by Matthew Raley Let's make that, "Lessons Camping has taught inadvertently."

1. An interpreter of the Bible has to exhibit sound reasoning.

Camping consistently appeals to what he calls the "spiritual" meaning of the text. There's what a passage says, and then there's a secret code in it that contains what God really meant. You crack the code by "comparing Scripture with Scripture," as Camping likes to say. This procedure of his reduces to cut-and-paste: pull this fragment of a verse from here, join it with this bit of numerology from there, and, lo, the "spiritual" meaning is clear.

There is no "spiritual" meaning of Scripture. There's just the meaning. "Spiritualizing" is nothing but an escape hatch for a teacher who can't find a legitimate connection between a biblical passage and life. And Camping is far from being the only pastor who uses it.

We grasp the meaning of the Bible in the usual way: by applying the knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, history, genre, literary allusions, and lines of reasoning. Many pastors do not want to do the work of learning these things, much less be held accountable for demonstrating that their interpretations are valid.

Which brings us to ...

2. Debate among pastors and scholars is a safeguard for congregations.

If you're going to teach God's word, you'd better be prepared to argue your case. Pastors are guilty of a breach of ethics when they refuse to answer questions, or debate the many problems of interpretation, or expose the line of reasoning behind their preaching. A pastor owes it to his people to be accountable to the community of scholars in this way.

Camping is a classic prophet-leader, who relies on his authority over his followers to answer all questions.

Today, just as many pastors don't want to debate, so many believers don't want to hear arguments, regarding debate as inherently divisive. I hear people say, "Let's not argue about words. We all believe the same God."

Their aversion to public argument is foolish. It reduces every disagreement to a matter of preference between the personalities or styles of teachers, instead of recognizing that there are real issues to be decided that are larger than mere points of view. The folly of this reductionism is that a cult leader like Camping thrives in a contest of personal loyalty.

Where mere personal appeals are the issue, believers are not safe. They need to be challenged to think, not just prefer.

3. A Bible teacher is responsible for what he teaches.

Camping keeps saying, as many pastors say, "I'm just teaching the Bible. I'm not responsible for what it says."

This is another escape hatch. As a teacher, I am responsible for what I teach. I am not at liberty to equate my interpretations with the Bible, so that if you reject my teaching you are by definition rejecting God. I am morally accountable for my expositions of Scripture, for the workmanship of my sermons, for the clarity of my reasoning, and for the precision of my applications.

This is an awesome responsibility. A few people's hope, health, and decision-making are deeply influenced by what I say. This reality is what drives me to study: When I come before the throne of God, the Lord will render a verdict on whether I accurately taught his word.

Camping should repent of his self-indulgence. Judgment Day is indeed coming for him.

by Matthew Raley While Harold Camping's teaching increasingly resembles Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch, Family Radio (FR), the ministry that Camping leads, is averting its eyes.

According to the Christian Post, longtime FR employee Matt Tuter is saying that the ministry has more to offer than its #1 show. "Family Radio is a fine ministry. Other than Harold Camping's program, the other programs are normal."

Tuter is clearly frustrated, declaring that he is not a Camping follower, and that neither are most other employees. He portrays the board of FR as responsible for Camping's hermeneutical enormities, and the article reports that board members have not shown up at the offices since last Thursday.

FR's website has purged any mention of Camping's judgment day claims, undergoing a redesign complete with a button saying, "What's new?" The board is AWOL. Employees are pointing fingers.

This ministry is in profound denial.

The most illuminating comment Tuter makes is that Camping has predicted The End 10 times, only a couple of which have been announced publicly. "I was here for nine out of the 10," Tuter says.

Why? What possible motivation could have induced Tuter and all the other sceptics at FR to stay beyond Fail #2?

People make silent agreements to ignore lunatic vanity in the service of some "higher cause." I doubt the cause was high enough in this case. I doubt it ever is.

by Matthew Raley According to the Christian Post, Harold Camping made a statement this evening that the end of the world will come in five months. He admitted being wrong about the rapture, but insisted that "judgment day" did indeed come on May 21st, as he had predicted. Apparently the judgment was a "spiritual" event.

Camping went on to insist that his other predictions have come true as well. The Post reports, "May 21, 1988, judgment came upon the churches; Sept. 27, 1994 , judgment continued on the churches but was also placed on parts of the world; then on May 21, 2011, judgment was placed on the entire world."

This story defies any attempt at analysis, generalization, or satire.

by Matthew Raley In a New York Times op-ed piece, "Your So-Called Education," Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa expose key failings in undergraduate institutions. The B.A. does not mean what it used to, they report, and there are structural reasons for its decline. Their sharp criticism raises questions about our cultural foundations for learning, not just in colleges but in another educational enterprise, the local church.

Arum and Roksa followed several thousand students in more than two dozen undergraduate institutions over four years. They found that in "a typical semester . . . 32 percent of the students did not take a single course with more than 40 pages of reading per week, and 50 percent did not take any course requiring more than 20 pages of writing over the semester." The average student spent 12-13 hours per week studying, half the time a student would have spent in the 1960s.

With such minimal work, tests show that a large proportion of students make no significant progress in critical thinking, complex reasoning, or writing.

And for this students and their families pay the equivalent of a home mortgage?

The causes Arum and Roksa identify are all institutional, but raise cultural questions that are beyond the scope of their study.

The investments of colleges and universities are one cause: fewer tenured faculty, more counselors who attend to social and personal issues. "At the same time, many schools are investing in deluxe dormitory rooms, elaborate student centers and expensive gyms. Simply put: academic investments are a lower priority."

The empowerment of students is another cause. Federal Pell grants are dispersed to students, not institutions, which means a student takes dollars wherever he or she decides. The evaluation of faculty emphasizes student assessments, making it difficult for a professor to advance unless he or she is popular. All of this tends to make students think like consumers who insist on being satisfied with the school's "service."

Unfortunately, undergraduate schools could adopt all of Arum's and Roksa's sensible reform proposals and never revitalize learning.

Consider the significance of schools' spending on counselors. Social dysfunctions are driving that expenditure: drinking, drugs, cutting, sexual crime, STDs and other public health dangers, and mental health issues like depression. Undergraduate culture is often a degraded underworld. Where does learning fit in such a context?

A key cultural foundation for learning has always been strong family life, and we're seeing the consequences of family decay.

Consider also the spending on gyms and sports programs. This too expresses a larger cultural reality: we are obsessed with entertainment and activities. How could learning be anything but a sideline where leisure activities are so exalted.

And the empowerment of students as consumers of education? This is quite simply an abdication of authority, a capitulation to our culture's relentless leveling of all points of view below the only one that ultimately matters: that of the divine Self.

Which brings me to the other educational enterprise I mentioned, the local church, which should be a prime mover in rebuilding a culture of learning -- and in the past was exactly that.

Churches today are so enslaved by the same culture of dysfunction, leisure, and consumerism as colleges that one struggles to envision churches as centers of learning. In fact, the idea that a church might be an educational institution is only dimly remembered, when it is not violently rejected. American evangelicals are likely to see this priority as snooty.

But how exactly are Christians to restore a degraded culture if they can't think critically, or reason about complex issues? And how are they supposed to gain those skills if they know little about the history that made us who we are? And how -- really, how exactly is this supposed to happen? -- how are they going to apply the gospel to their lives if they won't read?

Evangelicals seem to think bumper stickers, petition drives, and fun music are enough to "take back the culture." They have forgotten that our duty in Christ is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

by Matthew Raley Last January, violinist Laura Rubinstein-Salzedo premiered a trio I wrote for violin, flute, and cello as part of her senior recital at Sac State. She was joined by Kim Davis (flute) and Courtney Castaneda (cello). I am so grateful for their hard work on the piece, and for their fine playing. Click the link below for a recording.

Audio: Twelve-Bar for Flute, Violin, and Piano

"Twelve-Bar," draws from two American sources of music. As the title indicates, the piece uses the twelve-bar blues form as an ostinato. All melodic and rhythmic motives come from the folk hymn, "What a Friend We Have In Jesus." These motives appear in fragments and short quotations of the tune throughout the piece, with the complete tune played by the flute at the end. I hope you enjoy it!

by Matthew Raley Jerry Olenyn did a service for Chico in his story for CN&R on how local churches view homosexuality. Writing such a piece is a thankless task, the only guarantee being that some on all sides will see Olenyn as biased. Conservative evangelicals should notice that Olenyn's language is even-handed, that his use of quotations presents a well-rounded picture of what conservative pastors believe and feel, and that his objective in the piece is right: to deepen our civic culture on this issue.

The article is solid reporting, an essential tool for keeping leaders honest and their discourse civil.

Olenyn only made one characterization in the story: "There's a definite evasiveness that seeps through this discussion. Conservative churches fear being labeled homophobic and intolerant, while gay-affirming churches worry that their pro-gay stance could cost them members." The characterization is fair.

Olenyn identifies the roots of this evasiveness. He responds to one pastor's assertion that "there are bigger issues" than homosexuality, "such as reaching out to the lost, feeding the hungry, and fulfilling Christ's mission." Olenyn asks, "But does part of fulfilling Christ’s mission include defining sin? And what exactly is sin?"

Perceptive. A pastor cannot speak clearly about whether homosexuality is a sin until he defines what sin is.

Throughout the article, as in the debate nationally, the word sin is used without definition. Today sin connotes a "really bad" thing, something that makes you feel guilty. With the term apparently used this way, we seem to be debating whether churches have a right to shame people.

To understand the Bible's definition of sin, we should start with the more basic issue of what it means to be human.

According to the Bible, human beings can only understand themselves fully in relation to God (e.g. Psalm 139). We are creatures. We do not govern our own lives. Rather, we serve something larger than ourselves -- either God or the things we put in place of God.

Sin, in this worldview, is primarily an identity of servitude to false gods, whatever form they take, and only secondarily a specific action or choice (Romans 1.18-32). Paul's teaching in Romans 6.15-23 is that human beings are sin's slaves. Jesus himself teaches (John 8.34), "Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin."

The implication is clear: to be human is to be the property either of sin or of God. All specific acts of sin express the same identity of sin-slavery in different ways. The issue in reconciling with God is not the individual acts, but the identity that those acts express.

The contrast between the biblical view and that of Western modernity is stark. The modern individual assumes -- more precisely, he believes as a matter of doctrine -- that he owns himself. He is the property of no one, having the autonomy to construct his life as he chooses. His dignity as a human being consists in asserting himself.

Conservative evangelicals know that a genuinely biblical definition of sin calls people to reject their most basic beliefs about who they are. For many decades now, evangelicals have been trying to finesse this point. They have cast sin in terms of "choices," "addictions," "values," or "lifestyles," as if behavior were the primary issue. Jesus, in this cautious gospel, is less Savior than Coach. He helps you make better choices about your life.

But in addressing homosexuals -- without a social consensus on sexual morality -- evangelicals are trapped by their evasiveness about sin. They can't confront homosexuality without asserting God's right to determine human identity. At the same time, they can't assert God's right over our identity without offending many of their own converts. The evangelical pew holds many who believe that their lives remain their own property, and who've been assured that God would never be so Godlike as to require their very selves.

Several conservative pastors quoted in Olenyn's article showed a wise mix of clarity about the Bible's teaching on homosexuality and humility as forgiven sinners. I'm grateful that Olenyn showed this.

But I am also grateful that he identified the core question, which humbles everyone equally: What exactly is sin?

by Matthew Raley The killing of Osama bin Laden is being hailed as a thrilling feat of heroism. We are witnessing a rare outburst of vindictive jubilation that has swept young and old, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat -- that, indeed, has revived talk of national unity. Justice, we feel, has concretely been done.

This is a good moment to consider the pressure of God's justice.

To see why so many are jubilant, it might be helpful to peruse this piece from New York Magazine, "September 11 by Numbers." It makes jarring reading even 10 years after bin Laden's crime.

The total number of people killed in the twin towers was 2,819. I vividly remember an admonition from Walter Cronkite the next day, that journalists should cite the exact number and not use round figures. "Those are people."

The estimated number of children who lost a parent in the attack was 3,051. Fully one-fifth of all Americans knew someone hurt or killed.

This magnitude of loss on a single morning, graphically recorded second by second, painstakingly studied by government commissions, and endured day after day ever since by the bereaved, cries out for recompense. No one should expect detached objectivity about justice from one of those 3,051 people who spent the last decade grieving a parent. We shouldn't expect them to feel mercy toward bin Laden because the expectation is, among other things, inhumane.

Payback is their due.

But the fury of 3,051 children cannot actually be appeased by bin Laden's death, much less the fury of an entire nation.

The man who took  2,819 lives at the World Trade Center only had one life to yield up in payment. And he took many more lives besides, including that of the wife he used as a shield in his last moments. His instant experience in death cannot balance the experiences in grief over lifetimes. Most tragically, his death does not restore life to those he killed.

So the imbalance remains. Even after all bin Laden had is taken from him, the losses his caused are still on the books.

Let's add another complication.

Is there any basis upon which bin Laden could have repented? What could he have done to gain enough mercy to keep his life?

Perhaps a public apology, combined with a life of social work. Maybe a religious conversion. Or he might have liquidated his wealth to fund the education of all 3,051 children through graduate school.

Nauseated yet?

Assuming you could get 1,512 of those children the sign off on bin Laden's repentance, you still wouldn't be able to look the other 1,539 in the eyes.

The simple reason is that repentance without payment is worthless. That's clear enough when the enormity of the crime is too ugly to whitewash.

Bottom line: one man's payment is never enough to compensate for his sins, and no repentance will restore him if he cannot pay.

The pressure of divine justice is that the tabulation our sins is ongoing at God's throne. If we admit today that justice demanded satisfaction in bin Laden's case, will we also admit that it demands satisfaction in our own?

Such are the problems that lead to the cross.

by Matthew Raley Ross Douthat made a trenchant observation in his New York Times column on Easter Sunday. "The doctrine of hell . . . assumes that our choices are real, and, indeed, that we are the choices that we make. The miser can become his greed, the murder can lose himself inside his violence, and their freedom to turn and be forgiven is inseparable from their freedom not to do so."

The idea of divine justice, that God renders a verdict on our choices and that a guilty verdict demands punishment, is being revised.

Many evangelicals are now saying that we must discard such old notions. They argue that God's every action is redemptive. Because the doctrine of eternal, conscious punishment in hell assumes a punitive wrath in God that has no redemptive motivation, the doctrine is inconsistent with God's nature.

Gregory Boyd (discussing annihilationism) says, "Consider that in the traditional view, the wicked are not being punished to learn something. There’s nothing remedial about their torment. Rather, God keeps them in existence for the sole purpose of having them experience pain."

Modernists made similar arguments more than a century ago. Old notions of justice as payback are barbaric, and Western civilization has outgrown such primitive ideas. Hell thus belongs to the lower rungs of humanity's evolution.

Is it the case that redemptive mercy is central to God's character, and does this characteristic invalidate the idea of hell?

Let's probe the word redemption. The Greek word is lutron, which refers to the ransom price for slaves or captives. There will be no release until the price is paid. Jesus, speaking about the key to his Lordship, says that he came to serve by giving his life as the redemption price for many (Mark 10.35-45).

Another word that expresses a similar idea is propitiation. Paul teaches that God made Christ's blood to be the "propitiation," the appeasement of God's justice, that sinners receive by faith (Romans 3.21-26). Paul also states the reason God made this appeasement in blood: "It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." That is, God's justice is demonstrated by his paying the price incurred by sin.

Redemptive mercy is indeed central to God's nature. But to call God's nature redemptive without reference to the purchase price is to talk nonsense. God does not do "remedial" sentences as a way to satisfy his justice. When he shows mercy to a sinner, he purchases the individual out of death into life.

In other words, Christ's death on the cross was redemptive because the death was entirely punitive. In God's plan the cross was not a sympathy-generating symbol or an attention-getting drama. It was the final propitiation of God's wrath. It paid the ransom.

No payment, no mercy. Full payment, full pardon.

The argument from God's mercy that many evangelicals are now using against the traditional doctrine of hell can also be used -- indeed, has been used -- to attack Christ's atonement for sin. Modernist theological liberals have long preached that the cross couldn't have been about something so primitive as payment. The cross is tragic blood-poetry to them.

I have never been impressed with modernism's treasured fantasy of cultural progress. Today's notion of remedial justice is founded on the lie that sin is not truly destructive of human life. Believing lies like this is not a sign of evolutionary refinement, but of degradation. Sin is destructive, and its deadly consequences cry out for recompense. The fact that we are all under sentence only makes the urgency of the cross more intense.

Douthat cites a contemporary story of sin, the fictional life of Tony Soprano, who rejects one opportunity after another to turn from his life of violence. "'The Sopranos' never suggested that Tony was beyond forgiveness. But, by the end, it suggested that he was beyond ever genuinely asking for it."

Rob Bell's notorious question about whether Gandhi is in hell is fair enough, says Douthat. "But there’s a question that should be asked in turn: Is Tony Soprano really in heaven?"

by Matthew Raley The Romans achieved cultural durability not through military force, but through the embrace of every god in their empire. They appropriated Greek culture wholesale, and affirmed the other traditions they conquered. While their broad piety was generous toward foreign gods, the generosity was motivated by shrewdness. If a conquered city could keep its gods, and if Rome could endow those gods with cosmopolitan nobility, then the city would be less resistant to control.

As a tool of empire, the pantheon works really well. Better than armies.

Time, the American century's literary temple, gave its blessing to Rob Bell last week in the form of a cover story. Author Jon Meacham is both a journalistic eminence (the former editor of Newsweek) and a serious observer of our religious life. To whatever spiritual trend he devotes his keyboard, there is a higher order of national attention. The controversy over Bell's teachings about hell might have remained a matter of small interest to non-evangelicals, but not anymore.

I'll write another post about Bell's book, Love Wins. I don't want to examine his doctrine based on the blast of writing for and against him. Also, I won't draw any conclusions about Bell's teachings based on Meacham's piece. The analysis belongs to Meacham, not Bell.

My interest here is in the Time artifact itself: how Time presents Bell, how Meacham frames the theological issues, and what sort of embrace is being offered to evangelicals by the American pantheon.

How does Time present Bell?

He is a rock star. The photo of him is edgy. Meacham describes him as "a charismatic, popular and savvy pastor with a following." The message in this package seems to be, "Don't mess with Bell. He's way beyond other evangelicals in style. We embrace him."

How does Meacham frame the theological issues?

Meacham treats heaven and hell seriously, being careful to say that Bell only claims to question theological rigidity, but also pointing out the implications of Bell's ideas. Of Bell's suggestion that everyone may end up in heaven, Meacham asks, "If heaven, however defined, is everyone's ultimate destination in any event, then what's the incentive to confess Jesus as Lord in this life?" Meacham accurately says that Bell is "more at home" within the "expansive liberal tradition" of Harry Emerson Fosdick.

R. Albert Mohler notes, "This may mark the first time any major media outlet has underlined the substantial theological issues at stake."

So, hat-tip to Meacham.

What sort of embrace is being offered to evangelicals?

The American pantheon is opening the front door wide and proclaiming, "All ye who are weary of theological rigidity, come unto me and I will give you rest."

The invitation is pointed. Meacham's theological literacy has the effect of posing a clear choice to followers of Christ: keep your father's Christianity (with no blessing from Time), or drop that traditionalism and be sprinkled with the holy water of sophistication. Bell's Christianity is "less judgmental, more fluid, open to questioning the most ancient assumptions." Adopting Bell's attitude will get evangelicals the "seat at the table" they have coveted.

Further, the invitation is backed by power -- the power of perceived cultural inevitability. Meacham asks, "Is Bell's Christianity ... on an inexorable rise?" Then he quotes Bell himself: "I have long wondered if there is a massive shift coming in what it means to be a Christian. Something new is in the air." Whatever that quote means, it at least signals that Bell is using March-of-Progress inertia to advance his ideas.

The heavily implied victory of the New stands behind Time's invitation to evangelicals. You know you can't hold out forever. Bell is a plausible enough theologian for you and for us. Let us embrace you and be done with it.

The reason Jesus never entered the Roman pantheon, of course, was that his exclusive claims invalidated all rival gods and goddesses, and threatened the durability of Rome's culture. The Jesus of the New Testament was never amenable to broad, cosmopolitan pieties. If he were turned into a statue, an abstracted symbol of Goodness, then he would have fit nicely. But 1st century Christians understood that accepting the pantheon's blessing was a surrender to imperial control, and that the real Jesus did not need the emperor's permission to rule.

This is Bell's moment. He mounts a rostrum of significant cultural authority, and what he does with this moment tells what he believes most deeply. Is Christ alone the Savior? From what exactly does He save us? The American pantheon has always been willing to embrace Jesus, so long as Jesus' followers do not deny the other gods their place.

What is Rob Bell's creed?

By Matthew Raley

Each year, I have the privilege of performing with many excellent student musicians at Chico State. Michael Beale, a fine tenor who graduated last spring, is one of them. We performed the song cycle Along the Field by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) at Michael's senior recital a year ago. The cycle contains eight poems by A. E. Housman.

Vaughan Williams is famous for his lush string writing and folk melodies. While Along the Field shows the folk influence, it is unusual for Vaughan Williams and for art song literature in general. The piece calls for voice and violin only. Its harmonies are spare to the point of austerity.

Here are mp3 tracks of the last three songs from our performance. I hope you enjoy them!

Good-Bye

Fancy's Knell

With Rue My Heart Is Laden

By Matthew Raley My final sermons to the Orland Evangelical Free Church summarized five principles that I taught throughout my ministry there. The audio for these sermons is available at the OEFC site, or at my pulpit podcast, renamed "Raley In the Pulpit," on iTunes. By subscribing, you can keep up with my sermons at Grace Brethren in Chico.

by Matthew Raley It has been several weeks since I've made any significant posts, for which I apologize. I have been preoccupied with some personal changes. I am excited that the Lord is leading me to take a church one-third the size of my current ministry.

I will be leaving the Orland Evangelical Free Church (OEFC) in one month and will become pastor of Grace Brethren Church (GBC) in Chico. (For readers not from California, Chico is 20 miles west of Orland.)

Chico is my hometown, and my parents and grandparents still live there. Bridget and I look forward to our boys Dylan (10) and Malcolm (5) being closer to Pops and Grandma. I'm also eager to be closer to my musical work, which centers on Chico State.

I have a personal connection to GBC, too. My grandpa Vere was an elder there in the final years of his life. I was encouraged to see him productive and busy with ministry among people he loved. This is a spirited group with a sense of calling and a strong desire to serve.

Our personal satisfactions, however, do not mask the challenge we face. The people at GBC have experienced many difficulties and are asking for a new direction. I will be the sole pastor, financial resources are low, and I hear many around town are skeptical.

Here's the story.

OEFC has grown significantly over the years. Part of the growth has come from other towns, Corning and Chico in particular. A sizable number of people have felt a strong enough kinship with the OEFC's focus on expository preaching and its philosophy of ministry to keep driving to Orland each Sunday. But our Chico and Corning attenders have always felt a strong desire to minister actively in their own towns. We have all felt that our worship together would be temporary.

So, two years ago, OEFC began exploring how to help our Corning attenders start a church there. They have done just that, holding the first service of Christ Community Church on February 13th at a school in Richfield under the leadership of Jeff Tollison.

When the opportunity with GBC came to my attention, I felt it might be a chance to do something similar in Chico. Perhaps OEFC might send the Chico attenders to join and refresh GBC. When the leadership GBC welcomed the idea, I knew I had to do something dangerous. I told the OEFC elder board of my strong desire to lead this effort myself.

That was a difficult thing to say in some ways. I knew my revelation would hit them hard, and I did not want to hurt the men I've served with closely for so many years. But, in another way, telling them about my desire was easy. I know these men. In spite of their sadness, I was certain they would see a new opportunity to help believers from another town.

And that's exactly how they responded. One of them said what the rest were thinking: "The Kingdom has to get bigger."

Together, we agreed to take another dangerous step: Tell the OEFC congregation about my desire. Again, this was difficult emotionally. I have served the Lord at OEFC for 12 years. I didn't want to hurt my congregation. But, again, telling them what was stirring in my heart-and-mind was the obvious step to take. I have always trusted them to receive hard things graciously. They are my colleagues.

Three weeks ago, the elders and I announced at OEFC the possibility that I would move to GBC. That evening, I told the congregation the story, took their questions, and asked them to pray for the Lord's leading the following Sunday when I candidated. There were many tears.

But since that meeting, person after person has spoken or written to Bridget and me, many after deep wrestling. They have variations of the same thought: we're sad, but we see the Lord leading you. One said, "I'm sad, but I'm full of hope." Another said, "We are planting you over there!"

These blessings are powerful to me because I know they come at a price.

GBC extended a call to me on February 20th, and I accepted. The two churches, OEFC and GBC, will worship together in a special service of dedication on April 3rd in Orland, colleagues now in something new.

by Matthew Raley Americans, pragmatic as they are about everything, tend to evaluate God the same way they evaluate their congressman: What have you done for me lately?

There shouldn't be any question on God's part about whether to keep our blessings coming: the financial windfall, the narrow escape from an accident, robust health, and above all, fun. He knows we're not perfect. He knows we try -- at least when we feel like it. And he ought to know that, despite our limitations, we're doing a pretty darn good job with life.

So, when we put a prayer in the heavenly slot, we have a right to hear some clicking, a whir, and a final clop as the item we requested appears. Fair is fair.

The biblical word holy intrudes on this fantasy.

When Isaiah sees God enthroned in the temple (Isaiah 6), some of the more threatening aspects of the vision are the seraphim. These creatures have six wings apiece: two pairs to pay deference to the Lord by covering face and feet, and one pair to fly. The verb stem of fly is intensive, meaning not merely that they hover, but that they dart around the high throne.

All the while, they call warnings to each other: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" These calls are loud and deep enough to shake the foundations of the temple.

The root idea of holy is separate, or unmixed. To say that God is holy is to call him Other.

But that is not all the seraphim are saying. The Hebrew language is built on repetition; to repeat a word is to compound its force. "Holy, holy" would be the maximum imaginable Otherness. The seraphim are calling, "Holy, holy, holy": the Otherness beyond your ability to imagine.

No wonder Isaiah says, "I'm dead!" He and his people are unclean -- that is, mixed and corrupt, unable to survive the presence of utter holiness.

America pragmatism doesn't work well. We resent that the cosmic vending machine won't deliver on demand, and that heaven is silent when we pound it. If Isaiah's vision is true, then we are operating on a theory of God that is disastrously wrong.

Pragmatists have no category for holiness. This omission means that we not only can't understand God's judgment but, even worse, we can't understand his grace. The Lord says the same thing to us that he said to Isaiah: "I will make you clean."

God's holiness means that every single blessing we receive has crossed the infinite chasm between us and the purity of his being. It means that his extension of cleansing to us is life itself.

by Matthew Raley For many American evangelicals, "fearing God" has come to mean respecting Him a bunch. God is a coach. He knows what he's doing, and you should keep that in mind if he makes a decision you don't like. You should also keep in mind that Coach's blustering is just drama to keep you on your toes.

So when Solomon says (Proverbs 1.7) that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," he's not talking about fear-fear; he's just saying, "Show some respect! You might learn a thing or two."

The problem is that, both in the Old and New Testaments, human behavior in the presence of God is consistently desperate. When Isaiah saw the Lord (Isaiah 6.5), he exclaimed literally, "I am annihilated!" Ezekiel's vision of God's glory put him in a stupor for a week (Ezekiel 3.15). John saw the resurrected Jesus (Revelation 1.17), on whose bosom he had once reclined, and "fell at [Jesus'] feet as though dead."

Respect isn't a believable reaction to the awesome nature of God's presence. Fear is.

Solomon is saying that fear -- real fear -- is the beginning of knowledge because it's the right emotional response to the power and holiness of God. It's the starting-point for measuring life, the foundation of safety and health.

But how can you relate to God without being paralyzed?

When my dad taught me to use a lawn mower, the first thing he did was start it, turn it on its side, and show me the blade. He wanted me to be afraid of it, and I was. Then he showed me how to be safe: never pull the mower toward my feet, etc. Once I knew how to use the mower, I pushed it confidently -- even though my fear of the blade remained vivid.

Think of this kind of fear more personally.

When a man is abusive, you fear him because you never know what he's going to do. You try to judge what mood he's in, to discover early warnings that he's about to go off, because his anger could flare instantly.

The fear of God is not like that.

I feared my dad, and still do, not because he was unpredictable and abusive, but because he had integrity and consistency. His reaction toward wrong was nothing to trifle with.

We fear God not because he is abusive -- because we never know what he'll do -- but because we know exactly what he will do. The scriptures reveal his nature for just that reason. So for me, there is no contradiction between fearing God and having an intimate confidence in him. In fact, the right kind of fear is the foundation of confidence.

by Matthew Raley We tend to associate gratitude with being polite -- or worse, being respectable. And I suspect our view of Christmas is tainted as a result.

In our point of view, I show gratitude to avoid giving offense. After all, if someone helps me out, I don't want to take the help for granted, as if I were entitled to it. That would foreclose the possibility of being helped again. So I show gratitude for the same reason Americans are polite generally: pragmatic vigilance.

The lower form of this pragmatism is to tend appearances. I don't want someone to think I'm ungrateful, so I express gratitude to maintain respectability.

This kind of gratitude is alien to the Bible.

Here's one of the Bible's most important, and most neglected, verses (Romans 1.21). "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

To explain the depth of human perversity, Paul says that we did not "honor God as God." God is the creator of all things (vv 19-20, 25). He has a rank that is infinitely above ours: creator to creature. Honor in this case is not a matter of politeness, but of profound, inflexible, eternal indebtedness.

Giving thanks is the payment. The gratitude is not about being appreciative, as if we were supposed to say, "Wow, it was so nice of you to make me and all my stuff!" The gratitude is what we owe God when we cannot repay the debt. "You gave me life. I can never repay what I owe you. But I can live for your glory in humble gratitude."

I understand this best as a parent. When my sons spontaneously say, "Thanks, Dad!" for something I do, I am repaid in the coin of honor. More than the thing I provide, they value me.

How does this concept of gratitude relate to Christmas?

Christ Jesus came to this world to give his life for our redemption. He did so when we were still ungodly -- still expressing ingratitude for created life, giving no honor to him as God (Romans 5.8). So what we celebrate in this season is the double-gift of life that is doubly beyond our ability to repay.

We are celebrating our debt of gratitude.

by Matthew Raley Bitterness is a conviction that your life is filled with unfairness. It is one of the most common spiritual conditions I come across, and it is debilitating. Here are some characteristics of bitterness that I've noticed in myself and others.

1. Bitterness is a story.

When someone expresses his bitterness, it has characters and plot. "First they took my lunch money. Then they stole my invention -- which would've made me rich. Then they cut off my unemployment. And now you want a tip! This always happens to me!"

Here is Jacob's response when his oldest son Reuben needs to take the youngest son to Egypt to buy food during a famine (Genesis 42.36): "You [Reuben] have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me." Jacob has been telling himself a story about Reuben.

A good start at dispelling bitterness is to notice the stories you tell yourself.

2. The bitter story is deceitful.

The story usually lumps disparate people into one category. They stole my lunch money, my invention,  and my unemployment benefits. You want a tip. Ergo, you belong with them. Time to challenge the composition of they.

Also, the story interprets actions as if they are about "me." Life is unfair because people are always against me, stealing from me, dissing me. But, reality is, no one thinks about me as much as I do.

Jacob's story leads him to blame Reuben for events that were not Reuben's fault. But it makes total sense to Jacob because deception wears a cloak of plausibility.

Another way to dispel bitterness is to challenge your own assumptions.

3. Bitterness ignores God's story.

Because I am the center of the bitter story, and my point of view dominates, I can edit the parts that confuse the plot. The part where, for instance, someone gave me a sandwich after my lunch money went missing. The part where my invention that was going to make me billions didn't actually work. Or the part where I started a new job after my unemployment ran out. These scenes mess up the story, so out they go.

In Genesis 42, Jacob doesn't know yet that Joseph is alive, that it was Joseph who arrested Simeon in Egypt, and that it is Joseph who will save the family from starvation and bring reconciliation. And Jacob has conveniently forgotten how God protected and provided for him before.

God is busy working his agenda for our lives, and he is not going to adjust it to our preferences. Nor should he: his agenda is good. So, in addition to forgiveness, the most helpful single way to dispel bitterness is hour-to-hour gratitude, which prevents the bitter story in the first place.

by Matthew Raley I got a question over Twitter following my recent post on forgiveness. How do you forgive someone who won't acknowledge doing wrong, or who never repents?

Three issues here.

1. We have a duty to forgive even those who will not acknowledge doing wrong. Jesus forgave those who crucified him while they were in the act of doing so (Luke 23.34). His death for sinners occurred when we were ungodly, not in response to our repentance (Romans 5.6-11). Jesus commands us to forgive as we have been forgiven (Matthew 6.14-15), extending the same release to others that we've gained ourselves.

2. Forgiveness is not a free pass for a sin without payment. Remember the transaction of release: upon payment, the debt no longer adheres to the debtor. The Scriptures tell us to release people from their sins on the strongest possible basis, Christ's payment for sin. Because of his death on the cross, Jesus Christ is now the judge (John 5.22-29).

So when I forgive someone who has wronged me, I am saying that Christ bought me out of my debts. Therefore I have no right to hold debts over another person (Matthew 18.23-35).

In this sense, my release of someone who has wronged me is a change of custody. "Whatever claim I have against this person I surrender to Christ. He is judge; I am not. He may do as He will."

3. Forgiveness is different from trust. Jesus forgives Peter for his betrayals, along with the other disciples (John 20.19-23). But he still goes through a process with Peter to reestablish the relationship (John 21.1-19).

There are times when we are called to forgive without the possibility of restoration. Those who will not turn from the sins that have harmed us may never be restored to the relationships we once had. In particular, this is true of those who have died without acknowledging their wrongs. In such cases, the matter is a transaction between my soul and Christ. "Lord, it is your right to deal with this person. For my part, I renounce whatever rights I may have because of your mercy to me."

by Matthew Raley The word forgive has fallen into disuse, and we've substituted the phrase move on. But the two actions we describe are different.

The object of my "moving on" or "forgiving" is a wrong someone has committed against me.

To move on is to leave that wrong behind on life's road. I strive to put my relationship with the wrong-doer on a new course. I also strive to prevent my emotions returning to the wrong, so that I stop feeling angry, resentful, or grieved. And I strive to think of myself as no longer defined by the wrong: I am not a victim.

The wrong is still there. I am choosing to ignore it.

To forgive is more radical. The New Testament word aphiemi does have the idea of "letting go," but with a greater specificity. It came to be used as a legal term for debt cancellation and divorce. A creditor's claim no longer adhered to the debtor; a husband's claim no longer adhered to the wife. In forgiveness, what is owed is zero.

This is the word Jesus uses when a paralytic is brought to him (Mark 2.1-12). He says to the paralytic, "My son, your sins are forgiven." He is not saying, "God has moved on from all of the wrongs you have committed." He is saying, "The claims against you are canceled."

The enormity of Jesus' statement is obvious to the religious leaders listening. "He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" To zero-out the moral debts we owe is an action only God can take. Jesus heals the paralytic to verify that he does indeed have the authority to forgive. And in doing so he is claiming to be God.

The basis of Jesus' authority is that he "gives his life as a ransom for many," a payment to redeem sinners from their debts (Mark 10.45).

Our "move on" method of repairing personal harm doesn't work.

For starters, it doesn't deal with the nature of wrong-doing. Harm leaves a debt. Unpaid debt is loss. Every time I hear someone say he has "moved on," the very next words out of his mouth reassert the loss he bears. At one moment he  pretends the loss is negligible, and at the next he proves how heavy the loss remains.

Deeper, "moving on" never discharges the wrong-doer. His wrong is still back there on the road. Let two people's road cover ten years, and let the road be covered with harm's wreckage, and then see how free and honest the two are after all their moving on.

We've probably stopped forgiving not because we don't know what it means, but because we do know. We have no real basis for canceling debts, and we refuse to lie. We move on instead.

What would happen in our relationships if our own debts were canceled, and if we canceled each other's debts on the basis of Christ's payment? Christianity would happen.

by Matthew Raley Many orchestras might shun new music during hard economic times. Audiences are often nervous about hearing contemporary pieces, dreading the dissonance associated with the last century. So it's safer to offer proven concert fare: listeners will pay to hear what they know.

Conductor Kyle Wiley Pickett and the North State Symphony have not retreated from new music, even during the slump. Last May, the NSS gave the west coast premiere of the Clarinet Concerto by Lowell Liebermann, a winning piece played by the fantastic Jon Manasse. Audiences in Redding, Chico, and Red Bluff greeted the new work with thunderous approval. The concerts had great reviews as well.

Every NSS season features major works of the 20th century from composers like Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, and Dmitri Shostakovich, and north state concert-goers have responded with enthusiasm.

This weekend, the NSS will give the world premiere of another new piece, the Symphony No. 1 by Dan Pinkston.

Pinkston is local, the associate professor of theory and composition at Simpson University in Redding. He told me that his interest in composition began early. He was "essentially writing pop songs in junior high school, and studied classical composition in college, as well as for my masters and doctoral degrees. Composing has always been the most natural way for me to express myself musically."

His Symphony was commissioned by the NSS, which also commissioned Pinkston's Woman, Why Are You Crying? and gave its premiere in 2007. Pinkston has composed yet another symphonic work called Oracles, which will be premiered at a later date.

The Symphony, he says, is "a conscious attempt to engage the audience." Pinkston has influences as diverse as Stravinsky, Bartok, the Beatles, and U2. But Shostakovich is his favorite composer. "I have tried to strike the balance [Shostakovich] has between beauty, modernism, form, communication, etc. His music is liked by audiences and musicians, and it moves me personally."

As the NSS rehearsed the Symphony for the first time last weekend, I was especially impressed by Pinkston's orchestration. He makes the orchestra sound good -- always a winner with musicians, who can be even more surly about new music than audiences. The flow of the work is also well-conceived. It was written to communicate, and it does so with strong use of motivic devices, inventive textures, and drama.

I think north state audiences are going to like this work, and will look forward to more new music from Dan Pinkston. Here's a conversation between Pinkston and Pickett:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EiV-9bl68s&feature=player_embedded#!]

by Matthew Raley With election day less than a week hence, I confess that I think the campaign is a crashing bore.

If there were a prospect that the nation's course might change, I suppose the elections might be interesting. But I am struck by the continuity of federal policy over the last three decades. It's incoherent but stable: Low taxes (compared with 1933-1980), deficits, free trade, low interest rates, growing government, and willful blindness to the coming bankruptcy of entitlements have been hallmarks of the period since the last significant political U-turn, Ronald Reagan's signature on Kemp-Roth in 1981.

President Obama, the biggest potential change agent since Reagan, has followed most of the policies of his predecessor -- the standout exceptions being health care and Supreme Court appointees. His stimulus measures have been magnitudes larger than George W. Bush's, but not different in principle.

A Republican Congress will not do anything beyond limiting President Obama's options. It might pass Paul Ryan's budgets as written, and they still won't become law. No one is projecting veto-proof Republican majorities.

So voter fury in this campaign feels like the protests of impotence. Populist exploitation of their fury is straight out of old playbooks. Boring.

Only one thing interests me now: will American evangelicals take a long look at themselves and recover the Gospel?

Americans are deep in the cluelessness of hypocrisy. We can rage against Washington all we want. But there's no federal law mandating that household debt should reach 129% of household income, as it did in 2007. The average guy raised his debt burden statistically higher than Greece's all by himself, with money and assets over which he was entirely sovereign. Power to the people, anyone?

We can rage against Wall Street's greed and dishonesty. But the ethics that allowed people to sign for adjustable rate mortgages and balloon payments, and that fudged the details of their credit-worthiness were Main Street ethics that took advantage of the distance of corporate banks from decision-making to fund larger and larger house purchases. Well before the peak of the real estate frenzy, I withdrew a mortgage application after discovering that my broker had lied point-blank to secure approval. Wall Street greed? Get real.

Evangelicals are ranting that if power were returned to the average guy his sterling character would renew the nation. It's time to dig up the planted axiom.

None of this excuses Washington for its various lunacies. But it does raise the question of whether our nation is still great -- great in the sense that its citizenry still has the moral strength to govern itself.

If, as I suspect, it does not have that strength, then national renewal would look something like this:

Americans who claim to believe the Bible would study the book of Proverbs, especially noting the principle that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (1.7). They would note in detail and without excuses their own folly, and accept the rebukes of wisdom. Then they would grieve how deeply they have offended God, not having cultivated the fear of him they owe. In the midst of this grief, they would recall that God forgives, and that his Son Jesus Christ has paid for their offenses.

And, ceasing their proud striving with others, they would seek reconciliation with God on that basis. Martin Lloyd-Jones put it this way in 1959: "You must realise that you are confronted by something that is too deep for your methods to get rid of . . . , and you need something that can go down beneath that evil power, and shatter it, and there is only one thing that can do that, and that is the power of God." (Revival, Crossway Books, 1987, p 19)

If evangelicals led the nation from a Gospel-driven humility, a dependency on Christ's grace and power, something would indeed change. Evangelicals would change. And that would be fascinating.