Augustine's Confessions Book 1: Chapter 4 - Reflections

For the last three chapters Augustine has opened a dialogue with God where he has contemplated the mysteries involved in dialogue with God. So far it has been a worshipful and contemplative introduction directed from Augustine upward to God.

In chapter 4 he is contemplating who God is according to his attributes.

What art Thou then, my God? what, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong, stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and overspreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things. Thou lovest, without passion; art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing. And what had I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what saith any man when he speaks of Thee? Yet woe to him that speaketh not, since mute are even the most eloquent.

The list seems to be full of contradictory statements but they are not proper logical contradictions, they are paradoxes that articulate the tensions that come with trying to describe the one who transcends our language and our understandings. I have to wonder at the language used as it is an old translation. What does it mean to love and yet be without passion in this translation? On the surface I would disagree and say that God can not be without passion and that Augustine has missed the mark. But what does 'passion' even mean in a translation full of thee's, thy's, and thou's? What word was used in the original work and what context and history did it have? I knowest naught.

I wonder if this is a philosophical attempt at understanding God. Philosophical but lead by faith maybe?

Let me try to work through some of these.

Most merciful yet most just. The tension of God's mercy and justice is at the heart of Evangelicalism even to this day. God would be wholly in the right to just wipe us all out in an instant, and he will judge the entire world at the end of time. If he were purely just then we would be all doomed to destruction. But he is merciful, not willing that any should perish and has provided a way for us to redeem us from our sins by coming into the world incarnate as Jesus and paying the penalty for our sins on the cross, the Son suffering separation from the Father so that all who believe upon him will be saved and counted as righteous even though their hearts and actions are still sinful. God's judgements are wholly just and he is right in all that he does and we see divine justice and divine mercy at the cross of Christ.

Most hidden yet most present. Who can see God or his actions in the world? Who can prove them? The unbelieving heart can not detect God and even to the believing heart he hides himself. This tradition of 'the Hidden God' has carried on today through the likes of John of The Cross and C.S. Lewis as 'The Dark Night of the Soul', a time when God intentionally hides himself from us so that we learn to stand on our own two feet and begin walking in the footsteps of Christ to become more like Him. Yet, even though hidden, he is always present for in him all things live and move and have their being. He sees all, he knows our hearts, he is constantly providing, constantly holding all things together, intimately close to us and we can not prove or disprove it, only believe upon what we have seen and heard and experienced.

Each of these pairings could have volumes of dissertations to plum their depths. Indeed, the theological and scholarly legacy of Western Christianity is largely in debt to Augustine's theology and volumes have been produced throughout history and will continue to be produced exploring and attempting to articulate how deep and wide and great is our God.

Augustine's Confessions Book 1: Chapter 3 - Reflections

Augustine continues his questions. How is it that anything could contain God and yet we know that He fills all things. Does God overflow them? Where does God overflow to if he is not fully contained by anything? If God fulls all things then he is not 'brought down' when he fills us but we are uplifted. That's an amazing thought. We often think that God is up high and that it is a bother to bring himself down to us but he's already here and we have the opportunity to be uplifted, filled with his Spirit in a special way. This is, of course, standard Christian theology now, but it is still revolutionary to many who don't know it or know it and don't understand it.

Augustine's Confessions Book 1: Chapter 2 - Reflections

Augustine contemplates another mystery. When we call upon God we call him into us. How is it that we can contain him? What capacity do we that God could come into? What capacity could the entirety of the heavens and earth have to contain God for that matter? Or is it that, as Paul spoke to the Athenians, that all things move and have their being in God. All things created have a capacity for God else they would not exist at all. But if this is the case then where exactly do we call God from?

He does not answer these questions so much as pose them to himself in an act of worship. There is something incredible revealed in this mystery. We begin to see how very small we are and how very large God is, the God who fills the heavens and the earth yet will come into us in a special way if we ask it of Him. In God's largeness and transcendence there is intimacy and closeness.

Augustine's Confessions Book 1: Chapter 1 - Reflections

I have undertaken a project, to read Augustine's Confessions slowly and to reflect upon each chapter without rushing forward. At work I often listen to audio books or music depending on the nature of my work. I enjoyed listening through the Chronicles of Narnia from The Magician's Nephew to The Last Battle and found it an enriching experience.

I attempted go through Confessions in the same way but not even two lines in I had to stop. Augustine's Confessions are a wholly different genre than Lewis's Chronicles and I knew it would be impossible to do the writings of this great saint justice without giving it my full attention and thought. To this end I intend to read a chapter a day and reflect, if I am able, here.


Augustine begins in worship and contemplating a great mystery. It has been too long for me to remember my professors talking about Confessions but one thing that sticks out to me like a memory half remembered is that this book is not about Augustine. It is not an autobiography. He literally begins in worship of God. "Great are you O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is your power and your wisdom infinite."

He contemplates a mystery that I have often wondered at as has every theologian great and small I should think. How is it that anyone can praise the Lord, we, so small, just a particle in creation praise God with knowledge of our sins? Can we praise God because he has enabled us? Do we praise him to come to know him or do we show that we know him because we praise him? When someone calls upon the Lord without first knowing the Lord, are they actually calling upon him. Can someone call upon the Lord to come to know him?

We know these questions by a name in this time, the predestination versus freewill debate or Calvinism versus Arminianism.

He resolves to seek the Lord according to his faith which he acknowledges as given by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

My attempt to explain what he so eloquently writes in just a few lines is cumbersome. This introduction is full of worship and wonder. It encourages me because while my thoughts aren't quite so well collected, I do sometimes pray in a similar manner. I believe it is born of the Spirit.

Open my mind Lord to understand. Open my heart Lord to listen and obey. Enable me to praise you and through you to know you and in knowing so doing your will and participating in your Kingdom, Oh Lord my God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Thoughts on the Ascension: Where did Jesus Go?

Had a random thought pop into my head the other day. It was a clip from an apologetics debate I witnessed some seven or eight years ago (yeesh has it really been that long?!). It was 'The Great Debate' between Dr. William Lane Craig and a less well known Atheist on the existence of God. While I don't remember Dr. Craig's opponent I remember one of his points. The Biblical account of Jesus' ascension was problematic because assuming that he did ascend, where did he go? Up up and up he went but how far up? Did he leave the atmosphere? How did he continue to breathe or not freeze or get blasted by the sun's radiation? At the time my only thought was that he royally missed the point of the whole thing. But after almost a decade the point has come back to me now and I see it anew.

Where exactly did Jesus go? To heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, obviously. But why ascend? Heaven isn't in the clouds, it is a spiritual place, not somewhere you can get to in a rocket ship. It's a whole other plane of existence, why go up when any direction or no direction at all would suffice? I mean, he could have opened a door and walked into heaven, he could have vanished in a puff of fire and smoke, he could have taken the disciples with him in an instant and then once they had seen him there he could have brought them back in an instant. Why ascend when ascension isn't functionally necessary?

I find it interesting that another person also ascended into heaven, Elijah on a chariot of fire. That must have been a sight to see. And I think this is important on a few points.

Ascending was not the means by which Jesus or Elijah got to heaven. You can go up and up and up as far as you like to the end of the universe but you will not reach heaven that way. Ascension is a sign for us down here, a miraculous and wondrous sign. Most people naturally equate the heavens (the sky) with Heaven (God's specific realm). The connection is natural to anyone who has looked up at night and witnessed the glory of the stars and the wonder therein. Even though God's realm isn't physically in the sky the symbolism is universal. Dead things get buried in the earth, God's holy ones are taken up into heaven like Enoch and Elijah and Jesus and all even those in stories from other faiths.

Consider also that in a very real way God's ways are higher than our ways and we are fallen creatures in a fallen world. Mankind looks up to see God and God by his grace raises us up, up from the dead, up from our sin, up from our knees, up out of the mud and mire, up to be with Him.

Consider also the language of the Psalms when Yahweh rides upon the clouds and sends lightnings and winds from the corners of the earth. There are also the visions of God by the patriarchs, Moses and the prophets, God is always above them on the mountain, in the sky, in heaven with angels ascending and descending a ladder between heaven and earth! The imagery is everywhere in the Bible and it resonates with those who know it.

It was the symbol and the sign for which Jesus ascended. The disciples were not astronomers or scientists, but ancient fishermen and tax collectors. It would have done no good to instill within them a knowledge of modern astronomy, that misses the point. To them, what they saw, was Jesus ascending until a cloud hid him and then angels confirming that he had gone up into Heaven. Symbol, sign, reality, it all blended together and even though heaven is not actually 'up there' in a physical sense, it really didn't matter. Jesus was taken up, just like Elijah was, and from this ascension we know that we also will ascend at Jesus' return. It is the symbol of hope and the sign of The Father's resounding 'YES' that Jesus is The Son and that He will indeed restore and save all who put their faith in Him.

They saw with their own eyes Jesus ascending into heaven and their lives bore the imprint of this event forever after.

The Left Confuses Me

The fallout from the US election continues and things are getting bizarre. Protests continue in different cities, we even had some in Toronto. As far as I can tell they are protesting because they believe Trump is evil and that he will enact evil policies that will strip the rights of minorities and descend America into a white supremacist state of hardened intolerance and bigotry. At least this was the impression my educated leftist friend gave when he rebuked me saying "I will not be silent while White Supremacy is becoming normalized!" and linked to an article listing several hate crimes against minorities that had been perpetrated by white supremacist thugs emboldened by Trump's electoral success.

I noted that the article had no references or links but didn't voice my skepticism because I know that for this particular friend that would mean getting blasted for robbing the oppressed of their agency... or something like that. Now, a week and a half later I see right wing posts full of references for how these 'whitelash' attacks were faked and no evidence of the supposed crimes can be located. As far as local and regional police are concerned the attacks were never reported to them even though many stories claim that the police were involved.

I understand that a lot of people are scared and that a Trump presidency is a dark prospect for some minorities and immigrants in the United States. This makes me sad. What baffles me though is that some folk are openly fabricating horror stories that leftists use to justify their narratives and that even once it comes to light that the supporting horror stories were just made up the narrative still stands. What baffles me even more is that the majority of leftist protesters protesting right now are paid to protest things that haven't happened. The explanation I can come to is that some very wealthy leftist forces are trying their best to keep their political power by controlling the people with fear mongering and, of course, the leftist media eats it all up and reports it as narrative confirming fact. Why all the dishonesty? I'm not a politically savvy person by any means, but I've heard it said that the left is all about the narrative. Narrative > Facts. If your supporters have a strong narrative they will interpret all the facts according to that narrative. The narrative serves the ideology and if you question the ideology or the narrative then, according to the narrative, you are either morally deplorable or require educating. It's a sick self validating spiral.

Oh, I know the right has its own spirals, don't think I'm endorsing right wing nonsense just because I'm criticizing left wing nonsense. I just wish we could cut the nonsense all together. Perhaps this is an impossible and even nonsensical wish.

But is it really nonsense? What is this vision that they are so caught up in, this all encompassing narrative? In what ways does it intersect with the Word of God and what He is doing in the world? Am I too generous, not generous enough, and does my mental generosity matter? Lord have mercy on us all as we walk according to the light in this world. In whatever our circumstances, insufficiencies, inadequacies, and ignorance give us grace to distinguish between the world's light and your light, and may we become as Christ said, the light of the world for all to see.

Stability and Confusion?

We are officially moved to Orillia. My commute has gone from 35 minutes to 5 minutes. We still have lots of boxes in the garage and storage room to go through but all the essentials are in place. This brings a sense of stability amidst a full week of chaos. The boys are starting to feel it too, that this is home, where we will stay and live. Hopefully we can go out to meet the neighbors and maybe make some friends! Apparently there's a nice Pentecostal pastor on the crescent somewhere. Maybe we'll make cookies, knock on some doors, and invite our neighbors to celebrate with us on our being unpacked in a week or so.

Alongside this growing stability is a growing confusion, if that is the right word to describe it. Maybe its the move, maybe its the political wars on social media, or maybe its just a new stage for me but I find myself unsure of a few things. Politically I have always leaned right. I am familiar with right wing talking points like abortion and religious rites but I look at the foment and lament on the left and wonder if I'm blind to something important that they see and I do not. I look at the mocking and jeering from the right and get a sick feeling in my stomach. I try to avoid political spats on Facebook but found myself in two light ones this week, both times realizing that I didn't know what I thought I knew nearly as well as I thought I did. I'm all for opportunities for learning from those who disagree with me but this really stresses me out for some reason.

There is just so much I don't know. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. I don't actually know how the average lay-Christian thinks or acts or what it is like to deal with the loud and proud right wing of America who voted for a man and policies that are objectively anti-christlike or what to do with the loud and proud left wing who demands that I "check my privilege" as though my skin color, sex, and religion were all big problems. I don't know how to deal with the right that demands the abolition of abortions without actually loving or helping solve the problems of the people who want abortions (as though life after birth isn't their business) and I don't know what to do with the left wing that slams the right for being anti-woman, hateful, and stupid. It's like I can see both their points and why each thinks that theirs are valid while the others are not. This is only one out of a million issues and I just don't know how they fit together or what to say if I'm ever asked. I don't have a solution but I know one who does and it is to Him that I pray for wisdom and understanding where I just feel like I have none at all.

Going back to where I am now, the house feels like a dream. It's surreal. I'm in this strange mental in-between space where my sub-conscience still expects the house in Barrie, and even jumps back to Caronport now, while I'm physically in a new house. It's bigger with a better layout. Everything looks nicer. It's a dream. It's a good dream. It's also not a dream, which takes me off guard sometimes. This is a privilege and I hope that we can use it to raise the boys well and to honor God with our lives.

The Beginning of President Trump

The Americans had their election. Two days ago they voted in Donald Trump. Many cheered. Many cried. Many are celebrating. Many are mourning. America is a nation divided. I don't like Trump but I didn't like Hillary either. I thought she might be safer option though, which should be something coming from a guy who naturally leans to the political right.

The news and social media are reeling from the election results. I am sad, but not for the same reason that many are sad. I'm sad because there are so many in the States who equate 'Republican' with 'Christian' and use the terms interchangeably and that Donald Trump will regrettably become a symbol of Christianity in politics. He may have catered to get the 'Christian vote' but the man is no Christian and both the Pope and numerous Evangelical leaders have called him on it. A man who never backs down, never repents, never apologizes, never compromises, and unashamedly focuses on building walls, creating enmity, personal wealth and sexual gratification is not acting as a Christian ought to act, not be a long shot. In a strange theological turn many are hailing a man of anti-christlike qualities as God's chosen savior of the American people. They are in for a rude awakening.

I wrote a sarcastic post on Facebook about how it was almost time for 'the new president is the anti-christ' season where crazy people took a patchwork of Bible verses out of context to link current events to end-times prophecies but I find myself writing something similar right now. I don't think Donald Trump is 'The Anti-Christ' like what the New Testament talks about. I do think that he is 'an anti-christ' though, a powerful ruler of the world who many look to and will look to for the things they ought to look to Christ for. I see Trump as harming, not helping the Church. Even if he grants American Evangelicals political clout and power it will harm, not help their witness. Anyone drunk on power and any church who colludes with the powers of the world disqualify themselves from what God is calling them into, his own Kingdom, his own transforming and restorative work in the world.

In our Lord's own words we find the sort of people we should be and should be around.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Turning away the poor and the needy, the widow and orphan, the foreigner, this is not in keeping with how our Lord wants us to act. My fear is that many Evangelical churches will have plenty of opportunity to act as Jesus' hands and feet in faith and humility under the Trump administration but would rather put their faith in politics and policies and ignore their calling to Christ's redemptive work towards the needful other and so show themselves to be a lie.

The Servant of Abraham

I've been going through Genesis again and I came to the story where Abraham sends out his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. I have always loved this story. Abraham wants his son to have a good Surwife, someone from back home in Mesopotamia, not one of the wild and idolatrous Canaanite women. So he sends a servant, loaded up with 10 camels worth of treasures, to travel all the way back to the Euphrates to find a wife for his son.

What must this guy have thought? Would he be successful? Would there be danger on the road? What if he was robbed? What if he couldn't find anyone? Would the Lord, the God of Abraham, be with him? Surely this was not just a random servant or a young man to be appointed with such an important and delicate task. This would have had to have been a trusted servant, maybe someone who had been in Abraham's household a long time. Had he witnessed the Lord's provision for Abraham? Did he, perhaps, take part in the battle to save Abraham's brother Lot? Was he present when Abraham and a younger Isaac went up the mountain to make a sacrifice to The Lord? We don't know. But even if he had seen The Lord bless and prosper his master and had seen his master's faith, would the Lord be with him now?

He goes and after a long journey finally makes it to his destination at the time that the women were coming out of the city to get water from the well. What incredible timing, or is it? He has only just arrived and hasn't had a chance to familiarize himself with the area. Maybe he had been with Abraham since the start and knew the place, but even so a little time to scope the area out would have probably put his mind and heart at ease. So there's no time to really get himself together after this long journey and so he prays that the woman who offers him a drink and to water his camels as well would be the one who he would take back as Isaac's wife.

Then, even before he could finish his prayer his attention goes to an attractive young woman. He asks her for a little water from her jar and she not only lets him drink but draws water for the ten camels as well! When he asks her who her father is and if he might have room for them to stay she says that she is the daughter of Bethuel, a relative of Abraham, the very house he was sent to speak to! Can you imagine the servant's amazement and joy at this? He knelt down and worshiped The Lord for leading him exactly to where he needed to be!

Now obviously the dynamics of human rights were a little different back then some 4000 years ago. Marriages were arranged to build strong ties between families and to earn status. Women often didn't get a say in who they wanted to marry and marrying "for love" was out of the question. But before you think that this story and the God of Abraham are barbaric, consider that in an age when a woman's opinion on her marriage did not matter her family let her decide and her decisions played an extremely important role in God's designs for their children Jacob and Esau and the founding of Israel, God's chosen people. Consider also that Isaac and Rebecca did end up to love each other and that The Lord had given her the opportunity to marry, not only according to his plans for a nation, and the future savior of all humankind, but also into incredible wealth and standing within ancient copper age society.

The servant repeats his story to Rebekah and her family, almost word for word according to what was narrated to the reader which is important. It highlights the absolute amazement of the occurrence and the excitement of the servant. We are the same way today, we have something incredible happen and we tell someone and by the end of the telling some others have come to listen and ask "what happened?" and you are happy to go back and tell it from the beginning all over again (and nothing will stop you from doing so). But here's the thing that struck me this time; before he was even done speaking to The Lord, The Lord had answered his prayer and was indeed with him.

I've had a few moments like these, where 'incredibly fortuitous circumstance' can only be described as God's orchestrating. The vehicle breaks down with my young family in the dead cold of a Saskatchewan winter. We pray for help and even as we finish the prayer we notice a pickup truck headed our way. The man was happy to help us and didn't mind interrupting his errand give us a ride back home. His cell phone stopped working and so he was on his way into town to have it fixed but halfway taking us back home his cell worked again. A big serve trip for the youth group is delayed because we don't have the right tools to fix the trailer, we pray, and just as we finish praying someone stops to help us who just so happens to have the exact tool we needed. During a time of incredible inner pain I choose obedience to God over what I think will cure the pain and pray for help and I had instant peace. These sorts of instant answers to prayer do not happen everyday, but they do happen, and even if we have to wait the God of Abraham is faithful and he is with all of Abraham's house, from the master to the son and from the servant then to those who have put their faith in Jesus now. Praise be to The Lord, the God of Abraham the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Amen.

Hanging out with Ravi Zacharias and C.S. Lewis

I had forgotten how encouraging it is to read / listen to good solid (and basic) Christian material. Over the last few days I've been doing some monotonous jobs at work which gave me the opportunity to put my headphones in and listen to whatever I want. While I mindlessly copy and paste links, questions, and files all over the place I have also been listening in on some lectures by Ravi Zacharias and an audiobook for C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. I don't think I'll ever be too old / educated to learn from men like these and Christians of all stripes are in the process of relearning the basics over and over again. We are a forgetful race after all, and prone to wander.

For me it is just very refreshing to hear the Christian position pronounced clearly and coherently when the world is so loud and chaotic.

Update September 2016

It's been almost a month since my last update when I left The Source so its time for another one. It seems like we have a new normal now. My new job has steady and predictable hours and kids seem to have caught on. They wake up somewhere between 6:00 - 7:00 and want to watch cartoons while I make them breakfast and bring out some sippy cups. When I go to work around 8:15 they run up to me waving and smiling "bye bye daddy! Daddy work! I love you daddy! Have a nice drive! See you soon!" Sammy doesn't talk yet but he grins and waves.

I have a 30 minute commute north to Orillia where I work downtown at Career Tech Services building online courses for tech schools down in the States. Its similar to what I was doing for Briercrest Distance Education except its for basic to intermediate work skills instead of biblical studies and theology. I get to use Moodle again, that ugly free clunkfest that I took so much delight in killing just three years ago. I format syllabi, create assignments and exercises and arrange learning chunks to be digested by voracious students in the future. The standards aren't near as high as they were at Briercrest but this is what happens in 'conveyor belt education' for work skills in the States.

They want me to help them build an IT Fundamentals course and a coding 'Boot Camp' as I have the most experience in both fields out of anyone in the office by a large margin. I barely get a chance to work on those projects though, there are so many other things that need doing or fixing or learning. It's a good pace and I enjoy the line of work. My co-workers are few and pleasant to talk to even if I don't get invited to their weekly get togethers. Believe me, I'm fine not going. It's nice to not have angry customers in my ear. The paycheck is also nicer, even with the price of gas as it is these days. The only thing I can really say that I miss about The Source are some of the people I had built friendships with and the down time. During down time I could write or think or plan things out. These days there is no down time, there are always things to do which means thinking, writing, and planning get pushed to my commute and after the kids are in bed.

When I get home Jonathan greets me with continuous waves of "hi Daddy!" followed by pulling me to this or that place in the house to show me what he had been doing. Tori does amazing work looking after the boys and I often come home to some sort of craft or story and there's often food on the table. I am so blessed! I may make us the money to pay the bills but she does the hard work and the heavy lifting and there is no way any of us would survive without her. I am happy to take point while she goes downstairs to regroup after a busy day and after the kids have worn themselves out we tag team them to sleep.

Once they are down we clean the house and spend the evening together, sometimes playing with friends or just chatting on Skype. I think life is good. Its very busy, we often don't get to do what we would like to do, and we are often tired emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually, but we're making it work and constantly finding new normals.

Now off to put a sleeping Sammy in his crib and tackle those dishes...
Greg Out

Goodbye The Source

Well, after almost a full year I am leaving The Source. In one sense it feels like I was there forever and in another sense I am thankful that I was able to find something related to my field so soon. I'm going to be building courses for Career Tech Services in Orillia which, even though it isn't really related to theological work, is still in the field of education. The hours are also more consistent and I will have weekends off which is great for my family. The pay is better too but the trade off is a longer commute along roads known for winter whiteouts.

On the one hand I'm happy and excited. No more crazy customers, no more being yelled at by ignorant or angry people. No more patching holes for systems that systematically fail. I'll be working in a quiet office and building online courses with people who appear to be of similar temperament and personality type. No more staggering to my vehicle trying to push the noise out of my head and a chance to try my hand at something I've always wanted to do.

On the other hand I have all the questions that come with starting a new position. Will I enjoy this? Will I be good enough? Is this really what I want to do? What if it falls through? What if they don't like me over there? Is the extra commute time worth it?

Everyone seems to think I'd be really good at the job and I'm inclined to ignore my doubts and assume that the people who know me are probably right. I will gratefully pass from this placeholder job which was as good to us as it could have been to something better and related to my field of interest.




I think I learned some things from The Source though. The Lord is constantly teaching us even through mundane drudgery. Here is what I've come up with in reflecting over my year at The Source.

1. Customer service taught me anew that people are complicated and real. When an upset customer is in your ear demanding that you fix problems you can't just ignore them and make them go away. I mean, you can by just disconnecting them, but that's not good customer service and that's not what I was paid to do. Customers get facts mixed up, don't understand how things work and why, and get all emotional which makes communication difficult. They are in the moment, in my ear, and what I say and do affects them in the hear and now, I can't just stop time to think about all of the ramifications of my words and so plot out the best thing to say.
   
2. Personal slights lead to major blowups. Customers who take offense at an associate's demeanor or words have often lead to the worst (and most ridiculous) types of calls that I get. Yelling, screaming, being told to leave the store, the police getting involved, and the customer demanding that I fire the evil store people or nobody of their demographic will ever shop with us ever again. I think Proverbs says something about how wounded pride leads to bad things, in any case, this is what I learned.
   
3. Dignity can get in the way of doing what's good and right. Part of my job was to apologize and take the hit for things that were not my fault or even the fault of my company. This was a hard lesson for me. Customers would make a mistake or read something wrong and then get all upset that we operated like a normal reputable business, not bending to their insane perceptions. My first instinct is to toss them out on their duff and say "no, we only keep receipts for 2 years and no amount of emotion on your end or work on my end will bring a 3 year old receipt back from incineration. No, just because you misread the price of something doesn't mean we are going to give that to you. No, just because a random associate who you can't name told you that we would be having a super great sale on that item today doesn't mean that we are going to give you a $150 phone for $15." My job, on the other hand, was to apologize for the whatever it was they thought had happened, and offer them a gift card for having been inconvenienced, even if they were making it all up and their story was insane unlikely. It grated on me but it often worked and they kept shopping at The Source and giving us their money. Ugh... even writing about this makes me on edge and goes against the grain of my being. (the customer care rep who kept on me left a few months later) An exchange of dignity for money. Outside of a call centre environment this is the logic that enslaves and destroys people. Filthy. But I suppose there were times when my dignity got in the way of authentic apologies and kindness, which is the lesson I am taking with me.
   
4. Apologies and kindness can go a long way. I already knew this, but sometimes it just hit me afresh when I was able to make a customer's day by listening to them, apologizing, and either fixing their problem or offering them a gift card to make it better.
   
5. I may be nicer than most but I'm not as nice as I thought I was. When I got a crazy call I would write it down, remove the names, and post it online. These, while often funny and a favourite thing to read for many of my friends, sometimes made me feel like I was betraying someone in that we were essentially laughing at their ignorance and mistakes. I changed how I wrote the stories and which ones got posted but some of the earlier ones remind me that I can be mean and petty if I'm not careful. I don't think anyone noticed or cares, but I do.

So there's five reflections. There may be more to come but I doubt it.

On to the next chapter

Greg Out

The Shepherd is Coming

As a drove to work this morning I was struck by the image of a shepherd coming to save his sheep and how this was a theme in what I consider to be the greatest of stories. Jesus returning at the end of the ages with the armies of heaven to save his people and restore the world. John Shepherd bringing the united forces of the galaxy to defeat the Reapers and save the earth. Gandalf leading the Rohirrim to save the defenders of Helm's Deep. King David riding into battle to save the people of Israel. King Théoden heroic charge at the Fields of Pelannor. The return of King Aragorn and the restoration of peace to all Middle Earth.

My heart exults with this image and I am filled with hope and wonder at the thought that one day, perhaps even today, The Lord will return and set everything right. I'm not sure if the sky will actually peel away like a scroll or if that is just the creative licence of musicians but whatever happens The Lord's return will be the best and most incredible thing that has ever happened.

Is this yearning for the return of the Good Shepherd in every heart or just the hearts that The Holy Spirit places it in? I think it must be in every heart, at least in some primal sense even if one can not articulate it or understand it. This is part of our being created in the image of God, a yearning for relationship with our creator.

This image of a shepherd. God calls his chosen leaders to be shepherds. David was a shepherd and God called him to be king. Jesus is the King of Kings and he came to us as The Good Shepherd, his birth being announced to common shepherds while the Wiseman were instructed not to tell the king. Psalm 23, written by David the shepherd king, explains how The Lord is our shepherd and how our relationship with him ought to be. He is the shepherd, we are his sheep. He leads us to green pastures even though we lead him to the cross and we would rather wander to barren places, he makes us to drink from clear water even though he thirsted and we do not want to drink, he protects us from wolves and lions because we can not defend ourselves even though we tore his body and murdered him, he walks with us through the darkness because he is the light of the world. We are tired and afraid but he keeps watch and brings us in close. He tirelessly labours on our behalf to provide for us, protect us, and lead us to his Father's house and one day he will return to bring the dead to life and lead all of his people past, present, and future into the new heavens and new earth where we will live forevermore in the peace of The Holy Spirit under The Good Shepherd to the glory of The Father.

Come Lord Jesus
Amen

Adventures in Customer Service

You know you're walking some sort of line when you have to reassure yourself that you're technically not lying to people to make a living. Sometimes this is what my job feels like, 'technically not lying' to make customers feel better and stop them from raising a fuss. It is, of course, so much more than that, I am a problem solver, an advocate, a diplomat, and a representative face of my company. But seriously, if customers knew some of the behind the scenes problems in our system I think they would lose confidence in us. Nothing illegal or shady, just nonsensical and sometimes broken, especially for someone looking in and not familiar with why things are the way they are.

I find myself avoiding trying to explain things to customers. Often the less they know the better things will be. I think this is normal for retail, but I'm not sure. Customers don't need to know that we are not trained experts on the products we sell, or that we hate the Apple no-return policy just as much as they do, or that our database can be inaccurate and misleading leading to guesswork on our behalf, or that some points in the lines of internal communication are held together by bubblegum and lucky charms. Then there are the times when I need to smooth over mistakes that other people have made without actually letting on that something went wrong. Like the customer who calls in having been told that their battery would be shipped to them within 3-5 days when anyone whose worked her for more than a month knows that that particular brand of battery usually takes 10 business days. I will explain that the order will take longer than most because it comes out of a warehouse in California (true) but I will not tell them that the rep they placed the order with was either careless or just lied to them or that our website lies about the ETA until after the order is placed.

Normally things run smoothly and the inherent brokenness of our systems doesn't bother me too much. Then I get a few calls where the system failures are very evident and we are not able to resolve an issue because we either missed an important shipping deadline or because we simply ran out of an item and the customer has been waiting for it for two weeks. I diplomacize and explain as best as I can offering sympathy and gift cards when problem solving doesn't work.

I am trying to discern a purpose in this. Why a monotonous job that pays just enough to live if we really watch our budget (but not enough to move ahead or get a mortgage) in a field that I openly despised while working on my BA? Humble pie maybe? It is The Lord's doing, that much seems clear to me. For the time being I need to be here. I would much rather be somewhere else, preferably doing something meaningful in relation to Kingdom work, or at the very least making more than I do with hours that don't mess up family life. Praying I don't miss out on the why while I'm here.

Why do I want to do this again?

The last days have been difficult in my mind and heart. I have been hoping to find an opportunity to serve in Christian ministry officially for a while now. Haven't had a whole lot of progress on that front yet as we have the idiosyncrasies of small children, autism, and disability plus being plagued by 'flu-like virus' for the last two months that keeps making rounds of the house. Whenever I think I find an opening to talk to the pastoral team at our church their boat speeds away to a retreat or emergency or missions trip. I feel like I'm paddling to where I hope they'll be in a few weeks but as I paddle towards ministry I am increasingly disturbed by the bodies I find floating in the water.

Friends I had gone to school with, who were eager and equipped to get into ministry, are floating the other direction either holding onto wreckage or just face down in the water. A gifted couple ideal for ministry sets out from Briercrest, they get into their local church and have a really hard time fitting in until one of them burns out, leaves the marriage, and takes up a homosexual relationship leaving the other partner with a broken marriage, a broken heart, and little chance of reconciliation. Another friend who got the same theological degree I did, tried helping out in the church, got fed up and frustrated with the stupid and bigotry of the congregants, and left. They have now renounced their faith. Another friend, perhaps my closest college friend, was forced out of the young adults ministry he was leading when the pastor above him got a little too controlling and isolationist in his thinking. He carries wounds and has not been able to find another church to go to in over a year. Another friend, still in ministry and hanging on for dear life, has a pastor from Hell (not a good place place for a pastor to come from) who makes his life a living nightmare and seems intent on driving everyone away from ministry.

So why do I want to get involved in ministry? Don't I have enough problems and uncertainty in my life right now? I mean, sure I want to help people, I love Jesus, I have that theological degree, but seeing what ministry has done to... well... pretty much ALL of my college / seminary friends is making me stop to ask questions.

I think our church is healthy. We've been going off and on for just under a year and the preaching is solid, and the atmosphere is similar to The Gathering in Caronport which is a big plus. We spent the year going to Life Group at the Associate Pastor's house and we got a good feeling that things are alright with them and in the church just from that.

Could I be happy doing something else? I'm not sure. Maybe after years of routine and beating back my conscience I could get rid of this pang to somehow take an active role in church ministry.

It's crazy. Whatever my status and degrees and preparations I don't feel equipped, I don't feel adequate, and I shudder to think of what ministry has done to my friends and what it could do to me and my family, but there it is continually before me. I almost wish it would leave me alone, then I could pursue something that was safe and makes good money. It will not though, I am captivated by a vision that I can only begin to comprehend, the vision of the Kingdom of God.

May the Lord our God have mercy on his servants and guide us into how we may best love and serve him with all our hearts and with all our minds with all our souls and with all of our strength.

Amen

Thoughts on Restraint

Everywhere I look online I see stories and articles about how people fought the system and won the rite to do x y and z. LGBTQ won the rite to get married. Women are winning the rite to not only have abortions but to also not have to put up with any "stop and think about this" barriers. The government is fighting to enshrine a person's rite to use washrooms according to the gender he / she self-identify as. We now have the rite to assisted suicide, the rite to sterilize one's self, and hopefully one day everyone will be forced to accommodate the rites of a disabled person to barrier free accessibility. I am no social scientist but it seems to me as though we are continually moving towards a society with no taboos and no restrictions save for new taboos and restrictions for those who wish to hold to traditional taboos and restrictions but I digress.

I have to wonder if, with so much freedom, restraint will be an important idea for the North American Christianity. As in, "just because you have the societal freedom to do as you please does not mean that you should use your societal freedom as an excuse to practice evil."

I suspect that the concept of evil will be challenged as it already has been. "What? No, homosexual practice isn't evil! It just... isn't. Unless you take the Bible literally or read it through heterosexual bias... or follow the faith traditions regarding marriage that God's people and the Church have always embraced since the beginning... which you shouldn't." As society continues to embrace current leftist social political agenda the Church will face pressure to conform from without and from within.

I suspect that those who truly desire to know and love the Lord will exercise and preach restraint in accordance with the Scriptures and Traditions of the Church.

Thoughts, Theology, Literature, Life

It's slow at work today. I just read a disturbing article that made me think. I doubt many would find it disturbing and even fewer for the reasons I did. It was about... wait for it... the use of allegory.

Allegory. Shocking I know.

Why on earth would I find the use of allegory disturbing? Because it brought to light an area of my mind and heart that have always seemed to be in constant friction with the rest of the world which I never even started to understand until maybe now.

The article argued that we misuse and misunderstand allegory because its roots are deeply buried within medieval tradition and worldview that we have lost and replaced with our own modern and postmodern traditions and worldviews which should hardly be surprising. The article talked about how CS Lewis convincingly argues that allegory, as understood from how the Medievals saw the world, is powerful, beautiful, and incredible art. Works like Pilgrim's Progress, and Faerie Queene epitomize medieval allegory and it was unthinkable that anyone who had the capacity to read should not have read them. Today they seem flat and uninteresting. The reason provided in the article was that the medieval world was ordered where everything has its proper place and people tended to think of the image and the abstract together whereas today the world is disordered where everything is up in the air and people have trouble putting images and abstractions together in the same way.

Why is this disturbing? I'm getting there I promise.

We read allegory like Pilgrim's Progress today and tend to roll our eyes because the characters seem flat and the direction of the narrative appears to be obviously rigged. We read about a character named Christian or Evangelist or Lust and we lose interest because they aren't real characters, they don't have life struggles or relational connections or any real depth to them. We expect characters to be like what we would find in a novel, actual persons with actual struggles and connections to the world.

In a medieval worldview though the characters take on a very different shape and meaning.

For them, “Venus” signified multiple things simultaneously: a planet, a Roman goddess with a set of stories attached to her, a literary figure, the image of feminine beauty, the force of erotic love, God’s will manifested in the fruitful union of a man and a woman, and so on. Christianity formed a bedrock for this way of thinking, but no one of these is the “true” meaning of Venus to which all others can be reduced. Their characters may seem “thin” when compared with those in a great novel, but their images are much fuller and richer.

Laura Miller - Save the Allegory 

This is the power of medieval allegory. This is the richness and fullness that we have lost in our own worldviews.


Is this the disturbing part? We're almost there.

I think in medieval allegory. I relate images to abstract things. I see a character and I see immediate symbolism and I view the symbolism as just as important (if not more-so) than the character. Yeah, the narrative of Pilgrim's Progress is simplistic, but I still have the Christian worldview and quite possibly enough medieval worldview to find it thoroughly meaningful and a valuable read where so many who chose literature as their direction of study would find it childish and morally oppressive.

Here is where I become disturbed. I think in ways that most others do not. I watch The Lord of the Rings and see the characters, their stories, and the grander narrative flawed and riddled with sensationalism though it may be but what I take away from it is Christ triumphing over the powers of the sin, death, and the world and I see myself as part of that story. What I see as the most important and most impressive aspects do not even appear on most peoples' radars.

And so I began reflecting upon my own psychology. I've always felt that I have a difficult time communicating my thoughts and I think this might be one of the reasons why. I'm operating and trying to communicate on a different wavelength. How much of my thought process is medieval / allegorical? How can I properly translate this into common speech? What other implications does this have for how I process information or try to communicate with others? The connections I make between things in my mind that seem insubstantial when I try to describe them, are they allegorical connections and if they are are they real? Is this why I chose theology as my centre of focus? Since I am finding so much personal meaning in the concept of a literary device should I have maybe studied humanities instead? Will people think me or my thinking obsolete?

"Medieval," after all, is a disparaging adjective (describing word). If we call something "medieval" what we mean is that it is archaic, out dated, crude, primitive, old-fashioned, unenlightened, draconic, or obsolete. I've always been convinced that this is, as CS Lewis put it, "intellectual snobbery" whereby we fail to understand the past and foolishly assert that everything that took place or was created before our time was not as good as what we have / think today.

I don't think my thinking is obsolete, and I don't think that my thinking my thinking is not obsolete is the product of obsolete thinking. Every contemporary historian of the medieval time period I've ever read has blasted today's misunderstanding of history that has made 'medieval' a dark age of dismal nothing between the light of Classical Rome and the light of the enlightenment. It was an age of thought, art, music, color, philosophy, literature, education, architecture, and new technology.

It's been a few hours since I started writing, the disturbance within me has dissipated. I guess to sum up I discovered another aspect of how I am different from most other people and how some of the foundational things I take for granted (like how I process thought and see the world) are not 'normal'. If the foundations are shaken then everything on the foundations are also shaken and now I suppose my subconscious will spend years realigning things with little epiphanies and realizations as things click back into place.

In the meantime I will stop navel gazing and put my mind toward more product things like loving and caring for my family and preparing myself to clean up the physical, emotional, relational, actual, and allegorical aftermath of a backed up toilet, rangy children, and a computer reset.

Greg Out

Sermon thoughts on Acts 11:1-18

First attempt at a sermon. I'm sure I will improve with time and, you know, an actual real life context to write into.

The passage I want to cover is Acts 11:1-18. The events recorded here were a pivotal time in the beginning of the early Church. Jesus had been crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven. The apostles had received the Holy Spirit and had begun preaching in Jerusalem that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that forgiveness of sins had been won by the blood of Jesus for all who put their faith in him. The Holy Spirit enabled them to speak with power and authority, performing miracles and driving out evil spirits. Many believed and the Holy Spirit moved among them convicting them of sin, provoking repentance, over filling them with joy and love for one another, and providing miraculous signs to the people. The Pharisees and teachers of the law who did not believe sought to crush the faith and persecuted the early church. Many believers fled the city taking the Gospel with them and so the Word of God spread among the Jews in every city and town throughout Judea and and the Mediterranean. Phillip preached the Gospel in Samaria and when the Samarians believed the Church sent Peter and John to lay hands on them and pray that they might receive the Holy Spirit, and they did! Saul, who spearheaded the persecution, had encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus and was now also preaching in the name of Jesus and doing miracles. There were so many things going on it is as though the author of Acts can barely contain himself with recording it all. Peter received a vision to go to the home of Cornelius a Roman Centurion just as Cornelius receives a vision to specifically send for Peter, Peter comes to his house, preaches the Gospel, Cornelius and his family are overjoyed and believe and the Holy Spirit falls on them also and they are baptized. If you are a gentile then this is one of the most exciting points in the Bible. Now we have Acts 11:1-18.

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 3 “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4 But Peter began and explained it to them in order: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. 6 Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. 7 And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ 10 This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. 11 And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. 12 And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. 13 And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; 14 he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?”18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

This is a very exciting story. God has poured out the Holy Spirit on both the Jews and the Gentiles, the Kingdom of God has become open to all people.

Let us go through the passage again, slowly now, and listen for what The Lord has for us today.

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 3 “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

What's going on here? Shouldn't the apostles and brothers have been pleased that the Word of God had spread to the Gentiles? Why was Peter criticized?

This would have been confusing and possibly even unsettling news for the ancient Jews. They were God's chosen people, the promises and covenants of God were made to them, and up until this point any Gentile who wanted to participate in what was promised to the Jews would have to turn away from their pagan beliefs and become Jewish. In their understanding Jerusalem was supposed to be God's beacon to the world that the Gentiles would eventually acknowledge and come to.

The circumcision party were the nationalistic Jews who were following with what they thought God's plan was, that salvation would come to the world through the Jewish people and that the Gentiles would become Jews in order to participate in the Kingdom of the Jewish God. What Peter did, speaking with Cornelius, staying with him, and eating together with him was strictly against Jewish custom and Jewish law. The Jews were a holy people, set apart from the rest of the world, and they did not associate with non-Jews, especially a commander of the gentile nation currently occupying and oppressing the Jewish nation! This was part of following Torah, the law that God gave Israel through Moses and every Jew knew it. This was a breach in God's law and so the circumcision party were demanding an explanation, partly because of their nationalism, but I think also because they knew that you can not follow God by breaking his laws even if breaking his laws appears to benefit what God is doing.

Here is Peter's response:

4 But Peter began and explained it to them in order: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. 6 Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. 7 And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ 10 This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. 11 And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. 12 And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house.

Alright, so Peter begins his explanation by telling them that he was praying. He wasn't partying, he wasn't drinking, he wasn't sampling any weird herbs from foreign countries, he had gone up to the balcony on the roof to pray to God, and he saw a vision. It was commonly understood that God spoke through visions, although not all visions were from God. When the vision was going on Peter wasn't sure if it was from God or not. A sheet coming down from heaven with animals of every kind a voice telling him to kill and eat, that sounds like a pretty strange vision. It would have had special significance for a Jewish person though. God had commanded the ancient Israelites to only eat clean animals and every Jew was very aware of what they were allowed or not allowed to eat. But on this sheet coming down from heaven were both clean and unclean animals and the voice told Peter to kill and eat!

How strange. Why would God give Peter a vision where he is told to kill and eat what is forbidden for him to eat? Why would God tell him to do something that he had previously told him not to do? It's a theological conundrum and Peter protests, he calls out back to the voice saying "By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth." But the voice responds "what God has made clean, do not call common."

What does that mean? Was God telling Peter that he was changing the law he gave to Moses centuries ago? Was it now alright for Jews to eat pork and calamari? If so, why? That doesn't really sound like something God would do.

Once the sheet went back up to heaven you can bet that Peter was praying to God about the vision. "Um. Father? I just had this strange vision with a bunch of animals coming down from heaven and you told me to eat them because you had made them clean. Did you do that? Have I maybe been out in the sun too long? I am pretty hungry, maybe... Oh, oh. oh. It's coming back down now. It's the animals again..."

It happened a second time and then a third time and while Peter was still scratching his head and probably very confused and concerned he looked down and saw three men inquiring about him at the door of the house and he gets a clear message from the Holy Spirit that he needs to go with them and not make any distinction.

Now there are a lot of really interesting things going on here right now. Here's the first one. Imagine that you are Peter, you've had this confusing vision that you think is from God but it doesn't make any sense to you and now you get a clear message telling you to go with the people who are looking for him. Who are these people? What do they want? What does the vision have to do with this? Cornelius was a Roman commander, these could have very well have been soldiers and the early Christians were under persecution. And yet the Holy Spirit tells him to go and so he goes without really understanding why, only that he must. This is an example of faith in action. God's intentions are veiled from Peter, he doesn't understand what God is going to do or what God wants him to do, but he steps forward in faith anyway.

Second interesting point about this situation. The vision was shown to him not just once, not just twice, but three times. Why is this interesting? If you are praying to your Father in Heaven and you think you see or hear something that might be from him, it is good to continue praying about it because He has ways of reaffirming the message. In Peter's case he got the same vision three times in succession and then lo and behold there were three people at the door looking for him with a confirmation in his heart that he needs to go with them. This is very clear and tangible confirmation. This is the exception when God plunks the answer in front of us, yes it's from me. Often times the answer is confirmed as we read the Bible, talk with other Christians, listen to sermons, or confirmed within our hearts as we continue in prayer.

The third interesting point is that three is an important and recurring number. In the English language if we want to emphasize something we will put 'very' in front of it but in Hebrew they use the word over again. So if we were to time travel back to ancient Egypt during the plague of frogs we might say, "there is a big heap of frogs" or "there is a very big heap of frogs," and we know that this heap of frogs is exceptionally large. In the Hebrew language, the language that Peter grew up with as his native tongue, if you want to draw special attention to something you use the word twice over. So you if we spoke Hebrew we could say "there is a heap of frogs" and we imagine, you know, a small mound of dead frogs. If we said "no no, you don't understand, there is are heaps heaps of frogs," we might be a bit shocked. It's not just a heap of frogs, it's a piles of frogs stacked six feet high! But if we were to repeat the word three times, this is the absolute strongest most intensive possible use of a word of which there is no English equivalent. If we were to say "no, no, you still don't understand, there is a heap heap HEAP of frogs," then we paint a different picture entirely. All of Egypt is buried in frogs. This heap of frogs is so big you can see it from orbit. There will never be a heap of frogs bigger than this heap of frogs because all of the frogs are already in this heap of frogs. I exaggerate a bit but you get the idea, three times in succession is the highest emphasis you can give something in the Hebrew language.

The vision came down three times in succession so this signifies to Peter that it is very important and most definitely from God, even though he doesn't understand what it means yet. This is also the second time in the Book of Acts that Peter's story has been told, first in Acts 10:9-16 and also now again to refresh our memory and draw importance to it for us the readers. The author of Acts could have written that Peter explained his vision and moved on, but instead the vision is recounted in detail for the benefit of the reader.

Why? What is so important that God shows Peter three times and the author of Acts writes it down twice? Because God is about to do something incredible and extremely important for us to understand. Let's continue the story. Peter keeps going with his explanation.

These six brothers also accompanied me, (read: you're not going to believe this but these guys will back me up on it) and we entered the man's house. 13 And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; 14 he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?”

Here it is! God poured out the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles just as he had the Jews at Pentecost! God does not distinguish between Jews and Gentiles. This was the meaning of the vision, this is what God had in mind all along but Peter didn't see it until it happened. Peter was initially opposed to this, but realized very quickly that he could not and ought not to try to stand in God's way. Now continuing on with verse 18.

18 When they heard these things they fell silent.

Now let's stop here for a moment. That God shows no distinction between Jews and Gentiles was a shocking revelation. The Jews were God's chosen people and the expectations and understanding surrounding that was just shattered. The Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to share in God's redemptive work in the world. What a shock shock this must have been. God accepted the unclean people of the world, they didn't need to follow the dietary laws, or the cleansing laws or, know Torah, or be circumcised: the divine symbol of Jewishness. How humbling. The circumcision group thought that because they held strongly to the law of Moses that they held special privilege with God and that everyone else needed to become like them before they could have salvation, but God is not boxed in by their expectations and extends salvation to the Gentiles.

We might be tempted to despise the circumcision group but they had sensible and biblically grounded reasons to believe what they did, but just like Peter, they didn't understand the full picture at first. God had revealed that he would do this centuries before bring it about through the Torah, but they still didn't see it. Let's just take a brief visit to some of these places to see what God said about including the gentiles.


Genesis 18:18; 22:18

All the nations of the Earth will be blessed through Abraham; In your offspring all of the nations of the earth will be blessed because you obeyed my voice.

Exodus 20:10; 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:14

God's rest and God's special blessings were for the Jews, their servants, their livestock, as well as the strangers (read: Gentiles) who lived among them.

God's care for Gentiles who put their faith in him: Hagar, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth.

1 Chronicles 16:24

God's glory was to be declared among the nations.

The Psalms 22:27-28, 86:9, 108:3

All of the nations will worship God together, Gentiles and Jews together.

Isaiah 60:1-3

The glory of the Lord will arise as a light in Israel and the nations will be drawn to the light.

Hosea 2:23

"I will say to Not my People, you are my people, and they will answer, You are my God."

Jonah

God tells his prophet to preach to Nineveh, they repent and are saved... Nineveh!!! Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian people who plundered every nation, including Israel, and who tortured their victims and dragged men women and children away to be slaves. God had care for even Nineveh!

Joel 2:28-29

“And it shall come to pass afterward,
    that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit.



Even with all of these examples and more it never occurred to them that God would accept the Gentiles and it was a shock to them. They thought they understood the Word of God in its fullness but they did not, and what appeared to be a breach in God's law was actually God enacting his law in its fullness. Continuing on.

And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Even though they don't understand, even though so much of what they held as their cultural and theological identity was suddenly flipped on its head. Some were probably like Peter, amazed, others were probably disappointed, and most were probably still confused. Even so they glorified God and accepted what God had done.


This is what happened just under 2000 years ago.

Now what about us today?

First Point

Peter's message to Cornelius is the same message given to all of us today, here is Peter's message in the chapter previous Acts 10:34-43.

34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea,beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Acts 10:34-43

Did you hear that? Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name! God's plans, his salvation, his forgiveness, the pouring out of his Holy Spirit, the participation within his Kingdom, the wholeness and goodness and fullness that only God can give us is freely given to you. Through Jesus' sacrifice God extends his arms out to you. The same message that Peter had for Cornelius is the same message extended to you right now. That God raised Jesus up from the dead and appointed him to be judge of the living and the dead, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name! If you believe this, if you make the decision to follow Jesus then he will give you the gift of the Holy Spirit to enliven you, direct you, assure you, teach you, and enable you to live as God intends you to live.

Today is the day of salvation, if you hear His voice do not harden your heat against it. If you are moved by this message, and you feel what you think might be God calling into your heart please don't let it be, find someone who knows what it means to follow Christ and have the Holy Spirit in their life and ask them how it works and how you can get it too.



Second point.

Israel usually didn't get what God was doing in their midst. Jesus' disciples usually didn't get what God was doing in their midst. The religious leaders who knew the Torah inside and out didn't understand what God was doing in their midst. Even Peter, upon whom God would found his Church, having been Jesus' close companion for years, now having within him the Holy Spirit, and receiving visions didn't understand what God was doing. But us today, we have had centuries to think about and discuss the Bible and we have the Holy Spirit within us, surely we can fair better than God's people in the past!

No. God's ways are still not our ways, and we need to cultivate a spirit of humility. God is always doing something new, something unexpected, something that we don't see or understand even though he gives us plenty of warning. The circumcision group thought that the Gentiles had to become just like them, and for a lot of reasons that were widely accepted by God's people at the time, but God was not restricted by their vision or understanding. Depending on the day, that could easily be us. In order to be a Christian you need to... what? Dress a certain way? Speak a certain way? Hold certain political opinions? Exhibit a spiritual sign like speaking in tongues or blessings of health and wealth? Go to church on Sunday and read your Bible? (Both good things by the way) Need to be part of our denomination? Need to not do sin X,Y, or Z? We have all sorts of pre-conceived notions about who can be in and who is out. But do you know what? God doesn't care. He calls who he calls and his call goes out to every person which means that every person could potentially accept Christ and rightly be a Christian brother or sister.

Now how does this work? I'm not going to go into specifics to define the line between whether a person is a believer or a non-believer, that's a topic for another day. What I am saying is that we need to be prepared to welcome believers of every walk of life. Be prepared to work alongside believers of different social-economic status or who dress differently or who are part of different denominations or whose personal sin that they deal with is different than the personal sin that you deal with. The Jews were shocked when God included the Gentiles, we will be shocked when God includes others in our midst, it is inevitable. People who do the wrong things, think the wrong things, dress the wrong way, who don't know or appreciate how we do things. If God calls them, and they join, we must not stand in God's way, we must welcome them in the name of Christ of whom they have believed.

When it comes to who can be in God's Kingdom, right now, it is a free for all. Anyone and everyone can join. This does not mean that any and all behavior is appropriate for the citizen's of God's kingdom, but regardless of who you are today or what you have done, the invitation is open to you.

Now a word of how a follower of Jesus should behave, there are several locations in the New Testament that specifically address this, we will cover them very briefly. Jesus preached a number of topics such as the repentance of sin, hatred, sexual immorality, greed, and hypocrisy. The early Church in Jerusalem provided basic guidelines for how the new Gentile Christians ought to conduct themselves. The Apostle Paul wrote that we are to live according to the Spirit, which is the will of God and life to us, and resist the flesh, that is our earthly base desires that are sinful. Peter, James, and John also wrote on the topic. While each location is a bit different on the surface they all point back to Jesus and they all agree and intersect without conflict. This is not the topic of the sermon and so I am not going to go into specifics except to say that as citizens of God's Kingdom we must submit to the King's will. There are some things that the Bible explicitly identifies as against God's will such as lying, theft, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, greedy, hate, bitterness, etc. These are things that every denomination within the Church today can basically agree on. There are other things that there is continuous debate on and different denominations and even different churches will draw the lines in different places as their attempt to be God's Kingdom citizens within their time and area. So the questions of "is it ok to drink alcohol? is it ok to gamble? and even what exactly qualifies as 'sexual immorality'? may get you different answers depending on which Christian tradition you ask. But now we've run far afield.

Here's the point to take home. God calls everyone and even though we are not in a 1st century Jewish context the sort of people God calls will shock us but if we want to continue participating in what God is doing, you know, the purpose and privilege of being a part of God's Kingdom, then we must welcome them and work with them. This doesn't mean that their are no expectations for how new Christians ought to act but it does mean that God calls all types, even the types we wouldn't pick for whatever reason.



Third Point

Despite our best efforts though God will still shock us. We can be like Peter, spending time in prayer and seeking the Lord's will day by day or like the Circumcision group resting on the faith we grew up with when all of a sudden God calls us into something that we don't understand. This could be a word from God, it could be a situation we find ourselves in, or a new realization that we are uncomfortable with. God is in the business of growing things and we are both the plants that he wants to grow and bare fruit and the laborers in his kingdom who he sends to do his work.

Did you catch that? We are both the plants he wants to grow and the laborers who he sends out.

As his plants he wants us to grow into maturity so that we bare fruit and so profit the kingdom and the world around us. Now the best plants, those that are most hardy and bare the best fruit are the ones who encounter adversity, not the ones who have it easy. This is why gardeners prune their plants, they lop off new growth that is unnecessary so that the plant will put its energy into the growth that does matter. Depending on the plant the gardener may put it through a dry spell, or expose it to the wind so that it its roots grow deeper and its stem becomes stronger and more flexible. In this way when there is a real drought or a real wind the plant that has grown into maturity will not dry up for lack of water or snap or be uprooted when hit by the wind. In the same way that a gardener will tend its plants God tends us. Does the plant understand what why the gardener subjects it to pruning or dryness or the elements? Maybe that's a silly question. Of course not. Plants don't understand anything. But so to do we not understand when God prunes us, or puts us through a dry spell, or allows us to be exposed to the bitterness of the world. This is one of the ways that God will shock us, and when he does let us remember Peter, how he went up to a quiet place to pray and was obedient to the Lord even though he did not understand what was going to happen.

As his laborers God wants us to work in the fields so to speak. He wants us to plant seeds, tend crops, and bring in the harvest. I'll break from analogy for a second to explain what that means. There are people, all over the world, who either don't know or are resisting God's call in their lives, to be reconciled to God. He's done the work of redemption, where we failed, Jesus succeeded, what we lacked, Jesus provided, what rebellion we rise up against God, Jesus will forgive. Where we are entrapped by false ideas Jesus sets us free, where we are bitter Jesus can make us sweet, where we are damaged Jesus can restore us, where we are hard and cold, Jesus can make soft and warm, where we are dead, Jesus makes alive, where we are unloving, Jesus enables us to love. Jesus does the big work, but he still chooses to do it through us. We get to participate in God's working out of his redemptive work. For Peter, God had it in mind to use him in a new area. The Word of God and the goodness of Jesus was being preached to the Jews all over the place, but now it was to go also to the Gentiles, an entirely new frontier. Did Peter understand where he was going? Not at first, but after three visions, three visitors, and a direct call he finally got the picture. Did God equip him for the task and prepare the way for him? You bet He did!

Equipped how? Oh I don't know, how about living with Jesus, watching him, and listening to him for years, being a witness to everything that had happened, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and being the primary voice of the Apostles at this point to the Jews.

Prepare the way how? He sent an angel to Cornelius telling him to request Simon Peter in Jappa by name. Working in Cornelius' heart so that he already believed in God and would accept the good news that Peter would bring him. Mentally preparing Peter to go to the Gentiles by sending him 3 visions. This is not to mention the fact that they all got there without any problems.

If God sends us to do something, and he will, he equips us and prepares us and prepares the way for us, but where he sends us and what he wants us to do will shock us. If a younger Peter were told, God has chosen you to be his close personal friend while he walks on the Earth as Jesus and you will be his witness to the Jews and Gentiles about the salvation that God offers everyone in the world, he would think you've been out in the sun too long or maybe drinking salt water and go back to his fishing. God doesn't turn fishermen into world changing bannermen for his kingdom. Actually yes, yes he does. Fishermen and tax collectors and farmers and prostitutes and shepherds the lowest of the low called to incredible things. But not just the lowest in society, if Luke, the author of Acts and the Gospel that bares his name, could have been told that he would bare witness to God incarnate and that he would be one of the very few priveldged to chronicle his life and the amazing work of the Holy Spirit in the early Church what do you think he would say? What God had in mind was shocking, shocking beyond what was believable. Moses couldn't believe it when God told him that he was going to be God's messenger to Pharaoh and that he was going to lead the people of Israel out of Pharaoh's hand. Even Peter, having gone through everything with Jesus and having been the lead witness to the Jews was shocked that he would be sent to the Gentiles as well.

Now there's us. God has it in mind to use us for specific tasks in his kingdom. He is going to call us to go places and do things that we don't think we can do and if we could get a clear glimpse of those things beforehand they would shock us. God wants me to do what? He wants me to go where? I have to forgive what?! I am called to love who?! I have to do all this under those types of conditions!? Don't be surprised that God will surprise you in what he enables you to do but whatever he does call you to he enables you and prepares you and will look after you, it is our job to pray and obey.

It's not all about you

"It's not all about you." I think everyone understands this saying to at least some degree. Children will grow up one day and realize "it's not all about them." When someone is stuck on getting their way we may tell them, "it's not all about you." One the lessons I've been learning as a husband and a father is that "it's not all about me." In order to work well with others and to become a better person we need to realize that our opinions are not the only ones that matter, other people don't think the same way I / you / we think, and that we are not always going to get our way.

What I've been seeing as a pattern, and I have yet to fully map it out or understand it, is a divine "it's not all about you," in response to so much of our spiritual / political issues in North American culture. We are rich and get upset or worried when we hear the words of Jesus to give all we have to the poor. Wealth needs to managed responsibly and those who are wealthy need to be aware of and take care of those who are poor. Because it's not all about you. God doesn't bestow wealth so that a lucky few can insulate themselves in pleasure palaces and drive luxury cars, the expectation is that you will honor God with the wealth he gives you and put your desires aside in favour of God's desires.

The same applies to your time. I love my me time. I often desire more of it. I have responsibilities though and my time is not actually mine, it is God's and my wife's and my sons' time. I don't just get to spend time how ever I feel like, I spend it where it is needed by others first and then myself. I don't do this perfectly of course, but it's the direction I've been heading and I think it is very important.

A friend of mine posted an article about transabled people who are able-bodied people who wish to acquire a disability. Some have their legs or hands amputated, others wish to become blind or deaf, and so on. The general reaction to this has been disbelief, anger, and the prevailing idea that something must be wrong with these people. It's currently known as "Body Integrity Identity Disorder" in the DSM. Once again I think there is something key in Jesus calling to these people that "it's not all about you." Sure you may wish and hope and fantasize about having no legs but God gave you those legs to serve him and serve others. You may gain temporary personal fulfillment in chopping them off and living your dream but for the love of God stop and think about others because it's not all about you. The resources and funding that could go to people who didn't have a choice in being disabled. The calling God has on your life to serve him and serve others.

Same message goes for sexual desires. No, you can't indulge your sexual appetite all the time because it's not all about you. No, you can't just leave your spouse because you find someone else more appealing because it's not all about you. Sometimes you need to give when you don't feel like giving and sometimes you need to hold back when you want to keep going because it's not all about you. God's intentions for sexuality and family are inseparable and our North American culture rebels and revolts against them in the name of freedom because we haven't yet learned that it's not all about us. My body is not my own, it was purchased with Christ's blood and given in pledge to my wife. I don't get to use it however I want because it's not all about me.

Exploring outside The Bible and Christianity

I am a father now. My wife and I are discussing how we ought to raise our children. We are thinking about Home Schooling them for a number of reasons and one of the challenges we will face is how to properly educate them while also caring for their spiritual needs. There is a Christian Home School movement in the States that emphasizes study of The Bible and domestic skills to the exclusion of 'secular' studies (English, Math, Science). I realized rather quickly that I found the idea of this approach disgusting... perhaps even abhorrent. A half second later I became aware of the irony of my feelings... I went to Bible College and Seminary for 10 years, got a masters degree in systematic theology, and now find the idea of teaching my children from the Bible disgusting. If someone took this thought out of context they would think I was an apostate!

I don't think I am an apostate, my soul just cringes when I see or hear about how some people misuse The Bible and set themselves and their children up for ridicule and failure. There is a time and a place where being ridiculed for Christ and appearing to be a failure in the worlds' eyes is necessary and will be rewarded by Christ in the end, but I am convinced that the fundamentalist attempt at substituting a proper understanding of creation for the Revelation of Christ is not one of those times or places. To this end I believe that Christ is surely present in more than just The Scriptures. Now I have surely made fundamentalist souls cringe.

We need to get our proper understanding of God through The Scriptures. For this there is no substitute. God has revealed himself in Jesus. The Holy Bible is the inspired recording of The Word of God. The Holy Spirit leads and guides Christians forward in agreement and accordance with what is already written. Godly preaching and godly teaching will have their foundation in the Revelation of God through Jesus in The Bible by the power of The Holy Spirit. I am not suggesting for an instant that we can learn about God through some other means. What I am advocating for is that knowledge of the world is also God ordained and valuable in its own right even if it can not be used as a substitute for / addition to God's self revelation.

For this reason I want my children to grow up understanding how God has created the world and how it all fits together. Science for the physical how. Theology for the intangible why. Mathematics and Philosophy for the abstract how. Theology for the abstract why. Psychology and Literature to understand the mind. Theology to direct, guide, and sometimes limit them for proper formation of both mind and soul. Fiction and Fantasy to dream and inspire. Theology to fuel the fire. History for what has happened and when. Theology for why it happened and what will happen in the end.

I want my children to love God, to love others, and to love God's creation. I want them to look into the starlit sky and be amazed at God's power and majesty inspiring worship while also being able to name the planets and understand how they orbit the sun. I want them to read good books and be reminded of God's goodness and inspired to practice their faith anew while also distinguishing fiction from reality. I want them to understand logic and use it with courage and compassion. I want to create a safe environment where they can explore and learn more than just The Bible. The Bible was never intended to be used as an instruction manual for feelings, art, science, psychology, mathematics, food, how to build an engine, or many of the other experiences, questions, and ideas that we have in the world. The Bible should inspire and direct us in how we pursue these things, but it is not a substitute for the pursuit. I will ensure that my children know their Bibles and that the knowledge of God is the foundation but I am going to enjoy teaching them about everything else too.

How will we do this? I'm not sure. There are lots of curriculum out there for Home Schooling and I have been told by various sources that most of them are miles ahead of what is taught in public school, so it sounds like we have some good options to choose from right from the start. We are already teaching our children about God by living our faith, praying with them before bed time, reading Bible Stories, and participating in Church. We both have our theological educations from Briercrest and, between the two of us, we shouldn't have a problem teaching any of the subject matter. Bit by bit, day by day, with the leading of The Spirit and the help of family and friends we work with our sons to teach them what is right and what is good.

Greg Out

Thoughts about the Common Understanding of Christianity in History

The following post has not been well written, it probably contains incomplete ideas and there are no proper references. I simply started writing and then stopped. Here is what came out.

I've read a number of books, articles, and blogs in the last two years that point me in an uneasy direction. From thesis research to casual reading, from Thomas Watson to G.K. Chesterton, to a myriad of contemporary scholars; all of them speak in unison about what can only be described as an ongoing conspiracy, namely the engineering of the popular understanding of history by historians with strong anti-Christian sentiments.

What is Christianity known for in popular culture? Crusades, Inquisitions, resisting science, Flat Earth wackos, Creationist wackos, slavery, White Supremacy, residential schools, Aboriginal Abuse, wars, weird beliefs, anti-intellectualism, homophobic, antiquated, ritualistic, barbaric, on and on the list goes; essentially boiling down to the stupidest, most hypocritical, and most violent people on Earth. From public education to popular media the uncountable acts of heroism, charity, peace, civil advancement, and intellectual rigor of Christian Civilization are being forgotten and replaced with a disparaging narrative about illiterate masses torturing and killing each other in the name of Christ at the behest of power hungry Popes and Christian Kings. This is the narrative taught in public school, proudly proclaimed by atheist authors, and published by news journalists.

The first experience with this manipulation of history that really stood out to was in public school history class. We covered the middle ages in a month. My dear grade 10 history teacher, Mr. Staples, took great delight in boiling things down to how Christianity used the fear of Hell to force everyone to go to war against such and such a group and it was about 1000 years of that between 500 AD to 1500 AD at which point humanity got past religion and started thinking for the first time since the Fall of Rome and we had The Enlightenment which worked to put all that nasty Dark Ages stuff behind us. This wasn't what he taught but this is what everyone in the class got from him as I witnessed art projects for next two and half years regarding the affects of religion that were extremely simplistic and negative (a poster with a grade 11 attempt at Gothic text reading "Tithe all your money to the Church and join the Crusades OR BURN IN HELL!!!!!"). What we learned in school about the middle ages and Christianity was wrong, but more on that later.

My reasoning at the time was that the teacher must not be a Christian and has never really studied Christianity and so he doesn't understand that the wars were justified and that sometimes there are some things not only worth dying for but also worth killing for, the eternal destiny of mankind and the glory of God being two such things (this opinion would change later) but it would take too long to explain how this all fit together and nobody would listen anyway. Then I went to Briercrest and learned real history and real theology. Society, intellectual and academic development, philosophy, literacy, all of it continued after the fall of Rome and Christianity was the driving force to preserve and promote its growth. Dear old Mr. Staples was grossly (criminally?) oversimplifying things for the sake of getting through a grade 10 history class, and everyone in that class has had a low view of Christianity and the Middle Ages ever since.


My second experience was in Dr. Jamie Muir's Philosophy course. He explained the method societies use to enforce specific narratives through the analogy of Plato's Cave. The Politia, or the unquestioned (and unquestionable) assumptions of a society act as the fire by which everyone in the cave uses for light and this will affect how they see things. The fire is a manufactured light, it is not the sun. He extended the analogy to Canada to help us understand. In Canada we all believe in human rights. This is an unquestioned assumption. If you question the idea of human rights in Canada you will get a backlash because the assumption is not only unquestioned it is unquestionable. "Of course we have Human Rights!" anyone will tell you. "You must be an idiot or a fascist to question basic Human Rights." If you press them to give an explanation for why they have human rights though, they will not be able to give you an answer. The assumption is not only unquestioned and unquestionable it is also not understood. There is a philosophical argument for human rights but nobody learns about John Locke anymore except for maybe a brief aside in a grade 10 history class. Even if we did 'learn about' him we have not read him or his argument for why we have human rights, we instead just assume that we have them and that we know what they are. There are a few more unquestioned assumptions that make up the Canadian Politia; Multiculturalism and Tolerance being two of the big ones. Nobody understands how they work or where they came from but everyone talks about them and uses them to persuade support for this or that cause. Never-mind the fact that they are incompatible with each other. Professor Muir posed the following question. What do you think about the forced circumcision of African girls? "It's a horrible breach of basic human rights!" we responded. But its their cultural heritage, he argued back, it's a practice to promote sexual purity, why are you imposing your intolerant beliefs about sexuality and culture onto this family? After a long pause one brave soul responded that, "well, I guess there could be an argument made-" WHAT!? NO! This is a blatant violation of basic human rights! This poor girl! What sort of monster are you to advocate for her forced circumcision?! The point was clear. Our unquestioned assumptions were self contradictory and nobody could explain how they worked or where they came from.

A few classes later Dr. Muir explained that the media always lies. News agencies never tell a whole story and the stories they do tell are spun in light of the Politia. That 5 - 15 minute blurb or page of text is created to serve the Politia and it could never be any other way. The 'get information out to the masses' initiative always needs to dumb things down and shorten things up for the masses to understand, the must play to the Politia if they want to be heard. This often leads to favoring one side of a story more than the others or just ignoring them altogether. Even a casual observer can see this happening all the time. News journalists, comedians, entertainers, these are the puppeteers who make shadows in Plato's Cave by the light of the Politia for the masses to see.

This is a passive conspiracy, there is nobody or no group of persons at the head trying to cover things up, although there are lobbyists who attempt to influence the Politia hoping to make it reflect their agenda. Alternative opinions and the knowledge to understand the world are freely available (literally free in libraries and online) but nobody bothers to read them. The few that do know better become the target of comedians and sitcoms, the nerdy geeky bookish high IQ with no social skills stereotype. The passive control of the Politia exerted over society through the puppeteers teaches everyone to not take these people seriously by painting them in funny colors and laughing.

Later Dr. Muir asked us if we had ever read Plotinus, we responded that we had not. He asked if we had ever heard of such a man. We responded again that we had not. He seemed troubled and then exclaimed that surely we should have at least heard of Plotinus and that his soul grieved for us for having been so destitute in our education, not just for not having heard of Plotinus but for not having heard of so many incredible and influential people throughout history whose ideas and writings are at the foundation of our society and our beliefs as westerners. I was shocked. Dr. Muir wasn't one for theatrics and he didn't show much emotion in front of the class. He grieved for us. I am still shocked and honestly wonder how little I actually know about anything for having not at least heard of the people at the foundation of western thought let alone read anything them.

He went still further and told us to never go to any university in Canada to learn philosophy as every university has become enslaved to the Politia. They do not actually teach philosophy but rather teach about philosophers in light of current Canadian beliefs. You will not learn Plato in Canada, only a Canadian view of Plato, one that is tolerable and censored by Canadian sensibilities and only seen through the light of other philosophers that Canadian scholarship finds ideal. I asked him privately after class if he was serious and he was. The state of philosophical education in Canada was a disaster, he said. If you want to learn Philosophy then you must pick a philosopher and read him. Read everything he wrote. Then re-read him and re-read him again. Then you will understand him and not just what other people have said about him. You will be prepared to dialogue about him and his ideas. If he was influenced by another philosopher then read that philosopher, don't ever settle for a textbook that tells you what to think about a philosopher, read the philosopher. There are only a handful of universities that actually do this in the United States and none of them do this in Canada. He proceeded to explain his own experience with attempting to teach this way at a university in Manitoba and how the feminists had aggressively lobbied the school to fire him and ban the books required for the class for teaching feminist philosophies that they disagreed with.

I was stunned. How much of my knowledge of people and events was from what others have said or written and not from the direct source? Pretty much all of it. What did I really know? Not much at all. How much of what I had been told was accurate or true and did they ever check to be sure? Why on earth should a lobbyist group have sway concerning what a university teaches? Shouldn't universities be the realm of free thought and unlimited academic inquiry?

How does this long seemingly unrelated story have to do with my conspiracy theory regarding the popular view of Christianity in history? This is the framework for how the conspiracy works. The Politia of North America has made it so that nobody actually reads first source or accurate second source material regarding history or Christianity which means that all of us just don't know what happened or why because the sources we absorbed are inaccurate and oftentimes just plain false. The Politia has also become anti-Christian; not in the sense of specific hatred for Christianity but more in the sense of painting Christians in funny colors and alternatively laughing and mocking them. This has given people that do hate Christianity an opening to present and publish disparaging material which, instead of being checked for accuracy, is adopted by the puppeteers of society to create shadows to entertain the masses. The false ideas published and perpetuated become fact in the eyes of the public. This is the template for what happened in Socrates' time, Dr. Muir argued that this was a universal problem, not restricted to any time or culture, and I have never heard any argument to say otherwise. But this is only the template, keep it in mind as we continue.


The third encounter I had with the manipulation of history to disparage Christianity was while I was writing my thesis on Thomas Watson, a Puritan preacher from Seventeenth Century England. As any thesis writer knows you have to do heavy research into first and second source material. What I found regarding the Puritans in general astonished me.

When you think of the Puritans what do you think of? Moralistic prudes in drab pilgrim clothes being overly serious about everything and spending lots of time on hard wooden pews in old wooden churches. M.L. Mencken once quipped that "Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy." What I discovered through my research was a very different narrative though. The Puritans were not drab but colorful, not conservative but cutting edge reformers, and their morals were loose and sometimes scandalous compared to their Anglican and Catholic contemporaries. They were not stuffy, they were radically fresh, they were not against science or learning, they founded schools and academies and fought and died for freedom of the press and triggered an explosion of literature and discussion on everything ranging from politics to economics and public education to religion. Far from being deranged preachers full of condemnation they preached incredible grace and were teachers, politicians, poets, businessmen, the educated radical edge of English society at the time. Why then are they remembered for tortuously strict censorious moralizing? Because their opponents seized power and wrote the history books and did a very good job of disparaging the Puritans' legacy. All that remains in the public consciousness regarding the Puritans is a narrative about sexually repressed pilgrims with sour faces and funny hats. It seems like everyone knows the portrayal from The Scarlet Letter but nobody remembers how they were criticized for their loose religion, partying too much, and their scandalous sexual freedom. They were politically diverse, some siding with the Revolutionaries, others with the Royalists and came from all walks of life inhabiting every sphere of society but we have decided to paint them all with a very large dark brush.

The very things the Puritans labored and strived for to the point of persecution and death are the very things they are remembered for trying to stop and destroy! It was crazy. History as I knew it had been remembered upside down. The more I read the Puritans the more I became convinced of it, what we know about Puritanism is wrong. All we know is the caricature left behind by those who hated the Puritans. This is a true shame as they had such an influential role in establishing the foundations of both Canada and the United States. More than that, they were incredibly deep thinkers with penetrating vision and one of the highest points of political, theological, and academic development available for Protestant Christianity (Evangelicalism specifically) to draw upon!

How did this happen? How do we remember them for the opposite of what they were? The consensus I came across throughout Puritan studies is that those who hated the Puritans left disparaging histories which have since been picked up by other historians who hated religion in general and what was fabricated became fact in the minds of the masses. They labored powerfully and passionately to the point of death for so many of the rights and benefits we enjoy today, setting the foundation for the society we live in, and we have not only forgotten them but then rejected them and named them enemies.

I wondered then, while I wrote my thesis, if I or any of my friends and family would suffer a similar fate or how many of my Christian brothers and sisters who struggled mightily for God's Kingdom and the benefit of others only to have been forgotten and then rejected; remembered only through a caricature created by those who hated them. It is a good thing that God remembers them and that He will have the final say.


My fourth encounter with the manipulation of history to disparage Christianity was when I read through G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. In this book he talks about his own journey as a non-Christian looking into Christianity. He noted how those who hated Christianity didn't make a whole lot of sense. One hated Christianity because it was the cause of all wars in Europe, another hated Christianity because they were too peaceful and refused to fight. One hated Christianity for its political power another for its political weakness. One hated Christianity for its overly high view of humanity, another for its extremely low view of humanity. One hated Christianity for its ruthlessness, another for its compassion. How could Christianity be the cause of all wars but too peaceful, too powerful and too weak, loving humanity too much and hating humanity too much, too ruthless and too compassionate all at the same time? His conclusion was that either Christianity was a truly impressive evil or the problem wasn't with Christianity at all but rather with the people who hated it as they compared it to some sort of ideal that Christianity would not conform to. Then he took the time to research what Christianity actually was and became a Christian himself.

Chesterton marveled at the complex asymmetrical balance of Christian doctrine and explained that it is very easy for nonbelievers looking in to be confused or disappointed; expecting symmetry seeing asymmetry, and assuming that it was therefore unbalanced. But just as everything in the world isn't quite symmetrical (moles on a face, one heart in the left of your chest and not one on the right, etc) so too is the religion of the living God who created the asymmetry not quite symmetrical, which is really the only thing that could make sense. The unyielding 'fight' within Christian doctrine is counter balanced by its unwavering grace and mercy, but not symmetrically. Like a wobbling top there are some points where Christian doctrine brings more fight to bear and at other points more grace which may appear to be unstable but in reality it is not.

This asymmetrical balance is complex and not easy to understand. It is not what we expect to find and it appears at first to be about to fall over. It is very easy to dismiss Christian doctrine as a lost cause or just plain foolishness or contradictory and that is what society does. Everyone can find something to hate about Christianity. Even in 1900 the real picture of Christianity had been buried by so many people painting their own pictures and Chesterton had to actively dig through the mess to find what Christianity actually was. Just one more example before moving on, he had been lead to believe, like many in that time period, that Christianity was very much like and completely compatible with Buddhism. After actually reading both Buddhist and Christian texts Chesterton announced that this was absolutely false, that the two were absolutely nothing alike. Another point at which unscrupulous or uninformed historical authorities had painted an inaccurate portrayal of Christianity which became fact to the masses.

There is so much good in reading Chesterton and I feel like I've maybe gone a bit off track. The point of bringing Orthodoxy into this is that he articulates how people get Christianity so very wrong and that so many people hate it because they don't understand it and don't want to. Both the educated and uneducated a hundred years ago, and these were the people who brought us to where we are today.


A fifth encounter with the manipulation of history to disparage Christianity has been recent experience with popular media. Last year at Christmas there was a smear article published about how Christianity was hopelessly stupid and historically false. This author, doubtlessly influenced by Hitchens and Dawkins, managed to paint Christianity as hopelessly violent, consistently opposed to science, the cause of the Fall of the Rome, a force of power hungry ignorance, and then also started tearing up the entirety of Biblical Studies by trying to show how original texts don't line up with each other and how there are so many translation problems. This was posted as an academic Christmas special on a prominent news website. This article and the author were immediately taken to task by Seminary professors and pastors throughout North America who condemned the information in his article as utterly false and disparaging to the point of hate speech and provided overwhelming evidence to counter every single one of his claims... but it was still chosen as the academic voice of the news.

There was another article about how Christianity was NOT the cause of the Fall of Rome and how the entirety of our knowledge of the 'Middle Ages' has been purposefully distorted and utterly unrecognizable from history by the anti-religious historians who coined 'The Enlightenment'. Far from being a dark age or even a 'Middle Age' (as though it were just time filler between Rome and The Enlightenment) the centuries after the dissipation of the Roman Empire was filled with life and learning. Instead of descending into chaos as we have been lead to believe the fractions of the empire coalesced into independent kingdoms who worked to preserve the peace and knowledge of the empire without the empire. New technologies were constantly developing as were political and social systems. The priorities of these new kingdoms was different than that of the Empire and they focused on food production and defense as the empire could not longer provide or protect them against Vandal raids from the north and Muslim armies from the east and south. The people did not become stupid or fall into a 'dark age' the new kingdoms built schools and it was Christianity that preserved the learning of Rome, taught people how to read, built universities, and continued the academic, philosophical, and theological endeavors. Christians were not the ones doing violence until late in the Middle Ages, it was the Christians who suffered violence from everyone. There was no division or jarring transition between then and the so called 'Enlightenment,' at least not until a false division was made by humanist scholars with the express purpose of disparaging Christianity by calling the time before 'dark' and their new endeavor to remove religion 'enlightened.'

Then another article published just recently by a seminary professor at Covenant, once again about how what we know about the Middle Ages is wrong. He explains that nobody who was educated believed the Earth was flat since 300 BC. The whole 'Flat Earth' criticism leveled against Christians was to show them to be ignorant and anti-science is a hoax perpetuated by the early Darwinists against Creationists. It worked. The Crusades were not about grabbing power and conquest as we have been lead to believe. They were primarily for the purpose of defending Christians from ever encroaching Muslim armies. The Inquisitions were not about torture or a crime against humanity as we have been lead to believe, they were for removing heresy from The Catholic Church via Excommunication. Torture was not a common or even uncommon as have been lead to believe but rare. According to this professor who has a PhD in Medieval history, the 'torture museums' wherein modern citizens can witness all manner of barbaric torture devices and techniques used in the Middle Ages are fabrications created to demonize Christian Civilization. It worked.

Then there was an Anti-Christian meme that popped up shortly after reading this, it was a picture of a man being drawn and quartered made to look like authentic Medieval artwork with the phrase "We already tried Christian society run by the rich, it was called THE DARK AGES for a reason!"

So here we have all manner of historical and academic weight and credibility but it consistently gets ignored in favor of the disparaging narratives. It's disheartening and frustrating. I don't have capability to read everything that has been written or understand all that has been said. Even if I did nobody would listen. Just look at all of the incredible and powerful communicators who labored throughout history for the Kingdom and how they have all been ignored, having their life's work summed up in a disparaging Facebook meme.


I think what I see playing out isn't a real conspiracy, just continued confirmation of what what the Bible teaches about humanity preferring darkness to light and exchanging the truth of God for a lie. It happens continually in every age; the world is continually forgetting what God has done and continually hates Christ and his followers and their work in the world. I don't think this hatred is necessarily intentional, although some of it certainly is, but rather passively inherited through the Politia and original sin. It is all so very big though, my mind can barely keep the few pieces it has encountered in place. Praise be to God that he knows what's going on and he is the one who directs us and vindicates us.

Thought Done.
Greg Out.