The Three C's: Contingency, Commonality & the Classroom

Philosopher of Science Michael Polanyi once stated that, "The distinctive qualities of man are developed by education." Just over the past few months, my mind has been so transformed by not only my academic training and exposure to new materials as a teacher, but also to the profound experience of tutoring one little girl in her reading. I have been spending time studying the specific interaction between science and theology, or natural science and true religion, if you will. I have noticed that there are a plethora of interactions that can take place between science and religion ranging from outright conflict to total syncretization. Somewhere between these two lies a truer connection that corresponds with the way we really think. Having said that, it’s not a compromise or a mediating position that I seek, but rather an honest appreciation of the power of natural knowledge and its limits, as well as the core nature of theological thinking. What has happened to me involves intense personal reflection, emotion and confusion as I struggle to come to grips with my own limitations and intuitions. It is hard to trust one’s own discernment since it seems to be the case that as soon as you do, you find out you were either wrong or self-deceived. Maybe that’s the lesson in maintaining the tension in the mind…with tension, we get a tight string, and without it, a limp noodle. For example, the idea of contingent order as taught by T.F. Torrance, a theologian, helps me come to grips with my own flawed perspective and erroneous language describing God’s activity in this world. Is every moment a miracle since he sustains everything by his will? The psalmist declares that if he were to “withdraw his breath, every living creature would perish.” This seems to misuse the true definition of a miracle. Or is it that when he acts in a profound way as described in the death of the firstborn in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea or the resurrection of Jesus, is it an intervention, a suspension of natural law? Does he normally stay out of the world and then choose to invade it, as it were? But see, once that is articulated in that way, I recoil from it because I know he is understood as the Creator of everything, so nothing is foreign about him acting in the world on any level. So what is it when he is described as acting in a specified way versus how he normally sustains all things? It is something different, unusual and extraordinary. But it is not merely wondrous or awe inspiring…it communicates something. I have learned that rather than holding to an extreme separation of spiritual and natural realms, that the two concepts are not so distinct, at least in the way typically understood. I am also reminded that a miracle is a revelation in the Christian tradition of the person of God. By revealing something of himself, it is as though the curtain is pulled back and a “full on” view is apprehended, though not comprehended, of the power of God, or mercy, etc. In other words, a miracle, a revelation is a more explicit historical action of God (resulting in an event/story) versus a more hidden activity of God that is constant in each an every second from the sub-atomic level to the movement of the heavens. Ergo, rather than intervention, I use interaction. How does this accord with science in the classroom? Well, it was Einstein that said that God does not play dice with the universe; God does not wear his heart on his sleeve; And subtle is the Lord, but malicious he is not. What this means is that to tell kids that things are the way they are by chance is actually a negative way of thinking, a way not to think. It explains nothing and is a type of atheistic version of a “God of the gaps” answer. Wherever there is a gap in our knowledge, in our ability to explain, depending on what type of person you are, you say, “Well, God did it!” or, “It’s just by accident!” Perhaps God is not so obvious or rather we are insensitive. And if he is there, just unseen by our eyes, then perhaps we apprehend him as indeed subtle, but not deceptive, not a joker. Again, Einstein himself declares, “Behind the efforts of the investigator there lurks a stronger, more mysterious drive: it is existence and reality that one wishes to comprehend. This wonder and awe are sustained by religion.” All that said, allowing kids and adults, students and teachers to be driven by devotion, faith and truth is honest. It is not these things that there is a law against, but rather aspects of our own human nature that are corrupted, divisive and full of hatred. Science and religion are not in conflict in and of themselves, for both seek to know according to their own natures. Rather, it is people who express themselves as alienated and polarizing, angry and divided. Darkened mad people, be they religiously inclined or otherwise, must come to grips with their own issues that typically have nothing directly to do with aspects of knowing. Between the probable and proved there yawns a gap. Afraid to jump, we stand absurd, Then see behind us sink the ground and, worse, Our very standpoint crumbling. Desperate dawns our only hope: To leap in the Word that Opens up the shuttered universe. - S. Vanauken, A Severe Mercy Through all of this internal struggle with how and what I thought I knew, I have been spending two hours a week with one of the sweetest little 4th graders I have ever met. Her name is Taylor and she is involved in an afterschool program in a local elementary school. She is below average in her reading ability and thus I volunteered to spend time with her each session to encourage her, play with her and challenge her to read and find a love of learning for herself. Just this past week, she took her state exams and received high marks indeed. I thought I couldn’t be any happier until just recently, she interrupted her own portion of our shared reading time to write down a quote from The Little Prince which stated, “Sometimes the eyes are blind, therefore you must look with the heart.” I about passed out as this small elementary kid who struggled with reading just 3 months prior now is arrested in her exercise to inscribe a powerful concept in her own mind. Wow! I have gained much from tutoring and the maxim holds true that "Genius seems to consist in the power of applying the originality of youth to the experience of maturity.” I have witnessed the power of education in the context of a safe relationship. It is true that we learn best from those we like. Not too long ago, she helped me copy a poem written about science of which she now wants a copy. She even pointed out that there were other books with poems about science in her library…we shall have to explore this! You see, education has content of course. But it is the student and their mind that is undergoing development that is the central focus. Taylor is learning what it means to be human and to love learning, to love others and to be in relationship with someone else who desires her benefit. The analogy is well spoken this way: "The skillful use of a tennis racket can be paralyzed by watching our racket instead of attending to the ball and court in front of us." Taking your eye off the ball is the worst thing you can do in any sport, especially when it is coming directly at you! Teaching, tutoring and education are disciplines that require full-on engagement. The focus has not been on my style or performance, but on service to a kid and consistent care for her growth. Without this effect in her life and in any of our lives, we would be nothing inside. Sartre once wrote in his work Being and Nothingness: "Nothingness haunts being. It supposes all being in order to rise up in the heart of being as a hole." It is indeed because nothingness arises in the heart of man that the human reality is forced to make itself something, instead of merely being itself. But as such, man is the only being within the world through whom the threat of nothingness emerges, and by implication disorder also. Ergo, science is no danger in education to morals, and religion is no threat to a real quest for discovery. It is nothingness, emptiness, void and darkness in the human heart that plagues our lives each and every day. "The premises of science are taught today roughly in three stages. School science imparts a facility in using scientific terms to indicate the established doctrine, the dead letter of science. The university tries to bring this knowledge to life by making the student realize its uncertainties and its eternally provisional nature, and giving him perhaps a glimpse of the dormant implications which may yet emerge from the established doctrine. It also imparts the beginnings of scientific judgment by teaching the practice of experimental proof and giving a first experience in routine research. But a full initiation into the premises of science can be gained only by the few who possess the gift for becoming independent scientists, and they usually achieve it only through close personal association with the intimate views and practice of a distinguished master." "What then is our answer to those who would doubt that man made of matter, man driven by appetites and subject to social commands, can sustain purely mental purposes? The answer is that he can. He can do this under his own responsibility, precisely by submitting to restrictive and stultifying circumstances which lie beyond his responsibility. These circumstances offer us opportunities for pure thought - limited opportunities and full of pitfalls - but all the same, they are opportunities, and they are ours: we are responsible for using or neglecting them. Viewed in the cosmic perspective of space and time, the opportunity for engaging on works of the mind may have special appeal to us. For so far as we know, we on this earth are the only bearers of thought in the universe. Nor has this gift been a feature of terrestrial life from the start. This task, therefore, appears to be the particular calling of literate man in this universe. I believe that no one who thankfully acknowledges man's calling in this universe, be he religious or agnostic, can avoid this ultimate peremptory conclusion."

The Changeling Nature That Is Human

“Unlike the creatures who move within visible nature and are indeed shaped by that nature, man resembles the changeling of medieval fairy tales. He has suffered an exchange in the safe cradle of nature, for his earlier instinctive self. He is now susceptible, in other words of theologians, to unnatural desires. Equally, in the view of the evolutionist, he is subject to indefinite departure, but his destination is written in no decipherable tongue. For in man, by contrast with the animal, two streams of evolution have met and merged: the biological and the cultural. The two streams are not always mutually compatible. Sometimes they break tumultuously against each other so that, to a degree not experienced by any other creature, man is dragged hither and thither, at one moment by the blind instincts of the forest, at the next by the strange intuitions of a higher self whose rationale he doubts and does not understand. He is capable of murder without conscience. He has denied himself thrice over, and is as familiar as Judas with the thirty pieces of silver.” **[As legend has it, female fairies often give birth to deformed children. Since the fairies prefer visually pleasing babies, they would go into the mortal world and swap with a healthy human baby, leaving behind a changeling. While the changeling looked like a human baby, it carried none of the same emotional characteristics. The changeling was only happy when misfortune or grief happened in the house. The changeling legend has lasted for centuries. William Shakespeare talks of a changeling in his play, “A Midsummer’s Night Dream.”]

I AM JONAH

I AM JONAH.

“This displeased Jonah terribly and he became very angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish! – because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment. So now, Lord, kill me instead, because I would rather die than live!” The Lord said, “Are you really so very angry?”
Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. He made a shelter for himself there and sat down under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city. The Lord God appointed a little plant and caused it to grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to rescue him from his misery. Now Jonah was very delighted about the little plant.
So God sent a worm at dawn the next day, and it attacked the little plant so that it dried up. When the sun began to shine, God sent a hot east wind. So the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, and he grew faint. So he despaired of life, and said, “I would rather die than live!” God said to Jonah, “Are you really so very angry about the little plant?” And he said, “I am as angry as I could possibly be!” The Lord said, “You were upset about this little plant, something for which you have not worked nor did you do anything to make it grow. It grew up overnight and died the next day.”

In 2003, I was fired from a church. I pastored a college ministry that I had grown up in as a student at Texas Tech and then found myself as a leader, teacher and disciple maker. My service and experience was profound for both myself and the students I trained. I wasn’t just their teacher in the faith, Bible study leader or minister…I was a fellow disciple, sharing life together with those I mentored. It was a beautiful time that lasted four years. I got married. I bought a house. Got a dog. Travelled. I even gained some weight I was so happy.
Then the church wanted to expand its facilities. I first saw the full model the architect left in our old church building. It was placed in the main hallway just inside the main doors. This small model became an inception of an idea that would soon eclipse all that the church was about. Finances were ordered and arranged. Tithing was preached. Offerings were collected. Pledge cards filled out. Then meetings were held. Belts were tightened. Fists were clenched. Foundations were laid. Walls were erected. Words were exchanged. The senior pastor entered into fisticuffs with the congregation and despite his theological education and persuasive speaking ability, the raw power of donation won the day. The budget shrank by the week as congregants refused to meet the debt. Thus, the Finance Committee needed to “trim some fat.” Did I mention I gained a little weight during these four years?
I remember the day so clearly. It was early November and I was in my office. The senior college pastor called me into his office, sat me down and stated, “I am afraid your time here at IABC is coming to an end. They have decided to dissolve your position.” The words penetrated my skull, but didn’t sound right. “What?! Why?” The church eventually fired everybody.
Pain, disbelief, confusion, sunken heart. Then anger, bitterness, rage. I wanted revenge. “I”LL SHOW THEM! I will never darken to door of a church again. This will never happen to me twice.” I wiped the dust off my feet, broke the news to my wife, cried and begged for mercy. I sold my house, left for good, didn’t look back. “Lubbock in my rearview mirror,” as the song goes.
We move back to Dallas and gave it a fresh start. I finished my ThM and asked new questions about church, theology and ministry. I wrote a thesis, invented a new ministry. Worked at one church, got frustrated, left. I served as a corporate chaplain for three years and loved it. Teaching and relating once again. Pastoring a non-church. I go to another church, seek ordination, get accepted then rejected. Get frustrated and leave. A man asked me, “Have you ever considered getting your PhD. You’d make a good professor.” Others affirm my teaching gift and have always encouraged it. Sounds logical. I was graduating soon and thought it brilliant since it will get me out of my dilemma of working in a church. I never even asked the “pastor” question.
We move again to Oklahoma to complete some post-graduate work in the history of science. Perhaps my theological work can be used and redeemed in this way. I didn’t attend church for nearly three years or more. I enjoy the freedom, the isolation, the time with my wife. The time is a sweet time. She had some quiet reservations and concerns about me. She noticed how I went into a tail spin every time I faced rejection. I struggled though with academics for academics sake. It seemed kind of boring and I always held that knowledge should be transformative. I did get to disciple a couple of guys at OU and looked forward to it so much. I also taught and cared about my students. Perhaps a new dynamic was needed…

I AM JONAH

I am getting tired. Running will do that to you. I have long struggled with my wishes to become a professor and my desires to be a pastor. My calling lies in “making disciples.” What this means for me is that I want to learn how to articulate Scriptural meaning and theology to a modern audience. I have decided to recommit myself.
The professor is a specialist, a student of one subject, a scientist whose interest is mainly in the truth in itself. The pastor is not a specialist, except in a broad way; he is a student of many subjects; he is a practical man whose interest is in the relation of truth to life or more exactly in the relation of life to life, the life of God to the life of people. The pastor is an ambassador with a commission, a herald with a message, a physician with a remedy for the ills of mankind. In addition to this, he is a servant of men, a companion, a counselor, a comforter, as men and women may need his services.
I have begun to struggle well. If I have learned anything from my academic pursuits…it is not necessarily about finding the right answers, but rather asking the right questions. Like Jonah, I have gotten angry and ran away though I did not cause any of the events back at that church. The Lord has providentially watched over me and almost despite my attitude and behavior, He has been gracious to me. I had to repent of my anger from being fired and let go of the hurt I was trying to escape. In my chaplain group, I recently watched a chapel sermon I presented and became frustrated that it seemed so boring and flat. I felt like I was someone screaming behind a glass wall. Another on the other side would barely hear a muffled sound. I think I have lost my way, suppressed my pastoral affections, silenced the disciple-maker…buried my gift, so to speak. I ran from God only to try and wear a mask of an academic. The large fish of despair has swallowed me and since then, I have cried out,
“I called out to the Lord from my distress,
and he answered me;
from the belly of Sheol I cried out for help,
and you heard my prayer.
You threw me into the deep waters,
into the middle of the sea;
the ocean current engulfed me;
all the mighty waves you sent swept over me.
I thought I had been banished from your sight,
that I would never again see your holy temple!
Water engulfed me up to my neck;
the deep ocean surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
I went down to the very bottoms of the mountains;
the gates of the netherworld barred me in forever;
but you brought me up from the Pit, O Lord, my God.
When my life was ebbing away, I called out to the Lord,
and my prayer came to your holy temple.
Those who worship worthless idols forfeit the mercy that could be theirs.
But as for me, I promise to offer a sacrifice to you with a public declaration of praise;
I will surely do what I have promised.
Salvation belongs to the Lord!”


I AM JONAH

So now, two fields of work converge on my life. The work of pastor and the work of professor. They are neither mutually exclusive nor opposed to one another. My affections for ministry carry me to desires to pastor.
“To know the word that sustains the weary.
Morning by morning He wakens me. He wakens my ear like one being taught.”
Pastoral work becomes my point of real service as the “field work” needed to do proper theology, to “incarnate” my spiritual beliefs and to learn what it means to be human. It is as Eugene Peterson says, “the lived quality of God’s revelation among and in us.” As a chaplain, I descided to refocus my efforts on why I entered into the profession: to care for those who suffer, and to integrate my theological learning with real life human experience.
My life in academia has been formative as well and will continue to be. I get to spend time with students from various backgrounds and interests. I learn to make my language broad and integrated so that it can speak to others. I strain to provide coherence and structure to what I do and make a longer term contribution.
I am no longer running. I want to rekindle the pastor, the disciple-maker in me that has been lost to time. I need to strengthen it, feed it, work it and develop it once more. This will only make my future desires to teach theology that much more robust and meaningful and authentic. My path as a chaplain and hopefully as a future pastor then professor will allow me to continue to explore my own calling as well as serve those under my care. Overall, trying to describe my process is a bit like painting a bird in flight while it is actually flying. The change is quite dynamic, I am always in flux, but it is directed and guided and heading somewhere for sure.

"Immanuel" by T.F. Torrance

"In His first Advent Jesus came… in grace and humiliation. He came in such a way as to enter into our guilty human life and to heal it from within…“God with us” means that in the birth of Jesus Christ, God has given Himself wholly to us, in a love that is absolutely unstinting and infinitely lavish. It is God’s utmost self-giving that stopped at nothing. God could do no more than come Himself into our humanity, and give Himself entirely to us — and that is exactly what He has done in Jesus. The sheer extent, the boundless range, of His act of love takes our breath away.
“God with us” means that God Almighty insists on sharing His life with us. Far from abandoning us…, God has identified Himself with us. Once and for all He has become one of us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. God has committed Himself to us in such unrestrained love in the birth of Jesus, and in such a way that now He cannot abandon us any more than He can abandon Himself in Jesus Christ.
That is why the birth of Jesus was heralded with such sublime joy among men and angels, for now that God is with us, the whole situation in heaven and earth is entirely altered, and all things are made new. Now that God is actually with us and of us, everything else is assured. Whatever may happen in the future, God’s purposes of love and fellowship and peace with man will all be fulfilled.
“God with us” means God with us sinners in our lost and bankrupt state. Where we have sold ourselves irretrievably into slavery and perdition and are hopelessly broken and damned, God has joined Himself to us. God has refused to let us go. He has insisted on making Himself one of us, and one with us, in order to make our lost cause His very own, and so to restore us to Himself in love.
“God with us” means that God is for us, God is on our side; that He has come among us to shoulder our burden, and to rescue us from disaster and doom and to reinstate us as sons of the heavenly Father. That is the meaning of the whole life of Jesus from His birth to His death. It was God taking upon Himself our poor human life in all its wretchedness and need, God living out our human life from beginning to end, in order to redeem it…, in order to make our lost cause His own."

Thomas F. Torrance, When Christ Comes and Comes Again, pp. 20, 40, 41.

Church Woes

If 'church' is what happens when people encounter the Risen Jesus and commit themselves to sustaining and deepening that encounter in their encounter with each other, there is plenty of theological room for diversity of rhythm and style, so long as we have ways of identifying the same living Christ at the heart of every expression of Christian life in common. - Archbishop Rowan Williams

• The majority of new converts leave their church within 8 weeks of their commitment to Christ.
• Half of all churches did not add one new member through conversion in an entire year.
• Average church attendance in the U.S. has declined from 104 in 1992 to 90 today.
• On average, 8 churches a day close their doors.
• The average church reaches approximately 3 people for Christ each year.
• Mega-church membership populations in or near large Metropolitan areas are comprised of 98.5% of members from other, smaller churches. The number of mega-churches has more than doubled in the last 15 years while the above facts hold true. Thus the mega-church tends to be more of a concentration of believers rather than actual production of new ministry among a set demographic.

Taken from The Barna Group, 2007.

Controlling Our Love?

“Jesus knew that his time had come to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love (he loved them to the last).” – Jn. 13:1

“The Heart that hurts is the heart that beats.” – Bono, lead singer of U2


It seems odd in a world that is seemingly out of control that the one thing that remains in tight control is the virtue of love. Love for God, love for neighbor and so on, are kept in their proper place and find expression only at the right time for the right reasons. They are safely guarded and fiercely defended from all encroachments. Therefore, I find within myself a struggle to be free. But this freedom is not the kind of freedom where I simply desire to do whatever I want. The struggle within is the struggle to care. All around me are people that strive for security, keeping their jobs, having too much food, and taking vacations. These things are not bad or evil at all! However, it is the arrogance and selfishness that is displayed as I witness some individuals promise themselves more than they should. They constantly make assumptions about the way life should be (never mind that they have violated it many times over and are miserable!). My wife and I choose the life we have on purpose because our heart beats, and thus hurts, for things that are uncommon in this world. We honor the plight of orphans, we want to travel the world God made, I seek to gain a greater understanding of science, religion, and culture, I am curious about working for peace through understanding, etc. Our lines are drawn differently. God’s Spirit has shaped us uniquely, and thus our time tables will not match those in American suburbia. There is simply more to life than having a 3-2-2 with a couple sedans, and a baby before your 30.
My current struggle is one in which I am trying to throw off these restraints made by the world around me to contain and control my love, my drives, and my desires…to settle down as it were. Most in this situation are seemingly trapped by fear. It’s not that I am brave, but rather that I want to be brave. And the virtues I maintain are not necessarily in opposition to those around me, it’s just the application of those virtues that causes the trouble. I’m not irrational, headstrong, risky, nor fearless. It’s just that things bother me or tug on me that are more than just suburbia creature comforts. Many have told me, in essence, to control my love, calm down, contain it, and just focus on what everyone else is doing to build a life like everyone else. Let it be said, I am not as devoted as I should be, not as prepared as I would like, and not as consistent for what is required. Now as always, I am a man in process. May God have mercy upon my soul.

“There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if the Sovereign Ruler, Creator, and sustaining power behind all that exists, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few pennies, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, ‘Business as usual.’ But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.
These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. Jesus said, ‘It is not what goes into a man, but what comes out of him that makes him unclean. For out of the heart of man flow all sorts of wickedness…’ The main battlefield then for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.” – Yann Martel

Anyway

"People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help, but may attack you if you do help them.
Help them anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway."

From John R. W. Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, Some New Testament Word Studies, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1961), pp. 100ff