Emil Brunner

   Emil Brunner is the John Paul Jones of theology.

   He's a guy whose influence has been felt by millions of Christians around the world today. His books line the shelves of theology libraries throughout the globe, and it's entirely likely that whoever your favourite theologian of the past century is, they've probably been molded or shaped by Brunner to at least some extent.

   And yet, if you mention him, you'll probably be met with reactions like “He's that German guy, right?” or “Ohhh, Brunner! Didn't he have something to do with Barth?” or possibly “My doctor thought I had Brunner once, but it ended up being mono.” Of course, this is assuming that they've even heard the name at all, when it's entirely likely that this is not the case.

   Which is a shame, really.

   Like John Paul Jones, Brunner isn't overlooked because he isn't all that memorable. He's overlooked because as great as he was, he's surrounded by people who were even greater. Stanley Grenz once referred to him as “a giant overshadowed by colossi” and that's a pretty good way of putting it. The man was constantly in the shadow of the titans who surrounded him – most notably Karl Barth. Of course, there's nothing particularly special about that, as every Christian authour in the past century is overshadowed by Barth, but Brunner feels it especially keenly since he was a close friend and peer of Barth who argued for roughly similar positions during the same time frame.

   In fact, Brunner was almost never mentioned outside of references to Barth. Brunner ended up in a lot of ways playing the Robin to Barth's Batman, the Ben Affleck to Barth's Matt Damon, the John Paul Jones to – wait, I made that reference already. But Brunner was more than Barth's sidekick. He had his own distinct life, arguments, and perspectives.

So, who is Brunner?

   Brunner was a Swiss theologian born in 1889 just outside of Zurich. He studied at the University of Zurich and eventually ended up completing doctoral studies in theology at the University of Berlin in 1913, and as a result of his studies received awards and honorary degrees from universities throughout Europe and the United States. From there he went on to teach high school in England until 1914, when he returned to Switzerland to serve in the militia during the first World War. After that, he ended up serving as vicar (which is like a priest or pastor, only they make less money. Like an old-fashioned word for “intern”), then pastoring a church in Obstaldan, after which he went on to have a long life where he worked as both pastor as well as a professor and scholar at the University of Zurich.

   Okay, so now that we've got that info dump (which I'm sure you're all very thankful for), what do we make of it? Why should we care about this man?

   Well, there's a couple of interesting things about Brunner that are worth taking a look at.

   A huge concept for Brunner was the I-Thou thing. A Jewish philosopher from the early twentieth century named Martin Buber developed this idea that relationships can basically be divided into two categories: “I-It” relationships, and “I-Thou” relationships. I'm gonna try and summarize these concepts, but bear in mind that in doing so I can't really do them justice. Buber said that we basically interact with the world around us in two ways: As though it were human (an I-Thou relationship) or as though it were inanimate (an I-It relationship). Brunner read this and thought, “Alright, hang on, the way we talk about God – isn't that usually in an I-It way? But shouldn't it be an I-Thou relationship?”

   In other words, Brunner took this idea and ran with it, leading to something called “Biblical personalism.” God wasn't a truth-claim that we have an opinion about. No, to Brunner, God was a person that we interact with (or don't interact with, as the case may be). This obviously isn't a new idea, but it injected the conversation about God with a certain sort of immediacy that wasn't there before. When we look at some of the rhetoric that's used by some Christians today, like talking about having a personal relationship with Christ, these are ideas that come, in part, from Brunner's work.

   (Note if you're like me and are weird and read this and think “Man, that's interesting, I want to know more about this whole I-Thou thing” then check this out: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/#DiaITho. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a great peer-reviewed, online source that can give you all the information you want and then some).

Okay, so what does this mean? 

   Well, it's actually pretty important. It's remarkably easy for us to look at our relationship with God in an I-It framework. We distance ourselves personally from God and instead start to see him as an object: A vending machine who gives us what we want, or a stuffed animal that we can hug and tell our secrets to, or an impersonal tool of justice or wrath that we need to hide from when we've done something wrong. These perspectives fail to accurately describe God as a person.

   Unfortunately, I'm just about out of space. This summary of Brunner and his life is tragically incomplete (I mean, I'm not even scratching the surface) but hopefully it will provoke some of you to go look up his works and spend some time reading, digesting, and critiquing the concepts that he puts forward.

Do Catholics Worship Saints?

No.

Harry Potter and the Sleeping Dragon

(Note: You can't say things in a way that's both simple and accurate. When I present positions, I usually link to the corresponding SEP article, so that you can read up on it yourself and get a more complete picture than my (very) brief summaries. All I'm trying to do hear is present the basic ideas, and hope that if I'm strawmanning, I'm at least strawmanning both sides equally).

The Story

   "Come on, Harry! The cave should only be a few minutes away!"

   Harry, Ron and Hermione were in a dense forest, picking their way through the underbrush as they slowly but inexorably made their way towards their objective.

   "Wait, hang on a moment," said Ron. "Did you hear that?"

   "Hear what?" asked Harry

   "It sounded like a snort, or something."

   "I didn't hear anything" said Harry.

   "No, Harry, I heard it too," said Hermione. "In fact, it almost sounded like -"

   "- a dragon!" shouted Ron.

   It was true. Having reached a clearing in the forest, they discovered that they had reached the cave that was their destination. Most inconveniently, however, their way to the cave was blocked by a sleeping dragon.

   "That's it," said Ron. "We can't handle a dragon. We'd better go back."

   "We can't go back, Ron!" said Harry. "We've got to get the horcrux!"

   "I thought we were searching for the hallows," said Hermione.

   "Whatever plot device, Hermione! It's in the cave!"

   "Alright, well not leave then," said Ron, "but maybe see if the cave opens up somewhere else. Perhaps there's another entrance?"

   "...wait, hang on," said Hermione. "Something isn't right."

   "What do you mean?"

   "Well, think about it. If Voldemort had a dragon, why would he leave it around just guarding a cave?"

   "Uh, gee, I don't know, maybe because he's got a piece of his soul in there?"

   "Right, Ron, but he doesn't know that we're looking for them. I mean, if he had something as powerful as a dragon under his control, wouldn't he be doing something else with it other than leaving it around on guard duty in case someone were to happen to come around? I mean, think about it. Having a dragon here would draw a lot of unnecessary attention to this cave. If the last thing he wants is for people to know about this cave, why guard it with something that soon half the countryside would know about? For that matter, if he had a dragon around here, wouldn't we have heard something about it? I mean, in a forest this small, you can't keep a dragon the size of a house secret. And what would it eat? I haven't seen anything in here other than a few squirrels, have you? There isn't enough food around here for something that big. And look! It's not tied to anything. There's nothing keeping it here. If Voldemort could make dragons do what he wanted, without taking them prisoner, wouldn't he have already won the war?"

   "That's great, Hermione, but none of that changes the fact that there's a great, massive dragon right in front of us!"

   "I don't know Ron, I think maybe it does."

   There was silence for a moment before Harry asked "What are you saying, Hermione?"

   "I'm saying that it doesn't add up. Nothing about Voldemort keeping a dragon here makes any sense. I'm saying that there's no dragon here. It's some sort of magical illusion."

   Harry and Ron were quiet as they digested this. Finally -

   "You're bloody mental!" Ron erupted. "Look, Hermione, what you're saying is great and everything, really it is, but there's still a great big dragon in front of us! I can see it! I can hear it! I can smell it, and believe me, I really wish I couldn't do that."

   "Okay, so it's a really clever illusion, but we're talking about one of the greatest wizards who ever lived!"

   "You can say whatever you want. You can stay here and talk about reasons why the dragon isn't real until the sun comes up, for all I care. All I know is that, right here, right now, there's a dragon directly in front of me. Sure, maybe you're right. Maybe it is an illusion. But do we really want to bet our lives on that?"

   "Well, Ron, can you refute my arguments?"

   "Do I really need to? I mean, like I said, you can go on all you want, but there's still a dragon. It's still here. I don't know how else to put this. Here, look!"

   "Ron, wait!" Harry cried, but it was too late. Ron had already pitched a stone out into the clearing. It bounced off the dragon's tail with a thump before rolling away into the grass. The dragon did not stir.

   "There, see? The dragon's real. If it were an illusion, the stone would've gone through it or something."

   "Oh, yes Ron, real convincing. It's not as though we learned how to make illusions solid back in third year, or anything!"

   "Well what do you think we should do, then, Hermione? If you're wrong and the dragon's real, it will kill us as soon as we get near enough to wake it up!"

   "Well? If you're wrong, Ron, and we go away and start searching for another entrance - that may not even exist, I might add - we'll lose days, if not weeks, and Voldemort will end up killing us anyway!"

   "That's mental! You're mental!"

   "Mental? I'll show you mental!"

   "Stop it, both of you," Harry said sharply. He needed to think. The time to make a decision had come.

What's Going On

     This time, Ron and Hermione are bickering over something called epistemology. Epistemology basically asks the question: How do we know what we know? Or put another way, what is truth? Hermione and Ron both embodied two major perspectives here.

     Hermione was arguing for something called rationalism. Rationalism is the notion that the best path to truth is logic. Ultimately, our minds are the most important tool for determining what's true and what isn't. If something doesn't make sense, then it can't really be true. Perhaps the most well-known example of rationalism is the French philosopher Rene Descartes. His famous statement "cogito ergo sum," or "I think, therefore I am," was brought forth as an answer to the problem he posed, how can we have absolute knowledge? His answer: The only thing we can claim to have absolute knowledge of is the fact that we are thinking. Our senses could all be deceived, the evidence could be misleading, but the one thing we can know with absolute certainty is that we think. To say "I think that I don't think" is a contradiction, an impossibility. So to the rationalist, the surest source of truth comes through what our thoughts can logically determine to be true.

     To Hermione, it is completely illogical that a dragon could be there. So, since reason is saying one thing, and the evidence is saying something different, the evidence must be flawed, and our senses must be deceived - in this case, by a magic spell.


     Ron, on the other hand, was arguing more for something called empiricism. Empiricism is the notion that the best path to truth is experience. Logic can be flawed, and reasoning can be faulty, but the facts are the facts, and nothing can change that. One of the most prominent empiricists is British philosopher John Locke, who is often associated with the Aristotelean idea of "tabula rasa" - that is to say, that we come into this world as blank slates, and everything we know has to be taught to us. In other words, we develop knowledge through experience of the world around us: contrast this with the rationalist perspective that we come into this world with the ability to know all sorts of things, all we've got to do is use our brains to puzzle those things out logically.

     Ron claimed that he had knowledge of the dragon because he was experiencing the dragon's presence: He saw it, he smelt it, he heard it, and eventually he, in a way, touched it. He observed the dragon. To Ron, all the logic in the world isn't going to change any of that - you can't just logic away what your senses experience. You can't just logic away facts.

     Now, taken to extremes, both of those positions seem a bit silly. Rationalism, when taken to the extreme, claims that we can never really know or trust anything outside of what we can determine using logic alone; empiricism, when taken to the extreme, means that we can never believe anything that isn't directly communicated to us by our senses. So on one end, we've got a sort of extreme skeptic who constantly questions her senses; on the other end, we've got a sort of robot who just constantly observes and never draws conclusions. Immanuel Kant managed to synthesize the two positions - he looked at rationalism and said "Listen, logic is important, but if you never bother to root it in empirical evidence, it's all just going to seem fantastical. You can talk all you want about some grand theory that's logically airtight, but if the theory doesn't play out in practice, then you've got to revisit it," and he looked at empiricism and said "Evidence is awesome, really, it is, but if it's the only thing you trust, then you can never actually say anything meaningful. All evidence says is that every time you drop something from a tower, it falls. If you want to start talking about why it falls, or whether it will fall again next time, you've got to go beyond evidence and start using reason and logic."

    And this, of course, is the position most people take today. Hermione's logical conclusions were still based on empirical evidence (e.g. there weren't enough animals around to sustain a dragon's appetite), while Ron was still drawing logical conclusions from his evidence. So why bother discussing it? Well, because as we saw above, there's going to come a time when what is logically true and what the facts indicate to be true contradict each other - and which one you trust is going to have a huge impact on how you reason and interact with the world around you.


     A great place where this sort of conversation comes up is in crime dramas - think CSI, Sherlock, Law and Order, that sort of thing. A fairly common episode premise is that a crime is committed, but the evidence gathered doesn't make sense - the person who it's pointing to has no motive, nothing to gain from the crime, and everything to lose. Sometimes in the show, we'll see a rationalist. This might happen more in a show like Sherlock - the investigator might look at all the facts and say "Okay, these are the facts, but they're stupid facts," and go about investigating. Sure enough, by the end of the episode we've discovered that the person was framed - the facts point to them because the real killer specifically arranged it to look that way. On the other hand, we might see an empiricist. This might happen more in a show like CSI - the investigator looks at all the reasons why the suspect couldn't be the killer, but then looks at the evidence and says "It doesn't add up, but the evidence doesn't lie. He must be hiding something." Sure enough, by the end of the episode, we've discovered that the person with no motive and nothing to gain was actually the victim's ex.


     The point is that in the first scenario, the investigator says "If the facts don't make sense, then there's something wrong with the evidence," while in the second scenario, the investigator says "If the facts don't make sense, then there's something wrong with our line of reasoning." Ultimately, when push comes to shove, most of us will fall into one of those two categories: Do we trust what seems to make sense over what the facts indicate to be true? Or do we trust what the facts indicate to be true over what seems to make sense?


     Asking and answering these questions reveal a great deal about how we view the world around us.


     As a final note, sometimes empiricism is associated with the hard sciences, while rationalism is associated with things like mathematics and philosophy. It's very important that we have both in either camp! The hard sciences need people who are willing to stand up and say "I don't care what the evidence says, it doesn't make any sense! You need to reconsider your theory!" just as fields like mathematics or philosophy need people who are willing to stand up and say "I don't care how logical it is, it doesn't play out in reality! There's zero evidence to support it!" When we don't do this and cordon off rationalists and empiricists to separate disciplines, all of humanity is poorer for it.

Harry Potter and the Question of Ethics

   Last night the idea of using Harry Potter-themed short stories to explain philosophy came to me in a dream. That might be the strangest sentence I've ever written, but it seemed like it would be fun enough that it would be worth trying, no matter how it turns out.

The Story

   "Okay, so according to what we know, only someone pure of heart can get the horcruxes and defeat Voldemort."

   Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all sitting about Ron's bedroom in the Weasley home, discussing how they were going to vanquish the evil Voldemort once and for all.

   "But I don't understand," said Harry. "Didn't I already gather the horcruxes and defeat Voldemort?"
   "Harry..." Hermione gives an exasperated sigh. "We've been over this. That happened in the books -"
   "- and the movies" Ron chimed in helpfully
   "Yes, yes, and the movies. But that was different. This isn't a book -"
   "- or a movie"
   Hermione glared at Ron before continuing. "Or a movie. This is a hackneyed attempted to use a pop culture phenomenon to explain principles of philosophy."
   "Oh, I see," said Harry, who didn't. "Anyway, it says I've got to be pure of heart. How can anyone know if they're pure of heart?"
   "Oh, well that's easy," Hermione said. "You see, being pure of heart means that you've stuck to a certain set of principles. We've all got a duty to improve our lives and the lives of the people around us, so all we need to do is see if you've actually stuck with that duty or not. If you have, then you're pure of heart, simple as that."
   "That's stupid!" burst out Ginny
   "Fine then," Hermione said crossly, "If you're so smart, let's hear you tell us what it means to be pure of heart."
   "Well," said Ginny, "Obviously it's not about just sticking to a set of rules, or something" (at this Hermione glared, but said nothing). "Anyone can do that. Just doing what is considered good doesn't make you a good person. You have to be a good person! I mean, if someone were to live according to that duty, but the whole time they were just doing that so people would think they're good, when they're really plotting on enslaving everyone, would that make them pure of heart?"
   "Well, no, but -"
   "Exactly! Why you do things is just as important as what you do!"
   "Oh, you're both mental!" says Ron, shaking his head. "All you're doing is talking about what you do or why you do it. Who cares about any of those things? You can try to help someone out of duty, or because you want to be a good person, or whatever, but unless what you do actually helps that person, what difference does it make? Being pure of heart isn't about principles and character and all that sort of rubbish, it's about doing things that actually make the world a better place. If we listened to Hermione, we'd spend all our time trying to make sure we're helping people in a way that lines up with our duty, and if we listened to Ginny, we'd never help people at all! We'd just sit around all day hoping to become a better person!"
   "What! That's not - MUM!" Ginny hollered, "RON'S STRAWMANNING MY POSITION AGAIN!"
   "RONALD ARTHUR WEASLEY!" came a shrill voice from downstairs, "WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT MISREPRESENTING SOMEONE ELSE'S ARGUMENTS?"
   "That it's intellectually dishonest and is nothing more than manipulating people into thinking I'm right," parroted Ron while rolling his eyes. "But you see my point, don't you? Good actions and good character are all fine and dandy, but unless they actually produce good results, who cares?"
   "I care," said Ginny sharply. "I mean, really, Ron, where would you draw the line? If I were to become a murderer and go around killing people for fun, but only killed criminals, would you say that I'm pure of heart because the consequences of my actions are that there's less crime? What if I became a murderer to rid the world of tacky decorators? Would that make me pure of heart?"
   "What! No! Ginny, you know that the consequences have to be weighed against the actions! MUUUUM! NOW GINNY'S STRAW-"
   "Alright, alright" Ginny cut in. "I get it. But don't you see? There's no way of actually calculating whether the actions outweigh the consequences. It's all down to someone's opinion. Suppose there's a mouse in my room, and it's bothering me, and I don't really like chocolate frogs, so I use them to lure the mouse away and into a trap. But then you come up, and you didn't really care about the mouse but you loved chocolate frogs. I think it's a good consequence, because getting rid of a pest outweighs losing a bit of candy, but you're all upset, because to you there's no way giving up your favourite treat is worth being rid of a mouse that really wasn't bothering you anyway. Was that a good action or a bad action?"
   "I know you both think you're arguing against me," Hermione said smugly, "but really you're only proving me right. See, how do you develop a good character? And how do you bring about good consequences? Why, by doing good actions, of course. If you get into the habit of living according to the duty to do good, then over time that's going to make you into a person of good character. And if you base your actions on the duty to do good, then those actions are probably going to bring about good consequences. We have a duty to be honest with one another. Our entire society depends on it. If we hold to that duty, then we will become an honest person, and we'll never have to deal with the consequences of being dishonest. See? Like I said, it's easy."
   "No, it's not easy, Hermione," Ginny retorted. "Lying isn't always wrong. Not if you're doing it for a good reason. Like sparing someone's feelings! Or covering up for a friend. Lying's only wrong if you're doing it to hurt the people around you. Like I said, it's about intentions. Whether something's good or not is about why you're doing it."
   "Oh, so someone can do whatever they want so long as they're doing it for the right reasons! Yes, who cares about lying, lying's fine so long as it's a "Good Person" who's doing the lying. Well, Ginny, if someone doesn't live up to their moral duty to be honest, how could you call them a good person? How could you say 'Oh, that person lies all the time, but they mean well, so they're pure of heart!'"
   "I agree with Hermione. Being lied to is never a good consequence. No one enjoys it."
   "Thank you, Ron."
   "But I do think that sometimes there are consequences that are worse than being lied to, and that if the only way you can avoid this sort of consequence is through lying, then lying is the most ethical thing to do."
   "Ron, that's no different from what I'm saying!" argued Ginny
   "It's completely different from what you're saying! I'm saying that doing something that brings about a bad consequence is only okay if you can tangibly show that the bad consequence is still the best possible consequence! You can't - you can't just go around bringing about whatever bad consequences you'd like because you've got the best intentions at heart!"
   "Ron! Please. I'm not saying you can just do whatever you like. I'm saying that if you work on developing your character, and becoming a moral person, then your actions and the consequences of those actions will become moral as well."
   "Ginny, an action can't just become moral because of the person doing it. Either it's moral or it isn't. And Ron - I'm surprised at you! You know full well that there will always be a way out of a situation that doesn't involve shirking your moral duty! Doing something bad, even to bring about something good, is immoral."
   "No, Hermione, I don't 'know that full well.' Please explain to me how every situation ever will have a potential good consequence. Oh! That's right! Because you don't care about consequences! To you, holding to your moral duty, even if the consequences are awful, is good! And straying from that duty to bring about fantastic results is the pinnacle of evil, isn't it?"
   "Ron, you can't bring about good by doing evil!"
   "According to who?"
   "According to me, who says that actions and consequences are irrelevant! It's about who you are!"
   "Alright Ginny, how do you define who someone is without looking at their actions?"
   "Gee, I don't know, Hermione, how do you define their actions without looking at the consequences?"
   "Look, Ron, we've been over -"
   "Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!" Harry shouted. The room went silent. "Look, okay, thank you for your input, alright? I appreciate it. No, I do, really. Maybe we should just get going."

The Explanation

     The positions held by Hermione, Ginny, and Ron are the three major positions that comprise what is called normative ethics, which is the study of how people ought to act in order to be ethical. Now, the three positions presented here have been simplified, and are a little extreme - in real life, people tend to be more nuanced in their views, and might hold to a more complex system than what we've seen today. They also may draw from multiple or even all three positions. Nonetheless, people generally tend to gravitate towards one position in particular, which comes to be their main way of filtering life and understanding how they should act.

     Hermione was arguing something that amounts to what we call deontological ethics. This is essentially the idea that there is a certain standard of ethical behaviour, or perhaps a set of ethical rules, and to be ethical is to live your life according to those standards or rules. Perhaps the most well-known proponent of deontological ethics is the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who developed the notion of categorical imperatives, which can be understood as standards for our actions to be compared to,

     Ginny, on the other hand, was contending for something that's closer to what is called virtue ethics. Roughly speaking, virtue ethics is the concept that morality is about how you approach a situation, rather than about what you actually do. A major advocate of virtue ethics was the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who outlined this notion in the Nicomachean Ethics. The fundamental concept here is that there are a series of virtues which a person ought to cultivate. Actions alone are insufficient to determine morality, because they deal with only a small part of a greater whole. Rather, to the virtue ethicist, to possess these virtues is to be moral; to lack them is to be immoral. One way of looking at it is a reversal of the famous line from the film Batman Begins: "It's not what you do, but who you are underneath that defines you."

     Finally, Ron is advocating something that's called consequentialism. This is the idea that at the end of the day, being ethical is less about principles and more about results. The most popular position within consequentialism is something called utilitarianism, which is a view popularized by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham developed something called the Greatest Happiness Principle - the idea that the most ethical thing we can do is whatever brings the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people. Of course, later philosophers (most notably John Stuart Mill) would go on to give more nuance to this idea, helping to define exactly what we mean by happiness. So, to the utilitarian, the action itself isn't all that important, nor is the person doing the action - if that action brings more happiness to more people than other possible actions, it is therefore the most ethical action.


     So, to take the lying example used above, as a deontologist, Hermione sees lying as against the standard of ethical behaviour, and as a result, to her lying is categorically immoral - even if something good comes out of it. Ginny feels that the fact that someone has lied simply isn't enough information to determine whether a person is ethical or not. The entirety of the person must be understood in order to make an assessment there - we need to know their motives and intentions. Ron feels that as lying is not an action that will, in the long term, bring about happiness, lying is immoral - but also that there could be extenuating circumstances where lying could bring about more happiness than any other possible action, and that in such a case, lying would be moral. This differs from Ginny in the sense that to Ron, if lying brings the most happiness, then the person lying is moral even if they are doing it for malicious reasons; similarly, if lying does not bring about the most happiness, then the person lying is immoral even if they are doing it for selfless reasons.

     Hopefully this whole thing might prompt you to think and read a bit more about this whole ethics thing, and what it means.

Christian Corner

     Just a side note to those who are Christians - there is a tendency within Christianity to think that this sort of thing is a waste of time. Ask yourself, though, from a Christian perspective, what does it mean to be moral? Does it mean to act according to the standard God has laid out? Does it mean to become more Christlike? Or does it mean to act in whichever way brings about the Kingdom of Heaven? All three, certainly, but in what balance? When two of them seem contradictory or at odds, how is that resolved? On which side should we err? I would encourage my fellow Christians to not fall into the pit of thinking we know everything, but instead realizing that our faith doesn't do away with these questions, nor was it intended to. It merely casts them in a different light, giving a different focus.

Identifying Spiritual Abuse

     Spiritual abuse is a big deal. It is unfortunately common, potentially devastating, and often unnoticed. At best, it is a source of pain and alienation for many, religious or otherwise. Left unchecked, it can become the foundation of a manipulative and controlling organization that can sprout into a full-fledged cult. It is also an issue that, in my estimation, is only becoming more prevalent. This is an issue that is close to my heart because not only do I have a passion for ensuring that other people are not hurt in this way, as a pastor I also have a hefty obligation to make sure that I do not end up falling into it myself.

     But what is it?

     Defining spiritual abuse has always been a bit tricky because it's a bit of a nebulous concept. Fundamentally, I would term it as the use of spiritual or religious authority, real or otherwise, to intentionally or unintentionally coerce or manipulate others into obedience. While this does not include physical or sexual abuse, which are separate (albeit usually more important) issues, it is often used to defend these acts, or to deflect the fallout from them. It is also often used by an individual or group to consolidate power, to repress threatening elements, or to reform an entity in their image. Sometimes it is the product of good intentions - a pastor who is convinced that their vision for the church is what will best serve and help others and so will stop at nothing to implement it, or a teacher who is genuinely frightened that a particular doctrine or concept will corrupt people's minds and lead to evil - but the results are almost always the same: Hurt, brokenness, alienation, suffering, indoctrination, and more.

     So how do we spot it? Well, here are a few warning signs that a ministry may be spiritually abusive. If the ministry you're a part of meets even one of the below criteria, you may want to seriously consider leaving (Please note that the following is mostly a summary of what has been written by other, better thinkers, which I am presenting in the hopes of providing something that can be read and understood in fifteen minutes).

     1. The ministry is insular.

     Any organization or group is, by definition, exclusive. A group that includes absolutely everyone is just called "the human race." Additionally, any organization or group is going to feel that the values they have rallied around are the truth, even if that value is that we need to rethink what truth is. So, in moderation, exclusivity in and of itself is not bad - in fact, without it, we wouldn't be able to function as a society. Insularity goes a bit beyond being exclusive, though. A ministry that is insular doesn't just believe that what they teach is the truth, they believe that what they teach is the truth by definition because they are the ones teaching it. An insular ministry does its very best to silence outside voices and to ensure that its leaders are the only ones who can hold influence over its members. If you can look around your church and say that they are regularly trying to prevent or discourage you from learning about perspectives that they disagree with, you might be in a spiritually abusive ministry (if your church is encouraging you to sever contact with anyone who is not a part of that church, then you are definitely in a spiritually abusive ministry and need to get out immediately).

     2. The ministry does not tolerate questions.

     I always think it's sad and a little funny when Christians complain about how angry some atheists are. Some Christians will even go so far as to say that this is evidence that God exists, because if there is no God, then what are atheists angry at? Well, potentially a variety of things, but often the answer is because they grew up in a church where they were demonized and ostracized just for voicing the questions that were on their mind. A fear of or disdain for questions is another characteristic of an abusive ministry. Abusive ministries will often see questions as an attack on their authority, and therefore the person asking the question as rebellious. This can apply both to the beliefs and practices of the church - whether you are expressing skepticism over a particular doctrine or pointing out potential flaws or pitfalls in the church vision, abusive leadership will see them both as threats. If you can look around your church and see people being rebuked, reprimanded, or ostracized for asking questions, if you are being told that the pastor or leadership speaks on behalf of God, and/or if you are being expected to submit to them absolutely, you might be in a spiritually abusive ministry.

     (It's worth noting that there's some give and take, here. There's a difference between a leader being upset over you questioning them, and a leader being upset over you questioning them in a way that is malicious, obnoxious, or contextually inappropriate. Use common sense. If your pastor doesn't mind having their theology challenged but is upset that you interrupted someone else's wedding to do so, you might not be in a spiritually abusive ministry. Also, you might be a jerk).

     3. The ministry uses shame and fear as tools.

     If you've ever wondered why people would stay in spiritually abusive churches, this is often the reason. People are told that if they do not go along with what the leadership teaches or asks, they are holding the church back, or they are bad Christians, or they aren't Christians at all. People are told that if they leave the church, they are walking away from the truth, they will be led astray by the lies of other churches, they are turning their back on God and He will punish them for it. The ministry is made out to be unconditionally in line with God, and to oppose it is to oppose Him and invite His wrath. Of course, this can take on far more subtle tones, too. Consider the statement "If you have sex before marriage, you will forever be tarnishing your relationship with your spouse and with God." This is a problem, not only due to theological considerations, but also because rather than presenting a cogent argument on why sex should be saved for marriage, it simply attempts to use fear to manipulate people into agreeing. If the leadership does not tell you why they disagree with your words or actions but instead threaten you with the wrath of God or promises of dire consequences to come, if they label people or perspectives they dislike as Satanic or demonic, or if they equate your dedication to them (or lack thereof) with your dedication to God, you might be in a spiritually abusive ministry.

     4. The ministry depends on one person.

     This one may not always be a sign of spiritual abuse, but it should always be a massive red flag. At the very least, it creates the ideal atmosphere for spiritual abuse to emerge. This is also something that is becoming increasingly problematic as the internet means that big personalities become even larger, and people who used to preach to thousands are now preaching to millions across the globe. While there is nothing wrong with having a leader who is famous or simply charismatic, massive problems creep in when the ministry becomes built around them. The ministry will, intentionally or unintentionally, begin linking everything in with this leader until eventually virtually everything revolves around them. All of a sudden this leader has accumulated a massive amount of power, giving them a near-dictatorial reign over the church. Not helping the matter is the fact that, as stated above in #2, people who question this leader will be slowly (or not-so-slowly) phased out of the leadership in order to accommodate the new rising star. I am reminded of one famous pastor who, when confronted because of his corrupt financial practices, told his elders that they could not get rid of him because he was the reason why the church was so successful in the first place, and that if he left, the church would collapse around them and they'd have nothing anyway. If your church hinges around one person (and that one person isn't Christ, because I know someone out there would think "What if it's Jesus?" is a clever response), you might be in a personality cult - and those are hotbeds of spiritual abuse.

     Again, something that I cannot stress enough is that it is entirely possible that spiritual abuse is carried out with benevolent intentions. Someone might use scare tactics to control you because they are genuinely frightened and they don't want to see those fears come to fruition. Someone might honestly believe that what they believe is the truth and nothing but, and as a result questioning them is undermining the truth, and therefore misleading other people. A church might be insular simply because it isn't aware of other perspectives. But the fact of the matter is, abuse is abuse, and the motivation behind it doesn't change that for a second.

     It is my hope that these guidelines (which, as mentioned, are really just summaries of principles articulated by others) will help people to avoid and counteract spiritually abusive ministries, and will help church leaders purge their own practices of these habits.

     One final question: If you find yourself in a spiritually abusive ministry, should you get out of there, or should you stay and try to improve things? I wish there was an easy answer for this one. Unfortunately, that's a decision only you can make. It's going to depend on to what extent the church is abusive (e.g. getting upset at you for questioning the church vision vs. calling you a tool of Satan and removing you from leadership for questioning the church vision), as well as to what extent you personally are affected by the abuse.

Why the Words "Slippery Slope" Should Never Leave Your Mouth Again

When, way back in 2013, the American federal government legalized gay marriage, I breathed a silent prayer that this might end all the crazy talk about slippery slopes. Unfortunately, it didn't - and shame on me for not knowing better. The only change is that instead of people talking about all the assorted debauchery gay marriage could inevitably lead to, they've begun talking about all the assorted debauchery gay marriage will inevitably lead to.

This is terrible argumentation. There is absolutely no reason to ever appeal to the slippery slope. It is unconvincing, ineffective, and to be frank, more than a little dishonest. The slippery slope isn't just the province of crusty old conservatives, however (though they do seem to be trying their best to stake the strongest claim on it). You might hear someone complaining about how if the government censors certain content, it's a done deal that they will begin censoring everything else until we're in a Ray Bradbury novel, or that if we allow a certain voice prominence, it is a done deal that they will end up running our society. It is, unfortunately, a concept that rears its hideous, tortured head in all walks of life, regardless of politics, religion, nationality, or (most unfortunately) education.

So what is it?

The "slippery slope" is primarily the idea of trying to take two distinct concepts and present them as being inextricably linked. If one happens, then it is inevitable that the other will happen as well, it's only a matter of time. If we tolerate homosexuality, then it is inevitable that we will one day tolerate pedophilia. If you accept Marxism, then it is only a matter of time until you embrace Leninism. If we allow religious displays in our government buildings, it is a foregone conclusion that we will become a theocratic state. The general idea is that taking even one step down the slope will lead to you losing your footing and sliding down all the way to the bottom without any way to get back up, regardless of your intentions.

So why is it bad?

1. It is fortune-telling.

One of the biggest issues with the slippery slope is that it is impossible to prove. It is one hundred percent conjecture. You are not presenting a logical or coherent argument, you are predicting the future. The slippery slope is rarely presented alongside evidence, and even when it is, it is nearly impossible for that evidence to be conclusive. In other words, the slippery slope argument rarely amounts to anything more than a gut feeling. Even if the prediction ends up being true, it is still an entirely unhelpful argument because, again, you cannot satisfactorily establish causality.

2. It is a false dichotomy.

The slippery slope is what we call a "continuum fallacy." The idea here is that you're taking two concepts and saying that it's either one or the other, and ignoring the possibility that there could be some middle ground. To take the examples above, the slippery slope states that it is impossible for someone to accept homosexuality but reject pedophilia or to accept Marxism but reject Leninism. More nuanced forms of the slippery slope (and I use the term "nuanced" liberally) might suggest that it is possible, but logically inconsistent. This is simply false. I haven't got the space to go into why here, but suffice it to say that most issues are not all-or-nothing. It is, in actual fact, quite possible to go partway down the slope, put your foot down, and stay there without going any further. Ideas aren't a package deal. Everything can and must be evaluated independently, on its own merits.

3. It is fear-mongering.

Plain and simple. The slippery slope is not an appeal to logic. It is not an appeal to reason. It is an appeal to emotion. It says: "X is bad, and you don't want X to happen, do you? Well then you can't support Y, because Y will lead to X!" Rational creatures would look at that and say "Well, how do you know that Y will lead to X?" but no matter what we like to think of ourselves, we as humans are not purely rational creatures and so we might initially react with "What? X? Hang on, I don't want X to happen! Well we'd better stop Y, then!" Practice with critical thinking can help mitigate this, but I don't believe that anyone is ever truly free of it. If you want to rile up a crowd or get some strong reactions, the slippery slope is a great tool. But if you want to communicate in a way that is thought-provoking, logical, and charitable - avoid at all costs.

4. It is historically ignorant.

Very few issues are recent, and even if they've taken on a new shape or focus in the past few decades, it is likely that the topic has been raised at some point in the past in one form or another. This means that in almost any given topic, if the slippery slope does exist, we're likely already on it. If we're already on the slope, then this means that either we are already sliding inexorably towards the bottom, in which case there's nothing we can do about it, or it's possible for us to stop partway down and start to go back up, in which case the slippery slope becomes self-refuting because it's not actually slippery at all. Either way, declaring something to be a slippery slope seems to be a pointless endeavour.

A Note About Logical Fallacies.

Perhaps the single most important thing to remember about logical fallacies is that just because an argument is fallacious doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. Cause and effect (probably) exists, and concepts and events do lead in to one another. It is, for example, entirely possible that someone will begin reading Marx and as a direct result of reading Marx will begin to read Lenin and embrace Lenin's ideology. Another example is that it is a ridiculous argument to say "It is a slippery slope from political assassination in the Balkans to Germans and British using flesh-eating gas on one another" and yet the former event definitively led to the latter happening. See, the point of this post isn't to say that everything is separate and nothing is linked, but rather to say that just because a link can be drawn between two things doesn't mean that it should, and to provide a reminder that ideas must be evaluated on their own merits.

Also, logical fallacies exist to help us sharpen our logical skills, clarify our thoughts, identify pitfalls, and communicate effectively. A pet peeve of mine is when logical fallacies are reduced to mere points in a verbal fencing match. Pointing out a logical fallacy someone has committed is rarely the same as refuting their point. If your primary concern is to point out the logical flaws in the arguments of others, rather than to listen to and consider what they have to say, then you have missed the entire purpose of arguing in the first place. Pointing out tangential fallacies (that is to say, fallacies that are made in passing or that are irrelevant to the argument the person is trying to make) is almost always bad form and usually only serves to make you seem extraordinarily petty.

A Note to Christians.

I confess that I've got a particular agenda in writing this post, and it's got nothing to do with gay marriage or Marxism or whichever other examples I happened to use above. This is actually a part of a loosely-connected series of posts I'm doing to address what I believe to be one of the biggest problems in evangelical Christianity today: Gatekeeping. Evangelical gatekeepers attempt to keep their flocks "pure" by ensuring that only certain ideas and teachings are allowed in or out. Personally I find this sort of heavy regulation to be incredibly detrimental to honest pursuit of God and faith, but that's a conversation for another time. The slippery slope is, in my experience, a favourite tactic of gatekeepers when they cannot (generally due to political reasons) dismiss something outright as heresy. A person, book, sermon, concept, or organization that they dislike might be described as not necessarily wrong, but something that places people on the path to things that are wrong. The problem with this, of course, is threefold: First, the understanding of "wrong" or "bad" theology hinges upon the gatekeeper's definition - hardly an authoritative source; second, it makes the untenable assumption that accepting one will lead to accepting the other; third, it is an attempt to use fear to ensure that their beliefs are upheld. Examples of this might be New Calvinist organizations today who link gender roles with the Gospel and say that egalitarian gender roles are the first step on a slippery slope to undermining the core of the Christian faith, or groups within the Southern Baptists who feel that embracing Calvinism will inevitably lead to apathy in missions. Perhaps the most well-known example is groups like Answers in Genesis, who assert that denying a literal six-day creation necessarily leads to denying all of Christianity.

So if you are a Christian, and especially if you are a Christian leader, my plea to you today is this: If you disagree with a doctrine or teaching, then do so on its own basis. Please do not base your arguments on where the doctrine could potentially lead. That is intellectually dishonest, it is fear-mongering, and it is categorically harmful to honest discussion. Guys. I'm not saying you have to agree with or tolerate every opinion out there. I'm not even saying you need to be respectful of everyone - I mean, it'd be nice, but I know how hard that can be. All I'm saying is, please, enough with the drama. Hearing about how every little doctrinal difference is getting blown out of proportion to be an attack on the Gospel is exhausting. Enough is enough.

The Pagan Roots of Christmas, Part One: December 25th

Every year, at around this time, there is no small amount of commotion raised about the origins of Christmas. Especially in the United States, where there is much ado about the purported "War on Christmas," verbal battles are fought viciously over the meaning and history of Christmas. In particular, Christmas is often criticized because it's not really a Christian holiday at all, rather an amalgam of pagan practices that, throughout the centuries, have been grafted into Christian tradition. Truth be told, I find it a little confusing that this has become such a contentious issue - as far as I am aware, the church (by and large) has never denied these pagan roots to the holiday, and as a result it is not an argument so much as it is a statement of fact, and it is not a condemnation so much as it is the recitation of historical events. Nonetheless, this does beg the question: If Christmas draws so heartily from the waters of heathens, what are Christians really celebrating at this time of year? In response, one must note that these integrated rituals are neither the result of some sort of mysterious conspiracy nor an unusual coincidence, but rather were intentionally adopted by the Christians of the time, and by examining them we are able to better understand the history of the holiday and thereby discover the richness and power of the symbols associated with it.


It is almost impossible to be a Christian at this time of year without hearing about the fact that Jesus probably wasn't born on or even anywhere near December 25th, and that Christmas was just a pagan winter festival that was absorbed into Christianity. This, by the way, is completely true. While some have hypothesized that Jesus was born in the early springtime, in reality we have absolutely no idea. The Biblical account does not see fit to share it, and what clues it does provide are inconclusive at best. It is fair, then, to say that Christmas is, at least to an extent, "borrowed" from the Roman religion. However, this was far from an arbitrary decision. It has been argued that this was done to make Christianity more accessible to many Romans at the time (they wouldn't need to abandon their festivals, merely change the focus), and while I don't disagree with that statement, it's not the focus that I want to take.

December 25th was, in the Julian calendar, the Winter Solstice, hence its prominence in ancient Roman religion. Early Christians selected this date for Christmas because of the inherent symbolism: The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year. Every day after the Solstice, days become longer and longer, until the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. In other words, Christmas is the celebration of the triumph of light and the receding of darkness. December 25th symbolizes the core of Christianity: A God who loved the world to the point that He came down as a human, and that this event - called the incarnation - represents the end of sin and darkness' reign over the earth. From the moment Christ was born, the proverbial days have been getting longer, and the nights shorter. Hope is stirring.

This is a part of the reason why December 25th was chosen as the day to celebrate Christ. As a result, when we as Christians begin to ponder the question "Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th instead of something closer to when we think Christ was actually born?" an answer is that it's a reminder. It pushes us to take a step back and reflect on what Christmas means to the Christian: The arrival of hope and the ultimate triumph of light over darkness, grace over sin, and love over hatred. Though the night persists, and we falter, we rejoice in its inevitable demise, and the promise of Christ's return.


(As an aside, the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, is the Feast of St. John, or the celebration of John the Baptist. Just as how John the Baptist heralded the coming of Christ, so too does the Summer Solstice herald the coming of eternal light).


"And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever." - Revelation 22:5

How A Book Called Love Wins Completely Changed My Faith

Love Wins is a book I've never read, by an authour I'm not all that familiar with - and yet it's ended up completely transforming the way I view Christianity.

That may be a bit disingenuous. The book itself hasn't really impacted me at all. Instead, it was the response to the book that completely transformed me. You see, Love Wins was a pretty controversial book, because to some it seemed to be advocating the idea that everyone winds up in heaven, Christian or otherwise. Others argued that it was advocating for something else, while still others held that it wasn't advocating much of anything at all (like I said, I haven't read it, so I can't really weigh in). In particular, there was one point made in response by the first camp, over and over and over again, and that point was this: If everyone goes to heaven, then there is no point in sharing the Gospel.

When I heard this, it completely changed how I viewed my faith and my life. It changed it because I came to the conclusion that this claim could not possibly be true.

I generally consider myself a fairly ecumenical individual, but I was truly baffled by these claims. How could anyone say "Well, if we all end up in the same place when we die, what does it all really matter?" I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and cry out, Experiencing fellowship with God? Freedom from the bondage of sin? Membership in something greater than yourself, a divine movement to redeem the world and transform creation? Participation in an overarching teleology? Obeying the commission given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ? Do all these things mean nothing to you? Do you really think that the only thing Jesus was interested in was getting people into heaven?

Because here's the problem that comes from all this: To say that the Gospel is meaningless without the fear of hell is to say that until the moment that we die the Gospel is nothing more than a luxury. I have heard people argue that universalism is devastating for missionaries, because why go to the ends of the earth when those people are going to go to heaven anyway? I argue the opposite - if the notion of people going to heaven no matter what robs you of whatever fire you have to reach these people, you need to take a long, hard look at what you believe the message of Christianity to be.

I have written before - and no doubt will again - against the unhealthy fixation much of evangelicalism has on the afterlife. If the message of Christianity is true, it is worth incalculably more than a free ticket to heaven. This is how my faith was transformed - by examining the Gospel and assessing what it means in the immediate sense. The promise of Christianity is not some nebulous prophecy, some claim that at some point in the future we're all going to see God and enjoy eternal life. The promise of Christianity begins now. In a previous post, I argued that Jewish theology was and is fairly unconcerned with the afterlife, and that the first Christians seem to have been similar.

Perhaps it's time we take a page out of their book.


PS This is my first time blogging in like a year, and looking back on it made me realize that this blog has a super pretentious name. So I'm going to try and change it. More on this story as it develops.

Rethinking the Gospel

The word "Gospel" is perhaps one of the most loaded words used by Christians (we've got our own private language, "Christianese"). It generally has two meanings. The first of which is soulful, Southern singing with a raging organ and the shouting of "Amen!" from the hecklers. The second is, literally, "Good News." The second meaning, however, is what I plan to talk about here (I know, I know; some of you are already disappointed).

For those of you who aren't familiar with Christian theology, the "Gospel," or the Good News of Christianity, is the central aspect of the faith. It is the fundamental message that forms the core of Christianity and distinguishes it from all other religions. To many, it is the litmus test of Christianity: If you affirm the Gospel, then you are a Christian; if you don't, then you're not. Such an important concept, however, ends up getting caught up in a few different tangles.

For example, the Gospel tends to be understood in two different ways by two different groups (and bear in mind that in exploring these two different perspectives, the liberal and conservative perspectives, I can't help but generalize. No doubt there will be many people in either camp who disagree with the way I portray their Gospel, but I think the way I show it here lines up with the majority viewpoint).

To many liberal Christians, the Good News of Christianity is that Jesus came to earth, giving us instruction for how to live our lives and love one another. He taught us about sacrificial living, serving others, and turning the other cheek. The Good News of Christianity, to many liberals, is that we now have the perfect example to follow, in order for us to become better people and truly fulfill our potential.

I theorize that this Gospel arose out of a reaction to trends in more orthodox Christianity. Liberals might see more traditional Christianity as being too silent and apathetic on issues of social justice and too hateful in their preaching of a fire-and-brimstone "believe or go to hell" message. In all honesty, these criticisms seem just. After all, while conservative Christianity has, overall, done a great deal to assist the poor and hurting, in recent years especially it can often be guilty of being too internally-focused. The wants and needs of church members can often take priority over those outside the church, and accepting doctrine can seem more important than reaching others.

Similarly, the charge of conservative Christianity being too absorbed in talk of hell is also poignant. This is perhaps more forgiveable - it is certainly more understandable. After all, if there were a place of eternal damnation, would this not seem to be of the utmost importance? Should we not be warning everyone of it, so that they might escape it? Certainly such an approach could be considered fear-mongering, but would not such a label be worth it to rescue others? And yet, when one examines the Gospel shared by the Apostles and the first Christians, the afterlife seems to have been mentioned rarely, if ever (though, to be clear, they affirm its existence). The earliest Christians seemed to be drawn to Christ by neither promises of heaven nor threats of hell, but something different (but perhaps not entirely different. More on this later). So, then, if not preaching hell at every opportunity makes me a poor Christian, then at the very least I am in good company. 

However, while this liberal Gospel is not necessarily wrong in its criticisms, it nonetheless falls flat on its face and ends up being utterly impotent. Ironically, in an attempt to re-interpret Scripture in light of existentialism, it fails to address the deepest existential despairs of Man. Instead, it ends up serving a thin, moralistic soup of little consequence: In the end, it promises little, if anything, that cannot be found elsewhere. Moral teachers, life coaches, social clubs; each of these things can be easily obtained without having to drag religion into the picture. As the so-called "New Atheists" have been so eager to point out, it is quite possible for a person to live a good life and to love others without believing in God for a minute. What purpose, then, has such a Gospel? It is an antiquated ritual that has been made redundant by secular humanism. Again, there is an overwhelming irony: It was this accessible moralism that once caused the social elite to praise liberal Christianity as being the future of religion in a secular world, and yet it is this same moralism that has caused it to become utterly irrelevant; one of the fastest shrinking religious groups.

The conservative Gospel, however, isn't all that much better off. Conservative Christianity tends to make the Good News of Jesus primarily about eternal destiny. It is about God sending His Son down to earth on a rescue mission so that His creation might be able to join Him in heaven. It often leads off with questions such as: "Do you know where you're going to go when you die?" or "Are you a good person?" or "If you died today, what do you think God would say to you?"

Again, this approach has its positives. First, it captures the immediacy and urgency brought about by our species' tragic lack of longevity. Life could be cut short at any moment, and no one can say for sure how long they'll last. One could take perfect care of themselves only to suffer an unavoidable accident. The majority of people have lost loved ones and so know how sudden and how devastating this can be. And in such a world, would it not make sense to get directly to the point - that is, eternal destiny - as quickly as possible? If someone could die the next day without having heard the Gospel, is it not imperative that they be told as soon as possible, no matter the consequences?

This also gives lie to a bigger issue: We may talk all we like about love and self-sacrifice, but when the topic of the afterlife, a final resting place in which one might spend the rest of eternity, ears tend to perk up. After all, to wager against there being any sort of hell is a hefty gamble, even if one doesn't believe in that sort of thing at all. And so it is perhaps in response to this and the above that the conservative Gospel has become so distinctly focused upon one issue.

However, as I implied earlier, it too is not without its flaws. Some are relatively minor; for example, it connotes a rather self-centered view of the universe, as though it all revolves around us and our desires. That being said, as nearly every worldview is rather self-centered in one way or another, this is forgiveable. Much more egregious is its emphasis upon eternal destiny at the expense of all else. Converts are often told that all there is to Christianity is believing that Jesus died for their sins on the cross and now they are forgiven. However, any Gospel that begins and ends with the cross will be woefully lacking - such a Gospel brings about Christ-believers, but not Christ-followers. In other words, it is, to reference Matthew 28:18-20, baptising without making disciples.

Let us examine the book of Acts a bit deeper in this. Acts, as its name implies, is the account of the acts of the Apostles immediately following Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, specifically focusing on two men: Peter and Paul. What's interesting about this book is that while the message of the Gospel takes a central role as the Apostles and other church leaders share it with many, the Gospel message they seem to share is very different from the one that conservative Christians are putting forth today. For one thing, the notion of any sort of afterlife is only mentioned once, and that's in Acts 4:2, where it says that the Apostles Peter and John were proclaiming though Jesus the resurrection of the dead. The Gospel is shared many times throughout the book of Acts, so the fact that the afterlife is only mentioned once is significant. It shows, as mentioned above, that fearmongering was never a part of the early Christian message, that there was no part of it that said "Believe this or you will go to hell!" Nor is heaven ever used as a sort of bribe to attempt to goad people into accepting their beliefs. Interestingly enough, the cross is rarely brought up, as well. The cross is the centre of the conservative Gospel, and yet it seemed to play a very minor role in the message shared by the Apostles - when it is spoken of, it is shared as being the way through which Jesus died, rather than due to its power for salvation. Indeed, even forgetting the Gospel for a brief moment, as soteriology alone (soteriology meaning the study of the understanding of salvation) the cross is woefully insufficient as it omits some of the most important aspects of salvation, including the resurrection. Despite all this, how many of you who are from conservative Christian circles believed while growing up (and perhaps even still believe now) that the Gospel is: "Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you can go to heaven?"

It's important to stop here and clarify one thing, however. We know from their epistles (letters) that the Apostles Peter and Paul affirmed the existence of the afterlife and the importance of the cross in Christian soteriology. I am not attempting to undermine either of those teachings - they are important. But a Gospel consisting of those two elements alone is sorely lacking, bereft of the majority of the Good News that Scripture attempts to convey.

And of course, there is the matter of the "sinner's prayer," this bizarre notion that if you pray the words "God, I am a sinner, but you have forgiven me, amen" or something similar, you are a Christian, regardless of what you actually believe or how you act, etc.

The problem I have with both of these Gospels, astute readers may have noticed, is not that they're wrong, but rather that they're incomplete. Both the statements "The Gospel is that Jesus came to exemplify love" and "The Gospel is that Jesus came to die for your sins" contain a great deal of truth to them. If they both contain truth, one might then wonder, would not a more acceptable Gospel message simply be the marriage of the two? To suggest that Jesus came teaching us how to love, and eventually exemplified this love in the utmost by dying on the cross for us? Surely that would be a satisfactory summary of the Christian message? It's not. But it's getting there.

Here's how I would frame the Gospel. Bear in mind that I am still working through this myself, and that if the Gospel is as transcendent a truth as we Christians believe it is, then by definition it is something that we will not fully grasp and something that we will continue to grow in our understanding of with each passing day.

The Good News of Christ is that God became man and walked among us in fulfilment of the covenants God made with Israel, establishing His kingdom here on Earth, a kingdom not of political power or of geographical boundaries, but one of love and grace, justice and peace. The seeds of this Kingdom were planted in the Old Covenant; the Kingdom was birthed when Christ came to Earth, showing us through word and action how a member of this Kingdom ought to live, through loving others and living good and upright lives; the Kingdom was legitimized when Christ was killed on the cross, was buried in the ground, and rose again three days later, signifying the end of the harsh slavery sin, darkness and death maintained over the human race; and the Kingdom will one day be consummated, or fulfilled, in which all darkness and evil and death will finally be fully defeated and the peace and love glimpsed briefly today will become a universal reality. Membership to the kingdom is extended to all who would desire it, that they might believe in the person and actions of Christ and enter in, experiencing powerful and transformational relationship with the Triune God, living lives that mimic the example laid out by Christ as best they can while partaking in the defeat of sin from Christ's death and resurrection, being fully forgiven by the mercy of God the Father.

(And of course, it is important to note, the example of Christ is showing love to everyone, not just those others who believe what you believe. It is not about blockading yourself in a community of people who are like you, but rather extending yourself to show love to people of all kinds)

I would consider this to be a working, albeit still slightly incomplete, understanding of the Good News of Christianity, the truths that bind all Christians together, and the truths that, should one embrace, makes one a Christian. Our understanding of things is always limited, and we should always be seeking to question our beliefs and develop our comprehension of our truth-claims. I think that this Gospel message validates that: For example, is the consummation of the Kingdom the literal end of the world, or something symbolic? Does the cross work through penal substitutionary atonement? Is it a matter of single imputation, double imputation or no imputation at all? Do we choose the Kingdom, or does the Kingdom choose us? (If you don't know what any of that means, don't worry). A person might take any position on any number of those issues and still affirm the statement above. Faith, like all other things in this world, needs to be subject to constant questioning in order to remain authentic, and as the Gospel is the centre of our faith, it is something that needs to be put under constant scrutiny.

More importantly, however, I believe that the above Gospel message is faithful to all aspects of Christ's live, rather than focusing exclusively on His ministry or His death. It attempts to articulate the Gospel message as expressed by the entirety of Scripture. Most importantly, I believe, it frames the Gospel as something tat both promises freedom from the great existential darkness of mankind as well as pushing for the necessity of Christians to emulate Christ in all that they do. Of course, we fall short on a regular basis. But it's a process of picking yourself up off the floor every time you're a jerk or unloving, and growing from it, trying harder next time. That's part of what the forgiveness mentioned above is all about.

If you desire freedom from the darkness within, if you seek deliverance from the meaninglessness of existence, if this message stirs anything within you, then I sincerely encourage you to explore the truth-claims it makes. If you are a Christian who feels that the message you have believed in is lacking, then again, I encourage you to explore the Gospel that I have posited here. You are, of course, free to message me, and I'm more than happy to talk to anyone about this (including if you're a conservative/liberal Christian who thinks that what I'm saying is bunk).

If you want to read more about what I'm saying, I've arrived at my own understanding of the Gospel through reading the works of theologians like N.T. Wright, Dallas Willard and Scot McKnight. McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel is a good place to start.

Jesus, Lazarus and the Existential Plight of the Suffering Man

I was asked to read a passage of Scripture at a service in New York some time ago and doing so pushed me to think about it a fair bit. The story was of Lazarus, from John 11 (here's a link:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2011&version=NIV). If you're not familiar with the story, or need a refresher, I recommend you read through it before we continue.

Now, if I were to write a paper on this passage, I would probably start by looking at its context. I would try to figure out how it relates to the chapters surrounding it, the Gospel of John as a whole, and what message the authour was trying to send by including this story. But I'm not going to do any of that, because instead of the main narrative of the passage (which I would say ties in to the idea of death and resurrection through Christ), I want to look at something else. A back alley, if you will. I don't believe that what I'm going to say is the central intended message, but it's something I find very interesting, and something the passage speaks to quite remarkably nonetheless.

What I want to remark on is the incredible humanity we see exhibited in the reaction of those who interact with Jesus. What is of specific interest to me is verse 37, where some of the onlooking Jews scoff at the presence of Jesus, saying: "Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" I find this striking because of its rather pointed honesty - it is real. Similar is Martha's accusation of Jesus, echoed by her sister Mary: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

These accusations, these confessions of hesitation, of doubt (even though Martha's was followed up by an expression of faith) appeal to me so much because they seem very much the sort of statement you or I might make in this sort of situation - and though we as the readers can see that Jesus already knows what will happen, it is still all too easy to put ourselves into the shoes of the questioning onlookers (and note that Jesus does not rebuke them for asking these questions). This story, in other words, has buried within it a reflection of the interaction between the divine and the human during times of great trauma and sadness.

Consider how one might respond to tragedy today. We, too, would level these same accusations. We too would say "God, had You desired, You could have stopped that hurricane," or "God, You are capable of great power, could You not have healed that dying child?" Ultimately, we challenge God's goodness, for we see it as contradictory to our own idea of how a good God ought to act. This is addressed in the Bible itself, in the book of Job (and elsewhere), where in response to the titular character's questioning of the evil that has fallen upon him, God's answer essentially boils down to: "I am God. I am in control. I know what I'm doing. You do not need to know why these things have happened the way they did. Just trust in me." This is something that is logical to us: The concept of information being on a need-to-know basis is something that most of us understand. If someone is fired from their job, would it be right for their co-worker to write the CEO and demand to know the reason why this person is dismissed, or how much they received in their severance package? I think fundamentally, we all know deep down that "Tell me because I'm curious" isn't exactly an authoritative imperative, no matter how much angst our externally-imposed ignorance might cause us.

Yet as much as it might be logical, that doesn't mean we have to like it, and that is the true problem that intrigues me. The unfortunate reality is that as much as the statement "Shut up, don't ask questions and trust God" might have some small metaphysical validity to it, it completely violates who we are as human beings. We may not have the right to question God, but question Him we shall regardless. It is who we are. In fact, if we as humans are truly imago dei (that is to say, in the image of God), then it seems logical that this questioning is not only something He expects, but something He designed - this is preferable, at least, to the alternative, which suggests that man's tendency to ask questions is a product of his sinfulness and that his natural state is to gaze apathetically at the world around him, bereft of anything resembling wonder or curiosity. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is far better to question God in the face of tragedy - there is little more disturbing than one who would regard a traumatic event with complete placidity, and to give such an empty and unperturbed platitude as "It doesn't bother me because God's got it under control" in response to death and destruction is, in my view, evidence of a heart that is calloused and blasé, rather than faithful and rooted in love. A proclamation of faith is one thing. For that faith to give birth to apathy is quite another.

Yet, despite all of this, a thirst for knowledge and an innate curiosity do not necessarily equate to the right to the answers. That God created us as questioning beings does not mean for a second that He is bound to give us all the answers. And so this leaves us left trapped in a tension: There are questions which we may not be able to find the answers to, yet which when left unanswered fill us with angst and doubt. And this is the second part of why this story so deeply intrigues me, as it shows Christ's response to this. Let us examine a couple of the more interesting points.

A Loving God Is A Mourning God

This story is notorious for containing the shortest verse in the English Bible: "Jesus wept." These two words are so loaded with meaning that one could easily fill a library attempting to understand them, so I will try to keep things concise. The basic meaning we can take from this is that even with the full knowledge of what will happen, with the complete understanding that Lazarus will be raised from the dead, Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, was still so overwhelmed that He broke into tears. Tears of sorrow over the the tragedy that might have led to Lazarus' death, tears of sympathy for the despair that might be overwhelming his loved ones, perhaps even tears for death in general, and the tyranny it holds over mankind - we do not know for sure, but the context makes these likely. Some commentators have suggested that they are tears over the ignorance of the onlookers, that they would dare to question Him, but as this is incongruent with His lack of rebuke and His decidedly non-weepy approach to the many religious leaders who verbally assaulted Him, this seems highly unlikely.

The point of all this is that Christ shares in our sufferings. He is not an aloof God who watches without caring, nor is He a stern taskmaster who harshly reprimands us should our faith falter. Instead, He is a God who weeps, who mourns. Even though He knows the happy ending, knows how every smidgen of evil will be redeemed for good, how every tear will be dried and every wound healed, He still weeps, that the evil happened at all - or perhaps for other reasons, for what man could know the mind of a deity?

Through all this, we know that we are not alone in our sufferings, that though our spirit rails against the dark void of tragedy, divinity is united in us with this. It is also a stark reminder that the future redemption of tragedy does not negate the present suffering felt by it. It emphasizes the hollowness of such platitudes as "Don't cry, things will get better;" if Christ Himself wept at Lazarus' grave, in the full knowledge that Lazarus would shortly be among the living once again, who are we to reprimand our brothers and sisters for their grief? With such divine precedent established, one cannot ever hope to link sorrow or mourning with a lack of faith in God's goodness. Do not become ruled by grief, but do not fear it, either, for in it, we experience a glimpse of the divine.

To Know the Divine Is To Question the Divine

It is imperative to note in this passage that at no point does Jesus rebuke those who question him. I touched on this above, but here we shall go into greater detail, exploring what, precisely, it might mean. First, it is important to underscore the fact that Jesus did not take offence to their questioning. This is encouraging in one way, since, as I pointed out above, these are often the questions we ask. It is helpful to know that God understands the bafflement and anger we can feel in the face of darkness, and that these are not always items to be rebuked. The experience many may have with the church is that it is an environment in which questions are not tolerated, yet this seems to run contradictory to the actions of Christ. Consider the follow passage, taken from early in the same Gospel:

⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote —Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

⁴⁶ “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

(John 1:44-47)

Notice that Nathanael, upon hearing the Good News of Jesus, is skeptical - he does not believe. He offers an expression of disbelief (that may or may not double as a minor witticism). What is important, however, is Jesus' response: He praises Nathanael. He does not offer the response that some of us might expect; that is to say, He does not condemn Nathanael for his disbelief. Instead, we see a fascinating and revolutionary scene: Jesus commending the skeptic.

I believe that within these two scenarios there lies a deep, fundamental truth with regards to man's relationship with God: Questioning God is a necessary step in knowing God. Consider the interaction between Philip, Nathanael, and Christ. Philip brings the Good News, Nathanael hears it but does not believe it until an encounter with Christ Himself. This points to a large flaw, I believe, in the modern method of evangelism, in which one (the Philip) simply pushes the Good News upon the other (the Nathanael), refusing to cease until the latter yields and accepts. Compare this to the story above, in which the actual Philip merely tells Nathanael of Christ. Nathanael's conversion does not come from persuasive methods or from winsome argumentation, but from his meeting with Christ. It is true that there are many instances in Scripture of individuals being won over as soon as they hear the message, but this is not always the case. In fact, we need to understand that in attempting to force someone to accept the Good News, we are not doing them a favour, even if they end up agreeing, for we rob them of any existential wrestling with Christ. Small wonder that there are so many Christians whose commitment is marginal, who are bereft of Love! For they have not truly encountered Christ, but rather have only known Him vicariously through those well-meaning souls who have pushed their knowledge of Him upon others.

Philip merely informed Nathanael of the Good News; the rest was between Nathanael and Christ. It is my opinion that this is what our evangelistic paradigms are lacking: The opportunity for the man as an individual to wrestle with the Divine. Instead we expect - nay, we demand a decision, as soon as possible, denying the process of the individual's coming to reckoning with Christ, and as such hamstringing his faith.

These two stories outline one truth: Questioning God is an integral part of knowing Him. We see it from both camps; from Mary and Martha, who already knew Christ, and from Nathanael, who did not. If one is a Christian who does not question, one's knowledge of Christ will always be curtailed. If one is an unbeliever who does not question, one's conversion, should it happen, will be similarly lacking.


These two principles - the divine validity of grief and the existential imperative of questioning - are foundational to the development of authentic relationship with God. As such, what I am proposing is for us as a faith community to seriously examine and consider our vocabulary and ideals when it comes to suffering and uncertainty. Too often we dismiss both of these, offering superficial platitudes with a side order of insincere sentimentalism; instead, however, we must recognize that the faith that does not mourn and that does not question is no faith at all.

In Defence of Escapism

I'm writing this post in what is an attempt to offer a thoughtful response to the great deal of anti-video game rhetoric that has been floating around evangelicalism, especially neo-reformed circles.

First, I want to establish where they're coming from. The issue that many of these pastors, speakers, authors and bloggers bring up is not that video games contain some intrinsic evil or that they're turning children into mass-murderers - no, those are objections that stem mostly from the fundamentalist camp, and seem to have few champions outside of that. Rather, their criticism is that they have become a time-sink that threatens to paralyse a generation. Which generation is unclear - they seem to believe those primarily being undermined by video games are young men, despite the fact that the average gamer is somewhere in his/her early 30s and nearly half of them are female (http://www.onlineeducation.net/videogame) (as an aside, here's a fun fact for you: there are slightly more gamers above the age of 50 than there are below the age of 18).

But the actual threat of the video-gaming epidemic is not what I'm writing about. I will concede that they are certainly sucking up an excessive amount of many people's time, young men included. I myself am no stranger to this: While I enjoy video games as a way to unwind, relax, and de-stress, I confess that I can take that too far. Heck, I remember when I was in my second year of college, studying for an exam one night, and my roommate handed me a copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon. All of a sudden it was three in the morning and I still hadn't done any studying - though I had built some pretty awesome theme parks, if I do say so myself. One even had an underground train people could take to avoid crowded areas. But I digress - the point of this is that I, too, have plunged hours into video games that I won't get back, hours that could have been spent on more productive things.

But like I said, this isn't what I'm talking about. Obviously with these criticisms came counter-arguments, people saying "Well, sure, we waste time on video games. How is that any worse than people from your generation (because it's always a generational criticism) who waste time doing other things? Our fathers who spend afternoons watching football or our mothers who spend hours a week curled up in bed with romance novels?" And of course, the answer was, "Well, uh, it's not." So now there's a bit of a crusade not only against video games, but against escapism in general - against doing things that take away time from your role as a man of God (because it is always men who bear the brunt of these attacks).

The truth is, though, is that this isn't anything new. It's been kicking around for a while. We've seen it in music, too. There are very few people today who would consider rock and roll to be the "Devil's Music" -:and even those who do usually do so rather quietly and aren't taken all that seriously - but this has been replaced with an entire new approach that argues much the same thing, but in a subtler way: "I don't think there's anything wrong with rock/[insert genre here] music, I just don't see why I'd listen to it when I could be listening to music that praises Jesus and builds up my relationship with Him" - as though music is only worship if its accompanied by some doggerel about how Jesus is your boyfriend! But that, too, is a topic for a different time.

What I'm getting at is this: There is a growing trend within evangelicalism (and again, perhaps within neo-reformed circles in particular) to dismiss anything that does not, as they put it, contribute directly to the Kingdom's cause. There's a couple of flaws in that line of thinking, which I'll explore in a bit, but first, let's look at the results. I realize this conclusion might offend some of you and anger others, but I think it is an observation that is accurate, and that observation is this: The evangelical church is a cultural wasteland. Perhaps this is a recent development, perhaps it has always been such - I would not venture to comment on that at this point in time. It's also a little unfair, since America itself has become a bit of a cultural wasteland in recent years, and its possible that the church's shortcomings in this area are simply reflective of the surrounding society. I don't think so, though - or at least, I don't think that's the whole story.

This is not, it is important to point out, an observation limited to those outside or on the fringe of evangelicalism, either. This is an issue that seems to me to be in constant discussion within the church. "We need to bring excellence to the arts!" is a common rallying cry in music and art ministries across the continent. There seems to be this understanding that we as Christians need to be producing higher quality art. Here's a question: What comes to mind when you think of Christian art? We're not exactly known for our creative output; our music is often derided as being generic and simplistic, our attempts at film are generally discarded as being cheesy and having low production values, and our recent literature is criticized for lacking substance or subtlety (I'm not even going to mention Christian video games). These criticisms do not apply across the board, and there are certainly plenty of exceptions in all three categories. Moreover, many of those criticisms can also be applied to their secular counterparts (anyone who's listened to the Top 40 or flipped through the New York Times bestselling list recently will know that humans don't need the church's help to create bad art). But the point is that even by the people creating Christian art, there's a sense that things could be better. "After all," they say, "We've got the greatest inspiration, don't we? Our art is fueled by the love and grace of an omnipotent God, who created the very concept of beauty. Why, then, aren't we creating the best art?" Why indeed.

I have narrowed down the possible explanations to one culprit, and that is this: In the church, art is seen as a tool. This is where things get tied back together with the whole "Everything must advance the Gospel!" attitude that I mentioned up above somewhere. See, the issue is that because the Gospel (the Gospel being understood here to be the message that Jesus died on the cross for your sins - I am familiar with the arguments of N.T. Wright and others that this is a very incomplete understanding, and what's more I rather agree with him, but this is the definition, I think, that would be most prominent in evangelicalism) is the centre of Christianity, there is therefore seen to be a need for all Christian art to point to the Gospel. If there isn't some sort of prominent indication of salvation through Christ in the art (or of God's glory, if you're a new Calvinist), then it is a waste of time and is not worthy of support. In other words, many Christians refuse to accept art unless it preaches at them. After all, we are here to share the Good News, are we not? And isn't anything that doesn't do that mere distraction, not worthy of our time?

I'm not so sure. First, this image of life paints a picture of the Kingdom of God being little more than a dull, dreary sweat-shop, where men and women with neither names nor faces toil endlessly to make certain  that enough Gospel messages are rolling off the assembly line to be delivered to everyone. It's a bleak portrait that prizes utilitarianism and functionalism ahead of everything else. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for that mentality. There is a need to share the Gospel, don't get me wrong. But I think this negates an important part of who we are as human beings: We are tainted, even corrupted by sin, yes. This is evidenced every day in a million different evils we commit. But, underneath it all, we bear God's likeness. Even in the midst of the darkness that writhes inside us, we carry the spark of the divine. We are, at our core, in His image - and, like Him, we are creators.

Of course, humans can't truly create. As I said in my last blog post about jazz, our creation is more synthesis - we take ideas that we have already encountered, and fuse them together into something new. But the point is that this act is not merely distraction, but that there is within the work of art a celebration of who we are - an affirmation of our status as the creation of God. Surely not all of art is a positive creation, and there is some of it that is detestable by the standards of anyone and more that is so to the average believer. Yet it remains that much of it is not. In other words, what I am arguing is that art is either creation itself or the enjoyment of another's creation, and as a result it is the revelling in this divine spark within us. Art for art's sake is not an empty proposition, but is actually an expression of our status as children of God.

"This is all well and good," some of you might be saying, "but even if it were true, how useful is any of this if the Gospel isn't a part of it?" I might reverse the question and ask: How powerful is the Gospel if this divine spark is never witnessed? Of the many songs being mass-produced to share the Gospel, of the cookie-cutter paintings of Jesus (with long hair, white skin, and a gentle expression, of course) being handed out at conferences like mints, how many of them instil within the partaker a sense of the divine, of transcendence, of there being in creation something more than mere man?

Let me put it all in a nutshell: The fundamental flaw of Christian art isn't that the artists themselves are unskilled, because while many of them certainly are, there are also a number who are quite capable. The problem is that it's seen primarily as a marketing tool, Advertisement for Jesus, and therefore seems cheap and superficial. I would instead suggest that artists ought to create whatever they feel compelled to create, to fashion whatever their muses dictate. After all, if Christianity is true, then all beauty ultimately points to God, and if it is not, then creating art that promotes the Gospel is a waste of time anyway. This, however, is not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that we, as a church, must seek to encourage art, even if it doesn't have obvious allusions to the Gospel, even if it doesn't preach what we want it to preach - even if, heaven forbid, it's made by non-believers.

So let's tie this all back up to the opening paragraphs. What we as a church need to begin doing, I think, is accepting and appreciating beauty that doesn't immediately denote the Gospel. I know there was some criticism when the game Skyrim came out: "They're spending time in awe of a virtual world" people complained, "instead of being outside in awe of God's creation!" But is not this imaginary world every bit as miraculous as the natural one? Not as beautiful, certainly, nor as large or deep or full or fulfilling. But it is a celebration of the divine spark and a testimony to our role, however much some of us may have forgotten it, as the bearers of God's image.

In closing, escapism in general and video games in particular do pose a very real threat - one can become easily addicted to them, and become so deeply embroiled in them that commitments and relationships suffer. But, should these impulses be mastered, escapism also provides the opportunity for enrichment, for development, and for sheer revelling in the incredible breadths of the imagination and this God-given spark - and to provide perspective, thinking how much this pales in comparison to God's own creative ability.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and remember that beauty is every bit as much a part of the Kingdom of Heaven as truth