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Monday, November 28
epilogue ot my theology in film paper...
All my life I have been asking myself the wrong question- ‘what’s wrong with me?’ It’s the wrong question. We all view the world through a paradigm, so why not ourselves as well? What underlying assumptions and questions are there when we look in the mirror?
Main stream media is driven by the consumer market which in turn, thrives off consumers. Media is also geared to answer the questions we ask of it. If my question s is ‘what is wrong with me,’ I am quick to be told not thin enough, not rich enough, not beautiful enough, not powerful enough, and not successful enough. So what are the solutions? In step the advertisers – pills programmes, seminars, diets and treatments – all geared to fix the problem of the answer to the wrong question. We buy the stuff – it doesn’t fix our wrongness, so we ask the question again – seamless cycle. What scares me is that I can ask the same question of Christianity and get a similar answer. What’s wrong with me? I don’t pray enough, you don’t read your bible enough, you don’t spend enough time in silent solitude, and you don’t worship enough, or sponsor enough children. And the solution? Buy a book, listen to sermon, follow this prayer liturgy… None of these things are bad in and of themselves however we can turn them into a 21st Century legalistic work, flogging ourselves out of the church and out of faith, trying to fix something God never asked us to fix; all because we asked the wrong question.
‘Hollywood’ tells us that we have two options – escape reality and become what we are not or be miserable because you are who you are. Never once do they suggest we should take honest account of ourselves, work out what is DNA and can be worked on. God didn’t design us without limitations. We have physical bodies that have limits – they can be pushed, yes, but never broken. We have certain brain chemical mixes that determine personality, intelligence and abilities – these can be grown altered and repressed but only within certain parameters.
I think many (including myself) tackle life from the wrong end. Like an upside down triangle we tackle behaviours, attitudes, maybe even values first and find the results all too often temporary- like pruning a tree to cure a disease in the roots. Whereas, if we were to start at the other end and change the underlying world view, then work out the parameters of our individual design that we have to operate within we would all cope with life a whole lot better, be a whole lot happier and probably more effective to boot (but I could just be selling another seminar…)
There is nothing ‘wrong’ with us, and by wrong I mean in ‘who I am’ as opposed to ‘what I do’. If our underlying assumption is that something is wrong with us then we will never be able to accept the things about us that are good, we will continually reject ourselves and we will always question God’s blessing in our lives. There is also something in the very DNA of human nature that knows wrong must be punished. I’ll bet (not that Christians should of course – that would be wrong) that it’s part of every culture. If ‘I’ am wrong then ‘I’ must be punished. Physical self harm. Self sabotage – to prove to the rest of the world that you’ve been tight about your ‘wrongness’ all along. Fear – that if you try and succeed someone will discover your wrongness; call you out as a fraud and you’ll loose any acceptance you might have. So if this is the ailment – to which my whole being calls out ‘amen!’ what is the medicine?
Hearing, believing then turning into the underlying assumption of your worldview the following….
But now. Two of the most beautiful words to the ears of a sinner who realises his woeful state.
21But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God through fait in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the on who has faith in Jesus.
Main stream media is driven by the consumer market which in turn, thrives off consumers. Media is also geared to answer the questions we ask of it. If my question s is ‘what is wrong with me,’ I am quick to be told not thin enough, not rich enough, not beautiful enough, not powerful enough, and not successful enough. So what are the solutions? In step the advertisers – pills programmes, seminars, diets and treatments – all geared to fix the problem of the answer to the wrong question. We buy the stuff – it doesn’t fix our wrongness, so we ask the question again – seamless cycle. What scares me is that I can ask the same question of Christianity and get a similar answer. What’s wrong with me? I don’t pray enough, you don’t read your bible enough, you don’t spend enough time in silent solitude, and you don’t worship enough, or sponsor enough children. And the solution? Buy a book, listen to sermon, follow this prayer liturgy… None of these things are bad in and of themselves however we can turn them into a 21st Century legalistic work, flogging ourselves out of the church and out of faith, trying to fix something God never asked us to fix; all because we asked the wrong question.
‘Hollywood’ tells us that we have two options – escape reality and become what we are not or be miserable because you are who you are. Never once do they suggest we should take honest account of ourselves, work out what is DNA and can be worked on. God didn’t design us without limitations. We have physical bodies that have limits – they can be pushed, yes, but never broken. We have certain brain chemical mixes that determine personality, intelligence and abilities – these can be grown altered and repressed but only within certain parameters.
I think many (including myself) tackle life from the wrong end. Like an upside down triangle we tackle behaviours, attitudes, maybe even values first and find the results all too often temporary- like pruning a tree to cure a disease in the roots. Whereas, if we were to start at the other end and change the underlying world view, then work out the parameters of our individual design that we have to operate within we would all cope with life a whole lot better, be a whole lot happier and probably more effective to boot (but I could just be selling another seminar…)
There is nothing ‘wrong’ with us, and by wrong I mean in ‘who I am’ as opposed to ‘what I do’. If our underlying assumption is that something is wrong with us then we will never be able to accept the things about us that are good, we will continually reject ourselves and we will always question God’s blessing in our lives. There is also something in the very DNA of human nature that knows wrong must be punished. I’ll bet (not that Christians should of course – that would be wrong) that it’s part of every culture. If ‘I’ am wrong then ‘I’ must be punished. Physical self harm. Self sabotage – to prove to the rest of the world that you’ve been tight about your ‘wrongness’ all along. Fear – that if you try and succeed someone will discover your wrongness; call you out as a fraud and you’ll loose any acceptance you might have. So if this is the ailment – to which my whole being calls out ‘amen!’ what is the medicine?
Hearing, believing then turning into the underlying assumption of your worldview the following….
But now. Two of the most beautiful words to the ears of a sinner who realises his woeful state.
21But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God through fait in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the on who has faith in Jesus.
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