Opinion

Dealing a winning hand

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Sharing books is one of the many pleasures in my life, and I exchange books with several people throughout the year. I am always reading a book, sometimes two or three at a time.

I recently finished "In the Land of Second Chances" by George Shaffner, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. It belongs to a friend of mine.

It is a well-written piece, an exceptionally easy read. The author finds a pleasing cadence in his musings that is easy to follow and turns more than one clever phrase. Overall, it is an appealing work, depicting life in small-town America, made all the more appealing by its general Nebraska flavor.

The jacket blurb indicates that a main character beseeches God to send hope to a dying town and instead God sends a traveling salesman. Indeed, the selling point used by my friend in recommending the book was that it took on the task of proving, indisputably, that there is a God.

With that in mind, I read with interest and became utterly dismayed by the underlying theology.

The hope that this traveling salesman proferred was much needed, that stage is set early on. But the theology on which the hope is based is seriously flawed. However, it is presented with such a clever overcoat it may well be embraced by anyone who has looked at the abysmal unfairness of this broken world and received no other satisfactory answer.

The author of this well-told tale does not deal with issues of judgment or redemption but instead places mankind on a God-created merry-go-round of life, giving man an infinite number of chances to reach out and grasp the elusive brass ring.

Using the analogy of a poker hand, the author claims that any number of bad hands are possible -- but, playing the odds, allows that any number of good hands are possible as well, as long as you stay in the game.

The author applies the analogy to life, purporting through his main character, that if this life dealt you a particularly bad hand, i.e.; cancer, divorce, abuse, poverty assault, etc., don't give up hope -- the next life, or perhaps the one after it, will be aces up and every convenience, pleasure and treasure of life will be laid at your feet.

The traveling salesman, who carries no samples, nor has no home office to report to, explains that the downward spiral of man into moral decay is attributable to our loss of "blind faith," referring specifically to our former acknowledgment of God, and the clear lines drawn by God between moral and immoral behaviors.

Now, he asserts, what we need is a "reasoned faith" and his poker hand analogy answers that need.

There are two immediate fallacies to his proposed "reasoned faith." The first is determining that the former faith was in fact "blind." That faith is in fact well-reasoned and borne out by eyewitness testimonies. That faith supports his clever use of the "life after life" statement and is proved by the resurrection of one man, the man Jesus.

The second immediate fallacy to his proposed reasoned faith is that it offers no solution to the problems of sin and death. According to this philosophy, regardless of the life lived, whether good or evil, the next life is a fresh start, maybe a good hand, maybe a bad hand. That would mean that murderers, executed for their crimes, would be given another life, with no remembered consequences for the one squandered satisfying self, at the sacrifice of others.

The salesman has forgotten a primary attribute of God. He is just. Unlimited rides on a merry-go-round of life don't dispense justice.

The biggest danger, though, is the appealing nature of his argument. After all, a second chance at a better life sounds pretty good, especially if you married poorly or were born with debilitating deformity.

Reincarnation is nothing new. It is, after all, the answer to immortality to the Hindu faith. But people in America don't believe in that nonsense. Or do they?

A young mother was recently relating a conversation she had with her daughter, wherein her daughter asked if her mother believed that after she died, she would come back to live another life. The mom answered, admittedly with some hesitation, in the affirmative.

This is a young woman raised in America's Heartland, presumably surrounded by Christian believers.

I related in a column several years ago a funeral service attended by a dear friend of a friend and co-worker whom, it was assumed, was a Christian believer.

That assumption was put to question only after my friend heard the minister, offering the eulogy, attribute our friend with the belief that she would live again, in this world, in yet another body, for yet another season of life.

This, spoken from the pulpit of a well-known Christian denomination, no longer preaching salvation through Christ, no longer encouraging believers to lay up treasures in heaven or to fear hell, but to hang in there, maybe their next life would be better or at least not end as badly as this one.

This woman, her fellow congregants and even her pastor, had forgotten the truth that "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." (Hebrews 9:27)

How has our Christian witness deteriorated to this sorry state of affairs? We, who are called to be salt and light have certainly lost our savor and how great our darkness has suddenly become.

Our Christian witness is now no different than the witness of the world. We grumble, we mumble, we mourn. We divorce, we lie, we steal. And we justify it all by stating, without so much as a blush, that we live in the age of grace. (Let it be said here and now, I use the editorial we in the most personal sense possible.)

What is there about us in this world that should attract others to a faith worth dying for, let alone worth living for? Not much, I fear. And so we fail miserably at the call given to each believer in Matthew 28:19, 20.

In the final analysis, it is God who will dispense judgement, justice and mercy -- for he alone is able. We would do well to remember this.

"But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." Luke 12:48 (NIV)

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