Post 104—Admission, Confession and Total Depravity

Behind the Scene

A reviewer of one of my writings wrote that I write as I talk. Well, yes, I guess that is true. Another characteristic of my writing is that I like to converse with you, my readers, about, for example, the reason for my choosing this or that subject. Today’s topic is kind of an ugly one that I do not particularly enjoy dealing with. The subject arose in my mind in the context of my posts of last month on the World Council of Church and its suggestion that religions should “heal” themselves from their “obsession with conversion.” Just how or why today’s subject arose in that context, I do not quite remember. However, it lead me to write the main body of this post. I did not like the subject and so kept postponing publishing it. However, neither do I like to waste time writing stuff I do not publish.  Besides, ugly as it is, it is a very important truth that cannot be ignored if we wish to understand human history in general or today’s current events or even our individual selves And, oh yes, I am very aware of how politically incorrect the subject is, and how insulting to proud secularists, but, then, I am not known for political correctness. So, here, just as I am and just as we all are-- with no further soft kind of apology.

This post should have been written earlier like in post 100, right after 98 and 99.  Other issues intervened so that the flow of thought was broken. So, while I hope you found the intervening posts helpful, please refresh yourself by going back to posts 98 and 99 in order to get into the right mood for this one—if that’s even possible!

First, a confession or admission.  For a moment I was not sure which is the proper term in this context. I really want to go for the latter, since the concept of confession usually includes an element of guilt. What I’m about to admit here is partially due to ignorance, which in turn, was due to incomplete information, but does not involve any sense of guilt, at least not a heavy dose of it. Don’t worry, if there were heavy guilt involved, I would know it, sense it, recognize it, for as a Christian I am very aware of guilt in all I do, for we confess it regularly in our church services, if not in our personal spiritual life.

In fact, my particular version of Christianity subscribes to the teaching of “total depravity.”  Perhaps you recognize this version as the Calvinist or Reformed or Presbyterian, three terms referring to the same tradition. The last century the term “Kuyperian” and related terms have appeared to point to a sub-group within the Calvinist tradition. It is the “brand” to which I subscribe and which sets the tone for this entire blog as well as my website < www.SocialTheology.com >.

So, “total depravity.”  What an awful term, don’t you think? Even though I subscribe to it, I don’t like the term. Even less do I like its awful reality, but reality it is, believe me. No, don’t take my word for it. Just look around you in the world, in fact, all of world history as well as current events, and it faces you everywhere. But it does not mean what it seems to say on the surface. It does not mean that the human race only does evil, not even its most immoral or amoral members.  But it does mean that everything we do, even the very best, has a negative or sinful aspect to it.  It may not be dominant; the good in a particular action may far outshine that negative part, but it is there without exception, even in the life of the most saintly.

The most saintly missionary of the ancient church, the Apostle Paul, cried out that he, of all men, was the most miserable precisely for this reason. And I am quite sure that even Sister Theresa would have been very conscious of that negative side of her life. Saints, the best people in the world, are usually the most aware of this reality in their own lives. And I say this of Sister Theresa, even though she was a Catholic, a church that rejects “total depravity.”  Her Church may reject it; she personally would have been very conscious of it without approving or using that term to describe it. It’s just part of being a saint: To be aware of your own shortcomings, your own selfishness, etc. A saint never feels that she’s arrived, always feels short. ( Not sure I would dare say this about this lovely Saint if she still were living among us. She just might sue me! You never know what lawyers can talk us into!)

The Heidelberg Catechism, one of the most popular creeds of the Reformed churches, teaches that our wills are “so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all evil.”  This needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  This creed was coined during the hefty years of the Reformation when both sides were inclined to extremes and often threw out babies with the bathwater.  Once the totally aggravated spirits of Europe simmered down a bit and they came to more moderate opinions, they turned to the more moderate opinion I already mentioned. Yes, we are totally corrupt; that is, we can do nothing perfectly; it is always tainted by sin to some degree. But to claim we “are wholly incapable of doing any good” surely goes too far. Was Gandhi, the Hindu, incapable of any good?  Come on. You can’t take that seriously. He has become a human icon and hero to almost all the world. Even Christian leaders like Martin Luther King followed his lead. Gandhi did a whale of a lot of good. Nevertheless, if one were to dissect his soul and mind, he would find that negative factor called sin in the mix, most likely more than you might have expected!

So what is the admission to which I referred in my opening sentence? The conference I discussed in Posts 98 and 99 was held way back in 2006—a decade ago!  I wrote as if it were a current event. This happened because the source as it came to me was undated and I failed to check that out on the internet, even though I gave you the website of WCC in Post 98.  I did not know and I did not practice due diligence, the very failure of which I accuse Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Now is this an admission or a confession? I chose to characterize it as the former. However, I also admit (or confess?) that this failure skirts confession. I did not know, but I could have and should have known by practicing due diligence.  My failure may not be earth shaking, but it was a failure that should not have happened. Failure of due diligence does have an element of guilt or irresponsibility.

In the meantime, I took you along a diversion to one of the most unpopular and unpleasant teachings of Calvinism—but also one of the most realistic ones. 

The wonder of it all is that it has not turned me into a sour puss or miserably negative person. In fact, I am a cheerful person because the other side of the coin is being born again, something I wrote about in an earlier post, and about being forgiven. That combination takes away all the stress of that negative reality. It is still there, but it is trumped by the reality of the other two. Halleluiah!

Note: I will be away camping at a place north of Langley, BC, on the shore of the Fraser River. I expect to come home next week Wednesday, for the weather woman tells me it will rain on that day. During this period, there will be no new posts. And upon my return, there will be so many emails and other stuff needing my attention that it may be a week before you see a new post. But you never know. If the weather changes unexpectedly, I may return home earlier. So, I invite you to keep checking every couple of days. The next post will be on the lighter side of Trump! I suspect you’ve heard of him? As strange as it may sound to some, you will see that there is a lighter side to him. 

Post 76—Stories of Persecution

A number of posts ago, I promised I would occasionally include stories about the persecution suffered by Christians. Those who study that scientifically, mostly Christians, tell us that Christianity is the most persecuted of all religions today.

There are several reasons for this situation. One is that oppressive governments of various stripes fear Christians as potential rivals. 

Another reason is that established religions and ideologies get nervous and jealous when another religion in their neighbourhood expands—and the later is the case with Christianity in many places. For example, China is expected soon to become the country with the largest Christian population. According to some estimates, there are already 100 million Christians in the country, which compares with 87 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (Barnabas Prayer, September 16, 2015).  That, no doubt, is a major reason for Chinese persecution and harassment of Christians, along with their residual Communist heritage. 

A third reason is ruthless ambitions and militant interpretation of some religions, as, e.g. ISIS, Boko Haram in Nigeria and, increasingly, Hindu nationalists in India.  Often behind such persecution is a long history of western colonialism / imperialism and its subtle attempt to impose secularism that has finally come home to roost.

Today’s stories are taken from Barnabas Prayer  (Sept/ Oct., 2015).  For Barnabas itself, see < barnabasaid.org >.

Many Christians in Tanzania are facing serious harassment for trying to engage in the butchery trade, which Muslims seek to control absolutely. There is no Tanzanian law against slaughtering pigs and selling pork (a forbidden meat according to Islamic law), but when Muslims complain, the authorities will often respond as if the Christians were doing something illegal.  In Kigoma, five Christians were arrested in June just for being found in possession of pork meat.  Tanzanian Muslims often claim that only they have the right to slaughter animals for meat, although this is not the case according to Tanzanian law. Yet, in Geita, on May 18, a Christian was arrested just for engaging in butchery work, and in Kagera, a man was offered the choice of paying a fine or going to jail for killing his own cow, eating part of it and selling the rest (September 8, 2015).  I am going to discuss parallel Nigerian situations like this one in the next post to show you that,  as exotic as this sounds to a Canadian, in communities with powerful Muslims this is a common situation.

According to reports, ISIS trains boys aged 8-15 how to kill. They are taught to shoot at close range and made to behead plastic dolls with swords so that they will be able to behead infidels (i.e., mostly Christians). Some of the children have been captured by ISIS. Others are lured to join it with sweets, toys and money, and then turned into killers and suicide bombers (October 17, 2015).

Two Syrian Christian families who sought asylum in Sweden have been persecuted by Syrian Muslims sharing the same communal asylum house and forced to move out. The Muslims banned the Christians from using the communal areas of the house, which accommodated around 890 asylum seekers, and made them hide their crosses. Pray that the Swedish authorities will have wisdom in the arrangements they make and will not unwittingly cause further distress or danger to Christians who have made their way there seeking peace and freedom (September 4, 2015).

Our next story is a prayer:  Almighty God, we pray to you for the many Iraqi Christian women and girls captured by ISIS and sold as slaves. We pray for the Yazidi and other non-Muslim women also sold into slavery by ISIS… who organize the slave-markets and even offered female slaves as prizes in a Qur’an-memorizing competition in June (October 18, 2015).

Tens of thousands of Burundian Christian women and children have fled political violence in their homeland since April to seek refuge in neighbouring Tanzania. The camp facilities are overflowing and there are severe shortages of food and shelter. At the time of writing 55,000 were sleeping in the open air. There is normally a rainy season in November-December, which will make life even worse for those who have no shelter. Tanzanian churches are striving to bring aid to the refugees, but are very poor themselves and had little to share with others. Ask…the Lord to meet the needs of the refugees, who are arriving at the rate of 2500 a day (October 28, 2015)!

In North Korea, Christianity is seen as the foremost threat to the ideology of Juche--total dependence on the ruling Kim family and the state. It is estimated that 100,000 Christians are incarcerated in labour camps, only because of their love for the Lord, clothed in rags, hungry and malnourished, beaten and abused. “But God also comforted me and brought a secret fellowship into existence, says Hae-Woo, one survivor of the labour camps. “Every Sunday we would gather in the toilets and pray (October 29, 2015).

Barnabas Aid reports that “the existential threat to the Christian presence in the Middle East is now being recognized as a cause for concern even by the secular Western media.”  It passes on to us a NY Times reported in July that two-thirds of Iraqi Christians have fled since 2003; a third of Syrian Christians have fled since 2011; the Lebanese Christian population dropped from 78% to 34% during the last century (September 1, 2015).  Their report on the Christian population is horrible, but the new recognition by the press is a rare piece of good news. Similar encouraging trends are in evidence by the fact that both Canadian and American governments have established offices to monitor religious freedom around the world.

I suspect that many Western secularists cannot understand why these Christians are so stubborn in their faith. Why not just change to the majority faith?  What’s the big deal?  Well, these people are often born again and have experienced and met the living Saviour. They are not about to trade Him in for some mythical fanciful idolatry, whether state religion, pagan religion or for the current world’s crop of the most haughty religions, namely Islam and secularism. 

In addition, not all self-declared Christians are born again or are even Christian. Some are adherents to forms of Christianity, including the citizens of “Christendom,” that have in effect become tribal religions that are tied up so closely with their identity that they cannot imagine letting it go for another identity, even under pressure.  Jesus told Nicodemus, a leader among the Jews of his days, that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you must be born again. Calling Abraham your father is no guarantee. I am happy that I am not responsible for ferreting all this out!  

But if you call yourself a Christian and insist on acting like one, no matter where or what kind, you are potentially subject to persecution, whether physical or legal or in some form of discrimination or all of these.  Even in the so-called “tolerant” but secular West.  

Post 71--Born Again—What Is It?

It’s theology time! The term “born again”  has a long history, something to be expected, since Jesus introduced it two millennia ago. It has undergone a long process of definition and redefinition, also something to be expected, since Jesus himself associates it with the Spirit and His unpredictable directions. 

The more “professional” theological term is “regeneration,” which may be defined as “that divine act by which the sinner is endowed with new spiritual life and by which that new life is first called into action.” Or, more simply, “implanting of the new life in the soul.”  It brings about “a radical change of the governing disposition of the soul, under the influence of the Holy Spirit”  (L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pp. 467-469). 

My favourite American theologian and late friend, Gordon Spykman, wrote that  regeneration “refers to a profound change in our condition, its fundamental redirection, the starting point of a renewed life. It is born of the overpowering initiative of the sovereign grace of God.”  It is a “decisive turnaround” that “is a result of the unfathomable work of the Holy Spirit.”   That Spirit “makes us new creatures—our old nature has been buried with Christ and we are now raised with Him to newness of life. The life-renewing Spirit enlightens our blinded minds. He liberates our enslaved wills.”  Once this has happened, “we can never be the same again.”  “Regeneration may be an undateable event. Its time and place may escape us. Yet it marks the dawn of a new day. With it comes a new lease on life. Like a seed sown in the ground, it may remain hidden for a while, but eventually it germinates and bears fruit. Rebirth (Boer: a “delatinized” version of the word) therefore is a total…renewal of the whole person,… the decisive change of the direction….”   (Reformational Theology: A New Paradigm for Doing Dogmatics, pp. 488-489).

The question is: Why born again? What’s the reason? The answer is already embedded in the previous paragraph.  Did you notice “our blinded minds” and “our enslaved wills?”  Over against these stand “newness of life” and enlightenment.

The New Testament (NT) says:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world … gratifying the cravings of our flesh^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3).

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins (Colossians 2:13).

The above are only a few of the many verses in the Bible that describe our desperate situation. We are dead in our “transgressions and sins.” That’s a pretty ugly situation. That’s the short and long of it. It’s something we don’t like to hear or consider. 

But that’s not where it stops. That’s not the last word and not even the most important word. Being born again means that, according to the above verse, “God made us alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins.”  It doesn’t get better than that. There’s no better news than this.  That’s why we need to be reborn, regenerated. It enables us to live the new life, the life that is guided by the standards of the Kingdom of God.

I am bold and grateful to say that I am born again.  God has reworked me. Put a new life and mind in me. The posts of this blog are kind of an illustration of such a person, along with the mistaken thoughts that still occur, for we are still surrounded by worldly standards that sometimes creep back into our minds.

I am very conscious of continued shortcomings, but that does not depress me or make me sad. My main emotion or attitude is one of joy and gratitude for forgiveness and the new life given me. Those are the final words: forgiveness, and therefore joy and gratitude. 

This is all very short about a profound reality. If you wish to pursue it further, scour the internet for books on the subject. There should be plenty. But let me tell you: Being born again is a great experience that’s with you for ever.  And it has nothing to do with the scornful caricatures we come across in the media. It has everything to do with seeing the world and your neighbor with new eyes and new values.

In closing for the day, here’s a joyful and grateful sound in the NT from one who experienced this rebirth—I Peter 1:3

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

That’s how the more formal New International Version puts it. A more informal translation is that of Eugene Peterson’s The Message:

What a God we have!  And how fortunate we are to have Him…! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts right now.

And then he goes on:

I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime.

I’m tempted to keyboard the rest of that joyful passage for you, but you can find it in any Bible. Go, read it, and you’ll notice the joy and laughter this born again thing produces in its happy recipients, the citizens of the Kingdom of God with its new ambitions, new values, new hopes and new visions—a completely new and upbeat life for which people throughout the centuries literally give up their lives. Taste and see that the Lord is good!

Post 70--Born Again

You’ve come to expect a mix of religious and so-called “secular” topics from me. I’ve explained the reasons for that more than once. It is simply that they are not two separate areas or regions so much as that religion underlies all subjects; it serves as their substratum.  They do not exist as separate entities so much as the religious infusing and shaping everything else. 

And so, today we jump from the topic of water consumption to that of being born again. The reason for my concern for the economics and ecology of water consumption is precisely because I am born again. Of course, reason, observation, experience, etc., all play a part as well, but the direction in which they lead you is ultimately decided by your value system, your worldview, your beliefs and, finally, your religion, i.e., your ultimates. If you are truly born again, then water issues must concern you, for they are so basic to the life of your neighbor throughout the world.

Born again. In the minds of the average writer in the Vancouver Sun (VS) this is about the most vicious pejorative you can use to describe Christian Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, especially their American versions.  Once you have described Evangelical or Fundamentalist action as the result of being born again, you no longer have to take it seriously; it is guaranteed to be wrong, damaging, anti-social, ridiculous even. Nothing further needs to be said.

But what is this thing called “born again?”   Let’s go back to the original reference to it in the Bible:

Jesus Teaches Nicodemus

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.^[a]”

⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit^[b] gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You^[c]must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3).

It must be admitted that Jesus’ explanation is not too clear to our modern way of thinking, but one thing is clear: It is necessary if we wish to see the Kingdom of God.  It is not just something nice, not just icing on the cake of salvation; It is a necessary condition.  Without it you cannot see the Kingdom of God; without it, you cannot be a Christian. That’s pretty drastic. 

Since the early history of Christian theology, scholars have widely discussed the meaning of being born again. I hope to take you through some of that in the next post.  However, it is no wonder that it is unpopular with the secular crowd. The need for it is the human condition, which, according to both the Bible and Christian theology, is totally distorted.  May I say the word?  Sinful!  Stronger still, dead in sin!  There, I’ve said it. Phew! Now that ain’t pretty and it’s not going to raise my popularity with my favourite VS writers, most of whom I appreciate and read regularly. 

No wonder that proud mankind is offended by this evaluation of human nature. And no wonder most folk try to evade its truth by poking fun of it and castigating it for its association in our minds with extreme fundies in the southern USA. In terms of the West, it has been rejected in principle ever since the Renaissance centuries ago and by the subsequent philosophical developments through rationalism, secularism and post-modernism.  It is offensive, humiliating, demeaning. It is one of the reasons the dominant worldview in the West rejects it outright and pokes fun of it.