Inscrutable

Posted on November 9, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

How do you know when you’re winning?

In football it’s pretty easy: score more than the other guy. Even if you have more total yardage, more first downs, more aesthetically pleasing uniforms and plays, you still lose if you don’t have more points than the other team.
The timing is pretty straightforward in football also. You have to have the most points at the end of the game to win. Outscoring your opponent in the first half won’t do you any good if he out scores you by enough in the second. Time can be your friend – if you score enough points so there’s not enough time for your opponent to come back.

Baseball is a little different. Sure you win by scoring more than the other guy, but time is irrelevant. You can be leading by 20 runs – a seemingly insurmountable margin – going into the ninth. But with no time limit your opponent is allowed to play all night – to score as many as he can. You have to actually put him out.

In both football and baseball the winner is (under normal circumstances) always clear. You don’t leave the field wondering, “Did we win?” There are other options:

  • “We would have won if those guys hadn’t cheated.”
  • “While the scoreboard says we lost, we won a moral victory.”
  • “We worked hard and had fun, so I’d say we won.”

Each of these options seeks to redefine winning in a way outside the normal rules of the sport. Within the rules, you know when you win, you know when you lose. You can look at a loss as a victory, but it’s still a loss.

What about in war?

We’re stuck in a war in Iraq now. Some folks say we’ve won the war. We deposed Saddam Hussein, we’ve installed a democratic government. Sure, there are still difficulties to be worked out, but let’s let the Iraqis handle that. Since we’ve won we can bring our folks home. I’ve heard the response to this second argument that if we withdraw now, even if we call it a victory, our enemies will see it as our defeat. We need, by all means possible, to keep our enemies from seeing us as losers and themselves as winners.

I understand the notion at work here. If you have a ruthless enemy who is totally committed and fearless, the slightest sign of weakness will embolden him to finish you off. Withdrawing from Iraq at this stage would strengthen the radical Islamist conviction that America is a wimpy nation, afraid of a fight, leading them to multiply the kind of attack they did 9/11. After all, the consequences are only temporary.

I understand this notion, but I don’t think it can rule our actions. If we cannot count ourselves as winning until we have won not only by our own standards but by our enemies, we will find ourselves in a difficult, if not impossible place. Some of those who have declared themselves the enemy of America think that winning is defined by utterly subjecting your enemy: Killing all who actively oppose you, humiliating and subjugating all the rest. So we won’t win, by their standards until we kill every last armed opponent who stands against us, until we’ve completely imposed the American way of life on them, until we’ve forced them all to convert to Christianity.

If that’s what it takes to win in the eyes of the enemy, it’ll never happen. Not just because we can’t do it, but because we don’t want to do it. Americans – whether Democrats or Republicans –  like to think of themselves as performing their foreign service, whether it be fighting in wars, doing relief work, or sending foreign aide, as a blessing to other countries and their peoples. We see ourselves as good guys. Fortunately we’re not at the place where what counts as victory in the eyes of radical Islamists is even palatable to us. If we descended to that level, we have own by their account, but we will have lost by our own account.

At least I hope so.

I can think of one thing that would help us win by our own standards with the possibility of at least “not losing” by our enemies’ standards. But I’m not sure we can do it. What I have in mind is becoming inscrutable. To be inscrutable we would have to:

  • Act like we won.
  • Talk like we won.
  • Show no doubts about our winning.
  • Show magnanimity to those we’ve defeated.
  • Don’t give a clue what we’ll be up to next.

But, as I said, I don’t think we can do this. I don’t think any democracy can be inscrutable. Not only do we talk too much (You can’t talk too much and maintain any air of mystery), but we also lack the social, cultural and political unity to produce or maintain the united front necessary for inscrutability.

Maybe someone else has an idea that will work – that will be “beneficial for all concerned.”

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Learning from Ted Haggard

Posted on November 6, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

David Klinghoffer shares his thoughts on what we can learn from the downfall of Ted Haggard. Here are my own thoughts.

  1. Watch what you pray for. I’ve read that the Sunday before the accusations came out Mr. Haggard had prayed for “deception to be unmasked.” It was, though perhaps not in the way he expected his audience (God? his congregation?) to understand the request. Prayer is inherently dangerous. God is looking for space in our lives – a point of leverage – to accomplish his work. Prayer, even with unintended consequences, can give that point of leverage. God’s not out to “get” us – though there’s likely plenty of people to gloat when we fall. God’s objective is our health and holiness.
  2. Recognize sin as a deadly danger, not just in the abstract, not just for other people. If we truly believe sin is a danger to us, we’ll take some protective measures against it. Billy Graham recognized the dangers early on and instituted measures to prevent sexual sin in his own life.
  3. It’s dangerous to think of one kind of sin (homosexual practice in this case) as the worst sin. If in our race to name the worst sin all we did was condemn others, it’d be bad enough. But what happens when we identify that “worst” sin and then find it in ourselves? We find it harder to tell ourselves the truth about our sin. Our self-defence mechanisms come to the fore since we don’t want to be known as the “worst.” One would think that if this reaches our consciousness we might realize other folks might not like the “worst” label either.

Update: Here’s some commentary from Gordon McDonald at Out of Ur. McDonald has personal experience with moral failure – and recovery.

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Muslim response to Saddam’s sentence

Posted on November 6, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

I ran across Umar Lee’s response here. I was curious so I reponded with some questions.

He said:

“The culture of the nation of Iraq dictates that there be rule by a tyrant or there be chaos”

There are certainly many here in the US who have come to think this in the last year or two.  I’m curious how this sits with Islam. Is it proper to Islam to say, “Let’s settle for tyranny. It’s the best we can do.” I have trouble seeing the Muslims I know here in the US saying that. I’ve read Iraqi bloggers who aren’t content with that.

Are there resources within Islam to critique this Iraqi “realism”? Can Islam criticize it’s host culture in a country? I know Al Qaeda thinks it can, but I’m wondering if such a critique can also be found in “mainstream” Islam.

He continued:

“those who believe that you can have a Scandinavian-like government and a peaceful society where Sunni, Shia and Kurds will get along and all hold hands are foolish.”

Certainly if we think of ourselves as realists, this looks like a foolish goal. But would Islam say this is what God wants? Does God want Sunni, Shia and Kurds – all Muslims – to get along (let’s forget holding hands for a moment – no reason to get all sentimental)? If God doesn’t want it, is it only in Iraq that God doesn’t want it, or is strife between believers something that generally pleases God? I’m pretty ignorant of Islam, so please correct me, but my guess, from what I’ve read, and the conversations I’ve had with others, is that God does desire peace in Iraq. If God wants it, is it proper to call human desires for the fulfillment of God’s will FOOLISH? Of course, you may be speaking euphemistically and merely mean that it will take direct intervention from God, i.e., a miracle for peace to happen among Iraqi factions.

I confess that as a Christian, that’s what I’m praying for Iraq. I don’t see Maliki and the Iraqi government accomplishing it. I don’t see the US and its forces accomplishing it. I don’t see the UN, Iran, Syria, Al Qaeda, Sadr, etc. accomplishing it. It’d have to be God.
Again, I’m unfamiliar with the Quran, so I have to speak from my knowledge of the Bible. What I see there is that God likes to do the impossible. That way God gets the glory, not us.

Posted in Current events, Islam, Spirituality, Theology | Leave a comment

Revelation

Posted on November 4, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

I’m working my way through William J. “Billy” Abraham’s Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation. The most recent of his books promoting what he calls “Canonical Theism,” Abraham continues the work of Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism. While it is a work in the epistemology of theology, it rejects the common assumption that theology must be adequately grounded in some public data or method before it can proceed. Foundationalism, coherentism, pragmatism, and other models that seek to simplify the knowing process all fall short of what the church needs – and of what we actually have in the canonical resources of the church.

Commonly “theism” is a minimalistic approach to God. God is the supreme being, all powerful, all knowing, present everywhere, all good, and the origin of all. This God gives commands – variously summarized as 10 Commandments, the Golden Rule, “Don’t Judge,” or ‘be nice.” All you need to get to theism, some think, is an awareness of the universe (Psalm 19:1) and a sense of mystery.

This kind of theism falls far short of Christianity, however. While the platitudes of theism might be found in the bible, Christian tradition, or hovering nearby, theism lacks an interest in a God who acts in history and interacts with people. Canonical theism is an attempt to articulate a basic form of Christianity, the basics shared by a variety of Christian traditions (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant). These basics include the Incarnation and the Trinity – often some of the first doctrines to go as a weak Christian theism evaporates into Unitarianism.

Consider this comment from chapter 5:

Action predicates are constitutive of the divine reality encountered and worshiped in the canonical life of the church. This has immediate bearings on how we are to think of knowledge of God, for there are characteristic ways in which personal agents are made known and in the manner in which claims about them are adjudicated.

Agents are fundamentally made known by what they do. Thus we come to kow personal agents by encountering themin our experience and becoming acquainted with their actions.

The church worships a God who has done more than create the world, impose a moral scheme, and then go on vacation. That’s deism. And theism doesn’t add much to that. (Historically the words deism and theism meant just about the same thing. It’s only as the influence of foundationalist epistemology has grown that theologians and Christian philosophers of religion have thought there to be a need to find a basic and universal concept of a divine being before they could move on to the particularities of the Christian tradition.) The key thing was demonstrating the existence of God.
Back in the 18th century G.E. Lessing crystalized a belief percolating among Enlightened folks, perhaps since the Cambridge Platonists a hundred and fifty years before. He said there is a “broad and ugly ditch” between the “necessary truths of reason” and the “accidental truths of history.” Religion – true religion, not just the gross superstitions of ordinary believers – is concerned with universal and necessary truth of the kind that can be demonstrated with certainty. The modern epistemological project was all about certainty – so Lessing was operating within that tradition.

Unfortunately, the quest for certainty didn’t pan out very well. While Descartes thought he had a nice structure built on the foundation indubitable existence of the thinking self, it wasn’t too long before those looking for certainty had cast aside his assurance that there was a god, and an external world. Then along cam Hume and the certainty of the thinking self was reduced the certainty that I seem to be thinking right this second. Not much to go on. Surely not much to get any theology out of.

Fortunately for us, most of the resources of the Christian tradition are located on the other side of Lessing’s ditch. While we may lack the (false) certainty of “necessary truths of reason,” we have many accounts of a God who acts in history, climaxing in the Incarnation. Abraham demonstrates they though Christians operating on this (the historical) side of the ditch may lack a complete theory of how we know what we know, and may fall short of absolute certainty (not to say Christians aren’t still captivated by the Enlightenment dream), we do just fine.

I’ve just finished chapter seven (out of 11). In that chapter Abraham examines the life of an individual who has come to faith. He explores the epistemological resources and habits the convert calls on at each stage of the process. One can see very clearly that for Abraham (and Canonical Theism) that resources taken to be epistemological (scripture, tradition, truth, evidence, etc.) are better understood in the context of soteriology (salvation). God is out to accomplish much more than producing the knowledge (even certain knowledge) of true propositions in our minds.

Epistemology on this side – the “accidental truths of history” – takes place in time, not a realm of timeless abstract truth and method. Abraham likens our entering into God’s revelation (a process in time) to entering a house. Once we cross the treshold, a new world is opened up to us. The newness of this world (the house) is not just in terms of content (i.e., the new things we can see in the house), but in terms of new stances we take toward the processes we find ourselves involved in – including epistemological processes.

I could say much more, but that’s enough to give you a taste. Get the book. Read it. Give thanks that we have a Billy Abraham teaching at a United Methodist seminary.

Posted in Books, Spirituality, Theology, United Methodism | 1 Comment

Planning and “Working the Plan”

Posted on November 4, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

The Texas Conference going through a revolution. Inasmuch as the revolution is based on a widespread failure to accomplish our basic mission (to make disciples), I offer my hearty support.

“What do you mean, ‘Failure to accomplish our basic mission?’ We have Sunday worship every Sunday. We have tons of Sunday school classes. We have meetings galore. What are you talking about?”

The Book of Discipline says our purpose is to “Make disciples of Jesus Christ.” If this means simply “have [good] meetings,” we’re doing fine. But if it means to make people who are not disciples into people who are disciples – which seems to be the gist of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19 – we’re not doing so hot.

In 2005 over 45% of churches in the Great Texas Annual Conference (“Great” isn’t actually part of our title, we just like to think it is) failed to record a single addition to their congregation by profession of faith. Bishop Huie thinks that’s not acceptable. Even more, she says on the floor of Conference that it’s not acceptable.

Thus the revolution.

Part of the revolution – a big part, just now getting under way – is a congregational transformation process. From what I’ve seen, the questions it makes us ask and the accountability it requires will be good for us.

But I’m cautious about parts of it. One thing in particular is that need to “make a plan” and then “work the plan.” I understand the point here. It’s often been said, “If you don’t aim at anything you’ll likely hit it.” We need to aim at reaching people for Jesus and diligently apply ourselves in carrying through with our mission.

Have you ever heard of a “God of the gaps” theory? It’s most frequently referenced in science. In contexts where some folks think science can explain everything and other folks think you need God to explain things (a frequent factor in discussions of origins), the God folks will work hard to find a gap in the scientists case. After finding a gap – an anomaly that the scientific theories fail to explain – the God folks will point at the gap and say, “See that gap? That’s God.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? But the scientists don’t sit there quietly and say, “Thanks for the help! I guess we can give up looking for an explanation.” Instead, they keep looking. To the chagrin of some of the God folks, some of their gaps have been filled in. Oops. No need for God there. Time to look for more gaps.

That’s what we mean when we talk about a “God of the gaps” approach.

When it comes to fulfilling our mission it sometimes feels like we’re being urged to eschew a “God of the gaps” approach. Study your situation. Make a plan. Work the plan. Be professional about it. Leave no gaps.

If we were merely a corporation or human organization the scientific approach (“eschew all gaps”) might be a fine idea. But when I read the bible I see God’s people continually faced with gaps. Not little dinky gaps either – big huge gaping gaps. And the gaps aren’t due to a lack of planning (“Can you imagine Jesus didn’t call a single disciple with an MBA from Rome U or Jerusalem Tech?”). God apparently likes gaps. God likes us to be in situations where we need him – where if he doesn’t come through we’re toast.

But we don’t like that. We like security. We like predictability. We like a plan with no gaps. No need for God. We can depend on ourselves (remember our motto, “If you want it done right do it yourself?”). We can depend on our pastors (assuming they’ve been to the right seminaries, the right workshops & trainings, and read the right books). We can depend on our lay people. But God, can we trust God? Surely the stakes are too big for us to trust God. Just think how it’ll sound when the DS comes calling and asks to see your plan. “The plan looks nice. Except for these gaps. Here, [the nicer ones will say] read this book. It’ll help you fill in those gaps.”

Am I worried that we’ll settle for the “scientific” approach rather than the “gaps” approach? Not yet. Just wary. In the meantime, I need to remember:

  1. It’s more about God than about me.
  2. We’re out to make disciples “of Jesus Christ” not “of the UMC.”
  3. God wants this more than I/we do.
  4. Gaps give God room to work.
  5. We’re going to have to pray our socks off.
Posted in church growth, Current events, Leadership, United Methodism | Leave a comment

A different view of Jihad – from Iran

Posted on November 4, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

Do you ever get the idea that all Muslims think (or act) like Jihad is only about violence toward outsiders? Think again. Check out this post from a blogger in Qom, the central city of Shia Islam in Iran.

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Too Important for Professionals?

Posted on November 1, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

Could it be that evangelism is too important to leave to the professionals also?

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Entering Ministry

Posted on October 19, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

People have frequently asked me, “When did you enter the ministry?” I think they usually mean something like, “When did you start pastoring churches for a living?” In my mind these are two entirely different questions.

When I read the bible I see that when I came to faith in Jesus I was joined to the Body by the Holy Spirit. As part of the Body, I was joined not only to a group of people, but to the mission God has given that group of people. So from day 1 as a Christian, I was in ministry. Doubtless I didn’t understand it at the time. Most of the sermons & lessons I remember from those days (later high school) were about being a nice person. I was a good student and a Boy Scout, so I had that down. No need to listen any farther. Soon, however, I sensed that God had a bigger purpose for my life.

From one angle, I was called – as a Christian, not some extraordinary kind of creature – to influence others toward Jesus. This entailed the negative consequence of refraining from doing things that would cause people to say, “That fellow claims to believe in Jesus. If he’s what a Christian looks like I sure don’t want to be one.” It also entailed the positive consequence of inkling people to say, upon seeing my life and hearing my words, “Jesus sure is attractive. I want to follow him too!”

From another angle – though simply another side of the same thing – I was called to obey God. Amazingly simple, isn’t it? All I had to do was put myself at God’s disposal, and then when he gave me a word say something like, “Yes, Lord!” When I started doing these two things – however feebly I did them as a teenager – I was in ministry. I was in ministry my senior year of high school, throughout college, and in seminary. Never once did I pastor a church. You could count the number of times I preached without taking off your shoes. I didn’t start pastoring a church until January 1987. But all the time leading up to that I was in ministry.

Consider yourself. How long have you been in ministry? “What a silly question!” you say. “I’m a teacher, doctor, sales person, etc. I’m not in the ministry.” Are you a Christian? Are you a follower of Jesus? Have you put yourself at his disposal so he can use you as he sees fit? If so, you’re in ministry. If not, what are you waiting for?

Posted in church growth, Leadership, Local church, Spirituality | 3 Comments

Sunnis & Shia

Posted on October 19, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

Jeff Stein reports in the New York Times about his adventures in Washington trying to find officials who could tell him the difference between a Sunni Muslim and a Shiite Muslim. While someof our leaders apparently know the difference, the ignorance he found int he majority drives the article. Ranging from FBI counter terrorism officials to congress peopel who sit on intelligence committees, he found many who hadn’t a clue.

Sunnis are the majority group in Islam. Shia are primarily found in Iran & Iraq and have polulations in neighboring areas (Syria, Lebanon). Al Qaeda is Sunni, Hezbollah is Shiite.

If we were to judge by what we hear reported from Iraq, we’d interpret Sunni – Shia relations as akin to Protestants and Catholics in Norther Ireland: Two communities with much in common that nonetheless want to kill each other. Al Qaeda, we read, wants to foment civil war, partly because it makes the US look bad, partly because more of the dirty, evil Shiites will suffer and die.

While there is conflict between Sunnis & Shia, much of this seems to me to be driven by their master states. Saudi Arabia, the home of Wahabbism (an 18th century reform movement in Islam, and the dominant contributor to Al Qaeda’s understanding of Islam), funds much of the expansion of Islam around the world using their petrodollars. Iran, home of the Islamic revolution, stands behind the big Shiite movements of the world, (like Hezbollah).

Years ago when I had a conversation with a scholar from Iran, he played down the differences between Sunnis & Shia. He said their commonalities are more extensive than their differences. Of course, that may have just been wishful thinking.

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Really Micro Economics

Posted on October 13, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

Perhaps you’ve heard that Muhammad Yunus has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in banking. Rather than working with the rich, Yunus focused on micro-loans to ordinary poor people. These loans – a few dollars here, a few dollars there – enabled poor people to become economically self-sufficient. We have friends in Indonesia who run an NGO using this concept, and they report great results.

If you want to end poverty (whether you think ending poverty possible or not), and think Yunus has come up with a good idea, you can do more than just cheer him on. Check out Kiva.org where you can become an international “Venture Capitalist” yourself, helping people in need. If you want news on the organization check out the Kiva Chronicles. This approach sure sounds better than the old “foreign aid” model of sending billions of dollars to needy countries, only to have most the aid siphoned off by corrupt officials to be stored in their Swiss bank accounts.

UPDATE: Mr. Yunus has a piece on Microfinance in the Wall Street Journal.

Posted in Current events, Economics | 1 Comment