The Alignment Problem

The Alignment Problem™, which i’ve written about in the distant past, has been on my mind a lot lately. The latest impetus has been (drumroll)… the global warming debate. Frankly, i don’t care much about “global warming” or “climate change” or whatever you want to call it. I’m pretty confident that God wants us to take care of his universe, so environmentalism (or “creation care” as it’s sometimes called in christian circles) is less of a idealogy for me than it is a common sense, practical way to live out my faith. To everyone else though (you know who you are) it is pure political gasoline. That is to say: it generates a ton of heat and blows stuff up along the way.

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Easter!

Just a quick thought for Easter. I’m currently finishing “Surprised by Hope” by N.T. Wright, some of which is very good. One sentiment runs throughout the book which is extremely important for us to get through our heads:

[I]f God really does intend to redeem rather than reject his created world, we are faced with the question: what might it look like to celebrate that redemption, healing, and transformation in the present, thereby anticipating God’s final intention?

Many, many christians live their lives as if this world is a bad place (it is) that God has rejected (He hasn’t) rather than a bad place that is longing for redemption. The bible makes it clear and i think Easter, the fulcrum of christianity, confirms it: God is extending resurrection to all of his creation. Not just you and me, but to the whole universe. Here is how John, in the last book of the bible, writes about this final resurrection:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

The “old order of things” includes death and pain and sorrow and separation — the “newness” is the message of Easter: God is in the business of bringing life from death. Jesus is both the prototype of this new life, and the one that offers it to us — a gift from the Creator to all of creation.

The Genetics of Faith

A doozy of an article over at the New Scientist:

[C]ognitive biases are so strong, says Petrovich, that children tend to spontaneously invent the concept of god without adult intervention: “They rely on their everyday experience of the physical world and construct the concept of god on the basis of this experience.”

[R]eligion is an inescapable artefact of the wiring in our brain, says Bloom. “All humans possess the brain circuitry and that never goes away.” Petrovich adds that even adults who describe themselves as atheists and agnostics are prone to supernatural thinking.

In other words — all scientific evidence points to the fact that we have an innate need to believe in God. Enter the most complex guess work you’ve ever seen to prove that it’s genetics, adaptation, or some combination. A far simpler explanation would be this: God exists. Too bad 21st century rationalism is so theophobic that the very suggestion of God sends us all crawling to our college science and philosophy notes for comfort.

The Decline of the Christian West?

Like it or not, the american brand of evangelical christianity is headed for the grave. The new ARIS survey results were recently released and it’s looking a bit bleak. For a graphically illuminating Flash chart head over to USA Today’s site and click between “Other Christians” and “No Religion.” Meanwhile post-evangelicalism’s favorite prophet nay-sayer reformer, Michael Spencer, has posted a pretty damning commentary to the Christian Science Monitor of the whole movement. In a nutshell: my grandparents’ fundamentalism and my parents’ culture-warrior conservatism will fade. But much of that is cultural, and must shift when the cultural plates shift. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s kind of sad maybe, because in my family there are generations invested in evangelicalism. But what comes next doesn’t have to be worse or anti. So what do we who straddle the shifting plates do about it? I’m with Spencer when he suggests we rejoice in the ruins. After all, what comes next may not resemble our current mode of church, but it will still be God’s church.

Born to Believe?

A conversation with my six-year old daughter went something like this:

She: “Dada, do I love God?”

Me: “I don’t know, what do you think?”

She: “I don’t know if I do; I can’t see God.”

And so it begins – the lifelong struggle between faith and doubt. Arguably one cannot exist without the other, and thankfully God understands this better than we do. A recent announcement from an Oxford University researcher finds evidence that all of us are born believers in something greater than ourselves. Evidence of God is all around us and as small children we find the world just as we expect to find it: designed by something that’s not us for a specific purpose. Dr. Barrett finds that “In a real sense, religiousness is the natural state of affairs. Unbelief is relatively unusual and unnatural.”

If it’s true that we naturally believe in Something, and I think it is, then the real tragedy is that we become acculturated against that early faith. As we get older I think we tend towards self-centeredness (esp. in America) and desensitized to the numinous. Why does this happen? Is it the lack of “evidence?” Yes, but not the kind you might expect. I think a child sees how terrible the world is generally and that terror begins to chip away at that early faith. Not only can a child not “see” God, but more importantly she will not experience God unless we act as proxy. It is the very heart of what Christianity teaches: God became a part of His creation to redeem that creation; our response is to live a life that reflects that restoration. 2 Corinthians again: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” [emphasis mine]

Next time you’re with a little child, think about what your actions are teaching them about God. Next time you’re with a grown up, think about what your actions are teaching them about God, too. How can we nourish that child-like faith that is in us all?