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Some time ago I was reading about the 18th century German sculptor Johann Heinrich von Dannecker. His skills were impressive. He could bring stone to life with his tools. At the height of his powers, he wanted to do something special with his gifts -- he wanted to shape a statue of Christ that would stand out as a witness to his world. For two years he chiselled and scraped and polished the marble, till he was certain that it carried the likeness of his Lord. But he wanted to test his work on eyes that wouldn’t lie. So he went out to the street, and brought in a young girl. He took her into his studio, and he set her down in front of the shrouded stone. Uncovering it, he asked her, Do you know who this is? No, sir! she replied. But he must be a very great man. And Dannecker knew that he’d failed. The statue was good enough for kings and nobles, but it wasn’t good enough to speak the word about Christ.
He was discouraged. He was disheartened. He was depressed. But he knew that he had to try again. So he set his hand to the task. Six years it took him this time! Every day, painstakingly, shaping and carving. Finally it was done. And again, he brought in a child as his first critic. He took off the shroud, and asked her gently, Who is that? Legend has it that tears came to her eyes as she recognized Jesus. It was enough. Dannecker had finished his task. He had created his masterpiece. He had given visible shape to his faith. And later, to a friend, he told the secret of those last six years. It was as if, he said, Christ had joined him daily in his little room. He felt the nearness of his Lord. He sensed the glory of his Presence. All Dannecker had to do, really, was to transfer the vision of Christ that he received to the block of marble.
It’s a powerful story, isn’t it? But there’s more to it. There’s another chapter that comes later, one so striking that it actually makes John’s vision come alive.
Some years later, the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte saw Dannecker’s work. He was very impressed. He sent for the sculptor, and he had a commission for him -- Make me a statue of the goddess Venus for the Louvre! he said. Quite an honor! To be chosen as the creator of a work of art like that! Who could refuse? But you know what?! Dannecker did! He refused the commission. He gave up that honor. And you know why? This is what he told Napoleon:
"A man who has seen Christ can never employ his gifts in carving out a pagan goddess!"
The whole idea that a god can tempt humans to do evil is not a Christian concept. It comes from the ancient gods of Greece and Rome – like Mars, the god of violence, and Athena the goddess of war. Ancient people believed that these gods interfered with human life in evil ways. But it’s not like that with the Christian God. The Christian God is absolutely holy and righteous – there is no malicious intent in his heart whatsoever.
So God can’t be persuaded to tempt us and we should be careful not to accuse him of doing so.
THE FASHION OF PLURALISM
While religious pluralism may be a novel experience for us, it is putting us in touch with the world that surrounded the biblical authors.
The pluralism and the paganism of Our Time were the common experience of the prophets and apostles. In Mesopotamia, there were thousands of gods and goddesses, many of which were known to the Israelites--indeed, sometimes known too well...
Nothing, therefore, could be more remarkable than to hear the contention, even from those within the Church, that the existence of religious pluralism today makes belief in the uniqueness of Christianity quite impossible. Had this been the necessary consequence of encountering a multitude of other religions, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul would have given up biblical faith long before it became fashionable ... to do so.
SOURCE: Pluralism Is Not New, Citation: David Wells in No Place for Truth, or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? Christianity Today, Vol. 38, no. 8. Contributed by A. Todd Coget.
OTHER FAITHS ON HEAVEN
Heaven has many cartographers, and through the centuries many different heavens have been charted. To the variety of celestial landscapes in the West, Islam and Buddhism have raised their own particular paradises: the Koran details a heaven filled with beautiful, large eyed "companions" and youths of perpetual freshness; the sutras speak of a multiplicity of "Buddha fields," pleasant way stations on the journey to Nirvana. Adding to the plenitude, the New Age is now unrolling its own versions of eternity. The best selling author, internationally renowned medium and healer Rosemary Altea, for example, speaks of her vision: "Heaven is not a place; it’s a state of awareness. Heaven is where your heart is, where your soul needs to be."
Muslims have a specific plan of paradise in mind, based on the stories of the Prophet’s miraculous night journey to heaven. rising into the skies on the Buraq, a fantastic creature often described as part woman, part horse, part peacock. Muhammad meets Adam, who resides in the lowest heaven, and Jesus who is only in the 4th level. Abraham welcomes him in the 7th heaven before the Prophet is ushered into paradise for his encounter with God. It was in heaven, according to one tale, that Muhammad, on Moses’ advice, bargained down God’s original demand of 50 prayers a day to 5, the number of times a day each devout Muslim must face Mecca.
Buddhism has as many paradises as there are Buddhas. Each enlightened being has his or her own heaven, a concept probably borrowed from Hinduism, in which gods and goddesses inhabit a series of heavens. The primal heaven, however, was probably the one called Sukhavati, which may itself have borrowed some elements from the florid paradises of Zoroastrian Persia (whence the word pairi-daeza, or enclosure, the origin of our word paradise). As Sakyamuni, the Buddha of our cosmos, teaches, if the denizens of Sukhavati "desire cloaks of different colors and many 100,000 colors, then with these very best cloa...
The book Irresistible Evangelism (Group Publishing) includes the story of Jan, a staffer with Athletes in Action.
After attending a conference where the importance of listening to unsaved people was stressed, Jan and others were relaxing in the hotel whirlpool. Two adolescent girls joined them in the tub. One of the teens, named Brittany, began passionately telling her friend about an upcoming Wiccan gathering she was planning to attend.
(Wiccans make up a religion that believes in many gods under a mother goddess. Their religion includes the use of herbal magic and witchcraft.)
Jan says: "Normally we would have tried to counter the girl’s ideas, but we decided to listen instead. I said something simple like, ’Wow, you really sound excited about this!’ This was all the encouragement she needed to launch into a five-minute explanation of why she was so attracted to neo-pagan rituals.
The bottom line was that she’d had a really traumatic time in high school and the Wiccans accepted her. She said, "I’ve gone through so much stuff just trying to make it through high school that I’ll probably be in therapy for the rest of my life!"
"I tried to mirror back what she said with, ’It’s hard for you to even imagine a future where you’d be free from all of the pain you’ve gone through?’
"What came next completely floored me. With a film of tears starting to form in her eyes and with complete sincerity in her voice, she said, ’Sometimes I wish I could be born all over again. I’d really like to start over from scratch.’ After a long pause, my friend asked if she would really like to be born again. She said, ’Yes, I really would.’”
After attending a conference where the importance of listening to unsaved people was stressed, Jan and others were relaxing in the hotel whirlpool. Two adolescent girls joined them in the tub. One of the teens, named Brittany, began passionately telling her friend about an upcoming Wiccan gathering she was planning to attend. (Wiccans make up a religion that believes in many gods under a mother goddess. Their religion includes the use of herbal magic and witchcraft.) Jan says: "Normally we would have tried to counter the girl’s ideas, but we decided to listen instead. I said something simple like, ’Wow, you really sound excited about this’ This was all the encouragement she needed to launch into a five-minute explanation of why she was so attracted to neo-pagan rituals. The bottom line was that she’d had a really traumatic time in high school and the Wiccans accepted her. She said, "I’ve gone through so much stuff just trying to make it through high school that I’ll probably be in therapy for the rest of my life" "I tried to mirror back what she said with, ’It’s hard for you to even imagine a future where you’d be free from all of the pain you’ve gone through?’ "What came next completely floored me. With a film of tears starting to form in her eyes and with complete sincerity in her voice, she said, ’Sometimes I wish I could be born all over again. I’d really like to start over from scratch.’ After a long pause, my friend asked if she would really like to be born again. She said, ’Yes, I really would.’”
The Creature “Strife”
There is a legend from Greek mythology that the god Hercules was once walking along a narrow road when a strange-looking creature appeared threateningly in front of him.
Hercules struck this creature with his club and passed on, but soon afterwards was surprised to be confronted by this same creature, only now three times as large.
Hercules struck it again and again and each time it grew in size until finally it completely blocked the road.
Then the goddess Pallas Athena appeared to Hercules and told him to stop.
"The monster is called Strife," she said. "Let it alone, and it will soon become as small as it was at first."
IMMORTAL HORRORS OR EVERLASTING SPLENDOURS
C. S. Lewis wrote in the Weight of Glory,
There are no ordinary people.
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mer...
Did you know that an eleven-year-old named Sajani Shakya officially retired three weeks ago? It was reported by Reuters. She retired after nine years of being the Kumari. The Kumari is a young girl that after a rigorous cultural process to be the incarnate Hindu god, Kali. Literally Kumari is “living goddess.” So this living goddess officially retired which is required when the Kumari reaches puberty.
HEROIC FAILURE
The Book of Heroic Failures, was written by Stephen Pile in 1979. It is a book written in celebration of human inadequacy in all its forms.
My favourite story took part in 1978. During the fireman’s strike in England, the British army took over emergency fire-fighting and drove the "Green Goddess" rather than red fire engines.
On January 14 the soldiers were called out by an elderly lady in South London. She wanted them to retrieve her cat who was stuck up a tree. The soldiers arrived with impressive haste and they very cleverly and carefully rescued the cat.
The lady was so grateful that she invited the squad of heroes in for tea. Later as they drove off making their fond farewells and enthusiastic waving of arms, they actually ran over the cat and killed it.
Point: They could have been heroes but ended up as failures!
