The other day I received the unwelcome news that the body of a faithful Christian had been cremated.  I suppose I would have found it easier to accept if it had been done without her consent.  But that’s not what happened.  She had asked to be cremated.

No.  Money wasn’t the issue.  There was plenty of that.

The reason she did it was because she thought she had no more use for her body.  To her it would become an empty bottle after death, drained of its contents and worthless, or worse than worthless, just a stinking carcass.  If you agree with her; if you don’t see a problem how she thought; well, we need to talk.     

Remember the “What Would Jesus Do?” phenomenon of a few years ago?  It was a fine thing, I suppose.  It was a sort of update to Charles Sheldon’s, In His Steps.  I find it curious that so many Christians fail to follow the logic of the question all the way to the end.  “What Would Jesus Do?” is fine for daily life – the Lord certainly gave us a model for living, but it’s the model that he gave us for dying that makes living like him worth it.  Remember, the Apostle Paul told us, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”  (1 Cor. 15:19)  It’s what happened to Jesus after he died that makes Christianity truly interesting. 

You know what happened: Jesus’ body was raised from the dead.  Listen closely – his body was raised from the dead, not his spirit without his body.  It was a package deal.  In fact, Jesus went to great lengths to demonstrate to his disciples that he wasn’t a disembodied spirit.  He walked, he talked, he touched and was touched, he ate.

My father is a Scientologist.  You know, that cult that all those Hollywood types like Tom Cruise and John Travolta belong to.  Well, my father believes in reincarnation and other things that L. Ron Hubbard taught.  Most folks think that Scientology is a new thing, but it really isn’t.  It’s just a kind of science fiction version of a heresy that’s as old as the hills – Gnosticism.  Gnostics believe that the spirit it all that matters and that matter just doesn’t matter.  They think the body is some kind of worthless suit that you gladly slough off when you die.  They think of the body as a kind of prison, full of evil and bile; and they think the spirit is all light and goodness.  They go so far as to say spirit and body just don’t belong together, that the body wasn’t really made by the same source as made the spirit.  I think you can agree with me that anyone who thinks like this doesn’t think like a Christian.

And yet, the stuff I hear Christians say about the body makes me wonder sometimes. 

I don’t believe in reincarnation but I do believe in the divine incarnation.  The incarnation shows us, among other things, that life in the body can be made to serve spiritual ends in this world.  The resurrection shows us that the body has a future beyond this world, it will continue to serve spiritual ends in the next.  Just as the incarnation tells me that Christ can live in my body today, the resurrection tells me that my body will live in him for all eternity.  Naturally, it must be transformed supernaturally to do so.  It is a seed that must be planted for it to be raised for the life to come.  But, you see, it must be planted.  And this is why Christians bury their dead.  Hindus burn their dead because they believe in reincarnation, not resurrection.  Christians bury their dead because they beleive in resurrection, not reincarnation.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have gone to great lengths and to considerable expense to bury their dead.  Many of them were poor – poor beyond our ability to imagine.  So poverty is no excuse.  That’s what the catacombs of Rome were used for.  They were a network of tombs.  It was only after the persecutions of Rome that they were used as hideaways.      

If all this strikes you as a little odd you might want to read 1 Corinthians 15.  I’m sorry that your pastor hasn’t talked to you about something the Apostle Paul hung the entire case for the Christian faith upon.  Of course, there is the Apostle’s Creed.  But you probably haven’t heard that either.  Oh, well.  Now you know.

I can almost hear you screaming at your radio.  “Are you saying Wiley, that those who have been cremated won’t be raised?!”  No, I’m not saying that at all.  God can do anything but fail.  What I am saying is this: with regard to the cremated woman I mentioned earlier – there is no physical evidence to say that she believed in bodily resurrection.  She left behind no body of evidence.

In the modern world there is one thing that everyone seems to agree on. Whether they’re Liberal or Conservative, young or old, rich or poor, even Christian or pagan, everyone thinks the Church stinks.

I often hear my secular, New Age acquaintances say things like, “Oh, I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.”  Generally these people view beliefs like a diner views entrées in a cafeteria.  They like choosing things.   They’ll say, “I’ll take a little reincarnation, and give me some yoga – that’s good for stress, you know.  Oh, and throw in the unconditional love, because you can’t have too much of that, besides, I deserve it.”  For these folks religion means “organized religion” or “institutional religion.”  In other words, it means Church.  And the Church tells you what to believe.  It doesn’t let you have it your own way. 

Many of my Christian friends, unfortunately, sound much like those folks.  I’ve often heard them say, “Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship.”  Generally what that means is, “Just give me Jesus, please.  You can keep all that other stuff.”  They don’t want creeds, or rules, or traditions.  They want Jesus one on one, all to themselves.  All that other stuff, the stuff that makes it possible to enjoy Jesus along with other people, well that’s extra baggage.   

Although these two groups don’t seem to like each other very much they really have more in common than either would care to admit.  They want choices, not obligations.  They want things on their own terms.  They want a personal, private, convenient spirituality.  They want the benefits of a spiritual life without all the complications that come with sharing it with other people.       

Bad arguments really bug me, especially when terms are used that people don’t understand or haven’t thought deeply about.  Let me speak up for a very unpopular word.  Let me say something kind about religion. 

The word “religion” means “to bind.”  “Aha!”  I can almost hear you say, “I knew it!  Binding – slavery – didn’t Jesus come to deliver us from that?”  Well, yes and no.  He did come to deliver us from the bondage of sin.  But, he put a new yoke upon us.  He binds us to himself.  But there’s more to it than that.  He also binds us to the other people who are bound to him.  Remember the old hymn, “Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love –?”  That’s the sort of binding that Christianity promotes.  No, we don’t want to be bound to sin and death, but to have righteousness and life we must be bound to the source of our righteousness and life – the Lord Jesus Christ.  And you know what you find when you’re bound to him?  There’s a whole lot of other folks bound to him too.  Getting back to that silly quote – the choice isn’t between relationship and religion; religion is what relationships are made of.  What we should be concerned with is true religion.      

But people are so, well, inconvenient.  Disappointing too.  There is a saying I heard once, attributed to Einstein (I don’t know if he really said it, but it sure sounds like him), “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.”

Abstractions are easy to love, they can’t hurt or disappoint you.  But particular people, well, they’re real and they can do both those things.

A few years ago I read a book entitled, What’s Right with the Church, by William Willimon.  It’s not a terribly big book (I know what you’re thinking!) – but it is a good book.  He made a lot of good points, but the best point is this – the church is God’s creation.

And just as humanity is meaningless abstraction without particular people to know and be frustrated with, so the Church is a meaningless abstraction without particular bodies of local believers.  Why, the Church isn’t an abstraction to God.  Every book in the New Testament was written to local churches, to be read aloud in local churches.  The only books written to individuals were not written to you or me.  In fact, the persons they were addressed to: Timothy, Titus and Philemon, thought the letters were too important to keep to themselves.  Since they were bound to the Church, they handed them over because it would be wrong to keep things so precious to themselves.

Before I sign off, I just have one more thing to say.  No, your family is no substitute for the Church.  It’s just not big enough.  The Church is made up of people from every tribe and nation and every local expression of the Church should strive to embody that as much as is possible.  If your family was the only Christian family in traveling distance, well, sure, it would have to do.  But is that what you really believe?  Are you really the only expression of the Church where you are?  I hope not.  If on the outside chance your family is – well, get busy and start evangelizing people!

There’s an old song you never hear these days that’s entitled, “Give me that old time religion.”  Yeah, that’s what I want.  And if creeds and old hymns help to bind me to the Church – well, throw those in too!  Make the cords so strong that I could never even imagine a relationship with God without all God’s people thrown in!  Sure, there’s a lot more to say about this.  I didn’t even get into the Christian’s connection to the Church around the world or through time — but it’s a start!  

Some things become conspicuous by their absence.  I remember the late George Carlin and his famous question, “Who stole the blue food?”  Gets you thinking, doesn’t it?  What about the blue food?  Ever since I heard that question I’ve been looking for it – and you know what?  I can’t find the blue food either.

Raising a question can open your eyes and help you see what you’ve been missing, or as in this case, miss what you haven’t been seeing.

Lately I’ve been wondering, “Where has all the doctrine gone?”  I’m not thinking of a particular doctrine like original sin, or justification by faith – although I’d like to know where they’ve gone too.  I’m thinking of doctrine in the largest sense, doctrine itself.  Where is it?  

When I go to church I get pep-talks, and lots of inspiring advice on how to be happy, or how to raise my kids, or how I can improve my self-esteem.  I get lots of role models – people like Daniel or Abraham or even Jesus – who lived deeply satisfying lives that I can lead too if I will only follow three or five or ten simple principles.  But I don’t get doctrine.

I’ve tried Christian bookstores.  You’d think they’d have some books on doctrine.  Nope.  There’s lot’s of self-help, and “can you beat this?” testimonies, and something called Christian fiction – that’s an interesting juxtaposition of words.  It reminds me of George Carlin’s perplexity over “jumbo-shrimp.”  (Isn’t there something a little bit oxymoronic about the term Christian fiction?)  Anyway, I looked up the top 10 best selling Christian books.  What did I find? one devotional book and one bible study that might be generously classified as “doctrine light”.  The rest of it?  Yep.  Christian fiction, self-help psycho-babble, and “can you beat this” testimonies – either: I’m famous and you’re not but I’ve got problems too, so let me inspire you; or, I was really evil, praise the Lord! but I’m not anymore, but deep down you wish you could done all the stuff I did, so let me tell you about it!; or, I was dead, but now I’m not, let me tell you what I saw!”

I’m a published writer.  I’ve got friends in high places in the world of Christian publishing.  And you want to know something?  Doctrine doesn’t sell.  You want to know something else?  Most of the big-time Christian publishing going on today isn’t interested in doctrine for that reason.  There’s no money in it. 

I’m also a pastor.  I’ve pastored growing churches for 20 years.  I’ve got friends in mega-churches around America.  You know what I hear again and again?  People don’t care about doctrine.  If you want your church to grow you need a few things – a good location, an excellent nursery, a hoppin’ music team, and preaching that sounds like Dr. Phil, because people want to feel good; and that’s what we’re about right? – helping people feel good.

But I keep thinking about the whole doctrine thing. 

I’ve begun to wonder.  Could it be we’re not supposed to give people what they want?  Could it be that we’re supposed to give people what God wants to give them?  Could it be that that even though people don’t care about doctrine, God does?

Doctrine is inescapable, you know.  Just when you think you’ve gotten away from it, you’ve advocating it.  Doctrine can not only be classified as either good or bad; it can also be classified as explicit and implicit.  Explicit doctrine is honest doctrine.  It’s right out on the table for all to see.  It identifies itself as doctrine.  Implicit doctrine, on the other hand, is sneaky doctrine.  It hides beneath the surface of the things we say and do.  The reason it’s not honest is because it won’t bear up under scrutiny.  Shine the light on it and it withers away. 

We’re not getting away from doctrine – we’re just exchanging honest doctrine for sneaky doctrine.  As I look at those things that churches do and the books that Christians are reading, here are some doctrines that I see being taught: what I feel is more important than what God feels, being happy is more important than making God happy,  using God to get what I want is more important than God using me to get what he wants.  God needs celebrities and spectacular experiences as endorsements; we need to cater to the self-centered and narcissistic excesses of our world to be successful; God’s Word doesn’t count for as much as the latest market research – I could go on, but you get my drift.        

The Apostle Paul told Timothy to watch his life and doctrine closely because, Paul says, “by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers,” 1 Timothy 4:16.  Interesting; not a word about nurseries and a kicking music team.  Getting the doctrine right was so important to Paul he latter says to Timothy, “Teach and urge these things.  If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up and conceited and understands nothing.” 1 Timothy 6:2b-4a.

Come on, Paul, lighten up!  Don’t be such a grumpy Gus!  If you want a big church and make the top of the Christian best-seller list you need to work on your smile.

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, the protagonist, Winston Smith, a low-level functionary at the Ministry of Truth, has lunch one day with a philologist named Syme.  Syme is working on the Newspeak dictionary – the authoritative and approved body of language for the State of Ingsoc.  He tells Smith at one point,

“We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, everyday.  We’re cutting the language down to the bone. …It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well.  It is not only the synonyms; there are also antonyms.  After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words?  A word contains the opposite in itself.  Take ‘good’ for instance.  If you have a word like ‘good’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’?  ‘Ungood’ will do just as well – better, because it’s exactly the opposite, which the other is not.  Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good’ what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them?  “Plusgood’ covers the meaning, or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still.”         

I tell you, that’s scary stuff.  I wish I could say that’s the only place I’ve run across this way of thinking.  But it isn’t.  In my last church, my Assistant Pastor, a man twice my age, and who should have known better, advocated the same sort of thing.  “We’ve got to get rid of all these ‘churchy’ words,” he’d say.  “All those big words like justification, and sanctification and propitiation – they’re too complicated.  They’re so long.  They scare people.  We need to use simple words, small words.”  When I would respond, “I think we should just teach people those words, then they won’t find them scary,” he’d look at me blankly, and wouldn’t say anything at all.  As I think about it now he may not have been able to respond.  He may have eliminated the words from his vocabulary he could have used.

I’m joking, but only partly.  The problem with Syme and my old Assistant Pastor, who by the way is a wonderful man despite the error of his ways in this regard, is that they don’t understand the nature of language.  In a strict logical sense, there are no synonyms.  Words we think of as synonymous express subtle but important differences in meaning.  When Syme says that excellent and splendid are just vague ways of saying good he is completely wrong.  Language is inherently economical, if the subtle differences between synonymns didn’t help us express ourselves more precisely, then the words would stop being used. 

Let me give you a couple of examples.

First, let me begin with something obvious.  The other day, while talking to a friend who happens to be a professor of theology, I used the biblical word eschaton.  That’s the root word for eschatology.  My son, who happened to be listening asked me afterward what the word meant.  When I told him he said, “Well, why not just say ‘the end of the world’?”  I told him that ‘end of the world’ wasn’t a rich enough expression – it leaves out all sorts of information – like the return of Christ, and the Kingdom of God.  Eschaton doesn’t leave those ideas out.  Then, by way of example, I said to him, the word bridge brings an image to mind – but if I say, The Golden Gate Bridge – a very precise image comes to mind.

Here’s another example.  There is a huge difference between the words mistake and sin.  Yet, many people think they’re completely interchangeable.  Some preachers I’ve heard won’t even use the word sin.  But a mistake is merely an error in judgment.  When you take the wrong exit from the highway you say, ‘I made a mistake.’  There is no necessary moral content to the error – it implies that you just didn’t have all the information.  But when you say, ‘I have sinned,’ you’re really saying something.  You’re saying a whole host of things.  You’re saying: I am a morally responsible person; but you’re also saying that there is a moral law to the universe, and that there is a God to whom you are accountable, and finally, that you are guilty.” 

As you can see, mistake and sin are not interchangeable at all.  Isn’t it wonderful that a three letter word can convey so much more meaning than a seven letter word?  It is a mistake to use mistake when you mean sin.  In fact, I suspect that it may even be sinful. 

The Apostle Paul stresses the same point with Timothy when he tells him in 1 Tim. 1:13, “Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me.”  He’s telling him, don’t dumb it down, don’t get creative; use the very words you heard me use, because using the right words matters.

Here’s a final thought.  Throughout the course of history conquerors have required the conquered to learn a new languages – the languages of the conquerors.  Sometimes the conquered were even forbidden to use their native tongue.  Ever wonder what happened to Welsh, or Cornish?  Now you know.  The purpose was assimilation – to reform the conquered and eliminate their old way of life.  When it comes to biblical language and the language of a godless culture my question is, who is influencing whom around here?  I, for one, intend to teach the world to speak the Christian tongue, using Christian words like justification, and sanctification and propitiation.  (Ahh, they’re beautiful words.  Don’t you just love the way they sound?)  Won’t you join me in using them?    

Over the next few days I will post the scripts I’ll be reading for the Glory Seed Radio series of spots on WIHS.  Here’s the first.

Back in the early 1970’s, 1972 according the Ad Council, The United Negro College Fund began broadcasting commercials with the memorable by-line, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

That is certainly true.  I haven’t come across many people who disagree.  The odd thing is that the few I have come across tend to be concentrated in the church.  I thought that perhaps I had a bad sample, that my experience was idiosyncratic, and not representative.  I thought that way until I noticed that others had noticed too.  In 1995 the then Wheaton College history professor, Mark Noll, had a book published entitled: The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.  “…the scandal,” he said in that book, “is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”        

It turned out that most people who think about such things agreed.  Those that didn’t agree don’t tend to spend time reading books.  So, unwittingly, they confirmed the thesis. 

Ironically, nearly everyone who agreed with the premise of the book also agreed that things were not always like this.  The spiritual forbearers of evangelicalism were the folks who founded Harvard, Yale, Brown and Princeton.  Once upon a time, when people thought of popular education, people thought of us.  We were the people who read the Bible daily and on Sundays sang Amazing Grace with all our hearts.  The two geographic regions with the highest literacy rates in the world in the eighteenth century were Scotland and New England.  Why?  Because they were Calvinist strongholds.  And Calvinists were the evangelicals who believed that education was instrumental to one’s salvation. 

But it all came apart in the nineteenth century.  By the end of that century things had gotten so bad that many Christians felt that education was actually detrimental to one’s prospects for salvation.

What happened?  Well, it’s a long, sad story with many defeats, and few victories.  I don’t have time for that story today.  What I do have time for is identifying the place of the mind in Christian discipleship.  (At least in a cursory fashion.)   

It’s hard to imagine that the God who gave us our minds wouldn’t want us to use them. 

Yet, there have been Christians who have set the Spirit against the mind claiming that Christianity is mostly concerned with experiences and feelings and that the mind is not only an obstacle to faith, but an enemy of it.  These folks like to quote 1 Corinthians 1:21 – “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”  Unfortunately, that’s where they stop.  If they continued reading they would come to chapter 2, verse 6, which reads, “Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, . . ..”  So we do believe in a place for the mind after all.  But rather than residing in the world, the Christian’s mind resides in Christ.  If that doesn’t mean we should think long and hard about our Lord, I don’t know what it means.

Furthermore, our Lord tells us that the greatest commandment in the law is this, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  (Mt. 22:37)  It doesn’t sound like there is any conflict between the mind and the heart there.  In fact, one of the ways we’re suppose to demonstrate our love is through the exercise of our minds.           

Now, when it comes to thinking, one of the best things to have happened to the church in a long time is the rise of popular atheism.  I say that for a couple of reasons.  First, I’ll take militant hostility to blithe indifference any day.  At least atheists care.  They’re hostile because they understand what’s at stake and they take Christianity seriously.  You can count on your atheist uncle Ed being closer to the Kingdom than your polite, but indifferent aunt Mabel.  The bigger reason, though, is that for the first time in my life, atheists are challenging Christians to think.  In the past, silly atheists like Madalyn Murray O’Hair simply attacked Christianity superficially through political activism.  The new popular atheism of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins has gone straight for the head.  And the beauty of that is, Christians are discovering they have heads – perhaps they’re a little neglected and partly empty – but they’ve got ‘em!

Christians who confess that God is sovereign know that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.  God used Egyptian slavery to his glory, Babylonian captivity to his glory, Judas’ personal betrayal to his glory, and now popular atheism is being used to his glory.

Over the course of this week I intend to talk about ideas – ideas that matter to God, and ideas that should matter to you.  I’ll be challenging you to think about some things that you may not have thought about before.  I hope you’ll listen and use that God given brain of yours, because, whether you do or not, you can be sure that the atheists are using theirs.

C.R. Wiley, the pastor of The Presbyterian Church of Manchester and host of Glory Seed Radio will be recording a series of seven radio spots on Wednesday, August 27th.  The spots will be broadcast on WIHS, 104.9 FM of Middletown, CT. 

The spots will be broadcast during the month of September.  They will also be available on Glory Seed Radio as MP3 files.