Comfortable Passions

can you imagine?

So apparently the Beatles, before they had their successful break in music, performed an estimated 1200 live shows. Most bands don’t hit that number during their whole career. This is a staggering figure to me.

As I was riding home, well, I make that sound like it’s been an individual event, a one time revelation that knocked me off my bike and made me see the light. It’s not like that at all, more of a temporally dispersed cognitive realisation, or revelation. I know that what I am going to type will have some saying “yah, we know, duh” but it is still true, and I don’t know how many people actually really get it. So, here goes.

I have heard many times, from many friends how they have a specific passion and desire for some thing. One friend was passionate about music, playing his guitar for a worship band. The idea being that he really felt called to do this if not full time, then at least as a permanent ministry. I have another friend who expresses a passion for the underprivileged, believing her meaning or reason for existing might be to help out in this area. The list is pretty much endless, essentially everyone you know has a professed passion, even if it’s been, by their own admission, ridiculously neglected. However, here’s the thing, this passion is not quite so important as TV. Or computer games, or whatever, pick your entertainment/time sink poison.

I make it sound like I am the guru of not being more involved in time sink frippery, and that I have a secret or special knowledge of how to become a better person in 14 easy steps or your money back. This is not the case at all. The reality is, I have very often waxed lyrical about what I wish to do, where my true passions lie, what I believe my “calling” to be and where my heart is without there being a shred of evidence to support this claim at all.

If you wish with all your heart to be a pilot or a musician and these things don’t manifest in your life in one way or another, you might not have much of a handle on what really moves you as you think you do. Perhaps it is just that we romanticise an idea, and then fancy that image we have created… perhaps we get too easily caught up in the ideas of the truly passionate. When a friend of mine who is passionate about flying, gets to talk about flying I begin to be quite stirred by it too. When I see a skeletal wreck on television, with a distended stomach and haunted eyes, I begin to imagine that I really care for his or her plight resolving to live in a way that I might help those people on a long term basis, and in the meantime, send money. But once that immediate stimulus is gone, nothing happens. There is absolutely zero momentum to continue on a path to fulfil that imagined passion.

No one can claim that the Beatles weren’t passionate about something or other, be it fame, music or money  perhaps a combination of all of those, or none of them. The focus of their passion is largely irrelevant to this post, the fact is that there is evidence of a great passion and desire for something.

With all of this said, if I were an alien anthropologist I might come to the conclusion that the majority of the population in the western world were passionate about, and made it their life’s goal to do the following things. Work at, and complain about, a job that brought absolutely no fulfilment to their lives, while lamenting the loss of opportunity to do something that mattered to them. Usually this is combined with a plethora of reasons why it is not their fault for not achieving their stated goals, and usually they are not lying, although closer inspection might lead to the conclusion that the underlying reason is apathy. I would also conclude that the same group  of people were passionate about fiction and entertainment. Mindless escapism with a growing focus on what we call “reality” television, which ironically shows individuals chasing a passion. Perhaps even sacrificing greatly to achieve that goal. The amount of time that goes into entertainment would leave me with no other conclusions to draw. That can be the only possibility. Surely, if you are passionate about the poor, that would take up the majority of your time? What about music, if that is your passion, then that should be where you spend the majority of your time, even if you are stuck in a job that just pays the bills.

2 people claim the following 2 things respectively:

• I am passionate about music, I believe it is my calling
• I am passionate about the internet, and developing it further any way I can

One person spends a ridiculous amount of time in front of his computer, grinding out line after line of code. The other spends a ridiculous amount of time in front of his television, watching whatever is on. Not too difficult to identify which passion is real and which is imagined.

I watched a video on TED that had been put by someone I “faceknow” on his facewall. It was a video clip about apathy and how the speaker disagreed with the idea that humans were basically apathetic. I guess the premise is that humans don’t follow the Newtonian ’object at rest or motion remain in that state unless acted upon by an outside force’. The idea that he disagrees with is that humans return to a state of apathy unless being acted upon by a force. So the video clip went on to show that people would get involved in their local councils or whatever, if they were given enough incentive. If it is too hard to get information about involvement, that kills the incentive and people don’t get involved. So, it’s not the populations fault, it’s really the councils or whatever organisations fault for not making involvement easy. I had a “but wait” moment. But wait, isn’t that kind of the definition of apathy? We couldn’t be bothered to do anything, because it’s just too much effort. The people who are passionate, and NOT apathetic, about it would persist, despite the effort involved.

I suppose the kernel thought that started this all off is something that is repeated on Sundays in song and statement all over the world, almost the Christian mission statement “We love you above all else Lord”. Which might indicate a passion for God, and yet the billions of man hours that go into personal, selfish entertainment might speak of apathy rather than passion. To clarify, the entertainment thing isn’t the bad part, the focus on it above all else is.

The conclusion to this ridiculously fragmented post is, loosely, this;

The activities of your free time define what is really, actually, most important to you. If you speak of something, and there is no activity in that general direction at all, then what conclusion could possibly be drawn?

p.s. I started this post on Jan 24 2011. passionate!

Wedding Dress

I was reading one of my favourite blogs this morning, experimental theology, the blog is the work of Dr. Richard Beck.

He posted this song by Derek Webb (someone I have not heard of, that went solo from a band I am equally ignorant of)

If you could love me as a wife
and for my wedding gift, your life
Should that be all I’d ever need
or is there more I’m looking for

and should I read between the lines
and look for blessings in disguise
To make me handsome, rich, and wise
Is that really what you want

I am a whore I do confess
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
and I run down the aisle
and I run down the aisle
I’m a prodigal with no way home
but I put you on just like a ring of gold
and I run down the aisle to you

So could you love this bastard child
Though I don’t trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold
and with the other in your side

I am so easily satisfied
by the call of lovers so less wild
That I would take a little cash
Over your very flesh and blood

Because money cannot buy
a husband’s jealous eye
When you have knowingly deceived his wife

It’s a striking song for me, and seems to comment quite well on what I’ve come think of as comfortable Christianity. The Christianity that so many seem trapped in and I would have to include myself in that statement. A Christianity that accepts actions and lifestyles that, if perpetrated against any one of us, would result in mouth froth inducing anger and self pity.

If I consider the disparity between my claim of a love for Jesus, and my actions much of the time, a sane rational observer could quite reasonably call me a liar.

Once again I can only feel absolute relief because I know that God is full of grace, and that in Christ there is no condemnation. It’s not my works that save me, or increase my stature in God’s eyes. I do think it is critical to consider the issues of faith and conviction that a song like this raises, as a measuring stick against just how I am doing in the arena of loving God with all my heart, mind and soul.

Most Christians have knowledge that exceeds their obedience, which is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it can be considered a normal state of affairs. We must just be careful not to end up chasing knowledge, while not seeking the discipline to increase our obedience in line with our knowledge. Many Christians leave a church because they feel they are not being fed, that the sermons are not challenging or deep enough. It would be interesting for me to hear of people moving churches because they were not being encouraged and discipled into obedience in line with their growing knowledge.

Watch Derek Webb perform “wedding dress” live at this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvQRd7D9BDM&feature=player_embedded

(Richard Beck linked it, i’ll be a sheep. I hope it’s not a gross breach of copyright or something)

Figuratively Literal

BANG

Well, it’s been a while since I sat at the keyboard to write my over inflated opinion and post it for everyone to see. Well, actually, that’s not entirely accurate,  I’ve actually written quite a lot it’s all just seemed a little… empty? This might stir some people up… I hope not in the wrong way.

Lately I’ve been surrounded quite a bit by the whole “creation vs. science” idea, which, from a theists point of view could be described as “literally true bible always vs. sometimes figurative bible”. Sure, that’s a very distilled view of the difference, but I think it is accurately reflected in that statement. That (literal vs. figurative) being the topic for this discussion you atheists really only have one argument, which is “nuh uhhh” to which we would reply with our single argument “yah huhhh!” and I foresee that carrying on for, well… how long has it been already?

Let me lay my cards on the table, I’m naturally a skeptical kind of guy, some might go as far as to say cynical. As such, I lean towards observation of the universe around me revealing some kind of truth. The way I was created (I guess) is such that it baffles me that some might look around at the universe and decide no one made it. But I accede that it could be all part of the whole “grace” thing, an extension of ‘twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear relieved’ or ‘twas grace that indoctrinated [1]my eyes to see, and grace my indoctrination made complete’. I certainly hope the word indoctrination doesn’t put anyone off this early on in the conversation (that I am having with myself).

So, on to the literal/figurative thing. A literal reading of scripture, with a bit of inference and interpretation thrown in sits us smartly with an earth that is around 6000 years old. There are evidences and arguments that literal creationists will use as final proof of how anyone that does not believe this, must be a fool. Many of these evidences and arguments are based on a rather shaky understanding of some basic physics[2]. This is not to say that literal creationists discard all science as evil, no, they are happy to use scientific principles to discredit OTHER scientific principles. The arguments are often presented in this way.

Because of basic principle A, that states such and such, hypothesis or conclusion Z cannot be true because it would violate basic principle A.

The word ‘law’ is often thrown about, which is ironic, and I hope I have sufficient presence of mind as to further elucidate on why, later. The bizarre thing with that presentation of an argument is that the same individuals that are intelligent enough to come up with basic principle A are often the very individuals that present hypothesis or conclusion Z. The critics of said conclusion (in the context of old creation vs relatively new) often leave out some important pieces of information, like, “for a given inertial reference frame” or “in an isolated system[3]”. The application of broad reaching and general science brush strokes then ensues, committing the same errors that they often accuse others of making.

This is all very well and good, but it begins to become apparent that I am pushing my own agenda here, with regard to science, rather than the topic “literal vs figurative”. So, back to that we must trot. I don’t have a problem with a literal reading of scripture in places, I think that scripture was written in the literal sense quite a lot of the time. Sometimes, however, it was not. Deciding what is literal and what is figurative introduces quite a sticky situation sometimes, but does that mean we just chuck it, because it’s too difficult to deal with? I don’t think that is the kind of faith that God calls us to at all. I know that many will present the whole, Matthew 18 childlike faith thing, but that would be out of context I believe, and an incorrect interpretation. Besides, we are exhorted to think like adults in many places in scripture.

One story that presents a problem, for me, if it were literal, is the temptation of Jesus. Where is this mountain that Jesus was taken up to be shown all the kingdoms of the earth? The earth being round and all presents a bit of a problem with this for one, eyesight for another. If this account is figurative, why not the creation account? Is the creation story not just showing us that God did indeed do it? As soon as it becomes a debate over whether it’s a literal account or not, then as soon as an individual can no longer intellectually defend a young creation for himself (objectively) it immediately invalidates Christianity. Is the purpose of scripture to teach us mathematics, science or geography? I don’t believe it is if it were, we would not have anywhere near the level of technology that we have now. That information is simply not in scripture, it was never intended to be in there. As soon as we begin to use it as a tool to prove or disprove scientific principles, from (possibly) figurative illustrations designed to highlight the work of God in relation to man we are misusing it. We are being naïve at any rate, because, if you are a Christian, you have to believe that any truth is God’s truth. Therefore we should not be afraid of truth, in any form.

We are setting up a false argument, a false conflict between science and faith. The rules and regulations of the universe set out by a law giving God cannot be in opposition to that law giver. Science as spoken by the atheist is often expressed (unintentionally?) as if it has THE ANSWER. But true science never makes that claim. I think it’s something along the lines of “we observe these things and conclude something else, we might be wrong… but because of our continued observation of result x, probably not[4]”. That stands until someone comes along and disproves it, and the thinking needs to start again. If the conclusion is that there is no God, then it is either a conclusion taken in faith… a decision to not believe, due to (from their perspective) a lack of evidence OR it is a conclusion based on the inability to reconcile a literal interpretation of the biblical creation account with what they observe to be true (their perspective).

I have steered clear of the whole idea of evolution in this post, because that just gets messy, and I don’t feel like typing my life away today. I’m focusing specifically on a creation based on a literal biblical account, compared to a creation that is old, and is described as being perpetrated by God in a figurative account. If you REALLY want a literal account, I recon genesis would be quite a bit bigger.

I don’t think that martial-ling the troops to defend a literal account of genesis and arguing until we are blue in the face is a good expenditure of resources. I don’t think Jesus called us to do this. The point is to spread the message of our hope in Christ. Again, the bible is not a scientific textbook, we should stop wielding it as such. Spending millions trying to assert the scientific point of view, instead of equipping missionaries to show people the love of Christ, or aiding those in need seems like it might be a bit of bad stewardship. However you choose to believe God created the universe, is your prerogative, but the point should always be “I believe God did it, and I believe that this is the message” which can lead into God’s love for us, and his desire for relationship, and the enabling of this relationship through the work of Christ on the cross.

This is obviously only my opinion, and I would welcome the discussion about young vs old creation. I’ve been watching some more Kent Hovind dvd’s, which prompted the percolation of these thoughts. His science is not quite… well… accurate. Perhaps the correct word I am looking for is ‘complete’. His science is often not complete. I feel that I might revise this post in the future, I am not sure how to do that at this juncture. I don’t want to back pedal, so I’m going to try to add revisions, etc. in either the comments, or as additions in bold, or something in the main body of the topic.

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[1] In this context, God has enabled me to see that someone created the universe, and in completion allowed me to recognize Jesus Christ as means of creation.

[2] Conservation of angular momentum is a favourite

[3] Second law of thermodynamics is another favourite

[4] Gravitational Theory

Comfortable Security?

Do you feel safer?

I’m sitting in a situation now where I look around at the “business world” and I have to wonder. When did we buy into this lie? Perhaps I should lay down a few disclaimers for all the thousands of people that don’t read my blog but that could potentially be sending me tons of hate mail (or worse, stupid advice on ‘no, no _this_ is how it actually is). A further disclaimer is that I do not advocate the idea that we should rebel against authority. So, I don’t mean to say that everyone with a job is clearly wrong, and you’ve been duped. I’m just becoming aware, now more than ever, how easily people buy into a lie. How often managers will claim, and probably believe, that they only have your best interest at heart. The idea behind that is that if you work really hard, you secure your future and you earn money and stability which is the best thing you can do for your family. Essentially it is career above everything, because career in fact, is what makes you a responsible adult/parent/spouse. If you work hard enough, and make some sacrifices for your career, you are being responsible, and are really doing the best thing. So, a manager will guide and counsel you into that pattern, because it really is the best thing. The benefit to business is secondary to your greater good. Perhaps part of this is the idea that a material end justifies the means. By this I mean to say the comments about sacrificed family time is justified because now the child gets to go to that expensive school, in mom’s fancy car.

So, I see employment as essentially this. You have whatever skills you have, be it muscles to physically move things about up to the brain capacity to calculate LHC collisions in your head, these being least and most highly paid, (in theory) respectively. So, you sell your skill to someone that needs it for an agreed price per hour/day/unit of time. If you end up working longer, for the same pay, you are essentially selling your skill more cheaply than it was worth in the beginning. The excuse for this might be that you get performance bonus’ at the end of a specific period, that is all well and good, however going on a soft target like that is like playing the lottery with your skills. Do you in fact make the same in that ‘bonus’ as you would if you put the same time into a second job, or business. If you do, great, if you don’t, you have lost the game, and in pretty much all of the examples I can think of, that’s exactly the case. Please try again next year. I personally think this is also an exponential curve, 8 hours are sold at this rate, if you want 12 hours of my dedicated time, it should be more expensive. It shouldn’t become a bargain bulk buy discount which is essentially what unpaid overtime is. You stop being a specialist retailer of your time, and you become Makro, anyone with a card and enough money to buy in bulk gets a discount rate.

However, this idea I have of employment must be, and is demonstrably untrue, because during the course of I don’t know how long, we have given up our identity as people with skills for sale, still being in command of what exactly we are willing to do and what we are unwilling to do. We abandon that to the employer, who somehow becomes the arbiter of our lives. You may or may not behave, dress, talk or exist in any manner other than is ratified by us. I don’t disagree with the necessity of specific decorum at work. But that has been rather perverted in most places, so it becomes like the army. You will obey commands, or you will be court-martialled. Your employment contract and job specification are more like suggestions, but you will do whatever you are told to do, because the company has paid for your time and can therefore make you do anything. Which I think is ridiculous. I sign a contract to do feather dying, if you demand I wash your car, I should have the freedom to refuse.

Anyway, I said all that to say this. We do this because we gain a sense of security I guess. This is how things work, and if I fit into the pattern, I’ll be safe. Humans tend to abandon many freedoms for a false sense of safety, to the degree that the institutions that are meant to benefit us, become the very objects of fear. You want a secure country? Then we demand the right to infringe on all your privacy rights. Pretty soon you have people living in fear of the state, where it should be the other way around. To greater and lesser degrees this is prevalent and evident in all areas and on all levels of our lives. Abandon something for ‘security’, end up enslaved to the things we surrender our freedoms to.

Perhaps this is another level of the Romans 12:2 scripture that just hits me every time. This link gives the scripture in a variety of translations; the NLT most closely mirrors what it is that I am trying to communicate. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%2012:2&version=AMP;KJV;NIV;NLT;ESV

2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Stop just blindly following things because that is the way everyone else does it, or because that’s just what you do, and start to think a little further. Not handing over to perceived authority the freedoms that should be kept and celebrated for a false sense of security.

(a final disclaimer is that I am not a manager, maybe I’m wrong, maybe that’s just how it is, and that’s how everyone wants it to be)

(The really last final disclaimer. Overtime isn’t completely abhorrent, I do work overtime, even unpaid overtime. It just becomes expectation ridiculously easily. No business expects to give products away, so why should managers expect employees to just give their “product” away?)

Law abiding, bad citizens

We can't break even one

Most humans that I know, and I would say most humans, have grown up and managed to not get thrown in jail. Now, this could be for a variety of reasons but for purposes of this article we are going to assume it’s because everyone grows up somehow knowing the laws, and then not breaking them (at least the ones that will get you thrown in jail).

It’s really not that hard to not break the laws that land you in jail, it usually takes conscious effort to get to that point. No child is ever sat in front of the legal statutes and laws of the land and told to memorise them, and be aware not to break them.  So how do we miraculously grow up not just murdering people, stealing their stuff and blowing up their garden gnomes?

Well, I don’t really have to answer that do I? A child gets raised small experiences at a time. Experience 1 is trying to stick a fork into a power socket, which could end in a few ways.

1. abrupt and violent encounter with moving electrons.
2. abrupt and violent encounter (from the child’s perspective) with moving parental hands (done in a loving fashion of course)
3. abrupt and violent encounter (child’s perspective again) with a screaming parental mouth, sometimes accompanied by running and the wild flapping of arms (which helps mitigate the violence and inject some comedic entertainment into the event)

Every one of the items in this admittedly incomplete list should provide the child with the understanding that power points should be avoided, on pain of violence.

That experience teaches the child nothing about the laws of the country at all (except maybe later on when they realise corporal punishment might be illegal) however by other small experiences, like violent encounters with angry mouths for taking a toy from Johnny’s toy box, the child learns that you don’t take things from other people. They are not taught that it is illegal to do this, they are just taught that it’s not nice. Thus, hopefully/usually, the sum total of these experiences leaves you with a law abiding product. At some point we are made aware that it is also illegal, I guess, but as far as I can see/remember it’s not an explicitly taught thing.

The bonus of this kind of learning is that you don’t have to sit in front of stuffy law books and worry about breaking laws like (if you live in Ohio) not getting a fish drunk. You get to learn on the job, which is great for instructor and pupil. You even get a probationary period within which to learn these laws, infractions are dealt with less harshly for those still in the probationary period.

Amusingly, the ones that do eventually sit in front of the dusty law books and learn them, get disliked by everyone (until cheap legal advice is required).

So, you have a product of a collection of experiences that doesn’t go about getting thrown into prison. Does this make that product a good citizen? Well that all depends on the arena really. If the metric of consideration is the conspicuous lack of trying to stab you or abuse your garden gnomes with explosives, then yes the product can be considered a Good Citizen. However, if the metric of consideration is some sort of award by the community (local, national or global) then the criteria stops being passive, that is ‘just not breaking laws’ and becomes active. That is going and actively trying to improve conditions for fellow man.

Essentially the guy that doesn’t set fire to your front lawn is not considered a good citizen, but the guy that comes and mows it for you, does a good job, and does it consistently without asking for payment you might consider a good citizen.

So teaching a child, actively or passively, about the law and the obedience to it doesn’t really seem to generate extraordinary citizens just ordinary ones. Who, let’s face it, generally break laws anyway even if not the ones that land you in prison. In my experience and interactions everyone admits to speeding, in South Africa there are very few people that have not bribed a traffic cop (or as a passive thing did not speak up about solicitation or offering of a bribe). And more seriously, in my social experience, people that admit to driving drunk. All of these are done after a conscious decision was made as to the probability of getting caught. However teaching a kid the importance of relationship and the value of life helps them attribute greater value to those things, and possibly then he/she would become active in improving the situation of those around him/her.

So really what I am saying is that teaching obedience to the law is great, but by observation and experience humans tend to weigh up the risks vs. the rewards of breaking the law. Circumstance is a heavy factor in this weighing up, and every man has his price. To claim that you would never take a life is fine and all, and probably true, a long as ‘never’ for you also includes your family not being attacked or not walking in on your partner and catching them in the act of infidelity. See, not many people go out with plans to wreck their lives by way of murder. But for some being merely human and subject to emotional extremes it just seems to happen.

This consideration, besides percolating in my brain for who knows how long, was brought to the fore as I was cycling home this week and I went past a pre-school, the school was a religion specific school, advertising the teaching of that religion’s laws in the school’s curriculum (it was not a Christian school). If I take this in a Christian context, and apply the general understanding that teaching the law will bring about good citizens, then teaching the commands of Jesus will produce good Christians, right? But that is just not true, no matter how hard we try to do that at Sunday school.

A statement was made at a Sunday school meeting I was in (by a video guy on a projector) that ‘Christian’ kids that left school and went to varsity more often than not tended to ‘stray’ from Christianity and then in their mid to late 30’s some might make a u-turn and return to the fold. The reason given for this was that the kids were not taught a certain lifestyle.

After my brain digested this suggestion, it was rejected with the message ‘does not compute’. It doesn’t matter what kind of lifestyle you teach kids, when those kids go off and immerse themselves in a university or college environment, they tend to chase the experiences of that environment. Being drinking and partying, and often there is a slip of sexual inhibitions. If you have taught a child that the bible is law and scientifically accurate and literal then when the child is confronted with scientific experimentation, knowledge and the technology based on this science, questions are raised. It doesn’t matter what kind of rules and regulations you teach children as a Christian parent/teacher/mentor, it’s about teaching that child to seek relationship with Christ.

A person that is taught religious law and intellectual assent to scripture or biblical theory does not necessarily make a good (faithful?) Christian, or perhaps does not make a Christian at all. The person that finds relationship with God is given a new nature, and their values often change (value attribution changes). This is not to say a ‘real’ Christian does not fall, just that the language used earlier about a decade or longer hiatus from Christianity with regard to not teaching Christian lifestyle practices can be rejected.

The reactionary nature we have to the potential of kids falling away and modifying the means frequency or duration of how we teach Christian principle is like applying checkers strategy to basketball, it’s pointless.

The focus needs to be on chasing relationship, rather than a self help seminar on 3 steps to observe the Sabbath.

Comfortable Language

This is awesome

Awesome

This is awesome

Awesome

This is awesome

Awesome

To start, I decided to use Google to find image results for the word awesome, my tricksy plan was to take the first image from the search results, and then take something that could genuinely be called awesome and contrast the two. I got tired of looking through the following results http://tinyurl.com/yajqcyl for anything actually awesome (giant disclaimer, I have ‘safe search’ on strict, so I don’t know what comes up with it off) I have to admit that the first image would have me say ‘awesome’ but you can consider that geeky weakness.

Awesome:

Adjective

• (adj) amazing, awe-inspiring, awesome, awful, awing (inspiring awe or admiration or wonder)

So, the first image can jokingly be described as awesome, but it certainly doesn’t actually inspire awe or wonder in me. However having plastered the word awesome onto the first image we have nowhere to go but equivalency or ‘down’ when looking at the follow up pictures, the last being truly awesome.

I was thinking the other day about how we speak, well, truth be told I think about how we speak a lot, as I am in rather a large number of ‘discussions’. “Never!” I hear you cry, in shock and amazement, yet it is true, I have the odd verbal altercation with a very few people every decade or so. Anyway, the differences, in these incredibly rare discussions often tend to end up being a difference in the definition or perception of a word or phrase. So I have prevailing ponderings about our language and the flippancy (or not) with which we bandy words about. The general trend is to exaggerate with our adjectives, or without thinking, to apply a word to something because it sounds more exciting. I have noticed a trend in myself to define an event as “the most (something or other) EVER”. While it usually is not the most anything ever at all. As a consequence, I could come home from work, having had the worst day ever, and my wife will have the sympathy of a rock, because everything is always the most/least/biggest thing EVER. Indeed, I cry wolf a lot, to stretch a story.

This train of thought lead me to consider the possible connection between the way in which we talk and the way we respond to things we read or hear. I have commented on mankind’s rather terminal (as a species) propensity for ignoring anything that isn’t an immediate and personal threat. Global warming is not an immediate threat, and water has always come out of our taps, so that is not a problem for me, but the risk of cancer from the aspartame in fake sugar must be stopped immediately. Though, this is probably a bad example, as the massive, and massively KNOWN probability of respiratory issues smokers will face are ignored. So a better example would be the immediate and personal risk to me of wearing an outfit that does not match. Utter social suicide… people will be talking for weeks. “YAHAAAA!” you cry with gusto, causing me to spill coffee on my person, “you are being ridiculously flippant with your last example there, Mr. Finger pointing blog writer!” And yet, no, I don’t think that I really am. I see more effort going into avoiding being a fashionable outcast than goes into not wasting water, or whatever other environmental issue you currently wish to focus on. Is this sad and potentially disastrous tendency caused by or, more probably, exacerbated by our desensitization to words/phrases like ‘crisis’, ‘disastrous’ or ‘global warming’. The flippancy extends further by people joking about a particularly cold day “pah, I thought we were supposed to be getting hotter, global warming is a lie. ha ha ha ha.” (Significant looks at the conversation participants to ensure they all got the joke). While I am certainly painting myself to be more serious than the threat of aspartame death from fake sugar, my idea is still worth considering.

We are bombarded constantly by all kinds of extreme adjectives that they are no longer extreme, they are the norm. We have not found any other adjectives to replace them, to ensure that the audience actually gets the urgency of any given situation. The hierarchy of words is in a shambles. I think that this is also evidenced among Christians and/or professing Christians. God is awesome, God is Love. Yet, that packet of chips was awesome and I totally LOVE those glasses on you. Can you see the problem? Oh, we don’t really love like real love. Those glasses just look really good. Mr over exaggerating blog writer must clearly be able to see that it’s just a turn of phrase. Well turns of phrase get us into hot water as well. There are so many discussions being had, right now even, about whether or not a specific scripture was allegory or literal. Whether Christians genuinely, physically and literally receive a new nature, or are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), or whether that is just a turn of phrase is one of the discussions. If it is literal you might expect some kind of evidence, or change in this new creation, if it is merely figurative then perhaps not. If many of these things are figurative, as many are more willing to believe, then the commandments or instructions can be interpreted in any way we choose, being more suggestions than anything else.

As Christians we say certain things, we sing certain things and it’s because that’s just what Christians do… isn’t it? It doesn’t REALLY honestly mean anything, does it? It’s just a nice song; it is not to be taken literally. The song might say something like, “I will go, wherever you will lead me” and either we don’t think about what we are saying, or we just retranslate it, within our framework of how we understand Christianity to be something along the lines of “I will claim to follow you, in spirit and mind, anything intangible, as long as there is no actual change or physical requirement from me, let’s keep this just intellectual shall we?” This invades our speech and we start to sit with a Christianity that is all allegory, figurative speech, personal interpretation that won’t break any perceptions and nothing gets taken literally. The evidence of salvation becomes intangible and open for interpretation by each individual.

Could it be that we draw the definition of the word from the event we are applying it to? Or that our perception of a phrase or word is coloured in the manner we use it most? We have a perception of “romantic husband and wife love” hugely coloured by Hollywood (thanks Hollywood for your ridiculously shallow love) and when that goes away it’s time to move on, to find the new love. We define the love we have for brothers and sisters and friends a certain way too. It is usually not a selfless love; it is selfless to varying degrees but never completely. It can by no means be considered unconditional, given enough time, a spouses love will be killed if not requited, often it has to be requited in a rather specific manner too, love is pretty conditional. Now, when we read in scripture that God is Love we can only call to mind our own perception of what Love is. Or, because we have often heard others profess a love for us, and seen these great Hollywood romances where everyone claims they will be together forever we apply that understanding of unconditional Love to God. We tend to not be so impressed, but true unconditional love is really rather impressive. It is a part of true awesomeness. It is just so awesome that I am left honestly speechless, not because ‘awesome’ has been applied too often to chips and cars, but because an honest look at the literal impact of what actual unconditional Love is (even my poor understanding of it), is just something that honestly does inspire awe. It is quite simply awesome. Most other things just can’t be considered awesome anymore.

Somebody elses problem (ist)

The only SEP's that have an excuse

You’re quite excited about climate change, you’ve read all the articles and you know lots of url’s. If someone comes and refutes the claim that anthropogenic climate change is real you have your argument all set out and ready to go. You know it’s real, anyone who is not barking bat crazy knows it’s real. However, many people seem rather barking bat crazy. Things take rather a long time to filter into the common man’s head, usually it has to be forced in under pressure. That pressure might eventually end up being a stonking great wall of ice, inching its way slowly down the local high street. But obviously by then it’s all too late. It often has to be something rather large and imminently obvious to humans before we wake up and realise the actual impact on us.

Our brains seem rather poorly adapted to thinking for the future. Or if we do start to take notice, it’s usually a rather separated event. The thinking is that someone better clean up this mess soon, as it’s clearly someone’s rather large problem. It’s possibly our brain matters affinity for physics, except the human consciousness seems to be of rather larger mass than our physical size would hint at, therefore it takes things of epic proportions to get us out of rest and into motion, however we tend to go back to rest without any seeming effort whatsoever. Someone should discover the law governing human actions remaining at rest and work unless acted upon by a species killing event (to be clear, it has to be OUR species that is being killed, we will kill other species with the wild and reckless abandon of a toddler feeding itself ice cream).  That right there, is it, there are two categories described within which the majority of the population sits. The naysayers or denialists and the somebody-elses-problemists.

The denialists quite obviously don’t do anything about it, but the somebody-elses-problemists are generally the largest group and they don’t do anything about it either. The somebody-elses-problemists (let’s call them SEP’S from here on out, for the sake of my ctrl, c and v keys) read the articles, know all there is to know about the issue, so they know quite clearly what other people best get doing about it, while they continue to behave exactly the way they always have. Anthropogenic climate change is like voting, it takes lots of votes for someone to win, lots of votes are made up of individual votes. Without the individual votes you can’t make lots of votes. That’s like ‘mathematics’, or sex, something we seem to understand really well. It’s also something that is done by people, you’re a people… you do something about it. With enough you’s doing something about it that makes lots and like magic… you have the climate not trying to eliminate us, and you have someone that isn’t catastrophically horrible running the country.

These two categories don’t only exist for climate change, they are evident for many large issues. People will align themselves with a cause intellectually, be ridiculously verbose about it… often at the most awkward times, with a verbosity that would make aunty gossip silent. Indeed, some people seem to be spoiling for a fight and their greatest desire seems to be to offend someone with their passionate intellectual alignment to the cause. However when you examine things closely the belief as only intellectual, there is no evidence in activities and the persons decision-making at all. Christianity tends to be that for many people as well. An intellectual assent to some cleverly put argument. However, if someone comes and refutes that cleverly put argument then you sit with a crisis of faith. If the salvation is not of God, a supernatural event orchestrated by him then that’s what you end up with, people intellectually aligning themselves, sometimes passionately, with a belief. You end up with a focus group meeting however often, usually at least once a week on Sundays, with people taking little tidbits of information on how to live a better life. That often ties in with the arrogance I spoke of in another post. Because the person now has God behind him, his personal opinion has supernatural authority, and is therefore right. His morality is quite obviously superior to anyone else’s morality. After all, how can a Godless heathen deign to compete on any kind of moral ground with a believer in God?

Sadly, the one who intellectually agrees, that sits in n amount of church gatherings gaining knowledge like a window shopper, never making any item his own, generally does not have the immovable base for morality that they think they do. Their morality, that they claim to be getting from an unchangeable source, is coloured rather heavily by their culture. The window shopping Christian looks at many items they like, remembers their location and can describe them really well. However they do not take the responsibility of purchasing those items and living with all the consequences of that responsibility.

To go back to the earlier example of climate change. There is a difference between being a card-carrying fan club member and actually being someone who’s life shows the evidence of their convictions. In the same way, there is a vast difference between being someone who has faith in their intellectual agreement with an idea, and someone who’s life bares the evidence of the fruit of obedience.

Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven.

I am given to understand that in Hebrew, the method used for emphasis is repetition. If we were to emphasise this it would be to put it in italics, or bold or if we spoke it we would shout. This can be seen as saying Not everyone who emphatically declares me to be Lord. So be careful of being a SEP (you are not a polar bear, for them it really IS somebody elses problem to fix) or a card-carrying member of the Jesus fan club. Examine yourself, determine whether your life showing the obedience to the will of the Father.

Comfortable Grace

Manflu, a powerful disease.

I have heard very many, if not most, women that moan about how their significant other is a giant ball of baby when he gets sick. It’s true, when I have flu I’m completely useless. There’s that advert for some flu remedy with the background voice going “paaaaiiin, heeeaaaadache” and then the ad reveals it is actually some male ball of sick death in the bedroom crying out his symptoms to his wife. It’s a very funny ad, I think. The men scoff and deny the picture, while the women all nod their heads knowingly. I believe they secretly think it’s worse than the advert depicts. Anyway, so I think men do behave as if they are on the verge of death if they even consider any work. It’s like something came to enforce the ‘keeping the Sabbath holy’ on pain of death. But, here’s the thing. We behave like we are about to die because we are about to die. Men are stronger than women, and our immune systems are just that much stronger again, so for a bug to defeat us, it must be one heck of a super bug. It’s so powerful it doesn’t bother with the weaker adversary that is women, it just goes for the worthy foe, man. So while women get lady flu, and it is by all means bad and what not. Men get MAN flu and that is just so much worse, we behave like we are sicker because we are. The tricky thing about this is that you have to be a man to experience it. It’s about experience, not about argument. It’s not a chauvinist thing either, even though it’s really well disguised as one. It’s a matter of fact, like the fact that men are just uglier than women. Below is the proof, 2 pictures: Normal Lady Flu.

Lady virus bug

 Man Flu death

Please note the tactical nukes

Why mention all this deep truth and biological wisdom? Man (-kind, humans, people, us) encounters a tiny, tiny bug, and there are visible signs. Verbosity of discomfort increases exponentially, noses run, stumbling about due to dizziness and tiredness occurs, throats are sore, ears ache, and there’s the coughing up of all manner of unspeakable things.

Slimer (you remember the ghost busters?) is not actually a ghost, he is the product of manflu, just so you know

So, this most long and windiest of points is that you have visible symptoms of this encounter with something tiny. Influenza brings about symptoms, I cannot claim to have it and twinkle about as if all is well and I can actually smell the roses… or anything. If I did, you would call me a liar (or possibly accuse me of only having lady flu). In the same way, Christianity is not some kind of intellectual assent to a series of questions. I don’t believe that salvation is man looking ‘up’, seeing the creator, the God of the universe, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and all that, and going “yah, ok, I’ll believe in you” and then just going about his daily life as if nothing was different. Or even doing all of the above and behaving as if nothing was different except for the expectation that blessing should now fall abundantly on said persons head. “But, now I believe in Father Christmas, I should get stuff!”

The previous blog post was about our unwarranted, and ‘unworkable for’, salvation. That it is only by grace, there is nothing we did, or can do to merit Gods love, or somehow increase it. However, in a similar fashion I don’t think it’s possible to have any kind of revelation along these lines and to remain the same. There are going to be symptoms of this salvation. It only makes sense that there will be. Many will be intangible, or complicatedly quantifiable by third parties. In other words other people don’t have any right to point at you and proclaim salvation or no salvation because they don’t see the things they expect. No one has the power or the authority to proclaim a man saved except God. However, scripture blatantly says to us that we should examine ourselves, test to see whether we have any kind of assurance of the proclamation of salvation. In many places scripture then gives us a mirror with which to introspect. Are these things true in your life, can you say that these things are happening and growing? If the answer is yes, then your assurance is great, if the answer is no then I would say that you should be seeking the answer as to why it is not the case.

When many preachers talk about these ‘evidences of salvation’ many people start to cry legalism. But it isn’t about doing those things to get salvation, it is about seeing those things happening in greater and greater measure and getting greater and greater assurance of being under Grace. This implies that there is no effort required, but I don’t think that is the case either. Often, the greatest evidence for me is a change of desire, you desire your sinful act, after being given the revelation of Jesus your desire changes. You no longer love the sin, you hate it. You genuinely do not want to commit the sin that once you might have secretly wanted to commit, while outwardly claiming not to want it. Then as we grow, we are sanctified in greater and greater measure and more and more things are revealed to us. I dislike the rather common preaching which essentially says that it doesn’t matter what you do in your life, if you said that magic mantra at any point in your life, you have been saved. Scripture does not teach this, it teaches self-examination, it teaches that those who hold firm to the end will be saved. It teaches that Grace is a free unwarranted gift, but this Gift brings about a new nature. A new creation, God has begun a work. This work has tangible effects! You cannot be the recipient of this free gift and not experience a fundamental change. The person that claims he is saved but is comfortable in his sins, that is not driven, encouraged and disciplined by the Holy Spirit needs to start to wonder why this is the case. Scripture would not teach that the Lord disciplines the ones he loves if this were not the case. If there is no discipline in a child’s life when they do things wrong, then you can say that they have derelict parents. God is not a derelict parent, you will fall under his loving discipline.

You will note the lack of specific scriptural reference, in this post, that is intentional. You must go and do the work, find the things in scripture that I claimed were there.

Comfortable work

Take 2 young men, this is a list of their most in your face assets.

Young Man 1 (referred to from here on as YM1)

1. 2009 Nissan GT-R
2. R1 700 000 apartment in the most affluent suburb in Johannesburg
3. Hugo boss suits
4. Tag Heuer watches

 Young Man 2 (referred to from here on as YM2)

1. 2009 Audi RS-4
2. R1 200 000 apartment in a trendy up and coming suburb in Johannesburg
3. Hugo Boss suits
4. Guess Watches 

On the face of it, YM1 is in the lead and first impressions of YM1 will be greater than of YM2, Fancier cars and apparel. YM2 is nothing to snort at as he seems to be doing well, he’s just not as impressive. Now imagine you find out that YM1 was the son of a rich man, and all that he possesses is as a result of his father’s generosity. While YM2 has worked his way from a standard to lower middle class lifestyle, study loans and all, to get where he is. Immediately the impressions switch. YM2 becomes far more impressive than YM1. YM2 will command more respect from many people because of the hard work that he had to put in to get where he is. Even if YM2 had a VW beetle and lived in a 1 bedroom flat in poorsville, but came up from nothing. Therefore it seems respect is directly proportional to effort. 

As a species we are impressed by work, the one that had to work to get where he is, is regarded far more highly than the one that got there by the generosity of others. This is proven and highlighted rather sharply by the fact that we will avoid asking for financial help from others without the agreement being that we will pay that money back. Picture the kid from the movie ‘the grudge’ or ‘the ring’ now add cold sores… and a wart, we avoid bringing nothing in our hands and asking for a handout as violently as one would avoid that terrifying creation. We tend to avoid it because we have the impression that this is deserving of some contempt. In quite a few conversations I have been in, this principle is evident in the phrases “yes but that was given to him by his daddy” or “yes but he is a giant mommy’s boy, where do you think he got the money for that house?” You might think I am building up to some great climax in which work is what is deserving of contempt and free gifts are where the secret lies. You are right, I am… more shall be revealed later.

Because the above tends to generally be the natural reaction of most people, we strive to earn anything that we have. Which is not a negative thing, I do not mean to imply that, in the material, work is bad, or that working to earn money is a bad thing. That would be a silly position to take. What I am working towards is that man tends to do the same thing with salvation, to a greater or lesser degree depending on personal preference I guess… This is evident in any religion you pick, pretty much every religion indicates that your entry into the afterlife depends on your performance here. Generally if your good outweighs your bad, then the scales tip in your favour and you’re in. “oh no! That’s where Christianity is different” I hear you cry! Well, yes and no. That is where Christianity is supposed to be different, but as it is practiced by a great majority, it isn’t. So many people point to an event in the past where there was a prayer that was repeated. The scriptural proof and evidence that this was sufficient and guaranteed salvation is that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

If a crisis of belief arises, a question is put forward to the poor individual going through said crises, of the magnitude of the sincerity of the prayer. If you really, really believed what you said, then it’s just doubt creeping in rebuke Satan, and get on with your life. The problem with the prayer of salvation methodology still gives the impression that because you did something that God owes you. You will get to heaven, present your salvation chit and now he owes you entrance. The idea that God did it all, that you could not even choose to follow him without his Grace allowing you to choose to follow him, is pretty uncomfortable to us. We want to have earned it in some way. Even if a person acknowledges that it was all Grace. Grace that called, Grace that allowed a response and Grace that saved, there develops a natural tendency to want to now earn that Grace. I don’t believe that is scriptural at all. We are told that it is Grace that calls us, that Grace allows us to respond positively and Grace that saves us. It also says that Grace calls us not because any redeemable quality is found in the called person, but only because of God’s good pleasure. The magnitude of your sincerity while praying your prayer is irrelevant. Or put another way, because you said a prayer with great sincerity does not give any assurance of salvation.

Ephesians 1: ⁵Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (KJV)

This means that the reason God chose any of his children was for his own Glory. Not because you are somehow special. This should always ring in the heads of truly regenerate Christians so that there is no boasting and no arrogance. I have an atheist friend or two, and one of the principle irritants found in many Christians for them is smugness. A communication that somehow there is a superior morality or something in them now that they are Christians, or because they are Christians. The communication extends to “if you become a Christian, you will become special, like me”. This is not always a direct verbal thing, but often tends to be impression given. Where scripture says that God found no inherent worth in you at all, there wasn’t something special in you that warranted or earned his favour. The regenerate Christian is YM1, his salvation is a free, unwarranted gift from the Father. There is nothing he did to earn it in any way at all, and there is nothing he can continue to do to work back any debt he might perceive himself to have.

Romans 12: ¹I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (KJV)

In light of everything Christ did for us (for a full run down read the rest of Romans) we are told that offering our bodies as living sacrifices is the only reasonable thing to do. And it is, if you truly believe the real gospel, and have been regenerated by God, then there is no other response that would make sense. It’s senseless for a man that ignores his children, and goes out with his friends every day, to claim to love his children. It is equally senseless for a man to claim to love God, and all that this then implies, and not offer his life as a living sacrifice.

Giant climax hinted at earlier

Works, with respect to earning salvation, are a thing worthy of contempt and the secret lies not in anything you can bring to the table; it is in a free gift that the secret lies. Nothing in our hands we bring, simply to the cross we cling.

My comfortable money

It’s all about the money.

I don’t necessarily want to go into prosperity doctrine and how I dislike the whole idea, but obviously with a topic like this, there are going to be a few encounters.

So, we have a few words which easily attach themselves to the word ‘crisis’;

• Oil
• Energy
• Water
• Food
• Environmental

 There are quite a few alternative sources for fuel and energy, things that are sustainable and won’t throw us completely off balance in another area as we are doing now. For instance, the increase in energy demand can be met by more burning of old dinosaurs thereby lessening the energy worries but increasing the weight applied to the word crisis in ‘environmental crisis’. This is not sustainable, not because it is not financially sustainable, it is really the most sustainable choice if we like thinking short term and as a species we have shown a propensity for very little else. It is not sustainable from an environmental perspective. The patently obvious reason for un-sustainability is the environment. Anthropogenic climate change is not really a disputed topic anymore; it has become an accepted occurrence. Well, it is not disputed in the same way that the moon landings are not a disputed occurrence…

The more we consume, the more energy we use, the more we affect the climate. A phrase that is often used is “save the planet” however, it isn’t really the planet that needs saving. The planet could go on for quite some time, it’s the humans on the planet that will be in for a rather hard time. 

 So, we have these crisii (I can hear the screams of anger over my Latin abuse already) which when you get right down to it, are only there because the methods of solving them are expensive. I believe the detestable term to be “not economically viable at this time”. We are in a financial crisis but not in the way most expect. The mad rush for a monetary return for any service rendered is the real crisis. It’s far more complicated than that, granted. Affluent countries can’t just burst on the scene in the third world and install all kinds of water purification and magic crop growers free of charge because someone will want to take control of it, so they can make money, this usually involves a lot of shooting and dying. Handing freebies around also doesn’t really solve that many problems. You have the genuinely needy, the ones that would work and contribute if they could, but can’t. Freebies for them, to help them out are good. But then you get the others, the bottom feeders that could contribute, but it is easier to look and act helpless and just hold out hands for all the freebies. The problems are numerous, and yet the root cause is money, the passionate love of money. 

Millions will die rather horrible deaths, which are avoidable, because it is not economically viable at this point to do anything about it. Now this is where my christianese comes in, and this is where it conflicts with the financial prosperity doctrine most often preached. I can’t see how God wants me to have all the best stuff, and lots of it, which costs a lot, and takes a lot of energy to produce. I can’t see how he wants me to drive the best car, because firstly the ‘best’ cars are most impactful on the environment because of manufacturing cost and secondly because of their consumption of oil. I would concede that perhaps he does want me to have a fancy car or ridiculously large house, but if this is really the case then I think I would get that, without having to pay it off every month in huge instalments. 

The thing is that things like happiness and a prosperous life are definitions rather coloured by our culture. Everyone says that money doesn’t buy happiness, but we chase after it anyway. Indicating that the statement is made with absolutely no confidence and rather that it’s an untrue statement. A prosperous life therefore has to include money. If we are not financially prosperous, and showing it, then there must be something wrong. I mentioned a life of abundance in a previous blog post, I believe that definition is biblically accurate. Our financial and material prosperity by means of exorbitant interest rates and instalment sale agreements means that we are unable to help those around us. I’m not talking the unnamed masses, I am talking about the families in our churches, or social circles that are genuinely struggling. You can’t help them because we need to fit tyres onto our ‘blessings’ and ‘necessities’.

Define Necessity

We can only pay our domestic workers a minimum wage because our 6 figure cars need paying off. Our cars often cost us monthly what many people earn in half a year! There are all kinds of issues surrounding paying your domestic a liveable wage. What happens if you move, that person must now go from earning R3000 or R4000 from her generous employer back to minimum wage, which causes all kinds of problems. So the solution is not a quick fix, it’s not sufficient to just decide to up the salary, it needs to be a rather large cultural and social change. But don’t let that be an excuse, you can still make a difference in a real way, by just being a little less material focussed.

Perhaps the problem is less money and more selfishness. I want, I need, give it to me now. Money is just a means to fulfil self. 

Anyway, zooming back out from the terrible desire to have all the nice stuff to the bigger and uglier picture. I believe we are at a place technologically where so many of the worlds crisii (there’s the screaming again) could be solved, if not for that little horrible phrase mentioned earlier. So, sorry most of the global population, sorry fellow countrymen, sorry neighbours and family members… We see you are struggling, and we would like to help it’s just that. 

It’s not financially viable at this time