I determined early on my family’s development that I would always go to Sunday Church. I think the reason was this: that I wanted my kids to love the church, even in it’s glaring flaws and inconsistencies. Since that time, the Local Church has not been exemplary in its display of the biblical standard. Yet, we have rarely missed attendance over the years.

There is a growing interest in departing from the church along with its local manifestations. Substitutes like “organic church’ replace what they call the “institutional” church. The description “institutional” (reminds me of some mental hospital), is used to imply that the Church has become something unnatural, formal, stiff, legalistic. So good meaning Christians reject the organized church for an “organic” church in the form of house churches or in many cases no church at all.

CS Lewis expressed it this way: (the church)… is a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity (God) desires. He continues, “the search for a “suitable” church makes the man a critic where (God) wants him a pupil.”

Do you see the point

• The church is a unity of place, NOT of liking

• The church is the vehicle to unite individuals who may not normally like each other

• When we give up on the church simply because it does not “suit” our standards, we become a critic not a student of it!

Here is how I see it. One finds fault with his local church. He searches the internet and finds several web pages that describe the faults of the church and give a basis for returning to the authentic manifestations which it seems only occurred prior to Emperor Constantine. Prior to him, the church was really real…  Since then, it has been only a facade.

Then what happens? This person starts hanging out with those who “agree” with him. And what is lost? The sanctification that occurs of learning to live with and love those whom you would normally not hang out with…. Along with a fundamental witness to the skeptics of Christianity. Jesus exhorted his followers to love their enemies. It is easy to love those who love and agree with you. Jesus asked in effect, “what kind of effort is required of you when you  choose your own friends?” None! But to love one you don’t like, one you would never choose in a thousand years, that is something else altogether, something to talk about. It cannot be duplicated by any unbelieving skeptic.

I must be honest. Could it be that those who only hang out with those who hang out with those who reject God’s church, become quirky and become “One message” people….. I think because they have no sanctifying and balancing force in their life through others who may disagree with them (not to mention the other means of grace in the local church:  preaching, sacraments etc)

My kids have grown up in local church. They love the church. They love Jesus who’s body it represents. I think it is time we agree with Augustine that “there is no salvation outside the Church.”  There is much in that thought.

Francis Shaeffer said it well: Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful. Christian community is the ultimate apologetic . (quoted in Total Church, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis

I thought you would enjoy this article written by my son Sam…

Throughout the history of Christianity, many great apologists and philosophers have attempted to develop logical arguments to rationally demonstrate that God exists. One of the most notable of these attempts is that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who laid out several persuasive arguments for God’s existence in his multi-volume work Summa Theologica. No argument can really prove God’s existence, but cumulatively they can be very compelling and persuasive. One of the less well known of them but one I think is among the most deeply engaging is the argument from desire. The premises of the argument are laid out below:

#1. Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.

#2. But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.

#3. Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.

#4. This something is what people call “God” and “life with God forever.”

(Argument outline borrowed from Peter Kreeft)

Two of my literary heroes, C.S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft, both have named this argument as their favorite. Many former atheists and agnostics, while finding ways to rationally get around the various arguments, have suddenly stopped dead in their tracks when they ran into this argument, unable to ignore its penetrating profundity.

What makes this argument stand out from the rest is that it doesn’t point to the universe, science, biology, history, or any other study to find evidence for God’s existence. Instead of directing the gaze of humanity to that outside of itself, it points directly into the human heart, revealing its deepest longings and desires. Its simple but keen insight into human nature is seemingly irresistible. Following is my own interpretation of the 4 premises of the argument as laid out above.

#1. Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.

All of us as humans are born with a set of built in needs and desires that have natural satisfactions in this world. We are born with hunger, which corresponds to food. We are born with a desire for fellowship and community, which corresponds to friendship and social interaction. The list goes on. The point is that all of our innate desires have corresponding satisfactions in this life. A desire like a child’s longing to fly through the air like Superman does not apply because that kind of desire is not innate in human beings but is rather produced through cultural conditioning (i.e. movies and comic books).

#2. But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.

There is a desire inside all of us that nothing can fulfill. We all long for a kind of “ecstatic happiness” that we never even get close to achieving in the realm of time. We try to fill this void with various things this world offers us, but in the end, we are left emptier than before. As my Dad would say, every one of us has a fundamental feeling of “homelessness” that we can’t get rid of, try as we might. In short, everyone is ultimately unhappy. The greatest pleasures we get in this life often only make us more aware of our persistent unhappiness. They only leave us with echoes of an ultimate satisfaction far beyond anything this world can offer.

#3. Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.

This premise follows logically from the first and second. Its implications are mind-boggling. Is there really something that can bring the restless human heart to peace? What possibly could be out there that can completely satisfy this ubiquitous longing for a better country? What can fill the gaping void? It must be something more than anything and everything we have in this world.

This premise does not mean that all of our desires are always met, but it does mean that some kind of satisfaction must exist to meet those desires. C.S. Lewis makes this point well:

…we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness can satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it? “Nor does being hungry prove that we have bread.” But I think it may be urged that this misses the point. A man’s physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation of a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist.

#4. This something is what people call “God” and “life with God forever.”

Although this last premise does not declare the existence of the Christian God, or any God in particular, it still awakens the heart to begin searching for the truth about reality. Because the satisfaction for the desire must be outside of time and space, the simple answer is that it must be what people call “God.” He is the only thing that can give us the ecstatic happiness we all long for.

The Christian God certainly does offer ultimate joy and satisfaction to all who desire it. Ps. 16:11 says: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Our God freely gives eternal joy to those who trust Him for it, and that joy is found in Himself. A relationship with Him provides eternal happiness beyond all imagination. The only true home for the human heart is in Him.

Anyone in our world who devotes his whole life to seeking heaven will be like Reepicheep. (CS Lewis, Letters to Children)

In the CS Lewis fantasy The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when presented with an opportunity to enjoy a daily king’s feast and stay back from the risk and peril of continuing on to the “World’s End,”  Reepicheep replies:

“My own plans are made.  While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. when she fails me, I paddle  east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws.  And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise…. “

Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. But most of us find it very difficult to want “heaven” at all… (CS Lewis Mere Christianity  120)

Reepicheep…  Small of stature, yet pure in heart.   He was BIG!   His valiant love for God and passion for heaven made up for his smallness.  At the end of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when he saw Aslan’s country in view, he “bade them good-bye, trying to be sad for their sakes; but he was quivering with happiness. ” (CS Lewis, The voyage of the dawn treader.)

Our view of the future will absolutely condition how one lives in the present… Those who have a definite future and see it with clarity live in the present with radically altered values as to what counts and what does not. (Gordon Fee, NICNT I Corinthians 7.29ff))

They do not know the first rule of the holy game, which is that every player must by all means touch the ball and then immediately pass it on. To be found with it in your hand is a fault: to cling to it, death. But when it flies to and fro among the players too swift for eye to follow, and the great master Himself leads the revelry, giving Himself eternally to His creatures in the generation, and back to Himself in the sacrifice, of the Word, then indeed the eternal dance “makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.” CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain, page 137

May our lives in this new year be transformed by a clearer view of heaven and a God who demonstrated for us that Joy was the result of giving it all away … and a little more like Reepicheep!

Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. (CS Lewis, Mere Christianity p 191)

]]> http://www.theforwardlook.com/2009/01/reepicheep/feed/ 4 http://www.theforwardlook.com/2008/10/taking-exception/ http://www.theforwardlook.com/2008/10/taking-exception/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:19:20 +0000 Chris Taylor http://www.theforwardlook.com/?p=40

Walking is a perpetual state of imbalance. It is a recurring prevention or “catching” ourselves from falling. We step forward with our right foot and just before we fall precariously forward our left foot takes the initiative and prevents the disastrous results of the right foot. Even though it becomes second nature, without this fluid state of imbalance, we could only stand still. Interesting…. You can’t move forward without becoming imbalanced first…

I noted in a previous post that there are those who may take exception to some of my posts. I stated it is not my goal to present a balanced view. The reason, in my puny mind is simple: I don’t recall ever being motivated by anyone who presented me a balanced approach to anything of consequence (nothing like a steak dinner over veggie delight!). Trying to portray every perspective on a portrait, besides taking a consuming amount of words and work, may create an image that could be quite unrealistic, much like a Pablo Picasso painting with two eyes on the same side of the face! In an effort to present a balanced perspective of reality, a view from all sides, we may only get a gruesome caricature!

Again, I know there are exceptions to this. That is not my point. Here it is: I believe we do just fine balancing out others’ viewpoints. It’s second nature. What we need occasionally is a voice that challenges us to stretch beyond our inherent nature to “stand still”; that motivates us to take that first step towards another, more radical -and perhaps godly – direction. Many times the balanced perspective is really not taking a position on anything. It’s safe, but not without its risks.

Perhaps it may help to share with you the words of the One who always speaks the truth…

Jesus said you are only satisfied if you hunger and thirst for righteousness. In the words of Peter Kreeft: This is the Lord’s one requirement: to be a saint, that is, a fanatic; to love one thing infinitely; to put all our eggs in his basket; to seek the one pearl of great price.

Fanaticism? Is it? What would your portrait look like if you loved this one thing infinitely?

Kreeft again: It is not that we don’t admire holiness, we don’t admire the passion for holiness. It is the pursuit that we resent in others. The radicalness. We may talk about righteousness all the time, but pursuing it is another thing altogether.  We always have reasons, legitimate reasons …

A passion for anything other than righteousness will not satisfy us here on earth or in eternity.  Yet, as CS Lewis wrote, we are far too satisfied with other things.

So we have the option to respond with “but we know…” perhaps add our “balance” to His words… The upshot according to John will be a Laodicean “niceness.” I don’t recommend this. Jesus didn’t present the exceptions to his own words…  for that I am truly grateful, because He challenges me to take another step of risk towards His direction. What would Western Christianity look like if we took another step Christ’s direction and risked a little imbalance?