Uncategorized Michael Krahn on 01 Feb 2010 09:12 am
Matt Chandler, Faith, and Terminal Brain Cancer
A good post here by my friend Aaron Armstrong. As Aaron mentions, this article on Pastor Matt Chandler’s battle with brain cancer is a must read. He goes on to contrast that with another bit he heard this weekend (which, coincidentally, I heard as well) about journalist William Lobdell who lost his faith while writing – as a Christian – about religion.
Yesterday I was listening (briefly) to Tapestry on CBC Radio One while on the way to read a book and drink a warm beverage. I caught a snippet of an interview with William Lobdell, a journalist who became a Christian in his twenties, served as the religion reporter for one of the biggest newspapers in the U.S. since become an atheist.
In talking about the Christian worldview, he said something that really caught my attention, which was that,
Christians see this life as a fleeting moment in light of eternity. So to waste a day, a month, a year… it’s not really a big deal. They think they’ve got all eternity. But for an atheist, because we know this is all there is, we take as much joy as we can and make the most of every moment (my paraphrase).
Going back to Chandler for a minute,
At church, he has deflected sympathy with reassurances that this is a good thing, that he is not shrinking back. Chandler has preached the last two weekends and is planning trips to South Africa and England. He recently lost his hair to radiation but got a positive lab report last week and feels strong.
Chandler would rather this not have happened. But he is drinking life in — watching his son build sandcastles at the park, preaching each sermon as if eternity is at stake — and feeling a heightened sense of reality.
I look at these two drastically different stories and it breaks my heart.
Read the rest of Aaron’s post here.
Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:13 pm # Michael Krahn
Some responses below that came via Facebook.
on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:13 pm # Kevin Abell
Is there not anyway to detect a wolf before he’s ordained, regardless of denomination? I mean in the automotive trade, we have code scanners that give us information for what’s going on in the inside of a vehicle.
on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:13 pm # Reid Davis
I don’t get it. Why does anyone expect religious organizations to be less f****d up than other ones? If anything, religious organizations should be MORE so, since those are the people so screwed up that they’re willing to admit their need of a savior. I mean, nearly half of the New Testament is written to f’d up churches, yes? And that was all less than 100 years after Jesus had walked the earth.
on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:13 pm # Michael Krahn
Reid,
You are correct. I believe this happens because we (I mean, “those other Christians”) make their life goal to appear to have it all together.
Authenticity is admitting hypocrisy, not avoiding it.
Of course a sex scandal involving minors and a subsequent cover-up is a whole other level of hypocrisy and should never be expected.
on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:14 pm # Jeff Cebulski
He wrote (you quoted), “Shouldn’t religious organizations, if they were God-inspired and -driven, reflect higher standards than government, corporations and other groups in society?”
I have to agree with him. “Regeneration” should mean something.
Now, we have to remember the Catholic context here…it seems strange to me that he should leap to ‘unbelief’ before he would consider that, perhaps, the actual organization he may have actually believed in would be bankrupt in this manner. All Christian-type institutions have their imperfections (vis-a-vis Reid), but a traditional trope of Catholic belief is that the Church (institution) is the carrier of the image of Christ. Therefore, if the institution is bankrupt, its message is, too. Protestants have the freedom not to indulge in that kind of thought; we have Paul’s letters testifying to the imperfection of early Church group leadership to help us see it. … See More
Yet, as Michael stated, this kind of scandal is truly and particularly un-Christ-like…and I understand his angst. But his book seems based on an unnecessarily segmented idea of the Church.
on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:14 pm # Joel Fariss
I agree with Jeff, the true Church should be a light in the darkness. Paul calls the church a pillar and buttress of truth in 1 Timothy 3. It is true that God reveals His wisdom through the simple, but that doesn’t mean we should be screwed up as a body. I recently did a survey of the NT in a paper I was writing for school and decided to post it in… See More light of this conversation. Its a list of the Church’s attributes.
http://redsonmissionary.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/ecclesial-survey-of-the-new-testament/
on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:14 pm # Reid Davis
Thanks Jeff — I think I wanted to say something about Catholicism as well as the ethics of your typical religious broadcaster, but I decided to aim for the low-hanging fruit. The church working as God intended is a beautiful thing, but to hang your faith on that seems silly.
on 02 Feb 2010 at 1:14 pm # Jeff Cebulski
Hey Joel, a fine survey that is instructive toward a theology of the Church as the ‘Body’ of Christ. I can’t see anything in the list that is contradictory to the person of Christ or his apostolic teaching. Reid, much agreement. I can sense Paul’s grappling with the issue in a significant portion of his epistles.