The first video was called "Indescribable" and he talked a lot about space and showed pictures of different galaxies and amazing awesome universe things to show how big the universe is. This was one of those "whoa, weird" moments for me because I had JUST been perusing great space photos the DAY BEFORE! Which you can see on my October 6, 2009 blog entry. I had literally wasted like 3 hours just reading about galaxies and novas and been in awe of God's universe. All by myself. Without some preacher guy I don't know pointing it out to me. Anyway, yes, the next day our Bible study was on the indescribable beauty and awe and expanse of the universe and how even bigger and amazing God is. So keep in mind I was in awe and had a "wow God!" moment before the last five minutes of the video came on.
Which you can watch the last bit here by the way if you want to.
He describes how an image of the center of the Whirlpool galaxy popped out at him from 31 million light years away (okay I'm paraphrasing really bad you should probably watch the clip) and alas! alack! it is in the shape of a cross! His jaw dropped open! He fell off his chair!
Meanwhile, I am staring at our plasma TV displaying the image quite nicely (because the video leaves it up there for quite awhile) and I do NOT see what he is talking about. Like, I really honestly don't see it. And I say that to the three other people next to me, and Josh tells me to go put my glasses on. But that's not really what I was saying. I SEE the "X" that made the impression on the speaker, I SEE the white, bright, kind of sideways blobby type cross and can understand why someone who had cross on the mind would say, "hey! that's sort of cross looking!"... but I don't SEE like Giglio sees.
I was really tracking for the most part up until this point, like emotionally tracking with him - wow, awesome, God is the Creator - the Maker- the infinity - amazing! It was like God had been directing my thoughts even before this video, maybe to prepare me to be more in awe of Him, because of the all things I had read and looked at about space before the video. Sure, the background keyboard sensationalist muzac to stir emotion in the crowd was super annoying. The mere fact that I was tolerating the speaker to this point was actually quite phenomenal because I usually find the gelled-hair on TV with their own worship band on tour types annoying and certainly not enough to invest emotionally into what they are saying. But it was a good talk. Until... until the blobby white and black shadow cross thing. Which to me did not look like a cross at all, I even tried to imagine what he must be seeing, but I could not see it.
And then after I opened my mouth and said something, which I tend to blurt stuff out without thinking, I was met with three pairs of eyes that all seemed to say, "Well, we see it. What's wrong with you."
So I was a little miffed and tried to forget about it, but it still bothered me the rest of the week. Why didn't I see it? Am I that cynical? Am I what some of those prophet writer guys in the Bible referred to as stone heads and blind eyes and stuff? Am I supposed to be seeing Jesus symbols in my everyday life to be reminded of God?
And then there was the second week's video. Which kind of set me over the edge. Here's a clip of the last few minutes:
Now first of all some positive points about this video:
I enjoyed it up until the last eight minutes.
He spends most of the video talking about planets that have been discovered and then lines them up in order for HUGENESS and it was so awesome! I mean like our sun? In our solar system? Is like a tiny speck compared to these planets. How insignificant I felt when I saw those on the projector screen... and yet God knows me and made me. This would have been enough for me. Giglio could've (and should've I would argue) ended his talk right there. How great is our God, and yet he sent his only Son to die for us on the cross (not a shadowy blobby thing in space camera vision but the actual Roman crucifixion cross). I do love that he reads from Colossians and mentions the supremacy of Christ, etc. Why not preach about that? Why not read more scripture?
But no. Noooo. He has to end with his "left hook" and go off on a laminin tangent. You can read more about laminin in the links below, but basically it's the protein or "glue" that holds our cells together. Colassians 1:15-17 is mentioned to make his point - Laminin looks like a cross (in scientific diagrams), Jesus' symbol is the cross, laminin holds life together, Jesus holds life together ("and in Him all things hold together"). Therefore laminin = Jesus.
This time I "SEE" it. Yup that's a cross alright:
But I immediately see something else that I see often in my field of work:
In my mind, laminin does not equal Jesus symbol. Yet again my mind screamed "sensationalism! this is wrong!" but I held my tongue. He had completely lost my interest at this point, mentally and emotionally, and the piano/strings keyboard patch was grating on my ears. I sipped some tea and shoved a few jalapeno pepper jelly tartlets in my mouth to calm down. At this point I'm thinking to myself, this guy really believes in what he is saying, he really sees God in these little things. He sees illustrations to share Jesus, genuinely, with young people because he cares for them and their souls and wants them to know God cares for them, they aren't insignificant, God knows every hair on their head and every tiny cellular structure. This is important for people to hear. How could I be "irked" at this guy for wanting to share God's love and desire for us to be in a true relationship with Him.
How could I...
Well I am. Later I went on the internets to look up laminin to make sure Giglio's molecular biologist friend wasn't pulling my leg. I was surprised to find this video was pretty popular on the internet awhile back as an inbox forward and link to your friend type thing. There were even Christian bloggers who have blogged about it before me.
This guy's blog post I ran across made me think in a less cynical light. He certainly sounds a lot smarter than me. I do not have a lot of background to go on for Bible stuffs... I never went to Bible college. My daily devotion time is just reading the Bible and praying, no study guides or smart books. Everything I've learned about theology and doctrine is from kind of half-ass Baptist sunday school classes and really good far and few in-between theology books (which I do not think I absorb as much as I should from and have to read over and over to understand) and more recently, my really awesome husband who knows stuff, and also lots of podcasts from preachers and professors. I also observed a lot apologetic type discussions on the RI, when it wasn't about "I Kissed Dating Goodbye"... and those friends are probably the opinions I would go to for this kind of thing. Which is mostly why I am posting this blog (I'm talking to you James Rhea and Miss Cassie) hoping to gain insight.
So this guy, whoever he is because I didn't bother to read the rest of his blog, poses some good questions about the laminin talk:
So, does this disqualify the teaching as irrelevant or inaccurate?
I would suggest, “no.” Why? Because a spiritual experience is always esoteric and interpretative. Crafting a connection is part of the gifting that God seems to give to communicators (like Giglio), and instead of criticizing its accuracy, we ought to be applauding its ability to move people, bring people to a sense of awe, and wonder.
I was with a surgeon when I saw Giglio give this talk, and she said that she of course knew about laminin but never put the two together the way Giglio did. She felt it was an “interesting” interpretation, and yet was still moved and touched by the commentary our biology was seemingly making on the realities of our existence. Whether or not Jesus’ cross was actually that shape was irrelevant. The point stands on its own without the need to clutter it with historical criticism. And that’s okay.
and....
Is it then reasonable for someone to be skeptical, even apathetic towards these kinds of endeavors?
Sure. “This is a free country” as they say. But through these talks I suggest that the best way to be human is not to deny ourselves the search for significance, casting it aside as some sort of evolutionary fluke, but rather embrace our nomadic wandering through the universe as something to fill our souls with meaning. What cannot be denied is the experience, and I suggest that phenomenology is evidence that humanity desires to be anchored in something meaningful and moving. And that desire, that drive, is never going away.
Eh, maybe not so great answers to these questions. I wish I could come up with better answers but I do not know how to form my thoughts further on the subject. I guess our personal experiences with God are all different, much different, and what drives our desire to seek God are different. And we have different spiritual gifts and see things different ways.
In my life, the more I learn about science and the human physiology (which is something I study for hours everyday), the further I am drawn towards a relationship with God and the firmer my belief in God cements. My faith grows, but not because I see little cross shaped cells and see SIGNS and WONDERS in the universe in a magical, sensational way. It is because I see we are fearfully and intricately and wonderfully made. It is because I see that the universe is indescribably ginormous and I am completely stupid and should be less then an amoeba on God's scale, but he knows me and cares for me, even the stupid stuff, and cares for the little birds and probably the little amoebas in the swamp even though Jesus didn't happen to mention those things in His talks. I am but a vapor. We cannot even grasp the basic mysteries of God's creation.
So, is it wrong for this guy Giglio to go off on his signs and wonders kick and preach about Jesus symbols? Honestly, I don't know. Probably not. God used tons of signs and wonders with the Israelites and they forgot about Him like, what, two months later? If Mr. Giglio sees Jesus in small things, and is reminded of God in cell structures, how different is that from me seeing God's hand in tiny details of my life like when I say, "God provided this flour jar when I needed one!" when one appears on the free table at work and I take it home. To someone else that is a happy coincidence. To me that week it was an encouragement, a reminder that God provides and cares for even the tiniest thing in my life.
Grace. God gives us grace, especially our feeble attempts to understand that which we will never be able to understand, and describe what we will never be able to describe. Grace is important in the Christian life. Josh tells me a lot that Christianity is like looking at a diamond, everyone has a different point of view on it but it is still the same beautiful diamond. Okay I am totally butchering his metaphor and you will have to ask him. It was something about when he talks about different denominations. Wow I am really butchering it. Okay I'll stop now.
I did run across a lot of people on the internets who easily turned Giglio's laminin talk into "Jesus is magic!" and totally shredded his point- like, wow! Laminin looks like that thing from Greek mythology! The Greek gods are really true! Long live Zeus! and just totally made fun of him and stuff...which is why I think he should've just stopped his talk before the Laminin thing. It's a weak point to end on, I think. God gave us scripture for a reason.
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