Igneous Quill

"Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." - 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 NRSV

When I moved to Brazil and began mission work, I felt pretty good about chances for evangelistic success there.  The majority there tends, after all, to accept the authority of the Bible in theory, at least.  There are exceptions, of course.  Students at the local federal university were being spoon-fed post-modern, relativistic pap and thus considered the only absolutes to be those handed down by their fuzzy-minded professors.  There were skeptics and believers of other religions and ideologies in other sectors as well, but by and large it was fairly simple to get a theoretical foothold via trust in the Bible.  The trouble I ran into was with me.  Specifically, my conscience.

In Brazil I could go to someone's home, conduct a Bible study and the only question would often be whether than person wanted to take seriously what they had learned or not.  Once I studied about baptism and even church organization with a very sharp couple in our neighborhood , had them agreeing to everything, and then when I invited them to make a commitment they backed off.  They agreed to what they Bible said and that it was trustworthy.  Their issue was one of follow-through, not intellectual assent.

My problem was that I was uncomfortable with the level of trust people were putting in the Bible.  Does that sound odd for a missionary?  I suppose it should.  If people are already willing to give some credence to what the Scriptures say then this should be considered a perfect opening and an opportunity.  The way my mind works, though, I kept thinking about the questions they weren't asking.  It was as if, by not coming to understand the created world as evidence of God's existence and the moral law as proof of an independent source of what is "right and wrong," they were skipping important steps.

Now, I think I have resolved this internal conflict since those days.  Living and working in the New York metropolitan area I have ample contact with people who do not automatically accept the Bible as authoritative.  However, when I hear about the church growing dramatically in developing nations I both rejoice and am a little worried.  It's good news to know that churches can be established in Africa and elsewhere with far greater facility than in the Western world (parts of which appear to be in the tail-end of the twilight of Christendom).  It's cause for concern as, looking ahead, I can't see these societies progressing into higher levels of prosperity and education without also going the way of their Western counterparts in spiritual matters.

Let me put this in terms that may make more sense:

Imagine there is an apple orchard that's part of an agricultural cooperative.  It's vast, but harvesting resources and the number of workers to pick the apples is limited.  They fan out through the orchard, working more-or-less near one another but always picking only the low-hanging fruit.  Any fruit above an extended hand's reach is left on the tree for lack of ladders.  Eventually, the work crew meets up in the far corner of the orchard.  They've had an incredible harvest, but now they realize there is far, far more to be had higher up in the trees.  Trouble is, left much longer on the tree and either bugs will get to the fruit or the fruit will fall to the ground and rot.  They'll need ladders.  Fortunately, some workers had stayed behind to buy material and build ladders.  Unfortunately, the ladders were insufficient for the number of workers and the task at hand.  Some fruit wouldn't be reached in time.

This is, in a very simplified way, is what I see potentially happening in the future.  The "low-hanging fruit" in the West has been picked over for the most part and the harvesters are having success in the developing world now.  Eventually, all else remaining equal, the developing world will reach a socio-economic level in which people will consider it more beneficial to be in line with the ways of the world and the powers that be than as part of God's radical critique of that system.  The low-hanging fruit will be mostly gone (not that there will be no poverty, but rather than the opportunity will have passed) and now the church will be left to do the hard work it avoided for so long: communicating with and reaching the skeptics.

Please don't think I'm trying to say that Christianity is merely for the poor and uneducated.  I do, however, believe that the Good News of Jesus finds inroads among the marginalized of our world because His Lordship and reign contradicts the swaggering, self-satisfied corruption of the present world system.  The message of Christ, when presented accurately and in its full glory, is deeply subversive to the status quo.  Those on the outside looking in have less trouble accepting teachings that would be cause for alienation for the privileged.

Further, there are indeed talented minds working their apologetic craft, refining arguments and preparing evidences for the truth revealed in Christ.  What troubles me is that there may not be enough of them, or that their work will be hobbled by incorrect or faulty presuppositions.  An apologetic that depends on a literal six-day creation would be about as useful on an Ivy League campus as a 6-inch footstool with uneven legs would be in that orchard.  Not enough to really improve reach, and not the sort of thing in which you'd want to put too much trust.

Looking back, I probably should have just been glad there were those in Brazil willing to accept the Bible as a legitimate starting point in their spiritual investigation.  The experience shows me that, perhaps, my role isn't that of picker of low fruit.  There are places in Brazil where a more "academic" view has a better reach. Maybe I should be building the ladders, and preparing to climb them.

Some time back I read two very different articles, one right after the other.  The first, by Ed Yong, shared results of research that seems to show that people pretty much make their deities in their own images.  At least, insofar as beliefs are concerned.  When asked to consider God's opinion about a matter, it pretty much always matched the individual's belief, and even the same regions of the brain were used.  When thinking about another person's worldview, though, different regions of the brain were used.  The second article, by Richard J. Mouw, speaks of the need for Christian leaders in particular to be "formed" by their devotion and study of Scripture.  The first article appears to suggest that it's useless even to try what the latter article encourages.

While I believe I know something about God, I'm often reminded that there's much I can't grasp.  To try to help myself, I bring to mind the incident on Mount Moriah.  The God I serve is the God who told an old man to sacrifice his only son, the son he had been promised by God.  The God I serve is the God who Himself sent His willing Son to die as a sacrifice for the world's sin, confronting and overcoming powers and authorities through His death.  These are things I believe I know about God, but which, when I think about them very long, make me realize how very different this God is from anything I can imagine.  He is unpredictable, extreme, faithful and more deeply loving that I suppose I'll ever grasp.

Anyway, read the articles and see what you think.

Creating God in one's own image (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
Is faith a matter of feeling or formation (Faith & Leadership)

Look at the brown band on the right in this picture.  Scan down, until you see a little pale blue dot.  Got it?  That's earth, and this was a picture taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 at distance of 3.7 million miles (6 million kilometers) from earth.  The picture was taken at the request of Carl Sagan, and here's what Mr. Sagan had to say about the image in a speech:

"Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Reading Carl Sagan's words, I find myself agreeing and disagreeing at the same time.  Seeing our world from such a distance certainly makes us seem quite insignificant in the vast scheme of things.  Our conflicts seem all the sillier when put into the perspective of the vastness of space, the infinitesimal tininess of our planet hurtling through that great deep and the unfathomable enormity of time.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?" (Psalm 8:3-4 NRSV).

There's nothing particularly new about the idea that humanity may be less even than an afterthought in the grand scheme of things.  Many ancient cultures had creation myths that involved gods at war, beasts slain and the universe and all that's in it coming forth from the rotting carcass(es).  There was nothing special about this world or it inhabitants, according to this view.  Into this scenario a powerful counter-narrative was sewn together and spoken.

It began with the universe:

"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day" (Genesis 1:31 ESV).

And culminated with humanity:

"...then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature" (Genesis 2:7 ESV).

Arguments centered around questions of creation and evolution generally miss the point of these passages.  They were never meant to be read or understood according to Enlightenment rationalism.  The overriding argument of Scripture is that all life matters and this world has real value.  Just because a person doesn't hold a certain status in society doesn't make her worth less than others, and the simple fact that the earth seems miniscule when compared with the great expanse of the universe doesn't make our world any less important.

I said above that I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with Sagan's "pale blue dot" commentary.  Think about it.  Why do people fight?  For stupid reasons?  Perhaps.  Because they were deceived into fighting?  It happens.  The fundamental motivator, regardless of whether the cause is truly just or nothing but a massive lie, is a belief that some things matter.

Nationalism, family, pride, wealth, fame, religion, etc can all be reasons people march in wars, but there are also causes that motivate people to march for peace, for understanding and for equality.  Are these also meaningless, given that they are sought out on a pale blue dot no bigger than a pixel?  I say "no," and I say it because my faith, based on the words of Judeo-Christian Scripture, tell me so.

You may choose to believe and base your life on the popular narrative in its modern form.  That would be the one that says the universe is a confluence of random factors and life is therefore only what you make of it, and not more.  Many have believed this story in its countless versions down through the ages.  My choice is to embrace the Biblical counter-narrative.  This universe exists intentionally and humanity has a purpose.

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows" (Matthew 10:29-31 NRSV).

"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him" (Colossians 1:16 NIV).