Grief and the Soul

With various bereavements occurring around me at the moment death has been on the brain. As I have been pondering God’s existence with death and grief surrounding me there has been something on my mind: the soul’s relation to grief and the physical response to loss.

Why do many peoples’ brains give such a negative and often uninhibited and uncontrolled emotional and physical response to intense moments of grief? It seems to me that it is a very unhelpful process, something that hinders rather than assists. Now I am not denying that people should be allowed to grieve, that would be a ridiculous idea and something that would be unsustainable but what I am wondering is what the point of grief is?

I’m sure there’s probably a neurological reason that I’m missing due to my non-scientific background but it seems to me that grief points to the existence of the soul. We realise that someone’s very existence has been snuffed out, that in that brief instant, with that last breath their consciousness no longer exists. Even as a Christian the thought does go through your head, ‘What if they are literally no more? What if there is no God? What if they don’t have a soul and their essence, the person that I knew, has gone forever. They aren’t anywhere, they literally no longer exist (at least on an A-theory of time…).

However I trust that they do still exist somewhere, not that the soul is necessarily eternal (Plato, not scripture) but I trust that disembodied mind is of course possible. 

So grief, while being destructive and a hindrance to development shows us that we care about what happens to other peoples’ souls, it shows us that we miss people around us and it shows us that we value their impact on society and on our lives. Of course this could be explained through desiring their skills for the herd and not missing them, but missing what they do. This doesn’t make sense to me, it seems more likely that we do, indeed, miss their whole being, we don’t like the fact that their consciousness may no longer exist in any way. Why? Perhaps we fear for their soul. No, I don’t think so… Maybe we are selfish. We want to keep them so we can feel good about their existence again.

Grief is okay, but it should always be seen as a celebration of life and not a mourning of the lack of existence for that individual who once was. To be caught in grief is to be caught in misery, it is to self-destruct and it is to forget the reality of death.

Death should not be feared, it should be embraced.

Glen

Summer Joy, Winter Depression…

I apologise for the sporadic posting, hopefully I will start posting daily when my schedule becomes a little more concrete. Today has been the ‘Thank God winter is over!’ day… I really dislike it when people do this, every season is created for a reason. I mean, if you don’t even believe in ‘creation’ then even winter has a reason. Take joy in it all friends, enjoy the winter, enjoy the times when you can curl up infront of a fire with your pipe (okay, maybe just me with the pipe…) with a bowl of winter broth.

I love winter, I really am not a fan of summer… I try not to moan because it feels hypocritical but I can feel the moaning coming on, I can also hear the traditional ringing of ‘misery guts!’, ‘Why can’t you just enjoy the good weather!’ and ‘Oh, stop ruining our fun!’.

Stop ruining my bloody fun in the winter then!

Random rant over…

Glen

 

When It All Goes Pete Tong

Everyone has a crap day once in a while; you might be one of those very unfortunate people who has many, many crap days and if you do then I can empathise! Recently however things have been going rather well so this has been something of a step back. Everything started going wrong after the service I was taking part in; generally there are congregation members who will give feedback to me (whether or not they do this on purpose or not doesn’t matter, it is always without fail), today there was nothing, or at least very little. Now while affirmation from man is not what I live for, infact it is something that was drilled out of me not so long ago, when you are a student it is nice to get critical feedback as to whether or not you did well or whether or not you did badly.

While I have had a little good feedback, others I have spoken to have done the very wishy washy thing and not really committed to anything. This doesn’t bode well. I had a lot of responsibility today with organising and leading everything, to be honest I knew I’d cocked up when I realised I’d forgotten to check who was doing the offering. That was when the rest of it flooded in, should have done the prayers later in the service, forgot this, rushed through that, this wasn’t nearly as tight as it could have been… Then I got over myself. This wasn’t about me, this was about service and this was about serving God. I did the best that I could and considering I’m still learning (aren’t we all!) I think I did a fairly good job.

The lesson I have learnt? Don’t succumb in any way to requiring the approval or the admiration of men and women. It rips you apart! However there’s no need to feel guilty if you do feel you haven’t done something quite right, there’s also no need to feel guilty about feeling bad! We’re human, fallen and fallible. However we’re ultimately redeemed by the saving blood of Christ and that’s all that really matters, everything else flows out of that.

You Will All Burn in Hell

Of course you won’t all burn in hell, I just like controversial titles. However a thought that has been running round in my head recently, probably as a result of dissertation discussions happening around campus, is this: can we appeal against hell on emotional grounds? I begin this post (to be honest, it will probably end up as a series of posts) with a significant problem with the doctrine of eternal conscious torment (ECT), though that problem is primarily emotional there are philosphical considerations also. To start with I’ll address the emotional problems that I have and why they really don’t matter and I think I’ll do so in the form of some sort of prayer…

I hate the idea of ECT, especially the literal view that flesh will burn for eternity, the physical bodies of friends who choose to turn away will will literally be in unending torment. No. End. Not only does that absolutely terrify me, not only does it make me feel sick to my stomach but it makes me look at God and think, why? Why did you create these people? This man did nothing but love people, he did nothing but selflessly help others but because he was a Buddhist he is condemned to eternal torture? God, that makes no sense… He clearly saw something of the divine, maybe he misunderstood it! Can you really blame him? As fallen, fallible human beings we all struggle with things and we all misinterpret what we see around us… He’s seriously going to have all his flesh burnt either literally or metaphorically despite all the incredible good he did for the people around him? That seems abhorrent to me.

But God, I think you understand that… I think you understand how I feel, I don’t think that if hell does exist as neverending torment that you made it so that your children would rejoice at it’s existence, I think you made it so we would grieve. I grieve, I grieve at the possibility of this end for people, I grieve at the possibility of it’s existence and I suppose I grieve because it may well be true that this is compatible with your character. Your holy, perfect, just and righteous character.

God, I know you hate sin, I can see that from how you respond to it in scripture but what I simply cannot fathom is that you are willing to send people that you created, that you willed from the start to exist and that you desire to be in relationship with you to hell. I don’t understand it… I pray that hell doesn’t exist, I know some people will call that heresy God but as I said I think you understand my plea and my petition. I think you’re maybe more sympathetic than many people think.

But God, if hell does exist, then please end their torment, end their torture one day. Don’t continue their existence just to be tortured, I grieve and I weep for those souls Lord, I grieve for them. Give them one last chance, please! I would suffer death to see them saved, all the souls in hell now and tomorrow, I would die for them. But didn’t Jesus already do this? Jesus already suffered death for these people, why is it ineffectual!! I suppose it isn’t, they just chose not to believe… but what of the people who had no chance to hear the gospel message through no fault of their own? I pray and I hope that through your mercy O God that you saw their plight, you saw their lives and you gave them life, you gave them mercy and you swept them up into your arms.

Thankyou that you are God, you are merciful and you are good, you are just and you are loving. You are worthy of my praise and adoration. I am a fallible human being made clean through the life-giving blood of Jesus, the Christ and I bow down and surrender everything I am to you, O God.

Glen Leach
@Confess_Life

(I know this wasn’t a particularly ‘normal’ post, but standard service will be resumed tomorrow when I will lay out my philosophical problems with the doctrine of ECT)

Attitudes Towards Evolution at Bible College

This is a fairly frustrated post as the topic has arisen more and more as I’ve begun to divulge my dissertation title to different people and, as you can probably guess, I am an advocate of ‘theistic evolution’. While I think a lot of people genuinely misunderstand intelligent design, it posits a positive case for inferring an intelligence behind various ‘irreducible complexities’ and ‘specified complexities’ rather than a God of the gaps argument. I confess, the science is pretty brain melting (at least for a non-scientist) however this is where my problem lies: I don’t see any problem with acknowledging that we cannot yet explain how these specified complexities came into being according to the laws of nature, but I also don’t see anything wrong with saying, ‘let’s try to find out how these specified complexities came into being naturally’.

That’s where my basic contention lies, but enough of that, maybe I’ll get into the more philosophical stuff to do with the scientific method in a later post. This post is to explain what it is like holding this view at an evangelical Bible College; it is unpleasant. There are a lot of assumptions amongst  the student body as to 1) what evolutionary theory is and 2) how it interacts with the Christian faith. The most frustrating thing for me, as even a lay-person to the scientific issues, is the total lack of understanding of what evolution is. Phrases like, ‘Well why aren’t chimpanzees still evolving then?’ are actually worryingly common, however the worst thing is the reaction you get if you begin to defend a theistic perspective on evolution, ‘What?!’, ‘You can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution!’, ‘If you don’t take Genesis 1 to be true then that means all the rest of it is rubbish too!’.

While I don’t necessarily blame those individuals for their views, what I do find rather frustrating is the lack of desire most people have to investigate these things. If you want to make a categorical statement about something, at least explore the arguments (and I don’t mean reading articles by young earth creationists ABOUT evolutionary theory, I mean read the advocates’ work itself) otherwise your opinion holds little water.  I will give you an example: I have a friend who is a computer whiz, he is a software engineer. I did a little programming in college but have nowhere near the level of understanding he does. Now, a mutual friend of ours is having a little trouble understanding a flaw in his computer software and comes to him for help; I am not going to suddenly interject and try to explain this stuff, I am even less likely to turn round to my friend and say, ‘No, sorry you are totally wrong.’. ‘But I have a degree in software engineering and have been doing this for ten years!’, ‘I know, but you’re still wrong.’

Do you see the problem? Christians reading this, if you are anti-evolution and have not read any scientific literature from either theists or atheists on the theory of evolution then please go and read it before you decide you know what it is.

There is also a worrying trend that associates evolution almost necessarily with atheism, that association is false. Please stop doing it. It is indeed possible to be a Christian and be an evolutionist, infact I consider it an incredibly awe-inspiring, glorious way to view the mysteries of the universe which does nothing but bolster my wonderment at the created order.

God bless,

Glen

The Pettiness of the Current Evangelical Uproar

The latest furor doing the rounds here (and from what I can see, in a lot of other institutions and churches) is the situation surrounding the British government’s refusal to oppose a ban on the wearing of crosses in the workplace for Christians. Most of what I have seen and heard in terms of evangelical backlash has involved the ‘right to express my faith’ and has, on a couple of occasions meant people threatening to buy and wear a cross pendant solely to rebel against this potential ruling. This attitude smacks of idolatry and, as one Twitter commentator put it, suggests quite a persecution complex.

The wearing of a cross is not a requirement of every christian, sure it is an expression of what you believe (I mean, only practicing christians wear crosses right?) but it is not a necessary expression. I have doubts anyway surrounding the reasoning behind the government’s refusal as anti-religious (could it be more to do with health and safety than anything else?) but honestly, why do people care so much? Your religious rights are not being removed and your civil liberties are not at stake here, the way a lot of people have been talking suggests that this is the first step in the move towards an evil totalitarian regime in which anyone who utters the name of Jesus will be put to death. That isn’t what is happening here. Did Jesus instruct us to wear identifying jewelry or did he instruct us to be a light on a hill, the salt of the earth? We are to live the cross, not wear it round our necks.

I urge the Christians who are riling up against the government on this one to stop, you are doing yourselves no favours. There is a trend going round at the moment which suggests that evangelicals in the UK are moving into a period of persecution or even that we are already being persecuted. We are not being persecuted, for a long time the church has looked down with vehemence upon the LGBT community, anti-Roman Catholic diatribes are becoming more regularly spread with little to no understanding bar conspiracy theories and assumptions yet there is a call to arms about nothing more than a piece of expressive jewelry?

If it is the cross around your neck that identifies you as a disciple of Jesus Christ then your focus is entirely wrong, it should be the life that you have surrendered fully to Christ that identifies you as a disciple of Him. Stop the idolatry and focus on Christ, not a piece of gold around your neck.

God bless,

Glen Leach

Why I Am Not Signing the Coalition for Marriage Petition

This has been a fairly hot topic around campus over the last couple of weeks and I’ve kept my mouth shut due to the incredibly vocal and vicious attacks on the LGBT community that have come spewing out of some mouths. I decided to take this time to explain why I, as a professing evangelical, will not be signing the Coalition for Marriage Petition; in order to do that I am going to go through the four statements that the signatories have agreed to and give my response to each in turn.

Throughout history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman. Marriage reflects the complementary natures of men and women. Although death and divorce may prevent it, the evidence shows that children do best with a married mother and father.

It is worth pointing out that this is not an argument against the redefinition of marriage but rather an argument against homosexuality. It has nothing to do with the concept of marriage but against any relationship between two people of the same sex. It is highly flawed to suggest that just because history and tradition has understood the semantics of marriage as male-female (primarily through ignorance, supression and persecution) that we need to continue in that vein. Quoting no sources whatsover for the assertion that children do best with a married mother and father  here are some stats I found from reputed, scholarly studies:

The American Psychological Association, representing more than 155,000 psychologists, states that children of gay and lesbian parents are at no disadvantage psychologically or socially compared to children of heterosexual parents.

Evidence shows that children’s optimal development is influenced more by the nature of the relationships and interactions within the family unit than by its particular structural form (Perrin, 2002)

No studies have found risks to or disadvantages for children growing up in families with one or more gay parents, compared to children growing up with heterosexual parents (Perrin, 2002).

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) affirms that lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well suited to raise children as their heterosexual counterparts.

(I include the following statistic only because a significant number of people I have come into contact with tend to assume that children raised by gay or lesbian parents are more likely to be gay)

Sexual Orientation. A number of investigators have also studied a third component of sexual identity, sexual orientation (Bailey, Bobrow, Wolfe, & Mickach, 1995; Bozett, 1980, 1987, 1989; Gottman, 1990; Golombok & Tasker, 1996; Green, 1978; Huggins, 1989; Miller, 1979; Paul, 1986; Rees, 1979; Tasker & Golombok, 1997). In all studies, the great majority of offspring of both lesbian mothers and gay fathers described themselves as heterosexual. Taken together, the data do not suggest elevated rates of homosexuality among the offspring of lesbian or gay parents. For instance, Huggins (1989) interviewed 36 adolescents, half of whom had lesbian mothers and half of whom had heterosexual mothers. No children of lesbian mothers identified themselves as lesbian or gay, but one child of a heterosexual mother did; this difference was not statistically significant. In another study, Bailey and his colleagues (1995) studied adult sons of gay fathers and found more than 90% of the sons to be heterosexual.

That’s that one, now on to number two…

Civil partnerships already provide all the legal benefits of marriage so there’s no need to redefine marriage. It’s not discriminatory to support traditional marriage. Same-sex couples may choose to have a civil partnership but noone has the right to redefine marriage for the rest of us.

Oh, what a zinger of an argument! This argument basically says: ‘Please don’t take our word away!’, the only thing this opposes is a legal definition of terms and the defintion of ‘marriage’ in the dictionary. Christians do not have a monopoly on either monogamy or semantics, so on this point I care even less and think it is finding issues where there really are none. Why can’t gay people say, ‘we’re married!’ when it is only a semantic issue? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll readdress this point.

If marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined. People’s careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded, and schools would inevitably have to teach the new definition to children. If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?

No, those who believe in ‘traditional marriage’ will not be sidelined, you will be perfectly entitled to your views. Remember friends, this ‘destruction of your human rights’  will not mean your church leaders are forced to marry gay couples but simply that they have the legal right to the same marital status as heterosexual couples. You can still refuse to marry gay and lesbian couples if your conscience so dictates.
I ask, how would careers be harmed and how on EARTH are straight couples looking to adopt or foster going to be excluded? This seems to be the most absurd argument to me; from what I know, adoption agencies don’t look for the gayest couple but they look for suitable family homes for children. Your argument makes no sense. I would support schools teaching the new definition, it will only reduce the bullying, teasing and bigotry that will hurt and damage children growing up who identify themselves as LGBT (my support reaches out to education surrounding the whole LGBT issue, I don’t even think there should be an issue, especially where bullying and bigotry is concerned).
Your final point is mute as the discussion around polygamy would have to consider the same issues from a different perspective. It is not the same and the redefinition in this case does not logically lead to another redefinition including polygamy.

People should not feel pressurised to go along with same-sex marriage just because of political correctness. They should be free to express their views. The Government will be launching a public consultation on proposals to redefine marriage. This will provide an opportunity for members of the public to make their views known.

No, people should not feel pressured. However it has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with equality for monogamous couples willing to commit to each other. Oppose it if you like, noone is denying you that right. If you believe something, you are willing to reap the consequences so don’t get frustrated and defensive when people who disagree with you speak up about it.

 

My final point is this: Christians have been very good, especially in the Western tradition, at oppressing people and removing civil liberties because they weren’t living according to Christian morals. Since the fall of Christendom and the rise of ‘secularism’ the balance has shifted, but not against Christians. What has happened is that the civil injustices are being addressed and fixed but not according to what some Christians consider to be Biblical morality. Why are Christians so happy to remove the rights of others, specifically in this case gay and lesbian couples, in order to secure their own yet when their rights are not even threatened (remember that church leaders will still be able to legitimately refuse to marry gay and lesbian couples) they are up in arms crying ‘Persecution! Persecution!’?

In conclusion, why do you care?

Yours in Christ,

Glen Leach
@Confess_Life (follow me on Twitter!)

 

Please feel free to comment and discuss in the comment section below, while I am all for free speech and all views will be permitted I will not allow for bullying and name calling.

Welcome!

Before I lay out the guidelines and intention of this blog I would like to bid you a warm welcome, whoever is reading this I greatly appreciate your time and I hope you can find what I write interesting, challenging and perhaps even supportive.

I have been considering starting this blog for almost two years and it has been quite a mental, spiritual and emotional battle to get to this point. I first thought about making it my personal site but decided against it; it seems sad but I didn’t want to be identified. As with many pseudonymous writers I feared for how people would consider my integrity and my faith if I posted some of the reflections I have wanted to, so I have no identifying features on this site in order that anonimity can be maintained. Some will call me fearful, others sensible, I don’t mind either way.

Sometimes the questions and issues that arise at an evangelical Bible College are important, sometimes I feel the need to offload about perceptions surrounding an issue or I feel there are people like me who need support in how they feel; this is the purpose of my blog. I promote anonimity but do not require it, what I do ask is that this blog remains a supportive yet challenging environment. It is not my desire to gain internet fame, I would just like to help people who have gone through similar issues to me in my time at Bible College.

The first major post will be coming shortly, I should also point out I am not doing any publicity for this other than through word of mouth as my pseudonym so please, if you feel that you want to share what I write for any reason I would encourage you to share it through social media. I will shortly be setting up a Twitter account and possibly, if it gets that far, a Facebook page.

Thankyou, and God bless.

Glen