Lost in Space

By William Lane Craig
Reasonable Faith

Q:
Dear Dr. Craig,

I am having difficulty bringing myself to earnestly believe in Christianity. I have believed in the past with the intensity of a zealot, but of late I look to the stars and find that I cannot bring myself to truly believe in Christ as God. I believe in God, and I rationally believe this God to be one, but I cannot believe that God could truly concern himself with us in this way, that He would dangle the heavens above our heads and deny us from reaching them. The earth is a speck in a galaxy that is naught but a speck in the void, a void we can never reach or explore. We are certainly not alone in the universe. How can I believe, not in a personal God, but in a God that is focused on humanity? It feels as though all is in flux, and that I am only riding the currents of society which is lain on subjective ground. All in this modern age is subjective, and if mankind is not alone in the universe then all that we are is subjective as well. If that makes sense. I was truly happy when I believed, and I truly want to. Belief in some vague 'deity' is no help to me however. I seek Christ but I am pulled away. What am I to do, Dr. Craig? You're a much smarter man than I am. Your thoughts on this could help me greatly.

My deepest thanks,
Tom

United States

***
A:
Tom, I resonate with how you feel. When I look at photographs revealing to us the incomprehensible immensity of the universe and our virtually infinitesimal tininess by comparison, I feel almost overwhelmed by our utter insignificance. A sort of vertigo sets in, with  an attendant loss of confidence in human significance.

But it’s clear that this reaction to our physical size relative to the cosmos is purely emotional. Rationally, one of the implications of the study of the fine-tuning of the universe for embodied, conscious agents like ourselves is that the universe must be as old as it is in order for us to have evolved. For the heavy elements like carbon that compose our bodies need to be forged in the interior of the stars and then distributed throughout the cosmos by supernovae explosions in order to form planets where carbon-based life forms may come to exist. But now think: if the universe must be as old as it is, then, since it has been constantly expanding since its inception in the Big Bang, it must also be as big as it is. Thus, far from undercutting the significance of human life, the enormous size of the cosmos is actually a function of human life!  Unbelievable! The very size of the cosmos which dwarfs us is actually testimony to the Creator’s care for us, to fine-tune a universe suitable for our existence.

Moreover, maybe we are not alone in the cosmos. That we are, indeed, alone in the universe may be the almost inevitable conclusion on naturalism, but on theism—which is implied by the origin and fine-tuning of the universe—it’s not at all improbable that the Creator has created embodied, conscious agents throughout the cosmos. If they, too, have fallen into sin, then God will have a plan for their salvation as well—who knows, perhaps even multiple incarnations of the cosmic Christ! If the second person of the Trinity can assume a human nature in addition to his divine nature, then why not also multiple natures? The vast and perhaps unbridgeable distances separating intelligent life forms may actually be a manifestation of God’s mercy. The record of homo sapiens on this planet is pretty appalling. It may be a really good thing that extraterrestrial life forms are safely sequestered from homo sapiens as we launch out into space, lest the contagion of our violence and evil spread.

Such moral considerations prompt an additional point: a thing’s moral worth is not measured by its physical size. I recall the great philosopher Frederick Copleston once commenting that a single human person is worth more than the entire physical universe put together. That is self-evidently true: a moral agent like a human person has intrinsic moral value, whereas mere matter and radiation, no matter how much of it, is morally neutral, having no intrinsic value. This point alone changes everything. One little girl or boy outranks the cosmos in terms of moral worth. So why shouldn’t God be concerned? What does size matter?

Moreover, why not take the enormity of the cosmos to redound to the majesty and greatness of the God who created it? I think of God like a cosmic artist extravagantly splashing His canvas with colors and shapes that may serve no practical purpose but are aesthetically beautiful. He isn’t playing with us by “dangl[ing] the heavens above our heads and deny[ing] us from reaching them.” No, He’s putting on a show! And as mankind probes the mysteries of the cosmos, we come to see more and more the beauty and grandeur of the mind which created it. We need not be able to achieve intergalactic space travel in order to study the depths of the cosmos scientifically and to learn its laws and marvels. Aren’t you glad all this is out there for us to probe?  I am!

So I don’t see how the daunting size of the cosmos does anything rationally to undermine belief in the incarnation. Scripture has always emphasized what enormous act of condescension this was on Christ’s part, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2.6-8). That point is only driven home by what we’ve talked about.

Your final reflections, Tom, on the subjectivity of modern society are even more beside the point. You’re thinking like a naturalist, not like a theist, who has an objective basis for what we believe. I think you need to shake yourself loose of the non-rational, emotional way in which you’re reacting to the size of the cosmos and think rationally about it. Perhaps you need to review the evidence for Jesus and his resurrection. Then the size of the cosmos may actually lead you to praise and worship of God and Christ.

- William Lane Craig

Does God Know How a Pineapple Tastes?

by William Lane Craig
Reasonable Faith

Q:
Dr. Craig,

I have recently been studying Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument. As you know, it suggests that there is a kind of knowledge that is a posteriori -- an experiential knowledge that cannot be had until the relevant experience is had. This kind of knowledge is usually described as a "what it is like" kind of knowledge. As Locke points out, I can only know what the taste of pineapple is like when I have actually tasted pineapple. I tend to agree with this intuition concerning knowledge. But, it raises a few questions for me regarding God's omniscience: 1. If God is omniscient (and I believe He is), how do we account for His having this kind of a posteriori knowledge? Should we conclude that God could have this knowledge without experience because of His infinite cognitive abilities as compared to our finite abilities? 2. Does the statement of the Hebrews penman in Hebrews 5:8: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered;" have any bearing on this question? Does this verse teach that Jesus, though God, gained experiential knowledge by taking human form? If so, would this imply that God lacked this kind of knowledge prior to Jesus' becoming flesh? 3. Does God know what it is like for a sinner to revel in sin or to desire to sin? Could He know that feeling without feeling that feeling? 4. Could God have been justified in creating man if He did not first have this "what it is like" (intentional) knowledge? Thank you for your work. It has been a tremendous help to my faith!

Nathan

United States

***
A:
These are difficult questions, Nathan, which we discuss in my class on divine omniscience.

Divine omniscience is defined in terms of propositional knowledge, e.g., for any proposition p, if p, then God knows that p and does not believe not-p.  Such a definition is meant to capture the intuitive idea that God knows all truths and believes no falsehoods. This kind of knowledge is knowledge “that ____.”

By contrast the kind of knowledge you are talking about (what it is like) is non-propositional knowledge.  It is not true or false. For example, knowing how a pineapple tastes is not true or false and so is non-propositional. There is something to be known here, but it is not a truth.

Omniscience, being defined in terms of propositional knowledge, does not require God to have non-propositional knowledge. He must know all truths about how a pineapple tastes, e.g., that a pineapple tastes tart, that a pineapple tastes refreshing, etc., but He needn’t have non-propositional knowledge of how a pineapple tastes.

It once seemed to me that God does not have the sort of non-propositional knowledge you describe because He lacks the requisite experiences. But then I got to thinking about a remark by David Lewis that there must be some sort of mental state that someone who is experiencing the taste of a watermelon is in. You could be in such a mental state without actually eating the watermelon. So why, it occurred to me, couldn’t God put Himself into such a mental state so as to know how a watermelon tastes?  It seems to me that this is clearly possible. In that case God could have non-propositional knowledge of tastes, colors, feels, sounds, etc., in addition to His propositional knowledge of such things. God’s greatness is thereby exalted, for it turns out that God’s cognitive excellence is even greater than omniscience!

So in answer to your questions:

1. “If God is omniscient, how do we account for His having this kind of a posteriori knowledge?” God’s non-propositional knowledge is not a function of His omniscience. His omniscience gives Him all propositional knowledge. If He has as well non-propositional knowledge such as you describe, it will be a function of His ability to assume the same mental state as someone having such an experience. Does God have “this knowledge without experience”? Yes and no; He can have the experience of tasting a pineapple but without actually eating a pineapple or having taste buds. Is this because of “His infinite cognitive abilities as compared to our finite abilities?” No, we can imagine a neuroscientist’s stimulating a person’s brain such that the person is put into a mental state of tasting a pineapple. God could do this Himself at will.  Of course, to have the unlimited range of non-propositional knowledge you’re thinking of, God’s cognitive abilities must be infinite.

2. “Does the statement in Hebrews 5:8: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered;" have any bearing on this question?” No, because in this case we’re talking about knowledge which the incarnate Son had in his human nature. Jesus obviously knew, e.g., what roast lamb tastes like. But I’m suggesting that such non-propositional knowledge may not be limited to the Son. Moreover, “learning obedience” isn’t a matter of acquiring non-propositional knowledge; it’s an idiom for the moral sanctification of his human nature.

3. “Does God know what it is like for a sinner to revel in sin or to desire to sin? Could He know that feeling without feeling that feeling?” As explained, I once doubted that God has this sort of non-propositional knowledge, since it is impossible for Him to sin.  He could know every truth about how sinners feel, but He would not know how it feels to revel in sin. But now I’m inclined to think that God could have such non-propositional knowledge.  For there is surely a mental state had by someone reveling in sin, and by putting Himself in that mental state God could know just how such a person feels. God would not Himself revel in sin or desire sin, but He would know how someone who does feels.

4. “Could God have been justified in creating man if He did not first have this ‘what it is like’ knowledge?” Well, why not? Why wouldn’t propositional knowledge be enough, in particular, knowledge of all true counterfactual propositions concerning creaturely free choices (middle knowledge)?

- William Lane Craig

How to Cultivate Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride on Your Team

by David DeSteno
Harvard Business Review

As a leader, what traits should you cultivate in your employees? Grit – the ability to persevere in the face of challenges? Sure. A willingness to accept some sacrifices and work hard toward a successful future are essential for the members of any team. But I believe there’s another component that matters just as much: grace. I don’t mean the ability to move elegantly or anything religious. Rather, I mean qualities of decency, respect, and generosity, all of which mark a person as someone with whom others want to cooperate.

Consider the results of Google’s Project Oxygen, a multiyear research initiative designed to identify the manager qualities that enhanced a team’s success. What they found is that yes, driving a team to be productive and results-oriented mattered, but so did being even-keeled, making times for one-on-one meetings, working with a team in the trenches to solve problems, and taking an interest in employees’ social lives. In fact, these “character” qualities outranked sheer drive and technical expertise when it came to predicting success.

This makes sense. Innovation typically requires team effort. Expertise has to be combined to solve problems, necessitating cooperation. And cooperation requires a willingness to share credit and support one another as opposed to always striving to take credit for oneself.

So as a manager, what’s the best way to instill grit and grace in your team? My research shows that it’s about cultivating three specific emotions: gratitude, compassion, and pride.

These three emotions not only increase patience and perseverance, but also build social bonds. For most of human evolutionary history, the ability to succeed rested almost entirely on the ability to form relationships. People needed to be honest, fair, and diligent – qualities that required a willingness to inhibit selfish desires to profit at the expense of others. And it was moral emotions like gratitude, compassion, and an authentic pride that motivated these actions. For example, research has shown that when people feel grateful, they’re willing to devote more effort to help others, to be loyal even at a cost to themselves, and to split profits equally with partners rather than take more money for themselves. When they feel compassion, they’re willing to devote time, effort, and money to aid others. And when they feel proud – an authentic pride based on their abilities as opposed to a hubristic one – they’ll work harder to help colleagues solve problems. And all of these behaviors draw others to us. People who express gratitude, compassion, and pride are viewed positively by those around them.

These emotions also build grit. They increase the value people place on future goals relative to present ones, and thereby pave the way to perseverance. Work from my lab, for example, shows that people induced to feel grateful show double the patience when it comes to financial rewards. They’re twice as willing to forgo an immediate smaller profit so that they can invest it for a longer-term gain. In a similar vein, people made to feel pride or compassion are willing to persevere more than 30% longer on challenging tasks compared to those feeling other positive emotions, such as happiness, precisely because pride and compassion induce them to place greater value on future rewards.

Unlike using willpower to keep your nose to the grindstone, using these emotions also helps solve an increasingly common problem of professional life: loneliness. Today, loneliness has become an epidemic in the U.S., with 53% of American workers regularly reporting feeling isolated in their public lives — an immense problem given the toll loneliness takes on the both physical and mental health. Regularly feeling gratitude, compassion, and pride — because these emotions automatically make people behave in more communal and supportive ways — builds social connections. For example, people assigned to engage in simple interventions to feel and express gratitude show enhanced feelings of social connection and relationship satisfaction over time.

Because of the connection between these emotions and grit and social connection, managers who cultivate gratitude, compassion, and pride in their team will see increased productivity and wellbeing of their workers. As one example, Adam Grant and Francesca Gino examined perseverance in an environment that is rife with more rejection than almost any other: fundraising. Over a two-week period, they recorded the number of calls fundraisers made in an effort to solicit donations for a university. Between the first and second week, however, half of the fundraisers received a visit from the university’s director of annual giving, during which she expressed her appreciation for their work. To get a sense of how this expression of gratitude affected the fundraisers, Gino and Grant had them report how valued and appreciated they felt by their superiors.

Whereas the average performance of both groups had been virtually the same during the first week of the study, those who had heard the grateful message upped their fundraising efforts by 50% during the second week. What’s particularly interesting here is the way the benefits of gratitude and pride can feed off one another. In another study on fundraisers, Grant and Amy Wrzesniewski found that the gratitude managers expressed toward their employees stoked the employees’ pride, which in turn, bolstered their efforts.

Compassion, too, builds dedication. Surveying over 200 people working in different units within a large long-term care facility, Sigal Barsade and Mandy O’Neil found that those who worked in units characterized by higher feelings of social attachment, trust, acceptance, and support — a composite that could easily be called empathy and compassion — not only showed superior performance and engagement, but also increased work satisfaction, less exhaustion, and lower absenteeism.

Gratitude, compassion, and pride make us more willing to cooperate with and invest in others. But because they accomplish this feat by increasing the value the mind places on future gains, they also nudge us to invest in our own futures. In so doing, they make both teams, and the individuals who comprise them, more successful and resilient.

---

David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and the author of Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride.

God’s Call to Leave This American Mess

by John Piper
desiringGod.org

What does the present political climate in America have to do with world evangelization?

Recently I preached a message on the Great Commission as part of the annual missions focus at Bethlehem Baptist Church. During the first service Sunday morning, I said something in particular that I had not said in the other two services. I regularly pray, when I preach, that the Holy Spirit will bring things to my mind that may not be in the sermon notes, but may be powerfully appointed for someone in the audience. This is one way I think about the gift of prophecy.

I was acknowledging that leaving America, with all its comforts and securities, may be hard for some of you who are being called by God to be part of the thousands who will teach the nations to observe “all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). Then, quite outside my notes, I said, “But then again, some of you may be looking for a reason to leave America, the mess is so great.” I smiled. People laughed.

At that point, instead of returning to my notes, I felt impelled to press in on that, and what came to my mind was that God has used messes and stresses before to move his people out of their comforts into missions. I mentioned the situation in Acts 8.

Really Bad at Home

Jesus had told the apostles in Acts 1:8, just before he ascended to heaven, that he was going to send the Holy Spirit to empower them to be his witnesses “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

But so far as we see in the book of Acts, no one had budged out of Jerusalem by the beginning of chapter 8 — let alone made their way to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

What was God’s way of getting his people moving out of their homeland into world missions? Answer: It got really bad at home.

Stephen was one of the greatest spokesmen for the Christian faith in Jerusalem. The leaders “could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10). So, they killed him.

The result?

There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. . . . Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. (Acts 8:1, 4)

Thus the global mission of the Christian church was launched. It had to get so dangerous at home that Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth finally looked feasible.
That’s what I said in the first service at Bethlehem and then returned to my notes.

Disillusioned About America

Whether that was a word of “prophecy” for a particular person in that service, I am not sure. But I write about it here because I believe it is so relevant to this moment in our history, as thousands of young people wonder about the future of America. Many voting-age young people are disillusioned and perplexed about this country’s political climate. There are no heroes. No great statesmen. No champions of a vision worth living and dying for.

What God showed me in that moment is that he has a great calling for his people in this very moment of American history — this very messy, muddy, demoralizing moment. His calling is that we lift up our eyes.

First, lift them up to his triumphant, all-commanding smile as he says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).

Then, lift them up far beyond the little scope of American politics to all the nations and all the peoples of the world, and look with joy at the all-authoritative promise:

      All the ends of the earth shall remember  
            and turn to the Lord,   
      and all the families of the nations  
            shall worship before you.   
      For kingship belongs to the Lord,  
            and he rules over the nations. (Psalm 22:27–28)

Then, lift them up above the pathetic inability of political figures to answer straightforward questions. Lift them up against the incapacity of politicians who will not let their “Yes” be “Yes” and their “No” be “No.”

Let your eyes land on the crystal clear, uncompromising, unchanging command: “Go, in my complete authority, to make disciples of all the peoples of the world. Bring them to faith. Baptize them. Teach them to live in accord with everything I taught you. I will be with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Moment for Missions

Every moment is a moment for world missions. Because Jesus reigns at every moment. And his commission stands at every moment. But some moments are like a thunderclap of awakening to reality. America is not our home. Political power is not our strategy. Privilege and political freedom in this age is not the birthright of the new birth. “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

If God must wake us up by means of disillusioning developments at “home,” it may or may not mean that there is a bright future for America. But it certainly means this: God has far greater purposes for the worship of his Son, Jesus Christ, among the nations of this world than can be hindered by anything that happens in America.

Indeed. Not only will our mess not hinder his mission. I am calling thousands of Jesus’s followers to hear in it a call to the nations, just like the believers in Acts 8 saw God’s hand in the catastrophe in Jerusalem. They didn’t just leave. They left on mission. “Those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4).

Lift Up Your Eyes

If this sounds like a call to abandon a sinking ship, consider this:

1. There are thousands of other ships (peoples) whose sinking condition is a thousand times more dire than America’s. Many of them have no access to the truth that millions in America hear and squander.

2. God knows exactly who should stay and who should go. All the inertia is for staying. I am lifting my voice for going. There is not one chance in a million that too many will go. I hope you will be one of them.

3. God’s method of making America well may be utterly different from the calculations which prioritize staying over going. Giving, losing, dying, and leaving are his way of getting, gaining, living, and arriving home. My own guess would be that if America gave 100,000 twenty-somethings and seventy-somethings (and a few in between) to the unreached peoples, God would rise up and clean this house.

For my own part, there are few moments when I feel more alive than when I am working for the cause of world missions. Preaching during Bethlehem’s missions focus was a huge privilege. Being a part of founding the CROSS student missions conference is one of the greatest privileges of my life. Writing this article makes my spine tingle with expectation and hope.

If you are discouraged, personally or politically, join me in lifting up your eyes. Christ has all authority over the world. His mission will be finished. Join him in it. Light will dawn in your heart.

Reasonable Faith - Question of the Week #562: Where are God and the Departed?

By Dr. William Lane Craig


Question #1:


Dear Dr Craig,


Let me echo millions of your fans by saying, thank you for all you do for Christ. I’ve bought, devoured, savoured and passed several of your books on to others, including local libraries. They helped me greatly as I continue my own relatively amateurish apologetics. Anyway, my question deals with an issue I’m not sure you’ve addressed much, and that is this: Why is it so hard to cross the space/time divide? You speak of the kingdom of God “breaking into” the world. What does that mean? Now, I understand that as the universe expands it is creating time and space. Can we say that the “place” outside space/time is where Heaven is located? To give an awkward example, my very devout young wife passed away four years ago. Why can’t she give me/us a sign that she is in Heaven? Is Heaven so wonderful that she can’t be bothered to tell us? So, I simply don’t understand what space/time is not.


Thanks


Byron
Canada


Question #2:


Dr Craig,


In what mode or dimension does God exist if He is non-corporeal, invisible, infinite but still doesn't cover any space because space was created at the beginning itself?


Surya

India


***


Dr. craig’s response

---

               
At first I didn’t understand your question, Byron, because I wasn’t sure what you meant by “cross[ing] the space/time divide.” But then reading Surya’s question made the light come on for me.


Like many who have lost loved ones, you miss your dear wife and wish that somehow she could contact you to let you know she’s all right. Like God, she does not exist in our spacetime continuum and so is inaccessible to you. (I’m glad you haven’t turned to psychics and séances to try to cross the divide.)


We should not think of the departed as being in any place in a spatial sense, including heaven. On the Christian view when we die, we do not go immediately to heaven. Rather we exist as disembodied souls in an intermediate state while we await the resurrection of our bodies and our final entrance into the new heavens and the new earth (II Corinthians 5.1-8; I Thessalonians 4.13-18). In this intermediate state we are with the Lord and so happier than in the world of sin and woe but still not as blessed as we shall be when we receive our glorious resurrection bodies and so become fully redeemed human beings.


Your question “Can we say that the ‘place’ outside space/time is where Heaven is located?” is misconceived in two ways. First, we should not think of our universe as expanding into empty space. There is nothing outside the universe in a spatial sense. There is, so far as we know, no higher dimension in which our universe is embedded. Space itself is expanding, but it is not expanding into any place. Admittedly, this is impossible for us to visualize, but expanding space can be mathematically described internally in terms of steadily increasing distances between the galactic masses.


Second, the departed, having no bodies, are not spatial beings and so are not in any place, much less a place increasingly encroached upon by the expanding universe! Nor should we think of God as existing in a spatial place beyond the universe called heaven. As the Creator of space and time, God transcends space and so is not in another place or dimension. If we ask about the “mode” of His existence, probably all we can say is that it is a non-spatial mode of existence. Analogously, philosophers who believe in the reality of abstract objects like numbers, propositions, and properties don’t think of them as existing is some spatial dimension unconnected with our own: if such things exist, they just have a non-spatial mode of being. (Whether God, having created space, now fills space is another question.) When I spoke of “the kingdom of God ‘breaking into’ the world,” I meant merely that God has causally intervened in the course of the events of history to establish Christ’s Messianic reign.


You ask of your wife, “Why can’t she give me/us a sign that she is in Heaven?” Read Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man (which uses spatial imagery to convey the reality of the intermediate state) in Luke 16.19-31. I think that Abraham would say to you something similar to what he says to the rich man in the parable: there is a great gulf fixed between the departed dead and you. But you need have no contact with them in order to know their state, for you have the assurance of God’s word (now ratified by the resurrection of Jesus) that your wife is alive and well in paradise.


“Is Heaven so wonderful that she can’t be bothered to tell us?” Paul tells us that while he would rather not be stripped of his body and so exist “naked” as a soul without a body, nevertheless it is “far better” to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord (II Corinthians 5.6-8; Philippians 1.23). Who knows whether or not your wife is now so deliriously happy with her Lord that she isn’t thinking about you? Maybe; but maybe not. Maybe she still longs for the resurrection in which she will be reunited with you. These are questions we’re not in a position to answer, however much our emotions may incline in one direction or another.


The bottom line is that the departed are spatially disconnected from us for a time, and God in His wisdom has, for whatever reason, so arranged things that contact between us and them is not available to us.

Have Church Your Way: The High Cost of the Worship Wars

By Jonathan Aigner
Ponder Anew Blog

A Problematic Prelude

After fighting the worship wars for a generation, evangelical churches first tried something they called “blended” worship (I used to make people mad by calling it “lukewarm worship”), which wasn’t the REAL blended worship as much as it was an ad hoc order of service usually including hymn/chorus medleys. In the end, nobody was any happier, usually because the medleys were weird and the enmeshment of organ and praise band even weirder. It magnified the disunity.

Larger churches came up with a solution: two services, each with it’s own “worship style.”

It sounded great, and sure enough, there were some results. The emotional intensity simmered.
But it’s cost us in the end.

We try to have it more in heaven as it is on earth. And by doing so, we symbolically make it less on earth as it is in heaven.

The existing service, the one that used to just be called “church,” was reduced to being a sentimental, get-your-blue-haired-friends-together-and-sing-the-old-favorites hour. Some elements may have remained, but they remained as breathless corpses, museum pieces, mere relics that reminded us of a time gone by. The new, contemporary service borrows the commercial Top 40 sound, and often ditches with the difficult, churchy stuff. No need for liturgy, creeds, hymns ancient and modern. Like merchants lobbying for customers, we say “Come to our church. We have choices now! One of them is cool, and the other one is for old people and old souls.” And to dissatisfied current members, it says, “Wait! Don’t leave! You win! You can have church your way now!” Instead of being a “royal waste of time,” as Marva Dawn calls it, it’s a tool to hook unsuspecting entertainment seekers into making some kind of verbal acknowledgment of Jesus and the next building campaign.

Then, somewhere along the line, we decided that corporate worship was really about the art of attraction. The bottom line: butts in the seats.

And we haven’t stopped there. We’ve found that a good show can bring people in. Many churches now offer a “worship experience” aimed at every age-level. Denominations are studying area demographics to determine what kind of style might attract more warm bodies. Then there’s the question of how to get young people back in the church. Everyone should find a worship experience that fits them just right. Take it from Pastor Darrin!



But, and my apologies to Matt Redman, but we’ve lost the “heart” of our worship gathering. And that’s cost us, and the world around us, so dearly.

A Litany of Loss

It’s cost us a high view of corporate worship. The church has long drawn a connection between worship and ethics. How we worship determines how we live. Worship God because God is holy, because God is worthy, because God invites us into the sacred story of creation and redemption. When worship is reduced to a tool, a means to a higher attendance count, it’s functionally nothing more than another ministry area. Another chance to draw warm bodies in, along with the men’s prayer breakfasts, the family life center, and the now compulsory life groups. And, honestly, it’s not really worship. It becomes something else entirely.

It’s cost us participation in corporate worship. In many contemporary megachurches today, there could be no congregation and it wouldn’t change a thing. Worship is no longer a holy dialogue, it’s an experience. The only decision is what kind of jesusy entertainment you like the most. We show up expecting everything to be done for us. Enter the sanctuary auditorium, find a pew stadium-style chair, sit in the congregation audience, and let worship happen in front of you. Maybe we’ll stand up and sing a few songs, but even that’s not really a requirement. Instead of being a vehicle for congregational response, music is performed by a few as a pseudo-holy warm-up for the sermon.

It’s cost us unity. Congregations have been splintered. Families are separated. Theological continuity is broken. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Targeting worship toward certain demographics robs us of the opportunity to be the church together. Christ’s invitation is an open one. Worship together like the motley crew we are, so we can learn to see Jesus in people that don’t look like us, don’t talk like us, and don’t vote like us. So young, eager faces can learn what it means to be the church from those that are wrinkled.

It’s cost us our identity. There is no time we are as much the church as we are in corporate worship. But we’re no longer free to be ourselves. Borrowing the words of Fred Pratt Green, the symbols that remind us of our life-long need of grace, the table, font, pulpit, even the cross, are strikingly absent. Sacraments – our God-given means of grace – are avoided on a purely practical basis. We have to rely on weak, mundane, vernacular language to tell the gospel story, lest we lose our targeted audience. Ancient rituals are dismissed as silly superstition, instead of embraced as markers in our life-long journey of faith. We organize our churches around all the other busyness, instead of the rhythm of the church year that forms our spiritual awareness. And so we do worship in a vacuum, with no grounding, no history, no eye toward the finished work of Christ, and no knowledge of the age to come.

It’s cost us our mission. We’ve mistaken evangelism for church attendance. We’ve relied on worship style to do our dirty work for us. So why go out to be the church in the world? Would we even know how anymore?

A Detoxed Doxology

So, what do we do?

We refocus our mission. We refine our understanding of corporate worship. We recover the beauty of liturgical dialogue. We retell our sacred story. We reclaim our symbols, our architecture, our creeds, and our history We reexamine our motivation. We rethink our concept of evangelism.

But our guests won’t understand! Half our church won’t even understand!

That’s okay. That’s why we’re here.

I once served under a pastor who liked to say that if we don’t change the way we worship to attract each generation, we’re telling the world it can go to hell.

*Cringe*

I wonder if this isn’t our greatest mistake. I wonder if, by letting go of our liturgical identity and modeling our gatherings after our consumeristic, bloated society, we’re depriving the world of the healthy church it desperately needs, both on Sundays and every other day.

During my years teaching in the public school system, I worked with young children from mostly underprivileged families, and I witnessed first hand the tragedy of childhood obesity that plagues poor communities. And believe me, it is a tragedy. At first glance, it doesn’t make sense. Poverty shouldn’t lead to obesity. But think about it. If you’re hungry and immobile, what’s available on every corner, is inexpensive, and demands very little effort. Carbs. From convenience stores, gas stations, fast food restaurants. And so, carbo-loading is what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every day.

So it is with the church’s worship. We’re building Burger Kings when we should be planting gardens and digging wells. We’re further indulging the carb-addicted, malnourished population with the same cheap fluff, instead of offering them a balanced meal of Word and Sacrament. Be hospitable, yes, but don’t dumb it down. Don’t make it easy. Trading the body and blood for donuts and coffee is robbing you blind. It might allow you to survive for a while, but it won’t empower, it won’t sustain. It won’t last.

And we wonder why the church’s muscles continue to atrophy.

No more rock concert with a self-help sermon at the end. Bring back the ancient pattern of liturgy, the corporate prayer, the sacred dialogue, the “and also with you.” No more all-request golden hour, either. Lose the media, the lights, the effects, and make room for the heights of wonder and imagination our creative God deserves from us. Use music, old and new, that is beautiful and well-constructed. Chose music that carries the beauty of the Christian story with honor and dignity, instead of the creative paucity piped into our lives everywhere else. No more splintering congregations in the name of giving everyone what they want.

After all, what they needed was there all along.

Q&A with William Lane Craig: How Will We Be Different in Heaven?

Q: I have been asking questons about my next life in heaven with the Lord and have yet to find a pastor or sunday shool teacher willing to discuss the issues I want to tallk about. Take for instance the question of "will heaven be an extension of our earthly life? Will we have interactions with our family members and earthly friends? Do you believe we will be walking on "street of gold"? If so why will that be such a big deal? Will we be living in luxurious mansions? If we liked playing Gin Rummy on earth will we play Gin in Heaven? You get the idea. In oyhrt words will the heavenly Bob be the same earthly Bob.

Bob
United States

***

A: It may be that the reason your Sunday school teachers and pastor have been reluctant to discuss your questions with you, Bob, is because we know so little about the afterlife that such speculation is fruitless. Better to just wait and see!

That being said, I do think we can say with confidence that the “heavenly Bob” will most certainly not be “the same earthly Bob”! Oh, to be sure, you’ll be the same person, but that person will undergo a vast change. For the earthly Bob is riddled with sin, plagued with weakness, faltering and failing in his best efforts to live his life for the glory of God. But the heavenly Bob will be set free from sin, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and fully pleasing to God in all that he desires and does. The fact that evil will be banished from the new heavens and the new Earth requires a transformation in our character that we can scarcely imagine!

Your assumption that we’ll be able, at least, to do things like play cards or inhabit buildings shows that you have correctly grasped that the afterlife is not a disembodied existence, such as Plato envisioned, but an embodied life. Your next life will not be “in heaven” but on the new Earth that God will usher in after the close of human history and the dissolution of this universe. We shall have resurrection bodies that Paul describes as glorious, powerful, immortal, and supernatural (I Corinthians 15.42-44), inhabiting a new universe which has undergone a resurrection of its own (Romans 8.21), free of decay and death.

Jesus Christ in his risen state gives us the best clue to what our lives will be like, for he is “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (I Corinthians 15.20). In him we have a sneak preview of what we shall be like in the afterlife. On this basis, I would say that the afterlife will, indeed, be “an extension of our earthly life.” For Jesus knew his own when he appeared to them, and his wounds were mementos of what he had suffered for them in his earthly life. The resurrection life is not just a prolongation of the earthly life, since it involves a radical transformation such as Paul describes, but it is not as though the earthly life is discarded and forgotten.

“Will we have interactions with our family members and earthly friends?” Jesus did. He appeared to his brother James (I Corinthians 15.7) and interacted with his disciples. So I expect that we shall, too. There will not be marriage in the afterlife, but that’s no reason to think that you will not know your earthly wife (or wives!) as your sister in heaven.

“Do you believe we will be walking on ‘street of gold’? If so why will that be such a big deal? Will we be living in luxurious mansions?” Here greater uncertainty is appropriate. The book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature, which is known for its use of vivid symbolism. The descriptions of the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21.9-27) may be vivid imagery to convey to us its dazzling beauty and worth. On the other hand a former colleague of mine, a prominent New Testament scholar, once remarked to me matter-of-factly that he thinks we shall be rich in heaven. After getting over my initial surprise, it occurred to me that since we shall have an embodied existence, we’ll have to live somewhere, and it would seem singularly inappropriate that the saints in glory should be living in squalor. Why wouldn’t God bestow luxurious mansions upon them? Why not pave the streets with gold? It would at least be beautiful!

“If we liked playing Gin Rummy on earth will we play Gin in Heaven?” Who knows? While such a pursuit strikes me as numbingly trivial, who am I to say that, say, a Beethoven will not continue to compose or a Rembrandt to paint? My greatest reservation about such earthly pursuits continuing is that it seems to me that the unadulterated vision of Christ, now no longer seen in a poor mirror, but face to face (I Corinthians 13.12), will be so overwhelming and all-consuming that no one would want to play gin rather than be singing his praises and worshiping him. If that sounds boring to you, then you have not yet grasped the incommensurable good that knowing God is. So I’m inclined to think that people who think that when they go to heaven they’ll spend endless time painting or playing golf may be very surprised at how their desires have changed once they are freed from sin and given an unadulterated vision of God. It’s going to be much better than they ever imagined.