The Open-Mindedness of God

Spirituality Column #94
August 26, 2008
Current in Carmel - Westfield newspaper

The Open-Mindedness of God
By Bob Walters

Adam and Eve’s sin wasn’t so much about the act of 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, Westfield (IN) newspapers

Forty Years of Proof
By Bob Walters

In July 1968, forty years ago, Pope John XXIII 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 one major population issue in the world today is sustainability – people in many 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 Aug/Sept 2008 issue of First Things magazine. (article available free at firstthings.com)

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. (2013 update ... now been to 33 Indianapolis 500s, this will be my 18th of 20 Brickyard 400s ... and at the moment sort of doubt I'll make it to church Sunday morning.)

Independent as Sin

Spirituality Column #91
August 5, 2008
Current in Carmel - Westfield

Independent as Sin
By Bob Walters

In our culture the words “freedom” and “independence” are virtually synonymous.

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) back in 2008 read “The Shack,” a whimsical story that warmly and clearly describes the beauty of freedom with God, and the coldness and danger of independence from God.