Hope

Writing on this website has been about self-therapy more than anything else - it's been a hell of a year, quite literally, for myself and the world as a whole.

I've written different thoughts and ideas on here that at certain points in my life would've repulsed me or embarrassed me but just getting all the different kinds of thoughts out, as well as doing things like summarizing my life experiences using LinkedIn, and more recently posting photos, and Twitter comments, and personal hobby/community/academic/business projects I've worked on in the past, I believe did more good for myself than harm even if by sharing any of it online it did any damage to my reputation in any way or got myself absorbed in self-worship or prideful kind of thinking.

It's just like vomiting - sometimes you just need to get everything out of your digestive system to get rid of the bugs, the unhealthy stuff (sorry for that image if you're reading this). 

Using this analogy, I'd say this website has been a toilet used for me to vomit to get everything out of my "personal identity/self-concept system" (sorry again for that image) to help myself heal from the ways I've been damaged by myself and my bad choices, and by others, throughout my life and by the unfortunate world circumstances of the past year. 

I'm not going to delete anything off here yet because, I think it's better for these things to stay exposed or else they may end back up swirling in my mind and I'll have to "vomit" them up again eventually.

​I want to believe in God again, I want to devote my life to serving God and worshipping God and live in harmony with all the people created in God's image - at least the ones who also believe in God.

I agree now with pg 4 of The Bible textbook: standards are needed (see Groups post from yesterday for explanation on this comment).

Who is God/what is God? 

That question is what has given me a lot of struggle and my constant asking of this question has lead me to be convinced of ideas of God from supposed friends or authors or online writers that are unhealthy for me and unhealthy for the world. 

I'm still in the process of forgiving myself and others who mistreated and misguided me, I still have a lot of anger and frustration and regret built up inside of me, but I'm trying to address this and I know turning back to our loving God, who lived and taught in the manifestation of the human person Jesus around the region of Israel, about two thousand years ago will help me more than anything else with this.

I'm still coming to terms with all the bad stuff Christianity and people who call themselves Christian have done in the name of God, I'm still wrestling with the many ideas of God that exist, the many different doctrines, and philosophies within Christianity in the hundreds of different denominations that exist.

Can I learn from people like Rob Bell as well as John Piper, two people who believe in God and taught about God and Jesus and Christ but aren't willing to be in communion, in conversation with each other (at least Piper is not)? Is one wrong, the other right or are both right and wrong, good and flawed in different ways?

What about Bruxy Cavey vs. Jacob Reaume, to provide a more close-to-home, Ontario example of prominent Christians who are against each other in many ways? 

They seem to be on different planets philosophy-wise but still both consider themselves conservative Christians. 

(Note: I have some personal connections to this situation: Jacob Reaume is the pastor of Trinity Bible Chapel, a church that has been a big source of public controversy because of its response to COVID-19. Trinity used to be located in the same town as the church I attended - Breslau. 

In one of the two occasions I’ve had to have a personal in-person conversation with Bruxy Cavey, I asked him how he has responded and handled to all the criticism from Jacob Reaume especially the defamatory blog posts. He told me he’s tried to reach out but Reaume was unwilling to have a discussion. 

I do not think Reaume’s blog posts are entirely appropriate and I agree with Cavey’s theology significantly more than his but I think they are both not doing the right thing - why can’t Reaume try to be more civil and friendly, and why can’t Cavey address Reaume’s arguements publicly. 

It’s easy to write and preach one’s own thoughts in books, blog posts and sermons but if you’re unwilling to engage in public discussion with those who disagree with you can what you say be valid and trusted? Maybe I’m not one to talk here, myself writing discreetly on this blog - maybe I’m seeing my own flaws in both of them).

I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that all people are flawed, this world is flawed, including myself, including the people that are supposed to lead us and show us the way. 

But that doesn't mean God or the idea of God is flawed. 

The book, the Bible, and the religion, Christianity, that point to this God are also flawed because they are created by flawed humans, in this flawed world - God didn't create the Bible or Christianity but God created humans that look like God but aren't quite God but use their flawedness as well as the flawedness around them to point towards the God who is not flawed.

This is why we need to talk about and take seriously in our daily lives and relationships, the concept of sin. 

At certain points in life, including these past few months, I have denied the concept of sin, I have believed the idea of sin and the way people in power use it to guilt people is the reason for suffering in this world.

But no it is sin itself (which not believing in sin or using the concept of sin to guilt people for power purposes could be included as examples of) that is the source of suffering and misfortune and evil and disease in this world. 

Some of it comes from ourselves, some of it comes from other people, some of it comes from the physical world. It is why we are told by Jesus and leaders of churches to repent of sins daily, ones we are conscious of and ones we are not.

I am sinful, I am flawed, a lot of what I have written on this website including this post likely contains a lot of sinful thinking but admitting this, repenting gives me freedom, hope, life - not denying that sin, that flawedness exists.

This post was inspired by reading this article on desiringgod.com (a website started by John Piper which is ironic because I was inspired to start this website by Rob Bell after taking his writing course - lol).

Here are a few passages from this article written in 2018 by Jon Bloom, co-founder of this Desiring God project, which argues that the path to good mental health, to a good life is belief is ultimately hope, which can only truly come from belief and trust in the "triune Christian God":

• "This makes the mental health of hope a powerful pointer to reality. It means we are designed to be hopeful. And hope is what we feel about the future. But the only way we can have hope for the future is if we believe the future is promising. Which means, we are designed to believe in promises."

In other words, we are designed to be creatures who live by faith. And this is where atheism really falters as a pointer to ultimate reality. 

All it has to offer by way of mental health is autonomy. You’re free to do as you wish, but you must build your autonomous house, in the words of Bertand Russell, on “the unyielding foundation of universal despair.” This does not work for us psychologically. 

Those who believe God is a delusion, then, must construct some kind of hope delusion, or suicide will become increasingly appealing. 

​What keeps us going is hope in a future fueled by promises about the future. 

We, by nature, are not designed to “live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). 

So, from a general human-mental-health standpoint, the issue becomes: what promises give us the most healthy, robust hope?

That question is not hard to answer. 

It courses through us every day, and runs through the myths, legends, stories, songs, and poems we have loved most in all cultures and in every era: redemption. 

We long for good to triumph over evil. We long for justice to triumph over injustice. And we long for personal forgiveness and freedom from guilt — not guilt that man-made religion has heaped on us, but guilt from the depravity inside us and the things we have done, said, and thought that we would be mortified for anyone else to find out. “The human heart is designed to love God most, and is never happier than when it does.”

• "The doctrines of sin and divine punishment are only psychologically damaging if they are false. 

But if they are true — if God exists, and we are sinners, and God is going to bring the triumph of good over evil and the triumph of justice over injustice, including giving us sinners what we deserve — they are not damaging, but they are urgent necessities.

And no religion or system of beliefs in the history of mankind addresses human depravity and injustice in ways that so align with our experience of reality — while at the same time holding out such hope to us in such wonderful, almost incredible, precious promises — as Christianity.

Christianity names us as what we already know we are: sinners. It tells us what the wages of our sin deserves — and that our sins are even worse than we thought because our Creator is far holier than we thought. 

It tells us that our Creator is not only holy and perfectly just, but that he is gracious beyond our comprehension and has made a way for us to escape his righteous judgment against us by himself paying the debt of our sin and himself absorbing his wrath, making it possible for us to have what every one of us longs for: redemption and eternal life, free from sin and in full, restored fellowship with our Creator and Redeemer.

Christianity turns out to be the greatest, most beautiful story of redemption ever told.

It addresses all our greatest and deepest needs and longings. It offers all of us the most hope, no matter who we are and how horrible we’ve been. When holistically believed and consistently lived, Christianity produces the most mentally healthy people history has ever known."

• "It’s not religion that damages us; it’s unbelief. Things fall apart for us when we disbelieve God because the foundation of our hope erodes. Unhinged from God, our hearts, minds, and bodies are restless. The more unbelief is operating in us, the more disordered and mentally unhealthy we become. But the more we trust God, the more we abound in hope — no matter what our circumstances are, no matter how bleak things look at the moment" (Romans 15:13).

The human heart is designed to love God most, and is never happier than when it does. The human soul is designed to find its rest in the promises God himself makes to us. The human psyche is designed to find its security in the unconditional acceptance and love of its Creator. And the human body is designed to work best when the heart, soul, and mind are functioning in a harmonious love for and trust in God."

These quotes make sense to me both logically and empirically, based on my own life experience, particularly in the past year.

There are so many people, there are so many philosophies and ideologies and spiritualities that are against this way of thinking. 

Most of them I think result from people being scared to admit their faults and flawedness which is silly because the basic tenant of Christianity is that Jesus died so that we don't have to be responsible for our flawedness and bad choices - all we need to do is admit them and we will be welcomed back and loved  and accepted - we already are.

​I want to engage with God again, engage with my fellow flawed human beings who were created in is image too, who also believe in this great God. 

For me, this will include engaging with thoughts and ideas about who God is from both "liberal" and "conservative" Christian perspectives, from "fundamentalist" and "universalist" perspectives. 

There are flaws in all these perspectives but these perspectives are coming from image-bearers of God trying to know and be in relationship with this God.

​Coming from a period of life where hopelessness has been a daily theme, this gives me hope.

Is my hope found in Christ alone, as the video at the end of my post yesterday claims?

No - "in Christ alone, my hope is found" is a false statement if I'm the one speaking or singing it.

The good thing about "conservative" or "fundamentalist" Christians is they don't waver from the idea that hope is necessary. 

But I believe these kind of Christians are way too limited in what gives them hope and their conception of what God is and what Christ is.

If you tend to identity with "conservative" Christian thinking or you've grown up with any sort of Christian education or exposure to Christianity at all, try watching these clips. Will you allow yourself to expand your idea of God, of Christ, of hope?