During a recent trip to Kochi, India, I visited an interesting modern art exhibit called the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which premiered on 12/12/12. Amid all of the creative and highly symbolic paintings and sculptures and photographs, I stumbled upon a plain white piece of paper that was stuck to the wall, and simply had the following message printed on it (the thing caught me so off guard, I forgot to take a picture of it…):

“Try thinking nothing but positive thoughts about people for 24 hours.

Then try it for 72 hours.

Then for a week.

Then for a month.

See how that attitude changes your life for the better.”

I have to admit, one of the first thoughts to cross my mind was something a bit negative about whoever posted that piece of paper on the wall. I thought – “is this person really serious?” Do people actually believe that consciously avoiding all negative thoughts will bring something positive into their lives; that tuning out the negative realities of our world will transform them into living beacons of peace and happiness? The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized how common this attitude was, and how many people would probably stroll by the piece of paper and take its “wisdom” to heart. It is a modern take on Eastern philosophy that does tremendous injustice to historic Western AND Eastern thought.

We often witness a similar effect when very distressing things happen in the world and make it into the mainstream news outlets. When I was visiting relatives in Bangalore, India later on in the trip, I made a few remarks to them about a brutal gang-rape that occurred in December in New Delhi, in which the 23-year old female victim had subsequently died of her injuries. It had certainly left the country in a somber mood before and after the New Year. I wanted to know how such depraved crimes affected them personally and intellectually, but I found that most of my relatives didn’t want to think about it. One of them even remarked, “it’s better not to think about such things”.

This attitude of focusing on the good and tuning out the bad seems to be just as common where I live in the United States as well. One thing I’ve noticed about the immediate politicization of the recent mass shootings in America is that it serves as a rather convenient way for people to ignore the dark realities and details of what is happening in our culture of violence and alienation, while focusing all of their intellectual and emotional capacities on general political issues of gun control, big government vs. small government, etc. Why is this our natural response to these horrendous events? The events themselves will be swamped under various political issues until they are dimly remembered artifacts of American history.

What is most clear to me is that this attitude of “tuning out the bad” or “sweeping the bad under whatever emotionally-charged rugs we can find” is in direct opposition to what we are taught by the Bible and historic Christianity. As is so often the case, the Bible provides us with a revolutionary, yet surprisingly level-headed analysis of our situation. We are reminded of simple truths in a world that consistently obscures them from view. Perhaps the best and most concise statement of “Christian peace” comes to us from Paul’s letter to the early church of Philippi.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9)

The “peace of God” transcends all understanding. Therefore, it cannot be thought of as being synonymous with our traditional definitions of what it means to experience peace, i.e. being in a state of extreme tranquility, stability or detachment from worldly concerns. That is not the type of peace that we are offered in Christ while we remain in the period of probation, or the period before final judgment and renewal of creation. There is certainly nothing in scripture about tuning out negative events or thoughts that occur in our lives or the lives of others. Instead, we are given a three-fold emphasis on the peace of God that emanates from the God of peace.

First, Paul tells us to be thankful to God – not for having perfect lives, or abundant material blessings, but for having a life at all. A life in which we have the glorious opportunity to know Christ our Lord, and the Father through him (John 14:9). It is similar to the old proverb – “happiness is not getting what you want, but wanting what you have“. Taking this a step further, there is only ONE thing that we have which will remain constant in our lives no matter what, and that is the love of Christ. We must sincerely want to embrace this loving relationship that Christ has offered, and we can actualize the fruits of this relationship through prayer and petition. Our prayers will not always be “answered” (although we often fail to recognize the answers), but Christ’s personal love is eternally guaranteed – and that should be enough to quell our anxiety.

Second, Paul tells us to think about all that is true and righteous in the Universe and in our lives. That might seem like a simple piece of advice, but it’s a nugget of wisdom that typically goes unheeded in our lives, especially for those of us living in relatively wealthy societies. How often do you actually take time out of your day to simply think and reflect on the truth, the nobility, the purity, the beauty and the loveliness of God’s word and his creation? This process is the opposite of ignoring the evil and suffering in the world – rather, it is actively comparing the evil and suffering to the true and righteous aspects of our world and also God’s kingdom; putting the evil into the proper perspective, and thinking about how we can go about offsetting it in our lives and the lives of others.

Some skeptics may ask whether “thanking and thinking” actually provides the followers of Christ with any productive inner peace; whether Paul’s advice is just another way for people to zonk out and be satisfied with the terrible circumstances that surround them. This is a legitimate question – does the “peace of God” turn us into passive agents who are unwilling to be critical of worldly people/events, question human authority and decry injustice? Are followers of Christ unwilling to act to improve their situation and that of others because we only look forward to the afterlife? The reason it may seem that way is because skeptics refuse to ask those questions in the context of the historical Jesus Christ who now lives and reigns.

There is very little chance that the Christian faith would have spread so rapidly if it were not for the peace discovered by the early martyrs of the first three centuries. These early Christians were persecuted heavily by Jewish and Roman authorities, as they refused to acknowledge any final religious or political authority apart from Christ, who was crucified and raised around 33 AD. The range of torturous methods developed by the persecutors were almost as creative as they were gruesome and depraved, yet there are reports of martyrs facing imminent peril from fires, crucifixes, wild beasts, etc. with hymns of praise to God and peaceful expressions on their faces. These martyrs knew that their fellow Christians and potential converts would only become more receptive to the truth in Christ by their unmatched courage, sacrifice and faith.

A Cross erected in Roman Colosseum where Emperors used to sit.

We see similar expressions of courage, faith and hope in the “negro spirituals” that were developed by African-American slaves over several centuries. These enslaved Americans took Paul’s words to heart – “…but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Ephesians 5:19). They refashioned Biblical hymns and passages to communicate Christian ideals and their ongoing struggle with the depraved culture of slavery in a unique, glorious and beautiful way. This was not a means for them to ignore their circumstances or give up on attaining better lives, but to express their courage in the face of brutal oppression and their living hope for coming justice. The spirituals reflected a peace of heart and mind that is truly worth calling peace.

So, instead of following the cues of modern culture to find peace through a contrived “positive” attitude, wiping our minds clean of all troubling thoughts and circumstances, perhaps we should look to the peace of God recognized in the earliest years of the Christian faith and by the many courageous followers of Christ that have come after. Perhaps instead of consciously avoiding negative thoughts about people and events, we should put them into a spiritual perspective and learn from them; we should use them to grow and mature in faith, and help others by serving as living examples of Christ’s love. Paul finally emphasizes how we can receive the peace of God by telling us to take what we have learned from Christ and his disciples, and to put it all into practice.

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“This gulf in understanding [life's origin] is not merely ignorance about certain technical details, it is a major conceptual lacuna” – Paul Davies, Physicist

“It would be a miracle if a strand of RNA ever appeared on the primitive Earth” -Leslie Orgel, OOL Researcher

“Terrestrial explanations [for homochirality] are impotent and nonviable” - William Bonner, Organic Chemist

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every creature
and the breath of all mankind.”

(Job 12:7-10)

“O LORD, how manifold are your works!

In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Here is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with creatures innumerable,
living things both small and great.
There go the ships,
and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

These all look to you,
to give them their food in due season.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.”

(Psalm 104:24-30)

Since the time of Darwin, many people have replaced what their minds and hearts tell them with what popular culture advertises to them. There is no better venue for Western pop culture then the public school. Darwinian evolution is presented to children as fact instead of theory, complete with cartoons of knuckle-dragging apes becoming upright human beings. Very few people stop to question the dogma of biological evolution, asking whether the increasingly abundant evidence actually supports or undermines the theory. The more we learn about the realm of life, the more enigmas develop for natural explanations of its origin and development.

Many theists (especially Christians) have adopted evolution as God’s method of creation, because they think a) scientific evidence supports evolution and b) it will make the faith more popular and easier to accept. Yet the Bible is clear that the truth is what’s most important, as revealed through scripture. And scripture minces no words when describing God’s direct creation of life on this planet over four progressive ages (days 3-6), resting from creation in our ongoing seventh age. A lot of important theology actually rests on creationism – for example, the concept that humans are unique in kind from the rest of the animal kingdom and created with the imago dei or “image of God”.

Although people have learned to automatically associate a progression of simple-to-complex life on Earth over billions of years with Darwinian evolution, the fact is that this scenario exactly parallels the Biblical accounts of progressive creation by God, and these accounts were constructed thousands of years ago. The existence of all these different living organisms is one of the most powerful testaments to the existence of an intelligent and personal God. If there were no supreme intelligence, or divinity took the form of some impersonal force, we would not expect to observe such methodically and exquisitely crafted beings on this planet, which show all the tell-tale signs of creative design that we observe in human civilization.

Instead of describing all of the flaws in modern evolutionary theory, I would like to share some photos of God’s creatures that I took in the fantastic aquarium of Dubai Mall, as well as a few from the streets and skies of India while on vacation. These creatures share similar physical and cognitive features, but they also have vastly differing body plans and behaviors. What was most striking to me was the ways in which they were all beautiful and pleasing to humans in their look and behavior. Each creature had something special to offer its human audience; something beyond any physical explanation. We wouldn’t expect natural evolutionary mechanisms to produce life forms with human service or pleasure in mind, yet that’s exactly what we find in the diversity of life. As Dr. Hugh Ross notes in his book, Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job:

Another line of reasoning to support the idea that the nepesh (soulish animals) arose by supernatural design rather than by natural process springs from observation of the ways these creatures provide for human needs. They have special capacities allowing them to relate to us humans, serving and pleasing us in ways they do not relate to their own species and in ways that do not promote their own survival. Research reveals no natural evolutionary mechanism by which these animals gradually changed over time to adapt to humans. Rather, these creatures possessed body structures, soulish capacities and motivation to serve and please humans before humans existed.

Not only do we get aesthetic and emotional benefits from the vast diversity of simpler life on Earth, but also many practical benefits, from the most simple bacteria to the various birds and mammals we are able to tame and bond with. They also provide us with a wealth of resources in medical and technological pursuits, which is exactly how we would expect the Creator to design them for the benefit of human civilization. These are all features of life on Earth that cannot be reduced to selective pressures acting on gradual mutations resulting in a survival of the fittest members. Instead, they jive with our personal experiences involving intelligent designs, modifications and improvements using common templates, all for specific purposes, just as scripture described many years ago.

(unfortunately, the following slideshow pictures are not all of the best quality…)

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An interesting thing happened after I was brought into the Christian faith – I began to view the Christmas holidays with a lot of skepticism. Instead of looking forward to presents, parties, skiing trips, obscenely large meals and festive holiday cheer, like I did when I was agnostic, I began to ask questions about what it is we are actually celebrating. Too many Christians cling onto cultural traditions without critically examining them and making the appropriate sacrifices when those traditions fall short of Christian ideals. We are steeped in the practices of this world and we are afraid of what other people will think about us if we take a few step backs from the world. Yet, as Christians, the only thing that should truly matter is how we appear before God and no one else.

Christmas is allegedly a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. However, there is absolutely nothing in scripture that suggests Jesus was born in Winter, let alone on December 25.  Scripture does give us plenty of clues to suggest that Jesus was born in the Fall season, though, most likely during the month of September. Does that mean we should switch Christmas celebrations to a September date? No, not at all. Paul relates to us that Jesus told his disciples to honor his death through communion, signifying God’s new covenant with humanity, not his birth (1 Corinthians 11:23-27). It is important to know Jesus’ birthday in order to destroy the currently ingrained myth of Christmas. Here are some evidences for a September birth:

When Was Jesus Born

In a long section covering Luke 1:5 through 2:8, Luke writes of a specific series of events in chronological order. He begins by telling the story of Zacharias, a priest, and his wife Elizabeth, who were childless. While administering his priestly duties during the course of Abijah, Zacharias was visited by the angel Gabriel, who told him that his prayers had been answered and that he and Elizabeth would have a son. They were to name him John.

…

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Gabriel visited Mary and informed her, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call His name Jesus” (verse 31). Soon thereafter, Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and stayed with her until the latter’s ninth month, leaving just prior to John’s birth. Jesus, then, was born approximately six months after John.

What information do we have up to this point?

» Zacharias, a priest, performed his duties during the course of Abijah.

» After he returned home from Jerusalem, Elizabeth conceived.

» Mary conceived in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

» John was born approximately six months before Jesus.

The Course of Abijah

To date Jesus’ birth, we need a starting point. Fortunately, Luke supplies one in mentioning “the course of Abijah” (Luke 1:5). Is it possible to know if this course existed then, when it fell during the year, and how long it lasted?

Indeed it is!

I Chronicles 24 lists the courses, divisions or shifts of the priesthood that served in the Temple throughout the year. Verse 1 states, “These are the divisions of the sons of Aaron.” Among the sons of Eleazar were sixteen heads of their father’s house, while among the sons of Ithamar were eight additional heads of house, making twenty-four courses (verse 4).

These courses of priests were divided by lot to be officials of the sanctuary and of the house of God (verse 5). Beginning on Nisan 1, these courses rotated throughout the year, serving in the Temple for one week apiece. The course of Abijah, the course during which Zacharias was responsible to work, was the eighth shift (verse 10).

Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian—who was, by the way, of the priestly lineage of the course of Jehoiarib, the first course—supplies further information about the priestly courses.

“He [David] divided them also into courses: and when he had separated the priests from them, he found of these priests twenty-four courses, sixteen of the house of Eleazar and eight of that of Ithamar; and he ordained that one course should minister to God [during] eight days, from [noon] Sabbath to [noon on the following] Sabbath. And thus were the courses distributed by lot, in the presence of David, and Zadok and Abiathar the high priest, and of all the rulers: and that course which came up first was written down as the first, and accordingly the second, and so on to the twenty-fourth; and this partition hath remained to this day” (Antiquities of the Jews, 7:14.7).

These courses were strictly followed until the Temple was destroyed in AD 70.

The Talmud describes the details of the rotation of courses, beginning on Nisan 1. With only twenty-four courses, obviously each course was required to work twice a year, leaving three extra weeks. (The Hebrew year normally has fifty-one weeks. Intercalary, or leap, years have an additional four weeks.) The three holy day seasons, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, during which all the courses were required to serve, made up these three extra weeks. Thus, each of the courses worked five weeks out of the year: two in their specific courses and three during the holy day seasons.

John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for Messiah (Malachi 3:1; Luke 1:13-17). The gospel accounts make it very clear that he was born about half a year before Jesus was born. From historical details in Luke’s account especially, as well as the accuracy of the Seventy Weeks prophecy (see “Seventy Weeks Are Determined . . .,” p. 2), it is clear that Jesus was born sometime in 4 bc. This means, counting back the nine months of gestation and the six-month difference in age, John must have been conceived in the first half of 5 bc.

This fact forces us to choose the first shift of the course of Abijah as the time when Gabriel visited Zacharias in the Temple. Frederick R. Coulter, in his A Harmony of the Gospels (p. 9), computes it this way:

In the year 5 bc, the first day of the first month, the month of Nisan, according to the Hebrew Calendar, was a Sabbath. According to computer calculation synchronizing the Hebrew Calendar and the stylized Julian Calendar, it was April 8. Projecting forward, the assignments course by course, and week by week, were: Course 1, the first week; Course 2, the second week; all Courses for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, the third week; Course 3, the fourth week; Course 4, the fifth week; Course 5, the sixth week; Course 6, the seventh week; Course 7, the eighth week; Course 8, the ninth week; and all courses [sic] the tenth week, which was the week of Pentecost.

Zacharias of the course of Abijah worked the ninth week in his assigned course and the tenth week in the Pentecost course, and this period ran from Iyar 27 through Sivan 12 (Hebrew calendar) or June 3 through 17 (Julian calendar). He probably returned home immediately after his shifts were completed, and Elizabeth most likely conceived in the following two-week period, June 18 through July 1, 5 BC.

With this information we can calculate Elizabeth’s sixth month as December, during which Mary also conceived (Luke 1:26-38). It is probable, because of the circumstances shown in Luke 1, that Mary conceived during the last two weeks of Elizabeth’s sixth month. Thus, John was born in the spring of 4 BC, probably between March 18 and 31. By projecting forward another six months to Jesus’ birth, the most probable time for His birth occurred between September 16 and 29. It is an interesting sidelight that Tishri 1, the Feast of Trumpets, is one of the two middle days of this time period.

Flocks in the Fields

There is additional proof that Jesus was born in the fall of the year. The census of Quirinius that required Joseph to travel from Galilee to Bethlehem would most probably have taken place after the fall harvest when people were more able to return to their ancestral homes (Luke 2:1-5). Besides, it was customary in Judea to do their tax collecting during this period, as the bulk of a farmer’s income came at this time.

Another point is that Joseph and Mary had to find shelter in a barn or some other kind of animal shelter like a cave or grotto because the inns were full (verse 7). This indicates that the pilgrims from around the world had begun to arrive in Jerusalem and surrounding towns. Thus, the fall festival season had already commenced. There would have been no similar influx of pilgrims in December.

Also, as the shepherds were still in the fields with their flocks (verse 8), Jesus’ birth could not have occurred during the cold-weather months of winter. Sheep were normally brought into centrally located pens or corrals as the weather turned colder and the rainy season began, especially at night. If this were not significant, it begs the question, “Why would Luke have mentioned it in such detail if not to convey a time reference?”

Notice what commentator Adam Clarke writes regarding this:

It was a custom among the Jews to send out their sheep to the deserts [wilderness], about the passover [sic], and bring them home at the commencement of the first rain: during the time they were out, the shepherds watched them night and day. As the passover [sic] occurred in the spring, and the first rain began early in the month of Marchesvan, which answers to part of our October and November, we find that the sheep were kept out in the open country during the whole of the summer. And as these shepherds had not yet brought home their flocks, it is a presumptive argument that October had not yet commenced, and that, consequently, our Lord was not born on the 25th of December, when no flocks were out in the fields; nor could He have been born later than September, as the flocks were still in the fields by night. On this very ground the nativity in December should be given up. The feeding of the flocks by night in the fields is a chronological fact, which casts considerable light on this disputed point. (Clarke’s Commentary, vol. V, p. 370)

So why do so many cultures around the world have such long-standing traditions of celebrating Jesus’ birth on and around December 25? The answer comes from pagan traditions that were absorbed by the Roman Catholic Church in order to keep the peace and pacify their diverse, subjugated populations. The Winter Solstice was celebrated by pagan cultures because it was thought to be the time when the Sun god was healing from previous sickness and returning to health. This time is also associated with the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, when the god of seed and sowing, Saturnus, was honored with a festival. The arbiters of Roman Christianity wasted no time incorporating these traditions into the celebration of Christmas during the 4th and 5th centuries A.D.

The use of a Christmas tree also reflects pagan traditions that viewed evergreens as being sacred. These trees would remind them that the Sun god was always strong and would eventually return to make many more green plants. The Smithsonian traces the origin of mistletoe to rituals of the Celtic Druids and their legends of Norse gods. Even the burning of a yule log is something pagan cultures did to remind themselves of warmth and light in the dark of winter. Saint Nicholas, also known as Santa Claus, traces his origins to the Greek goddess of victory “Nike”, who primarily functioned as an evangelist for Zeus, and the Greek word “Laos”, meaning the people (Nike-Laos). The Nicolaitans were followers of Nike, and Jesus tells us that we should hate their deeds and doctrines (Revelation 2:6, 15).

Is it really so bad to celebrate Christ on some random day with pagan traditions, as long as our hearts are sincere about doing it in the name of Christ? Well, that’s the thing – the Christmas holidays have very little to do with worship of Christ. It’s true that the disposition of our hearts and minds is more important than our specific traditions, but our actions during the holidays clearly reflect a spiritual disposition that is devoid of Christ. Little children look forward to Christmas because it is a time when some imaginary god-like person will bring them a bunch of presents, and parents will indulge this fantasy of their children until their trust is callously broken. That is the exact opposite of the Gospel message which teaches we must worship Christ for unselfish reasons (not for material gifts) and maintain our faith in Him for the duration of our entire lives.

Christmas is the time when roads are jam-packed with holiday shoppers and people stuff themselves full of food and drink. It is not about worshiping Christ at all, but worshiping ourselves and our material possessions. These holidays are a time eerily similar to that of the Israelites, who were brought out of Egypt by God only to begin worshiping false gods associated with a golden calf, celebrating their freedom with song, dance, food and drink, instead of obeying God’s commandments and remaining faithful (Exodus 32). By participating in these traditions and indulgences, we are demonstrating a desire for convenience, comfort and luxury over faith and selfless devotion to Christ.

The only thing Christian about Christmas is the time spent worshiping in church, which is something that should be done all year round – every day should be a celebration of Christ. We don’t need elaborate parades and feasts and public displays of selfish materialism to show genuine devotion. In fact, those things are the opposite of what is needed. Besides the time spent in church, we have the candy cane, which apparently represents a shepherd’s crook (also a “J” for Jesus), painted with Christ’s red blood and his white purity. The church and the candy cane… just about the only two things that put the Christ in Christmas. Everything else about it is steeped in manipulation, dishonesty, ego stroking and idol worship, not at all worthy of His name.

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“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.” -John Newton

A hallmark of human history, and especially our world today, is people pointing their fingers at other people. No one is immune from it. The democrats point at the republicans, the progressives at the conservatives, the socialists at the capitalists, the debtors at the creditors, the conspiracy theorists at the bankers and governments, the theists at the atheists, and vice versa, so on and so forth. It is an endless cycle of finding some alleged ignoramuses or agitators or elitists or sociopaths to blame. Where does any of that pointing get us? Does it bring us any satisfaction or any closer to the truth of our situation? Any closer to the solutions for our human predicament?

Jesus certainly knew better than that. His teachings revolutionized how people thought about sin, human nature, God and salvation. Instead of people pointing the finger at the sinners “over there”, he showed us that God wants us to help our fellow brothers and sisters by pointing the finger at ourselves. Instead of people toiling away to reach God through their rituals and works, he showed us that God will sacrifice for us out of pure love and bring us to him. Instead of people being redeemed through their legalistic loyalty or obedience to others, he showed us that we are redeemed by his amazing grace and by that grace alone. We find these revolutionary concepts captured brilliantly in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. (Luke 15:11-16)

In the first century, a son asking his father to give him his future inheritance was an unparalleled insult and sign of rejection. It was the equivalent of the son wishing the father dead. The prodigal son not only made this insulting request, but he then took the inheritance out into the world and recklessly squandered it all on selfish luxuries, to the point where he was eventually living in hunger and poverty and filth. Here we have a picture of humanity post-fall, after Adam rejected his father (god) and went out into the world, and his descendants squandered their glorious inheritance on the unnecessary pursuits of this world. We have made our bed in a world of greed, violence, hunger, disease and suffering, and we have forced ourselves to sleep on it.

“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:17-20)

After much rebellion and suffering, the prodigal son finally comes to repentance; he comes to understand that he owes his father absolutely everything in his life and that he is not even worthy to be called his father’s son anymore. The amazing thing to see here is the father’s reaction – instead of waiting for his son to come begging for forgiveness, the father runs out to his son in an emotional frenzy. Back in those times, fathers would never be portrayed as being so emotional, and they were certainly never portrayed as running around in their robes and sandals… only mothers were thought to act that way. Jesus’ description of God here is the exact opposite of patriarchal wisdom of that time – God is a supremely emotional being who was brimming with love for his lost children.

“And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:21-24)

God does not wait for his children to come begging for forgiveness, but instead brings them into repentance out of his limitless love for them, so that we may rejoin his family (Ephesians 1:5). Even before the prodigal son can begin to lay out his “payment plan” for his father, to make his request to become one of the father’s hired servants, the father stops his son and clothed him with his best robe; the one worn by the father himself. He ordains an extremely expensive celebration for his returned son, as demonstrated by the provision of a fattened calf. God does not ask that we repay our spiritual debts to him, because that is impossible. Instead, he brings us to repentance and then clothes us with Christ’s righteousness (Romans 3:22). Our eternal rewards in Christ’s redemption will be much greater than the innocent inheritance we originally lost.

“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” (Luke 15:25-32)

Here we find the most revolutionary part of the parable, as we are introduced to the older son. Most people of that time and still today would identify with the anger, frustration and jealousy of the older son. Instead of taking his inheritance and squandering it away on selfish pursuits, he remained obedient to his father and toiled away in the field. All of those years he remained within the loving embrace of his father, yet he never received a huge celebration like the one taking place for the prodigal son. Now, when seeing his younger brother return after a life of depraved sin and receiving this elaborate banquet, the older brother refuses to attend and castigates his father for such a display.

What Jesus did here was to revolutionize the very concept of sin against God; the definition of evil. It is true that the younger son lived a life of sin and was lost for many years, but now, in a surprising turn of events, we find out that the older son has become just as lost as the younger son was before. It becomes clear that the older son was living a life of obedience out of a desire to attain worldly benefits; to be the favored son of his father who would be rewarded in proportion to his works. In other words, he was using his “righteousness” as a means to an end. Jesus tells us that this type of self-righteous and covertly selfish attitude is just as rebellious to God as a life of disobedience and depravity.

Therefore, we must first and foremost point the finger at ourselves. Are we living a life of repentance and obedience to god for the sake of our own status, success, comfort, material rewards, etc., or are we doing it out of our love for god and nothing else? Scripture tells us that Christ is not a means to an end, but the end itself (Revelation 1:8). He is the absolute lens through which we must view every single aspect of our lives and the lives of others. Through him we will recognize that every human being out there, from the most depraved sinner to the most self-righteous “philanthropist”, is equally in need of god’s grace and redemption; that we are all lost in our own separate ways, but we share at least one thing in common – only through Christ’s love can we be found.

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One of my favorite podcasted pastors is Timothy Keller of Presbyterian Redeemer Church in New York City. In his sermon “arguing about politics“, he points out that Jesus not only revolutionized contemporary conceptions of god, sin and salvation, but he also “revolutionized revolutions“. What does that mean? Well, a lot of Christians like to ask “what would Jesus do?”, as in who or what would he support in modern times, but Jesus himself refused to make such simplistic political commitments. We see a brilliant example of this when Jesus is confronted by the disciples of the Pharisees who were sent to trap him into a political quandary.

They ask him “is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Matthew 22:17-21) This simple question put Jesus in an extremely difficult spot, because a simple “yes” would have alienated the meek who viewed these taxes as a means of oppression, but a simple “no” would have been viewed as open defiance of perhaps the most important law of the empire (and most nations to this day). Instead, Jesus chose to give them the not-so-simplistic truth of the matter, as always. He asked them to show him the coin used for payment of taxes and they brought him a denarius. T

he first thing to note here is that a denarius was a small-denomination silver coin at that time, perhaps the equivalent of the daily wage of an unskilled worker in third world countries today. Yet, Jesus didn’t even have a denarius on him! He had to ask for one, thus making him what Tim Keller calls “the king without a quarter“. On the denarius were images and inscriptions that denoted the ruler of the time, who was considered the “son of God” and the high priest or “pontifex maximus“. So here we have Jesus going around preaching that he is the final high priest, the King of Heaven and Earth and the true Son of God, yet he didn’t even have a denarius in his possession, let alone his image on one.

This simple fact pictures the revolutionary nature of Jesus when it came to issues of politics and the nature of kingship. Then Jesus asks the Jewish men “whose likeness and inscription is this” and they respond “Caesar’s”. So he replies, “therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s“. It’s a brilliant response, but it also requires some unpacking. The Greek word translated as “render” really conveys a meaning of giving something back to someone who previously owned it, or giving them back what they deserve. The denarius coin literally bore the image of Tiberius Caesar on it and was minted by his authority, and therefore it belonged to him.

Jesus said there is no problem giving these minted coins back to Tiberius, but that doesn’t mean the taxpayers should pledge any sort of unconditional allegiance to him or even stop being critical of his policies. Unlike the minted coin, we humans bare the image of God and therefore we belong to God. It is in God where our ultimate allegiance must reside, physically, mentally and spiritually. Jesus did not advocate for specific human leaders or political parties or civil policies – instead, he revolutionized the very concept of political action. It is through spiritual regeneration and submission to God that we fulfill our maximum potential of political activism.

Others will come up with grand plans to “revolutionize” human society, perhaps through restructuring the economic landscape, nationalizing resources, redistributing wealth, centralizing authority, etc., but they will always lead their people to physical and spiritual destruction. 20th century figures such as Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot attest to this simple fact. These types of “revolutionaries” will always use their ideologies as a means to an end, and they will always end up seeking wealth, power, recognition, respect and/or comfort.

They will fail miserably to follow the example of Christ 2000 years ago; to heed his complete redefinition of what it means to be a revolutionary and a leader or King. The life of Jesus followed a path which culminated at the Cross, where he had been stripped of all wealth, all power, all respect, all favorable recognition and all comfort. Jesus had forsaken all those things which were suited to the rulers of this world.

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.” (Luke 6:20-22)

At the Cross, Jesus was even rejected by his Father and made the target of God’s infinite and cosmic wrath. He was poor, he was hungry, he wept, he was hated and humiliated in every way imaginable, but, despite and because of all that, he remained the perfect King over the entirety of creation, and he remains so to this day, seated at the right hand of his Father. His persecution and execution on Earth only made him that much more revolutionary and kingly. Jesus is the “Alpha and the Omega“, the First and the Last, “who is and who was and who is to come” (Revelation 1:8). He is not the means to an end for believers, but the end itself. Any political revolution worth undertaking must begin and end with him and him alone.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-25)

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In Our Lord’s Discipline and Punishment, I talked about Michel Foucault’s theory of disciplinary societies and how there is no escaping some form of discipline and punishment in human civilization. The only thing that must be considered is whether we are coerced into the world’s materialistic disciplinary system, many times unaware that we are even within its grasp, or whether we are voluntarily and knowingly submitting to God’s spiritual discipline and justice. Another aspect of Foucault’s work was his emphasis on the intersection between truth and power or oppression:

“Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true” (Foucault, Truth and Power, p.131)

Foucault was a great admirer of Friedrich Nietzsche, from whom he derived many ideas about the nature of truth and power in human society. Nietzsche saw claims to “absolute truth” as being a means for those making the claims to exert control over large groups of people and exploit them for personal gain. He viewed “absolutism” as nothing more than the ideological mechanism through which certain people express their “will to power” at the expense of others.

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins. (Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense)

We also find this theme of truth claims and oppressive power embedded in the teachings of Jesus Christ, as recorded by the Gospel accounts. Jesus repeatedly castigated the Sagisees and Pharisees of his day, who had upheld themselves as the sole arbiters of God’s truth and used their religious traditions as a means of greed and oppression, rather than a means of faithful worship. He told them, “you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition… thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down… and many such things you do.” (Mark 7:9-13)

In the words of Pastor Tim Keller, “when Foucault, Nietzsche and Jesus all agree on something… it has to be true!” The difference is that Foucault and Nietzsche were only providing a glimpse of the truth, i.e. that certain truth claims can be used for oppression by the powerful, while Jesus Christ told us there is a very important exception to this general rule – the absolute truth. Discovering the absolute truth of God’s word is the only path that will set us free from physical and spiritual oppression (John 8:32). John’s Gospel tells us that, “in the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

This direct statement by John had a very profound meaning for his Greek audience familiar with the philosophy of the time. The “logos” was used to denote the underlying logic or reason behind everything in existence, i.e. the ultimate purpose of reality and human existence. John confronted the abstract philosophical notions of his contemporaries by stating that not only did this ultimate purpose actually exist, it was far from being abstract and unknowable. It was a personal God who is eternal, who created all things and who created humans to worship and love him, as he does them. This was a radical moment in the history of philosophical thinking, reflecting Jesus’ radical act of loving sacrifice on the Cross.

Unfortunately, post-modern philosophers have failed to recognize the truth in Christ and have continued to repeat the mistakes of their intellectual ancestors by attempting to deny the very existence of an absolute truth, let alone the truth expressed by John, thereby trapping themselves into a logical paradox. It is a situation in which they have confused the negative effects of absolute truth claims with the non-existence of absolute truth. C.S Lewis described the resulting paradox brilliantly in The Abolition of Man:

“The kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever.

The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles.

If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.” (C.S. Lewis, 81)

Any claim that there is no absolute truth is an absolute truth claim itself. It is a contradictory worldview that claims no one can grasp the absolute truth, even though the non-existence of any one absolute truth is an absolute truth. Therefore, these “anti-absolutism” philosophers have explained away their explanation and created the illusion of an invisible world. Such a relativistic and illusionary framework is just as much a means of elite oppression as any false claim to absolute truth. The “truth” of the day can be deformed, twisted and molded into any number of different forms, depending on the time, place and circumstances.

Historic Christianity, on the other hand, provides a much more consistent and stable worldview, in which there is only one absolute truth in a world filled with many false truths and doctrines which lead to oppression. Nietzsche and Foucault were right about the relations between truth and power, but only to the extent that they were describing all claimed truths that do not conform to the word of God, most recently revealed to us through Jesus Christ and his disciples. It is Christ alone who is “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), bringing ultimate freedom to those who accept him by faith.

We tend to think of freedom in simplistic terms, i.e. our ability to choose to do whatever we want in the here and now. The freedom provided by recognizing the truth in Christ is much deeper, richer and long-lasting than this superficial and materialistic freedom we value. It is the type of freedom that opens up endless physical and spiritual opportunities when one voluntarily submits their will to another; the type of freedom that can only blossom from the restrictions and sacrifices of unconditional love. When we choose to accept Christ as our personal logos or universal ordering principle, we will truly unlock our chains and be freed from worldly oppression.

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