Randy's Ruminations

The thesis of a recent article in Ladies Home Journal is that faith plays an integral role in making a marriage more likely to last and avoid divorce.

A couple quotes:

"The conviction that... 'this is a commitment we made before God, so divorce isn't an option' can give couples both emotional security and an incentive to keep their relationship strong." And " ...faith helps hold couples together by encouraging selflessness and stressing the need to give as much as one takes."

Yet, for several years George Barna and others report that divorce rates among "Christians" or "Evangelicals" is almost exactly the same as for the population as a whole - one report even said the rate was slightly higher.

What is going on? How can both be true?

Barna points us to the answer. Too many "evangelicals" have exactly the same world view and value system as non-Christians. Christian faith doesn't really determine how they live day to day.

Contrast that with some of the statements in the LHJ article.
"...belief in God was the bedrock of their lives."

"My relationship with Christ was so much a part of who I was, there was no way I could be married and not share it."

Faith is "the springboard from which we make all our choices and decisions."

"...belief that marriage itself is sacred."

Those statement reflect a mindset and world-view in which Christian faith actually makes a difference in how you see things and how you live. I have always told my kids not just to marry a Christian. Unfortunately that advice is woefully inadequate. Rather one has to qualify it and add something like "a person who truly lives the faith" or someone "who is committed to living as a disciple of Jesus."

The constant struggle for the church is to "make disciples." Believing the facts of the gospel, claiming the name Christian and going to church really doesn't mean much when it comes to living life and succeeding in God's eyes. The question is whether or not I think and live like a disciple of Christ.

There is another side to nature’s beauty. All life gets recycled. Life depends on other life forms for sustenance. The ugly side of the nature programs I referred to in the previous blog is that animals hunt, kill and eat animals.

When that kind of scene comes on the screen my twenty-something daughters still yell and hide their eyes and root for the potential victim. I admit I don’t particularly relish those scenes either.

I suppose one could argue as to whether or not the natural world had to be designed that way, but here is the practical point: We all get recycled!

My body consists of atoms, the basic building blocks of all material objects. I am a temporary assorted collection of atoms that in ages past were part of other objects and beings – maybe other people. How weird is that!

And when I die, my atoms will be recycled. (Of course, there is a huge difference between my atoms being recycled through decay after death as opposed to being devoured by a lion or bear while still alive!)

Such impermanence is our lot in this world. We are temporary. Our lives are uncertain. If I remember my freshman biology correctly all the cells in my body recycle in a seven year period. I am not the man I once was!

But I am more than my body. There is a “me” in there that transcends atoms, that can assess my body as a separate entity, that can contemplate eternity, and that can connect with God.

In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul speaks of shedding the earthly body-building-tent and taking on a heavenly “dwelling” (language that is similar to the discussion of various bodily forms in I Corinthians 15). The key line is that this will happen “so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Let that line sink in. What is mortal, temporary, recyclable and dies will be swallowed up, transcended, by life itself - real life.

“Life” is greater than mortal, material bodies. Maybe you will understand if I put it this way: “LIFE” is bigger than life. We consist of recycled atoms and our atoms will be recycled. But there is a reality/existence/dwelling where there is no death and no decay, no crying or pain (see Revelation 21).

So nature’s beauty points to the Creator of beauty and is but a dim reflection of his glory. Nature’s ugliness reminds us this world is not heaven, not our real home, not permanent and we are destined for something greater.

In 1961 Newton Minow gave his "vast wasteland" speech concerning television.

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you — and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland."

Television provides opportunities for education and recreation and even family bonding. But this vast wasteland has wasted many an hour and people wrestle with a form of TV addiction. In the past couple decades the concern transcended wasted time to a concern over truly destructive content and became a values issue.

Newton was too generous. Seldom, if ever, did it transcend all other forms of information and entertainment to where "nothing is better." Till now.

Not being "early adopters" our family has just now joined the HDTV generation. It is truly amazing. But the reason for this blog is Discovery HD Theater. At the risk of sounding like a 5 year old in a candy story, WOW.

The nature programs (Pole to Pole, Equator, the upcoming Planet Earth, etc.) are awesome, even spiritual experiences for a Christian who stands in awe of God's creation. I felt like the writer of some of the passages in the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament, particularly Job and Psalms, where God is praised and held in awe for his creation. (See Psalms 104; Job 38-39)

We spend most of our time in man's world of concrete, steel and glass. But there is something about the natural world that speaks to the soul for it is God's creation and we are inherently more part of the natural order than the world of freeways and high-rises.

Yesterday my wife and I ate lunch on the wharf at Santa Cruz watching sea lions frolic in the ocean. We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway and sat on the beach. Driving home we took Skyline Drive atop the coastal range. To the east we saw the Bay and San Jose. To the west the sun sparkled on the ocean. Nature should be enjoyed in person.

But the Discovery HD Theater actually surpasses the in-person experience in some ways. I saw scenes I will never see in person. I saw them in detail and settings that I will never experience.

In 1961 Ohio Valley College had a fund raiser where we lived. They showed Disney's 1953 film The Living Desert. Clearly it was an experience I remember all these years later. Nature has that power. What that film did for a 10 year old, nature programs in HD can do for anyone. Finally television where "nothing is better." Television as a spiritual experience - Hallelujah!

After a month off from blogging it's welcome to a New Year and some changes in the world. We have a Democratic Congress for the first time in years, the first female Speaker of the House, and, oh yes, the first congressman sworn in using the Quran. While half the population is not particularly happy with the first change, and half may be very happy with the second "new thing," it is the last one that has created a tempest.

So let's think it through. This event messes with an emotional tradition that seems like throwing out mom, baseball and apple pie - and God! It does mark a visible milestone in what has become an inevitable multi-cultural shift. One can argue for or against the multicultural shift of the American populace, but it is a fact and will only become more pronounced.

But concerning the oath on a Bible...
There is no legal issue here. It is not required to use a Bible.
Making it binding would very likely be unconstitutional - for making religion a test of public office.
Do we really want non-Christians being forced to swear an oath of allegiance on a book they don't believe?
(And how many public office holders with a Judeo-Christian heritage have made such an oath when their lives manifested no commitment to the contents of the book?)
Does not such a "cultural" use of the Bible, devoid of personal faith, do more harm than good?
There have been exceptions in the past. (John Quincy Adams used a legal book to swear to uphold the constitution.)

Buddhists, atheists and now a Muslim have been members of Congress (and I'm sure those of other persuasions as well). Can you not be a Buddhist, Muslim or atheist and be a true American? That is the real political, national question. If the answer is "yes" then what is the problem?

This is not a Christian nation nor a Christian government. There are many Christians in this nation, but we would do better to spread the word and call people to personal faith than to wail over cultural icons. Such icons give comfort. They make us remember the "good old days" - whatever that means -- and I'm not sure they were all that good anyway.

But when Christians start talking about passing laws to enforce such iconic behavior, that is the wrong response to losing the cultural battle. Get used to multiculturalism and live a Christian witness to the world that has now come to live next door to you (and perhaps represent you in the government).

And consider the Golden Rule: Would you really want to be forced to swear the oath of office on a religious text you considered false? Even Iran doesn't require that!