Everyday Life

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Protesting Hate

November 26, 2010 in Everyday Life by Steve Long | No comments

Today, my wife and I stood for about an hour on a cold street corner before a variety of audiences.

On three corners of Fairfield and Airport Expressway stood a few dozen people holding American flags and a few signs.  We stood with these people, silently expressing our opposition to the hate on display on the fourth corner.  These co-counter-protesters were one audience, our presence communicating to them, “we’re with you.”  Unfortunately, some of our fellow counter-protesters unhelpfully expressed their disdain for the protesters on the other corner by shouting profanity at them.  I wish I could have told them, “I’m with you if you’re standing up for Christian love and patriotic honor, but I want no part of your counter-hate.”

Together, we told the audience of drivers and passengers in the passing traffic, “we honor our country and those who die in service to our country.  We oppose those who spew hatred.”  Some of those passing by tooted their horns appreciatively, expressing support and gratitude for our stand.  Others blew an extended blast of their horns at the hateful protesters as they drove by, extending the middle finger of fellowship through their window.  Unfortunately, some of the counter protesters cheered on this behavior.

On the other street corner, flanked by Fort Wayne police officers, four members of Westboro Baptist Church (WARNING: link to an offensive site) formed another audience.   They were there to protest America’s acceptance of homosexuality, happily rejoicing in the death of an American serviceman as evidence of God’s judgement.  We showed up to let them know that we disagree with the hateful things they say and the despicable way they spread their message.  (Denouncing homosexual behavior is not itself hateful, but the message of Westboro Baptist Church is filled with hate.)

I was also an audience member, on two counts.  For one, by putting my beliefs into action, I was demonstrating to myself that beliefs really matter, and beliefs should lead to action.  There are lots of people and things in this world that I disagree with, but I wouldn’t normally bother to protest most of them.  However, it is especially troublesome to have people who claim to be Christians, who claim to hold the truth of God’s Word, behave in such ungodly ways.  Because I cherish the truth of God’s Word and sincere devotion to following God’s commands, I felt that it was important to express my opposition to the way they twist God’s Word and character.

However, I was also an audience to the protesters from Westboro Baptist Church.  They weren’t just there for the passing traffic or the media.  As they waved their signs, trampled their American flags, and sang their songs, they were performing for those of us on the corners opposite them.  It makes me wonder if it would be better to just ignore them, rather than show up to be part of their audience.

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The Who, What, When, Where, Why of Confession

September 25, 2010 in Everyday Life by Steve Long | No comments

What is Confession?

Confession, at its core, is a statement or affirmation of what we believe. It can be a statement of what we believe to be right, i.e., a confession of faith, or it can be a statement of what we believe to be wrong, i.e., a confession of sin. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, in its definition of confession, notes that confession is “uniting in a statement that has previously been made by someone else.”

Our most important confession is that Jesus Christ is Lord. Churches or groups of believers have at times written confessions that explain how they interpret God’s word, and provides a basis for agreement (the Augsburg Confession, Belgic Confession, and Westminster Confession are three examples of confessional statements that arose out of the Reformation).

Confession is also an admission of sin. Sometimes, it means revealing to others sin that was hidden. Sometimes others were well aware of the sin, and confession is an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and an opportunity to agree that something truly was wrong.

What things are we to confess?

I don’t think there is anything that we shouldn’t confess. We should not hide our faith, and we should not hide our sin. The question, then, is about who to confess to, and in what setting.

To whom should we confess (God, individual, church)?
How, or where, should we confess (publicly or privately)?

There are examples in Scripture of both public confession and private confession. Private confession could be made in prayer to God, or between individuals.

  1. Sins that are against another person should be confessed to that person.
  2. Sins that are against the church body should be confessed to the church body.
  3. Sins that take place in the public eye should be confessed publicly.

Why should we confess our sin?

For starters, God commands us to. But there are two significant reasons why we should confess our sin, and understanding these two reasons can help us in determining who should hear our confession.

  1. Confess sin in order to achieve reconciliation. When unity has been severed, or damage has been done to another person or group of people, we need to confess our sin to them in order to be reconciled. The other side of the coin in reconciliation is forgiveness, which the offended party needs to offer. The order is not important (someone may confront you with your sin before you confess), but reconciliation requires both confession and forgiveness.

    2. All sin is offensive to God, so all sin should be confessed to God, but some sins also need to be confessed to other people, if those people have been hurt by our sin. If the sin was private, between you and God, then there is no need to reveal it to others, necessarily.

  2. Confess sin to keep from being dishonest. Sometimes, other people have no reason to believe that we have committed a certain sin, or that we haven’t committed a certain sin. Just because we have, doesn’t mean we need to tell them about it. However, there are also cases where someone may be led to believe that we have not committed a certain sin, and it would be dishonest to continue to give that false impression.

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Educational Breakdown

August 3, 2010 in Everyday Life by Steve Long | No comments

I came across a valedictory speech that seems to be getting a lot of rave reviews.  The speech was delivered by Erica Goldson, valedictorian of the class of 2010 from Coxsackie-Athens High School in New York.

You can read her speech here: http://americaviaerica.blogspot.com/

It’s not a bad speech, and there is certainly reason to be critical of the way public education is structured today.  Rather than cherry-pick quotes from the speech, I’ll leave it to you to read it in its entirety.

My question is this:  what would it look like if she got her way?

What if teachers quit “teaching to the test,” and we weren’t so worried about grades, and we didn’t try to make everyone take the same subjects?  What if teachers focused on encouraging students to pursue their passions, question authority, and spend their time being creative and innovative?  What if school was less about “training” and more about “expanding the mind”?

Particularly in the context of American public education, what would that look like?

I think it would be a miserable failure.  At least in our culture of entitlement and tolerance, I do not believe this approach would work.  There would be some students who would thrive, but the overall level of education and competency would drop significantly.

When objective facts are “too restrictive,” then we are left with subjective experience.  If someone doesn’t like something, isn’t interested, or wants to do something different, then who are you to tell them otherwise?

We have a society of adolescents who want life handed to them on a platter.  Do you think they are all going to buckle down and pursue their dreams if we just stop “oppressing” them with our ideas of what they should be learning?

Developing passion, exercising creativity, and implementing creative solutions are best developed under a mentor, not via classroom instruction.  Our American public educational system is not going to abandon classroom instruction, because it cannot afford to.  You can’t hire enough teachers to spend six hours a day with a few students.  Especially when it is expected to have programs for every activity someone thinks is worthy: sports, art, music, theater, etc.  The kind of interaction that helps children develop into thinking, passionate adults comes from parents, not a teacher in the front of the classroom.

So, rather than taking Erica Goldson’s critique as an impetus for (the wrong kind of) change in our education system, look at the home, and think about the values that parents should instill in their children.

(P.S.  For extra credit, write your own essay explaining the viewpoint that Ms. Goldson expresses when she compares workers to “slaves of the system,” decries the “inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism,” and describes schooling as “brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations.”)

(P.P.S.  For even more extra credit, write another essay discussing the following questions: Are humans “basically good,” or are humans inherently lazy and selfish?  Should we expect great things from people if they are simply encouraged to develop and pursue their interests?  Should a foundational element of education be instruction in past human failures and successes, and the benefits of knowledge and diligence?)

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A Tense Calvinist

July 15, 2010 in Everyday Life by Steve Long | No comments

My wife likes to say that she is a “Calvinist with tension.”  I’ve been thinking recently about what that means.  Of course, she would be the best person to explain the meaning of what she says, but I’m more given to precise definitions than she is, so I’m going to delve into my thoughts about it.  Who knows, maybe she will adopt my definition and incorporate it into her meaning!

A necessary component of developing precise definitions is understanding how people interpret the things they hear.  I’m going to make some assumptions about what people think about a “Calvinist with tension,” but the most helpful thing would be for you to tell me what you think when you hear this.

One of the things I assume people hear in this statement is a distinction from a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist or a militant Calvinist who is completely unwilling to listen to objections or arguments from another point of view and thinks non-Calvinists are either uninformed, deceived, or worse.  That sort of Calvinist does not feel any tension; instead, they are rigid in their beliefs.  I would say that this understanding is, at least in part, a proper part of what it should mean to be a “Calvinist with tension.”

It’s also possible that hearers may interpret this as saying, “I consider myself a Calvinist, but there are aspects of Calvinism that I have doubts about.”  The understanding here is that the speaker favors Calvinism over other formulations, but isn’t really satisfied that Calvinism has the right answers.  While this is probably true for some people, I do not think this is a good understanding of what I would mean if I said I was a Calvinist with tension.  I think this understanding infers that the speaker is a Calvinist “for lack of a better option.”  If someone could show them a system that relieved their “tension” (doubts about Calvinism), they would gladly accept this other system in lieu of Calvinism.

In contrast, I would not define “tension” as doubts, but as a realization that some aspects of Calvinism may be difficult to grasp (not only for others, but for myself!).  I understand why people might have objections to Calvinism, and I recognize that some of these objections stem from principles that are true.  There are not always simple, cut-and-dried explanations that are satisfying.  It’s not a matter of a simple proof-text for all issues.  The tension comes from the very real need to reconcile things that are true that seem to be at odds with each other.

I think that an intellectually honest Arminian must also be an “Arminian with tension.”  This need not mean that they are not convinced of the truth of Arminianism.  It means that they don’t see objections as smoke-screens or man-made resistance to their position.  Instead, they recognize that a human explanation of divine truth may not be satisfactory to everyone.  There is limitation on both ends, in the human who gives the explanation and the human who listens to the explanation.

I believe that Calvinist positions are faithful to what the Bible teaches, but there is a tension between two (or more) different directions someone may take on an issue, and it is not always easy to explain how everything fits together.

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Tonight on MacGuffin Island: Finding a purpose with no purpose

May 24, 2010 in Everyday Life by Steve Long | No comments

Along with countless others, I have enjoyed watching LOST for the last six years (or five, actually; I didn’t start watching until Season 2 was underway). There have been a lot of intriguing mysteries, interesting characters, and perplexing questions.

The series is now over, and I find myself asking, “Can you have a good story without having a good ending?”  Reading a few reviews and comments on the series finale, you find some people who are completely thrilled and satisfied with how the series ended. Others, like me, are disappointed and feel like the ending lacked a sense of meaning and resolution.  We had followed the stories of the various characters, hoping to understand the connections between various events.  We were hoping to be let in on the secret story arc that explained “why,” but we walked away empty-handed.

In my view, the letdown is primarily the result of writers who have been infected by existentialism.  Many people have bought into existentialism, whether they realize it or not. To an existentialist, existence is meaningless, outside of the meaning that you bring to your existence. The individual, and their choices, is all that really matters. It is not important for there to be “reasons” that tie the story together.1

The biggest problem with this (from the standpoint of a compelling story) is that when the individuals pass on, so does the meaning. There is no meaning for an outside observer; the “meaning” of LOST is trapped inside the church with all the characters.

Some good stories feature a mystery that is solved, or a problem that is overcome. When the mystery is solved, we understand what transpired and why certain things happened. When the problem is overcome, we are relieved, because we understand why the problem was bad and why the solution is good.

As LOST ended, some questions were answered and some problems were solved, but there was a lack of meaning. LOST had lots of storytelling, but the overarching meta-narrative or story arc was incomplete.  The smoke monster is defeated, but it’s never quite clear why he was so evil, so powerful, or what would happen if he wasn’t defeated. The island is saved, but it’s never quite clear why that was so important, what role its unique characteristics played, or what the consequences would be if it were destroyed. The primary role of the island seems to be a plot device that generated experiences wherein the characters could interact.

It’s okay to have a character-driven story without mysteries to solve or hurdles to overcome. However, one normally expects the characters to reveal something to us about ourselves or our fellow man.

Throughout LOST, there have been references to finding deeper meaning in life, to pursuing one’s purpose, and exploring the mysteries of free will and destiny. Although we should not expect a TV show to provide satisfactory answers for all these questions, many people were hoping for some explanations that would make some sense of all that has happened on the show.

In some sense, each of the characters discover their purpose and fulfill it. But it’s a hollow purpose that doesn’t add any meaning to the story. If Jack had failed, if Hurley had not taken his place, would it have really mattered? People have experiences; they do bad things; they do good things; they end up back together again with the people they love. But there is no substance behind it. There are no reasons to explain why those experiences mattered.  It might have even been okay if it had simply ended as a battle between good and evil, where good won out.  But the ending made the actual events irrelevant.  It’s simply, “here we are, all together again, isn’t this nice.” As Richard Vine blogged, “Heaven is a Drive Shaft gig: altogether now, ‘You all, everybody!’” Or, as one commenter summarized, “Sentimentality 1, Making sense 0.”

  1. Contrary to existentialism, Christianity declares that God defines human essence, He gives us our purpose, and He determines our destiny. We belong to Him, and our life is meaningful if we live according to His purposes. Read/Listen/Watch John Piper give a great explanation of this reality. [↩]

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Open letter to Mark Souder

May 19, 2010 in Everyday Life by Steve Long | No comments

Dear Congressman Souder,

I would just like to thank you for your many years of service as a representative for our area.  While I may not have agreed with every vote you cast or decision you made, I believe that you served our area well.  I do not doubt that you honestly tried to do your best to vote according to your convictions, and I believe that your commitment to godly standards and strong families is sincere.

Thank you, too, for not seeking to deflect or minimize your sin, and for doing the right thing in stepping down from your position.

As a fellow Christian, I encourage you to not back away from your church or switch churches, but to allow your elders and friends at Emmanuel to assist you in seeking complete repentance and reconciliation.

My wife and I will keep you in our prayers.

Sincerely,

Steve Long

The Mark Souder Affair

May 19, 2010 in Everyday Life by Steve Long | No comments

Yesterday it was revealed that Representative Mark Souder has been committing adultery and is resigning his congressional seat.

Some of his detractors are practically giddy. (The only thing they would like better is if it had been a homosexual affair.)  Here is a conservative, evangelical Christian; a staunch proponent of family values; if anyone should take the high road, it should be him.  Yet here he is, caught in the worst kind of hypocrisy.

I’d like to examine that hypocrisy.

Here are a couple definitions of hypocrisy:

  • a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess. (dictionary.com)
  • a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion. (merriam-webster.com)

In a sense, there are two ways in which one can be a hypocrite:
1) Saying something that you don’t really believe.
2) Doing something that is contrary to what you believe.

In a strict sense, hypocrisy mainly belongs in the first category.  As someone has written on Wikipedia, hypocrisy “is not simply an inconsistency between what is praised or admired and what is done.”  The line between the first and second category is sometimes blurry, as our actions typically reveal our true convictions.  However, there is a difference between pretense and inconsistency.

I think Souder’s hypocrisy falls into the second category, of failing to live up to his beliefs.  I do not think that his stated convictions have been a “put on” to appeal to conservative voters.  I suspect that he truly believes in biblically-based morality.  If his affair had gone undetected, and if he continued to serve in Congress, I think he would have consistently voted for laws that affirm Judeo-Christian ethics and strong families.

The reason I’m glad Souder is resigning, is not primarily because I see him as having a hypocrisy problem.  It’s because I see him as having an integrity problem.  Many of the things Souder supported are things that I support too, and I think that his convictions were honest.  The problem is that he failed to live according to his convictions.

Somewhere along the line, Souder allowed himself to believe a lie.

Maybe he believed the lie that his situation was special, and his actions were justified.  This is possible, but I suspect he fully understood that his actions were wrong.

Maybe he believed the lie that the benefit outweighed the consequences.  I’m speculating that he thought they could keep it under wraps, and that this “one little indiscretion” would not impact his work.

This is the type of lie that I’m prone to succumb to.  I know something is wrong, but I think it’s not really THAT destructive, and the payoff is worth it.

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