Author Archive for Hungry Sasquatch

Christians Should Vote Their Ideals - Not be Partisans

Published by Hungry Sasquatch November 15, 2007 in Religion, Politics and Current Events. 21 Comments

I had this great idea for an article about why we should vote idealistically instead of pragmatically…and then Colin wrote it (read here). He told me I should write mine anyway since there’s a lot to say on the subject, but I suspect he just wants to sue me for plagiarism. So with that irrational paranoia in the back of my mind, I tried to hit on some points he didn’t address.

The Republican/Evangelical Christian alliance
About once a week, I’ll see an article in the paper about how conservative Christians are having a hard time choosing a Republican candidate to rally around. Giuliani is the devil, Romney is a Mormon, etc. The pickings are so slim, evangelical leaders are talking about supporting a third party candidate if they aren’t satisfied with the eventual nominee. The GOP is alarmed by this talk, as it should be: In the 2004 election, one third of republican voters identified themselves as conservative Christians. And how does it respond to this potential crisis? Does the GOP attempt to cater to the concerns of a third of its constituency? No. The repeated cry is, “Don’t support a third party candidate! Then the Democrats will win. We’ll have eight years of Hillary, and you know you would hate that. Voting third party is the last thing you want to do.”

I beg to differ. Why should anyone vote for a candidate who doesn’t represent their views? Why should anyone support a party that casually disregards the things they care most about? Suppose Giuliani wins the republican nomination, and every conservative evangelical who doesn’t actually like him decides to vote for a third party candidate. What happens? Giuliani loses 20-30% of his expected support, the third party candidate gets slaughtered, and a Democrat comes to power for the next four years. The renegade voters may feel like they did more harm than good, but do you really think the GOP will run out another Giuliani for the next election? Not if they have any sense. By being willing to take a short term hit in the name of idealism, Christians (and anyone else, really) CAN bring meaningful change to the system.

Questioning the alliance
The Republican party obviously benefits from evangelical attachment, but is this union good for the Church? As Christians, we are devoted to a higher calling, to a Kingdom that transcends this world. And yet, the church so often seeks power and influence through the Republican party and its “moral emphasis,” to the point where we’ve got way too many eggs in the elephant’s basket. Fortunately, younger generations of conservative evangelicals are growing uneasy with this unholy matrimony. Increasingly, younger Christians consider things like poverty and the environment to be moral issues, areas traditionally emphasized by democrats.

It’s unrealistic to expect all Christians to vote for the same person or care about the exact same set of issues. But what if a substantial percentage stood up and said, “We are people of peace and we won’t support a candidate who wants to keep fighting a war indefinitely. And Jesus taught us to care for the poor, so we will not stand behind a candidate who has no plan for helping them.” If enough of us took a stand like that on the issues that matter most to us, the major parties would be forced to react. At the least, they would be forced to embrace those causes in order to win our votes. And who knows, maybe we can even bring an end to the two-party system that saps our elections of diversity. But none of this can happen if we give into the fear of pragmatism.

God Actually Likes It When We Do Good Things

Published by Hungry Sasquatch October 19, 2007 in Religion. 32 Comments

Editor’s note: In the spirit of pursuing truth and engaging different views, Zeal For Truth will publish guest commentaries such as today’s article written by Josh Herchenroeder. He received a degree in Bible from Abilene Christian University, and then spent three years auditing grad school.

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” These words, taken from Isaiah 64:6, have become a banner verse for many conservative Christians. All believers who think we’re pathetic, horrible people who can’t get anything right or impress God in any way rally to this standard which seems to legitimize their low view of humanity. The prophet’s words become a universal indictment of Earth’s citizens. I have serious problems with this line of thinking. Not only does it ignore both the immediate context in Isaiah and the broader biblical witness, but it doesn’t even make sense.

Context Explained
The dominant theme of Isaiah 63 and 64 is confession and repentance. The prophet, speaking on behalf of the Israelite people, recognizes their corporate sin and its consequences, and he pleads with God to forgive and bring restoration.

The image that the text brings to mind is of a young lover who has wounded his beloved and realized his mistake, and now finds himself knocking on her door, holding a bundle of flowers up to the peephole. He doesn’t try to persuade her with rational arguments, but instead says things like, “I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m wrong. You’re beautiful, I’m ugly. I’m the dumbest guy ever for saying/doing/thinking that.” Is he truly the dumbest guy ever? Probably not. In the same way, the prophet uses self-deprecating hyperbole to say, “We’re screwed up and we can’t do anything right…will you take us back anyway?”

Even if my interpretation is off, it’s still difficult to argue Isaiah 64:6 is a blanket statement on God’s opinion of our actions. Just look one verse earlier: “You come to the help of those who gladly do right…” If our good deeds truly are filthy rags to God, why would he be interested in helping people for doing right?

Jesus Weighs In
I could run off a list of verses which offer a different perspective on how God feels about our righteousness, but I would rather explore an illustration Jesus uses to reveal God’s character. Matthew 7:9-11 reads,

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?

Jesus acknowledges that, while we are flawed and certainly not on God’s level, we can give good gifts. But what if we invert the parent/child metaphor and place God on the receiving end—after all, are not our good deeds gifts to our heavenly father?

A young child takes a few crayons and a piece of paper, and five minutes later presents an incoherent scribble to his or her mother. She doesn’t glance at it and declare, “This is crap; you’re a lousy artist.” No, her eyes widen with delight, and before you know it, the refrigerator has another masterpiece hanging on the door. If we respond with such joy at the meager offering of our children, how much more so does God, the source of all that is good in the world!

Does it Even Make Sense?
My house was broken into and robbed last week, and I was still in a foul mood when I showed up to work the next day. A cleaning lady named Ana stopped by my station to talk for awhile. Now, she barely knows any English, and I only know about twelve words in Spanish (and they’re all foods) but this has never deterred her from chattering on for several minutes straight. It always makes me smile, and this day was no exception. Later that day someone randomly brought me a cinnamon bagel, which also made me smile. These two small gestures brightened my day when I really needed it. Did God look at those two acts that were so meaningful to me and say, “That’s gross!”

And what about volunteers who are trying to bring peace and healing to a ravaged Darfur region? Surely God doesn’t view their efforts as useless.

In Man’s Search for Meaning,” Viktor Frankl recounts his tortured existence in a Nazi extermination camp. But alongside the horrors, he tells of the powerful impact when someone could find the strength within himself to offer encouragement, or even to generously offer his daily piece of bread to another. Did God observe such episodes and toss them in the laundry heap? Perhaps, instead, he thought to himself, “Yes, this is what I created them to do. See, even in the worst of times, my creatures can still do good.”

I really don’t have any way of knowing what goes through God’s mind, but I’m not sure why anyone would want to follow a God who treats our best efforts with contempt. Love is reciprocal in any legitimate relationship. If our good deeds truly are filthy rags to God, then how can anyone convincingly argue that he wants our love? If our righteous acts are no more than a dirty dishcloth, then what’s the point of moral living?

The Inspired Word of God?

Published by Hungry Sasquatch September 12, 2007 in Religion. 74 Comments

Editor’s note: In the spirit of pursuing truth and engaging different views, Zeal For Truth will publish guest commentaries such as today’s article written by Josh Herchenroeder. He received a degree in Bible from Abilene Christian University, and then spent three years auditing grad school.

I’m currently reading Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, a fascinating study of hidden incentives, unasked questions, and unexpected realizations. This particular quote stood out to me:

It was John Kenneth Galbraith, the hyperliterate economic sage, who coined the phrase ‘conventional wisdom.’ He did not consider it a compliment. ‘We associate truth with convenience, with what mostly accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life…We adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our understanding.’

I’d like to shift the focus of this principle from an economic field to the realm of Christianity. Faith in the unseen is at the core of Christian doctrine; by its very nature, much of Christianity cannot be substantiated. However, this has not stopped us from developing our own conventional wisdom, and the church’s response to those who challenge the norm has been unpleasant, to say the least. Questioners are socially ostracized. We used to brand them as heretics and excommunicate them…or burn them at the stake. We develop a comfort zone of beliefs which we don’t want anyone messing with, and then wrap it up all nice and neat, stick a bow on it, and call it faith. I call it conventional wisdom, and like Galbraith, I don’t think highly of it.

The Bible
One of the most obvious manifestations of this phenomenon is our insistence that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Is it really? Who says? I know my church history. I know about the great church councils and the canonization of the 27 books which comprise the New Testament. I know all the self-authenticating Bible verses, such as 2nd Timothy 3:16 (“All scripture is God-breathed…”). Undoubtedly, we have a huge number of witnesses spanning two millennia who help shape our conventional wisdom; unfortunately, while the magnitude of testimony must weigh heavily, it doesn’t conclude anything.

The Bible claims, on many occasions, to be the Word of God. Well, so does the Qur’an, and I find it to be inconsistent, self-contradicting, and extremely non-progressive. I would think God can do better than that. Or take the Book of Mormon, which claims to be the final (as in, more authoritative) revelation of Jesus. I find it overly fantastic and completely incongruous with subsequent scientific and archaeological discoveries. Should I not apply the same critical analysis to my own scriptures as to those of other faith traditions? And when I do, what happens when I discover self-contradictions? What do I do with prophetic messages that clash? What do I do with rules that demean women? How do I respond when God acts in a way that is in direct conflict with the testimony of Jesus? As I see it, we have three choices: 1) Change our view of God, or 2) Change our view of the Bible, or 3) Not think about it and use the “God’s ways are higher than our ways and we can’t understand it so we should just believe” intellectual out-clause.

Conventional Wisdom
Christian conventional wisdom tends to take the third option. It’s safe. For one thing, it’s what the community is supposed to believe, so we don’t risk rocking the boat. Besides, if we don’t ask questions, God will surely be pleased with our faith and so he won’t throw us in hell. The other alternatives are scary, so we stick with what we know, doing everything in our power to avoid uncomfortable disequilibrium. This is human nature. I don’t want to downplay the cost of questioning; it is enormous. If we are truly Christians, then our spiritual beliefs form the foundation on which we build our lives, and if those are wrong, then what does that say about everything we’ve worked to accomplish? If we are wrong, then the apostle Paul is right, and we are to be pitied above all persons.

My Choice
I chose to change my view of the Bible. I now view it as the most fascinating collection of ancient theology ever assembled. It is writers like me trying to make sense of their own lives in conjunction with the God they believe in. It is myriad voices blending together to proclaim that God is up to something in this world, and it’s worth our effort to be on board. So although I’m not convinced Abraham was a historical figure, I still embrace his story as my story. And though I don’t believe the exodus happened as described, I celebrate my deliverance from bondage along with the ancient Hebrews. And while I don’t believe Revelation to be a literal end-time vision, I celebrate God’s eventual triumph over evil with all the white-clad saints.

Moving Forward
I challenge Christians everywhere to let God out of the book. Over the centuries, humankind has made exponential progress in areas such as science, medicine, government, economics, philosophy, agriculture, and psychology. Is it so blasphemous to think moral understanding didn’t peak over nineteen hundred years ago? I think not. The council of early Christians in Jerusalem decided a vast majority of Torah—the Law of God—was irrelevant to gentile converts, a decision which must have been excruciatingly difficult to come to. Let us have the courage to do the same, when necessary. I absolutely believe the Bible should be the first thing we turn to for answers to moral dilemmas; it is our story and our tradition, after all. But is it God’s end-all, be-all Word? Not unless it’s a sin to trim your beard.

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