Viking Restaurant

Some Song Lyrics

Only Him or Me
Written by: Townes Van Zandt

Don't go saying I'm leaving you
thinking I never got close enough to stay
time runs in, and then runs out
starts again and it's always been that way
you're gonna drown tomorrow
if you cry too many tears for yesterday
tomorrow's half of all you've got
so treat him good, 'cause when I'm gone, he'll stay

I won't be forgetting you
you won't be forgetting me, I know
if memory comes a summer cloud
rains her sweetness down to me below
I see you like you look right now
maybe wonder why I had to go
but heaven is the way she is
rain falls and rivers flow

So here's to feelin' good
here's to feelin' bad
here's to bein' thankful
sorry for the pleasures that we had
and autumn days and window panes
God, forgive us if you feel decieved
the clock don't know you like I do
and it's only him or me you got to believe

My Creed (What Doubt Should Never Cause Me to Doubt)

Last night I posted about the resurrection of Christ, and about how I truly hope it really happened. I would venture to say today that, yes, I would even go as far to say that I believe it happened. Im a believer. Have been for most of my life. But that doesnt change the fact that I doubt it almost every day. And sometimes the doubt is so strong that it causes me to want to give up....just give up completely on doing the things that I know are right. But when I give up on doing what is right, my doubt just becomes a disguise for other things that are hardening my heart....bitterness, apathy, resentment, selfishness, hatred. Id be a fool to claim that every time I struggle with one of these demons that I am just struggling with "doubt." Doubt is no excuse for a heart that, as Lewis puts it, is "bent."

And so I think there need to be certain things that I hold onto, that I "know" with a capital K, that remain unshakeable no matter how much doubt creeps into my day. I need a creed of the unremittable.

And so here is my creed (what doubt should never cause me to doubt):

1) I Must Forgive: Holding onto resentment and hate has only ever hurt me and hurt those around me. I dont care if it turns out that the universe is a cold and terrible and meaningless place (not my position mind you), because it wouldnt change the fact that I know in the very depths of my heart how much I long for forgiveness and therefore how much I should grant it to others in equal if not greater measure. Forgiveness, when truly applied, is a healer like no other, and its what people need.

2) I Must Pray: Granted there are more days than not when I just feel at a total loss as to whom I am praying to. Who is God and why am I talking to Him when I have so little grasp as to what I really know about Him. Nevertheless, give me one good reason why we shouldnt pray. Im convinced that there is no such reason. Till the day that I die, I know that I should keep crying out, calling out, reaching out to the God who made me. Keep knocking. Keep asking. Keep praying. And if He never answers me this side of the grave, then I will at least know that I didnt just sit down in the dirt and give up. Which brings me to my next point.

3) I Must Never Give Up: Rather, I must give, completely, of myself to better humanity in whatever miniscule way that I can. I just dont see a point to apathy, or to self-centered hedonism, or to crippling despair. I dont care what your weltanschauung is, it is simply better to give than to receive.

4) I Must Hope: Once again, why not? Why give up when you can hope? There are good reasons for hope. We have a lot of good reasons, an overwhelming amout of good reasons, to put our hope in what the Bible presents to us as a basis for hope. Sure I have my doubts, the worst kinds of doubts, and I have them a lot. But it is better to hope than to despair. Personally, unless I die and wake up to face an evil deciever who is fixated on causing all souls to suffer no matter what they do, I think its ok to put one's hope in a better alternative.

5) I Must Love: The Beatles may have had this one right. It really is all you need. And who am I to deny to others what I so desperately need myself. Nothing going on in my head should ever cause me to cease to love.

Resurrection Hope

OK, Ive used this blog a lot in the past to talk about the doubts and anxieties that I struggle with concerning my faith....hence my last post on hell. So I thought I would shift gears and blog this time about something I have actually had a lot of clarity about lately. Despite the fact that I think the Bible presents more hermeneutical problems than you can shake a stick at and that it will never be impervious to the limitations that burden any collection of words written by human hands, I do think that the Bible is refreshingly clear in what it ultimately portends. The Bible has had a wide variety of authors and an even wider variety of readers, but its message has always been the same on one important point. It has always been, inarguably, a book about hope. Now the message of hope in the Bible does take on many different forms. It is not always about ultimate victory over death and the ushering in of a new kingdom of peace and eternal prosperity. Sometimes it is a much more temporal message dealing with the specific fate of Israel and of its assured triumph over its enemies. But either way, the Bible is about hope......and reading the Bible does the same thing to me every time no matter how much I fight it......it makes me want to hope.

This is why I am particularly thankful for the New Testament and more specifically for the writings of Paul. Paul boiled down hope to one thing. He stripped it down to its very essence. If you read the rest of the Bible, without reading Paul, I think you would find it difficult to find out what exactly we are supposed to be hoping for. A kingdom? A military victory? Mansions of gold? Property? Justice against our enemies? Progeny? Food? No what I like about Paul is that he made hope unmistakably about one thing and one thing only: resurrection.

The passage I think about more than any other these days is I Corinthians 15:13-19:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

I love the way Paul strips away all ambiguity about hope in this passage. Hope is about resurrection. If Christ was raised, we will be raised. If Christ was not raised, we are morons. Though I have many other questions about hell, the problem of evil, the inspiration of Scripture, the person of Christ, etc. I know that hope does not ultimately hinge on answering these questions. My hope ultimately hinges upon the question of resurrection. Did it happen? Or did it not? Now dont get me wrong. All of those other questions are inextricably related to the question of Christ's resurrection, but its still nice to be able to single out the most important question. My mind need that once in while, something to fall back on, a single point of inquiry that supersedes everything else. Was Christ raised? That is the question. "To be or not to be" is only a distant second at best. Paul understood this. If we have any hope at all in this life, it must rest on the resurrection of Christ.

So what do I think? What do I believe? Well let me just say this for now. I am a hopeful person. I really am. And when given the choice to hope or not to hope, I choose to hope.....and to pray.

Teen Titans' Newest Members (Beavis and Butthead)

Ok, so I just find this really funny. Thought maybe somebody else would to.

Questions About Hell

Ive been contemplating hell lately. (yeah I know I should lighten up) But it just seems so terribly unjust to me. The only argument for its justice is that it is a justice that we cannot comprehend, a justice that transcends our finite understanding, because it is a justice that comes down from an omnipotent, mysterious God. But no human on earth should ever concede that hell just naturally seems just...at least not the traditional understanding of hell as a place of eternal, unquenchable torment.

My question is this. No human being is a sinner on earth for much more than 100 years. Ancient humans lasted closer to 1000. Why must humans therefore suffer eternal damnation, without end, in what appears to be unceasing anguish, for crimes committed in such a small amount of time? You may argue that God doesnt see time like we do, and that God is punishing the state of sin and not the act of sinning, but humans have a concept of time and a concept of letting the punishment equal the crime. And it should rage against all human reason to believe that we should so mercilessly suffer for so long because of such a comparatively miniscule number of crimes. I mean technically one sin, just one sin, warrants unspeakable horrors without any hope of relief whatsoever? Oh but you would say that God is so great and holy that His justice could demand no less. Sure that is a proposition to be believed. But why should we? I really struggle with that question. His justice seems utterly horrible, unspeakable. So why should I declare this God good? This of course is not an original or particularly insightful question on my part. But it is the question that haunts the Christian faith at its very core. How can God be good and allow such a system of monstrous evil? How can He have allowed so many souls to be born, more souls than will ever be saved by faith in Christ, just to subject them to such an unimaginable and terrible fate? It would have seemed much more merciful of God to end things quickly than to allow the overwhelming majority of humans born into this world since time began to face horrible damnation. How can it seem otherwise?

Moving to Boston

Ok, so currently my plan is to start seminary studies this summer at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston, MA. I guess I dont have much to report about that just yet. Just thought I would put that information out there. I would leave Chattanooga on June 8th, spend about a week with friends in Philadelphia and New York, and then begin Summer Greek on Gordon's campus on June 18th.

It feels like a good move, one that Ive been needing to make, but its scary when I consider the loans I am going to have to take out when it is all said and done. And thats just for a masters degree.

But studying the Bible at a higher level is the most pressing and pertinent thing I can think to do with my life right now. My fate rests upon its truth or its falsehood. I need to dig deeper and wrestle with what kind of book I really think it is. Some tell me that I should figure out the answers to my questions before I ever embark into something like seminary. And Ive followed that advice for a while. But I think life and time have pressed me into a corner. Its just something Ive got to do. To be honest, I think it will suck in many ways to be in seminary with the questions I have. My tendency will be to fight tooth and nail against what most people there presuppose.

But thankfully, I will be able to make use of a fabulous resource there in Boston, the Boston Theological Institute, which is the largest theological consortium in the world. I will be able to take a large percentage of my classes from participating schools including Harvard Divinity School, Weston Jesuit, and Boston University, and Boston College to name a few. This will allow me to branch out and learn from those outside the traditional evangelical perspective, which is something Im really craving right now.

Well, things are moving pretty fast and before you know it, I will be out of Chatt-town. I hope if you are a friend of mine living in the area, you will drop a line my way before I leave. And I'll try to do the same.

A Very Cool Chick With a Guitar

I am extremely attracted to this woman: