Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Surrealism and The Kingdom of God



You can see on the side of my blog that I have a Salvador Dali “picture of the day” display. Surrealism is one of my favorite art forms. I guess that’s because I believe that, above and beyond my five senses, there is a reality that is something I must pay attention to. John Wesley said (an I am convinced) that “The things that are invisible are more real than the things that are visible.” Surrealism is tribute to that higher reality. The prefix sur literally means “above”(a surtax or surcharge is a charge or tax on top of the regular charges) and, when added to realism denotes a realism or reality above what our five senses indicate. 
  Surrealism has seems to have come to describe a state of perception that people have when they experience an event that seems so bizarre and they are tempted to misapprehend it because of the way things appear at the time. It’s not that it seems too real; it seems that it can’t really be what their senses are telling them. It’s come to mean a false sense of reality. Surrealism is trying to point to a reality that is more real than what we can’t account for by ‘normal’, sensical and rational means of apperception.
One of the best cinematic demonstrations of this is when Neo was initiated out of the Matrix. In the film he discovered that he had never experienced reality, but, with the help of Morpheus and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar, he discovered his true reality was the impersonal and slave-like confines of the real world. He awoke to find himself tethered to feeding machines and that his body’s energy was being harvested by machines, which controlled the Matrix. In a scene analogous to the new birth, he was detached from his artificial womb and ‘flushed’ into the cold harsh reality of the real world(click here to see the 'birth of Neo clip). 
  The Kingdom of God is everywhere, yet it can easily escape the attention of most people – even Christians. Everything Jesus taught about life and reality all stemmed from the reality of the Kingdom of God. Jesus said in John 3, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” What Jesus is saying that unless you have a spiritual awakening of such magnitude that it can be compared to a birthing process into a new world that you’ve only heretofore guessed at, then you’ll never come to apprehend the reality or enter into the dynamic operational reality that is the Kingdom of God. 
  The writer of Hebrews tells that God is shaking the world and will continue to shake it until there is nothing left shake loose of real reality. Hebrews 12:25-27 says See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.
  Another way to say this is: God is, today, shaking everything that doesn’t look like or facilitate the further implementation of the Kingdom. Plain and simple.  


Saturday, April 18, 2009

Einstein for Dummies


So I was watching the Discovery Channel or Nat Geo or some such cable learning station.  I wish I'd DVR'd it.  Anyway the topic was Einstein's theory of relativity (E=MC2).  

  I'd watched many shows dealing with this topic of the theory of relativity.  Now, I've always had trouble with spatial comprehension, and I'd watch these programs and come away frutstrated.  I felt that the plain practical meaning was just out of my mental grasp.  

The punch line was helpful:  space-time tells matter-energy where to GO, and matter-energy tells space-time how to LOOK.  Oh, and that time-space are bound together like a piece of fabric, with objects 'curving' or 'bending' the fabric, which explains gravity.  You can click here to see a brief video of this.  Matter and energy are bound together as well and are interchangeable when accelerated to the speed of light.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Good Friday Reflection - Jesus' Last Words


I post my Good Friday reflection, written for our community Good Friday service.
And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’”(Luke 23:46)
  This is an economic season where we are aggressively tightening our belts. Governments, businesses, churches, families and individuals are literally having to make choices about what is valuable to them. A nice and diplomatic way to express this is that we are simplifying our lives. We are living more simply; some by circumstance and some by choice. It’s in seasons like this (season of economic downturn or in a season of Lent) that we discover what’s really important and invaluable. We become intentional about what we cannot and will not live without.
  And now we come to the moment when the Word made flesh surrenders the most precious thing he possessed: his spirit. That part of his being by which he could communicate and receive communications and communion from His Father. I know there’s no empirical proof stating that this was the most precious thing he had; except this what Jesus gave up last. And if ever there was a person who knew what was and is precious and valuable, it was our Savior.
  In western Christianity we have an unfortunate tendency to treat the mind as the primary interface point with God. And while it’s absolutely true and valid that we are called to love God with all our minds, it is not the mind which communicates with God. Paul is quite insistent in the eighth chapter of Romans that the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. The Spirit doesn’t testify or commune with our minds, but with our spirits the things of God. And our mind is the handmaid of our spirits.  
  The significance of this shouldn’t be lost on anyone who has been following Jesus today - on the via dolorosa, up the hill to Golgotha, where we stand watching the Son of Man, stripped naked, wounded practically beyond recognition, publically suffering before a watching world. We watch as the world strips the lamb of God of his clothing, his earthly dignity and comforts. We took everything that could be taken from him.  
And what could not be taken from Him, Jesus gave up. John 10 17“Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” 
  We follow Jesus all the way through to the end. We try to see what He sees, go where he goes and value what He values. And we, with the help of the Spirit feel ourselves making choices about what’s important. What do we give up next? And next? And what do we give up last? What do we refuse to surrender because we can’t - because we won’t live without it? What would make all other aspects of our human cognizance, intelligence, rationality and consciousness meaningless? Jesus models for us the answer: it is the loss of ability to directly commune with your heavenly Father. Jesus’ ministry began with words of Father’s approval - You are my Son, upon whom my favor rests - and Father’s words of approval had sustained Him even up to this very moment. Jesus himself said that he only did what he saw his Father doing and only said what he heard his Father saying. And since he had done everything He saw his Father doing and said everything He’d heard his Father saying with the utmost finality, there was nothing more to be done - nothing more to be said. So he no longer needed His spirit to serve the needs of his body, his soul, his mind. So Jesus surrendered the last aspect of his human being necessary to accomplish what he came here to do.
 As we here in the twenty-first century learn what’s really important and valuable, and as our mission unfolds toward it’s climax, let’s be about our Father’s business. Let’s get rid of and give up everything not essential to our personal or corporate assignments. And let’s jealously and zealously nurture and guard that which we cannot and must not live without and only surrender when we have done and said all that our Father sent us here to do and say. And then we can with great faith and assurance say, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’”

Thursday, April 02, 2009

The Bible Is Not A Substitute for the Word of God


Martin Luther, 500+ years ago said: "The Bible is the manger in which the Word of God was laid."

I have been quite unsatisfied with Fundamentalism.  Whether Conservative, Evangelical, or especially Charismatic (it almost seems like an oxymoron - a Charismatic Fundamentalist) it's disconcerting what believers, churches and deonominations have done to the Word of God by substituting the Bible for the Word of God.

Now, don't taze me bro.  I believe the Bible: from cover to cover - even the maps in the back.  I read it; I meditate on it day and night; I live it.  So hear me out. 

Keep in mind, Liberal Christianity (the social gospel) has denigrated of the Word of God in equal proportion, with a similar (ironically) appeal to reason, in the form of higher criticism.  Fundamentalism was created in reaction to the theological rationalism of the 19th Century, with Darwinism most notably leading the parade.   What Fundamentalism did to answer Liberal theology was fight fire with fire, with an appeal to reason, albeit for different reasons.  In describing this firefight, Orton Wiley lamented:

"Lastly, Reason itself was forced into a false authority. Severed from its Living Source, the Bible was debased to the position of a mere book among books. It was thus subjected to the test of human reason, and as a consequence there arose the critical or critico-historical movement of the last century known as 'destructive criticism.' Over against this as a protest arose a reactionary party, which originating in a worthy desire to maintain belief in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, as well as its genuineness, authenticity and authority as the Rule of Faith, resorted to a mere legalistic defense of the Scriptures. It depended upon logic rather than life. Spiritual men and women-those filled with the Holy Spirit, are not unduly concerned with either higher or lower criticism. They do not rest merely in the letter which must be defended by argument. They have a broader and more substantial basis for their faith. It rests in their risen Lord, the glorified Christ. They know that the Bible is true, not primarily through the efforts of the apologists, but because they are acquainted with its Author. The Spirit which inspired the Word dwells within them and witnesses to its truth. In them the formal and material principles of the Reformation are conjoined. The Holy Spirit is the great conservator of orthodoxy. To the Jew, Christ was a stumbling block, and to the Greek foolishness; 'but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God' (I Cor. 1:24). "'

Orton Wiley was one of the founding fathers and theologians of the newly-birthed Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene.  In the above quote he's taking both Liberal Theology and Fundamentalism to the woodshed.

In all our talk about the Word of God, we've forgotten what - or WHO the Word of God is.  And it has gotten so bad that it's dangerous, in Evangelical Christendom, to make any arguments that even appear to cast dispersions on the Bible.  In other words, to say that there is a higher authority than the Bible, than it's assumed that you obviously don't believe in the 'plenary inspiration of Scripture'.

But listen to the words of the Westminster confesssion, one of the oldest and commonest statemtents of faith in Western Christianity:

"We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it both abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authorship thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts."

Up until the turn of the 20th century, it was commonly understood that the Word of God was not synonomous with the Bible.  The Bible contained the word of God.  But the title: Word of God has been, and will always be reserved for Jesus Christ, who is called the Word of God:

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. (Revelation 19:11-13)

R.T. Kendall made a salient point regarding this in his book, entitled The Annointing:"Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones (Kendall's predecessor at Westminster Chapel in London) used to say to me, "The Bible was not given to replace direct and immediate revelation from God; it was given to correct abuses."  there is not the slightest hint in the New Testament that the Bible, once completed, would replace God's supernatural dealings with us . . . There is nothing more comforting (or scary) than knowing that God can speak to us in a clear and direct manner." (page 82)

Jesus, immediately after his baptism, was led into the wilderness where Satan confronted him and attempted to make Jesus mid-identify Himself, as something other than God's "beloved son, opon whom [His] favor rests."  Jesus answers him with a quote from Moses:  4Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Matthew 4:4  What we miss Jesus saying is the ongoing present-tense nature of God's words.  A better rendition of that says:  "every word that is (now) proceeding out of the mouth of God."  The assumption is that God still has something to say.

In other words, God still talks.  In fact, I'd venture to say that He is, and always will be, the most talkative Being in the universe.  I wish I could find the exact quote from Saint Jerome, the writer of the Latin Vulgate Bible:  "We've chased God into a little book!"

Wednesday, April 01, 2009


Right Brain Left Brain (revisited)

  At the right you see a picture of a woman.  Click here to see an animated version of the same woman.  Which way is she spinning?  It's  trick question, because your brain can allow you to see her spinning either clockwise or counter-clockwise, depending on which hemisphere you are accessing to view her.  

  If you see her spinning clockwise, you are accessing the right side of your brain.  If she is spinning counter-clockwise, then you are processing the image through the left side of your brain.  Personally, I find that I can see her spinning in either direction.  At this point I'm not sure why or how I do it, but I do.

  If you're interested in taking a simple test to see which side of your brain is more dominant, click here or here.