Sunsets & Ideological Caution
The night before last Lisa and I carried our cups of hot tea down to the beach to watch the sun set. Lisa got chilly so I wrapped my sweater around her. We had a few moments conversation, but then silence fell upon us as the majesty of the setting sun impressed itself upon us. The air started to cool as the light and heat of the sun diminished. The variety of clouds spread across the sky as though they were painted there by a skilled artist’s hand. And the colors. How magnificent. It was as if the sun was delighted… not only in how glorious itself was, but how glorious it made everything else. No words needed to be spoken. A respectful and silent benediction was the only appropriate posture. It was as beautiful as possible. Nothing could be changed for the better.
It is dangerous to fall in love with any system that intends to bring people to a certain goal. Soon enough you discover that people don’t always comply, and you get angry. Violence results. This is not love. Distrust programs. Be suspicious of agendas. Do not cherish any ideology. Abhor charting other people’s courses. You can’t even chart your own!
The photograph was taken by me on that night.
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Beautiful photo. Were you sitting in two big bathtubs, like on the TV commercial?
“It is dangerous to fall in love with any system that intends to bring people to a certain goal. Soon enough you discover that people don’t always comply, and you get angry. Violence results. This is not love.”
People don’t always respond in this way, even if they are in love with a particular system. I know a number of different pastors who very much love the structure of their denomination and think it’s the “best” one, but don’t get angry with people (inside or outside their system) who don’t comply.
Perhaps you may more accurately phrase it as “It is dangerous to WORSHIP an system….” I think the thing that these couple of pastors exemplify is that they love the system, but don’t deify it. They tend to be structured guys, but are in full realization that not everyone reacts well to a particular system, and that even though they think their “system” is the best, they don’t think it is perfect.
Not everyone reacts with anger and violence when their system is rejected. Maybe it’s those who hold the “system” to be as important as God, who react with anger.
WebMonk - I think I stand with his original post. Those pastors you describe may very well be happy with their system and they may not get angry when people don’t tow the denominational line but that doesn’t mean that the lay people don’t get angry, that the system is faultless, or that the denomination itself didn’t get its birth from schizm, division, and the symptoms he describes in his post.
I am skeptical of anyone who defends Western Christendom’s failed organizational systems. Shame on us for spending millions to build buildings and fund missionaries to exotic locations when we don’t feed the poor and take care of the orphans in our own backyards. It is our obsession with systems, church government, and heirarchial authority that hamstrings the church. It’s really not unlike the Pharisees and the Saducees in Jesus’ time. Our church leadership and the instiution of the Church is deeply threatened by unity of the Body of Christ. Pastors are too scared of their congregations to teach truth. Congregations are too concerned with itching their ears than deman truth.
It’s a sad state of affairs for the Western Church - and I think this post does a good job at reminding us that our affection for the system is getting in the way of our affection for a Creator that cares very little for our manmade Churchiosity.
I gotta chuckle at such a simplistic view of life. As though such a gimp-headed rejection of systems is any more useful than a naive dependence on them.
Binary solution sets are so much fun!
maybe it’s more simple than simplistic.
there are very few things on the face of the planet I find more stunning than a vivid sunset. It’s like God speaking to me.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s just simplistic. There are a lot of things more stunning than a vivid sunset.
But let’s assume it is the most stunning thing; don’t you feel a little sorry for a guy who sees one of these stunning things and then coughs up this hairball?
“It is dangerous to fall in love with any system that intends to bring people to a certain goal.”
Talk about an agenda!
isaac: i’m an avid fan of sarcasm, but i just don’t get yours.
It’s ok.
Just think of your sunset.
a big amen to this post n.p.
’simple’, ’simplistic’… doesn’t matter.
a sunset is an unarguable truth, a magestic thing… to the wise, i believe it shows up the folly of mankinds controlling ways. an artist is bound to juxtapose the two extremes, how could he not?
i long for the truth to set me free… not for the truth to imprison me.
you go on coughing up hairballs… let’s call them affectionately ‘little hairballs of truth’, or at least ‘little hairballs of openess and honesty’.
I believe comments like Isaac’s suggest someon’e who’s either living with pain or is mean-spirited. Either way, I’ll pray about it for you…
Isaac posted
“I gotta chuckle at such a simplistic view of life. As though such a gimp-headed rejection of systems is any more useful than a naive dependence on them.
Binary solution sets are so much fun!”
So what is your analog solution?
How do we know that you aren’t gimp-headed?
Thanks, Recovering.
Pray to whom?
Recovering - you’re insinuating WAY too much into what I typed. I’m not trying to defend all the structures in the Church - no one in their right mind would do that! What I’m saying is that they are not inherently bad, though none of them are perfect, and that the behavior/response of the people in them is not always what Nakedpastor said.
He’s making a universal statement that everyone who loves/admires and follows a structure will react in anger and violence when people don’t follow or agree.
But they don’t! Two of the pastors I was thinking don’t have any subculture of hurting and angry people in/leaving their churches, even though they are quite definite that their denomination has the most correct ideas and practices of Christianity. I’m friends with quite a few people from their churches and while they have areas where the disagree (sometimes vociferously) with the pastor and denomination, they aren’t feeling frustrated or angry because the pastors aren’t trying to enforce obedience. Ditto with my own pastor.
Like I said, I tend to enjoy structure, and most of our church is made up of ’structured’ people - VERY few artistic types who tend to chafe under structure. Even our pastor tends toward the structured side, though somewhat less than myself. (I think his wife has been a good influence - she’s VERY artistic!) We do have a couple people who are the almost stereotypical unstructured person - very artistic, don’t like structures, have some wildly different approaches to things. A couple of them also happen to be some of the most enthusiastic supporters of the church - almost every visitor we have to our church has come because of these two families “gushing” about their church. (We’re only about 70 people, so visitors are very noticeable.)
All that stuff I just typed was merely to serve as an example of my point - structures are not inherently harmful and they don’t automatically lead to strife, anger and pain. EVERYTHING can be abused, and given mankind’s predilection toward laziness, too much structure tends to be a greater threat than too little, but that doesn’t mean structure is fundamentally bad.
In spite of sounding like a troll, Isaac made a point with some validity to it. Nakedpastor made a UNIVERSAL and ABSOLUTE statement. How often has Nakedpastor railed against the attitudes that set up absolutes? He did just that. Making absolute judgments isn’t necessarily wrong, but great care needs to be made about making them.
In this case Nakedpastor made a wrong absolute judgment.
I think that God is an anrchist to a point. The point is that he is in sontrol of everything, but has seperate plans for each of us. Those plans do not fit into any “systematic religion.” So we are left with what we perceive as anarchy, but to God looks like a well run machine. We are just not big enough to see it all at once. Nor are we capable or perceiving what has been made any way. To us it is just a big mess of stuff. So for me, I follow my living God that speaks to me everyday, and I do what he asks. This way, my part of the machine does not break down. Got a post on this here: http://myfaithdefined.blogspot.com/2007/08/its-my-path.html
One thing I was told when I was in a an ideologically-minded group was that I “should not lean on my own understanding” and trust the elders… but I don’t think I should have trusted the elders understanding either. It is important for pastors to realize that there are people who will want to pass the decision making part of their lives (what they do as a career, how they spend their free time, who they will marry, where they will live) to somebody else who reflects the will of God to them. Once the group dissolves (which it did in my case) you are left living out someone else’s decisions! Its just a little bit freaky! However I do agree with Monk - God does have some goals, both for individuals and for groups, that are Godly and universal (love one another, no sexual immorality, do not tolerate abuse, social justice). He leads us more specifically in all kinds of different ways - not just one way - and human understanding can always be wrong.