John 17: 2-3 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

In Christ’s High Priestly Prayer recorded in John 17, Jesus defines His mission and reveals the nature of eternal life. In verses 2 He states His mission as one of giving eternal life to all who might receive it. Then in verse 3 He defines the nature of eternal life as knowing God and Himself. In other words, the goal of eternity is union with God. All the statements in the Bible about crowns, streets of gold, jewels and rewards are different ways of saying that eternal life is actually a direct relationship with God. Therefore, there is a clear connection between this life and eternal life. What we do now directly relates to enjoying God in heaven. Yet, it is precisely on this issue where I think there is a giant disconnect in the minds of many Christians. They do not seem to see that this life is a “means” by which we prepare ourselves for the “end” (goal) of eternity—which is God.

Paul puts it this way:

Galatians 6: 7-9 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

As a friend of mine says, most Christians are spiritual socialists. The socialist paradigm for life is a pie. They believe that everyone should get an equal piece of the pie. Consequently, in their view, if someone has a larger piece of pie this means that others unjustly have smaller pieces. Therefore, “Mr. Big” (the Government or God) must step in and “redistribute” pie-pieces so that everyone gets their fair share. However, in Galatians, Paul warns Christians that they should not deceive themselves about how life really works. Paul states the principle—which is backed up by God Himself—of life and eternity as “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” We are going to get out of life (and eternity) what we put into it.

If, for instance, as a Christian I fritter my life away paying the minimal amount of attention to the things of God; but, instead engage myself in my worldly pursuits, then that is what I am going to reap in eternity—very little. Why--Because the things of this life are temporary and passing away.

Preparing for eternity is like developing a capacity to enjoy music. When I go to a classical concert I usually enjoy it to a very limited degree. However, I have a friend who is a professional musician. He has spent his life developing his skills and ear for music. At a classical concert he hears, understands and enjoys vastly more than I do. He has a far, far greater capacity for music than I do. Where did he get that capacity? Well, it didn’t just happen. My friend has spent countless hours honing his musical skills and he is now prepared to enjoy the pleasures of music at a level far beyond what I am. So it will be in eternity. Only it won’t be music that Christians enjoy, it will be God.

In eternity God (Mr. Big) will not dole out equal portions of Himself to everyone. Each person will receive exactly the amount of God that they have prepared themselves to receive--no more and no less. This will be our heavenly reward. God cannot be mocked about this because this is really how it works. It is about capacity for enjoying God. That capacity is created now. This is why Paul said, “let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

Because those who are Christian pacifists seem to have boundless energy to write pieces opposing the concept of a Just War, I will take the time to again defend this important idea.

Greg Boyd writes a blog titled “Random Reflections.” Boyd is a noted author, pastor and theologian. Recently he has been writing an assessment of Peter Craigie’s views expressed in a book entitled The Problem of War in the Old Testament (Wipf and Stock, 2002 [orig. 1978]). Boyd gives a lot of attention to Craigie’s work which I will not attempt to rehearse. Rather, I will focus on the content of one paragraph where Boyd reflects on the Just War Theory.

Here is what Boyd writes.

“First, I believe Craigie is largely correct in his critique of Just War theory. There is something profoundly “unrealistic” (and, arguably, “evil”) in the common assumption that declaring a war “just” lessens its horror in any way. Among a multitude of other problems, there is no objective, universally agreed upon criteria for what constitutes a “just war” or of what constitutes “just behavior” of soldiers while battling in war. The concept of “justice” that a nation or tribe uses in their Just War theorizing is largely, if not entirely, culturally conditioned. Not only this, but the concept of justice as applied to war is always employed to protect and further the interests of the nation or tribe that is doing the theorizing. Not surprisingly, every nation or tribe that has ever gone to war has felt justified doing so. After all, who would kill and be willing to be killed unless they felt their cause was justified?”

I believe that Boyd is offering several straw man arguments against Just War. First of all, proponents of Just War do not think that by “declaring a war ‘just’” that it “lessens its horror.” Proponents of Just War know that war is “hell” and, therefore, should never be engaged in until all other means of recourse have been exhausted. From a Christian perspective, the purpose of declaring a war “just” is to assure that a good-faith effort has been made to examine the causes and purposes for armed combat as it relates to the Divine Law. Justice is giving to “each man what is his due.” According to the Divine Law each man has an inalienable right to life because he is in God’s image. Only God has the right to take human life. This is why murder is a heinous and unjust act. To protect human life God has delegated to governments the responsibility to justifiably punish wrongdoers for their evil actions. This also means that a government has a God-ordained right to defend its citizens against unjust military actions. Consequently, it is unjust to wantonly attack a nation and murder its citizens. Hence, from a Christian perspective, there is a need for governments to honestly assess their actions as they relate to military combat.

Boyd also claims that there is not a “universally agreed upon criteria for what constitutes a ‘just war.’” This is a straw man argument because there is no universally agreed upon criteria for virtually any human endeavor. However, in the Western Christian tradition there is a long history of Just War Theory all the way back to Augustine. Augustine’s views supplemented by those of Thomas Aquinas are generally understood to be the basic view for Just War Theory. These are not simply “culturally conditioned” “theorizing.” Augustine lived in North Africa 1,700 years ago. The Just War Theory is trans-cultural spanning nearly 2,000 years of history. What other sociological theory is as old and as well-developed across cultures?

Contrary to Boyd’s view that every nation and tribe uses Just War to rationalize its combat; only a very few nations attempt to use Just War Theory to evaluate their engagement in warfare. This is true today and it certainly has been true for the 2,000 years of Christian history. A fact of history is that armed combat has been used as a systematic way to gain resources and territory without any recourse to the Just War Theory. In reality, the Just War Theory was developed as a response by Christians to marauding people-groups bent on expanding their sphere of influence and resource-base by attacking neighboring nations. The fact that every nation that has gone to war “has felt justified” does not mean that these nations attempted to evaluate their actions by the Just War Theory. Only Western nations have done so. For example, Islamic empires have rarely if ever felt constrained by Christian principles of Just War. More typically, they have believed that they have a religious mandate to convert non-Muslim nations by the “sword.” The Crusades, for instance, were a rather limited response to hundreds of years of Islamic military expansion including an attempt to subdue Europe which drove deep into central France.

Boyd ends his paragraph by asking, “Who would kill and be willing to be killed unless they felt their cause was justified?” My answer is that here have been and still are many people who would be very willing to attack other nations without any military provocation. Currently, there is a growing problem with pirating on the high seas. Pirates are brazenly attacking ocean-going vessels of sovereign nations. Pirates are not doing this because they think they have a just cause. Rather, they are attacking, killing and maiming people on ocean vessels for one of the oldest reasons for armed engagement—financial gain.

I cannot see where Boyd has provided even one legitimate argument against the Just War Theory.

In a Christianity Today article, Kevin A. Miller wrote what he titled “A Postmodern Rant.” Miller purposed that it is time for us to end the conversation about how postmodernism is in some mysterious way the future of the church. Here is a little of what he wrote.

“PPMs (proponents of postmodernism) want us to listen to the postmodernizing culture, to enter relationship and accept our common brokenness. Who would argue? But while we love the relativist, let us hate the relativism. It puzzles me why postmodern theory has drawn such praise from Christians, when its essence (beneath the turgid prose) is that there is no objective truth. The "rules" of science or morality, pomo scholars contend, are as arbitrary as the rules of baseball. But as Dinesh D'Souza reminds us, "Postmodern theory suffers from the weakness that the postmodernists themselves don't believe it." When they get sick, they check into a modernist hospital, and when they fly, they step onto a plane built by engineers whose work must not be as random as the postmodernists claimed.”

Miller, as you can see, quotes Dinesh D’Souza. The extended quote can be found in his book “Letters to Young Conservatives” or a 2004 article on the Tothesource website: http://www.tothesource.org/1_7_2004/1_7_2004.htm.

At the recent apologetic’s conference that my church hosted, D’Souza was asked about the effect of postmodernism upon the church. This effect is found most prominently but not exclusively in the ECM (emerging church movement). D’Souza quickly responded by saying that there is nothing to be concerned about because there, in reality, is no one living by postmodernist or relativist beliefs. Just below the surface within every relativist is an “emerging” absolutist just waiting to get out. D’Souza’s point was that postmodernism is mostly a rhetorical strategy aimed at disarming traditionalists and orthodox Christians. But, why disarm those who believe in truth? Here is what D’Souza says:

“It is a great intellectual challenge to make the case for morality and truth at a time when many in the West are no longer sure that such things exist, or that they can be demonstrated. The decline of belief in an external moral order is one of the most important political facts of the past two centuries. Indeed, this decline has created the “crisis of the West.” This crisis is not simply one of the “death of God.” Rather, as Nietzsche predicted, if religion withers away, so does morality. The reason is that religion is the source of morality, and therefore morality cannot long survive the decay of religion. How do postmodernists respond to this decline of morality? They welcome it, in the name of freedom. That was Nietzsche’s response as well. They speak about creating “new values.” Some even dream about creating a “new man” free from the traditional impediments of human nature.”

So the point is that once traditional religion has been muted then morality cannot survive. This will then be replaced by “new values;” a kind of anti-morality. My personal prediction is that the new anti-morality which would emerge out of the acid decay of postmodernism will be hyper-absolutist. Far from being relativistic, the “new values” will be totalitarian in the extreme.

Since I don’t watch daytime television, I had not realized how far out in left field Oprah had gotten. That is, until one of my staff members sat me down to show me a few videos on You Tube. Frankly, I was stunned. My general impression has been that Oprah has a huge following of mostly female viewers that she entertains with heart-warming and semi-provocative human interest stories. Certainly, this is nothing surprising or new. Daytime television has been engaging in this sort of programming all the way back to the time of “Queen for a Day.”

I have been somewhat concerned about the general drift of society toward increased sentimentalism. Others have been as well. In fact, a term has been coined to describe this tendency using Oprah’s name. The term, of course, is Oprahization. However, I did not specifically identify this drift in society with Oprah. I have merely seen her as woman with brilliant media savvy who has tapped into the temper of the times.

What I did not realize is that in the last year or so, Oprah has made the decision to become somewhat of an evangelist for a plethora of New Age gurus. She has been using her enormous influence to direct people to read key New Age authors. As we all know by now, when Oprah tells her audience to read a particular book, that book will virtually fly off the shelves and become an overnight New York Times Bestseller.

Her latest guru-of-choice is Eckhart Tolle. The first week in March Oprah began a ten-week long online course of his best-selling book, "A New Earth." However, Tolle is only one of a string of New Age spiritualists that Oprah has been featuring such as Marianne Williamson, Barbara DeAngelis, LaVar Burton, Richard Carlson, Betty Eadie, and many others.

Oprah also has a very popular XM radio station (not just a broadcast) where she has essentially been running a school for New Age religion.

Believe me; I cannot possibly convey the insipid nonsense that people like Tolle are propagating. To get a real sense for this you have to see it for yourself. I recommend you go here and view "Can I be the Space for this?" - Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx526pO9UV0&feature=related

In my view, Tolle is a classic example of what California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has famously termed a “girly man.” This, I believe, makes him slyly appealing to an audience that has been Oprahized and habituated to swooning before a fog of sentimentalism.

From a Christian perspective, Tolle’s teachings are a mishmash of Gnostic philosophy and bits and pieces of Eastern mysticism blended into a uniquely American concoction that focuses on personal self-fulfillment. Of course, it strongly emphasizes “feelings” which demonstrates nearly a pathological reaction against hard-edged things such as “truth,” “doctrine,” “right” and “wrong.” Such hard-edged things are anathema to New Age-ism and to Oprah.

Much to my dismay, I have learned from female staff people that they are seeing strong indications that Oprah's evangelistic efforts are having a strong impact on many Christian women. I had two of them tell me today that they have personal friends who have read Tolle’s latest book at Oprah’s urging and have found it enticing. Furthermore, my staff women believe it is clouding the judgment of these Christian women.

With all of this in mind, I was drawn to the following Scripture which gives a lot of insight about what appears to be going on with Oprah, her New Age gurus and her audience.

2 Timothy 3: 1-7 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

There are many reasons why the Son of God, second person of the Blessed Trinity, became incarnate as Jesus Christ. Thomas Aquinas provides an interesting but somewhat overlooked reason.

“Therefore, to get greater familiarity in friendship between man and God it was helpful for man that God became man, since even by nature man is man’s friend; and so in this way, ‘while we know God visibly, we man [through Him] be borne to love of things invisible.’” (SCG IV, Ch. 54, A. 6)

Aquinas makes the case that the Incarnation of Christ creates a bridge for us to move beyond the tangible and visible realm of material things to the things of God which are invisible. As we love Christ we are moved beyond the “here and now” to the eternal. Aquinas, though, was not the first person to suggest the importance of loving the invisible. In Paul’s powerful letter to the Colossian Christians he spends a couple of chapters securing them in their identity “in Christ.” He makes sure that they understand that their true identity is hidden with Christ in God. However, at the very beginning of chapter 3, Paul moves from what God has done for Christians to what Christians are to do for God.

Colossians 3: 1-4 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Paul declares that what God has done for us in Christ demands a new mindset. As Christ came down from heaven to become our friends, we are now to move our minds from worldly things—no matter how good they may be—to heaven. No longer are we to allow the cares, distractions, and interests of this world to dominate our thinking. What is to dominate our thinking is the heavenly realm.

Jesus also said something very similar to what Aquinas and Paul wrote.

Matthew 6: 19-21 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In Matthew 6, however, Jesus adds a couple of nuances. Jesus tells us that where we invest our time, talent and treasure is where our hearts will be. It is all about location, location, location. In other words, if I want to have a heavenly mindset then I need to invest into heavenly things. For instance, people that have invested a lot of their resources into the stock market are very, very interested in the daily Dow Jones. Nobody has to instruct them to focus mental energy on Wall Street.

So here it my point; you can be sure that Christians who demonstrate little interest in heavenly things have certainly not invested much of their personal time, talent and treasure into the things of God. Where your treasure is, so is your heart.