The Context of our beliefs-

When I was very young the Universe was believed to exist in a stable steady state. Like star stuff floating in a vacuous sea, everything remained pretty much where it was just a short time ago. Oh, there were relative motions, but for the most part it was not going anywhere or doing anything.

At least, that was pretty much what I recall being taught when the matter was approached at all. However, behind that theory was the growing acceptance of an expanding universe. Things were moving away from each other, as if all that is was blown away from some central point.

Of course, a few centuries before that the universe was much smaller. It was made up of various things, such as concentric spheres or a disk floating on the sea. For some it was no more substantive than dreams or illusions, and for others it is turtles all the way down. The universe, or at least how humans perceive it, has changed a great deal.

The universe of my childhood was going to simply cool down and die a very cold death. An expanding universe could die similarly, but if enough matter exists it could stop expanding and eventually collapse into a Gnab Gib. That's Big Bang backwards. OK. I agree it is dumb. However, being over 45 years old I am required to make dumb jokes from time to time. It's the law.

This is all dross and duck feathers to some fundamentalist believers of several major faiths. The universe was created and so-called science is just wrong. For other believers the seeming inconsistency between the universe of science and the universe of faith has to be compensated for in some manner. They may put their divergent beliefs in different compartments in their minds, taking out the one they need depending on what they must think and talk about at any given moment. They may simply appeal to "mystery," and not look too deeply.

I tend to believe that most of us assume that the universe is actually there, in some form. We bump up against it, have our senses stimulated, and draw conclusions. Many of us recognize that there are others similar to ourselves, and we have conversations and sex and babies and ideas and television shows in common with these others. The context of our bumping into each other frames a lot of our beliefs.

I haven't had a conversation with anyone who really believes that the universe is not there. I have had some interesting discussions with people who have a far different perspective on the nature of reality, one or two of whom I was sitting on (in the course of doing my job) while they received the medications that would purportedly aid them in managing their perspectives better. Never with anyone who really believed that they and the universe did not exist.

What would they talk about, anyway? And why? After all, I am not really there in that context. How interesting could I be? Why should they listen, and with what?

In the course of my bumping up against the universe I have come to some conclusions. One such conclusion led to my conversion to the Christian faith. I believe that the God of the Bible is the one true God, a belief I adopted as an aspect of my conversion. I am convinced that the only being in (and transcending) the universe who really knows what is True is that one God.

He has the necessary perspective. The rest of us can learn some pretty cool stuff, bumping around in His creation. We can often draw conclusions from these experiences that are more or less true. We can share these as we bump up against others, and refine our thoughts and ideas and the things we imagine. However, none of us can comprehensively comprehend the whole of what is quite the way God can.

The scope of my own ignorance and propensity for error causes me to grant people a lot of slack in what they say they believe and how they say it. I believe that I am a sinner, that I fail to meet even my own standards of belief and actions, much less the standards established by God as revealed in the Bible. I am an inadequate human being. However, God has provided a sacrifice in Jesus Christ sufficient to make up for those deficiencies, and I believe in the sufficiency of that sacrifice. In Jesus I am saved from the consequences of my sin, my rebellion against God.

I don't know everything. I don't even know a lot. However, if what I just said touched something within you, and you feel a need for the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, seek out a believer to bump up against you, and give you a new context for your beliefs. Open yourself to God directing your experiences.

If what I said does not spark some interest, then continue your own path of bumping up against the universe. The universe you experience is the context of your beliefs.

To believe is to choose. Choose wisely. Choose well.

The Gentle Marxist-

Some years ago a friend of mine, Mike Wilson, invited me to come and visit his philosophy class. The class had a Marxist coming in as a guest speaker. Mike and I had spent much time in discussing our Christian faith and what kind of philosophy might come from that faith. He respected my opinions and even more he valued my questions.

Questions have always been my strength. I tend to be good with questions, especially questions that would lead myself as well as the person I was questioning toward deeper understanding of ourselves and our subject matter. Mike wanted to bring this strength into the class and see what happened.

A large part of what happened was me probing gently into the nature of this man's Marxism. He was a gentle soul, and truly believed that Marxism offered a step forward out of the selfishness and emptiness of our current society. I used my questions to aid him in clarifying his position.

His Marxism was remarkably pure. Most of the expressions of Marxism since the days of Marx have been modified forms, often brutal. I do regret I cannot recall this Marxist's name, but I cannot. To me he is the Gentle Marxist, because of his choice of how he was spreading the Marxist doctrine.

We both agreed that Marx considered his social and economic model to be an evolutionary step in human development. A kind of economic Darwinian evolution. We also both agreed that no state in our present world had really "matured" (in the Marxist sense) to be ripe for true Marxism. We even both agreed that the Communist states then in existence were not truly Marxist states, but something else entirely.

This Gentle Marxist was working in adult literacy. He was using the same tool that Christians had used in advancing Christianity. The power of the written word. However, instead of teaching literacy using the Bible he was using the teachings of Marx. He was acting in kindness and a genuine belief that he was laying the groundwork for the coming Marxist revolution.

To be quite honest, I understand the drive toward true Marxism under the circumstances Marx described as catalytic to the revolution. Great wealth held by few who dominated by using that power and repressed the working class. Such a circumstance would demand some form of revolution, and an ideal state such as Marx's pure communism would be a fantastic alternative.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that humans are on the verge of a great evolutionary step, and that this evolution would lead to a pure communist state. Even under the circumstances that would bring about the worker's revolution the workers remain selfish and imperfect. They would ultimately seek their own good over the good of the masses, and some would seek more than their share.

The Christian doctrine is of humanity in need of redemption. We do not need an improved economic model, we need a fundamental change of our sinful nature. We need the salvation that is in the completed work of Christ on the Cross, not a redistribution of wealth. We need people motivated by the love of God, acting out that love in whatever economy they might happen to live within.

I sometimes wonder if the Gentle Marxist I met that day might have eventually come to embrace the Christian faith, and experienced a shift in his philosophy. Several of the Communists I had previously known had done so. Would the zeal survive the transition? It doesn't always.

The Gentle Marxist did set a valuable example. He was meeting real needs, and sharing his philosophy as he did so. He was acting as a secular evangelist. The best Christian evangelists generally act in the same way. Meeting needs and sharing Christ. Many other Christians fall far short of the example of the Gentle Marxist. That is quite sad.

I am not sure that the economic model under which we live is particularly important. More important is freedom. Freedom to think, and freedom to share thoughts. Freedom to meet needs and have needs met. In an environment of that kind of freedom the love of God could be freely shared. An economy that allowed for such freedom could be lived within, no matter what name it held.

In the end the Gentle Marxist and I found ourselves in two different philosophical camps. Religion in general and Christianity in particular do not fit within the teachings of Marx, and so a true Marxist must oppose such philosophies. Our Gentle Marxist ultimately could not allow the freedom of which I just wrote to stand.

That said, it is not the communist economic model that is a problem but the opposition of Marx to religion. In that point there is conflict. Indeed, the problem with the economic model is not a failure of the model itself, but the selfish nature of humans. Without compulsion they would not hold to the altruism of mutually shared resources. Always there will be the feathering of nests.

Like Plato's Philosopher Kings the voluntary communists of Marx's philosophy sharing the means of production and the fruits of labor equitably is nothing but a dream. Humans are flawed individually and corporately, and in need of redemption and resurrection to make them whole.

Only Jesus Christ offers that. I hope our Gentle Marxist finds the way.