Excursion Into Atheism Has Failed-first part

Obsessive-compulsive is a hard habit to break.

In addition to watching William Lane Craig and other Christian apologists, I recently became dubiously addicted to watching Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other atheists on YouTube.  Why?  Just fleshly, I guess.

I was actually toying with the idea of what life would be like without any concept of God.

"Traitor! Defector!" I can just hear the cries now.

But I learned some things as I watched and noted everything with Asperger's-level ferocity.

1.  Some atheists began as Christians who never went deep enough with God, in all his offices, and with a life-changing result.

2.  Others were burned by people in the church, and in their anger, went to skeptical scholarship to confirm what they had already decided was a farce.

3.  Atheists like to begin at the beginning with Genesis, and debunk each story in the Bible.  But theoretically, they would hate on every page, through all 66 books.  Don't they see the futility of it all?  How could a mere man write all those "offensive stories" back to back? The paradox of it all seems like it should awaken faith, as the emotions tire of sore hatred, and the promise of the Seed of Abraham unfolds to comfort the soul.

4.  Virtually all atheists make the same mistake as they consider matters of religious faith, and often the Christian apologists follow them down the same hole:  The mind is tool which is to be used to receive truth, but the affair does not end with the mind.  Both atheists and Christians can put up some astute arguments for their positions, and there are many eminent scholars from both camps.  But I have never heard a skeptic convinced by a debate. In this regard,  the Enlightenment reaches further than many have anticipated.  Debating on the plausibility of faith or lack thereof misses the point that God is a person, and therefore implies a relationship.  Information about a relationship doesn't save you.  Reconciliation to a Person does.

5. From my own personal experience, relational dysfunction has a way of warping the perceptions of the mere mortal parties.  We tend to attribute negative motives and characteristics to persons we do not like, regardless of how much good information we hear about them. This determines more political elections than we care to admit.  It is the same with the faithless.  They really do not like God, and therefore they harp on all the things they they hear that they don't like--this accounts for the "through the Bible" tirade they carry out.

6.  Faith is a pre-condition of the mind's operation, and consists in a positive posture toward the object of faith.  The mind chooses in the direction of it's desire.  In this way, it is the pre-existing condition of verbal affirmations of God and his truth.  Therefore, my problem is a cold heart, and that is an emergency before the attending Physician of heaven.  

Even after my confession to God for my faithlessness and the attending joy, I realize the battle may have only begun.  There will be more assaults on faith in God via stress, disappointment, human flesh, Satan's activity, and last but not least, relationship problems on a human level.  But the struggle did not succeed in pulling me away to a faithless position--and that is encouraging.  It reminds me of the Eagles song:  "Every time I try to walk away...something makes me turn around and stay."

I guess that means one of the things that has to happen in 2011 is a vital connection to the church local and catholic.

1 Corinthians 16 and the Collection

In 1 Corinthians 16, we have an opening discussion of Paul's instruction to the Corinthians, regarding the collection.  The gift called for is to be stored up in keeping personal prosperity, on Saturday night for Sunday.  It is to be collected from all God's people for all God's people.   It is best to see this chapter as being about gifts, not about money. 

By the way, here is an antidote to the problems created by the preacher preaching about money.

1.  To those who say the preacher is merely trying to get a gift, we say some are, but the best preach on all subjects, and talk about the heart when they talk about giving.

2.  To those who say the church exists on alms and think that a cheap shot, we say who else is going to feed the preacher?

3.  To those who say "if God is all powerful and all sufficient, why does he need all this money," we say he doesn't, but people always give freely where their heart is.

4.  To those who think they won't have enough if they give, we say He is able to supply all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. 

Personal application of 1 Cor 15 and Resurrection

I Cor. 15 is saying that not only is there a literal. bodily resurrection in the future for the believer, but that a believer's resurrection is dependent on Christ's resurrection.  If we have  been united with him in his death, we shall also be united with him in his resurrection.  For Christ to rise and we not rise would violate the pattern of both our connection with the humanity of Christ, and our partaking of the divine nature. 


The resurrection of Christ, and the future resurrection of the believer have very practical implications for this life.  In verse 58 is the summation:  " Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain."  Even when this involves vexing physical danger "What do I gain, humanly speaking, if I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, if the dead are not raised. 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die'" (v. 32). 

Oh my my is the Word of God relevant!  The eating and drinking referred to here cannot be taken to mean necessary food, but a consumptive lifestyle that lives for selfish hedonism.  I guess then, that this would be a good test of spirituality; If I am incessantly thinking about what I am going to eat and drink, it indicates that I do not practically believe in the future resurrection "For tomorrow we die." 

But what hold does this food and drink have if I believe that the cross of Christ deals with all the justice the a sinner's sin ever demanded, and that he rose again, and loves with a supreme, forgiving love that does not count men's trespasses against them?  Then I look to him and ask him "What will you have me do?"  At that point, it seems silly as well as sinful to live with a flesh-feeding orientation, locked into a sort of spiritual autism that needs stimming to constantly feel happy. 

Interpreting You: A Poem About David

Snatched from the jaws
of being common
Autism's reputation
shattered by the smile that puts more of life
together than puzzle pieces

When you hop
it's like a calf leaping from the stall
Only the stall is long gone
but the hop remains
I think you dance before the Lord
like your namesake
and you remind us
that the joy must move the body
or the joy is not

Even the howl
speaks of the creation
subjected to frustration
awaiting the routine
of the everlasting rest
without change like shifting shadows

The sacred words you memorized
make you mighty
more mighty than earth's greatest sage
Happy is the man who hears
more wisdom in the rigid voice
than all the schools of knowledge muster

The walk you take
for your middle namesake
Enoch walked with God
and God walks beside us
You show that no one takes one step
to heaven's spacious estate
Many steps intervene
to prove they shall walk and not faint
before the entropic world

So you speak
more than your words display
You appeal
in a language few appreciate
thus far we must say
In this way you remind
of the new song the redeemed sing
only veiled but for now

Home School Vision for 2010-2011 Year

As the new year of home school dawns, here is my vision:

To know what my kids are studying at all times. (Ephesians 6:4)

To give physical, emotional and spiritual support to my wife the teacher as never before seen. (Ephesians 5)

To rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15)

To let love and faithfulness never leave me (Proverbs 3:3)

To show patience (as it has been shown to me) (Proverbs 19:11)

To protect my children from evil thinking patterns (Phillipians 4:8)

Corinthian Conversation III: First Corinthians 5 Is Not About Sex?

That is what Josh Moody says about I Corinthians 5 and the man having his father's wife.

We actually had a Bible study about this chapter today while a respite worker tended to Dave.  Yes, I said  "sex" around my 12-year old son and younger daughter.  It is in the Bible.  Things seemed to be going a little slow in the study until my wife paraphrased the situation of the Corinthians' boasting and tolerating the blatant sin for my five-year old girl.  That broke it open like a sack of grain.

What I believe we need to understand from this chapter is that God is very serious about sin.  Church discipline is a real deal.  And the attitude the Corinthians should have had toward this man is something like:  "Ok, you are out of our protection, and back to the world you love so much.  But we pray that having come up against your sin, as rubbed in by being in Satan's playground, you will repent, and join us in heaven forever."  But for now, you are out.  The Church is more important than endorsing your corrupt lifestyle."  Pretty psychologically incorrect, huh.

What is the message for those not particularly involved in blatant sin?  Don't go there.  God wields a mighty sword.  And we do not want to be found as Satan's victims under God's sovereign control.  But the way to avoid it is not to get all white-knuckled and resist with will-power.  It is to stay on the narrow road fenced in by the justice of God on one side, and the mercy and grace of the Passover Lamb, Christ, on the other.

Being at a good church, then, is not a religious ritual, it is the very place where the help to stay on this path lies.

Thought As We Open March

The best way to see the reality of your faith is to repeatedly commit acts of it.