Culinary Apologetic

Most of us enjoy food. But did you ever stop and think how unique our food selections are? Most animals live on a rather limited palate. In fact, some animals require extremely specific food sources. If that one source disappears, the entire population starves. But not us. Not only can we eat a wide variety of foods, but we are able to combine and manipulate food items to create amazing and tasty concoctions. This is remarkable when you think about it.

Defeaters

In American culture, including the academy, there are actually very few unique objections to Christianity. It is helpful to understand six basic ones and recognize when someone is proclaiming a variation and then understand a humble but solid response.

Tim Keller, the author and pastor of Redeemer Church in New York City labels these objections as ‘defeaters.’ As academics of faith, I suggest we have a certain responsibility to be able to competently discuss these defeaters with both our students and colleagues.

Muddle Choice Test

Someone once said something to the effect that “For the believer in Christ, this world is the most of Hell they’ll ever see. For the unbeliever, this world is the most of Heaven they will ever see.”

That sounds like a pretty easy T/F question, A or B. Simple. However, to us educators, test making is an art. A ‘well-designed’ multiple choice question will have a variety of plausible answers. If you make this common mistake, you will get “A,” this other mistake will be “C,” and so on, such that only the student who really understands the material will pick the right answer. Neither guessing nor partial understanding will help. Students tend to hate this kind of question because they feel like they are being tricked, when really the instructor wants to see how well you really understand the material. On the occasion when I’ve done this technique and had the time, I would set up the key so that these partial answers would receive partial credit, and the closer you got to the right answer, the more points received. However, few take the time to go to this extra step because it does take a LOT more effort, and I only did either occasionally.

Some people perceive this is how God has stacked the deck against them.

Money Smarts

Some Bible commentators have said that Jesus talked more about money than any other topic, warning against putting money and material goods above God, that it is virtually impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, and so on. James even warns that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

In true human fashion, this has led the Body as a whole to mistrust money and not like to talk about it. I know several godly pastors who hate preaching on money, because they feel like it is always a plea for more giving or something. Thus we tend to be ignorant about money and how it works.

The education system isn’t any better. If our students are lucky, they learned how to balance a checkbook, which with online banking, is becoming a lost art.

This financial ignorance is costing us, big.

When I read my Bible, I get a different picture. I see God describe money as a powerful tool, and one that must be mastered, not idolized. I see poor people who are just as slaved to the idol of money and wealth as the very rich. I see poor and rich alike content with their lot. I see wealthy patriarchs, kings, merchants and so on who desperately love God and generously give and honor God with their wealth.

How does that jive with the passages we all know (or think we know)? Very simply. Like every area of temptation/sin, God is concerned with our heart. What is our attitude towards wealth? Do we use what we have to live and serve God, or are we so far behind that we are running just to pay our bills and shunting off ministry to ‘a better day?’

I am working towards, pardon the clichés, making my money work for me, so I can work as to the Lord, and not working for my money, as a slave and servant to an idol.

Furthermore, when the opportunity presents itself, I try to help my students look at money differently, to see it as a tool to master and not be mastered by, or afraid of.

Until our governments (local, state and national) learn this lesson, we are in danger of being overwhelmed economically at the personal level. Thus, we need to be prepared to handle economic collapse. I think the first step is to examine our attitudes towards money. The second is then to get educated about money and how it works, so we can then make better decisions, the third step.

SDG

Jury of Our Peers

I have to appear at the courthouse Monday morning at 8:30 for jury duty. It’s the first time I haven’t had a legitimate excuse for not serving. So, I am somewhat interested in going through the process. I have long heard people complain when they are summoned, and have wondered why. Some of the reasons make some sense—it is an interruption of daily life for an unknown period of time, potentially unpaid time off of work with a pittance for compensation, etc. As I talked to some folks who have served, other reasons come up—a fear of reprisal by the defendant if it is a particularly nasty case and the weight of responsibility of deciding another human being's fate.

The first set is normal frustration with interruption in our lives, and not really worth a lot of comment—if the interruption isn’t jury duty, it might be a busted pipe, broken car, illness, etc.

The second set is more weighty. There are some truly evil folks in this world, and most to some degree resent being caught and may seek retribution on the jury. Fortunately, this seems to be a rare occurrence, happening more on TV and in the movies than in real life.

But what of the last reason—we are charged with the responsibility of deciding whether a human being is guilty. Sometimes, it seems, it can be based less on facts than the quality of the courtroom performance by the attorneys, which adds another whole dimension to it. We are given the authority to decide someone’s guilt or innocence, and if guilty, how to punish them. The defendant isn’t the only life we impact. There is the impact on the victim(s) of the crime. If we decide wrong, how will their lives be affected?

As a faculty member, I am somewhat used to judging the performance of others, my students, and some of those decisions do have lasting impact in their lives—if this student fails my class and doesn’t get into med school, whose lives may be affected for better or worse by that person not becoming a doctor? We can’t let ourselves get wrapped up in that or we’ll lose our effectiveness.

Yet the issue remains—we are called as citizens to judge but Christ says not to judge because the standards by which we judge others are the ones used for us. Even David, when he sinned in conducting the census, pleaded for God to judge him and not man, because of God’s mercy and true knowledge of justice.  It IS a weighty matter to be a decider of fate that we should treat somberly. At the same time, God put us on the Earth to be stewards—to rule with justice and mercy, so there is a place for it biblically. But let us judge appropriately—at the right times, with the right humility, and for the right reasons, and in a right fear of the God to whom we are accountable for even our idle words.

Thank you, Jesus for the grace you bought us on the cross, that frees us from the paralysis of our own condemnation, and give us the wisdom to decide rightly.

SDG