Some years ago, the cartoon Peanuts pictured Charlie Brown taking Snoopy a dinner on Thanksgiving Day. But it was just his usual dog food in a bowl. Snoopy took one look at the dog food and said, “This isn’t fair. The rest of the world today is eating turkey with all the trimmings and all I get is dog food.” “Because I’m a dog,” he said, “all I get is dog food.” He stood there and stared at his food for a moment and said, “I guess it could be worse. I could be the turkey.”

Snoopy got happier by being grateful. Gratitude is the key to a happy life. I know this to be true from personal experience and from hundreds of pastoral counseling sessions.

One of the most amazing books I have ever read is George S. Pransky’s, Ph.D book “Divorce Is Not the Answer: A Change of Heart Will Save Your Marriage.” Dr. Pransky makes the case that negative emotions like gloom and doom have no life of their own. They are moods generated by thoughts. When a thought is not in your mind, it does not exist. He says, “Negative emotions only rear their ugly heads when we are in a troubled state of mind.” “Emotions are born of thought. Sadness only exists in our lives when we think sad thoughts.” Therefore, Pransky suggests that a person cultivate the “golden emotion” of gratitude by thinking high-toned, contented thoughts of appreciation. Each one of us has an “it” in our lives. An “it” is a person, event or object that makes things difficult. We have a choice to be annoyed by the “it” or we can decide to appreciate “it.” Here is the spectrum of what can happen to your life depending on the choices you make regarding annoyance or appreciation of your “its”:

The Experience--------------The Life I Experience

Galled by it----------------Ulcers and nervous disorders

Bothered by it-------------An emotional roller coaster

Irritated by it--------------A stressful existence

Interested in it-------------A lighthearted, interesting life

Appreciating it------------A high-toned, contented life

Enjoying it-----------------A contagious happiness

Thrilled about it-----------An exuberant, inspired life

This Thanksgiving, choose to be thankful and not the turkey.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV) give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

If you are a Protestant that believes in the Bible (not all do), then you are probably used to thinking and saying that Catholics aren’t necessarily Christians and they believe in some “strange” things like Papal infallibility and Purgatory. I certainly have thought and said such things. However, in my humble opinion, Catholics have some things right. The following is one.

There is actually a reason to go to church

For Catholics the most important reason to go to church is the sacramental presence of Christ. Protestants may scoff at transubstantiation (the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist—communion); but, it reinforces the mystery, dignity and power of the presence of the Risen Lord in the midst of His gathered people, the church. Catholics actually believe that when they attend mass and receive the sacrament of communion, they are really receiving grace from above. They even go so far as to believe that they need the grace that God gives at church. God supplies a measure of this living grace through the communion of Christ with His body the church. Can you imagine that, a real reason to go to church?

Evangelical extinction

In my unscientific survey of Evangelical Christians, there are more and more that think that there is no real reason to go to church. Heck, they say, I can stay home and just do my devotions, pray a little and head to the beach. Or, they say, I can watch some TV preacher who is a great communicator and get a whole lot more out of that then when I go to some dingbat church with a less-than-professional pastor. And now we have iPod—who needs some church full of hypocrites.

Well, my fear is that Evangelicals have failed to show Christians how relevant and important church is to one’s spiritual well-being. Consequently, we may be just one or two generations away from extinction. You don’t have to believe in transubstantiation to recognize that Christ is present in a powerful and special way when his body gathers for worship, word and communion. Christ never intended believers to live in isolation from His body and, in fact, it is exceptionally unhealthy for believers to make church attendance a low priority. My thought is that what one generation tolerates the next generation advocates. If this generation tolerates a loosey-goosey attitude toward church; I guarantee the next generation will find no compelling reason to darken the doorway of a local church.

As a pastor, if you really want to get on the hot-seat do what I did a few months ago. I did a Sunday service without a sermon; instead I just took questions from the congregation and tried to answer them. It went well except I got the dreaded question. It came from a nice pre-teen girl. The question was, “Will my doggie go to heaven?” Trying to answer this question honestly is a classic no-win situation. The answer is no! Fluffy will not go to heaven. But somehow you have to answer the question in such a way that parents and kids don’t all decide to leave the church in a big huff. Better to stick with the sermon.

Here is why Fluffy is not going to heaven. Humans have immortal souls, animals do not. Animals have sensate souls. The fact that you can understand what I am writing is proof that you have an immortal soul. You can abstract concepts from real things. The words you are reading are simply black and white marks on your computer screen; but you have conceptualized real objects from the environment, stripped them of all materiality and formed them in your mind. You carry these concepts (abstractions) around in your mind as words—like “dog.” Your ability to do this is a completely immaterial process. This ability is what makes it possible for you to have free choice. Free choice is simply your ability to compare and contrast possible means (conceptualized options) to a particular end and then choose one means to the end over another. You can actually violate your natural instincts using the power of free choice. You could choose to starve yourself to death. Animals cannot do this because they cannot fully immaterialize, conceptualize and abstract ideas. If animals could do this we would hold them responsible for their actions and, also, we would be in a heap of trouble because they could then plan how to catch us and eat us for lunch.

The bottom line is this; Fluffy is not going to heaven. Heaven is for intellectual creatures who can make moral choices and who have immortal souls—angels and mankind. Also, Fluffy is not going to hell. Hell is for intellectual creatures who can make moral choices and who have immortal souls—angels and mankind.

I recently was involved in a comment-fest on another blog about the subject of gay marriage and its affects on society. This led to a very interesting debate about depopulation. My contention was that gay marriage (as in Scandinavia) adds to the general birth-dearth of Western Europe. But, what I would like to look at here is the whole matter of depopulation and its causes.

Depopulation

First of all, everyone needs to be aware that there is a worldwide phenomenon of declining birthrates. For instance, Europe is now losing about 700,000 people each year, a figure that will grow to about 3 million per year (or more) by mid century. But it is also happening throughout the world at greater or lesser levels. The question is why is this happening? I am going to give you four of the most prominent theories as to why depopulation is happening and three potential solutions for you to consider.

Reasons for Depopulation

1) One prominent theory is—we don’t have a clue. A lot of people are simply saying we don’t know why this is happening.
2) A second theory comes from Ben Wattenburg in his excellent article “Never Mind the Population Explosion.” His basic idea is that, worldwide, when families have the option to choose between more consumer goods and services or a child, they choose the goods. This is the “Advancing Affluence Argument.”
3) Generally speaking economists point to cultural and economic changes in societies that allow women to enter the job market, develop careers and become equal partners in the free market. The result of this is that childbearing tends to get deferred and women literally do not have enough years available to them to raise a large family. Additionally, the reduction of social stigmas against co-habitation and homosexuality adds fuel to the fire.
4) Pat Buchanan in his book “Death of the West” has the most pointed and hardest hitting theory. He believes that affluence and an anti-natalist culture have contributed to the development in Western society of a “culture of death.” In his theory, Western culture is committing a form of slow mass suicide. His is a theory that points to the loss of the West’s spiritual underpinnings.

Solutions

1) One response to depopulation is the ostrich approach—just let it happen. This, of course, does mean that there will radical and fundamental changes culturally and economically—including the real possibility that western civilization will no longer be Western.
2) A second solution is to significantly reduce immigration, upgrade assimilation, and provide social incentives for child-bearing. Some European countries are taking a serious look at this.
3) A third solution is provided by Buchanan and others who say the West (and the world) needs a spiritual revival because those who are religiously committed tend to have pro-family values and more children.

My tendency is to advocate for a blending of solutions 2 and 3. What’s your input on this extremely important social and spiritual subject?

I am going to attempt to kill two birds with one stone. I want to bust a Christian cliché while I deal with a secular myth.

The secular myth is the ultimate spiritual default-position of the egalitarian multiculturalist—that’s a mouthful. It goes something like this, we create our own truth and, therefore, if there is a god, all religious roads lead eventually to him/her/it. The corollary Christian cliché is that as long as one “believes in Jesus” he/she is going to heaven and that’s the main thing because heaven is the great reward. In heaven things will be pretty much equal. This is the contemporary Christian version of egalitarian multiculturalism.

Here is the myth and cliché busting insight--God is the end or goal of life and eternity. The classic Christian term for this is “felicity.” Game, set, and match.

Hold, on there, you say, how does that prove anything? Well, I could give you a tightly reasoned expose of how this all works, but instead, for brevity, I will simply line up a number of declarative statements that lead to my conclusions:

1. Buyer’s remorse proves that man has an infinite desire for happiness (which is the secular word for felicity). St. Thomas puts it this way: “We realize more their insufficiency (earthly goods) when we possess them: and this very fact shows that they are imperfect, and that the sovereign good does not consist therein.”
2. The “sovereign good” (or the ultimate good and purpose of life) can only be an infinite good which can satisfy the desire represented by buyer’s remorse. This must be because as Aristotle states: “Nothing exists in nature without a purpose” and a universal human desire like buyer’s remorse must have a universal end.
3. There can only be one universal infinite-good (God)—for there to be multiple universal infinite-goods (gods) is impossible.
4. (For Christians) the Bible clearly states that eternal life is to know God and His Son Jesus Christ (John 17:3).
5. To come to know God one must first move toward Him and stop moving away from Him (called repentance in the Bible). It is an impossibility to come to know God while moving away from Him. It is nonsensical to think all “roads lead to God.”
6. While God always remains the universal infinite good, one’s capacity to enjoy God can be greater or lesser depending upon one’s development of that capacity through love and good works. St. Thomas says: “Now, that one man enjoys God more than another, happens through his being better disposed or ordered to the enjoyment of Him.” Therefore, not all things will be equal in eternity because the ultimate reward is not heaven, it is God. Those who have greater capacity will enjoy God in a greater way.

There you go, I think I did it--two for one.