Enjoying God in high definition

Editor’s Note: Voices is a weekly commentary by a panel of Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.

There’s the story of the woman who claims she is going to have her husband stuffed and mounted when he dies. She says that she’s going to set him on the living room couch, tune the television to a football game and set a can of beer in front of him. “Then I’ll talk to him and he won’t answer,” she says. “It’ll be just like he never left.”

Spiritually, one might wonder just how many souls today are similarly settling for, or even perpetuating, a cold, lifeless imitation of the dynamic divine-human relationship that has always been intended by the Creator of mankind.

Late 19th century liberal theologians, followed by 20th century proponents of religious existentialism, promoted the idea that because the concept of a biblical God could never be fully developed on the basis of rational thought alone, people might want to pretend that he was there anyway. Even though rationalism couldn’t validate a reliable record of divine revelation, folks could at least imagine that a foundation was in place. They could continue to use religious words and do religious things and perhaps “even with feet firmly planted in intellectual midair,” it would somehow work out, and a good time would be had by all.

Well, it hasn’t worked out, and not everyone has had a very good time of it.

There’s been spiritual confusion, despair and brokenness. There’s been a steady migration away from religious existential liberalism. To what? To humanism. To Islam. To Eastern and New Age religious forms. To the cults. And yet every alternative seems to entail problems of its own. So where does one turn?

Of course, the dichotomy between rationalism and existentialism was false from the beginning. No one ever had to choose between the two. Christianity is a faith (Hebrews 11:6). No one has to either prove Christianity empirically or live it groundlessly. It is intellectually reasonable. A thinking individual can come to know God in a general way through nature. He can understand even more by reading the Bible. It is the Bible, declaring itself to be the Word of God, which defines the nature of God as loving and warm and approachable.

But some might wonder: “Are claims that the Bible is God’s Word really credible?”

The late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, once referred to by Time magazine as a missionary to the intellectuals, wrote: “If the uncreated Personal wished to [communicate] through individual created personalities … [what He] wanted them to write in the areas of religious truth and things of the cosmos and history … it is pretty hard to … say that He could not or would not. And this, of course, is the Bible’s claim concerning inspiration.”

Substantial bibliographical evidence and the corroborative testimony of historians beginning in the first century lend real credibility to the reliability of the Bible. Historically, the orthodox church has asserted the same: “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.”

God is there and he has not been silent.

So why settle for a caricature of God, “one who sits preoccupied, isolated, detached?” It’s as pointless as watching a grainy old black and white television set when you’ve got easy access to HDTV on plasma. Ultimately, it won’t even work. In Book One of his Confessions, Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” God incarnate in Jesus says: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

It’s been exactly 505 years since Leonardo da Vinci completed his masterpiece, “The Last Supper,” on the wall of a Dominican cloister in Milan, Italy.

Unfortunately, within just 19 years of its completion, the work began to decompose from water seepage, vandalism and general neglect. Incompetent artists tried painting over much of the original in an attempt to improve the situation.

Their effort failed. Finally, over a period of about 20 years, beginning in the 1970s, expert restorationists removed from the painting layers of dirt, grime, paint, glue and plaster. They did it with the aid of high-powered microscopes, special solvents and surgical scalpels. Sometimes it would take an entire day just to remove a section the size of a postage stamp. But in 1998, finally, the hidden face of da Vinci’s Jesus reappeared. It was an amazing occasion and worth all the effort.

Why, after all, should anyone ever settle for anything but the real Jesus?

The Rev. Daryl E. Wittmer is pastor of the Monson Community Church and founder and director of AIIA Institute, a Christian apologetics organization. The views expressed are solely his own. He may be reached at AIIAInstitute@aol.com.