Hubble, Humility, and Man

Spirituality Column #246
July 26, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers

Hubble, Humility, and Man
By Bob Walters

Dramatic deep-space images from the Hubble satellite telescope have inspired worldwide awe the past couple of decades.

On TV, in magazines, and clogging our inbound email, we’ve seen the luminous light of exploding quasars and collapsing galaxies, thanks to Hubble’s above-earthly vantage point and mindboggling technology. The pictures are phenomenal: scientists marvel, artists are humbled, and poets are left speechless. Atheists proclaim man’s insignificance. Believers see God’s magnificence.

Some people just sit back and say, “Wow!”

A recent network evening newscast noting the end of NASA’s space shuttle program aired a sidebar on the oft-repaired Hubble’s history, trials and triumphs. The reporter’s parting words grabbed my attention. Voicing over surreal intergalactic photography, he intoned (approximately), “Hubble’s images have made mankind think differently about how he views himself.”

I just sat back and said, “Wow.” For here was a brilliantly crafted, politically correct, non-committal statement carefully and perfectly framing a truth with no conclusion, casting light with no heat, making a brick with no straw, and balancing a platitude squarely on a secular fence.

The reporter left the sharp arrow in the quiver, the logical follow-up question: “Different … how?” That ponderance was left dangling with the audience. One could muse, simply, “Look what man found!” For sure, many said, “Behold, the face of God!”

Because the interview leading into that final statement was a scientist marveling at our “13-billion-year-old universe” – which I interpreted as an enthusiastic and institutional bon mot for Evolution and a purpose-pitch at the chin of Creationism – it seemed the reporter intended us viewers to gain further appreciation for our personal smallness against the big, meaningless, postmodern emptiness of everything else. In other words, “Those Hubble images sure put mankind in his rightful, small place.”

I think not. In the Hubble images I see unequivocal, gigantic proof of a great God, and the shimmering, show-stopping, unimpeachable truth that God not only exists but that He builds utterly amazing stuff. I see overwhelming evidence of a God Whose glory I cannot adequately express.

“What is mankind that you are mindful of him?” David asks God in Psalm 8:4.

The Hubble images are no adequate picture of God, because God is bigger than that. But in those images we see something the creation of which God considered worthwhile for His glory. And to think, He created us, too.

All I can say, humbly, is “Wow!”

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) notes that the Bible gives us a more instructive view of God than any telescope. Psalm 8. Yeah.

IMHO, Christ is the Truth

Spirituality Column #245
July 19, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

IMHO, Christ is the Truth
By Bob Walters

A talented writer friend who occasionally reads this article said to me recently, “You must get tons of scathing criticism. That topic (religion) is so totally an opinion.”

And it immediately struck me and I said out loud, reflexively but gently and kindly (I think), “Yeah, you’d think that might be the case, but I get very little negative criticism. And what’s even crazier is that I’ve never thought of it as an opinion column. I think of it, and write it, as a truth column.”

The truth of Jesus Christ is the core of the Christian faith. And – when I allow the Father, Son, Spirit Godhead it’s proper place in my life – Christ’s truth answers my questions large and small about life, purpose, reason, hope, love, family, the future, relationships, grace, conflict … everything.

The hard part for me (this is the truth) is the “when I allow” part, because I lack the natural patience, humility and surrender to look at every circumstance and think, “Just let the Lord handle that.” No, I want to get in there and fix things, argue points, make a difference and control my little corner of the Kingdom.

I think most believing, serious, praying Christians would agree that’s not a great way to go about one’s walk with the Lord, but (this is an opinion) many can relate to the shortcomings and fears we all experience dwelling in a fallen world.

Religious opinions and doctrines over the years have split Christian believers time after time, despite the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, Who we must trust as our Lord and Savior. Amen. That brief creed is fairly universal, but for Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Baptist, Evangelical and other strains of Christianity, the person of Jesus Christ may be the only thing they agree on.

We fight viciously over our religious opinions which, I know from experience, too often supersede our trust in the thing we know is truth, Jesus Christ.

Christ’s truth is the lone and absolute antidote to these human shortcomings and fears and, in this sin-riven fallen world, provides grace, hope and the ultimate repair. That’s the truth, the capital-T Truth, and immune to man’s opinion.

My question is, why does man try to make himself immune to God’s truth?

IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), Christ is no opinion. And that’s the truth.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) suffers from extreme opinionation (a word he just made up and loves), but revels in God’s truth.

NFL, NBA - Rumors of Wars

Spirituality Column #244
July 12, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

NFL, NBA – Rumors of Wars
By Bob Walters

“It’s the end of the world as we know it …” - Rock band R.E.M., 1987

“Small group” is a familiar church fellowship phrase that has, ostensibly, nothing to do with sports or rock and roll.

These are small groups of Christians – friends, couples, families – who “do life together.” Especially in large congregations where it is difficult to feel human “closeness” (except when you’re crammed into the pews), it’s typical for 10 to 20 believers to join together for Bible study, prayer, Christian accountability, social and family activities, and even vacations. They just generally share together, as Christians, in the joys, ups, downs, burdens and sorrows of everyday life.

As a side note, our church used to call them “K-Groups” after the Greek word koinonia (coin-o-NEE-ah) meaning “communion of intimate participation.” Only we old folks still say “K-Group.” The “K” has been lost, I think, because modern church management wants to avoid scaring seekers with elegant, traditional and accurate Greek words. There are 2,000 years of Christian faith and thought that too many churches, sadly, choose to ignore. But the Christian story is too big for just Sunday, and small groups help us do life with Christ and with other Christians every day.

So … my K-Group, most Sundays in fall and winter, gathers at someone’s home to watch the Colts play. And when the Pacers are behaving and winning (remember those days?), or Butler is in the NCAA tournament, we watch hoops. There are couples and kids and lots of food and fellowship.

On this score, we are sunshine patriots. Winning teams foster community; so we watch. Losing teams don’t, so we don’t. Presently, the awful spectacles of the NFL and NBA locking out players, cannibalizing themselves in the midst of great success, and claiming the righteousness of their “cause” make the sane among us avert our eyes.

We can’t watch. Scripture helps us cope:

Matthew 23:33 (“Seven Woes”) – “You snakes! You brood of vipers!”

Matthew 24:6 (“Signs of the end of the age”) – “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. But see to it that you are not alarmed.”

1 Timothy 6:10 (“Love of money”) – “… the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

The lockouts are a shame but not the end of the world. I believe that’s coming one day (the “end”), but I doubt it will be about sports.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) wonders if anyone at the negotiations has suggested beginning with prayer. You can bet all the vendors and sports infrastructure people are praying. Read all of Matthew 23.

God, America and Nonfiction

Spirituality Column #243
July 5, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

God, America and Nonfiction
By Bob Walters

I finally got around to reading David McCullough’s nonfiction book 1776, and realized something striking.

To be clear, this isn’t the musical 1776 about signing the Declaration of Independence. This is the exhaustively researched and meticulously footnoted 2005 Pulitzer Prize winning No. 1 bestseller that chronicles the ups and downs of George Washington’s fledgling Continental Army in 1776.

McCullough enlisted his own armies of researchers on both sides of the Atlantic to comb libraries, collections and historical societies for authentic personal letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, maps, newspapers, speeches and official correspondence that detail “what it was really like” in that place at that time.

The book ably collates countless sources into a fascinating story, liberally citing and directly quoting the American and English officers and soldiers, Patriots, Loyalists, politicians, onlookers and bystanders in their own words.

And here’s what was striking: the most elegant prose, the most common expositions and the weightiest communiqués were replete with sincere, faithful, earnest and reverent appeals to God. McCullough does not write to prove America a God-fearing country. The story itself reveals how thoroughly God was assumed to be attached to everyone’s lives and the momentous events of the day.

In 1776 America, the average conversation of the people reflected their absolute conviction that the Hand of the Almighty was intricately woven into the affairs of all.

It’s different today. The sad reality of our politically correct, postmodern, public “God” conversation in America was well represented recently by, appropriately enough, Susan Jacoby, the “Atheist Columnist” for The Washington Post. (An aside: If you have a Religion page, you have to have an “Atheist” column, right? SMH.)

Anyway, last week in this space we discussed the charming little book, Heaven is for Real. A 4-year-old boy nearly dies, really, and later tells his minister father how he visited heaven. The No. 1 bestseller is a heart-touching, simple, affirming story about Jesus, God and Heaven. It’s popular inside and outside of faith communities; scandalous among more than a few Bible-centric theologians … which is about normal.

Atheist Jacoby, reviewing Heaven is for Real with extreme snideness and confidently labeling contemporary American minds “immature,” wrote, “Only in America could a book like this be classified as nonfiction.”

Did you catch that? Jacoby says God should be classified as “fiction.”

I think … we are a better nation when we say God is real.

Happy Fourth of July.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) read 1776 because it was on sale at Costco. Also, “SMH” is Twitter for “shakin’ my head.”