Environment

Contrary to what may seem obvious, this post is not about environmentalism.  A very large (and legitimate) concern in many cultures today is concern over the environment.  We are concerned about the quality of the air, the quality of the water (both fresh and salt water), we are concerned with the quality and health of the atmosphere, we are concerned with climate change.  With the exception of the last one (a buzzword really), we ought to be concerned with the creation that God has given us.
But I believe, even more importantly, is the spiritual environment in which one lives.  It is very easy to see the quality of air (smog), the quality of water (clear or clouded) and the changes in global temperatures.  But what is not easy to see, unless one has been trained to see, is the spiritual quality of life.  This is especially true in the US.  The United States, supposedly a Christian county, presents an image of freedom.  But with freedom comes responsibility and we are not responsible.  We use the freedom we have as a license for sin.
When someone is free to flaunt sexual perversion as a right, the mentality of the culture has gotten away from thinking Christianly.  The last thing I am arguing for is a draconian state that crushes anyone and anything that disagrees with it.  That would be bad.  We no longer live under the law as they did in the Old Testament.  But this does not mean we are then free to indulge in whatever our imaginations can conceive.
Ask yourself, what is the spiritual environment in which you live?  Does love for God and love for neighbor control and direct the culture?  Or is the culture motivated by comfort and entertainment?  Try to step back, look at the spiritual health of your environment by comparing to the life Jesus taught and the life that the Orthodox church teaches.  We are all a long ways away from faithfulness.

The goal

Why do we think that life should be comfortable and entertaining?  We go to school/university in order to get a job that we enjoy so that we can have enough money to be comfortable and entertained so that we can retire comfortably (i.e., stop being productive) and entertain ourselves.
It seems that most people (the culture in the USA) is built around comfort and entertainment.  But this is not a Christian attitude.  When one works through the New Testament and hears the words of the saints throughout church history, we do not hear a promotion of comfort and entertainment.  In fact, we hear the opposite.  Our lives should be formed in a way that our first thought should be how to love God and love neighbor.
Would we consider giving up our comfort if we could use our time, money and energy to provide for the needs of others?  Would we lower our standard of living so that someone else could actually eat today, so that someone else may have a place to sleep, so that someone else could learn a skill in order to provide for their own needs?
We have become so accustomed to our present way of life that, unfortunately, we cannot even conceive of living with less comfort, so that someone else can simply have their foundational needs met.  Think of the story of Jesus and one of his disciples watching people give money at the temple.  Jesus praised the old woman who gave out of her need and criticized the rich man who gave out of his abundance.  In other words, the giving of the rich man, though objectively a large sum of money, was nothing to him, as he was still fat and comfortable.
This is a topic I am really struggling with and thinking about.  How do I live in a way that is consistent with the faith I claim as my own?  We should not be idealistic, as it typically fails, but instead, we should be realistic and faithful.  We need to understand what the church means, what the church has historically taught and practiced and strive to emulate this.
We cannot allow mediocrity and ease to control and direct our lives.

A practical objectivity

We need to start living by acknowledging that certain things are objectively true. Contrary to the typical sentimentality of modern American evangelicalism,  God actually is king of the world, Satan has actually been defeated and Jesus actually died for the sins of all men.
What does this practically mean?  It means that when we sin, we are rejecting the leadership of God,  we are following a defeated rebel and we are submitting to sin that genuinely has no power over us. We sin, practically speaking, because we want to. No one is forcing us. No one can make us sin. Forced sin is not sin.
We far too often fall down and wallow in our sin because we don't make use of the tools that God has given us for our sanctification.  Prayer,  confession,  repentance, worship,  and the sacraments.

Time and the proper identification of literature

For many years I held to a literal interpretation of the chronologies of the Old Testament.  So often people will make of the mistake of limiting their interpretive options to two, either a literal understanding of Scripture, or a nonliteral.  But this is a false dichotomy.  We are not restricted to only two options.  As is the case with literature, you must read the particular genre within its own rules.  One does not read poetry literally.  If someone says that they only have eyes for one particular girl, this is not read in a scientific sense, as if their eyeballs are only functional when around the one specific female.

When one reads a cookbook, one does not do so for romantic reasons or with the goal of understanding the world better.  The Bible, in the same line of thought, is not just a book.  It is a collection of letters, histories, poetry, apocaplytics and instructions.  You have to know and understand what it is you are reading.  One thing I like to say, when responding to those who say things like, no one in their right mind would read the Bible literally, is this.  The Bible may speak of things scientific, but it is not a science book and it was not given to us to teach us science.  The point of speaking about creation is not to give a science lesson in Newtons laws or the such.  It is to communicate that God is the creator and we are his creatures.  There is a specific relationship between us.

This brings me to the chronologies found in Scripture.  When we understand that the chronologies were not given to be a science or sociological study, we can understand that we do not need to read them literally, in order to read them honestly.  First, the chronologies were given to communicate that mankind has been descending from the singular Adam and that the sinful nature that we have inherited from is really truly part of the nature of man.  Second, the chronologies communicate that Jesus is truly a man.  A living, breathing, from the line of David, man.  He was not a ghost, a literary figure or a creative collection from various peoples imaginations.

So ultimately, we can read the chronologies in Scripture as chronologies but because they are not communicating scientific fact, we do not need them to be generationally succinct. There may be gaps.

Choosing our culture

There are two events/circumstances in history that I find particularly interesting. First, during the 4^th century, when Constantine came to power and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, the response of many Christians, was to flee into the desert. An odd response?  Not really.  They did so because the Christian faith, now no longer illegal and frowned upon, became, the opposite.  It was not merely acceptable, but presumed.  It became easy.

The second is the time immediately after the fall of Constantinople.  The fall of Constantinople came by the hand of militant Islam.  The Christians in Constantinople responded with, “We would rather live under the domination of the Muslims than the heresy of papal Rome.”

The Christian faith is anything but easy.  This time we have on earth is not for our comfort, for our entertainment, or for our distraction.  We have been given this life so we have time to repent.  The world around us wants us to buy their story, their interpretation of things.  But the world is lying to us.  It is not proper for Christians to build their lives around comfort and play.  Our life is a battle.  We are fighting against the world, the flesh and the devil.  So much of our time and money is spent on gratifying our whims and passions. 

These two events make we wonder.  Is it right to live in easy, comfortable America, when doing so only seems to water down our faith and blind us to the battle that we ought to be engaged in?  It is interesting to me that the Christians that live in poor or dangerous cultures are the Christians whose faith is the strongest.

Verification

To be able to verify the accuracy or “orthodoxy” of any particular belief, one must apply an objective approach.  The question is, “Does this belief agree or disagree with what the church has always believed and taught?”  To answer this question, one must use logic, analysis and criticism.  One cannot “feel” their way to an answer, for to even formulate an answer, the work of criticism must be performed.  In essence, to say, “I just don’t feel right about that” is irrelevant.  It does not matter how one feels.  What matters is what the church says.  And in order to identify what the church believes/teaches, one must examine and compare, i.e., critique the item in question.

Self Analysis

How do we critique our own perspective/understanding of things religious/philosophical/relational?  Our lives and thinking patterns are formed by a vast multitude of environmental experiences and genetic markers.  Some of these are good and others are not.  How realistic and how possible is it for us to see past these to an objective standard by which to critique them?  To use a metaphor, “can we see our own eyeball? Yes, but only if the reflective surface is accurate.”

I would suggest that the standard must originate outside of ourselves.  In other words, we must submit to an objective, verifiable and external standard if we are going to escape the inevitable circularity of only working internally.  Being your own judge and your own standard will inevitably reduce the the bare minimum.  One will be content with what one is content with. 

Happiness defined

What does it mean to be “happy”?  There is the unselfish answer of “knowing that we have made others happy”, but that only pushes the question back one level.  Who defines “happy”?  We can say “the church”, but then the first answer of “knowing that we have made others happy” breaks down.  We would only then be happy if the happiness of the other was defined by the church.  If someone else’s “happy” is self-centered and passion-based, then we will have failed.  We will then not be happy, as the happiness of others is false and we have not achieved.  Nor should we want to achieve that which is contrary to what the church believes and teaches to be true.

But maybe achieving “happiness” is not actually the goal of the Christian life.  Happiness may be a short sighted and selfish goal.  If we are, instead, supposed to achieve holiness, regardless of how we feel, then our lives will be one of struggle, repentance, tears and suffering, as the world will not understand us, support us, or care for us.  Even those closest to us will probably not understand, as the pursuit of holiness seems to be a rare occurrence.

How Things Are?

There is the reality of “how things are” and the hope/passion for “how things should be.”  There is the recognition of “how I think things should be” and the reality of recognizing my own limitations of knowledge and understanding.  Therefore, what I perceive to be “how things should be” and what may actually be the truth of “how things should be” may be different.  Resolving the difference between them is difficult, as 1) one needs to recognize one’s own limitations and 2) one needs to learn to see where to turn for help in order to find the actual “how things should be”. 

Then there is the problem of addressing or not addressing someone else’s “how things should be”.  All versions of the truth are influenced by our own desires, passions, interests and sinful inclinations. No one has perfect vision or understanding, so we are left in a position of doing the best we can, while trying to be humble but at the same time “wise” with what we have to work with. 

Subjective or objective?

What does it mean to “love your neighbor”?  The further along I go into the Christian life, the more often this question keeps coming to mind.  And I’m afraid that I might not have the right answer.  It would be interesting to ask this question to a variety of “authorities” and see if there are differing answers.  Before jumping to conclusions, one must remember that one’s current culture, upbringing and personality all will have some effect on what we think is the answer.  For example, one response could be, “treat others as you would want to be treated.”  Does that then mean that if you prefer to be left alone for the most part, then you should leave others alone?  From the people I know, most prefer company over seclusion.

One thing that comes to mind is the relatively recent concept of “the five love types”.  I wonder if this system of categorization has any bearing on this question.  To suggest so, it seems to me, would be to make love subjective, rather than being objectively defined.  Which is, of course, a terrible slippery slope to start down.  But if “loving your neighbor” is objectively, then it can be objectively defined and therefore successfully (to some degree or another) carried out.  It would be nice to have a tangible definition in hand.

Impositions and Expectations

There is much talk, nowadays about allowing ones children to choose their own faith and not to impose ones own faith upon them.  Personally, I think that line of thought is rubbish, as a child, a teen, or even some young people cannot think clearly or deeply enough to work through all of those implications.  But that is not the point of this post.

My question is more one of expectations.  When we consider our own level of maturity, both mentally and spiritually, how often do we contrast “that” level with the level of the child we are raising?  Is it reasonable, at all, to expect our children to understand or embrace the spirituality of our particular point in life, in the same manner as we?  Why would an immature child even be close to our level of maturity when they have been “at it” for a far shorter time than we?  Yes, there is the very real aspect of influence and practice, to which they have been exposed, which differs from our own (often times), but there is still the reality of this little person growing up, and having a personality of their own, that will influence them.

What is the point here? Our children are not us, they are their own people and they therefore need to embrace the faith for themselves.  It is our responsibility to raise them as faithfully and consistently as we can, despite our own shortcoming and sinfulness.  Our sins will affect our children.  We must determine how we can minimize this as much as possible.  We need to communicate to our children that our success or failures in living the Christian life must not be the standard by which to judge the validity or value of the Christian faith. We must communicate the perfection of Jesus Christ and make that the model to emulate.

In retrospection

It is fairly easy to look back over history and see the good things and the bad things that various individuals have perpetrated over time.  I just finished reading, “The Search for God and Guinness”, a biography of Arthur Guinness, the founder of the Guinness brewing company.  Arthur was an incredibly loving, philanthropic and Christian man from mid-19^th century Ireland.  The book is an amazing history of the almost unbelievable good that Arthur did for his family, his workers, his town, his nation and the world.

With that book in mind, I began to wonder about the good deeds people do.  We can look back and marvel and how much good the many people accomplish over time.  We can look and see how they fulfilled the needs that were around them.  The hard part is to look forward, from our own perspective and wonder how we can strive to accomplish something similar.

I think a large part of the answer lies in recognizing the actual needs of those around us.  We can look back at the absolutely miserable living conditions of those persons in 19th century Dublin (for example from the Guinness book), and see that a real need was present.  We can look at war torn regions of the world today and see a tangible need.  But what about 21st century United States?  We are going to have to look at the culture around us with historically Christian eyes and learn to discern.  We must learn to know what life is supposed to be like and then respond with the tools and the passion to do something about it.  

The greatest problem in the United States, in my very limited opinion, is that of complacency and comfort.  Huge masses of people, comfortable and distracted, who do not even realize how spiritually bankrupt our nation has become.

We must respond.

Entertainment

The thought just occurred to me regarding the possibility of valuable entertainment.  Up to this, the culture in America has been dominated by, directed by and controlled by, the secular media.  This may not have been much of an issue in the distant past, as most culture in America had come from and was still largely directed by a foundation of Christianity.  The practical end result was entertainment content that was not contrary to Christian morality.

But the thought started occurring to me regarding value.  While the content of some entertainment may not be contrary to Christian sensibilities, this still does not make it necessarily valuable.  There is the whole question of distraction and the use of money.  It comes down to a question I asked years ago, (basically, should the focus of our thinking be “it’s not sin so it’s okay to do?”  Or do we say, it’s not helping me love God and neighbor, therefore it’s not okay to do.”  This brings up the imagery of how close we can step to the line of sin without actually sinning.)

So the question of entertainment is not is it sinful or not.  That question should be relatively easy to answer.  1) Does the entertainment promote sin as good/fun/right/acceptable?, 2) Does the entertainment fill our thinking with sinful images?  If either one of these is “yes”, then its obvious how we should respond.

The bigger and more foundational question should be, “Is this thing helping me?”  There may be an argument for stepping back from our monumental responsibilities for a moment, taking a break, taking a vacation, getting some rest.  If so, then there may be some grounds for a short, temporary distraction.  But even then, I would guess that many of us take this too long and too far.

Why not make some effort to make our choice of entertainment something that is actually beneficial and potentially fruit bearing?  Is the idea of using all of our time to generate something of valuable really all that unreasonable?