Craving Answers, Craving God St James Lutheran Church - Glen Carbon Illinois

For the past three hundred years it has seemed obvious to many modern Westerners that cataclysmic, global floods are impossible, and so the biblical story of the great flood has been seen as a legendary myth highlighting the vindictive judgment of the Bible’s angry God.



But this assumption fails to acknowledge the existence of great flood narratives spread throughout the ancient world - from the Cheyenne in North America, to the Chinese, to the Mesopotamians. How could all these different groups tell such similar stories? Is this a coincidence? Or instead does there remain in the collective memory of all these people groups the flood event described in Genesis 6-9?



This last option seems more likely than the myth that modern, scientific man is more right than the remembered and recorded experiences of all these ancient peoples. But the larger question is not, did the flood happen? But, what does the flood mean? And in the Bible, the great flood happens because the creator God simultaneously refuses to tolerate sin, and also loves to create salvation from that destruction. Like the Red Sea crossing, God drowns those who hate him, but saves - through that same water - those who trust him. The culmination of this truth is the redemption given to those who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the water of baptism.


Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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The question of whether Christians should go to church or not can only be answered by answering the question, are Christians the church or not.



Once again, Western-style individualism blocks us from even understanding the nature of the problem. The Bible insists that our highest value comes not from our individuality but from how our individuality flourishes in community. By ourselves we have no way of overcoming our personal weaknesses, but in community others cover up these weaknesses with their strength, as we do for them.



Unfortunately, Christians in America tend to be more individualistic than biblical: the notion that we can be Christians on our own outside of the Christian church creates a personal atmosphere of isolation and ignorance, but embracing the strange and scary reality of Christian community leads to flourishing and knowledge.


Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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Legalism is the belief that humans flourish best when they have order, structure, and rules to guide them. The opposite philosophy is liberty - the belief that humans need freedom from restrictions to flourish. Christianity, while definitely promising freedom from the burden of sin while also providing order and rules for living, definitely holds that humans flourish best when in relationship, especially the relationship all humans were created for - with the creator God in Jesus.


Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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Is Christianity merely a crutch for those who believe - a sort of whistling-in-the-graveyard, a head game naive and superstitious people play to avoid the hard reality of materialistic realism? The rise of the psychological sciences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries might lead us to think so. But what psychology does well - describe the human mind, human emotions, human behavior, and human relationships - does not begin to answer all the questions humans have about ultimate reality.



In other words, if there is nothing more to humans than humanity, religion is unnecessary at best, and dangerous at worst. But if God exists, then pursuing knowledge of him is both necessary, but impossible unless God himself acts to make himself known, and since philosophy and psychology can’t exceed the bounds of we humans who engage in them, only what we call religion (the knowledge of God through his self-revelation) can answer these ultimate questions about God.



In this sense, Christianity is a crutch - an acknowledgement that there is some knowledge we can’t get on our own but need outside help to receive. But what makes this charge against Christianity short-sighted is the hypocritical notion that some humans don’t have crutches. Some secularists, perhaps, believe that they are self-sufficient and need nothing, but no one can live without purpose - and whether that purpose is material gain, family togetherness, romantic love, community respect, academic achievements, or the enjoying of a hobby, these purposes function for the secularist in much the same way that religion functions for the Christian. They provide meaning, goals, structure for decision making - in short, a crutch.



The question at hand, then, is whose crutch is most aligned with the universe as it really is; in other words, whose crutch actually holds a human being up instead of eventually being too weak to support a person. And Christianity insists that God alone can give ultimate meaning, purpose, and ultimate support that never goes away, diminishes, or fails.


Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep87.

Stoicism, which flourished in Greece around 250 years on either side of Christ’s birth, taught that the highest good for humans is to be ultimately happy. This happiness, though, is far different from our culture’s notion that happiness is equal to personal pleasure; instead, Stoicism held, true ultimate happiness can be experienced only through the practice of virtue - especially the virtues of courage, wisdom, justice and moderation.



This has been seen by many to be a welcome alternative to our culture’s current credo of “do what feels good,” and to the extent that Stoicism functions as a critique of our hedonism, Christianity welcomes it. But there are several aspects of the human condition and experience that Stoicism fails to address.



First, because Stoicism held to a classic pantheistic view of God - that the divine is equal with the lived-in universe - it was largely incapable of dealing with the problem of evil. After all, if God is in everything and every experience, then everything must be the way it’s supposed to be; in other words, Stoics are unable to critique evil events as evil and insist that evil must be met with cosmic justice, but must be content with trying to bear up under the evil as best as possible.



Christianity, however, while teaching joy and patience in suffering, insists that it is only possible if one believes in a personal God who is putting things to right and will eventually address and crush all evil. And second, Stoicism insists that humans have within us the power for virtuous living, but Christianity insists that virtuous living can only be accomplished by Jesus and by his gracious acting on our behalf to work his virtuosity our in our own lives.


Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep86.

While the Bible insists that those who deny the reality of God are fools, this in no way means such skeptics are unintelligent. The biblical idea of “fool” and “foolishness” has less to do with brain power and more to do with an unwillingness to conform to reality: it’s foolish to not go to the doctor when you have cancer because it doesn’t align behavior with the real-life situation. Many smart people (like Steve Jobs, for instance) have made this fatal error. And atheism is the same - it’s not dumb to disbelieve in God, it’s foolish.



In fact, Chuck and Aaron discuss how atheists are almost always very intelligent; as it seems to be one of the main qualifiers to being an atheist. But while atheism is almost exclusively for intelligent people, Christianity is far more inclusive: many super-intelligent people like scientists, philosophers, writers, and the like have been devout Christians, but Christianity is also made up of many people who work more from their emotions, and in addition there are lots of believers who are neither “book smart” or overtly emotional but are “doers”.



The God of Christianity in Jesus (and therefore the Christian worldview) is wide open to all different types of people because this God connects with every type of human. Whereas the necessity of being intelligent means that only one slice of society can truly belong within its ranks, Christianity is inclusively open to everyone.


Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep85.