We Need to Change

According to the latest George Barna study (found here), 80% of Americans are "self-identifying Christians."  The study shows some possibly surprising qualities of this group.  54% of them do not read their Bible outside of an organized worship service or Bible study, 53% do not attend church on a weekly basis, 78% are not involved in volunteer work at a church, 82% do not attend Sunday School, and 31% have not attended any kind of church service in the last six months.  The most worrisome statistic is that only 48% of self-identifying Christians can be termed as "Born Again" Christians (Barna's term, referring to those "who contend they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today, and who also believe they will enter Heaven solely because they have confessed their sins and have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior").  

With the advent of postmodernism and the increased openness to spirituality, the thought among the theological talking heads was that the Church had a great opportunity to introduce people to Christ.  But if this Barna study is accurate, the Church has lost some serious ground in the past 20 years.

There is no doubt that part of the problem can be attributed to a loss of confidence in the Bible.  Only 43% of  today's self-identifying Christians have a strong confidence that the Bible is accurate in the principles it teaches (please note the difference between this and the doctrine of inerrancy).  One wonders how one can be a follower of Christ when one lacks confidence in the book that reveals his person and work.

We could simply attribute this to the fact that there are a lot of people out there calling themselves Christians who really have no concept of what the term actually means.  However, we must realize that all of these numbers dropped except for the number of those who could be described by Barna as "Born Again" (that number increased by 7%).  In fact, the drop in religious behavior among "Born Agains" was more steep than the larger pool of self-identifying Christians--14% drop in Sunday School attendance, 12% drop in volunteerism, 9% drop in Bible reading, and 7% drop in weekly church attendance.  So "Born Agains" increased over the past 20 years, but their involvement in Christian activity declined more sharply than did that of the "nominal" Christians!

The drop in Sunday School attendance should not be as alarming as the other indicators, due to the shift from Sunday school to small groups.  But the rest of the data points to an overall malaise affecting the Church here in the United States.  What is the culprit?

People give me many reasons for why they don't invest in things like Sunday school/small groups, church attendance, volunteering, and Bible intake.  But for the most part, it boils down to choices.  People today have so many options at their fingertips, and generally speaking, priorities are not stacked according to what will provide the most spiritual benefit.  Instead, whatever will provide instant and/or material gratification makes it to the top of the list, and if church activities can be squeezed in, well and good.  If not, it's no big deal; God understands we lead busy lives, right?

I think there's a definite correlation between the lack of interest in spiritual things and the sharp decline in volunteerism.  But we also need to understand that we live in a consumer culture. In such an environment, everyone's looking for the best "product" out there; but today no one's willing to sacrifice in order to improve their church's "product."  Thus smaller churches continue to grow smaller, as less people volunteer, more people want a better product, and the staff, for the most part, is left trying to do everything and meet every need on its own (and ends up doing a poor job).  Also note that this says nothing of the struggles a small church has in being other-oriented in its efforts; if people aren't willing to serve to benefit themselves, they are even less willing to serve to meet the needs of "outsiders."

I don't think that watering down doctrine is the answer.  I doubt that making hell disappear, ignoring or even embracing sin, or marketing a cheap grace free of all responsibility will cause of any of these trends to reverse themselves.  In fact, if I were a betting man, I would wager that such tactics have contributed in part to what we are seeing take place.

At the same time, I don't think the answer is to make Christianity into a legalistic religion emptied of its power.  This was the approach the Pharisees took in their zeal to keep Judaism pure, and it completely backfired on them.  When our devotion to Christ becomes a "have-to" rather than a "want-to," we've missed the point.

More than anything, I think we need to relearn the secret joy of grace.  Perhaps a big reason for the church's funk here in America is that many of us simply feel we are entitled to the blood of Christ.  (After all, we've spent all of our lives listening to the culture tell us how we deserve anything we want.)  When we approach the cross with a sense of entitlement, it is easy for us to cavalierly give God thanks and go about our business.  But when we realize that what we are receiving is so far out of our own power to earn, it generally results in an outpouring of thanks and praise, and we want to draw closer to Christ and actively share him with others.

If we can only grasp a little bit of the significance of God's grace, it would change our perspective.  Parents would be more interested in the likelihood of their children becoming followers of Jesus rather than in the very slim chance of them becoming professional athletes.  People who have only Sunday to sleep in might be more willing to get up for church and take a nap in the afternoon.  Those who are too busy to read the Bible or join a small group or Sunday school class might realize that some of their other activities aren't nearly as profitable.  I know that all of us are busy people, but all of us have a choice in what makes us busy.

I have found that practicing the Christian faith requires us to walk the tightrope of responsible grace.  It is a balancing act between legalism and cheap grace.  Only keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, can save us from doing more than the occasional misstep to the right or to the left.  We've been given the greatest gift the world has ever known; it is a shame to abuse it or neglect it.

But understand this:  I'm not talking to those who are too busy to invest in Christian gatherings or practices.  I am talking to those of you who are there week in and week out, who do show up when volunteers are called for, who are investing in the spiritual disciplines.  I'm asking you to commit to these things for the joy of them, for like it or not, those around us will not be moved to do what we do unless they see that these practices are making a positive difference in our lives.  Postmodernism may not have brought people flocking back into the church, but it has definitely ousted the notion that people ought to do things simply because that's how things are done.

I'm calling you to do these things for the joy of them, and to share your joy with those around you.  I'm calling you to recapture the joy and wonder of God's grace.  We need to change in order that those around us can see the change in us, want it, and commit to the things that will help them change, too.

A Good Question: The Problem of Natural Evil

Forty-five seconds.  That was the amount of time it took seven days ago for life to be permanently altered or even taken away for the citizens of Joplin, Missouri.  That is how long it took for the most deadly tornado in National Weather Service records, a F5 twister ¾ of a mile wide and packing 200-mph winds to pass from one area to the next as it sliced through the heart of the town known as the “Crossroads of America.”  It destroyed over 300 businesses, over 8,000 structures, and rendered a 9-story hospital unusable.  The estimated cost of the devastation is between one and three billion dollars.  Even more tragic is the cost of human suffering:  at least 139 people were killed in the storm, 105 are still missing, and nearly a thousand people injured.

            Survivors who pulled themselves out of shelters, basements, and crawlspaces were greeted with a surreal landscape.  At the hospital, patients were rushing out the doors, crying, limping, bleeding, pieces of glass and other debris still stuck in them.  People were still alive outside but in hopeless situations, crushed underneath cars, bleeding out from fatal injuries.  People were already dead, impaled by street signs, torn apart like rag dolls.  Survivors unable to rescue loved ones trapped under collapsed houses.  Trees stripped of leaves, limbs, and bark, many uprooted.  Homes flattened, semi-trucks flipped over, fires from broken gas lines breaking out.  It was as close to hell as a person would ever care to be.

            There is a certain feeling of helplessness that comes when people you know and love are in danger and you are hundreds of miles away.  We were on our way back from Orlando, Florida, when text messages and phone calls began coming in from Michelle’s two sisters who live in the Joplin area.  “Tornado warning, taking cover, please pray.”  We kept watch via Facebook statuses on our phones, but had no idea of the extent of the devastation until we checked into a Clarksville, TN hotel later that night.  Even then, the images we saw on the news that night failed to give an accurate picture.  All we knew was that Michelle’s family was safe, and that many others had not been so fortunate.

            When we finally got back home on Monday afternoon, we were busy with getting donations organized to help the survivors.  It wasn’t until later that evening that we saw just how much of Joplin had been utterly destroyed. 

It was at this time that my son Robby asked a very deep theological question:  “So why does God create things like tornadoes, anyway?”

            It is a question that many of us have but are afraid to voice.  Maybe the question crossed your mind a month ago when over 200 tornadoes ripped across three states, killing over 300 people in the South.  Or perhaps you wondered about it a couple of months before that when an earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan.  Maybe it’s the reality of floods, famine, and drought.  Maybe it’s not the existence of climactic tragedy that plagues us.  Maybe it’s the existence of cancer, or Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s, or Downs Syndrome, or Cerebral Palsy.  We try not to think about the terrible realities of the world.  In all honesty, I don’t blame us.  But when these destructive forces come up to our doorstep and start knocking, we are forced to deal with them.  Even then we dare not put voice to the questions burning in our hearts because we are afraid of the answers.  The answers might be faith-killers.  The answers might turn God into a capricious or vindictive monster.  The answers might prove to us that we’ve wasted a whole lot of time and effort on this Christianity thing.  So the fire that these questions create within us burns with no relief.  Better the pain of ignorance than experiencing the possibly greater pain of knowledge.

It takes the innocence and trust of a seven-year old to put such a question out on the table.  But I’m glad Robby was around to ask it, because it needs to be asked, and it needs to be answered.

There is no single text in Scripture that adequately deals with the question.  I cannot simply point you to book, chapter, and verse and give you comfort on the issue.  But I believe that the whole counsel of God does indeed offer us comfort.  So what I propose to do this morning is work through a series of Scriptures that touch on the subject and direct us to the most biblical answer to this kind of suffering.

I am not going to deal with atheistic, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, or Animistic worldviews this morning.  My assumption is that you came here today to hear a Judeo-Christian perspective on the world.  I’d be glad to talk with you some other time about these other systems of thought, but I want to focus on what the Bible has to say on the matter right now.

First, let me define our terms.  We are going to divide evil into two categories, moral evil and natural evil.  Moral evil does not take much of an explanation; it is what results when a moral agent decides to go against the will of God.  Wars, genocide, murder, theft, deceit, gossip, greed—these are examples of moral evil; someone had a choice, someone choice poorly, and evil happened as a result.  We really do not need to spend too much time trying to figure out where this evil came from—it is the result of man’s rebellion against God.

Natural evil, on the other hand, appears to be independent of any moral decision.  Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, famine, drought, cancer, Parkinson’s, ALS—there seems no moral agent behind these tragedies, and yet we cannot deny the amount of human suffering they cause.  And so we cannot label them as good or neutral; there is something unmistakably evil about them.

So how do we deal with the problem of natural evil?  How can we, as followers of a omnipotent, loving God, reconcile his character with the often harsh and violent world around us?  Let’s take a look, shall we?

The most common perspective on natural evil among churchgoers is that everything happens for a reason.  Therefore, when someone dies a tragic or untimely death, you hear people say, “Well, God decided to take them,” or "God had a reason."  Or when disaster strikes a region, you have people like the fanatics of Westboro Baptist Church dancing on the graves of the dead, claiming that the destruction was God’s wrath being poured out on sinners.  It’s nothing new; this perspective has been around for a long, long time.

You see this worldview portrayed in M. Night Shyamalan’s movie Signs.  In this movie a minister’s wife is in a terrible car accident; she is pinned to a tree by the car of a veterinarian who fell asleep at the wheel.  She is still alive, but the moment the car is pulled away from the tree, she will bleed out and die.  Her last words to her husband are to tell his brother Merrill to “swing away.”  Left alone in his pain to raise two young children, the minister loses his faith after the tragic and senseless death of his wife.  But when an alien invasion takes place (I know, it sounds kooky, but hey, it’s a M. Night movie), it all makes sense—the message to “swing away” saves the lives of the rest of the family.  Everything happens for a reason.  God’s got a plan.  The minister regains his faith and everyone lives happily ever after.

If the movie’s plot leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you’re not alone.  Why would God choose to devastate a family by taking a loving wife and mother away from them simply in order to deliver a two-word message?  Couldn’t God have found a much less devastating manner in which to pass this information along?  Has he not heard of the U.S. Postal Service?  How about a text message or voicemail?

In the same way, when I hear people tell those who have lost a loved one to cancer or a boating accident that, “God wanted to take them,” or “God has a reason for everything,” it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  And when I see people like the hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church people picketing the funerals of fallen soldiers and tornado victims, it makes me sick to my stomach.

I don’t believe that the Bible teaches this perspective on natural evil.  I think God can work for the good of those who love him in every situation, but I do not think he is the author or source of every tragedy.  Let’s look at what the Bible has to say.  In order to do so, we will have to look at passages that deal with the Creation, the Fall, and God’s moral agents, both human and angelic.

In Genesis 1 we see that God created the world, and that at the end of every day of creation, he saw what he had made and that it was good.  Genesis 1:29-30 indicates that there wasn’t even any animal suffering, that humans and all animals were herbivores in the beginning.  In my understanding, even death was not present in the beginning.  God created man in his own image in order that he might share himself with something outside of himself.  He created us to love him back, but he knew that in order for love to really be love, we must have a choice.  We must have freewill.  That made us moral agents; entities able to make choices.

But it wasn’t just mankind that had the ability to make choices.  Angelic beings, spiritual creations of God, were also given the ability to make choices.  The highest of these celestial moral agents, an angel named Lucifer, decided not to love God, but to rebel against him and committed himself to a hostile takeover of the cosmos.  He and his followers were defeated in heaven, and cast down to earth.

And so it came to be that Lucifer, also known as Satan, or the Devil, devised a plan to lead mankind, God’s other moral agents astray.  Taking the guise of a serpent, he planted the same desire in the hearts of Eve and Adam that he himself originally had—to be on equal footing with God.  Eve and Adam had the ability to choose, and they chose to doubt and disobey God in order to be his equal.

As a consequence of this, all hell broke loose on earth.  God handed out curses in Genesis 3—a curse on the serpent, a curse on the woman, a curse on the man, and a curse on the earth.  And in Genesis 3:21 we see the immediate consequences of human rebellion:  animal suffering.  God made garments out of skins to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness.  Something suffered and died because sin had to be dealt with.

The Fall was much more than just the fall of Man.  It was the fall of all creation.  It was the separation of man from God, the separation of man from man, and the separation of man from the world around him—the world he was originally given to protect and nurture was now turned against him.  Paul later tells us in Romans 8:18-22 that all of creation was subjected to futility, corruption, and suffering because of man’s rebellion against God.  Animals began to prey on other animals.  Weeds began to sprout up in gardens and fields.  And, especially after the cataclysmic flood a few generations later, weather patterns took on a more unpredictable and sometimes devastating nature.

If we were to stop at Genesis 6, where God wipes out everyone and everything save for Noah and those on his ark, we might conclude that all natural evil is a result of human sin, and intended as a punishment for mankind’s rebellion.  We might conclude, as the Westboro Baptist Church people do, that the citizens of Joplin deserved what they got, that their level of sin had reached full measure, and that God decided to finally do something about it.

But if we do that, then we have to extrapolate that conclusion to other matters of tragedy, sickness and death.  People stricken with cancer, boaters who die in severe weather, children born with birth defects—did they also get what they deserved?

Now there is no doubt that bad things can happen because people do bad things.  In John 5:14, Jesus tells the lame man that he healed at Solomon’s Portico to “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”  In fact, it was the prevailing opinion of the Jewish people in Jesus’ day that people suffered because of their own personal sin.

But we need to understand that more often than not, natural evil strikes in an arbitrary rather than in a “Hand of God” manner.  Jesus corrects the idea that suffering only hits those who deserve it on at least two occasions.  One takes place later in John’s Gospel.  In John 9:1-3, Jesus and his disciples encounter a man born blind.  The disciples, holding to the popular notion of the day, ask Jesus whose sin had caused this defect, the man’s or his parents.  Jesus replies by saying, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”  Jesus goes on to say that while there is time, he and his disciples must do the Father’s work in the world, and he heals the man.

Another occasion is recorded in Luke 13:1-4.  Jesus is teaching, and some folks want to point out that a number of Galileans had been killed by Pontius Pilate.  So Jesus asks them, “Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?  No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  He then points out another tragedy:  18 people who were killed when a tower fell on them.  They weren’t any worse sinners than anyone else, either.  But unless Jesus’ audience repents, they, too, will perish.

The fact of the matter is that if natural evil worked on the basis of deserves, all of us would be subject to suffering under its sway.

So we cannot look at the victims of tornadoes, or tsunamis, or famines, or cancer, and say that they were worse sinners than anyone else, that they got what they deserved.  In these instances, natural evil and the suffering and pain that come with it are, in the words of C.S. Lewis, God’s megaphone to a deaf world.  Disasters and diseases are telling us that something is terribly wrong in the created order, and the pain associated with it pushes us to find a solution.  And it is then that we realize that the solution is beyond us--we must seek someone more powerful than we.

            We must also be careful to note that it is not just the general fallen nature of man and the consequent curse of the earth that has loosed disaster and disease upon the world.  None of us would deny the harmful effects that mankind can cause on nature through our abuse of it.  How much more influence can Satan and his minions exert on the created order?  We have evidence from the Scriptures that demons possessed people and animals with the intent of destroying them.  We also have testimony that Satan is the prince of the power of the air, that he and his demons are the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.  Three times in John’s Gospel Jesus refers to Satan as the ruler of this world.  If these celestial moral agents, bent on evil, have some control over the world and the laws that govern it, can they not use the world as a weapon against us?

            That’s definitely the case in Job 1.  There, Satan is given permission to test Job.  He does so through the evil of man—raiders and plunderers devastate Job’s assets.  But Satan also uses natural evil--a meteor storm destroys his flocks of sheep and their shepherds, and a mighty wind, perhaps a tornado, flattening his oldest son’s house, killing all his children and their spouses.  There’s no doubt that the Devil and his minions have even more power than we do to negatively affect the world around us.  And when they do, they affect it so that it will harm and destroy us.  In fact, I am of the conviction that when Jesus rebukes winds, waves, and fevers, he is rebuking the demonic activity behind those phenomena.  Rebuking something that has no ability to understand a rebuke makes no sense.

            So there are several factors to consider when we contemplate the origin and cause of natural evil.

(1)   God created the world and everything in it; when he did, he called it good.

(2)   God is in control, but in his sovereignty he allowed us and the heavenly beings free will, making us moral agents.  He wants our love, and for love to be love, we must have the ability to to decide.  Our decisions affect the world around us.

(3)   Sin entered the world, and as a result, all of creation fell under a curse.  Suffering and death came into existence, including moral and natural evil. 

(4)   Natural evil can and is used by God to punish people for their sin, but more often natural evil is arbitrary in who it strikes.  It is God’s megaphone to a deaf world, a warning that all is not as it should be.

(5)   Satan and his demons, fallen celestial moral agents, can and do exert influence over the world to do us harm.

(6)   All of creation longs for the day when it will be made new, and good, once more.

(7)   Until that day comes, when God allows natural evil to strike, the church has an opportunity to give people a glimpse of the world as it should be.

I say this last in light of John 9:1-3, where Jesus and his disciples encounter a man born blind.  Like Jesus, we must work while it is day.  Night is coming, when we will not be able to work.  Until that time, as long as we are in the world, we must work to be the light of the world.

            Natural disasters—really, that’s a bad way to put it, for tornadoes are not part of the world as it should be—Unnatural disasters not only tell us that something is terribly wrong, but they also provide us the opportunity to show the world how things ought to be.

We’ve seen many examples of light shining from Joplin.  Two medical students lost their home in the storm, but spent the next six hours helping to treat some of the 900 injured people who flooded Freeman Hospital.  Three-month old Grayson Chaligoj was sitting in his car seat, waiting to get his picture taken at the 15^th St. Wal-Mart when the tornado struck.  A complete stranger covered the child with his body.  The man was badly bruised by falling debris, but the baby was unharmed.  Don and Bethany didn’t have time to take cover in their crawlspace; they grabbed pillows and got into their bathtub.  When the house around them ripped apart, Bethany’s pillows were sucked out her arms.  Don threw himself over her to protect her from the flying debris.  He saved Bethany, but was killed in the process.  Chris Lucas, the manager of the 15^th St. Pizza Hut rushed five employees and 15 customers into the restaurant’s walk-in freezer.  When the door began to buckle, he wrapped a bungee cord around himself and the door handle.  When the tornado had finally passed, the door and Chris were gone, but other lives were saved.

Tragedies like this also give the church the opportunity to be the church.  Southeast Christian Church showed up with 20 new generators and $20,000 in cash.  We aren’t a 20,000-member congregation like Southeast, but our little church of 40 scraped up two and half van-loads of supplies and over $1,000 in cash.  I’m very proud of you and this community. 

The work is not done.  It will take months, if not years, for the people of Joplin to recover.  We here at Edinburg Christian Church can have a larger role to play.  In the midst of human suffering, in the face of evil, the church shines bright.  We long for the day when Christ will restore the created order to its original goodness.  Jesus suffered and died in order to make all things new.  One day he will return and put an end to all human suffering.  That’s part of the Gospel message.  Until he does return, we serve as his ambassadors, as his representatives, and it is up to us to give people as big a glimpse of the way things ought to be as we can.  Therefore, let us do what we can to restore that which was lost, to ease the suffering of others, to meet felt needs.  And when we do, let us do so in the name of Jesus.

Bible Intake Bob Lowery Style

Bob Lowery's knowledge of the Bible was legendary.  He had an amazing ability to make connections, recall relevant passages, and inquire of the whole counsel of Scripture on almost any issue.  No doubt this was due in part to his great intellect and memory capacity.  But the information he drew upon did not arrive by osmosis.  Dr. Lowery read through the New Testament once a month and through the Old Testament twice a year.  This roughly equates to 5 chapters of Old Testament and 9 chapters of New Testament a day.

Now that my studies at Lincoln Christian University are over, I am going to attempt to take up this rate of Bible intake in my own devotional life.  I am excited to see how this process will shape me and my ministry.  I'll never be a Bob Lowery, but I can be the best Rob Petersen there ever was, and part of doing that is to be someone more heavily invested in the Word than I currently am.

I do not know if this is a pace that I can maintain, but I am willing to try.  If you believe in the formative power of Bible intake, I encourage you to "up the ante" in this area as well.  One of my biggest concerns for today's church is its biblical illiteracy.  If I am going to speak to that issue, I must lead by example.

What Bob Lowery Means to Me

Some might contend with me, but it is my belief that Dr. Robert Lowery is the Restoration Movement's foremost New Testament scholar today.  As a professor and co-dean at Lincoln Christian University (The Seminary), Dr. Lowery has influenced literally thousands of Christian leaders with his scholarship, passion, integrity, and heart.  Throughout his life he has been a man committed to the humble exposition of Scriptural truth.  He always saw his students as his utmost vocational priority, and he invested himself in them accordingly.  There are many in our movement who have published more books than Dr. Lowery; none, I would wager, have published more solid students of the Book.

I myself am not a New Testament major here at LCU.  I concentrated on historical theology and worship studies.  Nevertheless, that did not stop Dr. Lowery from having a profound influence even on me.

I was far from his best student.  I still remember my first class with him, a class I was probably not ready to take, a class with students far more experienced and knowledgeable than me, but a class which I had practically begged my way into.  Dr.  Lowery has always had a knack for humbling seminarians who were in need of it.  I was no different.

Even  before I had a class under him, I recall having lunches on Wednesdays with Dr. Lowery, Fred Hanson, and fellow seminarians.  Dr. Lowery expressed a deep love and concern for the local church and for student ministers during those lunches.  He asked the important questions and made us dig for the right answers.  He dispensed Biblical wisdom.  He dealt with real issues in practical ways.  He prayed with us.

Earlier this semester, after recovering from a devastating scooter accident, Dr. Lowery came to lecture us about New Testament genres in our Biblical Interpretation for Ministry class.  He was a shadow of the man he used to be.  The fire and energy were gone.  His health was failing.  But the mind and heart were still there.  He was faithful to his call until he literally could not make it to the classroom any longer.  Even then, he opened his home to us so that we could still study under him.

Dr. Lowery means a lot to many people.  As for me, he will always be a reminder and a challenge to be  humble, to be diligent in my studies, to seek the truth and express it with love, to care for the church, to encourage others, to finish well, and above all, to give everything I have to God, using the gifts He has given me to glorify Him and to bless those around me.

As I type this, Bob Lowery is finishing his race.  He is in the last round of his fight.  He is keeping the faith.  The righteous Judge is polishing Bob's crown in preparation for his arrival.  We rejoice with Bob; we mourn with all those he is leaving behind.

I can only hope that all of us who have been influenced by him can finish half as well as he has.