Wide Angle: Fallen (and Still Falling)

Posted on November 16, 2021 by salooper57

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden, humanity’s authority over creation was ripped from them. They were divided from God, divided from their inner selves, divided from each other. God had warned them, “In the day you eat the forbidden fruit, you will surely die.” And they did. They experienced an immediate death in their spirits; it was now only a matter of time before their bodies would succumb to the death that had claimed their souls.

This is what it means to reject God’s authority. It means hiding, blaming, fearing, distorting, hurting. It means division between people, even husband and wife. Look at verse 17: “To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’” The word translated desire is used in the next chapter of the desire to control a person. Pain and division came pouring into the most intimate relationship on earth like a flood. Husbands ruling over wives, wives trying to control husbands, and marriages cracking under the weight of sin.

Work, which had been given to man as a blessing, now became a pain and a drudgery. Verse 18: “Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.” When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, humankind stepped off a cliff. When theologians talk about Genesis three, they often describe Adam and Eve’s sin as The Fall. But I believe what happened in the garden was only the initial tumble down a long, steep hill. Humanity is still falling. Our downward progression has not stopped.

The would-be ruler of creation has become the subject of pain and sorrow. In the next chapter we learn that sin was passed on from parent to child. Sin is the ultimate pandemic; it has infected us all. The story of the first sin does not end with man banished from the garden because sin does not end. It continues.

Humankind has fallen, and is still falling, and who can stop our plunge? But the Creator is faithful to his creation. The psalmist says, “he will not harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve . . . ”6 He will stretch out his arm and rescue us.

I said that humanity is still falling, but in our headlong plunge toward fear and hiding and blame – towards hell itself – a hand is stretched out toward us. It is a scarred hand, and your name is engraved on its palm. He alone can break our fall, but he can only do so by gathering all the force of the fall into himself.

This was God’s plan all along. He who was at the beginning and is already at the end foresaw this. You see, history does not stretch out like a line – a timeline, as we say; rather the line has not just width, but height and depth, and it towers up, like some great cathedral spire, to the cross. It is in view in the beginning – in creation: Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth.9 And it is in view at the end: at the judgment and beyond: the new song of heaven is: “You are worthy . . . because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”10

Man will again rule on the earth – when he comes back under the authority of God. Despite the fall, the story goes on, but from wherever one stands, in the chaos of the early earth or the worship of the glorified in heaven, one sees towering above history the cross and, reaching into history, the outstretched, scarred palms of Jesus Christ our Lord.

6             Psalm 103:9-10

9             Revelation 13:8

10            Revelation 5:9-10

(You can read previous posts in the Wide Angle series by typing “wide angle” in the search box on the top right of this page.)

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Evangelicalism Commandeered: A Cause for Concern

Posted on November 13, 2021 by salooper57

Six years ago, I wrote an article on why I am still an Evangelical. I admitted then that there were things about Evangelicalism that made me uncomfortable. That discomfort has grown. But when I wrote that article, I assumed I knew what an Evangelical was. Now I am not so sure.

The word “evangelical” is a transliteration into English of a Greek term meaning “good news”. Evangelicals are good news people. They have good news about God and his kingdom to tell, news that is all wrapped up in Jesus.

Evangelicals have always been marked by a few key indicators. They have, for example, been people of the book. Evangelicals love the Bible. They consider it a revelation from God and authoritative on all matters of faith and practice.

As people of the book, Evangelicals have emphasized the necessity of making a decision to follow Christ. Going with the flow, even in a powerful religious current, is not enough. A personal decision is required. Because of this emphasis, Evangelicals often think of themselves as people who have a “personal relationship with Christ.”

They have also emphasized the necessity of “living out” one’s faith. This emphasis has led Evangelicals to spend more of their own time and money to keep people fed and cared for than anyone else.

These were some of the traditional markers that identified Evangelicals. The question is whether these markers still mean anything. That’s not because traditional Evangelicals have renounced these ideas. Any who have did not intend to remain Evangelical. It is because people are now self-identifying as Evangelical who do not share the movement’s traditional beliefs.

For example, 17 percent of American Muslims who attend mosque at least once a week now identify as Evangelicals. Despite the Evangelical label, they would not say the Bible is authoritative on all matters of faith and practice, nor would they insist on a decision for Christ.

The fact that so many American Muslims are now identifying as Evangelical is not the only surprise. The number of Catholics who identify as Evangelical has more than doubled in the past decade. Certainly, many Catholics share Evangelical-like views of the Bible and the need for a personal decision, but a theological shift alone cannot account for this large, unexpected change.

Ryan Burge, who teaches political science at Eastern Illinois University, adds that “there’s evidence that the share of Orthodox Christians, Hindus, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who identify as evangelical is larger today than it was just a decade ago.” Evangelical Mormons? Evangelical Hindus?

A recent Pew study revealed that the number of white Americans who identify as Evangelical has increased. This contrasts sharply with the mainline churches, which have been hemorrhaging members for decades. While some Evangelicals’ attribute this phenomenon to their theological convictions, the facts point in another direction.

For example, the number of self-identified Evangelicals who admit that they never attend church has risen nearly 50 percent over the last decade. Those numbers were undoubtedly skewed by COVID, but what kind of Evangelical never goes to church, not even online?

Evangelicalism is undergoing a change. However necessary that might be – and revelations about Evangelicalism suggest that it has been necessary for a long time – it is not in this case good news. The movement is not so much being transformed as commandeered. Many newly minted Evangelicals are missing the chief component of Evangelicalism: the good news that God has come to earth in Jesus Christ.

But why are so many people, including non-Protestants and even non-Christians, now identifying as Evangelicals? Ryan Burge believes that in the circles in which these non-Protestant Evangelicals move, “Evangelical” is simply another way of saying, “conservative, religious Republican.” This represents a significant change. In the 1970s, fewer than half of church-attending white Evangelicals were Republicans. That number has now risen to 70 percent.

However highly one thinks of conservative Republicans and their policies, they cannot take the place of Jesus as the centerpiece of Evangelicalism. “Conservative” does not equal “Christian” and “Republican” does not equal “Evangelical”.  Without Jesus, the church ceases to be the church and the good news of the gospel is lost.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Proof of … Faith (1 Peter 1:6-7)

Posted on November 7, 2021 by salooper57
Viewing Time: Approximately 25 minutes

I don’t know what you think about proof of vaccine (and I hope you won’t feel the need to tell me), but the Bible reveals that God also has a “proof of” requirement—and no one is going to pass legislation that will force him to drop it. You can try to forge a “proof of” card, but it won’t work. Not that there haven’t been forgers – there have been many – and they might fool me, but they will not fool God.

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What to Do When the Bible Bothers You

Posted on November 6, 2021 by salooper57

I recently read a biblical passage that has always bothered me. Not bothered me like a slap in the face but bothered me like a painting that is hanging crooked on someone else’s wall. I cannot straighten it, but I sure wish someone would.

Some form of the passage is included in all four Gospels, which suggests it is particularly important. Jesus is asked why he teaches in parables (instead of in propositional truth statements). He answers: “This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”

He goes on to quote the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, through whom God said, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”

Why has this bothered me? Because it sounds as if Isaiah – and worse, Jesus – is saying that God doesn’t want people to hear or to see and so to turn to him and be healed. Such a calloused deity seems incompatible with the God I have known in Jesus, who loves even messy people and offers them his blessing. Nor does it fit with other passages in the Bible that unambiguously state that God wants all people to come to repentance and to be saved.

Photo on unsplash.com

What should a person do who, coming to passages like this in the Bible, experiences a kind of cognitive dissonance, accompanied by questions they cannot answer? I have found it best to acknowledge the discomfort and admit that I don’t have the answers. It is equally important to remember that my lack of answers does not mean there are no answers.

When a biblical text seems to suggest that God is unloving, unmerciful, or heartless, it helps to remember that the rest of the Bible portrays a God who is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.” Clearly, this troubling passage is not the entire story. It may seem to contradict other biblical passages, but this is because I cannot yet see how it all fits together.

Once I’ve acknowledged my discomfort, admitted my ignorance, and remembered the larger picture, I can without worry wait for more light on the subject. It is wise to pray for such light.

I did that this past week with the passage above. When I then read the text in the original language, I discovered some things I had missed in English translations. For example, the NIV (quoted above) leaves untranslated the key conjunction “because.” Jesus explains that he teaches in parables “because hearing, they will hear and not understand.” Apparently, parables are more effective than propositional truth with people who hear but do not understand.

Further, the reason people cannot hear and understand or see and perceive is clearly stated: “For the heart of this people has grown fat” (literal translation). That is, they have grown comfortable and lazy. Listening is a burden. They have closed their eyes because they don’t want to see.

So, God has not withheld truth from people. Rather, they have put themselves in a place where they can barely hear truth. Parables were Jesus’s way of waking them up.

It seems clear to me now that the problem is not a God who does not want to reveal himself and his ways, but a people who would rather not be bothered. Jesus does not speak in parables to hide the truth, but to reveal it to people who would rather not know it.

I can’t agree with Mark Twain, who wrote, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” The parts I can’t understand do bother me. Yet I am confident that their true meaning will not in any way detract from the fact, revealed in Jesus Christ, that God is love.  

Meanwhile, what I do understand keeps me plenty busy.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Wide Angle: Presenting God as a “Cosmic Spoilsport”

Posted on November 5, 2021 by salooper57

As Genesis three opens, we find man, male and female, living in perfect harmony with one another, with creation, and with God. But remember that man, sub-creator and ruler – the image of God – has been endowed with the ability to choose his own path. And in today’s text, the path forks, and man must choose which way he will take.

Consider verse 1: “Now the serpent was more crafty [the Hebrew word does not connote malice like the English word, though there is malice aplenty in this story] than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?””

We are not told where this serpent came from, why it could talk, or why it was tempting the woman to do what God commanded her not to do. The text doesn’t even take up those questions. But later in the Bible, we find that “serpent” is another name for the satan, a spiritual being, who previously chose to reject God’s way.

I have always assumed, when I read this passage, that the entire temptation took place in a day, even in a few moments. But the text does not really say this, and I suspect that it is not so. Perhaps this temptation continued at intervals for days, or weeks, or even months.

The serpent began by asking a question—not that he cared how the woman answered the question. It was not an answer he was after. He only asked the question to prepare the ground of her mind for the seed of doubt he intended to plant. By prefacing his question with the words, “Did God really say,” he introduced uncertainty into the situation and into her mind.

Notice also the little word any. God, of course, did tell Adam and Eve not to eat from one special tree, the one known as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But by inserting the word any, the tempter slyly implies that God is, as Vaughan Roberts put it, “a cosmic spoilsport.”[1]

The woman, coming to God’s defense, hardly noticed the effect those words were having on her thinking. She said (verse 2), “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden [to this point, the woman was exactly right, but notice what she says next], and you must not touch it, or you will [or, lest you] die.’”

I think the insinuation that God was a spoilsport had already begun working on the woman’s thinking: something caused her to add the words, “You must not touch it.” That was not something God had said. She was distorting his words. She also changed something else. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate the fruit of this tree, on that day they would surely die. But when the woman repeated that, she says merely “you will die” or, as other translations have, “lest you die.” The reality of God’s word had given away to uncertainty.

By misstating what God said, the woman made herself vulnerable to what the tempter was about to say. At first, he only dared to question God’s word, but after his initial success he was able to flatly contradict it (verse 4): “You will not surely die.”

At this point the soil had been plowed, and it was time to plant the seed. The tempter bluntly called God’s character into question (verse five): “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

At this point the soil had been plowed, and it was time to plant the seed.  The tempter bluntly called God’s character into question (verse five): “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Look at that verse again. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened [this part was true], and you will be like God [this part was not], knowing good and evil.” That last part was true and false. Yes, they would know evil: They would know it as their children have known it ever since: in fear, hiding, blaming, lying, hating, longing, and despair. But they would not know evil and good as God does. Their choice to disobey made that impossible.

[1] Vaughn Roberts, God’s Big Picture, Downers Grove: IVP, 202.  p. 38

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Wide Angle: The Story’s Told that Adam Jumped (But I’m Thinking that He Fell)

Posted on November 3, 2021 by salooper57

In a previous Wide Angle Post, we saw dazzling nebulae and listened to the ravishing symphony of streams and winds and waterfalls. We saw the pinnacle of creation – not a towering Mount Everest, not even a vast, trillion-starred galaxy – but man, male and female. Man, the sub-creator, the commissioned ruler, the caretaker and love-giver of creation. And we heard, like a refrain reaching its crescendo, “It was good, it was good, it was very good.”

And it is good: The beauty, the freshness, the fertility of the earth; the love and heroism and passion of mankind. It is very good.

And it is very bad. Nature revolts. Tsunamis wipe out tens of thousands of people. Earthquakes crush and destroy. Hurricanes sweep away entire cities. Draught and disease kill untold millions.

But the harm caused by nature pales before the harm caused by her supposed caretaker and love-giver. It is man who crashes jet airplanes into buildings filled with other men. Man, who packs his fellow-man into cattle cars and ships them off to gas chambers. Man, who tortures and controls and hates; who brutalizes, degrades and destroys.

Listen to how Dostoevski’s character, Ivan, in The Brother’s Karamazov, described it over a century ago: “A Bulgarian I met. . . was telling me all about the atrocities being committed. . . they set fire to homes and property, they cut people’s throats, they rape women and children, they nail prisoners to the palisades by their ears and leave them there till the morning and then hang them, and so on; it really defies the imagination. We often talk of man’s ‘bestial’ cruelty, but that is. . . insulting to beasts. . .”1

What Ivan was describing in the 1870s has happened countless times before and since. He could have been talking about Germany in the 1940s, or Cambodia in the 1970s or Rwanda in the 1990s or Liberia and Sierra Leone at the millennium or Syria today, or some other place tomorrow. It goes on and on and on.

We have beauty and cruelty, hand in hand; wisdom and insanity, side by side. We have the glory of Bach coming out of Weimar, and the barbarity of Hitler coming out of the Weimar Republic. There is a little Bach in Hitler, and a little Hitler in Bach, and a little of both of them in all of us.

What can explain these extremes: goodness and depravity, love and hatred, stunning beauty and appalling ugliness? Western man often tells the story of humanity in terms of progression, evolution, and growth. The plot follows crude and simple man as he plods, and occasionally jumps, forward. From stone to iron, from iron to refined metals, and from metals to polymers. He goes from fingers to abacus to supercomputer. Up he goes, always up.

But part of the story is left out. It is not just from stone to iron, but from stone-headed axe to iron-tipped spear, from iron-tipped spear to lead bullet, from lead bullet to atom bomb. We jump, but we usually land further down, not further up. The story of man’s progress has been one of technological advance and spiritual decline. As the songwriter Jackson Browne once put it: “Now the story’s told that Adam jumped, but I’m thinking that he fell.”

1             Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Karamazov Brothers. Oxford University Press, 1994

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Wide Angle Series: It Was [Not] So

Posted on November 1, 2021 by salooper57

In ancient times leaders would place images of themselves throughout their kingdoms. (And they do it today, too – one need only think of Kim Il Jong, the North Korean head of state or, previously, Saddam Hussein.) Such images served to remind their subjects of their ruler.

When God made the earth, he intended to place his image everywhere, a constant reminder that he rules the world.  Humans were intended to be the living image of God, ruling creation (Genesis 1: 28) as God’s representatives, with his love and wisdom flowing through them to all creation.  Everywhere one looked, or so it was intended, one would find the image of the gracious and benevolent king acting with grace and benevolence towards his creation.

When God created stars that manufacture nuclear energy on levels that we cannot even imagine, he was running no risk.  When he made dinosaurs the size of buildings, they posed no threat.  When he sent the earth spinning at nineteen thousand miles per hour and flicked it with his finger so that it sailed through space at 67,000 miles per hour, it was safer than a Sunday afternoon drive.  But when he made man, he created the potential for catastrophe—and he knew it.

Do you remember?  When God created the universe, everything he said happened just as he said.  Remember the refrain: “He said . . . and it was so.”  What could resist his will?  When God said, “Let there be light,” it was so.  When he said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water … it was so.” When he said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear … it was so.”

But man, made in God’s image, was given his own will.  When God said to man, “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,”8 it was not so.

Man was the X-factor; he was (from our perspective) creation’s biggest risk, and its biggest reward.  No one can fault God for thinking small.  He had great plans for humans – for us – and he still does.  The story is still unfolding, and we have a part to play.  Because people bear the image of God, they are tremendously valuable.  The potential for humans –whether newborn child, world’s oldest man, or inmate serving a life sentence – is inestimable.  Every person you know is priceless: the phone solicitor who calls at dinner time, the dentist, the restaurant server, the genius and the mentally handicapped, all are infinitely worthwhile.  Worthwhile, however, is not the same thing as worthy. But that is another part of the picture, and it will have to wait for another time.

For now, learn this: God, who made everything by speaking it into existence; who holds all things – the four universal forces – together by his word; who holds you together by his word; is creative, remarkable, glorious, joyful, powerful and loving.  He is someone you really should get to know.

     8 Genesis 2:17

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No Vacancy: A Halloween Message

Posted on October 31, 2021 by salooper57
Viewing Time: Approximate 25 minutes

Enjoy this timely message. The central text is Matthew 12:43-45: “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

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A Halloween Lesson on The Giving God

Posted on October 30, 2021 by salooper57
Photo by Toni Cuenca on Pexels.com

Halloween began as a Christian holiday, the eve of the Feast of All Saints (or “All Hallows”) Day, on which the church celebrates and thanks God for her saints. Halloween was long ago given over to ghouls, goblins, and devils. More recently big business has haunted it—Americans are expected to spend over ten billion dollars on Halloween this year. Perhaps I shouldn’t draw too fine a line between ghouls and big business.

But Halloween is the eve and vigil of a Christian holy day, and it once helped me learn an important Christian truth. I was probably nine or ten-years-old. For the first and last time, I went trick-or-treating on the east side – the nice side – of our city. My cousin was from the east side, which is where the more affluent folks lived.

I don’t remember how long we’d been at it when we came to the house of an older woman. When she opened the door, we shouted, “Trick or Treat!” and held out our bags. She looked us over for a long time and somehow deduced that I was not from the neighborhood. “You don’t live in this neighborhood!” she said to me. Then she preceded to lecture me on the etiquette of Trick-or-Treat and told me I belonged in my own neighborhood, not in hers.

After all that, I didn’t expect to get anything. But once she had reproached and lectured me, she reached into her bag and took out two pennies, one for my cousin and one for me. That was the last time I ever went Trick-or-Treating on the east side. I had learned my lesson. I was never again going to ask those people for anything.

All of us have experienced similar situations. We ask a parent for something, and they give us what we ask for, but not until they lecture us on being more responsible, tell us to keep our room clean, and remind us of how much worse they had it when they were our age.

You go to your boss for needed supplies and she okays them, but only after she lectures you on the realities of the department budget. You ask a friend for forgiveness and are told you are forgiven, but that doesn’t stop the person from giving you an unabridged list of all the wrongs you’ve ever done. You take your purchase back to the store for a refund and, a half-hour, three clerks, and one manager later, get your refund, but are informed they didn’t have to give it to you because you didn’t have a receipt and were warned that next time you wouldn’t get one.

I once assumed that God was like the old east side woman I met on Halloween: he doesn’t really want to give us anything. He needs to be coaxed into it and, even then, will only help after he lets us know how disappointed he is in us. But that is not the God of the Bible, the God to whom Jesus introduces us. He is – as a literal translation of James 1:5 puts it– “the giving God.”

This is the God Jesus knew. He is a giver. He loves to give, and he gives because he loves. He so loved that he gave. He knows what people need before they ask, and he is ready to give when they ask. If you know how to give good gifts, Jesus once said to people, “how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). He is the God who “graciously” – not grudgingly – will “give us all things” (Romans 8:32). He is the Father who is “pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12: 32). This is good news about God!

Returning to the letter from St. James, this God gives generously to all people. The word modern translations render “generously” can also mean “simply.” In other words, God does not give with ulterior motives.  He does not give in order to get. He doesn’t give so that he can later say, “You owe me one.” He gives to people because he loves them.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Wide Angle: The Speaking God

Posted on October 29, 2021 by salooper57

It is hard for us to grasp how God’s word, his communicated thought, can bring matter into being and manipulate it into whatever shape he chooses. But consider a simple analogy: God’s realm covers the vast universe, but you have a realm, too. It extends through your body. All you need to do is think, “Raise right hand” and your hand raises. Your word – whether spoken or merely thought – has incredible power in your realm! You don’t know how your hand raises; it just does. In your small realm, you have absolute power.2

Similarly, as your hand responds to you, the universe responds to God. He needs only intend something, and it happens. “He spoke,” wrote the psalmist, “and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.”3 The author of Hebrews tells us that he sustains “all things by his powerful word.”4 God created, and rules, and redeems by his word.

Just as any artist’s work tells us something about the artist, God’s creation tells us something about him. That is why King David could write, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”5 As with any other artist, we can learn something about him just by looking at his art. If you look at the twisted paintings of Picasso, you will be able to guess some truth about his character. It might not surprise you to learn that Picasso once said, “Every time I change wives, I should bury the last one. That way I’d be rid of them . . .” Though Picasso claimed that God was dead, he was also heard repeating the words, “I am God, I am God.”6 The art reveals the artist.

What can we learn about God from looking at his art – at Creation? We can learn that his wisdom is fathomless and his power unimaginable (Job 28:23–27; Proverbs 3:19). We can get a feel for his glory (Psalm 19:1). We can deduce his love for humans (Psalm 8:3–9). We can get a sense of how deeply he cares for his creation (Isaiah 40:12ff). We can learn that when he does something, he does it well and he does it right. After the refrain, “He said. . . and it was so,” we find repeated the line: “It was good,” “It was good,” and “It was very good.”

Let me give you an example from creation that covers all the truths in the paragraph above: that God cares for us, that he gets it right, that he possesses unimaginable power, and that he is really, really, smart. All the matter God created is composed of four elemental forces – gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. Those four forces are the material universe; they combine in an endless variety of ways to form everything we see. You – at least the physical part of you – are a complex arrangement of the four forces. So is the chair you are sitting in. So is the 70,000 light-year-wide Eagle Nebula.

Now consider the wisdom and power of God. The respective strengths of the four forces have to be precisely balanced for life to exist. For illustration purposes, we can assign a baseline figure for the strength of each of these forces. The weakest of the forces, gravity, is the most familiar to us. We will assign it a relative strength of 1. The next strongest of the four forces is the weak nuclear force. It holds neutrons together in an atom. To it we assign a relative strength of 1,034. It is that many times stronger than gravity. Then we come to electromagnetism, which is a thousand times stronger than the weak nuclear force. Finally we come to the strong nuclear force, which is a hundred times stronger still, and holds protons together. So, we have gravity, which holds the planets in place, then, at a thousand times stronger, the weak nuclear force, which holds neutrons together. Then there is electromagnetism, which holds your phone or computer together (not to mention you) as you read this. And finally, there is the strong nuclear force, which is a hundred million times stronger than gravity.

The precise balance that exists between the strengths of these forces is crucial to the existence of the universe. If God had made the strength of gravity evenslightly different, a tiny fraction stronger or weaker, stars, planets and people wouldn’t exist. If the weak nuclear force was different by the smallest percentage, the universe would be composed entirely of hydrogen. If electromagnetism was weaker or stronger, chemical bonds could not form; there would be no life as we know it. And we know of at least 25 other perfect balances in creation – ratios that had to be extraordinarily fine-tuned for life to exist. No wonder the great astronomer Fred Hoyle, an atheist himself, said the universe looks suspiciously like a put-up job. And God spoke all this into perfect balance as easily as you think, “Raise my hand,” and it is raised.7

(If you think this will encourage someone, please share it!)

   2 For more on this, see Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: Harper Book, 1998)

   3 Psalm 33:9

   4 Hebrews 1:3

   5 Psalm 19:1

   6 Os Guiness, The Call (Nashville: Word, 1998)

   7 See Charles Edward White, “God by the Numbers,” Christianity Today (March 2006). See also, Paul Davies, The Accidental Universe (Cambridge University Press)

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