Alternative Culture: A Grief Observed review

[The following post is dedicated to my friends Lisabelle and Rachel, who has helped me out so much in my Christian teaching journey in 2016.]

 "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid."
-- C S Lewis

Some of the most well-meaning works on grief and loss are not honest enough. Most would try to snap the person out of their state by encouraging positive thinking or distracting oneself. Few books would try to deal with the problem emotionally.

C S Lewis wrote in a time of great personal loss. Using a pseudonym (as he did not want people to buy his books based on his reputation), he immediately confessed his feeling of fear, when he was not afraid. He offered few answers about the overcoming grief, yet affirms such feelings of anger and loss.

In a world where we offer mechanical solutions to every problem we encounter, we forget to take a breath, and reflect on our honest feelings during times of strife, confusion and pain. This is a book you want if you do not like sugar-coasted answers.

My confessions: My reflection on the 500th year of Reformation

Martin Luther was often credited to be the father of the Reformation

Mention the Reformation, and many of my friends look at me with ignorant faces. Some think it is a historical thing, while others restrict it to a Caucasian event. In fact, when my friend suggested I give a talk on how the Reformation affects Singaporeans, I laughed. It should be the simplest talk ever. It doesn't.

But it should.

The world today
It is hard to argue for the importance of the Reformation in this day and age. After all, the Reformation led to a period of religious wars in Europe, and religious disputes are often seen as dangerous, racist and uncharitable. We value peace and stability over truth and accuracy. Even my youth pastor once mentioned that the Reformation was over a dispute over minor matters.

Secondly as my friend puts it, "Singaporeans are a practical people".  Religion appears to have no practical effect on the lives of people other than appealing to tradition and culture. For the most of us, our knowledge of even our own religion tends to be superficial and third-hand. Even when we are interested in religion, we tend to try to find practical tips in Christian living, rather than digging deep and finding truth.

The importance of the Reformation
However, the message of the Reformation is still relevant as ever. The crux (key message) of the Reformation is about justification, or "what makes us just before God".

The Reformers argued that the purpose of life is to be justified before God, and to be counted as righteous. This runs contrary to our secular way of where we seek acceptance through our work, achievements or connections. And secular demands places a lot of pride in our work (and ignores God) and much stress on our health.

What should we do?
Instead of remembering the Reformation as some trivial history, I encourage everyone to dig down deep. Remember what Christ did for us, instead of assuming that we earned our way.

With Due Respect: Miracles happen in other religions too!

Too often I have heard many a friend state that presence of miracles to prove their belief system is true. For instance, they would pray for a friend or a family member to be healed, and he/she is healed supernaturally. This proves that their point of view is correct, right?

Christianity does not discount the possibility of the supernatural in other faiths
As a Christian, I recognise the possibility of miracles. In the Apostle's Creed, I confess the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus.

Therefore, I also do recognise the possibility of the supernatural activities. My point is whether any of such miracles deny the reality of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

In other words, miracles of other belief systems by themselves do not lessen the case for Christianity.

The point of Christianity is not too simply perform miracles
One of the evidence of Christianity is the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus.

However, many would claim this point to be able to heal supernaturally or pray in tongues. If that was all we preached, we completely missed the love of God.

The point of Jesus's sacrifice was that he loved us so much, he died for our sins so that we can be reconciled with God. And if we missed that, we will be so much poorer.

Alternative culture: I'm a committed atheist, but my child has become religious – and I'm proud of her for challenging my indoctrination

Recently, I saw an interesting article in the Independent. An atheist write on how she is proud to send her daughter to a Christian school. In fact, both her and her husband did not object to their daughter's conversion to Christianity.

I found it impressive that the couple recognised that belief and non-belief was a matter of choice, and allow their daughter to choose according to her conscience.

Being open-minded
What I admire about this couple is the willingness to accept that their daughter may have a different viewpoint from them, and allowed her to follow through.

My Confession: Poor prayer life

Dear God,

I have a confession -- when I am busy, my prayer life would be the first to go. Then my Bible reading. Then me even thinking of you.

I don't want to live my life as if You do not exist.

Don't leave me this way, Father.

Alternative Culture: Youth Shunning religion in Singapore

Singapore's leading newspaper, The Straits Times recently published an article about the drop of number of religious believers.

In this post, I will not be questioning the validity of the findings, nor will I be criticising the purpose of such an article.

I simply want to what the article (if true) means in terms of theology.

Religion on the decline

The article claims that that the trend is due to an increasing number of people being brought up in nominally-religious families. This is expected -- if God becomes less important in our daily lives, worship would cease.

According to the article,

"Academics and religious leaders The Straits Times spoke to said the trend of non-religious affiliation is in tandem with an increasingly educated populace, some of whom might move away from religion if it does not connect with their lives and needs."

This is especially true for those in the nominal Protestants, where our sense of tradition is less pronounced than our Muslim and Buddhist friends.

Moral without God

According to a Mr Seah in the article,

"I don't think I need divine guidance to make a right or wrong decision. Reason alone can guide such decision- making"

And if Christianity is simply about making people moral, then Mr Seah is correct. One can carry out moral actions without believing in anything.

What I would argue is that it is hard to have a source of morality without religion. Mr Seah's world view may sound ideal, but it fails to answer the question of whose reasoning should reign supreme. As we all know, everyone reasons differently.

Conclusion
Christianity is more than just moral teaching or tradition. Other religions, and atheism can provide that. Christianity is about knowing the identity of God and loving him.

And I wished more people knew that.

With Due Respect: What about the Inquisition?

[Editor's note: The author and editor of this post does not support violence. He is merely highlighting the events leading up to the Inquisition, and what it intended to do.]

Mass execution of Harvestmen? No, they were already dead.

Say Inquisition, and immediately images of people burning at the stake instantly enters the minds of many. Some may even mouth the name "Torquemada", the most cruel of the Inquisitors. Torquemada influenced Spanish royalty to banish Jews and burn heretics

The violence of the Inquisition is sometimes raised as evidence of the violence of Christianity.

In this post, I will examine Inquisition in the Medieval era.

An advancement in law and order
With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, Western Europe was ruled by a various, fleeting warlords. As such, the church was seen as a continuity of government as was given authority in civil affairs (Hannam, 2009).

Due to internal conflicts, many individuals and groups were accusing each other of being a heretic, witch or practising magic. If one was from a noble family, one could abuse his reputation to get his enemies persecuted.

As a result, the church came up with a law system called the Inquisition. It was a novel attempt to create an evidence-based legal system. This prevented wanton finger-pointing. For instance, several witnesses were required to justify a testimony. Furthermore, the witness had to be independent of the involved parties.

In addition, confirmed heretics were not sentenced to death. They were given a chance to recant their false beliefs, and avoid being executed. Only repeated heresy resulted in execution by secular authorities.

But it was not perfect
As with any human system, it is not perfect, and prone to influence from politics and corruption. The Spanish Inquisition was especially violent because the desire to remove Islam and Judaism from the Spain and Portugal, the political placement of the Inquisition under royal authority and the ongoing wars.

Conclusion
The Inquisition was not intended to be mindless violent reaction to heretics. It was designed to be a lawful (and merciful) response in an age of intolerance.

Even the most violence version in Spain managed about 826 executions out of over 44,000 cases tried (Henning, 1992).

References
Hannam, J. (2009) God's Philosophers

Henning, G. (1992) The database of the Spanish Inquisition in: Monhaupt (Heinz), Simon (Dieter), ed., Vorträge zur Justizforschung. Geschichte und Theorie, 1993, Band 2, pp. 43-85

Further reading
Huffington post

Alternative culture: Anglican General Synod votes to reject report on same-sex marriage

Recently, the Church of England voted 100 to 93 to reject a report that would have allowed gay clergy to practise their sexual preferences (instead of remaining celibate) and allow the conduction of same-sex marriage.

Traditionalism or liberalism?
To the laymen, it may seem like a simple battle between the reactionaries who want to stick to traditional marriages and the radicals who want the church to be more accommodating to our homosexual friends.

However, to me, there is a greater battle than that. It is a battle of identity. Do we define ourselves by our sexuality or traditions, and reason our way from there? Or are we willing to identify ourselves as Christians and be willing to follow what Jesus said.

What did Jesus say about marriage?
“But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 
-- Mark 10: 5-9

For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

-- Matthew 15: 19

Jesus not only affirms that marriage should be between male and female (Mark 10:5-9), he also spoke against sexual immorality in Matthew 15:19, which would have included homosexuality.

Let's be clear: Being homosexual does not send someone to hell, and being heterosexual does not send someone to heaven. We can only can be with God when we believe Jesus is Lord and has taken our sins away.

Conclusion
My stand on the matter is well-represented by Sam Allberry in the video below:

Theology 1.0: What is the Lewis trilemma?

The Lewis trilemma is the apologetic defence of the divinity of Jesus, popularised by CS Lewis (the writer of Chronicles of Narnia and the Screwtape Letters) in his 1952 book Mere Christianity. 

Based on Jesus's description of himself in the New Testament, Lewis argues the following:

1) Jesus is God
This is because this is who Jesus claims he is.

2) Jesus is evil
This is because he claims to be God and gathers followers .

OR

3) Jesus is mad.
This is because he was mistaken to be God.

What Lewis was criticising was the view that Jesus was a simple moral teacher. In his words,

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

What are the rebuttals?

Christian New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright (1999) felt that Lewis oversimplified how first century Jews might have understood Jesus's words. For instance in offering the forgiveness of sins, Jesus was telling the Jews that they did not need to pay for such a service at a temple, rather than showing he was God.

Christian philosopher William Lane Craig (1994) also points out that it is possible to be deluded and yet give great moral teaching. In other words, Lewis trilemma fails to take in other possibilities.

Conclusion

While the Lewis trilemma is not perfect, it is a great primer to kick off a discussion on why we see Jesus as more than a moral teacher.

References

Craig, W.L.C. (1994). Reasonable Faith

Wright, N.T. (1999). The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering who Jesus was and is.