In an excerpt from The Joyful Christian, C.S. Lewis aptly describes the necessity of both personal experience and doctrine in the Christian life. He shows the connection between the two. As someone who has encountered God in the study of Christian beliefs, I face the regular challenge to remember that knowing things about God is not the same thing as knowing God. To read about doctrine is not the same thing as encountering the real God. On the other hand, I appreciate Lewis’ description of doctrine as the amalgamation of lots of peoples’ real encounters with God. Anyway, here is Lewis:

In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, “I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!”

Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real, to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from real waves to a bit of colored paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.

Now Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But the map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you or I are likely to get on our own way are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map. You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads nowhere. There is nothing to do about it. In fact, that is just why a vague religion—all about feeling God in nature, and so on—is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.

Via a link from Tony Jones, I have enjoyed the word clouds on Wordle. Here are a few word clouds taken from the texts of some sermons I’ve given. You can see the rest here.

“When God Changed the Rules,” Jeremiah 31.31-34

“Behind Locked Doors,” John 20.19-23

“A Mother, a Disciple,” Luke 1.46-56

President Obama’s recently signed an order lifting the ban on government money funding embryonic stem cell research. USA Today reported,

The audience burst into applause at several points when Obama implicitly rebuked former president George W. Bush for what opponents have characterized as making decisions based on ideology rather than sound science.

I won’t comment on the order signed by Obama. I want to use this matter as an illustration of a fallacy in our thinking. Those who have criticized President Bush for “making decisions based on ideology rather than sound science” are not without an ideology themselves. Their beliefs of what constitutes “sound science” and how science should shape how the government funds research follow an ideology. Everyone holds ideologies, especially when it comes to areas of morality and politics. Ideology is a neutral term. An ideology comprises a set of beliefs, values, and doctrines that guide a person or group and I can think of no one who is void of ideology. I am fond of saying everyone has a theology because everyone has some beliefs about divinity. The person who does not believe in a divine being, or the person who says there is no way we can truly know if there is a divine being, hold as much a theological position as the Christian who recites the Nicene Creed. Ideology works the same way. The most pragmatic utilitarian position that seeks to do the least amount of harm for the least amount of people adheres to an ideology. To criticize someone for letting ideology guide their decision-making is a rather weak argument. The question is not will we let ideology shape our public policy, but what ideologies do we let shape our public policies?

We may disagree vehemently with another person’s ideology, but it gets us nowhere to criticize the person for being ideological. Each ideology has non-negotiable points and we can debate whether those non-negotiables do more harm than good. Even a total laissez-faire attitude comes from an ideology with strong non-negotiables. The amount of non-negotiables in an ideology, the positions of an ideology, how stridently that ideology requires adherence, all these matters are open to critique. So is the way in which a person chooses to conform to the ideology. In other words, to criticize someone or some position for being “ideological” does not get to the heart of the matter because there is no such thing as a non-ideological person or a non-ideological position. When people criticize others for being ideological, they are really criticizing the ideology’s non-negotiables for being wrong, or they are criticizing others for being unwilling to listen to different information. We should not strive for an ideology-free society—as if there ever could be one—but a society that values and adheres to good ideologies.

While in Hawaii last week—about which I’ll write more later—I read William Willimon’s thought-provoking book on clergy ethics, Calling and Character: Virtues of the Ordained Life. He writes specifically to those ordained for ministry, but because of the difficulty it is within the Body of Christ to distinguish one member’s ethical responsibilities from another’s, much of what Willimon writes is relevant to the whole Church. I appreciate greatly how he describes the necessity of community in order to practice Christian ethics.

We ought to placard over all Christian ethics, “DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.” That is, do not try to live nonviolently, simply, or graciously without a community strong enough to back you up in such endeavors. Do not try to be extraordinarily faithful apart from a community that is extraordinarily forgiving. Violence, servility to the powers, and deceit come quite naturally to us. The lone individual, attempting to stand alone is no match for the subtle and persistent pressures of the empire. Do not attempt to protect the life of the unborn apart from a community that assumes responsibility for those who are ill equipped to have children in isolation and loneliness. It is the church that makes Christian ethics make sense. (86-87)

I’ll likely post a few quotations over the next few weeks since I found Calling and Character especially invigorating and thought-provoking. But anyone who has read or listened to Willimon will not be surprised that I found the book thought-provoking.

I haven’t been blogging as much since taking the position of a pastor. Most of my creative energy for writing goes into sermons these days. Preaching regularly makes me think a lot about public speaking in general and I have become something of a critic of oratory. One thing I have noticed in my own speaking is that I have some of the worst public speaking traits of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. I consider Obama to be a fine speaker, perhaps one of the best I’ve ever heard, whereas Bush is serviceable and not someone whose rhetorical abilities I want to emulate.

In my sermons I work from a manuscript because I like to craft exactly what I am going to say. Part of my reasoning for this is that I want to make sure that I communicate accurately and part of it is that I’m like Bush when he goes off the cuff. Without a script, I have no idea what might come out of my mouth. I’ve put my foot in my mouth enough times to know that without choosing my words carefully beforehand, I am taking a gamble and the house usually wins. I don’t want a daily calendar of “Wastonisms” to ever surface (see here for the Bush version).

Off the cuff, Obama comes across as a funny, warm guy. In his speeches, however, he is stern, serious, and decidedly void of humor. He can come across as something of a stick in the mud. The same goes for me in my public speaking. I think I have a decent sense of humor, but I can’t write funny lines very easily. As I prepare my sermons, it’s hard for me to fit in jokes. I worry that I come across much more dour in the pulpit than I actually am. Maybe I should just preach from Jeremiah and Lamentations and blame my lack of humor on the fact that I am trying to be faithful to somber tone of the texts.

I recently saw John Patrick Shanley’s film, Doubt that he adapted to the screen from a play he wrote. For the week after I watched it, not an hour of the day went by without me thinking about it or at least about its discussion of doubt. A common perception is that doubt is the opposite of faith. I believe, however, that faith is bigger than doubt, and that faith actually contains doubt within it. Certainty seems to be the opposite of doubt. We can describe faith as doubt and certainty. I’d like to explore these matters in a series of posts. What do you think of my description of faith as certainty and doubt?

Both the play and film open with a haunting sermon from Father Flynn, which I will quote in its entirety. I find great comfort and challenge in these words.

What do you do when you’re not sure? That’s the topic of my sermon today. You look for God’s direction and can’t find it. Last year when President Kennedy was assassinated, who among us did not experience the most profound disorientation. Despair. “What now? Which way? What do I say to my kids? What do I tell myself?” It was a time of people sitting together, bound together by a common feeling of hopelessness. But think of that! Your bond with your fellow beings was your despair. It was a public experience, shared by everyone in our society. It was awful, but we were in it together! How much worse is it then for the lone man, the lone woman, stricken by a private calamity? “No one knows I’m sick. No one knows I’ve lost my last real friend. No one knows I’ve done something wrong.” Imagine the isolation. You see the world as through a window. On the one side of the glass: happy, untroubled people. On the other side: you. Something has happened, you have to carry it, and it’s incommunicable. For those so afflicted, only God knows their pain. Their secret. The secret of their alienating sorrow. And when such a person, as they must, howls to the sky, to God: “Help me!” What if no answer comes? Silence. I want to tell you a story. A cargo ship sank and all her crew was drowned. Only this one sailor survived. He made a raft of some spars and, being of a nautical discipline, turned his eyes to the Heavens and read the stars. He set a course for his home, and, exhausted, fell asleep. Clouds rolled in and blanketed the sky. For the next twenty nights, as he floated on the vast ocean, he could no longer see the stars. He thought he was on course by there was no way to be certain. As the days rolled on, and he wasted away with fevers, thirst and starvation, he began to have doubts. Had he set his course right? Was he still going on towards his home? Or was he horribly lost and doomed to a terrible death? No way to know. The message of the constellations—had he imagined it because of his desperate circumstance? Or had he seen Truth once, and now had to hold on to it without further reassurance? This was his dilemma on a voyage without apparent end. There are those of you in church today who know exactly the crisis of faith I describe. I want to say to you: Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

In the January 19th edition of Sightings, Martin Marty takes the opportunity of the transition of power to reflect on who we as Americans want to be.

The text for our meditation is something the late columnist Mike Royko wrote when he bade good-bye to the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. My Royko books are in storage and what he said was not lifted up by Google and other search engines, but it was etched in my mind, and I hope that my reproduction is faithful. It went something like this: “Farewell, President Johnson. You weren’t the best president a people ever had, but we were not the best people a president ever had.”

This season people are still debating whether President Bush, who, I think, is being mentioned in this column for the first time on his last day in office, is “the worst president a people ever had,” and I don’t think we are “the worst people a president ever had.” But Inauguration Day is a good time to reflect on “what kind of people we have been” and “what kind of people might we wish to be and might become.”...

What kind of people do we want to be with a new president who has such lofty ideas about what he wants to be? A sermon: We might do better if we aspire to be good rather than claim to be good; if we become a self-claimed godly people who serve God more than we boast about our goodness; if we spend less time fighting over who prays when and where and how, and let the intrinsic value of praying speak for itself….

What kind of people do we want to be? A people not paralyzed by fear and insecurity in the face of fearful threats; a people more dedicated than before to the education of all and health care for all; a people concerned with the environment given – many of us say – by a generous Creator; a people concerned for the rights of others. In four or eight years we hope to bid our now-new president farewell upon his retirement: “Farewell. Your and our record is mixed, but there is good in it. And you and we and the people we affect can live with that.”

My friend Josh informed me that UC Davis emeritus professor of religious studies, Lincoln D. Hurst died on November 11 of this year at the age of 62. Hurst was one of the most popular professors among the Christian population at UCD. He taught primarily New Testament and Christian theology courses. In some ways, Hurst was a rarity in the scholastic world. He taught at a secular university and believed in much of the New Testament texts his classes covered. Hurst was a proclaimed theist—he wouldn’t admit to much more in classes, though it was clear in conversations that he was a Christian. Most Christian academics dealing with that level of scholarship work at seminaries or faith-based colleges and universities. Hurst’s academic career landed him knee-deep in the interest and debates surrounding the historical Jesus, with the Jesus Seminar making the covers of national magazines. He often criticized the methods and findings of the Jesus Seminar while appreciating the work of some of its members. The courses I took from him dealt heavily with the historical settings of the New Testament and early Christianity.

Hurst acted as my true introduction to an academic treatment of the Bible and Christian origins. In his classes I heard the names and read from N. T. Wright, Bruce Metzger, Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and C. H. Dodd for the first time. His critical approach made sense in my mind and I found my faith deepened by his classes. We made the joke that if you sat in on the first two lectures of any one of his New Testament courses, you wouldn’t be able to tell what class that was since they always covered the historical setting of first century Palestine—e.g., the different sects of Judaism, the Herodian monarchy, Rome, etc. The students of Davis have lost a special voice on campus.

UCD’s daily newspaper, the California Aggie has a nice write-up on Hurst as does the religious studies department website.

The congregation I serve shares a campus with a Spanish-speaking Covenant congregation. It has been a joy to get to know the staff and people of Iglesia Del Pacto (IDP) since I started at Eagle Rock Covenant Church. Yesterday IDP had their annual Christmas potluck after the worship service and they graciously invited us from the English-speaking congregation to join them. We had a great time meeting new people, laughing, and eating terrific food. I also experienced one of those moments when the reality of the kingdom of God is overwhelming. Usually those moments are not something altogether unique and yesterday was no different. It came as Gus, the worship pastor of IDP, prayed for the meal in Spanish. I barely picked up a few words since my Spanish is terrible to non-existent. As Gus prayed, I was in awe of the fact that we worship this big and glorious and multilingual God who loves and receives praise from his children who speak all sorts of languages. How many times in my life have I heard prayers in languages I do not speak? For whatever reason, yesterday’s prayer moved me. I am so grateful to be a member of Christ’s bride. We as one are all preparing to celebrate the incarnation in a few days. How amazing it is to think we worship the same God. That is a miracle of Christmas.

Some food for thought from Charles Schulz regarding our Christmas traditions.