Faith is not anti-fact, at least it's not supposed to be.

There is a misconception, among both Christians and non-Christians, that the faith that is centered upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in some way anti-fact.  In other words, to believe in Jesus Christ is irrational.  There are some within the Christian community, both now and historically, who would applaud that characterization, for their understanding of faith tends toward the mystical and away from the logical.  While it is true that at the heart of Buddhism there lies an illogical contradiction (i.e. that I don't really exist, that the things I sense are not in fact real), this is not the case with either Judaism or Christianity.  Judaism and Christianity (and Islam) are predicated upon a God who created this universe rationally because God himself is a rational being, and while the nature of God may be beyond our understanding, limited as we are in time and space, we do not believe God to be self-contradictory.  God, whose is spirit, chose to create a universe governed by the laws of physics, a universe in which 2+2=4 and cannot at the same time also equal 3 or 5.  As beings created in the image of God, part of our existence is the way in which our minds understand and utilize logic.  The Rationalist philosopher Immanuel Kant popularized the idea of a priori knowledge, that which we do not need to be taught, but which is hard-wired (as it were) in the human mind. 

How then does faith fit with logic/rationality?  This is of course a large topic, one which has been the subject of many books arguing various nuances.  Let me simply take a brief look at the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 and the examples that follow it.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."

At first glance, this verse might seem to lend weight to the idea of faith as an irrational thing, after all, what else can you say about believing something you don't see?  The listing of the Jewish saints that follows 11:1 confirms that the description is not intended to be one of irrationality.  Beginning with Abel, the author lists one after another of the men and women who, by faith, acted righteously.  If you look back at the stories that these examples refer to, you see that these people were not acting contrary to what their senses were telling them, they were not ignoring the facts on had, they were instead listening to the voice of their creator (often directly through conversations, dreams, or visions), responding to the evidence that they and their ancestors had seen regarding the reality of God (such as the birth of Isaac, the parting of the Red Sea, or the preservation of Rahab when the walls of Jericho fell), and obeying the Word received from God himself.  They were willing to live their lives now, even risk their lives, on the basis of what they knew to be true about God, his power, holiness, and love and were thus making a choice that was both rational and logical to value that which is eternal over that which is temporary.  As the soon to be martyred missionary Jim Elliot wrote in his journal in 1949, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."  It might seem crazy to an observer who does not know of God's history of utilizing his power on behalf of his people, to put one's life at risk to obey God rather than men, but it was not crazy at all to the likes of Daniel, who knew who God was, and acted accordingly.

Obviously, this is only scratching the surface of the discussion of faith and reason and how they interact with each other, but it does lend us an important warning about how Christians ought to think and act in this world.  We are not intended, by God, to be those who reject facts, evidence, and the like.  We are not supposed to be irrational, we are not supposed to ignore truths which are inconvenient to us.  Science is not the enemy of faith, neither are its sub-disciplines of archaeology, astronomy, biology, and the like. 

When Christians reject factual evidence out of hand, often for political reasons, they are simply chipping away at the foundation upon which they stand, strengthening doubt and weakening Truth by rejecting truths they do not like.  It is a dangerous game to insist that an event which occurred 2,000 years, and was witnessed by many and duly recorded, it absolutely True, but that which is observable and quantifiable right here and now is a conspiracy or a lie. 

I am not a Christian in spite of evidence to the contrary, my faith is not an act of defiance against rationality and logic.  I do not claim to have attained faith on my own (as if to give credit to my own mind), it is indeed an act of the grace of God to call lost sinners home through the Holy Spirit, but it is at the same time an action which confirms the evidence which my mind saw then and sees now, not one that ignores it.

Sermon Video: Come and see what God has done - Psalm 66

In a psalm of praise, the author speaks of our need to shout for joy to God, to sing the glories of his name, and then recounts the awesome deeds of God for his people and all mankind.  In addition, the psalm mentions that God preserves his people from "slipping" (immorality) through testing them with hardships.  In the end, the people of God, who have been shown the mercy of God, need to speak to others and share "what he has done for me."

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: Praise to the Lord of harvests - Psalm 65

In this psalm David writes of the praise that awaits God for calling us near to him (his holy temple) and forgiving our overwhelming sins, and then writes of the many awesome and righteous deeds of God on behalf of his people, focusing in particular on God as wondrous creator who has set up the earth to give forth abundance.  In our own experience, we live in an era where material abundance has never been greater, where hunger and starvation (while still a threat) are no longer the common experience of mankind.  That being said, we have even more reason that David to echo his praise of God, to continue to uplift the name of our Savior.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

The foolishness of "stay in your lane"

The slang phrase, "stay in your lane" has recently been invoked by the NRA to tell doctors that their opinion (in reality, bloody and often horrific expertise) is unwelcome in the controversial debate in America regarding gun control.  {Washington Post 11/11/18 - ‘Being silenced is not acceptable’: Doctors express outrage after NRA tells them ‘to stay in their lane’}  Rather than weigh in on the topic of gun control, a topic I have already bemoaned regarding its vitriol and lack of civil discourse {If I say anything about guns}, let me instead pontificate a bit about the phrase itself, "stay in your lane".  It should seem obvious that when such a phrase is used to try to keep women or minorities, for example, in "their place", that it blatantly violates a Christian worldview based upon Biblical principles.  After all, the Word of God takes pains to point out repeatedly that from God's perspective, "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28, NIV)  There is no such thing as a legitimate "place" that belongs to men, or to women, to any ethnic or racial group, to the rich or the poor, to citizens or non-citizens, or any other such distinction.  That such "places" do indeed exist in both the minds of many, in the rules and regulations of society and institutions, and is even enshrined in laws, is a testament to the fallen nature of humanity and our endless capacity to divide each other in order to lessen our God-given equality and God-ordained responsibility toward our fellow human beings.
That man-made groupings used to belittle or devalue other people ought to be anathema to the people of God is illustrated by Jesus choosing to make the hero of one of his parables (the Good Samaritan Lk. 10:25-37) and the recipients of his healing (The centurion's servant Mt. 8:5-13, the Canaanite woman's daughter Mt. 15:21-28) be foreigners whom the self-righteous of his day would have certainly told to "stay in their lane" and away from the Messiah.  Jesus didn't stop with demonstrating God's love for people beyond the Chosen People in terms of race, he also made sure to touch lepers when he healed them, breaking a powerful taboo in the process.  For Jesus, nobody was out of bounds, nobody was a lost cause.
Beyond the affront to Biblical principles of equality, the use of "stay in your lane" also exhibits a gross misunderstanding of where problems come from in society and how they can be mitigated.  Societal problems, whether gun violence, drug abuse, prostitution, gambling, or a host of others, do not exist in a vacuum, do not affect only those involved in them, and cannot be lessened without the help of more than those directly involved with them.  Should doctors be involved in gun violence issues?  Yes.  Should teachers be involved in the opioid crisis?  Yes.  Should ministers be involved in homelessness?  Yes.  Why?  Because we are all created in the image of God, we have all been given the task of combating evil in our midst, and while we hold out no hope that the world's ills can be "solved" while humanity remains in rebellion against God, we do certainly believe that we can and must work together to shine the light in the darkness.
I, as an ordained minister, will not "stay in my lane", whatever that is supposed to be.  I will also not tell non-ministers that they have no business commenting on the affairs of the Church, on theology, or on ministerial ethics.  I am willing to, and I ought to be willing to, listen to the laity of the church, to involve them in ministry, and to heed both their advice and their warnings concerning my ministry.  Arrogance is not an option, dismissal of the value of the contributions that can be made by the overlooked or the outcasts is not an option.  I am a shepherd of the sheep, an honor and a burden, but I am also no more than another worker in the field of the Lord.
We as a society face daunting challenges, this is no more nor no less true today than it has been for thousands of years.  If we are to make a positive difference in confronting these challenges, if we are to help those in need and thwart those intent upon evil, we must do so united, willing to accept help where it can be found, willing to give help wherever we can.  There is no room for "lanes" in the Church of Jesus Christ, so don't worry about staying in one.

Sermon Video: The cost of sin among God's people - Joshua 7

At the 10:50 mark, my daughter Clara interrupts the message to tell me that she can't find her donut from before church, being quick, she escaped the nursery volunteer and ran into the sanctuary to tell me this crucial bit of information...

Following the victory at Jericho, the army of Israel experiences and unexpected setback, caused, they would soon learn, by the sin of one man within the covenant community.  The impurity within God's people contributes to the death of thirty-six men in the ensuing battle, after which the LORD enlightens Joshua about the sin that must be dealt with.  Unfortunately, because the guilty party does not come forward of his own accord, in the end, his life is forfeit.  The episode illustrates the seriousness of sin within the people of God, and its potential to cause harm far beyond the one who commits it.