How Heaven Is Like a Small Town

There is a tendency to idolize both one's upbringing and the small town, and it is not my intention to do that. I know full well the ugly side of small town life: the provincialism, the petty infighting, the divisions, etc. I also know that the small town itself is dead or dying in many places. It is the rare small town today that is a self-contained society, with a vibrant communal life and commercial and career opportunities.

When I was younger, I could not wait to get away from the small town. I grew up in a small town not too far from Grand Rapids, a mid-sized city. My parents had moved away from the city before I was born, seeking a smaller town in which to raise their family. My cousins and grandparents lived in Grand Rapids, and I was always curious about that life. Everything was so convenient. My cousin and I could ride our bikes to a convenience store. There were restaurants and movie theaters. As I got older, I discovered the cultural life there. I loved trips as a young child to the big downtown department stores, which have since perished.

Being from a small town, and now living in a suburb, I have discovered they are two very different things. Small towns are far enough from cities to have their own community life, while the suburb leeches off the city. No, heaven is not like a suburb. We live in one of the best suburbs I could ever imagine, and yet I profoundly hope that heaven is different than the suburb.

It is hard to imagine heaven being like a megalopolis either. We are told to look for the city that has foundations, which is a new Jerusalem...Jerusalem, like a city that is compact together. Even Rome, the largest city of the ancient era, was scarely larger than Grand Rapids. I'm with Jacques Ellul on this one --cities can dehumanize, as much as I love to visit them and experience them. Probably community used to happen in cities, but I sense that probably met its demise with the death of self-sufficient neighborhoods, which were like small towns within cities.

Being from a small town gives one a sense of place. You knew who you were in a small town, and other people did, too. You were somebody's child, who want to this or that church, and had this or that teacher. All the spheres of your life overlapped: some of the people you saw at church were those you saw at school, you worked for people who knew your parents, life centered on family, church, school and community events. You had a sense of place, a feeling of belonging. There was life there, and it was lived, not in isolation, but community.

My graduating class had about 65 people. We were not all friends. We did not all get along. There were pecking orders and popularity contests. It all seems so petty now --because it was. Yet, you knew everyone, for good and bad, you were bound together.

This is how heaven is like a small town, though shorn of sin and pettiness: everyone there stands in intimate, unbroken community forever. They all go to the same places. They all do things together. You know and are known. There is no anonymity, no isolation.

Lewis said heaven felt more like home than any earthly home. I'm looking forward to that.

In Which He Wades into the Sin / Sickness Debate, and Shows Why We Can't Just "Stop It."

And Argues Not for Either/Or but Both/And

Okay, this is one funny clean sketch, but it does introduce a question...

When it comes to mental illness, compulsion and addiction, why can't a person just "stop it?"

The snarky side of me says, "Well, why don't you just stop sinning?" Stopping it isn't so simple, is it?

Let's be clear what is not under discussion. There is no suggestion that if a person is sick that he must of necessity be a worse sinner than anyone else. That is the bad theology of Job's comforters or those sorts that ask, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind..." We live in a fallen world, and people get all sorts of sicknesses for all sorts of reasons.

What is under the Biblical microscope today are the thorny issues of the mind and innate proclivities, both in terms of mental illness and addictive / compulsive behavior, things like: schizophrenia, bi-polar, depression etc., as well as homosexuality, sex obsession (or addiction), and substance addictions.

I have had some dealings with this, seen some particularly gut-wrenching tragedies up close and personal, and have a heart both for those who struggle with mental illness and addictions. Thus, my thoughts.

I know all these are not of one kind, certainly, and I approach them as the proverbial layman. I think it will be useful to group them together for one part of the consideration and separate them for another.

Some, in the scientific/medical or psychological community, would say that certain disorders of the mind and attendant behaviors are simply illness --the products of conditioning or physiological malfunction, with no moral component at all. An affliction like depression has no element of choice (which would imply some moral dimension and possibility of sin) --it simply is, and it needs to be treated.

Depending on the specialty of the practitioner sometimes is a predictor as to what treatment is viewed to be most effective: primarily medication or talk therapy. Medication may treat the underlying physiological issue, or it may simply suppress the issue. Talk therapy may give some sort of external perspective and tools for addressing the internal and external manifestations of whatever affliction or behavior.

Sometimes Christians, either without thinking or without the best of intention, based upon positive result, will buy this model without any reservation. If a pill makes the depression abate, then a pill must be the right answer; if 12 steps help the alcoholic stay sober, then 12 steps must be the way to sobriety; if talk therapy helps conquer post-traumatic stress disorder, then talk therapy must be the way to cure PTSD.

Some in the church have reacted strongly against this. The Scripture, they say, tells us not to allow ourselves to be mastered by anything --hence in this view addiction, quite simply, is sin. Even if substances are taken by way of self medication --to quell the lasting after-effects of trauma-- it is still a wrong moral choice to take those substances. At any point, the person who is taking those substances can simply choose to stop taking them. Every needle injected and every pill swallowed is a moral choice --simply a choice to sin-- which one could choose not to do, by simple act of will.

Perhaps the clearest picture we get of this is the attitude of many in the church towards homosexuality. It is interesting, as an aside, how quick we are to condemn sins which may hold no particular temptation for us, and how quick we are to excuse sins of which we are guilty. If I leer at a woman, then that is simply natural: men are supposed to be attracted to women; but, if a man leers at another man, then that is gross and disgusting. The truth is --all sin is gross and disgusting. Gossip is gross and disgusting, so is envy, strife, slander and vainglory. Sexual sin is not disgusting because of its physicality (which after all is created and observed by God) and is very good within moral boundaries) but because it is disobedient to him.

Many in the church treat homosexuality as if it were a simple choice --a young man or woman, in a simple act of rebellion, chooses to be sexually attracted to their same sex. This is absurd in the extreme. No choices of that magnitude are simple choices --there are a multitude of conditioning factors, some of which may be genetic predisposition and gender confusion early in life.

It is, however, important to add that genetic predisposition does not remove human sexual attraction from the realm of moral consideration. Human beings are broken by the effects of the fall --we are born with all sorts of baggage and proclivities, some of which we must resist with might and mien.

Understanding those factors helps us to be compassionate to the person struggling with gender identity, who may have given in to that attraction on occasion, or may have adopted it as a lifestyle. Yes, homosexual lust is sin. Yes, homosexual behavior is sin. Yes, a homosexual lifestyle is sin. It is a particularly powerful sin. It is particularly a mark of mankind's rebellion against God's order, even expressed in his general revelation. In that sense, it is a mark of the brokenness of our entire race, as much as it is an indictment on the individual who engages in it.

It also points us to the work of the church, which is not the sort of condemnation that leaves people in despair, but rather rescue. It is not moral people helping the immoral, but rather immoral people saved by grace helping other immoral people find the same grace that both restores them to God and rescues them from the particular manifestation sin has taken in their life, acknowledging that this particular sin does not easily die (and in fact, at the desire level, may not die till glorification). Sin is not a simple choice --it does not simply go away.

Addictions and compulsions are different. Yet, often these are not simple choices, either. It is possible that a young person may simply start using drugs recreationally out of peer pressure, rebellion or to have a good time, and this young person may find himself ensnared. Another person may live through a trauma, and "self-medicate" and be ensnared. Another may have a prescription narcotic and become ensnared. These are not morally equivalent.

Is the addiction disease or sin? Yes. Addiction works physiological changes in the body (at least according to my friends in the medical profession). A body begins to crave substances, and withdrawal itself can be a physically dangerous proposition. Yet, the choice to engage in the addiction or compulsion, even with the physiological "need" factor, involves moral consideration --namely, sin.

We need to say, however, that our idea of sin is flawed. People get very angry when a behavior is labeled "sin," as if that means the person who is engaging in the behavior is worthless, less of a person, or morally inferior to others who do not engage in that sin. That is not the image the Bible gives us of sin. Sin is a want of conformity unto or transgression of God's Law. That is a freeing thing. God is in the business of delivering us from sin, allowing us to repent of sin, and freeing us from the guilt and power of sin. To call something sin is to highlight the beauty of God's willingness to forgive sin, and his help in turning us away from sin (that is, repent).

None of this is easy or a simple choice --this cannot be reiterated enough. Turning away from sin may require years and much help. This is where I argue for a "both / and" approach. Depression has a physiological aspect. I know some of this up close and personal. I also know, however, that self-pity, which seems to be a feature of depression, involves a moral choice. On what battlefield do I fight this? The physiological or the spiritual? Well, why not both? The depressed person can be helped by medication. He may be helped by truth-based therapy. Yet, he can also be helped by hearing the good news that God forgives him of the sin of self-pity, and is willing to help him turn away from it.

Schizophrenia and bi-polar, and the combination thereof are probably the thorniest of these issues. A person loses his grip on reality. He sees and hears things that aren't there. He may see demonic manifestations ordering him to harm himself or others. He may take his own life. There is a physiological defect of a profound nature. Does that mean there is no moral choice involved? It is very difficult to say. I have known a fine, kind, gentle young man who was afflicted with schizo-affective disorder --the worst of both schizophrenia and bi-polar. He took his own life. What killed him --the disease or his own hand? The secrets are locked away in the dark recesses of the tormented mind. Yet, suicide is sin, but God forgives sin. Making a moral judgment on suicide does not mean there is no hope for forgiveness.

We are body-soul unities. These sorts of questions are impossible to separate out --what is sin and what is sickness? In fact, they are both. They are the products of the fall and affected by moral choice. Therefore, we ought to attack them on all fronts. Medication. Talk, Repentance. Grace. Hope. Love. Our weakness in dealing with these things is separating body from soul. One person only looks at the physiology, another only at the psychology, another only at the sin. Someday, we will learn to pull all these together, and maybe then gain more substantial victories over thorny sins, addictions and mental illness than we can today.

Sermons: Information or Encounter?

Not a hard and fast line: encounters have information, of course! The beloved Doctor says:

The life of Christ is in us! It is not theory, it is a life-giving teaching, it is a life-imparting teaching. If I am preaching in the Spirit, as I pray God I am, I am not only uttering words to you, I am imparting life to you, I am being used of God as the channel of the Spirit and my words bring life and not merely knowledge. Do you accept that distinction? I am almost afraid sometimes for those of you who take notes, that you may just be getting the words and not the Spirit. I am not saying that you should not take notes, but I do warn you to be careful. Much more important than the words is the Spirit, the life; in Christ we are being taught, and built up in Him. So that in a sense, though you may forget the words, you will have received the life, and you go out aware of the life of God, as it were, pulsating within you. David Martyn. Lloyd-Jones, Christian Unity (Studies in Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verses 1 Through 16) (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972), 114.

Some Words on Silence

I spill verbiage for a living. I need to have something to say, at least enough to get through the various lessons and sermons of a week.

Lately, however, I've had little more to say or write than that. God bless the prolific bloggers, article writers and authors --I simply don't know how they do it. I have a book in process, but have not written on it in weeks --I simply lack the words.

Silence can be the result when life itself feels oppressive. Some people pour forth out of the difficulties of life --think of David or Job's many words. For others, it renders them mute.

Sometimes it feels as if God is not speaking to us. I know, the theologue will point out that God has spoken and has said all he needed to say. Yet, in our experience, it can appear that, however much we may speak to God in prayer, he has nothing to say to us in return.

I am hoping against hope, however, that God's silence is a way of his communicating to us, as maddening as it can be. And sometimes, we just need to be silent before him.

I do not like silence. I fill my silence with music to lift my spirits, and with the mindless blather of talk radio to quieten the solitariness that accompanies the pastorate (solitariness is different from loneliness, mind you --I have friends). Yet, I need to leave room for silence.

Maybe God is speaking to me about the importance of silence.

Good Old Basic Vanilla Bible Doctrine

After hearing Rush Limbaugh opine that the Golden Rule was not part of the teachings of Jesus, and reading this article from USA Today on the beliefs (or lack thereof) of professing Christians, it becomes clear to me that the church has remedial work to do.

I remember when I got my first taste of Christians who hadn't been taught much doctrine. An acquaintance in college painted himself as something of a super Christian. He did not have much patience for struggling sinners --he, himself, didn't struggle at all. And, he didn't know that one of the great promises of the Christian faith is that we would be raised, bodily, from the dead just like Jesus was. He still resisted it even after I told him to go look up 1 Corinthians 15. This was a bright young man, raised in a Christian household, the product of a Christian school, and an evangelical church. In many respects, he was far more an upstanding model of the Christian life than I was at that point, but he didn't know a basic core belief, and, when shown it, resisted it.

Church instruction is not something we think of often. We spend relatively little time, inf light of our overall lives, being instructed out of the Word of God. Most churches no longer have evening services or midweek programs. Small groups may study Scripture, but systematic instruction is probably not something in which most small groups engage.

Christians are rightly concerned with acting out their faith through deeds of mercy. They are rightly concerned with how to apply their faith to the challenges of their lives. But, as sadly becomes clear here, many of them don't know the basic content of their faith. It is no wonder, then, that so many of us are so poor at living it out. We borrow our understanding of compassion from statism: namely, let others do it instead of doing it ourselves. Our understanding of God comes more from Oprah than from Scripture. Hence, Mark Driscoll's book Doctrine is a much needed tome.

Doctrine lights few fires among modern Christians. Even in the seminaries, Biblical studies faculty sometimes deride studying doctrine in systematic fashion. Churches resist anything beyond Biblical instruction. We spend a lot of our time on program and show. We spend some time on compassion and mercy. Yet, here we see we must make time for doctrine.

Doctrine means teaching the catechism, but it means far more than memorizing the catechism. It means fleshing out those truths, demonstrating them, helping children particularly to internalize them. It means making sure parents understand, value and love doctrine so they can talk about it with their children.

The Christian life is far more than doctrine, but neither is it less than doctrine. The danger in today's churches, even conservative and Reformed ones, is that we assume knowledge of doctrine. What is assumed by one generation is forgotten by the next. Our job, at least in part, is to pass on the content of the faith, and we need to do a better job at it.

Monday Morning Thoughts: Why Legalism Is Far More Dangerous than Licentiousness

Among religiously conservative people, legalism is the respectable sin. We figure, I fear, that it is far better than license --a necessary corrective to the wanton rebelliousness of our age. Better to be a little scrupulously over-obedient than to dwell in the tents of wickedness with the prostitute and the addict and the tax collector.

Aren't we free to make up rules as we try to work out the thorny issue of obedience?

Admittedly a very difficult issue. Making up rules and expecting others to keep them seem to be evil twins, yet heartfelt obedience is important. How do we keep the Lord's Day without a few rules that govern how we keep it? How do we reign in lust without a few stipulations about what we will allow our daughters to wear, and what entertainment we will watch? No easy answers --it would be legalistic to give them!

Still and all, Jesus has far harsher words for those who are scrupulous about obedience (and, incidentally, often excuse a world of their own disobedience) than he does for the prostitute and the tax collectors, who indeed "go into the kingdom ahead of you." The scrupulous seem inevitably to "treat others with contempt." I know I do.

We make a tragic mistake when we restrict Pharasaism to a strict category, and write ourselves out of it. Our syllogism is simple:

Pharisees believe in justification by works

I believe in justification by faith.

Therefore I am not a Pharisee.

Phew! Glad I got that settled. Not so fast. First, Pharisees weren't (to paraphrase Sinclair Ferguson) Pelagians, they were semi-Pelagians. In plain speech, they didn't believe they were innately free from sin's corrupting influence, who could merit unaided eternal life. Rather, they believed that, with God's help, they could be good people who could lead lives that pleased God --"Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are...." They were not sinless, but they were not sinners either. They were good people who sinned. The difference between seeing ones' self as a good person who sins, and a sinner is the difference between winding up in Heaven or in Hell.

Jesus tells his disciples, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Christians can have Pharisee leaven in their dough. Peter acted the part in Galatia. I am a Pharisee every day, when I comment to a friend on the life choices of a congregant. I am not saying at all that we should never speak to anyone about their sin. I am saying, however, when I think or talk to another in passing judgment on a third party, I am pretty well convicted of being a Pharisee.

Pharisaism is dangerous. It is far more dangerous than lust or greed. It is dangerous precisely because it masquerades as righteousness, as surely as Satan masquerades as an Angel of Light. It is, however, the farthest thing from actual righteousness. Pharisee righteousness is self-derived --the product of God's work in me. True righteousness is derived only from God, by faith. I have no merit and standing with God based upon my obedience, either before my salvation or after. My only hope is God's patience and grace.

We ought to accord various sins the same weight Jesus did. The greatest church in the world would be the one where: a.) sinners were regularly coming to Christ and b.) alongside CEO's and politicians there were strippers and addicts. It would really be awesome to be the pastor of a church like that. I think I'll ask God and see if he'll make it happen.

Barometers of Church Health

Yes, if you are a regular reader, you will notice this photo, one of my favorites of all time. The former home of the Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church in Detroit, aka "St. Curvy's." It's my favorite picture of a church corpse.

My intrepid assistant pastor has a famously insightful and provocative father (who has written books about citizen soldiers and men in leather hats). Last week, the senior said to the junior something quite interesting, something along the lines of "A church's health is inversely proportional to the number of staff it has." He got that from Donald MacGavran.

Now, my purpose is certainly not to knock the large church. Bigger churches need more staff, and actually may have less staff, per capita, than smaller or mid-sized churches. What is meant, I think, is that the amount of staff is a barometer of church health. Are people invested in the ministry? Do they care enough to do the work? Or, do we need to hire it done?

Again, a qualification. Some positions require special skills, etc., or such copious amounts of time that they legitimate full time work. There is no fixed list of what these things are. That does not, however, negate the overall point. People need to come to church to do --to roll up their sleeves and engage in the work. Moreover, they need to feel so responsible for the work that, if they don't do it, it does not happen. The problem with having paid staff, in some cases in my own experience is: a.) we have someone to blame when things go wrong, and b.) we pay someone to do this, so we don't have to. Not healthy, not healthy at all.

That's one barometer, I think, of church health. The other is more troublesome to me. I have begged, pleaded, cajoled and scolded to get people (especially elders) to various prayer venues. My standard isn't high. We have several prayer venues in a given week. Just go to one, semi-regularly.

I have been positive, I have been negative. I have threatened to firebomb their houses. Okay, not really....

Then, I came across this when I was re-reading in one of my favorite little books, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, a quote from Spurgeon:

The condition of a church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.

There are other barometers to be sure. What are they?