Archive for the ‘Confusion’ Category

God Particles

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

Good news saints.  Physicists say they found the “God particle.”

Yes, that is right. In what will no doubt bring some nerdy scientist a Nobel Prize, scientists said that after a 50 year search they are confident that they have found a Higgs boson, the elusive subatomic aspect sometimes called the God particle.

And you thought God created the world in 7 days out of nothing. Silly you. 

Not so you weary saints! Sagacious scientists tell us that they finally have discovered the definitive, ontological ground zero: the God particle.  They suggest that the particle acts like molasses or snow.  When other tiny basic building blocks pass through it, they stick together, slow down and form atoms.

Well that makes sense.  Silly me—I thought God “spoke” matter into existence.  What was I thinking?!?

A scientist states, “The discovery [of the God particle] explains what once seemed unexplainable and still is a big hard for the average person to comprehend.” You think???

Apparently this little God particle gathers a bunch of little baby atoms together, at random, by chance into an atom of oxygen, that sticks to some hydrogen, like my granddaughter’s Tootsie Roll Pop left by mistake on Christmas, next to the dry sink (don’t tell Karen—it has been my job to clean behind the darn thing), has gathered sundry lady bugs, stink bugs, dust particles, and a dime I dropped on President’s day.

This God particle gathers up stuff and shazzam—before you know it–life!  Man I wondered how that happened—I am relieved that California Institute of Technology has unlocked the mysteries of the universe.

But wait?  Pardon me, I am just a poor liberal arts major, but do I not remember from 7th grade earth science class that the best theory, the most plausible theory, is the simplest, most direct, commonsense theory?  Right now I am having a really hard time understanding, much less believing the God particle Tootsie Roll theory. What do you think?  The Word of God makes a lot more sense to me. But again I do not have the advantage of a Cal Tech degree . . .

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke: “Light!” And light appeared (Genesis 1:1-3 The Message).

Shazzam! Makes sense to me . . .

 

A Good Father

Friday, February 26th, 2010

One of the interesting aspects of modern American drama is the absence of good fathers, or, for that matter any powerful male figures. David Blankenhorn, Jr., Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, describes a good father:

It would never occur to him–or to his children or to his wife–to make distinctions between “biological” and “social” fathering. For him, these two identities are tightly fused. Nor would it ever occur to him to suspect that the “male income” is more important for children than the “male image.” For him the two fit together. Consequently, he seldom ponders issues such as child support, visitation, paternity identification, fathers’ rights, better divorce, joint custody, dating, or blended families. His priorities lie elsewhere . . . (p. 201)

Self-reflection and Existential Possibilities

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Our culture deifies self-reflection and existential possibilities. Without the Christian standing and saying, “Why?” we will lose the sense of irony. There will be no individual essence to which we remain true or committed. As the boundaries of definition give way, so does the assumption of self-identity. “Who am I?” is a teeming world of provisional possibilities. A question other generations dared not ask. A question that is asked all the time now. Who will answer that question for this generation . . . (Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life).

The Cry of Modern Humankind

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

The great religious writer Unamuno creates a character, Augusto Perez, in his book Mist, who, through omniscient narration, turns to his maker (e.g., Unamuno) and cries: “Am I to die as a creature of fiction?” Such is the cry of modern humankind. The Christian author and Harvard Professor Robert Coles laments that we “we have the right to think of ourselves, so rich in today’s America, as in jeopardy sub specie aeternitatis, no matter the size and diversification of his stock portfolio.” It seems, at times that we are lost. “The sense of being lost, displaced, and homeless is pervasive in contemporary culture,” Walter Brueggemann writes. “The yearning to belong somewhere, to have a home, to be in a safe place, is a deep and moving pursuit.” This world does not provide what the characters in these plays need. No, not it really doesn’t. My class advisor in Harvard Divinity School, Dr. Forrest Church, now pastor in a Unitarian Church in New York City, writes, “In our faith God is not a given, God is a question . . . God is defined by us. Our views are shaped and changed by our experiences. We create a faith in which we can live and struggle to live up to it . . . compared to love a distant God has no allure.” Indeed. This thought has gotten us into quite a mess.

My Story – Part 4

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

For the next couple of days, I want to share my story, my view, and how I can make decisions with commitment.

Yesterday I talked about my surfing experience and how connected you feel with the ocean when riding a wave.

One Sunday after a catching a few waves in the morning I wearily washed ashore to find a group of enthusiastic revellers singing right on the beach. It was very small church that met every Sunday on the beach with an uncomplicated worship agenda led by a guitar. No sound system, no microphone, just voices on a sandy slip looking out across the ocean. The environment was saturated with a genuine love for the wellbeing of others and their community. It didn’t take long for me to become apart of this family.

The pastor announced there was a “he said/she said” meeting at the church. I arrogantly smirked and rolled my eyes at the idea of hearing another typical cheesy rendition on the evils of dating and glorification of courting. But, my Maui family was going therefore so should I.

After an hour or so of hearing exactly what I expected, the pastor’s wife threw a misdirecting bolder at my lofty ideas of what love and marriage mean. She suggested splitting off the men from the ladies allowing her to speak directly to the men and the pastor to speak directly to the ladies. The honest story she told was of how she met her husband.

When she was a young adult she asked the Lord for a sign, that her future husband would greet her with a white rose. As the story goes, the night he was going to ask her, every florist was sold of off all roses except white ones, he searched for hours wanting to give her red roses. But, for the sake of being punctual, he settled angrily for white ones… the rest is the tale that brings them here tonight talking to me, as man and wife.

I didn’t know what to make of this. Believe it and I feel foolish. Blow it off as coincidence, and I feel like I’m limiting God. Embrace it and I feel sacrilegious perhaps even blasphemous. But, she was persistent in us to prayerfully seek God for a sign. I flippantly wrote down my sign and thought no more of it. I was not one to test God. I was not one to believe in the hocus-pocus-slain-in-the-spirit gibberish. I went on my way.


Peter Stobaugh
phone: (814) 659-6501

Lost & Unhappy

Monday, December 7th, 2009

It seems at times that Americans are lost. I am a pastor, and in spite of our hedonistic bravado, I generally find some of my congregation members—who generally are not living a life centered on Jesus Christ—are in fact desperately unhappy. No wonder. This world does not provide what we need. I once thought it did. I can remember being seduced by the august institution, Harvard University. In 1976, I really believed my university chaplain who told the incoming Harvard class, “You are the next history makers of America.” I wanted to believe it. I needed to believe it. My acquaintance and colleague from Harvard Divinity School, Dr. Forrest Church, now pastor in a Unitarian Church in New York City, was fond of saying, “In our faith God is not a given; God is a question . . . God is defined by us. Our views are shaped and changed by our experiences. We create a faith in which we can live and struggle to live up to it . . . compared to love, a distant God had no allure.” Indeed. This thinking has gotten us into quite a mess.

What kind of mess? While I attended seminary, I remember hurrying to the opening ceremony of the academic year held every September at Harvard Memorial Chapel in the Yard. Spying an impressive group of Harvard Professors, decked out in all their academic robes, capes, and histrionic sententiousness, I decided to follow them to Memorial Chapel, a landmark in Harvard Yard. Although I knew one way to go there, they were not going my way, so, I trusted these sagacious gentlemen to show me a better way. Well, we got lost! And I was late! In spite of their august credentials, they did not know the way after all.

One of the most disturbing essays I have ever read is an essay by Thomas Merton entitled “A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann.” “One of the most disturbing facts,” Merton begins, “that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane.” The fact is, given our world, we can no longer assume that because a person is “sane” or “adjusted” that he/she is ok. Merton reminds us that such people can be well adjusted even in hell itself! “The whole concept of sanity in a society where spiritual values have lost their meaning is itself meaningless.”

The central symbol for every twenty-first century Christian must be the cross. At least from the second century onwards, Christians used the cross as their central symbol. I yearn, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer did at the end of his life, for the crucified Lord to return again—as the rediscovered center”to the center of the Church and American society. America does not need a new religion; it needs Jesus Christ—crucified and resurrected.

With John Stott, in The Cross of Christ, my prayer is that this new generation, haunted by so many bad memories, so bewitched by technology and social science theories, would again come to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, at the same time, I want us to reclaim the joy of this adventure—so persuasively presented by John Piper in Desiring God. Steering right into the storm, armed with God’s divine presence and teachings, can affect the end results of this spiritual storm we Americans are experiencing.

TOLERATION

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

If we are confused about what is right and wrong, about individual responsibilities, we are even more confused about toleration. S.D. Gaede, When Tolerance is No Virtue, says . . . “In our culture, there is considerable confusion about how we ought to live with our differences and a cacophony of contradictory justifications for one approach as opposed to another. All appeal to the need of tolerance, but there is nothing like common argument on what that means. The question our culture raises by nature and development is what is truth and what can we believe? Our culture doesn’t know the answers. In fact, we have lost confidence in truth and have come to the conclusion that truth is unattainable. Thus, tolerance moves to the forefront.”

Finally, in the years ahead, there will be real confusion about sexual roles. Sir Arnold Toynbee says . . . In the nineteen forties Toynbee studied civilizations and came to the following conclusions: Based on his study of twenty-one civilizations Toynbee found that societies in disintegration suffer a kind of “schism of the soul.” They are seldom simply overrun by some other civilization. Rather, they commit a sort of cultural suicide. Disintegrating societies have several characteristics, Toynbee argues. They fall into a sense of abandon People begin to yield to their impulses-especially in the sexual area. They also succumb to truancy that is escapism seeking to avoid their problems by retreating into their own worlds of distraction and entertainment. There is a sense of drift as they realize that they have no control over their lives. Consciousness is adrift, unable to anchor itself to any universal ground of justice, truth on which the ideals of modernity have been founded in the past.

Evangelicals, therefore, must not merely talk the talk. They must walk the walk. They are seeking to create an alternative community of hope. We/they are sabotaging the conspiracy of hopelessness and self-centeredness that is so pervasive in our nation. Bring on the revolution!

FEAR AND TREMBLING

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Next, there is a pervasive and abiding concern about the future. To those of us who lived through the Cold War this seem ludicrous. But the tentativeness and fear that pervades American society are real. Witness the catastrophe at Columbine. Those two young men were angry, confused, but most of all hopeless. We have lost our way; lost our dreams. Harvard professor Dr. Harvey Cox writes: “We once had dreams and no technology to bring them to pass. Now we have technology but no dreams!”

In fact, most social critics argue persuasively that this generation is one of the most hopeless in history. Interestingly enough this hopelessness has made us rather sentimental. We have become very sentimental about the past. Even in our most creative creations it is more of the same. Even though Hans Solo is a liar, a criminal and a fornicator, he still is a do-gooder spreading George Lucas’ version of truth and justice across the land. But God is totally absent. The Star Wars phenomenon is so appealing because it is about the past; not about the future. Luke Skywalker is more like John Wayne than he is like Tom Cruse.

To this hopeless generation history is not sacred; it is merely utilitarian. It is not didactic; it helps make them feel better. The modern psychologist B.F. Skinner, for instance, disdains history and gives M & M’s® to monkeys. We have no actions—only fate driving us. We are rudderless. The fact is we Christians know, however, that God is in absolute control of history. We need to teach our children to be tirelessly hopeful. We need to make sure that we are not mawkish! We can easily do so by speaking the Truth found in the Word of God in places of deception.

One of the greatest problems in this generation is confusion about individual responsibility. It was Freud who told us that feelings of guilt were a sign not of vice, but of virtue. That our problems stemmed from our mothers, not from our sin. Perhaps our problem began with Goethe whose Faust escapes the consequences of his sin by sincerity and good humor. What does this say for poor theistic Gretchen? Look at the evolution of the American understanding of hero:

  • 1930-1970 Traditional John Wayne . . . While he was not overtly Christian, Wayne exhibited Judeo-Christian behavior in all his actions.
  • 1970-2000 Modern Clint Eastwood . . . Eastwood is moral but the end justifies the mean. He is motivated by a golden-rule sort of moral code.
  • 2000-Present Post-Christian Tom Cruise . . . Morality to Cruise is defined by what is right in his own eyes.

Perhaps our movie icons best typify what America values and promotes in her culture.

GOING TO COLLEGE

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

As you make final preparations for college, consider this information. American society is manifesting:

  • Increasingly dysfunctional culture.
  • A pervasive and abiding concern about the future
  • A serious breakdown of community.
  • Confusion about individual responsibility.
  • Confusion about what toleration is.
  • Confusion about sexuality.

As we begin the new millennium, Robert Bork in his prophetic book Slouching Toward Gomorrah warns us that the out of control individualism and egalitarianism of the 1960s are very much with us. One merely has to recall the impeachment hearings several years ago to see evidence of this sort of morality where “if what he is doing harms no one (individualism) then it is ok to do it (egalitarianism). We are part of a therapeutic culture, where wholeness is replaced by holiness, sanctification is replaced by therapy. And even the heartiest pagan is getting really tired of this mess! And, as he does, he may very well choose home schooling as an alternative to public education.

Os Guinness warns us that at some point Americans will become fed up with the excesses and dysfunctional aspects of our culture. He says that as American mainline culture fails to sustain Americans in their hedonistic pursuit of self interest, they will want something more. It is now questionable whether America’s cultural order is capable of nourishing the freedom, responsibility, and civility that Americans require to sustain democracy. Modernity (a word to describe modern American culture) creates problems far deeper than drugs. It creates a crisis of cultural authority in which America’s beliefs, ideals, and traditions are losing their compelling power in society. William Bennett is right to warn us that there is a “death of outrage” in our country but he might add that there is a numbness spreading across the land that offers much opportunity for Christians in general and for home schoolers in particular.

Confusion About Responsibility.

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

One of the greatest problems in this generation is confusion about individual responsibility. Perhaps the problem began with Freud who told us that feelings of guilt were a sign not of vice, but of virtue. That our problems stemmed from our mothers, not from our sin. Perhaps our problem began with Goethe whose Faust escapes the consequences of his sin by sincerity and good naturedness, poor Gretchen aside. Look at the evolution of the American understanding of hero:

a. Traditional John Wayne . . . A moral, golden rule, hero. He was never immoral. He always did the right thing.

b. Modern Clint Eastwood . . . Eastwood is tough. “Make my day” world. Doing something invites any appropriate response–as defined by offended person.

c. PostChristian Tom Cruise . . . Cruse is selfish but moral. Commits adultery and lies for the sake of good things in The Firm. But there is a hint of morality.

The Christian homeschooler must be responsible before God. Every thing must be do to His glory.

Confusion about responsibility is only one confusion. Confusion about what toleration is also everywhere. S.D. Gaede, When Tolerance is No Virtue, says . . . In our culture, there is considerable confusion about how we ought to live with our differences and a cacophony of contradictory justifications for one approach as opposed to another. All appeal to the need of tolerance, but there is nothing like common argument on what that means. The question our culture raises by nature and development is what is truth and what can we believe? Our culture doesn’t know the answers. In fact, we have lost confidence in truth and have come to the conclusion that truth is unattainable. Thus, tolerance moves to the forefront. C. K. Chesterton wrote: Toleration is the virtue of the man without convictions. The Christian Response: A. We need to understand the culture in which we live–one in which relativism is growing which leads to injustice. B. We must know what is right and do it. C. We must seek justice–we cannot turn a blind eye to the injustices related to multi-culturalism. D. We must affirm truth and not tolerate relativism. E. The church must be who it is–it must express its convictions about truth and justice and practice and express tolerance (i.e., love) to the multi-cultural body of Christ.