A Bad-Guy...but not a bad guy...

                 I love the line in Wreck It Ralph in the ‘Bad Guy’ support group of video game villains that goes something like “just because he is a ‘Bad-Guy’ doesn’t mean that he is a bad guy…”  Just because he is the bad guy in a video game does not mean he is a bad guy in life.  It is like Jessica Rabbit (going back a couple of years), “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”

                If I get this right, and I am not very good at philosophical undertakings, this is a post-modern consideration by these characters, as opposed to a modern consideration.  Well, thank you very much.  I actually liked those quotes, but now you have bored me off your blog...  I practically bored myself, except there is something bugging me.  There is a point here.  

                In the ‘modern’ way of thinking, there are good guys and there are bad guys based on how we structure the world.  In “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, Jessica Rabbit was assumed to be bad because of how she was drawn.  Wreck-It Ralph is a bad guy because Ralph, well, wrecks it.

                So now come to the ‘after modern’, the post-modern.  Jessica is not bad because she does not consider herself to be bad.  The bad guys in the support group do not consider themselves to be bad guys.  Therefore, they are not.  One has to “self-identify” as good or bad and not be branded by the cultural structures in which they live.

                Self-identification, as I understand it, is the centerpiece of gender fluidity and the LGBTQx movement in our present culture.

                Okay, so there is the philosophy lesson.  What’s next?  A defense of one and a condemnation of the other?  Which one would Jesus support? 

                I wish it were that simple.  But here is my problem.  Traditionally, to translate that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" mandates that people acknowledge that they are sinners and turn to Jesus.  That’s the structure of the theological world that we have emerged from.  But a lot of people self-identify as being good people and wonder why Jesus automatically condemns them for just being human? 

                And here is the one that really kicks my backside.  I know good people, this came to sharp relief working with cops, who put their lives on the line as surely as Jesus gave his life for us but tell jokes and behave in ways that no church would ever want to see in, for example, the life of a Sunday School teacher.  But the way to Jesus is that they must be convicted first of being a sinner?  Of being a bad guy even though they are not bad guys?

                You can have your fire and brimstone preachers telling their audiences that they are bound for hell except for Jesus, but if the audience thinks the preacher is a big joke, then what?  Sit back and let the burning commence?

                Spending my time talking about how the grand scale of Christmas shows me a world that is looking for Jesus, in some manner, got me wondering about why the world doesn't find him so easily? Convincing someone they are a bad person in this day and age is more of a moral insult than it is a moral conviction. 

                I don’t have a full answer yet, because I ain’t Jesus-for which heaven and earth both give thanks I have no doubt.  But how about this?  The world should be pretty near perfect.  We have the science and the tech to end hunger, we have the ways and means to end war and all the global pollutions that we are threatening our earth with.  We have a world full of leaders and followers who all swear up and down that they want peace and to live in peace with everyone else.  But we haven’t, we aren’t, and it appears we are lying.

                And that hasn’t changed.  We can feed the hungry, but we don’t.  We can fix global warming, but we don’t.  So what is going on here?  The branding in Christianity for this is ‘sin’.  There is something there to be considered very seriously.  Because the world is a bad place and Jesus is the answer.  So how do we bridge that need?

                I invite you to come with me to think about that one.

Peter 

Live...Love...Believe

                 That was the message in the windows of Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in NYC for the 2020 Thanksgiving Day parade.  The Thanksgiving Day parade begins with Tom Turkey and ends with the arrival of Santa Claus.  For many, this is the signal of the start of the Christmas Season, not the Christmas decorations starting before Halloween (and in some cases before October...). 

                “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”.  September 21, 1897, part of an editorial response in the newspaper, the Sun, it has entered the lore of the Christmas Season and been a key part of Macy’s expression of Christmas for a number of years.  I think it is included because it underpins the call to “believe” that is ongoing part of a Macy’s Christmas.

                In some circles, there is a tremendous amount of angst about ‘believe’.  What I mean is that it seems to represent the ongoing removal of Christ from Christmas (like in the bumper sticker in the last post).  The secular call to believe pulls us away from the sacred call to believe in Jesus. 

               But, for Christendom, there is nothing new in that.  Living in a world of sin, the devil has been trying to remove everything from our faith and leave it an empty husk.  Thus, the reign of the devil can be finally confirmed with no bothers ‘from above’.

                And if we look at it that way, it is depressing set of circumstances to consider for Christmas, the theft of our belief'.  But sin is the depressing set of circumstances under which the world lives.  What if ‘Believe’ was not an advertising ploy to attract more shoppers, but something more heartfelt?  Advertising, by its very nature, seeks to sell us things.  In the worst examples, it has to convince us we are ugly, bad, smelly, weird, or whatever in order to find redemption in their products.  But for it to work, advertising has to connect with something in us-and I think they have connected with something deep in the instance of 'believe'. 

                So, a reminder of my point of view, God is in control, no matter what it might feel like otherwise.  So what are we to believe in?  Santa?  Giving?  Buying at Macy’s to walk in Santa’s shoes?  Maybe.  But the first two pieces of this ad campaign are ‘live’ and ‘love’.  Is this a cry for help?  Because Christmas is THE season that we still believe brings out the best in people.  Redemption is the ongoing theme of the season, from Dickens “A Christmas Carol” to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”.   The world wants love to be in control and seeks what to believe to make it so-because it is not in control. 

                Believe in what?  In Santa?  In the power of the human spirit?  That is going to be a hard sell.  If we believe Santa embodies the best of humanity, love and caring and a spirit of giving, the evidence of our own senses tells us that it is not something humanity can live up to.  Maybe we are not as hard hearted as Scrooge who spoke about ‘decreasing the surplus population’, but people will go hungry this season.  (Matthew 25 talks about that in eye opening detail).

                So how about believing in the reason for the season?  Maybe Jesus did not get a float in the parade but the spirit of Christ underpinned every display.  Maybe a creche is not something that we have yet to make into a Broadway musical (but if someone reads this and decides to do it, please let me know).  But Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  Jesus is the way to redemption.  “Acting nice” is a reflection of the true ‘niceness’ to be found in Jesus. 

                I see the word ‘believe’ and I see a call for help to find something that can truly be believed in.  And I have the joy of something true that I can, that we can believe in.  So, this season, I am looking for divine guidance to help those people who are seeking to believe.  I invite you to join me. 

I Met God and His Name is Chuck

WARNING: THERE ARE POTENTIAL SPOILERS HERE, ESPECIALLY TO THE LAST SEASON OF SUPERNATURAL.

          So Chuck is all-knowing.  This is God, the God, according to “Supernatural”.  When we met God…Chuck…he was, as in the Beatles song, a paperback writer.  If you are not familiar with the show, it has just concluded a fifteen year run on the CW.  It revolves around two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, who are hunters…and later men of letters.

          They hunt monsters.  Ghosts, urban legends, mythological beings, angels and demons, and everything in between.  In the course of the show, we met Chuck, who was essentially transcribing their lives into paperback novels.  Turns out, Chuck is God, the God, not ‘a god’ like Bill Murray thought he might be in Groundhog Day.

          This is significant why?  Because this portrayal of God is not particularly kind to the Christian tradition.  And while that is important, I think there is something even more significant in this portrayal.  I think it is significant because it reflects a lot of popular attitudes about God in the public consciousness.  After all, to be a hit show, the writers have to find some touchstone with the experiences of their audience.

          So here is a thumbnail sketch of their God.  They subscribe to the Clockwork theory of creation.  Chuck created it and then let it go, and it runs.  He is not a “hands on” kind of guy-and he is definitely a guy.  Where did Chuck go?  It was not like Genesis where God rested on the seventh day.  No, Chuck goes on to create other versions of his creation, shuffling them into a multiverse like so many cards in a deck.

          He is not really a punishing God, but is not much of a loving God either.  But while his ‘angels’ presume him to be all-knowing, Chuck created a situation in which, to kill off an apocalyptic strength character, one of the Winchester boys would have to sacrifice their own lives.  He called it an Abraham and Isaac kind of thing, but this time there would be no ram to sacrifice in place of Isaac.  So Chuck is a God who likes to play games with the lives of his creation.  And the sense was Chuck did not know how it would turn out.  So we were created with free will, apparently even beyond God’s knowledge.    

          Essentially, Chuck is a jerk with transcendent powers.  He either does not care about what happens in his creation or he purposely manipulates it for his own malicious ends. 

          Sure, this is not the God that I believe in as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church.  But how prevalent is this understanding of God in the popular culture that it is so strongly drawn in a television show of long duration and large audience?   How much of the world really thinks this way about God?