Acts 11:1-18 (first published 9 May 2004)
One of the first major conflicts that arose in the early church
revolved around the issue of what Gentiles had to do to be accepted into
the church. One group, sometimes referred to as the Judaizers, believed
that Gentiles must adopt at least some of the major practices of Judaism,
including circumcision and Jewish dietary laws, before being accepted into
the church. Another group argued that Gentiles need not adopt any
specifically Jewish customs. At the Jerusalem Council, church leaders
decided on a compromise: new Gentile converts would not have to follow the
Jewish law, but they would be asked to avoid practices that would be the
most disturbing to Jewish Christians: eating food sacrificed to idols,
"fornication" (possibly marriage to certain relatives not allowed under
Jewish law; see Leviticus 18:6-18), eating animals that had been
strangled, and eating/drinking blood (cf. the reference to blood sausages
in the Odyssey, book 20). Asking believers to be aware of the
qualms of other believers is certainly reasonable, and it is consistent
with Paul's teaching in Romans
14. However, subsequent historical developments indicate that many
did not heed James' call to freedom and mutual acceptance, and broken
fellowship, and sometimes even persecution, have been a sad fact of
Christianity through the centuries. The "orthodox" Christian persecution
of Marcionites and Donatists; the Catholic repression of the Cathari,
Lollards, and Hussites; the Protestant attacks on Catholics in Northern
Ireland; and the refusal of white Protestants to accept their black
brothers and sisters as equals in the American South and in South Africa
are just a few of many examples of Christians fighting Christians, either
figuratively or literally. That spirit continues today as the Southern
Baptist Convention withdraws fellowship from the Baptist World Alliance
over charges of liberalism, as Anglican communions in Africa threaten to
refuse to recognize their American counterparts, some of whom have
accepted homosexuals as equal before God, as Catholics and many other
denominations adamantly refuse to treat women as equal in the eyes of God.
Too often we Christians are our own worst enemies. Are there those with
whom you disagree theologically who nevertheless exhibit Christian virtue?
Accept them as fellow believers! Are there others who hold different
views concerning the importance of sex or sexual orientation in the
Christian life, yet who give strong evidence of the call of God in their
lives? Worship with them joyfully! Christians will never agree on all
doctrinal points (and that's a good thing!), but we can learn to love each
other, accept each other, and worship with one another in the name of
Christ. With Peter, we need to say, "If then God gave them the same gift
that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that
I could hinder God?"
Psalm 148 (first published 9 May 2004)
The May 2004 issue of Scientific American contains an article that proposes that the earliest point in time might not have been the Big Bang some 13 to 15 billion years ago. The author suggests that string theory provides an alternative history of the universe, one that goes back beyond the Big Bang in possibly measurable ways. As science expands our knowledge of the universe, exhortations to the natural world to praise God may seem quaint to some people. Where are the heavens, where the angels dwell? Where are the highest heavens, which contain the sun, moon, and starts? Where are the waters above the heavens? What do we in the modern world mean when we talk about God as creator? It is true that many have abandoned the idea of God, preferring to think of a universe based entirely on measurable scientific principles and observable data. A corollary of abandoning the idea of God is that the world no longer has any real meaning; it only has meaning that humans may arbitrarily assign to it. Other modern inhabitants of the world reject scientific principles such as the Big Bang theory and evolution, believing them to be contradictory to belief in God. These are not stupid people, any more than Galileo's antagonists, who refused to believe that the earth revolved around the sun, were stupid. The problem is not that they don't understand science; many don't, though the same can be said of many believers who accept the findings of modern science. No, the real problem is that they don't understand God. I believe in the scientific principle that has given rise in the past century and a half to theories such as evolution, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang. I also believe in a God who somehow exists beyond the universe yet at the same time infuses the universe. My idea of God may not be the same as that of my more conservative brothers and sisters, but it is just as real. I don't reject scientific theories because they conflict with my theology. Instead, I hold a theology that is big enough to embrace science--all fields of science, whether biology, cosmology, physics, or whatever other area--while at the same time continuing to accept the existence, indeed the praiseworthiness, of God. When many Christians during the Middle Ages were wallowing in ignorance, Muslims were making great strides in mathematics and science, yet they continued to hold a strong belief in God. Modern Christians can be full citizens of the scientific, postmodern world, while at the same time joining with our Muslim neighbors in proclaiming Allahu Akhbar: God is great! We can also join the psalmist the psalmist, who says, "Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven."
The book The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, is told from the
perspective of a murdered girl as she watches her family's struggles
from heaven. For her heaven is a place of waiting, of sadness as she
observes her family try to deal with her loss, and eventually of
acceptance. In Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven,
heaven is a place of learning, about yourself and others. In The
Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis describes heaven as a place of joy, and
in contrast hell is a place of separation from joy and everything
meaningful in life. The traditional Christian view of heaven and hell
is more akin to Dante's description of both places in The Divine
Comedy, where hell is a place of eternal torment, based on one's
failures in this life, and heaven is a place of sublime bliss. The
author of Revelation describes himself as John, a man exiled to the
island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. It is perhaps not surprising, then,
that he describes heaven as a place where no sea separates a person from
the rest of the world. The monastic ideal of separation from society
was conceived not as the ideal life but rather as a life that was
necessary to be endured in order to attain heaven, which would be
anything but isolation. When I was young I took the stories about
streets of gold and singing endlessly literally, and I wondered how much
of that I'd be able to stand. Gold and jewels are interesting to look
at for awhile, but I find the world's most profound beauty in hills and
mountains, trees and flowers, streams and rivers, butterflies and
buzzards, oceans and islands. And the stars and the moon. What is
heaven like? For me it's a place of beauty, companionship, joy, and a
deep sense of the presence of God. More than that, I can't say, but I
do know one thing. If that's my picture of heaven, I don't want to wait
until I get there to experience it. I believe it's my duty, and the
duty of every person of faith, to begin to transform the world into the
image of heaven right now.
John 13:31-35 (first published 9 May 2004)
If you try to nail down what Buddhists believe in a series of simple, straightforward propositions, you will have a hard time. The same is true for Hindus, Taoists, and even modern Jews. Of course there are general principles to which the vast majority of adherents to a particular faith assent, but a systemized list of beliefs is another matter. A good example of a simple set of core beliefs is present in Islam, which requires every believer to assert: "There is no other God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet." In contrast to the followers of many other religions, many Christians see their religion as based on a set of fundamental assumptions, whether they are the Fundamentals of the Faith that gave rise to the name Fundamentalism, various creeds with which members of certain churches are expected to agree, or pronouncements of ecumenical councils and papal decrees. Members of the Christian Right distribute flyers that rate political candidates on the basis of their beliefs in relation to a fixed set of "orthodox" views. Catholic bishops proclaim that politicians who disagree with certain church teachings should be refused communion (though the bishops are often quite arbitrary in deciding which violations of the Catholic faith justify excommunication and which do not). Is Christianity, then, such a complicated religion that its most basic tenets cannot be summarized in a simple manner? In fact, the early church had two simple standards, one doctrinal and the other ethical: it confessed Jesus as Lord (Romans 10:9), and it advocated love (John 13:35). Although Jesus was well-known as a teacher, he is never pictured as teaching anything like a fixed set of doctrines to his disciples. He simply asks them, like he asks us, to love one another.