Wholly Other

OK, I have taken a month away from pontificating to reflect on where we have come since starting this journey. It has been an interesting month. When you think “sabbatical,” you generally think of a time of peaceful reflection. Well, this month has been anything but that. It has seen our family come under increased attack, especially spiritually. And while that is not a pleasant experience, it is an encouragement. No, I’m not some kind of sick, spiritual masochist. I have just come to understand spiritual warfare better and to expect that increased persecution comes any time you are at a crucial point in doing something significant.

Well, I’ve written a lot on what I view as “wrong” with our theology, especially concerning the gospel. Once again, this is not because people set out to jack-up the gospel. It’s like the proverbial frog in a pot of water. Surely, you have heard this analogy before. (“No, I haven’t, and stop calling me Shirley.” – Airplane flashback moment.) Well, it is said that a frog dropped in boiling water will immediately realize the threat and leap out. However, a frog dropped in tepid water over a flame will happily stay in the pot until he is boiled to death. This is what happens in culture. In a theological sense, we call it syncretism. Syncretism is where the values and methods of the culture infiltrate the theology of the Church. In some cases it takes the form of an over-emphasis of certain aspects of doctrine to the detriment of others and a corruption of the whole. In other cases, it involves an actual change in a doctrine because it has become unpalatable within the contemporary cultural milieu.

The problem we have is that we begin to believe that our faith is our own construct. Right now, the liberals are screaming “YES!” and the conservatives are screaming “NEVER!” But regardless of those leanings, this happens, yes, even in “conservative” churches. Part of the reason is found in our sinful nature; we want to find meaning in life with ourselves at the center rather than God.  The other part is found in the Incarnation. God became God-man in order to advance His plan for the redemption of Creation and, in Him doing so, we found opportunity, not to find our identity in Him, but to define Him and His purposes through us. So there are things that are unreasonable about Him and His plans because they are unreasonable to us.

Europe is nearly a century “ahead” of us in history. If we want to see our future, we should look at the present in Europe. And to understand our present, we can look to their past. Nearly a century ago in the midst of intensive syncretism, the prophetic voice of a theologian named Karl Barth (pronounced “bart”) cried out into the consuming darkness that God is “Wholly Other.” Barth’s perspective (though I wouldn’t agree with all his theology) was one which allowed the paradoxes within the faith to be celebrated rather than rationalized away. He argued that in the rationalization of God, we make Him like us rather than allowing Him to be who He truly is, as different from us as anything can be.

So, as we attempt to move forward from here, we must have as our mindset that His ways are not our ways. He is Wholly Other. He alone has the right to Decree concerning all of Creation, including us. And when the enemy creeps in with his lies and even attacks, he is to be resisted in the Lord. What is at stake? The glory of God in us. If you still want to make it about you, then it’s your eternal soul that is in peril.

Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:6-9