A Trip to Haiti

My wife and I finished a year-and-a-half-long adoption process last May, at which time twin two-year-old Haitian girls became our daughters. Because the political/economic conditions in Haiti are so unstable (tens of Americans were kidnapped there last year), we had hoped to avoid traveling there. As it turned out, it was necessary to go to get one of the two, so I flew to Port Au Prince last May to pick her up.

In case anyone is unaware, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. A little over 8 and a quarter million people live there. Haiti has a 50% literacy rate and about 50% of its population has access to treated drinking water. The average life expectancy is 53 (in the U.S. it’s 77) and the number of children who die in childbirth is 70 out of every 1,000 (in the U.S. it’s about 6 out of every 1,000).

My plan after landing in Port Au Prince was to stay at the airport. I’m no security expert, but I was thinking white people make for conspicuous targets. I didn’t plan on any site seeing; I had a morning flight in and an afternoon flight out on the same day. The arrival and departure terminals are separate, so I had to exit the one and walk down a crowded public street to the other. I met the Haitian lady from the orphanage in front of the terminal. She presented our new daughter to me and we walked together toward the other terminal. One might expect great elation at the first sight of our daughter. Those emotions came later, but at the time I was thinking, “Nobody shoot the white boy! Nobody shoot the white boy!” We got close to the departure terminal and I was eager to get inside. Before getting to the entrance, however, she stopped next to the van she’d come in and asked what time my flight left. I told her it was that afternoon, and she replied with a thick accent, “You’re too early. You’re too early. You come with us.” Knowing that a trip through Port Au Prince would significantly increase my chances of becoming another statistic on the U.S. State Department’s travel warning page, (which places Haiti on the same list as Iraq) and being the assertive, no-nonsense kind of guy I am, I looked at her politely and said, “Well…ok.” The driver nodded hello. I delicately placed the floppy 16 pound two-year-old on the seat next to me, and off we went.

We drove down major roads and back streets. There is no public sanitation in Haiti. One scene I cannot forget is a line of trash paralleling a major commercial four lane. It was maybe two feet high and thirty yards long, like a garbage fence, and it was common place. In the same vicinity there was a shanty town—little shacks of cinder block, some pieced together with all kinds of miscellaneous materials. In the center of the compound was a rectangular squalid green pool. The edges of it were lined with trash, like seaweed washed up on a beach. I saw people walking in between the shacks holding buckets, and was sure that that pool or one of similar quality was the main water source for many. All this shed new light on the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Also, about three times in heavy traffic, we came up behind a U.N. personnel carrier with soldiers standing in the back holding automatic rifles. Haiti has no domestic police force to speak of, so a few thousand U.N. troops are assigned there to keep all hell from breaking loose.

As for our daughters, one was healthier than the other. Both were past their second birthday at their homecoming and neither could walk. They also both had bald spots on the backs of their heads, presumably from extended time lying in a crib and rocking themselves to sleep, which I’m sure was no fault of the outnumbered caretakers. The orphanage they came from keeps about 70 kids, and about 4 or 5 a year die, usually from diseases Americans have never heard of because they’re caused by bad water or lack of medicine—non-realities for us.

But our two are thriving now. It’s amazing what love and calories will do. God is good!

MM

An Aesthetic High

These two shots were taken between 10,000 and 12,000 feet up in the Utah Sky. Could the terrain in Heaven be much different?

The Weight of Culture -- The Weight of Truth

I recently heard a Native American women give a public talk describing the unique culture and history of her tribe. It was interesting, especially when she explained their religious beliefs. She said for the first twenty days after a child is born, he or she is kept inside with the windows shaded. Before day break on the twentieth day, many of the paternal relatives come to name the child and then he is brought outside at dawn to see “our father the sun” for the first time. She made clear that the tribe considered the sun a deity. She also explained another tenant of the tribe’s religious beliefs is that weather patterns are a direct result of—that is punishment or reward for—human behavior. She said if there was a drought it was believed that people hadn’t been treating each other well, and if it rained they had.

Much of the purpose of the talk was to foster an appreciation of “cultural diversity,” and I’m sure it did. To most of the suburban white people (like me) in the audience, her descriptions of tribal lifestyles and beliefs were fascinating and exotic. Certainly the horizon of cultural awareness was broadened for many of her listeners.

But there was an important consideration about the beliefs she described that I think was absent in most of the audience. The whole thing about the infant being in the dark for twenty days and then being introduced to the sun who is really our father, and weather patterns being the direct result of human behavior, was really interesting, and certainly “diverse” from most Americans’ worldview, but it seemed that very few people are concerned with the question of whether or not it’s all true. And I write this mainly because I think this observation about the Native lady’s talk is very indicative of American pop culture as a whole.

It seems that the moon of “diversity” has eclipsed the sun of Truth. For many, being a part of a culture (Black, Hispanic, Native American, Jewish) is of the utmost value and, of course, the appreciation of that culture from those in and outside it is the utmost virtue.

Obviously, if one disagrees with the beliefs of a certain culture, it is never acceptable to express that through degradation and disrespect; only fanatics and terrorists behave that way, and no matter how much sane people disagree, we all know that’s wrong. But aside from all the emphasis on cultural diversity, doesn’t anyone care about what’s actually true and false anymore? I love black-eyed peas, fried okra, sweet tea, and thick humid nights. These things are central to the Southern culture in which I was raised. I appreciate them and hope others outside the South will to. But racism was also a central part of my culture, and I don’t appreciate that. On this point, Truth and Justice are much weightier than culture. The hard part is that many times certain moral and religious beliefs are so deeply intertwined with culture. I suppose it would be hard to be an accepted member of some Native American tribes if you reject the idea that the sun is our father. I know it is hard, in many circles at least, to be an accepted member of Southern culture if you think (like I do) the idea that whites are superior to blacks is a ferociously idiotic and immoral one. Once when I argued against racism with someone back home, I was actually told, “But you’re a Southerner, and this is what Southerners believe!”

It’s true that I’m a Southerner. It’s also true that I’m white and was born in the ‘70s. But these aspects of my identity lost all their weight—lost all their imperative allegiance—when I became a Christian. It seems to me that all other aspects of one’s identity are pebbles—perhaps grains of sand—lying at the bottom of the mountain of the Truth (aka Christ). “Who are my mother and brothers?” he asked. What an outrageous questioning of allegiance! Can’t we ask in the same vein, “What is my culture?” And what ever it is, how much weight does it hold if it’s not consistent with the Truth?

Miracles and Toilets

One idea I see confirmed throughout the Bible is that God interacts with our world on its own terms. Jesus did miracles, but he did not do miracles that prevented him from having to make practical arrangements, just like the rest of us, for his day to day physical necessities (see Luke 8:1-3).

One of the clearest examples of this is in the Christmas story in Matthew 1 and 2. Here is the point at which God enacts the greatest miracle of all time, the supernatural gestation and birth of the Savior of The World. Both Joseph and the wise men from the east are given specific instructions by angels in dreams, and there’s even a sign in the cosmos in a specially placed star. And yet, the evil king Herod, as so many before and after him, fought tooth and nail to keep his power seat secure, going so far as having all children two and under in the Bethlehem area killed. What a this-worldly thing to do.

But if someone is picking up the Bible for the first time with only a vague knowledge of the Jesus story and a few general assumptions about supernatural intervention in our world, it might be easy to expect a magic wand approach. This is, after all, one of the biggest supernatural interventions ever, why shouldn’t it include a miraculous moratorium on the ruthless attempts of evil dictators to maintain power and the infant corpses that result? If only as red carpet for the arrival of the Savior of the human race, couldn’t his birth and childhood have been a pain-free affair? Certainly there was enough anguish waiting at the opposite end of his earthly life.

But God works himself into this world on this world’s terms. Miracles are pin-pricks of light into our dark prison. The doors don’t fling fully open until the end. It seems that the Incarnation of Christ itself was the epitome of God’s method for working in this world and revealing himself to us. Jesus walked on water, but still got thirsty. He healed the sick and injured, but still had his own body broken.

It’s kind of like when you have some great spiritual epiphany and then have to go home and wash dishes.

The other day my 3-year-old dropped his racecar in the toilet. I was thankful he didn’t try to flush it, but not so thankful he had already used the bathroom. Afterwards I was thankful for rubber gloves. A trite analogy, I know, but it seems that God saving us required him reaching in and getting a lot of the filth of our world on himself before we could all be cleansed for good.

MM

Clarity on Calvinism?

It seems that the age-old debate between Calvinists and Arminians, between the philosophies of predestination and free will, will still be age old ages from now. It is an enduring controversy.

I brought some points of this debate up to a very wise friend of mine recently, and he basically said it's best just to proclaim Christ and not worry about it, which I thought was a good piece of advice.

However, someone recently referred me to the website of John Piper, desiringgod.org, and it really put a spur under my saddle. Piper is probably one of the most influential extreme Calvinists in modern times. (Note: Before going any further, I want to make it emphatic that this is an argument among siblings. As much as I disagree with Piper's Calvinism, by no means do I think he's not a genuine Christian. And I hope he would have the same respect for his Armenian brothers and sisters. This is a point that can't be emphasized enough)

But even though many wise Christians don't get bogged down in this debate, and even though those on the wrong side of it are Christians nonetheless, I still couldn't help responding to Piper's teaching on the Calvinist doctrine of "Limited Atonement" posted on his site. My motivation for doing so is twofold. First, proposing things like "limited atonement"--proposing that what Christ offers is not intended for all people in the world--results in a confused and distorted picture of God. Secondly, no Christian leader/teacher with the renown and influence held by Piper should be able to get away with the type of sophistry he displays, even if he is well-meaning (and I believe he is). Christians have a responsibility to show the world that we value reason, and we should make every effort to exercise sound, honest reasoning even if doing so doesn't lend support to the traditions we hold dear.

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The following is an excerpt from John Piper’s website desireinggod.org, in which he explains the Calvinist doctrine of “Limited Atonement.” (Piper's comments in blue):

"If you say that he died for every human being in the same way, then you have to define the nature of the atonement very differently than you would if you believed that Christ only died for those who actually believe. In the first case you would believe that the death of Christ did not actually save anybody; it only made all men savable. "

Or in other words, the Atonement makes salvation available to all people, if they choose to accept it. What’s wrong with that?

"It did not actually remove God's punitive wrath from anyone, but instead created a place where people could come and find mercy—IF they could accomplish their own new birth and bring themselves to faith without the irresistible grace of God."

This is a brazen straw man! What Christian who believes in genuine free will thinks that by believing in Christ we “accomplish our own new birth and bring ourselves to faith” without the grace of God? The false polarization here seems to be this: Calvinism must be right because our only two choices (which, I guess are not really choices?) are it and the evil Armenian view that we “accomplish our own new birth” and have no need for the grace of God. Who believes this?

Inherent in someone’s free choice in accepting the grace of God for salvation is the candid profession that we are helpless to save ourselves—that we are completely powerless. What an absurdity it would be for someone to think, “I’m completely helpless and dependant on the grace of God, so I choose Him instead of my own efforts. But then again I did make the right choice, so really I should get a lot of the credit?” Those who think they can do it themselves never become Christians to begin with.

It simply does not follow from the fact that we are helplessly dependant on grace, that we have no faculty of choice to accept that grace, or that God has not allowed us the will to resist his call.

"For if Christ died for all men in the same way then he did not purchase regenerating grace for those who are saved. They must regenerate themselves and bring themselves to faith. Then and only then do they become partakers of the benefits of the cross."

Again, a straw man. How does admitting one is helplessly dependant upon the grace of God, and thus freely choosing to ask him for salvation, constitute “regenerating one’s self” and “bringing one’s self to faith”?

If my family is starving and I “purchase” enough food to feed all of them (perhaps giving my life to do so), and then place all the food in the kitchen at home, but only three out of the five of them eat the food because the other two had their own ambitions of being the bread winner and were too prideful, how does it follow from this that I did not really purchase the food for the three that ate it and were saved from starvation?
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Piper and many other Calvinists often respond to criticisms of determinism by saying, “It may not always be easy to understand or accept what the Word of God says, but it is the Word of God and we must conform to it, not vise versa.” What many often fail to point out is that there are many verses/passages that, when taken by themselves, could support either side. For example, Romans 9 is often appealed to as an “enough-said” passage, winning the argument for Calvinism. But Romans 10 and 11 seem to be just as much in favor of free will, as do other passages like 2 Peter 3 and 1 Tim. 2:3-6, and the whole concept of Hosea.

Because scripture is some times ambiguous on this, we must consider other factors as well. For example, even though there are some individual passages that seem to suggest determinism (just as there are those that suggest free will), we must consider whether or not it is consistent with the over-all character of God as revealed in Christ that God would create beings who are born into sin, who have absolutely no choice but to sin—no ability whatsoever to do other wise—and then condemn those creatures to Hell for eternity for their sin? Somehow we have to reconcile the mutually exclulsive ideas of determinsim and moral accountability.

Is it true that the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the use today of rape as a weapon in the DR of the Congo to the point where many women suffer from perpetual incontinence, really exactly what God intended to happen? Or is it more consistent with the character of God to understand such heinous evil in the world as the result of human beings who have abused their God-given free will by giving in to temptations to evil instead of trusting Him?

At the end of the day, extreme Calvinists are left to face the idea that God and only God is the creator of evil.

Also, if we embrace the determinism that Piper proposes, we must face squarely the fact—as Piper has made clear in public debate about his own sons—that it may well be the case that any one or all of a person's children may have been created and predestined by God to spend eternity suffering in Hell, and that this, in someway, glorifies God.

MM

PS
Ben Witherington has what I think is a great article on Calvinism called “What is the Character of God” on his blog, linked on this page. (There’s also some great debate for and against in the comments section)

Televangelists

Televangelists are to Christianity
what pro wrestling is to sports.

The Divine Conspiracy

Though it's been out for several years, I'm still working on finishing Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy. I thought I'd post a few quotes from the book (in hopes of provoking some discussion).

One of the things I admire most about Willard is the presence he makes in the world of academia, which is often weighted with antagonism toward Christianity. Willard is a committed Evangelical Christian and a Philosophy professor at the University of Southern California.

"To believe something is to act as if it is so." (pg. 318)

"The negative 'answers' [concluding there is no evidence of God in the natural world] that now dominate our culture are mainly based on a socially enforced readiness to disbelieve. And those negative answers, which find no God in nature, really do need help from social conditioning." (pg. 330)

"But if this actually is God’s universe, the current lords of knowledge have made what is surely the greatest mistake in human history. Believing the world is flat or the moon is cheese would be nothing in comparison to their mistake. To believe that the current lords of 'knowledge' are right, on the other hand, is to omit the spiritual God and the spiritual life from the literally real. It is to take them to be illusions; and two or more centuries of 'advanced thinking' have now been devoted to showing that they are illusions. So the battle to identify our universe as God’s and our existence as part of his creation simply has to go on." (pg. 331)

“In the tradition in which I was brought up, scripture reading and prayer were the two main religious things one might do, in addition to attending services of the church. But I was not given to understand that these had to be practiced in a certain way if they were to make a real difference in one’s life.
In particular I did not understand the intensity with which they must be done, nor that the appropriate intensity required that they be engaged in for lengthy periods of undistracted time on a single occasion. Moreover, one’s life as a whole had to be arranged in such a way that this would be possible.” (pg. 356, emphasis my own)

"Suppose I am a pastor. If, truly, God did nothing in my church service, or in response to my efforts in ministry, how much would it really matter if the people in attendance still thought and spoke well of things and returned for the next service and brought their friends? I may be tempted to think I have to attract people to hear me but could get by without God." (pg. 202)