Christianity

Victor Chininin Buele

The moment I heard on The Death of a Pastor’a Wife a clip of this man John-Paul Miller playing the piano “at church,” my mind went back to those days when I used to play just like he did. Pridefully.

At some point, I didn’t know that I was a proud young man. God gifted me with the ability to recognize sounds and to hear music as if were a language. If I hear it, I can play it. I misused that gift to shame and ridicule those who didn’t have the same gift. But, being honest, I wasn’t initially aware that other people didn’t experience music the same way. So, that’s the first stop in this adventure to find my pride in this: life before and after recognizing that others weren’t like me.

A characteristic of a prideful person is an elevated sense of self-importance. You can see how having a gift that is not usual in most people can play to that. I must admit that at this stop in the journey, the realization of being special didn’t keep me from pride. Recently somebody told me I’ve always been prideful. Such an observation has its roots in these very early days of my pride. I hurt people back then. And some of them still can’t see me as being different now. Pride has life-long consequences. This mixed with a bountiful serving of “high self-esteem” was a terrible justification for me to live pridefully and openly so.

Somewhere along the journey, I came to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Part of that came through my participation in worship and service at one of the largest and growing mega churches in my region. One of the reasons I went to that church was the music. These guys knew how to play. The musical quality was fantastic. And they were very creative: old hymns blended with fresh arrangements in a way I never thought it was possible. I was so happy. I had found a place where I felt comfortable.

The keyboard player didn’t come for a few weeks. The keyboards were on stage, but nobody played them. So, a few weeks in, I walked up front after the service to talk to the singer and guitar player of the band. I had no idea this guy was one of the pastors of the church.

Nervously, I introduced myself, emphasizing my studies in piano and vast list of churches in Northwest Missouri where I had played piano or organ in the past. He asked me who I was. I repeated myself. He explained he didn’t ask for my resume. He wanted to know if I was in Christ. I couldn’t give an answer. That meant that I wasn’t. I was there to consume their music, not to worship God.

That’s where my second stop in this trip starts: confronted with a paradigm that didn’t fit my presuppositions about music at church, what would I do? This pastor would not allow me to play the piano. Or more accurately in my mind, perhaps, why wouldn’t he not be ecstatic to have me join his amazing band, for free?!? Didn’t he know what a great pianist I am?

He clearly stated to me that to put me up front would communicate to the church that the church is affirming that I am a sincere Christian, in fellowship with the Body, and that I am both a safe person and a person worthy of imitation in Christian character. I couldn’t explain what the gospel was. There was no way that this man would allow me to touch, much less play, those keyboards.

I walked away frustrated and angry. But I agreed to attend their gospel class. I remember walking out of one of the classes with my index finger raised up as so many would know I do, speaking to the heavens: “I refuse to believe in THAT god.”

Next Sunday morning, this pastor sang a song based on 1 John. And God helped me make a mental connection during that song that I hadn’t made before. I liked that song. It was written skillfully. But I abhorred its lyrics. Until I figured out that those words came straight from the Bible. That’s when I surrendered to the Bible’s authority. It wasn’t this guy’s words. It was from God. I had to surrender my pride to Him.

But I was still prideful. I refused to help with the PowerPoint slides. It seemed something beneath someone with my gifts, both musical and technical. A guy with a job in electronic payments and a pianist sent to work with PowerPoint—that was not a happy place for me.

One day, God crossed my path with a young man who was on his wanting to be Crowder phase. He was an intern at the church and a follower of the lead pastor since his days as a youth pastor. I liked the guy. I was appreciative of how much time he spent arranging and reimagining old hymns and other songs. He also delivered to me the bad news: you are prideful. Why don’t you wait until we hold auditions for the band.

Eventually, somewhere along the way there I actually came to know the Lord. And I understood that humility was going to have to be an unavoidable part of the way forward.

And the day came for Pastor J, the worship pastor, to listen to me play with the band. The audition was at the Hanley Road Baptist Church. They had a baby grand piano. I was so happy to finally have this opportunity. I gave it my all. That means that I played just like the now-infamous-thanks-to-Netflix-and-his-great-sin John-Paul Miller.

And J said no. No way. Thank you but no.

I had waited. I had jumped through the hoops. I had submitted myself to who I saw as a kid in the process. For nothing!

And that no is one of the best things that ever happened to me. Later, this young man, whose name also starts with a J, would shepherd me through a process of discovery and repentance. I was playing pridefully, I was a one-man show, I didn’t listen to others. I didn’t stay within one of the many ranges of the piano. I wanted to show off and not to give the glory to God. And that was symptomatic of greater sin in my heart.

Had Pastor J1 originally not told me no, had I not heard the no from Pastor J2, and had I not submitted to young man J to open up my heart to kill pride, who knows to what levels my sin would have penetrated my soul and hurt and harmed others.

Then, one day, J said that he thought that maybe I would be ready for me to come play with the band during rehearsal and see. No promises. And I packed my keyboard and came to church. I was presented with the chord charts. And I remember playing D in two octaves, repeatedly in quarter notes for the verses of the hymn. No flashy playing, no arpeggios, no Raúl di Blasio. A guy staying on his lane, not clashing with the guitar or the bass. A guy humbling himself to not attract attention to himself but to the Lord God Almighty. I got to the stage. And I did just that.

And eventually met my good friend JY later. And we would even go on to record a couple of albums of the music that God put in his heart to compose. Not mine. All his. And His.

Am I still a prideful person? I don’t think that pride characterizes me anymore. But a prideful person can easily say that. So, I must always be on alert.

The important point of this is: I could very well be the guy on Netflix had J, J, and J not stopped me when they clearly saw before their eyes what you have seen in your screen.

When we see this stuff, we must act. That’s what the Word calls us to do. We might just be the instruments of God’s redemption and save not just people’s physical lives but their eternal souls as well.

Victor Chininin Buele

One of the most common assumptions behind nearly every argument being made today is the idea that secularism is free of religion and that its arguments are rational (if not the definition of true rational thought) and thus devoid of metaphysical assumptions and blind spots.

Allow me to illustrate: If a person says that abortion on demand should not be permitted, that is immediately considered a religious and metaphysical argument in our public square. If a person says that a woman has a fundamental right to choose abortion on demand, that is not considered to be a religious argument. It is accepted even in the academic world to be a rational argument.

Since a rational argument is clearly considered to be superior to a religious argument in our public square, this assumption ought to be carefully considered and probed.

I don’t write this to argue. I write it because I want everyone to have joy.

My thesis is that all arguments are religious: that everyone has an authoritative, divine, inspired source for right and wrong; that everyone is a theologian; that everyone worships; and that everyone believes a gospel that he is passionate to proclaim to a lost world in desperate need for light.

All our stories are a flavor of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. And all arguments are circular–they do and must reference the higher authority ruling our thinking.

I keep finding that in many conversations, my challenges to this prevalent assumption keep causing unbelief to my beloved atheist, humanist, agnostic, secular friends. When I say or infer that they are just as religious as I am, my statement is often considered to be nonsensical.

“I don’t believe in God, I believe in Science” is Esqueleto’s response to Nacho’s call to baptism in the highly sophisticated film Nacho Libre. Since one post would never get us close to reaching our goal, this will be a series of posts where we discuss:

The Christian and Secular Account of Creation
The Christian and Secular Concept of Sin
The Christian and Secular View of Redemption
The Christian and Secular Gospel of Restoration
The Christian and Secular Understanding of Choice
The Christian and Secular Call to Repentance
The Christian and Secular Desire for Reconciliation
The Christian and Secular Future

Allow me to explain myself.

In arguing that secularism is a religion, my goal is very simple. Allow me to quote from An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, Virginia, 1777:

That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,

And,

And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them: […] that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.

I believe it is essential that you understand that you are a worshiper, not only because that will be miles closer to a place of understanding your need for Jesus (which is my ultimate goal), but in a selfish way (for you), it will help you to actually get on the path towards becoming the rational person you are already convinced that you are.

For both of us, it will help us to truly enjoy, celebrate, and practice religious freedom as we finally stop snubbing each other’s arguments and engage in serious, truly equal discussion in the public square for the good of all rather than just for seeking our own interests.

I choose to be transparent. I want you to see Jesus. But that shouldn’t keep you from reading on. Please, don’t let it keep you from reading on. And I welcome all the discussion necessary to refine the arguments brought forth. Do not write me off as being “unworthy [of] the public confidence.”

Creation

I am often mocked for believing that God created the World in six days and rested on the seventh day. I am often mocked for believing what the Bible tells me. I have read countless books on every position on creation: biblical and unbiblical, old earth and young earth, scientific-sounding and propaganda-sounding. My point in bringing this up is this: I believe that God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) created the world and all that is in it ex nihilo (out of nothing). I believe that because of the testimony of the Bible (and we can write another post about why the Bible is a trustworthy text), the testimony of natural revelation, and because of the conviction given to me by the Holy Spirit. Faith and reason intersected. Biological evidence and metaphysics. Scientific observation and theological rigor. This is not a position I have just swallowed whole without an ounce of thinking. If you have questions about how a Christian could believe this, I would invite you to consider the work of Dr. Vern Poythress, a mathematician and a theologian with degrees from California Institute of Technology, Harvard, Westminster, the University of Cambridge and others. I would recommend to you specifically (all free to download): Redeeming Science and Chance and the Sovereignty of God. Both of these works do a far better job than I ever will showing the serious, rigorous academic work of a scholar.

You can totally disagree with what I have said in the previous paragraph. That’s the whole point of this. But I don’t want you to walk away thinking that your creation story is superior to mine on the grounds of being the only explanation that is completely rational and admissible in the public square. It is not. There are gaps. I can write about that some other time, and Dr. Stephen Meyer does a far better job than I ever will addressing the Cambrian explosion in his work Darwin’s Doubt. I have considered these gaps seriously. I am a thinker and a scientist. Every Christian is called to good science. We are to be good stewards and rulers of a beautiful world. There are things for which a purely naturalistic evolutionary perspective cannot account. Often the answer is, “Not yet.” And that’s fine. You can have that opinion. You can bank on technology. But let’s be honest and call it what it is, “By faith you choose to believe.” You are placing your faith in natural evolution or a subset of scientific principles that are cataloged under the word “evolution.” While many of my friends are distinguished scientists, what I find most frustrating is the number of evolution-defenders who have not even read Darwin’s work themselves. Ultimately I don’t want anyone to parrot what others say. The same feeling you have when you feel that I’m parroting whatever I’ve been told by “religious leaders” I feel when you parrot whatever you’ve been told.

I want us to move beyond indoctrination. We both believe an account of how the world came to be. We believe so by faith. We hold the canon of the works that prove our point to be sacred and unquestionable. We look past the gaps in faith.

And this is just the start of our worldview. Everything hinges upon that.

All of Life. Happily. Under the Sovereign.

I Played Like John-Paul Miller

The Religion of Secularism: Towards a Better Understanding of Ourselves