Dear Trekker,
The March copy of First Things magazine showed up in my mailbox the other day. Not until I opened it and discovered it marked the 25th year of publication did I realize a similar milestone for MEN PASSING THE BATON – last month marked 10 years. My, my, 120 Trekker essays, two books of trekker writings published, and I think somehow “it is too soon to quit.”
First Things, in its March 1990 inaugural issue, (I have referenced this publication before; for my money it is the most pertinent, scholarly, thoroughly Christian journal out there. You might want to check it out) published a lead editorial to introduce the new magazine to its readers. It has been republished in the March 2015 issue, just received. Since I don’t recall seeing the editorial in 1990, it is “new material” to me.
Lo and behold, the chief substance of the editorial was to announce, “editorial prejudices.” This extract caught my attention: “Prejudices, rightly understood, are prior judgments. They are the considered assumptions that frame what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. We would be very unhappy if anyone thought us entirely open minded. Our judgment that this or that is true and important inescapably prejudices us against judgments to the contrary.” Then it hit me…I could have written the same words about MEN Passing the Baton.
I am starting the eleventh year of writing MEN this month, and I too am indeed prejudiced. And what a shame prejudice is so often believed to be a “bad” word… like, prejudiced people are mean spirited, intolerant, etc. Prejudice is literally a prior judgment, a preconceived belief that something is true, that is not based on reason or actual experience. It is before any consideration of empirical data. It just is, and you (or I) recognize it and take our stand there. For example, I accept and believe God exists, and I for sure am not He! That trekker, is a profound and positive prejudice. I can’t prove it and don’t try. It simply “is.” He, the great I AM. Believe it and be blessed. Disbelieve it at your own peril… forget trying to prove it.
Prejudice is a pre-conception. God “is” before one conceives any notion or conscious awareness, and a belief in “something or Someone” is the basis of and allows what we call human thought. I love St. Augustine’s confession for the ages: “I believe in order to understand.” St. Anselm, Bishop of Canterbury and Church founder of scholasticism, repeated it a thousand years later: “For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe – that unless I believe, I will not understand.”
How sad that the fool says in his heart “there is no God” (Psalm 14). Such a statement, too, is a prejudice, one of unbelief. So of course unbelief is the “condemning sin” that never allows one to come into the Knowledge of God! (See John 3:18 trekker.) No wonder Jesus repeatedly asked his disciples (as recorded multiple times in the Gospels), “Who do you say I am?” Everything in life, every understanding of any principled discipline, depends on what one believes about the nature of life and the Life Giver who created life out of nothing – Jesus. (Colossians 1 says He made and created all things.) The greatest prejudice known to man is to believe in God… period! No ifs, ands or buts. This belief leads to understanding the reality and nature of everything else. Hence, belief/faith and reason are entirely separate concepts, but entirely compatible. One starts with faith in a sovereign God who granted His special creation the ability “to reason” and all understanding builds on such foundation.
So, ten years ago I wrote in my first MEN, with great conviction and prejudice, “I believe the power of God I am charged to pass on is nothing more, or less, than the out working of the purpose of God. The purpose of God was (and is) to create me… and you for relationship with Himself and each other… forever.” That was my belief then, is now and will be always! It explains all that Jesus, the Son of God was, said and did. This belief yields understanding of Scripture, leads to the understanding of life and the world, then and today. When we place Jesus at the core of all being and thought and action from the conscious start… seeking first the Kingdom and His righteous ness… all things (knowledge, understanding, appreciation, thanksgiving, etc.) are added to us. And trekker, this is legitimate and most helpful prejudice.
The Apostle Paul nailed it when speaking to the Corinthians: “It is God Himself, in His mercy, who has given us (and you and me, trekker) this wonderful work of telling His good news to others, and so we never give up” (Living Bible). A little later on (2 Corinthians 4:4) Paul, speaking of one who does not believe and is on his way to death, states it is because “Satan, who is the god of this evil world, has made him blind, unable to see the glorious light of the Gospel that is shining upon Him, or to understand the amazing message we preach about the glory of Christ, who is God.”
Goodness, trekker, is not this our world today in 2015… and always has been? Satan, the great deceiver, has blinded people to evil in the world, calling good evil and evil good. Paul described our day (2015) in the same account, as well as his: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken. We are perplexed because we don’t know why things happen as they do, but we don’t give up and quit.” Conflicts of conscience abound today. A crisis of conflicting convictions is the essence of world turmoil…and it is all prejudicial to peace and stability in the world.
So I keep believing, hoping, praying, speaking and writing to encourage us to “never give up.” It is a prejudice I have in the divine, the God and creator of the universe, who loved me (and you) and gives us life in Jesus through God the Holy Spirit.
Too soon to quit my friend,
Jim Meredith
