You’re a Fundamentalist, Aren’t You?

I did not want to answer this question. No good would come of it anyway. The question, an accusation really, had been slung at me like a stone intended to wound, and it came from a person who would not likely hurl a racial or ethnic epithet at anyone.

People have accused me of being a fundamentalist. I use the word accuse, which may not be a completely accurate description of the motive of every speaker, but some words sound like a negative insult in certain contexts, whether the speaker intends it as such or not. When used as a label or stereotype, it may reveal a deep-seated prejudice, even anger. 

Few today know what the word means, and most do not know the history of fundamentalism; it is therefore a word used in ignorance to diminish, demean, and defame any Christian who takes a stand for the Bible and Christ, regardless of whether he or she is a true fundamentalist. Many Christians today would not appreciate the fundamentalist label being applied to them. The truth is, I do not like it myself. However, if I look at how the original definition of fundamentalism should be understood, then I have to admit that, indeed I am one.  

The Original Definition and History 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, when anti-Christian liberalism was on the rise, especially in the universities, some American conservative Christians formulated the fundamentals of the faith in an attempt to counter the growing liberalism in the seminaries, denominational headquarters, and churches. They declared a faith in the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, and affirmed the deity, blood atonement, bodily resurrection, and return of Jesus. Except that evangelicalism was grouped together with fundamentalism in the view of academics, there is nothing too controversial here. The points stated above are actually normal biblical views; that is, if one takes the Bible seriously at all. So why the fuss about being a fundamentalist? 

One problem was that the early fundamentalists began fighting among themselves as to who was the purest in doctrine and practice. It became quite vicious, and the squabbles spilled over into the media. Then, one group separated from another, followed by more splits, and the fabric of denominationalism was literally coming apart at the seams. 

Strong Accusations 

The liberal contingent of American Christianity even accused the fundamentalists of aiding and abetting the Axis powers during World War I because of premillennial, dispensational end-times views. These views predicted a world getting worse and worse, and when this appeared to be happening, the fundamentalist scolded, “See, I told you so.” It was certainly untrue that the fundamentalists supported America’s enemies, but bad publicity has an impact regardless.

The famous 1925 Scopes Trial, otherwise known as the “Monkey” trial, that pitted William Jennings Bryan, a Christian, against the renowned criminal lawyer, Clarence Darrow, was widely reported in the American press. The issue was whether evolution should be taught in the public schools. Bryan, an educated and gentlemanly defender of the Christian faith, and constantly defined as a fundamentalist, came off less than second best to Darrow, with the result that fundamentalism, along with all of Bible-believing Christianity, was made a laughing stock around the world. In fact, fundamentalists were often called Bryanites. Many Christians, I suspect, were scandalized by it all, and many more turned away from Christianity altogether. This legacy continues into the modern age. 

False Predictions 

But there is still more. Some fundamentalist preachers, convinced they had the correct understanding of end-time prophecies, were sure that Mussolini (then later, Hitler, and still later, Stalin) was either the beast or the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation. After the process of history demonstrated the fallacy of such predictions, the fundamentalists lost a lot of credibility. Predictions are still being made that eventually fail and thus continue to cause difficulties. 

Politics! 

The fundamentalists developed social and political agendas as well. Soon, becoming a Christian also meant adopting a particular political affiliation or outlook – almost always of a conservative persuasion. Bible-believing Christians, it was thought, voted in a particular way. Fundamentalism took on science, too, hoping to counter the growing influence of evolution. This sometimes resulted in a pseudo-science, which was often laughable. According to hard-core fundamentalists, true Christians had to consider science as an enemy of the faith. 

Some fundamentalists thundered against things like hair and clothing styles and various forms of popular entertainment, with dancing often singled out as being particularly evil. They sharply rejected the use of alcohol and tobacco, and some historians blamed them for the American Prohibition. The list goes on. 

The fundamentalists were portrayed as meddling with people’s private lives, and it did not go down well in either the media or over the back fence. Fundamentalist came to be a word applied to people who were considered narrow, bigoted, backward, uneducated, and boring. 

Accusation by Analogy 

Even in today’s parlance, religious terrorists of any stripe, color, or creed are called fundamentalists: Hindus, Muslims, even Buddhists who attack and kill other people for any reason are labeled extremists or fundamentalists. Every crazy cult that makes the news can receive the fundamentalist tag. 

Does anyone want to be called a fundamentalist? Most would say, “No!” And even the threat of being called one is enough to scare people away from churches, a desire to read the Bible or entertain a spiritual thought that might be vaguely Christian in character. People will even be embarrassed to say anything that might vaguely connect them with things Christian and biblical, while at the same time, the same stigma is not attached to Eastern, alternative, and pagan religious practices and ideas. This is an unhappy and unnecessary state of affairs. 

Survival of the Accused 

Since I am often asked if I am a fundamentalist, and since I have to deal so often with the emotional stress of facing the fundamentalist branding in face-to-face confrontations, perhaps I could pass on some of my survival techniques. 

The bottom line is: I don’t much care what I am called personally. I would like to think my inner strength is developed well enough to take the name-calling. Jesus’ strength is sufficient for me. He was accused of all sorts of things, so why should I think I would escape unthinking, unkind, even cruel accusations? People will call me strange things and think of me in ways that do not reflect who I really am – this goes with the territory on which I stand. 

I stand for the fundamentals of the faith. However, I am not necessarily going to stand behind all that has been identified as fundamentalism. For instance, I do not expect, much less demand, that society as a whole adopt social and political agendas that I embrace. I have accepted that I live in a pluralistic society, which is essentially post-Christian. By this, I mean that Christianity is rapidly becoming a minority faith, and our society is not governed by a biblical ethic. I must recognize this or I will be forever disappointed, discouraged, and angry. In addition, I am satisfied with people forming their own conclusions about how they will live their lives. Even when I see actions that I think are less than biblical, I will not react with judgment against people who are not interested in adhering to the biblical standard. But I hope, and know to some degree, that believers will grow up to the fullness of Jesus as God works his will and ways into their lives. Living in the midst of this fallen world, I know I am in it but not of it. I am careful to keep my “light” out in the open and burning as brightly as possible, so I am not going to slink away with my tail between my legs. 

Furthermore, I am careful to fight the right battles. I will even let go of some so-called important issues, because they are not central to the core gospel of Christ. 

In the right circumstances I present a history of fundamentalism to people of good will who have a genuine interest in the subject. I do not “cast pearls before swine,” yet I have found many people appreciate a new understanding of the history of fundamentalism as well as evangelical and reformed Christianity. Mainly, I am concerned that people do not close themselves off from Jesus for fear of being branded a fundamentalist. How sad that an unfounded fear, augmented with historical ignorance, should result in a person being cut off from God’s love and salvation. 

The Better Label 

What labels do fit me? I prefer simply “Christian.” But I will accept evangelical, Protestant in the Reformed tradition, conservative, and even fundamentalist if I can set the historical context. I am a Christian, because God the Father opened my eyes, my ears, and my heart to hear Jesus’ voice calling out to me. He saved me. He washed all my sin away. He gave me the gift of eternal life. His Spirit indwells me. I belong to him. He made me a part of his family, the Church, both in heaven and on earth. This is who I am. Hang whatever other label you want to on me. I know who I am.

One

Early troubles

A memo announcing Tryouts for the baseball teams was posted well in advance of Saturday February 26. Fifty plus convicts came to tryout and the coaches were all present armed with clip boards and pens. After warm-ups, throwing, some running, we started the basic rotation drill to watch the guys field grounders, throw, and catch. Then we gathered names for those who wanted to tryout, noting their housing, release date, and desired position.

Right away it became clear we had a problem: a little more than half of the guys who were trying out said they would be playing for the A’s. That meant they were not intending to play for the Giants, the team of which I was head coach.

The idea for a second team, the B team, the A’s, emerged late last season. Originally there was supposed to be an intramural prison league developed, but it morphed, due to my weakness and desire to please, into something more. Basically the intramural team started bragging they were better than the Giants. For some reason I allowed the two teams to play each other and even brought in two outside teams for the second team to play. Now I am paying for it.

After a series of meetings with convicts and prison staff, I agreed to run two teams for 2011. There was not enough of the old Pirates uniforms to make it work, so I wrote a letter to the major league Oakland A’s and they were gracious enough to provide a full set of really nice uniforms. This is how the second team became the A’s.

The volunteer “beige”[1] card holder who was to oversee the second group allowed the inmates to run the entirety of the operation. He did that well enough, but he had no real say in the process, including making out the lineup and other duties always assumed by the team manager.

In time I woke up to the problem and as a result brought in two old friends, Ed and Ollie, to manage the A’s team with the other coach yet working with the players. It seemed like a solution.

The first day of tryouts then my solution fizzled. The inmates were in charge.[2] Even Steve, Ed, and Ollie, the guys who were to run the B team, were left out though I tried to intervene. One particular inmate, a youngish white guy named Bobby, a good ball player, had taken control of the team. I mean solid control. He had it all mapped out, planned out, and that would be it. He had already determined who would be playing for the A’s, so the tryouts were a farce.

One of my concerns was that the team is mostly white, one black but a necessity since he is the only actual starting pitcher. Looks a little like the Aryan Brotherhood with a token black thrown in for appearances sake. That may not be entirely accurate, but the thought went through my mind.

The de-facto manager, Bobby, also had plans to start an intramural league on top of it all, which he announced to me though he knew I am supposed to be in charge of the baseball program. Actually this man is now in charge of the second team and I will have to do something to alter what he already has in place. The B team coaches, and due to no fault of their own, will either not survive the situation, but more likely, will refuse to be a part of it. These men are real baseball guys who have years of experience running baseball clubs.

With Ed and Ollie out, or marginalized at best, Steve will merely watch the proceedings and allow the inmates to run the A’s. Already there is pressure on me to allow them to have the same status as the Giants in terms of practice time and schedule. I have a decision to make. My gut tells me to withdraw now. It is nothing but a collision about to happen. If I give in, the program could easily end. The A’s, lacking strong leadership, will deteriorate into an arguing bunch of cons.

Sure someone else could run the program and I would hate to give it up much less have it taken from me. I enjoy the whole thing; it is real baseball and like others, I am fascinated with developing the system. But I resent being pushed around, maybe out, by the convicts.

Bobby, the de facto manager of the A’s informed me that those state employees in charge of education/recreation are behind him. Indeed, I found that the usual convict manipulation had been under way. This sort of thing is a constant in prison. It is often called making a “duck” out of someone. It usually begins with flattery, working hard to help a staffer, favorably comparing the person with others, then slowly, and ever so carefully asking for a favor. Granting the favor is going to be a violation of the state’s operating manual, and could also be a crime, and once committed, things are headed down a very slippery and dangerous slope. It is easy to adopt the inmate’s world view and begin to both sympathize and empathize with them. Once that is done, the inmates have a duck.

 Every year it is strife and anxiety for me. Why do I subject myself to it? Is it the adrenaline rush I get from being at the prison–which I do think I experience. Maybe it is the little bit of media attention that comes my way? Do I pride myself on my longevity as baseball coach at San Quentin? Maybe I just like being called “coach,” which is what one player told me was why I came in year after year. Could be some of all of these. Who cares, I do it and that is about it. So another year looms full of the usual potential for constant conflict and unnecessary stress–which go together to produce an unsafe environment for me physically and emotionally.


[1] Prior to 2011 the ID card for volunteers who had earned the right to enter and move about the prison without an escort to conduct whatever it was they were doing was called a “brown card.” That was due to the card’s brown border. For some reason brown went to beige so we are stuck with beige card.

[2] Volunteers have only so much authority and we depend on the cooperation of the inmates. Without that, nothing much happens.

Soul Confusion

The March 16, 1999 television chat show, Larry King Live, featured five panelists: Robert Thurman, professor of Buddhism studies at Columbia University; Marianne Williamson, New Age author and spokesperson for the spiritist-channeled Course in Miracles; Rabbi David Aaron, expert on and proponent of Kabbalah, an occult/mystical/gnostic interpretation of Judaism; Deepak Chopra, charismatic spokesperson for a popular version of Hindu monistic thought; and Franklin Graham, head of Samaritans Purse, a Christian humanitarian organization, and son of Billy Graham, the renowned American evangelist.

What is the soul?

Though these five differed on many points, they seemed to reach a consensus in understanding “soul.” In fact, Deepak Chopra voiced agreement with Graham’s understanding of the soul. We have long heard Billy Graham say words like: “You have a soul and it will go to heaven or hell when you die.”

According to this idea, the soul is a mysterious, spiritual and immortal part of the human being that leaves the cold, dead body at death. Those on Larry King’s program who believed in some form of reincarnation were able to agree together about the soul though, from their own traditions, they might have used other symbols to express the same thing. 

Due to a revival of Geek philosophy in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., Greek dualism infiltrated the Christian Church mainly through the work of Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica, which became the fountainhead of Catholic theology throughout the Dark Ages. Greek dualistic thought posits the theory that the mind, spirit and soul are good, even divine, while on the other hand, the body, flesh and matter are bad, the repository of evil. So it was the soul that mattered, the soul that needed saving; the body was simply a temporary prison for the soul. 

Soul and Self 

Confusion concerning the nature of the soul has a powerful influence among the people of Mill Valley where I minister. Though the doctrine is not biblical, and is absent from the teaching of the early church, the idea that the soul is the focus of evangelistic efforts persists in many Christian traditions. Franklin Graham was concerned about the soul. He should have been concerned about the whole person; body, mind, soul, and spirit. 

So many in my community believe in reincarnation that Graham’s doctrine on the soul would not be troublesome for them. The soul? Well, they say, it needs purifying and experiences endless lifetimes anyway. These people do not like to think that they will be resurrected to stand before the judgment of God. “My soul” is one thing; “myself” is another. 

Total Resurrection 

The biblical doctrine is one of bodily resurrection, not the floating away of an immortal soul. We are whole, integrated beings, though the Bible writers spoke variously of mind, heart, body, flesh, spirit and soul for the sake of emphasis. A person is all of these and more, a whole being responsible to God in the totality and indivisibility of his nature. What we are in total will be raised from the dead, either to eternal life or eternal death. We do not have immortality in and of ourselves. This truth is found in 1 Corinthians 15:53: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (NKJV). 

Soul confusion must be countered by the truth of the resurrection, even if it means parting from long-established ways of thinking and preaching. Let us not give the unconverted comfort by implying that they have only some ethereal soul to be concerned about. 

Additional Commentary 

Probably more Christians than not hold to the idea of a soul that is somehow inside the body and survives biological death. This is understandable, because the Church in the fourth century incorporated the idea into its theology, and it has remained ever since. 

Flourishing in the fourth century was a revival of Greek philosophy, mainly dualism of the Neo-Platonic or Neo-Aristotelian varieties.1 

1 Dualism, among other things, viewed the body as bad, even evil, while the mind, spirit, soul, were good and connected to the divine. The body then became the prison house of the soul, which supposedly pre-existed and entered human bodies, transmigrated or left them upon death. The Eastern concepts of karma and reincarnation are dependent upon this understanding of soul.Over a millennium later the reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, both ministers (priests) in the Roman Catholic Church, retained their Church’s doctrine of the soul, despite expounding salvation by grace through faith alone. Only the more radical reformers, the Anabaptists, looked for their theological foundations further back in history before Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430), the great Pauline theologian, who incorporated the construct of the separate existence of the soul in the human being. The famous Augustine, one of my heroes of the Church, nevertheless was steeped in Greek philosophy and blended the dualistic concept of the soul into his Christian views. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274), another great theologian, then included the Greek influenced doctrine of the soul in his Summa Theologica, minus the portion about the transmigration and pre-existence of the soul that was common to Greek philosophy. 

The Christian Protestant denominations originating out of the Reformation inherited the concept of the soul. From Luther comes the Lutheran denominations; from John Calvin and John Knox come the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, followed by the Congregational churches, the Anglican Church, and by extension both American Episcopal and Methodist churches, plus all the offshoots from these denominations. Not all the Baptists, who followed the Anabaptists, rejected the Greek influenced soul view, but many did. Pentecostals and charismatics hold a variety of concepts about the soul. 

Biblical passages having to do with the soul 

We first encounter the word “soul” in Genesis 2:7: “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” And the reader would be correct in protesting, where is the word “soul?” The version quoted is the English Standard Version (hereafter ESV) and has replaced “soul” with “creature.” And why? Because “creature” is a better rendering of the Hebrew nephesh than soul. The point is that God created a human being. 

The King James Version (hereafter KJV) and older English versions of the Bible translate nephesh as “soul,” and so the term has stuck. Furthermore, soul has come to acquire something close to the idea of “ghost,” and not because of anything biblical. And in fact, in Job 11:20 and Jeremiah 15:9, the KJV translates the Hebrew nephesh with ghost. 

In Deuteronomy 6:5 we find the greatest of the commandments: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” The Hebrew word for soul here is from nephesh. The point of the commandment, however, means that we are to love God with all of us, and thus the bringing together of three words that were commonly used to describe different aspects or characteristics of all that is human – heart, soul, might.2 

2 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 and inserts the word “mind” along with heart, soul, and strength. See Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27. Thus Jesus interprets the fulfilling of the greatest commandment to include the mind; thus love of God is conscious and thoughtful.

Many Christians, including editors of biblical texts, unreasonably retain how the KJV translated many words, due to the extreme, yet appropriate popularity of that version of the Bible; therefore, the word “soul” pops up frequently in the Old Testament. But it means creature, person, or living being, and it does not refer to something ethereal and separate from a body. It is better said that a human being is a soul. To say a human being has a soul is not a biblical construct. And those who disagree I advise to investigate the issue and not to simply rely on tradition. 

There are literally dozens of passages in the Old Testament where it is clear that the English word soul really means person. For the purposes of this book, two examples will be given that are characteristic of the lot. The first is from Exodus 1:5, and the KJV is, “And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.” Two times the word “souls” appears, and in both cases the Hebrew word is nephesh. Now the same verse in the ESV: “All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt” (Exodus 1:5). In one instance, nephesh is translated “descendants” and in the second “persons.” The ESV gives the most natural of the translations and is more accurately reflective of the Hebrew writer’s mindset. 

The second example is from Psalm 6:3-4, and the KJV is, “My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long? Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies’ sake.” In both cases soul is nephesh. The same verse in the ESV reads, “My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD–how long? Turn, O LORD, deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.” Nephesh is the Hebrew word translated “soul” in “my soul” and “me” in “deliver me.” In the first instance the ESV translators have the emotional experience of the writer in mind – King David’s emotional state of mind to be exact – and so the term “soul” meets the literary requirement to better convey emotion. In the second instance “me” is more appropriate, as David is directly referring to his person. This second instance from the Psalms illustrates a wide range of translation possibilities, but “soul” speaks to us in a poetic manner. 

The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scripture known as the Septuagint or LXX is a translation made by Jewish scholars in Alexandria Egypt in the early part of the second century before Christ. In it, psyche is used in place of nephesh in both passages, Exodus 1:5 and Psalm 6:3-4, and is consistently the case throughout the translation. 

Turning our attention now to the English versions of the New Testament, we see that psyche is sometimes translated “soul.” With the exception of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, the New Testament was written by Jews who inherited the Jewish understanding of the soul. Jews did not believe, in complete distinction from the Greeks, that the soul was anything other than the whole person. Old and even new translations of the New Testament tend to pull toward the KJV and translate psyche as soul. Again, we are looking at tradition. 

Let us consider a couple of examples. One is Matthew 2:20: “Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life” (KJV). “Life” is psyche, so the KJV used the proper word, thus revealing that the KJV translators knew the correct translation. The ESV also has “life” here. We will remember that psyche is the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew nephesh. 

A second example is Matthew 10:39: “He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (KJV). “Life” in both places is psyche. 

Mark 3:4 is helpful: “And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” Here “save life” uses psyche for life and is the antonym for “kill.” Obviously, Jesus has in mind a person and not a ghost, soul, or something else of an ethereal nature, which, according to some, could not be killed anyway. 

And this is the problem with importing into the Judaeo/ Christian Scripture the concept of a soul that does not die or cannot be extinguished. The biblical worldview is resurrection. Jesus was resurrected; even He had no soul that survived the crucifixion. Furthermore, when Jesus cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46), “spirit” in the sentence is from the Greek pneuma and can be translated spirit, breath, or wind. It was essentially an idiom, a statement that would have been well understood by those who heard Him and that meant simply, “Father, as I am now dying I trust in You” – a final confession of faith. 

Let us close with 1 Corinthians 15:45. First the KJV: “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” Soul is psyche and spirit pneuma. The ESV translates it, “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Adam was a person, not something without a body. Jesus is the last Adam, the one who brought life and not death.

2011 Baseball Season at San Quentin Prison

Ball Four, Take Your Base!

The 2011 Baseball Season at San Quentin Prison

By Kent Philpott

Introduction

Baseball at the prison began under Chaplain Earl Smith in 1995. At that point I was doing cell-to-cell ministry out of the Protestant Chapel, and this for 13.5 years. Our chaplain was Earl Smith. He knew that I was a baseball guy, and he asked me to help with the team, the Pirates then, as he had to undergo medical treatment.

It did not take me long to agree and I reached out to Dan Jones, a long time baseball guy, part of our Miller Avenue Baptist Church in Mill Vally, CA., to join with me.

The 1997 season went well, and Dan and I looked forward to a second year as Chaplain Smith was not ready to return. Dan and I did this for four years, but Dan came down with an illness that prevented him from continuing into year five.

It was my job to contact outside teams and invite them to come in for games, these on Saturdays, and soon to expand to a second weekly game, on Thursdays. Chaplain Smith had already set things up to bring in outside teams, so it was fairly easy for me to follow along.

By 1998 there were teams contacting us, sometimes from out of state, wanting to come in. I had to have the name of the player, his birthday, social security #, and driver’s license #. Fairly easy then; things got complicated later on.

I have photos, as those of you who read the story of the 2010 season know, and here, I have forgone the photos due to necessity. There will follow, at some unknown point, the story of the 2012 season, which was truncated due to some prison chaos, but it will be presented sometime down the line.

Some years went by before I began to return to the prison. Altogether, I was engaged with the prison for 30 plus years. My life got busier and though I wanted to, my San Quentin years were behind me, mostly because in 2004 I began to coach baseball at high schools in Marin County. Strange, but I am coaching football, now at Terra Linda High, about to go into my fourth year. Maybe some more, too. We will see.

Why Non-Christians ofen do not like Christians

 Why non-Christians often do not like Christians 

This was certainly the case with me. When I was 15 years old my dad became a Christian, at a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles. And it was then that I hung out with Marica, Dale, and Jim, who all went to a church in La Crescenta. They tried to get me to come to church with them, but I would not and after some time I stopped being friends with them. 

It was just that I did not feel comfortable with these folk, who later on, following my conversion, I took up with again. But back then, I felt I did not fit in nor did I want to. 

Over the decades now I have experienced what I felt like being around Marcia, Dale, and Jim, which I am going to try to express here in this brief essay. 

Guilt comes to mind first. When I was a mid-teen, I did some really dumb stuff, smoking, looking at porn, trying hard to have sex with a girl or two, and stealing. Yes, during that year fifteen I racked up two felony arrests. When I started the process of joining the Air Force, my recruiter called me and reminded me of the arrests. I told him I had forgotten about that, which was true, and fortunately he had my criminal record expunged. 

Guilt can rob a person of so much, and this I learned over five decades of pastoral ministry and spending 34 years of this as a volunteer at San Quentin State Prison, 13 of these years doing cell to cell ministry and the rest as the baseball coach. (You can go to Amazon.com and see my book on the 2010 season at the prison.) 

If I had not known that all my sin, ugly stuff, is washed away, and forever, by the shedding of Jesus’ blood on the cross, a strange kind of darkness would remain with me and no attempt on my part to move away from it would do the trick. Oh, I remember my sin, but knowing that I am completely safe in Christ, makes life far more pleasant. 

Fear, this emotion may lay silently in the back of our minds, a sense that we have taken the wrong turn in life, that something, somehow, somewhere, is out whack. 

Embracing the idea of reincarnation helps some people, the idea that the only thing bad doings will bring about is some unpleasant reincarnations, perhaps as a slug, a mosquito, a snake, or even as a drop of rain, according to a song done by the Highwayman, and so on, but these would be passing and eventually, well wow, earn getting reincarnated into a person again, or maybe into something better. 

Is it so that somewhere I heard that the upward way would take 30,000 reincarnations? 

Being judged comes to mind now. I have experienced this often as something vague and being unable to express it to myself or others. But it rolls around though in the back of our brains. 

I did have a sense of it prior to my coming to faith in Jesus. To make matters worse, I had heard Christians talking about a final judgement and it made me angry. It hit me hard a couple of times and made me afraid of a God I was unsure that even existed. 

I tried for a while to be an atheist, I would not settle for agnostic, and this while attending the University of California at Davis, while I was stationed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA. I was a medic with 2nd Casualty Staging Flight, and my shift was from 5pm to 8am, so I was free during the day. 

Dr. Child’s class was The Philosophy of Religion, and to pass the class we had to write a paper on a religion. For some reason I picked Christianity thinking, well, I know about that one. Well, I didn’t, and I had to fake the paper by copying stuff out of encyclopedias. (No internet then, that was 1963) 

The result was a sense of being judged, I mean I knew I had broken the rules and it all had to do with Christianity. As I look back on those days, I think this disobedience helped make me realize I was not a good person, that there was something about me that I did not like, but I blamed it on Christians. 

The guilt, the fear, and the judging feelings lead me to a life changing event. Let me summarize this here. 

My wife was a Christian, became one when she was fifteen. She wanted to attend a church, so we began to do so. We tried a couple, but neither of these suited her. Then she tried the First Baptist Church in Fairfield, and talked me into going with her. I was only able to attend every third Sunday. But Pastor Bob Lewis gave an invitation to accept Jesus at the conclusion of each service, and one day I walked up front, and an Air Force Staff Sargent Al Becker lead 3 

me in a prayer to accept Jesus. I actually did all of this to satisfy my wife. I did not become a Christian, in fact, the whole event drove me further away from Christianity. 

Of course, a Baptist church, and it was expected that I would be baptized. However, a new church building was planned, and baptisms were put off until the building was completed. 

The day came, some six months after my prayer with Al, and there I was knowing I was faking it all the way, and I just went along with it. Just minutes, waiting in line with about twenty other guys from Travis AFB, all of a sudden, bam, everything changed. I knew suddenly and concretely that I was born again right there and then. It was plain as day, and as I was laid backward into the water, I knew my life would never be the same again. 

In the months that followed I was on fire, wish I could have that fire again, but that was my new birth. I have never turned back, though I have gone through some bad times. 

The reason for this essay is that the fear, or disgust, or whatever it was, of Christians, suddenly disappeared. I now had bunches of brothers and sisters in Christ, and it continues to this day. 

The Real Reason

For nearly thirty years I assumed a person could decide

to become a Christian. However, it became clear that salva-

tion was on the basis of grace through faith – gifts of God.

This is evident from many passages of Scripture, such as

Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through

faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not

a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Faith and Grace

I knew grace was a gift of God, but I had assumed faith

rose out of the individual. I did not see that faith was a gift

as well. But grace comes through faith and both are gifts.

Faith cannot be a work, or grace could not be grace. But this

is more of a problem for many than I imagined! The biblical

understanding of grace is ignored or twisted, while at the

same time almost everyone knows the words to the great

hymn “Amazing Grace.”

The Real Reason

The real reason for this I am convinced has to do with

fear: fear that something so vital is beyond our control. Sal-

vation, forgiveness, and eternal life are all ultimate issues,

and all come through grace; they are given and cannot be

acquired or earned. So then, what if God does not give grace?

What if God chooses to predestine to hell rather than heaven?

It is a fearful prospect, or so it appears at first. But it is fear,

perhaps demonically inspired fear, that is behind the hostility

directed towards the good message of grace.

The Fear of God

Scriptural passages teach that the fear of God is the

beginning of wisdom. The kind of fear of God encouraged in

the Bible is a respect, honor, and reverence for the Almighty.

Fear of grace, though, is entirely different. This fear reasons,

“If I cannot choose God, and he does not choose me, I am

lost.” This is a great and terrible fear.

Good News!

It is good news that I cannot choose God. It is good news

that God chooses me. Why? It is simply because I cannot

believe; I have no capacity to do so. Not only am I dead in

my trespasses and sins, but the best I can do, as far as faith

is concerned, is to generate within myself some measure

of positive thinking. Though positive thinking is often presented

as the nature of faith, it is not at all. And most of us

are failures at being positive all the time, or even some of the

time. I may be able to be so for a while, but I soon give way to

doubt and pessimism. I cannot stay focused in my thinking.

So then, if my salvation depends upon my ability to be positive,

I am doomed and will be gripped with a powerful fear.

Love Replaces Fear

Love and fear are opposites. Remember the song: “Jesus

loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”? Not only

does God love me, but he also does not wish me to perish but

to come to him for forgiveness. He is actually seeking sin

ners; he is knocking on the door, calling out our name. He

has come to seek and save those who are lost. “In this is love,

not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his

Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10); and

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still

sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The truth is, God’s

love overcomes our fear.

Come to Jesus

Here is both the heart of the matter and the reason for

strong hope and confidence: “All that the Father gives me

will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast

out” (John 6:37). For the person who senses a fear of God

and hostility towards grace welling up inside, this is not from

God. Come to Jesus who is seeking you, loves you, and longs

to be your Savior.

The Great Tribulation

In this month’s edition (March 2022) of The Atlantic is an article by Arthur C. Brooks entitled, “The Satisfaction Trap.” (He identifies with both Buddhism and Roman Catholicism.) His focus is on the fact that we are very often disappointed in our place in this crazy world. Despite Brooks’ many successes in life, he confesses that the pleasure of these last but a short time, and then he is plunged back into a kind of sadness about himself and his future. I thought to myself that I wished he knew the peace and rest we have in Jesus.

Consider John 16:33b: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” The first part of the sentence above, 16:33a) is, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.”

Note that I have highlighted the word tribulation. This same word transliterated from the Greek is thlipsos, usually translated as tribulation, yet is found in verse 21 of this same chapter 16, and here it means anguish. It is highly likely that the translators of the ESV and other newer translations were reluctant to use the less dramatic but more accurate word, anguish.

Anguish, sorrow, pain, suffering, emotional and mental confusion, even clinical depression and more are what we experience in our living despite success and physical and financial well-being. Jesus knew all about this, and He gave us this wonderful verse, now known as John 16:33, so that we would firmly grasp that we can have peace—His peace—despite the anguish we constantly experience in our living.

We do not have to fake being happy. We do not have to constantly seek our personal well-being and pleasure. We can be sad and unhappy as we see the pain and grief all around us and experience it personally, sometimes deeply. But we do not depend on our feelings, which are just going to be there, or the perversion of the world around us; we have something much more. We have the peace of Jesus, a peace He gives to us by His grace, which is the reality that our personal sin is gone, nailed to the cross of Jesus, and that we have been born anew, never to be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, come what may—personally, physically, politically, financially, socially, you name it.

Right along with the tribulation and anguish we have peace, and this peace is not the absence of conflict or the result of depression, but it is an assurance that all our sin is gone, past, present, future, and that our names are written in the Book of Life, which cannot be erased no matter what. Yes, the trouble, the pain, the grief we experience day in and day out—these go with the territory.

Only Jesus overcomes the world, and by “world” is meant all the presence of sin and evil that cascades down upon us. And Jesus knows this far better than we do as all our sin was placed upon Him at Calvary.

We will not be overcome by the world’s anguish and tribulation. We turn our eyes upon Jesus, our living Lord and Savior. In Him alone we rejoice.

It amazes me that anyone around here comes to Christ at all. And it is no surprise that less than 2% of my fellow citizens of Marin County, California, attend church services on Easter Sunday. From the Newspaper Here are the thumbnail sketches of items I read in theSan Francisco Chronicle recently [originally meaning pre-2000]. Two teenage brothers in Redding, California shottwo homosexuals to death, because it was their “Christian”duty to do so. An ex-Protestant minister was in town to pro-mote his new book on Tibetan Buddhism. A Catholic priest in Santa Rosa was arrested for molesting altar boys over the course of fifteen years and made a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office. A Baptist pastor in the South Bay, con-victed of embezzling church funds, was sent to state prison.The daughter of a Protestant minister, after recovering lostchildhood memories, sued her now retired father for sexualabuse. A professional football player, active in Christian min-istry, received three years probation for drug use and sales.An archaeologist made fun of the Bible’s account of Noah’s Ark in a lecture at a local college. A school board in a southern state passed a resolution prohibiting fundamentalists from displaying the Ten Commandments in schoolrooms. An Alabama judge’s decision that evolution cannot be taughtin the schools was overturned. The pastor of a Pentecostal church in Oakland disappeared with the money raised to get the congregation ready for Y2K. A local radio preacher announced that Jesus would not return on 1 January 2000, but on 1 January 2001. You don’t even want to hear about the previous week!It amazes me that anyone is ever converted around here.But, once in a while, someone is. I know this is California, but what is reported in the Chronicle often makes newspapers across the country. And what I reported about the news paper items is nothing compared with the crazy things shown on“Christian” television and radio. (I won’t discourage you by describing them.) Then there are the surrounding churches themselves. When I talk about it to others in different parts of the country, they think I am making it up or am at least exaggerating. Well, believe me or not, here is some of it.Local Churches First, let me tell you how I know. Some people around here, although very few, are church shoppers. That is, they shop around for a church to belong to. Or, they attendchurches for short periods due to some special lecture seriesor concert that is given. Or, a disgruntled former member returns with tales to tell. These people pass through our own church and sometimes talk about their experiences elsewhere. I therefore get a good idea of what is happening.I also know most of the ministers around here and occasionallymeet with them and compare notes. Several pastors of local churches do not consider themselves Christians and say so from the pulpit. One is a Hindu, another is a self-described agnostic, and a third is a post-modern seeker after truth wherever it might be found. I am not telling tales here, nor am I passing on negative information.These pastors are proud of their spiritual attainments. Their churches are the largest and wealthiest in southern MarinCounty. The Homeless Then there are the homeless. One wears a red-hooded sweatshirt so that he will always be covered in the blood ofJesus. I have seen him recently in front of the 7-11 store withthe hood pulled closed across his face. Many local people know he does this to keep the demons out (he has made thisclear himself and does so as a “witness”). He imagines thathe is a glamour expert and frequently approaches women with tips on how they can make themselves look beautiful for Jesus.Another is continually running for various local politicaloffices, and on the ballot he lists his occupation as “minister.”On television interviews, panel discussions, and debate she makes a mockery of Christianity and the Bible with his strange and deranged comments. He is widely known forcarrying around a huge copy of a Bible that was printed inthe early 1500s. I am not proud of telling of the peculiar nature of our area,I am not trying to raise money to combat the evil around me,and I do not consider myself to be a better minister than any other. It is simply that given it all, I am amazed that anyoneever becomes a Christian.Blind and BoundAnother reason why I am amazed anyone ever trusts in Jesus is that Satan has blinded the eyes (the mind) of the unconverted, as described by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4.6. Satan, the god of this age, blinds in ways we do not understand. Jesus said Satan uses pretended signs and wonders in order to deceive (Matthew 24:24).Our sin also keeps us from Christ. Because of this, we hate the light of Jesus and will not come to him out of fear that our sins will be exposed (John 3:19-21). Paul says thatsin produces spiritual death, so we cannot know anything ofJesus and his truth (Eph. 2:1; 1 Cor. 1:18; and 2:14).It is Amazing GraceThat anyone is ever converted both amazes and somewhat discourages me. And I do not see things getting any better (barring an awakening). However, even without revivals and awakenings, some are being converted. I see it in myown church at Miller Avenue. In fact, God is constantly calling to himself those he has ordained to eternal life. I take great courage, hope, and confidence from Acts 13:48, which states,“All who were appointed for eternal life believed.” ThoughPaul’s fellow Jews often rejected the gospel, Gentiles plussome fellow Jews, did come to Jesus in this case and others.Jesus “came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke19:10). He searches for us like the shepherd does for the lostsheep and the woman does for the lost coin. Those who arefound are like those received as the father does his lost son.It is not my practice to wring my hands and lament over the lack of success of the gospel. My task is to preach the gospel and know that God will save those whom he will. No one can come to Jesus unless he or she is drawn by the Father.But by the preaching of Jesus, the Father does just that.“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word ofChrist” (Romans 10:17).What God did for me, he will do for others. Despite my deadness, blindness, fear, and error, he saved me. Yes, it amazes me!