State of the Church - Part II -

Many of us, in our battle to preserve the Judeo-Christian morality of our society have forgotten a crucial, indeed, the central truth of the gospel. As Ravi Zacharias says it, Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, he came to bring dead people to life.

We have gotten to a place where we, for the most part, have focused so much on trying to make society good through political activism, and through moralistic teaching in the Church that we have forgotten that the real point is life. Life must precede morality and morality without life is pointless anyway. We have frequently lost sight of Jesus through our maze of moralisms.

This problem has not only doomed our socio/political activism to failure, it has severely hindered our own spiritual lives and left us impoverished, with a faith that is but a shadow of what was originally delivered.

Do not imagine for a moment that I bring a message of “easy believism”, or a teaching that morality doesn’t matter. It is impossible, IMPOSSIBLE, to really know God, while justifying sin or insisting on living in willful disobedience to Him. The destructive power of sin can not be exaggerated.

Yet the fact remains that we will never find life, nor peace in following a code of morals, we will find it only in the person of Jesus Christ. When you reduce Christianity to moralist teaching, you have essentially made it into Judaism, or Islam. The defining mark of all human religion is the idea that following the proper moral code will result in eternal reward. The profound defining difference that sets divine religion apart is that it consists not in following a code of morals, but in a reconciliation. It consists in being restored to a state in which we know, and are known by God, in which we love and are loved by God.

It must be understood, and would be obvious but for the corrupt state to which we have fallen, that such a reconciliation will always lead to living rightly. For as Jesus himself said “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The heart of the gospel is the declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord, absolute and without qualification. That means that we recognize him as our owner, and absolute master. The idea that you can have a Lord whom you love, and yet do not obey, or who’s words you twist to suit your own desires in contravention of his intent is a complete contradiction.

I have been a Christian almost as long as I can remember. I have no time in my life when I didn’t believe the Christian message. I do not doubt that I was saved, but I often find that I look back and regret the shallowness of my faith, and most of all, the fact that though my faith was shallow, I believed it to be deep.

I have always tried my best to live by the Christian moral teaching, and to have correct doctrine but the truth is that for most of my life, I have loved the ideas and the teachings, more than I did Jesus Christ. I have been devoted to the morality and the ideas involved in the Faith, but not to Jesus Christ. I thought that because I had good doctrine, and good morals, I was doing well, and I had the fullness of the faith. The truth was that all the while, I really knew little of God.
When I get to this point, it is hard to know what words can possibly express what I am seeing and feeling. I look at my life to this point and I feel sorrow at all the time I thought I was so good, and yet was so blind, and I feel gratitude and joy that God has given me grace to see myself in the light of truth.

When I get to this place, I’m always reminded of the parable Jesus told to one of the Pharisees, with whom he was dining. A woman of ill repute came in and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and her hair. The Pharisee thought to himself “if he were truly a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is, and not let her touch him.” Jesus knew what he was thinking and he told a parable of two people who were in debt to one man. One person had a great debt and the other had a little debt. The man forgave both debts… who will love him more? The Pharisee said, the one who owed more.

For years I missed the point of this parable. The Pharisee was right, he who is forgiven more will love more. However, I always tended to assume that Jesus was speaking in simple factual terms about the two debtors. The one had a great debt and the one had a little debt. In the example, obviously the Pharisee is the one with little debt, and the adulterous woman had great debt.
That, however, is not the point at all. Which truly had the greater debt to God? The Pharisee or the woman? In truth, we can’t really know. The point, however, is that the Pharisee thought his debt was small, while the woman realized that her debt was great.

I spent most of my life believing that my debt was small, and as a result, I had small love for God. I had never really been grossly immoral, I had never really done the really bad things, so I had little to be forgiven of. There was so much about myself that I couldn’t see and at the heart of it all was that I cared more about teachings than about the teacher. I didn’t know how much I had been forgiven so I loved little, and I was not conscious of his great love for me.

The common thread in all this is passion and devotion for the person of Jesus Christ, rather than just commitment to an idea, or adherence to a code. It is an emotional experience for me to look at myself and see how much I have lacked this. It is both frustrating, and sorrowing, to speak of this to my fellow Christians and get nothing but blank stares in return. Or just as bad, people who agree without really listening and then go on as before, apparently ignoring the whole conversation.

It may be that I am projecting my own experience on to the Church at large and really I’m the only one who faces this issue, and this condition. If that is the case I am sorry. I don’t think that is the case, though. As I look around, I don’t see many people who really appear to know God well. I don’t see many people bearing fruit in their lives. I don’t see the Church prevailing against the gates of hell.

I see a lot of comfortable evangelicals searching for meaning in life, trying to figure out what piece of the puzzle they are missing. I see we have forgotten the words, “if you seek to keep your life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will surely find it”.
If you find yourself agreeing with what I have said here, but having trouble really finding passion within yourself for Jesus Christ. Don’t be afraid, you are not alone. It is not something that comes easily to us, especially when we are living according to our own will. Ask God to kindle this fire in your heart. Ask him to show you how to grow in knowledge of him and how to walk in his life.

Those are things that are always according to his will, and if we ask them, really desiring them, he will accomplish them in us.
If you fall along the way, don’t be afraid because God knows that the flesh is weak, and he knows we are going to fail, as long as you are willing to get back up, he will do the lifting.

State of the Church -part one-

I recently heard a couple of sermons by a man named Michael Boldea. Mr. Boldea is the grandson of Dumutru Duduman, a Romanian Christian who suffered great persecution under the former communist regime in Romania and eventually came to the U.S. with a prophetic warning for America.
Mr. Boldea carries on his grandfather’s ministry which focuses both on aiding widows and orphans in Romania and bringing a message of warning to the American Church.

It is not my intention here to speak about the prophecies of Mr. Duduman, or Mr. Boldea. I leave that consideration to each individual at their own interest. By far the more important and powerful message, in my opinion, is the simple truth of what Mr. Boldea has to say to American Christians. The few times I have heard Mr. Boldea speak he has shown himself to be intelligent, well educated, and passionate about his convictions. I believe his message is a crucial one for the American Church across the board, regardless of denomination.

Some of you may not be familiar with the prophetic community among Charismatic Christians. There is an entire community of sorts in which it is very popular to claim to be a prophet and to deliver dire messages of warning. Some of the prophets are more credible, many are less. The culture of this group is somewhat unique, however. In most situations people would expect that a person who delivers good news would be more popular and more accepted than a person who delivers bad news. In the prophetic subculture, however, this is usually reversed. Because the biblical and historical model of a prophet is usually seen as the sayer of doom who is rejected by the world around him, this subculture is generally not interested in hearing what a person has to say, unless they are preaching impending disaster and judgment. There are several points of conversation that would be worth pursuing regarding this phenomenon alone and how it affects the attitude of this Church community. Yet the point I’m trying to get at here is one of the major results of the numerous people running around for-telling doom is what might be called cry-wolf syndrome. Eventually most people get so tired of listening that they no longer take any of it seriously. Those who do still listen are mostly people who want the tingly feeling of being part of something dire, and feeling like they are in ‘the inner circle’ because they “know”.

This phenomenon is unfortunate when it comes to a person like Michael Boldea because all prophecy issues aside, his message is well worth listening to. In fact, in my opinion, it is one of the most important messages that the American Church needs to hear.

What Mr. Boldea speaks about is very simply the need for holiness in the Church and the need for obedience in the Church. He speaks about the need for Christians to truly live their lives as if Jesus really was their Lord. Mr. Boldea is popular among the prophetic community because of his prophecies and his grandfather. Yet in the instances where I have heard him speak to the “prophetic community” there seems to be a definite element of saying “its nice that your interested in prophecy and I’ll speak about it, but you guys, just as much as everyone else, need to get down to the business of really living like a true follower and servant of Jesus Christ, and that is the only message that really matters.”

I don’t want to put words in Mr. Boldea’s mouth, and it may be that this is just my perception of what he is saying. However, it underlies a critical truth which conservative evangelical Christians of all stripes MUST get a hold of.

This is important, so pay attention

It is very easy for us as conservative evangelicals to look at the gross sin and apostasy of liberal and humanistic churches. It is easy for us to sit back and bemoan the evils of a church that tolerates homosexuality, or abortion. All the while, we miss the glaring problems in our own lives and our own Churches.
There is NO QUESTION that what we see in some of the liberal denominations is wrong. A few of them at least are to the point where I’m not sure they can even be considered really “Christian” anymore. Yet as we sit decrying the abuses of apostate churches, we are completely blind to the fact that our own Churches are lukewarm and that WE are lukewarm. It does us little good to sit comfortable in the fact that we are not as bad as those other guys, when the truth is that we are not nearly as alive as we should be.

In looking at the black robes of others, we have become satisfied and complacent with our own robes of drab grey.

While the liberal humanist church is being consumed by heresy and apostasy, the conservative evangelical church is being consumed by the love of money and comfort, or the love of knowing secrets, or the love of power, or the pride of life.

I see hardly anyone, anywhere being consumed by the love of Jesus Christ.

There are probably several different things involved with this. One is that we, like the Church of Ephesus have lost our first love. There are many Churches that stand up for truth, and do good works, but they are not consumed with the love for Jesus Christ.
This is true of most of us on an individual level as well. We are living for our own goals and our own vision of what a nice life is. Its not that we are immoral or bad people, we just aren’t passionate about Jesus Christ, and truth be told, we don’t have a deep knowledge of God.

One other thing involved in this is an outgrowth of the first. Our focus when we confront problems like homosexuality and abortion, or any of the other numerous moral problems in our society, is wrong. We are focused on fighting the darkness, rather than simply being the light. There is a subtle but important difference there.

We have spent decades fighting against the evils of abortion, the slide towards homosexuality, the increasing level of immorality in almost every area. Yet we have accomplished nothing. In fact we have steadily lost ground. We think of ways to try and stem the tide of darkness which is washing over our nation, never realizing the simple truth that darkness does not overcome light. Neither does light struggle to overcome darkness… it just shines.
If the darkness is spreading, there is only one explanation. The Light is not shining

I'm back!

Seasons greetings!

After a long drought I intend to start posting more actively again. I had been tied up with school and work, but I will be making more time to write and post in the future. I have a few ideas rattling around in my head that'll make for good posts, but I'm always looking to help people out with questions, or things they are curious about. If you have anything you'd like to see addressed, please leave it in a comment.

Merry Christmas to all!
and peace on earth to men of goodwill!

ST

Lord of the Rings -cont-

Now, getting back to the Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien's intent was to write a good story. He believed that obvious stories were not enjoyable, but he also believed that they didn't stimulate the imagination, they didn't invoke the kind of response and the kind of thought he was interested in.

In his own life, Tolkien had been deeply impacted by language. Even as a child the sounds of different language evoked images in his mind and inspired him to imagine stories that might go with the sound of those words.
Most of Tolkien's creative endevours were shaped by his love of language. Particularly he was expert in the norse and germanic languages. He believed that culture, and the character of a people were inseperable from their language. Language could not be properly understood apart from the context in which it evolved. That was his particular expertise, philology. The study of how words developed.

Tolkien was particularly impacted by the Finnish language and the mythology of the norse people. the imagery of it strongly impacted Tolkien's own imagination. So it is no mistake that there is a good deal of Norse influence in the Lord of the Rings. Much of the imagery is taken from Norse folklore and myth. Many of the names used have their roots in Norse epic poetry, such as Gandalf, and most of the dwarves.

In fact the whole world of middle earth and its history began in response to a single line of an old english poem that Tolkien heard in his youth.

"Eálá Earendel engla beorhtastOfer middangeard monnum sended"

"Hail Earendel, brightest angel over middle earth to men sent."

So Tolkien began constructing a whole world and its history which was cast in the imagery of northern european mythos, yet in the end, conformed to Tolkien's beliefs about truth. There was also a very strong element in Tolkien's work of trying to create a story which acted as a sort of Christian myth of northern europe. It took the elements of the northern european mythos, and explained them in a way which meshed with Tolkien's Christian beliefs.

thus for example there are the Valar, the powers of the world who resemble the gods and goddesses of northern europe in imagery, yet in the context of Tolkien's mythos they are explained as archangels tasked with maintaining the creation. Tolkien explains their appearence as gods in human history as the result of man's mind being corrupted and darkened through the influence of the fallen prince of darkness. He estranged men from the Valar through fear and superstition and in their darkness men made gods out of their false knowledge and the lies of the enemy.

Through out Tolkien's works there are several over arching themes. Again, not written to make statements, but simply the fact that Tolkien's own beliefs became embodied in his story.



One of the common themes in Tolkien's work is the graceful white lady.

This one may not be terribly acceptable to protestants but this theme is drawn from two sources in Tolkien's life. One is his Catholic faith. This theme draws strongly on Tolkien's beliefs about Mary. In his belief, Mary embodied true beauty and grace and that is seen in many of the female characters of his stories. The second source is Tolkien's own relationship with the love his life, his wife Edith. The story of Beren and Luthien and the story of Aragorn and Arwen are direct take offs on his story with his wife Edith.

He was orphaned while still relatively young and was taken in and raised by a Catholic priest. His wife was from a protestant family who didn't think that a Catholic orphan was a good prospect. The result was that Tolkien had to work hard and 'bootstrap' himself up in order to earn the right and the ability to seek his love's hand in marraige.

Probably the single most prominant theme in Tolkien's work is the corruptive influence of the desire for power. People always propose various ideas for what the ring might represent. It 'represents' exactly what it is.. the power to dominate others. The power to bend the wills of other people to your own.
Tolkien frequently explores the difference between power and authority. The desire to have power corrupts, even if someone desires power to do good. Yet authority does not.

In the Lord of the Rings specifically, the difference between power and authority is the real issue between Saruman, and Gandalf. They are both of the same order. They are spirits, angels who are sent in human form to minister to the free people. They were specifically forbidden to seek rulership, or to seek to bend people to their wills. They were sent to sway people by wise council, to influence people to good deeds and courage. To inflame the hearts of the free peoples and to inspire truth and courage.

Of all the angels sent, Gandalf is the only one who stays true to his purpose. He remains a wanderer. He never has a home, or a place of his own. He never owns anything except his staff and his cloths. Even his horse was on loan from Theoden of Rohan. On the other hand, Saruman very quickly secures himself a fortress and settles down. He takes in servants to do his will, and while he pretends to study the enemy looking for ways to defeat him, in truth he is looking for ways to expand his own power. One of the most interesting questions, to me, in the character of Saruman is how much of his own motive was known to himself.

The story leaves the question up to the reader, but there are hints that Saruman himself may not have really known his true motives in the beginning. In otherwords, he deceived himself. He allowed his desire for power to grow, but he cast it in terms of power to defeat Sauron, power to do good, to accomplish his mission...

This is a great truth of human existence. We are masters of self deception, and the slide into corruption very rarely takes place all at once. You take a step here and there, justified for good reasons, until suddenly you find yourself serving the very evil that you once thought you were fighting.



The contrast between Gandalf and Saruman is also a very biblical theme. The contrast of the wanderer, the stranger in the land with no settled home against the settled person who makes a home in the world. Gandalf also demonstrates the very biblical principle of the unwelcome prophet. Gandalf is always showing up when things are at their worst and he frequently brings dire news, and for that reason men dislike him and even disdain him. In fact he is bringing hope and aid in time of trouble, but he is charged, like many a prophet, with never having anything good to say. Never bringing good news.



To begin the discussion of Gandalf and magic, I'll give the run down on who Gandalf is.



In Tolkien's world there are two general orders of angelic beings. The Valar and the Maiar. The Valar are the great powers, the Arch Angels, the angel princes. The Maiar are generally lesser angels but they have a wide a variety of greatness, or power. Maiar is a general group within which there are many different types and orders, which are only hinted at.



The characters in Lord of the Rings which are Maiar, or angelic beings include, Gandalf, Saruman, Radaghast, Sauron, and The Balrog. Of course Sauron and the Balrog were fallen angels, having fallen long ago in the original rebellion. Saruman fell to temptation, and Radaghast, though he never became evil, miscarried in his responsability by allowing himself to be distracted.



The Valar, or arch angels dwell in a paradise land in the west of the world. When middle earth was originally created it was a flat world and the paradise realm of Valinor (the undying lands) was on the western edge of the world. when the Numenorean kings, (aragorns ancestors) were decieved by Sauron they attempted to lay seige to Valinor and the Valar took the issue before God, who changed the world. Numenor was destroyed and only the righteous remnant (lead by Elendil, Aragorns direct ancestor) escaped. The world was made round and Valinor was removed from the physical world, yet a way was left by which the elves could sail over the western sea and come to valinor.



At that point the Valar largely ceased to intervene openly in the course of history. So when Sauron, a fallen angel, began to gather power again in middle earth, and the whole of middle earth was in danger of being conquered by darkness, the Valar dispatched five messangers who were sent under cover.



These five were Maiar who were sent secretly to the grey havens in human form. Only Cirdan, Elrond, and Galadriel knew who they really were. Galadriel having known both Gandalf and Saruman in their angelic forms in the first age when the elves dwelt in Valinor.

These five were required to take on human form, and in so doing they were given specific limitations. They could experience pain, they were subject to all the necessities of physical life such as eating and sleeping and they could be killed. Yet they aged very slowly, if at all, appearing for the most part as already aged men. These five became known as "the Istari".



There were two main reasons for the limitations applied to the Istari. In the first age the Valar had intervened openly in the affairs of the elves in order to protect them from the enemy. The result was mixed, but elements of it were disasterous. It played a key role in the elves rejecting Valinor. The Valar basically decided never again to interfere directly and visibly in the affairs of men and elves. Partially this was a realization on their part that God did not intend things to work that way.
The second reason is an outgrowth of the first. Because the Istari were sent to be secret ministers, they were forbidden to openly reveal themselves. They were restricted from commanding mortal beings according to their will etc. They were only allowed to try to influence people through wise council, and to give limited aid.

So Gandalf, Saruman, Rhadagast, and the two 'blue wizards' (they don't appear in any of the stories) arrived in middle earth.
They were organized as a council, each Istari had a color corresponding to his rank in the council. Each also had a staff which was the symbol of his authority (consider Moses and Aaron and their staves).

The names of each of the 'wizards' is a name that was given them by the various peoples with whom they interacted. Thus Gandalf, is not actually Gandalf's true name. His real name is actually Olorin. Gandalf is what the hobbits and the Breelanders called him.

This is thus a reflection of how Gandalf was percieved by those people. The elves called him Mithrandir "the grey wanderer (or pilgrim)", and so on.

None of these people knew who and what he really was, nor were they supposed to.

Looking at Gandalf's uses of magic you will find a few different things. He makes use of 'spells' on a few occasions, at other times he seems just to do things of magical nature, he also makes reference to words of command.

The first point to understand is that middle earth is a magical world. Most of the ancient cultures viewed nature itself, the world around them as magical. Tolkien picks that up and runs with it. Thus the dwarves have a kind of magic which is what we might call 'technology'. Their magic is based on skill with tools, and knowledge of technique.

The elves have a kind of magic which is similar to the dwarves, but it is different in the same way that art is different from technology. They both involve skill and knowledge yet there are significant differences. Thus the elves are able to make many items which have "magical" powers, like the dwarves are, and even much more powerful than the dwarves are capable of. What is really involved is not 'supernatural power' in the strictest sense, but harnessing of nature either through art, or technology.

In addition to that, the elves have a distinctly spiritual element which is mixed with their natural arts. There are two broad groups of elves in Middle earth. Those who went to valinor and those who didn't. The ones who never went to valinor have all the artistry, though probably not as developed, but they have very little of the same spiritual power that the other elves do.

the high elves, Elrond, Galadriel, etc are those who have connections to valinor. They literally lived among angels and in the imperishable light from before the world. The result is that they have significant spritual understanding, insight, and power which they have mixed with their artistry.

So, when Gandalf stands before the gates of Moria and recites all the spells in the tongues of elves, and dwarves, ever used for securing a door, the way it should be understood is that dwarves and elves, in their technology, and artistry made use of words to control things like doors etc. Gandalf is trying to figure out what word they used to govern the door.

An important note here is that we can get confused by the language involved. Tolkien was an expert on language and words. When he used a word like 'spell' he knew exactly what it meant, where it came from etc, and he used it to mean something sepecific.

To us, the word 'spell' just means he invoked magic power. What the word spell actually means is a spoken word or words. It derives from the ancient german "to speak" and in old english spell meant spoken words. The word 'gospel' is an example of this. It means good news. News was communicated verbally, it was spoken words, a message, so the word god spell, which meant "good words" eventually evolved into gospel, or "good news".

the reason spell came to mean invoking a magic power was because the ancients, down through the medieval world beleived that spoken words were powerful, particularly names. Thus when some one 'cast a spell' what it literally meant was they were "throwing words" Casting spells was quite literally just saying the right words to invoke some response.

tolkien knew that, and thats how he used it.

So when Gandalf was trying to open the doors of Moria, he was essentially just trying to figure out what the 'password' was.

Gandalf frequently was known for using magic related to fire. Many of his magic tricks, his fireworks, the words he spoke during the warg attack before Moria etc, were all fire related.

The reason for this is that he secretly posessed the elven ring of fire. The three elven rings each related to an element. Water, Air, and Fire. Elrond's ring was water, which is why he was able to control the river at the fords of Bruinen. Galadriel's ring was air. In addition to that the elven rings had more abstract, subtle powers, such as slowing the passage of time, or at least lessening the impact of change which always comes with time.

Gandalf was able to exercise control over fire, because he had the elven ring of fire.

In most of the other cases Gandalf either uses persuasive power to bring hope to people and courage. Or he invokes spiritual power such as when he fights the balrog and he invokes his authority as an angel, a minister of God, or when he wards off the Nazgul outside of Minas Tirith with a peircing ray of white light.

Lets look at Gandalf and the Balrog, since both are angelic beings.

In the original confrontation, Gandalf senses the presence of the balrog through a door that gandalf is trying to hold shut. Gandalf said that he used a shutting spell, (ie a shutting word) on the door. The balrog perceived gandalf and his spell, and countered it with one of his own. So Gandalf was forced to use a word of command.

What is going on there is a battle of authority. Gandalf attempted to shut the door by using his authority to command it to be shut. The balrog came up and matched Gandalf with his own spiritual power, ordering the door to open.

Gandalf, in response utters a word of command, which appears to be something above and beyond his own normal authority. the result is so great a release of power that the door shatters and the whole room on the other side colapses.

My conception of it is that Gandalf first used his own authority, then resorted to invoking God's authority, or at least the authority of something significantly higher than himself.

Then again on the bridge. Gandalf informs the balrog that he is a servant of the secret fire, a weilder of the flame of Anor.

this reference is not explained in the Lord of the Rings, but in the silmarillion it is found that the Flame of Anor is the fire that God sent to burn at the heart of the world, it is the fire that gave being to all things. God had thought up the entire creation, and history, and then when he wanted it to come into being, he sent forth the flame imperishable which became the foundation fo the world, of existence itself.

To me a comparison to the Holy Spirit is inescapable. The Spirit of God, linked repeatedly to fire, which energized the creation when He hovered, or 'vibrated' over the face of the deep.

so with that view, Gandalf is essentially telling the Balrog, a fallen angel, that he is facing up agaisnt someone who is a servant of and wields the power and authority of God and he may not pass.

Now, many christians would then say, why does gandalf have to fight so much, why isn't the balrog instantly banished etc.
In answer I would point out the reference in Daniel where Gabriel battles the prince of persia (a fallen angel principality). The prince of persia battles Gabriel for something like 21 days. Even though gabriel is on a divine mission from God. Only when Michael came to help him was Gabriel able to even get past. Even then they did not outright defeat the prince of persia, and Gabriel was on his way back to join the fight again.

Spiritual warfare is not as simple or clean cut as many christians would like to imagine it. Again look at Jesus exchange with his disciples when they could not cast out a demon. He told them that particular kind of demon did not come out "except by prayer and fasting". In otherwords, unless the person attempting to cast that spirit out had actively followed the disciplines of prayer and fasting, they would likely not be able to cast that spirit out.

In other instances the disciples had no such difficulty despite the fact that they had not been fasting etc.

Another common question is why isn't God more visible in the Lord of the Rings. Even in the Silmarillion God is portrayed clearly in the creation story, then rarely referenced anymore.

I think the answer is that Tolkien wanted to portray the subtlety of real life. God is rarely obviously visible in real life. Only those who specifically look ever really see his hand at work.
Jesus said to nicodemus, that people can see and feel the effects of the wind, but they don't know where it is coming from, nor where it is going.

Thats how it is with God. When we look, we can see the effects of his work, and we can feel it, but we can't see him, and his ways are mysterious. We rarely understand why he does, or doesn't do things, until long after the fact.

I think that is exactly what Tolkien is portraying. If you look in the Lord of the Rings, and related works you will find hints here and there, such as Gandalf telling Frodo "there was another power at work, all I can tell you is that bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its maker. In that case you too were meant to have it" (paraphrased).

The whole predominating theme of the story is providence. The quest, the central plot point of the story is stated over and over again to be impossible under the power of the characters. They CAN NOT accomplish it on their own. Gandalf keeps pushing them, despite the fact that they can't succeed in their own power, he keeps pushing them to do everything they can, and do what is right, and trust that in the end, providence will carry them through.

Consider how the story ends. It ends with failure. At the last, at the key moment, the cusp of temptation, Frodo fails. He gives in and tries to poses the ring. It is only providence that brings success.. and from the most unlikely source imaginable. Gollum of all people completes the quest.. and he does so despite desiring, and intending to do the exact opposite.

The lesson is that although we have freedom of will, God's plan always comes to pass. Gollum did what he willed, but it still served God's purpose. Frodo failed, but it didn't stop God's plan. In the end, it all worked together like precision clock work. You may call it fate, but when set in the context of Tolkien's world, it is clearly God.

then when you have that in mind, jump back and consider the role of Gollum, particularly his interactions with bilbo and frodo.. both had the chance to kill him, and though he deserved death, they showed him pitty and even tried to save him. Their kindness and pity, was used by God to save the whole world. Even though gollum was a lost cause, and it seemed they would only receive grief for their kindness, God used it to save the world from darkness and domination.

That to me has always made the moment in moria where Gandalf says to frodo "before this is over, the pity of Bilbo, may rule the fate of many", one of the most potent moments of the movies.


It is clear that Tolkien deliberately used the imagery of northern european mythology. Yet he also deliberately cast it in the context of his own christian beliefs. That is why he himself said that the Lord of the Rings was a specifically christian story.

when I read the Lord of the Rings, I find it to be a many layered tapestry of insights and truths. In addition to that, it has impacted me on a level that awakens vision, rather than just communicating fact. I can honestly say, for good or for ill, JRR Tolkien has been probably the single greatest influence, aside from scripture, in shapping my worldview.

The Lord of the Rings (Imagination part II)

I grew up in a time when two great occult scares gripped the evangelical christian community. One was rock music and occult back masking. The other was fantasy role playing games, and by extension anything fantasy related.



I've been interested to see the degree to which things have changed. I remember a time when even Keith Green was viewed as dangerously upbeat music and anything resembling "rock" be it christian or not was satanic to the core.

While you occasionally still run into a few people who think Christian music is too worldly, or even someone who believes that certain beats are inherently evil, for the most part Christian music of all types is accepted.



Likewise, fantasy literature has experienced a great increase of acceptance in the Christian community. The popularity of books like Eragon are an example of this. Granted Harry Potter has drawn the ire of many in the Christian community, and admittedly its promotion of 'witchcraft' is problematic given that witchcraft is an actual real religion.



The works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis have long been accepted in the christian community, despite the fantasy scare of the 80's. Lewis has always been more accepted and more popular because his works are more blatantly and obviously christian. It is nearly impossible to miss the connections between the gospel and the stories set in Narnia.



In the evangelical community, Tolkien has not been well known until recently. He was usually accepted to some degree, though more often questioned and challenged. It was only with the advent of the Peter Jackson movies based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings that he began to rival Lewis for widespread exposure in the Christian community.

There are several issues with Tolkien's work that are the source of the questions and opposition it has faced in the Christian community. The most commonly raised objection with Tolkien is his use of magic in various forms throughout his stories, and his world.

The real issue, in my opinion, is that Tolkien's stories do not blatantly, or even clearly represent the themes present in the stories. Particularly themes like God, and Christ, etc. Lewis makes use of magic, and mythological creatures, just as Tolkien does, but he gets more of a pass on that score because of the fact that his stories more blatantly portray the gospel and have clear representations of Christ.

The question usually raised with the Lord of the Rings is "if its really Christian, why isn't it more obvious?"

The first, and most basic answer is that it isn't more obvious because Tolkien himself disliked obvious stories. He thought them unimaginative and boring to read. This is a matter of personal taste. For example, I recently went to the movie Spiderman 3. I enjoyed the movie. My friend thought it was terrible. The primary reason he disliked the movie was because the plot was not subtle, it left nothing to mind of the audience. It explained everything in obvious narrative detail. To me, this was ok because I was just looking for something to be entertained by. It totally ruined the movie for my friend because it didn't engage his mind. He felt like he was being beaten over the head with the director's views, rather than allowed to find the message himself.

This is why Tolkien really didn't like the Chronicles of Narnia, and he actually thought that Lewis was going to embarass himself by having the stories published. Not because they were Christian, but because they were, in Tolkien's opinion, the literary equivalent of a club to the head. It turns out that Tolkien was wrong about the reception of the Narnia stories. They have become loved classics. Yet they are distinctly childish stories, as Lewis intended, and don't get much attention or 'play' among adult audiences.

While the hobbit was primarily a Children's story, and the Lord of the Rings began with the intent to be a children's story, Tolkien's world and his ideas about literature were never intended to be for children.

This phenomenon is seen in other forms of writing as well. Most of the great works of political philosophy down through the ages have been very subtle in that they are hard to figure out. The author deliberately cloaks his ideas. This serves two purposes.
Often such authors sought to hide their ideas for the purpose of protecting themselves from persecution. Yet, another very crucial aspect was that the process of thinking about the issues, and trying to understand what was being said, was half the point. Getting people to ask the right questions, and have the right thought process was often times more the point than presenting people with a set of answers. A big reason for this is that when you tell people answers, they may accept them, but they don't really "own" them usually. In order for people to really make an idea their own, they have to think about it and come to understand it on their own.
This is one of the great problems with out current education system as well. Just telling people facts doesn't make them intelligent. In order to truly educate people, you have to make them question and think, not just accept a laundry list of facts.

Now, Tolkien's primary purpose was to tell a story. It must be remembered that the animosity towards mythology and 'magic' is a relatively recent phenomenon in the Christian community. There have obviously been witch hunts and scares before, and the occult has always been opposed in practice. However, mythology was never until recently recognized as occult, and folklore (which is essentially what fantasy is) was never thought of as occult until recently.

Thus the fact that Tolkien, Lewis, and their lesser known friends made liberal use of mythology and folklore (which includes 'magic') is not surprising when put in context. They did not consider such things to be occult. In their minds they were just writing fairy tales the same as Hans Christian Anderson, or the brothers Grimm, except better.

One illustration of this is somewhat ironic. Tolkien and Lewis had another friend who was a christian as well, but he had a tendancy to write mystery stories that involved elements of spiritism (demonic activity, seances etc). Tolkien was very concerned by this and considered it to be a dangerous preoccupation with the occult.

The major issue of contention is thus that the more modern evanglical community considers mythology and folklore to be inherently demonic. People before our time, for the most part, did not. Even going back to the early church, false gods have always been recognized as false, yet it was recognized by many that even 'pagan' mythology contained a great deal of truth. If you remove the worship of false gods, what remains for the most part are stories about the nature of man, the question of fate, the purpose of life, the desire for freedom, and for redemption. All things that people need to think about, and ask questions about. If you begin to look in depth at mythology you can find a shocking amount of insight and observations of life and the world.

It is intriguing that almost every element of both Christianity and Judaism can be found paralleled in mythology and folklore. Many people use this to try and attack christianity as a 'copy cat'. Tolkien and Lewis, and many christians down through the ages recognized a powerful truth in this fact. This fact is actually a powerful testament to the truth of Christianity.

What this means is that all mankind has essentially known from the very beginning the truth of God's plan for redemption. Moreover, it is the hope that all mankind has held out, the desire they have looked for.
Mythology is the expression of man's hopes, dreams, his longings, his fears, and his sorrows. It communicates with people on a powerful level because its themes are drawn from our very soul. Tolkien and Lewis recognized this and they saw in it an amazing thing about Christianity, a powerful truth about Christianity. Christianity is the myth that is fact.

Christianity has all the power of myth. It has everything that every other myth has, and on top of that, it is literally, historically true.

However, we live in an age when myth has died. It has been killed by sterile reason. Not only the myths of ancient cultures etc, but the mythic aspects of Christianity as well. Even the ability to be touched by the power of myth has been blunted because 'scientific rationalism' has crippled that part of us which functions in the realm of imagination and myth.

The philosophy of modernism has made far more insidious incursions into all of us than we realize. Consider for a moment the efforts of creation researchers to prove the flood, and the creation, or the efforts of various books and TV shows to defend how various miracles could have happened.
What most never realize is that even we, as Christians, have been bound into playing the game of the 'rationalists'. It is not enough to point to evidence that these events may have actually happened. Almost invariably the Christian groups feel compelled to suggest natural processes which could account for the events in question. The miracles could have happened by this natural process, or that natural process. The flood could have followed this natural process or that.

The simple truth, which we can not accept in our modern rationalism, is that things don't have to have happened by natural process. There simply is no logical reason why everything has to be naturally explainable. This is one of the KEY differences between post-modernism, and the ancient/medieval model. The ancient/medieval thought process fully accepts logic, but it recognizes that the world has more dimensions than just physical nature. Modernism rejected the idea that there was anything other than the 'natural' or 'material' world. We as Christians are supposed to believe in the supernatural, yet all our efforts are spent trying to explain how the supernatural could naturally have happened. We do not need to reject logic, we need to reject a rationalism which is based on the idea that something must be seen to be believed. It must be observed, to be real. Ironically, the core of modernistic philosophy is a self contradiction. It is the idea that it is wrong to believe that which can not be proven. Yet that idea itself can not be proven. Post-modernism is, in its 'main-stream' form, a rejection not of materialism, or naturalism, but of reason and logic. Reason and logic, however, were never the real problem. It is reason founded upon materialism which is the real problem.

Granted there may be varient elements of post-modernism which are divergent from that, especially within Christian circles. Yet the forms of post-modernism which have taken the academic world by storm and which are making the greatest in roads into society are the forms which are founded upon the rejection of logic, and the rejection of external, objective meaning.

One of the results of this rationalistic straight jacket is that it has stripped our faith of all mystical and mythical aspects.

Now, in response to some of my recent comments Jonathan made a point about the danger of replacing solid theology with ambiguous subjective imaginations etc. This is a valid point. There is a great deal of danger along the path when we begin to seek experience and meaning that is essentially 'mystical' in nature. In my studies on contemplative Christianity this was very clear. Many who try to embrace this aspect of Christianity end up with all sorts of problems because they are leaving the secure forms of theology and delving into the shifting current of subjective experience. This is also evident in the history of Christianity. Christian mystics have often enough gone off into error and deception.

The word mystic, or mysticism means internal experience. Something which is known, or experienced internally rather than in an objective external way.
The problem is that we face a catch 22. On the one hand, it is easy to get caught up in subjectivity and decieve yourself. On the other hand, knowledge ABOUT God, no matter how accurate, is a very poor substitute for knowledge OF God.

It is often said that Christianity is not a religion, its a relationship. The second half of the comment is absolutely correct. Christianity is primarily about relationship. Evangelicals, of course, all know this mantra. Yet few enough of us actually live it when push comes to shove. I've had a "personal relationship" which Jesus as long as I can remember, yet I can count the times in my life, without running out of fingers, when I have truly experienced God. I suspect that the same is true of many others.
Relationship is by nature subjective. Relationship with God, is necessarily mystical.

I can not stress this enough, but the above statement CAN NOT be misunderstood to mean that God is within us, or that we must seek God within ourselves, or any such humanistic, new age blather. It does mean that we can only truely experience God, or relate to God through spirit, and spirit is mystical. Its not allegorical, its not symbolic, its very real, but it is ultimately subjective and internal.
Jesus said that he and his Father would come and abide in us. That is a mystical truth. All of this is essential to our relationship with God and our knowledge of God... and all of it is laid waste by the materialistic rationalism of the modern worldview.

So we must seek that deeply personal, internal experience of God. Yet at the same time we must keep ourselves within the bounds of orthodox theology. It isn't one or the other, both are necessary.

In the end this situation is directly analogous to the relationship between love and truth. Love is the most important, but it is impossible to have love without truth. Likewise it is impossible to really have the truth without love.

We can not have true theology if our experience of God is sterile and impersonal. We also can not really know God and truly experience Him if we believe all sorts of falsehoods about him. If we believe wrong things about God, it very quickly becomes idolatry because we begin to worship our own image of God, rather than God as he really is.

In order to keep my posts of at least somewhat reasonable length, I'm going to split this one up. The next section will deal primarily with a more indepth analysis of the Lord of the Rings. It should be forth coming with in the next day or two.

The Importance of Imagination

When most people think of imagination they think of kids at play, or maybe day dreaming in an office cubicle. Generally the word conjures thoughts of escapism, wasting time, and indulging oneself in un-reality.

What would you say if I told you that imagination is one of the most powerful parts of the human capacity for thought? and communication?

Certainly most will admit upon more thought, that imagination is at the root of all invention, most art work and creative endeavours. Most would not think of this, but imagination is crucial in most scientific inquiry as well. This is at least partially because the capacity for wonder, which motivates the best science, and the capacity for abstract thought are both closely linked to imagination.

The importance of all those things can hardly be over estimated. Yet there is something deeper that I want to get at. Something about imagination which I think is even more important. This has to do with vision, and communication.
One of the most important things in any human life is vision. God has said in the scriptures, of course, that without a vision, the people perish. This is fairly obvious in the facts of life as well. Life without vision becomes nothing more than an endless string of days bound together by monotony and drudgery. This knowledge is so common and so routinely referenced that it has become cliche. We see on a daily basis, people around us who exist, but do not live. They go through the motions of life, but everything has become blah, and routine.

One of the most famous statements of this affliction was from Marie Antoinette - "Nothing tastes".

This is the affliction of people who do not have vision. Not only " a vision" as in a goal, or a driving desire to accomplish something, but even "vision" in general. The ability to see.
Throughout history we can put forward dozens upon dozens of examples of people who have had "A vision". People consumed with passion to accomplish a goal, to achieve something. Life certainly had meaning for them. Yet even that aside there is just 'vision' itself. The ability to see.

The world we live in is a marvelous, wonderful place... wonderful in the true sense of the word. Full of wonders. Our world is magical, life is magical. Those who exist but do not live have lost the ability to see the true reality of the world around them. They have lost their vision.

A person with vision can see each sunset as a moment of such poignant beauty that words fail to describe it. A person with vision can watch the stars and begin to grasp the ungraspable concept of infinite wonder.

A person without vision can look at a thousand sunsets and see nothing but the end of another day with the promise of more drudgery tomorrow. They can see a thousand starry nights and see nothing but what they didn't get that day, or how early work will come tomorrow.

I have called it vision.. but it could as well be called revelation. The opening of ones eyes to see a reality that escapes most people.
This ability to see rests in the human capacity of imagination.

Most people think of imagination as the ability to see what isn't really there. Ironically those who view imagination only in this way often fall prey to a 'reason' that is most accurately described as the ability to not see what is really there.

It is on the level of imagination that vision is communicated, it is on the level of imagination that our eyes are opened to see new revelations of the true reality in which we live.

What would you say if I told you that perhaps the two most influential christian authors in recent history were J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis?

There have been many authors who have written reams upon reams of theology, and motivational books without end. Yet I would wager that none of them have even come close to speaking to as many people, or speaking with such profound impact as Tolkien and Lewis.
If I said this to many people I know they would laugh me off. How could fantasy novels by influential, or speak profoundly?? The somewhat ironic answer I would give is that they are almost the only kind of books that can!

It is the imaginative part of us that makes things profound. That is where we receive and interact with vision.

Aside from being a fan of Tolkien and Lewis, I am amazed by the clarity of vision they possessed regarding the times in which they lived. They recognized half a century ago the problems and evils of the 'modernist' mindset that had engulfed the world. They recognized the perils attached to a worldview that largely shunned imagination and defined itself by naturalistic realism. Only the visible natural world exists. Only that which can be proven, can be believed.
They recognized then that reason, devoid of imagination and ultimately faith, became unreasonable. They recognized that the core of modernist philosophy inherently and inevitably destroyed vision.
What is more they deliberately set out to combat the philosophy they loathed. While they did not write their fantasy to make statements (that is exactly what modernists would do, and the very type of thing they both loathed), in their fantasies and fictions, they told truth. The conveyed vision. Not agendas, not causes, not propaganda, not moralistic message. Vision, nothing more, nothing less. Vision of life, of the world, of truth.

In his tales of middle earth, Tolkien communicated a vision of our world, more accurate, and real than a dozen scientists who know all about atoms and thermodynamic laws, but nothing about forests and stars and the full moon rising on a foggy night.

Lewis, in a single phrase about "death working backwards" conveyed more vision of redemption than a horde of Harvard M.Div's writing essays on legal justification.

We are currently living at the cusp of a philosophical struggle, when one dominant philosophy is on the verge of being over thrown by a revival. The modernist philosophy which began in the enlightenment and the scientific revolution (and probably the reformation too) is in the struggle of its life with the somewhat unimaginatively named "post-modernism".

Post-modernism is, in many ways, a rejection of the very things that Tolkien and Lewis despised about the modernist worldview. Those dry, vision less ideas have failed. They have utterly failed to provide what people really need. The problem is that post-modernism goes to far in its reaction to the failure of modernism. Both Tolkien and Lewis were medievalists. They were not only scholars of medieval history, language, culture, and literature, they held a medieval world-view. That is likely to be misunderstood by people today who have a rather inaccurate, backward view of 'medieval'. What that meant to Tolkien and Lewis (who understood medieval history and worldview) was a worldview that consists of a marriage between reason and imagination. Each in their proper place.
Post modernism, on the other hand, tends to go overboard in its rejection of reason. Logic and reason were the gods of modernism. The unquestionable arbiters of truth and meaning. Thus in post modernism, logic and reason are viewed as subjective and largely meaningless. Thus it becomes questionable whether anyone can truly know anything.

So, as is the world's wont, it will likely move from one philosophy which stifles vision, to another which relegates truth itself to subjective, isolated, experience devoid of external meaning. Conditions under which vision, also, can not thrive.

In response to Jonathan's comment

Jonathan,

Begining at the end of your comment, it certainly is possible that I am doing exactly the thing that I lay at the feet of calvinists. I've done it in the past, and I have little doubt that I'll do it again in the future. Trying to prove our own rightness and defend what we have invested ourselves in is a strong impulse of human nature. Also, it is extremely unsettling to get to a point at which you seriously question doctrines upon which you have built your faith.

I know because I've been there. In my journey thus far I have, on at least three different occasions, faced serious challenges to my faith. Challenges of the earth shaking variety.

People, including myself, tend to build their faith on the doctrines they are taught. Thus when the particular body of doctrine to which we adhere is brought into question, it shakes your entire faith. I was raised non-denominational Charismatic, my doctrinal views were decidedly arminian.

The first great challenge I faced was when I entered college. I was raised as a young earth creationist and in my first semester at secular state college I took anthropology which was of course a class on evolution. I was raised to be intellectually honest, which meant that I could not simply dismiss everything I was being presented with. It was an incredible challenge because the amount of 'evidence' and the arguments presented were staggering and far far more impressive than I had ever been prepared for in creation science classes.

At first I was rocked back on my heels. I was forced to question the foundations of everything I believed, and re-evaluate my faith.

It took a long time, and alot of learning and thought to resolve that crisis once and for all.

The second great challenge I faced was when I went to a christian leadership conference called The Summit, in Colorado Springs. While there I sat in on lectures and discussions from a fellow who was part of the reformed church and he was a preterist as well. He was a very intelligent fellow and did a very good job of shredding both charismatic teaching, and arminian teaching.

He did a very good job of forcing the students to question their beliefs. As is typical in such situations most people come back with pat memorized answers, but little understanding of the topic other than the doctrines they have been trained in. The result was that many of the people were very angered because they couldn't answer the challenge, but were also unwilling to honestly consider the questions.

These discussions and lectures usually involved the students trying to support their doctrinal views by quoting proof texts from the bible. The same verses that they were taught to memorize and heard in sermons all the time. However in most cases, the teacher was able to show, or at least seriously question whether those verses were being taken out of context and whether they really meant something other than what the students were using them for.

The result for me personally was two fold. First I was forced to seriously question, and even reject some of the doctrinal beliefs I had held up to that point. Secondly it called into serious question the leaders who had been teaching me in church up to that point. After all, if they were teaching me bad doctrines, and had so misunderstood the word on a number of points... what else where they wrong about?

From this point on I was very often involved in debate and dicussion on theological issues. Over the next few years I actually took a very strong swing towards calvinism. For quite a while I referred to myself as a 4.5 point calvinist. I accepted all of the TULIP points except for irresistable grace and there for logically I also had to question perseverence of the saints. However, I didn't say they were incorrect completely, but that they were not necessarily always true. I believed that God could over rule human will when he wanted to (and I still do) and I believed that God would pursue his chosen to such a degree that it was nearly impossible for them to resist. Not that they could not exercise their will, but that God's persistance was such that anyone he persued would eventualy give in.

The reason I took that swing to calvinism was because I was very much into the intellect, and logic, and reasoning. Calvinism is very logical, and very reasonable. I pretty easily recognized in my conversations with different people, and my experiences in church that calvinism was usually far superior logically and intellectually to what most of the arminian church had to offer.

So, I strongly leaned towards calvinism.

Over the course of years, as I studied logic and philosophy more, and studied scripture more, I eventually began to see things in the reasoning and logic of Calvinism which didn't jive. Alot of what I began to see revolved around the fact that things simply aren't as cut and dry as calvinism presents them.

I remember that the transition away from calvinism for me especially began when I started running across arguments and teachings that denied, or interpeted away the face value of scriptures because they didn't fit with the logical construction of doctrine that the person in question had built up.

For example. In the scriptures dealing with the tower of babel it says that God came down and visited the site of the tower of babel to see what the people were doing. I ran across alot of arguments that would run like this...

"well this is an example where the scriptures were written from a human perspective so the ancient primitives could understand it. God didn't really come down and visit because God has no need to do so, he is omniscient, and omnipresent. Therefore it is silly to think that he would come down in order to find out whats going on at the tower of babel. Thus this passage must be understood as a consession to the inability of the ancients to understand such concepts."

That is pretty sound reasoning logically. The problem is it doesn't sit well with me. It is first, very arrogant in presuming that the ancients were incapable of the level of understanding we have today. Most of the time I have found the opposite to be true; the ancients had much better understanding and insight than we do. Secondly, I can agree that God didn't need to come down and visit in order to find out what was going on, and it still doesn't mean that he didn't do so, or that we must therefor believe the scripture doesn't really mean what it says.

Maybe God just wanted to come down and visit. When he judged Sodom, he came down and not only visited the city, but stopped to visit abraham before hand.. he didn't have to do that either.

That is just one illustration. The same principle applies in many cases.. infact I would almost go so broad as to say "across the board".

Calvinism routinely re-interpets scripture as mere anthropomorpic refrences which are essentially condescensions to mans inability to understand God's true nature (until of course the arrival of Calvinism).
Any point in scripture which talks about man making a choice to follow God, any scripture which talks about people departing the faith, or believers being decieved etc etc. All of those become essentially meaningless as they are infact talking about things that are impossible.

When you really logically apply calvinism out to the Nth degree practically the entire new testament becomes an exercise in redundancy. Warnings about things which can't happen, exhortations to do things which you have no choice about.

Calvinism is philosophically deterministic. Calvinism relies upon the argument of God's sovereignty. They say that God's sovereignty does not allow free will. Ok, but if this is true, it must be applied uniformly. Calvinists run into problems here. They will say that in terms of salvation God is sovereign and thus there is no free-will.. but of course people have free will in everything else they do. They decide to sin, they decide what to eat when they get up in the morning etc.

The problem is that this ruins their own argument. If God's sovereignty can allow free-will in all those things, why can't it allow free will in salvation? Or is God simply not sovereign over all of life?

Then as I pointed out previously.. determinism works philosophically, and logically.. it really can't be defeated in the purely philosophical realm, but it just doesn't work in the practical realm and it so obviously doesn't work in real life that almost no one except extreme cases really ever beleive deterministic philosophies when it comes time to run their lives.

Ironicly the only places you will find many true believers in determinism is in Islam and Hinduism.

So, those are the things I began to see and question. So I was at a point where I was hanging somewhere between calvinism and arminianism, and really questioning alot of what I was seeing within the charismatic church.

Then came the third big shake up. I was thuroughly protestant and evangelical my whole life. Then I came to a point at which I was drawn into conversations regarding the traditional churches, and the historical church. In the coarse of my investigations there I found that much of what I had been taught about the historical church and the traditional churches was either based on misunderstanding, or in some cases it was simply wrong.

At this point I had spent years learning and studying doctrine and theology. I was forced to face up to the question, was everything I had invested so much time in, foundationally flawed?

Through that question and the related journey, I have learned a great deal. Things that never made sense before in scripture, began to make sense, and fall into place. I'm still working on this one :)

The point of the little autobiographical section here is to point out that I have looked at Calvinism (as well as a couple other view points) from the inside. I've not just looked at them from the outside, trying to find ways to defeat them, or to defend my own position.

There have been times when I've dismissed other people's view points without much consideration because they seemed rediculous etc. However, when presented with reasonable argument and evidence, I have made a habit of trying to consider opposing view points honestly. In a number of cases I have ended up changing my own beliefs because in my judgement the opposing positions turned out to be the truer.

For example, there are some points on which I still agree with standard calvinist teaching. The main one is on the idea that a person can not come to God, unless God first calls that person. Humanity in an unregenerate state is incapable of understanding, or approaching God. As Paul said, no man can even say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. I agree with this position because it is clear in scripture, and it is not contradicted in scripture.


I have yet to find any 'school' of theology or doctrine which I would consider completely accurate in its vision, or model of how everything works in scripture. Most have some merits, but all that I have seen also have contradictions in scripture.
The problem that I was addressing when I suggested that Calvinists often defend their view point rather than seeking to find the truth is a problem that occures with every school of doctrine. The heart of this problem is that when someone devoted to a particular school of doctrine runs into a contradiction in scripture, they seek to explain it away rather than really questioning their doctrine.
There are clearly instances in which apparent contradictions can be solved through coming to a better understanding of a given passage. That is where judgement comes in. Is the interpetation of a given passage really better? or is it just what's required to make a given view point work?

In the examples I mentioned in my original post, from 2nd Peter and Ezekiel regarding God's desire that none should perish, the calvinists have an answer to these verses. They interpet the verses to refer only to the elect and not to all people. Their interpetation here, as I said originally, is possible. I, however, don't think it is the correct interpetation. I don't think it is the best interpetation. It is, however, a necessary interpetation if the calvinist view is to remain viable.

The heart of this issue is the nature of God, and his intention for salvation. Does God desire the torment and destruction of some people? Does God create people specificly to send them to hell? Did God intend salvation to be for all men, or only for a select few that he randomly chose?

We can find verses which seem to suggest both. Frankly its easy for either side to proof text this argument, and its easy for either side to re-interpet the proof texts the other side offers.

I already know that there are virtually no verses or passages I could quote that Calvinism doesn't have an answer, or an alternative interpetation of. I have heard them all before. The issue is that I simply don't agree with many of them.

Lets go back to what I believe to be the core of this issue, God's attitude towards humanity. This is a topic that is a focus for the entire bible. In this debate we can toss back and forth a few proof texts about predestination, and I will look at the passage you cited from Romans, but the real issue is not a few verses here and there... its the entire body of scripture. Does the entire body of scripture tell you that God desires the destruction of men, or does it tell you that he desires the salvation of men? Does it tell you why God destroys some and saves others?

This is an interesting discussion if for no other reason than it raises questions and scriptures that stretch the limits of doctrine. There are verses involved here which appear to support the Calvinistic view. There are also verses involved here that appear to suggest universalism, a doctrine held by most to be not only wrong, but heretical.

For example, when considering what God's purpose was in the act of Christ's sacrifice, how can we ignore Romans 5 which tells us that just as all men died in Adam.. all men now live in Christ. Clearly the intention there is for all, not just all of a select group.
Add to that 1st Timothy 4:10 which says that God is "the savior of all men, especially of those who believe". Clearly this also indicates that God's intent was to make salvation available to... "all men".

Hebrews 2:9 "But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."

In this verse the word "for" as in "he might taste death for everyone" means - 'on behalf of' or 'for the benefit of'. Again the indication is that God's intent in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, was to benefit everyone, all men, not just a special group of men.

Again, Calvinists undoubtedly have answers for these verses. The issue is, what is the best most honest interpetation of these verses?

There are dozens of doctrines, and revisions of doctrines which are based on the argument "well it COULD mean this..." With creative reasoning and argument a given text can be interpeted to mean MANY things. The question is not, what COULD it mean, but what is it intended to mean? What is the clear intent, the face value meaning of the text?

Going back to the verse in 2nd Peter which says that God is not willing that any should perish. The calvinists argue that this applies only to believers because Peter is writing to believers and he says that the delay of Jesus' return and judgement is due to God's longsuffering "towards you".

The argument is that Peter is talking to believers and telling them that God is delaying because he is long-suffering and doesn't want any believers to perish. This is a possible interpetation.

This to me does not fit as a common sense, clear intent meaning of the text. The first and most obvious point is that believers are already saved. There is no need to be long-suffering and delay for the sake of believers because they are already saved. The whole point of predestination is that God chose his elect from the foundations of the world, and that they are saved by no other fact than that he has chosen to show them mercy. Thus there is no need whatsoever for God to delay on our behalf. All the people who will ever be saved already are. Even if they are not born yet, they are saved.
If this verse really does apply to the elect, it clearly implies then, that it is possible for the elect to not be saved, unless God delays, waiting for them to respond to his grace. This is a contradiction with the rest of Calvinist teaching. According to Calvinist doctrine there is no involvement of human will in salvation.

Further, salvation, or "justification" in Calvinist doctrine is held to be "forensic" which means that a saved person is righteous, and "justified" simply because God has declared them to be so. Thus their response to God's grace is irrelevant. Calvinism, of course, teaches that santification follows justification. Anyone who is declared righteous by God will begin to live rightly in the process of santification as God works in them. However, technically this is unnecessary to salvation. A person could die before every showing any sign of sanctification and as long as God declared them to be justified, they would be saved. The idea of predestination is essentially that God declared his elect to be justified from the beginning of time. So technically a person does not even have to be born in order to be saved, so long as God declared them to be justified. The result is that this passage is redundant and unnecessary if understood within Calvinist framework.

I submit that the clear meaning of this verse is that God waits for people to be saved because he desires people to be saved, AND if he did not wait, some people who could be saved, would not be saved. I don't think the verse makes sense any other way. I further submit that if that understanding is true, it requires significant revision of Calvinist teaching.

I believe that this idea is more inline with the entirity of scripture and what it tells us about God.


So then lets look at Romans 9. This passage is often quoted in support of Calvinist teaching because it looks to support both the idea of predestination, and the idea that God creates some people specificly for the purpose of destroying them.

Paul begins the chapter talking about his distress at the fact that his people, Israel, have been cut off from God. This in itself should raise questions because of the fact that through out scripture to this point God has declared (remember forensic salvation) that Israel are his chosen people. He has called them over and over his Chosen and declared them to be his people. Yet this chapter begins by Paul lamenting that they have been cut off. If Calvinism is correct... how is this possible?

So far the only what I have seen this resolved by Calvinists is resorting to replacement theology. The Jews were set aside because the refrences to Israel in scripture are really referring to the church, not to the nation of Israel.

Paul, however, goes against this view in his initial statement of the chapter by clearly stating that the adoption (as the sons of God), the convenants, the patriarchs, and even Jesus Christ himself (after the flesh, or in his humanity) derives from their race. This is clearly a refrence to the physical genetic descendants of Abraham.

Paul then goes on to address the question (which is relevant to Calvinism) does this mean that God or his word have failed? Does the fact that the Jews were chosen, and have now been set aside mean that God or his word failed?

Paul says no, this doesn't mean God has failed because not everyone who is a genetic descendant is a true descendant of Abraham. He uses the examples of Ishmael, and Esau, contrasting them to Isaac, and Jacob. The point Paul makes is that mere genetic descent does not make one a member of the covenant. Membership in the covenant comes through the promise, or being a son of promise. Isaac and Jacob were the ones who carried the promise, sons of promise. Ishmael and Esau were not.

Paul goes on to ask the question... is this unjust? Is God being unjust by choosing Isaac, and Jacob, and not choosing Ishmael and Esau? Paul answers... "No, God is not being unjust because it is his perogative to show mercy, or not to show mercy." He goes on to address the question "If God determines these things by his own will, how can he find fault with those who are not part of the promise". Paul answers basicly saying "Can the pot say to the potter, why have you made me thus?" In other words, we who are the creation do not have the right to accuse or question the creator and what he does with his creation.

At this point things are looking pretty good for the Calvinists.

But then things start to get sticky again when Paul starts quoting from the Old Testament. He first quotes a passage from Hosea which talks about the gentiles being brought to salvation, being as Paul says, grafted in.
The first problem that becomes evident is that this passage from Hosea clearly states that the gentiles at one time were not God's people. In fact it says that God declared to them that they were not his people.

Surely this is a problem for the idea of both replacement theology, and the idea of pure predestination. The gentiles were declared not to be God's people and at some point, he declared that where as they had not been his people, now they are.

The real kicker though is at the end of the passage. Paul closes with this...

"30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 as it is written,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Here Paul tells us why Israel was set aside, and why the gentiles have been brought in. Why?? In so doing he goes back to the whole point of this passage... the question "the jews were chosen and the gentiles were not... yet the gentiles attained righteousness and the jews did not... why?"

The answer is faith. The gentiles attained righteousness by faith, the Jews failed because they lacked faith. The clear indication is that the Jews did not fail and were not unfaithful because God rejected them, or did not choose them. Infact quite the opposite. He did choose them and they still failed. Rather they failed because they did not have faith, and because they did not have faith, God rejected them for the time being and brought in the gentiles.

This raises all sorts of problems for Calvinism. Of course they have their own interpetation of this passage as you are well aware. I just don't think that it addresses the intent of the passage.

The Jews were chosen, but they failed to attain what they sought because they did not have faith. The gentiles were NOT chosen, and they attained what they did NOT seek because they received in faith.

Now, look back at the two examples of those who were not chosen... Esau and Ishmael. According to the calvnist view, they are examples of vessels not made for glory, of people that God does not love. Go back in scripture and read the stories of Esau and Ishmael. Ask yourself the question.. does God love these men? Did he abandon them?

I think you will find that God did not desire their destruction, and he did not abandon them. He blessed them in fact.

That calls into question the idea that Paul is saying God actually makes people for the purpose of destroying them. I would submit that what Paul is doing there is addressing specific questions by taking them to their most absurd degree (props to D. Ketter on this point). Paul is addressing the questions "Is God unjust to have abandon the Jews who he once chose, and who tried to follow him?" "Is God unjust to give salvation to the gentiles who did not seek God, and were not chosen?" Paul makes his point by taking those questions to their most extreme and saying "even if God did completely abandon the Jews, even if he did make people for no other reason than to condemn them, he would still be Just because it is his right as the creator."

I don't think Paul is actually intending to say that God does this, or that this is part of God's character. Which is why, in every case he makes clear that the people God set aside, or the people God destroyed were not simply abandoned for no reason, but they failed through unbelief. In otherwords, they refused to believe God, and rejected God.. not the other way around.

It is especially note worthy in this context that Paul goes on to point out that God will eventually bring the Jews back and he will save them, even though in this passage he appears to compare them to 'vessels of wrath'.

The final example I'll look at in this passage is Pharoh. One of the greatest examples of predistination. God hardened pharoh's heart. God raised up pharoh in order to destroy him.

BUT :)

There are several scriptures that also tell us that Pharoh hardened his OWN heart...
Exodus 8:15, 8:32, 9:34, and 1st Sam. 6:6.

Interestingly the verse in 1st samuel is a warning to the Israelites not to harden their hearts as Pharoh and the egyptians did.

The verse which states that God raised pharoh up in order to demonstrate his power, does NOT say that God created pharoh for the purpose of destroying him, as Calvinism assumes. It says that God raised him up, which refers not to his creation but his coming to his position of power. God made him Pharoh for the purpose of demonstrating his power to the world.

The indication, when you consider all of the information is that God chose a man to become pharoh, he chose a man that he knew would resist him and harden his heart against God. He did this in order that God might show himself to the nations through his dealings with egypt under the leadership of this man.

I do not deny that God did harden pharoh's heart. I also do not deny that Pharoh hardened his own heart. I believe this is a clear indication that God's sovereign will works in cooperation with the human will which he gave us. God maintains his sovereignty, while allowing us freedom.

Pharoh is a stern warning, one that we find in other places in scripture. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Pharoh is an example of a person who hardened his heart to God, and hardened his heart through sin, the end result was that God took him, and used him to serve God's purposes. It seems likely that for Pharoh, he passsed the point at which God could be found.

Another similar statement to this is Jesus' statement "offenses must come, but woe to him by whom they come." It is ordained that bad things will happen, just as it was ordained by God that egypt would oppose God, and woe to the person who becomes the instrument of offense, just as it was woe to Pharoh that he became the instrument that God used to demonstrate his power.

clearly there is an element of predestination involved in this. Also there is clearly freedom.

I believe the indication of scripture as a whole is that God desires the salvation of all men and does not take joy even in the destruction of the wicked. We can cite proof texts back and forth, the calvinists can answer mine, and I can answer theirs. In the end you have to judge which view fits better with the scriptures not only each individual scripture, but the scriptures as a whole.