Passing It On

Skip and Barbara Ryan were the featured speakers at the first annual Danube International Church Retreat in Cserkeszőlő, Hungary April 17-19. Skip is the Chancellor of Redeemer Theological Seminary in Dallas.

His messages connected here. We don’t want to hoard the insights in our part of the world. They need to be circulated. Here are some thoughts which appealed to me especially:

Fear is a refusal to live in the present.
It costs us much to lose everything but when we lose everything we begin to live.
While you’re lying to God you can’t experience His love.
Adversity introduces me to myself.
Every addiction leads to stealth. And stealth makes betrayal inevitable.
It is the love of Christ which breaks us.
Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die (I’d heard this said of blame).
Humility was not considered a virtue in the ancient world. For Paul to elaborate upon Christ’s great humility in emptying himself and refusing to cling to the prerogatives of Deity (Phil. 2:4-11) was counter-cultural to a considerable degree.
Manual labor was not considered an acceptable occupation for a man of consequence. For Paul to publicize that he made tents was equally counter-cultural.
What somebody else thinks of me is none of my business.

Personally I find the first and last insights to be the most provocative. I find the last to be especially liberating. It’s one thing to be reminded (as we often have been) that we oughtn’t to worry about what other people think. It delivers a fresh jolt to be told that what others think is actually none of our business!

One confirmation of Christian truth comes when we meet people of widely divergent backgrounds who share the same experience of having the core of their personality and history dissected and defined by what Scripture reveals .That happens when we compare notes with our other believers. Further confirmation comes when we see a commonality of experience with those figures we encounter in Holy Scripture. It is certainly possible to gain marvelous insights about human personality when we read other ancient literature like the Odyssey or the Aeneid. But the Bible takes us to another level. Those other ancient writings do not unmask and convict us. Nor do we find in them the power to effect personal transformation.

The proper word a (bit overused in recent years) is resonance. Much of our shared experience would remain static, discrete, random and ultimately lost if not clarified by the infinite reference point which is the Word of God mediated by the Spirit of God. Skip led us in those kind of shared discoveries and affirmations. For that we are grateful.

And from that we share.

The Power of Pop Culture

Wednesday night Beyoncé performed at the Sport Palace in Budapest. Earlier that day I boarded a train for the Czech Republic. In my early youth I would have cursed my fate. At age 58 I simply view it as good timing. I’m not familiar with Beyoncé’s music, but I did catch her in the first Pink Panther movie which starred Steve Martin. Probably Beyoncé is not familiar with Exodus 3. If she were she would not have called her spring travels the “I Am Tour”. At least I hope she wouldn’t. Seems I remember that in 2008 Beyoncé and her husband earned only slightly less than the gross domestic product of Paraguay. Such is the power of Pop.

Speaking of the new Inspector Clouseau, a Christian leader who never comments on my sermons rushed forward to congratulate me for quoting Steve Martin in my opening remarks a few Sundays ago. (A banjo was featured in our worship that morning.) That kind of thing happens quite often. People are more likely to talk about something not related to the exposition of Scripture. A wonderfully effective women’s teacher once confided to me that nearly 100% of the women who wanted to speak with her after she taught were seeking counsel on personal and family problems. They almost never registered interest in implications and applications from the text. Of course, if we hope to help anyone with their problems we’d better be ready with implications and applications from the text. It’s always amazed me that if I mention a film or a line from a song it almost never fails to elicit comment.

Popular culture is a force to be reckoned with. It is often a negative thing. It can be a neutral thing. It is seldom a positive thing, though its lessons can be shaped for edifying purposes by thoughtful believers. I realize that I too am influenced by popular culture, but I hope not as much as I used to be. I have no desire to listen to Beyoncé, but I’m glad I saw the Beatles live when I was 14. When I was a university student I had not one but two posters of Bob Dylan on my wall. Almost any jingle-jangle morning I would have followed him. Then one day I realized he wasn't kidding when he sang "...there is no place I'm going to” (Mr. Tambourine Man). Whether the change came about because I became a Christian or because I was growing up, I don’t know; maybe it was a bit of both.

As far as ministry in the 21st century goes we may take more than one approach to popular culture. Some churches gauge the direction of the cultural wind and begin to pedal hard in that direction. We may congratulate them for their alertness. But there’s a difference between heeding and leading. Those churches are much more likely to show a clip from a film than they are to quote from someone like Augustine or Calvin. Another approach is to always learn from culture but never give in to it. It is prudent and it is sometimes necessary to note cultural markers which a majority of the congregation are thinking about. Then, having duly noted those cultural influences which affect our thinking, we give ourselves to the hard task of bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

I vote for option two.

Between Sunday and Friday

Someone (if you know who tell me) said that civilization is a thin veneer stretched across an ocean of barbarism.
Is it just me or is the fabric of civilization fraying?
Seven maniacs have gunned down over 50 Americans in the last 30 days. And that’s only the mass shootings. A few hours ago pirates captured an American vessel which has at this moment been retaken by its crew.
It’s almost Easter.
In years past I asked my Congregation the same question on Palm Sunday. Did Israel go from civilization to barbarism in the space of five days? How could the same crowd which hailed the Lord in adulation on Sunday demand His execution on Friday? The question is complex, but I now believe it was misconstrued. Complex because we can’t be sure how many of the same people who shouted “Hosanna” on Sunday shouted “Give us Barabbas” on Friday.
The Chief Priests allied with the Pharisees would have been perfectly capable of producing a rent-a-crowd at a moment’s notice on the Friday morning. But the mood on the street could actually have turned against Jesus as well.
I believe the question was misconstrued because I’m no longer sure the crowd did change. The word Hosanna means’ Lord Save!’ The tragedy is that most who shouted the word weren’t pleading for the salvation Jesus of Nazareth came to offer. They didn’t mean “Deliver us from the dread power sin has over us, because we have transgressed against the God of Israel and cannot save ourselves.” It was rather “Throw the Romans out. Remove the heel of Rome from the neck of Israel.” It was a political and military deliverance they were after. In short they craved the solution Barabbas was offering.
On Palm Sunday with Jerusalem at a fever pitch the Greeks asked for a word with Jesus. At the critical moment there came a word from Jesus: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it abides alone. But if it dies it bears much fruit.” We are prone to abstract those words from their context and preserve them in memory as a kind of general spiritual principle. But in context Jesus was speaking about Himself. He came not to kill the enemies of Israel but to die for them. That wasn’t quite what the crowd had in mind
Jesus’ plan of salvation must be paramount. It supplants all salvation strategies of our own devising. The Gospel stands alone. By its very nature it can never be one choice among many.
Timothy Keller has observed that the Lord Jesus left us with a choice most stark: “Crown Me or kill Me.”
The Friday mob made its choice.
We must make ours as well.
The Cross is still our only hope 2000 years after The Event.
To embrace the message of the Cross is to make God our Father and Heaven our home.
Anything less means the Abyss.

Marriage in the Second Half

Jane and I were married in West Point , Virginia 32 years ago today. It’s conceivable that I will be alive at age 91. If I actually survive until then (along with my bride) then we’ve not yet entered the second half. But it’s a safe bet we’re more than half done already. Some of our wedding guests expected to tour the Military Academy . Whether any were serious or not I couldn’t tell . There’s that other West Point in New York where Lee and Macarthur studied. There were some present then not with us now. Most sorely missed are our two dads. We flew to London for the honeymoon. First because my father offered to pay and, secondly, because we thought we would never have the chance to cross the ocean again on a minister’s salary. A baggage handler’s strike at Heathrow compounded the trans-Atlantic exhaustion. Our driver couldn’t find the hotel. It snowed the day we arrived as it snowed in Budapest this morning. I had no coat.
Southerners eventually learn.
I wish everyone I know were as blessed in marriage as I. I want to talk about it more often but am always afraid 1) It will sound like boasting 2) It will make those formerly married or unhappily married uncomfortable. My happiness in marriage is due to Jesus and Jane --in that order,
Jesus launched His ministry of miraculous signs at a wedding. After His baptism He stood where Adam fell by resisting the devil in the wilderness. Adam and Eve did not eat the fruit because they were hungry. They were not hungry. They could eat from any tree in the Garden save one. They ate the fruit because they believed a lie about God. Adam sinned on a full stomach. The Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ refused to turn stones into bread even though He was starving. When we track the chronology of the Gospels we see that Jesus was baptized in Matthew 3, tempted in Matthew 4, walked back to the scene of His baptism in John 1 then walked toward Cana into John 2.So He traveled from the wilderness to the wedding In the wilderness He refused Himself bread though He was starving. At the wedding He gave others wine though they had drunk. Bread is a necessity. Wine is a luxury. He granted luxury to others while denying necessity to Himself Surely this is the model for every husband. Surely Jesus is the perfect Bridegroom (John 3:29) .After He rehabilitated the moral possibilities for Man by succeeding where Adam failed He set out on a rescue mission for marriage. When Adam and Eve sinned marriage fell with the rest of Creation. There was shame and there was blame. Shame and blame would have been imminent in Cana once the wine was gone.
The wine can run out in any marriage if we are left to our own resources. That’s a place God never intended to leave us. Jesus was invited to Cana . And when He is invited into marriage He makes Himself available to meet every legitimate need. Sometimes we ask and He appears to delay. When Mary declared they’d run out of wine I can only trace a “no” in His response. Somehow Mary heard a “yes”. At that moment she gives the servants the greatest counsel ever uttered in the history of the world. “Do everything He tells you” she says.Could there be any greater counsel than that?
Ours is to apply, obey and wait, even when the wait is agonizingly long (though those first century guests didn’t wait long). His part is to bless and provide.
Jane and I have reaped the benefits of His unfailing presence and undeserved blessing for a very short 32 years.
The headwaiter marveled that the best wine was saved for last.
That’s a precedent for joy in the second half.

Atheism and One Frail Presumption

I find it possible to sympathize with the agnostic (though not with agnosticism). How can you argue with a man who says he doesn’t know? You can only agree and ask for the privilege of helping. One beggar telling another where he has found bread. Of course there are two kinds of agnostics. There is the tentative agnosticism of indecision which confesses merely “I don’t know.” Then there is the dogmatic agnosticism of arrogance which declares that the fact of God’s existence cannot be known. The second is, of course, but atheism thinly disguised. And for atheism we have no sympathy. The atheist we may regard. But to his views we offer no quarter. Let us consider one of the bedrock arguments which issues from that school.
The most obvious problem with atheism is that it accounts for nothing. How intellectually engaged people can be attracted to a system which can account for nothing at all escapes me, but there it is. Sartre, himself an atheist, had the courage to admit that the greatest philosophical problem is why there is something rather than nothing. You bet that’s a problem for atheism .And how. And an insoluble one at that. But the objection is deftly countered by proponents of the New Atheism Chic. Led by the likes of Professor Dawkins they respond:
“Of course we cannot account for the existence of the material universe. But neither can theists account for the existence of God. So the problems are equivalent. We are stymied then, and the score is a tie.”
But the score is not tied. The two “problems” -as a moment’s reflection will demonstrate - are manifestly not equivalent.
It was Aristotle (no evangelical he) who insisted that mind was much more likely to produce non-mind (or lesser minds) than non-mind was likely to produce mind. And Aristotle was absolutely right.
Dawkins’ difficulty (which he freely admits) is that he is not able to conceptualize God. He simply cannot imagine an uncreated Creator. And he begs that we not believe in God for that very reason viz. that he, Professor Dawkins, cannot imagine God. Forgive me if I don’t find that a compelling reason for unbelief.
Is it necessary for lesser creatures to comprehend the superior qualities in a higher creature (in this case the Creator) for those qualities to be validated? A dog may not be able to comprehend a good deal about a man: e.g. how a man can ride a bicycle, play a piano or read a newspaper? Is it rational to argue that the incomprehensibility of those capacities at a lower level of creation in any way vitiates their reality? That would be foolish in the extreme would it not? But it is exactly that kind of foolishness which Professor Dawkins asks us to base our convictions about ultimate questions upon.
To illustrate let us return to Aristotle’s principle.
The atheist asks us to believe that by a kind of spontaneous auto-generation the inanimate components of the universe appeared (this is so obviously far-fetched that the atheist sometimes pleads the eternal existence of matter- a proposition itself just as unlikely).These inanimate components SOMEHOW randomly combine to produce –Voila! - entities infinitely complex: quasars and neurons and ganglia and peacocks and other phenomena wondrous to behold. And we are asked to believe that such a thing is ACTUALLY MORE LIKELY than the alternative that a supernatural Creator is at the back of everything. Now let us break the argument down analogically and test its plausibility.
Consider for a moment Michelangelo and the ‘David’, the sculptor and his sculpture. There are certain inanimate components in the art. There is stone and color. There are certain animate components in the artist. There is brain and blood. Which is more likely, that the components in the art produced the artist or that the components in the artist produced the art? If you protest that the analogy is not proximate I maintain that this is PRECISELY the argument the atheist proffers.
And the argument is arrant nonsense.
The problems are not equivalent.
The score is not tied.
There is intelligence in the universe because there is a Mind behind it all.
There are extant components of personality because a personal God created what is there.
Love suffuses our being because love was the motive for Creation.
A marvelous patient love which is willing to endure even the most contemptible assaults on the reality of the Lover.
But we are told that even divine endurance has limits.

Little Things that Happen

Patrick O’Brien
1914-2000
It snowed in the ancient Hungarian capital today. No accumulation-- just a warning against the premature assumption of Spring.
We had another death in our wider Missionary Community last Saturday, Someone I first met in Romania during the days of Ceausescu, someone whose wedding I performed in 1989, someone agonizingly young. Partially to put off something painful, partially because I wrote about death in the last blog, I will postpone the eulogy until later. Today as a kind of defense mechanism, apropos of nothing in particular, I retreat to the trivial.
A few years ago I was reading the auto-biographical note by Philip Ryken on the Tenth Presbyterian Church Philadelphia website. James Montgomery Boice was secure enough to have a Pastor of Preaching on his staff at Tenth Pres, and he landed a great one when he recruited Philip Ryken while he was finishing up graduate work at Oxford. When Jim Boice died in 2000 he was succeeded by PR, one of the best preachers in America. In the bio Dr. Ryken registers extravagant interest in the historical novels of Patrick O’Brien—an author I’d never heard of though I learned later that the film ‘Master and Commander’ was made from one of his books. I was intrigued by the enthusiastic endorsement but not enough to do anything about it. Sometime later I discovered that a colleague in Budapest who reads and cares about the life of the mind was just as enthusiastic about the novels as Philip Ryken. I was again intrigued but, again, not enough to be goaded into action.
On February 1rst I arrived at the Budapest airport to board a flight to Moscow. The departure lounge at my gate was full so I took a seat in a deserted area next to another gate where all the passengers had just boarded. Prominent among the empty seats was a derelict volume, perhaps intentionally discarded, more likely accidentally forgotten. The flight was gone. The owner was likely gaining altitude already. But I waited a decent interval anyway before I touched the book. I wanted to satisfy my own ethical standards (regretfully never as high as, say, the Apostle Paul’s) before I exercised the old Finders Keepers prerogative - an option found nowhere in Holy Scripture. I tried not to view the acquisition as appropriating something which did not belong to me but more as providing a good home for an orphan. Oh yes, I almost forgot. I really ought to tell you the title:
Maritius Command by Patrick O’Brien the fourth of the twenty books in the Aubrey/Maturin series.
The Times of London calls O’Brien the greatest historical novelist of all time. Lavish praise that.
I’ve taken the hint.
And I’ve begun the book.
I feel guided by an unmistakable Providence.
I regard free books as a kind of sign.
Though we live in a decaying post-literary age--
Maybe I will become hopeful yet.

The Great Thing and The Greater

Garrison Keillor signs off The Writer’s Almanac by saying : “Be well, do good work, and stay in touch.” I’ve not been well. I’ve done hardly any work. And I’ve not been in touch. We were in the US for Missions Conferences Feb. 10- March 5. When I boarded the plane to return I was ill. I am still ill, and only now ready to write something.
Our itinerary on the ground didn’t go as planned. Neither Virginia nor Texas was on the schedule but I flew to Dallas and Jane joined me in the drive to Virginia. The visits were necessary because someone died. The visits were unscheduled because the deaths were unforeseen.
Rachel was a friend who entered eternity at age twenty-four. She was tall, lovely, athletic and a believer. While studying in Vienna she visited us in Budapest . Deaths like hers make people ask “Why?” while others caution: “Don’t ask why.” I don’t ask the question. Neither do I caution. Neither can I answer the question though I sometimes try. Christians don’t often know “why”; they always know “Who.” Rachel’s grandmother is named Ruth. I once told Rachel her grandmother was the greatest Christian I’d ever known. I believed that because of Ruth’s stewardship of suffering. I imagine that earlier suffering is slight compared to losing Rachel. We drove to Virginia to hug Ruth’s neck and tell her how much we love her. We found her clinging to the God of Israel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Her faith is deeper than her powers of articulation, deeper than death. Such is our God; such are His servants.
A few days after Rachel went home my Professor in Dallas died. He too visited us in Budapest. Harold Hoehner was a Cambridge PhD who published the definitive work on Ephesians in his generation. No seventy-four year old needs a great reason to die. But there was no warning. He came in from a run. Exhale on earth, inhale in heaven as one of his eulogists said. Three of my Professor’s four children have been missionaries to Russia and the fourth walks with God. I envy him that more than the Cambridge doctorate (though his college was King’s!) or the Ephesians commentary.
While he lay dying Henry James said “So the great thing comes.” They were reputed to have been his last words. Death is a great thing: inevitable, inexorable, and unrelenting. But there is a greater thing. That’s why we become missionaries, to tell the world about that greater thing. For those who die without Gospel Hope death is a permanent tragedy. The Cross has rendered death a temporary inconvenience. Savage but temporary.
I like to think my friends Harold Hoehner and Rachel Menkel have met by now in a land that is fairer than day.
Met among the shining ones.
Met before the Throne.
I know that I too will meet them there one day.
I guarantee you I will.