Around the Horn

At first, here’s a good article about two military doctors, one of whom I happen to have known back in college. On this Memorial Day, it’s a good reminder of men and women who serve. Thanks to all who have served.

At second, here’s an interesting article on ADHD and the US vs. the French. It’s worth a read and worth consideration as to whether ADHD is biological or psychosocial. For a short article, it covers a fair amount of ground.

At third, Larry Osborne chimes in on The Myth of Endless Growth. It’s a though worth having.

Last, Carl Trueman hammers for a bit on Andy Stanley's  "remarkably naïve piece of muddled thinking." As usual, Trueman is worth reading.

Quick Hit on Creation and Evolution

RJS is a contributor to Scot McKnight’s blog, Jesus Creed, who usually writes on matters of science. Today she references a recent survey about pastors and their view of origins, and answers a question about the necessity of the Bible’s view of the fall and redemption. You can read it here, though I will pick out just one section.

There is no more certain fact than the “fallenness” of humankind. We don’t need a single mother, a single father, or a snake to convince us of this. It runs through human experience worldwide. Given a fallen creation (however it got there), we need redemption and a redeemer.

About this she is surely right. We don’t need the Bible’s story to convince us of fallenness. However, we do need the Bible’s story to provide a rational explanation for it. In the naturalistic or evolutionary theories of origins (she distinguishes the two and says naturalism is the real enemy of Christianity), evil exists, but there is no explanation for how it got here.

The universal existence (and recognition) of evil can be explained only by the Bible’s teaching of one man and one woman from whom the human race descended. This is why it is the human experience worldwide and has been from the beginning. All people worldwide find their sinfulness in one man. This is exactly the point of Romans 5:12-21, where the sin of one man is tied inseparably to the redemption by one man. So not only do we find our sinfulness in one man, we also find our hope in one man—the man Jesus, the second Adam, who did what the first Adam did not do.

It is certainly true that true Christians can be evolutionists and deny the historical Adam and Eve. But they cannot do so rationally. They undermine the whole reality that pervades our world and end up grasping at straws. In essence, they have sold the farm in hopes of hanging on to the barn. In the end, they lose both.

While many do not want to make a big issue of either end of the world (creation or eschatology), these things still matter. We best not pretend they don’t.

Questions without Answers (at least for now)

“Why does God do stuff like that?”

Except “stuff” wasn’t the s-word he used when he asked me that question last night about the tornado that tore through Oklahoma this week.

There wasn’t much time for a treatise on the sovereignty of God in a broken world, and he wasn’t looking for information. He, like many, was looking to vent. And so the conversation moved quickly on.

Perhaps you are asking the same question.

The truth is there is no easy answer. There is nothing that will make sense to us. It would be somewhat easier to stomach if a tornado had ripped through a maximum security prison where people are doing hard time for their crimes.

But when it’s a school, a neighborhood of families, churches, schools and the like—people just doing what they did the day before, last week, and last year—then there’s nothing that will really make sense.

We can talk about God’s sovereignty and justice. We can talk about the whole creation groaning together under the weight of the curse. We can talk about the gospel and how eternity is brighter and better, and how brokenness like this makes our hearts yearn for a new creation.

But all that talk will mean little to those who will bury their loved ones this week.

For now, we weep with those who weep. We resist the urge to give answers. Tears speak so much louder and more tenderly.

Where possible, we look for opportunities to serve and love.

We remember that it is God’s mercy that we are not consumed (Luke 13:1-9).

And with poet and hymn writer William Cowper, we rest (however fitfully) in the mystery of God’s sometimes frowning providence.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

Radical Minimum Standard

Recently my mind was drawn to a chapter in a book I read a number of years ago. Overall, the book was unremarkable, but the last chapter was worth reading and rereading.

A couple of quotes from the chapter are worth hearing.

“A honest evaluation of the dramatic number of callings that the church has created would reveal that we have found extraordinary ways of describing the overwhelming amount of Christless living in the church.”

And

“In the process of creating a theology that accommodates apathy, disinterest, compromise, and even rebellion, we have lost the essence of the movement for which Jesus died. We made a mistake of making heroes out of those who were simply living a normal Christian life.”

To me, this strikes hard at modern Christianity. Simply put, it seems to me that we have largely lost the mindset of early Christians that we read about in Acts. To quote an old proverb, soft times have made soft Christians. And soft Christians like to take it easy.

There’s some talk going around today about the new legalism of missional living (and a response here), accidental Pharisaism (Accidental Pharisees: Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith which comes highly recommended, at least if you consider my friends high).

But it’s hard for me to imagine that the early Christians would have considered our dilemmas to be anything other than, well, inane pursuits of narcissistic immaturity.

The body of Christ, for many, is not the center of our lives. It’s just another social club where we hang out each week. Or whenever, depending on soccer schedules, baseball schedules, sales flyers, holidays, TV shows, movies, the temperature outside, the relative position of the clouds to the sun, the time we managed to crawl in bed on Saturday night, whether or not the game goes into overtime.

The body of Christ is not a place of ownership, but a place of consumption. We go, get a meal (probably more like just snacking a bit), tip the waiter, err, the pastor. And head out to our real lives. You know, the things that start around noon on Sunday.

The mission of God to be disciples and make disciples at high cost to ourselves is less important than whether we ourselves are taking care of ourselves. We have created false dichotomies, saying things like “I need to care for myself right now,” or “I need to take some family time,” or “I need to take care of my marriage,” as if those are things that cannot be done inside normal New Testament commitment to the body of Christ and the mission of Christ.

There’s another old saying, “I would rather burn out than rust out.” I seriously doubt there are many in danger of either.

We seem mostly to float, aimlessly meandering through the meadow of life, deaf and blind to the warfare that it taking place on all sides.

But at least we are comfortable.

Oops! Or What’s in a Name?

Here’s a place for a few laughs, where some pastors are sharing stories of embarrassing moments in the pastoral ministry.

It reminds me of a funeral I did. This lady was a long-time former member who had moved away and they brought her body back for burial. Her daughter and son-in-law were kind and gracious people who sat in the front row of the auditorium for the service where I preached one of my funeral sermons.

One of the first people to pass by me as they filed by the casket at the end was a member of our church, who had been in the church long enough to know everyone for multiple decades. She was the go-to person for names, identities, and history.

With an intense, and not slightly angry look on her face and sound in her voice, she leaned in and said, “I want to know who Helen is.”

I said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “You did that whole funeral for Helen. I want to know who Helen is. Her name is Sarah.”

I said, “No I didn’t.”

She said, “Yes, you did.” And she turned and stormed off (in a funeralistic, paying-last-respects-at-the-casket, stormy way).

So at the funeral dinner, I pulled the son-in-law aside and said, “Did I call your mother-in-law ‘Helen’ during the message?”

He smiled and said, “Yes.”

I said, “I am so sorry. I had no idea I was doing that.”

He laughed. “It’s okay. We thought it was pretty funny.”

I am sure he was just being gracious. I was mortified.

I am glad that the success of a funeral doesn’t depend on burying the right person. So far as I know, dear Miss Sarah is still dead and buried.

At least she hasn’t come back to haunt me.

And Helen is still dead and buried too, though at least she had the decency of actually being buried by name instead of by proxy.