Apologetics « WellSprings and WineSkins

In Defense of Bishop Spong

L. Dwight Turner

Few names can conjure up negative responses as that of retired Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong. One of the leading advocates of contemporary liberal Christianity, Spong’s ideas have sent more than his share of conservatives and fundamentalists into fits of apoplexy.

Although I find myself disagreeing with some of Spong’s more radical ideas about the faith in general and about Jesus in particular, I find that my reaction to the writings of the good bishop to be less vitriolic. In fact, I find much of what Spong has to say to be both enlightening and highly pertinent. Further, I find Spong to be a man who thoroughly believes what he says and who has a genuine affection for the faith.

It is for these reasons that I encourage those readers who have an open mind to read the works of John Shelby Spong and to give this man a fair shake when it comes to his theology as well as his prescriptions for the church. Personally, I think Spong has much to offer the Body of Christ, if we will just put aside some of the things we have “heard” about him and discover for ourselves what he has to say.

For example, in the passage below Spong discusses how his concept of prayer has changed as he has adopted what he calls a “post-theistic” concept of God. On a personal level, he specifically discusses how his daily two-hour prayer sessions have been transformed into a far wider venue:

As I moved beyond theism to a post-theistic understanding of God, I discovered that my commitment to starting my day with this focused two-hour time slot did not change, but my understanding of what I was doing did – and dramatically. It made perhaps a 180-degree turn. The primary shift came in what I thought the prayer part of my day was. It ceased to be identified with these first two hours each morning and shifted to embrace the balance of the day. My actions, my engagement with people, the facing of concrete issues – all these became for me the real time of prayer. My prayer came to be identified with my living, my loving, my being, my meaning, my confronting, my struggles for justice, my desire to be an agent of the world’s transformation. That is where I met and communed with God. God was no longer found for me in the quiet places of retreat; now God was in the hurly-burly of a busy and sometimes troubling life. God was found not in the stable rocks but in the rushing rapids.

(from A New Christianity for a New World)

I find nothing in these words offensive or heretical. It seems the only folks that find the bulk of Spong’s work to be heresy are those believers, heretics themselves, who hold to the notion that the Bible is the Word of God and worthy of worship. I find bibliolatry to be a particularly vile form of apostasy, and a major cause of division and spiritual paralysis in the church. It is certainly far more deadly than what Spong is talking about.

(to be continued)

Darkness Before the Dawn: Part Two

Posted On February 20, 2009

Filed under 12 Step Program, Apologetics, Christianity, Conversion, Discipleship, Gospel, Grace, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Paul's Teachings, Personal Discipline, Personal Renewal, Self-Control, Sin, Spiritual Formation, Spirituality
Tags: 12 Step Program, Broken Nature, Christianity, Discipleship, Sin, Step One, Step Two

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Mick Turner

God accepts us and blesses us. So, why is it that many of us have trouble fully accepting this free gift of grace? Why is it that a significant number of God’s family displays such a negative mindset? Why is it that church pews are often filled with people wearing either plastic smiles or, even worse, displaying such a sour countenance that visitors might think these folks had been baptized in vinegar instead of water?

Perhaps the problem stems from the fact that many of us, deep down in our spiritual hearts, just don’t believe that we have really been accepted. If we are among that number, our situation is such that we are actually rejecting the very gospel we proclaim.

A renowned Christian theologian, I think it was Paul Tillich, once said that the key to the whole Christian gospel was the fact that we are accepted by God. In fact, he went on to say that the way to appropriate God’s grace was to accept that we are accepted. I am no theologian and, at best, possess a second or third rate mind. But I am capable of comprehending the truth of this statement. We cannot begin the spiritual journey as outlined by Christ until we accept the gift of grace. And the most fundamental aspect of accepting God’s offer is to accept that we are accepted. Yet many Christians don’t seem to get this point. In fact, in their broken, weak state they can’t fathom that they are in any way acceptable to God. Something is wrong here. Very wrong.

The crown jewel in the center of the Christian message is that the lowliest, neediest, and most broken people are accepted if they have faith in Christ. Just take a look at the kind of people he chose to hang out with when he was on earth. He associated with thieves, lepers, tax-collectors, prostitutes, cripples, paupers, and even a woman married five times. It now strikes me as absurd to think that I, even with my hang-ups, sins, shortcomings, and defects of character, am beyond the loving pale of God’s grace. However, many people both within and outside the church feel they are unworthy of God’s grace and thus reject the gift that was designed for them in the first place.

Consider the familiar story of the Prodigal Son as told by Christ in the fifteenth chapter of Luke. We are so familiar with this tale of a wasted life saved through love and redemption than we often loose the impact that it should have on our lives. Especially if we are wastrels and rogues like the wandering Prodigal. Perhaps more than any other passage in Scripture, the parable of the youngest son of a wealthy landowner illustrates the incomprehensible, counter-intuitive love of God. Brennan Manning speaks succinctly about the Prodigal in all of us and God’s incredible acceptance:

“When the prodigal limped home from his lengthy binge of waste and wandering, boozing, and womanizing, his motives were mixed at best. He said to himself, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of Hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father”. (Luke: 15:17-18). The ragamuffin stomach was not churning with compunction because he had broken his father’s heart. He stumbled home simply to survive. His sojourn in a far country had left him bankrupt. The days of wine and roses had left him dazed and disillusioned. The wine soured and the roses withered. His declaration of independence had reaped an unexpected harvest: not freedom, joy, new life but bondage, gloom, and a brush with death. His fair-weather friends had shifted their allegiance when his piggy bank emptied. Disenchanted with life, the wastrel weaved his way home, not from a burning desire to see his father, but just to stay alive.”

Yet even with these mixed motives, borne as much from desperation as from contrition, the wastrel was accepted by his father and a celebration ensued. Of course it is best if we respond to God’s offer with a pure, contrite heart and full acknowledgement of our failure and powerlessness. Yet how many of us are actually capable of this? Not many I suspect. I know I am not. But God accepts our response to his offer in spite of our conflicted hearts and spirits. In fact, if one is to believe what Christ teaches in the parable of the Prodigal, then he in accepts our desperation just as much as he accepts our repentance. This is truly “radical grace.”

So what is our response to what God has done? What are we to do if we truly and sincerely want to partake of God’s marvelous offer to accept us, love us and empower us to be better people? What are we to do if we genuinely desire to become Children of the Light? First, we should deeply reflect on just what it is that God has done through Christ and what He is continuing to do through the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit. Brendan Manning again puts it in cogent and moving words:

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that he should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at his love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”

Just how do we go about accepting this radical offer made by God? We just accept it. It is really that simple. There is no great mystery here, no elaborate initiation rites, no secret oaths or pledges. We just accept it because God offers it. We accept it on faith and leave God to work out the details and understanding later. The comfort we find in accepting God’s love comes after faith, never before it. Remember, it all begins with and hinges on faith.

Christians seem to have an uncanny knack for taking simple truths and complicating them through debate, dogma, and doctrine. The “Doctrine of Grace” is one thing; the reality of God’s grace is quite another. It is freely offered to all who would humble themselves enough to receive it. I suspect that each of us has his or her own way of resisting God’s grace. Some of us, as mentioned above, feel we don’t deserve it; some of us are too prideful, feeling that we can fix ourselves on our own; others think the concept of grace is just too simplistic. Whatever our reasons for struggling with this basic Christian principle, until we resolve our conflict, we will not advance very far on the spiritual journey.

I can attest to this fact from my own experience. Paul says that the idea of “Christ crucified” as the means of salvation would be foolishness to the Greeks. Well, for many years it was foolishness to me. I much preferred the complexity of Buddhism and Hinduism, or the sanity of New Thought. Still, somewhere down in the pit of my being, the Hound of Heaven was chewing on me. God was unrelenting in his pursuit of me and I, like Jonah, headed for the hills more than once. Still, God’s grace kept surrounding me and I could not escape. In fact, I came to treasure the comforting feeling of being surrounded by God. Finally, I accepted that I was accepted.

Once I stopped running; once my struggles with God came to a halt, it was like a whole panorama of spiritual reality opened before my eyes, including a deep sense of optimism and hope. As a result, I began to view the world, including its problems and pain, with a greater degree of compassion and a genuine desire for healing involvement.

With the help of the Holy Spirit, I came to understand at a deeper level that I was in fact accepted. Accepted in my weakness because this is where the strength of Christ is seen. Accepted in my brokenness because this is where the healing of Christ is seen. Accepted in my faithlessness because this is where the fidelity of Christ is seen. Accepted in my wandering in the wilderness because this is where Christ’s true and stable mansions are eventually discovered.

As epidemic as this notion that we are undeserving of God’s grace and his willingness to restore us to more whole and healthy functioning is, there is another reason people do not change that is equally prevalent. In order to actually change your life you have to genuinely want to. You see my friend, many people say they want to change, but they actually don’t mean it. They may even think they mean it, but they are only fooling themselves. The minute the going gets rough, these folks bail out faster than you can say, “Maybe things weren’t that bad after all.” Once these folks get a good whiff of the personal sacrifices often required in any program of transformation they hit their haunches faster than a Mississippi donkey.

Many years ago I worked as a counselor in an inpatient psychiatric facility. I recall one patient in particular who was a good example of what I am getting at here. We’ll call her Bessie, although that was not her real name. Bessie had been admitted to the facility at least eight times that I knew of. No matter what therapeutic interventions her doctors tried, she always reverted back to her problematic way of dealing with the world, which involved a combination of prescription medication, alcohol, and frequent violent explosions.

Bessie had been a patient of just about every psychiatrist in town at one time or the other, but the results were always the same. Bessie reverted back to being, well, Bessie.

At one point a new, young doctor came on staff and took over Bessie’s case. He tried a number of new things with Bessie and she at least seemed to be making some changes. Unfortunately, one day while in the hospital she manifested her old behavior. She reached over the nurses’ station and grabbed two medical charts and smashed them against the wall. She then began jumping up and down on them while ripping her clothes off and screaming at the top of her lungs. All of this happened just after she noticed her young doctor get off the elevator. While only clad in her underpants (Bessie was in her 70’s mind you, and more than a few pounds overweight), she started running in circles around her physician while telling him the following:

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, Buddy,” yelled Bessie in a loud, cackling voice. “I figured it all out last night. You’re trying to change me, aren’t you? Well, I’m here to tell you it ain’t gonna work.”

Granted, many of those who resist change are not as dramatic as Bessie in their behavior or their lack of desire for personal transformation. Still, the results are always about the same. Like Bessie, there is little lasting change. Bessie’s story and the stories of many like her share one thing in common: the stated desire for change was illusory.

The simple fact is if change is to happen in your life, you have to truly desire it. Like anything of value in life, change begins with desire. I repeat:

Every positive accomplishment begins as a desire in the mind of the individual. Desire is the initial force that gives birth to our dreams and it is desire that motivates us to achieve those dreams. All great things begin with positive desire.

I encourage you to begin with an honest, gut-level assessment of your desire to change. You have to ask yourself, “Is my desire for change genuine? Am I willing to, if necessary, make personal sacrifices in order to reach my desired goal of personal transformation?” If you answer these questions in the negative, that’s ok. It just means you are not yet ready to change yourself and your life. If this is the case, my suggestion is for you to pray to God, asking him to impart to you a willingness to change. Be sensitive to anything the Lord may be trying to communicate to you regarding change and/or willingness to change. Keep a journal and write down any insights or messages that may come to you. Go back later and reflect on what you have written, pray about it, and see what happens next. Even the unwillingness to change can be an avenue through which the Holy Spirit can help you to grow spiritually.

If you conduct an honest, thorough assessment of your desire to change and you discern that it is genuine, it is time to take the next step. You need to begin, through prayer and planning, to set goals for personal change and make specific plans for how this transformation might be facilitated. Enjoy where you are at that moment, because you are on your way to becoming a better version of yourself. Keep in mind that as you grow, you are increasingly able to realize the divine potential that God has placed inside you. You are more and more able to discern your strengths of character and put those very strengths into practice where it really counts, your everyday life. And one more thing, do it all for the glory of God. Like Jesus, your ultimate goal in personal change is to increasingly put yourself in a condition where you can glorify God.

Doing so was a big part of Christ’s mission on earth; and it is equally a big part of yours.

Believers’ Buffoonery and Other Shenanigans

Posted On February 20, 2009

Filed under Apologetics, Christianity, Church, Culture, Dumb Statements, God's Love, Gospel, Grace, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Personal Discipline, Repentance, Self-Control, Sin
Tags: Christianity, Christians Behaving Badly, Gospel, Jesus, Jesus' Teachings, Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church, Watchmen on the Walls

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Mick Turner

Believers’ Buffoonery and Other Shenanigans

When I employ a bit of rigorous honesty with myself I am very much aware of the fact that faithfulness to the Christian path has not been my strong suit. Sometimes I am not even sure it qualifies as any kind of suit. The fact is, like Jonah of old, I can get bent out of shape and hit the bricks with the best of them. Nineveh be damned; I’m taking the next boat West. I don’t exaggerate a smidgen when I say that the crusty old guy in the belly of the whale “ain’t got nuthin’ on me.”

Discussions with many other Christians and former believers have revealed that I am not exactly in a minority here. It seems quite a few people entertain notions of leaving the faith from time to time. I was a bit surprised at this but I guess I shouldn’t have been. For quite awhile I thought I was the only guy who wanted to run off and become a Buddhist. Lo and behold, there are quite a few more of me it seems.

What I have discovered is that my reasons for being more than a little unfaithful over the years are somewhat unique. Whereas many people leave the faith or at least consider it often stems from some conflict they have had with members of their church or with their pastor. Others have left because they found other things they wanted more than their spiritual life, like drugs, alcohol, junkets to Vegas or another person’s spouse.

In my case, it was not these things that tempted me to flee behind cloistered walls where no one could find me and start chanting sutras in a cloud of smoky incense. More often than not, it was either something a Conservative, Evangelical, or Fundamentalist did or said that sent me reeling. I not only would become frustrated with what they might have said or did, but more to the point, I would become upset over the fact that these folks have hijacked the religion of Jesus and turned it into something worse than the stinking corpse faith of the Pharisees that the Master railed against some 2,000 years ago.

In the past, these events often centered on the Religious Right’s illegitimate marriage to the Republican Party, which eventually devolved to the point that a Baptist pastor in North Carolina threatened to excommunicate anyone in his congregation that had the audacity to vote for a Democrat. After successfully choking off an almost uncontrollable urge to regurgitate, I considered either leaving the faith or something even more drastic in nature.

You see, I am a bit of a loner. Worse still, I am a contemplative loner and in the best of circumstances that left me only two options: I could become either an English teacher or an assassin. Gun shy, I went to China and taught English.

Just last night I experienced another one of these episodes, but with God’s help I only briefly considered moving on down the spiritual pike. I was watching a video clip on You Tube that showed a group of shouting, screaming fundamentalists accosting people on the street. At first I thought they must have been outside an abortion clinic but I was mistaken. These folks were standing outside Lakewood Church on Sunday morning, preaching at the throng gathering to hear their pastor Joel Osteen.

Calling Pastor Osteen everything from an apostate, end times false teacher to the Brother of Beelzebub, these folks were evidently upset that the smiling preacher didn’t froth at the mouth enough about sin, the cross, and their favorite topic, the Blood. Fixated on the Atonement, which is only half of the gospel message at best, these self-proclaimed “Watchmen on the Walls” seem to think that the whole idea of empowerment by the Spirit to live a higher quality life is heresy and Brother Joel is a messenger whose breath reeks of brimstone. Somehow, in their zeal for doctrinal goose stepping, these storm troopers seem to have overlooked Jesus’ message in John 10:10.

One thing stands out, for certain. You would be hard pressed to find an example of agape in this bunch.

Personally, I find the Gospel an amazing phenomenon. You see, the mission and message of Jesus is a seamless whole but, at the same time, it has a little something for everyone. The Gospel is like a giant prism. When you shine light through a prism, you see a different color, depending on where you happen to be standing. On one side you might see red and on another side, a different color. The problem comes in when you think the color that you see is the only valid color there is. Those folks who see yellow, for example, must be mistaken.

It’s the same with the Gospel message. Depending on your need and your character, you are going to be focused on one aspect of the message more than others. This is both fine and natural but please, don’t make the mistake of thinking that is the primary message of Jesus. To look at the cross, the blood, and forgiveness of sin as the most important aspect of what Jesus accomplished is to walk lockstep in line with the school of theology that has held sway in American Protestantism for three or four centuries. That does not mean, however, that it is the only aspect of the mission of the Master, not does it mean it is primary. All it means is that it is the aspect of the Gospel that you hear most often and thus, relieves you of the necessity of thinking very hard about the situation. A friend of mine calls it “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Salvation” and he is not far from correct.

I am not saying that the Atonement is heresy. All I am saying is that when you make any one aspect of the Gospel the “only truth” or the “preferred truth,” you are not only limiting yourself; you are also insulting Jesus and discounting all that he did. And what is equally disturbing, you end up creating disunity, animosity, and fissures in the Body of Christ.

I am convinced that when the Master sees the blatant buffoonery like what was taking place outside of Lakewood, he must feel much sadness. I know I do. When I witness such silliness, it makes me want to run from the Nineveh to which I have been called and head straight for the harbor. Even the belly of a whale is preferable to listening to babbling of these “Watchmen on the Walls.”

In the words of Archie Bunker: “Stifle!”

Watchdogs Say I Can’t Be A Christian

Mick Turner

As the Body of Christ, in all its various manifestations, moves forward toward the second decade of the 21^st Century, I find it both interesting and rewarding to explore the different ways in which diverse segments of the faith are dealing with the major challenges confronting the church. Some groups welcome these challenges and see in them opportunities for growth and expansion, while others resist change like it was the spawn of Satan himself. These latter groups rail against modernism, post-modernism, and even the proverbial partridge in a pear tree as they turn on their collective heel and race head long back to the “good ol’ days” at breakneck speed, never pausing to consider the fact that those days of yore were not all that good by anyone’s measure.

I have always been fascinated by the study of ideas, particularly the movement of ideas across time and geography. Within this area of interest, I also enjoy the researching of how these ideas impact groups of people and, in turn, how groups of people impact these ideas. This is especially fascinating when the object of one’s study is religious and/or spiritual ideas.

Take for example the movement of Christianity and Christian ideas into Ireland. The Catholic Church, in spite of its problems, warts, and hidden agendas, had a generally positive impact of the Celts of Ireland. There was at least somewhat of a stabilizing effect on the culture, but the Church and its ideas was never able to completely erase or eradicate the older spiritual ideas that were an inherent part of the Celtic character and ethos. The result was that the ideas associated with the church impacted this group of people, but at the same time, the Celts ended up having a major impact on the church as well. The result was the creation of a unique, vital, and highly popular form of Christianity that survives to this day. In fact, what has come to be known as Celtic Christianity has enjoyed a major resurgence in worldwide popularity over the past two to three decades.

Please forgive me for the foregoing digression about Celtic Christianity, but I hope it at least gave an illustration of what I mean about the movement of ideas across time and geography. In addition, it is my hope that the side trip gave clarity to what I meant when talking about how ideas impact groups of people and how groups of people can also impact ideas.

With all that said, I find it interesting to look at this sort of thing as the ideas associated with the church continue to encounter the ever-shifting and rapidly changing world in which we live. This whole process is made even more fascinating when one pauses to consider the fact that, unlike the exchange between early medieval Catholicism and the Celts, today’s encounter between Christianity and post-modern, post-Christian culture has no unified system of ideas on either side. The Christian faith is so divided and theologically diverse that it defies cogent definition. For its side of the encounter, post-modern culture is built upon the bedrock of relativism, which is another way of saying that it is built upon the bedrock of no bedrock. Postmodernism prides itself on the absence of absolute truth and blind to the inherent contradiction of doing so, will seemingly fight to the death to prove that no absolute standard of certainty exists.

“What contradiction”, you ask? Well, here’s one for starters. Postmodern thought is constructed on the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth.

I’ll stop before I launch into another side bar discussion. The point is, as one studies the interplay between Christian ideas that run the gamut from staunch fundamentalism to the Unitarian-Universalist open-ended approach and the here today gone tomorrow truths of postmodern culture, about all one ends up with for certain is a migraine.

What I have stated in the above paragraphs leads me to the conclusion that we are living in a most interesting time these days; a time when something old appears to be fighting for its final gasps of breath and something new has moved into the birth canal and the contractions are growing more frequent and intense. Meanwhile, we are frozen in what seems to be an eternal Saturday, halfway between crucifixion and resurrection. It is at precisely such times that definitions become increasingly difficult. It is also on these seemingly eternal Saturdays that rather than judgments and knee-jerk reactionism, we are much better served by tolerant reflection and the realization that we, at least for now, live in an age where definitions are somewhat fluid.

Let me give you an example; one that sometimes sticks in my craw and rides sidesaddle in my mouth.

Often as I do research for this site as well as various writing projects, I read through various blogs of a Christian bent. Recently, I have had the misfortune of encountering more than a few arch-conservative, fundamentalist sites where several nameless, self-appointed “watchmen on the walls,” doctrinal purists, and “real Christians,” sit in name-calling, mud-slinging, judgment of everyone who happens to disagree with their perspective by even a jot or a few tittles. Personally, I find this kind of behavior on the part of so-called believers to be reprehensible, but that’s another story for another time.

On more than one occasion, I have found one of these modern-day Pharisees dragging some teacher or writer through the proverbial keyhole, calling them heretics, apostates, and the brother (and in some cases, sister) of Beelzebub or worse. Even more appalling, more times than not, it is apparent from what these paragons of doctrinal husbandry are saying that they have not bothered to read very much of the writings of whatever author or teacher may have been unfortunate enough to have landed in their crosshairs.

What’s worse is the fact that these self-styled doctrinal experts seem to have arrived at the notion, deluded as it is, that somehow, someone died and appointed them to be the authoritative voice of what does and does not constitute a “Christian.”

Personally, I find this state of affairs sad, tragic, and deplorable.

On one site recently, several of these part-time pundits were engaged in a conversation in which they had worked up a significant amount of bile and spittle over the movement sometimes called “Progressive Christianity. During the course of the online discussion, the participants opined one and all that these apostate progressives could not be “real Christians” because they: a) did not accept the Bible as God’s inerrant and infallible word; b) some of them denied the doctrine of the Virgin Birth; c) did not believe that Jesus was the only way to God; and perhaps worst of all, d) most of them voted for Democrats.

The discussion went on over several pages in which some of the more loquacious experts waxed eloquent about the “true faith” while, at the same time, actually composed a “Black List” of Christian writers and had the audacity to grade these authors on a scale of danger based on their perceived degree of heresy. Authors such as Richard Foster, Tony Campolo, and Dallas Willard were black listed, but placed in a category a few rungs up from the bottom. Even such Evangelical mainstays as Chuck Swindoll and Phillip Yancey did not escape the wrath of these cowboys and I found writers like John Eldredge, Myles Munroe, and can you believe it, Billy Graham, even earned spots in their Hall of Shame.

As for Bishop Spong, he already had his ticket to Hell punched and if Marcus Borg had inadvertently wandered into their clutches, he would have been drawn and quartered faster than you can say Spanish Inquisition. Search as I might, I found no evidence of agape among this bunch.

What galls me the most is the fact that these folks somehow think they have the right to say who is and who is not a Christian. More than once I felt like yelling:

“Hey Gertrude, let’s back that bus up a minute. Something’s bad wrong here!”

You see, friends, as they engaged in their pseudo-punditry, these wise watchmen did nothing to address the real issues facing the Body of Christ in this exciting but challenging time. All their discussion managed to accomplish was to define who was not a fundamentalist and/or evangelical. Just because someone holds views that differ from this stream of the Christian faith, makes them no less Christian and certainly no less valuable in the eyes of God. I suspect that only God really knows who is “a Christian” and even more pertinent, I suspect only God has that right, let alone enough wisdom to do so.

In closing, in case you wonder if this diatribe of mine will end up putting me on their Black List of apostate ne’er-do-wells, you can relax.

I am already on it.

The Substitutionary Atonement: Is It An Insult To God?

Posted On February 5, 2009

Filed under Apologetics, Apostle Paul, Bible Study, Christianity, Conversion, Discipleship, God's Love, God's Story, Gospel, Grace, Holy Spirit, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Metaphysical Christianity, Promises of God, Prophecy, Repentance, Sin, Spirituality, Trusting God, Worldview
Tags: Apologetics, Atonement, Christ's Death, Christianity, Doctrine, Forgiveness, God, Jesus' Teachings, Sin, The Cross, Theology

Comments Dropped one response

Mick Turner

What I am about to say may alarm some people, disgust others, and even enrage a few. In spite of these potential negative consequences, I feel I must at least mention an issue that rarely is discussed in civilized company. Getting right to the point, I am not talking about drugs, sex, or rock and roll.

Instead, I want to talk about a doctrine that has been a part of the church for many centuries and is rarely called into question by those who ardently state that they are “true believers.” I want to talk a bit about one of the church’s most sacred cows: the doctrine of the “Substitutionary Atonement.”

The reason I have decided to go ahead and post this article relates to something I felt compelled to do this afternoon. I left a comment on another blog, where an article was posted talking about the centrality of the Cross and the atonement for sins in the Christian gospel. Lest one think I was disrespectful, I will include my comment immediately below. Chances are if the comment makes you apoplectic and causes frothy spittle to start gathering at the corner of your mouth, you might not want to read any farther. My comment was:

I have always had a major issue with the substitutionary atonement because I think it paints a picture of God that is highly inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. Unlike many, when I saw Mel Gibson’s “The Passion,” I didn’t respond with a deeper sense of what Jesus had done, but instead, found myself wondering, “What kind of God would require such a thing? Surely not one I would wish to follow.”

It seems to me that when you really look at it, God is asking us to do something that He could not do. Jesus taught us to love with a selfless “agape” love, that requires no selfish return for ourselves. Further, he taught us to forgive without price, which is the essence of grace….to do this even 70 x 7 if necessary. I think this is part of the heart of Jesus’ teaching and I feel it is also at the heart of Christianity.

Yet if you look at the big picture, if you believe Jesus was God, and I do, it would seem that God the Father is not capable of doing what God the Son says we should do. We are to forgive and love without requiring anything from the object of our love and forgiveness. We are commanded to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, etc. These are wonderful, though difficult, teachings.

Yet God either would not or could not do this. In order for our sins to be forgiven and for us to be acceptable in his sight, something had to die. Blood had to be shed. And in this case, his own Son had to die. Now this is not the love nor the forgiveness that Jesus said is required of us. Instead, it is love and forgiveness that is dependent upon two things ….something or someone has to die and we have to believe and confess that Jesus in fact did this on our behalf, which again, is not the kind of love and forgiveness we are told to exhibit in our lives. In essence, we are required to do something that God the Father either could not or would not do.

It is for this reason that I find the “Christ died for our sins” to be untenable as the center of our faith. I believe the issue of Christ’s resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit is more central and less inconsistent. The whole atonement for sin theme comes primarily, although not exclusively, from Hebrews. Perhaps a First Century Jew would grasp its significance, but to the Gentiles, it would be a folly. Paul said as much, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a folly.

I concluded with a paragraph that basically stated that I truly meant no disrespect by my comment and that I only wanted to get the author’s perspective on the whole atonement issue in hopes of finding some palatable way of getting my mind and heart around the issue.

I firmly believe that it is our duty as thinking, rational Christians to examine and explore all things related to our world view, whether or not the particular subject is considered too sacred to question. If we fail to look at any aspect of our faith with a discerning eye, we open ourselves up to the possibility of error. If this sort of thing happens, and particularly if the mistaken issue impacts a large number of people, significant problems can emerge. Large numbers of otherwise nice, intelligent people can wind up spending a significant portion of their lives orbiting around a lie.

More than a few years ago, dark humorist author Kurt Vonnegut published a great little book entitled, Wampeters, Foma, and Grand Falloons. These three phenomena, to briefly and only roughly paraphrase Vonnegut, basically constituted a typology of falsehoods in which people often believed. Vonnegut explains the title in the introduction:

Dear Reader: The title of this book is composed of three words from my novel Cat’s Cradle. A “wampeter” is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. The Holy Grail would be a case in point. “Foma” are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. An example: “Prosperity is just around the corner.” A “granfalloon” is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. Taken together, the words form as good an umbrella as any for this collection of some of the reviews and essays I’ve written, a few of the speeches I made.

Given this definition, is it indeed possible that the doctrine of the Substitutionary Atonement is, at best, a foma and at worst an abstraction resulting in a grand falloon?

Let’s take a look and see what we discover.

I have mentioned before on this site that I have major problems coming to terms with the whole “he died for our sins” theory. Granted, the Bible states this on several occasions, but then, the inerrancy of scripture and the infallibility of the Bible is another sacred cow I do not hold with. The whole idea of God sending Jesus down here to get arrested, flogged, scourged, taunted, ridiculed, and nailed to a cross is beyond the scope of even a paper-thin capacity to reason.

On other sites, I have also described my reaction to the Mel Gibson film detailing “The Passion.” As I said before, I found this movie the most visually disturbing film I have ever seen. The scenes of the crucifixion were both graphic and horrid and, to Gibson’s credit, lent realism to the Easter story rarely witnessed. Still, as I walked out of the theater I found that my response to the film was a bit different than most folks. I overheard many people saying that the movie made them realize the true depth of the sacrifice Jesus had made for their sins. All others could do was mourn through tears, “Poor Jesus. He suffered so much for me.”

As for me, I came away asking myself and the universe, “What kind of God would require something like this in order to make his own creation acceptable to him?” I say this with profound respect: “I would never want to worship such a God.”

Gibson’s film, which I saw shortly after returning from my five-plus year stay in China, created somewhat of a spiritual crisis in my life and forced me to ask some very pertinent questions regarding the content of my world view in general and my understanding of God in particular.

My eventual solution to this quandary came in an unexpected direction. I came to believe deep in my heart that God would not require such a hideous thing and further, to insist that he did was an insult to his character. Over the next year I came to even deeper clarity on the issue.

When one really thinks the whole Substitutionary Atonement through to its logical conclusion one makes an interesting and paradoxical discovery: there is no logical conclusion because the entire thing is illogical!

Think about it. If a person holds to the doctrine of the Substitutionary Atonement, he or she is basically saying that God is not only unfair, but that he is also not omnipotent and, in addition, he is a blood thirsty child abuser.

Look at it like this. Jesus repeatedly talked about how important it was for us to forgive others. Teachings such as turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, forgiving our enemies and loving our enemies, and overlooking the wrongs done to us seventy times seven, all point to how if we are to be forgiven, we have to forgive as God forgives.

But wait! We are not asked to forgive as God forgives. You see, God evidently requires a price be paid before he forgives. In this case, before he was willing to forgive us, his Son had to be killed. The scripture tells us he (Christ) paid a ransom for many. Before God would forgive us and accept us, blood had to be spilt. No matter how fancy your theological footwork, you can’t get around this. The entire Substitutionary Atonement doctrine is saying that God, through Jesus, is asking us to forgive others in a manner that even God cannot do. Jesus doesn’t tell us someone has to die before we can forgive them. Yet for God, according to this doctrine, somebody has to ante up.

When discussing this with a good friend, she pointed out that Jesus’ death on the cross ended the need for sacrifice, so God no longer requires someone to die. Well, that sounds great, but it is a theological bucket full of leaks.

In response, I asked my friend the following,

“So, what if Jesus did not die on the cross? Suppose he wasn’t even crucified. Would I still be forgiven, living some 2,000 years later?”

“No, you wouldn’t be forgiven,” she answered.

So, according to the doctrine, even though Christ died way before I ever sinned, his death was still required to cover my sins now and any one else’s sin until the end time. So you see, someone still has to pay the piper. God still requires that one final sacrifice, and now it happens every time someone professes their faith in him.

Confronted with all this, I faced several decisions. I could jettison my faith, say it was absurd, and become a heathen, pagan, whatever. Or I could put all this on the theological back burner and “pray for insight.” That’s what I did at first. And guess what? The insight eventually came that I was correct in this thinking. The whole Atonement for Sin doctrine was, indeed, a Grand Falloon of the worst kind. Even more so, it is an even higher insult to God than the whole notion that he required Christ’s death in the first place. What this misguided doctrine is saying is that we Christians are to do something (forgive others) in a way that God Himself cannot do (forgive without a ransom being paid).

Now I know some fundamentalist or staunch evangelical readers, if they are still reading by now, are frothing at the mouth and Catholics are busy making the sign of the Cross. I can’t say as I blame them. If someone played around with one of my sacred cows, I would probably become a bit rabid myself.

I don’t write all this just to upset people. I have written these things because they describe the path I took to get to my beliefs. I feel that as Christians we are to take many things by faith. However, I also feel we are called to examine all things and, if we find something that is highly suspect and especially if we discover something that is insulting to God, then we are to settle it in our own mind and let others know what we have found.

One final note here…I hope as a reader you don’t just write me off as some liberal believer who has just gone too far down the pike. I am the first to admit that I am not a fundamentalist or conservative. However, unlike most liberals, I do believe in the deity of Christ, and I believe in his resurrection as well. I also firmly believe that we, as Christians, are called by Christ to spread his teachings to the corners of the earth. I don’t, however, believe in the whole infallible Bible lunacy, or in the Substitutionary Atonement. I suspect that should be clear by now.

Three Thirds of the Gospel

Mick Turner

For a long time, I wondered why it was that so many Christians, myself included, had such difficulty living out the realities of our faith. After all, when we accepted Christ into our lives, the old had supposedly passed away and the new had assuredly come; at least that is what Paul told us.

I suspect that just about all of us struggle with this issue at one time or another. I think most Christians want to have a deeper walk of faith and each has his or her own persistent demons that whisper in the ear in the dead on night and sometimes even shouts in the bright light of day. Without going into this issue too far, I think it is safe to say that this is, and has long been, a problem for those in the sheepfold of Christ. Paul even lamented the same issue when he told us he often did what he didn’t want to do and didn’t do what he wanted to do.

Sound familiar?

Personally, I had my first epiphany regarding this problem many years ago when reading The Normal Christian Life by the Chinese evangelist and teacher, Watchman Nee. In this fine book Nee discusses the fact that there are two halves to the gospel. The first half, involving the blood of Christ, dealt with our individual sins. These sins of the past, as well as all future sins, are covered by the blood of Christ and we are forgiven and justified. It is this half of the gospel that the church, especially the Protestant church, has focused on almost exclusively. Christ died a “Substitutionary” death for each of us, paying our sin debt to God.

Preachers extol this theme from pulpits far and wide and our traditional hymns are filled with references to the “precious blood.” Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing amiss with the doctrine of the Substitutionary Atonement, although I’ll be the first to admit that this is something I accept solely on faith, because I sure can’t grasp why it is necessary. That, however, is another subject for another time.

What I discovered, first reading Nee, and later in other writers, was that the gospel had a second half, namely “the cross.” Christ’s blood covered our sins and his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection gave us new life. Not only did it give us new life, it gave us the power to walk in that newness of life as new creations. The problem, at least in part, was the fact that this half of the gospel was not talked about nearly as much as the first half. It seems the church had become obsessed with sin and forgiveness and ignorant of the power and identity imparted by the resurrection. This new understanding helped me put my own powerlessness into perspective and that was a good thing. However, it did not solve my dilemma completely. Although armed with this new wisdom, I still did not full understand or grasp, much less accept, my new identity “in Christ.”

I eventually came to see that the acceptance of my new identity in Christ was not so much a matter of understanding as it was an issue of faith. Just as I appropriated my forgiveness and salvation by faith, so I must appropriate my new life by faith. I further came to see that God, by his infinite grace and from his heart of mercy, had done two other things which I found mind-boggling. First, according to Paul, he placed inside me (and you) the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Stop right now and think about that for a minute. What the Apostle is telling me is that I have within me a power that is stronger than death, a power that can accomplish miracles beyond comprehension.

The second thing I came to see was equally miraculous, at least to my small mind. Peter tells us that God has graciously provided all that we need to be the kind of people we are called to be. In 2 Peter 1:3-4 we read:

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

Peter reminds us that grace and peace in our lives comes through knowledge of God and Christ. Then he makes an amazing statement. He tells us that Christ, through his divine power, has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness. He has already given us all we need. All we have to do is, with empty hands and an open heart, reach out and receive it. Further, Peter goes on to tell us that through believing and appropriating the promises made by Christ, we may become partakers of the divine nature. Do you really realize what this means? Do you see the profound reality that Peter is putting right before our eyes? We, even as limited, fallen, and broken humans, can partake of the nature of God Himself. When I truly reflect on this statement, I tremble in awe.

Without waxing overly loquacious here, let me just say that this passage of scripture literally overwhelms me. We have been given:

Everything we need to live a godly life

Great and precious promises

The ability to share God’s divine nature

A pathway of escape from the world’s corruption

So these two revelations, that the same power that raised Christ from the deal lives in me and that God has already provided everything I need to live a godly life, helped me to at least get an intellectual grasp on the second half of the gospel. I spent much time in prayer, asking God for the faith to accept all of this, just as I had accepted, by faith, his offer of salvation and cleansing.

Although I found my Christian walk deepened by this, I still found areas of my old life that were problematic and the enemy certainly called to me with a persistent voice. Also, I continued to notice that many brothers and sisters, once equipped with this knowledge, generally had a deeper walk of faith, but still struggled as I did.

Since that time, I have come to see that as long as we live in a fallen world, we can expect struggle. I also now understand that scripture repeats that the provisions of these blessings of God are in the “spiritual realm” or in “heavenly places.” Our part in this process is to place ourselves in a position of receptivity that will allow these “precious promises” to be brought from the heavenly realms down into my daily living.

With all that said, not too long ago I had another of these revelations take shape in my mind over a period of several months. I will attempt to put some of these notions into words with the caveat that even for a person who makes his living with his pen, this is often difficult.

We have seen that many thinking, intelligent, and insightful Christians have now come to the awareness that the gospel has two halves, forgiveness and empowerment; justification and new life; death of the old and the coming of the new. Although I think this an accurate map of the “good news,” what I would like to do is offer another map of the gospel terrain. Instead of two halves, let’s consider that there may, in fact, be three thirds. More significantly, perhaps it is the third “third” that needs clarification and personal application in this day and age.

If the blood symbolizes the forgiveness of sin and our justification before a Holy God, and the cross and Jesus’ subsequent resurrection and the birth of new life, what might this other third I am referring to be? In a word, it is the Ascension.

After appearing to his disciples after the resurrection, Jesus finally instructs them to go into all the world and make disciples. He tells them to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Before that time, they are to hold up in the Upper Room. I suspect they did more up there than just hang out, waiting. I can imagine them discussing their future tasks and going over the fine points of the teachings that Jesus had given them. I am sure that the few lessons we have in scripture are a small fragment of all the truths Jesus uttered to his inner circle over the course of three years.

Eventually, the Spirit did indeed come with a loud wind and tongues of fire and the disciples were empowered to go out and do what they were mandated to accomplish. We only need look at the immediate transformation of Peter to see just how empowered and changed these people were. The same man that denied Jesus three times on the night of his arrest spoke with clarity, courage, and conviction. Yes, the Holy Spirit brought the disciples the power they needed. But did you ever stop and ask yourself the question: “What made the Holy Spirit’s arrival possible?”

Was it some mysterious timetable God had planned? No. Was it some degree of spiritual attainment on the part of the disciples that made it possible for the Spirit to finally appear in power? I doubt it. If not these things, then what?

All we have to do is examine scripture for the answer. Christ made it very clear what had to happen before the Spirit could descend to earth. Let’s look at John 16:7.

But in fact, it is best for you that I go away; because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. (NLT)

Jesus had to ascend back to heaven before the Advocate could descend to earth and more importantly, take up residence in our hearts. In Acts 1:8 Jesus gives the disciples his final instructions:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (NLT)

After this, Jesus was “taken up in a cloud while they were watching.” We are told in other sections of scripture that Jesus is seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father and he is there, interceding in our behalf and carrying out his role as the head of the Church, his Body. Shortly after this, the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples in the Upper Room and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

My point in all this is simply to point out that the act of the Ascension makes the coming of the Holy Spirit possible and, as we all know, without the Holy Spirit we could accomplish nothing, zilch, nada. Just as the blood of Christ brought about our salvation, forgiveness, and justification; and the death and resurrection of Jesus brought about the defeat of sin and the birth of a new creation; the Ascension brought about our empowerment, our ability to go and do the things Christ mandated us to do, and equally significant, be the kind of people he mandated us to be.

In my mind I now look at the gospel as being divided into thirds rather than halves. Perhaps it seems insignificant, mere hair splitting, and maybe it is. However, I have come to believe that it is more than that. I have found that when I describe the “Sacred Story” of God’s plan of redemption, restoration, and renewal, most people understand the division into thirds and further, telling the great story this way seems to impart a degree of hope to those looking for just that, something that will give them the promise of positive life change and a better way of living. By including the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, potential converts a given an account of not only the possibility of new life, but of empowerment to make that life a reality.

To be continued…..

Living in the Enlightenment’s Wake: Right Belief Over Incarnation

Posted On January 9, 2009

Filed under Apologetics, Apostle Paul, Christianity, Church, Compassion, Contemplation, Culture, Discipleship, God's Kingdom, God's Love, God's Story, Gospel, Grace, Identity In Christ, Incarnation, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Paul's Teachings, Personal Discipline, Personal Renewal, Personal Vision, Renewal of the Mind
Tags: Christianity, Faith, Gospel, Jesus' Teaching, Paul's Teaching, Religion, Sacred Story

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Mick Turner

We live in a culture that is, in spite of over 200 years of historical separation, dominated by the Enlightenment. Most of us don’t recognize this, but that lack of awareness doesn’t make the fact any less true. The Enlightenment has cast a long shadow over Western culture, especially the church, and it continues to do so.

For those of us who claim Christianity as our worldview, this lingering hangover of rationalism, logic, and intellectualism has robbed us of the very core of our faith and, in its stead, has substituted a sterile and inadequate imposter. Rather than experiencing our faith as a living, vital, relational organism, the norm has become “faith equals right belief.” This represents a major tragedy in terms of the heart of Christianity and, although right belief has some degree of importance, it pales in comparison to the emphasis Jesus placed on incarnational service based on love.

This issue has been exacerbated by two-plus centuries of preaching and teaching that extols the notion that salvation is attained through belief in the accepted set of ideas. Faith is equated with belief and belief is seen as the cornerstone of the entire edifice of Protestant doctrine. It has been going on for so long now that any challenge to the validity of such a notion is seen as heresy. To assert that a Christianity that is based on incarnational themes such as relational imperative, spiritual transformation, and compassionate service is to invite the heckling banter of a cadre of true believers. For these people belief takes precedent over doing and faith (which means belief to these folks) overrides works, even if that work is identical to the service done by Jesus.

After much study, prayer, and reflection on these issues I have come to the conclusion that we Christ-followers are called to a participatory involvement in God’s Great Story of incarnation and redemption. In fact, this was basically the view held by Christianity as a whole right on up through the Middle Ages and to the years of the Enlightenment. It was the illegitimate marriage of Enlightenment ideas to theology that changed the flavor and texture of the faith and resulted in the dry, sterile form of religion that we find in many Protestant congregations today.

The late Robert Webber spoke clearly to this issue, discussing the validity of an ethic of faith-based works and the dire need for a return to the ancient, relational model of the faith. Listen as he clearly juxtaposes the ancient model of faith and the post-Enlightenment religion that is rampant today:

The incarnational model of the ancient church is relational. God relates to humanity by becoming one of us. We relate to God because, through the incarnation, we are lifted up into a relationship with the divine. In this ancient depiction of incarnational spirituality there is a divine indwelling of God, a mystical union between God and man, a relationship of continuous prayerful dependence. Contemplation of God and his wondrous story is characterized by the delight of the heart, an inner reality that proceeds from a union with God that is real…..By contrast, a justification/sanctification spirituality is less relational and more intellectual…..In summary, ancient spirituality is placed within the whole story of God and maintains the dynamic relational aspect of spirituality that is in union with God. On the other hand, the impact of the Enlightenment emphasis on justification and sanctification separates spirituality from the story of God (especially the incarnation in which humanity is lifted into God) and creates and intellectual spirituality that not only affirmed a forensic standing before God but one that equated spirituality with “right belief.” Spirituality ceased to be a “lived theology” and became faith as an intellectual construct.

Webber is not speaking of a return to a “feelings-based” religion. Like many astute spokespersons for the faith, he realizes that any spiritual truth based on our emotions is a tenuous commodity. Instead, Webber is talking about a Christianity that is anchored in God’s Sacred Story. Rather than being based on belief in correct doctrines, it is rooted in a life of active participation in God’s redemptive action. For Webber, true Christianity is relational, incarnational, redemptive, and restorative. The final chapters of God’s Sacred Story are the establishment of “new heaven” and “new earth.” All of these characteristics involve belief, but the entire edifice does not depend on belief. Instead, it depends on participation.

Intellectual religion is basically easy religion. When we base our Christian experience on kosher beliefs, we allow others to do our thinking for us. For many sincere Christians, the walk of faith basically consists of someone or some group telling them what they are supposed to believe and they fall in line with this expected code of doctrine. Please, don’t misunderstand what I am saying here. I am not saying doctrine is bad, although in some cases it is just that. What I am getting at is that “unexamined doctrine” is a slippery slope. We need to take the time and make the effort to delve into the doctrines of our church, group, or denomination and see whether or not they hold water. More importantly, however, we need to deepen our understanding of God’s Sacred Story and start living it. At the end of the day, this approach is far more satisfying from a spiritual perspective.

(to be continued)

Why I Am A Christian Optimist

Mick Turner

I am often asked why I believe so strongly that Christians should be among the world’s most ardent optimists. I normally respond by saying that it is, more than anything else, due to the nature and the character of the God I worship. Most folks leave it at that. On occasion, however, an inquirer might want a bit more detail.

The reasons that I have adopted Christian optimism as my foundational philosophy of life are too many to mention in any short conversation and certainly within the framework of this article. Suffice it to say that once I began to take my walk with Christ seriously and put into practice as best I could a sincere desire to live according to his teachings, the Holy Spirit gradually revealed to me why optimism was the Christian’s inherent approach to life.

As I began to explore scripture through this frame of reference, it is as if the Bible became a living organism, consistently revealing its truths in relation to the nature and character of God. These revelations of God’s love, his faithfulness, and his integrity brought about a positive response in my being and this response flowered into an optimistic approach to life. Over time I came to understand that the optimal way to live is as a Christian optimist. Even our language reflects this reality as optimal and optimism have the same prefix and the same root.

As I said earlier, the confines of this article does not allow for a detailed list of the reasons why I am a Christian optimist. I do, however, want to list a few of the reasons below. Should you desire a more in depth study of the subject, I suggest that you study the Bible, focusing of the nature and character of the Father as revealed in scripture in general and in the persons of Christ and the Holy Spirit in particular.

I am a Christian optimist because:

The Biblical God is a God of love. Further, he loves me.

The God of Scripture loves me with a proactive love, not a passive, indifferent, and conditional type of love. The Bible reveals that God loves me enough to send his only Son to die for me so that I might have life to the fullest and, on top of that, have life eternally.

The God of the Bible further exhibits his proactive love by pursuing me. He chased me down when I ran from him. Consistently acting as the “Hound of Heaven,” the God I worship continues to come and find me when I have strayed from the sheepfold and, wonder of wonders, loves me still.

If ever there was a prodigal on this earth, it is I. Still, my God not only accepts me back after I wander here and there, he comes out on the path to meet me and, in spite of my faithlessness, he celebrates my return. Even though I am undeserving of his love and his grace, he gives it freely.

My God is a God of mercy, not justice. I shudder to think what life would be if I got what I actually deserve.

The Biblical God gave up a part of himself so that I might be forgiven; and he sent another part of himself so that I might live the kind of life he wants me to live. I am optimistic because I am forgiven and I am empowered.

God allows me to partake of his divine nature.

The Christian God has already blessed me with all that I need to live a holy life and has further blessed me by indwelling me with the power to make that life manifest on a daily basis.

The Biblical God has placed within me the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

The God I worship has made me a New Creation and has promised that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

My God has said that he has prepared even greater things for me in the next world.

The God revealed in Scripture has told me that Christ will, indeed, come again.

Obviously, I could go on and on here but by now I hope you get the picture. As a Christian I have every right to be an optimist. In fact, I could be nothing other than an optimist. Sure, life has problems and will always have problems. The Christian life is not a pleasure cruise. Far from it. Yet in spite of this, I am an optimist because I know that I have the power within me to handle any situation that may arise. God has promised me that he will never make me face more than I can handle.

I am a Christian optimist because he that is within me is greater than he who is in the world.

Does Satan Really Exist?

Posted On November 8, 2008

Filed under Apologetics, Apostle Paul, Bible Study, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, God's Kingdom, God's Story, Gospel, Issues in Transformation, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Obedience, Paul's Teachings, Personal Discipline, Prayer, Renewal of the Mind, Repentance, Scripture, Self-Control, Sin, Spiritual Disciplines, Trusting God, Worldview
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Discipleship, Jesus, Jesus' Teaching, Personal Discipline, Satan, Scripture

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Mick Turner

Our modern culture tells us that the supernatural doesn’t exist. Even many modern biblical scholars attest that demons and Satan do not exist and are only symbolic in nature. I can admit to you that at one time, I felt the same way. By the grace of God I now see this much differently. I know for a fact that a spirit world exists right along side this one and that dark entities indeed reside there. These entities are under the control of their Commander in Chief, the Enemy, and will do anything in their power to keep you from realizing you potential and achieving your purpose.

As I mentioned, there was a time when, even though I was a Christian and very involved in the faith, I didn’t see Satan as a living entity. I saw him more as some sort of metaphor for our dark human nature and our tendency to be self-absorbed to the extreme. Like many of the contemporary biblical scholars of a liberal bent, I explained Satan away with a flurry of reasonable sounding explanations.

One day, however, a significant question came to my mind. Why I had never thought to ask this question of myself is beyond me as it seems to be so obvious. I wondered: If Satan does not exist, why does Jesus talk about him so often? And why does he not refer to him as some sort of psychological projection, if in fact that is what he is? Although it seems so basic, these questions literally stopped me in my tracks.

Several friends, like the well-meaning buddies that tried to explain it all to Job, offered answers to my questions. Most of these answered basically implied that the disciples were such simpletons and Jesus was so highly developed, he had to dial back his explanations and put them in terms his followers could understand. To some extent, this answer sounds plausible but if you really think about it, it just doesn’t wash. Jesus spoke so clearly and frequently about who and what Satan was and is that he leaves little room for doubt as to the existence of this dark force in the spiritual world.

Over the following two months, the Spirit gave me wisdom and insight regarding the ever so real existence of the Enemy and it is my prayer that, if you don’t think he is as real as you, you come to understand that you are indeed mistaken.

As you work toward appropriating your new identity in Christ, be advised that you will not only be confronting your own habitual patterns of negativity, you will also be confronting powers and principalities as well. This is why scripture encourages you to “guard the heart,” (Proverbs 4:23).

It is important as well to keep in mind that your thought life is taking place in the realm of non-physical reality – the spirit world. You can take comfort in the fact that, as a Christian, God is already at work in your behalf in the spirit realm and has already won the victory. So, when beset with a flurry of negative thoughts, immediately replace them with God-soaked biblical thoughts.

Satan is not satisfied with just initiating minor skirmishes with you. No, friend, he is much more ambitious than that. His goal is all out domination and his primary target is your mind. Satan knows that by controlling your thinking, he can be reasonably assured of success. Why is this? Why is our enemy so confident? The reason is simple. Most everything we do starts in the mind with our thoughts and attitudes. Satan knows that if he can control our thoughts and attitudes he can control us, and, if he can control us, the war is won.

At least, that is what Satan thinks.

For this reason and many others, it is obvious that guarding your mind is of utmost importance. This is what Paul meant when he talked about “taking every thought captive for Christ.” I can’t stress this point enough. The battle for the mind is critical.

In attempting to discern why we keep living in negative, unproductive, and yes, even sinful ways in spite of the fact that we are “new creations” in Christ, we can now see that we war on two battlefields: our habitual behaviors and the schemes of the enemy. In reality, these two fronts of engagement are not totally separate and distinct. Satan often attacks us right where we are most vulnerable – our habitually negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Certainly there is much we can do to deal with this issue. I have found that practicing the classical spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, sacred study, worship, and so on to be of great value. Further, Paul gives us a detailed delineation of what we need to do in the sixth chapter of the Book of Ephesians. This is one of those passages of scripture that many of us have heard so often that the words have lost their impact and meaning. Please read Paul’s words slowly and reflectively. Let the import of what he is saying sink deep into your mind and your heart.

Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers of this dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places.

Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. (Ephesians 6:10-18 NLT)

I suggest that you go to this passage of scripture and spend several weeks prayerfully pondering Paul’s advice. As you do so, make every effort to put on the equipment he speaks of. In addition, there is one other thing you can do and it is most crucial:

Trust God!

One of the main reasons people keep living in the same old unproductive ruts is that they focus on the rut and not on the solution; they focus on the problem and not on God. The problem cannot and will not solve itself, but God can and will. Keep in mind also that if we trust God, turn our problem over to him, and let him control the outcome, we may not only find our problem solved – we may also be surprised. God’s ways are not our ways and he is not limited in what he can do. As a result, your problem may get resolved in a way that you never could have predicted.

The key is to place your trust God and turn your problem over to him. This does not mean that you meanwhile go into a holding pattern. No, keep on working out your salvation with fear and trembling; keep on applying scripture, especially Ephesians Chapter Six, to your life; keep on taking one step at a time, one day at a time. Equally important, keep on being alert. God, indeed, may surprise you when you least expect it.

Wise Words for Today

As the last Adam, Christ is the sum total of humanity; as the second Man, he is the Head of a new race. So we have here two unions, the one relating to his death and the other to his resurrection. In the first place his union with the race as “the last Adam” began historically at Bethlehem and ended at the cross and the tomb. In it he gathered up into himself all that was in Adam and took it to judgment and death. In the second place our union with him as “the sceond man” begins in resurrection and ends in eternity – which is to say, it never ends – for, having in his death done away with the first man in whom God’s purpose was frustrated, he rose again as Head of a new race of men, in whom that purpose shall be fully realized.

When therefore the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, he was crucified as the last Adam. All that was in the first Adam was gathered up and done away in him. We are included there. As the last Adam he wiped out the old race; as the second Man he brings in the new race. It is in his resurrection that he stands forth as the second Man, and there too we are included. “For we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we shall also be by the likeness of his resurrection.” (Romans 6:5). We died in him as the last Adam; we live in him as the second Man. The Cross is thus the mighty act of God which translates us from Adam to Christ.

Watchman Nee

(from The Normal Christian Life)

WellSprings and WineSkins

In Defense of Bishop Spong

Darkness Before the Dawn: Part Two

Believers’ Buffoonery and Other Shenanigans

Watchdogs Say I Can’t Be A Christian

The Substitutionary Atonement: Is It An Insult To God?

Three Thirds of the Gospel

Living in the Enlightenment’s Wake: Right Belief Over Incarnation

Why I Am A Christian Optimist

Does Satan Really Exist?

Wise Words for Today

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