A few years ago, I wrote a paper with my son-in-law, Austin, that we presented at a C.S. Lewis conference held at Belmont University. Though the paper is largely about education, our premise centered on the idea that learning of any sort must be preceded by wonder. As we are entering the time of year when thoughts quickly turn to wonder, I thought this might be an interesting read.

“Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel

Albert Einstein became the world’s most famous physicist because of a day dream. When he was sixteen years old day dreaming came more naturally than study, and he attributed his successes to the fact that he never gave up this propensity. The daydream came while he was reading Aaron Berstein’s Popular Books on Natural Science. The author asked his readers to imagine running beside an electric signal as it moved through a telegraph wire. It was a small leap for him to shift his imagination to something even more fantastic, running along side a beam of light.

Well, Reformation Day is this weekend.  Unfortunately, many Christians are unaware of the importance of the Reformation. 

Why is that important? Well, the answer to that question involves Mr. Henry M.

Never heard of him either?

 Ahhh…..

 Almost everyone who takes an introductory psychology course reads a passing reference to Henry M. in the textbook. However, I finally read his entire story and was spellbound by it.

In the early 1950’s, Henry M. was struggling with some sort of emotional difficulty that seemed resistant to all conventional treatment. So, incredibly to us today, his doctors decided to lobotomize him. They removed his hippocampus, a small organ inside the human brain whose purpose was unknown at the time. Then, for the rest of his life, the psychologists studied him.

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The word “God” means so many different things to people...

 

            Of course, the English word “God” would have been unrecognizable to ancient Hebrews and Greeks. Early English speaking Christians searched for a word that would express what the Hebrew scriptures meant by the words “Yahweh” or “Elohim”.  They chose the word “God”. Unfortunately, we use the same word to refer to any deity of any religion. That means that the word “God” does not communicate the same thing to everyone.

 

Socrates always insisted that the first order of business in any discussion is to define the terms to be used. We don’t want to upset Socrates,  so lets stop and define the word “God”. 

 

            First, Christians believe that God has a personality. He is not like a borderless mist, some undefined, impersonal force of nature. God has a personality. We can know Him, communicate with Him, even have a relationship with Him.

 

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We are in the season of masquerade. Soon the streets will be filled with pumpkins, cats, little red devils and mighty super heroes about waist high. Many of us are afraid of Halloween, either because it has become unsafe to take our children from door to door to collect candy, or because many Christians have come to believe that there is something inherently wicked about this holiday when children dress up in masks, capes and costumes. The charge of course is that Halloween has pagan roots, which is true. What is also true is that our contemporary preoccupation about paganism sometimes drives me up a wall!


According to some people, even Christmas and Easter (or an annual celebration of any kind) is a Hellish invention to trip up the saints as they make their way toward Heaven. The source of some of this attitude towards holidays is a war against any part of our human experience that might actually be fun! But replacing elements of our life that have non-Christian sources would be next to impossible. If we really wanted to be rid of all things with pagan roots, we would have to rename the days of the week and the months of the year. Also, church steeples and the great seal of the United States would have to be eliminated. (Church steeples are rooted in the worship of – Ok, I'll say this as delicately as I can – "fertility.")

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When Walter Mondale and President Reagan were about to begin their first debate, Mondale began with a statement: "Tonight, I will say some strong things about the President's views and policies. I would like it to be understood that I mean no disrespect, either to the man or to his office. I enjoy President Reagan's company, and I know him to be a decent and kind man."

At this, President Reagan replied, "I like you too Fritz, let's go to it!"

The audience laughed and the debate began in earnest. Mondale did not hold back. He hit the president's policies hard. But he had already announced his boundaries: he was not going to cross the line into dishonor for his opponent.

Walter Mondale didn't win my vote that night but he did win my respect. He had modeled how a person can be passionate for his cause and still remain a gentleman. His words reflected what our national leaders thought, once upon a time: that it was as essential for a statesman to promote national unity as it was to advance his political persuasion.

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What is a liberal?

Some of the popular definitions for the word "liberal" include "showing or characterized by broad-mindedness;" "generous and broad sympathies," tolerant," "having political or social views favoring reform and progress," " tolerant of change;" "not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition;" "a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of personal civil liberties."

"Liberalism," is thus a philosophy that seeks to advance "social progress," usually defined as continual movement towards increased personal freedom and broader protection for the individual from the threat of poverty, prejudice, illness and ignorance. Liberalism is thus an orientation toward the future rather than the past.

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On May 16, 1966, Chairman Mao set into motion a movement of youth and peasants who would work untiringly for nearly a decade to rid China of all "foreign," "elitist," and "bureaucratic" elements.  He called for the masses to unleash their frustration against the educated classes.
 
We call Mao's movement "the cultural revolution."
 
In that decade of ideological madness, the Chinese people learned to think and speak in clichés. Sentences often began with "as the Chairman says, …"
 
In the movie, The Red Violin, a woman who loves music has to hide her records and instrument from the young punks who roam the streets in search of people like her, people who care about culture. She has to sit in silence while sarcastic "no-nothings" publicly ridicule an old music teacher because the man had taught Bach and Beethoven instead of popular Chinese music. It was a time to hide one's love of learning, culture and refinement. For the moment, the mob was in control.

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After writing it, I decided to not publish my blog about my son-in-law's deployment to Iraq.

Experience has taught me that our culture – and especially church culture -- no longer tolerates nuanced opinion. The prevailing belief is that one is either on the "right" or the "left", and that all subcategories of thought, emotion and opinion assigned to those two broad labels naturally attach to one of these polar positions. Thus, we tend to select the media outlets most favorable to our stated position, form our friendships, alliances and even our churches according to how they revolve around one of these labels. We also tend to consider or dismiss issues and ideas according to how they seem to support or threaten our social and political identity.

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There’s no getting around it. We live in a culture that includes beliefs and practices from every major world religion, and a whole bunch of minor ones. And we need to know what our neighbors, co-workers, and sometimes even our family members believe. That’s why I wrote Faith to Faith: A Conversation About Christianity and World Religions. This isn’t your typical “us vs. them” book about Christianity and other beliefs. I wrote Faith to Faith to give my fellow Christians as accurate a picture as possible of the beliefs and practices of the various world religions, not because I want to prove them wrong, but because we need to know how to relate to them.

The folks at Conversantlife.com thought it would be helpful to know a little more about my new book. So over the next few weeks I will be responding to some questions about Faith to Faith and why I wrote it. Even though I’m the one answering the questions, this isn’t intended to be a one-way conversation. I’d love to hear your responses to my thoughts. Even more, if you have a question you’d like to ask, please post it in the comments section at the end of this post.

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This was my text from Palm Sunday; I thought it would be appropriate still, given the season.

                All over the world today, preachers will be speaking about the paradox of Palm Sunday. On the first day of this week, the people of ancient Jerusalem cheered and wept as Jesus came into town, riding on a donkey. By the end of the week, the same people were calling for his death. This is of course, an example of the fickle nature of crowds and of political opinion. But surely there is more to it than that! Unless some things happened in that week that we do not know about, the crowd’s rapid move from exaltation to rage seems jarringly disjointed. Perhaps that’s why the story continues to intrigue us.

                I was thinking about all of that this week as I began to prepare for this message. I reflected on the social conditions of that era, trying to gain some new understanding of the context within which the events of Palm Sunday and Holy week occurred. As I did, I began to realize that Jesus had become an intolerable threat to many powerful people. His existence had become the source of considerable anxiety for those at the top.

                Of course, the human beings who were so disturbed at Jesus had no idea that they were really small-time players in a cosmic drama. The real powers behind the events of Holy Week, the real source of the anxiety that gripped the kings, priests and finally the mob, were invisible to human beings. The invisible powers were, however, the ones really calling the shots. I want to talk about them in a moment. First though, let’s talk about the human side of this story. Let’s ask ourselves why the leaders of first century Judea wanted to kill Jesus Christ.          

Jesus Was a Political Threat

                Jesus was not a political threat because he cared about politics. Actually, he had become threatening because he viewed the political system under which he lived as irrelevant. He preached that the kingdom of God was coming; that the joys and fortunes of the masses would no longer be dependent upon states and kings. Because of this message, Jesus is often depicted as a revolutionary by those who want to make our Lord look like Che Guevara, plotting against governments out in the jungle somewhere.

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