Truth in Open Hands

This has been a crazy last couple of weeks. Of all the adjustments made in a short time, not limited to saying good bye to a bunch of great people, not getting to say good bye (in person) to many more good people, having an impromptu roommate in my studio apartment (my replacement), leaving my job, my students, my home, packing, and leaving a town that had started to feel something like a home should, I think these changes have all yet to really sink in. And maybe they won’t have to for another few weeks.

Tomorrow I head to Cambodia, and then Vietnam. I will be seeing old friends, checking out Angkor Wat, spending some quality time at the beach, and trying to disengage a bit before heading back to Seattle in the middle of September.

Korea has been a complicated but excellent season in my life. I am so thankful for it, but somehow as I sit here on a friend’s couch preparing to play tourist for the next few weeks, it doesn’t quite seem real that I am really leaving (I come back to Seoul for a few days in between southeast Asia and Seattle). Hopefully I’ll have a more wide angle reflection on my time here in the near future.

If you are a friend in Korea reading this, you will be missed. IF you are back home, I can’t wait to reconnect.

Posted in goodness, Korea

After a bout of crazy intermittent gastro-intestinal distress I stiffened my upper lip. I decided it was time to go to an international clinic in Seoul. My goal was to acquire a referral to an allergist, as most of my symptoms have resembled some form of food allergy.

Before I explain the conversation that occurred between me the attending physician, I must confess that my experience at the clinic in Seoul was the best experience I have had in a hospital in Korea. The staff in the international ward all spoke great English, and the doctor took more than 30 minutes to speak with me, and he offered me a whole range of referrals and great advice. They even had a shuttle that took me from the hospital to a pharmacy and then to the subway station. This experience, however, like all the others, was not without notable details.

(My past experiences flashed in my memory. There was the time I had a problem with my foot and the front desk attendant asked me to follow him as he RAN through 3 corridors to the doctor. Then there was the time I peed in a cup and was directed to walk through the waiting room holding an uncovered vile of my own urine. Still yet, just before making fun of a nurse, another doctor, with bare hands, squeezed the puss out of an infection I had my foot, and without washing his hands began typing a report on his computer keyboard.)

In this instance, the doctor was more than willing to prescribe helpful medication and connect me with an allergist. However, he suggested that, in order to cover all necessary bases, I pursue a more invasive procedure in order to rule out the possibility of any serious health issues.

At this point in my ‘consultation’, I balked. I was quiet for a minute after I heard the words “barium enema” and “colonoscopy”. “I am 26″, I thought, “Is it really time for that kind of thing?”

I searched for the right words. I didn’t want to discredit his advice, but such procedures, I reasoned, would be more agreeable at home. Or so I thought. I am sure in Korea it would not be much different from home, but my experience with medical facilities here has never been without surprise. I guess in this instance I used the same logic as I would for other scenarios: I prefer to use my own towel, wear my own clothes, use my own toothbrush, and have colonoscopies in my own country. Wouldn’t you? If it doesn’t feel like home, sometimes its better to wait.

I explained to the physician, in the most sensitive way possible, that the psychological hump was something I might take some time to overcome, and at the moment, I would like to discuss my symptoms in more depth. I explained that I was really there for a referral for an allergist.

He looked at me for a minute with an amused yet sympathetic stare. “I understand,” he said, “But you must understand that getting a colonoscopy here makes a lot of sense. It only costs 200 dollars, and in America it can cost 2,000.”

I still wasn’t convinced, but I nodded in understanding.

“Some people come to Korea just to get the procedure,” He remarked. And then came the clincher.

“You know, in America, people have very big hands. But Asian people, we have very small hands. We can operate the instruments very carefully. It’s really better here. We are very good at it.”

“Great.” I thought to myself. “Ahh, I see. Well I’ll have to think about it.” I said, trying to look thoughtful and enlightened.

I am not even sure if what he said is true. (I have made an effort since to look at the hands of passers by). But in the future, I will reflect on how the size of my countrymen’s extremities effects the quality of my health.

We discussed my symptoms further and he decided that I likely had some residual ick from food poisoning. He did schedule me for “a procedure”, just in case I changed my mind.

Small hands. So reassuring, but they don’t quite feel like home.

Posted in Korea, Life
Tags: Korea healthcare, small hands

I finally got around to updating my Soundcloud site. Check out some new songs here:

Latest tracks by Apparitions

The first two tracks that appear were recorded in the stairwell of my apartment building in Korea during the monsoons. The third track is a live recording of my last band Malchus, the band I was with before I moved to Korea. Enjoy!

4R4QDQBTJCUH

Posted in Korea, Music
Tags: ambient music, Instrumental, Music, soundcloud

Love Wins: Review

I recently borrowed Love Wins from a friend. I must say, I wish now I would have bought it myself. If I had a house fire and every personal item I owned was destroyed, the only possessions I would truly mourn are my laptop and my books. I don’t have a massive library, but the books I do have are often so full of my personal notes and thoughts that losing them would be like losing a part of my mind. Needless to say, this book was one I wanted to mark up cover to cover.

One of the most notable aspects concerning the release of this book actually has less to do with the message of the book itself and more to do with the fire storm apologists, pastors, theologians, and lay-bloggers unleashed on Bell without even reading the book . The controversy that has brought about a mushroom cloud likely visible for years to come undoubtedly caused interest in the book to increase as well (possibly even before he was named one of the worlds 100 most influential people by Time magazine).

From a marketing perspective, any book written by a notable Christian pastor which questions the punitive narrative of God and hell used as a corner stone for so many evangelical congregations and Christian evangelism programs certainly is guaranteed decent sales. The Twitter posts alone of Joshua Harris and John Piper must have guaranteed a bran new slough of invigorated (though not necessarily sympathetic) Rob Bell readers. If Bell is the threat to the faith that so many evangelicals claim, maybe those concerned would do more for there own cause by being quiet and letting the strength of the truth they champion stand for it self, instead of defaming a man. This time around the often fiery Mark Driscoll decided to not give Bell even direct mention, but instead advocated his own theology on the matter.

Overwhelmingly, the critique has been repeated scores of times that Bell has departed from the foundation of good theology, and that he is remiss for embracing universalism. However, as such a tornado of criticism was unleashed against Bell before the book was even published, it will be tough to convince those who have never read the book, or who read the book with some kind of overblown interpretive prejudice, that Rob Bell really departs from nothing. Indeed, he doesn’t really do a new thing with this book, and he certainly is in line with the attitude and thoughtfulness of other books he has written. He certainly does not embrace universalism in this book. If you disagree with this, you haven’t read the book. In fact, he explicitly affirms the resurrection and the notion that we come to God through Jesus Christ.

What Bell does do is discuss the development of the idea of heaven and hell in contemporary theology by investigating the root of the biblical ideas surrounding these concepts. He also gives an intriguing apology for the “wide stream” that is and has been Christian theological development and reflection over the centuries. This includes discussing notions not limited to a God that gives people a chance to choose Him after they die and a God who NEVER abandons his will and his plan to see those who are ‘lost’ come into relationship with Him. From a rational perspective, such a discussion should never threaten the transcendent truth of God. If you believe that it can, you may want to investigate the durability of your belief.

What Bell advocates should be realized as a call to arms for the church, (not a call to vitriolic warfare against Bell’s discussion because it is not a proof, or a systematic treatise, but simply a discussion) for the sake of bringing heaven to earth in the here and now. And this is exactly what Bell advocates: heaven and hell are both immediate realities here and now, and eventually the goodness of God and His ultimate love will rule the day. Can’t we all give that an Amen?

Therefore, instead of using the idea of a pitchfork wielding devil and an eternity of torture (and Bell does well to offer a linguistic explanation of the words translated as eternity and hell in modern English bibles that certainly will do a lot to challenge many contemporary beliefs about both… it’s worth picking up the book just to begin an investigation of the importance of a holistic understanding of biblical concepts and languages) to motivate people to seek relationship with God, Christians should instead participate in the love and goodness of God, which speaks for itself.

And he goes a step beyond this by positing that one of the biggest inhibitors to realizing God’s truth is that people hear false stories about themselves. He mentions, for one, the story that abuse writes on our identities, and that specifically we must struggle to believe the story of love that God writes about us, a story of ultimate healing, reconciliation, love and restoration.

This advocacy is beautiful, attractive, and it is spot on in terms of the fundamental of the Gospel: the good news of ALL THINGS finding restoration.

However, I have a major issue with his book (after reading it). It is the same issue I take with many younger, hipper, sexier theologies that are being developed by post-evangelical, post-modern, emergent, moderately educated theological enthusiasts: They make HUGE assumptions about goodness and justice and then wrap these assumptive characteristics so tightly around their perception of God that He can never get out. And some time, He may need to.

I once had a teacher that said there is no difference between idolatry and a misconception of God. I’ve gone back and forth in my life as to whether I believe this to be true. After all, even the people we love the most in our lives are hard to understand, though we know them and keep knowing them, we discover new things and we realize that what we may have thought we knew wasn’t altogether right about them. How much harder is it to understand God, and entreat him to dwell in a box defined by definitions of justice and goodness that are just as culturally defined as the other biblical ideas that Bell works to contextualize for the reader? While the notion of hell may have been piece part assembled from the very different ideas of Hades, Gahenna, and Sheol, (thusly creating a linguistic and theological issue for contemporary evangelical teachings on ‘hell’, as Bell rightly points out), have the ideas of goodness, love and justice not undergone perspective shifts in accordance with era, culture, translation and contemporary issues? What was justice for the first century Christian? What was goodness for the 1000 plus years of Jewish tradition prior to Jesus? Who or what defines love, justice, and goodness anyway?

Bell goes a small part of the way on this matter in helping the reader to better understand the political injustice being suffered by most of those in Jesus’ audience. But the parameters of a righteous God, how do we explain or define them? If we let the Psalms of David define righteousness, the idea that Rob Bell promotes for goodness and justice is in trouble, I think…. And if we let the story of Israel’s conquest of Canaan inform our perception of the justice of God, Bell is in a similarly awkward place. Or is he? Because again, he doesn’t really attempt to prove anything. He merely stacks the deck with stories and questions that nudge the reader towards the possibility of something/things outside the norm for evangelical pop-Christianity after life explanations.

In Love Wins, when Bell makes the argument that if an earthly father pursued his children with the same punitive torments popularly attributed to God in evangelical circles, we would call the authorities and have him arrested. Therefore, according to Bell’s logic, a God with anger, punishment, and/or an eternal fiery hell reserved for certain wrongdoers cannot be a God of goodness, love and justice.

This makes things easy, I guess. We’ll just subject God to our laws. And if he behaves, well, we know we’ve found the god of our dreams, right?

But at what point will our God fit into our framework of justice? At what point will we allow our dreams to be shaped by Him? We’re talking about the same God that (depending on how you like to conceptualize it) allowed His son to endure vicious torture and death well beyond reason. The very circumstance Bell establishes as a precondition for a loving God, the gospel narrative shows us that God violates.

So what now? What do we do with a God who allows those he loves most to be brutalized and killed? Could a God love us so much, be so good, so loving, so awesome that he would kill for us or allow others to be killed in order to save us?

There is also the view of pastors such as Mark Driscoll “…Jesus suffered and died for mean people. A God who will suffer and die for mean people is not mean…. in fact, such a God alone is altogether loving; to be condemned by a God of perfect love shows how damnable our sin truly is.”

What does Rob Bell do about that current in the “wide stream” that is Christian thought?

There must be a way to define justice, goodness, and love. Of course it is my assumption, based on the ultimate nature of God (a nature that Bell also seems to affirm), that such an understanding is not artificial, its transcendent and it’s pre-existential. This means it was, is, and will be. In the Genesis narrative, from the beginning God established a simple rule of right and wrong and gave humanity the choice and power to follow this rule or violate it. He directed humanity towards this fundamental, and it hinged on obedience to Him. In modern western civilization, the centuries of labor put into shaping societal norms and rule of law have brought about something amazing, ‘progressive’, and even balanced at times. However, we are still dealing with a worldview that is an artifact, just as the Greeks and the Romans. Something to possibly be discovered by archeologists of the future, questioned, scrutinized, marveled at and judged.

This view of the world is what we use to evaluate God, truth, life and death. It’s what Rob Bell uses to suggest the preconditions for goodness and justice.

So how do we figure this stuff out? I am not sure we will boil it down to perfection anytime soon and for this reason, I think Bell’s discussion approach is better in circumstances such as these. Maybe this is also part of why we need a God so much bigger than us.

However, I am an advocate of truth existing outside the self. I believe that people must surrender even the most intimate aspects of their identity to God, so that He can redefine us, from our sexuality to our intellect to every ounce of our very being.

Furthermore, I would argue that looking to the indicators for justice in our world today will more often than not inhibit this process. As we surrender to God, in a sense we surrender the life, liberty, and autonomy our society tells us we have. As God graciously transforms us, we learn to redefine our ideas of justice, goodness and love.

C.S. Lewis created an allegory for God and the Gospel in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In it, he writes:

“Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh,” said Susan, “I thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king I tell you.”

Tags: Hell Rob Bell CS Lewis Heaven Love Wins Theology God universalism Christianity Heretic goodness Sex God Gospel Jesus Mark Driscoll
John Piper Joshua Harris Emergent Church

Posted in goodness, Hell, Life, Postmodernity, theology
Tags: Emergent Church, Goodness, Gospell, Jesus, Justice, Love Wins, Mark Driscoll, Marshill, Rob Bell, theology, Universalism

In part because it has been dumping fatal amounts of rain this sopping monsoon season, I have been doing a good bit of jamming in the 20 story stairwell of my apartment building. The acoustics in there are AWESOME. Last night, despite the humidity, my desire for creativity culminated in a recording session in the stairwell. It was even more austere than my usually minimalist setup, but the sound was awesome. There will be a few songs coming from this night on my soundcloud page sooon…

Posted in Korea, Life, Music
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, Atmosphere, Music, Recording

What follows is a benchmark for me I feel. The questions surrounding God’s goodness and justice should not encourage an attitude of complacency or nonchalance, but for sometime the fact I entertained such questions bread something of the sort in my posture towards truth, responsibility and relationship. It is my sincere hope that anything that has been compromised as a result of that season may be regained. Thanks to God’s goodness, I think it must be.

How can a good God judge? How can such a God’s judgment lead to the hellish forsakenness the Christian tradition often preaches?

I have spent a lot of time constructing ways around answering this question. Goodness and love certainly define God, almost as much as God defines goodness and justice.

Recently, though, it has become clear to me that for any individual who has truly entered into God’s goodness, (which is as much an experiential event as it is one of profound and revolutionary knowledge and being), this question struggles to maintain true weight. That is not to say that engaging this question shouldn’t happen. There is so much that dialogue regarding this issue can bring about for better (and sometimes for worse, maybe). But for YOU, just YOU as you are before God, if you have known the goodness of God, could you ever want to be anywhere but in the dead center of its beauty?

It’s a goodness that makes way for healing of every kind. It’s goodness that is tangible, not just ideal. It is a goodness that is the reality of reconciliation. It’s the experience of having that which was lost forever not just returned to you but repatriated with so much more than was lost, piled high and spilling over. It’s contentment and peace in the midst of tumult and insecurity. It’s the fuel that has inspired martyrdom and absolute surrender on the part of the saints for 2000 years. It’s the beauty that makes the likelihood of future suffering manageable.

How could this ever be exchanged for anything else? Have you experienced this blissful assurance?

Jesus states, before washing Peter’s feet, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me (John 13:8)”. Allowing God to clean us is humbling, but it makes way for relationship with Him. It makes way for bathing in his goodness and being forever affected, ruined, if you will, by the knowledge and essence of something so grand that words will never do it justice, nor will questions, nor will the non-committal arrogance which accompanies agnostic “wait seeishness”. Once we have tasted its quality, no other food can nourish or satisfy.

In the midst of God’s goodness, questioning it is like questioning the existence of light, and after having seen the world around us with this light, rejecting his goodness is like opting for the ‘bliss’ of blind ignorance. How could anyone do this? And wouldn’t judging such a choice be entirely reasonable for a just God? Knowledge of God’s goodness, therefore, is knowledge of God’s fully justified judgment.

Where have I been all this time that avoiding an understanding of goodness as it belongs to God by posing a question instead of acknowledging my own experience seemed like a worthy pursuit? When we know this goodness, rejecting it is surely insanity, and when we reject it, is it any stretch to think that such a God might allow us to have what we desire instead of this goodness?

Just prior to entering this realization I was sitting in my home reflecting on justice, feeling worked over by circumstances of ‘injustice’ in my personal life. And not just the circumstances of suffering, retribution and social balance that consume our societal affairs, I was desperate for a fresh awareness of that deep and permeating Justice, a response to which does not just motivate the cry for protest or the initiative to study law, but lays the foundation for radical shifts of identity, forgiveness, revolution and ultimate self sacrifice. At that time, a radical and ghastly image filled my mind: a crucifixion; a mangled, bruised to the point of blackness, naked body trembling its last in the throes of humiliation, loneliness, excruciating physical torment and forsakenness. Being utterly abandoned by God…

This is the judgment of God: that those who know his goodness and choose something else find all that is outside of his goodness. This forsakenness, death, destruction, and torment is all that is left outside of the goodness of God, for his goodness is so complete, so comprehensive and so transcendent that his justice could allow nothing less (or maybe nothing more?).

And of unforgettable importance, that God would forsake His own son so that any person might know this goodness to be the divine yet tangible reality that it is. That is absolute love for people… who on earth would abandon their own flesh and blood for another less worthy? Who could love another that much? That event, the crucifixion of Jesus the Christ, was so many things, but in the midst of forsakenness it was a love note written in the most precious blood. Who then could reject this goodness, this passion of another for relationship with them, having known it? Who could question it? Who could depart from it? Who could insult the Spirit of Grace by leaving it (Heb 10)?

[Note, the sacrifice of Jesus was much, much more than just a love note. I would be happy to invite any discussion of the sacrificial importance of the Son of God, which over 1,000 years of Jewish tradition set the stage for, on this blog, via email or in person…]

Being outside of the goodness of God must be misery. Like that gnawing that is love lost, a knowledge of a world of color where now there is only black and white, the peace that accompanies being known exchanged for the dismal loneliness of being known by none.

God’s goodness and mercy, then, at once also demand judgment. Though because of His goodness, we find patience as well. A longsuffering hand out stretched that even after we push away returns. This is certainly undeserved, unwarranted, and maybe even unnecessary, but God’s goodness is that good. And because of this goodness, those in the Church have a duty to fulfill and be His goodness in the world around us.

Because of this amazing goodness, I still reject the threatening “repent or be damned” approach to relationship and ministry. With goodness as awesome as God’s, how could a threat communicate its truth and beauty (which stands for itself, not requiring any threat to be recognized). God’s goodness does not thumb a nose at or jump to threaten or condemn those who have not experienced it. Instead, it encourages a posture in those who follow Jesus so that those who have not known it might have a true encounter. It says, “Hey, come share life with me, and check out this awesome thing that is constantly challenging and transforming me.” The kindness of God brings us to dwell in His goodness. This is the process of repentance, and what it yields cannot be easily discarded.

Tags: Hell God Theology Goodness

Posted in goodness, Hell, Life, Morality, theology
Tags: Christian Dogma