Tag Archives: christianity

Jul14

What Makes a Nation Great?

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It’s not “absence”. It’s not the absence of a liberal agenda. It’s not the absence of big government. It’s not the absence of people who irritate us.

When nations have big, big changes that people want to see, they often think that if they get rid of the irritating people and/or the evildoers, all will be well. If the bad stuff is gone, the good guys naturally rise to the top, right?

Wrong.

Look at history. After the American Revolution, some other countries decided that aristocracy was their problem, too. If the aristocracy were eliminated in many countries, everything would be good!

Think about France. When the aristocracy was ousted in the French Revolution, the new government did not suddenly become perfect. Within ten years of the beginning of the French Revolution, Napoleon seized power.

When the proletariat revolted in Russia, although they ousted the aristocracy, the nation was soon ruled by a dictator, Joseph Stalin. Stalin promised that someday a true communist government would happen…but never did.

The United States, for all its flaws, has the history of being a country that made the big change, and the big change worked.

When we fought the American Revolution to set ourselves free from the rule of the British king, our forefathers actually set forth a new nation that actually worked as the representative democracy that they promised. No dictator arose.

What made the US work? What helped make it a great nation? What is different about the US?

We had several things: A Constitution and the agreement to keep it as the law of the land, shared values, natural, protected rights.

Did you catch that?

We didn’t simply get rid of something; we created a new thing and made it values-based and clear through our Constitution.

The United States had something they had formed, not simply getting rid of the aristocracy.

They had a new nation that had a concrete document (the Constitution) that everyone agreed to uphold. A true and respected Constitution gives the nation goals and a way to get there. The goals included forming a government “of the people, by the people, for the people”. The way to make that kind of government happen is outlined in the Constitution with three branches of government, checks and balances, and clearly spelled out rights of the people.

Just as important, they had values that were important enough to fight a Revolution. Values steer a country and keep it on the Constitutional path. The values that made our nation great included: the power of community, the rule of law, and equality of rights for all. (Those rights included the natural right to life, the natural right to liberty, the natural right to pursue happiness, the natural right to own property, and the natural right to general wellbeing for all.)

What do we do with this information today?

It helps to start by remembering our national values. When we remember our values, it is harder to be manipulated by those who do not have the best interests of the nation in mind. Again, some of our American values are the power of community, the rule of law, and equality of rights for all.

We have individual values, as well.

We can be manipulated and tricked by smart, greedy people if we forget our personal values.

As Christians, we are given a value system that includes: following the Great Commandments (love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself; Matthew 22: 34-40), growing in the Fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control; Galatians 5: 22-23), and more.

A lesson to learn

If we want to make our nation great, it might be good to live by our values!

Can you imagine what would happen if all of us Christians followed our guiding document (the Bible) and lived the value system given to us in that document?

If we had put as much effort into fulfilling our own value system in our own lives, instead of putting our efforts into trying to eliminate the value systems of those who don’t align with us, perhaps we would not have been tricked into the chaos of our current political problems. “Getting rid of” often leads to power grabs by unscrupulous people. Living our values can give others an inspiration to look towards and a better life to believe for.

I came from a generation of Christians who were taught that things would only “be right” when we get rid of other people’s sins.

We were taught by our Christian leaders that we had to get laws passed to make other people behave in a way that made it most comfortable (or “safe”) for us Christians. So, rather than fulfilling our scriptural values, we took on a different value: the value of legislating change.

What came of that?

Large numbers of people left the churches and became “nones and dones”. People who don’t know God were not drawn to the gospel, but rather, they were repelled by Christians. We are now seeing in the culture and politics, the chaos of power-hungry people trying to get what they can while the country is weak from ugliness and division.

What can we do?

Perhaps we could recalibrate by spending time studying the Gospels and Epistles? Perhaps we could create a personal list of the values that God wants us to live out? Perhaps it would help to make our own personal “constitution” or mission statement to help us stay calibrated with God’s values and goals?

Something to pray about…

Jun29

God, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the U.S.

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Long ago, when I was a kid in college, I was a biology major. Back in those days, we had to prove our salt as budding scientists by being able to list and describe the five laws of thermodynamics (the physical laws that describe how the universe works).

I can’t remember the other four laws, but the second law of thermodynamics got under my skin and I’ve never been able to quit thinking about it. The second law of thermodynamics is the “law of entropy”. Basically, it says that “everything falls apart eventually”.

When we look around us, we can see that the second law is always at work: an acorn falls into the ground, grows into a tree, eventually dies and falls down, and becomes part of the earth again…

Even suns, solar systems, and galaxies eventually die.

Whether we attribute this to Adam’s fall or that God wanted things this side of eternity to have a shelf life is up to the scientists and theologians. All I know it that, in God’s universe, the second law of the universe is working.

HOWEVER, God gave us humans some limited ability to push back on that second law.

In my job as a counselor, I saw the second law of thermodynamics at work in marriages. Good marriages, over long periods, can fall apart. However, those who continually work at growth, creativity, and caring for themselves and others, tend to break that law. Instead of crumbling, their marriage strengthens over the years.

That doesn’t mean we have the power of eternity. We humans live in temporal bodies, which are eventually subject to the second law of thermodynamics. We will someday leave our bodies and enter eternity.

Western culture and the second law of thermodynamics

I attended a conference this weekend, which was attempting to address our national polarization by becoming focused on creating a loving community within the body of Christ and our national culture.

One of the speakers briefly reviewed the history of great empires. Each of these empires had a shelf life. Eventually, the second law of thermodynamics took over, creating chaos and ending each empire.

This speaker proposed that we are seeing the same empire-ending chaos in Western culture, particularly the U.S. He was not trying to spread despair. Instead, he was proposing that if each of us did the good that God gives us to do, that good is greater than evil (Romans 12:21).

It reminded me of the work I have done with couples. Those who are willing to work at growth, creativity, and caring for themselves and others, do well.

Nations that are willing to work at work at growth, creativity, and caring for themselves and others have a chance to survive.

I invite you to think about the second law of thermodynamics. Do you see it at work in your life? Do you feel it at work in our nation?

If so, I invite you first to pray and meditate on the instructions Jesus gave to us, starting with Mark 12: 30-31:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.” (Biblegateway.com)

Then ask God what is yours to do that is creative or caring. Then start doing it. Daily.

Let’s do what we can to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves, and overcome evil with good. Maybe together we can hold back the second law of thermodynamics.

Mar23

Knowing a Tree by its Fruit

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15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. (Biblegateway.com NKJV)

Know any ravenous wolves attacking the federal government agencies these days? It felt like that recently when the Secretary of Social Security Administration Dudek made allusions to shutting down Social Security after starting the process of closing up to 47 local offices. He backed down on the threat and yesterday and sent an email to those of us who have a family member on Social Security (this is a screenshot from the email).

What kind of fruit is that? Can you imagine what it is like being elderly and depending on that monthly check and not knowing if the TRO will expire and Dudek will cut off that check?

To add insult to injury, Secretary of Commerce Lutnik, said that if elderly people expressed anger about not receiving their Social Security check, that was a sign that they were “fraudsters”. Is that simply mocking older citizens or is that a threat to them? Here’s the quote (from The Hill):

At one point in the wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation, Lutnick also said that if Social Security “didn’t send out their checks this month,” his “mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”

“She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” the billionaire businessman said.

“Anybody who’s been in the payment system and the processes, who knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing,” he said. “Because my mother-in-law’s not calling, come on, your mother, 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds, they trust the government.”

What kind of fruit is that? It certainly does not appear to be godly fruit.

This is the fruit that God wants to see growing (Galatians 5: 22,23):

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control.

Praying for my nation. God help us.

Feb28

What Happened to the Original-Intent Conservatives?

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When I homeschooled my kids in the 1980s-2000s, homeschool curriculum publishers, politicians, and popular speakers talked a lot about the US Constitution. In those days, many (or maybe, most) homeschoolers were politically conservative and we listened to politicians and speakers who were conservative. The textbooks we used with our homeschoolers leaned conservative.

So, when all these folks talked about interpreting and understanding the US Constitution, they talked about the conservatives’ way of thinking about interpreting it: the founding fathers’ “original intent”.

Original intent is a way of interpreting the Constitution.

Original intent says that decisions should be made by trying to discern what the founding fathers meant and wanted when creating the Constitution.

People who believed in original intent took the opposite stance from those who interpreted the Constitution as “a living document”.

Those who took the “living document” stance felt that the founding fathers could not have known what life would be like in the future, so they left some flexibility in Constitutional interpretation.

This played out in the court system; for example, Roe vs. Wade. Original intent folks said that the Constitution protects life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They stated that abortion ends a life, thus is unconstitutional. Living document folks stated that the founding fathers had not included women in the original “general Welfare” doctrine of the Preamble. However, today the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women the right to vote, implying that their general welfare mattered- and welfare included their right to make their own health decisions.

Original intent versus living document has been one of the foundational arguments between American ideologies for decades.

Now suddenly the story has changed. With the Dodd decision in 2022, pro-life Christians got what they wanted. With this decision, abortion laws were handed back to the states. At least 14 states have passed strict abortion regulations.

Christians got a taste of power and wanted more. Recently, I heard a popular television preacher who was celebrating Dodd exclaim, “President Trump is giving the nation back to us!” Drunk on the power they are feeling because of a president that gave them a Supreme Court that gave them Dodd, this branch of Christianity is thrilling over other changes. They want their hero president to place LBTQ folks under restrictions and get rid of DEI, among other things. They believe that the current president is the nation’s and their political savior.

So my Christian friends are willing to ignore power grabs by the president, unconstitutional power grabs. And the only way they can turn their backs on the Constitutionally-mandated separation of powers and checks and balances, is to pretend they do not remember “original intent” of these. But that appears to be okay because their hero-president has given them a new idea: we are suddenly, thanks to his leadership, in a “post-Constitutional” era.

You read that right: because the current president wants authoritarian-level power, what I am hearing these days from many of my Christian friends is that they are now, “post Constitutionalist”.

They say, “we don’t need a Constitution anymore, we need a powerful man who will give us the America WE want”. They don’t want the separation of powers with its checks and balances that are guaranteed by the Constitution. They want a powerful hero who gives my friends and these television preachers the America they want. SO, they do need to toss the Constitution.

I hope some of them will remember the way this works in history.

Give all the power to a strong man, he establishes his regime, and then all his supporters and underlings are pushed aside, imprisoned, forgotten, or worse. These dictators “use them and then abuse them”. Think: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Kim Il-Sung.

Remember with me, Christian friends, that Scripture has guidelines to help us figure how to save our country:

First, test the spirit of leaders, if they are not showing fruit of the Spirit by their words and actions, then they may be tricking you:

James 3: 9 With our tongue we give thanks to our Father in heaven. And with our tongue we speak bad words against men who are made like God. 10 Giving thanks and speaking bad words come from the same mouth. My Christian brothers, this is not right! 11 Does a well of water give good water and bad water from the same place? 12 Can a fig tree give olives or can a grape-vine give figs? A well does not give both good water and bad water. (Biblegateway.com NLV)

Then remember that there’s good news! We don’t need to have a “savior” in the form of a dictator. We, the believing people, have God’s instruction on how to save a nation. If we truly believe, it’s up to us to follow the instructions:

II Chronicles 7:14:

“If MY people who are called by my name will HUMBLE THEMSELVES and PRAY, and seek my face and TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”

That’s right, we humble ourselves, we pray, we seek God’s face, we turn from our own wicked ways. Then God will hear and forgive…and heal our land!

The guardrails

In the meantime, we have the guardrails: our contract between “We the People” and our government. This contract lasts till “our posterity”, so as long as there are posterity, the Constitution is still in force. It is the supreme law of the land that any would-be dictator must submit to.

In other words, you can’t simply wish away the Constitution by inventing “post-Constitutionalism”.

I suggest we believers return to Original Intent.

What did our founding fathers intend about the Constitution? That it would last, that it would be the supreme law of the land (Article 6, section 2), and that the powers of the government are equally balanced between executive, legislative, judicial, and we the people.

We the people need to walk within that contract!

Feb19

Render Unto Caesar

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“This is our time!” I had the opportunity to listen to a television preacher and a talk show host, both of whom were excited about the current administration. They firmly believed that the current president was a gift of God to Christians.

They honestly believe that at any moment, the president will soon turn the power of the nation over to the Christians so that they can form a new, Christian nation. For evidence they point to the new White House Faith Office (headed by the television preacher, Paula White).

Can I just point out a little Scriptural corrective?

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the most powerful human being who ever walked the face of the earth. If he had been following the Christian nationalist program, he could have cozied up to the Romans and then used his power to kick them all back to Rome, or rain fire down on their heads.

Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to take over Rome? And the Jewish temple?

Instead, what did the most powerful human who ever lived do when he was on earth?

-He fed thousands (Matthew 14)

-He healed the sick (such as Mark 1, Matthew 8, Luke 5)

-He taught people to love, serve, be humble (Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5-7)

While he had followers who were connected to religious and political entities, he himself refused to use his status as Son of God to insert himself into temple or governmental politics.

In fact, when the Pharisees tried to trick him into taking a political stand on paying taxes, he asked for a coin and pointed out Caesar’s inscription on it. Then he gave these instructions,

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22)

He wasn’t asserting the ability to use his power to take over things- even though his power could have given him a quick takeover. He used his power differently.

He would use that power to preach the Gospel, show love and compassion, heal, and feed the multitudes.

My fellow Christians, could I encourage you that this is the time to exercise power, the power of Jesus’s way of doing things. You don’t need the power of a government, and you don’t need to lord power over anyone. In fact, those in power right now may NOT turn the power over to create a Christian nation. They may just use you and then abuse you. However, you have the power to change the nation through the way Jesus does things:

-He fed thousands, so now, you feed those in need

-He healed the sick, so now, you work to help people heal

-He taught people to love, serve, be humble, so now, you walk in love, serve, grow in humility so that someday you might hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Jan26

Prayer in Nature

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This year, I am participating in the Renovare book club. In the book club, we just finished Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. This twentieth-century classic talks about various spiritual disciplines that aid Christians in their ability to connect with God. One practice that Foster discussed was the spiritual discipline of time in nature.

It got me thinking about long ago, when I was a young biology major at the University of Florida. I was helping a doctoral student with his field studies of chickadees and titmice. These sweet little birds would flock together and communicate in a complex language. The grad student was recording and deciphering their calls by watching their behavior patterns. It was fascinating work.

One early dawn, we were poised outside one titmouse’s tree hole, ready to record his first call of the morning. Soon, he awoke, perched himself on the edge of his hole, lifted his beak and began to sing and sing! The grad student asked me what I thought that call meant. I knew it was not a call that was setting his territory for the day, calling his mate or the flock. He looked so happy. I blurted out, “He’s praising God!”

That moment set me on a journey. If the birds praise God, maybe God is someone I should think about. To this day, I’m grateful for the birds pointing me toward the Lord!

It turns out that I am not the only person who has been drawn to God through nature. There are lots of blogs about listening to God in nature or praying in nature. Here’s a sweet guided nature prayer meditation from Roma Downey.

Not only is spending time in nature good for the spirit, it is good for the body and soul! Researchers have found that mindful walking in nature (or “forest bathing”) can reduce blood pressure, heart rate, and stress levels. It also can improve sleep and immune function. Walking in nature can produce a wonderful feeling of awe- that feeling in our soul of wonder, of transcendence, or feeling of being part of something larger that oneself.

How do you pray in nature?

That’s easy, just go for a walk. As you walk, notice. Notice the leaves on the trees (or in the winter, the shapes of the bare branches), and listen to the birds and the sounds of the wind. Feel the coolness of the air and the warmth of the sun on your face. Then, spend a few minutes in thankfulness for all these things…and for anything else that comes to mind. Listen. See if God touches your heart or gifts you with a moment of awe.

These are good times to keep our body, soul, and spirit in a good place. Give praying in nature a try, it will help.