Advent Books

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

2010-06-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

This is a book that I had heard of quite a while ago, bought, and it has sat on the shelf for months, until....Bekah was assigned it for her summer reading. While she was at the beach last week with a friend, I decided I would have to read it and finish it before she came home, which I did. At first I balked at the author's writing style. It is choppy, elementary, not very creative, and I just didn't care for it at all. Never having read anything else by the author I don't know whether the style is intentional or not. It could be a different way to describe the main character.

I finished it lickety-split because the story grew in interest, and I just wanted to know how it would end. The world, or the US in particular, has evolved into a totalitarian state where the President is a dictator, thug, and controls the peoples every move. He rules from "the Capitol" and life is abundant there, although, as in 1984, Big Brother is watching you. Their are 12 Districts that surround the Capitol. They are all involved in some form of commerce that they are known for; coal, agriculture, etc... The farther away from the Capitol the more meager the resources are to feed and clothe your family. The story revolves around a 16 year old girl who has lives in District 12, has lost her beloved father in a coal mine accident, and has taken on the role of protector, and provider for her mother and her 12 year old sister.

Every year the poorer families have to submit their children's names to a lottery, every district does the same. Once a year every district draws a name of a boy and a girl between the ages of 12-18 to go the Hunger Games Competition that is televised all over, and watched compulsively by all. The 24 children are put into an artificial arena and must fight to the death. The President does this to quell rebellions, and mentally keep people in line. The main character, Katniss, has taken the place of her 12 year old sister Primrose, whom she loves very much. Katniss is a hunter and that becomes her strategy to win in the arena.

Having taught ancient Roman history, it greatly resembles the Roman empire. The Emperor and Rome had an abundance of resources, although 3/4 of the people were slaves, yet the farther you got from Rome the more desperate the people were just to exist on a daily basis. The author uses Greco-Roman names throughout the story for the people that live in the capitol, but whether this is her intent, I don't know. The jacket cover says that she wants to show the ravages of war on young adolescents, but being the political animal that I am, having studied totalitarianism, communism, and every other "ism" it shows the wrong headedness that comes from NOT fighting for freedom. It also shows the inhumane way that a society such as Rome treated it's subjects, subjects of the State. That is before Christ came and literally changed everything. Christianity chipped away at the State treating people, individuals as made in the image of God.

I am now reading the second in the Series; Catching Fire. Will tell you how it turns out soon. Just looked on Amazon and the third and final book in the series is coming out August 24.

Till We Have Faces, Resource and Website

2010-04-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Great Website and resource, this was the quote from the end of the article. Go to the website, and type in Till We Have Faces.

"For it is not only Psyche and Orual herself who have been ruined; Orual now recognizes this. Other lives as well have paid the price for Orual's selfishness: the Princess Redival, whom Oural ignored and even detested after Psyche's birth. All along, Orual realizes, Redival was lonely, and only wanted to join Psyche's and Orual's private circle. Poor Bardia, whom Orual (out of jealous love) kept away from his family on any pretense of meeting, planning, or royal business, ended his life overworked, a man who had sacrificed the company of his own family to spend day and night at the palace on the Queen's behest. And Psyche herself, like the mythical Psyche, has been sentenced to eternal toil at all manner of impossible tasks. Orual is guided by the palace slave she always knew as "grandfather" to a place where she is shown images of Psyche performing these tasks.

In the next picture I saw both Psyche and myself, but I was only a shadow. We toiled together over those burning sands, she with her empty bowl, I with my book of poison. (300)

In the end, however, Orual is allowed some comfort and redemption. She learns that Psyche has felt little emotional distress and anguish over the years, that her pain has all been of the physical variety. Orual, instead, has borne all the anguish. Orual learns as well, with her last breath, why the gods give no answer to her accusations, why there is no explanation for her suffering here in this world:

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words. Long did I hate you, long did I fear you. I might --

Here ends Queen Orual's "life's work," which, she has realized, is itself the answer to her questions: "To have heard myself making [the complaint] was to be answered" (294). The Queen's body, still clutching the scroll, is discovered by a priest, and the scroll is placed in the temple for safekeeping until it can be transported to the cultural and intellectual Mecca of Greece.

I have said that the existential problem of the dividing gulf is powerfully dramatized in the interplay between characters in Till We Have Faces, and indeed, the tension between Psyche and Orual, Orual and Bardia, Orual and the Grandfather, make possible the dichotomy of believer versus nonbeliever, and divine versus human love. Most important to the expression of this existential problem, however, is Orual's interior monologue; by making an Everyman of Orual, Lewis has avoided the danger of gratuitious didacticism, always a possibility with allegory. For it is, in fact, as allegory that the novel must be read. For its recycling of myth and universal insights into human nature, Till We Have Faces appeals to secular readers and critics, and to Christians for its eloquent presentation of the problematics of Christian life on earth. For these reasons in general, and for its particular concern with the dangers of obsessive love, the work will undoubtedly and deservedly retain its seat of honor in the Lewis canon. Queen Orual, for this reader, is memorable, for her pain, her universality, her humanity, and Till We Have Faces is unforgettable for its rendering of the ever- present and ever-dividing human capacity for selfishness and destructive love."

The Strength of the Christian by TM Moore

2010-04-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

*This is a wonderful reinforcement to us to read the great saints in all ages and to grow strong in the Lord and the strength of His might. We need the past writings of the saints as well as each other to do the task set before us! Lynn

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…
Ephesians 3.14-19

The Christian life is not a solo project. God has called us together into communities – the Body of Christ – because He knows that we only grow strong when we are in company with all the saints. As Paul indicates, we will increase in the power of the Spirit unto Christ-likeness as we learn and grow together with other believers. Together the saints of the Lord are able to correct, teach, admonish, help, encourage, strengthen, and pray for one another, and to stimulate one another to love and good works. If we really intend to grow in the strength of Christ, then we must do so in company with other believers, for only in the fellowship of the church will God enable us to realize the charge to be strong which He has imposed upon us.

Which makes active involvement in a local church an indispensable means for growing strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

But there is more required of us in benefiting from the company of all the saints. God is using the work of many believers beyond our local fellowship to help His people grow strong in Him. Good Christian writers and teachers are available to us in print, via the Internet, and even – in a few cases – by television and radio. We should seek out such believers as will consistently build into our souls the strength we need to grow into Christ-likeness. In my early years as a believer Dr. Joel Nederhood was a constant weekly companion on the radio and Francis Schaeffer was a daily instructor in print. These two saints helped to form important aspects of my soul at a crucial period in my own development.

But there are also available to us the works of great saints from every age of the Church, and we should seek out ways of learning from their writings as well. The works of Augustine, à Kempis, Calvin, Edwards, Wesley and many others have survived as long as they have because Christians have found them to be sources of great strengthening in their own development.

The saints of the past, together with the saints of the present, are wondrous gifts of God and means of grace whereby He helps us to grow strong according to the riches of His glory. Let us not overlook the benefits to be gained from regularly submitting to the teaching and writing of those whom God has approved, and has made available to us for our benefit. For only in company with all the saints will we realize our fullest potential for growing strong in the Lord.

Start your own ViewPoint discussion group. This week’s series is available in a free downloadable format, suitable for personal or group study. Download the series, "Strength of the Christian."

More on Introducing Till We Have Faces

2010-04-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

I came across this quote in a new book, Practice Resurrection by Eugene Peterson, on Till We Have Faces, and was thrilled! In the back of Practice Resurrection, Peterson has an appendix of recommended books called, "Some writers on the Practice of Resurrection," he then offers this synopsis of Till We Have Faces:

"There are no shortcuts in growing up. The path to maturity is long and arduous. Hurry is no virtue. There is no secret formula squirreled away that will make it easier or quicker. But stories help. By means of story we are immersed in the intricate complexities of person and places, sacrifice and trouble, failure and achievement, laughter and tears, to say nothing of the intricate simplicity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that word by word, day by day, gives form and beauty-the Genesis good, and very good!-to it all. But we must stay in the story as it is being told, give consent, and not impatiently or angrily go off and improvise our own. The Biblical story is our most comprehensive story for doing this. Other storytellers step in from time to time to help us find ourselves in the story. C. S. Lewis is one of our great storytellers. His Narnia Chronicles and Space Trilogy baptized our imaginations so that we could get a better grasp of what is involved in living the Christian life in our time and place. The last novel he wrote, Till We Have Faces, he thought was his best. I agree. But it is also the most difficult the most demanding. The root of the difficulty is that it is about the most demanding of human tasks, becoming mature, growing up to the measure of the stature of Jesus Christ."

Letters to Malcolm by C. S. Lewis

2010-04-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

An Introduction to Till We Have Faces

Ladies, our next read is Till We Have Faces, and this synopsis of Letters to Malcolm is a good introduction to the novel. Hopefully it will whet your appetite for the book.

One of my favorite authors is CS Lewis. I have read almost everything that he has published with the exception of Letters to Malcolm. Recently, my friend Sondie had posted on her blog that she was in the midst of reading it. Well, I looked up on my shelf and there it sat just waiting for me to read it as well. I pulled it down and engulfed it within hours. Lewis is having a series of dialogues with a friend named Malcolm. This book is a little bit different from your normal pick up at a Christian Bookstore Book on prayer. It is more of a philosophical, metaphysical discussion that is peppered with profound statements on prayer. On page 21 he says,

"We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled this sight. The change is in us. The passive changes to the active. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view. To put ourselves on a personal footing with God could in itself and without warrant, be nothing but presumption and illusion. But we are taught that it is not; that it is God that gives us that footing. For it is by the Holy Spirit that we cry "Father." By unveiling, by confessing our sins and 'making known' our requests , we assume the high rank of persons before Him. And He, descending, becomes a Person to us. But I should not say 'becomes.' In Him there is no becoming. He reveals Himself as Person: or reveals that in Him which is Person."

Lewis is a master at taking the philosophical underpinnings of a concept and masterfully

crafting the metaphysical with the here and now, the application, the practical. Have you ever

thought of yourself as being "unveiled" in prayer? It brings to mind the wedding ceremony where

the groom pulls back the veil of his beloved to reveal her face. Isn't that always a poignant moment?

Then Lewis says that God is the God of the personal. He is a person. He is not a concept, fate, or

destiny. He is a personal God who personally unveiled Himself to us in the person of Christ the

incarnate one. God became man. Therefore we can approach the throne, unveil ourselves and have

no fear. God cares about us personally, because He is a person. God the Father, God the Son, and

God the Holy Spirit have been having personal communion throughout eternity past and present.

This is the Theological perspective that gives us the assurance that the God of the Bible is not

just an "emanation" of a god, He is not just an impersonal "force," He is not us! If any of these

things were true He could not be a God who personally tends, loves, and delights in His

children.

Lewis has insights like this one throughout the book. Read it and chew on it, digest it, and

meditate on it. Not only all of those things, but then...Pray.

The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H. by George Steiner

2010-04-09T05:36:00.000-07:00

Imagine, thirty years after the end of World War II, Israeli Nazi-hunters, some of whom lost relatives in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany, find a silent old man deep in the Amazon jungle. He is Adolph Hitler. The narrative that follows is a profound and disturbing exploration of the nature of guilt, vengeance, language, and the power of evil—each undiminished over time. George Steiner wrote The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H. in 1979, I came across it referred in the footnotes of another wonderful book by Os Guiness, The Call.

I am spending time this week with my daughters at our lake house and saw it on the shelf last evening as Rebekah was donning some of the clothes we picked out for her yesterday. It caught my eye and I pulled it off the shelf and it immediately brought back memories of insights learned. I had dated when I read it, 2000. The same year we were all embroiled in the turmoil of the Bush/Gore election. This book opened my eyes to just what ideas can do, and the consequences thereof, and that worldview matters. If Hitler were captured, brought back to Europe, and put on trial today, what would be the outcome of that trial? I'll leave that with any of you that want to read the book, frightening.

Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris

2010-04-08T06:21:00.001-07:00

It’s strange to see an Amish girl drunk. The pairing of a bonnet and a can of beer is awkward. If she were stumbling along with a jug of moonshine, it would at least match her long, dowdy dress.

But right now she can’t worry about that. She is flat-out wasted.

Welcome to rumspringa.

The Amish, people who belong to a Christian religious sect with roots in Europe, practice a radical form of separation from the modern world. They live and dress with simplicity. Amish women wear bonnets and long, old-fashioned dresses and never touch makeup. The men wear wide-rimmed straw hats, sport bowl cuts, and grow chin curtains—full beards with the mustaches shaved off.

My wife, Shannon, sometimes says she wants to be Amish, but I know this isn’t true. Shannon entertains her Amish fantasy when life feels too complicated or when she’s tired of doing laundry. She thinks life would be easier if she had only two dresses to choose from and both looked the same. I tell her that if she ever tried to be Amish, she would buy a pair of jeans and ditch her head covering about ten minutes into the experiment. Besides, she would never let me grow a beard like that.

Once Shannon and her girlfriend Shelley drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a weekend of furniture and quilt shopping in Amish country. They stayed at a bed-and-breakfast located next door to an Amish farm. One morning Shannon struck up a conversation with the inn’s owner, who had lived among the Amish his entire life. She asked him questions, hoping for romantic details about the simple, buggy-driven life. But instead he complained about having to pick up beer cans every weekend.

Beer cans?

“Yes,” he said, “the Amish kids leave them everywhere.” That’s when he told her about rumspringa. The Amish believe that before a young person chooses to commit to the Amish church as an adult, he or she should have the chance to freely explore the forbidden delights of the outside world. So at age sixteen everything changes for Amish teenagers. They go from milking cows and singing hymns to living like debauched rock stars.

In the Pennsylvania Dutch language, rumspringa literally means “running around.” It’s a season of doing anything and everything you want with zero rules. During this time—which can last from a few months to several years—all the restrictions of the Amish church are lifted. Teens are free to shop at malls, have sex, wear makeup, play video games, do drugs, use cell phones, dress however they want, and buy and drive cars. But what they seem to enjoy most during rumspringa is gathering at someone’s barn, blasting music, and then drinking themselves into the ground. Every weekend, the man told Shannon, he had to clean up beer cans littered around his property following the raucous, all-night Amish parties.

When Shannon came home from her Lancaster weekend, her Amish aspirations had diminished considerably. The picture of cute little Amish girls binge drinking took the sheen off her idealistic vision of Amish life. We completed her disillusionment when we rented a documentary about the rite of rumspringa called Devil’s Playground. Filmmaker Lucy Walker spent three years befriending, interviewing, and filming Amish teens as they explored the outside world. That’s where we saw the drunk Amish girl tripping along at a barn party. We learned that most girls continue to dress Amish even as they party—as though their clothes are a lifeline back to safety while they explore life on the wild side.

In the documentary Faron, an outgoing, skinny eighteen-year-old sells and is addicted to the drug crystal meth. After Faron is busted by the cops, he turns in rival drug dealers. When his life is threatened, Faron moves back to his parents’ home and tries to start over. The Amish faith is a good religion, he says. He wants to be Amish, but his old habits keep tugging on him.

A girl named Velda struggles with depression. During rumspringa she finds the partying empty, but after joining the church she can’t imagine living the rest of her life as an Amish woman. “God talks to me in one ear, Satan in the other,” Velda says. “Part of me wants to be my like my parents, but the other part wants the jeans, the haircut, to do what I want to do.” When she fails to convince her Amish fiancé to leave the church with her, she breaks off her engagement a month before the wedding and leaves the Amish faith for good. As a result Velda is shunned by her family and the entire community. Alone but determined, she begins to attend college.

Velda’s story is the exception. Eighty to 90 percent of Amish teens decide to return to the Amish church after rumspringa. At one point in the film, Faron insightfully comments that rumspringa is like a vaccination for Amish teens. They binge on all the worst aspects of the modern world long enough to make themselves sick of it. Then, weary and disgusted, they turn back to the comforting, familiar, and safe world of Amish life.

But as I watched, I wondered, What are they really going back to? Are they choosing God or just a safe and simple way of life?

I know what it means to wrestle with questions of faith. I know what it’s like for faith to be so mixed up with family tradition that it’s hard to distinguish between a genuine knowledge of God and comfort in a familiar way of life.

I grew up in an evangelical Christian family. One that was on the more conservative end of the spectrum. I’m the oldest of seven children. Our parents homeschooled us, raised us without television, and believed that old-fashioned courtship was better than modern dating. Friends in our neighborhood probably thought our family was Amish, but that’s only because they didn’t know some of the really conservative Christian homeschool families. The truth was that our family was more culturally liberal than many homeschoolers. We watched movies, could listen to rock music (as long as it was Christian or the Beatles), and were allowed to have Star Wars and Transformers toys.

But even so, during high school I bucked my parents’ restrictions. That’s not to say my spiritual waywardness was very shocking. I doubt Amish kids would be impressed by my teenage dabbling in worldly pleasure. I never did drugs. Never got drunk. The worst things I ever did were to steal porn magazines, sneak out of the house at night with a kid from church, and date various girls behind my parents’ backs. Although my rebellion was tame in comparison, it was never virtue that held me back from sin. It was lack of opportunity. I shudder to think what I would have done with a parent-sanctioned
season of rumspringa.

The bottom line is that my parents’ faith wasn’t really my faith. I knew how to work the system, I knew the Christian lingo, but my heart wasn’t in it. My heart was set on enjoying the moment.

Recently a friend of mine met someone who knew me in early high school. “What did she remember about me?” I asked.

“She said you were girl crazy, full of yourself, and immature,” my friend told me.

Yeah, she knew me, I thought. It wasn’t nice to hear, but I couldn’t argue. I didn’t know or fear God. I didn’t have any driving desire to know him.

For me, the Christian faith was more about a set of moral standards than belief and trust in Jesus Christ.

During my early twenties I went through a phase of blaming the church I had attended in high school for all my spiritual deficiencies. Evangelical megachurches make good punching bags.

My reasoning went something like this: I was spiritually shallow because the pastors’ teaching had been shallow. I wasn’t fully engaged because they hadn’t done enough to grab my attention. I was a hypocrite because everyone else had been a hypocrite. I didn’t know God because they hadn’t provided enough programs. Or they hadn’t provided the right programs. Or maybe they’d had too many programs.

All I knew was that it was someone else’s fault.

Blaming the church for our problems is second only to the popular and easy course of blaming our parents for everything that’s wrong with us. But the older I get, the less I do of both. I hope that’s partly due to the wisdom that comes with age. But I’m sure it’s also because I am now both a parent and a pastor. Suddenly I have a lot more sympathy for my dad and mom and the pastors at my old church. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

At the church where I now pastor (which I love), some young adults remind me of myself when I was in high school. They are church kids who know so much about Christian religion and yet so little about God. Some are passive, completely ambivalent toward spiritual things. Others are actively straying from their faith—ticked off about their parents’ authority, bitter over a rule or guideline, and counting the minutes until they turn eighteen and can disappear. Others aren’t going anywhere, but they stay just to go
through the motions. For them, church is a social group.

It’s strange being on the other side now. When I pray for specific young men and women who are wandering from God, when I stand to preach and feel powerless to change a single heart, when I sit and counsel people and it seems nothing I can say will draw them away from sin, I remember the pastors from my teenage years. I realize they must have felt like this too. They must have prayed and cried over me. They must have labored over sermons with students like me in mind. I see now that they were doing the best they knew how. But a lot of the time, I wasn’t listening.

During high school I spent most Sunday sermons doodling, passing notes, checking out girls, and wishing I were two years older and five inches taller so a redhead named Jenny would stop thinking of me as her “little brother.” That never happened.

I mostly floated through grown-up church. Like a lot of teenagers in evangelical churches, I found my sense of identity and community in the parallel universe of the youth ministry. Our youth group was geared to being loud, fast paced, and fun. It was modeled on the massive and influential, seeker-sensitive Willow Creek Community Church located outside Chicago. The goal was simple: put on a show, get kids in the building, and let them see that Christians are cool, thus Jesus is cool. We had to prove that being a Christian is, contrary to popular opinion and even a few annoying passages
of the Bible, loads of fun. Admittedly it’s not as much fun as partying and having sex but pretty fun nonetheless.

Every Wednesday night our group of four-hundred-plus students divided into teams. We competed against each other in games and won points by bringing guests. As a homeschooler, of course I was completely worthless in the “bring friends from school” category. So I tried to make up for that by working on the drama and video team. My buddy Matt and I wrote, performed, and directed skits to complement our youth pastor’s messages. Unfortunately, our idea of complementing was to deliver skits that were not
even remotely connected to the message. The fact that Matt was a Brad Pitt look-alike assured that our skits were well received (at least by the girls).

The high point of my youth-group performing career came when the pastor found out I could dance and asked me to do a Michael Jackson impersonation. The album Bad had just come out. I bought it, learned all the dance moves, and then when I performed—how do I say this humbly?—I blew everyone away. I was bad (and I mean that in the good sense of the word bad ). The crowd went absolutely nuts. The music pulsed, and girls
were screaming and grabbing at me in mock adulation as I moonwalked and lip-synced my way through one of the most inane pop songs ever written. I loved every minute of it.

Looking back, I’m not real proud of that performance. I would feel better about my bad moment if the sermon that night had been about the depravity of man or something else that was even slightly related. But there was no connection. It had nothing to do with anything.

For me, dancing like Michael Jackson that night has come to embody my experience in a big, evangelical, seeker-oriented youth group. It was fun, it was entertaining, it was culturally savvy (at the time), and it had very little to do with God. Sad to say, I spent more time studying Michael’s dance moves for that drama assignment than I was ever asked to invest in studying about God.

Of course, this was primarily my own fault. I was doing what I wanted to do. There were other kids in the youth group who were more mature and who grew more spiritually during their youth-group stint. And I don’t doubt the good intentions of my youth pastor. He was trying to strike the balance between getting kids to attend and teaching them.
Maybe I wouldn’t have been interested in youth group if it hadn’t been packaged in fun and games and a good band. But I still wish someone had expected more of me—of all of us. Would I have listened? I can’t know. But I do know that a clear vision of God and the power of his Word and the purpose of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were lost on me in the midst of all the flash and fun.

There’s a story in the Bible of a young king named Josiah, who lived about 640 years before Christ. I think Josiah could have related to me—being religious but ignorant of God. Josiah’s generation had lost God’s Word. And I don’t mean that figuratively. They literally lost God’s Word. It sounds ridiculous, but they essentially misplaced the Bible.

If you think about it, this was a pretty big deal. We’re not talking about a pair of sunglasses or a set of keys. The Creator of the universe had communicated with mankind through the prophet Moses. He gave his law. He revealed what he was like and what he wanted. He told his people what it meant for them to be his people and how they were to live. All this was dutifully recorded on a scroll. Then this scroll, which was precious beyond measure, was stored in the holy temple. But later it was misplaced. No one
knows how. Maybe a clumsy priest dropped it and it rolled into a dark corner.

But here’s the really sad thing: nobody noticed it was missing. No search was made. Nobody checked under the couch. It was gone and no one cared. For decades those who wore the label “God’s people” actually had no communication with him. They wore their priestly robes, they carried on their traditions in their beautiful temple, and they taught their messages that were so wise, so insightful, so inspirational. But it was all a bunch of hot air—nothing but their own opinions. Empty ritual. Their robes were costumes, and their temple was an empty shell.

This story scares me because it shows that it’s possible for a whole generation to go happily about the business of religion, all the while having lost a true knowledge of God.

When we talk about knowledge of God, we’re talking about theology. Simply put, theology is the study of the nature of God—who he is and how he thinks and acts. But theology isn’t high on many people’s list of daily concerns.

My friend Curtis says that most people today think only of themselves. He calls this “me-ology.” I guess that’s true. I know it was true of me and still can be. It’s a lot easier to be an expert on what I think and feel and want than to give myself to knowing an invisible, universe-creating God.

Others view theology as something only scholars or pastors should worry about. I used to think that way. I viewed theology as an excuse for all the intellectual types in the world to add homework to Christianity.

But I’ve learned that this isn’t the case. Theology isn’t for a certain group of people. In fact, it’s impossible for anyone to escape theology. It’s everywhere. All of us are constantly “doing” theology. In other words, all of us have some idea or opinion about what God is like. Oprah does theology. The person who says, “I can’t believe in a God who sends people to hell” is doing theology.

We all have some level of knowledge. This knowledge can be much or little, informed or uninformed, true or false, but we all have some concept of God (even if it’s that he doesn’t exist). And we all base our lives on what we think God is like.

So when I was spinning around like Michael Jackson at youth group, I was a theologian. Even though I wasn’t paying attention in church. Even though I wasn’t very concerned with Jesus or pleasing him. Even though I was more preoccupied with my girlfriend and with being popular. Granted I was a really bad theologian—my thoughts about God were unclear and often ignorant. But I had a concept of God that directed how I lived.

I’ve come to learn that theology matters. And it matters not because we want a good grade on a test but because what we know about God shapes the way we think and live. What you believe about God’s nature—what he is like, what he wants from you, and whether or not you will answer to him—affects every part of your life.

Theology matters, because if we get it wrong, then our whole life will be wrong.

I know the idea of “studying” God often rubs people the wrong way. It sounds cold and theoretical, as if God were a frog carcass to dissect in a lab or a set of ideas that we memorize like math proofs.

But studying God doesn’t have to be like that. You can study him the way you study a sunset that leaves you speechless. You can study him the way a man studies the wife he passionately loves. Does anyone fault him for noting her every like and dislike? Is it clinical for him to desire to know the thoughts and longings of her heart? Or to want to hear her speak?

Knowledge doesn’t have to be dry and lifeless. And when you think about it, exactly what is our alternative? Ignorance? Falsehood?

We’re either building our lives on the reality of what God is truly like and what he’s about, or we’re basing our lives on our own imagination and misconceptions.

We’re all theologians. The question is whether what we know about God is true.

In the days of King Josiah, theology was completely messed up. This isn’t really surprising. People had lost God’s words and then quickly forgot what the true God was like.

King Josiah was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah. People call Jeremiah the weeping prophet, and there was a lot to weep about in those days. “A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land,” Jeremiah said. “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way” (Jeremiah 5:30–31, NIV).

As people learned to love their lies about God, they lost their ability to recognize his voice. “To whom can I speak and giving warning?” God asked. “Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it” (Jeremiah 6:10, NIV).

People forgot God. They lost their taste for his words. They forgot what he had done for them, what he commanded of them, and what he threatened if they disobeyed. So they started inventing gods for themselves. They started borrowing ideas about God from the pagan cults. Their made-up gods let them live however they wanted. It was “me-ology” masquerading as theology.

The results were not pretty.

Messed-up theology leads to messed-up living. The nation of Judah resembled one of those skanky reality television shows where a houseful of barely dressed singles sleep around, stab each other in the back, and try to win cash. Immorality and injustice were everywhere. The rich trampled the poor. People replaced the worship of God with the worship of pagan deities that demanded religious orgies and child sacrifice. Every level of society, from marriage and the legal system to religion and politics, was corrupt.

The surprising part of Josiah’s story is that in the midst of all the distortion and corruption, he chose to seek and obey God. And he did this as a young man (probably no older than his late teens or early twenties). Scripture gives this description of Josiah: “He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left” (2 Kings 22:2, NIV).

The prophet Jeremiah called people to the same straight path of true theology and humble obedience:

Thus says the LORD:
“Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16)

In Jeremiah’s words you see a description of King Josiah’s life. His generation was rushing past him, flooding down the easy paths of man-made religion, injustice, and immorality.

They didn’t stop to look for a different path.

They didn’t pause to consider where the easy path ended.

They didn’t ask if there was a better way.

But Josiah stopped. He stood at a crossroads, and he looked. And then he asked for something that an entire generation had neglected, even completely forgotten. He asked for the ancient paths.

What are the ancient paths? When the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah used the phrase, he was describing obedience to the Law of Moses. But today the ancient paths have been transformed by the coming of Jesus Christ. Now we see that those ancient paths ultimately led to Jesus. We have not only truth to obey but a person to trust in—a person who perfectly obeyed the Law and who died on the cross in our place.

But just as in the days of Jeremiah, the ancient paths still represent life based on a true knowledge of God—a God who is holy, a God who is just, a God who is full of mercy toward sinners. Walking in the ancient paths still means relating to God on his terms. It still means receiving and obeying his self-revelation with humility and awe.

Just as he did with Josiah and Jeremiah and every generation after them, God calls us to the ancient paths. He beckons us to return to theology that is true. He calls us, as Jeremiah called God’s people, to recommit ourselves to orthodoxy.

The word orthodoxy literally means “right opinion.” In the context of Christian faith, orthodoxy is shorthand for getting your opinion or thoughts about God right. It is teaching and beliefs based on the established, proven, cherished truths of the faith. These are the truths that don’t budge. They’re clearly taught in Scripture and affirmed in the historic creeds of the Christian faith:

There is one God who created all things.
God is triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Bible is God’s inerrant word to humanity.
Jesus is the virgin-born, eternal Son of God.
Jesus died as a substitute for sinners so they could be forgiven.
Jesus rose from the dead.
Jesus will one day return to judge the world.

Orthodox beliefs are ones that genuine followers of Jesus have acknowledged from the beginning and then handed down through the ages. Take one of them away, and you’re left with something less than historic Christian belief.

When I watched the documentary about the Amish rite of rumspringa, what stood out to me was the way the Amish teenagers processed the decision of whether or not to join the Amish church. With few exceptions the decision seemed to have very little to do with God. They weren’t searching Scripture to see if what their church taught about the world, the human heart, and salvation was true. They weren’t wrestling with theology. I’m not implying that the Amish don’t have a genuine faith and trust in Jesus. But for the teens in
the documentary, the decision was mostly a matter of choosing a culture and a lifestyle. It gave them a sense of belonging. In some cases it gave them a steady job or allowed them to marry the person they wanted.

I wonder how many evangelical church kids are like the Amish in this regard. Many of us are not theologically informed. Truth about God doesn’t define us and shape us. We have grown up in our own religious culture. And often this culture, with its own rituals and music and moral values, comes to represent Christianity far more than specific beliefs about God do.

Every new generation of Christians has to ask the question, what are we actually choosing when we choose to be Christians? Watching the stories of the Amish teenagers helped me realize that a return to orthodoxy has to be more than a return to a way of life or to cherished traditions. Of course the Christian faith leads to living in specific ways. And it does join us to a specific community. And it does involve tradition. All this is good. It’s important. But it has to be more than tradition. It has to be about a person—the historical and living person of Jesus Christ.

Orthodoxy matters because the Christian faith is not just a cultural tradition or moral code. Orthodoxy is the irreducible truths about God and his work in the world. Our faith is not just a state of mind, a mystical experience, or concepts on a page. Theology, doctrine, and orthodoxy matter because God is real, and he has acted in our world, and his actions have meaning today and for all eternity.

For many people, words like theology, doctrine, and orthodoxy are almost completely meaningless. Maybe they’re unappealing, even repellent.

Theology sounds stuffy.

Doctrine is something unkind people fight over.

And orthodoxy? Many Christians would have trouble saying what it is other than it calls to mind images of musty churches guarded by old men with comb-overs who hush and scold.

I can relate to that perspective. I’ve been there. But I’ve also discovered that my prejudice, my “theology allergy,” was unfounded.

This book is the story of how I first glimpsed the beauty of Christian theology. These pages hold the journal entries of my own spiritual journey—a journey that led to the realization that sound doctrine is at the center of loving Jesus with passion and authenticity. I want to share how I learned that orthodoxy isn’t just for old men but is for anyone who longs to behold a God who is bigger and more real and glorious than the human mind can imagine.

The irony of my story—and I suppose it often works this way—is that the very things I needed, even longed for in my relationship with God, were wrapped up in the very things I was so sure could do me no good. I didn’t understand that such seemingly worn-out words as theology, doctrine, andorthodoxy were the pathway to the mysterious, awe-filled experience of truly knowing the living Jesus Christ.

They told the story of the Person I longed to know.

Excerpted from Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris Copyright © 2010 by Joshua Harris. Excerpted by permission of Multnomah Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Chapter 5: The Results of the Quest: What Difference Does Heaven Make to Monday Morning?

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Premise: Why work seriously on a sinking ship? Why is the belief in Heaven not escapism?

Thinking about Heaven is not escapism because it determines my essence. My destiny determines my essence; animals’ essence determines their destiny. I am a flying arrow, determined by the target because I have been launched by the mind of a divine archer, a mind with a purpose. Finding my purpose is the exact opposite of escapism; it is finding my essence. Concern for heaven is as escapist as looking through the windshield rather than in the rearview mirror as you are locked in a speeding car lurching over foggy, rocky terrain with the road maps gone, (p. 170). God would not allow any evil to exist in his works unless his omnipotence and goodness were such to bring good even out of evil, (Augustine, p. 172). Heaven is not escapist, for earth is Heaven’s womb. If this earth is all there is, then this is all I am: my earthly identity, my ego and what it possesses, me and mine. But death removes all I possess, even my body. If that’s all I am, I’m not much. If I’m not stronger than death, then I’m not much before death either. If I have no heavenly identity, I don’t have much of an earthly identity either, (p. 176-177).

Faith is simply believing what we have been told, believing the unbelievable: that God has the ace up his sleeve; that the worst the devil can do is to contribute unwillingly to the best God does; that even deicide worked out for our salvation, (p. 182). The logical consequence of believing what we have been told is utter fearlessness. Nothing in the universe can separate us from our joy, from our God. Nothing can harm us. We are impervious. We are redeemed, indestructible souls guaranteed new, indestructible bodies, (p. 182). Would you not return fearless and singing? What can earth do to you if you are guaranteed heaven? To fear the worst earthly loss would be like a millionaire fearing the loss of a penny-less, a scratch on a penny, (p. 183). The only qualification is to thirst, desire; “all who seek find.” It wasn’t worrywarts who won the world. Nor was it iron wills. It was doubting Thomases and foot-in-mouth-disease Peters and persecuting Pauls who became little Christ’s by believing the good news of the big Christ: It is finished, (p. 184).

Joyful people are strong, open and eager for action. Their joy gives them an energy and a power. We all know this from experience, but not all of us know where that joy comes from. It comes from Heaven, (p. 193). Unless we fight, we do not fail. Unless we fail, we do not know our need. Unless we know our need, we’re not in the market for God’s grace, (p. 193). The only thing god wants from us, is our desire for it, our yes to it. The “it” is Him; His name is Jesus, (p. 199).

Chapter 4: The End of the Quest: The Joy of Heaven

2010-04-06T17:06:00.001-07:00

Joy is unchangeable. Pleasure and happiness have nothing of that air of eternity about them that joy does. Yet the joy in our spirit does not stay there, bottled up and stagnant. Spirit is essentially dynamic, and its joy flows out in three directions: back to God in gratitude and rejoicing, out to others like a watering fountain, and into our own soul and body as a sort of overspill. Joyful feelings and thought, even pleasure and health, result from joy; and this is a foretaste of heaven. (p. 134) The home of joy is God, (p. 135). But joy has no imaginable finite opposite for joy is of itself infinite, p. 135. Joy is more than self-sufficient, bursting out of itself and calling for rejoicing. True praise is our response not to what happens to turn us on subjectively but to what is objectively good in itself, intrinsically valuable, worthy of praise, (p. 137). Perhaps one reason excitements like gambling, violence, alcohol, and promiscuity are often temptations to the ethical and conventionally religious person is that his or her life is full of peace but not joy. It lacks the ingredient that is in hoy but not in peace or happiness; passion. Such a person is rarely tempted by avarice, selfishness, or lust for power, the disire to control ones life, (p. 141). And if we do not find it where it is-in a loved love relationship with god-we will likely try to find it wher it isn’t- in the world, (p. 142). It may be even unhappy, like repentance, or painful, like childbirth, (p. 144). Our deepest destiny is death, not just of the body, but of the ego. We are not just to imitate Christ but to “put on Christ,” to “be in Christ”, to “share the divine nature, (p. 151). This heavenly secret of self-forgetfulness is the secret of joy on earth as well as in heaven. All joy is un-self-conscious; self-consciousness spoils joy. To stop and turn to see how you’re doing spoils whatever you’re doing, whether it’s bad or good; lusting, resenting, fighting, singing, bowling, loving (physically or spiritually), or sharing the divine nature, (p. 153). But we also forget joy, for joy points beyond to its object, to God, (p. 155). Thy will be done is the infallible road to joy, (p. 158).

But God keeps kissing frogs, dispensing joy like rain, patiently teaching us to play his music, to learn the heavenly harmony of wills, training us for our perfect parts in the music of the spheres for which we were created. We desire many things, and he offers us only one thing. He can offer us only one thing-Himself. He has nothing else to give, (p. 158). God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself because it is not there. There is not such thing, (p. 159). If it is true, then God’s single gift for all our desires is his Son, (p. 159). To have joy, you must fertilize the root of joy, and the hourly fertilizer is obedience. Pick up a straw (or a messy room) for the love of go. And then you will experience heaven on earth. It is scandalously simple: Trust and obey for there is no other way, (p. 161).

Chapter 3: The Place of the Quest: Earth Haunted by Heaven

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*premise: “It is the sense that the world we see is haunted by something we don not see, an unseen presence.”

The universe’s face as seen by the “haunt detector” called romantic love. (p. 102)

Because romantic lovers usually miss these two points-that romantic love points beyond itself to God and beyond the beloved to all people-because romantic lovers seek joy in rather than through their loves, and only in their loves, they are always disappointed. Because romantic love is only a prophet, it breaks when turned into a god. The divine light cannot be trapped in the human mirror, only reflected. It lives only en passant, in passing. Try to bottle the light and you get only darkness, (p. 104). It promises a standing outside the self (this is what “ecstasy” literally means), a self-transcendence, a death and resurrection of the ego, a mystical transformation. But it delivers only a tiny intimation of this at best, which only whets the appetite for the real thing, (p. 104). “All pleasures are substitutes for joy, “ (CS Lewis)

All the hauntings seem to come from the same source and point back to it, however diverse the media through which they come. There is something bigger than the world out there hiding behind everything in the world, and our chief joy is with it. The world is its mask; we must unmask it. We are outsiders, aliens, exiles; if only we could get in! (p. 111) “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, god knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it…..At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, god willing, we shall get in…. through nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.” CS Lewis (p. 111-112)

Kreeft goes on to say that the hauntings are just signs.

More on Crime and Punishment

2010-04-06T07:56:00.001-07:00

I am in the process of reading Crime and Punishment. I am at the very end, and have not been able to put it down for other different readings that I have had to do. I downloaded it fromAudiblebooks.com and the man that reads it is fantastic. I also have read parts of the novel when I couldn't for some reason listen to it on the computer. Listening to it while the reader acts out the parts is something I would highly recommend. It has really made the characters come alive, and some of the Russian dialogue makes much more sense.

The main character has murdered an old pawn broker woman who takes advantage of the poor and her sister who happens to come in right after the first murder. The old pawn broker is one that the murderer feels deserves to die, but when he is forced to kill her sister as well, who was a meek and mild, religious woman who was regularly beaten by her sister, he is faced with all sorts of conflicting emotions that he can't rationalize away. He finds himself in torment being chased down by a detective, and scared of being caught, he befriends a drunken man who is conflicted because of all the rotten things he has done to his poor family, leaving them destitute because of drink. The drunken man has a daughter of eighteen who is forced into prostitution just to keep the younger children somewhat fed. Our murderer meets her and is confronted by her faith and devotion to God. She continues to trust, believe and have faith in a God that has allowed all sorts of suffering upon her. He cannot deal with her faith. He asks her in a most poignant way, "What has God ever done for you?" Her response brought me to tears. She pauses for a long moment, and replies, "Everything." Her faith at this point makes mine look at the most, weak and faltering. God to her is worthy to be worshipped and adored because He is God, not for what He can or cannot or even will not do for her. Oh to have that kind of faith. Oh to worship God not for His blessings, but for who He is. I like Peter have denied Him over and over again. Maybe not in words, but in deeds. Please forgive me Father. Oh may I worship You above all else. Because You alone are worthy.

Waiting till He comes again, not just in the future, but in my heart as well...............................Lynn

Ch. 2-The Time of the Quest

2010-04-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2: The Time of the Quest: Time of Exile (p. 62)

*premise: We are not home yet. We are at the same time longing for Heaven, not finding it on earth, and longing for Eden our past perfect world here on earth. Sometimes, it feels as though we are stuck. What we really long for is for Christ’s redemption, for His redeeming our Eden, and for Heaven. We will have it in “the not yet.”

“Evasion is always temporary, a matter of time. Truth is a matter of eternity, whether it is truth evaded or truth faced.” “We may find our greatest hope precisely in the middle of our deepest despair, our way home in the center of our exile.”

“The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves to be at home here on earth. As long as we are aliens, we cannot forget our true homeland.” Malcom Muggeridge

Longing for Eden

“Earthly dissatisfaction is the road to heavenly satisfaction.” (p. 63) “Rest along the way, premature rest, is danger; the way to true rest in restlessness.” (p. 65) “What is home? What are we longing for? Not just our lost youth, but humanity’s. We feel like dethroned princes turned into frogs by a magic spell and awaiting another magic spell, the transforming kiss, to restore our true identity.” (p. 70) The Bible also includes the nostalgic note of a Fall from Eden, an exile from the bliss of the intimate presence of God. We long in both directions: we feel both nostalgia and hope, fallen from the heights and on the upward road, exiles from Eden and apprentices to heaven. Even those who do not believe still feel; even those who do not hope for heaven still hope.” (p. 77) “We long for the infinitely old and infinitely new because we long for eternity.” (p. 80)

“I announce to you redemption. Behold I make all things new. Behold I do what cannot be done. I restore the years that the locusts and worms have eaten. I restore the years, which you have drooped away upon your crutches and in your wheel-chair. I restore the symphonies and operas which your deaf ears have never heard, and the snowy massif your blind eyes have never seen, and the freedom lost to you through plunder, and the identity lost to you because of calumny and the failure of justice; and I restore the good which your own foolish mistake have cheated you of. And I bring you to the Love of which all other loves speak, the Love which is joy and beauty, and which you have sought in a thousand streets and for which you have wept and clawed your pillow.” Thomas Howard, in Christ the Tiger. (p. 87, in Kreeft’s book)

“We can’t see that yet; our lives are ot yet one, whole, finished.” (p. 87)

II.

Power not Words

2010-03-29T07:35:00.000-07:00

*I know this doesn't have much to do with a book, except of course, the Book, and this is supposed to be a blog of books, but I desire to have a ministry with you women of Advent, and daily we can encourage one another through this medium of the web. This article by T. M. Moore was a wonderful reminder that I needed this morning. Hope it encourages you as well.

Power, not words

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:20, 21

If you’ve been paying attention to this week’s series on the Kingdom of God you will have noted a distinctive emphasis on the ways that Kingdom comes to light among and within us.

We have been insisting that the rule of King Jesus is advancing on earth, and has been advancing ever since He came among us, even though it may not appear that such could possibly be the case. Given the woes and sorrows of this present age, how can we think that Jesus is advancing His holy rule? But there is yet much of goodness, truth, joy, generosity, beauty, decency, honesty, justice, and love in this weary world, none of which would be possible – given the inveterate sinfulness of men – apart from an eternal presence and power at work within us. For those of us who have come to know Jesus Christ as Savior and King, our desire must be to seek more of this Kingdom’s presenceand power in our own lives, and through us, to the world where we have presence and influence.

We can never plumb the depths of the wells of power that Jesus is ready to pour out through us. Paul says there is more power of God’s Spirit to make us holy, fill us with peace and joy, and use us as witnesses for Jesus Christ than we could ever ask or think. Our problem is that we don’t think that’s so, and so we do not ask for such power to be at work within us.

Jesus assured us that God is willing to give His Spirit and Kingdom to all who ask for it – who seek it diligently through earnest, persistent, impassioned pleading with God in prayer and waiting on Him in obedience (Lk. 11:1-13). But because we do not really believe in the presence of God’s Kingdom or the ability of His Spirit to transform and use us as agents of grace, we do not seek the Kingdom as we should, do not experience it as we might, and do not express it as we could.

If there is a lack of evidence of the rule of King Jesus in our sad world, it is not the fault of the world; nor is it the fault of the Savior. Rather, it is our fault; the failing is ours, for we have not dared to believe it could be so, and we have not sought the Lord earnestly and persistently that we might know such power, experience such power, and show such power of transforming love to the world around us.

There is power, far more abundant power, available to everyone who believes in Jesus and longs to see His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. For that Kingdom is a real presence, here and now; it is not a matter of mere words, but of real power, power which can be ours, if only we will seek it as we have been commanded.

Start your own ViewPoint discussion group. This week’s series is available in a free downloadable format, suitable for personal or group study. Download the series, "Power Not Words."

For more information on this topic, get the book, The Kingdom of God, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from our online store. Or read the article, “Storming the Gates,” by Regis Nicoll.

The Beginning of the Quest; Chapter 1

2010-03-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

The thesis of the book, Heaven, The Heart's Deepest Longing by Peter Kreeft, is found on page 43 and is a quote by C. S. Lewis, "There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else." In the introduction Kreeft is laying a foundation for an apologetic (a defense) from desire. He has explored whether our society, or various philosophies, or our political landscapes have provided for us a basis of truth in which to live our lives. He says that on both accounts we have come up short. Longing for the same thing pervades man's thinking, and that longing is for Heaven or for transcendence.

Kreeft asks the question, "What do you want?" That is very interesting to me, in that Christ asks the same question of his disciples in John 1:35-42:

“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’ 37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, ‘What do you want?’ They said, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ 39 ‘Come,’ he replied, ‘and you will see.’”

Our hearts tells us many things, which C. S. Lewis and Kreeft both are saying, and here in John we see the Son of God, the creator of our hearts asking what is it that we want. That is amazing to me. I think the Lord is forever asking us this question, not just when everything is new. He woos, He loves us enough to continue to ask us the question, “what do you want?” It is revealed when we least expect it. In our anger, our loneliness, our rebellion. When He shows us what we really want, and offers the solution to it. The solution is always being with Him, going with Him, going to where He stays, dwelling and abiding in Him. Our own solutions always leave us wanting. He is asking you today, “what do you want?” He wants you, and deep within our hearts, we long for something not of this world, we long for Him.

More on this chapter later................

Heaven-Lesson #1

2010-03-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing

A Study Guide

By Lynn Cross

For Advent Book Club

April 2010

Introduction: Our Guide on the Quest for Heaven: Our Society or Our Heart? (p. 11)

1) Three major questions we all ask. Can our society or we (the self) hold the answers?

What can I know? Epistemology

What should I do? Ethics

What may I hope? Metaphysics

2) Our society has slipped into the abyss of relativism/there is no truth, or whatever you believe personally is your own truth.

3) The Greeks discovered two divine attributes; truth and goodness. The Jews were discovered by the God who has those two attributes; big difference.

4) Society stills looks for the “summum bonum” (greatest good), but relativism has turned it into a utopian quest and whoever has the power is the one who “paints” the utopia for the rest of us.

5) Idols: (defined) anything that is not God but treated as a God, any creature set up as our final end, hope, meaning, and joy.

6) All idols, since they are not God sooner or later break your heart.

7) When God is not acknowledged, we then do not know how to define human beings. We become ghosts in machines. Are we spirit, or matter, or a combination, or what?

8) When God is dead, death is God.

We see this in the way that life is cheapened in our society.

We see this as we try so hard to avoid death, or in the opposite to embrace death.

9) When God dies all becomes permissible. (Dostoyevsky)

10) Nature becomes something to manipulate at will, to suit our own purposes. We become a mechanistic people, reduced to mere dust, the dust of death.

11) The conquest of nature becomes the first idol that arises from the death of God.

This means power over nature and power over society.

Q.: In whom shall the political power be located? *notice power or rights then do not come from God, but come from the arbitrary chosen power. How much of human life shall be politicized, publicized, or communalized?

12) Kingdom of this world (self or society) has cracks in its foundation. Once this is seen three reactions are possible:

a. The turning to the Kingdom of God

b. Turning to another idol of self

c. Turning to nothing, despair.

13) Idols don’t work. Human nature cannot save, and neither can any false utopia of society.

14) They (idols) can teach us though: that we can’t pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and I can’t make something bigger and better than myself. I need a savior.

15) Our societies come tumbling down because they are made of inferior material-we.

16) Pascal, “Happiness is neither outside nor inside us: it is in God, both outside and inside us.”

17) Lewis Quote:

“Almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. And….lest your longing for the transtemporal *(something that does not last) should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man on earth, yet still each generation would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, an the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever.” C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 5.

18) Ancients meant something different when they talked of happiness. It was an objective term rather than a subjective term. Ex. a successful tyrant, suffering can be “happy.” Suffering is an occasion for wisdom, and wisdom is an essential ingredient in happiness.

19) Find in your heart the longing, the desire for something eternal.

Lewis partial quote: “ We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.” Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 4.

*Lynn’s definition.

I. The Beginning of the Quest: The Heart’s Hunger for Heaven (p. 43)

Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoevsky

2010-03-23T09:05:00.001-07:00

I have read The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, but have never read Crime and Punishment. I am already into it by about 40 pages, and have been very moved. I may even like it better than I did The Brothers Karamazov. Below is a Breakpoint (Chuck Colson) commentary on it. Christian author Ken Boa does a marvelous series on the Great Books which you can get on CD from his website. When I taught the Great Books I used his cd's as a resource. They are well done. Anybody want to read Crime and Punishment with me? Let me know. This month he is reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy which is one of my all time favorite novels. That would be a good one to put on the classic list for us to read together.

The novel tells the story of Raskalnikov, a student in St. Petersburg, Russia. Burdened by the poverty, oppression, and decadence that he sees all around him, Raskolnikov isolates himself from most other human beings. In his self-alienation, he begins to see himself as a superior being, a kind of “superman,” who transcends the moral laws that bind other people. He looks for a way to “validate” himself and his feelings of superiority—a process that Boa calls “suicide by self-affirmation.”

Dostoevsky had lived in Western Europe, and as a Christian, he saw the dangers of its fashionable intellectual ideas like nihilism and utilitarianism. A “pattern in his work,” Boa says, is the conflict of Christianity with utopian worldviews. Dostoevsky wanted to make it clear that “ideas have consequences.”

In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s nihilism and utilitarianism lead to his murder of two women. “Under the spell of an idea,” he decided that a miserly old pawnbroker does not deserve to live—and then he kills her sister when she discovers the crime.

Paradoxically, these evil acts become the turning point for Raskalnikov. This “rational and proud” young man, spurred by guilt, begins to move toward “humility” and “openness” to other people. He comes to realize that the moral law that he disdained is written on every human heart, and that he is just as bound by that law as every other human being.

Guided by a young woman named Sonia, who has been forced into prostitution to feed her starving family, Raskolnikov learns that suffering, not rebellion, leads to redemption.

Finally turning himself in, he is sentenced to eight years in a Siberian prison. Still, his repentance is not yet fully genuine. He is still the man who was willing to “sacrifice his existence for an idea.” Only when he realizes that he loves Sonia—that he finally has developed the ability to care for another human being besides himself—is he ready to experience full redemption. The epilogue ends as he begins to read the New Testament that she has given him.

Boa notes that some critics have called this a “weak happy ending,” not understanding that “in . . . the very structure of the novel, we see that the gospel is central within the novel’s plot.” Sonia has acted as a “Christ figure” all along, helping to liberate Raskalnikov from the Nietzschean “will to power” that had enslaved him.

As you can see, Crime and Punishment offers some very sobering and valuable food for thought for us today. As Ken Boa points out, this book helps to show us that we’re still surrounded by the bankrupt worldviews that have descended directly from the utopian ideals of Dostoevsky’s time—and that the way out is not through focus on our self (as our culture teaches us today,) but only through surrender to Christ.

About Heaven......

2010-03-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

Want to give you ladies of Advent Book Club a heads up. I will be posting in the next few days helps as you read Heaven by Peter Kreeft. Such a worthy, well done book, but there are some parts that may tend to be a little challenging, so I will lay out the most important parts of each one of the chapters in a blog post along with some questions to help you think through his points. Don't miss this next club meeting. I trust the discussion will probably be some of the most fruitful.

Lynn

Asleep/Book Review

2010-03-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic by Molly Caldwell Crosby

The last two times Ken and I have had a date night we have literally gone to the bookstore. Yea, how cool is that! One of the perks of living in the city is the larger stores and offerings that a city has. In Charlotte there is an independent bookseller by the name of Joseph Beth, it is an independent bookstore, but I think there are about five of them across the country. One of the perks of this bookstore is that it has a terrific restaurant. Last night I had the turkey and spinach salad with cranberries and feta cheese, and also the summer squash homemade soup. It was wonderful, I couldn't even finish all of the salad. If you are ever over this way you should stop in and see them and eat while you browse, or eat and then browse.

They have quite a few places to sit and read, so after dinner I found a rocking chair beside the fireplace and finished an entire book. Kind of like going to a movie with your spouse, yet your are reading instead! Ken sat next to me and half way finished the book he was reading.

I picked up a book that I literally couldn't put down. Asleep chronicles some of the case studies of a forgotten epidemic that first appeared in the United States in the 1920's. The disease called sleeping sickness or encephalitis lethargica first had been noticed during WWI in Paris and Vienna. People would just go to sleep, for some up to almost 200 days at a time. The reason it fascinated me so, was that my mother, off and on during my growing up years, would say things like, "oh maybe they have sleeping sickness," or " they sleep so much maybe they have the sleeping sickness." To my surprise, when I picked up the book last night at the bookstore, it really was a real disease. I just thought my mother was making it up. She was born in 1923, and somewhere along the way had heard of this epidemic and it must of made an impression on her.

The author chronicles cases in Europe and then in the United States. Tens of thousands died of the disease, but it was over shadowed by the flu pandemic in 1918 which killed somewhere around 20 to 40 million people worldwide. Sleeping sickness did strike worldwide, but did not kill near as many as the flu did, thus it became the forgotten disease. Actually it was forgotten for several reasons; the flu epidemic, they never understood what the pathogen that caused it was, and to this day the reasons for the disease remain a mystery. One third of the people that caught the disease died, the others that lived had strange neurological symptoms that debilitated them. Many of the people languished in asylums for decades before dying of the disease. Very sad. They would wake up and then sometimes as long as two years later would exhibit sometimes bizarre symptoms called parkinsonism. They would loose the use of their limbs, and the saddest thing of all they would lose their minds.

How sheltered we are as a society. We have never had to encounter an epidemic like the 1918 flu or sleeping sickness. I remember my father talking about how my cousin had polio (before I was born) and had to be in an iron lung for many days, don't remember how many. The disease stunted her growth, left her limbs partially paralyzed and she died at about the age of 30+ from it. We have had many modern medical miracles in my life time. It is staggering to think about the progress we have made. I was completely fascinated by this book. Crosby doesn't just bore you with the facts and the progress that epidemiologists have made towards it, but she tells story after story of actual case studies of real people. That is truly what makes the book worth reading.

On a different note:

I could make an analogy of the progressive era here. I know it is pretty far fetched, but here goes. The twenties ushered in the era of the progressives; Utopian thinking, governmental fixes for all that goes wrong, big government everything, etc..... It seems when the progressives were infiltrating the psyches of the people they were literally falling asleep. They have been in a coma for decades and we as a society better wake up before we have given over all of our freedom to a "progressive" government that wants to rule our lives. I am afraid that there will be "neurological" consequences even if we are able wake up and take back the freedoms that we lost while we were in our slumber, allowing them to take our property, free markets, and God given rights.

The book is fascinating and it gave me a piece of a puzzle from my childhood that I wasn't even aware of as reality.

What's on Your Nightstand?

2010-03-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

I just found a new site for book lovers through Holli at Homeschooling in the Heartland. It is called 5 Minutes for Books and once a month she has a "What's on Your Nightstand?" post. It looks so fun. I just don't know if I have the memory to post once a month on a consistent happening, but I am willing to try.

I have a stack of books about two feet high laying right now on my floor next to my nightstand. Most of the ones that are easy and light reading do not stay there for long. It is the ones that are thick, and sometimes daunting that stay on the floor for so long. They are books that I really, really want to read, but I just cannot get through them quickly. Most of them are non-fiction or historical in nature, novels can so often be zipped through.

Yesterday I made out a list for my computer in order to concentrate more on these books than on the fiction that I have been reading as of late.

Here is the list that is on my floor which stands for my nightstand. Check out the blog to see if you would like to participate as well.

1. The Expositor's Bible Commentary

2. The Black Book of Communism

3. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

4. Real Christianity by William Wilberforce

5. Revolutions in Worldviews Ed. by Andrew Hoffecker

6. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution

7. The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John Frame

8. From Age to Age by Keith Mathison

9. Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin

10. The Stalin Archives

I hope to be reading for eternity...........................Lynn

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers; Book Club #2

2010-03-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

Hey Ladies,

Had a super time tonight discussing a very thought provoking and convicting book; Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. The fellowship was sweet, the coffee was terrific, and the discussion superb. We all learned a great deal from this book; from relating to others sins, identifying with sinners, compassion for others in the prisons of their sin, and the list goes on. This book moved some of us to tears, and some of us to an overwhelming sense of gratitude toward the God that loves us enough to pursue us weak though we are.

We decided that we would come up with our own rating system and came up with five questions in which to ask about different aspects of the book. The questions are:

How life changing was it for you?
Was it quality literature?
Was it enjoyable?
Did it change your thinking?
Would you read it again?

Go ahead and ask yourselves the questions and then give it a rating. Be sure to post it in the comment section or write a post about it!

Am already looking forward to next month and the discussion about Heaven with Peter Kreeft.

I will rate Redeeming Love somewhere between 3 3/4 stars to 4 stars. I thought the book left hanging a few very important loose ends that I felt were never really resolved. Paul was a bit of a stretch to me as well. Mrs. Rivers does a marvelous job on the believability of the character Sarah and what she would constantly be a struggling with in her life. It's almost as if she has gone through similar struggles of her own. Just a thought. I did not want to put it down, but I am not sure that I would read it again. A wonderful read and would recommend it highly.

Well, gotta go to sleep now! Lynn

Common Place Books

2010-03-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

Today I came across an article in the periodical First Things. I found it very interesting. Alan Jacobs, an English Professor at Wheaton College, is author to a wide range of topics, from theology to the history of reading. While perusing the magazine his article, under the Opinion section, caught my eye. It is titled: A Commonplace Book. Historically our time period can be compared to the sixteenth century when a crisis of information occurred. With the invention of the printing press reading became readily available not only to the wealthy but to the commoner as well. There was some thought, by the later part of the seventeenth century, that the onslaught of words threatened to undermine the culture. People, for the first time in history, had more books than they could possibly read! Imagine that, the theme of my life is, "so many books, so little time."

In answer to this something called the "Commonplace Book" emerged. Before this time people read, re-read, and read over the books that they owned so much that they often committed them to memory! This was one reason for the fright of the time. People would read without care. The commonplace book was a way of recording the best of what people read. This gave way to the journal. This is very interesting because Jacobs makes the case for the blog. When information comes at you at lightening speed, the need to record the thoughts, the wisdom, and the gleanings of larger portions of writ become imperative.

The temptation is that the commonplace book, the blog, or journal can become a substitute for "reading, learning, and digesting what is already there." We, in other words, can just add to our knowledge base, pontificate that knowledge, or regurgitate the knowledge without truly living it out. Personally, I do not ever want my/our blog or commonplace book to ever get to the point where I am not willing to share with you my friends what God is doing in and through me, and not hiding when God often allows me to fall flat on my face, to show me that I am just one beggar helping other beggars where to find the bread of life.

Book Review

2010-03-03T05:43:00.000-08:00

Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs

Sovereign Grace Publishers, 99 pages.

Months ago I was reading Christian Classics along with Tim Challies at Challies.com. I had read the previous classics that he was highlighting on his website, but for some reason life took over and I never finished the book on contentment. I have recently picked it back up and, I can't emphasize it enough, every word, every phrase, every sentence is jam packed with profound wisdom. He wrote in the 1600's and his thoughts are just as relevant today as ever. Have you ever struggled with being content? I have and I am.

He writes as a teacher writes to his students, giving them outlines, with headings and sub-headings. Chapter 5 is titled How Christ Teaches Contentment, and the outline is: I. The lesson is Self-denial, II. The Vanity of the Creature, etc...etc....Good stuff. I read it in the mornings along with my Bible reading. Even though it is only 99 pages long, the print is horrendous. With my eyes I practically have to have a magnifying glass to read it! But well worth it.

I would recommend you reading it, and if you need Bible Study material it would be very helpful to glean from on the topic.

Lynn

Longing and Hunger

2010-02-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

A striking passage from Redeeming Love p. 71. Angel's heart is beginning to be changed from one of stone to a heart of flesh, as Michael woos her to himself. This is just what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts as well.

"He just painted word pictures of freedom that resurrected the old, aching hunger she had felt as a child. It was a hunger that had never died. Yet each time she had run away to find an answer to it, disaster had fallen upon her. And still, she had kept trying." (p. 71)

Here we have a beautiful metaphor of the pursuit of the Father stirring in us a longing and a hunger for true things, love that doesn't ever disappoint, and desire that incites us to want to leave the shackles of a life bound by sin. Beware of the times of no longings, no desires, no hunger. Those are the times that should cause the hair on the back of your neck to prickle. Not the times of deep hunger and thirst. Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

Lynn

Under Construction! And Welcome!

2010-02-27T08:58:00.000-08:00

Hey Ladies,

How cool is this? Our very own Advent Book Club Blog! This will not only keep us up on what we as a group are reading, and what we are gleaning from the current book, but also New York Times Bestsellers, etc. etc... I want to encourage you to post, and to put down some of your thoughts about what your impressions are with the most current read: Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.

Please let me know what you think about the blog, what kind of improvements, additions, or subtractions that you would like to see. It is still in process. I want your input, and the tags at the top are just that right now, just tags.

Happy Reading.