Theology for Women

Have you ever stopped and wondered, “What if this is all just a big lie? What if God doesn’t exist? What if Jesus is nothing more than a myth, like the gods and goddesses of the Greeks, or the exalted figureheads of Eastern religions? What if Karl Marx was right, and religion was only created to be an opiate for the masses?”

I certainly do. A lot, in fact. Especially when I haven’t felt God’s presence in a long time, and my faith has been too long sustained by habit and discipline alone–that is when I really start to wonder about it all.

For many of us, such thoughts are disorienting, if not terrifying. When this happens, we begin to question all that our lives have stood for, and we even wonder about the validity of our salvation. After all, a good Christian wouldn’t doubt, right?

Well I heard a fantastic sermon on Easter morning that addressed this very issue. The sermon explored the story of Thomas–a very strange choice for Easter Sunday, indeed! But a good one, nonetheless. The pastor examined Thomas’ doubt, and instead of condemning Thomas for his unbelief, as many Christians have done throughout history, the pastor commended him for it. Why? Because doubt is the gateway to knowledge, not the denial of it.

To explain what he meant in affirming Thomas’ behavior, the pastor read a quote from a theologian named Pierre Abelard that really drives the point home:

The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.

Contrary to our instincts, doubt is actually a virtue. It is blind faith that can be dangerous. In blind faith, we never really know why we believe what we believe. Instead, we accept things without discrimination, thereby forfeiting any degree of credibility with those around us. In blind faith, our belief is based on gullibility or sheer stubbornness, but not evidence.

Doubt, on the other hand, pushes us to question, and questioning leads to answers. The more we push God, the more we will learn about Him. And we need not worry that God will be disappointed in us–He will not shrink back under our examination. Just as Christ was happy to show Thomas his wounds, God can meet us in our doubt. He is more than able to stand up under scrutiny.

Now that is not to say that doubt is the kind of virtue we should cling to and cultivate every step of the way. It is not virtuous to become arrogant, jaded or cynical in our doubt. At some point we must step out on faith, even if we don’t have all the answers. But that step should be an informed one, not a blind one.

So if you are struggling with doubt right now, do not question yourself or your salvation. Odds are, God desires you to deepen your faith, not undermine it, so He has brought you into this season for a distinct purpose. And if you have never before doubted in your life, I might press you to wonder why. We live in a complicated world that is governed by an infinite God, and those two components do not always fit into nice, neat, black and white boxes. That said, it is natural to be confused at times, and to wonder about God’s ways, so don’t be afraid to question Him. In fact, I would be worried if you haven’t. Scripture tells us that if we seek then we will find–there is no promise for those who do not seek.

I would like to begin today’s post with the wise, wise words of a bunny named Thumper. Since the release of the animated movie Bambi, Disney has aided in the moral formation of many a child as scolding mother’s across America have quoted this classic line:

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.

(Excuse the double negative–he’s a rabbit)

As basic as that teaching is, I have come to live by those words. Throughout my life I have said many, many stupid things that I wish I could stuff back into my mouth, so over the years I have learned to ask myself, “Will this be edifying?” before speaking. Needless to say I’m still working on it.

But being the over-achiever that I am, I was not content to stop there, so I decided to take Thumper’s teachings even further. Instead of saying “nothing at all,” I began to live by the motto, “If you can’t say something nice, say something nice anyway.” Surely this is the height of virtue! So I patted myself on the back every time I spoke niceties and kind words, rather than gossip or slander. I am a really good Christian, I thought.

Well it turns out that bunny is smarter than I realized. I probably should have stopped while I was ahead before improving on his age old wisdom, because I discovered something in the Bible that is a little troubling. Shockingly, saying nice things about people is not always a good thing. In fact, it can be very, very bad.

When it comes to excessive praise, Scripture is very clear on this point. It makes statements such as, “A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin,” (Prov. 26:28) and “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.” (Prov. 29:5) The heaping on of compliments, flattery, is not merely to be avoided; it is a highly destructive act.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve always glossed over these passages without ever really considering what flattery is, so I decided to pull out the dictionary and have a look. After all, if flattery is essentially the act of saying nice things, what is the problem? And at what point am I doing it? Well here are some definitions I found…

1. To try to please by complimentary remarks or attention.
2. To praise or compliment insincerely, effusively, or excessively
3. To represent favorably; gratify by falsification
4. To show to advantage
5. To play upon the vanity or susceptibilities of; cajole, wheedle, or beguile

*fyi, upon reading this definition, I subsequently had to look up the word “wheedle”–it means “to influence through flattery or the art of persuasion”

The common thread between all of these definitions is that the compliments being delivered are categorically untrue. But perhaps the more important subtext of these definitions is that the flatterer stands something to gain–why else would you lie to someone?

That said, flattery becomes flattery when it is done for the sake of the flatterer. Even if the compliments are deserved, there is a degree of insincerity to them if given for the wrong reason.

So when exactly do we go awry with our compliments? Well there is the obvious stuff–flattering a boss to get ahead, flattering a group of peers who you would desperately like to be friends with, etc. But I suspect it is more widespread than that. If you are any kind of people pleaser at all, and I am, then flattery may actually define your way of relating to people. You cannot help but dole out the compliments to everyone around you–”You look SO pretty today,” “That outfit is SO cute,” or “I love you SO much I can barely stand to be away from you for a second.”

It’s not that saying these things are wrong in and of themselves. In fact, it’s really important to affirm one another regularly. BUT, we have to check our motives in doing so. Are we doing it for the sake of getting other peoples’ approval, because we want others to like us? Before we dole out the praise so excessively, we need to ask ourselves why we are doing it.

And why is this so important? After all, what is the harm in saying nice things to people? Why is Scripture so harsh on this point? The problem is that it not only harms the flatterer, but the person being flattered as well.

Now to understand how flattery can harm the recipient of the compliment, we can look to the first few episodes of American Idol. Every time I watch those horrible singers, burying my face while they embarrass themselves in front of millions of people, I think to myself, “Where were their friends and family? And more importantly, why didn’t they stop them?!?!” That right there is one example of flattery gone awry. Instead of being honest, those singers’ friends and family allowed them to publicly humiliate themselves.

When we flatter someone who does not deserve the flattery, we do them a disservice. We lie to them and encourage them instead of telling them the difficult truths that they need to hear. I have done this the most when someone has asked me whether or not I thought their behavior was wrong. Rather than be honest and say the difficult thing, I have wimped out and instead focused on the “positive,” going so far as to praise them for the things they are doing right. In doing so, I not only compromised myself, but pushed my friend further into a destructive behavior. That is why those proverbs use such harsh language–when you flatter someone, you are often setting them up to fall.

But the other problem with flattery is that it can be harmful to the flatterer. It enforces a mindset in which we are constantly basing our worth upon the approval of others. We cannot pass up the opportunity to win someone’s affection, so we dole out the praises excessively. In doing so, we reinforce a dependency upon man’s approval rather than God’s.

So I challenge you to watch your words. Just because you aren’t gossiping or slandering others does not mean you are loving them well. Satan has a knack for taking every good thing and perverting it for his own ends, and kind words are no exception. Examine your heart and determine why you say the things you say. Your compliments may seem harmless at the time, but Romans 16:18 reminds us: “Such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.”

Flattery is no small thing, so if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all. But even when you can say something nice, it may still be best to keep quiet.

Last week I sat through the entire season premier of The Bachelor. I’ve never been able to endure it before, but I was suffering from strep throat and a fever so my defenses were down. Now that’s not to say that I haven’t followed a few seasons of The Bachelor in my day….oh, I have! But there’s something about the first few episodes or so that I find to be particularly intolerable. It probably has something to do with the sheer volume of women who are throwing themselves at a man they just met.

But the other reason I was sucked into the episode is that there was not one, but two professing Christian women on the show. One was in church marketing (though I’m not entirely sure what that even means…) and the other was a youth minister. The youth minister got the ax pretty early, but Miss Church Marketer made it to the next round.

Interestingly, the last several seasons of The Bachelor have had at least one Christian contestant on board. Each one has valiantly clung to her virginity and her values (well, sort of), and publicly declared her faith at some point or another. I suppose the thinking is that, in being on a show like that, it’s a unique opportunity to share your witness and display Christian values. I’ve seen this evangelistic tactic used on other shows like The Real World and Survivor as well.

And there is something very appealing about this method. Not only do you get to embark on a unique experience that includes the glamor of being on tv, but you get the added bonus of telling people about Jesus. Win-win!

I, myself, have definitely considered this strategy before. What would it be like to be on The Bachelor? Would I make the cut? Would I make a statement for Christ? What if I won?? Not only would I be sharing the Gospel with millions of viewers, but potentially getting a husband as well!

In my wiser moments, I recognize the error in my logic. Not only is there no way that I would make the cut, and I cannot imagine a more humiliating experience than being rejected in front of all of America, but my motives for being on the show would be thoroughly unscriptural. While the Christians on The Bachelor may say that they’re in it for the ministry opportunity, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t also drawn by the allure of these exceedingly dashing men. They are handsome, they are successful, and they are usually complete gentlemen—what more could a Christian girl want?

But at the end of the day, this method is little more than missionary dating. After all, the bachelors are never Christian, and they hook up with multiple women on the show. I don’t care how nice the package looks—if one of my college girls was thinking about dating a guy like that, I would advise something along the lines of, “Run away as fast as your little legs will carry you.”

The thing is, The Bachelor has come to look like one of the cleaner shows on television, not due to any virtue of its own, but because everything else is so bad. That’s what makes it so easy to watch these shows and accept the worldview it portrays.

So from time to time it’s important to stop and consider these errant perspectives. What are they exactly? Well aside from the fact that we see Christian women compromise themselves by dating non-Christians, The Bachelor essentially devalues women. Because of the way in which the show is set up, the Bachelor is forced to judge a woman’s acceptability based upon very superficial standards.

What’s more, there are no unattractive women on that show, no women who might be lacking in the looks department, but are out making the world a better place. And because of this lack of balance, the show ends up conveying the message that looks are all that matter. In watching it, I begin to believe the lie that all a man wants in a wife is a cute face.

The final problematic teaching of this show is that it encourages women to strive after a husband with a degree of desperation that is oftentimes shameful. After having traded in their dignity for the sake of possibly finding their mate, these women become the pursuers, sinking to manipulation and game playing to win the prize. Not exactly the makings of a healthy relationship.

While this post is not intended to be a blanket condemnation of anyone who ever watches and enjoys The Bachelor, I thought it might be important to pause and remember exactly what it is we are teaching ourselves with the tv shows we follow. Are we planting seeds of desire that we should not have? Are we fantasizing about a type of life that does not honor God? Are we tempting ourselves to date men that we should avoid? At some point or another, all of the above apply, so we need to be guarded about the kind of media that we consume.

And don’t think I’ve mastered this discipline. I’ll probably need one of my roommates to smack me upside the head and remind me all of those things next Monday night when I find myself swooning over the latest Bachelor from England. Those accents kill me every time!

Well, sort of.

Right now I’m in California visiting my brother and sister-in-law, and yesterday we all went to the pound to adopt a puppy! She is a 4 month old black lab named Isobel, “Izzy” for short, and she is awesome! Possibly the coolest dog in the world…second only to mine.

The first 24 hours of having her have been a relative walk in the park because she had minor surgery yesterday morning, and since that time she’s been completely doped up on anesthesia. She slept the entire ride home, and then plopped down on her bed as soon as we got her inside.

The only time she came close to moving at all last night was when we would sit down beside her, and she would enthusiastically wag her tail in response. But as flattering as that felt, I think the wagging was less a sign of her affection for us, and more a side effect of the drugs–if she could talk, she probably would have been saying something along the lines of “I love you, man! No really, I LOVE you!”

Needless to say, we’re not entirely sure what her personality will be like once she emerges from her drug induced haze, but so far she seems like a real sweetheart.

I have never adopted a dog from the pound, so this is all a new experience for me, and it’s been very thought provoking. We were told that about 90% of dogs that end up in the pound are there because their owners had problems with them. Maybe the dog was aggressive, or barked too much, or peed all over the place, and so on. For all of these reasons and more, pet owners cast off their animals into fate’s hands. Maybe another family will adopt them, but maybe not.

Given that background, Izzy’s story is one of tremendous fortune. Not only was she rescued from possible death, but she was delivered from a horrible environment into the lap of luxury. In the home of my brother and sister-in-law, she is now loved unconditionally, and every one of her needs is attended to. She will never have to worry about food or water or shelter, and she will always be safe. She was loved before they even met her, and the rest of her life is secure.

Well as I sat next to little Izzy this morning watching her sleep, I thought about how her short life has been a beautiful story for Easter. Hers is a tale of being unloved, rejected, and handed over to possible death. But then, due to no action of her own, she was suddenly plucked from that state and delivered into the hands of someone who loved her, but not because of anything she had done, and will take care of her for the rest of her life. It is a perfect picture of redemption in Calabasas, CA.

Now I know this analogy is bordering on cheesy–something you might find in Reader’s Digest or Chicken Soup for the Soul, but the reason I mention it is that this would have been a great Easter story, regardless of what time of the year it transpired. You see Easter is not something that happens once a year. While it is indeed important to set aside a special day to focus on Christ’s death and resurrection, the story of Easter is something that happens every day of the year. Everywhere around us, God is bringing His salvation into the world, and everywhere around us He is working out redemption. Every moment contains a sign post, an echo, a whisper of what is to come–we must simply look for it.

So yes, mourn Good Friday and celebrate Easter Sunday, but don’t stop there. God has created a world that shouts to us the goodness of His grace and love. Yesterday I found it in an L.A. County dog pound. I’m sure I will find it some place new today, if I only look.

About a year after I graduated from college, someone asked me whether or not I had endured religious persecution at my school. After all, it was a secular university with a reputation for being liberal, so the assumption was that it must be hostile toward Christians.

Well I responded to the inquirer with an emphatic “yes.” I then proceeded to tell them the story of one Easter morning when all the Christians on campus decided to wake up extra early and write “He is Risen” on the campus sidewalks in chalk. It seemed like a fairly benign gesture, but when the rest of the campus awoke that morning, there was a public outcry. Students wrote to the school newspaper complaining that the Christians were imposing their religion on them, and as a result, all the Christians were forced to wash off the sidewalks.

The reason that this story really irked me at the time is that other students would use chalk to write on our sidewalks all the time. What’s more, the writing was often extremely political, and extremely liberal. I had to walk past countless statements with which I not only disagreed, but also found offensive. Why was it ok for the other students to write those kinds of things, but Christians couldn’t write a non-confrontational phrase like “He is Risen?”

So that is the tale I told in reflecting on the “persecution” I endured as a college student. That was the “cross we had to bear.” I’m sure I also enhanced the story with some woe-is-me dramatic flair.

Well since that time, I have come to realize that that incident was not, in fact, persecution. Were my toes stepped on? Yes. Was that a frustrating double standard? Yes. But persecution? Really? I’m not so sure. The fact that I would classify such an experience as persecution probably reveals that I don’t really know what true persecution is.

My own ignorance on the topic became clear last week when I learned what some Christians endure in the prisons here in our country. After speaking with a number of the inmates, I am now convinced that our prisons contain one of the last true frontiers of religious persecution in America. Compared to them, my “persecution” is revealed to be a mere inconvenience.

Because devout faith is perceived to be a kind of weakness or attempt at sucking up to the authorities, Christian prisoners are actively targeted and harassed by the other inmates. Their Bibles are often torn up, and they suffer physical and verbal abuse because of their faith, so attending a weekly worship meeting is no small commitment.

When they come to worship, they are there against many, many odds. And they take their worship very seriously. For instance, the prison I visited also had a choir, and the members would not allow an inmate to join the choir if his witness was not consistent. If he was even caught doing something as small as using foul language, they would recommend to the pastor that he be removed. These men knew what it was to follow Christ, and they wanted everyone around them to know it as well, so they worked hard to guard their witness.

What a remarkable paradigm shift! Our country’s criminals, our country’s convicts, the individuals who we have locked up and turned our backs on–they are the ones who are standing for Christ with what is perhaps the most courage and ferocity in America. To me, that is both surprising and convicting. But then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, that is often the pattern we see in Scripture–God has a knack for working through those whom the rest of the world has shunned. He picks the most unlikely candidates to fight His good fight. And fighting, these inmates are.

This post concludes my reflections on the week I spent in West Virginia, and I hope it has challenged you as much as it has challenged me. But if nothing else, my greatest desire is that you would pray for our brothers and sisters in prison. They are in a very dark place, but because of that darkness their lights can shine all the brighter. Pray that they would be strong and persevere, as they have a ministry opportunity unlike any other. They truly need our prayers, so when you pray for the persecuted in China and the Middle East, do no forget the persecuted in America.

He was a senior in college and he had been living with his girlfriend for two years. He thought they would get married and live happily ever after. His whole life was ahead of him and everything seemed to be coming together.

But then one afternoon he came home and discovered his girlfriend in bed with his best friend. Blind with rage he left the apartment, got a gun, came back, and shot them both. Thirty years later, he is still in prison serving out his sentence for the two young lives that he cut short.

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The principal of the school never really liked him. He used to have a huge paddle with which he would whack the students upside the back or head whenever they got out of line, but the principal was particularly brutal to this young man. He used to come home with scrapes and bruises from the “punishments” he suffered at the hands of that principal.

Then one day the young man snapped. The principal took the abuse one step too far, and the next thing he knew he had whipped out a knife and was stabbing the principal, over and over and over. He would later learn that he had stabbed the principal over 20 times, so self-defense was not a plausible plea. After having been being found guilty of first degree murder, he had been in prison for decades.

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These are just two of the stories I heard last week. These were also two of the men with whom I worshiped at the prison. Meeting them today, you would never guess that they had committed such heinous crimes. Now they are gentle, loving men, passionate about the Lord and committed to following Him.

These men also know a thing or two about redemption. They are now using their stories to impact the lives of young people around their state. They travel to schools and invite students into the prison, all for the purpose of sharing their tales so that others will not make the same mistakes. God is clearly working through them.

Now in spite of the fact that these men have turned their lives around, I was very much startled by the degree of sympathy I felt for them. As crazy as it may sound, if it were up to me I would probably let them go free! Yes, they had engaged in horrible acts, but now they are different men. They are not the same individuals that they were years ago, and because of that, my heart yearns to show them mercy. Even when I think about the pain and suffering their victim’s families had endured, my heart was still softened toward them.

Strange, right?

At first, I thought my feelings of compassion were misplaced. How could I feel pity for a man who took the life of another? If anything, I should feel pity for the friends and families who were impacted by the crime, but not the perpetrator of the crime.

Well as I have meditated on these feelings more and more, I have come to a wonderful realization. The sympathy and mercy that my heart yearns to show these men, even in the face of profound sin, is a reflection of the very heart of God. Even when confronted with our depraved souls and our selfish lifestyles, God still desires to show us mercy. He still yearns to redeem our lives and give us a second chance.

Mercy in the face of sin: that is the very heartbeat of God. But for me personally, the point at which this divine characteristic becomes the most difficult to embody is in showing that same mercy to myself. How easy it was for me to sympathize with murderers, but I have yet to forgive myself for sins in my past. They still haunt my memory and make me cringe at the thought. I wonder if I will ever let them go.

That said, my experience in that prison was also a lesson in the lavishness of God’s mercy, a mercy we must remember to extend to others, as well as ourselves. Yes, God is a God of justice, and He detests sin more than we can understand, but He also loves us enough to deliver us from it. I think the inmates grasped this concept, and that was the reason for their immense joy. If I could simply wrap my mind around my own forgiveness, then perhaps I might be able to worship with an ecstasy that is comparable to my brothers in chains.

In the past couple days, the Durham-Chapel Hill area received some more sobering news. One of the men accused of murdering Eve Carson had actually shot and killed another area student several months ago. He had been arrested and detained for the crime, but due to some sort of paperwork error, he was inadvertently released back into the community.

Upon learning this news, I was outraged. Of all the mistakes to be made, this one is inexcusable, and now a family must suffer an irreplaceable loss because of it. It’s also frightening to wonder if this kind of error has been made before. Are there other murderers wandering our city unchecked?

Now to some extent, the anger I feel toward the murderers, and the Durham justice system, is warranted. A horrible thing has happened, and we are grieving a loss. BUT, my pastor said something this morning that really put my self-righteousness in check.

In his sermon, my pastor mentioned a local elementary school in which 64 students are currently homeless. He then proceeded to explain that those homeless children are at the highest risk for turning to crime and getting involved with gangs. And I can understand why–when you don’t have a home, your life becomes a matter of survival, and you do whatever you can to get by.

But upon hearing these statistics, I had a startling realization–the blood of Eve Carson is on my hands. There are 64 homeless students at one school alone, 64 students who are much more vulnerable to gangs and criminal activity, and I am doing nothing about it. All that those children need is for Christians like me to intervene in their lives and provide them with other options, but because we are failing to act, our city remains the same.

Similarly, these men who are accused of Eve’s murder came out of that broken system. They fell through the cracks, and now they are facing a life in prison. But I hesitate to point my finger at them. I also hesitate to point my finger at the Durham justice system. Why? Because the blame does not lie with them alone. We, as a community, have failed those young men. When they needed help, and when they needed direction, we were not there.

You see at the end of the day, sin is never individual–it is corporate. This theme is particularly salient in 1 Corinthians. Paul indicts the Corinthian church as a whole when one of their brothers is sleeping with his father’s wife. Rather than place all the blame on the single adulterer, he holds the entire community responsible–Where were they when this man first began to feel tempted? And where were they when he needed accountability? Nowhere. And for that reason, the man’s sin was not merely his own, but the entire church’s.

We need to take this same approach to sin. Whenever something heinous occurs in our community, we need to pause and ask, “What was my role in this?” Rather than climb up on our high horses and separate ourselves out from the sinners, these incidents should remind us all the more of our own sin. What are we doing about the gangs in our cities? What are we doing about the children who go to school hungry? What are we doing for the children who don’t have a home to live in? Scripture does not tell us to rely on the government to provide these things, or to sit around stewing about how sinful other people are. On the contrary, it is OUR call to act, and to act now. When we fail to act, then we lose the right to be angry when our community falters.

I don’t know about you, but that reminder is supremely humbling for me. Looking back on the inmates with whom I worked this week, there was no “us” and “them,” and there was no “guilty” or “innocent.” We were all profound sinners. Some are forced to wear their guilt on their bodies, but apart from Christ our souls look just the same.

That, I believe, is a a healthy reminder in the face of such a loss. Not only did I fail to act when our community needed it, but without Christ I might have been the very one committing that crime. Praise be to God that I did not, but let me now show the same grace to others that God has shown to me.

Or at least their prisons are!

I just got back from my mission trip to West Virginia, and it was nothing short of INCREDIBLE. I learned more than I ever could have imagined! In addition to the many spiritual truths and insights that God revealed during the last several days, I also learned how to whip a large van around sharp mountain curves at dangerously high speeds, and I learned that I won’t actually die if I can’t use my cell phone for a week (we had to drive an hour from where we were staying just to get a signal).

But back to the spiritual stuff. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m going to spend the next several posts reflecting on the various stories and revelations I happened upon, but until then, let me give you the details on how I spent my time so that you have a little bit of background.

To begin, I ventured into the middle-of-nowhere West Virginia with 8 students from UNC-Greensboro. We worked with a church in the area, and we spent the majority of our days in a federal prison for women. However, this was no ordinary prison–this particular facility was for women who had been pregnant at the time of their sentencing, and had since given birth. All of the women in this prison had children between the ages of 3 weeks to 15 months, and were raising them in federal confinement.

As a mission team, our job was to go in there and simply care for the women and their children–we did crafts, I played my guitar, we went on walks, we held the babies, and listened to the moms. We had a blast, and I was heart-broken to leave them behind. I feel as though I made some true friends there, so it’s difficult to leave when you know that they can’t.

But in addition to working with the women’s prison, we also spent some time at the medium security men’s prison, which was considerably more intense. A number of the men there had been convicted of very serious crimes, including some fairly heinous murders. But the crazy thing is that you would have never guessed it! Granted, I only spent time with the prisoners who were Christian (on Tuesday and Thursday nights we led some of the inmates in a worship service) but they were a remarkable testimony to the transformational power of the Gospel! Let me leave you with one story…

On Tuesday night I had the privilege of leading worship, so I stood in front of about 40 prisoners with my guitar and one of my students, and we sang. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. While I stood up there I looked out at the group and saw tough men, covered in tattoos, grinning ear to ear, and bouncing their heads along to the music. Some of them had their eyes closed as they worshiped, and there was such joy on their faces!…in prison of all places! It reminded me of Paul’s words in Philippians–”Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again, rejoice!” Paul wrote those very words when he was in prison. Clearly Paul, and those inmates, knew something I did not.

Afterwards, many of the men came up to shake my hand and thank me for coming. They spoke of their testimonies, when and how they got saved, and what a blessing it was to worship with me and my students. And as I looked into each man’s eyes, I did not see the face of a murderer–I saw the face of a prodigal son who was overcome with joy and humility at having been welcomed back by his father. I also saw the face of a brother…..and I mean that quite literally. I felt as if we were family. I guess we are.

One final thought. Jesus once told the disciples that a certain sinful woman “loved much because she’d been forgiven much.” Well these inmates loved much, and you could see it in their faces. Though they lived in a dark, dark place, the light of their faith was blindingly bright. It was a magnificent thing to behold.

So as I think back to the time I spent in a prison in West Virginia, I am humbled by the knowledge that I have brothers and sisters there. We may come from very different backgrounds, and our culture may label them as irredeemable, but I have more in common with them than some members of my own family. We are one in Christ. And while society may tell them that they’re without hope, God gave hope to the hopeless. I think those men and women understand the magnitude of that gift far more than I ever could.

For that, and many other reasons, it was a good week. More stories to follow…

Hey guys, I wanted to let you all know that I am gonna be out of town until next Friday, so I won’t be blogging during that time, but I would greatly appreciate your prayers. I’m taking a team of college students to West Virginia where we will be doing prison ministry. It’s going to be an amazing time for my students to learn what it truly means to reach out to people that the rest of the culture largely shuns. That said, I think we are all going to learn more about the very heartbeat of Christ. Hopefully we will all be transformed, as well as being a blessing to the inmates with whom we’re working.

In addition to that prayer request, I should also add that I will be driving an old, 15 passenger van through the snowy, winding mountains, so after you stop laughing at the visual of my tiny self behind the wheel of this humongous vehicle, please pray for our safety.

I look forward to telling you all about it when I get back!

Yesterday afternoon the Durham-Chapel Hill region was shocked by the horrible news that UNC’s Student Body President, Eve Carson, had been brutally murdered. No details have been released concerning her death, but it appears to have been a random crime. All day I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach–we are all reeling from the loss of such a prominent member of our community.

After I first heard the announcement, I went onto CNN.com to see if the story had made it into the national news, and I was surprised by what I found. I saw a headline reading something like, “College student fatally shot,” but when I clicked on the link I discovered that it was not about Eve. Instead, the story was about a freshman girl at Auburn University, and the details were oddly similar to that of Eve’s death–a young, beautiful college student was found lying on the side of the road, having been shot and left for dead. I couldn’t believe that such comparable violence had occurred at two different college campuses at roughly the same time.

But the more I think about it, the less surprise I feel. Violence on college campuses is becoming the norm. No, these two crimes are not in the same vein as Virginia Tech or Northern Illinois, but the fact remains that violence in universities is escalating. More and more colleges are instituting emergency systems in the event that a gunman is on campus. As a college minister who works on a campus, my school has quite literally trained us to expect just such a catastrophe. It feels as if it is only a matter of time.

What is interesting to me about this phenomenon is that it echoes a trend we saw in high schools, a trend that took full effect about 10 years ago. The shootings at Columbine initiated a new era for teenagers. As a result of that and similar tragedies, students now have to attend school in fear, walking through metal detectors to enter the school doors, and running practice drills in the event that a shooter is on school grounds. For many high schoolers, violence has become a reality.

And now it would seem that the violence of high school has graduated to the university. Instead of targeting their teenage classmates, individuals are targeting their roommates and hallmates. Granted, not all violence on college campuses is caused by a psychopathic student, but universities are simply not as safe as they used to be.

The question is why?

In all honesty, I don’t have an answer. On the one hand, I can somewhat discern the source of teenage violence–high school can be a true pressure cooker! You are trying to figure out who you are, but your peers can be brutally judgmental and cruel, tearing down any shred of self-confidence that you might have had. The race to be cool and accepted is cut-throat, and on top of all of that, you have the stress of making good grades so you can get into a good college. That is a lot for a teenager to handle, so it’s not surprising that some people crack under the pressure, venting their frustration on the students who spurned them.

But college is supposed to be the best 4 years of your life! Yes, you have to work hard, but you also play hard. Even if you’re not out drinking and partying, there are the midnight runs to Krispy Kreme, and staying up all night talking to your friends about the questions of life. It is a wonderful season in which you have lots of freedom without the responsibility of being in the real world. It is the one time in which you can be virtually carefree.

So why are college campuses becoming less and less safe? I am not entirely sure, though I suspect there are many reasons–on a large campus, more students can fall through the cracks; universities are becoming increasingly liberal and hesitate to provide their students with any sort of moral compass; the hedonism that pervades college life is corroding the moral fabric of these young adults; students develop a false sense of security and make bad decisions under the influence of drugs and alcohol–and the list goes on.

But regardless of the reason, this rising violence impresses upon me an even greater sense of urgency in the work that I do. I see more and more students feeling hopeless and fearful, and it is at these moments, when the darkness is greatest, that we Christians can shine the brightest. While this violence is certainly evil, God may be able to use it for good, but it is up to us whether we will take part in that redemption.

So while I may not have an answer as to the true source of all these troubles, I do know this: We can feel hopeless and fearful like the rest of the world, or we can see it as a challenge, an opportunity even, to share the Good News. In which of these two categories do you fall?