"The Greatest Love of All?"

In Whitney Houston's 1985 hit song, we are told that "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all."

Christians certainly ought to disagree with that sentiment, for we follow One who summarized the Law in His greatest commandment to "love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself."  Surely going outside of oneself to love God and others is the greatest love of all!

Still, by including those last two words, "as yourself," Jesus does not deny us the right to a healthy self-love.  He only denies us a total preoccupation with ourselves to the extent that all interaction with God and others is calculated to our own self-interest.  We must love God and others, not use or manipulate them.

Some believe that human beings are naturally selfish...that we come into this world hard-wired to seek our own interests.  This may or may not be true, but to be selfish is not the same thing as to love one's self.  Here I agree with Whitney: proper love of self is something that one must learn.

In my last post, I delineated three attributes that characterize the love of God as presented in the Bible: specific, tangible acts; merciful understanding; and a willingness to reconcile.  I further argued that if we claim to love as God loves, then our interactions with others should also be characterized by such attributes.  So today I want to ponder the question: What does Godly self-love look like?

Specific, Tangible Acts

To love myself properly, I must do concrete things that benefit my life.  And by "benefit," I do not mean that I should gratify my immediate urges, but that I should do what is in my long-term best interest.  Here are some concrete acts that I believe every person ought to do to love themselves:

• Physical self-care: eating healthy foods, exercise at least a couple times a week, getting eight hours of sleep a night.  Scripture tells us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).  We ought to start treating them like that!
• Mental/emotional self-care: be intentional about creating space for silence, but also for play.  Give yourself permission to take care of your own inner life, and also to do things that bring you joy.  This is personal Sabbath, and it is essential for our own well-being.

Merciful Understanding

There are two equal and opposite errors that we often make in relating to ourselves.  The first is to fail to look honestly at our own failures, weaknesses, and sins...to rationalize our own behavior even when it is destructive.  The second error is to be so self-critical that any fault, mistake, or sin--even small ones--evoke shame and self-doubt that paralyze us.

Godly self-love requires that we candidly confront and accept responsibility for our own misdeeds.  We must face the reality of all our choices and actions, because in doing so we actually affirm our worth and dignity as responsible persons.  Not to take responsibility is actually to diminish our personhood.  

But even more, as sinners saved by grace, we can let go of the destructive tendency to berate ourselves with undue shame and guilt.  The Gospel tells us that Jesus understands our fallen nature (Hebrews 4:15), and since He gives us merciful understanding, we ought to give ourselves merciful understanding as well.  To do less is to cheapen His grace.

Willingness to Reconcile

Love involves more than just understanding...it involves reconciliation.  God did not just understand our fallen nature...He reconciled that fallen nature to Himself in the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  True self-love, then, involves reconciling ourselves to ourselves.  What does that mean?

Much of our sin, our brokenness, is rooted in deep hurt and dysfunction from our past.  Sin is much more than just our own action: it is a deeply entrenched system of evil that has existed since the Fall.  No relationship, no family, no community has escaped its influence.  

It is a harrowing experience, but true self-love involves an honest confrontation with the brokenness in our past: a discerning look at how the false stories of our past tend to mar the story that God intends us to know about ourselves.  Often this involves facing personal experiences of abuse, abandonment, loss, or injustice.  

These are not just "in the past."  All these experiences...and the lies and distortions of reality that result...will continue to influence our present and our future..  Godly self-love demands that we reconcile ourselves by seeking healing and restoration that can only come from God.

Loving yourself is not "the greatest love of all," but it is a love that we must learn to practice so that we can live with integrity and joy as we seek to love God and our neighbors.

God is Love

"Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love." - 1 John 4:8.

This passage is quoted by all kinds of people in order to justify all kinds of attitudes and behaviors.  Which attitudes and behaviors?  That depends on how one understands those three simple words, "God is love."

Should I take my experience and definition of love and then assume that to be, in some way, what God is?  For example: The people who really love me just accept me for who I am and don't demand that I change.  That's the kind of God I believe in!

Or should I take an abstract, doctrinaire concept of God and then use that to put limits on what love is?  For example:  The God of the Bible disapproves of homosexuality, greed, and Islam, so preaching against homosexuals, "the 1%," and Muslims is actually the loving thing to do!  It will get those people to repent and turn to Jesus!

These are perhaps crude characterizations, but I think they do reflect a very natural human tendency. Love is active and risky.  As C. S. Lewis once wrote, "To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken."  To combat this disturbing insight, in our relationships with others we may tend to act out of self-protection and self- justification: to be defensive, to wear masks, to avoid authenticity...because that is the way of safety.

Biblical love--God's love--is not self-protection or self-justification, and it requires risks that many of us wish not to make.   However, to love truly as the bible defines it, we must look at God and then love as He loves.

Much could be said here, but from Genesis through Revelation I definitely see three characteristics of God's love:

1.  God's love is shown in specific, tangible acts.  God's people are always asked to recall specific acts in history in which God acted decisively to love them: the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Law, the sending of Jesus, the Cross and Resurrection.  While some theologians argue that the love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the true essence of God's love, I think the overwhelming testimony of Scripture reveals God's love in His intentional, loving acts towards His people and, indeed, towards all creation.

2.  God's love is shown in merciful understanding.  Like the Good Samaritan, God enters into the midst of our brokenness.  He sees us not as He expects us to be, but as we are, in all our humanity, and yet He chooses to react (to quote a friend of mine) with compassion instead of contempt.  When Jesus interacted with "the sinners," he referred to them as "sick, in need of a doctor," not "damned with a one-way ticket to hell."

3.  God's love is shown in the willingness to reconcile.  God is a Person, and therefore a relational Being.  Though His heart is deeply hurt and offended by our sin and rebellion, it is God's constant will to reconcile us to Himself...never to write us off or reject us.  Ultimately reconciliation only happens when we respond in love and repent of our sin, but the point is that our sin does not stop God from taking the risk and reaching out first.

If we claim to know God, and to love how God loves, our love ought in some way to reflect these characteristics.  This is necessary in our love of God, others (in our immediate sphere of influence but also beyond), and even ourselves.

My next several blog posts will take these very general thoughts and put some shape on them.  For now, my challenge to myself, and to you as well, is to meditate deeply on the Bible's portrait of God.  Ponder the concrete images of God's love in passages like Isaiah 40, Psalm 23, Luke 15, or Romans 8.  Drink deeply from the well of the Gospel, and receive that love.  Only then will you be able to live it out. 

The Virtue of Empathy

In 2010, researchers at the University of Michigan carried out a vast, comprehensive study on college students' ability to have empathy for others.  You can read more details about this study here.  The study concluded that today's college students have displayed a 40% decline in their ability to show empathy to others compared with those from thirty and forty years ago.

Based on a surveyed understanding of our culture today, and a deep understanding of my sinful heart, I'm going to take a leap and say that this data is true for the general population.

Webster gives this simple definition of empathy: the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings.

Why is this important?  Put simply, empathy is the basis of all honest dialogue and relational connection.  It is next to impossible to communicate in any meaningful way with another person unless one can, in some sense, see the world as that other person sees it.  Without this capacity, I merely talk past the other person...and regretfully, that is what I see with alarming regularity in the current cultural conversation.

I believe there are three dimensions of empathy.

First, there is narrative empathy.  All of us have a basic story that runs through our heads and hearts, defining who we are and what life is about.  It may be healthy or unhealthy, positive or negative, helpful or unhelpful to us...but it is there.  A huge part of empathy is embracing the truth that each individual has a unique story, and if we are going to relate with him right now, we have to accept that his story is probably different than ours.

Another dimension is intellectual empathy.  At present, there is a dangerous tendency to attach dismissive, judgmental labels to anyone with whom we disagree.  We live in an era of sound bytes and social media, and it is easier to label than to engage.  For a true and open dialogue to occur, one must have genuine goodwill for opponents as persons who honestly hold differing views, and then debate the logic and content of the views without attacking the persons.

Finally, I believe there is volitional empathy.  This last dimension is perhaps the hardest to overcome.  At least it has been for me.  Volitional empathy recognizes that a defensive spirit exists in every one of us--that we all have triggers--and then makes the conscious choice to let our defenses down.  Volitional empathy is a simple decision to move toward the other person in love, regardless of that person's response.

While intellectual empathy might be relevant only in broader cultural discussions and in academia, the other two are indispensable in any human relationship.

Now for the really bad news.  Genuine empathy isn't as easy to come by as we might think.  It is not an innate character quality, and as this study suggests, our own experiences of pain and distress do not necessarily make us more empathetic towards others.  In essence, empathy is a choice that we must make and, ultimately, a habit that we must cultivate in our souls through hard work.

How do we cultivate empathy?  Here are some practices that have been valuable to me:

1.  Be humble.  Acknowledge that your personal narrative skews your perspective.  You have biases based on your own experiences and your own interpretation of those experiences.  Admit that your personal experience does not define the whole of life, and therefore, others will have different values, feelings, and attitudes.

2.  Listen.  Allow others the chance to express their perspective without interruption.  Maintain eye contact.  Don't try to come up with responses in your head.  Just hear what is being communicated.  Then communicate back to the other person what you heard, and let the person clarify any misunderstandings.

3.  Make diverse friendships.  As a Christian (and certainly as a pastor), it is uber-tempting to enclose oneself in a virtual ghetto of like-mindedness.  (We often misinterpret certain biblical passages as proof that this is the way of godliness).  I imagine the same is true for other social or racial groups.  Empathy requires that we break down some of these social inhibitions and develop genuine friendships with people who hold different views, who come from different cultures, and who live different lives than we do.

4.  Broaden your perspective.  If you only read the Huffington Post and listen to NPR, you have a biased view of life, culture, and politics, whether you admit it or not.  Ditto the Washington Times and FOX News.  Every once in a while, read something that makes your blood boil.  Then when your blood returns to 98.6 degrees, read it again.  Avoid labeling the writer and focus on the content of the article.  Ask yourself why he/she might be advocating the views he/she is advocating.  Are his/her facts accurate?  Does the logic make sense?  Is there anything in the piece you can affirm as basically true?

I am deeply grateful for the ongoing challenge to grow in empathy.  Will you join me in that?

In Defense of Leisure

The first four weeks of my Sabbatical have reminded me of the absolute importance of leisure.

Let me state at the outset that I do not define leisure as laziness or inactivity.  Nor do I envision leisure as merely reclining on a cruise ship, drinking a Long Island Iced Tea and listening to sultry jazz standards (not that there's anything wrong with that).

No.  As originally conceived, leisure is a very profound concept that generally escapes most peoples' sensibilities.  The German philosopher Josef Pieper (taking his cue from ancient and medieval philosophers) offered this erudite definition of leisure:

Leisure is a way of looking at the world, born of an affirming oneness with the origin of all being and an authentically free, gracelike experience of the meaning of reality as a whole.

At the risk of seeming presumptuous, let me try to take that definition down a verbal notch or two:  

To be at leisure is to step beyond the daily grind of life, not to rest passively but to contemplate intentionally the deeper meaning of one's existence and one's place in the world.

Thus, leisure is a state of being that we must choose to enter.  It doesn't just happen when we "stop working."  It requires intentional thinking.  That's why it escapes many people.

In fact, most people exist in either one of these two states of being:

• Functional activity, in which we simply do what needs to be done, accomplish what needs to be accomplished, checking off all the tasks on our list.  In this state, we identify with whatever function we have at the moment.  I'm "at work."  I'm "parenting my child."  I'm "cleaning the house."  I'm "doing something productive."
  
  or...
• Mindless inactivity, which we often mistake for leisure.  In this state, we are often consuming something (media, sports, food, alcohol) to escape from "the real world" of nonstop demands, activity, and busyness.  But to consume is not the same as to receive, and while we may be feeding our bodies or our attention spans, we are not feeding our minds and souls.

Read that last sentence again:  To consume is not the same as to receive, and while we may be feeding our bodies or our attention spans, we are not feeding our minds and souls.

If you want to know why American culture is in jeopardy, I think it is because we are feeding our bodies and our attention spans but starving our minds and souls.  I think it is because many people spend their lives shifting back and forth between functional activity and mindless inactivity.

People need genuine leisure, and the sad part is that our cultural institutions that ought to be promoting and encouraging leisure, aren't.  Whether it's churches, schools, or the arts, quite often they seem to be promoting even more functional activity and mindless inactivity.  They offer few opportunities to step back (not escape) from the "real world" in order to ask deeper questions about what is our purpose, what is the good life, or what ultimate spiritual reality imbues our lives with wonder, majesty and grace.  In other words, they offer us little opportunity truly to be human.

If we cannot rely on our cultural institutions always to provide us with opportunities for leisure, then that means we must create opportunities for ourselves.  Here are just a few that I engage in and recommend:

Soul Friendship.  This is based on an ancient Celtic practice called the anamchara (Gaelic for "soul friend").  Schedule a regular meeting with a trusted friend.  No cell phones, I-pads, Kindles, or laptops allowed.  Don't just talk about what you're doing at work or what mutual hobbies you enjoy.  Talk about who you are.  Explore the deeper values that animate your life.  Ask each other why you do what you're doing.  Encourage one another, but ask deeper questions of each other about your motives and your choices.

Spiritual Disciplines.  The ancient and medieval Christians offer a treasury of disciplines that can be used to create space for leisurely contemplation and, indeed, transformation.  However, I recommend a brand new curriculum entitled Essential Practices of the Faith.  My wife and I are currently journeying through this material.  We love that it is simple without being simplistic; it is profound without requiring a degree in theology; and it requires commitment but not a great deal of time.  One thing it does require is that you study it with others...not on your own!

Contemplate Great Art.  I'm not talking about the "arts" that fill our popular culture and win Oscars, Emmys, or Grammys.  I'm talking about the "Classics."  Read a book with exalted language and heroic characters that embody great values (my favorites are Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces).  Listen to classical music that stirs deep emotion (my favorites are Copland's Symphony No. 3 and Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, Suite 2).  Look at great works of art that stylize great subjects (my favorite is Dali's Crucifixion).  Find your own favorites, but remember that great art is more than just entertainment.  It "incarnates" and enables you to experience profound ideas at the physical and emotional level.  That is food for the soul.

Kairos

In the Greek language, there are two words for time.  

First, there's chronos, which refers to linear time: the quantified units of seconds, minutes, hours, etc..., in which we measure and live out our daily lives.

Then there's kairos, which refers to something quite different.  Kairos is not about quantity but about quality.  It refers to opportunities or moments in time which seem to present themselves and of which we ought to take advantage.

When you look at your daily calendar to see what you've planned, you're thinking about chronos.  When you look at old photo albums to remember milestones or significant dates in your life, you're thinking about kairos.  

This morning, my family and I experienced kairos.

First, some background:  My son has been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and one of the many sensory issues with which he struggles is his utter fear of snow.  He hates it.  Hates feeling its coldness, hates getting it on his clothes.  Hates snow.  He'll walk on it only if we make him, and only in snow boots, but he will not play in it.  Ever.  And we live in West Michigan.

Second, we got a significant amount of snow overnight.  (We live in West Michigan.)  My wife and I had a ten o'clock appointment this morning, but due to the condition of the roads, the appointment was cancelled.

Now, I was already preparing to go outside and shovel the driveway, but my wife decided she wanted to turn this morning into an adventure.  She said, "Let's all go outside and build a snowman."  (Remember: My son hates snow.)

The next several minutes of chronos time witnessed Cyrus in total tantrum-mode as we struggled to help him put on his snow pants, winter coat, hat, gloves, and boots.  We assured Cyrus that he could merely stand in the garage and watch as mommy builds a snow man and daddy shovels the driveway.  He assured us that he was not going to let us win.  But Cherith wisely fought this battle.

We got Cyrus out into the garage.  Cherith started building the snowman.  I started shoveling the snow.  Occasionally we would throw snow at each other jokingly.  (At least, I think it was jokingly...)  Slowly but surely, possibly encouraged by the fun he saw his mommy and daddy have, Cyrus began walking out to the driveway.  He walked over to the snowman and insisted that he help mommy put on the finishing touches.

That was just the beginning.  Next, he offered to help clean off daddy's car.  He brushed all around the car, and even though some snow occasionally flew in his face or fell on his head, he pressed on undeterred by any discomfort he might have felt.

And then, just to show what a bad-ass he really is, he made snowballs and thew them at mommy, daddy, the snowman, and the big tree in our side yard that we lovingly named Treebeard (after the character from Lord of the Rings).  Long after I had finished shoveling and was ready to go inside, Cyrus wanted to stay outside and play in the snow.

Just to be clear, this was not our first venture along these lines.  Cherith and I routinely try to get Cyrus out of his comfort zone, and we've made previous attempts to acclimate him to the fun of snow play.  It never worked.  If it had been snowy a week ago and we had tried then, I don't think it would have worked.

But for some reason, this time was different.  It was the right time.  For most kids, this would be no big deal.  For my son, it was kairos.

Have you ever experienced those moments?  I mean those events when you knew, in the moment, that eternity was entering into time and offering you a unique gift?  And I don't necessarily mean something huge, like the birth of a child or a spiritual conversion.  Those huge events are unmistakeable and obviously life-changing.

However, I tend to think that life offers us many more kairos moments than we realize, and we don't realize them precisely because they're not huge and obvious.  They happen in the ordinary mess of everyday life, in the very mundane and predictable choices that we sometimes face.

We miss those events because we are a culture wired by chronos time.  Chronos time is orderly, predictable, and much more within our control...and oh, how we love to be in control.

Only if we relinquish some of that control will we have the eyes to see kairos time, which is much more random, much less predictable, but ultimately much more imbued with depth, meaning, and possibilities for growth.

Today, thank God, I had the eyes to see it when it happened.

So I'm grateful for my wife, who saw an opportunity and fought for it.

I'm proud of my son, who was brave and overcame a fear.

And I'm overwhelmed by the Creator, who showers us with snow, with grace, and with kairos.

Soul Music

If you look to the right column of this blog, right under the "About Me" section, you'll notice that "My Other Passion" is music...specifically, playing and composing pieces for piano.

I started taking lessons at age eight when, every Saturday morning at 10:30 am, my grandfather would take me to King's Music in Downtown Sharon, PA, where I would take a half-hour lesson with Jeff Wachter.  Jeff's lessons with me went beyond mere piano playing: he taught me music theory, he showed me how to read and interpret orchestral scores, and he patiently coached me through some of my early attempts at composing.

I took lessons faithfully for eight years, until my sixteen-year-old ego determined that I didn't need anyone to teach me anything anymore.  Of course I still played all the time.  I accompanied the high school choir, and when all my relatives converged upon my small home for various family get-togethers, they would bribe me into providing crowd-pleasing entertainment.  (I had to learn Sinatra songs and specific old Catholic hymns because certain Italian aunts demanded it...and one other relative insisted that I learn the theme to The Young and the Restless.)

In college I had the great blessing of studying under Elizabeth Pastor.  She was a total prodigy--she had studied with some of the greatest piano teachers herself (Beryl Rubenstein and Arthur Loesser), and performed with the Cleveland, Boston, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, just to name a few.  Although I didn't major in music, she graciously accepted me as a student, and from her I received a rigorous (that's putting it rather mildly) training in classical performance.

I know several individuals over the years who have asked me why I did not make music my vocation.  My answer is always that I view music more as an avocation: not something to earn money, but something to feed and edify my own soul.  In my time working with teenagers I gave piano lessons to some interested students, and I use my musical gifts in church when I'm able.  But the music I like to play and compose is more for my own personal expression...not to win fans.

Unfortunately, when the busyness of life overtakes me, I often find myself unable to make the time to use this gift.  Lately I was reminded of how empty my own soul can feel when that is the case.  Perhaps each of you has his or her own "avocation" that feeds your soul and you can relate.  If so, will you join me in promising ourselves that we will make time--whatever it takes--to keep that "soul music" in our lives?  To do that one thing about which we can say, "This gives me life"?

My personal commitment is that I will go back to composing.  On this Valentine's Day, I'd like to share with you a piece (click the title below) that I composed ten years ago for my wedding day.  My bride inspired it just by being her.  I hope it might inspire you too.  Blessings...................................

"Cherith" by Jeffrey M. Kahl

My Top Ten List

Near the end of his life, C. S. Lewis was asked by The Christian Century, "What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?"

Not surprisingly, the list of ten books offered by Lewis is an eclectic mixture of philosophy, theology, poetry, biography, and social commentary.  The authors are Catholics, Protestants, pre-Christian pagans and post-Christian humanists...and one or two in a class all to themselves.  Like some of the early Christian saints, Lewis affirmed that "all truth is God's truth," and he read widely and deeply in order to absorb as much truth as possible.  You can find Lewis' "top ten list" here. 

You'll notice that the Bible is not in Lewis' list.  Lewis never gave a reason for this "omission," but to my mind, the reason is perfectly clear.  For Lewis, the Bible is not a book to shape his philosophy of life; it is a book to shape him.  The Main Character of the Bible does not call us to come and think about His ideas...He calls us to "come, follow Me." 

At any rate, the past few weeks I've issued myself a similar challenge to discern the books that most sharpened me and helped me to define my personal sense of life.  It was much more difficult than I thought, but here I offer ten books, all published in the last one hundred years, that have been foundational for my journey through this mess we call life. 

Like Lewis, and for the same reason, the Bible is not listed.  And like Lewis, my list includes a hodgepodge of philosophy, theology, history, literature, and drama, written by believers and nonbelievers.

• Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes.  We live in a world full of causes that try to create Jesus in their own image...to co-opt Jesus into serving their own particular ideologies.  The result is today's Religious Right Jesus, Socialist Jesus, Anti-Church Jesus, and Hipster Jesus.  This book is a needed remedy.  Having lived for fifty years in traditional Middle Eastern villages, Dr. Bailey is in a unique position to interpret the life and teachings of Jesus as they would have been experienced by His original disciples.  The result is a fresh look at the stunning, scandalous Man whose words reached right into the heart of every person He met.
  
• C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces.  While his Chronicles of Narnia and his Space Trilogy are much more popular, this is by far his best work of fiction.  It is a reworking of the pagan myth of Cupid and Psyche, and it delves deeply into the nature of human love.
  
• Anne Holm, I Am David.  A children's book written in the 1960's, this is a poignantly heroic tale of one little boy's escape from a Soviet gulag and his quest to find his mother.  Along the way he learns about courage, friendship, and grace, and perhaps most importantly, he learns to affirm his own unique identity.
  
• Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture.  This is a work of dense Thomist philosophy, but its message really is quite practical.  In a world full of noise, busyness, and productivity at all costs, Pieper calls us to reclaim a spirit of "leisure."  However, leisure (far from being laziness or boredom) is an intentional quieting of our internal and external lives so we can observe and listen to the deeper truths of life.  Only in such leisure can human culture genuinely flourish.
  
• Ayn Rand, Anthem.  Being a liberty-lover, I am a huge fan of Rand's much more substantive works such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.  However, this brief novella will always be my favorite.  It portrays one young man whose spirit cannot be crushed by the collectivist society in which he is held captive, and his quest to find the one word that will liberate him.
  
• T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party.  This thoroughly modern play illustrates the bungles of contemporary relationships...relationships defined by narcissism, half-truths, and manipulation.  Yet through a mixture of hilarious comedy and profound tragedy, Eliot adroitly hints at the kind of sacrificial love that is required for true reconciliation.
  
• Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.  I'm a history buff, and I have a particular love for early American history...a love that was first kindled by my grandfather and then fanned into a steady flame by two college professors.  By examining the writings of philosophers who influenced the American patriots, and also dissecting the pamphlets that helped spread their ideology, we are given a thorough elucidation of the Revolutionary spirit that created our nation.
  
• Richard Rubenstein, Aristotle's Children.  Another work of history, this book examines the oft forgotten dialogue among Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Middle Ages...a dialogue that centered on the writings of Ancient Greece's greatest philosopher.  Definitely relevant for today!
  
• Barry G. Webb, Five Festal Garments.  This work of biblical theology scrutinizes five books of the Old Testament known as the "Megilloth" (The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes).  While not often read today, these five books illuminate fundamental attitudes that every human being ought to cultivate in order to live a fulfilling and meaningful life.
  
• Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express.  Not really deep or anything, but a well crafted murder mystery and a detective, Hercule Poirot, who uses the "little grey cells" in his brain to find the killer.  I just read this one for pure enjoyment.

So that's my top ten.  What books would be on your list?

Real Power (Part 2)

Imagine with me an adolescent kid, maybe late teens or early twenties, whose mind is so obsessed with death that he literally spends all his time wandering around the local cemetery. 

Imagine this man who, while in the care of professionals, was so volatile that he needed to be restrained with handcuffs or straight-jackets.

Imagine him so inwardly disturbed that his only method of expressing raw emotion is to emit high-pitched wails, like a groupie at a screamo rock concert.

Imagine him so devoid of self-worth, so unable to affirm his self-image, that he regularly cuts himself.

In this second part of my series on Real Power, this describes the subject of the Gospel narrative in Mark 5:1-20.  This young man, resident of a Syrian city east of the Sea of Galilee, was utterly rejected by his community and written off as hopeless.

However, this is also a description of far too many young people in our world today.  I have known and worked with teenagers like this, first in my seminary days as a shift-supervisor at a juvenile detention center, and later in professional youth ministry. 

The man in Mark 5 was labeled "demon-possessed."  So are many young people today.  They are deeply tormented, and they often express their torment in ways that offend the sensibilities of "normal" people.

This man comes into the presence of Jesus and, ironically, begs Jesus not to torment him.  A life of torment has become so normal for this man that the presence of the true Healer feels like torment.

But Jesus engages with this young man and, once again, reveals His real power.  He literally spared no expense to drive the source of the torment out of the young man: He used a whole herd of pigs (the villagers' main source of wealth) in order to destroy the demons.  When the villagers later found him, he was completely "in his right mind."  (With another twist of irony, the villagers were so often used to seeing him in his demonic state that when they found him healed, they were afraid!)

In our last post, Jesus displayed power to bring order out of chaos.  In today's lesson, we see Jesus with power to bring sanity to torment.

In the past one hundred years, our understanding of mental illness has grown exponentially.  Many human phenomena once attributed to demons are now known to have natural causes.  Without ruling out the existence of the demonic, I concur that there are so many factors that combine to create unhealthy and destructive patterns of thought and behavior in a person: body chemistry, family history, personal upbringing, childhood trauma, etc. 

Diagnosis is multifaceted, and healing is a long process.  Truly no human being can bring about the kind of instantaneous and miraculous healing Jesus did.  But we can follow Jesus' model in another way. 

Too many individuals--and especially in the Church--tend to mimic the example of the villagers.  We seek to control or exclude the mental illness, to keep it at the margins where it will not upset our carefully staged happiness, where it will not exert its disruptive effects on our much-loved status quo. 

But Jesus does not use His power to control and exclude.  He engages mental illness, even to the extent that it is allowed to disrupt other aspects of life.  He expresses unreserved value for the person, regardless of the mental torment experienced, regardless of what other secondary values might need to be sacrificed.

I, for one, am grateful that Jesus models for us a better, healthier way to explore the very rough terrain of mental illness, and that He indeed has the power to bring sanity to torment.

Real Power (Part 1)

Over the next four weeks, I will share some thoughts about a section of the Gospel of Mark that has become for me a very meaningful portion of Scripture.

In Mark's gospel, Jesus reveals His divine identity more by what He does than by what He says about Himself.  In Mark 4:35-5:43, His divinity is on full display through four acts of unique power.

The first incident is described in 4:35-41.  It is a well-known story.  One evening, Jesus convinced His disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee in their small fishing boats.  In their crossing, a great windstorm arose, bringing with it violent waves that began to fill the boats.  While the disciples immediately catastrophized, believing that they were "perishing," Jesus slept soundly on a pillow in the stern of the boat.  When the disciples woke Him to the danger, Jesus simply spoke His words, "Peace!  Be still!" and the wind and the waves were calmed.

Full disclosure: I affirm the historical veracity of the Gospel narratives, including incidents of the miraculous like this one.  But I don't think it's necessary to believe as I do in order to benefit from the narrative, and rather than picking apart the details of this story, I'd like to look at the broader principle that I believe it teaches.

In the ancient world, the sea was the symbol of chaos.  Unlike the firmness and stability of land, the sea was often unpredictable, temperamental, and turbulent.  At night, many people believed the sea was haunted by ghosts and demons hovering just above the surface. 

In the midst of the windstorm, surely the disciples' fear was exacerbated by their belief that demons and ghosts might be lingering about their ship, waiting to steal them away to the underworld.  And even though these guys were professional fishermen who knew how to navigate in the sea, the chaos of the moment caused them to doubt their own skills and their own judgment.

We should have empathy with them.  I'm sure each of us can remember a time when we allowed our own irrational beliefs--our own false narratives--to create additional stress, to bring greater turmoil to our lives?  I'm sure we all can remember a time when the unexpected chaos of life caused us to doubt our own abilities and our own judgment?

Yet there was Jesus, utterly calm in the midst of the chaos, to the point that He was able to sleep through it.  He had no fear of demonic forces haunting the waters.  He was unshaken by the turbid sea and the ferocious winds.  And to calm the fears of His friends, He exhibited His power to transform chaos into order.  That is indeed real power.

On a smaller (but no less real) scale, I believe we human beings possess that same power to transform chaos into order.  We can bring peace into situations of discord and disharmony.  But we can do it only when we, like Jesus, do two things:

We must first challenge all the irrational beliefs that immobilize us.

And we must learn to stand in the chaos of life without being shaken. 

I'm still learning this.  And I won't have it mastered this side of heaven.  But I am grateful that occasionally I am graced to be able to speak those words with authentic conviction:  "Peace!  Be still!"

"Enjoy the Silence"

After nearly three years of inaction on this blog, I've decided it's time once again for me to engage my creative self and my passion for writing, and hopefully bless a few people in the process.  Ironically, after these three years of "silence" in the blogosphere, my first post is about the significance of not saying anything.

Yesterday, the topic of the need for silence came up in three separate conversations: with my spiritual director, with a friend, and with my colleague.  In all three conversations, I was reminded of just how counterintuitive it is for me simply to be still--especially when others are present--and allow for silence to exist.

I'm sure part of this is due to the current state of our culture, in which chaos and noise rule.  Never mind radio, TV, and computers.  Smart phones (or I-phones) bring the constant distraction, the constant engagement with a cacophony of media, right to our fingertips. 

But I shouldn't blame our culture.  The reality is that when my life becomes overwhelmed with emotional triggers and internal noise, I feel a compulsive (or perhaps defensive) desire to speak when I really should be silent.  In those moments, what comes out of my mouth is rarely grace-filled and almost never edifying to others.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I should have bit my tongue...

Even when my own internal life is not turbulent and overwhelmed, I wonder if I give full credence to the role that silence plays in forming us as human beings.  Silence can bring amazing healing not only to our emotional lives but to our physical lives as well.  It can lower our heart rates, calm our nervous system, and ease tension in our muscles.  It can, if we allow it, bring a holistic sense of well-being that is absolutely essential for genuine human flourishing.

Years ago, Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel wrote a penetrating spiritual work entitled The Sabbath.  He highlights the fact that after six days of creation, Scripture tells us that "God rested on the seventh day." 

However, Heschel follows many ancient rabbis who maintain that God's rest does not mean that He was inactive on the seventh day.  He still created, and what he created was menuha -- a rich Hebrew word that means tranquility, peace, rest, and silence. 

What this profound thought says to me is that silence does not merely happen.  

Silence is something that must be created intentionally. 

Silence is not simply the absence of noise, chaos, and work. 

It is the presence of peace and tranquility.

In fact, I would go further and state that silence is Presence itself.  It is simply and solely the acknowledgement that you are who you are, and that you are receptive to whatever the world (and even Someone beyond the world) might offer to you. 

May we all have the wisdom to follow God's example and create menuha in our lives.  And as Depeche Mode once intoned, "Enjoy the silence..."

Wild and Unsafe Again???

In his famous Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis' Christ-figure is Aslan, the kingly lion who oozes with mystery, adventure and ferocity as well as tenderness, strength, and love.  Who can forget that incredible quote in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in which Mr. Beaver, speaking of Aslan, says, "Safe?  Of course He isn't safe!  But He's good!"  In Lewis' mind, there is an arresting quality about Christ that is far removed from the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" of our overly sentimentalized evangelicalism.

Lewis' fellow Britishers seemed to share this view of Christ.  In his popular work Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton wrote, "People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy [that is, authentic Christian faith] as something heavy, humdrum, and safe.  But there was never anything so perilous and exciting as orthodoxy."

Likewise, Dorothy L. Sayers issues this scathing reminder about the One we Christians supposedly follow:  "Somehow or other, and with the best intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore--and this in the Name of One who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which He passed through this world like a flame."

These are salutary reminders from Christian masters of the last century.  And yet sometimes I wonder: how exactly are we American Christians to communicate the stunning, stalwart features of Christ that so scandalized and confounded His contemporaries...not to mention the legions of believers in the centuries since?

The modern church has tried to "repackage" the faith by almost shamelessly exploiting mass media, technology, and contemporary art forms...and in the process watering down the message.  Mega-churches, and their less-mega imitators, seem to be more enamored by the latest leadership books out of Harvard Business School, the latest musical styles out of Nashville or Detroit, and the latest communication methods from Hollywood.

Some Christians feel the need to reassert the traditional "hard edges" of traditional Christian belief and morality, directly confronting the world in its error and rebellion.  Yet the very uniqueness of our current cultural moment is the tendency we all have to simply shut off any message that comes across as threatening or critical to our own individual sensibilities.

Other Christians seek to re-ignite the flame of faith with praxis -- proclaiming and living (almost to a fault) a radical type of compassion that they see reflected in the human life of Jesus.  But once again, I see our society as almost sick of compassion.  Our liberal elites, in my opinion, have taken the life out of genuine compassion by bureaucratizing and depersonalizing it.

Don't misunderstand me...I am not trying to be cynical here.  But I am trying to understand a genuine challenge that we Christians face as we try to communicate the Gospel with the kind of perilous excitement that Lewis, Chesterton and Sayers rightly request.  Obviously, any presentation of our faith must be saturated with prayer and informed exclusively by the Biblical witness.   And obviously only the Holy Spirit can provide the real passion.  But we Christians must make sure that, from our human perspective, we do not cling too tightly to any of the "methods" that I have outlined above. 

So what am I saying here?  Maybe nothing.  I don't think I'm offering an answer to anything.  I think I'm joining Lewis and his friends in asking a very pertinent question:  How can we American Christians once again present the wild and unsafe Jesus in a way that truly evokes wonder in the minds and hearts of people living in a seriously jaded world?

I'd love to hear your thoughts....

Spring Clean Your Minds!

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.  Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” – Philippians 4:8

                You can’t live in our world today without at least being tempted to cynicism, discouragement, and negativity.  Our televisions are full of violence, filthy language, and immorality.  The media seem only to report on tragedies and scandals because they think that’ll get our attention.  Our political leaders seem more interested in telling us how bad life is and blaming their opponents for it, rather than inspiring us to take responsibility and make life better for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

                When St. Paul penned that verse from Philippians, he was living in a very similar cultural environment.  The “good old days” of the virtuous Roman Republic were coming to an end.  Violence, sexual immorality, and petty greed were destroying communities, and corrupt politicians were creating more problems than solutions.

                Yet St. Paul tells his readers not to dwell on the negative.  Instead they should think about what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.  In Romans he tells his readers that they should “be transformed by the renewing of their minds” (Romans 12:2) and that they should “take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  God is not just concerned about our behavior.  He is concerned that we are thinking about the right things, that we not allow negativity, violence, impurity, and evil to take control of our minds.

                I think all of us struggle with this in some way.  In my case (and maybe yours too), I sometimes allow too much negative “self-talk” and negative emotions to build up.  For others, it’s a case of being too negative, critical, and judgmental of other people.  Or we might have a specific struggle in our thought-life: lust/pornography, passive-aggression, or self-destructive thoughts.

                As Christians, we need to acknowledge that these kinds of thoughts are simply not what God wants for us.  He wants us to take responsibility for the thoughts and feelings that we allow in our minds, and He wants us to focus on the kinds of things that will build us up and challenge us to obey Christ’s law of love and His gospel of forgiveness. 

                As we enter the month of March, we are in the midst of Lent.  Many of us “give up something” for Lent, and in my case, I am giving up negative thoughts.  It’s a discipline I need, and quite frankly, it’s a discipline that our world needs as well.

                To put it another way: in March we begin the season of Spring cleaning.  I’ve never been much of a “cleaner.”  (For evidence, see my office…)  But this year, I plan on “spring cleaning my mind!”  Will you join me?

Books for Kids

C. S. Lewis begins his book The Abolition of Man by bemoaning the fact that too many intellectuals are unaware of the importance of children's books.  We usually think of children's literature as mere stories without any long-term consequences for the kids who read.  We see their main purpose as merely to entertain kids and inspire in them a general love of reading so they'll be ready to tackle the really important stuff in high school and college.

I agree with Lewis that the kind of reading we do as children will implicitly aid in the formation of our intellectual and moral character.  Every story is about people of certain character (either good or bad) who make choices (either right or wrong) that form the basis for the story's plot.  And quite frankly, there are many children's books out there today that actually celebrate characters with questionable personal qualities, making choices of dubious merit.  They certainly are not the kind of stories to which I want my young son Cyrus exposed. 

Thankfully, my wife is something of an expert in the field of children's literature.  She owns over one thousand children's books, and she shares my concern for exposing our son to good, uplifting stories that can inspire him to be a man of intelligence, integrity, and moral courage.  Here are just a few of the books that I personally evaluate as good literature for children.

[It should be assumed that The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit are not mentioned in this particular list because those books are in a class unto themselves.]

• Anne Holm, I Am David.  An inspiring story of self-discovery, depicting a young boy who escapes from a Communist gulag in Eastern Europe and heroically navigates through dangerous country in an attempt to find his mother. 
• Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time.  An intriguing fantasy/science fiction story about three children who are transported to another galaxy by three mysterious ladies.  Meg, the main character, is on a quest to find her lost father...but in the process she is called upon to fight a great evil that threatens to overtake the entire universe.
• Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain.  This is historical fiction at its finest, set in Boston during the onset of the Revolutionary War.  Johnny, an independent and daring young man, gets caught up in the conflict between the Bostonians and the British, and he learns how to put his courage in the service of a great cause.
• Marguerite de Angeli, The Door in the Wall.  This story is set in late-medieval England.  The main character is a young boy named Robin who had dreams of being a knight, but during the Black Plague he became permanently handicapped.  With the help of a pious monk named Brother Luke, Robin learned that studying can take you places that your legs can't, and that you don't have to be a knight to display true courage and strength.
• E. L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.  A young girl named Claudia feels unappreciated by her parents and decides to run away, joined by her younger brother Jamie.  She ends up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and takes an interesting walk through history, learning that she needs to do some appreciating of her own!
• Any of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or Encyclopedia Brown mystery stories.  I'm a huge fan of mysteries, and I grew up loving these stories.  As an adult, I can see why they are such great stories.  The main characters are presented as heroes not because they are cool, popular with their peers, or athletic.  Rather, they are heroes because they use their intelligence and skill to solve problems and help others; they display moral courage and have a real sense of right and wrong; and they earn the respect of their parents and other adult figures by acting mature and responsible. 

These are just a few.  But here are three common themes that I find in all of these novels:

• They are well-written stories.  They use language artfully and tell a story in an exciting, inspiring way.
• They present a view of the world as a benevolent place: while the characters have problems, they learn that they can overcome those problems and that life basically makes sense.  They are not victims of a fate beyond their control.
• The main characters model for the readers the values of honesty, intelligence, compassion, courage, self-discipline, and maturity.

Thanks to my beautiful wife for reminding me of the joy of reading children's books!  Happy reading!

Dueling with Words

"Because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to vomit you out of my mouth." - Revelation 3:16

Because of my last post (see Something More than Life, below), I became involved in a debate on Facebook with a self-described atheist/agnostic. This individual and I have been friends for a decade, and though we haven't really seen each other in a few years, our conversations always avoid the polite chit-chat or typical fluff about the weather, sports, or the past, and we engage in serious conversation about real ideas. In this latest debate, my friend once again displayed his razor-sharp intellect and quick wit. His weighty comments required of me more than the usual "pat answers" that Christians often give to skeptics; it was a genuine meeting of the minds, and I sensed a mutual respect even in the midst of our fervent disagreements.

This reminded me of a novel written nearly 100 years ago by G. K. Chesterton. Entitled The Ball and the Cross and set in Victorian England, it is the story of a fervent Christian Theist who challenges an equally fervent Modern Atheist to an illegal duel. They meet to fight to the death, but keep getting interrupted and end up dueling with words. Word of their saber fight gets out and they begin to be chased by interested commoners as well as the police. Over the course of their interaction, they begin to develop a liking for one another, and they slowly come to realize that they are not enemies. In fact, they are fighting the same battle: a battle against a world in which people no longer believe in anything enough to stand up and defend it no matter what the cost. I won't give away the ending, but let's just say that eventually, their swords do cross!

Not much has changed in the past century. We see few Christian Theists like the one in Chesterton's novel (or like Paul at Mars Hill and Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany). Most Christians prefer to believe in a bland, moralistic, therapeutic Deism (to steal the phrase originally coined by Christian Smith) in which religion is a matter of personal feelings and individual preferences, rather than a total devotion to a systematic worldview. Likewise, many modern atheists/agnostics hold views that are rooted in rebellious, nihilistic cynicism, rather than ones based on a rational appraisal of the facts of existence. They do not have the intellectual integrity of the atheist in the novel, or some modern unbelievers like Ayn Rand and others.

The majority of people today seem to be motivated by a desire to not say anything offensive, or to avoid being pinned down to any firm truth commitment. Even in churches, and (I'm sorry to say) in far too many pulpits, the motive to be popular and relevant seems to have eclipsed the motive to speak truth with conviction. Many Christians today are seeking after leaders with the look of a GQ model and the rhetorical flourish of a late-night talk show host, regardless of their intellectual seriousness or integrity. And what's worse, many Christians today seem to be getting what little theology they have from Christian rock music (which is annoyingly inferior to its secular counterparts) rather than from a serious wrestling with the truths of the faith. I'm not saying that every Christian ought to have the brain of a philosopher...but I do think that God is asking every Christian to use the brain he or she has to "support his or her faith with knowledge," to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," and to "always be prepared to give an answer for the hope we have within us."

If this comes off a bit judgmental, so be it. But I firmly believe that this is a telling symptom of the state of our culture, which has become so "lukewarm" about truth that it is literally making God hurl. I thank God for the many unbelievers He has led into my life, for whom I continue to pray and with whom I hope to continue to dialogue. They always engage me in honorable duels, sharpen my intellect...and we somehow manage to have fun in the process! En garde!

Something More Than Life

Since we are in the middle of Holy Week, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of resurrection, which is what we Christians celebrate at Easter. It's a bit farfetched these days to believe in anything like a literal resurrection and all that it entails: that death is not the final chapter of our lives; that we were made to live forever; indeed, that all of existence (which seems to show nothing but death and decay) will be remade according to its original glorious design. It's truly irrational and unbelievable.


In spite of this, it seems to be a universal hope.


Three of my favorite writers--G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien (why do they insist on being known by their initials??)--all made the same fascinating observation:


Throughout human history, almost every culture and religion has taught something akin to resurrection. Almost every ancient pagan religion has some myth about a god who is killed and then comes back to life. In Norse mythology, it was the god Balder. For the ancient Egyptians, it was Osiris. For the Celtic peoples of Britain, it was the god Lugh who was killed by being hung on a tree and then comes back in victory.


But then let's look at modern philosophies and worldviews: All of them, even the most atheistic and materialistic, do not merely tell you that life is good exactly the way it is. They all say that life will only be good in some unknown, ideal future when all the injustices and human failures are eradicated and the goodness of life is renewed. This is true of the socialism of Karl Marx, the Objectivism of Ayn Rand, and even the American Progressivism of Barack Obama and his allies. Eastern philosophies and religions do this as well.


Not one philosophy or religion of life has taught us that we must be satisfied with the world as it is. Every single human teaching avers that there is something more than life that is just beyond our grasp, something that gives our lives meaning and hope and renewal, and it exists either in some mythical past of gods and goddesses or in some undefined future that we have yet to see.


There is only one religion that teaches that the something more than life, for which we all hope, actually became a tangible, datable fact of history. That fact is that Jesus Christ lived and was crucified "under Pontius Pilate" (which even Greek, Roman, and Jewish historians attest) and that He rose to new life. The early Christians insisted on the historicity of the resurrection to the point that Saint Paul proclaimed, "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (I Corinthians 15:14). He was willing to stake the entire Christian faith on the fact of Christ's resurrection as a historical event.


Christians do not believe that they are better than anyone else. What they do believe is that they have found a concrete answer to the deep desire that animates every human heart -- or rather, they believe that the concrete Answer has found them. Because of that, they are able to enjoy the something more than life even here on earth, and on their best days, they live their lives in a way that makes that something more than life visible to others.


If you are a Christian, take a moment to recognize that what you celebrate this Sunday is not merely a nice tradition or an orthodox theological dogma: it is the deepest truth that every human being desires, even if they can't admit it to themselves. May that recognition give added meaning to this season for you.


If you are not a Christian, I still challenge you to take a moment and celebrate this Easter. Celebrate the fact that deep down, you know that life as we know it is not enough for you. You want something more. Something that you may not be able to define. But something that you hope is real.


Have a blessed Easter!


(For more insights on this, I highly recommend G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, J. R. R. Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories," and C. S. Lewis' book Miracles or his essay "Myth Become Fact." Great reading!)

An Inkling of Political Wisdom from C. S. Lewis

In recent years, I have become increasingly frustrated with the narratives and rhetoric utilized by politicians in both the Democrat and Republican parties. Neither group appears to offer anything more than simplistic and shallow answers to many deep and far-reaching problems affecting our nation and our world. The permanent bureaucratic mess in Washington, D.C., has turned the American government from the role of the peoples' servant into what Margaret Thatcher termed "the Nanny State." Politicians are less interested in protecting our lives, liberty, and our right to pursue our own happiness. Instead, they are more interested in being self-appointed experts who tell us how to live our lives, tell us what is the limit of our liberty, and then give us whatever they think will make us happy (at least until the next election...).

In the late 1950's, C. S. Lewis wrote a political article entitled "Is Progress Possible?" Originally published in the British periodical The Observer, it has been reprinted in God in the Dock, a collection of over forty of Lewis' essays. In this particular essay, Lewis offers a salutary critique of a great deal of modern political thinking, and it is just as relevant today as it was over fifty years ago.

Especially since the 1970's, the Republicans have displayed their gruesome tendency to placate sincere and pious Christians in order to gain political power. Some of these people may be motivated with the best intentions, but it is difficult to hide the unintended results: the Christian Right has become just one more "special interest group" which narrowly focuses on single issues like abortion, gay marriage, and prayer in schools, and which (like all other special interest groups) is often willing to sell its soul in order to gain treats from government. To this group, Lewis sternly warns against any kind of theocratic approach to politics:

"I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands 'Thus saith the Lord', it lies, and lies dangerously."

On the other hand, American Democrats have for the past eighty years displayed a shrewd fascination with continually expanding the powers of a bureaucratic Welfare State. Their idea is that every supposed ill of society must immediately be nationalized and bureaucratized if it is to be solved effectively, and anyone who disagrees with this approach is labeled as hateful and uncompassionate. This goes for everything from LBJ's "War on Poverty" to Obamacare. To this crowd, Lewis argues that putting such unquestioned faith in the Federal Government will inevitably lead to tyranny:

"The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good - anyway, to do something to us or make us something....We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your ownbusiness.' Our whole lives are their business."

Before casting their votes in this upcoming election, I urge everyone (especially Christians) to read "Is Progress Possible?" Citizens need to go into the voting booths armed with more than rhetoric, attack ads, and emotions. We need to vote based on a coherent philosophy of government, and the role that it ought to play in the lives of individuals. Particularly, Christians ought to examine whether their own political philosophy is truly based on government's legitimate functions, or is it yet another example of our own penchant to put unquestioning trust in the idol of government rather than in the God who created and redeemed us.