Who is a Christian? [Part 2]

Earlier today, I concluded that, if you want to find a Christian, you should start your search with people who follow Christ's way of loving God and loving others. Is that a sufficient condition?

That seems unlikely.

By that definition, millions of Muslims would qualify as Christians. Most Christians would not accept that idea, and most Muslims wouldn't either. But any Muslim who follows the precepts of the Quran loves God and treats other people pretty much the way Jesus asked. The essence of Matthew 22:37-38 can be found in the Quran -- in the second Surah, in fact. The extremists who engage in terrorist acts are about as Muslim as the Ku Klux Klan is Christian. But that's a thought for another day.  What I want to address today is the question of just what it is that makes a person Christian.

I would not think that we'd need to examine the idea that a person can be a Christian by virtue of being born Christian. Such an idea is foreign to the concept of repenting and deciding to follow the way of Christ. Yet many people's Christianity appears to be little more than an accident of birth. It's not whom they elect to follow, but what group defines their identity.

Here, I think, we can find the crux of several problems: Identity. People who claim to be Christian are not necessarily describing a religious faith, but rather an identity. It's sort of like when a misguided young man tells you what gang he belongs to. He may or may not subscribe to all of the gang's ethos, but he's part of the gang -- it's his identity.

It sounds disparaging to liken a religious group to a gang, but religious groups have often made violent gangs look like Sunday School.

One of the most dangerous things a Christian can do is to allow his or her identity as a Christian to become a matter of identification with a group rather than identification as a follower of the way of Christ. Such has been the root of a great many conflicts and outright wars -- between Christians and those of other faiths, as well as between different sects of Christian.

Most of us probably don't think we're like that, but how many politicians have made sure to telegraph their purported Christianity to the Christian voters they hope to represent? How many voters have voted their religion instead of their political philosophy?

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Matt. 7:21-23, NIV). 

So let's just reject the idea that a person is a Christian just because he's a member of the Christian identity group, whether born into it or joined later.

There's something more than that.

Who is a Christian? [Part 1]

A Reuters news story out of Olathe, KS, reports on a hearing to decide whether Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. should be tried for murder. Nearly a year ago, witnesses stated, Cross shot and killed three people outside Jewish centers. Enough evidence has been presented to conclude that Cross is an antisemite who took these actions because he hates Jews.

To all those folks who have criticized President Obama for his comment that Muslims are not the only terrorists -- and that some terrorists claim to be Christians -- I'd just like to point out that this is only one of many cases that prove him right. According to the article, law enforcement already knew that Cross had been a senior member of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that purports to be Christian. So it's evident that some who call themselves Christian are terrorists.

Of course, that's just one incident. Are there more?

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) monitors hate groups and fights extremism. Their Hate Map depicts the distribution of hate groups in the United States. By their count, at this date, there are 939 distinct, active hate groups operating in this country. The SPLC's legal actions have succeeded in shutting down some hate groups, but hate is a hydra. Shut down one group, and more pop up to replace it.

Not convinced? Check out the SPLC document "Terror From the Right: Plots, Conspiracies and Racist Rampages Since Oklahoma City". It gives a detailed history of dozens of terrorist incidents in the U.S., over a ten-year period. Many of those acts were committed by people who claim to be Christian.

By what stretch of the imagination can any of these perpetrators of violence claim to be Christian? Christians are followers of Christ. Just before he physically left this planet, Jesus instructed his disciples to go into all the world, "teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matt 28:20, NIV). What did he command? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:37-38). He made it clear, in the parable of the good Samaritan, that everybody is our neighbor. Christians follow this path.

In what twisted universe does violent rage against innocents constitute loving God and loving others?

But the important question is not who is a Christian, but rather what we Christians are going to do about hate groups.  Maybe we should hate them?

Uh, that's kind of a contradiction, right?

No, the way to fight hate is to love.  My wife, Kathleen, has recently written a story about one man who did exactly that. You can find the story on the website of "The Faith and Peace Project". She chronicles the life and ministry of an English pastor who gave himself to the establishment of peace in Ireland and Northern Ireland. He is but one of many who put their lives on the line to help that troubled island find healing. The "Troubles" in Ireland are now in remission (though certainly not without the potential for flare-ups). Kathleen has personally witnessed former IRA soldiers worshiping in a protestant church that counts, among its members, a large contingent of former Catholics.

Who is a Christian?  If you're looking for one, start with somebody who knows how to love.

A Smoking Gun in Oklahoma

(And Another in Alaska)

From an article in The Space Reporter: 

Recalling Oklahoma Senator Inhofe's antics on the Senate floor yesterday, it seems only fitting that today's news about climate change comes from research performed in Oklahoma (and Alaska). A team led by Dan Feldman put precise measuring equipment in those states, to monitor carbon dioxide levels and the radiation budget -- incoming solar energy, outgoing energy radiated by the earth, and energy reflected, absorbed and emitted by the atmosphere. 

Result: Over the period from 2000 through 2010, carbon dioxide levels increased. Over the same period, energy absorbed by atmospheric carbon dioxide and reradiated back to the surface also increased. The science that predicted this result has now been confirmed.

Of course, we already had it confirmed. This is the same science that has let meteorologists improve their weather forecasting models by incorporating satellite measurements of the vertical profile of atmospheric temperature, based partly on the distribution of carbon dioxide. Everybody likes to gripe about inaccurate forecasts, but we all carry a weather app in our pockets nowadays, and we don't really question tomorrow's forecast very much. Forecasting has improved, in no small part due to the science of radiative transfer in the atmosphere -- the same science that says that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to a greenhouse effect and global warming.

The article quotes Feldman as saying, "This is clear observational evidence that when we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, it will push the system to a warmer place."

Take that, Senator Inhofe (and please drop your silly snowball)!

The Senate, a Screwball and a Climate Change Skeptic

The NBC News website posted an article, today, titled, "The Senate, a Snowball and a Climate Change Skeptic".  But I like my title better.

The article features a photograph of Senator James Inhofe, on the Senate floor, holding a snowball and carrying on about how it demonstrates that there's no such thing as global warming. He claims that the record cold being experienced in our northern and eastern states proves that there's no global warming.

Let's just put that into perspective.

The idea of global warming is that the globally and annually averaged surface temperature is rising. To find out whether this is happening, we would need to get the globally averaged temperature for the entire planet, for every year over a span of time. This has, in fact, been done. Following is the famous "hockey stick" graph from the work of Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes. Though a great many climate change deniers have complained loud and long that this picture cannot possibly be correct, the analysis has been performed several times, by different researchers using different methodologies, and all have produced roughly similar pictures: Since the beginning of the industrial age, when we started pouring gigatons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, globally averaged surface temperature has been rising.

Some of the research that has verified this picture was led by Dr. Richard Muller, a physics professor and sometime global warming skeptic, who assembled a team to exhaustively examine every shred of data that had led climate scientists, including Mann, Bradley, and Hughes, to the conclusion that the climate is warming. He even accepted research funding from the Koch brothers, who are famous for denying the reality of global warming. Nevertheless, his team verified that this picture is accurate.  On average, the planet is heating up, and this warming is caused by the greenhouse gases that we are adding to the atmosphere.

But Senator Inhofe can't accept this, because, in one spot on the surface of the earth, in one month of the year, it's unseasonably cold. He appears to honestly believe that, because it's colder than normal in one place at one time, it is impossible that the average might be increasing.

If he really believes that, then I suspect he doesn't get the joke when Garrison Keillor reports "the news from Lake Wobegon, where ... all the children are above average."

Political Theater Targets the Environment

A news item in Salon (and many other places) reports that the House of Representatives has passed H.R. 1422, which would prevent the best scientific experts on any given topic (those who have done enough research that they have succeeded in getting their findings published in scientific journals) from serving on the EPA's Scientific Advisory Board -- but it would allow industry representatives (whose motives can charitably be described as "suspect") to serve. This is all in an effort to improve "transparency".

What's transparent here is the attempt to force the EPA to make decisions that are not informed by sound science. The bill's supporters think that it makes perfectly good sense to base decisions on what they think the truth should be rather than on what the truth actually is. And those industry experts will be happy to explain what the truth ought to be.

Of course, the President will exercise his veto. John Boehner knows this, so the only possible conclusion is that this action has nothing to do with governing and everything to do political posturing.

Somebody please tell me again why we pay these folks to go to Washington.

Climate Change Conundrum

According to an article at ScienceDaily, Yale University's Dan Kahan has reported in the journal Political Psychology that Americans believe some fairly silly things about climate science.

That's no real surprise.

The surprise is that, among Americans who have more than average understanding of climate science, opinions as to the reality of man-made global warming are more divided than among Americans who don't understand the science.

Really?

This means that many Americans are adept at simultaneously believing two diametrically opposed ideas: 

• Humans are adding a lot of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere raises globally averaged surface temperature, sea level, and ocean acidity. These changes cause species extinctions, altered rainfall and temperature distributions, and other more or less permanent disasters.
• The climate is not changing. Or, if it is, it doesn't involve warming, increase of sea level, and increase of ocean acidity. Or, if it does, it isn't caused by human activity. Or, if it is, it's okay because we'll adapt.

This is a lot like a driver racing toward a cliff that he can't see because he forgot to put on his glasses. He puts them on, but keeps racing toward the cliff, even though he can now see it clearly, because he firmly believes that the cliff is not really there -- or, if it is, he won't fall off it -- or, if he does, he'll land in a soft pile of marshmallows. And the improved vision doesn't change his opinion.
 
The article points out that a lot of marketing money has been going into educating Americans to understand the science, and expecting that understanding to help them accept the reality of the problem and the need to do something about it.  Apparently, these efforts are not bearing much fruit, because those who don't want to believe in man-made global warming simply continue to disbelieve, even after they fully understand the science.

The last sentence in the article is tantalizing: "Kahan pointed to the success of local political leaders in southeast Florida in depoliticizing discussions of climate science, an example that is discussed at length in the study."

That has me really wondering: What did southeast Florida do and can we replicate it elsewhere? Unfortunately, I can't see Kahan's original article, because the two University libraries I have access to won't get it until next February. I hope I can remember to look it up then.

Between Day and Night

Between the lands of Day and Night

Flows the River of Hallucination,

Sometimes placid,

Sometimes turbulent.

Most travelers cross peacefully

To the farther bank,

Where they enjoy a needed rest.

Sometimes, eddies and floods

Cast the unwary into nightmare.

But,

Occasionally,

The river ejects me on the near bank,

Leaving haunting memory of a great beauty,

Glimpsed, heard, felt, smelled, even tasted,

A beauty far beyond anything in waking consciousness.

And I wonder whether the river's source is perhaps in Heaven.

Copyright ©2014, Paul H. Harder II

This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.

Hoping and Planning

One of the greatest results of education is the realization of the difference between hoping and planning. All too often, a student will say, "Professor, I plan to turn my paper in by Thursday, okay?" Thursday comes and goes, and there is no paper. That's because the student did not actually plan to turn in the paper. He hoped that he would turn in the paper.

Hoping that something will happen absolves the hoper of responsibility. If it happens, great. It's what he hoped for. If it doesn't happen, it isn't his fault.

Planning, by contrast, requires the planner to accept responsibility. If it doesn't happen, it's because he did not actually do the planning, itemizing the things that must occur and deciding how to make each one occur.

But there's nothing wrong with hoping. An effective application of hope will marvelously clear the mind, letting it do the hard work of planning.

A Student’s Lament

Yesterday, after reading yet one more faculty account of a student demanding an unearned grade, the Muse spoke to me, saying, "Write!"  So I wrote. Here's the result. Feel free to share it around, so long as the legalese remains at the bottom:


A Student’s Lament

Dear teacher, I need you to bump up my grade.
If you cannot help me, I waste what I've paid.
I need you to think up a grading invention.
I must have an A to prevent my suspension.
Yes, I know that I did not submit my assignment,
But the academic week is out of alignment
With my life. I have two kids and a job,
And my spouse only sits on the couch like a blob.

My life's out of kilter. I'm being so tested:
My grandma just died and my son got arrested.
How can you expect me to study and think,
With this loss in the family and my kid in the clink?
My cousin has palsy, my daughter the flu.
I'm feeling real sick from a bowl of bad stew.
The power went out, so I've lost web access.
I'm out of my mind with this strain and distress.

How dare you demand that I write with good spelling
And grammar and APA style? Overwhelming!
No other instructor ever wanted so much.
You're mean and vindictive and so out of touch.
You're supposed to be helping me get my degree,
But instead, you demand that I use the library,
You say my opinion is not good enough,
But I simply can't read all that peer reviewed stuff.

The way that you're treating me feels so obscene,
I think I'll complain about you to the Dean.
If you just won't behave like a normal professor,
Who gives me full credit for little and lesser,
You'll have to be punished. I'll make you regret
That you've pointlessly increased my financial aid debt.
I will pout and I'll cry, and if still I can't pass,
I'll resort to the worst: I'll withdraw from your class!

And the instructor replied, "Thank you."



Copyright ©2014, Paul H. Harder II

This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

From life to Life

2012-03-04 02:00 a.m.

I write on the eve of the interment of my mother-in-law, Betty Bills. I have loved her almost as my own mother, so it is natural that, at this moment, I might contemplate the nature of death and afterlife.

I am a Christian. I believe in the resurrection of my Lord. I believe that every believer will have an afterlife with Christ, and that this afterlife will be wonderful. However, I do not subscribe to very many other specific beliefs about the nature of that afterlife, despite the popularity of some of them. I believe what the Bible clearly tells me and hold all further speculation to be just that – and it does not matter. It is enough for me to know that all of the details are taken care of. It is part of the nature of faith that I don’t have to know everything to believe. And I do believe.

But at times like this, when a loved one has recently made the transition from life to Life, I think that a spiritually sensitive believer may be able to discern something of the mystery of it all.

During normal times, in everyday life, the heavenly and the earthly are separated by an opaque veil. We know vaguely what is on the other side of that veil, but we cannot see through it. As I write this tonight, I think that the veil is a bit thinner than normal. At times like this, I think it possible to grasp the dim outline of what awaits. In a way, perhaps, Betty’s passage through the veil has disturbed it, leaving open a few rips through which we may see – though, of course, the rips are in my soul, not in the veil itself. And perhaps the veil is not something between us and heaven, but something inside us, a defect of the human soul, a defect that will be permanently removed when each of us makes that journey from life to Life.

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10, NIV). He did not say whether he was referring to our current, physical life or to the life yet to come. There is no reason to think that he was not referring to both.

What else did Jesus say when he walked this earth? Mostly, he kept repeating that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. I’m fairly sure many people think he was only speaking symbolically, saying that a person can “accept Christ” today and have assurance of eternal life after a purely earthly life and death. But I see no reason to read it that way. There are very few, if any, instances where scripture says that Jesus spoke in such a symbolic, abstract, non-immediate sense. When he drove the money changers out of the temple, he wasn’t speaking symbolically. When he healed the sick, he did not do so symbolically. When he raised Lazarus from the dead, there was nothing symbolic about it. When he contemplated the fate of Jerusalem and wept, there were real tears.

I believe that, when he said that the kingdom was at hand, he meant that it was right there, right then, for any to grasp who chose to do so. I suspect that what set Jesus apart from the rest of humanity was that he was not born with that soul defect, the veil that prevents us from seeing the other side. Rather, he saw clearly. That’s how his priorities could be so radically different from ours. We see clearly only things that matter in this life. He saw clearly the things that matter for eternity. This fact is apparent in John 10:17-18 (NIV): “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

He laid down his life the way I drive to work in the morning: I know that I’ll be driving home again in the afternoon. Jesus knew that he would be coming out of that grave, because he could see clearly what is veiled from the rest of us.

So I keep returning to the thought that, if the kingdom of heaven was so important that it was nearly all Jesus ever talked about, then perhaps it’s what we in the Church ought to be trying to understand and be part of. And it’s not as if he left us with no clues.

I think that a complete understanding of the kingdom of heaven would include a removal of the veil, an understanding of what’s on the other side. I don’t expect to gain that complete understanding any time soon. I expect to spend my entire life gaining that understanding, completing it only when I make the same journey that Betty has just made.

It’s clear, though, that the kingdom of heaven extends on both sides of the veil. The moment we choose to enter the kingdom, we are citizens of it for eternity.

What does that mean? The most obvious meaning is that, after physical death, I will be resurrected to a new life in a new body, in a continuation of conscious life – but in a body restored to health. This thought has comforted Christians for two millennia, as well it should.

Are there other profitable ways to think about this? I suspect so. I have a good imagination. I can think of many strange and wonderful things. Some of them might be useful. I’d enjoy having a nice chat about some of those ideas sometime. But are they necessary? No. Again, it is sufficient to know that the details have been taken care of.

One thing of which I am certain is that any action that I may take in this life is an action that I am taking in the kingdom of heaven. It is part of my eternal life. I think that this is the key to the mission of Jesus on this earth, and it is the key to seeing the shape of what lies beyond the veil.

And I think that, a couple of days ago, when Betty moved from life to Life, she came into full realization of this in a way that confirmed the entire rationale for a life of committed service to her Lord.