So what was the truth of last night’s debate between Biden and Ryan? If you scan Facebook you’ll see people posting cartoons that tend to express what thy imagined they would see before they saw it. Republicans would see Biden as a clown. Democrats would see Ryan is naive, duped or deceiving. There is a real world out there, but can we see past ourselves to see it?

How do we usually respond to this reality? We crowd-source the choosers and tally the total to hopefully discern the truth. The day after the debates the papers try to figure out “who won the debate” by seeing how many people thought one way and how many people thought the other.

At the same time we know that crowd-sourcing can be an unreliable measure as well. Many questions do have concrete answers for which there is accessible truth about them.

A Dartmouth poll in the spring of 2012 found that a majority of registered Republicans believed that Iraq had WMDs during the time of the 2003 US invasion while the vast majority of independents and registered Democrats believed they had none. Any given crowd won’t always get an answer right. We very quickly then start to look at the sample for the poll, and on it goes.

We usually believe things in community and the beliefs we already hold greatly determine how we assimilate additional beliefs and information.

True for You But Not For Me

We may recognize this fact of belief in other people, but we all believe ourselves to be the exception to this rule. “Others may be caught in their own epistemological bubble, but certainly not me. I KNOW the truth…”

Of course, if we didn’t believe something we wouldn’t believe it anymore. We believe what we believe.

At the same time none of us can live our lives as full blown skeptics or relativists. However skeptical or relativistic we may feel, we all engage in this world at a level to survive, to pursue what we want and to try to shape the world according to what we prefer or what we think is right. The alternative would to simply stop eating, stop talking, stop caring.

Competing Systems on Trial

Part of the reason groups are so locked into the beliefs of their group is simply because we believe together. If everyone around you believes that freedom of speech and freedom of conscience is a really important belief, then trying to kill someone because they drew a picture of the prophet Mohammed seems wrong. If, however, you believe that drawing a picture of the prophet Mohammed is a serious crime against God and all that is true then freedom of expression and freedom of conscience seem less important than defending the honor of God.

What happens when these two groups collide? Usually their entire systems are tested. They are tested over long periods of time, and often in very costly ways involving generations, lives and blood. In the end, hopefully, the system that aligns best with the reality out there in the real world, the one we are desperately trying to grapple with, will triumph.

In a way all of human thought is hopefully working a process to root out what Christians call heresy. Alister McGrath in his book “Heresy” asserts that heresy are ideas that over time are revealed to be counter productive to the welfare of the system.

So what is heresy? Heresy is best seen as a form of Christian belief that, more by accident than design, ultimately ends up subverting, destabilizing, or even destroying the core of Christian faith. Both this process of destabilization and the identification of its threat may be spread out over an extended period of time.

McGrath, Alister (2009-10-14). Heresy (pp. 10-11). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Ceasarea, Jerusalem and Rome

Last week we saw how Paul asserted that his system trumped the system of Governor Felix.  Paul asserted that his King Jesus would judge Governor Felix, his stewardship of Roman justice, his stewardship of his reign over Judea, and his stewardship over his personal life, and Felix found this idea unnerving, but not unnerving to release Paul even though the charges against him didn’t violate Roman law.

Felix sat in his chair of power and within his system wielded the power of life of death over a region. Within two years of last week’s story Felix would be removed and replaced with Festus.

While Felix had a reputation for brutality and corruption, Festus appeared to be an upgrade in terms of a governor. He was diligent, seemed to have a handle on what the job required beyond using it to line his own pockets, and set right to work.

As he began to take inventory of his new post he discovered Paul to be one of Felix’s jobs left undone. He set about addressing the matter in the only way he knew how. Since he was a newbie when it came to Jewish politics it seemed sensible to him to consult the Jews he had access to, the rulers in Jerusalem.

Festus of course here demonstrates the kind of cultural blindness and limitation that all outsiders have. If you want to access a large, unknown culture or community you usually begin by engage the elements of that group that are already most like you or that you already understand the most. If you are in power you usually engage the group that will have the highest likelihood of giving you the answers you want and being useful for getting what you want out of the relationship.

Unfortunately for Paul this meant that the group that wanted him dead once again had the governor’s ear. He was hoping that Paul’s interests too would align with his own when he asked Paul if he’d like to go to Jerusalem to stand trial. Paul, of course, knew that this would go nowhere, quite likely it would result in his assassination. He reminds the Governor, what he had demonstrated to the previous governor, that the charges against Paul with respect to Roman law were baseless and that he was being accused of what was essentially a religious matter within Judaism, something that unless it spilled out into violence and civil unrest Roman law was disinterested.

From Luke’s account it seems that Festus understood this, but in his desire to work the whole equation of his relationship with the authorities in Jerusalem he was unwilling to simply release Paul.

What was clear to Paul, however, was that he wasn’t going to get a fair hearing with this new governor either. The local politics were such that Festus would be unwilling to spend his political capital with the people he was trying to work with to do the just thing in releasing Paul. What Paul did was then to exercise his right to appeal his case to Caesar. He was, already standing in Caesar’s court, but only a regional one, too mired in its own political reality to hold itself to a higher bar. Paul would bear witness to Jesus in Rome, he had exhausted what he could do in the region.

We should keep in mind that Paul didn’t not appeal to Caesar in order to continue to be held in custody. Keeping him in custody was in fact Festus’ decision. Paul would remain a prisoner, but he would no longer be the problem of Festus.

Paul uses his life to put the Roman way of Life on Trial

Last week with corrupt Governor Felix Paul put Felix on trial. This week the Roman system is slated for examination and Paul offers his freedom and his life for this. Ideally governments are called upon to administer justice and to rise above the local political pressures in order to do what is right. Festus is a better governor than Felix but similarly demonstrates his inability to set aside his own political interests to do what is right by Paul. He knows Paul is guilty of no crime under Roman law, but he will not free him. The best he will do is send him up the chain of command and get him off his docket.

Large System Trials are Scary

If the VP Debate is any indication we are in the middle of a large system trial. Which perspective on the nation is correct? We are asked to pick between two sides without knowing whether either, or any of the sides is in fact correct in its diagnosis or promoted solution for our national ills. The mechanism for doing such is which group will be able to convince a majority of persons in certain key swing states. We also know full well that there are other systems in play (courts, congress) and other factors that lead us to believe that even if the system we choose is selected in November they will not be able to fully implement the plan they are asserting so that when the next election rolls around again they will ask for another try because the evil other side was able to derail their plans, and on we tumble along.

Paul’s Catch-22 in Trying the Roman System

According to Luke the Roman system is failing Paul, and as we know from history, failing the Jewish people. The Jerusalem aristocracy will play both sides and the climax of the conflict will result in a full blown rebellion and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Festus epitomizes system they are all locked into. He cannot know enough about what is happening in Judea even from his own perspective to bring human flourishing, and he does not have the guts at this point to do what he knows is right by freeing Paul.

When Paul puts Rome on trial he does so before Nero’s slide into lunacy. If Rome is vindicated, Paul goes free. If Paul is condemned, Rome also is condemned. It’s the same equation as Jesus’ trial of the Jerusalem leadership and secondarily of the Roman system embodied by Pontius Pilate who knows Jesus’ innocence yet because saving him gives him no political advantage goes along with the desire of the leadership to crucify Jesus.

Remember, All Political Regimes are Eschatalogical

The Roman governors, being human choosers, are having trouble with seeing reality, just like all people. Festus, even though he’s a better governor than Felix, will be partially blinded by the system he is within. He will be favor the leadership around him with which he will have cultural affinity, and this bias will continue to lead towards the kinds of policies that will lead to the revolt of the Jews. His participation in the Roman way of life will also be short lived because he himself will die in office within a couple of years, cutting short his opportunity to be helpful in a difficult situation.

Peter Enns made the observation on our own political system that all political regimes are Utopian and a Christian’s allegiance to their own eschatology ought to shape our  relationship with them.

Messy Middle Money and Meaning

One of the writers at the Harvard Business Review has started an interesting series on meaning and money. He begins this way. 

Remind me: why is an average investment banker worth, say, a hundred times as much as an average teacher? And why does a top hedge fund manager “earn” enough to pay for thousands of teachers?

Is there a trade-off between meaning and money? And if there is, how does one master — and perhaps — resolve it? Can it be resolved?

There is indeed a stark, sharp, gigantic trade-off between meaning and money in our so-called brain-dead shell-game Ponzi-scheme of an “economy.”

But there shouldn’t be.

He then proceeds to tell us how to work the tension between the systems. The next week Sophie, a sharp student calls him on it. 

“Meaning,” she muttered, staring darkly into her cup. And then glaring at me, continued, “What planet are you on? I’ve got student debt, credit card debt, an underpaid so-called job that makes me nauseous, a broken car, and a failing relationship.”

“Meaning,” she said again. This time, with scorn and a sneer. “Is a luxury. One that I can’t afford — and probably never will be able to. That’s reality outside the gilded cage and ivory tower. Get it?”.

Many of us, I’d bet, feel like this: in a hardscrabble age of austerity, the search for meaning is an unaffordable self-indulgence, the torrid affair that painfully breaks up the quietly satisfying marriage, an idly romantic daydream, the jackpot whose price is misfortune; that if one is to survive another lost decade, searching for meaning is something like mining the fools’ gold of life.

But she wasn’t done with me yet. “What about the Mumbai slum-dweller?,” she challenged, raising her eyebrows. “Should he seek meaning? Is he going to find a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s candy factory of meaning amidst the rubbish heaps? Isn’t it a ludicrous fantasy to ask those struggling to eke out subsistence to live on meaning? Can you fill your belly and your wallet with meaning? Isn’t meaning just the ultimate first world problem, just another saccharine flavor of: hey, which color leather should I choose for my new luxury SUV to match my plush designer handbag?”

If Paul putting the Roman system on trial looks risky, she points out that our system is on trial, whether you’re in chains or not.

Living Good Friday, Awaiting the Resurrection

Festus, a well meaning governor can’t escape his system. Sophie, bogged down with student debt, credit card debt, a subpar job and a bad relationship, Paul, whose religious life has landed him unjustly in prison as a way of avoiding being lynched. The sharp Harvard professor can put words together like meaning being a responsibility but he has no power to address the divorce between meaning and money he highlights in his first blog.

The Christian life is lived in the messy middle between Good Friday and Easter Resurrection.

The resurrection of Jesus was the vindication for his eschatalogical system. It energized the early church to put their faith in him, the crucified Jesus and to await the return of their resurrected Lord. Faith is the exercise of joy, optimism, and endurance until Jesus’ narrative becomes creation’s narrative.

The Apostle Paul here in his appeal to Caesar seeks to live out the conflict between the systems. Just as with one perspective, his victory in his trial of Caesar will mean his death, his death by Caesar means his life in the resurrection. In the age of decay it seems that even in his winning he loses (the divorce of meaning and money), so also in the age to come in his losing in this age he bears witness to the winning of the next.

The Christian appropriates the cross in all of their losses if their losses are for the sake of loving their enemy. In these losses they embrace the narrative of cross to empty tomb. Just as Jesus’ death condemned the validation of the Jerusalem leadership and proclaimed the end of the Jerusalem temple so Paul’s trial of Caesar would expose the injustice of that system and in Paul’s future resurrection (and even before it) the justice of Paul’s case would be vindicated.

The Messy Middle for Modern Christians

Every system conflict you see cries out for the need for a chooser outside the system to expose the truth. Every declarer of the truth in this age is seen as merely one voice, one chooser compromised by circumstance, bias and limited perspective. All systems are judged in time and either rejected by the majority or kept alive awaiting further review.

How does the gospel make the messy middle not only endurable but also a path to joy?

It’s how we see Paul in this story. How he turns even what seems to be a meaningless waste of years in Roman corruption and futility into a cruciform witness that puts the faltering systems of the age of decay on trial. As they go on trial he is able to be a hopeful witness even whose suffering is infused by meaning.

The Christian in loving one’s neighbor, loving the world enough to sacrificially critique it in ways that the world calls futile, the Christian appropriates the cross of Christ and in that cross finds redemptive meaning.

The Christian is energized in this costly appropriation by the promised resurrection. The Christian can sacrificially give of one’s life in witness to a system that is failing, because of the wealth of the promise of the resurrection. Just as Jesus could offer his life for the redemption of his enemies based on the promise of a better world through the resurrection of his flesh, so also Christians can follow him through this passage with that hope, secured by fact that the passage has already been traveled.