CHURCH: Are You Part of the Body of Christ?

I ask the question, are you part of the Body of Christ? If you answer yes, then my next question is does your attitude about the Church reflect that reality?

I just finished reading this very good book, Serious Times, in which the author asked this very question. He said that many evangelical Christians have a profoundly negative attitude about the Church and often express it more than most outside the Church. The Holy Spirit began to work on my heart as I sat the book down and contemplated how this applied to me. I have been speaking negatively about the Church as if I existed separate from it. I have had conversations with many people in which we say things like "the Church sucks at relevant outreach" or "the Church is a bunch of old people holding onto tradition". The attitude that has created in my mind is that somehow I can be separate from that, as if "the Church" doesn't not include me or anyone doing effective ministry.

I took this deeper in how I think about denominations and local congregations. The Holy Spirit asked the question about how I view various denominations? Do I talk about them as if they are part of the same Body of Christ as I am? The answer sadly is no. This seems so small but I think it affects our thinking more than we know. I have heard Christians talk worse about churches and denominations than any non-believer I have met.

But this is not what the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 4: "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

I have been convicted to change my view of the Church and remind myself that I am a part of the same Body as each local congregation of believers that calls Jesus Lord and Savior of all, no matter where in the world or of what denomination.

But this is not enough, it goes deeper. What about how we view conflict in the Church. Do we just leave the Church when we don't like something? Do we just leave the Church when we have conflict with members? I believe that if we view ourselves as intimately connected to these other members there would be less people walking out at the first sign of conflict or something they don't like. Paul uses the analogy of a body, in which each part functions with a Divine purpose, and cannot just leave the rest of the body.

Are you walking out on the Body because you don't want to deal with the hard stuff? Are you walking out on the Body because you don't like something someone said? Does your attitude of the Church reflect what the apostle Paul says it should be? If any of this applies to you, I challenge you to stop putting down the Church and acting like they are not a part of the same Body you belong to. God has convicted me of my attitude and I hope to stand up for the Church and humbly seek resolution to conflicts in the Body. Please join me in this and encourage others to do so.

ENVIRONMENTALISM: Just Because You Can...

Just because you can leave all your electronics on in the house all the time because you don't worry about your electricity going out doesn't mean that you should.

Just because you can take long showers and leave the water running in the sink because your water is always clean and available doesn't mean that you should.

Just because you can throw everything away without recycling because it is easier than sorting the recyclables from the trash doesn't mean that you should.

In recent conversations I have had with friends and with the Lord I have come to think about how I view our resource blessing in America. Most of us can get as much clean water and electricity as we want and are not required to recycle anything. Up until about a year ago I viewed conserving resources as important only when they were scarce. It makes sense that when there is a water or electricity shortage to save as much as possible, but the rest of the time its ok to use as much as I want.

This was challenged when I spent 6 weeks in China last summer on an InterVarsity Global Project. In China these same resources are scarce all the time, so much that at the University they had 1 shower house in which the students could take group showers twice a week, Thursday evening and Sunday evening. Not only was there not enough clean water for everyone to take showers everyday but there would not be enough electricity to pump that much water. This got me thinking about my everyday practices back in America. What does God think of it? Does He care?

I have since completely changed my view because of the Holy Spirit's conviction. Just because I can use a certain resource as much as I want does not give me the right to do so. This is not a liberal tree-hugging hippie kind of thing, this is a profoundly Christian concept. God's Word tells us that we will be held accountable for how we have taken care of His creation, how we have used or abused the resources of the earth. This is about being a good steward of what God has blessed us with. Christians should be the best environmentalist of all, not because it has become popular to 'go green' but because we want to be obedient to our Lord. It is also reminds of how our brothers and sisters of the church around the world live with a resource scarcity constantly.

C.S. Lewis: The Ethical Theory of C.S. Lewis

This school year I have been working on an undergrad research project in partnership with my advisor Dr. Phillips and Dr. Rourke. We met about every 2 weeks this year and discussed a C.S. Lewis book that we read. Through the readings and the discussion I have come up with a preliminary abstract that summarizes what I believe Lewis is saying about Ethics.

C.S. Lewis has had a dramatic influence on western culture through his famous children’s fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia. On an academic level he has contributed a plethora of works in the areas of theology, philosophy, literature, and literary criticism during his time as a professor at Oxford University and then Cambridge University. Informed by his Christian faith, Lewis’ works contribute to the philosophical discussions surrounding a consistent normative ethics. The purpose of this research was to discover and extract what his normative ethics is from his prolific works. Lewis believes that the natural law informs all societies at all times in history about what is right and wrong. The natural law points toward God as the objective standard of morality and is guided by God’s love, which is charity. According to Lewis, the purpose of every thought and action of humans is to become more charitable. Referencing human history, Lewis shows how all humans are inherently evil by nature. We all have free will to choose to do good or evil. Left solely to our own power, we would choose evil and habituate ourselves to do evil with a continually smaller chance of choosing a good action the next time. Lewis here introduces the idea of God’s Grace, which is the only power that can turn a human towards charity and continually seek it. In essence, Lewis’s normative ethics is focused on habituating charitable thoughts and actions that are powered by God’s Grace and motivated by God’s character.

Those of you who have read a lot of Lewis's writings feel free to point out anything that you think is incorrect in my assessment of his writings.

DISCIPLESHIP: The Authority of Scripture

My mind has recently been captured by God's Word and how I have been so wrong in the past about my interpretation of His Word. Several friends have commented on how much I have changed in my interpretations of what I believe Scripture says about certain issues from when I started at Clarion. Some people view this as evidence of me growing and maturing in my faith and others view this as a negative thing of me having been corrupted. These comments have caused me to reflect on a deeper level these changes in myself. Why have I changed?

I think the answer to the question has 2 parts. First is that I have really learned to engage in healthy discussion with people who have differing Biblical interpretations. I used to make fun of the conclusions of a person's argument whom I disagreed without every actually listening to their reasoning to see if they had a valid point. Since I have begun to do this over the last 2 years I have seen that others have very good points that I ignored before without critically thinking about them. Second is that I have learned that really believing in the authority of Scripture means constantly going back and re-examining it. This means being open to correction by the Holy Spirit as I uncover new pieces of Scripture or read something I have never read before.

A crucial distinction must be made when talking about the authority of Scripture. Being faithful to an specific interpretation of a particular Biblical passage is NOT being faithful to the Scriptures. As I have wrestled with the Holy Spirit on Scripture issues that I have struggled with, He constantly brought me back to the fact that I need to be humble in the process and realize that just because God got it right doesn't mean I will interpret it right. Bible scholars have already shown that there have been errors in the translation of the King James Version of the Bible. Some of you may immediately have red flags going up and feel that I have degraded Scripture. The belief that Scripture is inerrant is about the collection of original manuscripts not the modern day English translations.

I have been learning that humility is absolutely key in the process. A humble approach to interpreting Scripture is evidenced by a constant willingness to evaluate differing interpretations and go back to the original text over and over again seeking to understand it better and better. This is why I have have changed many of my Biblical interpretations on certain issues. And I am willing to discuss those issues with anyone who wants to. Even now and for the rest of my life I am willing to constantly re-evaluate my interpretation of Scripture because when I get to Heaven it is likely that I will be right on some things and wrong on others. Humility is absolutely necessary if we profess a belief in the authority of Scripture.

DISCIPLESHIP: What is God's Calling on my life?

Ever since Urbana I have been praying a lot about what the calling of God on my life. In the past year I have experienced tons of growth in my walk with the Lord as I have been seeing a whole new dimension to the Gospel of Jesus that I never saw before. I am speaking of the Kingdom message. This Kingdom message is about righting the wrongs of injustice now on this earth. This is how we bring the Kingdom here. I have often said that I wanted to see God's Kingdom come on our campus and in the world but what have I done for it? I have proclaimed the forgiveness of sins and cared about the eternal resting place of their soul but have neglected the current physical state that people are in. I have remained ignorant of much of the injustice in the world as long as it didn't directly affect my little world. But that has all changed in the last year.

Beginning with MAC training January and February 2006 I began to see the relevance of the Gospel in other cultures and that I need to be informed about other cultures to know how to share the Gospel with them. Then I went on the Cleveland Urban Plunge in March 2006 and learned about the relevance of the Gospel in the inner city and my ignorance of what was going on there. There were Christians down dirty in the trenches of the spiritual battle and physical battles of the inner city and I was just sitting comfortably on the outside ignorant of it. Then I went on Xining Global Project for 6 weeks in the summer of 2006. My eyes were opened wide to the plight of the Christians struggling to see God's Kingdom come in China. I was extremely humbled by how financially rich I was compared to them but also how spiritually rich my Chinese friends were compared to me. This past school year I have been reading More Than Equals with the Community Group Leaders and my eyes have been open to my ignorance of the racial reconciliation issue and how I need to work through these racial issues with my ethnic minority brothers and sisters. Then I went to Urbana at the end of December 2006. I was amazed to see the diversity of God's people represented there and how we sang multi-lingual songs the whole conference.

All this put together God has given me a passion for seeing the Kingdom message of Jesus to actualize in all the world. I care about the injustice of the world and want to educate myself on these issues. I want to go on staff with IV for awhile because I believe changing the campus can change the world. Then I want to go back to school to get my Doctorate in Philosophy and teach at a secular University in the philosophy department because I want to have influence in the classroom showing students how Christianity can stand up to the philosophical criticism. Then I want to go back to school and get my doctorate in Political Science and then to law school. Then I want to become a U.S. Senator. I want a chance to stand up for the Biblical principles in our great country and see God's justice come to all people of the world. In that kind of position I can work toward ending systemic injustice which is at much of the root of injustice in the world. I am always open to how the Spirit moves in my heart and this will take a lifetime to all work out but based on a logical assessment of the passions that God has given me and my interests and my spiritual gifts this is what I think I am called to do. To God be the GLORY!!!

MOVIES: Amazing Grace

Audrey and I went on a date last night to see the newly released movie Amazing Grace. Go to the link that I posted here to watch the trailer and read about the movie. This movie is about the true story of William Wilberforce's journey of getting the English Parliament to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the entire British Empire.

Wilberforce is on a personal journey through the movie as he returns to his Christian faith that he was so committed to as a child in John Newton's church. John Newton was a slave trader who committed his life to Christ and quit the slave trade and became a pastor, he was Wilberforce's pastor as he grew up. Wilberforce was moved by his faith to believe that God created all men equal and that no man should own another. The turning point in the movie is when he comes back to his faith in God and is fully committed to it and wondering if he should quit being a Member of Parliament in order to serve the God he loved so dearly. Wilberforce's best friend, William Pitt, became Prime Minister. Newton tells him he has work to do for God as a Member of Parliament. Pitt brings him to meet some abolitionist friends who convince him that he can both serve God and be a member of Parliament by working towards the abolition of the slave trade. It is a long journey and a hard one but in the end Wilberforce's bill passes the House of Commons and slavery is abolished.

This movie moved me to tears almost the whole way through, especially whenever John Newton was in the scene. I highly recommend everyone go see it whether you are a Christian or not. The movie is very accurate as far as I can tell in its history. It spans the time of the American Revolution and French Revolution. Wilberforce's story is a great example of how someone can put their faith into action in their vocation and change the world. William Wilberforce is a world changer.

What is great about this movie is that Walden Media is on a campaign to abolish modern day slavery by raising awareness through this movie. Please sign the petition at the website and become an abolitionist.

METAPHYSICS: What is a Christian Metaphysic?

I just finished reading the book Metaphysics by William Hasker. I was reading it for my own personal growth and to supplement a Christian point of view for my Philosophy of Mind class. This book really changed my understanding of what it means to be a Christian philosopher. I used to think that in philosophy I can assume what God reveals to us in the Bible as groundwork and then move on from there. I no longer take that view point. To do that is to study theology. Theology and philosophy are supposed to be different and I would just be replacing philosophy with theology. I honestly never understood the difference between them, but now I do. This is not to say that I stop believing what God has said in the Bible to be true but that I try to come to those conclusions using philosophical reasoning.

I believe that the Christian faith is capable to stand up against all logical attacks. God is a logically consistent God and no logically true argument can ever knock Him down. This is where I come in as a Christian philosopher. I set out to prove the existence and nature of God through philosophical reasoning. The reason why this is so important is that theology is studied by people who already believe in the existence of God according to His revealed Word but philosophy is studied by people with all kinds of worldviews. Some of these worldviews include the idea of a God and others exclude it.

Metaphysics is all about answering the question: what is the ultimate nature of reality? There are many different metaphysical points of view about reality of the world, humans, and God. Can we develop a Christian metaphysic? This is what Hasker says in response.

"There is no one metaphysical system which is definitely Christian, but rather a number of systems, ll of them more or less inconsistent with each other and all of them more or less adaquate to the content of Christian faith. But the fact that Christianity is a religion of salvation also suggests that in a sense no philosophical system can be fully Christian, because no philosophical system can express the unique content of Christianity."

This idea was hard for me to grasp because I have such a strong bias towards objective Truth and here it seems that Christians can hold different metaphysical beliefs and both still staying true to Biblical revelation about reality. When I think about this further I think I understand and it is humbling. Basically the Bible tells us a lot but not everything about the ultimate nature of reality.

What would make these Christian metaphysical theories Christian? Hasker responds to this with 3 things that a Christian metaphysic must have.
1. It must speak of God
2. It must speak of Creation by God.
3. It must speak of man as the image of God.

Is there at least some broad categories that all Christian metaphysics should fall into? Hasker points out that a Christian metaphysic must be theistic by nature and cannot be naturalistic, pantheistic, or panentheistic. This is because theism is the only one that acknowledges God's true character as Creator of the world and existing independently of His creation. Also a Christian metaphysic must adopt philosophical realism concerning the physical world.

An important note to end on is that no philosophical reasoning or human reflection can bring us the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. This is the limit of this discipline. The Apostle Paul expands on this in 1 Corinthians 2:4-8.

"My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

EVANGELISM: Partnering in God's Work on Campus

I recently have had very positive experiences doing conversational evangelism and I would like to share them. This year while being committed to conversational evangelism as a effective method of evangelism and continually teaching others about it I have done little of it myself this year. After York Moore's extremely encouraging and empowering training on evangelism a couple of weeks ago I was convicted that I needed to practice what I have been preaching. Mandy also had this conviction and committed to doing conversational evangelism with each of the servant leadership team members during our 1 on 1's.

Last Thursday Mandy and I met and were both very nervous but knew that we wanted to partner with God's work on campus. Once again fear set into my heart and I began thinking of all the excuses of why this wouldn't be a good idea and why there would be no one to talk to, but I was wrong. After a very encouraging time of prayer Mandy spotted a girl who was sitting alone eating and felt that would be a good person to ask.

We walked over and introduced ourselves, Mandy of course with her amazing gifts of compassion and gentleness, gave the introduction and asked if she would like to talk with us about her spiritual beliefs about Jesus. Her name was Abby and she said yes. Contrary to what I had thought in my head, she was very open to talking with us since we were open to her in what we wanted to talk about. After getting to know her a little I asked if I could share with her the Gospel of Jesus in a drawing. She said that was cool. And so I drew the bridge diagram and persisted to walk her through the full Gospel of Jesus and she intently listened to what I was sharing. I used the relevant information that she shared with us about herself and her spiritual background into the Gospel presentation. After that I asked her if she had heard this before and she wasn't really sure. She had heard bits and pieces of it. She then went on to say that she had gone through some kind of confirmation process. We weren't really sure where to go from there because she wasn't sure what to think. So we didn't push it we asked if we could pray for her and so we prayed for her. Then we exchanged information and she said she lives in Reinhard and wanted to get plugged in. So we got her information and passed it onto Ben, who is the Reinhard Community Group Leader.

I learned a lot from this experience. Mainly that going for awhile without doing conversational evangelism brings back all my fears and doubts about it. I loved seeing God work through our conversation and Mandy and I got to partner in it. This never would have happened if we didn't have the boldness to go out of our comfort zones and act on our belief that God is at work in people's hearts. Conversational evangelism is an amazingly effective way to partner with God in His work and I love it!

LOGIC: How to Evaluate a Logical Argument

We very rarely encounter formally stated logical arguments but very frequently encounter arguments being made calling themselves logical arguments. How is a person to evaluate the claim being made? In my major, philosophy, this is something that we focus on a lot. Following the rule of charity we should reconstruct someone's argument by putting it in general form. The rule of charity is that you should always try as best you can to reconstruct someone's argument before evaluating it.

All logical arguments are either deductive or inductive. Deductive logic is the easiest and most intuitive for people to understand. I believe that part of what it means to be human is to think rationally. I also believe that God built the ability to see logical truths into the human mind. Inductive logic has not been formalized and does not give us the precision accuracy that deductive logic does. Here is one of the easiest general forms for a 2 premise deductive logical argument

P1. If X then Y
P2. X
___________
C. Y

P stands for premise and they are numbered in sequential order. C stands for conclusion.

This is most basic type of deductive logical argument in general form. By adding premises and sub conclusions they get increasingly complicated.

When evaluating a logical argument you cannot dismiss the conclusion because you don't like it or it doesn't fit into the framework of your preconceived notions. It is the truth of the premises that give the conclusion its justification. So if you want to evaluate an argument you analyze the premises NOT the conclusion. If you can falsify one of the premises, which occurs when you show a counter example to the premise, then you can logically reject the conclusion. If any one of the premises can be shown to be false then the conclusion must be rejected because it relies on the truth of all of the premises for it to be justified as true.

This is very entry level understanding of deductive logic and I would encourage everyone to take a logic course to understand it better. For those of you at Clarion, enroll in Dr. Phillips Logic 1 class, he teaches at least 1 section every semester.

EPISTEMOLOGY: A Descartes Joke

Credit for this joke does not belong to me but my friend Chris.

Descartes walked into a bar and the bar tender asked him if he wanted a drink. Descartes said "I think not" and then he immediately vanished in a puff of logic. ;)

Descartes is famous for his foundational belief called the cogito, which is "I think therefore I am". It is the only indubitable claim that we can know, which means it cannot be doubted, because when you try to doubt your existence you have to do it by thinking which proves that you exist. If you don't get it then ask me about it sometime.