Help the Persecuted Church (or Help Sayed Mossa)

A lot of times it can be hard, as an American, to know what practical things we can do to help the persecuted church. Well, here's an opportunity.

You can read about it more on J.D. Greear's blog. The short of it is that an Afghan Christian by the name of Sayed Mossa has been imprisoned for his faith. He has been beat, sexually abused, and is facing execution. When this happened a few years ago with another man President Karzai stepped in and declared that Christians would be tolerated in Afghanistan.

Take just a few minutes and send a letter to President Obama to apply pressure to Karzai and hold him accountable to protect freedom. You can use this link to contact him.

You can write your Congressman too. Just don't do nothing.

Here is what I wrote, short and to the point (copy and paste if you want):

President Obama,

This is to add my voice to the support for Sayed Mossa. He is the Afghan Christian that has been imprisoned on account of his faith. Please apply pressure to President Karzai to have him give Sayed Mossa a fair trial. Please provide accountability to President Karzai to uphold freedom in Afghanistan.

Respectfully,

Lucas A. Newton

Responding to Ivan, pt. 1

In the comments of the last post I attempted to rephrase Ivan's argument to further clarify what he sees as the problem.

The idea of his argument focuses on this point: Christians say that God has a plan to work all of this out for a good that we cannot understand. But, if you had the power to create a universe and if you could make it under whatever conditions you wanted to, would you ever agree to make a world in which even one person (perhaps "that baby beating its breast") would have to suffer in order for a greater good to come about? If I would never agree to create a world in which even just one child had to be abused and killed in order to bring about a greater good, why should I believe that there is a God that would do that? Yet, Ivan charges, Christians reprehensibly proclaim a God that created a world in which many people would suffer.

I think it would be appropriate to take the time to respond to this argument. I think it is a charge against our God that carries a lot of weight with a great many people. Most people in the world have been affected by pain or suffering and nearly everyone has seen or heard about instances of gratuitous evil. Dostoevsky, through Ivan, takes the classic "problem of evil" argument and puts it in a form that accents the magnitude of suffering an evil. It appeals to man's compassion, sense of goodness, and understanding of justice.

Would you ever create a world in which even one baby would be raped and murdered? Would you ever allow for it? What sort of "greater good" could be accomplished through this world that could not be accomplished any other way? Or, in what way is this "greater good" so valuable that it is worth such atrocities against this infant? What sort of good is a good that can only be had through such a terrible evil?

If you find the idea of creating a world on these conditions so repulsive, how is it that you can accept that a God would create world in which this happens to many, many infants? And not only that, but there are countless other evils and atrocities that afflict the world of man.

Ivan asks a good question. A question that, once it is raised and heard, must be addressed in some way.

My answer, in the end, is simple. I think that to many it will seem insufficient. But over the next several posts I will attempt to show why there is no truer answer and why all other answers come up short unless they are connected to this one simple truth: we can believe this world to be what it is, and we can believe in the God of the Bible to be who He claims that He is, because Jesus was resurrected on the third day.

If the Ivans of this world accept this one statement all other things fall into place.

Rebellion

While my blog has not been altogether forgotten, it has suffered from a good amount of neglect. I am working on some posts, but in the meantime have another quote for you.

This one comes from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. It is one of my all-time favorite books. It is one of those long Russian novels that few people will read. If you don't read it try to at least find the time to read the two chapters "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor." They contain the best argument against Christianity I have ever read. Dostoevsky, a Christian, uses his character, Ivan, to share what Dostoevsky considered to be the irrefutable argument against Christianity.

I don't think I have heard anyone outright refute it.

Here's a taste...

After explaining his problem with the world Ivan explains to His brother, Alyosha, that he cannot accept the world on God's terms:

"That's rebellion," murmured Alyosha, looking down.

"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that," said Ivan earnestly. "One can hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I challenge you - answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature - that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance - and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."

"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.

"And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the fountain of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"

"No, I can't admit it Brother..."



[trans. by Constance Garnett]

Quick quote about the theistic proofs (or Binx is a cool name)

Binx Bolling’s journal entry in Walker Percy’s The Movigoer:

REMEMBER TOMORROW

Starting point for search:

It no longer avails to start with creatures and prove God.

Yet it is impossible to rule God out.

The only possible starting point: the strange fact of one’s own invincible apathy – that if proofs were proved and God presented himself, nothing would be changed. Here is the strangest fact of all.

Abraham saw signs of God and believed. Now the only sign is that all the signs in the world make no difference. Is this God’s ironic revenge? But I am onto him.

Substantiation (or I Get Nervous During the Lord's Supper)

Last week I took communion at church.

I always get nervous when the dish with the little cups of grape juice comes by (Baptist church). When I was little I spilled the tray after having insisted that I was old enough to be able to handle it. It bothered me a lot, not only because of my dad’s disappointed expression and my mom’s embarrassed apologizing to the deacon, but also because I knew that the little cups of juice had something to do with the blood of Jesus.

And I sure didn’t want to spill that.

I always get nervous over the dish with the juice, but not really the plate with the crackers.

Well, this past week I picked up my tiny cracker representing the body of Christ and held it between my index finger and my thumb. I started to think through my usual communion thoughts… Lord, thank you for your sacrifice… Thank you for the death that atoned for me… I thank you that I have new life in Christ and will one day enjoy the feast that this foreshadows with Him in the new created order…

Then something unexpected happened.

The cracker broke.

Some pieces fell to the ground. I immediately looked around to see if anyone had noticed what I had done.

What to do next? Pick up the pieces? There is always something holy and mysterious about the Lord’s Supper and there were pieces lying on the floor. If I left them others might step on them unknowingly. Trampled underfoot like it was nothing. What if they were later vacuumed up? Treated as mere crumbs when they were the very symbol of Christ’s body broken for His bride. I could hardly stand the thought! I felt very ashamed.

Then something unexpected happened.

I saw that I had broken the body of Christ.

That cracker was broken on account of me. Christ was broken on account of me.

I realized that I had come to think very little of my sin. So much so that I was more ashamed at breaking a cracker than I have been by the acts of rebellion that have persisted in my life. I was more concerned about that cracker being trampled underfoot than I was about the way my actions have trampled the one I call Lord.

It was a powerful reminder to me. I have spilled the blood of Christ and I have broken the body of Christ.

Here’s an uncomfortable verse:

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. – Hebrews 10:26-31

From the dust we came (or Do Something, Even Nothing, Outdoors)

Go. be. outside.

Charles Spurgeon:

"Let a man be naturally as blithe as a bird, he will hardly be able to bear up year after year against such a suicidal process; he will make his study a prison and his books the warders of a gaol, while nature lies outside his window calling him to health and beckoning him to joy.

He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy.

A day’s breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours, ramble in the beech woods? umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive.

A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.

Heaviest the heart is in a heavy air,
Ev’ry wind that rises blows away despair.

The ferns and the rabbits, the streams and the trouts, the fir trees and the squirrels, the primroses and the violets, the farm-yard, the new-mown hay, and the fragrant hops—these are the best medicine for hypochondriacs, the surest tonics for the declining, the best refreshments for the weary.

For lack of opportunity, or inclination, these great remedies are neglected, and the student becomes a self-immolated victim."

(Thanks Justin Taylor)



And from Wendell Berry:

"I don't think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is...It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine - which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes."


(Thanks Chip Baggett)

Gospel Truths in... SAYING GOODBYE

(from the CWR Times)

We are nearing the end of the summer and we will soon be saying goodbyes. A difficult goodbye is always a reminder to me of the Gospel. We were created to experience a closeness with others. Relationships are meant to give us a certain satisfaction. But ever since man’s rebellion there has been a particular strain in our relationships. When we experience, even in part, the harmony and camaraderie that we were made for, there is a part deep within us that doesn’t want it to end. The good news is that Christ died to make all things new. In Christ we find the relationship for which we were made. When Jesus was resurrected he told Mary to go to His “brothers.” As the firstfruits of the Kingdom of the resurrected, Christ began the restoration of the humanity of humanity.

Even now we are beginning to feel the effects of that redemption, yet we still live in a fallen world. So it is hard to say goodbye. It is hard because of how good the community has been and it seems to be a parting. Yet, it is not a permanent parting, and for that reason there is a certain comfort to be had. While this group may not ever again serve together in one location on this side of glory, we know that we are going separate ways with the love and support of brothers and sisters in Christ. We can leave knowing that, on account of the spectacular redemption we have in Him, we will all be united once again. And at that time, bittersweet goodbyes will be a thing of the past.

Gospel Truths in... the PASSAGE of TIME

(from the CWR Times)

Ever notice that those 5 minutes in Lakeside during Canteen go by really quick? Or how quickly ten minutes with a prayer partner turn into twenty? Can you remember yesterday’s flag raising? Seems like forever ago. At the same time, it is hard to believe it is already the eighth week for the staff. I feel like we were just huddled in the dark, powerless Dining Hall sharing with each other at the end of Staff Training. It’s a short summer made up of long days.

I think that our experience of the passage of time teaches us something about how things are supposed to be. When things are going well, time seems to pass quickly. It feels as though it escapes us. This points to our innate desire to experience goodness without end. Conversely, when things are going poorly, time seems to drag on. This points to our innate desire to experience only goodness. In glory, the expression “time flies” will lose its meaning. We will never have to fearfully check our watches to see if we are out of time. We will never agonizingly glance at the clock and realize that we have to endure just a little bit longer. One day, thanks to the redemption found in Christ, we will experience the good of life without the worry of when it will end.

The Gospel Truths in... SILLY BANDZ

(from the CWR Times)

When I look at an arm full of Silly Bandz I’m reminded of the Gospel.

Silly Bandz, have you seen them? They are so much fun. At first you would think it is just a funny looking rubber band, but they’re not! They are something far grander. When I see Silly Bandz I see that people are creative and desire fun things. This is because God made us to be creative and to desire fun things. The large number of campers I see running around with Silly Bandz is also evidence that people like trends. People like to belong and no one wants to be left out. This is a result of being made in the image of a God who is, within Himself, perfect community.

The Gospel story is one of a good God making a good creation and people in His image. He made us to be creative. Then man rebelled against all that is good so that now not everything is right in the world. This is why Silly Bandz break. But God, in His grace, has made redemption available through His Son. He is redeeming hearts first, but even broken Silly Bandz serve as a reminder that redemption has not yet been made complete.

CWR Summer 2K10

Done.