The Law of Undulation

On the drive to Cincinnati yesterday, I listened to a radio dramatization of "The Screwtape Letters," C.S. Lewis' famous  look into the mentoring relationship between two devils – a junior tempter (Wormwood), and his uncle, a senior tempter (Screwtape). In the story, Wormwood is tempting his first human, and his uncle gives him tips and hints about how to adequately keep humans away from the "great enemy:" God.

I made it through about half of the set yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the dramatization. I was totally engrossed. The voice acting helped, too – Andy Serkis (Gollum) was fantastic as Screwtape, and the other actors, though lesser known, performed their parts equally well.
I was struck yesterday by the dramatization of the eighth letter from Screwtape to Wormwood, dealing with the "law of undulation." I'd quote the whole chapter if I could, but that wouldn't be exactly legal – so, just a snippet. (Someone has posted the whole chapter, and most of the book, here).

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily good; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth.

Lewis goes on to discuss the role of free will in the "war" for human souls, but that's a slightly different topic (and, of course, a very debatable one). The "Law of Undulation" is, in itself, a broad topic that we can apply to our lives and walks of faith in a variety of different ways. With this blog post, I mostly just wanted to point out how much I believe in the point that Lewis is making – that our lives naturally have highs and lows, because of the way we have been created and because of the sinful and broken nature of our world. Often, when we're in a valley, we look only for the path that will take us to the next peak – but we should recognize that God is in the valleys as much as or more than he is in the peaks. When we find ourselves in a downward trough of undulation, we should ask ourselves what God wants to make of it.

This pattern of undulation won't end until we're at home in heaven. There's a verse in Isaiah that speaks to this:

Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
- Isaiah 40:4-5

l'amour de Dieu est folie!

In France, when Easter is celebrated, there is a common phrase that is proclaimed in cathedrals, shared on sidewalks, spraypainted on walls and plastered on streetlights.

l'amour de Dieu est folie!
The love of God is foolish!
What a great phrase. Why don't we have anything like it here?
Now, we know God is infinitely wise and omnipotent. It's a bit odd to call him foolish, isn't it? It's simply foolish because we can't possibly fathom or understand God's love for us. We are broken, sinful creatures, yet God loves us. Magnificently. Spectacularly. Undeservedly. And I can think of no better time to proclaim the glory of God's foolish love for his creation than on Easter, the day of Christ's resurrection and victory over death.
1 Corinthians says it better than I ever could.

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

- 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (ESV)

Happy Easter!

Welcome, Spring

Can I just say I'm incredibly happy that spring is here? These crocuses (they kind of remind me of simbelmyne) have sprouted in incredibly rapid fashion in my backyard over the past few days. They're now everywhere.

"Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
and righteousness looks down from the sky.
Yes, the Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him
and make his footsteps a way."

- Psalm 85:10-13

Land me safe on Canaan's side

I wanted to post the words to a hymn that has really struck a chord with me over the past few months, and has come to be a great source of insight and encouragement in my life.

The hymn is "Guide me O, Thou Great Jehovah," penned by the Welshman William Williams (what a name) in 1745. Here are the lyrics:

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.
Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to Thee;
I will ever give to Thee.

Gosh, I love this hymn. "Lord... guide me through this desert with your powerful hand... through streams and fires, anywhere on my journey, be my strength and shield. I will not fear, though I face death, for you will guide me, and I will ever sing you songs of praises."

The whole point is that we don't know what's ahead, but we walk in faith anyway, trusting that even if God leads us into fire – yes, he'll do that - he'll deliver us through it.

Though we may have the desire to know what's next, that's not something God is typically going to just come out and reveal to us. Instead, perhaps God will talk to us as Aslan does to Lucy in C.S. Lewis' "Prince Caspian." ((I just finished re-reading it not long ago, so it's fresh in my mind )).

"Please, Aslan!" said Lucy, "am I not to know?"

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No, nobody is ever told that."

"Oh dear," said Lucy.

"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me—what will happen? There is only one way of finding out…"

"But they won’t believe me!" said Lucy.

"It doesn't matter," said Aslan.

"Oh dear, oh dear," said Lucy. "And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you’d come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away—like last time. And now everything is going to be horrid."

"It is hard for you, little one," said Aslan. "But things never happen the same way twice. It has been hard for us all in Narnia before now."

"Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up.

"I’m sorry, Aslan," she said. "I’m ready now."

I love the way Aslan talks to Lucy: The only way you will find out what can happen is by doing. And there is great encouragement to be found in the Lord in facing this task, as well, for he promises us ((just studied this in small group, too)):

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.
- Isaiah 43:2

Anyway, just a few thoughts as I face a time of uncertainty in exactly "what's next" – though I trust God that if I make a step of faith, he will be with me, guiding me through whatever flames and floods may come.

Standards of Evangelism, Part I

As most of you know, Young Life, the youth evangelism organization started by Jim Rayburn in 1941, has been a huge part of my life for the last ten years. After my sophomore year of high school I went to Lake Saranac, a Young Life camp in the Adirondacks, where I heard the Gospel presented to me clearly for the first time. It changed my life, and I wouldn't be who I am today without Young Life. Granted, God could have chosen to work in my life in some other way – but the fact remains that it was because of Young Life that I came to accept the Gospel and begin my relationship with Christ.

Over the years, I've become very familiar with the ministry, both from serving as a volunteer leader in Bloomington and from working on full-time staff at Lake Champion for more than two years. But for the past few weeks there has been a great cloud of controversy surrounding the ministry – a cloud that has turned into a bit of an internet firestorm in the last week or two.


The background

Nine members of Young Life staff in Durham, North Carolina, were terminated or resigned at the end of November after they declined to abide by a new set of “non-negotiable” guidelines for proclaiming the Gospel set forth by Young Life. From my understanding – gathered from news articles I've read and from accounts from friends still on staff, the "non-negotiables" were set forth late in 2007 as a response to a series of Gospel presentations at summer camps and a paper written by Jeff McSwain, the director of Young Life in the Durham areae. Here's the synopsis from an article in Christianity Today:

The Non-Negotiables statement came out after a paper circulated last summer by Jeff McSwain. The former YL area director for Raleigh and Chapel Hill, McSwain was the highest-ranking staff member fired. In his paper, McSwain criticized YL’s traditional approach to evangelism, which he said emphasizes kids’ separation from God. His paper, “Jesus Is the Gospel,” said such gospel presentations can be more Unitarian than Trinitarian, because they draw a sharp contrast between the holy God and the incarnated Son who “actually became sin.”

“I can go into the realm of the most lost, furthest-out kids, knowing something that is true about them before they do,” he wrote in the paper. “They are lost children of God; people can’t be lost unless they have a home!”

YL’s eight-page Non-Negotiables statement requires a sequence for gospel presentations that closely resembles Campus Crusade for Christ’s Four Spiritual Laws. Talks must begin with the person of Jesus Christ, “the overarching theme of all our talks.” From there, evangelists should explain the reality and consequences of sin before presenting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his resurrection. Talks end with an invitation to believe and become a disciple of Jesus.

The Christianity Today article is an interesting read, but I disagree with their assumption that the non-negotiables require a certain sequence of Gospel presentation. More about that later. There's also an interesting article about the situation from Christian Century.

Also, here are the six key points from Young Life's "non-negotiables." The full, eight-page text can be found here.

1) We proclaim the Person of Jesus Christ in every message.

2) We proclaim the reality of sin and its consequences — that apart from divine grace, we are estranged from God by our disobedience and incapable of a right relationship with God.

3) We proclaim the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the ultimate proof of God’s love and the only solution to our problem of sin.

4) We proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

5) We proclaim the risen Christ’s offer of salvation by inviting our middle school, high school and college friends to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.

6) We proclaim God’s call to discipleship by encouraging all who respond to grow in their faith.

There has obviously been a lot of fallout from the dismissal of the 10 staff members in the Durham area. I hate that this situation has come to that, yet it seems that in our sinful nature, theological disagreements – and sometimes splits, become inevitable, if not unavoidable.

On December 11, Young Life posted a statement about the incident on its Web site, saying that its method of presenting the Gospel "has been widely applauded within the mission" and that only "a small fraction of staff" have disagreed.

"We start with love in our proclamation of the gospel," the statement reads. "Young Life reaches out to adolescents in friendship, loving them where they are and as they are. It is in this context of grace that we talk about the truth of sin that separates us from relationship with our Creator."


The debate

Let me get this out of the way – I'm no theologian. My knowledge is severely limited, but I like to think about and investigate these things as they pertain to our faith in Jesus Christ. So, I'm not going to go so far as to make a judgment on this topic. For now, I simply want to figure out the question.

It's important to remember that while hundreds of people are abuzz about these "non-negotiables" and the debate surrounding them, hundreds – no, thousands – of high school kids are attending Young Life camps and hearing the Gospel. Thousands of kids are coming to know Christ because of Young Life leaders and staff members all over the country and all around the world. That is important work, and we should all rejoice because of it. In Philippians 1:18, Paul says:

"What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice."

The great point being that we're debating about details. Whenever and wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, we should rejoice.

I also think it's important to note that when I accepted Christ at Saranac in June 1998, the camp speaker that presented the Gospel was – you guessed it – Jeff McSwain. I obviously have a tremendous amount of respect for the man and have no desire to belittle his efforts for the sake of the Gospel.

I'd love to read McSwain's paper to better understand what he is standing up for and what exactly he believes – but unfortunately the paper is not public, so I'll have to go off what is reported. Below is pretty much the full list of all the sources I'm using. If you Google "Young Life non-negotiables" you'll come up with a lot more results. The Tony Jones blog is interesting, and much of it I pointedly disagree with, but you should read it anyway.

News articles:
Christianity Today: Gospel Talk
The Christian Century: Young Life draws fire over new ministry guidelines
The Jesus Manifesto: The Gospel according to Young Life

Tony Jones blog:
Something is wrong at Young Life
More on what's wrong at Young Life
Closing the loop on Young Life

It seems that this debate from the 10 staff in Durham is creating quite a stir (considering there are 30,000 Young Life volunteers/leaders/committee) and it's become popular to attack Young Life for it. However, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect an organization like Young Life to create a policy for all of its staff to follow. I don't think it makes them overly controlling or dictatorial. I would expect a worldwide ministry to have something like that in place.

There are a lot of things that frustrate me about Young Life, and I could go on for a day with critiques about things I think they could do better. Young Life is a great high school ministry, but tends to "lose" kids after they've made the initial commitment to Christ, failing to plug them into a church or helping them grow and become rooted in their faith. But that's not the point here.

This debate is centered on the order of things – specifically, the order of repentance and salvation. You can label it as a Calvinistic debate about soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). Here's what Tony Jones says:

It seems that YL President Denny Rydberg and others in the organization are worried about the influence of neo-orthodox theology, and they are thus battening down the hatches on a certain type of conservative, Reformed orthodoxy. For instance, staffers are told in the statement that they must not introduce the concept of Jesus and his grace until the students have been sufficiently convinced of their own depravity and been allowed to wallow stew in that depravity (preferably overnight).

...

YL has embraced the very “gospel of sin management” that Christian leaders like Dallas Willard and Brian McLaren have criticized. It is unhistorical, and, arguably, unorthodox. Even Augustine, Calvin’s predecessor in all things Reformed, came to faith and then was convinced of and convicted of his sin. Remember, Augustine wrote his Confessions a couple decades after his conversion, so all of his talk of his own sinfulness was realized by him after he came to faith in Christ.

This is simply unfair. I have heard hundreds of Young Life talks and their process is simple and effective. There is not a desire to make kids "wallow" in their sin before they hear that there is an answer (in my experience – there are always exceptions). They do, however, lay out first that we are condemned because we are sinners, and then explain that Christ is the answer for that problem. But every time I've seen one of these "sin talks," it is overwhelmingly done with a spirit of love, and hinges on the fact that there is hope for us in Jesus Christ.

The text of "non-negotiable" point two supports this:

We maintain that sin’s consequences include a broken relationship with God, so relational words such as estrangement, alienation, lostness and purposelessness do represent our condition. We also maintain that words such as guilty, rebellious, separated and condemned are descriptions that characterize sinful humanity and necessitate God’s ultimate rescue in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Great care must be taken to keep Jesus present in this message about sin. Gospel narratives, including the paralytic brought to Jesus by his friends, the woman at the well, the rich young ruler, the woman caught in adultery, Peter’s characterization of himself as a “sinful man” and other passages all may be used to communicate this message.

The frequent criticism of "sin talks" (see Tony Jones' comments above) is refuted by this text: Great care must be taken to keep Jesus present in this message about sin.


The theology

Going back to the soteriology debate, the Young Life Gospel presentation includes 1) the person recognizing that they are in a sinful, broken state and 2) the person repenting and accepting Christ (gaining faith). It suggests that our salvation is not complete until we make a decision to have faith and accept Christ. This seems to me to be a fairly Calvinistic approach – see Calvin's doctrine of "evangelical repentance."

For since pardon and forgiveness are offered by the preaching of the Gospel, in order that the sinner, delivered from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of iniquity, may pass into the kingdom of God, it is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the Gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path, and making it his whole study to practice repentance. Those who think that repentance precedes faith instead of flowing from, or being produced by it, as the fruit by the tree, have never understood its nature, and are moved to adopt that view on very insufficient grounds.

First is pardon and forgiveness – which go along with the recognition of being in a broken and sinful state. Then, faith and repentance come hand-in-hand, one flowing out of the other. I don't believe Young Life is stating that we must repent before we have salvation. However, they are saying we must make a decision to have faith before salvation is complete.

McSwain's theological views are clearly a bit different than Young Life's – hence the dismissal – but I'm not entirely clear on how. It is my understanding that McSwain is arguing that the work of salvation is already complete before we gain faith – citing Romans 5:8: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

McSwain is also quoted in the Christianity Today article as saying: “They are lost children of God; people can’t be lost unless they have a home!” This is totally correct. But I'd add this: We are all broken Children of God, but if you don't realize you're broken, why would you ever look to become whole?

Christ died on the cross, but not everyone is going to heaven. Why? Because we have to make that conscious choice to have faith, to accept Christ and follow him – thus completing salvation.

“From what are people being saved? Not from visible warfare or barbarians but something far greater: from their own sins, a work that had never been possible to anyone before.”

-John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, 4

((A side note: most of the articles seem to suggest McSwain is more in line with theologian Karl Barth, who I don't know much about. This largely deals with the principles of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy, and if anyone has anything to add on these subjects (ahem: Dan) I'd love to hear it!))


The question

OK, I've written a novel and hardly scratched the surface of this subject – this will have to suffice for now. The point of writing this wasn't to stick my own opinion out there (though writing this has helped me realize where I stand), but to raise awareness of this situation, and ask you, my friends, what you think. I put a Part I on here – maybe there will be a Part II. Maybe not, though.

I think what gets me the most worked up is the harsh criticism and vitriol towards Young Life in some of the articles written. It's too bad. Young Life is far from perfect as an organization, as is the case with each and every church and para-church organization. None of these folks or churches or organizations has it "right", but I believe YL, just like all the others out there, is trying to do the best job they can while staying true to their beliefs.

I don't think they're a fundamentalist dictatorial monster taking evangelism to hell in a handbasket. I don't necessarly think there is a great evangelical "schism" forthcoming (see Tony Jones again).

Anyway, we should approach this with an open spirit of love and concern, not with a spirit of criticism and condemnation. I hope I've not put any words into Young Life's of Jeff McSwain's mouths in this article. I know that Young Life is a wonderful, Christ-seeking ministry and that McSwain is a fine, Christ-seeking man – who presented the Gospel to me, and I believed.

Amen.

Back, and alive!

I'm back and alive from the adventure in the Smokeys and Blue Ridge Mountains... no computer or cell phone for a week, and it was glorious! The week also included a black bear, trout, and a bunch of elk, which was pretty awesome. I'll post some pictures when I get caught up on my e-mail and work.

I feel relaxed and refreshed. This verse is the absolute truth:

"For you will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands."
- Isaiah 55:12