Those Who Should Not Have Been Born

It is a tremendously grievous thing to say that someone should not have been born. In this claim is contained many layers of depth that each spell out a horrible insult to the person about which this claim is made. Firstly, there is the level which says that the net result that person had on this world is negative; that, because this person lived, the world is worse off. This alone is a great insult, simply because it is so difficult to determine. Who can measure another’s impact on the world as a whole? Who is to say some hidden goodness separated by time and space cannot trace its origins back to this person? To say they should not have been born is to claim such a knowledge of this person so as to already know the outcome of such an extensive analysis. It says, “No good that may ever come from you can outweigh the wrong you’ve done.” But then there is a deeper level, the level of choice. Because at some point, even the vilest of people made a choice to do something that made them vile. But to wish that this person had never been born is far worse than to wish they had never made that choice. One could easily say “It would be better if you had never made that choice, or those choices.” But in saying “It would be better if you had never been born,” a much deeper insult is made. This statement says not only that the offender made the wrong choice, but that they cannot and should not ever be trusted with that choice at all. It not only says “You made this world worse”, but it goes one further: “You made this world worse, and you should never be trusted to do anything else.” Either the consequences of their wrong choices were so horrific that such a choice should never be risked at any odds, or that the person is so horrible that they should never be trusted with any choice or with the gift of free will and life itself. In either case, this is a very bold, very strong, and very serious claim made about the person or group of people.

What follows is my attempt to identify such a group of people.

Everyone has some sort of “world view”, some belief through which they approach the world. For many people, it is a religion. For some, it is atheism, which often comes in tandem (although not exclusively) with a scientific world-view. For some, their world view may even consist of agnosticism or a simple lack of judgment one way or another on such debates. But the point of my using the term “world-view” is that it is all encompassing. You cannot perceive and interact with this world without having a world view, thus in using this term (rather than more loaded words like “belief”, “faith”, or “religion”), I have excluded no one.

The natural question is, then, with so many different world views, which one is right? I dare not tackle this question at the moment. Rather, I would like to look at a consequence of this question. In theory, one of these world-views must be the “correct” view. Admittedly, it may not be a view that any one person holds, but one of them must be objectively true. And if one of them is true, then the others are necessarily not true. Thus, we are left with one objectively correct world view and a whole slew of objectively wrong world views.

Now, in an effort to make sure I don’t leave anyone behind, let me pause to pick up the stragglers. To the relativists and those who claim that there either is no objective truth or that all these various views simply see parts of the same truth (a la the elephant metaphor): that belief is, itself, a world view. And regardless of how all-encompassing you may think it seems, the fact is that if you believe that, and yet someone else believes that their world-view is the only thing that is true, then by definition only one of you can be right, even if your view “includes” theirs. For if yours is right, then theirs, in limiting itself to only itself, is technically wrong. In the language of the elephant metaphor, all of the five men are wrong. The objective truth is that it is an elephant. My point is, even relativism is an exclusive world view.

To the best of my ability, I have tried not to say anything that would preclude anyone from agreeing with me. But now we have a problem: if only one world view is true, then where did all of these wrong world views come from? On the surface, it’s not a difficult question to answer. People constantly look for explanations for things they don’t understand, and in their attempt to answer these difficult questions, they must often make assumptions or simplifications and often get things wrong. But there is a sinister side to this. What this means is that, for every wrong world view that exists, somewhere along the line, some person, individual, or group of individuals simply made it up! They knowingly began spreading information that they had no reason to suspect was actually correct!

Let me give a few examples. Christians believe in the things written in the Bible, particularly the parts concerning Jesus written by men such as Matthew, John, Peter, and Paul. These things may be true. I am not presently concerned with actually assessing the validity of any world view. But if these things are not true, that would imply that these men knowingly wrote and spread completely ridiculous stories, deliberately deceiving hundred of thousands of people throughout history! Or consider Scientology. Once again, it is possible that their beliefs are, in fact, correct. But if not, then L Ron Hubbard has purposefully led thousands of people away from the truth! The same can be said for Joseph Smith and the Latter Day Saints, Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the followers of Islam, Abraham and the Jews, and a whole slew of others. Once again, I am not deciding whether or not any of these world views are true or not. What I am saying is that, if these world views are not true, then these founding individuals have knowingly, horribly, hurtfully deceived millions of people.

“Aha!” says the free-thinker, “I have not been deceived like those of you who blindly adhere to a religion! All of my beliefs are the product of my own reason and observation!” Well, slow down there Dawkins. Let’s consider what I am actually saying. I am saying that, should you end up being wrong, somewhere along the line you were deceived. For example, suppose any one of the theistic religions turn out to be correct, and that deities or higher beings of some kind really do exist. How could atheism possibly arise except as the deliberate attempt by an individual or group of individuals to consciously reject the truth of theism and instead spread a lie that the gods do not exist?

I suppose it is conceivable that some of these founders actually believed what they told people. Perhaps Joseph Smith truly believed he saw an angel even if he actually did not, or perhaps the first atheist was so blind and deaf so as not to notice the existence of deities when they actually did exist. Firstly, this requires a very extreme and depressing assumption about the nature of those who willingly followed a person who is essentially insane and delusional. Given the extremity of this assumption, it is unlikely that this is the case for many of the faulty world views. Thus, we are still left with a very large number of perfectly sane deliberate deceivers who founded world views, knowing full well that they were incorrect.

The bottom line of all of this is one terrifying yet inescapable conclusion: that, given the vast number of views that are necessarily incorrect, these types of deceptive founders must necessarily exist. That among the ranks of humanity stand individuals and groups of individuals who have purposefully deceived, tricked, and misled millions upon millions of people across time and space. Of all criminals and evildoers, I find these to be the worst. Luke 17:2 says “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” These people have brought damnation on others for no conceivable reason. They are deceivers, false prophets, liars, manipulators, sirens, con-artists, thieves, usurpers, and destroyers. They are those who should not have been born.

Not Enough

Chances are you've heard the phrase "variety is the spice of life". You've probably even been in a situation where you wanted to use this phrase. Let's face it, it's an adage for a reason. But, because this is how my brain works, and because this is how my blog works, I want to ask the question: why? Why is it that we feel a constant need to seek out new things? Why exactly is variety so enticing?

Of course, there are a lot of ways to answer this question. From a scientific perspective, we could make an evolutionary argument. The more (genetic) variation that exists among a population, the more robust that population is against changes and therefore the more likely that population is to survive. For example, if one day, all green fruits became poisonous, then anyone that only ate green fruits would die. If we lived in a city that only ate green fruits, we would all die. On the other hand, if some of us ate green fruits and some of us ate red fruits, then at least some of us would survive.

Or we could take a humanistic perspective, and say that our desire for variety is really an intrinsic motivation to find new things to improve ourselves. Variety means we are constantly trying new things, and new things carry with them the possibility of better things. Part of what makes us human is our natural curiosity and penchant for asking hard questions.

And, of course, we could make an existential argument, and say that our constant desire for new things is born out of a need to continually distract ourselves from the crushing reality of existence. We constantly delve into the unknown simply because it is not the known, because the known is intolerable. Therefore, we are forced into the only solace we have, which is the new and unexplored. From this perspective, the devil you know is so horrible that you would take any other devil.

All of these are perfectly valid arguments (note, I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with any of them; I'm simply stating that they are logically sound within their respective frameworks). But they are all arguments of insufficiency; that is, at some point, every argument in defense of variety makes a claim that what we have is not enough. These genetic traits can't cover every possibility, or this knowledge doesn't satisfy us completely, or that distraction isn't enough to keep us occupied forever. The bottom line is, nothing is ever enough.

But what if something were?

What if there were a truly perfect, robust genetic makeup? What if there were Something that could permanently quench our thirst for more? What if there were Something that could continue to intrigue, interest, and astound us, such that we never needed to find another Thing again?

First of all, if such a Thing does not sound appealing to you ("Where's the fun in that?" and other such trite arguments), then I invite you to reread the last paragraph, as what I am suggesting is, by definition, above such oppositions. Most likely you are thinking that such a Thing would be nice, but we have no guarantee that such a thing exists. But humor me for a second, and imagine that such a thing did exist. What would it look like? To truly satisfy us permanently, it would have to be infinite, else we would risk reaching its end. It would also have to be multifaceted, else we might find that no part of even its infinite nature interests us. But ultimately, it would have to be real. Fiction can only captivate us for so long. That's why those who spend their entire lives obsessing over nothing but fiction usually end up trying to drag their fantasies into the real world in some way, often with little success, and usually with some amount of scorn or disdain from others (LARPing is one example).

Of course, I believe that such a Thing does exist, and that it is infinite and multifaceted and, most importantly, that it is real. I also believe that many people never find this thing. In fact, most people spend most of their lives not even knowing that they are searching, or what they are searching for, or where to being searching for it. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy." I would even dare to brand a liar anyone who claims to have found something other than God that satisfies all of the requirements laid out above. From my perspective, such an alternative simply cannot, does not, and will not exist.

I'll give here two common examples of such insufficient things - alcohol and mind-altering substances. In particular, I'm going to address drunkenness and psychedelic experiences as means of satisfying this innate craving, but I'm going to try to go about it in less than traditional way. Normally, people view both of these as means of escape. Pastors will preach from the pulpit how people who habitually get drunk are trying to escape their normal life, or how those who frequently seek to alter their consciousness with LSD, mushrooms, or other psychedelics are running away from a disparaging reality. However, I don't think these explanations account for all, or even most, of people's motivations.

Let's look at alcohol. What is the defining characteristic of being drunk? I think most would agree that it is a loss of inhibitions. Rather than thinking or worrying about whether something should be done, a drunk simply does it as soon as they think it. Note that the same ideas enter their head whether they are drunk or sober, but they only result in action in a drunk mind. The sober person's mind has an added layer of questioning, which we can call inhibitions or social pressures or conformity or whatever else we wish. I claim that it is this layer that people are seeking freedom from when they pursue drunkenness. They no longer have to worry about should or shoudn't. They can simply be "free" to act as they think. Now, I firmly believe that this is objectively preferable, and even better. In fact, I believe in heaven, we will all exist in this state of no longer worrying or even thinking about should and shouldn't. However, the difference is that alcohol gives this freedom without the sanctification offered by God. In a perfect state, we will no longer have to concern ourselves with should and shouldn't because we will already by purified of any desire or thought that would warrant such worrying. All of our thoughts, ideas, and actions will be unquestionably good. Alcohol gives this freedom, but without this context of purification.

Psychedelic drugs are even trickier, mainly because descriptions of various experiences are unspecific at best. Nevertheless, a few recurring themes that I've heard in such accounts are increased perception (e.g. being able to feel every rock beneath your feet when walking on a gravel driveway, or seeing "new" colors) and metaphysical or spiritual experiences (e.g. experiencing and partaking in the "creation of the world" whilst sitting on a couch, or seeing your whole life laid out like a path). While I cannot comment from expertise, I see no reason to completely discount these descriptions. As a believer in the "supernatural" myself, I don't find it absurd to think that someone might be able to encounter things different from normal, everyday human experiences. However, what is clear from the huge variety of these experiences is that they lack any foundation in objective truth or reality. That's why, no matter how brilliant of a philosopher they seem to be, most people who make a habit of these experiences tend to give off rather underwhelming first impressions. Their experienced simply do not translate into the reality in which the rest of us spend the bulk of our time. Hallucinogens and drugs may truly give a glimpse of the divine or supernatural, of the spiritual underpinnings of our physical world. But they do so without the foundation that only the true Divine can provide. Thus, once again, we see these things are merely misguided attempts to seek and find something that only God can provide.

The bottom line here is to never settle for insufficiency. As C.S. Lewis writes in The Weight of Glory,

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward … promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

The most important thing we can learn in life is that what we see immediately before us is not enough. The minute we accept this fact by refusing to accept these lesser things, we have begun our search for true joy and happiness. And we can take heart that this search will never be in vain, for God promises in Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened."

Shrinking God

How do you react to someone who is clearly in the wrong? Maybe you take the offending person aside and deal with them one on one. Maybe you talk to another friend first and tell them what’s bothering you. Maybe you call out the person in front of everybody, or maybe you avoid the issue all together. But one thing is for certain: at some point, we are all faced with someone who we truly believe is in the wrong, and at that time we need to decide how we will react.

What is interesting to observe is how people react when they believe that God is in the wrong.

I am talking primarily about the Christian God (although the following also applies to most monotheistic religions and their respective Gods), which makes the concept of God being wrong rather taboo. However, it also makes it quite popular. Comedians such as Tim Minchin, Nick Offerman, Bo Burnham, and Aziz Ansari talk about it. Science greats such as Richard Dawkins, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye all allude to it. Political icons, pop singers, op-ed writers, and FaceBook vigilantes all display a strong personal morality, and God doesn’t always end up on their good side. The result is that we end up with a bunch of quotes, statements, and views that all amount to roughly the same thing: “If that’s what God says, then God is wrong, and we either need to ignore that part of God or get rid of him all together.” Bring up homosexuality and the Bible in any online forum, and you’ll pretty quickly see what I’m talking about.

The people making these statements come across as very bold and edgy, despite the fact that this is actually a fairly popular view. It’s also not new at all. The Bible itself is full of people questioning, challenging, and doubting God. One of the most famous is Job, whose story is recounted in the book bearing his name. Job was stricken with countless misfortunes, and he eventually challenged God, called him out, and questioned his justice. Here is an excerpt from God’s reply:

“Brace yourself like a man;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.
“Would you discredit my justice?
    Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
Do you have an arm like God’s,
    and can your voice thunder like his?
Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor,
    and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.
Unleash the fury of your wrath,
    look at all who are proud and bring them low,
look at all who are proud and humble them,
    crush the wicked where they stand.
Bury them all in the dust together;
    shroud their faces in the grave.
Then I myself will admit to you
    that your own right hand can save you.”
- Job 40:7-14

Those are some harsh words. Job had at least as much right to question God as any of the people mentioned above. And yet God makes it clear how far that sense of moral indignation towards God will get him.

The problem is that Job, like many others today, treated God as he would treat another person. He respected God up until something happened that didn’t agree with his personal sense of morality, at which point he decided to address this God who, from his perspective, was clearly in the wrong. God’s response was to simply remind Job where he stood in relation to the Divine. Job, like us, thought his voice was loud. God reminded him what a voice that can rouse thunder actually sounds like. Job, like us, sought to wrap himself in justice. God reminded him who can dispense true justice. Job, like us, claimed to be able to rid himself of evil. God reminded him how powerless he was to do so.

To help clarify the true scale of the matter, I will borrow a metaphor from season 5 of the TV show Supernatural. Imagine you have just sprayed some disinfectant on your kitchen counter and you’re currently wiping it down. All of a sudden, a bacterium jumps off of your hand and onto the counter, looks you in the eye, and resolutely yells “You think you can just tell me where to stand after committing mass genocide like that? Well I for one will not listen to a murderer like you!” How would you react? (For the sake of the metaphor, assume this is still the same world we live in, not some parallel universe where bacterium are sentient; this is a one-time, one-way, anomalous communication). Would you sit there and ponder your actions? Would you think to yourself “Why should I wield such control over this counter? Who am I to say what can be on it and what can’t?” Chances are you would not. Most likely, you would simply spray some more disinfectant and wipe away that snarky bacterium without a second thought. That is but a hint of the sense of scale we are talking about when God chooses to interact with man.

We don’t talk like this much anymore. We reserve discussion of God’s enormity and wrath for the Old Testament and the Great Awakening. We tend to focus more on that carpenter’s son who was more our size. Him we can relate to. At least if we disagree with him, its not much different from disagreeing with our neighbor. But that’s precisely where we go wrong. We focus so much on the relatable and relational God that we forget the powerful and eternal God. We shrink God down to our size where we can debate with Him and make Him come over to our side. But we deceive ourselves. God is, in fact, relatable and relational. And He did, in fact, send his son Jesus to meet us on our level. But we must never forget that we are not God’s equals. We are less to Him than a bacterium is to us. And until we understand how insignificant we are compared to God, we can never fully understand how great it is that he has called us significant.

Of Gods and Planets

I wrote this. Technically, what I wrote was a poem, but it can be turned into a song by putting the verses to the same tune as "Somebody's Baby", by Jon Foreman, which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmRCmbqVxas. It's a great song, so check it out.

As for my poem/song, I rely heavily on allusions, so to help explain the full meaning, here is a refresher on the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. The Greek names are more familiar, but the Roman names are the names given to the planets. I use both, so I will write them as Greek (Roman).

Artemis (Diana): goddess of virginity, the hunt, and the moon
Athena (Minerva): goddess of wisdom, mathematics, strategy
Ares (Mars): god of war and violence
Zeus (Jupiter): king of the gods, god of the sky, ruler of Olympus
Apollo (Apollo): god of music, poetry, and the sun
Aphrodite (Venus): goddess of love, beauty, and sex
Dionysus (Bacchus): god of wine and ecstasy
Hera (Juno): goddess of marriage
Hermes (Mercury): messenger of the gods, with winged sandals
Poseidon (Neptune): god of the sea
Hades (Pluto): god of the underworld and afterlife

And with that, here is what I wrote. It's a song about idolatry, and it loosely follows one possible journey through life. Let me know what you think.

Of Gods and Planets

Verse 1:
It started off innocent, too good to be true
When Artemis told me to shoot for the moon
I chased it in circles, but it fled every day with the dawn

So I searched for Athena in figures and proofs
In books and in writings, if only I knew
That just being right doesn't make up for all of my wrongs

I chased after Mars and his fires of war
His violence was power, but I thirsted for more
Just like the red rover, Curiosity just wouldn't stop

So I lifted my sights and I started the climb
to the top of Olympus, there only to find
That even King Zeus is deluded alone at the top

Chorus:
These aren't my vices,
These are my gods
I'd make any promise
and break any law

I stand here condemned
When I kneel at their feet
Trading my birthright
For one bite to eat

I'm lost and I'm drowning
With the sirens at sea
Chained to the mast
As they serenade me

My demons surround me
They circle my heart
Like sharks in the water
Or planets 'round a star

Verse 2:
I plug in my headphones and hear Apollo's song
He tells me "look pretty", so I play along
I yell "Hey Aphrodite, come here, I want you to be mine"

The gym is my church ground, my altar the floor,
My body's a temple, but not to the Lord
I bow down to Venus, but get left in the dust every time

Then I met Juno, the love of my life
I said "You complete me," and made her my wife
But even the whitest of gowns only lasts for a day

When she lets me down, I scream "I've had enough,
Come on, Dionysus, come help me get drunk
My life is so bitter, your sweet wine can take me away"

Chorus:

These aren't my vices,
These are my gods
I'd make any promise
and break any law

I stand here condemned
When I kneel at their feet
Trading my birthright
For one bite to eat

I'm lost and I'm drowning
With the sirens at sea
Chained to the mast
As they serenade me

My demons surround me
They circle my heart
Like sharks in the water
Or planets 'round a star

Verse 3:
I tried to run faster, to join the elite
I asked Mercury to put wings on my feet
My god brought me messages faster than ever before

I ran straight off the land into Neptune's domain,
Into swells of a storm that I could not contain
Adrift on the sea of my life like a man overboard

That's when I saw Pluto, the darkest of shores
No land for the living, but I'm not anymore
My life, like the light, had faded till I was undone

And there, at the end, I knew I had to turn back
And I realized the center is what holds things intact
And that all of these things were created to circle the Sun

Chorus:
These aren't my vices,
These are my gods
I'd make any promise
and break any law

I stand here condemned
When I kneel at their feet
Trading my birthright
For one bite to eat

I'm lost and I'm drowning
With the sirens at sea
Chained to the mast
As they serenade me

My demons surround me
They circle my heart
Like sharks in the water

Chorus 2:
These are my vices,
But You are my God
I trust in your promise
And dwell on your laws

I stand here amazed
As you wash off my feet
You laid out a banquet
And called me to eat

I was lost and was drowning
Till you calmed the sea
You broke every chain
And said I am set free

Your Spirit surrounds me
And dwells in my heart
I drink living water
Oh Lord, my God You are!

On Postmodernism and the Two Camps of Truths

Postmodernism isn't quite as prevalent today as it once was. The postmodern trend and culture is generally considered to have immediately preceded, or even coincided with, the secular project. I have heard it said that we are now in a post-secular society, where all of the previous deconstruction of ideologies has ceased, and people are now beginning to reconstruct their world views, shifting their focus from the individual to larger groups. That being said, it is clear to me, from various conversations I have had, that many of the dominant postmodern ideas still echo today. So I now seek to address these. Bear in mind that, while I do have very strong opinions on the ideas presented in this post, my main purpose here is descriptive, not prescriptive. I am attempting only to explain, to the best of my ability, how things are. Of course, I will make it very clear which worldview I subscribe to, but if I did not do this overtly, it would undoubtedly be conveyed nonetheless through subtleties and inherent bias.

In short, there are two camps of truths, and two groups of people corresponding to these two camps. There are those who say that some people are wrong, and there are those who say that all people are wrong.

In the first camp, we have those who have chosen a particular truth. They may call it religion, philosophy, science, logic, politics, common sense, respect, humanity, citizenship, love, or something else. At the end of the day, though, they have ideas, however vague or explicit, about how things are and how things ought to be. All who agree with their ideas are correct, and all who disagree are wrong. This is not to say that these people are confrontational, disrespectful, or arrogant about their belief (in fact, we shall see that those in this camp are often more open to a change in beliefs than those in the other). It simply means that, whatever they say (or think) that they believe, they actually believe it to be true. And if their truth is really true, then necessarily some other, incompatible truth cannot be. Once again, this does not necessitate that a member of this camp will make a point to let you know when you are wrong. But, if pressed enough, they will likely admit that, yes, according to their belief, you are wrong for believing another. This is the camp to which I belong.

Now, some people are overly zealous about informing others of their wrongness, just as many people are overly sensitive to being informed that they are wrong in another's eyes. Since we are dealing with the fundamental beliefs of a person about life and the world, it stands to reason that any rejection of those beliefs can very easily be perceived as a rejection of the person that holds them. The second camp of truth is often born from such an offense.

In the second camp, we have people that, on the surface, appear the same as those in the first. Often (for reasons that will become clear) their chosen truth is slightly less well-defined, and maybe not all-encompassing, but it exists nonetheless. However, beneath that truth there is a deeper, more fundamental belief. It is the belief that all truths that can be held by a person deserve equal treatment and acknowledgement. This is the defining belief of the second camp, and it is easy to see why it is attractive. Like in the first camp, each person is allowed to find a truth, but there no longer need be any offense given or taken for seemingly incompatible truths, because any truth held by a person becomes valid, by the sheer fact that the person believes it.

Unfortunately, this "miracle cure" of a truth turns out, like so many other miracle cures, to be too good to be true. It advertises options without the need to call anybody "wrong". But take a deeper look at this, and you will likely see a contradiction. By this assertion, every belief is equally valid simply because it is believed. This logic is taken from enlightenment logic used to describe people (i.e. every person is equally valid and valuable by the mere fact of being a person). But in taking this logic, we have to also take with it the limitation in which it applies; namely, that this automatically restricts the truth in question to the person that holds it. In other words, if we wish to use this reasoning to call all truths equally valid, we can only really say that a person's truth is valid for that person. Indeed, this is often the language that is used by postmodernists. As a truth, this is perfectly fine, as long as the implications are fully understood. The only way that seemingly incompatible truths can coexist is if they never occupy the same realm. This says, then, that anyone whose truth claims to say anything about anything outside of the person who holds it, is fundamentally wrong.

And so we see that postmodernism, in an attempt to  avoid having to call anyone wrong, has actually succeeded in calling everyone wrong. It says that, at the end of the day, what anyone believes doesn't really matter, because at best their belief can only be true within the confines of their own mind. So either we all resign ourselves to exist forever isolated within ourselves (which no being, save One, has ever done), or we surrender any hope we have of our truth actually being true. This is why many postmodernists don't concern themselves with the specifics of even their own beliefs, because ultimately, it makes no difference.

On Moralism

Pure behavior change never made anyone a better person. At best, it made them a better actor. So if you look to behavioral trends and practices to measure the moral state of yourself, your community, your country, or your world, you will consistently and drastically overestimate it.

On Modesty

I wasn't originally planning on writing this post. Usually ideas need to bounce around my head for a week or two before I actually get around to writing them down. I currently have one I've been mulling over (something about people truly desiring pain, not pleasure). For whatever reason, the issue of "modesty", particularly as it pertains to women's choices in clothing, has come back into the spotlight recently, and I figured I would at least put in my two cents. Take it for what it's worth.

I will start with some definitions and clarifications. When I am talking about "modesty", I am talking primarily about the types of clothes that people choose to wear and the reactions, specifically erotic or sexual ones, that said clothes induces in other people. While this conversation tends to be geared towards women, I believe it applies to men as well, but in a slightly different way. Furthermore, I am mainly addressing men and women who are part of a Christian covenant community. The things I say in this post have no application to those who do not consider themselves part of such a community, as they are not governed by the same laws. Lest anyone tell you differently, let me reassure you that until you acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, no amount of behavioral change can ever save you, nor do any "Christian" rules apply to you.

I wholeheartedly believe that modesty is, first and foremost, a love issue. It deals with the way that men and women within the covenant community interact with each other and treat each other. There is, however, one exception to this claim. While I cannot speak from experience, I do believe, unfortunately, that there are times when women and girls will purposefully dress and act a certain way for the conscious purpose of gaining attention from other people. This is often done either as an exercise of control or power, as it shows they can control others' responses, or as a desire for validation and approval, as each glance acknowledges, however superficially or incompletely, their value or worth. I firmly believe that this is an issue within the girl's own heart, and should be addressed within the female community, as I, as a male, cannot really identify with this, nor begin to address it. However, I also choose to believe that, particularly within Christian circles, this is not always the motivation for wearing clothes that may be deemed "immodest". It is this other case, where the female's motives are not primarily impure, that I am addressing here.

So back to my claim that modesty is a love issue. We are told over and over again in both the Old and New Testament that we are to love one another (Leviticus 19:18, John 13:34-25, Romans 12:10, Ephesians 4:2, Hebrews 10:24). It is pretty clear that our interactions with one another are to be defined by Godly, Biblical love. Note that this type of love is mainly agape and philia, although storge may have a part in there as well. We are not talking about eros, or romantic love.

Now, as a man, let me come out and say this: I struggle with sexual purity, with lustful thoughts, and with viewing women and their bodies as objects of pleasure instead of co-image bearers of God. And I can say for certain that I am not alone in this. In fact, nearly all Christian men struggle in this area. And I freely admit, this is a sin issue within my heart, and within the hearts of all who struggle with it. Jesus clearly states "anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28). In other words, it's the thought that counts, and it counts against us. Every second glance, wandering gaze, and drifting thought is, in the eyes of God, who "looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7), the same as acting on those desires. We deserve the same that adulterers, prostitutes, and rapists deserve, for our crime is the same: taking sex and sexual pleasure outside the context of the intimate, soul-joining, covenanted love of marriage for which it was created.

Let me reiterate: this is a sin issue within the hearts of men in the Church. So often in this conversation we can start pointing the finger at women, blaming them for dressing a certain way. To the women who have experienced this, I would like to say I am sorry. We, as men, have a tendency to do this, and it started all the way back in the Garden of Eden when Adam blamed Eve for making him break the one law God had clearly given to him. In neither case does any action on the part of the woman have any bearing on the fact that the man has knowingly disobeyed God and has thus failed as a man.

This is where the love comes in. Rather than contributing to this fractured relationship, I think we, the men of the Church, need to love the women, and the first way we can do this is by admitting our struggles and taking responsibility for them. We are commanded to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5) and whenever we lust after women, we are failing in this. Furthermore, we are commanded to love women "as Christ loved the Church and gave herself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). Lusting is the exact opposite of this type of love to which we are called. Lust makes the object of our lust a tool to please us, rather than giving ourselves up for women as we are meant to. So the solution to the lust problem is not in looser-fitting clothes, it is in a deeper and more Godly love for women on the part of men, which comes only from experience God's love for us more fully.

Hopefully you see that I am not letting men off of the hook by any means. However, I would now like to address the role of women. I believe women, too, need to love the men of the Church more deeply and more Godly. First of all, you can do this by listening to some of the verses above about love and bearing with us men in humility and gentleness (Ephesians 4:2), and trying to understand where we are coming from in terms of our thoughts and struggles. Please recognize and understand that this is a huge area of weakness and temptation for men in the church today. You can choose to blame society, the media, or Satan himself for this, but I am simply telling you how it is. So, with that in mind, I am asking you all for help. Help us, the men, become better men of God. For guidance on how to do this, I turn to Romans 14, a passage about the "weak" and "strong" Christian.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. (Romans 14:13-15)

While that passage centers on types of food that can be eaten, the logic and lessons clearly apply to other scenarios. In regards to lust and modesty, men are the "weak" Christian. We admit it, we are weak. In that passage, it says to "accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters" (v. 1). Yes, ideally, lust would not be an issue, and you all would be free to wear whatever you want. But since I have told you that it is, I am asking you to help us in this area by not putting "any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister". Just like Paul says about food, I don't think that there is anything inherently sinful about yoga pants or deep v-neck shirts. Recall that, before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed (Genesis 2:25). However, because we are sinful, I am telling you that these clothes do cause us to stumble. So, on behalf of your brothers in Christ, I ask my sisters in Christ to love us and help us in our area of weakness.

Like I said before, the bottom line in all of this is love. Greater love and respect for women on the part of men so as to not view them as anything less than chosen children of God, and greater love for men on the part of women so as to not knowingly cause them distress on their journey to being transformed into better sons of God. There are plenty of struggles that are more prevalent in men or women, and we, as a community and the body of Christ, need to acknowledge these struggles and respond in love.

Lies, Lesser Truths, and Christmas

I will warn you in advance, if you are looking for a stereotypical Christmas post, this is not it. In fact, this post will get pretty personal, pretty intense, and pretty depressing at parts. But it does relate to Christmas. So, if I haven't dissuaded you yet, please read on.

The focus of this post will be on Romans 1:24-32, specifically verses 25 and 28: "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.... Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done." Generally, this passage is used to talk about homosexuality and the depravity of man. I'm not going to discuss that in this post, although I think this passage has a lot to say about that topic. I'm choosing to focus instead on the aspects of truth versus lies.

"Truth" is a very common word in the Christian world. We are told to "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15), we are told that Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6), and we are told that the Gospel consists of both truth and grace (Romans 3:23-24). This last one in particular is very popular, and its one of my favorites. Good, Biblical discipleship comes from a balance of speaking truth while extending grace. Truth allows us to see where we have fallen short, and grace allows us to see how God has overcome our shortfalls.

My discipler recently gave me an excellent definition of truth: truth is something you can question, hold up to doubt and examination, and it will remain true. That is the definition of "truth". However, I think there is a big problem that can go overlooked. The problem is that we don't examine our "truth" often enough. And when we don't examine our truth,  remind ourselves of it daily, something dangerous can happen. It starts to change. The change can be subtle at first. Maybe just a slight detail gets omitted. But over time, what happens is truth can mutate. It can lose parts, acquire others, and slowly become something unrecognizable. When true truth acquires these additions, these mutations, it becomes a lie, and we can start to believe a lie. Similarly, when truth loses parts of itself, it becomes a lesser truth, and we start to hang our beliefs on lesser truths. And when we are talking about something as vital as the Gospel, lesser truths are, in fact, lies themselves. We either accept the whole truth of the Gospel, or none of it. Anything less is simply a distortion of the truth and is therefore not true at all. And since the Gospel is truth itself, anything less is not simply smaller, but infinitesimally small compared to the full truth. However attractive or complete they may seem at first, these lies and lesser truths never fail to fail. I do not think it is any coincidence that, in the Garden of Eden, there was a vast garden of trees from which Adam and Eve could eat and only one from which they could not.

This can sound a bit theoretical and not very applicable, so I'm going to give a very personal, very recent example from my own life. Like many people, I often think of the Gospel in terms of truth and grace. Two complimentary aspects. The truth is, to put it crudely, that we have all rejected God's perfect plan and therefore find ourselves in a state of sin, deserving of death. The grace, however, is that God has sent his Son, Jesus, to redeem us from this state, and, by paying our debt with his own death, Jesus has made a way for us to return to God's perfect plan. This is obviously a huge oversimplification, but this is, in my opinion, a pretty accurate, two-sentence summary of the grace and truth of the Gospel. Over time, however, I began to let this full reality take a back seat. On a day to day, practical level, I thought of it more like this: "truth tells us how bad we are, and grace tells us that it's okay". Let me say right now, that is NOT, in any way, a good summary or definition of either grace or truth. I know that now, but at the time, that is, more or less, how I thought of it just a few months ago. This is an example of a mutated truth, or a lesser truth. And I will show you how this "lesser truth" functioned just like a lie in my life.

So around this time, I started to experience some hardships and doubts. I was beginning to feel depressed, and my depression caused be to both seek comfort in what I believed while also questioning and doubting if it was really true. Granted, these are hard to do at the same time even in the best of circumstances, but I fully believe the Gospel has power to dispel all doubts and give comfort at the same time. But remember, at this time, I wasn't experience the full reality of the Gospel on a day-to-day basis. I had exchanged the full truth for a lesser truth. So when I sought comfort from what I believed, I was looking for comfort in the lesser truth "truth says you're pretty screwed up, but grace says that's okay". I challenge you to find comfort in that "truth". I couldn't. And so I came to the conclusion that there is no comfort in truth or grace. And from here, I started to wonder. If there is no comfort to be found in truth or grace, then where could it be found? Does comfort even exist? And as soon as I asked that last question, I had started down a dangerous road. Not because that is a bad question to ask. Like I said, I fully believe that the Gospel, being true truth, fears no questions, doubts, or examinations. But, in asking this question, I had already discounted both truth and grace. In short, I began to look for answers outside of the Gospel. And I tell you, friends, if you seek comfort outside of the Gospel, you will be left empty.

"Does comfort even exist?" There can only be one of two answers to this question, and I had yet to see evidence of one of them. So I began to consider the possibility that maybe it doesn't. Maybe there is no comfort, no peace, no help or relief. There is only the search. And then I caught a glimpse of true despair.

If true comfort doesn't exist, then surely God can't exist. "Can that be so?" I asked. I had asked this question before, and in the past I had come to the conclusion that He does. So, to convince myself, I decided to walk through my previous line of thought. For the most part, it centered around the following quote from C.S. Lewis:

The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.

That was my proof: my inner desires for something greater than this world; a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy. That was my reasoning, and that was also my problem at this point. I ached for comfort and acceptance, and had found none. "But it must exist, right? If I desire it, surely there must be a satisfaction for such desire, else the desire would not exist. The theory of evolution supports this, as do most other theories about the origins of the world as we know." These were my thoughts. But then, as I must do to be thorough, I considered the possibility that maybe satisfaction for these desires did not exist. "Could that be so? What would that mean?" I will tell you what it means.

Take the theory of evolution, and the field of evolutionary biology, which says, in short, that nearly all biological processes and facts can be traced to a need or advantage; that, somewhere along the way, natural selection has favored this trait because it conferred on a creature a slight advantage in some way. For example, hunger causes discomfort because that is a surefire way to ensure that an organism eats when it needs nutrients. Take away the discomfort, and the creature will likely starve to death because it doesn't know it needs sustenance. Now, how could nature ensure that a creature will continue to improve, to get better, and never simply level off? What would be the ultimate trait that would cause a creature to never accept failure, but to always try to improve itself? We have already heard the answer. What if in each of us is a deep rooted desire for something more, something bigger, something larger than life? What if this desire is the strongest of all our desires? So strong that all the food, shelter, and sex in the world can't quench it? A desire that demands to be satisfied, yet offers no clues as to what will sate it? If such a desire existed, it would force us to constantly run faster, strive harder, work tirelessly day after day after day, trying to find something that can quench this thirst of the soul. But, I thought, what if such a satisfaction does not exist? It's genius: instill in a creature an insatiable lust for something that doesn't exist, thereby forcing it to search out every nook and cranny of the known and unknown world. I thought, maybe the sick joke of life is that we spend all of it, every waking minute, chasing something, running after something, striving for something that doesn't exist, all the while chasing our tails. And at this time, I saw full well the depths of despair that causes people to look at life and say "Goodbye, cruel world." For what a cruel world that would be, that we desire something beyond this world, but that this world is all there is.

Or is it? I told all of this to my discipler. He didn't dismiss it, and he didn't argue it. He only asked me one question: "How does Jesus fit into that picture?"

I thought about it for a while. Considered it. Mulled it over. We know from history Jesus existed. He lived, he taught, and we have reason to believe the Bible is an accurate account of the life of Jesus. That means that, at some point in time, 2000 years ago, a man walked the earth, displaying wisdom and power nobody could explain, was killed by the rulers of the day, then came back to life.

I remember the moment vividly. The best way I can describe it is this: I had a picture of life as I thought it to be. All at once, that picture was shattered by the truth of Jesus.

What had started out for me as a mutated, lesser truth became an outright lie. And what I realized was that I had willingly ignored the one person I had been taught all my life not to ignore. I exchanged the truth of God for a lie, or a lesser truth, for hopefully you see by now that the two are one and the same. But praise be to God that Jesus shatters all of our pictures of lies and lesser truths. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the single, earth-shattering fact that proves that this earth and this life are not all there is. There is something more, something, or rather, Someone, far greater out there.

While the shattering was definitely a sudden change, it took a while for the full reality to sink in. But as it did, I started to realized, just in time, that I had stumbled upon the meaning of Christmas. As I said, the person of Jesus is the definitive proof that there is so much more going on here than what we see. Thus, the birth of Jesus is a huge deal! The Bible is clear that Jesus is the revelation of mystery long since hidden (Ephesians 3:6, Colossians 1:26), the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3, 17:3, 28:14), and the consummation of the Davidic line of kings (2 Samuel 7:16). Until the coming of Jesus, Israel had seen a steady decay in God's favor from the golden age of Solomon's rule, through multiple exiles and increasingly depraved kings. It was not clear how, if at all, God would rescue his people, much less all the peoples of the earth. Then, after 500 years of silence, the answer came like the sun rising over the mountains: Immanuel. God With Us.

Immanuel. O blessed thought! Not since the Garden of Eden had mankind enjoyed the company of the Lord of Hosts. Only the High Priest could enter into the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, and even then but once a year after extensive cleansing rituals. Moses saw God's back, and the resulting light that shone from his face blinded all those who did not turn away. These are not signs of God being simply too proud to deal with humans; rather, it is evidence of humanity's depravity and therefore our inability to exist in God's presence. That which is dark cannot coexist with light. The light will dispel the darkness. Indeed, that is exactly what happened anytime someone broke the careful protocols God had put in place to allow man to continue to commune with him (Leviticus 10:2, 2 Samuel 6:6). As C.S. Lewis says in his book Till We Have Faces, "I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer.... How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”

And yet we have Immanuel. God With Us. Perhaps the full weight of this word was best expressed by Max Lucado's imagining of the following scene from A Cosmic Christmas playing out in Heaven:

The King walked over and reached for the book. He turned it toward Lucifer and commanded, “Come, Deceiver, read the name of the One who will call your bluff. Read the name of the One who will storm your gates.” Satan rose slowly off his haunches. Like a wary wolf, he walked a wide circle toward the desk until he stood before the volume and read the word:
“Immanuel?” he muttered to himself, then spoke in a tone of disbelief. “God with us?” For the first time the hooded head turned squarely toward the face of the Father. “No. Not even You would do that. Not even You would go so far.”
“You’ve never believed me, Satan.”
“But Immanuel? The plan is bizarre! You don’t know what it’s like on Earth! You don’t know how dark I’ve made it. It’s putrid. It’s evil. It’s…”
“IT IS MINE,” proclaimed the King. “AND I WILL RECLAIM WHAT IS MINE. I WILL BECOME FLESH. I WILL FEEL WHAT MY CREATURES FEEL. I WILL SEE WHAT THEY SEE.”
“But what of their sin?”
“I will bring mercy.”
“What of their death?”
“I will give life.”
Satan stood speechless. 

Satan has the reaction we all should, because he knows what miracle this plan really implies. Light Himself is about to descend into Darkness, not to destroy it, but to save it. The source of Life will commune with the dead. This is what Christmas means. This is why it gives us such hope and joy. Christmas is a time when we celebrate this great, miraculous act. We relive the joy that Israel felt upon realizing that their God had not left them to rot in their own iniquity. Christmas is when we remind ourselves that, when we had fallen too far to get up, God descended from Perfection into wretchedness to save us.

There is a lesser known Christmas song called "Hallelujah (Light has Come)", by Barlow Girl. The chorus reads: "Hallelujah, we've been found / a child is born to save us now." To me, this expresses what Israel must have felt at Jesus's coming. This is the fullness of Truth. Not some trite phrase, or some way to make it all more manageable. It is Jesus Himself. Jesus is the Way God has made for us to commune with him again, to reclaim the fellowship lost at the Fall. Jesus is the fullness of Truth, with no room for lies or lesser truths. And Jesus is the hope of Life when all we can see or imagine is death and decay. All of the Old Testament writings become clear, their full meanings finally revealed, their prophecies fulfilled. No more lies, no more lesser truths. Jesus shatters them all.