Harold Shank

Most of us have heard the line, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”   I first heard it from one of the swimming instructors at the University of Memphis.  He was also an elder in our church.  

Once you hear it, it makes sense.  We lose our focus.  We get distracted.  We major on minors.  We need to get back on track.

But I have one additional problem.  I forget the line.  I forget that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.  When I remember it, I know what to do.

So consider this “What’s the Point?” today’s reminder to remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Most of us have pondered the passages in the Bible where God is depicted as a warrior or when he orders the destruction of people and places.  These episodes often push people away from God. 

Atheist and anti-theist, Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, uses God’s destructive side as evidence against any divine being:  “God’s monumental rage whenever his chosen people flirted with a rival god resembles nothing so much as sexual jealousy of the worst kind, and again it should strike the modern moralist as far from good role-model material” (p. 243).

 Dawkins draws attention to God’s involvement in a host of violent episodes in the Bible.  We cannot deny their presence.  But we can ask why they are there and what they say about God.

 In “God and Violence in the Old Testament” (Word and World, Winter 2004, page 21) Terence Fretheim delves into the theology behind this violence.  He makes one especially critical point:  “If there were no human violence, there would be no divine violence.” 

 God permits human violence.  At times it grows so out of control that God counters that violence with violence.  Proverbs 21:7 reflects on this point:  “The violence of the wicked will sweep them away, because they refuse to do what is just.”  When violence gets out of control it even comes back on those who started it.  Someone has to stop what people start.   Fortunately for the sake of humankind, God takes up that task.

 One technique in stopping a wild fire is back burning.   A small controlled fire is used to destroy an area in front of the wild fire.  When the out of control wild fire reaches the back burned area, the fire goes out because its fuel is gone.

 Fretheim points out that in Scripture God’s involvement in violence always occurs in response to human destructiveness.  He responds in order to save people from the violence or to discipline those who use violence recklessly.  More can be said about the violence of God, but a central point is we can be assured that there is a divine being who resists human evil.   You can count on it.

Please leave your comments about ‘Listening to His Heartbeat’ here. I am interested in what you thought about the book.

Our family recently spent a Saturday at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History in Norman, Oklahoma.  We awed at the huge head of the Pentaceratops which according to the sign holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s biggest dinosaur skull.   We saw the skeleton of the largest known adult Apatosaurus (93 feet long!) that filled a large two-story exhibit on “ancient life.”  

 But most of all, what I experienced was dissonance, hearing two contradictory messages at the same time, one from the exhibit and one from my spirit.

The extensive exhibit on evolution pointed out the four pillars of the theory:  1-each kind of life has variety.  So there are all kinds of dogs.  2-traits are inherited.  So I look like a combination of my parents.  3-evolution requires time.  The exhibit claimed the earth is 4.6 billion years old.   4-only the strongest survive.  The exhibit focused on a group of birds which could only find hard nuts to eat during hard times.  Only the ones with the appropriate beaks survived. 

 We left the museum with all sorts of thoughts.  A visitor’s response area included a posting of recent comments.  Many urged the museum to present a creationist point of view.  One note warned that anybody who believed what the museum taught was headed to hell.

 Ironically, the next day I was reading Ecclesiastes 3.  I was struck by how this Old Testament book framed my thoughts about the visit. 

 First, Ecclesiastes 3:18-22 compares humans to animals.  The writer of Ecclesiastes looks at life “under the sun” which is his way of saying that in the book he views life from a secular point of view.   From that viewpoint, both animals and humans are dust and return to dust.  Although I don’t think the museum had any human bones, much of the exhibit was a trip through an animal cemetery.  All the animals there are dead.  The museum looked almost entirely at the past.  That, of course is its intent.   It views life under the sun.

 Second, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 stresses that there is a time for everything: “a time to be born and a time to die.”  It helped me to understand that there was a time of dinosaurs and a time without dinosaurs.   Ecclesiastes aims to say that despite our efforts life just goes on.  Despite all we do, beyond all our abilities, regardless of our study and our technology, there is a time to be born and a time to die.  Every skeleton in that museum followed that pattern.  There were no exceptions.

 Third, Ecclesiastes 3:9-11 stands in contrast to 3:1-8.  In the first section the writer uses the word “time” 29 times.  We are stuck in time.  It does not matter whether the time is 4.6 billion years or 4000 years.  We are stuck in it.  There is nothing we can do to transcend time.  In Ecclesiastes 3:9-11 the writer adds another dimension.  Ecclesiastes says we have eternity in our minds (Ecc 3:11).   Despite living in the Cenozoic Era, we all have an urge that there is something more.  It frustrates us that we are confined to this era when we have a sense that there is something beyond time itself.   That is where I felt the dissonance.  

 That verse in Ecclesiastes  helped me to express what I was feeling when I left the museum.  Is the museum’s presentation of existence all there is?  We live, we evolve and then we die?   If we are a big animal, they put our bones on display?   I left thinking there had to be something else to life. 

 Fourth, Ecclesiastes 3 treated the realities of this time and this world much like the Noble Museum.  But Ecclesiastes is unable to resist mentioning the one word that the museum refuses to mention.  Despite our eventual return to dust, regardless of our being limited to time, even with our sense that there is something else out there, Ecclesiastes says the word:  God.   God has made everything beautiful (Ecc 3:11).  It all fits together.  Life is filled with variety.  We inherit traits of our parents.  There is a time for everything.  Yes, even the strong survive.   Based on Ecclesiastes’ reflection on life, it is not by chance, but by design.

 I was struck by how Ecclesiastes 3 gave voice to what I sensed in viewing the delightfully prepared exhibits at the museum.  The scientists join Ecclesiastes in viewing “life under the sun.”   I think the writer of Ecclesiastes would have enjoyed the afternoon touring the exhibits.  He might have added “there is a time to go to museums and a time to stay home.”  But Ecclesiastes senses that there is something more.  Whether one spends a day at a museum or looks around at the world, one is filled with dissonance.   Ecclesiastes allows that dissonance to lead him to God. 

 I’ve decided to follow that same course.

The Bible uses many images to describe God.  He is a shepherd, a father, a warrior, and even a rock.  No one image captures all there is to say about God.

It may be that the two dominating images of God in contemporary society are General God and God the lawyer.   God is called a general when he attacks injustice and oppression.  The Lord of the army comes to the rescue.  We also know God as the law giver and law enforcer which perhaps links him to the contemporary role of an attorney.  God is both a general and a lawyer.

But he is so much more.

When we elevate the military and legal nature of God above all the other images of the divine being, we end up with a skewed vision of who he is.  Those images dominate and overcome other metaphors that depict another part of his nature.    All this has huge implications.

*The current anti-theism crusade attacks a God that is all general and no shepherd, one that is all lawyer and no loving father.  The God they attack does not exist. 

*Many believers wonder if they can believe in God any more.  Perhaps part of their doubt rests on a perception of God as general and lawyer.   Believers tend to look to the distorted God of contemporary culture rather than seek a more balanced portrait arising from biblical revelation.

*When we’re under attack we may be grateful for a God who can command armies.  When society turns barbaric, we can grab on to the God of order and structure.    But we must get beyond those two limited visions of God and probe deeper.  We must listen for the heartbeat of the essence of God.