Grokking Gordon

To all who suffer,

Freedom is found in the futility of this world. So is despair. It is one of the enemy’s greatest weapons. It is most effective right before we would shrug off our woes and move into a true lifestyle of faith. Then, we are told we are ungrateful. We are told we are irresponsible. We are told we are behind schedule. We are reminded (as we often also remind others) of the imperfections we possess which are defined by temporal circumstance. We then withdraw back to the world experiencing a temporary reprieve as we are praised by its acolytes.

Am I suggesting that we put off worldly responsibilities so that we may better serve God? No. What I am saying is that we live with an attitude untouched by its burdens!

Alas, the trick is in the doing I suppose.

I think sometimes we forget that God is real. We then place our faith right below what is important. You see, faith doesn’t buy groceries. It also hasn’t helped the woman of my dreams find my doorstep (or maybe she’s really bad with directions). After I grab some food, marry the waitress, have some kids, and put the finishing touches on my kingdom then I’ll worry about faith. Until then I’m just too lonely and depressed. Oh, it’s true, many of us are too lonely and depressed. It’s because we flirt with the futility of mortality and therefore with freedom. We hold such knowledge at bay for certainly its embrace means destruction, right? No. Its embrace means freedom. In this freedom we fulfill our responsibilities but we also find eternal relief from despair. All the while we worship.

Oh, but again the problem isn’t in the understanding. It’s in the doing.

Have heart my friend — you are not alone.

Sincerely,

Gordon

Our world is not filled with answers.  It’s filled with patterns.

Therefore, there is freedom of choice.

You choose to believe nothing, or you choose to believe something.

What do you choose to believe?

Are they the same thing?  When filtered through a dark heart (mine is) are they the same thing?  When we seek one are we truly seeking the other?  Is there a semantics problem here?  How does culture come into play?  I want your thoughts.  Actually, in this case, I covet your thoughts.

*Bonus points for answering in haiku format.

*Double points if you actually reference a bible verse.

“But you know, God did put me there. It wasn’t a change I could see right away, but it turns out the change was in me.”

– The Stylist, Noticed

Two questions from a reader.  Below each question is my simplified answer.

Did Jesus have the potential to sin?

“You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.”  (1 John 3:5 NASB)

Often times the answers in philosophy and theology are a matter of semantics.  Suffice it to say that no matter the circumstance or imagined world he would not sin.

Does being tempted mean one is sinning?

“But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.  Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin…” (James 1: 14-15 NASB)

When we are unwilling to extinguish our temptation, whether it is a fiery dart from Satan or our own flesh, and instead entertain it, then we are sinning.  To be tempted is to live in this fallen world.  To sin is to allow temptation even a moment of acceptance.

A snippet of something I wrote at one point…

A lack of opportunity is often times why a desire is not acted upon.  A lack of opportunity can take the form of physical circumstance or the threat of certain consequences.  What we want to do in a particular situation is an indication of what we are willing to do. This willingness is estimated by our beliefs and is a matter of the heart. It is also a matter of sin. “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin…” (James 1:14-15). The birth of sin occurs when we are willing to submit to temptation (or perhaps when we aren’t willing to fight temptation.) The physical action resulting from an undefeated temptation is a matter of circumstance. The sin is not. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28). Sin resides in a heart prepared to act on temptation — a heart belonging to one who can imagine a world where that temptation would be willfully acted out.  As a follower of Christ one must prepare their heart and mind in light of the threat of suddenly finding oneself in such a world.

Gird yourself! (Eph 6:13-18)

Gus is like a brother to me. We grew up together in the mountains of North Carolina. His younger brother, Gary, is my longest standing friend. Gus’ life was of particular interest and influence to me growing up. As the “older brother,” he was the first to go out into the real world. He was a pioneer of sorts.

Gus and I both lust for the truth. This desire was instrumental in me becoming an Evangelical Christian who’s faith is continuously torn apart, refined, and fortified by my own neurotic tendency to question everything. However, it lead Gus to become an agnostic who takes an atheists perspective in believing there is no need for “God” or “a god” in his life. I have great respect for Gus, but I hope that he will one day join me in pursuing the will of the one true God. This is his story so far; let it continue to unfold for years to come.

Since I was small, I remember having a rather keen interest in a grander meaning to life. As a born-and-raised Catholic being told that the Christian God existed, I sought him out. I did this through prayer, attending youth groups, by reading the Bible, and so forth. Sometimes, I felt I had a real experience, an undeniable experience that proved to me, at the time, that God was real. Sometimes, I even remember prayers being granted and attributing such miracles of chance or coincidence to God.

Shortly after graduating High School, I lost faith. For a year, I searched outside Christianity for answers to life’s questions. Having read all of the New Testament and the greater part of the Old, it was trivial to decide that there were no answers from that religion.

During a study abroad in Altmünster, Austria (Europe)–a time that was filled with a strange depression for me, I met Mormon missionaries, Elders Head and Hoffmann. The first was a native of England, and the latter of Idaho. (I am friends with both of them on Facebook.) They introduced me to The Book of Mormon, and I devoured it in about three weeks.

With the help of the missionaries and the one Mormon family living in Altmünster, I decided to pray and ask if the Book of Mormon really was “Another Testament of Jesus Christ”.

After prayer, I felt an overwhelming feeling of joy sweep down my body in a wave. I concluded that The Book of Mormon was from God and, hence, that Mormonism really was the one true Christian religion.

About a year and a half later, after meeting some of the kindest people in the Brevard Branch of the L.D.S. Church, I served a mission in the Domincan Republic for two years, baptizing a number of people.

On returning, I moved to Provo/Orem, Utah in hopes of going to BYU and/or finding a wife.

For over three years, I tried the Mormon-to-the-bone approach of listening to only “good” music, watching no Rated-R movies (aside from The Matrix), living with a prayer in my heart, etc. Eventually, my innate tendency to challenge tradition and the routines of religious living got the best of me in quite a literal sense.

For a time, I became a Mormon yo-yo, going into the church and falling away, becoming more and more liberal in my approach each time. This lasted for about three years, after the six or so years I spent being rather fundamentalist and very strict in practicing my professed beliefs.

Towards the end of 2006, I moved up to Salt Lake City and lived a solitary life. For that past year, I had slowly become more skeptical, and as I tried to go to church and “Institute” (seminary-like) classes, I became even more so. I started reading No Man Knows My History (1945) by Fawn M. Brodie, having tired of constantly re-reading the Bible, Book of Mormon, and other L.D.S. scripture, along with writings of General Authorities in the Church, preferring instead to broaden my mind with historicity.

My increasing skepticism proved fatal to a relationship I was having with a woman in her early 20s, who wanted to be married in a Mormon Temple. I was also introduced to a depression like none I had ever known. I was alone and lonely, feeling like, “Yes, I have friends, but no one can help me resolve the pain of separation from faith.”

It must have been sometime in early 2007 when I found a book called Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, regarding a simple meditation technique where one sits down, keeps their back straight, and allows the mind to relax and (ideally) stop thinking. I would compare it to prayer, or any other form of meditation, except absent the thrill of speaking to an imaginary being, or that of having a mantra work to calm the mind. For me, the thrill came from realizing that I didn’t need God or any other faith-based (and hence unproven/unprovable) hypothesis to have a profoundly deep and relaxing experience of what I presently consider to be self-hypnosis.

The question always surfaces of, “What do you believe?” when speaking with believers. My answer is very simple: I believe in that for which I have evidence.

I believe that people are generally good, that we need no dictatorial, but loving sky-deity to give us the morality that has evolved with social mammals (and especially primates) for millions of years. I am a humanist, a somewhat agnostic atheist (if you would call someone like Bertrand Russell an agnostic), a skeptic, a nontheist, a non-believer, a heathen, and a blasphemer. I believe that critical consideration of faith through reason is something that can remove predispositions and untruths inherited by youthful indoctrination. I believe that criticizing faith is a good thing; respect the believer, but not the beliefs. Most of all, I believe in happiness. I believe that it is possible to be happy right now, and the idea that there is going to be a hereafter is nothing more than a pie-in-the-sky delusion (which accordingly grants little or no comfort in the tragic passing of loved ones).

I do not believe there is such a thing as (paraphrased) “evidence of the unseen,” as Paul says (Heb. 11:1). There is evidence and lack thereof. It can be objectively shown or proven, or it cannot.

* I should mention that I still read the Tao Te Ching, and consider it to be excellent, as Eastern philosophy goes. If one reads Taoist literature (separate from the TTC), one will find revelations, miracles and a mythology of such very much as spectacular as Judeo-Christian and Muslim mythologies (see specifically The Pocket Tao Reader, edited and translated by Eva Wong).

It’s true. This is how too many people view their relationship with God.

From Consumer to Consumed from Dan Stevers on Vimeo.

It is very real, the danger of not consciously and consistently understanding the Bible as the authoritative truth (I was tempted to type “AN authoritative truth” instead of “THE authoritative truth.”  Make no mistake, it is THE authoritative truth).  As we drift away from holding the bible as TRUTH we become more relativistic in our thinking.  We begin to compromise.  We begin to define our morality by how we feel and by how people are acting around us.  We should be defining our morality by how we ought to feel and by how people ought to be acting around us.  The “ought” is defined by The Bible.

The first sign of a drifting towards relativism is not being able to defend your faith and moral stance from scripture.  If your viewpoints aren’t grounded in the Bible then it follows  that they must be grounded someplace else.  It may be a friend, a parent, or your own moral sense.  Now, don’t get me wrong, all three of the previously stated are great places to find encouragement or seek enlightenment in interpretation.  It is also clearly a good idea to ask people’s advice if you are unsure of what to do in a particular situation.  However, there should be effort placed into making sure all advice and counsel is checked against the Good Book.

It’s a daily process.

Dear every Christian I’ve ever known in my entire life,

Look in the mirror.  No, seriously, right now, go over to a mirror and look into it.  I’ll give you a couple seconds…Take a long look, at least 30 seconds.  I know, that is a really long time to look into a mirror, but humor me for a minute.  What do you see?  What draws your attention?  Do you focus in on your blemishes?  Did you notice something that wasn’t there last time you looked?  Are you looking at the things about your face that you wish you could change?

Now, I want you to answer me this question:  how long can you look into your own eyes?  If you’re anything like me, you’ll find it hard to look into them for too long.  This is because reflected in that glassy surface is the person that you have become.  The entirety of your life up to this exact moment has made you and molded you into the man or woman staring back at you.  Every decision that you have ever made, every sin you have ever committed, and every problem you have ever lifted up to the Lord is contained in that mirror image.  That image is – as near as we can get – a perfect one.  It does not lie.  It does not bend truth.  It merely reflects it in all of its imperfect glory.  And so, those eyes looking back into your own reflect who you truly have become.  Only you and the Lord know fully who that person is.

In this moment, you cannot lie to yourself; what purpose could that serve?  You know who you are, and you know that God knows who you are.  And so I ask you this simple question: How do you plan to live out the rest of your Christian life?  That probably isn’t the question you were expecting, but it is the necessary one.  For the rest of your life, how do you plan to live with God and with other Christians?  Is the person reflected in that mirror the one with whom you want to spend the rest of your days?  If you’re anything like me, the answer to that question will be “no”.

James 1:23-25 states, “Those who listen to the word but do not do what it says are like people who look at their faces in a mirror and, after looking at themselves, go away and immediately forget what they look like.  But those who look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continue in it-not forgetting what they have heard but doing it-they will be blessed in what they do.”  The Word of God is the mirror that we are to use to evaluate our lives.  Yet, like with the actual mirror we were just looking into, you cannot go away from it and forget what you look like.  God has given a perfect image in His Word for us, yet so often we forget the image that we have seen.

Today, I do not want you to walk away and not be changed.  I do not want you to forget what you look like, blemishes and all.  Unlike the reflection of your face, the reflection of your life can be overhauled.  The person staring back at you today does not have to be the person staring back at you tomorrow.  The eyes that were convicting a moment ago can become encouraging.  Reflected in that mirror is the image of God.  As image bearers, we have a responsibility to be better than we once were.  As image bearers, we are to bring Christ to the nations.  As image bearers, we are to reflect – however imperfectly – His glory.  As image bearers of the Most High God, we are to shine and not wither under the weight of our own humanity.  So today, will you melt, or will you change?

-Matt