Faith in Public Life

Dr. Francis Collins was recently nominated by President Obama to head the National Institutes of Health. There seems to be a growing number of scientists and politicians that believe the President has made a great mistake. No one doubts that Dr. Collins is qualified for the job. Collins discovered in 1989 the gene that causes cystic fibrosis. He became the director of the group that in 1993 would sequence the entire human genome. He has been politically adroit enough to appropriate support and funds for his genetic research, and most people believe that he would make a wonderful director for the NIH.

So what is the problem? Is Dr. Collins an axe-murder? A soviet spy? A Republican? No, he is a Christian. He believes that a person can both be rational and also a believer. He is the author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and he toured the country pushing his book (as all authors are required to do). There are some who worry that allowing such a vocal believer to head the NIH is too dicey to be wise. After all, the man believes that human morality is given to us by God and that we are ultimately responsible to him. Clearly he can’t be trusted to run a government agency! One critic of Dr. Collins says this

Any scientist who happens to practice a religion and is honest enough to admit it knows that science is based on empirical evidence while religion is based on the ether of faith and it is unlikely under the harsh light of reason and logic for the two to meet and make sense. Together they make (non)sense.

Sorry, but that sounds a bit like “Any one smart enough to know anything at all should know enough to agree with me.” And they worry Dr. Collins is too dogmatic?

We live in a postmodern, post-Christian world where there are multiple worldviews and points of view. Christianity no longer enjoys majority status in people presuppositions— not everyone accepts the Bible as the “Good Book” or believes there is a God. I truly believe that most of Christianity's “intramural” theological squabbles make no sense in this age of many gods and no god at all. We shouldn’t be surprised that our faith is looked down upon. Our job is not, I believe, to use political clout to move the country back to its Christian roots (if it indeed really had such roots).

Our job is to live such holy lives of integrity that the unbelieving world may still quibble with the truthfulness of our faith but can’t doubt the fact that it works. If all Christians lived humble, self-controlled, loving, peaceful lives (as Christ demands), then most of the arguments against Christians in public life would vanish. If we want people to respect Christianity again, then we’re going to have to do something radical. We're going to have to live it!

Camp Idlewild 2009

Another year of Camp Idlewild is in the books. I was at camp for the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing; I was also at Idlewild when Armstrong took that big step for mankind 40 years ago! To say that camp has been a big part of my life is an understatement. I delivered my first sermon (3 minutes long) at camp. I met my wife at camp (in fact, Lynn's first counselor at age 9 was my mother). I made one of the greatest catches in the history of softball at camp (over the shoulder at full speed diving into the weeds… Willie Mays called to inquire about my technique). I took Lynn to camp in 1977 to give her an engagement ring. I have lots of good memories at Camp Idlewild. OK, there are some not so good ones too, but I won’t go into those.

We made some more very good memories this year at camp. For the second year in a row, I directed the Junior (Middle School) week. We had 18 girls and 16 boys and a full compliment of staff-- and everyone worked together to make this one of the best weeks ever. This was the most cooperative and accommodating bunch of middle-schoolers I’ve ever seen. For example, they wanted very badly to play pranks on each other, but I kept telling them “No.” They would shrug and say, “OK,” and they didn't. Well they did pull a little bitsy prank at the prodding of their counselors on Friday night… and then felt guilty about it. What great kids!

Most of my staff and 16 of the 34 campers were from Denbigh (counting some former members now at Carrsville). We also had 4 or 5 camp mascots (staff brats) who really added a lot. When I saw Kate and Emily climbing to the top of a tall tree, they added gray hairs. The kids really liked singing, and we had some great devotional times. We had a bunch of the kids (and a few adults) come up on stage and sing “This is How We Overcome” Sunday morning, complete with the spinning around and yelling Whoop-Whoop, Aye-Aye’s… that was great.

Then there was the “Great Yellow Jacket Incident of 2009.” Have you seen those cartoons where a swarm of bees chase someone? Well, it’s no cartoon. A swarm of angry yellow jackets followed us from the archery range through the amphitheater around the old canteen building and into the dining hall. We had several campers stung—Kacie won the ribbon for most bee stings with 14. But everyone was brave and we survived… many of the yellow jackets did not!

Here's a YouTube video of our week. Hope you like it. Hope you'll join us next year!

Where We Hang Our Hat

In the 1890s there was a small Baptist church in Mayfield County, Kentucky. The church had two deacons who were constantly arguing and bickering over some issue or the other. One of them put up a small wooden peg on the back wall so the pastor could hang up his hat. When the other deacon discovered the peg, he was outraged. “How dare you put a peg in the wall without first consulting me!” The people in the church took sides and the congregation eventually split. Today the residents of Mayfield County still refer to the two churches as Peg Baptist Church and Anti-Peg Baptist Church.

For the record, we’re neither Peg-ite nor Anti-Pegite; we’re Non-Peg-ite, just as the Bible teaches! But before we get too smug, we need to remember that we have something of a history of division in our churches, maybe over things just as silly. At the same time the Peg-ite and Anti-Pegite controversy raged in Mayfield, our churches were splitting over the use of instrumental music in worship and how missionaries could be and should be supported. We have divided over how many cups can be used in communion and how many Bible classes are permitted. We have divided over what we believe will happen at the end of time (rather than just waiting to find out). We’ve even divided over whether or not we should pay preachers! Heretics!

So why haven’t we done a better job reaching the world for Jesus? It seems to me that Jesus did the hard part, right? He loved us enough to die for us. All we have to do is love Him enough to love each other. Ultimately, what the cross was about is reconciliation. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19—

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Maybe the world looks at Christ’s church and poorly we get along with each other and has decided that this “ministry of reconciliation” stuff just doesn’t work very well!

Watch Your Step!

Fifteen year old Alexa Longueira was just doing what teens do—she was walking along texting one of her friends. And the DEP crew on Staten Island was doing what they do— preparing to enter the sewers to protect (DEP = Department of Environmental Protection) and serve. What they did wrong was to remove the manhole cover BEFORE they put out the orange safety cones. And what Alexa did wrong was continue her walking and text without looking where she was going. Without pausing her texting, she plunged through the open manhole and into the yuck below. She must have been using a Blackberry because iPhones surely have an open manhole app to warn of things like that. Or they should have. Fortunately, Alexa suffered only fright, a few scrapes and some foul smelling clothes. Her family, of course, is going to sue.

The same thing happens to us in our Christian life if we aren’t careful. We can be rambling along not really paying attention spiritual and walk right into one of Satan’s traps. Brian Simmons, in the Pepperdine video we watched Sunday night, told about a man named “Bob” who was just walking along, not realizing that he was becoming more and more friendly with an attractive co-worker until they went on a business trip together. Before he knew it, we tumbled through the manhole into the yuck below. If we aren’t waling carefully, those kinds of tumbles await us all.

In Ephesians 5:15-16, Paul says, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” Literally, what Paul says is “Look carefully then how you walk” (ESV). Commentators actually seem split as to whether the adverb “carefully” actually modifies the word "look" or the word “walk.” Is Paul saying we are to “look carefully so we can walk” or to “look so we can walk carefully?” Well, if Alexa had been doing EITHER, she would not have tumbled into the manhole. And if Bob would have done either, he would not have tumbled either.

One of Jesus’ most favorite command was, “What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:37) He warns us to watch out for a lot of things-- false prophets (Matt 7:15), those who deceive us (Matt 24:4), coming of the Lord (Matt 24:42), not to fall into temptation (Matt 26:41). Spiritual inattention invariably leads to a fall. Ask Alexa or Bob... or yourself.

Revenge of the Folk Singer

What a great way to deal with customer non-service. Last year a musician named Dave Carroll was traveling on to Nebraska on United Airlines. While on the ground in Chicago, Carroll saw his $3500 Taylor guitar being tossed around by airline baggage handlers. Sure enough, the guitar was severely damaged. While United never denied the damage, Carroll got the expert run-around from various and sundry airline employees for nine months. Everyone was to blame except for United, and finally he was given the airline’s official “NO” to his repeated requests for compensation.

What is one to do? Well, most of us would just be out of luck, but Carroll is a musician. So he did what musicians do—he wrote a song and created a music video about his experience. In fact, what he promised the United employee that gave him the final “NO” (Ms. Irlweg) was that he would write three songs about his United experience and make You-Tube videos for each. Well, the first song and video is done, and it has become an Internet sensation. United now knows that you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pulls the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger and you don’t break Dave Carroll’s Taylor guitar.



United has now (after the video received 2.5 million hits on YouTube) admitted its responsibility and offered full compensation, but Carroll has asked that they donate the money the charity. Evidently he is too busy working on his second video to go pick up their check. As Jay Guin (on whose blog I first saw this) put it, “This is satisfying at a very deep level.” BTW, if Carroll would have been flying on Delta, the song would have been “Delta Loses Guitars.”

The Man in the Mirror

I’ve been walking around the last couple of days humming Michael Jackson tunes. I never was really a huge fan, and I am surprised how easily (and often) these songs keep popping into my mind this week. It seems that my favorites (according to what I keep humming) are “Man in the Mirror” (which I’ve always liked) and “Billy Jean” (which I didn’t like, but I keep humming for some reason). Someone has said that Michael Jackson songs have been the “soundtrack of our lives,” and maybe that is true. But if I don’t stop humming these songs, I’m going to break into a moonwalk!

I watched excerpts from the Jackson memorial where a lot of people spoke of their close connection to Michael. But the sad truth seems to be that no one was really close to Michael Jackson, at least over any period of time. Diane Diamond, a journalist who covered Jackson for years and wrote a 2005 biography said it was “absolutely a revolving door” in his life as Jackson fired employees, feuded with family, and shunned collaborates and close friends who dared to disagree with him. Diamond says, “There were constantly new people in his life. He didn't want anyone to tell him what to do.”

Despite what was said at his funeral, Michael Jackson was a strange man. From the cartoonish way he dressed, to his odd (I hope only odd) behavior toward young boys, to the freakish plastic surgery— Jackson was strange. And I can’t help but wonder of some of that bizarre behavior was the result of the fact that no one was in his life to could tell him, “Michael, uhh, that’s really not a good idea.” What he had were enablers and yes-men who took his money and let him be just as strange as he wanted to be. Maybe the drugs that seemed to have killed him would not have been around if he would have listened to people who loved him. No was there to help him really look at the man in mirror and nudge him toward changing his ways.

God didn’t make any of us to live unaccountable lives. We need a relationship with God, but we also need relationships with other people who will call us into account and keep us honest to ourselves and God. James says, “Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed” (James 5:16, The Message). We need to make ourselves accountable to others so that when we get a bit strange, we have people who can tell us.

In the movie Quo Vadis, General Marcus Vinicius rides in triumph through the streets of Rome accepting the accolades and praise of the masses of Roman. Behind him is a slave who holds a crown of olive leaves above his head and repeats the words, “Remember, thou art only a man.” If Michael Jackson has close to him to remind him of that, maybe he would still be with us and making music.