Christian Commentary II: Happiness vs. Joy

(The remark in bold is a comment by an atheist friend of mine, and my response follows.)

"I'm glad that Christianity has made you happy. However, your statements about how people of other religions are innately unhappy while Christians are innately happy, fulfilled, and helpful to others is a dangerous generalization and stereotype that reflects your biases, not reality."
 
That isn't exactly what I'm saying. I never said anything about being happy. I did mention joy. Joy in the Biblical sense is more synonymous with peace and hope than pure happiness. Obviously it goes beyond those and is not entirely separated from happiness - else we wouldn't need a different word - but it doesn't just mean being happy. I can be - and often am - unhappy with my life at times, due to stress or pain or what-have-you, yet I still feel joyful. I can still praise God, for the work He is doing on me in my present tribulation and for the promised outcome once it is over. There is joy in resting in the knowledge that nothing can separate us from the love and care of God, and that all things - even the evils of this world - can work together for good to those who love God and follow in His purpose for their lives.
 
As to the other, once again I fear you missed my point. There is nothing about a Christian that makes him/her innately more happy, fulfilled, or helpful than somebody else. It is true that being a Christian and truly seeking God's will should produce the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) as a "by-product" if you will of having Christ working in you. But the rest can likely be attributed more to personality, and it is of course silly to think that Christianity has a unique difference in inborn personality of its members. I know many decent, loving individuals who follow Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism (I only know one Buddhist), and I would call them generally happy and helpful, and at times fulfilled. I would say this about many Christians, too.
 
What I said was that I know people of other religions who still struggle with sin and suffering despite going through their religious instructions. When I compare Christianity with anything, I think not only of the abstract knowledge of both I have, but also specific individuals that embody the religion. I follow this general rule: "But when we are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are usually not thinking about real people whom we know at all, but only about two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers. If you want to compare the bad Christian and the good Atheist, you must think about two real specimens whom you have actually met. Unless we come down to brass tacks in that way, we shall only be wasting time." - C S Lewis, Mere Christianity
 
Christianity is unique in one important area: it has the concept of grace. You won't find that in abundance anywhere else. (Please note the following descriptions do not contain a full account for brevity's sake.) 
 
Take Buddhism. According to Buddhism, evil is in the world because of human desire (see The Four Noble Truths). A Buddhist is on the path to nirvana, i.e. the "puffing out" or "extinguishing" of desire. "Sin" in Buddhism has to do with violence and greed. If you sin in Buddhism, you contribute to the evil, and there is no teaching of forgiveness or grace for personal cleansing; you must pick-up, continue on, and should you ever achieve nirvana you will no longer care (or rather, it will no longer affect you). 
 
Take Hinduism. Karma is the primary effect of goodness and sin. If you do good things, karma will reward you in this life or the next reincarnation. If you do bad things, you are stuck with them as well and will be punished. The goal of Hinduism in many ways is to do more good than bad so karma stacks in your favor. 
 
Take Islam. Islam is very much about earning your way into heaven. You do what is right, right being defined as obedience to the teachings of their Prophet, and the closer you can control your actions to match up with the laws, as well as the more you contribute to the spreading of Islam, the better your place in heaven. Punishment is strongly enforced in Islam as well for those who fail to live up to the standards. 
 
Take Judaism. Judaism begins to attain the idea of forgiveness. Jews must follow a strict code of conduct for purity and uncleanness, and sinners must make sacrifice to God to have their sins "pushed back" or "overlooked" for a time. Sin is punished heavily, but repentance and sacrifice will earn one's place back into the favor of God. 
 
Now take Christianity. There is a code of expected conduct, which serves the purpose of showing that nobody can live up to it on their own - except Jesus, who died in sinners' place so they could be free from sin's bondage. The goal of Christianity is to have a relationship with God, not follow a to-do list of morals, and sins are forgiven in faith. Grace is God loving you when you are an unlovable, selfish being, and forgiving your sins even though you do not deserve it. This is the one I know of personally, and I can tell you that the experience of forgiveness is amazing and humbling and life-changing. But even outside of my own experience, I can intellectually discern the differences in the religions. I may be biased in which one I choose still, due to my upbringing and position on the globe, but the religions can be objectively divided as to their differences, and if any of them are true, only one of them can be (their core beliefs are not interchangeable).

Christian Commentary: Is Christianity a Controlling Doctrine?

I had a discussion on Christianity with a few friends of mine about a year back, all of whom were either atheist or agnostic. Surprisingly, I found a few of my answers to their questions saved on my computer the other night. I've decided to share them on here in hopes they might be of benefit to someone. Even if you disagree--I'd love to continue the conversation. :)

The answers are kinda long, so I may spread them out over several notes. The bold parts are the questions, and the rest is my answer.

"Christianity has the hallmark of a doctrine meant to control people, that is get them to act ethically and morally as they see correct, not as a group of people 'making up a deity.' It is making up a social construct over hundreds or even thousands of years to get people to do what you want them to do."

This is so far removed from the teachings of every great Christian that I can only imagine you get this notion from the stereotypical (and unfortunately, not altogether untrue) image of the church. I'm sadly aware that most people's view of Christianity consists something of nuns with rulebooks and rulers, church (and political) leaders shouting out what is sin and what isn't and demanding everyone follow, and thousands if not millions of church-goers giving lip-service to those rules and then bad-mouthing or snub-nosing anyone who doesn't.
 
Christianity as taught in the New Testament is not a controlling doctrine at all. Let me clarify that statement before I am completely jumped on.
 
First off, yes, the Bible does call for certain moral standards of living. It also says that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," and that getting to Heaven is "not by works" but through the "gift of God's grace." The Bible is clear that no one can live up to the moral standard proposed therein. Jesus came to say that it doesn't matter how good of a person you are, how often you help the poor and needy, or how many times you go to church: we all have vices, which we may regard as insignificant next to our virtues or other vices, but which separate us from the absolute holiness of God. We all deserve death. Christians believe that God became a man, suffered as a man to death as payment for our sins (since we deserve death), and in rising from the dead made it possible for us to change. The point is that salvation then comes not through anything you do, but through faith in Christ. No amount of morality on your own part will save anyone; a Christian believes Jesus works through us to make us moral despite our selfish selves. 
 
Peter, Paul, Luke, and John expound on this following the Gospels, talking about how Christ frees them from the Law. The servitude to God which is so often expressed in the Bible is clearly written of as an offering of gratitude. It isn't necessary for salvation, but to "be saved" means to have Jesus working in your life, and that means a birthed desire to change and be more like Him. The basic idea is, "Since Jesus Christ has given me everything and enabled my freedom when I did not deserve anything but death, I will show my love by doing everything I can to follow His commands and trust to His mercy for my inevitable shortcomings." But the Bible is clear that this CANNOT be forced on others.
 
This is all personal revelation and change stuff, though. If you want to look at the actual teachings of Christ, they discourage a controlling method as well. Christ warned, "Do not judge others, lest you be judged." He instructed us to act towards others as we would like others to act towards us (not how others DO act towards us, or based on what we feel they "deserve"). When He told Peter that he would have to suffer and die for the ministry, Peter's response was to point to John and say, "Lord, what about him? What will he have to do?" Jesus's response was, "...what is that to you? You must follow Me." The point of all of these things is that Christianity is a personal religion in that all of the "control" is between you and God; no Christian is to cast judgment on anyone who doesn't "live up to" the same standards he feels obligated to follow, especially if the other isn't a fellow Christian.
 
I'd like to give a quote that sums up the true Christian perspective on controlling others: "One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons - marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning" (C. S Lewis, Mere Christianity).
 
At the end of the day, Christianity is about a personal relationship with God, not a list of moral rules to be followed to "earn" your way into heaven or out of hell. That is what heaven and hell are: one is getting to forever enjoy a relationship with your Creator, while the other is being forever separated from that relationship. It was never about punishment, but choice: if you choose God, He accepts and brings you to Him, and if you reject God, He accepts and puts you where you will never be bothered by Him again. We are halfway in-between now, dependent on God but able to choose whether to go to Him or to reject Him. Eventually God will cut the strings of dependance, and those who clung to Him will get to stay with Him while those who followed their own way will get their own way.
 
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Please note that I am not denying that "Christianity" can be and has been used by people to gain or keep power and control. The church throughout history has been rather good at this. But you can say the same thing about capitalism, democracy, socialism, communism, education, welfare, and any other program designed for good but ran by people. There are always bad apples, and they will inevitably spoil the affair through greed, selfishness, and other vices. That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended - civilizations are built up - excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. God has designed the human machine to run on Himself. This applies to Christianity as well, in the sense that at any point the church (or churchgoers) attempt to run the show without directly relying on God, the machine begins to conk. Since every Christian is an imperfect person, the machine has little hope of running perfectly.
 
And now we come to morality. Morality, especially Christian morality, raises in a good many people's minds: something that interferes, something that stops you having a good time. In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations. When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, "No, don't do it like that," because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work.

Jesus Often Withdrew

Sometimes what seems like just another ordinary event becomes extraordinary and life-changing. Such was the case for me when, in 2009, I stumbled across a blog entry on prayer that led me to begin studying Thomas Merton's writings on prayer. God used it to revolutionize my life. Through that preacher's blog, God gave me a prayer life that has grown and enriched me and includes 100+ pages of journal entries that record the voice of God, spoken to me.

I began to see that life's most important thing was to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. My raison d'etre was: to spend much time with God, one-on-one. And that out of this alone-time with God my life in community with others, to my family, my friends, my coworker, my future wife and family, would be strengthened and transformed. I chose to cultivate the abiding-in-Jesus life, it continues to this day, and my heart is to deepen it.

To every Jesus-follower who now asks, "What am I supposed to do?" I give you the answer: go to a "lonely place apart" and meet with your God. Do not do anything until this meeting takes place! And one meeting is not enough. Mc-meetings don't count either. Abide. Rest in Him. Dwell. "Practice," as Brother Lawrence wrote, "the presence of God."

Time-travel back 2000 years to an upper room in Jerusalem. Sit at that table. Slow down. Turn off your iPhone. Open your Bible to John 14. Listen to Jesus' instructions. John 15. John 16. Open the Text and get Texted. Slow-cook in the teriyaki sauce of these verses. Get covered and coated with these "one thing" words of Jesus.

One of my literary mentors, Thomas Merton, wrote: "The one thing necessary is a true interior and spiritual life, true growth, on my own, in depth, in a new direction. Whatever new direction God opens up for me. My job is to press forward, to grow interiorly, to pray, to break away from attachments and to defy fears, to grow in faith, which has its own solitude, to seek an entirely new perspective and new dimension in my life. To open up new horizons at any cost. To desire this and let the Holy Spirit take care of the rest." (A Year with Thomas Merton).

Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. (Luke 5:16)

Who am I, who are you, not to do this?

Spiritual Formation

In Galatians 4:19, Paul expresses his hope that Christ is "formed" in the hearts of the Galatian Jesus-followers. In the famous Romans 12:1-2, Paul wants the Roman Jesus-followers to be de-morphed out of their conformation to the pattern of this world and be trans-morphed into Jesus-ness.

Spiritual formation and transformation: how does this happen? Here are the four stages, from my point of view.

Stage 1: the recognition of how needy we are. I need to be changed. I need to be different. There are things in me that need to be burned away. I am not all that I need to be in Christ.

I do not think this can be forced on a person, or that sermons and lectures and unasked for advice will work. It comes, mostly I think, as a revelation, as an epiphany, from God. When this happens, the recipient of the revelation is in a good place to be changed.

Stage 2: recognition of the gap between myself and Christ. This is recognition of the magnitude of the transformation, which is: that Christ be formed in us. (Gal. 4:19) This is no small thing.

I like the scene in Isaiah 6 where Isaiah, arguably the most righteous person in Israel, enters the temple and gets a glimpse of a holy God. Isaiah’s response is a prophetic one; he pronounces doom upon his own being. “Woe is me! I am undone! I am dis-integrated! I thought I was a man of integrity. Now I see I am a man with a dirty mouth.”

Isaiah sees the holiness of God. “Holiness” is not another attribute of God. To call God “holy” is to express the “otherness” of God. God, as Supreme Being, is “set apart” from all other beings. There is no one like God.

God is different. God’s difference is expressed in his all-knowingness, all-powerfulness, and all-loving nature. This is, understatedly, different from you and I. To see this is necessarily to be “undone.”

I'm going to use my friend Jordan here in an example. Jordan loves to play basketball. There were a few years, he tells me, when he lived and breathed basketball. And, in his own little circle of basketball-playing friends, I bet he was pretty good and there were times when he and others thought he was pretty dang good.

Now imagine this. Jordan is young and in his basketball-playing prime. A few people think he's really good. He's in the gym. He is scoring points. In walks Michael Jordan, in his prime. We all stop. We’re stunned. He asks, “May I play?” We let him. He decides to guard Jordan. At this point, Jordan says, “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean basketball-playing!” Michael Jordan’s playing is “holy.” Different. Set apart. Not just a “cut above,” but “beyond.” His skills are transcendent. I am on earth, thou art in heaven.

The difference between Michael Jordan’s basketball skills and my friend Jordan's is minor compared to the difference between us and Christ. This difference must be recognized, and should not be minimized. It is jaw-droppingly real. Jesus is different.

This often comes as an epiphany, a revelation, an illumination. The Great Realization. The ultimate “O My God!” happening. This is needed, and it is good. As this happens the prospect of spiritual metamorphosis is positive. But without it, we’re left with the variety of human will power and self-transformation strategies. It is instructive to note that one cannot self-morph into Christlikeness. To think so is to trivialize Christ.

Stage 3: the realization that I cannot change myself. So, no striving allowed, because it won't do any good anyway. "Will power" won't work anyway. To think it will is to diminish Christ, reducing Him to just another fallible subhuman like all of us.

No amount of human striving and effort can serve to morph my spirit into Jesus-likeness, just as no amount of training and practicing could shape me into Michael Jordan-esqueness. Were that to actually happen, God would get the credit.

The gap between myself and Christ is far greater than the gap between my basketball and ability and that of a Michael Jordan. When I realize this, it could cause me to despair, but only if the only option for personal transformation is my own will power and effort. Yet there is another option. God could do it. God, who made the heavens and the earth, could transform my heart into a heart like Christ's. God could "form Christ in me." God could change the shape of my heart from this-worldliness to a heart and mind renewed in Christ. (Romans 12:1-2)

So we have hope! While we are unable to effect the needed transformation, God surely is able. It is this hope, based on the revelation of our deep need and the gap between us and the holiness ('differentness") of Christ that brings us to the inexorable, logical conclusion that is our fourth stage of spiritual transformation.

Stage 4: God can change me!

Stage 5: Therefore, get into the presence of God. A person cannot consistently dwell in God's presence and remain unchanged.

Jesus gives us this secret of spiritual life and transformation in John chapters 14, 15, and 16. We are to dwell in Him, abide in Him. Be like a branch, connected to Jesus the Vine. Attach yourself to Jesus, every day!

We used to have an old pear tree in our back yard. Sometimes I'd see a branch that had fallen off the tree. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that this detached branch will never produce pears. But if that branch could be reattached to the tree it will bear pears. Inexorably. Necessarily. No striving needed or allowed. It will produce fruit simply because it is part of the tree. The Jesus-life is not about "trying hard" but about "abiding." Analogically, Jesus tells us that if we are attached to Him our lives will produce "much fruit." Plus, He gives us His peace and His joy and His knowledge and we're told we will do what he has been doing and even greater things.

All because we are "in Him" and He is "in us."

Therefore abide in Christ. Dwell deeply in Him. Let the morphing begin.

The Absurdity of Life Without God

If there is no God, life is absurd. If there is no God, life is ultimately meaningless. That is, there is no point to life.

I'm not an atheist, but there are some atheists I admire for their logical consistency. Take Richard Dawkins:

"Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous--indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose."

Dawkins is correct, if there is no God. But if this universe is a "creation" then it has, by definition, a purpose. Only if there is a Creator God does our life have ultimate purpose. Other atheists have recognized this - such as Sartre, Camus, and Nietzsche.

Thus someone who refers to themselves as an atheist and tries to find ultimate meaning and purpose in life without a Creator God is fundamentally misguided. Only if there is a Creator God does one's life make sense in the greater scheme of things.

The Presence Motif

The great New Testament scholar Gordon Fee writes:

"The Holy Spirit is none other than the fulfillment of the promise that God Himself would once again be present with His people... The Spirit is God's own personal presence in our lives and in our midst; He leads us into paths of righteousness for His name's sake; He 'is working all things in all people;' He is grieved when His people do not reflect His character and thus reveal His glory; and He is present in our worship, as we sing 'praise and honor and glory and power' to God and to the Lamb."

Fee calls this "the Presence Motif." This motif is, for example, the structural key to the book of Exodus. In Exodus the people are seeking for the experiential presence of God, and follow God's tangible presence through the wilderness.

When God is experientially present in a worship gathering, people stay. What people need is the real presence of God. I believe that, for the most part, it is experience, and not theory, that breeds conviction. The love and grace and mercy of God are experiential realities of the God who is there and not just theoretical postulates.

The Sacrifice of Fools

In John 10:10 Jesus says, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy; but I have come so that you might have life, and life to the fullest.”

As I see it, the “thief” wants three things from us:
1. Our experience of the loving presence of God
2. Our response of loving God back
3. Our act of giving this love away to others

How does the thief do this? By fulfilling his “job description,” which is “accuser.” Fault-finder. Finger-pointer. Judger. This has been Satan’s strategy from Genesis 3:12 through Revelation 12:10. The “fault-finder” works in two ways. First, he works internally, inside us. He whispers words like “You are nobody,” “No one likes you,” “You will never succeed,” “You are a failure in God’s eyes,” and so on and on.

Secondly, he works through other people to communicate to us these things. I believe that Satan’s greatest pleasures are when he succeeds in tempting Christian brothers and sisters to whisper and murmur such accusations through the ungodly vehicles of gossip and slander. In Romans 1:28-31 gossip and slander are marks of evil, wickedness, and a depraved mind. As this mentally depraved activity happens, “life to the fullest” gets stolen, destroyed, and killed. That’s horrible, isn’t it? What can we do? Here are some things the Bible tells us so we can have victory in this area and thus release more people into the loving presence of God.

1. Refuse to offer the “sacrifice of fools.” This “sacrifice” is described in Ecclesiastes 5:1-2. The “sacrifice of fools” is to “be quick with your mouth and hasty in your heart.” The remedy is to “let your words be few.”

2. Meditate in your heart on whatever things are good, true, and beautiful (Phil. 4:8). That which is meditated on in the heart comes out of the mouth. Meditate on the faults of other people and guess what comes out of the mouth? Note the intimate link between what goes on in the heart and what comes out of the mouth in Psalm 19:14 – “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

3. Resolve that your mouth will not sin. Psalm 17:3 states, “Though You probe my heart and examine me at night, though You test me, You will find nothing; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.” Decide not to sin with your mouth. Can you do it? One of the enemy’s lies is the whisper “You’ll never succeed at this.” But that is another of Satan’s deceiving strategies. Remember – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And, you’ll sleep better at night (Proverbs 3:24).

The thief’s strategy is to get the followers of Jesus so much in disunity that a powerful corporate voice cannot unite in its focus and praise of our Savior. This angers me. I want to see every one of you experience the Christ and His promised “life to the fullest.” Therefore let us make our heart-meditations the good, true, and beautiful things of God and our mouths will follow in united praise to our King, who visited our world and remains by His Spirit to offer life like we’ve never known it before.