Saved From, or Saved For ... What?

Spirituality Column #170
February 9, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Saved From, or Saved For … What?
By Bob Walters

In accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, are we being saved from something, or for something?

Much Christian evangelism describes and sells the fearsome, high-stakes, eternal spiritual consequences of not being saved from one’s sins, from guilt, from death, from everlasting damnation, from Hell, from perpetual pain and from being forever vanquished from the presence of God. Be saved or burn!

Yikes. Sign me up.

But, wait a minute. How do I process that “saved from” message if I’m a reasonably intelligent, rational, functional, productive, loving, decent, free and generally informed good-citizen non-believer?

I probably recognize – but rationalize – my own sins, let guilt abate over time, don’t really “get” death because I haven’t been there, think of “damnation” more as a cussword than a curse, don’t see how Hell could be much worse than some parts of this world, have survived some pretty awful pain in life, and cannot conceive "forever."

Presence of God? “Show me.”

Terrifying fear, guilt, sin, death, pain equals what? Joy in the Lord Jesus Christ? Faith, hope and love? Excuse me? “No thanks. I have enough problems of my own.”

Christ’s great gift is so often misrepresented. I know a dear Christian brother who will occasionally say to an Orthodox icon of Jesus, “My friend, I feel sorry for you.”

“Saved from” evangelism should mean we are saved from our guilt, fear, and sorrows, not bludgeoned by Salvation. Christ died a horrible, real human death to erase our sins – yours, mine, everybody’s – and in his resurrection remade fallen humanity into a new spotless Creation before God; cleansed with and covered by Christ’s blood.

With faith in Christ we can approach physical life trusting God’s grace and love, and physical death with the certainty of salvation: everlasting, sinless, loving communion in Heaven with God Almighty.

The magnitude of that cleansing gift is as big as God.

I am a flawed, limited, human servant badly in need of His eternal, divine washing. Christ wants us to accept that gift, find strength in that gift, believe in that gift … but I can’t imagine that he wants us to feel miserable because of that gift.

When did you ever give someone a gift in order to hurt them?

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are saved for love and for communion, from everlasting to everlasting. Have faith. Repent. Rejoice and be glad.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) understands pain is a powerful sales tool, but salvation is a gift, not a product.

God and Sportsmanship

Spirituality Column #169
February 2, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

God and Sportsmanship
By Bob Walters

Christianity embodies the ultimate in sportsmanship: loving one’s enemy.

Sportsmanship is also about fidelity to team, obeisance to rules, abhorrence of cheating, discipline of preparation, trying one’s best, reveling in competition, respecting rival competitors, overcoming obstacles, sharing success, perseverance. Lots of stuff.

In a perfect world, that would all describe the community of Christ.

So … central Indiana … how did you feel a year and a half ago when you heard Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was out for the season with a knee injury?

Or during last week’s AFC Championship game? How do you feel today about the (NFL) Saints? Charitable? At peace? Faithful? Fulfilled?

Send Brady a get-well card did you? Hoping New Orleans has a pleasant and sportsmanship-filled experience vs. our Colts at Super Bowl XLIV?

Sporting endeavor has many faces.

Remember Jake Porter and the “viral video” from late 2006? Jake, a mentally retarded (inherited Chromosomal Fragile-X) high school senior from southern Ohio, scored a late, uncontested touchdown when his team, Northwest, was trailing 42-0 to Waverly, which stood aside as Jake happily ran 40 yards into the end zone.

Loved the moment. Felt warm inside. It’s a righteous world where things like that happen. But, c’mon. Unless one is a class-A jerk, it’s easy to be a sportsman when one is easily winning. The true test of humanity, and of faith, is when times are challenging, not when we’re up 42-0.

Remember the “Cobra-kai’s” whacko sensei in The Karate Kid? Don’t you hate that guy? “Sweep the leg!” Would you ever possibly pray for that guy? How about the opposing coach in Remember the Titans who called Denzel Washington’s character a monkey? Kill the racist with kindness? Or just kill him.

Striving and struggle and decency. Humility and grace. That’s sportsmanship. Winning at all costs for earthly reward and renown … that’s soulless idolatry.

God loves to see his kids play, and “running the race” (Hebrews 12:1) is a vibrant Biblical picture of living our lives for God’s glory. Let’s keep a firm handle on the fleeting, temporary, and earthly glory of sports achievement.

Whether one has just lost a game or won the championship, lost a job or won the lottery, the challenge of eternal victory is equally great.

The best win – a forever kind of win – is when Christ wins our heart.

Be sure Christ has a sporting chance in your life.

Walters (believerbob@blogspot.com or email rlwcom@aol.com) offers a sincere “well done” to Irsay, Caldwell, Manning, Garcon & Co. for their class, grace and humility before, during and after the Colts’ AFC Championship victory over the Jets.

The Salvation Seat

Spirituality Column #168
January 26, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Salvation Seat
By Bob Walters

The saving grace of Jesus Christ – salvation – is the central reality of the Christian faith.

We are sinners – either by nature or by practice depending on one’s theological point of view – and we live in a fallen world. Life can be great, good, bad or awful, but because of sin all Creation groans and we die. Salvation in Christ means we live.

Forever.

Without sin.

With God in Heaven.

And right up there with salvation, Christianity’s greatest blessings are love and forgiveness.

People often put health, money, power and maybe family in the top spots. But nothing eases the daily pains of life, or accentuates the daily joys, like love and forgiveness.

Health? Each of our bodies is going to die. Sure, get some exercise, drink some water, get some sleep and lay off the super-sized fries – you’ll feel better – but our earthly end is physical death. Be smart, but don’t worship health; it’s a good thing while it lasts but it’s not forever.

Money? A fickle commodity too often made into an idol. Getting it, holding it, worrying about it … money is more often a stumbling block to faith than a stairway to heaven. Pray about it and be wise, but don’t worship it. Money does not equal righteousness.

Power? Jesus Christ’s power was that he was a servant. Until we get that one right, until we realize life is not about “me” but about serving God and others, power is a dangerous, human, corrupting intoxicant. We are prone to worship ourselves.

Family? First, be happy to be in the family of God. Strive to be an example of God’s love and forgiveness in your family. Fight for your family and bear any burden for your family. Be responsible. But families can be crazy commodities because they are full of people, and we’re sinners all.

Health, money, power and family can be great blessings or horrendous curses. Our focus on salvation for eternity and on Christ in this life lifts us above these earthly, temporary things. Salvation is a blessing that won’t quit.

God loves us, as we must love others. God forgives us, as we must forgive others. And God saves us … because we are loved and forgiven. John 3:16.

Just be sure you know who or what is in the driver’s seat of your life. If Jesus is only your co-pilot … switch seats.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if we are all rich, smart and good-looking in heaven, but figures most likely it won’t matter.

Grace and Golf - a Tiger by the Tail

Spirituality Column #167
January 19, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Grace and Golf – a Tiger by the Tail
By Bob Walters

Renowned newscaster and analyst Brit Hume suggested on national TV recently that Jesus Christ is a source of comfort that our fellow sinner, the bedraggled golfer Tiger Woods, ought to look into.

Have you seen the ensuing national media outrage?

Or … not? I’m not sure which is the biggest story here:

- Hume describing Christianity succinctly and perfectly – it “offers forgiveness and redemption” – on the “Fox News Sunday” opinion show;

- That Hume’s gentle and accurate description of Buddhism’s difference from Christianity is cast as an affront when really it is a simple, academic truth;

- The ensuing adverse commentary by journalists and entertainers who close-mindedly (and I might add, naively) believe Christianity has no place amid public discourse (most of them feel the same way about Fox News);

- Or, the media’s general non-coverage of Hume’s comments.

It’s worth noting that the news and entertainment media are more than willing to focus on Tiger Woods’ awful fall from grace. Yet when an eminently intelligent voice – Hume – verbalizes a cogent, spiritual, kind, merciful and factual prescription for Woods of the extraordinary and freely available gift of grace from God through Jesus Christ, well, that’s an outrage.

I knew nothing of Hume’s comments Sunday morning Jan. 3 (I was in church) until Monday evening Jan. 4 when Hume was a guest on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show. I was surprised and elated to hear a replay of Hume’s Sunday comments – witness, really – and was equally intrigued by his follow-up remarks.

“Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs,” Hume said. “He needs something Christianity especially provides, redemption and forgiveness.”

Anybody want to argue about who needs redemption and forgiveness?

Surveying the mass media’s largely negative, predictably close-minded and distressingly uninformed response to Hume’s comments, conservative Ann Coulter wrote Jan. 6, “Christianity is the best deal in the universe. … Liberals constantly accuse Christians of being ‘judgmental.’ No, we’re relieved.”

Personally I wish it would have been a bigger controversy so more people would have heard Hume’s words. Liberal or Conservative, sinner or saint, God loves us all. It’s a great message, and an even greater promise. That’s news.

Pray for Tiger. Pray for Brit. Pray for grace. Matthew 9:5. Ephesians 2:8.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) suggests visiting AnnCoulter.com, click “archives.” Read Jan. 6 “If You Can Find a Better Deal, Take It!” It’s an accurate and entertaining recap.

Quandary of Our Culture

Spirituality Column #166
January 12, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Quandary of Our Culture
By Bob Walters

Most, if not all, of America’s early colleges and universities were established as some fashion of Christian religious training institution or seminary.

Knowledge was the province of God, academia was the servant of religion, and education’s foundation was scripture, morality, ethics, philosophy and truth.

The physical sciences were studied, but woe to the scientist who came up with anything really radical or new … truth lay exclusively within the purview of faith and the faithful. The sciences by comparison bordered on heretical curiosities, generally dismissed from the grander “truth” conversation.

My, how times have changed.

Dallas Willard is a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California. He was ordained a Baptist minister in the 1950s but turned his pursuits to philosophy and academia in the 1960s. Willard said God told him, “If you stay in the churches, the university will be closed to you, but if you stay in the university, the churches will be open to you.”

Therein resides the new truth, the conundrum of modern times: academia no longer reveres faith as viable knowledge. Our institutions and secular culture overwhelmingly enforce the diminishment of faith from its lofty stature of providing knowable life truths to a station not of knowledge, but of oft-ridiculed personal opinions.

In a recent conversation with noted Christian minister and author John Ortberg at Menlo Park (Calif.) Presbyterian Church south of San Francisco, Willard took on many of the toughest questions that can be asked of the Christian faith.

Ortberg posed that we’re all taught “the scientific method” as the only way to test for truth; the only thing that offers testable claims of knowledge.

Willard responded: “That’s the quandary of our culture, because everything that really matters in human life falls outside of science. Go over to the university and ask for the Department of Reality, or ask ‘where is your Department of the Good Life?’ or ‘who is a really good person?’ or ‘how do you become a really good person?’”

Ortberg replied, “We don’t think of these things being connected to knowledge.”

But they most certainly are, Willard explains in the very compelling video of this extended and thoughtful exchange with Ortberg at http://mppc.org/toughquestions.

I came to Christ when – admittedly late in life – I realized what a smart guy Jesus was. Willard calls on Christians to reclaim knowledge in areas of human experience where science cannot help.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com)counted 43 5-10-minute vignettes on tough topics in this Ortberg-Willard video. Brilliant. Amazing. Understandable. Have a look.

Grace, Not Flames

Spirituality Column #165
January 5, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Grace, Not Flames
By Bob Walters

A friend pondering a rare trip to church (possibly a life-time first … I didn’t ask) on Christmas Eve, commented, “I’ll probably burst into flames.”

Ho, ho, ho.

My, there is a lot packed into that statement: humor, surprise, humility, assumptions, conclusions, misinformation, and more than a hint of sarcasm. But not much truth.

The comment reminded me of when I was baptized just a few years ago, wondering – considering my sin – if God would let me up out of the water.

Why is it that we think an encounter with God, like a baptism or a Christmas trip to church, is an exposure to punishment, rather than a bridge to the peace and safety of salvation?

Most of us – believer and non-believer alike – have figured out that our lives fall short of perfection; that “sin” isn’t a good thing. That my friend equated church with a Godly encounter is a good thing. Even wrapped in sarcasm, the fact that he “got” the sin thing is encouraging.

That he approached the throne of grace with fear and trepidation, i.e., “flames,” doesn’t say much for how we Christians present the throne of grace.

I wish more people readily understood that faith in Christ is the ultimate flame retardant; that any expression of that faith – even a mildly coerced Christmas trip to church – is an encounter with grace, not a fearful, flaming encounter with hell.

Christians should never allow the eternal, loving glory of God in heaven to be framed merely as the opposite of earthly sin, nor to think that what punches our ticket through the pearly gates on judgment day are fear, shame and guilt.

The Bible doesn’t provide many specifics about heaven or hell, but every bit of the Bible, ultimately, expresses God’s desire for a personal, loving, saving relationship with each of us.

God sent Jesus Christ to draw us near to Him, not to drive us away. Faith and God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8), not fear and our guilt, punch our ticket to salvation.

Quoting my wonderful Christian friend May: “Praise God that I am a sinner; it is the only thing that qualifies me for God’s grace.”

With Christmas – the birth of hope – a couple of weeks past, in this New Year let’s work on receiving, with hope and love, sinners like us into our churches. We’re all welcome.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com or email rlwcom@aol.com) prays for the peace and wisdom of the Holy Spirit to dwell with us all in 2010.

Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5

Spirituality Column #164
December 29, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Strong Finish, New Beginning, Part 5
By Bob Walters

The only New Year’s resolutions I’ve ever kept – maybe the only two I ever made – were to quit smoking (1994) and to read the entire Bible (2002).

I started early on both of them. I bought what I planned and hoped would be my last carton of cigarettes just before Christmas 1993, and started reading the Bible in December 2001.

I mentioned the resolution to quit smoking a couple of years ago (Jan. 1, 2008, Column #60, www.believerbob.blogspot.com) in the context of finding strength I didn’t know I had from a God I didn’t think I knew. It was one of several examples I trace in my previous non-church life of what minister Russ Blowers called “prevenient grace.”

That’s when God’s grace is mystically, actively bestowed upon us and we are sure we have a) done nothing to deserve it and b) not confessed faith in Christ.

“Prevenient” means antecedent and doesn’t appear in most dictionaries. “Prevenient Grace” is an actual theological construct within the Calvinist vs. Arminian, predestination vs. grace debate.

(As an aside: Calvinism vs. Arminianism typically is a heated conversation between believers. I don’t think it is of much value to seekers, skeptics and non-believers; only confusing and beside the main point. For an article that explains without preaching, go to www.bible-researcher.com and search “arminianism.” The “main point,” by the way, is Jesus Christ.)

Anyway, I quit smoking. Cold turkey. Prevenient grace. I’m still alive.

The resolution to read the entire Bible in 2002 followed my being baptized in November 2001. Many things fell in place that led me to Christ, and held me there, in the latter part of 2001.

One of the pieces was that my then-pastor Dave Faust announced a weekly walking-through-the-Bible class starting early 2002. As I contemplated Baptism, I wanted to know the Bible, and by taking my heart and mind through that door, I could “learn from Christ, not just about Him.” (Hat tip for that line goes to preacher Dave Mullins’ sermon at E91 a couple weeks ago.)

As I was in the final throes of the decision to be baptized, the Bible class was the last nudge I needed.

I could read, I could learn, I could walk in my new-found faith.

Smoking remains gone, and the Bible remains on board. These were not resolutions, they were gifts. They were the real Christ in Christmas, continued.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com or email rlwcom@aol.com) tends toward being a grace guy, with no specific prejudices against the predestination crowd.

Christmas Spirit, Heavenly Peace, Part 4

Spirituality Column #163
December 22, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Christmas Spirit, Heavenly Peace, Part 4
By Bob Walters

I like to wake up in my own bed Christmas morning.

My parents were resolute in having Christmas at home, and I’m that way with my own family.

In fact, I like the peace of knowing I don’t have to go much of anywhere between about noon on Christmas Eve until whenever I decide to go do something on Dec. 26. I’ll certainly go see family or a shut-in (or maybe a good movie Christmas afternoon), but I like to be home.

One enthusiastic exception is church on Christmas Eve. It was a beautiful and reverent “Midnight Mass” when I was an Episcopal kid. Now it’s a heartfelt evening worship and vigil in the Evangelical community.

The first Roman Catholic mass I attended was on a Christmas Eve in college. I was astounded by its similarity with the Episcopalian Eucharist and Holy Communion I had come to know so well as an altar boy.

I’ve only actually attended a church service on Christmas Day once that I clearly remember, in 2005 when Dec. 25 was a Sunday.

Mostly, Christmas is not a go-to-church day. It’s a lazy stay home day, or a visit with close family day. Or it might be (horrors!) a climactic, stressful and tiring Iditarod of multiple stops and logistical finesse – a Christmas dash modeled after Santa and his reindeer. No, thanks.

The Connor-Prairie pioneer living museum says that in 1836 children would attend school on Christmas – the holiday was no big deal. Our culture has turned Christmas into a big deal, but our traditions really aren’t that old … often not much older than we are.

What we should feel at Christmas – what puts the Christ in Christmas – is a personal and community grounding in something far larger, eternally older, and immensely more meaningful than idiosyncratic, habitual, nostalgic personal practices that harmonize our common rhythms of worldly celebration.

The Christmas spirit and the gift of heavenly peace reside where Christ resides … alive in our hearts and in our love for each other; not in displays or trees or presents or traditions.

It’s the time of year we should take and treasure the opportunity to focus on Emmanuel – God with us; the Christ in us. Our Savior. Glorious light. It’s what the season is built for. That is God’s gift.

Use it wisely, enjoy it intimately, and share it freely. Most of all, accept it unconditionally.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com or rlwcom@aol.com) is unruffled by Christmas commercialism … Christ isn’t for sale; He’s forever. John 1:14.

Surprising Christmas Gift, Part 3

Spirituality Column #162
December 15, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Surprising Christmas Gift, Part 3
By Bob Walters

I’m trying to think of the biggest Christmas surprise I’ve ever received, and it was probably the electric train when I was 5 or 6 years old.

Having asked Santa specifically for a train, it was nearly devastating to find another “Santa” gift was in the living room for me Christmas morning. I threw a fit because there was no train, got spanked because that’s what parents did circa 1960, and when things settled down discovered a really nice electric train – beyond my expectations – was set up in the basement because it didn’t fit in the living room.

I remember being embarrassed – and really, really surprised – more than I remember the spanking.

Then there was the year I ruined any sense of surprise, because being 10 years old and sneaky enough to figure out where mom and dad hid the presents (in a crawl-space behind the basement furnace), I waited until I was alone in the house and looked through every gift they’d bought.

Holy cow. Talk about an unsatisfying success. What fun is Christmas if there is no surprise? I never again searched for the stash.

And please let me add that even as a kid, I always spent more time fantasizing about what I could give as a Christmas present than what I would get. I know … weird kid … but I did. It’s probably a sign of some behavioral disorder, no doubt triggered by the Christmas spanking some years early. But I digress.

These days, after 20-some Christmases as a father, for sure it is the giving part of Christmas that provides the season’s most significant secular joy. Giving is better than getting.

But let’s step back from Christmas lists and Santa visits, and talk about the true meaning of Christmas: God the Father’s gift of His incarnation among us as Jesus Christ.

And the Word became flesh. John 1:14.

That God loved humanity enough to come alive humbly among us, to feel our temptation and pain, is gift enough. Yet to go onto the Cross and defeat death, invite each one of us to live with Him forever as a part of God’s perfection, love and eternal life, is quite a bit more Christmas present than anyone would have imagined.

If only we could help give Christ, humbly and with love – and with heavenly peace – to others at Christmas.

It’s surprising when we don’t try.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.believerbob.blogspot.com), uses that train story to make a Christmas point every couple of years.

Counting on Christmas, Part 2

Spirituality Column #161
December 8, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Counting On Christmas, Part 2
By Bob Walters

It’s the time of year we count things.

At Thanksgiving, we count our blessings.

Then we count shopping days until Christmas.

We count gifts bought and gifts to buy.

Maybe we count on a Christmas bonus.

Stores count on sales and count on “making it” with Christmas commerce.

We are smart to count (and mind) our money and calories.

We count how many presents are under the tree for each of our children …

Because we can count on our children counting them and challenging any perceived disparities or injustice.

We count, we count, we count. How many presents? How much money? How many calories? How many bills?

We count up presents and we count down the days.

Now … does all this counting add up to a Merry Christmas?

Does it add up to the “ineffably sublime” participation in Christ – because God became human – that is ours purely on faith?

Can we put a number on God’s Creation, which is as inexpressible (ineffable) as it is wonderful (sublime)? Is there a satisfaction index for the birth of our hope in eternal life? Or for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

Can you count up what it means for God Almighty to become flesh to demonstrate His pure and divine love for all mankind? No, no, no, no and no.

Christianity is a loving relationship with God, not an amount. This season’s joy is not a matter of economics or mathematics. Love is a gift, but not one that can be put under a tree or counted.

It can only be counted upon.

When we enumerate Christmas – making it a numbers game of counting and comparing – it costs us the peace that is too far inside our souls to ever properly be part of an equation. Christ personally gives us that peace – it’s a gift – which we should be overjoyed to celebrate in this blessed season. It’s the peace of knowing Him, of living with Him, of sharing Him, of obeying Him, of transforming our lives for Him.

Christ wasn’t much for counting things; He was for understanding the value of things that can’t be counted, the things that really matter.

Christ’s love is the true meaning of Christmas, and it is not a quantitative proposition. It’s a gift we simply have to accept, and Christmas is a good time to do it.

That about sums it up.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is writing this month about the Christ in Christmas, and pretty much always says “Merry Christmas” whether it’s politically correct or not.

Birth and Life and Christmas, Part 1

Spirituality Column #160
December 1, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Birth and Life and Christmas, Part 1
By Bob Walters

I am the second of four children born in the 1950s. Dad, a newspaper reporter and editor, fashioned a small “newspaper” for each of us sent to relatives and friends as birth announcements.

Going through my personal papers recently, I came upon those four notices. It was fascinating to read long-forgotten details about places and relatives and hospitals and doctors.

I am a sap for nostalgia; and I miss my parents, both long passed.

How sweet to hold those moments in my hands.

Yet, generally it isn’t the circumstance of our birth that gives meaning to our lives. One’s birth is a fleeting moment in time. Every ensuing chorus of “Happy Birthday” is about “today;” perhaps a sentimental summation of one’s life so far. A birthday typically is an inventory – of years, of situation, of station, of stuff – not a history lesson.

One’s life is a complex, constantly unfolding mosaic of many dimensions on many levels in many compartments. Not one of us reduces all that to a day.

Let’s not do that to Jesus Christ and Christmas.

Our culture this time of year marches earnestly toward Dec. 25: toward a day, toward gifts, toward family and joy. Or maybe toward loneliness and despair and memories of a happier, earlier life and Christmases gone bye … one day, one year at a time. For some, the march is toward the emptiness of Christmas that never was.

But … we march; many without really knowing why. Well, here’s why:

Because Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is man. Jesus Christ is eternal.

And Christmas is a whole lot more than a birthday.

Not to strip the trimmings off the tree, but most popular practice and even belief about Christmas is not only fa-la-la but folly. The date’s wrong, divine focus is lost, the word “Christmas” has become a referendum not only on political correctness but civil rights. We have Santa Claus and snowflakes instead of angels and adoration.

The “holiday” celebration dwindles to societal sizzle and secular steak. And then … with seasonal energies spent … Baby Jesus is put back in a box and Christmas is packed up until next year.

I am a sentimental, avid participant in the Christmas season. But I’ve learned that the spark of magic, good will, reverence, and humanity this time of year is God speaking to our hearts, pleading for more than a day.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) will spend December writing about the Christ in Christmas.

Thanks is a God Thing

Spirituality Column #159
November 24, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Thanks is a God Thing
By Bob Walters

Maybe it is so obviously a “God thing” that we don’t give it a second thought, but the simple word “thanks” has little meaning without God.

At least that’s what the Bible seems to say.

We learn early in American life that the magic words of our culture are “please” and “thank you.” “Please” expresses humility and requests a kindness or indulgence; “Thank you” acknowledges a kindness or indulgence.

“Please” appears throughout the Bible (225 times in the NIV), split evenly addressing requests both to God and among people.

“Thanks,” “thank you” and “thanksgiving” show up 144 times, 141 of them referring to God.

This is what convinces me Thanksgiving is a religious holiday.

“Give thanks to the Lord” and “thanks be to God” are two of the most common phrases in the Bible, stretching through both the Old and New Testaments.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever” is a constant refrain in the Old Testament (e.g. Psalm 106:1, 107:1, 118:1 and others), and provides the opening phrase of one of contemporary worship’s most popular songs, “Forever God is Faithful” by Michael W. Smith.

The line, however, does not appear in the New Testament.

Instead, the focus of New Testament “thanks” is very often on food: most especially on our communion with Christ represented by bread and wine. Jesus, the Apostles, the early Christians … never eat without giving thanks to God.

Which brings us to the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

It is a happy, collegial stuff-fest in most homes. We gather with our families and eat too much … surely a blessing of abundance. An even greater blessing is had by the people who feed strangers on Thanksgiving at community feasts.

God has certainly shed great grace on us, but my concern isn’t that we eat too much; it’s that on Thanksgiving, we pray too little, or pray from the wrong point of view.

The worst prayer in the Bible is described in Luke 18:11: “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector.”

How good and pleasing it is to pray a prayer of deep thanks, in faith with humility and love, and not with the Pharisee’s pride.

Pray, and be glad, and give thanks unto the Lord. Happy Thanksgiving.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) thanks God daily for the love of his children, the grace of our being and the beauty of this world.

Salesmanship vs. Relationship

Spirituality Column #158
November 17, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Salesmanship vs. Relationship
By Bob Walters

Shortly after Christ’s resurrection He met His 11 remaining disciples in Galilee, instructing them to “go and make disciples of all nations.”

This is “The Great Commission” of Matthew 28:18-20. These final words of the Gospel of Matthew tell Christians for the ages that it is not enough just to go to church. Our faith must have the actions of outreach, baptism, teaching and obedience.

Understand: faith isn’t about going to church; faith is about being the church.

It was the solidarity of the relationships among the early believers, as described in Acts 2:42-47, that reflected the faith and showed outsiders a picture of a caring community based on Christ’s love and service. People were drawn to it.

The first Christians were filled with awe, and Acts 2:47 says the fellowship of believers enjoyed “the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Couple of important things to note. First, my Sunday school teacher Steve Hall recently pointed out that Christ didn’t tell his disciples to go into the world and make “converts.” He told them to make disciples. That’s a great point and key distinction.

“Converts” are made by salesmanship, while “disciples” are made by relationship. We might sell or be sold the story of Jesus, but it’s the relationship of believers, the relationship of the Holy Trinity, and the human-divine relationship Christ enabled by His death, burial and resurrection, that we are to share with “all nations.”

I resisted every “sales pitch” about Christ ever presented to me. It was when I learned about and wanted a relationship with Christ – because I saw smart, caring Christians – that I became a Christian.

Second, Acts 2:47 says “the Lord added to their number.” Ever been asked “how many souls” you have saved? The correct answer is “zero.” In our obsessively “measurable” modern society, the sales function is about numbers, and marketing is about packaging. I’ve spent most of my professional career in public relations, where one’s best friend is the truth, and the goal is to build relationships.

I don’t want to “sell” or “package” Christ. I accept Christ as the truth, want a relationship with Him, and love telling others what I know.

Just remember: the Holy Spirit closes the deal (Acts 2:47).

In Christ, I don’t keep score. A loving relationship is victory enough.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com or email rlwcom@aol.com) spent several years as a sportswriter; where scorekeeping is a big deal.

Mystery, Confusion, and Comfort

Spirituality Column #157
November 10, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Mystery, Confusion, and Comfort
By Bob Walters

In a November 2004 email exchange with a dear friend, I wrote:

“Over the weekend, for no particular reason, I found myself contemplating God and Christ as a mystery, and locked onto thinking about the difference between confusion and mystery.

“I can see now that my spiritual life changed three years ago (after being baptized in 2001) because my relationship with God through Christ became a mystery, rather than just being confusing. I think there is a key distinction here. Confusion picks at our rational being; it is uncomfortable and something we avoid.

“Mystery, and its close sibling wonder, can hold us rationally in their limitless arms with comfort and peace even in the absence of understanding. When we pray for understanding, we should expect peace in return, not necessarily knowledge. When we pray for wisdom and discernment, we should expect greater comfort, not necessarily more answers.

“Yet, as opposed to the ‘Age of Reason,’ the ‘Age of Mystery’ doesn't sound especially appealing. It seems to require rejection of reason, which is required to live productively and ensure our human survival. Reason is God's great gift to man that makes us different from the animals. But so is spirituality a great and singular gift.

“It's a mystery to me, and I'm OK with that.”

Came the reply that evening:

“That is a mysterious email! There will always be a part of the Faith that will be a mystery to us. If we knew as much as God we would try to pull off a coup and take over. Besides, there are only a few of us who know it all. As John Wooden said, ‘It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.’ An interesting reading for you would be I Kings 3:6-14. Young Solomon pleased God by asking for a discerning heart instead of long life and wealth.

“So, God gave him understanding and wisdom with the longevity and big bucks thrown in. It is right for us to ask for the right stuff and we get more than we expected. You are certainly right in saying that mystery creates a calming effect.”

That, along with some other clever word plays and personal encouragement, was longtime Indianapolis pastor Russ Blowers, a Christian who preached the Gospel. He died two years ago today, Nov. 10, 2007.

I – and many others – miss him so.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) invites you to visit past columns about Russ (Nov. 27- Dec 25, 2007 and Nov. 11, 2008) at www.believerbob.blogspot.com. Got a Russ story? See www.russstories.blogspot.com.

Christ-likeness ... WWJD, Really?

Spirituality Column #156
November 3, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Christ-likeness … WWJD, Really?
By Bob Walters

What Would Jesus Do?

For starters, Jesus would glorify and obey God. Jesus would love others as an expression of his humanity, resist Satan as an expression of his divinity, and resist temptation as an expression of his humility.

Of course, Jesus Christ did not act in the subjunctive realm of woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’ or maybe. Christ’s example was one of assured actions and definite faith. His words were wise, kind, insightful, harsh, shrewd, mystical … but always God-honoring, always memorable, always true.

Christ performed miracles most of us, really, don’t expect to perform. In fact, if we ever think we have performed a miracle … I mean seriously think we, me, I personally have performed a miracle … think again. It’s Christ, not us.

We are fallen souls in a fallen world, yet it is miracle enough for me that in Christ, our souls can soar even in circumstances of despair. Experiencing real love, real beauty and real grace are eternal gifts we can’t earn. Jesus gives them freely.

Trying to earn forgiveness? Christ on the Cross already erased our sins.

You’re not a believer but you see love, beauty and grace? Of course you do.

Just because a person doesn’t believe in Christ, that has no bearing on Christ’s love for that person. Christ came for everybody, with truth for everybody. Christ didn’t exclude anybody. That’s what Jesus does.

We can only exclude ourselves.

Perhaps most importantly, impossibly, dangerously and miraculously, God pursues a personal relationship with each of us. We are divinely given freedom to choose and an intellect to discern whether we accept that relationship through Christ. Many people do; many people don’t. Again, God doesn’t separate us; we separate ourselves.

So, can we be like Christ? Is Christ-likeness something we should seriously shoot for? Is “WWJD” the same as “WWID”, What Would I Do?

Yes … and no. Of course we should love and serve others, rebuke Satan, resist temptation, praise God, be humble, thankful, and give God the glory for our successes. Christians, like Christ, will endure the world’s scorn. We must strive to preach, teach, and share God’s word as best we can, study and reflect Christ’s teaching, and be an example of grace for others. But there is a limit.

In the Gospels, there are 20 times when Jesus says, “Follow me.”

For heaven’s sake, don’t follow me, or anyone else. Follow Jesus.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) quotes the Notre Dame football movie Rudy, “There is a God, and I am not Him.”

Mary's Place at the Table

Spirituality Column #155
October 27, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Mary’s Place at the Table
By Bob Walters

Opinions vary in assessing which is the greatest doctrinal schism between Catholics and Evangelicals, but one thing for sure is that the ecclesial status of the Blessed Virgin Mary quickly enters and enlivens any such discussion.

If Catholics are at all guilty of overstating Mary’s piety, Evangelicals are certainly guilty of neglecting the Blessed Mother’s lessons of grace, humility and discipleship.

Faithful Christians understand Mary to be the virgin mother of Jesus; the Theotokos – the God-bearer, or “the one who gave birth to the One who is God.”

Catholic doctrine – formed by scripture and Church tradition – presents Mary as a perpetual virgin, of Immaculate Conception (without sin from birth), having experienced bodily Assumption (risen in body and soul to heaven upon her death), and assigns her a high place as an intercessor in the communion of the Church and saints.

Biblically born Evangelical teaching goes no further than stating Mary was a virgin when Christ was conceived and born (Matthew 1:18-25), finds no evidence or requirement of Mary escaping the stain of original human sin, says her ascending like Christ is inconsistent with Christ’s uniqueness, and points to Christ as our only divine intercessor.

So goes a fascinating discussion in the November 2009 First Things, a scholarly Catholic-oriented monthly journal of faith and culture founded by priest Richard John Neuhaus, who died early this year.

One of Fr. Neuhaus’s many lifetime accomplishments was building a consortium of religious minds called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” providing thoughtful, periodic illumination on weighty theological topics. Leading the evangelical side of the equation are Chuck Colson, J.I. Packer, and a dozen others. Neuhaus pulled input from a dozen Catholic scholars (all are listed at the article’s conclusion).

The group’s carefully researched and tightly edited position papers are presented in accessible language and are available in a variety of places online. Google “Evangelicals and Catholics Together Mary,” or visit www.firstthings.com.

Valuable richness in Christ is lost if we ignore the lessons of Mary, who obeyed God, raised Jesus, and displayed unrelenting faith.

She is blessed (Luke 1:48), and a blessing for all.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, rlwcom@aol.com) saw an amazing music video – Amazing Grace by Il Divo in Pula, Croatia. Google it. Wonderful.

The Straight and Narrow

Spirituality Column #154
October 20, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Straight and Narrow
By Bob Walters

None of us should congratulate ourselves with righteous satisfaction simply for believing Jesus Christ is Who He says He is.

Satan knows more about the person of Jesus Christ – and exactly Who He is – than any of us possibly can. So, knowing Christ puts us about even with Satan, who thoroughly understands and willingly acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God.

What makes us different from Satan is that he can not, will not, and does not love Jesus, nor can Satan live eternally in Heaven with the loving God Almighty.

We can … if we want to.

As a practicing, believing and flawed Christian – I think that covers most of us who consider ourselves inside the global Christian communion – I am heartsick when I meet people seeking a “higher consciousness” or a “secret of life” in popular culture who dash past Christ trying to access precisely the things Christ promises.

We fear death. In Christ, we needn’t fear death.

We seek a purpose. In Christ, we have one: to love and glorify God by loving and glorifying each other.

We feel guilty for our sin. In Christ, we are forgiven our sin.

We search for truth. Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life.

Our intelligence, our creativity, our industriousness, our freedom, our love, our very being – are the creation of Christ. If you think there is any other possibility, get out your Bible and re-read Genesis 1-3 and John 1. The capital-W “Word of God” is Christ.

To Satan’s satisfaction, countless people and institutions around us labor mightily to put curves in a path we know in our hearts is only straight, and to widen a gate that we know in our hearts is only narrow. Philosophy and open-mindedness are virtuous until they rob us of the greatest of all spiritual gifts, the divine Holy Spirit without Whom we cannot fathom God’s love, Christ’s truth, or the Word of God in scripture.

At a funeral recently I heard a message delivered powerfully. “If you choose to lead this life with Christ, then you will spend eternity with Christ. If you choose not to live this life with Christ, then you will spend eternity without Christ. The hard part is, once we die, you don't get to choose.”

Satan is the robber baron of our eternal well being. Choose now, while you can.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) suggests reading 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. Love the truth and be saved.

Remarkable, Descartes ... and a Bill

Spirituality Column #153
October 13, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Remarkable, Descartes … and a Bill
By Bob Walters

Remarkable
Mary Jane English was a remarkable woman.

The longtime principal at Heritage Christian Elementary School retired in 2004 ending 37 years of service building Indiana’s largest private elementary school. Mrs. English died Sept. 16, 2009, after battling colon cancer for many months.

Not surprisingly, her memorial service Oct. 3 at East 91st Street Christian Church was also remarkable, displaying love, grace, public affection, music and God’s Word celebrating a life dedicated to the Lord, to her family, and to her profession.

The hundreds in attendance at the service included several dozen of the teachers Mrs. English hired over nearly four decades. Those teachers influenced thousands of young students throughout the north and northeast Indianapolis Metro area. See HeritageChristian.net for a wonderful tribute.

As her son Bill noted at the service, “She never once doubted she was doing what God wanted her to do … she never doubted her destination, and was fully confident she had an inheritance that would never perish, spoil, or fade. … At the end she had a sense of accomplishment, a sense of finish and was ready to go on and be with God. … She showed us all the right way to live, and the right way to die.”

Enter thou into the joy of the Lord, Mrs. English.

Descartes
Thankfully, alert reader Dr. T.F. Foust of Carmel caught a mistake I made a couple weeks ago. Descartes’ famous philosophical phrase, “I think, therefore I am,” in Latin is “Cogito ergo sum.” I bone-headedly wrote “Cognito ergo sum” in the Sept. 22 column about Pascal and Indy’s recent secular convention.

Kudos to Dr. Foust for his keen recognition. I looked it up. “Cogito” means “I think.” “Cognito” isn’t anything, just a misspelling; what my great aunt Marian would call “an illiterate mistake.” FYI, “cognoscere” means “to learn, to know.” Ergo, now I think I know my error, and have since been cogitating on my lack of cognition. Mea culpa.

And a Bill
Sept. 29 I wrote that Thomas Jefferson had “almost nothing to do” with the writing of the U.S. Constitution. That’s mostly right. He was in France while the document he dreaded took shape, yet was in constant correspondence with his best friend James Madison, the father of the Constitution. Upon his return Jefferson still wasn’t crazy about the charter, and championed the addition of the Bill of Rights.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) is thankful Christ has forgiven our sins, and prays readers will forgive an occasional mistake.

Binding Arbitration

Spirituality Column #152
October 6, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis North Suburban newspapers)

Binding Arbitration
By Bob Walters

Sorry if this upsets any well-meaning prayer warriors out there, but what in the Devil – if you’ll excuse the phrase – are we talking about when we pray to “bind Satan”?

It sounds sincere, comforting and authoritative to pray to “bind Satan,” “bind the enemy” or “bind demons,” but it is an arrogant, gross misreading of scripture – and a violation of scripture – to think we as Christians have that kind of power.

Jesus Christ, and only Jesus Christ with the authority of the Cross – i.e., God – has the power to bind Satan. And Satan is as “bound” as he is going to get until Christ binds him completely forever and ever in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). Until then, Christ has bound Satan only to the extent that the Gospel can not be extinguished.

On Earth few of us will personally deal with Satan; he has bigger fish to fry. Still, we have no power to further bind Satan or even the lesser demons who most definitely “mess” with us any time we give them an opening.

What we can do is bind ourselves to Christ, talk to Christ, praise God and stay as far away as we possibly can from addressing Satan or demons or evil spirits. Even the Archangel Michael, who handles Satan (Jude 9, Revelation 12:7), is careful to only rebuke Satan, not accuse him. Accusing Satan is exclusively God’s job.

Yet Christians bend Bible verses to errantly claim Godly authority over Satan.

For example, the commonly cited “bind” and “loose” language in Matthew 18:18 is specifically about early church discipline, not empowering humans to enforce prohibitions on Satan. That Heaven will “bind” or “loose” the unrepentant or repentant describes the authority of the early church to discipline its members.

In context, Matthew 18:15-22 has nothing to do with Satan, or for that matter, with binding/loosing sickness, wealth, angels or poverty.

Christ uses the same words in Matthew 16:19, describing the establishment of His church. Heaven will respect the founding of the church, not give Christians individual dominion over Satan.

Other misinterpreted “binding” verses include Revelation 12:11, James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8-9. The Biblical message isn’t “bind Satan;” it is “resist Satan.”

It’s smarter, then, to pray fervently in Christ’s name for wisdom and discernment in detecting Satan’s lies; but we should never, ever think our prayers bind Satan.

Look around; are anyone’s binding prayers working?

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) suggests Googling “binding Satan,” or searching the topic at BrentRiggs.com. Cling to Christ; rebuke Satan. Amen.

Reason and Discovery

Spirituality Column #151
September 29, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis North Suburban newspapers)

Reason and Discovery
By Bob Walters

It slipped my notice, but Sept. 17 was the 222nd birthday of the U.S. Constitution.

I am fascinated by the Christian and non-Christian implications of America’s founding philosophies, and by the mix of religious and non-religious Colonials who all agreed that personal liberty, economic autonomy, spiritual freedom and limited government composed the best state-of-being for mankind.

“Separation of church and state” appears nowhere in America’s founding documents. It was penned in an otherwise obscure letter written by Thomas Jefferson; a “reason and nature” deist who believed God created the world and left it to run itself.

While “Father of Our Country” George Washington wrote fabulous Christian prayers, Jefferson, like several of his contemporaries, was a humanist who dismissed the Christian supernatural – virgin birth, miracles, Christ’s resurrection, etc.

Jefferson framed the liberty-loving language of the Declaration of Independence and had almost nothing to do with the writing of the Constitution. “Separation of church and state” is nonetheless considered a Jeffersonian dictum and Constitutional tradition.

Nearly forgotten is that it was uber-patriot Thomas Paine, not Jefferson, who wrote rebelliously against religion.

Famed for “Common Sense” published in January 1776, Paine provided the American revolutionaries – from farmers to intellectuals – with a compelling call to arms. The Declaration of Independence was signed that summer, and in late 1776 Paine’s “Crisis” was published containing the line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Paine’s words crystallized the Colonials’ yearning for freedom and lit the emotional fires of the American Revolution. Yet negative blowback from his anti-religious views caused him to leave America for Europe where he was an outcast in England and nearly executed in France. His 1794 anti-religion book “Age of Reason” sparked further outrage.

Paine considered scripture to be mere hearsay. Not quite an atheist, he believed in one God, hoped for “happiness beyond this life,” and obviously conceded the existence of men’s souls.

But he saw no faith, only “reason,” and considered any church or religion an impediment to man’s freedom. “My own mind is my own church,” he wrote.

How many times we Christians hear that line, or some version thereof, when non-believers are invited to share our faith. “I’m too smart for church,” they imply.

It seems reasonable that God gave us the great gift of intelligence not so we could merely find ourselves, but so we could discover Him.

That’s the proper use of freedom.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) hopes we are indeed “one nation under God,” and not a reasonable facsimile.

The Odds on God

Spirituality Column #150
September 22, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Odds on God
By Bob Walters

Frenchman Blaise Pascal was a brilliant 17th century scientist, mathematician and philosopher whose fertile mind wandered into, out of, and back into religion during his life from 1623 to 1662.

Pascal’s France was the era of Louis XIV, Cardinal Richilieu, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Rene Descartes. It was a country culturally stretched by Le Roi Soleil, the ecclesial preeminence of the Jesuits and Catholic Church, the early secular gloamings of the humanist philosophers, and religious emanations from the robust Protestant Reformation next door in Germany.

A child prodigy educated by his father, Pascal wrote a treatise on conical mathematics at age 16. At 22, he was schooled in atmospherics by Descartes, known not only for math and physics but also as the father of modern philosophy.

The famous “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito ergo sum) is from Descartes, whose powerful (and novel) rational argument proceeded from finding truth by first defining doubt, and then into assuring us that we exist.

Some take that to infer God must also exist; others that it means God doesn’t need to exist. Try as he might, Descartes could never quite prove – not even to his own satisfaction – whether God exists or not.

“Pascal’s Wager,” another famous bit of unsatisfying theological grist, hedges a person’s bet on God’s existence. To paraphrase, the wager states (tip of the hat to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy):

Even under the assumption that God’s existence is unlikely, the potential benefits of believing are so vast as to make betting on God’s existence rational.

My Christian spiritual mentors wrinkle their noses at that one. A fair summation of their response is: “To bet blindly on God to avoid condemnation or attain salvation neither creates love nor proves faith. God knows the difference.”

A couple weeks ago Indianapolis hosted a convention of secularists, and news coverage (at least what I saw of it) seemed fair enough. Secularists just can’t make sense of why or how there could be a God, but nonetheless appreciate – and in many cases share – the human need to form communities.

Descartes (a non-believer) and Pascal (a believer), always are prominent bellwethers of naturalist, secularist, humanist, even atheistic argument. “We have nature, why do we need God?” the non-believers seemingly say.

Convention organizers confidently cited a survey revealing that 15 percent of Americans reject God and religion.

Tells me that 85 percent don’t.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) spent most of his life thinking God was an inconvenient truth. For fun, Google “Pascal’s Wager” and “Cogito Ergo Sum.”

Head-Bangin' Evangelism

Spirituality Column #149
September 15, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Head-Bangin’ Evangelism
By Bob Walters

Confronting our sin is an inescapable part of the Christian walk.

But why would anyone let confrontation define the entire journey?

Maybe because in Romans 14:10, St. Paul tells us we will “stand before the judgment seat of Christ." True stuff. And then there is Romans 1:18-32, a litany of God’s wrath and human failings. Scary stuff.

Plus, “evangelists” too often preach a terrifying “salvation” message of God’s wrath and man’s wretchedness, whether to bewildered non-believers or to believing Christians crippled by sermons dripping with “death by sin” rather than life by the Gospel light of Christ’s sacrifice, grace and mercy.

“You’re a sinner condemned to Hell … and that’s the good news,” quips one of my pastoral friends, tongue in cheek and aghast at the dark spectacle of evangelism by threat, guilt and wrath.

Nobody establishes a relationship, willingly, on that kind of a foundation. Yet too often we allow our most personal, precious hope – forgiveness of sins and eternal life – to be co-opted into obedience by fear rather than forming freedom fueled by God’s love.

“God’s mad at you so you better straighten up!” is not the central message of the Bible, and it’s not the central message of Christ.

The central message of the Bible is that each one of us – every single individual human being – is special to God, forgiven of our sins by the grace of Jesus Christ, and gifted by the Holy Spirit with a soul and access to eternal communion in heaven.

Not one of us can work – or worry – our way out of this sinful and fallen world. Thank God … and I mean, Thank God, we don’t have to.

Jesus did the heavy lifting of that one on the Cross.

With God’s gift of love, freedom and salvation so accessible, why would anyone sell it with fear, control and guilt? Why would anyone buy it?

John 14:6 plainly tells us Christ is the only path to salvation. Believe it.

Romans 8:1 reads, “There is … no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” Trust it.

Certainly, be an example of Christian love. Learn to tell people of your faith. But, like 1 Peter 3:15, do it “… with gentleness and respect.”

Not a 2x4 to the head.

Sure … confront sin; but find joy in the Lord.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) notes that we catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. “Evangelism” means “spreading good news."

Trillion Dollar Question

Spirituality Column #148
September 8, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) Carmel
Current in Westfield (IN) Carmel

Trillion Dollar Question
By Bob Walters

A traveling preacher in our Sunday pulpit recently had what appeared to be a stack of 100-dollar bills peaking out of the top of his shirt pocket.

An animated, engaging, energetic orator, the guy removed his sport coat early in the sermon revealing the visible, rectangular ends of several dark, greenish “bills.”

I was embarrassed for him at first. I thought maybe he’d been paid for the preaching gig in cash, and the money was indiscreetly exposed.

Sometimes I over-think a gag.

‘Turns out the “bills” were faux currency; the presently popular “Obama Trillion Dollar Bills” that have a Christian tract on the back. The idea, he enthusiastically preached, is to approach a stranger, or group of strangers, distribute the gimmick “Obama Trillion” (or “Michael Jackson Million” – both are available online), and as the unwary souls giggle and examine the fake cash they’ll turn it over, see the Christian tract, and … um, be saved.

Wonderful … a sucker punch for Christ.

Have I got this right? Let’s save the lost by blending our natural human avarice – “hey … is that real money?” – with a cult-inducing celebrity?

And as long as we’re trolling for the unsaved – the lost and unknowing; the spiritually weakest among us – let’s put the most draconian, condemning “Gospel message” imaginable on the back, and scare people into the perfect, loving arms of, and eternal communion with, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Are you kidding me?

The tract – which includes the phrase “God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterer at heart” followed by John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son …” – is not only contradictory and confusing but … terrifying.

Which is it? Does God hate me or love me? And before you answer, consider that John 3:16 is a direct quote from Jesus – God Incarnate – while He was alive as a human on earth. “God so loved the world,” it says, and that means before, during and after Christ’s sacrifice.

God loves us sinners today just as much as then – His love is eternal – and He wants us to find our divine freedom from death through our love and faith in Christ.

But trying to trick the lost into salvation with a scary, ill-defined and theologically suspect message on a fake paper idol?

Not exactly grace that sticks, nor an appealing picture of Christian love.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) notes that it was love, not trickery, that defined early Christians. See Acts 2:42.

At a Loss for Words

Spirituality Column #147
September 1, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

At a Loss for Words
By Bob Walters

“I wish I were better at expressing my Christian faith to people …”

Sound familiar? How often we Christians lament our shortcomings in this area.

Thankfully, it is generally not up to us – neither by our courage of engagement nor talents of elocution – to awaken in others the soul-saving stirrings of the Holy Spirit.

Salvation is above our mortal, um, pay grade; it comes from the top – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Salvation is Jesus Christ’s job.

It is, however, very much up to us to “…set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect …”

That’s 1 Peter 3:15. We never know when it will be our words or actions that God will use to begin His work in another person’s heart. All we can do is tell of our own faith, and then see if the sown spiritual seed takes root in productive soil.

So, on the one hand, the pressure’s off. We can’t save anyone with our words or deeds, no matter how dazzling. On the other hand, the pressure seemingly couldn’t be greater … as believers we are called by God to “always give an answer” for our faith; our love demands it.

But is there pressure, really? Pressure comes from fear, and love of God dissolves fear. When fear is gone, what we have left is love’s best companion: freedom.

And when we are free in Christ – not fearful of man – our answers for our hope in Christ flow freely.

Still, it can be tough to describe our faith because our relationship with God is so spiritually personal; very real, but mystical and hard to explain – especially to non-believers. What “did it for me” probably won’t do it for you.

For example, the action that triggered my first trip to church in 30 years – and led to my faith, baptism and study – was my then-13-year-old son asking at the dinner table, “Why don’t we go to church?” It was an innocent and legitimate question, not a suggestion or trick. He was just curious.

Next thing you know, I’m in the back pew at a church, crying quiet tears as my heart awakened to the Holy Spirit and love of Jesus Christ.

There was my answer, before I’d asked a question.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) was baptized in 2001.

Reconcilable Differences

Spirituality Column #146
August 25, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Reconcilable Differences
By Bob Walters

Reconciliation (n) – To go back; to end a separation.

The most important thing we can do in this life is to reconcile ourselves to God.

With unquestioning faith in Christ – faith that He is Who He says He is, does what He says He does, and sits where He says He sits at the right hand of God – we have that reconciliation (John 14:6). And with that, our salvation: eternal life and communion with God in Heaven.

How we arrive at that faith is always a personal story. How we use it, show it, walk it and live it are all sources of enormous Christian doctrinal debates. For example:

Are you Calvinist (salvation is predestined) or Ariminian (salvation is a function of our free will)? Is Justification (grace of God) enough, or is Sanctification (second work of grace, i.e., our works in life) required for salvation? Can we lose our salvation? (Hebrews 11. Ohhhh! Hebrews 11.)

A firm answer to these or many other questions can split a church.

For the record, I believe faith is an ongoing thing – an act of the will – and that we have to live the best way we know how by the light of Christ in the Bible, the wisdom God gives to humanity, and the quickening of our souls by the Holy Spirit.

“Unquestioning faith,” though doesn’t mean “no more questions.” We all have a zillion questions for God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit … like, for starters, “How does this whole Trinity-thing work?”

Unquestioning faith is more like when a fire truck pulls up to a fire. We have unquestioning faith that the big red vehicle spraying water is a fire truck, even if we have endless questions about how the truck works, how the fire started, and how much damage the fire did.

But let’s not get lost in a “fire truck” metaphor – “fire” as final judgment; trying to extinguish hell, Satan, etc. Comparing Jesus to a fire truck isn’t the point.

Reconciling ourselves to God is the point, and that happened when Jesus Christ went to the Cross to erase our sins and secure our salvation.

God expresses and exhibits great anger at mankind’s sin in the Old Testament, but exhibits great love and forgiveness of our sins, through the divine and human person of Jesus, in the New Testament.

That, unquestionably, is reconciliation. With faith, it’s ours.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) started to get lost in the fire truck metaphor.

And In This Corner...

Spirituality Column #145
August 18, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

And In This Corner …
By Bob Walters

Let’s say life is a boxing ring.

If you think God is in the other corner, I’m here to tell you that is never the case.

Satan is the opponent we battle; God is always in our corner.

When the worst of the worst things happen in our lives – loss of a loved one, death of a child, encountering incalculable injustice, tyranny, suffering, or disaster – why do we blame God instead of Satan?

“How could God let this happen?” we ask, we demand, we plea.

But the enemy is never God. The enemy is always Satan.

Perhaps we blame God because deep in the soul of every human heart we know God, know He authors faith, hope and love, and want to trust His merciful perfection. We also know Satan, know he stands for merciless evil, temptation and death, and yet somehow overlook Satan’s authorship of imperfection.

In an oxymoronic but consistent human switch, we blame our miseries on God instead of Satan.

What our hearts tell us about God is true – He is merciful, perfect, and He knows us. Yet much about God baffles humanity; His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8). We want to understand Him, but too often can’t.

The deeper I go in my Christian faith, the more I understand that God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is always my advocate for righteousness.

The Bible tells me so (1 Samuel 26:23, Romans 4:24).

I think it’s a mistake to look at the Bible primarily as a history book, a rule book, or a science book. When we do that, we get lost in literalism and lose scripture’s central point, which is that the Bible is a relationship book … the comprehensive story of and operating manual for mankind’s relationship with God and God’s Creation.

That relationship, in Christ, is centered on God’s righteousness and His will for our salvation, period. God created a perfect world (Genesis 1 and 2), and we’ll end with a perfect world (Revelation 21-22). For now, though, we reside in a fallen world.

God is our strength and refuge in time of trouble or distress (Psalm 46:1, 59:16, Jeremiah 16:19), while Satan delights in destroying God’s perfection.

We ask God to take away our pain, because we know Satan won’t.

Good heavens, if you are going to blame somebody, blame Satan.

He’s in the other corner.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows that a good corner-man in boxing will always tell you the truth, no matter how much it hurts.

Choose Your Weapon

Spirituality Column #144
August 11, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Choose Your Weapon
By Bob Walters

Those of us who choose to follow Christ know we are in a spiritual battle.

But we aren’t the only combatants on the field.

Christianity teaches that every human soul is in a battle against Satan, and that the only possible victory in that battle is with faith in the eternal redemption promised by Christ.

No faith in Christ; no eternal salvation. John 14:6. Game over.

It sure makes things easier for Satan – who through temptation coaxes us to rebuke God, Christ and the Holy Spirit – when we ignore what the Bible says about salvation and figure God can’t be mean enough to have a place called Hell.

But that’s the battle line. Satan is out there working tirelessly to undermine our faith, blind us to the reality of Hell, understate the reality of Jesus Christ, and overstate our ability to save ourselves. Hell is Satan’s eternal turf, and thanks to The Fall (Adam and Eve, Sin, etc.), we’re all candidates for residency.

Wonderfully, blessedly, we can opt out of Satan’s scheme. When we profess faith in Christ, we have declared war on Satan, taken a step toward heaven, and a step away from Hell.

But don’t ever make the mistake of thinking Satan won’t fight back.

Satan’s favorite weapons are lies and temptations. He’ll try to come get us. Satan understands the miracle of what God has fearfully and wonderfully made in humanity; what God has knit together in our mother’s wombs. Anyone of us is a handsome prize in Satan’s eternal trophy room.

What we politely call “our walk with Christ” should maybe more rightly be called “our battle against Satan.” If we keep our faith in Christ, we win; that’s the “Victory” we like to pray, praise and shout about.

So what weapons do we marshal in our battle against Satan?

For starters, the love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. When those are central in our lives, we resist Satan’s weapons. We also have the Bible, our church, our families, our priests, pastors, spiritual leaders, elders and others who love us and teach us to walk in the Light of Christ.

But developing a personal and unshakeable faith in God’s love, grace and mercy – demonstrated by Christ on the Cross and by our witness of love for God and others – creates a righteous and Godly shield that dulls Satan’s sword when he attacks.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) sees selling Christianity with guilt, fear, condemnation, prosperity or healing as missing the point – badly – of God’s love, and instead playing into Satan’s temptations. But that’s just his opinion.

Pride, Humility and Humanity

Spirituality Column #143
August 4, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Pride, Humility and Humanity
By Bob Walters

While pride is the king of all sins and humility the queen of virtues, it is our humanity that Christ came to save.

Pride was the undoing of many strong people in the Bible. Humility, we learn, is the key both to wisdom (Proverbs 11:2) and to accepting the grace of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 5:5).

But our humanity is the real issue of Salvation. We are fallen and we can’t get up; not by ourselves. Pride, humility, guilt, condemnation … all those things … are but symptoms or conditions, not the disease Christ came to cure.

The disease, of course, is The Fall. In Genesis 3 Eve and then Adam, despite God’s goodness and clear instruction, decided – with Satan’s urging – to play it their own way; to live in the Garden on their own terms instead of God’s.

Perfection interrupted.

Christ eventually died on the Cross, not to kill our pride, to make us humble, to inflict guilt or to condemn us. Christ died to save us, so that humanity could return to perfect communion with God the Father in eternal, holy fellowship.

Nothing in the Bible suggests Christ’s saving mankind amounted to God inventing a Plan B after Satan and man interfered with Plan A – Perfection. God must have known what would happen when He created something perfect – humanity – and then gave His creation both a spirit and freedom.

How we use the spirit and freedom God gives us adds up to our humanity. The word “pride” in Hebrew, Greek and Latin means, essentially, “to make more of yourself than you really are.”

To be human certainly requires a sense of self awareness. Call it ego or whatever you want, but it is a gift from God that we can think and choose and act and create. We just need to be ever mindful that we are a creature, not the Creator.

If we boast that Christ gave us more than we deserve, because we deserve nothing, that is a very positive kind of pride. If we despair and feel unworthy or guilty of accepting Christ’s love for us, then that is a destructive humility.

So let’s keep it in perspective. In Christ we encounter saving grace, the Creator God, and history’s only perfect human. We must use our own humanity to temper our pride and humility so that we leave room for God to guide us.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com) got this mnemonic from his friend Bill: PRIDE – Piously Recognizing I Do Everything.

Feelings, Faith and God

Spirituality Column #142
July 28, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Feelings, Faith and God
By Bob Walters

“What’s the difference between feelings and faith?”

George, my scholar friend and neighbor, posed this seemingly simple question recently to an advanced Biblical studies group that included pastors, orthodox priests, teachers, a psychologist, a Biblical counselor (therapist), a couple of physicians and some other high-functioning lay people.

No one had a ready, sure answer. Nor did I, upon hearing the question later.

I’ve written about George before. He is a Bible translator, a renowned church historian with a PhD from Cambridge, an expert in classical languages and world religions, very nearly became a monk, is a former priest and longtime university lecturer, worked as a paramedic with the Red Cross during the Mideast civil wars of the 1970s, is a trained psychotherapist, and today lives a gentle, quiet life with his wife and their many friends in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis.

I recap George’s qualifications to underscore his credibility, and as an antecedent to presenting his elegantly simple parsing of “feelings” and “faith”.

Feelings begin in our ego and return to our ego.

Faith starts in our ego but finishes up somewhere outside ourselves.

“Ego” is one of those words that seems antithetical to Christianity. The ego is about “me,” the “self,” and aren’t I supposed to “die to self” to become an obedient Christian? Isn’t the ego the root of evil since it is the root of our innate, earthly, sinful self? How can the ego be the root of faith, when I want to “kill” my ego in order to be a better Christian? Hasn’t my ego caused the sin and shame of my past life?

Surveying the Cross, the Apostle Paul instructs (Romans 6:6) that our “old self” was crucified, not killed; freed from sin, not enslaved. “In this Christian sense, ‘to crucify’ is an act of love, while killing is an act of hate,” George explains. “The ego isn’t to be destroyed; it must be redeemed and made alive.”

What about killing our ego? “That’s more a Buddhist belief of emptiness, not a Christian belief of creativity,” George notes. “Christ created us, and The Holy Spirit gives the ego life so that we can discover our abilities and creativity. If we kill the ego, we can’t do that; we can’t be human.”

So, be careful what you try to kill. Without our self, we can’t reach out to God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), for simplicity’s sake, will leave the Freudian id-ego-superego troika alone.

Seeing the Unseen

Spirituality Column #141
July 21, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Seeing the Unseen
By Bob Walters

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
- 2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)

I spent three decades of my life – from my mid-teens to my mid-forties – not going to church.

I couldn’t see the value in an active faith life, couldn’t see the divine Light in the Bible, couldn’t see the Truth of Christ on the Cross, couldn’t see the point of going to church … and couldn’t see the point of view of people who did.

Oh, I knew the Jesus story and the general Christian doctrines. I’d grown up Episcopalian and was an Acolyte (altar boy) in my early teens. By seventh grade or so, I knew the Anglican Communion service by heart.

Then, I drifted away. My pastor retired, plus the Episcopal Church changed enormously in the late 1960s. It brought in a “New Liturgy” that pretty much killed what I knew about being an altar boy.

So the church changed and, being a teenager, I changed. Church and religion, for me, became a thing of the past.

My eyes, to paraphrase the verse above, were definitely fixed on things seen. Like too many people, I only believed what I could see.

And one thing I saw was how many different directions Christians seemed to be going. It was easy to criticize the appearance of Christian hypocrisy and the tangled mess of controversy that too-frequently visited preachers, churches and entire Christian denominations.

How easy it was to stay away from these imperfect Christians, and think better of myself for not being part of the “religion” problem. I would find my own truth, thank you very much. I could occasionally see love and grace and beauty in the world around me; all I had to do was figure out where that goodness came from.

What a surprise when I finally found it one Sunday morning in 2001, sitting in church with tears streaming down my face. “The eyes of my heart,” inexplicably, thankfully, opened to the Light, Truth and bigness of God’s eternity.

I’ve learned since then not to sweat the small, confusing temporal bits.

“Christian hypocrisy,” for example, emanates from the fact that while Christ is perfect and eternal, in this mortal coil none of us is. Controversy, however benign or horrible, generally amounts to failed human expectations.

So when what we see is not perfect, let’s thank God it is not eternal.

Hallelujah for the glimpses of eternal perfection God provides.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was blind, but now can see.

Free to Make Mistakes

Spirituality Column #140
July 14, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Free to Make Mistakes
By Bob Walters

Occasionally we don’t field a fact cleanly.

I recently noted in print that the word "freedom" is not in the Declaration of Independence, and that the word "liberty" is not in the Bible.

Right on the first point; wrong on the second.

An alert reader pointed out that every day the top of the front page of the Indianapolis Star – the banner – has the verse from II Cor 3:17, “… where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

That’s the King James Version (KJV); I did my look-up in the New International Version (NIV). Whoops. “Liberty,” which appears a couple dozen times in the KJV, is translated as “freedom” in the NIV.

On further review, the word “liberty” does appear in the NIV, but only once and it’s buried in the Old Testament, Leviticus 25:10, in a verse regarding the 50-year jubilee of debt forgiveness and property return.

As penance for the mistake, I went to ScriptureText.com and looked up the Greek words for “liberty” and “freedom.” It turns out they are mostly interchangeable – though subtly distinct – variations of “eleutheria.”

With 13 variations of “eleutheria” sprinkled in 39 New Testament verses, it’s easy to drop in “liberty” for “freedom,” and vice versa.

And if you ever wondered why Greek Bible scholars are a breed apart, they have to know exact grammatical construction to even come close to bringing Ancient Greek into modern English. For example, the grammatical tense of “eleutherothentes” (“being made free” in Romans 6:18, 22) is Aorist Passive Participle Nominative Plural Masculine.

“Aorist,” if you’re curious, refers to an action that happened but doesn’t have an end, like gaining one’s freedom. The rest of it – Passive Participle, etc. – is taught in eighth grade English on a day most students probably take a nap.

Grammatically perfect Classical Greek notwithstanding, my overall point is that liberty, as we understand personal liberty and “rights,” is a humanist concept, not a Biblical concept. And freedom’s author is not the Declaration of Independence … or the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, for that matter.

Jesus Christ is the author of our freedom. We are free in Christ, and we are free of our sin, because Christ died to give us freedom.

He died so that we would know the Father, and so that our faith would overcome any mistakes we might make along the way.

Mea culpa.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests going outside ourselves to find right and wrong. God gives us the freedom to search; we pray for the wisdom to find.

Richness in Short Bursts

Spirituality Column #139
July 7, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Richness in Short Bursts
By Bob Walters

We worry when we don’t pray enough.

My pastor friend Dave told me of a life-long, vigorous churchgoer – steeped in his Christian walk – who came to him in a panic because he, the churchgoer, didn’t think he was praying enough.

Knowing the man’s deep and active faith, Dave advised him to write down – with the time – every thought he had about God. Dave got a call the next day. The man’s panic had been allayed within hours when he realized he was thinking about and talking with God all the time.

When we are serious about our faith, we discover God is rarely far from our thoughts, even if we aren’t on our knees.

There is no substitute, of course, for a block of uninterrupted quiet time in prayer, meditation, Scripture study or contemplation. Contemplation is the deep “prayer without words” where we focus on the glory of God, the sacrifice of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is when it is easiest for us to hear the Creator God – the Holy Trinity – talking to us.

My scholar friend George was mentored by a monk named Philemon at a monastery in the Egyptian desert. Philemon would sit in his cell for days or weeks in isolation, listening for his Lord’s voice to bring light to the most deep, difficult or confusing elements of Scripture, the Cosmos, human life, relationships, even God’s Existence and Being.

George’s faith and teaching are unusually rich in the fruits of his encounters with Philemon’s dedication to and depth of prayer life.

It’s important – critically important – to note that Christian prayer is directed outwardly, to the Creator of the Universe, to the Godhead. That’s the source and place of the Trinity in the Christian faith. Even as the Holy Spirit dwells within us, Christian prayer reaches out to the community of the Holy Trinity.

Be aware that a “Mantra,” popular in some faith systems, is not an outward, God-directed prayer; it points inward, only to our consciousness.

And don’t just talk endlessly … Matthew 6:7 makes that very clear.

It is the relationship each of us has with God the Father through Christ the Son in the Holy Spirit – and the relationship that exists within the Trinity – that is unique to the Christian faith.

Only our prayer life – even in short bursts – can capture the richness, peace and joy of that relationship.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was reminded that Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication (ACTS) is a terrific prayer mnemonic.

Pray As You Go

Spirituality Column #138
June 30, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Pray As You Go
By Bob Walters

God is constant, unchanging and eternal, while our mortal lives often change by the minute.

Prayer puts us in touch with God’s world, a peaceful and safe place. Yet we pray in response to the joy and pain, the hope and horror, the love and despair, the blessing and need, the goodness and sin, of daily human life.

We pray as we go, constantly striving for a Godly prayer connection that lifts us out of confusing human dualities and into the clearheaded, divine sphere of faith, hope and love.

It’s that wonderful place where we can “Be still, and know that [God is] God.” (Psalm 46:10)

The most beautiful and effective of prayers, to me, focus on God’s goodness, Christ’s sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of our hearts.

Traditional, denominational books of Common Prayer are filled with these eloquent offerings. For example, here is the opening “Collect” (prayer) from the Episcopal Church’s Order of Holy Communion, circa 1952:

“Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Wow. I think God deserves our best, most eloquent and sincere effort when we pray. Many of us are not especially eloquent – not like these liturgical prayers developed over centuries – but I do believe God always honors a heavenly-directed, focused, sincere prayer.

Satan, I’m pretty sure, prefers that we pray about ourselves.

The liturgical churches – Roman Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant – become nervous when prayer and/or worship go off script. Conversely, the more freeform, Bible-based and widely varying Baptist, Wesleyan, Nazarene, Brethren, independent Christian churches, etc., are often suspicious of prayers written down before they are actually prayed … scripture, of course, excepted.

I see both sides. I grew up in the liturgical Episcopal Church, did not go to church for nearly three decades, then came to Christ, was baptized and joined a non-liturgical Bible-based Christian church.

Prayer at first was difficult. I knew the Lord’s Prayer, didn’t know scripture, and couldn’t imagine an uncharted personal prayer path. But we pray as we go, using old prayers or new praises, but always with the Holy Spirit’s help directed toward God in Jesus’ name.

Can’t miss.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes for the Fourth of July that the word “liberty” isn’t in the Bible, and the word “freedom” isn’t in the Declaration of Independence.

Covering All the Bases

Spirituality Column #137
June 23, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Covering All the Bases
By Bob Walters

We are advised by both scripture and tradition to lead a prayerful life, but it is often hard to know how to pray.

The Bible has plenty of advice on prayer – look up pray-prayer-praying in your Bible’s index. Make sure not to miss Matthew 6:5-15 in the Sermon on the Mount. That is Jesus’ advice on praying.

To learn how Jesus Himself actually prayed read John 17, where Jesus prays powerfully and beautifully in the Garden of Gethsemane for Himself, for His disciples, and for all believers.

Catholic, Orthodox and the varied Protestant denominations have spent centuries perfecting their prayer books, and the prayers are magnificent to recite, majestic to hear.

Some people are hooked on rote prayer – prayers we memorize. Some people think rote prayer is akin to an Eastern mantra or the “babbling like pagans” mentioned in Matthew 6:7.

Rote prayer, I think, is incredibly helpful when we don’t know where to start praying, or aren’t quite sure what it is we are personally trying to say to God. The Orthodox “Jesus Prayer” – “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” – is often my jumping-in point for prayer.

The key to prayer is to focus on God, on Christ, and on the Holy Spirit … not on our personal needs. In John 14:26 Christ promises that God will send us the Holy Spirit to act as our Counselor. And what is prayer, really, other than seeking divine Counsel?

Ask the Holy Spirit how to pray. Ask the Lord Jesus how to pray. Ask God Almighty how to pray. You’ll find their answers will all be identical. Only by focusing on Them, however, can you possibly hope to hear Their counsel.

When my prayer focuses on me … guess whose advice I get? Mine. And if my advice were all that great, I wouldn’t be praying.

A prayer formula can be helpful. I like “PTA” - Praise, Thank and Ask.
- Praise God for being God and for all the ways He lets us know it.
- Thank God for His blessings.
- Ask God for greater closeness to Him and understanding of His will.

I think it is safe to say we are all inclined to ask God for material things or physical/emotional comfort, but it is God’s closeness and our understanding of His will that brings the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) advises the inclusion of “Confession” in prayer as well. We can’t surprise God, and confession properly tempers our requests.

Praying Continually

Spirituality Column #136
June 16, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Praying Continually
By Bob Walters

If “praying continually” isn’t something that seems practical or doable given life’s demands, responsibilities and temptations, is it more likely the Bible is wrong, or that our priorities and practices are wrong?

1 Thessalonians 5:17, like the rest of the Bible, is not passive in its language. “Pray continually,” (NIV), “Pray without ceasing,” (KJV) and “Pray all the time” (MSG), three versions of this same verse, leave no wiggle room.

So … shall we all become silent monks and nuns?

There is a place for that, certainly, but not for most of us. God gave us our lives and He gave us free will … and He is eternal so He already knows how everything is going to turn out.

No matter how much we debate predestination vs. free will, we can’t surprise God or create a truth God doesn’t already know. But we can surprise ourselves by how close we can truly be to God 24/7 if we learn to think about God first and ourselves second.

Prayer doesn’t have to be complex. It’s easy to say or think the words, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” If you mean it, that’s a prayer.

The wonderful Orthodox “Prayer of the Heart” or “Jesus Prayer” is similarly spare but powerful:

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

This simple prayer lands an enormous theological punch. In 12 words it identifies Christ as Lord, God as His Father, me as a sinner and requests my most urgent, perpetual and all encompassing need: God’s mercy.

Effective prayers can be unspoken and even unformed by words. A prayer can be a momentary awareness or mental image of God. See Christ on the Cross and use that image to battle Satan’s constant incursions into our inner peace and outer well-being. Invoke the Holy Spirit; ask how to pray.

If we desperately fear sin – and we all should – praying to Jesus Christ as Lord should be an all-day, all-night, all-encompassing attitude, not just an early-morning activity. Satan never sleeps. Thankfully, neither does God.

Sure, find time in your day to focus on God on your knees in private. Read a devotional. Read scripture. Participate in a Bible Study. Serve others. Go to church. Worship. Volunteer at church. Give to the church and the needy.

But learn to glimpse God without ceasing.

You will find yourself praying continually.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has discovered praying for money is less effective than praying to know and follow God’s will.

Praying Without Ceasing

Spirituality Column #135
June 9, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Praying Without Ceasing
By Bob Walters

The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” Our Lord wept over Lazarus, whom He soon raised from the dead.

The only other two-word verse in my New International Version (NIV) Bible is 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “pray continually.”

Traditional Bible versions like the King James say, “pray without ceasing.” The woefully obtuse but politically correct and idiomatically familiar “The Message” version says, “Pray all the time.”

In context, St. Paul is telling the still-tenuous Christian church at Thessalonica – in Macedonia around A.D. 51 where Paul had earlier begun his ministry but abruptly left – “(v16) Be joyful always, (v17) pray continually; (v18) give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ.”

Notice Paul doesn’t say “Be joyful when you are happy.” Or “Pray when it’s convenient.” Or “Give thanks when God gives you what you want.”

Our personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit is a fulltime affair. Joy is not a function of happy circumstance. Prayer is not reserved for a set-aside time. Thanksgiving isn’t just a Thursday in November.

We must have perpetual joy that Jesus is Lord. And say it.

We must pray continually to be with God continually. And know it.

We must be thankful for Christ’s sacrifice restoring us to communion with God. And live it.

Joy and thankfulness are attitudes we mentally and emotionally command. By living those attitudes, people around us interpret them as an expression of Godliness … as long as the glory for those Godly attitudes is given to God, not taken pridefully for ourselves.

Prayer, though, isn’t so much an attitude. It’s an action requiring discipline and willful engagement. Our closeness to God depends on it. When we aren’t praying, we’re drifting away from God and instead drifting headlong toward ourselves, the world, and Satan. Our faith waivers.

We pray to connect with God. To know He is there. To glorify Jesus. To praise Him. To thank Him. To confess to Him. And, of course, to ask Him.

As for “asking,” try this: Ask God for “stuff” last. First ask God how to be closer to Him, how to glorify Him, and how to help others know Him. Mean it. Ask God for deeper faith. As Morgan Freeman said to Jim Carey in the movie Bruce Almighty: “Now that’s a prayer.”

Next week: Praying Continually.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows that no matter how much or what we pray, we can’t surprise God.

Film, Fiction, Faith and Fact

Spirituality Column #134
June 2, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Film, Fiction, Faith and Fact
By Bob Walters

Normally it doesn’t matter when a novelist gets as many facts wrong as Dan Brown does. I think Angels & Demons is a good example of that.

Yes, there is a Vatican, a Pope and a place called Rome. There are Christian icons, locations, histories and mysteries attendant to all three. Europe’s CERN laboratory is a real place; Harvard is a real college.

Brown’s novels though are fiction, as are his imaginative depictions of historic conspiracies and secret religious societies. In Angels & Demons, Brown’s 2000 novel concocts a thrilling tale with a thread of truth here and there, woven into a fictional fabric of highly entertaining action and historical rubbish.

Ron Howard’s 2009 film adaptation of the book starring Tom Hanks is a movie I planned to refuse to see, because I am still ticked at Brown for The Da Vinci Code. I don’t care so much that he writes fictional things about Christ or the Church or the Pope, because the Jesus Christ Who is my Lord and Savior is plenty big enough to withstand a novelist’s keystrokes.

So are the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome.

What did tick me off were Brown’s disingenuous and potentially hurtful “Hey, this is the true story” attitude in his Da Vinci media interviews, and his ridiculous “Fact” preambles to these two fictional stories.

Note an important distinction: Telling a wild yarn isn’t a lie; it’s a wild yarn. That Brown calls these books fact-based, well, that’s a lie.

That the faith of so many people may have been shaken, dampened, or muddled by The Da Vinci Code’s misrepresentation of history, tradition and facts, surely grieves the Holy Spirit. It matters that the facts were wrong.

On the up side, thousands (or maybe millions) of us went into specific Bible studies to refute Brown’s theological nonsense. We heightened our awareness of important religious history and better understand the veracity of the Bible. That’s better than OK … it glorifies God.

At the end of the far-less-dangerous Angels & Demons movie – which I wound up seeing and enjoying – there is a tender line of utter truth that does not appear in the book, and to me vindicates the story’s spurious “facts” and dark ecclesiastical innuendo.

The chief Cardinal says to Tom Hanks’ character: “It is surprising sometimes who God sends to help us.”

Amen to that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) rarely goes to the movies, reads few novels, and as a general rule ignores network television.

Evidences of God

Spirituality Column #133
May 26, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Evidences of God
By Bob Walters

My elder son Eric is taking a Religious Studies minor in college and is always an interesting conversational partner during our car trips to and from school.

Eric, heading into his senior year at Purdue, is a baptized believer in Christ and walks his faith in a number of tangible ways – missions, campus ministries, Bible study leadership, youth group mentoring, worship musician, avid volunteer for assorted Kingdom activities, regular church-goer, chaplain of his fraternity, and (OK, I’m a bit biased) all around good-guy.

Plus, he’s a sinner like the rest of us. It’s ironic that we Christians, so often assailed by secularists for either being hypocrites or goody-two-shoes, are also the first to admit we are sinners.

That’s because being a sinner is the one and only thing that qualifies us for the grace of Christ. But I digress …

It’s easy to get through college thinking there is no God, being confused about God, just plain not thinking about God, or ridiculing God and those who believe in Him.

Eric’s faith, thankfully, is surviving both the college experience and what he’s learning about philosophy and theology.

On our most recent ride back down I-65, Eric mentioned a philosophy class this semester which discussed that there are just two kinds of arguments – evidential and logical.

An evidential argument, for example, would suggest that it is more likely God and evil in some way coexist. We see God, we see evil; both exist. A logical argument, differently, would note that a good God would not allow evil to exist, there is evil in the world, therefore God does not exist.

Conversation ensued … evidence obviates assumptions, while logic is wholly dependent on assumptions. Logic is harder to prove than evidence. “My concept of good outweighs God’s likelihood of existence” is a big, awful assumption, not evidence.

But here’s my point. Secularists – who in my experience are particularly queasy about being called “sinners” – immodestly fight against the idea of God’s existence, eternal salvation by Jesus Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit because they see no evidence … and call their position logical.

Look at a changed human life, look at a church full of believers, look at the Bible, look at beauty, look at love, experience an answered prayer, look at the sacrifice of Christ … evidence of God is everywhere, unless you assume it isn’t.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was passively confused about God for roughly three decades, including college. Eric, by the way, is majoring in Aviation Management.

Surfing the Bible

Spirituality Column #132
May 19, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Surfing the Bible
By Bob Walters

An end-of-the-millennium magazine article in late 1999 listed the printing press as the most important invention of the past 1,000 years.

I wonder where, another thousand years hence, they will rate the invention of the Internet, and whether the Internet will have as large an impact on Christianity.

It’s doubtful any mass-printed piece has had as much influence on mankind as the Bible. English theologian John Wycliffe in 1382 provided the first translation of the Vulgate (Latin Bible) into common English, and then German Johannes Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press around 1450. By 1517, Martin Luther was nailing his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany, and the Protestant Reformation was on.

Throw in the 1611 publication of the further-refined King James Version of the Bible – with paragraphs, indented poetic verses and translator’s notes – and scripture became both widely available and understandable to the masses. Continued technology, missionary work and evangelism have spread God’s word to every corner of the globe in virtually every language by Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox alike.

The point here is not the winding course of church history, but that the printed Bible has been and still is a powerful influencer of worldwide culture. Whether today one prefers a Thompson Chain Reference Edition, a multi-version Parallel Bible with side-by-side translations, a Study Bible with many reference notes or a simple Zondervan NIV with minimal reference notes, printing press technology delivers the Word in many forms.

How much moreso the Internet. What the printing press did for Bibles, the Internet can do for Bible study. In-depth, free, online resources abound.

My favorite Bible Internet site is ScriptureText.com, with its word-by-word Greek translations. To try it, Google this: “John 1:14 in Greek.” You see each word in original Greek, Greek in English letters, English words, exact grammatical tenses, and multiple meanings along with multiple languages and translation versions.

While I often flip to the back of my little NIV for index entries, a broader reference is BibleGateway.com. One can instantly search Bible words, phrases or specific verses in virtually any version or any language. Other helpful sites BlueLetterBible.com, BibleandReference.com and NewAdventBible.com (Catholic). Countless Bible studies, concordances, commentaries, blogs, FAQs and tutorials are within a couple of clicks.

Also, visit ThompsonBible.net or Zondervan.com to see how Bibles are made.

We have the tools, we need to use them.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) remembers that the millennium article listed eyeglasses (Italy, 1200s) as the second most important invention; they keep human beings sighted and productive past the age of 40.

The Rationalism of Sin

Spirituality Column #131
May 12, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Rationalism of Sin
By Bob Walters

The first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation – the front and back of the Bible – tell us that the world was created without sin and will end without sin.

The bad stuff starts in Genesis 3 when Satan appears and tempts Adam and Eve. Satan’s run ends in the lake of fire in Revelation 20. Bracketing the intervening Biblical chaos are Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22, which describe sinless worlds far different than the one in which we currently live.

I love the Creation story, and deeply cherish the promise and hope of Heaven. In the beginning God created an earthly world He repeatedly declared “good.” In the end He describes an eternal heavenly home – The New Jerusalem – that offers perpetual communion and perfection in the company of Jesus Christ. No sin, no death.

But the reasoned reality of right now in the life all around us is the fact of sin and the fear of death.

Concentric to that reality is the world’s postmodernist, sliding-scale morality that assigns disbelieving relativity to good and evil, and mushy equivocation to truth and falsehood.

A Christian should be able confidently to describe good and truth as the light of Jesus Christ, and recognize evil and falsehood as the darkness of Satan. Alas, today’s prevailing intellectual winds paint assuredness in the divine unseen as irrational, and ascribe cultural tolerance and philosophical certainty only to self-truth and situational morality.

A hundred years ago, author G.K. Chesterton recognized the first glimmers of rationalist postmodernism and argued a somewhat brief yet brilliantly entertaining case against it in his classic 1908 book Orthodoxy. In 100 years, the book has never gone out of print.

Chesterton, now proven prophetic, wasn’t so much arguing against postmodernism as he was arguing for the reasonableness of Christian belief.

He paints reason in tones of openness of mind, describes doubt as a sure sign of sanity, and lists imagination and wonder as indispensable tests of mental function.

Some months ago I was enthralled by a centennial review of Orthodoxy written by Baylor professor Ralph C. Wood that appeared in the November 2008 First Things magazine (the article can be accessed for free at FirstThings.com, search Orthodoxy Chesterton).

Reason and rational thought, Chesterton assures us, are never the preemptive domain of those who claim sin and evil are irrational. It’s the believers who are sane.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes: the first and last chapters of the Bible have no sin, and Christ frequently describes himself as “the first and last.” Interesting, huh?

Has Evil Gone Out of Style?

Spirituality Column #130
May 5, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Has Evil Gone Out of Style?
By Bob Walters

Nationally syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts recently took great pains in print to beg the forgiveness of his readers that, despite what a backward idea he knows it is to those whom he evidently considers his intellectual peers, 10 years later he still can find no explanation for the Columbine massacre except to call it an act of evil.

Evil. I’m not sure I can come up with a more easy to understand concept than evil. Love takes work. Forgiveness takes discipline. Faith takes perseverance. Kindness takes sacrifice.

But evil. Evil’s easy. Evil is 100 percent about “me,” to the exclusion of God or others. Our society, our culture, our cult of self-esteem, is ever loosening its grip on the reality of evil.

Pitts’ problem with evil seems to be that it’s a sign of intellectual resignation to actually believe evil exists.

And for way too many people, evil is a small mind’s opinion, not a controlling cosmic fact.

To go back to the basics, God is good and Satan is evil. God exists and Satan exists. There is absolute good and perfection in the divine person of Jesus Christ. Satan is a miserable fact of our existence whose sole aim is to separate us from God and good by means of death and sin.

Why did God allow there to be evil when Genesis 1 and 2 tell us He created a perfect world without sin or – more importantly – death?

Now there is a great question. Maybe it’s because that without evil, there would be no challenge, choice or freedom about loving God, and therefore no true love, no faith, no triumph, nothing to prove and nothing to overcome.

Pitts cowered to mention evil as an acceptable explanation of life’s unexplainable horrors, but I was entertained a few paragraphs later in the same column to find his assertion that “(evil) flies in the face of our innate belief in the perfectibility of human beings.”

Huh? If history, humanity, Christianity, politics, celebrity culture and maybe even our most recent family reunion have taught us anything, wouldn’t we all universally agree that human beings are not perfectible?

Certainly not in this life.

We humans are a magnificent mess and hardly perfectible by our own effort. Evil is our life’s combat. But we have hope of eternal perfection, and the name of that hope – and perfection – is Jesus Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reads liberal and conservative columnists; liberals make him laugh, and conservatives make him cry.

Dying So We Can Live

Spirituality Column #129
April 28, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Dying So We Can Live
By Bob Walters

Living fabulously takes a ton of pride and discipline and luck, if we are talking about the world’s standards.

God’s standards, on the other hand, must be beyond anything we can imagine.

Fabulous, I’m pretty sure, doesn’t begin to describe heaven, divine forgiveness, or eternity in a loving relationship with the Creator of the Universe.

Pride and discipline and luck won’t get you to heaven. Many would agree with “pride and luck” being worldly, but think “discipline” is a ticket to heaven. Discipline is important, but only if it is discipline of faith.

Having discipline to work hard, even for the Lord, is still just discipline, and still just work.

Faith, forgiveness, humility, grace, mercy … this is the face of the Christian walk. Yet aren’t we often stuck on fabulous? I know I am.

These things are swirling around in my head because I just finished reading the mystical, spiritual Christian classic, “The Imitation of Christ.” Hailed as the “second most published book in history” next to the Bible, it dates to 1418 and is credited to Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) near Cologne, Germany.

This isn’t a book to read before gaining personal familiarity and affinity for the Bible. I believe the Bible is entirely true, but it’s a tough read. Especially the parts that tell us to deny self, die to self, humble ourselves, and hate the world in order to serve God. “Dying to self” is not something I do easily.

“Imitation” is a thoughtful reflection on all these things, and includes a conversation in the voices of both a Disciple and Christ. Given the dust-up in 2008 over the breezy treatment of the Trinity in “The Shack,” I asked friend, mentor, Bible scholar, church history expert and local neighbor Dr. George Bebawi why “Imitation” does not scandalize the “voice of Christ.”

“The mystics of the Middle Ages are the undisputed treasure of Christianity,” George offered. “They speak to love, forgiveness, humility – topics people don’t debate – rather than to major or minor doctrines which divide us. Our union with and light in Christ is not a disputed doctrine.”

As to “the voice of Christ,” Bebawi reminds, “Christ did not go into a retreat of silence after the New Testament. He speaks to every believer’s heart. The voice of Christ in the inner life is an accepted fact.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests keeping a highlighter handy while reading “The Imitation of Christ.”

How We Know We Know

Spirituality Column #128
April 21, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

How We Know We Know
By Bob Walters

English poet Thomas Gray secularly wrote, “Ignorance is bliss.” Psalm 14:1 in the Bible faithfully advises, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

There is no shortage of people around us who think not knowing Christ is a lot easier and, well, saner, than knowing Him. But even for believers there is a pesky question:

How do we know what we know?

If one is seeking comfort in the knowledge of Christ, the reality of the Cross – man’s brutality and God’s love – is a scary and mystical proposition that does not immediately invite comfort, or easy defense.

But even with the courage to face Christ, the energy to engage the Holy Spirit and the wisdom to accept God’s word as the ultimate moral truth, there is no way to measure our understanding of the Divine.

That’s OK. Christ isn’t about measurement. He’s about faith … and love.

Believers generally want to know everything they can about the blissfulness, peace and challenges of truly knowing God. That’s one of the easy self-tests of whether one is a believer or a seeker. How thirsty am I?

In possibly the same moment, one might wonder if the faith deep in our souls is the real deal, the real God. Is the Holy Spirit providing real light on our deepest spiritual questions?

These are intensely personal issues, even in light of the fact that as believers we are members of a community, the church, the Bride of Christ. We are saved one at a time because Christ loves us one at a time.

Newsweek magazine reports that Christian political influence is dwindling in our culture. Fine. Romans 13 is just one of several places in the Bible that plainly tells Christians not to seek political influence. Jesus did not come for the nations – “They are a drop in a bucket” (Isaiah 40:15) – He came for our individual souls.

Plainly Christ didn’t come for political glory. His glory was and still is in providing us with a sin-free, eternal and loving relationship with God; we are forgiven. Politics always seems to be looking for someone to blame.

The best way for us to glorify Christ is to love Him above all else, and to love each other, no matter what. If we can trust that, politics becomes a minor annoyance, our faith is secure, and we, lovingly, know what we know.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that politics so often seems to be the perfect antidote for love and forgiveness.

Season of the Holy Spirit

Spirituality Column #127
April 14, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Season of the Holy Spirit
By Bob Walters

Easter was a couple of days ago; the Lord is Risen indeed.

So what happens now? The Holy Spirit happens.

It is the Holy Spirit that quickens our living, breathing souls with our belief in God and our faith in the eternal salvation promised by Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity – fully God – and provides us with the emotional and intellectual ability to understand the Word of God: Christ’s truth in our hearts.

On the day Christ rose from the dead, Jesus began to breathe the Holy Spirit into the lives of His disciples so their eyes and hearts would finally be opened to the enormous truth of salvation, and the infinite glory of God.

Let’s review that first Easter Sunday. Resurrected from the dead, Jesus Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb (John 20:14) on the morning of “the first day of the week” (Sunday), appeared to disciples Cleopas and Luke on the road to Emmaus that afternoon (Luke 24:13:32), and appeared to a gathering of disciples in a locked room that evening (John 20:19), eating with them (Luke 24:43).

At the tomb, on the road, and in the locked room, Jesus was not immediately recognized; not even by disciples He had told in multiple ways that He would die and come back to life to assure their own Heavenly eternal life in the presence of God.

These were pretty big stakes; pretty plainly explained.

And the disciples missed it.

Teachable moment: Jesus specifically and of His own will came to the disciples on the very day of His resurrection and they, at first, missed the fact it was Jesus. Let’s try not to miss Jesus when He shows up in our lives … and He does, you know.

In that locked room Jesus gave the disciples the divine gift that keeps on giving; that animates Christian beliefs and has changed the course of human history – He breathed the Holy Spirit into them (John 20-22).

Forty days later was Christ’s Ascension to heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father (Acts 1). At 50 days – the Pentecost – God sent the gift of the Holy Spirit to all, so that all might believe (Acts 2).

Want to hear from the Holy Spirit? Confess faith in Christ, pray … and listen.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if the Holy Spirit minds that we don’t make a big deal out of Pentecost, when Jesus gets Christmas and Easter.

Closer Than You Think

Spirituality Column #126
April 7, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Closer Than You Think
By Bob Walters

I beg to differ with anyone who thinks the Wondrous Cross of Christ sits on a hill far away.

The Cross is situated right here, right now, in the center of our beating hearts.

That’s a good thing, and a miserable thing.

It’s miserable because up there on the Cross – scourged, bleeding and gasping for breath – is the totality of our human wrath and the ugliness of our sins. It’s the most disturbing picture imaginable of what our sin and unfaithfulness would look like to God, if in fact He were able to look upon them.

Jesus – God become flesh (John 1:14) – could see sin and came among us to provide a resolution for the biggest catastrophe to befall humanity. Some think that catastrophe is sin, but the biggest catastrophe is death; it forever separates us from God.

No way do I believe that the horror of the Cross is a picture of God’s wrath; it is a picture both of our sin – man scourged Jesus – and what God is willing to endure to cure death. Not just that one time on a Cross on a distant patch of dirt, but every moment of every day for all eternity for every person who turns in faith to Jesus Christ.

The goodness of keeping the Cross always in our hearts is that it shows us the pure, unconditional, eternal love of God.

Is Jesus being punished for our sins? No, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest punishment. Besides, who can punish God? Jesus is defeating death, removing our sins, establishing a new covenant between man and God, birthing a new creation, and – with his resurrection – fulfilling the promise of eternal life for all who believe.

Christ is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Old Testament lambs didn’t do that; Christ is a new kind of Lamb.

We still sin. I’m a sinner. News flash: we’re all sinners. Sin’s the biggest problem we have in this life, and its ugliness is right up there on the Cross.

But with faith in Christ death is defeated, our hearts are changed, sin’s grip on this life is lessened … and with faith in Christ, eternity comes without sin.

That’s why we should hold that old rugged Cross close every second. It’s a lousy picture of ourselves, but proof God loves us anyway.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) archives these weekly columns at www.believerbob.blogspot.com.

John: The Disciple Jesus Loved

Spirituality Column #125
March 31, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

John: The Disciple Jesus Loved
By Bob Walters

The Fourth Gospel, written by the disciple John between 50-100 A.D, is different from the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke in that John begins his Gospel at the beginning of the world and links Jesus Christ directly to God at Creation.

“In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God,” reads John’s lyrical first chapter. Jesus is the Word of God. “And the Word became flesh …” says John 1:14. God, in Jesus, became man.

John the Evangelist was the cousin of both Jesus and John the Baptist – their mothers were three sisters: Salome, Mary and Elizabeth. It was Salome (the wife of Zebedee) whom Jesus sternly rebuked in Matthew 20:20 after she asked Jesus to favor her sons John and James.

Despite that rebuke, Salome (John 19:25) was at the foot of the Cross with her sister Mary, son John, Mary Magdalene and another Mary, wife of Clopas, who is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible.

John’s Gospel, considered more mystical than the Synoptics, is highly focused on identifying Jesus as fully man, fully God and fully man’s sole chance for salvation. It is also called the Book of Signs:
1) Water into wine – v. John 2:1
2) Healing the nobleman’s son – v. 4:46
3) Healing pool at Bethesda – v. 5:1
4) Feeding the 5,000 – v. 6:1
5) Walking on water - v. 6:16
6) Healing the blind man – v. 9:1
7) Raising Lazarus – v. 11:1-44

John 3:16 is one of the best known verses in the Bible, partly because of that rainbow-haired nut who used to wave the “John 3:16” sign at ball games on TV, but mainly because it contains Jesus’ core message:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Sadly, the follow-up John 3:17 may be the most overlooked verse in the Bible: “God did not send his son to condemn the world … but to save the world.”

John introduces us to the Holy Spirit (14:15-31, 16:5-16) and records Jesus’ fabulous prayer for disciples and believers in the Garden (17:6-26).

The bottom line? John, the disciple Jesus loved, tells us Jesus’ salvation is for everyone and that God’s love is for everyone … if only we believe.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has filled 23 pages with notes while re-reading the Gospels. The richness of the message never tarnishes.

Luke: Jesus Came for All

Spirituality Column #124
March 24, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Luke: Jesus Came for All
By Bob Walters

My favorite passage of scripture has to be Luke 2:1-14, the Christmas story.

“And it came to pass … ” and “on Earth peace, good will toward men.” Beautiful.

The most elegantly written of the four Gospels, Luke’s name is not in the Gospel as its author, but unmistakable evidence exists that Luke and Acts were written by the same person. Both are addressed to Luke’s probably-Roman patron Theophilos, and Paul mentions his “dear friend Luke, the doctor” in Colossians 4:14 and “fellow worker” in Philemon 24.

Luke, a non-Jew, was perfectly positioned to tell the story of Jesus to the Gentiles. He was obviously trained in classical Greek culture, possessed a scholar’s sense of investigation and viewed Israel with an outsider’s perspective.

Tradition tells us that Luke was one of “the 72” Jesus sent out in Luke 10:1-24. We don’t know how Luke first came into the company of Jesus, but his carefully researched Gospel bears both great similarity to, and striking differences from, the other Synoptics.

Only Luke, in chapter 1, gives us information helping us figure out John the Baptist is a Levite. Only Luke reports Jesus being “in my Father’s house” teaching in the Temple at age 12 (Luke 2:49). Only Luke reports Jesus’ lineage back to Adam to include all mankind; Matthew stops at Abraham (Luke 3:23-38).

Luke is rich with stories of non-Jews who Jesus helped. The story of the Centurion’s sick servant in Luke 7:1-9 tells us that Jesus checks only faith, not our ID, when we cry out for help. The story of the bleeding woman in Luke 8:42-48 tells us that Jesus feels each one of us, individually.

Luke reports how Jesus raised the widow’s son in Luke 7:14, and brought back to life Jarius’s daughter in Luke 8:40-56.

Luke’s investigation produces rich, powerful and exclusive sections of parables (Luke 10:1 to 18:14, 19:1-28). Luke notes, as do all the Gospels, that at the Cross it was a Roman Centurion – a Gentile – who observed after Christ’s death: “Surely this was a righteous man,” i.e., the son of God.

It is Luke who tells the story of two men who encounter Jesus on the Road To Emmaus, giving us the name of just one man, Cleopas. Why?

Because, as my scholar friend Dr. George Bebawi reminds, according to St. Jerome and Origen of Alexandria, the other one was Luke himself.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) encourages fellow-Christians to re-read the Gospels during Lent. It’s amazing what you forget when it’s been a couple of years. Next week: John.

Mark: Succinct for the Romans

Spirituality Column #123
March 17, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Mark: Succinct for the Romans
By Bob Walters

John Mark, a close associate of the Apostle Peter, is credited with writing the Gospel of Mark between 50-65 AD somewhere in Italy.

With its succinct, active, and direct style – an apt metaphor for the Roman way of life – Mark describes what Christ did more than what Christ said.

Scholars regard the book of Mark, which not surprisingly focuses on persecution and martyrdom, as a portrayal of Peter’s teaching and sermons to the Romans.

Tradition suggests Peter lived his later years in and around Rome and was martyred there. John Mark – who we see elsewhere in the Bible as the man who ran naked from Christ’s arrest in the Garden (Mark 14:51), deserted Barnabas and Paul (Acts 13:13), and later regained Paul’s favor (2 Titus 4:11) – was, like Luke, not one of the 12 Disciples.

This is the kind of scripture background available from a standard study Bible.

When I first read the Bible a few years ago, it was an edition with a minimum of notes because I wanted to focus on the scripture and not have my eyes and thoughts jerked around a maze of notes, footnotes, citations, charts, and maps.

A study Bible is an entirely different animal. I often have to look twice to find the actual scripture amid the above-mentioned maze of study material.

The variety of information especially facilitates a curious phenomenon that befalls every person who reads any Bible on a regular basis: With each reading, new bits of insight and previously unnoticed facts fairly jump off the pages.

I like to think this is the Holy Spirit’s way of keeping our thirst whetted for continued scriptural study and a deeper relationship with God through Christ.

A new insight? It occurred to me that Jesus’ famous statement about money and taxes, “Render unto to Caesar …” (Mark 12:17), positions money as an earthly thing, not a divine thing. That sort of knocks a hole in the popular prosperity preaching that promotes “God wants us to be rich.” Hogwash. How many rich Christian missionaries do you know? Money rich, I mean.

A fresh fact? Mark 15:25 puts the time of the crucifixion as “the third hour,” or 9 a.m. I always thought it was noon (ahhhh! See Mark 15:33).

A typical study Bible note? Mark 6:3 is the only place in the Bible where Jesus is referred to as a carpenter.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, notes that Mark 16:18 is the “snake handling” scripture. You can look it up. Next week: Luke.

Matthew: Gift of God

Spirituality Column #122
March 10, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Matthew: Gift of God
By Bob Walters

“The name Matthew means ‘gift of God,’ and that’s exactly what Matthew presents to us in the life of Christ.”

That’s a recent note from Dave Faust, who as my then-pastor and mentor first inspired me to read the Bible. He suggested getting acquainted with the Bible by reading Genesis, Isaiah, Matthew, and Revelation.

Dave – well, “Dr. Faust” – is now president of Cincinnati Christian University. I emailed him about this “reading the Gospels” series during Lent and asked him why he recommended Matthew.

He wrote back: “I like the idea that Matthew was once a tax collector who hung around with some pretty sinful friends. Then the Lord invited him to ‘Come, follow me,” and he … became a disciple.

“I believe it was William Barclay,” Dave said, “who pointed out that the only thing Matthew took with him from the tax collector’s booth was his pen! (And thus wrote the Gospel.)”

In describing the book, Dave notes: “Matthew portrays Jesus as an authoritative teacher, a kind care-giver, a supreme storyteller, a powerful miracle worker, and a fulfiller of prophecy. Most of all, Matthew’s Gospel shows that Jesus is the promised Messiah, born of a virgin, put to death by crucifixion, and raised from the dead for salvation.”

Tax collectors were the worst of the worst in Jerusalem society, and we must pay attention to the fact that if God could use Matthew for good, he can use just about any of us for good.

When I asked friend and pastor John Samples about the Gospels, he pointed out that Matthew – with its approximately 50 direct quotes from Old Testament prophecy – was written to the Jews. Mark’s Gospel, short and direct, was written to the Romans; and Luke, the Greek physician, wrote his eloquent Gospel to Gentiles. John is considered a universal Gospel.

Matthew is loaded with common sayings – “man does not live by bread alone” (4:4), “blind leading the blind (15:14) – is home to the Sermon on the Mount (5-6-7), has one of the longest chapters in the New Testament (Ch 26 has 76 verses), says that John the Baptist is Elijah (17:12-13), and so much more.

I wrote down seven pages of notes; verses and ideas I want to remember.

One of the greatest things about reading any part of the Bible is that it always brings new thoughts, and this is a season for renewal.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is now reading Mark, who along with Luke was not one of the 12 Apostles.

Kick This Habit Up a Notch

Spirituality Column #121
March 3, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Kick This Habit Up a Notch
By Bob Walters

How’s this for great advice?

Read the Gospels.

Recently I heard a sermon about another topic entirely, but the pastor made the corollary point, “If you haven’t read them lately, read the Gospels.” What a capital idea.

Over the remaining five weeks of Lent, which started last week with Ash Wednesday, Feb. 25, and ends with Easter, April 12, why not take the time (daily if you can) to grab a Bible, sit down and read – or re-read – the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

Read one book a week – 28 chapters of Matthew, 16 chapters of Mark, 24 chapters of Luke and 21 chapters of John.

That’s what I’m going to do, and write about them weekly. I’m “in” the Gospels all the time, but I haven’t read them end-to-end in five years.

If you’re not now a regular Bible reader, they say habits form over a period of 21 days. I don’t know of a better habit than daily time spent with God’s word, reading the Bible. We make lots of attempts to break bad habits at the start of each New Year. Why not resolve to create one new good habit at the start of this season of renewed life?

This is a “habit” we – Christians or anyone who’s interested in Christ – could work on together, even though many Christian churches don’t implore their congregations to read the Bible, and many other Christian churches do not celebrate Lent.

The good news is … well, the Good News is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But for the purposes of this particular plea, the good news is that all Christian churches celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It’s what we call common ground, and that’s the message of the Gospels.

This is a good season to put away sectarian disputes about Biblical origins, versions, translations and interpretations, and just read. Let’s not fight about “The Bible.” What we want as Christians – regardless of doctrine – is for everyone to know the Gospel message, and to read the Bible.

So, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John over the next four weeks.

Know the best way to start? Pray. Get the Holy Spirit involved.
Need a prayer? Try, “Lord Jesus Christ, help me understand what I’m about to read, that it may bring Glory to You. Amen.”

Need a Bible? Let me know.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who reads the NIV Bible because it’s easy, will find you a Bible if you don’t have one.

Lent: Give Up or Give More?

Spirituality Column #120
February 24, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Lent: Give Up or Give More?
By Bob Walters

Tomorrow – February 25 – is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Thus begins a 46-day run-up to Easter, the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection signifying the fulfillment of God’s promise of everlasting life.

I like Lent. It’s not in the Bible but it’s a tradition that goes back to the fourth century A.D., before the great schisms of the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) churches.

When Luther and the subsequent Protestants rebelled in the 1500s, their re-formed Christian but non-Catholic churches largely followed the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical, or church, calendar and traditions.

As a young boy in the 1960s Episcopal Church, to me Lent meant much the same functionally as it did to the Catholics. Ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, and you “gave up” something for Lent. It was a symbol of sacrifice, what the monks would consider ascetic (harsh discipline) self-denial.

To “give up” something for Lent was a big deal. It seemed, well, pious … in a good way. It had to be something you liked and was available, no fair giving up, say, watermelon, because it wasn’t in season. But you learned to be strategic. One year I gave up “candy.” Big mistake. The next year, I gave up Reese Cups. I liked Reese Cups, but did just fine with a Clark bar.

I am now an active member of a Bible-based, Jesus-believing independent Christian mega-church – East 91st Street Christian – that does not observe the ecclesiastical calendar outside of Easter Sunday and Christmas (also not in the Bible … in fact, the New Testament doesn’t specify any holy days or even the Sabbath because – Biblically – Christ is to be honored all the time).

Still, Lent is sort of the 800-pound gorilla in the resurrection room that Christian believers of the non-ecclesial persuasion have a hard time ignoring.

We start counting down “shopping days until Christmas” on November 1. Without an observation of Lent, all of a sudden it’s Holy Week and then Easter and then it’s over. Hence, Churches not observing Lent often plan a community prayer regimen or purposeful reading program during the 40-day season.

If you don’t “give up” something for Lent, you can never go wrong “giving more” during Lent, whether it is money, time helping others, or time worshipping God. Giving is love, and love is why Jesus died for us.

Here’s wishing you a well-spent Lent.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) knows Lent is 40 days but said “46 days” above: you don’t count the six Sundays.

Richard John Neuhaus, RIP

Spirituality Column #119
February 17, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Richard John Neuhaus, RIP
By Bob Walters

The biggest surprise of my Christian rebirth has been the multitude of really smart Christians I’ve encountered.

A case in point is Richard John Neuhaus, founder and editor of the brilliant First Things magazine. Father Neuhaus – a Lutheran Minister who completed his own personal faith journey by becoming a Roman Catholic priest at age 54 in 1991 – died last month of cancer in New York City.

Neuhaus (1936-2009) was a pastor, theologian, philosopher, intellectual, commentator, counselor and prodigious writer. He was a white Canadian by birth who moved to America at age 15 and …

– Pastored a black church in Brooklyn in the 1960s; marched arm-in-arm with Martin Luther King as a soldier in the civil rights movement; zealously protested the Vietnam war in the late 1960s and, among other things, was arrested during the 1968 Chicago riots outside the Democratic national convention.

– Argued passionately against Roe v Wade, saying, “It should be the heartless conservatives who want to define a fetus as a lump of tissue, it ought to be caring liberals who want to expand the community of care to embrace the unborn;” broke with his Leftist roots after Roe v. Wade passed in 1973, and went so far as to suggest America had lost its legitimacy as a nation by allowing the wanton killing of innocent unborn humans.

– Challenged leftist Protestant churches who cozied up to worldwide Marxist regimes; wrote the book “The Naked Public Square” in 1984, his seminal intellectual treatise on the danger of attempting to secularize every part of our shared life as Americans; and founded First Things in 1990.

– Formed highly public and productive relationships with Jewish leaders (Abraham Joshua Heschel) and Evangelical leaders (Chuck Colson); was the only Catholic listed in Time magazine’s 2005 feature, “America’s Top 25 Evangelicals;” was a religious advisor to U.S. presidents Carter, Reagan and both Bushes, and was a confidante and advisor to Pope John Paul II in Rome.

Not bad for a guy who never completed high school.

Neuhaus pumped greatly needed religious light and intellectual heat into the modern American faith conversation. His remarkably perceptive, deep, witty, and entertaining commentaries on religion, culture, sociology, politics and literature are preserved in his 30 books and at www.firstthings.com.

As ongoing First Things editor Joseph Bottom writes, “Our great, good friend is gone … he has been gathered by the Lord he trusted.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) never met Neuhaus, but loves his writings.

Nothing Left to Ask For

Spirituality Column #118
February 10, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Nothing Left to Ask For
By Bob Walters

Fifth in a series on The Lord’s Prayer

After the salutation, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” – essentially, “Hello, Creator God Almighty” – there are seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. Three are “thy” requests about God; four are “us” requests about people.

Hallowed be thy name: God please let me care for Your holy name enough to lift myself and others up toward You, to recognize Your love for this world, and not drag You down into our earthly filth.

Thy Kingdom come: Your kingdom is truth and good. If You are absent, O God, nothing can be good, our hope is gone, and the world will be in ruins. Give us a listening heart; it is Your kingdom, not ours.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven: With the freedom you alone give to us, help us learn to love You and our neighbors, not just ourselves. Help us to make Your will our first priority. In heaven, Your will is absolute; may earth become heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread: You acknowledge our earthly needs; how can the presence of Jesus, the bread of His body, teach us a greater truth than this? Help us to turn our cares over to You, and to renew our trust and faith in You each day.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us: Forgiveness is what You give us through Christ and, to honor You, what we must learn to continually give to others. Whether we say trespasses, debts, or sins, only Your loving forgiveness solves the destructive guilt of our human and earthly transgressions.

And lead us not into temptation: Jesus, Job and countless saints have suffered, but the Great Tempter is Satan … and Satan alone, for the Evil One hates God’s righteousness. In our human suffering, O God, You purify our lives or glorify Your name with trials, but let our faith in You reside steadfastly. You are the source of all strength.

But deliver us from evil: O Lord, do not give the Evil One more room to maneuver than we can bear; we can only lose ourselves when we have lost You. Our faith enables us to see You; do not let evil take faith from us.

As St. Cyprian famously said, “When we pray, ‘deliver us from evil,’ there is nothing left to ask for.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends a thoughtful read of Chapter 5 (on The Lord’s Prayer) in Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 book, Jesus of Nazareth, which inspired this five-part series and heavily informed this final installment.

The Ultimate Prayer Partner

Spirituality Column #117
February 3, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Ultimate Prayer Partner
By Bob Walters

Fourth in a series on The Lord’s Prayer

When my childhood church modernized its liturgical language in the 1960s – goodbye “thy” and “thine;” hello “you” and “your” – I remember saying the updated Lord’s Prayer only once or twice in Sunday services.

“Our Father in Heaven, Holy be your name …”

It simply didn’t have its divine “oomph.” The rest of the new liturgy soldiered on, but the traditional “Which art in heaven” Lord’s Prayer was back in the service almost immediately.

I like the “which art,” “hallowed,” “thy” and “thine” version for its sheer linguistic pleasure and familiar, poetic cadence. In the Sermon on the Mount version from Matthew, the Greek text plainly says “debts.” In Luke 11 it’s “sins.” I like Origen’s “trespasses.”

The Protestant Lord’s Prayer ends with “…forever, Amen.” I have always said, “… forever and ever, Amen.” Catholics stop at “… deliver us from evil.”

Minor points. The prayer, and more importantly the love and trust relationship with God Almighty, are the major points.

We all have our favorite versions and styles, prayers and verses, prayer partners and prayer leaders. I know certain people who, when they pray – inside or outside of a liturgy – seem to supernaturally just reach out, grab the Lord and attach Him to the proceedings in a mystical, very nearly tangible way.

If you know someone like that, say a prayer of thanks for them right now.

What’s special about the Lord’s Prayer is that it is the prayer Jesus – Jesus as a prayer leader – teaches us to pray. He instructed his disciples in Matthew 6 against false prayers and publicly showing off, and reminded them that God – His and our Father – already knows what we need. So this, He said, “is how you should pray.”

Romans 8:26 reminds us that humans know not “how to pray as we ought.” Maybe that helps explain why throughout Luke major events in Jesus’ ministry are depicted primarily as prayer events, to help instruct us in prayer. In Luke 11 on the way to Jerusalem, the disciples fairly beg Jesus to teach them how to pray the way He prays.

Jesus obliges them by sharing what Pope Benedict describes in his recent book Jesus of Nazareth, as “the interior dialogue of the triune love,” The Lord’s Prayer.

A prayer to God shared by Jesus. How’s that for a prayer partner?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who will eventually get to the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, here borrows various phrases and scholarship from Pope Benedict’s wonderful book, Jesus of Nazareth. Mea Culpa.

We Have Him at 'Hello'

Spirituality Column #116
January 27, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

We Have Him at ‘Hello’
By Bob Walters

Third in a series on The Lord’s Prayer

The familiar Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 has seven petitions (or requests), but don’t ever underestimate the importance of its one salutation:

Our Father who art in Heaven.

Where God is concerned, “what” we are asking for is never as important as “Who” we are asking it from.

“Our Father” describes a unique relationship with God that only Christ, His incarnate Son, makes possible. God the Father, Christ the Son, mankind the saved.

Understanding that relationship is the key to salvation.

God of course is neither a man nor woman, He is God. “Mother” – while certainly a loving title – is never used in the Bible as a title or reference to God likely because of the confusing and multiple earthly/pagan mother deities worshiped in Biblical times.

Besides, as Pope Benedict XVI points out in his 2007 book, Jesus of Nazareth, the implication of a mother’s womb would be that mankind is “of God” – a continuation of the Creator – and not a completely separate creation from the Creator.

So why are we here?

God created us for fellowship, and our purpose is to bring Him glory. That’s not a sexist thing; it’s a very, very major God thing. And when we pray, however we pray, our first aim should be to address God as Who He truly is … our Creator Who desires a personal relationship with each of us.

Jesus, the Lord, taught us this particular prayer that begins by calling God “Our Father.” While capital-F “Father,” because of Christ the Son, is a common title for God in the New Testament, in the Old Testament only Isaiah 9:16’s prophecy of Christ refers to God as Father.

“Our Father,” then, is an expression of our trust and faith in Jesus; that He is Who He says He is – Christ – and that He has described God as God should truly be understood: as the one Creator who created us, loves us, gives us freedom, and sent his Son to give us eternal access to eternal fellowship with God in Heaven.

You have all that just by saying, “Our Father who art in Heaven.”

After that, what more do you really need to ask for?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) will outline the seven petitions next week. Please don’t spend much time on the Jerry McGuire / Tom Cruise “Hello” line.

Whoops! A Prayer in 'Our' Pocket

Spirituality Column #115
January 20, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Whoops! A Prayer in ‘Our’ Pocket
By Bob Walters

Second in a series on The Lord's Prayer

I always felt that the Lord’s Prayer was enough.

It’s not, of course. But when I wasn’t going to church, hadn’t been saved, and couldn’t make sense of the Trinity as one God or the Bible as two inerrant stanzas of the same inerrant book, I had the Lord’s Prayer.

I’d learned it as a kid in church without thinking about the prayer itself. On the rare, usually awful intervening occasion (those non-church years) when I felt a tug to call out to God, the only club I had in my bag was the Lord’s Prayer. I’d pray it alone, never noticing the language.

It wasn’t until after I’d been baptized as a mature adult and began studying when one shocking day I noticed:

“Our Father …”

“Give us …”

“… our daily bread”

“… forgive us”

“… our trespasses/debts”

“… we forgive …

“… against us/our debtors”

“… lead us”

“… deliver us”

It was the first time I realized: it’s not a prayer about me. It’s a prayer about “our” and “we” and “us.” It’s a prayer about community. It points to our earthly community as believers and, perhaps more subtly, to the divine community of the Trinity.

Christianity isn’t about being “alone.” It’s not about being away from others or away from God. “Our,” “we,” “those” and “us” are all first person plural pronouns. No singular. No “me.” No “I.”

Jesus links us together in faith. Through His incarnation, death and resurrection (his humanity and the Cross), He links us with the holy and eternal “Our Father” God – not just in the immediate here and the imperfect today, but forever in the same perfect place He dwells, sharing His perfect presence.

We need Jesus, and we need each other. The Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, the Pater Noster … the prayer is about all of us.

Even when we pray it alone.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests on this inauguration day we pray for our nation, pray for President Barack Obama and his family, and read Romans 13. Next week: the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

A Prayer in My Pocket

Spirituality Column #114
January 13, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

A Prayer in My Pocket
By Bob Walters

First in a series on The Lord's Prayer

Having grown up in the Episcopal Church of the 1960s, the Lord’s Prayer was a weekly staple in the worship service:

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen.

It was something you learned as a kid “by heart” (memorized) … like the Pledge of Allegiance or the Boy Scout Oath. You heard it over and over and just knew it in case you ever needed it, but probably never thought seriously about what it meant.

Today outside the liturgical churches such as the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and a very few other denominations (“liturgy” means standardized worship services and prayers), the Lord’s Prayer is not part of the routine Christian experience. I think that’s sad.

And speaking of routine (and sad), at this point many Christians would routinely begin to argue various points of this example of the Lord’s Prayer:
- It’s “debts” not “trespasses;”
- No, wait … it should be “sins;”
- The “thy” and “thine” language is antiquated;
- “For thine is the Kingdom … ” etc., is a doxology and not part of the Catholic version;
- You should pray what’s in your heart, not some rote bit of archaic liturgy.
- It’s not a prayer, it’s an instruction.

The Lord’s Prayer comes from the Bible: Matthew 6:9-13 in the Sermon on the Mount, and again in Luke 11:2-4. Matthew, in the Greek, says “debts” (Gk opheilema), while Luke says “sins” (Gk hamartia). “Trespasses” doesn’t appear in any version of the Bible … the word was inserted in the prayer by Origen of Alexandria in the third century.

Christians often fight and disagree over all the wrong things, but here is why the Lord’s Prayer, to me, is critical:

When I wasn’t going to church and needed a prayer with no idea how to pray, I could say the Lord’s Prayer and know Jesus was listening.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) believes God loves all of us all the time; many of us however do a bad job of loving God. More on the Lord’s Prayer next week.

Reflecting God's Gift

Spirituality Column #113
January 6, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) Newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) Newspaper

Reflecting God’s Gift
By Bob Walters

We are nearly through Christmas, a gift-giving season when people reflect on Jesus Christ more than any other time of year.

I say “nearly” because the Orthodox (Greek, Russian, Eastern, etc.) Christmas (Julian calendar) is actually tomorrow, Jan. 7. Fans of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” know that yesterday or today, depending on which Christian part of the world you’re in, is the “Twelfth Day of Christmas.”

Today, Jan. 6, marks the start of the ecclesiastical season of Epiphany (Gregorian calendar), celebrating the Magi’s visit to the child Jesus and thereby manifesting Christ to the gentiles (a very big deal … it meant Jesus came for all mankind).

Feel free to Google any of these terms if you care to ingest a larger dose of church history and ecclesiastical tradition. Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians all agree on Christ’s position as Son in the Father-Son-Spirit Trinity, but – even congregation by congregation – take vastly different approaches to doctrine, worship, salvation and church organization.

Christianity can look very confusing from the outside; shoot … it can look very confusing from the inside. Yet many of us arrive at a point where faith overrides confusion, and for that we must thank the Holy Spirit.

Especially at Christmas we Christians love to say “Jesus Christ is” this or that: He is Truth, Love, Hope, Joy, Mercy, Salvation, the Way, Light, Good Shepherd, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, etc. Then we harshly judge and/or argue with those who simply look at us and say, “I don’t understand.”

If there is one thing we should know as Christians it’s that our actions are our real witness, not our words. “No one is argued to faith,” Cal Thomas wrote recently.

As badly as we may want to provide an understanding of Christian faith to others, we can no more do that by ourselves than provide salvation. Helping us understand our faith is the Holy Spirit’s job; Salvation is Christ’s job.

And this is true: We can’t, won’t understand Christ until we involve the Holy Spirit.

When Christmas is over, many people stop reflecting on Jesus. Believers should make it a point every day to be a reflection of Jesus that will make others ask the Holy Spirit to awaken understanding inside of them.

That understanding is a gift God provides every day of the year.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) isn’t missing his own advice about words … that’s why these columns are short.

To Tell the Truth

Spirituality Column #112
December 30, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) Newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) Newspaper

To Tell the Truth
By Bob Walters

We spend a lot of time on “What do you think?” The far more interesting question is, “What is the truth?”

A learned acquaintance of mine about whose faith I know very little, considered that statement and said, “They’re the same question. I don’t know how you would divide them. The truth is whatever someone thinks it is.”

Mark that spot. Right there at “whatever someone thinks it is” … that’s the dividing line between religion and secularism. I do indeed believe we are all, each of us, believer or not, God’s children, Amen. And I understand that is an opinion.

But to divide an earthly, theological “them” and “us,” we need ask only whether truth exists independent of our opinions.

The worldly “Them” runs on opinions. The worldly “Us” (since we are stuck for now in this worldly realm) worships truth.

Any religion, by definition, is the worship of a truth.

Yet, there is only one eternal, non-manmade Truth; there is only one figure in all of religion or theology or philosophy or opinion or history who showed up on earth and said, I am the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6), and that was Jesus Christ.

When we look at the truth as merely a thing, we can get away with equating it with an opinion. When Truth shows up in the person of God, well … that’s the final answer. The Truth is a separate, objective, complete entity.

In our human limitations, we can haggle over our opinion of what to make of that Truth, but we diminish our existence if God hands us a Truth and we trade it in for an opinion.

People do that with Christ. God gives Him to us, and we give Him back as just another opinion.

I doubt there is a Christian who hasn’t tried to prove the Truth by arguing against someone’s opinion, but the fact is you can’t prove truth with an opinion, because they are separate things.

That’s why a gulf exists between a believer who says “Truth exists” and good people who may believe something but won’t commit to Christ being the Truth because they so highly value their human opinion.

The good news is Christ is the Truth, and we don’t have to prove it.

We just have to believe it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) accepts the limits of his opinions and is thankful for the infinity of Christ’s Truth.

Life of the Party

Spirituality Column #111
December 23, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Life of the Party
By Bob Walters

And the Word became flesh … John 1:14

Above everything else, Christmas is a celebration of life.

Almost everyone in our culture, believing Christian or not, figures out a way to celebrate this “Winter Holiday” even if they can’t figure out what to do with Jesus: the Christ Child, co-equal in the Holy Trinity with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

We endure the tortured public rhetoric of political correctness – sure, sing a song in the school “Holiday” show that proclaims plainly “Christ the Savior is born,” but whatever you do … don’t call it a Christmas show – yet we all share the innate sense that there is something divinely special about us being alive.

God very obviously feels exactly the same way.

God came to us, through Jesus Christ, to save us. Yes, we are sinners and we needed to be saved in a way that we could not save ourselves – we cannot cure our own sin. But until we realize that God came because He loves us (John 3:16), not to punish us – Jesus, after all, is love – we cannot truly understand how very, very, very special this gift of life is.

Christ came because God knew we needed Him even though, as it says in John 1:10, “His own received Him not.” You can argue that “His own” refers to the Jews, since Jesus was in fact a Jew. But with the arrival of Christ, we all – Jew and Gentile – became “His own.”

Satan loves it when Christmas is about anything other than Christ. Satan – Mr. “Winter Holiday” – is the purveyor of death and darkness. In our God-given freedom, we find all kinds of ways to sin, to run from Christ and convince ourselves that dying with Satan through sin is better than living with God in light through Christ.

Do you get it? Satan equals Death. Christ equals Life … and Christ is the author of each of our lives because He, God, in fact became flesh like us.

That is the true meaning of Christmas.

The big deal at Christmas isn’t just that Jesus Christ is born, and born for everybody (again, see John 3:16).

The truly big deal at Christmas is accepting, believing and knowing that Jesus Christ is Life, Light and Lord.

Go tell that on a mountain.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wishes all a profoundly blessed and Merry Christmas. If you feel the magic, you feel Christ.

Life, Lights and Truth

Spirituality Column #110
December 16, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Life, Lights and Truth
By Bob Walters

And the Word became flesh … John 1:14

The flesh and blood arrival of Jesus Christ on earth as a human being – the Incarnation of Christ which we celebrate with Christmas – brought something brand new to the human experience: divine light and divine truth.

And something else: communion with God.

It’s a great example of the Bible’s consistency.

Think back for a moment to Genesis 1. Consider that God, with his Spirit hovering over the darkness of the deep, both created light and separated light from darkness on the first day. He didn’t get around to creating the sun and stars – the sources of physical light – until Day 4.

Now jump forward to John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The “Word” of course is Christ who became flesh, that part of the Holy Trinity which animates Creation, gives us life, breath, and freedom, and enables faith, hope and love.

What Genesis and John are saying is that Christ and the Holy Spirit are, from the beginning, with God. John 1:4-9 goes into some detail about light, and – read it again – is defining Christ as the Light of God we learn about in Genesis.

The light of goodness, the truth of knowing and our very lives are a great start to the infinite and eternal list of things God gives us in Christ.

Regarding our holiday season, I love Christmas lights. I think they are cheerful and poignant and sentimental and a wonderful expression of love. I could do without the fake deer and blow-up Santa’s, but the Christmas lights we put on our trees and houses are a bright reminder of the light and truth Christ brings into the world.

Sure, the date of Christmas is keyed to pagan festivals that celebrated the lengthening of the days after the winter solstice Dec. 21, not to the (likely) October birth of Christ.

But think … Who created the days? Who gave us life? And Who is the source of light and truth? The date doesn’t matter, because the gift is eternal.

Christ’s arrival showed us that God would come for us and show us a way to be in communion, despite our sins, with a God who is good, righteous and unchanging.

That is a truth that deserves to be put up in lights.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) rolls his eyes when he hears anyone suggest there is a more important symbolism of Light at Christmas than Jesus Christ.

Not A Word, THE Word

Spirituality Column #109
December 9, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Not A Word, THE Word
By Bob Walters

And the Word became flesh … John 1:14

When Jesus spoke, people listened.

Some were enraptured, many were enraged. Some believed, and many were incredulous. Some followed, some shunned, and some attacked.

Yet, they listened. His words were unlike anything heard in the history of mankind. His words talked of truth, light, life and eternity. They described a God of love and good, not wrath and power. Christ’s words spoke not of earthly goals for survival, but of a divine plan for salvation.

Jesus spoke, with human words, of His eternal Father and of His oneness with the Spirit of Life. He talked of humility and service. He revealed not only God but a new covenant of faith. He became flesh – a man – not only to save a needy world from death and sin, but also to call mankind to share in the divine glory of God.

It was radical stuff in the world of Jewish Law and Roman Rule 2,000 years ago. It is radical for all time.

Even in this day and age of instant, global, personal, mass communication, we too often dwell on the Bible’s words (Greek: rema), and miss the actual Word of God (Greek: Logos), Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the immutable word (small “w”) of God. Amen. I love the Bible, and even if you don’t love or even believe the Bible, you should read it: it’ll make you smarter. The Bible isn’t so much a rule book, a science book, or even a history or literature book. It is a relationship book; it describes God’s relationship with mankind.

And the key, top, No.1 component of that relationship is God’s Word (capital “W”), and that divine Word is the incarnate Christ Jesus, not the Bible.

This brings us back to John 1:14. The Bible presents good words, yes, but they are manmade words even as they express a Godly idea. Christ joining humanity (i.e., becoming flesh) brought to us the Word: a relationship with the Creator God, the Father Almighty. This is not something we could do on our own, and it is an action manmade words could never accomplish.

Read the Bible, go to Church, love your neighbor, take care of your family, and tend to your business, but don’t worship them. Worship God, and His Word.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is making a point about the true meaning of Christmas. This is the second of a four-part series.

Life, Time and Giving

Spirituality Column #108
December 2, 2008
Current! in Carmel
Current! in Westfield

Life, Time and Giving
By Bob Walters

And the Word became flesh … John 1:14

Time is a funny thing.

We rely on clocks and calendars and seasons, are immersed in a life that resides in time, and yet have no greater obstacle to understanding God than the fact that we are inside the constraints of time and He is not.

God operates in eternity; we look at our watch.

Lucky for us, Jesus Christ stepped into history – into our time – and in a very profound way eliminated the barrier of time in our relationship with God.

Christ’s incarnation – the very Word of God stepping into the flesh, mess, passion, confusion and time that is humanity – is the true meaning of Christmas and the greatest reason and cause for celebrating the birth of Jesus.

It is to our perpetual – what shall we call it … diminishment? – that the Christmas season is reduced to merely a time of year. We are in error if we focus only on this moment in time, when what God has handed to us – and put within us – is the perfect bridge from the confines of our earthly lives into the vast, inexpressible, and timeless glory of His eternal love.

Christmas is fun; and it’s a great publicity stunt for Jesus. The Christmas holiday creates community and helps us love one another … at least a little better, for at least a little bit of time.

But if we stop there, with celebrating a season, then we miss the unique and important part of “the Word” – God, becoming “Flesh” – Human, and how that frees us from the earthly shackle of time. The incarnation of Christ, and the resulting indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us, unites the one divinity and all of humanity for all time. That’s Christmas.

Time just got trumped for a larger world; eternity is as big as it gets.

We may think time is our most precious commodity, our most precious gift. But our time, in our own hands, is absolutely a non-renewable resource.

God’s eternity, given to us in the gift of Christ becoming man, means that God’s love is with us always. Not at this time or that time or only when we pray or buy Christmas presents … always.

Think about that the next time you look at your watch.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures that even if we still don’t understand God or God’s timing, we can find peace in not needing to be in a hurry.

Thanks for Nothing

Spirituality Column #107
November 25, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Thanks for Nothing
By Bob Walters

There is nothing any of us can do to earn our salvation.

We may spend a ton of time worrying about it, but the fact is, God’s grace already has been defined for us in Jesus Christ. Our efforts to win salvation are not only vain, but also superfluous.

Our salvation – if we want it – is a done deal that cannot be undone; the Holy Spirit is alive, Christ is real and God does not change.

There are plenty of faith, hope and love actions we can do to make things go a little easier for us in this life – regardless of our circumstances – but our eternal destiny, entirely within our free will to receive, is entirely already taken care of.

In this Thanksgiving season, I don’t know how any of us can be more thankful for anything than that.

I spent a very large part of my life staying away from Christ. I didn’t want to be saddled with the caveats and confinements that I wrongly imagined to be the defining disciplines of Christianity: be afraid of God’s wrath, don’t sin, get up and go to church, forfeit free will and intellect.

Hmmm. Instead of God’s wrath, I now understand His love. Get up and go to church? I love getting up to go to church. Forfeit free will and intellect? I’ve discovered eternal freedom, and learned that the intellect of Christ is the most intense brainpower in the universe.

Sin? Well … I am a sinner. I’m aware of my sin and I know it will not now or ever go away because of my good works or intentions.

But … in God’s eyes my sin is already gone because Jesus Christ made it so (Romans 8:1). The point of His death on the Cross isn’t God’s wrath; it is God’s love. The Cross is not about Christ’s end; it is about mankind’s new beginning.

Now and forever, salvation is a gift that keeps on giving.

Like any gift, salvation is optional of course. We can’t earn it, but we do have to accept it. We aren’t sent to Hell; we walk away from God. Satan loves that.

Salvation is ours for the asking – a miracle – but you have to come and get it.

Think about that when they call you to Thanksgiving dinner.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) gives thanks to God for the love of our children, the grace of our being, and the beauty of this world. Amen.

Looking Out for Number One

Spirituality Column #106
November 18, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Looking Out for Number One
By Bob Walters

Who or what is “Number One” in your life?

Think about it for a minute and be honest. What gives your life its ultimate meaning?

Is it your self? Your spouse? Your children? Your family? A celebrity? Who do you love the most?

Sometimes it’s a thing. Is it your money? Your job? Your talent? Your property or possessions? A sports team? Politics? Your country? Security? What do you love the most?

Some people put their religion first, or their church or the Bible or prayer or mission work. What do you worship the most?

You Christians out there likely already know where I’m going with this.

If any of these things are “Number One” in your life or worship, guess who, by default, can be no closer than runner up? That’s right … Jesus Christ.

Don’t put Jesus – God Incarnate, the source of life, our only available concrete definition of “good” – as “runner up” to anything.

Modern culture encourages the sin of pride, telling us to “look out for Number One.” This is code for “I’m going to get mine; you worry about getting yours.” “Outreach” in this case can amount to little more than “You can get yours, as long as I get mine.” It’s not exactly selfless.

Nearly 50 years ago President John F. Kennedy closed his inauguration speech with “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Too often today that wonderful ideal – personally, politically and religiously – has turned into the exact opposite:

“What have you done for me lately?”

Do you ever ask that selfish question of others? Of government? Of Jesus? Of God?

Life’s ultimate meaning is neither worldly nor within ourselves. Christ died on the Cross to show us life’s ultimate meaning: that God loves us enough to save us. He gives us the freedom to be imperfect, yet sent Christ to show us the way – through faith in Him – to stand eternally in God’s perfect presence.

Does that mean any one of us will ever be perfect in this life? Nope. Christ was the only perfect human, and His perfect life was defined by giving himself, even unto death, for others.

Putting Christ first; that’s what “Looking out for Number One” – really – is all about.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) points to John 14:6 for comfort, and Romans 8:28-39 for assuredness.

When the Phone Rings Late at Night

Spirituality Column #105
November 11, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

When the Phone Rings Late at Night
By Bob Walters

Without my glasses I can’t read the small text on a cell phone.

So it had to be a God thing a year ago when in the wee-est hours of Sunday, Nov. 11 – at 1:10 a.m. – my cell phone rang and, even with sleep in my eyes, I could clearly read the Caller ID name:

“John Samples,” my close friend and minister at our church.

I knew instantly, even before “hello,” why he was calling.

In his comforting, preacherly baritone, John told me that our mutually dear friend and Christian brother Russ Blowers had, as we say at church, “gone home to be with the Lord.” John didn’t apologize for waking me up; I was immensely grateful he had.

Russ was a World War II veteran (U.S. Army Air Corps in England and Germany) who in June 2007 visited Normandy Beach for the first time since 1945. He went with his sons Phil and Paul, and his teenaged grandson – Paul’s son – Collin. I drove them to the Indianapolis airport to begin their journey.

It was a fabulous, meaningful and high-energy trip for the Blowers boys. They saw London and Normandy. They worshipped in Westminster Abbey, with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams presiding. Russ picked up some small Celtic Crosses in the Abbey’s gift shop; one of which he gave to me as gift that I wear on a white gold chain around my neck.

Russ of course was the long-time pastor of the enormous East 91st Street Christian Church in Castleton. He returned from the war to his home near Dayton, Ohio, married Marian, got a Journalism degree from Ohio University, went to divinity school at Butler, and was a stalwart and vigorous Christian fixture in the Indianapolis community for 56 years.

After a three week stay, Russ died Nov. 10, 2007, a scant few minutes before midnight, at Carmel’s Clarion North facility. He felt ill when he returned from his summer trip to Normandy, and gradually his body shut down of unspecified maladies.

He died at 83; a veteran, a great American and a preacher of the Gospel.

Marian died in 2004, and I know they are together and joyous “on the other shore.”

The rest of us remain here in this mortal coil, wondering always when the phone is going to ring late at night.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is just one of thousands who mourn and mark Russ’s death, even a year later. Russ helped us know and understand Jesus Christ.

The Only Referendum That Counts

Spirituality Column #104
November 4, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

PS -- This is Column #104; two straight years of weekly publication. Carmel circulation is about 27,500; Westfield is around 8,000. Thanks to Current! for its faithfulness to this feature.

The Only Referendum That Counts
By Bob Walters

The past couple of weeks, thinking in broad terms about the election, we’ve discussed Wisdom and Anger.

Today is Election Day. Let’s start discussing Forgiveness.

However the election turns out, somewhere between 40 percent and 50 percent of Americans will be wondering in the days ahead, “How did God let this happen?”

Fifty to 60 percent will be lulled into thinking God sees things their way.

It’s an election bitter in many ways; divisive factions, veiled intentions, cultural grandstanding, international peril, financial duress, media bias, suspect voting, disingenuous assertions, dishonest characterizations, scurrilous lies, unknown quantities.

You know … about normal; the ever meaner streets of American politics.

My advice is, let’s all take a big, deep breath, and not any one of us make the personal and profound mistake of thinking the election results are more important than our daily, personal faith in Jesus Christ.

God gives us freedom to vote however and elect whomever we want. I can’t explain how God both knows everything eternally, and gives us temporal freedom. But He does. Don’t read too much Godly triumph or despair into the voting results.

The only earthly referendum on God’s intentions there has ever been is Christ on the Cross. If you want to learn God’s intentions, read the Gospels, not election returns.

This election is a referendum of, by, for and on the people; not on God.

The candidates promoted “change.” Well, as God’s people, we are supposed to change. But here’s a newsflash: God does not change. God is eternal and consistent. Christ is salvation. The Holy Spirit is comfort.

What I’m saying is yes, we must care for one another, but we must also remember our salvation is not in worldly things. Government is a worldly thing. Whether we are comforted or discomforted by the election results, our first priority must be to remember who we are. St. Paul said it awfully well in Colossians 3:12-14:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievance you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

That’s true in the Red states, and the Blue states.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) hopes the election is over tonight. Enough is enough. Don’t gloat; don’t despair. Pray for the nation to heal.

Smile When You Say That

Spirituality Column #103
October 28, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Smile When You Say That
By Bob Walters

It’s hard not to notice the anger hanging thick in the air this political season.

Between the two – anger and the political season – I think the more important and dangerous issue for Christians is anger.

Anger is a spirit and Biblical issue for all seasons.

Broadly, there are two kinds of anger … righteous anger and selfish anger. Both are based on fear, but on two distinctly different kinds of fear.

One fear is the reverent, righteous fear of losing something we love … like our communion with Christ. Our “Fear of God” should be understood in this way, as an expression of our commitment to love Him.

We also must understand that God’s Old Testament anger is about His love for us; His wanting to protect us from the dumb, destructive things we do with the freedom that He gives us.

And by the way, are we all agreed as Christians that we are supposed to use that freedom to find Him, love Him, and worship Him? Not to find, love and worship ourselves?

The other fear is the self-centered, “or else” kind of fear that makes us afraid something bad will happen. It causes the foolish anger Proverbs warns against – the fear of punishment and condemnation; the fear that destroys love.

Selfish anger is an outgrowth of Satan’s evil grip on our world and, too often, on our individual lives.

Believe me when I say I’m not preaching here from some elevated pulpit. Controlling my worldly fear and anger is perhaps the most difficult part of my Christian walk, because I know I have a fearful, angry, worldly beast within me. Satan knows it too.

The upside of being able to simply say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” and mean it in a way that only the Holy Spirit can teach us how to mean it, keeps that miserable beast of worldly fear and anger in chains.

Then the real upside of a Christian’s experience … peace, joy, hope, faith. love (see Galations 5:22-23) – even in a political season – is truly ours.

So … smile when you’re in church. Smile when you pray. Smile because the sincerity and depth of your love for God is a gift of grace you could not earn.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), still thinking of this political season, reminds all to smile when we can obey Proverbs 15:1 and let our “gentle answer turneth away wrath.”

Rational Faith, Real Wisdom

Spirituality Column #102
October 21, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Rational Faith, Real Wisdom
By Bob Walters

Perhaps the Bible’s simplest book to understand is Proverbs.

It plays well to any crowd … everyone wants to be wise. And Proverbs is, front to back, advice on wisdom: How to get it. How to keep it. How to recognize it. How to increase it. How to apply it. How to share it.

Proverbs is 31 chapters of wisdom one-liners.

It also gives nearly equal time to fools: How to be one. How to recognize one. How to avoid being one.

Nothing else in the Bible is so secularly clear, so spiritually uplifting, and so humanly convicting all at the same time. Proverbs is a close-up look into a brightly-lit wisdom mirror.

The hardest thing about reading Proverbs is its common construction of couplets that tug us in two directions at once, e.g.: “The wise do this, but a fool does that.” Gosh, some of those first ones make me feel smart; and too many of the second ones make me feel dumb.

Proverbs insists that we are down-to-the-bone honest with ourselves. You can’t fool Proverbs.

In our everyday lives too often we confuse wisdom with simple book-learned knowledge. Too often in culture we see people praying at the altar of rationality and logic.

Knowledge, rationality and logic are good, but it’s wise to at least occasionally consider that they are manmade. I think, therefore I am. That is Descartes, not the Bible.

Proverbs tells us that true wisdom comes from God and resides in faith.

A dear friend advised me, in a time of emotional confusion, to consider Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Lean not on my own understanding? Before I was a believer, I couldn’t imagine. As a believer, I shudder at the thought of having nothing but my own understanding.

I think, therefore I am? That’s rational.

I think, therefore I pray. That’s wise.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests a month of Proverbs … read one chapter a day. Consider it “Vitamin P.”

Rational Faith

Spirituality Column #101
October 14, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) Newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) Newspaper

Rational Faith
By Bob Walters

Bill Maher used to be a funny guy. I saw him 20 years ago when he was the hired entertainment at an auto racing banquet in Monterey, Calif. He did a nice job.

He turned up a couple years later on the ABC TV show “Politically Incorrect” and through the 1990s morphed from comic into a savvy political/cultural satirist/wise guy. Generally funny and irreverent, his nightly mix of four oddly-matched guests in group conversation about current issues seemed compelling, relevant and often surprising.

I remember one night his guests were hard-right G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate break-in fame, a verbose and passionate conservative African-American woman activist whose name I cannot remember, pleasant “Brady Bunch mom” actress Florence Henderson, and Satan-worshipping bilge rock musician Marilyn Manson, who by the way is a guy.

Surprisingly, the only guest who consistently made sense was Manson, speaking quietly of his desire, as an artist, to push the limits of what people believed. He didn’t bash Christ or defend Satan. His stage act is truly horrifying (I’ve seen clips and heard stories), but that evening he simply sounded like a thoughtful artist.

Maher moved on to no-holds-barred HBO and renamed his show “Real Time.” I lost track of him because I don’t have HBO. But he’s turned up now in the movies with his intensely anti-God screed of a film, "Religulous." It is a Christian-bashing, God-denying, religion-ridiculing atheist’s delight promoting the irrationality of faith.

Certainly some faith groups will organize boycotts, but it is so over-the-top I doubt many people take the film seriously.

Before its release, I spent quite a bit of time studying the film’s website which has several clips and plenty of explanatory background. I got the gist of the film and probably won’t bother paying to see it.

More than anything, I watch Maher and feel an intense human pang of regret, in a seriously prayerful way, that anyone is so distant from and intellectually hostile toward God and the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Maher seems like a scared kid trying to talk his way out of the principal’s office.

I’m happy, joyful and secure in my faith and see Christ as the most consistently rational, intellectually stimulating part of my being.

Rationality dictates that God’s existence depends neither on my saying He does, nor Maher saying He doesn’t. God just is. Faith is that simple.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that so many people try to create God in their own image, and get so mad when God doesn’t cooperate.

What We Choose to Believe

Spirituality Column #100
October 7, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

What We Choose to Believe
By Bob Walters

Acclaimed postmodern writer David Foster Wallace, the recently deceased author of Infinite Jest, once said, “The only thing that is capital T True is that you get to decide … what you worship.”

This particular truth coming from a postmodernist – someone who shuns the ideas of absolute truth or of a God who is the final arbiter of right and wrong – is astonishing.

It was part of his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College.

In adult life, Wallace said, “there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship – be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles – is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

Wallace lists money, things, our own body, beauty, intellect and sexual allure – our self-centered default settings – among that which we will unconsciously learn to worship in the absence of a conscious spiritual focus.

Wallace eloquently describes how our automatic, hard-wired human self-centeredness traps us and spiritually kills us, i.e., eats us alive: we will fear the loss of money, the loss of beauty, power and allure, the inadequacy of not knowing everything.

Wallace is saying that my conscious faith in Christ or your conscious faith in something else pulls our human passions away from, and hence gives us freedom from, our self-centeredness – our utter focus on self, and on self as God – that was Satan’s leverage in the Garden with Adam and Eve.

Wallace went on to say, “the really important kind of freedom involves … [our individual] … discipline … to care about other people and sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

Unwitting as it may have been, that is an excellent description – a capital T Truth – of what Christians are supposed to be.

Wallace suffered from long-term depression and committed suicide Sept. 12. I doubt he would have read so much Christian theology into his address, given that he couldn’t bring himself to spell out “Jesus Christ” (J.C.). But Jesus was unmistakably in that piece of writing.

We choose what we believe. True. Choose wisely.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) found this address in the Sept. 19, 2008, Wall Street Journal. It makes Bill Mahar’s new “Religulous” movie about the irrationality of faith seem awfully small.

Basic Training

Spirituality Column #99
September 30, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Basic Training
By Bob Walters

The most important thing I did as I began my walk with Christ in earnest not so many years ago was to read the Bible … Genesis to Revelation.

Did I understand everything I read? No. Parts of the Bible are great stories, parts of it are stultifying lists, parts of it are depressing truths about mankind, parts of it are scary truths about God, and parts of it are glorious truths about God’s love, hope, faith and salvation. There’s not one part of it that doesn’t serve to teach us about the light and love of Jesus.

All of it I accept as God’s truth, even the parts I don’t entirely understand; even the parts I understand but can’t explain. The Bible is a treasure of truth God has provided. As Christians, it’s where we dig for treasure every day.

Yet, reading the Bible isn’t enough.

So many people either stay away or turn away from Christ, from religion, from church, from the Bible. I’ve yet to encounter a believer whose faith hasn’t been challenged by someone they loved or respected.

Reading the Bible end-to-end may provide some street cred in ecclesiastical circles, but learning apologetics – how to defend one’s faith against the challenges of an all-too-disbelieving world – is time every bit as well-spent as learning scripture.

Apologetics (think C.S. Lewis) means “defense” and is the arena where my faith and trust in Christ Jesus encounter the doubt, distrust, disappointment and even hostility of non-believers. It’s where the rubber meets the road of a Christian walk; it is basic training for being in the army of God.

Books and Internet resources abound (e.g. www.apologetics.org), and there’s a good local event in a couple weeks.

“Basic Training in Truth: An Apologetics Conference” is planned Oct. 10-11 in Westfield at the Church of Praise, 18686 N. Eagletown Rd., located north of SR 32, about three miles west of US 31.

Mark Coppenger, professor of apologetics at Louisville’s Southern Baptist Seminary, is the featured speaker. Other presenters will discuss the culture war with evolutionary theory, marriage and family issues, and politics. Carmel’s Nancy Fitzgerald, founder of the Anchorsaway high school ministry, leads a special youth component.

There’s a nominal fee. Get details at www.TheJourney4Christ.org, or call 317-872-8357.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), on behalf of area Christians, thanks The Journey pastor Paul Albrecht for organizing this second annual conference.

Politics, and God's Funny Bone

Spirituality Column #98
September 23, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) Newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) Newspaper

Politics, and God’s Funny Bone
By Bob Walters

God shows up in funny places in American politics.

Republicans include God in politics, but that’s not always a good idea. Pray for wisdom, sure. But the way churches fight about religious practices, worship and doctrines, they could never achieve consensus in government.

Democrats include God in politics when it fits a momentary need, then go back to outlawing public prayer. Democrats can say outrageous things about religion and get away with it because hardly anybody thinks they understand what they are saying.

Libertarians are true to their roots … they never want to hear anything about God in politics or government, period. Call them the irreligious right.

(FYI, for a religion that includes its own government, look up “Islam.”)

Feminists lost Hillary for president and now, dealing with family-values pitch-perfect Mrs. Palin, are losing their minds. Wanna-be philosopher celebrities spew daily invective against a caring mom and accomplished, corruption-busting governor.

Then there’s the media, the wretched Fourth Estate (lowest caste) of the cultural order. Since Sarah Palin joined the Republican ticket the media has proven it is absolutely and possibly irretrievably out of touch with the depth and breadth of Christian belief, intellect and – yes – kindness residing in majority America.

Democratic “talking points” for a recent news cycle were about Jesus Christ being a “community organizer” (reference to Obama), and Pontius Pilate being a governor (reference to Sarah Palin).

The media thought it was clever. Republicans would never compare anyone to Jesus, and I remind the Democrats Bill Clinton was a governor.

Actor Matt Damon – in an Associated Press video interview – grimaced and stammered as he contemplated the “bad Disney movie” horror of a potential Palin presidency. Damon vapidly posed, “does she believe that dinosaurs were alive 4,000 years ago?” He really said that, smacking of what I perceive to be the unspoken epilogue, “like the rest of those nutty Christian Creationist right wing lunatics.”

I don’t remember Mrs. Palin ever mentioning dinosaurs. Damon’s implication was that, because of her faith, Mrs. Palin is stupid. I’m not sure when there were dinosaurs, but then I don’t “believe” in dinosaurs; dinosaurs as “belief” don’t matter.

I believe in Christ; Christ matters. Mrs. Palin thinks integrity matters. The media thinks Matt Damon matters.

Mrs. Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter? She is accepted and loved by her family, her church, most of America, and of course, by God.

Only the Democrats, feminists, celebrities and media seem to be mad at her.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a closet political junkie, thanks Mrs. Palin for her candor, her faith, and for finally making this year’s election interesting. You go girl.

Jesus: Who IS This Guy? Part 2

Spirituality Column #97
September 16, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Jesus: Who IS this Guy? Part 2
By Bob Walters

From last week’s Part 1:

… Jesus is mankind’s only link with a loving, personal God; Satan promotes our separation from God.

“Only link?” Yes. The only one.

Jesus is entirely unique in history because He is the only human religious figure who ever said He was God, and by His resurrection, proved He Himself is God. Nobody else … nobody, before or since … has even made that claim, let alone proved it.

Christ is also the only religious figure who ever said God was about love, not power. About freedom, not law. About faith, not works. About a personal heavenly father, not an impersonal, transcendent master.

If you disagree or think someone else made these claims, they didn’t. There are lots of religions, unique in their own ways. It’s important to know how Christ was unique.

In a recent newspaper story about another religion there was a quote that said Jesus was a prophet like another religious figure, Muhammad. It was left, incorrectly, as a “fact” by an editor who likely didn’t know the difference.

Jesus? Only a prophet? C’mon, that’s the World talking. Christ is the object of prophecy. Jesus is the coming of God on earth; the eternal Creator God entering our human time-space-feeling continuum.

It’s neither precise nor Biblical to describe Jesus Christ as a prophet; and even simply “religious figure” sells Him short.

Prophets come to teach; Christ came to save.

Jesus Himself never said He was a prophet, and only rarely inferred – by veiled question or agreement – that he was God or the Messiah (e.g. Luke 9:17-21). That’s because the point of His being on Earth wasn’t to tell us He was God; the point was that God cared enough to come to earth to save us from our sins. The point was for us to learn and have faith that Christ is the truth.

As Christians, we have to do better than spout Bible verses and platitudes about Christ. We have to be able to explain our relationship with Him and what that relationship gives to us: hope and strength for now, perfect love and eternal life forever.

That’s how others will know that we know Christ is real.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reminds all to look at 1 Peter 3:15 and, for good measure, 2 Timothy 4:2. Be a witness. Pray for guidance and wisdom.

Jesus: Who IS This Guy? Part 1

Spirituality Column #96
September 9, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Jesus: Who IS This Guy? Part 1
By Bob Walters

(First of two parts)

Can you explain who Jesus Christ is?

No, I mean, seriously, if someone tells you Jesus was just a prophet or was just a man in history famous for giving good advice and being crucified or was a “sinner like me” or isn’t really God or is “my homeboy” or is a myth or is just “your personal opinion,” can you explain who Jesus Christ is, really?

Without your face turning red and your tongue getting tied?

We Christians tend to mangle our message and get our feet tangled up in church buzzwords and scriptural chimera when we attempt to explain Jesus Christ to non-Christians. They have no idea what we’re talking about. “Blood of the Lamb … Huh?”

Or we get mad. The irony is that Satan thrives on both the misinformation that makes us angry, and the fact that anger makes us poor witnesses for Christ. Funny how that works.

Our efforts are further hampered because the world … that would be the Fallen World which is the turf of Satan, you know, this place where we all live … works overtime to confuse the issue of who Jesus truly is.

So who is He?

For this conversation, let’s start with the fact that Jesus is Satan’s Public Enemy No. 1. Hence, the world works hard to confuse us about Jesus’ identity. Non-believers are easily suckered into accepting – and too many believers are not equipped to refute – incorrect information about the basic facts of Christ.

It is critically important that Christians are able to explain that …

… Jesus is God in human form. He is God’s expression and assurance of love, and our invitation to a relationship with God. Jesus is God’s proof that God created and loves each one of us individually. Jesus really lived, really died, really came back to life, really ascended into heaven and He really lives.

… The Cross – Christ crucified and risen – was about God’s love, not about God’s wrath.

… Jesus is mankind’s only link with a loving, personal God; Satan promotes our separation from God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) will explain the “only link” remark next week in the conclusion of this column.

Not for the Faint Hearted

Spirituality Column #95
September 2, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Not for the Faint Hearted
By Bob Walters

My daily thirst for Bible instruction and faith commentary is well-watered by the online blog “SeriousFaith.com,” written by Brent Riggs.

I’ve mentioned Riggs before and will probably mention him again. His daily email commentary is not for the Christian faint-hearted. He’s a Bible guy, not a denominational guy. He pays attention to what scripture says, not what we want it to say. His focus is on what God wants from us; not on what we want from God.

Riggs isn’t a minister, at least not the ordained kind. He’s a former Army drill sergeant raising a family in Tulsa, Okla., who teaches Sunday school and has obviously paid attention to some very fine theological mentoring. His actual business is graphic design and website development.

It occurs to me that I laud his efforts due at least in part to the fact that he is not an actual minister; I’m not either. Riggs is a church member with a passion for God’s truth and a gift for communication. We should all be so Christ-centered in our energies.

I don’t agree with Brent every day, but his arguments are always well constructed and his Bible citations flawless. He recently (Aug. 13) excoriated and called heresy The Shack, a book I immensely enjoyed and saw as an exceptional story describing God’s love for humans.

Riggs also panned The Message version of the Bible, even though there is Aramaic (language of Jesus) precedent for street language scripture (the Targum).

Nonetheless, Riggs presents solid, serious Biblical devotions and teaching. He emails daily, and writes fresh entries two or three times a week. His easily accessible online archive has exceptional content, for example ...

... Where in the Bible does it say Christ “descended into Hell”? Well, it doesn’t. At SeriousFaith.com, search “descended into Hell.” Fascinating.

... Sick of “prosperity Gospel” and “personal victory” preachers? So is Brent. On his website search “Give Me, Fix Me, Restore Me, Bless Me.” Great stuff, especially considering Riggs has a young adopted daughter named Abby for whom I hope you will pray. She is battling leukemia.

SeriousFaith.com. Take a look at it and sign up for Brent’s free daily emails if the teaching gets your attention.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that theologian George Bebawi’s class on Romans resumes Wednesday, Sept. 3, 6:30-7:45 p.m. at East 91st Street Christian Church in the Great Room.

The Open-Mindedness of God

Spirituality Column #94
August 26, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Open-Mindedness of God
By Bob Walters

Adam and Eve’s sin wasn’t so much about eating the fruit as it was about (1) disobeying God and (2) trying to be like God.

You can read this whole story in Genesis 2 and 3, but it seems very possible that God is more concerned about what we think than what we do.

This doesn’t mean it’s OK to sin (physical disobedience to God) as long as our faith (mental acceptance of God) is expressed. It’s not. God made that clear back in the Garden.

But in order for us to truly experience God, it is necessary to do it with more than just pure actions. We must do it with an open, not a closed mind.

We cheat ourselves if we make the mistake of putting God in a box – defining and limiting God to being what we want Him to be for our earthly and immediate desires. We have to be open to all that God can do.

It is far more than we can imagine.

Consider that God is eternal and therefore already knows everything, yet we still have freedom to seek Him or not to seek Him. It makes me think perhaps God has an open mind about us. He wants to see what we make of things.

The Bible tells me God created everyone, Jesus came for everyone, and the Holy Spirit is accessible to everyone. It excludes no one.

It also tells me that God doesn’t capture anyone. Even the 12 Apostles and Saint Paul made the decision to follow Christ, although in Paul’s case, Christ brought out the persuasive big stick (see Acts 9).

Considering whether God has an open mind, I look at our world God created and notice something astounding … no two of anything are exactly alike. Not two people, two trees, two mountains, two blades of grass, two butterflies or two snowflakes.

So why did God – who created a world of beauty and harmony and repeatedly pronounced everything as “good” (Genesis 1:4, 10,12,18, 21, 25 and 31), make absolutely everything different from everything else?

You may have a different thought on this, but I think it is because God has an open mind. The choice to follow Him is truly ours.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) points out that Genesis 2:17 identifies the forbidden fruit only as “the knowledge of good and evil,” i.e., judgment as a sin. That’s something else to think about.

Forty Years of Proof

Spirituality Column #93
August 19, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Forty Years of Proof
By Bob Walters

In July 1968, forty years ago, Pope John VI issued the Humanae Vitae (Human Life) encyclical letter outlining the Roman Catholic Church’s position against, and its predicted long-term negative social affects of, contraception (i.e., “The Pill”).

Two months later in September 1968, Paul R. Erhlich, a butterfly specialist, published one of the leading bestsellers of modern times, The Population Bomb, a book outlining – in the most draconian, fear-mongering language imaginable – that hundreds of millions of humans would die in the 1970s and 1980s because of overpopulation and food shortages.

The one was a document of long-held Church disciplines and wisdom, and the other a collection of 1960s socio-science platitudes.

Wanna’ guess which one proved to be almost pure, accurate prophecy, and which one was pure dupe?

Humanae Vitae, in 1968, predicted bad times ahead if the sex act, intercourse, was mentally and morally separated from pro-creation. The document foresaw, in varying degrees of specificity, an increase in all the following: divorce, marital infidelity, single parent homes, juvenile crime, crimes against women, abortion, disease (no one had yet heard of AIDS, and STD was an abbreviation for “standard”), crime rates, homosexuality, sex crimes and pornography, just to name a few.

If you’re keeping score, how’d the Pope do?

Humanae Vitae raised a furor in the Church and polarized much of the Christian world. Behind the rallying cry, “You can’t tell me what to do with my body,” the Pope’s letter was – I don’t think this is an overstatement – widely dismissed and frequently disobeyed by just about everyone, including the pew-sitting Church membership and more than a few of the clergy.

And while the major population issue in the world today is sustainability – people in most places aren’t having enough babies, opposite Ehrlich’s doom-saying – one could argue that the blast pattern from The Population Bomb was so widespread that it frightened people worldwide away from large families. Even China adopted a one-baby policy.

It’s obvious though that, witnessing the sexual revolution, Ehrlich’s book didn’t scare anyone out of the bedroom.

And while by no means am I casting the first stone, it’s also pretty obvious that the Pope’s encyclical, despite its prophetic truth, sadly, scared almost nobody into obedience.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) read a terrific article by Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Institution on all this in the current issue of First Things magazine.

Amen to Brickyard Controversy

Spirituality Column #92
August 12, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Amen to Brickyard Controversy
By Bob Walters

I've been paying attention to the lingering controversy after NASCAR's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

Days after the event, it was still a heated topic on local sports talk radio.

I'm speaking of course of the debate over the pre-race prayer. Eloquent, long-time Indianapolis Christian preacher Howard Brammer finished up his invocation praying "in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."

Brammer, Speedway CEO Tony George's now-retired pastor at Trader's Point Christian Church, has been doing the Brickyard 400 prayer since the race's inception in 1994, and has prayed in the name of Jesus every year.

You Bible-readers know that in John 14:13-14, 15:16 and 16:23-24, Jesus - who left mankind few specific instructions except to "follow me," "believe in me," and "love me and each other" - specifically tells us to "ask in my name" when we pray.

Many Christians think that prayers not specifically invoking Christ's name bounce back off of God's heavenly switchboard. Although that’s how I like to pray, in Matthew 6:9 and Luke 11:2 where Jesus himself provides the foundational pieces of what we know as the Lord's Prayer, it says nothing about praying in His name.

Anyway, I have a hunch every sincere prayer is patched through.

It is not a new idea for a Christian to pray in Christ's name, just to pester the politically correct. I expect a Rabbi to pray to God, an Imam to Allah, and a Christian preacher to pray in Christ's name. It's just the way it works.

The talk radio guy lamented the unconscionable inconvenience of having a public prayer mentioning Jesus Christ "jammed down my throat" (direct quote by one of the hosts). He agreed as the caller ridiculed NASCAR fans for being "intolerant and close-minded" about religion. I sort of chuckled about the irony of these guys calling anybody else close-minded and intolerant.

Y’know, 43 drivers - most of whom go to Christian pre-race chapel in the garage area with their families - navigated that 400 mile race on treacherous, shredding tires without major injury to anything but Goodyear and NASCAR's fixable reputations.

I'm of the opinion that the last thing anyone should complain about is the pre-race prayer. ‘Seems to me it worked.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has attended 28 Indianapolis 500s (including the last 25 in a row), 14 of 15 Allstate 400s, and went to all eight US Grands Prix. If you're marking a scorecard, yes, I went to church race morning ... 8 a.m.

Independent as Sin

Spirituality Column #91
August 5, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Independent as Sin
By Bob Walters

In our culture the words “freedom” and “independence” are virtually synonyms.

We might respectfully describe an especially non-conformist person as an “independent cuss.” A “freedom rider” in the 1960s was a socially conscious agent of change. Our “Declaration of Independence” laid out America’s utterly unique (and I believe God-ordained) roadmap to the magnificent human, economic and political freedoms we enjoy.

And yet, from a Biblical standpoint, the freedom we are to have in Christ, as children of God ordained by the Holy Spirit, is just about as opposite from human independence as one can spiritually get.

I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover, re-read parts of it every day, attend organized Bible and theological classes or discussion at least twice a week, go to church, read daily devotions, am usually in the middle of one religious book or another, say grace before every meal, am involved in numerous church activities … and if it looks like I am just sitting there doing nothing, I’m probably praying.

This is to say that I am kind of a “gym-rat” when it comes to church, Bible study, personal growth and change in Christ, and theological education.

But for all the seeming spiritual contradictions, conundrums and mysteries I’ve encountered in my faith walk, the realization of the “opposite” natures of freedom and independence is right at the top of the list.

Our Biblical human freedoms are based around the fact that we are to be free to pursue God, have an individually personal and unique relationship with God, and be free to love God and others, in community, as the Holy Spirit directs.

God designed our hearts to be free to love God and love others.

The error Adam and Eve made in the garden – the biggest blunder of all time – was to mistake their freedom given by God to discover love, with the independence described by Satan to discover power.

All our temptations are exercises in independence. God wants us to be free to totally love and rely on him and each other. What He does not want is for us to be independent from Him.

We try to be free as birds, but too often are independent as sin.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recently read “The Shack,” a book that clearly describes the beauty of freedom with God, and the danger of independence from God.

The Shack: Don’t Read It Alone

Spirituality Column #90
July 29, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Shack: Don’t Read It Alone
By Bob Walters

Everybody is talking about The Shack, the terrific 240-page paperback by novice writer William P. Young.

The Shack is a novel, not a Christian tract or self-help book. It’s not scripture or a new book of the Bible. I say that because Christians sometimes get carried away with how they misidentify especially helpful literature, sermons and preachers.

So let’s not worship this book … but by all means, read it. And if you can, read it with someone else. This is a book you will want to discuss.

The Shack reveals plain yet potentially startling Biblical perspectives – I’m inclined to call them truths – about the nature of God, the Trinity, humanity, religion, creation, good, evil, grace, forgiveness … and a whole lot of other stuff.

Like any good novel the basic story is captivating. Surprises abound. Curiosity is whetted. Emotions are intensely experienced. The writing is first rate. The factual and scriptural basis of the story – like one of Jesus’ parables or even a great sermon – allows for deeper understanding of our faith – and doubts – amid God’s enormous mystery.

Without giving away the story, something really evil involving great personal loss happens. Redemption ensues. And while some Christians’ favorite subjects are guilt and hell, Young avoids the traps of focusing on these defeating concepts. I say “defeating” because in my experience when guilt and hell comprise our inwardly-directed spiritual focus, we are a mess of inab ility to know God’s love; and when they are outwardly directed, we are unable to share God’s love.

Young’s focus is love and relationship, and his palette is truth and humanity. Christ imagery is a common literary device, but the image Young paints of Christ is fresh, surprising … and straight out of the Bible.

If there is a limitation on the broadness of the book’s potential popularity, it might be that it describes with absolute confidence – and stunning realism – the truth of the Trinity. It also blows apart many common mistakes made by Bible literalists, revisionists, and systematic theologies.

What the book describes is a God without limitations who craves a personal relationship with every person on this planet. It’s a God I want to love.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has intentionally said almost nothing about the story content and theological muscle of The Shack. It’s too good to ruin.

The Cross Was an Inside Job

Spirituality Column #89
July 22, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Cross Was an Inside Job
By Bob Walters

Here is a picture of Christ Jesus and Christian doctrine that I’ve often heard explaining the crucifixion:

God punished Jesus instead of us. Jesus was sacrificed for our sins. Our sin debt was paid to God. Because of our guilt, we should have been punished – and probably ought to be punished – but Christ took the nails for us.

Y’know … it’s not in the Bible that way.

It makes for a very human story. We understand punishment and death and sin and even sacrifice; they are all very human things. They are among the awful ways we order our incredibly imperfect social hierarchy.

We humans have a power-motivated “do this or else” aesthetic that God can’t possibly share if He is a God of love and if God is truly represented by the Father-Son-Spirit Trinity, which I believe He is.

Why? The Trinity is not interdependent within itself for punishment and death and sin. God has no need for any of these. Yes, Christ sacrificed himself as a human to defeat human death. But how (and why) would Christ – and remember He is co-equal in the Trinity – sacrifice Himself to repay Himself as God?

Jesus died on the Cross to defeat death which was created by our sins (read Genesis 3). And considering God already owns and shares everything, there is no way on earth to repay a debt to God. We don’t “borrow” things from God.

Within the Trinity there is not what philosophers would call an “other.” God is not “other” from Jesus, nor Jesus from the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the ultimate, cosmic team effort; It is the relationship of the universe. Yes It is three distinct persons, but the Trinity is One; a wholly loving – and lovingly interdependent – relational community.

That was God’s original plan for all humanity, and remains His eternal purpose.

So the idea of God punishing Jesus, or of Jesus repaying God – an oft-told story – cannot be true; and it is not described in the Bible that way. The Bible says “ … [God] gave his son … that [we] shall not perish” (John 3:16).

The Cross was an inside job; God required the Cross to defeat death, God (Jesus) was on the Cross, and God (Spirit) provides us – if we want it – with our faith in the Cross.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that in the Greek manuscripts, the specific word “punish” does not appear in the New Testament. It has been added by translators.

'God Loves Even You'

Spirituality Column #88
July 15, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

‘God Loves Even You’
By Bob Walters

In the gently rolling western Indiana farmland near Shades State Park one perfect, sunny day earlier this summer, a tidy country church had these words on its welcome sign:

“God loves even you.”

In the spirit of backhanded compliments like “Hey, your face is clearing up,” I considered the sign and burst out laughing. A question popped into my head:

Do you suppose God has a marketing department?

The obvious answer is: Yes He does. It’s called the Church.

With thousands of Christian “denominations” worldwide, it isn’t surprising that the “marketing” of the Christian message splits off in many directions.

“God loves even you” tells me this church fearlessly proclaims the Gospel truth that each of us is a sinner, and that no matter the hideousness of our individual squalor, Jesus Christ is the only avenue to a loving, personal and eternal relationship with God.

No serious, thinking Christian will deny our sin problem or our guilt, but I wonder if God’s marketing focus is better stated in the famous John 3:16 …

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Then there’s the oft-overlooked John 3:17:

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Notice that sin is not mentioned. Condemnation is negated. Love and salvation compose the cornerstone of this passage, and of Christianity.

I suppose we each figure that in our sinfulness we are condemned … and well, OK, we are. That’s our guilt. But churches that market God’s product of love and salvation with a tagline hook focused on sin and guilt – and there are plenty of them – too often focus our Christian walk on our own sin, and therefore on our own works, and therefore on ourselves.

The danger is that if we focus only on our sin, we miss the more important and central point of God’s overwhelming love.

Simply knowing I’m a sinner will not put me in a church pew, or see me through tough times.

Knowing God loves me, will.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) once read that two things have to be present for humor to exist: truth and surprise. It was assuredly his own arrogance that made him laugh at the sign.

God's Plan ... Freedom, or Obedience?

Spirituality Column #87
July 8, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

God’s Plan … Freedom or Obedience?
By Bob Walters

Once when facing a particularly difficult circumstance in my life, I made the comment to my friend Russ Blowers that the problem “must be part of God’s plan.”

Russ, the wonderful long-time preacher in Indianapolis, looked horrified. “Wait a minute, Bob,” he said. “Do you honestly think that a billion years ago or whenever He made his perfect plan for the world that God said, ‘Bob is going to [have this trouble]?’”

In his nearly 60 years of ministry, Russ had heard it all, and he was clearly not going to let me blame worldly problems in my own life on “God’s plan.”

That God has a plan is certain – He sent Jesus Christ into the world to save sinners by faith and thereby restore mankind to eternal life in glory at God’s side.

That each of us in the here and now has problems, challenges and issues, as well as dreams, desires and aspirations – is also certain.

So … what is God’s plan for my life?

Well, that’s a tough one. The Bible is long on principles and short on specifics.

“Love God and love others.” That may be the best, most important advice in the Bible, but it doesn’t exactly order our personal steps.

“Follow Christ by faith.” If you don’t do anything else, do that, but you’ll find that faith without action is a horribly incomplete equation.

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-6-7) is perhaps the best collection of advice in scripture – Christ’s greatest hits, if you will. Memorize it … yet we still look at our personal circumstances and ask God, “Why?”

The thing is we are each fearfully and wonderfully made. We are each unique. We are personal to God, no matter our sin or circumstance. God’s plan for us certainly includes freedom which is critical to developing love, but only when that love produces faith can we then obey God freely. That’s God’s plan.

I’m not obsessed with knowing God’s exact plan for my life, roller coaster that it is. But I pray every day that I don’t miss the clues – when He provides them – about how to stay on His path.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suggests that instead of always asking God “Why?”, it is not a terrible idea to simply say “Thank You” in faith and pray He will help us be firm in our next step.

Freedom, Truth, Joy ... in Spite Of It All

Spirituality Column #86
July 1, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Freedom, Truth, Joy … in Spite Of It All
By Bob Walters

"Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose … ", from the song Me and Bobby McGee, by Kris Kristofferson; sung by Janis Joplin, 1971

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free … ”, Galatians 5:1

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17

God’s gift of freedom, in the person of Jesus Christ, is in our redemption from past sins and in our hope for the future. Freedom is about opening the door before us; not about the door behind us, whether it is open or shut.

Freedom is about not being shackled to our past.

This July 4 we will celebrate 232 years of American self determination and independence. Not every American has had the same fair shake over that time, but the greatness of America has never been in our past.

The greatness of America has always been in our promise and opportunity for the future. The greatness of America is that anyone can become an American.

I don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on whether or not “America is a Christian country.” Is the Creator, i.e., God, mentioned in the Declaration of Independence? Yes. Was every jot and tittle of the Declaration an expression of Christian philosophy? No, not even close.

In a reference from Christ’s Sermon on The Mount (“salt and light,” see Matthew 5:18), is it fair to call America a shining “city on a hill,” as did John Winthrop’s Puritan sermon of 1630? I think that’s a great description of America, but nothing about the Puritan way of life had anything to do with freedom as we would call it today. It was about the strictest of religious legalism and obedience.

American freedom and Christian freedom may not be exactly the same thing, but the freedom we celebrate July 4 is a gift from God any way we slice it.

Freedom provides the opportunity for the truth to be known … hence truth and freedom are interdependent on each other. Inasmuch as Christ very plainly tells us He is the truth (“I am the way, and the truth,” etc., in John 14:6), we should be able to add freedom and truth together and get joy.

Consider this: Joy is not about what we have to lose; it’s about the Holy Spirit within us and the hope we have in Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) understands that declaring joy is easier said than done. Joy is the first casualty when freedom and truth are compromised.

C.S. Lewis, Narnia and a Fallen World

Spirituality Column #85
June 24, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

C.S. Lewis, Narnia and a Fallen World
By Bob Walters

Prince Caspian, the recent second movie installment of the seven-book “Chronicles of Narnia” series by C.S. Lewis, is
· breathtakingly beautiful in its photography,
· tear-harkeningly tender in its presentation of the lion Aslan as Christ,
· and – for a Disney movie based on a children’s book by perhaps the 20th century’s greatest Christian apologist – almost disturbingly violent as a fallen world metaphor.

Lewis wrote the series in the 1950s. The seven books read the way you expect third or fourth-grade level literature to read. Prince Caspian the book is nowhere near as violent as the movie. The book develops the talking animals as characters of great depth.

One might suppose the movie’s violence is just the heavy hammer of Hollywood, itself a comment on what it takes to entertain us these days since so much of the original Narnia stories unmistakably and entertainingly parallel the teachings of the Bible.

Peter, the oldest of the four children, lurches into the breach of any fight the way one might envision the Apostle Peter. Lucy, the youngest child, is the first to see Aslan (read Matthew 11:25), and is the child that leads the way (Isaiah 11:6).

Alas … these days, more of us understand violence than the Bible.

Lewis, a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England, was not just a theologian of towering intellect; he was also renowned for his unparalleled knowledge of literature. That so advanced a scholar could write so clear and simple a set of stories as Narnia reveals unusual genius.

Despite the movie’s being “juiced” with Hollywood action steroids, what Narnia’s violence represents, in a most pointed way, is that the mayhem, strife and sickness we all encounter is a function of our sin problem in a fallen world. Some of us readily admit our sin, and some of us shockingly and self-righteously dismiss the very idea.

Narnia’s capacity for violence and evil is every bit as stunning as its potential for beauty and heroics.

Think of it this way: we have a sin problem, but a Christ opportunity.

Just like Narnia.

We’re better off when we “get” the fallen part of our earthly experience. It often explains the unexplainable.

Walters' (rlwcom@aol.com) faith was heavily informed by Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, two Lewis classics. Read them if you haven’t.

Noah, Field of Dreams and the Bible

Spirituality column #84
June 17, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Noah, Field of Dreams and the Bible
By Bob Walters

Our intellectual experience as Americans is, I think, not only diminished but crippled if we are not aware and conversant of what’s in the Bible.

By “intellectual experience” I mean the entire spectrum of thinking, from our childhood education, to our philosophical development, to our faith (or non-faith), and ultimately to our adult actions and beliefs as free human persons, both individually and as a community.

Most literature and art in the Western world has something to do with the Biblical/Christian conversation. It is too bad that so much of our society over the last century and half, and especially over the past 50 years or so, has tried to reinterpret and redefine the Western experience of freedom and individual personhood away from Biblical principles.

We often wind up missing the richness of what is being said in our artistic conversation.

I’m going to use a sports movie and a Bible story to try to explain what I mean.

Field of Dreams, a wonderful baseball movie from 1988, is a terrific morality play about faith, redemption, family, freedom, community, heaven, and God’s permanence and involvement in each of our lives.

If you think the movie is only about a guy dumb enough to plow under a couple acres of corn on the advice of an unknown voice, risks losing his farm, and gets lucky in the end … well, you miss the depth of the movie.

In Genesis chapters 6 to 9, Noah building a boat – where he built it – would have seemed even crazier than Ray Kinsella building a baseball field where he built it. It took Noah 124 years to build the ark in an area that was miles from the sea in a place where rain had never fallen.

Watch Field of Dreams for common Christian symbolism – including the New Testament truth that Heaven will one day be on earth (which obviously includes Iowa) – and it becomes a story about the affirmation of God’s promises, not just a baseball movie.
This is one small example of why it is such a big deal that such a large slice of America is becoming systematically Biblically illiterate. We understand so much less of the gifts we have … not from Hollywood, but from God.

The gifts are wonderful; that so many of us don’t recognize where they come from is a shame.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves baseball. He’ll discuss Narnia next week.

Spiritual Nutrition

Spirituality Column #83
June 10, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Spiritual Nutrition
By Bob Walters

The great banquet of the Holy Spirit, the source of our spiritual nutrition, exists in our very real and palpable relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Things that enhance that relationship – the Bible, church, humility, service, prayer (the list is long) – feed our faith and both deepen and strengthen our commitment to walking the joyous but often hard steps of the true Christian life.

What steps?

Just take the examples of Christ in the Bible. That’s the most accurate picture of what a walk with God is supposed to look like. We all want the reception with palm leaves; but it’s that walk to the Cross that ultimately defines our faith. We need nutrition for that walk.

I’m not sure we’re going to need nutrition in Heaven, or in Hell, for that matter. Nutrition seems to be the stuff of this life, not the next. The Bible does not reveal a precisely recognizable nature of how the perfection of our eternal relationship with God works (“No eye has seen …” etc., 1 Corinthians 2:9), but there is no hint that it continues to be, on either our part or God’s, a work in progress.

At that point it’s a done deal.

Between the Bible, Christian traditions and my faith, I have no lingering doubts God has the eternity thing all figured out. My hunch is that he saves that part of the mystery for the end because … duh … it’s the best part.

But here and now is when developing that relationship provides the spiritual nutrition for our walk, both through the imperfections of our own lives in this fallen world, and for the hope we find in the glimmers of our potential for goodness in a beautiful world God created for us.

If we are having difficulty being certain of our relationship with God, we should look at the elemental components of how we build relationships with each other:
- we nourish relationships with love and grace and trust,
- we choke relationships with sin and fear and guilt.

It seems obvious which is the more nourishing three-course communion meal.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who has been putting on weight lately, neither ignores sin nor makes it the center of his spiritual life.

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him ..."
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

Job: With Friends Like These

Spirituality Column #82
June 3, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! In Westfield (IN) newspaper

Job: With Friends Like These
By Bob Walters

What does Job teach us about faith and trust?

Job is the oldest book in the Bible. The story predates by several hundred years God’s anointing of Abraham. There is no name for Job’s religion; he simply feared God and shunned evil (Job 1:1).

Conversely, God trusted Job. God tells Satan in Job 1:8, “There is no one on earth like him (Job); he is blameless and upright.”

Satan tells God that Job’s faith can be shaken (Job 1:11), and God says, in effect, OK, it’s a bet. Satan suggests God strike everything Job has, but God simply puts Job’s possessions into Satan’s hands.

Job’s children, servants, herds, oxen, donkeys, camels were all wiped out. Job’s reaction was to fall to the ground and worship God (Job 1:20).

God said to Satan, See? “Job maintains his integrity” (Job 2:3). Satan replied, let’s hurt Job himself, and afflicted him with “painful sores from … his feet … to his head.” Job’s wife tells Job to curse God. Job tells her she is a fool (Job 2:10).

Then Job’s three friends show up (Job 2:11), and for the next 35 chapters try to tell Job, basically, that bad things only happen to bad people, so what has he, Job, done to God?

Job’s celebrated “patience” with God is pretty much over by verse 3:26, “I have no rest; only turmoil,” and with his friends by verse 6:15, “… my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams.” Job and his friends bicker, mourn and lament until God decides to have His say, “The Lord Speaks,” in Chapter 38. God was displeased that Job questioned His intentions.

Notice: Job’s faith wasn’t shaken by what had happened; it was shaken by those closest to him, seeking to divide him from God by saying he was guilty of something.

Key Point 1: No one stopped to think Satan was behind the turmoil.

Key Point 2: Good counsel increases faith and creates focus on God; bad counsel decreases faith and creates focus on ourselves.

Job, who was restored much as we are restored eternally by Jesus Christ, had it right to start with: keeping faith and trusting God always works.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has learned faith and patience the hard way, and is almost positive there is not an easy way.

Best Things - Laminin, First Things, Vroegop

Spirituality Column #81
May 27, 2008
Current! In Carmel
Current! In Westfield

Best Things: Laminin, First Things, Vroegop
By Bob Walters

This is a week when I hope the sum of the parts adds up to a whole column.

Laminin

Am I too late? Have you already seen the “Laminin” YouTube video? Louie Giglio preaches a sermon about how Christ holds us together, and comes up with a molecular protein called “Laminin” to prove his point. Talk about “fearfully and wonderfully made.” This video gave me goose bumps.

Google “Laminin” or “Louie Giglio Laminin” and watch this eight minute video.

First Things

My dear friend Russ Blowers who passed away last November was a long time pastor in Indianapolis to tens of thousands of Christian souls. He was a life-long learner who never tired of reading up-to-the-minute theological scholarship.

His favorite magazine was First Things, a monthly journal founded and edited by Richard John Neuhouse, a Catholic priest who started out as a Lutheran minister.

“Was Shakespeare a Catholic?” “Thinking in Tongues.” What’s the straight scoop on the so-called “Emergent Church”? Politics and culture. Theology and religion. This is all normal grist for the brilliant writers and commentators of this wide-ranging periodical of all things intelligent and Christian.

My favorite half-dozen mementos from Russ are old copies of First Things that he had read. Russ was an underliner, a commenter, and a doodler. Reading a magazine or book after Russ read it was great fun. I received a subscription to First Things for my recent birthday and I just couldn’t be more pleased.

See www.firstthings.com.

Mark Vroegop – Welcome!

College Park Church has welcomed new lead pastor Mark Vroegop. He met the congregation in February – I visited and heard him preach twice – and began duties in late April.

For nearly two years loyal parishioners of the Bible-based congregation on Carmel’s southwest side weathered the storm of the difficult departure of founding pastor Kimber Kauffman.

Carmel is blessed with a thriving faith community with its enormous Catholic parishes, several vibrant Protestant and Evangelical churches, and other places of worship. College Park’s patient, prayerful pursuit and placement of a first rate preacher and pastor is a blessing for the both the church and city. Welcome Mark Vroegop!

College Park’s website is www.yourchurch.com.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) archives these weekly Current! columns at his blog, www.believerbob.blogspot.com.

The Reason for God

Spirituality Column #80
May 20, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

The Reason for God
By Bob Walters

This week I am writing to recommend Tim Keller’s excellent new plain-language book on Christian apologetics, The Reason for God.

“Apologetics.” It’s too bad we don’t have a more culturally intuitive word for this honored intellectual exercise. It does not mean, “I am sorry for what I believe.” It means, “This is why I believe it.” It’s from the Greek verb “to defend.”

My guess is that in a very short time The Reason for God will ascend to the top of Christian “must read” lists. I’m reading it now. Let’s pray that more than a few skeptics will read it as well.

Keller is a well-known graduate of the prestigious Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. For nearly 20 years he has been successfully delivering the true message of Christ in perhaps the most unlikely of geographical regions and cultural demographics.

Keller is pastor of the thriving Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, a church Keller started from scratch in 1989. Today five services in five separate locations total 5,000-6,000 worshippers every Sunday in the uptown area near Central Park.

Manhattan is sophisticated and hip; filled with non-religious skeptics, critics and cynics. The middle class family, backbone of the church market, has long ago fled the city’s high cost and crime. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost caught the last train for the coast, so to speak, way back in the 1960s.

What Keller has done for Christ and Christians in New York, hopefully his book will do for other places as well.

Keller presses at the great big, skeptical questions of the Christian faith posed by atheists, doubters, skeptics, seekers and heretics in the great secular maw of relative morality and New Age spiritualism.

The Gospels? They are just legends.

The Church? Full of injustice.

Christianity? A straitjacket.

Jesus? A good man, but, c’mon … resurrected?

God? He hasn’t helped me lately.

A Good God? Can’t be; too much suffering in the world.

Answering the knotty problems of Christianity in smart and accessible language is Keller’s special talent and the great gift of this marvelous book.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends you look into the book’s group study guides as well. They look superb.

Dealing with Jesus

Spirituality Column #79
May 13, 2008
Current! in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current! in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Dealing with Jesus
By Bob Walters

Ben Stein’s recent movie Expelled presents Intelligent Design/Creation as a salient life science subverted by 150 years of incomplete yet burgeoning and now pervasive Darwinian/Evolution worldview and education.

The 1996 PBS NOVA episode titled “The Ultimate Journey,” a video on evolution commonly shown in high school biology classes with fascinating microphotography of embryos, confidently asserts itself as “The Odyssey of Life,” a veritable highlight reel of how life works. The video contains this direct quote, “We don’t know how life began.”

How odd. I know how life began; God created life, and us. The Bible lays it out in plain terms in Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

The fact that there is life because God wanted there to be life – and our trying to figure out the how and why of life based on that – is entirely different and I daresay more satisfying than evolutionists stuffily saying “we don’t know how life began” and foregoing any explanation of why life exists.

To an evolutionist, there is no “why.”

Creationism is different. That’s because the Bible is different, and Jesus is different.

Our God-given human creativity and freedom to invent secular views like evolution, humanism, and broad and competing swaths of philosophy – or conversely, to discover God, life, love, purpose, salvation, relationships and truth in the Bible – too often create conflict, not understanding. For the record, I don’t think science is specifically secular or necessarily divisive.

Discussing this with a friend from church, wondering why so many people insist on separating science and scripture, she said, “The problem is that if you deal with Creation, you have to deal with the Bible. And if you deal with the Bible, then you have to deal with Jesus … and a lot of people don’t want to go there.”

So true. The thing is, we should recognize that our individuality, uniqueness and significance all come from Jesus, not Darwin. Evolution defeats all those ideas, and Darwin doesn’t demand that we act right and love each other.

We’d all be better off dealing with Jesus, even in science class. And by all means … go to science class.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) finds dinosaur bones and carbon dating quite fascinating, but not as fascinating as his relationship with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Unconditional Christian Extremists

Spirituality Column #78
May 6, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Unconditional Christian Extremists
By Bob Walters

A non-believer should know that a Christian extremist will:
- Love unconditionally,
- Be compassionate unconditionally,
- Forgive unconditionally,
- Evangelize unapologetically.

I know … it sounds pretty good until you get to that last one about evangelizing. Don’t those Christian extremists know how annoying that can be?

Ah, those extremists. Then there is the F word … fundamentalists. It is important for those of us who identify with the Gospel to get a grip on both the extremes and fundamentals of our faith.

Ajai Lall, a native of India and president of Central India Christian Missions, spoke in Indianapolis recently about extreme Christianity and what it looks like in his native central India. This is an area where Christians endure atrocities at the hands of Hindus and Muslims.

Lall noted that Christians are commanded by the New Testament to exhibit extreme love, compassion, forgiveness and evangelism. Since the time of Christ we haven’t always gotten that right, but the example Jesus set endures.

Love – Jesus loved those who crucified Him.

Compassion – Jesus comforted the thief hanging on the cross next to him.

Forgiveness – Jesus begged his father, God, to forgive his executioners.

Evangelism – Jesus spoke to his followers and to his enemies about His mission to establish God’s new covenant of grace, love, mercy … and faith.

If every Christian were that resolved in these areas, it might be easier to evangelize without non-believers and confused believers thinking you’re a religious nut.

Thing is, if you believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and you trust Him as your Lord and Savior … well, you’re a fundamentalist. No, seriously … you are. And if you love your enemies, have compassion for others before yourself, forgive all wrongs, and tell others of your faith that Christ is the only way to eternal life (John 3:16, John 14:6) you’re a Christian extremist.

A couple of things will then happen. You will be at peace. You will have complete freedom. And the evangelizing part will still be rejected by many.

Just remember, the evangelizing is the easy part. Talk is cheap.

What those Christian extremists do in central India ain’t cheap.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that few people are annoyed by love, compassion or forgiveness. It drives a lot of people nuts to be told Christ is the author of all three.

Freeing Up a Choked Debate

Spirituality Column #77
April 29, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Freeing Up a Choked Debate
By Bob Walters

I saw the movie Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed and thought it was pretty good.

What has surprised me is that the reviews and comment I’ve seen are predictably, iconoclastically “Conservative – Intelligent Design” or “Liberal – Darwinism” and have consistently missed Stein’s central point of the movie – Freedom.

Evolutionists, Atheists and anti-Creationists certainly saw – to their way of thinking, I’m sure – an unfair attack on their beloved and holy Darwinism. Believers like me were likely struck by Stein’s images, boldness and surely snickered at some of his forensic mischief and filmmaker’s license.

And I must say that the sound track was fabulous. To Yoko and her “Imagine” complaint, all I can say is “Let It Be.”

But whether I think the movie’s message is right on or someone else thinks the message is right off the loony farm, Stein began and ended the movie talking about Freedom.

Freedom. Galatians 5:1. As a Christian believer, and an American, I want to stop right there and drink in the elegance of focusing on Freedom in a debate about science. And religion.

Religion is a quest for Truth. Science is a quest for Truth. Both require freedom of honest inquiry to establish Truth, or you wind up with idolatry and demagoguery, not religion and science. You have Political Correctness, not Truth.

What is Truth? That’s easy. It’s in the Bible. John 14:6. Jesus Christ is the Truth.

And how Darwin got to be more politically correct than Christ I do not know.

Stein addressed science, but mainly he was talking about Freedom; Freedom which I interpret as being of ultimate importance to our relationship with God and its utter necessity in our search for Him.

Trotting out the Bible as the ultimate science book is not satisfying, because our God-given thirst for discovery requires us to investigate beyond the relationship Truths of Genesis-to-Revelation. Yet the church cannot define science without stifling human creativity (look at the Dark Ages). When science stifles the church, you have, well … today.

Our creativity is an absolutely essential part of our humanity Christ came to redeem. How else can we discover Him?

We all want Freedom for our own point of view. If we battle to preserve Freedom on all fronts, religion and science will take care of themselves.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures our purpose in life is our quest for God, and our pursuit of Truth. We find both in Christ.

Caesar Oprah!

Spirituality Column #76
April 22, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Caesar Oprah!
By Bob Walters

Has it ever really sunk in how completely un-famous Jesus Christ was when He was alive on earth?

He was the Son of God, yet very few knew Him. His resurrection didn’t make the public records, only private letters.

His job wasn’t to tell us He was God. Jesus’ job was to tell us we have eternal life with God if we believe in Him as the Christ. Jesus did not have to bluntly say, “I am God.” There is no doubt that He was, and is.

He knew we’d figure it out … and believe. We have.

Subsequently, Jesus has been very, very famous for a long time.

During Jesus’ life on earth, the Caesars were immensely famous and powerful; people thought they were gods. They are all dead now. Jesus died and now lives – so we can live – and the scripture breathes that truth.

This brings me to the errant theology of Oprah Winfrey.

Bright-eyed and savvy, she, like the Caesars, is immensely famous and powerful.

There are plenty of preachers around who think they are entertainers. Oprah has become an entertainer who thinks she is a preacher.

Have you been following her Christ-stifling foray into spiritual enlightenment?

She says there are a million ways to salvation. Her guru imagines there is nothing after death. She has completely botched the concept of God’s jealousy for us (it is a good thing, folks; not bad). She is preaching about feelings and breathing. She infers that belief is a sucker’s gambit: to wit, God just “is,” therefore we should not believe. Huh?

I wonder what the meaning of “is” is, here.

Oprah is telling us that Jesus was mistaken when He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” That’s John 14:6. It’s fairly famous. Jesus is famous because lines like that have endured for nearly 2,000 years in a famous place, the Bible.

If you want to see a list of Oprah’s scriptural incursions and misinformation, go to www.seriousfaith.com (Brent Riggs’ blog) and search “Pastor Oprah.”

My point is this: scriptural canon has survived intact for 1,600 years. I have a hunch it is going to survive Oprah.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures Oprah will fool very few Christians, but her New Age nonsense is sure to screw up some very sincere seekers. It’s a shame. Pray for her return to Christ.

Intelligent Movie - Expelled

Spirituality Column # 75
April 15, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) Newspaper

Intelligent Movie
By Bob Walters

Everybody knows Ben Stein. Everybody loves Ben Stein.

That may be about to change.

He reveals himself this week as a very dangerous first class thinker.

Stein’s new docu-movie, Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed (www.expelledthemovie.com), is in theaters Friday, April 18. If it lives up to its billing, the Darwinist crowd is going to start sleeping not so well.

And will blame Stein for their pain.

Stein is Jewish (note: Genesis is Jewish). He was an author, philosopher and presidential speechwriter before playing quirky characters in movies (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), commercials (FedEx) and as host of the TV game show “Win Ben Stein’s Money.”

This week Stein swings a big, smart hammer on the topic of Intelligent Design, or ID. Expelled supports the very wise, very elite, courageous and very much growing crowd of scientists and thinkers who have concluded, completely opposite the politically correct Darwinists, that there is no way the Cosmos, Earth and Humanity just “happened” as a big, pointless, amoral cosmic freak of nature.

No, Stein insists: an intelligent designer, a creator, a moral force, ahem … God … is the only rational way to explain how and why we are all here.

Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, call your office. Better yet, call your doctor; this movie is going to make you sick.

Mimicking the genre of Michael Moore’s silly attack pieces on common sense (Fahrenheit 911, Sicko) only without Moore’s disingenuous editing tricks, Expelled pushes back at the 150-year-old Darwinian trend of eliminating God – the “Intelligent Designer” – from serious scientific and philosophical discussion.

Routinely teachers are fired, professors are denied tenure, science magazine editors are ridiculed and scientists are denied funding – all Expelled – because they examine, for example, a human cell and authoritatively conclude, “that couldn’t have just happened.”

Expelled also scrutinizes Darwinism’s devastating moral effect on humanity. Survival of the fittest? Look up “Nazism.”

Christians will champion this movie because it effectively and cogently discusses ID without it being portrayed as the grist of close-minded, monosyllabic country bumpkins. The Jews should like it because Darwinists are messing with Genesis 1-2-3, the beginning of the Torah.

The atheists and Darwinists aren’t going to fare so well.

Go see this one. It will, hopefully, begin to change the way true intelligence, and truth, are viewed … for the good.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends that you read Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator.

Atheist, or Just God-Challenged?

Spirituality Column #74
April 8, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Atheist, or Just God-Challenged?
By Bob Walters

It is one thing to say, “I don’t believe in God.”

It is another to say, “God doesn’t exist.”

Statistics always show only a tiny portion of the population – typically less than 5 percent – actually denies the existence of God. The rest of us – Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, agnostics, seekers, curmudgeons, contrarians, philosophers, you name it – have some level of spiritual life that includes acceptance that a deity/spirit exists.

Our individual awareness or expectation that God exists – our faith – provides working material for the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to as much truth as we are willing to comprehend. In some of us that opens our minds; in others, it closes our minds.

What we do with our faith – be it a spark or a flicker or brilliant beam of light – is completely and uniquely between the individual and God.

This is on my mind because I was in a high school classroom setting recently where atheist, objectivist philosopher/author Ayn Rand’s “Anthem” was being taught. It is a 1984-ish book where individual free identity is erased in favor of collectivist (read – Communist, Socialist) central planning.

I have read Rand’s seminal novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged more than once, and am familiar with her personal biography. In her novels she gets the free will of the human spirit just right, and absolutely nails the evils of socialism. Yet in her interviews she very openly, personally and bitterly denies the existence of God.

I am a person who believes all truth comes from God, that Christ presents (and is) all truth, and that the Holy Spirit opens our hearts and minds to understand it. Truth is a God thing; lies are a Satan thing.

I see in Rand someone of brilliance who was bitterly disappointed in God, yet nonetheless presented a truth we must carefully abide: society and individuals become the worst versions of themselves when society systematically denies personal individuality and creativity.

God loves each of us intensely and gives each of us a lot of room to work out our faith. Don’t be too quick to judge … or to deny that God exists. He can use any of us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reminds all that “agnostic” from Greek quickly becomes “ignoramus” from Latin.

Beside the Point

Spirituality Column No. 73
April 1, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Beside the Point
By Bob Walters

Since today is April 1, naturally I Googled “April Fool’s Day” to find out whether it has some traditional, hidden or even spurious religious etymology.

It doesn’t, really, unless you want to count the fact that in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII declared in force the new Gregorian Calendar which, throughout the Holy Roman Empire, standardized January 1 as the start of the new year instead of at the end of March. This replaced the old Julian Calendar and the big joke was to fool people into thinking April 1 was still the start of the New Year. A tradition was born.

Ha ha. But seriously, much of the Western world already had January 1 as New Year’s.

Still, maybe today is a good day to contemplate the foolish things we do in our faith; the things we do that make us take our focus off our relationship with Christ.

Non-foolishness is to understand one thing: it’s all about Him, Jesus Christ. When we focus on anything but Him, we very quickly start counting deeds, and when we count deeds, our human nature insists we keep score, and when we keep score … well, it gets foolish.

I don’t know how one can possibly keep score against God.

Christians in the same pews of the same churches will wrestle mightily over definitions of Bible words, over which version of the Bible is best, over how the Spirit comes and goes and resides, over which songs to sing and how to sing them, over communion practice, over worshipping with dance, over table decorations at the ladies’ retreat, over the inextricability of salvation (can you lose it?), who is called to be saved, who is going to Heaven, who is going to Hell, whether Genesis 1-2-3 can possibly be accurate …

The list is not necessarily foolish, but beside the point. The point is, fighting about this stuff is foolish.

Christ loves each of us in our uniqueness, so anything that prevents us from loving other believers in their uniqueness seems, well, foolish.

Shall we endeavor to discern the truth? Of course; lies are Satan’s weapon.

But keep it about Jesus, not about keeping score.

That’s the wise thing to do.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thinks judgment is one of the great gifts God gives any of us. We just need to not try to do God’s job for Him.





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