Something Is Wrong

Many Christians have blogs. Some of them are pastors. In my experience, pastors' blogs are the most tedious and least interesting to read. I frequently read blogs of other Christians looking for new understandings; different ways of seeing God and His interaction with creation. Why is it that those who are, theoretically, trained to communicate spiritual truth are (by my measure) the most ineffective?

The layman is not expected to educate; he is an amateur. Yet it is the layman who asks the real questions; searches for real answers; truly finds God in his daily life. It is the layman who seeks truth. It is the layman who attempts to work out his salvation with fear and trembling. It is the layman who must confront the world and defend the faith. The evidence and documentation of these realities is in their blogs.

It is the pastors, the professional Christians, who are charged with preparing the laymen. It is the pastors who are responsible for seeing that their charges have the tools necessary to accomplish their tasks. It is the pastors who are accountable for the effectiveness of their laymen.

But what do we find in the writings of pastors? For the most part, I've found little more than drivel; sappy platitudes, the latest preaching technique and rah rah cheering (much of which seems forced).

"I feel as if God is moving ..." is a common phrase used by professionals. What, pray tell, does that mean? If the pastors do not KNOW what God is doing how can they possibly lead with any confidence. Are they so afraid of being wrong that they hedge their bets? Or, are they so unfamiliar with God Himself that they are incapable of knowing God's intentions?

Where are the leaders of the faith? I am not referring to those who are most popular or respected, or those who "name it and claim it," but those that proclaim God with a backbone. Those who see that arguing about the placement of a Nativity scene is a waste of time. Those who are training effective disciples and not being encumbered by political (secular and denominational) nonsense.

My Bible says, "...all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." (2 Timothy 3:12) I will sadly admit that I have never suffered persecution. By that I mean that I have never been threatened with loss of anything other than social esteem for my belief in Christ. I view this as my failure. With all the talk of a "War on Christmas" and the anti-Christian media, you'd think that persecution would be a bit more common. Where are the persecuted? (And for clarity sake, I'm speaking of only North American Christians)

Twenty years ago I was a new pastor. I applied to the denomination I grew up in and eventually was told that my participation was not desired. During my tenure, I looked for ways to bring life to my church. I read books, went to seminars and took classes. I find it most sad that the same issues that were prevalent then are still prevalent today. And I find it even sadder that the same solutions (that apparently didn't work then) are still proffered today.

Something is seriously wrong. It was wrong twenty years ago, and is still wrong today. Why?

The God I Want

Writing computer systems allows me the opportunity to create a world where activities are bound by rules, yet free to act in order to accomplish their assigned tasks. To a computer program, I am God.

Now writing systems and creating an environment for activity requires that I be aware of quite a few different things. If I want my system to be stable and effective, the rules I create need to be consistent and predictable. The components need to relate to each other without violating the rules. The rules, components and activities must mesh in such a way that the system does not crash when something unexpected happens. In the end it is a pretty complex process and at times it makes my head hurt.

There is an old story about three blind men who are asked to describe an elephant after examining it. One man was at the trunk, another at the leg and the third at the tail. As you can expect, each came up with a different description and none of them were right. The lesson is that each was wrong because each only had limited knowledge and experience of the elephant. They could not see the whole picture.

Those who say things like "If there were a God He would ..." are like the blind men and the elephant. These people attempt to define how God should act based upon their limited knowledge and experience. (And their selfish motives)

Let's face the fact that as humans, our knowledge is limited. We are simply incapable of knowing all the interactions between the components of our existence. And, if we were to take seriously the requirements for God proposed by some and expand them to a universal scale, we would find that many, if not all, of these requirements just won't work.

When I write a computer program which consists of three components and maybe 100 lines of code, there are complexities and interactions to be considered, but for the most part they are manageable. When I write a computer program that consists of thousands of components and hundreds of thousands of lines of code, the complexity exceeds my ability (and probably most programmers') to maintain alone.

Each potential event starts a string of activities and activates a series of interactions that must function consistently in order for the system to operate correctly. Any modification to the system creates the possibility that one of the relationships will break and cause the system to crash. Any competent programmer will tell you that it is near impossible to know every interaction within a system. And computer systems are really quite simple in comparison to the universe of human interactions.

People who say "God should ..." are people who don't know how much they don't know. Logic demands that if God exists, that He be infinite in every way. And if these people who make demands on God knew anything at all, they would quickly realize that it would take infinite intelligence to produce a system like our existence that operated as consistently and predictable as ours does.

When people say "God should ..." or "God would ..." they don't really want God, but simply a genie that they can command so that they don't have to deal with reality. People who attempt to define God in their image are people whose idea of God is too small.