Church Issues

On the Brink of a Quantum Singularity with Calvin and Arminius

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Last year, the well-known physicist Stephen Hawking admitted he was wrong about one of his pet theories concerning black holes. In the rarefied academic air, this amounted to a near recanting of biblical proportions. But Hawking’s admitting that his formulas can’t accurately describe what takes place in the physics world within a black hole was no death knell for his career. The truth is, no one has been able to accurately describe what happens on the brink of a quantum singularity.

If you don’t already know, black holes form when very large stars die and collapse in upon themselves, creating an incredibly dense piece of matter—a quantum singularity—whose mass is so enormous that it warps the fabric of space itself into a giant, nearly bottomless well. If you’ve ever seen one of those parabolic coin games where you roll a coin along the edge and it progressively travels in tighter and tighter circles until finally falling into a hole at the end of the funnel, then you’ve seen the basics of a black hole at work. Once matter gets trapped beyond a certain point of the black hole’s tug of gravity (the “event horizon”), that matter, be it dust or even a massive star, can’t escape the gravity grip of the singularity, in the process possibly being totally destroyed even down to the subatomic level.

Physicists for years have tried to explain the physics behind black holes and their singularities with astonishingly little success. The problem is that all the physics we hold dear (from Einstein’s relativity theories to Maxwell’s equations) cease to work the closer one gets to a quantum singularity. Physicists see cracking the physics behind a black hole as one of the true Holy Grails in physics. Whoever manages to do it will join the pantheon of greats right up there with Albert E. himself.

This brings us to John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius.

You’ve probably heard those names tossed about if you’ve been a Christian longer than a year or two. Both of these men proffered different takes on the “quantum singularity” of Christian theology, how people technically come to (and stay with) Christ.

Let’s take a look at the basics of each:

Five Points of Arminianism

  • Conditional Election – Election is based on the faith or belief of men.
  • Universal Atonement – The atonement is for all, but only believers enjoy its benefits.
  • Saving Faith – Man, unaided by the Holy Spirit, is unable to come to God.
  • Resistible Grace – The drawing of the Holy Spirit can be resisted.
  • Uncertainty of Preservation – This doctrine was left open to inquiry.

Five Points of Calvinism

  • T = Total Depravity – Man is completely a sinner, without any hope of helping himself.
  • U = Unconditional Election – God elected saints to salvation when they had no merit at all. God did not look down upon the earth and see some sinners believing, therefore elected them to salvation, but He looked down upon the earth, and saw all were sinners, therefore elected some to salvation.
  • L = Limited Atonement – The atonement is limited to the elect.
  • I = Irresistible Grace – It is impossible for a sinner to resist salvation once the Holy Spirit begins drawing him.
  • P = Preservation – A saved person will be saved forever, and will live a holy and Godly life.

(Thanks to Pastor Wayne Reynolds for the quick overviews of Calvinism and Arminianism.)

These two streams of belief divide the Protestant world almost in half (there are other belief systems that don’t adhere perfectly to either stream, but they are not majority groups.) Most American denominations that arose out of the Second Great Awakening follow Arminianism and, technically at least, are the Evangelicals we hear so much about. Churches like The Assemblies of God or Methodists are representative. The “Old Line” Presbyterian or Reformed churches are Calvinist, but have muddied the water by occasionally assuming the title “Evangelical” in order to sound like they are up to date with the rest of the Protestant churches out there.

These two streams have slugged it out for a long time. Interestingly enough, the blogosphere is becoming a battleground for these two points of view, with blogrolls developing that highlight bloggers who ascribe to one view or another. I have read so many blog posts lately that can be condensed to “Only Calvinism is Truth” that I have lost count. Anyone who has stumbled into such a debate can attest to the viciousness that often results in defense of one position or another.

Now comes the point in this post where I alienate every single one of my readers.

A physicist like Stephen Hawking is brilliant enough to be able to describe the way virtually all of the universe works from a physics standpoint. He can tell you how it is possible to hit a kilometer-wide target on a moving planet, something NASA does effortlessly (most of the time). He can tell you how gravity works, and light, and the weak force, and electromagnetism…in short, virtually everything we know about how the universe works, he can explain. But he can’t explain what happens on the brink of a quantum singularity.

Likewise, I wonder if John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius are not in the same bind as Hawking when it comes to theology. I contend that perhaps what Calvin and Arminius are trying to describe are the edges of where Jesus wants His true followers to be. It is possible I think, that God never intended us to be hanging out at the brink of the theological quantum singularity Calvin and Arminius address.

Another way of looking at this: If you have teenagers or have ever worked with them, you know that on the issue of sex it is inevitable that you will get asked the question, “Well, how far is too far?” Wise people understand that this is actually the wrong question, but the kids don’t. I suspect that this may be the case in the Calvin/Arminius debate, too.

Take a look at the issue of Preservation of the Saints, for instance. Arminians typically believe it may be possible to wander away from God and lose one’s salvation. Calvinists would argue that this is impossible, contending that if such a thing were to happen the original nature of a person’s “conversion” would be suspect.

But isn’t this like the black hole issue? Jesus calls us to be His disciples and the point of being a disciple is to stay at the Master’s feet, not to toy around with “How far can I wander away and still be saved?” Nor is it a matter of saying, “I can get away with just about anything because He won’t cast me out.” Don’t we see how both of those are skirting the edges of where we need to be as disciples? Those are “brink of the quantum singularity” thoughts—not where the Lord wants us to focus. Sadly, a lot of people get sucked out of the rest of the Christian universe and get stuck at the event horizon of such ideas, forever trapped by the power of one stream or the other. This results in a great number of causalities out there in the pews.

We all know people who have been crushed by their struggles at the brink of this theological quantum singularity. But there is a whole universe of faith as a disciple where those forces don’t have to tug us down a hole. In truth, they may very well be moot points for a person who seeks only to please the Lord in all he or she does.

Ours is a love relationship with the Lord of the Universe. This is more important than the mechanisms that get us there and keep us there. Discipleship is like a marriage between Christ and the disciple—divorce is out of the question and the engagement is merely a formality once the marriage is consummated. We can’t live like the man who asked to bury to his parents, or the one who looks back over his shoulder at what is being left behind.We simply cannot live at the brink; true disciples want to be in the center of the Lord’s will. We do what the Lord asks and are content in doing so.

And maybe that is where the Lord would prefer we all be.

I know this is a contentious issue. R.C. Sproul is probably already scratching my name off his mailing list. So if you have comments, please feel free to leave them—with all humility and love for the brethren, of course. (In other words, take a deep breath and count to ten before you post!)

“Judgmental Christians” and The Way of Christ for 2005

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I have been thinking quite a bit the last week about why we Christians are being progressively labeled “judgmental.” It is a word that seems to erupt out of the very fabric of society, smothering the voice of Christians in the public square, and offering a sanctuary for those who openly oppose, do not understand, or simply do not care to comprehend Christianity.

This is not a political blog, nor do I like mixing politics and the Christian faith. Too many Christian blogs and Web sites inextricably link the two and I wish to avoid that. Still, since politics is so critical a means of expression for many of those who do not side with Christian thought, it is a necessity to speak about this issue with some level of politics involved.

We live in an age when people are defined by what they are for or against. Nihilistic postmodernism has created an odd human, though, who seems to be more “against” than “for.” This last year drove that point home. Many politically-charged people argued vehemently against some person or issue, but when pressed were unable to articulate what they were actually for, or how to make the reverse of the thing they were against a reality. When the political season had run its course, we saw in those same people a new psychosis labeled “Post-election Stress & Trauma Syndrome” or (amusingly—no matter which side you are on) “PESTS.” This syndrome manifested in those who were largely against many things, but once they had wound up on the losing side of politics were unable to cope with the fact that their “against-ness,” once broken, left them nothing to be for. Their subsequent bout with PESTS being the natural outcome of having no positive ideas apart from their negative ones, they lived solely out of their anger toward what they are against.

When Christians spoke into the public square this year, the “judgmental” label was tossed around with abandon. I cannot ever remember hearing the word “judgmental” attached to Christians more than I did this year. Being a presidential election year surely made some of that true, but I think another force is at work here. It is the force of postmodern nihilism, the very heart of PESTS, and the core of what is left in people who dwell solely on the negative.

2004 will be remembered as the year in which postmodernism reached full flower. With its blooming comes a time when what we are for and against can no longer be assigned values (at least in the minds of proponents of postmodernism.) Relativism, so inherent in postmodern thought, has resulted in this resurgence of nihilism. That bleak outlook on life informed much of the discussion in politics this year. What the new Nietzsches accomplished in 2004’s discourse was to successfully stigmatize anyone who was actually for something, rather than being merely against something.

As a people who are defined by what (and who, especially) we are for, Christians drew the most attacks. Unable to understand that a worldview exists that does not merely state what it is against, postmodern voices in the public square operating solely out of a negative worldview successfully used the “judgmental” tag to label all opponents to their cause, opponents who actually stood for an issue. Nine times out of ten the ones labeled were Christians.

We should recognize this twisting. It is the same force that brands love “hate” and calls truth a “lie.” While this affords us Christians the proof we need that the world is hellbent on our destruction, we should not wear this with pride, but humility. We should not counter this opposition with noses in the air, but should instead become more humble in our recognition that the light of Christ only shows the darkness to be what it is. And we know how Mankind loves darkness.

In 2005 I believe we will see this labeling by those on the other side of Christ intensify. While we recognize the spiritual battle, our response should always be one of Christ the Servant. Our enemies are conquered by the burning coals they heap on themselves when we serve them out of true love. Our reminder for this year is to seek first the way of love while holding true to what is good, noble, and pure. No concession is needed to be what Christ has called us to be, but neither should we forget that the servant heart is what overcomes the world. For this coming year let us remember to always seek the way of servant love so that our enemies have nothing they can hold against us. We may never depart the judgmental label, but our enemies will look all the more foolish for using it.

Blessings for 2005.

The Curse of Monasticism Reborn

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No sooner do I get done writing a far-between post noting how my posts have been far-between while I work on finishing up my novel, and offering up a link elsewhere to ponder just to prove the point, God grabs ahold of me and makes me write this.

I wonder if we are creating a new monasticism.

The Reformation drove a stake into the separatist mentality that is the core of monasticism, proving that the Gospel belongs out among the people, out in our communities, villages, towns, and cities. It was a call to leave the ivory towers and get one's hand dirty out in the "real" world. And not only that, it called Christians to be pillars in their communities, villages, towns, and cities, to have a real presence that brought Christ into the marketplace of ideas.

The True Light cannot be hid in us who cherish Him, so the Reformers told us to get out from under our bushels and shine. They taught that Christianity was not to be a religion of disconnection, but a relationship with Christ who gathers us in a Body and dwells amid that Body—a Body centered in our local communities.

This is why I wonder about the current moves going on in the American Church. There is a gung-ho attitude toward small groups, house churches, and select meetings of a few outside the large church assemblies. It is good that we think about those types of groups and consider their impact.

However, in a day and age when fractionalization and withdrawing from community are the norm are we Christians missing the bigger picture by de-emphasizing large assemblies while heaping praise on smaller groups?

My wife and I spent much of this year searching for a new church. More than three years ago, we moved an hour's drive away from our old church while continuing to go there. The outcome of this was that we did not plug into the village we lived in because our church was fifty miles away. Having one foot in the community we lived in and one in our community of faith many miles away meant that neither found a connection to the other. In the end, both were diminished.

Yet it is more than just a distance issue. It may also be a numbers issue. The church that we have landed in near our home has about four hundred people in it. That winds up being four hundred connections into our local village. That's four hundred reinforcements to a presence in town AND four hundred reinforcements to our community of faith.

A small group cannot do that. A house church cannot do that, either. When we wonder why we feel disconnected in our own communities, perhaps this is why. Neglecting our presence in our towns and villages in numbers that reinforce rather than divide is ushering in a new monasticism. We find ourselves cut off from the world at large and also cut off from the Church at large. Dwelling in this limbo, we gut our effectiveness not only to reach new people with the Gospel, but to enjoy relationships with a wide variety of people, relationships that have Kingdom potential ranging from a simple "God bless you!" to the clerk at the local grocery store to a deep discipleship relationship with a new believer at our church.

Synergy is also lost. It is one thing to cast the seed everywhere we go, but how much more effective can we be when we repeatedly cast it right where we live? The compounding of this synergy repeated four hundred times every day by the folks in our new church can also not be overlooked. A new monasticism cripples this kind of synergy, diluting its effectiveness.

One of the first verses I ever felt God illumined in me is this one:

As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
—Isaiah 55:10

God's word does not return void. In some people it is like rain, soaking into the soil of a barren heart, that rain finally giving nourishment to the seed there. In others, it is like snow, piling up and up until something warms it, causing it to melt and seep into the soil.

When we Christians spread ourselves thin or withdraw into little groups, the storm is lost, and the blizzard is reduced to a mere frost.

There is something to be said for churches between two hundred and a thousand people. A church that size allows us to know the ones with whom we fellowship. It also can take a people of one mind and cause a storm in the towns and villages in which we live. And lastly, it affords us connections into those same towns and villages that allow us to be a vital part of their livelihood rather than just listing them as a place where we get our mail.

People wonder why we feel disconnected from the people who live right next door to us. They ask why our churches seem to be so ineffective, too. Perhaps our monastic mentality is the cause.

God helps us break out of our ivory towers and get out among the people, both those who know the Lord and those who hope one day to know. Let us be a vital presence in our local communities, bringing the Gospel Light into all we do. And let us also be the beneficiaries of the connections we forge immediately around us, to our neighbors, and to the community at large. Always for Your glory and Your Kingdom. Amen.