Lessons on Love from The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

I was watching The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies last night.  I found one scene especially interesting.

The dwarves, the men, the elves, and the orcs are all gathered for battle.  The elf Tauriel wants to go help the dwarves, and one reason is that she feels affection for one of the dwarves, Kili, who loves her.  The elf-king, Thranduil, however, is baffled that Tauriel wants to help the dwarves.  Thranduil says that, even if she rescues the dwarves, the dwarves will live for a hundred more years, or so, and will die.  Thranduil wondered what the point was of rescuing the dwarves, if they would soon die, anyway.  The dwarves are not immortal like the elves, after all!

Tauriel is outraged by Thranduil’s remarks.  She accuses Thranduil of thinking that his life is of more value than the lives of others, including the dwarves.  She also asks what the value is of living for a long time if that life lacks love.  As far as she can see, Thranduil lacks love.  She resolves to go to the dwarves to help them, and the elf Legolas volunteers to accompany her.  Legolas himself loves Tauriel, and he does not care for Kili’s affection for her.  Still, out of love for Tauriel, Legolas goes with her to rescue the dwarves, Kili included.

We see later in the movie that Thranduil is not entirely cold or bereft of love.  After Kili is killed, Tauriel weeps over his dead body, and she wonders what the point of love is if it is so painful.  Thranduil offers her words of comfort and assures her that love is worthwhile, whatever pain it may bring.  Thranduil later tells Legolas about the love that Legolas’ mother had for Legolas, and he tells Legolas about Strider, who will be a significant character in the Lord of the Rings.  Thranduil regards Strider as a man of goodness and integrity.  This indicates that even Thranduil values goodness and integrity in the brief lives that mortals live.  Ultimately, for Thranduil, it is not longevity that matters, but the quality and content of a life.

The interaction between Thranduil and Tauriel when Tauriel was about to help the dwarves stood out to me, since I have sometimes had similar thoughts to those of Thranduil.  Why should I give to charities that prolong people’s lives, when everyone will die sooner or later, anyway?  I one time read an account of an evangelical Christian who became an agnostic, and, for a time, he felt the same way: why do all this charity work when none of it matters in the end?  Everyone will die, anyway!

Many theists will argue that this is precisely why we need God as a foundation for morality: God values human beings, our character matters because it will be eternal, and God will reward our good deeds in the afterlife.  Our good deeds in this life matter within a theistic worldview, in short.  Yet, one can also take the eternity of life in another direction and end up devaluing this life, on some level.  That was my impression of the Bhagavad Gita, As It Is.  Krishna told Arjuna that he should feel free to kill in battle, since those whom he kills will live forever, anyway.  The Bhagavad Gita, As It Is encouraged charity, on some level, albeit not as much as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do.  But it preferred causes that spread Krishna-consciousness to causes that help the poor, for the former relate to eternity, not just this brief time on earth.

What Tauriel said to Thranduil is thought-provoking.  Her point was that it’s not enough simply to live, but the life needs to be a life of quality, one that contains love.  She loves Kili and will act on that love, even though Kili’s lifespan is significantly shorter than her own.  Why should I give to charities that prolong human lives, when people will die anyway?  Because I want my life here on earth to be characterized by love, not contempt, hate, or passive indifference towards others.  Plus, Tauriel’s question of whether Thranduil thinks his life is more valuable is relevant to my motivation: I am no more important than another human being, and, if I were hungry, I hope that someone would help me.  Why should I not do the same for another human being?  My love for recipients of charity is not as fervent as Tauriel’s love for Kili, but this is where theism enters the picture, for me: recipients of charity are loved by God, and so God cares whether I help them or not.  Theism also teaches me that my character in this life has eternal consequences, and that is why I should prefer to cultivate a loving, giving character.

Legolas’ act stands out to me because it is an act of selfless love.  Legolas will go with Tauriel to rescue the dwarves, even though he is upset that Tauriel loves one of them, and even though Legolas may get killed in the process.  Legolas is doing this because he loves Tauriel, period, and so what matters to Tauriel matters to him.  I will admit that I admire this picture of love, but I fall short dramatically from it.  Detachment can lessen pain, which is what Tauriel thinks after Kili dies.  I have no plans to give up detachment altogether, for it helps me a great deal when people reject me!  Yet, I should try to make Legolas’ approach a greater part of my life: to love others because I love them, not on account of anything they can do for me in return.

Book Write-Up: Absolute Love, by R.I. Willroth

R.I. Willroth.  Absolute Love.  Bloomington: WestBow Press, 2011.  See here to buy the book.

The message of this book is one that you will find in a number of Christian books: that God is love, and only in a relationship with God can one find the security, the perspective, and the inner transformation that he or she needs to love others truly.  Some Christian books express this idea in a shallow, simple manner.  Some Christian books are more sophisticated.  Absolute Love leans more in the latter direction.

The book quotes a variety of thinkers and authors: J.I. Packer, John Piper, Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, M. Scott Peck, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Francis Schaeffer, Bernard of Clairvaux, the Koran, and the list goes on.  If I were to guess, I would say that R.I. Willroth leans towards a Reformed Christian perspective.  The resources that he recommends at the end of the book are largely Reformed.

The book was a bit rambling, but it was an edifying read.  Willroth picks some great quotes.  Sometimes, the quotes overshadow his own voice, but the quotes are still good.  I think of Francis Schaeffer’s statement that Christianity helps us to value others as equals to ourselves, which is why we should try to make things right with people when we sin against them (a perspective that, oddly enough, actually resonates with me as an introvert).  There is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s critique of how human love is often self-interested, whereas divine love values all people rather than seeking to manipulate or exploit them, and that divine love enables people to leave others to Christ (another perspective on interaction that resonates with me as an introvert).  M. Scott Peck presents a compelling picture of letting go of pretense and self-justification, which can open people up to others.  There is C.S. Lewis’ statement that rebelling against God can set the stage for seeing why sin is wrong, and another person’s statement that God is an abundant stream who gives, not a dry well desperate for us to provide its needs.  While Willroth does not believe that God is a dry well who needs our adoration, Willroth still maintains that God punishes people out of love, since God must oppose injustice, which threatens order and well-being.

Willroth did have some good things of his own to say.  His discussion of various attributes—-love, loyalty, etc.—-promoted a poise, security, and an outlook of purpose that I would like to have.

I did struggle with a few things in reading the book.  Of course, drawing on Christian thinkers, Willroth presents non-belief as a fallen, deficient, dark state, whereas belief is when the light goes on inside of a person, enabling him or her to love others truly.  I have my doubts that things are that simple, for there are non-believers who seem to be good people, and believers who are not-so-good in the moral quality of their lives.  Willroth also critiques the view that people can become more loving by being inside of an unconditionally accepting community, saying that confrontation is loving, and appealing to the prophet Amos.  (Either Willroth says this, or the person he’s quoting says it.  I do not remember offhand.)  I do not entirely disagree with Willroth here, for I think that both elements are important: people modeling and showing unconditional love, and people getting shaken out of their complacency.  I struggle, primarily, on account of the abuses that can occur in the name of Christian confrontation.

Reading this book can be an act of worship.  I am not sure if I learned anything dramatically new from it, but I was edified as Willroth and the people he quoted explored and celebrated God’s love, and the importance of love in general.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book through BookLook Bloggers, in exchange for an honest review.

Last Night's Big Bang Theory; God's Not Dead 2

A.  I read an article today about last night’s episode of The Big Bang Theory.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the article.  I did bookmark it, but apparently my bookmarks are not listed according to the order in which I bookmarked them, but rather according to another order (whatever that is).

Essentially, the article was saying that Sheldon is not yet ready to get back into a relationship with Amy.  Sheldon is still obnoxious and insensitive.  He said that he would like to get back into a relationship with Amy so that he could resume diving into his work and ignoring her, as he did in the past.  And Sheldon, with the help of Howard and Raj, developed a Craig’s List ad that invited interested women to solve a series of complex puzzles, and their prize would be Sheldon!  Well, an attractive woman did complete the puzzles, but Sheldon rejected her because she was late, and also because she found a certain branch of physics to be boring.  That was not very considerate on his part, considering she went to all that trouble solving those puzzles.

All of this should be obvious.  These things did not dawn on me when I was watching the show, however, and the reason is that I expect for Sheldon to be obnoxious, or to go right when most people would go left (or vice versa).  That’s what makes the show funny.

The article got me thinking, though: Does Sheldon love Amy?  I always assumed that he did.  After reading that post, I would say that he has affection for her in the sense that likes having her around.  He enjoys her company and appreciates her love.  But he wants for relationships to be on his terms and to cater to him.  Amy eventually ran out of patience with that.  For the relationship to work, Sheldon has to learn how to love and to give.

Many of you reading this will probably say, “Duh!  Isn’t that obvious?”  Yeah, it is.  But we realize, learn, and articulate things at our own speeds!

B.  The Christian movie God’s Not Dead has a sequel.  I read about this on the blog, “Unfundamentalist Christians” (see the post here).  You can watch the trailer for God’s Not Dead 2 here.

It was interesting to see who is on this movie.  Apparently, this was Fred Thompson’s final role before he passed on.  Fred Thompson, as you may remember, was a Republican politician and an actor (particularly on Law and Order).  Jesse Metcalfe, who played on Desperate Housewives and was Christopher Ewing on the recent resurrection of Dallas, plays a Christian attorney.  Robin Givens, whom you may remember as Mike Tyson’s ex-wife and from the 1980’s TV show Head of the Class, plays a school principal.  It is not surprising to me that she is in the movie, since she has been on Christian movies before.  Melissa Joan Hart, who has played Sabrina the Teenage Witch and is on the show Melissa and Joey (which I have not seen), plays a public school teacher who gets in trouble for mentioning Jesus in class.  Pat Boone is also in the movie, and that is not overly surprising to me, since he is a right-wing Christian.

The movie has some people from the previous movie.  David A.R. White, who is making the movie, reprises his role as Pastor Dave.  Paul Kwo, who played the student from People’s Republic of China in the previous movie, is also in the sequel.

The movie also has J. Warner Wallace, the homicide detective and Christian apologist.  His presence in the movie is not too surprising to me, since a key element of the movie is defending the truth of Christianity in the courtroom.  I will not be surprised if some of his arguments are used.

It is nice to see old and new faces in a Christian movie.  While I do plan to see it, I probably will not gobble it up like a lot of evangelical Christians I have known.  Essentially, the movie is about a teacher whose job is on the line because she mentioned Jesus in answering a student’s question about non-violence.  I doubt that would even be illegal, since Jesus was a historical voice for non-violence; what is illegal is proselytizing and pressuring people to embrace a certain faith.  The ACLU is demonized as anti-Christian, when it is not opposed to Christianity but rather the promotion of religion by the state.  Christians demonstrate and get arrested.  I admit that I should do more service work, but I wonder if Christianity should be about fighting the world, or serving the world; the latter makes more sense to me.

I wish I could see a fair depiction of church-state controversies, as opposed to one-sided movies!  But I should not be surprised: God’s Not Dead 1 did not exactly do a good job fairly representing the atheist position, so maybe I should not expect fairness, nuance, and authentic debate in its sequel.

Book Write-Up: The Love of God, by John C. Peckham

John C. Peckham. The Love of God: A Canonical Model. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015. See here to purchase the book.

John C. Peckham teaches theology and Christian philosophy at Andrews University, which is a Seventh-Day Adventist university. His book, The Love of God: A Canonical Model, is a scholarly treatment of God’s love. Peckham interacts with theological ideas about God and God’s love.

Peckham addresses two models. The first model is the transcendent-voluntarist model of God’s love. It maintains that God is transcendent and unaffected by emotions, that God dispassionately and unconditionally loves the world, and that God voluntarily makes a choice to love the world rather than being compelled to do so by nature. The second model is the imminent-experientialist model of God’s love. It holds that the universe, in some sense, is a part of God, and that God thus feels what beings in the universe feel, in a sympathetic and empathetic manner.

Peckham is critical of both models, and he supports a third model, which he calls the foreconditional-reciprocal model of God’s love. Peckham bases this model on the biblical presentation of God’s love. In this model, God voluntarily chooses to love the world and to be emotionally invested in it and affected by it. God does not have to love the world out of any neediness on God’s part, for God already gives and receives love within the context of the Trinity. But God chose to create the world and to love it, and God is affected emotionally by what humans do. God’s emotional response is not arbitrary, however. God is pleased and satisfied when humans reciprocate, through faith and obedience, the love that God has shown to them, and God is upset by human wickedness. Moreover, Peckham regards God’s love as foreconditional more than unconditional. God wants every human being to be saved and in a relationship with God, but God has a special love for those who reciprocate God’s love through faith and obedience.

Overall, Peckham supports his model with Scripture. Against the view that God is dispassionate and devoid of emotions, Peckham appeals to the mountain of biblical statements about God having emotions and feeling certain ways in response to human behavior. Against the view that God’s love is unconditional, Peckham refers to biblical passages about God’s special love for the faithful and the righteous, and God’s special relationship them. Peckham is convincing on these particular issues.

Peckham’s book is also useful with regards to the Greek and Hebrew words for love. Many theologians and Christian writers have waxed eloquent about agape being a dispassionate, disinterested, divine sort of love, but Peckham effectively argues that this is not necessarily the case in Scripture.

This book is a fresh, scholarly, and biblical discussion of God’s love. My main criticism, however, is that it should have gone into more detail about what God’s love is, or what God’s love entails. Is it God’s affection? Is it God’s desire to do good to people? If so, what is the nature of that good? Are we talking about physical and material blessings, spiritual blessings, or both? When people say that God loves them, what does that mean exactly? In what sense is God loving them? From a Christian perspective, the answer to these questions may seem rather obvious, in areas: God shows love for people by offering them salvation, which includes forgiveness of sin, a relationship with God, and eternal life. This is God benefiting people and being concerned about their well-being. But does God’s love entail giving people material blessings, as seems to be the case in parts of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament (i.e., Psalm 104; Matthew 5:45)? If so, how can one account for people who do not have many material blessings? Does God not love them? Peckham would have done well to have wrestled with these issues, for they relate to the substance and concrete expression of God’s love.

Peckham seems to be an Arminian, one who maintains that God gives prevenient grace so that all people can respond to God’s love; this is in contrast with Calvinism, which holds that God chose who would be saved before the foundation of the world and then unilaterally transformed the chosen ones so that they would have faith and live a holy life. My issue with Arminianism is that it does not seem to me that everyone on earth has an equal opportunity to respond to God. Some have heard the Gospel, whereas some have not; some are receptive to God, whereas some are hard-hearted or indifferent, or find that they cannot believe even if they wanted to do so. How does this fit into God’s love? Peckham should have wrestled with this.

The book did not exactly make me feel better from a spiritual standpoint. I am drawn to the Christian slogan that there is nothing we can do that will make God love us more, and that there is nothing we can do that will make God love us less. The problem is that this does not mesh that neatly with certain things that are in the Bible. Moreover, when we say that God has a special love for the faithful or obedient, that is not particularly reassuring, for, being imperfect, many of us fall short in terms of faith and obedience to God’s rules. I do not dismiss what Peckham says, but I would add to it a belief that God is patient with us and recognizes that we are works in progress.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Intervarsity Press, in exchange for an honest review.

Scattered Ramblings on Loving, But Not Liking, People

At church this morning, the pastor preached about the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  The pastor was saying that love for neighbor is not about how we feel about our neighbor, and how our neighbor feels about us; rather, it is about us showing mercy and being sensitive to the needs around us.

I like that message, since I have difficulty having warm, fuzzy, affectionate feelings towards a lot of people; plus, there are people who don’t like me.  But do I think that message is Scriptural?  Allow me to reflect.

On the one hand, I do think that God wants for our love to touch us on an emotional level.  Romans 12:10 states: “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another” (KJV).  I Peter 1:22 refers to loving others fervently with a pure heart.  I also think of I Corinthians 13:3, which states that, if I give all of my goods to feed the poor but have not love, it profits me nothing.  Is love simply a matter of giving things to people who need help, even if I may have hostile feelings towards certain people?  If so, then why does Paul distinguish giving one’s goods to the poor from love?

On the other hand, can we truly say that Jesus and the prophets liked the people who were persecuting them or putting them to death?  I have my doubts.  Jesus does not seem to like some of the Pharisees in Matthew 23!  Maybe Jesus appreciated certain human aspects to them, for Jesus did eat with the Pharisees, but there were things about some of them that made him angry.  Jesus may not have liked them, at least not entirely, but he still did love them.  He wanted them to repent (Luke 7:30; cp. Luke 13:34), and he asked God to forgive the people who were putting him to death (Luke 23:34).

I should also note Romans 12:19-20: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.  Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head” (KJV).  This passage does seem to divorce feeling from action: you may have hostile feelings towards your enemy, but you should trust God to execute vengeance, while still doing good to your enemy.  There is outward love there, but there is still an inner desire for vengeance.

During the children’s part of the service, the pastor was talking about loving people who are different for us, for everyone is made by God.  As the pastor said, children often need to remind adults of this!  I hear him there!

I noticed in hearing Luke 10:25-37 that the discussion in which Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan concerned how to inherit eternal life.  How, according to Jesus, does one inherit eternal life?  In accordance with the law, one loves God and loves one’s neighbor.  Jesus said, “This do, and thou shalt live.”  That sounds different from what a lot of evangelical Christians say: you cannot get eternal life by obeying the law or doing good works, for you need to accept God’s free gift of salvation by trusting Jesus Christ as Savior.  At the same time, the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, the Book of Acts, contains the statement that “by [Jesus] all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:39 KJV).  Obviously, in that passage in Acts, justification cannot come through the law of Moses; we need Christ.

If that’s true, though, why didn’t Christ mention it to the lawyer who asked him how to inherit eternal life?  Why did Christ only mention love of God and neighbor?  I think back to a video I watched of Billy Graham talking with Woody Allen.  Graham was telling Allen that God loves him and expects Allen to live up to a standard, and, if Allen falls short, he needs redemption.  That puzzled me, a bit.  IF Allen falls short?  There is no “if” about it, for we are all sinners who fall short (Romans 3)!  We all need redemption!  Another blogger told me, however, that he actually liked Graham’s approach because Graham was setting up an ethical context.  That, I think, is what Jesus was doing: he was setting up an ethical context.  And, in the course of becoming oriented to that ethical context and coming to appreciate what God and the Kingdom of God are all about, we find that we fall short, that we not only transgress, but that our attitudes often go in the opposite direction from what God wants.  Then, we conclude that we need redemption.

I still have difficulty feeling affection towards certain people.  As I was walking to church, I was thinking of people whom I did not like, and I was contemplating what was good about them.  That is not exactly unconditional love, or loving on the basis of Christ as opposed to loving on the basis of what I like about people.  But I needed to do that in order to develop some affection towards them; and maybe honoring what is good about them actually loves them as people, for what makes them tick personally, as opposed to loving them in conformity to some standard out there.  There is still a place for loving out of conformity to a standard, though.

I was also thinking of something that I read on a Christian blog a while back, but I cannot find the post.  The blogger was mockingly paraphrasing I Corinthians 13 in criticizing the attitudes of evangelicals: “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels but have not love, relax, I am saved by faith, anyway!”  The blogger was criticizing Christian jerks who use grace as a free pass, as a way to excuse themselves from loving others.

I need free grace, though.  I need that “Relax, I am saved by faith, anyway.”  I need to know that I am good with God, on good days and on bad days—-on days when every offense that people have committed against me comes rapid-fire into my mind, one after the other, and on days when I am placid and feel good about God and my fellow human beings.  It is hard for me to give love, if I am unsure that I am actually receiving it from God.  Does that approach give a pass to Christian jerks, allowing them to believes that they are saved by grace even when they treat others like dirt?  Part of me wonders, “So what if it does?”  Even the Christian jerk needs grace, as I do!

Book Write-Up: While We're Far Apart, by Lynn Austin

Lynn Austin. While We’re Far Apart. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2010. See here to buy the book.

While We’re Far Apart is set in World War II New England. Eddie Schaffer is about to go to war, and the shy Penny Goodrich, who has been infatuated with Eddie since the two of them were children, offers to take care of his kids, Esther and Peter. Peter cannot talk after his father leaves, and Esther resents Penny, thinking that Penny is trying to take the place of Esther’s late mother, Rachel, who died in an accident. Penny also has to contend with her elderly parents, who are overly protective and continually berate her. Meanwhile, there is the Schaffers’ landlord, a Jewish man named Jacob Mendel, who lost his own wife in the same accident that took Rachel Schaffer. Jacob is angry with God and has refused to attend synagogue, and so, when the local synagogue burns down after he has an argument with the rabbi, the authorities suspect him of arson. Jacob is also worried about his son, Avraham, and Avraham’s family, for Avraham went to Hungary to study at the yeshiva, and there is news that the Nazis are invading Hungary.

Mysteries emerge in the course of the book. Penny learns that she is actually adopted, and she is curious about the identity of her real mother and father. Esther and Peter know absolutely nothing about their late mother’s side of the family, and they are curious about them. Then there is the question of who burned down the synagogue. The mysteries definitely propelled my reading of the book. I especially liked the road trips that characters took in search of answers. (I think of the show, Brothers and Sisters: “Road trip! Road trip!”) The resolution that particularly surprised me concerned the burning of the synagogue: I was not surprised that one of the characters did it, but I was surprised that a certain character participated.

What most intrigued me about this book, however, was the author’s portrayal of Judaism as a path to God. Or so it seemed to me. This is an evangelical Christian book. Lynn Austin in other fictional works, and even in this one, says that the death of Christ is what brings people forgiveness. Yet, the sources of spiritual wisdom in this book were two non-Christian Jewish characters: Jacob’s rabbi, who encourages Jacob to return to faith, and Jacob himself, who finds his faith again as he helps Esther and Peter to cope with the death of their mother, and the challenges after that. I usually do not read Amazon reviews of books I have read until I have written my own review, but I wonder if any right-wing evangelicals have taken Lynn Austin to task for this.

A theological question that recurred to me as I read this book, and which comes up often when I read Lynn Austin’s books, concerns God’s activity in the world. Does God protect us and our loved ones when we pray for protection? If so, how can we account for the bad things that happen to people? Lynn Austin seems to vacillate on this: she appears to believe that God protects, but she also does not think that God is a genie who does whatever we ask. She thinks that God can bring good out of bad, and she also maintains that God respects people’s free-will, and thus they, not God, are to blame for evil. I was thinking of a point that I read in atheist Robert Price’s The Reason Driven Life: that many Christian pastors advertise that God protects people, but later they have to deal with fallout after something tragic happens to someone, and that person comes to the pastors for answers. As I read Lynn Austin’s book and saw that some people survived, and some did not, I wondered if the people who survived really did so as a result of divine protection, or if it was simply a matter of chance: that people should be happy that they are alive, for things could have easily turned out differently. I still pray for God to protect people, however, for maybe God does; plus, doing so makes me feel better. In addition, I believe that God protects me, even if I die, for I believe in an afterlife: that I am safe in God’s hands, whatever happens.

In reading this book, I learned about Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish businessman who saved Jews from annihilation by giving them fake papers portraying them as Swedish nationals. As it did with Oscar Schindler, the Israeli government declared Wallenberg to be one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.” And so he was. So many people turned the other way or minded their own affairs when the Nazis were persecuting and killing the Jews. For someone to stick his neck out for his fellow human being was not only righteous, but heroic.

My favorite line in the book is on page 405. One of the characters is Roy, a likable, happy-go-lucky serviceman who strikes up a friendship with Penny on the bus. Penny helps Roy write love letters to Sally. Later in the book, Roy says: “I finally realized why I always had so much trouble telling Sally how I felt. It was because what I felt wasn’t love. A man in love should have no trouble at all. Even if he’s tongue-tied, he should overflow with ways to express how he feels. I never felt any of that. I was dazzled by her beauty and by the fact that she would even look twice at a guy like me.”

What I appreciated the most about this book was the development of relationships. Esther did not care for Penny and treated her shabbily for a long time, but they came to care for each other. Jacob Mendel was alone in his bitterness, until Esther, Peter, and Penny came into his life, and he did what he could to help them out.

This book won a Christy Award. No surprise there!

Ramblings on Love, Being Loved, and Reciprocity

I am still reading that biography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk.  It’s The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott.  On page 423, Mott quotes a passage from Merton’s The New Man, in which Merton states the following:

“In the mystery of social love there is found the realization of ‘the other’ not only as one to be loved by us, so that we may perfect ourselves, but also as one who can become more perfect by loving us.  The vocation to charity is a call not only to love but to be loved.  The man who does not care at all whether or not he is loved is ultimately unconcerned about the true welfare of the other and of society.  Hence we cannot love unless we consent to be loved in return.”

The book goes on to talk about a love affair that Merton had with a woman the book calls “S.”  Merton felt that he was learning about love from that experience, to the chagrin of his monk superiors!

Merton essentially says that we cannot love unless we want to be loved ourselves, or in return.  The reason that this passage stood out to me was that I was thinking about this sort of issue.  Do I need to be loved by others for me to love people?  One hindrance to me reaching out to a number of people with love is that I do not feel that there is much reciprocity.  I think: “Why should I love so-and-so—-what has he ever done for me?  He usually snubs me every chance he can get.”  In that sort of situation, I can find myself, as a Christian, concluding that perhaps I should not care about being loved, but rather loving.  It’s better to give than to receive.

On the other hand, I cannot give up my belief that I, as a human being created in God’s image, deserve to be loved.  I am not a great fan of Ayn Rand’s politics (as intriguing as I find it), but her critique of altruism has long spoken to me.  Ayn Rand essentially asked why we should sacrifice ourselves for others or believe that we do not deserve good things ourselves.  Altruism says that we should give good things to others, but why should we believe that others deserve good things, whereas we ourselves do not?  Both of us are humans!  I am not writing this post to debate the finer points of Ayn Rand’s philosophy.  Some of her bad characters whine about how they deserve love, so I doubt that Ayn Rand would say that we all deserve love regardless of what we do, but rather taught that we all have a right to pursue happiness.  I can distance myself from Ayn Rand’s rejection of altruism by saying that I support giving to others, but objectivists have said that Ayn Rand was not entirely against giving to others, and they would probably accuse me of distorting Ayn Rand’s teachings were I to make such a statement.  I am just saying that something I gleaned from Ayn Rand’s philosophy that makes sense to me and that I have incorporated into my own worldview is that it is all right for me to receive good things, not just for others to do so.

That said, in my attempts to cope with social rejection, I can easily fall into the trap of thinking others should be strong, as I try to be.  If someone rejects me or is rude to me, I can try to be strong and not allow that to bother me, and sometimes I can even succeed.  I can lean even more on God’s love, which I can tell myself is firm even when other people disappoint me.  That does not mean that I can be rude to somebody else and expect him or her to behave that way.  My attitude cannot be, “Suck it up, like I have,” or “You should not be so tender but should find strength in God’s love, so that what others say to you does not matter to you.”  I should treat others as I want to be treated, even if I am not always treated that way.  If I am looking for a motivation to do that, one motivation can be that God is love, and part of life is becoming like God.

I do think that, for me personally, God’s love for me should be a foundation and a stream for my love of others.  I can follow the rule of asking people how they are doing and showing concern for their lives even if I do not believe there is much reciprocity, and there is a place for that.  But what is to keep me from falling into bitterness and resentment?  I cannot continually think about the times that I was rejected, but I need to focus on God’s love for me.  I also need to get a life, apart from my relationship with other people, not so much to avoid the world (as I have in the past), but to have more peace so that I can engage the world and not get bent out of shape if things don’t go as I wish.  Reading is one way for me to do this.

I went to church with someone a while back whose words have been in my mind lately.   He said that he is happy because, even though he gets disappointed with people at church, he still has his own relationship with God, and he can read Spurgeon sermons online.  He also says that he does not hate people, but he hates some of their actions.  He acknowledged that he did not form deep relationships with people—-I admit that a lot of pain can come from that—-but his approach makes sense to me.  It’s better than the resentment and bitterness that I have had in the past!

I’ll stop here.

The Opposite of Love Is...Indifference?

I’m reading a biography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and a prolific author.  The book is Michael Mott’s The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton.  On page 316, Mott quotes the following from one of Merton’s books, Thoughts in Solitude:

“Those who do not love, hate.  In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.  That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable.  It is hate disguised as love.”

Similarly, pastor and author John MacArthur, Jr. says this here:

“Do you honestly care about other believers or are you cold, uncaring, and indifferent? Do you have a desire to reach out and meet their needs? Those who don’t care are spiritually dead, characterized by an ongoing hatred. In our sophisticated age, that is manifested not so much in vitriolic hostility as in an utterly self-centered approach to life. People who continually focus on themselves and couldn’t care less what happens to anyone else are of their father the devil, who ‘was a murderer from the beginning’ (John 8:44). As believers, however, ‘we know love by this, that [Christ] laid down His life for us’ quite the opposite of the devil’s murderous character. Therefore, ‘We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren’ (1 John 3:16).”

These passages remind me of the cliche that “the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.”  I’ve seen TV shows about this.  A son hates his mother, and his mother actually thinks that’s a good thing, because the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.  If he hates, that shows he still cares.

The reason that the Thomas Merton quote stood out to me is that, lately, I have been rather indifferent towards certain people and have considered that to be a good thing.  At least I am not seething in resentment against them!  At least indifference allows me to have a certain peace of mind!  I can think about certain people from my past and be happy that I do not have to see them anymore, and just let them go their way, while I go mine.  Why should I beat myself up for not having benevolence in my heart towards them?  Actually, when would I be better able to meet their needs were I to encounter them or to be asked by them for help: when I am seething against them, or when I have a placid indifference?  Probably the latter, unless I am called upon to make a great sacrifice.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that the way to cure a grudge against a person is to pray for him or her.  More than one person has testified that this approach works.  Essentially, over a period of time, you pray for the person and wish for him or her the things that you desire for yourself.  This approach is not placid indifference towards the other person but is an attempt to cultivate some benevolence in one’s heart, to humanize the other person, if you will.  At the same time, I doubt that the Big Book is expecting the person with the grudge to think about that other person all of the time.  What we’re talking about here, it seems to me, is a method to cure resentment, which can drive an alcoholic to drink.

Personally, I find indifference to be a step up from hatred.  Yet, I do not want to be at a place where I am totally callous towards others and self-absorbed.  Benevolence towards those I dislike, however, is too saintly for me.  For that, I need divine grace, and that is something for me to pray for.  In the meantime, as I do that, I will celebrate whatever placid feelings I have.  Maybe I can remind myself that God loves me and those I dislike, and that can cultivate a greater love in my heart.

Haven: "Magic Hour"

We’ve been watching the SciFi Channel series Haven.  Yesterday, we saw a particularly moving episode from Season 3: “Magic Hour: Part 2.”

Parts 1 and 2 of “Magic Hour” have a subplot about a lady named Noelle, who is able to raise the dead, as long as she does so before sundown after the person dies.  Her sister Moira wants to take advantage of Noelle’s gift (or, as it is called on Haven, “trouble”).  Essentially, Moira’s plan is to kill people who have money, and then for Noelle to offer to raise those people from the dead if the people’s families give Moira and Noelle money.

Moira has long been bitter towards Noelle because of an incident that happened when the two of them were children.  Noelle would resurrect dead animals, but she would not resurrect their father when the three of them were in an automobile accident.  As far as Moira is concerned, Noelle choked and panicked when she should have been trying to raise their father from the dead, before it was too late.

Well, a series of events happen.  Someone we thought was good turns out to be bad and kills one of the main characters, Nathan the cop, along with Noelle.  Audrey Parker, the main character of the series, loves Nathan and wants for him to be resurrected, but Noelle cannot resurrect Nathan because she herself is dead.  But there is another possibility: maybe Moira herself has the latent trouble of being able to raise the dead, since troubles can run in families.  Perhaps Moira can resurrect Nathan and her sister Noelle.  But something has to happen to trigger Moira’s ability.  Usually, what triggers troubles is some crisis that the troubled person experiences.

Audrey brings Moira the corpse of Noelle, hoping that this will upset Moira enough to trigger Moira’s trouble.  But it does not.  Moira is obviously a bitter and a jaded woman.  Moira resents her sister for not resurrecting their father years before.  Audrey speculates that maybe Moira cares only about herself, and that perhaps shooting Moira will trigger Moira’s trouble.

But Moira and Audrey discover something.  Moira remembers that, during the accident back when she was a child, she was knocked in the back of the head and became unconscious.  Audrey checks the back of Moira’s head and sees a scar.  Audrey then checks the back of Noelle’s head and sees the same sort of scar, in the same place.  The reason that this is significant is that, when Noelle resurrected people, she took upon herself their wounds.  For example, when Moira shot Noelle’s boyfriend in the head, and Noelle resurrected the boyfriend, the bullet wound that was on her boyfriend’s forehead also appeared on Noelle’s forehead.  That’s when Audrey and Moira realize that Moira was not just unconscious during that accident back when Moira was a child, but Moira was dead.  Noelle raised Moira from the dead.

But Audrey is curious: Why couldn’t Noelle have just raised both Moira and her father?  Moira informs Audrey that the reason was that their father repeatedly told Noelle that she must not resurrect two people at the same time, for that could be fatal to Noelle.  Noelle chose Moira, her sister.

Moira feels guilty, and that upsets her enough to trigger her trouble.  Moira then decides to sacrifice herself to resurrect Noelle and Nathan.  She does so, and, as she is dying, Moira asks Noelle why Noelle never told her what she did—-that Noelle raised Moira from the dead back when they were children.  Noelle replies that she did not want Moira to feel guilty—-to feel that their father was dead because Noelle chose to resurrect Moira.  Moira responds that, had she known, she wouldn’t have made life a hell for Noelle, and the two of them could have enjoyed their time as sisters.  Moira dies, but there is an implication at the end of the episode that Noelle will raise Moira from the dead.

I found this episode moving because it shows how a self-centered, jaded, bitter person can become loving once she realizes that she herself is loved.  From a Christian standpoint, this is an essential aspect of the Gospel: that we love because God first loved us.  Of course, Noelle was just a good person and loved her sister anyway, even when her sister did not love her.  I can find myself being more like Moira, though, in that I need to feel loved before I myself can really love.

I also appreciate the theme of someone loving another person so much, that she is willing to endure that person’s rejection while she is actually helping that person.  We see this sort of theme in other stories: I think of the show Roseanne, where Dan’s father was willing to endure Dan’s rejection, rather than telling his son the truth about Dan’s mother.  I have to respect that kind of love!

Love Sermons----I Should Expect Them!

At church this morning, the pastor preached a love sermon: a sermon about how we should love other people.  That’s not my favorite kind of message, but I should expect it!  That sort of message is a salient part of the Christian tradition!

The pastor said that we cannot love God in the Christian sense if we have anything against someone else.  He also read something that paraphrased Matthew 5:23-24, while combining it with I Corinthians 13: if someone has something against you, and you don’t have enough love for that person to go to him or her and be reconciled, then (such-and-such, I forget what) is worthless.

So I can’t have anything against somebody else?  And I have to make sure that nobody else has anything against me?  Is that even possible?  Do Christians—-even those who think that we should live this way—-actually do this?  “How about you focus on whether you are obeying the requirement, James, rather than on if others are obeying it?”  Because, if the requirement is so freaking unrealistic that NOBODY is doing it, why should I beat up on myself for not doing it?

I was thinking of I Corinthians 13.  Are knowledge and giving to the poor really worthless without love?  On knowledge, even if I am not the most loving person in the world, knowledge benefits me—-it satisfies my curiosity, it entertains me, it feeds me, etc.  Maybe it can benefit others, too, but it is not utterly worthless if it does not.  On giving to the poor, I am sure that the poor person would appreciate me giving to him or her, even if I have a hard time loving people.

In churches, I have continually heard that I am supposed to “love everybody.”  Is that even realistic?  Is it possible?  I remember hearing a Jewish person say that love for everybody is not possible—-that we do not have that capacity—-but that the closest that he gets to universal love is to hope that someone else (in this case, alcoholics) does not lose his or her sobriety.  Okay, I guess that is not universal love, but love for fellow alcoholics, but I get the man’s point.  When I first heard him say that, I thought, “Well, you can say that, because you are not a Christian and thus you do not have the Holy Spirit helping you out.”  But, seeing how I and other Christians act, I wonder if Christians actually do have some edge that non-Christians lack.

Then there is the whole deal about how we are supposed to love the difficult.  How?  Suppose one has a Christian blog, and an atheist troll keeps being a jerk on it, leaving comments that abuse the author and other commenters.  Seriously, is the Christian blogger obligated to allow that?  Of course, this can be switched: suppose a fundamentalist commenter gets abusive on an atheist blog.  But my focus here is on Christians who feel they have to abide by some Christian ethic to love everybody, even the unlovable.

Feel free to comment, but let me make two points clear: (1.) I will not publish any comments that disparage me or call into question my Christianity.  Oh, that’s not very loving?  Deal with it.  Find someone else to judge.  (2.) I would rather not read comments that tell me I am being hard on myself, or that I really do love people.  This post is not about me being hard on myself.  If you comment, talk about the topic of unconditional love—-whether, and to what extent, you put that into practice, or how you understand it as a Christian, if you consider yourself a Christian.

Loving Jesus by Loving Others

The December 11, 2012 devotion in Our Daily Bread stood out to me.  It's by Randy Kilgore, and it started out as follows:

"Some years back, another man and I were reading together Matthew 26 about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  'I know this much,' he told me as I read along, 'if I'd been with Jesus in Gethsemane, I'd have had His back.  No way would I have fallen asleep!'  Indignant, he continued, 'How could anyone fall asleep after hearing Jesus tell them how troubled He was?  He was practically begging!' (v. 38)."

Randy then goes on to say that he wondered out loud to his friend if the two of them did not pay enough attention to their families and friends.  As Jesus wanted personal attention from his disciples when he asked them to watch and to pray with him during his time of trial, Randy noted, so do our families and friends want attention from us.

This probably hit home for me more than anything else I have read about how we should show love for Jesus by loving others.  I used to wonder how I would have reacted to Jesus had I lived in the first century.  The friend Randy was talking about had strong ideas about how he would have treated Jesus had he lived back then!  But it doesn't have to be so speculative or hypothetical, for we show love to Jesus when we show love to other people.  After all, in Matthew 25:40, Jesus says that "Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me" (KJV).

You'd think that it is so much easier to love Jesus than it is to love other people, especially when the people in question are difficult.  And it probably is easier to love Jesus.  For one, Jesus loves us, whereas we can't necessarily say the same about every human being on the face of the earth.  And two, since the disciples on some level recognized Jesus' exalted status, you would expect for them to accord to Jesus a degree of respect, as many of us honor or curry favor with those we consider to be the higher-ups.  But even the disciples' love for Jesus was not consistently demonstrated, for they fell asleep when Jesus needed them.  Moreover, Jesus was not loved by everyone in his day, for there were people whose power he threatened, and there were many who easily forgot how spectacular Jesus was.  In short, there are plenty of times when love requires a conscious effort on our part because it does not occur naturally.  Randy's devotion indicates that we need to make a conscious decision to be present to our families, for we can easily ignore them as we get caught up in our work and activities.

Is love difficult, then?  I think that a number of Christians make it look difficult by how they conceptualize it.  They act as if we have to love everybody on the face of the earth, and that we need to love others as Jesus loves us----and Jesus was willing to die for us.  They also define love in terms of self-sacrifice.  And they base these concepts on the Bible, even drawing the concepts from it.  I for one am in favor of showing respect to every person on the face of the earth, maybe even going so far as to desire all people's well-being.  But being willing to die for people?  I'd have difficulty with that.  Not to mention that it's a challenge for me to have and to show the same level of affection and attention to everyone on the planet, even everyone with whom I come into contact, for that can be exhausting, plus it's natural that we'd feel closer to some people than to others.  I doubt that I can love on the same level as Jesus Christ and God the Father, for their love will always be deeper and wider than my own.  But I still recognize the value of getting out of my own little world and reaching out to those who are outsiders, who are lonely.

Fireproof: Is Compatibility Important?

This will be another post on the Christian movie Fireproof.  The last post that I wrote about this movie was in November.

The movie is about a firefighter named Caleb who tries to save his marriage.  It's a daunting task for him, for he and his wife are extremely estranged from each other, such that she is surprised when he calls her while she's at work just to see how she is doing (this was assigned to him in a book that he was reading on how to save a marriage).  And she is quite cold towards him and rebuffs him for some time whenever he reaches out to her.  You'd think that saving this marriage would be a hopeless cause.  But, as Caleb perseveres in doing good things for his wife and caring for her (even bringing food from the famous Chick-Fil-A franchise!), she eventually sees that he really does care for her, and she finally comes around.

I guess my question is this: Should every marriage be saved?  If two people are miserable around each other such that life together is continually an uphill battle, is there any reason for the two of them to stay married?  Maybe they can find someone else with whom life is not perfect, mind you, but less of an uphill battle.  In the movie, Caleb is at his wits end until he receives Jesus' love, and then things become easier for him: he's willing to do good things for his wife (i.e., wash the dishes, leave her roses, etc.), even if his wife is still unappreciative.  He's sustained by Jesus' love for him, and perhaps also by the realization that Jesus loves her, too.

So you'd think that Jesus' love can enable a Christian to endure any marriage until death.  And there are plenty of evangelicals who believe that.  One evangelical woman I know remarked that a godly person should be able to be married to anyone (and I'm sure she meant of the opposite gender), for, even if the spouse is a jerk, the godly person is sustained by God's love and can treat that spouse with love and kindness.

But then there are evangelicals who actually think that compatibility is important.  Granted, they probably have conservative views on divorce, but they still see value in compatibility when it comes to looking for a spouse.  They may express desire for a Christian mate, or feel that their previous romantic relationships did not work out because God was trying to lead them to someone better for them.  I mean, try going onto a Christian dating site and saying that someone should marry you because he or she should be godly enough to have a decent marriage with anyone!  Most won't take that risk.

But if compatibility is an important issue when it comes to looking for a spouse, why can't it similarly be a consideration when it comes to deciding whether or not to stay married?

I can see value in both what Fireproof presents and also the notion that some marriages probably should end, for the well-being of both parties involved.  I think that, in many cases, marriages should not go without a fight, for marriage should not be in the same category as going steady.  And yet, my hunch is that there are many people who have struggled to keep their marriages, yet the marriages still end in divorce.

Love in Deed

To be honest, I'm usually turned off when Christians talk about love.  Why?  There are a variety of reasons.  First, my religious background, Armstrongism, tended to mock sentimental Protestants who went on about "love".  Second, I do not consider many Christians who blab on about love to be all that loving----at least not to me.  Third, the pressure on me to "love" has often come across to me as "You're not acceptable to God unless you're a social extrovert who reaches out to people."  And, fourth, I feel that the appeal to love is often used to shut down discussion.  "This whole issue doesn't matter.  What matters is that we love people", I have often heard.

In terms of the recent Chick-Fil-A controversy, I tend to identify more with the two sides of the cultural war than I do with those who act like they're above the whole thing and preach about "love".  Some of the ones who act like they're above the whole thing come across as condescending, holier-than-thou, and self-righteous.  But those involved in the cultural war?  Yeah, I can understand the conservatives (and others) who show up in mass at Chick-Fil-A to show liberals that they will not let others bully them about what they can and cannot say, and where they can and cannot eat.  And, on the other side, I can sympathize with the gay rights activists who kiss each other at Chick-Fil-A to proclaim that they will not sit quietly while others tell them that their relationships are sub-standard or that they do not deserve the same rights as straight married couples.

But I have to admit: My eyes do well up when I read of concrete incidents of love----not the rhetoric of love, mind you, but actual acts of love.  And that was the case when I read the article, ‘Same-Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A’ draws kissing activists.  The article states the following:

"In Wichita, Kansas, the owner of the Chick-fil-A handed out free chicken sandwiches and water to gay rights activists gathered for the kiss-in. 'He was a very nice gentleman,' Jeanne de Grasse, one of the sandwich beneficiaries, told Wichita's KAKE-TV. 'He was very reasonable, we had a nice dialogue and he shared sandwiches and water with us.' In Decatur, Ga., Chick-fil-A employees served lemonade to the protesters."

We have people from Chick-Fil-A reaching out to gay activists with love, and perhaps (in some cases) even a willingness to listen.  Some of you may not think that's enough or that it makes up for Dan Cathy's support for groups that are opposed to homosexuality.  But, in my opinion, it's certainly a step in the right direction, and an inspiring example.

4/24/2012 Links

I’ve been reading a lot of excellent posts these last few weeks.  Here, I want to share some of them with you (if you haven’t read them already).

1.  Messianic Jew Derek Leman talks about Rachel Held Evans’ controversial post, 15 Reasons I Left Church.  Derek refers to an e-mail that he received, which said (and Derek changed some parts to respect the person’s anonymity):

“At the local university I am completing some classes in Judaism and loving them. Then I attend my local church and things that never bothered me before are suddenly a terrible disappointment. In a recent sermon, the pastor unfortunately used the typical theme of Jewish faithlessness in contrast to Christian faithfulness. His complete lack of skill in exegeting the scriptures, in realizing the authors themselves were Jewish, and that anti-Judaism is nowhere to be found in a skillful reading of the New Testament is alarming.  In another recent Bible discussion, many of the members gave smug answers about the harmfulness of the Law and the superiority of ‘grace,’ as they understand it. I felt so out of place here. This is the first time I have come to feel like a stranger in my own church. I am afraid I don’t fit within Christianity anymore, but my faith in Jesus has not diminished at all. Why can’t churches see Messiah for who he is? How can a person whose eyes are opened to these things remain?”

This made me think some about my own church’s approach towards the Hebrew Bible and Judaism.  (My church is PCUSA.)  Like other churches that I have attended, my current church criticizes the Pharisees (see my post here), and it sometimes treats the Hebrew Bible as inferior to the New Testament.  At the same time, both the Pastor and the Pastor Emeritus have said that God’s hand was in the creation of the modern state of Israel, albeit they didn’t say this in a fanatical Christian Zionist way.  Moreover, I think that our Bible study through Margaret Feinberg’s Scouting the Divine was a positive step, for Feinberg demonstrated knowledge and appreciation for laws in the Hebrew Bible, such as the Sabbath, gleanings, and the land rest.  Some people in the group were using that as a platform to promote blue laws, which (as someone who spent time in Seventh-Day Adventism) frightened me somewhat.  But Feinberg’s book definitely encouraged us to see the Torah positively.

2.  The Christian Heretic shared a journal entry that she wrote when she was a Christian in college.  She said:

“My Chi Alpha friends loved me when I was ultra-spiritual and rebuked me when I wasn’t.  So I sort of went into pseudo-spiritual.  I did all the right things, said the right words, but my motivation was to make friends, not just to get to know God.  He was the fringe benefit.  Here at home, my friends at church seem so shallow and superficial.  Whenever I get together in a social gathering, it’s all rowdy, fun and games, crazy, not too much hint of a serious side.  In both situations, I feel I have compromised my relationships with God for the relationships of people.  I keep searching for the perfect friend.  One who has all the qualities listed earlier.

“People just aren’t like that, though.  Every human being on this earth puts conditions on their love for one another.  ‘I love you because you seem spiritual.’  ‘I love you because you’re wild and crazy and like a good time.’  ‘I love you because you are my daughter.’  No person can love all the various facets of an individual.  A person loves, not another person, but certain sides of his personality that are compatible with their own.  Only God can love the whole person.”

I identified with wanting a deeper relationship with God that was hard to find amidst the evangelical fun-and-games, and also desiring unconditional love, which is hard to get in this world.

3.  Nick Norelli criticizes Bart Ehrman’s remark that “Apart from fundmanetalists and very conservative evangelicals, scholars are unified in thinking that the view that Jesus was God was a later development within Christian circles”.  Nick appeals to Larry Hurtado, a scholar who argues on the basis of cultic devotion that Jesus was exalted early on in Christian history, meaning that a relatively high Christology is early rather than late.

4.  Rodney shares what he thinks about being in churchrelevance.com’s Top 200 Church Blogs.

5.  Kate Elizabeth Conner talks about the two times that she adored Jerry Falwell when she was a student at Liberty University.

Friendship

I finished Hans Dieter Betz's commentary on The Sermon on the Mount. In this post, I'll quote some statements that Betz makes about friendship.

On page 600, Betz states: "Greek ethics did understand love and friendship in terms of an exchange of favors; but the Greeks construed the granting of such favors merely as responses to favors received to be false love and friendship. True love and friendship do not wait for another to act and do not cease, even when rejected."

On page 632, Betz quotes Aristotle, who says: "...inferior people will make friends for pleasure or for use, if they are like in that respect, while good men will be friends for each other's own sake, since they are alike in being good."

I wonder to what extent this is a true characterization of friendship. I think it was last week that a thought occurred to me: Rather than being preoccupied with the question of whether other people accept me and looking back with resentment on the times when they did not, perhaps I should accept other people. When we move into the realm of friendship, however, I tend to get a bit pickier, since I'm using my time to be with somebody else. In that case, my thoughts turn to what I can gain from the encounter----encouragement, a favor for the future, the enjoyment of laughing and joking around about life with someone else? I think that others are like this as well, to an extent, even though they may not be as touchy as I am in terms of getting their feelings hurt easily, or they may stick by their friends even when those friends are going through destructive phases. I think that friendship is a combination of give-and-take but also unconditional love. I know those are contradictory things, but I still believe that friendships have both. Maybe the unconditional love comes with time.

A Wind in the Door

Last night, I finished Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door. I was reading some wikipedia articles about Madeleine L'Engle, and wikipedia's summary of A Wind in the Door was actually pretty good. Unlike the article on A Wrinkle in Time, which focused almost entirely on plot, the one on A Wind in the Door summed up both the plot and the themes.

As I read the wikipedia articles, what really interested me was that I had actually met Meg and Calvin before. When I was at Harvard, I read A House Like a Lotus on one of my flights, and the book was about Poly O'Keefe, the daughter of Calvin (a marine biologist) and Meg O' Keefe (a mathematician). So they married, and Meg apparently outgrew her social awkwardness, though she managed to pass some of it down to Poly. The book was rather realistic, so I had no idea that Calvin and Meg had fantasy adventures when they were younger.

On a surface level, the message of A Wind in the Door is not that complicated. It is that we should view others as human beings with selves, value, qualities, and purpose. L'Engle calls this practice "naming" someone. The most noteworthy example concerns the principal at Meg's elementary school, Mr. Jenkins, who is an extremely unlikable and intimidating character. Meg always feels inadequate in his presence, since she was always called into his office when she did something wrong (or unusual). Moreover, Meg's odd (and genius) brother Charles Wallace is continually bullied at school, and Mr. Jenkins neither interferes to stop it nor recognizes Charles' talents. Essentially, two other Mr. Jenkinses (who are actually demons) pop up, and Meg has to identify the real one. She dismisses the ones who are on a power trip, concluding that the real Mr. Jenkins is the insecure one who feels like a failure, yet has occasionally done some good things (as when he bought Calvin some shoes). Meg discovers that Mr. Jenkins has rarely been allowed to be himself, and she walks him through the process of self-discovery.

At first, Meg sees Mr. Jenkins as a drag on her mission, in which Meg, Calvin, Mr. Jenkins, and other characters find themselves in Charles Wallace's body. Charles has a disease at a cellular level that is threatening his life, and a significant part of saving it is a technique called kything, which is a form of non-verbal telepathy in which people can be themselves. The characters need to kythe in order to communicate, but Mr. Jenkins is not good at it. The reasons are that he is old and reluctant to adopt new practices, and also that he is not secure enough to be himself around others, or allow others to be themselves around him. An angel continually tells impatient Meg that Mr. Jenkins has an important role to play in the mission, even though he is unsure what that role specifically is. In the end, Mr. Jenkins adds depth, helps others understand what is going on, and risks his life for the mission.

For Charles to be cured, a mouse-like part of the cell has to deepen, which entails maturing into a tree. A group of destructive demons, the Echthroi, try to discourage the mouse from performing his role. They tell him that he will have no fun as a tree, that he should try to take over the land, and that nothingness is preferable to his current position. Mr. Jenkins points out that selfishness--seeing oneself as the center, as opposed to performing one's role in a bigger picture--is the root of much destruction in life (e.g., war, etc.). By not deepening, the mouse is actually acting against his own self-interest, since he'll perish if Charles dies.

Those are the plot and the themes. Now for my reactions. Although L'Engle's message appears rather simple, there must be a lot of depth to it. First, I thought that Mr. Jenkins' transformation was rather unbelievable, since he went from a cold, uncaring principal to someone who was willing to sacrifice himself for others. But Madeleine L'Engle may have had a reason for portraying Mr. Jenkins the way that she did. For her, there was a reason that Mr. Jenkins was cold and uncaring. Once he got through his own personal barriers, his true self--the one underneath his cold exterior--could more fully emerge.

Second, I thought that the Echthrois' message to the mouse was contradictory. They were telling him to embrace nothingness, even as they encouraged him to try to take over the land. But you need to exist to rule something, don't you? Again, there may be an explanation for this, but I will probably need to think a lot before I discover it. I've encountered this sort of inconsistency in other stories. In George Lucas' novel Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kanobe says that Darth Vader pictures all of life perishing in an apocalyptic catastrophe; yet, there he is, trying to increase the empire's power and restore order to the galaxy. In the New Testament, the devil seeks to discourage Jesus from going to the cross (Mark 8:33), yet he enters Judas and helps bring about Jesus' crucifixion (John 13:27). Evil doesn't always make sense.

Third, I'm wrestling with Madeleine L'Engle's views on communitarianism. On one hand, she values individuality and resists conformity, almost like Ayn Rand. In A Wrinkle in Time, for instance, the sinister IT enforces conformity and makes everyone do the exact same thing, and he is not tolerant of mistakes. On the other hand, L'Engle seems to argue in A Wind in the Door that people are not ends in themselves (or the center of the universe), since they have roles to perform in a larger picture. I'm sure there's value to what she is saying, but something about it rubs me the wrong way. It strikes me as rather Soviet, or it seems to treat humans as part of a factory, or as cogs in a machine. I know that she's not for making people into drones, but she's not entirely Ayn Rand in her view on humanity.

My final point for today is this: There are many evangelicals who love Madeleine L'Engles' works, since they often incorporate biblical themes. But Madeleine L'Engle has also been on the religious right's hit list, since her works often appear on lists of banned books. I can understand why some Christian conservatives are leery of her fiction. There is one wikipedia article that associates Charles' telepathic ability with New Age concepts about the next stage of human evolution. So Madeleine L'Engle must have been the J.K. Rowling of her day! At the same time, I like the way that she teaches Christianity in an outside-of-the-box sort of way.

The Two Greatest Commandments

In Mark 12:28, a scribe asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Jesus responds that the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. He then says that the second is like the first, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus concludes by saying that there is no commandment greater than these.

The scribe asked Jesus for the most important commandment, and Jesus gave him two. Was Jesus saying that love for God is the greatest commandment while love for neighbor is second in importance? Or was he saying that both love of God and love of neighbor are equally important and rank as the greatest commandments? I'm not sure, but I do know that Jesus wanted to emphasize both.

Why? Because people would rather keep only one of them. In Jesus' day, people wanted to love God but not their neighbors. In Mark 7:10-13, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees because they used corban (a dedication to God) to avoid having to honor their parents. Many scholars will argue that Mark is only Christian propaganda and that the Pharisees were not that bad. I realize that rabbinic literature emphasizes the love of neighbor, but there are always hypocrites. None of us lives up to what we profess to believe.

And there are many people who would prefer to love God rather than their neighbors. First century Jews were very religious, and yet even the Babylonian Talmud says that Jerusalem was destroyed because of Jewish infighting. The New Testament criticizes people in the church for wanting to honor God but not their neighbors. There was strife, pride, and contempt for the poor in Corinth. I John 4:20 states, "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" And James points out the utter absurdity of praising God while cursing someone who is made in God's image (James 3:9). Look around you today! The problem still exists. There are wars in the name of religion, and we all know religious people who can be downright hateful.

Today, however, there are many people who want to love their neighbors and not God. Atheists contend that belief in God is unnecessary for a moral life, and you even have some religious people who go along with that sentiment. On some level, that issue existed also in Jesus' day, since there were seemingly moral people who did not worship the God of Israel. Maybe that's one reason that Jesus wanted to emphasize the love of God. That, and the fact that the love of God actually is the most important commandment of all. As Jonathan Edwards pointed out, God has more value, glory, dignity, and righteousness than all of us put together. He deserves the most love.

I'm not going to wrap my brain around the issue of foundationalism--Is belief in God the only possible basis for morality? I'll save that question for another day. All I want to say is that, for Jesus, love of God and love of neighbor are both important.