Last Thursday night, ABC's Nightline featured a face-off on the topic of whether Satan exists or if the whole concept of Satan is fabricated.
While there appeared to be some confusion between the four debaters about what exactly was being debated -- the devil and his appearance, more mythical demon creatures, or a larger idea of evil and its source in the physically-undefined character of Satan (this last idea as well as Satan's ability to manifest in the form of demons being Christian ideas) -- and while complex, unrelated questions associated with today's hot topics (Feminism: Is God male or female?) were brought up by the opposition, it seemed to me, as defense mechanisms when the debate got heated, to my eyes it was Mark Driscoll and Annie Lobert who successfully won the debate in favor of Satan's existence.
While their arguments are obviously affirmed by my faith, their arguments also seemed to answer the secular question that asks why evil and violence and hunger and everything bad in the world continues to permeate the farthest corners of the earth. Deepak Chopra insisted throughout the debate that everyone has a bad side/evil side within themselves, but he failed to provide a greater answer regarding the origin of that inner evil. Bishop Carlton Pearson, while obviously concerned about the power of words and experience to influence our perceptions of reality and truth, did not appear to have a full grasp on his own beliefs and also could not separate Satan from ignorant, racially-incorrect physical descriptions of the devil or of God, nor could he provide a better answer than the protagonist side for the origin of the world's problems.
But thank goodness Satan IS the answer to our question of the origin of evil! When we know the source of our problems, we also can be sure we know the solution to the problems. Thank goodness we can rejoice in the answer found in our Heavenly Father and Lord Jesus Christ!
Go to the ABC News Nightline site for the video of "Does Satan Exist?" (The full video may only be available for a limited time.)
"The Colbert Nation is at it again. This time the comedian has asked viewers of his show to write in his name on an online vote to name the new room of the international space station. Unfortunately, the official rules of the NASA ballot say that the space agency is not bound to comply with voting results. If they welsh on this one, we should boycott space ..."
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/main/slices/culture/16253-the-colbert-universe --- Go here for the full article on Yahoo.
And go here to vote in the Space Station "New Room" contest.
-------------------- Yesterday, Seth "tower" Hurd (a radio host of Shine.fm in Chicago, one of the largest Christian radio stations in the country) posted an article to RELEVANT magazine called "The Christian Music Conspiracy". I highly recommend you check it out, as it asks us to branch out in music taste and do our part to help end the somewhat bad rap that contemporary Christian music often receives.
While I really liked the article overall, I also enjoyed reading much of the follow-up commentary by readers. I have to agree with some of the commentators that it's often easier for me to connect spiritually to the themes and the artistic direction of so-called "secular" music than to the campiness and old-school-ness of some overplayed mid-1990s Christian music that proliferates the radios and contemporary Christian church services alike. So, while I enjoy actually participating in large worship gatherings that revolve around new Christian rock-Gospel of the Hillsong and Casting Crowns variety, if I am simply listening to or watching a band, I will just as often see God in the music when it's a secular group than when it's a Christian group.
One such example is the punk-rock band Linkin Park. The band has found its niche in the secular realm, though much of its style and themes may have been influenced by the band's members' Judeo-Christian backgrounds. (SeeChristianity Todayfor a greater analysis.)
But just listening to the lyrics and absorbing the band's art direction makes it easy to understand how powerful a song, regardless the genre or industry, can be on one's heart.
Watch Linkin Park's "What I've Done" Video here for more proof.
--------------------- My verse of the day from Sojourners:
Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob and chiefs of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong! Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, "Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us."
- Micah 3:9-11
*We cannot insist that the Lord is with us and acting on behalf when we are not committed to His justice, His mercy, His grace, His equity, and His peace. Not our definition of it, not our sham of a version of any of it, but His.
--------------------- So I've been reading the education-related sections in Dick Morris's Outrage book, and let me tell you, he's got me outraged..at him!
In the chapter titled "How Teachers Unions Block Education Reform", Morris correctly infers that teachers unions block reform and keep change from coming to ineffective and outdated practices, and he also, in my opinion, correctly identifies charter schools as the route to successful schooling practices. He also nicely observes that probably the biggest benefit of No Child Left Behind is that it finally gives the blue-collar and lower middle-class parents of failing school districts the opportunity to have a say-so in their children's educations, without being forced to suffer the life-long consequences of ineffective teachers and inadequate learning.
However, I started throwing air-punches at Morris when he mentioned these ideas for parents to advocate on their students' behalves after scoffing at and failing to address the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)'s very real concern that the standardized testing mandated by NCLB "fails to take account of differences among schools" and "doesn't do enough to recognize the special problems of urban schools." Does Morris seriously think that the parent of an urban child stuck in a failing school -- a parent already disassociated from her child's education because she herself 1)is a junior-high drop-out, 2) works two jobs to try to make ends meet, and 3) has several other children to worry about at home -- is going to really understand her options for finding her child a better school, have the time and resources to go about getting that child into another school, be able to provide safe transportation to a more distant school site, and, if necessary, fight for a new charter school or reformed local school board?? Does he really think that will happen? Clearly Morris doesn't know an urban school from a suburban one, or stay-at-home mom from a struggling single parent.
Morris also made me want to throw up when, on page 191, he tries to convince us readers that the common teacher complaint of having to "teach to the [NCLB standardized] tests" is no complaint at all and is actually a good thing.
"The idea that "teaching to the test" is wrong is especially absurd when the exam measures basic reading and math abilities. We're not talking about flights of logic or philosophy classes. If teachers teach to reading and math tests for elementary and junior high students, so much the better!"
Ummm, barf. Clearly Morris has not talked to college admissions officers about how, since the advents of NCLB reform in the early 2000s, admissions essay quality has plummeted and creativity has significantly disappeared from applicants' writing pieces. Then, you might ask, don't the students at least show a mastery of basic writing skills? Here, too, the basic reading instruction of elementary and junior high -- tailored to the tests, of course -- is incomplete and lacking, just as I've found that in the two high schools in which I work -- schools that, mind you, receive high "passing" marks by NCLB standards -- many of the students don't understand basic functions of middle school grammar and often have difficulty expressing their thoughts on paper, even in the most basic, typical, overused, and restrictively uncreative 5-paragraph essay.
Dick Morris, I know you have lots of high-end experience in political consulting and analysis, but please, before you go ranting and raving about how you think public schools should and do work, go do your homework.
One of the many, many blessings of pursuing ministry with TeachOverseas is that God continues to teach me more about Himself through the ministry -- and that's pretty darn great, considering I haven't even begun training with the organization! Yesterday, God showed me once again to rely fully on Him and to trust Him with real abandon.
Recently, in Young Life Leadership discussions and in my own reading, I had been learning more and more about how to pray and about what to pray and about what it means to petition God for things. John 15:7 (NIV) tells us, in words directly from Jesus's lips, to pray expectantly, that we may know we will receive that of which we ask God: "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." I've been reading daily in the devotional Voices of the Faithful, and in Beth Moore's introduction to March -- a month devoted to the theme of prayer -- she adopts this attitude.
"Many of us are making God's will harder to find than it is. If we have an active relationship with God and expose our hearts and minds fairly regularly to God's Word, our prayers are very often going to fall within the bounds of God's will... In other words, the words of God work dramatically to conform our desires to the will of God. That's what the Psalmist meant when he told us that if we'd delight ourselves in God, we'd receive the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37:4). The more God overtakes our passions and fills our minds with His words, the more readily we can pray and have what we desire."
I think Beth Moore has understood this lesson correctly: that our heart's desires and petitions to God will be in line with God's own desires and plans for our lives if we are in faithful communion with Him.
Eugene Peterson interpreted Jesus's words in John 15 this way in The Message:
"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're adjoined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is -- when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples."
This week, I wondered, am I maturing? Where is the proof in the pudding? Where is the proof of my beliefs? Is the harvest abundant? I can talk of my faith all I want, but have I given God the opportunity to show me how my faith lives? I returned to this conversation of expectancy in prayer, and I thought, shouldn't I have this attitude ALL the time?
So yesterday, as I was driving home from work, knowing I was going to go directly to my mailbox to check if I'd received any other responses from potential supporters of the TeachOverseas ministry, I prayed specifically that I would hear from a particular couple. They are the parents of an old friend, and I knew their support -- in prayer, in spirit, and possibly in finances -- was something that would really encourage me and help arm me in the Spirit for the battle ahead. I prayed, Lord, please show me that [this couple is] on board with this ministry. Please give me their support, and show it to me today. You are all-powerful, and I know this is not beyond you.
I ran some errands and then drove back to my apartment, pulled into the drive, got my mailbox key, and checked the box immediately to find two TeachOverseas responses, including one from this couple from whom I'd just prayed for a response! In their envelope was an incredibly encouraging letter, a promise of daily prayer support, and a check in addition!
Wow, God is good. He holds steadfastly to His promises that He will be there for us in our needs, however big or small. He desires us to cling to Him, not only because He cherishes relationship and knows how much better it makes life for us, but also so we can be sure that, if we're "at home" with Him, then we can be sure to "ask whatever [we] want and it will be done for [us]" (John 15:7, Message & CSB).
Yesterday, when my prayer was answered, I know God was showing me both His power and His intimacy in my life. I don't know how exactly it happened. Perhaps because my heart was at home with God's desires, he granted my request by having the couple's letter ready for me. Or, perhaps the Holy Spirit was already at work within me, and It caused me to think of this particular couple when I prayed, knowing their letter was waiting for me at home. Either way, it was an extraordinary act of God, and a wonderful gesture of affirmation.
So what then is my response to God, here? God, please, continue to show me Your Glory in marvelous, magnificent ways -- throughout this process with TeachOverseas and my whole life through. Now that I've seen it, I certainly don't ever want this intimacy and its promise to ever, ever escape me.
Back on February 8th, my Young Life team met to study what a ministry of reconciliation is and what it is to grow one. Specifically, we studied the following passage by the Apostle Paul.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
16 From now on, then, we do not know anyone in a purely human way. Even if we have known Christ in a purely human way, yet now we no longer know Him like that. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. 18 Now everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ; certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, "Be reconciled to God." 21 He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Essentially, in verse 21 we see exactly how Christ atoned for our sins on our behalf by offering himself as a sin offering in our place. As a result, Christ allows us, through his perfect sacrifice, to once again have a piece of that righteousness of God.
Righteousness of God!
That is the coolest part to me -- because we are no longer bound to sin, because we have a real example in Christ of how to lead a godly, fulfilling life in which chains to an ugly existence unplanned by God for us can no longer hold us back from true life, we in fact have the opportunity and immense honor of being the righteousness of God. And if righteousness -- a word that encompasses holiness, rightness, morality, purity, and the absence of guilt -- is gracefully bestowed on us, then we are truly growing in God's image. Which is what was intended by God in the first place, right? To be creations in His image.
So by accepting Christ's great atoning sacrifice, therein we recognize God's original plan for all creation and express our desire to be a part of it. It is the first step of reconciliation.
That the word "reconciliation" is used in this passage is crucial. Reconciliation, by definition, necessitates a full reparation of injury and restoration of friendly relations. When two friends are reconciled together, there is the requisite apology and the forgiveness that follows, but there is also a full restoration to what the friendship was like before the wrongdoing. Otherwise, the forgiveness is shallow and reconciliation hasn't really happened. Likewise, even after we have accepted God's forgiveness and have acknowledged Him, if there is no effort to pursue His true design for our lives -- one in which we are also reconciled to the people around us and to the earth itself -- then there is no full reconciliation to God.
And God loves us too much to not want us to run after Him, to not crave His very being, to not want even a glimpse of the magnificence of His plans for our lives. He says, Please, do not let your lives be limited by living in a "purely human way" or by the flesh, or material possessions, or any sense of unworthiness. He says, You are worthy of carrying this banner, and your lives will be enriched by it.
So, too, if we wave the banner boldly, do we have the opportunity to become more and more Christ-like and, in so doing, serve as Christ's ambassadors. It is not a light task, but it is the only fulfilling one. If we allow God to inspire our lives, then others too may see and know the joy of living a rich and purposeful life.
And for the ministry of Young Life, specifically, this is the whole point.
2 Corinthians 8:9
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: although He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.
We may give up much to follow this path, but we do it anyway: because Christ before us sacrificed everything for us, and because even in renouncing old ways, we find a richness that is neverending and completely priceless.
