Theology Matters: Eulogy for a dead man

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.--Matthew 7:15-20

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.--Galatians 5:16-24

I have mentioned it a couple other times here, but I can recall a line in one of C.S. Lewis' books to the effect of people having two equally wrong ways to deal with sin: we either take it too harshly and become legalistic jerks, or we take it far too lightly and begin thinking we can do whatever we wish.  In both cases we cease to recognize both the effect and the gravity of Christ crucified: Jesus died on the cross because our sins are deadly serious, and because He has died and risen again we are able to walk in freedom and grace--away from our sin, into God-glorifying lives of sanctification.

Unless you've lived under a rock for the past decade or so, you have probably seen the antics and nonsense from the so-called "Westboro Baptist Church."  I say "so-called" because they are not a church, and they are certainly not Baptist.  They have done everything from give incredibly foolish and nonsense-filled interviews on TV to protesting funerals, to proclaim that the death being mourned has been brought about by a vengeful God because of America's sins, in particular its tolerance of homosexuality.  There is precisely zero understanding of the Gospel, no desire whatsoever to submit to the full counsel of Scripture, and a complete lack of regeneration evident in their words and deeds.  In short, this is what happens when Category A Self-Righteous Hypocrite goes on steroids: you have someone who can see what's wrong but believes, foolishly, that because they aren't engaged in such and such sin that they are clean.  Believing the Gospel does not produce this wicked fruit.

But likewise, the answer is not "You can do anything you want to do, because God made you and therefore anything you want is okay!"  And those are the two sides we find engaged in a battle of "who can be more wrong," amplified by the recent death of Westboro's founder, Fred Phelps.  The fruit of his life is on display for all to see, and one can argue he has been one of the biggest allies of the pro-homosexuality movement: his behavior and words have provoked such a dramatic response that it's hard for anyone with even an ounce of compassion for another human to find a way to make an argument against the normalization of homosexuality.  And so the diseased, thistley, dried-up fruit of his tree is seen before the whole world, many of whom turn and...eat the diseased, thistley, dried-up fruit of unashamed sinfulness.

Phelps was a man dead in his heart reading from a book that could not possibly have any meaning to him.  "How can you say that?" you ask.  "I thought Christians weren't supposed to judge."  Oh, but I can--by what the man produces.  And we know what the life of a man transformed by the power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit looks like; read it again:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

 So why write all this?  I'm sure that few would begrudge this if I said I simply was in a mood and wanted to kick the man while he was (literally) down, but that could not be farther from the truth.  On the contrary, I'm writing this as a follow-up to my last post, as a demonstration of why, exactly, theology does matter.  When we view the God of the Bible as nothing more than pure, unadulterated judgment of God and do not preach the Gospel, do not believe in God's power to save (in spite of their claimed "Calvinist" position) and do not believe in God's ultimate goal of restoring His creation but rather simply see Him showing up on the scene at some point to damn everyone except...well, them.  When we do not seek to line theology up with what the Bible actually says--the whole Bible--there is almost no end to the foolishness that can result.  Fred Phelps was perhaps one of the most obvious and blatant examples of it, but the danger always exists and we must be vigilant to sit in the Word, to sit in prayer and to celebrate with gratitude and great joy the mercy God has shown us in the person and work of Jesus--for if we don't, we tread very dangerous ground.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.--Galatians 1:6-9

Theology matters

Play on words title!  The best kind.  Theology matters, like "issues of theology," and "theology is relevant and important and you should care about it."  Let's go!

The saying, of course, is thieved with apologies from Dr. White.  I've wanted to write something about this for a while, but I feel like I finally found some more coherence to what I wanted to say after seeing an article on a friend's Facebook wall, and after Sunday's sermon.  The Holy Spirit really used the sermon to convict me and teach me about critical issues of theology, which I want to raise here.  I've talked about the doctrines of grace, and how I believe they are not the objectionable things many people believe them to be, but are instead a message of hope that all Christians should embrace joyfully and rely on in knowing that God has made promises to His people that He will fulfill.  First, though, to the article.

It's from the TED Blog, on "10 facts about infidelity" from Helen Fisher.  I have not gone out and studied her work in detail, but it's evident that she has done quite a bit of study on relationships.  It's not my intent to dissect her work on any level other than that presented in the blog post, with the perspective of a believer.  Those who love to dig into this topic will note that there are quite a few books on the subject linked from the article for further reading.  While there are points made that most anyone could agree with, it is clear that what we have here is what happens when you look at relationships with a presupposition that simultaneously tries to deny God as having any role or say over us, yet still maintain some semblance of purpose to sex and relationships.  The result is...well, we'll see below:

1. Pairbonding is a hallmark of humanity. Data from the Demographic Yearbooks of the United Nations on 97 societies between 1947 and 1992 indicate that approximately 93.1% of women and 91.8% of men marry by age 49. More recent data indicates that some 85% of Americans will eventually marry.

2. However, monogamy is only part of the human reproductive strategy. Infidelity is also widespread. Current studies of American couples indicate that 20 to 40% of heterosexual married men and 20 to 25% of heterosexual married women will also have an extramarital affair during their lifetime.

And let's back up to the introduction:

Love isn’t so much an emotion, says Helen Fisher in her TED Talk. No, love is a brain system — one of three that that’s related to mating and reproduction.  It’s those other two systems that explain why human beings are capable of infidelity even as we so highly value love.

 And the third point from the post:

3. Brain architecture may contribute to infidelity. Human beings have three primary brain systems related to love. 1) The sex drive evolved to motivate individuals to seek copulation with a range of partners; 2) romantic love evolved to motivate individuals to focus their mating energy on specific partners, thereby conserving courtship time and metabolic energy; 3) partner attachment evolved to motivate mating individuals to remain together at least long enough to rear a single child through infancy together. These three basic neural systems interact with one another and other brain systems in myriad flexible, combinatorial patterns to provide the range of motivations, emotions and behaviors necessary to orchestrate our complex human reproductive strategy. But this brain architecture makes it biologically possible to express deep feelings of attachment for one partner, while one feels intense romantic love for another individual, while one feels the sex drive for even more extra-dyadic partners.

Now, it's not my intention to dissect this or necessarily respond to this in depth; the problem, of course, is not that I am some science-ig'nant fundie--the problem is the fundamentally different worldviews that we are bringing to the table here.  I don't deny the possibility that what the article says is factual: that there are brain architectures that relate to love, faithfulness or lack thereof, and all related issues.  What I say, however, is that this is not proof of the accidental nature of our creation or the impersonal nature of our existence--rather, that it points to a very personal Creator who makes us in His image.  We will come back to this another day as it relates to the question of "does that mean God made us to be unfaithful" (the answer is no), but only because I want to get to the next point:

God has made us in His image and loves us.  Because He made us He despises the things that destroy that image and distract us from being that.  It's why the dual nature of God as being both infinite and personal is crucial to understand, and why Jesus coming as a human and living the life of poverty that He did is such an immense display of God's love, for so many reasons; indeed, there are good reasons why discussions of that subject fills untold volumes and I suspect I will be able to write here for years to come as I examine the many facets of that particular gem of truth and beauty.

But when we abandon the theology of a Creator God who made us for a purpose, whose purposes are definite and involve the ultimate good for His children, and who uses all circumstances for His glory and our ultimate benefit, we end up viewing things like sex, marriage and fidelity in such a way where it is simply the byproduct of chemicals mixing, genes creating tendencies and all of it is...well, the only real descriptive word is "purposeless."  It exists for the sake of us, it terminates on our desires of the moment, and if that philosophy becomes dominant, why is anyone surprised that a culture becomes obsessed with self and death?  But the alternative is just as vexing:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”--1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The point is that it matters how we view God.  This is a difficult thing to discuss in America especially, because of our idea of the "separation" of church and state and the way that most people operate their lives, with everything in its neat little box and ultimately there to serve our desires rather than everything existing in the single box of "this belongs to God and serves His glory."  In all honesty I have a huge struggle with this, and I have to spend time praying about things like my attitude at work and the way I interact with others.  I know where I'm strong, but my weaknesses sometimes seem overwhelming.  But I have been blessed with people around me who encourage me, pray for me and remind me to keep praying in turn, and God has shown the fruits of submitting all my life to him.

So this is the fundamental split between where I was, and where I am, and it comes down to the name of this blog and its inspiration: the purpose of a man's life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  Glorifying God is not drudgery--it is joy, and it's a joy we are able to partake in because we are made by a loving God!  Because He is a loving God, He has seen fit not to leave man purely to his own devices and ultimate demise into death, but to secure a people for Himself, to pay the ransom for them, and to move perfectly to set them from bondage to the slavery of sin and adopt them as His own.  


But if we view God as nonexistent, irrelevant, or something that goes "over there, between 9 and 11am on Sunday," rather than our Creator, Sustainer, Father, and King, then why is anyone surprised when we find our lives out of wack, imbalanced, and broken?  We try to sustain ourselves with spoiled food, to drink water from broken cups. 

And this is why I am unashamed to use the word "reformed" about myself and why I was glad to hear Ross' message Sunday: God made me in His image, but even as the rebellious, self-centered image-tarnisher I was, God loved me and let me see the glory and the mercy of Christ on the cross, let me be indwelt by the Spirit and know Him as my Father, who cleans me up and keeps on pushing, loving, and encouraging.  Not because I have done or ever will do anything to deserve it, but because it is His good pleasure to do so--He knows better than anyone that I certainly do not deserve it.  And that is why seeing an article that discusses sex and infidelity in such empty concepts as "pair bonding" just struck me as bizarre: sex was created and given as a gift, marriage given as a mysterious and beautiful image of the relationship between Christ and the church, and my wife given as a gift to me by a gracious God who uses both of us to sharpen and sanctify the other.

This has been somewhat rambling, but in the end this has been an opportunity to reflect with deep gratitude to God for who He is and for His incredible mercy and grace in my life.  It's not reflected by things or finances or anything except a heart that longs for Him and a family that seeks to grow closer to Him daily.  I pray for more and more of that, that He would increase in my life, and that I would decrease.