Journey Post 38: Whither Freedom? The truly loved will know the truth

“… ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

“… with liberty and justice for all.”

There is a relationship between knowing the truth and being genuinely free.  That’s the message of the well-known quote inscribed on the face of our CIA building outside Washington.

These days, one may legitimately wonder: how can we—or, can we—know the truth?  We understand that the CIA quote, taken from the Gospel of John, expresses the necessity of accurate intelligence for our national security and freedom.  But the quote does have a wider application that we all seem to recognize.

The reverse makes the principle plain:  You can’t be truly free if you’re living a lie.  Putting it this way makes clear that the principle applies to both our national freedom and our personal freedom.

There doesn’t seem to be much truth in evidence across America these days.  Now that the party conventions have wrapped up and the presidential campaign is in full swing, one thing we can say for sure:  it will get ugly and dirty.   We won’t hear much truth.  More alarming still, it will be increasingly difficult to find truth.  Even the fact-check sites seem slanted.

The campaign does represent something true about the American scene right now:  we are a divided country.  According to polls, Americans are more deeply divided than ever before.  Need I quote Lincoln (borrowing from Jesus), “A house divided cannot stand”?

I’d like to think that Americans are genuinely free.  That’s probably my 1960s Kennedy idealism showing through.  I’m terribly afraid we are not free—on many levels.  We talk a lot about freedom at this time of year.  I first sat down to write this post as Independence Day was approaching, but I trashed it.  I just could not find anything worth saying that might be constructive.  I was frustrated and disheartened.

Then we went to watch the fireworks.  We were at a local high school with close friends.  It was good just hanging out on the grass with nothing in particular to do except be together.  There was a great band with a wide repertoire of 60’s-80’s music.  Lots of families were gathered, like we were, to celebrate the moment.  I was struck by all the young children chasing around without a care in the world, going off and coming back to their small safe spots with their families, giggling all the while.

Those children captured the moment for me.  The attraction of American freedom and the American dream is that we can be free to build a better life for ourselves—and most especially for our children.  America has been our safe spot.

That evening left me rethinking what it meant to be a free man in a free society.  And I wondered what that inscription on the CIA building (“the truth shall make you free”) had to do with it.  What makes America our safe spot?

Here’s what I came up with:  Those who are truly loved will know the truth, and the truly loved will be free.

There are two types of freedom to focus on here, personal and national.  Personal freedom stems from a longing deep within the soul of all peoples everywhere.  It is there because it was implanted by our Creator.  National freedom cannot be limited to liberty from foreign control.  It only exists if the people themselves are personally free, and personal freedom is incomplete if there is not “justice for all,” as our Pledge says.  Justice is not just a courtroom decision; true justice yields “shalom”:  a good Jewish word which means wholeness and well-being, where everything is as it should be.

Above:  Kunta Kinté

I recently watched the remake of “Roots,” the story of Alex Haley’s ancestors. Once captured, Kunta Kinté would never again be physically free, but his free spirit and identity as a Mandinka warrior remained.  He passed on the heritage of freedom to his children, his wife, and others.  It wasn’t just about him.  Freedom was part of his identity–it’s a vital part of who we all are.

Personal freedom shines brightest in people who seek “liberty and justice for all,” who are other-centered, whose identity is centered in family and/or community.  And it’s ugliest in those who are me-centered, selfish to the exclusion of others.  Me-centered is not our western heritage of “rugged individualism.”  This kind of “freedom” is actually narcissism—it’s about me and my rights.  Narcissism is at epidemic proportions today, and we cannot blame it on our kids and their selfies.  Our kids reflect us.

Freedom is a community project.  That’s its nature: only a community (national or local) of free individuals can keep it in place.  I’ve often thought on those men and women who fought to win or keep our freedom, whose physical lives were taken—given, really—so that we would be safe.  That’s what my captain, David Walsh, did for us in Vietnam.  I’m sure that, at some point, he certainly knew he could not survive.  Our lives were worth it to him to give his.

Above:  David Walsh

Captain Walsh’s example points to something missing from that CIA quotation. Knowing it’s taken from something Jesus said, you’d hardly expect to find it on a government building.  But I’m going to write it down here, not as religious teaching but as it was: a principle about real life and relationships.

Here it is: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

To paraphrase, he was saying that those who put into practice what he was teaching them would show themselves to be genuine disciples (i.e., apprentices), and this would lead them to the truth that sets them free.

Before you think I’m about to go all religious on you, let me say this:  As a Christian, I give full credibility to what Jesus said.  My working assumption is that he knew what he was talking about.  Actually, a lot of non-Christians, even atheists, agree that he was a great moral teacher.  Their problem is with ascriptions of deity—plus the way we believers sometimes shove our religion into our politics and their faces.

Most of what Jesus had to say was about real life and relationships–not “religion.”  An honest summary of his teaching would be encapsulated in the word “love,” the kind of love exhibited by my captain, love that is much more than kindness or tolerance or affection:  it is self-giving, other-centered, even self-sacrificial.  He lived it, died it—as did Jesus, by the way.

John Lennon said more than he knew in his song:  “All we need is love.”

What is there about love that leads us to know the truth?  I could list some things, and you could analyze it, study it, and try it–but you’d nearly always come up short.

Love is not cognitive.  It’s something “learned” by experience in relationship with people: parents, siblings, friends, spouse, others.  If you’ve ever been truly deeply loved, you know whereof I speak.  We humans are designed to learn by experience that kind of love from our parents–right from the womb.  Unfortunately, many/most of us have not.  I didn’t.  I had no clue.  I grew up, like many, me-centered and very self-protective.  That had a damaging effect on all my relationships, including with my wife and with God.

When you are truly loved, you can’t help but love back in response.  This is not about you doing your best to love someone because you know you ought to.  When you are truly loved, you cannot help but love that other person.  You cannot do enough for them.

When you are truly loved, you can’t help but wonder how you ever deserved to be loved like this.  That’s the point, I suppose: it’s not ever earned, just given, freely.  Love takes you to places you’ve never been: it takes you out of yourself and your normal self-centeredness.  That’s a love you couldn’t have ever imagined, because, like most everyone else on the planet, you know—inside—all the bad stuff about you that certainly makes you unlovable.  The good news is that you no longer have to hide.

The truth that we learn in a relationship in which we are truly loved–and we love in return–is the truth about who we are and who the other person is.  And it makes us realize that, somehow, incredibly, we are now free in a way we never thought possible.

For one thing, you are free to be yourself.  You don’t have to worry about trying to “love yourself.”  When you know you are loved, it’s okay to be yourself.  You can risk what most of us humans seem unable to risk.

If you’ve seen the movie, “As Good As It Gets,” you saw this happen to Jack Nicholson, a guy who couldn’t deal well with his neuroses until he was loved by a waitress, (Helen Hunt).  He made the discovery that love calls forth love in response (albeit imperfectly).  Nicholson finally was able to say to her: “You make me want to be a better man.”  Her love was the beginning of his freedom.

And, just in case you were waiting for the religious punchline, here it is, sort of:  What happened with Jesus’s followers who put into practice what he taught was that they came to understand that they were truly loved by God in spite of who they were, and so they responded in love.  (That’s what Christians believe the cross was all about.)  They came to know the truth, and they were free.

If we want to be free as a nation, we need to be a national community of free individuals who know the truth.  All we need is….

 

Journey Post 36, Memorializing God: Oh Captain! My Relational Captain!

NOTE:  Some time ago, I promised a friend I’d write an essay explaining something of my understanding of Christianity and the Christian life.  This is that.  It’s not systematic nor exhaustive, but reflects where I am right now, particularly in light of our recent trip to Colorado….

In 1967, the year that Time published a cover story asking, “Is God dead?”  I was a young college student more concerned about getting my draft notice and going to Vietnam than about what might be happening with God.  My mind was on the “real” world, or so I thought.

A couple years later, my “real” world had an encounter with the God world in a dry rice field in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam.  While pondering and puzzling over my own mortality and God, a visitor to my hospital bed brought news that my C.O., Captain David Walsh, had been killed about the same time that I was wounded.  He had given his life for his men by seeking to flush out and kill some snipers who were targeting our perimeter.  Rather than send someone else, he led a few men out to find and eliminate the threat.  Capt. Walsh, after single-handedly charging in and killing two of the snipers, was finally brought down by a third.

Above:  Captain David Walsh             (Photo by Bob Kraft)

My captain left me that day with a legacy of love and an idea about what it means to value others above yourself.  His legacy was a seed in me that struggled most of my life even as it sprouted: the soil of my heart was hard, stubbornly so, a heart seeking at the same time freedom and self-protection, two goals so contradictory that one must suppress the other.  The safe route wins almost every time.  Left to itself, such a heart could never be set free.  Yet, for nearly fifty years, that seed has sprouted and grown, often imperceptibly—a still tender plant.  (You see, I really am a donkey.)

Two years after the rice field, I became a convinced Christian, a committed follower of Jesus Christ.  Like Peter, I was convinced that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the only one who “has the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

Two things had pushed me to acknowledge that God was still very much alive:  one was the changed life of a friend who displayed Jesus’ life to me in very real and relevant ways; the second was the resurrection.  Jesus really did rise from the dead: applying the tools and mindset of the historian to Jesus’ life took me down a path to confirm the central fact of all history.

I call my life—and this blog—a “zigzag journey.”  Some zigs and zags got more pronounced as Jesus’ life and teaching pushed against the boundaries of my self-protected soul.  My faith was real, but my following was incredibly hesitant.  If I ever resembled Peter, it was when he sat only feet from Jesus on trial and pulled back to safety.  I’m the guy in the Simon and Garfunkel world: I am a rock and I am an island, I have my books and my theology to protect me.  My fears made me wonder if I were real….

I’ve seen God’s hand evident in my life since I was little.  That day in the rice field, the hand held a 2×4 and it was banging on my steel pot, yelling “Walt!  Wake up!  Pay attention!”  He put my feet on the road to see he is alive.  It was also the narrow road to freedom, though I often preferred side trails….

Some thirty-five years after Nam, another 2×4 made me see, at the same time, the Father heart of God and how evil my own assumptions about him had been.  Gone was the idea that he was “out to get me” and didn’t care.  Like most, my view of God had been mostly determined by my relationship with my parents.   My folks were social, but not truly relational.  When my dad died, I had felt left alone and abandoned.  When I got to know my adoptive Father, I discovered that he wants to be with his children, that he values and wants to be with me.  I now knew my identity: I am a son of my Father.

In the nine years since, I’ve seen that his love—which I once routinely described in duty-bound terms as “doing the best” for me out of his wisdom and grace—is other-centered and self-sacrificial.  And that love is completely trustworthy.  We Christians speak often of faith, belief, and trust.  Trust can never be simply cognitive.  My initial faith in Christ had been very cerebral.  Trust grows in relationship.

We Christians also talk about being free.  Not only free from the condemnation of sin, but free to love in the way we were designed to within human relationship and community.  Knowing God’s love is steadily dissolving my self-protective impulse and freeing me to truly love him and others.

Other-centered love is risky and not safe.  I now understand the answer to Lucy’s question about Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:  “Is he—quite safe?” “…‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.”

Above:  Lucy and Aslan

“God is relational.”  I was deeply struck by the thought after our teacher in Colorado, Dr. Larry Crabb, voiced it.  I suppose most Christians would not disagree, though the term seems too touchy-feely to use regarding the majestic sovereign of the universe.  But that is precisely what it means that “God is love.”

Love is another word we Christians throw around with little thought.  Other-centered and self-sacrificial love is the kind that Jesus displayed on the cross; it’s the kind that exists within the Godhead among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Captain David Walsh’s legacy is an indelible picture in my brain and heart of what it means to value others.  And this gets to the point of the whole essay.

His legacy did not arise from that one sacrificial act of valor alone; that was the culminating act consistent with the way he cared for us, his men.  It showed up often in the six months I spent there.  He would not put us in harm’s way unless necessary, nor use us as stepping stones to his own advancement, as some “leaders” do.  I didn’t appreciate it much at the time; I think of him often, now.

The point is that other-centered self-sacrificial love is not a one-time act.  Jesus’ love for and value of others was on display every day.  He is this way because this is how God is.  God intends for it to be a routine part of daily human life in relationship.  And we can’t pretend it is not difficult.

Please don’t think me presumptuous in saying what God intends.  A couple statements that Jesus made go to the very heart of what Christianity is all about.

The first says: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35, NIV).  A “disciple” or apprentice is one who learns from someone to be like them.  The disciples were not learning what to preach to others—had this been Jesus’ intention, he could’ve opened a seminary.  The disciples were learning to live life as the Father intended, and what that looked like in everyday relationships.  The preaching would come out of that—i.e., from their relationship with Jesus.

The second is also about being a disciple:  “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24, NIV).

When Jesus speaks of “denying self,” he’s not talking “self-denial,” like going without chocolate; he’s referring to denying the “self,” i.e., our own self-centered agendas and desires apart from God.  When he speaks of “taking up the cross,” he’s not talking principally about physical death:  it’s a stronger way to say “deny yourself.”  The natural out-flow of denying self is other-centered love on a daily basis.

Christians are not called on to live out “churchianity” or impose a system of morality; Christians are called upon to live life within the community of mankind in the way that God intended and, thereby, put on display what God is really like.  Jesus called it being “salt and light.”

The two statements of Jesus above should give you some idea of what he intended being a Christian to look like.  Loving others without regard to self lets others see God for who he is.  It puts the spotlight on him instead of me.  Love that is other-centered enables people to be genuinely relational (which I struggle with greatly); it attracts others to Christ and his community.  This lack of love and relationality has cost Christians their credibility and is the greatest hindrance to the spread of the gospel message.

Shortly before leaving his disciples, Jesus promised to send “another helper,” the Holy Spirit, to enable their life and service to him.  God had promised to send his Spirit in the Old Testament prophets.  There doesn’t seem much evidence for him in this world.  I wonder if we’ve substituted something else?

“Oh Captain! My Captain!” is a poem written by Walt Whitman about the death of Abraham Lincoln.  One line reads: “From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;…” Whitman’s captain was dead, but the ship was safe.  I would love to tell my captain, David Walsh, that his men were safe.

Scripture refers to Jesus as “the captain of our salvation” (Hebrews 2:10, KJV).  He died, conquered death, and lives.  And I live.  Perhaps not always “safe” but now truly free.

Journey Post 35: Running With Horses

A note to readers:  I’ve begun writing more frequently …. I have something to say.  I hope you find it worth listening.

 

The world is filled with horse pucky.

Pucky?  We bought a piece of horse property years ago (2/3 acre), so I often ponder this profound word.

“Horse pucky” (or simply, “pucky”) is the word I use when terms like “BS” and “crap” are just a bit too crude for sensibilities.  Using “pucky” can put a lighter spin on realities that are too dark and heavy to drop on someone all at once. (“Spin” is a particular type of pucky that highlights certain positive or negative aspects—thereby distracting others away from the true smell.)  Often, the person putting out the pucky believes or wants to believe their own pucky.  (Sincerity can make them seem more credible or authoritative.)  Horse pucky can be spread around or conveniently contained in a crock.

Horse pucky can be figurative or literal, of course.  I don’t know if Pew Research has any stats on the topic, but production of the figurative type seems vastly more prolific than the literal.  Both types act as fertilizers, which might explain why the literal is not found piled so high and deep.  Literal pucky works its way into the land and enriches the soil.  The figurative kind seems definitely piled higher and deeper:  it works its way into the culture and despoils the soul.

Piled higher and deeper?  P, h, and d ….  I think I’m onto something.  Is there a school for this?

Yes, I’m enjoying this; and yes, it’s going somewhere.  I just didn’t realize that pucky has so many parallels and applications to real life!

Please pardon the vocabulary lesson.  This is really an excursus on speaking and/or seeking truth.  All my mention of pucky might lead you to think I’m writing another essay about American culture and politics or academia.  You’d only be partly right.  Actually I’m talking about American religious culture.  Please note that I didn’t use the word “Christian” or “evangelical” on purpose.  There’s nothing remotely Christian about pucky.

When I was a kid, there was a popular expression: “I got it straight from the horse’s mouth.”  I suspect we don’t hear the phrase much anymore because what comes out of the horse’s mouth these days is often readily dismissed as pucky.

The expression was so meaningful to me because I was deeply involved in digging into history, looking for evidence (starting with Davy Crockett and the Alamo as a pre-teen).  At the time, the culture was at least giving lip service to seeking truth.  Even in the 1960s, seeking truth was considered a lofty goal.

Back then, I prided myself on being a truth seeker.  When I came back from Vietnam disenchanted with my country, I directed my energies into serious study of history and political science so I could figure out truth.  Finding truth about America did little to restore my faith in our nation at that time, but finding truth about the resurrection of Jesus began to restore my faith in the living God.

For the past few years, I’ve been learning that there’s a big difference in being a truth seeker and a truth talker.  That’s what was behind my statement last post about being social but not often truly relational.  Genuine relationships are built on truth telling:  it’s not that I kept telling outright lies, but it was uncomfortable and threatening for me to reveal what’s truly going on inside, especially in my marriage.  It’s so much easier to say something to deflect Michelle away from the real me (another form of pucky).

I grew up thinking that I didn’t matter much, so, while I desperately wanted people to accept me because I was smart (or funny, or whatever), I don’t know that it ever occurred to me that they might do so just because I’m me.  Pretty bad, huh?  I’m not alone, of course.  If you consider what this does to communication, it’s a miracle (really) that Michelle and I have been married forty-five years.  Genuine honesty is just plain threatening.  Thinking this way left me with a nearly life-long impression of myself as one who lacks integrity and courage.

This thinking is what made understanding my adoption by God so liberating.  When I discovered that my Father was there delighting in me (Proverbs 3:12)—even when using the 2×4—I knew I no longer had to be afraid of him, though I still feared him like a child who fears displeasing a loving dad.  Therefore, I don’t have to be afraid of what others think, even though I push ‘play’ occasionally on that old tape.

No surprise, then, that it impresses me greatly when I find a truth teller.  I met one of those while I was in Colorado with Michelle last month.  During that week, I was pondering the correlation between integrity, courage, truth seeking, and truth telling (honesty).   And of course, I thought on that expression about the horse’s mouth quite a bit.  The “horse” kept demonstrating what it meant to be a truth teller in various ways as we listened, conversed, thought about some writings, etc.  I asked questions and watched, but could detect no pucky (my nose is pretty good).  This particular horse had been the subject of much pucky, both glibly spread out and contained in crocks packaged by people highly regarded.  He wasn’t trying to parade his non-puckiness; it was just there.

Since that week, as you might gather, I’ve been seeking to reexamine some assumptions.  (I shared a little last post.)  I thought about the questions of the Pharisees as they watched Jesus sitting eating with tax collectors and other “sinners” (their pigeonhole for these people):  “Why does he eat with such?”  They were so sure there was something wrong with these people; therefore, there must be something wrong with Jesus.

Meanwhile, those people sitting with Jesus were beginning to get a taste of eternal life.

I’ve been thinking about the minutes I spent talking with another person who sought to help me get direction from the Lord during our time there.  At one point, she said to me, “Walt, I see you as the man of integrity and courage that you long to be.”  I didn’t know what to think at first.  But I realized that in those moments I was getting a taste of the life Jesus brought to give, simply because that person sought to pay attention to what the Spirit was doing in my soul and listening to the godly desire I was expressing.  There was no pucky here, nothing despoiling my soul but enriching it in the best way.

Looking back, I recognized she was reiterating what the Holy Spirit had prompted the apostle Paul to say to his protégé Timothy: “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (2^nd Timothy 1:7).  That same Spirit lives in me and in all God’s children, more realized as we seek to draw near to him, and listen to his invitation to keep running the race close to him.

That week I took a few steps out onto a track where horses run.  It’s not a very wide track.  Jesus called it narrow.  I encountered several other horses running the race—none of whom would we likely label thoroughbreds.  I hope they won’t mind being joined by a donkey.  I’ll keep going even if they do mind.

Coming up … Only 3 months late….

I took a much longer time off from writing than I had anticipated.  As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to think through and pray about what I was going to say here–I will be hitting some hot-button issues.  But I also took time to look at some personal issues, and am now returning greatly refreshed and encouraged with where God is leading Michelle and I as we venture into this weird new state called “retirement.”

It’s great to be back writing again.

I am about to publish (this week, D.V.) the next installment in the series on the danger we face of repeating history and creating fear in the American public square. This post will directly address freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief (or “none”) in our pluralistic land, creating an environment safe for our incredibly diverse population.   Then we will resume examining the resurrection of Jesus.

I will also be putting up two essays that I have written for an arts exhibit at our church this next weekend.  If you’ve been following this blog, you may recognize some familiar themes.

Thanks for your patience.

Post 32 — At Risk of Repeating History, part 2: A history lesson on fear …

“The only thing we have to fear is—fear itself!”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1^st Inaugural Address, 1933

Above:  Cartoon by Herblock  (Herbert Block)

Fear is not always a bad thing.  Fear is like the idiot light on the dashboard that tells us something is wrong:  danger is there—though it may not tell us what the danger is.  Fear can serve as a motivator to remove or alleviate the danger.  But when fear overwhelms us, as FDR said, it is the enemy.

Leaders and others of influence can do much to help remove fear or they can make it worse, either by intention or ignorance.  Franklin Roosevelt understood fear and what it could do.  So did Adolph Hitler.  One used fear to gain his own ends.  The other helped his nation face its fear and work on the problem.

Fear was the first crisis that Franklin Roosevelt faced on taking office in 1933.  He understood fear because he had faced it when he was stricken with polio a decade before.  FDR had seen the fear in the eyes of his countrymen and drew from his own deep well of resources to speak words of inspiration and hope to them.  He knew that fear would hinder or cripple their best efforts to overcome the Great Depression; and though many of his economic actions were of dubious value in the long term, nevertheless they united a people into a community determined to fight and get back on its feet.

Roosevelt’s iconic line about fear is today so familiar it seems trivial, mere window dressing for the era.  But there is nothing trivial about fear.  Fear in the public square spreads.  It infects every community and neighborhood and home.  It embeds itself in the dark recesses of minds old and young—especially the young.   Fear is the death of freedom, public and private, in more ways than we know.

A different type of fear pervaded the American public square in the early 50s.  In what we blithely label the “McCarthy Era,” leaders allowed the fear to grow, and this for what they thought were good reasons.  Their message seemed to be more of a warning:  “Are you part of the problem?  Be careful what you say—and what you think.”

The cartoon above shows members of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the car, with the caption:  “It’s Okay — We’re Hunting Communists”

I was only two years old in 1950, so I don’t have first-hand knowledge of the Korean War, Joe McCarthy and his lists of Commies everywhere, the execution of the Rosenbergs, the un-American activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the black lists, or Red scare.  I didn’t listen the day freedom found a voice in newsman Edward R. Murrow, who said of McCarthy:  “…the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the … senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.”*

 

Left:  Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his list of “Commies”          Right:  Edward R. Murrow

Absorbing the fear doesn’t require awareness of events.  It’s in the faces and tone of people all around.

Things I do remember seem humorous today—but they weren’t at the time.  I heard that people lived “behind the Iron Curtain.”  My vivid imagination made up for what I didn’t know … a curtain with rivets … people expecting Gestapo-like thugs wearing the red star.  “Reds coming out of the woodwork” led to images of Commies living inside our walls, an odd take on the expression, “Even the walls have ears.”

Then there was the big yellow monster.  It inhabited every community wherever I rode with my mom in the car.  It resembled a gigantic round birdhouse with cone-shaped roof, perched high atop a pole.  A.k.a., the civil defense warning siren—it stood alone and silent, ready to announce Armageddon.  Every high-flying silver jet, I suspected, was a Russian bomber carrying its payload of atomic destruction.

Above:  Various types of air raid sirens used in the Los Angeles area

There was a TV show we don’t talk about today: “I Led Three Lives:  Citizen, Communist, Counterspy.”  True stories, real fear.  Herb Philbrick infiltrated a Communist cell group and reported its activities to his FBI contact.  Each episode was screened by J. Edgar Hoover—which made it truly American, right?

                    

Left:  Actor Richard Carlson as citizen Herb Philbrick           Right:  George Reeves as Superman on TV.  Part of the intro mentioned that he fought for “truth, justice, and the American way.”

The problem here, of course, was not the fear of death by atomic warfare or the existence of spies.  Life is dangerous and death is sure.  The problem—and the irony— was that so many well-intentioned people, good people who wanted to see our American freedoms protected from some very real evils, leaders and others of influence, were blind to the consequences of their actions.  Their actions produced a message writ loud between the lines about who you associated with and what you said.  Freedom of thought and conscience, of religious belief (or not) are so basic to free human existence that they are not mentioned explicitly in the Bill of Rights—but they are inherent in nearly every line.  It was those very freedoms that were threatened during the “McCarthy Era.”  We see that now.  What we may not see is that we stand at risk of losing them even now—which will be the focus of the next post.

The 1960s carried its own set of fears—our nation seemed to be coming apart—but certain events signaled that the time had passed for keeping the lid on unpopular views, views considered out of the mainstream of “American” thought.  People of my generation found that there was a new freedom to voice our consciences (and much else) in the public square and in our neighborhoods.  (This freedom was not universal, as some, including followers of Dr. King, were to realize.)

Popular phrases like “Do your thing” were emblematic of this new freedom, and we insisted on speaking out about things that matter—things we felt were more representative of “truth, justice, and the American way” than censorship and monitoring of TV shows, wire-tapping, and inquisitions on loyalty.

Two events in the early sixties signaled an end to the reign of fear:  One took place in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.  We had come closer to nuclear obliteration than any time before or since.  Both sides now realized just how the primitive and indirect means of communication had placed us and our futures at continuous risk of lethal misunderstanding and annihilation—and that must never be allowed to happen.  The hotline between the White House and Kremlin installed the next year greatly lessened fears of nuclear accident.  Conflict between the super powers was instead played out in surrogate locations, with “conventional” weapons, such as in Vietnam.

The second event was the eruption of the “Free Speech Movement” at UC Berkeley in the fall of 1964.  Young people, personified in the charismatic and articulate student leader Mario Savio, began to speak their mind.  Their successes paved the way for the student protest movement of the 60s and the larger anti-Vietnam War movement.

The 1960s tore some gaping holes in the fabric of American society as it then was.  One good outcome, however, was that people began to speak their minds without fear (or in spite of it), according to conscience.   We learned again the lesson that, if we are really going to be a free people, we must be free to express our innermost thoughts and beliefs in the public square in a way that would encourage public debate and compromise in our diverse, pluralistic society.  Compromise or not, we must be free.

*  Another quote fro Ed Murrow:  “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”  This and other thinking gems from the CBS newsman can be found on WikiQuote, here.

journey post 31– At Risk of Repeating History, Part 1: A parable about fear in the public square

“The only thing we have to fear is—fear itself.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, 1933

Roosevelt speaking at his first inaugural, March 4, 1933

My agenda in this series of posts is to communicate that there is reasonable historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.  It is the resurrection, as I’ve said before, that is the sine qua non of Christianity.  If the resurrection never really happened, then the whole superstructure is built on BS: either Jesus was a fraud or deluded, and his followers are to be pitied.

If Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, then his message of the gospel (“good news”) is true.  There is something that reasonable people can build trust on, in order to honestly know Jesus Christ and the God whose will and values he sought to live out.

I’ve taken quite a bit of time thinking and praying about presenting this particular post.  I’ve found it a great challenge to write something coherent that addresses two of my primary allegiances:  God and country, Christian values and American values.  I will likely step on everybody’s toes in the process.

My interest here is to “clear the air” so we can focus on Jesus and the resurrection instead of being distracted by all the noise and clamor often raised in the public square when Christians and non-Christians attempt to speak with each other about religious freedom, cultural values, morality, etc.  In clearing the air, I need to take some people to task, including both my fellow Christians and my fellow American citizens, Christian or not.

Christians and those who have been exposed to Jesus’ teaching know that he charged his hearers to be “salt and light” in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13-16).  Those hearers certainly included all those he was speaking of in the Beatitudes … the poor in spirit, the merciful, the pure in heart, etc.

Many take “salt and light” as a charge to fight for what they believe are biblical values.  Since the 1970s, the “Christian right” et al has pitted itself against changes in moral standards and traditional values in a well-meaning effort to stand for righteousness.  The “culture wars” that resulted have succeeded in alienating a growing segment of the American population.  Large numbers of these people have launched another well-meaning effort, this one to insure that we are all more tolerant, accepting, and inclusive.  This effort has succeeded in raising the specter of fear, even paranoia, among Christians because it appears that their constitutional religious liberties are being systematically circumvented, compromised, or taken away.

A Parable

I’ve created my own version of the old story of three blind men who happen upon an elephant.  You know the story:  One runs into a leg and is convinced he’s found a tree; one comes upon the tail, convinced it’s a snake; while the third comes upon the trunk….

My version is a parable to explain what I see happening that is preventing an open dialogue about the resurrection.  It has a message for both Christians and non-Christians (i.e., everyone).

The elephant here represents the institutional Christian church, (no particular denomination), and the Judeo-Christian ethic that lies behind our traditional system of law and moral values.  Because of age and size, it has dominated everything else in the room—which we’ll call “America.”

Three blind men are in the room.   One of the blind men, a convinced non-Christian, comes upon the mouth, feels its shape and size, and hears certain noises coming from it that sound really hostile to him.  The thing moves a leg, the room quakes, and the man senses the danger it may pose to him and all else in the room.  This blind man concludes that the animal is a hostile creature, ready to trample any and all creatures and he begins to seek a way to neutralize the danger that, he is sure, is about to erupt.

The second blind man is a Christian.  For him, the elephant is a friendly creature, ready to welcome anyone and certainly other beings in the room.  To him, this elephant was first on the scene, and therefore has a right to establish ground-rules for others that may enter.  But the second man has become aware of the first blind man’s alarm and fright, and hears him call out for a rope to bind the legs of the elephant so that it cannot harm or interfere with other people or animals in the room.  This second blind man gets frightened and attempts to fight off the effort to tie up the creature.

In the end, the third blind man (everyone else) runs away, afraid of the other two and terrified of the “thing” that they are fighting about.  The elephant, of course, has become so upset and scared by now that it turns into a raging beast, kicks both men, shakes off the rope, destroys the walls of the room and leaves it unfit for anyone or any other elephants to inhabit.

A couple of explanations are needed, perhaps.  First, the elephant represents the church as an institution, and is not synonymous with the teaching of Jesus.  The church is generally made up of all people who claim to be his followers—there are those who think they are followers, yet only warm the pews.

Second, there is no significance in the fact that the second blind man, a Christian, is separate from the elephant (the church).  No analogy or parable is perfect.

Here is where the toe stepping comes in.  I am telling this parable against both sides: against Christians whose good intentions to stand for righteousness are drawing attention away from Jesus and his gospel—and the resurrection that witnesses to him.  I’m also telling it against non-Christians whose good intentions are placing our common constitutional heritage at risk by seeking to squelch what they believe to be narrow mindedness and actual hate speech.  Their efforts are allowing fear to grow in the very place in which we need freedom to think and discuss/debate.  Our nation was directly founded by good folks who sought freedom and toleration for their beliefs.  Any time we allow fear in the public square, we risk the death of freedom and democracy.

I grew up hearing the following statement about who we are as Americans—it’s attributed to Voltaire:  “Mister, I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”  I hope it’s still true.

Next:  Replacing fear in America:  “Do your thing, man!”

a meta journey post: Outside the Box, Inside Common Sense

I like to think outside the box.  For example, I love stories about time travel, especially those involving actual historical events.  One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to imagine myself at the Battle of the Alamo and how I would have changed the outcome.  (I didn’t think about how winning that battle might have cost Texans their war for independence.)   I was 15 when John F. Kennedy was gunned down, and I’ve often mused on the what ifs of that tragedy and our subsequent history.

Thinking outside the box of historical events is generally a safe fantasy that can teach valuable lessons about choice and consequences and the complicated elements that make up every life event.

Thinking outside the box when it comes to Christianity and the Bible feels unsafe and dangerous—and it can be.  If you think that Republicans and Democrats have trouble agreeing on anything, think about the number of different protestant denominations and independent churches there are.  I spent the summer of 1977 studying French in Quebec at a small Bible institute, and there I began to understand why there are so many different kinds of churches:  When I arrived, the atmosphere was obviously strained.  The faculty had recently split because of a disagreement over whether Jesus had taken his literal blood to heaven to show the Father.  (Don’t ask.)  I’ll never forget the palpable hurt, the human detritus strewn about by those who valued their own opinions over love.   My take-away from this then was great puzzlement as to how on earth people who love Jesus can’t tolerate those who also love Jesus but disagree with them.  I found no real answer for this until I rediscovered adoption.

I was introduced to such distorted and unChristian thinking when we began our Bible school training in 1972.  We were among Christian fundamentalists for the first time.  Fundamentalists get a bad rap for their biblical literalism, legalism, and reputation for shooting their wounded.  Yet these people loved Jesus and were excited about Scripture—but I soon figured out that any variation of thought or teaching was looked on with suspicion.  I felt I had gone back to the McCarthy era, focused now on doctrinal loyalty, not political loyalty.  I was overwhelmed and too fearful of the consequences to question it then. 

In the midst of this, a wise teacher told us that if we ever think we’ve discovered new truth, we need to carefully check out what the Church has taught over the centuries.  This was common sense.   He did leave us some wiggle room:  Luther, after all, rediscovered justification by faith, though few others thought that his thinking outside the box would get him any further than the executioner.

Luther posting his “95 Theses”

Some six years ago, I made my rediscovery of spiritual adoption, and along with it, the father heart of God.  I was seeing red warning lights flashing, but Scripture does teach adoption—we’d been taught it in Bible school from Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians.  But the picture I was now forming from the Gospels of a father who wanted me to know how special I was to him, seemed like wishful thinking.  I couldn’t reconcile this with the sovereign, holy, righteous God angry with sin that I heard about week by week.  Yet Jesus likened God’s care to an earthly father’s and called him “Abba” (akin to “Papa”).  Paul (Eph 1:5) seemed to say that God anticipated adopting children with great pleasure and passion.

Among conservative churches, one hears warnings against teaching that emerged in the 19^th century about the “fatherhood of God,” presenting God as a kindly, grandfatherly type, complete with long white beard, who loves everyone the same and overlooks sin.  As I studied adoption and God’s role as father, I realized that there was no serious theological writing about God in this role.  There was plenty on his role as creator and judge, but no one ever mentioned the “fatherhood of God,” perhaps out of fear.  It occurred to me that spiritual McCarthyism was still alive and well.

In my study I found theologians consciously focused on the aspects of God that promoted his “glory”—his majesty, sovereignty, holiness, and righteousness—in order to counter the other teaching and protect God’s reputation.  (Protect God?  As if!)  Their books are still used in seminaries to train pastors.

The unfortunate result of this was that the Church (that’s people, by the way) was left in the dark about what it means to call God “Father.”  Left to their own, people imagine a God like a bad parent—and God comes out as judge, as demonstrated in one survey that shows ¾ of Americans, including Christians, view God in a negative light.  The truth about God’s father heart got swallowed up in erudite discussions and tomes that give adoption little space.  In many churches, what is communicated about God is a picture that leaves congregants running on the performance treadmill.  I call this the “ministry of condemnation.”  It leads to the very legalism and lack of tolerance that left me so puzzled in Quebec.

As you might suspect, when I started looking into adoption, I went with fear and trembling—quietly at first—searching out anything that would indicate I was not chasing after something to bolster my self-esteem or find a friendly God.  But I was spurred on by a promise in the prophet Jeremiah (29:13):  “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  Long story short, one day in the library (where else?) I came upon a tape which linked me to some books which linked to some respected theologians and teachers who were also rediscovering adoption.  These people were seeing and teaching his father heart without neglecting his great holiness and majesty and all that gives him glory.

I’ve been around long enough, and I’ve been in leadership enough, to know how easy it is to play church and give out “authoritative” pronouncements about God that scare rather than attract.  I’ve seen enough destructive thinking about God and the wrong teaching that promotes it.  I want to promote good—and accurate—thinking about God through these blog posts.  That is what drives them (I hope). What we think of when we think of God is the most important thing about us.  If we think of him only as a judge or worse, we run from him or run to keep him “happy.” If we know him as Father, we run to him and with him.

If you’d like to explore for yourself, here are some resources I treasure that aided my search and helped  turn me from fear (by knowing his love) to freedom in a relationship with God my Father in the way I believe he intended:

Children of the Living God: Delighting in the Father’s Love, by Sinclair Ferguson, especially his chapter “The Spirit of Adoption.”  Ferguson is a pastor and teacher whose perspective on God changed radically as he explored and realized what it meant to be a son of God.

Sinclair Ferguson

Knowing God by J.I. Packer, a popular theologian and teacher now old as dirt, was first published in 1973.  Two chapters, “The Heart of the Gospel,” and “Sons of God,” are worth the price of the book.

J. I. Packer

A sermon series on adoption was given by Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.  Keller’s sermons are engaging and thought provoking.  Sermons are available for download ($2.50 for mp3) at: http://www.redeemer.com.  Go to the “Sermon Store.”  Messages I have found particularly helpful are: “The Experience of Adoption.” February 8, 1998; “Witness of the Spirit,” April 6, 1997.

Tim Keller

Now, (hopefully), back to C.S. Lewis in the next post.

journey post 17: Radical Freedom

(Part III-b, CONCLUSION: The grammar school of freedom)

The word “radical” is an attention-getter.  It should be, for it includes the following ideas: ”far-reaching or thorough;  an inherent or fundamental part of the nature of someone or something; departure from tradition, innovative or progressive.”* All of these could describe true freedom.

“Freedom” implies freedom from restraint, obstacle, compulsion.  This was what my generation wanted so much in the 1960s, and we have now reaped its fruit:  a cultural buy-in to a more individualistic, ego centric, personal freedom.  If you doubt that, look at our governing elite: we used to call them “public servants”; look at a generation of young men who are still “adolescents” well into their twenties .

Christians speak of freedom with caveats attached.  We speak of being “free from sin,” (i.e., the penalty of hell and sin’s continuing hold in a life), “free from the law” (e.g., from the Mosaic law or a variety of legalistic expectations).  Thinking about some “radical” freedom seems dangerous, beyond the bounds of safety, so “freedom” generally comes with a “but…”: “I am free, but freedom has limits….”  The idea of being “free” feels good, and keeps us from seeing the performance treadmill where we try to make sure of our acceptance, never mind that we are becoming increasingly captive to fear.

At some point I recognized my own lip service to the idea of freedom.  If pressed, I could not have told you what it was.  That is so ironic, since Jesus’ statement about being set free by him was one of the first things that ever captivated me and drew me to him like nothing else.  It is ironic that I spent about 35 years on a “Christian” performance treadmill, never really sure of my acceptance.  I longed to be “free to…” and I knew from Scripture that there must be this “free to,” but it remained elusive.

That “free to” crystallized for me the day I wrote the essay about my relationship with my dad called, “The Missing Picture.”  Many things came together:  My growing understanding of what it meant to be an adopted son of Abba Father had nearly deleted the picture of “my old man in the sky”—and my trust was growing.  I was gaining a perspective on the nature of discipleship to Jesus (I call it “apprenticeship”) that seems to have largely disappeared from churches.  My earliest take on discipleship was that it meant learning the basic doctrines of salvation, the inspiration of the Bible, how to witness for Jesus, etc.  Once in a while as I read the Gospels, I pictured those first disciples traipsing around the country with Jesus—but to do what they did was certainly fantasy.  One day I was challenged to immerse myself in the Gospels, to apprentice myself to Jesus, the speaker explaining discipleship as “spending time with Jesus, learning from him to be like him.” The disciples did that.  I was now getting to know Jesus in a very personal way, watching him walk and talk and love people, hearing from his lips not simply Bible doctrine, but a way of seeing and thinking: it was his perspective I was gaining.  That was indeed radical.

In the passage (John 8) where Jesus says, “If the Son sets you free…” he had been speaking with some Jews (the physical descendants of Abraham) who believed him in some way, yet also wanted to kill him.  To these, he said: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31,32, NIV).  They were incensed, arguing that they had never been slaves.  But Jesus pointed out that, since they wanted to kill him, they were in fact slaves to sin, chasing after their own agenda.  “Now a slave has no place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:35,36).  Jesus was modeling life as a son and apprenticing people to learn to live out their sonship to God in the community of a family.

Another thing came together for me that day.  While I would never find the missing picture of just me and my dad, I knew that I would in fact always be in the picture with my Father as a son in whom he delights.  I had been learning about spiritual adoption for a couple years, and it suddenly became reality:  My search for identity was over.  I knew who I was:  I am my Father’s son, and I am free.  That is radical.

All the dysfunctional reality of my relationship with my own dad (and my mom) suddenly fell away when I realized the ultimate father analogy was that of God as Father whose heart is with me.  To see the analogy, picture a fully functional family (which may be difficult), where the mother and father deeply love and are committed to each other.  They love and accept their children unconditionally.  They train them for life and responsibility in the world (and yes, that includes discipline).  They encourage the children in their individuality to develop their gifts and talents and potentiality—the things they like to do, not for some vicarious wish fulfillment of the parents.  They even allow them the freedom to fail…well, you get the idea: these are children who as adults will be free to exercise their individuality in the community, whether it’s the small family unit or the larger.  They will be free, not because they took their independence, but because they were raised in the environment of honest, loyal, giving and sacrificial, self-forgetful love and set free—given independence—to do the same.

Family is the ideal environment in which freedom is learned (and ultimately given), and love is the “environment” in which we were designed to live out that freedom in community, where it can flourish.  True freedom is a matter of the heart, and the heart can be free no matter the external circumstances.  Because the heart is designed to grow up loved within a community, that is where freedom will thrive.  That is where meaning and significance and satisfaction lie.  The contradictory desires of the heart I mentioned last post will be arbitrated in the environment of love.

As for defining freedom:  true freedom doesn’t yield to easy definition.  Basically, it is this:  I am truly free when I live out my identity in the environment for which I was designed, the environment I must have, in fact.  The apostle made this radical statement, that the only thing that truly counts in Christ is “faith expressing  itself through love” (Galatians 5:6).

It was this freedom I discovered on that day at the writer’s conference.  After 35+ years of running on the performance treadmill as a “legalist,” there is still a lot of baggage, but it is getting unpacked and sorted.  God my Father, the perfect parent (he invented the concept, after all), is teaching me how to live out the freedom that I have as a son.  I love because he first loved me, (see 1 John 4:13-19).  I am free, but some of this “free” still feels like untested theory, and residual fear is sometimes palpable.

An eternity ago—or was it yesterday?—I crouched behind a mud hootch in a rice field in South Vietnam, waiting for the mortar fire to stop so I could make a break to safety.  I didn’t make it.  Laying on my back and helpless, I saw the Chaplain break through the bush some 20 meters away coming for me like an angel of God.  And he was, quite literally, an angel, for the word “angel” means messenger.  The message at the time was a question:  Is God really there?  Today there’s no angel, and there’s no question.  My Father stands there at the edge of the field, beckoning.  “Come on, son.  I’m here.  Even if you don’t make it across the clearing, it will be okay.  I’m not going anywhere.”  He smiles.  I see his eyes, so I’m poised to run….

*New Oxford American Dictionary

journey post 16: A Son’s Heart Set Free

(Part III-a , on The grammar school of freedom)

“If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free”  (John 8:36).

The first time I remember reading those words was 1970 or ‘71.  I had this little paperback New Testament, a new, contemporary English version that I was reading so much it was falling apart.

But the verse puzzled me.  Free?  Close by was another verse that people quote a lot:  “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  Jesus didn’t seem to be talking about being free from hell.

Freedom was on everyone’s lips in the 60s.  It was the time when our nation, free from the Nazi menace, was getting schooled in what we thought freedom meant, nationally, racially, personally.  Having “survived” Vietnam, I felt very alive and free.  But I would soon be stepping into a religious world beset by legalism, and would not recognize it because I did know how legalistic and performance-minded I already was.  The speed of the performance treadmill in my new world would be considerably faster.  It took 35 years for me to finally get off the treadmill and understand Jesus’ words, “really free.”

I had been confused by all the personal freedom that people were claiming for themselves in the 60s.  I thought there was something wrong with it, but I was unsure why.  Back then, it was likely due to my legalistic sense of self-righteousness:  I was okay, they were not.  They were just selfish and sinful.  I was to be reinforced in that condemnatory view by the new religious milieu into which I was about to enter.

But there was more to  that view than selfishness, which most would agree is wrong.  The 60s thinking went something like this:  “I am free when I am free from all hindrances and obstacles to do what I want.”  The idea wasn’t new by any means; what was new was its wide acceptance.  Within a few years, it would become the unconscious working assumption of the shapers and movers of our nation:  parents, teachers, lawyers, business people, politicians, et al.

So what could have been wrong with that?  Did we not experience a “new birth of freedom,” becoming more tolerant, more accepting and encouraging to people pursuing their individual dreams?  Yes, we did.  But the idea of individualistic freedom is not wrong just because it is selfish.  It is wrong, I now realize, because it does not take account of the complex nature and contradictory desires of the human heart.  (More on this in the next post.)

If there is one thing I have learned in forty-odd years as a Christian, it is that the important things of life come from the heart.  From the heart comes the “ask not what your country can do for you,” the sacrifices on Normandy Beach, the countless acts of charity and love, the routine kindness of friends; and from it also comes cheating on tests, fathers walking away from families, Auschwitz and My Lai.  We puzzle over evil in our world, but in our hearts, we know the answer because we sense what our own conscience says is our inability to consistently do the right.  History is a mirror that we ignore at our peril, a mirror which tells us not to trust in the “basic goodness” of mankind.  Individualistic freedom has become so important that we are unable to evaluate the larger society around us and understand just what is being sucked away from us.  It is being sucked away from our hearts, and we are blind to it.

I was as blind as anyone as long as I was on that treadmill.  Scripture says we cannot evaluate and help someone else as long as we have a log in our own eye (Matthew 7).  In my case, the log was a treadmill….

Here now is a foretaste of the freedom that was to come into my life at the end of the zigzag….

By 2006, I had not solved the underlying problem of what made me a people-pleaser or performance minded.  I was just becoming aware of my thinking, how wrong it was, how self-destructive.  Our church put a premium on pursuing personal holiness such that those who failed were suspect—which set some to running even faster on the treadmill without prospect of being acceptable.

I finally got honest with myself the same as I did on a hospital bed in Vietnam long ago.  I admitted that I did not know if God cared about me at all.  So I asked him:  “Lord, what do you really think of me?  I must know.  I can’t go on like this!”  Sitting in my despair, a verse from Proverbs came to mind, (3:12), that I’d only ever heard when our church disciplined errant members:  “…the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”  Delights?  “Lord,” I said, “you delight in me??”  It was one of those moments when the dawning light changes everything.  Delight?  How could it be?

I Googled my question, and was shocked but intrigued to see links referencing the teaching we had once received in Bible school about our spiritual adoption, that God the Father has adopted those who trust in Jesus as his children.  Back then, it had bounced off my emotional baggage.  I remembered something my friend Andy told me when they adopted a son.  I asked him (this was 1973), “Are you going to tell him he’s adopted?”  “Of course,” came the reply.  “I want him to know just how special he is.”

I began in earnest, exploring “adoption” in Scripture, reading everything I could get my hands on in theology books (not much there) and the personal experiences of various other Christians.  (My reflection and research eventually led to a thesis that I called, “God is out to get you.”)  What did it mean that God is my “Father.”  Wasn’t it merely a title used in prayer?

Long story short, my thinking was getting revised by what I was learning.  I began to focus my Bible reading on the Gospel accounts to find out if Jesus said anything about it.  I read the Gospels so much I began to feel as though I were one of those disciples walking around with Jesus, spending time with him, watching and listening, learning from him to think like him, to know his agenda and what was important to God.  What I was learning was all about what it meant to be an adopted son of the Father.  Jesus didn’t use the word “adoption,” but his teaching was all about a relationship with God and what the Father is like.  Jesus’ confrontations with the leaders were about their legalism  and their distorted view of God:  Christian writer A.W. Tozer once commented, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”*  I began to see how distorted my own picture of God truly was so I set out to get to know him as I had never before.  Jesus taught his disciples to call God their “Abba,” a familiar, intimate name like “Papa.”  He taught them that the Father (Abba) is like the perfect earthly father who always loves, always gives, always protects and provides, who loves unconditionally and never pulls away.  He showed them God by his life: “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”  Much fell into place for me as I read Jesus, learned all over again to be his disciple, an “apprentice.”

On the day at that writer’s conference that I realized I would never be in the picture with my earthly dad, I also found something greater:  the identity and the key to the freedom I had searched for all my life.  I am my Father’s son.  I am adopted.  This is my identity.  I am loved and delighted in simply because I now belong to him.  Being a son was the key to my freedom.  And I still almost hear the quiet voice of my Father in heaven saying to me, “My son, you will always be in the picture with me.”

Free at last.

_____

* The Knowledge of the Holy, The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1961), 1.

journey post 14: Grammar School of Freedom

“FREEDOM!”

If you’ve seen the movie “Braveheart,” you likely sat transfixed as I did, contemplating both the horror of the death faced by Scottish warrior William Wallace and the indomitable spirit of the man whose lips emitted that final cry.  What men and women are willing to do to secure freedom for their own people has historically called forth the best impulses of the human heart and mind in self-giving sacrifice—and still does.  That same spirit of sacrifice shown by those who fought World War II is why we call them “The Greatest Generation.”

I am a child of the 1960s.  I remember sitting transfixed, contemplating that spirit as I read stories and watched movies or heard people speak of that generation.  They were not so far removed from us then as now, for they were our parents, our teachers, neighbors, uncles and aunts, still in the prime of life.

The Sixties was the grammar school of my generation.  Grammar school (or, elementary school) is the time when young children soak in the basic structural pieces of learning (the 3 R’s) that enable them to explore and think and verbalize the world around them.  The beauty of the system as it was originally designed was that these building blocks would become internalized in such a way that those basics could be utilized without much conscious thought while continuing to learn.

And so it was that the stories of routine courage and doing the right thing to support the war effort (in jobs and “victory gardens” and innumerable other small acts of selflessness) was also a “grammar school”—those stories penetrated our minds and became such a part of our thinking that words such as “sacrifice” and “service” became closely associated with the word “freedom.”

It was a unique time in which to come of age.  I graduated from Eagle Rock High (Los Angeles) in the summer of 1966.  When I think of the Sixties, my head is usually crowded with pictures of turmoil, trouble, and tension:  the civil rights movement and people being beaten by police and attacked by dogs, more casual sex, routine drugs, burning cities, anti-war protests, and, of course, our nation’s time (and my time) in Vietnam.  Those pictures reflect the cultural memory of an era.

But it did not begin that way….  Contrary to that turmoil-filled snapshot, the decade began with calls to serve and to sacrifice, calls to selfless ideals worthy of the children of our parents.

The “Greatest Generation” had beaten back the Nazis and made the world safe to dream again.  It was a time of high idealism, fresh starts.  The words of our young President, himself a war hero, rang in our ears: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”  This was not simply great rhetoric, but precisely captured the spirit of the time.  Our teachers in high school echoed the idealism sparked by his calls to excellence and the vigor with which he pursued life.   We were ready to answer the call to explore and conquer a “new frontier.”  The Peace Corps and civil rights legislation were its natural accompaniment.

We were inspired, too, by freedom.  “Let freedom ring,” as Dr. King proclaimed the dream from the steps of the Lincoln shrine.  Folk songs also proclaimed the themes:  freedom and justice for all, life and peace, help for the poor and oppressed and uneducated:  “How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?…”  Freedom was on the move throughout Africa and elsewhere: colonialism was dead, it seemed.  Castro was a hero as he led his rebel bands against the powerful dictator Bautista.

Yet freedom took on new, darker, meanings as the decade progressed.  The “free speech movement,” begun at Berkeley in 1964, was a harbinger of a new sense of personal freedom, an individualized independence whose time had come.  It fit right in with our grammar school of freedom that seemed to put its imprimatur upon this more personal freedom.  There was an increasing openness to free love (sex without commitment), and drugs (not so free)…. Even the sex life of our dead President, whispered at first then emblazoned in the tabloids, lent tacit approval (while dampening our idealism).

In mid-decade, Dusty Springfield had a huge hit that reflected the emerging acceptance of a more individualistic form of freedom (and love):

“You don’t have to say you love me

Just be close at hand

You don’t have to stay forever

I will understand

Believe me, believe me

I can’t help but love you

But believe me

I’ll never tie you down.”*

“You don’t have to say you love me” was probably Dusty’s signature song.  It was also a signature song of the 60’s promise of freedom:  “I’ll never tie you down.”  It was the new definition: “I am free when I am free from impediments or obstacles to do whatever I want” (Tim Keller).   The definition would be reflected in our increasing consumerism and insistence on personal rights, and our growing litigiousness.  Hippies became Yuppies and generations since are labeled with variations of “Me.”

While “freedom” was shifting from other-centered idealism to a more me-centered practicality, our idealism was dying.  Being in Southeast Asia at first seemed to be about freedom, but the value of sacrificing for freedom and our early idealism got bogged down in a quagmire that promised only more body bags and mistrusted body counts.  1968 was the nadir of the decade.  The Tet Offensive left us stunned, and our trusted news anchor Walter Cronkite returned from a visit to South Vietnam with the verdict that we could not win.  LBJ announced he would not run again, and the real prospect of a second President Kennedy was exciting.  But it was not to be.  Our idealism and hope finally crashed to the floor on a Memphis motel balcony and a Los Angeles hotel kitchen, and politics-as-usual retook the floor….  “Where have all the flowers gone?” asked Peter, Paul, and Mary.  “Bye Bye, Miss American Pie….”

You may not agree with my analysis of the decade.  Granted, I’m too close to it.  I don’t claim it as objective history, and I’m more concerned anyway with painting a picture here of my own perspective, my context, for the statements I made at the end of last post.  You’re likely wondering what the connection is between all the foregoing and C.S. Lewis, the “law of human nature,” the “great unease,” and the stuff about missing the implications of that law and my setting myself up to buy into a legalistic version of American evangelical Christianity.  I have a lot to share about that in the next two posts.  The connection is our desire for freedom:  We were designed for freedom.  But as the 60s drew to a close, I felt very unfree, though I was inceasingly intrigued by a promise that Jesus made: “If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).  I was intrigued, but would remain puzzled about it for some 30+ years.  That’s why I must write about it here before pronouncing a wrap on Lewis.

In the 1960s, we were chasing freedom, but we ended in bondage.  Chasing freedom, I bought into more legalism.  The Church did not make me a legalist: I already was that, long before.  Legalism and its concomitant, the performance mindset, was a problem for me and for Christianity.  But it was not peculiar to me or to the Church.  It is a problem endemic to us all.

*English lyrics by Vicki Wickham, http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/dusty+springfield/you+dont+have+to+say+you+love+me_20044060.html, (accessed 8/28/13)