Man wants to be free, but always looks for a king to rule him. A strange contraction in human nature. The truth is, when things are great and seem to be under our control, we just want to be left alone. We don’t want anyone to tell us what to do when we have what we want, and we gladly take credit for our own fortune. However, when things get bad, we cry for a savior and blame anyone but ourselves for the troubles we find ourselves in. (Hmm… I think I just defined both political ideologies) Everyone has varying degrees of each in their lives, but this article is about the latter: Our search for a messiah to save us from our troubles. The sad truth is, we had one, but we didn’t like what he had to offer.

There is another prevalent contradiction of human nature. We so readily look to the mystical, the divine, and the spiritual to solve our material, carnal, and temporal desires. God gave us freewill, and yet we take every opportunity to convince ourselves and others that we are helpless victims and without the power of choice. We blame society, circumstances, and other people for our lives and then look to someone or something to swoop in and save us from our persecution.

Jesus encountered these paradoxes frequently during His time in our reality. As people confessed Him to be the Messiah, they then turned to Him to solve the troubles and conflicts of their own world. While Jesus did many miracles of physical healing and material provision during his ministry, He stopped short of what people really wanted from Him… political and social conquest.

The Crucifixion was a bewilderment to the disciples. When Jesus tried to tell His disciples of His rapidly encroaching tribulation, Peter responded saying, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” As what was surely a shock to such a passionate expression of concern, Jesus responded, “Get behind me, Satan! you are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Why did Jesus react this way? It was because Peter, like many of his time, were looking at Jesus as a “material messiah”. Peter was looking for Jesus to free the Jews from Rome and establish a great earthly nation of which Jesus would reign over. Of course, this did not happen, nor was it supposed to. Instead, Jesus gave us something else… individual redemption and spiritual freedom.

It is not hard today to see that we are born as slaves to sin. Any Alcoholics Anonymous councilor, or rehab specialist, can tell you that man is often lacking “something” needed to take control of his own life. Jesus knew this, and offered man redemption through repentance. Through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and then later gift of the Holy Spirit, God gave us the chance and the power to became the individuals He created us to be in the first place.

Jesus came, and then left, and He left us with nothing more or less than what we needed to truly live. And truth be told, most of us hate HIm for it. We didn’t want “spiritual” redemption, we wanted physical redemption. We wanted someone to give us a steady income, a worry-free life, a safe home, and good health.  We didn’t want to have a path open to begin a relationship with God, we wanted path open to a new car (Ok, nerds… would ” new chariot” be more historically accurate for you?). Jesus and the disciples tell us to look at life’s sufferings as a challenge and gift unique to this life… but we would have preferred Jesus left the receipt so we could have exchanged it for a new expresso machine.

Now today, we still have our many problems and troubles, all of which we brought on ourselves with our own greed and selfishness. Instead of looking at our own failures, we look once again for a leader, a savior, a messiah to fix it all for us and make our lives better. Little do we realize the only way that will ever happen is if we do it ourselves. We must repent, face our sins, and seek forgiveness. Only then will we see clearly enough to fix our own mess.

Technorati Tags: Christian Mysticism, fake messiahs, Jesus Christ, material messiahs, political saviors

Here is a shocker, an article expressing a positive opinion on religion in the NEW YORK TIMES!  Stanley Fish reviews the book “Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate” by Terry Eagleton.  In the book, Eagleton argues that science cannot replace religion for the simple reason that science has nothing to do with the questions, needs, and purposes religions fills.  Likewise, religion has no functions to answer the questions of science.  Here is my favorite excerpt from the article:

Eagleton likes this turn of speech, and he has recourse to it often when making the same point: “[B]elieving that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world . . . is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus.” Running for a bus is a focused empirical act and the steps you take are instrumental to its end. The positions one assumes in ballet have no such end; they are after something else, and that something doesn’t yield to the usual forms of measurement. Religion, Eagleton is saying, is like ballet… it’s after something else.

To use science to address religious concerns perverts it.  Likewise, to use religion to address scientific concerns is a debacle.  We need to stop choosing between the two, and instead recognize the purpose and limitations of both.

Here is the link to the New York Times article:
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/god-talk/

Here is the link to the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Faith-Revolution-Reflections-Lectures/dp/0300151799/

Here is a link to my past article on this topic:
How Science and Religion Can Play Nicely Together… and Should!

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, reflections on the god debate, Science and Religion, science vs religion, stanley fish, terry eagleton

As a life-long C.S. Lewis fan, I always enjoy taking a minute and reflecting on the many contributions he made to Christian Mysticism.  I especially enjoy addressing the lessons inferred amidst his fictional writings.  One of my favorite mystical lessons, is the lesson of the wardrobe.  In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe C.S. Lewis teaches us a great lesson about seeking a relationship with the Living God… you can’t find God in the same place twice.

“I don’t think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats.  You won’t get back to Narnia again by that route… Yes, of course you’ll get back to Narnia again someday… But don’t go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don’t try to get there at all.  It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it.”  - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, the Professor talking to the children who just left Narnia.

Everyone who seeks after God, has encountered Him at some point in their lives.  There is always some point where God’s presence is so clear, that we ever wondered why we doubted.  But then the moment passes, and passes, and fades.  After a while we wonder if we experienced it at all.  In an existential panic, we try to recreate the experience, only doing more to prove to ourselves it never happened in the first place.

Let’s take the Professor’s advice here.  We should no go back and look for God where we previously encountered Him, rather we should move forward without looking at all.  Where would Moses have been had be returned to the burning bush for a fresh dose of prophetic inspiration, rather than moving forward with the task he had already been given?  Where would Paul have been traveling back to Damascus to look for a bright light?  Our encounters with the Divine are singularly unique, and it is our fault, not God’s, that we forget them so easily.

It is also part of how God encourages our continual growth and maturity.  If God stayed in the same place, so would we.  Rather, God reveals Himself at moments we need Him most, then moves on, hoping we will continue to seek Him.  As we move on, out of obedience, we find God without looking, and in a way we had never experienced before.

Technorati Tags: C.S. Lewis, Christian Mysticism, living God, Seeking God, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe

“If you want peace, work for justice.” - Pope Paul VI
“If you want justice, work for chastity.” - Pope John Paul II

This begins a serious of articles I have decided to write in defense of the Catholic Church and her controversial teachings in our current post-modern culture. I have entitled this series “Catholisense” because this is a mystical apologetic rather than a theological one. It is my belief that the presence and teachings of the Catholic Church are not outdated or irrelevant but rather necessary. Indeed, I will argue it is the very presence alone of the Catholic Church and the Vatican that is preventing our society from falling off a cliff of self destruction. Continue Reading »