Replacing God, Part 3: Computing Pi

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Call me a Trekkie if you will (I’m not), but the theme of a certain episode has stuck with me for fifty-plus years. The starship Enterprise had been hijacked by interstellar bad guys, who pulled off the heist, remotely, by hacking the ship’s computer. Now, here’s where the old guy explains to a younger generation how it used to be. A Star Trek viewer in 1960-something would have seen no dilemma in this plot – pull the plug on Computer, turn the dang thing off, and drive the ship where you want to go. To set up the tension, a new idea had to be introduced, namely that all the ship’s systems – propulsion, nav’s, weapons, comm’s – were integrated through Computer. Now we have a problem. Enterprise is doing loop-de-loops and blasting innocent life forms while the crew sit helplessly in their swivel chairs. Consternation abounds.

     You might think I’m about to go anti-technology here, or at least urge caution about putting all of one’s digital eggs in one basket – and I might have, if I weren’t compelled to do something else instead. Step with me back into Gene Roddenberry’s world for a moment…

     Spock, of course, was the one who found a solution by finding a way to give Computer one command: “Computer, compute Pi to the last decimal place.” Off goes Computer on its impossible task, with no capacity for running the ship’s systems. Opening the book to the section on Manual Mode, Scotty got his engines back, Uhura her comm’s, and Sulu his weapons (or was that Chekov?… remember, I’m no Trekkie). To close out the episode, Spock levels his eyebrows and Kirk swivels around one more time to order a new course – oh, and for the bad guys, a photon torpedo to remember him by (I totally made up that last part).

     In the spirit of the day, I’ll present the solution as the problem. Spock set the computer to a task that would render it useless for its designed purposes. In dealing with the first two humans, the serpent in the garden of Eden did much the same, presenting options that had no basis in reality. With no means to deliver on the deal, he offered God’s place of authority to Adam and Eve – just eat the fruit and you’ll figure it out, wink/wink. Since then, as surprised as anyone that such a silly plan could actually work, the serpent (who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world… Revelation 12:9) has co-opted humans into the scheme – human-on-human deception – which is where we are at the moment.

     From the apostle Paul’s perspective, he had a very specific goal in mind, writing to the Colossian Christians, and that was to cooperate with God in rescuing a segment of humanity from a tendency toward the unreal…

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ (Colossians 2:1-5).

     Notice, Paul didn’t waste time cautioning them against outlandish arguments, but plausible ones. What would have been a plausible argument in the first century AD? There were various movements about, and Paul spoke against some; but here’s the deal: Yesterday’s outlandish is today’s plausible.

     I was a kid once. Even then it wasn’t easy. Maybe life was simpler then, but all the big stuff still had to be figured out – who am I, and what the heck am I doing here? As a homely, overweight, pimple-faced teenager, I definitely wanted to be something else. Unreal, invalid options existed then, but not to the extent they do now: add another letter, pile up the adjectives and adverbs. The very arguments that diligent and caring Christians would have sought to counsel against, in times past, now bear the force of civil law – yesterday’s plainly hollow and baseless argument is today’s plausible. And the pace is quickening. If the goal is to derail a person from his or her designed purposes, I’ve encountered no more effective tactic than setting that person to the impossible task of picking something other than his or hers.

     We owe it to one another to cling to reality. And we owe it to anyone who is caught up in “computing Pi”. We’ll have to heed the apostle’s instruction ourselves, to continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven (Colossians 1:23) and to let the peace of Christ rule in (our) hearts, to which indeed (we) were called in one body (3:15). Faithful followers of Jesus are meant to be a lifeline in the swirling chaos of invalid options.

     Mr. Roddenberry had it made: he could turn the plot any way he wanted, could invent a chink in the adversary’s armor and a Spock to strike it. We, on the other hand, deal in what’s already real. We will have to struggle for one another as Paul struggled for the Colossians. Though the world runs headlong in its efforts to replace God and wreck humanity, we mustn’t be drawn into the rush, but rather stand on solid reality, offering a way out of the unreal.

  

Grace and Peace (and phasers set no higher than Stun),

 

John

Replacing God, Part Two: First Hypothesis

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     In keeping with our commitment to scientific method, here’s the question I posed last week: Is the current wave of humanism the latest big push to replace God? It’s time to make some observations and form a hypothesis.

     A mature Christian man said to me once, “Remember, John, God will never interfere with man’s free will.” My reply: “Whose idea was that?”

     Even Christians struggle with the idea of humans not being the uppermost link in the chain of command. What chance does the rest of the world stand, without the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10), and without the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16)? God is the only ultimate context. Human sovereignty has boundaries, all of which are established by God and exist within his sovereignty. It was all his idea and doing. Ironically, Christians see this as a problem rather than an opportunity, and non-Christians are unable to even see it as a possibility.

     Observe, first, how many of today’s red-hot cultural issues have to do with what God decided and no human had a choice in: gender, race, family of origin, or whether a child, once conceived, should ever see the light of day. When humans decide to invent options where options don’t exist, it sets up a scenario so colorfully described by my late ex-brother-in-law, Tom: “Bad (bleep) happens real fast.”

     Question: Is the current wave of humanism the latest big push to replace God?

Hypothesis: Yep.

     Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that God invites people into the decision making process, but then we buck up when we bump into the limits he set. A casual reading of Genesis reveals a profound truth: the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground (2:7)… and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it (2:15). When Adam’s plan for the garden deviated from God’s plan, Eden didn’t change to suit Adam – Adam got booted from Eden (see 3:23). Never once has man’s plan outranked God’s, however much we may like to think so. And even now, God issues countless invitations to work with him in creation and humanity, and what we want most often is exactly what we can’t have: the top spot.

     There was a false teaching loose in the church at Colossae in the first century AD. Scholars will differ as to its precise details, but essentially the Colossian Christians were up against much the same movement as we are now: an effort to usurp authority from God by pretending people could make ultimate decisions in creation. The apostle Paul warned his readers: See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8). If anyone is serious about wanting to know what to do with the earth and the inhabitants thereof, there is a source who stands ready to answer any and all questions.

     The humanist tactic, which stands in opposition to asking Christ, comes in two stages: first, to overstate mankind’s contribution to a problem, and second, to grossly overstate mankind’s ability to provide a solution. It runs parallel with the devil’s favorite tactic. That first deceiver came into the garden with an option that didn’t really exist, namely, that it would be possible to disobey God’s express command and not suffer the consequences: “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4), the old liar lied.

     Like corny dad-jokes, my family puts up with the observations I make that eventually become stated as rules. One of them, however, has some merit, I think, and I’ll present it for your critique, dear Church. It’s a thing I call The Rule of Inverse Satisfaction, which states: “The probability of finding satisfaction is inversely proportional to the number of choices one has.” At first it seems backward: if I have a thousand choices of, say, hot beverage, one of them is bound to be exactly what I want. But good luck finding the one. And it won’t be the same one on another day. The “rule” gains street cred with all who have walked away from the coffee shop counter, drink in hand, only to hear the next customer order exactly what they would have, if only they had thought of it.

     Coupled together, the humanist tactic and the devil’s tactic are like paralysis-by-analysis on top of buyer’s remorse. No way out. No workable solutions. Misery. Which is pretty much where we stand at the moment. Thankfully, there’s a solution.

     The mission at hand is to know truth, show truth, and speak truth – without blowing our neighbors to smithereens. With a particle of humility, Christians could easily and finally stop looking for another Creator. Regarding the things we didn’t choose for ourselves and can’t change, the question isn’t “How can I change this,” but rather “What does God want me to do with this?” We won’t be any help to our neighbors in the world until we embrace the context God engineered for us.

     Almost every Christian I know will give intellectual assent to God’s total sovereignty (well, that one dear brother being an exception, of course). So do I. And then when the tire blows or the thing I built falls down or I just can’t get people to do what I want them to do, I start looking for a new theology. I want to be Theo. It’s no use, and it’s no good. At present, most of humanity seems lost in a maze, disregarding God’s invitations, hemmed in by limitations more constrictive than what God imposes, unwilling to believe there is one who is limitless. Our hypothesis is gaining viability with each observation. Adam’s first experiment with replacing God didn’t turn out well for him, and each one of us could add volumes to his original findings.

     Early in their letter to the Christians at Colossae, Paul and Timothy prayed four things for them:

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy… (Colossians 1:9-11).

     The knowledge of whose will? And for what purpose? Let’s all of us receive the apostle’s four-point prayer, with an expectation that the one to whom he prayed will bring it to pass.

     It’s time to bust out of the maze.

  

Grace and Peace (with God at the helm),

 

John

Replacing God, Part One: The First Commandment

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     I have good news, bad news, and bad-der news. The good news: God, in perfect genius, provided one and only one creator and sustainer of all things – himself – so we don’t have to waste time and energy looking for another. The bad news: we’re still looking. The bad-der news: the one we find is most often ourselves.

     Welcome to the next series of Hey Church letters, in which we will investigate the propensity of human beings to make “better” choices than God in the very matters in which we had no choice to begin with. I hope to demonstrate how the Church has an essential role in calling people (ourselves included) out of this futile exercise and into the peace and satisfaction of cooperating with God in creation and humanity.

     Make a quick list of some of the things about yourself that you didn’t choose. Caught you off guard, didn’t I? Here’s a sampling: place of birth, time of birth, family of origin, physiology, name. There are plenty more – I bring up these few to emphasize the fact that all of us have essential aspects of identity that somebody else chose for us. Now, of the several essential aspects of your identity you didn’t choose for yourself, how many would you like to tune up? How many would you radically change, given the chance? I’ve yet to meet the person who was satisfied with the full set of non-negotiables.

     Atheism is not a new concept – denying God’s existence. Neither is agnosticism – deciding that there are better things to think about than whether God exists. And as harmful as both of these concepts are, neither of them is the worst idea currently afloat. The atheist says, “There is no God.” The agnostic says, “I don’t care either way.” The practitioner of this third thing says, “Sure, there’s a God – and I can do better than he can.” This also is not a totally new concept, having been known at times as humanism. It comes in waves, like the inhabitants of Babel saying, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…” (Genesis 4:11); or the oppressor in Isaiah 14 having said in his heart, “I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high…” (verse 13). Modern examples are not difficult to find, and over the next several weeks I hope to call some of them out individually, along with biblical antidotes for the harm they cause.

     The letters of the series will be anchored in the Bible book of Colossians, with frequent excursions elsewhere in Scripture. Yes, we just moved out of Colossians in our reading plan; for those who are tracking, it’ll be as fresh as it gets; for others, this is a chance to catch up or leap forward. Either way, Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae will be base camp for us. Why? Because the church at Colossae had the classically organic and evangelical beginning: Epaphras, a resident of Colossae, traveled somewhere (maybe Ephesus) and heard the gospel of Jesus from someone (maybe Paul) and took it home, where he shared what he heard and believed. Church plants don’t get any more organic than that. And we must not forget: when Epaphras came home with the Good News, there was already stuff going on in Colossae – ideas and beliefs, and the actions caused by those ideas and beliefs, were already in play. Likewise, when the gospel first came to our neck of the woods, there were humans present already; therefore, humanism was being practiced to some degree, wittingly or otherwise. How has the gospel fared since its arrival? Observing the Colossian Christians will give us some answers about ourselves.

     If you’ll forgive me for jumping the gun, I’ll call us back to the observance of scientific method – since science and faith should, by no means, be enemies. Even though I’ve named the series “Replacing God” already, I’ll try to rewind a bit. If we’re going to be good scientists, we’ll observe the situation first, and begin to define a question. The hard part will be holding it to one question!

     Within the timeline of one big building project, God debunked the humanism of Babel. Within the space of a few lifetimes, God upended the humanism of the throne in Babylon, the oppressor mentioned in Isaiah 14. If I could highlight an observation for your perusal, dear Church, it would be this, for starters: Seems to me, the current wave of humanism dates back to at least the middle of the nineteenth century AD, and a solid argument could be made for its beginnings in the Enlightenment, or even the Renaissance. In other words, this one seems bigger, longer, and more coordinated than past efforts. Since I’m the instigator here, I suppose I’ll have to pose the question:

     Is the current wave of humanism the latest – or last – big push to replace God?

     As we gather evidence, I’ll remind us of the very first topic Paul brought up with the Colossians:

(The) Father… has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son… He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:12-16).

     The antidote for the bad-der news – the God-replacement we most often find is none other than ourselves – is this: we, God’s saints, have been qualified to share in light. As we make observations, no corner of our vision need be darkened. And the good-est news is knowing who qualified us.

     Put on your lab coats… hypotheses are forthcoming.

 

 Grace and Peace (for when we encounter the First Commandment all over again),

 

John   

On Repeat

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     How much Bible are you reading? Straight up, no fooling – you don’t have to post your answer anywhere that anyone  but the Lord will see, but I sure hope you can be honest with yourself. How much? And compared to other sources of input, how does that amount stack up?

     My study Bible has a really helpful introduction to each book of Scripture, which is one major reason I chose that particular edition for study. As I was reading the introduction to Ephesians lately, I saw again the mention of a curious theory held by some modern Bible scholars: Paul didn’t write Ephesians. “Curious” is the kindest word I can think of – “baloney,” or a couple other b-words, would be a better fit. To be clear, the authors and editors of my study Bible don’t accept the theory, or else I’d still be looking for a good study Bible. How many solid doctrines does a Bible reader have to throw away, anyway, to buy non-Paul authorship of Ephesians – beginning with the inerrancy of Scripture? No thanks.

     It would be fair for you to ask at this point, dear Church: on what have I based my unveiled rejection of the theory? Well, it isn’t my many semesters of Bible school – I haven’t had as much of that as I would like, and not nearly enough to go duking it out with legit Bible scholars. And the other thing it certainly wasn’t: my first reading of Ephesians. After reading the intro in the study Bible again, I cruised into the letter itself, trying to imagine what it would be like to be seeing it for the very first time. How much of it would I get? How much would confuse me more than I already was? The only honest answers were, in order: not much, and a whole lot.

     The only substitute for familiarity in Scripture is divine revelation, and – maybe you’ve noticed, as I have – the Lord does approximately one hundred percent of his revealing through familiarity. I’m tempted to theorize that the prophets and apostles themselves didn’t get what they wrote until coming upon it again and again afterward. Good questions to ask when we get to heaven, don’t you think? Meanwhile, familiarity seems to be a thing.     

     If you’re willing to do the same exercise I did with the study Bible, here’s a snippet from Ephesians – try to imagine reading it for the first time:

    For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come  (Ephesians 1:15-21).

     Is that all one sentence? Yep. And did you notice it’s a prayer? A prayer for what? Well, quite a lot actually. Which parts of the prayer will be most helpful right now – I mean, today, Friday? How would you know without some familiarity? It’s too much to take in all at once – and that’s OK. I’m old enough, finally, to understand that the Father never meant for us to get it all the first time around.

     Read your Bible, Church. That’s the simplest and most helpful thing I can say with this week’s letter. Put God’s infallible word on repeat. Get familiar with Scripture. Connect the dots through frequent encounter. If you don’t understand the first time through, or the hundredth, pray for understanding for the next time… or the time after that.

     Familiarity with Scripture builds a depth of spirit that can’t be had by any other means. Knowing what God has done in history and creation is the best way to know what he is doing and will do – he is the one who works all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11) – over and above what anyone else and everyone else is doing. Can’t figure the world out? Depth of spirit gives your mind and heart room to gain understanding – or to be OK with not figuring it out for now.

     As a child of the Great Depression, my dad was often astounded when he saw people in more recent decades choosing junk food over nourishing meals – they were “starving to death in the land of plenty,” he would say. Christians in this decade, more than any other, face a challenge in choosing what nourishes our souls. Sex and candy, it’s been said, always sell. Same goes for fear, cynicism, insult, promiscuity, and hopelessness.

 Let’s not starve ourselves for the good.

  

Grace and Peace (through the promises of Scripture),

 

John

Community, Part 8: Chosen

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     What’s all the fuss about community anyway? It seems all aspects of life are in reference to community. The Channel 5 weather guy can’t just say “Amelia” or “West Chester” or “Brookville” anymore, but “the Amelia community,” and so forth. It’s as if life has no meaning outside of community. Could that be true?

     Let’s ask Jesus, and find out how he did community on this dusty little planet. Not a fair comparison, you say? Well I don’t know about all that – seems to me, since he lived the perfect life, he would’ve had this part right as well.

     Have you ever noticed, reading through the Gospels, how small Jesus’s community was? Have you noticed, when it began to grow cumbersome, he would trim it to the bone? At the synagogue in Capernaum, having just stunned the thousands who assumed they were in community with him, he said to the apostles, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil” (John 6:70). Jesus didn’t go for the numbers; he went for quality of commitment.

     By the standard circulating now, the quality of one’s community is defined by the quantity of its members – strength in numbers, and all that jazz. My community is stronger than yours if there are more people in it. Joseph Stalin said something like, “Quantity has a quality all its own.” But that was Joe Stalin, for cryin’ out loud! I wouldn’t steer us that way.

     In this series of letters on community, I hope you’ve seen the overriding theme: Don’t go big. I hope the terms “global community” and “international community” have begun to sound, well, absurd. I hope we’ve all been urged to investigate the boundaries of whatever community (communities?) we lay claim to, seeing if they’re properly set, finding out what expectations we may or may not reasonably place on one another.

     For Paul and the Christians in Corinth, it came down to face time (and not the digital kind!). For all their want-to, they couldn’t pull of community to save their backsides without being together. It took being eye-to-eye, testing one another’s authenticity moment by moment, making sure they were committed to the same truth. Though you and I live twenty centuries hence, in the self-named Information Age, very little has changed. Two-out-of-three dimensions are not enough; two-out-of-six senses certainly will not do.

     “You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” I haven’t heard it said hundreds of times, but dozens wouldn’t be out of the question. More often these days than in days past, I’ll try to tune up that statement if someone speaks it directly to me: You don’t have to go to church to be saved. I was saved in a hospital room. I knew a man who was thoroughly saved in front of his TV, watching a televangelist. But to be Christian – to begin taking on the attributes of Christ on purpose, to cooperate with the Father in being conformed to the image of his Son – involved some immersion therapy.

     Not to say all of us at Cobblestone Community Church are in community with one another. I’m sure there are plenty of things we’ve yet to learn about what that means – and another eight weeks of letters on the same topic wouldn’t get us there. But we have a good start, I think. If we can look around with honest perspective and find out who’s committed to the same truth that both precedes and supersedes the community; who’s able to apply empathy without retreating into mere sympathy; who’s being authentic without straining; who’s willing to have expectations put on them and place expectations on others in return; who’s letting love do its great work – then we’ll have a clear picture of what community is.

     Granted, this definition is too long. Thanks, again, to those who sent me their 15-second versions at the outset of this series. I’m reluctant to try one of those myself, and so I’ll simply pray, for all of us who desire true community, that the Lord will lead us there and give witness in our spirits of having it.

     By the way, I like the Channel 5 weather guy; he’s my go-to forecaster. Plus, he has some unusual speech habits that tickle me. I hope to meet him sometime. Maybe we could be in community together.

     For all eternity, there was one community: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three, who are one, invented a quirky thing called time – a hiccup in eternity – and determined to invite others into community with them through the long and arduous process of being born into sin yet saved by grace. When the hiccup has passed, there will again be one community, the membership of which no man will be able to quantify.

     Meanwhile – or “simultaneously at the same time,” as the Channel 5 weather guy would say – it’s OK to be choosy, like Jesus.

 

 Grace and Peace (to choose and be chosen),

 

John