Sermon # 4 – God have mercy on me, a Pharisee!

Sermon # 4 – God have mercy on me, a Pharisee!

Good morning, Calvary.  It’s good to be with you.  In the words of the apostle Paul, grace to you and peace from God our Father & the Lord Jesus Christ.  Our passage today comes from the gospel Luke chapter 18 (Luke 18: 9-14).  I’ll give you a couple moments to pull that up; and I’ll read it.  We’ll be flipping around in the OT a little to start out so if you grabbed the sermon notes, the reference will be on there for you. 

Let’s read Luke 18: 9-14 & I’ll pray:

He (Jesus) also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.  For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Opening prayer: (breath & relax)
Lord, let us seek meekness and let not pride swell in our hearts.  As compared to you we are little more than dust beneath Your feet.  What little we have in wealth, beauty or intelligence, even these are gifts given from You.  Every faculty of mind & body is a part of Your undeserved gift.  We are sinners Lord; we’ve at times trampled on your law, been tempted by pleasures, passions and lusts.  How can we flaunt ourselves proudly before You?  Help us see ourselves through Your eyes, let pride in us wither & die to be replaced by humility and tender care for 1 another, Lord.  As rainfall stays not on the hillside but flows down to the lowest valley, make us the lowest vale that the river of your grace, love & spiritual gifts may exceedingly flow through us.  If we leave duties undone may our guilt strip us of any pride in ourselves & quicken us toward deeper devotion to you.  When we’re tempted to think too highly of ourselves grant us to discern the wiles of our spiritual enemy.  Help us stand with an eye toward the Captain of our faith and to cling tightly to our humble Lord, hide us in our Redeemer’s righteousness and let us ascribe all deliverance from sin to Your grace.  And all of God’s people said….Amen.

Before we even get into our passage today I’d like to take a little time with you to look at a few basic ideas that shape how we study & read the Bible.  My hope…my expectation really is that Sunday is not the only day each week that you are seeking after God through His Word, and I want to help you do that more successfully.  My fear is from looking around at the Evangelical landscape today is that much of Christian theology & thought has been reduced to a series of bumper stickers, tee-shirts, tweets & slogans like: “Jesus is my co-pilot;” or “I’m the head & not the tail” or “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship.”  Just so you know Christianity is actually both a religion & a relationship…but anyway. 

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Section #2 of your Sermon notes: Discernment 101

There are only a few basic rules to biblical study but they can give you important guardrails, *hand motion* like on a bridge, to keep you from plummeting over the side into an error or heresy of some kind.  Those 3 rules for biblical interpretation are: Grammar, the Audience & Context.

The Grammar of a passage– has to do with what is specifically is being said, the words themselves, and if you don’t want to bother with 7 years of ancient Hebrew & Greek studies then I’d simply recommend getting in the habit of going online to a site like Bible Gateway where for free you can look at a few different translations of whatever passage you are studying.  If you’re interested there are three translations that I’d personally recommend the New KJV, the ESV or the NASB.  Often just by looking at how the translators are describing the words, this can give you a better understanding of a particular passage you are reading. Grammar.

The Audience – has to do with to whom the passage is addressed or originally intended.  For example, if I wrote a letter to Sandra & in the letter I described how much I loved her & looked forward to spending the rest of my life with her, and you read that letter.  I would not be telling you I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.  You would merely be misapplying my words meant for someone else to yourself.  The error in that case wouldn’t be with me as the author but with you as the reader.  Unfortunately, this happens a lot with people who try applying the OT to themselves as if God wanted you a 21st Century American Christian to go hunt down some Amarites & begin murdering pagans. Grammar & Audience.

The Context – has to do with properly understanding the words around your passage to grasp the passage’s fuller meaning.  Much like the golden rule for real estate is “location, location, location;” the golden rule for biblical interpretation is “context, context, and context.”  For example if I said the US Constitution provided me with the “right to bear arms” & I took this to mean that I have the right as an American to own the strong, furry arms of a woodland creature (a bear) then I wouldn’t be properly understanding the context around the phrase; right?  I mean personally, I wish that the constitution did promise me “Bear Arms”….but alas it doesn’t.  

So these are our 3 areas of concern to not merely assume a passage’s point but to actually fully understand it.  Our guardrails against error are: Grammar, the Audience & Context.  But let’s look at some specific examples of what happens when we don’t apply these 3 simple rules to studying the bible.

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Example # 1 –

So I’ll start with an easy one: I could correctly state that the Bible says, “Judas hung himself; go and do likewise,” that’s a direct quote from Mathew 27 & Luke 10.  But does the correct application of those 2 passages really teach us that God wants us to go commit suicide?  I hope you know it doesn’t; it’s just stringing 2 different out of context passages together when there subjects don’t really go together.  Now that is easier to recognize as error when its 2 bad passages that are suggesting suicide but so often you’ll hear preachers on the radio do the same thing stringing together 2 nice passages like: if you just obey God’s laws you too can have an easy, happy, prosperous life, so get to it.  Are there several passages of Scripture that say to obey God?  Of course.  Are there passages that seem to imply some people in this life will have happiness & prosperity?  Of course.  But it’s important to not fall for mere slogans & easy answers to life’s big questions but to take a critical eye *hand motion from the eye* to the messages you are hearing not only out in the world but unfortunately today inside the very churches that claim the name Christian. 

Example # 2 –

It’s been said that Rick Warren has made about a million $’s or so with his “Christian” diet book called “the Daniel plan” which he says is loosely based off Daniel chapter 1.  What I’d like us to do is flip back to the OT to Daniel chapter 1 & let’s see if the point of Daniel chapter 1 is about being a chubby Californian Pastor & how to lose those sinful love handles or not.  For context, Daniel 1 has to do with the Jews that were taken from their homeland & forced to live in exile in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar in around 600 BC.  This section specifically talks about Daniel & the other Jews who did not refuse their new Babylonian names or their new Babylonian education but did reject the “King’s table” (the diet of the Babylonians) so the question for us is: was this because Daniel was like super into yoga & local, organic farm-fresh veganism or because the OT Mosaic Law required dietary restrictions for the Jews (aka eating Kosher)?  Well Leviticus 11 give us a list of clean vs. unclean animals, fish, birds & bugs that could & couldn’t be eaten by the Jews.  This would spell out the specific Jewish dietary restrictions placed on Daniel & the other Jews because they were keeping their faith even in this foreign pagan land.  So Daniel is not a health nut, he was Jewish, but to delve even deeper, what was the result of Daniel’s “Daniel plan diet,” according to Scripture?  Was it miracle weight loss?  Was it 6 pack abs like Captain America? 

Let’s read: Daniel 1: 12-15 – Daniel is speaking, he says, “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” So he (the King) listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food.” So the result of the Daniel plan diet according to Daniel chapter 1 is getting fatter.  This seems like a terrible diet plan to me if it’s all about losing inches & maybe, just maybe Rick Warren twisted this section of scripture out of context for a “Christian-y” sounding title to his book.

Example 3 –

I promise we’ll eventually get to our passage, just stick with me….so I went to college at a Nazarene University in Olathe (MNU) & when I was done with the Bachelor’s program they gave me a key chain & on it said “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, to give you a future & a hope…Jeremiah 29:11.”  So popular is this passage that my old church Olathe Christian painted this on the walls of their sanctuary.  So let’s flip over to Jeremiah 29 & we’ll see if this passage is telling us we’re all gonna be rich & successful in 21st century America.  The passage itself tells us it’s God’s Word via the prophet Jeremiah for the Jews in the Babylonian exile.  I’ll read vs. 1 – “These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem (notice the audience Calvary) to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”  So right there verse 1 & we already know the audience for this passage is not for us; it was for the exiled Jews in about 600 BC.  But let’s go ahead & read the whole context of 29:11 so we can understand why God is telling them this message that is not meant as prosperity promise to us.  Let’s read vs. 10 -13: “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back from this place.  For I know the plans I have for you (Jews in exile, remember Calvary that’s the audience), declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you (God’s describing repentance & faith here).  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”  This verse is a declaration of a Sovereign God whose promise was that it was God’s just judgment that these Jews went into exile but that God would not fail to save these Jews’ children & grandchildren as it would be 70 years before God would bring them home, back out of exile. 

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Background –

Now as we move back to the NT to our passage at hand Luke 18 & we’ve got some experience now in understanding of what aspects biblical interpretation we’re looking for, let me set up the context for you.  Over the last several chapters of Luke Jesus had several run-ins with the Pharisees & taught several parables on everything from prosperity in this life vs. salvation in the afterlife in “the rich man & Lazarus” to Calvinism in the parable of “the wedding feast.”  That brings us up to Luke 18… 

What is a Pharisee?   A Pharisee was a separatist; they believed their strict observance of the Jewish Law elevated them above mere commoners.  They went above & beyond the required observances – fasting & tithing even more than the OT law required.  The gospel letters often pictured Pharisees in a role opposed to Jesus.  They are often seen as arrogant, legalistic and certainly self-righteous.  The Pharisee in our Gospel was one who trusted in his own works & his own righteousness to save him.  

What is a Tax Collector? The Tax Collector (sometimes called a Publican in other versions) was a collector of public taxes.  Today, it’s easy to feel sympathy for him due to his humility, his chest pounding *action*, his down cast eyes & cries for mercy.  Yet we need to remember who tax collectors were in those days.  They were Jews hired by their Roman masters to collect taxes on commission from their own people.  Like today, these taxes would be used to fund the empire’s military; the same military that often put Jews in chains & nailed them to crosses.  The more these men could squeeze *make a fist* out of their fellow Jews, the richer they became.  Symbolically the tax collector is the worst of the cast of characters in the Gospels, one hated & distrusted.  In first century Israel, they were probably considered even worse than a prostitute.  

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UPWARD – Relationship with God, Sola Fide & the Reformation

First let’s think about how this parable speaks to our relationship with God.  It’s been my experience that people start coming to church for a million different reasons: maybe they are looking to get connected with by members of the community, maybe they are looking for purpose for their life, maybe they are looking for motivation to clean up their lives.  The thing that I think I love most about this passage is Jesus’ emphasis on the doctrine of Justification – how is it that we (sinners) can stand “righteous” before a holy & just God.  See you can come to God, to the Bible or to church with a million problems & issues but Biblically this one above all is the most important. 

The Protestant reformation was kicked off by a young Catholic monk who did exactly what we were doing earlier in this very sermon.  He took the messages & theology he was being taught in his day & he weighed them against the very words of Scripture & the most important issue he had was that for all the churches’ talk of sacraments, penance & works of supererogation he discovered a very different message in Scripture.  He found a message of righteousness, Christ’s righteousness, given as a gift to repentant sinners who trusted in the gospel – the work that Christ had done for those whom the father would give him from out of this fallen world.

Now I can’t prove this by any historical study but personally I am absolutely convinced that there was a very important “Pharisee” in attendance at this message from Jesus.  Liberal theologians today often try to pit the messages of Jesus against the messages of Paul as if they taught two completely different gospels.  However if you put the words of Jesus from our passage side by side with Paul’s words from Philippians 3, it’s an amazing parallel.  Jesus says: He told this some to who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt – that’s an exact picture of Paul in the book of Acts before his conversion.  Paul says, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the himself, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, I was a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.  Then Jesus describes the tax collector as a man, humble & seeking mercy from God.  Paul reiterates this to the extreme, he says: but whatever gain I had in obedience, I counted as loss, as nothing, for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, trash, dung in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from obedience to the law, but that righteousness which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.  Paul, you see, preached the gospel of Jesus–and it was this gospel that saved him & changed his life forever.

You and I, we come to God as empty, impoverished, desperate beggars.  Like us, the tax collector recognizes his sinful condition and seeks the only thing that can bridge the gap between himself and God.  “Have mercy on me,” he cries, and we know from the end of the parable that God heard his prayer for mercy and answered it.  Jesus tells us in verse 14 that the tax collector went away justified (declared righteous) because he had humbled himself before God, confessing that no amount of works could save him from his sin and that only God’s mercy could save him.  If we are truly broken-hearted over our sin, we can be assured of God’s boundless love and His forgiveness through Christ; knowing that no amount of good works, church attendance, tithes, loving our neighbor or anything else we do is sufficient to take away the blot of sin and enable us to stand before a holy God on our own.  That is why God sent Jesus to die on the cross.  His death is the only “work” that is able to cleanse us and make us acceptable to God.  Our faith needs no other support than this, that God has accepted us, not because we earned it, but because the God-Man Jesus Christ has earned Salvation for us. 

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Inward – The life of the believer, a deepening relationship with God

Now let’s consider how this parable applies to us inwardly.  There are 3 points that Jesus described in this parable about why God spurned the Pharisee.  First, because he trusted (or had faith) in himself & his own righteousness to save him; he did not call on God for mercy or grace & therefore received none from Him.  That makes the Pharisee as modern today as he was in 1st Century Israel.  Even today there seems to be an innate belief both in & out of the church that if I’m just a “good person,” then that should be good enough for God or that if I think I’m on average or even a little better than the other people I know then I must be alright with God as well.  The problem with that mindset is it’s exactly the way the Pharisee thinks.

The 2nd & 3rd reasons God spurned the Pharisee both flow out of his first error it was because of the Pharisee’s pride that led to his arrogance & caused him to even despise those he didn’t think were as righteous in his eyes as he was.  Shouldn’t the real gospel, the Gospel of Grace through Faith, the gospel of Christ’s righteousness becoming a cloak for our own righteousness, shouldn’t that Gospel lead us toward more repentance of sin in our own lives?  Shouldn’t God’s mercy on us & his forgiveness of us propel & motivate us toward more patience & grace & understanding with others?
I hope that you are convinced about how serious repentant-faith is not only for unbelievers in conversion but for the whole life of the Christian.  To illustrate this just think about the song Amazing Grace – probably the most famous Christian song there is.  Amazing Grace, you may know was written by John Newton.  Now if you know of John Newton you may know he was once a slaver transporting blacks from West Africa to the New World to work plantations & mines.  He later went on to retire from seafaring & began studying Christian theology & eventually became a pastor.  Now like Newton, you and & I may wish that we can go from pagan, through conversion & *poof* straight into saintly holiness but that is not how the Christian life is, it’s usually arduous, full of failures, repentance & continued striving toward that goal of becoming more like Christ.  You may not know the rest of Newton’s story but even after he was saved he still led at least 3 more slaving expeditions before God convicted him of that area & he gave it up, and up until the time of his marriage on these trips he was still raping various young slave girls before he was led out of that sin as well.  And I hate to make that gross & stark but that way we feel today about Newton’s sins - that disgusted feeling, is exactly how God feels about our own sins.  We should be a people grieved by our own sin & quick to call on God for mercy & humble enough to repent of our sin & desperate to receive his forgiveness.  That’s the quality that Christ honors in the example of the tax collector.  The admonishment from the Lord is that Gospel-focus will keep our hearts humble & devoid of pride & unlike the Pharisee who exalts in himself & despises others.   

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Outward – being a mask of God to the World

            Finally as we turn outward, the Lord leaves us a command & an example.  The command is to spread the word about this gospel of grace through repentant-faith to a world ingrained with a mentality toward works-based self-worth & works-based religions.  To stand opposed to any world religions that would exalt doing over believing or participating over repenting in salvation.  And this could be anything from Islam, to Mormonism, to Buddhism, or even to Catholicism.

And the example is this….Christ, who was more than a just man, a God who dwelt among us mere mortals.  This God Man didn’t dwell amongst us in kingly mansions, riding in stately golden chariots, flaunting his wealth & privilege, wrapped in purple like a king.  He lived among man content to be a servant, a helper, a friend to sinners.  The one who could heal the sick, raise the dead, stop fearsome storms…the greatest, the best among us was humble, patient, lived self-sacrificially, showed mercy, showed love for those that hated him, & prayed for even the worst among him.  Is a man like this not worth imitation?    

There is some sense in scripture that God often works through imperfect vessels of clay, like you & I, so that when we look at men who went on to do great works for the Kingdom people like Peter, Paul, Martin Luther & John Newton, we don’t end up exalting & worship these men because we clearly see their flaws but at the same time we can see God at work in & through their lives even in the midst of their sins.  Like candlelight that spills out of the cracks in a clay vase, Martin Luther would describe the life of a Christian like God wearing a mask.  God is at work here, today, but he often works now behind the mask of you and I, he works through sinners like us to care for the church, to serve the needy, to evangelize the nations, to hold close those who’ve lost a loved one.  God is at work, here, in the form an evangelist-mask, a neighbor-mask, a praise-team mask, a co-worker mask.  What kind of worshiper will you be Calvary: a repentant believer revealing the God of grace to this world showing mercy & peace for one another; or a Pharisee who worships himself in pride & despises others?  

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Let’s pray. Closing prayer – Father, to you we pray that our tendencies toward narcissistic pride & self-reliance is ended.  Christ, we pray that you grant us thankful hearts & minds that know our own sinful tendencies.  Spirit, we pray that you make known to us your Word, and God we thank you for what you’ve done for us in Christ, in grace and in mercy.  God for the unbelievers who may be with us today I hope they clearly heard from myself & Your Word that they cannot do anything to merit your mercy but that You can grant faith, repentance, conversion & justification on them.  Grant those graces Lord to our friends, our families, our children.  Let us see You at work in our day with conversions & discipleship.  Let our communities see you at work in us in peace & devotion to one another.  Please be with the members this church, we pray that you mature us in the faith & use us to better your church & your kingdom.   

Sermon #4 Outline

God have mercy on me, a Pharisee!

I                 Intro:    

                  A good morning

                  B a Pauline greeting

                  C open to Luke 18: 9-14 & I’ll pray – prayer based of “Pride” from Valley of Vision

II               Discernment 101

                  Reason – we’re all theologians, the goal is to become a better theologian

                  A Grammar – Bible Gateway

                  B the Audience – Love note to Sandra

                  C Context – The Constitutional right to “Bear Arms”

                  Ex 1 – Scriptural suicide? Matthew 27 & Luke 10

                  Ex 2 – “Christian diet plans” & Daniel chapter 1

                  Ex 3 – MNU & a promise of prosperity from Jerimiah 29:11

III              Passage Luke 18: 9-14

                  Background – what is a Pharisee / Tax Collector

                  A. Upward – Relationship with God, Sola Gratia & the apostle Paul

                  B. Inward – The life of the believer, a deepening relationship with God, Humility & Repentance

                  C. Outward – Becoming a mask of God to the World, a final command & an example

IV              Closing Prayer: 

How does Mark Driscoll do ministry? Support Re:Connect on FB

How does Mark Driscoll do ministry?  Well let me quote his message to a crowd of young pastors:

“I am all about some blessed subtraction.  There, there is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus.  *Mark chuckles, chuckles.*  And by God’s grace it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done.  Um.  You either get on the bus or you get ran over by the bus those are the options.  But the bus ain’t gonna stop.  A few kinds of people, there’s people who get in the way of the bus they gotta get ran over.  There’s people that wanna take turns driving the bus they gotta get thrown off *Mark chuckles again, chuckles.* ‘cause they gotta go somewhere else…”

There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus. (Chuckle, chuckle.)  And by God’s grace it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done.  You either get on the bus or get ran over by the bus those are the options.  But the bus ain’t gonna stop.

Does that sound like Jesus?

Does Driscoll sound like a Shepard leader caring for the flock of Christ in his city?

Please pray with me for the ministry of Re:Connect, whose sole purpose is to minister to those former church members & former church Pastors that Mark Driscoll & Mars Hill have violently & unbiblically harmed with their fascist totalitarian church structure & behavior.  You can find more about Re:Connect on Facebook.

  

Our Calling and God's Glory - the missing Doctrine of Vocation

Our Calling and God's Glory

Gene Edward Veith

Christian's preoccupied with their families, struggling to make ends meet, living their mundane lives "are all in a state of holiness," according to Luther, "living holy lives before God."

 

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned him, and to which God has called him.
1 Corinthians 7:17

"Justification by faith alone" is surely the most important contribution of the Reformation. The second most important, arguably, is the "doctrine of vocation."

Whereas the doctrine of justification has wide currency, the doctrine of vocation has been all but forgotten. The word vocation can still be heard sometimes, but the concept is generally misunderstood or incompletely understood. The doctrine of vocation is not "occupationalism," a particular focus upon one's job. The term means "calling," but it does not have to do with God's voice summoning you to do a great work for him. It does not mean serving God by evangelizing on the job. Nor does the doctrine of vocation mean that everyone is a minister, though it is about the priesthood of all believers. It does not even mean doing everything for God's glory, or doing our very best as a way to glorify God, though it is about God's glory, at the expense of our own.

The doctrine of vocation is the theology of the Christian life. It solves the much-vexed problems of the relationship between faith and works, Christ and culture, how Christians are to live in the world. Less theoretically, vocation is the key to strong marriages and successful parenting. It contains the Christian perspective on politics and government. It shows the value, as well as the limits, of the secular world. And it shows Christians the meaning of their lives.

The Swedish theologian Einar Billing, in his book Our Calling, noted how our tendency is to look for our religion in the realm of the extraordinary, rather than in the ordinary. (1) In vocation, however, God is hidden even in the mundane activities of our everyday lives. And this is his glory.

Luther's Doctrine of Vocation

To understand fully the doctrine of vocation, one should begin not with the Puritans-who tended to turn the doctrine of vocation into a work ethic-but with Luther and with Lutherans, from the composers of the Book of Concord to modern theologians such as Billing and Gustaf Wingren. It goes something like this: When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. And he does. The way he gives us our daily bread is through the vocations of farmers, millers, and bakers. We might add truck drivers, factory workers, bankers, warehouse attendants, and the lady at the checkout counter. Virtually every step of our whole economic system contributes to that piece of toast you had for breakfast. And when you thanked God for the food that he provided, you were right to do so.

God could have chosen to create new human beings to populate the earth out of the dust, as he did with the first man. But instead, he chose to create new life-which, however commonplace, is no less miraculous-by means of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, the vocations of the family.
God protects us through the vocations of earthly government, as detailed in Romans 13. He gives his gifts of healing usually not through out-and-out miracles (though he can) but by means of the medical vocations. He proclaims his word by means of human pastors. He teaches by means of teachers. He creates works of beauty and meaning by means of human artists, whom he has given particular talents.

Many treatments of the doctrine of vocation emphasize what we do, or are supposed to do, in our various callings. This is part of it, as are the various aspects that I outlined above, but it is essential in grasping the magnitude of this teaching to understand first the sense in which vocation is God's work.
God is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid, said Luther. According to Luther, vocation is a "mask of God." (2) He is hidden in vocation. We see the milkmaid, or the farmer, or the doctor or pastor or artist. But, looming behind this human mask, God is genuinely present and active in what they do for us.

The sense of God acting in vocation is characteristically Lutheran in the way it emphasizes that God works through physical means. Luther and his followers stress how God has chosen to bestow his spiritual gifts by means of his Word (ink on paper; the sound waves emanating from a pulpit) and Sacrament (water; bread and wine). And he bestows his earthly gifts by means of human vocations.
More broadly, in terms Reformed folk can relate to, vocation is part of God's providence. God is intimately involved in the governance of his creation in its every detail, and his activity in human labor is a manifestation of how he exercises his providential care.

For a Christian, conscious of vocation as the mask of God, all of life, even the most mundane facets of our existence, become occasions to glorify God. Whenever someone does something for you-brings your meal at a restaurant, cleans up after you, builds your house, preaches a sermon-be grateful for the human beings whom God is using to bless you and praise him for his unmerited gifts. Do you savor your food? Glorify God for the hands that prepared it. Are you moved by a work of art-a piece of music, a novel, a movie? Glorify God who has given such artistic gifts to human beings.

Of course, that vocation is a mask of God means that God also works through you, in your various callings. That God is hidden in what we do is often obscured by our own sinful and selfish motivations. But that does not prevent God from acting.

Faith and Works

Was the farmer who grew the grain that went into that piece of toast I had this morning a Christian? How about the artist whose movie made such a powerful impression? I happen to know that he is not a Christian. How can I glorify God for the work-or farming-of an unbeliever? The doctrine of vocation answers that question. In his governance of the world, God uses those who do not know him, as well as those who do. Every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). But human beings sin in their vocations and sin against their vocations, resisting and fighting against God's purpose.

On the surface, there does not seem to be a great deal of difference between a Christian farmer tilling his field and a non-Christian farmer who does essentially the same thing. God can use both to bring forth daily bread, which he, in turn, distributes to Christian and non-Christian alike. But there is a huge difference. The Christian farmer works out of faith, while the non-Christian farmer works out of unbelief.

Luther actually uses two different words for what I have so far been collapsing under the general term vocation: "station" (Stand) and "calling" (Beruf). Non-Christians are given a station in life, a place where God has assigned them. Christians, though, are the ones who hear God's voice in his Word, so they understand their station in terms of God's personal "calling."
God's Word calls people to faith. This is the Christian's primary vocation, being a child of God. But God has also stationed that Christian to live a life in the world. The Christian, in faith, now understands his life and what God gives him to do as a calling from the Lord. As contemporary theologian John Pless explains it,

Luther understood that the Christian is genuinely bi-vocational. He is called first through the Gospel to faith in Jesus Christ and he is called to occupy a particular station or place in life. The second sense of this calling embraces all that the Christian does in service to the neighbor not only in a particular occupation but also as a member of the church, a citizen, a spouse, parent, or child, and worker. Here the Christian lives in love toward other human beings and is the instrument by which God does His work in the world. (3)

"We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and the neighbor," said Luther. "He lives in Christ through faith, and in his neighbor through love." (4) The Christian's relationship to God, for Luther, has nothing to do with our good works, but everything to do with the work of Christ for our behalf. But God, having justified us freely through the Cross of Jesus Christ, calls us back into the world, changed, to love and serve our neighbors.
Luther's monastic opponents argued that we are saved by our good works, by which they meant rejecting the world, performing spiritual exercises, and by their vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience having nothing to do with "secular" vocations. But Luther denied that such private, isolated piety intended to serve God had anything to do with good works. He would ask, Who are you helping? Good works are not to be done for God. Rather, they must be done for one's neighbor. God does not need our good works, said Wingren summarizing Luther, but our neighbor does.

If you find yourself in a work by which you accomplish something good for God, or the holy, or yourself, but not for your neighbor alone, then you should know that that work is not a good work. For each one ought to live, speak, act, hear, suffer, and die in love and service for another, even for one's enemies, a husband for his wife and children, a wife for her husband, children for their parents, servants for their masters, masters for their servants, rulers for their subjects and subjects for their rulers, so that one's hand, mouth, eye, foot, heart and desire is for others; these are Christian works, good in nature. (5)

We sometimes talk about serving God in our vocations. Luther might take issue with this formulation, if by it we imagine that we are performing great deeds to impress the Lord and if we neglect our families or mistreat our colleagues in doing so. But Jesus himself tells us that what we do-or do not do-for our neighbor in need, we do (or do not do) to him (Matt. 25: 31-46). So when we serve our neighbor, we do serve God, though neither the sheep nor the goats realized whom they were really dealing with. God is hidden in vocation. Christ is hidden in our neighbors.

The Four Estates

As Christians live their ordinary lives, God assigns them certain neighbors to love and calls them to multiple realms of service. These constitute the Christian's vocations in the world.
Vocations are multiple. Luther spoke of God's callings in terms of three institutions that God has established, along with a fourth realm of human activity. The doctrine of vocation and the doctrine of the four estates are themes that run throughout Luther's writings. A particularly succinct treatment can be found in Luther's Confession of 1528. After criticizing monasticism, by which some think they can merit salvation, Luther contrasts these humanly devised orders with the orders devised by God himself: "But the true holy orders and pious foundations established by God," Luther writes, "are these three: the priestly office, the family and the civil government." (6)

All those who are engaged in the pastoral office or the ministry of the Word, are in a good, honest, holy order and station, that is well pleasing to God, as they preach, administer the Sacraments, preside over the poor funds and direct the sextons and other servants who assist in such labors, etc. These are all holy works in God's sight.

This Luther would term the estate of the church.

Likewise, those who are fathers or mothers, who rule their households well and who beget children for the service of God are also in a truly holy estate, doing a holy work, and members of a holy order. In the same way when children or servants are obedient to their parents or masters, this also is true holiness and those living in such estate are true saints on earth.

This for Luther is the estate of the household. This includes above all the family, which itself contains multiple callings: marriage, parenthood, childhood. This estate also involves the labor by which households make their livings. Luther had in mind what is expressed in the Greek word oikonomia, referring to "the management and the regulation of the resources of the household," (7) the term from which we derive our word economy. Thus, the estate of the household includes both the family vocations and the vocations of the workplace.Luther conflates human labor also with the third estate, the state, which includes, more generally, the society and culture:

Similarly princes and overlords, judges, officials and chancellors, clerks, men servants and maids, and all other retainers, as well as all who render the service that is their due, are all in a state of holiness and are living holy lives before God, because these three estates or orders are all included in God's Word and commandment. Whatever is included in God's order must be holy, for God's Word is holy and hallows all it touches and all it includes.

Medieval Catholicism exalted religious and monastic orders as the way of spiritual perfection. In doing so, the required clerical vows-such as celibacy and poverty-in effect denigrated the so-called secular lifestyles of marriage, parenthood, and economic activity. Luther, though, boldly reverses that paradigm. Fathers, mothers, and children; servants, maids, clerks, and rulers-these are the true holy orders.Christians preoccupied with their families, struggling to make ends meet, living their mundane lives "are all in a state of holiness," according to Luther, "living holy lives before God."
And then Luther goes beyond the specific roles God has given us to play in this world to an overarching estate:

Above these three estates and orders is the common order of Christian love, by which we minister not only to those of these three orders but in general to everyone who is in need, as when we feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, etc., forgive enemies, pray for all men on earth, suffer all kinds of evil in our earthly life, etc.

Here is another of Luther's great phrases: "the common order of Christian love." This is the realm of the Good Samaritan. People of all three orders come together here, ministering to each other and "to everyone who is in need."

The Priesthood of All Believers

The doctrine of vocation is an integral part of the Reformation teaching of the priesthood of all believers. This does not mean, at least for Luther, that the pastoral office is no longer necessary. Rather, being a pastor is a distinct vocation. God calls certain individuals into the pastoral ministry, and he works through them to give his Word and Sacraments to his flock.
The priesthood of all believers means, among other things, that one does not have to be a pastor or to do pastoral functions in order to be a priest.
John Pless shows how the medieval Roman Catholic view, which considered callings to the religious orders to be the only holy vocation from God, is replicated in American evangelicalism:

Medieval Roman Catholicism presupposed a dichotomy between life in the religious orders and life in ordinary callings. It was assumed that the monastic life guided by the evangelical counsels (i.e., the Sermon on the Mount) provided a more certain path to salvation than secular life regulated by the decalog. American Evangelicalism has spawned what may be referred to as "neo-monasticism." Like its medieval counterpart, neo-monasticism gives the impression that religious work is more God-pleasing than other tasks and duties associated with life in the world. According to this mindset, the believer who makes an evangelism call, serves on a congregational committee, or reads a lesson in the church service is performing more spiritually significant work than the Christian mother who tends to her children or the Christian who works with integrity in a factory. For the believer, all work is holy because he or she is holy and righteous through faith in Christ.

Similar to neo-monasticism is the neo-clericalism that lurks behind the slogan, "Everyone a minister." This phrase implies that work is worthwhile only insofar as it resembles the work done by pastors. Lay readers are called "Assisting Ministers" and this practice is advocated on the grounds that it will involve others in the church as though the faithful reception of Christ's gifts was insufficient. It is no longer enough to think of your daily life and work as your vocation, now it must be called "your ministry." (8)

Einar Billing made the point that Luther and the Lutherans displaced the monastic spiritual disciplines away from the cloister and into the world, to be practiced in vocation. (9) Celibacy? Be sexually faithful within marriage. Poverty? Struggle to make a living for your family. Obedience? Do what the law and your employer tell you to do. Almsgiving? Be generous to your neighbors. Self-discipline? Steel yourself against the temptations that you will encounter in everyday life.
Priests perform sacrifices. Christ's sacrifice for our sins was once and for all. We no longer need to repeat that sacrifice, which is taught to happen in the Mass. But Christ's disciples are called to take up their own crosses and to follow him. His royal priesthood will sacrifice themselves in their callings, as they love and serve their spouses, children, customers, employees, and fellow citizens. "Luther relocated sacrifice," says Pless. "He removed it from the altar and re-positioned it in the world." (10)
"The Christian brings his sacrifice as he renders the obedience, offers the service, and proves the love which his work and calling require of him," writes Vilmos Vatja. "The work of the Christian in his calling becomes a function of his priesthood, his bodily sacrifice. His work in the calling is a work of faith, the worship of the kingdom of the world." (11)

"You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1). These sacrifices are, precisely, "eucharistic sacrifices"; that is, "sacrifices of thanksgiving" in response to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. (12)

It may seem strange to think that such mundane activities as spending time with your spouse and children, going to work, and taking part in your community are part of your "holy" calling, and that the daily grind can be a "spiritual sacrifice."

It is not as strange, though, as what currently tears many Christians apart: a "spiritual" life that has little to do with their families, their work, and their cultural life. Many Christians treat other people horribly, including their spouses and children, while cultivating their own personal piety. Many well-intentioned Christians lose themselves in church work and church activities, while neglecting their marriages, their children, and their other callings.

But ordinary life is where God has placed us. The family, the workplace, the local church, the culture, and the public square are where he has called us. Vocation is where sanctification takes place.
True, we sin badly in all of these vocations. Instead of loving and serving our neighbors, we want to be loved and to be served, putting ourselves first. But every Sunday, we can go to be nourished by God's Word, where we find forgiveness for our vocational sins and are built up in our faith. That faith, in turn, can bear fruit in our daily vocations.

The divorce rate among evangelical Christians, their spiritual escapism, and their cultural invisibility are all symptoms of the loss of vocation. Conversely, recovering vocation can transfigure all of life, suffusing every relationship and every task put before us with the glory of God.

Charles Spurgeon quote

"Men need to be told that, unless divine grace brings them out of their enmity to God, they will eternally perish. They must be reminded of the sovereignty of God, that He is not obliged to bring them out of this state, that He would be right and just if He left them in such a condition, that they have no merit to plead before Him and no claims upon Him, and that if they are to be saved, it must be by grace, and grace alone.... The Gospel will be found equal to every emergency, it is an arrow that can pierce the hardest heart, a balm that will heal the deadliest wound. Preach it, and preach nothing else."

Charles Spurgeon

The Mark of a False Prophet: They Draw Away Disciples After Themselves

Chris Rosenbrough
False teachers and false prophets have been and will always continue to be a very serious threat to the Church and to each and every baptized Christian. In today’s postmodern society it is not considered politically correct to speak this way because people wrongly believe that everyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian, regardless of what they believe, teach or confess. Yet, Jesus warns us in his Sermon on the Mount about false teachers and false prophets and describes them as wolves in sheep’s clothing and not has harmless people who should be ignored—or worse—tolerated. Here’s what our Lord said:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15–20)
Notice that Jesus warns us that false teachers and prophets disguise themselves to look like Christians. But also notice that Jesus says the sheep-like camouflage won’t work too well because we will be able to recognize the wolves by their fruits. So what are these bad fruits that make wolves easy to recognize? Answer: their messages.

One of the regular features on my radio program, Fighting for the Faith, is the sermon review. Over the past five and half years I’ve reviewed hundreds of sermons by the world’s most popular Bible twisters. Each one puts his own spin on the Bible and each one has concocted his own unique theology. Yet there is a common characteristic that each of these false teachers possesses: They preach about themselves, not Christ.

The Apostle Paul, when he warned the elders of the church in Ephesus about the false teachers who would be coming after his departure, gave them a simple way to spot the wolves:

“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore be alert.” (Acts 20:28–31)

Note well what Acts 20:30 says about the fierce wolves—they draw away the disciples after themselves. The 5th century Church Father Ammonius of Alexandria, preaching on this text noted:
“In order to draw away the disciples after them.” Heretics strive to make the people their own instead of the Lord’s, so that they might boast in themselves...Paul himself checked this beforehand when he silenced and censured those who were saying, “I’m Paul’s; I’m Apollos’s; I’m Cephas’s,” since he did not want their faith to be explained by the name of a person but by Christ’s name; he wanted them all to be called Christians, even though they had been taught by different teachers. Accordingly, whenever all the teachers strive for the same goal of proclaiming the true faith, of profiting the students while suppressing their own names, they are called, by the same name, Christians.1
The fruit of false teachers, prophets and ravenous wolves is easy to spot. If they preach themselves, not Christ, then they’re wolves.

Wolves preach about their lives, their victories, their dreams, their visions, their ideas, the tips and tricks they’ve discovered to achieve success. Jesus, if He’s mentioned at all by them, is merely held up as an example to be followed. The goal of their preaching is to convince you to apply the pastor’s insights and life tips so that you can be successful, just like the pastor is successful.
Faithful teachers of the one true faith, on the other hand, are not like wolves but are like the apostle Paul who said:

“But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God….For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Corinthians 4:2, 5)

If you ever find yourself in a church where the pastor is preaching himself, not Christ, run! As a baptized sheep in Christ’s flock you must always remember that wolves are not harmless, they eat sheep! The pastor who preaches himself rather than Christ is working for the devil and is preaching himself and his congregation into the fires of hell rather than into Christ’s eternal kingdom. And when you hear the faithful preaching of Christ crucified and raised for sinners, then rejoice and give thanks for that faithful pastor through whom Jesus delivers His forgiveness and life and makes you a member of His own flock of dearly bought sheep.

1 Martin, F., & Smith, E. (Eds.). (2006). Acts (p. 255). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Chris Rosebrough is on the board directors of Higher Things and is also the captain of PirateChristianRadio.com and host of the Fighting for the Faith radio program.

Acts 29 Network Removes Co-founder Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church From Membership (UPDATED)

August 8, 2014 by Warren Throckmorton  

In a stunning move, the Acts 29 Network leadership has removed network co-founder and Mars Hill Church lead pastor Mark Driscoll from the organization’s membership. I obtained a letter from several Acts 29 pastors which was sent to Driscoll and Mars Hill Church removing Driscoll and the church as members of the network, as well as calling on Driscoll to step down due to a pattern of complaints from Acts 29 pastors. Mark Driscoll was instrumental in founding the Acts 29 Network and has been president of the group. According to the letter, the information will soon be posted on the Acts 29 website. The letter is below:

Mark, As the Board of Acts 29, we are grateful to God for the leadership, courage, and generosity of both you and Mars Hill in not only founding the network but also sustaining it through the transition to this board three years ago. The very act of giving away your authority over the network was one of humility and grace, and for that we are grateful. Over the past three years, our board and network have been the recipients of countless shots and dozens of fires directly linked to you and what we consider ungodly and disqualifying behavior. We have both publicly and internally tried to support and give you the benefit of the doubt, even when multiple pastors in our network confirmed this behavior. In response, we leaned on the Mars Hill Board of Advisors & Accountability to take the lead in dealing with this matter. But we no longer believe the BoAA is able to execute the plan of reconciliation originally laid out. Ample time has been given for repentance, change, and restitution, with none forthcoming. We now have to take another course of action. Based on the totality of the circumstances, we are now asking you to please step down from ministry for an extended time and seek help. Consequently, we also feel that we have no alternative but to remove you and Mars Hill from membership in Acts 29. Because you are the founder of Acts 29 and a member, we are naturally associated with you and feel that this association discredits the network and is a major distraction. We tell you this out of love for you, Mars Hill, Acts 29, and most significantly, the cause of Christ, and we would be irresponsible and deeply unloving not to do so in a clear and unequivocal manner. Again, we want you to know that we are eternally thankful for what you as a man and Mars Hill as a church have meant to our network. However, that cannot dissuade us from action. Instead, it gives added significance and importance to our decision. We hope and pray that you see this decision as the action of men who love you deeply and want you to walk in the light—for your good, the good of your family, and the honor of your Savior. Shortly after sending this, we will be informing the members of Acts 29, your Board of Advisors and Accountability, and your elders, as well as putting out a public statement on the Acts 29 website. It brings us no joy to move forward in this direction, and we trust that the Lord will be at work in all of this. In sorrow and with hope, The Board of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network Matt Chandler Darrin Patrick Steve Timmis Eric Mason John Bryson Bruce Wesley Leonce Crump

All Mars Hill Church locations have been removed from the Acts 29 website. The news has been added to the organization’s website:

A Message from the Board of Acts 29 concerning Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church It is with deep sorrow that the Acts 29 Network announces its decision to remove Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church from membership in the network. Mark and the Elders of Mars Hill have been informed of the decision, along with the reasons for removal. It is our conviction that the nature of the accusations against Mark, most of which have been confirmed by him, make it untenable and unhelpful to keep Mark and Mars Hill in our network. In taking this action, our prayer is that it will encourage the leadership of Mars Hill to respond in a distinctive and godly manner so that the name of Christ will not continue to be dishonored. Matt Chandler Darrin Patrick Steve Timmis Eric Mason John Bryson Bruce Wesley Leonce Crump

According to the organization’s website, the network includes over 500 churches and focuses on church planting:

Over the last ten years Acts 29 has emerged from a small band of brothers to over 500 churches around the world. We want to allow a unifying, uncommon movement of God to happen through Acts 29. Centered on the Gospel, we desire to advance the mission of Jesus through obediently planting church-planting churches. It is our hope to see this leading to millions of lives changed by the power of the Spirit for the glory of God.

Acts 29 is not a model or a style. We have churches with live preaching and others with video-delivered sermons. We have independent church plants, replants, and existing churches that want to focus on planting new churches out of their existing congregations. Simply, we seek to be a movement of church-planting churches.

In 2005, when Driscoll headed the group, charges were filed against him by Ron Wheeler. Wheeler planted the first Acts 29 Network church in Mt. Vernon, WA and was an early protege of Driscoll’s. However, Wheeler later became disillusioned with his former mentor and asked Acts 29 to discipline Driscoll. Yesterday, Wheeler posted a lengthy open letter to Driscoll asking him to resign based on his experience with the Mars Hill pastor. The Acts 29 action comes on the heels of the resignations of Paul Tripp and James McDonald as members of the church governing board and a recent protest primarily by ex-members. Update: One of the Mars Hill ex-pastors who has been initiating mediation with the church, Kyle Firstenberg, had this reaction to Acts 29′s announcement.

I have been greatly discouraged with the response from the BOAA in the charges that both I and others have brought. Years have gone by with what appears as only damage control and not any clear act of love for Mark in holding him accountable as brothers in the faith should.

This action from Matt Chandler and the other members of the board of A29 is one of the most loving acts I have seen in leadership in the Church world in recent years.

I do believe that these men love Mark and Mars Hill just as I and countless others do. I agree with their findings and pray that Mark Driscoll, Sutton Turner and Dave Bruskus would repent and step down. I believe this would be the most God honoring thing to do as it would show their love for Jesus and the Gospel is greater then their position, authority and influence.

Update 2: A group of 75 ex-members were set to present over 50 new charges against the executive elders of Mars Hill Church today, but have decided to delay their action in light of the removal of Mars Hill by Acts 29 Network. For the press release, click here. Update 3: Ron Wheeler, who pastored the first Acts 29 church plant in Mt. Vernon, WA, reacted to the Acts 29 decision:

To Matt Chandler and the Board of Acts 29: Thank you for finally taking a position. I know it’s not easy. I know there were existing relationships between members of the board and Driscoll, but ultimately you prioritized obedience and faithfulness to Christ, above friendships and allegiance to a founder. For this, you are to be commended. Not only did you recognize the credibility damage to the network due to the continuing association with Mark Driscoll, but more importantly, you recognized that the cause of Christ was truly more important than Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill, Acts29 or anything else. The message for all of us here – individual, organization, church, or otherwise- is that silent passivity in the face of obvious sin and destruction, only gives birth to more sin and destruction in the end. Integrity was well served today. Also, thank you for taking action that only an organization such as yours could take. There are thousands of hurting individuals, both inside and outside of Mars Hill, who lacked a voice or any kind of real influence in this situation. They feel like cogs in the machine as they desperately long to see the Mars Hill Board of Advisors and Accountability, Acts29, somebody… step up and take difficult action and call for true Biblical repentance.

UPDATE 4: Mars Hill Church Board of Advisors and Accountability responds to the removal of the church from the Acts 29 Network. For all posts on Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church, click the links.

Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke!

Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke

By Nury Vittachi | July 6th 2014

About Nury I’m a science writer based in a creativity research lab at a university in Hong Kong. I love reading Science 2.0 and the popular science journals...

Nury Vittachi

 

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Metaphysical thought processes are more deeply wired than hitherto suspected

WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist.

    Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.

    While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several disciplines indicates that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone. 

    This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

    This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since we are born believers, not atheists, scientists say. Humans are pattern-seekers from birth, with a belief in karma, or cosmic justice, as our default setting. “A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,” writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people “are only aware of some of their religious ideas”.

INTERNAL MONOLOGUES

Scientists have discovered that “invisible friends” are not something reserved for children. We all have them, and encounter them often in the form of interior monologues. As we experience events, we mentally tell a non-present listener about it. 

    The imagined listener may be a spouse, it may be Jesus or Buddha or it may be no one in particular. It’s just how the way the human mind processes facts. The identity, tangibility or existence of the listener is irrelevant.

    “From childhood, people form enduring, stable and important relationships with fictional characters, imaginary friends, deceased relatives, unseen heroes and fantasized mates,” says Boyer of Washington University, himself an atheist. This feeling of having an awareness of another consciousness might simply be the way our natural operating system works.

PUZZLING RESPONSES

These findings may go a long way to explaining a series of puzzles in recent social science studies. In the United States, 38% of people who identified themselves as atheist or agnostic went on to claim to believe in a God or a Higher Power (Pew Forum, “Religion and the Unaffiliated”, 2012).

    While the UK is often defined as an irreligious place, a recent survey by Theos, a think tank, found that very few people—only 13 per cent of adults—agreed with the statement “humans are purely material beings with no spiritual element”. For the vast majority of us, unseen realities are very present.

    When researchers asked people whether they had taken part in esoteric spiritual practices such as having a Reiki session or having their aura read, the results were almost identical (between 38 and 40%) for people who defined themselves as religious, non-religious or atheist.

    The implication is that we all believe in a not dissimilar range of tangible and intangible realities. Whether a particular brand of higher consciousness is included in that list (“I believe in God”, “I believe in some sort of higher force”, “I believe in no higher consciousness”) is little more than a detail.

EVOLUTIONARY PURPOSES

If a tendency to believe in the reality of an intangible network is so deeply wired into humanity, the implication is that it must have an evolutionary purpose. Social scientists have long believed that the emotional depth and complexity of the human mind means that mindful, self-aware people necessarily suffer from deep existential dread. Spiritual beliefs evolved over thousands of years as nature’s way to help us balance this out and go on functioning. 

    If a loved one dies, even many anti-religious people usually feel a need for a farewell ritual, complete with readings from old books and intoned declarations that are not unlike prayers. In war situations, commanders frequently comment that atheist soldiers pray far more than they think they do.

    Statistics show that the majority of people who stop being part of organized religious groups don’t become committed atheists, but retain a mental model in which “The Universe” somehow has a purpose for humanity.

    In the US, only 20 per cent of people have no religious affiliation, but of these, only one in ten say they are atheists. The majority are “nothing in particular” according to figures published in New Scientist.

FEELING OF CONNECTEDNESS

There are other, more socially-oriented evolutionary purposes, too. Religious communities grow faster, since people behave better (referring to the general majority over the millennia, as opposed to minority extremists highlighted by the media on any given day). 

    Why is this so? Religious folk attend weekly lectures on morality, read portions of respected books about the subject on a daily basis and regularly discuss the subject in groups, so it would be inevitable that some of this guidance sinks in. 

    There is also the notion that the presence of an invisible moralistic presence makes misdemeanors harder to commit. “People who think they are being watched tend to behave themselves and cooperate more,” says the New Scientist’s Lawton. “Societies that chanced on the idea of supernatural surveillance were likely to have been more successful than those that didn't, further spreading religious ideas.”

    This is not simply a matter of religious folk having a metaphorical angel on their shoulder, dispensing advice. It is far deeper than that—a sense of interconnectivity between all things. If I commit a sin, it is not an isolated event but will have appropriate repercussions. This idea is common to all large scale faith groups, whether it is called karma or simply God ensuring that you “reap what you sow”.  

NARRATIVE PRESENCE

These theories find confirmation from a very different academic discipline—the literature department. The present writer, based at the Creativity Lab at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design, has been looking at the manifestation of cosmic justice in fictional narratives—books, movies and games. It is clear that in almost all fictional worlds, God exists, whether the stories are written by people of a religious, atheist or indeterminate beliefs.

    It’s not that a deity appears directly in tales. It is that the fundamental basis of stories appears to be the link between the moral decisions made by the protagonists and the same characters’ ultimate destiny. The payback is always appropriate to the choices made. An unnamed, unidentified mechanism ensures that this is so, and is a fundamental element of stories—perhaps the fundamental element of narratives. 

    In children’s stories, this can be very simple: the good guys win, the bad guys lose. In narratives for older readers, the ending is more complex, with some lose ends left dangling, and others ambiguous. Yet the ultimate appropriateness of the ending is rarely in doubt. If a tale ended with Harry Potter being tortured to death and the Dursley family dancing on his grave, the audience would be horrified, of course, but also puzzled: that’s not what happens in stories. Similarly, in a tragedy, we would be surprised if King Lear’s cruelty to Cordelia did not lead to his demise.

    Indeed, it appears that stories exist to establish that there exists a mechanism or a person—cosmic destiny, karma, God, fate, Mother Nature—to make sure the right thing happens to the right person. Without this overarching moral mechanism, narratives become records of unrelated arbitrary events, and lose much of their entertainment value. In contrast, the stories which become universally popular appear to be carefully composed records of cosmic justice at work. 

WELL-DEFINED PROCESS

In manuals for writers (see “Screenplay” by Syd Field, for example) this process is often defined in some detail. Would-be screenwriters are taught that during the build-up of the story, the villain can sin (take unfair advantages) to his or her heart’s content without punishment, but the heroic protagonist must be karmically punished for even the slightest deviation from the path of moral rectitude. The hero does eventually win the fight, not by being bigger or stronger, but because of the choices he makes.

    This process is so well-established in narrative creation that the literati have even created a specific category for the minority of tales which fail to follow this pattern. They are known as “bleak” narratives. An example is A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry, in which the likable central characters suffer terrible fates while the horrible faceless villains triumph entirely unmolested.

    While some bleak stories are well-received by critics, they rarely win mass popularity among readers or moviegoers. Stories without the appropriate outcome mechanism feel incomplete. The purveyor of cosmic justice is not just a cast member, but appears to be the hidden heart of the show.

ROOTS OF ATHEISM

But if a belief in cosmic justice is natural and deeply rooted, the question arises: where does atheism fit in? Albert Einstein, who had a life-long fascination with metaphysics, believed atheism came from a mistaken belief that harmful superstition and a general belief in religious or mystical experience were the same thing, missing the fact that evolution would discard unhelpful beliefs and foster the growth of helpful ones. He declared himself “not a ‘Freethinker’ in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition” (“Einstein on Peace”, page 510).

    Similarly, Charles Darwin, in a meeting with a campaigner for atheism in September 1881, distanced himself from the views of his guest, finding them too “aggressive”. In the latter years of his life, he offered his premises for the use of the local church minister and changed his family schedule to enable his children to attend services.

SMALL DIFFERENCES

Of course these findings do not prove that it is impossible to stop believing in God. What they do indicate, quite powerfully, is that we may be fooling ourselves if we think that we are making the key decisions about what we believe, and if we think we know how deeply our views pervade our consciousnesses. It further suggests that the difference between the atheist and the non-atheist viewpoint is much smaller than probably either side perceives. Both groups have consciousnesses which create for themselves realities which include very similar tangible and intangible elements. It may simply be that their awareness levels and interpretations of certain surface details differ.

THE FUTURE

  But as higher levels of education spread, will starry-eyed spirituality die out and cooler, drier atheism sweep the field, as some atheism campaigners suggest? Some specialists feel this is unlikely. “If godlessness flourishes where there is stability and prosperity, then climate change and environmental degradation could seriously slow the spread of atheism,” says Lawton in New Scientist.

    On a more personal level, we all have loved ones who will die, and we all have a tendency to puzzle about what consciousness is, whether it is separate from the brain, and whether it can survive.  We will always have existential dread with us—at a personal or societal level. So the need for periods of contemplative calm in churches or temples or other places devoted to the ineffable and inexplicable will remain. They appear to be part of who we are as humans.

    Furthermore, every time we read a book or watch a movie, we are reinforcing our default belief in the eventual triumph of karma. While there is certainly growth in the number of bleak narratives being produced, it is difficult to imagine them becoming the majority form of cultural entertainment. Most of us will skip Cormac McCarthy’s crushingly depressing “The Road” in favor of the newest Pixar movie.

    

POPULATION IMPLICATIONS

When looking at trends, there’s also population growth to consider. Western countries are moving away from the standard family model, and tend to obsess over topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion on demand. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these issues, in practice they are associated with shrinking populations.  Europeans (and the Japanese) are not having enough children to replace the adult generation, and are seeing their communities shrink on a daily basis. 

    Africans and South Asians, on the other hand, are generally religious and retain the traditional model of multi-child families—which may be old-fashioned from a Western point of view, but it’s a model powerfully sanctioned by the evolutionary urge to extend the gene pool. 

    “It’s clearly the case that the future will involve an increase in religious populations and a decrease in scepticism,” says Steve Jones, a professor in genetics at University College London, speaking at the Hay Festival in the UK recently.

    This may appear as bad news for pro-atheism campaigners. But for the evolutionary life-force which may actually make the decisions, this may augur well for the continued existence of humanity. (An image of Richard Dawkins and his selfish gene having a testy argument over dinner springs to mind.)

       In the meantime, it might be wise for religious folks to refrain from teasing atheist friends who accidentally say something about their souls. And it might be equally smart for the more militant of today’s atheists to stop teasing religious people at all. 

         We might all be a little more spiritual than we think.