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December 01, 2008
Faith : A Transcendent God
There are a lot of terms used to described God – many of them being “omni-“ words: omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. To that add words like merciful, just, loving, holy, generous, and the like.
One characteristic of God that doesn’t seem to get talked about a lot is His transcendence. God is not “in” the universe. If anything, the universe is “in” Him. Consider: God created the universe; therefore He had to exist before the universe; therefore His existence transcends that of the universe. Also since (according to relativity) time and space are intertwined and are a part of the fabric of the universe, God exists outside of space and time.
So while the ancients worshiped “gods” of mountains and oceans and human characteristics (love, war, etc.) – all small parts of the universe, the One True God is so much bigger than that.
And this is a good thing.
Science tells us that this universe is going to end, or at least be obliterated. They don’t know whether it will end in fire or ice (the Bible seems to indicate fire); but it will end. If our hope is in anything within this universe, then that hope is in vain. But our hope is in fact in someone who transcends this universe.
Still, transcendence is a difficult thing to wrap one’s head around. I have a way of looking at it that is helpful for me, although I don’t know for how many others this would be useful.
I am a software engineer, and have spent a lot of time developing computer simulations of various kinds (for the non-geeks out there, think of things that range from games like “SimCity” – a traffic and real estate simulation, to the complex simulations that meteorologists use to predict the weather). Some simulation I have developed for my employers, many I have developed for myself at home. In fact there was a long period of time where I didn’t feel I really understood a subject unless I could write a simulation of it on my computer that gave realistic results.
So when I studied macroeconomics, I might develop a macroeconomic simulator that showed the behavior of production, prices, trade, etc. I would set up an initial scenario and let the simulation run and see if the behaviors I saw in the simulation were the kinds of things you would see in real life. If they were, then the simulation was successful and it was clear I understood the subject. If not, I would keep working at it.
The simulations I tended to write had a lot of common characteristics. First, they all had some about of randomness in them – there were always minor factors in any simulation that might have an effect on the outcome but would take too much effort to simulate in details. Adding a few “rolls of the dice” in the right places is often the way to represent these factors. Second, I always had a way to save and play back a given run (repeating the same random choices in the process, so the results were the same). This was critical to getting the simulation right since it allowed me, whenever something happened that I didn’t expect, to go back and look in detail as to why it happened. Sometimes I convinced myself that it was in fact a “realistic” result. Other times it was a bug in my simulation. Still other times the behavior pointed to some way in which I didn’t understand the subject well enough (which was the whole point of doing the simulations). Finally, I always had a special interface for manipulating the data in the simulation directly. So I might do a run, and then go back and half way through change some details to see how the change I made affected the outcome.
So where I am going with this?
I tend to think of God’s relationship to our universe to be very similar to my relationship to one of the runs of one of my simulations. God is outside (and much greater than) our universe, just as I was outside (and greater than) one of my simulation runs. That transcendence includes the ability to see and understand the whole of history from His vantage point, just as I could run my simulation backwards and forwards and see each step in detail and understand what (and why) everything happens. While some digital entity (if such existed) within one of my simulations would only understand the passage of time as steps in my simulation, I could understand the whole thing because of my transcendent point of view. What’s more, God created the universe with the ability to intervene, just as I created by simulations with the ability to directly manipulate the data. On the other hand, just as I ended up using a bit of randomness in my simulations (behaviors that were not completely determined by the program), I believe (although some Christians would disagree) that God gave mankind free will so our behavior is not fully determined by God in advance.
The one thing God did that I never had the skill, time or computer power to accomplish was that God put Himself into the universe in the person of Jesus. I might be able to name a “person” in one of my simulations “Steve”; but they would never actually “be” me – I have no skill to write a simulation of myself or the time to create a virtual reality interface that would allow me to walk around inside of one of my simulations. Yet God was able to put himself fully into our universe and experience it from our point of view.
Why He would do that I will get to in a later post.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
December 03, 2008
Faith : A Triune God
I am a Trinitarian Christian – I believe in a triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. I do however understand that the trinity is a difficult doctrine to wrap one’s head around. There’s just not a good way to describe a triune God that people can relate to.
Actually, that’s not quite true.
There is a perfectly good analogy; but it is one that most Christians would shy away from using.
There are folk stories in Europe of heroes encountering two-headed giants (or trolls, or ogres, depending on the variation on the story). The creature is a single being; but it has two (or more) heads, each of which has its own brain and personality. The stories usually involve the hero somehow tricking the heads of the giant to start arguing with each other (demonstrating that they are separate persons with separate personalities) and while the heads are occupied with each other, the hero is allowed to steal the giant’s treasure and slip away.
Not a very pleasant model to use for an analogy (the fact that in these stories the two headed giants are almost always depicted as being fairly stupid doesn’t help); but in abstract it fits the concept of the Trinity fairly well. God is a single being; but He has three distinct persons with distinctive personalities. Now given that God is transcendent (see my previous post), He doesn’t actually have three “heads” since he doesn’t have an actual “body” in the sense we think of it; but if you need a way to visualize the Trinity, thinking of God as a single being with three minds is a good place to start. The biggest difference is that unlike the giants in the stories, God’s three persons are always in perfect cooperation with each other. Theirs is a relationship of perfect intimacy and synchronicity. They may be three persons; but they work together as one.
So who are these three persons in the trinity? Well, describing a fellow human in a few words can never do them justice – we are all too complicated to be neatly summarized. Trying to do that for God is impossible; but here’s my feeble attempt.
One of the persons of the Godhead is a “big picture” person, concerned mostly with things like “How things should be” and “What needs to be done”. Another of the persons of the Godhead is more of “hands on” type who is focused on doing the things that need to be done. His joy is in implementing the plans the first person comes up with. Historically, we know the first person as “The Father” and the second as “The Son”. In the ancient cultures where life spans where short and businesses tended to be hereditary, this made a lot of sense since people were used to seeing the sons doing most of the work in a business while the father (who would be “old” by the standards of the day) would provide the big picture direction from the back of the shop.
The third person of the Trinity tends not to talk about themselves much and so is harder to describe. I tend to think of the third person as a teacher/mentor at heart – one who loves training other people and who has the patience and compassion necessary to keep working with someone until they get it right (but is not hesitant to tell them when they get it wrong). We know this third person as “The Holy Spirit” – a rather nebulous term, which perhaps is appropriate since He doesn’t disclose much of himself (just as many teachers show little of themselves in class).
Not pretty, and a flawed description I am sure; but as a short summary, it's how I think of God.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 05, 2008
Books : Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians
Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians
by Don Willliams
This book is essentially an attempt at a summary answer to the question “So I’m ‘saved’, now what?” This is actually a question that most churches answer very poorly – usually all a new Christian gets is a quick answer like “Be good, go to church, read your Bible, pray, tell others” and then is left to figure out the details on their own. And as an answer to that question, the book is actually quite good. If I was a pastor I might keep a stack of these in stock to give out (although I would also hope I would do a good job of mentoring people without the book).
The author is also a long time associate of the Vineyard movement, and the book is heavily influenced by that point of view. So while I am almost 40 years past the “So I’m saved, now what?” stage, I enjoyed large portions of the book as a quick summary of what I have learn in the last 10 years as part of Vineyard churches (which is a lot). This may prove useful since on face value it seems unlikely I will continue to be involved with the Vineyard movement much longer (there are no Vineyard churches in San Francisco, and I believe God wanted Anne and I up here to be involved in the city).
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
December 08, 2008
Life : Alas poor Forry . . .
Alas poor Forry . . .
. . . I knew him, as did most of Science Fiction Fandom.
Last week, at the age of 92, Forrest J. Ackerman (“Forry” (or 4E) to just about everyone) died, and Science Fiction as a genre and as a community is poorer for it.
For those who are not SciFi fans, Forry (among many other things) was the guy who coined the term “SciFi”. He also discovered and encouraged a teenager with a gift for writing that you may have heard of – Ray Bradbury. Actually his contributions to Science Fiction as a writer, publisher, agent, actor, and collector are numerous – the media would often refer to him as “Mr. Science Fiction”- but first and foremost Forry was a fan with a heart for Fandom as a community.
I met him a couple of times at World Science Fiction Conventions, and was always impressed with his openness to talk to anyone who shared his passion for Horror or Science Fiction. He was always willing to lend a hand (or even money) to fellow fans. There are many science fiction writers today who owe their careers to a “leg up” from Forry. His home (the “Ackermansion”) was probably the best science fiction museum in the world with over 300,000 items he had collected over the years; and every Saturday, Forry opened his home to anyone who wanted to tour it (no charge). That’s the kind of man he was.
From 1959 to 1999, Forry was responsible at WorldCon for giving out the “Big Heart Award” to a fan (whether professional or amateur) who has served the community with generosity and magnanimity. I was there at LACon-IV in 2006 when the community not only gave the award to Forry; but renamed it the “Forrest J. Ackerman Big Heart Award.” No one disserved the honor more.
Forry, you will be missed.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
December 10, 2008
Books , Faith : Jesus and us losers
This post is in large part a reaction to reading Yaconelli’s “Messy Spirituality” – a short, must-read book which managed to get me crying on several occasions. But rather than do a book review, I thought I’d do my own short exploration of the same theme.
Christianity has in too many ways embraced the drive for excellence from the surrounding culture. Church has become a place where seemingly perfect people come into seemingly perfect buildings and hear seemingly perfect musical performances and seemingly perfect lectures on seemingly perfect doctrine. God is perfect and holy, and so we should all be perfect and holy when we come unto His presence. Those who aren’t perfect (or at least can’t fake it well enough) should wait outside until they get their act together.
I remember being admonished at one church to think about how I would dress and behave if I was ushered into the presence of President of the United States or the Queen of England, and that I should look at coming to church like that because I was coming into God’s presence. In theory it sounds rational.
The good news is that Christianity, at least Real Christianity, is messy. We should know that from looking as Jesus’ life. He was a devout Jew who hung out with Roman collaborators, prostitutes and notorious sinners. When it came to picking the “inner circle” of those who followed him he picked salty fishermen, terrorists, and shady businessmen – most of whom never really understood what Jesus was saying until after He died. What a bunch of losers – but that’s who Jesus liked to surround Himself with.
The people who “had their act together” never cared much for the Jesus, and Jesus only paid attention to them when they got in between God and the messed up people God loved.
It was the messed up people who understood their need, and in that understanding were interested what Jesus was saying about getting closer to God. Their trajectories then became towards God. Some had quite a distance to go; but that never seemed to bother Jesus as long as they were headed in the right direction. Those who “had their act together” were quite content to orbit God, going in circles – perhaps close circles - but never ever getting any closer to Him.
That is much of what is wrong with the church these days. It has become a place for people to pretend to be good, while it should be a place for messed up people to draw closer to God and to each other. That’s why I liked Yaconelli’s book – it is largely a collection of stories about losers who understood that what matters is showing God’s love to the world in whatever imperfect way they can manage. Like I said, I cried though parts of it.
I read another “messy” book recently, Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess”. In it he talked about how Christianity in its quest for “right doctrine” has dissected our faith, putting all of the pieces in nicely labeled jars of formaldehyde. The only problem is that dissected bodies are dead. Real living bodies are messy and move around too much to understand in that way. He argues in part that we need to learn to be a little less concerned about getting all our doctrines right and more about bringing people into relationship with God. The result is a rather “messy” form of Christianity; but it is one that is alive.
Let’s hear it for God’s losers!
Let’s get messy for Jesus!
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
December 12, 2008
Introspection , Observations , Thoughts : An overwhelming thought
It is popular these days to talk about one's "carbon footprint" – how much carbon gets released into the atmosphere to keep you in your lifestyle? How much carbon is released to produce and transport your food, clothes, gadgets, etc. as well as how much carbon is released as you use your normal mix of transportation, home heating and electricity?
As a Christian, I think I am called to be good stewards of the environment, and so there is some value in considering my carbon footprint. However, for as much as God cares about my stewardship of the environment, he cares about people much more. This led me to ponder a much scarier question:
What is my Suffering Footprint?
How much suffering exists in the world to keep me in my lifestyle? How much suffering results from the processes that produce my food, clothes, gadgets, etc. as well as how much suffering exists as a result of other aspects of my lifestyle? How many people in the world are lacking food, water, medicine because it is more profitable for companies to sell that stuff to people like me?
My answer isn't very encouraging, and I suspect most Americans, if they were honest with themselves, would have equally dismal answers. While I don't directly exploit anyone, my lifestyle is the cause of a lot of exploitation around the world.
Anne and I have tried to improve this over the last couple of years – trying to buy more of our food from sources that certify how the workers are treated, trying to avoid buying clothes that are made in countries that use sweatshop (or worse, involuntary) labor. Trying to reduce our buying of gadgets in general since as you follow the supply chains back on almost anything, it is hard to avoid minerals and the like that are obtained using ill treated workers.
What we have found is that short of dropping out and living in a commune that makes all of its own "stuff", it is next to impossible to avoid these things (and I'm not ready to drop out quite yet). I find the whole idea quite overwhelming; but I don't know what to do about it other than to continue to take the small steps I am already taking. As an individual, it seems completely beyond me to make a difference.
I do however wonder what the Church as a whole could do if we were united behind the idea of ministering healing for the hurts of this world.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
December 15, 2008
Faith : A Relational God
I wrote previously about my understanding of God being “A Transcendent God” and “A Triune God”. The resulting picture is of God being completely “other” – unlike anything we have experience with. Even God himself acknowledges that the way He sees things is alien to us:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa 55:8-10, NIV)
So what hope do we have of ever understanding Him?
There is hope, and it is hidden in one of the things that makes God so alien to us – the Trinity.
If you step back for a moment and consider what the Trinity means to God’s nature, there is one clear conclusion – God is fundamentally relational. Before God created anything, he embodied relationship: Father, Son, Spirit. Three minds in constant and harmonious relationship with each other within one being. Yes, God has power and knowledge and wisdom; but God IS relationship – it is fundamental to His nature, His identity.
I believe relationship is what has driven God’s actions from before creation. It is not possible to understand what God has done or what the Bible says about Him unless you look at it from the perspective of a being who’s most fundamental characteristic is relationship.
Consider the short version of God’s creation of humanity found in Genesis 1:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, . . ." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26a, 27 NIV)
A couple of things I want to note here: First, every English translation I have ever seen correctly translates the Hebrew here as “Let US make/create” – using the plural pronoun. God refers to Himself in the plural because He is both plural and singular – He is Trinity. However, almost as important as that is the fact that this is the only place in Genesis 1 where the plural is used – elsewhere God is only quoted as saying “Let the light/water/land/etc.” do something. So why is it important to emphasis God’s relational nature here? Because He is talking about creating another relational being – humanity. We are made in the “image” of God, male and female. Does that mean God is male and female? I don’t think so. I think the message is that humanity was designed by an inherently relational God to be inherently relational as well – that we would be drawn into relationship with each other and with God (more on this in a moment).
The longer Genesis 2 version of the story reinforces the point by a little “street theatre” God employs. First a single human was created, and God allowed that one human to interact with all of the other creatures that God has created; but the one human discovers that there are no other creatures that they can have a relationship with. Once the human understands that, once they see their own need for relationship, God splits the one human into two – a male and a female – so they can have a relationship with each other.
But their relationship is not just with each other; but with God as well. While the events described in Genesis 3:8 are horrific (humanity’s first interactions with God after Sin), there is a hint there as to what things were like before the fall. It talk about God “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” looking for Adam and Eve. You get the sense that this was a common occurrence - that God would show up regularly and interact with humanity. God had a relationship with them.
How could this be? How could a transcendent God have a relationship with simple humans? Because God created us with the purpose of having a relationship with Him. Perhaps not an equal relationship (and Theologians still debate whether there is equality between the persons of the Trinity); but a relationship nonetheless. We may not be able to understand God fully (at least for now); but we were made to understand Him enough to have a relationship with Him.
You could almost look at God having created a new Trinity – God, Adam and Eve; and just as God had a perfect relationship within Himself, He was looking to establish a new perfect relationship with mankind.
Unfortunately, things ended up a bit more complex than that – there was sin, betrayal, broken relationships and a whole lot of mess for many generations; but for now, I want to jump ahead to the descriptions of how this all will end. I’ll started by noting that the ultimate expression of relationship between humans is marriage; where, as the Bible says “the two become one flesh”. Think of that phrase in the context of the Trinity where you have three people who are one being, “of one substance” as the Nicene Creed says. The marriage union is supposed to give us some small, flawed insight into what God has always experienced in its perfected form – multiple persons in perfect unity.
Then in the Christian scriptures, it talks about the Church as a whole as “the Bride of Christ” and how, after this world is transformed into the next one, there will be “the marriage feast of The Lamb (Jesus)”. One way to look at this is that we (the church) are to be made “one flesh” with God. God’s purpose in creating humanity is to create new persons to join Him in his perfect relationship; and while our journey to that goal has not been a direct one, it remains God’s ultimate plan for us.
So, God is by nature the embodiment of Relationship.
God Created humanity with the purpose and ability to join Him in that Relationship.
Our present detour on that process will be a subject of later posts.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 17, 2008
Faith : What went wrong? (geek version)
Following on from my previous post, God (who by His Trinitarian nature embodies perfect relationship) created humanity capable of perfect relationship with God and with each other. God purpose was to join humanity into His fellowship that previously was only experienced by the Trinity.
Then something went wrong. Humanity's ability to engage in perfect relationships became broken, and in the process our relationships with God and with each other became flawed. This was a problem for God since He could no longer bring humanity into His fellowship without our making a mess of things.
So what exactly went wrong?
There is a theological explanation, which I will get to in later posts. However I note that Jesus often spoke in parables and allegories using things that were familiar to his audience. As a software engineer, I often find myself thinking in terms of computers as analogies. So consider the following a geek-parable of The Fall.
God created humanity with an operating system that was able to interface with God and others to accomplish great things as a unified community (to follow the computer analogy – like a distributed computing network where God was the control hub). But a vindictive hacker with a grudge against God didn’t want that to work, so the hacker created a virus that corrupted mankind’s operating system, breaking our ability to cooperate with God and each other. The “Sin” virus (as it became known) caused people to do things (which became known as "sins") which messed up their relationships with each other. What's more, the virus also corrupted their data files so that even if the virus was removed, they would still not operate properly.
A nice story (for the few who can appreciate it); but all it really does is give the problem a label. What exactly is “Sin” and how did it interfere with our ability to form perfect relationships?
That’s the next (more serious) post.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 19, 2008
Faith : So what is Sin?
I’ve said “Sin” is that thing which infected humanity and interfered with our ability to form the relationships with God and with each other that we were originally created to have. But what exactly is it? And how did it cause so much trouble? The following is my understanding as of today. I should note that I have been rethinking the concept of Sin over the last couple of years, and the description here may not be as polished as I’d like.
To understand Sin, you first need to understand the kind of relationships we were originally designed for. God’s plan was for a clear division of responsibilities within the new fellowship that included humanity (just as there were divisions of responsibilities between the three persons of the Trinity). There were things that were God’s responsibility and there were things that were humanity’s responsibility. Among God’s responsibilities was establishing the values of things – what was of value and what was not, what was worthwhile, what was worthless, what was "good" and what was "bad" (I’ll get back to this in a bit).
Humanity’s responsibility was to use the skills God gave us to do our part of a much greater work. You could think of it as constructing a giant mosaic or painting, where each of us was to be responsible for small sections. The picture would turn out beautiful and worthwhile because God would know each of us well enough to give us pieces to develop that we were perfectly suited for; and we would be full of joy doing it because our responsibilities would perfectly match our abilities and so we would both be challenged by the work and yet be able to succeed.
What’s more, since each of us had a small part of the whole, the picture would not be complete without all of our work. As I said, God was responsible for establishing the values of things and since each of us was necessary to complete God’s plan, each of us was determined by Him to be of equal value. What’s more, since God was solely responsible for determining the value of things, His declaration that we were all equally of value to Him meant that we were all equally of value to each other. We might all be different and do different things for God; but God said we were all of equal value, and therefore we were.
At least that was God’s intent for the fellowship of God and humanity.
If you read the story of The Fall in Genesis 3, you can see (to use my previous parable) the soul-virus the hacker used to infect and corrupt humanity. To set things up, God puts humanity into a place where all their needs would be met. But (as I said above) God says there was one thing they were not to take upon themselves – the right to judge the value of things. That right was reserved for God alone (in the story it is described as “The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”). So the bitter hacker (described as a serpent) comes in and plants a simple but corrupting idea into the minds of the people – that if humanity would take on the right to judge the values of things (eat the fruit) they would then be like God! They wouldn’t need God to tell them that they are valued; they could determine their own value for themselves!
And with that idea a seed of doubt was planted in humanity. What if we weren’t actually all equal (as God said)? What if some of us were better, more valuable? What if God is cheating us by treating us all as equals? Why should we trust God to determine our value? Why not take on that right as our own and determine our own value?
And from there things went downhill quickly.
Humanity decided to determine its own value, and in doing so rejected God's standards of value. What standard then remained to base their value on? Only one possible standard existed – each other. So people began to look for their value by comparing themselves to each other. There was no absolute sense of value (as God had provided) – only value relative to each other. One could only be "better" than that person but "not as good" as another.
Chaos ensued.
Instead of simply doing what God said, each human started to try to influence what they did and what others did to position themselves better. Sometimes individuals competed against each other. Other times groups formed that cooperated with each other to better compete with other groups. Hierarchies formed and competed against each other hierarchies for dominance. Since every individual, every group, and every hierarchy was trying to create something in which their own contribution was most important, the picture God had wanted to create with us became fragmented with multiple images constantly overwriting each other.
Even God began to be viewed as a way to establish superior value. People began to think in terms of "I am more godly than that person" or "My denomination is better than those other denominations" or "My religion is better than that other religion". Sometimes the idea of value even got inverted in strange ways with people competing to show who is more "lowly" or who was a "worse sinner" before God straightened them out. I think God weeps over how we have used Him to subvert His plan for us.
Individual sins then are a reflection of things we do to establish our own value without God. Consider the Ten Commandments:
-We worship things other than God in hope that our association with them will raise our value.-We dishonor God's name by using it to establish our value apart from His will
-We work ourselves to death to find value in our accomplishments
-We dishonor others (including our parents) to put ourselves above them
-We hate and kill those who threaten our value
-We seek pleasure in others to make ourselves feel more valuable
-We take things from others (legally or otherwise) to use them to establish our own value.
-We lie, gossip and slander each other to raise our own perceived value
-We desire things that belong to others because we think having them will increase our value.
Yet in all this, God is standing by simply saying "You are all of value because I have said it. Abandon your struggle and come back to do the work I have created you for".
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 22, 2008
Faith : Sin: Seeds, Roots, Fruits
Last Friday’s post was my first attempt at a synthesis of two ideas I have been working through as to the nature of Sin. I need to work more on how best to explain it; but I think I have the basic idea right.
For a very long time, I viewed the seed from which Sin grows to be a lack of trust in God. There is good Biblical basis to claim that. First a short linguistic digression – the term “faith” as is it used in the Bible is probably more accurately translated “entrust”. In fact the Hebrew word often translated “faith” in the Old Testament is used to describe things as varied as how pillars support a roof (you entrust the weight of the roof to the pillars) and the act of handing over your child to the care of a nurse (you entrust the child to the nurse). It is an action word that describes not mental assent (belief) but action taken because of what you believe. Belief becomes Faith when you act in such a way that depends on what you believe being true. The book of James in the New Testament tried to make this point to those who spoke Greek when it says “Faith without works is dead”.
Sin then starts when you fail to entrust God with your life. The Bible says “Without Faith (Trust) it is impossible to please
The problem with that definition is that while it may be true, it is not actionable for most people. Very few people think in terms of trusting God or not (in fact very few think about God at all, even those that believe He exists).
Over the past few years I have been exposed to another way to look at Sin – that the root of Sin is our struggle to compete with each other. That all of the bad things we do are a result of our desire to “get ahead” relative to each other. What’s interesting is that I have seen both secular and religious people who have come to this conclusion. What’s more, it is a very actionable definition – you don’t have to understand much theology to see how your actions to assert own agenda have a negative effect on other people.
So I have been working through these two ideas in my mind to see if they can be reconciled, and have come to the conclusion that they can, although I may not yet have right way to explain it. The process goes something like this: We were meant to get our identity from God – He knows who we are and what He created us for. If however we do not trust God for our identity (whether because we do not believe He exists, or because we believe he is too distant to be relevant, or we outright distrust him), then we must seek out our identity someplace else, and the only other option is each other. Without God’s absolute statement of our identity, we can only be better or worse than each other. Thus we end up competing with each other, and we struggle to find ways to move ourselves “up” without pushing others “down.” The things we do to raise ourselves up at others expense are sins; but the root of those actions is the principle of Sin which is the struggle to establish our identity without God.
So a failure to trust God is the seed from which Sin grows; but the plant that grows from that seed (like an Oak from an Acorn) is our competition to establish our identities, and the fruit of that plant are the sins we inflict on each other.
Holiness then is accepting that we are who God says we are; and looking at everyone else, not as our competition but as equal fellow travelers in this life. More on this in a later post (after the holidays, perhaps).
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 25, 2008
Faith , Writing : Christmas Haiku
The Transcendent God
Incarnate as a Child
Joining God and Man
Omnipotent God
Come as a Servant to All
Leading to Freedom
Holy, Sinless God
Dies as a Man on a Cross
Bears our Sins Far Away
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December 29, 2008
Web : Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
I have made abundantly clear in this blog that I have a great deal of respect for the creative genius of Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy’, Angel, Firefly, etc.). I am willing watch anything he writes because he has proven that even if the concept sounds strange, he will deliver a show that is both entertaining and thought provoking; and he is one of only 3 writers I am willing to say that about - the others being Brian Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies), and Tim Minear (Firefly – with Joss, Wonderfalls – with Brian, The Inside, and Drive).
Well, during the WGA writer’s strike last winter, when everyone was supposed to be “pencils down”, Joss and some of his friends and family found an interesting way to keep busy. As it turns out, writing for shows distributed over the internet wasn’t covered by the contract (this was in fact one of the issue behind the strike), so WGA writers were allowed by the union to work on internet content. Joss had this strange idea for a short film bouncing around in his head for a couple years, and convinced his brothers, his soon to be sister-in-law, and some actor friends to get together and make a 3 15-minute long shows to be distributed for free on the internet (and for a small fee via iTunes).
The result was “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” a musical about a guy who 1) wants to be a super-villain, and 2) is afraid to talk to the cute girl he met at the laundromat. Yes, a very strange concept. Actually a very, very strange concept; but this being Joss, he pulled it off. The shows were both funny and tragic; and the songs were wonderful (Joss was after all the guy behind the musical episode of Buffy, although his bother and soon to be sister-in-law did a lot of the song-work).
What’s more, it was an amazing success. Even though it was available for free on its own site, Dr. Horrible’ was the number one download on iTunes (where people had to pay for it) for 5 straight days. Time Magazine even declared it one of the “Best Inventions of the Year” (although I’m not sure what the “invention” was – I guess doing professional quality content for the web).
So why am I talking about Dr. Horrible now when it was released to the web in June? Because the DVD (available only through Amazon) just came out; and while I enjoyed the show on the web, the DVD put it over the top for me – thank in large part to one of the extras on the disc. The DVD comes with a standard commentary track with the writers and actors talking about making the show; but it also comes with “Commentary!: The Musical.” Yes, there is a second “commentary” track on the DVD that is a musical in its own right. Actually it isn’t so much a commentary on the show; but on the industry with songs like “Strike!”, “$10 Solo”, “The Guild--I mean—ART", “Nobody's Asian” and “Pick-A-Part.” The songs are cutting satire worth buying the DVD for on their own.
I’m starting to wish that Joss would figure out some way create a TV series that was a musical. I know Steven Bochco tried that with “Cop Rock” and it didn’t work; but I think Joss might actually be able to pull it off.
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