Truth with a Capital T

Something that’s been on my mind and heart lately:

I hear this SO much from students, teachers, activists, Christian teenagers and young adults, media, etc.– “It’s wrong to force your religion and beliefs (Christianity) onto other people or try to force a moral code onto those who don’t adopt it or believe in it!”

A very postmodern thought for sure.  Do I agree with it?  In a way…

I say yes: because you shouldn’t have to “convince” people that “Your” truth is the right truth. Let me explain:

So if Christianity is the Truth (capital T) then it’s independent of whatever you, me or anyone else believes. Therefore–you don’t have to win people over to “your side”. Why?

You are on the side of Truth; truth isn’t on YOUR side. Big difference.
If you’re trying to convince people to take your side, that’s YOUR truth…not THE Truth.

Also, Truth exists in its own right whether it is believed or not–Truth is not validated by someone believing in it, and Truth is still Truth whether or not anyone is there to see it.

For example:
The circumference of a circle is still Pi x Radius squared whether or not there is anyone there to measure it.

Fact.

Truth is “right” in of itself–see, it’s like this.

Imagine you have a man standing before a jury and this is his testimony:

“Well I believe that this man robbed me and stabbed me!  That’s my personal view and truth of what happened!”

The evidence?  He has no stab wounds.  The other man has an alibi AND witnesses that he was elsewhere at the time.  No stolen property was found in possession of the accused man and there is no proof that he ever had any stolen property.  What’s more, the property that the man said was “robbed” from him was found stored in a backyard shed once the police decided to investigate the “break-In”.  Is the man lying?

Or: maybe he creating his own truth?  Lot of people these days believe that you construct your own truth and your own version of reality.  ’Whatever you choose to believe”.  Your truth, my truth.  I’ll believe in truth that I like and not believe what I don’t like…I’m the god of my own world; I create my own truth.

To be honest–there’s not much you can do for people like this.  They don’t need Truth.  They ARE their own truth.  They’ve created a world where they don’t need God.

They are their own god.  Hmm…not much of a god are you in the long-run, eh?  Still here for say what 80-90 years maximum and you can’t escape the reality, the truth, that you’re going to die someday and there’s nothing you can do to stop that.

Life/Death and everything else is out of your control.  Just try controlling every aspect of your life.  Either: A) You’ll find it’s impossible or B) You’ll deceive yourself and think that it’s not impossible, only to find that all come crashing down when the consequences that you’ve brought upon yourself slap you upside the head.

As Al Gore would say, THAT’S an Inconvenient Truth.

Plus, just because you believe in something, that doesn’t make it true.  That applies to religious, scientific, social, or any other kind of beliefs.  Do you realize that people denied that the Earth was round or that the Sun was the center of our Solar (haha) System?

Point is: People don’t believe YOU–they believe THE Truth of the Gospel, not YOUR Truth of the Gospel.

Or they won’t believe the truth.  Maybe they’ll deny it for another truth. Possibly even deny that objective truth exists, period.  All just ways of creating their own world and their own truth.  Why do people do that?

Well….the Truth hurts.  It offends.  It’s “unfair”.  It shows how jacked up we really are.  It shows how Holy an Almighty God truly is.  How about those 10 Commandments?

1. No other gods before me (darn)
2. You shall not have idols (but my toaster…)
3. Don’t take God’s name in vain (I swear to God I don’t do that…wait)
4. Keep Sunday separate and holy (but there’s football on…)
5. Honor your father and mother (DID MY MOM TELL YOU TO SAY THIS?!?)
6. You shall not murder (so what if Jesus said that hatred in your heart is just as bad?)
7. You shall not commit adultery (lust doesn’t count, right?)
8. You shall not steal (that bank has plenty of pens, so what if they wanted it back?)
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (but they deserved it!)
10. You shall not covet. (ah, okay I get the point)

That right up there is the Truth.

And what’s the meaning of it?  So that we can try to keep it?  No–truth is that we CAN’T keep it.  That’s what God’s Word says in Romans 3:23.  God’s Word speaks for itself.

It is the Truth.  It doesn’t have to be verified, quantified, questioned or queried for its words to be real in our lives.  It proves itself.  People will argue: but you can’t prove that objective truth exists!!

But wait–if you prove that objective truth doesn’t exist…isn’t that an objective truth?  It would then be TRUE that truth doesn’t exist–see the paradox?

And might I point out that the Truth of God’s Word exists outside of whatever version of scripture, what translation, what human errors might occur in translating/copying it or even your interpretation of it.

God’s Word is still TRUTH even if no one can read it or knows that it exists.  Like the equation for Circumference, it is a fact regardless of whether or not those facts are interpreted.  That’s the point of objective Truth.

We, as believers don’t have to convince people or postulate an argument to convince them of the Truth.

All we have to do is stand for that Truth: that alone is enough. That is all we are called to do. If its true, that is enough to have the Truth convince them by its own testimony.  Truth proves itself.  We don’t have to.

It’s up to the world whether they will choose to accept that Truth or not.

Romans 1: 20-25–(with added emphasis)

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for imagesmade to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.  Amen.

That’s the Truth folks.  It ain’t easy to hear, but it’s true whether you want to believe it or not.

Or whether you CHOOSE to believe it or not.  So what will you do?  Will you choose to take the side of Truth and be on IT’S side; Be on God’s side?  Or will you continue living a lie?

If I were you…I’d avoid slavery.  John 8:32 says that “the truth will set you free”.

So if you’re not free what are you?  A slave.  A slave to lies.

Do you really want that?  Time to ask yourself the hard questions.

Time to be confronted by the Truth.

 

Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Attacks.

This photo just encapsulates everything about the events of April 15th, 2013 for me.  The sheer terror of civilians, the helplessness of the people who woke up thinking they were going to run a race like any other and the timely responsiveness of the police force of Boston–racing into action without a care for their own lives…

Only the lives of the people they’d sworn to protect.

A quote from Fred Rogers went viral after these attacks, spreading around the world to ease the hurt, shock and pain of the folks who stood glued to their TV screens watching people being wheeled away with limbs literally blown off by the explosion.  It said:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

As I watched the pain and sorrow of the bystanders, I started to cry…

I couldn’t help it.

Just seeing the hurt and pain and the terribleness that is the world we live in, I cried for those whose voices had been silenced.  I cried for the children and for the city of Boston as a whole.

But there was something interesting that I saw that I had to comment on, and that’s the reason I’m writing this post.  I saw a quote on Twitter in the midst of reports, comments and  the like there was this reaction that went something like this:

“The world is becoming a truly dark, evil place to live in.”

Hold the phone.

I know and agree that this is an AWFUL tragedy but…the world is BECOMING a dark, terrible place?  To me, this is such a small, limited view not only of our present world but the history of humanity as a whole.

Just look at the history of genocide and attacks from 1915 on:

-The ethno-religious cleansing of the Ottoman Empire and mass murder of Christians, as well as the systematic killing of Armenians by said empire.

-The Soviet Union killing millions of people when they confiscated harvests in Ukraine after the rise of Communism in Russia following World War I.

-Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (6 million Jews killed, along with even MORE Romani, communists, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics, Christians and other political and religious opponents.

-Millions of GERMANS died (in retaliation) after World War II finished, many in prison and internment camps in a truly saddening turn of events.  (For those of you who would say “justice”, most were soldiers doing their duty–imagine if the U.S. loses the war and as a result they killed our soldiers and civilians in retaliation).

-Australia’s “Stolen Generation” which practically destroyed and re-educated the native aborigine population.

-Stalin’s murder of millions and millions of his own people, FAR outnumbering Hitler’s Holocaust.

-Zanzibar, Guatemala, Pakistan, Burundi, North Korea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kuwait, Rwanda, the Congo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia,

And this is only

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE.

Whether you like it or not, we live in a tragically fallen, corrupt, evil, perverted, murderous world.  But there are those who believe in the good in humanity, right?  That we can choose between good and evil?

So why haven’t we all made that choice of embracing good?  The answer is:

We Can’t.

Why not?  Well, The Bible says in Romans 3:23 that:

“ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (emphasis added)

The world isn’t evil and that evilness affects people’s choice or free will–it’s the evilness INSIDE ourselves that allows us to do these wicked, despicable acts.  And there’s no line between “EVIL” and “not too bad” and “mostly good” or “a few minor flaws”.

In God’s Eyes, everyone’s sin is EQUAL.  From the baby that’s just been born to Saddam Hussein, to Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan, from me to Mother Teresa and to You.

We are the cause of all of this.  I am the cause of all of this.  You are the cause of all of this suffering and pain in our world.

“But Blake,” you say, “that’s an awfully depressing view; you are saying that those innocent people in the marathon are just as guilty as the ones who set off those bombs..”–

Or perhaps you say or think something like: “That’s not fair!!”

See–that’s coming from the idea that those people were innocent.  In God’s eyes, EVERYONE is guilty.

In this life:

We will never know the depth of our depravity; nor will we know the glory of God’s divinity unless he reveals it to us.

The Boston bombings, I believe, are part of exposing this lie that we believe–We see it our sin as too small to need a savior and our God is too small to save us from it.

Where was God?  He was in control, and remains in control.  But see, God doesn’t care most about your health, wealth, security, happiness or even protecting your LIVES.

God cares about your HEART.  And he sent his son, Jesus to save us

Save us from ourselves.

Thanks be to God for his salvation from not only the most despicable, nastiest things that we do, but that his mercy covers us and clothes us in his righteousness, not in his wrath or the burden of our shame!

I don’t know WHY God chose to allow or cause suffering in this world.  But there’s an adage that might give a clue:

The shadow proves the sunshine.

Now this isn’t a perfect metaphor as sunlight indeed exists without shadow

But without pain, loss and loneliness, could we ever know TRULY how depraved we are and how much we need a savior?  Not to say that we wouldn’t know happiness or to know God but more that we could see the height, depth, breadth and knowledge of God’s love even amidst the darkest nightmares of reality.

So what to do with all of this?  Pray. Rejoice. Mourn. Forgive. Weep. Live.  But when we live, live in the knowledge that:

“God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.”(Isaiah 55:8)

And may Christ come soon to deliver us from this wretched world to a place where all sorrows are washed away.  I leave with this song not as something where we’re afraid and paranoid, but to truly let the anxieties that we have crack and be broken before the One Who Knows And Holds It All In His Hand.

(information used from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history)
(All rights reserved)

Body Slamming The Lies Of The Media Via Poetry (Or Something Like That)

Hello world!  

Haven’t posted in a while so I figured that (since I have some material already written) it might be a good time to start up again.  Below is a Slam poem I wrote for a newspaper theatre presentation for my Theatre For Social Change class at ASU.  It deals with a topic that I am very passionate about and have a personal interest in–body image.

We’re doing a lot of these Theatre of the Oppressed (or T.O.) techniques for that class and split up into focus groups with different topics that are passionate to us; mine is Body Image and how Media Perceptions affect young adults in negative ways.

If you don’t know what Newspaper theatre or T.O. is, here’s a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Oppressed#Newspaper_theatre

Wrote this up for my group’s presentation, and the whole class truly loved it and wanted a copy of it so I thought blogging it would help with that!

I’m also hoping to link a Youtube video to this soon so you can hear it the way I want the slam to be heard–so after getting all of that out of the way: enjoy!
 

It’s harder to look in a mirror

When you can’t stand; what you see

It’s harder to look in a mirror

When you’re not who you want to be.

 

The crushing feeling of looking around you

And seeing the empty paper people whose bodies and body language scream
I AM OKAY WITH WHO I AM SO DON’T ASK!

But their eyes tell a different story

 

The flawless fit bodies and tan skin

Cover the shallow, skittish child within

They’re still not good enough, not whom they want to be

But why compare myself to them—what matters is me.
Who do I want to be?  What do I want to be?
Taller?  Skinnier? Bigger eyes?  Smaller eyes?

Grow a beard?  Ew, you’re too hairy! 
Don’t have a beard?  What? You’re not really a man!
Is a six-pack all that matters in the end?  What then?

I’d rather have a six-pack of coke than spend hours at the gym

But it’s not for health—I spend my wealth, my body and my time

Trying make myself look good and gain approval in their eyes.

If they love me, then I’ll love me…but they’re just loving disguise?

If I feel look great, maybe I’ll find a mate—they’ll repel me otherwise?
No.  It’s all just lies. 

 

Lies that take the truth and replace it.

All media: the magazines, the ads, the careful placement

Of a worldview that preaches the “gospel truth” of a LIE

Behind every window store, on every billboard

That you’re just not good enough—

Mocking you with their plastic, Barbie bodies and faces.

Hoping you won’t figure out where it traces.

 

They think if you say a lie

REALLY REALLY LOUD YOU’LL BELIEVE IT
SO HOLLY WOOD AND THE TV SCREEN SCREAMS IT

But that won’t make it a truth—it’s still just a lie.

A really really big

Lie.

When will people realize that it’s NOT what you look like:

It’s who you are!
Plus size, skinny size, medium size, petite,

Big and tall…

Underneath our skin we’re all humans to the bone

Why let someone else define who we are?

 

Media forces women into concrete boxes, made objects

For the appeasement of men, but where’s the double standard?
Looking at a magazine, who’s hotter?

Images of skinny Taylor Swift or shirtless Taylor Lautner

It’s not just women who feel this pain

But men who admit to those same kinds of struggles? 

They’re given no relief 

Only shame.
When will it end?  It ends with me. 

It ends with you.
Break free with me from these shackles that we THINK tie us down

And bind ourselves to the truth.

 

If only we had a mirror we could look into and see inside ourselves

See the us who we are, not who we think we ought to be

It’s harder to look in a mirror

When we willingly chain ourselves up and throw away the key

 

 

 

 

 

The Most Important Question?

Was riding my bike past a church located near ASU the other day (which will remain unnamed for obvious reasons) and I couldn’t help but notice a question that they had posted below their church service times sign.

You know the one.  That sign with the removable letters and numbers that says something inspirational or comical like, “If God is your co-pilot, switch seats!” or “Our doors are always open and our arms always outstretched!” or “WE LOVE HURTING PEOPLE!” (that one gave me a laugh….but I don’t think I’ll be visiting that church if they like to hurt the people that go there…)

Yeah, something cheesy like that.

Well this church had something different.  They had a question.  A simple question.  But it wasn’t really a QUESTION.

More of a statement.

It was this–”The most important question in life…is- What are you doing to help others?”

Hmm….

I had to think about that one for a bit.  

After I did, I came to the idea that I vehemently disagree with what they said.  

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m all for helping others.  Heck I love the fact that a church body is trying to get others to be outwardly focused rather than inwardly but there are two problems that I have with this.  Two pretty big problems.

First, I have a problem with the focus that is on other people.  When saying (indirectly) that the most important thing in life is to help others, what does that say about their worldview?  They might have all of the best good intentions in the world, but ultimately there is a problem with the purpose of life being completely others focused–it often leads to an outward, performance oriented form of religion in a Biblical context.

Look at the form of the question: it’s a judgmental one.  ”What are you doing for others?”  Like if you’re NOT doing something for others, you SHOULD.  Guilt and judgement are powerful motivators, but not correct ones.  Does the end result (helping others) justify the means to get there (no personal growth or desire) or is it something else?  I believe that service to others comes from the HEART, and as a result helping others also helps yourself.  But without that heart change of WHY you’re serving, it becomes external, a way to try to earn yourself and your way into heaven.  

Isn’t that what all religion truly is?

Man trying to earn his way into heaven?  It’s religion.  Has religion caused a lot of good in this world?  Yes, yes it has.

Has externalistic, selfish religion cause a lot of bad in this world?  Yes, yes it has.  Pure religion, as the Book of James puts in, is that that “helps widows and orphans”.  So religion isn’t all bad!  But like any good thing, it can be twisted and peverted.

Like technology.  It can be used for great good, or it can be used for despicable evil.  So thus is religion.  

Perhaps I’m wrong with this, but I didn’t get the feeling that this sign was making that sort of distinction when summing up its Ultimate Question.

Secondly, there is another problem I have with “What are you doing to help others?” being used as the ULTIMATE question.  Because I don’t think that’s the ultimate question at all.  For me, the ultimate question is something different (and no, it’s not the mysterious question with the answer 42 from Douglas Adams’ famous Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy series”).

I believe the most important question is this:

“Why?”

Short and sweet, huh?  But think about it.  Because your answer to that question tells everything about you.  Why am I here?  Why is this happening?  Why am I this way?  And so on.

It’s something that everyone must go through, and if you think about it, most of human life is figuring out why in one way, shape or form.  So what is the importance of “WHY?” as a question?

The thing about “Why” is that it’s a question of CAUSATION.  Blank caused blank.  What is the reason for the causation?  And to me, it’s a proof of sorts.  Because the world around us completely runs on cause and effect.

I press a button on a keyboard which sends a set of 1′s and 0′s like 011101000100111 to the  microprocessor, and that command is sent to the output center of the computer, which sends the letter “C” to my Computer as I type that exact word here.  That action didn’t simply just occur.  

It was CAUSED by a series of physical things that led up to that exact point, from the birth of the idea of a keyboard, to the manufacturing of the computer, to the purchase of it by me, to the things in my life that led up to this point where I decided to write blogs, to me riding by that church and being inspired.

Everything has a cause.  But does everything have a reason?  Science tells us it does.  That’s part of the law of causation.  Put a circle of train tracks and then put a series of little boxcars, connected, in a circle around those train tracks.  They’re moving.  Why?  

Because something pushed them.  Boxcars can’t just move on their own.  Hence Newton’s 3 Laws of physics.  Things don’t just happen, right?  Everything has a cause.

So what does that mean in terms of God?  Did God have a cause?  Was he created?  Well, no, because if something created God, whatever DID cause God would be God then wouldn’t it?  Did God cause himself to exist?

Well we’re looking at things as how our own human brains in this universe can comprehend them.  Nothing can move the boxcars, and even if you have an infinite number of boxcars, they (and the universe) can not move themselves.  Even if something DID cause the boxcars to move, it was caused by something else, right?

This is an argument for the existence of God: the Law of Causation.  

In order to have cause and effect, you need a source.  The first cause.  The first domino has to fall.  And that thing must be Uncaused.

So in short, another name for God (whoever or whatever he is or you think he is) is simply:

THE UNCAUSED ONE.

This leads back to the Ultimate Question.  ”Why?”  What do you believe the answer is?  Because if “Why?” is a question of causality, the answer is merely the Causer.  And who/what you believe the causer is in your life–that’s your god.

Who is your God?  Who is your Causer?  (And now the ultimate question:)

Why?

And if your answer is something other than the Ultimate Causer, there’s the second most important question to ask yourself:

If the Ultimate Causer in your life is not God….

Why Not?

Standing On My Soapbox

*Alright I’m about to get up on my soapbox: if you don’t want to hear this or don’t like it or disagree with it, make of it what you will. It’s coming from my heart, my convictions.*

It’s about the solution that was proposed that to stop these public shootings like the one in Newtown, CT, from happening: put more officers with weapons in schools. (well, first who’s going to PAY for all that)
But the way I see it, that’s treating a symptom, not the problem. And gun control isn’t the solution either–that’s treating a symptom as well!

The problem isn’t even the person who’s holding the gun! The problem, ultimately, is SIN. Sin that would take a person, even one who is mentally unstable, and seduce them to do such terrible things; the promise of fulfillment though an utterly selfish, cowardly act. Some people claim that God caused this problem…and how could a good God do that?

Well, see WE were the ones who caused that problem. The same pride that caused that young man to take arms against the innocent dwells within the heart of every single man, woman and child on the planet due to the fall in the Garden. But you know what? There’s FREEDOM. THE SOLUTION.

What is the cure for sin? Answer: Love. Sheer, unadulterated, pure, pure love. Christ laying down his life for us on the cross was the purest act of love possible, and while there is no denying that his death on the cross freed us from our bondage, it also might have demonstrated an even greater purpose: setting the ultimate example of how to live our lives. His MISSION that he has given to us.

I believe that the answer to this epidemic of selfish behavior is with selfLESS giving. Looking after, loving, caring for, listening to, tending to and even giving our LIVES to these these hurting, broken people who would do these terrible things is what I believe the remedy is, and I think that we can prevent these sorts of terrible acts through acts of love. Why? Because ALL OF US ARE HURTING, BROKEN PEOPLE. We ALL are sinners! And what did Christ do for us to fix that??

He gave his LIFE for us; the ultimate act of Love.. If there is anything that I can believe in throughout all of these tragedies, it’s Love. A love that would lay down it’s life to try and protect innocent children. And I think that same type of love can stop the hurting and stop the bleeding–if we ALL could love like that…who knows what we could do with the love of Christ in us? We live in a fallen world, but as a believer in Christ, you are NOT a fallen person! If you don’t believe in Christ…I’d like to let you know, I will ultimately fail you. I’m redeemed by love, but I’m nowhere NEAR perfect. The only good thing in me is Christ in me. And you know what? No matter who you are, where you come from or what you’ve done or yet to do, ultimately you’ll fail too, as we all will without Christ.

But guess what? HE’LL never fail you!!! So why not give him a try? Ask him to show you that he wants you? I DARE ya to take that seriously! And see what happens! Let’s all find out what we can do with a Life of Love

*Alright I’m stepping down off the soapbox…are you ready to step UP and live a Life of Love with Me???*

1 John 3:16- “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers”

Coming Soon!

Went and saw Les Miserables tonight with the family.  Marvelous experience.  Thinking a lot about how much the Gospel ties into the story so sometime soon (optimistically tomorrow but realistically Thursday Night) I’ll have a new blogpost up.

Title: Music In The Misery

I’m looking forward to it so hopefully this teaser help you look forward to it as well!

The Artist, The Disney, and The Dream

Reblogged from White Blank Pages of My Heart:

Hello all,

I'm currently typing this blogpost from the middle of a Barnes and Noble while the cast & crew of "Piper's World (that movie Breanna Lopez is working on and I tried out for and my sister is in...yeah that one) is filming at our HOUSE!!!  Really cool but because there's filming there the house has no air-conditioning (outside of the garage office) because the superdupersensitive microphones will pick it up and since I didn't want to get in the way of the lights/sound/makeup/actors I decided to take off for an afternoon of reading, reflection, blogging and coming up with ideas.  

Read more… 2,156 more words