Does God control sports?

So, for most of my life I’ve grown up with the idea of a God who follows the deistic model when it comes to sports.  That is, a God who does not interfere whatsoever in sporting events.  I was talking with my wife about this, maybe a year ago, or so and she disagreed with me.  That is, she didn’t necessarily believe that was the case.  I forget her exact reasoning, but it made sense.  It was something along the lines of “how do we know God doesn’t?”

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more and more accustom to a God who controls everything.  I’m not saying we don’t have free will, but I believe the decisions we make and what we are going to make all fit within his framework.  I look at where I work and where I live, and they all fall within his master plan.  Whose to say sports don’t do the same?  Why would God be involved in every aspect of people’s lives but then decide to back off on this one thing?

My inner dialog goes like this:

“Well, that’s not fair if God favors one team over another and is involved in competition, that doesn’t seem fair.”

“Well, I believe I got this job because of God’s providence and direction for my life, and that means someone else didn’t.  Does it seem fair that God picked me in this job over someone else?”

“You’re right.  You’re so smart.”

Look, I know this is a weird idea, but here’s the thing.  I believe God is involved in every area of our life.  And the people who play sports, and even those who follow sports to a much lesser degree, have sports occupying a major part of their life.  Are you going to tell me that God completely butts out of that area?  People learn valuable lessons from sports, including games won or lost.

That being said, I don’t believe we can infer anything from the win-loss column of our team.  We can’t say our team won all of their games because of their mission trip to Africa or they lost all their games because they partied too much.  The Bible is clear that we cannot know why things happen, see the book of Job or the story about the blind man.  Bad and good things happen in every arena of life, and we don’t always know why, so I believe this is true for sports.

Credit cards and alcohol

Dave Ramsey has a lot of good financial advise.  However, he does not believe in credit card usage whatsoever.  Now, looking at his article he makes a lot of good points, and I can’t disagree with most of them them. I do believe it is possible to use a credit card, reap the benefits, and pay the balance off.  That being said, I do agree with his point about “When you pay cash, you can “feel” the money leaving you. This is not true with credit cards.”

However, my pastor said something yesterday that was quite wise.  Christianity is about principles, not rules.  When you focus on following rules and not principles, you can miss out on following the voice of God. I feel that by saying “credit cards are prohibited”, it amounts to legalism.

Also, the arguments I’ve heard against credit cards seem familiar.  “Credit cards destroy people and families.  So many people use them irresponsibly.  People can’t handle credit cards”.  These sound very similar to arguments against alcohol.  Some Christian denominations believe in abstinence altogether.

I do believe abstinence from both can be a very wise decision for many people.  Unfortunately many people cannot handle either and end up harming their lives.  But I believe a key principle in the Christian walk is that of discernment and hearing God’s voice.  My pastor said it well.  “People want rules, they don’t want to listen for God’s voice.”

I’m not saying that is why Dave Ramsey is saying to not use credit cards, or that he is suffering from legalism, or anything like that.  And after reading the article I want to evaluate how I use credit cards.  But the philosophy of  “never use them, never ever” is not one I agree with, and doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone.

Why Harry Potter doesn’t bother me as a Christian

The last installment of the Harry Potter series is coming out July 15, which I greatly look forward to seeing.  I’ve seen all the movies and listened to book 6 and read book 7.

In Christian circles much has been made of the HP series, although it’s died down over the years.  But the presence of magic in movies and books is something that Christians should consider and address.

First of all, let’s take a look at “magic” or the supernatural in real life.  Sorcery was condemned in the Bible in the Old and New Testament.  Why?  I think because the supernatural does exist in our world, and it comes from one of two possible sources.  It is either God or his enemy, and I’m pretty sure sorcery as we know it came from the enemy.

In a fictional world, such a dilemma does not exist.  Magic doesn’t have to come from a demonic being.  It is no more unwholesome than a mutation that gives Wolverine his powers or a radioactive spider bite that gave Spiderman his.  This magic, like technology, can be used for good or evil purposes.  Also, if one condemns magic in the Harry Potter series they have to do so in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and even possibly the Chronicles of Narnia (although one could argue that Narnia is different since Aslan represents Christ).

That being said, I recognize some of the issues that Harry Potter can represent to younger children.  For one, these stories are about everyday young kids who appear normal, yet happen to have magical gifts.  Consequently, the idea of a child being able to possess magical gifts seems a little more feasible than a child being able to walk through walls because of a mutation or a visitor arriving from a distant planet.  Impressionable young kids may wonder if they too, could possess magic powers.  But hopefully this can be quickly remedied by the parents steering them back to reality.  Also, the books get progressively more violent and dark, so that’s another thing parents need to keep in mind.  Even in that case, the Harry Potter series becomes an issue of discernment, not a cause to rise against.

Being the older brother

My pastor talked about the story of the prodigal son recently.  He focused not so much on the rebellious younger brother, but the “upright” older brother.  He basically said that the problem with the rebellious brother represented those who thought they were too rebellious for God to love them.  The problem with the older brother is that they think they are too good to need God’s love or grace.

This is a theme I’ve heard at church and through other sources recently.  Jesus came to save the rebellious who don’t deserve God’s grace, but he also came to save those who think they don’t need it.  Sometimes I think it is harder for the people who do all the right things, the responsible people, to move to a true relationship with God than it is for the rebel.  I think this can be true in terms of salvation, and also just in having a closer relationship with God.

In the story of the prodigal son, I feel like I identify with the older brother.  I’m someone who is responsible, got straight A’s, always did the right things, avoided the wrong things.  As a Christian, I try to read my Bible regularly and pray every day.  But I think the reality is far different from what I realize.  I’m someone who desperately needs God.  There was a time when I feel like I realized this every day; a time when I was confronting some sin in my life that needed to be dealt with.  During that time I felt like I depended on God everyday.  So the question is, how do I get back to this point?  Where I’m no longer the upstanding older brother but someone who desperately depends on God?  Perhaps the problem is that we need to realize we are all rebels.

I’m not going to mourn

So, Bin Laden is dead. In the era of Facebook, I get to see people’s various reactions. The one I wanted to focus on was the Christian response – not to rejoice even when the wicked perish, and that we should never be happy when someone is suffering in hell, even if that person was evil incarnate.

Nine and a half years ago, I wanted Osama to pay. He killed thousands of people and I wanted him to suffer. Death was too good for him; I wanted him tortured. Over time, my anger has faded. When I heard the news last night, I felt a sense of excitement. But I don’t think this excitement was out of revenge or vindication. I thought we would never catch the guy, despite all our efforts for the past decade (and probably beyond that). Catching him was a huge victory, even if it was largely symbolic. I believe I would have been just as happy if he was captured, although I’m not sure by what court he would be tried and if he would have received the death penalty. So, my excitement was not due to Osama’s suffering, but just the enormity of the news.

That being said, the reaction of “not rejoicing” is still technically correct. We shouldn’t rejoice that someone rejected God and is now suffering in hell. For a great perspective, visit Mornings with Brant (ironically the picture posted in the blog is what Brant is reacting against).  We are all deserving of hell, so we shouldn’t really rejoice when someone gets what they deserve.  The Bible lumps murderers together with people who disobey their parents.

While I’m not rejoicing at Osama’s fate, I’m not mourning either.  Maybe some of this has to do with my desensitization.  People die across the world, tragically.  Unfortunately, there is so much death in the world that it is hard to be moved by tragic news, unless it’s on a large scale like 9/11 or natural disasters.  So, when I hear of one person dying, and that person happens to be an infamous terrorist, I won’t rejoice at their fate, but I won’t mourn either.  I’m not saying that’s necessarily the right attitude, so it’s something about which I have to pray to God so that I would have the right attitude.

I wish I could condemn Ayn Rand’s philosophy

I wrote a really good post about Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism.  In just a few paragraphs I talked about my experience reading Rand and Atlas Shrugged.  I spoke about what I thought of Objectivism, why it was ultimately empty and shallow, and how it ran in contrast to Christianity.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Objectivism is a philosophy that

…the proper moral purpose of one’s life is the pursuit of one’s own happiness or rational self-interest…

I was writing about how such a view is incompatible with Jesus Christ. I felt very proud of my writing, it was well done, complex, explored all these philosophies. I then started to add how such a viewpoint was incompatible with marriage.

Man, how could I have such a philosophy? Where my main concern in marriage, or in Christianity, is my own…happiness.

Hmm.

On second thought maybe Ayn Rand and I aren’t so different. Maybe the only difference between her and I is at least she was honest about how she lived.

Sometimes it is hard to believe in some things

So, I finally have time to do a little bit of blogging, so I’m reacting, in a way, to something that happened a month ago.  This is in response to all the new conversations about heaven and hell.  But I’m not going to talk so much about that, but the nature of believe in general.

I don’t think many people, even conservative Christians, want to believe in hell, at least, most people.  I don’t want to.  I think there are more vindictive Christians who are happy at the thought of sinners suffering at the hands of an angry God; I don’t personally see myself as one of them.  I don’t want anyone to suffer.  I wish universalism was true in the sense that I don’t want people to suffer; I don’t want it to be true in the sense that I have to trust God and believe that He knows what is best.

Sometimes this not wanting to believe in hell affects theology.  The idea of hell is so horrible that we change what we believe about God and eternity, or we reject Him all together.

But I think we all, to some extent, minimize or reinterpret what God said to reflect our cultural values, or we simply see things through our cultural lenses.

Sometimes that means not believing in a hell, or the devil, or certain commands Jesus said. For me, probably the hardest thing to interpret is Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek.   I’ve always interpreted this to mean to not seek revenge, but not an indictment on self-defense.  And it is to be used in the individual sense, not the national sense (war, etc…).  But am I softening what this verse is really asking?  These are the types of questions I have to ask myself.

I’ve always been hard on liberal theologians because I feel that they reshape the Bible to fit their cultural perspective (ironically blaming the “wrong” things on the Bible on the cultural perspectives of those writing it).  But do I do the same?

Interesting blog entry on theories of salvation, heaven, and hell

This blog delineates between universalism, inclusivism, ultimate reconciliation, and exclusivism.   The main thing I took away is that not everyone who believes that “everyone eventually gets into heaven” is necessarily a universalist.  I’m not saying I agree with those views or even that they are reasonable, but I’ve never really been aware of the “ultimate reconciliation” view.  I’ve actually heard of the “inclusivism view” in response to previous posts, but never spelled out like this.

An interesting read.  Based on what I’ve read, I believe in the exclusivist view.  I’m not that well read on the theories of hell, and I don’t know exactly what that will be like.

Should I do something more meaningful with my life?

Last year, in President Obama’s speech to the public schools, he said the following

Of course, each of you has the right to take your diploma and seek the quickest path to the biggest paycheck or the highest title possible. But remember: You can choose to broaden your concerns to include your fellow citizens and country instead. By tying your ambitions to America’s, you’ll hitch your wagon to a cause larger than yourself. You can choose a career in public service or the nonprofit sector, or teach in an underserved school. If you have medical training, you can work in an understaffed clinic. Love science? You can discover new sources of clean energy or launch a business that makes the most efficient and affordable solar panels or wind turbines.

Now, the gist of his message has a ring of truth to it.  We shouldn’t set out to become as rich or successful as possible; we should have ambitions higher than ourselves.

While I don’t want to read too much into this message, I fear at the core of his message is the idea that I have experienced in my own life, specifically, that unless we have a job that is specifically designated to solve the world’s problems, that we are not contributing to mankind.

When I was a young child, I wanted to be a preacher.  As I got older this dream eventually faded.  During my second year in college, I wanted to be an engineer of some sort.  This realization brought on two specific crises of conscious.  The first one was more of a spiritual nature.  How could I contribute to the kingdom of God working as an engineer.  As I talked to my dorm RA, who incidentally aspired to and now is a preacher, he assured me that I could still serve and glorify God even as an engineer as I interact with others.  He assured me that I could reach some people in some ways he, as a preacher, could not.

The second crisis was more of a secular nature.  I thought I wanted to be an engineer, but I had also considered being a math professor.   I had a university professor (who bragged that he never received a paycheck from anyone other than a state government) who thought I should really go toward the latter, as it seemed more noble. Part of me agreed with him.  After all, being a math teacher of some sort seemed to put me in a position to make more of a difference in people’s lives, even if it was discussing power series or separation of variables.  Ultimately, however, it didn’t seem to be the right path.  There was a bigger part of me that craved problem solving, that wanted to go out into industry and simply work (not that math professors don’t solve problems, I just wanted a different type of environment).

So, ultimately, I followed my passion.  I wasn’t going to be a preacher or serve in a position that supposedly bettered mankind, but I felt like I had to go with my heart.  But maybe that’s okay.  Jonathan Acuff of the funny and thought-provoking site Stuff Christians Like touches on this.

When I sometimes imagine “doing the work of the Lord,” I imagine sweat and tears and hard work and being obedient and disciplined and self controlled. Turns out, in my head, I serve a God who makes me build benches.
But what if I’m wrong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if we’ve all been wrong?
What if God doesn’t want more benches?
What if God wants you to build signs for Disc Golf because he knows you love that game?
What if God wants you to write books because he knows you love that?
What if God wants to unearth all those things you’ve hidden because you thought you weren’t talented enough? What if he wants you to roll around in the joys you thought were too silly or stupid or not spiritual enough?

For me, my passion is problem solving. I love sitting at a desk 8ish to 5ish banging around on a computer.  My job may not have an immediate impact on mankind, but it allows me to feed my family, and that’s good enough for me.

The fallacy is believing that we must have a certain job title in order to serve God or “better mankind”, that if we do have a job as an engineer or a broker on Wall Street, that is inherently inferior to serving in the peace corp or working in a non-profit, or if we are not on paid staff at a church, what we do has no eternal impact.   The people who do such jobs are to be commended, but not everyone has the ability or passion for those things.  The truth is, no matter what job we have, we should serve God in that, such as the quality of work that I perform and my interactions with others.   So the question I must ask myself is, am I doing that?

Agile Programming and Spirituality

Note: For those who don’t program but are interested in spiritual matters, you may want to read on despite the boring first paragraph.

I don’t exactly have my pulse on cutting edge thought in programming, but one of the leading philosophies is that of Agile.  One of the big ideas of Agile is that there is minimal planning and design up front.  Instead of having a huge requirements phase, design phase, implementation, and testing, like the waterfall model, these phases are smaller and done many times.  That is, the requirements and design do not involve the entire project but the work done the next two weeks, and the same goes for implementation and testing.  The process repeats again after two weeks.  The idea is that programmers and managers are more adaptable to change as the project is centered around short iterations instead of a year worth of planning. (I’m probably butchering the explanation of Agile – see Wikipedia link)

When being exposed to a philosophy, even if it involves something that doesn’t answer life’s biggest questions, I always like to compare it to the Bible.  Is there anything true in the spiritual realm that would actually validate Agile Programming?

Some verses suggest that it does.  The Bible seems to illustrate the idea of not planning too far ahead.  Jesus does say not to worry about tomorrow; I don’t think this means to totally disregard tomorrow, but I do think it says something about focus – be concerned about things you can actually do today.   The book of James says:

13Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.

There are several applications for this passage, but again, I think the idea is not to look too far ahead, simply because we don’t know what will happen. I don’t think that means we can’t think about it at all and sometimes we don’t have a choice in long term plans. But I think the important thing is that we recognize things can change.
Sometimes in the Bible God would give someone the big picture, such as when He told Abraham he would be the father of many nations. However, it seemed that God still guided him step by step and it wasn’t clear how Abraham would get to where he was supposed to be.

Perhaps the difference between our lives and a project is that in our lives, there is a master planner that directs our life, so I don’t know if the analogy can be taken too far. However, I think both are similar in that we take it a little bit at a time.