Me? A Calvinist?

I could have posted something when I had a hard day last week. It was one of those realities where I'm not perfect and even though sometimes people need to accept me as a flawed human being, I would like to overcome those flaws so that people wouldn't have to cater to my flaws. In that case, it wasn't about my current flaws but about my past flaws that created issues of distrust. The following day, I beat myself up over the feelings I had about myself not being perfect. While all those thoughts were coming about what a flawed human being I am, thoughts of Calvinism also came to mind. You probably know me well enough to know that I try to be as Wesleyan as possible and as little Calvinism as possible. I started to wonder last Monday if that was just because I didn't want to face the fact that I am flawed. I was thinking especially of the first point of TULIP which states that all human beings are totally depraved. That thought seemed more in line to me in that moment than the idea that there is something good in human beings, especially in this one. I further thought about my long battle against Calvinism that started when I went to Bible school. I saw a video-lectured recording of Dr. William Abraham in which he stated that he thought Calvinism came from the pits of Hell and further stated his allegiance to Wesleyanism, a perfect fit for a Methodist. That statement made me wonder how many times we choose what to believe based on what interests us the most. I know that Dr. Abraham is a million times smarter than me, and so I proffer this blog not as an attempt to outsmart a theological genius but rather to suggest a point of view to myself that I might like to be more open-minded to. As I reflect on the many conversations I've heard on this subject, I recall hearing a lot of non-Calvinists reject Calvinistic thought (which I want to remind the reader is not necessarily equivalent with John Calvin's thought) based on their own presuppositions or that they just didn't like Calvinism and I have heard more Calvinists argue on Biblical grounds that the system is true. I suppose both could be misrepresentations in one way or another, for there must surely be Wesleyans on a more Biblical front and Calvinists on a more philosophical one. When I was a student at a Nazarene university I found this dilemma could only be resolved on philosophical rather than Biblical grounds. Now I am looking at it from more of a psychological perspective than a philosophical one. I want to close this blog by sharing some good news about myself and my beliefs. I have found myself being much more skeptical about Christian thought since I have gotten married. I now see the truth in my friend Brad's counsel that whether or not our spouse shares the same faith we do has a lot to do with what we actually believe ourselves. I trust this is a good thing, whether I am resting in a second naivate or simply resting in what seems to be the most solid truth as far as we can tell as human beings. I suppose where I am at in that regard is still up for debate. But I am also hopeful that being more resolved in this regard of faith will also give me even more freedom to wrestle with the hard questions without being the double-minded person that the Epistle of James talks about.

A New Day

This is the first night that my wife, Sinae, and I are in our new place of residence in Cheonan since we got married. This is all very new to me, even though we have been through three formal events which we are classifying as "getting married". Which reminds me of a riddle we came up with. "What do you call it when someone gets married three times without ever getting a divorce? International marriage." Please feel free to edit this to make it better. Meanwhile, I think this sums up our experience pretty well.

For some reason I've been more uneasy today than I've been through all the other events. Being married seems a whole lot different to me. Whereas before, I did what I wanted to when I felt like doing it, I can't do that anymore. I also feel the realization that it's not about me anymore but rather, it is about pleasing my wife. And I think there is a significant dose of fear throughout all of this, mainly because I know I have to be better than I was before I got better. I hope you don't read too much into that "have to" because it's something I want to do.

While I was in America, I bought, "The Christian Atheist", which is a pretty easy read but is giving me a lot of "food for thought" about all the ways in which I am hypocritical and how my actions don't line up with what I say I believe. I think it also reminds me that what I believe is important not just for the sake of my eternal destiny but also for the sake of how I live my life. This brings much more meaning to me as far as the significance of faith because it isn't just about being right.

"What I Don't Want to Do...that I do..." Simply a pre-Christ reality?

Hello again.

It has been a long time. As usual, when things don't go as things ought or seem like they should go, I come back here, not knowing whether what I am thinking and feeling and the way I am acting should be recorded on public record. And yet there is a sort of accountability through this method.

I made a big mistake today by having dinner with a female colleague. That in and of itself isn't so bad, but the fact that I broke a long-standing promise with Sinae NOT to eat alone with one woman is what made it bad. I was in a difficult situation before and Sinae was probably more understanding than she needed to be but today I didn't get the same same slack.

I know I was wrong. I know what I could have done differently. I just have a knack for finding myself in these compromising types of situations. How? Today it started because I casually mentioned that I was going to lunch and the other person asked if she could join me. Stumbling over what I could say so as not to sound accusatory I find myself agreeing, knowing I would pay for the decision for the next few days or however long. I was hoping I'd get the same benefit of the doubt as before and when I read the message my heart sank even deeper and that is where I have been all afternoon. Of course I know that if I would have just slipped out quietly that there would have been no problem. It's just that I don't think a step ahead and then I find myself in compromising situations.

You know I struggle with shame. Shame has been my bedfellow for as long as I can remember. It's the one friend I've always had that understood my pain when nobody else did and it's also the friend that has kept me humble. It's also the friend that constantly impairs my judgment, the friend that tells me I should get angry with Sinae for asking me sensitive questions about how I relate to women when all I really have to do is show her that I love her.

And those words that I hear every now and again really sting me. Those words that I don't really love Sinae. I won't say where the source comes from. You can probably figure that out, yourself. The important thing here is that I am failing at loving Sinae in a way that she knows I really love her that isn't just lovey dovey, impractical emotional sentiment. And today, this very moment, I find myself rock bottom at the bottom of the barrel of what it means to love another human being feeling totally clueless as to how to love someone else as well as how to overcome my own inadequacies.

I find myself at the foot of the cross once more, where the ground is level, where nobody is adequate enough. I hear the Wesleyans saying we sin no more, which may be an oversimplification of that theological tradition. And I hear the Calvinists say that we are inclined to do this continually. My understanding of the Bible and theology says that's bogus and yet that is where I find myself experientially on July 25, 2011 at 6:14pm, Korean local time.

Another voice I hear is the voice of St. Paul, whose words have been twisted every which way to suit various peoples' theological interests. Perhaps the two most extreme views are one that says Paul himself sinned continuously for he himself said "what I don't want to do that I do and what I want to do that I don't do." Then on the other side are those who say that for Paul to have confessed to constant sin would undermine his whole argument that Christ makes us free from sin.

You can probably induce rather easily that I fall in line with the latter, but in my experience in this moment I sympathize with the latter. I wonder if it could be possible that when we forget who we are and whose we are, that is when we fall into the grip of sin but that when we find ourselves AGAIN at the foot of the cross, confessing, "Almighty God, I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed..." that the Triune God responds with "Of course you have. You forgot me."

I hope things will be okay, that I'll find ways to keep myself away from compromising situations. I think for the rest of this week, I'll be making sure I make it up in time to eat breakfast. And I'll skip lunch and take time to focus on my natural inclination to sin and try to find my way through the forest with my friend, Shame. I want to start with you, God. I confess that I have sinned against YOU in thought, word and deed, in what I have done and in what I have left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart and I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on me and forgive me of ALL my sins that I may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your name, forever. Amen.

And then I turn to you Sinae, and then to all of my other neighbors whom I have let down in so many ways. I don't expect you to give me another chance. God knows I don't deserve that. Whatever happens, I'll do my best to learn from this situation and change my own behavior, with God's help. If you find it in your hearts to forgive me, then I will change, with God's help. But I really can't do it alone. Is there anybody out there who will help a friend of Shame to find his way?

Ice Cream and Gravesites

I heard a story today that touched my heart in the most mysterious way. Before I tell that story, I'd like to tell a story of my own about someone very dear to me who died without me even being able to say goodbye to her.

My favorite place to go when I was a child was to my mom's hometown, actually six miles or so outside of city limits. My friend was a person of few words and had a love that seemed to know no end. When it came time for my parents to want to leave, Grandma would always ask us if we would like to have some ice cream and cake before we leave. Eventually my brother and I learned this was a good way to delay our departure back home which took several hours. We learned to say, "Grandma, can I have some ice cream." Because she loved us more than her own self, she would always say yes. And we were usually able to buy another thirty minutes or so before we had to leave.

Unfortunately, Grandma is not here with us, at least not in visible site. And that is why the next story I want to tell is so touching. The story is quite simple. There was a person who ate ice cream at the graveside where his parents were buried. That's the story. And there is something that is literally bittersweet (no pun intended) about that kind of a scenario. I imagine myself doing that very thing, asking Grandma why she didn't call me while she was in the hospital or why she didn't do this or that to prevent her passing. And I know that as I eat that ice cream that Grandma is somehow with me just as the person who actually did this experienced her or his loved ones' presence as s/he ate that ice cream.

To Know or Not to Know...that is the question

Yesterday, I thought I was doing a good thing. I have to finish grades by Sunday night and I am also in the midst of preparing for my wedding with Sinae which will happen in various phases. Yesterday, I was confronted with two questions I've struggled with before: (1) the relationship between church and government and (2) the relationship between knowledge and choices.

I read on the US Embassy site that the marriage takes place at the District Office. I didn't realize that disregarded any public profession of one's commitment to one's spouse. I thought that Sinae and I would go to the courthouse together and take the next step to getting married. I didn't realize that our marriage would be complete in that one step.

As we walked about of the courthouse, I learned that what I thought was just a signature for something I didn't understand was a signature to commit oneself to one's spouse.

Of course, once it was brought to my attention that I had acted out of oblivion, there was a question of how much accountability I would have. Would it matter how much I knew or didn't know? Obviously I was not looking to get out of the commitment I had made, just to receive a little understanding over my blunder. After all, we still have two ceremonies left, not to mention the wedding night.

In spite of all the debate about how much separation of Church and State there is or ought to be in America, I saw that some countries have more separation than the most liberal politician might dream of. There seems to be a paradox because in the eyes of the law Sinae and I are really married and yet we won't be spending the night together until after the second wedding ceremony in South Korea.

When I was in seminary, and pondering all the great ideas of the world, one point of thought that really stumped me was Agnosticism. One of my uncles convinced me that Agnosticism is an idealism contrary to reality because we have to make choices based on the limited knowledge that we have and to say we don't have to make choices simply because we don't know something can easily become a scapegoat. Now I look at it another way. And perhaps his explanation had this meaning as well, that we have to make choices based on the very fact that we don't know. And even after we make the choice, we have to own up to that choice and the knowledge that we didn't have at the time.

I couldn't possibly resolve either of those questions in this short blog. The way that separation takes place is different depending on one's geographical location as well as one's philosophical and theological convictions. That probably sounds pretty individualistic, doesn't it? I don't want to end there. As of yet, I don't have a good solution to this dilemma, a way to get around rugged individualism without denying the uniqueness of each person or group of people who carry with them a variety of experiences.

On the second question, I wonder if the focal point on "knowledge" is the wrong place to start and if we need to look instead at the choices we have to make. We have to turn right or turn left. We can spend money on ourselves and write it off on our taxes or we can give it to someone else and still write it off on our taxes. We don't give money to the beggar on the street because we don't know how the person is going to use our money. All the while, we are basing are decision on what we don't know rather than on what we do know. And we will probably have to answer to our Maker someday and give an account on why we did what we did without the proper knowledge.

I Just Don't Have Time

I've been falling into my same old habits of feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. I think I developed a habit in Bible school of laying in bed for eight hours with the intention of getting up after a "nap" late at night but never getting up. The result of that is waking up the next morning and feeling like I have been up all night as well as the feeling of being overwhelmed because I didn't do any work last night.

There seems to be a funny intentionality game here. It seems that whatever I intend to do I don't get everything done that I seem to want to do. So it would seem like I would be better off to simply listen to that voice that knows I can't do everything because that voice usually winds up winning anyway.

How can this effect my habits? When I have this feeling of being overwhelmed I try not to do anything but work. That means no exercise, no studying Korean, no cleaning my apartment and no reading.

So, tonight I'm starting over again. I recognizing again that I am a human being and that I can't do everything. And the most important thing is for me to intentionally get eight hours of sleep or as much as I can get before getting up early enough to drop off some coffee in a colleague's office and get on the train bound for Seoul at 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning. I hope this will be a time of preparing for a class coming up where I will be a student, that I can take some time to thank God for the eventful life I'm experiencing, and also ask God to take me out of the way of whatever things lie ahead of me.

I wonder if anyone else struggles with the same sort of thing.