Dispensing the Ghosts in Our Lives

Mazes of the Heart

Have you ever heard the phrase,

"The better something is the worst it is?"

Here is a phrase that promises something wonderful, full of delight, satisfying, but when it comes to whatever that something is it is quite unlike our hopes and expectations.

Why is that?

The doors of our perception always seems open to the search for an inner peace built of the crystal cathedrals to all kinds of things holding promises that would give to us an inner peace and sanctuary.

But these things are not what they at first appear to be. They become something else. Something that might further entrap or disappoint us. Snares that become even more difficult to be freed from. A web of entanglement leading to further strands of lies and deceits we tell ourselves.

These are the ghosts, specters, and ghouls of our lives. The promises of heaven we hope to find which hold anything but heaven within.

There is another saying,

"The more someone believes that something will bring wholeness or completeness

to one's life, the more we flee away from ourselves where only real wholeness

or completeness may occur."

Ultimately, the key to heaven is held within us. Not within something "out there" away from us that we must obtain. Work towards. Pay money for. Or earn by acts of contrition and penitance. But within. Not dissimilar to the movie, The Da Vinci Code, as the actors race from place to place looking for The Holy Grail not realizing the very thing itself was the thing present with them all the time.

The Da Vinci Code - Official Trailer 1 [2006] [720p HD]

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Here's another saying,

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

Leading us to ask the question, "What is knowledge? What is truth?"

A simple definition would go like this,

"Knowledge is something that is known.
Truth is something that is true."

But is knowledge truth? Or can the knowledge we hold actually not be true of the truth we have thought was true knowledge?

Or, asked differently, is the truth that we believe is true actually a true truth? Or is it something else that really isn't true but gives to us an appearance to being true?

Psychologically, knowledge of truth usually brings to the surface of our lives what's already there within us. About ourselves that we already know or do not wish to know.

And yet, truth is that something that will act to change us either in healthy ways or unhealthy ways.

The Ghosts of Our Lives.

The symptoms to the problems of our lives which we hold deep within often betrays the "presence of an absence" to the real underlying problem within us that troubles us, moves us, or motivates us towards earthly expressions in character, presence, and action.

The symptom is the something that is there but not there. It is hidden from us. Or, absence from our sense of ourselves which perhaps others may more clearly see than we ourselves.

They are absent items that are present within us behaving as "felt ghosts" or "poltergeists" held deep within the machinery or our lives.

Usually my ghosts are not your ghosts. But both ghosts are the ghosts which hold repressed thoughts and feelings of personal spooks and specters which haunt us everyday of our lives. Which can disrupt us without transforming us. But, if they are allowed to be resurrected in our lives might bring the very transformation that we need.

Not the things we think we need. Nor bring to us the crystal cathedrals that are so shiny and pretty. No, these are the betrayers to the symptoms held deep within us. The personal knowledge of ourselves which we refuse to be resurrected to the truths of our being.

Hiding Ourselves in Plain Sight

We think of these things as reconfiguring structures that hide from us the true knowledge of the truth about us. They don't necessarily say what they mean to us but become expressed in a variety of personal ways that define us as us. And yet, buried deep within is the very thing that truly needs expression which we hold at bay allowing only glimpses of it without becoming fully displayed.

We don't say what we mean by saying what we cannot express. Words and actions become the metaphors of our lives. They are the political and psychological structures within us holding us hostage to its makeup. The stuff which frightens us when too boldly expressed. That we don't know what to do with when we see it. And then push it down again from our vision less it disrupts us.

Poetically, we wish to unhide that which is hidden. To bring to the surface what's not being said. To allow the evidence of ourselves to actually reveal what is actually there rather than not there.

But again, here is a place of real disillusionment. There are truths that can reform and allow for transformation. And there are truths that may bring us death when refusing its transformation.

In a sense, we wish to "name what refuses to be named" which brings us next to the idea of "crisis."

A Crisis of Being

A crisis is something that when brought up can rupture us with the result of bringing new life or a deeper death. It may be a crisis of relationship, as it often is. Relationships that are messy and requiring a crisis if they are to find a reformation between ourselves and others.

Here's another saying,

Some relationships need to be buried while others need resurrection.

Transformation cannot begin without some kind of action on our part.

These vulnerable places of transformation may be handled either directly, or indirectly. Sometimes one method of handling transformation is more successful than another method.

That is, we might work at transforming relationships by being "directly indirect" or "indirectly direct." We see this often in music, comedy, and art. They can push at an idea directly or indirectly to get us to acknowledge the something that's there but hidden. Something we do not wish to see.

Too, the idea of time comes up. How hard do we pursue a transformative-something into our lives without losing its objectives of personal insurrection? This is a God thing. At times the backwards look can be helpful. At other times the present and forward look. But pushed too far (or not far enough) holds us back from real transformation.

There is then presence of a Spirit-filled patience. To be content with ourselves and yet always discontent with the presence of non-transformation. To allow crisis within our being and yet to not expect that any one crisis may be enough for complete resurrection. To be patient with both ourselves and with God praying always for divine leading and wisdom.

The Value of Time and Living

Overall, its takes a lifetime of transformative experiences to bring us to the knowledge of the truth  of who we are and what we are seeking. Or perhaps never saw nor understood. Or saw but never wanted it present in our lives till now.

New knowledge can be radical. But it can also be defeating when radically present within us. Carried within ourselves without ever realizing that the key, or answer, to redemption was there all the time.

Not out there in this thing or that. But within. This is the kinds of stuff Jesus spoke to. That renewal began and ended within us through His Father. And that our journey was in all the in between stuff that would aid us in our journeys towards redemption, renewal, and transformation.

Allowing both the Good and the Bad

As such, do we let that foul mix of gruel residing within us remain within like a witch's brew? Hidden, as it were, to become infected and ulcerous?

Or, by the power of the Holy Spirit, let what was once repressed become confessed and healed and transformed?

To abandon the inner decorum of the lies and deceits that dresses up our lives without displaying itself. Remaining hidden on the edges of our lives without ever quite becoming visible to us while-all-the-while we think we are embracing truths about ourselves that are not true truths. But symptoms of truths still lying deeper. More hidden. Ugly, hurtful, death-like.

And yet, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit of God who can remove this stubbornly unyielding goo of our inner lives to death so that God's perilous life of light and healing become truly resurrected to the dead zones of our heart and soul and being.

No Guarantees

Certainly there is no guarantee of results by following the proverbial truths of life,

"Live well. Be wise. Create healing and wholeness

with tact, truth, and forgiveness."

In fact, these truths may actually hide ourselves from ourselves through acts of good works.

Not that they shouldn't be done. But what are the motivators to these good works? What are they hiding to us that we need to see more clearly? How often have you heard of ministers of God failing big time when finally their inner selves become exposed to themselves and their congregations?

Too often.

And why?

Because these good people with good intentions were hiding from themselves the very truths that needed clarity.

The heart can be a deceitful thing and oftentimes it is we ourselves who are the people that need transformation and resurrection. Not the other guy.

Making Choices

So then, by living a "good life" of expectations and good works we might expect three results:

Life still goes bad.

Life becomes better.

Or, we might begin a journey of discussion with ourselves and with others that may be self-revealing. Healing. Transformative.

It is this later that gives us hope.

To no longer repress the poltergeists within but to express the Holy Ghost within.

To become a new man or woman who is redeemed and remade by the Spirit of God within by living life by God's merciful healing and transformative experiences.

However hard. However painful.

But to allow His Spirit to sweep us as clean as He can given the restrictions of our unwilling heart and soul.

Living a truer life based upon a surer knowledge promising a truer something that is better. A something within us we know as the love of God given to us by Christ our Savior who binds up His broken people at all times, stages, and circumstances of their life both within and without.

Here's one last quote,

Learn to love. Both yourself and others.

And love the Lord your God, the Lover of your soul.

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all

your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind';

and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" - Luke 10.27 (NIV)

R.E. Slater

October 31, 2014

based upon a sermon by Peter Rollins

at Mars Hill in Grandville, Michigan on October 19, 2014

Below is the link to Peter's discussion: "The Truth Will Set You Free"

http://marshill.org/teaching/2014/10/19/the-truth-will-set-you-free/





The Da Vinci Code - Chevaliers de Sangreal
[Audio Soundtrack]

Walking as Living Spectres and Ghosts in the Graveyards of Life

Earlier this morning I put up several collections of Halloween poems on my poetry site and as I did I could hear the many Christian responses of, "Oh! You can't do that! It's not Christian! You're worshipping the devil! It's the devil's holiday!"

But when you come right down to it, these collections of poems were about the hopes and fears, the superstitions, and churchly beliefs, of men, women, and children, in their day and age - if not the very poet himself, or herself, as they attempted to circumscribe the universe by pen and by will.

And given a thorough reading of poems of this nature one can learn a lot about what people think about life and death, God and man, devil and spirit, when stirred in a cast-iron vat of rhyme and poetic passage. Adding ingredients of heartache, dread, and crushing aloneness, to be ladled out in personal litanies of echoing despair, deep anger, boiling resentment, and hot unfairness.

For the astute observer, its important to pay attention to the raw emotions of people who have spoken, filmed, or sung about their inner demons. Of an uncaring, withdrawn society filled with evil witches and warlocks. To research and meditate upon a culture's perennial observations of life and death so that at some later time we might be better able to speak to the various subjects and themes that come from our worst fears and wandering beliefs.

Beliefs about what we expect of one another or God or, perhaps, don't expect of either. Or, fear to ask. Or, if asked, fear receiving the very response we knew would someday come for voicing our personal complaints and deep displeasures. Or, perhaps saying nothing at all to experiences of injustice, sharp unloving tongues, selfish attitudes, actions, and behavior. Becoming both victim and victimizer.

To pay attention to people's basic fears in the middle of the night as they lay awake in a cold sweat on a disheveled bed tossing and turning unable to sleep. And when slumbering dreaming those dark, ugly nightmares from deep within a pained subconscious. Otherwise, how can we expect to minister to people in the middle of the day when fear has been washed away by the common daylight of human companionship and goodwill?

So, in a sense, Halloween can be an everyday event of the year within our lives. It doesn't simply come-and-go on a dark hollow's eve between the hours of 5:00 to 8:00 pm as impish trick-n-treaters squeal, squawk, and dash about in dizzying delight from one house to the next. Or flee for their lives before fun-luvin' pranksters rising from carefully placed frontyard coffins that creak and groan. Or from scary ghoulish spectres greeting children in darkened doorways boding tasty treats and delights. Or from creepy hanging things dangling unseen off dark trees and wires by thread and bobbin.

No, in another sense (h)alloween is with us every day of the year. It is carried within our hearts overburdened by what we have said or haven't said. Did, or didn't do. Saw, but didn't respond to. Felt, but never voicing the hurts and pains carried deep within us locked up like the crypt of the undead.

Or, if we did, we didn't know how to express ourselves as recovering addicts to life's carousels of whimsical delights and never-ending mendacity's. Looking for the next rush that might invigorate a dulled life too dreary to contemplate its endless days and nights. Leading us further and further away from those deep-seated hurts from a dad, a mom, sibling, or friend, who deeply failed us when we needed them most.

Or, harmed us so that now we walk as the living dead. Zombies to life's beauty unseen, untouched, unfelt, and unheard. Wishing to feast on any so unwise or so foolish to come too close to us. Living with those buried hurts and bitter hatreds of the wrongs we suffered so meaninglessly, cruelly, or meanly at the hands of the very devil himself. Cruel hands pinched in our blood, sweat, and tears.

Nay, this is not a day that is so easily made fun of and then forgotten by some of us still living in ghostly shells knit of vaporous skin and hollow filaments. For some of us the night of the living dead lives each day of our nightmarish lives with no end in sight except more pain and lostness.

For those souls hell is already here with no angel or God in sight. Just the Devil and his cruel brigands of death. And yet, isn't this what the Psalmist felt when abandoned by God and by very mankind itself? Or the prophets who wandered alone prophesying doom and judgment upon a careless people gripped by pride and greed? Or even Jesus Himself bowed of hoary head and weary heart in the Garden of Gethsemane praying alone when He most needed another prayer partner by His side?

Yes, it would be naive to think that God's people have not gone through the deep pains of life. But for those who have, you'll find them on the street with an understanding smile, a helping hand, a serving heart. Behind the cash register, at the waitressing table, in the school room, or on the field coaching kids and adults.

You'll find some amongst those special pastors who fill a pulpit with warmth and wisdom while staying true to their humanity when knowing how deeply inhumane life once was for their own hard pasts. Or that kid's counselor at the youth center willing to help if they are allowed. Or the boss who'll make sure you succeed against every particle of your body that wishes to fail. Or that aunt or uncle who was there all the time but you saw them not.

Yes, looked at again, God and His angels are everywhere about us. But we've gotten so use to fleeing from the crypts and coffins of our lives that we've run right by them with sightless eyes filled with self-loathing and hatred.

Forgetting that the crosses of Easter are just as meaningful this time of the year as the ragged crosses staked into the ground on a Hallow Eve's black night. You just have to pull those raggedy stakes out-of-the-ground-of-your-life and turn them the-other-way-around, away from your heart and soul. And when doing so seeing the one Cross of this world that was placed for all the world to see on a hill named Golgotha. A Cross of freedom, healing, and empowerment.

To be drawn to another graveyard on Calvary's hill knowing that there is a Redeemer-God who received death's hells upon His very self so as to provide a resurrection through His Son Jesus to this life's sins and woes. That in the darkened graveyards of our existence can be raised not ghostly spectres, but what we might become in the power of the living Holy Spirit. And that the candies of this world are no longer the food and meat of a Spirit-filled warrior-believer seeking to live life as it was meant to be lived as a crucified, penitent, servant of the Holy God raised beyond the grave of death's hopelessness.

Nay, if one is going to feast at the table of slaughter-and-ruin let it be on the draculas and demons of our sinful heart slain before the Sonlight of this wicked world before the living God of all. It is He who rules the day and night and none other. Be they demon or ghost in this life it is yet our life to valiantly claim and not so easily lay down before the hellish feasts of another. To place a crucified stake in the ground of belief and say with all authority, "Here I stand with my God and my Savior. Though heaven and earth be moved this day I shall stand in the power of the Holy Spirit and be all that I can be till life expires." Amen

R.E. Slater

October 30, 2014

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If God Be For Us Who Can Be Against Us

Romans 8.31-39 (ESV)

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be[i] against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.[j]35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Parable of the Grain of Wheat

John 12.20-36 (ESV)

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

The Son of Man Must Be Lifted Up

27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? Butfor this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” 35 So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

Being is Becoming by Un-Becoming...

And you learn that love, true love,

always has joys and sorrow,

seems ever present,

yet is never quite the same,

becoming more than love,

and less than love,

so difficult to define.

And you learn that through it all,

you really can endure,

that you really are strong,

that you do have value.

- Anon

"Not unlike mankind in general, but especially for the Christian who is blood-bought through Christ, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, the process of "putting off" the ills and harms and toxicities of this life must be compensatory. Without the living God exploding the inner worlds of our former unrepentant self there can be no becoming. What stubbornly wishes to remain is the unrepentant "old man" of our former self living with its uncrucified lies and misspent beliefs before the saving God of grace who must be allowed in to cut out our prideful passions and idolizing sense of self and being.

"The Christian life then, is ultimately one of growth through difficult personal struggles against the lies we have grown up with about ourselves and others. Of un-becoming what once was in order to realize, or become, the child of God in the image of Christ, our Lord and Savior. It is a lifelong process that is as hard as it is fulfilling. As difficult to let go of the "old man" as it is difficult to put on the "new man." But we are empowered by the Holy Spirit of God who wishes to cleanse all that we are as blood-bathed sacrifices, and holy altars, or temples, to the living God. Who are become the body of Christ, the bride of the Lamb, and redeemed of the Lord. Eh, verily, Lord, come."

- R.E. Slater, On becoming a "New Man"

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"The ontic sense of being is not static but ever changing, or moving, towards something, or away from something, in the present tense of time. With time and distance one's being may be discerned as to its change and movement from what once was to what now is. 

"There is no future sense of being without the accompanying movement of becoming (either less or more from something or towards something). And if there is no becoming than there can be no being. This is as true for God in relationship to His creation as it is for man himself in relation to his Creator.

"The sense of redemption in this world then is the sense of becoming and not static being. It carries both heaven and hell in its epistolary movement either towards the Creator-God or away from the Redeemer of mankind, and even this world itself."

- R.E. Slater, A Sense of Self

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In philosophy, the concept of becoming was born in eastern ancient Greece by the philosopher Heraclitus of Hephesus, who in the Sixth century BC, said that nothing in this world is constant except change and becoming. - Wikipedia

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Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromata, v, 105). Similar: Plutarchus (De animae procreatione, 5 p, 1014 A) concerning Heraclitus: This universal order, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures. -Wikipedia

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German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that Heraclitus "will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction".[3] Nietzsche developed the vision of a chaotic world in perpetual change and becoming. The state  of becoming does not produce fixed entities, such as being, subject, object, substance, thing. These false concepts are the necessary mistakes which consciousness and language employ in order to interpret the chaos of the state of becoming. The mistake of Greek philosophers was to falsify the testimony of the senses and negate the evidence of the state of becoming. By postulating being as the underlying reality of the world, they constructed a comfortable and reassuring "after-world" where the horror of the process of becoming was forgotten, and the empty abstractions of reason appeared as eternal entities. - Wikipedia

* * * * * * * * * * *

Popular Quotes on Becoming

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/becoming/

“Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, but falling in love with you I had no control over.” - Anon

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues it possesses” - Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (American Poet, Lecturer and Essayist, 1803-1882)

“The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.” - Albert Einstein quotes (German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.

“You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” - Jim Rohn quotes (American Speaker and Author. He is famous for motivational audio programs for Business and Life. )

“Nothing is, everything is becoming.” - Heraclitus of Ephesus quotes (Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, 540-480BC)

“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.” - Zig Ziglar quotes (American motivational Speaker and Author. )

“When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.” - Confucius quotes (China's most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, 551-479 BC)

“There is no knowledge of true being. The world is fundamentally in a state of becoming.” - Friedrich Nietzsche quotes (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)

“I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.” - Bertrand Russell quotes (English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” - Anais Nin quotes (French born American Author of novels and short stories, 1903-1977)

“Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.” - Anthony Robbins quotes (American advisor to leaders)

“If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832)

“Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.” - Scott Adams quotes (American Cartoonist, b.1957)

And you learn that love, true love,

always has joys and sorrow,

seems ever present,

yet is never quite the same,

becoming more than love,

and less than love,

so difficult to define.

And you learn that through it all,

you really can endure,

that you really are strong,

that you do have value.

- Anon

“I'm becoming more and more myself with time. I guess that's what grace is. The refinement of your soul through time.” - Jewel quotes (American Singer, Songwriter and Guitarist, b.1974)

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you” - Dale Carnegie quotes (American lecturer, author, 1888-1955)

“What is passion? It is surely the becoming of a person. Are we not, for most of our lives, marking time? Most of our being is at rest, unlived. In passion, the body and the spirit seek expression outside of self. Passion is all that is other from self. Sex is only interesting when it releases passion. The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead and that soon, come what may, we will be wholly so.” - John Boorman quotes (British motion-picture director, b.1933)

“We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us” - John Kenneth Galbraith quotes

“''Reason'' is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.” - Friedrich Nietzsche quotes (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)

“Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.” - Julius Charles Hare quotes

go to this link here for more sayings and quotes on becoming

go to this link here for bible verses on becoming

Three Aspects of Arminianian Hope: "A Godly Kingdom That Is Becoming"

A Guest Post: “Three Reasons Why I Preach An Arminian Theology”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/10/a-guest-post-three-reasons-why-i-preach-an-arminian-theology/

 

by T.E. Hanna (Guest Post on behalf of Roger Olson)

October 25, 2013

Comments

I think it is fair to say that our contemporary Christian subculture is saturated in a Reformed theology. This isn’t necessarily bad. Many of these voices hail from brilliant scholars whose knowledge and wisdom adds powerful depth and vibrancy to our understanding of God and scripture. D. A. Carson’s commentary on the New Testament use of the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, is always within reach when I dig through one of Paul’s epistles. The cultural reflections of The Gospel Coalition provide ready handles for grabbing hold of contemporary issues and thinking through them from a Christian perspective. Tim Challies has a powerful gift for breaking down complex theological ideas into easily accessible concepts. These voices add something of value to our modern Christian landscape.

 

At the same time, the sweeping move within Western Christianity to adopt a theological lens rooted in Calvinism means that other pieces of the puzzle — important pieces —are either left behind or left wanting.

 

As a pastor, I have found that proclaiming an Arminian theology to my congregation has become increasingly important amidst the growing influence of Reformed theology. Not only does Arminianism staunchly defend the character of a good and loving God, but it also retains the power of the Christian hope. In a world where hope is challenged by the repeated barrage of the suffering we see in the media, the beauty of the Christian message is sorely needed.

 

An Arminian understanding retains this hope, and it does so on three levels.

 

 

1. Hope For Our World

 

Rather than a marked selection of individuals chosen by God to one day leave earth behind and step into a heavenly kingdom, Arminianism presents a God whose kingdom is invading our world even as we speak. This is part of the glory of Christianity — that when Jesus arose from the waters of His baptism proclaiming that “the kingdom of God is at hand”, He meant what He said. Our world is a broken place, afflicted with the realities of suffering and pain, but the Spirit that hovered over the waters in Genesis 1 still broods over His creation. What we find is a hope for the present, a restoration that begins now, and a God who invites us into the midst of His work.

 

 

2. Hope For Our Communities

 

The Reformed doctrine of Unconditional Election paints a stark picture when faced with those who do not yet know Christ. If God chooses some for salvation and not others, the parallel implication is that He thus rejects some and not others. Hope languishes in the face of an unchanging God that has chosen to reject from salvation some of the very people we have come to love. An Arminian perspective addresses this, however, removing that rejection from God and placing it where it belongs: in the human heart. The beauty of this is that such a rejection is not yet final. While God is unchanging, we are not. God is still working, still extending His grace, still inviting our friends and family to respond to His love. This imparts to us a responsibility to make that love known, but it also fills us with hope in knowing that just as He wooed us, so is He wooing them. They, too, have the opportunity to respond to the grace that He so lovingly extends to all.

 

 

3. Hope For Ourselves

 

Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of Arminian theology is found in the broader concept of salvation. To us, salvation is so much more than those slated for heaven and those abandoned to hell. Instead, salvation is about life — abundant life — that begins here and extends forth into eternity. What we are being rescued from is not just eternal condemnation, but sin itself. Sin, left unchecked, will ultimately consume and destroy us. The beauty of grace, however, is that these chains are slowly being stripped from our soul. This is the image of sanctification to which we cling: that we are progressively being freed from those very things which rob us of our own humanity. Freedom does not wait until the kingdom of God is manifested in the eschaton. It begins now, transforming and shaping us, and leading us on into the eternity where our glorious hope shall finally be viewed in full.

 

This is why I preach an Arminian theology. It is not only because I hold it to be true, but because I believe it to be necessary. In an era where the objects of our hope are challenged on a daily basis, we need to be reminded that God is still here. He is still working. He is still restoring. He is still loving and extending His grace. It is in His grace where our hope finds wings.

 

T E Hanna is the author of Raising Ephesus: Christian Hope for a Post-Christian Age, and he writes regularly on issues of faith and culture on his blog at OfDustAndKings.com.

 

 

continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fears, Anxieties, Discouragement, even Distress, are the times of Empowerment and Deliverance

 

As I read this piece in Relevant Magazine (unaffiliated to Relevancy22 here) I was reminded of the spiritual helpfulness that can come in times of personal distress affecting our emotional, social, and personal self-awareness. We've all been there at one time or another. A time of great personal darkness and destruction.  To many, these times are personally devastating and lead to greater helplessness, and/or stronger desires for avoidance and incoherent answers, addictions, or toxic lives (something known as an active "defensive position" of refusing to deal with the problem at hand because of its resultant magnitude of effect upon our lives). However, if attended to within the power of God, and faced honestly, we may find greater personal strength and more satisfying decisions than at first believed possible. David Guetta's "Titanium" is a good example of this dilemma where one's personal world must "blow up" if one is to grow beyond the confines of themselves and their limiting, or destructive, personal patterns of thought and living. Without letting go of the past we cannot move forward to our future.

 

All our questions, all of our struggles, all of our "black abysses," have become willfully entangled about our lives to the point of spiritually denying to us the power and freedom that God can bring to a life through Jesus. This is what Peter Rollins refers to as a personalized form of "pyro-theology' in its most basic reconstructive stages that comes into a person's life and must require one to be willing to deconstruct themselves in honest analysis (Christianity calls such actions by the cyclical pattern names of repentance and confession - which are a series of "death to life" sequences a believer must go through). Without such an effort of willful doubt, disbelief, and spiritual restructuring, a person can be left paralyzed to the Spirit of God's power of love and faith, becoming receptive to their darkest fears and hatreds without personal, positive effectual growth.

 

These darker times within our lives are not unusual. In reality they are quite normal when listening to the Christian testimonies one-after-another testifying to "leaving oneself behind" to find God's power of life and hope. Many, many Christians go through these darker times of "spiritual rebirth" by first going through their darkest afflictions and turmoils. That is, each has learned the lesson of coming to the end of oneself in order to be able to find oneself through Jesus' rebirth and spiritual liberation of spirit, soul, mind and body. More often than not this is the usual Christian story. Afterwhich this same form of docu-drama is necessarily replayed again-and-again within the growing Christian life as God's Spirit moves from room-to-room within our souls liberating us from the forces that would place us on Hell's doorstep and leave us for dead. At each entrance Jesus calls us forth to life just as He re-enacted in raising Lazarus from the dead... refusing death's hold upon our spirits which He has created for life and breath, renewal and reclamation, rebirth and resurrection.

 

I like to think of these cycles within the Christian life as cycles of applied atonement. That is, just as our Savior had to face His own wilderness of fear and temptation, His trial and crucifixion, death, and resurrection/ascension, so too must the Christian go through the same figuratively. We must not expect that any one of these stages must be left off in our own lives as deeply conflicted by sin and death as they are. However, in the struggle what we may expect is God's presence and deliverance - even when we feel most abandoned upon our own crosses of suffering and pain.... Spiritual deliverance is not a pleasant process. The cost is as high as Jesus said it would be - but it's attainments of contentment and peace will be well rewarded for all who submit to the Spirit's power of enlivenment. Doctrinally, these processes are known as "death and resurrection." Or, "justification and sanctification" (think "justified in Christ" and "sanctuary for Christ"). These are but aspects of Jesus' atonement being applied by the Holy Spirit into our daily living lives.

 

I speak of these times of life as one who himself has gone through personal sorrows and woe to the great grief of my soul. Mostly as a Christian. For my spiritual rebirth was one of a child coming into his pre-teen years realizing my need for Jesus' salvation in my life. And yet, this did not disallow me of sin's ruin and wreck upon my life. Whenever I gave in to sin it was there. And whenever I learned by God's Spirit to let it go it remained ever near and present, but absent its destructive power upon my life. Most of all I have trusted and believed in God's love to reclaim my life. It is by this divine power of love that hope and trust have grown. In times of personal anxiety or distress I am learning to claim God's stabilizing strength of love, hope, spiritual empowerment. Each time can be hard, but the practice of it has become more normal than my practice of disbelief, distrust, or hopelessness. Those Christians whom I know have gone through no less... it is a badge of honor that we each wear as reclaimed by Jesus' love and redemption however tattered and worn those badges are. In Jesus we may find hope. Love. Life. To Jesus I commend each reader His power of grace, mercy, love and forgiveness. It is freely given to all. Take this power and claim it for your own. It is meant by God to be yours forever and everlasting.

 

R.E. Slater

May 8, 2013

 

*ps - for further on this topic, see the sidebar "Deconstructing Ourselves."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Kierkegaard Changed My Life

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/practical-faith/how-kierkegaard-changed-my-life

                                                                                                             

By Michael D. Stark
May 3, 2013

Michael D. Stark is an adjunct philosophy professor at Trinity Christian College. He previously taught philosophy at Colorado Christian University. He has been awarded a research fellowship at St. Olaf College’s Hong Kierkegaard Library for this upcoming summer. You can follow him on Twitter @michaeldstark.

 

 

On the famed philosopher’s message for anxious Christians.

 

I have always lived in anxiety.

 

In grade school, I was the kid who got picked on. I was timid and anxious, and the torment inflicted upon me by my peers only perpetuated my anxious behavior. Throughout my adolescence, my anxiety quietly festered. In college, I felt trapped, alone and terrified. It took every ounce of strength to go to my classes. If someone tried speaking to me, I would often shut down. What was very much internal angst began to show external physical signs. Panic attacks, sweats, shortness of breath and other anxiety-ridden symptoms took over. I was prescribed medication for this, which helped physically, but mentally I removed myself from the internal issues I needed to confront.

 

Kierkegaard taught me what I had been waiting to hear my whole life: Anxiety is necessary and even good.

 

Then I enrolled in a philosophy course. We studied the typical figures—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, etc. It was the first time I encountered Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I didn’t know it at the time, but my life was about to radically change.

 

Here was a philosopher—and a man of faith—who actually experienced anxiety like me.

 

Kierkegaard is unique among philosophers, in that he listened to and even trusted human emotions. Whereas some philosophers dispose of and do not trust the emotive state of individuals, Kierkegaard not only embraced them, he wrote entire books on them. I began to pursue my masters in philosophy, and Kierkegaard took a prominent role in my life.

 

Throughout my education, I’ve studied many arguments for the existence of God. While I believe some are successful, many lack the existential pull that is so prevalent in Kierkegaard. My second year living in Denver for graduate school was perhaps the most treacherous year of my life, but it was indeed the most formative. Despair is the single word that sums up that year of my life, a word Kierkegaard knew much about. As it is described in the The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, “hopelessness is just a sign that one has reached a point where the goal of oneself must ... be re-conceived in a way that offers new hope.”

 

I remember vividly reading this line—sitting back in my rocking chair, putting down my pipe, and weeping. There it was. It seemed simple, really. But the moment was as profound as the quote itself. I’d been doing things all wrong. Everyone, included myself, told me I had to get rid of or at least suppress this fear. But the everyday task of taming and attempting to repress the anxiety and fear was futile. The anxiety, the hopelessness, was always there. It was a part of me.

 

So I read Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety. It’s a difficult read, perplexing at times, yet the lessons radiated in my being. Kierkegaard argues that anxiety is not, in fact, the enemy, but a part of humanity. The attempts to remove anxiety are futile, he says: “Anxiety is an alien power which lays hold of the individual, and yet cannot tear oneself away, nor has a will to do so; for one fears, but what one fears one desires.”

 

Hopelessness, Kierkegaard teaches, is a catalyst—it is a moment in which one must refocus, shift the paradigm and find new hope.

 

Kierkegaard taught me what I had been waiting to hear my whole life: Anxiety is necessary and even good. It manifests itself at the juncture where an individual realizes the power he or she has in making decisions. Anxiety is the realization of freedom and the possibility of choice. Some decisions are easy, and sometimes we become paralyzed in our decision-making. Anxiety provoked me to face those decisions, the seemingly infinite possibilities set before me, and walk forward. It provoked me to move.

 

This book so radically reoriented my concept of anxiety that I was able to develop who I am instead of run from it, condemn it or suppress it.

 

Society is so quick to run from what scares us—even if we are the object of our own fear. But such hasty movement away from ourselves leaves us feeling hopeless. Yet hopelessness, Kierkegaard teaches, is a catalyst—it is a moment in which one must refocus, shift the paradigm and find new hope.

 

What’s surprising is that many Christians don’t see it this way. Many will cite passages such as Philippians 4:6-8:

 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,

with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which

transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

 

They read this and think anxiety should have nothing to do with the life of a believer. From this passage, there seems to be a common—though unrealistic—perception that to worry or to have anxiety is to sin. This is not only false, but incredibly unrealistic. To remove anxiety would be to separate oneself with an attribute of humanity.

 

Without room for extensive hermeneutics, the Philippians passage speaks as to how one should engage with anxiety: Enter into it with prayer and supplication. It would be foolish to wrestle with anxiety without seeking God’s help through prayer. Whereas anxiety is a part of what it means to be human, it can indeed turn dangerous thing if not engaged properly. And it can lead a person into sin.

 

Being anxious does not necessarily imply that our faith is weak. Rather, anxiety tests our faith in relation to decision-making. Anxiety reminds us that they are free to make own decisions—whether that decision will better ourselves and our relationship with Christ, or glorify our own self-interests.

 

Kierkegaard voiced what many of us know already firsthand: “Anxiety is potentially present at every instant.” This seems true enough for my life. In his journals, Kierkegaard writes, “All existence make me anxious, from the smallest fly to the mysteries of the Incarnation; the whole thing is inexplicable to me, I myself most of all; to me all existence is infected, I myself most of all.”

 

Kierkegaard did not cure me of my anxiety. But he showed me what to do with it. Today, every time I enter the classroom to teach, I enter with some degree of fear and trembling. But the angst is not formed from a lack or preparation. Rather, it is the realization that I can influence my students. The angst reminds me of my own responsibility as an educator, and the seriousness with which I take such a role.

 

Today, I thank God for my anxiety. And I thank Søren Kierkegaard for changing my life—by teaching me that there is room for fear and trembling in faith.