The Way Home

CBS has adapted Steven King’s 2009 thriller, “Under the Dome,” as a big-budget summer series. In King’s book, a mysterious dome falls out of the sky, isolating a small town in rural Maine from the rest of civilization. No one knows whether the origin of the dome is supernatural, extra-terrestrial or part of some secret government plot.

But the enigmatic dome is no more mysterious than the town it surrounds.  The small town is home to a corrupt police force, a dictatorial leader, murder and deceit. And the community’s most malevolent members all happen to be right-wing Christian fundamentalists.

Detached from the rest of the world, the people trapped under the dome must live without electricity and other essentials of modern life. They cannot look to the outside world for help – they are cut off from supplies and from aid.

The people living under the dome are forced to depend on their own resourcefulness for survival. As it turns out, they are most resourceful at formulating evil. Violence, sexual misconduct and malice is rampant under the dome.

As time passes, the quality of the air decreases and children begin to show signs of physical and emotional distress. As the situation worsens, the darker side of human nature is exposed. The conflict that results is not so much between man and nature (or the lack of nature, under the dome) but between man and man, and between man and his own heart.

After seeing a commercial for the television series, my wife perceptively noted that the “Under the Dome” could serve as a metaphor for a life cut off from spiritual resources. Jesus promised a supply of such resources to those who live in the sweet air of what he referred to as the kingdom of heaven. Today we might call it the government of God.

Jesus urged his followers to bring the rule of their lives under the government of God. He taught them both by word and example that their individual kingdoms could be ceded to God’s greater kingdom, and that by so doing they could have access to the resources of heaven.

With this in mind, Jesus instructed his hearers to “seek God’s kingdom” (that is, to submit their lives to God’s governance). If they did so, he assured them, the resources they needed to live meaningfully and joyfully would be given to them. He then added, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

With the resources of heaven at their disposal, people can afford to be generous with their possessions as well as their time. They needn’t fear running out. They will have whatever they need to do whatever they must.

This is not a prosperity gospel, at least not in the way it is usually portrayed. Heaven’s resources are not available for self-aggrandizement but for service. They allow a person to be generous, but never to be covetous.

The resources Jesus promised are not merely financial or material. They are personal and spiritual. Knowing that heaven will come through in a pinch enables people to persevere in hardship, experience peace in conflict and remain hopeful even in times of sorrow and loss.

But trapped under the dome of self-reliance and cut off from the support of heaven, a person must depend entirely upon his own resources – an approach to life St. Paul referred to as living “according to the flesh.” When a person sees his or her resources being depleted, he or she will quickly abandon generosity and become competitive, self-seeking and controlling. That is life under the dome – life, as St. Peter once put it, “without hope and without God in the world.”

Published first in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, June 22, 2013

I’ve been attending worship services for so many years now, I cannot remember what it felt like when I first started. Did I feel out of place? Was I intimidated? Were people welcoming?

I do remember feeling out of place when, as a college senior, I began attending mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. In my home church I knew just what to expect: there would be a welcome, a hymn, a prayer, another hymn, and offering (at which time some announcements would be made), another hymn, a sermon, an invitation hymn and a closing prayer. Week after week it was the same.

But at St. John’s there was a liturgy to be followed. There was standing and kneeling, creeds to be recited, responses to be given and prayers to be made. It was very different from what I was used to, so I was always a little off-balance. What should I do while others are going up front to take Holy Communion? Will people wonder why I’m here? (I assumed they could tell a Protestant from three pews away.) Should I recite the creed with them or keep silent?

Going to church (or going to a different church) for the first time can be intimidating. What will people think of me? Will I say the wrong thing at the wrong time? What kind of clothes should I wear? Will I know what to do? Will anyone talk to me? Should I talk to anyone?

I had forgotten how daunting going to church can be until this week. I was with a dozen guys from our church on a three-day fishing trip to Lake Erie, and while there I had the chance to get acquainted with a couple of our charter captains.

As a group, charter captains (even those on fresh water lakes) are a little salty. They drink more than is good for them, use a colorful vocabulary and generally have a low P.Q. (patience quotient). From the little I’ve seen, they are not apt to quote a Bible verse or to break into a chorus of “Amazing Grace.”

As soon as they discovered I’m a pastor, they were on their best behavior (which, one might argue, still left something to be desired). Each of them, when the opportunity presented itself, engaged me in conversation about the Christian life and displayed a commendable openness to spiritual issues. One even blurted out, “God bless you,” when we parted.

The younger of the charter captains, who was under the impression that I thought he would go to hell because he didn’t go to church, lacked any kind of a religious upbringing. The other, a man whose pious mother died when he was still a child and whose father died a few years later, occasionally watches TV preachers and listens to old-time gospel music.

When I explained to the younger of the two men that following Christ is not about going to church but about having a relationship with the creator God, he seemed genuinely relieved. It was an eye-opener to me to discover that this salty dog was more unnerved by the idea of going to church than he was by the thought of meeting God.

Clearly even tough guys can find going to church intimidating – a truth we regular church attenders would be wise to remember. When inviting friends and family, we ought to reduce the intimidation factor by letting them know what to expect: tell them how long the service lasts; describe to them how most people dress; assure them that they will not be singled out.

They may be worried about the offering time. Explain how it is received. Talk to them about the pastor’s sermons. Tell them about what’s available for their children during the worship service. Offer to meet them at the door (or, better yet, to pick them up) and go with them. They may surprise you and say yes. Even a salty dog can learn new tricks.

Published first in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, June 16, 2013

For many people it is the most difficult – and arguably the most unreasonable – instruction given in sacred literature: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).

James, who led the Church during the earliest years of the Christian faith and in a time of government-endorsed persecution of Christians, directs believers to count their trials as joy. Their trials included the normal hardships of life – privation, sickness and loss – and the trials particular to religious persecution: harassment, mistreatment and imprisonment.

Not only were these people to keep themselves from despair when they were so treated, they were to deem it all joy. Is such a thing even possible? For that matter, is it sane?

To take the second question first: The sanity of such an approach to life would be suspect if there were no rationale for doing so. But St. James states his rationale, and it makes sense: “because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

The only reason to count trials as joy is that they produce perseverance, which may be the New Testament’s most highly-touted virtue. Perseverance is essential in every worthwhile endeavor in life, whether learning to speak a new language, play the piano, master differential calculus or get in shape. James says that perseverance leads to maturity and fulfillment.

But even if it is sensible to consider trials as pure joy, is it possible? The biblical record and Church history – not to mention the experience of many Christians – suggest that it is.

I knew and was mentored by a giant of a man. His name was Ken West. When I met him I was in my early twenties, he was in his seventies. He was about six-and-a-half-feet tall and had a presence that could fill a room.

He had known his share of trials, but he had learned to count them joy. When I first met Mr. West, he was recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous growth. In cutting out the cancer, the surgeon had severed a nerve, leaving the side of his face drawn and distorted. Yet he moved through life with a joy that hardship could not quench.

He knew that even his pain would not be wasted but would be utilized to make him more than he could otherwise be. He was well-acquainted with the apostle Paul’s teaching on the subject, that “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Ken West understood that future glory does not come in spite of present suffering; it comes through it.

I’ve known other people who have been able to count trials as joy – enough of them to convince me that it is possible for anyone, properly equipped and trained, to do so. But is it possible for a group of people – a church congregation, for example – to learn to do the same?

Church families sometimes go through painful trials together: A beloved leader is diagnosed with a terminal illness, a pastor is accused of moral failure, financial burdens grow heavy, or accident and tragedy strike. Can an entire congregation learn to “consider it pure joy”?

I think it is possible. The church as a whole can respond to trials with this attitude, but they must realize that such trials are, as James points out, a test of faith – not of competence or spirituality, or any such thing. And their leaders must model this positive approach to hardship in their personal lives. Even more importantly, the congregation must be immersed in the presence of a God whose love and whose competence to care for them is infinite.

(First published on Saturday, June 8, 2013 in The Coldwater Daily Reporter)

Ask anyone under the age of fifty to explain why Memorial Day is special and they’re liable to tell you it’s because Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer. That may be a good enough reason to celebrate, but it does not have much to do with the holiday.

My parents and grandparents referred to Memorial Day as Decoration Day when I was growing up. In fact, it wasn’t until 1967 that the name was officially changed, and not until 1971 that the holiday was observed on the last Monday in May instead of May 30^th.

Changing the date of the holiday so that it falls on the last day of a long weekend has altered the nation’s sense of what the day is about. Some people do not know that Memorial Day is set aside to honor those who died in America’s wars. And others, who are aware of the day’s association with the departed, think of it as a day to honor anyone who has died.

The holiday’s roots go back to the time of the Civil War, when women gathered to decorate the graves of fallen Confederate soldiers. In the South, formal observances were being held within a year of the end of the war. In the North, a national Decoration Day was proclaimed and celebrated in 1868, and quickly became a state holiday in Michigan and other states.

So many men died in the Civil War (current estimates are over 700,000, more than in all other U.S. wars combined) that the nation could find no escape from the pain of her loss. The total U.S. population at the beginning of the Civil War was less than 32 million, which means that about one of every fifty people living in the U.S. died in the war.

Unable to escape her pain, the nation chose instead to remember. After northerners and southerners died side by side on foreign battlefields in the First World War, the North and the South began to celebrate Decoration Day together. The importance of the day loomed large again following WWII (with over 400,000 deaths) and, only a few years later, the Korean War.

But times have changed. Since Viet Nam, almost all of America’s wars have been unpopular. The nation, unwilling to glorify war, has in some cases failed to honor those who died in war to protect us. And now, after decades of unpopular wars, the nation is served by a professional, all-volunteer army, which has significantly altered the average American’s interest in the armed forces and, as a consequence, in Memorial Day.

Fewer and fewer towns are holding Memorial Day parades. The graves of those who died in battle are frequently unattended. Decoration Day is in danger of becoming Barbecue Day.

Does all this mean that Memorial Day has become passé? Will it, like May Day, slip into oblivion? When those who still remember WWII and Korea are gone, will the meaningful observance of Memorial Day go with them?

One suspects that it will and hopes that, if it does, it will herald the day when “Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).

But in some future day when war has been forgotten (may God haste the day), warriors should still be remembered. Those who gave their lives for a cause bigger than themselves deserve not only to be remembered but to be honored. They represent what is best about America: the willingness to endure hardship and sacrifice for the sake of others. Such willingness to sacrifice is even godlike, for it is reminiscent of the one “who gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:6).

We ought to remember those who died for us and pay tribute to their sacrifice, if for no other reason than this: if we forget the cost of war, it won’t be long before we are paying it again.

Published 5/25/2013 in The Coldwater Daily Reporter

I admit it: I sometimes write with a hidden agenda.

When I quote writers and thinkers – poets, like the renaissance poet George Herbert and the contemporary poet Billy Collins; philosophers from Augustine to Alvin Plantinga; apologists, like G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis; and many others – my secret hope is that the reader’s curiosity will be piqued, that he or she will investigate these writers for himself or herself, and will come to cherish them as I have done.

No writer (with the possible exception of C. S. Lewis) has been quoted more often in this column than Dallas Willard. I first came across Dr. Willard – philosopher, U.S.C professor, writer, speaker – in a philosophical debate between theists and atheists. When he came to lecture at Notre Dame and neighboring Bethel College, I went to hear him speak.

Since then I have read everything I could find by Dallas Willard and have gone to hear him speak whenever possible. I found him to be erudite, yet accessible; brilliant, but humble; a knowledgeable guide to the life well lived.

Dallas Willard died on May 8, 2013.

This is my tribute to him.

Dallas Willard had a scholar’s mind and a saint’s heart. He translated works of Edmund Husserl, wrote extensively on phenomenology, and was recognized as an expert in that field. But outside the academy, Willard is known best as a Christian leader who understood both the theory and practice of spiritual formation.

Willard’s friend and colleague, Richard Foster, once told me how he met Dallas. Foster was just out of seminary and called to his first pastorate in a Southern California church. Among the congregants was Dallas Willard, who was sometimes called on to preach. Foster told me with a smile that when he preached, people took notes but when Dallas preached, people brought their tape recorders. They didn’t want to miss a single word.

Willard’s book “The Divine Conspiracy” was Christianity Today’s Book of the Year in 1999. Foster called it “the book I have been searching for all my life.” In it, Willard exposed different versions of what he calls “the gospel of sin management,” as expressed in both liberal and conservative circles, which he differentiated from the good news that Jesus brought.

The Jesus to whom Willard introduced us is “the smartest man in the world.” He pulled back the curtain and gave us a glimpse of the God that Jesus knew, and the God-bathed, God-permeated world that Jesus saw. He explained why we can have confidence in Jesus and why that confidence should lead us to become his “apprentices.”

In his 2002 book, “Renovation of the Heart,” Willard described the process by which an individual’s spiritual life is formed. He emphasized the fundamental importance of the mind in spiritual formation and explained the role the Bible plays in it. There is hardly a page in my copy of “Renovation” that is not marked up.

Willard’s 1984 book, “Hearing God” is the most helpful resource I know for living a life guided by God, for “developing a conversational relationship with God.”

It’s true that Dallas Willard had his critics, some of whom accused him of being soft on the doctrine of the atonement. But in an email reply to a question of mine, Willard explained that the atonement “is everything” and that, apart from the atonement, there is no salvation.

Dallas Willard was a great man. But more importantly, he was a good man. We will miss him.

Published in the Coldwater Daily Reporter, 5/21/2013

            Marriage entered into “unadvisedly or lightly” (as the Book of Common Prayer has it), can do more harm than good. Nevertheless, people regularly enter marriage on these dangerous grounds. Perhaps if they understood what they were promising to do, they might exercise more discretion. So what is it that they promise?

            In the traditional ceremony, people promise “to have and to hold” each other. This is not to have in the same way a man has a possession – a car or a boat; it is not even having in the way a collector has a priceless antique. It is having the way a person has an eye or a hand. “To hold” implies intention. You may have something you didn’t intend to have – a cold, or a bad check; but you hold what is precious to you. Those who marry vow to have each other as they “have” no one else; to hold one another so closely that there is no room for anyone to come between.

            “For better, for worse.” Without exception, couples experience both. But if by the grace of God they have each other, and by the intention of love they hold each other, they can make it through anything. Sadly, almost fifty percent of Americans believe that in the worse times they can have better times if they will stop having and stop holding. But this is a delusion. In the end, it is not what the times are like, but what the people are like, that makes a marriage better instead of worse.

            “For richer, for poorer.” Many marriage partners foolishly arrange their entire lives – their children’s nurture, their schedules, and their involvement in a community of faith – around the accumulation of money. But this leads to tragic consequences for where one’s treasure is, there one’s heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). Only those couples who treasure each other more than money will routinely make decisions that enhance and strengthen their relationship, regardless of whether they are richer or poorer.

            In “sickness and in health.” When I served as spiritual care coordinator for a group that cared for the terminally ill, I heard about a woman who abandoned her husband when he could no longer take care of himself. On the day he collapsed, she called 911, packed a few things and left home.

            It is likely that she had once made this vow to her husband, but had not understood at the time what it entailed. But then, who does? And that is the point. These vows mean that we will not allow circumstances to dictate the success of our marriage. And the truth is, circumstances never dictate the success of a marriage. Rather, the kind of character we are developing is what determines the kind of marriage we will have, no matter what our circumstances. This couple’s marriage did not fail because he contracted a terminal illness; it failed because they were not the kind of people who can have and hold in sickness and in health.

            The next line of the vows is: “to love and to cherish.” To love is a choice; to cherish, a delight. While we cannot choose to cherish, we can choose to love, and experience teaches us that what we choose to love over a long period of time we will certainly come to cherish. To love is the responsibility; to cherish is the reward.

            “Until we are parted by death.” So many couples part before death. It is too easy in our culture to find alternatives to marriage that don’t require the hard work of love, that promise better and not worse, richer and not poorer, health and not sickness. Romance, entertainment, and sexual gratification were at one time found in one’s marriage partner, but today can be found in other sources, usually on easier terms.

            Easier, but less rewarding. For marriage is not so much about finding Mr. or Ms. Right as it is about becoming Mr. or Ms. Right. In this lies the promise, as well as the reward, of marriage.