A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

I was intrigued by an excerpt from a recent TIME magazine article on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair:

Blair is always careful to downplay the role his faith played in complex matters of life and death, such as the invasion of Iraq. “You don’t put up a hotline to God and get the answers,” he says. At the same time, he plainly thinks his faith has helped him make tough decisions. “The worst thing in politics,” he says, “is when you’re so scared of losing support that you don’t do what you think is the right thing. What faith can do is not tell you what is right but give you the strength to do it.” But in a nation like Britain, where cynicism is a way of life, that distinction—between faith as a guide to action and faith as an aid to decision—is almost bound to be lost.

Frankly, I think that distinction deserves to be lost. In light of our culture’s fondness of political correctness, I will give Blair the benefit of the doubt, but a faith that merely enables you to follow through on what you think is right, seems little more than humanistic.

No wonder religion is so often viewed as a crutch rather than a force to contend with! We restrict God’s influence in our lives by compartmentalizing Him (separation of church and state, anyone?), and yet we know we can’t do it alone, so we’re reduced to asking God to bless our efforts while we limp along as best we can. And we wonder why we don’t see Him?

What’s that Pogo saying? “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Real faith is not getting in God’s way. Let’s see what God can do when we let Him!

As I read Lewis’ blog on putting on the Armor of God, he said something like, “children are given little, if any, say in what they wear.” That reminded me. . .

When my kids were young, a friend told me that one of the hardest things for kids to learn was how to make choices. Everyone faces choices, and in our culture, the choices are myriad. (Another acquaintance from a Soviet bloc country hated shopping in the States because he felt paralyzed with indecision over the selection of dozens of cereals, t-shirts, watches, and so on.) I resolved to train my kids from their earliest moments to make choices. For example, when D was an infant, I’d hold up two outfits and ask her to make a choice. When she appeared to point to an outfit, I would use that outfit and praise her for making a choice.

In life, I think a lot of our choices (from God’s perspective) are similarly inconsequential. Why would he want to control which outfit, job, or road we take, as long as our eyes are fixed on him and our desire is to serve him?

If we sense that God is nudging or calling us in a certain direction, by all means we should go that way. And of course we should continue in prayer about everything.

But when it’s time to make a decision, make one!

Keith Mitchell gets the credit and a whole lot of it for this post. He sent it out as an email but I thought it was worth sharing with a much bigger audience. Great thoughts, Keith.

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I’m not really convinced that there is a need for an ID movement. You either get it or you don’t.

Most every Law of Physics breaks down at some level. Electromagnetic Theory breaks down at the quantum level. Solid state physic try to explain Superconductivity. These breakdowns keep us employed. We have very little understanding of how Gravity and space-time work. Einstein and many others have been trying to unify Gravity and Electromagnetism for years. Going back to the Big Bang and trying to work our way back has yielded huge gains in understanding, but much is just beyond our eyes, ears, and touch.

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After watching the movie Expelled and learning a little bit about what Intelligent Design is, I’ve run across another idea that seems to reinforce the need for teaching the Intelligent Design perspective. There is a new study called biomimicry, where nature’s designs are studied and the design ideas are used to form new solutions for humanity.

All sorts of things can be reverse engineered from studying the designs found in nature. Seems to me that these people are not at all shy about saying that nature is full of complex designs worthy of study. The question remains as to what is causing these designs. Natural selections, or God? Deists think God causes the natural selections. Atheists think that natural selections caused humans to invent God. Most Christians fall somewhere between Deists and a young earth 7 24 hour day creation event. From a science perspective, does it matter?

It seems to me this study of nature and the designs that are found is a powerful tool and can actually open up new lines of investigation. I didn’t find this point made in Expelled, though I may have dozed off during it. I didn’t hear a practical reason for teaching this perspective. For example — and this is just a poor example — we used to think the appendix and tonsils were useless randomly leftover parts (”vestigial organs”), but today, after a little study, we know they do have some purpose. The closer we look, the more designed things appear to be, and that is exciting to think about as a Scientist. Don’t take nature for granted. Look for the designs and ask questions. What could be better?

Whether you say that natural selection is smarter than we are at designing, or attribute it to God, it should be of interest to study things from the design perspective. Taking it all for granted and saying nothing to look at here, move on, seems medieval.

I was playing golf a few weeks ago with a new friend who is a long time Christian and, at 83, a man with no small amount of wisdom. He knew that I was the minister at the Palo Alto Church of Christ, and as we walked down the 9th fairway he asked me a question.

“How are you doing with one of your brother ministers being so much in the news and so controversial?”

I hesitated for a few seconds while my mind tried to interpret the question, and then I got it. He was asking me about Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ. And why shouldn’t he? Both churches use the name Church of Christ, and to anyone who is not familiar with either of these churches, the names would seem to indicate that they hold many things in common.

My friend, being who he is, knew that the likelihood of our churches being affiliated with one another was remote at best, but his question made me wonder if anyone else might have made that link. Do people in the neighborhood of PACC think that we are part of the same movement that defines Trinity United?

I mostly forgot about that possible link until this past week when I received a phone call at the church. The nice lady on the other end of the line wanted directions to our church from Monterey, because she was coming to a memorial service. I did give her directions but then asked if she was certain the service was going to be at our church. She said she got our number from information, and then she read the notice about the service which said it would be held at The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints on Middlefield Road in Palo Alto.

The names are similar, but the churches are not the same.  How much does the world view us by our name, and what’s in a name?

Last weekend my husband reminded me of the recent spate of freeway shootings where, apparently because of road-rage, someone decides someone else’s time has come and acts on that decision.

That such a thing can happen is symptomatic of many problems (gun control, anyone?), but I’m extremely disturbed at the low regard for life.

In Nancy Pearcey’s book “Total Truth,” she says:

All these forms of cultural dissolution, [Francis] Schaeffer writes, have “come about due to a shift in worldview… to a worldview based on the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its current form by impersonal chance.”

If this is truly a product of the long reach of Darwinism, so much for the atheists who believe religion threatens the survival of mankind. In the case of road rage, I don’t think the fittest survives.

How different would our world be if we all viewed each person as someone created in God’s image, someone Jesus died for?

I have never been much of a movie goer toer. I know, I know, I need to get out more. Still.

There’s another new movie out that I am not planning go see - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

“Guinevere Pettigrew, a middle-aged London governess, and daughter of a vicar finds herself unfairly dismissed from her job. An attempt to gain new employment catapults her into the glamorous world and dizzying social whirl of an American actress and singer, Delysia Lafosse. She consequently finds herself in a quandry because “morals are very important to [her].”

The theme - every woman has her day. Oh boy!

One thing struck me, morals mentioned in a Hollywood production? Is that possible?

The Point asks the question, and this also caught my eye, “What’s a movie without a Christian worldview angle, after all?”

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The worldview from Silicon Valley and the surrounding environs hasn’t always been about technology and money. Sometimes it has been about love, flowers, and very often it has been about music.

A little over three weeks ago, one person who was influenced by and influential in the world of music — and in the world of Jesus — died.

He was Larry Norman, and some at the Palo Alto Church of Christ had a “one degree of separation” relationship with Norman without even knowing it — he was the discoverer, early mentor, and friend of Randy Stonehill, who performed at PACC on December 2, 2007.

Larry Norman was, by all accounts, an amazing and powerful force. According to an obituary in the Guardian, he claimed to have had the idea of Jesus Rock in 1956 when he was just nine years old, “when he was as excited by the sound of Elvis Presley as he was by the words of Jesus Christ.”

But it was about 10 years later when he actually began the revolution that became Christian Rock.Behind and beyond the music, however, was Larry’s genuine love for the Lord and heart for the lost. According to his Gospel Music Hall of Fame biography, he started The Vineyard Church, which met in his living room in Los Angeles on Wednesdays. It is now comprised of more than 600 churches. He also led Susan Perlman to Christ, and with Moishe Rosen she founded Jews for Jesus.

(For a look at Larry at work, with a reference to the aforementioned Randy Stonehill, watch this YouTube video. Randy’s own memories of Larry are posted here.)

The Huffington Post obit included this paragraph:

While Christian Rock is sometimes assailed as formulaic and derivative, Norman was anything but and his admirers included Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, The Pixies, Van Morrison, John Mellencamp and Sammy Davis, Jr. among others.

Among Norman’s amazing list of songs is one that many Christians know, I Wish We’d All Been Ready. Based on what I know of the life, work, and death of this incredible artist, he most definitely was.Here is what he dictated to his friend the day before he died:

I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God’s hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.

My brother Charles is right, I won’t be here much longer. I can’t do anything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye to everyone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer and finance and we will probably still need financial help.

My plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside. But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement, transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papers etc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.I’d like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will be a funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want to attend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell, we will meet again.

Goodbye, farewell, we’ll meet again
Somewhere beyond the sky.
I pray that you will stay with God
Goodbye, my friends, goodbye.

Larry

See you in heaven, Larry. Thanks for the music.

Okay, so organic food is not new, but “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” a non-fiction book by novelist Barbara Kingsolver, was really eye-opening for me.

Kingsolver tells about the year her family spent eating home- and locally-grown food, rather than supporting the food industry. I was struck by the descriptions of how industrial farming is detrimental to the soil, unhealthy and inhumane to the animals being raised for food as well as the animals that live among the crops, and produces food of inferior taste and nutrition. Furthermore, the process from seed to grocery shelf consumes significant amounts of fossil fuels.

“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.”

The impact of the food industry, in striving to make available to everyone any food in any season, illustrates one of my concerns with a capitalist society. We become accustomed to getting whatever we want, whenever we want it, whether it’s good for us or anyone else.

Where are our priorities? Perhaps it’s worth putting more investment in diversified farmers, in teachers, in what truly makes the world a better place. Sacrificing convenience and affordability for quality.

You get what you pay for. You are what you eat.

Does God care how we affect the world and all its creatures? I think so. I’m not saying I’m going organic tomorrow, but it certainly gives me pause.

What would the world be like if we were conscientious stewards of His creation?

While WCB is reading tea leaves and wondering what God is up to regarding his employer and his family, I’m sipping tea (made from a bag, so there are no leaves to read, only a box) and wondering what God is up to — and what he wants me to be up to — on this “super Tuesday” primary voting day.

My wife and I looked over the ballots we received in the mail (like many in California, we have become “absentee ballot” voters) and wondering just where we should mark.

Ultimately we made most of our choices (wherever possible) based on the thing that was most important to us — faith.

That faith extends beyond what you might think, however. It is not just the faith of one candidate or another, it is our own faith and how that informs our lives. For instance, there is a proposition in California on this ballot that would expand the amount of electronic gambling (slot machines) allowed in the casinos owned by American Indian tribes.

My first clue that this was a bad idea was the euphemism that has been adopted by all: this betting of money is now called “gaming” instead of gambling. Take out two little letters and it is much more socially acceptable. But the results of the gambling are the same — the house always wins.

As for the candidates, their faith and how they’ve lived that out did (and will continue to) make a difference to me. I’m in favor of the separation of church and state, but not so far that the president can’t be part of the church. In fact, I want one who is a part of the church.

I’m not only voting that way, I’m praying that way, too.