Questions on Christianity

It happened in the Auschwitz extermination camp in World War II.  There was an escape from the camp and as was the custom at that camp, for every escapee 10 other prisoners were selected at random and placed in a cell without food or water until they died.  On this day the tenth person chosen was a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek who began to sob because he had a wife and children in the camp.  From the assembled prisoners a Catholic priest named Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and requested the camp commander allow him to take Gajowniczek’s place.  Kolbe’s request was granted.

Gajowniczek never forgot Kolbe’s sacrifice.  Every year he went to back to Auschwitz to say thanks to the man who died in his place. In his back yard there is a plaque he made himself to honor Kolbe. [1]

I have heard a lot of criticism of the Christian churches over my years.  Some of my  friends have given up on churches and no longer attend.  God knows there is much the church needs to change and improve upon but in spite of all their failures, I still think it is important for me that once or twice a week I meet with other Christians to thank the one who took upon himself my sin and gave me eternal life.  To remember again the one who:

“. . .was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”  (Isaiah 53:5 ESV)

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[1]   Max Lucado.  Six Hours One Friday.  Nashville, TN:  Thomas Nelson, 2004, pp. 45-47.

In the exploration of the source of the Nile river in the late 1800’s, one explorer quoted a minor chief in central Africa named Comora as saying:  “The good people are all weak:  they are good because they are not strong enough to be bad.” [1]  At first I thought this  was in reality a justification for the chief’s evil ways but then on further thought it appeared to me to contain an element of truth.

Bad people are stronger than good people and the reason is because they must be in order to survive.  An example of this is when the explorers broke camp at the start of the day.  Their last act was to torch the grass huts they had built the previous day.  My question was:  why go to this extra work?  “The huts, of course, might have been useful for other travelers, but one left no gifts for strangers in this hostile world.” [2]  In a world where everyone is potentially your enemy, it would make sense to destroy anything that would benefit your enemy—a scorched earth policy, even if it required extra effort to do so.

Another reason bad people are stronger than good people is because we are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27 and Psalms 8:4-5).  If this is so, then it would require an effort to be unlike God.  Just think of all the money and effort that those who fail to follow God’s standards impose on the rest of the world (e.g. prevention of theft, personal protection).  What a waste!  Why do we work so hard to be unlike God?

On the other hand, there are good arguments to support the idea that bad people are weaker than good people.  Good people do not conform to this world (Romans 12:2) and it takes strength to be different from the norms of this world.  Just consider all the martyrs for the Christian faith.  Bad people simply conform to whatever the rest of the world does.  Is it because they are too weak to oppose the world in which they live?

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[1]   Alan Moorehead.  The White Nile.  New York:  Harper & Row, 1960, p.147.

[2]   Ibid., p. 30.

Lately we have heard a great deal about following “the science” but different persons seem to have different ideas of what constitutes “the science”.  So what is “the science”?

I recently was at a church at which the pastor declared that he did not like science.  This pastor enjoys much technology that science has brought him so why would he not like science?

The problem is that many do not understand what science is.  Many think science is a set of facts about the natural world.  However, the first class on science that I took in college emphasized that science is not a set of facts but is a process–a process of discovering how our physical world functions.  This process consists of developing a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis, revising the hypothesis based upon test results, and then repeating the process.  This is a never ending process.

if scientists believe science is an accumulation of facts, they close their mind to information that might challenge those facts.  The history of science teaches us the wisdom of this tenant of science because scientists once believed in all manner of ideas that we consider erroneous today and undoubtedly future generations will look at some of our current scientific “facts” as humorous.  Scientists once believed that space was filled with an ether.  Now we believe space to be a vacuum.  Scientists once believed that catastrophes had no part in shaping our earth (uniformitarianism).  Now scientists believe that meteorite impacts have caused the extinction of various species of animals at various points in time.  In the 1700s, scientist scoffed at the rural folks who told them that rocks fell from the sky and denied what we now know as meteorites existed.  Now scientists go to great lengths to find meteorites and study them.  If you read any science periodical, you will constantly find research that challenges what we know and understand.  As a recent article articles on brown dwarfs and exoplanets states: “Nature does not abide by the rules laid out by the International Astronomical Union” [1] or any other scientific organization.

While science provides us with the technology that has made vast improvements to our lives, we must recognize that science is a human endeavor and like all human endeavors, it is fallible and incomplete.  What many people call science is just our current understanding of what is known about our world.  This understanding might be valid or it might not.  Science, for the foreseeable future, will be constantly revising its beliefs as it discovers new evidence.  This is the way science works.

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[1]   Caroline Morley, “The In-Betweeners”, Sky & Telescope, March 2022, p. 39.

A woman was lamenting the death of her son in a car accident.  She asks why God did this to her.  A hospital chaplain replies that God did not have anything to do with her son’s death and the woman snapped back, “Don’t you take away the only hope that I have”. [1]  Like many who suffer devastating tragedy, she was hoping God had some significant reason for imposing so great a loss upon her.

If we stand back and objectively look at the personal tragedies we experience in our lives, we must face the fact that most are meaningless.  The author of the book of Ecclesiastes (who is identified as the Preacher, who is thought to be Solomon, and who many consider the wisest man who ever lived) provides us with a whole book full of examples.  In fact he states that all of life is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2), or as other translations put it, all of life is a vapor, is meaningless, or is pointless.

Now most commentaries conclude Ecclesiastes teaches that life not centered on God is meaningless.  They have a hard time accepting the fact that our existence is pointless.  However, look at what the Preacher says.  Whether one is centered on God or not does not change the fact that there is nothing new under the sun (1:9-10), that no one is remembered after their death (1:11), that work is meaningless because we must leave the results to someone and we do not know if they will put it to good use (2:17), that God has set eternity in our hearts yet we cannot understand what God has done in eternity (3:11), that we cannot not really know what happens to our spirit after death (3:21), that oppression exists for all regardless of their beliefs (4:1-3), that wisdom is difficult to obtain (7:23-24), that “. . .The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned. . .” (9:11), that wisdom is better than strength but wisdom is not always rewarded (9:13-16), that we cannot understand the works of God (11:5}.

The Preacher states what we know to be true, if we are honest about what we have experienced and know about our life.  He gives us an accurate portrayal of the human condition.   Do we really think that 500 years from now any of us will be remembered?  Do we really think that 500 years from now the events of our lives will have a meaningful impact on that generation?  To answer that question, do you know who your ancestors were 500 years ago?  What do you know of their lives?

So what is the conclusion of the wisest man who ever lived given that our lives are meaningless?  The Preacher simply states:

The end of the matter; all has been heard.   Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.   For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.  (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 ESV)

What makes our lives meaningful is the type of person we become.  What makes our lives meaningful is if we utilize our life experiences, whatever they are, to become more like God.  The events of our lives are fleeting moments in eternity but what will live forever is our soul.  And we determine what our soul will be like by the decisions we make, by our deeds, by whether we keep God’s commandments during the seemingly meaningless events of our lives.

So how should we respond to people who are experiencing deep and painful suffering such as the woman who lost her son?  In such a situation our first response is to provide comfort and trying to correct someone’s theology at such a time is not appropriate.  Even though God is not responsible for all that occurs on our earth (we do have free will), in times like these we need the faith that Paul expresses in Romans 8:28:  “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”  Even the seemingly meaningless and sorrowful events of our lives will work together for our good if we allow God to do so.

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[1] Marvin Olasky, “What Price Hope”, World Magazine, December 8, 2018, p. 42.