Death by Chocolate

I found this on the What Christians Like website today. The chocolate cake is iced with the words, "The wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23" and the vanilla cake is iced with the words, "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

They ran a caption contest along with the photo. My favorite so far was, "Sean got his wish for a chocolate groom's cake, but couldn't escape the foreboding feeling that his bride would always have the upper hand in this relationship." 

Wess Stafford - Between Two Worlds - Global Poverty

Wess Stafford grew up as a missionary kid in Africa. He's currently the head of Compassion International. (We support several kids through them.) 

I like what he had to say in this video about what Christians are called to do in terms of dealing with poverty issues - entering into the suffering of those who suffer. That's why I moved to Detroit after graduating from college. That's why we lived in the Mission district when we lived in San Francisco. (Although it's a gentrifying neighborhood at this point.) And I suppose that in moving to Fort Collins, it was to enter into my parents' suffering with Picks disease (although I feel much more detached from poverty issues here, though I know they're still prevalent). 

 

Wess Stafford: Between Two Worlds - Global Poverty from ConversationGatherings on Vimeo.

The story of God and Guinness

I just finished reading "The story of God and Guinness: How the faith of Arthur Guinness inspired the vision for his famous beer". 

I knew that Guinness beer has been around for ages and ages, but I didn't know much about the Guinnesses themselves. This article details the relationship between the Guinnesses' faith and their work practices, which are inspiring. 

Social Justice - according to the Family Research Council

So we support true social justice: a transcendent understanding that all human life is sacred, that our liberty is granted by God, and that happiness is ours to pursue.
               -- Family Research Council (I couldn't find an author listed there. Can you?)

A transcendent understanding that all human life is sacred: I completely agree with the first part (though I think the use of the word "transcendent" isn't really necessary. Either you believe human life is sacred or you don't. What's transcendence got to do with anything?) Sanctity of human life is definitely a social justice issue. Slavery, poverty, injury or death due to poor working conditions or toxic living/working environments, etc. all impinge upon human life.

Our liberty is granted by God: I'm not sure where they're going with the liberty bit. What kind of liberty? Are we talking about freedom from sin? In that case, yeah, I can go with that. Only God can free us from our sin. And yes, I suppose this is a social justice issue when it comes to problems with addiction or quality of life issues (someone else's sin impinging upon your own life). But if they're talking about freedom from slavery or work or taxes or rule by a sovereign across the pond, it seems to me like there are others that can grant that sort of liberty as well. I don't see that as just a God thing. I would agree that freedom from slavery is a social justice issue. But I'm not sure that that's what they're talking about.

That happiness is ours to pursue: This one stops me up short. How in the world does this describe social justice? Sounds more like hedonism to me. Do they really believe that pursuing happiness is a social justice issue?  Really?!

A quick thought on Social Justice from Malachi

"So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty. -- Malachi 3:5

You Shall Not Steal - A Shazam Moment

During our Sunday morning service this week, Kevin read another of the 10 commandments. (We've been hitting one a week.)  This week was "You shall not steal." That's pretty short and sweet. But it, and Kevin's commentary after reading it, and the Mountains Beyond Mountains book I finished recently, have all gotten me to thinking about myself and in what ways I steal from others. 

I suppose it was one of those moments when I had had have a concept sitting around in my head for ages and ages but suddenly that concept hit the reality of my life at a specific moment in time and it was suddenly like Gomer Pile had yelled "Shazam!" and little light bulbs started going off in my head. And I pictured myself filling my shopping cart with things at Target and each purchase being just one more way in which I've gathered resources to myself that weren't meant for me. 

The quote that I mentioned in my Mountains Beyond Mountains review is particularly what hit me. 

How could a just God permit great misery? The Haitian peasants answered with a proverb:"Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe," in literal translation, "God gives but doesn't share." This meant, as Farmer would later explain it, "God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us."

And I realized that it wasn't just someone else buying something they didn't really need that was a problem. ME buying something that I didn't really need was a problem. I've tried to reduce our expenses before and buy things used and so on. But it has been more because I wanted to "reduce" or "reuse" than because I held clearly in my mind the idea that I needed to share the resources that God had given to us (us plural, as in, "us, the whole wide world").

Don't get me wrong. We give. We give to our church, to Compassion International, to the Door of Faith Orphanage, and to several other organizations and people. I feel like I have a grasp on giving. What I didn't have in my head was the picture of the person in need who will be missing out on something because of my purchase. 

I know, there's the whole, "But your purchase gave someone in that needy country a job (where they were able to make 6 cents an hour building that for you)." Yeah, yeah. My purchase isn't greed on my part, it's benevolence. Right. But really that's missing the point entirely. My hoarding of stuff doesn't benefit anyone (not even myself because then I have to find a way to cram that stuff into the house). I need to find a way to live not just with less, but more simply over all.  (And with less doesn't mean that I have less. Just that I buy less. There's the whole "Live Simply" movement that involves buying lots of stuff and then getting rid of it quickly. I really don't think that benefits anyone, even if it looks nicely austere.) 

It seems like I've tried spending less many, many times in the past and then the kids need clothes or I need a new bookshelf or.... Yeah. So, what's the trick to really making it happen? 

The Intersection of Faith and Being Valued

In the Got Faith? discussion, I mentioned that I think there's a component, or aspect, of faith that involves an individual receiving value or being valued by the object of their faith. In other words, if I were to say something like, "He's put his faith in sports" then there's a corollary statement that I could make - "He feels valued through sports (or his interaction with sports, or his involvement in sports)." I've been trying to figure that faith and value connection out a bit better and I think I've got it.  

I think that when we receive value from something (in other words, we feel valued because of something or someone else) then we are believing that that other thing (or other someone) has the ability to actually give us that value. We have faith that that thing or person has the authority, or ability, to ascribe value to us. 

Here's an example. 

John Doe meets Jane Smith. As they build a relationship he comes to the point of telling a friend of his, "She makes me feel great! It's like when I'm with her I'm alive in a way that I wasn't before. Because of her I'm walking on clouds." (or something like that.) He feels valued by her. He feels more valuable because he is with her and has a relationship with her. And he has faith that she is able to impart this value (he's experienced it), he has faith that she will continue to impart this value (he hasn't experienced it, but he believes it rationally), and he has faith that this new valuation of himself that he's experiencing thanks to her is really true about him and truly from her (that's probably a more irrational bit of faith). [I think I managed to get all of your faith definitions in there, Darryl.] 

Of course, John having faith in Jane begs the question, is Jane trustworthy.  Is she worth putting faith in. Can she really provide value in the way that John thinks she's providing it. 

So let's assume that Jane isn't worth putting faith in (mostly because I think it helps to think through the faith and value connection). Imagine that John finds out Jane has been cheating on him with Jimmy.  (I decided to keep rolling with those J names.) At this point, I think he's got a few options:

1) He's going to continue to receive his valuation through Jane, which means he's going to feel like crap. He's going to wonder what he did wrong. He'll probably engage in some sort of self flagellation and deprecation. He hasn't lost faith in Jane. Instead he's accepted a negative valuation of himself. 

2) He's going to reverse his faith. He'll no longer believe that Jane has authority, or even an ability, to determine his own worth. Rather than recognizing that he probably shouldn't have put so much faith in her in the first place, he'll instead take on a negative faith regarding her. Not only does she no longer have any ability to give value to him in any way, but she'll never be able to. Despite experiences that show that she can indeed make him feel valued, he will reverse his belief regarding her to such an extent that even what she can do is no longer accepted as being possible. 

3) He's going to lose his faith. He'll realize that Jane was not where his faith should have been put in the first place, and that she also should not have been his chief source of receiving value. He may still be able to recognize that she has some ability to make him feel good about himself, but he's more sober in his view of her and recognizes her more clearly for who she truly is. 

The next question that pops into mind is which comes first, the faith or the receiving of value? Perhaps it's the faith first, because we have to take that first step into a relationship (whether it's accepting the job, going on the first date, or praying your first prayer). Perhaps it's a mustard seed size of faith that begins it all in the first place.  But putting that bit of faith in something enables the opportunity to get a response.  Is this thing worth putting my faith in? Then, when value is received through that bit of faith-putting, the faith increases. 

What do you think?  Is this a reasonable connection to make between faith and value? Does it make more sense of what faith is or just confuse the issue?