This Old House

New siding and insulation: $5,000
New roof: $10,000
New windows: $12,000
New HVAC: $15,000

Satisfaction in knowing I'm the new poster child for This Old House: Priceless

I am now the owner of a 3,000 square foot money pit. It has no driveway, a dilapidated garage, a bad roof, 50-year-old faux-brick celotex siding, rotting soffits, termite damage, sagging floors, no air conditioning, smelly carpets, a bathroom with a disgusting shower and a chimney that's caving in, (which, incidentally, is still the only way the furnace flue gases leave the house).

So why'd I buy it?

$31,000 on an auction is all I can say.

Maybe I should apply for an Extreme Makeover...

You Are Who You Are

I couldn't help but notice the following argument in a post on The Beginner's Mind which asserts:

Those folks who risked their lives for the good of others practice their religion in such a way as to reflect that compassion for others. Being religious didn't cause them to help end slavery or further the civil rights movement. I'm not religious and I find common cause with the enemies of slavery and champions of civil rights. Religious beliefs reflect the believer not the other way around, in my opinion. Just as an atheist like myself gladly works for civil rights, a Christian wearing the hood of the KKK would likely have little problem with black slavery.
...
That's what we'd like removed from the public sphere; this notion that true morality and social justice flows from religion and nowhere else. And, yes, this is what conservative Christians believe.

The author presents two ideas in this statement: First, that we are who we are and our beliefs and life choices simply express this - they don't change us into something we were not before. Second, if you are a conservative Christian, you believe those who are not Christian are inherently immoral - incapable of knowing right from wrong.

The first point the author makes is not only wrong, in my opinion, but also irresponsible. He states an idea that has been popular for quite a while now - Eddie Vedder sang about it in a rather bland song of his entitled "Who You Are" on Pearl Jam's "No Code" album. The refrain was "You are who you are". a nice little New Age mantra, perhaps, but not worth an awful lot when you're dealing with social issues of the day. Nevermind the fact that the remainder of the lyrics were, in Eddie Vedder's trademark fashion, mumbled incoherently. Not that it would havea mattered, for it seems the remainder of the lyrics were chosen largely because their rhyme and meter, not for any particular meaning. It's interesting to note that when one of alternative rock's premier bands writes a song about the meaning of humanity, it amounts to a song about nothing...

All of this, of course, is also contrary to what Christianity teaches in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

What the author argues is fatalistic and, in my opinion, unsustainable in the face of documentable human behavior. For example, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade publicly repudiated the abortion right for which she so ardently strove in that landmark 1973 case, but she only did so after becoming a Christian. Theodore Weld became a Christian under the preaching of Charles Finney (a man whom he hated) and began the American abolition movement in the early-mid 1800's. In both cases, we see people ultimately behaving contrariwise to who they once were. This raises the question, did they really change? If so, then "You are who you are" loses it's definitive, fatalistic edge and becomes a meaningless mantra not quite worthy of Yogi Berra.

The "You are who you are" philosophy does not admit change. It's a popular lie that is told especially loudly in homosexual circles to keep gays who do not wish to be gay from seeking treatment. The philosophy hinders true social change, and while I'm certain the author wouldn't express it in these extreme terms, if we apply that philosophy everyone, then who can fault John Mark Karr for being addicted to kiddie porn? After all, that's just the way he is, right?

Grotesque humanistic New Age philosophy aside, one issue remains: that conservative Christians believe that morality can only be found in Chistianity. As a conservative Christian, I reject that outright - and always have. Most any Christian who knows their faith well enough knows that is false. We need only cite Romans 1 or, better yet, Romans 5:14,15 to point out that everyone knows the difference between right and wrong. After all, why would a non-Christian demand justice for wrongs committed if they had no sense of morality to begin with? While I know some in Christianity may express it in those terms, most would not. From the conservative Christian viewpoint, an atheist civil rights activist who has righted numerous social wrongs in their lifetime has no more claim on heaven than any professing Christian wearing a KKK hood.

Christianity clearly teaches it is not about what you've done or what you know. It's about Who you know and what He's done.

- Graffy

Supernatural Christianity

I've recently been listening to a set of tapes loaned to me by a friend from church. He gave them to me after I gave my "spiritual gifts" lesson in an adult Sunday School class a few weeks ago. Anyway, the album is entitled "The Fourth Wave" by David Pawson.

In this lecture, Pawson approaches the schism in Christianity that has long separated the evangelical and the charismatic Christians. I disagreed with many of Mr. Pawson's assertions, but he raised some interesting points about what brought on the schism and how we may go about reconciling it.

He points out that in these two different perspectives on Christianity, the focus of faith gets shifted according to each group's bias. He gives a tongue-in-cheek example by pointing out that "to the Reformer, the Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Scripture. To the Catholic, it's Father, Son and Holy Virgin Mary."

His point was that as Christians, we often ignore the work of the Holy Spirit in the church and substitute Him for an unhealthy infatuation with relics and mysticism, or exegetical dogmatism.

Pawson really got me thinking on this topic. Truly, if God is still present in this world and actively working in our lives, why do we (as evangelicals) tend to limit that action to the ways we apply Scripture to our lives? I'm not saying that most evangelicals believe God doesn't work in any other way, just that we tend to believe it happens largely by reading the Bible.

I think it's a natural tendency to minimize the spiritual aspect of Christianity in it's more "intellectual" cultures. That is, the more we focus on the exegesis and exposition of Scripture, the more we tend to think of the supernatural aspects of Christianity as being past events, not a present reality. That's something which charismatics have rejected outright, and rightly so.

Paul pointed out that our battle is not with the flesh and blood, but "against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12)

Paul was explicit that we are at war and the war far exceeds the reality that any of us percieve. While I don't believe every misdeed is a result of demonic attack, I do believe that when we choose to follow God, Satan raises the stakes. We battle not only against our flesh, but inevitably against demonic forces. I don't pretend to know what the spiritual war Paul indicates looks like, though I can clearly point to episodes in my own life when I am certain my struggle was with more than just my own flesh.

When I compound my own experience with that of others, the evidence is too great to ignore. I've listened to friends describe their (sometimes physical) encounters with demonic forces. One pastor in our denomination described performing an exorcism which immediately healed a woman. I cannot (and dare not) discount the supernatural aspect of my faith.

I have long held that the major difference between a charismatic and an evangelical is the charismatic tends to embrace the supernatural with alarming disregard, whereas the evangelical tends to regard the supernatural in terms of disbelief, suspicion, and even fear. Whether we see our faith in charismatic or an evangelical terms, we can neither fully understand or comfortably ignore it's supernatural aspects.

By definition, the supernatural supersedes reality as we know it. Christianity teaches that it defines reality, whether we acknowledge it or not.

- Graffy


"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Weekly Funny

A Baptist pastor was giving his sermon one Sunday morning, his vigorous preaching captivating the audience, leaving them hanging upon his every word. Yet the preacher couldn't help but notice one young man sitting in a vacant pew, just ahead of the balcony, looking as if he were drunk. He slouched in his seat, arms thrown to the sides, with what appeared to be a sneer scrawled on his face.

The young man hadn't gone unnoticed by the other church leaders in the congregation. During the sermon, several had slipped back into the pew to talk to the young man, to encourage him to sit up and pay better attention, but to no avail.

Finally, the preacher could take it no longer. Stopping in the middle of his sermon, he stepped from his pulpit, strode down the aisle, and stood before this irreverent-looking young man.

"Son," said the preacher, "Why don't you sit up and pay attention to the sermon?"

The young man simply rolled his eyes at the preacher and grunted.

Annoyed by the audacious behavior of this unknown congregant, the preacher demanded, "Boy, where are you from?"

The young man gazed at the preacher and said in a very pained voice, "... the balcony..."

Christianity and Politics in America

[This is a little off topic for me, but my curiosity got the better of me...]

I have often heard it said that 85% of America is Christian, an assertion I've always considered it to be bogus.

To be sure, what defines a "Christian" directly influences that percentage. For example, many Muslims consider themselves (by Islamic doctrine) to also be Christian, so who's to say they're wrong? Thus, when someone describes so much of the American population as being Christian it would do well for the reader to very carefully consider the writer's bias.

George Barna, a Christian pollster, compiled some interesting statistics regarding Christianity in America:

• 9% of US adults classify as evangelicals (2006)
  
• 36% of US adults classify as born again, but not evangelical. (2006)
• Atheists and agnostics comprise 10% of adults nationwide. (2006)
• 10% of the US population identify with a faith other than Christianity (2006)

In his classifications, Barna was smart enough to realize it's not what you say that makes you what you are, but what you believe. Thus, when he classified people as "born-again" or "evangelical", he used strict criteria to define them.

To quote the website,

In Barna Research Group studies, born again Christians are not defined on the basis of characterizing themselves as "born again" but based upon their answers to two questions. The first is "have you ever made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in your life today?" If the respondent says "yes," then they are asked a follow-up question about life after death. One of the seven perspectives a respondent may choose is "when I die, I will go to Heaven because I have confessed my sins and have accepted Jesus Christ as my savior." Individuals who answer "yes" to the first question and select this statement as their belief about their own salvation are then categorized as "born again."

Since only 36% of Americans would classify themselves as "born-again", the statement that "85% of Americans are Christian" is clearly false. Truly, if one is to call himself or herself Christian, acceptance of Jesus' death on the cross as a substitute for our sin (made possible by his resurrection) is the qualifying belief that defines one as a Christian. To deny this doctrine is to deny what makes Christianity what it is. Also, Barna's definition of "Evangelical" is a sub-classification of a "Born-Again", that is, an Evangelical meets seven further criteria in addition to the two laid out for a Born-Again.

So where's the rest of the supposed 85%?

Barna classifies more of the U.S. population as being "Notional Christians". Such people may claim to be Christian, but do not believe that they will go to Heaven on the basis of Christ's death and resurrection (because they simply don't believe it happened). 39% of the U.S. population can be classified as Notional Christians, bringing the total "Christian" population to about 75%.

Often, the "85% Christian" statistic is quoted for politial purposes. Politically speaking, however, a profession of faith hardly equates to an alliegance to any one political party. The political breakdowns of the Notional and Born-Again Christians (including Evangelical) shows that 40% of non-Evangelical Born-Agains align themselves with the Democratic Party along with 42% of the Notional Christians.

Thus, for political purposes, if we take 75% (not 85%) of the culture to be "Christian", fully 30% of the American "Christian" population is Democrat. Another 27% may be considered Republican, leaving 43% in the lurch.

Looking at the numbers, it would seem that while religious views have created polarizations in American politics, it hardly divides Americans on public policy like some would claim. Rather, from the religious sphere, we see that the split between Republican and Democrat is nearly equal and the majority of "religious" (again, not necessarily "Christian") people claim no aliegance, though they may have conservative or liberal leanings.

- Graffy