Directing the Impossible Play

paulrademacher.com

Today the Republican Convention was to begin in Tampa, but the approach of hurricane Isaac has postponed it. Who knows what effect that will have on history.

On April 20^th 2010 an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 men.  As a result U.S. oil production has dropped precipitously and dependence on foreign oil is now up to 66%.

In 715 B.C. Sennacherib, King of Assyria laid siege to Jerusalem, but they were unsuccessful – the Jewish accounts say that an Angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Some historians think it was cholera that killed them, but Sennacherib withdrew and Jerusalem – and therefore Israel – was preserved.

Jesus Christ controls history. Jesus Christ, as the Second Person of the Godhead, manages all the stories of all our lives so that history will come out in the end just as He wants it to, just as it has been prophesied. He is directing this play, this impossibly complicated play.

Yes, but don’t we have free will? Can God control history if He is not controlling each of us? Isn’t history merely the record of human decisions? So how is it possible then for these two ideas – individual human free will and God’s collective plan to coexist? 

News flash: human free will is not all there is. We don’t like to admit that, but it’s true. We don’t get to choose everything that happens in our lives – I didn’t choose to have my baby grandson die. I did not choose to have my new car run off the road at 70 miles an hour. I did not want my husband’s body to develop cancer cells. But those things happened nevertheless. I could still choose how to react to each situation, true, but the situations themselves I didn’t choose.

An Open Letter to our President

Dear Sir:

I have a question: which came first – the goose or the egg? Don’t wrinkle your brow and glance at your teleprompter -- this is not a difficult question – eggs don’t hatch without a goose to sit on them.

Let’s try another one. -- which came first – the taxers or the taxees? That’s evidently a more difficult question because you, the most powerful man in the world, recently got it wrong. Very wrong.

Recently you made quite a speech in Roanoke, Virginia, in which you figuratively addressed small businessmen saying, “You didn’t build that.” You went on to explain that without public works, “roads and bridges,” a business couldn’t exist. Your implication was that government agencies and activities are the foundation on which industry rests, that without public policy there would be no private enterprise.

Ruins in Detroit -- seedetroit.com

P-a-l-e-e-z-e, Mr. Obama, that statement is almost as offensive as your ignorant proclamation that this country is not a Christian nation, and don’t give me that “out of context” palaver. It is the context of your entire presidency that makes this so objectionable.

Obviously, Sir, you haven’t thought very hard or very long about this country and what it’s all about, or you would know better. The truth is that without private, moneymaking endeavors, the government would have nothing, would be nothing. I realized that yesterday when I ran across a news tidbit about California’ sales tax revenues dropping by 33.5%. No. Really?!

Scoring a Perfect Ten

Yesterday at the gym I was “biking” to nowhere, grateful that the TV in front of me was set on the Olympics and that the Olympics was set on rhythmic gymnastics. I know, I know, not everyone’s favorite sport, but I was entranced. I peddled and peddled and watched young, agile bodies perform almost impossible movements – wrapping spines around soccer-sized balls, spinning hula hoops with one over-head foot, twisting and rolling and never losing sight of the props, always graceful and fluid and elegant. It was enough to make you think that maybe humans could be perfect. It was enough to make me realize why our Christian gospel often falls on deaf ears.

Human beings are amazing. That’s why we all love the Olympics – it’s a chance to see our fellow humans achieving astounding things – running ever faster, jumping higher, performing ever more challenging dives. We are all impressed with ourselves – the proof is right there on the TV; human beings are amazing.

So what’s with this “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” thing? Isn’t the glory of the Olympics enough? Look at what people can do, what awful conditions they can overcome, what remarkable beauty they can produce, what mind-boggling skills they can develop. And they all seem like such nice, good people; they train 24-7 – they don’t have time to get into any trouble. Original sin? Total depravity? Surely you jest.

Splitting the Difference – on Open-mindedness and Opportunity

It’s been turning up on my Facebook feed lately, a post-it-note that says something to the effect that all the posts in the world won’t change anyone’s mind. Well, some part of my mind has been chewing on that thought  -- it’s a very dangerous one.

This is not a tirade against anyone who posted it – it showed up several times and I didn’t even notice who had put it up there, let alone what the ideological motivation might have been. It’s the utter closed-mindedness that amazes me. “My mind (what little there is of it anymore) is made up; don’t give me any information, don’t remind me that not everyone agrees with me, and above all, don’t put me in a situation where I have to defend my position because either I don’t know enough to do so, or my position is indefensible.” That’s what it means.

We can’t afford that. Not on either side. Not on any side. We are so close to extinction as a nation that it takes my breath away and such calcification of thought will end us. This is no time to dig into a sullen funk; this is a time to talk. As the bard said, “Something is rotten in Denmark,” and we better fix it and not sulk around like Hamlet did. That didn’t end well.

We – the United States of America, the greatest, most benign, most prosperous, freest nation the world has ever known – is not too big to fail. That’s ridiculous. Remember Goliath? This world is littered with the remains of great empires, great countries, great cities.

Carthage

§  What happened to Carthage? From the 7^th century B.C. until the 2^nd century it controlled all of the western Mediterranean. Now, inhabited by only 20,000 people, it is just a suburb of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, a third world country.

§  Where is Assyria? It once controlled all of what is now the Middle East. For the last 200 years of its existence its army never lost a battle. Now it is gone. People live in the land that was once Assyria, some of their buildings have survived, but that’s it. Gone.

Stage Two Thinking and the Great Divide

Scenario 1: A drunken drug dealer (say that 10 times fast) breaks into the wrong house, shoots a single mother and her three children with a Saturday night special. Shocked by this vicious crime the city council heads up a campaign to get people to trade in or sell all their handguns.

Scenario 2: A hundred-year-old brick building in a California coastal town collapses during an earthquake. The family gets out safely, but their dog dies in a rain of falling bricks. This event sparks 42 new housing restrictions.

purplewallpaper.info

Scenario 3: The state bird, the purple-legged honey-sucker, starts dying off so the state sets up strict regulations, which disallow the use of the insecticides used to protect the state’s all-important cabbage crop.

OK – these are all fictional, but the stories must sound familiar: a problem arises – a shocking, emotional yank that scares us silly. We react in a natural way – “Mommy make it stop hurting!” The truth is that Mommy never did have much control over life’s nastiness, but we believed in her and her reassurances made us feel so much better.

windsun.com

When my children were little, we lived in Nebraska where giant, dramatic, fabulous thunderstorms frequently lit up the night sky. Lightning would suddenly brighten the world and then thunder would shake the house and the kids would cry. I’d run upstairs to their rooms and hug them down out of their fear, but before I went back to bed I’d put little wads of toilet paper in their ears. We all knew that smidgen of tissue was not going to do anything to block the next thunderclap, but the fact that I’d gone through that ritual warded off the terror and they’d go back to sleep. It was a lovely illusion.

The Dark Side of the Dark Knights

Do we get it now? The Joker isn’t a joke. The irony of the Colorado Batman shootings has me stunned. Actually, staying up past midnight to see a movie befuddles me in the first place. Taking small children along to do that is baffling. Add James Holmes, hair dyed red, taking the part of the Joker, complete with guns and armor, shooting 71 people, many of whom thought it was part of the show, has my brain running around in circles trying to make sense of it all.

How did we get to a cultural place where young people think in terms of mass murder? How do they become so evil that they act on those thoughts? And it’s becoming commonplace. Admit it, you were only half-shocked when you heard the news.

Something is really out of whack. Not only do young adults actually open fire on innocent people, but then other people, without even missing a beat, use the event to press for less freedom for the people who didn’t shoot anyone at all. I even had a conversation with someone who was – drumbeat here – blaming Bush. This was not a political event. It had nothing to do with government -- we have always had laws against shooting people in cold blood. Why would a would-be criminal obey a gun law if he has no intention of obeying one of the most ancient of laws – “Thou shalt not kill.”? No – this is way beyond politics; this event is an outgrowth of an evil we can barely understand.

What is evil? Evil is worse than the opposite of good. Evil, you see, can look just like good. It can claim to have your best interests at heart; it can be called “Honest Iago” until five good people are dead; it can look like a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, or a tall, handsome grad student. Evil does not have horns on its head, nor does it wear a red leotard. It looks like us.  

Even our heroes are starting to look a lot like our caricature of evil. The stranger our villains get, the more twisted are the good guys. Batman? Bats are blind and only come out at night. Batman is called The Dark Knight. Why dark? Isn’t good light? Are we getting so confused about good that our popular culture sees good as shadowy and secretiv?

Silver Linings and Ominous Clouds

Something’s up. We all feel it; we’re edgy and anxious, or we’re bent over with our hands over our ears and our heads in the sand, trying to sing “LA, LA, LA, LA…”. Either way, we’re all a little grouchy. “Something wicked this way comes” and we can feel it.

from jade95_2010

Let’s shake the sand out of our ears and stare this down. Everyone has always had his share of hideous things to deal with; those things always hit hard and are largely unexpected. Usually, though, the nasties are timed so that they don’t happen to everyone all at once. Someone’s always around whose house hasn’t been ripped out by a tornado, or whose mother isn’t dying.

Right now, however, the monsters appear to be gathering for a major assault. On all of us. At once.  I can hear them breathing:

·      Moral bearings are almost gone. See the Ten Commandments and do your own comparison.

·      Children, for several generations now, have been badly educated, but well-indoctrinated. Check the stats.

·      Churches spend very little time teaching the Bible.  Christianity is under attack.

·      Governments are almost indistinguishable from the special interests that pull their strings, and those governments are out to wrest all dignity and opportunity from their citizens. Watch the news.

·      Current economic theory is self-destructing. Keep your eye on Europe and China. It’s not just here. Keynes is failing everywhere, but Keynes is the basket carrying most of our chickens. Ditto.

·      Family structure is dissolving. Any teacher can fill you in on that one.

·      National sovereignty is under attack. See the latest UN ideas or talk to Jan Brewer.

·      Natural disasters are on the rise…. I could go on and on and so could you. So, what’s my point?

Adam, Eve, and Justice Roberts

It’s late and I’m just getting started with this week’s post. I’ve been on line discussing free will with my son – an avoidance technique, no doubt, but the question of free will is so fascinating and has taken such a beating that perhaps I should just keep the discussion going here…

Adam, Eve, and Justice Roberts

Free will. The concept means nothing if we are all, as Darwinists assume, just so much protoplasm lounging in our Lazy Boys, pulsating, digesting, sloughing dead skin. If decisions are nothing more than chemicals ricocheting around in our brains, then this discussion is moot.

That we feel like we’re making choices is confusing, but for all you atheists out there – it’s all you have: just a feeling made of chemicals. How exactly you got to the point of forming an opinion about the absence of God is curious, but nevertheless mechanics is all you get to work with.

Some of you arrived in that atheist state of denial because you’ve observed or experienced horrifying human behavior and reacted with anger against the very God you claim is non-existent. Never mind that without God we cannot explain evil; we shouldn’t even see it as an issue. Why would we? Chemicals don’t have morals.

The Corruption of a Concept – of Perseverance and Saints

Last week I signed off before I got to the end of my discussion of the Calvinist acronym, TULIP. I saved the best for last ---

The West is burning in forest fire hell. A large part of the eastern half of the country is being steamed like dumplings. Even the Constitution has taken a gut punch. This last week has been enough to remind us that human beings have a serious security deficit. We’ve trudged through all of history sadly lacking in that commodity. Ever since Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden and death became a reality, we’ve struggled; something innate in us wants to live and live forever, happily, comfortably, surrounded by love and beauty, and we know that won’t happen here.

Instinctively we know there’s something better – some place that doesn’t involve car crashes and cannibalism, tornadoes and terrorists, adultery and atrocities. We know that. We also know that Christ looked at the criminal beside him on the cross and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Hmm… how does that work? The guy was a thief; he wasn’t a good guy, he didn’t have time to become a good guy, and yet Christ didn’t say that to the man on His other side. So, what did Thief 1 have going for him?

Tiptoe Through the Tuilip

I find that I’m still reading and thinking about Calvinist issues this week. The more I study the more amazed I am – some day I’ll have to figure out what it is that draws people to such a thorny part of the garden.  Meanwhile let’s …

Tip-toe Through the Tulip

Not tulips either...

Aren’t acronyms marvelous? Why, the modern world could barely function without reducing every phrase or title to a list of pronounceable initials: SCOTUS and POTUS and PETA and PI. Acronyms allow us to say so much in such a narrow bandwidth that they’ve become indispensible. But they aren’t new. The five points of Calvinism were formalized c1619 as TULIP – a nifty way to remember some fairly outrageous doctrines, most of which began as nuggets of truth which eventually morphed into the misshapen thoughts that permeate a great deal of modern day Christian theology.

The T stands for Total Depravity, i.e. Original Sin. Only the most liberal Christian churches deny the essence of this concept. Eve disobeyed God, ate from the forbidden tree, lured her husband into the same behavior and together they lost their innocence. That loss still manifests itself today in man’s imperfection, in his inability to do anything pure and holy, in his state of “coming short of the glory of God,”  (Romans 3:23).

The only problem with the Calvinist take on this is that the idea has swallowed us whole to the point where we can’t even accept God’s grace without His intervention. Calvinism has allowed Original Sin to destroy free will, putting a nasty knot in the yarn of salvation – how are we to explain the observable fact that some people follow the Lord in spite of their depravity?  If we’re born screwed, then in what do we place our hope? No wonder the non-believing world hates Christianity and its God – it has left them hopeless; they can’t choose Him even if they want to. Yikes.