Why Penn State’s NCAA Penalty Hits Us So Viscerally

{RJW Note: I appreciate everyone’s patience and expressed concern over the last several months as I took a much needed writing sabbatical. There is much about which to write as my heart has refilled.}

Joshua 7 tells the story of Achan, who kept some of the treasures of Jericho in direct violation of God’s command. It is not clear how many knew of it, but his disobedience caused Israel to be defeated when it attacked a small hamlet. When confronted by Joshua and the elders, he readily confessed. His punishment was not only loss of the treasure, but to be stoned along with his sons, daughters, and all of his livestock. Finally, their bodies, the treasure and all of his possessions were burned and buried.

One man’s “little” private sin impacted an entire nation, before they even knew of it. Once they found out, he was tried and convicted, with a punishment that spread beyond his own complete ruin, to that of his entire family, and innocent livestock. Scripture does not indicate if his family knew of his theft or not, so I will not make an argument from silence.

The corporate impact of Achan’s sin was the topic of Sunday’s sermon at church. As I and many in the nation wrestled this week with the NCAA’s punishment of Penn State for the coverup of Coach Sandusky’s pedophilia, the similarities to Achan kept resonating in my spirit.

A principle in Scripture is the longer sin occurs and is hidden, the deeper and more far-reaching the consequences. Achan’s sin was discovered relatively quickly whereas Sandusky’s lasted over a decade. Yet both devastated a nation, not just the immediate victims.

Many have complained that the penalties are too harsh—they unnecessarily punish the students, alumni, players, and even the Paterno family. I feel terrible for each of these groups, especially the players, the Paternos, and also the Sandusky family. Watching JoePat’s statue come down was difficult, and I’ve never even been to Happy Valley. The scandal is devastating to one of the most sterling reputations in our nation. The sanctions rub salt and vinegar into still bleeding wounds.

A Word Most Underappreciated

Deem: /dēm/  Regard or consider in a specified way.

Redeem: /rē DĒM/  To regard anew, to redefine, to reassign value, to buy back, to recover

In the Eden of Genesis 1 and 2, we were deemed, above all else of Creation, to be very good. Our worth was defined and declared by the very God who spoke into being galaxies bathed in the light of manifold maelstroms of nuclear fusion, the very smallest atoms igniting with the holiest of fire to form the stars of unimaginable size and power. And that declared worth was of a caliber exceeding these marvels.

In the Eden of Genesis 3, a single choice dismantled to naught the declaration of the Most High. We, valued above the wonders we have yet to imagine, made ourselves antithetical to our potential. We fell in ignorant greed. We had not yet grasped the true glory of our position before we casually tossed it aside for a veneered imitation with slightly brighter paint. Our ignorance did not protect us from the consequences of our actions because we chose to ignore that of which we were cognizant—a single command, almost trivial in its burden, until it was disobeyed.

Parking Holiness

Not the sign that got me, but a typical example.

One of the complaints people level against God is the strict arbitrariness of His law—one strike and you’re punished for eternity. There is a modern day equivalent…of the stereotype.

Right outside my office window is a service drive, with several signs predicting Armageddon if you park there. I do from time to time if I simply have to run to my office and pick up or drop off something, and no more. This past Saturday afternoon, I needed to get my laptop on my way out of town for a family birthday. While in my office, nature called on the red phone, and in fear and trembling I hurried to the little chemist’s room. Sure enough, when I returned to my vehicle, the service drive was flowing with the blood of the damned, a $75 parking citation. On campus!

In my opinion, the Uni’s Parking and Transportation Services (PTS) is aptly named, if you understand “service” in the context of a farmer servicing his bull and herd. The rules are without mercy, and if you are caught, the penalty is severe. They are completely self-funded—based on citation revenue, $500 annual parking permits, plus other fees and costs recovery. Thus, it is in their best interest to fine first and laugh at appeals. Yes, I am bitter and frustrated, not the most Biblical of attitudes.

Yet, it captures the way many people view God and His holiness:  arbitrary, on a power trip, a killjoy, no mercy, delighting in the pain, suffering and frustration of basically good people. Many are embittered and frustrated, believing God can’t be a God of love if He’ll punish people all out of proportion when the smallest toe creeps the narrowest nanometer over a line even thinner and maybe in motion.

Except…

Wealth and Education

Yesterday, I gave a laundry list of issues affecting the justice of our education system as a whole. Some of them surprisingly are paradoxical. But the first one I gave was probably the most controversial, especially these days. I suggested that “money is the key resource that enables action in this world system. It is the most logical thing that more money should have the best opportunity for the best education, at least partly because the wealthy have the freedom of time and other resources to search out the best education for themselves or their children.”

Our culture has taken the Christian idea of charity and in many ways, perverted it. What is Biblically meant to be a duty of love toward God in voluntarily sharing one’s abundance with others has been twisted and yanked away from the giver. Now the recipient demands it on their terms and has partnered with the power of the State to enforce charity without accountability, even to the point of attempting to make those with means feel guilt for the fruits of their hard work and/or blessings.

Document

The human memory is an amazing thing. It is essentially unlimited in capacity, yet, the storing and retrieval system is exceptionally buggy, unless carefully trained and disciplined.

One of the hardest lessons I have to keep learning as an educator, and then need to pass on to my teaching assistants is to document every significant conversation with a student, especially if you are making an exception to the syllabus or other policy. Either you or the student (or both) will misremember (accidentally or deliberately) key details of what is agreed upon. As soon as possible after the conversation, I try to send to the student an email laying out the terms of the discussion and ask them to reply to it confirming their agreement to the terms…if I don’t forget because of the next ten things that intrude upon my attentions before getting back to my computer.

The Cost of Joy

In Bible Study this week, we looked at John 16: 16-24:

“Jesus went on to say, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.’”

“At this, some of his disciples said to one another, ‘What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?’ They kept asking, ‘What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.’”

“Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, ‘Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.’”

Here, and throughout Scripture, God seems to bind fast together sorrow, grief and suffering inextricably with joy. It seems to be a divine, spiritual version of “no pain, no gain.” This spiritual truth is particularly troubling for the affluent mind.

Joy is not an emotion; it is an attitude, as state of the mind and heart. It is a promised fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), just like another popular fruit of the Spirit:  patience. As most of us know, ‘it is a fearful thing to ask the living God for patience.’ That is one prayer He often joyfully answers…by giving us trials that test and stretch our patience. It is very much like a gym workout, and you know it’s working when you can ‘feel the burn.’ If that is what He does for one Spiritual fruit, it stands to reason that He will do similar for the others.

Diversity

Oh, that magical word. So much in this world is done in its name. Pursuing it and maintaining it is nearly a religion to many in this country, on our campuses. It is a key to winning favor among the elite of our culture. Yet many in the Body of Christ shudder at its utterance.

They needn’t.

Many Christians look askance at the word because of its political associations. Here’s the secret—diversity is in the marrow of the Church. As it happens, ironically, that is exactly why it is such a powerful word in our culture.

Wait a minute, you say. Sunday morning is the most segregated time in our country. Christians are so intolerant of others, so narrow-minded.

Steve and Gordon: Two Models of Innovation and Influence

Yesterday, I wrote about how serving the Lord can lead to transformation, innovation and leadership. Today I came across two examples of innovation and transformation with very different impacts:  Steve Jobs and Gordon Ramsey.

The web is filled with the news and commentary about Steve Jobs’ passing. It was a little shocking to me to hear how soon after stepping down it happened. Pretty much everyone is singing his praises about how he transformed the world electronically. It’s a no-brainer that he influenced the world in a major way. There are several points to note about that impact.

Going the Distance

Christ’s Great Commission is to “Go into the world, making disciples of all nations…” Many Christians rightly take this commission with all the seriousness and passion it deserves…yet not all of the discernment.

They are right to see the eternal ramifications of people’s choice about Christ. They are right to love them enough to engage them on the most important question they can ever address. The problem arises when they try for an instant conversion.

It’s like meeting a girl on the street, saying, “Hi, my name is Frank. Here’s a church. Let’s get married.” Tends to frighten the poor gal off, and rightfully so.

The Things We Can't Talk About

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

I Corinthians 13:12

Have you ever thought about how, even though we live in a free country, there are many things that we just can’t talk about?

I’m not just talking about “religion and politics” or politically correct speech, though those are certainly a large part of it. There are many things that we cannot or should not reveal about ourselves or discuss with others.

Some health ailments, we are taught, have taboos associated with them, so don’t discuss them, even if you are concerned about the health of someone who obviously has one. Are you considering looking for a new job? Better keep quiet or be very careful. Family history should be “kept in the family.” Trade secrets are just that, secret. And so on.

HWJV: How Would Jesus Vote?

At grave risk of breaking my rule to be apartisan in this blog, I feel compelled to comment on the issue of Christians in politics.

Growing up in Texas, at least post-Reagan, it has been commonly viewed among evangelicals here that you can’t be a Christian and Democrat or a Christian and politically liberal. I had a roommate in grad school who grew up in Pennsylvania believing you couldn’t be a Christian and a Republican. Obviously, what we have here is the heart of Christian unity.

The Loser Celebrates

The Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt van Rijn, circa 1668,The Hermitage Muesum, St. Petersburg Russia, hermitagemuseum.org

I have spent several recent posts discussing the justice and judgment aspects of God’s personality because they are there and all too real. But if it ended there, we miss the climax to the story. God IS just, and His moral character leaves no room for our selfishness. However, for some bizarre reason, He still loves us with a reckless, crazy abandon and therefore He is unable to just leave us to our fate, but pursues and searches for us, wooing us back to Himself. And when we have reconciliation, God celebrates.

The Many and the Few

The Bible is a wonderful book that contains many inspiring, beautiful and uplifting things. It also contains some very difficult statements and passages. If we are going to take the former, then we must take the latter. The Book is meant for us. As Paul states in his second letter to Timothy, “all Scripture is breathed by God and useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.”

Therefore, we are required to deal with passages such as Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

To Put It Simply

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:

The Greatest Mystery

There are many mysteries in this world. Some are silly, like how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop? Some are contentious, such as the creation/evolution debate—how did we get here? Some are more profound, such as does the soul exist and if so, where in the body and how?

To me, the greatest mystery of all is God’s Love. Why does He love us?! Seriously, you look around at all of the crap in this world, all of the ‘bad people,’ all of the evil actions, and my favorite, all of the profoundly stupid things we do, and there are times we are merely a pathetic colony of parasites on an otherwise interesting mudball in space.

Russia and the Resurrection

{My apologies--somehow the URL of the embedded link self-modified. It is corrected.}

During college, I had to have 3 semesters of either, French, German or Russian. I didn’t want to learn French, everyone else was taking German, so I took Russian and loved it. During the summer of 1991, I got to spend two months there for a Study Abroad program. It was an amazing experience. It was also a traumatic time for the then USSR. Later that year, Leningrad would revert to St. Petersburg and 5 days after I returned home, President Gorbachev was kidnapped in a coup that led to the rise of Boris Yeltsin, whom I nearly got to see mere weeks before.

I also took the opportunity to make it a personal missions trip, and took a lot of Russian New Testaments with me. As ‘coincidence’ would have it, my first day in Akademgorodok (the university town in Siberia where we studied) I met a Russian guide who was a Christian, and she told me of the imminent arrival of a group of Navigators to town. It turned out that one was the roommate of a friend from Austin! So in my free time, I worked with them.

I was open about my faith, but was never an in-your-face type, so all of the Americans in my study abroad group knew of it. (I think they all found out on the flight from Moscow to Akademgorodok. The Russian lady sitting next to me and I had a conversation about faith during most of the four hour flight. I found out later that I was talking louder than I thought in order to compete with the Aeroflot engine noise, and so it turns out I was sharing the Gospel with half of the plane. Oh shucks.)

One of my group, who nicknamed himself Sasha, and I had one of those late night conversations about faith and Christianity well into our time there. I don’t remember much of the conversation, except the end. We had been talking for hours, and he finally asked me, “But Robb, how do you KNOW it is true?” All of a sudden, my mind went blank. I had no answer. I began to pray desperately, reminding God of His promise in the Gospels that we should not worry ahead of time what to say for in that hour we would be given the words. I was informing Him that this was the hour, and I needed the words, so please deliver! Nothing. Our conversation ended, and I crashed in bed. The next morning was full of classes, so as soon as lunch was over, I rushed to my room and dropped to my knees.

The best way to describe the state of my mind at that time is that it was filled with static, like TV snow (which I’m afraid that only people over 25 will understand). All of a sudden, and it was very sudden, and very literally, clear text appeared across the snow, “Robb, the Resurrection.” At that instant, in a fraction of a second, all of the evidence for the historicity of the Resurrection of Christ flashed through my head like a dam unleashed.

Later that day, I saw Sasha walking with one of the Navigators, talking. A couple of hours later, I found the Navigator and asked about the conversation, and he replied matter of factly that he explained the Resurrection to Sasha. To my knowledge, Sasha never came to Christ, but it was a watershed moment for me. I have never forgotten it to this day, even going so far once as to quip that Christianity is the only faith built on an empty foundation—the empty tomb.

What is interesting about the setting of this story is that the Russian word for Sunday is “Resurrection Day.” (Voskrasenye) Even during the Soviet era, their calendars weekly proclaimed the Resurrection. The ironic rest of the story is that it wasn’t always called that. I’m not sure when the change was made, but the previous name for Sunday was, literally, “Do-Nothing Day.” (Nedyelnik) This legacy survives today in the name of Monday, which is, “Day After the Do-Nothing Day” or “Ponedyelnik.” What is the do-nothing day? The (Christian) Sabbath. But, to make sure people ‘got it,’ someone made the connection unmistakable by changing the name.

But, other than the fact that this happened 20 years ago this summer, why bring it up? Aside from the fact that it is Lent and we are two weeks from Good Friday, so what? I encourage all of you to find out about a man named Gary Habermas. He is probably the foremost scholar in the world on the Resurrection. He maintains, and my story testifies, that the Resurrection is THE central point of Christianity.

Wherever it is preached, the most fundamental expression of the Gospel comes from Romans 10:9. To wit, 1) Believe Jesus is Deity, 2) that He died, and 3) rose from the dead, and you will be redeemed from sin and death to eternal life.

Dr. Habermas makes his arguments about the historicity of the Resurrection using the data and interpretations ceded, accepted and even proposed by skeptic historians! He shows that what they see and accept from the historical record makes for a stronger case than even what most Christians use in their apologetics!

Using what is nearly unanimously accepted by the consensus of New Testament scholars (and many are far from evangelical and even antagonistic to the faith), he shows that the ‘legend’ of Christ’s resurrection can confidently be dated to FIVE years after it happened, and that Paul himself had the road to Damascus experience around TWO years after the Resurrection, and that some have argued that the first ‘creed’ of the new church dates from about SIX MONTHS after the Resurrection.

So what? One of the main skeptical arguments against the validity of the faith is that Jesus’ miracles and Resurrection are legends that sprang up over the centuries and can’t be believed in. Legends of that magnitude and importance simply don’t spring up in six months, especially when you consider the hostile opposition that would have been happy to disprove it by producing the Body from the tomb. (Yes, there are objections to this line of thinking, but there are solid answers to these—go to Habermas’ site, linked above.)

Prominent skeptical scholars have conceded that the textual evidence in Scripture shows that Paul (and Luke for that matter) were extraordinary historians for their era—they demanded standards of proof and evidence for their message that are comparable to today’s scholarly standards. Furthermore, the rigor of the evidence exceeds that of any other contemporary facts of that time period by orders of magnitude.

I thought about waiting until Holy Week to share this with you, but I wanted to give you the opportunity and time to read up on the topic for yourselves, so that if you are seeking, perhaps you will find this Easter to be your first in the faith, and if you are a believer, you can learn more about the Resurrection in time to share with those who ask you for how you KNOW your faith is true during this season.

There are many things in this world where God seems to have left ambiguity regarding Himself and His Hand in this world. This is one area where He has left nothing to chance, providing internal, external and logical evidence plastered across the historical landscape. He has left it so the only option for an informed person to not accept the truth of the Gospel is an act of the will. He wants to be found. He wants us to find redemption.

He paid too high of a price to let it be misunderstood.

SDG

Supporting Those Who Assist Us

On each of our campuses are many who have as their full-time vocation meeting with students to either share the Gospel with them or strengthen them in their faith. Many of us benefitted as students from such campus ministers and parachurch staffers.

They minister to our students in ways we wish to, but often can’t, because of our position, just as there are things we can do to minister to students in ways they can’t. Whether we know them individually or not, they partner with us in glorifying God on campus.

I would like to encourage my colleagues at campuses around the globe to get to know one or more of these co-labourers in the work of the Gospel, and to even support them financially. The economy has hit them hard as their supporters lose jobs and otherwise tighten their wallets.

If you are in a position where you do not feel safe identifying with Christ, this is a safe way to have that influence on campus, and it is a tremendous encouragement to these ministers when faculty actively support them.

It’s just a few dollars to you, but for them it is a meal, rent, and a huge encouragement.

SDG

Worth

I want to thank one of my best friends, Greg Grooms, of Hill House Austin for tonight’s study on John 7:37-39, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

The ‘feast’ is the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, which remembers the 40 years wandering in the wilderness. One of the daily rituals during the feast is the priest would take a golden pitcher from the temple, lead a procession to the Pool of Siloam, fill it with water and proceed back to the temple where he would pour it over the altar. This ritual remembered the event in Exodus 17 where the people called out for water, so God had Moses strike a rock and water came forth. After watching this ritual commemoration, Jesus stands up in the assembly, calling out that HE is the source of living water. It is a claim of divinity, because in Exodus 17, God’s presence is hovering over the rock when Moses strikes it. Paul even declares that the Exodus rock was in fact Christ Himself. (I Cor 10:1-4)

There are several questions that arise from the passage, that echo the question of the woman by the well in John 4, “What must I do to get this living water?” From Jesus’ words, we see that 1) we must realize our thirst and 2) drink.

Our thirst is for relief from our fallen existence, relief from the attitude that we must do all things from our own strength, and relief from our false sense of sovereignty and the burdens it puts on us—we can’t be perfect on our own, we aren’t the rightful sovereign of our destiny, we aren’t, in short, God. The first step is to realize how trying to be our own God has dried us up and we thirst.

But how do we know if we’ve drunk from Him? He says that whoever believes in Him has drunk. But what does that look like? How do we know if our belief is real and sufficient? We have the rivers of living water coming from our hearts. That really helps. We don’t see too many people spewing from their chests like mobile fire hydrants. John goes on to explain that the Holy Spirit in our hearts is the living water. But does that really get us farther in our understanding? It all sounds like spiritual mumbo jumbo talk.

It is in times like these that knowing much of Scripture helps because it cross-references itself all the time through both direct reference and through allusion. The more familiar you are with the full text, the more of the allusions come clear and a framework appears that helps us see how the Bible answers and explains itself.

Galatians 5:22 describes the fruits of the Spirit, or the natural outworkings of the Spirit in our lives:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In I Corinthians 3:9-15, it says, “For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”

From these and other passages, we glean that our daily lives, our moment by moment activities, as long as they aren’t sin, God will use to conform both us and the world as a whole to His image and to His glory. There is no secular/sacred divide, that our faithfulness in our daily work, helping the world turn, is a demonstration of living water. What we build with our lives is really built in partnership with God, His Spirit giving life and permanence and significance to what we do. In short, He imbues our lives and the fruits of our lives with worth. Whether we share the Gospel with 10 people or clean the toilets, it has lasting value. That takes a lot of pressure off, that we should be ‘doing more,’ doing ‘different,’ ‘doing significant.’

In short, how we live testifies to God’s presence and work in our lives. As St Francis says in what has become, in effect, my life’s motto, “Always share your faith. If necessary, use words.” Paul says as much in I Corinthians 3:1-3, “Are we like others, who need to bring you letters of recommendation, or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not! The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.”

This should be a source of comfort to us in academia, where we minister in the name of Christ through our teaching, research, and service. If we are given the chance to speak or even proclaim His Name as the underscore of our efforts, all the better. But even when we don’t or our courage fails us, He redeems, magnifies and glorifies, because His Spirit is life and the fruits of that Spirit are living. As C. S. Lewis says in the Narnia saga, a thing must act in accordance with its nature.

But, as you read this, you may ask in your heart, as I did, “but I know so many who are far from Christ who are more effective, loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, disciplined, talented, etc, than I am. How can my meager acts be greater than theirs?”

Scripture says that apart from Christ, we can do nothing, and that our most righteous, our highest and most noble deeds are like filthy rags (the connotation is literally, ‘used feminine products,’ seriously!). We are created in His image, so among our traits are the ability to create and do great works, for that is our nature. But, our nature is also fallen, so it does not rest on the solid foundation of Christ, and anything built on a poor foundation cannot stand for long and will fall eventually. It is only the work of those redeemed that is built on an eternal foundation and so stands the earthquakes and tsunamis of eternity. {This is NOT a reflection on the spiritual condition of Japan or any country. It is an analogy effective because of the timeliness of current events, meant to help realize that our best efforts fail because there are greater forces than us. Believing otherwise is hubris.}

Keep in mind that as hard as it is for our modern, materialistic minds to grasp, there is a whole realm of the spirit concurrent and concentric with our daily visible world. They are tied together and interact intimately. So when one talks about spiritual truths, they are just as real and significant as worldly truths, and will reflect in the world to greater or lesser extents. Just as we are currently seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6), somehow, a redeemed soul mopping a floor has more lasting impact on eternity than a non-redeemed king building a great monument or leading an army to a great victory.

It is a mystery. Yet it is also true.

Have you drunk of the living water?

Drink deep, and let the river flow out of you. Cast anxiety upon the current, that peace may flood your spirit.

In Christ, the mundane duties, faithfully performed, have an impact for hope and change far out of proportion to their appearance.

For drinking redeems mere effort into lasting, incomparable worth.

SDG

Left Behind

The “Left Behind” series and the like came to mind this evening. Regardless of your take on their literary quality or theology, they proved to be masterly impactful on not just the church but our society as a whole. I truly believed God worked through them to draw people to Himself. But that’s not what I want to write about.

The thought that has buzzed through my brain this evening is that should the pre-millennial, pre-tribulation rapture view of end times be correct (and that is the direction my theology leans), what will be the impact of my sudden absence?

One might think the same thing about any sudden/accidental death that might remove me from the scene, sure, but I’m being specific here—should millions of people suddenly ‘vanish’ and I were one of them, what would be the response of my colleagues? My students? Others in my community?

Would they be surprised that I was one of those ‘religious’ people? More importantly, as they sifted through all of the competing theories on the cause of the disappearances that would be flooding the news, would their understanding of who I am help draw them to the correct conclusion? Is my life such that my sudden absence would not merely be a significant inconvenience to my department as they cover my classes, not merely possibly sadden a few, but point clearly to the truth of the Gospels and Scripture because I, myself, am one of the missing?

SDG