Leaving room for God

That's an expression used in an HBO film about Albert Einstein that came out last year: the notion that in his calculations on the workings of the universe, Sir Isaac Newton allowed for the possibility that God was at work and that we can never come up with any exact answers. The film's premise was that Einstein actually did come up with a precise calculation and -- although it wasn't stated in as many words -- we didn't have to look to God for answers anymore.

The premise of my book, A Very Convenient Truth - or, Jesus Told Us There'd Be Days Like These, So Stop Worrying About the Planet and Get With His Program!, is that, for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the current state of the environment, the Bible provides us with some definite solutions. In it, we can see how we've been sinning by our treatment of God's creation, can repent and be redeemed through Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross, and that if we turn back to God, He promises to heal the land. 

The book also posits that what we are seeing now has been prophesied as preceding Jesus' return, although that's not an excuse to sit back and "let things happen": we have a job to do -- which is also distinctly spelled out.

Sadly, so much of our world today refuses to "leave room for God". Indeed, I've heard some professing Christians state that Jesus made the Old Testament, where the specific instructions -- like tithing and the Land Sabbath -- can be found, irrelevant.

I don't agree with that, but that's a discussion for another time. I was reminded, however, of a statement by one scientist/explorer/naturalist who most definitely left room for God in his thinking: Thor Heyerdahl.

In 2000, Heyerdahl was speaking at a conference in Victoria, which I covered for the radio station where I was working at the time. The quote that stood out for me was, "science has even come up with its own interpretation of God: the 'Big Bang'."

Now, recall that Heyerdahl's entire life was devoted to drawing attention to the way we've been treating the Earth -- God's magnificent Creation that He entrusted us to manage and nurture. 

His inference was pretty clear to me: scientific theories try to replace God and make Him irrelevant, and we do that at our peril; because by declaring that the earth, the universe and all that's in them to be the result of a series of random events that just happened to come together in the right place at the right time, we're taking away the notion of accountability. 

It wasn't the only time Heyerdahl had raised the issue of accountability to God. In his memoir, In the Footsteps of Adam, Heyerdahl says, "there still had to be superhuman and supernatural powers to trigger such a conflagration, not least to create order out of ensuing chaos ... [and] the heat from the Big Bang would have been so extreme that an act of creation would have been required to make life on earth afterwards." 

Can we really, individually or collectively, hold ourselves accountable to humans like David Suzuki, or Al Gore, or accords drawn up in Rio, Copenhagen or Kyoto? I know I can't. But eventually, I'll have to face the Big Sir and answer for what I've done in my life, including the things I've done to use His handiwork beyond my ability to replenish it (Genesis 1:28).

The challenge, as I see it, is for people in the environmental movement, many of whom reject the Bible as the Word of God and unquestioningly refer to God-denying concepts like evolution and adaptation, to consider even the remote possibility that the solutions that they seek and the comfort that they desire about the state of our planet are handed to them on a silver platter in those 66 books.

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A Very Convenient Truth is available as an e-book through most online bookstores, including Chapters/Indigo, Inktera and PaperPlus.

The right to speak: the responsibility to not offend

The Globe and Mail has been under fire in the past couple of days for its editorial explaining why it has refused to re-print the cartoons that apparently led to the massacre in Charlie Hebdo’s offices last week. Commenters both on the website and elsewhere have accused the Globe’s editors of being “cowardly” and knuckling under to bullies and terrorists. Some (and it’s interesting how many of these people hide behind pseudonyms on the internet) have stated, darkly, that they hope the Globe editors remember their own words if someone writes something offensive to Christians or Jews.

(Frankly, the Globe and Mail frequently prints articles and opinion pieces that Christians might find offensive, so perhaps this current controversy will give the editors pause to consider. But that’s not my point.)

First off, I don't think it’s cowardly to decline to re-print another publication’s material, after several of its employees got killed because of it: fanatics tend to be guilt-by-association types, and if the Globe had decided to re-publish those cartoons, anyone associated with the paper – even those who disagreed with that decision – might have become a target.

But almost lost in the name-calling was a very salient point: why bother offending someone for their beliefs? It’s been long established that caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed is offensive to Muslims, SO WHY DO IT?

Is this a freedom-of-speech issue? Yes, but only to a point. With freedom of speech comes responsibility: the responsibility to be truthful and the responsibility not to offend. That’s especially true when it comes to matters of one’s belief. I've had my beliefs attacked – some in subtle ways, that make me think that maybe I'm just hearing the other person wrong; some in not-so-subtle ways.

I've been asked, in an interview for a job in a radio newsroom, if my Christian beliefs would color my news judgment (I had been in and around broadcast journalism for over 35 years when I was asked that). I’ve heard someone close to me mutter “oh, shit” when I declared that I believe the Bible. And those are mild, compared to the offences other Christians suffer (being beheaded by fanatics, for example), but they still hurt. And we are not to inflict that same hurt on others.

Indeed, Christians legally have freedom of speech, but when we come to Christ, we willingly surrender that right. It’s like the old joke about the Model T Ford: “you can have any color you want, so long as it’s black”. As Christians, we can say whatever we want, so long as it’s from the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul tells us, twice, not to offend people. “Give none offence,” he says, “neither to the Jews, nor the Gentiles, nor the Church of God” (1 Corinthians 10:32). Later, he says, “Giving no offence in anything, that the Ministry be not blamed.” (2 Corinthians 6:3)

Paul also reminds us, “That we henceforth be no more children … but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head – even Christ.” (Eph. 4:14-15 – emphasis added)

Or, as Jerry Savelle puts it, “If you can’t speak the Word of God, shut up!”

Does it really work to the general good to offend someone else? Or does it only serve to reinforce the comfort of hating someone else? And is this really a hill to die on for freedom of the press, when so many journalists in Latin America are murdered for reporting on drug cartels and corruption, and those deaths barely rate a sentence? And as the Guardian finely put it yesterday, why do the deaths of a dozen people at a magazine bring hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets, when the killing of thousands in Nigeria got little attention?

Truth tends to offend people, anyway, as Jesus, Paul, Peter, Stephen and a whole bunch of others can tell you first-hand. There’s no use in exacerbating it by getting personal and going out of your way to offend. This is why Jesus told us that, when we are called out for our faith in Him, not to worry about what we might say, but to wait for the Holy Spirit to do the talking through us and for us. That way, it doesn't turn into an argument over who’s right: it doesn’t get personal and people don’t get hurt.

The elephant in the room -- revisited

As World War III develops, the words of George Galloway keep coming back to my mind.

Less than a week after the 9/11 attacks, as the evidence continued to point towards Osama bin Laden as the mastermind and the "Coalition of the Willing" was forming around the US and Britain to throw military might into the arena and crush the enemy, Galloway, the British MP for Bradford West -- then a Labour Party member -- declared that if they killed Osama bin Laden today, 10,000 more bin Ladens would spring up tomorrow.

So here we are, 13 years later, and doesn't it seem like his prophecy has come to pass? ISIS, ISIL, Boko Haram and other Muslim extremist groups are terrorizing, well, the whole world, and yet the best those who want to stop the terrorism can offer is more military might. That over-worked definition of insanity, attributed to Albert Einstein -- doing the same thing over and over, hoping to get a different result -- is spot-on.

To be sure, my perspective is different from Galloway's in that he also contended that the West was the author of its own misfortune and what had happened on 9/11 was a drop in the bucket compared to what Iraqi civilians had experience because of sanctions and other actions taken by the US and others.

For me, that was no time to say, "I told you so - you had it coming!" But as a Christian, I believed then -- and believe now -- the best response to 9/11 should have been no response. Or more accurately, that any response should not return evil for evil. Bury the dead, mourn them, remember them always -- and get on with life. But do not rise to the bait. Pray for the attackers and their supporters, Resiliency would have shown the terrorists that they cannot win. Living well, as they say, is the best revenge. Above all, I said, do not let the victims' collective epitaph be World War III.

I wrote that in a primitive (by today's standards) chat session -- a series of emails among a bunch of people who would just hit "reply all" to make their comments. One of them -- a Canadian comedian and social commentator of some note -- ripped into me for a weak, cowardly position and then demanded to be dropped from the mailing list. His sister -- a good friend of mine -- sent me a separate note, "my brother is an idiot: don't mind him", but I backed off the discussion.

But the inconvenient truth is, we're not dealing with a human army: we're dealing with an ideology, and recent history has shown that overpowering it with worldly weapons kills people, but not ideas. The Allies won WW II, but has Nazism or anti-Semitism gone away? France and the US spent more than 20 years trying to keep Communism out of Vietnam, and how well has that worked? Martin Luther King, jr., set out to end racial discrimination through means that, I believe, Jesus would have endorsed, and it was beginning to work; but he was killed and the Black Panthers stepped up with their "kill Whitey" message and 40 years on, I still hear "you people have been f**king up my people for 400 years!"

So how long has the West been battling Islamic extremism? And how well has it been working?

The fact is, God told us this all would happen back at the beginning. He said that the descendants of Ishmael -- the Arabs/Muslims -- would always be at odds with everybody else (Genesis 16:12 --[Ishmael] shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him.); Jesus also told us, two thousand years ago, that we would see the events we're seeing now (Matthew 24:4-14).

But along with these warnings, the Word of God gives us hope, in the knowledge that Jesus' return is at hand, and also gives us keys to handling the adversity by renewing our minds (Romans 12:2) and by following Jesus' instruction to "resist not evil" (or, as some translations put it, "do not resist the evil person"): do not fight back when attacked. Rather, He says, pray for that person, reach out in love and FORGIVE.

In the meantime, we go into spiritual warfare, using the weapons Jesus gave us as we receive Him: the weapons the Apostle Paul says are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. (2 Cor. 10:4) That is the only way we can battle an ideology.

At the same time, we live our own ideology -- our faith in Jesus Christ and the Royal Law of Love -- we are better able to show people who embrace the terrorists' ideology that there is a better way of living -- and people get saved.

As we do this, we draw closer to God, and as we draw closer to God, He promises to heal the problems in our lives. I get this image of God, watching His creation from the outside, saying, "Have you had enough yet? ... Had enough yet? ... How about now?"

Psalm 46 says [God] makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariot in the fire. God -- not man -- makes wars cease.

There is an elephant in the room and His name is Jesus. I've said that before, and it's still true. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life 100% of the time. People may reject out-of-hand the idea of using a Christ-based approach, but the fact is, we haven't tried it -- and maybe it's time that we did.

How can a loving God ...?

Today's edition of "Worldcrunch" has brought another barrage of tragic news, including the latest pogrom by Boko Haram in Africa, bloody battles in Eastern Ukraine and a mass grave of nearly 800 children in Ireland who had died at an orphanage between 1925 and 1961.

Someone, somewhere, is probably saying, "How can a loving God allow such things?"

It's a favorite mantra of atheists and agnostics, who want to make their case that there can't possibly be a God Who loves us, if these things happen in the world He created. Indeed, some Christians also find themselves asking that question.

It's often intended as a rhetorical question -- no answer expected. But it really isn't.

See, the tragedies in this world are not the fault of God. He created the earth and all that's in it, but He handed the responsibility for it over to humans. "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it," is the way Genesis 1:28 puts it. We have been given dominion -- lordship, headship, responsibility to nurture and care for the earth; we are to enjoy creation and make sure that it's replenished.

But as we also know from Genesis, we handed that authority over to Satan in exchange for a bite of fruit. And God, not being a liar or One to go back on His Word, can only stand aside, let us do what we see fit, and occasionally remind us that He's there to help whenever we ask for it. He sent His Son to show us how to re-take that authority through the Holy Spirit, but it's still up to us to exercise that authority.

In other words, don't blame God. Human atrocities are committed by humans.

Indeed, He loves us so much that He sacrificed His Son in order to restore the authority we gave away.

The more we fail to exercise that authority and follow what Jesus commanded us to do -- love one another -- the more we are responsible for the tragedies in our world.

The Great Cat Conspiracy - continued

... actually, we could call this the Never-Ending Story ...

Oddly enough, considering I've been a Cat Man all my life (even though our household also includes a magnificent Border Terrier), it wasn't until a few years ago that I started suspecting that cats were in cahoots pretty much all over the world. I blogged about this early in my blogging career, when I first saw a Simon's Cat cartoon and realized that Peaches did exactly the same thing as the cat in the cartoon, except, of course, for the bit with the baseball bat; and that was only because I didn't have one handy.

The suspicion was confirmed when others at my workplace (so many of my co-workers on the 17th floor at Metrotower II were cat people at the time that I'm sure the Evil Empire (otherwise known by its official title, "Human Resources") started to check into the definition of "discriminatory hiring practices") saw Simon's Cat and said, "my cat does exactly the same thing!"

Now ... more evidence that the International Cat Conspiracy is alive and well. When I was little, I noticed early on that my cat -- a Siamese named Tuptim (as, in fact, were many Siamese cats at the time, thanks to The King and I) -- had an uncanny ability to pick the exact spot on a book or newspaper where I happened to be reading and curl up there. As it turns out, she was by no means unique.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

and, lest you think this concept exists only in cartoons,

Exhibit C

Daisy Mae, who's "helping" Amelia, also finds my computer keyboard particularly comfortable, and I've had to develop a reflexive motion with my left hand, sweeping her tail away as I type. Even by not actually being directly on the keyboard, the constant "C" is significant. 

"If she knew what she was staring at,
she wouldn't be a cat."
-- Walt Kelly (creator of Pogo)

When she's not on the keyboard, Daisy Mae has another favorite place on my desk: under the lamp ... and on top of the router. She hasn't knocked me offline yet, but while she appears to be dozing in the lovely, relaxing warmth, she's probably communicating telecattically (like Peaches, on the right) with other cats around the world (those with the motto: "Opposable thumbs? We don' need no opposable thumbs!") to find out how to do that.

The Kaufman-and-Hart play, You Can't Take it With You, includes a woman who writes novels and uses kittens as paper-weights. When my parents produced the show at the old Avon Theatre in Vancouver in the 50s, they used real kittens in the cast. They were generally kept on the desk with saucers of cream, but one day they went walkabout. Dad went a-hunting and eventually heard mewing backstage and discovered the kittens had found a hole in the wall and -- being cats -- crawled in to investigate. Dad wound up ripping out most of the drywall before getting to the beasts in time to get them onstage. Even then, the constant "C" had not been factored-in, and this was a good decade before Moore made his prediction.

Trinity Western's Community Covenant and religious freedom

Monday's Vancouver Sun has some excellent perspective this week from Dr Emma Cunliffe, associate professor in the UBC Law Faculty, about the controversial Community Covenant at Trinity Western University.

When the issue blew up a few weeks ago, with Law Societies in other parts of the country refusing to recognize TWU law grads because of that Covenant, I took a few minutes and actually read the thing. It's full of all sorts of subversive stuff, like respect others, love your neighbour, treat others with dignity and humility -- a cynic might suggest that's the very thing that would turn off the legal community -- but the section on sexual morality is the one that people are exercised about. Certainly, it's been construed as anti-gay, although the actual wording is pro-traditional male-female relationships, so it also excludes people who have sex out of wedlock and/or live together without being married.

(By the way, the love, respect, dignity and humility thing is something TWU would do well to apply to traveling fans of its sports teams. I work closely with the UBC Thunderbirds, and TWU fans are, far and away, the rudest, most obnoxious fans we can think of. I wrote a blog posting a few years ago, called "What Would Jesus Cheer?" and the response from some readers when a TWU student paper picked it up suggested I'd struck a nerve.)

But Dr. Cunliffe hit a point that moves this into a completely different realm. She contends that requiring students and teachers to live by this Covenant on penalty of expulsion "compels individuals to live according to a discriminatory moral code regardless of their true beliefs." I'd take it a step further: while the Professor focuses on the fact that gay or lesbian students would have to suppress their true feelings and/or beliefs, the notion of any organization imposing a particular code of conduct on those who want to be part of it smacks of cultism. Whether or not I agree with the principles is neither here nor there: the fact is, no one should be forced into agreeing.

God gives us freedom of choice. Having given us dominion over the earth, He is not about to make Himself a liar by manipulating us. Yes, He makes it clear which He would prefer us to choose -- I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live ... and that thou mayest cleave to Him, for He is thy Life ... (Deut. 30:19-20 KJV) -- but the choice is still up to us. No institution should presume to take that choice away.

One is not known as a Christian by the things one hates or shuns: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)

Love, in other words, is what defines a Christian. Is signing a Community Covenant part of that commandment?

A Sterling opportunity to forgive

The media have been all over the Donald Sterling saga like the proverbial fat kid on a Smartie, and truly, what else could overshadow the threat of WWIII starting in Russia and Ukraine, than the shocking revelation that an 80-year-old white billionaire philanderer holds racist views?

There have been some interesting viewpoints: Cam Cole points out that Sterling is not the first team owner who's acted or talked like an owner of the players; Steve Nash has weighed in, asking rhetorically how much longer people will be taught racism; Christie Blatchford spares no ammo in her delight at the NBA's response. Philip DeFranco offers a viewpoint which is, well, different.

But something is disturbing in all this (besides the fact that no one appears to have batted an eye at the fact that this guy dumped the woman who stood by him for 50 years in favor of a woman who's about that much younger): I'm not hearing anyone utter the F-word:

FORGIVE.

I thought this when Don Imus made a racist remark about the NCAA Women's basketball champions a few years ago and was subsequently drummed out of the business. I think this when I hear representatives of ethnic groups in Canada which have been wronged over the years -- native Indians, Chinese immigrants from a century ago, Japanese-Canadians who were interned during the Second World War, etc., etc. -- express their outrage and demand apologies from their oppressors. Wouldn't Jesus remind them to forgive?

Wouldn't Jesus remind us that casting the first stone is reserved for the one without sin? Wouldn't He remind us that if we don't forgive others for doing us wrong, how can God forgive us for what we do wrong to Him?

Forgiveness breaks the vicious cycle we get into when someone wrongs us. Like all of God's commandments, it goes against our natural instinct to hit someone back when they hit us. It also releases God's will and love over the situation. Sure, there may be soul- and flesh-satisfaction in barring Sterling for life from the NBA, fining him to the max and recommending a forced sale of the Clippers, but at the end of the day, what will that accomplish? Will Sterling be any less racist as a result? I realize it would be shocking to think that other old white guys who own sports franchises might also hold racist views, but will they come out of this with a refreshed way of thinking, or will they -- and other racist people -- simply drive their thoughts further underground and find more subtle ways of expressing them? (I note Mark Cuban's remarks at the end of Cam Cole's article and say that the guy has a point: indeed, that's a pretty scary aspect to this; because while I'm personally disgusted at this particular incident, what happens if, one day, the way I think and the things I believe run counter to the "accepted norm"*?)

But I digress. I keep considering a series of "What if"s:

• What if someone said, "I forgive you for the hurt," and reached out with a hand of friendship? (As it's been said, hurt people hurt people.) 
• What if someone said, "maybe you don't know me well enough - why don't we talk?"? 
• What if someone said, "we don't agree, but we love you regardless and are here for you"?

Wouldn't that break down more barriers and accomplish more than a $2.5 million fine and public vilification? Wouldn't that shift the focus away from "us versus them" and onto "us and us, under God"? As the Apostle Paul writes, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28) 

Look at it this way: for over a century, we've tried to cure racial tensions by slapping down those who still hold those views and in some cases, trying to "re-educate" them, and we still have people with racist attitudes. Could using Jesus' approach possibly be any worse?

It's an opportunity to let God do His work over a situation, and I hope we seize on it.

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*When people make statements that oppose the direction society has taken recently, they're sometimes told they're "on the wrong side of history". Which would you rather be: on the wrong side of history or the wrong side of God?