CommonChristianity

God Is All Over the News

2012-02-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #276
February 21, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

God Is All Over the News
By Bob Walters

For better or worse, good or bad, fun or serious, small or big – God seems to be all over the news in recent months. Some clips …

- We have a new gerund: “Tebowing” is an identifiable Christian “thing.”

- Indianapolis Super Bowl CEO Allison Melangton regularly listened to K-Love Christian radio in her office as her crew rocked America’s biggest party.

- The Roman Catholic Church, which mounted a nationwide advertising campaign over the holidays (CatholicsComeHome.org), has modified its liturgy. Now, “Passing the Peace” at Mass includes saying “And also with your spirit,” which seems like a nice shout-out to the Holy Spirit, the all-too-often-ignored essence of the Trinity.

- As for the Mayan Calendar “End of the World” thing next Dec. 21 … who’s running the show, anyway? God, or the Mayans?

- I think it’s creepy when any government official – left, right or center – compares his social/economic agenda to the will of Jesus Christ by proof-texting the Bible like President Obama did Feb. 2 at the national prayer breakfast . That’s a red flag.

- Also, the President’s yes-we-will, no-we-won’t federal health insurance contraception contradictions involving Catholic charities tangles policy and doctrine. Pope John XXIII’s 1968 “Humanae Vitae” is revealing, and history shows the Pope had it right (see page 100, column #93, Aug. 18, 2008, in my book Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary).

- The Susan G. Komen Foundation exists to protect humanity from breast cancer, but willingly bows to pressure from Planned Parenthood not to protect humanity in the womb … oops, I mean, “not to infringe on a women’s freedom of choice and right to reproductive health.” See Psalm 139:13. I believe God is serious about his knitting.

- Creationism will be taught as science in Indiana high schools. Great. Why not just accept science as a fascinating part of the search for God, and thereby allow God in the classroom without trying to dissect Him on a lab table? If anything is a Creationism lab experiment, it’s us, not God.

- A Sept. 14, 2011 “errant” internal memo suggested that Walter Reed Army Hospital ban Bibles and other faith items. Oops! The ban was rescinded as soon as it became public.

- The political, sectarian, tribal, genocidal and budding nuclear hornet’s nest of the Middle East and Africa grows uglier daily. Will God be more glorified if He fixes it, or if we trust God and pray for the strength, courage, and wisdom to endure what comes?

Sadly, the news isn’t always good; but thankfully, God is always the truth.

Walters (www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) is an Evangelical but heard the new Catholic liturgy Jan. 1 at beautiful St. Ann’s Church in Harbor Springs, MI.

Love, Endurance, and Prayer

2012-02-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #275
February 14, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Love, Endurance, and Prayer
By Bob Walters

My friends John and Joyce (Estes) Samples have been married 61 years.

Not bad, but this is amazing: Joyce and her six still-living Estes siblings - two brothers and four sisters – have all been married for more than 50 years.

That’s right, seven brothers and sisters from the same family have each celebrated Golden Wedding Anniversaries. Youngest sister Sue’s 50th in February 2008 was the seventh and inspired national news coverage.

The Estes siblings and current years of marriage are Agnes 65, Doug 64, Charles 61, Joyce 61, Eula 58, Sue 53, and Gladys 52. They were born in Kentucky but grew up near Richmond, Ind. Joyce and husband John, a minister, live in Fishers.

Thirteen of the 14 Golden celebrants are still “alive and kicking” today (Gladys’ husband died in 1999). Another brother, Joe, died in 1992 after 48 years of marriage to Ruth, a marriage delayed three years by World War II. So that’s another 50-year-plus commitment. A ninth sibling sister died when she was less than two years old.

As you might expect, their parents C.M. and Minnie Estes marked a long marriage – 59 years before C.M. passed in1975. Minnie died in 1997 at age 99.

Add it all up and that’s 521 years of marriage for these Christian, church-going, prayerful kinfolk who provide a Valentine’s Day reminder that love can indeed endure.

But rather than making this about Christian marriage or a secular holiday (the “Feast of St. Valentine” has been dropped from the official Roman Catholic calendar), let’s talk about love, endurance, and prayer in broader terms.

Most of us, when we pray, pray for deliverance. We pray for God to fix this problem, heal that sickness, smooth life’s rough spots, or calm troubled waters. “Deliver us from evil” we pray, because we think “evil” must be this thing making me crazy either in life or at this particular moment. But what are we doing for God?

Jesus prayed for deliverance, sure, “Take this cup from me …” (Matthew 26:39), but then expressed his faithfulness to God (26:42), “May your will be done.” And when Jesus prayed for Himself, the disciples, and all believers (John 17) in the Garden before His Crucifixion, He prayed for endurance for the sake of God’s glory.

Try praying “for endurance for the sake of God’s glory,” and see what happens.

The proof of love is in our endurance – just ask Jesus. Or an Estes sibling.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) learned that Jay Leno invited the Estes siblings and spouses to fly to Los Angeles and appear on The Tonight Show, but some of the Estes siblings don’t fly – never have, never will. Endurance, evidently, has its limits. Happy Valentine’s Day!

He's Got the Whole World ...

2012-02-06T15:49:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #274
February 7, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

He’s Got the Whole World …
By Bob Walters

Is there anything anywhere that is not – somehow – attached to God?

For believers, the answer is easy: “No.” Everything was created by God, is attached to God, is finally answerable to God, and ultimately (if only in eternity) glorifies God. God is in and around everything, whether we understand it or not.

Believers’ identifying quote: “Praise God!”

For modernists, the answer is complex. Modernists – the philosopher modernists, we mean; the existentialists (“thought begins with man”) and secular humanists (rights of man) – generally allow for the existence of God but draw subjective lines of opinion and confinement around what is and is not in God’s purview.

Modernism presumes mankind and creation are capable of generating thought and things independently from God, making mankind responsible for truth, justice, and judging right and wrong. Modernists – the Enlightenment crowd, Darwinists, Evolutionists, etc. – cast a wary, often intellectually pitying eye on those poor dumb annoying believers. For man to be big, modernism insists God be made small.

Identifying quote: “God is a matter of opinion.”

For postmodernists, the answer is irrelevant because the question is invalid: God is merely an indefinable myth for the weak minded. Everyone worships something, and postmodernists seem to worship experiential, demonstrable, situational expedience filtered through power and money yielding an unprovable version of operable truth and reality in the here and now. There is no “good” or “right or wrong” or even “proof,” there is only “what is” and “whatever.” That’s it. Absent a more appropriate subspecies identifier, most of these folks typically are identified – hailed, really – as “intellectuals.”

Identifying quote: “Don’t tell me what to think.”

I’m comfortable that all intelligence, wisdom, truth, morality, judgment, the good, the bad, the ugly – all of it – goes back to God. This is not to knock human intelligence or intellectuals, but to recognize and celebrate God’s uniquely prospering and challenging gift to man – the brain in our head.

An old theological joke recounts how God, playing hide and seek with man, hid in the human heart figuring it would be the last place man would look. People the world over yearn to worship something, but use their “wisdom” to keep the real God at bay.

Jesus says we are to seek God (Matthew 6:33, “But first seek His Kingdom”), and that the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). We may first feel God - sense Him - in our hearts, but it takes an engaged mind to appreciate that God is attached to every part of our lives.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com ) knows lots of smart people but doesn’t pray for their wisdom, he prays for God’s … with mixed results.

No Contest for Real God

2012-01-30T14:10:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #273
January 31, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

No Contest for Real God
By Bob Walters

How ironic it is that while much of our culture is quick to deify athletes, large swaths of our culture don’t want anything to do with God.

Not really.

Not the actual REAL God, the one who created things for His own glory, who created us in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27), who reconciles all things back to His Holy name through the saving grace of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18). The God whose love, mercy, judgment and eternity are all promised in the Bible.

Let’s not confuse worshipping THAT God with the much more comfortable folk-hero worship of athletic deeds, heroic honors, won-loss records (heavy on the “won”), and glowing championships through which we experience immense but untoward and vicarious pride. That’s the god we want; we can control that god. We can buy a jersey or a game ticket. We can cheer or jeer. That athlete god has no hold on us; we are free to go worship elsewhere whenever we get bored or find a better god.

Sports are fun, no doubt. Athletic contests – when we participate in them – reveal great truths to us about our physical skills, mental perseverance, and endurance. I worked in and around college and pro sports for a large portion of my career – with enormous enjoyment and satisfaction – as a sportswriter and sports publicist. Been there, done that, had an all-access pass.

But here’s another holy irony. While there are exceptions, most athletes I’ve been around are quick to point out they are not God, or even gods. Athletes work hard, respect their abilities and those of their opponents. Athletes know that a locker room, a basketball court, a football field, a race track, a whatever, constitute an eventually equalizing and humbling human arena that, win or lose, enforces the earthly limitations – the non-Godly impermanence – of one’s physical, mental, and athletic capabilities.

That’s the inside truth of sports – limitations. When we deify an athlete, we are accepting limits because we are able to define what we expect that god to be. When we are disappointed, it’s real easy to swap gods.

When we accept the inside truth of God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth and all things seen and unseen, then we have a God we can’t control. We have a God so big He gives us the freedom to find Him in faith and to worship Him with endurance and assurance.

Don’t worship a limited god we make; worship the unlimited God that made us.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) figures more folks would love Tim Tebow unconditionally if all they knew about him was his humanity. His Christian faith is truly annoying (frightening?) because it’s about God, not the fans.

The Goal That Never Changes

2012-01-23T14:15:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #272
January 24, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Goal That Never Changes
By Bob Walters

My friend and former pastor Dave Faust wrote the foreword for my recent book, Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary.

Dave, now president of Cincinnati Christian University, baptized me November 18, 2001. In his foreword Dave mentions that on each baptismal anniversary I mail a letter to him thanking him for his ministry and updating my faith journey. The following testimony, not in the book, is from my 10th letter to Dave a couple months ago:

“It’s a magnificent blessing to believe, to depend, to share with confidence what I know about the reality of Jesus Christ. While I doubt myself plenty, it never occurs to me to doubt Christ. Satan is the enemy, Christ is always for us … and it doesn’t get any simpler than that.

“It is as impossible for me to fathom the mystery of the spiritual distance I’ve traveled these last 10 years as it is to empirically explain any of the countless mysteries presented in the Trinity, Creation, scripture, faith, eternity, life … an entire Cosmos that is still smaller than God. And while I can’t fathom the distance traveled, I know the journey is rich.

“Many times I feel as though I’m still in the same spot in life, even in the exact same boat, shall we say. But now, over time, the entire ocean around me has broadened and deepened; become clearer but more endless, safer but with more at stake, easier to understand but impossible to predict. Faith in Christ is an unexpected equation of joy on an ocean of faith, hope and love under the endless, open, brilliant sky of God the Father Almighty.

"Christians always talk about change. But, am I different than I was? No, I am still a sinner. Am I the same? No, I am closer to Christ. Do I, can I, must I trust God? I can’t imagine trusting anyone or anything else. Am I sufficient? No. Christ is sufficient. I am made in the image of God, but insufficient without Christ. In Christ, with Christ and for Christ, it turns out, I am – each of us is – sufficient.

“Ironically, we beg and plead and pray for divine forgiveness that has already been won. We yearn for life that has already been restored and for a divine relationship with God that God Himself relentlessly pursues with the unparalleled pluck, power and preeminence of the serving, saving grace of Jesus Christ. Change can be the thrill or the motion sickness of the journey, but change alone is not – cannot be – a destination.

“Faith in Christ is the goal, the prize, the joy, the first cause … and that never changes.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) just wanted to share.

Education without the Bible

2012-01-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #271
January 17, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Education without the Bible
By Bob Walters

The 11th-grade public high school English class was struggling to understand The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the autobiography of the brilliant 19th century orator, abolitionist, and former slave.

Eleventh-grade English in Indiana focuses on American Literature while 11th -grade social studies, synergistically, explores U.S. history. Douglass (1818-1895) is a key figure in our nation’s literary as well as civil rights history.

Douglass, born a slave, learned to read – illegally – first as a young boy by learning the alphabet from his owner’s wife, and then by reading the New Testament. Douglass later taught other slaves – illegally - to read the New Testament. While American public high schools basically did not exist until after the Civil War, most early education involved reading the Bible. Often it was the only book available.

The famous part of this particular Douglass story is slave-owner Hugh Auld’s rebuke to his wife. Auld said, basically, that “if you teach slaves to read they’ll become dissatisfied with their condition and insist on freedom … and we can’t have that.”

Now let’s return to the high school English class that was flummoxed by Douglass’s erudite and theologically-infused writing. I wasn’t surprised the students didn’t immediately appreciate the book’s reference to the semi-obscure “curse of Ham.” But I was flabbergasted some students thought it was a reference to food, specifically, to not eating pork. And I was floored that an adjacent phrase containing the word “scriptural” was impenetrable because the students didn’t know what “scriptural” meant.

This is how far removed many modern high school students are from the intelligence of Jesus Christ, of the Bible, and of centuries of theological thought and discourse. This isn’t about prayer in school. This is about students not being able to understand major parts of our nation’s history and, really, the majority of classical Western literature. Our culture is intellectually crippled by anti-Bible, no-Bible, non-God, Jesus-is-a-myth, “don’t judge me” obeisance to modernity and political correctness.

“Ham,” of course, was the youngest son of Noah. Read Genesis 9:18-27 to understand why Douglass would talk about Ham in relation to slavery. “Scriptural” means “from the Bible” (or other holy book if one practices another faith). I thought the students were going to faint when I pulled out a Bible to explain the curse of Ham.

“You can’t have a Bible in school!” one exclaimed. That’s how far we’ve slid.

Thankfully many public schools do study the Bible, if only in a literary or historical context. But to read the Bible – in public – for what it really and truly means?

Why, that’s illegal. Just ask Frederick Douglass.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) substitute teaches and understands – deeply – why so many public school teachers pray.

Love and Hate, Christians and Bigots

2012-01-09T16:43:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #270
January 10, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Love and Hate, Christians and Bigots
By Bob Walters

I have unchurched friends who, I sense, keep a close eye on me for signs of Christian bigotry.

Mostly I think they are watching for an unloving slip, a judgmental harangue, a hint of meanness, a splatter of impatience, or other overt cracks in my Christian armor. The irony is that my Christian friends, I sense, have just gotten used to them. It’s not like they have to wait very long for a slip, a hint, a splatter, or a crack.

So … I specialize, it seems, in imperfection. But recently I thought I handled a challenge especially well and wanted to share the meat of it. Names and situations are veiled, but I hope the sentiment is clear.

The challenge was from a business friend I see periodically. He has tried the religious, Bible Christian route and, as of now, it truly doesn’t work for him. He figures he’s spiritual enough on his own, all religions are basically the same, why would you want to associate with all those Christian hypocrites, and what right do you have to tell other people how to live?

I’m guessing my Christian brothers and sisters can relate.

Anyhow, we were discussing our upcoming holiday and Christmas schedules and I mentioned one gathering I was especially looking forward to that would include a surprisingly eclectic congregation of ages, family, friends, ex-spouses, believers, non-believers, some divorced, some married, some gay … but mainly how we all enjoyed Christmas together in each others’ company.

Naturally, my friend laser-focused in on the “gay” reference. I could see his face twist as he immediately adjudged – as he often does – my evangelical, conservative, Bible-focused, Christ-centered Christianity, and cross examined. “So …” he very deliberately, almost menacingly, inquired, “does being around gay people take away your Christmas joy because you hate them?”

I can’t say I was surprised by the question because he is a good man but highly predictable in his assumptions. And yet my answer even caught me off guard, because I’d never thought of this response in this way before.

I said …

“Hate who? Gays? Because I’m a Christian? Being a Christian isn’t about who I hate, it’s knowing who I am called to love, and that’s everybody. That’s the message of God in Christ; loving, not hating.”

“Oh, OK,” was his reaction. Rarely in our conversations are religious bigotry insinuations and questions settled with one punch. I was happy that one was.

I don’t love everything everybody does, including that guy I see in the mirror every morning, but hate is almost always a lousy witness for Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) has learned that recognizing one’s imperfections intensifies one’s appreciation for grace.

Daily Renewal Beats Seasonal Storage

2012-01-02T17:50:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #269
January 3, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Daily Renewal Beats Seasonal Storage
By Bob Walters

As most of us have put away our Christmas lights, decorations, knick-knacks and Mannheim-Steamroller CDs until next year, let’s not go through 2012 with Baby Jesus in a box in storage.

It is far better to remember, appreciate and reverence the idea that our everyday and eternal life in Christ is far different from – and better than – the practical, decorated, and empirical application of the limited season of Christmas.

Here is something to think about:

Christmas is largely a holiday of tradition, while Jesus Christ is entirely a messenger of hope. Tradition implies the past, and hope implies the future.

So … if Christ is about the future, why is Christmas about the past?

This simple juxtaposition of timeline I think helps explain the western world’s very fun but generally out-of-whack cultural experience of tradition-laden and commerce-fueled Christmas celebrations which fly straight-up in the face of why God sent the Christ as the divine/human baby Jesus.

I am no Grinch, but I suppose I am a bit of a hypocrite. Anyone who knows me well knows I get very attached to things and traditions. I not only enjoy but annually cling to lifelong Christmas traditions. Christmas becomes “real” to me when the home decorations go up, when I hear Christ-honoring Christmas carols (“Hark the Herald” not “Santa Baby”), read Luke 2:1-14 at Christmas Eve dinner (although I forgot this year), and listen to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.

Our system-wide culture of Christmas celebrations tends to mark emotions of the past more than hope in the future. And as a further bit of irony, it’s New Year’s that actually gets the message of hope right: “Everybody gets a second chance” is the succinct New Year’s Eve lesson from that movie of venerable wisdom, “Forrest Gump.”

But that isn’t the message of New Year’s Eve; that’s the message of Christ. “Everybody gets a second chance” – and a third, fourth and fifth and as many as we need – to get to the place where we accept in faith and understand in our hearts and minds that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and that we can and must trust him as our Lord and Savior.

As St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “inwardly we are renewed day by day.” Accepting that daily gift from Christ is better than clinging to our seasonal traditions.

Don’t store Jesus in a box. Christ is about the daily renewal of divine hope. Nothing can make a New Year any happier than that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) posts these weekly columns at www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com. Feel free to forward them to someone who cares … or more importantly, someone who doesn’t.

Hitch, Tebow, and God Almighty

2011-12-26T20:41:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #268
December 27, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Hitch, Tebow, and God Almighty
By Bob Walters

Christopher Hitchens possessed a rare – one could say entirely unique – knack for writing.

His complex but nonetheless lucid, interesting, and grammatically perfect sentences presented all manner of philosophical, literary, historical, and political citations and comparisons in support of his razor-sharp, rational observations about the world and the people in it. His sentences constructed countless essays, articles and books – and fame – before he died December 15, 2011, of esophageal cancer.

Hitchens wore his atheism on his sleeve, writing God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything in 2007. It seemed to me he wrote desperately, as if hoping to argue eloquently enough to make God and religion just go away. Paradoxically, it was not uncommon for “Hitch” to refer to “the Almighty” as an existent, proper noun.

Tim Tebow possesses a rare – one could say entirely unique – athletic ability. It facilitated his entirely unanticipated success as the Plan B quarterback of the Denver Broncos. Tebow’s skills and leadership spawned a jaw-dropping string of Bronco wins this season. Flummoxed sports analysts relentlessly chattered that Tebow (shhh! … a devout, professing Christian) still lacked the proper skill set to be an NFL quarterback, but couldn’t figure out how to properly ask, “Is Tebow’s success a sign from God???”

Tebow wears his Christian faith on his sleeve, in his posture (“Tebowing” – kneeling on one knee, elbow on the other knee, forehead resting on the thumb-side of his fist, praying – is a “flash mob” fad), and he even used to wear it on his face (remember the Bible verses on his anti-glare below-the-eye cheek patches?).

Sportscaster Bob Costas recently pondered inconclusively on national TV, “There’s something about Tebow,” implying but not directly describing Tebow’s unbridled openness about his belief in and witness for Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. My thought was … “You may as well go ahead and say it, Bob, because that cat’s out of the bag: Christ’s light shines through Tebow’s witness. Amen.”

But what does that have to do with football? And where, exactly, do we suppose God is in all this? God is precisely where God always is – above it all, in us all, around us all, knowing all. The enormity of the Almighty transcends our ability to define God logically (hence: “Judge not,” Matthew 7:1, etc.), while the reality of Jesus Christ “given … for all mankind” (John 3:16), puts us with God eternally.

God loves us all; our own faith is the only variable. Tebow’s football success doesn’t prove God’s presence any more than Hitchens’ writing proves God’s absence.

God never, ever, fits into those kinds of boxes.

Walters (www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com, rlwcom@aol.com) mourns Hitchens’ passing and cheers Tebow’s passing. Tough loss to the Pats, though.

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 4

2011-12-19T14:25:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #267
December 20, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 4
By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name … Jesus … Jesus Christ is Lord …” – Philippians 2:9-11

Let’s take a final look at the convolutions and ironies attendant to the general topic of “names” as they relate specifically to Jesus, Christmas, the Christ, the holidays and secular convention.

After that, those of us who so choose can go ahead and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, Happy Holidays and if we want, a partridge in a pear tree.

Our fearful, hyper-protective, offense-averse modern society annually ties itself in knots trying to celebrate Christmas without actually calling it Christmas. As believers in Christ we can relax. Christ is in our hearts and also at the right hand of the Father, always. Jesus is not confined to a date on the calendar. His name alone supersedes any holiday, and anyway the “why” of Jesus is more important than the “when.”

As for the “Christmas” name debate, I prefer not to be tied in knots, fighting battles that cannot be won and for which, really, there is no prize for winning. It seems a better strategy to dwell in the faithful assuredness of forgiveness that has already been won in Christ Jesus. I cannot argue my faith into someone else’s soul; and it follows that the same goes for trying to argue “Christ” into commerce or convention.

What I can do is to pray – frequently, fervently, and faithfully in the name of Jesus – that somehow my witness, my life, my example, my love, my works, my Merry Christmas, my whatever might somehow add up to a valid case for the peace of Christ being accepted in someone else’s soul; that in their hearts the Holy Spirit will work the miracles of grace, hope and the blessed peace of Christmas.

Satan, representing everything that is not Christ, wants to destroy that peace. The world’s – Satan’s – attack on Christ is nothing new, and the only way we can “fix” that is not to allow the world’s attack on us to rob the joy of our peace in the Lord.

Christmas is about gifts because Jesus Christ is about gifts – of His faithfulness, life, grace, eternity, freedom, inheritance, kingdom … and oh yeah, forgiveness. These are gifts open and available to absolutely everybody.

When we say Merry Christmas we’re offering all those gifts on behalf of Jesus.

That’s the power of His name.

And I’ll keep calling it Christmas because that’s what it is named in my heart.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, Lulu.com) believes peace exists exactly where each of us in our own heart allows Christ to exist. Merry Christmas!

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 3

2011-12-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #266
December 13, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 3
By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name … Jesus … Jesus Christ is Lord …” – Philippians 2:9-11

Our just-published book Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, a five-year compilation of these weekly columns, is dedicated to longtime Indianapolis minister Russ Blowers (1924-2007).

Russ not only shepherded an enormous flock at East 91st Street Christian Church, but in his nearly 60 years of ministry was the WISH-TV 8 live “Chapel Door” pastor in the 1950s and 60s, was chairman of the Indianapolis Billy Graham Crusade in 1980 at Market Square Arena, and chairman emeritus of Graham’s 1999 Crusade at the RCA Dome. Billy and Ruth Graham stayed with Russ and Marian Blowers the first time the Grahams visited Indy in 1950.

“Everyone” knew Russ, and what just about everyone says they remember most about Russ is this: He never forgot a name. The second time one encountered Russ Blowers, Russ remembered their name from the first time. Russ loved Jesus and loved people. Russ’s most obvious expression of love for people in general and his congregation in particular, was that he remembered people’s names.

A large chunk of my career has been spent in public relations … a line of work where quite often Job #1 is to make other people feel important. A good place to start is to remember names. My name recall is so-so; Russ’s facility was dazzling.

So … names matter; which brings us to Philippians 2:9 and Christmas.

When the Apostle Paul tells the Philippians that Jesus is exalted by God as the “name above every name,” Paul is not saying “Jesus” is a name merely above earthly names like Bob, Russ, Pam, Eric, John, Joe, Sally, Sue, Jason and all the rest. Paul is saying that the name of Jesus Christ the Lord is the name above every name of God – YHWH, El Shaddai, Adonai, and so on. You know … those names.

The living God is exalting Jesus the Christ, His Son, as the Lord. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, the Eternal Savior, the Logos Creator, and He occupies the highest place with the name that is above every name. God says so.

Remembering the names of people is polite; remembering the name of Jesus Christ is holy. And while “Happy” has distinct, worldly limitations in a nameless, aimless, comfort-driven commercial “Holiday,” eternal joy and peace are found only in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Make mine “Merry Christmas.”

Walters’ (rlwcom@aol.com) book is available at www.Lulu.com. Type “Common Christianity” in the “Find” box and hit Enter. Buy several, give them as gifts, tell your friends! PS - Save 25% thru Wed Dec 14 use coupon code COUNTDOWN.

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 2

2011-12-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #265
December 6, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 2
By Bob Walters

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name … Jesus … Jesus Christ is Lord …” – Philippians 2:9-11

Awhile back I worked with a guy whose dad, who bankrolled the business, would occasionally forget or grossly mispronounce names of people I figured he (the dad) probably knew. Not to their faces, of course, but in conversation.

The guy once pulled me aside and explained, “When dad screws up a name, it means he doesn’t either like, trust or respect that person, or they’re expendable. He does it intentionally.” One day from around a corner I heard the dad refer to me as “what’s-his-name?” and knew it was time to move on.

So how do we treat the name of Jesus Christ? Do we forget it? Ignore it? Fear it? Trust it? Share it? Respect it? Love it? Make an effort to understand it? Make an effort to hide it? Find it expendable?

How we treat the name Jesus Christ, or any name, reveals much about our relationship with that person, place, or thing … or God. We can be assured that God knows our names, numbers the hairs on our head, and that the only thing God doesn’t remember about us is our sin, because the blood, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ – God’s son – covers those sins.

God also knows whether, in faith, we name Jesus Christ as our Lord.

There is unimaginable power in the name of Jesus Christ – the power of life, the power of forgiveness, the power of adoption, the power of knowledge, light, truth and eternity. The very power of God. As humans we tend to want the power to fix the “light and momentary” pains and troubles of this temporal, fallen-world, but that is truly nothing compared to the power of God in His eternal Kingdom.

This is all basic Sunday School stuff, which leads us to the wider cultural net of systematically taking the name of Christ out of Christmas.

Nowhere in the New Testament does it say Christ wants a holiday or a festival or a feast in his name … in Christ’s name we are forgiven for all time. Amen. We must confess Jesus Christ as Lord, all the time. Amen. Jesus Christ is in our hearts, all the time. Amen. How can any holiday be any more special than “all the time”?

The truth is … it can’t. But removing “Christ” from “Christmas” is an attempt to remove the name of Christ from public view …and that’s a likeable, trustworthy, respectable name that is – eternally – not expendable.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), author of “Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary” tweets at @CommonChristian.

The Holiday Above Every Holiday, Part 1

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #264
November 29, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

The Holiday above Every Holiday, Part 1
By Bob Walters

“Names don’t matter” is not a famous quote but it certainly is a common, criticism-avoiding and politically correct sentiment in modern society.

Call things whatever you want, we say. “Be open-minded.” Don’t be tied down to “old” or “traditional” names for things. Be free and express yourself however you want. Certainly we wouldn’t want to offend anyone so let’s not call people “names.” But hey, “What’s in a name?” (Romeo & Juliet, II ii), anyway? And we all can recite the time-honored schoolyard taunt rebuttal, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me.”

Yet … “names don’t matter” is the exact opposite of current social convention. Nothing in modern society matters more than names. Need proof? Just try calling Christmas “Christmas.”

You’ve likely noticed that we are currently amid the “Holiday Season”: Season’s Greetings, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday music, Santa Claus, presents, school “holiday” shows, winter break, and all that. Yep, it’s the holidays, and it’s all legal.

The official federal holidays we celebrate in this “Holiday Season” are Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November, another one on December 25th, and New Year’s Day on January 1. This leads me to write the following joke:

“Can you name the 10 official U.S. Federal Holidays?”
“Nobody can! Because you can’t say ‘Christmas.’”

Yep, 10 official U.S. holidays. I looked it up. They are listed in Title 5 of U.S. Code Section 6103. The 10 federal holidays, exactly as they are recognized and named by the United States government, are: New Year’s Day, the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Washington’s Birthday (official name – really – not “President’s Day”), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and, ahem, Christmas Day.

On Thanksgiving Day, names don’t matter. Leading up to Christmas Day, it seems, nothing else matters. As in, “Please, shop ‘til you drop and celebrate ‘til you pop but don’t call it Christmas!” At least … not in public.

Am I insensitive? On occasion – especially this occasion, Christmas – I suppose so. And yet, who is being insensitive? We strive mightily in current culture to be sure we don’t offend – with names – any person, any thing or any idea.

But it’s OK to offend, and even ignore, the name of Jesus Christ.

We’ll talk about that here over the next few weeks, without whining.

Clue: Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is heading toward Philippians 2:9. And in the spirit of helpful Christmas shopping hints, look for Walters’ book “Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary” at Lulu.com, ISBN 978-1-105-13454-8.

Praying for Grandma's Gravy

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #263
November 22, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Praying for Grandma’s Gravy
By Bob Walters

Thanksgiving dinner can be one of the spiritually richest and most comforting gatherings of the year – God’s bounty on our plates, loving family and dear friends at our reverently bent elbows.

Or, it can be a prickly, uneasy theatre of differing and generally incompatible intra-family opinions on relationships, culture, government, and God … simmering like grandma’s gravy that everyone hopes doesn’t get scorched by excessive heat or fractured by inattentive stirring.

Scenario One will likely have a rich pre-meal prayer of thanks for overflowing goodness and fellowship and abundance. It may or may not be a specifically religious prayer because not everyone’s spirit is connected, in an aware way, to a specific faith system. But don’t most of us just know, deep inside, that saying “Thanks” on Thanksgiving isn’t just an expression of appreciation? It’s an affirmation of the existence of God … whatever we understand that God to be. We look around the table, with love, and know that truth exists. God must be here somewhere. We are thankful.

Scenario Two can lead to the guests primarily being thankful when the meal is over and the ride home has begun. Even if family squabbles and political dissonance can be laid aside, the issue of whether God has a proper place at the table is a significant bellwether of enjoyable fellowship. This much I know from my own experience as a non-believer – it feels real weird to pray to a God you truly do not know.

During the 30 years of my life I didn’t go to church, I wasn’t mad at God; I simply didn’t know him and didn’t really care. I know many people today who gave up their faith “for cause.” It might have been a church scandal, the personal sleight or transgression of an insensitive Christian, or the feeling of abandonment by God. To some people, the whole “God” thing just seems stupid. Often, non-believers are simply ambivalent.

I would urge my Christian brothers and sisters to gird up for Scenario Two by praying deeply for understanding, wisdom, courage and patience. We can never argue our faith into another soul; we can only be an example another soul could choose to emulate. And remember … most people don’t have a problem with Jesus; they have a problem with Christians, the church, or “religion.” You’re an ambassador for all four.

Keep “grace” – the pre-meal prayer – simple, but pray clearly with the conviction that thanks is something truly worthy to give to God. It’s the sincerity and the love that you show to God and to others that will rub off on the souls of lost loved ones.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) advises praying for people by name. It works.

WWJD? - No Ifs, Ands or Buts

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #262
November 15, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

WWJD? – No Ifs, Ands or Buts
By Bob Walters

Christians ask “What Would Jesus Do?”

A better question is “What DOES Jesus Do?” An even better question is “What does Jesus do that is a model for my life?” And an even better question than that is “What IS Jesus doing in my life right now?”

Asking what Jesus “would” do splits a couple of linguistically problematic hairs.

A common critique of “WWJD” is that it comes dangerously close to putting “me” in the place of Jesus. Becoming “like” Christ (Philippians 3:10), and actually being Christ, are two vastly, massively and dramatically different things. Jesus commands us to love God, not to be God (thanks to Satan, Adam and Eve learned that one the hard way). Jesus said, “Remember me,” not “Be me.” Be careful.

Also, the word “would” signifies what grammar class calls a subjunctive mood or “conditional” phrase; it implies “if” and introduces doubt. Jesus is not an “if,” He is eternally God and human. Sectarians debate the “nature” and personhood of Jesus after the resurrection but the Bible says He is eternally fully God and fully man.

That’s the final answer, mystery and all. “Jesus is,” not “Jesus if.”

Certainly our earthly, human lives are full of subjunctives, contradictions, ifs, ands, buts and maybes. I project my worldly pride and fight for my “rights” yet often realize later, I’m not in the right.

Other people see my failings, which robs my integrity, and I hate when that happens.

Jesus had perfect integrity and never wavered in his responsibility. Not one thing about Jesus was “proud” but everything about Jesus had integrity. Jesus came as a servant (in Greek, dulos, “slave”) without pride or rights, only responsibility to God. He was steadfast in that integrity, and the prideful Pharisees and many others hated Him for it. If we are shooting for “like Christ,” the starting line is to emulate the integrity of Christ’s commitment to God.

On the up-side, “WWJD” very importantly puts Jesus in our lives today, as in … “What Would Jesus Do … right now?” We don’t “carry that old rugged Cross” because of what happened, like the hymn says, “On a hill far away.” We carry our cross today because Christ is alive today, and because what Jesus did “once for all” with grace and passion on the Cross perpetually restores our eternal human relationship with God the Father … a relationship that perpetually renews with our ongoing faith in Christ.

Jesus is never past tense, and is never woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’.

Jesus is “I am.” Right now, and forever.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) observes that pride and rights are almost always about “me,” and that integrity and responsibility are almost always about God.

Dividing Politics and Religion

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

Spirituality Column #261
November 8, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Dividing Politics and Religion
By Bob Walters

On this off-year Election Day, let’s take an off-beat tour of America’s mix of church and state. The Bible gets first “ups.”

Jesus separated church and state long before the eighteenth century secular humanists identified and attached the inalienable rights of man to modernity. Rights, by the way, are not in the Bible; responsibilities are.

One can consider the entirety of the New Testament and understand the unique moral and creative wholeness of Christian freedom in Jesus Christ. Or, one can take the common Gospel verse “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:12:17, Luke 20:25), and see that Caesar (specifically here “Caesar’s money” or euphemistically “Rome’s man-made government”) and God play on different teams.

The apostle Paul declares the primacy of our “citizenship in Heaven” (Philippians 3:17, 20), but also invokes his own Roman citizenship in order to be heard (Acts 21:39) and then not to be executed (Acts 22:22ff). In Romans 13 Paul says government is ordained by God and that if we “owe taxes, [then] pay taxes” (verse 7).

While Paul seems to indicate the scary proposition that “Government is God,” he doesn’t, and it’s not. Jesus Christ is God, and Jesus plainly says that while both He (Jesus) and we (Christians) are “in the world,” neither He nor we are “of the world” (John 15:19, 17:14, 16). Christ commands that God is first, and that we are to love God and our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 19:19), and even to love our enemies (5:44).

What the United State Constitution and all it amendments describe is a political context within which the creative freedom of man and the God-ordained morality of “love others as we love ourselves” can prosper and thrive. Over 224 years they have mostly – though not always – thrived, but it is only in the Christian moral context that this kind of document is possible.

Democracy demands moral responsibility, which is different from the “fair” (read “blind”) application of “religious freedom” the secular modern world mistakenly equates and jingoistically describes as “all religions are the same.” They, um, aren’t.

Moral discernment is the first casualty of secularism, which replaces God’s moral truth – Jesus Christ – with man’s moral relativism.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, “Under God” we enjoy freedom and defend a “government of, by, and for the People.” It certainly can and will “perish from the earth” lest we understand, and understand soon, the indivisible equation of our citizenship both in Heaven and as Americans.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recently read about and laments Europe’s cultural disestablishment of Christianity. He is sure we’ll either learn from Europe’s example, or die the same spiritual death.