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The Jevlir Caravansary

Category: Christianity

  • Homeschooling in Germany

    In a “real life meets fictional blogging” moment for me, Germany’s high court has ruled against a homeschooling family. From the quote shown there, the German court would recognize some of the arguments used in my short story here. (HT: Christian Carnival 302.)

  • Christian Carnival #198

    . . . has been posted at The Minor Prophet. My entry this time came from this blog, The God Talk Club – Tornadoes.

  • The God-Talk Club is Born

    Note: This is the start of a new series, without the end of any others. I will expand on this in the series page. Briefly, I want to practice writing dialog, try various ways of presenting it, and also try presenting different views on various theological topics in a sympathetic way. Basically I’m practicing here, so read at your own risk. Of course, that’s not much different from anything else on this blog!

    Also, all characters, places, events, and churches in this story are fictional. It is a work of fiction.

    * * * * *

    Mark wasn’t too sure why he pulled into the roadside cafe. He rarely ate out. As a seminary student on a partial scholarship but without church support he had to be careful with his money. But tonight he needed to get working on a three page paper, and he couldn’t think how he was going to do it.

    It was Saturday night, the paper was due Monday morning. He felt silly as he thought about that. He was a veteran of countless all nighters in which he had produced 10, 15, or 20 pages in a night with no problem, complete with footnotes, formatted according to the professor’s requirements. Yet he had this feeling of dread.

    “You will write three pages on what it means to you personally to be a Christian. No references, no quotations, not even Bible verses. Just three pages from you.”

    There was a short time of silence in the class. For many of them, half or more of a paper could be made up of summing up other people’s views and providing references for them.

    “But Dr. Youngman,” said one, “References to the great teachers of the past are important! I can’t imagine talking about Christianity without referencing some of the great thinkers in Christian history.”

    “Well, you’re going to learn to imagine it. Just three pages.”

    “Exactly?” asked another student.

    “Make it between 2.9 and 3.1 pages. Edit it until you get it to the right length.”

    “What if I’m not a Christian,” asked another student.

    “Good question,” said the professor. “One assumes that most students at a seminary are Christians, but one may be wrong. If you are not a Christian, then write about what it means to you to say someone else is a Christian.”

    “And if we’re not sure, not committed?”

    “Write about why you’re not sure then, 3 pages, all your words.”

    “I don’t think I can express myself in three pages. You’ve given us a broad subject.”

    “Narrow it down.”

    “But how? What is the most important thing for me to talk about?”

    “That’s what you should be asking yourself.”

    “What if I can’t think of three full pages?”

    “Consider the impact of a zero for this assignment on your grade, and feel the motivation flowing over you.”

    (more…)

  • The “Evil” Chronicles of Narnia

    I can’t help calling attention to this page from the Balaam’s Ass web site for the rampant paranoia, lack of humor, and failure to comprehend represented throughout.

    The following opening says it all:

    John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley all died on the same day.

    They all went to the same place.
    Kennedy went to hell because he trusted in the Roman Whore.
    Huxley went to hell because he trusted in himself alone and his hybrid Eastern mystic notions.
    And, Lewis went to hell because he invented a new god, and he ended his life a Taoist.
    We will prove it here.

    Oh well, not quite all:

    Though a highly acclaimed and widely published “Christian” author, when judged by his own words with the King James Bible it becomes clear that he was indeed a fool in the most extreme sense of the word, yet a very subtle one that was and is extremely useful to his father the devil.

    As soon as someone says they are going to judge something by the King James Bible, I know they are not to be taken seriously. The level of vitriol in this material on Lewis is interesting, though amongst KJV-Only advocates, it’s not too surprising. Once one sets out to pursue ignorance, where does one stop?

  • Book: The Christmas Candle

    Why am I talking about a Christmas book when it’s nearly June? Well, my wife got it from the library and recommended it to me, and I have never really cared when I read seasonal literature, so bear with me for a few moments on this.

    I generally don’t like cute little inspirational books. Their sweet stories are just too blatant and obvious, and they don’t do that much for me. In this case there are some exceptions to that rule. Yes, this book is sweet. It’s in a cute binding. It’s not terribly complex.

    But there are some profound points. This story invites us to think not only about whether miracles are possible, but how they work as well. It invites us to think about how God can work through the simplest and most subtle of things rather than the most obvious and exciting.

    In a village, every 25 years there is a special candle that seems to work miracles for whatever person receives it. In the year of our story there’s a new young pastor who doesn’t want to be there, and believes that all the talk about miracles just raises hopes that are sure to be dashed.

    You’ll be surprised by the ending. It was great fun for me.

  • On Harry Potter

    I’m not a reader of the Harry Potter series, but I really like this note from Laura of Pursuing Holiness. (I worked together with Laura in forming the Philophronos Blogroll which can be seen on my threads blog. This is my “fun” blog.)

    To a large extent I think the difference in people’s reactions to books like these is one of perspective. There’s an old saying: Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw mud, the other saw stars. Similarly with literature you can either see the wonderful themes of the Lord of the Rings, or you can get hung up on the fact that wizards and magic are involved in the story.

    There are types of literature and entertainment that we should avoid as Christians. Often, however, we avoid things out of hysteria and ignorance rather than because of considered judgment.

  • Easter Morning Resurrection

    [Since this is contemporary fiction, and it may not be obvious, all persons and events in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely accidental.]

    Dr. Philip McDermott was brutally awakened at 4:00 AM by the ringing of his phone. He was not on call for the emergency room that Sunday, but as the single trauma specialist in the county, he was always a backup. In this small town the number of cases that would require his attention was small, so he rarely worried about it.

    “Hello?”

    “Dr. McDermott?”

    “Yes.”

    “We’re going to need you this morning. There’s an accident victim, a young girl, being brought here with massive injuries.”

    “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

    And indeed he could be there. As he quickly dressed, then jogged the two blocks to the hospital, he wondered briefly why they had not taken her immediately to the nearest trauma center, but he immediately realized that the helicopter needed must already be out, and the EMTs on the spot must have thought she wouldn’t make it in the ambulance.

    As he entered the emergency room, the scene was chaos. This emergency room normally responded to things like serious colds, and the occasional accident victim who would be treated and released. The ambulance had just arrived, and the girl was being carried in. It seemed her parents had made as good of time as the ambulance, and her distraught father was interfering with the E. R. personnel as he tried to get answers and reassurance.

    He realized that his first step in treating the girl would begin with her father, so he took hold of his arm, looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’m Dr. McDermott, trauma specialist. We’re going to do everything possible.” He held the father’s eyes for a moment longer, and saw him settle, then he turned to the girl.

    She was 10 years old, what was left of her. Her mangled body lay in stark contrast to the white sheets. It’s amazing, he thought, that she is alive at all. How can I possibly manage to stabilize her enough to move? How has she survived the ambulance ride thus far?

    Irrelevantly, it seemed to him, his scripture reading for that morning’s Easter Sunrise service came to mind. That was where he had thought he would be this morning, but he now knew that no matter what happened he wouldn’t be reading it:

    (25) Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though he dies, (26) and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never see death forever. Do you believe this? (27) She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who has come into the world.” — John 11:25-27

    Silently, he repeated part of the last verse to himself. Yes, Lord, I believe.

    He set to work. He was glad to see across from him Nurse Williams. Nobody ever called her anything else. It seemed that “nurse” was so much a part of her that you couldn’t imagine her as anything else. He always just called her “Nurse” and she called him “Doctor.” New people in the ER thought that they must not like each other very much, but those who hung around came to realize that each thought the other was precisely what their profession should be. To them there was one Nurse and one Doctor in this town.

    As he worked, he found prayers passing through his mind under his thoughts on what to do next. If they had really been part of his conscious thinking, he would have dismissed them. Though he was a believer, one of his core beliefs was that when one carried out medical procedures, one did so with total concentration, heart, mind, and soul. Applying the best medical care was not just the most important thing; it was the only thing that mattered.

    Thirty minutes later he was notified that the helicopter was heading their way. It would still be another 20 minutes getting to them. Would they be able to move the girl, or should they go on to something else? He looked at the vital signs, and at the work he had done already.

    “Tell them to come on. We’ll have her ready for them.”

    The next 20 minutes were nonetheless filled with activity for him. He remained totally calm and focused. One thing at a time. Push everything else out, and focus on one thing. Yet still he knew that as a background to each and every decision, each and every move he made there was a praying voice in his head.

    They passed the little girl to the trauma crew on the helicopter, still in critical condition, but with every chance of surviving the flight to the hospital. He had every reason to hope that with good care she would make it.

    He talked with the girl’s parents and sent them on to the city, then he settled in to make notes on the chart. He was amazed as he looked at the list of things that he and his team had done in less than an hour. He was more amazed that they had not declared the girl dead some time ago, and that his conversation with the parents had not been to pass on the bad news, but now to give a message of hope.

    Nurse Williams stopped him as he put down the chart. “Doctor?”

    “Yes?” She never stopped him unless she had something medical to talk about.

    “Were you praying as you worked on that girl?”

    “Was I?” He paused. Then he remembered. He must have said something aloud. “Yes, I suppose I was.”

    “Do you really think God might help that little girl?”

    “It seems to me that he has.”

    “There was nothing miraculous in there, Doctor. There was a hell of a lot of good medical care. If you hadn’t been here, that little girl would be dead. She needed you more than God!”

    “It seems to me that she needed both. It was God that arranged for me to be here. He provided me with parents who taught me to serve, so that I would choose to return to my small hometown.”

    “But your father is an atheist! Just this Christmas he sued the city to remove a nativity display from the grounds at city hall!”

    “Yes, and I arranged to have the display put in front of our church. He still taught me to serve. He arranged to have people donate the money for the equipment that we used. He arranged for that ambulance to be right near the scene to bring the little girl here. He arranged for me to be at home, just a two block jog to the E.R.”

    “But none of that is miraculous. It’s all natural!”

    “Yes, natural. And yet,” he said, looking out the window, “that little girl is alive.”

    As he walked out the door to the ER he saw the sun just peeking over the tops of the trees. About this moment, his pastor would be concluding the sunrise service. He hoped someone had volunteered to replace him reading the scripture!

    He would have said, “He is Risen!”

    Along with the congregation, Philip McDermott said, “He is risen indeed!”