What is the Bible basically about?

Lost in translation

At the 5:30 mark -

CNN host: Jay, you're a wealthy, single guy yet you still live at home with your mum. How come? Doesn't the bachelor life appeal to you? Having your own space?

Jay Chou: I don't think I'll move out. My parents divorced when I was a kid, and I've made up my mind that even if I get married someday, I'll still live with my mum so that I can take care of her and keep her company. I've been having this thought for many years. No matter what happens in the future, I'll live with my mum.

CNN host: [Laughs] You're kidding!

Jay Chou: Yeah, perhaps there are some cultural differences between Chinese and Western people. The Western kids grow up to break away from their families, to become totally independent and make their own lives, but I think Chinese people are very different. We value our roots a lot. No matter how much money you make outside, you still have to go home because we have this duty, this responsibility to take care of our parents. This is the difference I see, at least, from what I know.


I found this part of the interview particularly fascinating. I had a similar conversation with my British friends when I told them that I would live with my parents when I returned to Singapore. In the Western context, living with one's parents post-university comes close to an admission of personal failure - you do so because you cannot make it on your own. It's also seen as a compromise of personal freedom and individuality, signifying a prolonged adolescence and an inability to fully assume the responsibilities of real adulthood. It’s also seen as a failure of parenting, the failure of parents to equip their children to be independent adults. A recent example would be Matthew McConaughey's character in Failure to Launch. The title says it all. As a single man living at home with his parents, he is like a rocket that has failed to launch. In fact, his parents are so desperate to get rid of him that they hire Sarah Jessica Parker's character, a "professional motivator", specifically to achieve just that.

Almost the exact opposite is true in the Asian context. Asian graduates tend to live with their parents until they get married. In fact, parents are often dismayed when their unmarried adult children express a desire to live on their own (if they work in the same city where their parents live). Parents like to be able to provide and care for their children as long as possible, even when they are grown. Family unity is more important than individual liberty, and generally, the most "acceptable" reason for moving out of your parents' home is to start a family of your own.

Instead of individual independence, in the Asian context, being a responsible adult includes caring for your elderly parents. The Confucian ideal of "filial piety", a respect for parents and ancestors, is one of the most important virtues in Chinese culture. The point of view that Jay Chou expresses in this interview is not considered strange, but admirable. Though not all families would choose the same living arrangements, many adult children choose to live near their elderly parents so as to better care for them. There are also attendant benefits for these adult children, such as free child care for grandchildren, which elderly parents/grandparents are more than happy to provide in most instances. This happily symbiotic relationship is openly encouraged by the Singapore government through generous public housing subsidies.

This is not to say that one approach is necessarily better than the other. Each culture tends to be built around a dominant cultural narrative and the potential ill-effects are not hard to see. Excessive individualism can lead to an overly atomised society in which people only care about their own selfish interests, to the detriment of the greater good. Casual viewing of any Chinese TV series based on a large family would sufficiently inform the viewer of the potential pitfalls of exalting the family above all else. These shows are generally peopled by overbearing patriarchs, unreasonable mothers-in-laws and beleaguered adult children.

Different cultures hold up different versions of the good life and so very often, people are driven into the ground chasing after it. Tim Keller points out that the Bible says that all cultures are fallen (because all people are fallen), and that all cultures oppress. Every single culture, puts in front of men and women certain objects and says, "If you don't have them, you're nothing. If you don't have them, you have no worth, no significance. Your existence isn't justified."

Traditional societies tend to make the family unit and the clan into an absolute, ultimate thing. This can lead to honor killings, the treatment of women as chattel, and violence toward gay people. Western, secular cultures make an idol out of individual freedom, and this leads to the breakdown of the family, rampant materialism, careerism, and the idolization of romantic love, physical beauty and profit.

In Ezekiel 14:3, God says about the elders of Israel, "These men have set up their idols in their hearts." ... God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.


In Romans 1:21-25 St Paul shows that idolatry is not only one sin among many, but what is fundamentally wrong with the human heart:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him... They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. (Romans 1:21, 25)

Paul goes on to make a long list of sins that create misery and evil in the world, but they all find their roots in this soil, the inexorable human drive for "god-making." In other words, idolatry is always the reason we ever do anything wrong. No one grasped this better than Martin Luther. In his Larger Catechism (1528) and also his Treatise on Good Works he wrote that the Ten Commandments begin with a commandment against idolatry. Why does this come first in the order? Because, he argued, the fundamental motivation behind law-breaking is idolatry. We never break the other commandments without breaking the first one. Why do we ever fail to love or keep promises or live unselfishly? Of course, the general answer is "because we are weak and sinful", but the specific answer in any actual circumstance is that there is something you feel you must have to be happy, that is more important to your heart than God himself. We would not lie unless first we had made something — human approval, reputation, power over others, financial advantage — more important and valuable to our hearts than the grace and favor of God. The secret to change is always to identify and dismantle the basic idols of the heart.

Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods,
and How to Find Your Rival Gods

One has only the choice between God and idolatry. If one denies God ... one is worshiping some things of this world in the belief that one sees them only as such, but in fact, though unknown to oneself imagining the attributes of Divinity in them.

Simone Weil

Drag Me to Hell?

Though not a fan of horror movies (I avoid them almost entirely - the last horror movie I saw was the The Sixth Sense and I must confess that it scared me quite a bit), I was persuaded to go to a screening of Drag Me to Hell with the assurance that the movie had received rave reviews.

The movie was full of well-executed thrills and scares, topped off with wacky humour and numerous "gross-out" moments, though it was surprisingly free of gore. The story revolves around a young woman who humiliates and angers an old gypsy lady, who then puts a curse on her. Predictably, said young woman is in imminent danger of being dragged to hell by an evil spirit, and most of the movie revolves around her valiant efforts to avoid this nasty fate. The zany humour and the over-the-top action tempered the scariness of the film, and I was relieved to leave the cinema mostly untraumatised.

I was struck by the film's implicit acceptance of good and evil, the need for atonement and forgiveness of one's transgressions (at one point a poor goat is led out to be slaughtered), and the existence of a supernatural realm - hell included, of course.

The hell depicted in the movie seemed to be typical of most horror movies, full of raging fires and ghoulish souls reluctantly condemned to eternal punishment for the wrong that they did while they were alive on earth. People are dragged there kicking and screaming.

Most biblical commentators agree that the language that is used to describe hell in the Scriptures is metaphorical - hell is portrayed as eternal fire as well as the outer darkness (which are of course literal contradictions). Tim Keller points out that "[t]hey are vivid ways to describe what happens when we lose the presence of God. Darkness refers to the isolation, and fire to the disintegration of being separated from God. Away from the favor and face of God, we literally, horrifically, and endlessly fall apart."

The scariest part of all of this, is that no one is reluctantly "dragged" to hell as the movie suggests with equal amounts of hilarity and horror. We chose it.

In short, hell is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity. We see this process "writ small" in addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, and pornography. First, there is disintegration, because as time goes on you need more and more of the addictive substance to get an equal kick, which leads to less and less satisfaction. Second, there is the isolation, as increasingly you blame others and circumstances in order to justify your behaviour. "No one understands! Everyone is against me!" is muttered in greater and greater self-pity and self-absorption. When we build our lives on anything but God, that thing - though a good thing - becomes an enslaving addiction, something we have to have to be happy. Personal disintegration happens on a broader scale. In eternity, this disintegration goes on forever. There is increasing isolation, denial, delusion and self-absorption. When you lose all humility you are out of touch with reality. No one ever asks to leave hell [note: as is the case in Jesus' parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus]. The very idea of heaven seems to them a sham.

Tim Keller in The Reason for God

In the words of C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, "Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others... but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticise it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE Hell unless it is nipped in the bud."

The Christian doctrine of hell has never been a popular one. It's one that has often been caricatured and trivialised. However, as Tim Keller points out:

Unless we come to grips with this "terrible" doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him he was experiencing hell itself. But consider - if our debt for sin is so great that it is never paid off there, but our hell stretches on for eternity, then what are we to conclude from the fact that Jesus said the payment was "finished" (John 19:30) after only three hours? We learn that what he felt on the cross was far worse and deeper than all of our deserved hells put together.

And this makes emotional sense when we consider the relationship he lost. If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you - that hurts. If a good friend does the same - that hurts far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you saying, "I never want to see you again," that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more tortuous is any separation. But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginningless and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. He experienced the full wrath of the Father. And he did it voluntarily, for us.

Fairly often I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all." Why, I ask? "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin." But this shows a deep misunderstanding of both God and the cross. On the cross, God HIMSELF, incarnated as Jesus, took the punishment. He didn't visit it on a third party, however willing.

So the question becomes: what did it cost your kind of god to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this god agonize, cry out, and where were his nails and thorns? The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary." But then ironically, in our effort to make God more loving, we have made him less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a god like this will be at most impersonal, cognitive, and ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We could not sing to him "love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." Only through the cross could our separation from God be removed, and we will spend all eternity loving and praising God for what he has done (Revelation 5:9-14).

And if Jesus did not experience hell itself for us, then we ourselves are devalued. In Isaiah, we are told, "The results of his suffering he shall see, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). This is a stupendous thought. Jesus suffered infinitely more than any human soul in eternal hell, yet he looks at us and says, "It was worth it." What could make us feel more loved and valued than that? The Savior presented in the gospel waded through hell itself rather than lose us, and no other savior ever depicted has loved us at such a cost.

From The Importance of Hell

See also Hell: Isn't the God of Christianity an angry Judge?

How Tim Keller Found Manhattan

Great article about the wonderful story of Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church and New York City. It's not hard to see why Dr Keller and Redeemer's ministry has grown so quickly and touched so many, myself included.

The Kellers stick to a few rules. They never talk about politics. Tim always preaches with a non-Christian audience in mind, not merely avoiding offense, but exploring the text to find its good news for unbelievers as well as believers. The church emphasizes excellence in music and art, to the point of paying their musicians well (though not union scale). And it calls people to love and bless the city. It isn't an appeal based on guilt toward a poor, lost community.

... Keller's reading of Scripture fueled his enthusiasm. Conn had taught him a positive biblical view of cities. As he studied New York, he began to draw out that understanding. Surely God's command to exiled Israelites applied to Christians in New York: "seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you" (Jer. 29:7). Long before that, God had designated cities as places of refuge when Israel entered the Promised Land. They remain so today, Keller noted—which explains why poor people, immigrants, and vulnerable minorities such as homosexuals cluster in cities. They attract people who are open to change. Paul did most of his missionary work in cities, and early Christianity flourished within them. Revelation portrays the final descent of the kingdom of God to earth as a city, although a garden city, with fruit trees and a life-giving river at its center. Keller suggests that, had Adam and Eve lived sinlessly and obeyed God's directions, they would have made Eden into just such a city.

The New Jerusalem
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and there was no longer any sea.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"Now the dwelling of God is with men,
and he will live with them.
They will be his people,
and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away."

He who was seated on the throne said,
"I am making everything new!"
Then he said, "Write this down,
for these words are trustworthy and true."
Revelation 21:1-5

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Much of the film's romantic and philosophical posture hinges on Benjamin and Daisy getting together at the right time, and they do so in an entirely satisfying way; by the time of consummation, with Brad Pitt now in full physical glory and Blanchett at her womanly peak, they - and the audience - are more than ready for it. But their passion is all the more pointedly ephemeral due to the consciousness of being headed in opposite physical directions. The necessary acceptance of this fact produces a sincerely and genuinely earned sense of melancholy about the transitive nature of love and life. - Variety

The movie left me with a wistful sense of longing - does nothing truly beautiful last? Perhaps we all pass through this life - and meet here - but once. Benjmain and Daisy only have a few blissful years together - she is growing older and he is growing younger, and they cannot help but grow apart. He leaves before this happens.

We might have a few more years - a few more decades even - than they do. Yet everyone and everything we love is fleeting. Everything is slowly falling apart. Time catches up with all of us and in the end, death rips us apart.

Why does this feel so unnatural? Why does this hurt so much? Deep down, something tells me that this is not the way things were meant to be. This atrophying world can't be all there is. We were made to last. Love lasts.

If you really are the product of a material universe, why don’t you feel at home in a world where you die and disintegrate? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did would that not strongly suggest that they were once not purely aquatic creatures? Why are we continually shocked and repulsed by death? Unless, indeed, something in us, is not temporal.

Tim Keller paraphrasing C. S. Lewis
in Death and the Christian Hope

The Strangest Day

Today was a very strange day. Within three hours I had gone from standing in front of a half open coffin to holding an 8 hour old baby in my arms. I went straight from a wake to a maternity ward. An old person's life on this earth had come to an end but a little baby's life had just begun. Words of comfort one moment and words of joy in the next. I almost could not wrap my mind around the two extremes, so closely side by side. Life and death. Joy and sorrow. Light and dark. Is this how it's meant to be? Beauty and tragedy always intermingled. Is death a natural part of life?

At the tomb of Lazarus Jesus did not react with calm acceptance. He wept. He raged. How could the Lord of creation be angry at something in his world? As Tim Keller points out, Jesus could only be angry at death, if death is an intruder. Death is not part of the original design. Our most instinctive response to death is not resolute stoicism; losing a loved one inflicts unbearable pain. And pain is always an indication that something is wrong.

When we turned away from Life itself, Himself, everything broke. Our bodies, our relationships, this world. Life broke. And yet we all know, deep down inside, that this is not how it is meant to be. We weren't meant to die. We were meant to last.

If you really are the product of a material universe, why don’t you feel at home in a world where you die and disintegrate? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did would that not strongly suggest that they were once not purely aquatic creatures? Why are we continually shocked and repulsed by death? Unless, indeed, something in us, is not temporal.

Tim Keller paraphrasing C. S. Lewis
in Death and the Christian Hope

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won...

If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense - [then] it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world - news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn't just about warming our hearts.

Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things - and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all.

Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish-fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps.

N. T. Wright as quoted by Tim Keller in The Reason for God

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Good Friday

A well-written review of Tim Keller's new book. Very timely too.


Reasons for Good Friday
By Michael Gerson

In a flood of bestsellers by skeptics and atheists charging a nonexistent God with crimes against humanity, Timothy Keller stands out as an effective counterpoint and a defender of the faith. His new book, "The Reason for God," makes a tight, accessible case for reasoned religious belief. And his national tour of college campuses has drawn overflowing crowds. "This isn't because I'm well known," Keller told me, "but because of the topic."

But Keller is likely to be better known in short order. His 5,000-strong Manhattan congregation is a model of outreach to 20- and 30-something artists and professionals. Keller's church symbolizes an emerging urban evangelicalism -- at a recent service, he recalls, a Republican speechwriter sat near a songwriter for Madonna. Many of Keller's parishioners are deeply skeptical of the religious right, untroubled by evolution and begin their complex spiritual journeys with serious doubts.

Keller explains that members of this rising generation are not so much relativists as they are philosophically rootless. "They have a deep morality, but they have no idea why." And they generally share some objections to religious belief: that traditional faith is exclusive and intolerant and that the existence of suffering is inconsistent with the existence of a loving God.

A centerpiece argument of Keller's response might be called the myth of secular neutrality. "Skeptics argue that they have the intellectual high ground," he says, "but they are really making assumptions as well." An absolute doubt -- claiming that all truth is culturally conditioned -- can work only if it exempts itself from doubt and assumes the cultural superiority of rationalism. Raging against evil and suffering in the world assumes a moral standard of good and evil that naturalism cannot provide. Keller argues that the main criticisms of religion require "blind faith" of their own, and he urges people to begin by doubting their doubts.

But while Keller argues that all worldviews contain assumptions of faith, reason is not futile. It may not provide proof, but it does provide clues. The fundamental regularities of the universe that improbably favor life; the artistic beauty that reaches beyond materialism; the sense of love and duty that seems so much more than evolutionary instinct -- Keller argues that only theism explains our lived experience and deepest desires. "God is the only thing that makes sense of what we love."

At the center of his book is an interesting case study: human rights. Some skeptics argue that the universe is an empty, impersonal void -- that life has no meaning or value beyond its material makeup -- and yet they try to maintain the importance of human dignity as if still living in a world of meaning and justice. "If morality is relative," Keller asks, "why isn't social justice as well?" Why isn't the rule of the strong -- the clear teaching of nature -- just as valid as a belief in the rights of the weak? A materialist, Keller argues, can only respond with sentiment.

The final part of Keller's book will be the most difficult for many readers to accept. He contends that the God of space and time is somehow uniquely found in Jesus of Nazareth. The earliest Christians knew this was a "scandal" often interpreted by others as blasphemy. Sophisticated, first-century Greeks and Romans were no more likely to believe in risen corpses than we are today.

Yet Keller argues for the reliability of the New Testament accounts. And he makes the case that the Christian message has an advantage: It is more than an intellectual theory. In his book, Keller quotes Simone Weil, the French mystic and social activist, who made a practice of repeating Christian poetry during her migraines: "It was during one of these recitations that . . . Christ himself came down and took possession of me. In my arguments about the insolubility of the problem of God I had never foreseen the possibility of that, of a real contact, person to person, here below, between a human being and God."

Good Friday calls attention to a final argument as to why the God of the philosophers, however useful, may not be enough. In the end, the problem of human suffering cannot be minimized or explained away -- but in the Christian story, that suffering has been shared. Perhaps, in our own darkness, we need the imprisoned God, the scarred God, the shamed God, the despairing God.

The poet Jane Kenyon grasped at this mystery of Good Friday:

The God of curved space, the dry

God, is not going to help us, but the son

whose blood spattered

the hem of his mother's robe.

Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:4-6

Immanuel

I met the cutest little boy in church on Sunday. He was all dimples, gummy smiles and inquisitive eyes. He must have been about a year old or so - he was just learning to walk. He would take a few awkward steps before sitting back down on the floor - looking at his father, babbling meaningfully, waiting to be picked up and put back on his feet again. Looking at him I found it hard to imagine that God himself, the creator of heaven and earth, the author of the universe, was once a tiny, helpless little boy who could barely walk or talk.

And yet therein lies the miraculous beauty of the Christmas message. God did not enter human history with a blast of trumpet sound and an army of angels. He came as a tiny baby boy. And even then, he was not born into a powerful, royal household. He was born to a carpenter and a young Jewish girl, born under the rule of a tyrant who wanted to kill him, into a world that had no room for him, save in a lowly manger.

Yet in that manger, in that apparent servility, was the greatest majesty. In that apparent weakness was the greatest strength. In that apparent obscurity was the most history-changing event of all – the birth and life of Jesus Christ. In that manger, in that dirty feed-trough, absolute glory was at work. The infinitely high had condescended to become inconceivably low. The infinitely immense had become astoundingly small. But to what end?
(Tim Keller in Grace and Glory and Nazareth?!)

As C. S. Lewis says in Miracles, "In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him."


...an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" — which means, "God with us." Matt 1:20-23

Blessed Christmas everyone.

Soweto Gospel Choir

I went to watch the Soweto Gospel Choir at the Esplanade on Friday. As their soaring, sonorous voices filled the hall - without any instrumental accompaniment - I was moved to tears. They sang songs of praise to the Lord in a language that I did not understand, but the joy that they exuded as they sang and clapped and danced... I think a had a little taste of heaven that night and it was absolutely amazing. "These are the gospel songs that we sing in our churches, songs of praise that echo our thanks to the Lord who means a lot in our lives," said one of the choir members by way of introduction. And sing they did.

Some say the zeal of the early European missionaries in Asia and Africa was just another form of cultural imperialism. In response to this, Tim Keller quotes Lamin Sanneh (an African theologian currently teaching at Yale) in his sermon on Culture. In his book "Whose Religion is Christianity: The Gospel Beyond the West", Sanneh points out that every culture has a baseline narrative. The apostle Paul, when he talked about the cultures of his day, said that the Jews wanted power and the Greeks wanted wisdom. Every culture has a theme. Sanneh says that African culture understands that the world is filled with spiritual forces, and especially a lot of dark spiritual forces. Africans were looking for a way to address that.

They looked at their tribal religions and found that even though they believed in those spiritual forces, they had no answer for how to overcome them. And they looked at the modern secularism that was coming and they realised that modern secularism laughed at their Africaness because it said, "Oh no, you can't believe in miracles. You can't believe in demons." (That, is cultural totalitarianism.) Then they looked at Christianity, and Sanneh says, "Christianity answered the great cultural challenge of our hearts. People sensed in their hearts, that Jesus did not mock their respect for the sacred, and Christianity did not mock their clamour for an invincible saviour, and so they beat their sacred drums for Him until the stars skipped and danced in the skies. And after they danced, the stars were not little anymore. Christianity helped Africans to become renewed Africans, not remade Europeans."

Africans have made Christianity entirely their own. They praise the Lord in their own tongue, with their own songs, with their own dances, as only they can.

But even though we sing praises in different languages, we praise the same God. And even though we come from different countries and different cultures, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. When He said all the nations, He meant it.

Hairspray (I Know Where I'm Going)

I can't remember the last time I watched a film that was as much fun as Hairspray. One late Saturday morning a few of us found ourselves in a rather empty cinema (11am not being the most popular time to catch a movie), thoroughly enchanted and captivated by this zesty musical about a round, bubbly teenager who challenges conventional norms of beauty and marches against racism in her hometown of Baltimore (it is set in the 1960s after all, the decade of the civil rights movement). Most of the song-and-dance numbers were buoyant, exuberant affairs that got you toe-tapping and head-bopping along in no time at all. The swinging, retro, dance moves were such a breath of fresh air - a much welcome change from all the sexually explicit bump-n-grind that dominates MTV. The people in Hairspray just looked like they were having so much fun moving to the music, while my general impression of the people on MTV is that they're trying so desperately hard to look sexy (more importantly, sexier than all the other people on MTV), that much of the fun has been taken out of it.

All the songs are fantastic, but my favourite one is actually one of the slow songs, "I Know Where I've Been". It's the rousing civil rights anthem that Queen Latifah sings as they march in protest against the local TV station's racist policies.

There's a dream in the future
There's a struggle that we have yet to win
Use that pride in our hearts
To lift us up to tomorrow
'Cause just to sit still
Would be a sin
I know where I 'm going
Lord knows, I know where I've been
Oh, when we win
I'll give thanks to my God
'Cause I know where I've been

I liked that the song acknowledged the profoundly religious roots of the civil rights movement, especially given that it is now fashionable to bash religion as the cause of a great deal of the world's conflicts. Many argue that religion should be relegated solely to to private sphere, while some say that we'd be better off without it altogether. But as Alister McGrath points out, "Why should not people exercise their religious faith in public, and press for changes in public policy in line with it, in a democratically accountable and responsible manner? What about William Wilberforce's refusal to relegate his faith in the created equality of all people before God to the private sphere, instead using it as the basis for his campaign against slavery? Or Martin Luther King's demand that black Americans' "God-given rights" be given political expression, despite the social confrontations this demanded?"

"I know where I'm going," sings Queen Latifah's character Motormouth Maybelle, de facto leader of the mini civil rights movement in the movie. This same certainty colours much of Martin Luther King Jr.'s monumental "I have a dream" speech. As Tim Keller points out, the reason the speech was so powerful was because it was completely infused with the certain hope of Christianity. King had no doubt that his hope would be fulfilled, that his dream would become reality.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed..."

Here he is referencing Isaiah 40:4-5, where the prophet Isaiah talks about the future glory of God, when the Messiah will be bringing God's kingdom and God's justice into the world.

"This is our hope," King says.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

...We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." Amos 5:24

The hope that is spoken of here is absolutely certain. When Christ was resurrected, more real and glorious than he had ever been before, he gave us a foretaste of what is to come. At the end of the book of Revelation, we see heaven coming down to purge, and purify, to renew and restore, the material world. This world. And everything sad is going to come untrue.

I know where I 'm going
Lord knows, I know where I've been
Oh, when we win
I'll give thanks to my God
'Cause I know where I've been

I know the heart of life is good

Two Sundays ago we went to watch The Philharmonic Orchestra play at the Esplanade. I’m not a massive classical music fan, more of a philistine than an aficionado, but we were there to watch Cherfy and some other friends play. The second, and longer, piece that the orchestra played was Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in C major, more popularly known as “Leningrad”.

I confess to be largely clueless about a lot of the finer details of classical music. I never even made it past Grade I piano – I was (and still am) one of those bad Asian children who never properly applied themselves to the violin or the piano. However, I’ve often found myself enjoying symphonies about revolutions and wars, finding them vigorous and exciting. But in my limited forays into the world of classical music, this is the first time that I have found myself confronted with pain so stark and anger so raw.

The symphony was written in the midst of World War II, and is dedicated to the city of Leningrad. The German siege of Leningrad started in 1941 and was only lifted in 1944. Almost a million people died. The concert programme quotes musicologist Nicholas Slonimsky: "No composer before Shostakovich had written a musical work depicting a still-raging war, and no composer had ever attempted to describe a future victory, in music, with such power and conviction, at a time when his people fought for their very right to exist as a nation." The programme notes tell us that Shostakovich wrote the finale for the symphony, titled "Victory", while seeking refuge in Kuybyshev, having been evacuated from Moscow in the face of a looming German attack. The Moscow premiere of the symphony was performed to the sound of air raid sirens by musicians who were themselves ravaged by the war.

I simply could not imagine how Shostakovich could write of victory in the midst of despair, and how those musicians could play to the sound of falling bombs and wailing sirens. At the time it must have seemed like complete and utter madness. Or was it, a hope so improbable, so outrageous even, that it just might be true?

No it won’t all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good

sings John Mayer on his (rather excellent) new album, Continuum. 60 years on, many of us only know the second world war as a series of movie vignettes. Pearl Harbour. Schindler’s List. Saving Private Ryan. Life is Beautiful. But the horror of death and destruction remains a daily reality for so many. How do you know that the heart of life is good? How can you know that? Is that just the privilege of the lucky few who happen to have been born into conditions of (relative) peace and prosperity? Is hope the prerogative of the powerful? How do you look despair in the face and still hold out hope?

The Bible speaks of hope in the strangest of terms. Hope does not disappoint. Romans 5:5 Since when was hope ever certain? When faced with so much brokenness in the world, and in myself, I want more than just a vague altruistic belief that it will all be all right in the end. I want to know, for sure, that everything wrong will be put right. Is this nothing more than a naive fantasy, mere wishful thinking on my part?

When confronted with the premature death of a beloved brother, Jesus said to his grieving sister, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." John 11:25-27

Jesus raised her brother from the dead, bringing him out of the tomb alive.

It’s so amazing, that in the face of tragedy, death and despair, Jesus promises us more than just escape, or even compensation. He promises us resurrection, both spiritual and physical. The complete redemption of all creation. There will be hugging in heaven (as Tim Keller likes to say).

At the end of history, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. No more death or mourning or crying or pain. God will make all things new. Everything sad is going to come untrue. Because nobody expresses this better, here is Dostoevsky once again.

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.

And so this is the certain hope that we have. I know that the heart of life is good, and that it will all be good in the end. Because at the heart of the universe is a God who does not stand aloof and apart from our suffering, but directly involves himself in it. Jesus suffered infinitely so that he could eventually defeat suffering once and for all without destroying us, for so very often we are such a large part of what is wrong with the world. But I know for certain, that one day everything will be put right, everything broken will be mended and made new, for when Jesus rose from the grave, triumphing over death, he gave us a taste of the coming victory.

Tim Keller's 9-11 sermon (based on John 11, preached the first Sunday after 9-11-2001) is freely available here.

Reductionism and Redemption

All newbies in our division have to fill in this "get to know you" questionnaire. Among other things, we were asked to "list the physical and non-physical traits that you want your ideal mate to have."

At first I didn't know what to do with this question because I didn't even agree with its very premise. Granted, the whole questionnaire was deliberately provocative (I think they were also aiming for humorous, but much of that was lost on me) and was not meant to be taken seriously, but I still could not help feeling somewhat saddened by the question itself.

Since when did we start reducing people to commodities?

I found myself very encouraged by some of the answers that my colleagues gave. One chap wrote, "I don't believe in such reductionism. I feel that it diminishes the worth of each individual." This made me want to cheer. Another opted for a more tongue-in-cheek approach. "One head, one body, two arms and two legs. Female." This made me chuckle.

In the end, I settled for "I don't really believe in shopping lists for people. The only "requirement" is that he's Christian." I don't even know if "being Christian" can be considered a trait. I don't really think so, but if deep friendship is the essence of marriage then I think it's crucial that you see reality the same way.

The consumerism that pervades all of society has also coloured the way in which we view our relationships. We are, first and foremost, consumers. How much am I getting in return for what I put in? Am I getting a bad deal? How well does this arrangement meet my needs? If we could, I suspect we would customise relationships the way we customise playlists on our iPods to suit our individual preferences.

Tim Keller draws a distinction between consumer-vendor relationships, in which you relate to the vendor only as long as your needs are being met at an acceptable cost, and covenantal relationships, in which you commit to the good of the other whether your individual needs are being met or not. He notes that in modern culture the marketplace has become so dominant that even personal relationships are now based on the consumer model, but Proverbs tells us that “A friend loves at all times” (17:17). Not just when it suits my needs, not just when I am receiving as much as I put in, not just when I feel deep affection for the other, but all the time.

I used to hold to this warped theory of “reciprocity in friendship.” When I felt that my friend was not being the friend to me that I was to her, I got angry and upset. This is not fair! I deserve better than this! This relationship is not a one-way street! I had absolutely no idea what love is, and what true friendship really means. There was a complete failure on my part to see just how true a friend Jesus was, and is, to us; how unconditionally, and how sacrificially he loved us, and loves us still. We gave him nothing, yet he gave us everything, giving up his rightful riches in heaven to descend into the depths of hell. We turned our backs on him and spurned his love, yet he never gave up on us even though it cost him his life.

Most people think of love and relationships in terms of what they want, but that is just emotional hunger, that’s not love. The real way to know how much you love somebody is how much you’re willing to give, not how much you’re willing to get.

The Bible always speaks of love in strictly covenantal terms: How much you love a person is always defined in terms of what you are willing to give, how much you’re willing to curb your choices to meet the needs of someone else. But the modern world tells you: Don’t you dare ever limit your choices. Keep your options open! Never ever bind yourself and make yourself vulnerable to anybody that way. Never!

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves

If you think, that if you would commit yourself to somebody else like that, that that would really be scary, that that would really be frightening, that you might get hurt – you will be more hurt in the long run if you refuse to submit yourself to anybody that way; if you rule it out, if you take your heart so it will never be broken, if you never commit yourself and never allow yourself to be vulnerable (which is what the definition of marriage is), your heart will become impenetrable, irredeemable. You will experience the alienation and dislocation of the modern society that you are listening to in the news, as it sings to you, and you march to its beat. Society is full of alienated and dislocated people because they are looking out for number one, because they refuse to find love in terms of commitment – in terms of what you will give, and how vulnerable you will be.

Tim Keller, in Overview; Marriage as Commitment

Love is not primarily a feeling (feelings go up and down), but an action first. The feelings follow after. The most supremely loving act there ever was, and ever will be, was when the Lord of all creation laid down his life for us, becoming the servant of all, making himself completely vulnerable, not thinking of himself in the least, loving us when we were utterly unlovable.

Now that’s love.

Do we know what love is?

Driving in Taiwan

Last week we went on a field trip to Taiwan as part of our foundation course, and one of the Singaporeans we met there told us that many Singaporeans find Taiwan messy and disorderly. He said that you can tell the difference between Singaporean and Taiwanese culture just by looking at the way people drive. In Taiwan, cars swerve in and out of lanes and traffic lights are more like suggestions rather than legal requirements. The Taiwanese have this proverb that means "order in disorder", and they are very tolerant of inconsiderate driving. If you pull up alongside the road to let people off, causing a backlog of cars behind you, people will just wait because everyone recognises that they would have done exactly the same had they been in your position. But if you did that in Singapore, the drivers stuck behind you would be pounding on their horns.

We Singaporeans are a very law abiding lot, but we are extremely intolerant of people who do not obey what we perceive to be the rules. At the same time however, the Taiwanese are also extremely intolerant of intolerant people. Quite of few of them see Singapore as inflexible and authoritarian, and China is regarded as the antithesis of democracy and a system that just cannot be accepted.

I was keenly reminded of how Tim Keller once pointed out that all cultures are oppressive - they set up an ideal (say, of law-abidingness or liberal tolerance) and everyone who does not conform is "condemned". The Bible tells us that all cultures are fallen (because all people are fallen), and that all cultures oppress, because every single culture puts in front of people certain objects and says “If you don’t have them, you’re nothing.”

Ancient cultures, and traditional cultures today, tend to have collectivistic idols: Follow the rules! Obey the law! Toe the line! But modern Western cultures tend more to have individualistic idols: Break free! Define yourself! It’s your choice, so choose! Every culture that ever existed and that exists today, is telling you to build your identity on something.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Mark 12:28-31

It is no accident that Jesus tells us to love our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength first, before telling us to love our neighbours, because the latter would be completely impossible without the former.

It is impossible to love your illiberal neighbour just as much as your avowedly liberal self, if you do not love God more than your liberal credentials.

If you build your identity on being liberal, you will despise illiberal people. If you build your identity on being law-abiding, you will despise "law-breakers". Only if you build your identity on God, a God who loves you with an everlasting love despite your weaknesses and flaws, a God who will tear himself apart to make you whole, will you be completely incapable of despising anyone.

Everything sad is going to come untrue

Somewhat belatedly, I came across this short sermon that Tim Keller gave at the 9-11 Service of Peace and Rememberance for Victims' Families this year in New York. Slightly more than a year ago, on the 11th of September, I went on a sunset cruise around Manhattan (one in a series of activities organised by Columbia for incoming international grad students). The cruise had been specifically arranged for this date because every year they commerate the day with the Tribute in Light. From where the twin towers used to stand, two towering beams of light shine, in turns a piercing blue and a ghostly white, illuminating the velvety night sky.

I guess that nothing makes us doubt God as much as suffering, in our own lives and in the world around us, and so this is a rather apt follow-up to the previous post.

This transcript is provided by Michael Keller at kellered.blogspot.com


SERVICE OF REMEMBRANCE AND PEACE
FOR 9-11 VICTIMS’ FAMILIES
Ground Zero/St Paul’s Chapel
Tim Keller
Sep 10, 2006

As a minister, of course, I’ve spent countless hours with people who are struggling and wrestling with the biggest question - the WHY question in the face of relentless tragedies and injustices. And like all ministers or any spiritual guides of any sort, I scramble to try to say something to respond and I always come away feeling inadequate and that’s not going to be any different today. But we can’t shrink from the task of responding to that question. Because the very best way to honor the memories of the ones we’ve lost and love is to live confident, productive lives. And the only way to do that is to actually be able to face that question. We have to have the strength to face a world filled with constant devastation and loss. So where do we get that strength? How do we deal with that question? I would like to propose that, though we won’t get all of what we need, we may get some of what we need 3 ways: by recognizing the problem for what it is, and then by grasping both an empowering hint from the past and an empowering hope from the future.

First, we have to recognize that the problem of tragedy, injustice and suffering is a problem for everyone no matter what their beliefs are. Now, if you believe in God and for the first time experience or see horrendous evil, you rightly believe that that is a problem for your belief in God, and you’re right – and you say, “How could a good and powerful God allow something like this to happen?”

But it’s a mistake (though a very understandable mistake) to think that if you abandon your belief in God it somehow is going to make the problem easier to handle. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail says that if there was no higher divine Law, there would be no way to tell if a particular human law was unjust or not. So think. If there is no God or higher divine Law and the material universe is all there is, then violence is perfectly natural—the strong eating the weak! And yet somehow, we still feel this isn’t the way things ought to be. Why not? Now I’m not going to get philosophical at a time like this. I’m just trying to make the point that the problem of injustice and suffering is a problem for belief in God but it is also a problem for disbelief in God---for any set of beliefs. So abandoning belief in God does not really help in the face of it. OK, then what will?

Second, I believe we need to grasp an empowering hint from the past. Now at this point, I’d like to freely acknowledge that every faith - and we are an interfaith gathering today – every faith has great resources for dealing with suffering and injustice in the world. But as a Christian minister I know my own faith’s resources the best, so let me simply share with you what I’ve got. When people ask the big question, “Why would God allow this or that to happen?” There are almost always two answers. The one answer is: Don’t question God! He has reasons beyond your finite little mind. And therefore, just accept everything. Don’t question. The other answer is: I don’t know what God’s up to – I have no idea at all about why these things are happening. There’s no way to make any sense of it at all. Now I’d like to respectfully suggest the first of these answers is too hard and the second is too weak. The second is too weak because, though of course we don’t have the full answer, we do have an idea, an incredibly powerful idea.

One of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God identifies with the suffering. There are all these great texts that say things like this: If you oppress the poor, you oppress to me. I am a husband to the widow. I am father to the fatherless. I think the texts are saying God binds up his heart so closely with suffering people that he interprets any move against them as a move against him. This is powerful stuff! But Christianity says he goes even beyond that. Christians believe that in Jesus, God’s son, divinity became vulnerable to and involved in - suffering and death! He didn’t come as a general or emperor. He came as a carpenter. He was born in a manger, no room in the inn.

But it is on the Cross that we see the ultimate wonder. On the cross we sufferers finally see, to our shock that God now knows too what it is to lose a loved one in an unjust attack. And so you see what this means? John Stott puts it this way. John Stott wrote: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” Do you see what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us! It can’t be that he doesn’t care. God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it. And therefore the Cross is an incredibly empowering hint. Ok, it’s only a hint, but if you grasp it, it can transform you. It can give you strength.

And lastly, we have to grasp an empowering hope for the future. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and even more explicitly in the Christian Scriptures we have the promise of resurrection. In Daniel 12:2-3 we read: Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake….[They]… will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and…like the stars for ever and ever. And in John 11 we hear Jesus say: I am the resurrection and the life! Now this is what the claim is: That God is not preparing for us merely some ethereal, abstract spiritual existence that is just a kind of compensation for the life we lost. Resurrection means the restoration to us of the life we lost. New heavens and new earth means this body, this world! Our bodies, our homes, our loved ones—restored, returned, perfected and beautified! Given back to us!

In the year after 9-11 I was diagnosed with cancer, and I was treated successfully. But during that whole time I read about the future resurrection and that was my real medicine. In the last book of The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee wakes up, thinking everything is lost and discovering instead that all his friends were around him, he cries out: "Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead! Is everything sad going to come untrue?"

The answer is YES. And the answer of the Bible is YES. If the resurrection is true, then the answer is yes. Everything sad is going TO COME UNTRUE.

Oh, I know many of you are saying, “I wish I could believe that.” And guess what? This idea is so potent that you can go forward with that. To even want the resurrection, to love the idea of the resurrection, long for the promise of the resurrection even though you are unsure of it, is strengthening. I John 3:2-3. Beloved, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope purify themselves as he is pure.” Even to have a hope in this is purifying.

Listen to how Dostoevsky puts it in Brothers Karamazov: “I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.”

That is strong and that last sentence is particularly strong…but if the resurrection is true, it’s absolutely right. Amen.

Your grace is sufficient

Entering the workforce has made me realise how performance-driven our entire society is, and just how much I've bought into it. Even though I was ill and given a whole day of medical leave by the doctor, I only took half a day off work because I had already taken two days off work last week, and I thought that there was just no way that I could miss any more work. (I have been stricken with the most stubborn sinus-throat-infection ever - I am currently on my sixth day of antibiotics). Even though my absence didn't really affect the productivity of my division (I'm still learning the ropes and we're in a bit of a lull period), I just felt that I had to show up at work. My worth as an employee is entirely determined by how I perform.

More often than not, we think that our worth as a human being is entirely determined by how we perform. Even the starting point of our relationship with God, our personal profession of faith, seems to be entirely in our own hands. And so, when we find ourselves in doubt, we either start to panic or we deny it entirely, ashamed of the weakness of our own faith. At times like these I always think about this sermon that I heard Tim Keller preach some months ago in New York, The Fear of King Herod. In it he talked about how we are saved, not by the quality of our faith, but by the object of our faith, which is Christ himself.

Sometimes, the gospel is so counter-intuitive that we fail to grasp just how revolutionary it is. The grace of God, his freely unmerited favour, his unconditional love, extends all the way down to the foundations of our relationship with him. Faith, and its continued sustenance, is entirely a gift of grace (and here perhaps I betray my theological leanings). It would seem almost impossible to produce and sustain faith all by ourselves.

One of my favourite stories in the Bible can be found in Mark 9. A father comes to Jesus, beseeching him to heal his demon possessed son.


Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?"

"From childhood," he answered. "It [the demon] has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."

" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. "You deaf and mute spirit," he said, "I command you, come out of him and never enter him again."

The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, "He's dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.


Jesus did not wait for the father to possess an unshakeable conviction and a rock-solid faith in his power to heal his son. A half-profession and a humble plea was all he needed. Perhaps this expression of doubt requires an even deeper faith - not in ourselves at all, but in God and God alone.


But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-11


Your grace is sufficient for me
Your strength is made perfect
When I am weak
And all that I cling to
I lay at Your feet
Your grace is sufficient for me

written by Martin Nystrom, performed by Shane & Shane (Clean, 2004)

Maundy Thursday

I went with my fellowship group to a Maundy Thursday service at All Angels Church. We were all there to remember the night before the crucifixion, the night of the Last Supper, when Christ instituted the practice of taking communion and when he washed his disciples' feet. In rememberance of Christ, we (including the pastors), in pairs, took turns to wash each others feet.

[Jesus] poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."

Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

John 13:5-8

The pastor spoke about how we often try to deal with our own sin by ignoring it, or trying our best to live a good life, taking our salvation into our own hands, trying to work our way into heaven ("I am good, therefore God owes me"), or, we try to beat ourselves up and make ourselves feel bad, thinking that our guilt could wash us clean. But the surest way we know why none of these approaches could ever work, was because Jesus chose the cross. If there were any other way for the God of the universe to reconcile fallen humanity to himself - we who had wilfully rebelled against his rightful lordship - would he not have chosen that? It was not only Jesus who suffered infinitely on the cross, the Father's heart was wrenched apart also - for which father would not hurt to see his son suffer?

The words from the hymn Rock of Ages speak beautifully of this:

Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law's commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

It is only Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the cross, Jesus dying in our place, bearing upon himself the full punishment for humanity's sin - it is only Jesus' blood that washes us clean.

...When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."

John 13:12-15

As I knelt at my friend's feet, I poured water into the basin, and taking each foot in turn I washed them. I thought about how Jesus humbled himself infinitely, washing the feet of his disciples, and ultimately, becoming a man and laying his life down for us. The Lord of the Universe knelt at his disciples' feet and washed them. Even washing the feet of the one who was to betray him. The great love that is evident in the laying down of his life for all at the crucifixion, is also demonstrated in the humble service of footwashing. It spoke powerfully of the new organising principle of God's kingdom, for Jesus' message was radically counter-cultural then, and it still is now.

Tim Keller put it most eloquently in one of his recent sermons, "The Openness of the Kingdom." Jesus proclaimed, ""The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15) Keller talked about how everytime a new leader comes in, he always brings with him new organising principles: new priorities, new values, new policies - things get done differently. What then, is the central organising principle of the kingdom?

The way up, is to go down
the way to influence and power, is not to seek influence and power,
but only to serve
the way to get rich is to give your wealth away
the way to be really happy, is not even to try to be happy,
but to try to make others happy
the way to reign is to submit
the way to magnificence of character, is humility
the way to find yourself - that is to really know that you are distinct, unique and valuable - is to not try to find yourself but to lose yourself in service to God and others
the way to be free, is to go to God and say, "Command me."

The kingdom of God is just the world turned upside down - it's the absolute reverse of how the world regards money, power, recognition, status, comfort and happiness.

It is the Lord of all the universe stooping to wash his disciples' feet.

It is the Lord of all the universe clinging to the cross, so that his blood may wash us clean.

Tim Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian in the New York Times

The New York Times has published a write-up about my pastor and the church that I've been attending ever since I came to New York; Redeemer has been such a tremendous blessing to me and I am just so grateful for the whole community. The article was interesting and fair - I almost could not believe the New York Times managed to write about a leading evangelical (although Dr Keller prefers to be identified as "orthodox" because of all the negative political connotations of that word) and an evangelical church, with absolutely no hint of snarkiness. Talk about miracles.

Check out the article here: Preaching the Word and Quoting the Voice

The True Story

One of the other very striking things that Dr Ramachandra said on Thursday night, was that we should make use of our university years to establish firm, intellectual foundations for our faith. He noted that we ourselves might be the biggest stumbling block to thoughtful inquirers about the faith, with our superficial theology and our shallow understanding. I found this quite sobering.

Looking back, I see how the Lord has led me on this wonderful journey. I started out standing at the crossroads of faith and philosophy. I had always considered myself a Christian, but in my three years at Oxford I was steeped in secular philosophy, which left me rather confused for the first two years. In my third year I started, for the very first time in my life really, to fully grasp the truth of the gospel, emotionally and intellectually. I left Oxford convinced about Jesus, and convinced about the inadequacy of secular philosophy to bring about real, positive change, but I was not quite sure about what Jesus had to say to secular philosophy. In my six months or so in New York, God has been giving me some great answers.

I’m finding that my semesters have come to have certain themes to them. Last semester my philosophy classes covered the nature of justice, as well as secular liberalism and identity. This tied in very well with the Vision Campaign sermons at church which touched upon the nature of competing truth claims and the transformative power of the gospel. (See Liberalism, the Gospel and the Truth: Part One, Part Two). This semester, I’ve been taking courses in human rights, globalization, civil liberties and terrorism, and another course in modern philosophy. The focus is now more on the “practical” side of justice with a more global perspective. The Veritas Forum came along at just the right time – the speakers who came were all actively on the front lines of human rights and global justice, and it was fascinating to hear what they had to share. This semester, my human rights course in particular, has provided me with much food for thought.

We recently read one of Richard Rorty’s lectures, Human Rights, Rationality and Sentimentality (On Human Rights: Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993). Rorty is a prominent atheist and a self-described “neo-pragmatist”. His philosophy is anti-metaphysical: he believes that the traditional philosophical pursuit of ultimate, objective, foundational knowledge (especially regarding the existence of God), is misguided and ineffective. In this article, he argues for a pragmatic approach in establishing the basis of a human rights culture.

He cites a report about the atrocities in Bosnia, commenting that Serbian murderers and rapists not think of themselves as violating human rights, for they are not doing these things to fellow human beings, but Muslims. They are not being inhuman, but rather are discriminating between the true humans and the pseudo-humans. As Clifford Geertz puts it, “Men’s most importunate claims to humanity are cast in the accents of group pride.” By default, we tend to think of our humanity is a tribalistic and ethnocentric way – we think in terms of “them” and “us”.

He notes that outside the circle of post-Enlightenment European culture, most people are simply unable to understand why membership in a biological species automatically qualifies a person of another culture, one of the “others”, as a member of our moral community. On Thursday, Dr Ramachandra also similarly argued that the moral equality and dignity of all is not a concept that is innate to most cultures at all. India and China had extremely hierarchical, class-based societies, and most cultures are inherently tribalistic. Any culture that respects universal human rights, regardless of ethnic boundaries, have all, historically, been influenced by Judeo-Christian thought. The philosophy of the Enlightenment is deeply steeped in Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, Kant’s account of the respect due to rational agents tells us that you should extend the respect you feel for people like yourself to all “featherless bipeds”. Rorty goes on to say “This is an excellent suggestion, a good formula for secularizing the Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of man.” (See The Veritas Forum at Columbia – A slight diversion: Secular Humanism as a Christian Heresy).

He points out that “most people – especially people relatively untouched by the European Enlightenment – simply do not think of themselves as, first and foremost, a human being. Instead, they think of themselves as a certain good sort of human being – a sort defined by explicit opposition to a particularly bad sort.” Ironically, this is also true of the very Western intellectuals who have been touched by the European Enlightenment. Rorty says “I quite agree that [our Western human rights culture] is morally superior…” and “We Eurocentric intellectuals like to suggest that we, the paradigm humans, have overcome this primitive parochialism by using that paradigmatic human faculty, reason.”

But Rorty has a problem with the appeal to reason to justify human rights. Kant, following Plato, emphasised rationality as essential to being human. Plato believed that the best way to deal with immoral people was to demonstrate to them that they had an interest of which they were unaware, an interest in being rational, in acquiring self-knowledge. Plato saddled us with a distinction between the true and false self. That distinction was, by the time of Kant, transmuted into a distinction between categorical, rigid, moral obligation and flexible, empirically determinable self-interest. Kant claims that sentimentality has nothing to do with morality, that there is something distinctively and transculturally human called “the sense of moral obligation” which has nothing to do with love, friendship, trust or social solidarity.

Rorty thinks that appealing to common rationality as the basis for respecting human rights does not work. It does not do much good to get tribalistic, ethnocentric people to read Kant, and agree that one should not treat rational agents simply as means. For everything turns on who counts as a fellow human being, as a rational agent in the only relevant sense – the sense in which rational agency is synonymous with membership in our moral community. For most white people, until very recently, most Black people did not so count. For the Nazis, Jews did not so count. For the Serbs, Muslims did not so count. He says, “Even if we do think that all human beings are rational, we tend to equate “human beings” with “member of our tribe”, we have always thought of human beings in terms of paradigm members of the species. We have contrasted us, the real humans, with rudimentary, or perverted, or deformed examples of humanity.”

Rorty’s solution is to give up rationality for sentimentality. He follows Hume in believing that “corrected sympathy, not law-discerning reason, is the fundamental moral capacity.” He cites contemporary philosopher Annette Baier, who would like us to get rid of both the Platonic idea that we have a true self, and the Kantian idea that it is rational to be moral. Instead, she advocates a Humean “progress of sentiments”, which consists in an increasing ability to see the similarities between ourselves and people very unlike us as outweighing the differences. Rorty calls this “sentimental education” and he describes it as manipulating the sentiments of future generations by telling them long, sad, sentimental stories which typically begin “Because this is what it is like to be in her situation – to be far from home, among strangers,” or “Because she might become your daughter-in-law,” or “Because her mother would grieve for her.” It is novelists and stories that best capture our imagination and engage us morally, and Rorty believes that this is the best catalyst for change.

Reading this article it occurred to me, that the only way in which a story could both capture our sentiments and grip our reason, and really change our lives, is if it were about us, all of us, (and not just some distant, almost hypothetical "other"), and if it were true.

I think that Rorty’s dichotomy between sentimentality and rationality is a false one. It was the great C. S. Lewis who understood so very clearly that we have both the heart that yearns for God and the mind that seeks to know him. Lewis himself grew up loving the Greek and Norse mythology of old, but it was only after his conversion that he started to see in them glimpses of eternal truth.

Colin Duriez writes that it was J. R. R. Tolkien who helped him to see this, during a long night's talk in September of 1931. Tolkien argued that the Gospels have a satisfying imaginative as well as intellectual appeal, demanding a response from the whole person. He accused Lewis of an imaginative failure in not accepting their reality. What Tolkien did was help Lewis see how the two sides, reason and imagination, could be integrated. During the two men's night conversation on the Addison Walk in the grounds of Magdalen College, Tolkien showed Lewis how the two sides could be reconciled in the Gospel narratives. The Gospels had all the qualities of great human storytelling. But they portrayed a true event—God the storyteller entered his own story, in the flesh, and brought a joyous conclusion from a tragic situation. Suddenly Lewis could see that the nourishment he had always received from great myths and fantasy stories was a taste of that greatest, truest story—of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Lewis himself later argued in "Myth Became Fact," that “[t]he heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens—at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. … God is more than god, not less: Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about "parallels" and "pagan Christs": they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block if they weren't. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome.”

I was reminded of my favourite Tocqueville quote where he says, in a draft for the 1840 Preface to Democracy in America, 'Not a man in the world has ever found... the central point at which all the rays of general truth (which come together only in God) or even all the rays of particular truth meet. Men grasp fragments of truth, but never truth itself.'


Plato was right. We do have a true self.

(Charles Williams, Lewis' fellow Inkling, wrote about how the lover's romantic vision of the beloved was not confused, but illuminated. The lover sees through the beloved's flaws to the image of God. It is this truest and deepest self of the person - the person as created and potentially redeemed by God - that Williams called that person's "eternal identity.")

Kant was right. It is rational to be moral.

Hume was also right. Sentimentality matters to morality.

But they have only grasped fragments of the truth, which seem to contradict each other.


Tocqueville was right.

It is only in God, where all the rays of general and particular truth meet.


Postscript: Amazing. Just got back from church. Tonight, there was this guy who shared his experience of doing mission work, helping street boys, in Mexico City. He started out talking about how he came to faith. He was raised in a nice, secular family. He loved history and science and he only read nonfiction, because he thought that fiction was just a bunch of made-up stories with no real point to them. This is what he thought about religion for the longest time. But when he found himself confronted with the truth of Jesus Christ, he came to see that this was not just another story. It was, as C. S. Lewis said, a myth that was true. And that just totally changed his life.

Liberalism, the Gospel and the Truth

Today we had our last seminar session with Professor G. A. Cohen - we had done this seminar series at double speed (two sessions a week) because he's only here for 7 weeks. He leaves for Oxford tomorrow. I attended Prof Cohen's lectures while I was in Oxford, so I was thrilled beyond words to find out that he would be visiting Columbia for 7 weeks this term. I somehow managed to get into his oversubscribed class, and I've really enjoyed these 7 weeks.

I attended Prof Cohen's Plato lectures 3rd year in Oxford. This series of seminars that have just concluded were about the most recent debates in liberal political philosophy, centering mainly around justice and equality (Rawls, Dworkin and Cohen et al). While at Oxford, I dabbled in all the philosophy between Plato and contemporary liberalism, covering ethics and metaphysics in the process. But my favourite subject area of philosophy is still political philosophy. I suppose it's fitting that I got to take this seminar on contemporary political philosophy with Prof Cohen, because he is the one who gave me an introduction to the earliest important political philosophy that we know (we covered the Sophists as well).

I love political philosophy.

I love it because it speaks to our fundamental dissatisfaction with the way things are and our deep desire for the way things should be. All good political philosophy seeks change, from Plato to Rawls, Dworkin and Cohen. It is fuelled by discontent and a ceaseless searching for radical improvement.

But you see, as much I love political philosophy, I do not think that it is the answer to our problems. And becoming better acquainted with it over the years has just made me more certain of my basic convictions.

I have been mulling over the tension between secular philosophy and faith-based theology for a while now. One of the most fundamental clashes between Christianity and liberalism turns on the issue of religious conversion. Christians are called to proclaim the gospel in the hope that others will also believe and be "converted" (but of course the question of how we are to best proclaim the gospel is in no way straightforward). It was this Sunday at church that Tim Keller gave a most brilliant exposition of the conflict, and it's resolution.

We underestimate how pervasive and deep rooted our white, Western Enlightenment, philosophically liberal assumptions are. When we insist that encouraging religious conversion is intolerant, we subscribe to a view of expressive individualism, which we hold and which we, by the same token, try our darndest to convert others to.

To be converted by a non-innate, comprehensive view of reality is unavoidable. We are all converted. The question is - which view of reality do you subscribe to? Which view of reality are you converted by? As Charles Taylor (also of Oxford) wisely said, 'Liberalism is a fighting creed'. It is one truth-claim among many - just ask the Islamic fundamentalists.

One question I used to frequently ask my trenchantly liberal friend was "If you are so liberal, why can't you accept a "conservative" point of view?" Political liberalism is hardly the benign, magnanimous, all-inclusive, endlessly tolerant and wonderfully cuddly philosophy that it is sometimes made out to be. It is one conditional truth-claim among many. It just so happens to be the dominant truth-claim in modern Western societies, which, of all the societies in the world today, have the most global economic and political clout.

Christianity's view of things is a view of reality based on faith. The modern liberal view that says that, you mustn't convert people because all religions are subjectively valuable, and no one religion is more objectively more true than another, is similarly a view of reality based on faith. It also takes faith to not have faith.

If it's narrow to say that one religion is the right one, then it is just as narrow to say that one view of religion (i.e. that they are all equal) is the right one. To say that you musn't convert people because all religions are subjectively valuable, and no one religion is more objectively more true than another, is a view that you are saying is the right one. And it's more right than the Christian one, or the Muslim one or the Jewish one etc.

So when you say that you mustn't try to convert people to a non-innate, comprehensive view of reality, you are trying to do the very thing that you forbid.

Can people be intolerant when they are trying to convert others? Sure they can. You can be intolerant with your attitude, you can be arrogant and haughty, you can be rude and insensitive, and you can be coercive and manipulative in your tactics. (This is absolutely against what the Bible teaches of course - we are to be loving in all that we do. It's a sad fact that we often fail to do so, but our inadequacies are our own, not God's. In fact, it is only because of God that we have any hope of rising above ourselves at all.)

But when you say that anyone who is trying to convert someone else to their worldview is, on principle, intolerant, then you are being a hypocrite.

Conversion to a non-innate, comprehensive view of reality that changes your whole life, and then seeking to convert other people, is unavoidable.

Does this commit me to a theocracy? Hardly. Christianity has a strict separation between church and state; Jesus said with regard to tax-paying "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." (Matt 22:21)

Does this mean I oppose democracy? Not at all. I don't trust anyone to be vested with a disproportionate, unchecked amount of power, least of all myself. And I do firmly believe that we were all created equal. In fact, it was the Christian doctrine of the moral equality of men (we are all equally capable of knowing God, and we are all equally loved by God) that was a significant factor in fuelling the democratic revolution that brought down the monarchies of Europe. It has even been argued to have produced capitalism. (For an interesting, though rather biased, argument for this see Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic.)

However, this does mean that I am not entirely comfortable with the truth-claim that liberalism makes about the subjectivity of all religion. But as I said, my persuasions are essentially democratic. I believe that you have as much right to believe what you do, as I do. There is no point forcibly foisting views upon others - religious conversion needs to be genuine and personal, if not it's better not to be converted at all. God gave us all free will and I absolutely believe in our individual right to choose.

But what we should all recognise is that we are all trying to convert each other to some extent; the Liberal, just as much as the Christian. Liberals are just as "evangelical" as Christians are, the only difference is that there are far more of them in positions of power.

You cannot avoid truth-claims.

The question is, which truth claim leads to embrace of people who are different than you, and which truth claim leads you to scorn people who oppose you as fools? Which truth claim leads to genuine community? Which truth claim both humbles and affirms you, so that you are not afraid of people who disagree with you, nor can you despise them?

This one. Jesus died for all of us. For you. And for me.

If I build my name on being liberal, then I am going to despise conservatives.

If I build my name on moral and traditional values, I am going to despise liberals.

If I build my name on being hardworking, I am going to despise people who are lazy.

But if I build my name on what Jesus Christ did for me, paying for my sins by dying on the cross, paying the price that I could never pay, dying in my place, so that I can have eternal life with God, now and forever more, how can I feel superior to anyone?

The only way we have eternal love, the only way we have heaven, is not because we are better than anyone in any way whatsover, not because of anything that we have done, not because of anything that we can do, but because of everything that God has already done for us. And understanding this truly amazing grace both humbles and affirms you. I am more sinful than I ever before believed, but infinitely more loved than I ever dared hope.

My identity is built on somebody who was excluded for me, who was cut off from the land of the living on my behalf, who loved his enemies even at the point of death, and that is going to turn me into someone who embraces. That is what should be the basis for the new human community that this world so desperately needs.

I simply do not think that secular philosophy is capable of fundamentally altering our motivations and changing our hearts, as much as it strives to. Thinking of cleverer institutions does not fundamentally change the way we are, and intellectual theories about ethics and morality do not really have a widespread and deep enough grip on the human soul (see also The Revolution).

But knowing God changes everything.

This is the real change.

This is the revolution.

In this entry I have borrowed extensively from the sermons of Tim Keller. For more of his general brilliance check out Redeemer Presbyterian Vision Campaign Sermons