God Our Mother

© Copyright 2003 by Gretchen Passantino

           “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15 NKJV). “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me” (Psalm 27:10).

          Dr. Laura Schlessinger is known for her advocacy of second-chance families. She argues that we have two opportunities to experience a good parent-child relationship. The first chance, the relationship into which we are born, we have little control over, and we may well experience a horrible parent-child relationship. The second chance, when we become parents, is our opportunity to have the best parent-child relationship through careful, value-laden choices that give our children the parent-child relationship we may never have had. As much as people have been encouraged and challenged by Dr. Laura’s take, I think there’s an important parent-child relationship she has missed: our relationship to God as our perfect parent.

We have a third – and, in fact, the only significant – parent-child relationship that will never disappoint or fall short of our expectations: Our experience of God as our loving Creator, Sustainer, Savior, and Glorifier. Everything we could conceive of that is good and fitting for a mother to be, that is what God is to each one of us. When I say “God is our mother,” I do not mean to support radical feminism, deconstruct God into a fantastical feminine deity, or change our language about God. Instead, God, who is infinite, eternal, and a-sexual, sometimes identifies himself as a mother to give us a particular kind of idea, a teaching picture or icon, by which we can understand better his creative power, his love, his forgiveness, and his faithfulness.

God, full of sorrow over the rebellious idolatry of Israel, expresses the anguish every mother has experienced as her child turns away from the safety mother has provided: “I taught Ephraim [Israel] to walk, taking them by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them” (Hosea 11:3-4). When for the first time we hold the tiny treasure of humanity in our arms at birth, when we focus all of our energy toward providing a safe haven of joy for that tiny life, we experience a tiny taste of the love and care God has for us. He creates us knowing that we will turn away from him, knowing that we will reject his love; and yet continuing to love us so much that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

God yearns for us to return to his arms as a child runs to mother seeking safety, reassurance and love. He foresaw the return of the Jews in Isaiah’s day, “then you [the Jews] shall feed; on her sides shall you be carried, and be dandled on her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem” (Isaiah 66:12-13).

The love of God goes far beyond the greatest love the greatest mother could ever have. It is perfect, infinite, and eternal. At the height of Jesus’ pronouncement of judgment against the unbelieving Jews of his day, he lamented, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37).

Moses talks of God’s parental care in similar terms: “For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, so the Lord alone led him” (Deuteronomy 32:9-12).

When we understand that God is our perfect Mother, we can rest, secure in the knowledge that He will protect us from evil, give us the power to overcome sin, and keep us in His care and love eternally. The teaching picture of the female bird depicts this refuge best as the Psalmist prays, “Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me under the shadow of Your wings, from the wicked who oppress me, from my deadly enemies who surround me” (Psalm 17:8). Safety in the Lord is absolute: “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by” (Psalm 57:1). We can be confident that “He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth will be your shield and buckler” (Psalm 91:4).

God is our Mother in the very best sense of the term. God’s love for us precedes any human maternal love since God loved us before Eve became the “mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). Do you want to know how to be the best mother you can? Look to God for His example. Do you long to be loved and cared for by the mother you lost or maybe never had? Look to God – He is your Mother in perfection. Think of the love God has for us: knowing that we would turn from him, rebel against him, sin and break his commandments, he still created us and then provided the perfect sacrifice to restore us to Himself. Better than any human mother, he knows not only the grief of loss and the pain of sacrifice, but also the potential for joy in being a mother: “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world” (John 16:21). God is joyful over you! Rejoice with Him!

Atheism, Friendship, and Humility

© Copyright 2014 by Gretchen Passantino Coburn

 Recently a Christian asked me to help him answer some challenges from an atheist friend. The Christian had asked the atheist if he would be willing to discuss the existence of God & the problem of evil on-line. The friend responded that he was completely satisfied with his atheism and that atheism answered all of his questions, so on-line discussion was pointless.

 First, I believe this atheist was betraying his friendship with the Christian. The two had been good friends for many years. A true friend would not have rejected a friend’s request to discuss a topic that was important to him, especially one that could govern the friend’s world view & life. A true friend, even if he were completely satisfied with his own beliefs, would be willing to discuss them for the benefit of his friend. In fact, the “Golden Rule” tests the character of anyone, believer or not. I suggested the Christian appeal to the atheist’s friendship, demonstrating his friendship by being willing to discuss such an important issue.

Second, the atheist’s faith in atheism is remarkable in its simplistic assumptions. A reasonable, knowledgeable person will agree that there are many reasonable, intelligent, well educated people who disbelieve in atheism, who believe God exists, who posit arguments, evidence, and reasons for believing in God. This atheist appears to have a blind faith in atheism and in his own mental superiority. There are brilliant individuals such as Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Ghandi, Max Planck, Stephen L. Carter (law), Michael K. Heller (physics), etc. who are certainly “smarter” than this atheist, & yet they believe in God. Brilliant Christians include William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, Phillip Johnson, Alister McGrath, Condolleeza Rice, etc. (Here’s a list of 50 brilliant people who believe in God.) Humility seems to be in greater evidence among Christians, many of whom are willing to be challenged in their faith, who seek the best evidence & arguments regardless where they lead, & who admit they are open to having their beliefs disproved. If this atheist can be humble enough and honest enough to admit he might be wrong, then he should be open to discussing the issue with his long-time Christian friend. To refuse to do so does not support the truthfulness of his atheism, but merely the pride and egoism of his emotional bondage to atheism.

True friendship is willing to explore important ideas and beliefs for the mutual benefit among friends. True humility is willing to test one’s own beliefs, to follow the evidence and arguments wherever they lead. True faith is not blind or contrary to reality, but is founded on reason. An atheism that is self-centered, egotistical, and blind is not worth holding.

The Bare Bones of Noah’s Story

© Copyright 2014 by Gretchen Passantino Coburn

My virtual mailbox has been crowded with questions about the movie NOAH that opened March 28 2014. I haven’t seen it. I’ve read a lot of reviews, some from people I respect in the arts, the Bible, and/or theology. It was the first place box office winner for its opening weekend, pulling in more than $44 million in US ticket sales. It remains to be seen whether it can maintain that level of popularity, but that’s not my focus here. This is all I’m going to say about the commercial success or failure of the movie.

Many others have commented on the cinematic license taken with the literary text. This doesn’t bother me, since movies almost always take significant liberty with an underlying written text. What works in words may not work at all in visuals and the opposite is usually true, too. I understand the movie misses the great story of redemption foreshadowed in the story, the sinfulness of humanity, salvation by faith, and God’s redemptive faithfulness to the world He has created, including the humans He has created in His image. I also understand there is quite a bit of environmental gospel in the story and that at some points humans are characterized as the enemies of God’s natural world. This is all I’m going to say about the biblical or non-biblical story line of the movie.

My focus here is on some of what is absent from the biblical story. I will address some of these significant absences from Genesis chapters 6-10 here.

First, the foundational assumption for biblical interpretation is to understand the main theological theme of the passage and use that to govern all interpretation. The main theme of Genesis 6-10 is not environmentalism, evolution, or human stubbornness. The main theme is God’s Great Redemption Romance Story: that sinful man, judged and condemned in Adam, is nevertheless loved and redeemed by God’s own work by His Spirit in His Representative (Son), and transformed into His fruitful Spouse. Noah is both Adam (the sinner) and Christ (the chosen One). The flood is God’s judgment. The Ark is God’s rescue (Christ on the Cross). Noah’s family and their progeny are the Church, the People of God. The dove and the olive branch are the signs of the renewed and redeemed creation. The sacrifice after the Flood is the Memorial of God’s sacrifice on our behalf. Absent are doctrinal side issues that distract us from this main redemptive theme.

I’m not “allegorizing” the “plain meaning” of the Bible. I believe in the complete accuracy of the Bible as God gave it and meant it to be understood. When the Bible is recording history, it is accurate history. When it is recording science, it is accurate science, etc. But underlying and overarching every kind of text (historical, scientific, poetic, epic, narrative, metaphorical, etc.) is God’s Great Redemption Romance Story in part or in whole, in type or anti-type, in anticipation or remembrance. Once we fix this theological bedrock in our interpretive framework, many of the questions we ask of a particular text are completely irrelevant and it is no wonder they are not addressed exhaustively (if at all) in the text.

Have you ever tried to relay an experience to someone and he or she keeps interrupting you to ask irrelevant questions? Maybe you want to talk about how somebody cut you off on the freeway and only God’s grace saved you from causing a fatal five car pileup. Does it really matter what color the offending car was? Or what was being advertised on the billboard next to the freeway? Or what was in your fast food meal that spilled all over the seat and dash when you slammed on your brakes?

Let’s look at the story of Noah from a similar perspective. If the main story is God’s Great Redemption Romance Story, does it matter if the entire geographical globe was flooded or could the “whole earth” mean the whole area occupied by humans? Our theological bedrock requires the second, but the first is irrelevant to the theology.

If the main story is redemptive, does it matter if Noah and his wife or his sons and their wives had other children who were or were not taken into the ark and saved from the Flood? Theology teaches us that all have sinned (even Noah, his wife, his sons, their wives, and any other of their descendants) and that all of us deserve judgment (flood). All of them deserved to be condemned in the Flood and none of them deserved to be saved from the Flood.

If the main story is redemptive, then any who were saved from the Flood were saved by God’s mercy and grace, by the redeeming sacrifice of His future coming, dying, and rising Son. Yes, it says Noah “found favor” with God, “walked faithfully,” and was “found righteous.” But remember our theology: we find favor in Christ, we walk faithfully in Christ, we are found righteous in Christ. Our salvation and rescue from judgment is not derived from our seeking God’s favor or creating our own faith or doing righteous acts: our salvation and rescue from judgment is derived from Christ’s perfect representative life, death, and resurrection. He is the one who is favored by God, who is faithful, who always acts righteously. Our favor, faith, and righteousness are products of our salvation, not generators of our salvation. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were saved in spite of the fact that they were just as disfavored, unfaithful, and unrighteous as everyone else (including any other family members who may have lived then). They were saved in spite of their sinfulness, not because of their sinlessness.

Second, a sound principle of biblical interpretation (indeed, all literary interpretation) is that one must not presume that absence of evidence presented is evidence of absence. Confusing? Here’s an example: If I were to say “I worked on an article today,” that simple statement wouldn’t be evidence of absence of any other activity I did today. In the same way, if one gospel says “one angel was at the tomb” on Christ’s resurrection day, that isn’t evidence against another gospel’s “two angels were at the tomb.” (In fact, if you have two angels, you always have at least one angel.)

Let’s apply this to the story of Noah. For example, I’ve been asked, if Noah were really 600+ years old, and his sons were also old, then how could it be that neither Noah and his wife nor his sons and their wives had any other children? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to think Noah had other sons, and unreasonable to think he had no daughters, including not a single daughter who was “righteous” as his three sons were? If you read the five relevant chapters of Genesis carefully, you will not find any text excluding Noah or his sons from having other children, either before the Flood or while they were on the ark. The point of the story is that God chose eight individuals from among the sinful class of all humanity to rescue from his Flood judgment. Any other descendants or siblings are irrelevant to the theological point of God’s selection of certain individuals for saving from the Flood. Remember, this is an event that points us to the Main Event. Whether “true believers” drowned in the Flood is irrelevant: the drowning of a “death-doomed body” (Romans 8:11) is a tiny calamity compared to that same person’s eternal life and final resurrection life in a resurrection body.

Third, absent from the Genesis story of Noah are works that qualified Noah or his family members to receive God’s rescue from the Flood. Noah built the Ark, preached God’s coming judgment, gathered the animals, and put his family inside after God chose him, not in order to be chosen by God. Noah’s obedience was a consequence of his salvation, not a means to attain his salvation.

Yes, Noah “found favor” with God (Genesis 6:8) and was saved from the Flood even though he was a sinner. Just as Mary “found favor” with God and was chosen to bear the Son of God even though she was part of sinful humanity. And just as Job “found favor” with God, who restored him to “full well-being” (Job 33:26). Job did not earn God’s favor, God blessed him with His favor as an application of his grace and mercy long before the historical time of His Son’s sacrifice. Look at the sequence in Psalm 84:9-11. In verse 9, the psalmist asks God to look “with favor” on His anointed One (the Messiah). In verse 11, the psalmist rejoices that God looks “with favor” on “those whose walk is blameless.” Who is blameless? Only One is actually blameless: Jesus the Messiah who took our sins on Himself on the cross and rose from the dead, the “firstborn” of all those saved (Luke 2:52). The psalmist and all others of faith (whether before, like Noah, or after, like Peter, Paul, and Christians throughout all ages) find “favor with God” by being “in Christ.” (See especially the term “in Christ” or “in Him” in Ephesians 1.)

Yes, Noah “walked faithfully” (Genesis 6:9), but this was accomplished by God’s work in His Son, not by anything Noah accomplished on his own. Remember, Jesus is the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). Paul argues (Romans chapter 4) that Abraham was saved, not by works, but by faith, noting that he was “declared righteous” in Genesis 15:6, before he had done any works, that is, before he was circumcised (Genesis 17:24).

In summary, there are features significantly missing from the biblical account of Noah (Genesis 6-10) by the Holy Spirit’s design to keep our focus on the glorious story of redemption it depicts and prefigures. Absent are side issues like the precise geographical extent of the Flood or whether rainbows ever appeared before the Flood. Absent are designations of whether anyone else in Noah’s generation inherited eternal life either after drowning in the Flood or after being included but unmentioned in the Ark. The Ark event is an earthly example of a spiritual reality: the Flood stands for eternal judgment; drowning stands for eternal death; living in the Ark stands for salvation; landing on the mountains of Ararat , offering a sacrifice, and planting a vineyard stands for God’s renewed creation and fulfilled kingdom.

There are other significant absences in this event and in the rest of God’s Word. The absences are not meant to withhold God’s Gospel from us, but to focus us on His Gospel. The Word of God is given to us, not to satisfy our every idle curiosity, but to display God’s Great Redemption. Second Timothy chapter two declares that the Word of God is “the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Answering Those Who Believe They Have Committed the Unforgivable Sin

© Copyright 2014 by Gretchen Passantino Coburn

In my more than forty years of Christian apologetics ministry, questions about the “unforgivable sin” continue to recur. Those who pose the questions are not indifferent to God. Nor do they hate God. Instead, they invariably grieve their loss and they despair of salvation. We have a classic Answers In Action article addressing the particular scripture passages that confuse readers. This article is much more focused on the principles behind such confusion and despair. It is derived from a response I composed to plea from someone who feared for his soul, but is generally applicable to anyone who believes he or she may have committed the unforgivable sin.

First, I commend those who continue to pursue relationship with God in spite of their fear, confusion, doubt, and despair. This is a characteristic of a human heart experiencing the saving power of the Holy Spirit, not a heart that has refused God’s grace and forgiveness and hardened itself to salvation. In other words, someone’s persistent concern and return are proof in themselves that he or she has not committed the unforgivable sin.

Two features are most common in those with this unresolved struggle: (1) They give undeserved and misunderstood weight to their continuing sinfulness, and (2) They elevate their subjective experience of each moment over the objective truth of the gospel, affirmed by the testimonies of God’s Word and God’s people (both through time and in personal relationship with other believers).

Many in this uncertainty point to their repeated and continuing sinfulness as evidence they have never been and never can be saved. This is contrary to the testimony of God in His Word. Until we die and are resurrected and brought completely into God’s fulfilled kingdom, every single one of us will continue to sin. Martin Luther has a well-known observation that can be summarized like this: If you have no desire to sin and are not sinning, check your heart & your breath to see if you are still alive. In the same way, if you are not grieving over your sin and longing for forgiveness through Jesus Christ (especially as distributed in the Lord’s Supper), check your heart and your breath to see if you are still alive. Repeated and continuing sin is not an evidence of the absence of salvation.

In other words, it is the common, biblical experience for believers to experience the seed of sinfulness with which they are born and which continues to live in them until the resurrection; but it is also the common, biblical experience for believers to experience the seed of regeneration, to have remorse and seek forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Sadly, for those who despair, it seems easier to “believe in” his or her “sinful seed” than to “believe in” his or her “seed of life,”

This brings me to my second main point: As long as one gives more trust to his or her own subjective fear, and less trust to the testimony of the Spirit through His Word and His people (the community of believers local & universal), he or she will be “tossed about by every wind of doctrine.” Such a one has no objective anchor for the soul. The “bedrock of the sea” that will hold our “anchor” firm is God Himself (and His Word), who loves each one of us so much that even while we were loyal to sin, He gave His beloved and only Son to pay the price for us & bring us back to Him (John 3:16 and Rom. 5:1-5). He desires and commands an intimate, personal, and unique relationship with each of us through His Spirit. The “anchor” that keeps each of us connected to the bedrock (God) is God’s community of believers, not only universal but also local and intimate through relationship with believers in fellowship, worship, and knowledge of God’s Word.

The most common persistent sin struggle despairing people experience is pornography. This is to be expected, because pornography is a counterfeit of the personal intimacy God created as the only fulfillment of our relationship to Him and our relationship to others. Pornography substitutes exploitation for self-sacrificing love; physical stimulation for spiritual transformation; transitory climax for enduring devotion. Being filled by sex is not the problem: being empty of God-directed intimacy (with Him and with other believers) is the problem.

The “solution” to this struggle to believe one can be saved is like many biblical paradoxes: it is incredibly easy and simple; it is undeniably difficult and complex. The solution is complete and utter abandonment to God, an emptying of one’s self, a forsaking of one’s own will, a “reckless” throwing of oneself on God, trusting His mercy and grace so much that if He does not “catch” him or her, he or she will be utterly destroyed on the rocks of divine deceit. In one way, it is simple and easy: just give up everything. In another way it is profound and impossible: just give up everything. It is that conundrum that God accepts nothing from us but must have everything from us; that we must surrender to His Spirit but we can’t surrender on our own. Praise be to God that the resolution to this difficulty is that the equation is not equal – it is not “all us” and “all God.” God has “weighted” the equation such that our inability makes way for His ability, and He is eager and able to overcome our inadequacies, not by our act of coming to Him, but by our surrender to receive Him coming to us. Because we are still in this sinful world, in our sin-infected body, with our sin-tainted mind and spirit, we will continue to fall and will consequently surrender ourselves over and over. But the good news is that God is not fickle like we are: while we waver between sin and surrender, He is always there in mercy and grace, forgiving and restoring us. Again, the equation is not balanced: God has the upper hand in love and forgiveness, not us.

What I see missing from most of those who fear they’ve committed the unforgivable sin is that “anchor” of intimate relationship that secures them to the bedrock of the Lord. There is a reason that God established human marriage, a lifelong covenant between two people, as a picture of the relationship between God and us.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a defines that lifelong covenant as “love.” “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Is this the kind of relationship a fearful one has with God? With other believers? If not, then this is what he or she needs to seek eagerly: not by trying to stir up an emotion or prove oneself, but by practicing living according to its precepts.

Be patient with God: give Him time to display His plan; don’t dictate one’s own plan to Him.

Be kind to God: put the best construction on God’s action in one’s circumstances; don’t assume He is out to exclude someone who yearns for Him.

Do not envy God: act in trust that He is a loving Father; don’t demand the lonely autonomy of someone cut off from God’s guidance.

Do not choose one’s own way over God’s way: many might think going their own way is a sign of humility (they’re not good enough for God) but instead it is a sign of boasting (their sinful inclinations are more powerful than God’s forgiveness).

Focus one’s attention on God: fill the mind and life w/worship and love of God; don’t pretend one is repentant by being obsessed with his or her own sinfulness and fear, and yet neglecting the solution-giver, the Lord Himself.

Practice true humility: C. S. Lewis skillfully describes the difference between proud and humble, “not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less;” in other words, focus on the Lord and His power and blessings in life, not on one’s own helplessness and fears.

Don’t dishonor the Lord by insisting that the greatness of one’s sinning is greater than the Lord’s greatness to forgive and regenerate: it is contrary to God’s Word to believe that He would reject someone and hold him or her accountable for his or her own sins when he or she is desperate for acceptance and forgiveness through Christ; rather, honor the Lord by honoring His sacrifice through His Son.

Don’t judge the Lord by one’s own subjective, fallible, inadequate judgment: God is the one who promised to forgive the sins of anyone who repents; no individual has the power to exempt oneself from His promise.

Affirm that God’s compassion and loving-kindness is greater than any individual’s anger: even if one thinks his or her devotion to pornography (or any other sin) is extraordinary, in fact it’s always possible (and usually easy) to find others whose sin abounds even more; in fact, God does not limit His forgiveness to those whose sinning is trivial but extends it to those whose sinning is gross. It is not quantity of sin that excludes one from salvation – the tiniest sin is enough and the greatest is not enough – the quality of Christ’s redemptive work covers all.

Stop clutching to both individual recurrent sin and one’s  misjudgment of God: He has promised to keep no record of one’s sins since they are covered by Christ; when someone continues bringing them up (either by remembrance or repetition), he or she is accusing God of being a liar.

Now look at the second paragraph of 1 Corinthians 13: These are the positive features of the intimate, personal, loving relationship God has provided for each of us in Jesus Christ. Turn our back on all the negatives & follow God’s encouragement to rejoice in the truth that salvation is God’s work in Christ, not our work toward Christ; to accept His protection of our salvation, not our own good intentions; to trust the Lord’s love and compassion, not our own fickle emotions; to have confident hope in the finished work of the cross on our behalf, not in our own fallible  intuition; accept the perseverance of the Lord on our behalf, not our own wavering back and forth between obedience and sinning. Finally, practice confidence in the divine love that never fails rather than the unredeemed human love that is counterfeit.

If we practice intimate love relationship with the Lord, we will be drawn inexorably into intimate love relationship (not sexual) with God’s people, the church (both universal and local). We will begin to trust others, rely on their encouragement and support, welcome their assurances and corrections, experience mutual positive involvement in each others’ lives, and begin to identify ourselves with God’s people rather than with those who are aliens to the faith.

If we sincerely practice loving God and loving God’s people (that means making ourselves vulnerable to both God and a local fellowship of believers), the power of sin, fear, and doubt in our lives will begin to lessen. Doing so is not pursuing a subjective, fleeting, transitory emotional experience – I’ve just spent multiple paragraphs defining true divine love.

In conclusion, here are common specific questions fearful people often ask and summary answers to them. “What do I do now?” Move forward boldly and with utter abandon into God’s forgiving and loving arms. “Where do I go now?” To a local fellowship of believers who are truly in love with their Bridegroom, Christ, and therefore can model that love for you. (You know intuitively how to distinguish between those who are generally trustworthy and those who will attack your faith and “punish” you for your failures.) “What am I to believe about salvation?” That it is God’s plan, God’s work, God’s love, and God’s intention, not only for all the others, but also for you. “How do I stop back-sliding?” By learning through practice and association with God’s people to enjoy and occupy yourself with the things of the Lord who is your Lover rather than the things of the world that prostitutes itself. “Can I be free of slavery to pornography?” Yes! When you begin to make a habit of loving God in the 1 Cor 13 sense, you will find yourself falling more and more in love with God and His people and you will experience the true love that will so outshine the transitory counterfeit of pornography that you will look back on it and think, “How could I ever have substituted that pitiful deceit for God’s immense love?” “How can I test myself” must be answered in the negative: you cannot test yourself, a self-defeating subjectivity; but you can trust God’s test confirmed through His church, both the voices of history (like Lewis and Luther) and the voices of those you become intimately personal with in fellowship by God’s love. The true purpose of confession in the church is, in fact, to provide this confirmation of God’s forgiveness to those who are trapped in fear by their subjectivity. Martin Luther said, “Confession embraces two parts: the one is, that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution, or forgiveness, from the confessor, as from God Himself, and in no wise doubt, but firmly believe, that our sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven” (The Small Catechism).

The Non-Connection between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Violence

© Copyright 2014 by Gretchen Passantino Coburn

As the capital murder trial of the alleged murderer of Navy SEAL “American Sniper” Chris Kyle (and his friend Chad Littlefield) begins in May, the topic will be repeatedly raised that suspect Eddie Ray Routh’s previous military service and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were precipitating factors in his attacks.

This is a false assumption in popular media, a favored excuse in criminal defense, and a pathetic attempt at justification for domestic violence. No substantiated causative correlation between PTSD and violence exists. There is, however, evidence that individuals with aggression, anger, and violence in their mental health and personal history who also suffer from PTSD may be handicapped by the PTSD from better controlling their destructive behavior. As Army psychologist Col. Rebecca I. Porter observed, “We’ve asked [experts] ‘How do we predict violence in a soldier?’ and they haven’t been able to provide us with a good screen . . . .The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” (1)

Citing PTSD as a causative factor in violent behavior (especially premeditated criminal behavior) is not only inaccurate. It also interferes with appropriate court adjudication and/or mental health treatment. Additionally, it casts aspersions on the vast majority of those with PTSD (whether combat veterans or not), leading loved ones, friends, employers, and society at large to unreasonable fear and rejection. Perhaps most poignantly, it makes it more difficult for those with PTSD to recognize their own situations, seek appropriate treatment, and reach out to those who can be supportive and encouraging.

This Case

On February 2, 2013, former Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield took veteran Eddie Ray Routh to a local shooting range in Texas as part of Kyle’s ongoing work with FITCO Cares Foundation, a non-profit organization benefiting veterans, veterans with disabilities, Gold Star families, and veterans suffering from PTSD. Routh, 25, is said to have opened fire on Kyle and Littlefield, killing both, before fleeing in Kyle’s truck. He was captured and arrested later the same day.

Authorities have not said what they think the motive was for the killings, although one of Routh’s family members said he wanted Kyle’s new truck, there is evidence Routh had taken illegal drugs earlier in the day, and he may have had a history of mental illness predating his military service. The Veteran’s Administration will not confirm that he was or was not diagnosed with PTSD. There were signs of anger management issues, impulsiveness, and substance abuse going back to his high school years. (Others said of him during that time period, “kinda hard to get along with,” “a standard trouble maker,” “didn’t show a whole lot of respect,” “always ready to fight,” and “had a chip on his shoulder.”) (2)

After he left the Marines, he exhibited serious signs of mental illness, including threatening to kill someone or himself, experiencing hallucinations and paranoia; and his high school heavy drinking deteriorated into extreme alcoholic binging. He was briefly hospitalized twice in the five months before the murders, both times because he had expressed an immediate threat to his own life or the life of someone else. Some mental health professionals not directly associated with his case say his symptoms and behavior may indicate schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder instead of or in addition to PTSD. (2)

His defense team and multiple media stories are linking his alleged murderous actions to PTSD.

The Non-Causative Connection between PTSD and Violence

PTSD no more precipitated this violent criminal act than did military service. Unique factors of military service, combat experience, and PTSD instead may become unintentionally exploited by the individual’s previously existing propensities to impulsiveness, aggression, outbursts of anger, and/or acts of violence.

Someone who has uncontrolled anger & violence, whether as a component of mental illness, social aggression, or moral deficiency may well lash out repeatedly and in escalation, regardless whether he/she has ever served in the military and/or also suffers from PTSD.

While military service may make the individual more proficient at kinds of violence (more accurate shooting, for example), military service is actually designed to control & direct aggression in legal, socially sanctioned situations. And while PTSD may make the individual more prone to self-protection (maintaining vigilance, for example), PTSD is actually a mental/physiological mechanism for insulating an individual from perceived harm.

VA psychiatrist Jonathan Shay defines combat-related PTSD as “the persistence into civilian life, after danger, of the valid adaptations you made to stay alive when other people were trying to kill you.” He distinguishes between “uncomplicated” PTSD and the “complicated moral injury” that erodes the relative mental health of a PTSD sufferer to the point that he or she is unable to cope with ordinary daily life. If Routh suffers from PTSD, he might fall into this latter category. (3)

Andy O’Hara and Richard Levenson note, “The unfortunate result of this misinformation is that more and more cases are erroneously using the defense that PTSD is to blame for murders by veterans when, in fact, there were other emotional disorders and problems involved, including prior anger issues, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and substance abuse, that were more likely responsible for the individual’s violent behavior.” (4)

Even the study that most strongly associates anger and violence with PTSD concludes that previous history of anger, aggression, and violence joined with substance abuse and with an irritability factor of PTSD may increase the statistical probability that an individual may act aggressively or violently, but “this research shows it’s a lot more complicated than that,” said study leader and forensic psychologist Eric B. Elbogen. (5) U. S. Public Health Captain Janet Hawkins echoes this noting, “the relationship between PTSD and interpersonal violence is not well understood” in her report on the complexities of pre-trauma behavior, the kinds of symptoms exhibited by a PTSD sufferer, and other complicating factors such as medical treatment, employment, family dynamics, etc. (6) Both reports note that the incidence of PTSD and violent acts is statistically low.

Conclusion

May this upcoming trial’s confusion of PTSD with violence and false assumption that those with PTSD are “ticking time bombs” be overcome by positive, fact-based, evidence that those with PTSD, whether from military combat or not, are deserving of our respect, encouragement, support, and acceptance in society. As O’Hara and Levenson lament, “The unfortunate consequence of this sensationalism, sadly, is to stigmatize not only veterans with PTSD, but all PTSD sufferers, as being potentially dangerous.” (4)

(For a good short treatment on respecting those with PTSD, see “Dispelling the Myths” from American’s Heroes at Work.) (7)

(1) Link Between PTSD and Violent Behavior Is Weak http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/link-between-ptsd-and-violent-behavior-is-weak/2012/03/31/gIQApYFZnS_story.html

(2) In the Crosshairs by Nicholas Schmidle (The New Yorker June 3, 2013).

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/06/03/130603fa_fact_schmidle

(3) Beyond PTSD to “Moral Injury” by Jeff Severns (On Being March 14, 2013).

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/beyond-ptsd-to-moral-injury/5069

(4) Does PTSD Cause Violence? by Andy O’Hara and Richard Levenson (The Badge of Life: Police Suicide Study).

http://www.policesuicidestudy.com/id13.html

(5) Combat Veterans with PTSD, Anger Issues More Likely to Commit Crimes: New Report by David Wood (Huffington Post October 9, 2012).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/veterans-ptsd-crime-report_n_1951338.html

(6) PTSD, Violent Behavior: What You Need to Know by Captain Janet Hawkins (Defense Centers Excellence August 29, 2013).

http://www.dcoe.mil/blog/13-08-29/PTSD_Violent_Behavior_What_You_Need_to_Know.aspx

(7) Dispelling the Myths About PTSD.

http://www.americasheroesatwork.gov/forEmployers/factsheets/dispellMyth/

(Disclosure: I am the proud wife of a USMC 2 time combat Vietnam Veteran whose PTSD has been evidence of his resilience, strength, and courage to face the abyss and not be swallowed up.)

The Golden Rule Apologetic

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A classic article from the late Bob Passantino and Answers In Action

© Copyright 2003 by Bob Passantino

Nearly everyone is familiar with the “Golden Rule” even if they don’t realize that it comes to us in its perfect form as a command of Jesus: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). [1] This command to deal fairly with others should govern everything we do as Christians, including how we defend our faith.

Taken within the context of Jesus’s other teachings, the Golden Rule is a minimalist argument, that is, the conduct commanded in the Golden Rule is the least one can do acting in imitation of the love of God. As a matter of fact, in many other places Jesus tells us that the superior commandment is not merely to be fair to others, to treat them as we would like to be treated, but even to excel in love toward others. He tells us to love our enemies (Luke 6:27, 35) and to forgive someone repeatedly (Matt.18:21-22). Jesus Himself provided the best example of this Better-than-the-Golden-Rule: He sacrificed Himself willingly for us while we were still sinners, deserving nothing better than God’s condemnation:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8).

The maximalist argument we could call the “Platinum Rule,” exemplified in Paul’s command to the Christians in Philippi, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3).

Whether minimalist or maximalist, the command to treat others fairly is a command Christians can’t ignore, even when we are practicing apologetics, which is defending the faith. Years ago I was disturbed by the attitudes and arguments some Christians were using as they defended the faith, arguing with non-believers, cultists, and those of other faiths. Far too often I saw Christians making fun of the beliefs of others, taking unfair advantage of them in discussions, even misrepresenting the truth or their opponents’ arguments if they thought they could get away with it. I began to encourage others to remember the Golden Rule when they were practicing apologetics. At first I called this the “Golden Rule of Apologetics” – the Golden Rule has a place in our apologetics. Although that is true and sufficient, I quickly began to see people respond to my encouragement by using the Golden Rule selectively in their apologetics – when it served their purpose and they thought they couldn’t get away with anything else.

Over the years I have modified my principle and now I call it the “Golden Rule Apologetic” – the only apologetic system worth pursuing is the apologetic system that is governed by the Golden Rule. There is good biblical and philosophical precedent for this principle.

The passage we chose to exemplify the ministry of Answers In Action is 2 Timothy 2:24-25:

And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.

Paul reminds Timothy to be kind and to gently instruct; in other words, to practice the Golden Rule with those who oppose the Gospel.

In 1 Peter 3:15b-16, which actually uses the word apologia (defense or reason), Peter says that one’s apologetics should be governed by gentleness and respect:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

Paul uses the Golden Rule Apologetic with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens (Acts 17:16-31). Rather than merely mocking them for their polytheistic beliefs, he treated them kindly and fairly, commending them for their religious respect and using their own poets’ statements as a starting point for declaring the truth of Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead.

Paul condemns religious hypocrites in Romans 2 for not following the Golden Rule Apologetic. He argues,

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things (Rom. 2:1)

Paul contrasts this hypocrisy with God’s Golden Rule by which he continues to extend his grace and mercy to sinners even though they deserve condemnation:

Do you show contempt for his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? (Rom. 2:4).

In the Old Testament the principle I have applied to apologetics is applied to the every day activities of God’s people. Deuteronomy 25:13-16 gives this command:

Do not have two differing weights in your bag – one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house – one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

Leviticus 19:35-37 parallels this teaching:

Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight, or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.

This is commonly referred to as the principle of “equal weights and measures.” Remember, to deal fairly and honestly is our minimal obligation under the Golden Rule. To deal generously and better than expected is our maximal obligation which transforms the Golden Rule into the Platinum Rule.

In philosophy a general rule called the “Principle of Charity” reflects the Golden Rule. In philosophy, one should give the most generous understanding and weight to what someone says. For example, if someone states his argument poorly, rather than merely pointing out the logical mistakes he has made, the Principle of Charity demands that his opponent correct the flaws in the argument (if they can be), and then respond to the best form of the argument rather than his opponent’s poor form of the argument. Another application of the Principle of Charity is to replace poor arguments with better arguments. If, for example, a Jehovah’s Witness gives two poor arguments against the deity of Christ, the Christian has the responsibility to give that Witness the best arguments against the deity of Christ – and then show that those arguments do not overturn the truthfulness of the deity of Christ. Those who fail to follow the Golden Rule in philosophy end up refuting “straw man” arguments that don’t properly represent the position we oppose in the first place.

An important part of the Golden Rule Apologetic is that you must not demand of your opponent what you are unwilling to provide. For example, if you are arguing with a Mormon that the Book of Mormon is full of contradictions, you must be willing not merely to cite those contradictions, but also to provide reasonable answers if the Mormon points to supposed contradictions in the Bible. If you launch ten quick arguments against your opponents’ view and then don’t give him time to respond, you cannot fairly complain if he does the same thing to you. On the other hand, if you bring up one argument at a time and spend the time necessary to be sure you both understand each other and where the evidence leads, you should feel free to ask your opponent to have the same patience and single mindedness with you.

You can even use the Golden Rule Apologetic to defend yourself. If your opponent makes fun of and misrepresents your view, you have every right to ask him if he would like you to act that way toward him. I am not saying that you should “pay him back” by mockery and misrepresentation (remember our Platinum goal), but that you bring out your Golden Rule principle to reason your opponent into a fair discussion.

If you apply the Golden Rule Apologetic every time you defend the Christian faith, you will find that those of opposing beliefs will listen more closely to what you say, respect your position even if they continue to deny it, give greater weight to your arguments, and be more willing to examine their own beliefs. You will not only give a good representation of Christianity, you will also be used by God to extend his mercy and patience to others, just as it was extended to you.

The next time you are tempted to perform sloppy apologetics, to mock someone with whom you disagree, or to dismiss opposing arguments without fair consideration, remember the Golden Rule and practice it until it becomes the Platinum Rule in your life.

[1] Other versions are in the Old Testament (see, for example, Leviticus 19:18) and in the writings of other religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism).

Christian Apologetics Is Not the Gospel: It Is Both a Preparation and a Reinforcement

© Copyright 2014 by Gretchen Passantino Coburn

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16 NIV).

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

 

Defining the Gospel

The gospel, or “good news,” is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf (1 Corinthians 15:1-5). It is God’s Great Redemption Story – the work of God by the Holy Spirit through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ by which fallen, sinful, broken humanity is reconciled to God and regenerated to become the fulfillment of God’s image in his restored Creation.

The gospel is the reconciliation of humans with God. The working of the gospel is empowered and enacted by God, not humans. While God uses humans to proclaim the gospel, it is God’s power that acts in that gospel to produce repentance and salvation in the recipient of the gospel.

 

Defining Apologetics

Apologetics, specifically Christian apologetics, is a defense of the truthfulness of Christianity and its truth claims, centered on the reality of the gospel.

The term apologetics comes from the ancient Greek apologia, used in the legal sense as a defendant’s response to the charges against him in a law court. When Socrates was accused of treasonously corrupting the youth of Athens, his speech in his own defense was called his Apologia. The term occurs in the New Testament specifically by the apostle Paul when he defends himself against the charges of heresy lodged by the Jewish leaders to the authorities (Acts 26:2); in another form in Philippians 1:7 (16) for defense of the faith; in a negative form in Romans 1:20 indicating that reprobates’ sins are indefensible; and most popularly known in 1 Peter 3:15 as not merely the “why” of belief, but the reasoned, argued, evidenced defense of the Christian hope.

Christian apologetics may include defenses such as rational arguments for the existence of God, historical arguments for the reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, scientific arguments affirming God as creator (intelligent design), philosophical arguments for biblical morality, etc.

 

The Appropriate Use of Apologetics

When someone testifies to the gospel, and his or her message is challenged, apologetics is the discourse by which those challenges are met. In this context, apologetics has three main purposes: (1) to hold scoffers accountable for their rejection of the gospel; (2) to remove the roadblocks of ignorance and/or misinformation that impede someone’s serious consideration of the gospel; and (3) to strengthen the faith of the believer (not merely giving the believer facts that support his or her faith, but actually nourishing one’s faith life).

 

Apologetics Exposes Resistance to the Gospel

First, apologetics exposes the scoffer’s rejection of the gospel as a spiritual or life issue, not an intellectual or fact issue. It breaks down the walls of defense that disguise someone’s rejection of God.

Most often, when someone is asked why he or she is not a Christian, some kind of an “ant-belief” apologetic is offered: “Christians are just hypocrites;” “How can I believe in a good God when I see so much evil around me?” “That Jesus stuff is ancient mythology;” “The Bible is full of contradictions;” etc. Some people specifically identify themselves as atheists, agnostics, or skeptics and their objections appear more sophisticated: “The existence of God is unprovable;” “Science has done away with the need for people to believe in God;” “The Big Bang explains everything without need to resort to some Creator explanation;” etc. None of these kinds of objections disprove the existence of God. (They may bring into dispute the nature or character of God, the character of those who believe in Him, or the reliability of the revelation attributed to Him. They do not disprove God’s existence.) In fact there are abundant counter-arguments and positive arguments for the existence of God, the truthfulness of Christian theism, the reality of the Incarnation and Resurrection, and the trustworthiness of the Bible.

As 1 Peter 3:15 commands us, Christians are to be “always ready” or “constantly prepared” to defend the Christian faith, and when we take this charge seriously, God can use our arguments to expose the scoffer’s resistance to the Holy Spirit. The scoffer, those influenced by the scoffer, and, of course, those believers who challenge the scoffer can then see clearly that the scoffer is rejecting the truth, not clinging to the truth. Romans 1:18-20 tells us that scoffers “suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Many years ago my late husband Bob Passantino and I were asked by a new Christian to persuade her atheist husband to stop mocking her for her faith and to allow her to attend church and other Christian events. The atheist (we’ll name him John for this story) claimed he embraced the truth of atheism and didn’t need the crutch of belief in a myth like his wife. Bob talked to John on the phone and discovered he was an unsophisticated atheist. John was unprepared to appreciate the force of the apologetics Bob and I were prepared to deliver. So Bob sent John a list of books (this was before the Internet) to educate him in his atheism. All of the books were against Christian theism. Bob challenged John to read and learn more sophisticated arguments in preparation for talking with us. In the meantime, John agreed to stop harassing his wife for her faith. A couple of months later we met with John, who was eager to demonstrate his newly acquired anti-God prowess against us. (Evidently he didn’t consider that Bob, the Christian theist, who had prepared the atheist reading list for him, probably had answers to those arguments.) After several hours of discussion, we had answered all of his new arguments, improved some of his arguments but answered the improvements, and given him even more sophisticated arguments which we also successfully answered. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, John finally gave up his intellectual subterfuge. He said, “You both have every reason to believe what you believe, and I have no reasons to reject belief. But I will never believe in God! I hate God!” That was the crux of the matter: in his deepest heart, he knew God existed but he hated God and would not surrender to him. As far as we know, he never relented in his rejection of God, but it was evident to us, his wife, and himself that his problem was not intellectual, but spiritual. And he never mocked his wife for her faith or interfered with her practice of it. Apologetics holds people accountable for rejecting the gospel.

 

Apologetics Removes Mistaken Assumptions

When someone’s heart is softened toward the gospel, he or she often becomes distracted or confused because of exposure to false ideas about the truth of God, revelation, salvation, and Jesus Christ. That false information can obscure the truth. Like a “magic eraser” sponge, apologetics can wipe away those false arguments. While there is an abundance of evidence for Christian truth claims, and abundance of evidence against contrary world views, unless someone is aware of those arguments, he or she may fail to seriously consider the call of the gospel. Whether one’s spiritual head is turned by an attractive philosophical argument, a scientific conundrum, or a social fad, such diversions rob potential believers of the truth. The apostle Paul described this kind of spiritual blindness in Acts 17, as he addressed the Greek philosophers of Athens, describing their indiscriminate polytheism as ignorance, and proclaiming to them that he would enlighten them about the truth. He preached Christian theism and the reality of the resurrection, concluding, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).

My late husband Bob and I once talked in a mainline Protestant church on the dangers of “New Age” beliefs and practices, including pantheism (God is everything and everything is God), psychic readings, reincarnation, etc. Afterward an older gentleman approached us and loudly announced, “I liked your presentation, although with my hearing problems, I missed a lot. I’m glad you brought up reincarnation. I’m fascinated by it and am trying to recover memories from my previous lives.” He seemed completely unaware that we had criticized reincarnation, refuting it from reason, science, and the Bible. We had the opportunity to meet with him in a quieter setting later and spent quite a bit of time listening to why he was so intrigued with reincarnation and explaining its inadequacies to him. By removing the attractiveness of reincarnation and exposing it as a cruel imagination that punishes people in this life for sins they didn’t even know they committed in a previous lifetime, and which gave no assurance that the cycle of rebirth would ever end, we were able to eliminate the man’s attraction to reincarnation. Then when we gave him the assurance of the gospel and the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, he was drawn to firm confidence in immediate salvation and confident hope for eternal life with God instead. Apologetics erases mistaken false ideas and clears the way for the persuasive truth of the gospel.

 

Apologetics Nourishes the Faith of the Believer

Most Christians know that spiritual nourishment, including food for the mind, is necessary for Christian maturity. Most churches emphasize Bible study and education for successful discipleship. Many pastors exhort their congregations to learn the Word of God. Even though apologetics is sometimes treated as the neglected step-child of Christian education, believers acknowledge that defending the faith against rational attack is an important part of Christian living.

Often overlooked is the essential factor of Christian apologetics for the individual believer’s spiritual health and welfare. It is not sufficient for a Christian to know what he believes and why he believes it merely for the purpose of defending the faith or winning the convert. Apologetics is not merely the “supplement” to the Christian diet. It is the spiritual nutrition boost that can complete the spiritual diet and revive the flagging spirit. Rooted in the saving power of the Holy Spirit, the new Christian life must be nourished not only by worship, fellowship, learning the Bible, and prayer, but also by confirming the faith through apologetics.

One of the key apologetics passages for the truthfulness and historicity of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is in chapter fifteen of the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Most who know apologetics are very familiar with this chapter, which represents an early proclamation of the resurrection dating from between AD 30 and 33, virtually contemporaneous with the event itself. The chapter begins with the strong command of Paul that this gospel of the resurrection has not only saved the Corinthian Christians, but it is that on which they have taken a stand, and it will continue to keep them strong if they hold firmly to the Word: otherwise, they will have believed in vain (1 Corinthians 15:2). How do we “hold firmly” what we’ve been told to believe? By understanding and knowing the strength of the belief. Paul spends the rest of the chapter preaching to the believers the truth of the resurrection and the falsity of its denial. He is not practicing apologetics to non-believers nor primarily equipping believers to combat unbelief outside the church. He is encouraging and nourishing the faith of the believers by proving the resurrection and disproving false beliefs. That is why he ends the chapter by encouraging the believers with the same images with which he opened the chapter – stand firm, let nothing move you, give yourself completely to the Lord’s work, because the reality of the resurrection gives you confidence “that our labor in the Lord is not in vain” (58).

This aspect of apologetics has been sadly neglected even as the last 30 years of American evangelicalism has seen a blossoming of Christian apologetics. Most of our involvement with apologetics has been for the purpose of refuting the opposition, defending the faith, and equipping believers to do likewise. We ought to expand our apologetic commitment and focus more time and attention on the spiritual nourishment apologetics gives believers. To the Jews who believed in Him, he said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31).

My husband Pat became a Christian as a young man, believing the gospel as it was told to him by his boss, a painting contractor who took him on as a young apprentice. Pat respected his employer, attended church with him and his family, was baptized, and learned about the Bible from a dedicated and wise pastor. But as he encountered the trials and temptations common to man, his faith stumbled. He didn’t know how to answer his non-believing family members when they mocked his faith. He didn’t know why, much less how, to resist temptations to sin when the lures around him seemed so much more tangible than something eternal promised after he would die. Always inquisitive, interested in science, an avid reader, he encountered more and more challenges to the simple gospel he had simply embraced. As he began to learn more about why he believed (he didn’t even know the discipline was called apologetics), he discovered his faith stirring with new growth. Solid apologetics in science confirmed his conviction that everything in the universe, from the expanses of space to the tiniest particle, was created by an intelligent designer. Apologetics in philosophy gave him confidence that it made sense to believe in Christian theism. Historical apologetics strengthened his identification with an unbroken line of apostolic testimony of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Finally, his study of the evidences for the resurrection enabled him to stand firm in his faith, confidently offering the gospel to others with the same promise of resurrection and eternal life that he had received. Pat’s faith is firm, unwavering, confident, and healthy. It’s not all attributable to apologetics, of course, as the Bible gives us a broad range of ways the Holy Spirit strengthens and confirms our faith. But his faith is an example of the kind of strength apologetics “muscle milk” brings to the believer.

Pat is not alone in his experience. After more than 40 years in apologetics, I can testify that for several of my colleagues, apologetics became a life-giving transfusion of spiritual life as they experienced faith-challenging crises in their own lives. I’ve had more than one apologetics friend in the midst of trauma tell me, “If it weren’t for my confidence in the truth of the gospel, I would have abandoned all hope.”

One of the most common scriptures used in apologetics is found in the short New Testament letter of Jude written to Christians in multiple churches of the first century. Jude verse 3 commands the Christians to “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.”

Apologetics is not the gospel, but it has three crucial purposes: (1) It knocks down the pretense of those who reject the gospel; (2) It erases the misconceptions that distract non-believers from the gospel; and (3) It nourishes the faith of the believer.

Let me conclude with Jude’s advice to the Christians about how to use apologetics: “But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear – hating the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (20-23).

Discovering God Through Stories

© Copyright 2003 by Gretchen Passantino¹

I love stories. I become lost in other people’s worlds. I devour good fiction voraciously, returning to the same wonderful story again and again, marveling each time at the tantalizing power of human creativity. Truly wonderful characters become almost as real to me as people in the “real” world. A gripping suspense story starts my heart pounding, my palms sweating, and my nerves ready to jump at any sound. If I must put down a half-finished intriguing mystery, I find my thoughts straying from my work to the puzzle, looking at it from one angle and then another, bringing my mental tools to bear to solve the mystery when I should be meeting deadlines. Some of the most profound personal and spiritual insights I’ve ever experienced have grabbed me from the pages of a story. In exquisite story telling I see the creatorial image of God reflected in authors who create worlds of ideas never pondered before. As a spiritual novice and a moral ingénue I encountered and came to understand faithfulness, integrity, courage, humility, and self-discipline through good characters; and betrayal, deceit, cowardice, pride, and self-indulgence through evil ones. I can’t count how often God has sneaked up on me in a powerful story, and taught me lessons I wouldn’t have willingly learned had he been so obvious as to challenge my stubbornness directly through a Bible study. My actual conversion to Christ came through a fairly ordinary encounter with the straightforward gospel, but the Holy Spirit softened me beforehand through literature, and nurtures me long after through the same manner.

I’ve used outstanding stories to share some of my most important beliefs with non-Christians who would never listen to an overt preaching of the gospel, but who can be enticed by a good story into thinking for the first time about life after death, justice, morality, and redemption. Mainstream, popular contemporary fiction — if it’s good — is a valuable tool of pre-evangelism, seed-planting, “soft” apologetics.

One of the best pro-life books I’ve ever read is Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss.² Remember the story from your childhood? Horton the elephant finds a speck of dust on which is a village of little persons, the Whos of Whoville. Horton realizes he must rescue the Whos “Because, after all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.” The rest of the animals scoff and refuse to believe persons could be so small. But Horton can’t give up. He recognizes the moral responsibility he has, “I’ve got to protect them. I’m bigger than they.” When the black-bottomed bird flies off with Whoville, Horton chases after him, crying, “Please don’t harm all my little folks, who have as much right to live as us bigger folks do!” In desperation, Horton urges all the little Whos to shout as loud as they can so the other animals can finally hear them and realize they exist. No one hears anything until finally the last little Who joins in with a “Yopp!”

Finally, at last! From that speck on that clover

Their voices were heard! They rang out clear and clean.

And the elephant smiled. “Do you see what I mean? . . .

They’ve proved they ARE persons, no matter how small.

And their whole world was saved by the Smallest of All!”

Now, I don’t mean to imply that Dr. Seuss was a pro-life Christian, or that he intended this children’s story as a pro-life statement. Nevertheless, Horton Hears a Who reflects how truth can be recognized even by unbelievers, as Paul stated in Romans 2:15, “the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness. . . . ”

Christian author John Fischer describes the importance of using the story to communicate the absolute truth, in today’s society of relativism, where “absolute truth” is rejected in favor of what he calls “truth anarchy”:

What happens to the Christian apologetic in such a world? How do we explain what we know as absolute truth to a generation that cannot even think in terms of such a thing? . . . .

Story. Narrative, novel, film, music, art, but tell a story. As in the parables of Jesus, we intrigue the modern mind through story and entice them to start thinking differently. Through story, one can encounter a world where absolutes are true even if one does not believe such a world presently exists, and in the process, the soul can unconsciously hunger for what it knows to be the truth but is culturally and intellectually being denied.³

We don’t need to spell out the entire gospel message in block letters to provoke some serious soul-searching. A local Southern California mystery novelist and newspaper columnist, T. Jefferson Parker, recognizes the power of a good story, “I like a sense of danger and a sense that in the book that I’m writing, life and death are the issues as opposed to financial solvency or cocaine problems. I want large things to be at stake.”⁴ In one of his columns, he focused on the meaning of life in only a few words of contemplation. He recounted the true story of a local teenager who was convicted of killing his friend over a robbery dispute. The convicted murderer, Robert Chan, “wrote in letters to the court that he had read Albert Camus’ The Stranger some nine months before the murder and claimed that the book encouraged him to kill his victim because ‘everything [is] meaningless and nothing matters because we are all going to die.'” Parker notes that he read the same book some twenty years earlier when he was a teenager, but responded differently:

Rereading Chan’s words . . . I was struck by how close he was to the mark, and at the same time how far away. Because we are all going to die, he reasons, everything is meaningless and nothing matters.

But the truth is: Because we are all going to die, nothing is meaningless and everything matters.⁵

A carefully crafted, compelling protagonist in an outstanding story provides not only a creativity reflective of the one true Creator, but also a prototype of a person redeemed to the creatorial position for which God originally intended us. In an imaginary conversation between mystery writer Dorothy Sayer and the protagonist of her classic Peter Wimsey stories, these two themes are echoed,

“Perhaps you’re right in a way. Perhaps I did create in you the man I couldn’t find in this life. But it was not for some subliminal and sordid satisfaction. It was to show the world the type of man required for the satisfaction of a modern, unfettered, educated woman. The awful, unattainable goal to be achieved.”

“And yet, if I may be allowed one more immodest observation, you achieved it,” Wimsey said softly.

“In art, Peter.”

“It is no less of an achievement for that. It is no common soul that can shape the world to its own ideals, no matter that the world it masters is a fiction. And no common reward awaits the creators of this life. However modest their creations, each echoes the larger work.

‘The glory of Him who moves all things soe’er

Impenetrates the universe, and bright

The splendour burns, more here and lesser there.'”⁶

Mysteries and horror stories lend themselves particularly well to sowing the seeds that make us vulnerable to the gospel. In a way, the good mystery or horror parallels the story of redemption: Everything is right in the world until evil intrudes and spoils what it finds. After searching, recognizing clues, and chasing suspects, redemption comes as good triumphs over evil and the world of the story is restored by justice. Jewish mystery writer Majer Krich recognizes this parallel, “Judaism in general deals with good versus evil in the Biblical sense. . . . [M]ysteries deal with good versus evil. Period.”⁷ Horror author William Relling (Brujo) agrees, “The essence of horror stories’ ‘scary stuff’ lies in a struggle between good and evil. I believe that, in fiction, good has to win. Otherwise we’re in trouble.”⁸

The best contemporary fiction can promote godly morality with subtle persuasion rather than brash revivalist preaching. Jewish mystery writer Faye Kellerman’s stories feature an orthodox Jewish couple, Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, whose deep faith seems a natural part of the story. In Sanctuary, on the trail of diamond thief murderers, Rina visits the “Cave of the Pairs” in Hebron, the traditional site of the burial of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, Adam and Eve:

It smelled like a compost pile of rich, decaying vegetation, as if the shrine echoed God’s very words — for dust thou art and unto dust thou shall return. . . . These people weren’t fairy-tale characters or mythological creatures, they were real people. And like all real people, they had lived, and they had died.⁹

The Jewish sholdier guarding the site later explains how he knows Rina is not an Arab terrorist in disguise:

“I see with my own eyes that you’re a good woman. Because I followed you in the Ma’arat. I saw the tears in your eyes when you prayed, the expression on your face when you davened shemona esreh. I saw you mouth the words with clarity, with assurance, with purpose and meaning. Your posture, your sincerity. It shows through as if you have a window to your heart. You pray to a God of mercy, not to a God of revenge. Many pray here — Arab and Jew. I don’t think you’re a crazy fanatic. And I don’t think you are an Arab spy, either. Many try to pretend to be us to infiltrate. They speak our language, eat kosher food, drink our wine, and love our women. But they cannot love our God.¹⁰

Novelist Elizabeth George, without intruding sermonizing, but within the natural rhythm of the story, explains the forgiveness of God in the words of a parish priest consoling young Maggie Spence:

“If the Lord’s last words were, ‘Forgive them, Father,’ and if His Father did indeed forgive — which we may be assured he did — then why wouldn’t He forgive you as well? Whatever your sin may be, my dear, it cannot equal the evil of putting to death the Son of God, can it?”¹¹

Verteran mystery writer Dick Francis doesn’t preach celibacy in Driving Force, but his protagonist understands its sad consequences: a young daughter, the unintended product of a physically enjoyable but uncommitted relationship, growing up with no knowledge of him as her father; and a recognition that sex is a poor substitute for being loved:

The older I grew, the more I saw consequences in advance and the more I cared . . . about not doing damage for the sake of a passing pleasure. I looked back over the years with horror, sometimes. After I’d lost Susan Palmerstone I’d drifted in and out of several relationships without understanding that I might have awoken much deeper feelings than I felt myself; and I’d dodged a thrown plate or two and laughed about it. How dreadfully long it had taken me to stop grazing.¹²

One of Francis’ most poignant stories is of a security consultant, whose loneliness is drawing him seemingly inexorably toward suicide. Gene Hawkins has no significant reason to live, and it takes all of his fortitude to resist ending his life: “The day-to-day social level had lost all meaning and underneath, where there should have been rock, had opened a void of shriveling loneliness.”¹³ The despair plagues him throughout his search for stolen race horses in company with an insurance agent who seems to possess all the meaningfulness, love, and family security Gene so desperately lacks. The temptation to end it all pierces the prose with an authenticity that speaks to the heart of anyone who has been close to self-inflicted death:

I shut my eyes, and the desolation went so deep that for an unmeasurable age, I felt dizzy with it, as if I were in some fearful pitch-black limbo, with no help, no hope, and no escape. Spinning slowly down an endless shaft in solitary despair. Lost.

The spinning stopped after a while. The internal darkness stayed.¹⁴

In the end, the contented insurance agent, Walt Prensela, saves Gene’s life by throwing himself in front of the suspect’s speeding car, and Gene rails at the unfairness:

It should have been me lying there, not Walt. I shook with sudden impotent fury that it wasn’t me, that Walt had taken what I’d wanted, stolen my death . . . . It would have mattered so little if it had been me. It wouldn’t have mattered at all.¹⁵

But finally Gene understands Walt’s sacrifice and turns away from suicide forever:

The gray day turned to gray dusk. I got up and switched on the light, and fetched two objects to put on the low table beside my chair.

The Luger, and the photograph of Walt with his wife and kids.

The trouble with being given a gift you don’t really want is that you feel so mean if you throw it way. Especially if it cost more than the giver could afford.

I won’t throw away Walt’s gift. . . . . I’ll survive.¹⁶

Not the gospel, in so many words, but a striking parallel to Jesus’ “greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

One of the most gripping suspense stories I’ve ever read is also one of the most spiritually and emotionally wrenching. T. Jefferson Parker’s Summer of Fear twists together two story lines to illustrate his theme of the triumph of good over random evil: a crime journalist, Russ Monroe, follows the unfolding story of a sociopathic serial killer slashing his way through a Southern California summer as the journalist anguishes over the invading, destructive brain cancer that threatens his wife, Isabella. It is also a story of exquisite soul-searching, a story where what ultimately matters is at stake.

Early in the story Russ recognizes the effect of the Fall on nature, “the way that nature can go so quickly from order to chaos. The popular notion is that nature’s world is ultimately ordered and systematic, that only man’s woeful intrusions can ruin that balance and harmony. This is not true. . . . the natural world isn’t neatly ordered, isn’t flawless, isn’t perfect. Sometimes it is just like our human one: angry and yearning for mayhem.¹⁷

Monroe’s ambivalent faith in the face of his wife’s suffering rings true to anyone who has anguished over the suffering of a loved one:

God, help me love her more. God, do something good for her or I’ll cut your heart out with a chain saw and feed it to Black Death. . . .

Have you ever known helplessness while someone you love is suffering? Have you ever cursed God for what He has done? Have you ever felt your heart throbbing with so much love and rage that they get mixed up and you can’t tell one from the other?¹⁸

He comes to a crisis where he truly experiences for the first time that he is not invincible, that he can’t make everything right, that he is, in fact, powerless:

If fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, what is the beginning of fear? I have an answer, for myself at least. The beginning of fear is to understand that you are without power. I took me half a lifetime — 40 years — to realize this. Oh, I can hear the protestant brayings of those who are “taking responsibility for their own lives,” or “are God,” but I’m not talking about the mundanities of happiness, success, self-fulfillment, weight loss, life without alcohol, or who is okay and who is not. I’m talking about powerlessness in the face of death, in the face of life, in the face of madness, love, disease, desire, in the face of all things beautiful and terrible that govern our every moment whether we know it or not. And I am talking about the fear of truly realizing that your best may not be good enough, that it may, in fact, be very little good at all. To understand this is to become fluent in the language of terror, to become intimate with the contours of the pit. It is the wisdom of the man before the firing squad. But fear — true fear — is not a reason for anyone to do something so simpleminded as to surrender. No. The acts of the powerless are among the lasting nobilities of the race. To advance with a stomach knotted in terror is more than courage. Fear is beauty.¹⁹

From this courage in the midst of powerlessness, Russ longs for a new beginning, “[Did] you ever wish something big, like God, would pick you up by the heels with a pair of tongs and just like dip you into something wet, and when you came out, you’d be clean and fresh again?”²⁰

Finally, he comes to terms with the fear, the anguish, the terror, and God, praying before his wife’s brain surgery:

Dear Father in heaven, I am small, corrupt, hateful, meanspirited and too much a coward to sin importantly. I am a fool. Hear my prayer. I know how you value humility, so I confess to all this to assure you I know my place in your order of things. I deserve nothing. I expect nothing. I will ask for nothing. But you are absent here, you ceded this earth to us, and there are some things you should know. We suffer. We cry. We toil. Sickness comes to us. Death moves among us with arrogance. We die, trembling, bound for unspecified destinations. Christ died for our sins once; we die for them again. His agony is over, but ours continues. Our anguish is real. Do you remember how it feels? I know that your design is huge, so I have stopped trying to understand it. In your larger hands, we leave the larger motions. My concern is this life you have given us. I am too stupid to believe it is only a prelude. I am too weak to be happy that there may be a reward at the end of it. I am too literal to believe that the heart of the matter lies elsewhere. This is the heart of this matter. Do not think less of me for holding dear the life you’ve given. I lied when I said I would ask for nothing. This is what I want: I want you to treat Isabella with respect. I want you to give me the love that I want so badly to have for Isabella in these coming days. Give it to me so I can give it to her. I ask to be your representative. Do not leave us without love. Respectfully submitted to you in this hour of need, Amen.²¹

***

Start reading good fiction. You’ll discover spiritual lessons you never would have expected outside the pages of scripture.

Since I wrote the above, I have explored hundreds – probably thousands – of imaginary worlds with novelists, the best transforming me into a better me when I close the book, the worst propelling the never-finished story against my bedroom wall to lie forgotten and broken on the floor. I edited these words as I prepared to give a talk about a popular fiction book that claims to tell the truth about Jesus and the Bible, but which does not. Not only does the book denigrate our Lord, in its poor fiction it denigrates the beautiful power that flows inexorably through good fiction and into a tender heart that longs to be transformed – even a little bit at a time – into the heart of our Creator and Sustainer. Frankly, I didn’t want to spend another talk or interview focusing on the inadequate. I wanted to focus on what raises our hearts from our own inadequacies to Christ’s overflowing adequacy through the transformation of meaningful stories.

Let God work subtly in your heart through stories. Check the authors I’ve quoted above and below. Keep searching until you find God in the middle of a story. You will find a new way of – to paraphrase C. S. Lewis – “getting God inside you so He doesn’t merely improve you, but transforms you.”

Remember, I am not saying these authors are Christians, or that the books I’m recommending are Christian books with clear gospel messages. But they are authors who – however brokenly – are reflecting the Divine image; and whose books will leave you a better person – and better Christian – than you were before. One of my favorite characters, flaws and all, is Harry Bosch, created by author Michael Connelly. Bosch has devoted his life to homicide investigation. It’s not his career. It’s not his job. It’s not what he’s good at. It’s not what he likes. (Although it’s all those things, too.) He does it because it’s his mission – his calling, the only thing that fulfills him. And he lives by the creed that unless everyone matters, no one matters. Isn’t this an echo of Christ, who told of the shepherd who searched for the one lost lamb; and who said concerning his death, burial, and resurrection, “for this purpose I was born”? Look for books and authors whose mission is ensuring that everyone matters – that’s God’s message of redemptive love.

Other Recommended Authors:

Andrew Vachss – his mission is to protect children from evil. He says, “I don’t claim to do what I do because I love children. I do what I do because I hate people that prey on them.” In another place he says, “Sickness is a condition. Evil is a behavior. Evil is always a matter of choice. Evil is not thought; it is conduct. And that conduct is always volitional. And just as evil is always a choice, sickness is always the absence of choice. Sickness happens. Evil is inflicted.”

Michael Connelly – whether it’s his Harry Bosch series or his stand-alone stories, Connelly is always about redeeming the lost from evil into beauty and life. In Blood Work,²² the main character, an FBI profiler retired to receive and recover from a heart transplant, must solve the murder of Glory for her sister Graciella – it is Glory’s heart beating in McCaleb’s chest. Is there a better analogy of the atonement? In a short story Harry is interviewing an inmate on death row, pleading with him to give him the identity of his last victim, a young girl never identified and thus never buried by her family. The killer says nobody cares. Harry says he cares. The killer refuses to tell. Harry tells the killer, “You’re going to burn. You are going to burn in hell.” The killer responds, “Don’t you know, Detective? You have to believe in heaven to believe in hell.” The problem of evil and the problem of good, all laid out in a few short lines of dialog.

Elizabeth George – British mysteries crafted with complexity and richness of character but, in my book, most powerful because her characters change and grow through difficulty and pain. In Well-schooled in Murder one main character, Deborah, having miscarried several times as she and her husband try to build their family, struggles with guilt over the abortion she had years before: “As they gazed across the expanse of their bed, Deborah took the full measure of how completely her past was obliterating whatever future was possible with her husband.” If only a young woman with an “unplanned pregnancy” could see the future Deborah experiences here!

And then there’s Dick Francis’s Proof, of inestimable value for someone struggling through the loss of a beloved spouse; or his Decider, one of the best arguments for free will I’ve ever seen demonstrated in story form.

And for middle school children, The Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence, a series by an archaeologist filled with great first century Roman history, artifacts, customs, and life – and, more importantly, experiences with forgiveness and God.

Other authors I credit for some of my spiritual transformation include James Lee Burke, Donald Harstad (a great, subtle wit, too), William Bernhardt, Robert Crais, Deborah Crombie, Ian Rankin, Val MacDermid, Minette Walters, Bryce Courtenay (The Power of One), Peter Robinson, Archer Mayor, Bartholomew Gill, Ridley Pierson, and Michael McGarrity.

There are many more – enrich yourself with some and grow pleasurably in your leisure reading!

1 An earlier version of this appeared in Cornerstone magazine in 1995.

2 New York: Random House, 1954.

3 Bethany House Publishers UPDATE, “Author Spotlight,” February/March 1995, p. 2.

4 Dennis McLellan, “Turning to the First Person” in The Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1993.

5 Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1994.

6 Terence Faherty, “As My Wimsey Takes Me” in First Culprit: A Crime Writers’ Association Annual, Liza Cody and Michael Z. Lewin, eds. (New York: Worldwide, 1992), p. 46.

7 Robert Epstein, “The Mystery Woman Who Can Do It All,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1994.

8 Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1992.

9 Faye Kellerman. Sanctuary. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994, p. 295.

10 Ibid., pp. 296-297.

11 Elizabeth George. Missing Joseph. New York: Bantam Books, 1993, p. 88.

12 Dick Francis. Driving Force. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992, pp. 210-211.

13 Dick Francis. Blood Sport. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1967, p. 2.

14 Ibid., pp. 267-268.

15 Ibid., p. 283.

16 Ibid., p. 309.

17 T. Jefferson Parker. Summer of Fear. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993, pp. 1-2.

18 Ibid., pp. 41, 44.

19 Ibid., pp. 181-182.

20 Ibid., p. 225.

21 Ibid., p. 240.

22 The movie version with Clint Eastwood is nothing like the book in regard to its transforming values. Do not substitute the movie for the book. It would be like giving a Coke to a malnourished youngster when he needs the protein shake on your shelf.

The Spider and the Fly: Now Learn from the Parable

(This is a classic article from Answers In Action that complements our new article on Johnny Appleseed below: the power of story to communicate eternal truth.)

Copyright 1999 by Bob and Gretchen Passantino

Analogy, parable, metaphor, symbol, icon, myth, epic, type — all of these words relate to the idea of communicating intangibles by means of the tangible, and all are used in Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, to communicate many times in many ways the sublime truth of God’s love, justice, and redemptive plan. All too often, however, Christians today seem afraid of imagination, afraid that if we speak an eternal truth in the transitory words of human stories, we somehow betray God’s Word. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think of the images God uses as he describes Himself as a lover wooing his estranged spouse (Hosea 11), a pillar of fire guiding His people (Exodus 33); a mother hen protecting her chicks (Matt. 23), the Sovereign from whom come a tree and river of life (Rev. 22).

We rob ourselves and our children of a profound experience with the divine when we retreat from imaginative ways of communicating God’s truth. There is nothing unbiblical or untruthful about stories that, in the very vehicles of imagination, bring us to the truth of God. C. S. Lewis remarked, “The Fantastic or Mythical is a Mode . . . [that] has the same power: to generalise while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. But at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of ‘commenting on life’, can add to it” (On Stories, 48).

For more than five hundred years English literature has celebrated and proclaimed the truth of God in imaginative stories that have provided unforgettable scripture lessons to millions. From the transformation of Beowulf as Christian epic to the realms of Middle Earth as Christian myth, stories captivate readers of all ages and bring us spiritual insight, experience, and challenge like nothing else. Take the following example from children’s literature. The Spider and the Fly, composed in the nineteenth century by a remarkable Christian author and apologist, Mary Howitt, has provided countless children and adults with an indelible understanding of the seductive power of self-centeredness and pride. (Thanks to CRI librarian Valerie Julius for finding the complete text of this currently unappreciated story.)

 

The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt (1799-1888)

 

“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly;

“‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.

The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,

And I have many curious things to show when you are there.”

“Oh no, no,” said the little fly; “to ask me is in vain,

For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”

 

“I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high.

Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the spider to the fly.

“There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,

And if you like to rest a while, I’ll snugly tuck you in!”

“Oh no, no,” said the little fly, “for I’ve often heard it said,

They never, never wake again who sleep upon your bed!”

Said the cunning spider to the fly: “Dear friend, what can I do

To prove the warm affection I’ve always felt for you?

I have within my pantry good store of all that’s nice;

I’m sure you’re very welcome — will you please to take a slice?”

“Oh no, no,” said the little fly; “kind sir, that cannot be:

I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!”

 

“Sweet creature!” said the spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise;

How handsome are your gauzy wings; how brilliant are your eyes!

I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf;

If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”

“I thank you gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say,

And, bidding you good-morning now, I’ll call another day.”

 

The spider turned him round about, and went into his den,

For well he knew the silly fly would soon come back again:

So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly,

And set his table ready to dine upon the fly;

Then came out to his door again, and merrily did sing:

“Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with pearl and silver wing;

Your robes are green and purple; there’s a crest upon your head;

Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!”

 

Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly,

Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;

With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,

Thinking only of her brilliant eyes and green and purple hue,

Thinking only of her crested head. Poor, foolish thing! at last

Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast;

He dragged her up his winding stair, into the dismal den —

Within his little parlor — but she ne’er came out again!

 

And now, dear little children, who may this story read,

To idle, silly, flattering words I pray you ne’er give heed;

Unto an evil counsellor close heart and ear and eye,

And take a lesson from this tale of the spider and the fly.

Tending and Harvesting the Gospel: Johnny Appleseed as Apologist and Evangelist

© Copyright 2014 by Gretchen Passantino Coburn

“Oh, the Lord’s been good to me; And so I thank the Lord; For giving me the things I need; The sun and the rain and the apple seed; The Lord’s been good to me.” (Chorus, The Johnny Appleseed Blessing)

Millions of people worldwide in many languages in the 21^st century know at least the chorus to this simple mid-18^th century prayer song named after a simple American nurseryman nicknamed “Johnny Appleseed” (real name John Chapman 1774-1845).  Best known for promoting apple orchards on the then-frontier of the new country of America, Johnny Appleseed was even more devoted to sharing his understanding of the gospel to everyone with whom he came in contact. He said his Bible was his favorite book in the world & wherever he went, he read out loud from it, told its stories to the frontier families he lodged with, & preached the gospel as he understood it. He considered himself first & foremost a missionary; secondarily a nurseryman. Nearly 175 years have passed since his death, & still today his words of faith influence millions of people. What a spiritual legacy! How can Christians today learn from the apple guy some principles of dynamic apologetics & evangelism that will bear fruit for many generations?

A caveat: What John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) abounded in was both good & bad. He was a tireless missionary who lived what he preached, communicated spiritual concepts in earthly illustrations, and used his mind and his mouth to persuade and convict others of their spiritual needs: however, he was deceived by a false gospel and promoted the peculiar heresies of Emanuel Swedenborg: rejection of essential doctrine, including the Trinity, salvation by faith apart from works, the unique deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, the atonement, etc. Swedenborg’s quasi-pantheism and emphasis on the distinct separation between the physical and spiritual as well as his peculiar views on marriage, vegetarianism, and other issues also influences. Other than the Bible, the writings of Swedenborg were most influential to him and he read from them to others. Chapman’s heresies definitely exclude him from the ranks of valid missionary, apologist, and evangelist, but for this essay he is a good example of techniques or principles that can be used for persuasive missions, apologetics, and evangelism.

First, he was committed to sharing his gospel everywhere, at any time, with anyone, as a part of his everyday life. He did not presume it was someone else’s job or that he should set aside particular parts of his day or life for spiritual things: he lived his faith before the world. This necessarily means he interacted with many people and developed relationships with non-believers as well as believers. He knew that words isolated from life and relationship had little power.

Second, he devoted himself to the Bible, the Word of God, and shared it with others. (Yes, his understanding was skewed and his interpretation flawed, but those aren’t the points I’m making here.) He read the Bible every day, was said to have read it through many times, and he used outside aides to understand it. (Yes, his Swedenborg aids were misleading, but the point is that he knew he needed help to know the Bible better.) He was said to be fond of saying that a day without the Bible was like a day without air, food, and water. As dedicated as he was to telling his gospel to others, he was dedicated to telling the Word of God.

Third, he understood that story communicates propositional truth more powerfully, memorably, and persuasively than mere rational, evidential, or factual verbiage. The very essentials of the Christian faith concerning God, Jesus Christ, man, sin, salvation (and their unique and infallible revelation in scripture) have come to us through the One True Story of Redemption (the Second Person of the Trinity becoming man, living and dying in our stead and on our behalf, rising immortal, reconciling us to God, and ensuring the final resolution of all things). The Bible is full of stories echoing, anticipating, depicting, and illuminating that One True Story. Jesus in his earthly ministry lived and told countless stories to point to that One True Story. So John Chapman lived his own life as a story of a Christian (skewed, but nonetheless attempted). He preached creation in relationship to God, and he lived in the midst of and cared for creation as though he really believed its connection to God. He preached kindness, compassion, and conservation, and he lived accordingly, whether it was planning and executing new apple orchards for the westward moving population, refraining from wanton destruction of plants or animals, or befriending everyone he met. He preached simple living and storing up treasures in heaven, and he lived frugally by the cast off clothing others gave him, the simple foods he prepared in the wild or accepted from hosts, and sharing what he didn’t need with those less fortunate. And he told stories, most from the Bible, always linking them to his understanding of the gospel.

Fourth, he forged a road where few others had gone, anticipating and preparing for those who followed, physically (through nursery planting and tending) and spiritually (through Bible study and honing his communication skills). Although he was born in Massachusetts, as a young adult he began his life as a nurseryman and itinerant preacher in Pennsylvania. Over more than 50 years of roaming, planting, tending, & ministering, he left his legacy in Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. As the new American pioneers moved westward, Chapman was usually at their forefront, predicting where significant settlement would occur and building nurseries and orchards on those sites. Annually he would return and tend to the fledgling trees, eventually selling them to homesteaders and using the profits to expand his work. All the while, he was leading physical migration, he was living faith movement. He didn’t wait for people to come hear his message, he called them to join him on the journey.

Finally, Chapman’s unique life and message were an investment in future generations by being focused on that which is lasting, whether it was the apple trees whose descendents continue to feed the hungry or the Word of God that endures and continues to give life to all who respond to its call. (Note: It is the true Word of God that endures & gives life, not the distorted word propagated by Swendenborg and copied by Chapman. Analogies never match exactly or they wouldn’t be analogies.) His investment in the future nourishment of future generations is testified to by the fruits we see today.

Speaking of Johnny Appleseed’s legacy, it is no coincidence that nearly 175 years later, his apples are remembered but his heretical gospel is virtually forgotten.

These five principles provide a strong strategy for successful apologetics and evangelism: be ready, always (1 Peter 3:15); preach the word, in season and out (2 Timothy 4:2); point to the One True Story of Redemption through all other stories (John 20:30); seek out the lost (John 4:34-38); and proclaim the everlasting gospel that brings eternal life to all who believe, now and in the future (Revelation 14:6).

Bonus Challenge: Here are the full lyrics to The Johnny Appleseed Blessing. What other missionary, apologist, and evangelist parallels can you construct from the verses? (And here’s a link to the Dennis Day Disney’s version for you to listen to & sing along with: The Lord’s Been Good to Me.

Oh, the Lord’s been good to me.
And so I thank the Lord
For giving me the things I need:
The sun, the rain and the appleseed;
Oh, the Lord’s been good to me.

Oh, and every seed I sow
Will grow into a tree.
And someday there’ll be apples there
For everyone in the world to share.
Oh, the Lord is good to me.

Oh, here I am ‘neath the blue, blue sky
Doing as I please.
Singing with my feathered friends
Humming with the bees.

I wake up every day,
As happy as can be,
Because I know that with His care
My apple trees, they will still be there.
The Lord’s been good to me.

I wake up every day
As happy as can be,
Because I know the Lord is there
Watchin’ over all my friends and me
The Lord is good to me.