A Prison Letter

At the recent funeral of a beloved saint, a friend of mine at my home church gave me a poem that he wrote in prison many years ago:

"Hope Fulfilled"

If you are down or feeling blue,

Open the word, it was written for you.

The promises of God, they are all there,

Sealed with an oath, which He did swear.

In truth and honor, love flows out,

Speaking to my heart, as loud as a shout.

His word is alive, with feeling I read,

As each promise, speaks to my need.

So with gladness and joy, by faith He said,

To believe on My word, in your heart and head.

All that are called and given to Me,

Not on will be lost, just wait and see!

The day is coming, with a trumpet from above,

When all in Christ will rise, by the power of

His love.

Lonny Beamer

12-3-95

When he handed me this poem, Lonny's eyes were filled with tears as he said farewell (with 700 others!) to a woman of the Lord who had welcomed an ex-convict into the Church with open arms. She was one of the few to whom he had ever personally given this poem (though a Christian group published it for a now-defunct organization).

There is no dark corner of human existence or the human heart that can remain hidden to God when He has elected to lavish His love upon such objects. We who are known by Christ are such objects.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

-Psalm 139

Christianity and Communism: Mutually Exclusive?

In the book of Daniel, chapter 3, King Nebuchadnezzar ordered all people (including the Jewish exiles) in his land to bow down to a 90 foot tall golden statue of himself. Three men refused to bow the knee, provoking the king's anger and wrath. They defended themselves in this way:

16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

While the Church is never called into the realm of politics, she often finds herself opposed to the State when the State assumes the prerogatives of a spiritual entity and becomes idolatrous. Whenever the State demands that the Christian bend the knee in a way contrary to God's Word, the Christian replies that he/she will not fear death to the point of forsaking the will and worship of God.

Communism, like fascism, has provided a stark example of this principle at work in the past century. Unlike socialism, which requires a more penetrating analysis in order to appreciate its evil as a system, communism demands a simple choice: worship the State as God or perish. Soviet communism knew as much as it coerced churches into becoming state-run institutions or face extinction. China currently employs the same strategy. Either a church registers with the government and becomes beholden to State prerogatives, or it faces persecution and annihilation. Communism cannot tolerate a competitor for individual devotion and allegiance.

In the recent crackdown in Tibet, this principle is again aptly demonstrated. Tibetan Buddhists may not be Christians, but their religion demands a devotion apart from that offered to the State. Like the Falun Gong cult in previous years, their punishment for such double-mindedness is found in persecution and repression.

Communism is a self-idolatrous political cult that by definition (evil and need defined in materialist terms; salvation by government aid) is aligned as a competitor to Christianity. As citizens (though not as Christians) peoples of the free world must vigorously oppose this tyrannical system and the atrocities it afflicts on those who do not bow the knee.

A Foretaste of the Pastorate

As of Sunday, I will have preached three sermons in five days. The first was for class on Wednesday; the second was for the chapel service this morning; the third will be my normal Sunday morning sermon. The preaching opportunity this morning opened up last-minute (really, last night) and I was called upon to preach in a desperate situation. As a result of these sermons, other important obligations have not been attended to this week.

Tomorrow--my last opportunity for solid academic production before Break--will largely be occupied by a wedding, sadly followed by a memorial service. In one day, I will have the opportunity to welcome a new Christian marriage and to bid farewell to a godly, beloved saint.

This type of week used to overwhelm me. I would look at all I had hoped to accomplish and shake my head in frustration. Alas, this is the life of a pastor. Aside from his essential commitments, the pastor is made subject to a myriad of events and circumstances unbeknownst to all but God. While the elders of a church must guard the pastor--especially his time with his family--the pastor's whole life in essence is a drink offering to be poured out upon the altar of ministering to Christ's Church.

Thus, I sit here reflecting upon a week of "should but couldn't" tasks and lift my chin high. I am at the service of my King, and I better start remembering that while the day is still young.

Two Symptoms; One Disease

Two very interesting stories have broken in the past two days: 1) Governor Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) was sexually-involved with a prostitute for the better part of a year, and 2) One in four teenage girls (age 14-19) have some form of sexually-transmitted disease. These stories are both interesting and incredibly sad. The image of the squeaky-clean politician has long been forgotten, and even those self-identified as moral crusaders are often exposed as the greatest of hypocrites. In addition, the old picture of "Daddy's little girl" with its connotation of virtue and modesty has been replaced by a quite-disgusting picture of moral license.

Underlying such promiscuity and infidelity lies irresponsibility of the most fundamental sort and a flawed philosophy of humanity. The irresponsibility is exhibited in a lack of personal commitment, parental guidance, self-respect, and a general exploitation by the educational system. Children are not often talk basic values of right and wrong, and even when they are, often lack the desire to put their virtuous upbringing into personal practice. In an educational system where morality lacks any true foundation and is often treated as a matter of self-interest, virtue becomes denigrated even further. In addition, self-respect (and a general adolescent culture of depression) undermines self-respect, which can only become more despised after promiscuous acts.

Beneath these various issues of responsibility lies a flawed philosophy of humanity: ontological dualism. Particularly popular (but not self-consciously identified) in the present culture is the mind/body dualism, in which one's mind and body are treated as two separate entities. This dualism is aptly displayed in the movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," when the evil Sheriff of Nottingham tried to rape Maid Marion. As he tried to commit his heinous act, she cried out "You might have my body, but it's not me! It's not me!" While good for movie fodder, that line is not true at all. A person is both mind and body. This is evidenced in the total coordination between mind and body in the person, and the division created by such a dualism leads to the labeling of certain types (i.e. the mentally handicapped) as "less than human." If a teenager's body is not made distinctly valuable through a complete view of individual personhood, they are likely to treat it a Platonic "prison house of the soul" rather than something with real value.

Yet the disease underlying the initially-stated symptoms and their contributing factors is the simple matter of sin. Sin affects every part of humanity and the created order and manifests itself in various forms. In the present day, sin is a taboo and its logical implications avoided. Thus, the deeper questions must be asked. Why are teenagers extraordinarily promiscuous? Why do they not take themselves and life more seriously? Why do they not respect their bodies and treat other bodies as means to an end? Why do they avoid asking these deep questions?

To the final question: Perhaps it is because the hardest of questions belie even harder answers.

A Whitewashed Tomb in Rome

Jesus Christ took pity upon sinners, but also in a certain sense hated the Pharisees and what they stood for. They had turned their religion into legalism; God's Word into a text that needed thousands of additional rules to guard against sin; the Law as a ladder to righteousness; sin as those outward acts that violated the Law or the additional rules. This manipulation of the True, Revealed Religion infuriated Jesus, and He condemned it at every point. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus informed the masses that sin infects the internal man as well as the external deeds. In fact, he who hates is guilty of murder. He who lusts, adultery.

Perhaps Jesus' most pointed words came in Matthew 23:27--"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean." Paul, the last apostle of Jesus, took this zeal for the majesty of God and His law upon his own lips. When the Judaizers followed Paul around from city to city, telling the new Christian babes that they also needed to be circumcised and abide by certain customs as well as following Christ, Paul thundered "As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!" (Gal. 5:12). This language seems shocking to the weak-kneed, teary-eyed Church in the present day, but the Lord and His appointed apostles didn't take the manipulation of the Gospel lightly--and neither should the present Church.

In the present measure of the "Pope" to add to the list of "mortal" sins in order to increase the general awareness of sin and compel more people into confession, one finds another example of Pharisaism at its worst. This man takes upon himself the role of apostle, though that line ended with Paul, and thus feels the liberty to take from or add to God's Holy Word, against the specific prohibition of such treachery against the King in the final chapter of Scripture. This measure will work against this man's aim in this case, as such a hierarchy of sins and surrounding rules serve merely to make the self-righteous more content in their sin and the dregs of society more lethargic in their hopelessness. Is God's law to be used in such a way as to provide a means for salvation and sin-avoidance?

1) It would be futile to argue that the Mosaic Law did not abide by a works principle (Gal. 3:6-12). What was the purpose of this principle though? In Galatians 3:8, Paul makes clear that faith was always required for salvation; in 3:10, he shows that all live by the law live under its curse.

2) That works principle was never meant for salvation (Gal. 3:15-29). The Law given to Moses didn't set aside the gracious Promise already given to Abraham (3:17), but was rather a written tutor, pointing the way to Christ (3:24--the phrase "put in charge" refers to a pedagogue, or teach, in the Greek). It fulfilled this purpose by driving man to his knees. Instead of being a staircase to salvation, it was an unattainable standard. Working in cooperation with the Promise of Christ, it exposed the need for Christ.

3) The Law for the people of old was a basic or elementary principle (4:3) and incomplete apart from Christ. The people of old eventually perverted the pedagogical purpose of the Law and made it into a slave-driver, thus making them slaves to something that was not God (4:8). It would thus seem ridiculous that anyone would return to the Law when it was never meant to lead anywhere but Christ (4:9). The Law apart from its fulfillment becomes mere paganism with its vacuous religion and hollow hopes.

4) Christ took the curse of the Law upon Himself, inheriting the blessing that came through perfect fulfillment for His people (Gal. 4:4-5). Christ was born with full humanity and under the full dominion of the law (v.4) in order to salvage/redeem humans born under the full weight of the law (v.5).

5) As the Law has been fulfilled in Christ, it is impossible to return it as a mode of religion (Gal. 5:3-4). All who seek salvation by the Law becomes its debtor (v.3), and thus demonstrate separation from Christ and grace (v.4). The Law, in a certain sense, has become obsolete (at least as it guides one to salvation) and brings only condemnation apart from Christ. Why would anyone stand before the judgment seat of God without Christ the Mediator? He bore the great hammer-stroke of justice so His people would not have to and be damned.

The man assuming the position of Christ over the Church sits upon a throne of lies. He advocates measures that would beautify an ugly humanity, thus making them more complacent as judgment nears. Not only is this unbiblical, ungodly, and outright heresy--it is an inhumane travesty that must be fought with every bit of sweat and tears that Christians can muster--knowing the beauty of calling men to God, rather than calling men "God."

Dealing with Death

I walked into my associate pastor's office a while ago to collect my completed internship forms. We spoke warmly of my time at New Life--my real Church home. As that conversation slowly dissipated, I broached a new topic: "Kevin, how do pastors deal with death? I grieve so much over the loss of the church family members, and I don't know how it will ever get easier."

Of course, at the forefront of my thoughts was Sandra Wagner--a woman who virtually has defined the concept of a godly woman for me. Kevin told me that he has not had too much experience with this in his few years of pastoring, but he knew what I had in mind--"This one...it really hurts." Our head pastor, with choked-up voice, led the congregation in prayer this past Sunday, and apparently there was not a dry eye in the house. The people who know Sandra have blinked back tears all week. It hurts so much.

When I first came to New Life in 2005, I quickly fell in love with the Wagner family. Coming from a spiritually-broken family in a culture of spiritually-broken families, I marveled at this family-encapsulated testament to God's covenantal faithfulness. They would sit together--the happily-married (of some 50 years), Dan and Sandra, and their three kids and each of their spouses, and a host of little grandkids. God really blesses the generations of His people.

Sandra also epitomizes the "godly woman" to me. Within the Church, she participated, prayed, and produced. It is those women--those stereotypical prayer warriors--who make the Church whole. Ministries seem incomplete without their labors of love; days seem incomplete without their encouragement. When the individual sinner is unable to lift both feeble hands in prayer to God Almighty, their persistent prayers lift them in a symbolic way.

Contrast the covenantal blessings of our God and the godliness of His servant, Sandra, with the ugly spectre of death. It is no wonder that Jesus wept and raged at the death of Lazarus. Sure, resurrection awaits, but the beauty of God's creation seems utterly wasted under the temporal reign of death. This is NOT the way it is supposed to be. And every person knows how very out of place death is to us. It is expected, but it is not natural. The whole creation groans under the weight of this knowledge--waiting for the eternal relief that comes with Christ. Thus we labor forth in the valley of the shadow of death, knowing that on that distant hill, light breaks.

Romans 8:28-39

28 And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him--who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, that he might be the firstborn of many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that--was raised to life, sits at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written, "For your sake we face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

37 No! In all these things we are more than conquerers through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor demons, present nor future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Beautiful in so many ways.

Where, O death, is thy sting?

Earlier this year, my church was saddened to learn of the loss of Maria Hougesen. This lady was a prayer warrior and constant encouragement. Though wheelchair bound and often in pain, she would always want to offer fellow congregants (like myself) a word of encouragement and remind them that she was praying for them. In her frailty, the brutality of a fallen world was fully exposed and the resurrection of the body became more than an abstract doctrine. She now sings and dances amongst the angels.

And now my church steadies herself for the loss of another mighty woman of prayer. Sandra Wagner, wife of some 50 years to the Westminster librarian, Dan Wagner, is in the last stage of her fight against cancer and race of life. Sandra and Dan are the most admirable of people--married for 50 years and still full of compassion, tenderness, and love to each other and to all others within their reach. Their three children are all married and have children--they go to the same church as Sandra and Dan. Three generations of Wagners sitting in one place always proved emblematic of God's covenantal faithfulness.

Sandra was a regular member of the church choir, and helped to anchor the alto section. In practices, she was always ready with a prayer request for a grandchild or homeless friend. It was a bit shocking one evening to hear her ask for prayer for upcoming tests. The tests came and the cancer was revealed. Chemotherapy started, the handkerchief was donned, and the body started to be sapped of strength. In about a year's time, the suspicion of cancer has evolved into an inevitable demise.

When one looks upon a child, he sees the image of the child's parents--particularly the mother. A responsible child is a product of a mother's loving discipline; a faith-borne child of God is a product of a Christian mother's power of love and nurture. This is said, not to undermine God's sovereignty, but to recognize that His sovereignty in caring for covenantal children is often conducted and displayed through Christian women. Through these women, God builds and blesses his Church. As was true with Maria, Sandra has children who walk with the Lord.

Death is both the great leveler and divider of humanity. On the one hand, as the writer of Ecclesiastes notes, no amount of wisdom, wealth, or work will make anyone less mortal. Death comes and robs all of their earthly possessions. On the other hand, death finds itself robbed of its power for the Christian. Instead of ending whatever vestiges of peace are attained in this world and ushering a person into the hellish confines of an eternity apart from God, death is used by God to usher the Christian into eternal life. Even death is His servant! It is the final sanctifying stage for the person born anew in Christ Jesus, in which the agonies of child birth gives way to the beauty of seeing the heavenly lights for the first time.

The Equalist Paradigm

The role of human governance seems to be approached from two different angles--one collectivist and the other opportunist. The collectivist approach draws upon utilitarianism, in which the end of the "greater good" justifies whichever means are deemed necessary for implementation of such an end. This approach gained momentum 20th century America and naturally leads to a socialist or communist system of government. In this approach, individual value and freedom are denigrated for the sake of maximizing the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

The opportunist approach, on the other hand, draws upon no greater good than that offered to each individual. Opportunity is exalted above all other values, and naturally follows a sort of social Darwinism in which the stronger rise to the top while the weaker are crushed. This approach was prominent at points in 19th century America, and followed to its logical extreme, produces fascism in the mold of Hitler. In its lesser form, it may be seen in an unrestrained capitalism.

Both biblical and natural principles militate against each approach. The City of Man, as erected in Genesis 4, is given the task of just governance with the limitation of not encroaching upon the prerogatives or rights of Church (in Old Testament seed form), family (of which the city arises), or individual. In Romans 13, the City is given a renewed mandate to bear the sword of justice.

The Declaration of Independence, informed by a plethora of influences, declared certain rights to be inalienable: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Notice that there is no guarantee of liberty in a vacuum, apart from the others; neither is there a guarantee of happiness in itself.

With risk of being foolish for the sake of innovation, I would like to propose the "Equalist Paradigm" as the biblical and natural view of ideal human governance. This paradigm is an expression of the just pursuit of equal opportunity. The individual and institution are each allowed semi-absolute freedom to pursue their desired end, as long as it doesn't encroach upon the rights of other individuals and institutions. The goal is never equality or opportunity in a vacuum. Both are idolatrous virtues of different eras. The sword given the state is for justice, not for benevolence or favoritism; leveling the field or obliterating the weak.

In the collectivist approach, individuals and institutions are given value solely in their relation to the state. The political system of pure socialism highlights the evil in this approach. In the socialist scheme, the state takes upon herself the properties of the Church and ultimately seeks to vanquish the Church as her strategic competitor. Individuals are not viewed as inherently valuable and are not allowed to pursue their own end (say, glorifying God), but are as useful and valuable as needed by the state--then disposable.

In the opportunist approach, strong individuals and institutions are given absolute value, thus relativizing those individuals and institutions that are weaker. This system inevitably leads to social Darwinism and fascism. If the absolute value of the strong is threatened or contradicted, those with relative value are diminished or destroyed. As with the collectivist approach, the power of the sword is abused and manipulated in this system.

All this to say--governmental philosophies, propositions, and policies must be carefully scrutinized. There is no inherent right to equal results--do some policies aim for that? What are the risks of such policies? There is no inherent right to unrestrained opportunity (as it comes to impact others)--do some policies aim for that? What are the risks of such policies? God laid the groundwork for such questions when He implemented the state, and the the Founding Fathers considered such questions as they founded the American state. Are those questions still prevalent today? The answer to that question is likely negative, which is horrifying.