Is it the Christian view of mental illness to categorize mental illness as the activity of demons and/or the result of sin?

This question really goes past a discussion of mental illness into questions of Biblical interpretation that have increasingly troubled Christians in the past century. The seeds for this controversy were sown as Protestant Christians expounded the doctrine of Sola Scriptura in their confessions. In order to keep Biblically authority sufficiently high to battle liberalism, words and concepts were applied to the Bible that have become more and more troublesome when the Bible interacts with secular ways of seeing the world. These claims for the sufficiency and inerrancy of the Bible inevitably come into conflict with the vocabulary and truth claims of science and medicine.

Without an interaction of scripture and tradition, or a view of Biblical authority that focuses on Jesus Christ rather than on a “total Christian worldview,” many conservative Christians have chosen to use their claims about the nature of Biblical inspiration to advocate a way of understanding the world that appears primitive and superstitious to many non-Christians.

(Roman Catholics have been less troubled by this conflict, because the “Galileo experience” had an impact on the way Vatican II and the later Catholic Catechism would frame the relationship of the Bible and science. Christians interested in a statement of Biblical authority that takes the insights of modern science into account should read the current Catechism of the Catholic Church. Some Protestant communions have avoided this as well.)

The problem is simple: The Bible was written in the narrative world of ancient, prescientific cultures that often interpreted reality and events through a grid quite different from our own way of looking at the same reality. When the Bible speaks to us from its ancient setting, it does not “update” its cultural interpretations of causation for commonly observed phenomenon. Instead, it speaks in the cultural norms of the time. Those cultures tended to see most of what we call mental illness as the result of demonic influence or as a punishment for sin.

Now, Christians have been entirely free, in their own settings and cultures, to appropriate, interpret or re-interpret these Biblical explanations. For example, the Bible sometimes credits demons and spirits with much of what we might call mental illness, and also much of what today would be called normally stroke, cerebral palsy, psychosis, manic depression and so forth. Even when a condition is identified, demonic causes are usually assumed.

Christians have a vigorous and ongoing discussion with one another on whether there is a spiritual component to what we call mental illness. Within Christianity, such a discussion happens on the premise that the scientific worldview is, to a certain extent, to be rejected in favor of the worldview of the ancient cultures in the Bible. My own experience tells me this is often not done consistently.

For example, at an “Alcoholics for Christ” meeting, I heard a recovering alcoholic admit that he was depressed. He was immediately told by a group participant that he had a “spirit of depression,” and was accordingly prayed for along the lines of exorcism. This kind of combination of psychological terminology and Biblical causation is very common among some Christian communities, but I do not believe it has Biblical endorsement. It appears to be a kind of “folk-syncretism” that allows persons to use psychological terminology and Biblical techniques of exorcism.

The Bible does present us with “mute spirits,” as explanations for a loss of speech, but I believe this is the way an ancient culture explains something that would be explained medically today. If the mute person were examined by a modern western physician, it is doubtful that exorcism would be suggested as a treatment. It is unlikely that anyone today would ask “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” when confronted with a medical problem such as blindness.

It is appropriate that Jesus was incarnated into this ancient world and its explanations, and ministered as an exorcist/healer in this world in ways ordinary people would understand. It shouldn’t alarm any Biblical interpreter that Jesus was not creating charts of the brain and nervous systems. The point of the Gospels is not Jesus’ opinion of ancient medicine or psychology. We do not expect Jesus to be giving modern explanations for conditions that we understand very differently. Jesus ministered as a person of his time, and he viewed and responded to mental and emotional illness as a person of his time.

This is not to deny that some Christians would still emphasize the spiritual- even the demonic- component in treating mental illness. The Christian understanding of the role of the demonic in human behavior is a controversial area, primarily because scripture is not trying to communicate medical/psychological truth, but the truth of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. (I would suggest that C.S. Lewis represented the Biblical teaching on the demonic most correctly in his portrayal of that “world” in “The Screwtape Letters.”)

There is an issue of causation that must be faced. When a human being has a particular behavior, response or feeling, are we prepared to say that the cause of that behavior, etc. is a demon spirit? Not the person before us, their genetics, experiences or illnesses, but a demonic spirit that inhabits or influences them? Are we prepared to say that it is not a learned pattern or something that resides within the relationship of mind and body, but that it is an intrusion of the spiritual world into that relationship, causing what would not be there otherwise?

Causation can not be swept under the rug or ignored. It is the heart of the issue of treating mental illness.

Our school once had a popular teacher who would regularly pronounce students who slept in class as demon possessed. This was funny, but if one contemplates the causation she was suggesting, it undermined much of what she, as a teacher, should want to emphasize: responsibility, thoughtful consideration of others, discipline and manners. If demons make these things impossible for that student, then we should approach classroom education quite differently.

Mental illness is particularly complex. It is often related to the wrong and evil actions of persons as actors or as victims of the actions of others. For example, I often deal with young people whose psychological make-up is affected by parents who abuse substances, who neglected or abused the child, and who may have not provided basic needs and nurture. These children are often psychologically affected. They can be very “messed up.”

Should I talk to these young people about sin? Demons? I would not deny that sin and spiritual factors are part of the situation, but the problems cannot be dealt with by exorcism. Imagine that the child is a victim of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This is the result of parental sin, but the treatment is medical.

I am particularly concerned that conservative Christians have mistaken mental illnesses like manic depression as being demon possession, and put the victims of this illness through cruel and torturous journeys that could not cure them. Manic Depression is extremely responsive to medication, and if a person is told that what they are experiencing is demonic, or the result of “curses,” they will suffer needlessly. It is compassionate to treat manic depression. It is uncompassionate to identify it wrongly.

Are we prepared to reject all that psychology or psychiatry tell us about mental and emotional illness? Is it really necessary to come to conspiratorial and skeptical views towards mental and emotional illness in order to maintain Biblical authority? I do not believe that is necessary or wise. I am sad to constantly hear fundamentalist Christian radio and television preach the message that, in order to be a Bible believer, one must oppose psychology, modern education, much medicine and other kinds of knowledge. Christians have done much to contribute to a kind of hostility to knowledge that God has given for good and compassionate purposes. There is a dialogue between Christians and other worldviews, but only in extreme cases does that dialogue amount to an announcement that conspiracies and fundamentalist dogma are the answer to every question.

Scripture tells us that King Saul was tormented by a Spirit from the Lord. David’s songs soothed him. Eventually, he was driven to try and kill David as a result of paranoid delusions credited to this spirit. Whatever was God’s purpose in these events in Biblical history, I believe a contemporary Saul could be described and treated with modern psychiatric and medical help.

I believe it is always appropriate to pray for all the resources of God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit to come into the life of any hurting person. But I also believe it is appropriate to see every hurting person in a way that will bring about the most reasonable opportunity to help them.

Because the Bible is authoritative in Christianity, it is often difficult to come to terms with forms of knowledge that ignore the Bible, and especially difficult to deal with systems of knowledge that threaten to transcend or neutralize the Bible. In America, this tension did not fully dawn until the fundamentalist-modernist controversies of the early twentieth century. While Darwin continues to get most of the attention, it is more likely Freud who has created the most perplexing tensions for Christian believers.

Psychology does not appear to be an immediate frontal assault on the Christian view of truth. Many Christians, especially in more moderate communions, have been open to psychology as a way of compassionately understanding human beings. More recently, however, psychology has met with sterner opposition from many evangelicals, who have become aware that the discipline was atheistic, even religiously hostile, from the outset, and that its ways of explaining, understanding and helping human beings have potentially dire consequences for the Christian view of truth.

Any student of Freud will realize that the founder of psychology bequeathed a view of religion to the discipline that can quickly begin treating religion itself as an aspect of mental illness, and God as a manifestation of human wishful thinking. While responding to Freud’s critiques of religion isn’t difficult, the basic tension is there, and doesn’t go away by putting the word “Christian” somewhere in the sentence, as in “Christian psychology doesn’t have these tensions.”

Today, many serious Christians often reject any and all reference to psychology. (This varies enormously and is an admitted generalization.) A minister may practice Christian counseling, but let him claim to be a Christian psychologist and fully half or more of the Christian community will refuse his assistance. Christian counseling has developed its own alternative approach to dealing with mental, emotional and behavioral problems, with dependence on scripture at the center and a rejection of psychology as mandatory.

This shift has brought the entire concept of mental illness into question for many Christians. Should we be using the categories, vocabulary, diagnoses and treatments of psychology to describe and treat human beings? Many conservative Christians say “no,” and will refuse to recognize common conclusions and approaches of the psychological disciplines. When psychiatric treatment is recommended, these Christians are even more resistant, and often refuse recognized and accepted treatments for mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. As enamored as our culture is with the authority and insights of psychology, many Christians are unconvinced and even belligerent.

This creates conflicts and tensions in the lives of many Christians. Psychology, in various forms, exists everywhere in our culture. It is part of the cultural imagination of any semi-educated, semi-literate western person. “Pop-psychology” is an entire phenomenon that exists on the casual acceptance of psychology as authoritative in our culture. If a crisis occurs or an answer is needed, our culture brings on the psychologists. They are, in many ways, the secular chaplains of the American religious/cultural mileau.

What is a young Christian in college to do? The courses are required and the concepts are everywhere. Is a graduate education in psychology a betrayal of the Bible? Is a family seeking help for a depressed, acting out or suicidal loved one sinning when they resort to the help of psychology or psychiatry? Is it wrong to take medications if you believe in God? Can a Christian choose psychology or school counseling as a vocation? These are important questions that defy simplistic solutions.

I believe Christians cannot–and should not–entirely reject or escape the “knowledge base” that exists within their culture, including psychology and the concept of mental illness. These concepts and “namings” of human conditions can, if appropriated correctly, be useful and compassionately helpful.

Psychology, as science, is a discipline largely based on conclusions developed from repeated, careful observations. From observing, listening to and treating millions of individuals over time, a descriptive approach is acquired. These various descriptions are what we refer to as mental and emotional illness, and Christians committed to the idea that truth is the greatest friend to a hurting family or person should always embrace truthful observations, even if they come to us from other sources of understanding the world than our own.

For example, my wife and I love the CBS show, “Criminal Minds.” The FBI profilers in the show know the various kinds of mental illness so well that, once a person is diagnosed, they can anticipate his/her thoughts, actions and reactions. This is not mystical or about intelligence or insight particularly. It is statistics. Repeated observations create categories like “paranoia” and “psychosis.” These are described in detail, and over time, treatment options are developed that alter or solve the problems observed.

Imagine that Toyota manufactures a car, a Camry. Over time, the flaws and problems of that particular car become evident. While it may have any and all problems, in actual fact it tends to have a particular set of problems, which are labelled and “treated” based on repeated observation and methods of treatment. The car may develop an unknown problem, but statistically, that’s unlikely. The squeaking noise in the front brake will be the same thing 98% of the time, and the solution will be the same each time, with minimal variation.

The observations of human beings by psychologists are where we get the language of mental and emotional illness. We should be cautious and careful in appropriating this language, but as much as it is descriptively accurate, Christians should have no fear of it. Calling depression “depression” is not surrendering to the worst assumptions of psychology. Depression is a set of observations. They allow a set of responses. They help us build a plan for treatment. And so on with many many kinds of mental illness.

The persons exist, and their problems exist. It is not wise to reject what repeated observation and treatment have yielded in the quest to help people.

At this point, many Christians will point out that the psychological concept of depression does not contain the Biblical content necessary for a true solution. “Depression,” they will say, is not a disease, but simply a manifestation of sin or loss. This may be quite true in many cases. The Christian vocabulary may be the most meaningful way to approach and respond to an individual case, but when we look at the culture as a whole, this is not going to work. If we insist on refusing the diagnostic language of psychology and using the language of faith, we will have to limit our involvement with people to the Christian community and control the problem so that whatever response we make is understandable.

Mental illness, as a descriptive tool and category, does functionally exist for persons in any culture. Becoming conversant with how a culture describes mental illness is far more useful than rejecting the concept, and it allows the resources of truthful observation to come into the picture.

It is also important to note that the concept of “normal” mental health is another tension. Human beings present a wide array of behavior and personalities. Who is empowered to say person A is mentally ill and person B is merely irritating or quirky? Society does “hold the keys,” so to speak, and the “key keepers” have been known to be capricious in what they label or unlabel as mental illness. For instance, homosexuality is no longer listed as a psychiatric disorder. One day homosexuality was mental illness. The next it was not. (BTW–I consider this an appropriate move. Labeling immoral or unpopular behavior as mental illness is something Christians should always oppose.)

There is no doubt that there is a particularly insidious aspect to the ability to label anyone mentally ill. For example, is a person who wants to kill himself mentally ill? Should this be “in his folder” for the rest of his life? I work and teach many people who have had serious suicidal episodes. Many healthy adults have been so unhappy or despondent about an event in their lives that they have verbalized suicidal thoughts. Is this mental illness? Is a person desiring death rather than a year of cancer treatments mentally ill? Is a person who emotes strongly at particular times, but functions normally in all areas of life, mentally ill?

Is depression mental illness? Yes, but at the same time, many healthy people have depressive symptoms. A recent article in The Atlantic recounted how Abraham’s Lincoln’s depressive side probably contributed to his effective presidential leadership. Thousands of gifted people have been “melancholy,” from Paul in Philippians 1 to Charles Spurgeon to presidents like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. (I wonder what Spurgeon might have written in a journal during his depressive periods? Let’s be glad his modern-day fan club doesn’t have to digest Spurgeon saying he hated the ministry or wished he’d never been born.)

Is Manny Ramierez mentally ill? “Normal” for Manny is a world uniquely his own, but should he be treated? Medicated? Made “normal?” Would you want Manny to be something other than Manny? Is J.D. Salinger mentally ill? Is a person covered with tattos “mental?” Is a young man who quits law school to go live in the woods in need of “help?” Are eccentric artists “crazy?” Do you consider those who take viewpoints strongly different from yours to be “mentally ill?” Would you act on that conviction if you had the chance?

I meet hundreds of students who are diagnosed with disorders such as ADD, ADHD, Oppositional-Defiant and so on. Many are the subjects of counseling, hospitalization and medication. Yet, the “normal” from which they have deviated is defined by public schools and middle-class American suburban values. In these cases, “normal” is a kind of social/behavioral conformity forced upon the young by experts and educators. (See “Girl Interrupted.”) The wonderfully diverse and non-conformist side of human beings is the enemy in this definition of normal.

I will admit that it is not always pleasing or helpful to me as a Christian to be told that Johnny-who-can’t-do-anything-in-school has a syndrome or disorder. This approach seems to shift some of what is needed for Johnny to change into an arena outside of his control. Medication-based treatments have a tendency to minimize responsibility for seeing our emotions, behavior and mental state as part of our own human stewardship. But in the vast majority of cases where mental illness or behavior disorders are diagnosed, these issues do exist, and the diagnosis and the treatment suggested by psychology will most likely be rational and reasonable enough that help can be offered and expected.

Still, even with these observations, I believe the category of mental illness is useful, even essential for Christians in western culture. With a generous allowance for our manifold humanity, we still can look at “collections” of observed behavior revealing to us something that can be called–and treated–as mental illness. My young friend who thought he was God could not function. Psychiatric drugs and counseling gave him back his life and a future. To have ignored this would have been foolish.

Because the Bible’s description of mental/emotional illness comes in the package of its own culture, Christians have to decide if they are going to reject the contemporary language of psychology and resort to the language of ancient culture, or if they are going to “read” contemporary culture with the Gospel at the center. Can the concept of mental/emotional illness be transformed through the Gospel to be of useful service to Christian compassion?

This same question is present for physical illness as well. The Bible is a prescientific book, and most of contemporary understanding of human biology and physiology is absent. Science has given us tremendous tools to use in treating disease, and if we reject these in favor of the understanding of disease in the Bible, there is going to be a lot of suffering and death that could have been prevented.

The entire question of accepting contemporary ways of thinking about studying, labeling, analyzing and treating human beings for their mental/physical and emotional illnesses is a question that calls upon Christians to contemplate their view of the Bible and its proper use. If their view of the Bible’s truthfulness includes the assumption that it is a book providing a specific plan for treating illnesses of body and mind, then that commitment will, I believe, take the Christian down a road that is ultimately less compassionate than the acceptace of some form of accommodating the knowledge and insights of science, medicine and psychology.

The Bible is about Christ, and is not a manual for treating mental and emotional illness. The Biblical presentation of the Christian story stands in judgment over psychology and every other form of knowledge because CHRIST IS LORD AND JUDGE, not because the book of Proverbs is the best manual for dealing with emotional illness.

Now that I have concluded that mental illness does exist, and we can–prudently and cautiously–accept the language and treatments of psychology as potentially helpful, I will move on to “Is mental illness a manifestation of spiritual forces (demons) or the results of personal sin?”

Several times a week, I have to read folders containing psychological evaluations of prospective students. They are often quite daunting and detailed. The stories range from ordinary to nightmarish and disturbing. I must read and review the psychiatric evaluations and counseling histories of all students who are seeking admission to our school. After reading, I make a recommendation as to their appropriateness for us. In some cases, I do an additional interview, and make an evaluation based on the interview and the information.

I’ve ministered with young people and adults long enough to have seen a lot of mental illness–from my father’s depression to the suicides of co-workers and young people to the many episodes of emotional and mental illness I have encountered in church and community. I’ve visited hospitals for the mentally ill, counseled families and individuals dealing with the mental illness of a family member and helped individuals decide to seek help for everything from depression to delusions of being God.

For many years, the majority of my work week was counseling individuals at our school. In these hours of counseling, I saw all kinds of human emotional brokenness, much of it related to what we commonly call mental or emotional illness. I continue to deal with people who have sought psychiatric and psychological help, and many of our students are on psychiatric medications.

As a Christian, a minister and a servant, I am compelled to look at the subject of mental illness and make some important decisions. While the subject is tossed around without much seriousness, it is a matter of immense human pain and suffering. It is a dimension of life that Christians cannot pretend is not present and all around them on any Sunday or Monday.

Is there such a thing as mental illness? Many Christians are suspicious of the psychological worldview that diagnoses human behavior in terms of “illness” and “disorders.” Can Christians have anything to do with a way of looking at human beings that is rooted in an atheistic worldview? Is the use of medication ethical and permissable for Christians? Can we accept descriptions and diagnostic terminology rooted in psychology rather than scripture?

Is mental illness a manifestation of spiritual forces (demons) or the result of personal sin? Many Christians have embraced models of dealing with human behavior that respond to what we call mental illness with scripture-based behavior modification, scripture memory, repentance and spiritual warfare, even exorcism. Is it ethical to seek to “cure” mental illness?

Is there mental illness in the Bible? Did Jesus encounter the mentally ill? Where in the Bible can we see mental illness? Were Saul, Jeremiah and Ezekiel mentally ill? How would Jesus or Paul respond to a mentally/emotionally ill person?

What is the church’s responsibility to the mentally ill? How should they be viewed and included in the Christian community? Should the mentally ill be allowed to be part of the ministries of the church? What about their experience of God? Is it valid, or a manifestation of their mental illness?

What does the Gospel say to the mentally ill? What does it say to all human beings about the mentally ill? What does their presence among us tell us about ourselves? How is mental illness related to “true humanity?”

I’ll address these questions in future posts.

My wife sent me an email this morning.

I keep forgetting to tell you that there’s an obligatory Mass this week (for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.) St. Ann is celebrating Thursday at 6:00 p.m. and St. William Friday at 6:00 p.m. Assuming we are going to the waterpark Thursday, I’ll go to church Friday.

Now if you don’t know what this is all about, you should stop by Wikipedia and get educated.

For our Roman Catholic friends, here are the Days of Obligation:

* 1 January: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
* 6 January: the Epiphany
* 19 March: Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary
* Thursday of the sixth week of Easter: the Ascension
* Thursday after Trinity Sunday: the Body and Blood of Christ
* 29 June: Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles
* 15 August: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
* 1 November: All Saints
* 8 December: the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
* 25 December: the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ (Christmas)

Easter isn’t on the list. Who knew?

With some help from the Internet Monk Research Division, I’ve found a list of Baptist Holy Days of Guilt and Obligation.

Now these aren’t necessarily days where we must go to church or risk a major sin. No, these are days that we are, as a matter of being Baptist, obligated to do something, which may include church. Or not.

Here they are:

* Opening night/day of high school/college football season. (Depends on proximity of school, relationships to players, etc. Should include tailgating if possible.)
* Mother’s Day. Obligated to go to church with mom and then take her out to a restaurant, which means standing in line at Cracker Barrel for about 2 hours.
* Any church potluck or meal.
* Any Sunday that starts a revival (or any Sunday that begins a 40 Days of Purpose if your church dumped revivals.)
* Any wedding of anyone in your family within 250 miles.
* Any funeral of anyone in your family within 70 miles.
* The opening of any “Christian Film” in a theater, especially if the movie is produced by a church using their actors and cameras, or stars Kirk Cameron.
* The opening and any 5 subsequent showings of “The Passion of the Christ II.”
* Any school board meeting where creationism will be discussed.
* Homecomings at any church you’ve ever attended, even once, within 300 miles.
* Opening week of any buffet or Barbecue restaurant.
* Any Christian music festival held in an open field in August when the temperature is over 105 degrees.
* You must go vote if any conservative is running for anything.
* You must vote if your town is having a “wet/dry” election.
* Ladies: Any Christian Women’s Conference within 500 miles.
* Men: Any Promise Keeper’s Meeting within 500 miles.
* Christmas and Easter.
* Any church sponsored Super Bowl event.
* Any meeting related to voting on a building.
* Any Vacation Bible School “Family Night.”
* Any event involving Bill Gaither Homecomings.
* Any event involving Rick Warren.
* Any Upward Championship game involving your kids.
* Any Olin Mills Church Directory photoshoot.
* Any church softball game against another Baptist church.
* Any youth group fundraisers for the mission trip.
* Any open question/answer with prospective pastors.
* Any church business meeting where there’s a chance of a big fight or someone getting fired.
* Any Billy Graham Crusade within 1000 miles.

Maybe I missed some. Feel free to add a few in the comments.

1) I’ve had a brutal week. Good friend in Markey Cancer Center with leukemia. Conflicts at work. Finals. Denise and I traveling on different nights and barely seeing each other. Constant worry about my family.

2) I was leaving for a day at Georgetown College and I wanted to run a repost. I saw the Frame critique and read it twice. I remembered the older Horton/WHI piece and just thought “Similar topic. Post it with an intro.”

3) Several of you contacted me and said the post wasn’t timely. Appeared to be piling on. Even with a brief clarification, you were still right. I’m clearly in Horton’s corner on the issues that Frame is going after. I was just too tired to pay attention to my conscience.

4) I can’t always devote the time to thinking about what I post that I should. 5 classes a day. Real ministry. Trying to have a marriage, get rest and have some kind of inner life. I get a bit rattled. I need an assistant. I keep telling Denise that when I sell a million books…..

5) Dr. Horton: My apologies. It was a hasty and opportunistic post. I’m better than that. I’m sorry.

The Roots of My Problem

I have been reading creationist materials since high school. I bought The Genesis Flood when I was a very young Christian. I was converted in a fundamentalist church that contained very few college educated members, but they were aware of the challenge posed by the teaching of evolution. Darwin’s theories were skewered and preached against, in traditional fundamentalist fashion, by preachers who had never read Darwin or sat through a college biology course.

Evolution held a particular fear in my family and church. My parents were uneducated, but they warned me about the dangers I would face if I went to a school that taught evolution. When I took my college science classes, the professors were aware that many of us came from such backgrounds, and at least my teachers, took great care in separating their teaching of science from any critique of religion. My college biology professor was very cautious not to stir up controversy. In retrospect, I wish he had been more straightforward.

My views on the relationship of scripture and science were more affected by my college Bible classes than my science classes. I learned that scripture must be rightly interpreted. It must be understood within its world, and interpreted rightly in mine. If I came away with any suspicions that the young earth creationists might be wrong, it came from my developing an appreciation for Biblical interpretation, not from the Biology lab. Secular science didn’t turn my head. I learned that the people waving the Bible around weren’t necessarily treating it with the respect it deserved.

In seminary I continued my study of Biblical interpretation. I had been warned that liberal professors would teach me evolution and deny the historicity of miracles in the Bible. There were some professors out there that fit the stereotype, but they weren’t in the Bible department of my school. My Bible instructors taught me to respect the Biblical text by not imposing my interpretations and favorite hobby horses on the scriptures. What became clearer to me over my seminary career was that many of my evangelical and fundamentalist brethren were not willing to let the scriptures be what they were or to let them speak their own language.

Among the most valuable lessons I learned at seminary was to ask questions about the literary genre of the Biblical text. Literary criticism is among the most recent and helpful approaches to the Bible, and I don’t claim to be an expert. But I did come to appreciate that identifying a text as history, poetry, song, drama, parable or epistle was essential in allowing that text to “play by its own rules.” This had tremendous influence on my approach to the issues of young earth creationism, and continues to be the primary reason that I cannot accept their reading of Genesis.

The Ham Hermeneutic

One of the most well known creationist communicators is Ken Ham, an Australian school teacher whose humor and communication skills have served the cause of creationism well. His ministry “Answers in Genesis” is heard around the world. I’ve heard a lot of Ham’s stuff on tape and videos. I’ve read several of his books. In fact, I show my students an overview of Genesis 1 by Ham to demonstrate how creationists approach the Biblical text. Without being disrespectful, I have to say that I am always left uneasy by Ham’s approach to the Bible.

Ham loves the Bible and believes it is utterly truthful. He is unswervingly committed to the Bible as the Word of God and as divinely inspired. He is, however, primarily a scientist and an educator. Not a Biblical scholar. I do not believe he knows the Biblical languages. He shows little interest in Genesis as a literary text. His teaching is on Genesis as a scientific text.

One of Ham’s favorite laugh lines is suggesting students wait until a professor makes some claim about evolution or “millions of years” (a favorite Ham line) and then ask the killer question. “Sir, were you there?” (Add Aussie accent.) After the professor says “No, but….” then the follow up is something like this: “Then why do you believe the words of men, who weren’t there and don’t know everything, instead of believing the Word of God, who was there and does know everything?”

I don’t want to disparage Ham’s question or his belief that the Bible reveals to us unique information we could not know otherwise. But Ham has completely run past the really important questions about how we read and understand Genesis 1. He is asserting that Genesis 1 is to be believed because God inspired it. I don’t know of any real contention about that subject among those of us who are not young earth creationists. But Ham assumes that anyone who doesn’t interpret Genesis exactly as he does is rejecting the Bible as truthful.

And how does Ham interpret Genesis? He believes it is a scientific description of creation; a detailed scientific description that answers specific scientific questions and rules out any theories that cannot be based upon statements in Genesis. I am perfectly at ease with Ham making this presupposition, but I disagree with it. I do not believe Genesis is written as scientific description, but as a theological (and prescientific) one.

Let Us Do Your Speaking For You

Young earth creationists have not only not won me over with their approach to the Biblical text, and they have impressed me less with their attitude towards those interpretations that differ with them. Young earth creationists win the award for factionalism, and some of their achievements have to be noted.

For example, any approach that rejects a less than 10,000 year old earth or the flood as the explanation for all visible topography and geology is not on the team. So advocates of intelligent design, who have written and spoken powerfully on the evidence for God in microbiology and astrophysics, are written off because they tend to accept the current scientific dating of the universe and the earth. Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe, significant voices in the intelligent design movement, are no better than Stephen Jay Gould or Carl Sagan to the young earthers. In fact, the entire Intelligent Design movement is ignored by the creationists. This is foolish. There is much common ground between these groups.

Some of the contentions of the young earthers seem, to a layman like me, somewhat far-fetched, like denying the existence of black holes or questioning the constancy of the speed of light, and the evidence cited for these positions is, to say the least, fringe or below the fringe. Yet young earthers feel that because these views must be accepted to keep the age of the earth less than 10,000 years,anyone who does not embrace these strange and unproven theories is rejecting the truthfulness of the Bible, even though such ideas are in no way related to any text in Genesis. I find their rejection of the speed of light and the measurability of the universe to be particularly troubling.

I have noted on several occasions the open hostility towards Hugh Ross, the Canadian astronomer who has written a number of books on Genesis and Science for Navpress and has an apologetics ministry based on answering scientific questions. Ross interprets Genesis differently than the young earthers, and basically affirms the standard picture of big-bang and an old, expanding universe. Ross is somewhat unique in his interpretations, and takes the text very literally, but to the young earthers, he is out of the ball park, because he does not assume/conclude the earth/universe is young.

This is a method of Biblical interpretation where a few questions will quickly determine where one stands. How old is the earth? Was there death before Adam? Do you believe in a world wide flood? Were there dinosaurs on the ark? Any number of these questions draw lines in the sand for the young earthers. I am sorry to say that I cannot think of any division in Christianity- Calvinist/Arminan, Catholic/Protestant, Pentecostal/Cessationist, Seeker/Traditional- where one side is more completely unlikely to appreciate the other position than this one.

Two issues particularly have bothered me. One is the young earth contention that there cannot be such a thing as theistic evolution. For the young earth movement, the teams seems to be young earthers versus atheistic evolutionists. But this is too simplistic. There are many theistic evolutionists in the diverse traditions of Christianity. We may disagree deeply on the evidence for macroevolution, particularly as it applies to human beings, or on various claim about the nature of the Bible, but to say that there is no such possible Christian position as theistic evolution is criminally inaccurate. (For example, the controversial life and work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin should be noted as a significant advocate of such a position. I did extensive research on the life of Charles Darwin during seminary, and Darwin himself was not an atheist, but a Deistic evolutionist.) Theistic evolution may have its problems, but in the opinion of serious confessional theologians, it does not deny anything essential to the Christian faith.

The other issue is the rejection of the astronomical evidence for the “Big Bang.” Christians like Fred Hereen and Hugh Ross have taken the evidence of the “Big Bang” and produced powerful arguments for the existence of God. I personally find the evidence compelling and exciting, and very helpful to students in understanding why faith in a creator God is not irrational. Yet the young earthers, fully committed to rejecting any evidence that might challenge their age of the earth, routinely equate the “Big Bang” with atheism. When I refer to the “Big Bang” and what we know about it from the Hubble telescope, I can count on at least one student asking me how I can believe in the “Big Bang” since that is what atheists believe? (Even my own children had to be reeducated on this point.)

Good men, like R.C. Sproul and J. Gresham Machen, are outside of the young earther’s definition of orthodoxy on this issue. The Presbyterian Church in America has been painfully divided over this issue, an issue that no creed or confession in classical orthodox Christendom has ever taken sides on. Even if I were impressed with the Biblical or scientific claims of the young earth position, I would hesitate to identify with a movement this uncharitable towards other Christians.

Literally Missing the Point

The young earth creationists believe that Genesis 1 is “literally” a description of creation. I do not. It is this simple disagreement that is the cornerstone of my objection. I believe that Genesis 1 is a prescientific description of Creation intended to accent how Yahweh’s relationship with the world stands in stark contrast to the Gods of other cultures, most likely those of Babylon. Textual and linguistic evidence convinces me that this chapter was written to be used in a liturgical (worship) setting, with poetic rhythms and responses understood as part of the text. It tells who made the universe in a poetic and prescientific way. It is beautiful, inspired and true as God’s Word.

Does it match up with scientific evidence? Who cares? Here I differ with Hugh Ross and the CRI writers. I do not believe science, history or archaeology of any kind establishes the truthfulness of the scripture in any way. Scripture is true by virtue of God speaking it. If God spoke poetry, or parable, or fiction or a prescientific description of creation, it is true without any verification by any human measurement whatsoever. The freedom of God in inspiration is not restricted to texts that can be interpreted “literally” by historical or scientific judges of other ages and cultures beyond the time the scriptures were written.

In my view, both the scientific establishment’s claims to debunk Genesis and the creationists claims to have established Genesis by way of relating the text to science are worthless. Utterly and completely worthless and I will freely admit to being bored the more I hear about it. I react to this much the same I react to people who run in with the Bible and the newspaper showing me how 666 is really the bar code on my credit card. (A theory which, by the way, creationist and KJV-only advocate Kent Hovind gives considerable credibility to.)

Does the Bible need to be authorized by scientists or current events to be true? What view of inspiration is it that puts the Bible on trial before the current scientific and historical models? Has anyone noticed what this obsession with literality does to the Bible itself?

The compliment that is paid to the Bible by those who say it is “literally” and scientifically true comes at the expense of an authentic and accurate understanding of the text. A simple illustration will show what I mean.

ESV Revelation 6:12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.

I do not believe the stars will fall to the earth. I don’t. I don’t believe stars are in the sky. I don’t believe the writer understood what stars are or how they operate or the distances involved. I think this is prescientific language, and it is meant to tell us truth in its own way. A simple illustration, but it clearly shows that literary purpose must come before “literal” interpretation.

Now if I insist on a literal interpretation of this verse as a way of saying it is true and inspired, I am not treating the text with reverence and respect. I may be well motivated, but I am damaging the text. My point gets across, but at the expense of the real meaning of the text as it was written and inspired.

In the same way, Genesis describes creation prescientifically, in the language and idioms of the time, with a theological purpose in mind. It speaks clearly and powerfully. Making this into a literal and “scientific” description as a condition of inspiration is wrong.

Am I treating Genesis as a special case? Are Ham and others correct that this is straightforward description and there is no reason for putting a literary “spin” on how I read the text? My objection is to saying what a “straightforward description” means in a text several thousand years old; a text from a specific culture with a particular purpose. I am not claiming any special insight into Genesis. I am simply saying that, in my opinion, Genesis was not written with reference to the questions or methods of modern science, and making its truthfulness depend on that is a misuse of the text.

Many other examples could be brought forth. (Ask what a literal interpretation of the vision of Jesus in Revelation 1 turns into?) The literary nature of a text can’t be overlooked or taken for granted. In my opinion, this is typical of the creationist approach to the Bible. It becomes a piece of evidence in a scientific discussion, and the text of scripture- particularly its literary distinctiveness- is largely ignored.

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”- Mark 9:24

Let’s start with bugs.

Bugs have always….well…bugged me. They bite me. Wasps hate me. Mosquitoes swarm around me. Gnats head for my ears and eyes like some bad remake of “The Birds.” There are a thousand varieties of bugs that all seem dedicated to devouring me. When I was a kid, my friends called me “bug eyes” because of this curse. Now, I can go for a walk and look up to see a swarm of bugs like a cloud over my head.

Is this right? I mean, even if there is a curse on creation, didn’t mosquitoes always drink blood? Aren’t they designed that way? So why would God make the little bloodsuckers? Why make wasps that sting? Why make me in such a way that bugs want to appropriate my body for their own purposes? Sure, the wonders of biology speak of intelligent design, but wasn’t there some way to do this to the glory of God without eating, stinging and killing me?

It’s one of those thoughts that hit me a few dozen times a day. One of those thoughts that make me wonder if God is real, or if I am a fool to believe that God created and runs this universe of mosquitoes and gnats.

Ever think about forever? I hear the word all the time, but when I get down to thinking about it, it grinds my pea brain to a halt. An atheist friend once asked me if a person would want to do anything forever. No matter what it happened to be or how pleasant the experience. I’ve gotta admit, heaven seems like a wonderful alternative to earth, but every time someone says we will be “praising the Lord forever,” I get a little sullen. I’m sure to get bored.

It makes me stop and wonder if Freud was right. Do we make it all up to make ourselves feel better?

My daughter just got her driver’s license. I now go to bed, wake up and spend all day worrying that she will die in an accident. (I’m just being blunt here. Sorry if I am shocking you.) I worry about that because I know people–lots of good, Christian people–who have suffered such a loss. Most of them hold on to their faith and make it through–somehow. It’s a miracle to me. I can’t understand it because I suspect such a loss would gut me beyond ever being able to stand up and say I believe in God. My best scenario would be to become like C.S. Lewis, who at one point said his wife’s dying with cancer made him believe God was a vile, cosmic monster who no moral person could trust.

If God won’t answer my constant prayers for my daughter’s safety, why am I praying them? What kind of God asks me to trust him, and then is, in the matter of my daughter’s safety, very untrustworthy? Is it really easier to believe in such a God, or as Anthony Flew says, in no God at all?

One more. When I think of how often God has been real to me; how often I’ve sensed His reality in other people; how often I’ve seen direct and specific answers to prayer; how often I’ve had a no-questions-asked assurance that God is my Father, the Bible is true and Jesus Christ is Lord, I find myself wondering if it’s all true, or am I just pretending, faking and putting on an act? My honest Christian experience is pretty meager, and the experience I have that goes beyond all doubt to the “I just know it’s true” category is even slimmer.

I have my doubts. About it all. God. Jesus. Life after death. Heaven. The Bible. Prayer. Miracles. Morality. Everything.

“But you are a pastor. A Christian leader.” That’s right, and I am an encyclopedia of doubts. Sometimes it scares me to death.

I’m terrified by the possibility that I might have wasted my entire life on the proposition that Christianity was true, when in fact it wasn’t even close. I wonder if I have been mentally honest with myself or with others, or have I compromised my own integrity in order to collect a paycheck and have a roof over my head? Have I acted as if the case for faith was clear when it was a muddled mess in my own mind?

What’s really frightening is that these doubts persist and get stronger the longer I live. They aren’t childish doubts; they are serious, grown-up fears. I don’t have the kind of faith that looks forward to death. The prospect terrifies me, sometimes to the point I am afraid to close my eyes at night. I have more questions about the Bible and Christianity than ever, even as I am more skilled at giving answers to the questions of others. I can proclaim the truth with zeal and fervor, but I can be riddled with doubts at the same time.

When I meet Christians whose Christian experience is apparently so full of divine revelation and miraculous evidence that they are beyond doubts, I am tempted to either resent them or conclude that they are fakes or simpletons. The power of self-delusion in the face of a Godless, meaningless life is undeniable. If there is no God, can I really blame someone for “taking the pill” to remain in his unquestioning certainties?

There is sometimes nothing worse than being able to comprehend both all my doubts and all the accepted, expected answers. It tears at the soul, and declares war on the mind. I feel remarkably alone in my moments of doubt, and wonder, “Do other Christians feel this yawning abyss of doubt, or am I just a bad Christian?”

My doubts are bad enough that I have to make frequent daily reexamination of the very basics of my own faith. These aren’t matters that were resolved in a conversation somewhere back in college and have never visited me again. Oh, no. Almost daily I travel back down some of these well-worn paths. Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Doubt has given me many opportunities to ask myself why I am a Christian, and to appreciate those who chose not to believe.

These doubts have made me respect my honest, unbelieving friends. To many of them, it isn’t so much the content of Christianity that is ridiculous. It’s the idea that Christians are so certain; so doubtless. They find it untenable that anyone could bury their own doubts so deep that you are as certain as Christians appear to be. Our television and radio preachers, our musicians and booksellers, the glowing testimonial at church, the zealous fanatic at the break table at work–they all say that Christians no longer have the doubts and questions of other people. Only certainties. And for many thoughtful unbelievers, that appears to be lying or delusion, and they would prefer to avoid both.

So do I. I profoundly dislike the unspoken requirement among Christians that we either bury all our doubts out in back of the church, or we restrict them to a list of specific religious questions that can be handled in polite conversations dispensing tidy, palatable answers. Mega-doubts. Nightmarish doubts. “I’m wasting my whole life” doubts are signs one may not be a Christian, and you’ve just made it to the prayer list.

Martin Luther was one of the few Christians who honestly experienced and conveyed what it was like to live in honest suspension between one’s worst doubts and fears, and the promises of God in the Gospel. In his book Luther: Man Between God and Death, Harvard professor Richard Marius says of Luther’s theology,

In this life, God does not lift the Christian out of human nature, and God does not reveal himself beyond any shadow of doubt. Weak human nature will not let us believe in the promises of God with a confidence that purges from the soul the anguish of fear and unbelief, the Anfechtungen… Therefore, in Luther’s discovery of justification the Christian was liberated from the self-imposed requirement to present a perfect mental attitude to God, to confuse belief with knowledge, faith with the direct intuition of an observed world. Whereas in the earlier Luther the fear of death was the ultimate form of unbelief, the Luther who discovered justification by faith understood that no matter how great our faith, it cannot be strong enough to stave off terror before death.

It is interesting that many skeptics fault Luther for being, well….frankly, nuts. But I believe Luther was courageous enough to see and feel the verities of a universe without God and a universe where sinners were under the judgment of a Holy God. With such options on the table, it is hard to be coolly academic about reality. Only in justification by faith through Christ did Luther find a spirituality that contained room for both his damning doubts and his liberating experience of grace.

Such a spirituality is the only option for an honest Christian. As Luther suggests, there is no escape from human nature, and therefore no escape from the kinds of doubts that can vacate the universe of God’s presence. It is precisely this spirituality that I find in the Bible, and it is a significant discovery.

The early chapters of Genesis make it clear that sin created a profound division between God and human beings. Not just an interruption in communication, but a universe-sized separation.. There is great evidence that this abyss creates a situation where human beings may reasonably, sensibly feel that God is absent, or that there is no God. This is not because of an absence of evidence for God’s existence, or because God has abandoned the world, but because human experience is fundamentally changed and we are blinded to the resident glory of God in the universe and within our lives.

We see this most clearly with Job, whose tragedies bring him into a disparate experience of being certain of God and his justice, and also being overwhelmed with the absence of God. The ringing cry of many Biblical sufferers is “Where is God?” The skeptic says “There is no God.” Israel experiences judgment and announces that “God has forsaken us.” It is not uncommon or strange for doubts to overwhelm faith, or for life to take on the appearance of a universe without God. The Bible attributes this to who we are as fallen persons, and seems to accept it as part of the fabric of Christian spirituality. Even Jesus, in his human nature, knew what it was for pain to bring him to the point of saying, “God, why have you forsaken me?”

Justification does leave us as people who are still fully human, and the more honestly human we are, the more aware of our doubts we may be. The question may become, “Do I banish my doubts, call them the devil and refuse to examine them, or do I accept my doubts as part of the paradox of my human experience, and realize that faith may exist right alongside such feelings and questions, as Mark 9:24 suggests?”

This is my own experience. I cannot remove my doubts, but I cannot erase my faith. At every level, these two experiences exist together, convincing me that I am, indeed and exactly, the kind of contradiction that Luther believed all Christians were at the center: both righteous and sinful simultaneously. (Simul justus et peccator.) While these two experiences are at war over the most basic assumptions of my life, they actually blend together into a single experience that is what one person called “the awesomeness of being human.”

At a fundamental level, I cannot get past the fact that the universe exists, and it is completely unnecessary. That there is something rather than nothing overwhelms my doubts daily. No matter how many times the brevity and meaninglessness of human life plunges me into despair, I look at the world around me, at the Hubble photos, at the beauty of the mountains or of my children, and cannot explain why these things should exist, could exist, or have any possibility of existing if some being did not call all this into existence, and sustain this universe out of pure pleasure. It is not the God of deism or of Islam or Aristotle that explains this. It is the God of Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. For him. There is no other explanation, no matter how contrary it all seems to the life I may experience today.

My doubts exist alongside my appetite for God. I believe no one has put forward a more cogent and persuasive critique of theism than Sigmund Freud. Freud’s contention that human beings create a God in the sky out of their longings for a perfect father and their fear of death has the virtue of common sense and realism. As a Christian, I do not doubt that vast tracts of human religiosity can be explained by Freud’s analysis. Yet, Freud is wrong. The Biblical God is not wishful thinking, but the center of the spiritual “appetite” of human beings. Billions of human beings would prefer no God exist. Billions of human beings would like to make God in the image of Santa or Oprah. Yet, Christianity, Judaism (and even Islam) persistently put forward a God who is terrifying to who we are. A just, holy God of judgment. A God of heaven and hell. Not the God of the wishful thinkers, but the God who is a consuming fire.

And it is this God that we long to know. This God who repulses us and damns us. This God who demands the purity of thought and action. A God who demands that we love Him with all that we are and love our fellow persons as His creations. It is this God that we long to know in intimacy. It is this God we long to be accepted by, to trust and to praise. This God is the source of all the notions of beauty, truth and goodness that we find in this universe. C.S. Lewis said that appetite could not prove the existence of food, but I don’t think that speaks for the experience of the starving person.

I cannot explain my longing to know God. Talking about it is like undressing in front a crowd. I am not embarrassed that I avoid the topic. But I know to what extent it is a part of my deepest identity. As Augustine said, I have no doubt that I was made for God and my heart is restless till I find my rest in Him. I am persuaded that my longing for human happiness is the echo of my creation in the image of God. I believe my doubts are what it means to be told I cannot go back to Eden, but must go forward to the New Jerusalem.

My doubts about the Bible are profound, but my faith in the Bible is persistent. I know all the apologetic schemes for “proving” the Bible. They persuade me a bit here and there, but they fall far short of answering my worst doubts about whether a God that exists has communicated to me in words that I can understand and depend on. What ultimately persuades me that the Bible is, indeed, such a communication are two things. First, the truthfulness of the Bible in describing who and what I am is convincing. There is the glory of being made in the image of God contrasted with the rebellion and evil of my depravity. The shadow and the light within our souls. The Christian view of humanity is the only one that makes sense of my experience. The longer I live, the more the scriptures describe me accurately. This feeds my faith that scripture is also describing what I cannot see behind me and ahead of me in the journey of life. The Bible is not, as a whole, a book that would be created by persons like me. It is simply too truthful. It is not a fairy tale or a myth. It is autobiography of the most surprising kind.

Ultimately, I am persuaded of the truth of the Bible by its presentation of Jesus. I cannot explain or unpack this reasoning, for it comes down to an encounter with a person. Those who are Christians know well what I mean. You know what it is like to see no evidence of God in the world, in the church or in the mangled mess of your own heart, yet to be drawn powerfully after the Jesus of the scriptures. You know what it is like for Christians to act completely contrary to anything resembling Jesus, and to be sickened by their mistreatment of people in the name of God, yet to know that you cannot abandon Jesus himself as flawed, because you know the resemblance between Jesus and those who claim to follow Him is superficial at best.

The portrait of Jesus in the four Gospels towers above the paltry whinings of modernists, the thrown pebbles of critics and the repeated foibles of a scandalous church. Jesus is not the creation of any person or any tradition. He alone, of all the versions of a human soul, radiates the undoubtable evidence of “God with us” that other spiritual leaders only hint at. Jesus alone defies categorization and trivialization. He towers over history, culture and the human heart. This is no portrait of human longing or an exercise in wishful thinking about what we might become. This Jesus is, as John said, the Word made flesh.

I am persuaded that something happened that Christians call the resurrection, an event so galvanizing and transforming that its aftershocks continue to reverberate across history. Unlike any other person on planet earth, Jesus exerts a continuing and growing influence over individual human lives. The transforming, liberating, revolutionary power of Jesus breaks into the mundane of human history in a way that cannot be compared to Buddha or Mohammad’s insights into reality or inspirational example. Throughout the world, the Spirit of Jesus creates life and hope in a world where philosophy and technology have explained all the questions and made irrelevant all the answers.

There is simply no one like Jesus. And all the lofty things that might be said about him cannot begin to explain why one doubting soul will repeatedly choose to place his life’s hope of meaning in a person that lived two thousand years ago; a person who communicates unconditional love through his brutal death on a cross. Jesus is, ultimately, a mystery. We can point to him, and point to his cross, but each person must walk to that cross alone and choose whether this is a meaningless, pointless execution, or God saving the very world that despises Him.

What I believe Luther recovered was the stunning truth that God saves doubters who believe. Jesus chides Peter for doubting when he sinks on the sea, but the scripture also tells us at the close of the Gospel of Matthew, Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. I have returned to this verse many times and thought about the meaning of its inclusion in the Gospel. Men who had seen miracles. Men who had spent days, even years, with Jesus. Men who had been with the resurrected Christ. Men who had personally experienced the power of God in their own hands and words.

These men doubted, even in the presence of the resurrected Christ; and these men believed and died for their faith, having turned the world upside down. Nothing could banish, once and for all, from their experience the possibility that they were wrong and that it all meant nothing but delusion and deception. For this Jesus did not condemn them, but commissioned them to be His Church, and to preach the announcement of the Kingdom to the world. I doubt if they ever stopped doubting. I also am quite sure they never stopped believing.

On that point, I return to a promise that belief itself, in this barren world of ours, is a miracle of God’s own creation. The seed of faith is planted by the very God that we reject in our disbelief. This is part of His gracious dealings with those He has made for Himself, and is surely among the greatest mysteries. Yet, for those who believe–and still doubt–it contains a hope. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6) If faith is the work of God in the life of those who believe, it exists and triumphs, in spite of the doubts that continue throughout our human journey.

Because of this, we can be honest about our doubts and be grateful and unashamed of our faith. Perhaps among Christians who are unafraid to say that they sometimes tremble in uncertainty, there will grow a more beautiful and authentic faith. Let the wheat and tares grow together, Jesus said, until the day of judgment. So our belief and our worst fears grow together, until the time when God Himself harvests the faith that He has planted.

Here’s the last in our “Lutheran Theology and God’s Sovereignty Series.” I appreciate all the work Josh put into this and the good comments from those of you involved in the discussion.

How would Lutheran theology speak about God’s role in a tragedy like the I-35 Bridge collapse? Would you say God ordained it for his glory?

The important thing to remember in any question like this is that questions don’t happen in a vacuum, and neither is theology something floating around in a platonic realm of ideals. Generally, these questions are posed to pastors by real people, so what we always have is a pastoral situation. Even if you’re just a layman, you still have to deal with the person. But this is complex, so you’re going to get a long answer.

Abstractly, in the “ultimate reasons” sense, I don’t have any satisfying answer. Luther’s idea of being a theologian of the cross, which he develops in his Heidelberg Disputation, is hugely influential in the Lutheran tradition. You could probably add the theological part of the Disputation to the Confessions and no one would object. Anyway, Thesis 19 says, “That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened.” In other words, you just can’t look around at the events of the world and making declarations about the mind of God based on them. First of all, everything in this world is tainted by sinful humanity and the work of the devil. You’re looking at a fallen creation that is not the way God wants it to be. Second, your intellect doesn’t give you access to the mind of God. It’s amazing how many people will say you can’t be saved by works, but then turn around and basically try to find God through rational deduction without seeing any contradiction in that.

The next thesis is really important. In Thesis 20, Luther says “He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.” This is part of the answer to the pastoral question. You don’t answer a suffering person, such as someone who lost limbs or loved ones in the collapse, by assuring him God caused it and is being glorified. That’s basically saying, “God has carefully orchestrated things for the purpose of screwing you over, because in some obtuse, incomprehensible way it helps him achieve a greater level of satisfaction. And that alone should make you feel better.” You remind him of Jesus’ suffering, not just how Jesus suffered freely for his salvation, but how because of Jesus and that ineffable mystery we call the Incarnation, God actually knows what it’s like to suffer. He’s with you in your suffering as one who empathizes because he himself has suffered in his own flesh and his own human soul. And it’s in his own suffering that God promises to redeem you of yours, to set right everything that’s gone wrong in this life. So you don’t explain the event except to affirm it’s wrongness and point people toward Christ’s suffering and the redemption he promises.

But sometimes people aren’t asking you as those suffering, and that’s what one of my favorite profs at Concordia, Carl Fickenscher, would call a “Law moment.” Sometimes people are asking questions like that because they want you to say that those people must have had secret sins, or they’re trying to trick you, or whatever. And I think that’s the time to say something like Jesus said in Luke 13:1-9. Something like “Yeah, those people got it bad, but if you don’t repent, you’re going to get it worse. Let this remind you that everyone dies, including you. Without Christ, you’ve got no escape, either.” But you have to recognize whether people are hurting or just asking idle questions.

In the 21st disputation, Luther says, “A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the things what it actually is.” Usually, when people try to rationalize some life-taking tragedy, such as saying God caused it for his glory or some other way of saying, “Well, it’s all for the best,” they’re calling evil good. They’re actually calling death itself, that which Christ came to abolish, good because “it redounds to the glory of God.” Death is an evil, satanic thing. I think the “best of all possible worlds” theory is absolute bunk, because God himself tells us the best of all possible worlds is one where there’s no death and no sin, the one that Christ came to create through his own death and resurrection. God himself condemned death, so what are you doing justifying it? I was baptized out of this crappy world and into the best of all possible worlds. This is all part of this psychological need many Christians have to justify God before the throne of the human ego. We’re the ones who need to be justified, but we act like God is the one who needs it. So when you start off with some kind of natural theology, seeing God as the one who does everything in the world, you quickly find yourself trying to justify God and ultimately end up declaring evil to be good.

So don’t water down the evil of death. Call the thing what it is, and that will allow you to give real comfort in the Cross and the resurrection. And unlike consoling yourself that God is screwing you to the wall because it makes him look awesome somehow, the Cross brings real comfort.

That’s it for the questions, thanks for the opportunity. I’m glad people are finding some of this worthwhile.

Let me begin by thanking God for Alastair Roberts, his clarity in writing and his heart for the Church and Gospel of Jesus.

Alastair has a post at Adversaria called “The Denominational Church” that is, in a phrase, magnificently helpful for me where I am right now.

The post is prompted by the passage of a report at the recent Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly critical of the so-called “Federal Vision” and “New Perspective on Paul.” (This post is not, btw, about the FV/NPP controversy, and I won’t publish comments that go in that direction.)

Alastair quotes one voice in agreement with the PCA’s condemnation of the Federal Vision/New Perspective on Paul:

Maybe I am weak in my nerves, but when the corporate body of Christ speaks with such unison, I am humbled. Yes, assemblies and counsels may err, but this is the Visible Church speaking here! Aren’t we to have a high regard for the Visible Church?

To which, Alastair responds:

The problem with all of this is that the PCA and OPC are not — and I know that some of you might find this hard to believe! — the ‘corporate body of Christ’ speaking in ‘unison’. I am not sure that it is appropriate to accord ecclesial status to such bodies, even on the local level. The same can be said of any denominational organization or local denominational church.

One of the problems that we have to face is that, in the age of denominations, we cannot simply take the ecclesiologies of previous generations and apply them directly to the local denominational congregations that we attend.

From this point, Alastair critiques the recent notion that denominations and denominational local churches can be assumed to be the “church” in the New Testament sense.

For starters, he reminds us that Luther, Calvin and the other reformers were never starting “denominations,” but were deeply aware of their connection to the church catholic, and were truly “reforming” their portion of the visible church, not attempting to “start the church over again,” as many denominational Christians seem to believe and behave. In fact, Alastair suggests that we need to question the claims of denominational “churches” to be the “one, holy, catholic, apostolic” church at all.

Our world, in which everyone chooses to belong to some denomination or other (where everyone is, technically speaking, a ‘heretic’), is far removed from the sort of world that the early Reformers thought within. Consequently, we must give serious attention to the disanalogy that exists between their situation and our own when reading their ecclesiologies.

The Church that we now belong to has changed radically since the age of the Reformation and we need to think theologically about the situation that now faces us. In particular, we need to question the ecclesial status of confessional churches. This is something that has been argued by a number of people, from the Orthodox John Zizioulas to the Presbyterian John Frame. The Church — whether local or universal — is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The same cannot be said of the local denominational congregation. There are countless denominations, so it is utterly inappropriate to speak of them as ‘one’.

At this point, Alastair does for me what he always does: he grasps disparate thoughts and ideas filed away in twenty different places in my addled mind and brings them together into a clear vision of what I’ve been trying to think and say.

Alastair suggests that the “church” in the Biblical sense is a much larger, geographic and inclusive matter than any denominational church. Because it must embrace all those who confess the faith, and all types of people who embrace the faith, it really is “the church IN” or “the church AT” various places like Rome or Antioch, and not “Dry Creek Baptist” or “First Presbyterian.”

The local Church that you belong to is not the local denominational congregation that you attend, important though that congregation is. Biblically speaking, the local Church that you belong to is defined more by geographical than denominational or confessional lines. The local denominational congregation that you attend might be more closely analogous to a Gentile Christian group in Antioch in the first century. Such a group is part of the local Church, but it is not the local Church. The local Church includes Jews and Greeks, male and female, slave and free. In our situations, the local Church will probably include Catholics and Protestants, Presbyterians and Baptists, Methodists and Pentecostals.

In light of this, we should beware of giving too much loyalty to denominations. The work of God in our areas far exceeds the work that He is doing through our particular denomination. We need to become more concerned about the progress of this larger work than we are about the progress of the cause of our denominations. We need to become more committed to the larger cause of God in our area than we are to preserving our particular denomination’s identity.

I have to tell you that this nails so many things for me.

For one, for the first 18 years of my life I was explicitly taught that my church and my denomination was THE church, and all those other Christians were the enemy or a mission field at best. This deeply went into my mind and emotions, and still resides in some locked closets.

God himself set me free from this. (I’ll write about this later.) It was the “church of Owensboro High School” that became my church, and that church was made up of all kinds of Christians from all kinds of backgrounds. As I said on the last podcast, it was an “ecumenism of the foxhole” in a large public school.

God kept that up in many ways, and eventually brought me to where I am now. Yes, we have local churches, but on the mission God has placed us on at our school, we’re not a local denominational church. We’re the church in a place, sharing the mission of Christ as the people of God in this community.

This is also true of the larger geographic community. Here in Appalachia, there is a lot of “street level” ecumenism among many Christians, particularly on moral issues, public worship events, concern for young people, responding to crisis, etc. What Alastair is talking about is not strange at all here. It resonates completely with what Shane Claiborne said about the same subject: We don’t need more churches. We need the Church. Shane says this out of the context of new monasticism in Philadelphia, but it is precisely what Alastair is saying.

A couple of notes:

1) This particularly prompts me to say the megachurch is a problem. Megachurches can work for or against ecumenism in a region, but in many cases they are self-sufficient, and they do not need or want to come alongside other churches. But if they will, their resources and facilities can accomplish much good.

2) We need “the Church,” but we also need more congregations. We need to start more (whatever you want to call them.) Call them churches or congregations or ministries or fellowships. But let’s think about them rightly.

3) Alastair is saying that denominational congregations are subsets of “The Church,” and for a “local church is the only church” brain-washee like me, this is liberating and confirming of so much of the Holy Spirit’s leadership in my life. The level of denominational church is a level where certain aspects of “The Church” operate and must exist, but it is vital, essential, truly important and Biblically/spiritually critical that denominations and denominational Christians realize they are largely a witness to the division of “The Church,” and adopt a mission and mindset that affirms such.

Alastair then goes on into some practical implications of his observation, using the metaphor of theology as language and dialect. He laments that we have decided to treat dialects as separate languages. This is a major challenge, and one that I am going to make a real prayer priority in my life. I work with Pentecostals, liberals, fundamentalists, Baptists, Calvary Chapel, Calvinists, Lutherans, Methodists and so on. I am surrounded by the churches of the mountains from Roman Catholic to snake-handling Holiness! Dialects indeed! What a challenge, but what a wonderful place to be shaped into the image of Jesus.

The Gospel itself is not as complicated as our various ways of articulating its logic are. The Gospel itself is remarkably simple: the declaration that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead. It is this that is central. The central truths of the Christian faith are well summarized in the Nicene Creed. If these central truths are comparable to a language like English, the varying articulations of the Gospel that one encounters among the different denominations are like regional dialects. While there are better and worse ways of articulating the Gospel and some ways of articulating the Gospel that are at risk of becoming a different ‘language’ altogether, we must beware of so identifying our ‘dialect’ with the ‘language’ that we exclude some other ‘dialects’ altogether.

In no way, by the way, is Alastair suggesting that the boundaries of Orthodoxy do not matter. Some dialects approach a different language. Some have adopted much of another grammar and vocabulary, but this is a challenge to all of us to learn how to speak and relate to each other, and Alastair clearly says that at times we must “correct” and “renew” our speech and encourage other dialects to do the same. None of us speak the language perfectly, and it is always changing. Essential to our mutual communication is respect and a willingness to compromise.

Alastair suggests some concrete ways for the church to be “the Church” in more of a regional or “parish” setting.

What are some concrete ways in which we can work towards a greater degree of unitry between denominations. Here are a few brief suggestions:

1. Recognize the discipline of other congregations in your locality.
2. Recognize the ordination of people from other denominations and don’t force them to jump through too many hoops to serve within your denomination.
3. Recognize the baptisms of people from other denominations, including the infant ones.
4. Admit people from other denominations to the Table.
5. Read widely, beyond your own theological tradition. Seek to learn from other theological traditions and encourage cross fertilization of ideas.
6. Become friends with people from other denominations in your area.
7. Pray for the various churches in your locality and ask them to pray for you.
8. Seek to co-ordinate evangelistic efforts with other churches.
9. Try to get involved in other group projects with other congregations in your locality. Doug Wilson helpfully suggests that we rediscover the idea of ‘parish’. If we really started to think and act in terms of the concept of parish we would soon find ourselves enjoying more fellowship with other Christians in our communities.

I really haven’t reprinted the entire article. You need to read this wonderful post and consider all the implications in your own “parish.”

Alastair: pursue this vision in future posts. Here in denominationally divided and burned over America, we need this good word.

I wrote this piece in December of last year, and it remains one of my favorite statements of why so many leave and what they are looking for on their journey. I know that for some of you right now, affirming the church is important, but you need to grow to see that every church isn’t your church and every experience isn’t like yours. Before you universalize in that typical pontifical evangelical way , just listen. Listen.

Dedicated to all of you on the same journey. Keep faith and keep going. You’re not alone.

It’s time for one of your favorite programs here at Internet Monk.com: “Secret, Terrible, Unspoken Thoughts…REVEALED!”

Today’s secret thought was uttered by a commenter in a recent discussion thread, but it’s the kind of terrible thought that lurks in the minds of many of you reading this post. What terrible, shameful, embarrassing secret thought am I referring to?

Frankly, I’m to the point where there isn’t that much a pastor/teacher is going to be able to say that I haven’t heard 100 times already.

I know, I know. Shameful. Can you believe there are people like that out there? Someone call the watchbloggers.

Well…..I’ve thought about his kind of statement a lot. I preach about 10-12 times a month, and have preached as often as 20 times a month at my current ministry. I’ve listened to thousands of hours of sermons on tape, mp3, cd. I’ve read sermons- thousands of them. I’m on both sides of the comment, both criminal and consumer.

Some of those preachers have been my very best teachers. I absolutely believe in the value of the right kind of repetition. Gospel proclamation calls for it. Biblical preaching calls for it. It’s commanded. I do it in the classroom.

But let’s have an honest go at, shall we? What is this commenter actually talking about? (Now the REAL shocking truth will be REVEALED!)

The commenter is correct, and he isn’t saying “tickle my ears with something new.” He’s saying that the model of Christian spiritual formation now extent in worship is one that sees the 40 minute information dump as the primary means of spiritual growth. The sermon, the sermon and the sermon from the preacher, the theologian and the teacher. Plus a daily quiet time. That’s evangelical spiritual formation in a nutshell.

It’s hit me like a ton of bricks this past year: the blogosphere is full of voices that think we are all a bunch of big brains, and nothing more. We need more information. More data. More sermons. More books. More facts. More lectures. We are what we think. We are what we hear, read and think. So open up those brains and pour it in…after an appropriate prayer.

Behind this is a view of humanness that needs to be called out. (More SHOCKING REVELATIONS!!)

What thousands of evangelicals are experiencing is not a call from the Holy Spirit to become an overstuffed theological brain with a vocabulary that can only be decoded by a committee of seminary professors and a reading list that looks like the “atonement” shelf at a seminary bookstore.

No, they- we- are longing for authentic humanness in the Gospel. A full and genuine human experience. Normal human life as God created and recreated it. Not more information in a competition to quote the most scripture and do the best imitation of a walking apologetics class. Not more religion of the (fill in the blank) _______ sort. No….humanness made alive in the incarnation. Created, incarnated, redeemed, resurrected humanity.

We long to be human beings, fully alive to who we are, to God, to one another and to all that being made in the image of the incarnated God means.

We long for beauty, for multiple expressions and experiences of beauty.

We long for relational and emotional connection; to know we are not alone; to love and be love; to be heard and to hear our human family.

We long for worship to engage the senses, the body, the whole personality. We long for mystery, not explanation. We long for symbolism, not just exposition. We long for a recognition of what it means for God to be God and for each of us to be human, not for more aspirations to know as much as God and instructions on how to be more than human.

We long for Jesus to come to us in every way that life comes to us, and not just in a set of propositions.

We long for honesty about the brutal pain and disappointments of life, and we long to hear the voices of others experiencing that brokenness.

We are tired of the culture of lies that Christians perpetuate in their fear that someone will know about the beer in the fridge, the porn on the computer, the affair, the repeated abuse, the unbelieving child, the nagging doubts, the frightening diagnosis and the desperate fears.

We long for a spirituality of stillness, contentment and acceptance in the place of spiritual competition and wretched urgency. We have grown weary and sick of being “challenged” to do more, be more committed, more surrendered, more holy by our own energy.

We long for prayer that is not a means to accomplish things, bring miracles, generate power, impress the listener. We long for the depths of spirituality, not the show of being spiritual.

We long to be loved, to be quietly accepted, to be told to lie down in green pastures, to stop the race, to pray in silence. To be given a spirituality of dignity, not a spirituality that is a feature of this week’s sermon series on how to have more sex, make more money, have better kids, smile more, achieve great things and otherwise turn the salvation of Jesus into a means to an American end.

We long to understand the spirituality of those whose religion does not drive them crazy. We long to know the Bible’s message and then be free to live it. We want to be lifted up, not beaten down. We hope for a simple spirituality, not an exciting, never-before-experienced high from the show.

Yes, the commenter speaks the truth, we have heard the same answers a hundred times. Not the same Gospel necessarily, or even the Gospel applied in 100 different ways. But the same 100 moral exhortations. The same 100 life lessons. The same 100 theological necessities. The same 100 spiritual demands. The same 100 pastors sounding like the same 10 pastors. The 100 same catch phrases. The same 100 commercials. The same 100 half-truths, convenient half-truths and agreed upon untruths.

We have heard evangelicalism’s products, its promises, its prosperity promises, its prevarications and protests at least 100 times. Those of us with longer track records have been through all of this, under different names, with different spins, different bumper stickers, t-shirts and gurus. But it is all the same.

It is far less than the glories of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. It is far less than it thinks it is. And we feel the emptiness in our souls, even as our minds and senses are overwhelmed by the “wow!”

Where in the New Testament does anyone say how great their church is? Where in the New Testament does anyone brag on their favorite preacher? (Other than in Corinth.) Where in the New Testament are we told to spend money on church advertising and making our pastor’s name the brand of the entire church? Where are we told we know so much that we are experts on everything and can fix anything? Where are we told in the New Testament that we are producing experiences? Where does it say we are competing for the world’s attention the world’s way?

Yes, we’ve heard it all 100 times before, and our children will hear it a 1000 times more if they stay in evangelicalism. They will hear it because the entire gassed up, energized machine is launching itself into the future with all the arrogance it can muster, replete with every answer and all wisdom, learning nothing and seeing nothing wrong.

In 2009, we will hear it all 100 times again and again.

But not all of us. Perhaps less of us than you think.

Some of us will finally say good-bye to this insanity. Some of us will stay, but we will not be listening anymore. Some of us will discover others ways, other paths, other pilgrims and friends.

In fact, many of those standing to say the same things and do the same things and insist on the same things will feel the Great Emptiness in it all.

Somewhere, just beyond the 100th time we hear it all again and the 100th time we hear the new version of it in the latest church, latest book, latest sermon series, latest CD, latest web site and so on….somewhere, we’ll hear it the last time and we’ll walk away.

We will be hearing something else….someone else. Other voices and other music. Another way of being Christian.