Bandits No More

Rick Warren in this chapter makes both points that are profoundly true and points that are questionable. First the profoundly true:
“You are not an accident.” This is the thesis statement of the chapter. Many of us live like we are accidents. Not only do we not matter in the light of eternity, we think we don’t even matter in the light of this week. According to the bible, however, “God never does anything accidently, and he never makes mistakes.” He has a purpose for each of us.
“While there are illegitimate parents, there are no illegitimate children.” Some of us may have made a mistake when we “chose” our parents. That may have done a rotten job with us – led us to see ourselves as accidents – but God got the first word with us and will get the last word.
“If there was no God, we would all be accidents.” What he means here is (a) without God, it would only be random chance that brought us here, and (b) we would lack any purpose larger than ourselves.
He quotes Dr. Michael Denton of the University of Otago in New Zealand: “All the evidence available in the biological sciences suppots the core proposition… that the cosmos is a soecially designed whole with life and mankind as its fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in which all facets of reality have their meaning and explanation in this central fact.” This is a strong statement of what is called the Anthropic Principle.

What do I find questionable? Warren presents a strongly controlling God, pictured as actively planning everything that is. “God prescribed every single detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, the color of your skin, your hair, and very other feature.” Including your disabilites and defects. Do you have any congenital defects? God prescribed those also. It sure reads like everything is the way it is because God planned it that way. When I read scripture, I see that something AREN’T the way God wants them to be. Sometimes God is disappointed in the way things are. God made us not only for a purpose, but to be freeling willing and acting beings. Our free actions have consequences, not merely in our own lives but in the lives of the people around us.

So what’s my alternative? How would I explain the defects we experience in our bodies? First, I would make a simple admission: Not everything we consider a defect is a defect in God’s eyes. Our values and valuations are warped by sin and our limitations. Second, because of sin we live in a broken world. This brokenness, which is not God will, affects us on many levels, even the genetic and biological. Brokenness is not only outside us, but within us.

Yahoo! News – ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ gets ‘axis of evil’ premiere:

“And even though his twenty-something son quipped in to say he was ‘disappointed’ by the film and asserted ‘politics is not as important’ for Iran’s younger generation, he did envy Moore’s position.

‘It sure is a great country, where someone like Moore trashes the president and gets away with it — and makes so much money!’ he laughed.”

Does this tell you something about America? People here see Fahrenheit 9/11 (I have not and probably won’t) and think, “Oh, we’re a horrible place!” Yet we often forget the tremendous freedoms we have.

When we talk about finding our purpose in life, more is in view than just “my life.” God made each of us with a role to play in creation. Each of us are unique, and our purpose in life is related to our uniqueness, but if we only pay attention to our uniqueness, we will never find our purpose in life. We must look outward, first toward God, secondly toward the activity of God in creation.

What is God’s role in all this? God wants us to know our purpose. He doesn’t create us and then tell us to grope our way towards purpose. No, he loves us enough to reveal himself, his purposes and his ways to us in the bible.

We also find our purpose through relationships: our relationship with God, our relationships with other people, and our relationship with creation itself. When sin has its way in our lives, these relationships are broken or warped, so we fall short of the purpose God has for us.

Our church is starting the 40 Days of Purpose Campaign Saturday, October 9. The core of this campaign is Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life. This book has forty chapters – one for each day of the campaign.

Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church in California. Ostensibly a Southern Baptist congregation, they don’t make much of their denominational affiliation. From what I’ve seen of Rick Warren (I first heard him back in the early 90s while I was living in California), he and his organization honestly seek to be a blessing to other churches, whatever their denomination. They present their stuff – including the 40 Days of Purpose – as plain old basic Christianity. For the most part they’re right on target. But by downplaying their baptist heritage, there are elements of that heritage that come through without the label. What is presented as basic Christianity is actually the baptist take on basic Christianity. I’m not in the least perturbed by this. I’m United Methodist and I’m sure my tradition comes through the same way in what I write and say. Saddleback is also an extremely large church in Southern California, so some of what we find in the material may also represent a large church and a California take on basic Christianity. I share these obvious points simply so we will be aware while we read.

The Purpose Driven people strongly advise every church that uses their material to adapt it to their situation. That’s great advice, and the rationale for my blogging the book. I will be blogging each chapter of the book, offering my comments and questions. Hopefully it will be good for you. I know it will be good for me.

Introduction
Warren’s book is all about answering what he calls “Life’s most important question”: “What on earth am I here for?” It is comon to think that the best way to answer this question is to look inward: Who am I? What do I want? What are my talents and abilities? What makes me happy? Although these questions aren’t irrelevant, they will inevitably lead us astray if we don’t consider them in the context of who God – our Maker – is, and what God has done, is doing, and will do in our world. We’re part of something bigger than us!

Here are some pointers as you read the book.

1. Remember that it’s not the bible. It’s a devotional book. Measure what you read by the Bible.
2. Read only one chapter a day. Take time to digest it.
3. Interact with the book. Ask questions of it. Ask questions of yourself.
4. If you own the book (and you should), write in it. Underline or highlight parts you think most relevant.
5. Don’t take this adventure alone. Be part of a small group doing the book. Talk about it with your family. As we talk things over we engage our senses more fullly and learn more.
6. Pray. Allow God to be your partner. Ask for ears to hear what He wants to say to you.

Compass Direct

Once again bad news is coming out of Iran. Time to keep praying.

Hugh Hewitt comments on today’s LA Times article on blogs.
HughHewitt.com

The dominant theory of knowledge in the modern era is foundationalism. Foundationalism is the notion that we need an indubitable foundation upon which we can build our knowledge. Nothing certain? Then no real knowledge. Descartes got the ball rolling (I’m simplifying a bit) with his Cogito ergo sum, but Locke, Kant, and others followed the same path.

One requirement of the foundation of one’s knowledge structure was univeralizability – it had to be equally available to anyone. Thus the guardians of real knowledge had to be neutral observers – freed from all particularity. With this scheme the universal and the abstract held sway over the local and the particular.

Fast forward to today. The MSM sees itself as the neutral guardian of knowledge. They are the experts, properly trained in the skills of acquiring and building knowledge into a structure. The bloggers? They’re chaotic elements hovering on the edges. If we want real truth, they (the MSM) think, we must stick with those who are neutral.

Problem: Nobody’s neutral. No one stands nowhere. Thomas Nagel wrote a book years ago – The View from Nowhere. His aim was to describe a truly objective epistemology. His title, however, has been claimed by “the other side,” those who reject the possibility of standing nowhere.

According to moderns, knowledge IS built on foundations. If there are no foundations, then there is no knowledge. This is their take on the bloggers. The bloggers have no foundations. No universitality. They are to the media, what Nietzsche (and Nietzsche’s recent followers – I think of Derrida and Foucault here) is to the theory of knowledge. Real knowledge is foundational in structure, you [Nietzscheans, bloggers) say there is no foundation (only difference), so there is no knowledge. BUT: we all want knowledge, so we need the MSM, not the bloggers. QED.

But there are other postmoderns – and though I am fairly new to blogging, I think I would be right to think that whether bloggers consider themselves postmodern or not, the phenomenon itself IS – who refuse to accept that all knowledge must be conceived foundationalistically. Once we make that move, no longer do we have to worry about the lack of foundations.

So how might the blogs become producers of real knowledge given non-foundationalism? Well, it looks like they talk with each other. They push each other. They provoke each other. They argue. They critique. They learn.

Oh – but what if Blogger A is not really who or what he says he is? Eventually, if that is relevant to the piece of knowledge pursued, I believe it will come out.

Finally (it’s getting late) let me turn this around for a moment. I think it possible that what we’re seeing with the blogs vis-a-vis the MSM not only is a picture of the demise of foundationalism, but also might very well be an agent of the demise in broader culture. We’ll see.

For the past several months I’ve been hearing people describe Iraq as “another Vietnam.” We all know what “Vietnam” means, don’t we? The American armed forces leaving the field of battle with their tail between their legs, whipped and defeated. Our first loss in warfare. The mightiest nation on earth humbled.

But from what I’ve read of the history of the war (as opposed to the feelings associated with it), this picture is highly inaccurate. My main source has been Lewis Sorley’s Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America�s Last Years in Vietnam. The book tends to be repetitive, and thus longer than necessary, but the picture it gives of the war is very different than the “Vietnam” that lingers in public consciousness.

Sorley presents the work of Vietnamization – the plan to equip and enable the South Vietnamese to provide their own defense against the North. Under General Creighton Abrams, this strategy proved very successful. In theory, this strategy, combined with the treaties we signed with the North Vietnamese, left the South Vietnamese in fine shape. Every North Vietnamese offensive as far back as Tet 1968 (roughly the time Sorley’s coverage begins) had been stopped – with devastating effects on the North Vietnamese. Abram’s approach was also characterized by a concern for the security of ordinary South Vietnamese people. Sorley’s contention is that this effort was so successful that by the time of the American withdrawal in 1973, the Viet Cong was no longer a force to be reckoned with. So if we and the South Vietnamese were victorious on the battlefield, what happened?

First, the success of the policy of Vietnamization depended not only on the rise of the South Vietnamese armed forces in numbers and fighting capacity, but also in the continued support of the US in terms of money and war materiel. Although the US leadership promised to do this, they didn’t.

Second, the treaty specified that the North Vietnamese would withdraw all their troops from South Vietnamese territory. Makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, it’s a lot easier to conquer a territory if you already have troops there. But our leadership pretended that the North Vietnamese were honest on this – or engaged in wishful thinking.

Third, North Vietnam continued to receive aid from its allies – China and the Soviet Union. If it was only the South versus the North, the South might have won without us. But with the combined effort of such powerful patron’s, the North prevailed.

So – if this is a more accurate picture of Vietnam, what might it mean to say that Iraq is “a Vietnam?”

First, it would mean that we were unwilling to stick with our allies and keep the promises we made to them. The new Iraqi government, like the old South Vietnamese government, will most likely fall well short of our American ideals of democratic government. But in both case promises were made to those governments. We didn’t keep our promises to the South Vietnamese. If we fail to keep our promises to the people of Iraq (and I take a key element of those promises to be something like: “Democracy will not only work in Iraq, but it will be a blessing to your people. It will be lots of work, but it will be well worth it. And we will help you achieve that goal”) then we can truly say that Iraq has become another Iraq.

Second, if Iraq were to become “another Vietnam” it would mean that we stopped speaking the truth about the situation there and let sentiment and mere ideology (and perhaps even electoral popularity) prevail. Like the South Vietnamese, the Iraqis have multinational forces arrayed against them. These forces are quite different than what the North Vietnamese had, in terms of fighting capacity, but they are very numerous.

Am I saying the the war in Iraq was the right course of action? No – I’m just saying that it is not yet “another Vietnam” though we could very easily turn it into one by disengaging and leaving the Iraqis on their own.

One more piece of historical analogy before I quit. With the help of US armed forces, the allies prevailed in World War 1. We won! But then we disengaged. We left the Germans facing huge reparations. After years of postwar devastation Hitler came in and picked up the pieces, restoring Germany to its former glory – but more bellicose and dangerous than ever. We again mobilized, working with our allies to defeat Germany. This time, we didn’t disengage. We did the hard – and extremely expensive work of rebuilding Germany. We might have more clarity – and less emotion – if we face the decision in Iraq as whether it will be another World War 1 or another World War 2.

There are hints of a spread of reforming (some might say liberalizing) tendencies in Islam. Ziauddin Sardar presents several movements in this direction in the New Statesman. Islam is a complex tradition (and a complex of traditions), as is any other major “religion.” If Islam can learn to incorporate historical progression and find acceptable theories of cultural diversity (by “acceptable” I simply mean “acceptable in terms of Islam”), that would be progress. There has been a strong tendency in modern Islam (I am not an expert in any form of Islam), to see a lack of differentiation between the various levels of society (self, family, clan, state, religion, etc.) but rather to conceive of them monolithically. Thus Sharia is understood to apply on all levels and in all situations without deviation – and apparently without admitting that the Sharia of one culture or country differs from that in another, and both differ from 7th century Arabia.

I have been a United Methodist longer than I have been a Christian.

Sure, I was born and baptized in the church, and was confirmed a member of the United Methodist Church in the early 70s. The only real memory I have of confirmation classes, though, was that after going through them, I would receive my own set of offering envelopes. I did not say that was all I was taught in confirmation; I said that’s all I remember. I was a reasonably bright youth, and that’s all I got out of the class.

A few years later, at a Houston North District youth rally, I accepted the invitation to begin a relationship with God and accept Jesus’ gift of eternal life and forgiveness of my sins. Finally, during the summer after my sophomore year of high school, I was both a United Methodist and a Christian.

Like my older brother, Richard, I was called to ministry soon thereafter. Also like Richard, I am committed to this ministry within the United Methodist Church until God or the System decides otherwise.

Brad Ramsey, a UM pastor and mentor of mine who died far too soon, told me a story once of his early years in ministry. Fairly fresh out of seminary, he was an associate pastor in a church where he had previously served as youth minister.

In a conversation with his senior pastor, Brad said some things that showed his naïveté about the politics of being a United Methodist Clergy. His senior pastor turned to him and said, “Ah, I see you have not yet been tainted by the system.”

Brad told me this story before I was tainted by the system. That was back when I was so fresh out of seminary that I thought being a United Methodist Clergy was about ministering the Gospel more than about being a functionary of the bureaucracy. Every year I am in the system, I find it more of a struggle to fight the tainting.

The “tainting” I fight is the one that would make me more interested in maintaining the system or “moving up” within it than in winning people to Jesus and leading a congregation in being a place that is about embodying the grace of God.

Please don’t misunderstand; this is not a condemnation of the current leadership of the denomination or of the Central Texas Conference, of which I am a member. It is, rather, recognition of the life that organizations seem to take on a life of their own. Most organizations, and The United Methodist Church is surely one that has, tend to start with noble purposes, goals and visions.

Yet, as an organization survives across generations, there is a tendency to build into it systems that are more about the sustaining of the organization than they are about the original purposes, goals, and visions. Stanley Hauerwas warns that a pension system signals the death knell of a denomination. Though I hope to live long enough to receive a pension, I also hope my ministry never becomes motivated by the maintenance of such a benefit.

To conclude my introductory offering to this site, I assure you I am not opposing to denominations in general or to The United Methodist Church in particular. I do think, however, that we have got to be about more than sustaining a system. We have to be about making disciples of Jesus Christ. Who, as far as my research indicates, never had offering envelopes

Here’s an informative post on Beslan and Chechnya from Winds of Change.