“Why are American Christians so opinionated in the church and out of the church?” I asked my to-be American husband. As a mainline protestant Canadian Christian immersing myself into Midwest American Evangelical Christianity, I was struggling with the personality of the American Christian. The American Christian was far too outspoken and politically active for my Canadian sensibilities.

I came to understand and believe that my American Christian friends were simply a by-product of the larger American revolutionary personality; outspoken, confident, proud, generous, courageous, action-oriented and reflecting the entire political landscape, not just the extremes of the right OR the left. I learned that American Christians, living in a culture that values personal opinions and debate, needed to have discourse concerning any and all church matters. My experience was that the stereotypical Republican American Patriotic Christian was the exception and not the rule.

At the same time, I was blessed to experience the American Christians’ generous and courageous personality when Believers from my church community rolled up their sleeves to become the Body for me in my darkest days while facing the illness and death of my husband. I was privileged to witness American Christians at their best, ministering to me in the most difficult of situations when boldness and confidence were needed to proclaim victory in Christ in the midst of tragedy.

After spending almost two decades in the US, I returned to Canada, socialized as an Evangelical American Christian. Even after three years of working to re-establish my Canadian Christian identity, there continue to be times when I feel that my adopted American Christian personality is too much for the fundamentally strong but gentle, reserved, quiet “living out your faith with few words” Canadian Christian community and the larger very tolerant Toronto Canadian culture where the cultural narrative declares that Christianity is at best one of many equal paths to God. I find it harder to live out my life as a Canadian Christian than as an American Christian, despite the outward niceness of the Canadian Two Solitudes personality (two nations trying to live side by side peacefully).

The culture wars are an ever present part of daily life in the US; court battles on behalf of the Christian Right (but not always on behalf of all American Christians) are a daily event. Despite the larger political and societal conflict, I lived openly as an American Christian, with freedom to discuss my faith with friends and decide my position on any issue independent of any personal political affiliation. In contrast, proclaiming Christ as The One and Only True Way to God in Toronto is viewed as un-Canadian, narrow, and God forbid even intolerant and American. Living out my faith in Toronto Canada feels counter-cultural and indeed subversive as I try to find ways to proclaim Christ in a culture that at best values equality of all religious beliefs in the name of peace and tolerance.

Nonetheless, God has used the Canadian national personality that is exhibited in Canadian Christians to bless me, support my healing and to further my growth as a Christian. The faithful and committed Christians in my spheres of influence in the Toronto/Hamilton area have demonstrated gentle caring for me during my transition back into a Canadian life and have modeled a contagious desire to grow deep in Christ. At this time in my faith walk, this is what God had clearly ordered for me that the Canadian Christian can deliver in a sensitive, strong yet gentle manner.

God does indeed work in wonderful and mysterious ways through the very cultures that greatly influence His precious Saints!!

Here is his first video on why making fun of people is a particularly bad idea.

If you liked the first episode, this next video contains an index to all of season one. Episode six, six solutions to being bored in church might be particularly relevant to some of the Eclectic Christian readers.

You can look him up on facebook too!

By the way, did I mention he rides a mean skateboard?

I find it difficult to belong. You would think it wouldn’t be that hard. I am a Christian who sees many positive things in many traditions. If feel quite comfortable in many types of church settings. I am however, in my core beliefs, an Evangelical.

The problem is that where I live, Evangelicals are in the minority. In my community of 27,000 there is one Evangelical church. I helped start it. It was a Pentecostal church, and although I am not Pentecostal I figured that having one Evangelical church in town was better than having no Evangelical church, and so I offered my help.

My wife and I served under two Pastors there. We led worship, served on the leadership team, served on the pastoral search committee, taught Sunday School, and organized outreaches and banquets. All the while I was dreading the time when the church would become large enough to receive its “organized” status. For when the church received this status, membership would have to be formalized. We didn’t qualify. Membership required agreement to the statement of faith, and we didn’t believe the Pentecostal teaching on tongues.

Eventually we felt God calling us away from this church community, and we had a very amicable parting of the ways. We ended up at a church in another community, which unfortunately due to competing visions within it’s elder’s board, ending up closing its doors three years later. As we looked at other churches, most had something in their statement of faith, that excluded us. They were either too Calvinist, or too dispensational, or too anti-Charismatic for us to fit.

After a long search we found a church in a third community. We quite love it, and I have some very good things to say about it. Again, we didn’t qualify for membership, this time because my wife’s mode of baptism differed slightly from theirs. Although we do not believe in rebaptism (especially for those who have already been baptized as believers), our desire to belong eventually became stronger that our distaste for rebaptism and my wife was rebaptized. We became members shortly afterwards.

Are there others like me who have difficulty belonging? Conversations with people at places like Internetmonk.com make me think that my experience is hardly unique. So here are some questions I would like us to consider:

1. Does requiring agreement with a statement of faith lead to increased fragmentation within the body of Christ?

2. Or are there essentials that need to be agreed upon no matter what in order for someone to be accepted as a member?

3. If Christ has accepted me as a member of his body, are there ways to make it easier for me to be accepted into a local church body?

4. Could we lessen the requirement of membership in many evangelical churches, so that prospective members do not have to give complete agreement to a statement of faith, but instead will agree to uphold it and not teach contrary to it?

5. Are there similar situations in other faith traditions? If so, are there resolution that have been seen to work?

6. Finally, what could you do in your church to help people in my situation become part of your congregation and membership?

I don’t have a problem with a church having a statement of faith. I feel it is a good tool to say “this is what we are about as a church.” Is it not possible to say that “We welcome those who have slightly differing viewpoints” as long as they agree to uphold and abide by the statement of faith”?

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

A study recently published in the March issue of the Social Psychology Quarterly confirms what many liberals and atheists have told us for years. Those who hold to conservative religious beliefs are just not as smart as their liberal and atheistic counterparts.

Based upon data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the General Social Surveys, two VERY large studies of American youth, Satoshi Kanazawa found the following:

1a. Average IQ of very liberal youth – 106
1b. Average IQ of very conservative youth – 95

2a. Average IQ of those young adults “not at all religious” – 103
2b. Average IQ of “very religious” young adults – 97.

It would then follow that the average liberal atheist is quite a bit smarter than the average religious conservative.

But what does this all really mean? First lets represent this graphically.

As you can see, roughly 68 percent of the population falls within an IQ of 85 and 115. If we look at the differences between the conservatives and the liberals, you will note that the conservative red bar is significantly to the left of the liberal blue bar. (If you are a Canadian reader, please note that I am using a U.S. color scheme. In Canada, the colors are reversed for liberals and conservatives.)

I decided to look for further data that would confirm or deny these results, and I found it in two places. If a higer IQ is related to liberal thinking then you would think that if we could determine IQ by state then we could cross reference it against voting patterns or church attendance to see sort of impact differences in IQ might have. A hoax website, that has been duplicated widely by people not realizing it was a host, showed just that. In this hoax almost all states with a higher IQ voted Democrat and almost the states with a lower IQ voted Republican. The chart was even published in the Economist magazine, for which they later had to offer a retraction. I see that the same fake study has shown up for the 2008 election as well.

The truth is that there is a difference, though it is not as great as the fake websites have shown. The true relationship showing the difference between IQ and state voting patterns is shown below. (IQ by State is calculated here.)

For each state I have plotted IQ on the horizonal (x) axis and voting share on the vertical (y) axis. You can see that there really is quite a lot of variety between IQ and political preference. This is demonstrated by the intersection of IQ and voting percentage represented by dots on the graph. The lines running on a diagonal through the graph are called “best fit” lines, and they show that on average, a one point increase in IQ leads to between a .36 and .58 decrease in Republican support, depending upon the election. Notice that I wrote “on average”, because as we all know that there are really intelligent people, and really unintelligent people at both ends of the political spectrum.

The best fit lines are even more striking when it comes to charting IQ against Church attendance. This is the matter to which I want to draw our attention to most. As can be seen from the graph below, on average, a one percent increase in IQ corresponds with a 1.4 percent drop in church attendance. Clearly the idea that the smarter you are the least likely you are to be religious in an idea with some validity.

I confirmed the data through a third source, though this was not a properly randomized study its results mirrored what we see above. In Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) has a yearly test the nation challenge. The results were much higher than a truly randomized test, and typically, the smarter you are, the more willing you would be to take a test like this. Those who took the test also answered some questions that would help to determine things like political groupings, or religious leanings. In Canada, the political parties are not as differentiated as they are in the United States, so it was not surprising to see that all the primary parties (we have five up here) scored within two points of each other.

Religion showed a much wider difference. Those who called themselves religious scored on average almost three IQ points below those who called themselves atheist, and almost four IQ points below those who called themselves agnostic. This spread is not as large as what we saw for the U.S. data, but still quite significant.

So why does this happen?

While Kanazawa, the author of the original study, uses an evolutionary argument to explain the difference, I think some of the reasons for this disparity can be something quite a bit simpler.

It has been proven that IQ has been increasing with each succeeding generation. One of explanations for this is an increased information flow in each successive generation. It would follow then that you would expect a higher IQ in an urban area compared to a rural area, not because of political leaning, but as a result of geography and urbanization. The CBC data also tended to confirm this idea that IQ is higher in larger metropolitan areas. As there is also strong correlation between conservatism and rural areas, and liberalism and urban areas, you would expect a higher IQ from liberals living in urban areas. We have to be careful with our cause and effect relationship here. Are people liberal because they are smarter, or are they are smarter because they live in an urban area with increased access to information? Are there other factors that make urban areas more liberal than rural areas? These are questions that are perhaps beyond the scope of what can be handled in this post.

Secondly, because we are looking at adolescents, we know that they will question some of the presuppositions of their parents or society as a whole. This can be seen in election campaigns where youth are dramatically more liberal than the generation that preceded them. We also might make the assumption that the smarter you are, the more that you might be likely to question societal standards, and so the more likely in a conservative society that you will be liberal. I have also read an argument that in a liberal education system, the smarter kids will absorb more of the liberal ideas, and so will increase the correlation between IQ and liberal thought. Again, these are just theories, you might have some better ones.

U.S. Evangelicals 2000

These same two arguments can also be used when considering IQ and religious trends. Could it be that geography plays a significant role in the IQs of those who are religious and those who are Atheist or Agnostic. As you can see from the accompanying graph, Evangelical Christians certainly are more concentrated in certain regions.

So what are we to do?

Regardless of the reasons for the difference, there is a problem. One of the concerns that Michael Spencer spoke of in the “Coming Evangelical Collapse”, was the Christian shunning of higher education. He writes:

Despite some very successful developments in the last 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can hold the line in the rising tide of secularism. The ingrown, self-evaluated ghetto of evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself. I believe Christian schools always have a mission in our culture, but I am skeptical that they can produce any sort of effect that will make any difference. Millions of Christian school graduates are going to walk away from the faith and the church.

Chaplain Mike Mercer, in his recent post on staying in the discussion, wrote the following:

Christians have nothing to fear from science. What we should be afraid of is being marginalized, not because of our thoughtful and considerate faith, but because we think it is somehow faithful to refuse to imagine we might be wrong in some of our assumptions or commitments. I, for one, am thankful for serious Bible scholars like Waltke, who has not stopped thinking and who continues to use his gifts in active engagement with truth from many different sources.

I agree… up to a point. There is a verse on the wall at the front of our church sanctuary. Wir aber predigen den gekreuzigten Christus. (My church is of a German heritage.) For those in the congregation, like me, who don’t understand German, they finally added the reference last year, 1 Corinthians 1:23. But we preach the crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. Our message is one that doesn’t make sense. To the Jews, a crucified Messiah was a paradox that they could not get there minds around. For the non-Jew, a leader sentenced to death is not much of a leader to follow.

This is a theme of Paul’s throughout the early chapters of 1st Corinthians:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe… but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles… For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength… The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The message of the good news of Jesus Christ is a hard one to accept. It will appear as foolishness to many. We need to engage with those around us. We need to engage with science. We need to be prepared to have an answer for the hope that is within us. We need to not put up unneccessary stumbling blocks. But we also need to be prepared to be seen as fools in the eyes of the world.

I leave you with the word’s of Michael Card:

Seems I’ve imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God’s Holy wisdom is foolish to men
He must have seemed out of His mind

For even His family said He was mad
And the priest say a demon’s to blame
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane

Chorus
We in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
And we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God’s own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well

So come lose our life for a carpenter’s son
For a man who had died for a dream
And you’ll feel the faith His first followers had
And you’ll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see

Chorus

So we follow God’s own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable, come be a fool as well

Are Liberals and Atheists smarter? Maybe, but this is one guy who doesn’t mind being a fool for God.

It was the sort of house that you never seemed to come to the end of, and it was full of unexpected places.

I love the book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.  Honestly, there are too many things about the story that I love, to recount them all in this post.  This photo made me think about the Wardrobe.  In Lewis’ story, the four Pevensies  are evacuated from London because of the air-raids during WWII.  They are sent to the home of Professor Digory Kirke.  When in the house, the children become enamored with an old Wardrobe that, as it turns out, is a portal into another world – the world of Narnia.  In this, C.S. Lewis is brilliant.  He has found a way, through the mechanism of a children’s story, to create an experience that gives his readers a frame of reference for understanding the Gospel:  A land that has been cursed, subjects who live in fear and slavery, a Queen who rules by lying and manipulating the desires of her subjects, A  Great Lion who gives his life to break that curse, the Kingdom of that Great Lion vanquishing the curse by redeeming slaves and freeing the oppressed.  It’s just so great.

I also find it fascinating that the children enter into this “true vision” of the world, when they enter a Wardrobe that is found in the house of Professor Digory Kirke: that is Professor (a Teacher), Digory (the British word for a levee of water), and Kirke (the Scottish word for church).  I believe that in this, before Lewis ever begins his epic tale, he establishes a subtle way of telling us how people are taught this true vision of the world.  Let me explain.  As a character, I believe that Professor Digory Kirke symbolizes the Holy Spirit in much the same way that Aslan, the Great Lion, symbolizes Christ.  This view of Professor Kirke as the Holy Spirit is further founded in Lewis’ description of him in The Magician’s Nephew, which reveals that the Professor had been present with Aslan at the creation of Narnia.  I believe that Professor Digory Kirke’s name emphasizes three works of the Holy Spirit: “Professor” – Revealing the Word of God, “Digory” – Applying the Water of Sacrament, “Kirke” – Establishing the Church of Christ.  So then, Professor Kirke is the Holy Spirit who works through the Word, Sacrament, and the Church.  The Pevensie children have run away from a war they don’t understand, to seek safety in a house of refuge, and to be taught by a Professor through an epic story that is discovered by entering through a Wardrobe found inside the Professor’s enormous old house.  Isn’t that cool?

So let’s play Lewis’ thought out a little further… I think it is safe to say that when people come into the Church on Sunday Mornings, they are running away from a war that they do not understand.  They are running away from a world that makes no sense.  They run into a House of Refuge.  Yet, when inside this house, they need more than safety.  They need strength, they need nourishment, they need truth, and they need their vision to be adjusted.  In other words, they need to see and understand.  They need to peer through a “window”,  move through the back of a wardrobe where they will see the world as it really is.  They need to see the truth of the Gospel.  They need to be baptized into the waters of the Church.  They need to adore the beauty of Christ through the power of Word and Sacrament.  This is Lewis’ view, and in this vision, he is so dead on correct.

Sadly, in recent times, modern Christians seemed to have lost faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.  And, having done so, they have also lost touch with the power that comes through the Holy Spirit – the Spirit working through the Word, the Spirit working through Sacrament, and the Spirit working through the Church.  So often, Christians abandon the Spirit of Christ and run off – chasing after the idols of the age.  We abandon God’s Story – the powerful, trustworthy, unfailing narrative of the Gospel found in the Bible.  We abandon God’s Sacrament – where the Gospel in Baptism and Communion are like the front of the Wardrobe of Earth intersecting with back of the Wardrobe of Heaven.  And we abandon God’s People – the household of Christ, where the power of the Gospel is relationally affirmed, again and again and again.

Getting back to the photo above – nothing seems out of the ordinary. Does it?  It’s just a room.  A window.  A desk.  And a dresser.  Yet, look at the mirror.  Like the Wardrobe, it reveals something special.  It is a portal, leading us into another world.  O how Christians need to reaffirm a trust in the Holy Spirit, who reveals Himself to us and leads us through this portal.  With a firm grip on the Gospel found in the Word, Sacrament, and the Church, we need to follow the Spirit as he leads us through the old coats and hats of the Wardrobe until we feel our hearts adjusting to the truth that comes from another world.  For in following the Spirit in this way, Christians renew themselves in the excitement of Lewis’ description of Professor Kirke’s old house: “It was the sort of house that you never seemed to come to the end of, and it was full of unexpected places“.

Michael had been blogging for 10 years, long before most of us knew that there was such a thing as blogging. Yet, it seemed that he was just starting to come into his prime, where the rest of the world was just starting to discover the incredible writing gift that God had given him. Reading Michael’s blog has been one of the first things that I would do every morning for the past three years. I rejoiced that I had found another kindred spirit who understood me, placed a priority on many of the same that were important to me, and stuggled with many of the same issues with which I struggled. Not only that, but he gave voice to a community of people, who had concerns with what they saw in the church, but who’s voice was not being heard.

As I read Michael each morning, my jaw would often drop with the profoundness of what was written, and I would marvel at the gift that God had given this remarkable individual. I would often exclaim to my wife, “How does he come up with such incredible material day after day after day!” Michael loved baseball, and to use a baseball analogy, it was like he had an on base average of .900, swatting 100+ home runs a season.

But first and foremost, Michael was about the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ. This was what was closest to his heart, and what drew me to him. His concern was that in all the many things that the church was doing, the gospel was being obscured. This was his greatest concern, and to what he paid the most attention in his writing. He regretted that so many people got the wrong idea from the “Coming Evangelical Collapse”, that more than anything it was a call to action, a call to return to the first love of the good news that God has given us.

So, while horribly sad, it seems somewhat appropriate that Easter would be the time when God would call him home. For Easter is a time of good news, and Michael’s life was all about proclaiming this good news of Jesus Christ. This was his unceasing focus, and one that he maintained until the very end.

I echo the words of the Apostle Paul:

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. – Philippians 1: 3-6

In the words of Jesus Christ: “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

A wise person once wrote the following lyrics in a song called Suffer: “All that you suffer is all that you are.” Now, while this statement may not be entirely true – as we are also defined by experiences of happiness, joy and peace – I’m sure we can all agree that going through some kind of suffering is an inevitability for all of us as humans, and that what we suffer does in fact shape us profoundly. Physically, we feel pain, as our body is designed to protect itself and provide us with signals of potential or actual danger. Through trial and error, we become aware of the limits of our existence. We learn that touching things that are hot or sharp can hurt us, so that we’ll hopefully be less apt to make the same mistake again in the future. At other times, our bodies feel pain to let us know that we’re sick or that something within us demands our attention – like a warning system to let us know something’s wrong or that we should consider modifying our routine behaviour. We also feel emotional pain, which is often related to social interaction. At times, we hurt because we are intentionally or inadvertently excluded or insulted by someone else’s actions or words. Other times, we suffer because we are temporarily or indefinitely separated from a person or people who are important to us. Whatever the case, our experience of physical and emotional pain is universal, and has a direct impact on our personal identities, how we view and relate to others, and how we process and deal with spiritual things. Ultimately, what we suffer personally and collectively influences our understanding of God.

C. S. Lewis, in his book “The Problem of Pain”, wrote this:

If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both. This is the problem of pain, in its simplest form.

Obviously this wasn’t his conclusion on the matter. In this statement, he was merely pointing out that the human experience of pain coupled with a belief in an all-powerful, loving God is problematic. You’ve probably asked this question yourself: why do bad things happen to good people? This question of suffering – the “why” of human pain – is in many ways mysterious and unanswerable – beyond our understanding.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to attend a tour that featured one of my favourite speakers and authors Rob Bell. For those of you who don’t know, Rob Bell is the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the author of the book Velvet Elvis, and the person behind the NOOMA video series. Needless to say, I was really excited to meet him. But what’s more, what he shared at the presentation itself was very helpful and insightful to me. At that particular time in my life, I was struggling a lot with the problem of pain, and this is what he said:

When we try to resolve things too quickly…or offer hollow, superficial explanations…it’s not honest and it’s not right and it’s not real. It’s not how life is. I’ve heard people trying to be helpful in the midst of a tragedy or accident or death by saying, ‘That’s just how God planned it,’ while I’m thinking, ‘The god who planned THAT is not a god I want anything to do with.’ Others with far more wisdom and experience than me have tackled the ‘why’ questions of suffering. [But] I’m interested in another question…not ‘Why this?’ but ‘What now?’

So – instead of focusing on and becoming discouraged by the elusive answer to the question of WHY, the encouragement was to shift one’s perspective to consider WHAT to do with that suffering. Instead of desperately trying to make the pieces fit, accepting that sometimes there is no WHY. Sometimes life just happens and you deal with it. But how? HOW should one respond in the midst of suffering, especially during those times when it’s not we ourselves who are in pain, but those around us who are in distress? HOW should we react when there’s trouble in the world that doesn’t affect us directly, or when someone we know is going through a particularly difficult time? To help answer this question, let’s consider together the experience of Job.

From chapters one and two of Job, we learn about the great suffering he endured. At one time he had seven sons, three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys and a large number of servants (Job 1:2-3); but he lost them all. Raiders from the surrounding region attacked and killed Job’s servants, carrying away his oxen and donkeys (1:14-15). Fire fell from the sky and consumed Job’s sheep and the shepherds (1:16). Another raiding party later attacked and killed the rest of Job’s hired hands and stole all the camels (1:17). A violent wind struck and collapsed the house where all of Job’s children were gathered, leaving none of them alive (1:18-19). And if this wasn’t enough, after all this emotional suffering, he faced extreme physical pain as his entire body was then found to be covered with agonizing sores (2:7).

Personally, I can hardly fathom what it would have been like to be in a similar situation. Some of us have gone through tremendous suffering, but relatively few – if any – of us have faced the degree or scope of pain faced by Job.

Job’s initial reaction to his suffering is found in verse 21 of chapter one:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.

I say initial reaction, because as Job continues to process his situation, he confronts the problem of pain head-on, voicing his trouble and confusion out loud. Consider some of these phrases from chapter seven:

My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering. “My days… come to an end without hope… Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul… When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning… If I have sinned, what have I done to you… Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins?

I’m sure his words probably don’t sit very well with you. Either because you yourself are going through a comparatively difficult time, and there didn’t seem to be very much hope in Job’s words. Or because you didn’t think Job should be so honest with his suffering and had an urge to share words of your own to help Job understand his situation. Words like: “Everything happens for a reason,” “God has a plan,” “it could be worse,” or “you shouldn’t complain.”

When we see and hear that someone is suffering, we are often tempted to either: (1) Fix our eyes on something else, thereby ignoring the existence of a problem; or (2) We try to fix the problem so that suffering is alleviated. Clearly, the latter approach is preferable – that is, trying to help someone in need. But HOW we do so is crucial. Because sometimes we think we’re helping someone, when in fact we are causing even more damage. Sometimes we incorrectly assume that we have the answers to some of life’s greatest questions and feel compelled to share this with others. Like when Job’s friends gave him what they thought was wise advice. So – let’s consider together a few examples of how those closest to Job dealt with the problem of pain, and why the Lord himself later said that they did not speak what was right (42:7). Hopefully then, when we encounter suffering in the world and in the lives of those around us, we can learn from their mistakes, and then in my opinion, do the one thing they did right.

After so much loss, the few people that remained in Job’s life gathered around him to give him counsel regarding his unfortunate situation. In particular, there were five main people who offered their insight into WHY he was suffering and WHAT he should do about it.

First, there was Job’s wife, who offered this advice to her husband: “Give up.” In her own words from chapter 2, verse 9: “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” Job himself responded: “You speak foolishly”(2:10). Life is made up of good moments and bad moments, and though we don’t always know why the bad happens, is the solution give up on life itself? When trying to cope with severe emotional or physical pain, as the one who is suffering, it might be tempting for us to conclude that death is a preferable option to agony and affliction. This is essentially what Job claimed in chapter 7. But if you were Job in that moment, would you really want someone to say to you: “Yeah, you’re right…what are you waiting around here for? Die already!” This is not helpful in the least.

Second, we have Job’s friend Eliphaz, who’s advice could be paraphrased as: “Bad things won’t happen to good people like you…at least not for very long.” Perhaps in an ideal world, but as you and I both know, this is wishful thinking at best. The fact that someone is good or godly doesn’t preclude them from suffering. It’s clear from the opening chapter of Job that he was, “blameless and upright…feared God and shunned evil”(1:1), and yet, his suffering was awful. Bad things happen both to supposedly good and allegedly bad people alike. There is no direct, fixed correspondence between the two. Some people suffer for years regardless of their obedience to God. Perhaps eschatologically-speaking, the faithful will experience ultimate peace and relief from their pain in heaven. But again, how is that helpful advice in the moment of one’s anguish or grief that may persist indefinitely? In that case, you might as well offer the advice given by Job’s wife, which we already heard was foolish.

Third, we need to consider the instruction given by Job’s other friend Bildad. His assessment was essentially this: “You’ve done wrong and have brought this on yourself.” According to him, Job must have sinned and is therefore responsible for his own suffering, and shouldn’t complain. Once more, the fault with this line of reasoning is that there is not always exact correspondence between one’s actions and destiny. Granted, this may be the case sometimes, as we often do face negative consequences for mistakes that we make. But is saying “I told you so” or pointing out the obvious really that constructive? Is making someone feel guilty for their own pain helpful, especially if there’s also a chance or likelihood that they aren’t to blame at all? I don’t think so.

Fourth, there’s Job’s friend Zophar, who essentially says: “If you don’t sin and have more faith, everything will be alright.” This view links suffering with sin and faith with triumphing over suffering; basically, combining the advice of Eliphaz and Bildad. That being the case, it remains problematic and unhelpful. Case in point: if you have ever been in a situation where you were really struggling with your faith – no matter how well meaning a person is trying to be – you know that the suggestion to have “more faith” is anything but encouraging. The implication of Zophar’s position is that more faith equals less pain, which just isn’t true.

Fifth, and last to offer Job advice is a young man named Elihu, who eagerly and passionately shared this so-called wisdom: “Suffering is always for a reason, and its purpose is to bring you back to God.” The message here, as proposed by Elihu, is that pain in life is meant to teach us a lesson. That all human suffering is intended to draw us back into fellowship with God. That agony, anguish, sorrow and grief are restorative and have a specific purpose. But would you honestly – with integrity – say something like this to someone going through tremendous affliction? Did God “plan” each and every natural disaster? Did the Lord have a “purpose” for the holocausts at Auschwitz, Treblinka and the other death camps of World War II? We must be very careful if ever we feel compelled to link meaning with personal circumstances or world events. Who are we to infer or deduce the WHY of human suffering? After Elihu spoke, the first words we hear the Lord say before questioning Job are these: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge”(38:2)? As I said a couple weeks ago when we were considering Jeremiah 27 and 28, if we’re not absolutely sure something is from God, sometimes it’s better to keep our mouths shut. And even if we are 100 percent convinced that we’re speaking the truth, we might be wrong. How, then, is what we say going to help someone in need? Sometimes it’s better to say nothing at all, and let our actions do the speaking.

To be fair, Job’s friends didn’t get it all wrong. Consider what it says at the end of chapter 2:

When Job’s three friends.. heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Sitting on the ground in silence. Coming down to the level of the one in pain. Being present. Not offering platitudes. Not presenting unsolicited advice. Willing oneself to leave the comfort of one’s own health, security and preconceived ideas to join the other in suffering. During times of grief and mourning, our Jewish brothers and sisters have a practice called “sitting shiva,” where those closest relatives to the deceased gather together in a home for seven days and sit on chairs that are low to the ground or on the floor itself. Mourners tear their garments, aren’t supposed to shave or bathe, and don’t even open the Bible…unless it’s a passage that specifically deals with lament, like the book of Lamentations or Job. And though this time of sitting on the ground together may not necessarily be altogether silent, mere presence can be more beneficial than a thousand words. I’m convinced that we can learn a lot from this, that there was much wisdom in what Job’s friends did first, and that we can and should do the same (or something similar).

Conclusion

When others around us are suffering, let’s do what we can to be there for them, to stand beside or sit with those in pain. As best as you can, be Incarnational – there, “in the flesh.” One of the greatest comforts of the Christian life is knowing that God himself can relate to our struggles in the person of Jesus Christ. He too lost close friends and family, experiencing tremendous emotional pain. And he was no stranger to physical suffering either. But what’s more, he suffers still, and deeply. Jesus, though raised from the dead, was raised wounded (see John 20), and to this day bears the heartache and hurt of humankind – continuing to suffer with those in pain. Accordingly, as a follower of Jesus, one is similarly called to “bear each other’s burdens”(Galatians 6:2). To be willing to suffer alongside those in need. Like Job’s friends did for seven days before they spoke. Now – plainly, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t speak to someone who’s going through a difficult trial. By all means, pay a visit, pick up your phone, write a message. You don’t want silence to come across as avoidance or indifference. But think before you speak. Choose your words wisely. And if you don’t know what to say, that may be just as well. “Let your words be few”(Ecclesiastes 5:2), “be quick to listen and slow to speak”(Galatians 1:19). Do however much is at your disposal to be present with those who are suffering. And though the problem of pain may remain to us a mystery, we can all be assured and provide assurance by our presence with others that none of us face the challenges of life alone.

As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.

But it didn’t.

The previous church that we attended closed because of divisiveness in the Elders Board. In my own life I have seen several churches struggle or fail because of church division. I never want to be the source of division like that. The Apostle Paul didn’t like division either. His command in Ephesians 4:3 really jumped out at me, as I was reading it, and I have kept coming back to it time after time.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Make every effort. That didn’t mean trying to resolve things once and then giving up. It meant trying and trying and trying again. It meant keeping on trying until there was no other option, and then trying some more.

Every effort.

Well, somehow through all that trying we managed to resolve the issue. For me, it meant saying that being a part of this particular church community was and is more important to me than being right. Being right is not always the most important thing, especially if it divides churches.

How would our churches be different if we “make every effort”? How would church history have looked? Would the Catholic and Orthodox churches still be one? Would the North American church be splintered into so many denominations?

What about truth you ask? Surely that is important?

I like what Rupertinius Meldenius (previously attributed to Saint Augustine) had to say about that:

In essentials, unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity.

Perhaps that can be our guiding principles for when we need to stand up for truth. Perhaps that would quell some of the “Worship Wars” that affect so many of our churches, maybe end some of our squabbles that in the grand scheme of things really aren’t that important.

If the Pope today can recite the Nicene Creed without the Filioque clause when in the presence of the Orthodox Patriarch, then maybe that maybe that difference wasn’t so great after all.

Sometimes being right is wrong. Not only if divides churches, but also if it ruins relationships, or breaks up marriages.

It is in the context of “make every effort” that Paul says in Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

This was a self-sacrificial love. A love that says I don’t put me first. A love that says I don’t have to be right even when I am!

Their was a comic in our newpaper recently where a young woman is interviewing a man for a possible dating relationship. She asks him, “What would you do if you found irrefutable proof that you were right in our disagreement?” He replied, “I would ask your forgiveness for doubting you in the first place.” Or in other words, I am a guy who doesn’t have to be right, even when I am.

So here is what I would like to ask our readers: What has “make every effort” meant to you? Can you think of times where you have “made every effort” and had it result in a positive outcome in your church or relationship? Have you seen the converse happen as well? I look forward to your responses.