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Posts Tagged ‘Provocative Thoughts’
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
The combination of watching the fairytale movie “Stardust” and being introduced to this song have led me to put finger to keyboard this evening…
Just in case you are not clued up with the plot of Stardust, it concerns a young man – a nobody – who ends up not only defeating the witch, getting the girl and becoming king but he also lives forever in a perfect relationship with her because she happens to be a star and has given her heart to him in love, so when he grows old they ascend to the sky to shine together forever.
The ultimate ‘feel-good’ movie…
I have one question though.
Why are films like this viewed so cynically by most people today? You can just imagine in Blockbuster (or whatever your preferred dvd rental establishment may be), your eye passing it by as an appealing choice (“for the wife/girlfriend/kids maybe”) but certainly not to be preferred above Die Hard, Michael Clayton or The Libertine. Why? Because they are a little bit more ‘rooted in the real world’, more for grown-ups. Soppy girls and children can go with these droll, fairy-tales but sensible men and women are just not convinced.
Yet if this is the sentiment associated with it (and this is certainly the feeling I automatically had when looking at the selection on offer at one of Kozani’s local dvd rental shops this evening), then why do we call it a feel-good movie in the first place?
Isn’t it because we view the situation it describes not so much as fantastical but as ideal?
It is how both our mind and our heart would prefer for things to be but we see that life is not like this so the whole scenario is rejected – often scornfully (but perhaps more often than we’d like to admit, wistfully) – as unrealistic. If you just think about it, we don’t think of X-Men or even Shrek as feel good movies. They are certainly fantastical but they are not an ‘ideal’ that deep down we actually want. Obviously Shrek does an excellent job of getting to the heart of both the genuine struggles of life and some of the deepest common values like unconditional love, but – almost cruelly – it is still remarkably earthbound. However much we agree with the ‘greater’ ideal of true love’s form being found not in external appearance but in the personal love between two souls, no one’s aim is to end up as an ugly, smelly ogre living on a swamp with all of life’s problems still present; this is what the heaven of humanism looks like. ‘Happily Ever After’ is a cruel joke in Shrek.
With a film like Stardust, however, you don’t have to be sentimental to see that it has everything that deep down we all long for. The story of someone being raised up from less than nothing in the eyes of others to an inheritance that is imperishable and glorious forever and this happening not for the purpose of personal glory and pride but for the purpose of a relationship of deep, interpersonal love and eternal intimacy… well, I don’t think I need to say any more. It is incomparably more desirable than any earthbound fantasy scenario. And yet this was a story written by a human and it is one that echoes throughout human history. It is a dream within all of us. Where does it come from? Michael Vaughn, the director of the film, comments that it is not a film that will affect anyone’s life or change the world but I beg to differ. The scorn expressed by someone for such a story always hides behind it a bitter, half-forgotten longing for this story to be true, for someone else, if not them. It’s almost as if they have been trying to forget a parallel dream of their own and you have reminded them and made them hope once more.
Well, somewhere, there is a cruel joke going on. Either the universe is playing a cruel joke on us by vesting us with these desires that neither have any rational origin nor hope of fulfilment (if materialism is the ultimate reality)… or the cruel joke is on those of us who choose to listen to the barking of Polly Toynbee and Richard Dawkins over and above the whole of human history which bears witness to these dreams of men as a consistent (and persistent) feature of the human condition.
It must be said that the dreams do not prove anything on their own, but their very presence obliges us to do something about them and simply barking at them is not going to make them go away. Neil Gaimon, the writer of the story behind Stardust, found an outlet in pen and ink. But this is hardly a satisfactory outlet or conclusion.
Indeed, the Toynbees and Dawkins of this world would remind us of the fact that they are simply being realistic – no one has ever ‘imagined themselves’ into a different state, place or condition; nature simply does not work this way. There is no point in losing oneself in unrealistic visions as if we could ‘make’ them reality just by believing in them and living as if they were true. They would claim that this is actually dangerous…
Yet just watch their ‘friendly bark’ turn into snarls, gnashing of teeth and shaking of fists (literally) when they are confronted with the historically-attested event of the death and resurrection of Jesus. They know that this is something from which they cannot escape because it is part of their own recent, human history. We do not know what the first humans looked like but we have numerous eyewitnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection with their accounts transcribed and cross-referenced; in a court of law there is only one winner here – the eyewitness evidence – and yet we are supposed to accept ape-man theories and reject the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection? They know this and so they do not waste their breath attacking the historicity of Jesus and the events surrounding his death and resurrection so they resort to emotional arguments in an attempt to undermine the interpretation of these events. Yet this is an even more foolish endeavour as the interpretation of these events is laid out over 1500 years of the Bible writers all writing about things they did not fully understand at the time but which are now crystal clear to us in the light of the person of Jesus. The story was already told and complete – it just needed the hero to appear.
“Saccharine” (sweet) and – ironically – “earthbound” are the words used respectively by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins when confronted with these events.
We are back in the dvd rental shop here! I’m not trying to undermine the latent hostility in their retorts but, essentially, they are looking at this scenario and not struggling so much with the events but with the interpretation of them – the interpretation which would allude to reality having any kind of relationship with ‘fairytale endings’, with true and everlasting love and with brilliance and glory shining forever with pride completely banished. Hitchens attempts to demolish the resurrection simply by calling it ‘sweet’ and Dawkins tries to reinterpret it, calling it ‘earthbound’ when any idiot can see that it is the complete opposite of this; if someone has truly been raised from the dead then it is the one true hope that answers the call of our hearts – to be free of the chains of the curse of death. And not only does it sound the klaxon call of freedom but it also speaks of the deepest love that no Shrek could ever even contemplate – an eternal, interpersonal relationship where you shine as do the stars in the brilliance of true glory (ie. not ‘vain-glory’) forever…. saccharine I think not.
At one point of the film, Yvaine – the star – asks the young hero if he is not tempted to kill her and eat her heart so he can live forever. He responds by asking her why would he want to live forever without this existence being in the context of a loving relationship. Conversely, the witch, Lamia, at the end, embodies the secular response to this sentiment by attempting to do exactly that – live forever without any loving relationships after her sisters have been killed. This is not even Shrek’s skewed version of heaven, it is the fundamentalist atheist’s version and it is a horrific thought; even if they could ‘live’ forever, they would still want to cut themselves off from the source of life, love and laughter; this is actually a pretty good description of hell, defined for us over and over by every article they write and every retort to God they snort out (I must add here that they are not all ‘snorters’ – at the best of times, Christopher Hitchens is a paragon of propriety and congeniality and in a kind of paradoxical way I am a great admirer of him).
Their constant refrain is that even if a perfect God was there, they would still reject him.
Which leaves us with the longings of our own heart. Obviously I am not lumping everyone who is not a Christian believer in together with Richard and Polly but sometimes seeing the extremes helps us find where we fit in. I hope you have noted, whether through your own observations or what I have been saying here that, at the end of the day, the ‘logical’ reasons to trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection are almost by-the-by. They can be checked out by anyone. What stops many – and here please take note – is their attitude to the scenario being presented to them (think of the dvd rental shop). They are indignant that anyone, even God himself, would ‘seriously’ seek to spoil the ‘grown-up’ (just another word for bitter) world they have built. They know it is not ideal; it is not even pleasant; in fact it is rather ugly and lonely, but it is theirs and no ‘sweet longings’ and fairytale endings placed in front of them should disrupt this. Their cry for freedom has long been stifled by patterns of thought and behaviour designed for survival and carving out a little corner for themselves in this cruel, unforgiving world and any tender thoughts (yes, I do believe even Polly has tenderness of this kind in her heart somewhere) harboured for any kind of ‘shining forever’ style ending has been covered over by a hardened and, ultimately, a proud heart.
My question for you is how much of this kind of person are you today or are you in the process of turning into….?
Please read the words of this song – it is the perfect companion to the fantastical scenario of Stardust because it speaks of a parallel scenario, but a true one.
Tags: Films, Movies, Provocative Thoughts, Values
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The most desirable value?
Friday, June 9th, 2006
Tolerance. It’s one of the bywords of our modern society. But what does it really mean… and why is it used so frequently nowadays?
The dictionary defines it as: willingness to accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.
Well I ask you… is the world really so full of disagreeable people that “this” should be seen as the great value in today’s society?
How did people live together ‘before’ this word became “the most desirable value”? An in-depth historical analysis could be conducted but I think that the more pressing questiong for us should be: “just why exactly is this word taking over today?”
The attitude today is that the only thing that will not be tolerated is an intolerant person.
All other things and people must be endured. This has created a somewhat schizophrenic attitude in most people. They know that they are supposed to be tolerant, but this means that, more and more, they are putting up with people and practices that their conscience and values would normally find wrong or even repulsive. This situation cannot continue indefinitely – eventually either your tolerance will run out and you will be forced to comment on the repulsiveness of the behaviour, or your views on the behaviour itself will simply change to conform to your public facade. So, for instance, if I am a person who believes, for whatever reason, that ‘cohabitation’ (as it is now called) is wrong, yet I continually find myself defending such people – for the sake of tolerance – against others who find it morally unacceptable, then eventually I will find myself first sympathising with them, then agreeing with them and, eventually, perhaps even identifying with them. I will begin not only to argue that they be left alone but also that what they are doing is ‘right’. Perhaps I may even try it out myself.
This kind of toleration more often than not brings conformity, in opinion if not practice.
Of course, there are certain practices that are still regarded by the majority of people as ‘morally reprehensible’ – and therefore not to be tolerated under any circumstance. The only problem with this is that the boundaries regarding which practices fall into this category are continually being moved. This is particularly obvious when it comes to both sexual and medical ethics. Not so long ago sodomy was illegal in most countries around the world – now it is both legalised and encouraged (if you ‘feel’ it is right for you).
At what point did it stop being ‘tolerated’ (as deviant) and start being accepted (as normal) and then promoted (as good)??
Not so long ago, euthanasia of any form would have been treated as something out of a movie script; a horror scenario that hopefully would never come true. Now it is debated and being put forward as a potential standard practice. Even last month, there were strong calls to progress straight on to ‘involuntary euthanasia’… At what point did these views stop being ‘tolerated’ and start becoming mainstream?
At present, there is generally a huge furore over paedophiles – these are the people who are regarded as having committed the worst and most depraved acts… but how long will it be before this too is seen as ok, as long as the child is consenting or something like that? It would be very easy to scoff at this prediction but whoever would have thought just a few years ago that sodomy would be regarded as normal and natural. The ancient Greeks certainly didn’t seem to have a problem with engaging in sexual practices with young boys…
…when the boundaries are constantly being moved then, in the end, anything can be ‘tolerated.
Which brings us onto the greatest paradox about today’s society. Apparently, the only thing that is actually morally reprehensible is to comment on someone else’s behaviour and voice an absolute opinion. The action of the person should not be called into question at all – they are to be tolerated at all costs. Only bigots and fundamentalists have the audacity to be so ‘intolerant’. But is this fair?
By saying that a person must be tolerated ‘along with’ their actions rather than ‘in spite of them’, one is effectively separating this person from their actions, but this is impossible. You cannot separate a person from their deeds; we do not act within a moral vacuum. Our actions affect ourselves and others and we are therefore accountable to one another for those actions. If someone does something that I regard as immoral then that means that I must also call the person immoral (recognising, of course, that I am also immoral, lest I be accused of hypocrisy). You cannot separate a person from their actions.
So actually then, society today, by asking us to endure all these unpleasant things and unpleasant people is creating exactly the right circumstances for these undesirable practices to be perpetuated. If my misdeeds are no longer being sanctioned I will only be encouraged to carry on doing them. We see this most plainly with little children. There is no such thing as ‘telling off a deed’; you always tell off a person. If you do not tell of the person then they understand that they are getting away with it. By encouraging us to tolerate people ‘together with’ their unpleasant behaviour rather than ‘in spite of’ it, we are effectively being told to condone what they are doing. We affirm them in their ‘evil’ practices. But surely true toleration must be about accepting the person ‘despite’ their deviant behaviour? And this brings us to the heart of tolerance.
Tolerance was never supposed to be the solution…
It is merely a stepping stone to the real aim: reconciliation. What does genuine tolerance look like? Well, surely it involves accepting and enduring someone despite the fact that many things about them and many things they do are intrinsically wrong. And this is the major problem for the atheist; he is unable to label anything as ‘intrinsically’ wrong. Due to his or her worldview that excludes God from the moral plane, morality itself must be dealt with in terms of expediency and utility. Tolerance then becomes not a matter of sanctioning evil or deviant practices but simply about maintaining some semblance of order amidst a plurality of conflicting and contrasting values. Tolerance itself is seen as the ultimate solution but this begs the question… solution to what? The real problem that toleration addresses is not some vague idea of it being inconvenient that people have different views and practices, it is the concrete and horrific problem of evil; the fact that people lie, cheat and kill. But if there is no God then there is no truth, just different perspectives; if there is no God then there is no cheating or killing, just practices that favour my survival over another person’s (survival of the fittest). Suddenly the modern approach to tolerance becomes understandable; it is simply the logical outworking of the atheist’s worldview. Circular and hopeless though it may be (toleration is both the means and the end), it is consistent with the rest of the atheistic worldview.
This cannot be right, though. The real problem is one of broken relationships. Human beings are out of fellowship with each other; even our romantic relationships are full of cheating, lies and murder – this is a fact that is painfully obvious through just a cursory glance at our world; even the atheist can see this. We don’t need just a peaceful life.
What we need is reconciliation!
Toleration is simply the stepping stone to reconciliation. It not about ‘putting up with each other’, it is about restoring relationships that have been broken. When someone who knows that I regard their behaviour and views as being evil and wrong, according to God’s perfect standard sees that I nevertheless accept them completely (tolerate) and in doing so also offer them love (reconciliation) when what they deserve is condemnation and judgement for what they are doing… then they have been introduced to true toleration.
And of course the greatest argument for doing it this way is that, even if I know the correct standard, I have no right to condemn and judge anyway because I am no better. Jesus shows us very clearly that we have ALL broken ALL of the ten commandments so that none of us have a leg to stand on. This puts things in a very different light… when the only person who has the right to condemn and judge us finds us all guilty then the question stops being one of whether we will tolerate each other or not and turns into one of wonderment at just…
..how on earth has God tolerated us lawbreakers for so long?
The answer is again found in the true nature of toleration; it was never supposed to be an end in itself – it points to reconciliation. The Bible tells us clearly that God was tolerating our sin because it was always his plan to reconcile people to himself. When the apostle Paul was preaching to the multicultural people of Athens, he said these words: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Jesus’ resurrection means two things – it shows us that God’s tolerance was being exercised for a reason (so that all people everywhere could have the chance to turn and repent and be reconciled to God) and it also shows us that his toleration of us will not continue indefinitely. Jesus demonstrated through his resurrection who he was: the living God who has the right and the power to judge our wrongdoing and rebellion against him and one day he will judge all people.
This means that if I haven’t yet repented (turned away from sin in my heart and turned to Jesus) then God is being tolerant towards me at the moment. But his offer doesn’t last forever. God’s tolerance is being exercised for the purpose of me having the opportunity to accept his offer of reconciliation. When that offer ends then so will God’s tolerance and I will receive the fair wages for my rebellion: judgement. Notice, however, the repetition of the word, “all”. God is an ‘all’ kind of God. All are facing judgement but God is showing tolerance to all. All have rejected God but God is offering reconciliation to all. All who repent will receive this offer and all who don’t will be judged eventually.
What are the implications of this to our idea of tolerance? Well, surely it means that our toleration must also be exercised in exactly the same all-encompassing manner? This means that I don’t just tolerate vegetarians and villains, but also gays and gangsters, not just blacks and bolsheviks but also perps and paederasts. There is no ‘choosing’ of what I tolerate or not. All evil deeds are ‘morally reprehensible’ to God; there are no different categories. The argument is simple: God has shown tolerance to even the worst offender amongst us so we have no right not to show tolerance to all people, whoever they may be, whatever they may have done. But that tolerance must be of the kind that points towards an offer of reconciliation. We must offer reconciliation ourselves and, above all, point to the source of all reconciliation; to Jesus Christ in whom we can be reconciled to God, the key to God’s toleration of us. There can be no lasting reconciliation outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Once again, you are left with a choice
Do you choose the toleration of this world; one in which the boundaries are constantly changing, where you could one day find yourself on the wrong side of the lines of toleration, where toleration is seen as an end in itself leading to a cycle of hopeless stalemate, where resentment festers and where the evil practices are accepted along with the person? Or do you choose the genuine toleration of God, who exercised complete toleration over all people in order that his Son, Jesus Christ, might appear to reveal the true purpose of his toleration: reconciliation.
Tags: Apologetics, Provocative Thoughts, Values
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“Thou shalt not disagree”
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
The latest EU slogan that we are hearing bandied about is ‘Unity in diversity’, a testament to the values of tolerance and acceptance that the EU is proud to espouse. The general idea is that although we all may come from different backgrounds and have different ideas on various issues, we believe that it is more important that we are united rather than opposed to one another. Therefore, we have made a commitment to celebrate those differences rather than use them as weapons against one another. We are completely inclusive and tolerant of people and ideas that are divergent and contrary to our own. In fact, the only view that is unacceptable is the view that another view is unacceptable. Of course, this is postmodernism (see next entry to come for more on PM) at its finest; with the foundations being laid for the past decade or so in society, it has now come to full maturity in this vision statement of the European Union.
You can probably sense it coming… Surely I’m not going to attack this too, you may be thinking… Oh yes I am ☺ Once again, we have a really great idea – encompassing great values such as inclusivity, equality and tolerance – and once again we have an example of something that I could not disagree with more heartily. Is it that I don’t believe in these values? By no means. Let’s break down this statement a bit more to see what it really means…
I have already laid out the basic premiss of ‘unity in diversity’; basically, unity is achieved through celebrating our differences and making sure that everyone’s voice is heard, no matter how outrageous, new or different that view is. The only heresy is somehow to suggest that someone may be wrong – the unity would then be broken. The golden rule is that someone’s right to be different (diversity) must never be violated and must always be accommodated (result=unity). Whilst engaging in an intellectual debate with someone who has embraced this philosophy, you are very likely to be greeted with a retort that looks something like:
“I may disagree with your view, but I will defend to the death your right to voice it.”
…which, loosely translated, basically means – ‘I think you’re wrong and probably think less of you for holding those views but that’s ok because I have managed to convey exactly that without offending anyone or violating your right to be different.’ This person has somehow contrived to celebrate your diversity and maintain unity with you whilst managing never actually to engage with your argument. He has both soundly rejected and incorporated your views into his worldview. You feel affirmed. Unity in diversity has been achieved.
Ok, so it sounds a bit superficial, you may say – people don’t say anymore what they really think -, but surely it’s a good thing if people are getting on more and more and falling out less and less…? Is it, though? As a free-thinking human being, surely my most basic right (which can never be taken away from me) is the right to come to my own conclusions. I am free to choose what I think and believe and obviously a good education and an abundance of information is important in this process but ultimately it is a path which I must be allowed to trace myself and any infringement that amounts to a dictation of terms in this area would constitute nothing other than slavery or indoctrination. I cannot be told what to think. It is not only through my own personal research, education and reading, however, that I shape my views, but also through discussion and debate with other well-informed people. So… with that in mind, just picture any scenario in which two people who are both well-read and well informed about the subject they are talking about, but with very different views, attempt to have a discussion. With a UiD approach, every time they come to a contentious point, they simply retreat into their respective corners having traded no intellectual blows. They may have heard what the other person believes but because it is their a priori intention to accommodate the other person’s view, they have neither challenged it, nor received a challenge to their own view. So, rather than having gained anything from the discussion, they leave even more smug in the correctness of their own view and (quite possibly) disgusted at the closed-mindedness of the other person but affirmed in having maintained the peace. If they had engaged, however, they may have found a few surprises; had some of their own preconceptions about the other person’s view overturned or corrected; and their own understanding, whether their view changed or not, would ultimately have been furthered. This approach is actually fostering more ‘closed-mindedness’ than free-thinking. I will find that I can not say what I actually think on various issues because if my view is absolute I would be implying that the other person is wrong. At the very least I tone down my view. My intellectual integrity is whittled away and my understanding is cuccooned by tolerance and obscured by a haze of political correctness and ‘progressive values’.
Now, what I am not trying to do here is to pick holes in the postmodern process. While I have highlighted a few problems in the postmodern approach, (or at least those captured by the ‘unity in diversity’ philosophical statement), I’m am sure at the same time that it IS actually quite possible to have a robust intellectual interaction with someone who follows this philosophy [it sounds like I’m adding the same disclaimer here myself now, doesn’t it... 
]. It would be unfaithful to this process but it would be possible. What I am trying to show, really, is that the unity that ‘unity in diversity’ creates is a false unity. It is a unity that is held together by a lie. I don’t ‘actually’ agree with the other person but I will dress up my disdain/disagreement with a ‘celebration’ of his right to say what he thinks and all for the purpose of keeping the peace and making me appear to be a jolly good fellow for being so tolerant and inclusive. I’m not ‘actually’ being tolerant and inclusive because I probably think he’s a idiot for thinking in the way he does, but I must needs give the impression that I am not rubbishing his ideas because unity is an absolute value. But hold on, there are no absolute values… er, well, never mind about that. Unity is good, yeah!
Ok, so I’ve started to mock… but it really is no laughing matter. When this unity collapses (and it will, especially if all that is holding it together is disagreement), it will expose all the resentment and ill-will that it currently is concealing. So, as we can see, this great manifesto statement that captures the ethical worldview of today’s Europe, is actually not so great. ‘Progress’ has never been so deceitful.
But let’s look at an idea of unity that does work… and it’s a simple matter of switching two words around. How about if our statement changed from ‘unity in diversity’ to ‘Diversity in unity’? What if the unity we so desperately sought after already existed and our task was simply to work out how to deal with the differences in a responsible and mature way, bringing them out into the open rather than concealing them? Can you see how diametrically opposed such an idea would be to the whole concept of ‘unity in diversity’ that we have explored above…? In UiD, the onus is on us to try to ‘create’ unity (which ultimately proves to be false and inherently unstable), whereas in DiU, the unity already exists. In UiD, we conceal our differences with a facade of tolerance but in DiU, we confront the differences directly with a view to dealing with them, not accommodating them. So how on earth would I go about trying to gain such a unity? If it doesn’t originate in us (in that it is created by an outside agent) then surely it is beyond our grasp and purely a conceptual dream??
Well, alongside the promise of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus, the Christ and Son of God, offers us, he also offers us this unity. You see, when someone puts their trust in Jesus for salvation and life in both now and the hereafter, Jesus has already promised to unite all such people in a manner that is not only perfect but supremely powerful – with his own presence. When someone becomes a Christian – a decision not to be taken lightly (no life and death decision is) – Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, the fullness of God himself, to live in us and with us. All Christians are ‘united in Christ’. They are members of one body. A body does not fight against itself, it will only attack a foreign body; a body has many parts which are all different (diverse!) but they all belong to one body (united). They are also inherently ‘already’ united – they cannot exist apart from the body. The physical body is the best example of ‘Diversity in unity’. The Christian fellowship of believers (the holy catholic church in the Creed – not to be confused with ‘Roman Catholic’) are described in the Bible as the Body of Christ and they are all those followers of Christ worldwide – regardless of denomination – who believe and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, sanctification and redemption (three words that are [v.important] Christian ‘jargon’ but you can look them up for their meaning and the theological weight attached to them if you are interested in exploring further – no time to explain them here).
Do you see the significance of this unity? No work at all needs to be done to achieve it since it is created by the Holy Spirit – God himself – and no pretence needs to be adopted since we cannot do anything to earn or create it; we simply come as we are and receive it, just as we receive the promise of life in Jesus’ name (indeed, we receive both at the same time). No Christian can ever subscribe to ‘unity in diversity’ because it goes against everything that they stand for. Hence I am making a stand now, trying to expose UiD for the fraud that it is (even when applied in a Christian context – maybe especially so) and hoping to point you in the direction of the only place where true unity can ever exist: in a relationship with the Creator of the universe and Maker of each and every one of us, Jesus Christ.
[He also died and rose again, by the way, so that anyone who puts their trust in him can be reconciled with their Maker and spend eternity with him. Oh, and I do find it horrendous that I am including the main gospel message here simply as a ‘postscript’ but the main point of the piece does not discuss it so, in the interest of remaining faithful to the main point of the entry I have alluded to it only but, make no mistake, while not directly coming into the argument, it is the key to everything I have just said! ☺]
So, to conclude: Which unity do you prefer? The false peace of ‘unity in diversity’ or the iron-clad stability found in a relationship with Christ, through his sacrifice then and Lordship now, resulting in ‘DIVERSITY (many members of every tribe, tongue and race) IN UNITY (the body of Christ)’…?
Tags: Politics, Provocative Thoughts
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Who changed the laws of attraction?
Sunday, February 6th, 2005
As we approach Valentines Day, no doubt some of us who don’t receive cards or don’t have a date or significant other will be feeling downcast and perhaps be engaging in much soul-searching: “Am I really so unwanted? Will I ever find ‘anyone’, let alone ‘the one’, with ‘my’ looks??” We will probably be in much need of consolation at this time and one quote we may be reminded of is:
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Remember this one? This famous quote seems to be the definition of choice concerning beauty amongst those of us who prefer to take the moral high ground. Encapsulated within this quote is essentially the idea that: “you shouldn’t worry about being ugly because “someone” out there will probably find you beautiful… maybe…“
Of course I’m not saying that everyone who quotes this has this understanding of it on their mind but those of us of baser thought (and I’m thinking of myself primarily here) would certainly interpret it, consciously or ‘unconsciously’, in those terms and use it with glee at that, thinking that we are being nice to people… How awful! Although I accept that others will not be quite so vain as myself and probably interpret it differently, when understood in these terms, I can’t imagine a more conceited view of beauty. It is simply another take on vain-glory. Even if used in this way simply to reassure one’s own self, it is still a demonstration of self-pity and self-pity is just vanity turned inwards.
It was the ancient Greeks who had the courage (or audacity) to voice this conceited perception of reality in the oft-quoted phrase by Protagoras, “Man is the measure of all things.” Much as I am proud of my Greek heritage, this is one of the most destructive ideas I have ever come across. Protagoras may have been a philosopher but this was no philosophical statement — it was a religious one. It is the glorying of man (over and above God); the religion of humanism. If it is the mind of man that is the ultimate measure of beauty and virtue then no wonder people, especially women, feel inadequate all the time.
God created this world, a beautiful world, and he made us beautiful — in his own image– with a wonderful capacity for goodness and creativeness and senses to appreciate and admire true beauty. By cutting ourselves off from the creator and source of beauty, we have not only distorted perceptions of true beauty, we have completely changed the laws of attraction. What do I mean by this?
A person is not only body, but also mind and soul (ask Joss Stone!) In chasing after outer beauty and disregarding inner beauty we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. The Bible tells us that man looks on outward appearances, but God looks at the heart. While this is primarily used to illustrate how good works do not make us good people (because none of us have never committed adultery or murder in our hearts), we can also apply it here to beauty. When we look only at the outward appearance (and we men are particularly guilty of this!) and fail to spot the inner beauty or ugliness in a person then we have changed the laws of attraction because what makes a person beautiful is the complete picture; both inner and outer beauty are just as important.
In fact, outer beauty sans inner equals ugliness, whereas lack of outer beauty plus mucho inner beauty equals hot chick!
What am I NOT saying here…? I’m “not” saying that outer beauty is not important. People have some kind of misconception that becoming a Christian means that you have to ignore outer beauty. This is a ridiculous notion – if God created aesthetic beauty, then that means he created it for us. He gave us eyes to appreciate it and quills to write about it (well, Apple Powerbooks in my case but saying quills is more literary!). However, he did not give it to us for us to abuse and exploit. While it would be silly to marry someone you wouldn’t want to have sex with — and everyone can see that — what we ignore is that it is equally silly to marry someone only, or even primarily, for their looks.
What does inner beauty look like then? Quite simply, we are all ugly and filthy on the inside. If all your and my deepest, darkest thoughts were to be played on a large video screen in the centre of town, you probably wouldn’t want to be around at the time… Well, I might be wrong about that – you may have never had ugly thoughts about anything or anyone – but I know myself and it doesn’t get uglier or filthier. Cleaning up our act won’t help either because we are still damaged goods. Think about it, if someone gets scarred in a horrific car accident or fire, the fact that they recover from the injuries does not restore their outer beauty, does it. It is the same with us – we have been horrifically scarred for life by sin and our beauty can never be restored (and there are no inner beauty nip ‘n tucks or facelifts available!). What we need is a completely new inner face; a completely clean mind and soul.
Jesus, when talking to a very ‘good’ and religious man, explained how no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he is first born again. The man, Nicodemus (read about it in John, chapter 3, the Bible), was very confused, asking how a man can go through his mother’s womb again once he has already been born. You might likewise be puzzled as to how I envisage an inner beauty makeover when we need a completely new inner face. Can we go back again and live a perfect life??? Surely impossible! Well yes, but there IS someone who DID live a perfect life: Jesus Christ. We don’t know what he looked like but we do know that he was the most perfectly beautiful man ever to grace this planet. His inner beauty was flawless, his virtue unsurpassed and without a single blemish. When he died on the cross, in our place, he offered to us, along with eternal life and a relationship with God, this beauty as a free gift for all who would accept it. Those who give up their lives to follow him receive this beauty and, for the rest of their earthly lives, this perfect inner beauty manifests itself more and more, as the old face is “exfoliated” (for it has died) to reveal the perfect, beautiful, spotless face of Jesus behind it.
One day, Christians believe, Jesus will return and we will see ourselves as we really are, JUST LIKE HIM: perfect and beautiful in every way. And what a beautiful day that will be!
If you have reached the horrifying conclusion that what I am saying is that Christians are the only beautiful people in the world and everyone else is ugly, then congratulations, you have hit the jackpot! Without the beauty of Jesus, we can only ever use make-up and masks to cover up our inner ugliness, however beautiful we are on the outside, but we will ultimately be exposed as the ugly things that we are and only beautiful people will be allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven… people who are beautiful on the inside. And those people are only those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross to exchange their life – and consequently their inner ugliness – with Christ’s perfect life and inner beauty.
What attracts you? Whose laws of attraction do you prefer? This world’s, where (what is considered) outward ugliness is thrown out to the dogs with no regard for inner beauty… or God’s, who has given us his own beauty so we don’t ever have to worry about or feel insecure about being beautiful… at the expense of the life of his own Son…
I’d like to conclude with the words of Maria from West Side Story. I can say this today because I have the beauty and joy of Jesus inside of me. (’Gay’ to be understood here with its original meaning of ‘joyful’). You can too…
I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty, and witty and gay!
Tags: Beauty, Provocative Thoughts
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Just whose world is it anyway?
Friday, January 28th, 2005
Altruism purports to be the best solution to mankind’s problems through the selfless giving of oneself and one’s resources to others with no thought of anything in return. You know, the whole: “If we could only be nice to each other…” What could possibly be wrong with that? Anyone who has seen the film, “Pay it forward”, can easily see that it appears to be the most ideal solution to cure malice, jealousy and greed in this world.
There is one problem that it does not solve, however. Pride.
Of course, on the surface of it, it seems like altrusim is actually a kind of selfless rejection of pride through the putting of others before ourselves. However, we only need to look at two of the institutions that put themselves forward as the flagships of altruism — the U.N. and the E.U. — in order to spot that something is terribly wrong with this system. The E.U. is willing to help anyone, as long as it supports everything that the E.U. stands for, while the U.N. picks and chooses what it helps and what it speaks out against based largely on politics and public opinion.
In principle, both bodies are fantastic ideas and should be leading the way in uniting humanity for the purpose of securing a peaceful and more agreeable future. Any sensible and logical person would put their trust in these institutions and bodies as holding future of the planet in their hand. There is one big problem, however. They are doing all this without reference to the owner of this planet, without reference to him, who created it and everything on it (including us). God made this planet and created us, humans, to be rulers of this planet under his authority. It was pride that led us to reject this authority and attempt to rule the planet on our own. The wholesale rejection of God continues today unrelentingly, despite his revelation of himself through the Bible and, ultimately, through his Son, Jesus Christ, who provided a way of redemption to restore the original relationship that existed.
By uniting together in continued defiance of God, whether under the flag of Naziism or under the altruistic flag of the United Nations or the European Union, mankind is sending a clear message to God. It is a message that hasn’t changed in 5000 years and it says: WE CAN DO IT WITHOUT YOU! THIS IS OUR PLANET! Sound controversial? There is actually little to separate the basic purpose behind Naziism and today’s altrusim – they both desire to achieve a better and greater humanity, they simply have a very different way of going about this. The whole German nation was convinced by the deception of the Nazis so what makes us think we would be any better? Having rejected the idea that humankind can be perfected through eugenics, we’ve now bought into the idea that it can be improved through politics and great ‘tolerance’, when the atrocities abound and increase every day. Ultimately, all we are trying to do is rule the world without God.
Underlying all this is pride, the original sin – it is recognised and described in Greek tragedy as ‘hubris’ (loosely defined as arrogance against the Gods) and it is the unpleasant (I would say, horrific) reality of the world today. Like it or not, we are building another Tower of Babel through such institutions as the E.U. and the U.N., which are both gaining increasing power today, as mankind seeks a solution to all the bloodshed and wars of the past century. The Tower of Babel had the same idea behind it – to unite all the peoples of the world together so that everyone could live in peace. They did this in defiance of God, however, aiming to reach heaven itself (“the sky’s the limit”!). If anyone remembers what happened with the tower of Babel, however, God came and personally put a stop to it. We should be scared, especially when the parliament building of the European Union is purposefully based on Bruegel’s painting of (yes, you guessed it) the Tower of Babel. When questioned about this, an E.U. official very simply and honestly explained why – “What they started, we will finish…”
God will not allow our rebellion to continue. I do not believe in conspiracy theories. What I do believe in is the sinfulness of man and the sovereignty of a Holy God. This is not our world, it is God’s. He will come and put a stop to our feeble attempts to ignore him and the punishment is far worse than we could possibly imagine, so I’m not even going to try and describe it.
The reason why Christians speak to other people about Jesus is because they have been shown love by God, who does not desire than anyone should be punished, and they are compelled by that love to tell this Good News to others, that anyone can receive the love of God through Jesus Christ and enter his kingdom as his child. The call of the gospel is very simple: repent (turn from sin) and believe (put Jesus Christ in charge). This is open to all, an invitation to join God’s Kingdom.
You ask, why on earth should he accept us back? But he has and he has made it possible through Jesus’ death on the cross, which has covered our sin, if we would put our trust in him.
The riches of God’s grace in giving us everything when we deserve nothing cannot be fathomed. To ignore this call would certainly be unforgiveable, irrational and fatal.
I close with the words of John Lennon. What a great artist… but what a foolish man (if he believed the words he sang). This summarises both altrusim… and man’s rebellion against God.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no country
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
It is only a dream and, left up to man, will never come true. God has given us (the) Truth, Life and Grace (the means to live now) through his Son, Jesus Christ.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Tags: Apologetics, Provocative Thoughts
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