Thursday, August 4, 2011
The Fourth Dimension of Christian Aesthetics
Frequently in the Christian academic world, and less frequently in ecclesiastical settings, Christians define aesthetics as the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Certainly, this triad of excellencies may be traced to Plato, and is also compatible with biblical theology; however, it falls short by one dimension, one aspect theologically. I am particularly struck by the symbiosis of Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Terror in pinnacle visions of the Wholly Other, vis, the Ark of the Covenant on Yom Kippur, the flaming cherubim bowing before the sapphire throne, John prostrate on Patmos before the sunlit Son, and Isaiah's woeful declaration upon his vision of the Most High. The Tabernacle and Temple were the Truest, Best, and Most Beautiful architectural expressions of Divine revelation in the OT, bedecked with precious jewels, and swathed in hammered silver and beaten gold, and, in the NT, the New Jerusalem in all its blinding resplendence surpasses even them, yet they are all Territories of Terror as well, foreboding and forbidding to those without. These types and shadows point toward that place where Divine judgment begins, "the house of God," the church, which, if it is to properly mirror its prototypes, should not only be a place of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth but also a place of Terror. What churches do we know where these things dwell as One, especially aesthetically in regards to their music, architecture, rhetoric, and theology?
Friday, November 12, 2010
The Purpose Driven Life
John Calvin once stated that the Christian life and all of the theologizing that goes with it could be summed up this way: "humility, humility, humility."
At its core, humility has more to do with motive for action than anything else. And as present day "Christianity-at-large" has become more focused on the end result, production and "purpose," and often trying to "quantify" the Christian life in much the same way that the business world quantifies things, the art of true humility and the motive for our actions are becoming lost.
Let me briefly explain my phrase humility has more to do with motive for action than anything else. We live in a world of false humility and especially so in "Christian" circles. False humility emerges when action and motive do not align as they might appear to align. Let me be more clear - and as a good friend recently pointed out to me - action and motive always align. In other words, we always do what we desire most to do at that time. However, there is usually more than one motive for action - what will be the effect of the action, and how does the action effect me? So, a simple example of what is meant here by false humility would be doing something designed for good but doing so for the sake of a motive ulterior to that good itself when that ulterior motive is in reality greater than the motive we want people to think is greater - ie. I give $1000 to The Salvation Army because I want to help the helpless, but not only that, and in reality greater than that, I want to be recognized for doing it, and I want to get a break on my taxes as well. Most likely, this would be false humility.
False humility is born from a "wrongful" motive for action, or perhaps more accurately, a "deceptive" motive for action. I would submit that this is any motive not born out of Love (the capital "L" here is intentional). Why? It must be true that any motive that is pure is born out of Love (Keep in mind the context here is dealing with the spirit and not the flesh, ie morality - so I am not talking about eating being motivated by hunger or drinking being motivated by thirst, etc.). As an aside, the philosophical types at this point might be considering whether man is even capable of a pure motive at all, which is a very good question to ask. My short answer is no, at least not man by himself, in his natural state; such a man is not capable of a pure motive. In fact, in an absolute sense, no man - save Christ - has ever had a pure motive. Perhaps the purity of one's motive is most accurately marked by the one whose image it reflects.
Let me put some meat on the bones here, explaining true humility as pure motivation with the following:
Consider the notion of being needful versus being useful as it relates to humility and motivation - and this is perhaps my main point.
The desire to feel needed and to be appreciated is so very strong within each one of us that it perhaps motivates us to action as often as anything else. By our very nature we like to know that our efforts or our very presence are needed in a cause or a relationship. It feels good to be needed by others. It feels good to help others in need. It feels good to know that our time here, our relationships, that our causes all have a particular "purpose" behind them.
But think about this - could it be that this need to feel needed is a root cause of false humility in our lives, and thus when it looks like we are serving the Kingdom, we are more often only serving ourselves?
Or think about it this way: is the need to be needful making us more or less humble, more or less pure, more or less true towards the calling of following Christ? Is our intrinsic need to be needful a pure motive? Does it rightly reflect a new nature born of Love?
Enter the idea of being useful versus being needful.
If as Christians we are to be truly concerned about more than our own "purpose" here and if rather than being driven mostly by end-results, our motives are important (and in fact critical), then being useful must be a great concern towards living in a state of humility and reflecting the true nature of Christ.
Useful is more concerned with the greater good than needful is with self.
Useful asks how can I give, how can I be used, not how am I needed or what will the result of my giving be?
Useful is born of Love supernaturally, while needful is born of self naturally.
When Christ came to crucify the natural self and all of its impure desires, He at the same time established that true humility is about being used for the sake of the Kingdom - always, and in every circumstance.
Only when one has resigned the idea of being needed by God, can one then truly be used of God in humility. In past writings, I have quoted Karl Barth with an idea that has lodged in my mind for the past couple of years, which is this - a Holy God, who is "wholly other" and without need, who is by nature self-sufficient and self-sustaining, does not need man in order to accomplish His will. God does not need you or I in order to accomplish His will. If He is Holy, it must be so. And as His followers we must know He does not need us. But we must also understand that He sure can use us.
Think too about Paul's 1 Cor 13 passage with the repetitive theme of "and have not charity" or "love" in light of this idea of right motivation or useful being tied to humility and ultimately being tied to Love. In a very real sense, Paul is saying that having the right motivation is the center of everything we do as Christ followers. It is not enough for a Christian to simply do the right thing absent of the right motive. Just as saying one thing and doing another or professing one way and secretly living another is hypocrisy, so too is doing one thing while feigning to desire another or even doing something seemingly right without a greater motive of Love.
And this, I believe, is not only a reason for the "hollowed out" or "shallow" Christianity we see out there as well as sometimes within, but it might also be this more subtle hypocrisy that causes a lost world to increasingly look upon the "Christian" world with growing disdain.
Where the greatest concern is for "purpose driven lives," or in aligning with my vernacular here, where the greatest concern is for finding and fulfilling the needfulness of our lives, the peace of true humility will never rest its head. To simply be "driven" by Love rather than a sense of "purpose" is the path of the rarely humble Christian. To be "purpose driven" is a dangerous path where action separates from motive which leads to the nearly certain destiny of false humility and the common hypocritical "Christian."
But where Christians are motivated by supernatural Love and are willing to be used regardless of what that has to do with feeling needed, then perhaps in those moments when motive rightly aligns with action, we can understand what Calvin meant by "humility, humility, humility." And perhaps then too, by the grace of God, we can live more often as we believe.
At its core, humility has more to do with motive for action than anything else. And as present day "Christianity-at-large" has become more focused on the end result, production and "purpose," and often trying to "quantify" the Christian life in much the same way that the business world quantifies things, the art of true humility and the motive for our actions are becoming lost.
Let me briefly explain my phrase humility has more to do with motive for action than anything else. We live in a world of false humility and especially so in "Christian" circles. False humility emerges when action and motive do not align as they might appear to align. Let me be more clear - and as a good friend recently pointed out to me - action and motive always align. In other words, we always do what we desire most to do at that time. However, there is usually more than one motive for action - what will be the effect of the action, and how does the action effect me? So, a simple example of what is meant here by false humility would be doing something designed for good but doing so for the sake of a motive ulterior to that good itself when that ulterior motive is in reality greater than the motive we want people to think is greater - ie. I give $1000 to The Salvation Army because I want to help the helpless, but not only that, and in reality greater than that, I want to be recognized for doing it, and I want to get a break on my taxes as well. Most likely, this would be false humility.
False humility is born from a "wrongful" motive for action, or perhaps more accurately, a "deceptive" motive for action. I would submit that this is any motive not born out of Love (the capital "L" here is intentional). Why? It must be true that any motive that is pure is born out of Love (Keep in mind the context here is dealing with the spirit and not the flesh, ie morality - so I am not talking about eating being motivated by hunger or drinking being motivated by thirst, etc.). As an aside, the philosophical types at this point might be considering whether man is even capable of a pure motive at all, which is a very good question to ask. My short answer is no, at least not man by himself, in his natural state; such a man is not capable of a pure motive. In fact, in an absolute sense, no man - save Christ - has ever had a pure motive. Perhaps the purity of one's motive is most accurately marked by the one whose image it reflects.
Let me put some meat on the bones here, explaining true humility as pure motivation with the following:
Consider the notion of being needful versus being useful as it relates to humility and motivation - and this is perhaps my main point.
The desire to feel needed and to be appreciated is so very strong within each one of us that it perhaps motivates us to action as often as anything else. By our very nature we like to know that our efforts or our very presence are needed in a cause or a relationship. It feels good to be needed by others. It feels good to help others in need. It feels good to know that our time here, our relationships, that our causes all have a particular "purpose" behind them.
But think about this - could it be that this need to feel needed is a root cause of false humility in our lives, and thus when it looks like we are serving the Kingdom, we are more often only serving ourselves?
Or think about it this way: is the need to be needful making us more or less humble, more or less pure, more or less true towards the calling of following Christ? Is our intrinsic need to be needful a pure motive? Does it rightly reflect a new nature born of Love?
Enter the idea of being useful versus being needful.
If as Christians we are to be truly concerned about more than our own "purpose" here and if rather than being driven mostly by end-results, our motives are important (and in fact critical), then being useful must be a great concern towards living in a state of humility and reflecting the true nature of Christ.
Useful is more concerned with the greater good than needful is with self.
Useful asks how can I give, how can I be used, not how am I needed or what will the result of my giving be?
Useful is born of Love supernaturally, while needful is born of self naturally.
When Christ came to crucify the natural self and all of its impure desires, He at the same time established that true humility is about being used for the sake of the Kingdom - always, and in every circumstance.
Only when one has resigned the idea of being needed by God, can one then truly be used of God in humility. In past writings, I have quoted Karl Barth with an idea that has lodged in my mind for the past couple of years, which is this - a Holy God, who is "wholly other" and without need, who is by nature self-sufficient and self-sustaining, does not need man in order to accomplish His will. God does not need you or I in order to accomplish His will. If He is Holy, it must be so. And as His followers we must know He does not need us. But we must also understand that He sure can use us.
Think too about Paul's 1 Cor 13 passage with the repetitive theme of "and have not charity" or "love" in light of this idea of right motivation or useful being tied to humility and ultimately being tied to Love. In a very real sense, Paul is saying that having the right motivation is the center of everything we do as Christ followers. It is not enough for a Christian to simply do the right thing absent of the right motive. Just as saying one thing and doing another or professing one way and secretly living another is hypocrisy, so too is doing one thing while feigning to desire another or even doing something seemingly right without a greater motive of Love.
And this, I believe, is not only a reason for the "hollowed out" or "shallow" Christianity we see out there as well as sometimes within, but it might also be this more subtle hypocrisy that causes a lost world to increasingly look upon the "Christian" world with growing disdain.
Where the greatest concern is for "purpose driven lives," or in aligning with my vernacular here, where the greatest concern is for finding and fulfilling the needfulness of our lives, the peace of true humility will never rest its head. To simply be "driven" by Love rather than a sense of "purpose" is the path of the rarely humble Christian. To be "purpose driven" is a dangerous path where action separates from motive which leads to the nearly certain destiny of false humility and the common hypocritical "Christian."
But where Christians are motivated by supernatural Love and are willing to be used regardless of what that has to do with feeling needed, then perhaps in those moments when motive rightly aligns with action, we can understand what Calvin meant by "humility, humility, humility." And perhaps then too, by the grace of God, we can live more often as we believe.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Second Class Citizens
This post is not meant to offend. I am certain there are goodhearted people within the class of which I speak. But the overt behaviors and tendencies of this group persistently dig into my side, often filling me with disgust and resentment. I am speaking of pharmaceutical and medical device companies, and their representatives with whom I interact on a daily basis.
Let me paint a picture in order to explain.
An elderly woman is in the ICU under my care. She is dying - and I do not think we can do anything more to stifle this unrelenting process. Family members surround her. Looks of anxiety and fear have now faded day after day into expressions of quiet resolution. Each morning they look at me for a small sign of hope. Unfortunately, however, it continues to be my moral duty to deliver the news of worsening circumstances.
Death is inevitable for all of us. Medicine is important because it is an attempt at restoration. We attempt to restore the dignity of the human body, but more importantly, we attempt to restore the blessed union that exists between families and loved ones, if only for a time. There is therefore a sacred trust between patients/families and anyone who resides in the healthcare arena. We manipulate the bodies and livelihoods of people daily. It is a sobering endeavor, and any exploitation of such frailty is unforgivable.
Enter the Second-Class citizens of whom I speak. In the setting of human frailty and suffering, they make no qualms about pushing their product. They target us (doctors) with a ferocity that can at the very least be described as inappropriate. At worst, they are exploiting sickness and death for monetary gain. This aggressively capitalistic approach in the setting of human suffering is a high-pitched proclamation of their shameless moral inferiority which the rest of us must endure daily. Their manufactured smiles seem to expose Darwinian fangs, which will stop at nothing to satiate a lust for wealth. Karl Marx often alluded to man's inability to check his own greed in a capitalistic society. His ideas are hauntingly accurate when applied to the American Medical System.
As a result, I often feel forced to engage in behaviors which cause me spiritual strife as a Christian. Christ reveals to us the overwhelming intrinsic value of humanity, and we should therefore treat each individual as a vitally important and blessed being. In this setting, however, I treat drug and medical device representatives according to the role they have chosen. I treat them as Second-Class citizens who reside within a world which I believe must be defined by a devotion to a distinctly humanitarian brand of morality. They have chosen to be less important than the medical patient, than the nurses and doctors attempting to restore the dignity of human bodies and relationships. They have chosen to be scavengers, greedily sifting through the remains of the dying in order to sustain themselves. They have chosen the role of moral inferiority.
I struggle with my choice however, to treat them as Second-Class citizens. I still believe that these individuals harbor the same intrinsic value as myself and even those that I love and respect. Any wisdom regarding this issue would be much appreciated. If you believe I am in error, tell me. My final thought however is this -
If we are all reaching toward God, if our hands are outstretched and our eye's gaze is fixed upon the heavens, then those who choose to exist in a realm which is beneath the dignity of that gaze must, in some sense, be ignored, must be left to wander in a precipice beneath us. Maybe we should pray for them, maybe we should grab them by the hand in an attempt to elevate their gaze as well. Maybe I am not strong enough to do either. Maybe, hopefully, you can show me a better path.
Let me paint a picture in order to explain.
An elderly woman is in the ICU under my care. She is dying - and I do not think we can do anything more to stifle this unrelenting process. Family members surround her. Looks of anxiety and fear have now faded day after day into expressions of quiet resolution. Each morning they look at me for a small sign of hope. Unfortunately, however, it continues to be my moral duty to deliver the news of worsening circumstances.
Death is inevitable for all of us. Medicine is important because it is an attempt at restoration. We attempt to restore the dignity of the human body, but more importantly, we attempt to restore the blessed union that exists between families and loved ones, if only for a time. There is therefore a sacred trust between patients/families and anyone who resides in the healthcare arena. We manipulate the bodies and livelihoods of people daily. It is a sobering endeavor, and any exploitation of such frailty is unforgivable.
Enter the Second-Class citizens of whom I speak. In the setting of human frailty and suffering, they make no qualms about pushing their product. They target us (doctors) with a ferocity that can at the very least be described as inappropriate. At worst, they are exploiting sickness and death for monetary gain. This aggressively capitalistic approach in the setting of human suffering is a high-pitched proclamation of their shameless moral inferiority which the rest of us must endure daily. Their manufactured smiles seem to expose Darwinian fangs, which will stop at nothing to satiate a lust for wealth. Karl Marx often alluded to man's inability to check his own greed in a capitalistic society. His ideas are hauntingly accurate when applied to the American Medical System.
As a result, I often feel forced to engage in behaviors which cause me spiritual strife as a Christian. Christ reveals to us the overwhelming intrinsic value of humanity, and we should therefore treat each individual as a vitally important and blessed being. In this setting, however, I treat drug and medical device representatives according to the role they have chosen. I treat them as Second-Class citizens who reside within a world which I believe must be defined by a devotion to a distinctly humanitarian brand of morality. They have chosen to be less important than the medical patient, than the nurses and doctors attempting to restore the dignity of human bodies and relationships. They have chosen to be scavengers, greedily sifting through the remains of the dying in order to sustain themselves. They have chosen the role of moral inferiority.
I struggle with my choice however, to treat them as Second-Class citizens. I still believe that these individuals harbor the same intrinsic value as myself and even those that I love and respect. Any wisdom regarding this issue would be much appreciated. If you believe I am in error, tell me. My final thought however is this -
If we are all reaching toward God, if our hands are outstretched and our eye's gaze is fixed upon the heavens, then those who choose to exist in a realm which is beneath the dignity of that gaze must, in some sense, be ignored, must be left to wander in a precipice beneath us. Maybe we should pray for them, maybe we should grab them by the hand in an attempt to elevate their gaze as well. Maybe I am not strong enough to do either. Maybe, hopefully, you can show me a better path.
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