The Antithesis of The Centrality of War And Violence In Culture

I had to bite my tongue in class when the topic of war came up.

I find that my views on war and violence are often quite controversial. I suspect that it is because they are controversial, that people are not always willing to hear them. Furthermore, people seem to not like opinions which span more than one sentence. They like black and white views on life–I am a Democrat, I am a Calvinist, I am a Cessationalist, I am a capitalist etc. More often than not, people don’t have the patience or time to hear a full exposition of how my view of war has been formed and evolved through time to arrive at what I believe in this. With this in mind, I think with any opinion there is a time to voice them, and there is a time to be silent. I also think there are clear opinions on war, that are reflected in our society.

It is unfortunate, because I would argue that the evolution in the history of someone’s thought is immeasurably more interesting than the final opinion that one finally arrives at. John Piper in Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian talks about how his initial views on race were shaped and influenced by growing up in a conservative culture in the South. As he grew up, he began to realize and change how he saw the world in a profound manner.

The Status Quo  

Comprehending Short Term Missions

In many things, I have learnt not to be too caustic towards other people. I often adopt this tone when I really dislike something–under the guise of sarcasm, I make very disparaging remarks, and the lines between where I’m being serious and joking blur. Unfortunately people get offended easily, especially when something as sacred as the modern pilgrimage to overseas countries, is questioned. It is certainly something that is important as being born again for many Christians today.

A lot time has to be spent at the beginning of any conversation exerting that I was generalising. I wasn’t talking about all missions trips, and I wasn’t judging any specific one. It was a general trend that I’ve been assessing and thinking about, not any specific trip I was thinking about.

Pornography and Our Insufficiency In Discussions

In this post, I am mainly referencing this post by RELEVANT Magazine.

I tweeted a few days ago (a few weeks ago now) that the natural conclusion from a post from RELEVANT Magazine on pornography was to never have sex again because it could cause us to become addicted to dopamines. The post is centered around the idea of the brain producing dopamines when we are stimulated by various activities. In this particular post, Internet pornography was targeted as producing dopamines, and through repetition, we slowly are wired into a routine in our mind.

To break out of this routine is increasingly difficult, as the brain “learns” to act a certain way, causing compulsion and addiction.

Charles Spurgeon on Pride

An excerpt from a sermon delivered on August 17, 1856 by Charles Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark on the topic of “Pride and Humility”. I find paraphrasing a useful exercise for me, so I have done some editing, removing “thy” and “thou”s from the text, as well as some liberty in the substitution of archaic words and phrases. Nevertheless:

“In the first place, pride is a groundless thing. It stands on the sands; or worse than that, it puts its foot on the billows which yield beneath its tread; or worse still, it stands on bubbles, which soon must burst beneath its feet. Of all things pride has the worst foothold; it has no solid rock on earth on which to place itself. We have reasons for almost everything, but we have no reasons for pride. 

Defining Life In Amongst The Chaos

Life is chaos.

We began in chaos. If we were to subscribe to evolutionary theory, we were a few atoms forced together by chance from a million others emanating from a cosmic bang producing hydrogen atoms. From the combinations forming from the random contact of atoms, compounds happened. These compounds multiplied, and continuously bumping around, mistakes happened, and mostly, we reached a dead end and most compounds decayed away. But some flaws worked in our favour and we changed somewhat to slightly different structures and the better compounds overtook and dominated over the older versions of the compounds. From the diversity of compounds became life. Life started off as simple, then complex life forms. Life is merely bumping into each other, and making more offspring, and moving further and further along the evolutionary cycle.

If we were to subscribe to creationism, we were conceived as very good beings from the dust of the earth. Yet, we are fundamentally tainted by the chaos, that is, power and the ability to sin against one another and against a Holy God. Through the fruit eaten in the Garden of Eden we have been forced to live a life without the direct providential care of God, and we are returned to working the earth for little fruit. It is the chaos we find, when we find our relationships strained because we have rejected the life of God for much less.

We are highly flawed beings, whatever theory we subscribe to.

The Invention of Truth

I’ve been catching various fragments of the Invention of Lying. 

My brother has been watching it on the hard drive recorded off the television. It is a relatively old movie and was released quite a while ago, but I haven’t mustered up the inspiration to sit down and view the entire movie.

The premise of the show is set in a world where no one knows how to lie, and this is fraught with philosophical impossibilities that I don’t really understand. The idea of the movie is that “telling the truth” is limited to speaking frankly, and without restraint. This limits the idea of truth to an impossibly small circle, whereas people are not allowed to be genuinely mistaken. Moreover, what if people know the truth, but are not compelled to voice the truths? Is that not considered lying, unless we are all naturally gossipers and to not gossip is to lie to our human nature (I could live with that).

Anyway, Ricky Gervais lives in a world where everyone tells the truth, no one has discovered how to lie yet. 

Christians Voting In Government Elections

Recently, I voted in the New Zealand elections.

…reluctantly, I might add. My parents had to drag me to the voting booth, kicking and screaming. I don’t even think I filled out the form correctly. I only read later that you were strictly supposed to tick the box, not colour it in–I will never know if my vote was valid or not. The whole idea seems ridiculous to me, that my vote could be opposed by someone else who had no idea and choose the funniest name.

The Transient World of the Aeroplane

There is a certain feeling of claustrophobia that sets in when sitting in a plane. 

Sitting in a plane at 2.30 am and knowing that there is another 8 hours of suspension in the air–typing on your smartphone to try and pass the time. There is a feeling that this is only a transitory world, and at that, a mind-numbing purgatory. Yet, the knowledge of this temporary existence reminds you of the depravity of the human body.

Next to you, is the solitary snorer on the plane, the problem is the only time he seems to snore is when you’re about to nod off and fall asleep. Behind you, there is the man who insists on playing Angry Birds on full volume–he can afford an iPad but not headphones apparently. With the symphonic cackle of birds and short-breathed groaning like the sound you make when repeatedly told your pet cat died, conspiring to cause me grief, frustration is becoming an appropriate word.

Moreover, there is a brooding helplessness knowing your brother is asleep next to you in the aisle seat. There is zero chance of escaping down to the toilet. I don’t even need to go to the toilet–it’s evidence of how much I worry perhaps. The fear of never being able to get out in the situation that I need to go to the toilet, even if only to vainly stare into the mirror for a few seconds. Feeling taken from all sides, in a seat that is too small for me, there is a sense of being trapped by adversity and this world is too small. Sitting in the plane, I feel very big in a small world.

The fear of my cramped feet terrifies me, it’s not so much that they are cramped–I slouch down to fit my feet neatly under the seat in front of me–but that if they were cramped. I’m not a claustrophobic person, but any person in a plane should seem to be prone to many fears not previously known coming to the surface of my conciousness. In the previous world, where we were on holiday–that is quickly forgotten as we take on our depraved state hoisted in the air–so quickly things change that nothing in the previous could have prepared us for. Helpless is the feeling when I spend too long thinking about the present–it seems to make us forget of the future where we would finally make it home.

Forgetting the destination, the existential longing for freedom begins to amount to a lot less. People become contented with walking down the aisle as their form of heaven, people think that a glass could contain all the waters of the world, and the food is from the banquet tables of kings. The thirst and the hunger become contented with crumbs and shadows of beauty and wonder. There is much frustration, but there is a hope that this world is only temporary. I feel that many people seem to want to embrace this world of flight with buying seats with more leg-room and seats that bend backwards flat, with greater choice in meals, with greater entertainment systems. Yet, I feel they are only strawmen as we approach in for landing in this new world.

Stepping off the plane the present worries are lost and the kingdom in the air is forgotten. In the scale of this world outside of this aircraft, the petty trials and temptations are lost–almost ridiculous in a way that they are quickly forgotten. We are home and rest is finally found. Heaven is this world we emerge into, the past will be forgotten, as we emerge into resplendent glory and infinite freedom in Christ.

“Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” Psalms 27v.14

Keeping Christmas in Perspective

I feel sometimes people fight all the wrong battles. 

People arguing about Happy Holidays over Merry Christmas especially. They have grown so overblown that it become irrelevant from its true rooting in Christ’s birth. Merry Christmas is in the larger scheme of things only a small part of what Christmas is. Is Christ diminished if we do not wish people Merry Christmas, or is Christ more manifested in other places? In other words, is this the Gospel? I am convinced if we continue to fight these meaningless battles, and all we are seen fighting is over these things, it begins to define us. And I am sure the Devil would be glad to see us fight over these little things instead of fighting for the sake of the Gospel.

People often say that the Devil is so successful because people don’t believe he exists, but equally dangerous is to believe he exists but not to destroy the work of the Gospel.

I think people fight for too little if they are fighting to maintain a Christmas story, without looking at the larger picture. The Christmas story  can sometimes be so deeply entrenched in tradition that we can almost become lethargic in how we carry it on. Then perhaps, it becomes almost acceptable for non-believers to treat Christianity as nothing more than tradition of a time long ago. People often complain that Christianity is not relevant enough, and this is true because we aren’t living and engaging actively with the complete story of Christmas.

Christmas is more than just a merry time and a feel-good nativity story, it is more than a woman giving birth to a child in a manger.

 

“If you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
” Isaiah 58:10 (English Standard Version)

Have been diminished the power of Christmas that it is merely a time of the year, but a daily reality and sanctification?

Building Contentedness Every Day

“This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

These words came from King David in the Psalms, it speaks of the thankfulness he has toward God, because He is the source of all things (Psalms 118:24). And whether, this thankfulness is arising from the circumstances at the time that he found himself in, or in the greater goodness and grace that God bestows on us continually. David shows how there are a great many things we can be thankful for. It is this thankfulness that arises from answered prayers and knowledge of the saving hand of God.

Through the notion that God is the source of all things, he proclaims that we should rejoice. The context speaks of a cornerstone that was rejected and the builder tossed aside. While this could apply to his own situation, that it seemed to him that he was the stone that was ignored and set for destruction, God saw him and lifted him out of his sin.