Sovereignty, Predestination, and the Unscripted Life

Are some predestined to for salvation? Did God fore-ordain and elect some before the beginning of the world? Are some predestined to damnation? Do we have free-will? Is God in control of everything? Are we just robots in some cosmic game? These and other similar questions bubble to the surface in Christian conversations, especially in Reformed circles. Usually the conversations take place in abstract and ethereal ways with many hypothetical cases and dependent hypotheses. Rarely do such questions and conversations ever "get-real."

As a guest speaker last week for a class on the Quarterlife Crisis, I spoke on the topic of "Vocational Crisis." In it, I addressed the American desire and ambition to script out the future of our lives. In fact, such an idea is so ingrained in our culture that one is considered to be irresponsible and foolish not to script out, plan out, and spend an inordinate amount of time stressing about the future. We are told that if we wish to be responsible and successful (a.k.a. "moral" in an American sense), then we must be self-made and script our lives. This involves what clubs, sports, and classes you take school as children, what universities we attend,what corporations one works for during summer and after graduation, when and who one marries, and where and what type of housing one chooses. It's all scripted.

The "scripted life" is one that does not acknowledge a Sovereign God. The scripted life is one where "I" am in control of my life and future. The scripted life is one where God is not needed, where I am the salvation of my own world.

To believe in a Sovereign God, to believe in the predestined existence, is to have an unscripted life. It is a life where I am not in control of my future or destination. It is one where I am not self-made. Instead, I am formed by Another. I am created for Another's good will, pleasure, and purpose. It is a life where "I belong to God." It is the counter-cultural life. A life that is very "un-American." It is a life that exposes the fallacy and illusion that we have control. The unscripted life is the only way we as followers of Jesus Christ can truly be faithful.

Killing Cain

For many years now I occasionally ask other Christians a simple question, "Why is the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible? What is it meant to teach us?" Most often the response is something like the following, "It teaches us that killing is wrong." Others in the conversation often agree and then look at me and say, "I'm guessing you disagree." I have always been amazed at this little story. It is the only story that we have of Cain or Abel. We learning nothing more about them in the Scriptures. The NT makes some passing references to Cain being evil and to the blood of innocent Abel, but that is it.

The amazing aspect of the story is not murder, it is not about jealousy, and it is not about right sacrifices and offerings to God. Instead it is about our God. Cain murders Abel. God does not kill Cain. Cain is angry and thirsts for blood. God is angry but forgives. God not only forgives but goes even farther to putting a mark on Cain in order to protect him from the revenge of the human community.

Right here at the beginning of our bibles is this phenomenal story about forgiveness, peace, and the way forward for fallen humanity. Why don't we pay more attention to it?

Post-Missional?

So I saw an advertisement today for a whole new way of being church that is both post-modern and post-missional! Really? I mean, really? I am certainly someone who has defended the use of the "post-" reality world, but are we really going to talk about being post-missional? Isn't that akin to being post-purposeful or post-worshipful? I guess the "missional" seminars and cookie-programs have run their course, so to sell new seminars and books we had to create a "post-missional" mandate.

And Darkness Was Over The Face of the Deep

Darkness.

Abyss.

Nothingness.

Ignorance.

The unknown shrouded in mystery.

The universe is shrouded in a perpetual darkness. The more we see, the more we don't see. The more we learn and know, the more we realize just how much we are ignorant. We expand farther and farther outward gazing at the cosmos, while examining deeper and deeper discovering every quark or nuance of matter and energy. Each step brings with it a revelation of a much larger world, a whole existence that we are unaware, a reality that is at once close and yet so distant. In the midst of such darkness, God breathed. Revelation occurred. Life emerged. Light broke forth.

Abysmal Life-Giving Knowledge

"Revelation is not somethign that confirms what we already know. Basically, it has to do with knowledge of God and ourselves that is utterly surprising and disturbing. It is an event that shakes us to the core. Although it comes as a gift, offering us a glimpse of 'the very heart of mystery,' it si resisted because it is so threatening and frightening. The knowledge it conveys is an 'abysmal life-giving knowledge,' but it also demands a kind of death because it turns upside down the lives of people who receive it. Revelation compels momentous decisions about who God is and how we are to understand the world and ourselves."

-- Excerpted from p21 of Faith Seeking Understanding by Daniel Migliore

Blessed Dishonesty

I am continually amazed at the Holy Scriptures and the worlds apart they are from our modern day American culture and American Christianity. Living on a Christian college campus again brings up all of the contradictory and complicated aspects of evangelical college student's faith lives.

Exodus 1 is one of those chapters that throws a wrench in our nice spinning wheel. In this chapter, the king of Egypt issues and edict to have all of the infant males of the Hebrew people drowned in the Nile. Despite this ruling, the midwives of the Hebrew people refuse to kill the infant males-- in direct defiance of the king. The king even catches on and asks them why they are not killing the babies to which the midwives specifically lie to the king-- they create a very dishonest tall tale.

A few verses later, Exodus 1 clearly endorses the midwives dishonesty! Not only is there a blanketed endorsement, the text goes on to say that God blessed the midwives for their actions and gave them children of their own.

I love this story because it is such a shift from our Puritan ethics in American Christianity. The Old Testament does not have these neatly defined understandings of ethics. It always stands on the side of the people God is favoring-- almost always the oppressed people under the domination of some empire or corrupt authority. In each instance, some behavior that would be considered questionable or outright wrong in our current systems is used and endorsed by the Scriptures.

What scripture text like Exodus 1 tell us is that there are horrible atrocities going on in the world and that there must be some who are willing to stand up and stand against it. We cannot hide behind our quaint systems of morals and ethics. We must stand against oppression because God hears the cries of the people!

Bumping Into God

Occasionally my dog gets excited enough to run across the room, try to make a corner, misses and runs into the wall... something that is both very sad and very funny! The wall, of course, does not give at all, it has no way of responding or cushioning or shifting. However, when my dog runs and jumps on me, I move, cushion, and shift in order to take the impact.

Is God a wall that does not move, respond, or cushion? For some, the immutable, unmovable God is a comfort. For some, if God changes or is moved, then there entire system of theology begins to crumble.

Indeed, there are statements in Scripture that seem to paint God as an immovable wall, one who does not change and remains the same no matter what circumstance comes along. There are verses that describe God as knowing all things, having every detail of human history already worked out in advance, foreknown, and chosen.

Yet, much of the Bible describes God in very different language than this. Many scriptures describe a very movable God-- A God who repents, relents, is suprised, and regrets. When I read the story of Moses interceding on behalf Israel in Exodus 32 and God "repents of the evil he was about to do", I am overwhelmed by such a God who would respond to the passionate pleas of a human being. I am overcome with emotion at a God who takes the time to listen and shift perspective and change action. This is a God who is so powerful that vulnerability is not seen as a weakness but the hope of creation. This is a God who allows the dog to jump and cushions the blow. This is a God that is in relationship-- a true relationship, a give and take relationship.

Let us stop striving to create bomb-proof systematic theologies and allow each scripture text to move us as it sees fit. When in Exodus 32, let us fall in love with a God who could be moved. When in James 1, let us feel strong that we have a God who does not shift like shadows. Both are true and both have something very amazing to teach us.