another guy, who had no idea what initially happened, giving the guy some Pepto Bismol for his stomach ache. After viewing this all it seems as if Richards’ chastises the person doing something pointless rather than trying to stop the other person who is actually causing the problem by punching the guy in the stomach in the first place. In short YES! Setting a minimal wage is pointless, but it is only pointless because those who already have more than enough to live well, and sometimes more who fail part with some of their wealth in order that other people who make the company successful can have enough money for essentials like food, shelter, clothing, medicine, and medical care. In other word’s Richards’ is sending out a rallying cry against the faulty effect rather than the cause. But if we eliminate the cause, then we eliminate the effect at the same time.

I feel like Richards is fighting the wrong issue here. Maybe instead of rallying against the government, he should be rallying against those who feel they need to make grossly more than much of the rest of the world and against corporations that fail to pay enough money to their employees to live above the poverty level. Now, I am sure he would say that those at the top deserve more than those at the bottom, and I would agree with him. But the questions we ought to ask is this, how much more do they deserve, and how little do the people at the bottom deserve.

                As for his feelings that the role of the government is not to help the needy, I have MAJOR issues with Richards’ thinking. Richards’ seems to say to shoulder the burden of helping the needy on the church and family only. However, if this was possible, why are where we are today? I believe that if the church and family were capable of shouldering the needs of everyone that they would have done so by now. Now this is not to say that the church and family does not try to help out the needy, but rather that they are unable to do so and that no matter how hard they try, to feel that they can get rid of all of society’s ills is unrealistic, or to use Richards’ language, “it isn’t prudent.”

                Finally, my last issue is how Richards’ uses the stat that we are spending about $9,980 more than we were in the late eighteenth century as a reason to completely annihilate welfare. It’s an unfair argument, because there are other factors that contribute to the high rate of expenditures. Things like military budgets, which currently is the largest piece of the pie in our national budget. Now, I am sure we could lower military expenditures, but let’s be honest; the cost of military technology was much lower in 1789 than it was in 2007. I am sure that a mini ball and a rifle cost much less than an assault rifle and armor piercing bullets. I am sure a cannon and cannon ball cost much less than a patriot missile or a smart bomb which are loaded with technological advances that our patriots in 1789 could not have even dreamed of. Or we could look to the pay that our political leaders receive today as compared to 1789. In 1789, there was no salary being paid to the president as opposed to $400,000 a year today. Not to mention that during the early years of the presidency, all the extra expenditures came out of the president’s personal pocket and wasn’t the tax payers burden.  The fact is, that there are many reasons why the government needs more money today than it did over 200 years ago, but to blame welfare programs as being the main reason is far from truthful.

In the end, I guess my problem is this, if Richards’ knows that God is concerned for the poor in the Biblical witness, why is he so willing to cut programs that deal with helping the poor, and turn a blind eye to the other areas where we spend money extravagantly? 

Christianity, Patriotism, Nationalism; do they conflict with one another or do they relate to one another?

Been a little busy lately, and I promise to get back to my review of Jay W. Richards' book. But I wanted to come back with a bang, so here goes. . . 

About ten years ago during a National Holiday weekend, I remember our church singing a patriotic song. Upon the beginning of the song people began to stand up and you could almost see a pride well up in many of the congregants as we sang these patriotic songs, especially within the veterans. Now, most of us would think that this would be a non-issue, and in many churches they would be proud of their patriotism. But while many members or many churches would be proud, I was disgusted, because in our church we had the policy where we left standing during worship up to each individual. What ultimately happened when we left it up to the members whether or not they should stand was that they would choose to remain seated throughout the entirety of the service. However, this one day, when we started playing and singing patriotic songs, the entire congregation stood and gave reverence to the United States. However, on every other Sunday throughout the year when we sang songs that were only aimed towards our love and reverence for the Triune God no one ever choose to stand. In other words, our congregants were willing to honor our nation in a way that they refused to honor God, our country was worth standing up for, but our God was not!

This type of thinking is now playing itself out in another arena, as Goshen College (a small Mennonite University near my home) is now refusing to play the national anthem before sporting events after trying it out for the past year. So why is playing the national anthem a problem for Goshen College? Because our National Anthem is a song about a battle in the war of 1812 and the Mennonites abhor war. This is due to the fact that they are serious about the pacifist principles taught by Jesus within the scripture. Now, this is not the first time that a principle of the Mennonite faith has come into conflict with the American culture. For years the school has refused to fly an American flag with the belief that nothing should be above the cross. This was a major problem when 9/11 occurred and one of my friends was doing some electrical work at the school. The workers for the electrical company were so upset that they hung a flag at their worksite they had on the school grounds as a way to protest Goshen’s refusal to fly a flag after such a horrific tragedy. This stance that Goshen College stubbornly stood by was a symbolic way to show that God should come before everything else, including our nation.

So how ought we as Christ followers to live in a society? Can we be patriotic and followers of Christ? Or does one trump the other? First, we have to look to what scripture calls us Christians who live in the world. Peter calls us exiles and aliens in I Peter. In other words, we as followers of Christ do not belong to the world for this world is not our home. Rather it is just where we reside for the time being. Rather our home is with our Father, and while we are in fellowship with him thanks to the actions of His Son, and the work of the Spirit. But despite this, one day we will be called to our eternal home.

So this means that as followers of Christ, we need not care about the current society that we live in, right? No, actually we are told by another biblical figure in the Old Testament that those in exile ought to strive to make their new residence a great nation, and that we are to live in a manner that helps our current residence prosper (Jeremiah 29:7).  

But the question then becomes, how can we help our society prosper? To do that we must look back to see how the Jewish exiles helped make the nations that they lived in prosper. I feel that there is no better place in the Bible than to the first six chapters of Daniel, where we are given detailed information on how four young men (possibly three) lived as faithful servants of God and of the empire in which they found themselves. The interesting thing here is that while they had no qualms about serving the empire that conquered them, they made sure that they were going to do it on their own terms; or perhaps more accurately stated, on God’s terms. They made sure that in serving their new land that they would first and foremost serve their god, YAWEH. And the thing is, these men ended up being key players in their new home and took on roles that could help the nation to prosper despite not honoring the gods or practices of their new nation that conflicted with YAWEH.

 My friends, this is what we must make sure we do when we serve God and country. We must make sure God is served first and foremost, and then understand that by serving God, we actually serve our country. This was the order that these four men took in Daniel, God first and nation second. This is what I think the Mennonite administration is trying to convey in their abandonment of the National Anthem. There are plenty of teachings of Jesus that promote pacifism and if we are going to take Jesus seriously as a whole, then we must acknowledge that Jesus taught us to love others, not just those who are close to us, but those outside of our ethnicity, and even those who are our enemies. So how is bombing our enemies, or even glorifying the bombing off our enemies through a song glorifying Jesus? Quite frankly it isn’t! This is something that our Mennonite brothers and sisters take very seriously. To them killing is wrong no matter the circumstance. And to glorify violence is to go against the teaching of God, and as a result is putting our worldly standards above God’s standards. However, just because they fail to play the anthem does not mean they do not want the nation to prosper. In fact the reverse is true. I feel that the Mennonites would love nothing more than for this nation to prosper. However, they are not going to blindly accept the standards of this nation which glorifies violence in its anthem. Therefore, the administration is seeking out another way to promote this nation, a way that is also glorifying God as well. And as Christ followers we too ought to make sure that we always serve and glorify our country through God’s principles and not vice versa.