...this is why I don't have one of those trendy Christian blogs (theologica.blogspot.com , that kind of thing) where I post all my musings, because most of it would be filled with T being depressed about the awful job he did Sunday night. As much as I'd love to say otherwise, I'm fairly positive that this has nothing to do with my usually self-depricating nature - things just didn't go well last night. Well, that's not entirely true, everything else went fairly well. But the talk was ridiculous. I like to be relaxed and having a good time when we do that, but I'm pretty certain that all the joking around last night happened at the expense of anyone actually hearing about Jesus. It's weird - talk to almost any pastor today, and ask "what makes you feel like a sermon went well?" and, among other things like "feedback afterwards", they'll almost always say "they laughed at the jokes."

As we've been reading through Acts with the guys' study lately, I can't help but notice that stand-up wasn't ever really a part of the role of preacher. You can make all the claims that you want that it's just letting your personality come through or adapting to your audience or whatever, but it seems like it can certainly happen at the expense of the Gospel, which is I'm sure what happened last night.

Just pray I get another chance, I spose.

T

...you know what would be awesome? If everything wasn't so complicated. I was going to say "if girls weren't so complicated", but the girl has so far turned out to be the easiest part of this. People and geography and logistics, on the other hand, are really annoying. Haha. I sometimes wonder, when God was putting people together, if He didn't think it would be a laugh to only have me fall for people that it doesn't make sense to be with. "Where should we put all these people?" "Let's put them around T, he doesn't have a chance with any of them..."  ... I'm mostly kidding, but a look back at the last three or four years really does have me saying "wft?" quite a bit.

But this might work out yet, we'll see what the next few weeks hold.

T

...is where I found myself Sunday afternoon. I had to run into walmart to grab a couple of things, and I sat back down in my car before heading home and fell asleep for AN HOUR. Good grief. I must have been tired. Whether or not that explains my generally black mood at youth group I don't know... I was just generally out of it, and the youth groupers' ADD-ness helped a whole lot ;-)

I dunno...I felt a lot of the usual frustrations I have been feeling, but it looks better this morning than it did last night. We'll see what the rest of the week holds.

T

In the Collegian today, they printed an incredibly long piece on the nature of protest and why yesterday, on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war, there wasn't a huge crowd out with picket signs on campus. How I feel about the war aside, I wasn't motivated to pick up a placard and tell the man where to stick it yesterday for reasons that have nothing to do with the war: most. protests. don't. work.

A while ago I read a book by Mark Steel called "Reasons to be Cheerful" where he gives a pretty entertaining history of his involvement with political protests in the 1980s in England, and fun as the book was, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the ineffectiveness of the whole thing. He worked for fifteen years to get Labour back in British government, and by the time Labour did end up back in, it was nothing to do with protests over mine strikes, it was a combination of smart rebranding on the part of the Labour party and a shift in the cultural zeitgeist that the Tories didn't even try to keep up with.

There are instances in which a gathered group of people can indeed change something. But a gathered group of university students in Fort Collins changing a war? Not especially likely. There's no romance to the idea of protests - if it works, then great, but if it doesn't (and it doesn't for issues like the war), then don't waste your time, and stop calling the rest of us bad citizens for not doing so either. There was an editorial in the paper also which said it was a shame that we're so apathetic - I take offense at that in a way. The fact that I wasn't out there waving a sign and chanting doesn't mean I don't care about this country. It means time is a limited resource and that I want to use mine as productively as I can, so I'll vote in such a way as reflects the things I care about, and I'll engage conversation with anyone who wants to broach the subject, and I'll try to be as informed as I can so that when something comes up that I can practically help with, I'm in a position to do so. But protesting? Really? I'll protest something in Fort Collins or on campus if you like, I'll protest CSU's jacked up funding system that gives almost all our money to the physical science colleges, I'll protest the 3 unrelated law, I'll protest Taylor Smoot being allowed anywhere near student government... because that stands a (albeit still pretty small) chance of being effective.

But as for protesting Iraq... yeah, it sucks and we shouldn't have gone into it, but I'm going to work a job, go to school, serve the church, sing some songs, keep up with the news... and see if I can't find something more worthwhile to give my time to than waving a sign saying honk if you like peace (which is funny in itself, because such honking certainly decreases my peace, but I digress...).

/end rant. Happy Tuesday! the week is closer to being over than it was yesterday!

T

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However, I will say, your tree analogy doesn't do it for me, because that's destruction, not creation. If the tree were fixing my car after something broke it, that would be one thing, but we're talking about some really complex stuff, here. It's not so much that something happened, but that what actually did happen is too complex and too intricate to have happened randomly.

That might not be what Driscoll was arguing... in which case his argument is rather weak. But that doesn't mean the basic premise is flawed. In fact I think it's one of the strongest arguments in favor of creation.

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Yeah the tree analogy didn't quite communicate what I was trying to get across (it was 12.30am, that's my excuse). The fact that what did happen here is too complex to have happened randomly is not in dispute - and that was the point Driscoll made in arguing against "chaos made order," my complaint was with the general idea that design implies designer. Ray Comfort (evangelist turned tv personality, if you've ever seen any of Kirk Cameron's stuff since he became a Christian, Ray is the guy with the mustache and New Zealand accent) often tries to shut down debates by saying "do you see that building? Was it built by someone? How do you know that when you can't see the builder? Ah, therefore God exists." Or, as he suggests, in a simpler to remember format: building, duh, builder (that sounds vaguely funny when said with a New Zealand accent).

And I hate that argument. Two things about it, particularly:

1. Ok, the tree analogy was bad, but I still maintain that accidents can create... if, for instance, in a high school science lab in California, two jars of chemicals were sitting next to each other uncovered when an earthquake hit. They collide and form a distinctly new compound. A tortured analogy, perhaps, but you get my point.

2. The "it is, therefore it was created" argument has a fatal flaw in that there's no good reason not to apply it to the creator also. I, Thomas, exist, therefore I was created, ok, fair enough, but my parents were created too, on into infinity, and when you get to "who made God, then?", the Christian says "He's always been", and the atheist says "why can God always have been but the universe not always have been?"

Yes, I look at the world around me and stand in awe of God's handiwork (especially in this state...), but just saying that "it is, therefore He is" is a leap that we should probably stop putting in such simplistic terms, if that makes any sense.

This whole idea of "proving God" and whether or not that's a completely worthwhile pursuit was explored briefly by John Piper in Why I Trust the Scriptures , and I think he makes a fantastic point: If I could prove one theological truth or another, whether it be 6 day creation, or the existence of God, or the Flood, or whatever, I probably wouldn't be able to do so convincingly in the time that I would have with someone to talk to them about Jesus. While I can pull out all sorts of evidence, scientific studies and primary sources from thousands of years ago, ultimately the reason I know Jesus is God is because He's saved me and given me a new heart, which should probably be  more of the focus of  our evangelistic efforts. Although for what it's worth if you're looking for a proof of God I still think it's much tighter case to start with the reliability of the New Testament and work backwards.

T

Ok, small rant incoming. For about a year now I've been enjoying and learning from the teaching of one Mark Driscoll from Seattle, but he blew it this week and I just want to vent for a second.

He spoke on Creation this week (that is, something made the universe, that thing we call God), and listed ten problems with Naturalistic Evolution (that is, the universe is a closed system, no outside force happened to make it, it just came about). Now, I believe wholeheartedly that God made everything, but as Christians in particular we need to be sure to talk about this intelligently, because while the Truth isn't stupid, we have a habit of making it sound that way.

So why am I blogging about this? I just get irritated when I see Christians forming teams on this issue. Particularly with Expelled coming out this weekend...let's not have this turn into something it doesn't need to, please.

That said, Driscoll's "Ten Incorrect Assumptions Made By Atheistic Evolutionists"

1. Nothing made everything.

2. Chaos made order.

3. No designer created something that was designed.

4. Impersonal matter created personal humanity.

5. Unintelligence created intelligence.

6. Time has wasted away missing links.

7. Evolution can be replicated through experiments.

8. The earth is eternal.

9. Everything is hopeless.

10. There is no God.

I'll give him 2, 6, and 7. Yes, this planet is awfully well put together for something that, according to those who would say it just "happened", was something of an accident. Yes, there are some gaps in the fossil record that cause some problems for those who hold to atheistic evolution. And yes, attempts to replicate evolution under experimental settings usually (but not always) end up showing that while things do change even at the DNA level to adapt to their environment, they also change back when put into a new environment.

But the rest are the types of things Christians keep saying that make me want to put my head through a window. 1, 3 and 5 are the old "where there's a watch, there must have been a watchmaker" argument", which frankly just isn't true. Those who would say Earth is here by accident don't hold that it "just happened", most can detail the process they think to be true quite well. The fact that they claim an impersonal force did the creating isn't necessarily wrong (that is to say, I think it is wrong, but not because it's logically problematic) - when a tree limb falls on a car, you don't assume a person must have done it, because "something happened, it must have been a personal force", do you? No, an impersonal tree did it. The same thing could (but did not) have happened with the universe, so stop pretending it couldn't have.

Oh, I'll give Driscoll 4 as well - the fact that we have personality, emotions, the types of things we would credit to our souls, is pretty hard to explain outside of God.


8 is simply a mistake. Atheists don't hold that the earth is eternal, rather that the universe could be. I don't really know what else to say about that, except that as an argument for God ("you silly atheists with your infinite universe, why can't you see that there's actually an infinite God?") it sounds really bad. Again, I'm not arguing against the existance of God, I'm a pastor for crying out loud, I believe in, love, worship, follow, and expect to see the God of the Bible. But these are not the reasons why.

9 and 10 kind of hint at the same thing - if atheistic evolution is true, they why does anyone do anything? This, again, is one of those things that isn't true but also isn't illogical. Christians pull this all the time - "well, if you're an atheist, you might as well roll over and die" (Driscoll actually says something very close to this). While it's true - in Christ there's actually a reason for life - the fact that atheism doesn't give as clear cut a reason for getting up in the morning (either "just because" or "to further my  genes" are the most common responses in my experience) isn't a reason to shoot it down. There's nothing intrinsic about life that means it needs to have an answer, or a creator. I think these things do exist, but the reason I think that isn't because atheism is intellectually impossible, it's much more complicated than that. Me getting married in the morning isn't intellectually impossible (I'm sure, if I emptied my bank, I could drive to Vegas and wander the streets until I find someone who I can lie to convincingly enough that they'll marry me in a drunken stupor), but the question of whether or not I will get married tomorrow is much more complicated than that.

So sorry about the long rant, but I feel strongly about this - as Christians we really could use to stop pretending like everyone who doesn't agree with us is stupid... wrong, perhaps, but not unintelligent. And shut-you-down-quickly arguments like the ones used by Driscoll this weekend don't help anyone.

T

I guess by "long time", I mean just over two weeks, which isn't really that long. Anyway.

It's been an interesting few days. Nothing horrific has happened, but it does seem like every little bit of progress that gets made is accompanied by a thousand times as much crap to wade through... a small categorical summary:

1. School - I have four classes this semester. And I have 4 papers due this week. Why the heck do they do this??!!? So unfair.

2. Music. Two interesting truths are weighing on me: 1, Expiration Date will never be anything more than something we do for fun at 3Js from time to time. 2, I don't really want to go to 3Js ever again. Haha. I love playing with the guys, and I love the songs, I've put my life into those things... but we either need some serious direction or to give it up.

3. Girls. I've said this before, but I'll say it again... I don't know any! Haha. I've never really experienced this before, but I just don't know any single girls my age. I'm not completely sure what to do about that, but then, if I'm planning on running away this fall then there's not too much point in doing anything about it.

4. Church. Wowwwwww. I found myself at work today wondering if things wouldn't have been much easier had Rex stayed. I'm just really discouraged at the moment... I'm not saying I do all that I can, I'm sure I could do more, but it sure feels like there's a huge lack of return. Not that it's all about results, but it seems to point to either me doing something wrong or... no, no I can't think of anything else that it points to actually.

And I don't know if last night was just a weird night for everyone, or if people didn't really want to be there, or...what. But it felt really odd. And I can't believe we're going to have to have *that* conversation again. I pray we don't.

There is a light that never goes out...

T

..."I'd love to get the chance to be cynical," he thinks.

Ahh the Sunday evening afterglow. And this is rather a good one. Sometimes I get back thinking "everything's awful!" and sometimes I get back thinking "everything's brilliant!" and tonight is neither and both. It's a happy medium. I'm not sure if I was able to communicate what I was trying to communicate, but I did by best and my God's grace I hope it made it to some people's hearts.

Oh, and if the talk seemed "aimed" at anyone, I promise, promise, promise, that it wasn't - I was seeing things in the text as I was studying Saturday night and thinking "dangit...why this week...this is going to look awkward..." ... but that's just how God moves sometimes, I guess.

That's the nice thing about preaching expositionally (that is, just going through the Bible chapter by chapter) - it's all set up weeks (months, in this case) ahead, so there's never any risk of me trying to get at people.

I must say, however, that between the three services today, I saw and heard about a lot of hurt. I know it's a broken planet, but as I listened to people talk about everything from problems with friends to jail time to cancer, I can't help but wish there was more I could do to help them all. I take that back. I wish there was more that could be done to help them all. I'm not saying I wish I could fix everybody's problem because I've got a messiah complex, or anything... I've been reading "This Beautiful Mess" by Rick McKinley lately, and he talks a lot about how the world curses or doesn't believe in God because of the hardships in their life, and too many Christians go on about hoping Jesus would rip through the sky soon and put an end to everything... but maybe...just maybe...both groups are a bit off, and those Christians should take their future-hoping and use it for good... that is... if eternity in Christ is figured out... then rather than waiting for it... why not give this life away in the mean time? Someone else needs it. And can have it.

T

Good service Easter Sunday. We had seventysomething people, and I hope and pray that Jesus moved in that place and changed hearts yesterday morning. I hear He did a fair bit of that among the youth group kids, for which I'm smiling.

I felt like an incompetant moron throughout the whole thing, but I'm getting used to that feeling now.

And this morning I woke up and had an enormous headache... which sadly I'm still stuck with. So I'm going to bed.

T