Reflections from Childhood

I generally think of my present faith as one developed seamlessly, without interruption. In my upbringing I was taken regularly to church, and trained morally and spiritually at home. With steady and growing understanding, came faith and commitment. I don't know what got me to thinking, but it came as a shock to me that such was not quite the case. There were cross roads and forks along the way. Different courses could have been taken. It frightens me to think what might have happened if one of those other paths had been pursued. Would I have recovered?

Here is one of them. My mother was a Christian. My father was not. That alone might make it easy for a boy to be disinterested. With World War II, my mother went to work. It was the patriotic thing to do. It was also financially beneficial. My family bought a house. I had lots of freedom and ran with a group of kids who had the same unsupervised time I had, and had similar preoccupied parents who tried to make it up to us in providing frequent parties here and there. Actually, at ages 10 and 11 we were acting much older than we were. A group of us went to a movie, but some of us were paired up. The girl with me being 12, and I 11, I bought one "adult" ticket and one "child's." I cringe when I think of that, for many reasons, but it helps me understand why our "relationship" deteriorated somewhat. She was associated with a younger man. But we all had as much or more impact upon one another as our parents did. I still went to church on Sunday mornings, but things could have gone either way.

What saved me, and probably several of us, is that we had a background of teaching regarding right, wrong, honesty, and responsibility. Though we were too free, those lessons being recent rather than remote, still carried weight. There was also the influence of my mother's faith in earlier years when she had been so determined and fought so hard for my spiritual attention, and guided it. She went to much trouble to see that we attended services regularly. That had made church an important thing, and had residual influence.

Nevertheless, I can look back and see weakness of resolve in my self and probably her. I can remember a Sunday when a friend with whom I was sitting didn't want to stay after classes. A fleeting, and I mean momentary, stomach discomfort hit me. It had before and would again, without interrupting other things I was doing. But I decided to complain that day, and my mother said I could go home. She should have told me I would live. I remember walking home with mixed feelings. There was a little guilt, but it was really a nice Sunday morning to have off.

Even with such lapses, I still identified more with what was right because of early teaching. I was just growing less militant about it. But if those lapses had begun to dominate, where would I be today? And if we had stayed there, they might have. But the war ended and we moved. My mother was at home again, her determination was renewed, and the folks at church took an interest in me. I began to listen better. Conviction grew and I obeyed the gospel. Thank God.

I was prepared to do right. But in softening of resolve, I might have lost the fruit of that preparation. Fortunately my peer influence had come from those who were not so different. That often is not true today. What do you think will keep our children from taking a wrong fork in the road? How about, our consistent unrelenting commitment, and example? -- Dale Smelser

Pastors Who Don’t Believe

In my senior year in high school and first in college I believed. But I felt the need to examine and be sure of my faith. One thing that prompted that was wondering if all the talk of priests and preachers I heard was really so, and did they believe it to be so? Did they really believe what they were saying.
To my surprise I found that many did not. They did not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he physically arose from the dead, that he ascended into heaven. I found many did not believe his miracles. Now, since the miracles of Christ were recorded as evidence that we might "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (Jn. 20:31), I understood that those clergy men did not believe that Jesus was the foretold Messiah, or that he was in origin in a unique way, the actual Son of God.
My next thought was to wonder why they used such terms as resurrection, hope, redemption, and eternal life. Their explanation was that these were connotation words that people responded to and were thus useful in conveying a concept of the spiritual into life in this material universe. For a young un-jaded mind it was not difficult to conclude that they believed all these words really conveyed a lie, but that they could use that lie to their own ends. That is a harsh judgment they would not eagerly accept. Yet, to this day, I believe that is a correct assessment.
Here is why. If Jesus Christ is not the son of God as the scriptures claim in prophecy, fulfillment and specific declaration, then the scriptures are misleading and a lie themselves. And if that is so, try this question. What do you know for sure about God? Now, for all the assertions of people making judgments about God, saying, "Well I just don’t believe God would or would not do such and such." Oh, really? Upon what basis? We can’t just make it up about God. Anything we conclude about God on our own has no basis. As Dostoyevsky declared through one of The Brothers Karamazov, if there is no God, there is no right or wrong, any behavior is acceptable. Of course, there are those who believe exactly that today. And if that is so, and Jesus Christ is not the son of God, and the scriptures are not his word, we have absolutely no hope or assurance of anything beyond this life. And one day when earth either freezes in eternal uninhabitable ice, or is obliterated by fiery collision, what will existence and life have meant? Human life will be no more than a match struck in the darkness of eternity, and then extinguished forever. It meant and means nothing at all.
And clergymen and women who do not believe, cannot give us an ounce of hope. All they can give us are lying words. And the answer to the question, "What do we know about God," is a resounding nothing. Well, what do those clergypeople have to offer us? Nothing more than their ivory tower existence in their religious organizations and the opportunity for us to give them our money. That’s it. Nothing more.
On the other hand, assessing the prophecies of the scriptures, seeing them all come together centuries later in Jesus Christ, seeing his teaching and works, finding no reasonable explanation for the empty tomb from which his disciples declared he was raised and whereof they were witnesses, and concluding he is the Son of God, and that the scriptures are the word of God, we can hope, we can believe in redemption and eternal life. We can believe there is truth to live by. Thank God.
For more information or discussion, contact me: dalsmelser@aol.com
Of visit our web site: www.nwchurchofChrist.net

Turtles Become Einstein and Pigs Fly

Man thinks he is brilliant. In fact we live in an anti-intellectual age where man really doesn’t know anything. Here’s why. If we live in an exclusively material universe, there really is no conscious intellect, nor is there any truth for it to comprehend, or facts that exist beyond the mechanics of material functions. There is no mind, only a brain which is just a chemical and material mechanism. Neo-Darwinism has killed reason. There are no great philosophical thoughts or truths beyond the material to contemplate.

To overcome that, some are willing to employ their concept of "faith." That allows man to speculate and seek something nobler than the non-volitional chemical and electric impulses in the brain. And that is also anti-intellectual, for to them faith is a blind, if noble, leap. So we hear, "You cannot prove faith, if there were a reason for it, it would not be faith." This makes faith nothing more than superstition.

Compare that to the profound and awesome information in the Bible about a Being, a Mind that has always existed, who designed and created all the complexity of the universe down to each of the one hundred trillion cells in your body, every one of which contains a six foot long coil of coded information spelling out assembly instructions to make all of your individual physical characteristics. This Creator being holy, has established noble, righteous, and absolute principles by which to live in relationship with one another, and ways to have fellowship with Him.

The Bible gives reasons to accept all of that. This says faith is based on reason. It is not just an ephemeral feeling or wishing, or supposing. Too many religious people treat it so, but that also destroys reason. There would be as many faiths as there are individual preferences or beliefs. Thus no one real truth to reason from. One can "believe" that turtles became Einstein and that pigs have wings.

Contrast that to what the Bible says about faith. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). God is contemplated by faith because we have not seen him, but there are assurances, and information producing conviction. That is not preposterous. You probably believe in Iraq, but most of you have not seen Iraq. "Oh, but," one says, "I have seen pictures of Iraq." No, you have seen pictures someone told you were of Iraq. But based on the source and convincing nature of the evidence, you believe in Iraq. Without having seen Iraq you accept its existence by faith. Faith in God requires the exercise of the intellect in dealing with the information God has given in his word and in his creation.

For instance, the Greek word which describes faith in the passage above and which is translated "conviction," means, "Such a conviction as is produced in the mind by the demonstration of a problem, after which we see from it that the thing cannot but be true." Faith is not a whimsical supposition. Biblical faith claims to be so intellectually supported that it patently true. Again, the word is defined, "A demonstration of the certainty of a thing by sure arguments and indubitable reasons." Aristotle used the term for a mathematical demonstration. Facts truly perceived and applied produce and stand behind true faith. Iraq exists. God is.

Darwinism, being totally material, destroys any ground of absolute and moral truth. It is thus anti-intellectual. The Bible on the other hand calls upon us to examine its convincing information. Properly perceived and applied it leads to faith, a conviction based on evidence. It is profoundly intellectual and thus appeals to and provides things for the spirit and mind of man.
contact me: mailto:dalsmelser@aol.comor visit our website: www.northwestchurchofchrist.net