lessons from Galileo: a summer discussion with undergraduates

For a related video recording, please click here

It is a real joy for me to be able to be with you this evening to share some ideas and to engage in some discussion. I’m a Christian and I’m a scientist, and I’ve chosen a topic that blends these two facts. It’s a topic that I hope you will also find interesting.

Besides being a Christian and a scientist, I’m also a dad with a daughter in college. I’m so pleased that Liz is here tonight with a number of her friends. Speaking as a dad, there is something I need to say right away, and right from my heart. On behalf of all of your parents, I want you to know how much we love you, and how much we miss you! Learning to let go of you is just about the hardest lesson we parents are facing. We are so proud of you!

I was raised in a church-going home, and was quite devout and religious as I grew up. Although I believed in God and had been baptized and confirmed, the truth is, I had little knowledge of God or the Bible. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that a friend challenged me to explain the basis for my faith. When I described it to him, we both realized that I believed I had to constantly earn God’s love, and I needed to bargain with God for everything. I believed, like very many people, that God would bless me if I was good, and punish me if I was bad. Getting to heaven meant being more good than bad. It had never occurred to me that God’s standard might be perfect goodness, or that God might love me unconditionally. My friend shared a small booklet written by Billy Graham. It explained the idea that God’s love for me was extreme, and that Christ had died for my sins, to pay my lifetime of debts once and for all. Accepting that gift creates a bridge back to intimacy with my heavenly father. I was amazed by this offer, and I prayed a prayer of acceptance that changed my life. I am deeply thankful for God’s unconditional love, and for my savior’s willingness to die on the cross in my place.

And I love science. My father was a geology professor at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, so I have always been exposed to science and scientific thinking. I did my undergraduate and PhD training in molecular Biology at UW—Madison, and then I did my postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech. At age 30 I took my first job as an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. I moved my lab here to Mayo Clinic in 1995. I love doing molecular biology research, and I love working with PhD students. I enjoy the vibrancy of young people, about your age, and the crucial questions and decisions and dynamic changes my students face. It is a very exciting time of life, and the chance to invest in my students as their mentor is a joy and a privilege.

I grew up in a world where evolutionary theory and an ancient earth were important scientific truths. When I became a Christian and started to carefully study the Bible, I met loving people who had decided that a high view of the Bible meant rejecting modern scientific views about the origin of our universe and the origin of humans. I temporarily jumped from one side of the fence to the other, assuming that Darwinian theories could not be correct and that I had no choice but to become a creationist or a proponent of what came to be known as Intelligent Design.

What I want to do this evening is to depart from that topic for a while, and talk about something else. I loved the history of science courses I took as an undergraduate, and tonight’s topic will start with history of science before eventually getting us back to where we started. Bear with me.

Two things motivated me to choose this evening’s topic. The first was a series of conversations I’ve had with Liz during her time so far as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. She has a number of Christian friends, and she and I have both been dismayed to hear that many of them avoid taking college courses in geology or even biology because they are afraid to be taught about evolutionary theory. The concern seems to be that even hearing about this scientific topic is somehow evil and dangerous. What an unfortunate attitude! What does this fear say about curiosity and the search for truth? Why do we go to college anyway? Isn’t it possible that there is more to learn than what we already know? Couldn't some ideas be bigger and more profound than we previously thought? I was disturbed to think that Christians are afraid to learn more about nature and science and technology. How else can we understand what really is true? Shouldn’t we listen and sift, using our minds and our God-given intellect to determine honestly for ourselves what is real? After all, college should be the one time when we get to decide what we believe (and why), so we don’t unquestioningly inherit what our parents believe. Remember, somebody’s paying a lot for you to have this college experience! So I was annoyed.

Second, I read two wonderful books this spring. I recommend both to you with great enthusiasm. You can get them from amazon.com. The first is:

Francis S. Collins. The Language of God: a scientist presents evidence for belief. Free Press, New York, NY. 2006.

This excellent book is by the molecular biologist who managed the publicly-funded human genome project to sequence, for the first time, the 3 billion base pairs of human DNA. Collins is a wonderful and thoughtful Christian believer. Like some of the Christian professors who influenced me at UW—Madison, Collins is committed to the Bible and he is not a creationist. This book is extremely helpful, and I urge all of you to read it. In fact, a section of the book gave me the idea for my talk this evening. It is called “Lessons from Galileo.”

The other book that influenced me is actually about Galileo. It is:

Dava Sobel. Galileo’s Daughter: a historical memoir of science, faith and love. Penguin Books, New York, NY. 2000.

This tremendous book collects actual letters written to the famous Italian scientist, Galileo, from his daughter in her convent. The book gave me the opportunity to review Galileo’s life, and I drew some conclusions that I wish to share this evening.

After we briefly review the historical record of Galileo’s life and scientific contributions, I want to remind us of his spiritual legacy. I’ll let you connect the dots from this discussion to the issue I mentioned at the beginning. Finally I’ll suggest some key principles drawn from the story of Galileo.

I want to emphasize that my comments this evening represent my own opinions. I will quote some famous people, but my presentation is not meant to imply that these views are officially shared by our hosts this evening, or by my church. I feel strongly about these ideas, but I feel even more strongly about other things that I know more certainly. I know more certainly that my savior Jesus Christ loves me, and died for me, and that his death has rescued me, and, amazingly, his death makes me clean in God’s eyes. We can enjoy lively debate about science and origins, but these are not nearly so important as understanding how to come into personal relationship with the God of this universe.

To understand Galileo and the momentous importance of his scientific and spiritual contributions, we need to dust off a bit of scientific history. We’ll start with Ptolemy, a Roman scientific philosopher who, around 83 AD, published his geocentric model for the solar system (and the entire universe, for that matter). The study of cosmology has much more ancient roots, but Ptolemy captured the western thought of his age: both our physical experience and our healthy egos make it clear that the earth is stationary and everything moves around us.

Duh.

This core truth is self-evident, and we just have to work out the details of predicting the movement of sun, moon and stars in celestial spheres that move around us. Those pesky planets (the “wandering stars” whose motions break the rules) were just minor exceptions to Ptolemy.

The geocentric cosmology made sense with experience and with our human perception that the universe is about us. This model was also consistent with the language used by the biblical writers (more on that in a few minutes). Ptolemy’s views held sway for almost another millennium and a half. Then things changed.

To put the matter in context, recall that the brilliant artist and scholar Leonardo da Vinci lived from 1452-1519. Shortly afterwards the equally brilliant Polish scientist, Copernicus, put into writing something that had intrigued other (less daring) western scientists for centuries—the concept of a heliocentric solar system. In fact, Arab, Greek, Indian, and likely Chinese philosophers had been toying with these ideas as well. In 1543 Copernicus argued that a heliocentric model for the solar system could account at least as well as the geocentric view for the phenomena we observe in the sky during the day and night. The sun, not the earth, might be the stationary object.

With hindsight, it is fascinating to read about how the Copernican model was viewed by his contemporaries. One of them was Martin Luther, who was busy inventing Protestantism. Luther, who lived from 1483-1546, was not a fan of Copernicus or his idea that earth orbits the sun. Luther wrote:

"There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must . . . invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth."

What else was going on in 1543? It was a busy time for science, religion, and culture. John Calvin lived from 1509-1564, and William Shakespeare from 1564-1616. They were both contemporaries of Copernicus.

Then we get to Galileo and our story for tonight. Born in the same year as Shakespeare, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei lived from 1564-1642. More than a philosopher of science, Galileo was an observational scientist. By this I mean that he invented scientific instruments that revolutionized his ability to observe the universe. With the ability to see the universe more clearly came fresh evidence, not just opinions, about truth. It was this evidence, and the conclusions he drew from it, that got Galileo into trouble.

Galileo built a refracting telescope in 1609, when he was 46 years old. This changed everything.

Galileo used his telescope to observe the night sky. Though it wasn’t a very good instrument by modern standards, it revealed evidence that shook the Ptolemeic cosmology. Galileo observed sunspots that challenged the notion of heavenly perfection. More amazing, he observed, for the first time, that there were moons around the planet Jupiter. In a wonderfully detailed set of observations, Galileo discovered that Jupiter’s moons circled…Jupiter! Not everything in the heavens need circle the earth. Maybe our planet isn’t…gulp…the center of everything after all. Galileo’s thorough, and thoughtful, observations and writings helped to establish the Copernican view as very likely. The retrograde planetary motions are easily explained if earth and the other planets are circling the sun at different rates and on different orbits.

In a moment, we’ll review the ecclesiastical arguments that ended up costing Galileo his freedom.

In the tradition of astronomers, the next major figure was Kepler, who in 1571 (during Galileo’s life), deduced that planetary orbits are elliptical rather than circular. It was then the British genius, Isaac Newton, who in 1642 published his massive treatise laying out the laws of motion, gravitation and mechanics. By the 1700s it became plain that the heliocentric view of the solar system was correct. Modern space exploration depends on it. Moreover, our understanding of the universe made possible by observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and other instruments descended from Galileo, prove that we’ve lost our place in the center of it all. In fact, our planet is in the middle of nowhere in a solar system in the middle of nowhere within a galaxy in the middle of nowhere in an unimaginably vast and expanding universe.

In case you missed that—it appears we are in the middle of nowhere.

So we know now that Galileo was right and Ptolemy was wrong. I’m not aware of many Christian students who are afraid to take college astronomy because they might be taught that the sun is the center of the solar system. Galileo was right. The sun IS in the center of the solar system. We’ve stopped arguing about it. We accept it. We can still be Christians and yet believe in heliocentrism.

Duh.

Well not so fast. Galileo paid dearly to teach us this lesson, and it took many decades and bitter arguments with the religious leaders of his day. Let’s remember that there were Bible students in both the Roman Catholic and Protestant establishments who were committed to the view that Galileo’s teaching was heresy of the worst kind. The Catholic Church worked hard to suppress this teaching and censured Galileo. Before we’re too judgmental, remember the quote from Luther about Copernicus. Most leading Christians of the day were not leading scientists of the day.

Thoughtful Jews and Christians have, for centuries, been trying to understand how the Bible is inspired, why it was provided to us, and how to understand the many kinds of literature collected within it. Those wishing for some kind of literal interpretation of all passages struggled violently against heliocentrism. For example, I did a search that found the word “sun” 170 times in the New International Version of the Bible. 55 of those verses involve rising or setting movements. Clearly, if the sun is stationary, these verses are not literally true, right? A number of other famous verses caused particular arguments between church authorities and the new cosmologists. I will mention just seven examples:

Psalm 93:1
The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the LORD is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength.
The world is firmly established;
it cannot be moved.

Psalm 96:10
Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns."
The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.

I Chron 16:30
Tremble before him, all the earth!
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.

Psalm 104:5
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.

Ecc: 1:5
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

Josh 10:12-14
On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel:
"O sun, stand still over Gibeon,
O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on [b] its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!

Job 9:6
He shakes the earth from its place
and makes its pillars tremble.

I think it is tremendously important to think through these seven examples. We now know with great certainty that the earth orbits the sun. We also know that the Bible is an important collection of ancient documents that somehow expresses God’s message for us. So how do we understand these passages?

Well, as we develop our own analysis, let’s look at what Galileo so eloquently said on this very point. In his letter of 1613 to churchman Benedetto Castelli Galileo writes:

“…Holy Scripture cannot err and the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. I should only have added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways…when they would base themselves always on the literal meaning of the words. For in this way not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and eyes, and human and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred, and sometimes forgetfulness of things past, and ignorance of the future…I believe the intention of Holy Writ was to persuade men of the truths necessary for salvation such as neither science nor any other means could render credible, but only the voice of the Holy Spirit. But I do not think it necessary to believe that the same God who gave us our senses, our speech, our intellect, would have us put aside the use of these, to teach us instead such things as with their help we could find out for ourselves, particularly in the case of those sciences of which there is not the smallest mention in the Scriptures; and, above all, astronomy, of which so little notice is taken that the names of none of the planets are mentioned. Surely if the intention of the sacred scribes had been to teach the people astronomy, they would not have passed over the subject so completely.”

And so we come to the crux of my presentation. I want to raise five questions for discussion:

1. Why did I choose this topic, and how does it relate to my introductory comments?

2. How do modern Christians treat/understand difficult passages that imply a stationary earth and moving heavenly bodies?

3. Why aren’t Christians fighting with scientists about geocentrism any more? Are there many Christian schools founded on the principle that geocentrism must be taught? Is that the focus of home school curricula?

4. Why aren’t Christian students afraid to take astronomy and physics in college (except if they don’t like math)?

5. What is the point?

[an extended period of discussion ensued as students responded to these questions].

OK. Thank you for your very interesting and thoughtful ideas. You have correctly discerned that I chose this topic because I think the 16th and 17th century battles over Scripture and heliocentrism teach some crucial lessons about how Christians should think about science. These “Lessons from Galileo” have totally changed how we understand our solar system and our place in the physical universe. Galileo taught us that these scientific truths need not force us to abandon Christianity. We owe Galileo huge thanks.

There is, however, remarkable irony. After just a few hundred years, many of us Christians have forgotten the lessons of Galileo. We are afraid to examine scientific evidence that might broaden our horizons, as Galileo’s evidence did. We claim a literal framework for biblical interpretation when we actually have no such framework. Galileo already demonstrated that we must think poetically about some biblical literature, including the astronomy passages of the Bible. And we have accepted this! We have already abandoned a literal interpretation of the Scriptures. As several of you stated so clearly during the discussion time, Galileo reminded us that the Bible contains many kinds of literature, intended for many purposes. This literature includes poetry, lyrics, proverbs, letters, historical accounts, allegory, mythology, and apocalyptic visions. Asking whether a Bible passage is literally true is sometimes (not always) like looking at a painting and asking if it is literally “true,” or hearing the lyrics to a love song and asking if they are literally “true.”

When Christians sign on to the creation/evolution debate, it reflects forgetfulness about the lessons of Galileo, and it also reflects forgetfulness about even more profound lessons. Let me share some remarkable quotes from deep Christian thinkers on the problem of understanding biblical teaching about origins.

Saint Augustine lived from 354-430 AD (long before Galileo). In 408 AD he wrote “The Literal Interpretation of Genesis.” Here is what he writes in Chapter 19:

“It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that the non-Christian should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.”

Augustine also writes:

“… as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.”

And finally,

"In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in many different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it."

One of my favorite Christian authors, C.S. Lewis, an expert on mythology and a deeply committed Christian, speaks eloquently about the Biblical record in this passage from his book, The problem of pain:

“For long centuries, God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all of the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed in this stage for ages before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say “I” and “me,” which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgments of truth, beauty and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past…We do not know how many of these creatures God made, nor how long they continued in the Paradisal state. But sooner or later they fell. Someone or something whispered that they could become as gods…They wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, “This is our business, not yours.” But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives. We have no idea in what particular act, or series of acts, the self-contradictory, impossible wish found expression. For all I can see, it might have concerned the literal eating of a fruit, but the question is of no consequence.”

And so I want to leave you with four principles. I consider these to be lessons from Galileo.

1. The Bible is beautiful, not simple. The Bible contains many kinds of literature. We must work hard to understand each of them, and the purpose for which each was written. We must humbly admit that we cannot be certain about some meanings.

2. The Bible is a collection of documents revealing God’s character and relationship to us. It is apparently not a technical scientific document.

Here I would like to provide a short anecdote. Once upon a time Liz was learning about heredity, and was just starting to be curious about the birds and the bees. One day when she was about 5 years old I commented on her beautiful blue eyes, and how my eyes are also blue. Her mom’s eyes aren’t blue. Liz is smart. She looked at me and said, “how come my eyes are blue when I came out of Mom’s body?” Now that caught me off guard. Being a molecular biologist, I recognized a teachable moment. It was a perfect chance to explain the idea of DNA codes, and how the DNA instructions in my cells specified how to make blue eyes, while the DNA in mom’s cells had instructions for making gray-green eyes. I proudly steered clear of trouble while explaining some molecular biology and how children reflect hereditary information from both parents. Liz stared at me. “OK, so how did YOUR DNA get into MOM’s body!?”

Wow.

I faced a choice. She was five years old! I had no problem some years later talking with her about human sexuality in pretty thorough detail. But such a conversation in such detail would have been neither appropriate nor helpful for a little five-year-old girl with blue eyes. She wasn’t ready for it, and she wouldn’t have understood it had I provided the detail. A loving father communicates what is needed in terms that can be understood. Rather than a continued science lecture, I told my little girl that I loved her very much and I loved her mom very much. “When a mom and dad love each other, they long to have kids to share their love. So moms and dads share their DNA.” There were two seconds of silence. “OK” she said, “do you want to do a puzzle with me?”

And that was that. Why do I share this story along with principle 2? I think God gave us a beautiful story to express to us what we need to understand about our origins. A technical explanation wasn’t necessary and would not have been helpful. The beginning of Genesis is, to me, more like poetry or lyrics or a painting than a scientific manuscript. I think I was imitating God when I had that conversation on origins with my five-year-old daughter. As Bible readers, our challenge is to understand the different forms of literature we encounter, and to do our best to understand the purpose for which each was written.

3. Galileo teaches us that Christians must discern that there is poetry in scripture. When scientific observation appears to contradict the “plain teaching” of scripture, it is sometimes the “plain teaching” of scripture that is wrong.

4. By wrapping Christianity in single issues like the creation/evolution debate, or moral issues like gay rights, we diminish Christ and make it harder for unsaved people to accept him.

Thank you for your interest and for your discussion. Please don’t hesitate to email me at maher@mayo.edu with your comments and questions.

And remember, we parents love you so very much, and we are intensely proud of you!

06/08

minor prophets

I've been reading through one Bible chapter each day during my prayer time. The last few months have been in the minor prophets.

This gives one an interesting and disturbing perspective. These are the Bible chapters telling the story of the moral and spiritual failings of Israel and Judah 25 centuries ago, their corruption, their disregard for covenant law, their idolatry, their unfaithfulness, their chasing after the gods of the neighboring nations, their social exploitation, and their lack of justice.

In response, the prophets speak threats, predictions of punishments, calls to repentance, and the general message that the misbehavior of God's chosen people will be repaid with plague, famine, political disaster, and destruction at the hands of foreign armies. Israel and Judah are told that they will be decimated in a most horrific way.

I’ve been confronted by the age-old question: is this threatening and vengeful God of the Old Testament the God I know in my heart?

Today in prayer I became aware of an application that brought unexpected clarity. I realized that I am personally guilty of the same sins as the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The condemnation of the prophets applies to me for my comparable thoughts, actions and inactions.

The failure of the Jews to uphold the covenant, and the corresponding punishment, paint a picture of what God's standard demands. I am as culpable and guilty as Israel and Judah. Their national corporate sins are what I have committed and still commit. As God's chosen child, I am just as undeserving and rebellious as the targets of the prophetic writings.

The profound difference is that my punishments, my decimation, my plagues, tortures, famines, my destruction at the hands of foreign enemies—all these deserved and just calamities were executed upon my savior, Jesus, rather than upon me.

This changes everything. The messages of the prophets are no longer abstract and distant warnings to some ancient Jews with whom I have nothing in common. These are warnings and curses that remind me what I deserved, what I deserve, and what I have "coming to me" for my rebellion.

This morning I realized that the prophets were accusing me personally from the pages of scripture. I couldn’t dismiss them or claim to be innocent or victorious or living in a different age. I heard myself whispering in response, "yes, you are right—I deserve the punishments and calamities you describe—I am no better than my brothers and sisters in ancient Israel and Judah. But—by unimaginable and inexplicable mercy—Jesus has suffered these in my place."

3.1.08

chamber music in rural iowa

I started learning to play the string bass during the summer after third grade. It was 1970. Though I had expressed a preference for the violin, my parents wisely counseled that a tall young man should play a tall instrument. My dad never mentioned it, but I think he also had an affinity for the bass since he himself had played bass and tuba once upon a time.

Choosing the bass turned out to be wonderful, not so much for the visual effect, but because of the unusual versatility of the instrument. I’ve found myself playing orchestral double basses made of wood (or even fiberglass), and 4- or 5-string electric bass guitars with or without frets. Since learning to play the bass, I’ve lived in Madison, Pasadena, Omaha, and Rochester. In each city, bass playing has been an instant ticket to new friends, new venues, new musical styles, new trans-generational experiences, and new kinds of worship.

I’ve played at hundreds of rehearsals and concerts over 37 years. Some of the events were flashy: the Kennedy Center in Washington for the bicentennial in 1976, the grand opening of the Madison Civic Center, concerts with guest artists like Henry Mancini, a concerto concert solo with the Wisconsin Youth Symphony, in the pit orchestra for ballet with Rudolf Nureyev, jazz at a luxury hotel in downtown LA, side-by-side with session musicians leading worship at Lake Avenue Congregational Church in Pasadena, in the orchestra for “Bye Bye Birdie” at Caltech, playing with the Rochester Symphony.

Other musical memories are more colorful: dressed like an Egyptian at a musical homecoming skit in 1978, bluegrass for 5th graders with Wild Erp and the Pheasant Branch Creek Boys, youth orchestra concerts at nursing homes and prisons, praise music performed for a hostile crowd on State Street at the University of Wisconsin, rock and roll on a stage as roaches walked across the wall, in a bar behind chain link fencing, playing gay clubs in both Madison and Omaha, recording blues in a chilly studio on new year’s day in 1995.

The gift of music lessons can change a life. It changed mine. Though I’m no professional musician, I know that I was meant to play music. Worship music has become my greatest passion—I sometimes wonder if it is why I was born. Apart from my family, here is where I find the deepest joy of my life.

There is no doubt that my other favorite genre is chamber music. Perhaps my most cherished memories are of performing Handel’s Messiah. This tremendous (and lengthy) oratorio was composed in 1741. The text was written in English, capturing the essential biblical passages describing the prophetic revelation of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. It is seldom played in its entirety and it is often played (and sung) pretty poorly. It doesn’t seem to matter. It is as if it is not about the performance itself, but about the privilege of sharing the power and significance of the message of the work. I’ve played Messiah dozens of times over the years, in places across the country. I love it partly because the small orchestra seldom involves more than one bassist. This player must be attentive, collaborative with a cellist or two, and willing to play with velocity and precision in both quiet and loud passages. In short, the technical challenges involved in playing string bass in Messiah are a blast.

Ironically, the transcendent aspects of Messiah have struck me most powerfully through the several performances I have played at churches in rural Midwestern towns. A combined local volunteer choir typically hires a few vocal soloists and a small orchestra for a community Messiah concert. These events were always quite remarkable. I always found myself trying to visualize the composer confronted with the spectacle.

My favorite memory of this kind was from the early 1990s when we were living in Omaha and I was playing too much music. I played in chamber music ensembles, a pop/gospel music group, and a swing band, not to mention blues with “Jacob’s Creek,” a quintet featuring Dave Barry’s brother, Sam. That winter I was hired for a holiday Messiah concert in Red Oak, Iowa in an old stone church near the small town square. The church had a labyrinth of backstage rooms and a tall traditional nave with a mixture of interior wood and stone and a tremendous echo along with a musty smell. The place had seen better days. We rehearsed the work with the choir and soloists during the afternoon. The choir members represented about six small churches from the area, and all had donned white shirts with dark pants or skirts accented by various red and green ties or sashes for visual impact (which was achieved). They were all ages and all shapes. A few could sing pretty well. Choir volunteers had produced and served a chicken dinner with cole slaw in the church basement before the concert.

A few details about this particular night are etched in my memory. It was extremely cold. To my great surprise, the church was packed 30 minutes before the concert was to begin. The audience was buzzing with excitement. Many of the pews were obviously occupied by farm families. The men wore their work clothes, including multiple layers and heavy boots. Cold winter air hung on their coats, and bits of straw and mud were visible on overalls and shoes. There were kids. There were elderly folks in wheelchairs. I wore a tuxedo and was more than a bit concerned that this earthy crowd would neither enjoy the music, have the required endurance, nor appreciate the finer points of Messiah etiquette. After all, what business did we really have forcing these aristocratic and pretentious King James verses on struggling rural farm families in this cold Iowa town?

It turned out not to matter in the least. Amidst the mingling scents of too much lady’s perfume in the choir and a bit of manure out in the pews, the concert began. The audience sat in rapt attention, from the youngest to the oldest. Aged farmers with gnarled hands leaned on canes. Care-worn and sun-browned faces watched every move. Nobody left the church to do the milking. I could see that this was a long-planned, long-anticipated event.

We eventually arrived at the “Hallelujah” chorus. It is traditional for well-read and erudite audiences to rise in hallowed (slightly pretentious) silence for this particular selection. The origin of this custom remains obscure. I had no expectation that word of this formality would ever have reached rural Iowa, especially two and a half centuries after the composition of the piece. Indeed, the audience seemed content to remain seated. Then, to my left, I eyed one particular elderly farm couple sitting on the aisle. He wore overalls and a blaze orange cap. She had an apron and sweater and had undoubtedly been cleaning up after dinner in the church basement earlier. If they’d had a pitchfork between them, they could have posed for a repainting of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” Instead, without so much as a glance at each other, they rose silently in the crowded room, standing together in anticipation of Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus. In amazement I found myself smiling. The church audience, from the youngest to the oldest, rose in solemn response to the farmer and his wife.

When I hear discussions of the universal message of Handel’s Messiah, it is this scene that always comes to my mind.


11.07

grandma's garden

My father’s mother was born in 1899. She was an unusual woman—bright, clever, funny, and frugal. She and my mother’s father were both natural teachers. I think it was those genes that made my father, brother and me into professors. Grandma was unforgettable in countless ways. She inherited and then poured her life into dogs passed to her from her grown kids. She scanned supermarket aisles for greeting card ideas, then rendered them in her own pen and pencil versions to save money at holidays and birthdays. She attended college at a time when few women sought a formal education. She taught adult Sunday school and hosted quilting bees in her farmhouse on the edge of town. She nursed elderly parents and siblings and a spouse. Grandma adored her three grandchildren. When we visited there was always a country walk or an exploration into the attic or the basement workbench or the city dump down the road. At Christmas there was an ancient tinsel tree with a floodlight that shown through a rotating filter wheel, bathing the tree sequentially in light of four different colors. In its day it must have been the height of consumer technology. There was no garbage disposal in this house. A pump and well were still just outside the side door to remind all that indoor plumbing had come along in living memory. A slop bucket stood in the kitchen, intriguing young boys and echoing back to a time when pigs were fed with table scraps.

Grandma had set up housekeeping during the Great Depression. Neither her kids nor grandchildren could quite picture what that must have been like. She was a canner. With a huge garden out back, the basement shelves were always stocked with glass jars of beets, beans and other vegetables. Garden produce was part of every meal, whether fresh radishes and lettuce in summer, or one of her signature canned sweet pickles in the depths of winter.

The garden and my grandmother were inseparable. That meant that my grandmother was a sworn and eternal enemy of rabbits. Between the dog, several layers of chicken wire fencing, and keen aim with a pellet gun, the large sunny garden behind the house was a risky place for rabbits. Fluffy cotton tails (without attached bunnies) were sometimes visible on a nearby board, as if to make a certain point to other would-be furry visitors. That garden and its devoted caretaker served food to an extended family and distant relatives for 60 years. Countless rabbits paid with their lives for a bite of leafy greens. Grandma stood her ground even when, old and tired and longing for a night of peaceful sleep, she found it hard to tend the rows in the hot sun.

Besides inheriting from grandma the desire to teach, I also inherited the visceral instinct to defend a garden against a rabbit. Our family lived for awhile in Nebraska and I installed behind our suburban home a tiny square of railroad ties to frame a miniature garden—just big enough for some squash and peppers and corn. No depth or height of plastic fencing could protect this wimpy collection of plants from the neighborhood rabbit. Early one Saturday morning I looked out through the mist and dew to see a fat rabbit sitting in the garden, eating greens as if a dessert after munching through the fencing. Something inside of me snapped. Indignant and enraged, wearing only pajamas, I burst through the back door. Flailing my arms and screaming at the top of my lungs, I sprinted toward the garden. That the unfolding scene was visible to my neighbors was of no concern to me. I reasoned that this terrorizing display would frighten the offending intruder to death. I did not reason that the dewy grass would be slippery. As I flew toward the garden in my attempt to imitate the cartoon Tasmanian devil, I was unable to stop. I fell on the wet grass and slid ten yards across the lawn, crashing into the railroad ties, damaging my knee, soaking in the wet grass, and banging my head. My performance came to a sudden conclusion. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the insult that followed the injury. The intruding rabbit, not 6 feet from me, just casually turned its head to watch, still munching.

In due time Grandma’s last little dog died. Grandma spent a few months in nursing care away from that small house in Iowa. Grandma died while I was living in California. She never met her first great-grandchild.

My travels have only twice taken me past that rural house in the two decades since. Once I found the house empty and spent a few quiet moments sitting on the back porch steps listening to the voices on the wind blowing up from the pasture. Last summer I found myself there once again. Grandma has been gone a long time. The house is rented and surrounded by cars to be fixed, old bicycles, unraked leaves. Mobile homes dot what once was the pasture. The city dump is still there. I drove slowly past on the gravel road, seeing both now and then. Dusk was falling and before my eyes the lawn and pasture were coming alive with thousands of fireflies—streaks of yellow green adorning my darkening memories.

I then became aware of something else emerging from behind trees and tufts of grass, crossing the road ahead of me and peeking around rusting cars and piles of tires. As far as the eye could see, as if finally evening the score after six decades of lost time, the landscape was covered with the shadowy forms of hundreds of them. Rabbits.


12.2.06

the visitor

The knock came softly at first. It was hard to hear, as autumn had staked its claim on the sky and the Saturday morning gusts carried dried leaves against the window. There it was again—both gentle and urgent, a tap on the glass of the storm door.

The house had a brick walk. All but the evergreens were now brown. The shrubs seemed envious of the burning bush across the lawn, but this morning even the bush was releasing its last leaves likes sparks into the cool breezes. Only embers remained among the twigs.

As the knock mingled with the calls of passing geese, she looked up from the breakfast table and stepped toward the front hall. A striking woman, she wore middle age as if considering whether to keep the outfit, or change back into youth. Her hair and her face bore timeless beauty. She and her husband were on the verge of the remarkable metamorphosis that returns two lovers to splendid terrible isolation as echoes of tiny feet and childish laughter take the form of e-mail and cell phone calls from far away. As she stepped into the hall, she couldn’t help but notice the absence of coats and scarves across the floor. Only adults now lived in this house.

Her eyes were also timeless. They flamed in a blue-green, made all the more vibrant this fall morning as sun streamed between the fast-flying clouds.

He looked up as she stepped away from the table. Her form always made him smile inside—sometimes outside. His own hair had somehow slipped to more grey than dark brown. It must have conspired against his youthfulness about the time the empty nest began to emerge in his mind. He hadn’t heard the knock.

As she came to the door, two sets of eyes watched her. One set was always watching this hall. There, inside the door, the first view of any guest, was a framed photograph of a little girl. Her smile from behind the glass never faded. Her photograph in this place of honor bore silent and wordless testimony to a time of unspeakable despair—the darkest shadow this family would ever know. The soft smiling face seemed forever peaceful, but if one listened near that magical photo, one could hear sounds that should never fall upon human ears—the shrieks of a father bowed over a small unmoving silhouette. The wrenching sobs of a mother calling to God with a soul overcome by guilt. Chirps of a heart monitor losing tempo toward an irregular rubato, eventually a steady tone—then silence.

The eyes of the little girl in the photograph watched the inhabitants of this house. Though both parents had eventually made life work, and had poured themselves into three new children, the missing first child was somehow the story of their lives. She was woven into every word, every glance, every cry, every laugh.

The sun was just over the shoulder of the visitor. She was tall and wore a beautiful English sweater, her light brown hair in a ponytail, tossed by the breeze. Her face was bright and glowing. The woman looked at the visitor through the glass—through the glass. For a moment she had the peculiar feeling that this view through the glass was how this visitor should be seen, and she hesitated before opening the door.

The visitor stood alone, a stunning beauty in the fall air. With the door open, her face was all the more amazing—both reflecting the sun, and shining itself. She looked to be in her twenties. The visitor extended a lovely hand. Instinctively the woman took it into her own, squeezing it gently as the visitor stepped into the entry. The woman did not know this person.

A leaf blew by them into the hall before the door swung shut.

“I came to say thank you.”

It was a quiet voice, perfectly matched in its golden tone to the beautiful face.

“Do I know you?” asked the woman, glancing briefly beyond the visitor to see if other guests accompanied her.

“I came to say thank you,” repeated the visitor. “That is something I tell you all the time, but I wanted to tell you now—to tell you here.”

The woman inhaled to express her confusion, but then stopped. Her breath was stolen. Even though the door was closed, the stray leaf in the hall seemed to take brief flight of its own accord. There was something about the visitor’s eyes. The woman became aware in an instant that she had been seeing these eyes for years, yet had never seen them before.

The man stepped into the hall, now aware of the tall young woman holding the hand of his wife, silently. Sun streamed across them. The door was closed but the air seemed to stir just the same.

The visitor continued—

“I came to tell you that we were in an embrace just now. We hug so often, practically all the time at home.” Her voice took on a slightly more urgent tone.

“At home we’re together often, and then I always thank you. I’ve always thought about thanking you here and now, but I never can because we’re home.”

He stepped forward to search out these peculiar words from the visitor. She held out her other hand to him. He took it, feeling the warmth and softness. The three stood now, flesh to flesh to flesh. There was a tiny rustle as the leaf again slid across the floor.

“I have so often asked him if I could come here—I especially ask when we hug at home.” There was a pause. The man and the woman stared at the visitor’s face—at her eyes of blue-green fire.

“Just now when I asked— he said I could come. We are embracing right now at home and at last he said I could come, for… a moment.” The visitor’s eyes glistened and a tear slid across her cheek.

Those eyes.

“I came to thank you…for loving me.”

Her voice suddenly was strained between sobs.

“I came to thank you for keeping my picture in your hall for these 21 years.“

There was a moment when time rushed from the room, leaving a vacuum filled only by light. The three felt themselves pulled gently together into an embrace. Each sensed the others like one feels water when swimming. The brown leaf rose, swirling in circles silently around them.

Her eyes brimming, the visitor again whispered “thank you," but this time the words seemed intended for different ears. Through the strange tears her final vision was the face of a little girl looking at her through glass from the wall.

The man and the woman stood alone, holding one another tearfully, strangely aware that it was new and old, absent for decades, yet never ended, never-ending. They buried their faces together, wordless. It was a Saturday morning in fall.

The brown leaf settled onto the hall floor. The door remained closed. They began to again perceive sounds. In each other’s arms, the visitor was gone. Again. It was just the two of them, now in a familiar isolated embrace—the embrace of lovers with three children leaving home and one forever watching from the hallway wall.

“At home we’re together often...” The words of the visitor seemed to hang in the air.

Amid the tears and familiar sounds of autumn, he noticed that something was wonderfully absent. Just in front of the glass where the little girl’s beautiful eyes watched the hallway there now remained only the sounds of wind and geese.


For John and Gretchen Steer, 10.05

her hands

Her dad always thought she had beautiful hands. When she was much younger he enjoyed holding her little hand and looking at those slender fingers—never chubby like you’d expect for a child. Her parents spent a small fortune on years of piano lessons. There were lots of tangible benefits—she learned a bit of discipline. She learned the music clefs and scales. She learned how to memorize and the surge of adrenaline when one’s mind goes blank in the middle of a recital. Her mom and dad came to notice a certain sensitivity in her playing. There would be nights after dinner when they would catch themselves listening to the dynamics she had added to the version of some film score she was perfecting on the piano. Looking back, her dad realized that beyond just listening to the maturation of this young musician, it was seeing her beautiful hands move across the keyboard that gave him the greatest joy. There was just something about those hands.

He had grown up playing the piano and then turning his attention to an instrument with four strings. It came time for her to do the same. She chose the ‘cello. There were years of string music from the living room and cold winter drives across town to lessons. The girl improved rapidly as a ‘cellist. Her mom and dad and her teacher noticed the increasing smoothness in her tone—the natural sensitivity to a musical mood—her innate instincts that drew music from the instrument. One night her dad watched her seated at the front of her section in an orchestra and he remembered the years of playing that had changed his own life in so many ways. Perhaps she was born to be a ‘cellist. Even that night, he realized, it was watching her slender fingers and the way her hand naturally curved across the strings that most enchanted him.
She turned 13, then 14, then 15. Her musical life was ever more digital—compact discs, the iPod, downloads from the iTunes music store. The bands had names her mom and dad didn’t recognize, too many with parental guidance lyric warnings on their CD cases. But there was also the discovery of music from their own youth. Who could have guessed that this tall, beautiful 15-year-old would find herself listening with her mom and dad to the Beatles, U2, Jimi Hendrix, Queen, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin. They could never quite figure her out. Surrounded by MP3 technology, she longed for a record player and a collection of LPs.

Her fingers learned to dance across the keyboard of her computer, composing instant messages like Mozart might have thrown ink onto music paper while his mind brought life to all the instruments of an orchestra. She could conduct digital conversations with six friends at once, her hands a blur in the dim light of the LCD screen. Her dad never tired of watching those hands.

Then came the guitar. It forged a place in her life as the piano and ‘cello quietly faded to silence. Her dad didn’t see it coming. It wasn’t the classical guitar, but a Fender Stratocaster and the required effects unit. It was spending every waking hour for an entire summer learning every riff she could pick up from John Frusciante and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The musical passion and curiosity of that summer surpassed what she had given to the years of piano and ‘cello combined. There was something about the world of tabs and power chords and funk patterns that drew her in. She drilled a hole in a Fender guitar pick and wore it as necklace. Her fingers were more beautiful than ever. When her dad had rare chances to hold her hand, he noticed that her fingertips were secretly calloused.

It was during those summer nights that her dad would bring his bass guitar into her bedroom and plug it into her amplifier—sharing the power to rattle the walls with rock music. His own path was like hers. It was, in the end, electric bass guitar that ignited his passions and absorbed his time. One night he plugged in the bass and sat on her chair. She sat on the edge of her bed. Having mastered the guitar licks of her favorite Chili Peppers song, she had learned the bass lines and now taught them to her dad. They worked together as musicians, not as father and daughter. They laughed. He tried new fingerings for the patterns she showed him. Soon they were playing along with the CD on the computer—one song over and over. Her mom slipped into the bedroom to watch. It was an early summer evening—the light growing dim outside. He looked over at his daughter. It was halfway through the song they had learned. As he followed the pattern she had taught him, he watched her face. The joy in her eyes was spilling into an unashamed smile. It was the smile of someone who was doing what they were meant to do. His eyes shifted downward just a few inches and he suddenly understood. There, flickering across the dark wood of the fretboard, gliding with magical aesthetic curves as if they had finally found their true home, were her beautiful fingers.


12.04

a vision in white

I’m not much of a runner, but at 42 I’m convinced that jogging the 4-mile nature trail near my home is good for me. I usually run alone, though sometimes the miniature dachshund trots along behind me on his leash, just far enough back to avoid being dragged. When I’m really lucky, one of my daughters will pedal along beside me on a bike, or glide along on roller blades, permitting an all-too-rare conversation. My sentences come out in fragments, punctuated by strained breaths—theirs come smoothly as they cruise along on wheels. Our trail is a spectacular loop of blacktop that snakes along a disintegrating stone fence, around a decaying farm, past fields of corn and beans that change their texture and palette with each season. We cross a historic bridge, dash beside a bubbling river, then cut between placid lakes. My wife and I didn’t know about the path when we purchased our home. It was one of those remarkable gifts discovered a few days after we moved in. I am perhaps most touched when my tall and lovely 14-year-old daughter accepts one of my running invitations. Her rollerblades elevate her nearly eye-to-eye with me. Her blond hair emerges from her helmet, flowing in the breeze. Something about a private conversation with my first child always makes the time seem important—well-spent—priceless. She’s a high school freshman. Her nights under my roof are suddenly numbered. The afternoons on the path without the demands of homework, friends, movies, are fewer and further between.

It wasn’t always that way. On a fall morning 14 years earlier in a metropolitan hospital, this bleary-eyed dad first held this girl. She was wrapped in a delivery room blanket—dark eyes peering at the bright lights. The hair that would eventually be beautiful blond started out damp and dark. I almost never talk about it, but something happened to me when I first held my first girl. I am not one who often experiences visions and touches from the transcendent world outside of time, though I know our lives are but shadows in a created swirl of bright universes. That morning as I first held my little girl, I was for a moment overwhelmed with the sense that I was standing with her at her wedding. She was tall and beautiful. She wore a long white dress. I saw her beside me in glowing white—just for a moment. Just long enough to notice something catch in my throat as I was given the future in her. For that moment she was arm-in-arm with me, and I was taking both my first and my last steps with my little girl.

This peculiar vision was renewed one summer day on the path when neither daughter was available to join me on my run. I didn’t see it coming. Like the path itself, the gift was unexpectedly given. I rounded a corner as I ran the trail, just where the green breeze-blown grasses give way to the shade of trees and fallen limbs along the path. There in the woods off to my left was a glorious shaft of sunlight spilling deep onto the floor of the forest, illuminating a small clearing. In the center of the dazzling sunbeams, glowing in magnificent white, stood a young woman. She posed in a wedding gown, frozen out of place and time, almost hovering. As I passed, expecting the vision to vanish like vapor, I perceived that she was centered in the lens of a photographer, capturing her beauty in that shaft of light for her future wedding. Her future wedding. I suddenly recognized this scene with the lovely young woman in glowing white, surrounded by shade. The picture had been etched in my mind long before. It was the same glow, the same tall beauty, the same mysterious image that had visited me on the day my first daughter was born. That glowing white dress remains ever for me the symbol of her birth, and the symbol of the day she will walk with me to be married.

Since then I have jogged past that hidden spot countless times, whether in spring with a carpet of blue flowers along the path, or in the heat of buzzing summer, or when the chill wind carries the sound of geese. With each passing, I gaze off across the woods to the clearing—half expecting to see the beautiful bride and the white dress. On very rare days I can slow to let a tall young woman with blond hair catch up to me on her roller blades. Then I reach out and gently take her hand for just a moment as we pass the spot. I release her again, watch her speed off, and something catches in my throat.


12.3.03

the ant

I could hear the wind against the side of the house as the late December night pressed cold Minnesota fingers onto the windows. The bedtime story was over and I sighed as I clicked off the lamp, leaving the wall tenderly bathed in the glow of a nightlight. A gust rattled the glass as I gazed out on the moonlit yard below this cozy room. The girl snuggled further under the blankets as I brushed aside her silky hair and planted a kiss on her cheek. The simplicity of this young life suddenly called to me and I longed to snuggle under covers and dream even as I knew I must return to the illuminated rooms of the main floor and embrace tasks that would take me long into the cold night.

"Dad— I have just one question."

These were famous words from a curious daughter always longing to extend "good night" into a lingering conversation. Instead of preempting further words with music from her compact disc player and slipping into the dark hall, something gave me patience.

"What's that, sweetheart?" I sat on the edge of the bed, her silhouette faint upon the pillow.

"Where is heaven?"

Her words hung in the air like breath on a still winter night. As if interested in the question, the gale outside paused for a moment allowing the words to hang there.

"Maybe heaven is all around us—maybe right here" I replied after a moment. The girl had heard many stories of heaven, and her imagination had been taught to accept that wondrous places exist beyond our immediate world. It was time for her to seek such places.

"What do you mean—how can heaven be here?" she replied quietly.

"Sweetheart, there may be many places and times that we can't understand because we have been made to know only about the three dimensions of our world and about time running one way. God isn't limited to this space and this time. Math tells us there could be other kinds of space besides what we know, and that other space could be right here with us."

"Right here with us…" her voice trailed off as she repeated the words. "So God would see both kinds of space at the same time, even though we can only see one?"

"Maybe. I sometimes think that God doesn't even live in time like we do" I said. "He can choose to enter time, like when he shared himself with us as Jesus, but I think he knew the whole story of our universe before he even began it. To him, maybe yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all today."

"Or all yesterday…" she added, quietly.

"That's right, sweetheart. I think that's why God tells us that his special name is just 'I AM.' It makes me feel good to think that God knew everything about this universe and how it would turn out before he chose to make it. That means it must have a really happy ending."

"But what about all the bad things that happen—how can there still be a happy ending?"

"Somehow. I think he built our universe to tell a story that is too beautiful not to tell. Only we can't really see much of the story from this world, so we don't understand how beautiful it is, and how beautiful it will be. And we don't know much about heaven."

The wind hissed along the wall and the girl pulled the covers closer to her.

"How can bad things be part of something beautiful?"

"I don't know, but I have ideas." I rose and walked over to the window. I could just make out the small trees tossed and swaying in the wind of the yard below. "Do you remember that huge map we walked across last summer in Oslo?" I asked, referring to a vast world map display we had visited during a family trip to Norway.

"The map of the whole world that we could stand on?"

"Yes, that one. Do you remember that it was so big it took awhile to walk all the way across the world? Do you remember how each country was marked and how the oceans and land were different colors?"

"I remember."

"Think what it would be like to be a tiny bug walking across that huge flat map of the earth."

"You mean like an ant?"

"Yes. Imagine being an ant walking across that huge flat map. What would it seem like?" I asked. I could see her sit up slowly in the bed.

"All the ant would be able to see is that the colors sometimes change, but it wouldn't understand the map. It might not know where it was."

"Do you think it would even understand that it was walking on a map?"

"No." She sat silently.

"As the ant walked across the huge map, all it would understand is that the colors sometimes change. It wouldn't know much else."

"Maybe the colors would seem happy or sad for the ant." she said.

That insight caught me completely by surprise.

"Exactly. Just like we have happy and sad days, and the things of this world look like a mixture of happy and sad."

"So we're like the ant, and the good and bad things and happy and sad things might be like colors that make a picture too big for us to see." She looked past me out the window. "But do you think it's a picture God can see?" she added after a moment.

"I think it's even more amazing than that." I said softly, and sat next to her, holding her small hand. "If the ant couldn't even understand that it was walking across a beautiful, colorful map of the world, it could never even try to understand that the flat map was actually just a picture of something real that is much bigger and more beautiful."

"Our whole world…"

"Yes."

"And we're like the ant."

"Yes."

I kissed her gently and as she lay her head onto the pillow, I could barely see her smile.

"Thank you for talking to me, Dad."

"I love you" I replied. As I turned, I could swear that I heard my words echoed in the wild wind outside.


12.29.02

the clipboard

“Now, shouldn’t that six be in the ten millions place?” I asked her, looking across the kitchen counter at the math worksheet. It was a bit crumpled, and the counter was lightly seasoned with eraser dust from quite a few corrections. I felt like it had been yesterday that the little girl was learning to read and to do simple addition. Now this fourth grader with her sparkling blue eyes and pony tail was busy comparing 9-digit numbers and dreaming of finished homework so she could log on to her instant messenger service.

As she spent a moment considering the next problem, I found myself daydreaming about her future—imagining how I would react to the first handshake with the boy that would someday become my son-in-law, and wondering where one of my kids ever got such a beautiful face.

“Dad, how do you do this one?” she asked, interrupting my time travel as she poked a well-worn eraser at a more complex problem further down the page.

I instinctively reached for a pad of scrap paper in my open briefcase so that I could illustrate the calculation. I almost always had my old clipboard in my case—I keep a pad of paper on it. I tore off what turned out to be the last sheet, and as I unclipped the spent cardboard backing to throw it away, I made a modest archeological discovery that changed my evening.

There beneath the scratch pad was a small stack of old papers that I had always kept behind the pad. Out of laziness I had habitually replaced the scratch pad each time without discarding the old collection beneath. For some reason those pages caught my attention that night. As my daughter continued work without me, I began thumbing through them, surprised to discover how old they had become.

At 42, what particularly caught my attention was a sampling of pages of technical scientific notes from a stage of my education at a California university in 1990—12 years earlier. A person has to be pretty lazy to unconsciously carry around extra 12-year-old sheets of paper. A few pages up in the chronology of my unexpected excavation was a photocopy that I didn’t immediately recall. It was a single page copied from a medical journal, and across the top was the title “Standard Anatomical Measures in Early Human Development." Circled in red in a table of data were figures labeled “brain ventricle measurements." I had dated the page August, 1993—a month before the birth of this charming young mathematician who was now counting decimal points and commas across from me.

A sense of realization swept over me as I recalled this sheet of paper, and the anxious afternoon in the medical library when I had originally found it.

Like thousands of parents expecting a perfect baby, my wife and I had found ourselves disoriented 9 years earlier when a routine ultrasound scan revealed mildly enlarged brain ventricle fluid within the head of our unborn daughter. The doctor had been matter-of-fact.

“When we see this kind of abnormality, it causes concern about future cognitive development and potential.”

I had remained numbly next to my wife in the darkened exam room, trying to figure out what I was supposed to say. My wife broke the silence—

“How soon would we know if this child actually has problems?” She then glanced at me questioningly. The doctor quickly stated that deficits were usually obvious by kindergarten, if they were going to occur.

That conversation had spawned a mad dash to the medical library—a dash so many moms and dads make one way or the other when they are given uncertain and chilling news. Today it’s usually a dash to the Internet. At the time we were mortified. I had forgotten the anguished prayers, the silent glances, the attempts at reassurance.
How soon we forget the dark times when the sun is shining. How often I wonder what I would do if any of the threatened tragedies in my life ever actually came true. It may have been a specific and gracious answer to prayer, or it may have been a normal variation inside our daughter’s skull, but whatever it had been, a normal baby girl was born September 16, 1993. I still recall cleaning up the lubricant residue from her silky hair after a follow-up brain ultrasound scan as she spent her first night outside of mom’s tummy.

Life and diaper changes and getting big sister to pre-school and a thousand other things quickly got into the way of our remembering to give thanks to God that the heart-wrenching concern had evaporated. This nine-year-old photocopy brought those days back to me, and I remembered that frantic feeling—“what if there is really something wrong with her?”

She was humming quietly now, as she finished her calculations. I looked at her with a depth of love that caught me by surprise. O how I cherish the life of this young lady, I realized. I knew then that I would have cherished her just the same regardless of whatever challenges had been placed in front of us. At the same time, as I held that old photocopy from an old medical text, I prayed a prayer of thanks that I should have been praying every day— every minute.


9.26.02

a journey to faith

Good Morning. With me, you never know what you're going to get. I'm a scientist and I love talking about science. I'm a musician and I love talking about music. I love talking about my family. I've had cancer for the past 25 years and I like talking about living with cancer. I like talking about our "Imagine a place..." campaign.

But today I'm not going to talk about any of these things. Instead, I'm going to tell you a short story that is the most important story I could possibly tell you. This is the story of how I became a Christian. I will use some images from my home town, Madison, Wisconsin, to help you understand some important aspects of my youth. I took these pictures when I was home at Easter, knowing that they would help me tell this story.

(exterior image of a church building in wooded setting).

I was raised in a religious family. This is the church where I attended every Sunday while I grew up. It is a beautiful building. I was baptized and involved in all possible aspects of church life as a young person—singing in the choir, serving as an alter boy, Christian education, catechism, and confirmation.

(image of church interior and alter).

As I grew up, this interior view of my church sanctuary was what influenced me greatly. Something about this beautiful stone alter affected me as I developed my own personal theology of how to relate to God. I decided God was worthy of great reverence.

(image of a pair of scales).

My personal view of God was based on this cartoon. Perhaps you have, or have had, this same theology. I believed that God was a great measurer of my worthiness, constantly observing my behavior. If I was good enough, God might grant my wishes and bless me. If I fell short, God would deny what I wanted, or perhaps punish me. My young life was lived in a kind of negotiation with God—me trying to get what I wanted by behaving well enough.

(image of exterior of a high school).

In 1978 my best friend and I were talking after basketball practice outside my high school in Madison, just about where this picture was taken. He knew I went to church a lot, and he had the nerve to ask me to describe my relationship to God, and he asked me to explain where Jesus Christ fit in. I told him that I had a simple relationship with God—I tried to do my best, and God rewarded me when I was good enough, or withheld his favors when I fell short. I explained that I didn't need to worry about Jesus, I had a direct relationship with God. Jesus was a great teacher who was tragically killed, and God raised him from the dead to solve that problem, but having a relationship with Jesus was something fanatics added to complicate Christianity.

My friend then shared with me a small booklet by Billy Graham that explained how the New Testament described a relationship with God. This booklet blew my mind. Over the coming few weeks I became aware of the fact that it painted a totally different picture of how a relationship with God is possible.

(diagram of "God" and "me", separated by huge chasm, labeled "Sin").

As I read, I learned that a direct relationship with God, as I sought, was simply impossible because of a huge and insurmountable obstacle—this chasm caused by my imperfection and God's perfect holiness. My errors, and evil ways make it impossible for me to relate directly to a holy God.

(image of a tiny bridge from "me" hanging hopelessly into the chasm).

All of my best efforts at living up to God's standards amounted to this pathetic little bridge—hopelessly falling short of solving the fundamental problem of reaching across this chasm to God. As I learned, I discovered that none of us can reach God by our behavior—the Bible teaches that all of us are imperfect and separated from God. As I read, I learned that even though no bridge I could ever build would reach God, there was a bridge between us—a bridge built from his side of the chasm to me.

(image of a cross labeled "sacrifice of Jesus" bridging the chasm from "God" to "me").

This bridge was created when God allowed the sacrifice of one perfect life, that of Jesus Christ, in the place of all of the imperfect lives that have ever lived—like yours and mine. This death was a kind of suicide, God himself paying the eternal debt of imperfection in my place. In a moment, I'll share with you the prayer I prayed that week in 1978 to ask Jesus Christ to be my savior.

I just wanted to mention something that I feel is very poignant. All those years growing up, I had focused my theology on the image of the stone alter at my church. But look at another view of the interior of my church. Here above the alter is the most amazing and haunting wooden sculpture of my Lord Jesus dying on the cross for me. It stuns me that every Sunday I looked at this symbol and never understood what it meant—why this person was hanging on the cross for me.

(image of exterior of another church).

I have come to realize that this problem with confusing symbols is not unique to my own upbringing. I was thinking about it recently after I went to a lovely concert at this beautiful church here in Rochester.

(interior image).

This is the sanctuary. Perhaps you have been to this church before. During the concert I was enjoying the message presented in words behind the alter.

(image of hanging iron sculpture).

Then during the concert I happened to look up and see this shocking iron sculpture hanging up near the ceiling above the alter. I looked at it for several minutes before I figured out what it was. Can you recognize it? It's a huge sculptural rendering of the crown of thorns my Lord wore for me as he suffered in my place. Isn't it magnificent? I know a young lady who attends that church and I asked her one day what she thought of the remarkable sculpture hanging over the alter there. She looked at me and said "what is that thing anyway?" It took me suddenly back to my own youth where I had completely missed the significance of a symbol that I had seen hundreds of times.

(Images of sculptures of dying Christ and crown of thorns from the two churches).

When I "Imagine a place..." I think about an environment where we are blessed by many beautiful symbols of Christianity. However, I also think about all the other people who, like me, could look at a symbol every week and fail to understand it. I "Imagine a place..." where we enjoy symbols, but also clearly explain them, and teach the biblical truths they represent.

As I close, I want to share the prayer that I prayed when I came to understand how it was that God wanted to relate to me, as explained in the Bible. Perhaps you have been visiting here many times, or maybe this is your first visit, and you have decided that it is time to find the relationship with God that you have been seeking. Please join me in prayer.

Dear heavenly Father, you know I have lived my life always trying to please you— trying to be good enough to earn your love. I now come to understand that this is impossible—I will never be good enough to come into relationship to you. All of my attempts have been hopeless, and I now give up trying. I have come to understand that YOU have built a bridge for ME through what Jesus did for me on the cross. I now turn from my path, and cross that bridge to you, as I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Please fill my life with your Holy Spirit, change me, and hold me as your child, both in this life and forever.

With all eyes closed in an attitude of prayer—what was helpful to me when I made the decision to pray this prayer was to make a gesture of affirmation, signifying that this was a special day of decision. So now, if you have prayed this prayer to become a Christian, please just raise your hand for a moment and then put it down—nobody is looking, this is between you and God. Thank you.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your indescribable gift. In Jesus' name, Amen.


4.30.02

julie kink

She was a shy little girl. I think maybe she was the most shy little girl I had ever met. I don’t remember what her voice was like, but she had long straight brown hair and short bangs. I think sometimes she wore braids. I always imagined she would have such a pretty smile—if she ever smiled. I don’t remember ever seeing her smile. But it was a long time ago. Her name was Julie Kink, and it was 1969 and I was about to turn nine years old. It was getting to be winter in Wisconsin. We were in third grade. I can remember third grade pretty well. We all went to an elementary school together and we were growing up together. I don’t remember ever seeing Julie Kink smile, and I don’t remember her voice. That was 32 years ago.

Our librarian was Mrs. Smith. She lived a few blocks from where we did, and I used to walk by Mrs. Smith’s house on the way to school. It was across from a baseball diamond where the path to school left the road and headed across a meadow and into a valley, across a footbridge that spanned a creek that was never rushing nor dry, and into the woods next to the school. I always liked library time when I was in third grade. It was before the internet, when kids knew the Dewey decimal system and books had colored tape stripes on their spines so you could find the subject you wanted. We had to speak quietly in the school library. We never got homework from the librarian. It was a friendly place. I don’t remember exactly what we did there during library time each week.

It was starting to be winter that year. 1969. I don’t remember what parts of third grade occupied my mind back then. There is one day I had forgotten about for a long time. For about 32 years. It came back to me today.

I remembered Julie Kink.

Julie Kink wasn’t in library class that day. No big deal, we kids often were gone from school for a day or two in those almost-winter weeks when it got dark early. Seems like we always had strep throat. Seems like we were always getting penicillin shots, and we’d be cured of strep throat for about another week. Julie was not in library that day. Mrs. Smith was teaching us something about library. I think maybe she was reading us a book. We were all scattered around the room on the floor. She was sitting in a chair. She was reading and showing us pictures. I bet it was a book about winter or birds migrating or Indians at harvest time or something like that.
Julie wasn’t there. Mrs. Smith closed the book and then folded her hands and looked out across the room and a peculiar distance came into her eyes. I don’t think she was a very old lady, but she looked old just then. I’m not sure why the responsibility to tell us fell to her that day. It always seemed strange to me afterwards that Mrs. Smith was the one who told us. We never wondered about it then, but I wonder about it now. Why the librarian? Mrs. Smith sighed and quietly said that she needed us to listen to her now, and listen in a special way. It was usually quiet in the library. It was very quiet just then.

Mrs. Smith told us that Julie Kink would be gone for awhile. Julie needed to be away because a bad thing had happened in her family. I had never thought about whether Julie Kink had a family. I just wondered what she might look like if she smiled.

Mrs. Smith said Julie Kink had a brother who was on the crew of a helicopter. It took me a few moments to understand the pause that followed. Mrs. Smith looked off in that distant way again, and there was silence.

If you flew on a helicopter in 1969, it meant that you were a soldier in Vietnam. There was a war going on in 1969. I knew it because I saw pictures on the news every night. Walter Cronkite would report how many Americans had died that day. I was always amazed because he would report how many Americans our government said had died, and he would say how many Americans the enemy said had died, and the numbers were never the same.

Julie Kink wasn’t going to be at school for awhile because her brother had been killed in the war. Mrs. Smith said he was in a helicopter that had been in combat. She told us that there was a thing called an ammunition dump. She said his helicopter had gone over the ammunition dump when it exploded. I can still remember Mrs. Smith sitting there, her book closed on her lap, raising both arms slowly in the air as she described how the exploding ammunition had destroyed the helicopter with Julie Kink’s brother in it. They had crashed after they flew over the explosion. We sat silently. Looking back on it, I still think it was a remarkable moment—the school librarian in a little elementary school in Wisconsin telling us third graders about the idea of an ammunition dump, and why Julie Kink wasn’t going to be at school for awhile.

It was getting to be winter. 1969.

That was 32 years ago. I don’t exactly remember what happened to Julie Kink. I don’t recall if I ever saw her smile. She was really shy.

I thought of Julie Kink again today. I never expected to, but I did. I’m a grown-up now. I have a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters. None of them are shy. One of my daughters is in third grade and it’s getting to be winter. I was thinking of them today because I miss them. I’m a grown-up and I get to travel sometimes and today I’m in Washington D.C., far from my home in Minnesota. I don’t come here to Washington very often. I think just three times in my life. I thought about Julie Kink today.

After all my grown-up meetings something told me to take a long walk and breathe the beautiful fall air in Washington D.C. I did. Something told me to walk the few miles from my hotel to see the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. I had been there once before, long ago, when the memorial was new and everyone was arguing about it. When I got there again today, it seemed smaller than I remembered. The trees were all grown. I passed through the monument path once, remembering the feelings I had felt the first time I visited. As I turned at the far end of the path beside the black, shiny marble wall, I saw the thick paper book listing all the names of the dead soldiers that were etched on the wall.

I thought of Julie Kink just then. I hadn’t thought of her for a long time. I began to wonder about her. Did she know her older brother very well when he went off to Vietnam? How much did he love his little sister?

Was he thinking about her and about our little town in those moments when an inferno was spreading out below him in the jungle in 1969?

It only took me a moment to find his name in the book. David Kink. Middleton, Wisconsin. Panel 20W, line 92. He had died in the Fall of 1969. There it was, right in the book. I thought about Julie Kink, and I thought about being in third grade and I headed back to the wall. I passed my fingers across the name on the wall. David Kink. I wondered if Julie Kink had ever stood there, now a grown-up, and touched those letters. I found myself praying. Our God lives outside of time. I prayed for David Kink, that he had trusted in Jesus Christ before the day he died. I prayed for Julie Kink and for her mom and dad. I prayed that their lives had been blessed and that they had been comforted and come to know Christ. Somehow.

I hadn’t thought of Julie Kink for a long time. She was really shy. I think maybe she was the most shy little girl I had ever met.


10.19.01

For a reading of this story in Washington D.C. by its main character, please look here.

9/11, two scientists, Islam and Christianity

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Introduction

The year was 2001, and it was mid-September.  The research laboratories of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota are busy.  Researchers and students sit in front of computers and at laboratory benches.  Assistants carry cultures, files, and flasks from room to room.  Small groups huddle over darkened machinery, observing glowing DNA samples.  Latex gloves and lab coats are everywhere.  Professors, hands on keyboards, struggle to share ideas with distant colleagues on the internet and via word processing software. 

It's like almost any other week in an American research laboratory.  Except for one thing.  It has been just 12 days since terrorists destroyed New York's World Trade Center Towers with two hijacked passenger jets, and crashed others into Washington, D.C. and rural Pennsylvania.  Even scientific hallway conversations are changed.

Ahmed Chadli, Ph.D., a Muslim postdoctoral fellow from Morocco strolls between offices, sharing a printed page of comments from an Islamic teacher, condemning the September 11 violence, and assuring non-Muslims of the pacifist core of Islam. 

The printed sheet starts a conversation between Chadli, (35), and Jim Maher, Ph.D., (41) a professor and leader of the next lab down the hall.  Maher, a Christian, is interested to read the page supplied by Chadli, and promises to give it some thought.

Over the next few months, this interaction creates the opportunity for these two scientists to respectfully share their views of Christianity and Islam.  Though they work in neighboring labs, they use e-mail to record their thoughts and questions.  Elements of their correspondence are recorded below.

September 11, 2001 was in almost every way a tragic day.  There is one exception.  The day motivated dialogs that likely never would otherwise have taken place.  The conversation recorded below is but one example.  The subject of this conversation is perhaps the most important subject that can ever be discussed–the issues of eternal destiny and what we can know about a relationship with the creator of the universe.  We share this conversation to honor the tiny glimmer of good that was born in the darkness of September 11.  We share this correspondence in the hope that it will illuminate the contrasts between Islam and Christianity, as practiced and believed by two scientists in mid-America at the dawn of the 21^st century.  We share it, praying that the one true God will reveal himself to those who, reading the following discussion with open minds, decide to seek him afresh.

9/24/01 From Jim:

Ahmed-

Thanks for your discussion this past week. 

First a general comment on Islam and Christianity.  Although it is tempting to seek the similarities between Christianity and Islam at times like this, there are crucial differences. 

The lyrics to the song "The Path" I wrote for our recent compact disc [an original gospel music charity benefit project in which Maher was involved] were to respond to a friend who saw all world religions as different paths to the single true God.  In her view, since all the paths lead to the same place, it doesn't matter on which path one chooses to walk, as long as one makes progress.

Jesus himself taught that this isn't true, and that many paths are false.  He taught that only one path is true–but which one?

John Steer's comments about terrorism in perspective [a transcript of a recent lecture on Islam presented by Maher's pastor in Rochester, Minnesota had been shared by Maher with Chadli] refer to the core message of Christianity and perhaps contrast it with other religions.   Unlike Islam, which spells out a code of conduct that will identify Muslims and please God, Christianity teaches that there is nothing we can do to earn God's favor or please him–we are all too imperfect and wicked due to our own selfish choices.  Christians have no hope of ever doing anything to build a relationship to God.

Instead, we believe that our only hope is that God sacrificed himself for us–the one perfect person, God having taken on human flesh as Jesus, innocently and deliberately dying in the place of all the people who have ever lived, including you and I.  In Christianity, Jesus is not seen as a prophet but as God himself committing suicide to pay an eternal debt that we could not pay.

We believe the only path that rebuilds the lost relationship between humans and God is the path that crosses the one bridge that God built for us that day–the sacrifice of himself for us in Christ. 

When I face God someday in heaven, and I am to give account of why I believe I should share a relationship with him forever, I will not say it is because I followed rules, or tried to live a good life, or did my best to adhere to the 10 commandments.  That is hopeless because I've failed in all of them.  Everyone has.

My response will be–"I accepted the forgiveness you offered me when you died for me long ago in Palestine–I chose to accept your perfect death in my place, and my only right to live with you is that you have forgiven me through what Jesus did".

I made that choice for my life in 1978, and believe that is when my life changed forever.  Not because of something I did, or could ever do, but because of my acceptance of something He had long ago done for me through Jesus...

 Jim

10/10/01 From Ahmed:

Jim:

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with me and I apologize for this late message.

You wrote:

 "Although it is tempting to seek the similarities between Christianity and Islam at times like this, there are crucial differences."

Although I agree with you that there differences between Islam and Christianity , I do not think that they are more crucial than those between Christianity and Judaism. I am truly convinced that our ignorance of our profound similarities makes us give more importance to differences rather than to focus on our common beliefs.  The Qur’an teaches us that between Christianity, Judaism and Islam there is a common word:

"Say; O people of the scripture! Come to an agreement (common word) between us and you: that we shall worship none but God, and that we ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside God" 3.64.

Our God is one and our father (Adam) is one.  Muslims should stress our common points. In the Muslim tradition, Christians hold a special place.  The Qur’an teaches us that Christians are the most close to Muslims, and the prophet Mohammed used to reserve special treatment for them. His tradition is full of examples for this purpose.

"And the most affectionate among people toward Muslims are those who say: they are Christians. That is because among these are people devoted to learning and who have renounced the world and they are not arrogant" 5.82

I believe, at least from the Muslim side, that there are strong basic elements to build a solid bridge between Christians and Muslims.  Indeed, Muslims believe in Jesus (peace be upon him) and all the other prophets of the Bible and we do not make a distinction between any of them.

We do believe in Jesus (peace be upon him) as a great and very special prophet. He holds an exalted place in Islam. Here are some of the titles mentioned in the Qur’an for Jesus: Spirit of God, word of God, the righteous, Messiah, prophet, Messenger of God, Jesus, son of Mary):

"When the angels said, 'Mary, God gives thee good tidings of a word from Him whose name is Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary; high honored shall he be in this word and the next near stationed to God".

The Qur’an confirms the miraculous birth of Jesus through the Virgin Mary (peace be upon him).  Interestingly the Qur’an speaks about Jesus' birth, along with Adam's birth, as an example of God's power and as signs for all human kind.

"Truly, the likeness of Jesus, in God's Sight, is as Adam's likeness." 3.52.

If Allah could create Adam without both parents, it is easy for him to create Jesus with one parent.  Moreover, the Qur’an acknowledges most of the miracles performed by Jesus. Those are only some example of a common ground between Muslims and Christians.  I am truly convinced that we have a lot more in common than we were told we have.

You wrote:

 "The lyrics to the song 'The Path' …on our CD…I wrote to respond to a friend who saw all world religions as different paths to the single true God.  In her view, since all the paths lead to the same place, it doesn't matter on which path one chooses to walk, as long as one makes progress.  Jesus himself taught that this isn't true, and that many paths are false.  He taught that only one path is true– but which one?"

I am actually tempted to agree, at least partially, with your friend. My reason for this is the statement in the Qur’an saying: 

"Those who believe (in the Qur’an) and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians any who believe in God and the last day and work righteousness, shall have their reward" 2.62

The bottom line is to believe in one God and do good deeds.  After that Allah is the only judge of people because he is the one knowing what they hide in their hearts.

The Qur’an tells us that all prophets (peace be upon them all) from Adam to Mohamed came with the same message, which is Islam.  Therefore Muslims believe that Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus and Mohamed (peace be upon them all) were Muslims and were sent to teach people how to worship one God and to work among each other to establish the meanings of mercy, justice, to forbid acts of injustice and transgression, and to seek idealism among mankind.  These are basically the purposes of anyone of a monotheistic religion.  Therefore, Islam did not come with Mohamed.   Rather, Mohamed was the sealing prophet to complete the message of God.  In conclusion, from an Islamic perspective, the path shown by Allah through Mohamed for true worship and success in this life and the hereafter is the same one that Jesus taught to his followers.

Nevertheless, if people did not got a chance, for whatever reason, to know the message, Allah is just.  He will reward them for their deeds and their efforts to find the way of worshipping him.  It is clearly stated in the Qur’an that Allah will never punish people without sending them a messenger.

You wrote: 

"John Steer's comments about terrorism in perspective refer to the Core message of Christianity and perhaps contrast it with other religions.   Unlike Islam, which spells out a code of conduct that will identify Muslims and please God, Christianity teaches that there is nothing we can do to earn God's favor or please him–we are all too imperfect and wicked due to our own selfish choices.  Christians have no hope of ever doing anything to build a relationship to God."

In Islam, a human being can have a relationship with God if he keeps trying to follow God's guidance and if he keeps repenting whenever he fails.  By choosing to follow the will of God, a human being can accomplish the highest level of righteousness and can be even better than the angels who do not have the responsibility of choosing, but only obey God. From an Islamic view, humans can please God by worshipping him and spreading the word of God, his guidance, peace, and mercy to the universe.  Although good deeds are crucial to enter to paradise, they are not sufficient. Because humans can make mistakes, only the forgiveness of Allah after judgment will help to enter paradise.

You wrote:

"Instead, we believe that our only hope is that God sacrificed himself for us–the one perfect person, God having taken on human flesh as Jesus, innocently and deliberately dying in the place of all the people who have ever lived, including you and I.  In Christianity,  Jesus is not seen as a prophet but as God himself committing suicide to pay an eternal debt that we could not pay."

For Muslims, every human is responsible of his or her own actions. The Qur’an emphasizes the worship of God with knowledge and reason.  God gives us intelligence and all tools needed to be able to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.  Therefore, no one will pay for the sins of anyone else.  We all, in this life, are responsible to be good and to teach people a good way of life, helping them to be on the right path. Those actions are also considered good deeds for ourselves.  One of the strong beliefs of Muslims is that God is JUST.  This gives meaning to the existence of a day of judgment, paradise and hell.  This means that Allah will consider people on the basis of their actions in this life, and will judge them.  The balance of their good and bad deeds will determine their future life, with the mercy of God.  But it is also true, as the teachings of the Prophet clearly state, “No one will enter heaven exclusively because of their deeds.” God’s mercy is ultimately needed for anyone to enter heaven.

Please forgive my poor English and let's continue this exchange in other messages.

Take care

Ahmed

10/16/01 From Jim:

Ahmed-

I am honored by the time you have taken to give thoughtful replies and comments.  I will offer just a few additional remarks.  I am off to Washington for a scientific meeting.

I have extracted these specific comments and responses from your prior message.  You wrote: 

"The bottom line is to believe in one God and do good deeds.  After that Allah is the only judge of people because he is the one knowing what they hide in their hearts…In Islam, a human being can be a perfect creation if he fellows the guidance of God.  By choosing to follow the will of God, a human being can accomplish the highest level of righteousness and can be even better than the angels who do not have the responsibility of choosing, but only obey God. From an Islamic view, humans can please God by worshipping him and spreading the word of God, his guidance, peace, and mercy to the universe.  Although good deeds are crucial to enter to paradise, they are not sufficient. Because humans can make mistakes, only the forgiveness of Allah after judgment will help to enter paradise.... For Muslims, every human is responsible of his or her own actions. The Qur’an emphasizes the worship of God with knowledge and reason.  God gives us intelligence and all tools needed to be able to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.  Therefore, no one will pay for the sins of anyone else.  We all, in this life, are responsible to be good and to teach people a good way of life, helping them to be on the right path. Those actions are also considered good deeds for ourselves.  One of the strong beliefs of Muslims is that God is JUST.  This gives meaning to the existence of a day of judgment, paradise and hell.  This means that Allah will consider people on the basis of their actions in this life, and will judge them.  The balance of their good and bad deeds will determine their future life, with the mercy of God."

Your thoughtful explanations are very helpful.  In my humble opinion, they place a sharp focus on the central difference between the Christian theology and that of Islam.

I think we both believe in a God who is utterly just.  Divine justice is an attribute we both feel strongly characterizes our God.  Your description above suggests that God asks men and women to do their best to follow him, obey his laws, seek his guidance, and do good works.  They then are to look to his forgiveness, in the end, to hope for paradise.

Where is justice in this model?  On what basis can an eternally just God accept less than perfection from us?  Do not all of us deserve condemnation in the sense that none of us can claim to be righteous for an hour let alone a lifetime?  Jesus himself taught that even evil or selfish or immoral THOUGHTS are equivalent to evil or selfish or immoral actions, so all of us are condemned.  It is as if Allah is promising to "forget" or "overlook" such imperfections if we earn his favor.  How much righteousness is enough to earn this?  How many sins is Allah willing to forgive?

I actually grew up with exactly this view of God– believing that if, on balance, I was good more often than I was bad, God would look at my life on a scale and see that I was more good than bad and accept me in heaven.  He would just forgive the bad parts.

On exploring biblical Christianity more deeply I was shocked to see that this commonly-held belief (which seems also to lie at the center of Islam) is absolutely not Christian theology.

Christians believe that God's just character is so fundamental that he cannot and will not simply forgive imperfection ad hoc.  Justice must be done.  Imperfection deserves retribution and punishment.  Sin must have a penalty.  Any sin must have a penalty.  The penalty doesn't come only when sin is greater than righteousness.  The penalty is deserved for any sin at all. 

To the Christian, our just God cannot forgive us unless there is a way to preserve justice.  Justice can be preserved only if SOMEBODY is willing to pay the debt, take the punishment, bear the penalty. 

If a person breaks a law in America, a fine may be imposed by the legal system.  Justice is not served by the judge simply waiving the fine and telling the guilty party to ignore it.  SOMEBODY must pay the fine. 

In Christian theology, the only person capable of taking on the eternal penalty that has been earned by all human error and imperfection from time past through time future is one whose life is perfectly clean, and can be offered in the place of the lives of all of us who deserve death. 

The irony of Christian theology is that God satisfies the need for eternal justice by placing punishment and death upon himself as a voluntary act of love, undeserved by us, but necessary to preserve justice.  It was God's self-sacrifice on the cross as he himself died as a human, that offers eternal hope to the Christian.  It is what Jesus did, not what I do, that satisfies justice.  In Christian theology, you and I deserve eternal separation from God, no matter how much we try to be good.  In Christian theology, God cannot forgive us and preserve justice, unless SOMEBODY ELSE pays the penalty.

What I chose to do in the Spring of 1978 was to believe, for the first time, that my hope of relating to God personally came only in accepting that he had provided a gift to me once and for all when Christ died on the cross.  The gift was a perfect life given in exchange for my imperfect one.  Justice demands that somebody pay the price for my sins, no matter how large or small.  God volunteered to pay the price for me in Christ.  My choice was simply to believe in this gift, and to, by my will, accept it.

Thus (forgive the length) I would conclude that the Islamic theology you helpfully present resembles exactly what I believed before I was exposed to biblical Christianity.  It is what is believed by many who call themselves Christians.  It is similar to Judaism as well.  It suffers from the problem that was made so clear in the animal sacrifices demanded in the Old Testament:  something or someone has to pay the price for our sin.  To the Christian, the millions of dead animals of the Old Testament are an unmistakable foreshadowing of the single sacrifice that would one day end sacrifices forever.

When I meet my God some day, I will place no hope in my righteous deeds, and I will place no hope in his forgiveness.  I will place my hope only in the sacrifice of one perfect life, made on my behalf one Friday afternoon outside of Jerusalem.

Respectfully-

Jim

11/7/01 From Ahmed:

Jim-

Thank you very much for the time you reserve to this dialogue. It's a pleasure to discuss these matters with you, although my responses are always late!  Thanks again for your patience.

You wrote:

"Where is justice in this model?  On what basis can an eternally just God accept less than perfection from us?  Do not all of us deserve condemnation in the sense that none of us can claim to be righteous for an hour let alone a lifetime?  Jesus himself taught that even evil or selfish or immoral THOUGHTS are equivalent to evil or selfish or immoral actions, so all of us are condemned.  It is as if Allah is promising to "forget" or "overlook" such imperfections if we earn his favor.  How much righteousness is enough to earn this?  How many sins is Allah willing to forgive?"

As you know, Muslims approach or understand God by his 99 attributes or names.  Three of those attributes are: most just, most merciful and most forgiving.  Muslims believe that God did not send Adam and Eve to this earth as punishment.  There is no original sin.  We believe that human beings are trustees of God on earth and that this life is only a test for our behavior. God wants all human beings to enter paradise if they work hard for it. Therefore, on the day of judgement, the principle of personal accountability for what we have done in this life is central in Islam.  Each human being has two angels accompanying him all his lifetime: one records the good deeds and the other one records bad deeds.  On the day of judgment, each individual will be resurrected and his folder will be presented to him.  God will be the judge between people on the basis of these records.

Let me give one view of how Muslims understand the mercy and justice of God.  Let's say, to be simple, that good deeds in this life are rewarded by positive points and bad deeds are given negative point in one's account on the day of judgment.  Because God is merciful and knows that human beings will commit sins anyway, he decides that:

–if a person does one good deed in this life, he will be rewarded 10, 700 or even more positive points, depending on the act.

–if he had the intention of doing a good deed and he didn't do it, he will get one positive point.

–if he did one bad deed, he will get only one negative point (except major sins).

–if he had the intention of doing a bad deed and he didn't do it, he will get one positive point.

God tells us that he can forgive any sin between him and his slave as long as the person did not worship something besides God.  In Islam there are basically two kinds of situations that God will consider in one's personal record on the day of judgment:

1.  Sins or affairs between the slave and God (for example, a person failing to do his or her prayers, failing to fast during Ramadan, etc.)  These are personal acts or omissions that do not involves anybody else, and are therefore "secrets" between the slave and his lord.

2.  Actions involving other human beings, animals or nature (for example, lying, wrongdoing, injustice on earth, corruption, dishonesty, etc.)   In these cases, Muslims believe that divine justice will be done first.

God's justice is easily seen if you consider a scenario where God is judging two people.  In Islamic theology, during the day of judgement, the two people will both face God.  The folder for each person will be presented in front of Allah.  The wrongdoer will then pay the other person.  No mercy or divine forgiveness will apply in this case.  It is simple justice first.  How will the payment will be made?  There is no money.  All that we will have will be our good and bad deeds: positive and negative points.  But remember that God makes it easy to accumulate positive points.  The wrongdoer will therefore pay his adversary by giving him the value of the wrongdoer's negative acts from his positive points until the wrongdoer pays him off.  Now if the wrongdoer does not have enough good deeds to make full payment, God will take the equivalent negative points from the victim's account and put them on the balance of the wrongdoer. 

The scenario will continue for every human being with whom each person has had dealings in this life. If the person in question has enough positive points to pay everybody, and still has some remaining positive points, we can assume that the person was generally good in this life.  He can hope for the forgiveness of God regarding the deeds between him and his lord, and he can hope to go to paradise.  If, on the other hand, he does not have enough good deeds to pay off the people he has offended, God gives them justice by transferring their negative points to the wrongdoer's balance.  The offender will obviously accumulate a lot of negative points, and we can logically assume that that person was generally bad in this life.  His destiny will be the hell fire. 

Once justice is done between people, if for any reason God decides to forgive somebody the negative points, that's a matter between God and him.   God is just, wise and forgiving.  For example, the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) said that a man once entered paradise because he gave water to a dog dying of thirst.  Thus, the life not only of a human, but also of an animal, is sacred in Islam.  Further, saving a life is like saving all of humanity, and taking a life is like killing all of humanity. 

It is therefore seen as categorically impossible to pay off the debt of murder on the day of judgment.   On the other hand, one is rewarded many positive points for saving a life. Such a reward will make a huge difference in one's balance on the day of judgment.

The Qur’an also tells us that in affairs between God and his servant, God can forgive almost every sin but one.  This unforgivable sin is to have worshipped someone or something other than God.  Basically, if one worships only the one true God, creator of the universe, one can hope for forgiveness when "internal affairs" (between the person and God) are settled on the judgement day after justice for other human beings and all God's creation has been settled.

You wrote: 

"The irony of Christian theology is that God satisfies the need for eternal justice by placing punishment and death upon himself as a voluntary act of love, undeserved by us, but necessary to preserve justice.  It was God's self-sacrifice on the cross as he himself died as a human, that offers eternal hope to the Christian.  It is what Jesus did, not what I do, that satisfies justice.  In Christian theology, you and I deserve eternal separation from God, no matter how much we try to be good.  In Christian theology, God cannot forgive us and preserve justice, unless SOMEBODY ELSE pays the penalty."

It is honestly quite difficult to talk about justice when a person, as an actor, doesn't have to pay himself!  We are talking about the hereafter!  On the day of judgment, if we want to talk about absolute justice, there should be no one who can help.  This creates a profound sense of responsibility.  The consequence of the "savior" concept is that one can do whatever he or she wants because he or she knows that somebody could pay for their mistakes and save them from the hell fire!  There is no sense of absolute justice and personal accountability in this view.  If God knows that he will save people by scarifying himself, then it's senseless to create heaven and hell.  We need only heaven.  And what will happen to people who never get the message of Jesus, peace be upon him?

On the other hand, God gave us intellect and reason to use for our well being in this life in all matters including religion.  What will happen to people who, on the basis of this reason, cannot accept and believe in the doctrine of the trinity? For Muslims, believing in the one God must be based on reason and rigor.  The Qur’an stresses reasoning hundreds of times, as well as thinking and knowledgeable belief in God.  Religion is not a matter of faith based on acceptance, at least from Qur’anic point of view.  God will judge us with absolute reason and proof.  He requires that we do the same with respect to religion.  Without this, nothing will make sense or be worthy.

Please share with me your understanding of how the concept of original sin and its consequences could be understood in the context of absolute divine justice.

Muslims believe that Jesus, peace be upon him, never taught people that he was a son of God, nor did he teach the doctrine of the trinity.  Could you clarify to me the concept of the trinity  (i.e. its meaning and its HISTORY)?  Why do you consider Jesus (peace be upon him) as son of God?  Why does God need to have a son?

 Please forgive me if in any way I hurt your feeling or offend you with these questions. It's certainly not my intention and it's not obeying the teaching of the Qur’an in a matter of dialogue with the people of the book.  It's my personal weaknesses and mistake!  My English does not help! But I try!

Respectfully.

Ahmed

11/26/01 From Jim:

Hi Ahmed-

Happy Ramadan :)

I have been at a scientific conference and now am on vacation with my family in Florida, so I have had lots of relaxation and a nice change of pace.  I've been thinking about your recent note and wanted to provide some additional ideas about Christianity.

Although it has been suggested to me that a verbal discussion with you might be more polite (and I am happy to do that any time) I also find the chance to write out my ideas to be helpful.  For your sake, I am sorry that you must write in English !

Before I respond to some of your comments and questions, let me say that I write to you because of my beliefs as an "evangelical" Christian.  Being an evangelical means that I believe that I have been given good news to share with others who have not yet heard it.  Even though there are religions such as Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, and many others that are based on the ideas of teachers who have come since the time of Jesus Christ, evangelical Christians believe that Christianity remains the truth, and that it alone explains and completes the story of God's relationship with humans, as set forth in the Old Testament (writings that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all share).  Other religions may share "echoes" of the one truth, but only one can be true. 

At the core of this discussion is Jesus' claim to be the unique and exclusive path to God.  I may not be able to convince you that faith in Jesus Christ as God's perfect sacrifice to pay for your sins is the only way for you to be accepted by God, but I will keep trying, and will keep praying that despite your background and sincere acceptance of Islam, that you will consider that there might be an entirely different path to God.  This is, of course, my prayer for all Muslims, and I look forward to a day when Christianity can be openly and freely explained to curious Muslims in all the countries of the world.

In any case, whether or not you come to accept that Christianity is the only true path to God, this is what Jesus himself taught in sayings such as "I am the way and the truth and the life–nobody comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).  It is clear from Jesus' teaching that he believed himself to be one with God (who he called his "Father"), and that those who had seen him (Jesus) had seen God.  He taught that he needed to be killed in order to fulfill God's plan, and he taught that he would be raised back to life three days later.  These supernatural claims set Jesus apart from the other prophets of the Old Testament and of Islam.  We then are left to decide whether Jesus was really God revealed as a human ("Emmanuel" means "God with us") or whether he was insane and an evil imposter.  The one thing we cannot do is to say that he was simply a great teacher or prophet, while ignoring what he said about himself.  I fear that Islam deals with Jesus this way–choosing to teach that Jesus was one of many prophets that pointed people to God, but then ignoring the fact that he claimed to be God himself, and claimed that his death was required for the salvation of the world.  Thus, a person can reject Christ's claims, or accept them, but cannot logically say Jesus was a great teacher or prophet while ignoring the content of his claims.

Now, I appreciate your comments and clarifications about your view of justice and forgiveness in Islam.  I pointed out that in Christian theology, sins (imperfections) cannot be forgiven without just payment from somebody, and I argued that only God's chosen, perfect sin-bearer (Jesus Christ) can pay for my sins.  Your response is interesting.  First, you note your belief that detailed records are kept of all our actions, whether good or bad.  Christians would agree with this, except to point out that thoughts, not just actions, are also recorded, along with good things left undone.  Second, you propose that God has a disproportionate grading system such that bad actions count less than good actions.  In this model, it becomes possible for a "generally good" person to come out ahead and have hope of acceptance by God.  Third, you propose the interesting idea that:

"…The folder for each person will be presented in front of Allah.  The wrongdoer will then pay the other person.  No mercy or divine forgiveness will apply in this case.  It is simple justice first.  How will the payment will be made?  There is no money.  All that we will have will be our good and bad deeds: positive and negative points.  But remember that God makes it easy to accumulate positive points.  The wrongdoer will therefore pay his adversary by giving him the value of the wrongdoer's negative acts from his positive points until the wrongdoer pays him off…"

This is an interesting idea.  It is very useful to contrast this view of divine justice with that presented in Christianity.  In your view, justice is first worked out between the records of people, with each person hoping that their positive scores will be enough to cover all the negative scores they have accumulated in interactions with others for their whole lives.  Even then, you point out that God might step in and save a person who has run out of positive points.

So, although this is an interesting model (and I used to believe pretty much exactly this model when I was younger) it is not consistent with the teachings of the Bible, and it requires some optimistic views of the "grading system" for which I suspect neither the Qur’an nor the Bible provides direct evidence or detail. 

For example, who says the scoring system will really make it easy to accumulate positive points relative to negative?  What if, in God's eyes, a negative action actually counts 1000x worse than a positive action?  What if positive and negative actions actually count exactly the same rather than positive counting more?  If any of these scenarios is true (and who knows?) then I have no hope of having enough points to pay off my debtors.  Why should God set up a system where it is easier to accumulate positive points?  That doesn't seem just.  The problem with any such system is that none of us ever have a clue how we are doing, and we must logically live in perpetual doubt about whether our scores are adding up. (Actually I would have absolutely no doubt that my evil scores are always way ahead, even with the favorably scoring system!)

Christianity looks at this same point scoring model and declares a much more pessimistic view.  According to Christianity, the only person who can claim a right to live with God in heaven is a person who has a perfect life (no negative points at all!).  In this view, one cannot simply use positive points to cancel negatives and see what is left, one must never get even a single negative point if they wish to claim the God-like perfection required for heaven.  Perfection is not being more clean than dirty, but rather, being perfectly clean with no dirt at all!  I think honest people realize that no matter what the scoring system, we all end up with some dirt.  The angel on my negative shoulder is always very busy counting, no matter how hard I try. 

The Bible teaches that "There is no one righteous, not even one"  (Romans 3:10) and "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).  Another verse along these lines says "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10).  This view suggests a much more strict scoring standard than in Islam– we can't hope for acceptance based on a balance between good and bad, but only in the absolute absence of bad.  We can't hope for some optimistic scoring system, because all of us will have negative scores.

I could quote you various verses from Jesus' teaching and the writings of his friends to demonstrate this ancient principle.  However, it boils down to this:  What if this view is correct?  You and I are in terrible, eternal danger if we are counting on the power of our good acts and intentions.  What if it's true that God's standard is MUCH higher?  This is what Jesus implied when he reminded his friends that even thinking an unclean thought cost the same number of points as committing the unclean act. 

Here is a case in point:  You state that God will forgive almost all sins, but he will not forgive idolatry (the improper worship of someone or something other than God).  However, according to Jesus' standards, the problem is that any of us who have even imagined or entertained the notion of placing something above God in our lives (money, fame, publications, sex, academic promotion, etc.) has already committed idolatry, the unforgivable sin.  I've committed idolatry over and over, and I'm not proud of it.

BUT, I know that I have committed the unforgivable sin of idolatry many times, and I have thought about many terrible actions that (according to Jesus) count against me just as much as if I had actually done them.  I suspect that you have had exactly the same experience.  In fact, the more concerned about righteous behavior we become, the more aware we are that we are actually characterized by evil and selfishness rather than the goodness we claim.  By that standard, my life (and yours, I suspect) are hopelessly evil.

So, Christianity declares all people are justly condemned to hell by their imperfection.  You, me, everyone.

The good news is that in his wisdom, mercy, and justice, God has provided a just and fair alternative to this punishment that you and I deserve.  It is payment of my debt and your debt by Christ, as we have discussed before.  Receiving the gift requires a personal conscious choice to accept it (that choice is what is meant by becoming a Christian).  Knowing about Jesus is not enough.  Knowing him personally as savior is what is required. 

Before I conclude, let me make this personal, Ahmed.  There is a real possibility that God's scoring system is not what you describe, but more like what I describe (or even worse!).  There is a real chance that God demands a much higher standard than what you have been planning on. 

What if I am right and you someday face this righteous God who demands evidence that you are perfectly pure and clean, and deserve to share heaven with him?  What will you say?  Honesty demands that you and I admit that we aren't pure and clean, nor do we deserve heaven even if we somehow have more good points than bad (In my view, heaven is a sterile environment, and the question for us as we seek to enter isn't–are we "clean", but rather, are we absolutely sterile?).  It is there that you are left with no hope other than a vague desire that God forgive you and ignore the evil you have done in both actions and in your mind.  It is then that I will respond to God "I freely admit that I have tried to live a good life, but have fallen short and do not deserve heaven.  But I also accept the free gift of salvation from my sins made possible by what Jesus did for me".  Christianity means believing that Christ has paid for my sins with his death, and choosing to accept his death in my place. 

You were concerned (appropriately) that this total forgiveness means that Christians might give up trying to be good and revel in sinfulness.  Christianity would actually theoretically allow that.  In practice, people start out as sinners and they stay as sinners.  I may try more to please God out of gratitude for his forgiveness, and to imitate his character, but I know it is hopeless to try to earn his love this way.  I'll never deserve any of his forgiveness no matter how hard I try. As the Bible teaches "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).  We are told in the Bible that Christians will turn from deliberate and persistent sinful behavior if they have a personal relationship with their savior, Jesus, but we will never attain perfection.  As a Christian, I just realize more and more how imperfect I am, and how much I thank Jesus Christ for his gift to me!

Ahmed, I'd like you to consider the possibility that Islam offers you no solution for the problem of your personal imperfection.  I'd like you to consider admitting to God that your life falls far short of perfection, and that you need a savior and can't make it on your own.  You can come to God admitting your sin, and choosing to believe that Jesus Christ has paid for it in your place.  Asking Jesus to be your savior and believing by faith that he has saved you is the simple essence of Christianity.  It is truly that simple.  This is only a sincere prayer away, and I respectfully challenge you to consider making this choice in your heart. 

We are left with the issues of salvation for those who don't know of this offer of Jesus' sacrifice for us, and for those who find the trinity unacceptable.  You write:

"Please share with me your understanding of how the concept of original sin and its consequences could be understood in the context of absolute divine justice.  Muslims believe that Jesus, peace be upon him, never taught people that he was a son of God, nor did he teach the doctrine of the trinity.  Could you clarify to me the concept of the trinity  (i.e. its meaning and its HISTORY)?  Why do you consider Jesus (peace be upon him) as son of God?  Why does God need to have a son?"

Let me start by saying that anyone who claims to understand all or even most aspects of theology must be incorrect, so what I offer is a simplistic human understanding of the Old and New Testaments.

First off, the Old Testament of the Bible, which is shared by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, makes it very clear that God wished humanity to understand that somebody had to pay for sin (imperfection).  As I wrote previously, the entire basis for temple worship of God in the Old Testament was the understanding that God's people could never live up to the standard set in the ten commandments, so some payment was required each year to atone (pay) for their sins.  For many centuries that payment was animal sacrifice.  Christians see this as a picture of the final sacrifice that would eventually pay for all sin, once and for all.  The idea of a sacrifice to pay for sin lies at the very heart of Judaism and Christianity.  If this concept of sacrifice to pay for sin (imperfection) is missing from Islam, this is truly a huge difference that cannot be underestimated.  This concept of sacrifice explains why Jesus was called the "Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).  The idea of a father sacrificing his beloved son was also provided in advance as Abraham was willing to offer Isaac in obedience to God (Genesis 22).

The other thing that needs to be said is that Christianity is absolutely monotheistic, affirming that our Lord is one God, the creator of all things, and the energy, matter, and information in which all exists.  I certainly believe our God may have created more than one universe, and that there may be many created worlds in this universe with living things.  It is possible that some of these worlds have remained sinless, though I suspect many have chosen sin, as did humans, assuming they, like us, were given free will and have a tendency toward pride.  If so, I believe our God has reached out to all of these worlds in love with redemption plans based on grace (undeserved mercy) as he has done here on earth.

Although Christianity is monotheistic, Christians believe in a mystery that Jesus himself taught–namely that God reveals himself in different ways.  In physics we learn that matter and energy are different manifestations of the same concept, and matter is a kind of condensed energy with E=mc^2.  We also learn that a wave/particle duality applies to all matter and energy, such that the product of Planck's constant and frequency is also equal to mc^2.  Thus matter, energy, and wave character are all interconvertible aspects of matter/energy/waves in the universe.  As physicists, we understand this to be true, though we can't really express what is the ultimate information that takes on these forms.  It is one single kind of information, but it can be experienced in more than one way, and it is mysterious.

So, Christians encounter the one true God in various personal ways.  Jesus claimed to be the Jewish Messiah (Savior) but also expressed that he was on his father's business.  That would still allow the idea that he was simply a prophet.  But Jesus did not claim to be a prophet (the authorities would not have minded that).  Rather, he claimed to be God with us, made man.  He claimed that he and the Father were one, and that those who had seen Jesus had seen the Father.  It is for this blasphemy that he was killed.  Christians do not understand how the single God of the universe shared humanity with us while remaining the single God of the universe.  Since we are locked in time and space, it is quite impossible for us to understand this aspect of God's character.

Jesus prayed to God, his father, and called out to God as he died on the cross.  How could God die on the cross and at the same time cry out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).  I don't know.  Christian theology says that at the moment of his death, Jesus was left alone with the sins of mankind, and was separated from his Father.   I sometimes think that the idea of God becoming man was simply the best way God could show us the depth of his personal love for us–that he was willing to enter history and suffer a kind of suicide to serve us, rather than be served by us.  The love exemplified by this humility and condescension is beyond comprehension.

So our single God sacrificed himself for us.  Jesus also taught that after his physical life as a human was ended, he would remain tangibly with us in the future through the experience of his life in our lives.  This is the personal aspect of Christianity that makes it possible for me to say that I have a personal relationship with God.  The word Jesus used to describe his presence in our lives was "paraclete", or one who comes alongside us as a helper.  We call this aspect of God his spirit.  The trinity describes The creator-sustainer aspect of God, his human existence in this world as Christ, and his persistent existence in the lives of believers since his resurrection.  Christians see this as one God, though mysteriously.  Muslims may find this confusing.

A final point.  I believe that Christ's death has the potential to pay the price for all sins that have ever been committed, and that will ever be committed.  It is possible that God will somehow force all people to be forgiven.  I believe that God has granted us free will so that humans can choose whether to live for God or not, can choose whether to humble themselves and accept Christ or not.  Christians believe that God has asked us to share the task of communicating the gift of Christ with the world, so people can choose to accept or not.  God has not opted to make this irresistably obvious or to force the issue. 

What does God do about people who have not heard about his offer of forgiveness in Christ?  What about children or the mentally incompetent?  We really don't know, because the Bible doesn't explain.  However, it is clear that there is reasonable doubt that God will treat ignorance as grounds for forgiveness.  It would seem that each person must decide for himself or herself, and Christians are asked to share the message of hope for personal salvation, as I have humbly been attempting with you.

To close, Christianity offers a message of hope for personal salvation to those who recognize their need for it.  To folks who feel that their good lives put them on firm ground with God, Christianity has nothing to offer.  This message is for those who see their lives as falling hopelessly short of God, and who recognize their need for a savior, and believe God has provided such a savior.

In your thinking, I humbly will continue to pray that you begin to consider whether you, like me, need such a savior.

Respectfully,

Jim

6/20/02 From Ahmed:

Hi Jim.  I have reviewed our correspondence and have a few more comments.  You wrote:

Unlike Islam, which spells out a code of conduct that will identify Muslims and please God, Christianity teaches that there is nothing we can do to earn God's favor or please him–we are all too imperfect and wicked due to our own selfish choices.  Christians have no hope of ever doing anything to build a relationship to God.  Instead, we believe that our only hope is that God sacrificed himself for us–the one perfect person, God having taken on human flesh as Jesus, innocently and deliberately dying in the place of all the people who have ever lived, including you and I.  In Christianity, Jesus is not seen as a prophet but as God himself committing suicide to pay an eternal debt that we could not pay.

This is never taught by Jesus.  If you read the Bible, it’s specifically taught by Paul, not Jesus.  This sounds like a good story, if only it were true!  Paul never saw Jesus.  Jesus’ disciples all disagreed with Paul.

You also previously wrote:

To the Christian, our just God cannot forgive us unless there is a way to preserve justice.  Justice can be preserved only if SOMEBODY is willing to pay the debt, take the punishment, bear the penalty.

That type of justice is not even acceptable here in America. If you commit a crime, and your son offers to go to jail instead of you, would the judge accept that? Would a judge have agreed to let Timothy McVeigh’s mother take his place on the execution table? God would clearly not accept that either! Why would he accept to put an “innocent lamb” on the cross for everyone’s sins? This example does not work because we are talking about someone paying with their life! Furthermore, if the judge wanted, he could easily waive the fine. Judges often do that! If judges can do that, why wouldn’t God be able to do that?  Again, this is not the religion that Jesus brought.  It is the Christianity that Paul advocated and that Caesar selected at the conference of Nicea in 360 AD!  As a matter of fact, when you read the Bible telling the story of Jesus trying to escape the Roman soldiers, it gives a clear indication that Jesus was not pleased about the prospect of being killed by the Romans.  If Jesus' mission was clearly to be put to death and that was a part of his destiny, why would Jesus try to escape, hide, and avoid being caught?  Again, read the Bible!  If Jesus’ mission was really to die for us, wouldn’t he have at least said that sometime in his life? Wouldn’t he have taught this concept to his disciples?  His mother?  His brother James?  And yet, nowhere do the 4 gospels ever say that.  Actually, James disagreed plainly with Paul when Paul started teaching this type of theology, and Paul’s letter back to James (which is in the New Testament) clearly tries to defend Paul’s position against the Jerusalem disciples. Even Peter, who is considered to be the first pope, disagreed with Paul.  Please, READ the Bible!  Would you accept this logic when one of your children gets in trouble? Would you agree to give the punishment to another child?  This is the logic that Paul introduced in an attempt to reconcile the true teachings of Jesus with all the pagan worship and sacrifice rituals that were common at that time: Virgin sacrifice, drinking of blood, eating of flesh, etc… All these rituals were absorbed into Christianity by Paul and that’s exactly why the Jerusalem disciples disagreed with him. Paul’s answer was: What difference does it make as long as these pagans are entering Christianity?

Since my last e-mail, I have also read the sermon of the respected Pastor John Steer {a document Jim had earlier shared].  I did not comment on it last time because I thought it dealt with several issues that we were going to discuss anyway.  Although I appreciate his effort in the first part of the sermon presenting the Islamic practices, I was really disappointed by the last part where he addressed the differences between Islam and Christian doctrine.  I agree, that Muslims do not believe in Jesus as Son of God but it's not true to state: 

…Islam asserts that Jesus was merely one of God's many prophets …

In one of my e-mails I give a small picture of how Muslims venerate Jesus peace be upon him.  Please go to (http://islam.org/) and do your search in the Qur’an using the word Jesus and see.

Muslims do not make differences between prophets as the Qur’an clearly states (see my first e-mail) contrary to his following statement:

…Islam teaches that Muhammad was a superior prophet to Jesus because he brought God's final and best revelation to humanity…

The fact that Mohamed came with the last message is not because he is better than Jesus or another prophet. This is illogical conclusion.  The reason is the timing. Using this logic we can then say Jesus is superior to Moses and Moses is superior to his predecessors including Abraham!!  It does not make sense!  They all were sent at different times to teach the same truth (worshipping the one God)

I was also extremely shocked to the following statement:

…Also the God of Islam has a different character than the God of the Bible. Of the 99 beautiful names for Allah, which Muslims memorize and use for worship, not one of these names is "love."  A popular saying is that the 100th name of God has been revealed only to the camel, which accounts for his haughty bearing….According to Dr. John Elder,  "Muslims deny the possibility of atonement because of their belief that God does not love man and indeed is unaffected by man's action.  Any idea that God so loved the world that he gave his only son is completely foreign to the Muslim mind…"  …Muhammad was inspired by some supernatural source but it could not be the God of the Bible for Muhammad rejects God's revelation of scripture.

This is because of the ignorance of Arabic language. The Arabic word WADUD, one of the 99 names of Allah, means the lover without expecting a return.  He is the pure lover. Other attributes (names) all together give the most complete picture of God including that he is the source of love. The word love (hube) in Arabic is used most of the time to describe love between husband and wife.  By the way, in the Aramaic language and in the Greek language there are several words to talk about love.  One of my Christian friends tells me that the Greek Bible used at least three different synonymous of the word love. Unfortunately English has only one.

To conclude from this kind of misrepresentation that Allah is not the same Gad of the Bible is not correct.  Anyone who knows Arab Christians know that they use the same word, Allah, for God. The two religions are talking about the same God.  How they present it is different.   As a matter of fact the Jews, and some fraction of Christians, do not believe in the trinity too.  Are they talking about another God even if they use the same book?

This discussion stimulated my curiosity about the Bible and caused me to read more about the history of the Bible and Christian theology.  I also discussed these things with some friends.  I still did not get a full clear picture (if any) but I believe I grasp the essence.  What I conclude from all this is that we are discussing topics using our texts as reference to the absolute truth. I believe that the focal point that we absolutely need, as SCIENTISTS, is to focus on is the authenticity of the reference (the message). Several questions and observations come to mind:

The writings of Paul constitute around 2/3 of the New Testament. The remainder is 4 different versions of the gospels written at least 30-150 years after the death of Jesus (all of this is historically documented).

How do we know that Jesus really did or said what the Bible claims?  How much do we want to trust Paul?  How do Christian theologians verify the accuracy of what is written in the Bible?  Is the whole book considered the word of God?  Are there some passages that are not?  How much of it is really Jesus' teaching?  Aren't there a lot of concerns about authenticity, and historical problems with the message that even Christians themselves know about?  Why would Jesus bring a message against the Jews and the pagans, and then after his death give a message to Paul that would be exactly opposite to what he taught during his life?  I truly think that for scientists like us, to ignore all of this is extremely serious.  I am asking these difficult questions because we cannot have a legitimate theological discussion if the authenticity issue is not resolved.

The goal of my discussion with you was not to change your belief.  It's perfectly fine with me that you believe what you want.  I was just trying to tell you who I am with the goal of a better understanding of each other by knowing our common points and our differences.  Being different is part of what Muslims believe is a sign of God.  If He wanted,  he certainly could make all human being into one nation with one belief.  But God knows that diversity within the society is healthy.  Nevertheless, in our discussion and prayer our ultimate goal should be to seek the guidance of God and the true message of God.

I am not a Muslim  "evangelist"!  My aim is tell my close fellow Americans what is the true teaching of Islam and hopefully increase the comfort of life in this nation through better communication between all people. Obviously, for some reasons, Islam is particularly misrepresented and completely misunderstood in this society even if this is the country (and probably the only one in our time) where the core of the Qur’anic teaching of how to deal with human affairs (justice, democracy, freedom of religion, human dignity…) is clearly presented in the constitution and practiced.

Anyway, thank you for praying for me.  May the one God (the creator of the universe) guide us all to the right path of worshipping him alone.  May he forgive our sins and judge us with his mercy.

Ahmed.

6/22/02 From Jim:

Dear Ahmed-

Thank you again for your writing, clarifications, and thoughtful questions.   It is a pleasure to have this important discussion with you.  As you know, I had intended to compile the e-mails we have shared into a final collection that can be shared with others who might be interested in our discussion of the similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam.  After carefully reading through your most recent comments and questions, I feel that it is important to respond to a few of your interesting points, so there is a better understanding.  Then I believe this set of correspondence will be ready to be shared.

First of all, I agree that a theological discussion must be based on trustworthy documentation.  Christians believe that God has communicated the essential message of his love through the pages we now have as the Old and New Testaments.  These are certainly very old documents, among the oldest written stories on earth.  As I have shared with you in the book Surprised by Faith, there is very good evidence for the reliability of the Bible as a historical document.  The author shows how our oldest biblical manuscripts are far closer to the original texts than for any other ancient documents, and that far more early manuscripts of the Bible exist than for any other ancient texts (even those secular texts that we study and treat as essentially unaltered originals).  Thus, for a critical scientist, it is not necessary to dismiss the biblical accounts as degraded or contaminated.  Where earlier biblical manuscripts have been discovered, they support the view that the documents have remained essentially intact.  When historical evidence has seemed at odds with biblical records, further archeology typically suggests the biblical account was correct.  Thus, I believe that a critical scientist can read the Bible and ask what it's teaching implies for life today without dismissing sections that are not immediately clear.

Your research has led you to question the balance of New Testament teaching attributed to Paul vs. Jesus.  These are insightful points, and worth discussing briefly.  I appreciate your urging that I turn to the Bible for clarification of these points.  I assure you, I have studied these issues to some extent, though I'm sure I have much to learn.  Several points should be discussed.  First, there is good evidence that the letters of Paul and other writers were actually composed before the gospel accounts were written.  Therefore, regardless how one might feel about the teachings of Jesus vs. Paul, it seems likely that Paul's letters were written, circulated, and collected before the gospel accounts were written (probably to provide documented records of Christ's life, for teaching purposes).  All of these documents were written after Jesus' death and resurrection, but probably while most of the eye-witnesses (friendly and otherwise!) were alive.  That is certainly true for Paul's letters.  This makes it difficult to imagine that fables and alterations could have been inserted unchallenged. 

I believe that the New Testament stands as a single document that God has assembled and preserved to communicate his love to us, and to explain how we can find a relationship with him.  I made an informed decision to come to this conclusion, though it cannot be proven.  It is clear that other contemporary religious documents existed, and that these have not been included in the Bible.  The version we have was assembled by groups of people.  I believe that God assisted them in selecting the essential elements.  I believe that what we have is accurate and sufficient for teaching us what God wants us to know about him.  This I cannot prove, but I chose to believe.  Again, where it can be tested objectively, the Bible is at least as trustworthy as other ancient documents–evidence suggests much more. 

I also believe that you are right to point out that Jesus and Paul emphasize different things in their recorded teaching about God.  I have always recognized this, and often wish that Jesus' teachings would have been more clear (!)  In fact, my grandmother couldn't stand Paul's teachings and attitudes, especially his comments about women, so she ignored a lot of what he said.  I don't think it is so simple.  To me and the Christians I know, the Bible is seen as an integrated document and we do not pick and choose which writers we like and do not like, or build a theology on what seems convenient, or even assume that the teachings of Jesus are more God's revelation than the teachings of Paul.  The entire protestant reformation was based on the view that an analysis of the Bible, comparing all the texts in light of each other, would bring us the best understanding of God's message to us.

I believe that Paul's story of his encounter with God (Acts 9) describes a genuine, life-changing exposure to the one true God, and that Paul's subsequent life of teaching that God's love extends beyond the Jews was God's message, not Paul's.  Therefore, I believe that the theology clarified by Paul is precisely as important as the sayings attributed to Jesus.  To me, there is no reason to value one above the other, as the same God inspired them both.  Since God cannot contradict himself, any apparent contradictions between Jesus and Paul (and you perhaps see more than I do) must be misunderstandings on our part.

I think it is extremely important to clarify to you why I believe that Jesus came to earth not so much to be a teacher or prophet, but to accomplish a mission of sacrifice for us.  We have discussed this theme often in these e-mails.  In your last e-mail, you again raise concern that the concept of Christ as sacrifice for the sins of humanity was Paul's idea, not Jesus'.  I think many people have the concern you shared.  In my studies, I have come to a different conclusion that I would like to outline below.

Did Jesus understand that his primary mission on earth was to die as a sacrifice for us?  Although you mention that you feel this is not supported in the gospels, this is incorrect.  We find good evidence that Jesus fully understood and embraced this terrible mission.  Here are just three examples (there are many more).  In John 3:14, Jesus says:

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert (a reference to Numbers 21), so the Son of Man (Jesus) must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

One of several more clear examples of Jesus teaching in advance about his death and resurrection comes in Matthew 8:

Speaking to his disciples, Jesus asked: "But what about you?  Who do you say I am?  Peter answered, "you are the Christ"...Jesus then began to teach them that the Son of Man (Jesus) must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.  He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.  But when Peter turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter…

In Luke 22, Jesus eats a last supper with his disciples, the night before his death.  As he held up the bread and wine, he said:

"This is my body given for you…this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

Also, contrary to your comments that Jesus tried to escape his fate of death on the cross, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that Jesus fled from the crowd who came to arrest him before his torture and death (there were probably no Roman soldiers involved until the early hours of the next day, and he didn't try to flee from them either).  He willingly allowed his arrest (this is why I call it a kind of suicide).  Thus, it is not true that Jesus sought in any way to avoid his capture.  Importantly, we do learn that Jesus struggled inwardly with his role as sacrifice.  I interpret this struggle as evidence that Jesus perfectly shared humanity and divinity, and that his sacrifice would involve both pain, and a formal (if brief) separation from one-ness with God.   Prior to the confrontation, Jesus, aware of his impending torture and death, confronted his human frailty, showing us that he was both God and man.  His prayer was recorded in Luke 22:42:

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

As the few examples above show, Jesus knew that it was his primary mission to die for us, to create a "new covenant".  In fact, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection "on the third day" nine times in the gospels (Matthew 16:21. 17:23. 20:19, 27:64, Luke 9:22, 13:32. 18:33. 24:7, 24:46).

Actually, I think the most important linkage between Jesus and sacrifice comes very early in his public life, when Jesus comes to his cousin, John the Baptist, to be baptized in the Jordan River.  When he approaches, John the Baptist makes the following remarkable declaration in Jesus' presence (John 1:29):

"Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! "

What did John mean by this very interesting statement?  The answer is extremely important and deals directly with another of your stated concerns–namely that the concept of Christ as sacrifice for the world was introduced by Paul, not by Jesus.  Even if it were true that Paul first presents this concept (which is not true, as we saw above, and will see below),  I do not treat the revelation of God to Paul of less merit than that of Jesus to his disciples.  This is also a discussion of critical importance to your concerns that the sacrifice of one person can be a legitimate payment for the debts of another.  You wrote regarding the concept of transfer of punishment from the guilty to an innocent:

That type of justice is not even acceptable here in America. If you commit a crime, and your son offers to go to jail instead of you, would the judge accept that? Would a judge have agreed to let Timothy McVeigh’s mother take his place on the execution table? God would clearly not accept that either! Why would he accept to put an “innocent lamb” on the cross for everyone’s sins?

You further suggest that the notion of sacrifice was a construct of Paul to accommodate pagan worship where even human sacrifice played a part.  You wrote:

This is the logic that Paul introduced in an attempt to reconcile the true teachings of Jesus with all the pagan worship and sacrifice rituals that were common at that time: Virgin sacrifice, drinking of blood, eating of flesh, etc…

I am afraid that I must point out a very important and different origin of the concept of the sacrifice of an innocent on behalf of the guilty.  It has nothing to do with pagan rituals of Roman times.  It has nothing to do with Paul's creative imagination.  The origin of sacrifice for sin was God's own invention, and forms a core basis for the relationship between the Jews and God in the First Covenant that God gave to Moses in the Old Testament.  For some reason, God made it abundantly clear that he demanded the sacrifice of innocent animals (by the thousands each year), as symbolic payment for the sins of the Jews.  From Genesis 22 (where God tests Abraham by his willingness to sacrifice his own innocent son ), to the story of the Passover (where God commands the blood of innocent lambs be applied to the door posts of the Jews to redeem their firstborn children as God destroys those of the Egyptians) there is an introduction of this idea.  It is the concept of the protecting sacrificed Passover lamb that John the Baptist is echoing when he calls Jesus the "Lamb of God", i.e. the sacrifice God will make for us.

But these are not the only examples.  The Old Covenant with the Jews is based on the idea that the people will never be able to live up to God's commandments, and will always face the same sin problem that we face today.  Even when they were told to offer full recompense (justice) to those offended by their sin, God still demanded that the blood of an animal be offered as payment (atonement) for the imperfection of the Jews.  There are many examples.  Perhaps the best are laid out in Leviticus chapters 4-7 (please take a look).  Another powerful example is the concept of the innocent "scapegoat", sent out to die in the desert bearing the sins of the people: an innocent paying with his life for the sins of the guilty.

Thus, perhaps the example of the American justice system is not a perfect model for the concept that ultimate justice requires payment, not arbitrary forgiveness.  This real model comes from God himself, in the Old Testament.  The concept of substitution of innocent blood to pay for the sin of a guilty person is thus not my idea (or Paul's)–it is God's idea.  I admit that it is a strange idea, but God clearly instructed the Jews that this was the crucial basis for their continued relationship with him.  This bizarre requirement to kill animals so that their innocent blood might be received by God as atonement was given for a reason.  Why would this principle be so fundamental to God?  The Christian sees all of the animal sacrifice demanded by God in the Old Testament as a picture to the Jews of their fundamental problem (and yours and mine too).  We don't measure up, and even if we try to pay back our debts to our fellow man, our sin makes us impure in God's eyes.  God demanded regular animal sacrifice to show that payment for sin was an ongoing and permanent problem– a constant need for cleansing of people who were constantly sinning. 

To the Christian, this same God provided this picture to the Jews to foreshadow the permanent solution he would eventually offer– a perfect sacrifice that would pay, once for all time, the debt of sin.  Without such a new covenant and perfect sacrifice, the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament would remain a requirement of relationship to God (for that matter, it's not clear to me why the demand for such sacrifices is now ignored by the Jews, and other "people of the Book").

The concept that the blood of an innocent is seen by God as just payment for the sins of the guilty is therefore his own idea, plainly taught to the Jews throughout the first books of the Old Testament.  It is God's idea, not Paul's.  It is all the more remarkable that Jesus gave his life during the Jewish Passover feast, the time of remembering how the blood of innocent lambs saved the people from God's anger. 

One other thing.  You expressed your concern that the concept of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for the sins of the world was offensive to Peter and others among the original disciples.  You wrote:

If Jesus’ mission was really to die for us, wouldn’t he have at least said that sometime in his life?…Even Peter, who is considered to be the first pope, disagreed with Paul. 

This is a mistaken view.  The book of Galations tells us that the original disciples (including James and Peter) proposed that the many new non-Jewish converts to Christianity first take on a Jewish lifestyle, and Paul successfully argued against this practice.  In fact, Peter himself (one of the original disciples who knew Jesus best) makes some of the most eloquent references to Jesus as God's innocent sacrifice for the sins of humanity.  Some examples come from Peter's first letter, 1 Peter 1:18-19, 2:24-25, 3.18, which I quote here:

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect…He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed…For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

Likewise, the John the disciple writes in 1John 2:2, speaking of Jesus:

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

and later in 1John 4:10, John writes:

This is love:  not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

To summarize, I have tried to clarify that 1) I believe God is equally revealed through the teachings of Jesus and Paul (and the other contributors to the Bible), 2) that Jesus fully taught to his disciples his mission to die as a sacrifice, 3) that Jesus never tried to avoid his arrest or death, but peacefully allowed these to proceed, consistent with his primary mission, 4)  that Jesus claimed to be God on earth and predicted his death and resurrection, and 5) that Jesus as perfect sacrifice for human sin fulfills the picture of innocent blood paying for the sins of the guilty–a concept of atonement central to all of the Old Testament, where it was made clear that humans can never face God counting on their own merit.  Besides Christ's own words, this view was presented in the writings of Jesus' closest friends, Peter and John, and by Paul.

As we conclude this correspondence, I thank you for the opportunity to discuss these most interesting and important subjects.  I agree with you that, as scientists, the basis for theological discussion must rely objectively on the documents we believe to convey revealed truth.  It would seem to me that questions for our own future personal study must include the issues of 1) the historical integrity of the Bible and Qur’an, and 2) the significance of the animal sacrifice demanded by God as atonement for sin in his relationship with his people, the Jews.

Respectfully, as always

Jim