Tonight I was reading Watchman Nee’s book The Normal Christian Life which is essentially a commentary on Romans. As Nee described how our sins (plural; ie, things we have done wrong) are dealt with by the Blood of Jesus, and our sin (singular; as in our nature as a sinner) is dealt with by the Cross of Jesus, I for some reason thought of a joke told by Demetri Martin.

It’s probably better if you listen to him tell the swimming joke here (about 30 seconds) but if you can’t or would rather not load a YouTube clip, here’s the gist of it:

Swimming is a confusing sport. Cuz sometimes you’re doing it for fun … and other times, you’re doing it to NOT DIE.

You can usually tell by the outfit:
Pants? Uh oh!
Swimming trunks? Okay!

Grace and works is kinda like that. A person doing works to try to be saved (a futile endeavor) may be doing the exact same actions as someone who does works out of gratitude (response to grace). But the person who realizes they are saved by grace is not doing things to AVOID DEATH, they realize that they have already avoided death.

And like the swimming analogy, you can tell which is which by a person’s outfit … ie, by what attitude they are doing things, how they approach their tasks, what goal they have in mind, and why they are doing them in the first place. A grace-filled person has “put on the new self” as their clothing. (Ephesians 4:24)

I guess the answer to the question “If we are saved by grace, not by works, why bother working anymore?” is that working is only a chore when it’s an obligation. Serving out of gratitude, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, is an entirely different thing than desperately paddling away trying to save yourself. That doesn’t mean that serving in the church is always less stressful or frustrating or costly than serving outside (I know that all too well!) but it does help explain the difference. And it makes all the difference in the world!

I’m not posting this to poke fun at Dan Brown, or take pleasure in pointing out his mistakes. Nor am I confused about the status of Brown’s books as being fiction. So responses of “IT’S ONLY A FICTION BOOK GET OVER IT” are not welcome or helpful. Although well aware that Brown’s books are fictional, many people DO believe at least parts of them are accurate. An example is my former co-worker who, upon learning I am a Christian, said something to the effect of “Oh I guess you haven’t read The Da Vinci Code, it destroys Christianity!”

Of course after he saw The Real Da Vinci Code program on TV and got the facts he changed his mind. But it illustrates the need for proper information.

So why does it seem like Christians so often do dumb things?

One reason is that when a Christian does something dumb, they’re often identified (in the media or colloquially) as being a Christian, but when an atheist does something dumb, they’re usually not identified as an atheist. Now certainly some Christians do dumb things in an attempt to follow their faith, but whether what the person has done is consistent with the Christian faith is often ignored.

A second reason is the fact that there’s a lot of Christians around. Millions in Canada alone, plus many millions more in the USA, and approximately 2.1billion in total according to Adherents.com. So you’d figure, out of all those people, if even 1% do dumb things, that it will seem like quite a lot of people. Of course, the actions of a few don’t necessarily reflect those of the whole. (See: Fallacy of composition.)

A final reason, extrapolated from the previous one, is that some Christians are dumb. (You’re free to make your own evaluation of me if you’d like.) In fact before I was a Christian I thought all Christians were dumb, or ugly, or both. (I thank Greg Koukl for putting into words so eloquently how I felt at the time.) Dumb because they were roped into a false waste of time, and/or ugly because they had to go to church to be accepted, since it’s the only place that people have to accept them.

And yes, many Christians are dumb (and/or ugly). But so what? So are many atheists, agnostics, and adherents of other faiths.

There are also many smart Christians … not myself, necessarily, but guys like William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Alister McGrath, John Warwick Montgomery, Timothy Keller, John Lennox, and Dallas Willard to name a few. So whether any one of them is smart or dumb proves nothing about the truth or falsity of the faith.

If you currently have the opinion that Christians are dumb, or ugly, or both, like I used to, I invite you to investigate some of the sites linked above or in the sidebar to the right. I think Christianity is worth thinking about, even if its adherents sometimes do and exceedingly poor job of reflecting it.

And if you are a Christian, let’s try to reflect our Lord, Jesus, who as Dallas Willard describes, was and is the smartest man who ever lived (and lives).

Linus is quoting from Luke 2:8-14 in the Bible, King James translation. Hat tip to Between Two Worlds for the video link. Like many of the commenters there, I wonder how long it will be before this scene is “edited” out of A Charlie Brown Christmas to make it more politically correct, especially considering that the scene was almost cut out of the original.

That said, what do such bad things done by Christians prove about the truthfulness of the Christian faith? The answer is: not much. First of all, Christians do not claim to be sinless; in fact, we recognize that although we become new creations in Christ, we remain fallen people in a fallen world, and therefore the threat of succumbing to temptation is ever-present. Second, there are approximately 2.1 billion Christians in the world. With such a huge sample size, should we be surprised when we learn that a small percentage of them do really bad things (molest children, swindle, etc)? Thirdly, how do the actions of a small portion of Christians which contradict the teachings of Jesus and the Christian faith prove anything regarding whether the Christian faith is true or not? In fact they do nothing to prove that the facts of the Christian faith are untrue.

I know this is difficult to accept if you have been personally wounded by the church generally, or a particular Christian person specifically. But please try to keep in mind that any person who acts contrary to a set of principles maligns themselves, but not the principles that they have chosen to disobey. Does the fact that certain NYPD officers are racist and commit immoral acts mean that all police forces should be disbanded? Certainly not, because their actions are contrary to what a police officer should be.

So please, don’t discount Christianity because of the worst “Christians” that you know … or even the best ones! After all, based on Christianity’s own teachings, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and that “the whole world is a prisoner of sin” (Galatians 3:22), but by God’s grace “Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him” (1 John 3:5). For more on this subject, please see my post “Good people“.

Thank you for your time.

How [is] one to be a true Christian … when the church joins the powers of the world, when luxury and ostentation take hold of Christian altars, when the whole of society is intent on turning the narrow path into a wide avenue … how is one to resist the enormous temptations of the times? How is one to witness to the Crucified Lord, to the One who had nowhere to lay His head, at a time when many leaders of the church live in costly homes, and when the ultimate witness of martyrdom is no longer possible? (Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity)

Sounds like he is describing our current situation in North America, but he is actually referring to the time of Constantine in the 4^th century. This isn’t to say that “money = evil”. The often misused quote actually says “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim 6:10), not that all money is evil. But still, our situation here in North America is very different from that of the early church, to which people often wistfully wish to return to, as if that were possible. Maybe this is one reason why Jesus spent so much time talking about money and possessions. He had the wisdom and foreknowledge to know we’d need the advice!

Apparently many feel quote “conflicted” about ‘sharing’ Christian music … Here’s a quote from the article that rather shocked me:

Take Matthew, a 13-year-old who attends Hewes Middle School in North Tustin and attends youth programs at nearby Red Hill Lutheran Church. Asked if it’s wrong to take songs for free, he answered: “No, because the artists are making billions of dollars anyways.” Another kid at Red Hill, 16-year-old Mike, a student at Beckman High, said that music is beyond commerce or at least beyond the cash register: “They should give it away ’cause it’s art anyways.”

Okay, so I’ve downloaded some pirated music in my ‘day. I also own nearly 200 legit CDs so I’m no slouch in supporting the music industry. And I have deleted all (or at least almost all?) of the pirated music on my computer. What do you think about “file sharing”? Do we agree that the kids above don’t “get it”? Is anyone teaching morals in church anymore? (Or how about some basic philosophy for that matter, so kiddies will know when they’re making dumb arguments like those above?)

So then, why does church sometimes seem weird to outsiders? Since as I write this the NHL playoffs are going on, I’ll use a hockey analogy to try to explain.

Imagine you’ve never been to, or even seen, a hockey game before. (For us Canadians that’ll be hard to do, but try anyways.) As you enter the arena, apprehension swarms over you. There’s so many people! And many of them look strange. They’re wearing strange clothes. Many have matching logos and colors. Some have painted their faces … or their bellies! Not only that, but people are singing, chanting, yelling, screaming, waving signs and flags. Everyone’s using strange language that you’ve never heard before, like faceoff, icing, hat trick, five-hole, odd man rush, tic-tac-toe, smothering the puck (smothering?), penalty killing (killing?!?), and more. It all seems so out of control! Are these people all crazy mad psycho lunatics?

No, they are acting appropriately in their environment. (Well, some are probably crazy, but that’s true of any large group!) Although seemingly obscure to the uninitated, their behavior is situation-specific, comprehensible and rational once the underlying rationale is understood. You wouldn’t expect someone who’s never been to a hockey game before to understand immediately what’s going on, but after learning more about why things are done, everything will start making more sense.

Church services necessarily contain a certain amount of “insider language”, but if the pastors and others running the church are being considerate (as they should be) most things should still be comprehensible to those who have never been there before. I think church is a lot like a hockey game in that way: meeting together at a specific time, insider language, behavior that seems strange at first, ritual, and even singing. There’s a few differences though. It’s not often a church service ends in a pew-clearing brawl.

I felt somewhat torn though, as we entered the second of two large worship halls. (The first can be seen in the picture above.) On one hand, this all seemed like sort of a waste of time and money. God doesn’t care if we worship him in a grand hall, small local church, movie theater, or back alley. Couldn’t the millions of dollars it cost to built this basilica be put to better use elsewhere?

On the other hand, just walking into this church gave a sense of reverant awe that is missing from most Protestant churches. It just has a different feel, while Protestant churches generally feel plain, the Catholic churches just feel more … holy? Of course, there’s nothing holy about the building itself. But somehow, going to church in a movie theater and watching the screen (as great as Bruxy’s sermons may be) seems to be missing that sense of awe that is often an appropriate way to approach God.