Paul's Passing Thoughts

Well, yesterday is another day in the bag. Regarding what kind of day it was, I will get to that after I describe my present life right now. It’s a mess and I am fine with that. I find life too fun and try to cram too much fun stuff into my schedule. My definition of fun is accomplishing things. Moreover, I live life like a football game: when you don’t score, that’s failure, but it doesn’t count on the scoreboard; I only keep track of the touchdowns because that’s all that shows up on the scoreboard, nothing else counts. And if I don’t keep track of incidents where I know I failed to score, you can bet I fail more to keep track of failures to score as judged by others; that’s irrelevance x 2. And we might pause here to mention yet another example of under-law thinking: it focuses on the fact that you failed to score, not an analysis of why you failed to score so that you can score more in the future. In under-law thinking, which is a religious and secular thing alike, you are destined to fail, destined to fall, and the only solution is some sort of penance. This is worldly sorrow that walks hand in hand with under-law ideology as opposed to the repentance of under-love thinking. Repentance makes adjustments and changes for the better, while worldly sorrow seeks penance in a plethora of self-punishing endeavors.

One should think about how the Bible frames the two realities, but before we look at that, I want to add something to the very, very, long list of dissapologies that define my life. I am a person of the book, and that book is the Bible. And the fact is, the two realities of under-law and under-love (under grace which is the activity of love, or love in action) have two different score boards; one only counts touchdowns, while the other only counts failures to score. The Bible states that there is a great judgement at the end of time, and those under-law will be judged there according to the law. Those under grace will not stand at that judgement. That’s why those of us under grace focus on love and not fear; we are not under condemnation. Human weakness is a hinderance to love, and not something we embrace as an excuse for what is supposedly inevitable: a fall, a failure.

And here is more dissapology: I am a thinker, and thinking is critical for human survival. This present reality is a fight to the death between individual freedom and slavery. All of reality boils down to that. This is why Christ said He came to set us free, and that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. I am far, far from knowing everything, but this one thing I know well: the enemy, which is slavery. This is an enemy that seeks to change our thinking in every venue of life: music, entertainment, school, social caste, professionalism, and friendly conversations around the office watercooler. This is why I often do something that is another thing I must refuse to apologize for: I do throw the baby out with the bathwater often and whenever possible. So, does that cause me to fail in scoring on your scoreboard? Well, get over it.

Yesterday started out with looking at big picture slavery; the Egyptian exhibit in Cincinnati. Some of the artifacts were not encased in glass and it was requested that they not be touched. Many were personal items like hair combs etc. I honored the request not to touch, and thereby denied myself of the experience of touching something that was handled daily by someone who lived 5000 years ago. But back to slavery. Like most cultures prior to the American Revolution, it was dominated by systems antithetical to personal freedom. Regarding the crux of human reality, the balance of freedom and slavery resides in the human soul and manifests itself in everything that is visible. Human government is a manifestation of the freedom/slavery reality. Others argue that this can also be framed according to life and death which is more on the theological side of things, and I would agree with that. Freedom and life/slavery and death.

Reality is interpreted through words. God created things, and named them with words. If words don’t mean things, there is no reality and anything goes. And knowledge frees the mind first, then the existence of humanity. Hence, the Egyptians made literature very complex. In fact, if not for the Rosetta stone (on display at the exhibit), till this day, we wouldn’t have a clue how to interpret hieroglyphs. There were even experts who were overseers of literature, the scribes. They were very important and highly regarded in Egyptian culture. However, this meant that the ability to communicate through literature was kept from the commoners. Ignorance and lack of knowledge is a primary tool of slavery. This is why the Egyptians believed some totally crazy stuff. It is unclear to what degree the upper echelon of Egyptian caste believed these superstitions, but suffice to say, if the commoners believe the Pharaoh is part human and part god, revolution is pretty much a dead issue. If the dark kingdom of slavery cannot keep the words from the great unwashed, they then seek to reinterpret the meanings of the words. This is why the founding fathers of Americanism made a really big deal over education: it is the sum total of freedom. They started the tradition of graduation ceremonies accordingly. Every time you go to a graduation ceremony, think about freedom. Every time you teach someone something new to them, you make them more free.

In the 400 years that the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, their literary abilities would have been all but completely diminished. This is why God did an end-around play with Moses who had been deeply educated in Egyptian literature, and why he was the author of the first five books of the Bible. It could also explain the long 40-year process in the wilderness as God knew that the Israelites were stripped of all grasp of reality except the reality of slavery.

After we returned from the long day at the exhibit, I agreed to watch a church movie with Susan. She denies that “Pure Flix” movies are “church movies” per se, but I am skeptical. I also perceive that these movies are made after the Hallmark genre of which I am not a big fan. In fact, I would rather have a colonoscopy than watch a Hallmark movie. So, we have a combination drug of church and Hallmark, but one will do all things for love, no?

Susan and I engaged in a short discussion of why these movies are called, “Pure Flix.” Apparently, it’s because the movies contain no R-rated material, are just good, clean entertainment, and have little to do with any church orthodoxy…per se. I was even more skeptical.

At times, I think it might be possible to know too much for your own good. The movie, “Moms’ Night Out,” was merely a comic version of the following church ideology:

Also in the vein of the mommy-saver Witney Capps, who states, “Whitney Capps is a national speaker and writer for Proverbs 31 Ministries, in-the-trenches Mom to four little boys and wife to her CEO. Fabulously flawed and happily transparent, Whitney offers hope to the too-tired Mom.”

The movie clearly promoted the latest trending narrative to help people better understand church, and possibly save it. For years, while presenting itself as society’s moral compass and a place where people could find real change, this proved to be nothing short of a ruse to draw people in while slowly assimilating them into the aforementioned ideology. Church is a gargantuan institution that will stop short of little in any effort to save it, and is in the midst of a mass exodus of the dissolutioned. And in typical cognitive dissonance, touts “pure movies” that are family oriented and for consumption by the totally depraved “sinners saved by grace.” Go figure. The movie screams the narrative well articulated by Tullian Tchividjian in the above video from beginning to end complete with dorky husbands. And by the way, no venue demeans husbands like church. Why? Because husbands are gifted with leading the family spiritually through teaching and example. Husbands must be disqualified as individuals who should be listened to above the church. I understand that church wives are taught to obey their husbands, but that is only as far as the husband obeys the church and allows the church to think for him.

“Gee whiz Paul, can’t you just watch a movie and enjoy it without finding a theological or philosophical fault someplace?” No. And why is that? Because I know the enemy, and the enemy of individual freedom is relentless and never rests. That includes politics also. If you pride yourself as one who is above the fray of politics, you are indicative of every sole presently occupying various and sundry mass graves peppered throughout the earth. Besides, thinking is fun. “Well, Paul, you don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.” Yes I do, that’s exactly what I want to do, and it’s also fun, and how I roll. If you want an in-depth analysis of how the church presents itself as society’s moral compass while being a bastion of evil and how its very orthodoxy demands such, I would recommend Chapters 7 and 10 of “The Church Lie.”

The true family of God does not keep score of how much we lose at love while calling ourselves “fabulously flawed.” However, the church is right about one thing: the world is drawn to that ideology because it, too, is under the condemnation of the law. The world has no objection whatever to “Beautiful Losers.”

paul