Pixar’s Finding Nemo is one of my all-time favorite movies, and my daughter absolutely loves it, so we’ve seen quite a lot of it at my house.  One of the movie’s most endearing characters is Dory, a little blue fish who desperately wants to be helpful but suffers from Short-term Memory Loss.  Basically, she forgets anything about 15 seconds after she hears it.  As you can imagine, that leads to some rather hilarious situations in a film that’s all about the main characters looking for someone.

Today, I’ve been thinking about just how Dory-like I am in my faith in Jesus.  My mind is full of big truths that I’ve learned about God, but when the time comes to practically apply them, it often seems that I might as well have forgotten them entirely.  Just today, I was talking to my wife about a situation that had me frustrated.  She very quickly pointed out that God has a reason for not doing what I wanted, and that he works everything for our good.

Of course, I knew that.  I believe that wholeheartedly.  But, in the moment, I forgot it.  I let anxiety (read: lack of faith) and frustration (read: lack of trust) get the better of me.  Because of that, the glorious truth that God works all things together for my good provided no comfort to me in a time that I really needed it.  I had my theology straight, it was just neutered.

Dory’s Short-term Memory Loss was a big hindrance to her attempts to help Marlin find his son (and keep his sanity), and mine is an equally big hindrance to the peace that I’m promised in Christ.  If you’re feeling the same way, then fight forgetfulness by taking those spiritual truths that you’ve committed to your mind and make sure they’re equally committed to your heart.  Then, give me a minute, because I had a really great closing line for this post, but I’ve completely forgotten what it was.

Doug Wilson has a great post examining what we require people to believe for membership in the church.  Wilson pushes back against the notion that we should require strict adherance to a confession for entry into church membership.  He gets the ball rolling with this quote…

“In all Churches a distinction is made between the terms upon which private members are admitted to membership, and the terms upon which office-bearers are admitted to their sacred trusts of teaching and ruling. A Church has no right to make anything a condition of membership which Christ has not made a condition of salvation. The Church is Christ’s fold. The sacraments are the seals of his covenant. All have a right to claim admittance who make a credible profession of the true religion; that is, who are presumptively the people of Christ.” – A.A. Hodge

Wilson then fleshes out the matter a bit.  His conclusion?

This mistake is the result of confusing the session interview with St. Peter’s interview at the Pearlies. It demands of preschoolers that they show their high school diploma as a condition for admittance into preschool. It confuses the end from the beginning, and the beginning from the end. It muddles baptism and the eschaton. It reverses the order of the Great Commission — teach them obedience to all that the Lord commanded, and then bring them in. It is theological dyslexia.

This is an issue that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about over the last several months.  As our team thinks through what membership will look like at our church plant, we want to be faithful to let the gospel take preeminence – not watering down our doctrinal convictions, but making sure that we’re not laying any requirements upon people that Scripture does not, and thus implicitly telling people, “We believe you’re a true Christian, but you can’t join our church.”  That’s a precedent that I simply can’t find in the Bible.  I’d encourage you to read Wilson’s full post and think through these things as well, especially if you’re in leadership at a local church.

Last week, Heather and I finished watching through the 2004 reimagined Battlestar Galactica TV series on DVD.  I recommended the show as we were watching through the first season, and having seen it through to the end I stand by that recommendation and make it all the more strongly.  Battlestar was a fantastic series, a great sci-fi tale with compelling characters, smart storytelling, and a four-season narrative arc that doesn’t overstay its welcome and comes to a satisfying conclusion.  It’s fantastic TV that should appeal to more than just a sci-fi crowd (my wife is proof-positive of that), and at its core, it’s a deeply human drama.  With that in mind, I wanted to post a few (spoiler-free) reflections on what I saw along the journey with the survivors of the twelve colonies.

1. Battlestar nails human nature. My wife made this observation, and it’s dead-on right.  Perhaps more so than any other show I’ve seen, the characters who inhabit the Galactica feel like the admirable yet frail walking contradictions that all of us are as human beings.  All of the show’s heroes have their faults, and their good character qualities come through with an additional weight given by their imperfections.  My favorite character, Edward James Olmos’ Commander Adama, is a man with flaws (that have even alienated him from those closest to him), but also a man with a deep sense of honor who will stop at nothing to do what he believes is right.  From the character with the strongest moral compass (Helo) to the weakest (Gaius Baltar), everyone feels real and has a depth to their motivations and actions that make them deeply relateable and moving.  Let’s face it – all of us are good guys and bad guys all at the same time, and Galactica reflects that reality well.

2. The show takes an excellent look at justice and mercy. The show’s plot setup makes battle lines pretty clear.  A race of robotic creatures called Cylons nearly annihilates humanity with one massive attack, leaving a small band of survivors struggling for survival.  Pretty black and white.  Thanks largely to the show’s complicated characters, however, things don’t stay that way for long.  Some of the good guys do awful things.  Some of the less admirable characters are more sympathetic than they initially seem.  These factors combine to complicate questions of where justice and mercy meet.  Who should find forgiveness and redemption?  Who should be flushed out an airlock?  You’ll find your answer to that question changing sometimes from episode to episode.  I think that strongly testifies to the reality that we all seek both – wanting justice for a world gone badly wrong but craving forgiveness for the share of that justice that we rightly deserve.

3. Our culture seeks spirituality, but doesn’t know where to find it. Battlestar openly tackles religion as much as any show in recent memory (think Lost with an additional willingness to go into details).  In the world of the colonies, humans worship a pantheon of deities resembling that of the ancient Greeks.  Cylons, on the other hand, worship a single, all powerful god.  On each side, we’re introduced to the devout and the skeptics, and we see the interplay as the two worldviews collide.  In line with the rest of the show, the view of faith is not simple and is interesting throughout.  However, as is also unsurprising, the show’s vision of faith is also unsatisfying to anyone who has put their trust in Jesus Christ, the God-man.  I believe that the show’s willingness to dive headlong into the spiritual, coupled with other shows like Lost, shows a great yearning in our culture for something beyond this fallen world.  Lost couldn’t give the answers, and Battlestar can’t either, but both serve to point us to a culture that unknowingly is seeking a balm for an itch that only the Gospel can scratch.

Just read a great post by Matt Privett urging parents to remember that no matter where their kids go to school, they are, at all times, their children’s prime teacher.  An excerpt…

The LORD is straightforward in His instruction to His people, in this case, the nation of Israel. The training of a child is something that is to be done at all times and it is in direct correlation to one’s love of the LORD. Yet, this is not merely an Old Testament admonition, for Jesus repeats the “greatest commandment” in the Gospels and Paul speaks to parents, particularly fathers, as it relates to their children.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” – Ephesians 6:4 (emphasis mine)

Because the church and families have ceded the God-given responsibility and authority to educate our children to the state, parents today have for the most part forsaken the discipline and instruction of the Lord of their progeny because they are no longer the ones who provide the discipline and instruction in anything else.

Of all that I learned in my 4+ years as a youth pastor, nothing sticks quite so strongly in my mind like the incredible weight that parents carry with their children.  Despite the influence that I might have been able to wield for a couple hours on Wednesdays and Sundays, it was nothing compared to the influence my students had from the homes that they lived in throughout the week.  That reality has impressed upon me the great responsibility and awesome privilege that God has given me with raising my daughter and unborn son.  If you’ve got children or might in the future, I’d encourage you to read Matt’s full post and think a bit about your role as the most important teacher your kids will ever have.

A couple weeks back, I wrote some thoughts on author Anne Rice’s announcement that she’s quitting Christianity.  Today, I came across an article by Mark Driscoll in the Washington Post’s On Faith blog offering some excellent pastoral thoughts about the announcement and questions it raises for followers of Christ.  A couple excerpts…

Rice would admittedly like to have an ongoing relationship with Jesus, but not with his people. Yet this sort of relationship is one that is simply unacceptable, for “whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:21). To use an illustration, imagine a single woman falling in love with an amazingly wonderful single man who happened to have a lot of children, some of whom were rotten kids that he adopted in an effort to transform them. Now, imagine that woman wanting to be married to the man but have nothing to do with any of his children. That kind of relationship is devastating, but it is the kind of relationship Rice wants with Jesus and without his spiritual children in the church…Christians should not be offended by her rejection of Christianity. We should instead use it as an opportunity to search our own lives to see how we have been vicious, cruel, mean, unloving, and difficult to others, and repent of our own sin without fixating on what we think are her sins.

We should also pray for her. My guess is that she’s simply struggling with what it means to be a Christian while hurting. She lost her daughter Michele to leukemia in 1972, buried her gay best friend John Preston, who died of AIDS in 1994, and in 2002 she buried her husband of forty-one years, Stan Rice. Her son, bestselling author Christopher Rice, is a gay rights activist whom she loves even while she reads the Bible’s denial of his lifestyle as a God-honoring one. So, let her fellow Christians pray, love, and wait for Jesus to keep working on her as he is on us, thanking him that at least our struggles are not as publicly scrutinized as hers.

I’d highly encourage you to check out the rest.

Dr. D.A. Carson gives a good response to that question, exploring the possibility that the question itself is the wrong place to start.

HT: Tim Challies

As I’m reading through the book of Judges, one thing stands out pretty clearly over the course of the book – the land of Israel was one pretty messed up place at that particular point in history.  Even the saviors of the land were some people with pretty distinct character flaws.  As I read through the familiar tale of Samson, I was struck anew by just how badly the guy regularly messed things up.  This man, who knew the Lord was the source of his great strength and was jealous for God’s people, was supremely arrogant and thought little of going in to a prostitute or regularly breaking his Nazarite vow concerning contact with dead bodies.  The effect that this should have on my heart is wonder at the grace of God that calls broken, sinful men to be his children by the blood of Jesus.

However, the thought that often ends up running through my mind is more like, man, I’m not too bad at all compared to that guy! After all, what’s my spiritual apathy compared to his blatant disregard?  What’s my lust compared to his shacking up with a prostitute?  What’s my pride compared to his total self-absorption?  To my sinful, self-justifying heart, Samson looks pretty good.  In reality, though, Samson just makes God look pretty good.

Both Samson and I are completely hopeless cases apart from the grace and mercy of God.  Taking hope in my moral superiority to Samson is like taking hope in the fact that I’m lying dead on the bottom of a river rather than dead at the bottom of the ocean.  But of course, with dead bodies, location doesn’t matter.  God saving Samson and using him, imperfections and all, for his glory, showcases the power of the grace that God shows to us.  That same grace is the only reason I have any confidence before the Father’s throne.  It’s the only reason that I can draw near to him and depend on him as my father.  And it’s the only reason that I’m of any spiritual use to anyone else.  So when you read about the screw-ups God used in the book of Judges, don’t take pride in how close your rotting corpse lies to the surface of the water you’ve morally drowned in.  Take pride in the fact that the saving arm of the Lord is longer than any person is deep.

I’m a creature of habit.  I like comfort.  My parents will tell you that even as a small kid, I was always extremely cautious and didn’t care for rocking the boat.  My wife (who will often respond to the question, “What do you want to do?” with, “Something new, exciting, fun and different”) will tell you that I have the tendency to find something I like, run with it, and get in a rut.  It just seems to be the way that I’m wired.  I love familiarity.  However, the old adage about familiarity breeding contempt is an old adage for a reason, and it can often take shaking things up to make me see just how deadening my routine has become.  God blessed me with such a small shakeup last weekend.

While vacationing with family in North Carolina, we worshipped last Sunday morning with my in-laws at Parkwood Baptist Church in Gastonia, where they had recently joined.  Size and style-wise, the church is not at all what I’m used to.  At about 1,000 members, it’s got the feel of the type of suburban mini-megachurch that can be found in towns across the south – polos and khakis, lots of 30-and-40-somethings, drummer in the plexiglass cage, the whole nine yards.  Nothing necessarily wrong with those things, but I’ve been in my fair share of churches like that that were culturally overeager and Biblically shallow, and those experiences have formed a stereotype that I often have a hard time shaking.  I’d been to my in-laws’ church before and knew that it didn’t fall prey to those trappings, but style and apathy alone had me less than excited to hop in the car that Sunday morning.

God, however, being rich in mercy, gave me exactly what I needed that morning rather than what I deserved.  With the break from the worship routine I’ve become used to at Crossing (which is absolutely fantastic, don’t get me wrong), every word sung seemed to draw my heart and mind straight to God.  Pastor Jeff Long’s terrific sermon (and you really ought to check out this guy’s preaching) from Proverbs 16:27-28 illuminated the Scripture and presented it with candor and power.  Every element of the service – even oh-so-familiar worship choruses that I usually turn up my nose at – served to send me off with a deep sense of the beauty, majesty, and wisdom of our great God.  Tears welled in my eyes at a few points as I looked beyond myself and saw Christ more clearly than I had in weeks, perhaps even months.  I’m truly grateful for God’s grace and for Jeff and the rest of the people at Parkwood who so perfectly ministered to me that day despite my silent sneering.

What to take from the experience?  First, when you walk into a worship gathering, do so humbly, not ready and eager to critique every aspect of the service.  Nothing kills our ability to worship the Lord like pride.  I know this all too well.  The bigger piece of advice I’d offer, though, is this:  If you’re someone who always loves trying new things and becomes easily bored by routine, learn to find comfort and beauty in the familiar.  But, if you’re someone like me who has a great tendency to idolize their own comfort zone, be ever-ready to let God interrupt your routine and draw you to himself in unexpected circumstances.  After all, he pulled that off pretty well about 2,000 years ago.

Recently, my pastor, Dustin Neeley, interviewed Village Church Pastor Matt Chandler about his recent struggle with brain cancer and how he’s led his church, his family and himself through that suffering.  Check out this incredibly helpful and encouraging video, and continue to pray for Matt and the Chandler family.

HT: Church Planting For the Rest of Us

Over the weekend, Heather and I finished our viewing of Ken Burns’ 15-hour World War II documentary, The War.  I already wrote a bit about the film and it’s not exactly one that lends itself to a traditional review.  I’ll simply say that as a documentary and a window into history, it was absolutely fantastic.  What I do want to do is highlight a few things that came to mind as I reflected on those pivotal years in the history of our world.

1.  Evil is real, and it pervades humanity.  Our culture today knows something of evil.  We watched the Twin Towers fall.  We see the news reports of murder so frequently that we barely bat an eye anymore at any but the most heinous crimes.  Yet, most people operate under an assumption that people are basically good and that evil is compartmentalized ‘over there’ and explained by environmental factors (religious extremism, childhood trauma, mental illness).  After watching The War, that assumption is simply untenable.  Looking at pictures of gruesome violence, seeing the mutilated bodies of men, women and children piled in the streets, all casualties of man’s quest for power, the reality of the deep-seated nature of human evil is inescapable.  One particularly haunting sequence involved a group of soldiers who liberated a brutal German death camp.  Located just outside a small German town, all the town’s residents denied knowing of it, though the stench of death was clear throughout.  The Allied soldiers brought the countless bodies down into the town and forced the German civilians to bury them.  Film is shown of German men and women walking down the main road, looking at all the open graves.  Their faces bore not shock, but the unmistakable shadow of guilt.  Some wept, some were stone-faced, but without a word the culpability they realized was perfectly clear.  They were staring the revolting result of evil in the face and found themselves to be the cause.  That scene is a good microcosm of the plight that all of us share as fallen humanity.

2.  God is gracious and sovereign.  Living here in good ol’ comfortable America, the reality of a world completely enveloped by war is difficult to imagine.  The footage from Europe seemed especially alien to me, looking at rubble-filled streets and bombed-out buildings and realizing that they were simple towns and cities, years before filled with bustling business and playing children.  Society, to me, seems so constant, so unshakable, that to imagine my home, my streets turned into a battlefield seems absolutely bizarre.  Yet for those few years, much of the entire world was turned to a battlefield.  More so than at any point in human history, the foundation of global society itself was perilously close to total upheaval.  What seemed secure was anything but.  And yet God was unchanged – in his wisdom, in his power, and in his mercy.  The world is not perfect today, but it was returned to stability.  A militaristic Japan does not control half the Pacific.  A fanatical German Reich does not rule Europe and beyond (And lest we believe Hitler intended to stop with Europe, it was chilling to hear an American soldier recall a conversation with a German POW who asked him about his little hometown and gave uncanny details about it.  The American asked the German how he knew these things, and the German answered “I went through the training.”  “The training for what?” the American answered.  The German responded matter-of-factly, “For the overseeing of the territories.”).  God, by his gracious will, brought the world through those hellish years.  He demonstrated his superiority to the god-like aspirations of Hitler.  As narrator Keith David put it, “The German Reich that Hitler promised would endure for a thousand years didn’t even last a dozen.”  Though we all deserve the gruesome sights The War depicts and worse, God’s sovereign hand brought peace and stability, and today continues to bear patiently with the sins of men, offering redemption through his Son.

3.  Decisions that seem easy from the sideline are anything but.  Ask people’s opinions on important political matters of the day.  You’re likely to hear a lot of strong convictions.  To half the populace, Bush was an idiot.  To the other half, Obama is.  Both sides genuinely believe those perspectives.  To listen to every armchair pundit tell it, you get the impression that the country would be completely problem free if only everyone would listen to them.  Yet, decisions, especially stripped of their historical and personal context, are seldom as easy as they seem.  I’m no pacifist, but one of my good friends and roommates in college was.  Though he never convinced me of his position, he did cause me to challenge (and sometimes reject) many of the assumptions I had about war, and to this day I think that my standard for the justification of force is much higher than it was before I met him.  Before watching this documentary, I was pretty confident that our decision to drop nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities was ethically indefensible.  After watching The War, I’m still not sure it was the right thing, but I’m not so confident in my own hindsight-driven assumptions, either.  Sitting through 15 hours of footage, tracing the arm of history, I began to get the slightest sense of the weight that must have hung over the nation from that conflict.  Faced with years at war, our total casualty figures from today’s Iraq war outdone by small and insignificant battles then, hundreds of thousands of husbands, fathers and sons taken from their families, many never to return, and the prospect of an invasion of Japan that would likely dwarf all that had come before, I cannot imagine the desperation that must have gripped our leaders and our people to end it.  250,000 Japanese lives vanished in an instant at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it is likely that a million Japanese and American lives would have been lost in the struggle for the Japanese home islands over long, bloody years.  Faced with that decision, there are no easy answers.  I’ll never forget watching Katherine Phillips, then in college at Auburn, say with tears in her eyes, “You’ll never convince those of us from that generation that the atomic bomb isn’t the greatest thing they ever came up with.”  To our modern ears, that sounds cold.  Hearing it from her lips, after 15 hours of her story, it sounded entirely reasonable.  I’m not for a moment saying that we shouldn’t hold strong convictions, even about events and decisions that we were not a part of.  I am saying that those convictions do need to be soaked in a good amount of humility.

There’s certainly more to say, but I’ll stop there.  If you haven’t seen The War, it would be time well spent.  Feel free to add reflections of your own in the comments.