Of the Things We Have Spoken....

We tend to look at the question of human nature in terms of good and bad. But when we come to the teachings of Jesus on man’s nature, there is a dimension added to the discussion that must be understood.

Any conclusion about who we are remains circular when we use words like good or bad, for simply using such terms points us to a moral law that is beyond mere human reckoning. What do I mean? If we say that human nature is either good or bad, then we are saying that we either measure up or fail to measure up to a certain standard of the way things ought to be. But what is this ought that we know inside of us? What is it that tells us, “This isn’t the way things should be; something is wrong”?

I suggest that this ought that each of us knows reflects that we are made in the image of God, that He has left His stamp upon us. God has given us a moral law written on our hearts. But when we look into the human heart, we see violations—lust, greed, hate, anger, and the jealousies that are so destructive. This is at the heart of the human predicament, and the Scripture’s description of human nature is that we are dead in our sins. That’s a graphic way to put it, I know, but as I said before, until we understand our desperate position before God, we will not understand His profound message of grace.

C.S. Lewis says it so well in Mere Christianity. He argues that behind the moral law is the Power of absolute goodness who is God. Writes Lewis:

We know that if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do. That is the terrible fix we are in . . . Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced [this] . . . Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness . . . It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken the law and put yourself wrong with that Power—it is after all this . . . that Christianity begins to talk.

And I might add, talk in depth. Indeed, Karl Barth once said that sin scorches us most after it has been under the scrutinizing light of God’s forgiveness. For when we recognize God’s profound work of grace, we long to know that transforming power in our lives.

Two Faces from the Below the Border

I saw this news article and just had to pass it along.

Mexico Works to Bar Non-Natives From Jobs

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 21, 12:12 PM ET

If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force.

Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory.

In the United States, only two posts — the presidency and vice presidency — are reserved for the native born.

In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens.

Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans."

Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges.

Mexico's Interior Department — which recommended the bans as part of "model" city statutes it distributed to local officials — could cite no basis for extending the bans to local posts.

After being contacted by The Associated Press about the issue, officials changed the wording in two statutes to delete the "native-born" requirements, although they said the modifications had nothing to do with AP's inquiries.

"These statutes have been under review for some time, and they have, or are about to be, changed," said an Interior Department official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

But because the "model" statues are fill-in-the-blanks guides for framing local legislation, many cities across Mexico have already enacted such bans. They have done so even though foreigners constitute a tiny percentage of the population and pose little threat to Mexico's job market.

The foreign-born make up just 0.5 percent of Mexico's 105 million people, compared with about 13 percent in the United States, which has a total population of 299 million. Mexico grants citizenship to about 3,000 people a year, compared to the U.S. average of almost a half million.

"There is a need for a little more openness, both at the policy level and in business affairs," said David Kim, president of the Mexico-Korea Association, which represents the estimated 20,000 South Koreans in Mexico, many of them naturalized citizens.

"The immigration laws are very difficult ... and they put obstacles in the way that make it more difficult to compete," Kim said, although most foreigners don't come to Mexico seeking government posts.

J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, was more blunt. "If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican constitution," he said in a recent article on immigration.

Some Mexicans agree their country needs to change.

"This country needs to be more open," said Francisco Hidalgo, a 50-year-old video producer. "In part to modernize itself, and in part because of the contribution these (foreign-born) people could make."

Others express a more common view, a distrust of foreigners that academics say is rooted in Mexico's history of foreign invasions and the loss of territory in the 1847-48 Mexican-American War.

Speaking of the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who enter Mexico each year, chauffeur Arnulfo Hernandez, 57, said: "The ones who want to reach the United States, we should send them up there. But the ones who want to stay here, it's usually for bad reasons, because they want to steal or do drugs."

Some say progress is being made. Mexico's president no longer is required to be at least a second-generation native-born. That law was changed in 1999 to clear the way for candidates who have one foreign-born parent, like President Vicente Fox, whose mother is from Spain.

But the pace of change is slow. The state of Baja California still requires candidates for the state legislature to prove both their parents were native born.

The Empty Path

The Road Not Taken
by: Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the tother, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy ans wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

From "You Come Too", 1916

Enjoyment was the highest principle guiding philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s decisions. However, he later wrote that this pursuit radically failed him. Here’s what he said. “In the bottomless ocean of pleasure, I have sounded in vain for a spot to cast anchor. I have felt the almost irresistible power with which one pleasure drags another after it, the kind of adulterated enthusiasm which it is capable of producing, the boredom, the torment which follow.” End of quote.

I have talked about the need for an over-arching story to life, by which all experiences can be pulled together, and how the denial of this story lands a person in self-destruction and spiritual emptiness. Today, let us glimpse at the path many follow—the way of pleasure.

Regarding this quest for self-fulfillment, sociologist Daniel Yankelovich arrived at an astounding analysis. He’d studied several couples in their pursuits and came to this conclusion. Please notice the word “and” in his summary of one particular couple he called “Abby and Mark.”

Here’s what he said. “If you feel it is imperative to fill all your needs, and if these needs are contradictory or in conflict with those of others, or are simply unfillable, then frustration inevitably follows. To Abby and to Mark self-fulfillment means having a career and marriage and children and sexual freedom and autonomy and being liberal and having money and choosing non-conformity and insisting social justice and enjoying city life and country living and simplicity and graciousness and reading and good friends and on and on.”

He adds, “The individual is not truly fulfilled by becoming ever more autonomous. Indeed, to move too far in this direction is to risk psychosis, the ultimate form of autonomy. The injunction”–notice this now please– “The injunction that to find one’s self, one must lose one’s self, contains the truth any seeker of fulfillment needs to grasp.”

Chesterton’s dictum has proven true? Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain, but from being weary of pleasure.

Have you cast your anchor, as Kierkegaard did, in “the bottomless ocean of pleasure,” only to discover unfulfillment and emptiness?

Did you hear the sociologist’s injunction—“to find one’s self, one must lose one’s self”—and you know this is actually a biblical one, taken from the words of Jesus? And the most dramatic truth of Jesus’ life is that it contradicts us in the way we experience ourselves as alive and compels us to radically redefine what we mean by life. In putting our life into His hands, we find the life He has for us. That is truly living.

Sic Et Non – Without Which, Not

Paul Tillich, the noted existentialist theologian, traveled to Asia to hold conferences with various Buddhist thinkers. He was studying the significance of religious leaders to the movements they had engendered. Tillich asked a simple question. "What if by some fluke, the Buddha had never lived and turned out to be some sort of fabrication? What would be the implications for Buddhism?" Mind you, Tillich was concerned with the indispensability of the Buddha—not his authenticity.

The scholars did not hesitate to answer. If the Buddha was a myth, they said, it did not matter at all. Why? Because Buddhism should be judged as an abstract philosophy – as a system of living. Whether its concepts originated with the Buddha is irrelevant. (As an aside, I think that the Buddha himself would have concurred. Knowing that his death was imminent, he beseeched his followers not to focus on him but to remember his teachings. Not his life but his way of life was to be attended to and propagated.)

So, what of other world religions? Hinduism, as a conglomeration of thinkers and philosophies and gods, can certainly do without many of its deities. Some other major religions face the same predicament.

Is Christianity similar? Could God the Father have sent another instead of Jesus? May I say to you, and please hear me, that the answer is most categorically No. Jesus did not merely claim to be a prophet in a continuum of prophets. He is the unique Son of God, part of the very godhead that we call the Trinity. The apostle Paul says it this way: "[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the originator of all creation. . . God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him." Jesus Himself prayed, "[Father], You have granted [me] authority over all people that [I] might give eternal life to all those you have given [me]. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (Footnote 1: John 17:2-3)

As many have observed, Christianity is Christ. Indeed Englishman John R.W. Stott writes, "If Jesus was not God in human flesh, Christianity is exploded. We are left with just another religion with some beautiful ideas and noble ethics; its unique distinction would then be gone." Jesus is the word and the incarnation.

The Problem With Democrats

The problem of the modern mainstream Democratic Party is that they do not realize that they have lost elections. The realize that something is wrong and they are frustrated by that, but they do no see that they have lost the voice of America. The story below (from the Associated Press) shows that the modern Democratic Party will go to any lengths to impose their cancerous beliefs and structures upon the rest of us without remorse and without compromise. Are these the men that we want as our leaders.

I know that if I was in this situation, and my wife had been nominated to the Supreme Court, I would not stand for such foolishness, dishonorment, and stupidity.

Alito's Wife Leaves Hearing Room in Tears - Associated Press

The wife of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito left his confirmation hearings in tears Wednesday.

Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who had sat behind her husband for hours of questioning over several days, left as her husband was being questioned by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record) of South Carolina.

"Judge Alito, I am sorry that you've had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this," said Graham.

Moments earlier, the senator had asked Alito, "Are you really a closet bigot?" The nominee said no, and Graham said, "No sir, you're not."

Graham's exchange with the nominee came after withering questions from several Judiciary Committee Democrats.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record) of Utah suggested that Alito's wife was upset with the comments of Democrats. "She's sick and tired of the mistreatment of her husband," Hatch said. He also said that she was suffering from a migraine headache.

She returned to the hearing room after a committee break, smiling and holding her husband's hand.

Does God Exist?

On a recent radio program, a caller phoned with the question, "How do I know God is real?" This is an excellent question that I also asked multiple times on my own search for God.

But the question has many sides to it. If someone were asking this question for himself, it would require a different response than if the person were asking this for writing an argument in a paper. The former is personal; the latter is more abstract. Let me attempt a short answer.

This question already assumes there is a real world out there. It is not The Matrix question of whether anything we experience is real. But the thing in question is the reality of God.

Many arguments can be put forward for God's existence. Alvin Plantinga, one of the leading Christian philosophers in the world, wrote a paper where he discusses two-dozen (or so) arguments for God's existence. Historically, the classical arguments include, among others, the cosmological argument (that the world could not come from nothing), the teleological argument (that the world has purpose and design), and the moral argument (that moral laws require a Moral Law Giver, that justice requires a Judge). When the arguments are laid out and taken cumulatively, the fact that God is real far outweighs the idea that He is not.

But there is more. Is life even livable without God? I remember watching a major network television program years ago. On it, the host held up a book by Ravi Zacharias called Can Man Live Without God? The host of the program responded immediately, "Of course he can. He's been doing it for years." The rhetorical move pushed the audience to consider the next secular perspective, while never answering the real question. Is life really livable?

We can go to work, get married, have children, and celebrate birthdays without God. But the question is deeper than that. Can we do these things with ultimate meaningfulness without God? Can we live a moral life without a moral reference point? Can we ultimately trust that justice will be served? And, most importantly, can man have spiritual life apart from God? As Malcolm Muggeridge has noted, if God is dead someone will take his place—either the power-monger or the hedonist. Augustine's words resound clearly and intuitively, "You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." I'll stake my soul on the resounding and coherent idea that God exists. He is real.

But even as believers we have our days of darkness and hours of doubt. Sometimes this is our own doing. Susanna Wesley (wife of John) stated that often our sin "obscures our sense of God." When we do not align ourselves with the character of God, then our idea about the goodness of God can often become confused in our minds. When his character is in doubt, his Realness is soon to follow.

But when we choose to follow Jesus Christ and walk in accordance with God's design, God becomes more real and relevant to our perception. As I responded to the radio caller, it is because of the coherence of his historical Word and the visiting of his Person in the Incarnation that makes purposes, goodness, and reality mean all the more. As C. S. Lewis described of the New Narnia, "Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more." I suggest glimpses of this same experience come to us when we seek God. He promises we will find him, when we seek Him with all our hearts.

Guilt

A convenient escape for many a guilty person is to brush aside guilt as a cultural appendage. This view belies the belief that what is right and wrong is decided merely by cultural trends. Guilt, then, is an emotion felt only by those who succumb to a particular culture. However, such a dismissal of morality fails to take into account that even when we differ culturally in our behavior, the reasons that justify our behavior are often the same. In other words, all cultures have ethical similarities.

The very establishment of law and order in any community is because of the realization that without law and order plunder and savagery prevail. Or one could put it this way: Guilt is a good for any orderly society—not because guilt is an arbitrary product of society, but because guilt is a real and powerful thing that keeps us in check. The problem with dismissing guilt as cultural is that morality then becomes untenable.

When someone I know was in war-torn Cambodia many years ago some friends took me to see a play which was a strange cross between fact and fantasy.

It was a story of a peasant man who married a young village woman. The prince, however, became captured by the village woman’s beauty and took her away to live with him. The peasant protest to the king but he was met with outrage. The king told the man he was lying and that the woman joined the prince by her own volition. Nevertheless, proceedings ensued under the direction of a priest and the peasant man was found to be telling the truth. Everyone in the audience roared with approval that the truth had come to light. Yet moments later the king ordered his soldiers to kill everyone who believed the peasant’s story.

Anyone in Cambodia knew the symbolic tragedy of the play. The voice of truth was silenced, and cruel men ruled the land. After the play ended I reflected how behind the drama lay some common values that bind humanity: The purity of marital love. The value of the truth. The cry to protect the innocent. The yearning of a people to see justice. These were not conferred culturally. These truths were evident to people even in a Marxist-dominated land.

To do away with guilt as purely a cultural distinctive does not reflect the reality of our shared experience. Moreover, it causes a “short circuit” with morality such that the covenant of marriage or acts of injustice can be dismissed at whim.