Job + Money + Health = Little Christian Life?

For years now, I have lived a so-called Christian life.  It was comfortable.  I worked as a lawyer and made plenty of money.  I never thought of myself as lavish, but  I could afford to casually drop $1,000 for my 12 year old son to play on a soccer team.  Sounds lavish.  Often my family went out to eat when we had plenty of good food at home – sometimes we might easily spend $300 on eating out in a single month.  Sounds lavish.  Bought a flat screen television – not a top end model, but still probably $600 or $700.  Sounds lavish.

I always paid my bills on time.  I worked hard.  Taught Sunday school.  Pillar of the community kind of thing.  Gave to church regularly.  My wife and I gave to charities again and again.  We weren’t stingy in that way.  Oh, it felt so Christian.  Oh, I was such a good little Christian giver and lived such a nice little Christian life.

I never felt like God owed me.  It was easy to feel “blessed” when life was comfortable. 

Now, after having lost my job, after spending six months searching for new employment, after getting one, lonely interview that went nowhere, after burning off just about every dime, nothing is comfortable.  Quite the opposite, discomfort is the flavor of the month.  I send out resumes galore but, for reasons unclear to me, I’m unacceptable to most employers for jobs that would make sense for me and for them.  Nothing is working out, after years of pretty much everything working out.

Blessed?  Blessed?  You want me to feel blessed under these circumstances?  I moved to Louisville to attend seminary.  Now I find myself in a position where I must stop taking classes because I can’t afford it.  Blessed?  I’m terrified that I won’t be able to pay for my health insurance, which is utterly essential for us to afford certain very necessary medications for my wife.  Blessed?  My manhood has all but been eviscerated, as it appears I cannot provide for my family.  I’m not asking for excess, just enough to get what we need, but even that seems too much for God right now.  Blessed?  By any worldly standard, my life is falling apart.  I’m a 51 year old man with seven years of education beyond high school and 30+ years working experience but no one seems interested in hiring me.  My wife and sons and daughter in law are not getting the kind of husband and dad they ought to be getting, because I’ve been wallowing in self-pity over my circumstances.  Too often I have comforted myself with the “look what I gave up for you God” mentality – as if God needed me to give up anything in order to do what He wants done.

The haze of Christian comfortableness has swallowed up my understanding of blessedness.

I read the diary of David Brainerd a while back.  He was a missionary among the American Indians in the 1740’s.  He suffered from serious physical maladies (likely tuberculosis), loneliness, and probably a form of depression.  Yet, he persevered.  His diary reflects a man convinced of the goodness of God, no matter what his circumstances.  It’s embarrassing to be a 21^st century American Christian, whining as much as I do about so many things that don’t matter.  Do I have food? Yes.  Do I have a family that loves me and cares about me? Yes.  Do I have an assurance of eternal life with the God of the universe, ultimately worshipping with the saints in heaven forever in a way that is light years more expansive, excellent, and exuberant than anything I’ve ever experienced on earth? Yes.  Seriously, how much more do I really, truly NEED?

Blessed?  Yes.  Unequivocally, emphatically, most assuredly, unquestionably, mightily, eternally blessed!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some super-Christian in the front row at church with my hands up singing like all is well in the world, telling everyone that life is grand, and that none of this matters because I know God is in control and he has a plan and all will work out.  No, right now I’m disappointed with God because He doesn’t seem to be doing what I need Him to do. 

Comparisons are dangerous, but measuring by Brainerd’s example, I have forgone nothing, lived weakly, seen so dimly, experienced joy only intermittently, and missed out oh so often on the abundance of joy through Christ I ought to experience every day.  Not the Joel Osteen “every day is a Friday” nonsense.  That’s way too shallow for our God.  I want the David Brainerd variety – the I’m dying of tuberculosis, half-starved, depressed, cold, and lonely but still absolutely certain of God’s undying love for me joy.  What a worldly, pathetic Christian I have been for much too long. 

Blessed means God loves me even when I’m unlovable.  Blessed means God cares about me, even when I’m mad at Him.  Blessed means no matter how difficult my circumstances appear to the world and to me, God suffices to sustain me.  Blessed means God reached into time and space and offered himself as the means of paying the penalty for all my outrageous sins.  Blessed means I get to call Jesus, the God-man, the king of the universe, not just savior, but friend.  Blessed means the Holy Spirit actually takes up residence in the sin-enslaved shell I call me.  How much more blessed can one man be?  The God of the universe cares about me: one person among the 7 billion on this planet, amid billions of galaxies with billions of stars and billions of planets but He cares about me!  God is lavish with me beyond my understanding of lavishness.

I’m reminded of words from an old hymn I’ve sung so many times over the years:

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,     
Do not be discouraged, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Ann Coulter: Maybe She's the Narcissist?

At one time I actually thought Ann Coulter might have something valuable to say.  As it turns out, she would rather nastify than enlighten. (If nastify isn't a word, I claim credit here for making it up!).

Recently, she has treated US citizens poorly (picking on children of illegals born in the US – uhm, they’re citizens by law), argued somewhat strangely that soccer is a liberal sport while clearly having no understanding of it, and now, in perhaps her most egregious and off-putting column, literally accuses Dr. Kent Brantly of being idiotic.  Dr. Brantly, if you don’t know, is the doctor who was treating Ebola patients in Africa and became infected himself.  He was then transported back to the United States where he is, as best I am aware, recovering.

Coulter is entitled to her opinion, of course.  However, she again shows a mastery of not understanding that upon which she comments.  Coulter seems to think that Christians in America should only act on behalf of Christians in America.  She conflates patriotism with the gospel message in the kind of syncretistic way that has given evangelicals a bad name for years.  Many younger evangelicals rightfully reject this kind of thinking (although I find myself at odds with their “solutions” much of the time).  Older evangelicals take note: Coulter is going to get roasted by everyone, everywhere, from every political and religious persuasion and rightly so.

Interestingly, World News Daily, which typically carries Coulter’s column, had it up earlier today (August 7, 2014) and has apparently already taken it down.  WND isn’t exactly a website that worries too much about offending, but, perhaps, this was even too much for them.  I hope so.

No one has ever accused Coulter of being winsome.  Nor has she cultivated such an attitude.  Since Dr. Albert Mohler has already commented on the gospel issues Coulter misses (Mohler's Response Here) I won’t rehash his arguments.   Rather, I want to focus on Coulter’s peculiar notion of what it means to be a Christian in America.

I have a friend who I’ll call Bob (just in case he doesn’t want his name used – I didn’t have time to ask him in advance).  Bob used much of his vacation, year after year, to work at a Central American orphanage where the children had AIDS.  There came a point where Bob decided to leave his well-paying job to spend several years at the orphanage as sort of a house father to the children.  He told me that people asked him why the Central American country where this orphanage is located.  He said that people in the United States have much easier access to help, generally speaking, whereas this country is poor, and those who are in greatest need often simply go without.  He wanted to help where the need was greater.

So Ann Coulter doesn’t get this?  Well, since compassion undoubtedly smacks of liberalism in her ears, she probably can’t understand it.  I would ask this question, though: isn’t voluntarily helping other people, acting generously without thought of reward and without seeking notoriety (no one ever heard of Dr. Brantly until now and only a small group of people know about my friend), and seeking to affect the world in a positive way while sharing the life-saving, peace-bringing, eternity-qualifying good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ the epitome of being a Christian in America?  If not, what is?

I’ve never gone on an overseas mission trip, but I know many who have.  I can’t think of a single person who went based on some sort of narcissism.  Everyone I know went because they wanted to do something for people who needed humanitarian, social, financial, medical, educational, and spiritual help.  Americans as a people, being rich beyond comprehension to probably about 90 percent of the rest of the world, are in a unique position to do these things.  That so few of us actually do it is the shame, not that Coulter’s so-called narcissists volunteer.

One last example.  My sister Becky went to Kenya for two years with the Peace Corps as a teacher.  She found the kids there anxious and willing to learn.  They were still kids, of course, but lacked the entitlement mentality of so many children in the United States.  My sister wasn’t there as a Christian missionary, but knowing her, I know that at all times she conducted herself in a manner befitting Christ.  She is every bit as conservative as Ann Coulter in terms of political thinking (maybe more!).  She wanted to help.  That desire to help runs deep in the American Christian spirit – whether we help here or elsewhere.

I don’t know if Ann Coulter will apologize for this awful and, frankly, utterly wrong-headed article.  She should immediately, if nothing else, remove it from her website (I assume it’s up there) and ask every outlet that carries her columns to remove it as well.

In the meantime, Ann needs to seriously re-think her theology because if she claims any allegiance to Christianity, she clearly doesn’t understand it at all.  She once again proves she can willingly comment despite her ignorance.  Making people mad just for the sake of making them mad serves no purpose other than a . . . dare I say it . . . narcissistic one?

Miley Cyrus: Offensive but not indecent? How about Jesus?

“It is offensive, but indecent? Doesn’t seem to be indecent,” argued Michael Overing, a censorship and legal communications professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. “Offensive conduct alone isn’t outside the First Amendment.”  Mr. Overing was commenting on the recent, and apparently raunchy, Miley Cyrus show broadcast by NBC.

Hmm.  Miley Cyrus can apparently perform all kinds of outrageous antics on stage, in front of a prime time television audience on NBC, and an “expert” explains that even if her conduct is offensive it “isn’t outside the First Amendment.”  The implications for this go well beyond Miley Cyrus and her marijuana induced nonsense.

The First Amendment, as widely, though improperly understood, doesn’t call for “freedom of speech” as such.  The First Amendment states that Congress “shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.”  This doesn’t mean Congress (or the states via the 14^th Amendment) can’t regulate speech at all, only that it cannot ultimately put an end to free speech.  Moreover, the First Amendment applies only to governmental restrictions on speech, not private restrictions.  Too often I see people complaining about censorship when a private organization decides to limit, curtail, or minimize speech.

Nonetheless, given governmental intrusion into so many places via regulation, for instance, the line becomes more blurred.  One of the reasons the Miley Cyrus episode sparked any reporting at all is because NBC aired it at 9:00 PM during the summer.  The FCC has regulations that prevent “indecent” material from being aired at that time since it is likely young children might be watching.  Any parent with any sense of contemporary culture should insure Miley Cyrus does not invade the home at any time of day!  If a parent is not sure about what’s going on, a casual perusal of You-Tube will often suffice to get some sense of where things are.  Regulations are utterly unable to stop anyone from watching anything – they only serve as a modest, after-the-fact deterrent.  Moreover, as our expert explained, it wasn’t indecent for crying out loud, it was just offensive and offensive is okay.

Yet, time after time, street preachers, who are in places where they have a legal right to be, get accosted by the police for . . . offending people.  I’ve observed street preaching first hand, and I understand the up front and personal nature of that kind of gospel presentation can often unsettle people.  Nonetheless, it isn’t indecent.  Naturally, none of us expect the police to show up at the Miley Cyrus show just because some of us might find her antics offensive.  Sensible human beings simply don’t watch her, or if they happen to be surfing past the channel that is showing her, they just keep going.  We don’t go rushing out to get Officer Friendly down to the Miley Cyrus show.

So why do people think it’s acceptable to complain to the police about street preachers?  More importantly, why do police officer so often think they have any right to involve themselves by asking street preachers to stop or move, or face arrest?  While I am sure some street preachers go overboard, many simply preach the gospel message of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation (or something similar).  Of course, people don’t like being told they have sinned and require a savior.  So?  How are these words any more offensive than what Miley Cyrus does?  Even non-Christians can find her conduct disturbing and offensive.  I find it stunning that more women’s groups don’t complain about her (maybe they do, and I just don’t know about it).

My point here isn’t that we should ban Miley Cyrus.  Part of me wants to say let everyone see her so all people shall know how messed up this young woman really is.  My point is that almost anything anyone says or does is likely to offend somebody.  If the tolerance and diversity crowd really mean what they say, then shouldn’t that mean non-indecent but offensive speech and conduct are something we must accept as reality in a pluralistic society?

Yes, the gospel message offends people.  But if Miley Cyrus gets a pass, doesn’t Jesus get one, too?

An Abortionist as the Good Samaritan? Ironically, Esquire magazine says yes.

           Irony is the juxtaposition of opposed concepts in order to make a point.  It’s often funny (Woody Allen was good at it, once) and certainly a useful device in speaking and writing.  Irony is one of the many things in this world that drives me to believe in a creator-God and confirms my Christian worldview because it doesn’t follow as meaningful from an evolutionary perspective.  Jesus used irony regularly (sometimes to the point of sarcasm) as a means of communicating the gospel message that the very God of the universe had come into his creation to set things straight.

          Enter Willie Parker, abortion doctor, who claims he is acting based on Christian belief.   Esquire magazine portrays him as a hero in its recent write up about him.  He cites, of all things, the parable of the Good Samaritan as the basis for his “ministry.”  Apparently, Dr. Parker doesn’t understand irony.  In the parable, Jesus explains that a priest and a Levite, both of whom were considered Judaism’s “finest,” walked around a nearly dead man lying on the side of the road, presumably to avoid becoming ritually unclean (Jesus doesn’t say explicitly – maybe they were just jerks).  A Samaritan, a mixed-breed of supposedly lesser quality, both spiritually and racially, comes along and helps the man, who, although Jesus never tells us for sure, is almost certainly Jewish.  Irony, anyone?

            Dr. Parker claims that a fetus is totally dependent on its mother, making the mother the arbiter of all choices for that fetus, including whether it gets to live or not.  Interesting.  The nearly dead man on the side of the road was clearly helpless.  In fact, one might note he was totally dependent on the good will of a fellow human being to remain among the living.  The Samaritan takes this totally dependent person and sees to it he gets all the help he needs to, whoops, stay alive.  Yet, ironically, Dr. Parker claims he IS the Samaritan.   “I do have belief in God,” he says.  “That's why I do this work. My belief in God tells me that the most important thing you can do for another human being is help them in their time of need.”

            Now, I understand that women considering an abortion are clearly in need.  In fact, frankly, I’m much more sympathetic to the women than I am to Dr. Parker.  The Esquire article describes Dr. Parker as taking a rather clinical view of the babies – at six weeks noting the baby is just “lumps of red tissue” or pointing out that until 9 weeks, a “fetal pole” may have developed, it (the baby) is “undifferentiated.”  While he is clearly correct in his physical description, he simply ignores the more important feature: this is a human life in development.  It’s not going to be an ant, mouse, dog, cat, horse, or anything other than a human being.  Human beings have souls – ironically, Dr. Parker never seems to think about the lives he is stamping out.

            He complains about the protesters outside the clinic, claiming all they care about is the fetus.  However, he makes no bones that he cares more about the women than the children they are carrying.  How does it work that caring for either the woman or the unborn baby is more important, more valuable, more necessary, more good Samaritan, more Christ-like?  Abortion protesters often go overboard and don’t always represent Christianity well, of that there is no question.  That doesn’t abrogate the rightful concern they have for the child whose life is being ignominiously stamped out by Dr. Parker’s “compassion.” 

           The women who seek abortions have reasons for doing so and many find making the choice extremely difficult.  While I doubt there are any statistics for such things, my suspicion is almost all women struggle mightily with the decision to have an abortion and feel exceptionally guilty.  Few do this kind of thing on a whim and shouldn’t be portrayed cavalierly as if they’re just using abortion as post-pregnancy birth control.  That’s not my sense at all.  But just because someone is called upon to make difficult moral choices doesn’t mean whatever choice they make is acceptable, or right. 

            This is where the irony of Dr. Parker’s view becomes most clear.  He serves as a conscience cleanser, making sure that women don’t feel any guilt at all about what they’re doing.  Where, oh where, does Dr. Parker finding Jesus ever, ever, ever assuaging anyone’s guilt?  If anything, Jesus was tough on those who acted wrongly – he never accepted sinful conduct as anything other than that – sinful conduct.  For instance, he met a woman at a well and made utterly clear to her he knew everything about her very sinful past and her current sinful living arrangements.  He didn’t spend time telling her that it was her life and her decision and her body and her sexuality  so that any choice she made was okay.  Rather, he confronted her with her sin.

            I don’t expect a writer at Esquire to have sufficient sensitivity to Christian doctrine to recognize the utter profanity of Dr. Parker’s so-called ministry.  I can’t blame the writer for making it sound so wonderful.  I understand when women feel cornered to the point where abortion seems like their only way out.  That doesn’t make the decision right, but it does make it understandable.  The woman at the well lived in a time where she needed a man in order to survive – her choice to accept living with a man who wasn’t her husband (and, by implication, engaging in a sexual relationship) is understandable, even though wrong.  What leaps out from this article is the utterly un-Jesus like manner with which Dr. Parker treats the living souls he kills off – they live at his suffrage, not at the suffrage of the living God of the universe Dr. Parker claims he serves.

          Finally, ironically, Dr. Parker doesn’t seem to have any understanding of the grander implications of his blasé attitude towards those undifferentiated lumps of red tissue he unceremoniously dispatches.  According to Dr. Parker, it is the child’s utter dependence on its mother that makes the mother the absolute authority whether the child lives or dies.  Really, though, Dr. Parker is the one who exercises the authority – he kills the baby, not the mom.  More importantly, what does this say about an Alzheimer’s patient who is totally dependent on others to make it through every day?  And how, oh how, Dr. Parker do we meaningfully define just exactly and precisely when someone is or is not dependent?  Is a three year old dependent?  What about a quadriplegic?

         I understand Esquire magazine’s take – it’s a decidedly non-Christian magazine.  I get that women who feel they have no alternative make a decidedly difficult and guilt wracked decision – how many of us sin for the same reasons?  What I don’t get, though, is a guy who thinks he’s the Good Samaritan stomping out a defenseless life in the name of Jesus.  Dr. Parker is worse than the priest and the Levite – at least they just walked by when they saw the helpless man on the side of the road – they didn’t go over and finish him off.

        What Dr. Parker clearly doesn’t understand is Jesus was the ultimate Good Samaritan – he didn’t just spend some time, effort, and money saving us when we were helpless, he gave us his life in exchange for ours.  If Dr. Parker really wants to be a good Samaritan, the next time a young woman comes in seeking an abortion, he’ll agree to trade places with her unborn child.