Part II of "What makes you doubt Christianity?"

Here are the contributions I received from the original blog (here). I respond to some of them with reflections and/or suggestions for what to study. If you would like to contribute, please email me at johndanielwashere@gmail.com. 

The tension between law and grace, faith and works.

I've struggled with this one before, and have written on it here. One has to shed a lot of what Luther read into the text in order to come to terms with the seemingly contradictory statements regarding Christian life in Scripture. Christianity is about living the kingdom of God, embodying the reality that Jesus accomplished on the Cross. Thus, works consist of our active participation in the kingdom of God, in Christ's reality. The law is not made up of rules, but ways we can apply the kingdom to our lives. It is easy to turn this into legalism, but that's when we start regarding Scripture as a rule-book.

It's hard to deal with/love fundamentalists and/or people who believe and teach damaging doctrines.

How patriarchal the Bible mostly is.

One major consideration needs to be made when dealing with this issue: context. It also needs to be addressed on a text-by-text basis, and often simply considering the historical context will remedy the problem. There are so many good books on this topic. Why Not Women? is one that was highly recommended to me, but there are many others. That would be a good place to start. For an assessment of one text, see my, "Does Genesis 2 Support Complementarianism?" (here). It should be said, though, that the "patriarchal nature" of Scripture is often over-stated. In many places, the Bible is quite woman-exalting.

Most Christians are so certain of what that they believe that they never question it. A great many Christians do not engage in critical thinking.

Christian hypocrisy and self-righteousness, manifested in things like treatment of/talk about homosexuals, or people of other religions.

What about those who have never heard the Gospel?

I can see this one being very hard for Calvinists, but it isn't hard for me at all. While it is unfortunate that so many people in history, as well as in our time, are not subjected to the Gospel, if one affirms a great wideness in God's merciful saving love, we can feel at peace about this issue. I have written about this here. A good book to look at on this is A Wideness in God's Mercy by Clark Pinnock, as well as those cited in my blog on the subject.

"I know my level of intelligence and understanding and there are a lot of better equipped thinkers out there who do not believe what I believe. So I wonder, who am I to think this stuff is true?"

Prayer. How come some prayers are answered but most aren't? How come someone's headache is healed, but someone else's cancer isn't? Don't we serve an all-powerful, all-loving God? Why wouldn't he heal everyone if he could?

I have some pretty bad back and neck problems that I wake up with every single morning, so this was something I struggled with for a while (and still do, depending on how bad I feel on a particular day). I have written on the subject here, "Petitionary Prayer: What is it Good for?", but I also recommend Greg Boyd's book Is God to Blame?, as well as his chapter, "Praying in the Whirlwind" in Satan and the Problem of Evil. Vincent Brummer's What Are We Doing When We Pray? is another good one. There is a lot of really good literature on this topic, but those are good places to start, as well as the works cited in my blog.

The problem of evil and suffering. It is difficult to reconcile God's benevolence with the existence of things like cancer and AIDS.

All honest Christians struggle with this at one point or another. While I have read a lot on the subject, I can think of no better person to go to than Greg Boyd. Specifically, his book Satan & The Problem of Evil. If you're really into the topic, supplement it with his God at War. For a shorter, easier read, see Is God to Blame? There are tons and tons of books on this topic, but Boyd would be the perfect person with whom to start.

Pluralism. If I were born in other parts of the world, I would not be a Christian. Do I think Christianity is true simply because of my context? How can I be so bold as to claim that the religion I follow is THE truth? There are thousands of religions all over the world, and plenty have their holy books, what makes Christianity so special?

This is an issue that is often daunting to me, and very humbling when I speak of things that I 'know'. For me, this is where the rubber meets the road, faith-wise. I wrote a personal reflection on pluralism here, saying that, in the end, one has to look at the subjective truth claims of this world and ask oneself, "Which one is more worthy of my faith?" because we can't know that Christianity is actually true.

Angels and Demons, Heaven and Hell. They seem so make-believe, as if they were made up to deal with death.

This is a tough one. What makes it worse is how angels, demons, heaven and hell have been portrayed over the years. We tend to have a shared concept of angels as winged, effeminate and covered in white; demons as ork-like or dragon-like beasts; heaven as a golden city in the sky; and hell as a fiery pit with black castle-like buildings, where people are tortured by demons. I have tried to re-word these terms in an effort to steer away from these preconceived ideas--using terms like "metaphysical" instead of supernatural, forces of chaos, instead of demons, and others. Sometimes, when words have been ascribed images that make them ridiculous, we just have to come up with new ways of referring to them.

Another thing that helps me is to recognize the signs of their existence in the world. We have desires that go beyond our experience, that go beyond what we can satisfy. We have urges to do horrible things sometimes, and we often don't know why we do such things. Sometimes things happen that can only be sufficiently explained by divine hands (I find all other "natural" explanations dissatisfying). Other things can only be explained by an actual force of evil at work--attributing the misfortunes in nature to the trial-and-error process of evolution isn't going to do it for me. I can think of many examples, but you get where I am going. There are signs in the world around us that point us beyond, and affirm what we see in Scripture.

Petitionary Prayer: What is it Good for?

Prayer is often thought to be something that doesn't affect what will actually turn out. Because God already knows what he is going to do, so it is said, prayer is for our benefit, our own change, rather than changing what will occur.

Prayer is also often treated like a vending machine; insert a prayer, out comes a blessing. God is a genie in a bottle, to whom we can go to with any request for him to fill.

With these construals of prayer, it is widely taken for granted or trivialized. I often get the feeling in prayer groups that we're all praying for stuff to happen but we don't actually think anything is going to come from it.

Prayer has become a ritual to which we ascribe power on a surface level, but we don't use it in such a way that we take seriously the power it has.

A problem I think we have is that we pray without acknowledging any limits to our prayers, resulting in unrealistic prayers. Treating God like a genie in a bottle who can do anything for us trivializes prayer, because it doesn't ring true. We don't experience prayer that way. I do not experience the effectiveness of my prayers the same way I experience the effectiveness of a dollar when I use it to buy a Coke from a vending machine. Because of the dissonance between idea and experience--between what is thought about prayer and what the reality is--the power of prayer is demeaned, and prayer becomes just something that we do. Ask for it in prayer because that's what Christians do, but don't expect anything.

I think this trivialization could be changed if we thought about prayer more realistically. In an attempt to do so, I would like to highlight a couple of major limitations on prayer that we seldom acknowledge.

Disclaimer: Talk of what God can or cannot do must not be taken to mean I am questioning God's actual ability. I assume God's omnipotence. However, there are certain things God cannot do within the framework which he himself has set--that is, within the boundaries he set on himself and the natural order. There's a difference between the power God possesses and the power he exercises.

1. God cannot violate the free will of human beings

By saying 'Yes' to free will for humans, God inevitably said 'No' to absolute control; he chose to give humans quite a bit of control over what occurs. Thus, when we pray, we must take into account that God cannot just do anything we ask of him. Consider David Basinger's words:

God so values the inherent integrity of significant human freedom . . . that he will not as a general rule force his created moral agents to perform actions that they do not freely desire to perform. . . . [I] doubt that he would override the freedom of one individual primarily because he was freely asked to do so by another.(1)

For example, if a friend of mine is going into a job interview, I cannot realistically pray that God will simply have the employer hire him/her, as if God is going to overrule the employer's free will and give my friend a job. Put yourself in the employer's position; would God override your freedom and control your actions to accomplish a certain end?

We do not see God doing this in Scripture. Consider these examples:

All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations. Isaiah 65:2

I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?' Ezekiel 33:11

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Matthew 23:37

The Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves. Luke 7:30

You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Acts 7:51

These verses point to the reality of human freedom, and how often that freedom can oppose the will of God; and if God wants people to have freedom, there's only so much he can do in a particular situation.

2. God cannot violate the free will of spiritual beings

This one is often overlooked by Christians, but it's a big one. Walter Wink says,

Prayer involves not just God and people, but God and people and the Powers. What God is able to do in the world is hindered, to a considerable extent, by the rebelliousness, resistance, and self-interest of the Powers exercising their freedom under God.(2)

A striking example of this is found in Daniel 10, in which an angel comes to Daniel in a vision and says:

Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. vv.12-13

This passage tells us that, when Daniel prayed, an angel was dispatched to meet his need, but was held up by an evil being! And it was so bad that had to call in for back-up. This, he says, is why it took so long for Daniel's prayer to be addressed.

Have you ever heard that passage talked about in a sermon on prayer? It gives us an incredibly different picture of the power of prayer than the one we so often engage. Prayer is not simply asking God for things. Prayer is spiritual warfare! Our prayers are spiritual contributions to the victory of the kingdom of God over evil. With prayer, we add oil to the Kingdom fire.

An Alternative View of Prayer

God is always doing everything he can to bring good out of every situation (Rom. 8:28). Terence Fretheim notes that to say God intervenes is a mistake, because it implies, "that God is not normally present but intervenes now and then with a goody or a baddy."(3) Subjectively, it may seem like God intervenes, but in such cases, our eyes are being opened to what God is always doing, or trying to do. As Greg Boyd says, "God sovereignly influences the whole process, working to bring about as much good and to prevent as much evil as possible."(4) William Hasker describes several ways God does this:

There are circumstances which God is able to arrange. There are the influences coming from other persons who are in tune with God's purposes in a situation. And above all, there is the 'internal operation of the Holy Spirit,' working within a person's mind and will in ways we only dimly understand. God respects us, but he does not 'leave us alone' to make our decision in isolation from his loving concern for us.(5)

Given this framework, our prayers create opportunity through which God can work; they create possibilities that were not possible before we prayed. As Boyd says,

By God's own design, [prayer] functions as a crucial constituent in the 'givens' of any particular situation that makes it possible for God more intensely to steer a situation to his desired end.(6)

Or, in Fretheim's words, "prayers make available to God some new ingredients . . . with which to work the divine will into a situation."(7) Put another way, Clark Pinnock says that prayer "expands God's effective presence in the world."(8) This is what we provide as vessels of the Holy Spirit.

Challenge

When you pray, think about how you are praying. Consider the fact that your prayer actually has power to affect what happens, and let that acknowledgement inspire you to pray realistically, taking the free wills of others into account.

This may sound like it limits prayer, but I think if we begin to pray realistically, we will start to pray more fervently and effectively, because it will teach us to pray for things in such a way that we acknowledge our prayer can affect what happens, instead of merely praying ritualistically.

Acknowledging parameters on how we pray will keep us from taking prayer for granted or trivializing it, and will expand our understanding of the power of prayer.

For further reading:
Gregory A. Boyd, "Praying in the Whirlwind," in Satan and the Problem of Evil (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 209-241.
Terence Fretheim, "Divine Dependence on the Human: An Old Testament Perspective." Ex Auditu 13 (1997): 1-13.
Vincent Brümmer, "Praying for Things to Happen," in What Are We Doing When We Pray? rev. ed. (Burlington, Ashgate, 2008), 33-81.

Notes:
(1) David Basinger, "Practical Implications," in The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 160-161.
(2) Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 311.
(3) This was said in a presentation Terence Fretheim gave called "Divine-Human Relationship," which can be found on Itunes U. 
(4) Gregory A. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 237.
(5) William Hasker, Providence, Evil and the Openness of God (New York: Routledge, 2004), 224.
(6) Boyd, 231.
(7) Terence Fretheim, "Divine Dependence on the Human: An Old Testament Perspective." Ex Auditu 13 (1997), 2.
(8) Clark Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 173.

Book Review: Answering God

★★★★★

When Jason Upton came to Regent University last Spring, he recommended this book to me. I'm glad he did. On the back, one of the review-quotes is from Walter Brueggemann. He said the book is "Thoroughly grounded theologically, in touch with the reality of life, and vigorous in its articulation." That is a perfect description of Eugene Peterson's Answering God. One can tell that behind this devotional work is a scholar, knowledgeable in Hebrew, in ancient thought, and in Psalm study. He also takes into account, as Brueggemann said, the realities of life that inevitably effect one's prayer life--and, in turn, one's relationship to God. He uses the Psalms to teach the reader to dive into prayer in a vulnerable, intimate way--and he doesn't do it in a way that ignores human struggles, but rather acknowledges them and shows how a good prayer life goes a long way in times of trouble. And then there is the added benefit of beautifully written prose. Peterson's writing is quite lovely.

I was worried when I saw The Psalms as Tools for Prayer that this would be a formulaic work that took Psalms and stretched them to fit human struggles and then step-by-step attempted to show one how to pray them. This is not at all what Peterson has written. Rather, he effectively goes through the elements of the Psalms and uses them to show how one can enrich his/her prayer life with the tools that the Psalms provide. (Hence, "The Psalms as Tools for Prayer".) In no way is it formulaic. His writing inspires the use of the tools.

Answering God is a fantastic devotional, guaranteed to positively affect one's prayer life.

Low Tide, High Tide: Reflections on Morning and Evening Prayer

Low tide. Go ahead and sleep.

High tide. Take a walk with me.

I lay with you in the evening

I walk with you in the morning

I offer you all that I have on this earth

And take all that you have given

then I watch the darkest day fill up with angels

And He saw that it was good

Morning and evening, another day

The above lyrics were written by me out of inspiration from reading Eugene Peterson's chapter "Rhythm" from his book Answering God. By using quotes from the chapter, and my own thoughts, I will explain what it means and will describe the message you are meant to receive from it.

The song is about morning and evening prayer.

This evening, I will pray as the Psalmist of Psalm 139: 

"Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting."

I will pray that God will find all that is in me and will 

"Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. . . .
You desire truth in the inward being;
Therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. . . .
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me. . . .
and sustain me with a willing spirit"(1)

I will pray that he takes all of me and molds me into something good. That he works within me to make me pure. That "everything that can be shaken will be shaken!"(2)
Sacrifice yourself to God. Lose your life to him so that you may find it when you wake.

"A sacrifice is an offering placed before the Lord so that he can make something of it. Once offered it is in God's hand to do with what he will. . . . You have had all day, now let God have all night. . . . Low tide. Sleep now."(3)

I will end my prayer with an acknowledgement of God's presence and will lay down with him to sleep. As I sleep, he will prepare for me my daily bread.

"The word of God begins while we are asleep and without our help. He continues to work through the day in our worship and obedience."(4)

In the morning, I will say 'Yes' to God. I will receive my daily bread and will dedicate my day to him. 

"O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
In the morning I plead my case to you, and watch. . . .
I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house,
I will bow down toward your holy temple in awe of you.
Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies;
make your way straight before me."(5)

Yes, God was preparing me for his work while I was asleep, but I will have to make the decision to live in that work throughout the day, as Peterson says, with worship and obedience. I must choose to walk with God.

"Morning prayer places us before the watchful God and readies us to enter the day watchful, watching our dangerous past recede, and watching the dangerous day fill with God's angels. High tide."(6)

As I walk with God, I can watch the darkest day fill up with his angels.

"For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day's work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening Word. All unrest. all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him. Therefore, at the beginning of the day let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whome our life belongs."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (7)

"Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." - Ephesians 5:14

Let God have the first word and the last word of your days.

Morning and evening prayer allow God to do with our days what he did in the creation narrative.

This universe is a masterpiece. This world is a masterpiece. We are masterpieces (Eph. 2:10).

Each and every day can be a new masterpiece if we yield to the blowing of God's Wind. 

I want all my days to end with "and He saw that it was good"! 

Notes: 

(1) Ps. 51:2, 6-7, 10, 12b.
(2) A lyric from the song "Justice Waiting" by Jason Upton.

(3) Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer (New YorkL HarperCollins, 1989), 64.

(4) Ibid., 66.

(5) Ps. 5:3, 7-8.

(6) Peterson, 67. 
(7) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 43