Tagged: God
Humility Post 5
I have had a couple papers due over the last two weeks and so this post isn’t developing very quickly.
The book on humility that I’ve been reading is written by a priest from some years ago (maybe a couple hundred). I am also doing some reading about Eastern Orthodoxy for a theological synopsis paper.
(Random thought: If you’re a believer and have some time, pick up some systematic theologies and read the chapter on the atonement. Extended thinking on the atonement is, as one says, “Marvelous to relate”.)
Anyhow, taken together (the West and the East), I am beginning to notice something about Evangelicals (or my thought process as an Evangelical) that I think can be more finely tuned. (BTW, I discovered from a friend what Evangelical means as it falls within Protestant. We Evangelicals believe the Bible is true. Apparently there are quite a few “Mainline Protestants” who think the Bible is helpful, but not true. For instance, my sister shared that in KC there was a news story about some 30 or so Methodist pastors who signed something that declared they did not believe Jesus resurrected. Be that as it may, Evangelicals still believe the Bible is true.)
Anyhow, back to humility and the Western and Eastern churches. I’ve mentioned that another exercise I’m doing is memorizing the Psalms. So my big “reveal” in this post about humility is that throughout all these different perspectives it is becoming clear that humility is really just about right orientation towards the one true God. The priest emphasizes this directly. The bishop communicates this by his insistence on mystery. I spent most of the last two weeks pondering the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. It appears that that my attempt to solve “the problem” is a feature of my being an Evangelical. The Orthodox church simply calls the sovereignty/responsibility dilemma mystery and keeps its focus on God. Oh well.
The bigger point is that when taken together with David’s psalms, it is becoming clear to me that the very way I have been thinking about God is in need of correction. In the Psalms David never seems to compare God to the way he used to think about him. For some reason we have all these bizarre conceptions of God. I think Sunday school is to blame, but even now I am not following my own advice. See what I mean? It’s easy to get distracted from God, even when talking about him. I am now feeling that I need to eliminate “compare and contrast” past and present out of my walk with God. As in, an ever-vigilant, “Okay, Pete, get a grip. Instead of talking about God, talk to God.”
Finally, as always, when talking about humility and God, I can never forget that gratitude is in order. Put another way: Thank God. It’s almost magical what happens when you thank God.
Are Christians Conspiracy Theorists? No, We’re Conspiracy Empiricists.
I feel sheepish. I think I learned “sheepish” from Joseph Heller in Catch-22. Anyway, through an unexpected coordination of similar lessons in my Koine Greek class and my Christian Apologetics class, I was introduced to text criticism last week.
Text criticism is the term for analyzing all things written and copied by hand prior to the invention of the printing press–such as the New Testament. Have you ever heard or thought about this? It’s kind of fascinating if you take the time to dig into it a bit. The reason I feel sheepish after learning about text criticism is because I’m a sucker who fell for the theory that the recently discovered hidden gospels/epistles had something to contribute to (possibly were even able to refute) orthodox Christianity’s claims that God created the universe, Adam and Eve sinned, and Jesus Christ died on the cross and on the third day rose from the grave thereby offering forgiveness of sin, salvation, and eternal life to all comers.
Long story short, I have a friend at work that is a conspiracy theorist. I know, I know. Many of you think Christians are simply conspiracy theorists. But that’s not true. Here’s why. This man is in his 50s, is divorced, and he believes the Illuminati are running the world. He believes that they wrote the Bible and are interested in having the Christians and Muslims kill each other off, after which the Illuminati, themselves, will finally begin overt rule. He shows me websites and proudly reads off lists of unremarkable names as if he’s reading scripture from a pulpit. The other day after a song came on the radio, he began espousing how there is some psychological training facility in England which is funded by the Rockefellers (an Illuminati family) that trains bands to wage psychological warfare on America, bands like the Beatles. I pointed out to him that the wikipedia entry had a paragraph that began, “Conspiracy theorists believe…” about the facility. It had no effect. The reason I bring him up is to illustrate specifically what a conspiracy theorist is. He’s the definition of a conspiracy theorist. They are people who believe profoundly fascinating, yet ultimately baseless theories founded upon theoretical evidence, not empirical evidence.
What about Christianity? The recent archaeological discoveries of non-canonical “hidden” gospels/epistles seem to suggest/confirm the theories that orthodox Christianity is the product of plotting conspirators manipulating the historical record in order to advance their agendas.
Books such as the “gospel of Thomas” capture so much History Channel attention that even Christians themselves need be given some clear guidance about these books and their claims.
Specifically, there is a theory that argues that the church fathers adopted the New Testament canon for their own secret (or apparently not so secret) reasons. The trouble with this theory is that none of these recently discovered hidden gospels were even brought to the church father’s attention for consideration. Put inversely, the church fathers (early Christian leaders) did not consider the “gospel of Thomas” for inclusion in the 27 book New Testament Canon. We know this because we have empirical evidence of the their decisions, which books they did consider and reject, and their reasoning that led to their decisions.
Therefore, it is academically irresponsible and I’d go so far as to say unthinkable to discard the New Testament and its 5300 plus fragments/copies that are nearly perfect matches of each other on the basis of a few fragments of other writings. Does that make sense? It’s simple math. If you have 5300 pieces of evidence for one conspiracy, and 20 pieces of evidence for a competing conspiracy, and no evidence (leaving only a theory) of a conspiracy to ensure these numbers vary so greatly, then in order to favor the 20 pieces of evidence over the 5300 pieces, you must believe in a conspiracy theory, not a conspiracy based on empirical fact. Because the fact is there are no empirical facts that support the theory that early Christians, beginning with the apostles, manipulated the truth. Instead, there is only a plethora of empirical data that supports that early Christians, beginning with the eye-witnesses to Jesus Christ’s resurrection, believed a conspiracy–that Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God.
So you have to decide. Do you want to believe/create theories about life on planet earth as conspiracy theorists do, or do you want to examine the empirical facts of recorded human history as conspiracy empiricists–Christians–do?
If you want any empirical books about my claims, comment below or email me.
Brief Note On My Church
Want to know why I love my church? I’ll tell you. On Sunday, as the pastor was wrapping up and about to head to the door in order to greet everyone on their way out, an old lady with a walker–same one as every week–began to be assisted by a younger gentlemen in an effort to get her out of the building before the rest of the congregation was formally dismissed. Nothing special has happened yet. But as she’s heading down the aisle, she, in full conversational volume, starts saying good-bye to all of her friends and offering them “blessings” as it were. So the pastor is talking into the microphone and at the same time this faithful parishioner is distractingly talking out loud to her friends. With me?
I still have an instinct to initially judge the woman and find the behavior inappropriate, but this week for some reason a better angel overtook me. In observing the entire scene from a removed vantage point, I actually gained more respect for the old church and its congregation. The woman’s willingness to talk and the pastor’s steady march to the end signaled that the church isn’t afraid of dying. It’s been there for 150 years, and is going to last at least 150 more. There is no need to act like the woman sinned because she said “good-bye” as she left. Should the Lord tarry, we’re all going to see each other again next Sunday. No big thing.
Maybe this seems insignificant to you, but to me it was yet again a refreshing take on an old, old story.
Humility Post 4
“Every act of virtue which does not proceed from a supernatural motive, in order to bring us to everlasting bliss, is of no value.”
How’s that for some not-so-light reading? Ha.
I feel like I can drive myself crazy considering my intentions in life. As I’ve written before, I love making people laugh. But what’s my intention behind comedy? Simple ego? And if it’s not ego, say that I really am motivated by pure intentions to add levity to our days and be a friendly face, then in admitting that or concluding that I probably have taken too prideful a position. Who am I to possess the power to enrich someone’s day?
At least in the little book on humility that I am now reading, the relevance of intentions is on full display. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the beginning part of this semester’s work on humility, it is that my personality is big. That’s true for good or bad. I don’t even know how to behave if I am forced to go into a veritable stealth mode. People who come to know me call me out and ask what’s wrong if I don’t actively participate in life.
One thing that is particularly intriguing to me this last week is the idea of announcing humility. The author warns that the moment we believe we’re humble, we stop being humble. Cool. I get it. But I am not so sure I understand what humility looks like, then.
In the past, I’ve defined my sense of humor as “cosmic humor”. I liked that description because it captured that I thought life itself was funny and moreover that I thought my thoughts were funny, because who am I to have thoughts at all? Some random human? And now, if I don’t think life is funny at all, but a serious endeavor that can be royally messed up, can I still have a cosmic sense of humor in the second sense? In the, “Who am I ask anyone to take me seriously?” sense.
I don’t know. These reflections aren’t coming that naturally, as I’m sure you can tell. I guess overall I feel like I am gaining some head knowledge about the importance of constant recognition of our status as creatures vs. creators. But my life isn’t too bad right now, and it’s difficult to not draw cause and effect relationships that begin with me doing the right thing in seeking God as the first cause, even though I intellectually conclude that God initiated the whole shebang (relationship). Who knows? For now, I’m just thankful for my fair portion of health and my daughter and the list goes on.
Humility Post 3
Last week I felt more critical than the one or two weeks before it. Part of humility before God is the recognition that the playing field of life is level. We’re all living on the same level. To get angry or be critical requires an “I’m up here” while “You’re down there” attitude. So that what bothers me about last week.
Another area of life that I’m struggling to deal with is work. You know how you always hear about ex-cons heading back to their previous neighborhood and gangs etc. after being released from prison? And then they fall right back into old patterns and end up back in prison? Well, I’m not an ex-con. But at the pizza place I do behave and talk differently than anywhere but the pizza place. I’m sure part of the reason is because I’m a bit once-bitten-twice-shy about talking about Christianity much at work, but there’s also just plain muscle memory. I worked at a pizza place for 6 years as a smart-alec kid in high school and college. It’s difficult to not conform to the lackadaisical attitude that comes with high schoolers and pizza shops. Retail as a whole is pretty negative, and so even the adults can add to my giving in to jack-arsery. In any case, I sometimes hate apologizing but other times I can’t believe that I just said some things that I said. I’m too old for immaturity.
One thing that is for certain is I am falling in love with the Psalms. In my class on the Old Testament class covering the kingdom of Israel and the prophets, we’ve been working through David’s reign, and really working on building an accurate historical picture of the ancient near east. As I’ve been memorizing the Psalms, often written by the very same David, I almost feel like I can like I can tell which event recorded in 1 or 2 Samuel would have led to his writing them.
Here I can’t help but mention the lesson we were taught regarding the difference between King Saul and King David. Both kings committed unspeakable acts. Yet David is the only man in the Bible (God’s self-revelation to mankind) who is described as being a man after God’s own heart. The question is why? What is the difference between Saul and David? Repentance. Saul passed the blame; David repented.
And here, I can’t but repent for my attitude whilst working at the strip club. Psalm 1 says, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” The NIV has “mockers” instead of “scornful”. I was mocking God and life while working at the club. That’s no good. All I can hope for is the Christian account of life to be true. Insert commissioner Gordon here.
Humility Post 2
Clever title, no? Last week I introduced that for my Christian character formation class I have committed myself to working on the Christian trait of humility. I shared this partly with the intent of demonstrating what such a process looks like for adult Christians seeking a bit more rigor in their faith (not to take credit for developing this method, but to give an example of what a masters degree program at an Evangelical seminary entails). One active practice that I am going to use to work on humility is a weekly blog post dedicated to reflection on how the process is coming along. Three hundred plus word reflection starts now.
It turns out I’m not very comfortable with the idea of blogging about humility. God has seen fit that I possess the ability to read word definitions and talking and writing about my thoughts on humility seems counter-humble. As evidence of this, when I look back on my blog most of my blog posts have been laced with pride. Many were much more than laced. I don’t regret any of my boastful posts or their evidence of self-righteousness or snarkyness, not at all. How could I? I’ve ended up on a good path and to look back and regret would be a mistake. But I do now see how maladjusted my attitude was. And I do repent of that. I’ve been blessed with too much goodness to be so prideful.
As a result of this, part of me wanted to just publish a blank post titled humility because that’s what I really think about the subject. But that would require me to tell my mentor or mentoring director that I bent the rules a bit on my plan (it requires a weekly 300+ word reflection on the process), which in turn would require justification, which in turn would require more talking, which in turn would require more pride, which is the opposite of my goal. So I’m not going with the blank creative “look at how clever I am” concept.
So the real question is, “How does one who has written so many words out of pride adopt a new attitude of humility?” with the follow-up, “…and be convincing to (possibly) the same readers?”
The first step seems to be to ensure the words convey that the end state of Christian humility is constant recognition of total dependence on God, the father almighty. At the moment I’d express this dependence by thanking God for the ability to blog over the past few years. He has provided me half-a-pea-sized brain and fingers and food and shelter and a laptop and internet connection. Most humans have not been so fortunate. And I want to thank the folks in my life, especially my brother-in-law and the members in Cherry Creek Toastmasters, for encouraging me to blog/write. I don’t believe they intended me to re-adopt Christianity (or be re-adopted by Christianity as it were), but I can’t imagine how I would’ve gotten to the point of working on humility without blogging and therefore without them.
Speaking of, one CCTM friend just emailed me a copy of C.S. Lewis’s “Weight of Glory” sermon last night (he’s never emailed me anything specifically Christian before) and as I read my class textbook today I came across portions of that very sermon/writing by Lewis (never mentioned before). Given the preponderance of “threes” when it comes to these things, we’ll just have to wait and see how Lewis’ work will next appear. And it is some solid writing. In the past I would’ve mocked this as coincidence. These days I am inclined to determine why God sees fit to impress upon me these specific ideas of Lewis’. So I thank God that friends aren’t afraid to share a bit of their life with me as I attempt to transform my own.
Another shift that I can’t help but notice as I’ve been specifically reading on humility and also memorizing the Psalms (which through Psalm 10:16 are in fact uniform on our dependence on God), is my thinking about my ex-wife regarding rearing H-. We were still married for H-‘s first two years, and I’ve said and written many times that she did a great job during those two years. But then I would continue by adding a malicious assessment of the reason (that only I–as her husband and confidant–knew) as to why she did a great job. Does that make sense? I would undercut the compliment with a punch to the throat that only I could deliver because of secrets I knew. Well, though I might not be able to explain it fully, these days I honestly don’t desire to punch. It’s not because I’m tired of punching, but because I can now see how God gave us H- despite ourselves. Her mom and I were just a couple of knuckleheads trying to live the American dream. So these days I just want to express gratitude to her for mothering and nurturing H- with an integrity and discipline that many contemporary American women simply don’t value.
I don’t have a conclusion here so I’m just going to use this admission as one.
The Christian’s Home
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is essentially a formula that stories with classic protagonists and plots which involve good overcoming evil are built upon. Think Batman and Robin Hood. Characters are born, leave home, while away they gain experiences but ultimately they return home and get to work. To be clear, despite the many steps in the Hero’s Journey, it is a three-part saga. Begin at home, leave home, return home.
Obviously, I am in school right now being indoctrinated into the cult known as Christianity. Yes, it is a life-encompassing worldview. One of its most adored parables is the story of the prodigal son. Do you know it? Sure you do. The rich dad has a son who asks to get his inheritance early. The dad acquiesces and the son leaves home with his fortune only to squander it. The now impoverished son remembers his father. He resolves to return home even if only to live as a servant. The way Jesus tells the story, the father, instead of being mad, is joyful upon his son’s return.
My question for you is, “What do you believe the bible is?” You see, if you believe the bible contains new information, or put another way, if you believe that Jesus must be the original author of his parables for Christianity to be sound, then I think we’re at odds. Because I believe the bible is God’s self-revelation to his creation. That means that the bible doesn’t have to contain original concepts, or put another way, if the historical record shows that Jesus didn’t come up with the golden rule (he didn’t), that doesn’t not detract from the bible’s value. The bible is valuable because it is God’s self-revelation. In theology we would call it one of a few methods of God’s particular revelation.
Christians believe God has revealed himself to his creation generally and particularly. General revelation (or universal revelation) includes things like my McDonald’s argument, the digestible version of which goes something like: How many churches, synagogues, mosques, temples etc. are there? And you’re going to tell me there’s no God? Okay. Well, you also have to deny McDonald’s exists.
But general revelation isn’t enough for salvation. So God chose to reveal himself particularly as well. The bible is one of his methods. This means that it doesn’t matter if the parables in the bible are original, what matters is what they teach us about God’s nature. The parable of the prodigal son reveals that God will welcome us poor sinners back into his loving embrace if we just come home. The fact that the story of the prodigal son involves the home-leave-return formula that storytellers use to make their fortunes only adds it to the man-made category of general revelation. It’s as if God is using every method of persuasion available to him to convince us to see the truth of our condition.
I like that God would be relentless.
Conversation Over
Last week wasn’t one of my favorites.
Remember my character formation class that I have been touting? Well, the character trait that I have decided to specifically get working on this semester is humility. That really has nothing to do with this post except to share that one of the spiritual disciplines that a book suggests is journaling. All of us bloggers do this without thinking and so while I have been blogging for a few years now, I am specifically going to dedicate one blog a week to my walk with God, if you will. I share this because sometimes I get the feeling that Christians do read these posts every once in a while and maybe they’d be interested to see just what goes on at a seminary. Anyhow, back to last week.
I had lunch with a friend and there was discussion about the nature of God and scripture etc. A couple years ago when we met, we both were in the agnostic category, but obviously I don’t believe I can ignore what I’ve been feeling and learning, nor do I want to. Suffice it to say that he hasn’t changed. He’s old, so it’s not like I expected him to during the course of one conversation. I even said this in the conversation. But I love the conversation and he’s kind of been a mentor of sorts so I wanted to pick his brain a bit about why he believes what he does. Long story short, I sent him a follow up email (old habits–post-flight debriefs–die hard). At the end of the email he wrote that he does not want to continue talking about the subject.
I don’t know what to do next. “The subject” is kind of my life right now. I wouldn’t know what else to talk about. As I have gotten older I have begun to recognize the subtleties of my body’s physiological reactions to life. The physical reaction happens before the words develop to describe how I feel. In this instance, as I read his “conversation over” assertion, I felt a sadness in my gut that demanded a long nap with the hope that upon waking I would discover that it was just a bad dream. Then I labeled all that rejection.
Am I that unbearable?
Christian Confidence
When I was at the school house for my MH-53 Pavelow training, there was a moment when a young flight-engineer-in-training was lacking confidence and as such his performance was suffering. The instructor–knowing full well both that these moments are pivotal in men’s careers and that he has the responsibility to keep unsafe and unqualified aircrew out of the aircraft–broke down the situation simply. He told the young man, “Confidence is the direct result of knowledge. You need more knowledge. You need to study more.”
There is a fairly low-flying film called The Legend of 1900. It is a story about a virtuoso pianist who was born on and never leaves a ship that crosses the Atlantic Ocean back and forth repeatedly. There is a scene at the end of the movie where a passenger tells the virtuoso about a time when he looked out at the sea from land and heard the sea say, “Life. Life is immense.”
A friend asked if I could explain why Christians are having a hard time being brave enough to tell others that they are Christians. By my thinking there are a few reasons. First, it is very possible that some Christians are honestly unsure if they are Christians. The result being that they aren’t ready to broadcast their beliefs because they know they can’t defend them–and we all know that they will be asked to defend them. Second, some Christians know that they’re Christians without a doubt. But their life circumstances have led to them also not being confident or in the mood to defend their beliefs. Add to this that a result of unbelief is the belief that Christians are fools. The Apostle Paul mentions this. Naturally, nobody wants to be called a fool and then appear to be one when they can’t defend why they are not foolish at all. Third, Christianity is immense. It is practiced the world over and with great diversity outside of a few central tenets. I have grown up in the religion since kindergarten at a private christian school and even I didn’t learn this until last semester during a master’s program. I’m well-read for a lay-person, if that. I’m comfortable in public as a Christian because it takes about two topics for the average person to concede that their diet consists of hours of daily television brainwashing and mine doesn’t. When I talk to a Christian with a healthy diet of television, I become uncomfortable and I’ve seen that consequently make them uncomfortable. I’m sure the same is true for when they realize that their brainwashed-by-television self isn’t much different than the non-christian brainwashed-by-television self that questions their beliefs.
In my apologetics class the other day I asked if the professor had any evidence of certain settings being more favorable to winning converts. (He didn’t.) But then my mind started racing. There we were, about 30ish students and the professor. We’re all academically strong individuals. And we’re motivated. Additionally, we know that manipulation and real-deal cults that brainwash folks into membership exist. Yet we wouldn’t employ those tactics to increase membership–far from it. All we’re asking for non-believers to do is consider it–simply consider it. For example, during my undergraduate program the value of being able to argue from both sides of an issue was instilled in me. There are very few non-believers who are able to even defend Christianity for the sake of argument. The reason they should want to is simply Pascal’s wager. What exactly is lost for test-driving Christianity? Friends? They aren’t your friends if they’d un-friend you for believing–and visa-versa. Family? Money? There are plenty of wealthy believers. Time? What? Independence? Enslavement to sin?
Christian confidence, just like any other confidence, begins and ends with knowledge. It always has and always will.
My daughter’s school, and many others in town it seems, just formally celebrated completing 100 days of school as if America is a third-world country that is excited to finally have formal education. When I picked her up she had a sticker on that said, “I have completed 100 Days of School!” With such an upside-down public education system, it’s surprising that there are any Christians left in America.
Constructive Criticisms Of My Evangelical Seminary
A friend at work asked me what an “Evangelical” is. He asked because the group “Evangelicals” keeps getting referenced during the election. I told him that to the best of my knowledge it is more about what it is not, than what it is. Evangelicals are not Catholics or Orthodox or Quakers or Amish. I still have to ask someone from school what distinguishes Evangelicals from Protestants. I think the main difference is that a person uses “Evangelicals” when they intend to be pejorative, but would say “Protestants” if they didn’t. However, since I am an adult man, calling me names really falls on deaf ears so I can’t be sure. The reason this friend asked me is because I am currently a student at an Evangelical Christian seminary. Why am I an a student at an Evangelical Seminary? Because I was raised a Protestant. I don’t believe in papal supremacy, so I can’t see myself converting to Catholicism, and I don’t have much ability to interact with Orthodoxy, so I don’t see that in my future either. However, I can’t deny that the tradition and history of those two cultures of Christianity have appeal. Given that my personality always trends toward extremes I don’t mind admitting that I wish my Evangelical school was more rigorous and disciplined than it is. Here are a couple of constructive criticisms that I need to vent about.
Does everyone know what the Jewish Mishnah is? At the risk of being over-simplistic, it is essentially the written interpretation of the Torah. Unfortunately, when Evangelicals discuss the Mishnah, it is often presented as a silly, if not altogether unnecessary document and concept. “The Scripture is clear,” the Evangelicals say. Well, that’s not really what you (Evangelicals) believe. Have you seen the library on campus? What do you call that if not a Mishnah?
That leads me to Christian books. Want to publish a Christian book that will appeal to Evangelicals? Open with, “One area of Christianity that is often neglected is…” Seriously? I beg to differ. Everything has been covered endlessly. 2000 years worth of coverage. What you meant to say is, “Because I lacked wisdom and discernment (but not confidence), in other words, because I was a teenager when I converted, for a long time I believed Christianity was simply what one man told me it was. Then I switched churches after I (choose one of the following or insert your own) got divorced, committed a crime, got fired, had a kid, or experienced life in some way that wasn’t according to this man’s conception and realized the error of my ways. Perhaps my story can help you and make me a buck in the process.” My criticism is that while autobiographical accounts might have worked up until the advent of the internet, they don’t anymore. Now it’s time to interact with people. Evangelicals: Please don’t succumb to the temptation that your story can save people. Only Christ’s atoning death and resurrection possesses that sort of power. No Christian doctrine calls for believers to compete with the world on the world’s terms.
Here’s another chance for me to discuss coercion. Coercion has no place in Christianity. It doesn’t. If you believe it does then you believe in what early church fathers called a heresy. Evangelical pastors that preach war are consequently heretics. But that’s okay. Comparatively, this is an easy problem to fix. Just stop. There is no rule that says you have to preach war or believe in war and violence and there most certainly is a rule which says you can transform your teaching.
For all the Christians that served, fought, and maybe even killed people: no big thing. Sound biblically based theology says you’re forgiven. Easy enough.
For currently serving Christians, get out when you can. Maybe see if you can switch to a non-combatant when you feel convicted to do so.
Military Chaplains: you have a big job.
Parents, church-goers, youth pastors: stop. Stop encouraging teenagers to serve in combatant roles.
This brings me to Star Wars. Evangelicals love the force. In a tremendous act of projection, they consistently see the force as a redeeming metaphor of the Holy Spirit. What they miss is that Star Wars is ultimately still about violence solving problems. Christianity and the Holy Spirit are not.
Let’s zoom out to movies in general. Evangelicals love movies. But nearly all popular (blockbuster) movies believe that violence solves problems. Given that Christians don’t seem to have the upper hand in the film industry, that the industry endlessly promotes violence as a problem solver should come as no surprise. What would a Christian movie look like? That’s difficult to say. It wouldn’t look like Star Wars or even Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. The fact is Christians are called to glorify God. Entertainment is hardly suited for that task. Building schools, however, and hospitals, and homeless shelters–that’s on the mark.
Lastly, this brings me to my minor area of expertise: strip clubs. Keep in mind that while I believe Christians must be pacifists, I served and on at least two missions humans were killed directly because of my service. And while I believe Christians should avoid patronizing strip clubs if at all possible (if you’re hopeless and feel compelled, please patronize away; just don’t stop going to church), I managed one. This is because I couldn’t ever see myself offering counsel on these things based on second-hand knowledge. In any case, Evangelicals need to get over sex and eroticism. We must. The biblical (Almighty God’s) standard has never been in doubt. One man, one woman, forever. Yet Evangelical leaders persist in communicating a tremendous insecurity about the matter. For example (the following is meant to be convincing in its overwhelming-ness), one professor last semester mentioned he was a virgin until marriage in his 30s at least every other class session. Another also regularly mentioned he was single very late into life. Another mentioned that a former student was involved in ministry to adult film stars and that he (the prof) wasn’t sure if that was possible. Then this semester during the opening session of a course a professor randomly mentioned strip clubs and how as he drove by them he would pray that the people would be “saved”, but the building/business be destroyed.
Seriously folks. Christianity is about more than sex. You’re afraid of strip clubs? Strip clubs are the very, very end result of a long series of events in which only fully grown adults partake. Would it be nice if all adults could be happily married in heterosexual, monogamous relationships? Sure. But if we’re going to talk about active contributors to purposelessness and godlessness, parents and the home is number one. Since we’re never going to pray for the destruction of the home, the next institution in terms of negative influence on humanity that Evangelicals should be praying for God’s intervention and destruction of is public schools. Or maybe we shouldn’t be praying for destruction.
Instead, I recommend praying for wisdom and insight regarding the tremendous amount of wealth and power Evangelicals have at their disposal. Something like, O Lord, we give thee thanks for blessing us with more power to carry out thy will than all other previous cultures. Lead us not into the resultant temptations, but guide us so that we may best glorify your most holy name. Amen.
Captain’s Log 