The Last Word

The last time I read a book that had the words ‘The Last Word’ in it, I was left with my beliefs shaken as my mind filled to the brim with questions and more questions (Yes, it was Brian McLaren’s ‘The Last Word and the Word After That’!). It was, together with its 2 prequels, the beginning of my journey to a new understanding of Christianity. Not long after (and a few more books later), my long-held understanding of Sola Scriptura and the inerrancy/infallibility of the Bible went out the window as well, leaving me in a state of uncertainty. Would I end up becoming what many would call a ‘liberal’ Christian who keeps certain passages of the Bible that appeal to me while throwing out those that don’t? What kind of authority would the Bible have on me from then on? Even at that stage, I still very much enjoyed studying the Bible with my friends, as well as on my own. But the question remained. What authority does the Bible have and what role does it play in the Church?

It is kind of odd, that a book with a similar phrase on its cover would provide me with very convincing answers, and provide a kind of closure (whether it is temporary or permanent remains to be seen) to it all (and of course, the journey is still ongoing!). The works of N. T. Wright, currently my favorite author, have been very inspiring. In those areas that Brain McLaren left me questioning my previous beliefs, Wright has provided me with scholarly views and biblical studies with a totally fresh perspective to answer those questions. That’s why I’m sort of on a personal crusade to read everything that he has ever written, including his ‘For Everyone’ commentaries of the entire New Testament! So I was not surprised that after reading ‘The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture’, I feel a sort of closure in my struggles with Sola Scriptura and the authority of the Bible. I’ll be summarizing some of Wright’s points in the near future as I indulge myself in my second reading of this short but very profound book.

I Think I've Found My Hero!

A lecturer from UM (I do not want to disclose his name here, but he does have an interesting name!) came to speak in CF on Tuesday. As I talked to him after CF, I found out, to my utter amazement and delight, that he is a paleontologist! And there I was, this dinosaur loving grown-up kid who always wanted to be a paleontologist (but ended up being a reluctant engineer instead), drooling all over this real-life scientist who studies real-life fossils. It was pure admiration for the man that I wanted to be, and pure jealousy for not being able to be that man. I never knew there were paleontologists in Malaysia! “You mean you can find fossils of prehistoric creatures in Malaysia? Which age?” I asked him in starry eyed wonder. “Precambrian, Cambrian…” he answered like any knowledgeable scientist (and any kid like me who grew up reading books that had all those words in it) would. “In fact, if you go to this place just outside Kangar, you can actually find Trilobite fossils over there. It’s just that we haven’t found any dinosaurs yet.” Wow…

When I found out that he offered to speak on topics such as Creation and Evolutionary theories for any upcoming Inter-faith talks, I realized that I just had to ask him this question: What is your position on Creation and Evolution? When we were coming out of the elevator to walk to the parking lot, I popped the question. His answer? “Of course, it’s Creation. It is a miracle, whether it took 6 days or 6 billion years. But if you study within the confines of the Universe, you will find that it is evolutionary.” Ah… I was happy with that answer. At last, I’ve found another person in Malaysia who has a similar view to that of my own – that of Theistic Evolution. I often cringe when Christians who know nothing about it make fun of it and write it off as if every evolutionist is a silly God-rejector (because the Bible says God made the world in six 24-hour days). No doubt it still remains a theory. No doubt it still has its problems. No doubt it cannot be proven empirically. But there is growing evidence for it. And of course, it doesn’t matter if God created the world in 6 days or 6 billion years anyway… not for many people. But for those who desire to know the mind of God through His handiworks, it is a joy to find out more about these things.

I wonder if I’ll have another opportunity to have a chat with him. My hero?! Maybe I can find a little time to spare for a trip to Kangar… fossil hunting anyone?

Word Cloud

I tried the Word Cloud design by Snapshirts and I got this. The program looks through your website to pick out repeated words, so you get a feel of what you normally write about. So maybe these words form the theme of my blog...

thanks to sivinkit for this cool website!

Pondering...

I’ve been thinking about life and death a lot recently. Those morbid thoughts have led me in and out of depression in the last few months. That aside, I have been thinking a lot about my own life in all its fragility, messiness and beauty. Life is fragile. I’ve said it many times before. If it ends tonight, will I be satisfied with the way that I’ve lived? Am I living life to the fullest? Have I been a good steward of this gift that has been bestowed upon me each day when thousands of others do not wake up to see the sun rising the next day?

Such ruminations, while thinking about what I’ve just read about being a Christian in Malaysia and some recent posts by a friend on her blog, cause me to ponder about my own future, however short it may or may not be. There’s been a faint whisper tugging at my heart, calling me home to Penang to be with my family and the people that I’ve known during my growing up years. More and more, I’m beginning to feel a deep sense of wanting to spend more time with my parents, not least because of my recent illness and the thought that we may not have much time left together on this earth and in this age. Nevertheless, it still remains a faint whisper… Deep down, I also wonder if I should be doing something else. Where do I go from here? There are decisions to be made, and a brittle but exciting life to be lived.

In terms of ministry, two in particular have been my joy and constant source of refreshing. They are the two Bible studies that I am involved in – one in SK, and the other in campus. I thank God each time I think about the fruits that have been borne through those studies. I look forward to these sessions every week, and leave them feeling blessed. I thank all these friends of mine who make the study so much more fun, insightful and rewarding. I realize now… that this is something that I love doing so very much… these are little things… which now remind me again of God’s message to me just a little more than a year ago; about the little things that He wants me to do; that my call to ministry will be a ministry of little things… I remember now… just like before, just like my Grandma… just like yeast working invisibly through the whole dough… Learning to let go of certain things while fighting the need to feel important will not be easy.

Into Perspective

My dear friend Su Chen posted a note of encouragement to me... :) (Thanks!!) In it, she quotes the lyrics of a song - "God of wonders, beyond our galaxy"...

In yesterday's news, NASA reported that the Hubble Space Telescope has captured the most detailed image of a spiral galaxy. Similar to our own Milky Way galaxy, the Pinwheel galaxy (or Messier 101) is estimated to contain about 1 trillion stars... that's about 1,000,000,000,000 stars. Of course, I do not want to take the beauty out of it all with too much technical detail. Let's just savour its beauty and confounding extravagance...

... and it does put our lives (including all our problems and anxieties) into perspective...

On Christian Leadership

Reading Henri Nouwen has always been very insightful for me. Many of his books are short, but the wisdom that the books contain is usually profound. Every time I pick up ‘The Wounded Healer’ to read a paragraph or a subchapter, I have to stop myself from reading further so that I can properly digest all that he has to say. I’ve picked out a few paragraphs to think about for the coming days and to see what they mean for the ministries that I am involved in.

It seems necessary to re-establish the basic principle that no one can help anyone without becoming involved, without entering with his whole person into the painful situation, without taking the risk of becoming hurt, wounded or even destroyed in the process. The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others. Thinking about martyrdom can be an escape unless we realize that real martyrdom means a witness that starts with the willingness to cry with those who cry, laugh with those who laugh, and to make one’s own painful and joyful experiences available as sources of clarification and understanding. Who can save a child from a burning house without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames? Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: “Who can take away suffering without entering it?”

When one has the courage to enter where life is experienced as most unique and most private, one touches the soul of the community. What is most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others.

Christian leadership is a dead-end street when nothing new is expected, when everything sounds familiar and when ministry has regressed to the level of routine. Many have walked into that dead-end street and found themselves imprisoned in a life where all the words were already spoken, all events had already taken place, and all the people had already been met. But for a man with a deep-rooted faith in the value and meaning of life, every experience holds a new promise, every encounter carries a new insight, and every event brings a new message.

A Christian leader is a man of hope whose strength in the final analysis is based neither on self-confidence derived from his personality, nor on specific expectations for the future, but on a promise given to him. This promise not only made Abraham travel to unknown territory; it not only inspired Moses to lead his people out of slavery; it is also the guiding motive for any Christian who keeps pointing to new life even in the face of corruption and death. Leadership therefore is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it is grounded in the historic Christ-event which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness. Every attempt to attach this hope to visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents us from the realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership. Many ministers, priests and Christian laymen have become disillusioned, bitter and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit, when little change is accomplished. Building a vocation on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free gifts.