Western Civ To Go

Posted By admin on December 31, 2011

by Teri Ong

Once upon a time there was a little hen who wanted some bread. She knew she had some wheat in a corner of the chicken coop, but she needed to prepare a place to plant it.

She asked all of her barnyard friends, “Who will help me prepare a garden to plant some wheat so we can bake some bread to share?”

“Not I,” said Turkey-Lurkey, “I am in college finishing my degree in turkey studies.”

“Not I,” said Piggy-Wiggy, “I have 20 weeks of my 99 weeks of unemployment insurance left.”

“Not I,” said Daisy Cow, “I was in a milking machine accident and I’m disabled. If I help you, I might lose my benefits.”

Rovere the dog just looked at her blankly. “No speakay pah la chicken.”

“I don’t think he has his green card anyway,” added Piggy-Wiggy.

So the little hen got her tools, turned over the field, and raked it smooth to receive the wheat.

“The field is ready now. Who will help me plant the seed?” she asked.

“Not I,” said Turkey-Lurkey. “It’s finals week. You wouldn’t want me to flunk out in turkey studies, would you?”

“Not I,” said Piggy-Wiggy. “I have 19 weeks of unemployment insurance left.”

“Not I,” said Daisy Cow. “You wouldn’t want me to lose my benefits, would you?”

Rovere went and hid under the porch.

So the little hen went and planted the wheat in her field.

“The wheat is up. Now we need to hoe and weed and water so we will have a good crop for making bread. Who will help me now?”

“Not I,” said Turkey-Lurkey. Pretty soon I’ll have a degree in turkey studies. You wouldn’t want me to waste my education on such menial jobs as those, would you?”

“Not I,” said Piggy-Wiggy. “I still have 17 weeks of unemployment insurance left.”

“Not I,” said Daisy Cow. “But I’ll have my personal injury lawyer look into any loopholes I might have so I could possibly help you a little. I might work for you if you would just pay me in cash.”

Rovere was sleeping under the porch.

So all summer the little hen tended her field by herself.

When the wheat was ready to harvest, the little hen realized the job was enormous. She needed a lot of help to make the best use of the bounty of the crop. She hated to think of the beautiful wheat that would go to waste in the field if she wasn’t able to get it harvested.

“Who will help me now? A good, full bread basket is within our reach if we all get to work,” she said.

“Not I,” said Turkey-Lurkey. “I need a job that pays top dollar so I can pay off the interest on my student loans. Somebody ought to be willing to give me a high-paying desk job with excellent benefits since I have my degree in turkey studies.”

“Not I,” said Piggy-Wiggy. “I still have two more weeks of unemployment insurance.”

“Not I,” said Daisy Cow. “My lawyer said it wouldn’t be worth it.”

“Hey! Where’s Rovere?” the hen asked.

“He went to work on the neighbor’s farm. He has free housing there,” said Piggy-Wiggy. “Besides, our farmer found out he was a stray and didn’t belong here.”

So the little hen gathered as much of the wheat as she could and threshed out the grain. She ground the wheat and made as much bread dough as she could. She worked all day and all night for weeks. Every morning the glorious aroma of fresh baked bread filled the air.

“Aren’t you going to offer me some of the bread?” asked Turkey-Lurkey. “I haven’t found a job yet, and I’m under a lot of pressure to start paying my student loans. I could really use some bread.”

“I offered you a job, but you weren’t interested,” said the hen.

“Did you really expect me to take a blue collar job when I have a degree in turkey studies?”

“Hey, I’ve only got one more week of unemployment insurance left. Aren’t you going to

offer me some of the bread? I’m the deserving poor. I’ve been looking for a job a few hours a week for ninety-eight weeks. Now I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome from filling out so many forms and applications, but my disability pay hasn’t come through yet,” said Piggy-Wiggy.

“I offered you a job several times, but you never took me up on the offer. In fact, we could all have had even more bread if you had helped me.”

“You didn’t really expect me to take a hard, hot job laboring in the fields or in food service that you had offered to Rovere, did you?”

“Are you going to give me some of the bread?” asked Daisy Cow. “You already know my story. You owe it to me to give me your bread out of compassion for me.”

“You’re right. I have more than I need. I have given 10% to my church to distribute to those truly disabled and desperate. And I also sold some of my surplus below my actual cost to the local food bank for distribution to the poor. But it would be good to use the bread before it gets stale. Here, I’ll give you each a loaf. If you want more, I will have it for sale at the market. I do need the money to replenish my seed before next year or we’ll have no bread at all.”

Just then, a man from the IRS showed up at the farm. He had been alerted to the commercial activity by the smell of the bread.

“Ma’am, just how many loaves did you produce?”

“I think about a hundred loaves.”

“I’ll just be taking fifty of them, please. That’ll be 35 for the government and 15 for social security. And by the way, I’d better take a few more for your health care plan.”

“That doesn’t leave me with very many, does it?” she said sadly.

“Oh, you’ll be fine. We’ll give a few back to you when you need health services and if you make it to retirement, we’ll give a few more back to you. Well, probably we’ll give you some– that is, if someone else has done any baking at that time. We’ll give you a few of the loaves we take from him.”

The rest of the animals gathered around to see what was going on. When they saw that the hen had about 20 loaves left, they began to cry out to the man from the government, who seemed to have plenty.

“What are you going to do with all those loaves you took? Are you going to give them to us? She’s greedy! She wouldn’t give them to us, but we need them. We deserve them!”

“We’ll see what we can do for you,” said the man from the government.

“Oh, goody!” the animals said. “Look! She still has twenty loaves left. She doesn’t need that many. She’s rich! All she needs for herself is one or two. Why don’t you take more and give them to us? They’ll just go to waste if she keeps them.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve already taken what I’m allowed to take. But I’ll go back to Washington and see what I can do for you,” said the man from the government.

Turkey-Lurkey, Piggy-Wiggy and Daisy Cow got together to discuss their situation.

“You know very well that if we had done all of the work, she would have kept all of the loaves anyway just because she’s greedy. If she wasn’t greedy, she would have given us the bread right away, without us even asking. It just goes to show you what a little wealth will do to a chicken!”

They decided to put more pressure on the little hen. They made placards and walked back and forth in front of her chicken coop.

“Down with Greedy Poultry!”

“We are the 80%” (They were counting Rovere, even though he had moved on.)

“Give us free everything!”

To make their point, they banged on pots and pails at all hours of the day. At night, they even slept in the muck they had made outside the door of her coop. They kept it up for weeks, even though the farmer tried to clear them out from time to time.

The little hen didn’t go out much after that. She kept to herself most of the time, and when her bread was gone, she vowed she would go back to eating the scattered grain and insects in the barnyard. The bread project just wasn’t worth it.

–The Beginning of the End–

This story was inspired by an editorial in the Sunday, December 4th Greeley Tribune by a local student, Julia Derk, who is attending Brandeis Univeristy (“Some of us just want positive change” page A6). She has been involved with the Occupy Boston group on the weekends. She described the “camp” as “the most organized, love-filled, radical and reasonable protest I had ever experienced in my lifetime, and I felt empowered to be a part of it.” I will quote some of her words directly.

“I go to Occupy because I am concerned. I’m concerned our government does not adequately provide for us, but rather systematically takes advantage of America in favor of corporate greed. I’m concerned the tuition bubble could pop, causing some of America’s brightest and hardest working individuals to suffer economic hardship because they chose to rack up student loans in order to get an education and leave with no jobs… I’m concerned because a shantytown of tents is more equipped to shelter homeless than our government has chosen to be…”

I will not get into the ethics of a small group abrogating the rights of others to use public spaces by taking them over for indefinite periods of time, filling them with filth and refuse, and making them well-documented havens of criminal activity. I will not get into the irony of Occupiers using the free market enterprise system they are denouncing to make money by selling “Occupy”-branded merchandise. I would like to address directly some of Derk’s propositions.

1) I am concerned that Derk and several generations of college-educated young people believe that it is the role of government to “adequately provide for us.” The God-given role of government is to reward those who do well and punish those who do evil (Romans 13:1-7). It is the role of adults to provide for themselves by the labor of their hands (Ephesians 4:28), and it is the role of heads of homes to provide for the other members of their households (I Timothy 5:8). When all else fails, it is the role of churches to help those who are not provided for by other means (Acts 6:1-3).

Let’s stop blaming “governmental corruption” and “corporate greed” for societal degradation when the accusatory finger needs to point to individual selfishness that has created an environment where it is the norm for individuals and families to neglect the needs of those closest to them. The finger also needs to be pointed at churches who are spending more on their building programs and entertainments than they are on meeting the needs of those in their local neighborhoods. It should be our good works that cause others to glorify our Father in heaven, not our superior recreational edifices (Matthew 5:16).

2) I am concerned that Derk has not been taught that there is no such thing as “the government.” “The government” is people– people who are no different than any others in our country. If we have a “corrupt government” it is because we have elected corrupt individuals to be in office. There is no more corruption at the big “government” level than there is at the local, individual level. The zeitgeist of our age is selfishness, and that spirit permeates all levels of society. What is the difference in “corporate greed” that gives its top players huge financial bonuses at the expense of others and individual greed that demands “free everything” at the expense of others? What is the Christian thing – the right thing – to do in this type of cultural environment? “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.” Ephesians 4:28

3) I am concerned that Derk does not make the rational connection between the “choice” students made to take out massive loans and their moral responsibility to pay back those loans, whether they have guaranteed jobs or not. No one forced them to make those choices, and there are cost-effective alternatives. I teach in a Christian college where no student has graduated with a debt load. We are able to educate students without “government” aid, loans, or grants in such a cost-effective way that students easily manage their tuition out of their own pockets semester by semester.

What we need is more openness and more creativity in education, rather than more bureaucracy, governmental regulation and red tape. We need to get rid of the “good-ole-boy” accreditation system and let students get what they need in a true free-market of educational ideas. Full disclosure of consumer information and unlimited competition help keep collusion and corruption down.

4) I am concerned that Derk did not learn from her Occupy experience that, yes, indeed, shantytowns are better able to help the homeless and needy because shantytowns are local individuals banding together and making the best use of local resources to meet local needs. A big federal government can never do that, and the more it tries, the worse off the citizens will be. A government that is big enough to give you everything you want, is a government that is big enough to take everything you have.

The “positive change” we need in America is for every student to take a course called “Kennedy 101.” “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country(men).” The best thing we can do to change America for the better is to see where we are being selfish in our outlook and actions, and see where we can better meet the needs of those closest to us in our families and neighborhoods. Communal good must work out from the family to families helping other families. The only top-down change that will truly work must come from God changing the hearts of each individual, turning the hearts of parents to their children, and children to their parents.

I urge you, Christians, to lead the way. Stop throwing money away on mega-church mortgages and Hollywood-style church entertainments, and get back to neighbor-to-neighbor ministry. Perhaps when it comes to seeing true societal change, we “have not” because we have been asking for prosperity to “heap on our own lusts.” James 4:1-3

Derk closed her opinion piece by quoting John Adams. “The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations…” Derk then says it is time for “round two” in terms of revolution. But if I read John Adams right, what we really needs is Reformation Two.  

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Posted By admin on December 24, 2011

by Teri Ong

This week I was approached by a man who wanted me to sign a petition promoting the legalization of marijuana. When he asked me to sign, I said in a clear voice, “I have lived in a neighborhood plagued by the problems of drug abuse too long to want to encourage more of it.”

He quickly replied, “People are going to do what they are going to do anyway. The government might as well have the tax income from it.”

I said, “That is a terrible way for our government to make money!” We could easily find ourselves with another moral conundrum similar to the one states are facing now having their health care income stream in part funded by cigarette taxes. They need the money, but is it really right to officially promote something known to be deadly?

The Wall Street Journal recently published a report that pegged the medical cost to society of each alcoholic drink at $1.90. If we do eventually get a government-run single payer health care system, the American government would have to tax every alcoholic drink $1.90 just to break even! And that doesn’t take into account the many other social costs like lost productivity and wages, property destruction, domestic violence, wrongful deaths, birth defects and learning disabilities from fetal alcohol syndrome etc., associated with alcohol abuse.

So do we really think that the costs associated with marijuana use (which will lead to a demand for stronger and more dangerous chemicals) will be less than the attendant costs of alcohol? Are we going to tax cannabis lolly pops and brownies at a rate of $2-$3 per high so the “government” can break even on this kind of drug use?

Who will develop the curb-side tests for law enforcement so they can make a Mary Jane DUI or DWAI stick in court? Will there be “open baggie” laws for use in the car? Will people who commit violent or insensible acts while under weedy influence be allowed to plead temporary insanity?

My son, who is presently in a police training program, just had a class on drug law enforcement. He was told that the marijuana that is currently used is up to ten times stronger than the marijuana that was smoked in the 1960′s and 70′s. The leaves are cut together with the flowers, which are much more potent. This gives new meaning to the term “flower children.”

In the last month, a family in our county was jailed for beating a person they accused of trying to steal the “medical marijuana” they were growing in their fields. Are we so naive as a society that we think the drug cartels will go away if we legalize drugs in some form or fashion? The violence and exploitation will simply shift to some other vice. There will always be blood money to be had at someone else’s expense. No societal good will come of continually trying to move the legal boundaries ever outward past the edges of moral decency and sensibility.

Numerous journalists who have ventured through Zuccotti Park to see the Occupy Wall Street protestors have commented on the filth, squaller, and yes, prevalent drug use. We have only begun to understand the meaning of “dependent class” if we legalize and thus encourage the consumption of a steady supply of “stone soup,” whether it is taxed or not.

Teri Ong is a minister’s wife, teacher, and long time resident of downtown Greeley.

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Posted By admin on November 30, 2011

By Teri Ong
Thanksgiving week has not been a time of deep philosophical or theological thought for me. I had more pressing domestic duties. But I have been reflecting on life with thankfulness.
Sadly, many Americans have no idea of who the Pilgrim fathers really were, and those who have some little notion only know about the suffering of their voyage and first winter in the New World. In November 2006 Steve and I and my mother made a rough ferry crossing from Holyhead, Wales to Dublin. It only lasted about two hours, and we were warm and dry (though a

little queasy) the entire time. But it gave me a new experiential appreciation for the weeks of pitching and rolling on a gray, cold, unfriendly ocean that the Pilgrims endured. It also made me feel like a real wimp. And in reality, their horrendous ocean voyage and deadly first winter were nothing. Their suffering through intense persecution, privation, and separation from their homeland and love ones began more than twenty years before the Mayflower ever set sail.
We have been reading as a family The Mayflower Pilgrims by David Beale. He has very academically and artfully portrayed the multitudinous sufferings of the English puritans and separatists that led up to their momentous decision to come to America. I highly recommend the book for being as inspirational as it is informative. The fragile little band of 102 people, 51 of whom made it through the winter, should not have survived at all. It was only through God’s special grace and providential supply that they were not all wiped out like some of the earlier groups that had tried to start a new life in America.
They remind me of the pot of pansies which are still blooming in my backyard.

My sweet friend Annie gave me a yellow flower pot containing some pretty pansy starters way back the end of March. They were obviously young plants, but they had a few blooms already. Since spring weather is so uncertain in Colorado, I decided to keep them indoors for a few weeks. The old “folk” rule here is, “Don’t plant outdoors until Mothers’ Day.”
I enjoyed the blooms, but the plants didn’t really thrive on my plant hutch on the sun porch. By the time I moved them outdoors, they were much the worse for wear. Without any expectation for their revival, I just set the pot out in the lavender bed at the foot of a cottonwood tree. There they got absolutely no special attention or TLC. They got a little water when the sprinkler system was on, but that was all. Otherwise, they were subjected to all of the extremes of heat and moisture we get in Colorado summers.
Every once in a while, I would notice the little pot and think, “I should pinch off the dead blooms,” or “I should pull out that dead plant.” But I never did, and somehow the hardy, surviving plants kept on keeping on.
We had a very hot, dry summer (not exactly pansy weather!) followed by a long, luxurious fall that was punctuated with two big snowstorms the end of October. The foot of heavy, wet snow in the first storm took out part of almost every tree in Greeley. Then the eight inch storm a week later took out some more. A month later the city crews are still picking up all the debris. Night temperatures are now routinely in the 20′s. And my Timex pansies are still ticking!
I am amazed! I pointed them out to one of my sons, and we agreed that pansies are no pansies! The picture posted here was taken on November 20^th. You can see what is left of the tree and what is left of the pansies.

Very often in my life I have felt blighted, dried, baked, drowned, chilled, and even neglected, but nothing has to destroy the beauty of God’s holiness in my life. God alone knows when His wind will pass over me and I will be gone. It is probably true, as it was for my pansies, I wouldn’t do nearly as well if I were a pampered house plant.
God, make this pansy no pansy!

Psalm 103 (stanzas 3 and 4)
Father-like He tends and spares us,
Well our feeble frame He knows;
In His hands He gently bears us,
Rescues us from all our foes.
Praise Him! Praise Him!
Widely as His mercy flows.
Frail as summer’s flower we flourish;
Blows the wind, and it is gone;
But while mortals rise and perish,
God endures unchanging on.
Praise Him! Praise Him!
Praise the high eternal One.
–Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847)

 

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Posted By admin on October 20, 2011

By Teri Ong

Yesterday I spent the best part of five hours praying with a group of serious-minded ladies who had all gathered for a day of learning to pray more effectively during difficult situations. The group was congenial and decidedly not grim, but during the time we were together there was very little, if any, idle chatter or silly giggling (even though some of the ladies were still in their teens). We didn’t play any games or do any “ice breakers.” I’ll admit we ate some good food and some of us drank a little coffee, but the kind of “good time” we had was not based on those things.

I would describe the atmosphere in our meeting as reflective and sober-minded. No one came expecting boisterous fun and games. We came expecting to meet with the Lord, and I believe we all did. We might have had more ladies in attendance if we had advertised some fun and frivolity, but then we would have had an oil-and-water gathering which would not have been conducive to the unity of Spirit that God says makes for a good prayer meeting.

I am thinking deeply about some of these issues because my husband has been working on a book about evangelism and the evangelical tendency to resort to humanistic and worldly methodologies to bolster the numbers in churches. The two of us have discussed for hours without end if particular methods are sinful or merely ill-advised, if certain accepted practices constitute fluff or poison, and at what point our appeal to the world makes us an enemy of God. There was nothing in our ladies’ prayer meeting that would appeal to the world at all, and I am as sure as I can humanly be that there was nothing in it that didn’t appeal to God.

Our day of prayer was in stark contrast to the advertisements I saw awhile ago for “Friday Night Liquid Worship” at a Baptist church in a neighboring town. Why “liquid”? The poster explained; liquids flow over and around everything, they are hard to keep in a box, and they don’t keep a defined shape. Presumably, a group of people were going to get together and (based on the depiction) participate in a rock concert and let “worship” happen to them.

There is too much of a semantic connection in my mind between “liquid worship” and the old phrase “liquid courage” for me to be comfortable with the terminology. But that objection aside, my understanding of “Biblical worship” is that it is well-defined (not amorphous or squishy); we are to bow our knees in submission to Jehovah and declare by our actions that He is worthy of all honor and praise. I cannot see how this understanding of Biblical worship can be set as equivalent to the “liquid” worship as advertised. I can, however, see how “liquid worship” would be more appealing to more people. After all, the first mention of worship in the oldest book of the Bible, Job, does not make worship sound particularly “fun.” Thoughts of a warm bubble bath or jacuzi are much more appealing than thoughts of sackcloth and ashes. And didn’t Mother always say you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar?

In my college literature class this semester, we have discussed on several occasions the prevailing zeitgeist of our age, expressed so well by that aged pop icon, Obi wan Kenobi, “reach out with your feelings.” Our society in general has been taught not to believe in the existence of any sort of objective truth. If there is no trustworthy external source of truth, this one thing we know, we have feelings. The basis of life, including any approach we might have to Christianity, is the “objective reality” of highly subjective feelings.

For some people, the ultimate goal in life is to feel “good” and to avoid feeling “bad.” For some, the goal is to feel good by having a rush of adrenaline by doing something extreme. Some seek the vicarious thrills of spectator sports, movies, and video games. Some seek the artificial thrills of various types of chemicals. Some are so jaded in their outlook on life that they are satisfied just to feel anything, even the pain of a knife on their skin.

Think about the proliferation of chemical “enhancements” in our society. There are purportedly 8000 “medical marijuana” workers in Colorado alone. These are not the users; these are just the ones who produce the plants, bake the brownies, and run the dispensaries. Think about “meth” use that is so out of control that we now have to be assaulted with hideous graphic billboards to try and discourage new users. Think about Red Bull, Rock Star, and Five-hour Energy Drink. I could make a much longer list.

Talk show host Dennis Prager once described certain types of rock and roll music as not being music at all, but as being pure energy. Maybe this is one of the reasons rock (along with caffeine) has become a popular feature in evangelical churches. If we cannot get people to come in and think rationally about their sin in the face of a holy God (which might make them feel bad), perhaps we can get them to come in to church and feel energized in an atmosphere that is somewhat more wholesome than a nightclub or a tavern.

The problem is that our feelings are often unreliable witnesses, especially as regards the objective truth of God’s created and revealed order. We very often feel good about things that are bad for us and feel bad about good things. C. S. Lewis maintained that it was our Christian duty to bring our emotions into conformity with reality. “When a witness has once been proved unreliable, turn him out of the court. It is a mere waste of time to go sneaking back to his evidence and thinking ‘After all’ and ‘He did say’. If immediate feeling has shown itself quite worthless in this matter, then let us never listen to immediate feeling again.” (1)

The Bible-believing church in the 21^st century needs to be more concerned with getting people to be quiet and contemplate the seriousness of their spiritual condition in light of eternity than in getting them to feel artificially good or energized about the wrong things. I had occasion to visit with a person who is not a Christian not long ago. This person talked almost incessantly. The gush of words may have been the result of loneliness, but I had a sense that it was to prevent me from saying much because the words I would have put in edgewise weren’t ones the person wanted to hear.

Likewise, the torrent of noise and hyped-up energy in our churches that we too often call “worship” may be having the effect of preventing people from being still and knowing God is God. There was a place in the Bible for over-stimulated, knife-to-the-skin worship; it was called Mount Carmel, but God didn’t think much of it. (I Kings 18:20-39) In the end, it didn’t do much for the prophets of Baal either. Elijah’s calm, quiet approach to God’s throne was a stark contrast, but ultimately led to repentance and true worship of Jehovah.

It’s time to calm down and rest in the Lord.

Let worldly minds this world pursue,

It has no charms for me;

I once admired its trifles too,

But grace has set me free.

Its pleasures now no longer please,

No more content afford;

Far from my heart be joys like these,

Now I have seen the Lord.

As by the light of opening day

The stars are all concealed;

So earthly pleasures fade away,

When Jesus is revealed.

Such things no more divide my choice,

I bid them all depart;

His name, and love, and gracious voice,

Have gripped my roving heart.

Now, Lord, I would be Thine alone,

And wholly live to Thee;

O grace! That thou dost love and own

A worthless worm like me!

Yes! Though of sinners I’m the worst,

I cannot doubt Thy will,

For if Thou hadst not loved me first,

I would refuse Thee still.

–John Newton (1725-1807)

Reference:

Lewis, C. S. The Collected Works of C. S. Lewis. “Religion: Reality of Substitute?” New York: Inspirational Press, 1996 ed., p. 200.

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Posted By admin on October 10, 2011

The following essay is a response to an opinion column by Bob Stewart which was published in the Greeley Tribune. The purpose of his column was to discredit a pro-creationism article that had previously been published on the “faith” page. I submitted this response, but it was not published in the newspaper. A number of other rather silly items have been published, however. But in typical mainstream media fashion, the Tribune is much more interested in generating heat than light.

 September 18

To the Greeley Tribune

by Teri Ong

In his Sept. 15 column, Bob Stewart asserts ”the theory of evolution is essential to our understanding of the biological world.” How could that be true when great strides were made in biology by men like Linnaeus (biological classification), Leeuwenhoek (bacteria), Blundell (blood transfusion), and Hooke (cell biology), a century before Darwin?

He further asserts “the Christian religion has opposed every single advance in knowledge that it viewed as a threat to its orthodoxy.” While certain “religionists” may have held the erroneous views he suggests, the Bible itself revealed the “scientific” truths Stewart cites long before modern science “discovered” them. For example:

1) “The Earth is round and not flat.” The prophet Isaiah wrote almost 3 millenia ago that from the vantage point of the heavens, the earth appeared as a circle.

2) “The Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.” While the Bible does not specifically address this, it is not scientifically inconsistent for writers to describe things as they appear. Newspapers daily give “dangerously unscientific” information about “sunset” and “sunrise.”

3) “Disease is caused by viruses, bacteria, and other natural factors rather than by sin.” The Old Testament clearly identified the health risks associated with touching dead bodies, the toxicity of bloody wastes and human excrement, the communicability of certain diseases, and the benefits of personal hygiene. Christians since the discovery of the microscope do not dispute the relationship of pathogens and disease, but that does not negate the fact that many forms of disease are brought on or spread by bad behavior. If people were entirely monogamous, refrained from substance abuse and gluttony, and obeyed Biblical hygiene laws, many diseases could be practically eradicated.

4) “Weather is a natural event and not a weapon of a god.” Jesus himself stated that the sun shines on good and bad people and rain falls on the just and the unjust.

Stewart asserts that “clinging rigidly to religious dogma stops inquiry and the advance of scientific knowledge.” For centuries, what stopped scientific inquiry was an unwholesome defense of the pagan Greek philosophers. Doctors were afraid to challenge the human anatomical descriptions of Galen, even though his work was based on the dissection of animals. And it wasn’t Christians who came up with the notion of “earth, wind, water, and fire”! On the other hand, the Apostle Paul wrote that “the things which are seen are made from things that are not seen,” giving us a basic description of atomic theory long before physics was even a science.

Stewart asserts “faith means believing something without evidence.” By this he seeks to cast doubt on the validity of religious faith. Unlike those in that shaky epistemological condition, he states “Scientists don’t have faith in an unproven theory.” However, “science” has no established laws that can get randomly from non-living elements to living, reproducing, thinking beings. There has to be a little blind faith there somewhere.

Criticizing science isn’t as dangerous as circular reasoning. Stewart says, “A theory is considered scientific truth when all reasonable people agree on it…” The problem is that many in the scientific community define “reasonable” as agreeing with them, thus excluding all disagreement by branding it “unreasonable.” This to me is the real danger to open-minded inquiry.

Scientists do not have a corner on knowing what can be known. They can only operate in the material realm. But most of what makes us most human is outside of that realm; think where we would be as a human race without ethics, aesthetics, and metaphysics, let alone theology!

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Posted By admin on August 29, 2011

by Teri Ong

I am teaching a literature course this semester entitled “Four Christian Fantasists.” It happens to be about the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and Charles Williams. There are others who would fit into this category beside these four, but these four are particularly eminent in the field. One could go so far as to say these men’s works are the measuring stick for those who have come after them.

Now there is fantasy and there is fantasy. You all know what I mean. Just as there is the “blood-and-thunder” genre and the “cloak-and-dagger” genre, Mr. Fritz Leiber coined the term “sword-and-sorcery” for the vast majority of what passes for “fantasy” nowdays. Much of it could rightfully be described as “magic-and-mayhem” or “sorcery-and-seduction” tales. But if I gave an appellation to the kind of books we are studying in my class, I would describe them as “cross-and-crown” tales, that deal righteously with themes of depravity, sacrifice, redemption and honor.

Some people resist the whole idea of imaginative literature. “It’s not true,” some object. But if we reject all made-up stories because they did not really happen, we must reject many of the parables of Jesus. Jesus frequently used “made-up” stories to reach people’s hearts with the truth.

Some people draw the line at talking animals. If we draw our line here we will need to eliminate the record of Balaam’s donkey. Ironically, the donkey spoke more truth than Balaam did.

Some may draw the line at talking objects. At least creatures have a mind and a natural ability to communicate, if only with their own kind. But talking objects! That is too far out! Then we must eliminate from the Bible the story Jotham told about the trees who wanted to appoint for themselves a king. (Judges 9) And remember Jesus said that if people did not praise him, the very stones would cry out for Him.

God has given us the creative capacity to imagine whole worlds in our minds and to bring them into existence with our words. This is as close as we can come to creating ex nihilo as God did, only we must use the mind stuff He has already given us to create our new worlds.

Just to keep our feet solidly on terra firma in the matter of literary imagination, Miles Van Pelt, has a few reminders for us in his wonderful article “Dirt, Books, and the Breath of God.” In a chapel message to some younger students, Dr. Van Pelt asked his audience to tell him the difference between a bag full of dirt that he had brought with him and a young man in the audience. The Bible tell us that we were created from dirt and when we die, we return to that dirty state. The difference is that human beings are animated by the very breath of God (Gen. 2:7) and the bag of dirt is not.

He then goes on to point out that the difference between every book ever written by humans and the Bible is that the Bible is “living and active” because it is God-breathed. Apart from the Bible, all of the books we enjoy and admire are just dirt. But they can have the same purpose as the plain old dirty dirt out in our gardens– God uses fertile soil to grow good nourishing stuff.

Across the history of literature, many of mankind’s stories are not just dirt– they are filth. As far as I know (not being much of a gardener myself), raw sewage is not a good medium for growing healthy produce. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article called “The Season of the Supernatural” about the spate of books about robots, aliens, magicians, dragons, ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires, zombies and witches. The vast majority of these would not qualify as fertile soil for God’s truth, but do illustrate the longing in the human heart to believe in something bigger and more mysterious than a mechanistic, material universe deterministically governed by DNA.

When it comes to growing good stuff, I think it is probably better to go out where things are already growing, and turn up a spade-ful of good, honest, black dirt and put it into your pots. I have always been a little suspicious about the stuff in a plastic bag that is one part sterilized dirt, three parts styrofoam, and two parts “Miracle Grow.” This last approach reminds me of C. S. Lewis’s response to people who wrote stories by asking, “What do modern children want?” or even “What do modern children need?” He wrote:

…I feel sure that the question ‘What do modern children need?’ will not lead you to a good moral. If we ask that question we are assuming too superior an attitude. It would be better to ask ‘What moral do I need?’ for I think we can be sure that what does not concern us deeply will not deeply interest our readers, whatever their age. But it is better not to ask the question at all. Let the pictures [images in your own mind] tell you their own moral. For the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life… The only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author’s mind.” (OOW, p. 33)

The “Four Christian Fantasists” we are considering this semester had deep roots and the compost of their good produce makes for rich soil indeed. I always get a good harvest from them when I put in the seed of God’s truth and sprinkle generously with living water. I pray that I in turn will make some good potting soil.

Meanwhile, thanks to Dr. Van Pelt, the next time I am in a book shop I will be tempted to ask as Mary Lennox did in The Secret Garden, “Sir, may I have a bit of earth?”

References:

Van Pelt, Miles V. “Dirt, Books, and the Breath of God,” Ministry & Leadership (Reformed Theological Seminary, Fall 2010), pp. 4-5.

Alter, Alexandra. “The Season of the Supernatural,” Wall Street Journal, Friday, May 27, 2011, pp. D1-D2.

Lewis, C. S. Of Other Worlds. “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” San Diego: Harvest Book, 1994, p. 33. 

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Posted By admin on August 28, 2011

by Teri Ong

High in the highest and craggiest of the crags of the mountains lived three brothers. There they found satisfaction doing their life’s work.

It had not always been so. Their early life had been spent in the big city. There they had wandered about the streets trying to find their calling in life. Always they had traveled with a sense that there had to be something more in life than what they had in the city.

Once in a while, one of them would get the vaguest sense that “Purpose” was near, perhaps just around the corner. “Hey, listen!” said the eldest brother. “Listen to this!” He called out his own name, and even in the noisy clamor of the city, the brothers all heard the faintest reiteration of the first brother’s name.

The three walked on a bit further. As they walked, they pondered the significance of that faint voice that came back to them.

“You try it now,” the eldest said to the second born.

Expectantly, the second born called out his own name.

Nothing!

“Try it again. Yell louder this time”

Again and again, nothing.

By this time, they had walked so far that they were in a rich suburban area. The houses were large and far apart. Beautiful grassy yards and wide streets filled their horizon.

“Try it one more time.”

Nothing.

“This is no good. I keep trying and I hear nothing. I’ll wear myself out at this rate. When we heard your name come back to us, something happened inside me. I thought, ‘This is it! We’re getting closer. Maybe we’ll soon find our purpose in life.’ But there’s no feeling like that here. Just empty trying.”

“Let’s walk back downtown,” the youngest brother said.

So the three of them walked back to where they had first heard that tiny sound that seemed to come from somewhere far away, yet stirred somewhere within them.

The main street of the big city was not in any way remarkable. It seemed narrow only because the buildings that lined it were so immense and so tall. True sky scrapers.

“One of you try it now,” the older brother said, once they had entered the deep metropolitan cavern.

The youngest brother this time yelled his name with all his might. And this time, his name came back to them, small and faint as a summer breeze, but distinct.

A deep sense of expectancy filled their hearts.

“Let me try it,” said the second born.

His name came back a little stronger still. But the brothers could not tell if the sound was really stronger or if they were just listening harder.

Then the first born cried out. There it was! His name again riding the wind that was blowing down the concrete canyon.

“I think it has to do with the heights and the wind and the cold sky high above us,” said the youngest brother.

“My heart tells me you are right. I know of a place that is higher and windier yet, where the sky is bigger and colder, and there is none of the noise of the city. Let’s go there and see what happens.”

So the three brothers left behind their dull and unsatisfying life in the big city and headed for the distant mountains. The trek was long and hard, but the brothers thought little of it since they daily became more and more excited about finding the satisfaction and purpose that they had only tasted in the big city.

The morning was just dawning bright and clear when the brothers crested the top of what could reasonably be called the last “foothill.” Ahead of them loomed the high mountains, rugged and majestic, and not a little frightening.

“This is it!” cried the first brother. He jumped from rock to rock in his joy. “Hello!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. It came back clear and strong, “Hello! Hello! Hello!” His heart nearly burst for joy. “Try it yourselves!”

“Out!” yelled the second brother.

“There!” yelled the youngest brother.

The sound was clear and glorious, rolling around the walls of the craggy canyon. “Hello, Out, There! Hello, Out, There! Hello, Out, There!”

The three brothers knew they had found their destiny in life; they had found their very life’s work. They would sleep every night in a snug cave they found in one of the canyon walls. Each morning they would get up and begin their yelling. Each day their names would roll around the canyon. Some days they BOOMED like thunder. “HELLO! OUT! THERE!” Some days they whispered on a distant breeze. “hello…out…there…”

Everyday they found new joy and energy in their special calling. Occasionally, but only rarely, they had to stay home in the cave because it was too windy or too snowy or too stormy for their names to come back to them. But on every day that was clear and bright, the three brothers gamboled about from rock to rock shouting for the very joy of living.

One day, the eldest brother got up, stretched his arms high above his head, filled his lungs with cold, crisp air and yelled. What he heard coming back on the morning wind disconcerted him a bit.

“Hello, There! Hello, There! Hello, There!”

He leapt from rock to rock across to There.

“Where is Out?”

“Out, where?”

“There!” the oldest said impatiently.

“I’m not sure where Out is, but last night in the cave, perhaps it was just before dawn, I heard another voice. It was very faint, but it had a compelling quality to it. It said ever so softly, ‘Come, Out. Come, Out.’ And since I got up this morning I have neither seen him nor heard him.”

Hello missed his brother, but had no sense of foreboding. He knew that his brother could take care of himself– wherever he was. Hello took up his life’s work in short order. Hello and There still made a fine team.

“Hello! There! Hello! There!” rang from peak to peak from very dawn until very dark, unless it was too windy or too snowy or too stormy for their names to come back to them.

Then one night, or perhaps it was just before dawn, Hello thought he heard a voice, still and small, fainter than a whisper. “Here, There. Here, There,” it seemed to say. And when Hello got up that morning, There was not there.

Hello felt a little lonely at first, but he was not desolate. There was able to take care of himself– wherever he was. Hello felt a need to get back about his work as quickly as possible.

“Hello! Hello! Hello!”

All the people who visited those high and terrible regions could hear the sound all around them. “Hello! Hello! Hello!” Hello was no shirker. He had come to the heights for a purpose, to fulfill his life’s calling. He would not give up now.

Each night he slept snugly in his old cave and each morning he stretched and filled his lungs with the cold, clear air that is unique to the high mountains. Then he would set about his daily business. “Hello! Hello! Hello!”

After many years, Hello roused himself a little one cold, clear night. What was that he heard? It was his name, but it was not his voice. Was he dreaming? No, it could not be a dream; it gave him that same feeling of expectancy and longing he had first had back in the big city, so long ago now that he had nearly forgotten it.

There it was again. Soft and still, but very deep, “Hello, my child. Hello, my child.”

He got up quickly. He felt compelled to do so. He knew somehow that this was the same Voice his brothers had heard. He knew that this was the same Voice his brothers had followed.

“Hello, my child.”

He stretched out his arms. The breath of the Voice drew him upwards, higher than high. On the strength of that breath, he was going back at last to the One who had first uttered him into existence.

“Here I am!”

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Posted By admin on August 1, 2011

by Teri Ong

I have a new favorite author at the moment– Harry Blamires. My husband appreciates his writing as well, and we have ordered a slew of wonderful books ranging from philology, grammar and literature topics to philosophy and theology, with a handful of fantastic fiction stories as well.

I was first introduced to Blamires a few years ago by a librarian and the Evangelical Library in London. The librarian asked me what I was working on. I replied, “I’m looking at Christian aesthetics, culture, worldview…”

“Oh! You’ll be reading Schaeffer and Rookemaaker and Blamires then.”

The first two I was well acquainted with, but I had not heard of Blamires. I quickly located his best known work, The Christian Mind, on the shelf and dug in. It was wonderful. I took copious notes for digestion later. Then, that summer or the next, I found a used copy of The Christian Mind at an academic conference and bought it for myself. But that was the end of my pursuit for a time.

This summer I was perusing the shelves of one of our favorite used book vendors– Books Bloom– at the Christian Home Educators of Colorado conference. There I saw a companion volume to The Christian Mind called The Secularist Heresy. I also picked up His Will and His Way. Mrs. Bloom ran over and pulled a copy of Highway to Heaven from the fiction shelf. I was hooked. “Throw it on the pile too,” I said.

In an evening I finished off His Will and His Way. Then I started in on The Secularist Heresy. It all rang true in my spirit. I didn’t start Highway to Heaven because it was book three of a trilogy. When we got home, Steve looked him up on the internet and found out a little about him. Blamires is in his 90′s and was still publishing into the early 2000′s. He taught English in U.K. universities and took early retirement in order to devote time to writing. He was a student and friend of C. S. Lewis, an influence that shows richly in his theological and fiction writing.

Like Lewis, he sought to flesh out his theological ideas through his imaginative fiction. Like Lewis, he pictures the seamlessness of the material and spiritual realms. He has the same keen mind and cogent way of expressing Biblical truth. He is also appreciated and endorsed by folks like J. I Packer, R. C. Sproul, Richard Halverson, and Clyde Kilby.

Blamires’ writing challenges my thinking at every step of the way, but at the same time affirms my faith by helping me see afresh many things I had let slip into a “taken for granted” category. But most of all, I love him because he knows me. Like Jesus with the wicked woman at the well, he tells me “all the things that I have done.”

In The Devil’s Hunting Grounds, which bears the influence of Lewis’s The Great Divorce, the main character is being interviewed by an angelic tribunal to determine his suitable employment in the blessed realm after death. The character admits, “I suddenly felt horribly useless.” He tells the angel that he was a teacher.

The angel goes on, “Ah, yes. A particularly useless qualification up here, where there is nothing that you can teach and everything for you to learn.”

“I have always continued to study, sir.”

“Of course you did. Chiefly in order to make your teaching more impressive. The learning was mere personal equipment. You didn’t really want to know: you merely wanted to be known as one who knew… What hobbies did you cultivate?”

“I wrote books, sir… I had been purposely vague, hoping that this question would not come. Indeed I cherished the expectation that my work had become known above. To be honest, this idea was a kind of compensation for my comparative failure down below, where sales were miserably small…” (P. 43-4)

OUCH! He got me!

In Cold War in Hell, the main character (the stories are told in first person) describes an artist who painted water colours “which occasionally sold to London stores, and oil paintings which never sold to anyone. Moreover, he was a musician too. He played the flute and composed. I think he gave more time to this than he did either to his writing or his painting. Nor was he content to fashion little trios for flute, violin and piano: he also wrote elaborately fully-scored cantatas to words by outlandish poets. The wide range of his talents and interests probably prevented him from achieving distinction in any one direction.” The artist Julian “had published short stories and poems. The reviewers found the former “too slight” and the latter “too indisciplined”; and I suppose they were right, for Julian was cursed with a range of talents and a diversity of interests which unfitted him for success…” (P. 30-1)

I’M EXPOSED!

In Cold War in Hell, the main character ends up in Hell quite unexpectedly. He has heard that there is a way out, but it turns out to be a bureaucratic nightmare. He doesn’t know what to put on the forms. “I could put ‘as God wills’ or something to that effect. That might do the trick. A moment later I was laughing bitterly for my stupidity and self-centeredness. What was the use of putting ‘as God wills’ when it was not a true profession of submission, but a mere device, a trick exploited in the single hope of getting myself what I desired?” (P. 118)

I’M DEAD!

In His Will and His Way, Blamires says that when we pray “Lead us not into temptation” we are asking that God will not give us stunning success or failure leading to overwhelming despair. He says that very few people can handle either extreme without falling into the sin of selfishness.

I’M NAILED!

But I know that good old-fashioned conviction is very good for the soul. I’ve been a Christian for over 50 years and I’ve been a “godly” wife of a pastor for 33 years. I easily become dulled to the extent of my sinfulness. I come away from reading Blamires with a renewed sense of my own selfishness, pride and general sinfulness. Then I remember Christ’s teaching that the ones who are forgiven little, love little, but the ones who are forgiven much, love much.

The ones who are forgiven little haven’t done less that needs forgiveness; they just have less recognition of their need. I come away from Blamires with a renewed sense of how much there is in me that needs forgiveness. I come away loving Jesus more.

THERE’S STILL HOPE FOR ME!

References:

Blamires, Harry. Cold War in Hell. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1984.

__________ The Devil’s Hunting Grounds. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1984.

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Posted By admin on July 6, 2011

by Teri Ong

I can’t believe I am finally getting to sit down and write something! It is the first time in two months. I feel like a preacher who has been out of the pulpit for enough weeks that his heart is about ready to burst for all the pent-up sermonizing. I have line after line in my journal of “blog ideas,” but have had no opportunity to bring any full-blown to the page (virtual though that page may be).

Two weeks ago we took our daughter to be a junior counselor at a Christian camp up in the foothills west of Golden. We drove home the “long way ‘round.” We were looking for a picnic spot, but it was a little chilly and damp so we wanted to get to a little lower altitude and see if we could pick up a few degrees of outdoor comfort. At one point, Steve wheeled the car around and headed back up the hill. He had seen a perfect little evergreen tree growing on top of an enormous rock. “I thought if we didn’t get a picture of it, someday we’d wish we had,” he explained.

What follows here was inspired by the tiny, perfect tree on the rock.

The essential function of a metaphor is to draw our attention to a point of comparison between two dissimilar things. The point or points of comparison help us have a fuller understanding or appreciation for one or both of the things being compared. Often we are to move in our understanding from the concrete to the abstract– from the material to the immaterial or spiritual. By God’s design, much– I would daresay most, if not all– of what we see and experience in life is metaphoric in relation to the eternal and the spiritual. (Hebrews 8:5)

For example, God created male and female to be made one in marriage. Two beings similar and compatible in some respects, yet dissimilar and incompatible in other respects, are brought together and grow in likeness and oneness. This material reality helps us understand how God and man (made in God’s image though fallen)– similar but dissimilar– can be brought together in union by the blood of Christ.

Two poetic metaphors given by God through the Scripture writers are the tree planted by the waters (Psalm 1:1-3) and the house built on a rock (Matthew 7:24-27).

When analyzing a poetic expression of any kind, especially a metaphor, the reader needs to ask, “What points of comparison exist between the poetic form or expression and the reality or truth the poet wants me to think about?” In the example of the tree by the waters, we should think about the abundant growth and fruitfulness that come when the tree sinks its roots deep in the fertile soil and plentiful moisture of the river bank. Spiritually we flourish when we draw deep sustenance from meditating on God’s Word. In the example of the house on a rock, Jesus wants us to think about and understand the solidity and unchangeableness of His Word and the resulting stability of life that comes from being “doers of the Word and not hearers only.” (James 1:22)

Too often, however, we want to mix God’s metaphors. We want to be like the tiny tree on the great big rock, depending on our own scant resources and barely clinging to life. When we could be trees planted in the courts of God, fat, full of sap, and bearing fruit in old age (Psalm 92:12-14), we instead have a false sense of our own security. “When I was secure,” David said, “I said, ‘I will not be shaken.’” (Psalm 30:6) But all God has to do is hide His face, and we will be terrified. (Psalm 30:7)

If we get the point of God’s inspired comparisons, we will know it is better to build houses on the Rock of God’s Word and grow trees by the water. We won’t try to mix the metaphors in our own wisdom.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths. Don’t consider yourself to be wise; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.” (Proverbs 3:5-7)

Photos:

The tree on the rock (the one with the rugged, independent western spirit) was taken in Colorado. The other photos were taken on our most recent trip to England. The big willow is on the Islington River Walk. The tree with the mistletoe is at Hampton Court. The trees with the interesting shapes are at Arlington House in Devon.

The following poem has no metaphoric relationship to the previous discussion. I wrote it just for fun. If it has any particular metaphysical meaning, I would say it speaks of how quickly life changes.

The Tree in the Yard

To winter I’ve waved and said good-bye,

But the tree in the yard, the signpost of spring,

Is a skeletal form against a gray sky.

So I look and I long, but no hope it gives:

It’s stiff and it’s black with the frost of death,

And I wonder aloud, “Can these dry bones live?”

Sky cries some sad tears and sun peaks from its place:

I look once, look again, and see the old tree

Immodestly dressed in electric green lace,

Then clad in green silk like a summer bride’s maid.

One moment it seems I am planted in full sun:

I blink, then I see I am parked in the shade.

Teri Ong – May 2011

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Posted By admin on April 29, 2011

What glittering dreams are born

That hold such promise bright

That stir with faint flutters

Like erratic moth flight!

Ascending and descending,

My soul to heaven is flown

Exhilarated, fearful,

Up dream’s ladder, then down.

A voice, a word, a promise

Like Abraham’s nation,

Grandiose and elusive,

Holding out once begun.

Such dreams as these, as immense

As the sands on the shore

In the darkness glow, now fade;

faded, burn all the more.

Now old, now older, now dead,

Now trust, now laugh, trudge on;

Such dreams as these will remain.

Days, years, decades gone,

Trudge through sand– sands of the sea!

Blessing of all the earth!

Sand, time flow through empty hands–

One solitary birth.

Is that all there is to be?

A single grain, no more?

Trudge on through sand and darkness;

The dream burns as before.

I have not Abraham’s faith

Nor will to be patient.

I shrink, I quail, and now rise:

The dream is insistent.

Looking, hoping, expecting,

Waiting, aging, and gone.

Dark generations pass ‘til

The grain begets the Stone.

I grasp that such dreams as these

Which in the dark are born,

Pursued through the long night

Come true only at dawn.

 

–Teri Ong, April 2011

 

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