Personal Excellence 3

This is my next to last post in a series of personal excellence based off a talk I gave to our student group this semester. I am entering the home stretch of the semester and will have plenty to write about very soon. Clara is coming along nice in our first pregnancy. Little Owen by all accounts seems healthy.

Personal excellence requires a right theology: The proper theology of personal excellence is not easily divisible from the proper motivation, but I want to elaborate here on a specific spiritual point: an understanding of scripture compels a believer to desire excellence in every situation in which they find themselves. I think there is a tendency in contemporary Christianity to see a stark dividing line between things of this world and the things of God. This has a long and storied tradition (including, within classical Christian thought, the fourth century African bishop Augustine), but I fear that it has more in common with Plato and the Greeks than with the New Testament. For Plato and Aristotle, this physical world was a detestable thing to be rejected and the physical body a nuisance to be cast aside. But in Christian theology, a good God made this world very good and Romans chapter eight tells us that it groans now in eager anticipation for its restoration. Creation is both good and bad. Likewise, God made man in his own image and after his own likeness, but we have sinned and mucked up this image of God within each of us. We also, like creation, groan in our bodies waiting for the restoration of all things, the day when God makes all things new, and our perishable bodies take on the imperishable. This is not to say that the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of heaven overlap one-hundred percent. This is another contemporary error on a different end of the spectrum, but there is certainly a degree of overlap. We are exhorted by Jesus to ask God to bring his kingdom to this earth that his will may be done here, and this began with the rending of the veil in the Temple, with God in the flesh coming to this planet.

I apologize for this long aside, but what I am trying to say here is that when we divide the world up neatly into two opposing kingdoms—God’s and this world’s—everything that seems to be tainted by this world becomes utterly valueless. My answer to this is that the division is not so neat as we can often imagine. Why else would Paul write to the Thessalonian Christians: “⁹Now concerning^(S) brotherly love^(T) you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been^(U) taught by God^(V) to love one another, ¹⁰for that indeed is what^(W) you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to^(X) do this more and more, ¹¹and to aspire^(Y) to live quietly, and^(Z) to mind your own affairs, and^(AA) to work with your hands, as we instructed you, ¹²so that you may^(AB) walk properly before^(AC) outsiders and be dependent on no one” (4:9-12). Why are slaves not told to neglect their work so that they can do spiritual things? If there is no value in the secular work that we do than why are we commanded to remain in those occupations? The obvious answer is that we are commanded to engage diligently with our vocation in this world because God can get glory from our hard work in the secular world.

And the goal of this proper theology is, of course, like everything else, to glorify God. James Davison Hunter is a Christian and a professor at the University of Virginia. His writings on the sociology of the church are a gift to the body of Christ. In a recently published book, titled, aptly, To Change the World, Dr. Hunter makes the following statement: “ If there are benevolent consequences of our engagement with the world, in other words, it is precisely because it is not rooted in a desire to change the world for the better but rather because it is an expression of a desire to honor the creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth, a manifestation of our loving obedience to God, and a fulfillment of God’s command to love our neighbor” (234). The great reformer Martin Luther, several hundred years before Dr. Hunter, perhaps put it more simply when he said that a “dairy maid can milk cows to the glory of God.”

An improper understanding of this principle completely destroyed me at my last major job. I worked for nearly four years for 50-55 hours per week in the sales department for a large, multinational wholesaler and I believe I hated nearly every minute of it. I failed to engage with this truth of scripture that I am to work before the Lord, that I am to glorify him in all of my endeavors and live in faith even in the workplace. You see I viewed the workplace as valuable only insofar as it allowed me opportunities for outreach. After a few months when it became apparent that my coworkers were godless heathens (I say this jokingly) I had no purpose behind showing up every day. If there wasn’t going to be revival at Ferguson Enterprises than I was just there to collect a paycheck. So, I wasn’t a very good worker. I looked like a good worker. I feel like the guy in Office Space who did just enough work to make it look like I was working but the rest of the time I essentially wasted. Also, I began to see all work in the world as worthless and detestable and I began to fetishize working for the church, as if this were the only vehicle through which to honor God. As you can imagine, this led to no great outcomes in my life. And, more importantly, it gave God no glory. Do not withhold glory from God because you don’t like your work. Work hard and see what happens. This is the theology of work that is in the Bible. You’re trusting him for the results, you’re trusting him for success, and you’re trusting him that he can receive glory from the way that you work. And that is no small ambition.

Personal Excellence 2

This post is the second in a series on the topic of personal excellence based on a talk I gave to the student group at our church recently. The following posts will highlight w

Personal Excellence requires proper motivation: our primary, overruling motivation to pursue excellence must emanate from a desire to give God glory. Any other motivation will end in seeking the vain praise of other people. Our goal and aim is praise from God. You can have one without the other. Don’t mistake praise from men as praise from God. Jesus warned the Pharisees as they performed their ostentatious displays of religiosity in front of crowds of people that “They have received their reward in full.” We ought to live as people seeking a reward that cannot be fully given in this lifetime. We ought to make it our aim to hear the words of the good master in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (25:21).

A secondary motivation, implicit in the parable of the talents I have just mentioned, is that, we have been given a charge by our Lord to be faithful in that which he has given us. Jesus tells us in Luke 16, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (16:10). Also, related to this, “To whom much is given, much is required.” There are few American Christians who could contend that we have not been given much. In terms of opportunity, wealth, health, and even technology our place in history is unrivalled. How will we use it? Will we use what God has given us to become excellent students, employees, missionaries, teachers, nurses, engineers, auto mechanics, preachers, fathers, husbands, mothers, wives, sons, daughters, followers of Jesus, friends, and servants? I shudder sometimes to think of what God has given me and how small my response has been.

A third motivation: When God first called Abram away from his people he gave him the following promise: “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (12:3). In other words, God blesses us so that we are equipped and can turn around and bless others. The blessings that we receive do not end with us--they are meant to be used to point others towards God. Excellence is a surefire way to be capable of blessing others. Excellence in whatever walk of life opens the doors for us to bless other people.

Biblically, I think immediately here of the story of Nehemiah. I don’t have time tonight to get into every detail of that incredible story, but here are the pertinent facts as it concerns our present discussion: Nehemiah was a Jew in exile working in the court of King Artaxerxes, otherwise known as the king of the Persian empire. He was obviously a diligent and accomplished worker and eventually found his way into a position as cupbearer to the king, a position of some prominence. One day, after hearing fresh information on the status of the temple in Jerusalem and the Jewish people in general Nehemiah became depressed and entered Artaxerxes’ presence in that state. Artaxerxes, clearly not used to seeing Nehemiah downcast, asked him what the trouble was and Nehemiah told him. Because of this, Artaxerxes opened up the finances of the Persian empire to aid Nehemiah in his efforts to rebuild the temple. Because Nehemiah was a good worker with a positive attitude, the temple was rebuilt. When God blesses us, we must bless others.

Personal Excellence 1

We are getting to that point in the semester where my life is robbed from me for about four or five weeks and I pile myself under mostly unread books in my office and try to find something to say that will be both interesting enough to keep me busy and content for this seemingly interminable period and, perhaps more importantly, something that my professors will enjoy and reward me with high marks for having written. Therefore, blog activity will be truncated until this period ends when I will have a flood of new material to write about, including: Christian socialism, James Joyce, getting back into running after a long winter’s hibernation, the debilitating Kansas summer heat, impending fatherhood, and much more.

In the meantime, I am going to cop out and do a series of posts based on a message that I gave recently to the student group at our church. This is mostly so I don’t have to do much original thinking for the purposes of this blog and because the topic will be a good reminder to me to persevere in this trying time. This post is by way of introduction and I will follow it up with four posts that highlight the main points of my talk, posting once a week until the madness of this semester passes.

The topic of the message was personal excellence and the Biblical mandate, if indeed there is one, for a Christian to strive for excellence in what you could call worldly matters, the everyday things such as: working a job, being a student, pursuing hobbies, etc. I believe this enough of a framework in which this can make sense. Here was my introduction:

Let me begin by saying that I was asked to speak on this topic not because of any level of personal excellence that I have attained in my life. My inclinations are toward apathy and general uselessness, an ideal life for me would consist of lots of time spent watching courtroom dramas, running, and playing Ultimate Frisbee. However, I have been saved by a great God by great grace and mercy and therefore see myself as called and bound to transcend my natural dispositions. If I have any excellence, it does not emanate from an inclination towards discipline or a ten step plan towards excellence that I follow to perfection, but from God who loved me and saved me and wants to show himself glorious through my life.

This semester in my Renaissance era course I read a book by Count Baldesar Castiglione called The Book of the Courtier. In it, the good count goes on for over 300 pages describing the qualities and attributes desirable in a young man seeking to serve before a prince or king at court. If you have ever heard of the idea of the “Renaissance man,” this conception probably arises out of such works as these. You must be strong and a good fighter, speak Latin and Greek, have read all of the classics, be an accomplished horseman and swordsman, have a high degree of piety, basically be amazing at everything you do while pretending you don’t care about whatever it is you are doing. The literate population of Europe devoured this book. People everywhere read it diligently and tried with all of their might to implement its steps and follow Castiglione’s model. They did it because they wanted to serve before an earthly king with a temporal kingdom. We believe, as Christians, that we are co-heirs with the King of Kings and serve before an eternal God who will rule over an eternal kingdom. I want to suggest that we ought to desire to serve our King with the same fervency and diligence that the prospective courtiers exemplified in their desire to serve before their kings.

This is a difficult topic to discuss and I will try and be careful with my language tonight so as not to overstep any bounds and say something untrue. Nowhere in the Bible are we explicitly exhorted to be as excellent as we can be. Indeed, the reason for our calling, as Paul reminds the Corinthian church is for God to show favor to those who are lowly, i.e. unexcellent, in the eyes of the world: “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; he chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29). And, indeed, any personal excellence that we display in this life is fully attributable to God and his mercy. However, as true as our lowly position might be in this world, things have changed as we have been saved by God and set apart to be his representatives on this planet. We have new standards; many of us were lowly when we were called, but we are not merely to remain that way, but to excel in whatever station of life God has placed us in so that his glory and fame may spread into all of the world.

There are many scriptures I could point to which allude to this point, but for the sake of time I will flag one verse as the thesis for this talk, the jump-off point for the rest of the discussion. This is from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (3:24-25). Our job at our jobs is to glorify the Lord through our work, to approach our position—however lowly or exalted—with a disciplined ethic and a heart to honor God, first and foremost, through our labor. This is nothing less than a call to be excellent. And because I am a good English major and I am supposed to give my thesis statement up front, here it is: as we seek to glorify God in all that we do and work as before him and not before men, this will lead us to see value in our everyday life, work, and relationships and as we pursue God’s glory and his blessing, excellence will come as a byproduct of our aim to glorify God.

Beyond Madness

Every year, basketball pundits declare that we have just experienced the craziest March Madness of all time. They seem surprised, as if the name March Madness didn’t almost necessitate craziness. This year it has been beyond madness, though. I don’t even know of a word to describe it (and I’m an English major who owns a thesaurus),  but it has easily been the craziest year I have ever seen. And we’re not even done. Virginia Commonwealth might be cutting down the nets in Houston next Monday.

It would be difficult to provide a systematic analysis of what has just happened. I won’t even try. I glanced over the carnage of my bracket today almost in disbelief. For the first time that I have ever filled out a bracket for this tournament I have zero of the final four teams. Zero. None. UNC and KU both went down today, the final two I had. My national championship prediction. And I wasn’t even surprised. VCU’s ride has an air of inevitability, providence even, about it. From the moment they stepped on the court against KU this afternoon it felt like they were going to win. There was an aura surrounding the game of certainty. It was weird. If I were a betting man I would have bet the farm on VCU... against Kansas... in a basketball game. Can you believe that? Likewise with Butler. Everything has been going their way. My mind is spinning circles right now trying to decide who I want to pick for that matchup. I just wish they could play in the national championship. The combined ages of Brad Stevens of Butler and Shaka Smart of VCU add up to Jim Calhoun of Connecticut, another coach still dancing. You can’t make that up.

Part of me can see now why March Madness has its naysayers. No one, mind you, will say that it is anything other than utterly mad. But people say, and this has more than a grain of truth, that it is not a great method for crowning the truly best team in college basketball. VCU loses eleven times in the regular season, gets into the tournament ahead of “more qualified” teams, plays all out for 40 minutes and beats a team from a power conference who lost twice all year. To the naysayers this is insincere. Anything can happen in one game. If KU and VCU go best of seven, KU wins the series 4-1, or so the argument goes. After a year like this, and a succession of games like we have just witnessed, this strikes me, or I want it to strike me, as valid.

But that is not what college basketball is about. This is what makes it so much fun. Practically speaking, would NBA style playoffs really work at the collegiate level? First of all, there are 346 teams in DI college hoops. The NBA has thirty teams. Where do you draw the line for a basketball playoff? The top eight? Sixteen? It doesn’t work that way. Would anyone want to watch three months of college playoffs like the pros have to go through? These are students, after all, not professional athletes (an ever blurring distinction). Given these restrictions and complications it has to be this way. Will the winner of this year’s tournament really be the best all-around basketball team in the country? In a sense, and depending on your metric, no. It rarely works out that way. But the team who is able to win six games in a row in a ferocious format will be declared the champion of this tournament. And on the first day of games, that privilege is available to all 68 teams who are competing (and this year we have to stretch to those first four). Not everyone has an equal chance, of course. But everyone has a chance. David can beat Goliath and Goliath will stay dead. No matter how many people they beat before then or how many future NBA players are on the roster. One loss and your dreams are over. And the little guy lives to fight another day.

Long live the madness.

Libya 2

Here are a few links to some articles I read this week on Libya that I found interesting. The outcome of this conflict is far from decided and for now I have settled on praying for the best.

Here is a measured piece from The Economist that suggests the differences between Libya and Iraq and the hopefulness of the ability of the United States to withdraw soon from the coalition effort.

This one is a little less even-handed and certainly less optimistic about the chances for success, though worth reading and thought provoking.

Here, Newt Gingrich was for Libyan intervention until Obama decided to intervene, and then, of course, he was against it.

Also, watch the video from John Stewart's "The Daily Show" further down on that page about Republican vacillation on the issue. This has far more to due with the toxic nature of politics these days than with anything substantial regarding Libya. The Democrats hammered Bush unfairly for everything he did, thought, or said for eight years (excluding the week or two following 9/11) and now it is the Republicans' turn to act as the party of grown-ups and rise above this petty politicking. Or, to do the exact same thing.

Libya

I don’t write too often about politics these days. My affection for the subject has waned in recent years as I have come to understand that I have less and less of the complexities of this world figured out. The human race doesn’t work in the neat conservative/liberal divide that our modern media so easily presumes. Also, our fragmented and ever-changing political system leaves little stability and the constant news cycle leaves a steady stream of Pyrrhic victories for the cable news shows to fret over for a few days until the next big thing happens. However, this current escalation in Libya leaves me wondering about a few things:

1) What is the goal of our involvement? Do we want to oust Qaddafi and will stick around until that happens? Do we want to provide a safe zone for rebels and leave Qaddafi and his loyalists entrenched in Tripoli? Do we want to support a democratic regime change in the country? We don’t know any of this. Obama has hinted towards a Qaddafi ouster while Admiral Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff seems to indicate the goal is containment. Until we know what our goal is, how can we have a metric for victory? It is this sort of shaky commitment that led to, not so much Iraq and Afghanistan, as Somalia and Kosovo in the ‘90s. We need a clear vision.

2) Can the objectives of intervention, whatever they may be, actually be attained without putting boots on the ground in Libya? If the only goal is to provide air support for the rebels than the answer to this question is yes. However, if the goal is for any broader level democratic efforts or even the ouster of Qaddafi the answer is no. Are we willing to commit ground troops to this enterprise? Can we avoid it without leaving the rebels out to rot?

3) Do we know anything about the rebels and are we confident they are any better than Qaddafi? As bad as Iraq has been (and as improperly handled) I can only imagine how much worse it would have been for the Iraqi people had we merely removed Saddam and left a giant power vacuum in the country. How do we avoid giving power in Libya to the devil we don’t know? This is a huge unknown and I haven’t heard anything hinting toward a satisfactory answer.

4) Why Libya and not Yemen or Bahrain? The same day we announced support for intervention in Libya, news broke of Yemenis troops opening fire into a crowd of protesters, killing hundreds. A state of emergency was declared in the country, an act that usually allows the power class the right to restrain and punish opposition in the name of protecting against chaos. Why is this less worthy of intervention than Libya? This, of course, opens a whole other can of worms concerning intervention. When do we do it and why? What are the metrics for intervention? A certain number of people dead? an offensive and evil ruler? our chances for success at promoting democracy? the support of a broad international coalition? This gets tricky. And picking one over another does not seem to clarify the issue.

Of course I wish for success in the effort, but am not entirely hopeful. I keep thinking of the Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Perhaps when a rebel group declares its democratic intentions and promises to abide by certain standards for support, we could provide them with the means to topple dictatorship, but it seems foolhardy to just start dropping bombs and hoping for the best. That’s my two cents.

Also, I encourage a reading of David Brooks’s op-ed from the New York Times today about the perils of multilateral intervention. Really, you should just read Brooks every week if you don't already.

N.T. Wright 2

As promised in the preceding post, here is a review of N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. Though I would rather be chiming in to the chorus of voices on Grand Rapids pastor Rob Bell and his new book, I will probably have to wait until the semester is over and I have time to do some luxury reading to give it the attention it deserves (but do watch this video of Bell getting grilled by an MSNBC reporter). I could do as some have done and review a book without having read the whole thing, but Jonathan Swift has some harsh words for critics who act in this manner. After I extricate myself from Marxism in the seventeenth century, the vanity of youth in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and certainty in the works of John Foxe compared to doubting and uncertainty in John Donne (my term papers for this semester) I look forward to taking a close look at Bell’s work.

What makes the mention of Bell relevant in the context of an N.T. Wright post is that in many ways Bell seems to see himself as an American proponent of Wrightian theology. Bell, though, seems to circumvent the traditionalist stance taken by Wright in his works and has not even come close to the level of scholarship Wright has under his belt, but Bell seems consciously aware of the influence of Wright and has back-cover endorsements on at least two of Wright’s popular level books. Anyways, this sounds like it is turning into a review of Bell, which I already promised I wouldn’t do. On to Wright.

The biggest theme of Surprised is rethinking the popular concept of heaven, the afterlife, and the power of the resurrection of Christ as well as the resurrection of Christian believers and how a reexamination of these truths will lead to a more theologically coherent and missiologically sound church. Perhaps Wright’s biggest target relating to this guiding theme is the popular conception of a disembodied, ulterior realm called heaven as the final dwelling place of the saints of God. This is a position that has never sat well with me, reading passages such as: Romans 8 where Paul tells us that creation is groaning in anticipation for the day when it will be redeemed--if God is just going to destroy it someday, will that really be redemption?; 1 Corinthians 15, the most famous passage (and famously confusing) in Scripture on resurrection where we are told that death no longer has dominion and has lost its sting--if we simply go in spirit form to an alternate, disembodied realm can death really be said to have been defeated? It seems rather that though still dead we continue some sort of spirit existence; nearly the entire book of Revelation, where we are told about the new heavens and the new earth descending and our glorified Lord tells us that he is making all things new does not make any sense whatever if the earth is fully bad and irredeemable and must be destroyed some day. Building off of these, and other, passages, Wright builds a case that when we die we will join Christ immediately (as was Paul’s clear hope: Philippians 1), but that there is a day also when the dead in Christ will rise and be joined together with him and his reign on this earth will begin. To a theological geek like me this was thrilling reading and I wish I had time to get in to all of the sub points Wright examines along the way, but the big question arising from all of the book is why does this matter? Heaven/new earth, spirit/resurrected body--who cares?

Wright here argues that our views of eschatology (death and/or the end of the world) have practical effects on the way we live out life on this earth. If we believe that this planet is cursed and God is going to zap it some day there is no point in cultivating it in love as his creation, bearing the divine imprint. In this view of the world, only things done for the “gospel” will be seen by the church to have an substantive value and everything done in the world--working hard at a job, writing a great Master’s thesis, being a really great plumber--will seem valueless because it is fleeting. But if we believe that God is coming back to this place and will restore it and that at this moment we are caught somewhere between creation and new creation, our work in this world will take on immense value, everything done in this world that is done in faith and in pursuit of God’s glory will be eternal, whether it is doing missions work in the Middle East or changing an old couple’s tire or studying for a Physics exam when you would rather watch a movie. What is done on this earth matters and will last.

For me this is glorious, liberating theology. My life at school--reading Marxist historians on the English civil war, helping college freshman write composition papers, working diligently so as to be able to participate in class lectures--would all seem like a waste of time if the above paragraph were not true. As Christians, in a world starkly divided between the things of God and the things of this world only the things of God seem to matter. When we refuse to see the world in this dichotomous relationship, though, and see creation and new creation intertwined what we do has value.

This is not to say I didn’t have reservations reading Wright’s work. One of the more frustrating elements of Wright’s work is the shortness of the book. Since he has written in-depth, 700+ page defenses of the resurrection in other places, this book functioned as a sort of Reader's Digest version of these earlier texts. This left Wright’s exegesis of certain Biblical texts foundational to his argument short on depth--his numerous references back to his earlier scholarship has convinced me to purchase a couple of earlier books but did not provide the Biblical meat behind Wright’s claims that one would hope for a popular level book. In a sense, writing for a popular audience instead of a more narrow scholarly world I would contend that one has to be even more careful with Biblical explication since the readers will not share an intuitive understanding of the original languages and could become convinced on the basis of the author’s authority rather than Scriptures. In no way do I think this was Wright’s intent, but it is an unfortunate consequence of boiling such an important topic down into such a relatively small book.

Twice he makes a statement along the lines of, “If you remove the birth of Christ from Scripture you lose two chapters in Matthew and two in Luke, but if you remove the resurrection you lose the entire New Testament” (rough quote). While I understand the larger point he is trying to make--that our faith hinges on the resurrection, which is true--it is a bit foolishly controversial to seem (twice) to downplay the virgin birth of Christ as somehow unimportant because it didn’t receive the page space devoted to the resurrection. Indeed, without the virgin birth there is no atoning death or resurrection to speak of and we are still in our sins. Yes, its that important.

Also, Wright shares the typical mainstream aversion to speaking in concrete language on hell. He doesn’t deny its reality, but tries to twist away from it, arguing that hell is a condition where an individual has so denied and defaced the image of God within him/her that the image flickers out and this individual no longer bears God’s image. This is certainly a way of saying what hell might be, but in a book that is mostly concrete and direct in language, this sort of dance around hell struck me as Wright’s acknowledgment that he had no desire to speak on the subject--a feeling I happen to share, but one which, unfortunately, our Savior chose to repeat time and again.

Ultimately, though, I found Wright’s book extremely valuable and illuminating. It has quite literally changed the way I think about my life and my mission and how I can glorify God (this book worked brilliantly in concert with another book I recently read, James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World). While Wright’s statements have an air of radicalism, this is only because our culture has imbibed the thoughts on the afterlife from a nineteenth and early twentieth century evangelical tradition. Martin Luther understood where Wright was going. Talking about how we may give glory to God, he said the following: “A dairy maid can milk cows to the glory of God.” What we do matters. And, Luther again, speaking what he would do if he knew Christ were coming back the next day: “I would plant a tree.” What we do matters, because this place will last.