Why I Believe Christian Faith is True, Part 6

Over the course of this series, I've articulated four major reasons for believing that Christian faith represents the authentic means of enjoying a relationship with God. Each of the first four installments have enumerated a reason. In yesterday's installment, I took a side-trip to explain what I saw as the significance of Jesus' resurrection for everyday living.

In today's installment I have two main goals:

1. To provide an overview of three different approaches to the same question I've been addressing--why Christian faith is true and therefore, worthy of our allegiance. Each approach will be represented by a major writer.

2. To lift up a suggested means by which doubters may come to believe that the claims of Christian faith are true and thereby, to enjoy a relationship with God.

The first major avenue to arriving at belief in the truth of the Christian witness is what I would call the empirical approach. This is well represented in a book by Lee Strobel called The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Strobel, holder of a Master of Studies in Law from the Yale Law School formerly served as legal affairs editor for the Chicago Tribune. In the late-1970s, his wife, Leslie, shocked Strobel when she began attending worship, got involved in the life of Willow Creek Community Church in Schaumburg, Illinois, and announced that she had become a Christian. Strobel was initially disgusted and thought that his wife's new-found Christian faith spelled the end of the marriage.

But, after a time, writes Strobel:

...I was pleasantly surprised--even fascinated--by the fundamental changes in her character, her integrity, and her personal confidence. Eventually I wanted to get to the bottom of what was prompting these subtle but significant shifts in my wife's attitudes, so I launched an all-out investigation into the facts surrounding the case for Christianity.

Setting aside my self-interest and prejudices as best I could, I read books, interviewed experts, asked questions, analyzed history, explored archaeology, studied ancient literature, and for the first time in my life picked apart the Bible verse by verse.

I plunged into the case with more vigor than with any story I had ever pursued. I applied the training I had received at Yale Law School as well as my experience...[at] the Chicago Tribune. And over time the evidence of the world--of history, of science, of philosophy, of psychology--began to point toward the unthinkable.

For Strobel "the unthinkable" at that time was that the claims made by the Bible and by Christians through the centuries are true: that Jesus, truly both God and human, lived a perfect life, died on an executioner's cross to atone for our sin, rose from the dead, and today offers forgiveness of sin and everlasting life wih God to all who entrust their lives to Him.

Strobel eventually came to believe those claims about Christ, later becoming a pastor.

The Case for Christ, in a sense, finds Strobel replicating for us the investigation into Christ that he once undertook for himself. Employing a journalistic style, he seeks out experts in a variety of disciplines--psychology, medicine, history, theology, scholarly Biblical studies--to demonstrate the plausibility of Christianity.

It's a fascinating study. But even if one is persuaded--and I mean, conclusively persuaded--by the evidence that Strobel collects and presents, it won't mean that the light of faith in Christ is necessarily going to be ignited in a person. I heartily recommend Strobel's book to all skeptics and doubters. But the most that it will do for you is open you to the possibility that Christian faith is the true pathway to God. Even Strobel, I'm sure, would concede this.

This leads me to consider a second approach, that taken by my favorite author, C.S. Lewis in his great book, Mere Christianity. The core of Mere Christianity's content is from a series of talks Lewis gave on BBC Radio shortly after World War Two. Lewis' is what I call the logical approach to faith in Christ.

He begins with the insight that, across cultures and through the centuries, there has been an amazing consensus about the existence of immutable rights and wrongs. While Lewis allows that there have been some variations in moral codes, what is more notable is the degree to which peoples have agreed on just what constitutes moral behavior and immoral. Of course, the appropriate question to pose in the face of this fact is, Where does this common moral code come from?

This moral code Lewis designates as "The Law of Human Nature" and asserts, I think with justification, that it is ingrained in us. But unlike other natural laws--Lewis mentions gravity-- human beings have the ability to act against it. In fact, Lewis talks about the irony of this Law of Human Nature: Most people, irrespective of their religious perspectives, affirm that it's right to do right, but all of us fail to do so consistently.

Lewis then asserts that it appears that there is "a Power behind the facts, a Director, a Guide," one who has implanted this Law of Human Nature in our DNA. But not even this assertion upholds the notion of God, let alone the Christian God, as Lewis is quick to point out. He has miles to go in his argument before making any assertions about the identity of this Power behind the Law of Human Nature.

Up to this point, Lewis probably describes a point of view to which all but the most rabid atheists--like I once was--could subscribe. As he points out, through the centuries, the vast majority of people have believed in the existence of some sort of Designer, Creator, or God.

From here though, Lewis describes the Christian conception of God. An intriguing argument that he makes comes in response to an assertion that atheist friends and acquaintances of mine have often made. Remembering his days as an atheist, Lewis writes:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning; just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.

Into this world in which human beings know that there is a right way to live but fail to do so, comes what Lewis calls "the invasion." The world is enemy-occupied territory. That is, it's a place where evil has an upper hand, enslaving the human race, making it susceptible to constant violations of the Law of Human Nature, violations both small small scale (like telling "white lies") and large (like the Holocaust), none of which are inconsequential. The invasion to which Lewis refers is the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. Lewis writes:

Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends...

Lewis then talks about the choice Jesus' presence in the world demands that we make. We must decide among three alternative views of Him. Jesus presses His case so emphatically that there is no escaping this choice. We must decide if Jesus is:

• A liar
• A lunatic
• Who He says He is: God in the flesh and Savior of the world

Lewis then deals with the impact of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection and through the balance of this great book (to which I haven't done justice here) elaborates the practical implications for daily life that flow from the Lordship of Jesus.

I first read Mere Christianity shortly after I came to faith in Jesus Christ some twenty-eight years ago. I can't overestimate its importance to me. It articulated what I believed, felt, and thought about the universe.

But, as is true of Strobel's book, to think that Lewis presents a logically plausible argument for the existence of God will still leave the doubter in his or her doubt. Mere Christianity is a classic statement of Christian faith and it is a great work of art, in my estimation. As essential as clear thinking is for Christian faith, there is more to faith in Christ than clear thinking.

Ole Hallesby was a Norwegian theologian who lived until 1961. He is the author of a book I prize as much as Mere Christianity, called Prayer, which I've mentioned on the blog before. (And if I'm blogging fifty years from now, will still be mentioning.) But Hallesby wrote another great book, Why I Am a Christian.

In it, Hallesby talks about the movement from doubt about Jesus Christ to faith and how it happens.

His avenue to faith in Christ is the one that I believe is essential for all people: the experiential approach. The reason that most people doubt Christ and the claims of Christian faith, even in so-called Christian cultures or communities, is that they have never experienced the living and risen Jesus as a reality in their lives.

Hallesby asserts that truly experiencing Christ and thus moving from doubt to faith is not a matter of the intellect or the emotions. The reality of Christ can't be held captive to either thoughts or feelings. If Christ truly is a living being, then He must necessarily have an existence that is beyond our thoughts and emotions, just as the people in our lives have existences irrespective of what we may think or feel about them at any given time.

Faith is a matter not of intellect or emotions, but of the will. Not that we can will ourselves to faith. We can't. In a bad news world, we can't will ourselves to believe the Good News of Jesus Christ. But we can will to subordinate our wills to a Higher Will. We can will ourselves to be open to that invasion that Lewis wrote about, the coming of Christ into our lives.

This voluntary subordination or surrender of our wills to Christ's will for our lives is what the simple song so many learned as children is talking about, "Come into my heart. Come into my heart. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus."

When I came to faith in Christ, it was a slow process because my desire for God-like control over my life was so huge (an impulse that still rears its head every day) and because I am so slow to understand the obvious.

But as I investigated Christ and decided to try some of the pathways that are part of having an intimate relationship with Christ, I found myself moving from atheism to doubt to faith.

As I voluntarily submitted my will to Christ, I made a discovery: The more I submitted to Him, the more apparent it became to me that He truly was there, truly was and is the risen, living Savior.

This is precisely what Hallesby is talking about when he commends the experiential path to knowing God. Ultimately, it marks the path by which all come to faith in Him. Without an experience of Christ in one's life, there can be no true faith.

Hallesby says that there are two kinds of doubters. "First," he says, "there are those who love to doubt, because their skepticism shields them from the accusations of conscience..."

The others are what he calls honest doubters, people who want to believe in, trust, and follow Jesus Christ, but haven't found a way to do so. It's to these that Hallesby addresses the book, assuring them (and us) that it is possible to experience Christ and thereby believe in Him.

Here is the experiential pathway that Hallesby outlines:

"My first bit of advice," he writes, "is this: Read the New Testament." Of course, Hallesby anticipates, some doubting readers will object, saying that the New Testament, with its accounts of miracles and spiritual warfare, is precisely the reason they find it so hard to believe. But Hallesby points out disarmingly:

Jesus never required His listeners to accept and beforehand approve of a greater or lesser number of dogmas about Himself. He urged them rather to come to Him, hear His voice and follow Him.

What happened? All who honestly did so, experienced Jesus and soon became personally convinced of the truth of what He said about Himself. When they later gave expression to that which they had experienced and of which they became personally assured, the result was the New Testament Scriptures.

Contrary to the misguided pronouncements of people like the 'Jesus Seminar' or the stuff written in some popular magazines, the historical accuracy of the New Testament is increasingly affirmed by the disciplines of archaeology, history, literary criticism, and others. The Jesus you encounter on the pages of the New Testament is the real deal.

As you submit to meeting Jesus in the New Testament, accepting what you can and ignoring for a time what you find implausible, you will find yourself moving from doubt to faith. Without knowing what I was doing, I followed Hallesby's prescription and I can vouch that it works!

Hallesby urges, "take your New Testament and read it for the purpose of ascertaining the 'will of God.'" As you observe God's will as seen in Jesus as conveyed in the Gospel books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) or in other writings of the New Testament, Hallesby asks that you attempt to enact that revealed will of God in your life. He says:

If you will begin to do this, you will gain some entirely new experiences, experiences which will help you out of doubt into personal assurance. The reason that people doubt Christianity is simply this: They only think about it instead of living it.

Hallesby then recommends a second means of experiencing God: "My next bit of advice is this: Begin to pray to God. Begin at the same time as you begin to read the New Testament."

Hallesby advises that even if you feel uncertain about prayer or doubt its efficacy, pray anyway. Since prayer is nothing more than speaking "candidly and confidentially with God," Hallesby says that if you are doubter, you should simply acknowledge that in your prayer conversation with God.

Such a prayer isn't unprecedented. Once, for example, a distraught father asked Jesus to help his son, often convulsed by a demon from the time of his birth. The father's request of Jesus--a prayer--from a heart grieved and frenzied was, "'...if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.' Jesus said to him, 'If you are able!--All things can be done for the one who believes.' Immediately the father of the child cried out, 'I believe; help my unbelief!'" (Mark 9:23-24)

Had the man faked a level of faith that wasn't there, I wonder how Jesus might have responded to him. But in his will, this man wanted to believe in Jesus. Just so, Hallesby suggests, if we will honestly pray, indicating to Jesus that we want to want Him in our lives, we want to believe, He will take pity on us as surely as He took pity on that father.

Hallesby also advises that we shouldn't allow the fact that we can't see Jesus get in the way of our speaking to Him candidly. "He is invisible, it is true; but is not the real person in men [sic] also invisible?" he asks.

As you will to make contact with the God we can know through Jesus Christ, you begin to perceive His presence. You start to accept the truth of His promise to be with His followers always.

While employing reading and applying the New Testament and praying as two avenues by which to experience the presence of Jesus, he also suggests:

Search yourself daily before God. To do this, he suggests praying often the "deep and fruitful prayer" found in Psalm 139:23-24:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Hallesby assures that, "Every time you come in contact with the saving truths of Scripture, a sanctifying influence is imparted to your soul." In other words, as we stand under God's Word and let it penetrate our consciences, we're open to becoming more like the people God wants us to be and that we want to be.

A fourth pathway to experiencing God of the Bible which Hallesby talks about is receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Hallesby says, "In the next place, I advise you to participate in the Lord's Supper."

There are many varied understandings of what happens in Holy Communion (also called the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, and other names). In my own Lutheran faith tradition, we take a very literal view of Jesus' words in the New Testament where He's recorded as instituting the fellowship meal. Jesus uses bread and wine and we Lutherans believe in using bread and wine as we do what Jesus tells us to do. Jesus says that the bread is His body and the wine is His blood and we believe that these two elements are mysteriously and simultaneously bread and body, wine and blood, respectively.

But whatever understanding one may have of the elements, there is a broad consensus in the Christian community about what happens in Holy Communion. It brings Christ's presence and it brings forgiveness of sin. It draws us closer to God and to all other believers. As Hallesby points out, its effectiveness doesn't depend on your ability to understand it. Who can understand something so mysterious anyway?

Hallesby says that we shouldn't wait to receive Holy Communion until we understand it or everything about Christian faith. He writes:

You have a spiritual right to attend the Lord's Supper if you are a sincere disciple of Jesus, that is, one who would conceal no sin from Him but openly confesses to Him everything that troubles your conscience, one who trusts in Jesus...

The important thing is not to understand the Sacrament, but Hallesby says, "your confidence in Christ and your obedience to Him" when He says, "Take and eat; take and drink."

"Finally," says Hallesby, "I would advise you to seek the fellowship of people who, you are convinced, live wholeheartedly with Christ."

Speaking from personal experience, it was people like this--people who lived wholeheartedly with Christ--who finally tilted me from doubt to faith. Ordinary, humble people who lived with the same daily struggles, hopes, challenges, and joys that are the common lot of the human race, who were nonetheless empowered to cope and hope because of their relationship with Jesus Christ, made me willing to let Jesus into my life. They also encouraged and supported me as I posed my questions, owned my struggles, and invited Jesus to be my God and Savior.

Strobel and Lewis have, in their works, shown that faith in Jesus Christ is warranted by the evidence of history and by the rigors of logical examination. But until you we allow ourselves to experience the reality of Jesus Christ, faith will elude us.

I invite you to open yourself to experiencing the reality of the risen, living Jesus Christ. If you do, I believe that you will move from doubt to faith, and from faith to deeper faith. You will believe that Christian faith is true. It will be the most rewarding experience of your life!

To summarize the five pathways to experiencing Christ, they are:

• Read the New Testament
• Pray honestly
• Submit to a searching evaluation of your life by God
• Participate in the Lord's Supper
• Get connected with those who have a deep relationship with Christ

Christmas Overthrows Our Power Trips!

Craig Williams at tabletalk has a moving piece on the moral and social implications of Jesus' birth, a gauntlet thrown down to our usual notions of what constitutes power. Jesus, Williams shows, is God's act of subversion undermining our standard operating procedures. Writes Craig:

Maybe the moral point is this: See in the humble coming of Jesus God's own values. See his understanding of power and righteousness and justice and mercy and love. Go beyond the sentimentality of the manger and see God's strategy for salvation. It is the antithesis of the worldly kingdoms we are part of.

Great stufff!

A Class Class for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

This year's group of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is impressive: U2, The Pretenders, Percy Sledge, and Buddy Guy! The 2004 induction show will be must-see television.

Has Anybody Seen 'Garden State'?

Rachel Cunliffe is a smart blogger from New Zealand whose judgments I respect. She loves the movie, Garden State. Has anybody else seen it? What do you think of it? Leave your comments below this post.

Just for Fun: My Six Favorite Christmas Movies of All Time

I couldn't reduce the list to five. So, tell me what you think...

1. It's a Wonderful Life (of course!)
2. Bishop's Wife
3. White Christmas
4. The Muppet Christmas Carol
5. A Charlie Brown Christmas (not released theatrically, but whatever)
6. Miracle on 34th. Street (the original)

Why I Believe Christian Faith is True, Part 5

In the first four parts of this series, I've discussed four reasons I believe the Christian faith presents a true picture of God and how we can be in relationship with God. The first four reasons have been:

• The uniqueness of the Christian message, that our rightness with God is secured not by our efforts, but by those of God Who, makes us right with Him as a gift to all with faith in Christ
  
• The deity of Jesus Christ
• The death of Jesus Christ
• The resurrection of Jesus Christ

In the third installment, I touched on the implications for us of Jesus' death on a cross, chiefly that by being a perfect, sinless human being Who paid the proper penalty for our sin, our debt to God was paid in full. All who receive Christ as God and Savior of their lives gains a full share in what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

But in the last installment, I promised (or maybe, threatened, depending on your perspective) to engage in an excursus to explain what Jesus' resurrection means for the follower of Jesus Christ.

First and most obviously, the resurrection of Jesus gives us hope. Before going to the cross, Jesus comforted His followers:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" [John 14:2]

The greatest fear that we have as human beings is the fear of death. But the follower of Jesus lives with the confidence that even beyond death, God will welcome us to eternity with Him. The resurrected Jesus is God's proof that He can give us eternal life.

Secondly, the resurrection of Jesus gives credence to Jesus' claim that one day, He will return, setting all right. In that same good-bye to His first followers, Jesus said:

"And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also." [John 14:3]

Thirdly, the resurrection of Jesus gives us courage. Martin Luther King, Jr. was, like the rest of the human race, imperfect. Since his death, it's been learned that he was guilty of numerous extramarital liaisons. Unfortunately, some of his most ardent supporters scoffed and laughed when he expressed a sense of guilt for his actions, deeming such concerns as quaint. I bring all of this up to say, first of all, that the basic trajectory of King's life was that of an imperfect man imperfectly seeking to follow Jesus. (Not unlike me or any other Christian.)

I also mention it to say that the reason King was able to keep up his peaceful fight for equality in America was because he lived in the certainty of a resurrection offered by a gracious, forgiving God.

On the night of his assassination, King spoke to a Memphis gathering and gave his famous, I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. The thirty-nine year old pastor revealed that like anyone, he would like to live long years. But he had a confidence about his future whether he lived on earth or not.

That's the confidence in which Jesus-Followers can live. They know that Jesus' resurrection victory is their resurrection victory.

Because of the courage that Jesus' resurrection imparts, Christians like King have, over the centuries been incited to fight for justice and "speak truth to power."

This is the same courageous confidence in which the apostle Paul lived back in the first century and about which he wrote:

Who will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For Your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:35-39]

I knew a man once who was a regular church-attender and was in fact, actively involved in his congregation. He surprised me one day when he told me, "I'm a Christian in the sense that I go to church and I like the good things that church does in people's lives. It seems to make them nicer. But I don't buy all this baloney about a resurrection. When you die, you die."

I told him that I completely disagreed. "A Christianity without a resurrection is impotent, irrelevant, and a waste of time," I said. "I simply wouldn't be interested in it."

You see, the time-orientation of authentic Christian faith isn't to the past or the present. Christians are people of the future. We're in the orbit of eternity and each day we're moving toward it. The closer Christians align their lives with their resurrection futures, the easier it becomes for them to jettison things like old sins, bad habits, reticence about rocking the boat to advocate for justice, and fear of being different or of loving our enemies. When you know that God has given you a forever future, it's easier to follow the Bible's advice:

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God. [Second Corinthians 7:1]

In the New Testament, Paul addressed a group of people who thought like that man did, that the resurrection was a bunch of hooey. Paul wrote:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain...If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins...If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. [First Corinthians 15:12-19]

Don't settle for a resurrection-less faith. Ask God to help you trust in the promise of Jesus' resurrection and your life will be imbued with greater and greater quantities of hope, the certainty that Jesus will one day return and set all right in the universe, and courage.

China, America, and the Future

There are numerous discontinuities between the foreign and military policies of the administrations of Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger. But one continuity is their apparent benign regard for the Chinese government, its intentions, and its potential long-term threat to America. That's no slam on the Bushes as this was the same attitude displayed by the Clinton Administration.

While stateless terrorist organizations at the service of radical Islam have emerged as a clear threat to the United States, American decision-makers may be neglecting the potential threats of other nation-states, particularly that of China, which appears intent on forging ties with nations hostile to America, like Iran.

That appears to be the assessment of Mark Helprin, here. In this article he offers his inventory of the potential threat to America represented by China and his prescription for what America can do about it now.

One particularly interesting element of Helprin's article: China increasingly competes with America for Middle Eastern oil, thus adding, one is led to believe, to the urgent necessity for this country to develop alternative sources of energy.

Another: Retrofitting the American military for the mission of fighting terrorists may be shortsighted. Helprin suggests that terrorism will not last forever. But China, he believes, will be a threat to America in twenty years.

The President and Congress clearly have a lot on their plates. But, if Helprin is right, America ignores the looming threat of growing Chinese economic and military power, as well as its growing stable of "allies," at the nation's peril.

Who Are You When the Roof Falls In?

The roof of Zion Hill Baptist Church, here in the Cincinnati area, caved in last week. But the people of the congregation are showing the community that a church is made of people, not bricks and mortar.

Climbing Kilimanjaro for Kids!

Nancy Beck, executive director of the Clermont County (Ohio) Boys and Girls Club, is going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro next year. Not only is she undertaking this as a personal project, but because of Nancy's enthusiastic commitment to young people, she's also climbing for kids.

If you go to her web log, you'll be able to vicariously prep for the climb with Nancy.

You'll also find some information on how people can sponsor the climb, the proceeds going to support the work of the Boys and Girls Club!

Prayer in the News

US News and World Report has a cover article on what they describe as the "undeniable urge" to pray.

Intriguing Articles Explore Authenticity of Christmas Story

Mark Roberts, one of my favorite bloggers and the holder of a doctorate from Harvard, is writing a series of blog articles called The Birth of Jesus: Hype or History? They come in response to recent cover articles about Christ and Christmas that appeared in both Time and Newsweek. These are excellent articles and I commend them to you.

Q&A: An Interesting Premiere

While I certainly miss C-Span's Booknotes, the only TV show I rarely missed for years, I decided to watch the new Brian Lamb-hosted Q&A tonight.

Featured was David Levin, a teacher and educational/social entrepreneur, who is co-founder of a program called Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). I was stoked! You can link to the interview--either watching it online or reading the transcript--here.

A Different Slant on the Kerik Withdrawal

For an interesting, sensitive, apolitical reading on the withdrawal of Bernie Kerik from consideration for US Homeland Security secretary, check out this post by the always-intriguing Michael Main.

Why I Believe Christian Faith is True, Part 4

In the first three posts of this series, I've enumerated the first three reasons I have for believing that the Christian faith represents the one true pathway to an eternal relationship with God. Those first three reasons are:

The Judeo-Christian faith tradition of which the Christian proclamation is a part is utterly unique among the religions and belief systems of the world. Rather than calling on devotees to prove their devotion to achieve holiness or a relationship with God, the God of the Bible reaches out to us, accepts us as we are, does the work necessary for us to have new life, and then commits Himself to patiently helping us become all we were made to be. This unique heart of the Judeo-Christian faith is something called grace, an English word that translates a word from the Greek New Testament, charitas. It's from this word charitas that we derive our word, charity, an unearned gift given out of the goodness of a benefactor's heart. This central reality of the faith in the Bible--grace--was summarized by Martin Luther in the last sermon he preached before his death: "We are all beggars." In other religions, people may be seekers or climbers or strugglers. But Christians are beggars, recipients of God's charity.

The deity of Jesus Christ. In some mysterious way, Jesus was both God and human. These attributes co-mingled in Him. He was clearly a man who thirsted, grew hungry, suffered, and died. He was also clearly God, forgiving sin, performing miracles, taking control of the elements, raising people from death, and numerous other miracles of mercy and power.

Jesus' giving of Himself on the cross. Such an act of self-sacrifice on behalf of a rebel human race that wanted Him dead is the perfect picture of love.

Now we come to the fourth reason I believe the proclamation of the Christian faith is true: Jesus rose from the dead. This is the absolutely pivotal distinction of Christian faith.

I'm aware of how difficult this is to accept. It was for me at one time. After all, while we may know people who have been resuscitated after their life signs have gone flat, but I'll wager that no one reading this has ever met a real-life resurrected person.

But consider a few facts:

(1) Jesus predicted that He would rise from the dead. For example, this is what the Gospel writer, Matthew records:

While Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised.’ (Matthew 20:17-19)

And in another of the Gospel accounts, that written by Luke:

Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near Him, He asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God."

He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, "The Son of Man [one of Jesus' characteristic ways of referring to Himself] must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third raised." (Luke 9:18-22]

Now one thing in particular interests me about these two predictions (two of several such predictions recounted in the four books of the New Testament called gospels). It's that they don't convey some sugar-coated triumphalism. Death would come for Jesus before His predicted resurrection. So would suffering.

There is evidence to suggest that among the reasons that the crowds who once so relished Jesus turned against Him was that He did not lead a military rebellion against His country's Roman occupiers. So certain were some that Jesus was going to establish a new political order in Judea that some of His closest followers asked Him for spots close to His throne. They wanted Jesus to be triumphal. They wanted an Easter without a Good Friday. Everybody loves a winner. We're not so keen on suffering servants, which is exactly what Old Testament prophecy indicated the Messiah-Savior would be.

Jesus makes it clear that, unlike the expectant crowds as well as His closest followers, His ends are not political. One gets the impression from reading His words closely that He regards what happens in the political arena as so much window dressing. He, on the other hand, is about the total transformation of human beings. That transformation will inevitably be expressed in how a believer approaches politics, of course, just as it will impact every other element of a believer's life. But Jesus refused earthly kingship precisely because He knew it wouldn't ultimately meet our deepest need.

That need, quite simply, is reconciliation with God. As I explained in my last post, we are born alienated from God. That means that we are separated from the universe's only source of life. Through His death, Jesus was saying in His predictions, He would offer Himself to pay the penalty for our sin.

Then, Jesus would rise from the dead, the sign and seal that He had conquered death for all who believe in Him.

(2) The tomb in which the lifeless Jesus was lain was empty. That was the discovery made on the first Easter Sunday morning.

(3) Hundreds of followers of Jesus risked death in order to tell the world that they had seen the risen Jesus. In the wake of Jesus' execution on the cross, it would have been risky business to be associated with Him or His movement in any way. Jesus' followers would have had every reason to believe that Jesus' enemies would like to kill them off, just as they had Jesus. But these once-frightened followers, who had abandoned Jesus on the night of His arrest, seemed to feel no hesitation about telling people that Jesus had risen from the dead.

There was nothing to be gained by them in taking this risk.

The notion that hundreds of people were all suffering from delusions that lasted for the rest of their lives is absurd.

So, too is the theory often advanced that the hundreds who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus were all part of an elaborate conspiracy. Name any conspiracy involving hundreds of people that didn't eventually break down.

In about 55 A.D., the preacher and evangelist Paul, himself once an enemy of Christian faith, wrote to Christians in the city of Corinth:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve [apostles]. Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me. [First Corinthians 15:3-8]

When one considers the ways in which rational people like Peter, Paul, James, John, and others acted and how they risked their lives to proclaim the message that Jesus rose from the dead, one must at the very least concede that they believed it to be true. To me, it's inconceivable that all the witnesses of Jesus' resurrection were deluded, demented, or lying.

In my next post for this series, a brief excursus on the meaning of Jesus' resurrection.

Leinart's Heisman Win Proves I Don't Know What I'm Talking About

Regular readers of this blog know that I have occasionally taken on the role of sports prognosticator. Alas, I've been about as successful at this as Madonna has been as a film actress. For example, I predicted that Saint Louis would roll over all opposition to win the World Series this year. And the other day, I said it appeared that Jason White would become the second two-time Heisman Trophy winner. Wrong again!

Actually, I thought that several of the other Heisman finalists presented better cases for receiving the award, but it appeared to me that White's stats were good enough for a sports world that seemed to have installed him as the sentimental favorite.

Anyway, have I decided to give up on sports forecasting? Probably not. But whatever you do, don't put too much stock in my picks.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

This site has all sorts of links on Ukraine and the Orange Revolution as well as suggested readings for the Advent season. Very cool!

It's Foolhardy to Pigeonhole People

Demographers and pollsters can be credited for having a good handle on the broad predispositions of people of varied nationalities, races, and religions. But it's foolish to think that we have everybody all figured out. This story demonstrates that. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit put me onto it. He, in turn, was led to it by Clayton Cramer.

A Great Way to Help the Troops Stay Close to Home

This post from It is What it Is conveys a great way of supporting military personnel this Christmas season!

This Post Cracked Me Up

There are some incredibly incompetent people trying to pull online scams.

Mary: The First Person to Follow Jesus

Luke 1:39-56
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, December 12, 2004)

It was our first Christmas Eve at the first church I pastored, up in northwestern Ohio. After several years of living in places like concrete block-apartments and fishing cabins, we were living in a house, the parsonage provided for us by our congregation.

We had made wonderful Christmas plans. Ann’s family would come up for Christmas Eve. We would have Christmas dinner and let the little ones open their gifts before the church Christmas Pageant. Then, after that service, we’d go back to the house, where the adults would exchange gifts.

Christmas Eve arrived and everything was going fine. We’d had our meal and the two cousins aware enough of things to do so, including our son, then three, had opened their gifts. I was upstairs, dressing for the service, when I heard a wailing.

It was our son. He’d tried on one of his Christmas presents, a firefighter’s helmet topped with a flashing red light and screaming siren. He’d been tearing around the house with this thing, but found it a bit top heavy. He tripped and fell into the sharp corner of a coffee table. He put a gash in his forehead and we knew that he’d need stitches.

So, my brothers-in-law and I took him to Henry County Hospital in Napoleon. We left in such a hurry, that I neglected to take a diaper bag and in the midst of the frenzy, Phil did what children do when their dads forget to take diaper bags. Here we were on a frigid Christmas Eve, me holding my son close, while one of my brothers-in-law held a cold compress on his cut to stop the bleeding, the windows rolled down to protect us from the stench. It was a wild ride!

Needless to say, my son, my brothers-in-law, and I missed my first Christmas Eve as a pastor. Our son, now twenty-three, still has a scar on his forehead, and our family has a Christmas memory that we recite to one another almost every year. And it underscores an important lesson: In life, don’t take your plans too seriously; expect the unexpected.

Sometimes, the unexpected things that happen in life are miracles from God. John William Smith was a young teacher who taught high schoolers in an old, semi-dilapidated school in the inner-city. Christmas was Smith’s favorite holiday and he determined to make this Christmas a special one for his students. He got permission to put a blue spruce Christmas tree at the very center of his classroom.

Then, he asked all 120 students he taught to bring one ornament from home. He was amazed at how well the kids responded to that request. Some brought homemade decorations. Some had even made special purchases, indicating that they probably had no ornaments at home.

His students were a raucous bunch, apt to fight at the least provocation. They even fought over who had dibs on where they hung their ornaments. If somebody brought no ornament or two ornaments, someone else was quick to pick a fight with them. Smith says that it was a terrible time for him: He wanted this to be a joyous memory for the kids and he feared that it wouldn’t be.

After the tree was decorated, Smith spent an entire school day, each and every period, explaining what Christmas was about, what it meant to him, and what he felt it should be like. In addition, though he didn’t know whether he should do it or not, Smith decided to read aloud to his students the Bible’s accounts of Jesus’ birth on the first Christmas (see here and here) and then began to read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Of that, Smith says:

Many of [the students] were moved. I could tell. In one class, one of the girls began to cry when it appeared that Tiny Tim was going to die--not loudly, but someone noticed and ridiculed her. “Hey, look, Brenda’s crying.” “I am not,” she sobbed, “and I’ll smash your face if you say I am.” That’s when Jim [the biggest kid in the class, a kid who was tough but never looked for trouble] stood up....[Jim grabbed the boy who’d made fun of Brenda]...by the shirt collar. He jerked him out of his seat and held him with his feet about six inches off the floor...[and said,] “You shut your filthy, big mouth. Let her cry if she wants to. I might cry myself, and if I do, you’d better start crying too, or I’ll give you something to cry about. Now, I’m gonna hear the rest of this story, and I mean to hear it without no stops” [from you].

Smith continued reading the story and the kids loved it, for the same reason, he believed, that they had loved the story of Jesus’ birth. As Smith explains it:

“[Jesus] was poor and they were poor, and he was oppressed--the underdog--and they saw themselves as oppressed, as always being the underdogs--and they were. For all their toughness, Jesus and Tiny Tim melted them.”

Smith says that sharing Christmas with these young people brought something unexpected into their lives: the kindness, the gentleness, the love of a God so wonderful and so committed to us that He became a baby who soiled His diaper and years later, went to a cross to die for us, only to rise three days later, opening up eternity to all who follow Him.

God’s love, come to us at Christmastime, is a miracle. Today’s Bible lesson tells us that even Mary, Jesus’ earthly mother, thought so. She might have thought differently. (I think I would have thought differently were I in her place.) Here she was, an impoverished girl of maybe fourteen or fifteen, engaged and not yet married, a virgin, pregnant. An angel tells her that she is to give birth to the Savior of the world. She might have feared that people wouldn’t believe this fantastic story. The law in those days called for women who were unwed and pregnant to be taken outside of town and stoned to death. For much of the rest of her life, Mary bore the derision of many who claimed that Jesus was the result of Mary having sexual intimacy outside of marriage.

Yet Mary isn’t bitter toward God, even though God has handed her an unexpected and almost unbearable change in the plans she had for her life. Shortly after learning that she was to give birth to Jesus, she traveled to see her relative, Elizabeth, a post-menopausal woman who was also pregnant. She was to give birth to John the Baptist. Mary immediately tells Elizabeth how blessed she feels:

“Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His Name!”

Mary became the first person to welcome Jesus, to believe in Him.

She understood that the very fact that God had chosen someone like her to be Jesus’ mother signaled something very important: God means to lift up the lowly and bring down those who arrogantly think they can live without God. It’s all there in her words to Elizabeth:

“[God] has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Mary knew that God is the master of interrupting our plans, replacing them with His plans for everbody's good! She knew what we must know, that in Jesus Christ, God reached down to touch and change us with His tough and tender love.

It was Christmas morning and Mass was being disrupted. A man, who appeared to be a homeless bum, wrapped in a blanket, and set amid the congregation, was snoring loudly. Father John figured the guy had entered the church building to get warm and had fallen asleep. Some church members laughed. Some expressed disgust.

But then it happened. A child asked, “Do you think he had a nice Christmas too, Mommy?” And another wondered, “God loves Him, too, doesn’t He?” Still another child asked, “Daddy, can’t we share our Christmas with him? Can I have some money? I won’t wake him up. Promise.”

A little girl stood up, moved toward the sleeping vagrant, and gently dropped some money onto his blanket. As Father John blessed the congregation signaling the end of the Mass, others--children and adults--moved silently toward the man, placing and dropping ones and fives and tens on his blanket.

Sometime later, the congregation gone, the priest approached the man and gently reached out to wake the man. It was then that Father John recognized him as Chris Gregory, a fireman and paramedic he’d known for years. “What’s this?” Chris wondered, as he saw all the money.

Chris apologized for falling asleep during Mass and explained that he’d been on three different fire calls the night before. The last one included a girl about to give birth who had sought relief from the frigid temperatures by standing close to the fire. She was in labor and Chris delivered the baby right there on the street. After that, he’d gone to the hospital to make sure the girl was okay and stayed longer than he’d planned.

So, dissheveled and sooty, he drove straight to Christmas morning Mass, intending to go home and sleep afterwards. He felt embarrassed that he’d fallen asleep during worship. But Father John made a suggestion. “Suppose we divide the money--all $600.00 of it. Half you take to that poor girl to help with her expenses. The other half I’ll take to the soup kitchen.”

When the love of Jesus comes to us, as it did to that Church one Christmas morning, amazing things can happen. We learn to lay aside our plans and instead, let God make plans for us. And we learn that His plans are always best.

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, let’s be open to allowing God to interrupt our plans and to welcome Jesus in whatever ways He comes to us.

[Dealing with this text was inspired by a message by Pastor Michael Foss. The true story of the sleeping firefighter was told by him there. It originally came from Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas Treasury.

[John William Smith tells the true story of his Christmas with inner-city students in Hugs for the Holidays.]

Why I Believe Christian Faith is True, Part 3

In this series, I'm exploring why I believe that Christian faith rings so true that it convinced me to move from being the atheist I once was, to being an enthusiastic follower of Jesus Christ.

In the first two installments, I gave my first two reasons for believing the truth of the Christian witness about God.

First, I'm swayed by its uniqueness. Unlike other religious or philosophical systems in the world, Christian belief is rooted in the notion that God reaches down to us and does all that is necessary for us to become acceptable to God and gives all that is necessary for us to live a new and better life. The Christian message about a God Who loves fallen sinners and then makes it possible for us to enjoy an eternally restored relationship with God as a free gift is so completely countercultural that it jolts me to attention. This unique perspective makes me conclude that the Christian message is either completely nuts or the definitive Word from God.

Since my life experiences cause me to observe that truth usually resides in the unexpected possibility, Christianity's uniqueness persuades me of its truth.

Second, I am persuaded by the claims that Jesus makes to be God in the flesh. These claims were buttressed by the life Jesus led and the fact that, unlike others who have made similar claims, Jesus gives no evidence either of being mad or a liar.

Now we come to the third reason I believe that Christian faith rings true: Jesus' death on a cross.

A man I know once derided his daughter's faith and the cross she wore as a sign of it. "Don't you know what happened on that cross?" he asked her. "Christian faith is nothing but a dark, sick obsession with death."

Maybe that man was only ever exposed to a morose and sickly version of Christian faith, the kind humorist Garrison Keillor described when he once observed, "When you're Lutheran and from the Midwest, it's always Lent."

But Christians don't value what Jesus did on the cross for its gruesome qualities. They value it because Jesus voluntarily underwent the torture of the cross for people like us--by that I mean, people like the one writing this blog and the ones reading it.

For us to fully appreciate what Jesus did on the cross for us, we must first come to terms with some very difficult--and for many people, unpalatable--facts.

The first is this: You and I are the genetic heirs of a condition called sin. Sin is the condition of alienation from God and others into which all human beings are born. It's our inborn predisposition to "look out for number one."

Don't believe that's our common condition? I didn't believe it either. It flies in the face of our usual view of babies being these blank slates with an innate sweetness and innocence. But then a friend asked me once, "Mark, if you locked two two-year olds in a room with a single toy, what do you think would happen?" "I suppose," I said, "that they'd fight over it." "Why?" "Because they each would want the toy for themselves." "Okay," my friend asked me, "who taught them to be selfish?"

Of course, the answer is that no one teaches infants to be selfish. It comes naturally. Infants use their cries and whimpers to manipulate their environments, including their parents who they regard as mere extensions of themselves, to get what they want.

Unpalatable fact number two: Our condition of sin causes us to commit individual sins. God's expectation of human beings--in fact, I think, our expectation of human beings--is simple: to love God with every fiber of our beings and to love others as we love ourselves. I don't know about you, but on any given day, I'm sure that I don't live up to that standard very well.

We need to understand what love is, from God's perspective. Last week, while driving from one meeting to another, I listened to the host of a national radio sports show. He was reacting to a statement from Jason Giambi that came after his Grand Jury testimony revealing his use of steroids. In his statement, Giambi said that he loved baseball. That set the radio host to talking about a definition of love. He claimed it was an emotion, an involuntary response over which we have no control. "Why do you think they call it 'falling in love'?" he asked triumphantly.

Falling in love is a very pleasant sensation. I've experienced it. It can be the initial explosion that sets the engine of a relationship running. But, it seems to me that love--the kind of love that sustains marriages, friendships, and other relationships over the long haul--is composed of a chain of conscious decisions.

I often tell young couples who are preparing for marriage that love isn't something that you feel, it's often what you do in spite of how you feel. A woman once told me, "When Joe and I first were married, we told each other that no matter what may happen in our lives, divorce is not an option." That decision to stay together has sustained them through good times and bad. The result: A marriage in which their emotions follows their commitment. Many people turn things around, making their commitments contingent on their feelings. But feelings change and when we take our cues from emotions, we render ourselves unreliable as spouses, parents, and friends. We also risk missing out on the blessings that go with sticking it out and taking our life journeys with a few valued companions.

I see persevering love in Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. I can't imagine that as Jesus hung on the cross, He was taken with the curve of His executioners' noses or the sounds of people's angry voices. But I am sure that He loved us. (More on that later.)

If I regard Jesus' giving of Himself on the cross as the gold standard of love with its willingness to sacrifice Himself for our good, I come to see that I hardly know how to love. So, my condition of sin renders me incapable of loving with the kind of abandon and devotion that God commands. My inborn alienation from God is made worse by my acts of sinful selfishness and self-will.

Unpalatable fact number three: There is an immutable law of the universe that says, "the wages of sin is death..." (Romans 6:23) Death is separation from God, the source of life. Without a connection to God, we are all looking at an eternal death sentence. Not a pretty picture.

Unpalatable fact number four: I need someone to help me. It's unpalatable because it's such a blow to our pride. But assuming that I want to recover my true self, the self God wants me to be and the self that I want myself to be and sometimes pretend to be, I need to be rescued. Assuming that I want to live, really live, I need to be rescued.

Somebody needs to bridge the gap between God and me. I am incapable of doing it. The condition of sin, with the added weight of my individual sins, drives me away from God. Trying to claw my way to God is like stepping on the gas when your car is stuck in snow: you'll only wedge yourself deeper into the ground.

That's where Jesus comes in. Not even Jesus' fiercest enemies made the case that He had ever done anything wrong. Jesus was a man, but He was implanted in His mother's womb by the power of God's Holy Spirit. That means that unlike every other human being since Adam and Eve, the first to fall into alienation from God, Jesus was exempt from the genetic inheritance of sin.

This God-Man came into the world on a simple mission. He would take the punishment we deserved for sin, paying the price our crimes demand. But because He was undeserving of this punishment, Jesus wouldn't stay dead. On the cross, Jesus killed the power of sin and death. And anyone who will humble themselves, confessing their sin and asking for Jesus to rescue them, can have life forever with God, a wonderful new life that begins even now.

In this way, Jesus bridges the gap between us. It is an amazing thing when you think about it. The New Testament marvels at it:

"For while we were still weak [in our sin], at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually die. But God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8)

Why do I believe that the proclamation of the Christian faith is true?

First, because of its uniqueness.

Second, because I find the claims of Jesus to be God in the flesh compelling.

And third, because Jesus, a perfectly righteous man, took my punishment for sin on a cross, an act of unmatched love.

More in my next post on this subject...

High School Students' Suspension Big Story in Cincinnati

Everybody in the Cincinnati area is talking about this story.

In a nutshell, an area high school student used the school's normal means for distributing a letter in which he commended his faith in Christ. He was suspended for five days.

Frankly, I understand the stance of the school's administration that distribution of these materials in this way created the impression of preferential treatment for the Christian faith and that the young man was out of line to distribute the materials as he did.

But I also agree with a friend of mine, a local lawyer, who said, "This is the problem with zero-tolerance rules." How truly disruptive, my friend wondered, was this action in comparison with the many horrible things students could do? Five days suspension seems a bit much.

To his credit, the student, Eric Bast, has decided not to appeal the punishment.

He seems like a very cool kid, a free spirit unafraid to be himself: sideburns, multicolored hair, and all. He's also an Honors student and appears to have had a positive impact on the lives of others. Check out Eric's web site, here.

My Five Favorite Baseball Movies of All Time

It's starting to feel like winter around here, baseball has been rocked by the confirmation that at least some of its most prominent power hitters have been using steroids, and it'll be awhile before the college basketball season hits its stride. So, it's the perfect time to talk about our five favorite baseball movies of all time. Use the comment button below to share your list. Here's mine...

1. Field of Dreams
2. The Natural
3. Bang the Drum Slowly
4. The Rookie
5. Angels in the Outfield (Disney remake)

Why I Believe Christian Faith is True, Part 2

[I apologize for being tardy in the delivery of this essay.]

On Thursday, I began this series by saying that the first reason I believe that Christian faith is true, that is, a true pathway to God, is its uniqueness. The Judeo-Christian faith of the Bible is the only religious belief system in the world that says that a relationship with God or a state of holiness is a gift from God, accessible to those with faith in Christ. (This is what the Bible calls grace, a word which in the Greek of the New Testament, is related to our word for charity.)

This unique perspective, so out of step with the teachings of other religions, either means Christian faith is completely right or totally off the mark.

But there's a second reason I believe that Christian faith is true. It's this: Jesus Himself. The truth or falsehood of Christian faith rises or falls on Jesus and the Christian belief that Jesus is God in the flesh. And that is a huge, risky claim. Can Jesus bear the weight of that sort of trust?

Let's consider the claims Jesus made for Himself.

He claimed to be the definitive means by which people can know and experience God. He said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, you will know My Father also..." (John 14:6-7) (see also: John 3:16)

He claimed the authority to forgive sin, a power that belongs to God alone (Mark 2:7). In Matthew, we read: "But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, said, 'Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Stand up and walk"? But so that you may know that the Son of Man [a way Jesus typically referred to Himself] has authority on earth to forgive sins'--and then said to the paralytic--'Stand up, take your bed and go to your home.' And he stood up and went to his home..." (Matthew 9:5-8)

He claimed to be the very reflection of God Himself. This is what the phrase Son of God means, not some genetic descendancy. Matthew records, "He [Jesus] said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven...'" (Matthew 16:15-17)

Jesus' actions also spoke volumes. Among the miraculous signs He performed were healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and even raising the dead. Not even Jesus' most vociferous enemies denied that He said and did these things. Their objections to Jesus weren't based on the facts surrounding these actions.

Religious authorities objected to Jesus because, by insisting that God was accessible to all people who simply believed in Him, He threatened to diminish their power over people. Jesus freed people from guilt-based religion so that they can enjoy a grace-based relationship with God!

Political authorities objected to Jesus because they saw His Lordship as a threat to their power over people's lives. A follower of Christ will voluntarily acquiesce to governmental authority for the common good. But if that authority asks a Jesus-Follower to violate conscience, dishonoring God or harming a neighbor, the Jesus-Follower will bow to Christ's authority as supreme.

Ordinary people objected to Jesus because, after using miraculous signs to point to His deity (His God-ness), Jesus refused to wield His power in trite or self-serving ways.

In John 6, for example, Jesus miraculously fed more than 5000 people with a few fish and scraps of bread. But instead of causing them to worship Jesus as God, they wanted to trivialize Him, forcing Him to become an earthly king who would, maybe, put a chicken in every pot and a Porsche in every garage. So insatiable was their appetite for the things they though Jesus would give them if they, in effect, elected Him as their president, that even after Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee, they tracked Him down. Jesus upbraided the crowd, telling them, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for Me, not because [in My feeding you] you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves..." (John 6:26)

And in Luke 4, you can read about Jesus being tempted by the Devil in the wilderness. Once again, bread comes into play. The Devil demanded that Jesus prove Himself:

"If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" (Luke 4:3) Jesus was so secure in Who He was, that He refused to be pushed into performing party tricks to prove Himself.

Jesus allowed people to worship Him! You find instances of that in a number of New Testament passages: Matthew 2:11, Matthew 14:33, Matthew 28:17, and John 9:38.

And if you like blunt talk, consider this statement by Jesus: "The Father and I are one." (Jesus speaking, John 10:30)

The point is that Jesus claimed to be God. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the one-time atheist turned Christian, professor, and author of The Chronicles of Narnia, among other works, speaks of the religious faith of the ancient Jews. The Jews claimed that through people like Moses and Ruth and David, through patriarchs (like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), through prophets (like Isaiah, Elijah, Jeremiah, and others), and others, God revealed Himself and His intentions for the world. God even revealed that one day He would act decisively through an Anointed One (Messiah in the Hebrew and Christ in the Greek) to erase the power of sin and death over people's lives the world over. That Anointed One was to be spring from the Jews (or Hebrews or Israelites), God's chosen people. Centuries passed as God forged His people to be faithful. Lewis writes:

The comes the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

Lewis goes on to deal in some detail with the shocking nature of another claim made by Jesus: that He could forgive sins. "In the mouth of any speaker who is not God," Lewis says, "these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history." But, Lewis points out, not even Jesus' enemies accused Him of silliness and conceit. And he observes: "Christ says that He is 'humble and meek' and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings."

I hope you will excuse this rather lengthy quoting from Lewis. But no one ever expressed himself better and what he says next is the crux of the matter addressed here today: the reliability of Jesus as the rock on which to place the weight of one's eternal existence. Writes Lewis:

I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus]: '"I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Why do I believe that Christian faith is true?

I believe it first of all, because of its uniqueness.

I also believe it because of Jesus. In spite of His outrageous claim to be God, capable of doing those things that only God can do, He clearly was neither a lunatic or a liar. He must be God. Having concluded that to be so, the very least I owe Him is my attention, if not my allegiance.

In the next post of this series, I'll address what Jesus has done to make me believe that I should follow Him.

Nine No-Show Witnesses at a Murder Trial

I read this article on the front page of Tuesday's Cincinnati Enquirer.

The refusal of all these people to testify at a murder trial may have had something to do with qualms they had about a fourteen year old defendant.

But, given that none of them even notified the prosecuting attorney of their reticence, one wonders what their motivation for ignoring subpoenas may have been.

What do you make of this?

You Say You Need Armor?

Sometimes, one person speaking up at the right time can make a difference! The National Guardsman who asked Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the lack of adequate armor on military vehicles in Iraq seems to have set things in motion. I'm so glad to see the uparmoring process being cranked up. (I never knew the term "uparmoring" until the other day, did you?)

Archie Griffin is a Class Act

I always knew that Archie Griffin, so far the only two-time Heisman Trophy winner, was a class act. But underscoring it is this article in which he talks about the possibility of Oklahoma quarterback Jason White following in his footsteps.

A-Rod, a Good Guy in Baseball

Okay, so there are pampered baseball players and the steroid controversy threatens the integrity of the game.

But Alex Rodriguez has shown himself to be the one of the good guys. He's donating $750,000.00 to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and to Domincan Republic relief.

A-Rod was a member of a Boys and Girls Club while growing up and is now a national spokesperson for the youth movement.

I'm a fan of Boys and Girls Club, serving as vice president of our county's club as well as president of an individual unit of the organization. I see the impact it has on young people.

I can't help but be a fan of Rodriguez. He's clearly destined to become one of the all-time greats of the game.

But what makes him cooler is his commitment to giving something back, especially to young people who need the encouragement, direction, and hope that the Boys and Girls Club movement brings young people across America.

A Fix for Political Junkies

Little more than one month after the Presidential election, even before the Electoral College has voted or W's second Inauguration has happened, what is it that dedicated political junkies want to talk about? The 2008 race, of course. Hugh Hewitt is talking about Rudy Giuliani and the race for the Republican nomination in this column.

Bedford Falls is On My Mantel

My wife and daughter know that I love It's a Wonderful Life, regarding it as not only the best Christmas movie ever made, but the best movie, period. (My son agrees, as does my future son-in-law.)

So, you can imagine how excited I was last week when, after a trip to the local Walgreens, the two women in my life returned with four illuminated ceramic pieces depicting various Bedford Falls landmarks. (Bedford Falls is the fictional setting of the movie.)

As I already had one of the pieces, my collection now includes: Bailey Building and Loan, Bedford Falls High School (pool not included), Bedford Falls Train Station (Can you name the three best sounds in the world?), The Church of Bedford Falls, and Bedford Falls Trust and Savings Bank.

They're now on my mantel and look great!

The pieces are sold exclusively at Walgreens and are made by collectible manufacturers, Enesco.

If you or a family member or friend are into It's a Wonderful Life, these pieces are wonderful to have!

By the way, Walgreens is one of the companies profiled in Jim Collins' book, Good to Great.

Links to 'The Power of Encouragement'

'The Power of Encouragement' is the name of a series of blog articles I wrote last week. These six installments talk about encouragement, its benefits, how we can be encouragers to others, and the ultimate source of encouragement in our lives. I really enjoyed writing the pieces and they've been well-received. Now that I've moved onto a new (and shorter) series on why I believe Christian faith is true, it seems like a good place to provide you with links to all six articles on 'The Power of Encouragement.'

They are...

The Power of Encouragement, Part 1: The Impact of Encouragers

The Power of Encouragement, Part 2: Encouraging without Words

The Power of Encouragement, Part 3: Principles for Parents

The Power of Encouragement, Part 4: Encouraging Leaders

The Power of Encouragement, Part 5: The Ultimate Source of Encouragement

The Power of Encouragement, Part 6: A Community of Encouragement

Speculation About the Meaning of the President's Backing of Kofi Annan

In spite of widespread calls by bloggers and some Republican members of Congress for the forced resignation of United Nations general secretary Kofi Annan, President Bush, through outgoing UN Ambassador John Danforth, has emphatically backed Annan's continuing on the job for the duration of his term.

It's interesting to speculate about what this means.

One possibility is that the President, anxious to mend fences with a world community significantly at odds with him over the war in Iraq, has decided that this was a battle he'd rather not fight. Many other countries had already expressed, if not confidence in Annan, at least a willingness to see how investigations into his handling of the Oil for Peace program and other matters until making judgments about his future.

This is also the second time in a matter of days that the President has gone against the conservative wing of the Republican Party. The other instance was his ultimately strenuous support for the Intelligence Reform bill. Without Mr. Bush's support for that legislation, it likely would not have passed this session of Congress.

The President may be gambling that in Congress in the coming session, he will need the support of moderate Republicans and Democrats to get some of the legislation he wants through the Congress, while feeling that most of the more conservative members of his party will have no viable alternative but to support him. If this is the case, it's the mirror image of Bill Clinton's strategy as, confident that Democrats in Congress would back him in spite of preferring more liberal legislation, he reached out to moderate Republicans.

Jason White Appears to Be Front-Runner for Second Heisman

After winning both the O'Brien and Maxwell awards today, Oklahoma Sooner quarterback Jason White appears to be the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy as college football's best player. If he wins the Heisman, he will only be the second two-time winner of the trophy. The first, of course, is my fellow Buckeye and Columbus native, Archie Griffin, OSU running back in the 1970s. That would be heady company for White! (By the way, Griffin is now president of the OSU Alumni Association, a huge endeavor.)

Armor is More Than Just 'Nice'

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit is a sharp, insightful commentator on what's going on in the world. By many accounts, his is the most popular blog online. I read his stuff virtually every day and have mountains of respect for his many abilities and his learning.

But I was a bit miffed by his take on the question posed by the National Guardsman to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld regarding the lack of armoring for US military vehicles in Iraq:

ARMOR: Various snarky antiwar readers seem to think that this story, in which Rumsfeld was challenged (by a member of my local National Guard outfit, actually) regarding armor, is somehow a devastating indictment of the Bush Administration and the war in toto. Actually, I'd say it's rather a lot less than that.

Armor's nice, of course, when people are shooting at you...

Readers of this blog know that generally speaking, I think that preachers like me should refrain from making public political commentary, unless they see what they consider to be an injustice being perpetrated. Leaving American military personnel without adequate armor for their vehicles is, I feel, a grave injustice. And so, I publish the brief email exchange that happened between Glenn and me after I read his comment that "armor is nice."

Glenn:
"Armor's nice"? Nice?

The lack of armor says nothing pro or con about whether we should have gone into Iraq. So, people who are using the flap over Rumsfeld's response to a National Guardsman's question [to argue for or against the war] are barking up the wrong tree.

But "nice" is not the descriptor I would use for armor for an occupying army in a nation that had a history of sponsoring people who attach explosives to themselves.

"Nice" is not the appropriate adjective for armor in a country that, everybody in the world had to know would require long years of post-war occupation.

Try words like essential, necessary, required, and even the more tepid, needed.

Call not having it negligent, irresponsible, and, again more tepidly, ungrateful to our fighting men and women.

We ask these people to fight in Iraq. We start the war. So, we should have had some notion of the post-war occupation needs, especially since the whole world knew that we would win in a matter of weeks. It borders on the criminal not to give our military the tools with which to finish the war, which means a successful occupation.

I'm a Republican, Glenn, and I am livid about this situation and the secretary's response. Our military personnel are being treated unjustly by the very nation that should be expressing gratitude and support.

Chocolate ice cream is nice. Spring days at the ballgame are nice. Armor is a lot more than nice and I don't think that your comment was very nice.

I hope that you'll re-think your response to this situation.

Mark Daniels

Glenn wrote back:

Armor is a trade-off, like everything else. What this really remindsme of is bombers in WWII. It was quite clear that the extra speed you got by stripping guns away did more to protect bombers than the gunsdid. But the crews wanted the guns for psychological reasons. I think that some of the armor issue is the same way.

Here's how I responded:

I understand the analogy you're drawing, but I feel that it's invalid. Nobody from the Pentagon has advanced the notion that the reason for failing to adequately uparmor the vehicles used by our personnel, particularly our National Guard and Reserve personnel, has anything to do with "trade-offs." In fact, as I understand it, the Pentagon plans on uparmoring current vehicles as well as producing new ones that are more adequately armored.

But thanks for your response.

What do you think?

Why I Believe Christian Faith is True, Part 1

Recently, I was asked, “I’m a Christian; but how do I know that our faith is true and other religions aren’t?”

First of all, no Christian believes that every aspect of all other religions is completely false. C.S. Lewis, the writer and British intellectual who turned from atheism to faith in Christ, once wrote:

“When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most [the existence of God]; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.”

This mirrors my own experience in moving from atheism to Christianity. As an atheist, I dismissed all religious belief as vestigial superstition.

But after I came to faith in Christ, I could see that there is a broad consensus among all the religions of the world that there are such things as right and wrong and an amazing agreement about what they are. As a Christian, I’m able to commend the Muslim tenet of giving to the poor, for example. And I see good points in other religious beliefs.

But, like the adherents of other faiths, there is a point where I believe that Christianity is the truth and other religions deficient. As Lewis puts it,

“...being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic---there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.”

So, what is it that I believe makes faith in Christ right as compared to others religious approaches?

One thing is Christianity’s uniqueness. The faith commended on the pages of both the Old and New Testament (the differences casual readers claim to see between these two segments of the Bible are, on close examination, more apparent than real) is unique among the religions and belief systems of the world.

In the Judeo-Christian faith tradition, a relationship with God or the acquisition of holiness come, not from a seeker’s spiritual efforts, but as a free gift from God to those who simply trust Him.

That’s true in the Old Testament, where we’re told that the Jewish patriarch Abraham believed God and God counted his belief as righteousness (or rightness with God). It’s also true in the New Testament where it says, “For by grace [God’s charity] you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God---not the result of works...” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

This is so different from every other religion and world belief system that one must conclude that the faith of the Bible is either completely true or completely false.

So, the first reason I believe that Christian faith is true is its uniqueness. It commends an utterly unique approach to God which, while not appealing to my ego, does promise me relief from guilt and shame and something which a lifetime of New Year's resolutions has demonstrated I am incapable of securing on my own: peace with God, peace with others, peace with myself.

More on why I believe Christian faith is true tomorrow...

Ruminations on December 7 and Our Generation

What follows isn't meant as a political statement. To the extent it criticizes, its criticism is directed at all of us in America, including myself.

Yesterday, December 7, saw the confluence of several important events.

First, it was the sixty-third anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Until September 11, 2001, it was the most grievous act of aggression against America in the nation's history.

Second, Hamid Karzai was inaugurated as the democratically-elected president of Afghanistan. This was a fruit of the US war against the al Qaeda terrorist network which, along with its Taliban allies, once held Afghanistan in its grip and used the nation as a staging ground for its terrorist acts.

Third, the House passed a revised Intelligence Reform bill based largely on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission appointed in response to the 2001 attacks.

In the days immediately following those attacks, it was common for people to say that just as Pearl Harbor represented one of the defining moments of what Tom Brokaw called "the greatest generation," the September 11 assaults by al Qaeda was this generation's defining moment.

Just as that earlier generation of Americans would be called upon to sacrifice and pull together for the good of the country, we were called upon to make sacrifices and pull together.

The efforts on the homefront by World War Two Americans were incredible. Historians Allan Nevins and Henry Steele Commager write:

President Roosevelt had called upon the United States to become "the arsenal of democracy," and the nation responded. The enormous energies of the whole people were speedily channeled into war production, and all its activities--manufacturing, farming, mining, transportation, communication, finances and even science and education--were in some measure brought under new or enlarged governmental controls. Great new industries were created overnight...Universities and industrial research laboratories were commandeered for the development of hundreds of new techniques, gadgets, and inventions and for research in such things as radar, sonar, the proximity fuse and the atom bomb...

Labor as well as capital contributed its full share to the winning of the war...The only serious labor difficulties came in the coal mines...

Farmers, too, performed of production...[In spite of being] under severe handicaps of labor shortages and inadequate supplies of farm machinery, the farmers broke all agricultural records.

And it wasn't in just wholly-mandated ways that the American public marshalled itself to win the Second World War. Americans came together in voluntary ways, making sacrifices for the war effort that either weren't legally mandated or which could have been easily eluded. That fact is underscored during this time of year, when most of us watch It's a Wonderful Life, with its portrayals of rubber tire drives, air raid drills, USO-volunteering, and blood drives.

We must of course, grant that the war against the Axis powers was very different from the one we're now fighting against al Qaeda and its allies. Yet, it must be said, the nation hardly seems marshalled behind this effort. If anything, our national bad habits of overspending and self-indulgence seem worse than ever, whether reflected in our federal budget or in our personal lives. Again, I indict myself as a guilty party in this state of affairs.

Our political leaders, whether Republican or Democrat, seem to have concluded that America's economic strength is such that little sacrifice is demanded of us as individuals and that government spending, even for non-war-related items, can create unprecedented volumes of red ink without endangering us. A conservative Vice President says that "deficits don't matter."

I feel as though we Americans are being treated like lab rats by our political leaders: They seem to feel that as long as they throw us more pork, we'll be happy and hardly notice that we're in a war.

This is doubly troubling because I feel that it plays into al Qaeda's hands. Osama bin Laden has credited the 1970s-80s war of "Afghan freedom fighters" against the Soviet Union with the Evil Empire's demise. He claims that the expenditures of money and lives destroyed the Soviet state. While I think that bin Laden's assessment doesn't take many other factors that led to the death of Soviet Communism into account, the war in Afghanistan nonetheless played its part.
Bin Laden has made it clear that his guerilla-like assault on America is designed in part to cause us to spend ourselves into oblivion.

It has been three-years-and-three-months since the September 11, 2001, attacks on our country. It was precisely at the same point following the attack on Pearl Harbor that, on March 7, 1945, Americans took the Remagen Bridge and began moving across the Rhine. Within weeks, Mussolini was executed, Hitler committed suicide, and Germany surrendered.

Whether we have made similar progress in the war on al Qaeda since 9/11 is a judgment that people far more knowledgeable than I can make. There have been many notable successes, such as the fact that no terrorist acts have occurred on US soil since that grievous day and the fact that al Qaeda has been largely driven from Afghanistan, now functioning as a democracy. (I leave out consideration of the War in Iraq, about which there are conflicting judgments both as to its relevance to the war against al Qaeda and its success. Again, brighter minds will have to address that.) As I say, my intention here isn't to make a political statement.

In any case, comparisons of World War Two with this war probably at least border on apples-to-oranges, except as it relates to the homefront.

Somehow, I feel, we all need to be engaged at some level in this struggle and it doesn't seem to be happening. I sense that in some ways, we all are missing our chance to be part of an effort that could mark us, if we sacrifice and work together enough, as the rightful heirs of the greatest generation.

His Excellency, Samuel Betances, and the Promise of America

Recently, at a leadership conference, I heard Dr. Samuel Betances speak. I'd never heard of him before and so, had no notion of what to expect. His was one of the most extraoridinary presentations I've ever heard.

Betances had a number of strikes against him as a child. A mixed-race youngster of Hispanic and African-American heritage, he grew up poor in Harlem. Written off as troubled and intellectually-deficient, he dropped out of high school.

Because an elderly woman believed in and refused to give up on Betances, he was inspired to complete his high school education. Ultimately, he received a doctorate and became a college professor.

Today, he is a partner in a major leadership consulting firm. He's counseled with several US Presidents and provides all the diversity training for every new class of general officers in the United States Air Force.

He's also a man of deep faith who counsels his fellow Christians to witness for their faith, but not to force their beliefs down others' throats. He's my kind of Christian, in other words.

Readers of this blog know that I'm an inveterate dot-connector, striving to see the relationships between different ideas or events that come my way or happen in the world.

As I've continued to read Joseph J. Ellis' His Excellency: George Washington, I find myself thinking of something Samuel Betances said at that leadership conference.

Just last night, I read a section of the Ellis book called, "This Species of Property." It's in the chapter about that period of time between Washington's resignation of his Revolutionary War commission and his selection as President. "This Species of Property" deals with the subject of George Washington, his slaves, and the more global issue of slavery in America.

According to Ellis, as early as 1785, Washington was being lobbied by friends and strangers to make a statement to the nation against slavery by freeing his own slaves. "Despite the code of silence [on the subject of slavery] and circumspection, there is considerable evidence that slavery was very much on Washington's mind during his [first] retirement," writes Ellis. Washington was prompted by his friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, says Ellis, with the argument that:

ending slavery was a logical outcome of the American Revolution.

Based on the evidence of correspondence, Ellis says that Washington's feelings about slavery developed in two ways during this period of his life.

First, through a series of events, Washington came to see slavery as "a massive American anomaly," inconsistent with one of the defining principles of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men [sic] are created equal." Among those formative events was the presence of many Blacks in the Revolutionary army. Owing to the desperate situation confronting America during the Revolution, slaves were given their freedom and served alongside white soldiers. Washington commanded the most racially integrated American military force prior to the Korean War.

Second and, according to Ellis, more important to the ever-practical Washington, he understood that slavery was an economically inefficient system doomed, in the end, to bankrupt plantation-owners like himself. Ultimately, this fact lay behind Washington's decision to free his slaves upon his death.

Washington then, was perhaps slightly more enlightened than the overtly racist and grossly hypocritical Thomas Jefferson. But none of the Founders were devoid of racism. All were willing to compromise with the institution of slavery, forestalling a day of reckoning that came with the Civil War.

Because of this deficiency in the Founders, it has become fashionable in some circles to completely dismiss them and the system of government they created. Because they didn't live up to the ideals they promoted and for which they fought a war, or because they they didn't see or refused to see the intrinsic inconsistency of fighting for equality before the law and in the eyes of God, while upholding slavery, it's suggested that all of America is a lie.

Indeed, among some political elites in America today, there is a condemnation of America, a loathing of America, that dismisses the entire American experiment as failed and flawed, as worthless and insusceptible to reform.

Samuel Betances doesn't agree with this view. He points out that when Martin Luther King, Jr. made his I Have a Dream speech, he didn't dismiss the promise of America, embodied in the Declaration, the Constitution as originally crafted, or the Bill of Rights. He appealed to those documents as guarantors of the birthright of every American to have equal access to opportunities in our country.

Those wealthy, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders who didn't live up to their own ideals established the framework that made it possible for King to press his case for equality for all. So before we dismiss America and its promises, Betances suggests, we should remember and be thankful that the promises of equality--the promises of America--came from flawed white men who didn't fully understand the implications of their own philosopy and cause.

One thing that constantly impresses me when I read about George Washington is how he was always rising above himself. He had less formal education even than the storied Abraham Lincoln and yet, Washington's correspondence reveals an intelligent and insightful, if less than eloquent, person. Angry and impetuous as a young man, nearly getting himself court-martialed as a colonial officer, he overcame both his anger and his impetuosity, showing resolve, patience, and self-control as General and President.

From Washington, maybe, we need to see our charge as being the same as his. We need to rise above ourselves, overcoming our own shortcomings and deficiencies, and use the framework left behind by previous generations of Americans to keep uncovering more implications of the promise of this country.

Just for Fun: My Ten Favorite Christmas Books

Many families have their own particular cherished Christmas customs. The Daniels Family is no exception. Being unregenerate bibliophiles, one of our Christmas traditions, naturally, is collecting Christmas books, which we tote out in early December and keep around throughout the season in order to be read and enjoyed again and again.

The collection is now comprised of well over twenty books. They're all enjoyable and each has a particular significance for us. But some of them are especially loved.

In fact, parting from my usual habit of naming five favorite thises or thats, I found that I couldn't cull this list of favorites down below ten.

These books are all family, or even children's, books. But like the best books in these categories, they're no less meaningful or fetching for adults.

So, here they are, my ten favorite Christmas books.

1. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. Our son, now 23, read this book when he was in the third grade. He asked my wife and me to read some of it to him. We were so taken with it that we ran out and bought our own copy. On Christmas Day that year, as we drove to see relatives, my wife behind the wheel, I read the whole book aloud. I've repeated the performance virtually every year since.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever tells the story of the Herdman kids and how, hoping to get free cookies and other goodies, they became part of the church Christmas pageant. The Herdmans are the most raucous, uncontrolled, ill-behaved, and bad-mannered children you can imagine. For page after page, I still sometimes laugh until I hurt when I read about them.

All that laughter gives the touching ending of this book great impact. I can't read its final chapter without misting.

If you want a gentle, hilarious reminder of the true meaning of Christmas, as well as an insightful gander into the hypocrisy of church life, I recommend this book. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever truly is one of the best Christmas books ever.

2. Santa's Favorite Christmas Story by Hisako Aoki and Ivan Gantschev. This book, filled with beautiful, mixed-media illustrations, tells the story of what happens one cold December when the animals in the forest found Santa Claus sleeping. They become alarmed, fearing that Santa would be unprepared for his annual global trek and that Christmas would have to be cancelled.

But Santa assures them that, with or without him, Christmas will happen. "Christmas," Santa says, "hasn't got anything to do with me." Santa then proceeds to tell the animals his favorite Christmas story, that of the first Christmas.

For years now, I have been using this book for my children's messages on the Sundays just prior to Christmas. The book still mesmerizes and it gently challenges our consumerist Christmas, using jolly old Saint Nick to talk about the birth of the Christ Child.

3. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. I've yet to see the movie version of this book, which has been a favorite at our house since it was first published back in 1985. I wonder whether I'll like the film or not. The text is sparse and mysterious, the illustrations beautiful, adding to the text's mystery and wonder. This book is not so much about Christmas as it is about growing up and the ability to dream. I love it.

4. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. (Ours is the Ideals Children's Book edition, 1989) O. Henry named his now-classic tale of Christmas gift-giving by a poor married couple after the magi--magicians or wise men--who came from the East to bring gifts to the Christ Child at Bethlehem. In this story, we learn about love and self-sacrifice, which really were the motivating reasons behind the mission of Jesus when He came into the world. (First Timothy 2:1-6) The poignant tale is enhanced by illustrations that evoke the era in which O. Henry wrote.

5. The First Christmas: A Festive Pop-Up Book by Tomie de Paola. This is the first of three books on my Christmas list from this first-rate and often-imitated artist and children's author. Here, de Paola has presents the story of the first Christmas with his typically stunning artistry, enhanced by the pop-up format. This is one to show your children until they're old enough to handle its delicate features.

6. The Clown of God by Tomie de Paola. This isn't a Christmas book, technically. But it is the story of a juggler who gives his greatest gift to the Christ Child. It is poignant and a call to each of us to give to the Savior Who has given everything to us!

7. The Legend of Old Befana by Tomie de Paola. This is one of several books de Paola created to honor his Old World heritage. Befana is a character, sometimes thought of as a witch, who plays a Santa character who leaves cookies and other goodies on the Twelfth Night of Christmas. De Paola adds his own whimsical touches to the old legend. This is a fun book.

8. Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect by Richard H. Schneider with illustrations by Elizabeth J. Miles. This book spins a legendary tale about how a once-perfectly shaped Christmas tree became imperfect, yet valued. It's a tale of self-sacrifice and compassion. It also encourages each of us to accept ourselves, imperfections and all. This is a wonderful story for children of all ages.

9. The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. This wordless book tells the charming tale of a boy's adventures with a snowman. That may not sound like much. But it really is beautiful, the perfect book for cuddling up with your child in front of a fire just before you take them to their beds for evening prayers. (This book, by the way, has been made into an equally enchanting short film.)

10. The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. This is such a fun book! The Ahlbergs' central character, the Postman, delivers a series of cards and letters to people along his route. What's fun is that readers are able to open the items up, reading the notes the postman delivers. The book affords all the delight that people of the Victorian era must have felt as they rummaged through the nooks, crannies, and drawers of a giant desk. You'll never outgrow the delight of this book.

That's my list of ten favorite Christmas books for right now. Hopefully, this Christmas season we'll find another volume to add to our collection and our celebrations.

So, what are your favorite Christmas books? Use the "Comments" button below to tell me.