Head vs. Heart

The following is from a ridiculously long email I sent to a friend regarding the question "If we are to live holy we must know what is right and what is wrong", which I suggested gets into "how" we "know" anything. Here's what I had to say (with a few selective edits)...

There are two kinds of knowledge - rational/natural/head knowledge and instinctive/supernatural/heart knowledge.

I rationally know that 2+ 2 = 4, Lansing is the capital of Michigan, etc. I've been led astray though by false syllogisms, faulty logic, and emotional manipulation (guilt, pressure, shame, etc) posing as knowledge.

I instinctively know that Joyce is the one for me, that God is real, that Jesus' way is best, that there is a hope for those who follow him. I can't prove these things rationally, but I do know them in a way more enduring than reason.

For the follower of God, heart knowledge is superior to head knowledge, and has a pervasive effect on one's life because God has given us a new heart in fulfillment of the covenant in Jeremiah so that our heart is no longer deceitful above all things and untrustworthy. For a true believer, following your heart is tantamount to following God (though for an unbeliever that's impossible; at best it's following self-centered whims). The Holy Spirit indwells the heart and communicates through it.

The mind, on the other hand, is still affected by the god of this world and must be renewed, transformed, every thought must be "held captive to the obedience of Christ" as Paul wrote. It is the mind that fears, worries, doubts - these do not occur in the heart. It is the mind that must be subjugated to the heart where we KNOW in ways we can't rationally explain that God is good, trustworthy, merciful, and will defend us now or in the end.

When we approach scripture, we need to learn to interpret it with our hearts, not merely our minds. That is not to say that reason has no place, but it does not have the preeminence. Reason is subordinated to the Holy Spirit who assures us at a much deeper level of what is true and what isn't.

I have lost arguments and been "convinced" rationally to follow someone who claimed to have the correct interpretation of scripture only to find that it wasn't the whole counsel of God and that my heart (and Joyce's) had been warning against it all along but we refused to heed that innermost warning. It cost us many years and tears, but God is good, we have been forgiven, and we forgive in return for all He's done for us.

I know now that I must come to scripture with humility, realizing that the reality of God is greater than any doctrinal statement about Him, that His wisdom exceeds our best attempts to grasp it, that His love is so endless that I have little clue and yet so desperately need to embrace it.

I'm not worried about "living holy" - if I love Him, it will occur both naturally and supernaturally. I'm not in fear of disappointing God - God has already paid my price and has not given us the spirit of fear (and I know who does give such a spirit and he is my enemy). Love fulfills the law. Perfect love casts out all fear. Love is far more powerful than condemnation. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (1 John 4:8).

Sometimes it seems like people pick over the teachings of Moses, Jesus, Paul, etc. and strain at gnats to feel self-assured of their correctness (a la the Pharisees in scripture) while at the same time totally avoiding DOING the teachings. James lets us know that this is empty, dead, in vain. We don't do works to earn anything, but if we've been changed by His love and grace and power, we will do good works because of who we now are - it's just what kingdom kids do. It's their DNA.

So as I follow God, as I try to more and more follow the way of Jesus, I plan to follow my heart in the process - it won't mislead me like faulty logic has.

P.S. I may have misspoken here or there, stated something that on further review I don't agree with quite that way, but it's like Bluto in Animal House giving his speech - "Don't stop him - he's on a roll..." Anything I said that is true is not true because I said it, but because God made it that way. I accept responsibility for anything less than true. :)

All you need is love...

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."
- 1 John 4:7

I'm struck by the thought that no theological system is implied here - those who are born of God are not said to first have mentally assented to dogma or doctrine, to have completed certain rituals, etc. The people who truly, intimately KNOW God are those who LOVE. They are "born of God"... born again. They "get it".

Jesus told his followers, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples - by your love one for another." This was recorded by John (known as the disciple whom Jesus loved... imagine that).

For decades I have participated in religious institutions that were filled with judgment, hatred, racism, condemnation, gossip, harshness, lies, deceit, greed, and worse. In that time Joyce and I have commented on more than one occasion that we have experienced far more love from people outside the walls of that religious assembly than we have from those inside.

Many of the "outsiders" we knew actually loved - and I'm not merely talking about self-centered give-to-get kind of love. No, these people (knowingly or unknowingly) practiced the example of Jesus by self-denial and sacrifice in order to better other peoples' lives. They "got it". And based on the verse above, it seems that they "knew God" in ways that hadn't dawned on me at the time.

Paul wrote, "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law."

To "fulfill the law" means to actually get the point; to "abolish the law" conversely means to totally miss the point. Those who love their fellowman "get the point" of the law - it's not a list of things to not do or to do in order to avoid punishment or guarantee prosperity. Rather, the law provides a framework that helps us understand what it means to love each other and bring shalom to our world.

Those who love will be sure to love and honor God first and foremost, respecting him with their time, their bodies, even their tongues. They will honor and bless their parents, the first ones to show them love. They will treat their fellow man in a way that respects their lives, property, bodies, possessions, etc. And beyond the "big 10" there are numerous guidelines that help us understand how to love the poor, the opposite sex, foreigners, animals, victims, criminals, and society at large (as well as how to address situations where to love one party seems to conflict with loving the other party).

All you need is love...
All you need is love...
All you need is love, love...
Love is all you need.

- John Lennon

"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

- Jesus

"Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."

May that be true of me.

Rollins on desire

More from Peter Rollins' book "How to [Not] Speak of God":

Rather than desire being fulfilled in the presence of God, religious desire is BORN there. In short, a true spiritual seeking can be understood as the ultimate sign that one already HAS that which one seeks, or rather, that one is already grasped by that which one seeks to grasp. Consequently a genuine seeking after God is evidence of having found.

Of course, much desire that appears to seek after God is nothing of the sort. For instance, to seek God for eternal life is to seek eternal life, while to seek God for meaningful existence is to seek a meaningful existence. A true seeking after God results from an experience of God which one falls in love with for no reason other than finding God irresistibly lovable. In this way the lovers of God are the ones who are most passionately in search of God.

Thus the emerging community celebrate the centrality of religious desire, acknowledging that it is a necessary part of faith. This approach can help us to appreciate why the psalmist writes, 'those who desire God lack no good thing' and why the Gospels tell us to 'seek first the kingdom'.

I guess that's the point I really want to get to... where I desire God for himself, not for what I think he'll give me (like some magical Santa Claus in the ether). I have a vague intellectual knowledge that he is a beautiful person, supremely smart, overflowing with joy and wonder, unflappable, compassionate, radiating love and welcome and even humor.

I know in my heart that he is all that and more. But instead of relying on other people's description of this mind-boggling being, it's time to begin experiencing him more and more first-hand...

A song I'll never play

Sometimes you write just because you write, not because you'll ever use it for anything. This is one of those.

Lovers with Soul

a murder of crows is crowing `bout a murder
cold blooded killer, midnight thriller
shock and awe awaiting on the dawn
for the word to unfurl to the ghetto

calm disposition, disposed over the girder
deep into the river, food for the fishes
a simple solution to a pretty pesky problem
a missionary missing in action

eyes in the sky see past their surveillance
this rock ain't no planet for damage control
eyes in the heart search under the covers
looking for lovers with soul, lovers with soul...

slip some scratch in the back of his jacket
attractive racket for the easy money, honey
blood is gold, it gets bought and sold
and taken for granted, a breath for the Grants, yeah

eyes in the sky see past their surveillance
this rock ain't no planet for damage control
eyes in the heart search under the covers
looking for lovers with soul, lovers with soul...

watching, watching - eyes that never sleep
waiting, waiting - tables left to turn
willing, willing - to take it to the deep
wishing, wishing - they finally would learn
that nothing, nothing comes easy
no nothing, nothing comes easy

eyes in the sky see past their surveillance
this rock ain't no planet for damage control
eyes in the heart search under the covers
looking for lovers with soul, lovers with soul...

8/25/2009 by Bob Young


I think it's about contract killers and the monetary value placed on life with no fear of God. And yet one day, there will be a reckoning.

You might be...

...emergent?

After reading nearly five thousand pages of emerging-church literature, I have no doubt that the emerging church, while loosely defined and far from uniform, can be described and critiqued as a diverse, but recognizable, movement. You might be an emergent Christian: if you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash’s Hurt (sometimes in church), use sermon illustrations from The Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists primarily of Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Franke, Walter Winks and Lesslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D. A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem; if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu; if you don’t like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression and not so much abortion and gay marriage; if you are into bohemian, goth, rave, or indie; if you talk about the myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life; if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever been to a church with prayer labyrinths, candles, Play-Doh, chalk-drawings, couches, or beanbags (your youth group doesn’t count); if you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine, and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jazz, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage, and dance; if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, naive, and rigid; if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritize urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic; if you disbelieve in any sacred-secular divide; if you want to be the church and not just go to church; if you long for a community that is relational, tribal, and primal like a river or a garden; if you believe doctrine gets in the way of an interactive relationship with Jesus; if you believe who goes to hell is no one’s business and no one may be there anyway; if you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us; if you disdain monological, didactic preaching; if you use the word “story” in all your propositions about postmodernism—if all or most of this tortuously long sentence describes you, then you might be an emergent Christian.

...reformed?

After reading nearly five thousand blog posts of Reformed Christians, I have no doubt that the so-called “Young, Restless, and Reformed,” while loosely defined and far from uniform, can be described and critiqued as a diverse, but recognizable, movement. You might be a Reformed Christian: if you listen to Caedmon’s Call, Bob Kauflin, and Derek Webb’s She Must And Shall Go Free album (but never his later stuff), listen only to expository sermons through Romans, drink orange juice to the glory of God, and always use an Amazon Kindle to read publications from Crossway Books; if your reading list consists primarily of John Piper, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, J.I. Packer, D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, Michael Horton, Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware, Tom Schreiner, Kevin DeYoung, and Ted Kluck (not to mention Mahaney, Mohler, Dever, Duncan, etc.) and your sparring partners include Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Greg Boyd, and Rick Warren; if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Owen, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, or anyone just named John; if you don’t like Barack Obama or conversations or contextualization or egalitarianism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are abortion, gay marriage, abortion, gay marriage, abortion, gay marriage, abortion, gay marriage, and abortion and not so much health care or the economy; if you are into singing Psalms, hymns, or Puritan Paperbacks; if you talk about penal substitutionary atonement and the sovereignty of God; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways Pentecostalism has ruined the church; if you love the Bible as a inerrant, infallible, verbally inspired book that can be used for psychiatric diagnostics and scientific proof of a young earth; if you search for unity with other believers but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever been to a church that teaches exclusively out of the ESV, has a large Reformed bookstore, promotes several conferences a year all with basically the same speakers; if you loathe words like story, narrative, relational, open, and seeker-sensitive and use words like God-centered, hedonist, regenerate, error, heresy, discernment, and authority; if you grew up in a Christian home that in retrospect seems semi-Pelagian, naive, and about works righteousness; if you forbid women in all levels of ministry, cater to white suburbia, and like your theology systematic instead of practically relevant; if you disbelieve that God really wants to save everyone; if you want to stop dating the church; if you long for a community that exercises church discipline, thinks criticism is a good thing, and doesn’t allow dating; if you believe the “loving your enemies” prooftext gets in the way of the Just War criteria; most of humanity is predestined to hell and no one can do anything about it; if you believe salvation has a little to do with responding in faith and repentance and a lot to do with sovereign grace and limited atonement; if you believe following Jesus is about being doctrinally correct but not necessarily walking as he did (because that’s impossible!); if it really bugs you when people talk about wanting to see heaven getting into people instead of getting people into heaven; if you disdain efforts to help the poor as liberal or supplanting the gospel; if you use the word “justification” in all your arguments against NT Wright–if all or most of this tortuously long sentence describes you, then you might be a Reformed Christian.

(Thanks to iMonk for the post and the link)

Rollin' with Rollins

Here's another great little story from Peter Rollins' book "How to [Not] Speak of God":

There was once a wise teacher who would go to the temple every evening to pray with his disciples. By the temple there was a stray cat who would wander in every evening during these prayers and disturb the peace. So, each evening before prayers the teacher would tie the cat to a tree outside before entering. The teacher was old and passed away a few years later. His disciples continued to tie the cat to the tree each evening before prayers.

Eventually the cat died and so some of the disciples purchased a new cat so that they could continue the ritual. After a hundred years the tree died and a new one was quickly planted so that the cat (by now the eighth-generation cat) could be tied to it. Over the centuries learned scholars began to write books on the symbolic meaning of the act.

Rollins had a particular point he was making with that story, but to me it seems to have even broader application (read the book to know his intent).

The story reminds me of another book "A Canticle for Leibowitz", that describes future history after a third world war (nuclear) ravages the world and a new dark age follows. Some of the traditions and myths that are formed over hundreds or thousands of years are hilarious (especially the prophecies of The Poet and his famous line "Non cogito ergo non sum").

Of course, none of these references clarifies what this post is about. Then again, it's not just about one thing. I'm struck by many things that remind me of the symbolic cat tied to a tree and the canonization of Mr. Leibowitz:

* Plymouth Brethren communion services
* Asking Jesus into your heart
* the song "Mansion Over the Hilltop"
* The modern use of the term "saved"
* Systematic theology
* Neo-Reformed Fundamentalists
* The Religious Right as a political force
* "culture" and "truth" wars
* Bible version wars (especially KJV-only)
* The terms "heaven" and "hell"

There's probably more, but that's probably enough of a taste to get this iconoclast improperly branded. Sometimes I think God cares more about the poor cat tied to the tree than our loud prayers as they tried to drown out its mewling.

Two Perspectives

There is an old anecdote in which a mystic, an evangelical pastor and a fundamentalist preacher die on the same day and awake to find themselves by the pearly gates. Upon reaching the gates they are promptly greeted by Peter, who informs them that before entering heaven they must be interviewed by Jesus concerning the state of their doctrine.

The first to be called forward is the mystic, who is quietly ushered into a room. Five hours later the mystic reappears with a smile, saying, ‘I thought I had got it all wrong.’

Then Peter signals to the evangelical pastor, who stands up and enters the room. After a full day has passed the pastor reappears with a frown and says to himself, ‘How could I have been so foolish!’

Finally Peter asks the fundamentalist to follow him. The fundamentalist picks up his well-worn Bible and walks into the room. A few days pass with no sign of the preacher, then finally the door swings open and Jesus himself appears, exclaiming, ‘How could I have got it all so wrong!’

This story is told in Peter Rollins' excellent book "How [not] to speak of God". It is a very deep, thoughtful book that provides a strong philosophical framework for the "emerging conversation." If all you've heard is sound bites against the emerging church or Emergent Village (two different things), and if you think you have some mental chops, then for the sake of intellectual honesty you owe it to yourself to read this book (or just shut up about the emerging conversation because you don't really know what you're talking about). :)

He makes a case for two kinds of idolatry - one physical, one conceptual. In each case, the object has no inherent "idolness" about it, but one's view of the object is what makes it into an idol. The conceptual idolatry he warns against is doctrines and ideologies about God which have been fashioned by men.

This is what the story above satirizes, as though the fundamentalist's ideas about God gleaned from scripture were so comprehensive and true that he could actually teach Jesus! The evangelical is really in the same boat, but with a bit more humility, while the mystic comes from a very different viewpoint.

The mystic realizes up front that he knows very little of God, even from his interpretations of things God has revealed in nature or scripture; God is simply to big to objectively know. And besides, the mystic realizes that God is really to be known SUBJECTIVELY, not objectively; God desires a RELATIONSHIP with us, not for us to study him like a college course. We are like a baby in the arms of its mother, hardly comprehending her or her thoughts at all, but knowing her love, her smile, her tenderness.

As my children grow to adulthood, they will probably understand a lot more about me; if they read my blog entries, study my song lyrics and poetry, scan my photo albums and scrapbooks my mother made of my years in little league and high school sports, they will know more about me. And yet, there is SO MUCH they don't and likely never will know. It saddens me some, because I really would like them to know me better. But I'm content with having a relationship in the now with them and letting it grow. It may never really be of eternal consequence for them to know which year I won the school spelling bee and which year I lost to Cathy Lloyd by my misspelling "occurrence".

So call me a mystic. Call me emerging. Heck, just call me - I'd rather have a relationship with you than merely know a bunch of factoids about you and delude myself into thinking that because I know about you that I somehow know you.