The Resolute

You need Self Control.

If you’re like me then you’re good at procrastinating. Subconsciously you’ve you alt-tab’d into Chrome and your off into Facebook…

That’s where this little app comes in. You tell it which websites you don’y want to use (you know, SMH, FB, YouTube, Wikipedia…) and then set the timer for however long you need and it won’t let you use them until the countdown reaches zero. Simple. And it’s amazing how much more work you can get done.

The other night I caught a bit of a film. Something about people killing each other with no plot and as much ‘stylistically gratuitous’ violence as is allowed in an R rating. I was uneasy about the film and on reflection I think I know why.

Simply it was too violent. Sure it was ‘stylised’ but I was still watching graphic depictions of people being hacked up. The ‘stylising’ of the violence only made it worse. It was unreal enough that I could watch it without being totally horrified and this allowed me to be positioned to like the killers. They were cool ‘badass’ ninjas. Had the violence been more realistic I’d of thought of them as sadistic butchers.

However, this line of argument has a further implication. If it is how we are positioned to respond that matters, not the violence itself, then equally a film with a lower rating that positions me to be in favour of violence would be equally wrong.

I think the key is the intent of the violence. For instance, I don’t watch James Bond for violence. I watch it to see cool cars, gadgets, stunts and explosions. Also James Bond is for the most part more clearly acting on the part of good.

However, the film I initially described has violence as it’s sole drawcard. Here we come across one of the most bizarre hypocrisies of contemporary Christian life.

Pornography is bad. But violence is ok.

It seems the only reason for this is piety. We are more Christian if we shun pornography but when it comes to violence anything goes.

Pornography has a rather slippery definition. One man famously said “I can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it”. This definition highlights a key aspect of porn. Nudity alone doesn’t define it. For example images of naked women can be used for medical purposes. Similarly, a fully clothed woman photographed in a certain way can be pornographic.

This is something we often forget. It is the purpose of an image that determines whether or not it is pornographic.

When a man watches a pornographic film it is to lust after the women depicted (and vice versa).

This is also true of films that depict what I’ll refer to as “pornographic violence”. For Bond violence is not the drawcard. For, say, Hostel it is.

A film such as Hostel is based around shocking me with gruesome violence. When I watch it I am lusting after blood as much as I am lusting after women when I watch pornography.

Violence is condemned in the Bible, and violence that is stylised so that I can enjoy it without being too disgusted is no better than pornography.

This week I also watched a crime show that was about illegal organ harvesting. The image of the victim was utterly disturbing. However, unlike the previous examples there was nothing ‘cool’ about it. It was sickening and its purpose was to be to highlight how debased the crime was.

This was not a pornographic violence. As with sexual pornography, it is all about intention. When I am positioned to respond positively, in a way where I think it is cool, then this is not good. And this becomes truer the more graphic it is. I’m still wrestling with this issue, but I know for certain we, myself including are far too desensitised.

If, as Christians, we value human life, in the same way we value sexual purity, then we should seriously consider how what we watch measures up. Is what we are watching devaluing human life? Is it turning suffering into sport and voyeurism (real or unreal)? When we watch gruesome violence for entertainment, are we not insulting those who live with real violence daily?

What horrified me most about the film I saw this week was the company I saw it in. It was with fellow Christians. This despite the fact other Christians expressed objection to it on moral grounds. Further, it was suggested that objecting made one uncool.

If we are to love our fellow brother and not cause him to sin, then perhaps a different attitude is needed.

Watching a man being hacked to pieces viscerally (however stylised) followed by laughter from Christians is somehow not something I think Jesus would condone.

Sexual pornography is an issue that is finally out in the open. It’s time we talked about violence in the media as well.

Gus is an MTS apprentice. And Gus wrote some studies about Christian dating (and some other stuff). But is there more of a link between the two than Gus? Well, I think what links them is that Christians are in danger of undertaking them wrongly in the same way.

Christians do dating differently to the world. Sometimes it’s called ‘courting’ to help make the distinction. One of the differences (there are several) is that a large part of what you are doing is explicitly assessing whether or not someone is wise to marry.

MTS is a brilliant movement committed to raising up gospel workers to go out into the harvest. During a 2 year program focussed on front line ministry and training, apprentices are given the opportunity to assess whether or not they should go into full time word ministry.

How do we do either poorly? By missing two words:

‘Or not’.

If you date you don’t have to get married. If you do MTS you don’t have to go into full time ministry. If it’s a Godly and wise course of action to take then go ahead and get married/go into full time word ministry but we need to protect the other two options from the stigma of failure.

If these undertakings are about whether or not to make a commitment to a longer, more permanent version of themselves then the option ‘or not’ should be viewed as a positive outcome. If you were trying to figure out which way to go and were able to make a decision then you’ve achieved the goal. Neither should be about getting on a metaphorical conveyor belt, but gathering information to make a decision.

The longer I continue as a Christian the more Christian books and literature I seem to acquire, and on the odd occasion I even read them. It seems for every conceivable topic there is a plethora of books available to enlighten me.

However there is one particular kind of book that I find quite worrying. It is what I will refer to as the Christian ‘guide book’. At this point some distinctions and definitions are important. A ‘guide book’ as I am defining it is not a theological or doctrinal book; these are books which aim to look at the bible’s teaching on a particular topic such as the Spirit, or Election, or the Cross in order from a rather academic perspective. These books I believe are very helpful.

Nor is a ‘guide book’ a commentary. Rather a ‘guide book’ is a book aimed at instructing Christians on how to live either generally or with regard to a particular issue. These books may heavily base their conclusions on the bible’s teaching or if there is little in the bible on their topic (such as the issue of dating as Gus has already mentioned) then they refer to “Christian wisdom” or some other such ‘authority’.

At the outset I will admit that some of these books can be very helpful, however, as a genre I think most of them are not. The reason: they are quite simply rubbish. Whilst commentaries and theological books look at the bible’s teaching and effectively are someone’s considered opinion on what the bible is saying argued from the bible; guide books more often than not seek to tell Christians exactly how to live in a way that does not reflect circumstances, the freedom afforded to us as Christians and more often than not the bible’s teaching.

2 Timothy 3:16 ff are very famous words, and if the bible is indeed “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. “ Then why would we spend our time looking at someone else’s wisdom when we have the bible’s wisdom, and the Holy Spirit to help us understand and implement it????

My other problem is that so often ‘guide books’ take us away from grace. ‘Guide books’ give us rules for living as a Christian, which is just what Jesus death shows me won’t save me. I need to rely on Jesus death and resurrection for salvation, not on John Smith’s Guide to Christian living.

My problem with these books is not so much that they exist but that we set too much store by them. How about we do Christianity by the book? The only book that matters, the Bible.

After the bombardment of blogs posts, a hand full of sermons and a steady stream of twitter messages form some high profile Christians¹ I thought I should get into watching some UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) wrestling. So I set my recorder to record the late night UFC matches on HD One, and started watching a few of them last night.

Well, you know what, I was a little disappointed. UFC was presented as the ultimate man sport. But I have some suggested improvements.

First of all, why limit it to only 2 players. Why not have 10 or 20 or, even better, 30 players.

And that toy ‘octagon’ they wrestle in? For 30 players I think it’d need to go full field.

And when it comes to the rules of UFC I was totally misinformed. I thought it was no rules wrestling. But it turns out there are lots of rules. No kicking down there (good rule), no holding shorts, no punching the back of the head, no biting… the rules go on and on.

Although the fights are all over in 30 seconds. That’s not a sport. You take a bit of your pizza and it’s all over.

Here’s a suggestion: You want a good man sport? One that is violent? One that lasts long enough to watch with your mates? One played at a venu big enough for 70,000 other men? One with lots of rules?

Rugby.

1. well Driscoll mainly, but I’m sure there were some others [↩]

Thanks for the introduction Gus. G’day Team!

I’ve been thinking about my evangelistic efforts since Gus put that post up welcoming me to The Resolute and I reckon I’m not all that great. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking to people about Jesus and I really enjoy listening to what people have to say about how they see Christianity. I enjoy the discussion and debate that comes up over various issues, thinking through the logical conclusions of how people think or reason and the challenge to know the bible well enough to present an argument. But I’m not that good at it. Neither are you. And it’s hard. So in the tradition of what we do here at the Resolute I thought I would share some of my tricks for not doing it and not getting any better at it over the next few posts. Let us know what you think as we go along.

I probably wouldn’t recommend you read this book. I haven’t. Although I did read the title and tag line and that was enough.

To set the scene: I found a catalogue from some big local ‘Christian’ bookshop in the postbox. I inverted-comma-ed the ‘Christians’ because I’ve heard it described as “A self-help shop with a few Christian books”… But that’s a rant for another day.

One that caught my eye was titled “It’s NOT My Fault”. My first thought was “well it’s not God’s fault”… but anyway… the authors were talking about negative thinking. The blurb puts it “people don’t recognize what the blaming mindset does to them”. I’m no shrink so I can’t really comment on that.

But it’s the tag line that I thought was… well here it is: “The no-excuse plan to put you in charge of your life“.

Anyone well schooled in 2 Ways to Live will hear the alarm bells wailing. To quote 2WTL: “The sad truth is that, from the very beginning, men and women everywhere have rejected God by doing things their own way.” In kids-talk you might say “we try to run our live’s our own way, instead of making God the boss”.

ie. God should be the boss. A better tag line would be “You have no excuse but to put God in charge of your life“.

But then again, I admit, I haven’t read the book.

I wonder how many atheists there really are.

Christopher Hitchens was recently on QandA and then there was the whole debate in the media (under the guise of ‘ethics classes’) about whether religion should be taught in schools.

These atheists seem to talk as if religion is dead, like people are starting to become ‘enlightened’ to the ‘fact’ that there is no god… but I’m not sure that’s the case. Far from atheism taking over, I think spirituality/religion is here as much as ever.

2 movies I saw this week had massive religious overtones. Avatar had a bit of ‘god in the trees’ Pantheism, Animism and ancestor veneration. The Lonely Bones was a mix of spiritualism, medium-ism and a strange-nice-purgatory-afterlife-thing going.

Not sure if I got those ‘ism descriptions right, but it certainly wasn’t atheism.

I’m always looking out for good material to blog about… so when Philip told me about an article titled “Mac or PC: dividing the Christian community” on sydneyanglicans.net… well… it’s like discovering a gold mine.

The endless possibilities… so much I could say…

ps. I’m a mac.

pps. Do I take my Mac too seriously…?