Systematic Theology

I like the word "systematic". It describes how my brain works, and how a lot of processes in the natural and human worlds work. Many things that can be described as "systematic" are very interesting to me, and describing something as "systematic" can say a lot about that something in very little space.

There are also many things that should not be described as "systematic". In this post, I will mainly be talking about such things, and why I think "systematic" is not the right term for them. I'll be addressing a few highly controversial discussions that I usually avoid engaging in at all costs, so I will preface this with the disclaimer that these are my opinions, based on my limited experiences and my even more limited knowledge. My main purpose is to spark deeper thought on some of these issues where it seems to me that the prevailing dialogue only skims the surface of the real issues. So here we go.

Suppose I am a student at a high school. I get decent grades, I try hard, but not too hard. Suppose also that I enjoy math. I like learning the concepts, I do my homework at night, and I study for tests at least 4 days in advance. On the first test, I do pretty well, and I end up with a B. I might be content with this, but, given my propensity for math, I might tell myself "That's pretty good. Let's try to do better next time." So the next test rolls around, and I study a full week in advance. I do additional practice problems, I'm on Paul's Online Calculus notes and Khan Academy for supplementary learning, and on the test, I feel pretty confident. But I still end up with a B. "That's a little disappointing," I might think. "I'll have to try even harder next time." The next test rolls around, I put in even more effort, and I still end up with a B. But this time I notice that I only made one small mistake, which, on previous tests, would have meant a maximum of 5 points off (out of 100), but this time was worth a full 15 points. I might talk to my teacher and ask why, and get an answer like "I'm sorry, but that is the grade that I deemed fair this time." If this pattern continues, with my mistakes becoming more and more minute, and yet my grades continuing to stagnate at a B, eventually I will get upset. And--here's the punchline--I might claim that my teacher has systematically given me a B on every test, even when I felt I deserved an A.

This is a silly example compared to the real issues that I want to relate this to, which is the issue of equality, particularly sexism and racism. We like to find patterns in events, such as incarceration rates differing among the races, or police brutality differing among races, or harassment incidences differing among the sexes. And, just as in the above hypothetical, we may be perfectly justified in making these statements. Or, at least, we may think we are perfectly justified. We might say, for example, that police in general systematically discriminate and arrest minority races more than majority races, or that women experience systematically lower wages in the workplace. I'm not disputing the facts that back up these claims. What I am suggesting, though, is best explained by continuing the analogy.

In our analogy, I have, understandably, come to the conclusion that my teacher has systematically given me a B on every test, even when it was not fair to do so. In this case, though, what if I added the information that I have actually gotten a B on every single test, even in other subjects, and with the same appearance of unjust grading patterns? Now, all of a sudden, the problem isn't just with my math teacher, but all of my teachers. I might say that all of my teachers are systematically giving me B's. But we could go one step further and find out that not a single student has received a single A on any test. Now the pattern is not about me, but about my teachers.

To return to the real issues, my suggestion is that the "patterns" we claim to find might be bigger than we realize. And to be fair, a lot of these conversations have developed just so: people started to realize that it wasn't just them, but everyone of their race/gender that was experiencing these issues. Then they realized that this wasn't just their city, but a lot of cities all across the country. The problem, though, is that I believe we've stopped too soon. We claim, understandably so, that there is systematic violence against women, or systematic educational discrimination against poorer citizens, or systematic discrimination in the justice system against minority races. I'm not disputing any of these. Now, I might argue that we need to make a distinction between intentional discrimination (i.e. a teacher purposely failing a specific student for no reason) and de facto discrimination (i.e. a student failing because he was in the hospital and therefore could not complete his work), but that's a different discussion altogether. For now, I will stipulate that, regardless of the cause (intentional or de facto), discrimination exists. But I think we've stopped too soon.

In the analogy, we have stopped at the level of the teachers. The blame now lies with them for never giving out any A's, even when they were objectively earned. But what if the problem doesn't stop there? What if we are blaming the wrong group? What if, for example, the reason no teachers gave out A's is because the school has a policy that any teacher that gives an A is immediately fired. Now the problem isn't the teachers, but the policy. The teachers could try to stand up, but they will simply be fired. The school administrators might be blamed, but they, too, might be powerless to change the policy. Even they have to play by the rules.

So now to the heart of the issue. My position is that we have stopped too soon in all of these discrimination arguments. We have called something "systematic" that is simply a part of a larger system. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I am clearly acknowledging that these problems exist, just as I would clearly acknowledge that not receiving an A on any exam is a problem. But stopping at the label of sexism or racism is simply not far enough for me. We are blaming the teachers for simply following a rule they didn't create. To be sure, they are still choosing to give out B's and not A's, and in that sense we can still hold them responsible. But if we want to change this, we need to go to the root. 

In the case of discrimination, I don't think the root cause is simply men, or white people, or rich people, or even rich white men. Like the teachers, they are easy to blame; and, like the teachers, I think people should be held accountable for their actions. But to see real change, we can't simply fire the teachers, because that is not the root problem. I hope I do not need to remind anyone that much of the slave trade started with African warlords selling rival citizens into slavery.

So the root problem, as I see it, goes deeper than race, sex, or even money. I say this because a close study of history and humans will, I claim, reveal that the problem exists independent of those factors. The root problem is power; that those with power lord it over those without; that having more power allows one to achieve one's own goals at the expense of those with less power; and that those with power will consistently choose to exert this power to further their own interests at the cost of others' interests. This, I posit, is the problem. Power can come in many forms: physical strength, influence, control, geographical location, psychological manipulation, financial stability, intellectual superiority--anything that can be used to gain an advantage or further one's own interests. I will admit, we have run into the problem of a circular definition: power is anything that lets us gain an advantage over another, and power causes us or allows us to gain advantage over another. The reason for this apparent fallacy is that power is simply the word I have chosen to use to describe this concept. This idea, though, is not circular. I firmly believe it has a definitive origin, and that origin is human nature. By this, I mean that this pattern, or desire, or motivation, is not unique to any culture, class, or group, but is common to all humans; that, on some level, all humans have this tendency and, given the opportunity, will desire to take advantage of it. And from that single, base desire, we have the whole story of sexual subjugation, racial enslavement, ethnic cleansing, political tyranny, intellectual superiority, Eurocentrism, and a thousand other atrocities committed throughout human history. A bold claim, I know. But I invite everyone to ponder it, and to see whether it really seems appropriate to analyze each of these issues in a vacuum, separate from the others. We can, of course, simply worry about a single test in a single subject with a single teacher. But I claim that there is a larger picture here, and that, in order to see real change, we need to do a lot more than argue over points. We need to change the policy. And in this case, that means changing our very nature. Seldom have I heard anyone claim to be able to change human nature. In fact, I have only ever heard one proposed solution to this problem. But that is a controversy for another discussion.

Haddaway

Roses are red, violets are blue

I only wish my neighbor knew

The golden rule

They teach in schools

Leaves this part out

‘Cause no one knows what we’re talking about

But we hear it in our songs

And we all just sing along

Thinking that we're falling in

Just like a trap, like you’re inside

It’s in your mind, not in your heart

I can’t tell apart the different kinds!

Like it’s a thing that you can make

But we all know you can’t fabricate it

You can’t arrange it

‘Cause it’s not an arrangement

Like a bunch of roses

All colored red from broken noses

And bleeding hearts, my beating heart

Can’t be still, ‘cause this is real

I don’t know you but I know what I feel

If it’s a trap, it was made for me

That’s why they call it destiny

The ground below, the sky above

I think I’m falling, falling in

Man, I feel you, Haddaway

I just wish I had a way

To put my feelings into thoughts

‘Cause just emotions are like the ocean

Go overboard and then you’re lost

What’s the cost? Just chemicals

That tell my brain we’re animals

But that sounds wrong

‘Cause this is wrong

But it felt so right

Maybe just the thought is nice

Just like a story, Romeo

And Taylor Swift don’t know me though

Maybe Disney knows what’s true

Cause theirs is true

As opposed to fake

First kisses, then we go to make

Excuses, saying “it’s not there”

Like it was something in the air

‘Cause it has power that feels sublime

But power is just work over time

So now it’s work?

Man, life’s a jerk

Cause it speeds up faster every time

My time to work is nine to five

So let’s just say that it’s an art

That comes directly from the heart

When it’s not there, it’s not my fault

So how come it hurts?

Maybe to feel, you have to choose it first

It's not about feelings or lack thereof

It's a verb to choose to

It's patient, kind, it doesn't boast
It condones the least but forgives the most
It demands perfection, yet looks past flaws
It's pleased with little, but demands it all
And what we all can't seem to get
Is that we never fully deserve it
We think it's a fact
Like day and night
Or that it's a right
But it's not! It's an act
It has an object
And that's us!
We didn't choose it; It chose us!
It came down and gave its life
For us to live, He had to die
'Cause here on Earth, it's gonna hurt
Rip out your heart, 'cause to be safe
Outside of heaven, there's just one place
To keep your heart all whole and well:
The hardest, darkest pit of Hell.
They say it's blind, and that it's strong
But if yours is blind, then you chose wrong
So choose to serve, but make it known
This thing of yours is second to One
If you don't agree before too late
This thing will look a lot like hate
'Cause they won't get it; all that they saw
Is that you didn't follow their law
So don't fret about feeling,
Or feeling too much
Just arrange your priorities in such

A way so that, when push comes to shove,

The one you choose is the One you

EDIT: I want to make sure this is clear. This is a spoken word that should be read and understood as a sort of personal narrative or journey. The first stanza presents a flawed yet very common viewpoint, a very worldly and secular one. The second stanza transitions into the disillusionment of that viewpoint and a state of questioning and confusion, a common consequent of the first stage. The final stanza presents truth as I understand it, to the best of my ability in this limited form to convey truth. As with nearly any viewpoint, there are nuggets of truth in all three stanzas/stances, but only the last one should be interpreted as largely in line with my understanding.

Boundaries

I considered titling this post "Setting Boundaries on a Boundless God", but I decided that could be misinterpreted too easily. My purpose in this post is to explain my (recently revisited) views on boundaries in Christian relationships, particularly those between people of the opposite sex. My goal is to walk through the existence, cause, and purpose of boundaries in light of eternity; in other words, I will attempt to look at earthly relationships while "setting my mind on things above".

First of all, I want to emphasize that this blog consists entirely of my understanding and opinions. I do my very best to make sure that what I write is in line with what we read in the Bible and what God has revealed to us, but I reserve the right to change my stance on most things, and I strongly encourage others to comment below or talk to me if they disagree or are confused about something. On that note, I would also like to add that my views on boundaries and relationships recently changed, and the realization and lesson that brought about that change is the main focus of this post.

Secondly, I want to define what I mean by "boundaries". For the entirety of this entry, unless I state otherwise, "boundaries" refer to rules or guidelines in relationships that are set in various areas in order to govern relationships and make them holy and pleasing to God. The main boundaries that I am aware of are summed up in the TEST acronym: time, emotional, spiritual, and touch. As a simple example, we often set "touch" boundaries pretty clearly (e.g. don't have sex with someone to whom you are not married). The other three can be more confusing. How much time is too much time to spend with a "friend" of the opposite sex? What can you tell them about your walk with God, and what should you hold back?

Having said that, I think that boundaries are grossly misunderstood throughout society today, even in the church and Christian groups. The main question that boundaries are meant to address is, what are relationships between Christians supposed to look like? Whenever we ask questions like this -- questions that deal with how something is supposed to be -- it is imperative that we do not like at how things are in the world today. As a Christian, I firmly believe that we live in a broken, fallen world, so the way things are is by no means a good indication of the way things are meant to be. In order to look at the way things are meant to be, I believe there are two places we can look: Heaven, where all will be made new and everything will be restored to the glory for which it was created; and the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1 and 2, before the fall, when God created everything, saw it was good, and sin had not yet entered the world. I firmly believe that both of these are the best examples we have of how all things were originally created to be, and how, in the realm of the Divine where all things are made new, all things always have been and always will be.

So what do relationships look like in these places? It is my contention that boundaries, as we currently define and understand them, do no exist in either of these places. In case that didn't sound controversial enough, according to the assertion in the previous paragraph, this means that, even in earthly relationships, boundaries are not meant to exist. 

Let me unpack this a little bit, starting with the Garden of Eden. Let's go through the TEST acronym.

--TIME: Adam and Eve were the only ones there, and, as near as we can tell, they were always together. Nowhere in scripture do we see them separate until after the fall. Adam didn't have to go to work; the garden gave them food. Eve didn't have to deal with painful childbirth; that came later.

--EMOTIONAL: Eve was created from Adam's side, to walk with him and be his helper in everything (I'm not making a statement about gender roles here, so please don't read too much into that sentence). The very fact that she was made from a rib, which is perfectly even with the middle of the body and so close to the heart, seems to me to imply that Adam and Eve were to walk through life together, side by side, sharing everything with each other.

--SPIRITUAL: this one seems the clearest to me. Adam and Eve walked together, and together they walked with God in the closest relationship with God any human has heretofore experienced. In God's presence, there can be no boundaries in your spiritual life. In fact, I would conclude that their spiritual lives were indistinguishable from each other, and were, in fact, one and the same, as they both walked together with the same God.

--TOUCH: God made it pretty clear that their job was to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." Not only this, but the Bible made it abundantly clear that, before the fall, Adam and Eve didn't even need to wear clothes. I'm not going to bother expounding on that more.

From my point of view, God did not set any boundaries in the relationship between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. While he did set clear boundaries in regards to what they could eat and what they couldn't, these rules applied to both of them together, not one or the other. In other words, for all intents and purposes, Adam and Eve were treated as one entity, with no separation, distinction, or division between them. Indeed, why else would the Bible make a reference to marriage in the second chapter by saying "the two shall become one flesh", except to emphasize that, in the perfect state of creation, man and woman are not separate, but united?

So if this is what everything is supposed to look like, what happened? Why aren't we all walking around naked and sharing every intimate detail of our lives with everyone we meet? The answer, of course, is sin happened. In choosing to disobey God, mankind broke the intimate relationship we had with Him. As a result, we broke our perfect relationships with each other. Notice that, immediately after sinning, Adam and Eve first hid from God, then made clothes to hide from each other. Thus, sin doesn't just separate us from God, but also us from each other. 

Is this not what we see when we look around today? All around, I see people suffering from the pains of loneliness, longing for the care and affection of a friend, needing support and guidance in their search for truth, and desperate for the embrace of a true lover. In one sense, boundaries aren't something we put in place, but something that were created as a consequence of sin. To avoid confusion, though, I will call these separations due to sin "walls", and reserve "boundaries" for the guidelines we set for ourselves. Sin deprives us of the intimacy and unity for which we were created, both with God and with our fellow humans. The image I have heard used is the two beams of the cross. The first pillar, the one that holds up the other, is the vertical beam, signifying our relationship with God. Without this beam and this relationship, nothing can stand. The second beam is the horizontal beam, which signifies our relationship with our fellow humans. Both of these are pivotal relationships in the life of a Christian, as demonstrated by the two greatest commandments "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" and "love your neighbor as yourself".

Having started in paradise and worked through the fall, we now turn to God's plan for the redemption of the world. In its simplest sense, this plan is simply bringing the world, mankind, and all of our relationships back to the state for which they were created--namely, the world without walls, without separation, and without sin. If this is our goal, why do we create more boundaries for ourselves in our relationships with others? The answer is, once again, because of sin. Our broken relationships leave us desperately starving for the satisfactions we were created to have. Yet, because of our sinful nature, we are not only unable to return to the holy, perfect state from which we fell, but we naturally will not seek out God and this holiness. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that, although we all have needs that can only be truly satisfied by God, no man, woman, or child naturally seeks God of their own volition, for it is completely contrary to the nature of sin that is ours from birth. Rather, God seeks us out and pursues us, drawing us closer to himself by an act of divine grace. Nevertheless, we, in our brokenness, look for other ways to satisfy our desires, with one of the primary ways being through relationships with other people. Now, I want to be very careful, because, as I have already asserted, we are meant to be in close, intimate relationships with other people. However, to return to the imagery of the two pillars of the cross, these relationships can only stand in holiness when we are first firmly grounded in a relationship with God. In the absence of this first relationship, all others are taken captive by sin and brokenness. As C.S. Lewis writes in The Four Loves,

We may love another person too much in proportion to our love for God. But it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinacy.

Finally, then, we arrive at boundaries as we have previously defined them. Boundaries are (somewhat) clear rules and guidelines that we put in place in order to prevent us from seeking from our fellow humans what can only be rightfully given by God. Love, for example, in all its forms, must come first and foremost from God, who is the definition and source of perfect love, and flow from Him to us and then to other people. Intimacy, both physical and emotional, is a means of satisfying our deep desires to be loved and not left alone, to be a part of something or someone else. This desire exists because we were made to exist in perfect fellowship and unity with the three-personal God in the realm of the Divine. Yet we are so easily deceived into thinking that it can, and should, be satisfied in a deeply emotionally or physically intimate relationship with another human being. Thus, we put in place boundaries to prevent such idols and false gods from taking hold of our lives. In a very real sense, then, boundaries are not meant to work contrary to our deep desires as it so often seems, but to refine them, to turn them towards the Thing for which they were originally meant, and, in doing so, ultimately satisfy them. As C.S. Lewis writes in The Weight of Glory:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We have now established why boundaries exist, and why they are good. They are ultimately tools to be used in our sanctification. At this point, we have arrived where many Christians find themselves, with boundaries viewed as a good thing meant to keep us from sin and make us holy. However, the purpose of this post was not to justify boundaries as they are currently viewed. Nearly the opposite. The goal was to review, in light of eternity and God's story, why boundaries exist and where they come from. It is imperative that we do not forget where these boundaries come from and why they exist. If we do, we come dangerously close to the legalism of the Pharisees, who knew the letter of the law by heart yet still managed to miss the entire point.

Having reached this point, I do not want to stop here. Knowing where boundaries comes from gives us a unique insight into how we should live out boundaries in everyday life. First of all, it is absolutely necessary to remember that boundaries exist because of sin. In a world with no sin, there is no need for boundaries. This is what we saw in the Garden of Eden, and I am convinced this is what we shall see in heaven. If you do not agree, I challenge you to think: what boundaries does God place on his love for us? My answer would be none at all. So when we, at last, with unveiled faces, reflect to each other the boundless--and boundary-less--love of God, and are entirely caught up in His presence, having put to death any semblance of our individuality apart from God, why should we then still have boundaries with each other? I will freely admit, it can be difficult to grasp and accept. For example, will clothes be necessary in heaven? (For now, let us look past the fact that, in heaven, we shall not have bodies in the same way we have them on earth, but shall take on new, heavenly forms the likes of which we cannot conceive.) By this line of thinking, the answer should be no, they will not be necessary. For what necessary function could clothes offer in a realm where there is no lust, no self-glorification, no ugliness or malice or self-deprecation, no shame, and no sin? Perhaps I would do best to quote C.S. Lewis once again, this time from his image of heaven given in The Great Divorce:

Some were naked, some robed. But the naked ones did not seem less adorned, and the robes did not disguise in those who wore them the massive grandeur of muscle and the radiant smoothness of flesh.

The reason I bring this up is that so often I think we view boundaries not as consequences of sin and a means to our sanctification, but the opposite of sin and the goal of our sanctification. We view breaking these boundaries as inherently sinful, and keeping them inherently righteous. But understanding where they came from, these distinctions are meaningless! For as God sanctifies us and makes us more pure, more holy, and transforms us into the image of his son, we are freed from the bonds of sin and are no longer bound by them. And since our boundaries exist because of sin, once we are freed of that sin, these boundaries are no longer necessary. In a sense, the more "righteous" ones are the ones who are more free to "break" what we would consider standard boundaries. They are no longer bound by boundaries, because they are no longer bound by sin. As an example, a teenage girl should feel no qualms about discussing her latest breakup with the pastor at her church, while a similar conversation with a guy her age might be cause for caution. Sanctification breaks down both walls and boundaries as it frees us from sin. In the church, therefore, where it is presumably the goal of each person to continue to be sanctified and changed, we should see closer relationships between people, even people of the opposite gender. Because as well as pursue God and are brought into his presence, we are necessarily all brought closer together until at last, one day, we are all unified completely in God.

I may have said some pretty controversial things in this post. My main goal is to inspire thought and reasoning. Our ultimate source of truth is the Bible, and any rules and assumptions made about the Christian life must ultimately be grounded in Scripture. I recognize that I have not directly quoted any scripture, so my ideas are subjective at best, and I reserve the right to change them in the future. However, I did try my best to appeal to the general story of the Bible, rather than simply reasoning grounded in earthly observations. In my experience, many articles on boundaries between men and women in the church rarely quote scripture, and instead appeal to vague notions of purity and sin. My goal was to provide a counter to this by working through relationships from the beginning and arriving at the result, rather than starting with the assumption that boundaries are necessary and showing how they work and what can go wrong if they are crossed.

I want to end with a final warning. If you take what I have said in this post as license to be as emotionally open and intimate with other people as you please, or to constantly flirt with members of the opposite sex, or to be more physical in a relationship with a significant other, you have missed the point entirely. The point is not that we no longer need to establish any sort of rules or guidelines for earthly relationships and are therefore free to act as we please. To do so is akin to reading the Bible and ignoring any part about God or Jesus. Such an attitude neglects to plant in place the first pillar of the cross and instead reaches straight for the second. The point of this post was to say that, first and foremost, we are all meant to be united with God, through Christ, with the Holy Spirit living inside of us. As we continue to seek him and as He pursues us, draws us closer to Him, and sanctifies us into the holy, perfect image of his Son Jesus Christ, we will find that any earthly relationship we had to let die in the process will be rekindled in a glory we cannot imagine. As we are caught up in the Person and Persons of God, we will inevitably reach perfect unity and intimacy with our fellow humans as well.

Let Me Tell You a Story

As with many of my recent posts (I'm using a relative time scale, here; I realize not many of my posts can be considered "recent" anymore), I'm going to start by talking about something I like. Unlike those other posts, I'm pretty much going to end there. Ye be warned. Continue at your own risk.

One of my favorite video games is Assassin's Creed. I own all of the main games, and I have played through the first two installments in the series twice each, despite the fact that the first one isn't really that great of a game in comparison to the others. I own a hoodie styled after the Assassins' uniform, and a ring with the symbol of the Assassins engraved on it. You could say I'm a bit obsessed. You wouldn't be the first.

What most people don't know, however, is why I like Assassin's Creed so much. Sure, there is the amazing gameplay and unnecessarily violent executions, but there's more too it than that. It has to do with the storyline of the game. If you are not familiar with it, allow me to enlighten you. If you are familiar with it, you might not have ever heard it phrased in this way. Either way, continue reading, if you are so inclined, and let me tell you a story.

Let me tell you a story. This story is about a group of people. This group was relatively small, but it seemed as though most of the world was against them. In reality, a single driving force opposed them, but this force extended its reach to nearly every aspect of life. But this small group of people knew the truth: that something big was coming; something terrible would happen, and it was not that far off. But the rest of the world, and the forces that opposed them, could not see it. They refused to see it. And the force that opposed them was content to keep them blind to the truth and use the illusions to further their own ends. But this group worked tirelessly to free people from the illusion and reveal the truth. They sought to liberate people from their slavery, warn them of the coming disaster, and show them the hope that still remained.

Now at one point early on in the life of this group, one part of the group sought to use the group to further their own interest. They had subtly but willingly joined with the force that opposed this group. This hurt the group, but the truth persisted, and the faithful members rescued the group. And this group began to grow and propagate. And it spread to all different cultures and societies and manifested itself in all different ways. Some bold heroes of the group left their culture to bring the cause of the group to other places that had never heard of it, or to places that had only a small faction of the group and needed teaching and training. And all the while the forces of the world tried to oppose this group, but somehow this small group persisted and survived. In fact, it thrived and multiplied. And every so often they would receive messages from beyond that would confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that what they were doing was true and just and right.

And in the effort to further their cause and the truth, this group has shaped the course of history. Many famous historical events were shaped in a large part by members of this group. But too often they were lost in the background by the history books. But it didn't matter, because the truth and their cause continued throughout the ages. And the more time that passed, the more urgent their mission became, and the more important it was that they dispel the illusion that the opposing forces so eagerly wished to keep in place. And the forces that opposed them tried everything they could. They persecuted this group in all manner of ways, but it didn't matter, because this group knew the truth. In the midst of chaos and attacks from the enemy, they kept their eyes on the truth and on the end, because they knew what was coming, and it compelled them to act.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you catch it? If you are not familiar with the storyline of the games, the group is the Assassins, and the opposing force is the Templars. The games manage to insinuate the conflict between these two sides into nearly every major event in history, from the fall of Rome to World War II to Mahatma Ghandi. 

For those of you who are familiar with this storyline, and especially for those of you that aren't - namely, the ones who think my obsession is childish and trivial - I invite you to contemplate the following: what if I told you that the above story is, in fact, not about Assassin's Creed?

As a matter of fact, this story is true. It is the story of the Church of Jesus Christ and their mission to spread the Gospel to all people of all nations.

I contend that many of my passions and obsessions are similar to this one. True, there is usually something about the surface level that appeals to me, but often it does not stop there. When you have a spare moment for thought, consider applying this logic to me, your friends, or even yourself. Ask the question, is there a larger story at work here? Is there something beneath the surface tickles my deepest desires and entices me in deeper? You might be surprised at what you find.

Debt, Death, and why we do Works

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Princess Bride. I used to watch this movie whenever I was home sick, which I thought was appropriate, considering the premise of the movie is a grandfather reading a story to his sick grandson. It wasn't until I was older that I realized the entire movie is a farce. As a young boy, I merely thought it was a fantastic adventure tale, filled with sword fights, schemes, chases, and of course, "true love". I loved it, because every young boy loves an adventure, the idea of having a mission to do, like winning back your true love or avenging your father's death. That's why boys look for heroes in history, sports, and war. Looking back, though, I can understand now why my parents would always laugh at scenes like the following scene which features a character named "Miracle Max":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9tAKLTktY0

 Clearly, this scene is meant to be funny and ridiculous. After all, the very thought of someone being "mostly dead" is absurd. Dying isn't like cooking a steak, or something that can be measured in varying degrees. You're either alive or dead. There's no real in between. At some point, everyone learns this fact.

And yet, for some reason, we frequently act as if death isn't binary. We act like death is a process that can proceed in varying amounts, and in either direction. Not literally, of course; most of us accept that dead bodies don't come back to life. But when it comes to spiritual death, we act like those rules don't apply anymore.

What I'm talking about is the way we treat salvation. We treat it like a debt, in the sense that it is somehow finite and quantifiable. This is not to say we think we could ever pay back this debt. But the fact is, that viewing our salvation as a debt cheapens it in a way we can't imagine.

Let's unpack this for a little bit. My guess is we get this idea from the Bible. Nothing wrong with that. It's a pretty trustworthy source of spiritual truth. Passages like Matthew 18:21-35, wherein Jesus compares forgiveness to a king forgiving his servant of a great debt, then that servant turning around and throwing someone else who owes him a small debt in jail. Another example is in Luke 7:36-50, where Jesus is eating with a Pharisee when a woman who is called a "sinner" falls at Jesus's feet and weeps. Jesus informs the pharisee that she loves much because she has been forgiven much, and that "whoever has been forgiven little loves little", which he says after giving the pharisee an example of two debtors who were forgiven their debts.

I'm not detracting from these examples at all. Jesus said them, after all. What I think has gone wrong is our understanding of these passages as it relates to our salvation. So often, we view our sin as this massive debt, one which God then forgives. Then, prompted by these passages, we decide that, since God forgave us, it is our job to love Him a lot and forgive other people, and serve God by telling others about him. Those are good things, and I'm not saying we should stop doing that. What I am saying is that that line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. When we view our salvation as the forgiveness of a debt, we are adding to that metaphor our modern understanding of what debt is; namely, debt today is quantifiable and, more importantly, avoidable. Comparing our salvation to debt forgiveness as we understand it today is saying that our sin, however great, was still finite, and that, in theory, we could eventually work enough to pay it back. And so often, that is how we view our Christian works: as paying back a debt. But this is such a flawed way of thinking!

See, debt has historically been treated very differently than it is today, when we have bankruptcy and foreclosure and defaulting and loans and debt is simply a reality. In the past, if you owed someone money, they could have you thrown in what is called "debtor's prison" until you or your family paid back the debt. If you think about this for a second, you'll realize that it is a lot harder to pay off your debt when you're in prison and can't work. Another, even older system is indentured servitude, or serfdom, wherein a debtor would essentially become a slave to their creditor until they had worked off their debt, which could be years, decades, or even never. So debt in Jesus's time was very different from debt in our time. In our time, one way or another, debt will eventually go away. In Jesus's time, there was no such guarantee.

This is why it is so important to realize that our sin is so much more than just a debt that we have to pay. Sin is death. And as we have already established, death is irreversible and unquantifiable. There is no "mostly dead". We were just plain dead, until Jesus sought us out and brought us back to life. And just because this is spiritual life and death we are talking about doesn't mean that coming back to life is any more extraordinary. Spiritual resurrection is every bit as miraculous as bodily resurrection, and in many ways even more so.

So then where do works come in? In the debt analogy, it made sense: we owed a debt, Jesus forgave it, and yet we still worked for Jesus to pay it off. No one would ever phrase it like that, at least not out loud, but if you're like me, you think that way sometimes in your head. You think "I'm doing all of this work for God, because he forgave me. Therefore, I have to work for Him." On the outside, this might look fine, but this is a broken way of thinking. We can never put a dent in our "debt" to God. What he has done for us far outweighs anything we could ever do for him. In fact, as we're about to see, we can never do anything for Him.

Hopefully most of us know that we are not saved by works. That's a given. But so often we think and act like our works are something we are doing for God. I think we need to remind ourselves of Ephesians 2:8-10:

"For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

These verses seem like they might hold the answer to our question, where do works fit in to all of this? It is clear, from these verses, that our salvation has absolutely nothing to do with works. In fact, our works never give us reason to boast. So why do them then? If they don't impact our salvation, and they don't give us any bragging rights on earth or entitle us to any extra jewels on our crowns in heaven, what's the point? That's where verse 10 comes in: God prepared these works for us. We are created to do these works. These works are our mission.

That's what we're all looking for, isn't it? That's what every person on this earth wants: a mission. A sense of purpose. To feel like we are a part of something bigger. To know that we are making an impact on the world. That's why we see so many people and organizations dedicating their lives to everything from cancer research to football to space exploration to playing the cello to defending our nation to running for political office. And to be clear, none of those are inherently bad things. But if you dedicate your life to their mission instead of God's mission, you are ultimately going to be left wanting.

So the picture we get from the bible is not one of a debtor who is forgiven of his debt and slowly works his way out of it. That view trivializes sin and glorifies our own efforts. The image we get is more like a man who is slowly dying of an unknown disease. He has no living relatives, no friends, no one that cares about him or that will miss him if he dies. The doctors can't help him and tell him he doesn't have much time left. He has no money and has to sleep on the dirty floor of a crumbling, third world hospital, in the hopes that maybe one of the doctors there will take pity on him and find something to help him. But slowly but surely, he wastes away, until one day, without anyone noticing, he breathes his last breath.

...

...

...

Suddenly, he wakes up. He's back on the floor of the hospital, but there is a man looking at him. This man picks him up and places him in a bed, a luxury he hasn't had for as long as he can remember. The man's rescuer is Jesus, and Jesus tells the man "It's okay. I brought you back to life." The man is speechless. No one cared about him before. No one even knew he existed. But then Jesus brings him back to life. He has him transferred to the top of the line health facility, where the man gets constant medical attention, gourmet meals, and the most comfortable bed he had ever felt. On top of all of that, Jesus comes and visits him every day and talks to him, treating him as an friend, which no one had ever done before. True, this man still cannot leave his bed, but he has companionship and food and comfort, everything he had every desired but had never had.

After a while, though, he realizes that even this is not truly satisfying. He knows he has everything he has ever wanted, but, put simply, he is bored. He has an empty feeling, an insatiable desire for something more, something he can't quite describe. It's the same desire I mentioned earlier, that every person feels. The desire for adventure, for a sense of purpose, to feel like you belong, to know that you will leave a lasting impact. And no amount of friendship, food, warmth, comfort, or medical attention can give satisfy this desire.

That's when Jesus says it. "I'll trade places with you," he tells the man. "What I did for you, I have also done for countless others. And still there are countless more people like you. But I'll trade places with you. I will lie, crippled, on this bed, and let you go out and do to those other people what I have done to you. It won't be easy. You'll have to find them."

This is it. This is the answer to the man's lingering desire. Finally, he has found his mission. No, it isn't easy, but it is fulfilling.

So you see, works are not our way of paying God back for all he's done for us. No, on the contrary, works are the greatest gift God has given us! God has given us a mission, a purpose, a group to belong to, a chance to love other people in the way he has loved us, a chance to bring the greatest news we have every received to someone else! Sure, Jesus could find these people much more efficiently if he chose to do it himself and not use us. But thank God that he does choose to use us, despite all of our flaws and imperfections. He lets us be the vessels through which he reaches the world with his love. He lets us do the good works that he has already prepared for us.

It isn't always easy. And we aren't always going to get it right. But this is our mission: to find the people who are dead like we once were, and show them the amazing love that this person named Jesus has showed us.

So let's go find them.