FAULTY FOUNDATIONS #1: BUDDHISM - DUKKHA

 

The foundation of a building is everything. If the foundation is faulty and flawed the house will not surely hold up.  Jesus said that whoever would build their life on his teachings would be a like a man who built his house upon a rock. When floodwaters come that man’s home will remain standing.  Whoever does not build their life on his teachings would be like a man who built his house upon a sand bed. When floodwaters come that foundation will wash away and leave the integrity of the house compromised and that house will come down hard.

 

In this series of posts, I only intend to tackle the foundational or first premise in various philosophies in order to show how they are counter to our Lord’s teachings. Of course, many other things may be discussed in a particular philosophy but I really want to show that the foundation is bad, therefore, the rest of whatever philosophy is being discussed is sure to tumble with it. 

 

So let’s look at the first premise of Buddism called Dukkha.  Dukka is the first of what is called The Four Noble Truths.  The First Noble Truth is foundational to Buddism and the rest of The Four Noble Truths are built off of the preceeding Noble Truths.  In other words, they link together much like Doctrines of Grace commonly referred to as TULIP. If Total Depravity is faulty, then the foundation has collapsed and the rest of the doctrines do not hold up.  Each depends on the preceding doctrine.  And I believe that Dukka is flawed and therefore, the rest of Buddism is flawed from the get go.

 

Now to understand what Dukka is, it is best to listen to the words of the Buddha himself.

 

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress: Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful."

 

This is the starting point for Buddha’s philosophical teaching. Everything in life is tainted with suffering.  In other words, suffering and stress are inherent to the existence of humanity. According to Buddhism the five areas or five clinging-aggregates that are affected by stress and suffering are: our bodies, senses, thoughts, predilections, and consciousness.

 

Now, for a moment, you might think that this sound very close to the doctrine of Total Depravity but it is nowhere close to the same thing. The doctrine of Total Depravity states that every part of us is tainted by sin—our bodies, our thoughts, our desires, our logic, our motives, our emotions, etc.  That is very different that saying that every part of us suffers or is affected by stress. 

 

For Buddhists the whole goal of life is to rid yourself of these stresses and sufferings by coming to an understanding that your desires are what cause stress and suffering. If you don’t get something your way, it stresses you out.  Understanding where stress comes from is the Second Noble Truth—Samudaya.  The Third Noble Truth is that you can be freed from suffering caused by your desires—Nirhodha.  And the Fourth Noble Truth is the 8-fold pathway that removes your suffering by removing your desires—Magga. 

So rightly understood, Buddhism is primarily a philosophy of life, but in my estimation, it attempts to deal with core issues that are spiritual in nature which makes it religious in nature, even if there is no inherent deity in Buddhism. 

 

Looking at the First Noble Truth, it’s easy to see where Buddha starts off on the wrong foot. Indeed, there is suffering in life.  Suffering abounds everything and touches all facets of life.  I don’t think that particular observation is wrong.  But because that is a starting point and not some earlier point of understanding humanity, I think it starts him in the wrong direction from the start and therefore, he comes to a wrong conclusion.

 

Scripture is drastically different and doesn’t start the story of humanity with suffering or death.  It starts with God, not man.  And it starts with God creating the cosmos and mankind is part of His very good creation.  Buddhism doesn’t start with God or the goodness of all of God’s creation. It starts with man’s suffering and stress. It assumes that suffering and stress are inherent to man’s life and that our primary problem is the pain we experience from not getting our desires fulfilled. According to Buddhism, the cure to man’s deepest problem is ridding yourself of desires.  

 

The account from Jesus’ perspective is very different.  Sadness and suffering and stress are not inherent to this world.  They are invaders in this planet brought about by the judgment of God because of Adam’s disobedience.  In Buddhism, suffering is inherent.  In Scripture, a broken world is not the way it was and it’s not the way it will end. Evil, sin, suffering and pain are all invaders in this world.

 

In Buddhism our biggest problem is suffering. In Christianity, our biggest problem is God who punishes the wicked because of their wicked desires. 

 

Buddhism solves the problem differently by attempting to rid ourselves of desire which is no real solution to the problem. In Christianity, the solution to our problem is to believe that Christ died to pay the penalty for our wicked deeds and wicked desires so that God's judgment of hell is removed from us.  In Christianity, the solution to being rescued from this sin-filled world is to confidently trust in Jesus who’ll once day fix both our wicked desires and this world of suffering and bring us to God.  In Buddhism, you attempt to fix the problem.  In Christianity, we depend on God to fix the problem.

 

Believe it or not, but there are hints of Buddhism in our thoughts.  Have you ever hoped to get a job or hoped to have your favorite sports teams win the championship but you told yourself, “I’m going to expect nothing and then if something great happens I’ll be excited, but if I expect nothing then I won’t be sad or upset if things turn out bad.”  That philosophy has flavors of Buddhism in it.  You’re attempting to rid yourself of desire in order to relieve suffering.  That’s a very different notion that recognizing the Sovereignty of God in all things and being at peace with whatever God does with His creation. 

 

What Jesus said is true. We are sure to be on solid ground with what the God-man says. Dukkha is the wrong place to start with our understanding of ourselves. The teachings of Buddha are nothing but faulty foundations. That’s what happens when you look within and attempt to solve man’s problems apart from the wisdom of God, who made us! Friends, we need the Maker of all things to tell us what's He's like, why our world is what it is right now and He's going to fix it all.  That's what His Word does.  Do yourself a favor and read His Word today.

THE SONGS WE SING #1 - GIVE US CLEAN HANDS

GIVE US CLEAN HANDS 

by Charlie Hall

We bow our hearts, we bend our knees

O, Spirit come make us humble

We turn our eyes from evil things

O, Lord we cast down our idols

Give us clean hands, give us pure hearts

Let us not lift our souls to another

Give us clean hands, give us pure hearts

Let us not lift our souls to another

O, God let us be a generation that seeks

That seeks your face, O, God of Jacob

O, God let us be a generation that seeks

That seeks your face, O, God of Jacob



I recently read an article that shredded this song to pieces and declared how it was unfit for public worship.  The cry was that there was unorthodox theology in it. Part of the claim was that it was a Christless song and void of the gospel.  The writer of the article was a self-professed reformed Christian and was attempting to be discerning of modern-day worship songs that are lyrically weak in content. 

The article I read was a total fail because the author of the article failed to realize that the majority of the song was taken directly from Psalm 24.  He unknowingly was declaring Scripture to be unorthodox. He was unknowingly declaring the song to be Christless when nothing could be further from the truth. 

Let me say first off that I am myself reformed and I, too, want to be discerning.  Unfortunately, some people mistake being critical with being discerning.  They too easily jump on the reformed band wagon that loves to rip on the current generation of song writers as being shallow and worldly.  There is a difference between being discerning versus being critical.  Discernment requires taking the truth of Scripture, gathering an accurate understanding of what you are assessing and then applying the plumb line of Scripture to whatever it is that you are assessing.  Being critical bypasses the second part of discernment and attacks with the first part. That is what I witness a lot of people doing in the reformed camp. It saddens me. Discernment has been replaced with unjust criticism in a lot of circumstances. 

Let us never forget that all of Scripture points to Christ in one way or another.  The songs we sing should support this as well.  We should want to be led and driven to Christ.  There is no greater thing that to know Him who was crucified, buried and risen again.

This song leads us to Jesus even if you don't see it at first.  A major portion of the lyrics are taken from Psalm 24 and answers the question as to “who can come into God’s presence.”  Coming into God's presence is a deadly thing if you are not properly equipped. It is a mountain that will end in your death if you are ill-prepared. It is a task that will crush you like those who have been conquered by Mt. Everest.  Only those who are perfectly righteous are allowed ascend God's hill to be with God which is why faith in Christ matters.  It is through faith in Christ that His righteousness is credited to you, knowing that your sins were heaped on the cross of Christ when He died for you. On the third day Jesus was raised to validate that you are justified through faith in Him. This is the gospel. This is the good news. That's where Psalm 24 takes us.

Read Psalm 24 and feel the impossibility of being near God (vs 3-4) because we do not have clean hands and pure heart.  We have been a deceitful people before God. Therefore, none of us are worthy of ascending the hill of the Lord to be with Him. It is a failed task on our part!  But there is another way, since our own merit is not sufficient.  We must look to Christ in faith.  We must seek the face of Jesus, who is God in the flesh.  This Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because He is the great I AM.  Seek the face of Christ (vs 6) knowing that He makes possible your ability (vs 5) to ascend that hill to be with God.

Psalm 24:3-6  Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.  5 He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah.

So the next time we sing this song, as short and simple as it is, remember that it communicates the gospel to you.  When you are singing "give us clean hands, give us pure hearts" you are not asking for God to make you a morally good person so that you can ascend the hill of God with your own deeds.  No, you are proclaiming and confessing, according to the Psalm, that you desperately need the righteousness of Christ, which is a gift (vs. 5) and so you are seeking Him. Verse 6 makes it clear that the generation that seeks God is such a generation...a generation that is blessed by God and receives righteousness from the God who has saved them.  And in seeking Him, you are repenting from your sin and casting down your idols and anything else that would keep you from seeking the face of Jesus, the God who rescues and equips you to ascend His hill. 

This song is about repentance and faith in the incarnation of the good news, Jesus Christ. It is a declaration of your continued repentance and faith in Him alone who saves!   So let us keep repenting, let us keep trusting in Christ's righteousness and let us keep worshipping!

REFLECTIONS ON THE HISTORY OF CHURCH MUSIC

The Puritans exclusively sung Psalms without instruments during the 1500’s and 1600’s. Then came along Isaac Watts with his new and controversial hymns in the 1700’s. Rather than singing scripture alone, he created songs that were scripturally themed. What a contrast and stark change to prior worship forms. It was scandalous that he’d do this and many frowned upon this innovation and form. Yet today, those songs are revered by many and rightly so. 

Over a century later the organ was introduced into Baptist churches and scandal broke out again as some songs were put to popular tunes people were accustomed to. The organ was viewed as a worldly instrument and costly.  Yet if you lived on the 1950’s you wouldn’t have known anything else and considered it to part of your godly heritage.

Eventually praise choruses erupted on the scene played by a guitarist who looked like a hippie during the Jesus Movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s. And these hippies, or Jesus Freaks, were frowned upon with their folk worship music and innovation.  Those accustomed to organ and hymns did not care for this new trend. Eventually, it came to be accepted as normative in churches to sing songs by Randy Stonehill, Larry Norman and Keith Green. Many of these songs are still sung today.

Now in the 21st century, we have complete music teams with drums, keyboards, electric guitars, violins, banjos, mandolins, ukuleles. These songs sound very poppy or rocky...and guess what, they’ve had their moment to be frowned upon as well, by my generation and the one before.

I’m not sure what the future holds for music in the church, but as I look down through church history I can clearly see that what was once new and innovative and considered scandalous by the previous generation soon became the norm and tradition of the next generation. And then that generation considered what they did as right and considered new forms as scandalous. 
 

Perhaps there are times when forms are not scandalous at all, just different than what we are used to. The Lord is delighted with new songs that arise out of God's Word rightly understood and applied to current situations. Creativity is part of who God is and I believe that is one reason why our Creator advocates for new songs, while we sometimes cling to tradition and forego innovation in music and songs. Jesus radically changes people in all generations, right where we are.  God doesn't yank us from our current context and call us to sing like Europeans did several hundred years ago.  He doesn't call us to time travel and live like previous cultures.  In fact, he calls us to live within the culture we find ourselves and to express Biblically guided love and devotion to Him. The fact that Gentiles were not required to live like the Jews upon faith in Christ makes that abundantly clear under the New Covenant.  Certainly, there's nothing wrong with singing older songs and connecting the living saints to our heritage and spiritual ancestors.  May we never forget the price many paid to pass on the faith. May we take joy in singing to God through songs they have written during their lives within their culture.  But may we also embrace what God is doing now within the hearts of His people.

I pray that I am discerning enough to know that the next generation’s form of music will be different from what I know now so that I’ll be gracious to foster their soon-to-be godly and beloved traditions. Trust me, there’s coming a day when those who love praise bands are going to be upset that something like a DJ will be leading people in music. Don’t call me crazy just yet, but there will be a revolt over such a scandal! Why? Because sometimes we worship the form of music more than the Creator to whom we sing. If you don’t think so, just look back at the history of church music. Hymns were once hated and considered worldy. We just weren't around to witness the transition and worship wars of centuries gone by. The organ, guitar and praise band have all been accused of the same worldliness and compromise. There's nothing wrong with tradition, but there's also nothing wrong with innovation. Barring content, there's nothing wrong with old songs and there's nothing wrong with new songs.   So, will we be part of the protestors or part of embracing those that will outlive us and continue to pass on the faith of Christ within the culture they find themselves? Do we want to foster protesting in them against forms that we know will fade away...or will we foster in them an embracing of the truth through forms that are culturally acceptable to God while being preferentially different that their own personal tastes?  Because one day, they too, will be faced with a revolt of the new while clinging to the past. Why can't both be accepted?

I’ve grown up with hymns, sung the Jesus Movement hippie music, transitioned to modern praise music while never letting go of the past. I’m not sure how I’ll embrace the next change, but I hope it’s with grace. I don’t want to be a part of worship wars. We have an enemy already and it's not Jesus' church.  I just want to be a part of passing on the torch of the light of Christ through preaching and songs that teach us the Word of Christ and help us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

WORSHIP MYTH #1 - HYMNS ARE OLDER SONGS

At the age of six I came to know Christ as Savior.  My earliest memories as a Christian are about memorizing Scriptures on note cards, using those note cards to share the gospel with my friends and family, and singing in the church before the pastor preached.  I honestly don’t recall any of those early sermons, yet I distinctly remember some of the songs that we sung.  Music has a way of sticking with us long after the memories of lectures and sermons have disappeared, especially at a young age. Just the tune of a song is enough to awaken memories of places, smells and lyrics not sung in ages.

The first church I attended was a Southern Baptist Church in National City, Ca. In our children’s class we often sang songs that were deemed appropriate for kids.  I remember the right arm, left arm movements of the infamous song Father Abraham.  Having just the tiniest grain of truth in the song, I never understood or was explained how this Abraham guy was our father. I certainly didn’t understand why we did all the motions but it was a fun memory as a child and a cringe-worthy one as an adult.  It wasn’t until decades later that the dots were connected and I understood the reality of Romans 4:16, 9:8 and Galatians 3:7-8.   Indeed Abraham is our father if we have faith in Christ to save us.

Another song I recall from that church was They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.  I’ve never played this song as a musician, but I can distinctly hear in my head this tune from nearly forty years ago and I can tell that minor chords are predominantly used in the song. The minor chords are what give this song a serious feel.  It wasn’t a silly song like Father Abraham and the message was certainly more weighty that a right arm, left arm lyric. The song starts with “We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord.”  The unity and communion of believers because of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is an important theme to know and even sing about. This unity that believers have is to be demonstrated in our love and care for one another.  Hence, the chorus of the song, “They will know we are Christians by our love,” which is drawn from John 13:34:35 and perhaps Philippians 2.

As a six-year-old Christian I recall that we didn’t stay long at this church.  We attended another church for a couple years and then we finally landed at an independent Baptist church not too far away from the first two churches we attended.  This church is where I spent the next nine years being discipled and growing with other believers.  It’s also the church where I grew to love very old songs commonly called hymns.  Here are just some of the titles I recall from the top of my head, songs I still love:

Doxology

Amazing Grace
How Great Thou Art
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
All Hail The Power of Jesus’ Name
Holy, Holy, Holy
It Is Well
Rock of Ages
Be Thou My Vision
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Blessed Assurance
To God Be The Glory
Jesus Paid It All
At The Cross

These songs taught me a lot about the gospel of Christ. They were commonly called hymns in our church and hymns were the only thing we sang—from a book that looked like a Gideon’s hardcovered Bible—from a book that had musical notation that I could not read—from a book where the 3^rd verse was often skipped in a song and no one knew why—from a book that an organ player used while a song director waived his arms in some fashion that somehow kept the rest of us in line. When you are new to hymnody that’s what it feels and looks like.  To the noob hymn singer, it all has an unfamiliar feel to it, but you soon realize that it has a part in teaching you about God.  Unfortunately, in our church, we didn’t have a well-communicated theology of worship, so it often felt like were only singing about God.  I don’t ever recall actually singing to God.

But what an odd word that hymn is.  Some people pronounce the n and some people don’t—sort of like the l in almond. Properly understood a hymn is simply a praise song to God.  It actually has nothing to do with the age, style or structure of the song, although many people equate hymns with a certain sort of religious song from a particular time period.

Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 use the term hymn to simply refer to songs that are spiritual in nature. This plain meaning and usage of this term was well in place before the popular usage of the term that we now often misuse.  So properly understood, hymns are not old songs from the 1600’s to the 1900’s. Hymns are not songs with five verses and a refrain.  Hymns are not songs that adults sing while children sing praise choruses. Hymns are not theologically rich songs while contemporary songs are theology light.  Properly understood, hymns are songs of praise to God.  Understood in this way, even praise songs and praise choruses are hymns, if they are songs of praise to God.

It’s very important to understand this because we may be tempted to superimpose our current understanding of the term hymn onto Scripture and mistakenly relegate our musical worship to the usage of songs that are of a certain age or from a certain time period or contain large quantities of theology.  Accordingly, we may distance ourselves from new hymns or older hymns simply because of our prejudices, preferences and stereotypes and thus cut ourselves off from the spiritual treasure troves that God's people produce in song.  Nowhere in Scripture are we told to sing songs only from a certain time period.  Rather, we are admonished to sing songs that are spiritual in nature—primarily songs of praise to our God.  Thankfully, there is a lot to praise God for and thus there are lots of songs we can sing.  Now some hymns are poor and some hymns are great.  It just depends on how accurate those songs are according to God’s self-revelation.

So the first myth I’d like to dispel is that that hymns are really old stuffy songs that contain a lot of theology, while modern day songs are really cool fluffy songs that contain a lot of emotion.  Both are caricatures of different periods of hymns.  There are really old hymns that are just theologically horrid.  There are really new hymns that are equally suited for the scrap heap. Conversely, there are songs written from centuries long ago that are beautiful treasures for believers today.  There are also beautiful treasures being written and composed today that will direct minds and hearts toward God in praise for centuries to come.  Christians from the 1^st century to the 19^th century do not have exclusive rights in adding to Christendom’s hymnody. Christians from every era are free to create fresh hymns for the church to use in corporate or private instruction and the worship of God.

In summary the period from which the song arises is not what makes a hymn a hymn.  The amount of theology in a song is not what makes a hymn a hymn.  The instrumentation used in a song is not what makes a hymn a hymn.  What make a song a hymn is whether or not it praises God.  And by that definition, every song we sing at church during our services is a hymn.

Stay tuned for more articles to come on worship myths.  Up next: myth #2 - Repetition in worship is bad.

So what are some of your favorite hymns: new or old?