On “A Pagan sermon to the Christian clergy”

Recently, Purdue had it’s annual “fall break”. We got last Monday and Tuesday off of classes. It was pretty swell, I spent the first part of the weekend camping with my church group and then got back to Purdue. It was very quiet around my house and I decided to go for a nice walk. I ended up on campus, and somehow ended up in one of the libraries. I then went back to the periodicals section, because it’s a really cool musty-library atmosphere and no one ever goes back there. As I was walking around, marveling at the thousands of books with hundreds of years worth of knowledge from millions of brilliant minds, I decided to crack open a random book. So I grab this periodical called “The Nation”, it was the volume from Mar-Jul 1958. So this is a 55 year old book. It was published when my parents were still in diapers. I open it up and what do I see? “A PAGAN SERMON to the CHRISTIAN CLERGY” . . . by C. Wright Mills. Written in large letters along the top of the page. Well that’s an attention getter! I then proceed to read one of the most interesting articles I’ve ever seen in my life.

For some background, this article was from a self-described “pagan” to the “Christian clergy”. It was focused on the “atrocity” of World War III, and what was happening with the nuclear research and in the light of the atomic bombings. It was stating how could the Christians, in any good conscience, condone any of the military activities occurring? Well I’m not here to debate whether he was right or wrong in that regard, but some of the statements that he made about Christianity as a whole were very very pertinent to today’s church, so I wanted to share some of them.

The first interesting thing I saw: “As a social and as a personal force, religion has become a dependent variable. It does not originate; it reacts. It does not denounce; it adapts. It does not set forth new models of conduct and sensibility; it imitates. Its rhetoric is without deep appeal; the worship it organizes is without piety. It has become less a revitalization of the spirit in permanent tension with the world than a respectable distraction from the sourness of life. . . their religion is a religion of good cheer and glad tidings. That it is a religion without dreary religious content is less important than that is is socially brisk and that is is not spiritually unsettling. It is a getting chummy with God, as a means to quite secular good feelings. With such religion, ours is indeed a world in which the idea of God is dead.”

So this is obviously an attack on our faith right? But is it without basis? If someone said these exact words to me today, would I be able to disagree? I know that’s not how I feel about my own faith, but do I feel that way about Christianity in America? Yes. Yes I do. And this very issue is addressed time and time again in the Bible under the context of what we know all too well to be “lukewarm”. “A respectable distraction from the sourness of life”… That is the definition of a lukewarm faith! A “getting chummy with God, as a means to quite secular good feelings”. That is the definition of a lukewarm faith! Our Christian society was, and still is, viewed by others through the lens of a lukewarm faith. Either that or the lens of those like Westboro Baptist Church. That is what they see. How can we change this? The only way to unmistakably change what we look like is to first change what we are, as a Christian society in America. But how can we change a country? I’m not sure. But if we as a church must constantly be worried about how the rest of the church is portraying our faith, then something is obviously wrong.

Another interesting quote by Mills: “What does it mean to preach? Does it not mean, first of all, to be religiously conscious? I do not see how you can preach unless as a man you are the opposite to the religiously indifferent. To be religiously conscious, I suppose, is to find some sort of religious meaning in one’s own insecurities and desires, to know oneself as a creature in some kind of relation with God which increases your hope that your expectations and prayers and actions will come off. I must ask: for you, today, what is that religious meaning? To preach, secondly, means to serve as a moral conscience, and to articulate that conscience. I do not see how you can do that by joining the publicity fraternity and the weekend crusaders. You cannot do it by ‘staying out of politics.’ I think there is only one way in which you can compete as a religious men with religious effect: you must be yourself in such a way that your views emanate unmistakably from you as a moral center. From that center of yourself, you must speak.

Wow. I bolded that last sentence as I felt it carried the most weight. A fairly common phrase in our society is “walk the talk”. And it’s stated here by Mills that unless we walk the talk, we cannot compete with any effect! If we, as Christians, are to be effective in competing with the world, we must emanate our views from actions! We can’t just say them! We cannot simply speak, we must live in such a way that our actions tell our words. Only then will our words have impact. In James 2:14-16, it states “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” Our words carry no weight unless they are preceded by actions. As a Christian church, we should keep our mouths shut until we first prove that we’re worth listening to!

The final quote by Mills that I found extreme interest in was the following: “But you may say: ‘Don’t let’s get the church into politics.’ If you do say that, you are saying: ‘Don’t let’s get the church into the world; let’s be another distraction from reality.’ This world is political. Politics, understood for what it really is today, has to do with the decisions men make which determine how they shall live and how they shall die. They are not living very well, and they are not going to die very well, either. Politics is now the locale of morality; it is the locale both of evil and of good. If you do not get the church into the moral issues of politics, you cannot confront evil and you cannot work for good. You will be a subordinate amusement and a political satrap of whatever is going. You will be the great Christian joke.
Men and ideas, the will and the spirit, are now being tested, perhaps in all truth for the final time; and in this testing so far, you Christians are standing in default.”

Oh snap. This Mills guy doesn’t play around does he? Now once again, I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but he brings up many valid points which I believe our church is failing to contend with, even 55 years later! I’ll be the first to admit that I shy away from politics because I don’t want to be offensive or have disagreements. But based on what I said earlier, and assuming I am exemplifying what I believe, then I will have a strong moral center to back up what I’m saying. And those listening will then be forced to either change what they think, or stand in opposition. But they will not have the option to declare me a hypocrite or fault my faith. I think this is the key, before you can influence others, you must convince them your words are worth their time. Your goal cannot be simply to force them to believe what you want. You must make them want to believe the things you say! And the only way to do that is to look like what they want to look like. They must want what you have. If you’re not worth emulating, you’re not worth hearing!

I will close with a passage from Romans 12:14-21.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

We cannot overcome evil with words! We must overcome with actions!

Mills, C. W. (1958). A pagan sermon to the christian clergy.The Nation, 199-203.

Embers – Owl City

Before you read this, I ask that you listen to the song, Embers, preferably with the lyrics in front of you. So here’s a link because you’re lazy and didn’t want to look it up yourself.

Moving on. I will post the lyrics in green and write thoughts afterwards

There were days when each hour was a war I fought to survive
There were nights full of nightmares and I dreaded closing my eyes
There were skies that burst open with a downpour to drown me alive 
But the world took a spark like a match in the dark
And the fire brought me to life

So I’m fanning the flames to climb so high
‘Cause theres no other way we can stay alive

‘Cause we’re burning bright
As we all unite
And when it’s all said and done
We’ll shine like the sun
So don’t let the fire die
And we’ll watch the sky
As it fills with light
And though the embers are new
Whatever you do, just don’t let the fire die

And you’ll find there’ll be mornings
When the ashes and embers are cold
But you’ll fight with a passion
And you’ll never stop ’cause you know
Yeah you know, it gets better
And your story is yet to be told
Every push, every shove, every war, every love
Yeah, the coals are beginning to glow

So I’m fanning the flames to climb so high
‘Cause theres no other way we can stay alive

‘Cause we’re burning bright
As we all unite
And when it’s all said and done
We’ll shine like the sun
So don’t let the fire die
And we’ll watch the sky
As it fills with light
And though the embers are new
Whatever you do, just don’t let the fire die

Don’t let the fire die
It gets better
Just don’t let the fire die, no

‘Cause we’re burning bright (burning bright)
As we all unite
And when it’s all said and done
We’ll shine like the sun
So don’t let the fire die
And we’ll watch the sky (watch the sky)
As it fills with light
And though the embers are new
Whatever you do, just don’t let the fire die

And though the embers are new
Whatever you do, just don’t let the fire die
Don’t let the fire die.

So this song starts out with depression. Every hour is a war, every night is sleepless, even the sky is out to get us. But wait, a spark, a fire, flares up in the darkness. Obviously we should make that flame bigger to fend off the darkness. Then the chorus. We (as Christians) are burning bright as we all unite, so it’s the unity that is bright. And in the end, we’ll shine like the sun. Matthew 13:43. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Owl City took a page straight out of the bible writing this song. And it’s just the story of my life it seems, where I’m fighting to keep the flame alive. My only goal should be to keep the fire alive. And unite that flame with other flames to make a great fire. 

Then we find that there are mornings where the ashes and embers are cold. Some days are bad, even after the fire has been lit. Some days, God just doesn’t seem present. But what should we do? We shouldn’t quit. We shouldn’t let the fire go out. We need to fight because we know it gets better. We know we’re made for more than what we have already done, our story is still untold. Until our last day, our story grows. Every single action that we’re a part of can make the coals glow brighter, fanning the flames.

Man. This song is good. It’s such a great image of the Christian life. It acknowledges the fact that there are crappy days, weeks, months, even years. But what else can we do but fan the flame? Remember the beginning of the song? Before the spark? Who would want to return to that? Why should we, as God’s children, adopted into the holy family, ever want to stop fanning that flame. It’s appalling to me that I’ve ever done anything OTHER than growing that flame. There are weeks where I ignore the fact it exists. It’s so easy to forget that that fire is not only part of me, but what’s keeping me from darkness. Without that fire, what am I? I’m in the darkness again, complete with nightmares, wars, and drowning alive.

The fire is a free gift. The sparks are easily created. But once we have it, it doesn’t maintain itself. If we don’t continue to feed our lives with spiritual tinder, then know exactly what will happen. What’s surprising to me is how most of this isn’t new information to Christians. We know how important God is, how important that fire is, but we consistently decide to leave it unattended, or even throw cups of water on it because “it’s fun”. We’re all guilty of this.

I say it’s surprising because I would never treat a real fire like that. Has anyone seen Survivor? I haven’t watched it in the last few years, but I’ll assume it’s the same as it was the first ten years of its repetitive existence. Fire is the most important thing in the first week or two. The group is pretty much chaos until they have a fire going. And they give everyone shifts for tending it, getting the firewood, trying to build rain shelters for it. These groups trying to survive on an island consider the fire one of their most important possessions  They would never do anything to jeopardize it, and when someone messes up and lets it go out, they’re in big trouble. Imagine for a second what a survivor group would be like without a fire, for the whole time. They wouldn’t be able to cook anything. They’d be much colder. They can’t ward off lions (if they’re in that kind of location). The uses of the fire are endless.

So I’m going to start treating my relationship with God just like that island fire. Without it, I’m dead. How could I forget about it then?

Being In The “Christmas Spirit”

OK. So Christmas is all about gifts and presents and trees right? Oh wait, no, because it’s all about Jesus and His birthday right? Or is it?

Every year, as a Christian, I am faced with constant Facebook posts and comments about what “Christmas is all about.” Yet I never feel satisfied with these descriptions. Focusing on the fact that it’s Jesus’ birthday feels no less petty than focusing on gifts. Because focus isn’t what God asks for. It’s not focus that gets us into heaven. It’s not focus that gives us an incredible relationship with our Lord. What does God ask us for? To “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” This applies to all seasons of the year, not just Christmas.

In our Christmas “spirit” with all the hustle and bustle, I am reminded of a passage I read in The Sacred Romance. The author is writing about listening for the quiet voice of God.

What I so often hear, or feel, is a restlessness, a distractedness where it seems that dozens if not hundreds of disconnected or scattered thoughts vie for my attention. . .
Indeed, when I first listen to my heart, what I often hear is the language and clatter of my old ‘lovers’ and not much else. There seems to be no stillness or rest. If I try to hold still, my soul reacts like a feather in the afternoon breeze, flitting from place to place without purpose or direction. I almost seem invisible in the noise or blankness. Theologians refer to this condition as ‘ontological lightness,’ the reality that when I stop ‘doing’ and simply listen to my heart, I am not anchored to anything substantive. I become aware that my very identity is synonymous with activity.“

Wow. Does that not sound like, oh, I dunno, just about everyone in the Christmas season? Is your identity synonymous with activity? I challenge you to thirty minutes of quiet. Find somewhere—your room, outside, your bathroom, I don’t know—you can be quiet and not distracted for thirty minutes. Don’t bring anything. Just sit. No talking, no reading, no running, no shopping, no watching, no moving. Just sit. I dare you. It will be the longest thirty minutes of your life.

How are we supposed to hear God’s voice if we find it difficult to sit still for even thirty minutes? Our hearts desire God yet our actions and thoughts are so focused on other things. The one thing I’ve seen Christmas gives us compared to the rest of the year is time off. Most of us get either days off school or work. Instead of using this time to be as busy as possible, I challenge you to use the time off to be quiet and rest. Don’t watch more movies and play more games. Spend more time loving your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Make your identity in God and not your activities. Focus your efforts on your Lord instead of the “holiday spirit.” So this holiday season, God doesn’t want better deeds, he doesn’t want better church attendance, he wants you. As for the times where you are interacting with family and others, I say refer to Colossians 3:12-14 “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Take It All Away – Owl City

Before you read this, I ask that you listen to the song in question, preferably with the lyrics in front of you. So here’s a link because you’re lazy and didn’t want to look it up yourself.

Moving on. I will post the lyrics in green and write comments as we go through

There was a shot in the dark,
I was caught by surprise
There was a hole in my heart, Ouch!
There were tears in your eyes
And there was nothing to say, Resigned to his fate, he’s quiet.
Cause you made up your mind
And so I guess what you meant
When you left was goodbye.

So obviously he was broken up with by some girl. Sounds like a typical romance story.

So if you’re gonna go,
And leave me in a lonely gray
I won’t let it show, 
Until you finally float away

I’m gonna be tough, even though you leaving me is one of the hardest things ever. That’s what he’s thinking right about now.

You gotta know that you tear me up
When you say you wanna take it all away, take it all away
You tear it up when you say
You wanna take it all away, take it all away!
You were the one, and it was enough
To be the one you were dreaming of!
You were the one and we called it love
And now you take it all away, take it all away!
I felt a pain in my chest with your kiss on my cheek
And as I tried to digest the words I couldn’t believe
I’m left with nothing to say with my heart on my sleeve
Making it easy to hurt, and even harder to breathe

He is torn up when she says she wants to take it all away. She was dreaming of him! She was the one! They called it love! Then she took it away! How could she? He’s so shocked that this happened. How is this even possible? She loved him! Then, as she gives him a goodbye kiss, he tries to comprehend whats happening. He simply can’t. His heart is out in the open and was exposed, making it vulnerable. The simple act of breathing became difficult.

Pre-chorus

Chorus: (x2)

When I first heard this song, I just liked it. It’s Owl City and I pretty much love all of his stuff. I didn’t start to think about the lyrics until later. For the longest time, I just thought it was simply a break up song. Typical emotional teenager stuff. But listening to the song a bit closer, you see that it’s a bit more serious. Something which was so serious ended so suddenly. What happened? Who knows, that’s not the important part.

I want you to listen to the song one more time, but with a completely different lens over your brain. Imagine this is God, singing you this song after you sinned and you chose something else over him.

This song helped me understand the scope of sin. The amount of heartbreak our Lord experiences when we choose the world over him. It’s not anger he feels, it’s heartbreak. “We were in love“ He says. “And now you’re taking it all away from me.” That’s rough. It’s hard to imagine making anyone feel that way, let alone our Lord. So I’m done with this nonsense. I’m dedicated to choosing him every time.

So yeah. I love that song. The music is very powerful and it evokes emotion in me. The lyrics only solidify that. Go ahead and listen to the rest of that CD by Owl City. I’ll be reviewing some of the other songs soon!

P.S. As a sidenote, I want to remind everyone that God doesn’t need us. Just because we have the ability to break his heart doesn’t give us any power over him. He created us to be able to choose to love him, and it hurts Him when we don’t. Yet His power is much greater than humanity, and His entire existence is love. We cannot affect that in any way.

Fully Grown Pleasure

Sometimes one might sit down and ask. What’s the point? Life is fleeting, purposeless, aimless. Why? It’s very easy to get lost in existential which really just depress you. For example, I roomed with some awesome guys freshman year at Purdue. They were, and still are, some of my best friends. But I rarely see them now, and I can only assume that, post Purdue, I will either see them very rarely, or never. At first glance, that seems incredibly sad. The average thinker would be inclined to agree. One who thinks a bit longer might conjecture “Well, the joy of the relationship was worth the pain of loss.” Yet, thankfully, C.S. Lewis is here to save us from thinking such sad thoughts. In his book Out of the Silent Planet, a man, Dr. Ransom, is sent to Mars and meets strange and wonderful beings there. One of them, named Hyoi, says this,

“A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmān [Human], as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The séroni [Another species on Mars] could say it better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crah is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it.What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then–that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it.”

When I first read this quote, I just put down the book. Just the immense truth of that paragraph felt like a brick hitting me in the chops. I bold-ed my two favorite parts. Looking at the second, we see that, in fact, losing friends isn’t losing friends at all. What people make you in all your days until death, that is the real meeting. A friend, whether past or present, is going to impact you in ways that, somewhat surprisingly, will last for the rest of your life. Even if simply just a memory, is that not an impact? We tend to only think of “impacts” as events which change our character, but I would wager that memories are part of our character. Just earlier today, I was watching a video on my Facebook which was a video montage of a trip I went on with my two best friends in high school. As silly as the video was, it evoked a surprising amount of emotion in me. I was remembering the trip and everything it entailed. That was, singlehandedly, the best trip of my life. Watching the video, I am reminded of what Hyoi says, What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure. The memories of our experiences are part of those experiences. Which implies that our experiences are ever growing. What is an experience without remembering it? If I told you you could do anything you wanted today, but you wouldn’t remember it tomorrow, it would be pointless right? It would be cool for that day, but everything would return to normal shortly afterwards.

This is the problem with instant gratification. Let’s take, for an example, a day of laziness. As a teenage college dude, I am inclined to spend entire Saturdays sleeping and playing video games. Seems like a great experience at the time. Yet the next day, I think, “What the heck Chris, you seriously just wasted a whole day?” I will now reference my first bolded part of the quote, “A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered.“ Aha! Now I see why those lazy days, eating entire bags of chips, and spending money on novelties all seem terrible. Because they are not fully grown pleasures. They started off well, but as they continued to grow in memory, they turned sour. The word for this is “regret”. It’s a very common question used in many circumstances, “do you have any regrets?”. Basically asking, are your pleasures growing fully? Are you choosing to plant pleasures which last longer than a day? Will these pleasures grow in memory for the rest of your life? Sure makes me think differently about what I choose to do with my day…

One hears stories almost every day of some famous person screwing up in some new magnificent way. Or sometimes you just hear sad interviews of once famous actors or atheletes, who, in their age, are starting to realize that money can’t buy happiness. It’s so obvious that the choices that they made, the life they lived, were all aimed at the idea that pleasure and memory are separate. Yet as they age, they begin to realize that none of their pleasures are fully grown. In memory, the pleasures become regrets, and they are left with nothing. Our society glorifies the instant gratification of oneself, but take a deeper look at what pleasure is, and you’ll see that making long term choices is an investment into your future self. And that’s just cool to think about. Knowing that every good choice you make is literally giving your future self a better life and more happiness.

Well what does this mean for those who have already made the bad choices? Maybe now you are filled with regret, and you want to have the life where your pleasures are fully grown. Thankfully we are loved by a God who is much bigger than our pleasures. More on that in a bit. First, let us take a look at Eve. In Genesis 3, she was tempted into instant gratification much like we are today. She saw something which looked good so she took it. What a common theme of humanity. Let me think, what else is common in humanity. . . Oh yes, sin. I firmly believe, in almost all cases, that instant gratification is sin. We never regret honorable and holy actions, and we always regret sin (if not now, we will later). We have within us the knowledge of right and wrong, a conscience. While some of humanity has stuffed their conscience down so deep they can’t hear it, it’s still there. So now, you who thought you’ve been making decently good choices and you’re not filled with “half grown pleasures” see that you are, in fact, wrong. We are all filled with half grown pleasures. The products of sin.

Where’s the catch? Now what do I have to live for? Well God, the one who made everything, loves us. Deeply. He sent his only son to be our payment for our lives of instant gratification, of sin. Hebrews 9:26-28 “. . . But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” Well this is great! We’ve been saved! Our God loves us so intensely that he sent his perfect son, who never indulged in instant gratification. We have been forgiven. The entire standard for living then becomes not the sum of our experiences, but for God. God, somehow, loves ALL of us unconditionally. Meaning regardless of our choices, however many half grown pleasures we’ve decided to create, he is in love with who we are. All we have to do is accept his sacrifice as truth and decide to start living for something bigger than ourselves, our Lord. Which, ironically, is one of the easiest ways to avoid instant gratification.

In closing, I will now turn to some song lyrics by Owl City. This is the song Shooting Star.

Close your tired eyes, relaxing them.
Count from 1 to 10 and open them.
All these heavy thoughts will try to weigh you down, but not this time.

Way up in the air, you’re finally free, and you can stay up there, right next to me.
All this gravity will try to pull you down, but not this time.

When the sun goes down, and the lights burn out,
Then it’s time for you to shine.
Brighter than the shooting star, so shine no matter where you are.
Fill the darkest night, with a brilliant light,
’cause it’s time for you to shine.
Brighter than a shooting star, so shine no matter where you are, tonight.

Our heavy thoughts, our regrets, our half grown pleasures, they try to weigh us down. But not this time, this time we will be way up in the air. We’re free. When things are hopeless, everything else is dark, then it’s time for us to take the responsibility, we will be the ones to shine, to create hope, to create full grown pleasures. Regardless of where you are, you can make decisions now that affect the rest of your life and those around you. Choose carefully.