That Mean Evolutionist Called Me a Name!

One of my daughters showed me a snazzy new app that, with a bar code scan of any product, will tell you the political leanings of the company's top officers and any political groups and PACs receiving their financial support. I'm guessing it helps you target for boycott products marketed by those whose views don't match your own and happily fellow travel with those who do.

I'm not much of a boycotter. I buy or not based on personal needs and preferences. When I'm bumbling up and down the aisles juggling problem solving, looking well informed and trying to get a good deal, the policy views of CEOs, directors, sales staff or assembly line workers don't factor in too much. I don't have to like every opinion tossed into the arena of ideas, nor pretend they are all of equal worth, but anyone, even corporate officers, are welcome to hold any view they like. Boycotting, protesting, picketing, ostracism and the attendant name calling to change someone's view seems silly to me.

It was curious then, in our open and enlightened age, to recently see a believer in evolution label as 'invalids' those who aren't so convinced. "Invalids"? Really? I'm guessing in his subtle way he meant only a mental, emotional or intellectual invalid would think differently than he does. Ouch! Confirmation bias and projection of Freud's father figure aside, I've seen some pretty convincing evidence that there might just be a Creator behind everything except those dumb people on COPS who never know how the bag of dope got in their undershorts. I can't explain them. The prickly evolutionist's charge of invalidism to those still halting between two opinions was given heft with a word from Bill Nye The Science Guy. Bill implored parents who don't fully embrace evolution as an adequate explanation for what can be seen to please refrain from saddling their kids with such a narrow concept as creation. Bill said the world needs them to be free from the notion of creation and implied a waiting world is counting on them to embrace evolution as the only explanation. No others need apply. End of discussion.

Look, when the topic is 'how did everything happen?' you know the answer or answers can't be small. What is humanly known set next to what might be knowable is likely a BB alongside the sun. Adaptation explains some things. Clearly, many things have changed over long stretches of time. Some things might be better explained as products of design and just maybe, there's a designer sneaking around behind the design. At this point there seems to be a lot of puzzle pieces missing and I'm not sure anyone is in a position of authority sufficient to rule out either the marvels of the scientific method and the discoveries of insightful, super observant people or the possibility of a creative act by a really big, really smart, really resourceful being.

My real problem with evolution is the evolutionists. There are so many competing agendas and voices, some shrill and reedy and some as inviting and mellifluous as an NPR host. After all the fireworks, claims and counter claims, I'm still really not clear what it is I'm being asked to assent to. I can't sort out all the denominations of evolutionists and it sure doesn't help to see a spokesmen for the cause verbally dope slapping a guy who's not quite on board. Invalids? Really? I know some pretty robust, open minds not on board yet.

When the question is "Where did it, we, all of it come from?", a question so intriguing that it begs a real puzzler like, "does it mean anything?", it's not time to shut down any reasonable voice. Additionally and to match the great girth of the question, "reasonable" should be allowed a pretty broad definition. Not every voice has equal weight in every sphere, of course. The Fundamentalist evangelist won't be much help in the molecular biology lab. He will be a nuisance to the serious white coats and the agnostic has very little to say to the frightened North Korean believer who is encouraged by the still small voice in her closet of prayer. Boycotting good ideas just because they aren't yours is dumb.

Name calling! Is that any way to treat an invalid?

What Whittaker Chambers Taught Me

One of the more engaging books recently read has been Whittaker Chamber's controversial autobiography Witness. The Foreword, written as a letter of explanation to his children for his life and several failings, is a remarkable stand alone piece, being a surprisingly strong testimony to the power of historic, biblical Christianity. I didn't expect to find Jesus there.

The bulk of the book is the story of his initial infatuation with, immersion in and eventual messy extrication from mid-century American communism. Chambers went as deeply into the belly of the beast as any American in those days could go and became intimate with the inner workings and many major players. Curiously, it was his almost complete absorption into the structure of the party that caused him to leave it.

I remember a local news anchor saying, in the form of a lament, that he had gotten into the news business because he enjoyed current happenings and world events. He very much liked being an informed consumer of news. However, broadcasting demands and production of three daily news programs left him no time to be more than casually acquainted with the news. To make room for the system designed to safeguard the faithful reporting of important events, the object of his love had to be checked. His passion took a back seat to the program.

I may be off base and subject to good correction, but the same thing is happening with the gospel of Christ - the good news that there is a perfect, eternal relationship of love between Father, Son and Spirit that in spite of all our brokenness we are being invited into. It seems that for the serious lover of Christ, one of the easier places to lose sight of Him and this amazing invitation is within one of the many incarnations of a multi-layered apparatus folks have built up around the gospel. Lots of elaborate, Byzantine structures - denominations and para-church - have been developed by the well meaning to propagate the Message. Agencies, associations, denominational offices, task forces, mega-churches, massive efforts and campaigns of every description and serious objective, all with Christian underpinnings, sustained with many dollars and enormous outlays of emotional and creative energies are moving mountains for sure, but not nearly with the ease Jesus said is possible.

Maybe the well logoed organizations and carefully crafted systems are missing the Presence He also said is possible.

It's a happy fact that the local church is the only organization of believers mentioned in the New Testament. Maybe that's because it's the best and only essential one. It's in that messy place and not within the efficient, well lit offices of strategists, demographers, bishops, superintendents and sages that the Presence and power of the Triune God best displays what He's all about. It's within the sometimes comical, sometimes tragic foibles of the local church that the creator of the rivers of living water best speaks His invitation to the thirsty soul. It's hard to argue against the notion that within the local family of God serious seekers and bruised saints have the best chance to respond to the still, small Voice.

Chambers left the party because the treasure it was designed to champion and propagate had dissipated. It can happen with any human structure I suppose, even very good ones that do Jesus stuff. I could be wrong, but I'm starting to think I may be onto something. The Pearl of Great Price is not to be found in Christian TV, the various Vaticans and pseudo-Vaticans, denominational offices or agencies. Oh, sure, they can talk about Him in those places and how much He's needed outside those gussied up think-tanks. But, the local church is where it's at.

Now, if I could only convince over half of Americans who claim to be Christian, all the local churches would be bursting this weekend and the smart guys in the busy offices could go on vacation. Or go to church.

Least Favorite things

In a recent reply to a denominational leader asking for money, I signed off saying, "Great to hear from you, even if it was about my second least favorite topic." Since inquiring minds want to know, the follow-up question may never come: "What is the least favorite topic?"

For me, it's a tie between church growth and golf. I've played golf twice and though my golf christening was handled by nice friends who took pains to make it a good first experience, I found it stupefyingly boring with boredom relieved only by predictable tedium. Lovers of the game talk about the skill, reserve and control that make it the ultimate challenge. Green guilt is heaped on with the 'but at least you're in a beautiful setting' argument designed to keep people coming back to nature who don't really care for the activity. At the end of the day though, it's still golf. I don't care for it on any level.

The ecclesiastical-industrial complex that is church growth runs neck and neck with golf. In the world that is my mind and along the uneven, rock strewn archipelagos that are my own mental synapses, it appears to me that a lot of church growth experts are simply social engineers advocating their new and improved brand of social engineering. It looks to me like packaging and re-packaging predictable tips on moving groups of people around. The brick and mortar boys, program advocates, whiz kids and success story guys may tout different approaches and strategies, but they are a genetically distinctive and clever breed with a dominant characteristic. All of them are from-the-womb indenticals in their faint, passing or absent mention of Jesus' claim "I will build My church."

As with golf, I'll skip the tedium and predictability found in most church growth strategies. I think I'll let Jesus do His job. It spite of centuries long opposition from some truly despicable people and corrosive counter ideologies and albatrossed about the neck with the bad ideas and behaviors from some of her strange friends and fellow travellers, the church has defied all odds and survived. Genuine ekklesias - assemblies of the called out ones - can still be found behind, within, next to or at some distance from the big box worship centers and the airless and aging orthodox bastions of a by-gone era.

The church will survive because Jesus does the building and He builds to last. Golf may be around awhile longer too, but I'll be doing something else.

Why Is Writing Good Therapy?

It's happened again. That weird collision of unrelated events that leaves me emotionally spent and wishing my brain would shut down or go into energy saver mode for awhile. Lousy sleep, lousy appetite. Just getting through is the goal with little fun along the way.

It's not a guaranteed thing, but writing works sometimes and it worked wonderfully for me this morning. Not this writing. Lock box stuff where I just pull my thumb out of the dike, step back and try not to get my good shoes wet. It gushes for several unrestrained paragraphs and then, like a miracle drug kicking in, I'm all better.

How's that work?

One reason may be that what needs to be said gets said. That's not the same thing as saying it to anybody in particular or being read by any eyes but mine. It just needed to get out of the narrow confines of my mind. Liking it to pent up autumn sap gushing from the bored hole in a tree trunk may be a descriptive and folksy analogy, but I don't see how it's helpful in this case.

Maybe writing is like a marker in time that says, "I passed this way once", adding some permanence. The permanence is followed by a sort of low level validity. Not real, tested validity. Not universal truth, just my truth and most of the time that's all that is needed. I suppose a lot of rubbish has been printed and passed on that was the kind of thing that is true within the very small arena of one mind and should have been kept there and at most, pulled out occasionally, hummed over and put back again.

Like the Trappists and other cloistered types, I think manual labor also helps. They say it clears the mind by diverting it. In restocking the shelves when you aren't looking it's a kind of spiritual slight of hand. But it's hot out today, my yard looks just fine, the car is clean and, anyway, I'm feeling a lot better now.

Is That Your Own Idea?

Standing in the courtroom of Imperial Rome, the battered and badly mauled rabbi from Nazareth couldn't resist answering a question with a question. Governor Pilate's original inquiry, "Are you the king of the Jews?" is risky talk in an empire that tolerates no rival to Caesar. The discussion is a dangerous one and Jesus' answer potentially explosive. Depending on how it's retold and by whom, it might all be interpreted as a serious indictment that the governor himself is whispering treason. Delicate stuff.

• "I don't believe in organized religion."
• "I'm an agnostic."
• "Christianity is outdated.
• "I believe every word in the Bible is literally true."
• "If you aren't attached to the right religion, you can't go to heaven." 
• "To be involved with Jesus, drastic religious adjustments must come first."

Oddly enough, polar opposite responses like those can have a single motivation. Many attempts at self definition are based on what we reject. We often glance around to make sure we are dismissing things whose rejection will gain approval or make us appear to be a certain type of person - open-minded, tolerant, holy, devout, serious, smart, humble, not "one of those people". The pattern holds when we affirm things as well. In either case though, if the lines drawn in defining ourselves are copied off someone else's paper, they are no good.

"Is that your own idea?"

Jesus is supremely interested in what you think. Thinking - your own thinking, not copy-cat thinking - is very important to Him. He came in fact because our thinking on big issues is scrambled, tortured and twisted. Sin, failure, missing the mark, damages our minds and leaves us blinded about our own nature and God's. Unable to know what we don't know, we act from our own darkness,  creating strange and almost mythological notions about God. It leaves us with the unpaid baggage of "I'm not good" and "God is angry." The first causes us to hide ourselves from significant people around us and the other causes us to hide from God, who is always closer than we imagine.

Your ideas are important. Do you know what they are?

When the Charges are Made in Your Church

A friend working on his Marriage and Family Therapy program invited me to comment on what it's like to be in charge and have to walk through the investigation, prosecution and nightmare of child molestation charges in the church. I can only offer my impressions, having experienced it more than once. I know it has great, even devastating effect on the accusers and accused, but my knowledge of that comes by observation only and is second hand. It must certainly be awful, but I'm hardly qualified to speak to that with the authority of experience.

When it's on your watch and you report it and know all those involved - alleged victim and alleged perpetrator - it is one of the hardest and most solitary things to walk through. At least as hard as comforting a family shell shocked by suicide, as hard as speaking with the young couple who have lost a very young child. It's on level with the numbing difficulty of being the one spiritual guide in the room when they tell the already sick guy the cancer is fast, always nasty and terminal.

It's disorienting.

It's like being in a large, familiar room and every bit of light goes out. As you start fumbling around you realize somebody, somehow has quickly rearranged the furniture and nothing is where you remember it. They've added things too and the doors aren't where they're supposed to be.

The whole experience ages you and you realize again what nobody cares to hear: that ministry and leadership is not what people think it is. You don't know which end is up, but your prayer life does deepen because words spoken to other folks don't communicate like they used to, so you pray. It's only then that you start to realize that maybe the room is bigger than you thought and there is a way out and someday, once you get past the clutter, you might just find it.

Of course, the agonies endured by the others involved must be horrific. Guilty, not guilty, real, distorted or false accusations - it all has to be chaos and misery for everyone. I only know what I know and remain the world's foremost authority on my own experience and opinion.

If the whole point of this exercise - for me - is God's way of getting me to pray better or more, I would prefer to read a book by one of the Puritan divines or attend a seminar. Like W.C. Fields said, "all in all, I would rather be in Philadelphia".

Did You Hear the One About . . .?

I guess a well known comic recently made comments meant to denigrate the Bible and anyone who reads it seriously. Maybe he meant no harm. Maybe he was just trying to be funny and George S. Kaufman missed the writer's session.

I don't know anything about the comic, his show or what watching it says about his viewers, but since he wanted me to know what he thinks, I'd like him to know what I think.

I'd like him to know that I've been reading the Bible seriously for awhile and though a natural born skeptic, I'm sometimes floored by the depth of expression, universality of message and the often satisfying way it speaks to a deep place in me. I'd like to tell him how I hear a ring of truth I can't explain and occasionally sense a naked awe that sometimes stops my breathing. I would mention being startled by a kindness so surprising, comforting and personal that sometimes brings tears. I don't understand all of it. I don't even like all of it. That too leaves an imprint on me.

I hope he experiences the Bible that way someday and genuinely hope it doesn't take him as long as it's taken me. I'm not mad at the guy, I just want him to know, that's all.