Out of the desert . . .

What troubles you? . . . Do not be afraid, for God has heard . . . . (Genesis 16:17)

A friend of mine, and  former missionary to Europe, no longer believes that God exists at all. He wrote this recently on Facebook: 

My point? This god of the Bible needed someone to run interference for him...to explain away his awful behavior. There is simply no way to explain away the atrocities ordered by and committed by the god of the Bible. Apart from closing your eyes and shuttering your reason, the behavior of this being is scandalous. 

I don't always respond to statements like this, even from friends. And anybody who is following this knows that we haven't posted in a while. I had been simply stung into inaction by recent events, the most important being the sudden death of the three-year old daughter of a good friend of our son's and his wife.  The words just weren't there.

But I felt I had to write something to my friend's FB post. Here are some comments I posted in response. I've edited them slightly, and shortened and stitched them together for this post:

'In general, I think you're setting up a straw-man god, and then proceeding to shoot him down from your 'enlightened,' 21st century perspective. But none of us [interacting on FB together] have a shred of experience of what it means to live and exist within a totalitarian state that is attempting to annihilate the people of God, or at the very least, assimilate and absorb that group into its own identity. Given the choice between that, and forming a community that reflects and reveals what He is like, it seems that the God who longs to reach everyone had no choice but to contend for His people, and to provide for their well-being.  Yet we presume to judge God's actions based on our myopic and pre-determined standards.' I doubt that He has much of a chance in that kangaroo court.

But that isn't the main thrust of what I wanted to say. I went on later with this response:

'There's plenty of wrong-headed theology out there, usually a genuine, sincere attempt to provide answers that may not be so simple to find. We're all a work in progress, and we are all extremely provincial, both in our theology and in our politics, two realms that most of us hold very dear. They are also very much part of our identity (and we generally feel very threatened when either are called into question). I think, too, that both areas are largely shaped by the context in which we grew up. Personally, though, I'd like to go beyond childish or adolescent clamoring for answers or the thumb-in-the-mouth security of having things my way. I'd like to follow Jesus, the Jesus who trusted the authority of Scripture, the Jesus who called/calls His followers to leave their familiar surroundings and experience more, the Jesus who refuses to fit in the box of our pre-conceived expectations and conditions.'  

Why do I write all of this in a blog about reaching Muslims?

Because it really is about Jesus. Jesus is, well, attractive. What He says makes sense a lot of the time (and when it doesn't, I have to think that the problem might lie with me, rather than vice-versa). 

A Muslim once told me that he follows Islam because it is so simple, which is why, with all the doubts I constantly struggle with,  I can't do the same. The world and the universe is so crazy, so convoluted, so contradictory, and mankind so mixed up, that simple answers just don't work. But a Person who takes all the grief, misery, and doubt of the centuries, and bears it all in one stroke, 'triumphing over all these forces in the Cross' (Colossians 2:14-15)--that draws me. All the doubts, all the questions, all the hopes, fears, expectations, disappointments, and even the despair because the powerful always seem to get their way, or because parents sometimes have to bury their children--He takes it all on Himself. 

I realize that our Christian communities often aren't much of a reflection of this Jesus, or of His kindness. I realize, too, that my prayers are often pretty anemic, a product more of willful unbelief than of trust. It's just that all of that imperfection keeps driving me on--I guess it makes me think I'm in some kind of desert, thirsty for the One who seems to be bigger than any of these things, and gives me a longing for more.

I'm not sure I need Christianity, necessarily, but I really do need Jesus, and the community of believers.  Muslims do, too.

 So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"  Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."  (John 6:67-69, NRSV)

U.S. Director