The Denial of Death?

Ernest Becker wrote in his Pulitzer Price winning book, The Denial of Death, many profound things about how man copes with the fact of death. In Christian circles, idolatry (making anything else but God one’s ultimate significance) is often seen in illegal or immoral categories, but Becker’s interpretation is insightful, idolatry is a coping mechanism, to intoxicate oneself by indulgence to forget the fact that the moment we are born, we are all dying:

Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget. In the mysterious way in which life is given to us in evolution on this planet, it pushes in the direction of its own expansion. We don’t understand it simply because we don’t know the purpose of creation; we only feel life straining in ourselves and see it thrashing others about as they devour each other. Life seeks to expand in an unknown direction for unknown reasons…..

Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don’t know that death is happening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one’s dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that’s something else.

It seems he was picking up on a fact that was given to us even in Ecclesiastes 9:

It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the su, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

D.A. Carson, the NT scholar, said once in a talk that the last taboo in our current culture is the subject of death, that we can openly talk about sexually explicit content without a blink, yet when you mention that someone is dying, everyone begins to squirm and silence feels heavy in the air. This may be because we are creatures of hope, we don’t realize that hope is something that cannot last in things that are seen. Even people who think they place hope in unseen things, many times don’t believe it, they don’t live it. And as Becker observed, we start to indulge ourselves, whether with alcohol or shopping, to forget our finitude. Hope is an interesting thing; it is only as strong as what you place it in, and lasts as long as its object. 

Though Becker’s description was correct, I do not think he gives a proper prescription for the problem of death. He says that we often are in denial of it, yes, but, I think, the solution is not far off. We deny death. Of course, not of our own accord or power because, again, we all die. But we deny death through one where death could not consume, where death was left impotent, where death was only a marker in time. Hope in such changes death from the end of all things to the beginning of the rest of everything.

Here is a story (from SOULPANCAKE) of a man who died today, of Zach Sobiech, who I want to believe, had this kind of hope. No, more importantly, I want to believe, he placed his hope in someone that is greater. But regardless, we can affirm that he left something respectable, something great behind for the rest of us, who will all sometime, somewhere, somehow face our death.

(seen first on “Upworthy“)

Stop Talking

In a casual conversation with two friends, the topic of preaching length arose. In their comments they pointed out the correlation they noticed between the length of sermons and the age of the preacher. They, interestingly, pointed out that many of the preachers who give lengthy sermons tended to be the younger ones. Of course, this claim was merely a claim of individual observation, but one comment my friend made particularly seemed to resonate: ‘When you’re older, you just understand that what you have to say isn’t really that important.’

At first glance, one may think that this friend has a hardened heart or is just immature to sit through a sermon of forty-five minutes plus. But that is because, of the two italicized words in the comment, most of us find the stress in the latter: ‘say’. That is, when we find the stress in ‘say’, we are believing that preaching is important, and rightfully so, but the above comment wasn’t stated to mean that preaching isn’t important. The actual stress was on the ‘you’, meaning, older preachers seem to have a better sense of their place in influencing change in people’s lives. They understand that 15~30 more minutes will not necessarily be of positive impact (or sometimes it’ll be of negative influence). Theologically speaking, they have a better sense of God’s sovereignty. It was interesting to notice after pondering upon my friend’s comment how much young leaders (me including) preach in our prayers. There is a level of guidance that is good in group prayer, but sometimes as one leads, they start to preach again, a prayer topic becomes a sermon as if the listeners must pray in a very specific manner, almost countering the sovereignty of intercession we can find in Romans 8:26. Ed Welch, in a CCEF blog (titled “Edit Your Counseling“) about understanding that more words are not necessarily a good thing, corroborates the goodness of brevity with an anecdote:

I submitted a chapter for a book. The editor suggested that I should aim for 8-10,000 words. After I submitted it, the publisher pulled rank and mandated that all chapters be 5,000 words or less.

I labored to cut it back but it was still over the word count. I told the editor I was at bare bones—there was nothing else I could cut. I assumed (hoped?) that he would say something like, “Oh, don’t worry about that silly word count from the publisher. Your chapter is so good they will make an exception,” or something like that.

What he actually said was, “No problem, I will edit it down to 5,000 words for you,” which he did, and the chapter was better than before. As you might guess, this word butcher is a highly skilled editor. Greater editing skill produced a chapter that is more succinct and clear.

But this is not only true in writing; the same principle applies to preaching and counseling.

Welch’s concern in the post is practical for the listener as his main point is “The more words you say, the less people understand – at least as a general rule.” But my concern, though also practical, is for the speaker. Preaching a long sermon is not inherently wrong or bad, but the concern is the heart and mentality of the preacher, where if the length of his/her words becomes a safety net for that person’s ability to change. If that is the case, maybe we place too much weight on the ‘your’ of ‘your words’. Maybe in our minds we think the words are important, when in fact, WE have become important. Again, this is not a post to say that hour long sermons are in it of themselves a negative thing, but it seems healthy to ask, “Do I have to say everything?”

At the same time the other side of the issue is not to stop talking. The Word must be preached, it must be known. But maybe the issue is that we have far detached listening from our talking. We have assumed all the questions, and forget to ask ‘one more question’ as Welch teaches in his class lectures. Harvie Conn, in Evangelism, puts it this way:

Maybe it’s time we stop asking, “Would you like to come to our church?” and begin constructing surveys around the sincere statement, “We’d really like to know why you’re not going anywhere.”

And he quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together,

The first service that one owes to others… consists in listening to them… Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening…. Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they would share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.

This is not to say that young preachers must replace speaking with listening altogether, as listening by itself is rarely useful, but rather to put them together. For some this may mean that they listen more and talk less, for others it may even mean that they begin listening. Whichever it may be, behind our behavioral change it may be good to remember my friend’s earlier quote on the wisdom of old age, that it’s quite ok NOT to say everything, all at once, every time.

Loving God vs Loving Right

An acquaintance of mine tweeted this after the recent Justice Conference in Philadelphia, “Don’t be in love with the idea of yourself doing justice; be in love with the just King.” (If you’re curious as to his other insightful tweets, check out his blog: Kyuboem Lee.) In the wake of rising humanitarianism, which also encompasses the wider Christian population as conferences such as the Justice Conference seems to attest, Kyu’s tweet resurfaces some thoughts that are actually related to other aspects of the Christian conservative disposition.

It has come to my attention that I am not very good at loving God, and I think Christians (I should probably say American Christians) in general are not very good at it either. Of course, it would be an whole entire discussion to describe what the meaning of “loving God” is but to simplify one maybe has to take a peak at how one loves others. In Christianese (that is Christian lingo), it is often said that the vertical relationship affects the horizontal, which simply means that if you are correctly loving God, then it should show in your love for others. But it seems most do not understand how often that translation from the vertical to the horizontal does not happen so naturally. Most Christians, I believe, mistake loving what’s right with loving others, and in turn, mistaken loving God altogether. Lately, I have had the privilege of listening to a number of people who claim not to be Christian and it seems one big reflector of this ‘loving right’ tendency is reflected in the way Christians make them feel: dirty, unworthy, second-class. Even when Christians do not intend to do thus, mistakenly thinking you are loving God when you are only loving what’s right will naturally convey that sense. As somewhat of an aside, it is good Christian theology to think that all humans are sinful, dirty, unworthy, but the question of concern here is in reference to whom? Good theology says that it is in reference to God, but often in our practice of ‘loving right’ we make them feel unworthy in reference to us. This becomes very evident in Christian dealings with peccadilloes, not to say that condoning such things is the right thing to do, but raising the condoning or not condoning as the first question illustrates that our primary concern is with strictly ‘doing what’s right.’ This seems to fall in line with a critique stated by one of my professors concerning pastors of large (mega) churches, that they have the luxury to simply state unhelpful mantras like “Jesus plus nothing equals everything” because they don’t have to get into the messy lives of individuals. When throwing principles and mantras from a distance, one tends to miss the details, important details, and in worse cases, it can produce a culture of woodenly following principles as equal to ‘loving God’. This proclivity of ‘loving right’ is also illustrated in the inability of Christians to engage humanly with such complex issues as homosexuality, and in some ways, it becomes evident in almost trivial issues like underage drinking and smoking (i.e. partying). Christians are so concerned with finding what’s right, or to push the envelope, doing what’s holy, that they dehumanize those with whom they engage.

Part of the reason, which I don’t want to get into here, is that Christians a lot of times are not very humble people. The other part why this is so, I suspect, is because Christians (me including) suck at dealing with messiness. We hate it. We think it’ll taint us. We think we are actually clean ourselves. We operated in the Old Testament (Hag 2:11-13) sense that if you touch something unclean (dirty) you will become unclean (dirty). We proudly scream that Jesus gave us his rightness, but in practice, we act as if we’ve earned it by denying the manner in which that rightness was given to us. We forget that the manner in which Jesus engaged uncleanness was to plunge into it. And we forget that we live in the NT era where when the unclean touches the clean, no longer does the clean become tainted, but the unclean becomes clean (Mark 1:40-42). Ironically, the Pharisees were the ones who did not know this, they were NT people who operated in the OT schema. They could not deal with messiness around them. They made people feel dirty, unworthy, second-class. They loved being right, while thinking they were loving God. And while we think it may be so far from us, the ‘they’ starts becoming the ‘we’. We say we are loving God when all we are doing is loving what’s right. Maybe then, it’s time to pause… and acknowledge, “Maybe I don’t love God as much as I thought I did.”

The Box of Sexual Orientation

In a very thought provoking TED talk (titled “Fifty Shades of Gay”), iO Tillett Wright speaks of boxes. She speaks of how we, human beings, naturally want to put other people into boxes or ‘categories’, if you will, and she implies that by doing so we diminish the humanity of the other. She never does address why boxes are always bad (the underlying assumption in her talk), nor does she explain how self-evident relates to equality (or even diversity!). As much as she works these terms toward the emotional (which isn’t a bad thing), she does offer much food for thought. One such is to ponder how we, particularly Christians, box other people into one-dimensional cartoons, and how that affects the way we engage one another. Recognizing multiplicity isn’t necessarily the panacea for discrimination, but it’s something worth mulling over. (I am also very curious as to peoples reactions to the talk. Comment!)

 

Don’t Go on Short-Term Missions, Go on Vacation Instead

On this trip home, I was disproportionately excited to be on Asiana Airlines from my Seattle to Incheon leg. The flight was fully enjoyable, the polite service, the leg room, lotions in the bathroom, etc and etc, but there was something on that trip that egged my critical psyche the entire way. A short term mission team.

Observing them in Seattle-Tacoma Airport, I naturally assumed they were headed to China or maybe Japan, but came boarding time, and this mission team ended up sitting two rows behind me headed toward South Korea. This really bothered me. My criticisms of short term mission trips have waned over the years, in part, due to my intentional desire to be less critical and in part, due to hypnotically convincing myself that God can do great things with anything, maybe I erroneously used Philippians 1:18 as proof-text to let go of my critical ways. But the criticisms are back, and I believe it’s warranted.

Darren Carlson writes a TGC blog titled, “Why You Should Consider Cancelling Your Short-Term Mission Trips“, concerning the detrimental effects of massive waves of apocopated short-term mission trips. He begins with an eye opening picture of what really happens:

I have seen with my own eyes or know of houses in Latin America that have been painted 20 times by 20 different short-term teams; fake orphanages in Uganda erected to get Westerners to give money; internet centers in India whose primary purpose is to ask Westerners for money; children in African countries purposefully mutilated by their parents so they would solicit sympathy while they beg; a New England-style church built by a Western team in Cameroon that is never used except when the team comes to visit; and slums filled with big-screen TVs and cell phone towers.

I have seen or know of teams of grandmothers who go to African countries and hold baby orphans for a week every year but don’t send a dime to help them otherwise; teams who build houses that never get used; teams that bring the best vacation Bible school material for evangelism when the national church can never bring people back to church unless they have the expensive Western material; teams that lead evangelistic crusades claiming commitments to Christ topping 5,000 every year in the same location with the same people attending.

And here’s a bit of food for thought he provides by hypothetically switching roles, where a mission trip might desire to come to the States:

Imagine a team from France calls your church and says they want to visit. They want to put on VBS (which you have done for years), but the material is in French. They have heard about how the U.S. church has struggled and want to help you fix it. They want to send 20 people, half of them youth. Only two of them speak English. They need a place to stay for free, with cheap food and warm showers if possible. During the trip half of the group’s energy will be spent on resolving tension between team members. Two people will get sick. They’d like you to arrange some sightseeing for them on their free day. Do you want them to come?

Ever since 2006, I told myself I would not go on a mission trip shorter than a month. The reasons have evolved and been refined, but the conclusion has been the same. This is not to say that we should rid the world of short-term mission trips. There is a place for them, although much of the formatting, I believe, is outdated, ineffective, and in need of much revamping. And then there is that argument that missions is about spirituality and not about poverty, efficiency, earthly development. Possibly, but essentially no, but to get into that argument in detail would have to wait for another time. What we can instead quickly ponder upon concerning this argument is why must spirituality always be conjoined with spontaneity (almost to the point of brashness)? Why does everyone forget spirituality has just as much to do with wisdom and patience?

Normally, I would end with “But I am not saying you should not go on your current mission trip” but I won’t. I think a lot of us should not go. Part of my plane ride to Korea, I tried to calculate how much money it cost to send that Seattle mission team to Korea for two weeks. I let out a huge sigh of frustration further thinking about how those resources could have gone to long-term missionaries. This could be part of the revamping. Raising just as much money and giving it all to longer-term missionaries. Or if you really want to go, go on vacation, out of your own pocket, go, experience, possibly even by yourself without a team, and learn. Instead of initially always trying to do, do, and do, maybe we can first learn to kneel and listen.

Same-Sex Marriage, Obama, and Christian Justice

This past week was a milestone for same-sex marriage, both bad and good. On Tuesday, May 8th, voters in the state of North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment (called Amendment One) that bans same-sex marriage. Then yesterday, May 9th, the President of the United States announced that he endorses same-sex marriages. Among other things, the reasoning he gave was religious:

The thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the golden rule — you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated, and I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids, and that’s what motivates me as president.

A plethora of blogs and articles on both sides of the debate gave attention to these developments and I am sure more will come. As the debate (some would call it a battle) rages on, it is interesting that the conservatives, predictably, evoke the language of biblical authority. Some more nuanced conservatives, like Collin Hansen in “How to Win the Public on Homosexuality“, would point out that the issue isn’t merely homosexuality being a sin, but that it is idolatry, that is, fulfilling our desires inordinately is displeasing to God. Another conservative pastor, Kevin DeYoung, blogs “Five Reasons Christians Should Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage” to enumerate the reasons why Christians should continue to contend the legalization of gay marriage.

On the other side of the debate are Christians who evoke the language of love and peace. It may seem at first glance like a watered down argument of tolerance, but there are those who have very thoughtful, biblically legitimate positions on the issue. Jared Byas blogs “I Still Stand as an Evangelical for Gay Marriage” with some very compelling points to which the conservative side should at least give ear. Others who fall in this camp claim that the culture wars themselves are harmful to the Christian witness. Rachel Held Evans writes the very read-worthy blog entry “How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation” claiming the negative affects of politicizing the issue of homosexuality, she writes:

We are tired of fighting, tired of vain efforts to advance the Kingdom through politics and power, tired of drawing lines in the sand, tired of being known for what we are against, not what we are for.

And when it comes to homosexuality, we no longer think in the black-at-white categories of the generations before ours. We know too many wonderful people from the LGBT community to consider homosexuality a mere “issue.” These are people, and they are our friends. When they tell us that something hurts them, we listen. And Amendment One hurts like hell.

The danger that this second camp falls into is to argue from the lines of emotionalism (which Evans almost does), that is, to say opposing same-sex marriage is mean and mean people are never good Christian witnesses, so we should stop opposing same-sex marriage. As good as it sounds, this is a flawed argument, as opposing most culturally normalized sin is inevitably mean but necessary, and Hansen is right in that this line of argument replaces biblical authority with our very volatile emotions. But as much as I understand Hansen and DeYoung’s wariness and point that homosexuality is a sin, they do not understand that legalization of same-sex marriage is not exactly the same. And thus, I must personally side with Evans and Byas, but not because it is mean to be anti-gay marriage. But because of what Byas hints at, concerning Christian justice, in point one of his current blog entry:

I know it is hard to grasp, but this matter has nothing to do with whether or not homosexuality is a sin. If it does, then you are probably being inconsistent since there are lots of things that Christians consider “sinful” that they do not legislate against. For instance, if God wants us as a nation to live by his laws, why are we okay supporting the freedom of religion? Shouldn’t we be out trying to ban other religions? If we are okay with freedom of religion,which is a law that basically mandates that our country allow for idolatry (according to the Christian), aren’t we being hypocritical?

I am still not for same-sex marriage, but I am not for Amendment One. If I could have it my way, I think it is wrong to put into law either banning or legalizing of such a notion. In a sense, the government should stay out of it, but as we do not live in an idealistic world, I think that Christian justice calls for allowing same-sex unions (I am still uncomfortable of calling it marriage). Christians are not only called to evangelize, but our actions are to seal, in a sense, our message. Our actions are to viscerally convey that our message is true. How to do that is not homogeneous, but I know it is not marching to vote for a gay marriage ban and celebrating it. The co-existence of diversity is possible because of justice, and justice requires, like Evans says, the washing of feet, the feet of our friends, the feet of our so-called ‘enemies’. Because isn’t that what our Lord did for wretches like us?

Heaven is Changing

A friend of mine said, on the morning of Easter Sunday, as he was riding the subway to church, he observed many people in their Sunday best, making eye contact with one another and giving each other the verbal acknowledgement and affirmation of “Mmhmm”. It was a rather endearing account of friendliness in the urban context. But it makes you wonder, sure, among the many of the church-goers on Easter were regulars. But also many of the churches in America gear up for an influx of attendants that one Sunday of the year, and often see it as a very good evangelistic opportunity for the non-regulars. It seems that even to the remotely spiritual, heaven is of some importance when reminded by the calendar. And such is corroborated by the statistic from the Gallup that 85% of Americans still believe in a heaven.

This raises an interesting question: What kind of a heaven do we believe in? The recent cover story in Time Magazine by Jon Meacham titled, “Heaven Can’t Wait” (here’s his blog post for those who can’t see the whole article), tries to illuminate the recent shift in the answer to that question. The traditional view of heaven with pearly gates, golden streets, halos, wings and singing with harps is being challenged by the rethinking of scholars such as NT Wright, and Wright explains:

When 1st century Jews spoke about eternal life, they weren’t thinking of going to heaven in the way we normally imagine it…. Eternal life meant the age to come, the time when God would bring heaven and earth together, the time when God’s kingdom would come and his will would be done on earth as in heaven.

And others in a similar camp, like Christopher Morse, take it a bit further, as Meacham explains:

This point of view is one in which the alleviation of the evident pain and injustice of the world is the ongoing work that Jesus began and the means of bringing into being what the New Testament authors meant when they spoke of heaven. The earth is not a temporary place that will disappear on the last day, and heaven means “God’s space.” And so with all respect to the views of believers like Stanley, the Wright school holds that one should neither need nor want a ticket out of the created order into an ethereal realm. One should instead be hard at work making the world godly and just.

This change of perspective on what heaven is, is more important than it may seem at first glance. The common critique of Christians being ‘too heavenly minded for any earthly good’ stems in part from the view of heaven as an escape from earth and that salvation is merely a ticket to that location. For a generation of rising humanitarians, this ‘new’ view of heaven is foundational for any acts of justice and mercy in which they engage. Without it, there is no reason to care for the poor, the widow, and the orphan.

There is a danger though. If heaven, at the end of time, will be brought to earth, it does mean that being heavenly minded is to be concerned for earthly good as they will be one and the same in the future. But the question remains, and this is the danger, what do our work and acts of justice and godliness amount to? To believe that any contribution we make now quantifiably adds to the final ‘heaven and earth’ is to say that what Jesus did on the cross was somehow not enough, that it was somehow insufficient to redeem. And that is more than an uncomfortable road to start treading on. So then, we come back to the question: How does our acts of justice and godliness matter?

I am unsure I know what the answer is, but I think this rethinking of heaven is a good one. Of course, this rethinking itself needs rethinking, but for those who see the irrelevance of the traditional view to modernized culture, the tepid nature of evangelical force in individualized Christianity, and the warrant it can give to why we should even be humanitarian, this may be worth giving some thought. Because I, for one, would like to believe that there is grass, soccer, and even competition in what we like to call heaven. That, aside from wanting the Giver and not the gift, that the world the Giver creates is one that gives us hope.

Christians of NYC: Jeremy Lin is Secondary

Lately, there have been more Facebook status updates concerning the new NY Knick phenomenon: Jeremy Lin. His work ethic is respectable and his story of being released from the Warriors very moving. Even his humble Christian attitude is extremely attractive, as the Wall Street Journal is calling him the new Tim Tebow, but there seems to be a need for this reminder, particularly for Christians in NYC: Jeremy Lin is secondary.

This is not a call to stop the craze for ‘Linsanity’ but rather to use his public attraction to call attention to a pressing issue (dare I say more pressing than his likeness to Tebow) in the New York City area. Churches that meet in public schools are in danger of potentially losing their worship space triggered by the evicting of a small Bronx evangelical church this past December. Tim Keller, Senior Pastor of Redeemer Church in NYC, blogged the post, “On NYC Schools’ Decision to Ban Churches“, which focuses our attention to the importance of the issue:

I am grieved that New York City is planning to take the unwise step of removing 68 churches from the spaces that they rent in public schools. It is my conviction that those churches housed in schools are invaluable assets to the neighborhoods that they serve. Churches have long been seen as positive additions to communities. Family stability, resources for those in need, and compassion for the marginalized are all positive influences that neighborhood churches provide. There are many with first-hand experience who will claim that the presence of churches in a neighborhood can lead to a drop in crime.

The great diversity of our city means that we will never all agree completely on anything. And we cherish our city’s reputation for tolerance of differing opinions and beliefs. Therefore, we should all mourn if disagreement with certain beliefs of the church is allowed to unduly influence the formation of just policy and practice.

I disagree with the opinion written by Judge Pierre Leval that: “A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church.” This is an erroneous theological judgment; I know of no Christian church or denomination that believes that merely holding a service in a building somehow “consecrates” it, setting it apart from all common or profane use. To base a legal opinion on such a superstitious view is surely invalid. Conversely, I concur with Judge John Walker’s dissenting opinion that this ban constitutes viewpoint discrimination and raises no legitimate Establishment Clause concerns.

A disproportionate number of churches that are affected by this prohibition are not wealthy, established communities of faith. They are ones who possess the fewest resources and many work with the poor. Redeemer has many ties with those churches and their pastors, and our church community invests time and resources to assist them to be good neighbors in their communities.

Let them be those good neighbors. I am hopeful that the leaders of New York City and the legislators of New York State will see the value of a society that encourages all spheres of culture—the church, government, education, business, etc—to work together for human flourishing.

So let the FB status updates and craze for Jeremy Lin continue to flood our news feeds, I, too, am encouraged by his success and humility. Yet it is not the NBA, the NY Knicks, nor Jeremy Lin who hold the keys to the Kingdom, that was given to the Church of Jesus Christ. Let’s raise awareness and do what we can to keep the churches of NYC from homelessness.

(There seems to have been positive development as stated in this NY Editorial, but let’s continue to hope for more.)

Kim Jong-Il’s Death: Some Thoughts

On December 19th, 2011 (Korean Time) the second generation of DPRK’s dictatorship ended with the passing of Kim Jong-Il. A deluge of facebook statuses, tweets and blogs seemed to have turned their attention to the rather unexpected news the death of the ‘Dear Leader’ in order to announce, describe and even predict the nature and effect of the event. For those interested in doing some reading concerning the event, check out the following articles: Washington Post’s “North Korea after Kim Jong-Il“, Times:World Blog’s “The Korea: To Reunify or Not?“, Nautilus Institute’s “Kim Jong-Il’s Death Suggests Continuity Plus Opportunity to Engage“, DailyNK’s “A Rare Breed of Dictator Is Gone“, Korea Economic Institute’s ”10 People You Need to Know for Transition in NK“.

Many have predicted, or maybe just hoped, for the opening of the NK borders and the falling of the regime with Kim Jong-Il’s death as the potential catalyst. Adrian Hong, with an article in Foreign Policy titled “How to Free North Korea“, argues that NK will inevitably fall and that it is only a matter of “when and how”. He adds that it is the moral responsibility of the global community to organize and be active in the process instead of waiting:

This much is clear: North Korea will fall. It is simply a question of when and how. But it is far better to have a coordinated, controlled landing, at the time of one’s choosing, instead of waiting for the worst to happen at any moment. And a reunified, free Korea can be a powerful force for good in the world, and a potent economic engine.

But missing this opportunity to bring Pyongyang into the international community would be a grievous error. North Korea’s crimes do not end at its own borders. Beyond state-sponsored acts of terror, kidnappings, and assassination attempts of foreign government officials, human rights activists, and defectors, it has also sold weapons, missiles, technology, and nuclear materials to a who’s who of unfriendly countries, including Egypt, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. It has engaged in the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, mass government-sanctioned insurance fraud, and the exportation of North Korean slaves all over the world.

North Korea is not a modern nation-state. It does not exist for the welfare of its populace, nor to safeguard the rights of it’s citizens. It exists for the sole benefit of the king and his barons — a ridiculously-scaled Mafia criminal state — and must be treated as such.

The very progress of our global civilization is for naught if we continue to let the very idea of North Korea exist. North Korea is not a failed state, with warlords fighting for land and treasure. Its atrocities do not stem from factional fighting, crimes of passion, or mob violence. It is on another level entirely — a staggering system entirely built and mastered for the express purpose of propagating human suffering and ensuring the continued exploitation of the people so that the very few can benefit.

It is a moral obligation of the highest order that the international community intervene. What can be done, we must do — and now is the time.

The political, international and global implications are of great interest to me, but my knowledge on such perspectives are limited. And ultimately, the eternal perspective on the effect of this death event seems to me of greater importance. So what are the implications (from an eternal perspective)? In some ways nothing. As one of my professor likes to say “[God] is God, and we are not. He is God and there is no other.” (From God with Us). Kim Jong-Il is dead and God is alive. Kim Jong-Il will answer to God in all he did as any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ man will. Joe Carter makes an interesting comparison in the post “The Shared Fate of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-Il“, the former was a good man and the latter, despicable, and yet without Christ their end fate is the same: condemnation. As true and important is the message of Carter’s blog, I don’t find it particularly helpful for the occasion. Is the Gospel Coalition so concerned to protect the gospel of grace from the intrusion of works, that the millions in NK who have no access to the gospel of grace is of lesser concern? These may be erred assumptions but the sense one gets is a business to protect rather than to advance the gospel. While articles like Hong’s are optimistic, in an ephemeral perspective, towards the opening of the country, where is the eternal perspective and the optimism of the Church for gospel advancement in NK? Ed Stetzer and Justin Taylor start us possibly in the right way, but more is needed. Stetzer and Taylor call for prayer, and yes, in that sense, God will work his eternal plan. Maybe NK will not follow suit to the revolutions of the Middle East, but I cannot help but hope that the Church is ready. That is, when NK opens, however it will open, the Church be ready, not merely with gospel tracks to hand out or with just arms length evangelism, but with up-close, personal, live-with evangelism, to be ready to give the gospel with our lives and not just our words.

Isn’t it rather ironic that the Korean War is technically not over, and yet the Korean people (particularly the South) live as if it is peace time? The irony lies in the similarity of the Christian illusion to spiritual peace. How often does the Christian Church live as if there is peace, that there is no spiritual war raging on? It may be that NK does not open up for a while, maybe not even in the lifetime of the “Great Successor” Kim Jong-Eun. But the question remains. Will the Church be prepared to invade the vacuum of religion in the people of NK or will that opportunity, when presented, slip through her fingers?

Alcohol as a Measure of Maturity

For those on the brink of age 21, the issue of alcohol consumption becomes more or less an issue of Christian debate. The questions of whether or not it is a sin and what the Bible says about the issue becomes a concern. Frankly, this issue is the least of my concerns, underage drinking or ‘overage’ drinking is not something that I care to spend too much time on, as I believe there are more pressing issues for which to spill ink. But because questions constantly arise, attempts to answer them must be given, and maybe in time we can move to more important matters.

Tim Challies, though, writes in his post “Christians and Alcohol” about how the way we treat the issue reveals our immaturity. Particularly for those who cry “Christian Freedom!” as a license to drink, he says the implicit disdain we have on those that seem a little stricter on alcohol consumption is a sign of immaturity. Challies comments on a quote by John MacArthur, “If everything you know about Christian living came from blogs and websites in the young-and-restless district of the Reformed community, you might have the impression that beer is the principle symbol of Christian liberty.”:

What I saw as I read that post is the reality that this older generation sees the younger crowd as celebrating freedom by rubbing it in their face. They hear us saying, “We are liberated by grace; you are bound by law.” They are convinced that instead of respecting them and honoring them, we are sneering at them and looking down at them. Instead of using our freedom in love and respect, we are using our freedom carelessly and even spitefully.

Many who tout Christian freedom and maybe even grace seem to easily fall into a superiority complex over those who are more old-fashioned and seemingly legalistic. Even if those ‘others’ are in fact legalistic, grace never leads to superiority or disdain. If it does, it is, in fact, a sign of immaturity in the understanding of grace.

Booz or no booz, whichever perspective you fall under, most likely the issue is not the alcohol itself (after all, it is merely flavored C2H5OH) but rather the heart you harbor toward those who hold the perspective unlike your own. So then, how do you fare, when alcohol measures your maturity?