Category Archives: Biblical Worldview

Discussions regarding the sufficiency of scripture, the inerrancy of God’s Word, and its application to today’s world. (Just a hint: its application is the same today, yesterday, and forever!)

November 20, 2012 · 3:31 pm

Looking to myself for healing

Not to be overly dramatic, but pain has been my companion for most of my adult life. It has gotten immeasurably worse in the past year, and finally I have a diagnosis of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. The name doesn’t do much to improve my healing, but at least I know it’s nothing else, and I can focus on how to live with what the doctors call a “neuro-muscular” disorder.

The pain, on a scale of 0-10 where 10 is unspeakable, knock-you-unconscious, reached an 8 at times. The mind can only take so much pain before it becomes confused, trying to cope with so much input. I couldn’t think straight much of the time, lost my words and my concentration, could not read or finish sentences when talking.

And I became depressed. My mind began wandering into unhealthy and unhelpful patterns of thinking. Friends and family had to remind me that I was ill, that this was not my fault, that it was going to get better. I couldn’t think past the pain or the idea that somehow I had brought this on myself.

Some of my unhealthy thought processes cycled around on the theme of “gotta pull myself up by my boot straps and make myself—force myself—to get well again.” That was futile thinking, and perhaps even damaging thinking, to imagine that I had brought this on, and I alone could make this go away.

Suffering from pain on and off for much of my adult life, I had been under the impression that I could bring myself out of this pain, if only. If only I prayed differently. If only I could find the unconfessed sin in my life and repent of it. If only I had a closer relationship with God. Those, I learned, are lies designed to keep me imprisoned in my own feelings of guilt and inadequacy—looking to myself for my healing.

Yet these were some of the things good church-going people were telling me, and those thoughts stem from prosperity gospel preaching. “Name it and claim it” preaching teaches that if you pray the right prayer and believe that you were meant to receive all the good things God has stored up for you on earth, you will get all those things NOW. I may be oversimplifying, but this is the teaching of many popular preachers (Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, TD Jakes) these days, and it has crept into the evangelical church.

In that way of thinking, then, I can state that I will be well, and pray the right prayers, and believe that it is true, and I will be well. If I do not get well, then, it is my fault. What a harmful, damaging lie! Yet this was ingrained in me.

My background is filled with this kind of experience. Of people quizzing me about how I am praying and what I pray for, perplexed as to my continued pain since there were so many prayers. To continue in pain, then, is obviously my fault, because I did something wrong, or didn’t do enough of the right thing, or didn’t pray the right prayer. Yes, I was even told that I wasn’t praying right!

Pastor Russell Moore talks about the heresy of the prosperity gospel, and I paraphrase here: “If you want to know whether you are following Christ, look to your life. So says the prosperity gospel. The problem is that all who preach the prosperity gospel, as well as all other human begins, will end up dead one day. Some will fall ill and suffer.” Then where is their gospel?

Is it my fault, then, when the pain comes back? This has taken me on a path to explore what I know to be true about God. He is sovereign. He does not need me to DO anything in order to receive his blessings. There is no formula to follow—only believe. I don’t need more faith. I have faith. I don’t need to pray a formula in order to gain more prosperity or more health or blessings. I don’t need the Prayer of Jabez or some other prosperity fad. I need God’s sovereignty.

The job of healing me is God’s, if he chooses. And if he does not?

Then God, being sovereign, will provide for me in every way he sees fit. In this I identify with the Apostle Paul, who found himself with a physical illness or pain. “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12: 8-10).The power of God is greater than my pain.

And here is the vital point: in this experience God got my full attention. This pain is teaching me much more about myself, and my faith, and my God, than I would have learned free from pain. My life may be poor in health, but it is still very rich in blessings.

So if I do not get healed in this life—if my pain continues for the rest of my life on earth—is this my fault or because of my inability to fix my condition? No: God is sovereign. He is good, rich in mercy, and has saved me not because of me, but because of him. And I know that the final healing will come, when I see my redeemer face to face.

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Filed under Biblical Worldview, Health, Pain and suffering

August 15, 2012 · 3:19 pm

Pornography for women: Equal rights gone wrong

What an age we live in. When I was growing up, the Women’s Lib movement was strong and influential. Women burned their bras (I’ve never figured out why), marched for equal rights and equal pay and recognition. Now Women’s Rights have exploded, gone too far, in many ways, straight into the gutter, without any objective moral guideline.

I entered college determined to follow that “equal rights” route, heading into a career in which I could be independent and strong and powerful. Get my “MRS degree” in college? No way. Only God got in the way, introducing me to my husband early in my freshman year.  I married after my sophomore year, and thirty years later I am certain that was the second-best thing that ever happened. (The best, of course, was God calling my name and saving me!)

The last thing I wanted was to be a mom at home. That was for mindless housewives who had nothing better to do. Or so I believed, until I held my firstborn and fell in love with mothering. But the women’s movement had taken us so far as to have us believe that mothering full-time was shameful, an abandonment of our full potential.

Women’s Lib has brought us abortion on demand, considered a “right to privacy” (except for the privacy of the unborn, some of whom happen to be girls with a potential right to privacy…).

It has ignored the plight of women in our midst, who have been taught that somehow covering up one’s entire body in submission to an oppressive religion is “empowering.” It has totally ignored the same plight of the women overseas who are beaten, whipped, have their hands lopped off, or are even killed in pursuit of the purity of the same oppressive religion.

Somehow Women’s Rights have become selective. And now that same movement of equality has reached into a shameful area, pornography, and has declared that women have the same right to access porn as men. Pornography, then, has been given equal time.

The bestselling book Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels are nothing more than pornography for women, and the books are selling like crazy.  The books, like many bodice-rippers of romances before them, has idealized the sexual relationship, making women wish for something more or better.

Isn’t that what porn does for men as well? Idealizes women, makes them into objects of fantasy and desire rather than human beings with whom one has a meaningful, lasting, enjoyable relationship. Wow, equal rights means we can objectify men now? Way to go! What once was considered shameful is now equal opportunity, equal rights, equal shame.

On to the movies: Magic Mike is hitting the theaters with its objectified males, those men who strip for women. No need for even a story line; let’s just watch men strip. I thought that the Women’s Movement had at one time said objectification of women was wrong, but now that men have taken that stage, so to speak, everything’s equal again. Women AND men can pursue their lust, long for some representation of human perfection, become dissatisfied with what they already have, replace real relationships with something altogether different.

Great job, Women’s Movement. What once strived for equal pay for equal work and a blasting of the glass ceiling, has now placed itself in a filthy sewer.

When we have no moral guideline, this is what happens. If we wish to publicly pursue porn, or if we include the right to kill an unborn baby as part of the right to privacy, or if we look the other way when women are beaten into submission in the name of an oppressive religion, then it’s all classified under the hideous umbrella of Women’s Rights. When no moral compass is objectively showing us right from wrong, all of it becomes a Right, then, doesn’t it?

For years I have said that the National Organization for Women did not represent me. I’ve taken a totally different path than the one they paved, and I have felt “fulfilled” (a term that makes me twitch) all these many years. It’s a shame, now, that equal rights also means equal filth and the right to objectify whomever we wish.

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July 18, 2012 · 7:31 am

Where has Christian theology gone?

George Santayana is credited with the famous saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The lesson he teaches here is that ignoring the study of history, the lessons of history, will leave an ignorant public prone to fall prey to the same sorts of events in the future.

We can extend this argument further to Christian theology and Church history.  I believe that those professing Christians who do not study theology, including the history of Christianity, could very well fall prey to the heresies of the past. We see it today,  where Christianity is being redefined by men and women whose audiences do not discern truth from error because they do not know their theology.

In an earlier post I bemoaned the lack of Christian theology in a Christian bookstore packed full of cute little kitschy trinkets instead of the meat of Christian thinkers. There’s a reason this former bookstore has taken the word “books” out of its title. It seems more interested in selling trinkets that sell Jesus’ name than books that teach about His word.

I mentioned in that other post that I saw plenty of Christian Fiction and Christian Romance. Will readers get their theology from these books? I hope not!

We also found on the shelves plenty of Christian Living books by Joyce Meyer, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, Rick Warren, and Joel Osteen. However, there was no Francis Schaeffer, no Spurgeon, Augustine, Grudem, Machen, Walther, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, or others. None of the great church fathers, nothing of early Christian church history lined the shelves.

Why does that matter? On the shelves of this bookstore there were NONE of the Church Fathers or the great theologians to counter the drivel coming out of the Emergent Church, which produces a swill of sewage that reinterprets Christianity according to its own sensibility and not according to the truth of Scripture. On that store’s website you can find theology if you want it, but you cannot find it walking into the store. Around the corner from this store, at Barnes and Noble, we found more Christian theology than in this Christian store! Oh, and on the website of this store you can also find a whole category called Emergent Community. Apparently the heresy sells well enough to garner its own category. So the “Christian” in  this Christian store name is actually a catch-all for whatever heresy sells.

So how will people walking into the local Christian bookstore learn theology, outside of God’s word? Apparently your only option is to study the words of the Emergent leaders to find reinvented theology, not biblical theology. There, among the swill, you will find new gnosticism; methods for hearing God’s voice according to some secret, mystical method; or perhaps a new kind of Christianity in case what you grew up with dissatisfied you. And why not reinvent it? Theology and history no longer matter when you no longer rely on the Word of God for your source of all truth.

Hebrews 5: 11-14 talks about those who just want to take the easy, I-don’t-want-to-work-too-hard-on-this-theology route, likening them to those who would prefer gumming baby food as compared to those who enjoy the work of chewing a good steak.

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

The Emergent books tickle the ear. They are sometimes easier for the uninquisitive to digest, because the Emergent Church is geared toward the unquestioning mindset of today’s consumers. The Bible talks about this very thing, likening the watered-down versions of Christianity to baby food versus the meat of Christian theology.

A group called the Christian Research Service put out a study in 2006 about Christian bookstores. It published a scathing report about where most Christian bookstores are headed.

For a national 2006 conference of Christian retailers, “apparently, not one Training session or Workshop is devoted to:

  • teaching Christian bookstore owners, managers, and employees the importance of putting books and materials to the Biblical test, and not compromising God’s holy word under any circumstances;
  • encouraging those within the Christian bookstore industry not to compromise the faith by catering to authors and books that promote non-Christian beliefs and religions;
  • to deny authors, books, and materials that are in opposition to God’s word from entering their stores;
  • apologetics, cult-evangelism, guarding the spiritual welfare of the believer, and defending the faith;
  • witnessing to the lost, and gaining discernment through the study of God’s word;
  • placing emphasis on the salvation of the lost, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, repentance, Bible study, and that there is a real hell and eternal separation from God.” (http://www.christianresearchservice.com/bookstores4.htm)

This store’s display of kitsch, this paucity of the richness of the early Church Fathers and other great theologians, this embracing of the Christian romance (not too far from the Harlequin Romance) and of Emergent Church writers–this is the sign of the times, in which people will run after whatever tickles the ear instead of the meat of Christian truth.

Just at the times in history when people began to invent their own new Christianity, taking it down dangerous, heretical paths, adherents to the pure truth of Scripture stepped forward and refused to back down to those who would rather take the easier path of heresy. I am crying out to those of you who love the pure meat of the truth, to study.

Study theology; study the history of the Christian church, and you will find it out for yourself. And you will grow sad when you see the watered-down version of popular “Christianity” out there, like I have. And perhaps you too will seek out other like-minded Christians who refuse to budge on the purity of the Gospel in their church.

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July 17, 2012 · 7:44 pm

Christian “kitsch” a sign of the times?

When Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple, he found his holy place filled with moneychangers and money-lenders. Its open walkways were lined with people trying to make a profit off of Jews, exploiting the fervently devout ones who had made a pilgrimage to the temple during holy days. (Matthew 21:12-13) The rabbis and other holy men seemed to turn a blind eye to the whole enterprise.

Jesus, zealous for his Father’s house, tore down the commercialism, overturning the sellers’ tables. Crass commercialism, profit-making off the backs of the devout—and zeal for his Father’s house aroused Christ’s wrath on its behalf. I wonder what he would say about the crass commercialization of Christianity today.

Recently we visited a Christian bookstore in search of some Francis Schaeffer books. This was not the Christian bookstore I remember from 20 years ago.

This was a large store. Before even making it through the front door, we passed tables of kitsch: toys and pens, teacups and plaques, all decorated with Christian sayings and feel-good slogans. There was even a basket of bath scrubbies–Christian bath scrubbies! Getting clean for Jesus!

Walking in, we saw that fully HALF the store was the same kind of kitsch. Cutesy pictures, wallets, glassware, candles, all with some theme meant to make us think of God. Some have trite sayings empty of content. Some are serious paintings meant to inspire but belonging to some stuffy leather-bound study of a different era.

An eighth of the store is Christian music and DVDs. Another eighth is Sunday school materials for children. That leaves a quarter of the large store for books. No wonder this line of Christian store removed the name “Bookstore” from its familiar logo. There weren’t enough books to pass for a serious bookstore.

We found Bibles and Bible commentaries, plus Christian fiction/Christian romance, and Christian living. In the Christian living portion we found Joel Osteen, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, Rick Warren–but not Francis Schaeffer, Spurgeon, Augustine, Grudem, Walther, Sproul, Packer, or Machen. (Around the corner at Barnes and Noble we found more theology than in this store. Seriously.)

I will discuss the lack of theology in another blog post. Today, however, I want to talk about my imperfect analogy of Jesus in the temple versus the Christian bookstore. (I do realize the bookstore is not a holy place; it is a place of business. My analogy falls apart there.)

The Christian “subculture” makes up a huge number of individuals, who purchase music, books, and (some of them) kitsch. I get it. But when is it too much? And why do we purchase and sell such cheap, crass, cutesy-cuddly representations of our faith? (Remember the scrubbies? Some of them were duckies. Christian ducky scrubbies. Yes, they bothered me.) But why are we selling them? The businessman will tell me it’s because they sell. My faith tells me it is a thin veneer.

Is my display of Christian decor meant to please man or God?  And then the question is begged, does that cutesy stuff please God or man? Now, I don’t think God is offended if I have a sequined coin purse that says “I Heart Jesus.” However, is my money best spend on such nonsense? And who am I trying to please? Is this an outward display of piety meant to impress man or God?

Zechariah 7:4-10 asks and answers the question of what God thinks of the outward display of piety, the kitsch and glitz:

Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying,  “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, `When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? `When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves?’ “… Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying, “Thus has the LORD of hosts said, `Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.'” (ESV)

In other words, man devises all sorts of ways to show his piety, but God wants something altogether different.

All the sequins and scrubbies, candles and cups can’t possibly do much more than fill the pockets of those who sell them. They don’t save me, and they certainly don’t win me more Jesus-points.

Do we buy and display all those glitzy Christian-lite trinkets in order to show off our faith? Is this an outward display used to impress others–hollow, without the internal conviction—like whitewashed tombs? Or is it an effort to make ourselves more holy?

That last thought is the most devastating–and I believe it is the closest to the truth. The beautiful truth of Christianity, which is not taught much these days, is that I cannot keep myself holy. I cannot save myself, nor can I be holy; only God can save me.

The simple truth of biblical Christianity is that God is sovereign; he is holy, and only he can save me and keep me. There is nothing I can do.

And the simple truth about all the Christian kitsch is that if this is the trend these days—to decorate one’s home so that I look better or feel better about myself, I am awfully empty inside and desperately in need of a real savior who requires nothing more of me than just me.

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May 27, 2012 · 11:03 am

A Good Book is Not Hard to Find

Bookshelf

 

Well, it isn’t hard to find if you apply the criteria I have described in the last two blogs, here and here. If you do not want to discriminate about what you read, and you subscribe to the idea that mindless “beach-reading” books are the way to go, then you won’t want to read any further.

My top picks

This is hard to do, like trying to choose my favorite child. While each of my children likes to say he or she is my favorite, and I agree with each one in turn, I really don’t have a favorite. But I digress.

Below I have listed what I consider to be my top classic picks, but somehow I am certain I have missed a few. While my librarian son protests that certain classics are missing from this list, either I haven’t read them yet, or I do not like them very much.

And then I have listed other favorites, lighter reads, not necessarily classics but excellent books in their own right. These two lists consist of what I consider must-haves on the bookshelf. Please send me your favorite titles and tell me why you like them. Don’t send me mindless fluff!

These are in no particular order. Dim the lights; here we go.

  • Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (and I love many of her other books as well)
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  • Beowulf, an anonymous work—phenomenal depiction of the hero epic
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (the only Dickens I can recommend)
  • Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (not the movie—it’s all wrong)
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  • Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
  • Paradise Lost by John Milton
  • Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (his son, Jeff, has written many more of this same genre, all extremely good)
  • Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet by William Shakespeare (to name just a few)
  • The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien
  • Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Other excellent reads, very enjoyable, almost like dessert.

  • The entire Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
  • The Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley
  • Coming Home and September by Rosamund Pilcher (the closest you will see me getting to any kind of modern romance)
  • Any of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy Sayers
  • Anne of Green Gables novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery
  • The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (warning: disturbing violence)
  • Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  • Divergent series by Veronica Roth
  • The Help by Kathryn Stockett
  • Hammer of God by Bo Giertz
  • Imperial Woman and others by Pearl S. Buck
  • Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
  • Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
  • Pillar of Iron and others by Taylor Caldwell
  • The Big Fisherman and others by Lloyd C. Douglas
  • Animal Farm by George Orwell
  • Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
  • Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
  • Any Jeff Shaara novel
  • The Firm by John Grisham (and most of his earlier novels)
  • Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy (and most of his earlier novels–written by Clancy alone)
  • Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum
  • The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
  • Winnie the Pooh books by AA Milne
  • North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan by EB White
  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Well, not dessert. In fact, don’t eat dessert while reading this.)
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous

Some links for excellent books, other readers’ top picks. (These are not my picks; consider the sources before you choose a book from here. Also read my blog about the elements of great literature.)

http://childrensbooksguide.com/top-100

http://www.harvard.com/shelves/top100/

http://m.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction?cat=books&type=article

http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/072098best-novels-list.html (There’s no accounting for good punctuation here; why the NYT does not italicize book titles is beyond me.)

What are your favorite classics? What is missing from my list? Remember my criteria, and remember I reserve the right to shoot down any fluffy books that have the audacity to aim for my classic bookshelf.

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May 7, 2012 · 1:48 pm

Bibles, Bonnets, and Brides: Christian Romance

When we moved from the Southwest US to the Midwest, I experienced some culture shock in the form of food. Craving Mexican food, we tried restaurant after restaurant. Nothing met our expectations; most of it seemed like ketchup with a little chili powder mixed in. Honestly, what self-respecting Mexican place offers a menu item called a “wet burrito”? Yet there it was in Michigan, all over the place. The idea that Taco Bell was true Mexican food…well, that just burned me like Mom’s huevos rancheros.

And the shock continued when entering the grocery store. Chili powder did have some ground-up chilies for color, but also a list of other spices tossed in, only diluting the lovely, smoky taste of pure chili powder. A search for corn tortillas showed me the disappointing nature of grocers in the Midwest: those crispy taco shells are the only things closely resembling corn tortillas, but there are no soft corn tortillas in many Midwestern grocery stores.

What does this have to do with fiction?

This has everything to do with the taste that one develops. Having grown up in the Southwest, eating typical New Mexican dishes, I developed a discriminating taste. Something less than that wonderful, pure red-chili flavor was disappointing, and not really what I wanted to settle for.

One can “develop taste” similarly with many other things: housing, fashion, music, or literature. If you have lived on a diet of junk food all along, you won’t know or appreciate gourmet food. When you partake of a steady diet of excellent literature, you are able to identify the characteristics of quality. And you will dislike literature of a lesser quality.

Which brings us to Christian fiction.

Most Christian fiction falls into two categories: Christian romance and Christian mystery/spiritual battles. Much of Christian romance is poorly written and follows a fairly predictable formula. They are not much better than Harlequin Romance books: they follow an impracticable romantic recipe that rarely changes.

When I was in junior high, a friend’s mom read many Harlequin Romances every week. Intrigued, I borrowed a few from her. It didn’t take very many books for me to find out that they were trash: very low quality writing, predictable formula, boring. I didn’t recognize it then, but the titillation of a Harlequin Romance causes the reader to fantasize, wish for a different or more exciting life, and eventually to become dissatisfied with her own life. In some cases, the titillation—the description of the love affair itself—is akin to soft porn. It becomes addicting.

I concluded, early in my young life, that the Harlequin novel was of poor substance, because I had been fed a steady diet of quality literature from my mother’s lap. She supplied us with much classical literature, curled up with us to read poetry, and took us to the theater (and opera) as much as she could. Thus from a young age I could distinguish between “trashy” novels and classical literature—just as I can between Taco Bell and true New Mexican food, or between McDonald’s and a good filet mignon.

Like the Harlequin Romance, Christian romance novels lure their readers into a dreamy, unrealistic view of love—albeit a cleaner one. The typical pattern of a romance novel only varies slightly: boy meets girl (or vice versa), boy loses girl, boy goes through a life-quest to find meaning. Boy regains girl. Add the Christian label, and you find some sort of loss-of-faith/faith-quest/coming-to-faith pattern mixed in.

Often, too, the characters are not at all realistically portrayed. Their dialogue is stilted and stiff, not at all the way you and I would normally speak (nor, I suspect, the way pioneers spoke to one another…). Men are strapping and strong, handsome and virile, perfect–without flaw (except the one bad guy…who’s really bad…and poorly portrayed). The women are flawed, weak, indecisive, abused, or neglected in the past.

They need rescuing. Yes, in fact, we all do (that is a great spiritual truth)! However, the unrealistic juxtaposition of these two character types is puzzling. Since the readers are women, are the main female characters portrayed this way so that the reader can project herself into that character? Does that enable the reader to fantasize herself in that role? This is just my guess.

However, contrast that aspect with great classical literature. Romance for romance (and I will argue that these are not “simple” romances, but let’s just say, for argument’s sake), Jane Austen’s novels portray weakness and flaws in every character, realistically. Women need rescuing at times, but at others, they are the ones whose brains are the only ones working for a time. Men are strong yet flawed, egotistical yet self-conscious. Austen’s stories are rich, beautifully written, timeless. I have yet to find those qualities in a Christian Romance.

Rarely do those novels ever resemble reality. If the effect of a Harlequin Romance is to draw the reader into soft porn, the Christian romance is a low-key version of the same. The result: increased dissatisfaction with one’s current life while daydreaming and fantasizing about the perfect romantic partner in some exotic, or pastoral, setting. (Just add a pastor.)

Just a sampling of bonneted beauties on the cover of some Christian Romance novels…

For some reason, many Christian romance novels feature pioneers or Amish women. Visiting a local library, we engaged in a totally unscientific survey: we pulled a cross-section of Christian novels off the shelf. We looked through 23 books and were astounded to find a whopping 8 bonneted beauties on the cover. Why? Perhaps because that time or place was supposed to be more simple, more romantic? I am still puzzling over that one. (If you have an idea, please chime in.)

If you have read my other blog about quality literature and read some of the suggested materials on discerning good reading material, you know that “good literature” can be Christian or secular. So can bad.

The quality of excellent literature constitutes how well the story is told—how well the picture is painted in the mind of the reader. Is the moral dilemma—the tension between good and evil—presented well? Does the book reward re-reading? Do the characters come to life? Is the vocabulary, and the writer’s voice, rich? Will the story stand the test of time, and will it make sense, will it ring true, four decades or a century from now? If you can answer yes to these questions, you may have a piece of quality literature in front of you.

Why do many Christian authors stop short of excellent literature? Your guess is as good as mine. Why do secular authors? Probably we’ll find the answer is the same for both. Danielle Steele writes countless secular romance novels, and she has done so for twenty or thirty years. They sell well. But like Harlequin Romances, Steele’s novels are not well-written. They are formulaic, predictable, simplistic, and they oftentimes don’t even bother with good grammar. (Yes, I read some. I picked them up to see what all the buzz was about. Frankly, I was more bothered that so many readers spend money on such poor writing, than that she writes them. She makes plenty of money, so her strategy works!)

Instead of settling for (or limiting themselves to) the majority of fiction labeled as Christian literature, parents should teach their children how to discern what is good about all literature. They should teach their children how to tell the difference, develop their palate for what is excellent.

Certainly some literature is to be avoided due to its content, its language, or its unnecessarily graphic depictions. Be willing to explain the criteria to your child and why certain books do not meet those criteria.

Here’s the challenge for Christian parents: explore your standards from a biblical worldview: watch the depiction of good and evil. Is it a battle? Does the moral tension reflect reality? Is good truly good, and is sin truly distasteful? Whether Christian or secular, does it gloss over the reality of evil and its consequences? Does moral tension drive the plot, or does the romantic, unrealistic quest for true love drive the story? Is immorality sugar-coated, underplayed, and simplistic, or is it real?

If up to this point you have limited yourself to Christian novels simply because you don’t have to do the work of discerning what’s good literature, step up to the challenge. Read the classics. Try some gourmet food instead of McDonald’s.

Next installment: My picks for excellent literature (you may be surprised!)

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April 25, 2012 · 6:20 pm

Partaking of fiction with a biblical worldview (part 1)

Numerous parents over the past two decades have approached me with grave concerns over what their children are reading. Their concerns are wide-ranging and unpredictable.

Some say that their children should only read specifically Christian literature; anything else would be too much of the world. In fact, I taught for a year at a Christian school whose curriculum oversight committee refused to allow its students to read anything besides specifically Christian literature. To repeat, I taught there only a year.

Some parents allow their children to read a small selection of secular fiction, but they fret over it. (“Should they really read these books with sinful characters?”) Others take a very relaxed stance, allowing their children to read whatever their hearts desire, but not helping provide any kind of filter through which to read and understand this literature.

Same goes for movies, only more so. Since it is such a visual medium, movies are more scary to parents, who approach them with fear and caution—and rightly so.

This all begs an important question: What standards can Christians apply toward viewing/reading fiction?

The obvious answer is the Bible. Most parents will use Philippians 4:8 as the criteria for judging the readability of a book: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (ESV). Then they look at the work of fiction to see what is lovely, honorable, and just.

This is an excellent standard for a start. Let’s consider adding more of God’s Word to this list of criteria.

First, realize that “whatever is lovely” wants us to dwell on truth and beauty. Also realize that “whatever is true” includes not just beauty but also the whole truth about, well, truth. What’s true and real is that this world is full of sin. It’s ugly, and it warps everything it touches. And evil is evil; it is to be avoided, not desired.

How best to show that evil has consequences? Depict it in all its ugliness, and watch the consequences unfold. Well-written fiction will do just that. However, sugar-coating the truth provides an unrealistic picture of the “real world.” Does this mean that students should read every kind of pulp fiction out there? Absolutely not. Find good fiction that shows the true tension of good versus evil, that shows the repugnance of evil. Take a careful look at what happens when people give in to it.

Some of the dark literature of modernity will provide excellent examples. I want my students to read about the cry of man’s heart: “What do I do with the darkness I have inside me?” In realistically-depicted fiction, we can see what happens when man cries out for a savior and then tries to save himself, or invents his own savior, or destroys himself in pursuit of a better life. Perhaps he creates a whole new society in which everything can be manipulated so that human emotions and attitudes can be tightly controlled. We see how successful that is in Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World, Hunger Games, Divergent, Anthem, and Atlas Shrugged, to name just a few. And can a student learn something from the failed experiment of the creation of a new society? You bet.

The naked, ugly truth is that deep down, man cries out for a savior. That heart-wrenching agony can be clearly seen in Romans 7, in which Paul tells the truth of man’s situation: the things I want to do, I don’t do; those things I don’t want to do, I do. Then Paul cries out “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). Isn’t this what every person despairs of, at some point in his life? What kind of sugar-coated, romanticized fiction ever depicts ugly, unbearable truth like that? Rarely does Christian fiction do it well.

However, look at Picture of Dorian Gray, Heart of Darkness, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for example. The futility of trying to overcome one’s weaknesses by creating some sort of hero oneself is portrayed in all of its dark brutality. Did these authors know the one, true God? Some will argue the answer; however, it is clear that these authors realized the futility in their own lives and expressed it clearly.

Can a non-Christian depict the truth in his work of fiction? For an answer, take a look at Les Miserables or A Tale of Two Cities. (Some will argue that Dickens was a Christian; we will not take up that argument here—someone else can. We do know that Hugo was an avowed pagan.) What about revenge and its devastating results in The Count of Monte Cristo? The beauty of reconciliation and repentance is laid out clearly in all these books. Did God use these men? I would argue that yes, he did—and does.

So how do we approach literature with our children? Teach them the truth of the Law and the Gospel. Man is sinful and cannot save himself. He desperately needs a savior and tries to fill the void with his own works and inventions. Dead in his own sins, God reaches in and pulls him up out of the grave and into life. How tragic for those who have not been made alive by God!

Let’s see how this is played out in literature.

For more reading on how to view literature from a biblical worldview, see Reading Between the Lines by Gene Veith, The Twelve Trademarks of Literature by Jeff Baldwin, and How to Read Slowly by James Sire.

Part Two: “Bibles, Bonnets, and Brides: Christian Fiction”

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March 26, 2012 · 1:19 am

Lessons from Job

My signature has changed.

That may not sound like much, but if you think about it, it’s pretty significant. I have lived with such tremendous pain for several months, that several physical changes have resulted.

Some are (I hope) temporary. Like the long-term dizziness and brain fog I’m experiencing. The fog kept me from reading too much at one time, or even finishing my thoughts completely. My family and friends have begun to finish my sentences for me in conversations.  (I actually typed a partial sentence here and couldn’t remember what I meant to say…)

The dizziness keeps me from walking too much, too quickly. Does pain make you dizzy? I guess it does, because drugs or no drugs, my head spins at unexpected times. That is ebbing away this past week, so I hope that the worst of my dizzy days are behind me.

Now for my signature. Chronic pain changes so many things. My strength is gone; stamina too. Holding a pen or pencil is an exercise in pain. When I need to sign a form at a doctor’s office or a charge at a store, I notice how jumpy my signature is. I no longer have the ability to control that pen the way I used to, and I do not recognize my own handwriting. Take notes in church? Forget it. This from the woman who is a writer, who has lived with a callous on the middle finger of her writing hand since high school. Pain has changed nearly everything. Nearly.

On those forms I need to fill out for each new doctor I visit, I must answer myriad questions about what my pain is like. Has your appetite changed? Your sleeping habits? Your temperament? Are you depressed? Talk about writer’s cramp. I could say a lot, but since I can’t hold a pen long, I must be brief.

Nearly everything has changed, as I said. I’ve lost a lot of weight, about which I do not complain. I had been only sleeping 1-2 hours at a time, until the doctor relented and gave me some drugs to help me sleep. Now I can make it until pain wakes me up at 5 or 5:30.

Depressed? Indeed. Wouldn’t you be depressed if you lived with unrelenting pain, 24/7? Depression is something I never thought I’d succumb to, but here I am. I can identify with Job, who lamented the day he was born. He sat in the ashes and scraped his sores, feeling sorry for himself. And who could blame him?

As for the temperament question, I asked friends and family if I had become irritable or if they had noticed my mood changed. No, they all agreed, but you are low in spirit. Again, who could blame me? But I am glad I haven’t given in to beating up on the people I love the most. Nor have I cursed God. Job’s wife told him to “curse God and die,” something he never gave in to.

Job lost everything. First his property, then his family, and finally his health. In all of it, Job never lost his faith. He lamented loudly, cursed the day he was born, wished that God would just end his misery (but never contemplated ending his own life), and debated with his friends over the cause of suffering. Yet he knew, in the depth of his soul, that God is good and that God is his redeemer.

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me! (Job 19:25-27)

I began learning from Job when I was 15. Then my dad was in an irreversible coma, and we existed in a black wasteland, awaiting word that his body had finally given up. I lamented, naturally, and a family friend told me to read Job. Not many people can tell you that Job saved them, but I believe that God put me right in the middle of Job again and again over the next few years. He strengthened my faith while I watched Job’s tormented cries. He reassured me when I read God’s answer to Job and his friends. I loved seeing Job hang tenaciously on to his faith, despite what his friends said or did, and despite what state his tormented mind and body was in.

I’m reading Job again, which should not surprise those closest to me. This time I’m digging into the footnotes and commentary in the Lutheran Study Bible. Luther said something amazing:

When faith begins, God does not forsake it; He lays the holy cross on our backs to strengthen us and to make faith powerful in us… Where suffering and the cross are found, there the Gospel can show and exercise its power. It is a Word of life. Therefore it must exercise all its power in death. In the absence of dying and death it can do nothing, and no one can become aware that it has such power and is stronger than sin and death.

Again, another footnote from the Lutheran Study Bible, regarding Job 3, provides some encouragement:

Even the most optimistic people will reach despair when overwhelmed by pain and suffering, as the examples of prisoners of war demonstrate. The mind snaps just as bones do. Scripture does not teach that death is a friend to those who suffer–death is always an enemy (1 Cor 15:26), but one overcome by the Lord. Commend those who despair to Jesus, who likewise cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46) and rose from the dead to say, “Peace be with you” (John 20:21).

So just as in my teens I found solace in Job, and agreed with him that “my Redeemer lives,” and in my 20s when I lost a baby and despaired, now in this stage of my life when I am living through the most difficult pain I have ever experienced, I can still say with Job, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). Why can I say that? Because I lean on a verse from my other “favorite” book of the Bible, John. “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28). I am His, firmly in His grip.

So my signature has changed. Many things have changed for me. Maybe I won’t be able to live the same way I had before this chronic pain has taken over. But one thing I know for sure: my God is good. “The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:22-26). I have learned that my suffering is not all about me; this is not my story. It is God’s.

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February 21, 2012 · 2:47 pm

Great contemporary speech for Rhetoric

If you are studying or teaching Rhetoric, this speech will make for some great discussion. I encourage you to save this one. It is passionate, articulate, focused, and uses ethics and logic quite well. Every word is well placed and carefully considered. His final paragraph is wonderful.

This man is the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He speaks before a House committee regarding a mandate under “Obamacare.”

Transcript of LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison’s
Feb. 16 Testimony before House Committee on Government and Oversight
Mr. Chairman, it’s a pleasure to be here. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is a body of some 6,200 congregations and 2.3 million members across the U.S. We don’t distribute voters’ lists. We don’t have a Washington office. We are studiously nonpartisan,
so much so that we’re often criticized for being quietistic.

I’d rather not be here, frankly. Our task is to proclaim, in the words of the blessed apostle St. John, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all our sin. And we care for
the needy. We haven’t the slightest intent to Christianize the government. Martin Luther famously quipped one time, “I’d rather have a smart Turk than a stupid Christian governing me.”

We confess that there are two realms, the church and the state. They shouldn’t be mixed – the church is governed by the Word of God, the state by natural law and reason, the Constitution. We have 1,000 grade schools and high schools, 1,300 early childhood centers, 10 colleges and universities. We are a machine which produces good citizens for this country, and at tremendous personal cost.

We have the nation’s only historic black Lutheran college in Concordia, Selma. Many of our people [who are alive today] walked with Dr. King 50 years ago on the march from Selma to Montgomery. We put up the first million dollars and have continued to provide finance for the Nehemiah Project in New York as it has continued over the years, to provide home
ownership for thousands of families, many of them headed by single women. Our agency in New Orleans, Camp Restore, rebuilt over 4,000 homes after Katrina, through the blood, sweat and tears of our volunteers. Our Lutheran Malaria Initiative, barely begun, has touched the lives of 1.6 million people in East Africa, especially those affected by disease, women and children. And this is just the tip, the very tip, of the charitable iceberg.

I’m here to express our deepest distress over the HHS provisions. We are religiously opposed to supporting abortion-causing drugs. That is, in part, why we maintain our own health plan. While we are grandfathered under the very narrow provisions of the HHS policy, we are deeply concerned that our consciences may soon be martyred by a few strokes on the keyboard as this administration moves us all into a single-payer … system.

Our direct experience in the Hosanna-Tabor case with one of our congregations gives us no comfort that this administration will be concerned to guard our free-exercise rights.

We self-insure 50,000 people. We do it well. Our workers make an average of $43,000 a year, 17,000 teachers make much less, on average. Our health plan was preparing to take significant cost-saving measures, to be passed on to our workers, just as this health-care legislation was passed. We elected not to make those changes, incur great cost, lest we fall out of the narrow provisions required under the grandfather clause. While we are opposed in principle, not to all forms of birth control, but only abortion-causing drugs, we stand with our friends in the Catholic Church and all others, Christians and non-Christians, under the free exercise and conscience provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

Religious people determine what violates their consciences, not the federal government. The conscience is a sacred thing. Our church exists because overzealous governments in northern Europe made decisions which trampled the religious convictions of our forebearers. I have ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. I have ancestors who were on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have ancestors who served in the War of 1812, who fought for the North in the Civil War – my 88-year-old father-in-law has recounted to me, in tears many times, the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, Bud Day, the most highly decorated veteran alive, is a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

We fought for a free conscience in this country, and we won’t give it up without a fight. To paraphrase Martin Luther, the heart and conscience has room only for God, not for God and the federal government. The bed is too narrow, the blanket is too short. We must obey God rather than men, and we will. Please get the federal government, Mr. Chairman, out of our consciences.

Thank you.

President Harrison’s full transcript and video from the hearing, as well as a video message and previous statements to the church, can be found at www.lcms.org/hhsmandate.

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December 28, 2011 · 9:48 pm

Booklist from 2011

I tried to remember all the books I’d read this year, and I was amazed at how little free time I have, but how many books I got through. That tells me that if I just had more time on my hands, I’d really get a lot read!

Here are a few highlights from this past year:

Theology:

  • A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love by Vincent Milton. This is a great little book. A student’s parent mailed it to me, and the next week our pastor held up his copy and encouraged us to read it. A couple of weeks later another pastor friend was underlining passages in his copy of the same book. I got the hint and picked it up. The entire message of this little gem is that we must preach the gospel to ourselves every day. What a simple thought.
  • On the Incarnation by Athanasius. This is another little treasure, written by a 3rd century Christian thinker. His logic is flawless, and his vision is centered on Christ, who He is, and what He has done.
  • Luther on Prayer. Martin Luther wrote about prayer based on the Lord’s Prayer. This is not a “pray these prayers” book, but as I wonder and focus on what prayer should be, I find his words helpful and insightful.
  • The Heidelberg Confession. The Westminster Confession is by far the better-known, but the Heidelberg lays out the Christian confession very clearly, with clear scriptural support. This is a good reference for anyone wanting to refer to doctrinal questions regarding the Christian faith.
  • Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This was a quick read, a simple look at the different Psalms and how they prayed in different ways to God. I am encouraged by Bonhoeffer’s insistence that praying through the Psalms will strengthen one’s prayer life. Indeed, whenever I have done so, I find encouragement in the psalmists’ admission of their own weakness and God’s strength.
  • Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible by CFW Walther. Okay, I haven’t finished reading this yet, but I like working my way through each of Walther’s lectures. He emphasizes the balance of law and gospel (hence, I suppose, the title) as he teaches pastors, but even laypersons like me can learn how to apply Law and Gospel to my understanding.
  • Confessions by Augustine of Hippo. This is another I have been working my way through, and I love the way Augustine tells his life story as a prayer to an all-knowing God, who wove together the events in his life to bring Augustine to Himself at just the right time.
  • The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz. I should be putting this book in Fiction, but it is also Theology. It is a collection of stories, almost reminiscent of Dostoyevsky’s tone, that tells the same truth throughout: true faith is a balance of Law and Gospel. I loved this book and highly recommend it to all.

Fiction, Classics:

  • The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz. Okay, this is for those of you who skipped over the Theology portion of my list and just landed here. See the above description of this book and go out and find it. It is a beautiful read.
  • The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I hadn’t picked this one up in years, and it was just as delightful as I had found it as a young reader. I can’t wait until the movie comes out!
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. Sometimes I find books I hadn’t read as an English major, and this has sat on my shelf a long time without being read. I thought it was well done, intriguing all the way through, and not completely predictable. Hardy depicts a detestable character quite well.
  • Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. This was another book that somehow I had never read. Not sure I’d read it again, but it tells a sad story of hopeless individuals…really a day-brightener, I must say.
  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin. This and Ethan Frome I promised a fellow teacher I would read and discuss with her. Thanks, Traci, for depressing me. This one shows the blossoming of a feminist perspective in the early 1900s. Selfish, self-centered, self-fulfilling, self-indulgent, and ultimately self-destructive. In a way, not too different from Picture of Dorian Gray. Lovely.
  • My Man Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. The author writes about a man with his butler near the turn of the 20th century. It’s cleverly written and amusing. I picked up his other books and found that they are pretty much the same thing, so I stopped there.

Fiction, Series:

  • The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling will always be on my list of favorites. I re-read it this year and loved it. I may have to do that again soon.
  • Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley. This starts with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and includes four more books so far. I hope there are more. This is the tale of an 11-year-old girl in post-WWII England, living in a drafty manor and experimenting with chemicals to her heart’s delight. She solves mysteries. This could be a child’s story, but it is a very delightful series of books that any adult would love, full of endearing characters, humor, and excitement.
  • I finished the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins this year. These dystopian novels about a bleak future world will soon be made into a movie. They are labeled for young adult readers–like me (ahem). Actually, if you are older than I, you will probably like it too.
  • Divergent by Veronica Roth was another well-written dystopian depiction of young people coming of age in a future world. People have been divided into factions and assigned certain roles to keep their world ordered. Behind the scenes, though, there is intrigue and insurrection. This is not yet a series, but I hear the second book comes out in May, so I’m categorizing it here, with much anticipation.
  • The World War II novels by Jeff Shaara. Beginning with The Steel Wave, Shaara tells the true-to-life stories from the earliest days of Rommel’s battles on the African continent. I haven’t begun the second book yet, but I love every Shaara novel I can get my hands on.
  • Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy Sayer. Beginning with Clouds of Witness, we meet Lord Peter and learn his quirky ways to solve a mystery. These stories are humorous and quick to plow through.

Fiction, Non-series:

  • So Brave,  Young and Handsome by Leif Enger. I loved his first book, Peace Like a River, so I took a chance on this one, and he did not disappoint. He is a master storyteller, very poetic, and he tells a good old-fashioned western tale with marvelous characters.
  • To the Last Man by Jeff Shaara. I’m just finishing this novel, and as always, Shaara is a master at telling the stories behind the wars the US has been engaged in. This one is about the First World War. I learned a lot that I hadn’t learned before about this devastating war.
  • Demonic by Ann Coulter. Okay, yes, she is a bit nutty. But I was intrigued by the description of this book, because she tells of the evolution of the mob. She uses the French Revolution for a prime example of the way a mob runs amok–and how crowds just blindly follow along. Since I am a history buff, and since some of my students are studying the French Revolution, I thought I’d pick it up. I don’t recommend her to just anyone, because she uses some crude language, but the historical progression is well footnoted and well-written.

What about 2012?

I am open to suggestions. You can see how eclectic I am as a reader. I’m looking for good historical fiction, sometimes a mystery or two, and some excellent, biblically-based theology that doesn’t turn into a mushy self-help, I’m-okay-you’re-okay pile of fertilizer. On my list continues to reside Law and Gospel, the rest of the Shaara books I have not yet read, a couple of David Baldacci and John Grisham books, and maybe, just maybe, The Help. I’ve resisted it thus far simply because I am a bit snobbish about the very popular Oprah-type books. But someone I respect has just finished it and assures me it is good. Sigh.

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