Sneeze, God. Sneeze!

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the reading that I do in Cultural Anthropology. Every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday I faithfully do my reading (like any good student would, of course)...and later question why in the world I chose to take this particular class. Let's yap about how we came from apes and used to live in trees...let's question where the earth came from and why marraige is universal. Or, even better, let's question why people have "religion"-- it's to feel secure, of course. It couldn't possibly be real, according to the authors of my textbook (although they don't say it, it's definitely implied). Now, I am not going to sit here and complain, argue, and defend religion--I don't feel that I need to (I feel I complain to myself too often anyway, so why would I do that to you beautiful people in cyber-world?).

What I do want to bring up is a conversation I had with a friend at a coffee shop during Spring Break. We were sitting at the coffee shop, exchanging God stories and just catching up like old friends do, and we started talking about driving back to college. She said, "I actually don't mind driving (the 7-ish hours) back to college because I love looking around at what God created." From there, we got on the discussion of Romans 1. (See below NIV)

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

One of the things that my friend said really stuck out to me...she said, "You know it says clearly in scripture that we can just look around and see God, but I feel like some people cannot. There is this veil that stands in the way of nature screaming 'GOD' to their eyes." This statement struck me, and thus made me think of Cultural Anthropology. Dude, stuff in my textbook is totally bogus...and more than half of a world believes it. People attain Ph.D.'s in it, they run after it, study it, base their life around it. To be extremely honest, I've been too excluded from this stuff for the past two years. My major, extracirricular activities, homework, etc. revolves around theology, and other biblical stuff. In a way, that is good, and in a way that is bad. I'd like to think that I am learning quite a bit from Cultural Anthropology--and it's not even Cultural Anthropology. The chapters I do read, and the discussions I do have and listen to in class have opened my eyes to a world where people NEED Jesus. I am not just saying that because I think I am cool--I'm really serious. Is it SO silly to think that God made apes to be apes, and humans to be humans? Is it really SO silly to think that God might have made man and woman for one another? Is it really SO silly to think that nature screams God's name and expresses his glory? There are days I walk out of that Cultural Anthropology class feeling oh, so, stupid. To be honest, I don't know any of this ape-to-human-transformation-genetic-difference-we-ultimately-came-from-a-plant stuff. But then I really think....just because you have a Ph.D. in Anthropology doesn't mean you are wise. You can have 4,000 Ph.D.'s in anthropology, and everything else under the moon and be a complete fool. Knowledge IS power. Knowledge is leading and MISleading. What we often choose to believe reflects the God we serve. Is God really powerful enough to have made the world? In my opinion, he could have one, huge cosmic sneeze and create another universe if he chose to do so! So here is my last hurrah...sneeze God, sneeze! And teach us to be people who glorify you with our minds, and are edified through your Spirit. AND that, my friends, is prayed in the mighty name of Jesus.