Category: Theology

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A Caution to Church Haters

By Jim Spiegel

In Amy’s last post she highlighted the hypocrisy implicit in the way some Christians preach grace towards certain people outside the church but withhold grace to their fellow Christians within the church.  I see this attitude as part of a larger, disturbing trend, as it has become rather fashionable of late for Christians to be critical of the church.  This is evident in such recent books as David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me, Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman’s So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, and Kelly Bean’s just released How to be a Christian Without Going to Church.  I would like to offer a word of caution to those who so freely criticize the church and even, as in Bean’s case, recommend that Christians spurn church attendance and formal membership altogether.

First, we need to keep in mind that “the Church” is not an abstract entity but is composed of real people, fellow followers of Christ who aim, albeit imperfectly and sometimes very awkwardly, to worship and serve God together in local communities.  So to reject “the church” is to reject particular people.  And to hold a grudge against “the church” is to refuse to forgive or withhold grace from particular people.  When reading the accounts of some who have followed this path, its hard not to interpret their attitude toward the church as genuine hatred.  And that’s what’s scary, because from hatred of “the church” it is just a short step to hatred of Christians.  And hatred of Christians is tantamount to hatred of Christ.

Consider the experience of the Pharisee Saul on the road to Damascus, leading to his conversion and eventual apostleship.  Here is the account as recorded by Luke in Acts 9:

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.  He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.  As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Notice Jesus’ choice of words here.  Twice he clarifies to Saul whom he really is persecuting with all of his “murderous threats,” namely Jesus himself.  Those who follow Christ—“the Lord’s disciples”—constitute the church, which is the “body of Christ” as the Apostle Paul would later declare (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 3:6; Col. 1:24).  For all of our foibles, failures, and petty preoccupations, the followers of Christ—yes, even in formally organized ecclesial structures—are somehow, mysteriously united to, and the most tangible expression of, our Lord.  So any condemnation of the church is impudent, to say the least.

Am I saying that no critical commentary or assessment of the global church, a local church or particular Christians is ever appropriate?  Not at all.  In fact, this is crucial for the life of the church when done properly.  Genuinely constructive critical engagement is often powerfully redemptive, as it has been at so many junctures of church history.  But wholesale rejection, condemnation, or abandonment of the church, as is increasingly being encouraged these days, is neither constructive nor redemptive.  In fact, its more like, well, persecution.

So we should take this as a caution against vitriolic pronouncements about, let alone endorsements to divorce oneself from, “the church.”  Instead, let’s go for ethical, theological, and socio-cultural critique, whether of particular churches, denominations or individual Christians.  This can be done pointedly but with love.  (Successfully or not, that’s what I’m going for in this very post.)  Like Amy, I would hope we can show at least as much grace to our own as we show to those outside the Christian community.

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Getting High with Strippers

By Amy Spiegel

Normally summer is my time to kick back with the kids and be the happy-go-lucky mom we all wish I could be year around. We pay less attention to bed times, brush fewer teeth and let the laundry pile up. We spend our days at the “lake,” the kids swimming and me trying not to look too anti-social while catching up on my pleasure reading. We sit through and participate in a lot of ball games, eat too many meals out of plastic wrap and general fun ourselves into oblivion.

But not this summer. This summer, when not developing a permanently flat behind at the ballpark, I have been getting high in our garage. That’s right, getting high…with strippers no less. No, I have not taken up pole dancing and G-strings. I have been tackling furniture restoration. We are remodeling our kitchen this summer and like fools said to ourselves, “Who wants to go and buy some cheap piece of poorly constructed particle board when we can restore pieces that are original to the house?” Not us. Why would we want to take the easy way out when doing things the hard way is so much, well, harder?

About halfway through the month of June I would have gladly pulled something out of the neighbor’s trash if it meant we could take off those horrible rubber gloves and breathe clean air for a while. But since I didn’t spy any dumpster diving pieces on our block, I kept going. I learned a lot in the process. Maybe it was all those fumes, but as I worked I found a lot of parallels between the work of restoring furniture and the work of restoring my soul. Here are a few things I picked up along the way:

  • Getting the first layer off is always the easiest. There are few things more satisfying than brushing on a fat coat of paint stripper and watching 70’s era, olive green disaster buckle and crack. It scrapes off like a dream and you start thinking “This is going to be a piece of cake.” Right—cake that will take hours of your life and several layers of your skin. The outside is easy but it’s what lies underneath which requires the most work to get rid of. That second layer takes patience and lots of elbow grease. Sometimes you even need to take a break. Let you and your furniture rest a bit before you go back at it. It’s the same with sanctifying our souls. Those outward bad habits are much easier to leave behind than the ones that lie hidden and close to the heart. Those are the ones that take perseverance.
  • Things generally get worse before they get better. I would spend several days stripping a piece of furniture only to realize that I had just make it look ten times worse than it looked before I started. Doesn’t that also seem true of working on ourselves? You dedicate more time to Bible reading only to realize through that reading that your plight is even worse than you thought. Or you begin praying for help in overcoming a particular bad habit only to experience failure in that area even more than usual. But you have to trust the process. You have to believe that it will work and keep going. I reached a point in several projects over the last few weeks when I really didn’t think I could do it. But the only thing that appealed to me less than going forward was giving up. And that was usually the point where suddenly I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. In our spiritual lives, the darkness does not want us to succeed and thus tempts us to despair. But I also think God wants to strengthen us for even greater work and lets us struggle, never more than we can bear, but struggle nonetheless.
  • Perfection isn’t without its scars. Even when “finished” I can see the bits of paint I couldn’t get off or the scratches that refused to be sanded away. It would be easy to obsess over those imperfections and to feel as though I failed to get the job done. But that’s part of the beauty of restoring something old. You can read its story in those bits of paint and scratches. Just like you can read my story in the scars I carry, inside and out. Someday, my story on earth will be finished. God will be finished working on me here. I will be made perfect, all the old and ugly taken away and made new and beautiful. But I don’t think that means I will be without scars. After all, the hands that greet me will be scarred as well. And they will be beautiful indeed.
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Thoughts on Fasting

By Jim Spiegel

Recently I completed a three-day fast, so I thought it might be a good idea to share a few thoughts about fasting, which I hope may be helpful both to those who are novices and those who are veterans at the practice.

Fasting is one of the “spiritual disciplines” historically practiced by Christians (and persons of other faiths as well).  In his classic work on the topic, Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard defines the “spiritual disciplines” as “activities of mind and body purposefully undertaken to bring … our total being into effective cooperation with the divine order.”  There are many spiritual disciplines, and they are sometimes distinguished in terms of those involving abstinence of some sort (e.g., solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice) and those involving certain kinds of engagement (e.g., study, worship, celebration, service, meditation, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission).

All of these disciplines are rooted in scripture and effective for spiritual growth, but some are more important than others.  The discipline of fasting is especially powerful for building self-control.  It was regularly practiced by numerous biblical figures (e.g., Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, Paul, and, of course, Jesus and his disciples), important Christian leaders and theologians since biblical times (e.g., Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and Charles Finney), and many other religious leaders and philosophers (e.g., Zoroaster, Confucius, Hippocrates, the Buddha, Mohammed, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle).  However, fasting is not a popular discipline among Christians in our culture today.  This is unfortunate, given the benefits of fasting, particularly in building the strength to withstand the various temptations of indulgence that are so prevalent in our times.

So what exactly is fasting?  Fasting involves intentional abstinence from food, and possibly drink, for the sake of spiritual growth.  It can be extended to other contexts (e.g., technology, recreation, etc.) and can be applied to particular foods (e.g., meat, coffee, sweets, etc.).  As for the benefits of fasting, they include the following:

  • Fasting builds moral strength through the practice of self-control.  Like any other virtue (or “fruit of the Spirit”), self-control is a moral skill that one develops through practice.  Fasting is one of the more effective ways to nurture this virtue.
  • Fasting trains us to maintain our spiritual focus through suffering.  Denying oneself food is uncomfortable, perhaps even extremely so depending on how long and thorough the fast.  Training the mind to focus on God through such discomfort is a tremendous preparation for doing so when facing other (i.e., non-voluntary) forms of suffering.
  • Fasting makes a statement of our moral-spiritual earnestness.  Whenever I fast, I ask God to receive my practice of abstinence from physical nourishment as a declaration of my need for spiritual nourishment and strengthening.  Thus, when accompanied with prayer, fasting is makes this plea especially emphatic, which I believe God honors in special ways.
  • Fasting is humbling.  My wife once observed that, ultimately, fasting is not so much about food as it is about pride.  I’ve been practicing this discipline for about fifteen years, and it never stops being difficult, which of course shows me how weak, dependent and desperately needy I am.  That’s a blow to pride.  And that’s always good medicine for the soul.
  • Fasting reminds us that our bodily comforts are not what is most important.  And in our materialistic, self-indulgent society, that’s a reminder we all constantly need.

These are just some of the benefits of fasting.  When you fast, you will no doubt discover other benefits as well.

So what are some good occasions for fasting?  Fasting doesn’t call for any special occasions since, like prayer and Bible study, it can be incorporated into the normal rhythm of one’s spiritual life (e.g., weekly or monthly).  But in scripture we find certain occasions where fasting seems to be especially appropriate:

  • Seeking God’s forgiveness – Lev. 23:27 (Day of Atonement); 1 Sam. 7:2-6 (Israel’s repentance of idol worship); Jonah 3 (the repentance of Ninevah); Acts 9:1-9 (the apostle Paul’s repentance)
  • Seeking God’s counsel or blessing – Acts 13:2-3 (the commissioning of Paul and Barnabas); Acts 14:21-23 (Paul and Barnabas’ commissioning of elders at the churches of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch)
  • Seeking God’s strength – Matt. 4:1-2 (Jesus fasted when “he was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil”); Matt. 17:20 & Mark 9:29 (in some manuscripts Jesus says “this kind can come out only by prayer and fasting”)

When discussing fasting, some people express concern about certain abuses.  For example, what about those who have eating disorders?  And what about the temptation to legalism?  In response, I note that the distortion of a good thing does not justify our throwing it out.  Sex, prayer, worship, and even religion itself are constantly abused, but we don’t properly reject those things.

But regarding those with eating disorders, they may be advised to avoid fasting for a while, to do so only with accountability, or to practice only selective fasting (e.g. refraining from sweets, meats, or other particular foods).

Lastly, if you are just starting out, I recommend doing a few short fasts—one or two meals—several times before going on to longer fasts.  And, as for further reading, check out Richard Foster’s chapter on Fasting in Celebration of Discipline.  This classic work is chock full of practical wisdom about all of the spiritual disciplines, but the chapter on fasting is especially good.

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John Hick and Human Progress

By Jim Spiegel

An interesting philosophical question concerns whether human beings are making progress.  Great thinkers have fallen on either side of the issue, as you can see here.

Some who take the negative view on this issue use lack of human moral progress as an objection to theism.  After all, wouldn’t God want human beings to improve?  And, being omnipotent, wouldn’t he find a way to ensure that happened?  Thus, the notion that God exists seems to be undermined by the fact that human beings are not making any moral progress.

I happen to agree with the no-moral-progress thesis.  I believe that human beings in the early 21st century are no better, and no worse, than we were a century ago, just prior to the first of two hideous world wars.  And we are no better or worse than we were during the Renaissance, the Dark Ages, or the Iron Age.   From a moral standpoint, human nature has remained constant—since the Fall, anyway—notwithstanding salient eruptions of evil (e.g., the Mongol conquests, the Nazis, etc.) and bursts of goodness (e.g., the birth of the university, the abolition of Western slavery, etc.).

But granting the no-progress thesis regarding the human race generally, it doesn’t follow that there is no significant human moral progress at all.  Just because the human race doesn’t improve as a whole, this doesn’t mean there is no individual progress.  On the contrary, I think such progress is the norm throughout the world.  And it is here that we see the moral work of God on a global scale.

In his classic book Evil and the God of Love, philosopher of religion John Hick insightfully addressed this issue:

Because this is a pilgrimage with in the life of each individual, rather than a racial evolution, the progressive fulfillment of God’s purpose does not entail any corresponding progressive improvement in the moral state of the world. . . .  It is probable that human life was lived on much the same moral plane two thousand years ago or four thousand years ago as it is today.  But nevertheless during this period uncounted millions of souls have been through the experience of earthly life, and God’s purpose has gradually moved towards its fulfillment within each one of them, rather than within a human aggregate composed of different units in different generations. (Evil and the God of Love [Harper & Row, 1966], p. 292)

Hick was a religious pluralist and a universalist, but one need not affirm either pluralism or universalism to see the sense in his proposal here—that God works redemptively in the individual lives of people—perhaps the overarching majority of people worldwide—and this is consistent with the disappointing fact that the human race shows no signs of moral progress.  In fact, Hick even suggests that the lack of aggregate human improvement makes for a better environment for individual moral growth.  After all, as free agents, we all must choose to pursue the good and live faithfully before God, all the while resisting temptation, dealing with strife and disappointment, recuperating from failure, and persevering through suffering in order to do so.  In short, the struggle against evil is precisely how we grow in this world.  This is Hick’s so-called “soul-making” theodicy—an approach to the problem of evil that I find particularly compelling philosophically.  Moreover, it enjoys some biblical support as well, as is evident in such passages as James 1:2-4, Rom. 5:3-4, and 1 Pet. 1:6-7.  While I don’t regard this theodicy as a final and complete solution to the problem of evil, I do think it is an essential part of a Christian response to the problem.

There is also a moral-psychological (or, one might say, existential) benefit in this way of thinking about the human condition.  For if God is ever at work in people, accomplishing his work of redemption in the lives of individuals, then I need not despair over the “current state of the world” or lose hope when considering what appears to be a general moral decline of our society.  Nor should those of us who work to improve human institutions and social structures despair if we see no net improvements.  For God is still at work in the lives of those we meet.  He always has been and he always will be.

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On Hatmaker on Marriage

By Amy Spiegel

Being critical of popular writer and speaker Jen Hatmaker feels a bit like kicking puppies. If you are unfamiliar with Hatmaker, she is a blogging, self-depreciating, too-much-info sharing pastor’s wife and author of Seven and Interrupted. She manages to be funny and heartfelt all the while sharing her clear desire to see the Gospel impact the world around her. She also has a great collection of oversized earrings that I confess to greatly envy.

Since setting off on my journey to become a published writer, Jen Hatmaker has served as a model for what I would like to achieve; walking that razor-thin line of approachable yet substantive. She is authentic and real but without making excuses or compromising her convictions. Do you sense the giant “but” approaching? Here it comes…

BUT, having enjoyed and been inspired by her writing so much, I was that much more disappointed when I read Hatmaker’s recent blog post regarding World Vision and it’s since reversed decision to allow for the hiring of married gay employees.

www.fellowshipwomenonline.com
www.fellowshipwomenonline.com

It isn’t Hatmaker’s position on gay marriage that disappoints me since her position is unclear. (She has clarified her position in her latest post if you care to know.) What I find so disturbing is her dangerous mischaracterization of the nature of biblical truth and our ability to discern that truth, all in the name of peacemaking.

Hatmaker says “…the Christian community is not going to reach consensus on gay marriage.” I actually disagree with this view since the church has historically been in agreement on this issue for thousands of years. But putting that aside, supposing that we will never agree, in her opinion, mean that we should throw in the towel and just agree to disagree?

What if the early church fathers had taken this approach regarding the biblical canon or heresies that plagued the early church? Should they have simply thrown up their hands and agreed to disagree? Despite her claims that there was a significant lack of agreement among the early church regarding major aspects of the faith, we have hard won creeds and doctrines that have been passed down to us that say differently.

Speaking of the early church fathers, this brings me to my second beef with Hatmaker’s assertions that “we” will never agree. When it comes to the church—and I mean the church beyond 21st century evangelical protestant America—and its view of same-sex marriage, there is actually a larger consensus than she is willing to admit. When one takes into account the whole of the church, through history and across continents, the overwhelming majority comes down on the side of traditional marriage. I find it ironic that too often those who claim to speak for the open-minded crowd neglect the opinions and perspectives of literally billions of believers.

Hatmaker asserts that “Thousands of churches and millions of Christ-followers faithfully read the Scriptures and with thoughtful and academic work come to different conclusions on homosexuality (and countless others). Godly, respectable leaders have exegeted the Bible and there is absolutely not unanimity on its interpretation. There never has been.” This is simply not true. It isn’t true of homosexuality and it isn’t true of any of the major tenets of the Christian faith. If it were, we wouldn’t be a single religion but rather a collection of sects.

Has there been disagreement among certain traditions regarding issues such as baptism, predestination, and more culturally relevant issues such as slavery and the role of women? Absolutely. But there is also a rich history of common ground that as Christians we all enjoy and should fight, yes fight, to defend.

I absolutely agree with Jen Hatmaker that the world needs to see the Church work through these issues with love and respect. I just don’t want to see us sacrifice what is true in the name of let’s-all-just-get-alongitus. For then, if we allow the truth to slip away while we are too busy making nice with one another, what will we have to offer a lost and dying world? What Good News will there be left to tell?

We must wrestle with the truth and with one another not in order to prove we’re right or win points for our side. We must preserve it in order to give it to those who so desperately need it. The truth is there to be discovered and in the end it will set us all free.

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From Christianity to Atheism?

By Jim Spiegel

When reading or hearing the stories of atheists, certain patterns tend to emerge.  One standard account goes like this:  I was a devout Christian but along the way became dissatisfied with certain aspects of my faith.  As I learned more about the Bible I realized that it is loaded with problems.  After examining it more closely, I concluded that it is horribly unreliable and really just a bunch of made up stories, essentially religious fairy-tales.  This realization, combined with all of the hypocrisy I witnessed among Christians, essentially spelled the end of my faith.  So now I’m a completely fulfilled atheist.  Examples of this basic story abound on the Internet, such as here and here.

Now there are a few things about this journey to un-faith paradigm that bother me and that from a rational standpoint don’t add up.  For one thing, it strikes me as odd that so many atheists moved directly from giving up Christianity to giving up theism.  The Christian faith is just one of three major brands of theism (along with Judaism and Islam).  To falsify one form of this general religious perspective is not to falsify it in all of its forms.  After rejecting Christianity, why not look into one of the other major versions of theism?  Perhaps such atheists will insist that in discovering the Bible is a book of fairy tales they have basically discovered that all religions “of the book” (in this case, all three including the Old Testament) are baseless.  But, then, we may ask, why limit one’s theistic alternatives to these three traditions?  Why not consider generic theism or a non-religious philosophical theism such as that espoused by the likes of Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle?—at least until one has thoroughly reviewed the evidences for God.  Some thinkers, such as Antony Flew late in his career, have done just this, all the while keeping an open mind about the possibility that the world creator had revealed himself in some special way.

The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt
The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt

Another unsettling fact about many atheists is their rejection of Jesus Christ, not just as a religious figure or, more specifically, the God-incarnate savior of humankind, but in toto.  That is, in rejecting Jesus Christ as Christians believe in him, one need not also reject his teachings.  One can deny that Jesus is “Lord” but still recognize his wisdom, even philosophical genius, as evident in his many brilliant discourses and parables.  One might even reasonably say that Jesus is a great philosopher.  As Doug Groothuis shows in his fascinating little book On Jesus, the itinerant Nazarene is undeniably a profound and innovative philosophical mind, whatever else he might be.

Suppose a religious tradition emerged which had as a core teaching the notion that Immanuel Kant was divine and somehow God’s envoy to save humanity from our moral faults, such as by assiduously following the Categorical Imperative, praying in Kant’s name, and so on.  Now if I decided, as I think we all should, that Kant is not the savior, would it make sense to also completely disregard him as a philosopher or otherwise ignore his many valuable insights about ultimate questions?  The same might be said of many other great thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle to Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, Hume, and Plantinga.  The fact that none of these thinkers is divine is no excuse to completely ignore them as philosophers and sources of great wisdom.  In fact, we should study their teachings closely regardless of how they might be misconstrued from a religious standpoint.  Other people’s overestimation of their ultimate identity or moral goodness is no reason to ignore their philosophical genius.  Yet, this is what most atheists and other non-Christians do when it comes to Jesus.  They seem to assume that rejection of him as God-incarnate and/or savior of humanity is tantamount to rejecting him as wise or even as a significant ethicist or philosopher of religion.  But these two things are far from equivalent.

For this reason I often implore Christians-turned-atheists to return to Jesus, if only as a student of the man’s philosophical acumen.  Jesus’ logical skill, ethical teachings, anthropological insights, and cultural criticism (usually aimed at religious leaders, which should please any atheist)—not to mention his rhetorical genius and unparalleled influence on world history—all merit close study.  For these reasons we can all benefit from a better understanding of Jesus, whether we call him Lord or merely a great human thinker.

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Celebrating Lent

By Amy Spiegel

Happy Fat Tuesday! (a.k.a. the day everyone in our house scrambles to come up with something to give up for Lent and then spends the day doing/eating/watching that thing as much as possible). It’s funny to see each of our personalities come out in how we go about this process. Jim? Knows himself and gives up the same thing nearly every year—sweets. The kids’ strategy? Try to think of something that will sound impressive to their friends but they won’t actually miss all that much (e.g, “Mom, can I give up brushing my teeth for Lent?”) I will give Sam credit for having given up sugary cereal a few year back, given that cereal is just below oxygen and water on his list of life’s necessities.

I usually start thinking about Lent well in advance of its arrival. I know I have found a winner when I think of something and then immediately panic. This, of course, is a good indicator that this is the very thing I should choose, but I will spend the next few weeks saying, “I am not really going to give up that, am I?” Then Lent rolls around and I spend the next 40 days saying, “Whose dumb idea was it to give this up? Oh, wait…it was mine.” This year? My beloved iPad in all it’s app glory will be hitting the shelf ‘til Easter morning at which point I will gorge myself on back episodes of Castle and Antiques Roadshow.

Recently I read a book about life in England during the year 1000, appropriately entitled The Year 1000. The book walks the reader through the calendar year and I found its discussion of Easter particularly fascinating. The people of this time “had encountered the reality of famine.” Their deep connection and dependence on the land made hunger an ever-present specter that haunted their lives. But during Lent, the author says, “Fasting was the church’s way of harnessing hunger to spiritual purposes…Occurring when it did, in the final months of winter when the barns and granaries were getting bare, there was a sense in which Lent made a virtue of necessity.”

I don’t know the physical hunger of my medieval brothers and sisters, but as I survey our country’s, and my own, moral landscape, I see a land plagued by drought and pestilence. I see a land of plenty starving for want of nourishment.

Ironically, in Lent, in this time of abstinence and voluntarily deprivation I find the very nourishment I need. Lent is the time to shake off the covers, take inventory and do some spring cleaning. In the absence of distraction, I feel the glow of God’s presence.

In that sense, Lent isn’t a time of fasting at all. It is an exchange of one food for another; the food which poisons and numbs for the food which nourishes and awakens. My heart’s barn is empty but God is ready and waiting to give me my fill. May you and I be prepared to work for and receive the harvest He has prepared.

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True Marital Bliss

By Amy Spiegel

This week Jim and I have the amazing good fortune to be in the Bahamas on a somewhat paid-for vacation. He is teaching two classes to Taylor students while I am catching up on my HGTV watching and getting ahead of schedule on my book reading challenge for the year. Can you guess which one of us is getting paid?

In some of my mindless web surfing free time, I discovered a post entitled “I’m Dating Someone Even Though I’m Married” that annoyed me greatly, but not in the way you might think. The post was written by Jarrid Wilson, a pastor and author, who is not an adulterer, because the woman he is dating is, in fact, his wife. Wilson encourages his readers “to date your spouse, pursue them wholeheartedly, and understand that dating shouldn’t end just because you said, ‘I do.’”

“Why would anyone find a man challenging married couples to pursue one another annoying?” you might ask. Well, here’s why: I don’t think married life is not primarily about being happy; nor do I think being married is about finding your soul mate, best friend or the love of your life.

Now before y’all start feeling sorry for Jim because he is obviously married to a heartless cynic, let me explain. Jim is my favorite person. I never knew a person could be so morally outstanding yet interesting and fun until I met him. Somehow, despite my miserable failings, poor basketball skills and occasional emotional outbursts, I convinced this man to marry me and haven’t regretted it for a moment.

But happiness shouldn’t be the main focus of our marriage. That sort of self-focused, hedonistic approach to married life is one of the reasons why divorce is wreaking havoc in the church. I know it can certainly wreak havoc in mine.

When we were first married, I wanted to have the perfect marriage, and my pursuit of the perfect relationship nearly killed both of us. When we argued, I had to analyze it to death in order to discover the deeper source of discord. I thought if I just dug deep enough I could fix it and then everything would be perfect. What I came to realize, though, was that in marriage, as in life, there is no perfect.

The root of the problem in my marriage, and every other marriage out there, is sin—my sin and his. Not just small instances of sin here and there but the sin that has soaked into every cell and that must be fought at every turn. It might sound like a depressing thought, but for me it was liberating. It transformed my understanding of the purpose of marriage.

Marriage isn’t about making each other happy, though that is often a bi-product of the self-sacrifice and selfless love it demands. Marriage is about making each other good. It isn’t about pursuing one another. It is about pursuing righteousness. And it can get ugly.

But should that surprise us? When Christ pursued our righteousness, it wasn’t with a romantic gesture, with flowers and a box of chocolates. It was with an instrument of torture, with a bloody cross, and a crown of thorns. Married life should be marked with blood, sweat and tears. We should expect to be wounded and scarred as we battle for a greater good.

Of course that isn’t the end of the story. Christ’s pursuit didn’t end in sorrow but in the ultimate joy, salvation for all who will accept it. And our pursuit can reflect that joy. Adjusting our understanding of marriage isn’t about lowering our standards, but rather about raising them to new heights.

When we stop trying to make each other, and ourselves, happy and start trying to make each other, and ourselves, good, that is when we begin to understand the true purpose of marriage. The question isn’t do I pursue Jim wholeheartedly in order to make him feel loved. The question is do I pursue Christ in order to love Jim with a love only Christ can give. And the answer is, of course, “I do.”

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New and Old Treasures

By Jim Spiegel

A passage in the book of Matthew really struck me recently.  Specifically, Matthew 13:52.  The context of the verse is Jesus’ speaking about the kingdom of heaven and how at the end of the age the righteous and wicked will be separated and the wicked thrown into hell.  Then Jesus says, “every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

As a Christian philosopher who is especially interested in ethics, I suppose I am—or at least aspire to be—something like a “teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven.”  So when Jesus offers a simile related to this role, it catches my attention.  What could he mean here by “new treasures as well as old”?  One thing that comes to mind is scholarly insights, old and new.  In teaching the history of philosophy, I constantly emphasize the treasures in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Locke, Edwards, Berkeley, Kant, etc.  These are some of the towering intellects of Western thought, and their insights about the good life and, in many cases, the nature and purposes of God are considerable.  As for new treasures, I think of contemporary Christian philosophers such as Robert and Marilyn Adams, Alvin Plantinga, Eleonore Stump, Peter van Inwagen, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, Linda Zagzebski, Robert Roberts, and Alexander Pruss.  In recent decades, these scholars and so many others have provided us with “new treasures” related to the intellectual life and virtuous living.

We should remember that Jesus himself was a teacher in the kingdom of heaven, and of course he modeled perfectly the bringing out of new and old treasures.  Whenever he taught, he drew from and applied the Old Testament scriptures but also made new innovations as a teacher, using unique parables (unlike anyone else in history), stunning hyperbole, creative metaphors, and other figurative devices for teaching theology and ethics.  Indeed, his method was a balanced blend of new and old treasures, something that all Christian educators and scholars should strive to emulate.

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All Eyes Forward

By Amy Spiegel

Over the course of a very long school year with the kids, I have fallen off my fitness wagon. For two years, I have fought to stay on that wagon and now I have left myself in the dust. So with the end of school in sight, I have begun the long climb back to fitness. I am starting with a Pilates class. Less intimidating than the treadmill, a kinder, gentler attempt to find my abs again.

Still, even this kinder, gentler approach leaves me sore in places I had forgotten and I am sticking to the back row for sure. This is the safest spot for the most part…safest right up until our Pilates guru requires the class to face the back of the room. With dread, I flop over aware that now everyone can see me struggling to keep my leg at a 90-degree angle. Who am I kidding? I am lucky to be maintaining a decent 45.

This act of voluntary humiliation, along with all the other voluntary and not-so-voluntary acts of humiliation I experience daily, has me thinking…thinking about just what it is I think I am about in life.

Early in the morning, staring head on at my mirror image in all my sweaty, panting glory, I am confronted with the reality of my weakness. I have come face to mirrored face with the assumptions I make about what it means for me to succeed.

I have always thought that if I put my mind to it, I could achieve most of my goals, as a writer, a wife, a beastly fit, though slightly over the hill mom. I am always pushing myself to work harder, to try harder with the assumption that achieving what God has called me to achieve will result in the ultimate success of my endeavors. It isn’t as though I thought all my effort was the only thing that was required. I assumed that God would make up the difference, that together we would make it happen, whatever that “it” might be. But what if I am operating under a false premise? What if God wants me to work hard, to sweat and groan and press on but without reaping the outward fruit I see in the lives of others?

I love Paul’s analogy of the church as the body of Christ. It makes so much sense of how we can all work separately toward one goal, each with our own gifts and talents. I have never thought of myself as a vital organ. To be the heart or lungs, the feet or hands seems like a lot of pressure and way too visible for me. But I have fancied the idea of perhaps some second tier system, important in its own way, quietly carrying out essential work without a lot of fanfare, but appreciated nonetheless.

What if I have been called to be a toenail or an eyebrow? Superficial and hardly noticed unless it malfunctions in some way. What if my caring out the plan God has for me means living in obscurity, sticking it out in the back row?

This is not the place where I pause for dramatic effect and wait for all the comments to come flooding in telling me how important I really am. This is the place where I learn to truly embrace Paul’s image of the body, whatever my place in it. This is where I look in the mirror and make peace with what I see. Maybe in doing so, I will make myself more worthy of a place in the higher ranks and then again, maybe not. Maybe I will just be okay with hanging out in the back row, keeping my eyes looking forward, not in the mirror but at the class Instructor. After all, He is the one I should have been looking at all along.