Reader lukepop left an excellent comment to my Embracing Crisis post that I’d like to respond to here. Here is what he wrote:
a ’slave’ to revolutionary love? I thought it went, ‘the truth shall set you free’?
what’s the difference between this alleged slavery to music and your current admitted slavery to religion? as a former Christian, I fail to see how that is better.
addiction to music may be bad, but dogmatic religion is worse, regardless of how ‘revolutionary’ it is branded by modern evangelists to be.
Sorry, lukepop, that’s “Christianeze” irony. Let me explain.
Just like Muslims, I believe that “true freedom is surrender to God.” How? Well, it works something like this. God designed and created humans, and then he told us the best way to live (he gave us the owner’s manual). When we live in opposition to God’s recommendations (and do the opposite of the manual’s “Warning! Do not use this product to…” statements), we actually become less human, and our free will becomes captive to things like addiction (to drugs, music, praise, routine, etc.), living under increasing deception, etc. But when we choose to trust that God knows how we should live better than we do, and when we obey him, that is when we can truly be alive and fully human. Surrender to God isn’t surrendering to a dogmatic system of religious rules, it’s surrendering to a mindset wherein we are totally free to be who we really are, rather than some shadow of who we were meant to be that is corrupted by sin and brokenness and addictions.
Consider, for example, the pursuit of wealth. It might seem that a capitalist society has given me great freedom to work however I want and make as much money and get as much stuff as I want. But in the pursuit of wealth, and happiness via wealth, I actually become a slave to my possessions. I constantly worry about how I am going to keep all my stuff, how I’m going to get more stuff, how I’m going to keep up my standard of living, etc. My free will is imprisoned by my stuff and my wealth, and it keeps me from acting in total freedom. But if I surrender to God and submit all my possessions to his purposes, I am free from any hold my stuff could have over me, and I can act in who God really designed me to be.
The above case is also an illustration that “true power is having nothing to lose,” which is not a Christian principle but it does explain why Osama and radical Muslims may have more power than George W. Bush. And it explains how Christians could be the most powerful force on earth if they chose to live with the revolutionary love of Jesus Christ. What if all Christians gave up their excess wealth to feed the poor and combat AIDS? What if all Christians took to the streets, found the homeless and the abused and the prostitutes and invited them into their homes to love and care for them? What if all Christians responded to hate and violence not by destroying their enemies (in the Iraq war, for example), but by laying down their lives as Jesus did? What if all Christians focused on winnowing away the sins in their own hearts instead of judging the sins of others? What if all Christians ascribed unsurpassable worth to everyone they met instead of being critical on petty matters? If Christians actually loved the way Jesus did, they would be the most powerful force in the world; and not the type of force that comes over people and forces a change in their behavior but not their hearts, but the type of force that comes under people and encourages a transformation of the heart by way of relentless, sacrificial love. There is nothing more powerful than agape love! But it is so rarely used.
Thanks for your comment, lukepop. Let me know if it helped.
November 30, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to write such a full answer: sometimes I forget why I used to believe in the power of Christ’s love as passionately as you do, so thanks for reminding me.
Because I don’t believe in a god, I question the teachings of the Bible. Although I admire some of the teachings of Jesus himself (e.g. ‘loving your enemies’ is one revolutionary and extremely useful concept), I find the idea of succumbing to various Biblical teachings unnatural and wrong.
For instance, the Bible condemns homosexuality. I know quite a lot of homosexuals who obviously feel that their practiced sexuality is simply them living naturally: they are ‘programmed that way’. Scientists would tend to agree with them. Yet most Christians (understandably, if they follow the teachings of the Bible) do not. This seems to me a dangerous dogma that is partly to blame for the lingering hatred of homosexuality in wider society – not exactly liberating.
The fact that the Bible contains so many contradictions (just look in the Gospels for chronological and other discrepancies) is proof that what it says is not literally or universally true. Perhaps God changes his mind about things?
Also, if this love is so powerful, why don’t Christians behave in the admirable way you describe?
Apologies: this has turned into a rather self-indulgent post about various reservations I have about Christianity generally – but why not air these things, I suppose?
Thanks again: you even ignored my little dumb subversion of your blogging-name.
Luke.
November 30, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Bravo! Well said. Now pray we can live it.
November 30, 2006 at 10:24 pm
lukepop,
Homosexuality is a very difficult topic for me. Christian gay-bashing and moral pettiness provide powerful arguments against the church. Christians are outraged over gay marriage and Janet Jackson’s tit, but rarely get outraged about, oh, children being traded as sex slaves in the U.S. We ignore sins that are prevalent in the church (like greed and gluttony), and focus on the sins of those we’ve scared out of the church anyway, like gays and drug addicts. And we are incredibly judgmental, always spending more time trying to stop others’ sins than trying to abandon our own.
Moreover, the Christian church as a whole does not meet people with sacrificial love. Instead, we meet broken and hurting people with judgment, disgust, anger, and political force. This is particularly true of abortion and homosexuality, and it grieves me.
Be wary of the research on homosexuality. It has been grossly misrepresented in the popular press, just like global warming. Researchers often report findings, and explicitly state that “this does not actually indicate that homosexuality is purely genetic,” but the popular press will report it as “proof that sexual orientation is genetic!” And, the research on homosexuality is very recent and not well-replicated.
So at this point, I’m trusting God that far less than 100% of the determinants for sexual orientation are genetic. It seems most likely to me that there is not a “sexual orientation gene”, but that orientation is the result of an interaction between many genes as well as development (especially early development), just like personality and intelligence.
Now, why would God judge someone for something to which they are heavily predisposed? But this is no different than any other sin. We are all predisposed to sin through our sinful nature. Some are more predisposed to certain sins than others, for example alcoholism. Others will be especially predisposed to certain sins because of early development; for example, most sexual abusers were abused as children. As the writer of Christian FAQ puts it:
“But this is not a new or strange idea. I was born with inflated aggression and a short temper, probably due to a shortage of one brain chemical or another. Society still expects me not to punch people in the face, no matter how strong my inborn urge to do so. I am also a married man. Due to biology and testosterone that I was born with I often feel sexual desire for women that are not my wife. In both cases you would expect me to overcome my natural, inborn urge. I have the natural urge to eat but that doesn’t excuse me for stealing food off your plate. You expect me to suppress the urges, to turn them to the proper use.”
And, homosexual orientation is not sin, but acting on it is sin; just as a predisposition to alcoholism is not sin, but getting drunk is.
I trust that God gives us the law for our own benefit. He designed us, and he knows what will produce life and what will destroy life. He designed us as man and woman to complement each other, and to do sex any other way is destructive. I trust the omniscient God to know better than human psychologists or sexologists or philosophers.
And I believe God offers freedom, redemption, and transformation to homosexuals, just as he offers these things to all us sinners. Surely, such a process would be extremely difficult, but by all accounts it has happened thousands of times before, and the power of Jesus can overcome anything. And, based on my reading of Jesus’ words, I suspect it is easier for a homosexual to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it is for a rich man (enslaved by greed) to do so.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on all that, lukepop. Anyway, moving on:
I do not believe the Bible is inerrant, and I wrote a post about it a while back.
Why don’t Christians love as Jesus did? Much of it is the deception of the enemy. Much of it is the fallen, sinful nature of humankind. Much of it is the way Constantine hijacked a Christianity of sacrificial love with a Christianity of domination and bloodshed in the 4th century A.D. (It’s more complicated than that, but Constantine provides a good marker.) But really, I don’t feel competent to discuss this. Perhaps even after 2000 years the way of Jesus is still too revolutionary for people to swallow.
I very much appreciate the discussion you have initiated and are pursuing.
Actually, I found your screen name subversion clever, since “prog” is, to me, short for “progressive music”, which is sort of an antithesis to “pop music”.
I look forward to your reply!
December 2, 2006 at 8:25 am
Whilst I agree that homosexuality probably does stem from more factors than genetics and that people could – if they felt compelled to – act against their urges, I fail to see how it is destructive, especially in the modern age. Homosexual sex, given the right health precautions, is not destructive, but simply does not produce birth of more people. We live in a world of (or at least near to) overpopulation, so everyone continuing to multiply like crazy would be a recipe for needless mass death. That seems to me more destructive.
As for its ’sinfulness’, I cannot agree, simply because I do not take the word of any god as truth, and the word of God is the only argument you’ve put forward. Unless the act were actually harming someone, say as an act of spite intended to cause jealousy, I could not condemn it as morally bad because I see no victim.
Your arguments are rooted in a solid belief in the existence and word of God, which I do not have. We could put forward arguments on any subject and this simple thing would dramatically separate our outlook. I suppose it’s still interesting to do so, though!
Thanks, loving pop (and prog not so much, maybe excepting Lindstrom and Radiohead),
Luke.
December 2, 2006 at 10:08 am
According to my current conceptualization of sin, “destructive” and “sinful” are synonymous. But I don’t think I’ll be able to argue you into agreement that homosexual sex is destructive. Such a belief requires faith in God.
May we both come ever closer to truth and life.
December 5, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Initially I was concerned at your logic about homosexuality (inside me I was crying out: God said not to do it! what more do you want?!) but when I read about your conceptualization of sin – that He doesn’t want us to do things that harm ourselves, because of His love for us – then I saw that your logic is gentle and caring.
Good stuff brother. I enjoy reading your blog.
December 22, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Just FYI — not all Christians think homosexuality is at all sinful. The passage has been translated in many different ways but if you go back to the original, it is not ambiguous, it does not refer to homosexuality the way it is practiced today.
December 22, 2006 at 6:01 pm
lukeclass:
What do you mean by “[the passage] does not refer to homosexuality the way it is practiced today”?
January 9, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Even Jesus said, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46
Paul said, “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” Romans 7:21-25
April 9, 2007 at 3:13 pm
It’s interesting that your “owners manual” for living condones rape and murder on countless occasions (chronicles, deuteronomy, joshua, judges), and designates women as the “weaker sex” (revelations, leviticus, Peter’s letters). Perhaps Jesus’ condemnation of the church was right and holy, but be warned, he did not write a single word in the bible, his followers did many years (decades, and centuries) later, and then those words have gone through the filter of many kings and wars.
April 12, 2007 at 7:24 am
Robert, this is an old post. I no longer think the Bible is God’s owner’s manual, nor that it is directly inspired by God. I agree with everything you’ve said here.