Thoughts on Life

I haven’t listened to Larry Norman’s music for about 20 years, but the other morning his most famous song, The Great American Novel, suddenly came into my mind. As I went over the words, I was reminded how relevant this song that was written in 1972 is in today’s world. As he cries out at the paradox of a nation that has produced so many great leaders but which has also caused so much suffering, you cannot help but feel enraged at the hypocrisy of some of our leaders.

Earlier this year The Age had an article about the desperate need for America to have a leader like Bobby Kennedy. Thirty-five years later not a lot seems to have changed. As the echoes of the disaster of Vietnam ring throughout this song, you can also hear the less distant echoes of Iraq.

However, unlike much of today’s protest which is happy to sit back and make judgments while not providing credible alternatives, Larry points to a better way, a higher way. As the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock was inched closer to midnight this year, the Prince of Peace is just as relevant today as ever. Fifteen years ago, another singer with a social conscience, John Mellencamp, sang “now more than ever, the world needs love”. I reckon he would be singing that song even louder now.

Have a read of the words of this prophetic song and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with a passion for setting things right in this broken world.

The Great American Novel - Larry Norman

And your money says in God we trust
But it’s against the law to pray in school
You say we beat the Russians to the moon
And I say you starved your children to do it
You say all men are equal all men are brothers
Then why are the rich more equal than others
Don’t ask me for the answer I’ve only got one
That a man leaves his darkness when he follows the Son

Isn’t it interesting that being a follower of Christ in many ways involves a paradox? It has long been said that the first Christians turned the world upside down, and that is what we are called to do. But, in fact, it is the world that is upside down and we are called to make things right. And the way this is done goes against everything that the world stands for. This is the great paradox of faith. Consider all the things that Jesus said about this - we die to live, we surrender to gain victory, we humble ourselves to be exalted, we suffer to gain glory. As Larry Crabb has said, the road that to life often feels like the road to death. And to quote the title of a song by Celtic poet, Sammy Horner, it is victory in defeat.

One thing that I struggle with that alot of Christians say is that there is no such thing as an atheist. I think there is, but where atheists have it wrong is that they generally denounce the idea of faith as being flawed. What they fail to see is that they live by as much faith as believers. The believer has faith that there is a God who made the universe and everything in it, while the atheist has faith in the idea that there is a purely naturalistic explanation for everything that exists. As far as rational logic goes, agnosticism is a truer position. However agnosticism is also a
position. It is not sitting on the fence.

A good book I have read about this is ‘Finding Faith’ by Brian McLaren. McLaren is a Christian, however he consulted with many of his atheist and agnostic friends before writing the book, and ran transcripts by them as he was writing. The result is a very balanced book, as shown by the reviews it gets on Amazon.

I have a confession to make. It’s not that I was one of the majority who voted John Howard out of office a couple of weeks ago. I did indeed vote for someone else. But my absolute delight in seeing the Prime Minister defeated was filled more with a sense of vengeful justice than with grace. My pastor said something about this on Sunday that spoke to me. He said that despite being glad that Howard was defeated, the Christian part of him felt sympathy for him as, after all, he gave his life to the service of the public for his country. That spoke to me because that wasn’t my attitude. I was filled with glee that this man who I saw as one who has deceived the Australian public for so many years had finally got his just desserts, and what better way to top it off than to have the total humiliation of losing his own seat. I enjoyed the fact that he was completely humiliated. That is not the attitude of Christ and it is this that I confess and repent of. God give me the grace to accept life with humility when things do go my way, and not to gloat.

Prayer is communion with God. Sometimes it seems like God is not
listening, doesn’t care or is not there. Prayer is something anyone can
do any hour of any day. God never sleeps.

We all live by faith whether we believe in God or not. An intelligent
atheist/agnostic who I once had an online debate with says that in the end
faith must always give way to reason. I believe he doesn’t see that he also
lives by faith. Our faith is not blind, it is a reasonable faith, based on
evidence and reason.

I believe that consciousness lives on when the body dies. There have been
so many near-death experiences by so many people that it is not a
coincidence that something happens to us when we die. Ian McCormack’s story
is one that has encouraged me. There is no reason to doubt that what he is
saying is true. People’s stories basically back up what the Bible says.

Well, there are many problems with it actually, but when you hear people like Joel Osteen stating that when you are in relationship with God, you can expect the favour of God, that you can actually expect good things to happen to you, it is a very dangerous (not to mention heretical and unbiblical) statement to make.

If Osteen is right then Jesus himself must have been pretty out of favour with the Almighty! The One who is described in Isaiah as a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, is the Jesus of the Gospels, who was born in a trough, was the friend of sinners and of the scum of the earth, the people who no one else wanted to be around, and was constantly in tension with the religious establishment and the powers of His day, and was of course eventually crucified for his efforts.

According to Osteen’s theology then, Jesus was a failure (and not just in the worldly
sense, but in a spiritual sense as well). When people in favour of this doctrine quote the Bible, notice that they almost overwhelmingly quote the Old Testament, and then in bits and pieces. My pastor once said that a verse taken out of context is a pretext; in other words, you can take a few single verses and put them together to say exactly what you want them to say.

Now, I am convinced that the Old Testament is just as much the Word of God as the New Testament. But when these people hardly ever quote the New Testament in defence of their prosperity doctrine, particularly the Gospels which deal explicitly with the sayings and life of Jesus, there is a problem. Christians who don’t talk about Jesus - how’s that for an irony?

A few years ago when I was in a Christian bookstore, I saw a book by Ben Lerner called Body by God. The premise of the book is that God wants us to be fabulously beautiful, outrageously happy and prosperous. On the shelf below Lerner’s book was a book by Max Lucado simply called It’s Not About Me. Ben Lerner needs to read Max Lucado’s book.