Return to the ... wild?

Tonight I joined my wife on a trip to the art museum. We took part in a joint book/art discussion. The book was "Born Free", which might be remembered for the movie adaptation (I hadn't read or seen either, but I think everyone can hum the title line from the soundtrack). What interested me was the discussion among those who came and the staff at the museum. A central theme was the question of domestication. The book, "Born Free", is an autobiography written by a European woman who traveled to Africa around the mid 1900's and there raised a lioness cub. Though treated in many ways as a pet, eventually she and her husband allowed the lioness to "return to the wild". I was struck with the quote. Is that a "return"?

During a portion where we were shown an exhibit from the natural history museum and addressed by one of the educators there, I learned about something new. From the 1950's to the 1970's, the Soviets ran a program attempting to tame foxes through selective breeding. The result, following about 40 generations of selection, is a fox that is domesticated. In some ways, it doesn't fit with my mind to think of a fox that is also tame. It's almost an oxymoron, right? A sharp sphere, or  a black light, or Microsoft Works. But, it exists! A fox which acts like a dog, is kind to humans, obeys commands. But this got me thinking, how do we think about a certain, well-known passage?

Isaiah 11:6-7
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
  and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
  and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
  and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
  their young shall lie down together;
  and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The picture of what the shoot of Jesse, Jesus Christ, brings is peace amongst mortal enemies. But, also, there seems to be a return. None of them eats meat, but returns to eating only vegetables. This is a return to the Garden. There, God gave only plants for food for all creatures; for man (Gen. 1:29) and for animal (Gen. 1:30). This is the way things started, without animals eating other animals. But, there's something more.

In the Garden of Eden, God gave Man (Adam and Eve) dominion over all the other creatures. In Gen. 1:26, 28, God made man to rule over all. Wouldn't it seem that God made all the animals domesticated? They were made for Adam to rule from the beginning. The reason why the idea of a tame fox -- or a tame lion who could lie down with a lamb -- is so foreign to us is that Adam sinned. We do not live in paradise, but in a fallen world. What is normal for us is actually not normal. God cursed the ground for Adam's sin, that it would bring forth thorns and thistles (Gen. 3:18). In so cursing His creation, God allowed the creation which had been placed under Adam to rebel. This is the curse. Isaiah speaks of such reversal occurring as a curse, in which the creatures take dominion in cities previously inhabited by humans.

Isaiah 13:21-22
But wild animals will lie down there,
  and their houses will be full of howling creatures;
  there ostriches will dwell,
  and there wild goats will dance.
Hyenas will cry in its towers,
  and jackals in the pleasant palaces;
  its time is close at hand
  and its days will not be prolonged.

But, again, the promise is that Man is restored to dominion in Jesus Christ. Man -- rightfully, justly, and without exploitation -- ruling over the creatures for eternity. In the New Heavens and the New Earth, will there be lions? I think so, but they will be the lions perhaps in a way we haven't seen. They will be lions who are a delight to mankind and who do not kill their fellow creatures. They will be made new even as we and the rest of creation are made new. Praise Jesus Christ!

So, thinking again about the lioness in "Born Free" "returning to the wild". I don't look forward to a day when all the zoos are emptied as the animals "return to the wild". I look forward to the greater day when all creation no longer groans (Rom. 8:22), when the ground ceases rebelling with thorns and the animals cease rebelling with violence. The lion (and fox and wolf) will lie down with the lamb. And those who are righteous in Christ will all dwell in the light of the Lamb (Rev. 21:23).

How should we then worship? A personal journey.

Rarely do I get the time to think through one particular train of thought as its developed throughout my life. Because I feel I’ve grown a lot -- and looking back, I needed to grow a lot! -- I wanted to share my experiences. Worship is something I’ve found people don’t like to talk about. I’m hoping that this post will have offer some good things to start conversation.

Beginnings. When you grow up in church, you don’t realize what it is about worship that makes your church different from other churches because its the only one you know. Really, all you might notice is if the church you’re in undergoes changes in worship style. I grew up in a small church. We sang from a hymnal, the Trinity Hymnal. Services were accompanied by either organ or piano (we had alternating accompanists). Sometimes there was a children’s choir or an instrumental prelude to the worship service. For a while the church tried having one of the members who was a strong singer stand in front and lead the singing. I’m not sure why, but eventually they abandoned that practice. When we had a change of pastor, the church purchased Trinity Psalters to put in the pews, but their use never caught on. Overall, worship remained pretty consistent at this little church, and is still pretty much the same when I visit with family.

College. So, it wasn’t until I moved to college that I began to think through worship style. I went to the University of Missouri, Columbia and began attending RUF (Reformed University Fellowship) and transferred my church membership to the small church east of town where my sister and brother had gone before me. RUF had many hymns which were arranged to upbeat tunes which worked well with guitar accompaniment. I even joined the praise band as a vocalist, something I enjoyed as an outlet of my talent (though looking back I wonder if I really had any!). At the local church, worship was really similar to the church in which I grew up. When I took the new member class, the pastor had a "priorities target". In concentric circles, he had placed what was most important in the center, with lower priorities as you moved away from the center. In the center were things like Christology and justification by faith. Moving out several circles was eschatology. On the outside circle was style of worship. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he meant to say that all the things on the target were important and he was stressing only their relative importance, but at the time I interpreted it this way: that worship doesn't matter.

After my freshman year at Mizzou, I got a summer internship in St. Louis. During that summer, I visited numerous churches within my denomination. I was surprised to find such variety in worship style -- even among people who were doctrinally in agreement and organizationally united. With each congregation worshipping in a different way, I felt a subtle implication: that worship doesn't matter. That same year I visited another denomination’s church, a very large church. The worship there was with a large praise band up front and several vocalists on stage leading. At first I sang along, but I noticed that nobody around me sang. In fact, a few people around me looked at me in surprise that they could hear my voice over the amplified sound coming from up front (I do sing pretty loudly). I didn’t think about it at the time, but looking back it was obvious to me that if the praise band was supposed to be “leading” the congregation’s praise, they weren’t doing a good job. Quite to the contrary, they were drowning the praise from the pews (actually, seats, if I’m remembering right). My point is that I was beginning to see that even though many were saying that worship didn’t matter I couldn’t help feeling that it did. I didn’t like some of the worship styles. I admit it! In a way, I feel that I was wrong to not like some of the congregation’s worship. Worship shouldn’t be judged by my personal preference, but at that time in my life I did judge. Even if I didn’t say anything out loud, inside I felt uncomfortable before the living God next to some of my Christian brothers and sisters. I don’t think any Christian desires that uneasiness. Worship should unite Christians, shouldn’t it?

In my last year at university, I met the woman who would become my wife, Maggie. I noticed her right away, but because I was graduating soon I didn’t want to be in a relationship. And, she was Roman Catholic and I knew enough to know that Catholics and Protestants haven’t had a good track record at agreeing on things. But, as a friend I invited her to RUF. It was there that she heard the gospel preached. She believed, and to this day I praise God for granting salvation to my wife. So, after coming to faith in Christ, she wanted to know more about the differences between her church and mine. On Sundays, we started going to my church in the morning and to mass in the evening. After we had been to both, we opened the Bible and compared what we had seen to what we read. The thing we found was that the Protestant worship was, in comparison, profoundly Biblical. The words of institution for the Lord’s Supper were lifted directly from Paul. The congregation sang. There weren’t bells and incense and statues. These differences led Maggie to leave the Catholic church and join the same small church east of town where I was a member. Looking back, it seems that we were on to something important. If we did want to compare worship, shouldn’t the Bible be the place we’d go? Hasn’t God given instruction in how He is to be worshipped?

Just before I graduated, I overheard a friend of mine ask our campus minister a simple question -- what is worship? -- and I thought it was a profound question. But should it be? Shouldn't worship be a foundational thing for Christians? Shouldn’t we know a lot about it? Shouldn’t we agree on it, at least in principle? If we're going to spend eternity worshipping God together, shouldn't there be some concrete instruction for how we can begin now?

Post-College. After Maggie and I got married, she moved to Shawnee, KS where I had a job. We were both still members of the church we had gone to in college and, now in a new location, we wanted to find a church like that one. We went church shopping. I admit it, we were blatantly looking for what we were comfortable with. But we had a conflict internally. We had both been part of RUF with upbeat music and guitars but also the church we had come from had piano and hymns. Which would we find? Which would we choose? Similar to my summer internship experience, we found that even within our denomination, there was a wild variety of worship styles. One was like RUF, but with the guitars turned up a lot louder and a few extra solos. Another we jokingly described as "soft rock 102.5". The leader of the praise band had a cheesy, lounge-singer voice and neither of us liked it. We caught ourselves later mock-imitating his voice, “this next one is one of my favorite hymns.” But, looking back, what gave us the right to mock him? In doing so, weren’t we mocking worship! Where did our criteria come from which we used to judge our brothers and sisters? It was merely tradition, experience? Again, I admit that we were wrong in our hearts for some of the judgment we passed. In the end, we definitely didn’t go to some churches because we didn’t like their style of worship.

Was worship really just a matter of preference? Is it just my style against your style? Where did my style come from? Where did yours? If I'm a punk rocker and become a Christian, does that mean the church needs do develop a punk worship service? Or techno? Or opera, death metal, or bluegrass? Is worship just meant to draw people in? If so, why were my wife and I repulsed by some of the church’s worship? Or is there something deeper wrong with the way I, like many other Christians, had been seeing worship? Has something changed in the church in regards to our views of worship?

The church which my mother attends used to have an eclectic worship service. They tried mixing styles by having a hymn and then a piece with the praise band. They tried to please everyone by having something for everyone. Later, they started having a Saturday night service. This service was completely different in style than the one on Sunday morning. Later they split services on Sunday morning, to one traditional and one contemporary. In the end, everyone just chose to go to the one that they liked based on their preference. The issue of worship style is divisive. The old people would go to one service and the young people would go to another. I have a friend who raised some questions about the way his church, the church he had grown up in, was worshipping. The response he received was, “maybe this church isn’t for you.” Why is this dividing us?

Thoughts. I recently heard that the Beatles weren't just big in rock; they were big in music. What was meant was that in the 1960’s there wasn’t a rock station and a country station and an oldies station and a soft rock station. There were just music stations. The proliferation of genres hadn't happened. But contrast that with how things are now. Now, with Internet radio like Pandora, everyone gets his own radio station. Just click a few thumbs up or thumbs downs and there will emerge a music station that’s custom tailored to you and you alone. Sure there is overlap with others, but the goal of a personalized music station is for the listener to never have to hear a song he won’t already like. Our postmodern culture breeds people who are intolerant of music that doesn’t match preference. And, has this culture infiltrated the church? I think so.

Imagine if things were different. What if every church was moving in the same direction? What if every church had the same goal in mind as regards worship, even worship style? What if the church weren’t meant to adapt to everyone’s tastes, but was intentionally trying to refine each Christian to grow to like a certain thing? Imagine if in a generation or two Christian's tastes were refined in the same direction and that direction led to greater unity in the church? To me, this sounds good. I know some people don’t like the sound of it, though. Perhaps this sounds like a brainwashing exercise to them. At the same time, though, when we get to heaven, will anyone say, “you know, I was hoping for something else”? Of course not! Our tastes in everything will be changed -- be perfected -- when we get to heaven. We will worship together, in the same way, and we will delight in doing it! If our preferences will be changed in the future, why shouldn’t we be beginning to refine them now?

And why can’t we talk about this? Recently, I posted some brief comments about worship on Twitter and Facebook. Granted, I was limiting myself to 140 characters and there’s a thin line between brief and terse, but I got some prompt feedback from a dear Christian sister. I called her and we spoke for a while. She said that some of the things I’ve said about worship have shut down the conversation, that she feels that she wouldn’t want to talk to me about worship. I am heartbroken that anyone would feel that way, especially a sister in Christ. I don’t want us to feel we can’t talk about worship; to the contrary I think we really need to be talking about worship. I don’t have everything figured out! I need to learn from Christian brothers and sisters more than anyone. But, there’s also a sentiment that I think is unhelpful when such conversations begin. I’ve heard people ask the following, “How can you judge between worship?" At first it sounds right because I recognize that there is a degree to which I’ve judged worship wrongly, basing my judgment upon my personal preference and degree of comfort based on prior experience. However, just because there is a possibility of judging with poor motives, does that mean we are hopeless to have discernment when it comes to matters of worship? Does it mean that no one can learn from one another about worship? Is there is no hope for unity on matters of worship? When someone next asks me, “How can you judge between worship?” I will ask them back, “How can you not?” Surely every one of us could walk into a Christian worship service from a different tradition and feel out of place, awkward, uncomfortable, or just plain confused. But the point should not just be to stop there. If there’s such a thing as wrong worship, we as Christians should be seeking out what is right worship.

Conclusion. There are two recurring themes I’ve discovered as I’ve written all this out. 1) Many Christians hold that style of worship doesn’t matter. 2) Style of worship is divisive. I’m convinced that these two themes are incompatible. One of them is wrong. Let me illustrate. Suppose two churches couldn’t agree on something trivial, on which color was best. Their disagreement was so sharp that they could not worship together, they would not assemble as the body of Christ because they could not agree on pink or puce. If Jesus were to come that day and judge them, how would they fare? Should something trivial, something which doesn’t matter, be allowed to divide? More and more I’m convinced that worship is not trivial. Style of worship matters because it divides. And if it matters, we need an arbiter. We need someone who is not just pushing his or her personal preference. Perhaps it would be best to say, not that style of worship doesn’t matter, but that our preference in style of worship doesn’t matter. If it is only our preference which divides us from our brother, we need to be willing to let go of our preference and embrace our brother. It shouldn’t be about us, it should be about the object of our worship. Our worship should be about the Triune God! As such, we need a word from God, and we as Protestant Christians should agree that this word is the Bible.

In the Bible, God does judge worship. Consider the examples of Nadab and Abihu; Hophni and Phinehas. Also, Deuteronomy 12 (esp. v. 32), where God warned of a coming unification of the place of worship and that Israel should not seek to syncretize worship of God with the worship practices of pagans living in the land. The first four of the ten commandments concern worship. Jesus himself talked about worship with the Samaritan woman at the well John 4:19-24. There’s plenty more. I’ve been surprised to find how little I knew about what the Bible says about worship. Let’s get a conversation going and let’s start with the Scriptures. And let’s be willing to say what is coming from us rather than Him. If its coming from us we should expect it to be divisive -- we’re all different people. If it’s coming from us, we should be willing to let it go for the good of our brother and the glory of God. But if what we believe concerning worship is from Him, truly from Him, it should truly unite us as one because there is only One True God.

Does Jesus use an iPhone? - Some thoughts on technology

I was recently thinking -- a common pastime for a seminary student -- and came to the following question. “Would Jesus use an iPhone?” But, I remembered that Jesus has His human body now. He is resurrected and He sits in heaven now. So, a more important question would be, does Jesus use an iPhone? Well, perhaps it is not an important question, but it got me thinking about technology. I used to be an engineer and so I have had a lot of experience with how things work and how to use technology to make things great. Here are some of my thoughts.

The world, even without technological advance, is made for humans to enjoy. Apples, oranges, and peaches all fit in the palm of the human hand. So do chicken eggs. A horse’s back is flat and long enough for one or two human riders. Wouldn’t it be a stretch to say that each of these came to be by mere chance? Wouldn’t it be even more of a stretch to say that all of these, together, randomly occurred? The agriculture and livestock which we enjoy demonstrate that all things were made for the enjoyment of mankind.

Someone may object, saying, “Perhaps humans adapted hands to the size of the fruit. Or, perhaps the horse was selectively bred to have a flatter, longer back.” Essentially, they may look at what appears to be the nature of things and say that perhaps technology is hidden behind things getting the way they are now.

But, what strikes me here is even if the horse was selectively bred, why was it possible to achieve what we now know as the horse? We know that selective breeding has limitations - you can breed bigger and bigger meat chickens, but eventually they get too big for their hearts and die of heart attacks before they can reproduce. Selectively bred stock can have common immune deficiencies or inherent illnesses. So why is it that horses aren’t too big for their hearts? Why is it that the horse breeds which are suitable for human use are stable and have relatively few maladies? For a Christian, that horses are designed for humans makes sense. When God made the first horses, he made them with the genetic diversity to make it possible to breed a clydesdale. Another way of saying it is that God had a clydesdale in mind when he created the horse, and not only that, but he also had in mind what man would look like riding that clydesdale. Furthermore, God made man at the peak of creation, man is made to be steward/ruler over all other creatures.

The world has characteristics which make technology easy for humans. Rams grow horns which can be used as trumpets. Olives can be crushed to make oil, grapes to make wine. Anything stable on one end can be used as a sundial with which to tell time. These are simple technologies, perhaps nothing to write home about, but they beg a question, “why is technology so easy?” So, what about more complex technologies?

Once, during my college years, I went to the Amana colonies and took a course in blacksmithing. It was there I first used a hand cranked bellows, a coal-burning forge, and an anvil. It was there that I learned some of the properties of metal which are for man’s benefit. For example, iron turns bright red when malleable. Metals can be very brittle, but with heat treating can be made hard. This heat treating is visible to the human eye; the color of the metal goes from a yellow straw color to purple to blue. You can see the effect in the pictures here:
http://ironoakfarm.blogspot.com/2011/01/fiery-friday-making-center-punch.html. Metal is made to be worked with by humans. Our eyes are able to see the changes which heat makes in the metal.

Consider also the basic avionics instruments. They measure environmental phenomena and from that are able to determine the necessary information for flight, including altitude, airspeed, heading, pitch. Here are some examples:

Static air pressure is proportional to altitude. The differential between static and impact pressure is proportional to airspeed. An iron ball in whiskey can provide a magnetic heading. A weight on a string points opposite the direction of acceleration plus gravitation. With these two vectors, you can know your airplane’s attitude.

Now, this is more than just about man. Why should visionless flight be possible? Why should the vectors of gravity and magnetic field be roughly orthogonal? Why should pressure differential produce lift? Are all these “just so”? If they are, then they are perfectly “just so”. If they occurred randomly, then they apparently all occurred perfectly for flight AND the mind of man just randomly was able to discover them all. Is it just random that the mind of man can understand the way the world works? Is it just random that the eyes of man can see things which are important for him to understand? Is it just random that the hands of man can manipulate the raw materials around us to make devices which our minds conceive? Is it just random that these devices work or are capable of working? I do not see randomness -- I see design and purpose and wonderfulness! God made the earth to be of use to man and God designed man to make use of the earth.

Psalm 139:
13 For you formed my inward parts;
   you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
   my soul knows it very well.

So, where did technology originate? So, given that I’ve just been talking about how great technology is and how perfectly suited man is to discover it, you may be surprised at my next comment. The first records of technological advancement are attributed to ungodly men. In ancient times, as recorded by Moses in Genesis 4, it is the line of Cain (who murdered his brother, Abel) which makes use of technology. Cain built a city. Jabal was the patriarch of camping and livestock (though Abel was a keeper of sheep before him). Jubal was the patriarch of musical instrumentation. Tubal-cain was a metalworker of bronze and iron. Yet, Cain was a murderer and his progeny, Lamech, was a murderer and proud of it. When Israel comes into the promised land under Joshua, it is the pagans who have chariots of iron. The Biblical account is clear, the origins of technology often aren’t the godly, but the ungodly. And this matches our experience, does it not?

Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple, died last year. From what I’ve read of his life, he was a talented, brilliant man, but no Christian. I recall hearing (but can’t seem to find the quote) that he thought technology would solve all our problems. As great as the iPhone is, it certainly hasn’t solved all our problems. Some have theorized that our modern devices have shortened our attention span (even you probably have been scanning this article and not reading every word, admit it!). Also, is the device recyclable or will it just end up in a refuse dump? There have also been many concerns about the working conditions at the Chinese Foxconn factory where iPhones have been manufactured. Several workers there committed suicide, begging the question of whether they were being exploited.

So, is technology bad? Certainly exploitation of third world countries is wrong. It is wrong to destroy the environment. Technology has always been used for evil ends, e.g. internet pornography. BUT, technology originated in the mind of God. When God made sand He wasn’t ignorant that it could and would eventually be melted down into silicon which could be fabricated into transistors programmable to be computers. Far from ignorance! God had planned liquid crystal displays long before we discovered they were made by man. God knows the technology we haven’t yet dreamed of. He designed all things with how they can and should be used in mind! So, technology is meant to happen. It is pictured as a blessing and will endure to the consummation.

Technology is a blessing. God Himself commanded construction of the tent of meeting, the tabernacle. Later, David collected bronze and iron for construction of the Temple (1 Chronicles 22:3). Even before entering the promised land, God promised the Israelites that it would be plentiful with iron and copper (Deuteronomy 8:7-9). Isaiah promises every material used for technology would be replaced by things more precious (Isaiah 60:17). God gives the building blocks used to make technology because He delights in blessing His creation.

Furthermore, God tells us that the world to come will include technology. The picture of the redeemed world is a city (Revelation 21-22). This is an alarming contrast, especially since the first mention of a city is the one built by the hands of wicked Cain. Even the technological advance of a city will be redeemed by God. But, not every technological advance will be necessary. The swords will be beaten into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3, c.f. Joel 3:10). In the eternal state we will no longer need weapons and medicine. But even though there won’t be swords, there will be plowshares. There won’t be spears, but there will be pruning hooks. In Heaven, there will be technology, but it won’t be used except in the way in which God intended it - for His glory and for being a blessing to His people.

So, does Jesus use an iPhone? What do you think?