Farewell to Joseph Hinman

It is with sadness and regret that I pass along news that my blog-brother Joseph Hinman (aka Metacrock) has passed away. He was not only one of the founding members of the Christian CADRE, but the unifier, the recruiter, the one who saw the potential for what we could be and brought us together. The CADRE was originally a group of Christians posting on religious-and-atheist discussion boards, sharing camaraderie and tips for working to spread faith on some boards that had been, previously, dominated by New Atheists (plus on some boards, one intensely polemical anti-Christian Jewish fellow). This was back in the days when major magazines had staff writers who prided themselves on increasing the intensity of their attacks on Christianity with each passing year, and major movie studios would coordinate anti-Christian pieces for public release to coincide with Christmas or the Resurrection. 

The CADRE formed late in the 1990's, seems like it was around 1998 or 1999. Though I left the CADRE back in 2005, I remember the CADRE days fondly as a formative time for both my ability to communicate my faith and my proficiency in addressing questions -- even trick questions / loaded questions -- in ways that could communicate God's grace. The CADRE'S work on message boards did see several active mockers come to faith, causing some shockwaves on those boards, and Joe was the one who organized and unified the CADRE. 

Not only was he dyslexic, but he had struggled for many years with poor health in his adult life, and had survived his twin brother by a number of years. Despite those challenges he ran several websites, published 2 books, and was continually looking for fresh ways to explain to scientific skeptics how the facts as he saw them did provide a rational warrant for belief. 

Joe, thank you for the friendship over the years, and for the joy and fellowship of working with you side-by-side for many years. I remember when your father and my father died within a few days of each other, and we shared a moment that they were meeting each other on the other side. Tell them Hi for me, and save me a seat! 

News was received through BK, another of the original CADRE members, via a post at the CADRE website. 

Christianity in Tolkien: Our fight is not against flesh and blood

In Lord of the Rings, there is a good deal of fighting with battles and armies. Still, the villain of the piece is not physical. The evil of Sauron is physically insubstantial, seen as a great eye wreathed in flame. Sauron dominates his subjects through fear, through manipulation, through temptation, through deceit. The greatest danger from Sauron comes not directly from him, but from those who willingly go along with his agenda to dominate, in the hopes of sharing the spoils or at least being on the winning side. 

Evil can be dangerous and destructive. But I am not aware of any naturally-occurring physical thing that is inherently evil, or where we can point to identify the source of evil. If evil had that kind of physical existence, we could destroy it by physical means. 

So Tolkien portrays a world in which the physical battles must be fought to protect the homes and lives of the free people, but the physical battles will never be fully successful so long as evil remains to go on recruiting and corrupting. The real battle is not against flesh and blood. 

Christianity in Tolkien: The risk of corruption and the hope of redemption

One spiritual insight developed by Tolkien is that everyone is corruptible. In the Lord Of The Rings books, we see the major characters each take their turns interacting with the One Ring, all tempted by it. The wisest of them know that they are corruptible and keep their distance from it. Some of them even get a glimpse of what they might become if they pursue that kind of power. 

Tolkien spends some time developing the theme that anyone could be corrupted. Saruman, former leader of the wizards, betrays Gandalf and joins forces with Sauron. And again Boromir, representative of the strongest kingdom in the alliance of the free lands, is the one who turns on Frodo. Those who trust to their own wisdom and strength have underestimated their opponent. Finally, even long-resilient Frodo falters in his battle with such temptation, being saved not by his exhausted strength but by the result of an earlier moment of compassion. 

By the same token, Tolkien portrays everyone as redeemable, or at least as having moments when they can be reached. Frodo refuses to break ties with Smeagol / Gollum not because of a misplaced trust, but because of the growing realization they are in the same predicament. 

It is easy to let ourselves imagine that we cannot be corrupted (or our heroes cannot be corrupted), or to imagine that anyone who missteps is a villain. In Tolkien's insight, the path forward is humility combined with hope and friendship. 

The underrated deadly sin

The list of "7 deadly sins" -- and the opposite list of divine virtues -- has developed over time. If "Faith, hope, and love" are the theological virtues, then I'd suggest the deadly sins that oppose them are cynicism, despair, and disdain (though some would say greed as the final opposite, if love were translated as charity, and I am an outlier in identifying the opposite of faith as cynicism). Where humility is recognized as a cardinal virtue, pride (arrogance) is its matching deadly sin. Wrath and patience, laziness and diligence are generally recognized as matched pairs of vice and virtue. Lust and chastity are still recognized as a similar pair by the godly. But we have nearly forgotten about gluttony and self-control. 

It's an understatement to say that our culture considers gluttony to be less serious. The culture distrusts self-control itself on the basic level of whether it is good. There is a message running through society that self-control is repressive, stifling, or dishonest. To break our self-control is the general goal of advertising. "Binge-watch" is part of the culture and language. 

In my years in 12-step fellowships, I've met "multiple winners" (people who are in multiple 12-step programs) who have variously lost control of their lives to more than just the usual suspects of alcohol and drugs. I've met people who have lost control of their lives to food, gambling, video games, and shopping. "Their god is their stomach" says Scripture (Philippians 3:19), and that's disturbingly accurate at times. And it's not by accident that part of regaining control of life, in those fellowships, is transferring the role of god to either God or a higher power of personal understanding. Having a connection to God is vital to stopping the idolatry of self that eventually leads to slavery to some appetite or other. The thing about self-control is this: If we aren't controlling ourselves, who is? So today I'd like to place a marker that this is a virtue worth reclaiming, and a value worth having. 

"Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools"

It's not often that I post about a book. It's not often that I find a new book that says something new enough -- and true enough -- to shift my perspective. On the recommendation of someone at church, I've been reading Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton. I was skeptical of the book at first: it's definitely not written in the same way as books that I've cherished from, say, C.S. Lewis. The author did not invent the modern editorial trend to structure chapters in a way that verges on click-bait; all the same I was only reading it to follow through on a recommendation received. But now and then I'd come across a gem of insight like this one: 

Everything we interact with in this small, cramped, secular world of our own making, we have the potential of mastering. In fact, we must master it quickly in order to survive -- the most efficient route between home and the office, how to move up the ranks at work, how to eat sushi without looking stupid, how to cut across lanes on our bicycles and live to tell the tale. And if we can't master it, we can always avoid it. I'll just change industries, avoid chopsticks, and take an Uber. 

Prayer can't be mastered. Prayer always means submission. To pray is to willingly put ourselves in the unguarded, exposed position. There is no climb. There is no control. There is no mastery. There is only humility and hope. 

To pray is to risk being naive, to risk believing, to risk playing the fool. To pray is to risk trusting someone who might let you down. To pray is to get our hopes up. And we've learned to avoid that. So we avoid prayer. (p. 14)

It's not a scholarly book. It's a book of experience with insight and perspective. I'm still working my way through. It's turning out to be a book where I re-read certain sections because I want to imprint the insights more clearly in my mind. But some of the insights, such as that one, have been very much worth my consideration. 

Resenting religion -- looking for a path forward

I've made no secret that I attend a 12-step recovery group, and that these groups have some interesting tools for self-examination in the recovery toolbox. In every 12-step recovery group I've heard of, resentments are targeted for spiritual cleanup. There are tools for identifying resentments, taking responsibility for any unfinished work, and resolving them. If someone carries a resentment against someone who was a friend, spouse, employer, relative, or any other circumstance, it is expected for the person in recovery to do the hard work of identifying and resolving it with the help of various tools in the program. This is considered necessary for restoring a full and healthy mental state. And people are encouraged to see that a bad experience with one person (friend, spouse, family, or employer) does not mean that they should distrust all friends, all men or all women, all families, all employers, or even continue carrying the grudge. Over-generalization comes easily to us when we have been put at risk, injured, or even slighted -- especially if we were young at the time, with unformed worldviews and minimal skills for resolving things like that. 

But there are some odd exceptions, and religion seems to be one of them. In religion as in other areas of life, problems come up from the flawed people involved. When it comes to religion, a fair number of people enshrine their resentments as a proud part of their worldview. I am not here discussing people who honestly have philosophical objections; that's a separate question that is not before me today. I am discussing times when people are hurt and angry, have long carried a resentment for something from years ago, and direct that resentment against all people of a certain faith or denomination. The various things experienced years ago -- let's give the benefit of the doubt -- may have been worthy of the anger or fear they inspired, may have been just cause for distrust of the people involved. All that is allowed for, in the general cleanup of resentments -- but still recovery usually comes with the expectation that resentments should be addressed and resolved. In other areas of recovery, it is considered a problem to treasure a hurt so that it can be weaponized, especially against people uninvolved in the original situation. It's an escalation beyond what makes sense, though hurt and anger may not follow rational channels. 

The most intense, adamant atheists I've met on discussion boards tended to have fewer philosophical objections and more anger. And anger doesn't resolve for arguing about it. For an outsider, listening and understanding may help the person who is angry. But it may not. For resolving resentments, the person with the resentment needs to see the resentment as a bad thing and participate willingly in resolving it. So long as the resentment has a valued place in the worldview, I have not identified a path forward. Still, a brief survey of social media comments is enough to convince me: it is important that we try to find that path forward. 

Are we "by nature" sinful and unclean?

I belong to a church body that begins each worship service with confession of sins from those who worship, followed by the proclamation of God's forgiveness from the pastor. We have several different formats for the service, and so our confession of sins may be worded slightly differently from one service to the next. In one version, we say we are "by nature" sinful and unclean. This has been a cause for some discussion among the theologians. 

If we are "by nature" sinful and unclean, there are those who see that as indirectly blaming God as creator or criticizing the work of creation. After all, if we are "by nature" sinful, who created that nature? There is an easy-enough response that our current nature is not as God intended, not as we were originally created. Apart from the grace of God, human nature is prone to sin. 

Human nature was never intended to be apart from the grace of God. The relationship of grace between God and man is established in our existence and was never meant to be broken. God, who is present in all things -- who fills all things in every way -- is absent from our thoughts, from our hearts, from our intentions. That is how we are out of step with nature. That is the lack of grace, and why redemption requires God's presence, "God with us", and God's spirit within us. That is what restores the lack inside us, the cure that meets the root cause of the spiritual illness.