Fuel

I went to a Catholic mass a few weeks ago – a first! As a member of the protestant, or evangelical church, I’ve never had a reason to visit a Catholic church except on tourist duty in France, but that’s another story…

The funny thing was that I went to mass for a college assignment (write a report on your visit to a church that’s different to your own church background). And I say funny, because “I’m here on an assignment” was the answer I gave the priest when we shook hands at the end of the service – he asked questions about whether I was new and why I was visiting. I’m sure you’re supposed to make up another answer in such circumstances, but hey, everyone must have noticed me scrawling away in my notebook, failing to say the right thing at the right time, and missing all the cues to bend down on one knee at appropriate times. So I’d already figured the game was up!

Anyway, I took away two lasting impressions. Firstly, I felt much more comfortable than I thought I would – we are, after all, all Christians despite our different perspectives.

Secondly, hung high on the wall at the front of the church was a wooden cross with Jesus affixed, head bowed, and a crown of thorns fastened firmly on his head with little trickles of blood on his forehead.

Back in class the following week, the subject of crosses came up (funny that, given we’re at college…but anyway). Other students remarked on the cross in the Catholic churches the visited too. I wasn’t sure what had intrigued me until our lecturer (& Tabor founder) Barry Chant observed that Catholic churches typically depict Jesus on the cross, while protestant churches depict an empty cross. BINGO!

I’d grown up looked at an empty cross. The significance? The bible says Jesus died on the cross, died, was buried, and rose again. The empty cross symbolises the fact that he did not remain on the cross. The Catholic church has a different perspective in that they choose to focus on Jesus’ suffering – he’s symbolically still on the cross in their eyes.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m trying not to make a judgement call either way. But this line of thinking is an extension of an earlier post where I asked about your image of God. Is He the fire and brimstone God, or the loving and kind God? I’m amazed at variety of perspectives that have emerged from a single, incredible, event in history.

I’m on the hunt for Christian blogs and other useful resources on the net. If you’ve not already checked out the links on my blogroll (over on the right hand column), go take a look. They’re all sites that inspire and challenge me. 

A new link I added today is “Geeks & God” a blog and podcast that a friend of mine found and forwarded on. It’s good to know there are other geeky types out there talking about God – I’m not the only one! However, I’ve struggled to find many Christians blogging in Australia. The only one I know in person in Darren Rowse, over at the Living Room. Is there anyone else I should know? Write a comment & say hello (don’t get scared off if it says “no comments” underneath the headline – it really should read “no comments yet“).

A challenging idea I’ve encountered at Tabor is the idea that many Christians fall into the trap of ignoring the opportunity to be creative in the way we live our lives. God is, after all, the Creator who imagined and spoke the world into existence, according to the story of creation in Genesis. The idea of creative living is a passion of my lecturer Barry Chant.

“The imagination has too often been neglected in favour of straight-down-the-line, direct theological teaching,” Barry writes in his book Creative Living: How to live the kind of life you’ve always wanted to live.

So in that context, check out the work of a colleague and friend of mine called Peter Riches. He’s a Christian artist who literally thinks in pictures. When he listens to a preacher or reads something inspiring he doesn’t take notes, he sketches. And he’s got a unique passion – he wants to illustrate the entire Bible. How amazing is that! Here’s one of his works below that he’s given me permission to publish here, called “Word become flesh.” I love the outback theme.

Check out Peter’s home page, and other images, here.

There’s an incredible thing happening in the Australian Christian church. It’s growing.

For anyone who’s followed the annual National Church Life Survey, as I have for years, it’s largely been a depressing affair. Each year the Sydney Morning Herald writes a story about how the mainstream Christian church is declining and become irrelevant. This year was different.

Saturday’s SMH carried this piece by Linda Morris, the paper’s religious affairs writer. It begins: “CHRISTIAN churches are attracting new blood, with up to one-third of all churchgoers recent recruits, but the new messengers of faith are demanding more than passive Sunday worship, a national snapshot of church life shows.”

I believe this is wider recognition of a grassroots revival that’s already taken hold. Christians in this generation in Australia want an authentic faith, not an adopted one. There are two telling paragraphs buried down the bottom of the article:

“More churchgoers say the church experience is one of inspiration, joy, awe and mystery. Higher proportions say they are serving others by visiting the sick and donating to charity.”

“A survey researcher, Dr Ruth Powell, said: “Churches are reclaiming what they said they could always do: to provide meaning and purpose in people’s lives.”

To me, this couldn’t be more encouraging. We’re talking about rediscovering the first principles of the Christian church (as recounted in the Book of Acts). It’s the social gospel. Jesus wasn’t interested in talk for talk’s sake. In arguments about the colour of the church’s carpet. He couldn’t care less about whether we have a Bible reading before or after announcements on a Sunday morning or whether you wore shorts.

A line from the book of James (ch 1:27) springs to mind as I write this (my emphasis): “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” That’s the social gospel.

The National Church Life Survey article was packaged on page 3 by a story about Joel Houston, the frontman for Hillsong United, the youth rock band from Hillsong Church. He’s also the son of senior pastor Brian Houston.

Here’s how he articulated what’s happening in the Christian church, and why the youth have flocked to Hillsong: “What they want is living a life of truth – it’s not about throwing the law down their throat, it’s about saying you have one life to live, but it’s all about loving God and loving others.”

There are some Christians who might argue this sort of quote isn’t strong enough – not emphasising the “saving work of Jesus on the Cross” or some equally confusing jargon open to misinterpretation by people outside the church.

But no, Houston’s got it. People want an authentic faith, and an authentic experience of God. A relationship with a God who is alive. How to discover this relationship and authenticity is fodder for another day. But the point here is there are plenty of people discovering God for the first time. For example, the Houston article itself talks about “record levels” of enrollments at the Baptist Church’s Morling College (where I studied one semester a few years ago, coincidentally).

Curiously enough, the counterpoint to these two stories was located in a different section of the paper called Spectrum, and teased from page 1 of the paper. That story was titled “How God’s soldiers poison the well of life.” (The copy is not on the SMH site because it was a book extract.) The essence of author Christopher Hitchens’ argument is not a new idea: that religion is “to blame” for all of the world’s (read: peoples’) problems. Hitchens’ instead places his faith in all sorts of things like literature, our inquiring minds, and French philosopher Blaise Pascal who said “I am so made that I cannot believe.”

Man, you get depressed reading a story like this – there’s an undercurrent of anger and a perspective on life that’s overwhelmingly negative. The world’s problems are too great, the injustices too large, and “religion” will forever be to blame. As a guiding philosophy and approach to life it feels heavy, and I suspect it takes a lot of energy to stay that mad for the duration of your life.

“The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made,” Hitchens writes.

A great Christian scholar called Ravi Zacharias said something I’ll never forget, and it serves as a great rebuttal here: Christianity is the only religion that man could not have made. Why? Because Christians don’t have to do anything! Instead, we believe. We believe that Jesus died in our place for all of the offences we have caused God since the Garden of Eden. That means we don’t have to earn our place in Heaven. All we have to do is tell God that we believe in Him, we’re sorry for causing our maker offence (sin), and that we believe Jesus died in our place (the penalty for sin) and rose from the dead to prove that he is more powerful than even the worst thing most of us could imagine (death). If Jesus can conquer death, surely nothing else is impossible…

In contrast, every other religion I can think of requires some kind of action on the part of a person in order to achieve its goal (elightenment, peace, etc.) - an offering, a pilgrimmage, sticking to a long list of rules, or taking a bath in a sacred river. Ravi argues that given the fact we are all self-centered, why would we create a religion that at its core takes our own efforts out of the picture?

To wrap this up, here’s another cracking quote from James that provides part of the explanation for the church revival we’re witnessing.

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead,” James 2:26.

Put another way, Christian faith is not authentic unless it is expressed in the social context I’ve highlighted above. As people convert faith into deeds, or action, it helps to deepen that faith.

And finally, another big idea that’s at work here. Christianity gives true freedom. Here we have a counterpoint to the false idea that Christianity is oppressive, or a set of rules that inhibits growth or self-expression. Galatians 5:14 in The Message version of the Bible explains how your faith in God can deliver freedom from negativity and the burdens of life because you put other people first:

“For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.”

Dare I say it again: Hello social gospel!

I’ve been thinking about the concept of love lately. With apologies to Mrs J., it’s not just love in the romantic context.

I’m talking about practical love in the broader relationship sense. How we respond to people and circumstances. The motivations that drive our behaviour in everyday life. How you treat your family, friends, colleagues. Or even your attitude to institutions like the church and politics.

In the book of John (ch 13 vs 34), Jesus is quoted as saying that we are to love each other in the same way that he loved us – or in the context of the narrative, his disciples and the people who were alive when he was on the earth in physical form.

Broadly speaking, Jesus demonstrated love by standing up for injustice, helping those in need (healing the sick), encouraging people to be all that they can be, and ultimately dying on the Cross. Personally, I find that example both inspiring and outright scary. When push came to shove, for example, would I die on behalf of someone? I can confidently say I would do that for my family without hesitation. But others?

To take a step back for a moment, I think it’s probably fair to say that the idea of love is broadly accepted as one of, if not the, highest ideals in society. We all want to be loved, and most of us want to love other people in some fashion.

But let’s face it, as human beings there are times when our actions (regardless of your faith background) betray our commitment to this ideal. And I’ve been reflecting on two reasons why we struggle with the fact that we hurt those that we love, and those we don’t want to love.

The short answer is pride and fear get in the way. There are plenty of examples in the Bible that illustrate this idea: Peter withdrew from his friends because he was afraid of the Jewish Christians (Galatians 2:11-14). The Pharisees in Jesus day set about plotting to kill him because his message undermined their authority and position in the Roman world (John 11: 45-57). They were both proud of their position, and afraid of losing their status.

I can think of many times when I’ve thought myself too important to help someone. Or simply been to afraid of making changes in my life because I could not control the consequences or outcomes. Until fairly recently, I’ve wrestled for years with a fear of what other people might think of me if I said or did the wrong thing.

In both these examples, I’m actually incapable of demonstrating love because either fear or pride either consciously or subconsciously act as inhibitors.

The great irony in all this is the antidote to fear and pride is love itself. If you choose to act in a way that demonstrates love, you actually overcome fear and pride (there’s a reference to this in 1 John 4:18 where “perfect love casts out fear”). It’s easy to write about, but more difficult to put in practice. But for me, it’s been amazing to learn that deciding to love to others in spite of your human instinct to the contrary actually has the positive effect of reducing levels of stress, fear, pride and selfishness that constantly creep into life.

Last night we watched a DVD by Rob Bell, from nooma.com. It’s part of a series of videos that creatively discuss tough questions about the Christian life. One of the ideas tackled in this video called “trees” is that God wants Christians to be involved in activities like social action and the environment. We live in a time “between the trees” – that is, between the tree in the Garden of Eden, and the tree of life that the book of Revelation (ch 22) says will be in Heaven to produce fruit and leaves that will “heal the nations.”

“We live between the trees, in a world drenched in God. And some people seriously ask, you know, ‘Where is God?’ Maybe a better question would be, ’Where isn’t God?” I mean, his fingerprints are all over our world. Or maybe it’s his world and they’re our fingerprints.” Rob Bell

Have you ever said that to someone? 

It’s true, circumstances most often turn out for the best. But when you’re in the middle of a storm – emotional, financial, relational – that statement can suggest you don’t really understand how that person’s really doing, or you just don’t want to deal with it. Been there, said that, on both counts.

I’ve been really challenged by two verses in the Bible that carry this same message.
The first is Philippians chapter 4, verse 6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

When I heard this recently, my first reaction was “yeah, well that’s all very well in theory to simply decide not to be anxious…” Then last Sunday, one of the pastors at my church talked about Matthew 6:25: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” They’re confronting verses – not suggestions, but instructions on how to live life.

I’m feeling qualified to write about worry and stress because over the last three weeks my wife and I sold our house and simultaneously bought another one. Like any real estate story, we’ll be dining out on this experience for years to come. But let me just say as a journalist who spent two years working under the pressure of daily newspaper deadlines, this was a whole new level of stress – I endured four straight nights of near sleeplessness at one point.

So no surprises that I’ve been reading and re-reading the Philippians verse a bit lately. 
The tough thing was that simply deciding not to be stressed was easier said than done.

However, I was encouraged that each passage above offered a promise. Philippians 4:7 says that if we pray, God turns that prayer into peace, and that peace will “guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” That’s God’s way of saying he’ll keep you sane.

Likewise in Matthew 6, it talks about how we shouldn’t worry about what we eat or drink or wear. The problem isn’t that it’s wrong to be mindful of such basics in life, but a question of focus. Verse 33 says: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” So I’ve taken that to mean if God’s our focus, he’ll look after the details.

So in our belief that God wanted us to purchase a certain house, we prayed for all the specific details that would be needed to make it happen (such as minor details like getting a mortgage approved). And guess what, each prayer was answered and we are due to move on June 4. I reckon God’s interested in the details!

I’ll never forget hearing a US preacher tackle this question (via podcast). To paraphrase, he argued faith is the belief in something that has not yet arrived.
You might have faith in your ability to pass an exam, but once you’ve passed that exam you don’t need faith for that any more. You’ve passed. It’s done. Hebrews chapter 11 is good on this one. Verse one says: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

I reckon many of us think of faith as something of a bet, a punt. We “have faith” something will happen, but we still leave room for doubt. We have 80 per cent faith that what we believe is true. Why is that? Is it part of the so-called human condition? We’ve been wrong by so many people, jaded from the harsh realities of life that we just can’t muster the faith in faith itself?

Take a look at Hebrews 11 if you get a moment and there’s a stack of stories about ancient prophets who did what God told them to do, in faith, and God rewarded their faithfulness. Call it tough love, but I suspect God is saying faith isn’t faith unless we believe 100 per cent.

A friend and I were talking over lunch about our different faith backgrounds – I come from the protestant evangelical tradition and she’s Catholic. Naturally enough the subject turned to our perspectives on God.

For many people, their idea of God is based on the cliche God of the Old Testament. Fire and brimstone, and plenty of smiting for those who don’t behave. The angry, unhappy God.

My friend contended that she preferred the God of the New Testament, the loving, merciful, gracious God who forgives. She argued that they must be two different Gods because of the stark contrast. We differ on that point – I believe there has only ever been and will ever be the one true God who created everything.

And so that got me thinking about my God. My God is the God of both Testaments, the loving God and the jealous God (jealous in the “I love my wife, back off man” kind of way).

The conversation reminded me of a Bible verse that God brought to the attention of my wife and I back in January – it’s a promise that we are believing every day this year.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future and a hope,” Jeremiah 29:11.

The lesson for me was that the God of the ages isn’t out to smite me. It’s taken a long time to learn that one, and to believe that He’s creating a great future. So I’m really excited about the future – that’s why I’ve started this blog. For me it’s something of a public diary, and I hope you also find it encouraging. Welcome.