Loving God or Fearing Hell?

Dear Grace Seekers:  

Around the year 413 AD, in a letter to his dear friend Anastasius, Augustine of Hippo wrote about feelings of love and fear in our relationship with God. In the fifth paragraph in a translation of that letter, Augustine wrote, “For the man who only fears the flames of hell is afraid not of sinning, but of being burned; but the man who hates sin as much as he hates hell is afraid to sin.” Augustine’s thought was that if we do right only because we do not want to be punished, then we are not embracing righteousness because of God’s love, but because we are terrified of God’s wrath. Behavior motivated by fear should never be confused with behavior motivated by love, even if the behavior itself is identical.

What then is our relationship to truth—are we driven to avoid punishment or driven to what is honorable?

I’ve been thinking these past few weeks about Augustine’s insights as they pertain to the behavior of leaders. Are leaders oriented to guide based on what they believe to be true, or are they driven to behaviors that best avoid punishment? It appears to me that political leaders have become addicted to pain avoidance. It resembles a Family Feud parody—most withhold specificity until after the public host announces, “Survey says...” Like children fearing a spanking, they appear to be driven by the least punitive consequence. They don’t want to be burned by the loss of contributions, their standing within caucus or party, or the possibility of being voted out. Right and wrong have little to do with their positions. While the political structures in Augustine’s age were very different from our own, this may explain his unambiguous disdain for politicians. (For a wonderful exploration, see Augustine and the Limits of Politics, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Notre Dame Press, 1996.)

Of course, Augustine’s thoughts ran deeper than politics. Augustine wanted Anastasius to embrace righteousness by sharing God’s love for righteousness, not from fear of damnation. A day-to-day parallel would be our motivation to provide some care and comfort for those whom we love in our homes. Are we motivated by the shared joy of domestic responsibility, or are we motivated by the feared frown of our partner? Both may result in helpful action, but fear motivation distances our hearts, while shared motivation draws us closer.

Which brings me back to our current state of affairs, these vitriolic days where words of condemnation far exceed expressions of commendation. Those who truly carry the love of God in their hearts cannot relish the future suffering of those whom they are convinced are wrong, but should rather desire for them the benefits of divine affection. Truth and righteousness are not discerned through the avoidance of punishment, but only by drawing closer to God’s benevolent healing. Or, as Augustine concludes his letter to Anastasius, Pray, therefore, for us that we may be righteous -- an attainment wholly beyond a man's reach, unless he knows righteousness and be willing to practice it, but one which is immediately realized when he is perfectly willing; but this full consent of his will can never be in him unless he is healed and assisted by the grace of the Spirit.

Seeking God’s graciousness more than sharing God’s grievances, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor

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A Recipe for Reconciliation Has a Starting Point
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Dear Non-Conference Non-Attendees:

As you may know, a great deal of effort was put into planning and promoting a post-COVID conference scheduled for the second Saturday in March. Pre-registrations were underwhelming, so the week before the event I decided to cancel it. It’s bad form to have more breakout groups than attendees. I’m grateful for the presenters and preparers who were unable to showcase their no-doubt brilliant work; but discussing the impact of the pandemic four years out was clearly uninteresting to a wider public.

Upon reflection, I realize I shouldn’t be surprised. I conceived of an event designed to address the unprocessed grief we carry regarding what was lost during those dark months of soaring death rates and social isolation. I recognize now that a conference organized to address denial is doomed by its own irony.

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Dear Deep Intercessors:

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Dear Taxing Filers:

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Dear Sunward Gazers,

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Dear Sitters:

In 2001, Norwegian composer Rolf Løvland wrote a short instrumental piece with a contemplative melody and haunting harmonies titled “Silent Story”. A few years later, Løvland approached novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write lyrics for the piece. It was first performed at the funeral of Løvland’s mother by vocalist Johnny Logan, who later recorded a demo of the piece with full orchestra. The song was picked up by various artists, but these recordings languished without much fanfare; that was until 2003, when producer David Foster selected the song for up-and-coming star Josh Groban. “You Raise Me Up” became one of Groban’s megahits.

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Pledge Punctuation Changes Allegience
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Dear Pledging Patriots:

At the close of the 1800s, the United States was swamped with immigrants. Nearly 15% of the nation was foreign born, with a majority coming from northern and western European countries. It was noted that in 1890, one in six Chicago residents had been born in Germany. There were also a substantial number of new American residents from Ireland and eastern Europe. They were largely poor and alarmingly Catholic. Most, regardless of their country of origin, were arriving on American shores having formerly been pledged to kings and other associated royal potentates. Coming to America required not only the acquisition of a new language, but also a changed understanding of citizenship. Republics are very different from monarchies.

Concern over the new arrivals’ ability to assimilate and a fear that they lacked understanding

In Gratitude for Your Manifestation of God's Presence
In Gratitude for Your Manifestation of God's Presence

Dear Ones:

As you may imagine, today’s Musing doesn’t wander far from Dani’s brain surgery today. Some things overwhelm all other threads of concentration. Counting out Aggi’s (our dog) pills this morning and smooshing them into her favorite gummy candy, I was taken aback, because next to the newly filled pill cup was another pill cup containing the pills, each stuffed into a gummy. Clearly, I had done that task earlier in the morning and had no actual memory of having performed that part of my morning routine. I’m finding myself making sure the keys are in my pocket several times each time I get out of the car. Deep thought clearly takes up a lot of space, crowding out the mundane mental wanderings of an average day…

March 9, 2024. Dropping the Mask: A COVID Remembrance - what we lost, what we learned
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Dear Past Pandemic Prospectors,

Four years ago, during the second week of March 2020, the world underwent a profound transformation. Restaurants, schools, libraries, museums, churches, offices, sports arenas—any place where people gathered—shut down for nearly two years. Social connections were reduced to glowing screens, loved ones were glimpsed behind closed windows, learning was confined to laptops, and touch was abandoned. The world functioned at a distance, and remote living seemed safer.

When 'normalcy' returned, there was a rush to resume activities, to gather, to embrace, and to move forward. However, in our haste, we overlooked

Knowing Everything/Knowing Nothing
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Dear God Lovers:

I seldom experience past sermon preparation bleeding over into my Monday brain—by Sunday afternoon I’ve pretty much exhausted all interest in that morning’s texts, and I attempt to create some headspace to welcome the following week’s passages. But yesterday’s epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 8.1-13 has left some spiritual residue about which I have been musing.

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Leaning, Learning, Loving
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Dear Members and Friends:

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The Session met in the morning, and I heard again of their deep love for our congregation and their appreciation for how we do church. They shared their desire

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Dear Shivering Saints:

There’s something about extreme cold that makes creativity difficult. As mammals, a good portion of our metabolism is obsessed with keeping our body temperature at a level where all the chemical and mechanical reactions can function efficiently, and there’s a very narrow temperature range where that can happen. As a result, when the ambient temperature is very cold or very hot, we either curl up to preserve warmth or sprawl out to maximize surface area and dissipate heat. Those of you who are dog owners know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s only when the air around us hits the Goldilocks zone

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Dear Morning Makers:

I woke up this morning to our furnace functioning quite efficiently, and while its humidifier unit underfunctions a bit on cold winter days, we bought a large console floor model which works quite well, and despite its age we can still find filter wicks in stock at both Menards and Home Depot. Our hot water heater is a few years old, but it works great and seems significantly more responsive than the one it replaced. When I went to the basement yesterday, the green indicator light on the freezer shone brightly, and it’s partially full of a variety of rock-hard frozen foods. Meanwhile, upstairs

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Dear Christmas Time Crunchers:

In a recent article published by the American Psychological Association, researchers Julian Givi and Colleen P. Kirk presented their findings regarding the emotional weight associated with declining an invitation (a PDF of the article may be found here). Briefly stated, their study found that those who decline invitations predict far more negative ramifications from the inviter than are justified. For example, if someone invites you to lunch and you decline, they tend to be far less disappointed than you think they are. The implication of the findings suggests that we respond positively to invitations more often than we honestly desire, and when we decline invitations, we are disposed to exaggerate the weight of our excuse. While my own research on this topic is far less scientific, I’m inclined to agree. Which brings me to my

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One From the Missiles

Dear Advent Star Gazers:

There are many accounts of the Cuban Missile Crisis which I will not recount for you here today, but as this time of year we muse together about Christmas music, some of you may not know how these two topics overlap.

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Switching Toggels to Tuners
Switching Toggels to Tuners

Dear Light Walkers:

I’ve been thinking a lot about our understanding of binary categories ever since several months ago I listened to an interview with a man who is blind, having lost his vision in his mid-twenties in an accident. He mentioned that he did have some shadow vision—he could make out shapes and forms, but they lacked definition and color. When he described what his poorly functioning eyes could ‘see’, he expressed his surprise that many people told him he wasn’t really blind. He said that we think of blindness and sight as a binary relationship, when less than 20%

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Dear Faltering Friends:

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Dear Keepers of the Faith:

Where there is anxiety innovation reeks of invasion and tradition smells like home.

In the mid-1970s, the church of my youth was in crisis. Founded as a church plant grown from tent meeting revivals, there was a growing dissonance between their image and their origin. In the half century since its birth, the Omaha Gospel Tabernacle had shaken them loose from their fiery salvationist roots as the current generation was striving for mainstream respectability.

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Dear Members and Friends:

If you are a current active member of FPCLG, in a few days you should receive in the mail a pledge form for 2024 along with your contributions statement for the first three quarters of 2023. We provide this information for your records and to openly solicit your generosity for the coming year.

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Dear Fellow Wealth Worriers:

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Dear Miscellaneous Mystics:

The other day I read the quote attributed to Thomas Merton (1915-1968), “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” I thought it was a great metaphor for this year’s stewardship theme, “A Way of Seeing”. I wanted to find the context in which the great contemplative American monk uttered these wise words, hoping to find an even deeper explication of how Merton perceived the shallowness of human ambition. It was my intent to stand with him in deep discernment made possible by his many years of silent reflection.

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Dear Invited Guests:

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Dear Communitarians:

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God's Standing in the Polls
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Dear Survey Monkeys,

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