Choice

A caviat: this is the first post I've published in a long time - I'm aware. About a year ago, while working at my last church, I was asked to stop writing because my thinking was, apparently, "too controversial" for some people of influence to handle. While I've since moved to another church (who do not hold that opinion), it's been very hard for me to start thinking like a writer again ... my thanks to Shawna for giving me a kick in the mental butt to just start writing again and see where it goes. Please be kind; it's been a while.

I think our culture is bored.


We Americans have so much, and it's not even that challenging to get more, relatively speaking. Middle and upper-class kids have the easiest lifestyles on the planet; everything is handed to them on a silver or gold or platinum platter (we have options), and so what else do they have to do but find ways to seek thrills in one form or another? Girls go online and take their clothes off not to make money but just to do something dangerous and "taboo," something against their parents' wishes, something that gives them a rush (though they'll take the money too). Guys and girls alike experiment with drugs, sex, alcohol, parties, and the like to find some sort of high, artificial as it may be, to stimulate their minds without all the hard work of learning something useful or meaningful. Their parents' body language and actions - if not outright verbiage - have told kids that they are entitled to this lifestyle of privilege.  As human beings, it's easy for us to believe because, let's face it,

we want to.

But it leaves nowhere to go except to consume, and we human beings are not meant to be consumers, we are meant to be people who make more of the world, who create and love and learn and build and grow.


Our culture's obsession with sex and the adrenaline-rush (in one form or another) seem, to me, to stem from a search for meaning. But that search has been limited because we've been looking only in the only places we've been taught to look: the places we're most comfortable. Instead of breaking out of our boxes, instead of moving beyond the world of consumption, we simply try to find new ways to consume, new thrills, ever more exotic and provocative, but fundamentally the same as the last. A girl taking off one more piece of clothing each time she gets on a webcam is thrilling for her, but it only can escalate once the thrill wears off - one more piece of clothing, one more provocative act. Likewise, a guy drinking only demands that he drink more and more to get the same thrill. More parties, more drugs, more violence, more more more ... we will consume ourselves into oblivion, all because we have become bored, lost in our search for meaning to the point that we've essentially given up, numb to the pain we're really causing ourselves and others but unable to break the cycle for fear of losing the pleasures that we think are all we have; we don't want to give up what makes us feel good, even if for a moment. Our happiness is fleeting, but it's all we know; we want more, but are not willing to sacrifice to get it.

But perhaps that's the very thing keeping us from finding meaning that will last. Perhaps joy is something found when we give up what makes us feel good in the short-term, when we stop seeking pleasure for ourselves and instead seek to do good to our neighbors and to better our world. Perhaps moving beyond our ease is exactly what we need to do; perhaps the meaning we seek only comes in conflict and blood and sweat and tears, the things that make us uncomfortable. Perhaps joy is found in the midst of pain and work and sacrifice.


Perhaps the problem has been choice all along: we didn't know we had one. Maybe what we've done is bought into the lies of consumption because, deep down, we don't WANT to sacrifice, we don't WANT to give up of ourselves because it's HARD. But instead of facing the facts, instead of owning up to our own decisions about what we do and why we do it, we make it the fault of others, of our culture, of our parents, of our genetics, of our family, of our history ... of our world ... of anything except the one place where blame must eventually fall:


ourselves.


Yes, things happen that are not our fault, but it is WE who choose how to handle those things, whether to let them make victims out of us, or innovators. Do we accept the subliminal messages of the matrix and so doing commit ourselves to a mental and cultural prison, or do we reject the lie and instead choose to move beyond, to a new way and an ancient way, a way borne of mercy and justice, love and sacrifice,


... death and resurrection ...

Economic Stimulus - Addendum

Jon Stewart says the same thing I did.

Economics, part X: Stimulus

I know, I've talked about money a lot lately. It's by far the longest series I've ever written, although I hope I haven't bored anyone. By now, though, I'm sure you've jumped ahead and concluded that I am a capitalist. You'd only be partially right, however, because as I've learned more about anthropology and sociology, I've started to think that perhaps it is as much a cultural issue as any other. For example, socialism seems to be working well enough in China, particularly because Chinese culture lends itself to a more group-oriented approach that will keep itself accountable (the honor-shame dynamic plays a vital role here, but that's another discussion). Sure it has its problems there, but this is true of any economic system in a world where men and women are flawed creatures. Socialism can be a good thing in China if it were always run by honorable, God-loving, others-oriented men and women. Likewise, I believe that capitalism is the best choice for the West, but we have to use it properly.

This brings me to a disturbing trend in our culture: the bailout. I've grown wary of the tendency for our culture to expect "handouts" from its government, precisely because of our culture's views on freedom. We believe we are all entitled as individuals to have a shot at happiness on our own terms. However, as our culture has changed over time, we've also grown a tendency to also want to be free of failure. We've been so successful as a culture in our endeavors that we've grown accustomed to getting our way. It started out innocently enough, the way success should come - hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice. But as the successes started piling up (success is a relative term, by the way), our culture began to expect them. And when something wasn't going according to our view of "success," we began to search for ways other than hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice to make our endeavors fit our ideas on success. One such measure is the stimulus, the theory being "throw money at it and the problem goes away." It's taken many forms over the years; sometimes we throw money at the military, who go and "take care of the problem." Sometimes we throw money at EHMs, who throw money and false promises at those in the way, and then the problem "goes away" (for us). And sometimes, when that doesn't work, we simply try spending money on ourselves make us feel better about not getting our way; enter the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus packages.

The idea of the stimulus package subverts freedom because it quietly avoids the issue of responsibility. If we are free to choose our own path and insist on doing so, then we must necessarily be free to make mistakes - it's how we learn. The stimulus package is the government's way of pandering to culture, saying "it's ok, you can do whatever you want and we'll be there to hand you money when you fail; don't feel bad about yourself, be happy!" A stimulus package is subversive to freedom because it takes away responsibility of the individual, the family, and even the local and state governments to spend their money responsibly. They are in debt because they made some stupid choices, but being "bailed out" does not force them to re-evaluate their spending or to cut out unnecessary "fat" from budgets (like, why don't they try to skip on the brand-new corporate jet this year when they're laying off 10,000 people?). It simply perpetuates the problems, delays the inevitable, and ultimately makes the problems that much worse for future generations.

Let's face it; do you really want the same people to handle your health care that make you wait in line at the DMV for hours? Or do you want the same people to handle your finances that award themselves a raise when declaring a "financial crisis"?

What is all the bailout money being spent on? Well, Wall-Street executives awarded themselves $18.4 billion for a job well done. But hang on, did they actually do a good job? President Obama doesn't seem to think they deserve it, and I'm inclined to agree; but what did we expect when we handed them free money? And now we want to hand them more? I realize that there are new rules built into the measure to - theoretically - prevent abuses (for example, companies must pay their president less than $500k if they want government aid, which seems a bit high to me - why not $100k?), but it seems that they trust their rules a bit too much; the abuse of the loopholes in the rules is a major part of the problem in the first place.

This is not saying that a stimulus package can't work. However, it IS saying that the way we use it must be responsible, or else it will fail. In some ways, this package is useful(take, for instance, the money being devoted to rebuilding infrastructure such as highways and public transportation - my father, for one, is very happy about that because he sees the state of such things all the time, and they need help). However, perhaps more money ought to be devoted to the businesses that actually need the help, rather than those that are simply being evolved out of the market for building crappy products (ahem, GM) or for spending money irresponsibly (pretty much all of Wall Street). Take, for example, small businesses who are constantly forced to lay off one more worker because they can't afford the taxes on their income (I used to work for such a business), which naturally cuts back the amount of work they can do, which cuts back revenue, which perpetuates a cycle. These small businesses do not generally overspend on things they cannot afford; yet they are suffering because of the large businesses that do.

When it comes down to it, I do think that capitalism can work here in the West, but only when those who are part of the system take responsibility for their financial decisions and factor in others. Asking questions like "how will this purchase impact the people and the world around me?" are a good way to start, and then deciding to spend or not to spend based on the answers in a way that helps others, even if it means sacrifices for you. The most responsible thing we can do is consider the impact of our decisions on the world and act accordingly; that is the responsibility we are endeared with as free citizens of the world, and one we ought not take lightly.

Economics, Part VIII: Freedom

Neo: The Architect told me that if I didn't return to the Source, Zion would be destroyed by midnight tonight.
Oracle: Please ... You and I may not be able to see beyond our own choices, but that man can't see past any choices.
Neo: Why not?
Oracle: He doesn't understand them - he can't. To him they are variables in an equation. One at a time each variable must be solved and countered. That's his purpose: to balance an equation.
Neo: What's your purpose?
Oracle: To unbalance it.

I know, the Matrix trillogy has been done to death, but let's face it, the fact is that freedom is more or less THE theme of the three movies. They also happen to be a personal favorite, and this is my blog. Off we go ...

We have thus far considered the nature and the endgame of economic systems. Both have their advantages and their disadvantages, yet both tend to work to the same ends, through different means. Why is it, then, that the world continues to turn? Why haven't our economic systems fallen so far into disarray that we're all subjects to a single human power? Given our collective memory of the endless cycle of rise and fall from power, why do we bother to cooperate? The answer, I think, lies in one element in this system that we have not yet considered, an element that makes or breaks the very nature of the system itself, put to good use: choice.

Choice is what gives us our ability to go against the flow, to disregard our "fight or flight" instincts, or to do something contrary to the popular opinion of the society. We can choose to go to the store or to make do with what we have; we can throw the subsequent garbage away or recycle it or even just pitch it out the window. We can wear the popular clothing or we can wear something comfortable; regardless of the pressures placed on us from many sides - society, culture, even the laws of nature - we are still able to choose.

It was C.S. Lewis that said that predestination and free will are the same thing, two sides of the same coin. Actually, to be honest, so far he's the ONLY one who I've ever heard say this. We are hybrid beings, he wrote, born into a world of sin through no fault of our own, yet we are asked to begin making choices that will affect the rest of our own lives, even our own salvation. Our choices have consequences - destinies, as it were - and our destiny presents us with choices to be made which will make or break the path we're on. Choice is to causality like yin is to yang; the one must go with the other. Freedom, then, is our capacity to make choices, our ability to weigh the consequences and choose, however consciously or subconsciously, a course of action based upon what we perceive is the best outcome. This includes our ability to choose a couse of action that might not actually be the best outcome.

Put another way, we are not held to one set of actions. The choices we make change, and indeed, shape the very future that is so uncertain. I can choose to eat a hot dog or to eat something else or even to eat nothing at all. Perhaps I choose to wait for a while and THEN eat something. Either way, the choice is still mine; I can choose to follow the law or I can choose not to. I don't even have to eat if I don't want to (though the fact that I usually want to could tell you something about my waistline).

But in the end, there is another sort of freedom which we do not have, and that is freedom from consequences. This is the "yang" to the "yin" of choice. We are not free of causality as popular culture has led us to believe; we will reap what we sow. I cannot jump from a bridge and then expect not to fall into the river below, gravity being what it is. Every choice sets in motion other events, provides new decisions to be made and eliminates others.

For example, a choice was made a long, long time ago, but human history has reflected this decision ever since. We could talk through the story of Eden at great length, but even if the story is merely metaphor, something happened to distance humanity from its Maker. The author of Genesis records that a couple ate "the fruit" of a tree of knowledge. At some point, our species made a choice that blinded us to the consequences of doing things on our own, without the Creator. We began to think - deceived or not - that maybe there were no consequences. We were wrong.

One reason that the Incarnation is such a miracle is that God did (and does) what no one else could: he interrupted us (as a species) somewhere between cause and effect. We sin, and yet he gives us the chance to avoid the ultimate consequences of those choices, taking the penalties upon himself instead. As a missionary, I usually like to look at the incarnation for the way in which it exemplifies God making himself known and making the effort to relate to us on our own terms - in the flesh, face-to-face, sandle-to-sand. But in another way, in the grand scheme of things, this is not enough by itself. It is a lot, for sure, but it is not the whole picture. The Christian story is one in which the One who was not the cause took the effects; He removevd the consequences of the actions of another and took them upon himself. God, in essence, unbalances the equation; he alone understood the consequences of our choice and took it upon himself to give us back our dignity to choose a path, rather than allowing us to reap the ultimate consequence. The Creator found a loophole in the rules; he took the fall for the Created.

And that changed everything.

(to be continued ...)

Economics, Part V: Empire

It's been a little while since I posted to my economics series. But that's because it's a very hard series to write; the ideas are tough to wade through, the conclusions not easy to stomach. I'm going to keep working through this, and have a few more posts in mind already; here's the links back to the first few if you're just joining the conversation:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

* * *

We have seen that the inevitable result of both capitalist societies and socialized societies is the same thing: societies that, despite their philosophical differences, produce the same sort of fruit. Pure socialism, like pure capitalism, is impossible because of human nature; both evolve into a culture of oppression, created through the outworking of human greed in which some hoard the power, the wealth, and the resources. In both capitalist and socialist societies, poverty abounds, whether in its material form (lack of resources, the more common of the two) or in its social form. Social poverty is nothing to trifle with; the more disconnected a culture gets, when individuals gradually isolate themselves from one another (to maintain an illusion of independence), psychological and social tragedy is the result. If such a society is to maintain itself, it must isolate its constituents from one of two things: from the resources, or from each other.

If those few in power choose to isolate the many from material resources (which usually requires physical force, and thus requires a large military), the citizens tend to bond together out of necessity. In sociology we call this a "liminal state," where hard times (oppressive government, harsh environment, enemy tribes or nations, etc.) force a group of people to cooperate for their very survival. An interesting thing happens as a result, what Victor Turner calls "Communitas": communitas is a word that has an obvious relationship to "community" (a group of people cooperating towards a common goal), but it is far stronger than that. The community that results from this "liminality" is bonded for life. It's not that they happen to share common traits or feelings or hobbies, it's that they cannot easily undo the bond they share from overcoming an immense trauma or ordeal together. It is the thing they have in common - a shared experience upon which to base their relationships that will last through trial and tribulation.

Everyone has experienced liminality in some form. I have, several times. My wife and I moved to Australia for a while, a new place for us where we knew almost nobody, with which neither of us was familiar. The year we spent "confronting the odds" grew us together as a couple in a way that living in a place with which we were comfortable could never have done. We were far closer after a month in Australia than we were after a year and a half in New York. Another time, I went to India with some colleagues from the seminary. Every time I see them, we still laugh and joke over the experience - it happened nearly a year ago, and it was merely two short weeks, but great power for relational bonding was contained within those very difficult cross-cultural situations. This is one of the reasons that so many Americans who visit impoverished countries are amazed at the smiles on the faces of the poor; they are "happy" despite oppression. We must be careful not to mistake the amazement of the Westerner as unrelated to their own material wealth; he or she can afford to travel, which often indicates a dependence on material wealth for "happiness." Such people (myself often included) often equate material wealth (and good circumstances) with happiness, and its absence with misery; he or she cannot believe that one can be happy without material possessions or in the midst of hardship. Meanwhile, those in poverty are united by their suffering; but they still suffer. Communitas does not alleviate the material poverty, it provides an emotional and social outlet. Yet such societies take advantage of this as a justification for hoarding the wealth. The Socialized Empire decrees that it knows how to distribute the resources, who needs what, etc. Naturally, the government is "more equal" because they have the trying hardship of having to spend their time determining who gets what, so naturally they deserve a larger portion. Or something to that effect. Regardless, the government ends up keeping the collected resources for itself while allowing its people to remain "happy" in their suffering.

The (potentially) more dangerous of the two options happens when the society decides to isolate its "citizens" from one another. Now, I say "decides" (as if the society were its own entity apart from the people), but a society is both a cause of and a product of the culture - these are interrelated ideas. In some cultures (such as our own Western culture), individualism is a very strong value. The communitas of socially impoverished cultures does not come in a vacuum - these cultures are often communal in nature to begin with. Western cultures, however, are strongly individualistic. The individual is the endgame; he or she can handle things on his or her own.

The society can take advantage of this as well. By encouraging competition between the isolated units as a means of getting "better" ideas, technologies, products, etc. (and there is little doubt that competition DOES produce more enduring creative expressions), it can cause its constituents to self-motivate to work harder and harder. This works to the advantage of a priviledged few - those who have an initial edge or discover an edge in the course of their struggle - at the expense of the many. This, of course, is not really divisible into two groups, but rather is stratified into a continuum of advantage. However, the two largest groups are those who are considered in "material poverty" (those who work themselves "to the bone" to sustain themselves) and a lower-middle class that, though they have enough material wealth to live comfortably, STILL work themselve to the bone in order to achieve what the society begins to tell them is the society's dream - independence from financial burden.

And so the society is suddenly full of people working very hard to produce an awful lot, and yet none of them are a) happy, or b) helping one another. Instead, the competition gets increasingly more fierce. The few that can afford it go into politics (both Barack AND John are wealthy - don't think for a minute that either of them understand the concerns of the poor or even of the middle-class), and thus the leadership of the country becomes increasingly wealthy. What happens then? The same thing that happened in the socialist state - decisions are made based on the security of those in politics. [sidenote: yes, that goes for both parties - democrat and republican - who just approach it differently; the republicans supposedly give tax breaks to other wealthy power magnates and thus get elected by others in power, whereas the democrats make promises they can't keep to the poor, who elect them out of desperation]

Once again, how do the wealthy, now in power, maintain their lifestyle? By building up a defense network. This, of course, is where we get our military. The two parties in America rely on different means for this; the republicans want to maintain the right to bear arms, and so allow each citizen to defend his hunk of dirt (forgetting that the same armament is used to take said possessions by those in desperation or who don't adhere to societal rules), while the democrats want to ban armament (except from the hands of those they choose, which is suspiciously like a socialist military) so that nobody HAS to defend their stuff, it's just always safe (which is naiive as well; the criminals still keep the weapons - they didn't respect the law in the first place). The cycle thus circles around and around, the wealthy getting richer (now through legislation), the poor getting poorer. For sure, it does tend to take more time in this type of economy, but as we have seen, the inevitable result is a socialist state anyway, and thus as time progresses, the cycle begins to increase its speed.

This cycle of the maintenance of injustice has a name. Two flavors of society, both progressing forward in a cycle of dualism, end up in the same place: Empire. The poor are slowly pushed to the margins, and slowly made into the largest class, yet the most powerless; the wealthy, meanwhile, grow ever more wealthy at the expense of others. And nobody notices it happen until it's too late.

(to be continued ...)

Economics, Part II: Endgame

Let it never be said that our theology posits that human beings are in control of initiating salvation - God already took the first step by extending Grace to us. Grace is so cool precisely because it means we don't, can't, work for our salvation; we couldn't earn it anyway, as many capitalists have begun to think we could. Grace means that salvation comes first, regardless of whether or not we think we deserve it, a "precursor" to all that follows (contingent upon our acceptence). But the trouble is that we still have to WORK. In a socialist state, we are not encouraged to work, we are encouraged to "mooch" off the state and produce as little as is absolutely necessary. In a capitalist state, we HAVE to work (work is thus a given) and are so surprised when all we need is offered to us at the right moments that we try to pay back what we think we owe. But once again, both have their issues.

In a socialist state, there is little encouragement to produce; the state takes over distribution of resources. In other words, the few take responsibility for the many. But who are those few? What human beings can possibly make the sort of decisions that will impact the many, without partisanship or flaw? (sidenote: the irony of this is that the more liberal democrats tend to swing socialist, yet this is exactly what they accuse Bush of doing with Iraq and Afghanistan; likewise, conservative republicans who accuse the democrats of socialist tendencies want to mandate-by-law who can "marry"). In a socialist state, the products we get are utter crap - they don't work well, they break easily, etc., because there is no motivation aside from either negative reinforcement (i.e. those guys with the clubs and the tasers watching you) or your own conscience - which, given that socialist states employ guys with clubs and tasers, is obviously not someting that happens. The few control the many in order to produce. Workers learn to work the system, because there is no reward for them if the produce a few more units. We see this in every socialist society: human beings are inherently lazy, and will get out of work they are told to do if they possibly can. The socialist state creates factories, assembly lines, for everything - everyone gets the same, everyone is valued the same (except the ruling class, who are "more equal"), and the workers do as little as possible to survive: in the end, the masses are treated like dirt.

But it goes both ways. In a capitalist state, we are encouraged, socially-pressured, to compete for the goods and services for the very reason that we value those goods and services. Capitalism works through competition, rather than cooperation; when cooperation happens, it's within a group that is competing with another group. It's no wonder that evolutionary theory came out of a capitalist framework, as the two are remarkably similar: survival of the fittest. What ends up happening is that there's always that one guy or girl in the midst of us that has a little more ambition, a little more time, maybe is just a little smarter, or has the luck to come across that one labor-saving device, and so the person ends up leaps and bounds ahead of us all. What happens then? In order to keep up, the rest of the society has to speed up too, at the cost of every other part of their lives (social, familial, leisure, etc.). The few end up controlling the many, in a very different way. It leads to a sense of entitlement, to a sense that "I deserve what I have" because "I earned it" and "I worked hard."

The irony is that often, as one generation succeeds another, "I" did NOT work hard because "I" inherited that wealth; "I" has an attitude of entitlement. Likewise, one can inherit poverty as well. The American dream is one of getting ahead, of acquiring more stuff and a comfortable life, but it is an unattainable dream because the world is not made of infinite resources; those that control the resources do so because way back in time, an ancestor made a few smart decisions that would help him and thus his succeeding generations become self-reliant. Sure, we'll occasionally find the one rich guy who falls from grace after squandering his wealth, but socially speaking, it's almost unheard of. There's a certain measure of protection built into the system to prevent this, "insurance" and other scams that prey on our fears but, occasionally, do pay off. Likewise, not everybody in poverty remains in poverty. Sometimes a kid learns to beat the system, or works really hard and "makes something" of himself or herself, and can secure relative security through extremely hard work. But generally speaking, the capitalist system is one of polarization: the rich become richer, as they invest and buy up those who can't get ahead, and the poor become poorer, as they lack the resources necessary to invest and build in the wake of the wealthy. But they too find an attitude of entitlement, because since the rich inherited their wealth, why can't they give some of it to us so it will be "fair"?

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and neither feels they should have to work for it.

It is exactly the same in both socialism and capitalism - because people are inherently selfish, having been taught that way by their elders for generations (not necessarily in principle, but certainly by example), the system becomes ever-more polarized. In socialism, an elite ruling class develops to oversee everyone (and thus controls the wealth for themselves), and in capitalism, an elite wealthy class develops over generations and collects the wealth. The two systems have the same endgame through different methods but the same cause: human depravity, selfishness, and greed.

(to be continued ...)

Economics, Part I

On our way home from NY last summer, our friend Sally brought up an interesting question about gun control (she'd had some odd conversation with a Kansas airline pilot) which led back to a paper I wrote a little while ago for KCW. In my paper, I fumbled around trying to understand the differences between socialism and capitalism (and their connected political systems) and eventually concluded that neither work. But as my professor so helpfully pointed out, I mostly spent time on my own opinions and little on hard facts. I thought it was an opinion paper. Oh well, he still gave me a good grade (thanks prof!).

At any rate, it was an interesting conversation for about an hour. Sal, who comes from Australia (a somewhat socialist-ish country) wondered about the perceived American tendency to uphold our amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms (aka "you can have a gun and the government can't not let you"). In Australia, the laws are much stricter.

I worry about the tendency for socialist countries to impose ever-stricter laws upon their citizens. The main argument against such laws is that it denies freedoms, but the argument for them is that the law supposedly saves lives. In any case, no matter what guns are or are not on the market, those who wanted them enough could still get them, and then where would we be? You can't eliminate guns with the likes of the many illegal arms dealers perusing the streets (a result of the "innocent until proven guilty" philosophy). Clearly, the system is prone to manipulation. No matter which system you get, you still have those who would prefer just to do as they wish while the law-abiding citizens get screwed over for the n-th time with higher taxes (when do you think you’ll see the results of the latest $700 billion added to the national debt? Anytime soon?).

As an aside, it’s awful convenient for McCain and Obama to talk all about how Wall Street bears responsibility after the fact, but thank you Mrs. Palin, of all people, for pointing out that Americans still bear responsibility to think before they go get a loan they can’t afford … anyway, moving on …

The question between socialism and capitalism comes down to this: which is better, more freedom (thus more individual responsibility) that tends to lead to a lesser degree of justice (since the freedom is often abused), or less freedom (more laws, more enforcement) which supposedly results in fewer deaths and better justice? Which do you choose? Actually, the second option isn't even really an option; more laws doesn't actually result in better justice, they only provide more hoops to jump through for those that are law-abiding and thus aids the criminals who circumvent such hoops. Even if they were, the system can still be abused. That said, the question still stands: do you take freedom of choice, or a forced morality?

Socialist states tend towards an escalation of laws. Look towards the best-known socialist states such as China, Australia, and many south-American countries. Of the total, only one has a decently low rate of material poverty (Australia, which, incidentally, also has a capitalist flavor to its socialized economy), and the rest are hell-holes. The socialist experiment, practically speaking, seems to end in a dictatorship for one simple reason: who chooses the laws? Who unilaterally decides what is “good” or “lawful” and what is “bad” or “unlawful”? Will there ever be universal agreement on that?

Doubtful.

My professor remarked that a perfect, God-centered society would look more socialist than capitalist, but I disagree. I think that God's Economy is a fusion of the two, with the freedom to choose of capitalism and the mercy and justice of the socialist ideal. If God's the one making the laws (which are really more like principles because you're not forced to follow them, only to reap the consequences of your actions), then the laws will be just; only a perfect being could do that. Unfortunately, God's not the one governing China or Sudan or Venezuela - therein lays the province of men, and the men in charge don't seem to be doing much good for their people as God has charged them to do. God is the only one un-biased enough (another word with which I take issue, maybe I’ll write about it later) to create truly perfect laws.

And I abhor the word "fair" - the rain falls on the just AND the unjust.

Now, I see where he's coming from, and agree, to a modest extent. Capitalism too is problematic because it supposedly relies on greed to fuel its growth. Capitalism works by refusing to give people what they want or need, and making them work for themselves. In such a society, the best way to get ahead is to hoard what you manage to scrounge to yourself instead of sharing - the more you keep for yourself, the less the others have to compete with you. By the way, in my studies of anthropology, I've noticed that it's only in tribal societies that communal socialism works because a) it's a small group, b) to survive, the tribe HAS to work together, and c) the tribe ends up competing (i.e. capitalism) with other tribes. It’s like a fusion of the two. Anyway, the trouble is that capitalist values have evolved beyond mere survival; when capitalist societies become sufficiently advanced through their hard work (having generated the best ideas using a social form of Darwinian evolution), they suddenly discover they have leisure time, or a surplus of resources with which to trade. The values slowly shift away from the necessities and towards the luxuries; necessities are forgotten, the luxuries gradually become the necessities. And it is this competition that socialists tend to critique; competition inevitably leaves some behind, and nobody has incentive to take care of them, for they would simply get in the way of advancement. Survival of the fittest, and all that.

But the funny thing is, in the end, one look at the practical outcome of capitalism and one begins to see that it is essentially the same as of socialism. On the one hand, a society that kills off people to supposedly better others, and on the other, a society that kills of some to supposedly save others.

It's a conundrum - both have advantages, but both have overwhelming disadvantages as well.

(to be continued …)

Chrisitan Agnostic, part VII: Disciple

By now I hope that it makes at least a little sense how a person could start as an agnostic and end up a Christian. Perhaps Thomas' example even helps us see that it's possible to be an agnostic and still place one's faith in Christ. But - and this is directed particularly at any reader who calls him or herself a Christian - why is it important to maintain one's skepticism? Why must a person remain a Christian Agnostic once he has stepped out in faith, instead of simply a "Christian"?

The first thought that comes to mind is that it is towards our own benefit. Skeptics are ever-learning. They do not live under the illusion that they have everything together, that all the answers that are worth having have already been discovered. A skeptic is ever probing, on a journey into the mountains, its view growing ever wider, more beautiful, more complete; a skeptic begins to see connections and the bigger pictures because he has stopped dissecting the world and started building it back together. The questions asked by skeptics - disciples, really - probe ever-deeper, ever-refining the broader picture. When I said this is to "our" own benefit, I meant the plural - this is not just an individual thing, although it is that. The questions asked by the skeptic impact everyone around him, like a pebble thrown into a pond, its ripples caressing the furthest shores.

Agnosticism is really a tool, a method. It is a way of seeking answers, but realizing that those answers can never be complete. The skeptic realizes that answers only generate more question marks, not periods, produce more new subjects to investigate, new applications. How many times did Jesus answer a question with another question? To know that you don't really know, not really, is a humbling experience; when we remain skeptical, we maintain our humility towards our own abilities. We take the focus off of ourselves and begin placing it elsewhere, on the investigation of Truth. And that's what a skeptic is after: Truth. In short, a skeptic is a disciple.


A disciple does not want half-answers, to behave only a little bit like the Master; the disciple wants it just right. Skepticism not only aids us in our humility, but it also aids us in excellence. We are ever-improving, ever-growing because we see that the painting is never quite finished; we could always get the colors just a little clearer, or play with the clay just a little more, play the music just a bit better, if only we'd try one more time. It moves us forward; it does not allow stagnance or decay. We maintain awareness of our humanity, rather than becoming shells of people that find dispute with one another over the small answers. It's remarkable how often Christians proved the necessity of Christ's death and resurrection simply out of their petty disputes over a single word. Instead of acknowledging their inability to find The Answer, they allowed their own arrogance to blind them, as if God is an equation to be solved rather than a beautiful mystery that beckons to us yet is big enough that we cannot ever get to its end. That's why relationships are such an amazing image - there are always new things to learn about a person, and it takes a lifetime to learn them. Every time the world around me changes, I get to know God a little better in new circumstances.

Most importantly, skepticism helps us maintain connections with those who do not believe as we do. If Jesus was serious when he said "go make disciples of all nations," then how are we to communicate the good news and help make disciples if we do not speak the language of those we seek to help? Without a healthy sense of skepticism about our own beliefs, how are we to answer when our faith is challenged?

I've been reading Wesley this week for my Christian History class, and his answer was one of incredulity; he couldn't fathom why anyone would deny Christ, or deny God, or deny sin. Could not fathom it. It bothered him that somebody would even consider denying what was, to him, obvious. And yet he acknowledged that people still denied his message no matter how well he spoke. See, Wesley lived in an age when he could rightly assume that those things were givens, assumptions built in the very fabric of common society. Though many rebelled against it, it was still anchored within their culture to know "right" from "wrong"; a solid, universal morality still was assumed to exist, even if its finer points were debated.

But we no longer live in that time.

As Christians, if we do not understand those that we seek to help, even slightly, then any actions we take are fruitless. Skepticism of one's own position helps him see the places where the non-believer might take issue. It gives us the ability to say "well, I can see why you might think that, and this is how I've worked through the issue," or perhaps "sure, I get what you're saying, and it's hard for me too, and here's why ... but I'm still working on it." We become more real, human beings with flesh and blood and even doubts and misgivings. We remind ourselves that we are still like everybody else, that we might be wrong, and that it's not worth shedding blood over our beliefs when it's entirely possible that the other guy might be right. But it's also not an excuse to just allow them the comfort of thinking that their beliefs are just fine as they are. The Christian Agnostic does the world a favor by asking the hard questions; through the questions, everybody begins to understand reality better. If we can inspire the world to once again seek the Truth, humbly and honestly and openly, we would be in a very good place indeed. To seek is to find, and once the door has opened ... well, the story doesn't really end there, does it?

Christian Agnostic, Part V: Forward

Let's sum up what we've said so far. We can't know everything; there's too much to know and our senses, memories, and in general, our humanity just aren't reliable enough. Because of this, we have to start with the assumption and suspician that we may be wrong. The Bible is not a science text, it is a text written by people with their own cultures and their own languages and motivations that God inspired to write the way they did. And so we read the scriptures with the assumption that our own history and culture and experiences are clouding our vision, and learn to read it from the perspective of those who wrote it, doing our best to push our own culture aside until we come around to applying it.

But apply it we must. How then can we move forward as Christians? If scripture is about a relationship with a non-verifiable being based on non-verifiable history, what's the point?

Faith.

Faith is the point. As I mentioned in my first post on this, the Christian agnostic is not just an agnostic, he is a person who realizes that he must make a choice, and chooses to believe a certain way. What is agnosticism not? It is not the belief in no God; it cannot be, by definition, because that would mean having drawn a definite conclusion on the subject. To claim to believe no God exists for sure is to claim to be an atheist. While most agnostics really end up as atheists, I think there's another way to put this that might help.

Since we look at the world based on our perspective, which is generated from our history, our culture, our (subjective) experiences, our personalities, etc, it would follow that we are unable to do much about the things we believe. But human beings have proven (within skeptical reason) their ability to freely choose to change. I'm beginning to think that this applies to our cultural lenses as well. Our ability to think creatively, through the lenses of another, change our worldview every time. By inserting ourselves into the story, by placing ourselves in the midst of a worldview and immersing ourselves in a new culture, we become different, we are able to see things we never saw before.

I learned this in Australia. Despite the fact that, to many Americans, the Aussies SEEM mostly like us, they're in fact quite different. Of course there are similarities, but they prove quite effective in masking some much larger differences that run beneath the skin. Australians, for example, do not value work in the same way that Americans do. Americans view work as a way of life; we work ourselves to the bone for the chance to get ahead in a never-ending downward spiral. The Aussies, on the other hand, strongly value relaxation, so much so that their (socialist) society has build-in safeguards, such as 4-weeks vacation to entry-level salaried positions. Americans are lucky to get that, even if they work for twenty years in the same place, and often don't bother to take all four weeks for fear of "under-performing." It took me living among the Aussies to learn to see my own view of work; being confronted with an alternative viewpoint helped me to grow in understanding myself.

Since then, I've often wished that everybody could live in another culture to learn the way I did. While it's obviously impractical and more or less impossible for 350 million Americans to go live abroad for a year, I do think it's possible to recognize that within our own country, there are many cultures, and that it IS possible to learn this way. To move forward, to learn and grow in a new perspective, the Christian Agnostic must grow beyond his self-imposed borders and try something new. Hang out at a bar with some guys playing foosball, go to a football game, spend some time with the poor in the inner city ... just do something you wouldn't normally do, and keep doing it. Put yourself out in the open, at risk, in a foreign place with foreign people - even if it's just down the road.

And this is just like the way the Christian Agnostic learns about God - he suspends disbelief, as it were, and prays. I did this when I was fourteen, and was surprised when I actually got an answer. I was so surprised that I kept on conversing.

See, relationships are about interaction, and when the Agnostic moves beyond his skepticism (though keeping it in the background, an undercurrent in our stream of investigation), he begins to see the world in a new way. By taking leaps of faith into new cultures, new surroundings, new ideas, and new practices, the agnostic begins to uncover truth in a way that, as a pure skeptic, he could not. Now, understand that the skepticism must still be maintained, lest the Chrisitan Agnostic come to believe in everything that feels good. The question "why" is always helpful and should be ever-present. Agnosticism, in other words, is always a starting point. It is a baseline that gives the story authenticity and credibility, rather than a conclusion. To conclude agnosticism is pointless and leads to depression and intellectual death and despair; to begin with agnosticism leads to investigation and discovery. While the Christian Agnostic remains ever-aware that everything he is experiencing, learning, reasoning, feeling, and practicing could turn out to be wrong, this baseline allows the Christian Agnostic to further refine attitudes and claims towards and about the Truth. By ever-questioning, we are looking ever-deeper, and thus constantly growing.

(to be continued)

Christian Agnostic, Part IV: Science and the Bible

One of my biggest pet-peeves is when a Christian or a Church says "the Bible is the scientifically-accurate word of God." Now, I do understand the context for such a qualifier - science has challenged a lot of what Christians through history have assumed to be true. Galileo noticed that we're not the center of the universe, and then Einstein showed that we could be, depending on our perspective. Darwin noticed that organisms adapt to their surroundings as they change, challenging the notion that once creation happened, nothing changed afterwards.

But the context doesn't seem to prevent my irritation.

It's ironic that so much of the debate is over a book that isn't actually a science textbook. On what level do we think that Moses was thinking "biology 101" when he compiled the accounts of creation in Genesis? Who writes a science text thousands of years before the idea of sceince even existed? Who, for that matter, would do so in poetry? Poetry is reserved for the things we can't explain, not the things we can!

I also find it ironic that many of the Christian notions challenged by science are actually cultural and not really biblical; many came from medieval notions of truth, which originated in their theology. For example, the medieval notion of the earth as the center of the solar system came from theology, not the theology from the evidence. The idea was that God made man last, therefore humanity is most important (interesting that they didn't extend this to gender). Now, from a certain perspective, no, the earth is not the center. The Earth revolves around the sun - we can look up (and even GO up) and see this to be so. However, Einstein being the genius that he was, changed all that. Because of perspective, we can literally be the center of the universe again; the universe, from a certain perspective (one with its fixed reference on our planet), quite literally revolves around us. But it is ALSO true that, from another perspective (one with its fixed reference outside our planet), the earth rotates and then orbits around the sun along with seven other planets and one planetoid (sorry Pluto), along with countless moons, comets, asteroids, etc. It's not either/or because of perspective. Western culture is actually one of the few cultures concerned with what literally happened in the past; most other cultures are more concerned with how we are to act NOW, and so they tell stories FROM the past in order to instruct the PRESENT.

And so I ask, must we think that scripture is scientifically accurate? Is the reason for scripture to show HOW things are, or to show WHY things are? Science and scripture are not necessarily incompatable. Science, for example, is quickly concluding that the universe was made out of nothing, that the Big Bang had to create matter from literally nothing in order for it all to work. Christians think that too - we call it "ex nihilio" (the fancy latin term for "out of nothing") except we say that the whole thing had a cause - God. Science is still "agnostic" about the cause. But are the two fundamentally incompatable? No. Scripture never says HOW God did it, only WHY He did it (and that He did it at all). But imagine you're a person ignorant of quantum mechanics and chemical microbiology (just imagine ... it shouldn't be too hard to imagine this) and living after all of this creation stuff has happened, and then think: how do you explain it to future generations? Of course:

Poetry!

And so to extend the argument further, when we say that organisms evolve and change and adapt to their surroundings, is that fundamentally incompatable with God breathing life into Adam? Only if you have a very narrow view of a God who doesn't work with what's present to change it. And if things can't change and adapt to new circumstances, what makes you think that people can change? Why bother with evangelism or mission if we think that people will always stay as they are, born sinful? I think that evolutionary theory is quite compatable with the story of the gospel, when told a certain way:

In the beginning was The Cause, and He created the universe out of nothing. He created it with order and purpose, with complex and intricate governing rules so that the atoms and molecules would know how to interact. The universe expanded to fill the space He had created, and by His hand, the planets took shape around stars, some around several stars. One planet was just right for a particular plan, and so he made it form in a certain way; volcanoes parted the waters and created fertile dry land. The volcanic activity also cleared the poisonous atmosphere, and in a puddle of green goo, God began moving the molecules into proteins, and the proteins into cells, and the cells into all sorts of organisms. God is like a potter, molding and forming a shapeless lump of clay into a masterpiece of artistic harmony, form and function. The animals grew ever complex, until one day, in the sixth age, God's last creation came to the point where He was ready for His best creative act yet: he breathed His own life into men and women. The two enjoyed the paradise of a planet God had created, until one day, something happened that changed all that ...

Is it perfect? Of course not, but like all things, it's open to interpretation, change, and refinement. God is ever creating, building life from chaos and confusion. Retelling it this way is very risky, but in the end, after refining it, I think it will be worth it. We need to retell anew the stories for our culture in a language that makes sense to each generation, lest they become old, stale, irrelevant.

(to be continued)

Christian Agnostic, Part III: Scripture

"Is there anyone who ever remembers
changing their mind from the paint on a sign?
Is there anyone who Is there anyone who really recalls
ever breaking rank at all for something someone yelled real loud one time?
Oh everyone believes in how they think it ought to be
Oh everyone believes, and they're not going easily

Belief is a beautiful armor, it makes for the heaviest sword
Like punching underwater, you never can hit who you're tryin' for
Some need the exhibition, some have to know they tried
It's the chemical weapon for the war that's raging on inside
Oh everyone believes from emptiness to everything
Oh everyone believes, and no one's going quietly ...

[John Mayer]

I'm not a huge fan of summer school, and to make matters worse, I'm taking an online class for the first time which is turning out much as I expected it to: there have been some pleasant surprises (it seems I provoke a lot of conversation with controversial opinions), but on the whole, it's a bit rough. Suffice it to say that I'm glad it's the only online class I'll be taking. One of the aforementioned conversations that we've been having (the longest running thread to date, actually) is about scripture. What is it? How do you treat it? Who gets to say how to interpret it?

It's been tense.

And why not? Scripture is the basis for the belief of so many Christians worldwide, and so of course they want to protect it, to make sure that nobody does anything "sacriligious" to it. Truth is truth, they say, and scripture is inerrant in every way. To be clear, I have no problem with saying that - that it's inerrant, I mean. But I do have to ask, what is inerrancy? Scripture might be "inerrant" (not wrong), but what does that tell us, and how does it help?

I think what claims of biblical inerrency usually mean in context are that OUR INTERPRETATIONS of scripture are inerrant. It doesn't matter what the interpretation is, though it is usually a literalist interpretation that has little regard for anything but one's first impressions of the text. "God informs my worldview," it is claimed, "and thus I have no use for human investigation and discovery because God has already told me what it says." Most often what happens is that we start to think that as Christians, we have some sort of monopoly on Truth. And that's simply not true. The next time you go to the doctor, for instance, you're likely to be treated by an agnostic or an atheist. That's not a rule, of course, there are plenty of doctors who are Christians too ... and Hindus and Jews and Sikhs. The point is that they are very, very smart and continually making discoveries about the truths of our bodies, about chemistry and physics; they are investigating truth, and they are using it to better people.

Now, what am I NOT saying? I'm not saying that the rest of the world has salvation figured out. I'm not saying that Jesus is one among many paths to truth. I'm saying that, while a more holistic truth requires Jesus as its foundation, truth is far bigger than one simple yet necessary statement. Anything that is true must be of God because He is Truth (and that I know it says in scripture). But so many Christians resist this because it might mean sharing their perceived power over others with salvation language; it can feel very intoxicating to "know" that you are going to pardise while those around you who do not think as you do are going to some place ... else, with pain and suffering and "gnashing of teeth," and potentially, nails on chalkboard. Scripture is accorded a category unto itself; we think that because we're Christian we already know everything there is to know about the human condition because "it says so in the Bible," and all we have to do is find the relevant verse (ah, proof texting).

See, the issue is not whether somebody else is actually wrong or not. The issue is that we Christians want to be right already. We don't want to have to do the research, to go through a process of investigation and positing ideas that could turn out to be wrong ... because that would make US wrong. Furthermore, we don't want to have to rely on so-called "secular" research in the social sciences - sociology, history, archeology, psychology, etc. - because that would mean using something developed without a Christian label. We don't want to be the ones informed or influenced by those "less holy" than we are, the "heathens" who've rejected something we hold very dear (that which defines us as Christians). And so we'd rather simply confirm what we already think is true under the guise of having God "on our side" instead of taking a chance and looking through their lenses once or twice.

Searching for truth is hard; it means doubt, it means risk, it means criticism, and it means failure; it means a lot of things that make us uneasy and distort the image we want to portray of a people who have all the answers. We are uncomfortable with those three little words - "I don't know" - because those words inflict that unfomfortable feeling that we may not yet be perfect. But I have news for the Christians that the rest of the world has already figured out:

You're not.

Deal with it. Admitting this is the first step towards recovery. Or maybe re-recovery. You do not have all the answers yet. You are not yet complete, you do not yet "lack nothing," you are part of a world that is still in rebellion. This world is in the redemptive process. Your refusal to see this is, ironically, confirmation of your status as a sinner. But that's ok, there's still hope for you, you have time yet to grow in understanding and grace.

So is scripture inerrant? I think so, in the "inspired" sense of the word. Yes, God mystically, somehow (I emphasize the "somehow") influenced those who wrote the text, and that makes it good and useful and helpful and something we should preserve to the letter, but what is that to you, a mere human being with a culture and a history and a zip code? You look through a lens like everybody else, and your lens has some smudges on it (perhaps some you drew there with indellible ink) that need to be wiped away. When you read the Bible, you read it as through an opaque window; you can make out some of it, but more likely your culture and history and social influences have grown you into a person that reads things a certain way with certain biases that don't necessarily reflect God's biases.

To read scripture as an agnostic, then, is to read scripture through the lens of one who is starting from scratch, who makes every effort to draw no conclusions from the start because he or she does not live in the illusion that he or she has all the answers. The agnostic Christian reads scripture assuming that God will confront him there, but knows that God worked through particular people in particular cultures in order to create the books we read today. This isn't about taking off our lenses, it's about understanding why we have them and that we CAN'T take them off, and learning to see through them more clearly. And so we start further back than our assumptions and learn about the culture, learn about the literary elements, learn about the psychology, learn about the history ... we take apart the context and reassemble it until we understand how the authors might have thought, why they might have said things the way they did, used the images and metaphors the way they did. Those authors, the ones that God inspired, were human beings with free wills who chose to phrase things in a certain way, chose to speak to a particular people group, who had parents and kids and sore feet and sandles.

To approach it this way is to approach it with humility: you do not assume its agenda for it, but rather you learn how it was read by those who read it first, and then you begin to draw applications for our time and our little corner of the planet. In this way, you honor both the authors and the Inspiration for the scriptures. But when Christians close their minds to the outside world and its ideas, to truth in other corners of humanity, we begin a process that leads inevitably to one end: we will eventually close our minds to God.

And that is the start of our downfall.

(to be continued)

Christian Agnostic, Part II: Verb

What does it mean to call myself a "Christian Agnostic"? On the outset, the term is a loaded one, especially in today's evangelical and fundamentalist circles - agnosticism is looked upon quite disfavorably, as if it's a plague upon our nation, eroding at our values and distorting our destiny as a Christian America.

I'll get to that later in the series and why it irritates me.

For now, let's start with the basic concept of agnosticism, and go from there. To be an agnostic is to be a skeptic, to look at the world and realize that there is no possible way to know with 100% certainty anything that you want to. Our senses are not infallible; they have a remarkable tendency to fail on us from both external and internal causes. For instance, have you ever thought you heard somebody knock at the door, to discover that nobody was there? Or perhaps thought you saw something out of the corner of your eye - or perhaps even right in front of you - that wasn't there? How did you come to decide that those were hallucinations? You verified it with other people's senses that were ostensibly working well.

But why should their senses be any more accurate at that moment than your own?

True agnosticism understands that every act of belief requires a leap of faith, primarily faith that one's own senses are functioning properly and transmitting the information to one's mind in a way that is reliable and accurate. There cannot be certainty of the reliability, only relative certainty. But doubt is there, and so the agnostic is skeptical of any information he or she is given. To "know" for an agnostic, is a relative term, always heavily qualified with a statement such as "but I could be wrong, and so I continue to investigate."

However, if an agnostic was realistic, he or she would realize that taking "no position" is still making a set of belief claims. There is no such thing as a completely unbiased position, no such thing as a person that looks at the world without the influences of others or the influences of faulty equipment. Everyone has social influence, cultural influence, historical influence, and an informing worldview. In fact, to say "I take no solid beliefs" is to unconsciously take a set of beliefs and become a hypocrite! For this reason, the agnostic must still make a decision on what to believe (and a conscious decision is better than an unconscious one), and therefore must use whatever means at his or her disposal - senses (however faulty, they're all he has), experiences, investigation, and ultimately, another leap of faith - to discover the best worldview. The agnostic, though, will not cement in that worldview so strongly that it cannot be reinterpreted with new data, new input. This is not to say that every belief is ejected at the slightest whim, new information is also regarded with skepticism, especially when it conflicts with the worldview. The agnostic, in other words, is ever a seeker, drawing at best temporary conclusions, but remaining skeptical of information that challenges those conclusions.

I have chosen to put my faith in the living Triune God.

It is just as if I were to have decided that there is no God; I just happen to have experiences that testify very strongly to His existence. A Christian Agnostic, then, is one who has made the decision, in light of evidence as well as experience (and experience is a broad term that can include metaphysical realities) to believe in a "biblical" worldview. Now, what that means can be very tricky, and I think I'll wait until the next couple posts to talk about that. But suffice it to say that scripture is important.

I make no apologies for the fact that this is an imperfect worldview because that's the point - there IS no perfect worldview, at least as far as human beings are concerned. Christian Agnosticism is my effort, in a world that is broken and difficult and uncertain, to find a meaningful way of explaining the fact that I still have to live, still have to decide based on some sort of belief system. There is no such thing as "no beliefs", and you're just fooling yourself further to think otherwise. I must choose to place my faith accordingly.

You'll notice that Jesus didn't ask us to go and make believers of all nations - he asked us to make disciples. A disciple is one who follows and asks questions. In other words, Jesus expected us to forever be seekers of truth. "Seek and you shall find," he said. He was confident that our seeking would ultimately lead us to Him, as long as we didn't give up. And then we were to go out and help others begin and continue seeking. The hardest mission field for Christianity is not Islam or Hinduism, it is agnosticism for the simple reason that most agnostics are actually apathetic; they don't care about making a decision any one way and allow the currents of culture to pull them in many directions. Atheists and Muslims are far more likely to convert because they already take for granted that they believe something strongly; agnostics smile, say "that's nice" and ignore you.

It's time we contextualized the faith in a way that agnostics could appreciate. It's time we began inspiring the apathetic agnostics (and apathetic Christians as well!) to once again investigate truth because it IS important, to seek and investigate and discover in the context of a humble community.

(to be continued)

I've Been Filming

I have been so incredibly busy lately, it's ceased to be funny. I've been busy with schoolwork, naturally, and with regular work, and sometimes I eat and see my family, but mostly I've been consumed with reading and working on a video project for Doctrine. It's a fantastic project with a fantastic group of people, but it's kept me away from writing. I'll post it here when we're done, but until then, I won't be posting much. For your enjoyment though, the last project I had for doctrine is as follows.

* * *

Anna waved me over, making space in front of her in the line for the grilled cheese and hamburgers. I glanced around the cafeteria, wondering why it was that there were so many people here; the food was horrible, laden with grease. Then I repented, realizing that I too was here and shouldn’t judge people for their poor taste in culinary experience if I too was to partake. Then again, I’d been invited; they came on their own. Ah, college. After a wry grin from the chef, he slapped our meals on mostly clean plates, and we paid for our meal and sat down at a slightly grungy table, wiping the crumbs off with a napkin. We chatted in between bites. Periodically, however, Anna would glance towards my neck and frown.

“Have I got something on my neck?” I asked, wondering if the tomato soup had splattered up unknowingly.

"No. Well your head, but I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Ah. Right.”

“Actually, that necklace of yours keeps catching my eye.” Bugger. I knew it was going to come up sometime; I was wearing a cross on a chain around my neck, and ever since that class we’d taken on Ancient Roman Empire, I was wondering when Anna – an agnostic – would start asking about Jesus on a cross.

“So what’s the deal?”

“Well, it’s a symbol.”

“I can see that, you’re not hanging from it. But wasn’t that an instrument of murder? What if he’d have died today, would you wear a noose instead of a necklace?”

“You know, it’s funny,” I said, taking the necklace off, “but I never thought of it that way. Funny how this stuff gets commercialized and we don’t think about it like that anymore.” I paused, wondering what to say next. “But like I said, it’s a symbol of … well, gratitude.”

“Unpack that statement.”

“See, think of it like this. You get this credit card in the mail, and you’re pre-approved. You start using the card, only you suddenly realize that you have no means of paying it off. You’re a college student, after all.” She smirked. I continued. “So the cops come and haul you off to jail, and you come to court one day and your lawyer shows up, and he’s your dad, and he’s pissed that you didn’t follow the stuff he taught you about good finances, but in front of the judge and jury, he finds a loophole in the system and decides to pay your fine and your bail and the money back to the credit card company.” She stared at me, chewing thoughtfully.

“So this lawyer, he’s your dad but, you didn’t ask him to do that, right?” I nodded. “But … why? If he’s pissed, shouldn’t he make you pay it himself?”

“Well, he’s still your dad, he loves you.”

“And the cross, it’s sort of like the credit card statement he gets later.”

“Precisely.” I was surprised the metaphor had actually worked. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?” She looked anxious. “‘Sort of’ doesn’t cut it, dude.”

“Well, what metaphor ever works perfectly? Besides, not everybody wears a cross. Lots of people like the symbol of the icthus fish to symbolize Jesus’ life, and the Celts made this special knot to symbolize the Trinitarian God. They’re all parts of the same story.” I put the necklace back on. “But I wear the cross as a symbol of my gratitude for the bill being paid. God could take something horrible and turn it into something good.”

She shrugged, but looked modestly moved. “I guess that’s what would make Him God.”

"There’s hope for you yet,” I replied. She winked and dug into her tater tots.

Minor Government Bureaucrats

I'm studying for my eastern religions test tomorrow (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confusianism, Taoism). I don't mean any disrespect, but what I've learned officially begs the question: what is it with minor government bureaucrats and new religions? They're drawn to them like flies to honey! Buddha, Mahavira, Guru Nanak, Lau Tzu, and Confucius were all minor government bureaucrats who decided that the prevailing religion wouldn't work, so they founded their own. It's like if you're not important in any way, you decide to become important by creating a religion. It makes you wonder if some guy buried in the archives section of the National Science Museum or some lady wallowing away behind a library desk is inventing some new religion involving a comet, a squiggle, and a carrot as we speak.

Ah well. Best get back to studying ...

[UPDATE: The test kicked my patootie pretty badly, but it's over, and I'm still left wondering why it is that the guy who works in archives decided to start a new religion; could it have something to do with the tedium and having lots of time to think? If so, I think the next new religion might come out of the Coldstone in Brannon Crossing where I used to work ...]

Back to Eden

I think it's hilarious that some ministers love to pull out the Great Commission only when it's convenient, like when talking about how we shouldn't be worrying about environmentalism or taking care of our planet. In the rest of church life, the Great Commission is a statement to which they pay lip-service, evangelism a means of garnering new church members for their tithe than the restoration of human beings. I had one of those "shake your head and laugh because if you didn't you'd cry" sort of moments today in Doctrine, during a discussion on the very issue of creation-care. It inevitably happened that a few people brought up the "well it's too much of a distraction from our God-ordained mission to evangelize the world" comment that comes up in these situations.

"Too much of a distraction."

Words cannot express how angry I got at that moment. I did a decent job of restraining myself, though Dan helped too. I found something stirred within me that I've been noticing a lot lately. When I returned from India, my thoughts dwelled on the environmental damage I saw there, the garbage everywhere, the brick and mortar torn down and tossed into piles, the fires burning plastics into the air. I returned to my daily life, and on my drive to work, began noticing the new land being cleared for a wider route 68 into Lexington (to handle the growing traffic as the suburbs expand). And I just felt sad. Not that we don't need a wider road - we do - but the way in which it's being done. Instead of working WITH the land, the engineers decided instead to cut down old, ancient trees that were "in the way" (though I'm pretty sure they could've worked around most of them) and then burn them. They didn't even have the decency to use the wood for something useful, they burned it in massive bonfires.

And I felt sad.

Sometimes, when I'm too tired on my way to (or from) work, I get close to tears as I think of the waste. I'm not saying that life doesn't have its seasons, that sometimes the tree really does have to come down, but when it's avoidable?

And some people still find this irrelevant, "too much of a distraction." The very place they live is a place to exploit, rather than see the wonders of God's creative hand. They'll sing "God of Wonders" but only insofar as they don't yet need to use those wonders, insofar as their use and abuse of those wonders doesn't affect their quality of life. And the Great Commission is used as the excuse. "Go and make disciples of all nations …" is used to tell the Christian community that they don't have to be responsible with the way they live.

It bastardizes the Great Commission by saying this. What is a disciple but a person who learns at the feet of Jesus? If Jesus is the guy who walked from place to place, taking times of solitude in Gardens and on hillsides overlooking lakes, the picture of a God who creates everything good, from nothing, then I'm not sure that I'm reading the same scriptures they are. When I see Jesus care for others, for the lowest of humanity, it is never at the expense of creation. Creation is worked, improved, pruned, but never destroyed. Yes, creation is a resource for the survival of humanity; but Adam was given dominion over creation. If Jesus is the second Adam, then dominion implies servanthood, and to serve others is also to serve and maintain our planet. Where would we be without the delicate balance that is found in the created order?

Now, to be moderately fair, one of the students on that side of this discussion did mention that we owed a great deal to the environmental movement of the 1960's and '70's … but … (and there's always a "but") he thinks that the church is jumping on the "bandwagon" thirty years too late. I'm well aware that environmentalism can be a bandwagon, just like wearing crosses or attending protest rallies. But if Christians are starting to realize that they still have just the one planet, and want to take care of it, then this is a good thing! Not to mention the fact that the environment is STILL a priority in popular culture (perhaps more so, with the Global Warming debate as important as it is). If these Christians (the ones who all of a sudden seem so into the Great Commission) want to relate Jesus to this culture, then maybe working alongside those in the environmental movement (rather than against them) is a wise idea; it's like making important to you what is important to us (instead of telling them to find important only what you find important). Failing this, perhaps being concerned about the environment needs to be in the interests of self-preservation; it doesn't get any better unless you WORK at it.

But in my mind, the only real reason to take care of our planet IS God. Think of Him as a parent; a parent takes care of his kids for a while, and through their adult years as well (though in a different capacity). But in that, He teaches them to also take care of themselves. In this case, creation - both the Earth AND Humanity - must take care of itself. The environment naturally seeks balance, so the problem lies not with the earth, but with human beings. And this is what we see with God's command to Adam.

It seems significant to me that Jesus, after He was resurrected, first appeared as a gardener. If God is the creator and works with His creation as a parent, then it makes sense that Jesus is tending the Garden of His creation. Jesus died and rose not just for sinners, but for those who were sinned against - including creation. Someday, scripture writes, Jesus will return again and restore His Kingdom. But this is not simply the restoration of rule; it is a restoration of creation. Jesus moves us all back towards Eden, both body and soul, mind and flesh, man and beast, creation. As much the Coming Kingdom is the restoration of the relationship between God and Humanity, it is also the restoration of harmony between the creation and those that live in it.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I have everything I need
He lets me see a country of justice and peace
And directs my steps toward his land

[Zephania Kameeta, Adaptation of Psalm 23]

UPDATE: Found this video at the Onion on this very topic! How convenient!

China Celebrates Its Status As World�s Number One Air Polluter