Non-Believers Often Believe Anyway

Spirituality Column #20 - March 27, 2007
Current! In Carmel newspaper

Non-Believers Often Believe Anyway
By Bob Walters

Major media and government programs aside, American culture has an entrenched, pervasive and utterly unique Christian worldview that is our strength and hope as a nation.

Though shocking, here are some exclusively Christian ideas embraced by “believers” and many non-believers.

Freedom – Christ freed us from death and from bondage to sin. Our culture gets up in the morning trusting freedom, whether or not a particular individual knows or understands Christ. See Galatians 5.

Heaven – Mention is usually made at funerals that the deceased, regardless of faith, is in heaven – “a better place” of immediate yet eternal rest and reward in the company of God. Christianity is the only religion that discusses that kind of Heaven. Christ, the Only Way to that Heaven, may not even be mentioned but Heaven is nonetheless, albeit errantly, assumed.

God as Father – Only in the New Testament does Christ, as God’s son, turn God into an actual Father figure for humans. Fatherhood implies a loving, personal relationship with God found nowhere but in Christ. Christ is the only One who ever even brought it up.

Child of God – Ditto. This is a personal, Jesus thing; totally a Christian concept.

God is Love – 1 John 4:8,16. No other God except the Triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) has been described this way. Ever.

Holy Spirit – Not ghosts and goblins; this is the real deal; how God talks to us; our mediator with Christ.

Faith – Christ is the only One ever Who said “Faith” is enough.

Hope – Who doesn’t have or want hope? Another total Jesus thing.

Love – John 3:16. Even the hippies understood this one.

Grace - Ever hear a non-believer say "Help me, God"? That's asking for grace, and the person of Christ is why we can ask God for help.

Repentance – We all learn to say we’re sorry.

Forgiveness, Salvation and Eternal Life are among other uniquely Christian concepts – real blessings from a real God – that much of secular culture widely accepts.

Sin? Oh yeah. Sin. Now there is something everybody understands

Believers and non-believers alike have plenty to talk about.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a Carmel resident, decided specifically and with a forgiving heart not to pick on non-God liberals … today.

The Lost Producers of Jesus' Bones

Spirituality Column - # 19 – March 20, 2007
Current! In Carmel newspaper

The Lost Producers of Jesus’ Bones
By Bob Walters

Even “C&E” Christians, those who attend church at only Christmas and Easter, know something the producers of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” TV show don’t: Christ Jesus the Son of God came to earth as God in the flesh; was fully God and fully human, and doesn’t have his bones buried in a box anywhere.

C&E’ers, nominally pious as they may be, nonetheless get the importance of these two Christian holidays because they understand Christ wasn’t a gag or a gimmick. The incarnation of Christ was a big deal, and the dual God-Man nature of Jesus is what makes Christianity unique among all religions.

Scholars chuckled and Christians sniffed at the “dead Messiah” idiocy of this TV show’s premise: Jesus existed because we found his bones!

Please. The bones are historically bogus (second century at the earliest) and – Hey congratulations! – you’ve come up with the wrong answer to a dumb question.

Historical documents prove the existence of the man Jesus, while the Bible, Christian doctrine, and 2,000 years of both church tradition and theological scholarship all describe the divine God-Man Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary (Christmas), who was crucified and buried (Good Friday) and rose from the dead on the third day (Easter) assuring us eternal life.

That’s a very big deal. It’s what puts the E in C&E’er.

It isn’t enough that Jesus taught in shrewd, brilliant parables and instructed a unique doctrine of faith, hope and love. What’s critical is this: Christ’s arrival as God in the flesh (John 1:14) unites God and mankind; and Christ’s resurrection puts us, forgiven of our sins, with Our Father God in Heaven.

God is “Our Father” specifically and only because Jesus the Son of man is eternally Christ the Son of God.

God is a Father because He has a Son.

Even a C&E’er understands that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a Carmel resident, has two sons but figures his bones aren’t going anywhere.

James Cameron Meets St. Peter

Spirituality Column - #18 – March 13, 2007
Current! In Carmel newspaper

James Cameron Meets St. Peter: A Very Short Story
By Bob Walters

Headline of the future:
‘Titanic,’ ‘Terminator,’ ‘Lost Tomb of Jesus’ producer James Cameron dies
Setting: The Pearly Gates
Robed Saint: “Next!”
Disembodied Ghost of James Cameron: “Where am I?”
RS: “What is your name?”
James: “Uh, James; James Cameron.”
RS: “Sounds familiar. Were you a sailor?”
James: “No; never liked the water much, but I made a wildly successful movie about a great tragedy at sea, the sinking of the Titanic.”
RS: “Oh yes. Dreadful business. Hit that iceberg, bad steel on the hull, sank in the darkness, so many people died …
James: Oh it was a great movie! We took those facts, added a love story and sex … won Academy Awards; made a ton of money.
RS: Uh huh. Did you bring any with you?
James: Bring any what?
RS: Money.
James: I didn’t think I could bring it with me.
RS: So, you are somewhat familiar with how things work up here?
James: Sure, isn’t everybody?
RS: You might be surprised.
James: Hey, hold on. This is really heaven! Hot dog! I’m King of the World!
RS: You’re not in, yet.
James: But I’m so close! Whew! I was pretty sure I believed in all this, but, well, you know how Hollywood is. Lot of sin; lot of worldly desire. Our movies only talked about Jesus when it would make us money.
RS: We noticed that. God likes movies, though. He is so intrigued by what humans come up with. The Terminator is one of His favorites; (mimics Arnold) "I'll be back!" Great line!
James: So, what did God think of my documentary about finding the bones of Jesus?
RS: Do you want to meet Him?
James: Who? God?
RS: No, Jesus.
James: (Jaw drops) You mean He’s really here?
RS: Yep, bones and all. Next!
Since watching “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” Carmel resident Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if the Titanic was a hoax, too.

Heroes of Faith

Spirituality Column - #17 – March 6, 2007
Current! In Carmel newspaper

Heroes of Faith
By Bob Walters

C.S. Lewis once spoke of a sculptor’s chisel; how the violence of hammer hitting chisel against a rough surface eventually makes a perfect shape. It was a Christian metaphor for how God shapes us with suffering.

Suffering? Christ? What about abiding love and salvation from our sins? Sure He suffered, but that was so we’d have neat stuff and great lives and …

Please.

The truest but most overlooked (and undersold) passages in the Bible are the ones where Christ assures us that being with Him in this world will create for us persecution, and no exclusion from suffering. It’s not a message the prospering “health and wealth” TV preachers sell. If our faith is right, they fervently preach, God will bless us with tangible evidence of His love.

Balderdash.

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus not only tells us to expect exactly the opposite (John 16:33); He tells us God wants the opposite from us as well.

Christ doesn’t want our “stuff;” He wants our faith. In perfect symmetry, Christ doesn’t promise us “stuff;” He promises His faithfulness.

In John 11 Lazarus is raised from the dead; showing a large, Jewish crowd that Jesus could defeat death; it was a miracle. But perhaps the greater and more instructive element of that story comes earlier, when Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha must believe that Jesus can save their brother (John 11:4, 25), even after Lazarus is buried.

Here is what Christ is asking us: Can we have faith in His love amid a world that constantly throws at us suffering we cannot possibly understand?

Christ saved us from our sins, but not from our suffering. Suffering, or not suffering, isn’t finally the point; faith in Him and the eternal life He promises is the point.

Faith is what makes a hero in Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), a Carmel resident, asks those Christians who disagree with him to pray that he gets a new car.