Theology

Social conscience begins with a look in the mirror.

“Did you read that article in Huffington Post about discrimination against minorities? That makes me so mad!”

“Can you believe it?! Mr. Jones refused to give Ashley another chance on her poor test grade! What a chauvinist!”

“I’m not going to buy Nike products anymore; they allow sweat-shops to produce their shoes!”

Teenagers seem to have a heightened sense of hypocrisy. Addressing various social constructs fuels indignation. Rich versus poor. Conservative versus liberal. One ethnicity versus another. Parent versus child. Teacher versus student. Young people are quick to identify perceived wrongs where, from their vantage-point, rights may have been violated or people were possibly marginalized.

“Social conscience”, or the desire to correct evils in the world, is a process for which students are quite adept. But what they don’t realize is that their sense of “fairness” comes because they reflect the character of their Creator. The responsibility of the Christian school is to make sure that a solid theological foundation is established for the correction of societal and personal wrongs.

Do We Expect Too Much of God?

“Why doesn’t God do something?”

“Why did He allow this to happen?”

“Maybe my atheist friends are right: if there is a good God and He allows bad things to happen, why should I believe in Him?”

Questions like these resound through high school classrooms. Human expectations of The Almighty are often improper. Teaching students to start with a biblical view of God begins the process of understanding social consciousness. The doctrines of God that follow give us guidance in establishing principles for practicing earthly justice.

1. Transcendence and Immanence Holiness is based on transcendence: God is set apart, different from His creation (Job 36:22-26). God sets the standards. Ethical codes are based upon Heaven’s Word. God never lowers His standard, but He does lower Himself. God’s immanence, care for His creatures, is demonstrated through The Written Word (Scripture) and The Living Word (Jesus), lived out through His covenant people (Philippians 2:1-11). Social consciousness begins with a Transcendent standard. Reaching out to others mirrors God’s personal custody of His world.

2. Justice and Righteousness Civil rights banners will often carry the former without the latter. Yet, there is no justice without righteousness (Deuteronomy 32:4). The words are often paired in the Old Testament (e.g. Psalm 119:121). And there can be no righteousness without the personification of The Just Judge (Psalm 11:7). The cry of “That’s not fair!” is premised upon and answered only in the person of God Himself.

3. Mercy and Truth A teacher is often a target of “grace expectations”. People like pardon. Once received, however, mercy is anticipated. Any absolute truth is forgotten. Standards are brushed aside. But the very need for mercy is built upon the result of law breaking. God declares truth and mercy is offered to humans (Romans 2:1-11). Concern for societal ills must acknowledge both.

4. Infallibility and Incomprehensibility Instead of asking “How could this happen?” students must be prompted to query “How should I respond now that this has happened?” God never fails. Human understanding of God, however, may fail (Job 33:12-30). God is infinite and humans are finite. People, therefore, do not always understand God (Job 11:7, 8) much less God’s actions in earthly affairs (Job 37:5; Isaiah 40:13-14). Social injustices result from The Fall (Romans 8:18-22). How The Creator uses human rebellion to His own ends is not something people can even grasp (note Habakkuk’s consternation when God judges Judah with the unrighteous Babylonians).

5. Temporal and Eternal Wrongs not addressed in this life will be in the next. God’s people have counted on His vengeance throughout history (Deuteronomy 32:34-43; 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10). Humans have a tendency to be shortsighted. God takes the long view. While teenagers seethe with rage over some real or perceived inequity, God records it all and nothing escapes His sight. Hoping the “bad guys get it” may not happen on earth. But the basis for ethical living is premised upon the fact that God is eternal, as is His judgment (Psalm 73).

People may expect too much of God because they don’t understand Him. High school students must be taught not to limit God but base their thinking about social consciousness upon proper theology. But the problem of perception is a double-edged sword.

Do We Expect Too Little from Ourselves?

On the one hand, people want to blame God for injustice. On the other hand, people excuse their own behavior. “That’s not my problem!” “Why are you so up tight? Everybody does it!” “So, I blew it. I’m only human!” Indeed. Humanness is a problem.

What we know about the correct treatment of humans begins with knowing God. What we know of injustice, we bring upon ourselves. High school students know this full well. Being left out or put down for various teenage reasons produces its own discrimination. Wary of our inconsistency and preparing for opportunity helps us set guidelines for students.

1. Ourselves We all have blind spots. The awful actions of others are seen more closely by stepping in front of a mirror. Prejudice, bias, and presumption are human fallibilities. The truth of Romans 2:1-11 is all too real. The old maxim “if you point a finger at others, you have a few pointing back at yourself” is correct. While we fight for the dignity of others, we face our own depravity. The command of God to treat others based on the treatment we desire for ourselves is the linchpin of social consciousness (Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:28-31).

2. Others Why do we care for others? Again, our interest is a reflection of God’s initial investment. The Christian worldview is based on a Just Judge who expects His people to act as His vice-regents on earth (Isaiah 58, 59). The response to social injustice must be paid in personal capital. While students learn about truth, they must also live truth (Romans 12:9-21).

3. Opposition While our sensibilities of justice are heightened by the nightly news, we must train students to ask, “Am I hearing both sides?” “Is there a slant in the coverage?” “Is there other information that I need to know?” Journalists and media outlets may not give us “all the news fit to print”. Every side of an issue should be fairly represented (Deuteronomy 19:15-18; Proverbs 18:17). While we rightly decry disenfranchisement of any minority we must ask, for instance, why we don’t hear about the persecution of Christians on the front pages of America’s newspapers.

4. Opportunities Involvement through editorial page, local soup kitchens, service projects, and church outreaches are imperative for Christian high school students to practice what they preach. Response to social problems must always be personal, specific, and measurable. Teachers should employ methods that help students interact with real life issues. Case studies, research, discussion, forums, and debates would help to process different perspectives while ferreting out true Truth. Looking for ways to instruct students “in the way they should go” must encourage biblical thinking that acknowledges fact, changes attitudes, and stresses participation leading to transformation (e.g., 2 Kings 23:25).

Social consciousness must be lived out. As believers in Jesus as Lord, our responsibility as “ambassadors of reconciliation” is demonstrated on the streets and in the classroom. Who God is and His influence on believers are the basis for true social change. Ministries to the poor, defenseless, homeless, prisoners, and hungry are begun by people with a mind for Jesus and a hand toward humanity (Matthew 25:34-40).

Dr. Mark Eckel taught high school and college students for over 30 years. This article was first published in Christian Education Journal, Winter, 2002.

My life is but a weaving, Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors, He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow; And I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper, While I the underside.

“Life is But a Weaving,” Corrie Ten Boom

One picture I use to explain God’s sovereignty to my classes is that of a tapestry. On the board I draw the top side, then the bottom side, inscribing “Job 1 and 2” as the text underneath. I then explain that if it were not for chapters 1 and 2 in Job, there would be no sense believing in Yahweh’s explanation of suffering. Job 1 and 2 give credence to a Heaven-centered view of pain. As a human, I am not pleased by the hurt I bear. But I can abide the gut-wrenching agonies I face if I know there is a Personal, Eternal, Triune Creator who superintends my life. God is not absent in suffering. He has not left the building. God’s supposed silence does not indicate an uncaring attitude. I can live with an earth view of the tapestry when I am assured Heaven’s view is unobstructed.

In The First Testament (Old Testament) time period, pagan peoples believed in fate. Impersonal forces mysteriously presented themselves; humans were left to deal with the psychological aftershocks. There are few cultural differences between then and now when it comes to pagan views of suffering. Neither luck, chance, accident, serendipity, nor destiny exists. Yahweh superintends, sustains, supports, and saves His creation in spite of the suffering introduced through human sin. As Job 38-42 indicate, we may ask “Why did this happen to me?” but Yahweh responds with 68 questions of His own; about His creation He asks “If you cannot understand My creation, why should you think you’ll understand The Creator?”

Job 3 is Job’s first foray into asking “Why?” In the first three parts of this series on lament, we have understood that we suffer for unidentified reasons (“blindsided”), we have good cause to cry out (“pain”), and we sometimes wonder if life is worth living (“doom”). Lament is a proper form for human response to wounds. But we cannot stay in a state of lament. Here is where we must add a dozen specific applications to the nature and character of God as well as our response to Who God Is in the midst of our laments.

1. Teach the nature, attributes, and character of God early in life. Children need to know Who Yahweh is. To this day, people ask me, “What is the most important thing I can teach?” My answer is always the same. Teach children Who God Is. [Psalm 78]

2. The best time to teach sovereignty is before humanly bad things happen. Shut up and listen. If Job’s three friends had followed this simple rule of human response to suffering, Job would have been a short book! Doctrinal teaching in the midst of pain will be rightfully met with rage from the people who ache. Attempting trite, superficial, hyped God-talk is the worst response to suffering. Building strong biblical-theological structures on the bedrock of Scripture will allow the house to stand when the earthquakes come. [Psalm 119]

3. There is no one-for-one correspondence between wrongdoings committed and pain experienced. Reason, purpose, and meaning in suffering is not ours to decide. Our views of human experience should be tempered by this knowledge: we understand little. Scripture clearly teaches evildoers do not always receive their just desserts for wrongs committed here. [Psalm 73]

4. There is no absolute correlation between doing right and rewards. The exact opposite is also true: do not assume that our goodness will be reciprocated with human-viewed good from God. We need to eschew a works-centered view of life, seeing a grace-centered viewpoint instead. We should continue to do good, discontinuing our belief that we deserve something good because of it. [Titus 3:1-8]

5. Answers to the “why” questions are not our domain. God controls the mysteries of life. There are no explanations for suffering; we should not expect any. In fact, mystery is a marker of the truth God’s revelation to us. If we could figure out mystery, why worship? [John 9:3: 11:3]

6. We should never doubt God’s presence in suffering. He is with us in it. And for our pagan friends who wonder, “Where is God when bad things happen?” we must ask them, “Where is your praise for God for all the good things that happen to you?” [Hebrews 2, 9, 10]

7. We are outraged by “undeserved” suffering. We have repented of sin, we serve God and man, “We’re all in” as the poker player calls it: we have a royal flush. And suddenly, out of nowhere, someone has created a new, winning hand. Our flush is crushed. We respond in anger to injustice but leave the ultimate response to The Just Judge. [Habakkuk]

8. A proper view of suffering suggests that the answer to pain will not be satisfied by welfare, government programs, warfare, or the judicial system. [Daniel 4:34-37]

9. Suffering happens, it cannot be prevented. For those who would want to blame God for suffering we must redirect their attention to Eden and our collective responsibility as the human race for the state we are in. [Genesis 3]

10. Protesting our pain before God is a godly position. ‘Lament’ is a form of expressing our human grief from a God-centered perspective. [Lamentations]

11. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet: only through experience of trial and suffering. [Romans 5:1-4; 1 Peter]

12. If there is a beginning there will always be an end. If there is doubt, there is hope. If there is darkness, there is light. If there is pain, there is release. If there is heartache, there is joy. If there is a creation, there is a second coming. If there is a cross, there is an empty grave. If despair, delight. If mystery, worship its Author. If there is an underside to the tapestry, be assured the top side is being woven by Yahweh. [Job 42; Isaiah 60-66; Revelation 21-22]

Mark has been teaching the tapestry for four decades. The basis for this 4 part series was taken from a sermon preached in January, 2008 at Zionsville Fellowship, Zionsville, IN. The ‘lament’ series has been a guest blogging entry during March, 2012 at https://christianpsych.org/wp_scp/blog/

“You don’t see no hearses with luggage racks.”

Don Henley, Gimme What You Got

Pistons explode from shoulder to fist to face. In a boxing bout the word “jabs” describes one opponent snapping his adversary’s head back with each blow. This is Job 3.11-26.  Job then picks up an automatic pistol, firing controlled bursts of bullets expressing the subject of his agony. Every single line and each nuance of meaning in the Hebrew throughout this chapter depicts the ferocity of blows and bullets. The power of this gut wrenching groan that reaches a roar at the end of the poem is not done justice in English. A taste of these compact attacks is summarized by verse eleven’s seven word-Hebrew-line: “Why not die birth womb came expire?!”

A crescendo of impending doom pounds throughout the first half of the poem. Verses 11 and 12 refer to the event Job wishes had never happened in verses 3-10—his birth.  Placed on his father’s knees (a sign legitimizing the birth father) and at his mother’s breast to feed, now his awful life commences.  Verses 1-10 repeat the idea of “may this never be!” and verses 11-26 repeat “Why did this happen in the first place?!” Verses 1-10 repeat “May…may…may” verses 11-26 repeat “Why? Why? Why?”

Job “piles on” the words for death: death will be a repose, an anticipated rest, lying down, be at peace, tranquility, what we call “the big sleep,” or “the long dirt nap.” Death is better than life because life is full of trouble. The list, the catalog, the pile that Job creates has but one idea: life is nothing but trouble, in every way, for everyone. Pick a social strata, they are all represented here: the powerful, rich, leaders, wicked, the weary, slaves, forced laborers, prisoners, the small (underprivileged) and the great (the privileged). Right in the middle of this grouping is what Job would have wished for originally—to be stillborn, dead at birth.

Verse 19 is a final resting place for death. In the Hebrew, there are no verbs present. Instead of reading, “Small and great are there,” rather we should read “Small and great there, dead, no more activity.” Every positive statement is about being dead: “the weary are at rest,” “captives enjoy their ease,” “slave freed,” and there is “gladness in reaching the grave.”  Why is death best? Because it releases us from life’s miseries.  All the things we build during our lifetime will be ruined.  All the money we accumulate, gone. All the work we do, useless activity. Our position and place in life, gone.  Before Kregel’s bookstore in Grand Rapids was sold, I loved to wander through the stacks.  Most of Kregel’s inventory was located in a huge basement.  The smell of old books as I searched for various titles is etched in my memory.  But it struck me one day: most of the men who have written these books are dead.  These are dead men’s books. It reminded me of my own demise.  What we produce on this earth is literally “here today and gone tomorrow.”

Can we count on what believers refer to as “God’s hedge of protection”?  Notice that the hedge of protection Satan thought God offered to Job in 1:10 is now thought by Job to be God’s trap 3:23.  When he says “man’s way is hidden” in 3:23 he refers to life being without purpose.  He has lost all sense of meaning because of all his losses.  Verses 24-26 are very hard Hebrew. But a few ideas stand out: (1) “sighing” and “groaning” are too soft. The words are used for “roaring lions” in other passages. (2) The very thing Job dreaded (the loss of God’s favor in 1:5) has happened. (3) The final lines come back to my comments about head-snapping jabs at the beginning of this section.   It’s as if Job is spitting out the words, disgusted, he can’t wait to get them out of his mouth. “I have no peace, I have no quiet, I have no rest; Enter trouble.”  What he said in verse 13 he repeats here—he wants tranquility, serenity, to enjoy life.  But all these words for rest suggest he has physical turmoil, mental anguish, and social discomfort.  All he has is “trouble”—the word for agitation without peace.

Psychologists and physicians alike tell us that suffering produces questions of purpose and the will to continue in life. Amnesty International, for instance, attempts to get those who have been tortured to record their pain. Paul Brand’s book Pain: The Gift No One Wants is a tremendous source for understanding the physiology of pain and human response to it. I personally learned from a world renown physical therapist that the best response of the physician is listen to the person whose body is in pain.  The patient knows their body better than the doctor imposing a diagnosis.

But, perhaps, the best example of response to pain is the genre of music referred to as the “negro spiritual.”  M. Shawn Copeland, who teaches at Marquette University, has said

The spirituals . . . were an important resource of resistance. The spirituals reshaped the characters and stories, the events and miracles of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. These songs told the mercy of God anew and testified to the ways in which the enslaved people met God at the whipping post, on the auction block, in the midnight flight to freedom…. If the makers of the spirituals glorified in singing of the cross of Jesus, it was not because they were masochistic and enjoyed suffering. Rather, the enslaved Africans sang because they saw in the rugged wooden planks One who had endured what was their daily portion. The cross was treasured because it enthroned the One who went all the way with them and for them. The enslaved Africans sang because they saw the result of the cross—triumph over the principalities and powers of death, triumph over evil in this world. (1)

Slaves suffered with hope in the Savior. But Job 3 ends without hope which Psalm 88 expresses, “And darkness is my closest friend.” What happens when we beaten by the incessant fist blows of some earthly oppression?  What happens when the automatic gun fire of suffering is unrelenting?  There are days when this is our lot.  To understand how we feel, how others feel, in the onslaught of suffering is to live in Job 3.

Dr. Mark Eckel believes it does not matter what kind of suffering you suffer.  Suffering hurts, and sometimes it feels like all we want to do is die.   

(1) M. Shawn Copeland, “‘Wading Through Many Sorrows’: Towards a Theology of Suffering in a Womanist Perspective,” Charles Curran, Margaret Farley and Richard McCormick, ed. Feminist Ethics and the Catholic Moral Tradition (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996) 150.

I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real. “Hurt,” Johnny Cash

Bono of U2 fame has said,

Evangelical Christian music is too happy. It does not reflect the realities of life. That’s why I like ‘the blues.’ That’s why I like the Psalms. The Psalms are ‘the blues’ of the Old Testament.

Bono and Cash have it right. We understand Job 3 is about us—we all suffer, hurt. Everyone wishes they could just turn back time, declare a mulligan, or cry for a child’s game “do over.” Pregnant metaphors, pulsating with profound passion and pain, wed our grief with Job 3: it is personal, vivid, honest, and bold. We may not comprehend each other’s specific grief. What we can say is we have all experienced some of what Job is saying in chapter three. This week and next Job 3 will speak for itself. Interpretation will lead to application leading to lamentation.

Job’s lament begins as a curse from the womb, an anti-birthday-birthday. “May, may, may” mark verses 1-10, the wish, the longing for something, anything other than what he must endure. When Job “curses” the Hebrew word marks a formula; Job curses or removes the blessing from his birth. Celebration is now rejection. It might be as if one lover says to the other, “I wish I’d never met you!” Once the day was cause for joy; the next, cause for a curse. Job goes so far as to call out the sorcerers, the spiritists to curse the day, to reverse the spell. If it’s possible, do it. Because such an incantation is impossible it shows the acuteness of Job’s agony, his misery (v 8).

Job is spewing out his cries of rage through this Hebrew poetry. Hebrew parallelism runs through the whole chapter. Job’s cries come in two forms: synthetic parallelism—saying the same thing in a similar way—amplifies Job’s grief (v 11) and synonymous parallelism—stacking one negative concept on top of another—adds insult to injury (v 5). In sports we say “Let’s take it to the next level!” In literature, “The author is building toward a climax.” Musicians refer to this intensity in their scores as a crescendo, from piano (meaning “softly”) to fortissimo (meaning “very loud”). In mathematical terms we express exponential growth in terms of “rising powers”: ten to the second power, ten to the third power, ten to the fourth power, etc. “Compound interest,” is money accrued or growing in a bank account. All the parallels in the poetic lament give this sense of intensification.

Job’s “birthday” was his “death-day,” an awful day, an awful event, one he wished had never happened. “May” or “let” is repeated in English word or understanding multiple times in verses 3 through 10. Job is recalling something in his past, thinking about it in the future, we would call this a “retrospective”—contemplating or surveying the past. For Job, this retrospective is anything but a smiling muse of past events. The retrospective for Job means “When you think about my beginning, my birth, the night I was conceived, curse it; reverse the celebration of it!” Job wants to cancel not only his birth but the triumph of the man who knows he has produced offspring (v. 3).

Job wishes he had never been born. “Curse the day!” The only way to do this is to wipe his birthday off the calendar. As long as his day of birth is repeated or recreated every year his existence continues until death. He wants it removed, gone. Not only is Job “anti-birthday” he is “anti-Creation.” Job wants “that day—let it be darkness” (v. 4). This is the direct opposite of God’s first words in creation “Let there be light” (Gen 1.3). God began with light and ended resting. Job begins by calling for darkness and ends in verse 13 by saying, “If darkness had blotted out his birthday—if he had never existed—he would be at rest.” The words he uses in verses 4-6 confirm his pain: darkness, deep dark (a darkness so thick you can’t see your hand in front of your face), cloud mass (a covering so dense it blocks out the sun), blackness (a fog so intense that it hides the sun). He wants rest so badly that he uses four separate Hebrew words: he wants to lie down, be quiet, sleep, and rest. To the person in pain, birth equals trouble (v. 10): the agony or misery of extreme hardship is cruel and fatiguing.

Job is in the deep throes of outrageous pain, wailing and moaning. If we saw someone like this we would probably say, “They’re beside themselves! I’ve never seen them like this before!” This is Job’s state as he curses or removes the celebration of his birth. It does not mean that Job has lost control. Job is expressing the deepest, rawest of emotions a person can express. There is no shame or sin here, only humanness. If we read the Lamentations of Jeremiah the weeping prophet or Jesus’ own wrenching turmoil in Gethsemane prior to His crucifixion we would see the same imprint of humanity. In fact, James 5:11 lauds Job for endurance, the meaning of the word “patience.”

We need be careful of our response to believing people when they gush honest, profound, anguished cries, when hurt is too great to bear. Angry honesty from a Christian sometimes shocks us. I think this is because we live in a culture of “niceness”—critical or caustic responses are met with repudiation. Given the responses of Job’s three friends throughout the book, we sometimes misapply our theology either with trite, bumper sticker slogans that hurt more than help or we condemn the person who is in pain for expressing their pain. The best response to anyone in pain is to do as Paul commanded: “weep with those who weep.” Our futile attempts to interpret or explain another’s suffering is to fall into the trap of Job’s three friends. To listen, to be attentive is exactly the right response.

In the Coen brother’s film O Brother, Where Art Thou? one song provides the underlying refrain: “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow.” This is Job’s song, the lament of Job 3:1-10. Johnny Cash knew it. Bono knows it. And if we’re honest, we know it too. Caring for others means we must engage the deepest, darkest depths of despair.

When Mark listens to “Hurt” on YouTube, tears well up in his eyes. The basis for this 4 part series was taken from a sermon preached in January, 2008 at Zionsville Fellowship, Zionsville, IN. This entry was also published at https://christianpsych.org/wp_scp/2012/03/11/

“A person can know the meaning of life but still has to find a way to make it through Wednesday afternoon.”  Walker Percy

Blindsided. In American football, the word means the quarterback who is about to throw the ball to one side of the field is hit from his blind side. He never sees it coming. Often the team loses the ball and the quarterback loses his health. Being blindsided accurately describes unexpected grief in life. The awfulness of having one’s job taken without notice or reason, suffering the death of a loved one, or being given the diagnosis of cancer are only a few of the many ways humans are blindsided. Moments like these are times when we question the rules and The Referee of life.

Job wishes for an official to rule on the hit he took but finds “There is no arbiter between us” (Job 9.33). Wealth taken, family killed, Job did nothing to deserve what he received. The first verse declares Job “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” In fact, Job 1 and 2 explain that the ‘why’ question could only be answered in Heaven. Job would call out only to hear the echo of his own voice. Job’s cry in chapter 3 of the book named for him is the cry of every human: what did I do to deserve this?

Undeserved suffering is the first reason to reject belief in God. But if, as many First Testament scholars think, Job is the oldest book in The Bible, it would seem God addresses the problem early. Of course, the fact that God deals with the issue up front is no solace to our bereavement. Here is the onset of our grief. We can know our theology. We can state our theology. But we still feel, hurt, suffer, groan, wail, moan, howl, and scream our sorrow. Do we agree with Job 1.21 and 2.10—God gives and He takes away? Sure. We can define, describe, and detail our doctrine of sovereignty. Nevertheless, if Job 1 and 2 explains Job has the right view of God, Job 3 reveals his humanity.

In the First Testament, lament is a poetic devise, a structure for expressing humanity’s crisis, travail, anguish, or despair. Ancient and modern people groups have their own laments—grief and outrage at humanly unjust circumstances. Job’s first verbal response to his situation is common to everyone, everywhere. Normally, laments included not just a complaint to God, but an affirmation of trust, knowing God would answer. Job 3 is a lament but it does not include any positive anticipation of God’s response or hope of deliverance. Job 3 is one of the most dark, negative sections of Scripture.

One is reminded of The Silent Scream by Edvard Munch just before the turn of the 20th century. His painting of a sexless, twisted, fetal-faced creature, with mouth and eyes open wide in a shriek of horror, re-created a vision that had seized him as he walked one evening in his youth with two friends at sunset. As he later described it, “The air turned to blood and the faces of my comrades became a garish yellow-white.” He heard vibrating in his ears “a huge endless scream course through nature.” Edvard was torn. His dad had just died. He lacked his father’s faith in God. Reflecting later on his bohemian friends and their embrace of free love, he wrote: “God and everything was overthrown; everyone raging in a wild, deranged dance of life. . . . But I could not set myself free from my fear of life and thoughts of eternal life.” (1) More recently the music group Stone Sour sang these lyrics from “Through Glass”:

How do you feel, that is the question

But I forget you don’t expect an easy answer

When something like a soul becomes initialized

And folded up like paper dolls and little notes

You can’t expect a bit of hope

So while you’re outside looking in describing what you see

Remember what you’re staring at is me

If Christians are to have an answer for Munch or Stone Sour, theology must be anything but dry, dusty, and boring. Theology is lived every moment of every day, whether we think so or not, whether we like it or not. Living theology—incarnational theology, if you will—is no spectator sport. We humans are not in the stands rooting on the home team. No, we are in the trenches, sweat-drenched, foul-odored, trying to get traction on the turf of life so we can run the next play. The intersection of theology and practice—praxis—is where we live. Job inscribes some basic principles of lament and its consequences on the pages of our minds.

Believers seem to suffer more undeserved injustice than unbelievers in this life. Satan did not attack one who rebelled against God. He chose a person who worshiped God. A study of our adversary would find that he has been trying to snuff out the Messianic line since Genesis 3. Nothing has changed over multiple millennia.

Job’s suffering had probably gone on for some months. The magnitude, the crushing pressure may well have caused Job to reach what H.G. Wells called the “end of his tether”. Now in the presence of his friends he expresses his yawning howl. Pain and misery asks not just the question of ‘Why?’ but ‘How long?’

Lament is honest to who we are as humans. Lament acknowledges and allows our weakness, our deficiency, our common experience. To be a Christian does not mean we stop being human. Being a Christian should accentuate our humanity. We are committed to a righteous response to injustice and undeserved tribulation. And even more to the point, we are committed to the raw, rasping recoiled reaction to wrong when it happens to us.

There is no human answer to the mysteries of suffering. “Theodicy” is an attempt to justify the ways of God to men. But in Job we have “anti-theodicy”—unjustifiable suffering takes place in the world: period. At the beginning of the 21st century Christians should be wary of The Western tendency to be scientifically conceited, solution oriented, control obsessed, and mystery challenged. Unless we acknowledge that the answer to “Why?” is often “I don’t know” we will not practice the proper human response to God’s sovereignty.

Job was blindsided. There are times when each of us stands in line next to him. We share the lament Job utters. Job’s disillusionment is our own. The Holy Spirit has given us a device, a form in Scripture which gives our pain a voice. We know how Job ends which is not true for each of us who suffer: an earthly reversal by Providential good fortune. But while we may be blindsided in this life, the other side exists in The Next Life (Job 14:7-14; 19:23-27).

Mark believes that Christians should sing laments in Sunday worship; 70% of the Psalms are lament. The basis for this 4 part series was taken from a sermon preached in January, 2008 at Zionsville Fellowship, Zionsville, IN. This entry was also published at https://christianpsych.org/wp_scp/2012/03/04/

(1) Arthur Lubow, “Edvard Munch: Beyond the Scream,” Smithsonian Magazine, March, 2006.

God became human to identify with us.

God, taking upon Himself complete, sinless human nature, coming to earth in flesh, sanctified material things forever. Jesus’ incarnation is an important linkage between creation and eternity. Here is “the last Adam” (1 Co 15:45) who not only represents God’s intention for humanity (1 Co 15:49) but provides for humanities’ escape from the effects of sin (1 Co 15:54-56). While He was “tempted in every way as we are yet without sin” (Heb 4:15) Jesus left a pattern to follow for overcoming temptation (Matt 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-11; cf. 1 Co 10:13). By triumphing over the principalities and powers at the cross (Col 2:15) Jesus reclaimed the physicality of earth (Ps 110:1; Heb 1:8, 13) in a joyful reign for His people (Matt 25:21). The incarnation was necessary to secure salvation for eternity (cf. Rom 5:18-19) and resurrection for immortality (1 Co 15:50-54).

Christians physically anticipate the new heavens and new earth because of Jesus’ incarnation (Is 65-66; Rev 21-22). The earth itself “waits with eager longing” (Rom 8:19-21) for freedom from the effects of bondage due to sin. The cosmos will be changed (Heb 1:11-12; 12:26-27) regenerated according to the template of perfect creation (Gen 1:31). Humans will have new bodies like Jesus’ resurrection body (John 20-21). People will eat (Rev 19:9; 22:2), walk on streets in the city of God (Rev 22:1), enjoy the presence of animals (Is 65:25), and commune with God Himself (Rev 21:3).

So in this life, on this earth believers are to enjoy the all-encompassing life God has given (cf. Ecc 3:12-13; 5:18-20; 2 Tim 6:17). While denial of physical pleasures may be encouraged for a time (i.e. food—Matt 6:16-18—or sex—1 Co 7:5) Jesus set the example of enjoying parties (Matt 9:10-11; John 2:1-11), food, wine (Matt 11:18-19), and gifts (John 7:37-38). Asceticism and monasticism have their place in the history of The Church, fostering self-discipline and others’-centered care (cf. Matt 6:5-6; Jas 2:14-17).

However, cloistered, self-serving focus was never the intent of the Christian life as demonstrated through Jesus’ coming to the sinful earth (cf. Phil 2:1-11). So Scripture is clearly anti-Gnostic and anti-legalistic (Col 2:16-24; 1 John 4:1-6). There is never a separation, a duality of body and spirit from God’s point of view but rather of whole people dedicated to Heaven while devoted to God on earth. And there is never a separation of God’s law from grace but a fulfillment of the first through living the second.

Jesus coming in physical body re-secured the delight in the totality of life The Father intended from the beginning. Incarnation produces the following guidelines for service in the Christian community:

(1) a renewed application of Christ’s lordship to the totality of life

(2) a reinstated teaching about the importance of training for physical devotion to God in health

(3) a reinterpreted mindset of affection for heaven in light of how things should be on earth (Col 3:1-4)

(4) a regenerated delight in earthly joys without guilt

(5) a reinvigorated anticipation of the new earth without separation from this time and place

(6) a recommitted dedication to destroying the contamination Gnosticism (separating spiritual from physical) and legalism (human lists of do’s and don’ts) foster through both individuals and institutions.

This statement was originally written by Dr. Eckel for “School Wide Biblical Integration,” an ACSI enabler in 2002, having been used in various venues since.

1. 

   How does everything fit together?  How does life make sense?  There must be an intersection and unification of heaven and earth, supernatural and natural.  From the very first statement in Scripture, unity and wholeness were necessary—“the heavens and the earth” meant “everything from A to Z” in the Hebrew mindset. There is a unity of Truth.[1] All “truth” is inclusive within His “Truth.”  Since God alone made “the heavens and the earth”[2] and the whole of creation gives Him praise[3] Christian thinkers must answer the question “how do our studies give praise to God?”[4]

   If there is an ordered, structured, stable universe and God finds it a reliable measure of righteousness, how much more our dependence upon “the heavens and the earth” for objective study?![5] The so-called “scientific method,” for instance, can be idolized without the requisite understanding of The Creator’s synthetic creation.  This is the reason why God “calls heaven and earth to testify against His people”[6]: the coherent creation represents the completeness or wholeness of God’s righteousness.

   Making sense of reality, finding consistency, knowing that all things literally stick together is the definition of coherence.  True in the material world, so it is in terms of clock schedule and measurement.  Genesis 1:1 establishes a beginning while the end of the book (49:1) anticipates an end (Deut 31:29).  Jesus “holds all things together” (Col 1:17)—matter, space, and time.

   There is no separation, no dichotomy, no bifurcation of “spiritual,” “physical,” “social,” “emotional,” “intellectual,” etc.  The Greek concept of segmentation goes against the Hebraic concept of wholeness, completion, fulfillment in shalom.  Instead of separating aspects of life into pieces, our responsibility in the Christian academic community is to restore all things because of Jesus’ reconciliation.[7]

   Believers can enjoy the ordinary because it all comes from The Extraordinary Creator. Connections to the everyday life of the Hebrews (cf. Leviticus 11-14) makes the point, for instance, that God is interested in everything  There are no “spiritual problems”; no dichotomy exists between the so-called “secular” and sacred—the whole world and all of life belong to The Creator (cf. 1 Chronicles 29:10-16; Psalm 24:1; 50:9-12; 89:11).  It is up to Jesus “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20).

   The concept of coherence provides a framework under which Christians think and live.  Teaching God’s intention for unity in creation and life produces the following guidelines for service in the Christian community:

   1. A coherent, comprehensive, consistent, cosmic, creational approach to study must be premised upon an all-encompassing Christian worldview;
   2. Every sphere and system is completely subservient to and in compliance with the Trinitarian mystery of “the One and the many”;
   3. There can be harmony through interdisciplinary study (i.e., math’s function, music’s precision, art’s aesthetic);
   4. There should be a seamlessness of Christian knowing, being and doing;
   5. Constant research answering the question “how does one area of study affect another?”;
   6. Individual Christians focused on their own God-given gifts and enjoyment of certain aspects of creation should interact with each other, looking for “touch-points” of synthesis between disciplines;
   7. There are no “brute facts,” there is no “neutrality,” since all things are created and sustained by God;
   8. No one thing, idea, or person is more important than another if all things are dependent upon each other;
   9. If Christ’s Lordship transcends all of life there is no separation between belief and behavior, between the importance of one vocation over another, between what is seen or unseen, between faith and learning;
   10. If God created everything (Prov 8:30; Heb 11:3) then everything belongs to God (Ps 24:1); thus, everything is dedicated to God (Lev 25:23) and serves God (Ps 119:91); since God gave us everything (Ps 115:16), everything has been given to us for our enjoyment (1 Tim 6:17).

   “The Biblical Doctrine of Coherence” was first written in 2002 by Dr. Eckel for an ACSI biblical integration enabler and has been used in various venues since.