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  

On this line of thought, I feel that a lot of our lives have been marked with the war experience.

Though we live in a  post-World War 2 Earth, I feel the idea of conflict on a global scale is something that has been constantly in our media and minds for the past century, millenia, existence of mankind. A life without war, is something that we are not familiar with. It is something that is unavoidable, that countries are fighting with each other, sanctioning each other–basically never living in harmony.

In addition, with the globalisation of news, our lives are no longer disconnected from the war in Sudan, or Joseph Kony abducting children for his army, soldiers dying in Afghanistan e.t.c. It’s something that has a personal connection to us on a daily basis. Perhaps, then, it is something that is difficult to imagine our lives without, without constantly watching the blood splattered over the 6 o’clock news, and the bold letterhead on the news-stands on the street corner. It’s a central part of our life: conflict.

I feel the constancy of war and conflict in our lives, conditions us to think a certain way–that violence is a viable way of resolving conflict. Not only that, but that other paths don’t lead to the same resolution, that is, the only way to really solve a conflict is the way that we’ve been conditioned through the news and media: violence. This is unfortunate. I would argue that it is shallow to imagine that everytime we approach a conflict, the ultimate resolution is violence as most countries seem to do and support. I think a lot of why violence is so popular and equally terrifying is the finality. I feel more often than not, war is the process of rising to the top of the scrap-heap, because when you get to the top it is very profitable.

War makes assumptions. the largest of which is that good and evil in this world is black and white. More often than not, the victors/aggresors are  the ones that write the history. I wonder what a different world of difference it would make if  Soviet Russia had triumphed in the Cold War, or what if the Cuban Missile Crisis was not resolved. As someone not living in the USA, I would argue that, though the lesser of two evils, America is not the darling we want to think it is. That having won the Second World War, and creating a better, albeit imperfect, world, but this is the same America that used South Vietnam as a puppet, and used torturing techniques like water-boarding on many war criminals.

The Antithesis

Therefore, it’s a world of conflicted, imperfect people–some good, but none perfect. We are capable of doing a great amount of good, but we are all deserving of violence and a conflict that wipes us off the earth. I feel that in Christ we are provided with a solution greater that makes all else on this earth pale in comparison. In many ways it is an inversion of the human system of good and evil, in that, it proclaims we are all evil, and makes us good.

God is both the aggressor and the forgiver–forgiving the evil, and punishing the wicked. He forgives all the evil inside of us, and sanctifies us to goodness. He separates the wheat and the chaff carefully leaving only the good to prosper. I feel as when we try to become the aggressor, or we try to be the forgiver, we try to play God. Whether on a individual level, or a country level–no one can read people’s hearts, and no one can cast the first stone.

The One who can cast the first stone, gave the greatest solution–He sent His perfect Son for the imperfect world. He who takes all our evil, all our violence, all our conflict, all our suffering away from us, so we can love our neighbour and pray for our enemies with a pure and clean heart. Therefore, on this earth we should be transparent in our dealings as Christ died for all our hidden sins. We should seek reconciliation and peace before we start to wield pitchforks and hate as Christ died for all our hate and anger.

In application, truly, the Gospel supercedes ourselves with an everlasting peace.

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.

Moreover, while on the topic of mission, I feel I have to define a lot of the terminology sharply, in case of mis-comprehension. A lot of what we define as missions, is just humanitarian work–people need to differentiate more clearly between the Great Commandment to love God and our neighbour, and the Great Commission. One was a general command, and another was a specific command to the Apostles. I think it is an important distinction to make between the two, and focuses our work, and the work of the Church better.

There was a time ago when someone on twitter referred to short term missions as a “holy vacation”. I feel I can identify a lot with that–a lot of the time there is a disconnectedness between our lives and *their* lives–whereever we would visit. Whether it be children in Kenya, or unbelievers in Europe, I feel that the knowledge of the transient nature of the trip is not really in the spirit of missions. I don’t think that missions was ever a short term thing and that God’s mission is anything less than a lifetime calling. Boiling it down to its essentials, the intention of short term missions is to satisfy the shallow rootedness of our modern culture.

Call me simple, I still think it’s amazing to twist the tap and seeing clean water to come out–not in meager droplets, but in full flow. It amazes me continually opening the fridge door and pouring out milk from the carton, I’m still looking for where the cow is. How does a fridge even stay so cold? It all blows my mind. This land which we live in is a world away from people who have so much less than what we have. I don’t really have the words to say how peculiar this Western world we live in is. It’s always changing. I’ve been reading a lot on the character of Malcolm X this year. He’s a fascinating character. But the world he in inhabited was vastly different from the world today, and that was merely 40 years ago.

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.

I have a lot of issues with the post.

The main issue is that people will constantly fail if we try to fight it by ourselves. We can rid ourselves of pornography, but we’ll start lusting after other women, or we’ll find our dopamine addiction in other places–being jealous of other people, lying in our relationships, using the Lord’s name in vain. The bottom line is, the post doesn’t state that it is impossible to walk in this world without sin with an individualistic worldview, absent of the communion of believers and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit constantly. The answer is God, only and always God.

1) It’s a secular worldview on a Christian magazine.

This is perhaps my biggest problem. There is nothing in the post to differentiate it from a secular self-help magazine. Besides, the message of the article that is anti-pornography–the applications for breaking the bond of pornography are largely focused largely on human betterment, instead of God glorifying. That is, holiness attained is not for the glory of God and enjoying Him better. I’m not saying the human betterment, and glorying God are not correlated, but the first purpose of our lives is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him. The applications and profits of not being addicted to pornography are hopelessly unrelated, and against what the Gospel is preaching.

I think the article would be acceptable as part of a secular publication–in fact, I would be slightly impressed because, honestly, apart from a Christian worldview, I wouldn’t see a problem really with pornography. The problem with pornography is it is a cultural thing. The article doesn’t separate the Christian from the secular, and it therefore dilutes both views. Defeating pornography essentially requires the Holy Spirit, and a disconnection from the World which tempts us.

While there is an element of human responsibility in our lives still, sin changes form and we can chase wealth, image, status–all of these which takes us away from God. Charles Spurgeon talks of the sin of pride:

“Sometimes it is an Arminian, and talks about the power of the creature; then it turns Calvinist, and boasts of its fancied security — forgetful of the Maker, who alone can keep our faith alive. Pride can profess any form of religion; it may be a Quaker, and wear no collar to its coat; it may be a Churchman, and worships God in splendid cathedrals; it may be a Dissenter, and go to the common meeting-house; it is one of the most catholic things in the world, it attends all kinds of chapels and churches; go where you will, you will see pride.”

I feel if we do not preach the Gospel that forgives all sins, we are preaching much less than is sufficient to help people be healed. By not preaching for people to live apart from the world, I feel we are preaching much less than what the Gospel demands.

2) The substitution of “addiction” with sin.

Am I being nit-picky? There are connotations and stigmas associated with both words. Though, I would argue that psychologists who use the word “addiction” are meaning something different from when Mark Driscoll uses the word addiction–there are strengths and weaknesses of both words in relation to each situation. Therefore it’s kind of difficult, but I’ll attempt to explain the difference:

Addiction is simply a weak or bad person making a bad choice. It’s a man-centric concept, which reduces decisions made to purely voluntary behavior. Jay Adams states that: ‘The idea of sickness as the cause of personal problems vitiates all notions of human responsibility’. This demonstrates how disconnected the concept is from God, and insufficient in acting as a synonym for sin.

Sin is a God-centric concept, and has a direct relationship to our relationship with God. That is, sin is what brought us out of the Garden of Eden and sin is what makes us have to toil the ground and have pain in childbirth. Sin is why the world is messed up and apart from what God’s plan are. Sin is why I am so messed up and the Church is messed up.

There is a solution to sin, and that is believing in Jesus Christ, and repenting of our sins. That is the key, I think. If we are continuing in a secular dialogue, there is no room for dialogue. The solution to addiction is what the article has stated–positive thinking ; but if it is not working in synergy with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives convicting us of sins, it is useless and damning. To reduce pornography to merely an addiction is robbing us of the efficacy of the Gospel on our souls, and the greatness of forgiveness of sin.

3) The bigger picture

The article misses the grand plan that God has for sex. I feel that this too is often what is absent in discussions about other sexual issues like homosexuality and pre-martial sex. The post is so intent on saying: “PORN IS BAD”, “YOU ARE A BAD PERSON”, and “YOU NEED HELP”, but it misses the glory of sex. I feel as Christians, we are always guilty of just rubber stamping anything with sex on it with a R rating. Any movie with that mentions a bad word is immediately shut down, so much so that whatever glory there is in sex, that we put a bushel over because we are afraid of it. Yet, it is a very real and beautiful part of our lives–so beautiful that we fail horrifically in differentiate between the sex and pornography enough.

Sex is a vastly different creature from pornography. Pornography is perhaps one of the most loneliest things on this earth, while relational sex is the most intimate. To reduce the reasons not to watch pornography to dopamines rewiring our minds is reducing all things to relativity. The reality is that sex generates dopamines, eating food generates dopamines, breathing air (I’m pretty sure) creates dopamines, and all of these should be avoided because it might wire our brains to continue living?

On the topic of sex, dare I say it…I am excited? But so many Christians seem to be so closed up to it, and afraid to discuss it. But really, if we aren’t talking about it and engaging with the topic with honesty and openness, the only place we are going to learn about it is on television and on the internet. It’s the unwillingness to educate and define the boundaries, contrasted with the tendency to remedy and restrict–this makes Christianity seem full of rules. But to understand the great plans that God has for us, in our future spouses (or blissful singleness for those called), I don’t know why we would want to settle for anything less. I don’t know why we would continue to hide it.

This post was mostly written for Prisca’s Voice (follow her!) and I always wanted a reason to exposit a lot about my views on how Christian treat the subject of sex (if rarely).

“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. 

Pride is a thing which should be unnatural to us, for we have nothing to be proud of. What is there in man of which he should glory? Our very creation is enough to humble us; what are we but creatures of futility? Our frailty should be sufficient to lay us low, for we shall be gone tomorrow. Our ignorance should tend to keep pride from our lips. What are we, but like the wild ass’s colt which knows nothing? And our sins ought effectually to stop our mouths, and lay us in the dust. Of all things in the world, pride towards God, is that which has the very least excuse; it has neither stick nor stone upon which to build.

Yet like the spider, it carries its own web in its bowels, and can, of itself, spin that web which is used to catch its prey. It seems to stand upon itself, for it has nothing besides its own web on which it can rest. Oh! man, learn to reject pride, seeing that you have no reason for it; whatever you are, you have nothing to make you proud. The more you have, the more you are in debt to God; and you should not be proud of that which renders you a debtor. Consider your origin; look back to the hole of the pit where you was dug out of. Consider what you would have been, even now, if it were not for Divine grace. And, consider, that you will yet be lost in hell if grace does not hold you up. Consider that amongst the damned, there are none that would have been more deserving than yourself, if grace had not kept you from destruction. Let this consideration humble you, that you have nothing on which to ground your pride.

Again, it is a brainless thing as well as a groundless thing; for it brings no profit with it. There is no wisdom in a self-exaltation. Other sins have some excuse, for men seem to gain by them; avarice, pleasure, lust, have some reason; but the man who is proud sells his soul cheaply. He opens wide the flood-gates of his heart, to let men see how deep is the flood within his soul; then suddenly it flows out, and all is gone — and all is nothing, for one puff of empty wind, one word of sweet applause — the soul is gone,and not a drop is left. In almost every other sin, we gather up the ashes when the fire is gone, but here, what is left? The covetous man hath his shining gold, but what has the proud man? He has less than he would have had without his pride, and is no gainer whatever.

Oh! man, if you were as mighty as Gabriel, and had all his holiness, still you would be an downright fool to be proud, for pride would sink you from your stationed angels to the rank of devils. Bring thee from the place where Lucifer, son of the morning, once dwelt, to take up you abode with hideous fiends eternal damnation. Pride exalts its head, and seeks to honor itself; but it is of all things most despised. It sought to plant crowns upon its brow, and so it has done, but its head was hot, and it put an ice crown there, and it melted all away. Poor pride has decked itself out finely sometimes; it has put on its most gaudy apparel, and said to others, “How brilliant I appear!” But, ah! Pride is, like a harlequin, dressed in bright colors, you are all the more foolish for that; you are but a gazing stock for fools less foolish than yourself. You have no crown, as you think you have, nothing solid and real, all is empty and vain.

If you, O man, desires shame, be proud. A monarch has waded through slaughter to a throne, and shut the gates of mercy on mankind to win a little glory; but when he has exalted himself, and has been proud, worms have devoured him, like Herod, or have devoured his empire, kill it passed away, and with it his pride and glory. Pride wins no crown; men never honor it, not even the menial slaves of earth; for all men look down on the proud man, and think him less than themselves.

Again, pride is the maddest thing that can exist; it feeds upon its own vitals; it will take away its own life, that with its blood it may make a purple for its shoulders. It saps, and undermines its own house that it may build its pinnacles a little higher, and then the whole structure tumbles down. Nothing proves men so mad as pride. For this they have given up rest, and ease, and repose, to find rank and power among men; for this they have dared to risk their hope of salvation, to leave the gentle yoke of Jesus, and go toiling wearily along the way of life, seeking to save themselves by their own works, and at last to stagger into the mire of fell despair. Oh! Man, hate pride, flee from it, abhor it, let it not dwell with you. If you want to have a madman in your heart, embrace pride, for you shall never find one more mad than he.

Then pride is a versatile thing; it changes its shape; it is all forms in the world; you may find it in any fashion you may choose, you may see it in the beggar’s rags as well as in the rich man’s garment. It dwells with the rich and with the poor. The man without a shoe to his foot may be as proud as if he were riding in a chariot. Pride can be found in every rank of society —among all classes of men. Sometimes it is an Arminian, and talks about the power of the creature; then it turns Calvinist, and boasts of its fancied security — forgetful of the Maker, who alone can keep our faith alive. Pride can profess any form of religion; it may be a Quaker, and wear no collar to its coat; it may be a Churchman, and worships God in splendid cathedrals; it may be a Dissenter, and go to the common meeting-house; it is one of the most catholic things in the world, it attends all kinds of chapels and churches; go where you will, you will see pride. It comes up with us to the house of God; it goes with us to our houses; it is found on the mart, and the exchange, in the streets, and everywhere. Let me hint at one or two of the forms which it assumes.

Sometimes pride takes the doctrinal shape; it teaches the doctrine of self-sufficiency; it tells us what man can do, and will not allow that we are lost, fallen, debased, and ruined creatures, as we were before. It hates divine sovereignty, and finds offence at election. Then if it is driven from that, it takes another form; follows that the doctrine of free grace is true but does not feel it. It acknowledges that salvation is of the Lord alone, but still it prompts men to seek heaven by their own works, even by the deeds of the law. And when driven from that, it will persuade men to join something with Christ in the matter of salvation; and when that is all torn up, and the poor rag of our righteousness is all burned, pride will get into the Christian’s heart as well as the sinner’s — it will flourish under the name of self-sufficiency, teaching the Christian that he is “rich and increased in goods, having need of nothing.” It will tell him that he does not need daily grace, that past experience will do for tomorrow — that he knows enough, prays enough. It will make him forget that he has “not yet attained;” it will not allow him to press forward to the things that are before, forgetting the things that are behind. It enters into his heart, and tempts the believer to set up an independent business for himself, and until the Lord brings about a spiritual bankruptcy, pride will keep him from going to God.

Pride has ten thousand shapes; it is not always that stiff and starched gentleman that you picture it; it is a vile, creeping, insinuating thing, that will twist itself like a serpent into our hearts. It will talk of humility, and chatter about being dust and ashes. I have known men talk about their corruption most marvellously, pretending to be all humility, while at the same time they were the proudest wretches that could be found this side the gulf of separation. Oh! my friends,youe cannot tell how many shapes pride will assume; look sharp about you, or you will be deceived by it, and when you think you are entertaining angels, you will find you have been receiving devils unawares.” 

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.

We are essentially the products of generations of confusion, unaware of how and why we do the things which we do. And, somewhere along the way, we encountered “life”. At some point in time, we transferred from being conscious dead to alive. Who can map out the time? Who had a watch to tell when we began breathing not only air into our lungs, but our souls started comprehending the beauty of the world around us?

There was a mnemonic in high school about defining life. MRS GREN is a arbitrary way that we have devised to define living and non-living organisms, that is to say, that humans are the masters of knowledge of whether you are alive or not. We are alive because we move, respirate, sensitive, grow, reproduce, excrete, nutrition–we are promoted to the status of “living”, and we can legally begin to self-consciously understand the world as what it is.

But what does it mean to be alive?

Which mutation was it that changed our world? Which frame of consciousness was it, that our worldview might radically change through the bite of the fruit. Did the thought of Adam and Eve disconnect us, or the bite of the fruit? At one point we were blissfully unaware in our existence, and the next we were jarringly aware of ourselves imposing on the world. I feel perhaps, we draw this line of “alive-ness” with too much definition. A line that is perhaps too hard to define, and defining the line defeats the purpose of having it. Why isn’t life, just life, and as we progress to become more complex and we become more aware of how alive we are.

Our walk into complexity is marked with a greater consciousness of our own imperfections and seeking the atonement for the chaos we find in ourselves. I see the Christian conversion experience as the moving from one world into another, and beginning the journey of understanding our complexity and obscurity of our existence in the context of a infinitely complex God who provides the cure to our chaos. Sin marks the human experience, and I feel the only antidote to this continuing mutation on the soul is Jesus. The rewriting of compounds constructs a bridge to peace, but falls under its own weight.

In Christ on the cross, we find the reconciliation of our past sins, and a symbol of our chaos, and the direction of our eternal journey. 

image source

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. 

It’s an amusing premise where Ricky Gervais discovers the first lie, and people are still believing him to be telling the truth. The first lie he perpectuates is that he is black and his name is in fact [insert someone else's name].

While he happily inhabits this little world for a while, he’s suddenly called to his mother’s bedside. He is struck with the brevity of life with his mother is dying, and fearful of what happens after death. He muses how she would live and then she would never come back  into this world again and an “eternity of nothingness”. I found the scene on youtube:

What he creates is the greatest “lie”: the notion of a heaven where “you go to your favourite place in the whole world”–a simple nirvana/heaven concept.

While I feel it is a very intelligent critique and satire about the origin of Christianity and various other religions, born out of a will to make death more palatable and desirable, I feel it is largely one-sided. To me, the story is inspiring to what joy and happiness there is for a Christian after death–that there is no fear moving from this world to the next. I feel as Christians we often forget how great a story that God has revealed to us. After this scene in the hospital, the news spreads that he knows of what happens after when you die, and people are still convinced that every word people speak of is true. Crowds gather all around his house and nighttime vigils wait for the very sight of Ricky Gervais to exit the building.

The desperation and the hungriness for the Gospel is evident. People want and need the Gospel constantly. I think Christians always forget this, and how much the world is in need of the Gospel. I feel we often have a narrow focus in “missions”, and the target is not only the poor in Africa, but also the man standing on the corner, the man behind the counter when we buy our energy drinks. Every man is curious about where we are going beyond this lifetime, and whether there is hope for every man. I feel that is the question that everyone is asking, but as Christians we have the keys to the Kingdom, and we have the Holy Spirit residing in us–what else is there stopping us from telling the truth?

My question is this: In a world of lies, what if heaven is the only truth we can hold on to?

What if everything we believed in, and built our lives upon was the lie that we have been perpetuated? When our eyes are opened to see how society has been constructed in such a way that is diametrically opposed to God, we realise that heaven is not a lie constructed to make death more palatable but a natural destination for our present sanctification. That is, the truth of heading to the most beautiful place our minds could comprehend is a growing reality every day as we grow closer and closer to God.

I feel Ricky Gervais has religion right in some aspects, but he has the issue upside down: the world is built on lies, not on truth. The premise is that we all are born in sin, and in need of the truth to bring us to reconciliation. I believe that as long as God can see into the deepest recesses of our hearts, then He can see how much we need heaven. It is not a lie that is only for people on their deathbeds, but a truth to build our lives upon.

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.

Democracy to me, is largely the ability to give the greatest illusion of power to the people, while the top tier of government stays about the same.

There are great many obstacles in my mind that don’t really match up in my mind. To summarise:

(1) I think Shane Claiborne says it best when he argues that the world we engage in is at odds with the Kingdom we live in:

“Today the logic goes something like this: ‘Calling a ruler Son of God is out of style. No one really does that nowadays. We can support a president while also worshiping Jesus as the Son of God.’ But how is this possible? For one says that we must love our enemies, and the other says we must kill them; one promotes the economics of competition, while the other admonishes the forgiveness of debts. To which do we pledge allegiance?”

Where do the two binaries interact, is there a dialectic between the two? The Bible does affirm that while we are here on this earth, we are under the leadership of this land we live in. But does voting for the leader of this country have an overlap with the Kingdom of heaven and how we engage with it? I can understand paying taxes, and obeying the law in the country. But even when Daniel was prohibited from praying, the law of God overruled the law of man. There is a hierachy, and finding the point where the two come together, I am going to contend, is not defined well enough.

(2) The second point is rather related to the first. Granted, I get past the barrier of the two Kingdoms fighting each other–if I was to vote, who would I vote for?

“What Would Jesus Do?” is an oft used phrase. While not applicable in all situations, is there a party that Jesus would vote for? I am going to argue that Jesus wasn’t a socialist, nor was He a capitalist–with those options taken away, where is there left? I’m left standing in the polling booth, and just wondering.

I am not Jesus, I don’t know whether we should save money to weather the economic crisis or to decrease the Official Cash Rate to increase small businesses. I don’t know whether God needs me to continue His will within this world, but He can work completely without me in it.

A lot of questions. I’m open to any answers.

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

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?

“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.

The greater meaning of these words is revealed in the New Testament when Jesus refers to himself as the stone that was tossed aside (Mark 12v.10). When Jesus said these word, he said it knowing that the Jews he was referring to would stone him and eventually kill Him (not Jews specifically of course, the whole world killed Jesus). There is a simple irony in that the stones that they picked up were not the right stone with which to build the heavenly Kingdom that Jesus was talking about. The Kingdom requires builders, not murderers.

Even with all the adversity that Jesus was experiencing in his ministry, through the passage that Jesus quotes, he tells that we should be of a cheerful heart when we are tossed aside by the tides of life and the world. Jesus knew the reaction of the Jews would be negative and they knew that Jesus was referring to the Jews and especially the chief priests and scribes who had rejected Him.

I believe there is great cheer to be taken in adversity. That we can wake up everyday, and find a reason to get out of bed for a purpose. Jesus talks of a cornerstone, and if life is built around the cornerstone of Christ, our building changes. No longer rotting rafters and squeaky floorboards, but we can live in this rusted out vehicle called the human body, and live contentedly in this world that is offering us something false.

Moreover, I feel we approach the Christian life with such prejudice that we would want to have it some way–that we have a preconceived idea of what Christianity should be like. Rather, it’s liberating that we should be free from what our expectations are, and we open the Bible to read of something radical and disconnected from this world. The way that I’ve been mulling it over in my head is that: “we expect Christianity too often to be ordinary instead of extraordinary”. In weakness, there is strength and in strength there is weakness.

“These are the best days of my life. Note to self: don’t take them for granted.” (via Stephen Collins)