Um, I'm Sorry, But I Have Some, um, Really Good News To Tell You

Last fall when I found out that I was getting a bonus on my paycheck, I couldn’t wait to go home and tell Husband about it. In fact, I didn’t wait until I got home, but I called him on his cell phone instead. And I didn’t worry about how he would take the news; I knew he’d be glad to hear it. However, a few weeks ago when I got a memo from my department head about how the department has to cut its budget, which consists mostly of salaries, I had to figure out a way to tell Husband the news in a way that wouldn’t make him worry about the possibility of losing my job. I think most people deliver good and bad news in much the same way—we can’t wait to tell the good news, but we dread having to tell people something that is negative.

Why is it, then, that Christians seem to have a terrible problem telling others what is supposed to be good news? Christian organizations offer workshops in how to share the gospel (literally “good news”), and the participants practice on each other the most effective methods for delivering this good news. They even learn ways to counter objections to their good news. Objections to good news? Why in the world would people object to hearing good news?

“I have some really good news to tell you! We are all sinners. This includes you. You are a sinner, and God hates sin because sin is rebellion against God’s perfect sinless nature. Because you are a sinner, you are God’s enemy, and God says that the penalty for sin is death. If you die without being saved from your sin, you will have no hope of going to heaven. In fact, you’ll spend eternity in hell, the place of God’s punishment for sin. You can do nothing to save yourself from punishment in hell. But there is a way you can be saved.”

No wonder people have such a hard time “sharing the gospel.” You’ve got to tell people how bad they are before you tell them anything good. And the good part doesn’t really sound that good when you think about it: God’s son Jesus suffered and died a terrible death. He took on all the sins of the world, even though he himself never sinned, because he loved us so much. And God punished him instead of punishing us. What? God punished his innocent son? I grew up hearing all this stuff in church, and thinking about it now, I find it a little disturbing. Just think how it might sound to someone who’s never gone to church. And what about people who grew up being abused by their parents or other authority figures? A parent took out his anger at the sin of the world on his innocent son? Think about how that sounds!

To the uninitiated, this good news doesn’t really sound all that good. And there’s something else. The way Christians tend to present this “good news” tends to elevate the Christian to a superior position to the person he or she is telling it to: “I have accepted Jesus as my savior, so I know that I will go to heaven instead of hell. If you died right now, do you know for certain that you wouldn’t go to hell?” It almost sounds like “I made the right choice. I’m in the club. Don’t you want to be like me?” And if the person just doesn’t want to hear it, Christians lovingly tell the person something like, “Well, you just need to realize that if you die right now, you will spend eternity in hell. But God loves you and he wants to save you. If you don’t want to go to hell, you need to accept the cleansing from sin that Jesus offers.” Boy, if that wouldn’t leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth: You’re dirty and you need to be cleaned.

Ironically, Christians remark about people who think they need to get themselves cleaned up some before they try to get right with God. “God accepts us as we are; all you have to do is believe in Jesus, that he died on the cross and was resurrected.” Do you see the irony here? Two things: One, he accepts us as we are, yet we’re dirty and have to be cleansed of our sin or we’ll go to hell (but didn’t God already punish Jesus for the sins of the world)? Two, to keep from going to hell, we have to believe that Jesus not only died, but came back to life? I have been taught and believed for all of my life that Jesus died and rose again, but there are days when I question how true it is. Yet Christians expect people who’ve never thought about it to just buy into the story without investigating it for themselves.

Yes, it’s no wonder that most Christians dread being the bearer of this “good news” and why church and bible study organizations offer “Sharing the Gospel” seminars. If the gospel really is good news, then no one would have a problem telling others about it. Perhaps the gospel we have been sharing is not the one that we are supposed to be sharing. Perhaps we already share the gospel without even thinking about it.

Bible Question

For some time now, I have had a great deal of trouble reconciling the story of God's commanding Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice with God's prohibition of human sacrifice as noted in such passages as Jeremiah 7.31 and 32.35. In those passages, God expresses his anger at his people's idolatry and their having adopted the practice of sacrificing humans to other gods, and he says that the idea of his people performing human sacrifices had never even entered his mind. If the idea had never entered his mind, how do we explain God's request to Abraham?

I suppose one could say that it never entered God's mind that Abraham actually go through with the sacrifice, but that answer doesn't satisfy me. If God doesn't like human sacrifice, why use that as the big test of someone's faith? Why go to the trouble of removing Abraham from his hometown where idolatry was the norm (and human sacrifice certainly could have been a common practice in culture's idolatry) to a place where he could be influenced to worship only one God, but then test Abraham by asking him to perform a practice that he had taken Abraham away from, a practice that we learn later in the bible that he actually detests?

Lest We Forget

I like most other people spent my Memorial Day weekend having fun rather than observing the original intention of the holiday. The holiday was meant for us remember the sacrifice of those who died during military service. However, the Pentagon does not want us to remember them in this way:

School's Out For the Summer!

I posted my grades yesterday afternoon. Now I am free until the 25th of August! Did I ever mention how much I like being a teacher?

Winding Down

With the semester quickly nearing its end, I am currently catching up on unfinished work and getting ready for the marathon grading session that will begin next week when final papers are due. Classes end on the 23rd, and boy am I ready! Summer is close, and with it, summer reading!!

Husband and I spent a semi-nice day at the airshow on Saturday. The weather would have been nice had the wind not been blowing so hard. We both ended up with sunburns on our faces, but we had a good time. It was his first time to attend an airshow, so I was glad that we got to see the Blue Angels perform. We heard them come in on Friday afternoon and leave on Sunday evening--they flew right over our house. If it hadn't been cloudy, we could have seen them from the back porch.

I've been thinking about lots of blog topics, but I've been too busy with schoolwork to write anything. Maybe when all the grading is done, I'll post some brilliant, thought-provoking articles that will enlighten your minds.

Well, don't hold your breath on the brilliant, thought-provoking, and enlightening part.

More Excitement

Today we received word on campus that the campus police had received an anonymous email from someone claiming to have overheard someone else planning to bring a gun to campus and "do something" to a teacher in one of our buildings. The university sent an alert to the campus community saying that no one has seen anyone with a gun, nor has anything else suspicious been reported to the police. Therefore, we should remain alert and go about our regular schedule. However, one department in the affected building has decided to cancel its classes for the rest of the day because of the threat, well that and the fact that the heaters are working overtime and making the temperature unbearable over there.

It is entirely possible that this is some person's idea of an April Fool's joke--I think that's probably the case--but it's a rather sick joke.

Bombfuzzled

I would normally be in class right now instead of blogging, but I seem to have a free hour because of a bomb threat in the building where my class should be meeting. You'll probably hear about it on the news tonight, as I saw a news van cruising around campus a few minutes ago.

I just wish the guy had called in the threat a little earlier so that I wouldn't have walked all the way across campus just to find the building closed.

Things that make you go hmmm.

Yesterday Husband and I received a notice from the Internal Revenue Service that we may be receiving a tax rebate check from the government. The letter was very vague, and it didn't say much more than what we have been hearing on the news for the past several weeks. Husband and I just shook our heads and wondered how much money our government has just wasted sending out letters to everyone who may get a check.

According to a Newsweek article, the cost to send a letter out to approximately 130 million households is 41.8 million dollars.

Nearly $42 million to tell us something that anyone who has been even remotely near a television or radio for the past month has already heard about.

There are so many things I could say right now, but I think just shaking my head will suffice.

Independent truckers will soon be priced out of business.

Unless you drive a diesel powered vehicle, you probably haven't thought much about the fact that the price of diesel has recently risen to around $3.75, which is around .60 higher than regular gasoline. If you don't have to buy diesel, you may think that this doesn't affect you. However, you are wrong.

Have you noticed the price of groceries going up? Much of the reason for the escalation in food prices can be attributed to high diesel prices. Think about it. Nearly everything that you buy in the store arrived there in a truck that runs on diesel fuel, and when the cost of diesel goes up, so does the cost of transporting those goods to the stores. Thus, the prices of those goods goes up accordingly.

Up until the past few years, the price of a gallon of diesel fuel had been lower than the price of a gallon of regular gasoline by around 30 to 40 cents. However in the past four to five years, diesel has been 15 to 25 cents more than gasoline, and just last week, diesel went up nearly 25 cents per gallon in one day.

Even if you can still afford to fill up your car's gas tank, the cost of diesel is something we all need to be concerned about because the higher the price of diesel, the higher the price of nearly everything else we buy, including that gasoline that gets hauled to the gas pumps in a diesel truck.

I'm a winner

I am flattered and honored that Ayatollah Mugsy would choose my haiku as first place winner in his Valentine's Day haiku contest.

Now if I can only find a way to use my remarkable talent to augment my teacher's salary.

Duh!

A couple of researchers recently learned from their study that men think that kissing should lead to sex.

Did they really have to do a study to figure that out?

I'm It

Justin tagged me the other day, and I'm just now finding out about it. The deal is to pick up a book of at least 123 pages, go to page 123, find the first five sentences, and then quote the next three. So here goes:

"To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder."

I'm going to quote the next sentence as well, as the above makes little sense without it (and because I just like the next sentence):

"I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach."

This is from the story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, and it was in a literature anthology on a shelf in my office.

I'm supposed to tag five people, but I'll leave it open to anyone who wants to participate. (I would like to hear from you, Mugsy!)

Don't disagree with the preacher or you may end up in jail.

I just read an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about churches who are taking dramatic measures in disciplining church members for "sinning." One little old lady in Michigan was arrested for trespassing, handcuffed, and taken to jail for attending church after having been banned from church after pressing the new pastor to appoint a board of deacons. The pastor decided that she was spreading a "cancerous spirit" in the church and banned her from attending anymore. At another church in Texas, a woman who who went to her pastor for counseling and confessed having had an extra-marital affair. The pastor publicized her sin to the congregation, apparently so that they could shun her.

According to the article, more and more church leaders are disciplining their congregants by exposing their "sins" to the rest of the congregation, causing much discord and humiliation. Isn't this the type of behavior that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for? This type of stuff is one more reason that I have against joining a church.

What Happened to Christian Radio?

It has been my habit for quite a while to listen to public radio in the afternoons on my way home from work, but with my new schedule this semester, I go home too early to listen to the NPR news. So this afternoon I decided to turn on Christian radio and maybe hear one of those bible question and answer shows. However, to my dismay, I found that on one Christian station a woman was talking about the United States' economy. On another station another lady was talking about immigration. And on another station a man was talking about the importance of having a clean colon.

Whatever happened to talking about Jesus on Christian radio?

Branching Out Into New Territory

After much prodding by my students, I finally joined Facebook. For the longest, I saw absolutely no use in it; it seemed just a frivolous waste of time. However, I've become convinced that my having a Facebook page will result in more students knowing what is actually going on in class more of the time.

Students inevitably check Facebook first thing when logging onto the internet. If they know that they can go to my page and be reminded of the due date for the next assignment, they will do that long before they will log into the school's server where I keep my class website. After exploring Facebook and its different applications, I have found that I can make my page a somewhat educational experience by adding news feeds and a "word a day" application. So as my students are goofing off online, maybe they will pick up some useful information that could actually turn into a good class discussion.

I'm continually finding that I have to go to where my students are if I'm going to be able to get them to learn what I need for them to learn. I'm hopeful that this will be a good experience.

(Of course, my students aren't the only people welcome at my Facebook page. If you know my real name so that you can find me there, I'll be glad to "friend" you.)

Who's to Blame?

Everyone at my university received the following email alert today:

A female [university] student reported that she was possibly sexually assaulted by someone she knew at [a particular] fraternity house in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 1, 2007. The female student reported that the alleged assault took place following a party at the house, and that she was incapacitated at the time of the incident. This case is under investigation by the [university] Police Department.

Why was this female student "incapacitated"? Is it possible, just by an off chance, that she had passed out from drinking herself into oblivion? I hear from students all the time about their drinking binges in which the next day they remember little to nothing of the previous night's events. How does this student know that in a drunken stupor, she didn't consent to sex?

And does she plan to tell her parents about this "possible" sexual assault? If she does, will they be objective enough to realize her level of irresponsibility in putting herself into that kind of situation? Or will they want to place all the blame on the male student, or even blame the university?

I certainly do not condone the behavior of the person who possibly assaulted her, but this young woman certainly should bear some responsibility. Surely she has learned a lesson from this.

Our Faith Needs Some More Work(s)

This morning I listened to a story on public radio about a couple of women who had encounters with different presidential candidates. One of the women went to a rally for Barak Obama in hopes of speaking to him. From the story:

Punteney has faced much tragedy. One of her brothers was burned as a boy in a Fourth of July fireworks accident and later died. Her brother, as she told Obama, has late-stage cancer. Her father died recently. Her mother has not been well. Punteney said she cries a lot.

A few weeks ago, at the home in Oelwein, Iowa, she shares with her mother, Punteney said she'd been inspired to see Obama when he came to the area.

"I'd seen the commercials," she said. "And he just seemed sincere, like he's for people like my mom, my brother and me."

Many people feel politicians may not be the first place to turn when in dire need of help. But Punteney said she was confident Obama could do something to make her feel better.

"I never had anyone pay attention to me and my needs — and he held my hand," she said.

When I heard this I was reminded of all the people who followed after Jesus because they had no hope, because they needed something that no one else could, or would, give them. This woman sought comfort and relief from a political leader much the same way that people in Jesus’s day sought him out, hoping that he would bring them comfort and relief, hoping that he would bring about a political revolution and change society for the better. What a shame that two thousand years after Jesus came and taught people how to love each other that we still have people who feel the need to seek help and relief for their daily needs from a politician. It is obvious that the church is failing in its directive to feed Jesus’s sheep.

Obama told the woman that he was working to bring health insurance to all people, and then he said to her, "Tell your brother we're thinking of him. Maybe I'll write him a note before you leave today."

I realize that Obama is a busy man and that he can’t respond to every single request for help; however, his reply reminded me of the passage from James 2.15-16: If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

Those of us who call ourselves members of Christ’s church must do more than wish others well; we must do what we can to help make their lives better. We are called to go out of our way and sacrifice our own wants to help those who need it.

I read another story this morning that is indicative of Christians’ lack of response to those in need:

When the first snow falls this winter, 61-year-old Grace Murphy won't be turning on the heat in her Dorchester, Massachussetts home.

With her heating oil tank at empty, she'll be huddled around her gas oven with her husband Paul, 66, and her 88-year old mother.

"I don't buy heating oil because I can't afford to," Murphy said.

[snip]

In Murphy's case, spending on heating oil will mean cutting back on medical expenses, and trimming down an already slim food budget. Murphy, a diabetic, has spent months without taking her medication.

How can those of us who have more than enough tolerate knowing that others are skipping meals and struggling to keep warm?

I recently heard the results of an annual poll that asks consumers to estimate the amount of money they plan to spend this year on Christmas gifts. The average number this year is $909, up from last year’s figure. I know people who will spend hundreds of dollars this year on Christmas gifts for their children, children who received hundreds of dollars worth of gifts last year. What would happen if Instead of spending $500 on toys that the child will get tired of in two weeks, every family were to spend that money on helping someone pay a heating bill or doctor bill, or helping to stock that person’s pantry?

I think if we did this, we would be much, much closer to the kingdom that Jesus promised to his followers.

Keep Quiet!

I usually think that church signs are really cheezy, but today I saw a really good one:

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.

If we Christians would spend less time talking and more time doing, this world would be much better off.

Milestone

Well, it's finally arrived, the day I knew would come, the day that would make me officially feel "old."

Yesterday one of my students told me that her mother is 36 years old.

I am older than the parent of one of my college students.

Working Through the Distractions

This week has been an extremely busy one. I took up essay drafts from all of my students, and that is all I've had time to read this week. Actually, I did manage to get my bible lesson read, and I read a couple of blogs, but the bulk of my time has been spent with freshman personal experience stories and sophomore analytical responses.

This semester I'm experimenting with small group writing workshops in which each group member must exchange essays with the others and read and comment on each essay outside of class. Then the group comes back together to discuss what they have read and help each other improve the essay for the final (graded) draft. This is working out rather well, as the students seem to enjoy "playing teacher" with each other's essays. However, since I am a member of all the groups, I must read and comment on over 100 essays. To do this in a timely manner is next to impossible. I actually was a little over-ambitious in planning how many essays I can read in a week which resulted in my not finishing all the essays that were due to be discussed today. However, it seems to have worked out well anyway because the students were prepared and were able to carry the conversation without much input from me. Perhaps this is what should happen most of the time from now on.

Today is game day at my university, and early this morning parking lots were already being blocked off for tailgating before the game this evening. I really hate Thursday games because it seems that our university is trying to turn into another UT. Tailgating and other pre-game activities are more important than academic activities on days like today. And the students aren't the only ones buying into this attitude; the administration is promoting it as well, it seems. Tailgating begins well before the game and takes place not only near the stadium but also in the middle of campus. The campus is open to all tailgaters, student and non-student alike, and cars are parked in some of the grassy areas which have been transformed into picnic areas complete with gas and charcoal grills brought from home. And although our campus is dry, alcohol is allowed and flows freely. So even as some students are still trekking from class to class, others are enjoying the festivities that are taking place right outside classroom windows. I'll admit that the atmosphere is nice, but it makes it hard for those teachers who have serious activities planned for class. I'm glad I'm not teaching a late afternoon class today.

I'm supposed to do office hours until 2:00 today. My students have essays due next week, and some of them need to come in and get help. But I doubt that any will come today, not with all the better options outside my office.

The band has just begun rehersing out on the lawn. I guess this signals the official start to tailgating. Class dismissed.