Are people born evil, live evil lives and finally die evil, what we sometimes call nature? Do they become evil due to their circumstances, what we sometimes call nurture? Or is the survival instinct, the key assumption for evolutionary theory for all life, the source of all evil for human beings (since even the science worshippers don’t believe that animals have the (what’s the word) capacity for or responsibility of discerning good and evil)?
If all that matters is survival at all costs, wouldn’t all humans be motivated to be as evil as possible? Wouldn’t civilization effectively end up as a race to the bottom? Why sacrifice one’s life for anything? Why temper one’s desire to extend one’s life at any cost?
What if, instead of survival of the fittest, our souls magnify the Lord, not ourselves. This is Mary’s Song, The Magnificat, the Ode of the Theotokos. It is a reversal of the world order. “46 And Mary said: My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors. 56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.” (Luke 1:46-56)
In God’s order, we are to be stewards of the life he created, of all life on the planet. In his order, humans do reign supreme, but with great power, God also gave us great responsibility. In addition to the story of God’s creation in Genesis, the story of Noah’s Ark also reflects the importance of the animals that share our planet to our own survival. They were not abandoned. They were preserved with human life. They are part of God’s initial creation, and the story reflects their value to their creator. As we do, all life belongs to God.
According to the theory of evolution, human beings evolved from the same magically appearing spark of life into the superior creatures we presumably are now. By our superior reason, we are dominant because our genes are simply better than other animals, since we are considered the most evolved animal. The evolutionary order imposes no responsibility on humans to other life. In fact, if we can live on the planet without other life, all the better, more space and resources for us, the superior animal.
However, we cannot do so, something about food chains and such. Science can be so convenient (evolutionary theory) and yet so inconvenient (the real world created by God). More importantly, this is not God’s order, and it is a violation of his mandate. We are failing our planet and all of its life. In God’s order, human beings are not the only creatures with rights. In addition to violating human rights, violating animal rights, such as using them in immoral experiments to serve humans, even to extend their lives, is also evil.
What great irony it is to be a vegan and an atheist. The science they believe in so deeply in is the same science that tortures animals to extend human life, survival of the fittest at all costs after all. In other words, we can use any animal however we want to extend our lives because survival of the human species, the superior species, is all that matters. Survival of the fittest is the process by which we attained our superior position as king of the animals, and we keep it by ruthless self-preservation.
Mary tells us that the Lord will reverse the order. God’s order is the opposite of our worldly order. This is also Jesus’s message in the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most famous passages in the Bible.
“5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. The Beatitudes He said: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5-7)
It is a warning to all. Do not get too attached to worldly things, such as power, money, and prestige, or even to life itself. If you do, in the end, under God’s law, which is the only one that truly matters, you will find yourselves on the losing side of the order. The reversal will be redemption for the poor in spirit, for those who mourn, for the meek, for the righteous, for the merciful, for the pure in heart, for the peacemakers, for those persecuted because of righteousness, and like Noah’s Ark, for the rest of God’s creatures, for he does not abandon us or them.
The human mind is a beautiful thing. It is also a dangerous thing, enough so to bring about our own extinction. People who put their faith in evolution do not understand the nature of human beings. We do not evolve beyond our fundamental nature, and it has not changed since we came into existence. They simultaneously want to believe that we are the same as other animals while being superior in our intelligence to other animals. It is oxymoronic or perhaps simply moronic. What makes human beings dangerous is not the potential for genius, of which we are, on an objective basis, incapable. Only God is truly capable of genius. What makes human beings dangerous is our infinite potential for stupidity, pride, jealousy, greed and all other manner of sin and evil, driven, in great part, by our egos.
Adam and Eve
In the story of Adam and Eve, the devil whispers in Eve’s ear, and she listens. The devil says, “‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” She trusts the devil and disobeys God. Adam and Eve’s demise is driven by their own hubris, and their fall from grace is humankind’s original sin. Some atheists might find the story irrelevant, even absurd. On the contrary, Adam and Eve’s sin is the same one that bedevils us today, not just in the United States, but in most of the world.
Much like the beautiful planet humans have been privileged to inhabit, God gave Adam and Eve everything, but they did not appreciate what he had given them. Instead, they wanted more. They wanted to be like God himself. However, they did not become like God. The devil also said that they would not die, but they did. He lied to them, and they believed him. God then evicts them from the Garden of Eden. In the story of their first two sons, Cain and Abel, we witness the first murder. What motivates Cain is similar to what motivated Adam and Eve: jealousy. Cain, a farmer, is jealous of Abel, a shepherd, whom God favors. So, Cain murders his own brother. God then punishes Cain to a nomadic life.
The Devil
Pandering to our narcissism, the devil whispers many things in our ears. All of them are deceitful. The Latin word for “I” is “ego.” “Ego” is defined as “the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world.” In psychological terms, “ego” is “one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality.” The ego, whose function has always had a double-edged nature, serving survival but often yielding destruction, has become terribly imbalanced. For many, its sole function now is as an agent for mutual or self-destruction.
Taking on various human forms, the devil whispers all over the world, in Russia, North Korea, China, India, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and yes, also in the west, and many listen. In the United States, the devil’s human form is an ugly, soulless, traitorous man called Trump who has not a single redeeming quality. His hate and lies have made derangement as common as drunkenness. His MAGA followers’ brains have become intoxicated with the double drugs of demagoguery and conspiracy.
The Authoritarian Whispers to MAGA
One of the great ironies of this historical moment is that this particular derangement of the self, of the “ego,” is facilitated, in part, through an abandonment of one’s own agency. The strongman, or authoritarian rule, more generally, has always had an appeal. It is an abdication of personal responsibility that seems to make life easier. In fact, it not only makes life harder but also requires a relinquishment of personal freedom and dignity, which would presumably also injure one’s ego. This exchange does not achieve the objective of making life easier, and it also surrenders our God-given attributes in the process, making slaves and fools of us all.
At this historical moment, one could point to a variety of problems: the immoral levels of inequality, the last financial crisis, the rich’s unwillingness to moderate their destructive greed, climate change, the pandemic, technology and its negative psychological effects as causes for an erosion in people’s confidence in democracy and in their willingness to do the hard work of self-governance. The people might believe that it is “all rigged,” and in some ways, it is. However, handing over the levers of government to the very scoundrels who rigged it is the kind of folly to which only those who heed the devil’s whispers would fall prey. The sane and responsible response is resistance.
Putin, Trump and the other authoritarian “leaders” do not care about the values they pretend to care about. All they care about is power and money, and like the devil himself, they lie, lie and lie to obtain and retain both. The rich scoundrels who support these demagogues also care only about power and money. These rich supporters have amplified the dangerous authoritarians’ lies to enrich themselves while impoverishing the feeble minds who have purchased the devil’s siren song. These immoral rich traitors have concocted conspiracy theories with escalating levels of absurdity. In believing them, MAGA has effectively gone insane and has even engaged in violence, which has, in several cases, resulted in injury and death.
What’s “New” Is Perennial
None of these “new” developments in the human drama should be surprising to anyone who has read the Bible. Despite their religious chest-thumping and their proclamation of “Christian nationalism,” which is, in reality, neither about God nor country, MAGA is also often entirely ignorant of Scripture. Our present condition is just the latest manifestation of the perennial sickness of the human soul. Are we our brother’s keeper? We are supposed to be, but we will not be if we listen to the dark voices who spew hate and lies to appeal to narcissism and ego.
Despite their seeming predilection to believe conspiracy theories, it is entirely possible, even likely, that at least some MAGA do not believe that Trump won the election. In other words, the problem for them is not a detachment from reality but an unwillingness to accept reality. They might know that he lost. However, accepting this fact might also mean accepting the fact that they are not superior simply because they are white. It might mean accepting a pluralistic society in which they are no worse than but also no better than others and in which they have to share power and wealth. It might also mean accepting that they have been lying to themselves their whole lives about their superiority and that their entire self-worth has been colored by this self-delusion.
No matter how rich, no matter how poor, humans are, one and all, susceptible to the devil’s ploys because he knows well how to stroke our egos and how to lie to us. Elon Musk, the present owner of Twitter, feel into this trap just recently. Ultimately, it is not the devil who is to blame, but the fallen humans who have chosen to listen to him and his lies. So, Happy Halloween, MAGA and others who have listened to the devil’s whispers. He tricked you into a Faustian bargain. You were convinced that you were saving your country, “America First,” or some other delusion. Instead, your egos were being seduced at the expense of your soul and your sanity.
It is a privilege to write about the persecuted church, who are true Christians, and one I certainly do not deserve. I feel that this should be done by someone holy, which I am not. I am an ordinary sinner. Their stories of great persecution and of great faith often reduce me to tears and make me more aware of how much I take my religious freedoms for granted and how undeserving I am of God’s tremendous grace and love.
I desperately want to help them. I would like to reach through my computer screen and lift them out of their misery and restore them in every possible way. On a tangible level, I am limited to giving what I can. I encourage everyone to give generously to the persecuted church. Our brothers and sisters often sacrifice everything to follow Jesus Christ, and they need our help. As Christians know though, our power is really in our prayers and petitions to our God. It is in my prayers for them, which are the most frequent and the most intense of all my prayers, that my hope ultimately resides. I would like the Lord to hear these above all others, hear his people’s tears and suffering, and with his powerful hand do what I cannot.
Christ Suffered, True Christians Also Suffer
When Christians pray, we often ask for many things. We ask to be granted various forms of aid and to be relieved of suffering for ourselves and for others. This is quite understandable, and we should continue to do so. However, we also need to remember that the story for Christians is the story of Christ, and his story is one of suffering. Jesus died a brutal death, executed by crucifixion under false charges. It was also a death he freely accepted. We can remember his journey and allow his tremendous sacrifice, which is our salvation, to also be our comfort as we endure our own trials and tribulations.
“I Have Chosen You Out of the World”
The following words applied to Jesus’s disciples then and still apply to the persecuted church throughout the world today. Jesus said, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you…. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.” (John 15:18-19, 21)
A Story of a True Christian
There are so many stories of persecution that deserve our attention, and they span the globe, from the Middle East to Asia to Africa to South America. To highlight one story, there is nothing more painful for a parent than to lose his or her child. As shared by Christopher Summers with Open Doors (2019), Neelesh’s 7-year-old Christian son was beaten to death by Buddhist boys at his boarding school in India.
After his death, his depressed father resorted to alcohol to self-medicate and, on one occasion, ran into his former pastor. “Gazing right into my eyes, he said, ‘Neelesh, do you want to meet your son?’ I was so very angry. I said, ‘Are you mocking me? You know he is long dead!’ To my astonishment, the pastor replied gently, ‘If you drink like this and leave Jesus, you will never meet your boy, who is now in heaven.’
‘His answer shook me to the core. Here was the truth! My son was just seven when he died, but he loved Jesus. He sang hymns wholeheartedly whenever I led in worship. My martyred son is surely in heaven. I would never see him if I left Jesus.
‘That night I had a vision. I saw my son playing in a beautiful garden. As I went towards him he stopped me and said, “Dad, you should not come here now. It is not yet your time. See, I am very happy here.”’
Neelesh says that after that night he felt an extraordinary peace in his heart. He comforted his wife and restarted his ministry. ‘It was as if God had revived me totally,’ he says. ‘I moved on with more faith and zeal than ever and have been continuing still.’”
Christians who are born again can often point to a moment when grace penetrated their heart, mind and soul and soon thereafter redirected their lives to fulfill God’s will. This is not to suggest that they magically transform into a different person or that they experience no doubts or spiritual setbacks afterwards but that their faith becomes solidified in a way it had not been before and that they gain renewed clarity and purpose for their lives.
The truth of Neelesh’s life is that his suffering, the loss of his only son because he followed Jesus, could have made him a bitter man, but instead he became a better man and a better Christian through grace. This is what it means to be a Christian.
Desecration of Christians’ Sacred Symbols
It feels almost sacrilegious to write of the holy and the unholy in the same post, but it is important to place them next to each other to see the obvious contrast of true Christians with devil worshippers. It is easy to hold the Bible high, and we recently witnessed this profanity by the dear leader of the devil worshippers, the supposed president of the United States. This sacrilegious act made headlines for all the wrong reasons, yet it was defended by certain people of whom we will speak shortly.
Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, wrote on June 4, 2020, “I was outraged by…Trump’s use of the Bible and the backdrop of St. John’s Church for his political purposes. I was horrified to learn that while he was threatening to use military force across America, peaceful protesters were being forcibly removed from Lafayette Park so that he might pose before the church for a photograph. I wasn’t alone. My phone lit up with messages from people across the country who, like me, couldn’t believe what we were seeing. But if we keep the focus of our outrage there, we allow ourselves to be distracted from the issues that are compelling Americans to take to the streets in large numbers. I wonder if that’s the intention.”
Indeed, the nation is wondering a good many things. Predominant among them should be: how did we get here, where a satanic cult leader is also the leader of the free world? Perhaps the most important reason is: the “Christian right.”
The Opposite of Christians – Devil Worshippers
The Gospel Coalition recently wrote a piece on QAnon, which they described as a satanic cult. Carter (May 20, 2020) wrote, “As Adrienne LaFrance writes, ‘To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion.’” Indeed. That new religion is a satanic cult that bears no resemblance to Christianity. Carter follows with, “(…Trump has frequently retweeted QAnon-related accounts on Twitter, and some parenting and lifestyle ‘influencers’ promote the views on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.) Although it’s still on the fringe, Christians should be aware of the threat this political cult poses to the global church.”
What The Gospel Coalition and Carter should have said is that they are actually describing the “Christian right,” i.e. self-proclaimed “Christian conservatives,” although there is nothing either Christian or conservative about them, and that QAnon is just a more extreme expression of the very ideas and the culture that is mainstream in their churches. The “Christian conservatives” will take great umbrage at this characterization and protest (of course, they doth protest too much), but it is an accurate description.
As just one example, Eric Martin (August 2020) wrote, “One of the alt-right’s biggest political influences is former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, communications director under Ronald Reagan. He and fellow Catholic Joe Sobran served as inspiration for a blog referred to as ‘the alt-right’s favorite philosophy instructor,’ and his comments on immigration and questioning the Holocaust are the type of kinder, gentler white nationalism that provides oxygen for the more obvious forms. Buchanan has claimed that Jews hold the ‘real power’ in the U.S., that not as many died in the Holocaust as reported, and that ‘this has been a country built, basically, by white folks.’ When an interviewer suggested that white people had held power in the U.S. for years, Buchanan bristled. ‘I don’t know where you grew up,’ he retorted. ‘I grew up in a Catholic ghetto.'”
As another example, Franklin Graham is the son of Billy Graham, and he has inherited a legacy he does not deserve. What was the supposed high priest of the “Christian right’s” reaction to the repugnant desecration of a church? Franklin Graham took to Facebook with the following message, “President Donald J. Trump made a statement by walking through Lafayette Park to St. John’s Episcopal Church that had been vandalized and partially burned Sunday night. He surprised those following him by holding up a Bible in front of the church. Thank you President Trump. God and His Word are the only hope for our nation.” What would compel Franklin Graham to defend the indefensible?
Simple. Franklin Graham does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is power hungry. Similarly, Eric Metaxas does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is a careerist. Another, Jerry Falwell, Jr. does not worship Jesus Christ. He worships himself and Donald Trump. He is an opportunist. The list goes on. They worship false gods. They are devil worshipers since they all worship Donald Trump. They are not Christians, and they need to stop claiming to be Christians. Do not be led astray by these pretenders, these worshippers of false gods.
Christians’ One True God
Let us return to our one true God. Jesus fulfills the word, and what he said of the unbelievers who knew Moses’s laws and words and could recite them quite well but never understood their meaning still applies today to other self-proclaimed “believers.” Jesus said, “’I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?” (John 5:41-44)
The false prophets do not love Jesus or the Father, and they do not have the love of God in them. We know this because if they did, it would show clearly to the rest of us. Instead, when we hear them or see them, we cannot see Jesus because he is not there. Jesus is one of the most loved and admired figures in the world. Even those who do not believe in his divinity can see his goodness because it is clear who Jesus loves. He loves the Father and us. He is one with the Father, and every word he spoke and every action he took reflected who he was and who he loved.
When in the garden at Gethsemane, Jesus says, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) This is what real love of God looks like, and it is also obvious in the persecuted church. Do not mistake false prophets for men of God. Men of god love God; they seek his praise and his love; they seek to do his will. In Neelesh, we can see Jesus. Summers writes, “The anguish of losing his son has not passed—and never will—but the hope has returned. ‘I have made up my mind now,’ Neelesh says. ‘I will live for Christ and if He wants, I will die for him. Because what I lose for Him, I will actually gain in the end.’”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Martin Luther King, Jr., we can see Jesus. In his famous, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, he said, “All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper…. Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights….
We’ve got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn’t matter with me now because I have been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will, and he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So, I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” He was assassinated the next day.
The “Christian Right” Are Not Christians
Instead, what do people see when they look at the “Christian right”? Nothing holy and nothing resembling Jesus. There are so many damning statements. I am surely missing some of the most biting, but here is a sampling nonetheless.
If an uprising for racial justice feels like a threat to your Christianity, it’s time to learn the difference b/w #SlaveholderReligion & the Christianity of Christ.
— Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (@wilsonhartgrove) June 23, 2020
You get the idea. It is like trying to escape one’s racist past while still being racist in the present. No amount of cute marketing gimmicks, such as “weird [insert denomination or denomination] Twitter,” can change that.
The Satanic Cult Leader
Christianity Today’s retired editor in chief Mark Galli (December 2019) wrote a powerful statement regarding Trump’s impeachment, in which he declared that Trump should be removed from the office because of his character weaknesses and his conduct. Galli’s statement took courage, and he deserves credit for it. However, you know what else was powerful? The backlash against it from white evangelicals and other “Christian conservatives.”
More recently, Christianity Today published a piece that wholly lacked Galli’s moral clarity. Jayson Casper (June 30, 2020) wrote, “… ‘Trump’s executive order will make the commitment to international religious freedom more robust,’ said former congressman Frank Wolf, arguing the Trump administration has been markedly stronger on the issue than those of either party. ‘If you care about religious freedom, this is an issue to vote on.’”
While the “Christian right” morally contorts themselves into pretzels to avoid what is clearly a difficult choice for them between Jesus and Trump, the persecuted church has no such difficulties. They, like Martin Luther King, Jr., like the recently deceased John Lewis, like Elijah Cummings, like so many good Christian men and women around the world choose Christ over everything including themselves. That is love for and faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ. That is what Christianity and true Christians look like. Do not be deceived by anything or anybody else. Look for the Lord in those who claim to be Christian and if you cannot find Jesus, you could very well be looking at the devil in disguise.
Many of us might feel understandably powerless right now, as we face numerous hardships. A dangerous pandemic is costing hundreds of thousands of lives. At present, there have been at least 240,000 deaths from it worldwide. Our democracy is slipping away. The person who has taken over the White House is evil, greedy, corrupt and traitorous, as are his cronies, who have taken over our government.
The economy is being destroyed, as Cohen and Hsu (2020) report, “more than 33 million people have joined the unemployment rolls in seven weeks…. [E]conomists expect the monthly jobs report on Friday to put the April unemployment rate at 15 percent or higher — a Depression-era level.”
Our planet is also being destroyed by greed and consumerism. Global climate imbalances are yielding strange results, such as plagues of locusts, murder hornets, and a polar vortex is forecast to hit the Northeast in the next couple days while the West is set to experience record heat.
White “vigilante justice” seems to go unchecked while black men are being subjected to modern-day lynching. More generally, the lives of black and brown people are being valued less than others. They are being treated as second-class citizens and have to operate under a different set of standards than other Americans.
Our social fabric is being eroded in other ways, as people have abandoned religious institutions, many of which have forsaken the path of Jesus and instead of worshiping God have been worshiping worldly things. Their hypocrisy and the general misguided nature of secularism has driven people into the arms of other false gods, such as paganism, scientism, or cult-like leaders, such as Richard Dawkins.
Younger people, in particular, are frustrated, as the changes they want are frequently thwarted often by older people, the people who should care about them, or the political or economic establishment, the institutions that should care about them. These are dark times for the nation and for the world, and it can all feel so hopeless.
Jesus’s Divine Power
However, for Christians and for the world, there is one great hope, one eternal light to which we can fix our fortunes and our spirits – Jesus Christ. Mathis (2020) writes, “In the final tally, Jesus stands alone. No other human has left such a deep and enduring impression on the world, and he did so in only three years of active public life.” This is an indisputable truth. No other person has had anywhere near the impact that Jesus has had.
Where did Jesus’s power come from? As Christians, we would answer from God, as he is one with the Father. For non-Christians, the broad details of Jesus’s life are the following. He was a poor Jew from Galilee, who was born in Bethlehem. He had a mere 12 Apostles. He had no social media platform, with no hoard of followers. He wrote nothing, not a single word. He had no degrees or certifications. He had no worldly titles, wealth, power or prestige (aside from being of the line of David). Jesus spoke words, and he performed miracles. He was crucified, and he rose from the dead.
Those who believe him to be a mere mortal might ask: how could his one life have transformed the world more than any other, and what insight might that provide regarding our current challenges?
Man’s False Power
The reality is that those with power now, like the Caesars of their day, will be largely forgotten or will become a cautionary tale for others aspiring to be like them and for those who are inclined to be seduced by them. None of us can predict the future, but one thing is certain: no human present or future will compare at all with the power Jesus has now and will continue to have.
Some Christians are handwringing about the state of the faith, its trajectory, particularly in the West, and the rise of secularism. They have little faith and need to have more of it in God’s plan. They need to trust him more. They need to focus on glorifying God and not themselves. They need to stop compromising their morality and Christianity for political expediency or a false sense of power. Real power rests in Jesus, in God, and we only have access to real power when we rest in him.
The Benefits of Jesus’s Power
The benefits of Jesus’s power as it resides in us is peace and hope. In our darkest hours, we can turn to him, to our Lord and our God, and know that we are loved. If we entrust in him our lives, his power becomes our power. One might ask: how does this translate in practical ways in the real world?
A feeling of peace and hope helps one continue to fight another day. One needs to keep the faith and fight the good fight until the end. God gives us that resilience. Our faith in Jesus is our strength, and as Christians, we should never forget that. We should also share his power manifested in us with others during our shared trials and tribulations. With this, we will be and will do what we are called to do – be the salt and light of the world.
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16). Amen.
A person in a negative is hard to see. Similarly, a person defined in the negative is hard to understand. To be simply and honestly Christian is to define oneself in a straight-forward and positive way: we are Christ-followers. Define who you are by defining what you are for. Are you for Jesus? If you say “yes,” then he has to be at the center of everything in your life. By everything, I mean everything.
Not in the Negative – Christian in the Positive
In this essay, Mattson (2020) highlights what we should all know and be clear about as Christians. He writes, “One of the hallmarks of following Christ is emulating his life. And this is what Christianity essentially is: Jesus. Christianity isn’t a political ideology, or a sovereign nation, or a set of laws legislating values or enforcing a society’s preferred brand of morality. Christianity is centered upon Christ.”
Instead of a positive self-definition, many Christians have fallen into this trap of negative self-definition, often leaving Christ behind as they refer to the world in which they are too much involved. Some are opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. Some are opposed to immigrants and non-whites. Some are opposed to, more generally, “liberal culture.” The list is long, tedious, and unhelpful.
Jesus denounced immorality and hypocrisy, but he was not defined by his opposition to these things or to the Jewish religious establishment and its corruption. Instead, what defined him was what he advocated, what he taught, what he asked of us, what he said and did. This is what we follow and try to emulate.
If you are about children and families, as most people are, by the way, then actually support families. Help poor families raise their children out of poverty. If you are about a certain cultural position, say traditional marriage, then support that cause. Broken black families, in particular, could benefit from real support from Christians, meaning financial, psychological and spiritual support.
Instead of chastising others who do not fit your worldview – help those that do. If you are opposed to immigrants and non-whites, you really need to revisit Jesus’s teachings because there is no support in them for those positions. If you are opposed to “liberal culture” or “conservative culture,” how do you define those cultures? This one exercise in definition might not be as straight-forward as you might expect.
The Negative Is More Dangerous for Non-Christians
For non-Christians, the negative trap is even more dangerous. There is no one example to which they can set their compass, no star of Bethlehem, as Christians have in Jesus. They are stranded on a vast ocean, water everywhere yet not a drop to drink. What good is water if one cannot drink it, if it cannot sustain life? We have the water of life. We just have to have faith in the Word, and it will flow.
Non-Christians have to not just define themselves in the positive, as we do, but first, they have to determine what the positive actually is. What does the positive look like? Some atheists say that they do not like organized religion because it makes people into robots. Having a clear and positive self-definition as Christ-followers have in Jesus is not turning someone into an automaton. Instead, it is similar to the difference between a photo and its negative.
We are made in God’s image, and we have a clear image of God as man – an image in the positive. As any good Christian knows, emulating Jesus is hard. We will fail and fail again. We ask our God and each other for forgiveness. In this process, we become more aware of our own particular weaknesses and vulnerabilities, which we also take to the Lord in prayer to help us overcome them. There is nothing robotic in this lifelong spiritual journey. It is as individual as the prints on our hands and feet, as we are.
What is robotic, however, is looking to a stronger central government for direction on personal conduct, which really needs to be developed the hard way, that is character formation through individual introspection and reformation, and in the aggregate, a cultural unity that is as thin as the government’s decrees.
This is where Europe went astray. Its people, tired of the religious wars and their religious institutional failures, effectively abdicated morality to the government. However, governments are ill-suited for a task so complex and profound and are also even more prone to corruption than the church is while lacking a stable corrective mechanism as the church has. As argued here, Jesus Christ’s teachings are indelible and immutable; a nation’s laws are not. Once a bad leader rises to power, the country’s laws can be changed, and the leader can be hard to overthrow.
It is tempting but unproductive to define oneself by everything one is against, that is in the negative. Define what you are for, and then do the hard work of committing to those things and fighting for them. Put your time, talent and treasure into those efforts. This applies to Christians and non-Christians alike. The difference is that, for Christians, we have a clear picture – in the positive – of what that should look like.
In the Catholic Church, today, April 29, is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena. She is a beloved figure and one of the most important mystics and church leaders in history. Her remarkable life is worth revisiting any day but particularly now for the historical similarities and for the insights it provides into the soul of the church.
Catherine of Siena was born at a time of when the Black Death was decimating Europe. Estimates of the number of people felled by the disease differ, but they range from a third to almost two-thirds of the population. Also, as Black writes, “Less well known is that the plague continued to strike Europe, the Middle East and beyond for the next four centuries, returning every 10 to 20 years.”
In the video, Skipper explains that the pathogen “remains with us today,” speculating that our herd immunity, among other changes, might have led to its decline. Hatcher remarked that “Paradoxically, society was able to cope much better in the fourteenth century with deaths on this horrendous scale than we would be able to cope today, and this is primarily because people were, to a degree, self-sufficient and independent. Whereas today, we have such complex interconnections that deaths on anything like that scale would cause complete chaos.”
Even with relatively preliminary data, it is clear that the coronavirus pandemic is nowhere near as deadly as the Plague was. Hatcher’s statement was quite prescient, as this is indeed what the world has experienced. In spite of the coronavirus being considerably less deadly, it has wreaked tremendous damage, particularly economically.
On the other hand, similar to the Plague, an entirely possible outcome might be that we will have to live with a persistent novel coronavirus much like we live with the flu. We should all have been aware of this possibility from the start of our battle with the virus.
Catherine of Siena – Mystic
Mystics are a special group within the church, and Catherine of Siena is emblematic of them. They have a special relationship with God and live in a way that others might find baffling. Their beings and their lives seem to defy the laws to which the rest of us consider ourselves subject, and their passionate devotion awes and mystifies us.
More broadly, mystics serve a greater role in the church. They remind us that the church, as a whole, is actually a mystical body. To reprise the thrust of G.K. Chesterton’s argument from yesterday’s post, Christianity is really an irrational religion. Christians are not really about checking piety or other boxes as acts of devotion.
On the contrary, our faith is and always has been expressed by the irrational: the erection of stunningly beautiful testaments of love and devotion to our creator, which are visited by tourists and are destinations of pilgrimage for the faithful the world over, lives of tremendous sacrifice as Catherine of Siena’s or, more recently, Mother Teresa’s of Calcutta. We are called to not measure and calculate our love, but to leave it all behind and to live with faith abandon to our Lord. His will be done.
Perhaps, it is hard to sense this as most Christians, wrapped up in our daily, often tedious and stressful lives, worship in a more perfunctory but hopefully still sincere manner. We go to weekly services and progress through the liturgical calendar, paying a bit more reverence during its highlights. Again, in reference to yesterday’s post, if we are the “sense,” mystics are the “sensibility” of the church.
They make their way through the world in an enviable communion with God. What would seem entirely irrational for many of us, their reclusion, asceticism, sacrifice and visions, seem entirely in keeping with who they are. In the collective, they, along with the ascetics, are the legacy of John the Baptist, who resided in the dessert, eating locusts and wild honey, calling on his fellow Jews to be baptized, with one notable baptism.
Catherine of Siena’s power and influence in the church, which was considerable, as she is credited with convincing Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, did not really come from reason. Her power and influence came from her mysticism, her spiritual connection with God.
We are dust and to dust we shall all return. With death or the threat of it seemingly everywhere, let us remember this truth while also remembering that there are those who live and have lived among us who seem to have no fear of death. While their bodies surely return to dust, their spirits soar free of their bodies while still living. That is the power of deep faith in God. It is not rational. It is mystical.
So many people around the world turn to the Bible for consolation in their darker moments. We pray, and we read “the Good Book.” What is it about the Word of God that can be so centering? In this essay, Prior (2020) argues that it is because the Bible strikes a balance between “sense” and “sensibility,” a reference to Jane Austen’s classic novel.
Some wield the Bible like a stick, to chastise or to criticize others. Some go further; they raise it as weapon to terrorize or to frighten others into compliance with their ideas of moral conduct. Some cynically refer to the Bible, the ultimate authority, to elevate their own standing, that is to be seen by association and by others as the ultimate authority. However, the Bible neither does nor claims any of these things. Like God himself, it simply is. One sits with it; one reads it; and one is changed through a personal, mysterious dynamic.
The Bible Is a Living Contradiction
There are many translations and versions of the Bible, and many ways to read it. Perhaps one of the ways to read it would be to take note of how many times the Bible substantively contradicts itself without being contradictory or untrue. Like a person with both a right and a left arm, with a right and a left leg, its stories and statements balance each other, and it is consistent and true in its whole.
Let me more specifically define what I do mean and do not mean by contradiction. I do not mean differences in accounts or historical details, which likely simply reflect errors in translation, memory, or other expected inconsistencies with an extremely old document. (See Sommer’s rather tedious enumeration.) I also do not mean incongruities between the Bible and the scientific understanding of man and the universe because if one believes in God, the rest is moot.
What I mean is that the Bible provides both guidance and no guidance. It gives answers and poses questions. It gives clarity while retaining mystery. The contradictions are the stories themselves. God gave man both free will and the Law to follow. The Bible asks us to believe in Jesus’s miracles, which includes raising people from the dead, and in Jesus’s death on the cross. Why would a man who is the son of an omnipotent God not save himself?
Well, to understand the answers to these questions is to better understand Christianity and why it provides solace for so many. One of the most striking aspects of the Bible is that one would normally find contradiction discomforting, yet in it, people find the opposite, they find comfort.
Atheists Misunderstand the Bible
Atheists often raise “contradictions” as proof of the Bible’s intellectual or inherent weaknesses and its false claims to divine inspiration. Sommer writes, “Humanists reject the claim that the Bible is the word of God. They are convinced the book was written solely by humans in an ignorant, superstitious, and cruel age. They believe that because the writers of the Bible lived in an unenlightened era, the book contains many errors and harmful teachings…. The Bible is an unreliable authority because it contains numerous contradictions. Logically, if two statements are contradictory, at least one of them is false. The biblical contradictions therefore prove that the book has many false statements and is not infallible.”
The opposite of an “unenlightened era” must be the Enlightenment. However, as Prior notes, the reaction to the Enlightenment was the equal and opposite reaction of Romanticism. Atheists’ argument reflects not just their inability to understand God but also, perhaps mainly, their inability to understand man.
G.K. Chesterton (1904) wrote, “Rationalism is fighting for its life against the young and vigorous superstitions…. Christianity, which is a very mystical religion, has nevertheless been the religion of the most practical section of mankind. It has far more paradoxes than the Eastern philosophies, but it also builds far better roads…. The Christian has a Triune God, ‘a tangled trinity,’ which seems a mere capricious contradiction in terms.”
There is a sort of Weberian quality to this line of Chesterton’s argument in which he implies that the very contradictions of Christianity lend themselves well to a more productive and prosperous society. Of course, exercising my own reason, he clearly provides no empirical evidence to back up his assertion.
However, from a strictly intuitive sense, perhaps a religion that comfortably lies at the intersection of the rational and the emotional, of the known and the unknown, of God and man, would also give man the best sense of balance to deal with all of the uncertainties of life. If one’s certainty rests in God, the uncertainties of life are but a drama in which one participates but does not direct. In this knowing, one can find liberation and resilience.
Chesterton also expresses these contradictions as follows, “The difference then is very simple. The Christian puts the contradiction into his philosophy. The Determinist puts it into his daily habits. The Christian states as an avowed mystery what the Determinist calls nonsense. The Determinist has the same nonsense for breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper every day of his life.”
Chesterton continues, “The Christian, I repeat, puts the mystery into his philosophy. That mystery by its darkness enlightens all things. Once grant him that, and life is life, and bread is bread, and cheese is cheese: he can laugh and fight. The Determinist makes the matter of the will logical and lucid: and in the light of that lucidity all things are darkened, words have no meaning, actions no aim. He has made his philosophy a syllogism and himself a gibbering lunatic.”
To translate Chesterton for those less initiated in his style, by accepting the contradictions and the mysteries, Christians end up being more consistent than the rationalists or the Determinists. We own the contradictions, and therefore, in a consistently paradoxical way, the inevitable opaqueness of our beliefs ends up providing more light and being more transparent than others’ “more translucent” attempts to enlighten the world or to be truly honest.
Like the Bible – Man Is a Walking Contradiction
One might ask why. How could this be? Simply, because people are naturally contradictory. Thus, a religion that can honestly and authentically capture man’s state is going to be truer to man as he or she is. Christianity is not founded on an ideal idea of a person, but at its foundation is the Judeo-Christian understanding of a fallen man.
A perfectly rational man, as the humanists suggest we should all aspire to be, would not be man at all. It would be a computer or a robot. To be human is to be both rational and emotional, to have both sense and sensibility, to love books and argument and to love art and wonder. The Bible perfectly captures these divinely contradictory combinations such that in it, we find balance, and with it, we find wholeness, comfort, and God.
It is a harmless question. Are you a Christian? Yet, it invites responses that are not harmless. They are often judgmental and inappropriate. Christianity started as a Jewish sect, and it retains features of this origin in numerous respects. One of these is related to identity. People often identify themselves as Christian if they come from Christian families. In fact, the concept of religious identity as part of one’s lineage can be found in numerous faith traditions.
When some Evangelicals speak about being born again, they often refer to John 3, and I would argue without actually understanding what Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus. The author of this post declares, “No one, however, is ever automatically a Christian by birth.” In case the author is confused, no one person decides these matters. The church, in its entire body, does, and ultimately, God decides.
John 3:5-8 “Jesus answered [Nicodemus], ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.” The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’”
Christian – Societal Definition
Children born into Christian families can definitely claim to be Christian. They are Christian by birth. Many of them will have been baptized, i.e. born of water, as infants, and they will often have received Christian names. (In this context, Jesus might mean “born of water” with a double meaning, baptism by water and born of the womb. The latter is supported with “flesh gives birth to flesh.”) Their parents are choosing to carry on their religious tradition, to define them as followers of Christ, as their own parents might have done for them. This is the societal and literal definition of Christian, and it is an entirely valid one.
Christian – Spiritual Definition
Jesus was talking about a spiritual definition when he added “and the Spirit.” He was talking about a transformation that occurs within the person in response to the grace of the Holy Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit is a mysterious force, and it is entirely possible that a person goes through his or her life, living piously, without ever having a noticeable or profound experience with the Spirit.
Would Jesus say that this person is not a “true follower”? I will leave that up to him to determine, but some Evangelicals seem to have already decided that for him. They might consider that we do not always recognize the Holy Spirit at work. In which case, how would we be able to ascertain whether one meets this criterion of being a Christian or not? On the other hand, one might have been born again only to fall away again.
The following statement, like many of Jesus’s statements, can be hard to understand: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” I understand it as the nature of the Holy Spirit becomes manifest in the person, and depending on one’s relationship with God, one might be called to take unpredictable paths to fulfill his will. You hear God’s voice. Whether or not you can tell where it is coming from or where it will take you is not important. What is important is that you can hear it.
Becoming Christian
I am a nondenominational Christian and consider myself born again. I have no vested interest in the answer to this question. However, I do care that the Christian faith is protected and that it welcomes others with open arms. To become a Christian in a societally defined sense might involve some steps and some time, which are determined by each denomination. To become spiritually Christian, however, is determined by God and God alone, no matter what others might claim.
For a different interpretation of the last verses quoted: Piper (2009)
For those who are struggling with self-isolation, they might consider that this life has been the choice of many deeply spiritual people for millennia, such as Christian (cloistered nuns or) monks, who still live in monasteries around the world. (I highly recommend visiting them, particularly for a retreat.) Granted, a house full of noisy children and/or pets is hardly conducive to quiet reflection. However, one can adopt many of the monks’ daily habits. From what I could tell, their days are quite structured and oriented around prayer and productivity.
Quieting with Prayer
Praying is centering. If there is one thing I highly recommend practicing, and it does require practice, it is prayer. For those who struggle with it, as I did and still do, just to a lesser extent, I suggest having a prayer that you like, memorize it, and start praying regularly by reciting it. My “go-to” is The Lord’s Prayer. I have known it by heart since I was a child, and it is like the “comfort food” of prayers for me, deeply familiar, complete, and I can linger on each word as if Jesus were saying them with me. The Hail Mary is another familiar prayer.
Praying a rosary, which includes both of these prayers and some others, is another way to pray by recitation. Since the structure is laid out, one does not need to think about it. One might need to get used to moving through the rosary’s beads without looking, but it will come with practice.
Our own prayers, “free form” prayers, can be about anything. They are actually just one’s communication with an omniscient God, so there is no point in trying to hide anything. Just speak your heart, mind and soul to the Lord. Praying with scripture, which I would describe as mediating on the Word, is one of my favorite ways to pray. Catholics call it Lectio Divina. I actually made up my own style of it.
Quieting with Art
One of the things I used to do quite often was look at art, and I was reminded of how infrequently I do so now when I read this post. I used to even copy others’ drawings, which creates a certain intimacy between the original creator and the copier – you.
Your hand, temporally removed, tries to trace outlines that originated in their minds, which could be some of the greatest there ever were, before making it onto their canvas or other material. It is not just an artistic exercise but also a spiritual one that connects us to ancient friends and to a past to which we should always try to belong. It is our collective history, our memory of some of the best aspects of being human: the true, the good, and the beautiful.
As an example, the story of the Good Samaritan can be rendered in a myriad of ways, and whichever way the artist chooses provides insight into the person while also, hopefully, illuminating the Way. Biblical art is really an artistic rendering of the Word without words.
Quiet Unity
I could tell you that the Good Samaritan is a story about prejudice and compassion, or you could gaze upon the image of a man struggling to lift another helpless, vulnerable man and wonder why did he do it. Why did he help someone he was taught to hate and who was taught to hate him? The artist chose to depict the physicality of the moment, which heightens the solitude of both men, the difficulty of a sole man to lift another, and simultaneously their unity.
One could describe the art of quieting a disquieted mind as finding unity in solitude. It is the art of binding our fragmented mind, weary with worry, distracted with stress, with the rest of our being, and bringing our entire being into a quiet state of unity with our creator.
Our children, meaning all of the children on this planet, are our future and our light. Many children around the world are suffering because man can be evil. Adults are betraying our little angels. As we move through Holy Week, one that is particularly emotionally intense, let us try to be more like the most holy among us; let us cherish their innocent grace and emulate their natural resilience; let us live up to the trust they place in us.
Psalm 23 from the Hebrew Bible has been translated, reworked and interpreted numerous times. The words bring comfort to the reader not necessarily because of the language or the structure of the psalm but because of what it declares – trust in God. A simple message that transcends the song and the original context. Better than a harp, a child’s voice can elevate the psalmist’s trust with its delicate musicality.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Losing Trust
However, David, the psalmist, became sinful and fell from grace. He lost trust; he betrayed God. Like Adam and Eve, he did not dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Societies from time immemorial have feared the gods, which they often regarded as petulant and easily provoked. Contrary to some opinions, the Christian God is not fickle. We are fickle, and Jesus knew this.
John 2:23-25 “Now while he [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.”
Become Like Children
We are called to love God unconditionally and to follow the Way, and if we do so, we will have no fear and no want. God will not betray us. Instead, we sin over and over again. We do not follow God’s commandments. Additionally, we expect and condition our love, mainly on matters related to our earthly existence. Who are we to expect anything of God? God is God, and we are but mere sinful mortals. Jesus taught us complete trust and love, and we have reminders of him everywhere in our children, in God’s children.
Matthew 18:2-4 “He [Jesus] called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”
Becoming like a child is not to abandon the reason, knowledge or wisdom we might have gained over the years, but it is to render our spirit open and accepting to the Lord. It is to give without asking, to pray without expecting, to love without conditioning. It is to be God’s child again.
As Easter approaches, let us pray for peace and remember that we have a responsibility to our children, the innocents, to protect and to love them because they belong to God. No matter where we may dwell, they still dwell in his house.
