Frank Schaeffer (son of Francis) Speaks to the Destructiveness of Religious Legalism

 

 

The Real Francis Schaeffer

http://www.redletterchristians.org/the-real-francis-schaeffer/

 

by Frank Schaeffer

January 16, 2013

Comments

 

As I wrote about the real Francis Schaeffer in my memoir Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and received many wonderful emails and letters. I also got some rather nasty ad hominem criticism from some of my father’s evangelical followers and especially from several evangelical leaders who have made their “professional” religious careers by associating themselves with his reputation. But most people beginning with my editor (who like most of my secular readers had never heard of Dad until I wrote about him) believed that I’d folded a tribute to Dad into my memoir about the rise of the religious right and my family’s part in it.

 

However the most wonderful tribute to Dad and to my book in many years came last Sunday, long after it was published when I got this email (used by permission of the writer) that really speaks to who Dad was and to the man I knew and loved. I’ve reproduce it here unedited.

“From: Steven Gabbard
Sun, Jan 13, 2013 1:31 am

I saw your recent articles on Alternet and ordered Crazy For God on my Kindle. I stayed up and finished it last night. I really enjoyed it. I admit I read it for the juicy insider bits about American evangelicals. But the parts I ended up enjoying the most were the parts about your father during the sixties. It was like ‘wow, I would’ve like to have met that guy’. His not being racist or homophobic was refreshing. I found myself thinking that if I had known someone like that when I was younger and searching, I might have taken Christianity more seriously than I did. 

It was because of the bigotry and anti-intellectualism that I saw practiced by the Christians in my family that I dismissed Christianity when I was an adult. I am an atheist now and quite content to remain one. But if things had been different 30 years ago and I had met someone who was charming, intelligent, and socially enlightened like your father was during the sixties, I could see that it was possible that I might have taken a different path than the one I walked. That thought is an uncomfortable one. We like to think that we arrive at our deepest convictions through logic and much soul searching. But happenstance plays a larger role than we like to admit. I had to put the book down at one point and face the fact, ‘things could have been different’. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that so clearly before.

Anyway, that was what I got when I read your book. Wanted to share it. I’ll pick up another one of your books soon. It’ll probably be Portofino, that one sounds interesting.

Your new fan,
Steven Gabbard”

 

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. To book Frank Schaeffer to speak at your college, church or group contact him at Frankschaeffer.com

Amazon Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2008

 

 
By the time he was nineteen, Frank Schaeffer’s parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, had achieved global fame as bestselling evangelical authors and speakers, and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. He would go on to speak before thousands in arenas around America, publish his own evangelical bestseller, and work with such figures as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson. But all the while Schaeffer felt increasingly alienated, precipitating a crisis of faith that would ultimately lead to his departure—even if it meant losing everything.
 
With honesty, empathy, and humor, Schaeffer delivers “a brave and important book” (Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog)—both a fascinating insider’s look at the American evangelical movement and a deeply affecting personal odyssey of faith.

Helpful Customer Reviews

 

"Shock and awe" iconoclasm

 By Erik Olson VINE™ VOICE

April 3, 2008

I became an evangelical Christian in 1984, and one of the first heavy-hitter apologetic authors I discovered was Francis Schaeffer. His son, known at the time as "Franky," was also writing books, and as my first Christian mentor said to me, "Franky's a bit more radical than his father." I liked both authors, since at the time I was big on Christian conspiracies and rigid theology as promulgated by such fundamentalist luminaries as Jack Chick and Bill Gothard. I dove deep into the evangelical world, attending various churches, serving in many ministries, and even graduating from seminary with a Pastoral Studies MA degree in 2002.

 

However, during the last year it all came crashing down, ironically after walking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail in Spain. During my trek I had plenty of time to think about the last two decades, and in the end I came to a decision. Yes, as an evangelical I'd made a few good friends and had some positive experiences. But the bad far outweighed the good. I'd had enough of trying to jam theological square pegs into the round holes of rationality. Plus, I could take no more cult-of-personality pastors, egotistical theologians, holier-than-thou legalisms, guilt trips, and plain goofiness. So when reality intruded on my faith, I either had to acknowledge it or shut my eyes even tighter. I chose the former option and abandoned evangelicalism.

 

As part of my journey I read the "new atheist" books by Hitchens, Dawkins, Stenger, and so forth. Although I found them challenging and relevant (along with abrasive and polemic), these authors have probably never bought into any religious belief. I wanted a story written by an intelligent, high-level Christian, someone who had originally dedicated their life to the evangelical church but ended up leaving for conscience's sake. With "Crazy for God" I found exactly what I was looking for. Here was fundamentalist firebrand Franky Schaeffer, now reborn as Frank, telling his fascinating story of living, as the cover blurb says, to "take it all (or almost all) of it back." I could barely put it down.

 

Mr. Schaeffer pulls no punches when it comes to evangelicals, family, and even himself. The most sympathetic figure is his father Francis, who seemed trapped in a joyless fundamentalist world he didn't create or desire. As for the author, it appears that his biggest problems with Christianity was its failure to overcome the baser instincts of human nature, and the ever-present stifling legalism he endured: witness the pious evangelical leaders who used the Schaeffers to advance their ministries (and themselves), his three sisters, who put up false fronts of stability while burning out and breaking down under Mrs. Schaeffer's relentless perfectionism, and young Frank, who goofed off, partied hard, and fornicated with abandon in plain sight at L'Abri, the family ministry center in Switzerland.

 

As one might expect in such a context, parts of this book are quite harsh - it's plain that the author is still nursing past wounds. Mr. Schaeffer is brutally transparent about everything from the voracious sensual appetites of his youth to the familial abuse within his household. In addition, he spares none of the evangelical royalty that his family encountered, including the "power-crazed" Dr. James Dobson, the "very weird" Billy Graham, and Pat Robertson, whose wacky exploits get more airtime than I can quote. He even rakes his radical "Franky" persona over the coals, offering a mea culpa for his entire ministry and political activist period.

 

One glaring omission: despite some tantalizing glimpses, he doesn't seem to delve into whatever specific theological problems he had with evangelical Christianity. I struggled with doctrines like eternal damnation and predestination, and I'd hoped to get Mr. Schaeffer's insights on these and other troublesome topics. No such luck.

 

After such a wild ride, it's nice to see that Mr. Schaeffer has come to a calmer and more stable place in life. However, he inadvertently demonstrates that we can never entirely escape ourselves. He has transferred his evangelical zeal to patriotism, exemplified by his devotion to United States Marine Corps where his son honorably served in harm's way. I'm glad he's pro-America, and the USMC deserves good publicity. But as one who spent six years as a jarhead, I'd like to caution the author that the storied Corps, much like the Church he now eschews, is an imperfect institution where high ideals are limited by human frailties. As for Christianity, given the tone of this book I found it surprising that Mr. Schaeffer still bothers with God at all. However, awhile back he joined the Greek Orthodox Church and has found a semblance of peace within its walls. But as for the evangelical camp, he and his house are staying far away, thank you very much.

 

As a former evangelical, I heartily recommend "Crazy for God." Be forewarned that it's rough on evangelicalism, and a person of faith will certainly struggle with the author's profanity, sensuality, and negative conclusions about evangelical Christianity and some of its glitterati. But it is Christians who need to read this book the most, so that they can engage with the uncomfortable revelations of a former evangelical star, and either come to a clearer-eyed place in their faith - or leave it altogether for their own sake.
 

 

 

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An Honest and Surprising Book

 By Jim Forest

March 15, 2008

 

Frank Schaeffer doesn't really fit into a brief description. An American, he grew up in rural Switzerland. His parents were fervent Calvinist missionaries living in a Catholic culture which they regarded as barely Christian. Their chalet, known as L'Abri, became a house of hospitality in which a never-ending seminar on culture and Christianity was the main event. Though an Evangelical, a strain of Protestantism usually hostile to the arts, Frank's father was an avid lover of art done in earlier centuries by, in most cases, Catholic artists -- an enthusiasm that in time inspired his son to become an artist. Later Frank gave up the easel to makes films, first documentaries in which his father was the central figure, then more general evangelical films, and finally several unsuccessful non-religious films aimed at a general audience.

 

Eventually -- profoundly disenchanted with the form of Christianity his parents had embraced, and still more alienated from the shrill varieties of right wing Evangelical Christianity that both he and his parents had helped create, Frank joined the Orthodox Church, where he still remains, though no longer in what he refers to as the stage of "convert zeal." After his son, John, became a Marine, Frank became something of a missionary for the Marine Corps, and the military in general, at the same time avidly supporting the war in Iraq in which his son was a participant. A statement I helped to write that urged George Bush not to attack Iraq was the target of a widely-published column Schaeffer wrote in the early days of that war. Now he regards the Iraq War as a disaster and has become an outspoken critic of George Bush.

 

"Crazy for God" is a gripping read, both candid and engaging. More than anything else, I was touched by Schaeffer's unrelenting honesty. There are pages in which you feel as if you are overhearing a confession. Yet it's a very freeing confession to overhear, in the sense that it allows the reader to make deeper contact with painful or embarrassed areas of his own wounded memory. The book also serves as an admonition not to create a self for public display which is hardly connected to one's actual self.

 

Being raised in a hothouse of Calvinist missionary zeal, in which Schaeffer and his three sisters became Exhibit A (especially whenever their mother wrote or spoke about Christian Family Life) is not something I would wish on any child. I expect Frank Schaeffer will always be in recovery from that aspect of his childhood.

 

Those -- and they are many -- who still revere his parents (or for that matter Schaeffer's earlier self, in the period of his life when he was a hot voice packing in the evangelical/Christian Right crowds) are furious at this lifting of the curtain.

 

Yet I found Schaeffer much harder on himself than on his parents, whom he sees as having been damaged, in some ways made crazy, by the burden of a harsh Calvinist theology. Nonetheless his parents emerge as real Christians whose loving care for others, including people whom many Christians would cross the street to avoid, was absolutely genuine. (I was impressed by the book's account of his parents' response to homosexuals who came to visit L'Abri. They were as warmly received as any other guest.)

 

While objecting to his parents' theology and the distortions that it created in their lives and in the lives of many influenced by them, clearly he loves them passionately and deeply respects the actual Christian content of their lives -- their "grace, generosity, love and unconditional support."

 

Schaeffer's book also reminds me that it's one of the recurring tragedies of US history that, from time to time, various movements of self-righteous, ideology-driven Christians decide it's time to try to impose their ideas on society at large. Schaeffer has to live with the painful memory of having been one of the key figures helping to create one of the constituencies that did the most to put George Bush in the White House in their one-issue hope that he would find ways to make abortion, if not illegal, at least less frequent. After eight years in the Oval Office, in fact abortion is no less deeply embedded in American life than it was before Bush's election. Little if anything was done by his administration to help women who felt they had no option but abortion find alternatives.

 

I was touched by Schaeffer's comments about the powerful influence children can have on their parents, far more than the children usually realize. As Schaeffer has come to understand, in reflecting on his relationship with his father, that influence is sometimes far from positive.

 

Schaeffer -- now far more caring about the quandaries others face than he was earlier in his life -- has in the process become aware that self-righteousness is often the hallmark of each and every "movement," whether religious or secular, and whether for the unborn, for peace, for those on death row, for animal welfare, for the environment, etc., etc.

 

In putting the book down, I find myself profoundly grateful for where Frank Schaeffer's journey has taken him so far, yet hope for further evolution in his views in regard to the military and how those in the armed forces are used. I take it as a given that he is aware there are men and women who died or live crippled lives in part because of the impact on their lives of several of Schaeffer's earlier books which viewed the military uncritically and seemed unaware of how often those sent into battle -- because of accidents, misinformation, panic, bad orders, or even the passion for vengeance -- kill innocent people. Nor does he seem aware of the damage, often unhealable, done to those who bear responsibility for such deaths. I hope Schaeffer will give more thought to why the early Church took such a radical stand in regard to warfare and other forms of killing, accidental or intentional, and what that might mean for any Christian in our own day.

 

Also I would have been glad to hear more about what drew him to the Orthodox Church and what keeps him there, now that he is past what he calls the "zealous convert" stage. In his autobiography, being Orthodox is a minor topic.

 

As "Crazy for God" bears witness, life is mainly shaped by one's parents and family, peer group pressure, and -- not least -- the white water of ambition. Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. I was reminded several times of one of Kurt Vonnegut's insights: "Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be."

 

It's something of a miracle that Frank Schaeffer escaped from the highly profitable world of the Television Church. "Crazy for God" reminds me of what a dangerous vocation it is, more perilous than mountain climbing, when one becomes a professional Christian, writing or speaking about the Gospel, Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God, making some or all of your living doing this. It's a danger I live with too.

 

-- Jim Forest

 

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An Apostasy Full of Grace and Truth

 By Timothy M. Ervolina

December 4, 2007

 

He was once the fair-haired boy wonder of evangelicalism, there at the creation of the American Religious Right. He helped define the culture war, especially over abortion. He helped create the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the Republican majority, the conservative Supreme Court and the New Evangelicals. Now, he's an apostate, a unborn-again seeker, a member of an Eastern Orthodox church, and a a self-acknowledged failure. Which means that, strangely, he's a finally a success.

 

Frank Schaeffer, the son of evangelical theologians Francis and Edith Schaeffer has, in his memoir Crazy for God, provided a beautiful, touching, and painfully honest story of growing up in the evangelical sub-culture in the age before it emerged as the culture. His portrait of his famous (at least in some circles) parents, and their Swiss Christian community, L'Abri, will anger those evangelicals who regard the Schaeffers (especially Francis) as saints. But, if you're looking for a Daddy Dearest, you'll be mightly disappointed. There is no scandal here, other than the scandal of evangelical Christianity in America once it got itself fitted into Constantine's vestments.

 

Frank paints his father as an art-loving historian, a free-thinker more at home in the Florentine Accademia than on the radio with Dr. Dobson. The elder Schaeffer apparently detested the power-hungry theo-politicians like Dobson, Falwell and Robertson, and was far more concerned with reaching young people in search of life's big questions than in reaching the halls of power. Still he allowed himself to be manipulated by the theo-politicians, to become the most sought after evangelical teacher of the 1980's. Francis Schaeffer is revered in evangelical circles, where his books and film series (produced by Frank) are still best-sellers two decades after his death. He created the intellectual underpinnings of the Religious Right (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing) and did more than any other theologian to gain evangelicalism its entry onto the political stage.

 

Edith is considerably more God-crazy than her husband, but her son clearly adores her. Beautiful, stylish, and fiercely intelligent, she is the fire in L'Abri's stove, warming everything with her presence, all the while irritating the living hell out of her family with twenty minute sermons masquerading as prayers, and her passion to "save" every living being in earshot.

 

Frank Schaeffer is honest about the dysfunction of his family, his sister's mental illness, his own sexual coming of age (sometimes uncomfortably so--the man apparently was a world-class wanker as a teen), the family fights over theology (which nearly wrecked L'Abri), and his parents' love affair with art, music and literature. He's also painfully honest about his failed career as a secular film maker, and genuinely regretful at giving up his early and promising career as an artist to chase the big evangelical donors who were underwriting the Schaeffer phenomenon.

 

Where he's at his best is also where's at his angriest: about the destructive role he played in American political life and the unleashing of the monster that ate the Republican Party. These days, he's a post-evangelical who rejects "what the evangelical community became. It was the merging of the entertainment business with faith, the flippant lightweight kitsch ugliness of American Christianity, the sheer stupidity, the paranoia of the American right-wing enterprise, the platitudes married to pop culture." He also considerably more nuanced about abortion, though calling him "pro-choice" would be a stretch.

 

In this he taps into that ironic vein that has created most of us evangelical apostates: the very success of evangelicalism, its emergence as the dominant religious influence in America, and its naked lust for power have driven us far from our home. One of Francis Schaeffer's most famous works is a film series about abortion and euthaniasia entitled, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? His son wants to know: Whatever Happened to the Evangelical Church?

 

Frank Schaeffer's apostasy is full of grace and truth. But what else would you expect from Francis and Edith Schaeffer's boy?

 

 

 

How Evolutionary Creationism Will Require Rethinking Scriptural Doctrine

 

In the accompanying article below I wish to make a few comments where necessary. This is not to say that Daniel Harrell and I differ so much as to qualify a few statements within the article that RJS has written in her observations with coming to grips with Evolutionary Creationism. I will keep my comments short, however, for further reference please refer to the various sidebars on creation, sin, God, evolution, etc. Thank you.

 

R.E. Slater

April 12, 2013

 

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The Tortuous and Tortured Path of Evolution

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/04/11/the-tortuous-and-torturous-path-of-evolution-rjs/

 

RJS

Apr 11, 2013

 

The next few chapters of Daniel Harrell’s book, Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith, looks at the theological questions raised by the possibility of evolutionary creation.

 

Providence. He considers the question of providence and introduces some categories. There is ordinary providence (the everyday workings of the “natural” world), extraordinary providence (as when God employs the wind or the locusts), and supernatural providence (resurrection being a prime example). The latter is an out-breaking of God’s future in the present. None of these are outside of the nature of God – he is equally active and equally consistent with his nature in the natural, the extraordinary, and the supernatural.

 

Thinking Too Much. Evolutionary creation sees God’s action and providence in the “natural” process of evolutionary change. But, unless you don’t think to much (and Harrell admits that he thinks too much), it is not enough to simply say regarding creation that science tells us how and the Bible tells us who and why. This may be true, in fact, I am convinced that it is true, — but it is not enough. Harrell puts it like this:

The scientific evidence is too strong in evolution’s favor to reasonably deny its occurrence. You can refuse to believe it, but that still won’t make it untrue, any more that denying God exists proves that he doesn’t exist. The overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution has led plenty of Christians to suggest that the Bible tells the who and why of creation (the primal or final cause), leaving evolution to describe the how (the secondary or efficient cause). And that works as long as you don’t think about it too much. This is my problem. I think too much. Theology teaches me that the character of creation reflects the character of the Creator – God’s beauty and order and goodness and purposefulness. But as soon as you start thinking about what an evolving creation truly reveals – namely, cruelty and disorder and indifference and randomness – you can’t help but wonder about that faith and about the God to whom that faith points. (p. 46)

Evolution is both tortuous and torturous … or so it has been described.

 

Comment 1. What Harrell points out is that many Christians think of evolution in antipathy to God's character. However, we often discover that God is unlike what we think of Him and no less the more with the subject matter of creation. Thus, the indeterminacy found in God's creational process of mediated evolution no less reflects God's purposefulness, or His other divine characteristics, than would the 7-Day creational model of immediate creation. (I chose to use the word "mediated" to refer to God's sovereign - and continual - involvement in evolutionary creation, as opposed to the classical definition of spontaneous creation by God).

In fact, God's divinity is expanded in our consciousness in ways that we could not imagine without the scientific model of evolution. So that, disorderliness, randomness, death, and destruction (think in terms of quantum physics as well as in biological and geological terms) are as much a part of God's creation as is it's orderly functioning based upon chaotic and seemingly random evolvement.

To add to this complexity, then couple these thoughts with reflections about how sin's entrance into God's creation corrupted the natural, evolutionary process of indeterminacy. As a result, the Christian thinker must expand his/her concepts of creation and of God Himself, especially as they impact classical doctrinal themes and biblical principles.

- res

 

Of course Harrell doesn’t leave us hanging here. In the next sections of Ch. 3 (What Happens When I Think Too Much) and in Ch. 4 (E-Harmony) he works through many of the issues involved in understanding an evolutionary creation. He wanders through a discussion of faith, randomness, purpose, heaven, love, and the image of God.

 

E-Harmony. Harrell discusses what he calls ‘E-Harmony’, the way faith and science integrate, in the context of a conversation with a friend, Dave, who is content (especially when peckish) to deny and ignore the possibility and the questions of evolutionary creation. But we need to face the facts – not ignore them or fiddle with them to match what we already believe. Here Harrell looks at interpretations and data and the power and limitations of reductionist thinking. An example he doesn’t use, but I as a chemist find useful. … One can explain in exquisite detail the properties of hydrogen and of oxygen atoms in isolation. The equations are really quite simple (if one doesn’t dig too deeply into the nucleus). But one can’t derive the properties of the water molecule simply from the isolated atoms, one must consider the influence of each on the others. Likewise one cannot derive the properties of liquid water from a single isolated molecule – one must consider how the molecules interact and the influence this interaction has on the properties of the individual molecules. The elementary equations remain simple (if unsolvable) but because of interactions the system is immensely complex. And it only gets worse. Harrell (he has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology after all … and as a pastor he works with people) looks at the complexities of nutrition and human society to explore both the power and limitations of reductionist thinking.

 

Interpretation. Harrell has a good introduction to the problem of interpretation. “A fruitful dialog between faith and evolution requires a particular kind of relationship between knowledge (“the way we know”) and reality (“the way things are”). (p. 62) Is objectivity a pipe dream with reality unknowable aside from one’s interpretation? … or is there a reality and objectivity (at least when averaging over a large enough group) possible?

Reality itself does not depend upon our ability to know it. While perceptual capacity and personal bias clearly are factors when it comes to making sense of reality, they are not determinants of the reality itself. God was there before anybody believed in him. Evolution occurred before Darwin boarded The Beagle and sailed to the Galapagos Islands. God is not a product of faith any more than evolution is a product of science. So to say that God and evolution are at odds is an interpretative statement, not one that the realities themselves dictate since both existed together before interpretation was possible. (p.63)

And a bit further down the page:

Reality exists independent of me. But knowledge of reality is never independent of me. We have to be honest with our own biases and proclivities. … My belief in God affects my view of nature. My beliefs about nature effect my belief in God because I believe God reveals himself in nature, and this makes evolution part of God’s revelation. Therefore to study evolution is to further understand God. And what I understand about God helps me to better understand evolution. Christian theology doesn’t have to submit to accurate scientific findings, only to account for them. Authentic faith strives to believe in what is rather in than in what we wish was. All truth is God’s truth, however you look at is and whether you like it or not.

 

God is infinite and independent reality. Even when we know everything we can know about him, there will still be infinitely more to know. That is what makes theology so interesting. Every time we think we have God figured out, some new experience or new realization comes along that unmasks our convictions as idols in need of breaking. (p. 63)

We want God to be simple and straightforward, our faith an acknowledgment of solving the equation – connecting the dots. But there is nothing in human experience, and nothing within Scripture, that indicates that this is reality.

 

Death. One of the things that evolution requires us to rethink (or at least many of us to rethink) is the role of death in God’s good creation. I’ll end this post with two brief video clips where Daniel Harrell reflects on the question of death. In this first clip he gives a perspective on death and evolution.

 

Comment 2. I like to ask the question of whether death existed before Adam and Eve's fateful decision in Genesis. To consider whether death itself was an integral part of God's quantum creation of the universe. To consider death as a premeditated, and purposeful, plan by God within His intentional evolutionary creation of the universe and all life that would spawn from its origin. For if it was, then it spins the concept of death as an effect / result of sin upon its head. More the rather, death is by the hand, heart, design, and purposeful plan of God.

Moreover, it affects the Christian view of the future as much as that of the past, for in the future the "New Heavens and New Earth" envisioned in Revelation is rid of corrupting sin and death but not of the creational design of death. So that perhaps a better question to ask is how there will be "newness" in the future kingdom of God given the evolutionary character of its creation which must coincide with the continuance of death. Otherwise atoms would no longer function; the cosmology no longer fit together; and biologic organisms no longer evolve. Does all die a final death and cease to exist on a global, cosmological scale? Or, does our concept of death require qualifying if we are to stay within the bounds of redemptive, biblical history? I would posit the latter - that our concept of "death" must change.

Consequently, the difference between the now-of-today, and the then-of-creation, is the infraction that sin's occurrence brought with it upon God's original holy creation. An occurrence that I would submit began immediately by God's very act of creation. A metaphysical intangible that God knew would immediately occur in His omniscience, and planned for in its resolvement through His redemption of creation through His own death and resurrection in the person of Jesus. I say an immediate metaphysical result because it derived in opposition to God's holy will. An antithesis that resulted to God's command, laying as it would in the "ether of God's creation" causing opposition. Not as an entity, nor as an opposing god, but as a construct in opposition to the construct of God's creation as a metaphysical latency. Which I find difficult to visualize even as I write of this concept.

Moreover, the bible pictures for us sin's existence by utilizing the literary nomenclature of "Adam and Eve's" story of disobedience to God, as a parochial explanation for sin's origin. To my mind, it is a simple way by God to help us understand sin in relation to Himself. If expressed in any other way - as I have attempted above - it is met with too many questions, both philosophic and spiritual. However, I believe I have reasonable ground to say that sin existed before Adam and Eve's disobedience on the observation that the angel Lucifer was the first to sin, not man. So the argument that sin existed before Adam and Eve is evident herein. And, I would submit, that it was pre-existent before Lucifer's choice to-be-like-God, thus causing him to sin. Consequently, my own determination that sin, as a metaphysical latency, must have come into being at the very onset to God's holy act of creation. Perhaps this idea has a classical background to it, but I am not a theological historian and am unaware of any past statements by ancient theologians who might have posited similar arguments.

So then, what does this mean? That death is good and natural, even though it is viewed as unholy and borne because of sin. That even God Himself partook of death to be resurrected unto new life separated from death's affects. I do not understand these things but simply mention them here to provide another way of looking at death and creation, resurrection, renewal, and eternal life itself. It is a mystery borne with the fact that in creation's evolutionary indeterminacy we find death as a necessary construct to creation's sustenance, maintenance, continuance, and evolvement. If death were not latent within creation than our quantum physical, biological, and geologic structures would not hold together in the shape, form, and function as they are now found today.

And as I write of these things let us not forget that this concept still holds dearly to the concepts of God's divine, mitigating, sovereignty and to the latent teleological framework of His overarching salvific designs, as found within His creation and future plans of redemption for earth and man to come.

 - res

Death and Evolution: A Pastor's Perspective -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r7xkQ9nc4rU

 

"Death is part of the character of God. God's supreme

 expression of love is an act of death on our behalf..."

God does many things in ways we would not expect, and in ways we would not if we were God. After all, who really understands either crucifixion and resurrection? And yet this is, we believe, God’s method for transforming his creation and bringing the Kingdom of God, in an already/not yet paradox. For 2000 years Christians have still died.

 

And in this clip … Harrell elaborates a bit more on making sense of death.
 

 

Making Sense of Death: A Pastor's Perspective -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RBSUY4jgPgQ

 

"There is an aspect of dying that is redemptive,

both spiritually and physically..."

 

If Adam had not sinned would he not still have died? In some sense at least the answer is yes. Even John Calvin (no liberal Bible denier he) thought that Adam would have moved from earthly existence to the world to come. The Garden was not the intended end for mankind.

 

These clips are short – no final answers, and not even Harrell’s complete thoughts on the questions. And yet they make good conversation starters to begin to think through the question.

 

What is the relationship between what we know and the way we know?

Is death a big problem for evolutionary creation?

 

Do Daniel Harrell’s thoughts on this make any headway? Where would you agree or disagree.

 

 

Why I Don’t Witness to People on Airplanes

 

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/why-i-dont-witness-to-people-on-airplanes

 

by Rachel Held Evans

April 11, 2013

 

1.
Mark spoke in chapel every other year, usually in the spring, which was about the time I’d accumulated too many absences to cut. A former college basketball player with an imposing six-foot-seven frame, bald head, and booming voice, Mark travelled the country telling Christian college students about his evangelistic exploits, challenging us to “wake up from our apathy” and start witnessing to people before they died and went to hell.

Mark said his favorite place to witness to someone was on an airplane. “It’s a captive audience!” he shouted from the stage. “I mean, the target is literally strapped in next to you!”

[He probably said “person,” but all I could hear was “target.”]

Mark suggested we begin a conversation with our seatmate by asking if they knew where they would go spend eternity should there be a catastrophic failure in the plane’s hydraulic system and we all went down in flames. If that doesn’t work, he said, we should drill the person on how many of the Ten Commandments they might have broken, revealing their need for a savior—Ever committed adultery? Ever lied? Ever disobeyed your parents? Ever coveted your neighbor’s things? You know, make a little small talk about idolatry and death and then tell them about Jesus.

At the end of chapel, Mark always announced he would be going to the local park that afternoon to evangelize. He would take a group of students with him, but he needed those students to stand up and publicly pledge their commitment to process.

“Who’s going to live for Jesus today?” he asked. “Stand up right now if you’re ready to take the gospel seriously and live for Jesus.”

Mark was an expert at direct-response advertising.

As an introvert, the thought of chasing down a jogger in a public park so I could ask him if he ever committed adultery made me physically ill. So, even though I prided myself on being known on campus as “Bible Girl,” I chose not to live for Jesus on the days Mark spoke in chapel. Instead, I stared at my shoes, flush-faced and ashamed, as a few of my classmates rose reluctantly to their feet. They always came back from those trips looking confused and tired and stressed about whatever class they’d skipped for Jesus. I gathered things didn’t go exactly as planned.

“Well, at least we planted some seeds,” they always said.

But we knew what that meant.

Planted seeds are the consolation prizes of failed evangelists.


2.

I think of Mark every time I fly, which lately, is several times a month.

And I have no doubt Mark would be severely disappointed in my typical airplane conversations, which involve a bit of small talk at takeoff (“where you coming from?” “where you headed?”), followed by blessed silence as soon as we reach cruising altitude and my seatmate and I indulge in our respective books or music or sleep, followed by friendly chatter during the final descent (“you going to make your connection?” “don’t you hate/love American Airlines?” “you fly a lot?”).

Of course, sometimes things get a little more interesting.

Like the time I sat next to a mom and her little girl, probably six or seven. It was the little girl’s first time in an airplane, so everything was exciting and breathtaking and adventurous. I switched seats with her so she could look out the window, and, for the first time in a long time, I too saw unicorns, sea monsters and peacocks in the clouds.

Or the time I sat next to the guy from Milwaukee who needed a drink at 8:30 in the morning, and even after I’d put in headphones, opened my kindle, and scratched my face/shielded my eyes/ propped up my chin/picked my freaking nose so he could CLEARLY see my wedding ring, kept inching closer, and talking louder, and looking me over a bit too carefully.

Or the time I sat next to a young man from Hyderabad, India, who couldn’t believe I had been to his home city and that I even knew a couple words in Telegu. He was easy to talk to, spoke warmly about his wife and kids, and made me feel all travelled and wise. When he said he and his wife had found a good temple in Charlotte, and a community of Indians that helped them preserve their culture and language for their children, I said, “Oh good! That’s so important,” knowing good and well that Mark would not approve.

Or the time I sat next to the very friendly salesman with the very loud voice who was very committed to his work of selling hair transplant equipment, very interested in how much hair my husband had on his head, and very disappointed to see that the inflight magazine included a full-page ad for his competitor. He struck up a conversation with the middle-aged guy across the aisle and had nearly sold him, (and the rest of the plane for that matter), on follicular unit extraction by the time we landed in Charlotte. Later, I walked by a restaurant and could hear his voice booming from the bar—“strip harvesting?! Nobody does strip harvesting anymore!”

Or the elderly woman who clutched her rosary on takeoff and landing, or the kid who looked way too young to be wearing an army uniform, or the Latina woman who didn’t speak a word of English and cried in confusion when they made her change seats because she wasn’t allowed to sit in the exit row, or the lady from New Jersey who, upon learning that I wrote a book about following all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a year, declared, “Well it’s a good thing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins so we don’t have to follow any of those old rules anymore!” (Mark would most certainly approve of that.)

But I’ve never “witnessed” to anyone on an airplane. I’ve never asked my seatmate if he’s secured his ticket to heaven, never quizzed the flight attendant on her Ten Commandments record.

For one thing, my faith has changed so much since those days in chapel, I’m not sure I know what it means to “witness” to a person anymore. Somewhere in my mid-twenties, I drifted off the Romans Road and stumbled onto a bigger, wilder Gospel in which salvation is less about individual “sin management” and more about God’s relentless work restoring, redeeming, and remaking the whole world. Salvation isn’t some insurance policy that kicks in after death; it’s the ongoing, daily work of Jesus, who loosens the chains of anger, greed, materialism, and hate around our feet and teaches us to walk in love, joy, and peace instead. It’s good news, not bad news, and I can’t, for the life of me, believe that only evangelical Christians like myself have a monopoly on it.

But what does sharing this good news look like?

I don’t know for sure, but I know it doesn’t look like a sales pitch. I know it doesn’t look like forcing a stranger strapped into the seat next to me to talk about Christianity, like it’s follicular unit extraction, especially if she doesn’t want to. 
 
In The King Jesus Gospel, Scot McKnight wrote, “Most of evangelism today is obsessed with getting someone to make a decision; the apostles, however, were obsessed with making disciples.”

Is it possible to make a disciple in an hour and a half, between the beverage service and final descent? Am I letting my doubts about the existence of hell make me apathetic, lazy? Or am I just a chicken?

I don’t know, but I can’t help but feel a tiny twinge of guilt each time I step off the plane onto the jetway without having made a convert.

“Who’s going to live for Jesus today?”


3.

I know several people who came to faith via some form of direct-response marketing—a televangelist, a tract, a Gideon Bible, a black-and-white billboard signed by God. They tell me this with some embarrassment, like these aren’t sophisticated way to meet Jesus…as if any of us meet Jesus on our terms.

Their stories give me the grace to see that there is a place for people like Mark, that God often uses methods I don’t approve of.

Still, I can’t help but roll my eyes when that guy with the megaphone and white pickup truck pulls into the parking lot at BiLo and starts yelling about the Ten Commandments and the wrath of God, like Jesus is just another product we buy to escape pain.

I’ve never had much luck sharing the Gospel with strangers, but I’ve shared it often around my kitchen table, in the Eucharist, at baby showers, in long summer nights on the back porch talking with friends, at coffee shops, at funeral homes, in living rooms, through tears, through music, through celebrations. At the end of the day, the gospel doesn’t really fit on a billboard or a Facebook status or an elevator pitch; it has to be experienced, in community, through the day-in-and-day-out work of following Jesus. That’s what makes it different from just another product; that’s what makes it better than follicular unit extraction.

A couple of months ago, I sat next to a sixty-something woman on a flight to Newport News. She and her husband of nearly fifty years had retired to the Virginia Coast, she said, because there were so many colleges in the area.

“We can go to a play one night, an art exhibit the next night, and a basketball game the following night,” she said. “It’s wonderful…or at least it used to be.”

Tears gathered in her eyes as she told me about her husband’s recent stroke. His personality changed. He can’t remember words. He gets frustrated easily.

“I’d be frustrated too, if I were him," she said. “Can you imagine? Everything that was once familiar is suddenly…difficult, strange, confusing.”

Her husband sat in the row in front of us, staring ahead. She put her hand on his shoulder.

I listened for a long time, moved by her love for her husband and her daily acts of faithfulness in caring for him. At one point in the conversation, she mentioned with some frustration that her daughter had become a “fundamentalist Christian” and wasn’t helping much. I decided not to venture down the Romans Road.

Instead I told her how sorry I was. I think I may have mentioned an ancient poem that describes certain women as “women of valor,” and that I thought she sounded like one. I told her I hoped I could be as good a wife to my husband as she has been to hers, and that I would pray for her.

I worried that last bit might be pushing it, but she seemed genuinely grateful. She nodded off to sleep for the last 20 minutes of the flight and we didn’t say much to one another after that.

As we filed out of the plane, the thought occurred to me:

Maybe “planting seeds” is all any of us ever do.

Maybe “witnessing” is about the choice we have to plant seeds of unkindness, hurry, hate, and greed in one another’s lives, or to plant seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Whether it’s in our closest relationships or our brief encounters with strangers, we always have that choice—to bring life or to bring death, to bring an agenda or to bring love, to bring a product or to bring Jesus.

The woman on the plane planted a good seed in my heart, and I hope I planted a good seed in hers. We might not get to watch as the God of rain and soil and sun makes those seeds grow, but we can trust that God is faithful, that God can take even our clumsiest attempts at witnessing and turn them into something good.

...Or maybe I’m just chicken.

 

Tips on How to Sympathize



 

 How not to say the wrong thing

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/07/opinion/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407
Op-Ed

 

Susan Silk and Barry Goldman*

April 7, 2013

 

It works in all kinds of crises – medical, legal, even existential.

It's the 'Ring Theory' of kvetching. The first rule is comfort in, dump out.

 

 

When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan's colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but Susan didn't feel like having visitors, and she said so. Her colleague's response? "This isn't just about you."

 

"It's not?" Susan wondered. "My breast cancer is not about me? It's about you?"

 

The same theme came up again when our friend Katie had a brain aneurysm. She was in intensive care for a long time and finally got out and into a step-down unit. She was no longer covered with tubes and lines and monitors, but she was still in rough shape. A friend came and saw her and then stepped into the hall with Katie's husband, Pat. "I wasn't prepared for this," she told him. "I don't know if I can handle it."

 

This woman loves Katie, and she said what she did because the sight of Katie in this condition moved her so deeply. But it was the wrong thing to say. And it was wrong in the same way Susan's colleague's remark was wrong.

 

Susan has since developed a simple technique to help people avoid this mistake. It works for all kinds of crises: medical, legal, financial, romantic, even existential. She calls it the Ring Theory.

 

Illustration by Wes Bausmith



 

Draw a circle. This is the center ring. In it, put the name of the person at the center of the current trauma. For Katie's aneurysm, that's Katie. Now draw a larger circle around the first one. In that ring put the name of the person next closest to the trauma. In the case of Katie's aneurysm, that was Katie's husband, Pat. Repeat the process as many times as you need to. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Parents and children before more distant relatives. Intimate friends in smaller rings, less intimate friends in larger ones. When you are done you have a Kvetching Order. One of Susan's patients found it useful to tape it to her refrigerator.

 

Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, "Life is unfair" and "Why me?" That's the one payoff for being in the center ring.

 

Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.

 

When you are talking to a person in a ring smaller than yours, someone closer to the center of the crisis, the goal is to help. Listening is often more helpful than talking. But if you're going to open your mouth, ask yourself if what you are about to say is likely to provide comfort and support. If it isn't, don't say it. Don't, for example, give advice. People who are suffering from trauma don't need advice. They need comfort and support. So say, "I'm sorry" or "This must really be hard for you" or "Can I bring you a pot roast?" Don't say, "You should hear what happened to me" or "Here's what I would do if I were you." And don't say, "This is really bringing me down."

 

If you want to scream or cry or complain, if you want to tell someone how shocked you are or how icky you feel, or whine about how it reminds you of all the terrible things that have happened to you lately, that's fine. It's a perfectly normal response. Just do it to someone in a bigger ring.

 

Comfort IN, dump OUT.

 

There was nothing wrong with Katie's friend saying she was not prepared for how horrible Katie looked, or even that she didn't think she could handle it. The mistake was that she said those things to Pat. She dumped IN.

 

Complaining to someone in a smaller ring than yours doesn't do either of you any good.

On the other hand, being supportive to her principal caregiver may be the best thing

you can do for the patient.

 

Most of us know this. Almost nobody would complain to the patient about how rotten she looks. Almost no one would say that looking at her makes them think of the fragility of life and their own closeness to death. In other words, we know enough not to dump into the center ring. Ring Theory merely expands that intuition and makes it more concrete: Don't just avoid dumping into the center ring, avoid dumping into any ring smaller than your own.

 

Remember, you can say whatever you want if you just wait until you're talking to someone in a larger ring than yours.

 

And don't worry. You'll get your turn in the center ring. You can count on that.

 

*Susan Silk is a clinical psychologist. Barry Goldman is an arbitrator and mediator and the author of
"The Science of Settlement: Ideas for Negotiators."