A facebook friend turned me onto this video from Brian Greene, a string theory physicist. It's interesting. mind-blowing stuff. Brian Greene is obviously a smart guy. His understanding of physics is way beyond mine, no doubt about it. His ideas about string theory are very interesting and may turn out to be true. I kind of hope they are: it's very cool, and it explains a number of physical mysteries we still have. It may turn out to be true, or, if not, surely something more complicated will. However, I have two questions.
First, I understand why we should respect somebody like Brian Greene as a professional physicist; I don't understand why we should listen to him as an amateur theologian. He speaks elsewhere of his veganism, or his ideas that there must be a copy of you and me out there in the multiverse, because somewhere along the way there's an infinite number of collections of atoms just like us. But whence does he get the idea that we are merely the atoms we are made of? That's Greene the amateur metaphysician and theologian stating his philosophy of reductionist materialism, not Greene the professional physicist talking about the science he's spent years studying and teaching. I'd rather give credence on that subject to those who have been in touch with the Creator of this universe, the authors of the Bible.
And second, why do we think that string theory has anything to do with the truth explained by God in the Bible, "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" or its companion "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"? String theory, if true, will turn out to be yet one more amazing demonstration of God's power and creative ability.
God is beyond any theory in physics, because He created the reality that physics attempts to describe. Now, I'm all for science (and have studied a lot of it over the years); but let's not let speculations about what COULD BE wipe out our innate knowledge of who we are and who God is. Science is a wonderful tool for understanding God's creation: I believe God gave us minds to understand the mysteries of His handiwork and give Him the praise He deserves. And, of course, nothing I could say says it better than this: "since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
We know we're sinful; we know we are accountable to a holy God for the sins we continue to commit every day. No amount of physics, no amount of speculations that distract our minds from what we know to be true, will overcome that. Have you, having been handed the map that shows you how to get to the correct destination, let yourself become so distracted by speculations of what kind of ink the map is printed with, that you disregard the actual directions written on the map? I love the map, I love to explore the details, and I praise the Mapmaker for them; but it seems to me that the wise man does not let himself be distracted by those things so much that they do not reach the proper destination.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Pondering Quantum Consciousness
A facebook friend (an interesting person whom I don't actually know in real life) recently sent me a link to a movie called "What the Bleep do We Know." She told me that it showed there's a lot more to life than meets the eyes, and the ideas behind the film are supported by modern science. Well, as I obviously do believe there's more to life than meets the eyes, and I'm all for science, I thought I'd look into the movie. The first problem is that it makes its claims on the basis of quantum mechanics. Now, I was an engineering major in college, not a physics major. I did study quantum mechanics a bit, but it had been far too many years. So I undertook a refresher on QM.
Thus armed, I started watching "What the Bleep." (My impressions below are based on an imperfect understanding of QM; I would gladly be corrected on the science involved.) What I saw was interesting, but I very quickly ran into a difficulty. It turns out that all scientists agree on the fact of QM: that it works, that it represents reality in some way, that superposition is real, and so forth. What they do not agree upon is (as usual in science), the interpretation of those facts. There are, in fact, many interpretations of what QM really means. There is one common interpretation called the Copenhagen interpretation (named after the location of the laboratory of Neils Bohr, an early quantum researcher); it's difficult to tell, but it seems that the movie might follow this interpretation. But this is far from the only interpretation. Many quantum physicists follow the many-worlds interpretation, many-minds, etc., as discussed on the appropriate wikipedia page.
Compounding the problem of interpretation is that, from what I know, Copenhagen does not support their conclusions. It may be true that when we measure a quantum system, the wave function really does collapse as a result of this measurement in reality, and that's all there is to it. I read an article whose author was proposing the Copenhagen interpretation rules out the idea of the Christian God. This seems to be the viewpoint of the film's makers. However, I am not sure why this should be so. My understanding is that there's no agreement on what mechanism actually would cause the collapse proposed by Copenhagen. And unless we know what the mechanism is, how can we be sure that a "measurement" by God would trigger it? And do we even know that God would need to make such a measurement? Couldn't He know the quantum state of every particle in the universe, not because He measured them, but perhaps because He created them with something like entanglement with Himself? (As I said, I welcome correction by somebody who really knows quantum physics. This is purely a negative conjecture, by the way, not a statement that I think this is the reality. Like the movie makers, I really don't have the right - the quantum mechanical chops, so to speak - to opine on such things.)
So, despite that difficulty, I started watching the movie. One of the early examples given in the movie was a Native American tribe who saw Columbus' ships coming over the horizon but did not respond to them. According to the movie, since they were unfamiliar with the ships, they simply did not see the ships - that is, until a local shaman noticed a disturbance in the water and told them what they were seeing. First, even if the story were as described, this would not be an example of not seeing, it would be an example of not perceiving; there are many different reasons why they would not perceive the ships even if they actually were in plain sight. Second, the evidence (as noted in the wikipedia article above) seems to be that they did see the ships: they just ignored them because they didn't perceive imminent danger.
But let's use logic for a second. First, we don't have direct access to any of these Native Americans. Therefore, we can't know what they really saw or perceived: only through reports, primarily in their language, would we know. And their language may well have been insufficient to describe Spanish Galleons: they may have seen the ships but not known what to call them. But even more, let's use common sense. This tribe was living on the water. It may have been true that they had never seen a Spanish Galleon, but surely they had smaller boats. Surely somebody from that tribe would have discovered the useful fact that things can float on the water? And unless they were really ignorant they surely would have recognized the Galleons as just a larger and more complicated version of the boats they already had.
The next interesting bit in the movie was about superposition: the star (Marlee Matlin) walked up to a young man playing basketball, who explained to her the secret of quantum superposition using basketballs. Superposition is certainly true, and one of the many things that makes QM weird to our classical sensibilities. It is also true that, upon observation, the superposition collapses into a single particle with a specific position. Unfortunately, the way the movie presents it is not supported by QM. The movie implies that it's the observer who is choosing how the superposition collapses, but this is not true: it collapses probabilistically, and according to the Born Rule, the probability of observing the particle in any one place is proportional to the amplitude of the original wave. Therefore, when you make your observation, you get a single reading that is random based on the probabilities involved. If the superposition was very simple (such as s|A> + s|B>, where s=sqrt(1/2)), 50% of the time you'd get A and 50% of the time you'd get B. There is no concept in QM of choosing your own reality. The movie makes it look like the will of the conscious observer is what chooses the final state.
This is as far in the movie as I have gotten; I will write more as I watch more. But already it's become clear that the movie is an attempt to make its audience feel better about being independent of God. We all know that we are small, imperfect, sinful creatures; we all know there's much more to reality, not only than we can see, but than we have ever imagined. The question is, where do we take that knowledge? It seems to me that the makers of this movie use their knowledge of QM as an excuse to remove themselves from under God's hand; just use QM rightly and “you will be like God.” An example of this is the state-choosing representation of collapsing a particle in superposition state. If all your futures are just superpositions - including the future where you end up in heaven or hell - then, according to this teaching you can choose your own destination. Sadly, neither the Bible nor QM teaches this.
On the other hand, I am all the more in awe of God. He cannot be put into any classical box. Some day, no doubt QM will be shown to be incomplete; the history of science shows us this cycle repeatedly. I have no doubt that God will continue to be the God of the latest science every bit as much He is God of everything else.
Finally, I should note that it is true that you can choose your future; but not in the way the makers of this movie imply. If any one of us repents of our sins and turns to God through faith in Jesus, then we will have chosen our future. That's what John 3:16 says: God loved the world in this way, that He sent His only Son, so that every person who believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life. That's the choice we must make, not choice of one superposition state or another; and I pray that every person reading this makes it.
Thus armed, I started watching "What the Bleep." (My impressions below are based on an imperfect understanding of QM; I would gladly be corrected on the science involved.) What I saw was interesting, but I very quickly ran into a difficulty. It turns out that all scientists agree on the fact of QM: that it works, that it represents reality in some way, that superposition is real, and so forth. What they do not agree upon is (as usual in science), the interpretation of those facts. There are, in fact, many interpretations of what QM really means. There is one common interpretation called the Copenhagen interpretation (named after the location of the laboratory of Neils Bohr, an early quantum researcher); it's difficult to tell, but it seems that the movie might follow this interpretation. But this is far from the only interpretation. Many quantum physicists follow the many-worlds interpretation, many-minds, etc., as discussed on the appropriate wikipedia page.
Compounding the problem of interpretation is that, from what I know, Copenhagen does not support their conclusions. It may be true that when we measure a quantum system, the wave function really does collapse as a result of this measurement in reality, and that's all there is to it. I read an article whose author was proposing the Copenhagen interpretation rules out the idea of the Christian God. This seems to be the viewpoint of the film's makers. However, I am not sure why this should be so. My understanding is that there's no agreement on what mechanism actually would cause the collapse proposed by Copenhagen. And unless we know what the mechanism is, how can we be sure that a "measurement" by God would trigger it? And do we even know that God would need to make such a measurement? Couldn't He know the quantum state of every particle in the universe, not because He measured them, but perhaps because He created them with something like entanglement with Himself? (As I said, I welcome correction by somebody who really knows quantum physics. This is purely a negative conjecture, by the way, not a statement that I think this is the reality. Like the movie makers, I really don't have the right - the quantum mechanical chops, so to speak - to opine on such things.)
So, despite that difficulty, I started watching the movie. One of the early examples given in the movie was a Native American tribe who saw Columbus' ships coming over the horizon but did not respond to them. According to the movie, since they were unfamiliar with the ships, they simply did not see the ships - that is, until a local shaman noticed a disturbance in the water and told them what they were seeing. First, even if the story were as described, this would not be an example of not seeing, it would be an example of not perceiving; there are many different reasons why they would not perceive the ships even if they actually were in plain sight. Second, the evidence (as noted in the wikipedia article above) seems to be that they did see the ships: they just ignored them because they didn't perceive imminent danger.
But let's use logic for a second. First, we don't have direct access to any of these Native Americans. Therefore, we can't know what they really saw or perceived: only through reports, primarily in their language, would we know. And their language may well have been insufficient to describe Spanish Galleons: they may have seen the ships but not known what to call them. But even more, let's use common sense. This tribe was living on the water. It may have been true that they had never seen a Spanish Galleon, but surely they had smaller boats. Surely somebody from that tribe would have discovered the useful fact that things can float on the water? And unless they were really ignorant they surely would have recognized the Galleons as just a larger and more complicated version of the boats they already had.
The next interesting bit in the movie was about superposition: the star (Marlee Matlin) walked up to a young man playing basketball, who explained to her the secret of quantum superposition using basketballs. Superposition is certainly true, and one of the many things that makes QM weird to our classical sensibilities. It is also true that, upon observation, the superposition collapses into a single particle with a specific position. Unfortunately, the way the movie presents it is not supported by QM. The movie implies that it's the observer who is choosing how the superposition collapses, but this is not true: it collapses probabilistically, and according to the Born Rule, the probability of observing the particle in any one place is proportional to the amplitude of the original wave. Therefore, when you make your observation, you get a single reading that is random based on the probabilities involved. If the superposition was very simple (such as s|A> + s|B>, where s=sqrt(1/2)), 50% of the time you'd get A and 50% of the time you'd get B. There is no concept in QM of choosing your own reality. The movie makes it look like the will of the conscious observer is what chooses the final state.
This is as far in the movie as I have gotten; I will write more as I watch more. But already it's become clear that the movie is an attempt to make its audience feel better about being independent of God. We all know that we are small, imperfect, sinful creatures; we all know there's much more to reality, not only than we can see, but than we have ever imagined. The question is, where do we take that knowledge? It seems to me that the makers of this movie use their knowledge of QM as an excuse to remove themselves from under God's hand; just use QM rightly and “you will be like God.” An example of this is the state-choosing representation of collapsing a particle in superposition state. If all your futures are just superpositions - including the future where you end up in heaven or hell - then, according to this teaching you can choose your own destination. Sadly, neither the Bible nor QM teaches this.
On the other hand, I am all the more in awe of God. He cannot be put into any classical box. Some day, no doubt QM will be shown to be incomplete; the history of science shows us this cycle repeatedly. I have no doubt that God will continue to be the God of the latest science every bit as much He is God of everything else.
Finally, I should note that it is true that you can choose your future; but not in the way the makers of this movie imply. If any one of us repents of our sins and turns to God through faith in Jesus, then we will have chosen our future. That's what John 3:16 says: God loved the world in this way, that He sent His only Son, so that every person who believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life. That's the choice we must make, not choice of one superposition state or another; and I pray that every person reading this makes it.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Abusing Texts: 2 Peter 3 (part 2)
In my last post, I talked about two misuses of 2 Peter 3:8-9; now, perhaps the most egregious misuse. I mean, of course, using it as "evidence" against particular redemption. First off, the theme of this passage is not individual salvation at all, but rather is a reassurance to believers regarding the end of the world and why God is delaying it. (This is why the Campingites actually have a better leg to stand on than most evangelicals; at least the passage is about judgment.) I mean, just read the passage. (The whole passage, not just verse 9.)
Verse 3 starts off as mentioning a specific group of people, the "scoffers." In fact, there are three groups involved here:
The apostle goes on to give two reasons why we have not yet seen the second coming of Christ.
Given that this is the flow of the passage, whence flows the maxim "God wants everybody to be saved?" The answer should be obvious: not from this passage at all. From where then? Clearly, from our traditions and emotions. It constantly amazes me that people who claim (like Dave Hunt) that they have no traditions are absolutely tradition-bound when "exegeting" passages like 2 Peter 3. They reach conclusions that have absolutely no basis in the text and simply state them; apparently, in their minds, the passage is so obvious that no exegesis is needed. Norm Geisler does a bit better, attempting to give a bit of exegesis on this passage to support his view that it disproves particular redemption. Unfortunately, his skimpy and rather apoplectic exegesis (found on page 249 of Chosen But Free, 3rd edition) demonstrates nothing more than his traditions overcoming his logic.
I have a few other thoughts about this passage, but I'll finish them up in a third installment.
Verse 3 starts off as mentioning a specific group of people, the "scoffers." In fact, there are three groups involved here:
- The addressees of the letter, who are believers. These are addressed directly in the second person ("you").
- The scoffers, who are unbelievers, the "scoffers." They are addressed indirectly in the third person ("they").
- The apostle, who might have addressed himself in the first person (as "I" or as part of "we" with "you")
The apostle goes on to give two reasons why we have not yet seen the second coming of Christ.
- Because we do not understand God's time rightly. The apostle is speaking here of the Greek καιρός, not χρόνος. We want things to happen right now, on OUR appointed time scale. But just because a thing has not happened in the time frame when we think it should, doesn't mean that it hasn't happened in God's καιρός.
- Because (flowing from the first) God has not seen fit to place all His elect into the time (χρόνος) we might think He should have. God's elect numbers more than the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5). We know that the end has not yet come because God has not yet gathered all His elect. It's sheer presumption to think that all of them should be gathered in by our particular lifetimes.
Given that this is the flow of the passage, whence flows the maxim "God wants everybody to be saved?" The answer should be obvious: not from this passage at all. From where then? Clearly, from our traditions and emotions. It constantly amazes me that people who claim (like Dave Hunt) that they have no traditions are absolutely tradition-bound when "exegeting" passages like 2 Peter 3. They reach conclusions that have absolutely no basis in the text and simply state them; apparently, in their minds, the passage is so obvious that no exegesis is needed. Norm Geisler does a bit better, attempting to give a bit of exegesis on this passage to support his view that it disproves particular redemption. Unfortunately, his skimpy and rather apoplectic exegesis (found on page 249 of Chosen But Free, 3rd edition) demonstrates nothing more than his traditions overcoming his logic.
I have a few other thoughts about this passage, but I'll finish them up in a third installment.
Monday, July 04, 2011
Abusing Texts: 2 Peter 3 (part 1)
What is the most abused passage in the Bible? Matthew 7:1? Leviticus 19:19? Probably both good candidates, but my vote is for 2 Peter 3 (especially verses 8-9). For one thing, the former two passages are usually abused by non-believers, whereas the last is usually abused by people who are (at least professing) Christians.
But more, 2 Peter 3 stands out as having been abused by so many different kinds of professing Christians! First, we have the old-earth creationists. There's evidence for and against old-earth creationism, and frankly I don't know which side of that debate I come down on. But surely 2 Peter 3:8 is not good support for any Christian? Its context has absolutely nothing to do with creation. As far as I know, until the mid-19th century nobody took this verse as support for an old earth. If it is support, then we'd have to admit a fatally flawed hermeneutical method, wrenching the verse out of context to make a point. This is called eisegesis, and I don't think we want to go there.
The second kind of Christian who have abused this passage is that group who recently had their day in the spotlight, followers of Harold Camping. Although their books provide many convincing (well, to "true believers" anyway) proofs of the October 21st end of the world, this verse is the foundation. Read for yourself in Camping's booklet "We are almost there". This understanding has a little better support than the first case of abuse (or frankly, than the third) since the passage is actually about judgment. But taking this as a mathematical formula, adding it to an assumed and arbitrary date of Noah's flood, and coming up with a date that conveniently falls with Camping's lifetime is a bit more than the text will bear, especially as the entire chapter of Matthew 24 militates against this as a possibility. (Note the tenor of the entire chapter fights it, not just 24:36, regardless of what Campingites would have us believe.)
But the third, and perhaps most egregious case of abuse against 2 Peter 3:8 is by traditional evangelical Christians. Everybody from Chuck Smith to Norm Geisler to Dave Hunt use this passage as one of their primary proof-texts against the doctrine of unconditional election. But surely this is a terrible case of eisegesis?
In my next note I will 'splain.
But more, 2 Peter 3 stands out as having been abused by so many different kinds of professing Christians! First, we have the old-earth creationists. There's evidence for and against old-earth creationism, and frankly I don't know which side of that debate I come down on. But surely 2 Peter 3:8 is not good support for any Christian? Its context has absolutely nothing to do with creation. As far as I know, until the mid-19th century nobody took this verse as support for an old earth. If it is support, then we'd have to admit a fatally flawed hermeneutical method, wrenching the verse out of context to make a point. This is called eisegesis, and I don't think we want to go there.
The second kind of Christian who have abused this passage is that group who recently had their day in the spotlight, followers of Harold Camping. Although their books provide many convincing (well, to "true believers" anyway) proofs of the October 21st end of the world, this verse is the foundation. Read for yourself in Camping's booklet "We are almost there". This understanding has a little better support than the first case of abuse (or frankly, than the third) since the passage is actually about judgment. But taking this as a mathematical formula, adding it to an assumed and arbitrary date of Noah's flood, and coming up with a date that conveniently falls with Camping's lifetime is a bit more than the text will bear, especially as the entire chapter of Matthew 24 militates against this as a possibility. (Note the tenor of the entire chapter fights it, not just 24:36, regardless of what Campingites would have us believe.)
But the third, and perhaps most egregious case of abuse against 2 Peter 3:8 is by traditional evangelical Christians. Everybody from Chuck Smith to Norm Geisler to Dave Hunt use this passage as one of their primary proof-texts against the doctrine of unconditional election. But surely this is a terrible case of eisegesis?
In my next note I will 'splain.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Guatemala 2010: Gary's Summary
All I can say is Wow. What a week. I can't believe it's over. It went so quickly, and I am sitting here wishing that I was back in Guatemala - though this time I wish I had my whole family with me.
I was just sitting here thinking about all the things we did over the week. First of all, just a huge shout out to the Kendalls. Without them the whole would not have happened. Carol and Forrest have such a love for the people of Guatemala, and such a desire to do what God has called them to do. We stayed at their house, did the work they put together for us, and generally just enjoyed the time we spent with them.
Here are some of the highlights that I remember most clearly, some of which I've blogged about elsewhere, some not:
- Four hard-working days in the water filter factory, building water filters for people who desperately need clean water.
- Many visits to wonderful, loving families filled with people living in abject poverty, yet who were very friendly and loving to us. Multiple times, for example, at Oscar's house, his sisters thanked me for coming by their house and visiting them. As if a visit from me was any great shakes!
- My wonderful little friend Sandra, whom I simply cannot get out of my mind.
- Preaching at 2:00am to drunk partiers in the middle of the central parque of Antigua, and having one young man simply say in response to our gospel presentation "Peco" ("I sin" - as if the rest of us don't) and having a young lady look at me pleadingly and say "¿Qué puedo hacer?" ("What can I do?"). Most of the people were laughing at us, of course, but if you can reach even one person it's totally worth it.
- Since it's fresh in my mind, the conversation I had with our cab driver to the airport in Guatemala City. After he told me that he worshipped God "en mi manera" ("in my own way") and declaring he didn't believe hell existed as a real place, I had the privilege of sharing the gospel with him for the remaining half hour of our cab ride. At the end, he thanked me and we parted pleasantly, me giving him a gospel tract which had thoughtfully been supplied by Carol that morning.
- The fun restaurant we went to twice, La Peña de Sol Latino, featuring live music. (Their web site appears to be down right now.) One night they had excellent Peruvian music featuring the restaurant's owner (a gringo) on the conga drums.
- The cultural events of Semana Santa, at once so beautiful and so tragic because so many people are putting their faith in objects of God's creation rather than the God who created them.
- The warm, friendly people we met everywhere. Nowhere did we have people look at us and say (at least out loud) "stupid gringos". (We were not, of course, acting like stupid gringos, which no doubt helped greatly.)
- All the people I gave tracts to. I can remember many of their faces and am praying for each of them. I remember especially well all the people working around La Merced cathedral. I walked up to each of them and said something along the lines of "Gracias por su servicio aquí ... Puedo ver que está interesado en cosas espirituales ... ¿puedo darle un regalito con más sobre Dios?" ("Thanks for your service here ... I can see you are interested in spiritual things ... can I give you a little gift with more about God?") I even - what can I say, I'm getting bold in my old age - approached several nuns and gave them tracts.
- An excellent new book I found called Correct Your Spanish Blunders. In my opinion, this is the second-best book on fine-tuning your Spanish I have ever found (second only to Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish). I will be ordering this from amazon tout de suite.
So ... where do we go from here? Honestly, I'm not 100% sure. One thing I know: I am praying that God never lets me be the same again. If you can go to a place like Guatemala and come out unchanged, there's something wrong with you. I am sincerely praying that God does not let me be like that.
One tentative thought I had: there are so many people with needs there that you cannot fix everybody's situation. However, you can help people you have a connection to. So, I will be pondering and praying over the next days and weeks how I might be able to help Sandra's and Oscar's families. One thought I had was that since education is the way out of poverty for hard-working people like Oscar's and Sandra's families, and it costs money to send kids to school, perhaps we could sponsor a few kids to go to school.
Ja will follow up with a final posting of his thoughts after this amazing trip. For now, God bless all, and I'm off to bed. Work tomorrow ... let's just say that I'm not looking forward to getting back to work. I am thankful that I have it, if for no other reason than I can make money to go on wonderful trips like Ja and I have just made.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Guatemala 2010: Street preaching
Wow! What a 24 hours was Good Friday! It all started at 1:00 in the morning...According to our schedule for Semana Santa, the celebrations started at 1:00 am and went all night long. So, we got to bed early to try and get a little sleep before going down there. I got about an hour and a half's sleep - unfortunately, Ja did not get any - before having to wake up to the alarm at the unholy hour of midnight. But, in for a penny, in for a pound: so down to La Merced we went for El Pregón de Sentencia, or the presentation of sentencing. The processions actually follow the Biblical time sequence fairly accurately, with Jesus going on trial in front of the Sanhedrin in the middle of the night and moving on to Pilate after daybreak. The Kendalls told us we really should go down there to see the beautiful alfombras, so off we trudged. The sentencing consisted of Roman soldiers in full Roman dress uniforms on horseback, along with a soldier announcing Jesus' sentence of death. Unfortunately, totally out of character for Guatemala, the Pregón actually took place ahead of schedule, so we missed it. What are the odds of that! Thankfully, like all processions, it moved from place to place, with the soldier repeating the sentence periodically; so we were able to see one of the later presentations.
Having missed the pregón itself, we decided to drop by the café of the church where we had attended on Sunday. Earlier on Thursday night, we had gone in there before attending church and had been told they'd be open all night and that a group of them might go out and do some street preaching. There, we met up with Mark, a fine Christian gentlemen with a great passion for reaching the lost who was indeed going out to preach. Yes, street preaching: that Rob Bell-lambasted "Bullhorn Guy" activity where you go out and preach the gospel to unsuspecting passersby. I have long said that Rob Bell has no idea what he is talking about; that every person I know who has come to faith as an adult that I've discussed the question with has been positively influenced by a street preacher somewhere along the line. I vividly remember seeing street preachers on the quad at George Mason University back in the late 80s; though I didn't come to Christ right then and there, I definitely remember them as somebody who I respected for their faith and zeal even though I did not (at the time) share their religious convictions.Note to Rob Bell: open your ears to what us real adult converts have to say. Be thankful for your sheltered Christian-from-birth bubble, but don't just stay in there and assume you know how everybody else thinks. Some of us who come in from the outside just might know better what non-Christians like we were need to hear. (Not to mention the way the Bible presents the gospel.)Anyway, though I had long been in favor of street preaching, I had never done it: in fact, it scared me to death. But when we heard that Mark was going to go and do it, we decided to join in with him. So, out went our little rag-tag group of four: Mark, our fearless leader; Dave, Mark's assistant and straight man; Ja, who speaks little Spanish but the rest of us could translate, and myself. Ja and I had never street preached, but we still felt fairly well equipped from the Way of the Master basic training course we had gone through. Now was our chance to use it. Yikes!
By the way, let me get in a plug for Way of the Master: I strongly believe that every Christian should watch these videos and put them into practice. If you are uncomfortable with sharing your faith with people, Christian, go to the link above right now and order the course. Or, if you want to go down to Guatemala and experience the training along with evangelism opportunities just like I'm describing here, Mark is holding an Evangelism Bootcamp June 20-26. This would be a great chance to get trained using excellent materials and get an awesome chance to practice in the same live environment where we were, for a very reasonable price. Maybe Mark will even take you out in the middle of the night. :-)
We spent the next three hours walking around the central park area of Antigua, sharing the gospel with whoever we met there. The Way of the Master method is quite simple: you essentially follow the first three chapters of Romans. You first present the bad news, then you present the Good News. That is, you present the law of God in the form of the ten commandments, and demonstrate that all your listeners have broken them. For example, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Have you ever told a lie? If so, what does that make you? The obvious answer is "a liar." The Bible says that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire. Next, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Have you ever looked a a member of the opposite (or same) sex not your spouse with lust? Jesus said that's the same as committing adultery in your heart; thus, that makes you an adulterer-at-heart. After presenting three or four commandments and have the listener admitting that he has broken all of them, you help them to understand that they do not deserve heaven, they deserve hell. Once they have that understanding, then (and only then) do you share the Good News: that Jesus Christ died to take the penalty that they deserve, and by putting our faith in Him and Him alone, we can be freed from the penalty that we all deserve. Straight out of Romans.
It might seem that it would not be a fruitful place to preach, as most people in the park at 1:00am were drunk, but it was. Though we didn't have anybody put their faith in Christ right then and there, there were definitely a number of people who were under strong conviction by the Holy Spirit. One young lady, after I had explained about the ten commandments and how breaking them meant she was headed for hell, looked at me with a blank look in her eye and asked "so what can I do?" At that point you have the privilege of explaining that putting your faith in Christ's sacrifice, not in your own works, is the way of salvation. It's such a freeing truth! And, I should note, one that friendship evangelism would most likely never have provoked.
We were actually interrupted one time by an intelligent but militant atheist heckler who wanted to argue about the injustice of God using regurgitated quotes from Christopher Hitchins as well as scatter-shot fired objections he seems to have actually thought of himself. Mark was preaching at the time, and his lack of facility in Spanish actually came in handy: the atheist switched to English and continued the argument while Dave and I talked to the crowd. Ja then came to our rescue and took the atheist aside and talked with him for awhile (I'm very proud of that boy) so Mark could return to talking to other members of the assembled crowd. It all turned out very well: you might even suspect that God had a hand in the whole thing. (Wink.)
After three hours of exhausting preaching we returned to the church café for a cup of coffee and cookie, and off to bed. (Ja, of course, had a sandwich. He earned it.)
The next afternoon, after sleeping in, we went out to the market to buy a few final souvenirs. As we were walking around the market, we happened to see a street preacher we didn't know walking through the market and evangelizing. After listening for a few minutes to convince myself that he was doing solid Biblical preaching (you can't be too careful), I struck up a conversation with him. We talked for a minute and then we both spontaneously started talking in raised voices. I found myself again preaching in Spanish to a rapidly assembling crowd right there in the middle of the market! I suspect the fact that we were a gringo together with a Guatemalteco that attracted people's attention, but so what? Once they started listening, they could hear our gospel presentation. Once again, we had a number of interested listeners. I handed out as many gospel presentation tracts as I had with me to our listeners. Ja did a double take and said "where did you get those from?!" as I had apparently produced them as if out of thin air. Thankfully, I had brought along a handful for just such an occasion: it always pays to be prepared. I could have given out two or three times as many as I had to the eager recipients.
So, we had an extremely exhilarating but exhausting 24 hours. There were a minimum of 8 people who I believe were genuinely under conviction by God's Holy Spirit. Since then, I have been praying for them. I would appreciate your prayers for them, too.
Before I close, let me make an aside to those readers who are not evangelical Christians. Most people in Guatemala are Catholics, but we were emphatically not out there to get people to change churches. Good evangelists never do that. If an evangelist is trying to get you to join his particular church, run away, and FAST. (Well, either that, or evangelize him, like I do with the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses who show up at my door.) That's not what the Bible calls us to do. It calls us to introduce people to being in a relationship with Him, the living God of the universe, NOT to join a particular church. My primary desire is to see people come into a live-giving relationship with God; I trust that the same God who can save them will lead them to being in whatever church He wants them in. If God leads them to stay in their own current church, that's wonderful; if He leads them to leave, that's great too. I figure God can choose what church they should be in way better than I will ever be able to. Do I encourage them to join a solid church that teaches the Bible? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that my church is the only place that does it.
Friday, April 02, 2010
Guatemala 2010: Experiencing Semana Santa
As you can tell from all of our other posts, we are primarily down here to help build and install water filters. The water filter and other humanitarian efforts consumed almost every day. However, by a somewhat unfortunate coincidence, our trip is happening over what they call "Semana Santa" or "Holy Week" here: "holy" because it is the week leading up to Easter. In this culture, unlike the US, Semana Santa is a huge deal. The reason I say "unfortunate" is that during the latter part of the week (now), it's impossible to get anything done or even to get anywhere. That is, impossible to get anything done because everybody has off work, and impossible to get anywhere because of all the "processions." On the other hand, it was an excellent cultural experience, and gave us a chance to do some street evangelism, as described in the next posting.At right you see a picture of one of these "processions". In addition to marching bands and long lines of people dressed up in special costumes (purple and white robes for the men, black dresses for the women), they have special floats used only in Semana Santa called "andas". "Anda" is Spanish for "walks", perhaps so called because the float travels by being carried on the shoulders of men or women walking down the street, or maybe because as it goes down the street it sways from left to right like some giant drunk caterpillar. As you can see, these can be rather large: for the anda above, there were probably close to 50 men carrying it, plus men at the front and back to help steer it; the even larger one below may have as many as 60.
Through Semana Santa, the different processions commemorate different activities in Christ's last week before His crucifixion. The anda at left is probably the most spectacular one, all lit up with a glass coffin in the middle with a statue of Jesus in it. We thought it looked like a small cruise ship, all lit up as it was. Following this anda there was, as with most andas, a band following playing music that they obviously felt was appropriate.Another amazing feature of Semana Santa is the beautiful alfombras ("carpets", an interesting word for which Spanish speakers no doubt owe thanks to the Arabs that populated Spain for hundreds of years) that people make in the streets. These alfombras are typically made with a base of either colored sawdust or pine needles; beyond that, almost anything goes. The one at right is made entirely of sawdust: they put down pieces of wood for the edges and start filling in with sawdust. 
Then, after building up a base layer, they start adding layers of other colors using wooden stencils or sometimes freehand. Many alfombras, especially later in the week, are much more elaborate: examples of some I saw had birdcages all down the center, thousands of fresh-cut roses, or birds carved out cantaloupes and watermelons. Nobody is allowed to walk on these until the andas pass by; immediately after, street cleaning crews come along and sweep up the remains. Thus, these beautiful artistic "carpets" take many hours to create but sometimes only a few minutes before they are destroyed.
Then, after building up a base layer, they start adding layers of other colors using wooden stencils or sometimes freehand. Many alfombras, especially later in the week, are much more elaborate: examples of some I saw had birdcages all down the center, thousands of fresh-cut roses, or birds carved out cantaloupes and watermelons. Nobody is allowed to walk on these until the andas pass by; immediately after, street cleaning crews come along and sweep up the remains. Thus, these beautiful artistic "carpets" take many hours to create but sometimes only a few minutes before they are destroyed.The entire week is dedicated to two things: the grisly death of Jesus, and the victory of Mary (or "la virgen" as they call her). Though I don't have any problem with portraying the death of Jesus as what it was, to focus on solely that is only half the story. As Carol, our hostess, pointed out, though there were many processions and events associated with Jesus' death on the cross, in the entire city of Antigua, there is not one single official ceremony associated with the resurrection of Jesus. On the schedule they gave out, there were indeed two resurrection events... but they were both in different towns. Nothing in Antigua.
This is amazing to me. Now, in the US, Christian churches may not perfectly portray the death and resurrection of Jesus, but at least the resurrection (aka, Easter Sunday) is a widely celebrated event. In Antigua, it's virtually unknown. This is really presenting only half the story. And, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:16-19:
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
This is exactly the situation of so many people in Guatemala: dead in their sins. Of course, that is true of most of the people in the United States also. However, the thing you cannot miss about Guatemala is how religious the people are. Men pay significant amounts of money to carry the andas on their shoulders in the parades. Why? I believe, at least in part, it is so that they can do penance for their sins, trying to work their way to heaven. As Todd Friel has said recently on a Wretched Radio broadcast, when you remove the law of God (the ten commandments, etc) you always find legalism taking its place. We are all born Pelagians and unless born again, we will always try to work our way to heaven.
In the case of many (not all, of course) Guatemalans, they substitute a faith in Mary to save them. The number of andas carrying statues of Mary were staggering. For example, there was the procession that featured the anda shown above, where Jesus was suffering under the load of carrying his cross. What shocked me was that, immediately after that anda with the suffering Jesus, came an anda with a triumphant Mary (shown at left). Think of it: Jesus couldn't take the punishment, so Mary comes along to make everything right. Another example is in the "La Merced" cathedral, which is a beautiful church; but the centerpiece of its altar is a small suffering Jesus on the cross, with a huge triumphant Mary above. I wish I could say these were isolated examples, but, sadly, they are not.
Now, don't get me wrong: I have great respect for Mary. As the mother of Jesus in His earthly incarnation, she was greatly honored among women. But, as she herself says in Luke 1:46-47:
"My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior..."
Mary knew that she needed a Savior, just like the rest of us. And it's clear that she knew that Jesus was that Savior.
Also, don't get me wrong in thinking that I condemn the Semana Santa proceedings. Some evangelicals do, especially native Guatemalans: I do not. In fact, many of the processions and events are very beautiful, and show a deep reverence for Christ and for what He did for us on the cross. No Christian should ever forget that, and I do not see a problem with graphic reminders. The problem I have is that these sorts of things can very easily take on a life of their own, and become more important than the original thing which they are commemorating. And it's very clear that so many people in the city have made this mistake, worshipping and serving created things (as Romans 1:25 reminds us) rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen!
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