The Purpose of Clothing

On the sixth day of creation, God placed Adam and Eve in the garden to tend and keep it. In this sinless and unfallen state, they were naked. One very important point to realize in this is that they were not uncovered though. Man in his unfallen state was covered by the glory of God. When Eve and then Adam sinned, they lost that covering and were truly naked. It was at this point that God mercifully introduced clothing and even more importantly God introduced the sacrificial system. God sacrificed animals as a covering for man because of his sin.   Man was not meant to be uncovered. In his unfallen state, man thought right about the physical and had no sin. But with the introduction of sin, man lost the glory of God and needing to be covered, was given animal sacrifice as a temporary covering. Ultimately, the animal covering pointed to the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, who covered our sins.

So how do we answer the initial question?  The purpose of clothing is coverage. The coverage that God provided was because of man's sinful state and tendencies. Though Jesus has accomplished his work of atonement, we still sin, we still need to be covered. The clothing that covers us points to and reminds us of our need for Jesus' work. I believe this is one reason for the constant drive in society for nakedness. Fallen man does not want God and rejects Jesus' work. As Christians, what do we want to communicate in this regard to those around us and to God?

Usefulness

I recently started to read aloud to my children "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis. I highly recommend it, as it is one of my favorite pieces of fiction. A short dialogue between two of the characters stimulated a few thoughts. One of the ghost people commented to one of the solid people that he would consider going to heaven if he could be useful there. The solid person said that he would be of no use, but he was more than welcome to stay. The ghost person decided that he would be of more use in hell, so he returned there.

We should avoid being shocked by the response, but instead consider what would motivate such a response. Some people are driven by the desire to be fruitful, productive and busy. Others are not so much, or even not at all. I believe the key factor in this is context. Consider being invited to a birthday party for someone you love but you'll only go if you can wash dishes and clean up afterwards. This would be a weird response. Or consider taking a job at a factory, but instead of working, you spend your time witnessing to your coworkers. Doing so would probably get you fired. So the answer?  The ghost person did not understand his context.

Our responsibility then is to understand every situation that we are in and then live appropriately. We can only say that it is good to be useful and productive if the situation calls for it. And then, by all means, be productive.

This is about priorities, about understanding, and about maturity. The person who can't sit down and enjoy ones company, is not thinking clearly.

Being useful is ultimately only as valuable as it is defined by the one with the authority.

Defining Heaven

There has been a fair share of "return from death" stories where heaven is described in glowing terms. They all seem to have the same imagery. That is unless you are a Muslim or Hindu. Their "after death stories" carry the imagery of their faiths.

So as we form ideas of heaven in our own imaginations, we need to be very careful that we are doing so based on historical faith and not pop culture speculation. Even more so we need to be careful not to form our thoughts based on our passions. I had one person tell me that their mothers' perfect heaven would be a swimming pool full of beer. Aside from the nastiness of drinking something that you have been swimming in, the imagery is completely fleshly. Heaven is not about the fulfillment of our base desires. This is the kind of thing we see in Islam and Viking lore. For devout Muslim males, heaven is eternity in the company of seventy two maidens. For the Viking killed in battle, Valhalla (heaven) is an eternity of drinking and feasting in comforting warmth. Both of these images are centered on self and fleshly gratification. For the follower of Christ, heaven is being in perfect communion with God and his church, free from the battles against sin.

It is interesting to note that Scripture gives us very little description of eternal life, both the time immediately after death and the time following when we pass through the final judgment with new physical bodies, the faithful moving onto eternal life, the unfaithful to spend eternity away from the presence and blessing of God.

This, like so many others things in the Christian faith, shows us that we need to live by faith and not by sight.

Born This Way?

One of my kids printed out the lyrics for Weird Al's song "Perform this way", a spoof of "Born this Way" by Lady Gaga. Having never heard the original, I googled the lyrics and was struck by a few thoughts.

First, I would argue the initial point, that someone is born an exhibitionist. Someone may be born with a natural inclination towards acting/performing, but to appeal to "birth" as an excuse for crude exhibition is erroneous.

Second, even if someone was born with a tendency for such behavior, it still is not is valid excuse. This reminds me of Flip Wilson, back in the 70's with, "The devil made me do it." A lame excuse to avoid responsibility. I have heard of some races with a genetic predisposition towards alcoholism. Fair enough, but this does not excuse drunkenness. With the knowledge of an alcoholic tendency, one would need to be that much more careful, that much more guarded towards alcohol. We live in community for that very reason (among other things as well).  Would we excuse someone from homicidal tendencies simply because they claim to be born that way? Of course not. Claiming genetic predisposition is an easy, unverifiable excuse.

We need to learn to look to the church for our definitions and take responsibility for our actions.

PETA

After being prompted to read "Carnal Knowledge", a short story by JC Boyle, a few thoughts on activism have come to mind. Simply being passionate about something is not good or bad, in and of itself.

Activism is driven by the strong belief that something is really bad and something must be done to change that, even criminal activity, if necessary.

Animal rights, veganism, PETA and all activities in that category post an interesting conundrum in my mind. I really like animals and don't understand the interest anyone has in hunting. Finding enjoyment in killing just doesn't make sense to me. But at the same time I enjoy eating beef, pork, chicken, etc. And I don't have a problem with killing an animal so as to have meat to eat.

So the issue is that, in agreement with PETA, I believe that animals should be treated ethically. The problem comes in how ethical is defined. Clearly, my Christian faith directs my worldview, which includes eating meat, but it also includes rightfully handling all of God's creation.

So again, the question is, "Where do the proponents of PETA gain their authority to define ethics?"

What's Important

Do the things with which we are involved actually deserve the level of importance we give them?  Health and exercise, animal rights, the environment, personal rights and liberties, and entertainment, these are things to which many people devote their time and energy. The question is not, "Are they important?" but "Have we balanced all the variables in our lives rightly?"  The only way to answer this is to identify the foundational things in our life and then see if we are faithful to those, or do we merely pay these lip service because of surrounding culture or family tradition?

One could probably say that what one actually believes can be seen in how one lives, not in what one says.