Wisdom and Folly

My son, Bailey, has a friend named Conner who has been asking his parents some very challenging theological questions of late.  He is only eight years old, but Conner has been stumping his mom and dad just like my kids stump me from time to time.  Recently he asked, “How do we know that our religion (Christianity) is the true one and the others are wrong?”  Whoa.  That’s a toughy.  This is one of those cases where the kid’s question itself is as encouraging as it is challenging.  It’s encouraging because it shows that he is already thinking critically about worldviews.  And it’s challenging, of course, because, well, the question raises a whole nest of difficult issues.  It’s also worth noting that Conner’s question presupposes two important truths.  First, it assumes that there is such a thing as truth in religion and, secondly, it assumes that not all religions can be true.  So the question as to why we should believe Christianity is the one true religion is itself insightful.

So, then, how do we know that Christianity is true?  The short answer is that we know this through special revelation—the Bible.  Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ is the unique of Son of God, that he lived a sinless life, and that he died and rose from the dead to save humanity from their sins.  This is the essence of the gospel and the heart of Christianity.  It is also the essential doctrine of our faith which distinguishes it from all other religious faiths.  The great theistic traditions of Judaism and Islam, for all their many insights and true doctrines (e.g., that there is a personal God who created the world and communicates with us through special revelation, etc.), deny the divinity of Christ.  And pantheistic religions, such as Hinduism and New Age thought, deny that Jesus Christ is uniquely divine (since they affirm that all human beings are essentially divine). 

Christianity stands alone in affirming that Jesus is the unique God-man and savior of the world.  And this core Christian belief is based on the teachings of the New Testament.  So, then, the next question is whether the New Testament is trustworthy.  Without delving into technicalities, the evidence for the historicity (historical reliability) of the N.T. documents is overwhelming.  In fact, the manuscript attestation for the New Testament documents is incomparably greater than that for any other ancient documents.  For an informative—a surprisingly stimulating—book on this subject, I highly recommend F. F. Bruce’s classic The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?  And there are many other excellent resources, such as Craig Blomberg’s The Historical Reliability of the Gospels and Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which confirm our confidence in the New Testament and, in turn, its central claim that Jesus Christ is uniquely divine.

So it all comes down to the identity of Jesus Christ.  Is he the God-man or a mere mortal?  This is not only the central question in the study of comparative religions but also the central question of human history.  Either Jesus is divine and Christianity is the one true religion, or he was a fraud and Christianity is a scandalous lie.  Neither of those alternatives is benign.  Both have profound implications for the meaning of life.  So kudos to Conner for posing such a foundational question.  He has gotten to the heart of the matter.  And all of us, not just his parents, need to be ready with an answer.

By the way, in my book Gum, Geckos, and God I tackle many questions like these posed by my own kids.  I’m interested in hearing other insightful and challenging theological questions posed by children (or adults, for that matter), so let me know if you have a good one to share.

One of the most embarrassing moments of my life happened several years ago when I was supposed to be meeting a friend at a local night spot. (Okay, it was a club. There are you satisfied? I used to go dancing at night clubs. Sue me.). This was at a time in my life when I was extremely conscious of my appearance and looking “cool.” I found that at least one cure for this self-consciousness is giving birth to four kids as well as going out of the house on a daily basis with vomit, snot, or poop smeared somewhere on my clothing. Anyhoo, back to the pre-vomit-stained version of myself.  I was sitting at a table waiting for my friend, when I saw him walk by. I attempted to get his attention but failed to raise my voice to the decibel level required to exceed that of the music giving me permanent hearing loss. I hopped up and bopped after him. (The pre-vomit-stained version of me often bopped along, here and there. Sadly this too is no more. Sigh.) I followed him up a ramp and encountered a back room to the club that I hadn’t realized existed. As I was heading into the room, a girl was blocking my way. I stepped to one side, as did she. I stepped to the other side and she did as well. I looked up and laughed, feeling like I was in an episode of I Love Lucy, when I noticed this girl was rather cute. Then to my horror, she stopped being cute and became my own reflection. I was standing in front of a mirror and had been attempting to side-step myself.

In a lot of ways, this experience sums up my life. I spend most of my time thinking about myself, trying to make myself happy, admiring my brilliance, etc. When I am not thus occupied, I am wallowing in disgust at my self-centered hedonism. It isn’t as though I wake up every morning in love with myself, longing to see what great deeds I will perform today. Despite appearances to the contrary, I have a fairly realistic picture of my many faults and limitations. (Dare I say I pride myself on it?)  Yet thoughts of self-interest and self-congratulations pop, seemingly unbidden, into my head continually throughout the day. It is as if I am trapped in front of that mirror, desperately trying to get out of my own way so I can move on.

It is an astonishing paradox to me that I find myself to be the most obnoxious and morally repulsive person I know, yet throughout the day I constantly think how to gratify and admire myself. When trapped in the corner of my own self-loathing and faced with the bleak landscape of my inner thought life, I become like a crazed beast, desperately seeking escape. (It’s like being trapped in a Gap fitting room wearing pants that are at least one size too small.) Cheeks burning with shame, I cast around wildly in a vain attempt to prop up my quickly wilting self-esteem. Sometimes I begin sizing up others (literally and figuratively) in some sort of warped moral version of a beauty contest: “Okay, Miss Down-the-Street is a better cook and kicks my butt in the ‘Consistent Quiet Time’ segment of the evening but I could definitely take her on in bread-making and bedtime reading. If I work out three times this week and dust of the old Bible, I think I could make it to second runner-up for sure.” Unfortunately, I know a lot of really good people and too often looking outward doesn’t do that much for building up my self-image. So then I turn inward and go for old reliable—my good intentions. Sure, I just lost it with the kids on the way out the door today, but my intention was to be on time and I did apologize and smooth it over with a slushy, so there. Or maybe not.

This is where that other old reliable comes in—the Gospel. It is in its reflection that I see with great clarity those dusty corners no one else knows. But it is also in its reflection that I see the grace and mercy that has been purchased for me—at great cost and effort but providentially, not my own. So the next time you find yourself trapped in the mirror of your discontent, look that image straight in the eye and say “Hey you’re kind of cute—in a saved but still-in-progress kind of way.”

The recent discussion of gay marriage (see my October 2 post and related comments) has reminded me once again how difficult it is to be both culturally liberal and morally conservative.  It seems that today most folks fall into one of these categories but not the other.  That is, people tend to be either culturally liberal or morally conservative.  By culturally liberal I mean someone who readily recognizes and aggressively pursues truth, goodness, and beauty in culture-from politics and higher learning to art forms such as film, literature, and popular music.  By contrast, a cultural conservative would be someone who does not share this inclination but rather is suspicious of culture and human creative expressions.  A parallel distinction can be made regarding a person’s moral sensibilities.  Moral liberals are those who readily embrace shifts in ethical standards, while moral conservatives are suspicious of such change.

Perhaps it is only natural that people tend to be liberal or conservative generally rather than according to context or subject matter.  That is, our tendency to be liberal or conservative is not isolated to particular areas or issues.  It’s no coincidence that the artistic centers of our culture, from Hollywood and Broadway to art institutes and MTV, are also the most morally liberal communities.  And it’s also not coincidental that the most morally conservative communities tend to have little interest in the arts.  Similarly, the press and media, as well as the most prestigious centers of learning tend to be liberal, while people from the most morally conservative faith traditions are those who are least likely to run in these cultural circles.

Now these are very general observations, I know.  But these tendencies should be obvious enough to all of us.  I consider it to be a tragic trend, as it is the timeless moral truths which made American culture possible in the first place and which will sustain it as long as it lasts.  While it is appropriate to question or reject artistic norms and institutional conventions, moral verities such as the sanctity of human life and sexuality cannot be rejected without devastating repercussions, both in individual lives and culture at large.

So the noble challenge, as I see it, is to vigorously explore the arts and other aspects of contemporary culture while maintaining one’s ethical moorings; to remain committed to abiding ethical principles without sacrificing the will to eagerly pursue truth, goodness, and beauty in human creations-in short, to be a cultural liberal and a moral conservative.  It’s a challenge because somehow, at least at this time in our history, it is unnatural.  And it’s a noble challenge because it is for our own good-both as individuals and as a society.

How I clean my house is, I’m afraid to say, indicative of how I live my life. I often care less about whether things are actually clean than about whether they have the appearance of cleanliness. I love people coming to my house when the floor still smells like Pine-sol and you can make out the tracks of the vacuum cleaner. But if you happen to open the wrong closet door, beware of the avalanche of “yet to be filed” items that will shower down upon you. In the same way, more frequently than I care to admit, I find myself greeting people with all the visible surfaces wiped clean and the scent of pulled- togetherness hanging about my head. Upon such occasions, if you were to peek in the windows of my soul, you are more likely to be shocked by the resentful insecurity and anger that are lying about like dirty socks which missed the laundry basket than bedazzled by how pristine my heart is.

My superficial approach doesn’t stem from a desire to impress but rather a terror of disappointing people with the reality of my inner life. This is one of the reasons I love my husband and need him so desperately, both in my housekeeping and in my spiritual life. He will spend three hours cleaning our stove and can’t stand for people to see the evidence of the frenetic cleaning which took place five minutes (sometimes less) before their arrival. He is very methodical in his cleaning, just like his approach to spiritual development—slow and steady wins the race. His substance draws me back to reality and his graciousness has helped me to feel less fearful of being a disappointment to people.

Lately I have been connecting the dots as to how my fear of discovery bleeds into every area of my life including my hobbies and interests. I love Victorian literature because of the formality and restraints of the time, not in spite of them. I love going to the movies and eating out, having an experience and leaving behind all the dirty dishes and the empty popcorn boxes. I love organizing and putting things where they belong.

One of my favorite sayings of my dad’s (though I must confess to not particularly appreciating it in my younger years) is “a place for everything and everything in its place.” As I look back, I realize that this desire to be tidy has paralleled my desire to be more spiritually mature and serious. I used to be an absolute slob. My father, a methodical cleaner just like my husband, once accused me of starting a new landfill in the backseat of my car. Soon after I got married, however, when the rubber of married life was hitting the road of my need to change my selfish ways, I began to enjoy cleaning. Now that I have four kids, my standards have lowered significantly but I can spend a good hour organizing my daughter’s bookshelf by subject, size, and age appropriateness. Of course, you could be eaten alive by the dust bunnies hidden under the bookshelf. Still, I will defend my longing for order.

When you study the Bible and see all of God’s wisdom and promises fulfilled, you see we weren’t meant for this chaotic, grey world but a world revolving in perfect harmony around the God who created it with “a place for everything and everything in its place.” My penchant for categorizing everything is my longing for heaven, an attempt to make sense out of chaos. Maybe my desire for things to be orderly isn’t a desire to appear perfect so much as a reflection of my desire to be made perfect.

One of the more divisive moral-political issues of our time is gay marriage.  Conservative Christians oppose gay marriage and are often criticized because their only reasons for doing so are biblical in nature.  This rankles some people who complain that Christians want their theological views to be the foundation for civil laws.  (Of course, the Judeo-Christian ethic is the foundation of many of our laws, but this fact seems lost on lots of folks these days.)

For a long time I was convinced that the only conclusive arguments against gay marriage are theological.  Many have proposed philosophical arguments against gay marriage—typically utilitarian in nature—but these tend to be weak, essentially useful only as supplements to arguments from Scripture.  So I set myself to the task of coming up with a strong philosophical argument (preferably non-utilitarian in nature).  I think I might have accomplished just this with an argument which essentially claims that gay marriage is unjust.  Here it is, for your perusal:

1. Heterosexual union is the indispensable means by which humans come into existence and therefore has special social value (indeed, the greatest possible social value because it is the first precondition for society).

2. The indispensable means by which something of special social value can occur itself has special value.

3. What has special value to human society deserves special social recognition and sanction.

4. Civil ordinances which recognize gay marriage as comparable to heterosexual marriage constitute a rejection of the special value of heterosexual unions.

5. To deny the special social value of what has special social value is unjust.

6. Therefore, gay marriage is unjust.

I have shared this argument with many of my friends and colleagues, and the criticisms have consistently missed the point—suggesting, for example, that the argument assumes that the only purpose of marriage is procreation (which it does not) or that it implies a complete denial of the civil rights of homosexuals (which, again, it does not).  Still others have made the more subtle mistake of interpreting me as saying that gay marriage implies a denial of all value of heterosexual unions.  Clearly, the argument does no such thing.  The whole point of the argument concerns the special value of traditional marriage.

At any rate, the lack of strong objections has only strengthened my conviction that the argument is sound.  Now I am curious if anyone can muster a decent criticism (without lapsing into ad hominems, emotional pleas, and other fallacies).  I am also curious as to how many of you, like me, find the argument persuasive.

Brief comments on film by Amy.
Some old, some new.  Domestic films and foreign too.

The Darjeeling Limited - Take the most unlikely characters and place them in the most implausible circumstances. Add a dash of rapid fire dialogue and strange but simple plot lines and you have entered a Wes Anderson movie. I say “enter” because I am sucked into this convoluted (but oddly coherent) world from the opening scene to the closing credits. In this case, the unlikely characters are three brothers and the circumstance a search for their long lost mother in the heart of India. They end up discovering more about themselves and each other than their mother, learning the lesson that it’s about your journey not your destination. For me, Anderson (with the exception of Rushmore, which I didn’t buy into) is a small cup of Ben and Jerry’s-you wouldn’t want to eat it for breakfast every day but one scoop is oh so yummy.

After the Wedding- This was a Netflix recommendation and while I wouldn’t say I loved it, it poses some interesting questions. I don’t want to give too much away regarding the plot, but to me it boils down to “Who is my neighbor?” The storyline stretches the elasticity of suspended disbelief, not to the breaking point but enough to cause a run or two in the old pantyhose. Jim found the editing a bit irritating but we both thought it was very well acted. I don’t know if I would give it a spot in my queue again (I guard my Netflix queue like a mother grizzly bear watching her cubs.) But if you find yourself in Blockbuster and it is between this and Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, definitely go with After the Wedding.

Baby Mama - With all the recent hubbub regarding Tina Fey, I was curious to see if she is as funny as people say. I had, until now, resisted the temptation because of the premise of the movie which is as follows: overachiever Kate contracts with accomplished underachiever Angie to act as her baby surrogate. The two have their ups and down and end up somewhere in the middle. While I greatly sympathize with those who long for a biological child and find themselves unable to conceive on their own, for me, surrogacy and it’s half brother, in vitro fertilization, take a legitimate desire a few steps too far. There were several scenes in the movie that qualified for a true laugh out loud moment but overall it left me with an unsettled feeling. Kind of like going out on a first date with someone that you hope doesn’t call back. Not because you didn’t enjoy your time together but because you know that you simply inhabit two completely different worlds that just aren’t compatible with one another.

I just completed my annual trip to the James Dean Festival with my kids, and it’s wonderful to know that I won’t have to endure it again for another 365 days.  Since we live in the midst of the darned thing—two short blocks from the cacophonous midway—there is no way we can avoid taking the kids over for some rides and a bit of funnel cake, lest we face a household mutiny.  Just a few goes on the Kamikaze, Gravitron, and Tilt-a-Whirl are enough to satiate their appetites for spinning and sudden stops, then we are on our way back home to wash off the cigarette smoke and airborne grease. 

As my kids and I plodded through the sweaty mob from ride to ride, I began to compile a list of the things I despise about such festival atmospheres.  One day my children will know how much it tortures me.  But I hide it from them for now so as not to spoil their fun.  At any rate, here is my list (and please don’t share it with Bailey, Sam, Maggie, or Andrew until they are at least in middle school):

10. The ridiculously overpriced rides, midway attractions, and “food”

9. The constant drone of midway vendors, as they clamor after passersby to “take a shot” at winning a big kitschy stuffed animal

8. Thousands and thousands of feet of electrical cords.  Watch your step or you’ll roll an ankle or maybe even tear an ACL.

7. The swarms of bees and yellow jackets which feast in droves on the remnants of sugary treats and puddles of spilled beverages

6. The absurdly unhealthy food—all essentially comprised of sugar-laden fat dipped in grease.  Some of these treats, however, are hotter than others.

5. The grotesquely corpulent adults

4. The painfully self-conscious teenagers (and the not-sufficiently self-conscious ones who should be sentenced to a semester-long seminar on appropriate public display of affection)

3. Whining kids everywhere.  Not my kids, of course.  Only other peoples’ kids.

2. The random and unexpected profanity.  I can take it from the tattoo-riddled, unkempt Skydiver operator.  But from the preschool kid whose mom smiles amusedly at his casual F-bomb?

1. Elephant ears.

That’s just the top ten.  I’ll spare you the other 990. 

Now somebody please pass me the Rolaids.

I have a vivid memory from my teenage years of heading to the breakfast table with a sinking feeling, dreading the approaching humiliation. I would drop into my chair, perhaps even trying to angle my face so that my dad was not staring at me head on. But all in vain, for inevitably the time would come when he would look up from his bowl of oatmeal and be confronted with the recently popped pustule, now red and bleeding on my face. He would then utter the phrase I became so familiar with over the years: “You sure made that a lot worse.”

I tell this story not only because I seem to have a masochistic desire to rehash embarrassing tales from my past but also as an illustration of some deeper tendency on my part to refuse to leave well-enough alone. Isn’t history full of examples of people that get themselves (and often others) into a heap of trouble because they just have to stir the pot? The mess of human history began with the whole Eve and fruit incident and look how well that turned out. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when telling my children the story of the fall of man. I watch their utter bafflement at the greed of Adam and Eve. I mean, they are in the Garden of Eden for crying out loud! To let mankind off the hook a bit, we could take a look at our celestial predecessors. Sam, our six-year-old, has been questioning me of late with regards to Satan. “Mom, if the angels were with God in heaven then how could they choose to sin?” Good question, my boy. I feel like a complete boob every time I try to answer this question. How could they make that choice? And yet, there I am making the same choice every day. Staring straight into the mirror with full knowledge of the havoc I am about to reek and I find the temptation, well, too tempting. So I guess I have no one to blame but myself. Thank goodness my Father is still there, looking me full in the face, despite my attempts to avoid His gaze. “You sure made that a lot worse,” He says, sometimes with a bit of a chuckle, I am sure. But by His grace, He is always there to clean up my mess and maybe some day I will learn to leave well-enough alone.

The presidential race is approaching the home-stretch now, and the media frenzy to cover every detail of the candidates’ each and every move is becoming circus-like.  But, with as much as there is on the line, I suppose this is to be expected.  I suppose, too, that we should appreciate this fact about American politics.  Today the media is so thorough in its investigation of public figures that it is impossible to rise to national public office without having your private life exposed.  So if you aspire to work on Capitol Hill and have moral skeletons in your closet, then be prepared to see those bones hauled out into the light of day for all America to view.

It wasn’t always like this.  The extent of FDR’s health problems were held under wraps by the press, as were Kennedy’s adulterous liaisons.  But media-enabled cover-ups ended with Watergate.  Although it did not concern a personal indiscretion—it was a conspiratorial Republican plot to sabotage the Democrat political machine—this scandal created (or compounded) public suspicion toward our leaders.  Criminal corruption, we learned, really can go to the top.  Consequently, the media has been vigilant to scour every national politician and candidate for office to keep the American public informed as to their real character.  So I say good job, American media.

But there is something that bothers me, and with every new public scandal my annoyance grows.  While the media are tireless in their investigation of public figures, including the private lives of athletes and celebrities, they have immunized themselves to investigation.  In short, the media protect their own-mainly by not reporting ethical indiscretions of other journalists and reporters.  When was the last time you saw a report about a scandal involving a journalist or television news anchor?  Probably the only ones that come to your mind are those involving the Jayson Blair and Dan Rather or some other media person’s sins against their profession. That’s because this is the lone exception-the media will only “out” those whose immoral behavior undermines the media itself.  Otherwise, it appears, they are given a pass.

So as ethics scandals constantly rock the worlds of politics, business, sports, and entertainment, almost never do we hear of scandals among media personnel.  Not that we need more evidence of media bias, but this is especially exasperating because it doesn’t involve mere spinning of stories but constitutes turning a blind eye to bad behavior.  And the problem is not isolated but systemic.  Shame on you, American media.

What we need is a meta-media agency, a troupe of reporters whose special task is to investigate journalists and reporters to the same degree of rigor that other high-profile professionals are investigated.  How I’d love to see the media get a taste of their own medicine.  And how I’d love to see this effect a greater sense of fairness and discretion when it comes to media reports about personal issues that really have no place in public discussions.

Or maybe all we need is just a few courageous reporters who have the moral will to break this code of silence-to start holding their own profession to the same ethical standards to which they hold everyone else.  Now that would be historic.  Then I really could be proud of you, American media.

I sometimes wonder if I have been blessed with the unique gift of maternal instincts. Yes, I can change a diaper at lightning speed and hit the floor running at any hour when I hear the word “Mommy!” But in other areas, I feel I am grossly lacking. “What are they?” you ask. I always burn grill cheese sandwiches. Despite my vigilant efforts to remain by the frying pan, I am inevitably drawn away for an instant, and wham!, they pass golden brown straight to black.  Another strike against me? When I play my kids in games, I never let them win on purpose. I am so competitive that you can’t get me to throw a game of Chutes and Ladders.

But perhaps the worst of my failings as a mom is my inability to turn off my overly analytical mind when watching videos with my kids or reading them books. I just can’t get over all the obviously implausible and sometimes illogical premises, no matter how many times I tell myself “It’s just a book. It’s for kids. Leave it alone.” What is worse, I can’t help but point it out to the kids. “See there, Maggie. Did you notice that Papa Bear is a complete idiot who can’t find his elbow without Mama Bear’s help?” “Sam, have you ever noticed that Little People are all kids and yet where are their parents? Why are they completely unsupervised and where are Child Protective Services?” (This is to say nothing regarding the inconsistencies of such award winning programs as Little Bear where animals that are otherwise regarded as predator and prey buddy up to one another or Franklin where the turtle gets a name and everyone else is known simply by their animal type.) It’s a sickness, I know.

Just the other day, we were riding in the car, enjoying a lovely rendition of “Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee.” This is one of the boys’ favorite songs because it involves both violence and mess-making, which is rare in children’s music. We arrived at the tragic moment when the bee stings the little kid and the bee’s life is tragically ended and here I quote the revised lyrics: “Oh! It stung me! It didn’t hurt. I’m setting free my baby bumblebee…  Sorry, Mr. Bumblebee!” Are you kidding me? “It didn’t hurt”? Now I have swallowed a great deal of political correctness served up Sesame-Street-style in my days as a mom, but this takes the cake. I’ll take my burned grilled cheese and poor sportsmanship any day over this lie-to-the-children-because-the-truth-is-unpleasant bull hockey. Life is messy and, yes, sometimes painful, but without bee stings we wouldn’t have comforting hugs from Mommy. Without scraped knees, there would be no need for band-aids, which we all know make everything so much better.