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What is pop culture, really?

There is a scene in the movie Inception which I’ve never forgotten, because I think it perfectly captures the situation of our modern culture, especially when it comes to our interaction with mass visual media. In the movie, there is a technology which lets people roam around in their own (and others’) unconscious, creating whatever worlds they want to inhabit, for as long as they want to be there. At one point, the main character happens on a room where a bunch of people are sleeping and using this technology, and he learns that every day after work they come straight here and do this all night.  He asks, “They come here just to go to sleep?” and the reply he gets is: “They come here…to wake up!”

Think about that for a moment. The picture is of a people who don’t like their actual lives, and want to live instead in false worlds in their minds, and so they live their real lives to get back to their fake lives, because their fake lives are more preferable than their real lives. And so they’ve told themselves that their real lives are not who they really are, but that their pretend lives are the life they’re really living.

I thought about this recently when I read this definition of pop culture (and pop entertainment) in an article by Robert Koons. He writes:

“Pop entertainment is a purely commercial enterprise, an imitation and perversion of folk culture. It is addictive but transitory, appealing to an appetite for novelty and distraction. Pop entertainment is truly the opiate of the masses in a leveling society: numbing, anesthetic, escapist.”

Those last three words he uses are important, and, I think, spot on: Numbing, anesthetic, and escapist. Designed to deaden you sensitivity to the real world, and make you unable to feel it. Designed to put make you unaware of your surroundings, and put you to sleep in terms of the world around you. Designed to help you ignore and leave the real world. Directly opposed to true feeling and sensitivity, true awareness, and true engagement.

In other words, the technology in Inception is a perfect metaphor for our modern media, pop-culture, and pop-entertainment. People love pop-entertainment, don’t they? Aren’t many, many people in America right now in a situation where they trudge through days they consider boring, meaningless or even painful, just so they can get to the lives they consider their “real” lives–their gaming or their shows or their parties or their TV sports? No judgment here–just recognition. It’s not being critical to notice that this is, in fact, the case.

But it is tragic. Why? Because human life wasn’t created to be escaped; it was created to be lived. It wasn’t created to feel less real and meaningful than fantasy. As Christians, we’ve begun to discover the truth that reality is better than fantasy. And we’re committed to experiencing and spreading the knowledge of that life-changing truth everywhere.

Sure, we might read a work of fantasy or watch a movie (like say, some good old Tolkien or Lewis). Fantasy works, like all fiction, can illuminate things about the real world, and make profound points about actual truths. They can be great food for the mind, especially in book form. But followers of Jesus don’t live in fantasy worlds, because the real world God made is better–more alive, more rewarding, more meaningful. To follow Jesus is to respond to an invitation to turn away from all fantasy-lies, and from preferring even “good” fantasy to reality, and instead, to embrace the real world and our real place in it. It’s better. And it’s what we were made for.

Can I make a suggestion for the new year?  If this particular subject affects you…

  • …if you take an honest look at your life and realize that there is some pretend world in a book or TV show or movie or video game that you prefer over the real world…
  • …if there are fantasy worlds you spend more time thinking about than the real world…
  • …if you regularly fill up your “free time” living in a fantasy world, instead of doing things in the real world…
  • …if there are pretend things you honestly prefer over your actual life…

…take some time as 2018 closes and 2019 begins, and talk to God about all of that. Ask him to reignite your interest in, and passion for, the real world. Ask him to impress on you the best thing about the real world–that God himself dwells in it, ready to reveal himself and work on behalf of those who seek him. Ask him to show you, freshly, how purpose and meaning and the hope of Christ’s return and the presence of the Spirit and the real risk and even more real reward of living a life pointed towards the coming Kingdom of God all add up to make the real world the best possible place in which to be alive.

Wonder, rejoice, be thankful, and hold fast.

A prayer, and a thought, for Christmas…

Lord our God, you wanted to live not only in heaven, but also with us, here on earth;  not only to be high and great, but also to be small and lowly, as we are;  not only to rule, but also to serve us;  not only to be God in eternity, but also to be born as a person, to live, and to die.

 In your dear Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, you have given us none other than yourself, that we may wholly belong to you. 

This affects all of us, none of us has deserved this. 

What remains for us to do but wonder, to rejoice, to be thankful,  and to hold fast to what you have done for us?

To put it in the simplest way, what unites God and [humanity] is that He does not will to be God without us, that He creates us rather to share with us–and therefore with our being and life and act–His own incomparable being and life and act; that He does not allow His history to be His and ours ours, but causes them to take place as a common history.

That is the special truth which the Christian message has to proclaim at its very heart.

–Karl Barth

Merry Christmas, everyone.

What do you do with weird thoughts?

Maybe you’re one of those people whose brain always works right. But for most of us, we have times when, to put it mildly, weird thoughts come into our heads. Richard Baxter offers some helpful advice on what to do about that…

None of God’s servants are free of inconsistent and sinful thoughts.

For such thoughts, they must:

  1. ask for daily forgiveness, and
  2. rejoice that they have a sufficient Savior and remedy for them, and that, accordingly, sin will finally lead only to the exalting of grace.

But if they should excessively attend to and be troubles by every groundless thought, it would merely be a snare to divert them from almost all their greater duties. Would you like it if your employee began noticing and worrying about insignificant imperfections in his work instead of doing his work?

In other words:

  • Understand these things are common,
  • Ask for forgiveness when you need to,
  • Rejoice that Jesus forgives all sin, and then…
  • Stop thinking about it, and move on.

Common Myths About the Bible

Crossway Books recently published a great article on five common myths about the bible.

What are these myths? I’m glad you asked…

  1. The text and translation of the Bible is completely unreliable.
  2. The books of the Bible were arbitrarily chosen.
  3. The Bible is scientifically ignorant and unreliable.
  4. The Bible is misogynistic.
  5. The Bible is a random collection of disconnected stories and inconsistent ideas.

There’s tons of good information packed in to this short article. Those five things are things a lot of people commonly assume about the bible. If you don’t know how to respond to any (or all) of these points when someone mentions them, you should really take 10 minutes and go read it.

When your emotions for God run low

One of the most obvious aspects of a lot of contemporary Western Christianity (American, Australian, European) is the emphasis on feelings and emotions. All you have to do is look at the lyrics to popular worship songs, listen to many sermons, or witness many Christian concerts and worship services to see what a huge part of our Christianity we deem our emotions to be. The picture of true Christianity that many paint is the picture of someone who is always emotionally engaged and filled with things like visceral love and passion.  We want tidal waves, not ripples.

But what happens when you don’t really have those feelings for God or the Christian life? Or what if you do sometimes, but not other times? Can you walk with Jesus when the emotions aren’t running high? What about when you feel your passion ebb? Or what about if you are just more of an even-keeled person? Are you less spiritual than the person who’s emotional dial always seems to be at 10?

Once again, here’s Richard Baxter with some sound insight.  He notes that it is true that, at some point, passion for God is part of serving God(that’s what he means by our “duty”). And yet, he says…

Do not value too highly the passionate aspect of duty, but understand this: judgment, will, practice, high esteem of God and holiness, resolute choice, and sincere endeavor are the life of grace and duty; felt emotions are lesser and uncertain things.

You don’t know what you do when you so emphasize the emotional aspect, or when you strive so much for deep and transcendent revelations. These are not the important things or the essentials of holiness. Too much of such feelings may distract you. God knows how much you are able to bear. Passionate feelings depend considerably upon nature [meaning, our personal natures]. Some persons are more expressive than others. A little thing affects some deeply. The wisest and most worthy persons are usually the least passionate. The weakest hardly control their feelings. [The editor notes here: “I believe Baxter is here arguing for self-control, not absence of expressed emotions.”]

God is not apprehended by our sense, and therefore is better experienced through the understanding and will than through the emotions.

Notice Baxter’s discussion of these three points. If, in our day, many assume that God is best “apprehended” by our emotions, what are we missing if the truth is that we also need our understanding and (think about it!) our will to truly know God as well? In fact, what word is most used when people talk about what Baxter seems to mean by “apprehending”? Isn’t usually the word experience?  There is a lot of talk (and singing) about experiencing God, but it is typically only speaking about an emotional experience with God. But by “apprehending,” Baxter means something more like grasp or lay hold of or know relationally. And all that includes, not less, but more, than emotions. He continues:

The holiest soul is the one most inclined toward God, resolved for him, and conformed to his will, not the one affected with the deepest griefs, and fears, and joys, and other such transporting emotions.

Even if it’s becoming common in many circles to define holiness by the perceived depth of emotional experience revolving around God, this is a great reminder not to have our views of God colored by all of that. And yet, Baxter is not saying emotions are worthless. He just wants to encourage all of us who aren’t often surfing the tidal waves of feelings…

Nevertheless, it would be best if holy emotions could be stirred up at will, to a degree that would best equip is for duty.

But I have known many who complain, for lack of deeper feelings, who if their feelings (as they call their emotions) had been more intense, might have been distracted. I would rather be a Christian who loathes himself for sin, resolves against it, and forsakes it (though he cannot cry over it) than one of those who can weep today and sin again tomorrow, one whose sinful emotions are as quickly stirred as his better ones.

What great insight! Don’t worry about your emotional level. God knows what each of us can handle in terms of feelings. Better to actually grow in holiness (for instance, in getting sin out of our lives) than to experience huge emotions that can flip either way.

 

The bad news of Christmas?

Paul Tripp has an interesting article he entitled “The Bad News about Christmas.” Here’s the heart of it:

Remember, the miracle of Jesus’s birth is that he was fully God and fully man. God gave himself to us in outrageous redemptive love. God exposed himself to what we all face in this terribly broken and dysfunctional world. This story is so amazing, so beyond our normal categories for making sense of things, and so beautiful that it is hard to wrap the thoughts of your brain and the emotions of your heart around it. God has come to earth. Could there ever be better news than this?

But there is a second part of the story that makes God’s shocking work of intervention make sense. Why would God do such a thing? What would motivate him to go to such an unthinkable extent? Whenever you see people do the unexpected or the unusual, it is natural to ask yourself why they thought that their radical action was necessary. This is where the Christmas story is the worst news ever.

I’m going to ask you to humbly open your heart to this second part, the bad news part of the Christmas story.

God has to invade our world in the person of Jesus because there was simply no other way.

And why was there no other way? Prepare for the bad news.

There was no other way because our big problem in life is not familial or historical or societal or political or relational or ecclesiastical or financial. The biggest, darkest thing that all of us have to face, and that somehow, someway influences everything we think, say, and do, isn’t outside us; it’s inside. If you had none of the above problems in your life, you would still be in grave danger, because of the danger you are to yourself. If the only thing human beings needed were a little external tweaking of their life circumstances, then the coming of Jesus to earth wouldn’t make any sense.

But if the greatest danger to all of us lives inside us and not outside us, then the radical intervention of the incarnation of Jesus is our only hope.

Interested? You might want to read the whole thing.

“The Milky Way was above and God Himself was shielding us.”

“What makes them become this defensive and hostile?”

“It’s weird — actually no, it’s natural: I’m scared. There, I said it. Also frustrated and uncertain — is it worth me going a foot to meet them?”

“I don’t want to die!”

These are the words of John Chau. He was only 27, so he could have come to our group. The New York Times reports:

Last week, he paid some fishermen to take him to the island. He set off from Port Blair, the Andaman chain’s main port, under the cover of darkness.

“The Milky Way was above and God Himself was shielding us from the Coast Guard and Navy patrols,” he wrote.

Mr. Chau, 26, from Washington State, was an ambitious adventurer. He loved climbing mountains, camping in isolated places, hiking, canoeing, seeing the world.

He paddled his kayak, under cover of night, onto the shore of a remote Island off the shore of India–an island which is under restriction by the Indian government because of the hostility of the people who live there. He went to share Christ with them. And he gave his life.

On the afternoon of Nov. 16, the fishermen told police officers, Mr. Chau reassured them that he would be fine staying on the island overnight and that the fishermen could go. They motored out, leaving Mr. Chau alone for the first time.

When they passed by the island the next morning, they saw the islanders dragging his body on the beach with a rope.

No one knows what exactly happened. Police officials said the islanders most likely killed him with bows and arrows.

I recommend the NY Times articles on John’s mission and the people who inhabit the island.

Here is the post on his death by All Nations, a missions organization.

And here is his Instagram account. The NY Times article ends:

Before setting off that final day, Mr. Chau finished his note with a message to his family.

The handwriting gets sloppier, the lines more crooked.

“Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed,” he wrote.

“I love you all.”

John Chau

 

When God tells you not to be afraid

You know that moment in Exodus 14 where Israel got to the edge of the Red Sea, only to realize that Pharaoh had showed up with his army, and wanted to re-enslave them? Moses gave a great quick speech right then:

Do not be afraid.

Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today.

For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.

Victor Hamilton has some great thoughts on the moment, and on Moses’ decision to tell the people not to be afraid:

Moses’ comforting words to the people, “Do not be afraid,” are the same words even Israel’s great ancestors needed to hear when they had their backs against a wall: Abraham (Gen 15:1), Isaac (26:24), Jacob (46:3) and Hagar too (21:17).

All these fears that God addresses are normal and real. They are not illusory. God does not lie to us about danger; nor does he plant in us the idea that they are figments of our imagination.

What he reminds us is that in order for these frightening situations to get to us, they will first have to get past him.

We can rest, not because of the absence of danger, but because of a God in whom we can trust.

Afraid of a better life?

Here is Gregory the Great, commenting on Matthew 25:19-24…

“After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them… Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.'”

Gregory writes:

The third servant was unwilling to work with his talent. He returned to his master with his talent. He returned to his master with words of excuse: “Master, I knew that you are hard man reaping where you have not sown, gathering where you have not scattered; being afraid, I went away and hid your talent in the earth. Here it is; see, you have what is yours.” The useless servant called his master hard, and yet he neglected to serve him for profit. He said that he was afraid to invest the talent for interest, when he should have been afraid only of bringing it back to his master without interest.

For many people in the church resemble that servant.

They are afraid to attempt a better way of life, but not of resting in idleness. When they think about the fact that they are sinners, the prospect of grasping the ways of holiness alarms them, but they feel no fear at remaining in their wickedness. Peter is a good example. When he was still weak, he saw the miracle of the fishes and said, “Depart from me, O Lord, because I am a sinful man.”

If you regard yourself as a sinner, it is only right that you not drive God away from you! But those who see that they are weak and are for this reason unwilling to improve their habits or way of life are like people admitting that they are sinners and at the same time banishing God. They flee him whom they ought to hallow in themselves; even in the agony of death they so not know where to turn and cling to life.

A lot to think about there…

How to stop thinking about yourself.

Is it spiritual for followers of Jesus to examine themselves–to check the state of their walk with Christ in light of scripture? Of course. But can this be overdone? Can it become a distraction, and an unhealthy preoccupation? Could it actually keep us from heartily following Jesus if we’re over-focused on ourselves? Sure. What’s the antidote if you ever find yourself in that situation?

Richard Baxter offers some help:

Remember that it is a far higher, nobler, and sweeter work to think of God, Christ, and heaven than of such worms as we ourselves are. When we look down into ourselves, we look into a dungeon, a prison, a wilderness, a place of darkness, horror, filthiness, misery, and confusion. Therefore, though such thoughts are necessary, in that without them our repentance and due watchfulness cannot be maintained, yet they are grievous, ignoble, and even fruitless in comparison with our thoughts of God.

When you pour over the contents of your heart to search whether or not the love of God is there, it would be wiser to think of the infinite friendliness of God. That will stir up love of God, whether it was there before.

So instead of trying so hard to read your heart to know whether it is fixed upon heaven, lift up your thoughts to heaven and think of its glory. That will raise your heart heavenward and give you and show you what you were searching for.

Devote time to plant holy desires in the garden of your heart, time that you presently spend probing and examining yourself while hoping to discern if those desires are there.

We are such darkened, confused creatures that the sight of ourselves is enough to provoke loathing and a horror in our minds, and to contribute to melancholy. But in God and glory there is nothing to discourage our thoughts and everything to delight them if Satan does not manage to misrepresent him to us.

This is great counsel, and it seems to follow in the steps of words like these:

“We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…”

If you’re depressed or discouraged about your spiritual life, or your rate of spiritual growth, maybe it’s better for you to stop thinking about it, and look to Jesus, think about him, and get busy doing his will instead.

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