Doctrine as Nutrients

I recently finished reading Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.  I had already read his previous book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and agreed, in large part, with what he had to say: that our food is far more processed than we probably realize, that there are political, environmental, health and relational problems with the great eating experiment taking place in America, and that changing the way we grow and eat our food could very well improve our land, our health and even our relationships. In Defense of Food, rather than building upon the themes in the Omnivore's Dilemma, explores instead the ideological and market forces underlying the problems that he described in the previous book. Why are we so nonchalantly galloping further and further down this experimental food path? Pollan's answer? Nutrients. Well, more precisely, Nutritionism.

nutritionism: thinking about food strictly in terms of its chemical constituents

-- In Defense of Food, p. 102

Pollan walks the reader all the way back to the early 1800s when a man by the name of William Prout "identified the three principal constituents of food -- protein, fat, and carbohydrates--that would come to be known as macronutrients."  A German scientist, Justus von Liebig (the same guy that identified nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as the macronutrients needed in the soil), grabbed Prout's insight into food nutrition and developed a meat extract, which we now call bouillon, and the first baby food formula, which he modeled upon his understanding of the three nutrients that he thought fully embodied the functionality of food. Unfortunately, many of the babies raised on Liebig's formula failed to thrive. By the early 1900s, biochemists started to realize that there was more to food than just the big 3 nutrients. There were vitamins... and minerals... and lipids....  And within each of those groups, scientists have been discovering a greater variety of nutrients and a greater importance within the human diet. In other words, Pollan points out that as much as we want to, and think we have, locked down all that is required for health and happiness, history shows us that we tend to keep missing stuff. 

It's an ironic situation in which the western world finds itself.  We are learning more and more about food and nutrients all the time.  We are more interested in the component bits and pieces that make up our food than at any other point in history. Much of what we eat is labeled so that we can be informed and eat more of what scientists have found to be good for us and less of what they've declared to be bad. And despite all of this acquired knowledge, nutrition training in school, labeling on packages, etc. we continue to have rising rates of obesity, hypertension, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers -- a panoply of health issues that are known to have a direct relationship with a Western diet. 

Pollan goes into the politics and market forces that keep nutritionism a reigning ideology in the American psyche. The book is well worth the read, and the last half of the book gives many specific ways to avoid the traps of nutritionism and instead eat healthier by maintaining a diet that is summed up in his opening statement:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

But what intrigues me about this book is not only its description of nutritionism and its ruinous affects upon our diet, but a parallel that jumped quickly to mind as I read Pollan's description. Nutritionism is a matter of taking something good--food--and reducing it to the sum of its parts--nutrients (which are also good). But, as Pollan points out (and he lists studies on this), simply consuming those parts separately, rather in the form of the whole food, is not equivalent and doesn't bear the same health affects. There is something about the relationship of those nutrients (and perhaps the inclusion of nutrients that we haven't discovered yet) that is beneficial when eating an apple that we don't get when we consume vitamins that have an equivalent nutritional value. Could it not be the same with Christian doctrine? (phew! Now there's a leap. But hear me out.)

Doctrine is essentially a reduction of Biblical teachings into succinct bits (just as a vitamin or an amino acid is a part of a piece of food). That doctrine might be incredibly important as a teaching within the church (just as protein is important for the regular functioning of our body). But when our spirituality becomes founded upon the sum of the parts (or at least the parts that we've identified and called out as a specific doctrine), are we still getting the "nutritional value" of the greater whole? As much as it might be important to identify vitamins, minerals and lipids, there is still greater value in eating those identified bits within the context of the whole food. As much as it might be important to identify God's sovereignty, his omniscience, his great justice and mercy, it's still interesting to note that God did not give us those identified bits in a list or a confessional format. He gave them to us in the greater context of the story of a people. He gave us a whole--the Bible.  The whole contains the bits and pieces that Christians have teased out in various confessions and creeds over the years.  And those confessions and creeds certainly have value.  But they are parts.  They are identified bits. They are pieces of a greater whole. 

As members of a church that is, in turn, a member of a larger nation-wide denomination, we (my husband and I) are continually struck by the way in which the denomination and many of its members turn first to a confession, catechism or book of church order before turning to the Bible to resolve an issue or to state a case. The bread and butter of the denomination seems not to be the Bible, the basic text upon which Christians base their faith, but a confession written over 1600 years after the time of Christ. Of course, if you were to say as much to those that do this, they'd deny it in a heartbeat. They'd point out that whichever text they're using to support their point was derived from the Bible and that, therefore, their argument also relies squarely upon Biblical statements. But in so doing, I venture to point out that they're making a common nutritionist mistake. They're depending upon a belief that vitamins out of context are just as valuable as vitamins in context. (I should add that certainly not everyone in the denomination does this. But it is quite prevalent.)

Nutrition is important.  Doctrine, in my opinion, is also important.  It's a succinct way of outlining what a particular group believes and holds to be dear.  But nutrition or doctrine alone is an insufficient foundation upon which to base your health or spirituality. God created vitamins, proteins, minerals, etc. in a context of whole food. And while God did give us some summary statements that guide who we are and how we should live as Christians -- 

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
-- Micah 6:8

or

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.
-- Mark 12:30-31

He gave those statements in the context of a greater whole -- a whole text, a whole story, a whole history of a people that spans time and place.

Doctrine is like nutrients.  They both have value.  But both are more valuable in the context of their greater whole. When we focus on the nutrients, it's sometimes easy to lose site of the context.  If we're only checking the nutrition label on the bread package for iron and folic acid, then we might miss the ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides or the azodicarbonamide listed in the ingredients section.  If all we're focused on is T.U.L.I.P. and the "proper" form of baptism, then we might not notice the other ingredients such as arrogance, anger and self-righteousness. Just because we want to consume vitamin C doesn't mean that we have to go about it by also consuming a bunch of processed carbs, highly refined sweeteners, and preservatives.  

When Christians focus on nutritional/doctrinal bits and pieces and ignore the larger context of the food/Bible story, I believe they open the way for non-food/non-doctrine to slip into their spiritual diet in much the same way that prepackaged, highly-processed, sugar-filled, preservative-laden "food" has been added to supermarket shelves with labels that make them look healthy, while the reality is that the overall processed nature of the food will cause disease in the end. 

God has provided a whole food for us.  Shame on us for reducing it to the sum of its parts (and missing out on bits and pieces while we're at it). Doctrine certainly isn't bad. But overly focusing on it can lead otherwise healthy Christians toward diseases of pride, arrogance, self-righteousness and anger.  When you find yourself tempted to jump on a doctrinal band-wagon, remind yourself that Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if your doctrine is spot on if you love one another."

Liturgy

An old college friend posted this on Facebook and I think it's right on.  Although I think N's (or is it T's?) can feel constricted or constrained by liturgy, when we understand it the way that Jonathan describes it, then it feels much more natural and comforting and important. 

We have little songs for our kids, too.  Nathan has a song and the girls share a song, and though we don't sing them much any more, I make a point of singing them on the kids' birthdays after telling their birthing story (a tradition as I put them to bed on their birthday night). 

Jonathan on Liturgy from Journey Training on Vimeo.

I know you mean well...

I'm reading through an old notebook that I kept in 1996.  I just hit some scribbles that I thought I'd share.  Have you ever felt this way?

the love you're giving to me
is the wrong blood type.
i know you mean well,
but it's killing me.

The Earth Is the Lord's - a Bible study written by yours truly

Ever since we arrived at our little church here in Fort Collins, we've been an anomaly. We're reformed, just like the rest of the congregation, but we're environmentalists. We've studied the Bible for years, but we sometimes come to different conclusions on what it's saying. (Our Sunday school lesson two summer's ago on taking the Lord's name in vain is a perfect case in point. It was an entire hour in which I felt like no matter what Rob or I said, we might as well have been in a sound-proof box because no one seemed to hear us. To my great delight, you can now read some of the things that Rob and I were saying in our new pastor's blog (even though he wasn't in that Sunday school class to hear us say those things).)

Though Rob and I will bring up our differences of interpretation on occasion (like when we explain why we bike to church with our family when we can, rather than drive), we try not to make a big deal out of it.  But in March of 2007, I decided that there was one difference of opinion that, while I still didn't want to make a big deal out of it, I did want to address.  After an unexpected outburst about how silly global warming is, I felt compelled to address the issue--not global warming in particular, but the whole topic of the environment and the role of Christians regarding it. 

So I started reading books. I read saving God's green earth, by tri robinson.  I thought it made a very well reasoned case as to why Christians should be concerned about the environment and so I recommended it to the session (which is the ruling group for the church -- the pastor and the elders). All I ever heard back from the pastor was that the elders had quickly shot the idea down. But he suggested that perhaps we could read Francis Schaeffer's book, Pollution and the Death of Man, instead. So I read through that and, while I liked the book, it seemed rather thin compared to the other book I had already started reading at that point, Redeeming Creation: The Biblical Basis for Environmental Stewardship, which took Schaeffer's same ideas but fleshed them out much better. But I knew that I couldn't suggest that book to the session because it talked too specifically about issues and I didn't want to go there until we could all agree that the Bible had something to say on the topic first. 

By this point I realized that none of the books I picked up were going to reach the intended audience very well.  The only book that had a chance of making an impression was the Bible. So I started searching for Bible studies on the topic.  I found a few, but to put it bluntly, they all sucked.  So I decided to write one myself.  (Hopefully it doesn't suck.)

I wrote specifically with an audience in mind that reflects our congregation: reformed, conservative, and leery of anything that smells even a little bit liberal. I know that liberals have taken up the environmentalist banner and waved it gleefully. But just because liberals wave that banner doesn't, in my mind, mean that conservatives can't also be concerned about many of these same issues.  No one wants their children to be poisoned by toxins in their foods.  No one wants to die of a disease caused by air pollution or water contamination. There are points we can all agree on.  And the Bible speaks not only to these points but to many other environmental concerns as well. 

I recently finished putting together 10 chapters focusing on various topics for study. I pulled from multiple resources including not only my own studies of the Bible, but also from the books mentioned above and even a Teaching Company class on the book of Genesis (which I highly recommend, by the way.  And it's even on sale right now.)

I've uploaded the study book to Lulu.com, where you can download or order a copy. But though it's written, and it's even on Lulu, I think it could still use a thorough editorial review. So I thought I'd invite anyone who is interested to get a copy (I'd actually be happy to order one for you so you don't have to pay for it. But you'll need to send me your address (in a PM).) and go to town on it.  Tell me where I'm not clear, where I don't make my point very well, where my typos are, etc.  You don't have to be a Christian, nor an environmentalist, to try doing the study. You do, however, have to keep in mind who the intended audience is and tell me when you think I'm missing my mark in addressing them. (You don't even have to have a Bible.  The Bible Gateway is an easy way to look up the verses.)  If you're not interested but you know of someone else who might be, please send them a link to this post. If the study can't stand up to serious scrutiny, then it's really not worth me suggesting to the session that we study it at some point. In fact, if it can't stand up to serious scrutiny, then I might as well throw it in the trash bin.  The last thing the world needs is another piece of junk. But I do think it'll (mostly) stand up to scrutiny and so here I am, setting it on the firing line. Fire at will!

Edit: (1 June 2009) The second edition of this Bible study is now out.  I've fixed several typos and a wrong Scripture reference and while I was at it I gave it a new cover (thanks to Lulu's handy premade cover themes).   ------>

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

A friend of mine recently brought this phrase up in an email.  She says:

K is doing well. She asked me what the opposite of "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is.  In fact we couldn't agree on what TRHPGI means. She thought it means your intentions don't count, its whether you succeed which counts, as in, if your good intentions bear fruit, you will not go to hell.  

I actually can't get my head around that concept, although I know the expression is not in the Bible, maybe it comes from someone who believes doing good gets you to heaven, and is a warning against promises and ideas which never lead anywhere.

I always thought TRHIPGI means that there is no point doing good and having good intentions, that is the road to hell, and the road to heaven is Trusting in God, Jesus, accepting God's blessings whatever they might be and trusting God through the trials He sends, and doing things you love for the people around you.  If your life is filled with all those things, it is the road to heaven, but as soon as you start trying to "do good", you're on the wrong track.

Given that we couldn't decide what the original means, we haven't yet come to decide what the opposite is!!  K thinks the opposite of her interpretation would be something like:  Try try again.  I.e, your intentions are what counts, as long as you are trying it counts.

The opposite of my interpretation of  TRHIPWGI is that the way to get to heaven is by trying to do good.?? which no one would agree with!

I am interested in your thoughts. 

I've always taken the phrase to mean something like, "You can intend to do the right thing and never actually end up doing what's right."  For example, I could have the best of intentions in trying to get my son, who is terrified of spiders, to get over his fear by confronting him with the next spider that I find.  But if the end result is that he jumps several feet in his fear and ends up hitting his head against the corner of a table and getting hurt (which he did last night, in fact, though it wasn't because of a spider), then it doesn't matter how great my intentions might have been, they're worthless considering what came of them.  

According to Bartleby.com, it means, "Merely intending to do good, without actually doing it, is of no value."

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) apparently said, "Hell is full of good intentions or desires", which may be the origin of the phrase. (source)

The opposite of TRTHIPWGI? How about, "Do Be Do Be Do."  Or maybe "Just do it." Or perhaps, "Don't just sit there. Get off your duff and do something!"  Despite the fact that hell, a religious term, is included in the phrase, I don't think it's meant to be a theological statement so much as a reprimand against those who think simply wanting good things is enough to make a person good.  (I don't mean "good" in the theological sense, either.  I just mean "good" as in, "he's a good person.")

Objective, Absolute, and Universal Truth

“The idea of truth as objective is simply that no matter what we believe to be the case, some things will always be true and other things will always be false. Our beliefs, whatever they are, have no bearing on the facts of the world around us. That which is true is always true — even if we stop believing it and even if we stop existing at all.” -- atheism.com

“An absolute truth, sometimes called a universal truth, is an unalterable and permanent fact.” -- wisegeek 

It's popular in Christian circles to talk about Absolute Truth.  It's spoken of as one of those defining features that sets us apart from the rabble. While all the world is going to hell in a hand basket because they're a hedonistic bunch of Relativists, the Christians sit smugly upon their stack of Absolute Truths which, conveniently enough, can only be deduced directly from the their own religious text, the Bible. So if you were ever to come to the point that you agreed with Christians on their absolute truths, you'd have to first except the absolute truth that the Bible is the only source for absolute truths.  (This has been my experience, at least, when it comes to discussions among Christians on Absolute Truth.  I'm not trying to say this is absolutely always how the topic is approached.  I'm just giving a relativistic (and snarky) description based on my own personal experiences.)

And yet, if there is objective truth, shouldn't those truths, by definition, be evident, not only to Christians, but to all people? For example: “All people will die.”  This is a basic and objective truth that I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who would disagree with you on. (Of course, Rob's answer was a prompt, "But you can't prove that." I suppose that just because everyone that's gone before us has died doesn't mean that everyone now or to come will also die. So yeah, I can't prove that. Ironic, isn't it? Something that I'm pretty sure everyone would agree to as an absolute truth can't be absolutely proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. No wonder discussions of truth often end up sounding more like squabbles than revelations.) Though the Bible addresses the mankind and death issue ("There is a time for everything... a time to be born and a time to die..." -- Ecclesiastes 3:1a, 2a), I think you can find those who have never once read the Scriptures who would also agree with this truth. In my mind, the fact that you could find people of all ages, cultures and religions who agree with this statement is a strong indicator that the statement is a universal truth (even if you can't prove it). 

In fact, as much as Christians love to try to prove that there is absolute truth (even to the point of proving that what someone hasn't said is wrong), I think the real heart of the matter is not that there are those who believe absolute truth doesn't exist, but that there are those (most of us, in fact) who simply forget these absolute truths.  

And so, when someone comes along and reminds us of some of those absolute truths, their words have the ability to strike us at the core.  They resonate with what we have already experienced to be true, and they spur us on to remember and live by those absolute truths. 

A friend of mine recently posted Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address, which resonated with me not only because I think it was a well written and organized speech (and because I think Jesus would use a Mac (a computer that Steve Jobs invented)), but because it jived so well with the book that several gals and I have been reading and discussing in our Bible study group on being peacemakers. Here was a man who attributed nothing to God, who very well may never have read the Bible, and who didn't in any way claim to be a Christian, and yet what he said struck me as being true.  It agreed with beliefs (I think of them as "truths.") that I have found in the Bible.  It agreed with experiences I have had in life. In my opinion, Steve Jobs struck upon several Absolute Truths in his speech. 

He had three main points: 

1. The dots will connect.  Trust that and it will give you confidence.
2. Crap happens. Use those times to start over - to redirect yourself again towards what you love. 
3. We will all die. So choose well how you will live and don't get caught up in silly fears and pointless worries. 

OK, so point number one is the most shaky in terms of being "absolute."  Though many people believe in "destiny" or "karma" or "predestination," there are also many that believe life is random.  As a Christian, however, I find it interesting that Jobs would hit upon this point. Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."  In Steve Jobs-ese that would read, "Trust that something -- your gut, destiny, life, Karma, whatever -- is connecting the dots in your life.  Looking forward, you won't see how these dots are going to connect, but looking back, it will become clear." (That's not a direct quote from Jobs.  It's a rearranging of things he said into an approximation of the Proverbs 3:5 format.)  Jobs added that, "Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference."  

Jobs' second point, that loss can bring you around to seeking after what you love, is also something that can be found in the Bible.  Paul wrote that "when you put a seed into the ground, it doesn't grow into a plant unless it dies first." (1 Corinthians 15:36) The bounty doesn't come until after there's been the struggle that the seed must endure - burial, death, and new life from the husk that's left behind. Jobs also hit upon several other ideas under this second point: "Keep Looking, don't settle," "Sometime's life's gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith," and "You've got to find what you love." In other words, persevere, keep faith, and don't forsake your first love.  (Jobs sounds like a 21st century echo of Saint John as he wrote to the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7)).

Steve Jobs concluded with the point that I've already addressed above: We're all going to die. He says, "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." This is wisdom.  Steve Jobs has stated quite eloquently here what even Saint Paul struggled to get across to the early Christians living in Rome -- "We were therefore buried with [Jesus] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Romans 6:4) 

When Saint Paul entered a new city and started speaking to the people there, he often began not by pointing out all the ways in which he disagreed with them, but by pointing out a truth that they could all agree upon. For example, in talking to the men of Athens, he referenced one of their own poets, giving support to his words not by sourcing his own religious text, but by referencing something of theirs. (Acts 17) I can only imagine what our own society would be like if Christians stopped trying to prove that they had the corner on the market for truth and rather started reminding others of truths that we all agree upon (as I feel Steve Jobs has done, heathen though he might be). From there could spring other discussions, such as trying to determine the source of those truths.  But rather than pushing a cultural debate founded upon disagreement, we'd be beginning from a point of unity.  How different would our conversations be then?

Absolute Truth shouldn't be a dividing point used by Christians to attempt to chasten the world.  Rather, Absolute Truth should be that which breaks down the boundaries between us and others and enables us to speak with thoughtfulness, respect, and well... truth.

Ask Jesus into Your Heart. Or Not.

I came across a short essay that I wrote in 1996 in an attempt to answer the question, "Where does it say that Jesus is in our heart?"  (It is rather popular in evangelical circles to claim that people must "ask Jesus into their heart" to be saved.  I was wondering where they got this "ask into your heart" thing.)

I found three Scriptures that came as close as I could get to this concept.  You'll notice that not a single one mentions heart... or any other internal organ either, for that matter.

John 14:20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 

John 17:22-23 ... so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God...

I then wrote the following.  (OK, so it's sorta stream of consciousness.  Roll with that bit, eh?)

Saying that "Jesus is in your heart" seems to compartmentalize him, even constrict him. It puts Jesus in a part of us.  And he sits there inactively.  There is no mention of him working through us, of him drawing us to be more like him, discipling us, etc.  It's a completed sort of statement  It's a location rather than a state of being or a position of operation. 

Now consider the similar statement that one needs to "ask Jesus into their heart."  This implies that a finite creature can actually direct the actions of an (the) infinite creator.  In my recent studying of the book of John I see numerous references to belief and that Jesus came that we might believe.  No where do I see that he came so that we might put him in our hearts.  

Add to this the prayer of Jesus in John 17.  He asked that we might be in him and him in God so that we may be completely one, so that 1) the world would know God sent Jesus and 2) the world would know God loves us.  It seems to me that the purpose of Christ in us is in no way tied to our salvation (as "asking Jesus into our heart" would have us believe) but is specifically that the world would have a better understanding of God.

Today people use the "Jesus in my heart" thing as a dividing line.  There's us -- we have Jesus safely tucked away inside our blood pumping organ.  And there's them -- they don't have Jesus anywhere in them.  Not even in their livers or kidneys.  Rather than focusing on the unity that John 17's "they may be one as we are one" should point us toward, we first of all twist the concept of Jesus in us and then use it as a sword point to poke others with. 

The moral of the story?  Christians are dorks.  (Which is another way of describing the doctrine of sin, I suppose.)