Should Evangelicals Celebrate Ash Wednesday?

I teach a small Bible devotion for a company with Christian owners. Once a month, they invite their employees  to join together and spend fifteen or twenty minutes with a bit of encouragement and reflection from the Scriptures.  I love this idea, but on more than one occasion folks there have commented to me that it's difficult to "switch gears" from sales calls, production worries, and accounting headaches to a quiet time where they can absorb all the devotion may have for them.

I can completely see how this would be so. It's hard to turn off all the cares and worries of our ever busier lives and just focus in on what God has to say. Many churches begin their services with an extended time of worship music for just that reason; it helps prepare our hearts and minds for the teaching. So, we learn to quiet ourselves in preparation for the tasks of the day with our daily devotional time and we learn to quiet ourselves in preparation for the week in our worship services.

I write all this today because it's Ash Wednesday, which marks a forty day period of reflection prior to Easter. Many people today, especially those in non-denominational churches, don't see a big significance in Lent. Some have left Roman Catholic or other traditional denominations who had a more formal observance of the day, and they feel that Lent is part of the "ritual" that was part of the "old school" way of doing things. But, is this the right way to think about Lent?

It seems to me that Lent is a very biblical idea.  God had the Israelites spend time reflecting and thinking about how He rescued them at least twice yearly (Passover and Sukkot).  The Psalms are replete with God pointing to the fact that He is the one who delivered Israel from Egypt. Paul in Ephesians 2:11-14 instructs us to remember how we, who were once cut off and separated from God were then reconciled to Him through Christ's sacrifice.

Lent is the perfect time, then, to quiet ourselves and prepare our hearts for the celebration of Easter and another year of living new lives in Christ. So, it makes sense to fast, to sacrifice some of what adds to our busy days, or to sacrifice some of the desires and distractions that crowd our lives. We need to remember how fragile we are and that our lives and our salvation are a result of God's good grace.

I urge you to see how you can make the time of Lent one where your hearts and lives are quieted before the Lord. A little ritual is not necessarily a bad thing—and it may help you to appreciate the enormity of Easter a little bit better

The Four Chaplains - How Religion Changes Everything

A Calvinist, a Methodist, a Catholic Priest and a Jewish Rabbi walk onto a ship… No, this is not the start of another lame joke, but a celebration of four men whose heroic actions are not remembered as much anymore.  Sixty years ago last week, at the height of conflict in World War II, these four U.S. Army chaplains engaged in an act of heroism that is scarcely seen.  As their ship sank, they took off their life vests and gave them away to soldiers on board, knowing that sinking in the frigid North Atlantic was a certain death sentence. Lt. George L. Fox, Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Lt. John P. Washington, and Lt. Clark V. Poling laid down their lives willingly as an act of service to their God and to their fellow men.

During WWII, many passenger cruise ships were converted into troop transports for the war effort.  The USAT Dorchester [1]wwas a smaller vessel, designed to carry about 314 passengers and crew up and down the East coast. After conversion, it would hold over three times more, with over 900 soldiers and ship's crew boarding on January 23, 1943 to cross the Atlantic to support the fighting in Europe.  German submarines, or U-boats, had attacked troop transports before, so the captain sailed outside the shipping lanes and had "ordered the men to sleep in their clothing and keep life jackets on. Many soldiers sleeping deep in the ship's hold disregarded the order because of the engine's heat. Others ignored it because the life jackets were uncomfortable."[2]

 Early on February 3, a German submarine torpedoed the ship which was 150 miles off of Greenland. Panic ensued on board, but the chaplains sought to sooth the fears of the men. "One witness, Private William B. Bednar, found himself floating in oil-smeared water surrounded by dead bodies and debris. 'I could hear men crying, pleading, praying,' Bednar recalls. 'I could also hear the chaplains preaching courage. Their voices were the only thing that kept me going.'" [3]

Once on deck, the chaplains began passing out life jackets to the men, but found out that there were too few for all the passengers aboard. Then, as survivors Grady Clark and John Ladd reported, all four of the chaplains took off their own jackets and gave them to others. "It was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven," said Ladd.  The Chaplains locked arms, sang and prayed for the men as the Dorchester sank with them on board.[4]

Steven Weinberg once said "Good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil--that takes religion."[5] New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens decry religion as something harmful, that it "poisons everything."  Well, here is just one example of the contrary.  There were many good people on the Dorchester, many who were ready to give their lives for the war effort. But there were only four men who were so selfless that they offered others a chance at life to their own demise.  It was because of their belief in God that they did so, not in spite of it. We would do well to continue to remember these brave chaplains.

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References

[1] "USAT Dorchester". Wikipedia. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAT_Dorchester> Accessed 2-9-2013
[2] "The Saga of the Four Chaplains". The Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation.
 < http://www.fourchaplains.org/story.html> Accessed 2-9/2013
[3] Ibid.
[4]Brewer, Stanley. S.S. Dorchester. GreatShips.net
< http://www.greatships.net/dorchester.html> Accessed 2/9/2013
[5] Weinberg, Steven. "A Designer Universe?" PhysLink.com
< http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm> Accessed 2/9/2013

Apologetics in the Military (audio)

How is moral relativism affecting our young men and women in the armed services?  It affects them quite a bit, actually. In this interview, I talk with Ratio Christi's Keith Kendrex and Dr. Enuel Hernandez, a US Navy chaplain who works with active duty marines, about the problem of relativism as it's found in our churches and universities, and especially within the military. As reported by NBC among others, the military suicide rate hit a record high in 2012. Moral relativism is one of the crises that help propel this number ever higher.

Click here to listen to the full interview.

Using a free Christian society to disparage Christianity

Many today who disparage Christianity may not know or believe that were it not for Christianity, they would not have the freedom that they presently enjoy. The very freedom of speech and expression that ironically permits them to castigate Christian values is largely a by-product of Christianity's influences that have been incorporated into the social fabric of the Western World, as chapter 10 documents. This freedom, similar to the freedom that Adam and Eve once had, ironically permits the possessors of freedom to dishonor the very source of their freedom. As Fernand Braudel has so eloquently stated, "Throughout the history of the West, Christianity has been at the heart of the civilization it inspires, even when it has allowed itself to be captured or deformed by it."
               - Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World. p.13.

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For more on this topic:
How Christianity Changed the World
Lenny Esposito - $7.00

If Christianity truly originated with God, then we would expect that following its precepts would have dramatic implications for societies as well as individuals. See how humanity is better off because of the Christian faith.

Divine Providence and Evil

Photo by  kaitew

One of the biggest tension points in Christendom is the question of divine providence and how that relates to the evil we see practiced in the world today. If God is in control of all the events of the world, and He is all-powerful, the why do we see so much evil and suffering?

Most Christians in the past clearly understood the concept of divine providence.  Even Thomas Jefferson, a deist, invokes divine providence in the Declaration of Independence. Certainly, the idea that God can order events in certain ways follows naturally from His attributes of omniscience and omnipotence.

But what does it mean that God orders things? Is there a difference between the laws of nature and the providential care of God?  And if God orders all things, then what about all the evil that we see in the world today?  Couldn't God fix that? James Montgomery Boice encapsulates the discussion well:

"There is probably no point at which the Christian doctrine of God comes more into conflict with contemporary worldviews than in the matter of God's providence. Providence means that God has not abandoned the world that he created, but rather works within that creation to manage all things according to the 'immutable counsel of His own will' (Westminster Confession of Faith, V, i). By contrast, the world at large, even if it will on occasion acknowledge God to have been the world's Creator, is at least certain that he does not now intervene in human affairs. Many think that miracles do not happen, that prayer isn't answered and that most things 'fall out' according to the functioning of impersonal and unchangeable laws.

"The world argues that evil abounds. How can evil be compatible with the concept of a good God who is actively ruling this world? There are natural disasters: fires, earthquakes, and floods. In the past, these have been called 'acts of God.' Should we blame God for them? Isn't it better to imagine that he simply has left the world to pursue its own course?"1

As I've written before2, God, in Hebrew thought, is considered the final authority over everything. If wars or famine happen, then God has allowed that to occur, and therefore controls evil. He does not initiate any type of evil. When a man seeks to sin and commit adultery that is his choice. He should not expect God to protect him, then, from any disease or negative ramification of his choice. God's judgments and the loss of His protection are how he creates afflictions in the lives of men. Judgment is not morally wrong, though. Quite the opposite, judgment is what we expect of a righteous God.

What Evil Isn't

Evil and sins are not "things" in and of themselves.3 They do not exist autonomously. Rather, they are the absence of the perfect which God did make. As an example, we have the ability to create a vacuum of space. Now I do this not by making something out of materials, but by removing all the air and particles out of that space. The void that remains is what we choose to label a vacuum. It isn't a thing in itself, but it is a term we use to state that everything else is gone. Likewise we use the term cold to describe a lower temperature. Any air conditioner man can tell you that to cool something down you don't put cold in, but you have to take heat out. Cold is the absence of energy that causes heat.

Sin and evil are regarded the same. These things cannot exist as "things" that are independent of circumstances, but are the labels given to actions or characteristics that do not meet the goal of perfection.

This distinction was first noted by Augustine of Hippo. In his City of God he writes:

For when God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light,' if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called 'Day,' in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made. 'The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,' — this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'4

References

1. Boice, James Montgomery. "God's Providence". The Highway. http://www.the-highway.com/providence_Boice.html. Accessed 7-22-2011
2. Taken from "Doesn't Isaiah Say that God Made Evil?" http://www.comereason.org/phil_qstn/phi025.asp
3. Taken from "Didn't God Create Evil, Too?" http://www.comereason.org/phil_qstn/phi020.asp 4.Augustine of Hippo. City of God. Book IX, Chapter 9.