The beauty and depravity of Humanity

I've recently made friends with an Iraqi refugee through various circumstances. He's lived in the United States for 22 days now. Naturally, he has many fears, cannot speak English yet, and earnestly wants to provide for his family. The second time we met, he told me of the unfortunate, scary, and life-threatening circumstances which caused him to leave Iraq.

On the third time I went to his house, I was there to teach him how to use the Denver bus system, which is ironic because I had to learn how to use the bus system first in order to do so. What does a white suburban with his own car have to learn about public transportation, after all? To learn, naturally, I went to the internet and read all about it. My Iraqi friend doesn't have a computer or the ability to speak English, so he was at a little disadvantage you might say in learning the bus system.

I showed up with pen and paper in hand, so as to progress in some kind of conversation since I know no other language than English. His wife had an Arabic-English dictionary, so between the two of us we got along fine. In the course of that conversation, I realized he already knew how to use the bus. He showed me his bus pass and knew where to get on and off the bus for various stops, including his English classes and the grocery store. My friend is incredibly smart and resilient, and so I have much to learn from him.

As we were talking, my friend, whom I had only met twice before, tried to say something very interesting. "Day-veed, I live you."

"Again?" I ask. "I live you," he says. I look at him with a confused face. He then proceeds to retreat into his mind, trying to recall what he is really trying to say. Then he hurries his hands back and forth in a waving manner, as if to say he is going to try to say it again. Then the lightbulb goes off on his face.

"I love you."

Then a lightbulb went off in my soul. And he shook my hand vigorously and hugged me from across the table. In that instant, my new friend was communicating his most powerful need.

For all the talk of social action in politics and non-profits - alleviating poverty, health care for all, housing for the homeless- my friend's greatest expressed need was for human affection and the longing for friendship in a strange land. My friend communicated something quite profound about human experience as well. Humans are capable of deep goodness and love and longing for pure things. Christianity explains this by saying that all of humanity is made in God's image (Gen. 1, Col. 3:10-11). And yet, something is also off about us.

My friend's greatest expressed need was for friendship, but his greatest actual need is for reconciliation and restoration in a relationship with the Creator God. And because all humans are off, because all of us are broken (Christians call this "sin"), we need God to breach the gap of our estranged relationship and give us his version of that restoration (Christians call this imputed "righteousness"). So humans are both beautiful and deprave. Blaise Pascal, Christian philosopher of generations ago, referred to the paradox of humanity as "deposed royalty."

So while my friend demonstrated strong and meaningful emotions, he has a deeper need still. And for that matter, so do I.

Current Readings

Generally I am reading about 5 books at a time. But I am on the cusp of finishing 4 of my current readings, which is quite an unusual occurence for me to do all at once. And occasionally, for the sake of good conversation and idea exchange, I like to share with others what I'm reading. Recently it has been:

Agatha Christie's famous novel, "Murder on the Orient Express." I'd never read a Christie novel before. But since I was such a fan of Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown, I thought it would serve me well to delve into Christie. It's rare when you've read as much mystery as I have to be stunned by any ending, but let's just say Christie shocked me at the end of this one.

J. Gresham Machen's classic work counters the bankrupt thought of liberal theology. If Jesus is merely an example, and the Bible is merely theology, why are liberal "Christians" still meeting in church? What would be the point? Machen handles the arguments as well in the 1920s as Christians ever have.

Continuing my Chesterton binge, I love that Chesterton has a book entitled Heretics and Orthodoxy. This book doesn't seem to have an overarching theme, with the exception that in short chapters Chesterton addresses a different contemporary of his and shows how the Christian worldview argues against their claims. This isn't one of his more popular works, but it's just as relevant. To ignore history and history's intellectual giants is to ignore how people continue to make the same intellectual mistakes today.

More in line with my profession, I thought I'd take up the reading from one in my theological tradition. I found D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to be refreshing and a giant in the stream of preaching, which includes all the streams back to the Reformation. This book is more important than most of the recent works on Christian communication.

So, what books have you been reading? What suggestions would you have for me?

The Mask of Self-Worship

It is often the man who hates ritual in his religion that is most ritualistic in his daily life. He wears the same clothes everyday, prefers the same food, and has the same morning routine. At its core, he is a person of ritual in the things that do not matter. But for the things that do, he shuns ritual and the wisdom passed down through the ages.

On the contrary, the man who prefers solemnity and seriousness in his religion is often the same man cheers loudly for his sports team on tv or in person. He is the man who jeers in adulation of others. He is the man the celebrates the simple things of life. And yet he has trouble being exuberant for the things most worth celebrating.

What these ironies reveal is not as much a comment on religion, but more a comment on self. We often lift ourselves most highly in our religion. Instead of worshipping the object of religion (in my view, Jesus is the source, means, and end of worship), we worship the trappings of religion. Instead of worshipping the Creator, we worship created things. And we worship the self and its desires most. Those seeds of pride are dangerous to the soul.

The danger to others comes when we make that self-worship mandatory for them. "How dare they celebrate during worship with loud guitars!" OR "They have such a stodgy form of worship that is outdated. I wish they'd get with the picture!" The very seeds of religion become judgmentalism. Religion becomes something ascetic and something we earn, instead of something given, received, celebrated, and appreciated.