Being Cultural Heretics (431)

On August 30, 2019, in culture, by Diocesan Staff

“I cry, because I only ever truly desired Love. Kindness. Understanding. Warmth. Touch.
And these things shall be denied, for eternity.”
– Kelly Catlin, Olympic Silver Medal Cyclist

The above words were written just before Ms. Catlin took her own life earlier this year. She was an accomplished Olympian, a superb student at Stanford University, and a gifted violinist. She seemed to excel in everything. The words above must haunt her family and friends. What could they have done to prevent her suicide? Did they let her down in some way? She’s crying out for love and connection. What more could her family and friends have done to love her and connect with her? I’m sure they’re second-guessing every encounter they had with her. If they’re not, then they’re not human. When a tragedy like this happens, our minds immediately look for someone to blame. We’re wired that way. We need sense-making, so we find a source for blame, and in doing so, we can move on and not have to dwell on it. But we should dwell on it.

In reading the story of Ms. Catlin (you can read it here: Driven to the End), I felt the author walked a careful line that avoided assigning blame, while also describing in great detail the “performance-achievement” culture in which she was raised. Even though her parents didn’t intend it, Ms. Catlin got the message that she was only loved when she excelled and achieved. It’d be easy to blame her parents for perpetuating such a culture, but her parents were just as broken as she was. So, let’s avoid assigning blame. Rather, let’s face the uncomfortable truth of how frequently we each engage in “conditional” love with those closest to us. How often do we send the often-unconscious message that we love them only when they provide some utility to us? When one adds in our toxic “performance-achievement” culture, then we’re all drinking a deadly cocktail. Drinking that cocktail leads us to believe that we’re only loved when we provide something for someone. We even bring this into our relationship with God assuming God must only love us when we behave in certain ways or follow particular rules. This conditional, merit-based love actually becomes our default practice. But it’s not the Good News of Jesus.

There’s a scene in the 1978 film, Midnight Express, that may help us. The American protagonist is somewhat unjustly imprisoned in Turkey. Years go by and he’s slowly going insane from the confinement. Each day, the inmates gather for exercise by walking clockwise around the prison yard. In order to snap out of his growing insanity, one day he decides to walk counter-clockwise, which sends everyone in the prison yard into an uproar. He’s committing “heresy,” a gross violation of the rules, but he gets his mind back and plans his escape. We need to snap out of our default practice concerning God’s love and how we love others. The Good News from Jesus is we’re all loved by God regardless of how faithful, good, or effective we are. And this Good News calls us to love others similarly, even when they provide no utility to us. But to live in such a way, we’ll have to walk in the opposite direction. Let’s all be cultural heretics.

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Donald Trump: No One Can Tame the Tongue (eCrozier #300)

On May 6, 2016, in culture, politics, sin, by bishopbenhase

No one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. – James 3:8

The Latin term ad hominem is used to describe a person who attacks another person when he/she is making a claim rather than address the actual point the other person is making. This is usually done when a person has no substantive way of responding to the other’s point. “You’re stupid for saying that” is a common ad hominem refrain where we attack the person’s intelligence rather than what they’re actually saying. We do this to put the other person on the defensive and deflect attention away from the point he/she is making. This is akin to a magician who doesn’t want us to see how he’s doing a particular trick. He waves a hand high above his head ostentatiously so we’ll look at that hand and not see the other hand that’s doing the trick. It’s deception, but in the magician’s case, it’s done only for our entertainment.  

Blessed James has a very low view of human nature and our ability to keep our words from spewing forth “deadly poison.” He concludes that “no one can tame the tongue.” If we’re at all self-reflective and honest, we must admit we’ve all failed to tame our tongues at one time or another. It’s not pretty when it happens. When I look back at the times my tongue was “a restless evil,” it was usually when I was feeling inadequate compared to the other people around me or in some way excluded by them. In a childish, mean-spirited way, I thought I could build myself up by tearing others down. If I could humiliate them with words, then maybe no one would notice my own failings.

Unlike some who argue we’ve entered a coarser, meaner public square in recent times, it seems to me that such coarseness and meanness has always been a part of our currency of communication in the human family. We just hear and see it more often than we used to because we’re so connected through all manner of media. I do agree with those who make such claims that these attacks have gradually become less and less shameful in our culture. And maybe that’s because of how often we now experience them. The “deadly poison” of ad hominem attacks we now regularly witness just drips, drips, drips into our waiting souls and we eventually become inured to them. We may even come to believe that those on the receiving end of such attacks probably have it coming to them.

Enter Donald Trump, who like me when I’ve behaved childishly, thinks he can build himself up by tearing others down. He tries to humiliate other people with the “restless evil” of his tongue so maybe no one will notice his own inadequacy. He called former Texas Governor Rick Perry a “dimwit.” He made fun of Carly Fiorina’s face. He said Senator and former POW John McCain was no war hero. He implied a reporter, Megyn Kelly, was menstruating because she had asked him a difficult question he didn’t want to answer. This is the deceptive behavior of a mean-spirited magician. Like I said, we’ve all engaged in such shameful conduct in our lives, but most of us recognized it for what it was, sought repentance, and then a more gracious path forward. Not Donald Trump. He just continues. I pray we see this magician’s act for what it is and that the “better angels of our nature” not find it the least bit entertaining.

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Social Media has become the Law (eCrozier #295)

On April 1, 2016, in culture, Law, media, Social Media, by bishopbenhase

This week on NPR’s Fresh Air there was an insightful commentary by music critic Sarah Hepola. In the piece (“When You Become the Person You Hate On the Internet”), she addressed social media, which gives us all a chance to expose the worst of ourselves to the rest of the world. One day, she heard the hit 90s song, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” which she then described in a Facebook post “as the worst song of all time.” The song is about an estranged couple who reconcile after watching the Audrey Hepburn film by that same name. Her post incited some of her friends to pile on, asserting that they also hated the song. She wrote that she got great satisfaction for having created such “a delightful little bonfire of disdain.” She, however, forgot that among her Facebook “friends” was one who just happened to be in the band that had recorded the hit song.  

She thought of removing the post, but figured that would draw more attention. She just hoped this guy never checked Facebook. But he did. She didn’t quote his response to her post. She only described it as implying that she wasn’t “a very nice person.” This sent her into existential anguish. As a writer, she’d been on the receiving end of people cruelly critiquing her work. Now she knew what that was like. She’d become the type of person she herself hated. But she insisted: “I am a nice person, although I sometimes do not-nice things.” We all engage in such self-assessments that attempt to pronounce cheap self-absolution. How do we differentiate between being a nice person who sometimes does not-nice things and being a not-nice person who sometimes does nice things? Does a nice person do nice things 51% of the time? 75% of the time? 99% of the time? Where’s the cut off line for appraising yourself as a nice person? You see the problem here.

Ms. Hepola isn’t the first person to struggle with such things. St. Paul wrestled with the same internal opponent. In Romans 7, he declares: “I don’t understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Ms. Hepola, I think, would agree with Blessed Paul. Later, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, wrote in his Confessions about a time in his youth when he nihilistically destroyed fruit from a pear tree. That made him ask himself why he also did the very thing he hated. St. Paul wrote that the Jewish Law, while being good, served to expose our sinfulness before God. In our post-Christian culture such an insight into God’s Law may not be possible for many people anymore. They’re simply unaware of it just as they’re unaware of how Jesus dealt mercifully and graciously with our sin on the cross.

Social Media now serves a similar purpose for us as the Jewish Law did for St. Paul: it exposes the less than flattering truth about ourselves. Many people, however, are left to a lonely, internal struggle all the while hoping others we’ll see them as “nice people who sometimes do not-nice things.” For what else can they hope in a culture that was once based on honor and is now based on shame? They’re trapped in the endless loop of self-shaming and then cheap, attempted self-absolution (“Well, I’m not as bad as others”). This is where our personal, relational evangelism matters. We all know someone stuck in this endless loop. We’ve been in it ourselves. But we must be truthful: The Gospel isn’t about us becoming nice people. It’s about Jesus loving and redeeming us anyway.
+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

A Word for the Church (eCrozier #293)

On March 18, 2016, in culture, Good Friday, politics, Violence, by bishopbenhase

Below is a statement from The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. We passed it unanimously, which, from my experience in the House, is a rare occurrence. That should indicate to the entire Church how strongly the bishops of our Church feel about this.

A Word to the Church

On Good Friday the ruling political forces of the day tortured and executed an innocent man. They sacrificed the weak and blameless to protect their own status and power. On the third day Jesus was raised from the dead revealing not only their injustice but also unmasking the lie that might makes right.

In a country still living under the shadow of the lynching tree, we are troubled by the violent forces being released by the season’s political rhetoric. Americans are turning against their neighbors, particularly those on the margins of society. They seek to secure their own safety and security at the expense of others. There is legitimate reason to fear where this rhetoric and the actions arising from it might take us.

In the moment, we resemble God’s children wandering in the wilderness. We, like they, are struggling to find our way. They turned from following God and worshipped a golden calf constructed of their own wealth. The current rhetoric is leading us to construct a modern false idol out of power and privilege. We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hope of others. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we must respect the dignity of every human being and seek the common good above all else.

We call for prayer for our country that a spirit of reconciliation will prevail and that we will not betray our true selves.

Now for my personal thoughts on the above statement. While I agree 100% with what we bishops wrote, I think in some ways it’s not a strong enough warning. Our country is at a pivotal moment in its history. During times of great cultural change or of profound dislocation and uncertainty, nations historically have made poor choices in protecting the common good, but particularly for the less powerful, which usually meant religious or ethnic minorities. Those times of uncertainty have led nations to scapegoat those on the bottom rung of the ladder. Our nation has had signs posted in its history that read: “Irish need not apply” or “No Colored Folk” or “No Jews.” We imprisoned Japanese-Americans during World War II for no legitimate reason. We shouldn’t see ourselves today as being so morally pure or advanced that such things couldn’t happen again. They well could. When people are desperate they can act violently and irrationally. And when their desperation is fueled by scapegoating, it leads to a national moral failure.

Future generations of Christians in America will look back and offer their judgment on how we behave in the days ahead. Let’s pray that their judgment will find us faithful.

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

“Campus Carry:” Sound Judgment or Strong Feelings? (eCrozier #291)

On February 26, 2016, in culture, Gun Violence, Guns, by bishopbenhase

Well, here we go again. Our State Legislature wants to double down on their Safe Carry Protection Act passed in the summer of 2014. Now they’ve introduced House Bill 859, the so-called Campus Carry bill, to allow students, faculty, and staff to carry concealed weapons at our state colleges and universities. It passed the House. Now it goes to the Senate. We must address the gross inequality of educational opportunity in this State. We must work to develop more jobs providing a livable wage for people so they can work themselves out of poverty. So, rather doing that hard, complex work, our Legislators spend their time on unneeded legislation that’s in search of a rationale.

My hunch is that those supporting this bill have a fantasy garnered only from the movies, where some student or professor stops a deadly attack by taking out his/her concealed weapon and shooting the deranged individual. But, of course, this is a fantasy not based on any evidence or data. The facts on campuses speak very differently. For example, “on college campuses where concealed carry is permitted, the crime rates actually increased while the student population decreased” (Gavran 2015). So, the facts don’t support a claim that having concealed weapons on campus in any way reduces criminal behavior. It actually dissuades students from wanting to attend there.

The data are also clear that even trained law enforcement officers have low firearm accuracy rates in live-fire situations. A Rand Corporation study in 2008 reported that even the most highly trained police officers have an average “hit rate” of only 18% during gunfights. It only bumps up to 30% when the suspects aren’t returning fire. So, 70% of the time highly trained professionals miss their intended targets. How well will an average college student or professor do when faced with such a high stress situation? They’re more likely to harm themselves or innocent people than stop a crime. David Chipman, a former ATF agent, said last year: “Despite what we see on TV, the presence of a firearm is a greater risk, especially in the hands of an untrained person.”

For the life of me, I can’t understand why our Legislators think this is a good idea. There’s no reliable data to support its need. On the contrary, all the reputable research on this topic screams out: “Don’t do this! It won’t help save anyone’s life and it’s very likely to make things worse.” Given the high rate of binge drinking on our college campuses, the thought of adding guns to that particular mix is horrifying. Loaded guns + drunk college kids = nothing good whatsoever. So what could be going in the minds of our Legislators? I assume they’re all honorable people seeking to do what they “feel” is right. And I believe the operative word here is “feel.” House Bill 859 just “feels” right to them. They “feel” it’s a way for them to expand 2nd Amendment rights, or at least how they interpret the clause: “a well-relegated militia.” Feelings, though, are just that: feelings. We should be glad our Legislators have strong feelings about their work. And I appreciate that they’re guided by those strong feelings. That’s human. We should expect such. But we should also expect them also to be guided by data and evidence. And when the data and the evidence tell us how we “feel” about something is incorrect, then we should be mature enough to be guided by sound judgment and not just our strong feelings.

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Rene Girard, Mimetic Theory, & the Birkin Bag (eCrozier #284)

On January 8, 2016, in culture, Envy, by bishopbenhase

There’s a fine line between admiration and envy. Envy is admiration gone spiritually toxic when we no longer appreciate others for their accomplishments or virtues, but rather our admiration has devolved into resentment, desperately wanting what the other has. Often this stance has violent results on both interpersonal and communal levels. As the Epistle of James states in chapter 4: Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.

The late French historian and philosopher Rene Girard made this observation about our human condition a part of his theory of mimetic desire. Girard contended that all our desires are in a way derived from other people by what we see them desiring. This desire produces mimetic rivalry when other people have something we now crave (James 4). Girard said that virtually all human conflict originates in mimetic rivalry. Human culture dealt with this rivalry through religious scapegoat sacrifice, which “pays the debt” of the mimetic rivalry and thus ends the escalating violence. Girard went on to argue that in the Bible God denounces mimetic rivalry through the scapegoating of Jesus while still using his sacrifice to forgive and justify us.

If Girard is just a little bit right, then it should be no surprise to us that marketers of merchandize capitalize on this mimetic desire and the consequent mimetic rivalry. Presented for your consideration: The Birkin Bag, a woman’s handbag that costs over $10,000. It’s a large, boxy, leather purse owned by the likes of the late Elizabeth Taylor and the very much alive Beyonce. Women apparently go on a waiting list just to get on the waiting list so they can then someday buy a Birkin Bag. They’re seemingly always out of stock, marketing the bag by “playing hard to get.” People who sell the bag haze potential purchasers, which then creates in the one being hazed a sense that some day she might be “worthy enough” to actually own a Birkin Bag. You can hear about it here: www.npr.org/2015/12/31/461627675/with-the-birkin-bag-hermes-plays-hard-to-get

In a way that echoes Girardian theory, NPR reported: “We all want to be part of some club that’s just out of our reach.” NPR interviewed a woman who first saw a Birkin Bag being carried by a woman walking on her block. She then waited for over a year until she was finally found “worthy” enough to own one. She admitted she was well aware of being emotionally manipulated the whole time, but she now declares: “I just feel more confident when walking down the street with my Birkin on my shoulder.” While she wasn’t willing to kill to get one (I assume, I don’t know), it was the focus of her attention for over a year. Now before I’m accused of picking on a particular gender, let me just write this: Big Pick-Up Trucks, or else, any New Electronic Gadget.

Girard was on to something. We know what’s happening to us, we know we’re being manipulated by mimetic desire and mimetic rivalry, and yet we still fall into this devilish trap, don’t we? Who will save us from our own selves? (see Romans 7:15-25).

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

The Prince of Peace is Weeping (eCrozier #283)

On December 18, 2015, in culture, humility, Prince of Peace, Violence, by bishopbenhase

The Prince of Peace must be weeping for what we do to one another.

This month two deranged individuals murdered 14 souls in San Bernardino, California. They rationalized this heinous act as a fair and just response to a perceived attack on their culture and religion. Three years ago this month, another disturbed individual whose mental health and delusions were his rationale, murdered 26 souls, mostly children, in Newtown, Connecticut.

After San Bernardino, the cry from our elected officials was swift and clear: “The government must take action. We have to pass legislation to address this terrorist act. It must never happen again.” So legislation was quickly passed and more is planned. It seems the government has an important role in keeping us safe and our elected officials will “stop at nothing” to ensure our safety.

After Newtown, the cry from our elected officials was: “Let’s pray for the victims and their families. The government can’t take any action. We can’t pass any legislation to address these murderous acts so let’s hope they never happen again.” It seems the government has no role at all in our safety if it means conflicting with a particular interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Our elected officials will “stop at everything” to avoid even considering what might be wrong with this interpretation.

The Prince of Peace must be weeping.

While the motivations behind both murderous acts were different, the acts themselves were surprisingly similar. And in both cases, the citizens who inflicted the carnage were able to legally obtain military-style weapons to do their evil. So, in both instances, the significant difference was how our elected officials responded.

When God became human at Christmas, God did not become a different kind of human from the rest of us. God entered our diseased, sinful, finite reality and became flesh to redeem us. God in a very vulnerable way said to all humanity: “Here’s my baby boy. He’s yours, too. Let’s see what happens.” And we know what happened. Over 30 years later we crucified God’s baby boy. Lethal violence is at the heart of the Christian narrative and God is trying to tell us something painful about ourselves through it.

Our violent, sinful nature should tell us something about ourselves that’s hard for us to hear. Left to our own devices, more often than we care to admit, we will choose violence and inflicting death as our first response to whatever appears to wrong us. But that should also help us shape how we order our public life. Knowing the violent sinners we are all, we must take steps to limit access to these murderous weapons. If not, such incidences will continue even more frequently.

The Prince of Peace is weeping: “Father, forgive them.” Are we listening to Jesus?

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Advent: Buy the Ticket of Repentance (eCrozier #282)

On December 11, 2015, in advent, culture, St. Augustine, by bishopbenhase

Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not just yet. – St. Augustine of Hippo

Advent is a season of preparation to welcome the birth of God in our midst. This Church season then has been marked traditionally by a time of repentance in the lives of Christ’s disciples. Indeed, the Scriptures of Advent shout out for us to repent, to change our whole way of thinking and acting so we might be a vessel for God’s mission in the world.

Of course, while we engage in such spiritual work we’re surrounded by a so-called “season of giving” where we try to be less Scrooge-like compared to the rest of the year. We assuage our consciences by collecting canned goods or volunteering here or there during this “season.” This gives us internal permission to check off the box that says: “I am a generous person.” But, I’m not interested in a seasonal harangue. Too many of us use this time of the year to judge others for not celebrating the real “reason for the season.” We can hardly expect others to do so when we’re so confused ourselves about what God becoming flesh means to our own lives as disciples of Jesus.

And that brings us to Blessed Augustine. He, maybe more than any saint of the Church, personally lays it all out there. His desire to repent and take on Christian virtues, two of which he names as chastity and continence, “but not just yet,” is as honest as it comes. And if we’re honest as well, we do the same thing, especially during this season of repentance. So, we might ask God, for example, to grant us the virtue of generosity. Or, it could be another virtue like forgiving others, but let’s just stay with this seasonal virtue of generosity. We ask God then to help us become more generous. And we wait and we wait and we wait. And it never seems to come. We then shrug our shoulders, move on, and conclude that it might never happen.

There’s a story of an old priest who retires after nearly 50 years of serving poor mission churches. He asks God each morning as he says the Daily Office to allow him to win the Super Lotto so he’ll be more comfortable in his retirement. He prays this each day for a month. Nothing happens. He never wins the lottery. So, one morning while praying he cries in loud voice: “Lord, I served you for nearly 50 years and now I’d like some comfort. Why won’t you do this one thing for me?” Total silence. But then a loud voice from Heaven shouts: “Buy a lottery ticket, you fool, buy a lottery ticket!”

In our repentance, if we desire the virtue of generosity, then we should start by really practicing generosity. If we practice it again and again, we’ll wake up one day and discover we’ve become a more generous person, not all the time (we are, after all, sinners), but much more so than we had been before. The same is true for other virtues that are a part of our repentance. If we want to be more forgiving, then we should start regularly forgiving others. When it comes to repentance, we “live in our heads” way too much. We overly spiritualize what it’s all about, which means we probably will never actually do it. And the new year will come and we’ll wonder why we never seem to grow much as disciples of Jesus Christ. For the love of Christ: “Buy a ticket!”

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

Francis: the Scandal of Following Jesus and Political Tribalism (eCrozier #275)

On October 9, 2015, in culture, discipleship, politics, by bishopbenhase

Not long after Francis, Bishop of Rome, left the United States a media frenzy broke out. It seems while he was at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., he met with a number of people those serving at the Embassy had arranged for him to meet. He greeted them, encouraged them in their faith, and then was whisked off to New York to continue his visit there. Among those whom he greeted that day was none other than Ms. Kim Davis, the now well-known County Clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky. As you may recall, she was willing to go to jail rather than issue marriage licenses (just one part of her job) to homosexual couples who desired to be legally married.

Once this meeting became known in the media, the outrage started. It seemed Francis, who many on the political left had embraced as being “on their side,” had met with “the enemy.” The bewildered cries of “how could he?” arose. Many felt he had betrayed them or their particular cause. Others said that they knew all along he was “that way.” Some, trying to explain this apparent aberration, said staff at the Vatican Embassy must have bamboozled him. There was no way he could have known about everyone with whom he met that day. Surely he never would have knowingly met with her? They had hoped Francis would be loyal to their political tribe. Of course, other political tribes, those that support Ms. Davis’ position, were beside themselves with joy, smugness, and relief. Meeting with her proved Francis was really loyal to their tribe after all.

Most folk want (or need?) to put Francis in a particular political box. But he, to my great delight, doesn’t care whether he satisfies the needs of political tribalism. He is, after all, serious about following Jesus. That means he is less concerned about partisan politics and the culture wars in which we wallow and more focused on living in the world in a way that reflects the claims of Jesus on his life. All this media drama showed was how little most people know about what it means to follow Jesus, who in his earthly ministry never cared about what others thought of him when he met or hung out with the mixed-bag characters we read about in the Gospels.

The late Dom Helder Camara was the Roman Church’s Bishop of Recife in Brazil from 1964 to 1985. During his episcopacy a brutal military dictatorship ruled the country. While bishop, he wrote:  Let no one be scandalized if I frequent those who are considered unworthy or sinful. Who is not a sinner? Let no one be alarmed if I am seen with compromised or dangerous people, on the left or the right. Let no one bind me to a group. My door, my heart, must be open to everyone, absolutely everyone. In writing this, the bishop was not shrinking back one bit from his long-standing prophetic witness against the dictatorship in his country. The dictators of Brazil in his day consistently labeled him a Communist. They, too, needed a political box in which to place him. Yet he, like Francis, was merely seeking to follow Jesus, always and everywhere.

We should expect nothing less from those who call us to follow Jesus in his Church, whether they be the Bishop of Rome, the Bishop of Recife, or if he is somehow up to it, the current person who is the Bishop of Georgia.

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

We Can Observe a Lot by Just Watching (eCrozier #273)

On September 25, 2015, in culture, fear, gospel, hope, Purity of Heart, by bishopbenhase

You can observe a lot by just watching – Yogi Berra

As I read the words of Jesus in the Bible, whether they be in his Sermon on the Mount or in his parables, he seems to be less concerned with the purity of his disciples’ arguments or the rigidity of their doctrine and more concerned with the purity of their hearts and their steadfast commitment to live out the Good News he was ushering into the world.

Yet, like with Mr. Berra, we can observe a lot by just watching how many of us maintain a death grip on the purity of our arguments and the rigidity of our doctrines, whether in religion or in politics. My hunch is that the death grip we’ve deployed is caused by our fear that we’re somehow losing what we once hoped we could control. But that was always a fantasy. Our culture is changing and people different from people like me are now a part of the conversation about what we will become. Religious and Political leaders sense this fear and exploit it for their own ends. But such fear mongering about people who are different than me will lead only to our collective downfall.

One of my favorite episodes of the old TV series, The Twilight Zone, is about a meteor that lands near Maple Street somewhere in Middle America. Soon rumors begin on the street that aliens disguised as humans have invaded. Everyone’s electricity goes out on the block so people gather in the street. One neighbor begs for everyone to remain calm. But then the lights in his house go on, while every other house remains dark. One of his neighbors shouts that he must be an alien. As suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are produced. In the faint distance, an “alien” is spotted and promptly shot, but when they run up to confront the alien, they discover he was no alien. He was simply a neighbor who had gone for help. The next scene is on a nearby hill where two real aliens are seen with a device that manipulates electricity. One tells the other “there’s no need to attack the humans. All you have to do is turn a few of their machines on and off and then they pick the most dangerous enemy imaginable: themselves.” Rod Serling then appears on camera concluding the episode with these words: “The tools of conquest don’t necessarily come with bombs and explosions. There are more powerful weapons; the ones found in the thoughts, attitudes, and prejudices of men.”

We seem to take great delight as a culture in arguing about who’s acceptable and who isn’t; who has the correct position on a particular issue and who doesn’t. And then we listen to the voices of those who tell us to fear those who are different than us; those on the outside of whatever side we’re on.

I’d rather spend my energy trying to follow Jesus. When we stand before the great judgment seat of Christ, I don’t think Jesus will ask you and me about the correctness of our beliefs or how rigidly we stood on principle. I believe he’ll ask if we tried in our lives to bring good news to the poor, hope to the hopeless, comfort to those who suffer, and mercy to the sinner. I may well be wrong about Judgment Day. I’ve been wrong before. But I’m willing to stake my eternal life on it.

+Scott

 
0 Comments
Leave A Response

« Previous Entries
Go To Top »