Oddities

Rights, Oppression, and the Death of the Shared Societal Script

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12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards.

I did not see the film. In fact, in a stunning case of cultural cluelessness, I’d not even heard of it before it won.

That said, I’m not surprised at its win. In fact, it may not have been possible for any other film to take home Oscar.

I wish I could find the link to the article, but several months ago I read an enlightening post concerning Hollywood’s rather banal decent into repetitive storylines. Slate had an insightful look at the Save the Cat phenomenon and how it has rendered all plots the same (“Save the Movie!“), but this gone-missing article struck a bigger nerve.

The contention is that movies today lack a touchstone for the American script—not a movie script, but the ongoing dialog we Americans maintain that defines our core beliefs as Americans.

Core beliefs? Can you even HAVE core beliefs today?

The article contended we were at a point in our history as a nation that we can no longer agree on shared values and core beliefs beyond some very general ones, milquetoast values that make for boring movies. We saw Man of Steel at the box office this summer, but what we didn’t see was much truth, justice, and the American Way on display. Wouldn’t want someone watching to get riled that a pro-America Superman places the Man of Steel into the imperialistic oppressor category.

Let’s be frank here: About the only shared value we Americans have left is a distaste for oppression. While in an earlier age that might have meant us fighting some tyrannical, overseas dictator or championing the cause of the poor, today it means something less noble: Don’t oppress me by questioning whatever it is I want to do to gratify myself.

OppressionBy choosing a film about slavery as Best Picture, the Academy recasts the worst of oppressions and shoehorns it into the modern expression. I mean, what kind of barbarian could possibly endorse the oppression of a fellow human being as expressed in Civil War-era American slavery? Now fast-forward that to America 2014 and witness how easily we slide from championing freedom from slavery to demanding freedom from all moral constraints.

Who is the new oppressor? The one who questions same-sex marriage. The one who questions abortion. The one who questions…

See, to be an oppressor today, to be the villain in a modern movie plotline, all one must do is question another person’s desire (now called “a right”) to do ____________.

The questions the supposed oppressor is asking may be worthwhile on the surface, but their worth is now trumped by any implications of inherent oppression. Carte blanche has never been more acceptable, at least when the self-satisfiers are in charge.

Movies are boring today because we have seen our American script became a one-note message. Worse, even that one-note message of opposing oppression lacks the depth and wisdom it once possessed. Today, it is all about self-gratification. Any constraint that prevents self-gratification has been deemed oppression. And we all know who the new oppressors are—at least as they’ve been tagged by the ones making up the new definitions.

So, if you’re reading this and nodding your head, how does it feel to be the new oppressor?

“Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

No Holy Spirit, No Church

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I’m not one to scream persecution. I think too many Christians in the West do so whenever they don’t get their way. The local school district won’t remove Catcher in the Rye from the middle school bookshelves, and some Christian parent pulls out the persecution card and sues.

Meanwhile, in some parts of the Middle East, they cut off your head.

Doesn’t seem quite the same.

But cultural and societal persecution is coming quickly to the West. You can’t have a socialist government without curbs on religious freedom. One day you can call sin sin, and the next you get tossed in jail for the same. People who keep crying for a nanny state can’t fathom what gets lost in the mix. Or else they can and just don’t care.

Which is how I ended up reading about the UK homosexual, millionaire couple who sued the Church of England for refusing to marrying them in a church wedding.

Expect to see more of that. It’s no longer about rights but about breaking the back of the Church, which was the agenda all along. Besides, the cool, hip sinners have already moved onto demanding polyamory rights. Slippery slope may be a logical fallacy, but it’s a societal reality.

I write all that as the setup, because this post is not about text but subtext. But then this is Cerulean Sanctum, and it’s usually about reading between the lines.

The uproar in the UK lawsuit is only partially about the Church being legally compelled to marry homosexuals. It’s only partially about the reality that the Church of England took “tithes” from those men for years and sort of looked the other way while doing so.

Instead, I want to talk about the Holy Spirit and this situation.

We Christians believe that the Holy Spirit indwells each Christian believer. That’s bedrock doctrine. By definition, the indwelt believer IS the Church.

If we know that these two men have sat Sunday after Sunday in a supposedly genuine Christian church comprised of self-labeled Christian believers, how is it that the Holy Spirit has had no effect on them at all?

“Whoa, Dan, how can you be so sure the Holy Spirit has not worked on them?” Well, I think a lawsuit against the church/Church they’ve claimed to attend for years to compel it to do something it has believed for 2,000+ years is wrong is a pretty good indicator.

This leads to two troubling issues:

1. Many sects within the Christian Church believe the Holy Spirit cannot be resisted ultimately.

2. If these men are surrounded by self-proclaimed Spirit-filled Christians every Sunday for years, yet there is no change in their lives, it must be considered that the people surrounding them each Sunday actually do not have the Holy Spirit living in them.

The two issues go hand in hand.

Regarding the first, I have always struggled with the concept taught in some church sects that the Holy Spirit cannot be resisted when He chooses not to be resisted.

First, we know that the Holy Spirit CAN be resisted:

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you….”
—Acts 7:51 ESV

The Christian martyr Stephen made that accusation while filled with the Holy Spirit moments before he was stoned to death. Given that, I think we can assume the theology is right on the mark.

Later in the New Testament, we read this:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
—2 Peter 3:9 ESV

I’ve never found a satisfying response in light of 2 Peter from those Christian sects that say the Holy Spirit cannot be resisted ultimately. God desires that all should reach repentance. What part of all is debatable here? We know that not all do reach repentance. What then does that mean in light of Acts 7:51?

Stone heartBut let’s defer to the side of ultimate irresistibility and look at the second troubling issue. In fact, let’s push it to its logical extreme.

If a homosexual couple can spend years within a church filled with believers who have the Holy Spirit in them, should it not be assumed that the Holy Spirit is wherever those believers are? You would think. So, what would it mean if these two men, surrounded by hundreds filled with an irresistible Person of the Trinity, do not eventually surrender to that irresistible Person?

Doesn’t one begin to wonder if that supposedly Spirit-filled crowd is in fact housing the Holy Spirit at all?

That is the issue that troubles me most.

Every Sunday we have many who sit amid supposedly Spirit-filled people and hear a supposedly Spirit-filled presentation of the Spirit-filled Gospel delivered by a supposedly Spirit-filled leader within the church and the Church, and yet they seem to resist that supposedly Spirit-filled assault with little or no effort.

Does that compute to you?

It doesn’t to me. When we look at how remarkably the Church grew in its undoubtedly Spirit-filled nascence and compare that with today, something must be off. We can talk about the fact that the bloom is off the rose with regard to the Christian faith, and that it’s not a new phenomenon to people, so its novelty isn’t there anymore, but the Holy Spirit is the same, isn’t He?

How then can people sit in our churches for years upon years and NOT be changed by encountering the Spirit in His fullness?

We like to point to all sorts of causes, but we’re loathe to hold up a mirror and note that the pointed finger may be pointing back at us.

Can a homosexual couple in a congregation of truly Spirit-filled believers successfully resist the Holy Spirit forever? And if they can, what does that say about the truth of that local church containing genuine Spirit-filled believers?

Worse, can anyone in a congregation of truly Spirit-filled believers successfully resist the Holy Spirit forever?

Something to think about.

The Damned Rich?

Cadillac ad
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At Religion News Service, Jonathan Merritt lays down the smack on rich people—at least the kind of 1%-er depicted in this Cadillac ad:

You can read Merrit’s full rant at “Sochi Cadillac Ad Encourages Worship at the Altar of Work and Stuff.” It’s hard to come away from reading that piece and not think that all rich people are damned.

I think Merritt’s complaint is an extension of the radical discipleship trend.

I used to be one of those people who thought scant numbers of the rich would inhabit the more heavenly portion of the afterlife. At least that’s the way I once read the Bible. (Frankly, we know all the anti-rich verses in the Bible, so I’m not even going to bother putting them here.)

Here’s part of the problem:

There’s no glory in being poor, and all the sociological studies show as much. The poor are by far less happy about life. They struggle more and appreciate the “spiritual benefits” of life’s struggles less. And if anything, “the love of money is the root of all evil” is more of a problem for the poor than the rich. Anyone who has seen a parking lot of a retailer that sells lottery tickets on those days when the government welfare checks arrive knows from the discarded tickets littering the lot’s asphalt that there’s a lot of love of money on display.

Merritt also decries the workaholic lifestyle, but who is the true workaholic when the rich man works 60 hours a week and saves enough money to retire at 50, while the poor man works 40 hours a week and keeps working until he drops dead at 75?

And from what did the attitude in the Caddy commercial originate? The Reformation perhaps? Luther had strong opinions about the sanctity of work, and it was Calvinists who gave us the Protestant Work Ethic concept that now powers much of the mentality on display in that ad.

Here’s the more discombobulating part of the anti-conventional wisdom regarding rich and poor:

In Rodney Stark’s The Triumph of Christianity, the renowned sociologist of religion makes interesting arguments that Jesus was not only not poor, He was likely upper middle class. Stark is no theologian but a sociologist, yet his arguments in favor of his theory are well-reasoned and interesting to ponder.

Even more contrarian is Stark’s less conjectured argument that the early Christian Church was not only bankrolled by the richest members of that era’s society, but the rich were Church members at twice the percentage as their representation in the general population. In short, the Church in Acts was loaded by the organizational standards of the day, and the rich were some of its most prevalent members.

Yet even more upending is Stark’s contention that the rich Church has been the case for almost the entirety of its history. This was true in Rome, where the homes that the traveling evangelists often stayed were on the order of today’s McMansions—or even larger. This was also true in post-Rome Europe, where the poor were almost never Christians (but instead practiced pagan religions) and Christianity was bankrolled and supported by the nobility.

In fact, when Merritt claims that rich people finance today’s megachurches—as if this is some damning statement—in reality, this has always been the case in history.

Stark notes the fledgling Church would not have gotten anywhere and definitely would not have spread as it did without people with a lot of money investing in the work of the Kingdom. Same for the Protestant Reformation. That Luther-led revolt against the RCC would have died early on, since Luther would have been assassinated and his writings unpublished—if not for the German nobility who protected the reformer and funded his writings.

Is it hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom? Sure. But hard does not mean impossible. Stark’s historical research shows as much.

Christians need to be very careful about painting with a broad brush with regard to rich and poor. Many times, the supposed materialist is the one secretly funding a ministry you and I swear is life-changing and godly.