The Ultimate Sunrise

God’s beauty is not unlike that of the sun’s. Just like we can’t look straight at the sun, we also can’t see God in his natural form – as the scriptures say He lives in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16) – but just like the earth is a perfect canvas for seeing the sun’s beauty in the slowly building sunrise or sunset, God also made earth to be a canvas for displaying His own extravagant beauty. Many people live with their gaze pointed down these days, without ever looking ‘up’ where the beauty is, so allow me to point out where to look for the sunrise.

The areas I will point you to are God’s plans and God’s ways, specifically in regards to humanity, as these turn out to be perfect canvases for revealing His beauty. They reveal His heart – His unchanging essence: that even in His terrifying purity, He is good, He is Love, and He can be trusted. And if we are open, we can grasp these attributes, most wonderfully, both by tangible internal experience, and by objective observation of what God has done in history.

So what are the details of what I’m talking about?

It is the common experience of spiritual Christians (not weak or name-only Christians) that God “consoles”, directly within one’s heart. When I have experienced pain and loss, I have also experienced God communicating to my heart (“touching” it if you will) that things will be okay, that, after all, I have Him as an ever present friend and Father, and He is greater than life’s disappointments. In a world of fleeting thrills and no shortage of pain, how beautiful is it to have God as a friend who tangibly consoles! God knew pain would happen in the world, even intended it as part of the rich tapestry of the overall plan, but He didn’t want us to be crushed by it – He dearly wants us to be open to Him and His thoughts so He can console each person.

Secondly, He also brings His joy, as a steady experience within the spiritual Christian’s heart. God’s joy is more than simple happiness, it is a richer emotion, one that transcends the regular emotions. It often is connected to happiness but it is meant to uphold us more deeply with a sense of God’s goodness, faithfulness, and care, even when times are bad. When God sees we are serious about Him, He has most amazingly shown that He commits Himself to us and we can trust He won’t leave us, even through difficulties. Having joy means having a sense that all things will eventually turn out well, even through death, because we have obtained peace with the Creator (and strength for life thrown in), through His epic amnesty deal. And this joy is also a beautiful, internally felt sense.

However, beyond the direct ways of demonstrating His beauty to us, God reveals His beauty even more clearly in a physical example: Jesus – in His life and purpose and the way He interacted with people, Jesus can only be described as a beautiful person.

A person’s beauty is measured on many levels, one of these being humility. Jesus was a “heart and soul” part of God from before creation (not like the angels who were part of creation), glorious, perfect, and lacking nothing. Jesus was also God’s promised one to humanity, a figure (spoiler: God’s Son) through whom God intended to bring reconciliation to Himself to a humanity that has been corrupted (see Psalm 14:1-3 and Luke 19:10). God’s moral character is far above our own and anyone who doesn’t align with His moral character is a moral “rebel” – and He could have justifiably ordered nothing but removal for us as corrupt creation, (think of what you do with milk that turns sour or food that turns rotten on you), but in His beautiful character, He made a way for reuniting with all of His rebelled creation (and every last one of us has taken part of that rebellion). The fact that Jesus did this by leaving His heavenly home and walking and talking and dying with us on earth makes Jesus the embodiment of humility.

Jesus had to achieve the goal of the cross in his time on earth, a planned, necessary objective – it was not pretty but it was beautiful, because it demonstrated something incredible from God’s heart: He is willing to die for the people He created. (God in His natural form cannot die but if God decided to become present in human form He could.) But why die? Why not just “work hard”? God does that too of course, but God has a law within Himself that anyone aligned to the wrong way, morally, receives penalty – basically that “sour milk” or anything rotten, must be thrown out, but Jesus, the only “unspoiled milk” there has ever been on earth, took that punishment on our behalf. God is always perfectly fair and just in that He upholds the laws He puts in place, and Jesus fulfilled His law, so one other thing is clear: attaining the final gift (the original promise of humanity’s intended destiny) is by receiving the gift of Jesus, very specifically, because Jesus, being the same essence of God, stated He came as the very emissary of God on earth, the one and only Message, laying out everything that God has to communicate to us about reconciling with Him (see John 14:6 and 2 Corinthians 5:19).

Jesus interacted with people in the most beautiful way. He was full of compassion, both practically and emotionally. He encouraged children to come to him for blessing, he embraced outcasts and untouchables, he showed mercy to those who were rejected, he condemned injustice (especially in religious circles) and held the unjust to account, he gave hope to those without hope, He faithfully conveyed God’s message and perfectly conveyed God’s character. Jesus very boldly said “the one who has seen me, has seen the Father” (see John 14:8-9) and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (see John 14:11).

So these canvases: God’s work in the human heart, and His work through Jesus, reveal the beauty of His heart. And God’s heart, like the sun, is always shining, though for us below the clouds, the rays may be intermittent at best – even so, the sun hasn’t changed. If you’re seeing some of the sunrise, keep your eyes on it. The clouds will always be around but they tend to move away for those who are willing to look for the light. Christ following is not a religious system, it is a relationship with God himself. God is not a concept, a philosophy, or a set of rules, but a Person – a person who wants to walk, meaningfully, with His created beings – and who has gone above and beyond (or perhaps exactly to the perfect point..) to show that He is beautiful and worth approaching. In John 11:25 Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die”.

Knowing this beautiful God is the journey that life is all about, and your Creator eagerly awaits for you to join Him on this journey to know Him, if you haven’t already. Starting the journey is about being honest with God – acknowledging that you have failed Him morally and that He made a way to save you through what Jesus did. Come along, it’s good – beautiful even.

For more information on the objective truth of Christ’s claims and how we can know that the words of scripture were written by eye witnesses and haven’t changed over the years since they were written, see: https://youtu.be/APMD_UatlhA?si=TaZPia81WldXjynE and further books and work by J Warner Wallace and Lee Strobel.

For more information on how the Bible does not conflict with science, see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goy2YJLFI-I and further books and work by John Lennox and Hugh Ross.

Why Does God Stay So Hidden?

So many people and groups claim God exists, but in our day-to-day human experience, God often seems hidden. Why is this?

Shouldn’t we expect God’s personal presence to be overt, obvious, and regular? Especially if Christianity claims that He is interested in us personally?

If God invented life, He knows the meaning of it.. But that doesn’t mean it’s always clear to us..

In relation to feeling God’s absence, throughout history, it has been normal for humanity to struggle and ask “Why?” or “Where are you?” I suspect, if we were honest, each of us have questioned God in this way at some point. Even the writers of the Bible (who had many meaningful experiences of God punctuating their lives), also had these painful feelings of His absence at times:

Psalm 10:1 Why do You stand far away, LORD? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?

Psalm 88:14 LORD, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?

Psalm 13:1 How long, LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?

When God doesn’t answer us when we call to Him in our trouble or after a long time, it feels like rejection, or that God just isn’t there at all, but far from being a sign of God’s absence or negligence, I would like to try and show that it’s actually just a natural product of two things: God’s different-ness in comparison to us, as well as part of a strategic purpose he has in His plan of salvation for us. We should definitely keep seeking Him, in circumstances of doubt, because His answer might be just around the corner, but it’s important to add knowledge to our efforts, so I hope the thoughts I have to share encourage you in your pursuit of Him.

1. God seems distant because He is so different from us.

We are limited, finite beings – God is an infinite being, and is therefore very different from us in “size” and in degree (though we were also made with some similarities to Him, but that’s another topic). Think of holding up an ant to your face to try and reveal yourself to it – what would the ant do? Likely, just continue on doing its work searching for the next objective to support the colony. Humans are wholly “other” to an ant – effectively, we’re “infinitely” above ants, and even “unknowable” to them.. Unless, perhaps, we had the ability to become an ant, and explain ourselves to them in ant-speak..

God is also of a different “essence” than us. We are physical and God is “spirit” (John 4:24). God created humans as part of the physical world (but with a spiritual component). This is unlike God and His angels, who are fully “spirit”. Consider the difference between the physical and the digital. A digital computer game character (who exists fundamentally as code), could never “see” his physical programmer because digital characters only “see” things of their own “essence”, that is, other digital information. Of course the programmer could, if he so chose, program an avatar of himself into the game, as a digital representation of himself or as a portal for him to communicate through..

This gap between lesser and infinite is still infinite (in both the degree and essence of God’s difference from us). Infinite gaps cannot be overcome unless the infinite party/side chooses to do something to help. 1 Timothy 6:16 says ” ..[God] who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.” But does that mean, we are forever unable to know God? Or has He actually done something to enable us to know Him? Christianity claims that the man Jesus Christ was exactly this effort by God to reveal Himself on earth.

Consider what the following passages have to say about the Jesus Christ:

Philippians 2:6-8 “For he [Christ], who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God’s equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal.”[Phillips]

Hebrews 1:3 “The Son [Christ] is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”[HCSB]

John 12:49 “For I [Christ] did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.“[NIV]

So Jesus claims to be the “programmer” that came down into the “program” – but what did Jesus reveal to us concerning God and His plan? To know that you should of course read Jesus’ own words. (Start with the 21-chapter Gospel of John).

What else does Jesus and the scripture Jesus upheld, tell us about why God is hidden at times?

2. God’s hiddenness serves a purpose for our salvation.

God created humanity in order to have a group of beings to share life with Him in His goodness and love, but God intended this potential only for those who actually love Him – and not everyone does. How might God separate out those who love Him from those who might only say they love Him? By creating a world for us to live in, that involves choice, God gives us a chance to see the nature of the world – one of good to be embraced and evil to be rejected – and then make our decision as to how we will live. If God was hovering over us, filling the sky at all times with His direct presence, we would all be very careful to choose what pleases Him.. but it wouldn’t be out of love for Him, rather it would be cowering servitude. How else, as someone who stands to offer ultimate blessing, can you see who really cares for you, other than to give them a chance to act without them seeing you watch them? This is what the Bible reveals about God – He chooses to be hidden from view for a time to reveal who truly loves Him. In Matthew 25:35, when describing, on the day of judgment, His positive assessment of the people who love Him, Jesus says “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in..” How we live in regards to others, especially those in need, is a most serious test, of God’s design – and He can easily sort out justice after life is over.

God has certainly woven moral law into creation, but by making us creatures with free will, it means we can choose to do what we like and go against His moral standard. But what word best describes it if God’s laws are sacred to Him and then we go against them? “Rebellion”. Even one sin is an act of rebellion against God, and sadly, each one of us has rebelled in many ways, meaning that, before salvation, we are out of a safe place with God (that is, not at peace with Him) and in an unsafe place (in opposition to Him). Smartly, God still gave us a sense of need/expectation for Him and a sense that we need to do what’s right (conscience). We may feel abandoned by God in this life, but if we have indeed rebelled against Him, a feeling of God stepping back from this dishonour shown to Him, makes more sense then some sort of over-simplified grandfather figure who blindly loves everyone and makes no judgments on anyone’s actions. So if we have indeed rebelled against Him (whether we recognize it as rebellion or not), God uses hiddenness to show us the seriousness of our sin, and the danger of being in a state of opposition to Him. Isaiah 59:2 says” But your wrongdoings have caused a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” This doesn’t mean God won’t listen if we are actually sorry for what we’ve done and intend to change (the Bible is full of promises that God responds in mercy to this attitude), rather this is God saying you can’t have Him while you want to hold on to what is sin. So hiddenness is a meaningful response to our rebellion, because if there is any hope that we might change or take any offers God makes towards our peace, we need to sense that something is wrong. We need to see our rebellion as God sees it, but this is not the end of the story..

God uses His hiddenness as a context to show us His mercy. In speaking to His unfaithful people, Israel, in Hosea 2:14 God says “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” Even though His people rebelled against Him over and over in the Old Testament, God still cared for them and wanted to bring them back into a state of loving, freely chosen following of Him. In the allegory found in the book of Hosea, God uses “wilderness” (a state of lack of basic needs and/or a feeling of abandonment), to accomplish this goal. By being cut off from their sources of fulfillment, and primarily God Himself, this “wilderness” was meant to cause Israel to reevaluate their orientation towards God, and respond by returning to Him – the only true source of peace and contentment in this world.

These aren’t the only reasons that God may have to be hidden, but they are some of them. Do you ever feel like you are in a “wilderness” in life or in your search for God? Have you considered that God may be calling you back to Him, or to Him for the first time, to know His heart, and live as He called each of us to live, so you can have the friendship with Him that He made you for? Know that you can return, come, humbly acknowledging to Him your failure to live up to His standard, and trust in what Jesus has done to save you – God is always eager to embrace anyone who does. There is much to be said about How God has revealed Himself in this world and in history (read more of these blogs and the linked resources if you’re curious), but our painful experience of God’s hiddenness is also a thing to be reconciled. I hope these thoughts help explain why this hiddenness fits right in with the whole message given to us in the Word of God.

The Itch

Sometimes I don’t drink enough water, leaving my body in a state of dehydration. There are other drinks that I prefer so water can sometimes take a second, third, or fourth place. Certain drinks like beer and coffee are even diuretics, which cause more water to be eliminated from my body, making the issue even worse. When I get dehydrated, my skin tends to become dry, and then it gets itchy. When this happens, I naturally find myself scratching my skin even though the itch (the most immediate source of the problem) is not the fundamental problem. Why? Scratching provides temporary relief from the itch, it feels good physically – and at some less-than-rational level it seems like it will solve the problem at hand. Ultimately though, the itch is only a signal of the real issue: that I need to supply my body with water. If I ignore this signal, the situation gets worse and the signals will become more serious. If I were satisfied with the solution of scratching as the solution to my dehydration problem, it would not end well for me.

Why is it that in most cases, it is not good to scratch an itch? We know that the pull to scratch is strong, but as everyone learns through childhood, that rash, scab, burn, mosquito bite, or dried skin, should not be itched because it doesn’t help, and in fact can make things worse.. And yet our biology works in a way that makes it feel so good to give in. Everything in those glorious few seconds of scratching an itch screams “Beautiful solution!”, screams “Cure!”. The pull can be overwhelming at times, but itching even a little just increases the pull to itch it again – if you can give in and then find the zen-like strength to refrain from then on, you’re good, if you can’t, it becomes a literal mini-addiction.

So, from ages past, humanity has learned that giving in to the pull to itch does nothing to solve the root problem, and rather, what is needed is persistent restraint in the face of a persistent itch, and addressing any root problem. The counter-intuitive reality: the biological pull to gratify the signal is real, the immediate result is pleasure, pleasure is good (so we generally think), and yet the pleasure I get from scratching is superficial, it does not satisfy no matter how good it feels in the moment, so most of us  have learned to avoid the deceptive pleasure of itches. Pleasure itself, doesn’t mean health. Pleasure, though good in context, doesn’t always make it safe for us to engage in just because the opportunity exists. There are of course thousands of examples of this.

So what is going on with an itch? Why the bait and switch? An itch is a signal to the brain that something is not right with your body, just like pain, only not as extreme. An itch is a sign of a subtler kind of damage, and we can be thankful that minor issues have a different signal than pain, yet are still significant enough that signals are sent. But why pleasure? Actually, an itch is not the pleasure itself – we add that by responding to the signal, but it’s only pleasure for a while – and of course, repeated giving in to the itch causes abrasion and breaking of the skin, which does lead to pain – entirely self-caused. Through this uncomfortable bodily armistice, we have learned that immediate gratification does not lead to health and fulfilment. Rather, we know we ought to apply the needed solution, and wait.

What if an itch is a symbol for a greater form of the same thing? Our desire for pleasure and satisfaction is much like that of an itch. There is nothing wrong with pleasure in and of itself – as intended, it is a God-bestowed gift. However, even good things can be used in wrong ways. For some pleasures, the critical point is amount, as with alcohol for example: use it in moderation, and you’re fine – go into excess, and it can become an insatiable force that does not add to fulfillment, but only takes away. For other pleasures there are specific boundaries: stay within them and you will maximize the pleasure, step outside the boundary and you will risk harm and an increase of the unhealthy urge that keeps pulling you to cross the boundary. Like a child needs their parent to show them what is good and what is harmful, so humanity needs God, after all, if He created humanity, only He knows what ultimately works for us and what doesn’t.

The biblical concept of sin is much like an itch and scratch scenario. God states certain actions are wrong – anything that causes harm within creation and dishonor to Himself so, far more activity is actually sin than tends to be acknowledged (if you don’t believe that dishonour should be part of what God counts as sin, remind yourself of that, the next time someone cuts in front of you in line!) Biblically, sin operates in all sorts of areas: from how we handle money, to how we speak about others, to how we desire certain things in our heart, and much more – and yet something deep within our human make-up causes a pull towards these actions.. just like an itch. Giving in, promises, and provides, immediate pleasure and never ultimately fulfills.. And yet, apart from the most apparent vices, we have not learned to ask why we keep pursuing these things that only offer superficial satisfaction and over time, cause damage, pain, and emptiness. Following such pleasures without restraint, may lead to numbing and subtle damage we are oblivious to, or it may land us in an obvious mire that is not at all what we wanted, and nothing what the pleasure seemingly promised us. We failed to recognize that, like an itch, such pulls are a false form of pleasure. These sins may have an element of truth and goodness, but it is distorted. Even more disturbing is that sin, being essentially defined in relation to God – and knowledge of God being something we choose how much or little we seek out – means these are things we may not even recognize as sins until we are shown – much like a child with a mosquito bite or dry skin, who must be taught not to itch it. Left in their natural state, a child will scratch away until the damage is maximized. Among other things, the outlining of what actions and dispositions are sin to God is what Jesus Christ has provided mankind. This is part of His grace and truth that He offers a humanity plagued with sin. If we rely on our own wisdom to define sin, we may avoid some pitfalls but we will stay bound to much of the preoccupation with the surface pleasures that life provides. In this place, we are not only damaging ourselves emotionally, physically, and interpersonally but further hindered by being distracted from the deeper, more authentic and sustainable fulfilment from God that we have not yet taken hold of.

Why can’t fulfilment come from pleasure? Why can’t these earthly fountains of seemingly good things, satisfy? So many pleasures don’t harm anyone else, right? Why would God give us desires and have them turn out to be damaging and empty? Learning from Christ, the answer, though it plumbs the depths of the human make-up, can be summed up in a basic truth: life is not about pleasure. Pleasure is icing – created as a gift from God. Icing is food but consuming icing wrongly will make you sick, some people it could even kill. Rather, life is about returning to peace with our Creator – and it is only our grip on sin (these actions that we may not even realize dishonor Him) that keeps us away (Isaiah 59:2). In fact the Bible summarizes our primary problem of sin, saying we are all already dead, spiritually, because of it (Ephesians 2:1-2) – also calling it a form of sin “enslavement” (John 8:34) – stressing why we cannot simply choose to overcome our deeply rooted connection to sin. Yet, in all of this, God’s attitude is still one of goodness and love towards us – just like the father in the story Jesus tells of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).  This revelation of the heart of God shows the way to the deeper, most authentic satisfaction that exists in life, and it is truly good news that it is still intended for us. How is it achieved? By first acknowledging God’s view of right and wrong and then accepting His offer of a return to Himself.. the state of renewed spiritual health then accompanies this. But if this is possible, there must be many ways to get there? Perhaps through self-help? Meditation? Picking a religion and following it as closely as possible? If anything is demonstrably clear in life, it is that all of these things give only minor help. The unique claim of Jesus Christ is that He is the one person who has “defeated sin” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57) and also made this victory available to anyone who wants to accept His real presence in their life.. But wait – if He is God then He is the one we have offended by our sin – isn’t facing Him a cause for worry? It would be if it wasn’t for His clear demonstration that He is fully motivated towards reconciliation with us (just read any of the gospels!). The ball is in our court as to whether we will take him up on it. (Provision has been made for God to welcome us back – the only thing necessary is a sincere effort to keep trusting Jesus is there and that He promises to be reliable to anyone who comes to Him (John 6:37) and sticks with Him (Matthew 24:13)). But rather than trying to align to the rules of Christianity on your own strength (which doesn’t work), It actually just requires hearing him out and putting your trust in Him with the appropriate steps.. and letting Him do an internal work in you so you can exclaim along with the Psalmist “I delight to do your will oh my God, your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:8).

This life is still not always a walk in the park.. but those who realize He’s calling them, and who respond, find that He’s there, with power in hand to live as we should.  (I myself have experienced Jesus’ power in this miraculous way, though I, like most Christians, don’t always apply it every time since I still have my free will and my faulty earthly body). The power to resist sin and over time, evict it from our lives, comes as a gift, obtained through accepting Christ, and it is continually worked out in our lives as we continue to walk with him. (Romans 8:13, Hebrews 10:14). With power to resist sin, I have the freedom to set up healthy patterns of living. Jesus claims to be able to put “springs of living water” inside us (John 7:38) (this refers to internal satisfaction from God), and with drinking ample amounts from these waters, comes much less of the itch – the pull to the superficial gratification of sin. Temptations don’t always go away, so it is still something to be careful to avoid even after starting a life with God, but the promise (and my experience testifies to this as well) is one of increase of strength in the long term – the actual, supernatural power to consistently avoid otherwise dominating sinful pulls. But even more than this, it includes finding pleasure that satisfies – life with Jesus, God’s ultimate gift, who is the real, living water that fulfills our deepest thirst.

The Fallout of Humanity Revealed in Chernobyl

The HBO miniseries Chernobyl is a fantastic historical drama, with rich production and high-calibre performances. It chronicles the tragic explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant found in modern-day Ukraine, and the subsequent radiation catastrophe that killed or shortened the life of thousands, and continues to plague the surrounding area to this day.

Over its five-episode span, this series tells the whole story of the disaster, splendidly portraying the cultural setting, the human players, the extreme measures taken to mitigate the damage, the investigation into the causes, and of course the repressive political context. The glaring swath of failures and inadequacies of the Soviet government, and communism in general, are perhaps the main message of Chernobyl. It vividly demonstrates how a system built on the perception of power and held together by coercion, invariably compromises the truth when the truth would show the powers that be in a bad light. It is the classic human problem of needing to protect one’s image above all, but in this case, at the cost of the country’s population. It is the picture of a dark nation indeed, when the government is composed primarily of people hungry for internal promotion, terrified of the ruthless oversight of the KGB, and who therefore toss away respect for human life if it means protecting their own name.

But there is another message that emerges in HBO’s storytelling of Chernobyl – one that reaches even deeper into the heart of humanity. In the fourth episode we meet a squad of soldiers tasked with eliminating the animals, mostly pet dogs, remaining in the evacuated quarantined zones. This is required because all the animals have become radioactive. Bacho is the battle-hardened leader of the group, an alpha-dog with a tough-as-nails persona. Pavel is the new recruit, barely an adult, introverted and greener than a spring meadow, knowing nothing of life as a soldier. As tough as Bacho is, he is also fiercely protective, and takes Pavel under his wing. As they progress through Pavel’s first day on the job, Pavel finds it extremely difficult to shoot the dogs, who by all external accounts, seem perfectly happy and healthy. After avoiding it at first, he eventually shoots one, but it eats him up inside. At lunch, Bacho, knowing the turmoil Pavel is in, tells him this story:

“This happens to everyone their first time. Normally when you kill a man, but for you a dog. So what, there’s no shame in it… …My first time – Afghanistan. We were moving through a house and suddenly a man was there and I shot him in the stomach. Yeah that’s a real war story. There are never any good stories like in the movies, they’re shit. Man was there. Boom. Stomach. I was so scared, I didn’t pull the trigger again for the rest of the day. I thought, ‘well, that’s it Bacho, you put a bullet in someone, you’re not you anymore, you’ll never be you again’. But then you wake up the next morning and you’re still you. And you realize, that was you all along – you just didn’t know.”

When the final line is shared, it carries with it the weight of authentic human experience – the innocent finding themselves in situations where they are unable to remain in the comfort of their preferred identity, and finding they can do things they never thought possible. It should assault the modern day sensibility that says we are basically good people, but it doesn’t – rather, it resonates with us. Sure a person can say, ‘well if your country asks you to go to war, and if it is for good reasons, it is not wrong to kill in those circumstances’. But that is not Bacho’s point – we clearly see him acknowledge that it is the act of killing a fellow human being that is suspect – he worries that it taints or even removes one’s soul (“…you’re not you anymore…”) and that resonates too. Why is this? It certainly begs the question: even though humans have long had their reasons to fight and kill, why at some level, has it always felt.. wrong. Somehow a sense of this wrongness remains, even when we can come up with righteous reasons for it to be done. Evidence for this can be seen in the entrenched availability of counseling for police officers when they’ve had to kill a perpetrator. (Of course we know there are valid reasons for society to have public servants who are able to take up these tasks, but that there is often associated psychological trauma, is telling.) This aversion can be seen as the inbuilt moral sense of the wrongness of taking the life of something that God has placed eternal value on. Jesus believed that humans were made in the image of God and are meant to be an outworking of His glory – to end a life, therefore, is a violation of the divine. God has wired this sense into us, (not that we can’t use our free will to act against it, deadening this sense, if we continue in a contrary direction). So we all recognize that killing is wrong – that’s a good thing about us, right? Well, it would be, if that were the only state of affairs, but the really unsettling part, as Bacho surmises, is that “killing” is inside us already. (“…that was you all along – you just didn’t know.”)

How did this precarious state of inner confliction come about? It’s easy to see why God would have built in the sense of wrongness of certain things, but why the wrong things themselves? This darker side of the coin has come about by humanity’s rejection of God through the preferring of our own knowledge and ways (this having occurred both in the first human, and in each of our own lives), and our subsequent loss of connection with God. God intended to sustain the good motivations within us, but with God out of the picture, we have hearts that are at the mercy of their own selfish motivations. Now, rather than exclusively producing the good desires God intended (desires like loving others, peace, patience, joy, etc.), we have a completely mixed bag. This story of the human condition is described by Jesus in Matthew 15:9-10: “ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  These are what defile a person..” Bacho is agreeing with Jesus’ assessment given two thousand years earlier, that murder (among other things) now resides in the human heart in the form of desire, however occasional, to do it – and this taints (defiles) us. It may not work its way out in actual murder, but even the thought – the inclination towards evil – making its presence known, reveals the truth about us: we’re beings that have the kernel of evil hidden somewhere inside. Most humans in our culture the way it is, would never kill for their own benefit – but if the situation was different, the chips stacked against us, with no one looking.. It is a frightening thought experiment. Regardless, Jesus goes as far as to say that even “simple” hateful acts, like cursing at someone is, at some level, as bad as murder, because it is the same root (Matthew 5:21-22). It is an uncomfortable indictment against the nature of each and every human.

Thankfully, it is this shocking state of affairs that Jesus came to remedy. By bringing us peace with God through His own sacrifice, Jesus paved the way for humanity’s reconnection with God, but not just that – also the promise of a new heart – for each and every person who honestly trusts in Christ’s accomplishment (Ezekiel 36:26). This new heart is Jesus’ heart: pure, inclined only to do good, without the least “spark” to do evil – a heart that loves and values everyone, even those disagreed with. Ultimately, God cares more about whether a person has the “spark” to evil within them, and not only about how many evil acts are committed. Why? Because He’s making a new society that will be perfectly peaceful and safe. That means no such “sparks” can exist there. Even an inclination to act harmfully is dangerous to a society, because that’s how acts start. But Christians still sin, right? Yes, the old selfish motivations are still trying to persuade, through the memories of the old ways and the enduring free will (believers can choose to accept God’s internal help to keep proper motivations or not). God has chosen to work in His followers organically. We have all made our “room” messy with sin, and instead of immediately zapping it all clean, Jesus says He’ll help us clean it up – His return to the human heart, His proper domain, is the only hope to flush out all the improper old patterns, and He does it, step by step. (I, for one, testify to this internal progress and strength.) Those who stick with Jesus are promised that the old patterns of sin will be fully removed before the transition to the next life. Awesome news, and a future that He wants for every person!

This brings us to one last parallel with Chernobyl – the dogs. It didn’t matter how happy, well-behaved, or lovable they were – they were radioactive, so they could never safely be part of a normal society again – meaning their future was sealed. In a starkly similar way, humanity’s leanings to sin are radioactive to the environment God ultimately wants for us. We humans are certainly loved by God, we may be well-behaved, but unless we can safely get the “radioactivity” out of these bodies, tainted with their inclinations as they are, we simply cannot be part of the new world God has planned. Thankfully, because God is rich in mercy and goodness towards a rebellious creation, He’s made a way that we can! Trust in the gift, receive Jesus and the promises, and let life with the new heart begin! Thank you Lord!

A Righteous King with a Father Heart

Exploring the nature of someone as big as God, takes a careful approach. It’s a bit like walking a tightrope – making a statement that is true but not balanced, can create the wrong concept and knock us off the rope to one side or the other. Christianity claims that God is a righteous king (meaning one that is honourable, deserving, and without fault), while at the same time, someone with the heart of a father – in fact, these aspects are so key that one cannot properly comprehend God unless both are understood. So how do these two unique attributes work together to describe a single being? In this article, I will explain these concepts, using each to refine the other, to help us arrive at a cohesive and accurate image of God.

Atheism, Amoralism, and Arationalism

This is a recommendation to go read an article by Dr. James Anderson, in which he helpfully explains the related nature of moral norms and epistemic norms – and how rejecting the existence of moral norms (as hard-atheism does) seems to requires the rejection of epistemic norms as well.

It’s worth the read.  Go check it out.

Moral norms and epistemic norms, while distinguishable, move in similar orbits. […] There are parallels between the two kinds of norms, even if one kind cannot be reduced to the other. [Atheism’s denial] of moral norms can be extrapolated into grounds for denying the reality of epistemic norms. If you think that talk about ‘morality’ is really just “a matter of subjective value or desire,” it’s a natural next step to think that talk about ‘rationality’ is “in the end … a matter of subjective value or desire as well.” On the face of it, it’s hard to see why, given atheism, there would be objective epistemic norms but no objective moral norms. Why would it make sense to talk about right thinking but not right acting? Why would there be objective standards that govern our cognitive faculties but no objective standards that govern our other faculties? For the atheist it’s really only a small step from amoralism to arationalism.

via Atheism, Amoralism, and Arationalism — Analogical Thoughts

Atheism, Abortion, Guilt, and Forgiveness

This is an article that deals with the moral status of abortion. It attempts to show that any worldview that claims (1) science as its ultimate arbiter of truth, and (2) that all human lives are of equal value, must find abortion to be morally impermissible. This is the position that atheism would otherwise find itself in, inasmuch as it strongly agrees with (1) and generally agrees with (2).  And, as expected, some atheists do argue that abortion is morally impermissible.

But this is not the position that all forms of atheism take.  Some forms of atheism, against the conclusion dictated by their own principles, hold to the moral permissibility of abortion.  But how? Ostensibly, any worldview that claims both (1) and (2) cannot hold abortion to be morally permissible without being in contradiction.  And yet, some atheists, apparently, prefer the contradiction.  Why is that?

Though this article deals with abortion, this article is not about abortion per se. Abortion, however, serves to illustrate the lengths to which some forms of Atheism will go to avoid dealing with one of its intractable problems: The problem of guilt.

Is Reality Subjective or Objective? Pick Your Poison!

Case Study #1: Reality is Objective

January 8th, 2016 at 11:20 pm, Edward Archer, a self-professed Muslim, attempted to kill Jesse Hartnett, a police officer with the Philadelphia Police Department, as he sat in his police cruiser.  Archer fired 13 rounds, striking Hartnett three times.  Hartnett, though wounded, quickly called for backup and returned fire.  Archer was wounded, and was quickly captured by the convergence of police, his pistol still in his possession.  During police questioning, he gave a written confession of the attempted killing.

“I follow Allah. I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State and that’s why I did what I did,”

Trinity vs. Tawhid – Part 1 – Which God Can Speak to His Creation?

This is the first of a five part series investigating the differences between God as described in the Quran and the in Bible, and the implications thereof.

Which God Can Speak to His Creation?

The nature and character of God as described in the Quran is very different from that as described in the Bible.  The Islamic concept of God is that of Tawhid, in which God is ultimate unity, and only unity.  The Christian concept of God is that of Trinity, in which God is both ultimate unity and ultimate plurality – a God one in essence and three in person.  These two concepts of God cannot both be true, just as the respective Scriptures in which these two concepts are expounded cannot both be true.  Which God, if either, has actually spoken to His creation?

Or perhaps, we should first ask the logically prior question – which God, if either, has the ability to speak to His creation?  Which God can communicate with mankind?  This is the question that this first part in this series seeks to address.  In coming to answer this question, we find that the Islamic position has a fatal flaw that renders Allah mute, while there is a fundamental strength in the Christian position through which the Triune God can speak into the world.

Podcasts Worth Listening To

I love to listen to podcasts. I have a subscription list of around 40 different podcasts, and I track around 40 more for episodes of interest. My work provides me abundant opportunity to listen to podcasts all day long, and they make the work day that much better. Whatever your interests are, you can find a good podcast.