Opinions

Why the Kitschy “God’s Not Done with Me Yet” Is the Most Profound Truth You’ll Encounter Today

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It starts with a girl, because for many a guy, that’s where life lessons often begin.

I’d known her for years, but one day she took me into the off-limits basement of her home to show me a secret. There sat her dad, engineer’s hat in place, surrounded by his model train “kingdom.”

I say kingdom because the spread was impressive, perhaps 20 feet by 15, and from his perch, her dad controlled it all. Multiple trains, switches, throttles, and on and on. You could tell by the look on his face: He loved this hobby.

And nothing on those tracks escaped him. He knew the beginning, end, and everything in-between.

This imagery comes back to me because I continue to think we all need some perspective about perspective.

It bothers me greatly to see America descending into factions so imprisoning that no one seems capable of understanding anyone else. Soon, the verbal sparring turns into questions of an opponents’ intelligence, and all parties retreat to their corners still attempting murder with words.

We have become a people with no ability to step outside ourselves and to inhabit another person’s perspective. Worse, we question the other person’s motives, without any understanding of that person’s past, upbringing, hurts, joys, or hidden beliefs.

One of the sad realities I see played out online every day consists of the “enlightened” Christian believer tearing to shreds the novice. The sage must publicly destroy the naïf to show not only the sage’s wisdom but also to defend the honor of God against fools, regardless of how much punishment the supposed fool must endure and its personal cost.

And because pounding idiots into the dust is fun.

But it shouldn’t be.

You see, God is not done with any of us yet. Each of us is made in the image of God, yet we are all marred by sin. In our current form, we are flawed, but God can reshape us as He will. And He promises He will if we let Him.

When you and I encounter another human soul, we see a slice of a life, a moment in another’s journey. We do not see the departure from the gate, nor the arrival at the final destination.

But Father God watches over it all. Like my friend’s dad, He is the celestial engineer who knows the entirety of the track and all that is possible on the journey. He stands apart from time and sees the beginning, the end, and everything in-between. To Him, no surprises are possible, and the ultimate journey of each passenger He knows down to the second.

But only the Father knows.

The Bible says this:

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
—Colossians 3:3-4 ESV

Not only can we not know another’s life, we cannot even know our own. We do not know the future. We incorrectly process the past. And we don’t see at all the workings of God in our inmost person. Our life truly is hidden in Him.

But He sees everything.

Which is why it’s such foolishness for any person to presume superiority over any other. We see a fleeting slice of another’s life, but if we try to draw suppositions from that slice, chances are we will miss the truth entirely. We critique another, and the criticism is based on vapor. If each of us cannot comprehend even our own thoughts and lives correctly, how can we be assured of anything about another’s life, especially as to where that person might be in the journey?

Each of us is a clay pot in God’s hands. The final form we take is not up to us but to God:

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
—Isaiah 29:16b ESV

But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
—Isaiah 64:8 ESV

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel….”
—Jeremiah 18:1-6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
—Philippians 1:6 ESV

Potter & clayUltimately, if we rashly condemn another believer in Jesus and deem him or her inadequate by our standard, we presume to judge God’s working in that person’s life. We stand in judgement over God Himself, questioning His sanctification, His timing, and His thoroughness.

This does not mean that if we think that young woman over there is about to throw her life away or that elderly man is slandering someone without cause that we cannot make a judgment in that moment, one that might demand we intervene or correct.

But what we cannot do is write them off or think that they are outside of God’s redemption. If we do, then we presume to play engineer and to see all of the track, every train, switch, tree, hill, co-passenger, and all beginnings, middles, and endings. Or in the potter’s case, we question the artistry, the process, and the outcome. We commit the sin of the Garden. We attempt to strip God of His title and instead enthrone ourselves in His place as the engineer or potter.

Each one of us is in process. What you see in me now is neither who I was or who I will become. The same for you.

For the Christian, the journey is to make us more like Jesus. It’s an effort God undertakes but never completes this side of heaven. Much now is hidden. Only when the End comes, and Christ who is our life appears, will all be revealed.

Let’s not break the bruised reed or quench the smoldering wick. Instead, let us partner with God in the journey, whether it’s our journey or another’s. Let’s trust Him that He knows what He is doing in the lives of you, me, and everyone.

God’s not finished with any of us yet.

5 Reasons Christians Need to “Stifle It” (and #6 Will Change Your Life)

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I’ve come to the point that I no longer care about what happens in cultural evangelicalism. I walked away from evangelicalism years ago, frustrated with the direction of the movement. I guess this is the natural end point of that walking away.

My leaving, however, is not even a blip on the radar. No one cares. And why should they?

Since I’m pushing rapidly toward geezerdom, I remember the ’70s-era TV show All in the Family. Opinionated loudmouth Archie Bunker would shoot down wife Edith’s insights by telling her to “stifle it.” And people would laugh.

Archie BunkerBut as I look around the Internet, I see plenty of indicators that evangelicals need to take Archie’s advice and stifle it lest they become Archie Bunkers themselves. The Internet has become a gossip-fest, where too many Christians feel compelled to blather on about the latest scandal in the Christian community, whether it’s a real scandal or not. We must let others know just how a mature Christian views such goings on. We must.

I’ve been casually noticing the neo-Calvs cannibalize each other this past summer, culminating in one of their most famous members torn to pieces recently by former friends and supporters. The talk and speculation are crazed. It’s a nonstop train wreck, all of it, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think it makes us stronger.

We’ve become obsessed with celebrity Christians on the national stage, especially pastors, and their rightness or wrongness. We jump into cultural and racial conversations to inject supposedly Christian ideals, only they’re not all that Christian, and their lack of winsomeness makes us look horrible. We comment without facts. We talk without sense. We go on and on spouting myths. half-truths, and outright stupidity. We spew words about situations we know absolutely nothing about, and yet we think we’re worthy of enshrining on a panel for Meet the Press, Christian Edition, because we are so “wise.”

It’s foolishness writ large and in public. And nearly all of it does nothing but dishonor the Lord.

More than at any time in recent memory, I think we American Christians need a real self-check about how opinionated we’ve become. I know that’s an opinion in itself, but nonetheless, I think we would all be better off if we pulled out of all the online discourse and took a couple months off from making sure everyone knows what we think about _______.

One of the reasons that Cerulean Sanctum has been quiet goes beyond just my change in work. A good chunk of it is because I’m disgusted by online discourse. Everyone talks past everyone else, and there is little reasoned discussion. Worse, we seem to be investing huge amounts of emotional energy into conversations that have no Kingdom benefit—none. It’s just windbagdom, and it’s cruel, without love, and pompous to the nth degree.

Did you catch the title of this post? It’s SEO gold—at least the theory of it is. We’re sucked into this kind of thing on the Web, and it doesn’t help the situation. We feel we must comment. If a celebrity Christian’s name is attached, all the better.

Can we stifle it? Please? Does anyone else see how pathetic our discourse has become? Is my expressing my golden words the reason Jesus died? Is it critical to for everyone to know what you or I think about Pastor ________? Or about our government? Or about race relations in some town we’ve never visited? Or who is liberal and who is not? Or our thoughts on the sex lives of celebrities? Or why some actor killed himself? Or? Or? Or…?

Really?

Honestly, I’m at a point where I’ve stopped caring. We’re becoming blowhards talking our own smack. Time for all of us to wake up and get a life.

Attack of the Online “Prophets”

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Ad hominem abusive.

If you don’t know what that means, here’s the ever-convenient Wikipedia with the answer:

An ad hominem (Latin for “to the man” or “to the person”), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Fallacious ad hominem reasoning is normally categorized as an informal fallacy, more precisely as a genetic fallacy,  a subcategory of fallacies of irrelevance. Ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, for example, when it relates to the credibility of statements of fact.
—Wikipedia entry for ad hominem

I’ve been on the Internet from before it was the Internet. Back in my earlier days at Carnegie Mellon University, I would send emails to a friend at MIT using the old ARPANET defense network, which evolved into the modern Internet. How long ago was this? Well, the smiley emoticon was “invented” at CMU during my tenure as a student.

So, I’ve watched the Internet grow up.

Sad to say, but I think that as the Internet grew up, the people who used it didn’t. And this brings us back to that Latin phrase above and its definition.

I don’t know what has happened in recent years, but I’m seeing an increase in ad hominem attacks online. The worst part of this is the attacks often come from Christians.

A fictional, but true to form, example:

ScourgePerson A : “Yes, you need to love people in Jesus’ name, but you can’t excuse their sin. Love them, but call them to repentance too.”

Person B : “Clearly, you are a legalistic fool who doesn’t know the Lord. Jesus is love. Love is all that matters—and you would know that if you truly know Him. But you don’t. I bet a Pharisee like you has never loved anyone except yourself.”

That’s what passes for discourse and an engagement of ideas, and I’m seeing it more and more on Christian websites.

Beyond the fact of ad hominem‘s status as a logical fallacy unworthy of use in debates and discussions, it’s the faux prophetic attitude of people that bothers me greatly. Too many Christians are presuming to know the spiritual condition of another person with whom they converse online, but without having met that person or read anything else that person may have written. Instead, ad hominem attacks often come out at the first interaction.

At the risk of being accused of an ad hominem attack myself, I must say that this borders on divination. Really. Because the ad hominem user is not only NOT being loving toward a fellow believer, he or she is claiming to scry out the spiritual condition of the other person, as if doing a fortune teller’s “cold reading.”

Folks, we can’t do this. Ever.

Online discourse is in a race to the lowest common denominator. When people who claim to be Christians drop words like unbeliever or heretic almost as a reflex in reference to others online, they run a great risk of sin—and in a public space for lost people to note. We’re the light of the world. If our discourse is filled with negative “prophetic” statements about other people we engage in cyberspace, then that light becomes darkness. Then we scratch our heads when other people say, “No, I don’t want anything to do with your Jesus or your Christian religion.”

If we’re going to be online and discussing difficult topics, engage ideas. Challenge concepts. Dismantle erroneous thinking.

But don’t dismantle people. And for the sake of your own soul, don’t attempt to play diviner into someone else’s spiritual state, especially when that perceived foe states nothing online that would serve as fodder for such pronouncements.