Self-Fullfilling Prophcies

Hi Everyone-

I hope you had an awesome Thanksgiving.  I know I feel like I have a lot to be thankful for, such as only 1.5 weeks of school left until I'm on Christmas break.

With that in mind, I recently finished my big paper for the C.S. Lewis class I'm taking.  We had to write about how we see his conception of spiritual formation as it plays out in his characters.  In short, spiritual formation is how we become our truest and fullest self, as well as how we draw closer to God and become more Christ-like.  Lewis' fictional books contain a lot on this topic, so it's been pretty cool to step back and map out his views so to speak.  There's several interesting themes I enjoyed looking at, but one really sticks out to me in this holiday season.  Basically, he shows that our beliefs, attitudes, and views of the world become our own personal realities.

Big picture, this includes heaven and hell, but for Lewis these aren't realities that represent huge shifts that don't happen until after we die.  We day-by-day choose and live either heaven or hell every day of our lives.  When we choose heaven, our lives become more heavenly.  When we choose hell, our lives become more hellish.  In The Great Divorce, he puts the end results of this pretty brilliantly, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end 'Thy will be done.'  All that are in Hell choose it."

In Till We Have Faces the main character is named Orual.  She is described as being physically quite "ugly", because of which, she grows to in many ways hate her "self."  She becomes Queen of her nation and purposefully chooses to become a different, more man-ish person.  She begins wearing a veil, eventually leaving it on at all times so that no-one knows what her face even looks like anymore.  More than once, she speaks of killing Orual as she becomes this other self.  She succeeds and almost destroys her true self, Orual, in favor of the Queen.  She believed Orual was too ugly to be let out in public, and this reality became true as she was locked away.

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Eustace, one of the main characters, spends the first part of the book thinking and acting in a very selfish and greedy manner.  Then, while thinking these thoughts and sleeping on a dragon hoard, he turns into a dragon.  Lewis writes that the selfish and greedy thoughts are dragonish, so his thoughts/beliefs become Eustace's reality.

In the last Chronicles of Narnia book, The Last Battle, Narnia is falling apart as the forces of evil are pretty much having their way.  There's this very ominous looking stable door through which characters are being thrown, never to return.  One of the heroes says he thinks for them it's the door to Aslan's Country (i.e. heaven).  It turns out for them it is, but for others it's the way to darkness and despair.

What's this have to do with us and our spiritual formation, our becoming selves?  Everything I think.  As I think about people I've met over the years this idea is so true.  We live self-fulfilling prophecies.  The people I know who live with views of themselves, friends, and the world that are positive, become the people I know most filled with joy ... even when things suck.  Conversely, people who are always griping and complaining are those I've found to be most unhappy, even when they have great jobs, friends, etc.

On the current season of "The Biggest Loser" there's this guy who drops a lot of weight every week, Bob Harper (the main trainer) thinks he's likely going to be the winner.  But, he's never happy.  In fact, he's always disappointed with his performance.  He chooses a negative view of things.  Bob has said he bets this guy will gain all his weight back.  His view/beliefs that nothing he does is good enough will become his reality.

What do you think?  Have you seen this in your life?

Grace and peace,
Lang

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Occupy Movement

Hi Everyone-

I pray that this week of Thanksgiving finds you well.  I've been thinking a bit about the Occupy the Wall movement lately.  What are your thoughts on it?  Do you think it's good, bad, neutral?  Where do you think God falls on this issue?

I think the Bible shows God is very much behind what I believe lies at the root of this issue.  I think that when you combine a huge gap between the rich and the poor/everyone else, with the rich not caring for/helping the less fortunate, you get a very unhealthy society.  A culture that's not as God intends.  Look at some of the first words written about the early Christian church for instance:

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.  A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders.  And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.  They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.  They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47 NLT)

I believe what happened some 2,000 years ago was the first Christians came to believe a new/old way of viewing possessions.  They didn't think it was bad to be rich, but they held their possessions loosely because they knew they weren't "theirs".  Everything is a gift from God, a blessing.  Recognizing this, they felt compelled to share the goods, money, etc. God had given them with others.  They understood the fundamental truth of Psalms 24:1, "The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.  The world and all its people belong to him."

I'll bring this back to Paul's "grace and peace" I wrote the last the last three blogs on ... It's God's grace that gives us anything we "own" or "earn".  Every breath I take is a free gift from the Lord of the universe.  For me, this truth is incredibly freeing.  It frees us to hold our possessions and money loosely, which in turn allows us to recognize those in need around us and give to them willingly and out of joy.  The richer we are, the more God has blessed us and the freer we are to give.

I know the Occupy the Wall movement people don't speak in these terms per se, but I believe this is where their desire stems from.  They are calling the rich to remember we're all God's children and it's all God's stuff, so lets play well together and share.

What do you think?


Grace and peace,
Lang

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Grace and Peace - The Gospel According to Paul

Hi Everyone-

I hope you're having a lovely fall day.  Something I found amazing in my research is that with two words, "grace" and "peace", Paul effectively sums up his take on Christianity, his gospel or theology so to speak.  According to Paul, grace and peace comes from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  With that in mind, Gordon Fee writes, " In a sense this sums up the whole of Paul's theological outlook.  The sum total of all God's activity toward his human creatures is found in the word 'grace' ... Nothing is deserved; nothing can be achieved.  'Tis mercy all, immense and free.'  And the sum total of those benefits as they are experienced by the recipients of God's grace are found in the word 'peace,' meaning 'well-being, wholeness, welfare.'  The one flows out of the other, and both together flow from 'God our Father ... and we're made effective in human history through our 'Lord Jesus Christ.'"  That's just the summary though ...

First, Paul is highly Christ-centric.  In other words, for him, everything revolves around Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.  We see God most fully and clearly through Jesus.  It is the free, undeserved gift (i.e. grace) of Jesus on the Cross from which we get peace with God, ourselves, and each other.

Before Jesus, the Israelites were the chosen people, God's people, which excluded quite a few others.  However, through Jesus Jew and Gentile come together and are both made God's children.  He captures this within "grace" and "peace" in that charis ("grace") is his spin on the common Greek greeting of that day (chairein), while eirene ("peace") is the Jewish greeting (they said shalom in Hebrew, eirene was the Greek translation).  Grace (Gentile) and peace (Jew) together through God.

 They also show his eschatology (a fancy word for the end times), which says in short that heaven starts now.  Paul's greeting of grace and peace is also a prayer and a wish.  He is saying the readers have grace and peace now, but he is praying for more in the future; a future that will one day be completely fulfilled in the resurrection.

Foundational to all this is grace as a free, undeserved gift.  We declared war on God through choosing to sin, but Jesus died for us, forgave our sins anyway.  We didn't deserve it, but He loves us so much He did it regardless.  But, this grace doesn't just end with "saving" us, it transforms us.  God's grace gets into our bones, and by changing who we are makes us live out grace to everyone around us.  Again, heaven starts now.

So, I say ...

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,

Lang

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Grace and Peace -- An anti-empire message?

Hi everyone-

So, my paper on grace and peace is done, 12 paged later ... yay! One way of understanding Paul's use of the terms is a relatively new, historic interpretation of it. Basically, the apostle is saying its God, through Christ, who brings the world to right, NOT the emperor of Rome. Not an obvious conclusion though, so where does it come from?

The first emperor was Augustus. He famously beat Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, following which Antony and Cleopatra fled and committed suicide. This battle was important for two reasons, it made Augustus the sole ruler of Rome, turning it into the empire, and it ended nearly a 100 years of Roman citizens being wracked by one civil war after another. So, Augustus, a brilliant publicist if there ever was one, begin proclaiming that he had brought peace to the world (i.e. Rome). Later emperors adopted this campaign, proclaiming (and even making people give pledges to the effect) that the emperor brings peace. Statues, buildings, coins, and more were used to make this statement. It was such a widespread and popular theme that they coined a phrase for it you may have heard, Pax Romana (or the peace of Rome). Important in this was the means by which peace came. Slogan after Roman slogan said, "peace through victory." In other words, the emperor used force to bring peace.

A smaller, but very applicable, propoganda theme spread by the emperors was that of grace. People who obeyed the emperor got new statues and buildings, which often bore inscriptions saying they had the grace of the emperor.

Key in this whole Imperial take on grace and peace is that they came only to "good", emperor-following Roman citizens. Slaves and immigrants, who formed the bulk of early Christian churches (and perhaps 50% of the empire's populace), we're NOT included in the Emperor's grace and peace. They didn't benefit from it.

For Paul, however, grace was the absolutely free expression of the love of God for everyone! Slave and free, Jewish and Gentile, Roman and foreigner, all are included. What's more, Paul's peace comes from love, not force. It is God, through Christ who shows true grace and peace, thus truly making the world as it should be, not the emperor, or the president, or our boss, or our spouse, or ...

As God's images on earth, I believe we are called to display His beautiful, free, and undeserved grace and peace for everyone. Whose shown this to you're? How do you show it to others?

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Grace and peace,
Lang

Grace and Peace

Hi everyone-

Sorry it's been a bit longer than usual since my last post. I'm in mid-term purgatory (I can't call it "hell" since I go to a Christian school and all :). So, with that in mind, this, and perhaps some future posts, will be about "grace and peace," as I'm writing a 10 page research paper about the terms. What is more, I sign virtually every email and blog post with these words and try to live a life of grace and peace, but why and what do they mean?

So, so much ... Any questions? :) The Apostle Paul greets his audience in every single one of his letters in the Bible by wishing them grace and peace ... Every single one, so I'm guessing they were important to him. Back in his day (Wednesday?) the standard Greek greeting was chairein (or "greetings"), Paul doesn't use this term though, instead he writes charis (or "grace") which is derived from the same root as the first word. The Jewish word for "greetings, conversely, was shalom (or "peace, wholeness, fullness, every good thing" ... basically the way things God means them to be). Paul uses the Greek word for "peace", eirene. Thus, by wishing the readers grace and peace Paul is brilliantly doing several things.

He's subverting the Greco-Roman culture by exchanging the usual "greetings" for "grace" in a play on words. PLUS he's subverting Jewish culture, by combining their greeting ("peace") with a variation of the Greek greeting. Thus, with two words Paul combined the Greeks, Romans, and Jews. He's breaking down barriers and saying we are all children of the God.

Grace and peace is also in many ways a very short summation of the gospel according to Paul. We all were/are at war with God in that we sin and rebel against Him. But through the grace of the life and work of Jesus, an absolutely free and undeserved gift, peace between God and us is restored. Our joyful response to this grace is to pass it on to those around us. In other words, God's graceful gift of peace allows us to freely relate peacefully, wholly, and healthily with others.

I have 10 pages to write on this, so I have more to say ... Are you interested? Wait for it ... :) Grace and peace to you in the meantime.

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Grace and peace,
Lang