Regardless, they released their new album “Cynic’s New Year” (which, in my opinion, is their best album to date). On the album they have a song called “Last Waltz” that musically is brilliant, but the lyrics just stand out to me. Now, I don’t know what Justin Ringle (or whoever wrote the song) meant by the lyrics, but they make a point that I really want to stress. Here are those lyrics:

I’ve seen the end
All I have loved had broke and won’t mend.
Call in the doctor the day may have died.
There’s a thimble of light for an acre of sky.

Darling we play the dunce,
There’s changes ahead,
coming at once.
I don’t like to lie,
There’s a divorcing sea.
Where will we go if there’s nowhere to be?

Call in the Doctor and break the news,
We’re sick in the head, our hearts’ got the blues.
Where in the world, oh where is the sun?
There’s a blackness that’s bit, it’s bitings not done.

Darling we play the dunce,
There’s changes ahead,
coming at once.
I don’t like to lie,
There’s a divorcing sea.
Where will we go if there’s nowhere to be?

Old friends withering away,
Just like the cliffs found down by the bay.
I don’t like to lie it’s a terrible thing.
Time’s got a way to take more than it brings.

Before hitting that point, I should point out that I also just finished reading Nihilism by Fr. Seraphim Rose. In the book he points out how Nihilism removes the meaning from life by removing God. Whereas atheism is simply the statement that God does not exist, Nihilism seeks to destroy the idea of God wherever it is found, it actively tries to “kill God.” In doing so, all meaning is lost.

Thus, it’s probably no surprise that when I read the lyrics of Horse Feathers, I see modern man plastered all over them. I think of Nietzsche’s monologue in The Gay Science, where taking on the role of the madman, he writes: 

“Whither is God?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, foreward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?”

This is why the line “Where will we go if there’s no where to be” resonates so deeply with me. Modern man is a beast looking for a shelter on a stormy night, but he’s burned down the shelter. Where will he go? He will go nowhere, because what he hopes for no longer exists. In killing God, that is, in removing Him from our lives and ignoring Him, we have become planets without suns, drifting into an ever darker, colder, and emptier universe.

Songs like this remind me so much of what our sin has caused us. Sin is the act of rebelling against God and this rebellion begets nothing more than angst and despair. We wish to say that we create our own meaning, but this position simply is not tenable. Let me share a very real life example:

Today I saw a woman with a black eye that was obviously caused by a fist. She sat at a table in a restaurant with a man that I assume to be her husband or boyfriend. The man fit the stereotype of someone who would hit a woman. Upon closer inspection, I noticed  his hat said “Fourth Reich” on it and his arms were covered in White Supremacist tattoos.

If we follow nihilism to its logical end, if there really is no where to be, then who can condemn this man? He has created his own meaning for life and is following it. Now, some might say, “Well that’s absurd because…” but before they can finish their sentence, the madman cuts them off and says “life is nothing but absurd!” The critic must hang his head in shame. Only the more ignorant supporters of this nihilism will continue their objection, noting that we can find our own meaning so long as our meaning doesn’t harm anyone. The madman laughs as such naiveté, pointing out that they’re still attempting to attach themselves to a sun, they’re still trying to have a universal moral code. When we go through the decomposing of God, some will still seek out the absolute, but the true nihilist has buried God and moved past His decomposition; he needs no absolute. Thus, the idea that one wouldn’t harm another in seeking one’s meaning is laughable. The only reason a man wouldn’t seek to harm a woman is if it would in turn bring him harm.

When we cast ourselves away from God this is the world we end up with. Certainly we still have saintly atheists and criminal Christians, but in the grand scheme of things the universe is quite indifferent to it all (and Nietzsche would argue that there is no good or evil, there are no saints or criminals). The atheist hears the cries of a suffering child and rushes in to help her. The corrupt Christian hears the cries and says it’s not his problem. The universe hears her cries and doesn’t care either way. Where will we go when there’s no where to be? Who do we turn to other than ourselves when we encounter the realities of this apathetic universe? And no matter what our answer, what does it matter when in a few billion years the sun will expand and eviscerate our planet? Of course, our species will be long gone by that point, via evolution, asteroids, comets, the death of the planet, or nuclear war.

I think to the man I saw who obviously beat his wife. When she cries at night, if there is no place to be, then her tears are nothing more than salty bodily secretions that happen to end up on a pillow. The cold universe doesn’t care or even know of her suffering. If there’s no place to be, then she will eventually die as will her abuser and 4.6 billion years from now the universe will continue on without having ever noticed.

If, however, there is someplace to be, if God does exist and He is the beginning of everything, then her tears mean something. If there is someplace to be, her tears are seen and felt by a righteous God who burns with absolute anger towards the actions of her abuser. While we can question why God allows it to happen, we can still know there is a sense of right and wrong; under nihilism not only can we not question why evil occurs, but we must question if good actually exists.

The reality is that for humans to continue to grow we must act as though our life has meaning. We must act as though there is a purpose to everything. The nihilist will say there is no ultimate purpose, but then tell us to create our own purpose. But why? If there is no purpose, why must we create one? “So we can get through the day.” And this is what gets me: If you have to act like something is true just so you can live, and every single person has to do this, then that something is probably true. If you have to “delude” yourself into believing there is a purpose for our lives in order to live then there probably is a purpose. If you can’t function without something then that something exists.

If there is a purpose then there is someone who has given that purpose. That Someone is God. We have murdered God by removing Him from our lives. But He had risen from the grave before and He can rise from the grave within our lives as well. Where will we go if there’s no where to be? We will go to God, because He is the “where” we need to be.

To finish with a quote from Fr. Seraphim Rose concerning nihilism and Christianity:

God has called us, not to the modern “heaven” of repose and sleep, but to the full and deifying glory of the sons of God; and if we, whom our God thinks worthy to receive it, reject this call, – then better for us the flames of Hell, the torment of the last and awful proof of man’s high calling and of God’s unquenchable Love for all men, than the nothingness to which men of small faith, and the Nihilism of our age, aspire. Nothing less than hell is worthy of man, if he be not worthy of Heaven.

Sometimes we need to focus on the beauty of creation. Sometimes we need to focus on building our society. But sometimes we should remember that this is still a world in which children suffer and die. The preacher with perfect hair and even more perfect teeth tells us that Jesus wants us to “have our best life now.” But how do we look at the father who’s child is fighting cancer and say, “Oh no, I promise you that this is the best Jesus wants for your kid.” We have cool, hip pastors with Hawaiian shirts telling us that Jesus wants us to live a purpose-driven life. But how do we explain to the parents who just lost their newborn child that Jesus has a purpose for his life? What life? He came into this world only to be snatched away, his only experience of this life being a hospital room.

If someone (from the “outside”) were to judge the Christian religion off our best selling books, some might conclude that Christianity is hateful, others might think it has somewhat of a point, I think one could justifiably sum up Christianity with one word, an adjective: naive. We’ve ignored the realities of this world. We preach that the world is fallen, but then shocked to discover that what we’ve preached is actually true; we are like the medium who claims to speak to the dead, but become afraid when the dead actually speak.

We become so wrapped up in the implications of the gospel, we spend so much time reading about the gospel, we debate over what exactly composes the gospel, that we’ve forgotten about the Gospel, the Truth, the Person, the Word.

When faced with the burdened down, the weary, the hurting, the victims of a life gone awry, Jesus does not lecture them on what His atonement accomplishes. Instead, He tells them, “Come to me, all who are wearied and overburdened, and I will give you rest (refreshing rest). Take my beam of balance (“yoke”) upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble at heart. And you will find rest in your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, my translation). That is the atonement, that in Christ we receive rest. Does Jesus save? Yes, if we let Him. Does Jesus save? Yes, if we seek rest in Him.

What is the atonement? What does it mean that Christ saves? It means this: Christ is the rest that the weary seek after, He is the hope that the hopeless long for, He is the lover of the unloved, the father to the orphans, the spouse to the widowed. He is strength for the weak, sight for the blind, sound to the deaf. He is light in our darkness, a companion to the lonely.

Never, ever, ever forget that this is the essence of the Gospel. It isn’t found in ceaseless debates or in an empty theology of self-betterment. The essence of the Gospel is that Christ came as the answer to the problem of evil. Christ didn’t come to give us some truth on how to live a better life. Christ didn’t come to point us to some way of living that would make us better. Christ didn’t come to bring us methods on how to have a better marriage. Christ came as THE way. Christ came as THE truth. Christ came as THE life. He came to teach us about Himself. That is the essence of the Gospel.

At some point, we Christians need to wake up and realize that we’re in a world that is stuck in winter. The darkness of this season penetrates the souls of all. We are left outside in the snow as the sun sets, attempting to find a fire to warm us. Many people find these fires of false philosophies, fires that provide a temporary warmth. But even these fires cannot last throughout the winter or even the night. The role of a Christian isn’t to put a blanket on those stuck in this frigid winter and tell them that Jesus gave them the blanket. The blanket is nice, it provides temporary warmth, but it ignores the bigger issue. Our role is to bring these people out of winter and into summer. Jesus saves? Then let us save people by gently helping them to migrate to warmer lands rather than protesting them for being cold.

We must tell them, we must show them, that Jesus is the warm summer heat to the frigid winter in our souls. Anything short of that and we have failed.

*Update at bottom of post

Even though the vast majority of people who have an opinion on gay marriage may not realize it, their opinion is ultimately shaped by their view of metaphysics (even if they’ve never consciously developed such a view). In metaphysics, especially in the West, there are two predominant views: Realism and nominalism.

For most of our readers, those two terms have no meaning, so it’s best to explain them before going on. Realism is the belief that things have a perfect form whereas nominalism is the belief that we give the form to things. Since there is no easier way to understand outside of an analogy, it’s best to use an analogy.

Think of a tree. We know when we’re looking at a tree even if we don’t know the type of tree. Realism teaches us that we know this because there is an ideal form of tree; there is an ultimate version of tree and all other trees are copies (albeit imperfect copies) of that ideal form of a tree. Nominalism says that there is that tree and other objects that look like it. There is no ideal form of a tree; each “tree” exists independently and we only call these objects “trees” because it makes it easier for us to categorize things. Thus, there is no absolute form of a tree, only our constructed view.

When applied to ethics, the issue becomes a bit clearer. Realism says that there are right things and wrong things independent of the human experience. Thus, murder is wrong even if a society says that murder is right. Nominalism, on the other hand, states that ethics are only as true as a society says. There is no absolute right and wrong, only mental constructs of what is right and what is wrong. Thus, murder is wrong so long as the people agree to say that it is wrong; once the people stop saying it is wrong, there are no moral implications to taking an innocent person’s life.

Thus, the realists look at marriage and say, “There is an ideal form of marriage to which all other marriages must achieve or attempt to achieve.” The nominalists look at marriage and say, “Marriage is what we say it is, we can define it however we desire.” And this is where we see the whole issue of homosexual marriage. Once we strip back the pithy responses, the strawmen arguments, and even the moral judgments, it is here we see the most basic level of this debate: Does an ideal to marriage exist and if so what is it?

What society, and many Christians, fail to understand is that to be a Christian (at least in the proper Christian tradition) is to be a committed realist. Christians believe that God created humans in His own image and that Christ came to restore us back to His image, which destroys the idea of nominalism right there. The Bible is replete with passages telling Christians to conform to Christ’s image, that Christ is the New Adam, that Christ is the perfect man, and so on. That means that for Christians, Christ is the ideal form of what it is to be human and we are to strive to conform to that ideal. That is realism. Nominalists would say that we determine what it is to be human, which runs contrary to Scripture; this is why Christians are committed realists (or should be).

This also means that Christians believe there is an ideal view of marriage. They get this view from Genesis and dumb it down to “one man, one woman.” And when reading Scripture it’s very apparent that God’s ideal for marriage is for it to be between one man and one woman. At the same time, we see other passages where multiple wives are allowed. Does this mean that the realist is wrong in his view of marriage? Not at all, it simply means that the ideal is not always realized. If the ideal were always realized then there would be no need for Christ. It means that God is willing and able to allow the ideal to be sacrificed to a certain degree in a fallen world in order; thus, war is not God’s ideal, but He allows it and orders it to counteract a fallen world. Polygamy and divorce are not ideal, but allowed within a certain context in a fallen world.

This is also why nominalists have such a hard time interpreting Scripture, they don’t understand the metaphysical commitments that Christians have made. They look at Scripture and say, “But passages concerning homosexuality are all in the Old Testament, which no longer applies!” or “But God allows polygamy, so it’s not ‘one man and one woman’!” Some will point to Romans and say that this is based on pagan practices in homosexuality and not homosexuality itself (which requires one to perform hermeneutical gymnastics to come to this conclusion). The realists look at these passages and say, “But these do not conform to God’s ideal of marriage” or “eating shellfish and wearing clothing of a single fabric has nothing to do with God’s ideal for humanity (as made clear in the New Testament), but how we conduct ourselves in marriage and who we choose to marriage has everything to do with His ideal for humanity.” And thus we see our metaphysical commitments interact.

The shorter version of this is Christians are against homosexual actions not out of ignorance, but out of the view that such actions do not fit within the ideal of marriage. The reason is that Christians also view men and women to have defined roles, or a defined telos to which they are ascribing. This is another issue where nominalists and realists speak past each other, on the role of men and women in society. Nominalists say that gender roles are a societal construct. Realists say that they have everything to do with our construct as humans. Reading Scripture one sees that realism is found even in how gender roles are defined. Thus, if one follows the realism of Scripture, one comes to the conclusion that men have an ideal and women have an ideal, that the two genders are different, yet compliment each other. If this view of realism is correct, then it only follows that marriage should be between one man and one woman because it fits within their respective telos.

Now, none of this speaks to the legal battle except to say this: One’s view of marriage is inherently tied to one’s religious views, which is exactly why the government should be forbidden from issuing marriage licenses. The ideal Christian marriage is one where a man and women come before God and are united as one. This view, however, is not shared by the populace. The government has no right to interject its opinion into the marriage issue. Instead, since taxes and other legal concerns do exist, the government should only issue civil unions and stop there. Those civil unions should exist for anyone regardless of beliefs or gender.

However, what I am saying does speak to the moral issue of homosexuality and how one approaches Scripture. I think it helps if we remove the façade of the debate surrounding homosexuality and reduce it to its metaphysical issues. Thus, while I still oppose marriage amendments that limit the rights of homosexual couples, I still view homosexual actions as going against the telos of humans, or against the ideal for humans.

All that being said, Christians need to understand their own foundations for beliefs as well. The way Christians have approached the homosexual issue has been utterly cruel and uncalled for. The lack of pastors speaking out against bullying, or adding a caveat to it is not only unhelpful, it’s contrary to the teachings of Christ. Viewing homosexual actions as a sin is consistent with Scripture, but treating them as subhuman is not; their sin is no different than a man who looks at pornography (in fact, pornography is in many ways worse) or a heterosexual couple engaged in premarital sex. Ultimately, the human ideal is found in Christ and we must understand that none of us have become as He is.

In the end, both sides needs to understand where each is coming from. We still need to have a discussion over these issues; after all, Christians could be wrong in their interpretation of the Scriptures. Maybe God’s ideal for marriage has nothing to do with gender (though this would mean that God doesn’t have an ideal for the genders either, which would be harder to prove). But comparing those who view homosexuality as a sin to Nazis or calling us ignorant isn’t going to get us to see your side. Likewise, calling people sodomites or treating homosexuality as some atrocity to befall us while ignoring other, bigger issues, isn’t going to convince people of the truth of Scripture. Both sides need to stop acting like children and instead face this issue with mutual dignity and respect.

* If you’re struggling to understand what I mean by “realism” and “nominalism,” you can replace “realism” with “universals” and “nominalism” with “particulars” and then read this post. 

JUST WAR AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: A CASE FOR CHRISTIAN INVOLVEMENT IN ARMED REBELLION

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most significant documents in the history of the world, yet it can pose a challenge to modern Christians. One must question the justification of the Founding Fathers in taking up arms against their own government. Furthermore, were the colonial Christians following in the way of Christ by loading muskets and firing upon the British in the name of freedom? This paper will argue that the Founders and Christian colonials engaged in a just war (via armed rebellion), but that the act – as all acts of war – did not fit within God’s ideal for man.[1]

Of course, the issue of Christians and violence goes much further than the Revolutionary War. If the Founders were not justified in rebelling against their government, then one must ask if anyone is ever justified in such rebellion. If Christians were wrong to engage in warfare against their government, one must ask if it is always wrong for Christians to do so. The Declaration of Independence and the subsequent war provide a good test case to see if it is ever okay for Christians to take up armed rebellion against their government.

To answer the thesis and achieve the purpose of the paper, one must (1) establish that a just war exists, (2) that an armed revolution can constitute a just war, and (3) that the American colonials met the requirements for this just war.

The Conditions for a Just Rebellion

The claim that one can engage in a just war, but still contradict God’s ideal for humanity, seems like a prima facie contradiction, but this seeming contradiction hinges on how one views the word “justified.” For an action to be justified it merely need have good reason behind it. Many actions are justified, but still viewed as less than ideal by Christians. Examples would include divorcing an unfaithful spouse, lying to save the life of another human, causing disunity in a local church body over important theological issues, and so on.[2] One should see that when “justice” is delivered in a court by sentencing a criminal to prison, such an act is not in accord with God’s ideal; the criminal should never have to face prison because in God’s ideal the criminal would have never become a criminal. “Justice” becomes a necessary thing in a fallen world, and therefore is not ideal. Thus, to be “justified” is simply to have a “right reason” for an action in a given situation, not necessarily to follow the ideal set for humanity.

Under the above understanding of “justified,” one must ask what constitutes a “just war” and if the Colonists met the criteria for a just war. The three criteria for a just war are jus ad bellum (right action before a war), jus in bellum (right action during a war), and jus post bellum (right action after a war).[3] For the purposes of this paper and defending the Founders in their initial rebellion, it is best to look to the criteria of jus ad bellum. The criteria for jus ad bellum are: (1) the war is called by a legitimate authority, (2) the cause must be just, (3) the ultimate goal must be peace, (4) the motive must not be hatred or vengeance, (5) war is the last resort, (6) success must be probable[4], (7) the means must be justified, that is, the ends cannot justify the means, (8) the means must do their best to preserve life, both of the opponent and innocent civilians, and (9) the means must meet international law.[5] Note that rebellions could fall within the just war premise under certain conditions (namely if the government is leading the people into multiple unjust wars[6] or if the government is attempting to rob the people of all liberty[7]). Suffice it to say that in a rebellion, as in all wars, war ought to be the last resort after all civil and nonviolent means be exhausted in order to be justified.[8]

A rebellion can easily fall under all the parameters for jus ad bellum even in light of the first criterion. A government derives its authority to govern from the will of the people.[9] This is not some deep philosophical thought or an outdated version of the Enlightenment, but merely a practical observation; a government is only effective so long as people choose to follow the government. If the people refuse to pay taxes and the soldiers/police will not listen to the government, then the government has no way of exercising its authority.

Since a government derives its power from the people, should the people decide the government has abdicated its role as a worthy government, they can choose to put a new government in its place. The assembly for the revolution cannot simply be an ad hoc gathering of disgruntled citizens, but officials the populace has placed their trust in (via elections). The elected body becomes the de facto government as the consent to be governed has been given to them, but not the ruling government.

A Just War is not Ideal

While war and revolution may be justified, one must understand that Christians ought to look upon war as less than God’s ideal. The Eastern Christian distinction between ακριβεια (akribeia ­­– God’s ideal) and οἰκονομία (oikonomia ­– what God will allow) help to explain how one can view war as justified (or necessary) while also viewing participation in that war as less than God’s ideal.[10] St. Athanasius states,

“…[I]t is not right to kill, yet in war it is lawful and praiseworthy to destroy the enemy; accordingly not only are they who have distinguished themselves in the field held worthy of great honours, but monuments are put up proclaiming their achievements. So that the same act is at one time and under some circumstances unlawful, while under others, and at the right time, it is lawful and permissible.”[11]

The quote demonstrates that even early Christians recognized that war was sometimes a necessity. Yet, one of the great Fathers of the Church, St. Basil the Great, writing hardly a generation after St. Athanasius advised priests to refuse communion for three years to soldiers who had killed in combat as a way for them to repair their relationship with God and their fellow men.[12] The two contrasted sentiments – one that honors the soldiers and the other that recognizes the reality of their conditions – demonstrates that the early Church believed that there was an ultimate ideal for God’s people, but that due to human frailty certain things were permissible and that ideal could not always be realized.

The idea of there being a duality to the war is not limited to the Eastern Christian tradition either, but is found in the Western theory of a just-war. According to the Christian theologian John Howard Yoder, “…[T]he just-war tradition considers war an evil but claims that under specific circumstances it is justifiable as less evil than the execution of some threat which it wards off or the continuation of some system which it changes.”[13] Yoder’s analysis of the just war position – of choosing the lesser evil – has quite a bit of Scriptural support. One can think of Rahab lying to the Canaanites about the Hebrew spies (Joshua 2:5) yet being considered righteous (James 2:25). One can even make the argument that the Mosaic Law was less than ideal and even advocated actions that God was against, but willing to tolerate given the circumstances.[14] War, then, may go against God’s absolute ideal (ακριβεια), but still be permissible due to human frailty (οἰκονμία).

Finally, while war might be justifiable and necessary in certain situations (οἰκονμία), it is less than ideal because it fails to fit within God’s plan for humanity (ακριβεια). Certainly God did not create the world with the desire for men to rage against one another. One of the biggest problems with warfare is that it opens the door for a multitude of sinful actions.[15]  While not every soldier in every war commits atrocious acts, it is true that even in the most just wars, soldiers can sometimes give into their more base tendencies and harm innocent people. Though the consequences do not render just wars unjust, it should be understood that with war, even just wars, the propencity to sin and commit heinous acts drammatically increases.[16] The reason for this is that war goes against human nature. While war might be necessary, forcing humans to go against their nature inherently causes additional problems for some engaged in the act of war.

Even in cases where soldiers perform amicably and in virtue, they still must face the horrible reality of war, which can destroy their souls.[17] The violence that is inherent in warfare contradicts the imago Dei; violence goes against man’s telos. In some ways, warfare could be called a sin against the soul, in that even when a soldier is just and blameless in his actions, his soul is still tarnished by what he sees and does.[18] Thus, just because one holds to the idea of a just war theory, one should never consider war as a good thing, but always as an evil that goes against God’s ultimate desire for man.

Were the Colonial Americans Justified?

With the criteria in mind, one can now look to the American Colonists, specifically the Chrstians, and see if they were justified in their armed rebellion against the British government. It should be noted that the British government cracked down on peacable and nonviolent demonstrations and implicitly allowed their soldiers to kill the colonists on a whim. One can think of the Boston Massacre and how the main British instigators of the action escaped without consequences.[19] Another example is of a British sympathizer firing indiscriminately into a crowd of protestors, killing an eleven-year-old boy and subsequently being pardoned by the king for this act.[20] Such actions merely exacerbated the tensions between the Crown and the Colonists, to the point that these mock-trials for the murders were listed as one of the grievences in the Declaration of Independence.

The British government responded to nonviolent colonial protests with violence and even forced the Colonists into wars and to kill each other. As another grievance in the Declaration states, “He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.” It must be understood that most of the fighting done in the year prior to 1776 was instigated by the British. By doing this, King George III implied ownership over the Colonists’ liberty, which then opened the case for a just war against the Crown.

The reality of the pre-revolution Colonies is that the British Empire had simply abdicated itself as a legitimate authority over the Colonies. At one point the Crown simply refused to even read the petitions from the Colonies.[21] If the people give consent to the government to rule then by necessity the government must listen to the people, as they are essentially the “rulers of the authorities.” Rather, the Crown and Parliament continued to pass authoritarian laws without considering how such laws might negatively impact the Colonists.[22]

It should be noted as well that the Declaration of Independence did not arise out of some long-held desire by the masses to be free from Great Britain. Rather, many Colonists were content to remain under British sovereignty, so long as the Crown (and more importantly, Parliament) addressed their concerns; it was the deafening silence of the British government that left the Colonists feeling they had no choice but to separate.[23] In fact, as Mary Otis Warren wrote,

“Independence was a plant of a later growth. Though the soil might be congenial, and the boundaries of nature pointed out the event, yet every one chose to view it at a distance, rather than wished to witness the convulsions that such a dismemberment of the empire must necessarily occasion.”[24]

The evidence seems to indicate that while hostilities began between the Colonists and the British Empire in 1775, it took a full year before the Colonists finally decided to enable a new government. The will of the people rejected the British government and gave their consent to their elected officials; at that point the British government, by practicality, lost all right to govern the American Colonies. It was not disorganized chaos or a rogue group of individuals attempting to overthrow the government without having a governing body already in place to whom they had given consent to govern; rather, the Colonists sought peace and when peace could not be found, did the only logical thing they could, which was to absolve themselves from the Crown.

Considering that the Colonists faced violence and arbitrary decrees from their government, coupled with tyrannical declarations and the refusal of the Crown to listen to the Colonial protests, the Colonists were subsequently left with no other choice but to rebel. They did not, however, simply take to the streets in anarchy, but instead formed another government, giving consent to a primitive governing body and therefore removing their consent from the British Empire. The Colonists, including the Christians, were justified in engaging in armed rebellion against the British government.

Pacifism Considered

Christian pacifists can argue from both a consequentialist view and an idealistic view; they can point to the potential consequences of warfare to reject war or they can point that, in its very nature, war is an evil that Christians cannot partake in. Howard Zinn makes the consequentialist argument (albeit secular) that the inherent problem with warfare is that war is “…[T]he indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain.”[25] The Christian, by engaging in warfare, may be fighting for what is believed to be a worthy goal, but must kill humans to achieve it, thus negating war as a worthy means to achieve a desirable end.

Wilhelm Wille points more to the ideal of pacifism and how even the best forms of the just war theory result in horrible results. This is not due to poor execution, but instead to the fact that Christians are not to engage in warfare.[26] Extrapolating on his idea, one could argue that since God’s ideal is for men not to fight that Christians are therefore called to uphold God’s ideal. This would explain why a true “just war” has never occurred, that one is impossible because war is more than violating God’s ideal, but is actually a sin.

Armed rebellion is therefore out of the question and the Founders are left without justification for their actions. By violating the telos of humanity, the Founders subsequently sinned by engaging in war. Under the pacifist view, therefore, Christians (and humans in general) are left without cause for war because (1) war uses human lives as means to an end and (2) war is simply wrong in its own right as it violates man’s telos.

Pacifism Rejected

In response to the objections, it must first be noted that just because war is less than God’s ideal for humanity, it is non sequitur to assume that this means war is sinful. As already explained, within the Christian tradition there is a view of God’s ideal and what God will allow (ακριβεια and οἰκονομία). One can think of God commanding the Hebrews to engage in war against the Canaanites both as a way for the Hebrews to take the Promised Land and for the Canaanites to be punished for their sins. Even the deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom states that God desires the Canaanites to repent, yet allowed them to be killed because of their refusal to repent (Wisdom 12:1-22). In finding one selection where God displays His ideal, but then allows another action, one can see that God will allow actions that are less than ideal to occur, but these actions are not necessarily sinful.

On the issue pacifism as an ideal, the believer is left with the fact that sometimes nonintervention or pacifism allows evil to occur, which is the antithesis of “loving thy neighbor.”[27] It’s difficult to claim that a man loves his neighbor while allowing a brutal dictator to murder his neighbor. Even early Christian nations did not allow such atrocities.[28] The Christian Colonists saw that sometimes one must bloody a tyrant in order to love a neighbor.

The biggest problem for those who believe in pacifism as an ideal, however, is that God simply does not change. As noted, God allowed the Hebrews to war against the Canaanites (not only allowed, but ordered). It is not as though God would determine one day to change and forbid war. Rather, one should recognize that sometimes God allows war to occur because the war, while horrible in itself, will prevent a greater evil from occurring.[29]

The rejection of pacifism, however, is not a praise of war; God’s allowance of war (and sometimes ordering of war) does not mean that war fits within God’s ideal. In warfare, especially an armed revolution, the goal should be to bring a quick end to hostilities and achieve a stable society; this is best accomplished through nonviolent means.[30] However, as previously noted by LeMasters, nonviolent means are not always possible, thus even Christians must at times be prepared to take up arms in order to secure freedom and to display love towards one’s neighbor.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the Colonists (and Christians) were justified in rebelling against the British Crown. The government had shown that it was willing to rob the liberty of the colonists, which then opened the door for the colonials to wage war to preserve their lives. While the war (and all wars) was less than God’s ideal, it was a lesser evil than allowing tyranny to persist. Thus, while participation in the Revolution was unfortunate, it was necessary and justified.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Friends Service Committee. In Place of War: An Inquiry Into Nonviolent National Defense. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1967.

Athanasius. “Letter XLVIII: Letter to Amun,” in Athanasius: Select Works and Letters. Volume 4 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Kindle edition.

Coates, A.J. The Ethics of War. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1997

Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011.

Glover, Jonathan. Causing Death and Saving Lives: The Moral Problems of Abortion, Infanticide, Suicide, Euthanasia, Capital Punishment, War, and Other Life-or-Death Choices. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.

Heft, James. “Religion, World Order, and Peace: Christianity, War, and Peacemaking.” Cross Currents 60 (September 2010): 328-331.

Holmes, Authurt F. Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions. Contours of Christian Philosophy. Series Edited by C. Stephen Evans. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1984.

Lefkowitz, David. “Debate: Legitimate Authority, Following Orders, and Wars of Questionable Justice.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 18 (2010): 218-227.

Leithart, Peter J. Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010.

LeMasters, Philip. “Orthodox Perspectives on Peace, War and Violence,” Ecumenical Review 63 (March 2011): 54-61.

Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Edited C.B. Macpherson. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980.

O’Callaghan, Father Paul. “Peace and War in the Eastern Orthodox Church,” Messenger 14 November 2003.

Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1982.

Seely, Robert A. Choosing Peace: A Handbook on War, Peace, and Your Conscience. Philadelphia and San Francisco: Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, 1994.

Warren, Mercy Otis. The Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution. Volume 1. Edited Lester Cohen. Indianapolis: Liberty Funds, 1994.

Wille, Wilhelm. “Ambivalence in the Christian Attitude to War and Peace.” International Review of Psychiatry 19 (June 2007): 235-242.

Yoder, John Howard. When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984.

Zinn, Howard. “The Untold Truths About the American Revolution.” The Progressive (July 2009). http://www.progressive.org/zinn070309.html (accessed March 28, 2012).

Icon of the Resurrection

(Apologies on the long post, but the Resurrection warrants it. Feel free to bookmark this post and come back to it if time is needed to read it. This is also partially an excerpt from a yet-to-be-published manuscript I’ve written [if anyone is interested, let me know], so I hope you enjoy)

It may seem an odd time to write about Easter, considering it’s nearly midnight (EST United States) and that Easter was a week ago. However, for those who don’t follow the Western calendar, Easter, or better known as Pascha in the East, will begin tonight at midnight. The Pascha service is always celebrated a week after Passover for the very simple reason that this is how it occurred in the Bible.

That being said, as some may note I recently wrote about the failure of Greater Good Theodicies. As for a workable solution for the problem of evil, tonight’s celebration serves as both the explanation and the solution for the problem of evil. While philosophers have debated as to how an all-powerful, all-benevolent God could allow evil to exist for centuries, that all-powerful, all-benevolent God answered these philosophical inquiries by dying on a cross and raising from the dead.

How is it that evil exists within this world? Sadly, it exists because we allow it to exist. When we talk of “good” and “evil,” we must remember that we are talking about substance vs. non-substance, that is to say that “good” actually exists whereas evil is simply the privation of that good. What is good? Goodness is an attribute of God, thus God is good; God is present and active in all the acts of goodness that we see. Thus, when we choose evil, we are choosing to work against God. Since we were endowed with free will (which deserves another post on why free will creatures who can sin are better than determined beings who cannot sin), we can actively choose to limit God’s interactions with this world. While this doesn’t limit His presence and while His sovereignty is not infringed (as He can act against our actions, though not in an overbearing way as to negate free will), it does mean that God allows us autonomy. In fact, that is the root of all sin, that we desire autonomy from God. God grants us this autonomy, and the consequences of our desires is what we call evil. We are the cause of evil.

But what of natural evil? What of tsunamis and tornadoes? What of animal suffering? The answer to this goes back to creation; as we were created in the image of God to hold dominion over the earth, our actions were tied to the outcome of creation. In our sin, we negatively impacted creation and subjected it to sin. While we in the West love individualism, we must understand that individualism is not an accurate picture of life. We are tied to each other and creation. While we are each individuals, we are not autonomous individuals. Tomorrow when I eat carrots and green beans, my choice in that impacts those who canned the food, picked the food, grew the food, and even impacts the land itself. Thus, in our choice to sin and choose autonomy from God, it only follows that nature would also be impacted. (All of this deserves an academic approach, and one is coming within the next months; suffice it to say, however, that this post is not meant to be academic).

The new atheists have taken this argument of evil up as their rallying cry. “God is not great,” they explain. “He’s evil because He allows evil, therefore He doesn’t exist.” All of this, however, only shows unwillingness on the part of the atheists (and other critics) to explore the Biblical reason for evil. The Bible is clear that God is very aware of the evil in the world, but He uses it to display His love. Sometimes He takes what was meant for evil and turns it into good (Romans 8:28). While this doesn’t deny gratuitous evil, nor am I saying that every instance of evil is allowed because it will cause a greater good, I am saying that the ultimate reason for allowing evil is because He created us with free wills, wills that are free to choose Him or deny Him.

In His perfect knowledge, God allowed evil to occur so that we might experience His love in a fuller way.[1] While the Fall wasn’t necessary for us to feel God’s love perfectly, it does allow us to see that God loves us via sacrifice. The Fall opened the doors for God to sacrifice by sending His only begotten Son to live, suffer, and die on our behalf. While the Fall was not necessary, our sinful action(s) necessitated a loving response from God.

Thus, God allowed evil so He could experience evil and in so doing we could experience His love. We all endure evil, but how quickly we forget that God has experienced evil greater than any of us could fathom. He has been the victim of His creation. Furthermore, when He took on human flesh He participated in our sufferings. The same flesh that is destroyed in genocide is the flesh that Christ took on. It is not as though God allowed evil and then removed Himself from the experience; rather, He allowed evil and then put Himself at the center of its suffering.

We look into the Garden of Eden and see God allowing humanity to fall and ask “Why?” God points to the Garden of Gethsemane and says, “This is why.” The Son took on all the sins of the world and was separated from the Father. What greater evil is there than for an innocent to suffer for the sake of the guilty? Yet Christ did this out of His love and His own willingness. Though we experience evil, evil that we think others could never fathom, God has suffered much more. This is not so He can brag or say, “Tough it out, I’ve had it worse,” but instead so we know that He can truly sympathize with us and that we can trust Him to get us through an experience of evil.

It wasn’t just the physicality of the cross that was the greatest evil – because others have suffered more – but the spiritual nature of the cross and what was occurring on the cross that none of us have ever experienced that makes it the greatest evil to have ever happened on this earth.

Imagine a child walking with her father while eating her ice cream. She trips a little and the ice cream falls off her cone. To her this is a great evil, but the father, being older, has experienced much worse. She can sit there and wonder, “Why would my father allow me to trip and lose my ice cream?” or she can trust him. She can turn to her father, she can cry to him, she can reach out to him and beg for him to hold her since he too has experienced evil. And being a loving father who has experienced far greater evil, he can sympathize with her and help her through it.

Or we can think of when we lose our parents to a disease. For many, the loss of a parent comes after we’ve become adults and experienced some life with them. But the evil that befalls us pales in comparison to those who lose their parents at a young age or to those who have their parents abandon them. We all experience personal evils on a different level. We all react to those evils differently, so it’s hard to say that one evil is worse than another. But we can look to the cross and say that, without a doubt, the greatest evil to ever occur on earth occurred on the cross when the creation murdered the Creator, the guilty crucified the innocent, the perpetrators of evil destroyed the Good.

Yet, while the cross is the greatest act of evil, it is also the cure to the problem of evil. On the cross we see evil try to reign triumphal, but it had been defeated without knowing it. The empty grave of Christ stands as a testament to the defeat of evil.[2]

While we experience actual evil and suffering from it, we must remember that the love of God can overcome any evil. When we come before the Lord on our knees and cry out, “Dear Lord, why has this befallen upon me,” He doesn’t chastise us, He doesn’t turn His back to us, He responds, “My child, I love you and I have endured it as well; come and lay your weary head upon my chest.” Rather than questioning God’s very existence because of evil, we should humbly and lovingly turn to Him for comfort, for He has already endured our pain and so much more.

Christ wasn’t bashful concerning the problem of evil, rather than attempting to explain it away by some complex theodicy He offered Himself as a theodicy. In Matthew 11:28-30, He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Thus, God does not shy away from the problem of evil, but instead He answers it by telling us to come to Him. Only within the Christian faith does the problem of evil have a real solution; in some other faiths (or lack of faiths) the solution is to explain that evil doesn’t really exist, or that we must appease some totalitarian god. In Christ we learn that we are the cause of evil, but that He is the solution, not through appeasement, but through rest.

The answer to the problem of evil isn’t found in a clever syllogism or in a preacher’s aphorism, rather the answer is a Man; the ultimate answer to the question of evil, the best theodicy one can give, is a bloody cross and an empty tomb.

He is a God who can be trusted. We know why He allows evil to exist on a grand scale, but why specific evils? Why does He allow pain and misery to come upon our individual lives? Job asked this same question and only God could provide an answer. His answer was, “Trust Me.” After all, who are we to find fault in God (Job 40:2)? He is perfect and we are imperfect. His ways are not our ways and His knowledge is infinitely more than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9). God is good because God is love, so in times of evil He is all we have to rely on.[3]

The critics of God would have a point about evil if God allowed evil and left us there. If God allowed evil to enter the world and offered no way out of this world, then truly He would be cruel. He would be no better than a child burning the antennas off ants. But that is not the God we worship. God has offered a way out of this evil world; He has offered a way that defeats evil. The ultimate answer to the problem of evil is Jesus Christ; He faced evil on the cross and defeated it when He rose from the grave. Evil has already been defeated, we are merely waiting for the fulfillment of this defeat (Revelation 20:10, 14).

God is Love

The explanation to the problem of evil – God’s love – might seem a bit weird, but we cannot forget that love is behind everything God does. While He does do everything for His glory, it is equally true to say that He does everything out of His love. We cannot separate the attributes of God, thus everything He does displays both His glory and His love.

God created everything out of love. He created because He loved the Son and wished to honor the Son, but the Son wasn’t sitting on the sidelines. The Father spoke everything into existence through His Word (Jesus Christ) in the power of the Holy Spirit. God accomplished this out of love for Himself, with the Persons of the Trinity working in perfect harmony. But He also created simply for the love of creation. He is an artist. We look at certain things in nature and wonder, “Why would God do this?” But when we look at a painting, very rarely do we go, “I wonder why the artist did this.” We simply sit back and enjoy the art. It is the same with creation. We don’t have to ascribe a pragmatic purpose to everything; we can simply sit back and enjoy the artistic display of our Lord. Creation is art painted by the love of God.

God then created humans out of love. He didn’t have to create intelligent beings who were capable of having a relationship with Him, but He chose to. He did this out of love for us. He created us as a display of His perfect love; we are to love His creation, love each other, love ourselves, and love Him.

In all of this, He allowed us to fall. It is His love that allowed us to fall, for how loving would God be if He forced us to follow Him? Contrary to recent claims, God is no tyrant. When Adam and Eve rebelled, He didn’t kill them and start over. God didn’t create little robots that would follow His every command. Some people post the question, “Couldn’t God have created free beings who just didn’t have the capacity to rebel?” Common sense would dictate that if we never had the capacity to rebel then we wouldn’t truly be free, at least not if that was our starting point.[4] No, God gave us the freedom to rebel because He would rather have a willful servant than a mindless slave (Isaiah 1:18).

He allowed us to rebel because He knew it would allow Him to display His love. He knew that in our rebellion He could display the ultimate sacrifice – the giving of His only begotten Son. He wanted to display His love for us that even while we rebelled against Him, He would die for us (Romans 5:8). Even while we spat in His face, even while we hurled insults, even while we mocked Him, even while we questioned who He was, He loved us so much that He would sooner remain on the cross than come down and destroy us.

He took on the form of a man out of love. The Son emptied Himself of His divine attributes so that He might experience life with us. He is not some transcendent God without immanence, some unloving God who refuses to experience life as we do. Rather, God “got His hands dirty” by taking on flesh, but He did this out of love. He experienced our pain. He blistered under the heat. All that it is to be human, He did so, but without sin.

He became human so that He could ultimately die for us. Once again, love is the motivating factor. Out of love, Christ stood before Pilate falsely accused. Out of love, Christ bore a crown of thorns and was whipped. Out of love He marched up to Golgotha to hang on a cross. Out of love He let the soldiers put nails through His hands. Out of love He bore our transgressions. Out of love He was forsaken on our behalf. Out of love God came down to this earth and died for His rebellious creation. Out of love He rose from the grave. And out of love He bestows the effects of His actions onto us.

The Father’s love for the Son is what moved the stone away from the tomb. It was their love for each other that Christ raised physically from the dead to sit at the right hand of the Father. It is out of love that Christ’s resurrection is our way to salvation, the way to perfect reconciliation with the Father. God didn’t have to offer this to us, but He chose to because He loves us.

Because God loves us, we too are supposed to love others. He calls us to be representatives of His love this side of eternity. We are to love everyone. It is easy to love the lovable, but we are called to love the unlovable. We are a parent to the orphans. We are a liberator to the oppressed. We are a friend to the lonely. We are a comforter to the criminal. But we are also to love the corrupt CEO who fires employees so he can make a profit. We are to display love to our oppressors. While we must fight against the corruption of this world, we must never forget that we are still called to love our enemies. We are a lover to all, from the highest of society to the lowest, from the most virtuous among us to the darkest criminals in the deepest cells. To all, we are an example of God’s love on this earth.

It is love that compels God to bring us into eternal fellowship with Him, into the Divine community of the Trinity. How kind it would be of Him to merely destroy our souls once this life is over. How justified He would be in such an action. But he invites us into a perfect eternal fellowship with Him where we will forever love Him. Love is the focal point of every action of God. Everything He does, from His justice to His creation, from His revelation to His transcendent nature; every action of God is tied up to His love. If love is the focal point of God’s actions, then it should be the focal point for our actions as well. Though we will fail at this – because who can love like God? – we are to strive toward loving others as Christ has loved us.

An Eternal Love

God is the purpose of life. When we wander around, wondering what our purpose on this earth is, we can realize that He is everything. He is our end and everything else is a means. He fulfills us, He gives us rest from this weary life. Christ calls out to us, to us sinners, and says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” It is a comforting thought that God would care for us so much that He would make such an invitation. It is easy to feel overwhelmed in this world. All of us have our hearts clouded by sin and by pain; to this Christ makes the invitation to come and rest in Him.

The invitation of Christ isn’t an invitation into a bunch of “do’s” and “do not’s,” but rather an invitation into a relationship. We enter into a relationship with Him and with His body, the Church. In so doing, we begin to live as though the Kingdom has come. This relationship is more than the following a moral code or saying a prayer for the forgiveness of our sins and then hoping for Heaven; certainly these are a part of the relationship, but they do not summarize the entire relationship. A honeymoon is only part of the married life; it is an important part, but not the entire thing. Likewise, asking Christ to forgive us our sins and walking the “straight and narrow” is a part of being a Christian, but not the entire thing. We obey Christ out of love, not out of obligation.

God’s love for us transcends time. He loved us before He created us (1 Peter 1:18-20). What sinner would dare dream of a God who would love us before we even existed? God is what sinners dare not dream. Everything in Scripture points to God’s working toward the fulfillment of His love in Christ on the cross. His plan is what we could never fathom. His love is eternal and we can never be separated from it. What better way to conclude with a passage from Paul (Romans 8:18-39):

 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

May it be so as we pursue the Eternal and seek to be with Him unto ages of ages. Amen.

Well, the only act of “blasphemy” I see is comparing your plays to C.S. Lewis (who, by the way, wasn’t writing an allegory; “Pilgrim’s Progress” is an allegory, the Chronicles series is just Lewis creating a Socratic exercise, a “What if ____”, where the blank is filled by “…Jesus went into a world where animals ruled?”).

The problem with what you’re doing is that it does cheapen the Gospel; not because it’s entertainment, but because it’s not all that creative. You’re taking well-established characters and simply “tweaking” them. If nothing else, it’s similar to a copyright violation, not creation.

Being made in the image of God means that Christians are called to be creative, not copy-cats. This is why we respect men like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the like; they created entire worlds. While it’s true that they borrowed from Greek and Norse mythology, they didn’t full on steal from Aesop’s Fables or from the mythological stories; they simply used the creatures in those stories and put them in a new world.

If you want to do a play on Easter about the Resurrection, then wonderful, good luck, blessings, and mazel tov. But at least be creative, be original, produce a work of art; don’t simply ape and copy from the world, put a Christian twist on it, and say, “Viola!” If you want to do a story about a super hero who dies and comes back from the dead, then make him original. While the super hero motif isn’t original, but what you do with that motif can be (just as paint colors and a canvass isn’t original, but what is done with them can be).

Furthermore, you seem to defend what you’re doing by saying, “It gets the unchurched into our building!” Maybe so, but so what? While entertainment isn’t wrong, when you try to get people to come to your church by entertaining them, or performing some type of venus fly trap for the unchurched, they’re eventually going to get bored. It’s why even great shows have to come to an end; at some point, you either jump the shark and lose your audience, or you have to bring the story to an end. Either way, entertaining your congregation as a means to build your congregation is self-defeating.

If you really want to attract the unchurched to your church, perhaps you could offer them something real. Entertainment isn’t wrong, but we should call it for what it is; a temporary vacation for the mind. This is necessary sometimes, especially in our world. But ultimately, it lacks proper substance (hence my previous point of people getting bored and entertainment running its course). If you really want to shock people, then serve them. If anyone has a problem with this, or is turned off by it, then it’s not up to us to trick them into wanting to come to church.

The problem with your approach is that it ignores the fundamental aspect of Christianity, the central tenet of our soteriology; we are to die to ourselves. When we try to attract people to church and keep them there by entertaining them or offering programs that make them happy, we’re not teaching them to die to themselves, we’re simply taking materialist narcissists and turning them into spiritual narcissists.

In the end, more churches should engage in drama, in paintings, in creative music; more churches should engage in the arts. God is creative and being in His image we too are called to be creative. But this creativity should, you know, actually be creative. Not to be crass, but simply to get my point across, taking famous movies and using their characters and plot-lines while changing a few aspects is what pornographers do; it shouldn’t be what Christians do. A pornographer looks at a movie title like “Men in Black” and thinks, “How can I make this about men who wear black suits and get women?” A Christian shouldn’t look at a movie title like “Men in Black” and think, “How can I make this about priests who bring people to Jesus?”

That’s not to say that you’re anything like a pornographer and I hope you didn’t take it that way. I’m simply underlining my point that simply changing a few things and adding a Christian theme isn’t creative, just as changing a few things and adding a sexual theme isn’t creative; it’s simply a bastardization of what art happened to be there.

Ultimately, what will win this world over isn’t Christians copying the world and sanctifying the art that we see. What will win this world over is Christians actually living like Christ; that is, helping those who need it. A church of 50 who volunteer to help the people in their neighborhood will speak more to the message of Christ than a church of 5,000 who puts on a play about Jack ‘Saviour.’ The world will not follow a man who is in love with his creativity, rather, the world will follow a man who is creative with his love.

The only thing I’ll add as a subscript that I didn’t add in the comment is that I really don’t mind Christians being artistic. There’s nothing wrong with Christians who want to write good songs (and they don’t even have to be about Jesus or Christian themes). I happen to write poetry and take pictures as a hobby (many of the pictures I’ve been using lately are pictures I’ve taken). Other Christians want to produce movies. There’s nothing wrong with this at all; “Christian art” shouldn’t be a genre. But we don’t do ourselves any favors when we ape the world or take someone else’s work and simply add Jesus to is. We cheapen the Gospel, cheapen the creativity of the person, and cheapen ourselves. Anytime we use “Christian” as an adjective, chances are we’re ruining something.

Rather than offering up my own theodicy (which is a theory I’m working on, something that will take a while to develop), I wanted to point out what I see as a problem in the traditionally “Greater Good” theodicies.

For the unfamiliar, a Greater Good Theodicy (GGT) teaches that God will allow an evil if and only if He can use it to bring about a greater good. The problem is many GGT theodicies end up saying that all evil is allowed because God wants to bring about a greater good.

Were I an atheist, I’d simply point out that, logically following, the greater the evil the greater the good; therefore, why isn’t this world full of more evil? If all evil begets a greater good, then perhaps God could allow 1 in 3 children to die of cancer, which would cause people to become scientists to discover a cure for cancer, which would help all humans. Were I an atheist, I could pick apart the logical problems with GGT.

However, as a Christian I can point to some bigger problems with GGT and show how it’s highly inconsistent with what we believe about God. For instance, let’s assume that God allows an evil to occur because it brings about a bigger good; this would mean that God is a consequentialist, possibly a Utilitarian, meaning He doesn’t really care about you.

If God knows that the death of a child will somehow lead to a cure for a deadly disease and He allows it, that means that He allowed the death of one person for the “greater good.” He allowed a child to suffer and die a horrendous death simply because He wanted us to discover the cure. Of course, this is the same God who spoke audibly to the ancient prophets and this is the same God who is infinite in knowledge; surely He could find some way to allow the child to live, have us develop the cure, and not rob us of our free will. Yet, according to GGT there is not another way, which just seems cruel.

In such a situation, it means that God used the child as a means to an end. Such a view inherently contradicts the view that God is love. If God is love and He is infinite in His love, and if God is personal, then it’s a contradiction to say that God will use us as means to an end, showing little concern as to what happens to us. While God will use us to accomplish a goal, He doesn’t use us as means; rather, we become co-workers with God or adversaries against God. Either way, we’re active participants where our involvement matters to God, not simply pawns that He moves across a chessboard in order to win a game.

And this is why, as a Christian, I must reject the GGT. I must say that, in fact, gratuitous evil does exist. I must say that, it’s true, some evil happens without a greater good to counteract it. Some might point to Romans 8:28, but I would point out that (1) it says this only happens for those who love God and (2) it only says that God turns evil into good for those that love Him; Paul doesn’t say that God turns this into a good that is greater than evil.

In the end, then, we must rethink our theodicy when it comes to the evidential argument for evil. We cannot rely on the GGT because, while logically coherent in itself, it becomes illogical when applied to Christian beliefs as it contradicts our view of God.

I would advocate everyone to look at Bruce Little’s Creation-Order Theodicy as a possible solution, though I believe (as he states in his book) that there is a lot of work required to shape up his theory. For those curious, that is where my studying is heading.

Of course, many learn from Sunday School that “Gospel” simply means “good news.” But what is this good news and who is it directed towards? Is it good news for the oppressed that Christ has come to strike down the oppressors (side note: anyone notice how the views of Messiah in 1st century Judea match those of liberation theologians)? Is the good news that God has come to call His elect (also a 1st century view)? Or is it something much simpler?

I think Paul’s summary of the Gospel is, in my opinion, the best view on exactly what the Gospel is; “Christ Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul states that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an opponent to Christ, yet through mercy he was able to turn away from these things. In other words, the Gospel is the good news for everyone who is a sinner. Via reduction, this means the Gospel is good news for everyone.

But what does it mean “to save sinners?” Does this mean that He came simply to save us from our sins, yet let us continue to wallow in oppression or starvation? Does this mean He came to save us from physical oppression, which would then create a pathway to spiritual salvation? The answer to this, of course, is “yes.”

Christ came to save sinners. When we say “save sinners,” we mean exactly that; He came to save us from our sins, from our oppression, from our torment, from our physical ails, and so on. The Gospel is not some Gnostic or Platonic fantasy where the soul is saved and all physical salvation is secondary. Nor is the Gospel materialistic where we are saved from oppressors with no promise of an afterlife. The Gospel is holistic, meaning that salvation is both spiritual and physical. The actions on the cross save us from our sins, but also save us from death; neither is more important than the other, both are equally important. The Gospel makes us whole again – it doesn’t make us imbalanced by saving our spirit, but neglecting our body or saving our body, but neglecting our spirit. The Gospel saves our spirit and body.

If your Gospel doesn’t include helping the unfortunate, you’ve missed the point. If your Gospel doesn’t include helping people repent of their sins, you’ve missed the point. If your Gospel feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and preaches redemption for sinners, then you’ve got it. You’ve found the good news. And the great thing is that good news is for everyone; they merely have to listen and follow.

Even the idea of “bringing Christ to the people” seems like something that can be bastardized by American Christianity. In fact, one could imagine multiple lesson plans, structures, programs, and campaigns organized to “bring Christ to the people.” It would culminate in taking our American Jesus with our American ideals to a non-American society and encouraging them to become good American Christians. Sadly, many people unintentionally link their Patriotism to their faith, leading to a sentimentality that is no different than that of the general’s in Stanely Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. The general says, “We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every [Vietnamese] there is an American trying to get out.” Of course, I edited out the racial epithet, but it does underscore what I believe is a mentality within American Christianity.

Now, I could prolong this post by going on and on about the problems with American Christianity. I could point out that we’ve developed this prosperity Gospel. I could show how we’ve become too comfortable with our position in the world. I could speak more and more about the problem of blending the culture with the Gospel, rather than letting the Gospel impact and change the culture. Ultimately, however, there is simply one big problem with American Christianity, and the problem with American Christianity is that a thing such as American Christianity exists. That we can put a cultural adjective before the word “Christianity” is a shame; we wouldn’t want to think of “Japanese Christianity” or “Canadian Christianity” because we would view this as mixing the culture and the Gospel, but this is what has happened with us in America.

Thus, the scariest part about following Christ and truly living as He desires is that in order to be a good Christian, you sometimes have to be a horrible patriot. In order to follow Christ and be true to Him, you sometimes have to be culturally insensitive or even counter-cultural. If the culture says “do this,” but Christ says “do that,” then we must do that which He commands. Many people may think they are tracking with me on this issue. They may think, “Right, like how the Germans mixed the culture too much in WWII and followed Hitler,” or “Right, if the government demanded I abandon Christ I wouldn’t do it.” Certainly this hits the bigger issues, but these are extreme and far-fetching examples. Rather, I am thinking about the underlying currents of these movements; for instance, what created the precedence that allowed German citizens who worshiped Christ to also murder their fellow man?

Look at American culture and consider how much we’ve wrapped our Christianity with the American flag. Imagine if you were walking along the southern border in Texas and heard a story about an illegal immigrant who took a border patrol agent to the hospital. Imagine this story was posted on a conservative news site. While some comments would be reasonable, the overwhelming majority of them would condemn the illegal immigrant for being within our borders, yet many of these naysayers would claim Christ. Apparently they forgot the shocking narrative of the “Good Samaritan,” the fact that “Samaritans” were hated and despised in ancient Israel. In this way we have allowed our culture to wrap up our Christianity; while protecting the border is important, what is far more important is showing compassion and love to those who are outcast (from a Christian perspective).

Alternatively, we can imagine a CEO inviting a “preacher-of-the-people” over to his house to eat. Furthermore, imagine that this CEO bragged about ripping people off to get where he was. Yet, he found this preacher and wanted to dine with him, so he had this preacher come over to his house, feeding this preacher food paid for by money taken from other people. Imagine this story found its way onto a liberal website and imagine the comments you’d get then. Many people would condemn the preacher and say that he abandoned the Gospel because he was dining with someone who had exploited people. Apparently they forgot the shocking act of Zacchaeus (you know, that wee little man) and how Jesus dined with a tax collector, who openly admitted to stealing from people (though he repented). While stopping corporate injustice (where it exists – not all corporations are evil, nor are all CEOs) is important, what is far more important is showing compassion and love to the exploiters that they might stop exploiting (from a Christian perspective).

For these reasons, following Christ in any true sense is a scary activity, which is why few people (including myself) attempt it with any seriousness. And that is quite the shame. In our refusal to abandon the shackles of our culture and embrace the freedom of Christ, we’ve caused the world to grow weary of our version of Christianity. Sadly, the world can’t see that we are offering a cheap trick, a mere substandard imitation of the original. To put it as G.K. Chesterton put it, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried…Men have not got tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of.”

What does it mean to abandon one’s culture and follow Jesus? For Christ, it meant being around prostitutes and tax collectors, around adulterous women and Samaritans, around live-in girlfriends and even Pharisees. For the early Church, it meant being around slaves and Barbarians, around Roman Governors and Gentiles. For us it might mean being around Muslims (even the extremists) and illegal immigrants. It might mean we have to be around abortionists and corrupt CEOs. We might have to befriend Iranians, Iraqis, or Russians. We may need to serve AIDS victims who acquired the disease through promiscuity or by no fault of their own. In other words, to save one’s culture, one must abandon the same culture.

The scary aspect of following Christ is that it is one giant paradox. In our infidelity to our culture we are displaying the greatest act of love. We are telling the culture, “I cannot accept you as you are, but I love you enough to change you into who you ought to be.” To adapt the Gospel to our culture is an act of hateful melancholy because it robs the culture of the true power that Christ offers. To adapt the culture to the Gospel by abandoning one’s culture is an act of love because it rescues the culture from its current position.

If our churches were to start showing more concern for helping their local community than building a bigger sanctuary, then the world would see Christianity. If our people were as concerned over visiting the hospitals (especially terminally ill patients who have no one with them in their moment of need) as they are over their small group meetings, then perhaps the world would consider Christ. Instead, we have ended up with a form of Christianity that focuses on the self and what the self can get out of church. The irony is that American Christianity is pragmatic in all things except in actually living out its faith. Faith isn’t something we work through, but rather something that simply is. Faith almost becomes a state of being, that we’ve said a prayer, we trust in God, and now we’re on the finance committee.

If we wish to see our culture saved, we must abandon it. We must reach out to those who are different from us, even those who would call themselves our enemies. We must begin to live our faith by helping those who can’t help themselves. We must reach out to both the oppressed and the oppressors, calling on both to find brotherhood in Christ.

Following Christ is a scary thing because it requires us to go against everything we’ve learned and grown up with. It’s scary because the things we’ll come to believe and come to say will alienate those closest to us, especially those who are fellow Christians wrapped up in the culture. What is scarier, however, is thinking that rather than letting Christ turn us into His image, we would rather wrap Him in our nation’s flag and make Him into our own image.

For one, Sullivan has accepted this de facto position that Paul’s writings are somehow sub-par to Jesus’ writings. If we ignore this position, we see that the Church is necessary via Paul’s commands. But even if we only look to the “words of Jesus,” the Church is still necessary.

Christ never taught us to buy into individualism. But this whole “I’m spiritual, but not religious” nonsense is nothing more than pure individualism. In fact, it’s so replete with individualism, that even the language of the movement focuses almost solely on the self; “My belief,” “my Jesus,” “my walk,” and so on. There is absolutely no sense of community beyond a bunch of individuals with individual beliefs who try to work together. While this Utopian ideal may seem like a good thing, the truth is that it’s never worked.

While the Church should never be domineering and directing everything we do, we shouldn’t embrace some kind of ecclesial anarchy either. The reason for this is quite simple – the Church is the bride of Christ. What sense does it make to embrace the bridegroom, but to kill the bride? Certainly we can reform the bride, but to kill her goes beyond excessive and overreactive.

Thus, even if we disagree with the organized Church due to her failings, this doesn’t excuse us from getting involved. Rather than retreating to individualism where we can say, “Oh, I follow Jesus, but I’m not like them,” we can instead say, “Yes, I follow Jesus along with them, but I disagree with how it’s been manifested.” Even more, we can talk to those we are with and attempt to convince them to divorce themselves from their conservative or liberal ideology.

Ultimately, however, what Sullivan is calling for is nothing more than a private faith that is a step below the Social Gospel. Yet, the “Social Gospel” movement has failed and will continue to fail in every manifestation, even ones that are watered down. When we rob the Gospel of its power and reduce it to nothing more than “Take care of the poor,” then the movement will fail because it lacks the power of the Holy Spirit behind it. This is not to say that we shouldn’t take care of those who need it – I’ve been very clear on this issue in my writings – rather that we should realize that the Gospel extends beyond just helping the poor, and goes to bringing people to Christ. It also means we stand up for social justice, that we aren’t “apolitical,” but follow a politic that fits within the ideals of Christianity.

It seems that Sullivan thinks Christians should remain quiet on issues such as abortion, but would he say the same thing for Christians involved in movements to end sex-trafficking or slave-labor overseas? Should we not petition our government on these issues? Should William Wilberforce have simply shut his mouth on the issue of slavery? Should the Christian civil rights activists of the 50s, 60s, and 70s have simply lived the “way of Jesus” rather than petitioning the government and society itself to change how it viewed minorities? I’m sure that Sullivan would rightfully applaud these efforts, but in doing so he would negate his entire stance; these efforts weren’t brought about by individuals following the way of Christ (solely), but instead by entire churches mobilizing against what they saw as an injustice.

To summarize – one cannot follow Christ apart from the Church. It is within the community that we grow stronger. It is within the community that we learn what it means to follow Christ. And when the community becomes corrupt, it is our duty to reform the community. The Church’s role in society is to proclaim the Gospel and to live the Gospel, and sometimes this requires us to become politically involved when the injustice is so great (such as in the case of abortion or slavery). That is what it means to love one another, that we love strangers so much that we’d get involved in a political process to help them. While sometimes this is misguided – on both the left and the right – the actions of a few or even many doesn’t release us from the obligation to pursue justice in our society. The deplorable actions of a few within the Church doesn’t release us from our obligation to the Church, any more than a few bad blood cells releases us from our mothers.