He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!" (Matthew 12:11,12 ESV)
One of my cultural heros, long time lecturer, writer, and talk radio host Dennis Prager has, for over twenty years, posed a hypothetical situation to groups to whom he has lectured that goes something like this: If you were passing by a lake and found that your beloved pet--dog or cat--and a person who was a complete stranger to you were both drowning, and you could only save one, and in doing so the other would certainly drown, whom would you save? Dennis says that over all the years he has posed this question the percentage of people, whether young or old, who answer that they would save their pet and let the stranger die has remained fairly consistent at about 60% to 65%.
Some of this can possibly be attributed to the urbanization of the United States over the last century: the farther away from the farm one gets, the easier it is to anthropomorphize animals, I suppose. But I attribute more of this trend to the decline of Christian moral truth as an influence to American law and culture. To be sure this cavalier attitude to human life is nothing new. Consider the ancient Chinese practice of deferring to name children until age two, for example. But this custom, generally credited to the high infant mortality rate and their reluctance to emotionally bond with a child who might then die, I would rather contend was a direct result of their worldview which based its value on human life relative to its utility.
A mere cursory review of human history can demonstrate that the Judeo/Christian value placed on human life is unique. Even Hinduism, with its image in the Western mind of non-violence and respect for all life, leads to a caste system and the horrors experienced by the Sudra (the "untouchable") caste, or Krishna persuading Arjuna to do his caste duty of killing his relatives in war, for the indwelling soul neither kills nor is killed (Bhagavad-Gita, II. 17-22).
The American trend of abandoning our legal and cultural definition of human life based on Biblical moral truth, to a secular/humanist view of utilitarianism, has lead not only to the distortion of our values--as the above Dennis Prager anecdote demonstrates--but also to the appalling rate of abortion, exceeding that of many European countries. Whatever direction our government takes on these issues, it's imperative that the Church remain steadfast to Biblical truth that man is not an animal, but rather a unique creation of God, made in His own image, and therefore due an intrinsic worth and dignity commensurate with that fact.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Imitation is the sincerest form of...Worship
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as
Christ loved us and gave himself up for us... (Eph. 5:1 ESV)
I have played guitar since age 11--over 40 years now. At about age 30 I discovered jazz and began the arduous task of learning to improvise. As I explored the literature on the subject I found there were two main theories. One was the chord/scale approach. This is very much in vogue today; it's taught in most of the university jazz departments and consists of learning various scales that relate to the chords that make up the harmonic structure of the song. The idea is to practice these scales against their corresponding chords, and eventually use notes from those scales to create improvised melodies. The second theory is much older and was the way most of the musicians who created the jazz lexicon learned to play: it is to transcribe the solos of admired masters and learn to play them. To put it simply: it is to imitate one's heros.
I could go on at great length about why I think the older "imitation" system is better than the newer, in vogue, system, but this might illustrate it best: the new system seems to be like trying to teach one how to write stories by focusing only on the alphabet. The result is strings of letters that don't mean much of anything.
The older "imitation" style of learning is in reality the way we learn everything. The most rudimentary abilities of human life--speech, walking, even eating--are learned by imitating our parents.
The reason, I think, that this style of learning has fallen out of favor in the arts at least--music, painting, and writing to name just three--is the modern value placed on novelty (or it's more respectable term originality.) Such is the esteem given originality in modern art (or at least the perception of originality) that almost all other attributes--beauty, structure, meaning-- are willingly sacrificed to its preeminence. Personally I still find beauty, structure and meaning important qualities in art, which is why I probably find so much modern music, painting and fiction repellent.
To whatever degree beauty, structure, meaning--and above all, truth--are significant to the quality of art, they are incalculably more so to the Christian life. Christians, as disciples of Christ, are trying to learn from Him the way to live. Disciple means pupil, from the Latin discipulus. The Greek word matheteuo, often translated as disciple, means learner.
Jesus is our teacher in life; as his pupils the best way to learn is to imitate. Anti-Christian critics have ridiculed this principle by such slogans on bumper-stickers as, "What would Jesus drive?" and, "Who would Jesus bomb?", but this doesn't invalidate the very real and important question that Christians have been asking themselves for two millenia: what would Jesus do?
And if this life is the preparation for where we will spend eternity and what we are to become, which I believe Scripture teaches us, then this quote from a recent sermon by the brilliant preacher and theological writer, Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho--(you can access a downloadable mp3 of this sermon, entitled, "A Second Battle of Tours II", by clicking here)--is particularly poignant:
"...we need to recognize that if you're worshiping an idol, you are going to become like the idol you worship. If you're worshiping the true God, you're going to become like the true God...Paul tells us very clearly that we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another as we behold the face of God in Christ. And John tells us that when we see Him we're going to become like Him because we're going to see Him as He is. The one we worship, when we see Him most clearly in the resurrection, we're going to be completely conformed to His image when we see that image most clearly. And as we see that image through a glass darkly, now, we are being transformed in a process from one degree of glory to another. And if you worship an idol, the same process happens. You become more and more like that idol: deaf, dumb, and blind."
Christ loved us and gave himself up for us... (Eph. 5:1 ESV)
I have played guitar since age 11--over 40 years now. At about age 30 I discovered jazz and began the arduous task of learning to improvise. As I explored the literature on the subject I found there were two main theories. One was the chord/scale approach. This is very much in vogue today; it's taught in most of the university jazz departments and consists of learning various scales that relate to the chords that make up the harmonic structure of the song. The idea is to practice these scales against their corresponding chords, and eventually use notes from those scales to create improvised melodies. The second theory is much older and was the way most of the musicians who created the jazz lexicon learned to play: it is to transcribe the solos of admired masters and learn to play them. To put it simply: it is to imitate one's heros.
I could go on at great length about why I think the older "imitation" system is better than the newer, in vogue, system, but this might illustrate it best: the new system seems to be like trying to teach one how to write stories by focusing only on the alphabet. The result is strings of letters that don't mean much of anything.
The older "imitation" style of learning is in reality the way we learn everything. The most rudimentary abilities of human life--speech, walking, even eating--are learned by imitating our parents.
The reason, I think, that this style of learning has fallen out of favor in the arts at least--music, painting, and writing to name just three--is the modern value placed on novelty (or it's more respectable term originality.) Such is the esteem given originality in modern art (or at least the perception of originality) that almost all other attributes--beauty, structure, meaning-- are willingly sacrificed to its preeminence. Personally I still find beauty, structure and meaning important qualities in art, which is why I probably find so much modern music, painting and fiction repellent.
To whatever degree beauty, structure, meaning--and above all, truth--are significant to the quality of art, they are incalculably more so to the Christian life. Christians, as disciples of Christ, are trying to learn from Him the way to live. Disciple means pupil, from the Latin discipulus. The Greek word matheteuo, often translated as disciple, means learner.
Jesus is our teacher in life; as his pupils the best way to learn is to imitate. Anti-Christian critics have ridiculed this principle by such slogans on bumper-stickers as, "What would Jesus drive?" and, "Who would Jesus bomb?", but this doesn't invalidate the very real and important question that Christians have been asking themselves for two millenia: what would Jesus do?
And if this life is the preparation for where we will spend eternity and what we are to become, which I believe Scripture teaches us, then this quote from a recent sermon by the brilliant preacher and theological writer, Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho--(you can access a downloadable mp3 of this sermon, entitled, "A Second Battle of Tours II", by clicking here)--is particularly poignant:
"...we need to recognize that if you're worshiping an idol, you are going to become like the idol you worship. If you're worshiping the true God, you're going to become like the true God...Paul tells us very clearly that we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another as we behold the face of God in Christ. And John tells us that when we see Him we're going to become like Him because we're going to see Him as He is. The one we worship, when we see Him most clearly in the resurrection, we're going to be completely conformed to His image when we see that image most clearly. And as we see that image through a glass darkly, now, we are being transformed in a process from one degree of glory to another. And if you worship an idol, the same process happens. You become more and more like that idol: deaf, dumb, and blind."
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