panic attack

Unlimited Liability is a term used in the military.  It refers to the soldier's acceptance that there is no limit to the cost he may pay, in mind and body in the line of duty.

For the Christian man or woman too, unlimited liability is a goal of faith: to aspire to let nothing stop us in the pursuit of our calling to grow closer to God, love our neighbours and in that love to make disciples in Jesus' name, however that calling may manifest itself in work and play.

Fear of death is natural.  The power of God to save is supernatural.  For the Christian the limit of exploitation is beyond the grave.  In an attack, this is the line beyond which a fighting force, for whatever reason may it be casualties or supplies or risk of over-extension, will not advance.  The limit to life is not the end of life as we know it.  But similar to the end of life as the pagan knows it, so too the limit of death as we know it is not simply death.  There is a terror worse than death just as there is a life beyond life–this is part of the meaning of the eternal power of God.

We as Christian people serve a God who is bigger than our natural imaginations and more righteous than our fantasies of righteousness, and more terrifying than anything we could ever dream of.  What He expects from us is the same in eternal power as what He gives us in Christ.  The excuses of the unbeliever will not make the "cut" any more than the life found in Christ ever end.

It is not that there should be no hope or fear, it is a question of where the fear and hope is laid.  Is it laid in the eternal, or the carnal, the natural, the man-made artificial?

Sample the prayer of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3) found in the Bible and you get a quick picture of a man who was fearing and hoping in the right way.

Put it in perspective in one sentence: Habakkuk is a prophet who is receiving a message that his nation's wickedness is going to be obliterated by a Babylonian invasion.  God, in a word, is irate.  Habakkuk knows Israel needs this judgement for it's evil and it is coming.  So in light of an imminent apocalypse of biblical proportions, Habakkuk does the only reasonable thing; he prays.

So your homeland is about to be raped, pillaged, destroyed and sold into slavery for its evil, what might you say?  I really don't know what I'd say but you can bet it would be something along the lines of "God please don't do this I'd like to continue living in peace with my family, not get torn limb from limb, have my wife raped and my infant tossed against a stone wall."  God has a habit of sparing his children from disaster (check out  Noah & the Flood for but one example), but the thought of a "Chaldean horde", a "fierce, impetuous, dreaded and feared" people (Hab 1:6-7) running through town doesn't exactly inspire great confidence that everything's going to be peachy keen.

right fear
But Habakkuk prays a strange prayer, it actually runs more like a hymn of remembrance; there is no explicit request or supplication through the entire chapter which comprises it.  Who prays a prayer without asking for anything?  Habakkuk says he "heard of your (God's) fame" (v.2) and he recalls God's awesome power in battle, His unstoppable power over the forces of nature, over humankind and the events of human history.  Did somebody forget to mention to Habakkuk that his nation is about to receive the beat down of the millennium?  This isn't a 'panic prayer' over the Chaldean horde.  But make no mistake, Habakkuk is afraid, he is terrified, "I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound, decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled."

Habakkuk wasn't afraid of the fierce warriors or the incumbent orgy of death and destruction: he was afraid of Almighty God.  The thought of the wrath of the Lord God was enough to make him admit to posterity that he would have wet himself at the sight.  His attention was on the terror of eternal death rather than physical death.  

right hope
There's an antithesis though, another side to the story.  The nation coming against Israel is a natural army, it is a tool of God and nothing more, "They mock kings and scoff at rulers.  They laugh at all fortified cities...Then they sweep past like the wind and go on; guilty people, whose own strength is their god." (1:10-11)  The mounds unbelievers use to bury their fear of judgment and death, these vicious killers come to bring reckoning from the Almighty and demolish these pitiful piles with ease, laying bare the sins of nations.

The Babylonians idolize their own strength, and Habakkuk knows it, "Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us."  They do not know that there is a terror worse than death, a death deeper than the earth can bury and hide; the awesome and all-consuming power of God in His wrath.

Make no mistake, Habakkuk is in no state of delusion about his unlimited liability; but Habakkuk knows his limit of exploitation is only as far as the natural.  There is, because of God's mercy as Saviour to those who call Him Lord and Master, to those who are not his enemies, peace and absolution from the wrath which is worse than death.

real confidence, boldness,  joy and peace
Habakkuk's bold hope and confidence extends entirely beyond the simple avoidance of natural death,

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights." (Hab 3:17-19)

Habakkuk's bold trust is reminiscent of Job who said "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." (Job 13:15)  Or the heroes of the faith who looked beyond the grave for their hope in the letter to the Hebrews.  This is real faith, real hope, real joy and real confidence.  Habakkuk did not ask for God to be a powerful Saviour, to rescue him from the worst fate possible (eternal death), to arrange the course of events and planets alike and to annihilate the hordes; Habakkuk knew it.   It was no supplication, it was a proclamation.

The man whose unlimited liability is covered by Christ's unlimited liability, he whose confidence, courage and plans are in God's keeping– this man is a terrible and powerful sight to behold.  His life and strength are endless, his absolution is complete, his avenger is the Almighty, and fears are only his victims on an irrevocable attack to everlasting glory:  For the eternal wrath and love of God have no limit of exploitation.      

Ray Comfort on Abortion

I admit I feel grieved when causes of every stripe recruit Hitler and "the gang" for their argumentative purposes; but we can't shy away from historical disasters and the ideologies that spawned them.

I think Christian-Jewish author and evangelist Ray Comfort makes a convincing argumentative connection between Nazi Germany and abortion in the short film linked here.  Critics will complain about semantics games, but I think even from a critical perspective, there's something more than language games at stake here, and Comfort presents some compelling moral thought experiments.

I warn you that it does contain some graphic images, and some objectionable language, I would also add though that this isn't a gross-out anti-abortion film.  There is a frank gospel message at the end to tie it together, so those that can't handle that are also forewarned.

Apologies aside, have it a watch, it may at least make you rethink one of the greatest ongoing crimes against humanity ever perpetrated.

I have to say, the most shocking thing in the video for me: how do you NOT know who Adolf Hitler is?  That's a red flag in and of itself!!

Why I Don't Believe in World Peace

Rick Warren's endorsement of McGrath's book Heresy (see last post), in light of his recent inter-faith bridging efforts with his mega-church's P.E.A.C.E. Plan strikes me as no coincidence. There's no sense in Muslims, Jews, Christians (and heretics alike) killing each other. I think we can all agree that we should try as best we can to work together and live harmoniously, respecting one another.  As a result, we want to have some neutral ground from which to come to the table and talk it out.  But there are couple major problems that stress the need for caution lest we fall into the trap of revising the gospel:

1. The problem is that despite our similarities, we have radical divergence of opinion as to how "World Peace" should be carried out.  Sharia and Christianity don't mix.  Period.  Certain forms of government (like democracy) do not port easily to certain faiths.  It is all well and good to establish "common ground" but this may be tantamount to compromise for more than one religion.  I remain unconvinced that many faiths, including Christianity, have not had to water down their convictions in order to start playing politics on a grand scale.  It's one thing for a politician to make sensible compromises to lead a country.  It is entirely another for an entire faith group to submit itself to a government which will only tolerate a particular (watered down) form of its theology.

Corollary:  If differences between religions are watered down to accomodate a single geo-political objective, we not only lose the uniqueness of said religions, but we then run into the problem of perpetuating the one thing we all have in common: evil.  World peace becomes essentially a code word for PAX ROMANA; there's peace because there's nobody who can have individual beliefs anymore without appearing as a virus in the system.  We tar these individuals as "bigots" "racists" "sexists" "Islamophobes" "homophobes" "anti-Semites" "heretics" "fundamentalists" "infidels"...and they are criminalized for having unpopular opinions that 'rock the boat'.  But of course, the extermination of dissent is not peace.  


2. There is no such thing as a neutral unbeliever.  Part of my love for a Muslim or Jew or Hindu would include being honest with him, where required, about his status before God.  He is not "saved" and he is not going to heaven and furthermore he is a child of the devil on the road to hell.  I owe him that much to tell him that he is in the same place I was before I trusted Christ as Saviour.  This deeply offensive message, as you can imagine (or as you are foaming at the mouth with rage about at this very minute or scoffing with indifference), does not lend itself easily to inter-faith dialogue writ large. I do not think this radical honesty annihilates dialogue, I believe it should actually strengthen it; but there will remain those who will only fume with rage.

The reason for this is that this is not an ideology of man we are talking about, this is the Word of God, and man's rebellion against it is far deeper than any issue-driven pet-peeve.  The continual witness of Scripture is that Christians will meet with hate, threats, imprisonment, torture, death, attempted extermination and so on.  I don't know what your eschatology is like, but our relative hey-day in the free west will not last forever.  The writing is on the wall.


I don't believe in World Peace.  It is a myth, and not a neutral one.  It's a lie.  We are not good.  We don't get along.  We never will.  Jesus calls me to be a peacemaker and perfect: I have done my best and I try, but I have failed at both and will continue to.  I am responsible to continue struggling; but beware the utopian myth-makers.

Alister McGrath & "Heretical Neutrality"

I found myself frustrated and a little disappointed by a central thesis of the book. Dr. Alister McGrath contends that heresy is not the product of "malevolent and arrogant apostates", but well-meaning "insiders" of the church. (p.175)

Let me state for the record that I have great respect for Dr. McGrath as a Christian brother and scholar.  I don't argue with the fact that heresy arises from within the church. I also agree that we could hardly call the work of many heretics in such hyperbolic terms as some kind of conspiratorial Satanism.  I also think I understand at least some of Dr. McGrath's intent.  Let me take a stab.

A Possible Intent

Too often, when a person within the church reveals beliefs to the general Christian populace which are radical, strange or challenging to comprehend and/or just plain out of line with what Scripture teaches, the response is like a team of attack dogs going for a piece of meat.  In addition to those people who actually care about the person, this attack contains elements of those who:

a) Don't really care about learning a new perspective.
b) Attack heresy for the sheer joy of destroying someone with their own virulent legalism.
c) Are only interested in destroying the heretic to make themselves look good.
d) Can't handle paradox, mystery or questions about/to their faith.

Any one or more of the above and you have an allergic reaction which overall doesn't help anyone.  But there remains a problem when we suggest that heretics were "well intentioned" insiders.

The Problem

First and foremost, this appears to fly in the face of Scripture.  Jesus Himself stated in Matt 7:15, "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves."  Or how about 2 Timothy 3, where Paul warns Timothy about those that "hold to a form of godliness but deny its power" and are "evil men" "impostors" "deceiving and being deceived" followed by his famous admonition that Scripture is "inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;".  Or how about Acts 20:29, "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock."  Paul clearly wasn't talking about anyone particularly well-meaning in these passages, nor was Christ.  It's also clear they weren't talking about Roman soldiers, they were talking about insiders, people who would come in and rip the church apart from the inside out.

The reason for heresy may at first be simple misunderstanding; this is the point at which we come alongside a brother or sister and attempt to correct gently with instruction.  But persistence in error, in contravention of what is plainly taught by the Scriptures is sin.  It is the failure to take God at His Word and believe it.  This is what Paul was talking about in 2 Tim 4:3, where people do not find the teaching of Scripture to be agreeable to their human reason and/or their lifestyle.  This is the point at which you take your two or three witnesses and give this person the heave-ho.

Take Marcion for example.  It amazes me that McGrath can maintain this thesis when he details the fact that Marcion excised large portions of Scripture because of his distaste for Judaism (p.129).  Does this sound like someone who is humble and submissive to God's Word, or someone trying to revise it for his own ideological tastes?  It's an absolute no-brainer.

How many heretics do you know would openly claim, "Yes, I am a false teacher attempting to change the clear teaching of the gospel to suit my own interests and destroy the church."?  I doubt we will find many takers. People want to believe what they tell themselves is true.  Fortune tellers, faith healers and other charlatans depend on this human habit every day.  "Well-meaning" is irrelevant if it cohabits with self-deceit. Heresy is a subtle self deception; and it is also perfectly natural.  Nobody, except for an avowed opponent of the church would wake up and plot its destruction.  There is always a back story; a mitigating compromise of mind in sin which leads the heretic to deny the orthodox.  Our recent encounters with the universalist heresy for example, I believe are motivated by a genuine interest in loving people and getting along combined with a willful ignorance of what the bible actually teaches. 

McGrath's efforts appear to be an attempt to find some neutral ground from which to dialogue with past and present "heretics"; but I don't think this presentation of the "friendly wolf" lines up with Scripture.  People deny the orthodox because they are sinners or are genuinely uneducated in Scripture.  Heretics are those who have been told but still rebel anyways.  They may not have some malevolent desire to dismantle the church, but failing to "token" this explicit desire in the head does not absolve the heretic from an ultimately evil motivation.  Believing, "I'm right" in the head can be far more destructive than possessing the intent, "I'm out to dismantle the church".

The Challenge

As believers we are all "heretics" at various points in our lives in varying degrees.  Many "Christians" have never confronted many of the "hard" sayings of Scripture. This makes it easy to pronounce many as "Christians" before they have ever wrestled with and assented to the life-altering implications of the gospel.

We do not work from a faith of "deductive proofs"; but neither are the Scriptures an unintelligible mass of socially constructed metaphors.  Preach the gospel and be patient with the unlearned; but boldly throw out the deceived. The day we have no more heretics is the day we have no more courage for faith.

  

"If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha." -1 Cor 16:22

"But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerors and idolators and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."  -Rev 21:8

Education for Newborns

It is with some sadness that the Christian brings a little being into the world; a little child of the devil, born into the sin of Adam.  He or she will make many or all of the same mistakes you did.  Maybe more than you did.  Maybe more often than you did.  It is not as though you do not feel the burden of responsibility, or the enthusiasm to succeed where others abscond on theirs; the reality is simply that our children are born into the human race the same way we all have been: fatally flawed in a state of spiritual death.  The idea of infant baptism is one which I find psychologically attractive though unsubstantiated in Scripture; no matter, it is enough for me that God is Judge – the soul of every child is His. Although tainted by original sin, I have no further fear of or stock in the myth of "generational curses".

My thought is not about baptism; it is enough to say that the child will grow up and find "many devices".

Without despair, in Christ we begin training the child early, but at the very beginning with the easiest, most primal of things: eating, sleeping and defecating.  These are acts Christ Himself had to learn.  The "Holy infant tender and mild" I imagine screamed just as any baby might.  In the absence of rational conversation, I doubt that Jesus would have expressed the gnawing pain of hunger any differently than John the Baptist or your very own bundle of joy incarnate.  The absence of original sin did not remove the consequences of the rest of our folly for a suffering baby Jesus. 

I know a particular child who has the particular habit of avoiding the important necessity of eating.  The pain of the sinful world, that threat of death which rises from the stomach, rouses the baby from deep slumber.  The baby's father responds quickly, his ear is trained and he is always within earshot.  He is listening for signs of life.  At the beginning, the child sucks the milk vigorously, her eyes are transfixed on her father.  At a certain point she may become uncomfortable: she has swallowed more than nutritious milk.  Her daddy straightens her and vigorously pounds on her back until the malaise lurches forth.

The feeding carries on, but soon the child's eyes leaden in weight.  She grows quiet and all-too comfortable and her limbs drape limply at her sides.  Knowing that she needs to keep drinking, father tickles the hand, nuzzles the foot and does what he can to rouse his daughter.  This prompts a short revival.

But soon the little newborn, with eyes closed and arms flailing blindly with all their poorly coordinated might is fighting daddy, pushing the bottle away.  With some consternation, he manages to keep the nipple in her mouth.  She is still wailing, but does not remember why.  A little distraction by daddy causes her to forget the crying and the link is finally severed. Suddenly she is tender and mild, draining the sustenance vigorously.

She wonders why daddy would ever do such a cruel thing and hide the milk from her. Why would he hold her arms from getting that milk she wanted all along?  I imagine that when she is old enough to eat solid food, the question will have vanished into the advent of a new perspective.

Perhaps the inexperienced father has misread the signs. I am not deterred. There's a greater lesson. It is about the death and resuscitation of children, adults and entire nations.  It must be remembered and retaught; or our newborns will give us an inevitable, untimely and terrible re-education.

Who is the Fairest of them All?

An old German fairy tale by the brothers Grimm reads "Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the Fairest of them all?" The wicked step-mother of Snow White would pose this question to her magical mirror, but one day it told her something she did not wish to hear: her step daughter had grown into a beautiful little girl. The wicked step-mother responded by ordering Snow White's death.

Artistry has a way of being our mirror...music, literature, film & games. What man has contrived in his mind has become the stuff of art for centuries; that that era is changing is an interesting subject for further study and debate, but I will assert here as uncontroversial that man's ideology, his religion, his philosophy has constantly borne itself out in the artistic expressions (or reactions) of humanity.

I ask you to consider the idea that if a piece of music or art seems terrible to you there could be a multitude of reasons, but it could be possible that it is just bad art masquerading as good art. That is to say, it is ugly, degenerate, false, evil and/or immoral, and not beautiful.

Art that has burdened itself with the ideological death of man has the same characteristic sound and appearance of despair. The profanity, immorality and outright anti-God rebellion of a great deal of modern artistry reflects this spiritual state of death and defeat.

But before we conduct a book burning (see my first post), we should pause and think a little further. Hitler called much modern art "degenerate"; he was attempting to make modern art into a racial issue. But individuals who painted dadaism or cubism were not somehow physically inferior or incapable of seeing the 'beautiful' or the proper order of the structured world.

There is always a good measure of truth in the lie. The world that Hitler wanted to create was a tunnel vision of the flesh. It could only see beauty in the outward manifestation. Hitler condemned works of art that celebrated things (acts, attitudes, lifestyles) that we should rightly condemn as truly "degenerate", but fear, racism, and the aim of social control was Hitler's agenda. I won't go ahead and presume to tell you what art is and is not good. That would be to miss the boat again.

The problem with truly "degenerate" art is that despair and the sin of the human condition is not represented by images, but by the human thoughts and attitudes that created them; that is, the sin that created them. The demonic power of degenerate art (what I would call "BAD" art) is its propensity to pass on that evil to the receiver.

I do not believe that any picture, story or sound is inherently evil. The physical aspects of smashing a hammer into a man's skull or having a homoerotic adventure are about as evil as having afternoon tea. It is human blindness and rebellion which have the potential to make even the most innocuous of activities into crimes against God.

Surprise! Aunt Maud, that gossiping old biddie at church every Sunday is every bit as bad and worse than the stripper, the drug dealer and the murderer. In this life, we have to establish the guilty act or the actus reus, as well as the guilty mind (mens rea) in order to charge someone with a crime. But before God, and before him alone, the mens rea is enough to die for. (Matt 5:28)

Where does that leave us? The question is, where does your artistry leave you? Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) said we're all in need of different kinds of beauty. (I'll let you read On the Aesthetic Education of Man) I think he's right about that part. What does the artistry you choose to enjoy do with your heart, mind and soul? Don't simply avoid the degenerate, add the regenerate.

Is your art a mirror or a corruptor? First ask yourself if it is only you. "A crooked mind finds no good, and he who is perverted in his language falls into evil." (Prov 17:20). Sadly, we're all like this sometimes, even in the most innocent of circumstances. But if your art communicates something that explicitly motivates, encourages, implies, celebrates or otherwise leads you to do or think evil, maybe its time to throw away that Justin Bieber album. Does the art change you for the better, motivate you to do good or does it dismantle you?

When Snow White finally did wake up and make her comeback, the evil queen got a rather artistic end for her vanity. This should send a powerful message to our youth because yes, she died doing that vile act of dancing with piping hot iron shoes! So there. These days I don't think you'll die dancing, though I'm personally amazed that while doing so more don't get pregnant.

I'm not here to choose your art. I won't burn your books, movies, games or porno mags; but Jesus Christ is coming again to separate the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the filthy...and the wheat from the chaff. Don't let the page or note dictate to your heart but rather inspire it.

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
~Philippians 4:8~

The Nameless Hero of Faith

After a centurion has appealed to the Jewish elders in a bid to save the life of his "highly regarded" slave, an interesting exchange develops which defies the typical definition of greatness. It is thus a story to be grappled with, as it challenges the well-meaning heroism of the world with the heroics of faith. (Luke 7/ Matthew 8...I prefer the more detailed Luke 7 version here.)

The Jewish elders explain to Jesus, "He is worthy for You to grant this to him; for he loves our nation, and it was he who built us our synagogue." To paraphrase a little, "This guy is really worth your time, he loves the people and is really patriotic for Israel. He even constructed our local worship building!"

The centurion loves the people, he obviously has some respect or understanding for Judaism (if not outright conversion), he has worked hard in the service of others, he cares for even his slave, he has the recommendation of the people his Emperor has conquered and at this point in the text we can see that the centurion believes that Jesus has at least some power to help him.

If this fellow isn't worthy, (Jew vs Gentile theological discussion aside) then certainly no Gentile is worthy.

Jesus appears to take the bait so to speak. But I believe it is because He knew what would be written in history to follow and also because Jesus isn't one to deny those who knock, worthy or not.

What makes the case of the centurion so unique follows next, for as Jesus arrived near to the centurion's household, the centurion's friends bid him come no further saying, "Lord do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not fit for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You..." (v.6)

As it turns out, the centurion did not think himself worthy as the Jewish elders praised him; and it was for this reason Jesus considered him worthy. The centurion acknowledged that Jesus was Lord and had the power to do the impossible; in other words, by sheer report of Jesus the centurion knew his superior commander from the rest of the world's meaningless monarchs. He had never met Jesus and yet acknowledged His authority (v.8).

Worldliness always measures heroism and righteousness by signs that it can see: patriotism, loyalty to family and kinsmen, moral acts, buildings and battles.

By contrast, the great spirituality of the Centurion was measured by his unwillingness to count himself as anyone more than a man under the hand of God; and that this God was alone worthy and able to accomplish what concerned him; even the impossible.

The Agony and the Epiphany

"As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world." - John 17:18

"And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one..." (v.22)

An experience a Christian should encounter at some point is a crisis in one's life when a decision means a conflict of feeling. One day there will be a drive and will to do something that both has the potential to bring great joy and repute and at the same time great suffering and infamy. It is a decision of the cross, and a decision to live like Christ.

When the tears flow from a knowing heart and you wrestle with the fear of never gripping the peace you thought you once had, you will also know then that all powers of earthly life and death cannot wrangle from you the greatest joy and hope you have ever experienced in mortal life.

You will know the awful thing that is to come and you know that your loving Father knows; but that will not stop
the agony
and the epiphany
of eternal glory

Award Winning Towel Tossing

Sometimes I hold off on watching films that the general populace regards as brilliantly done, yesterday I finally sat down and watched "Million Dollar Baby", the Clint Eastwood film about a grizzled trainer who reluctantly takes on a girl to train up as a serious boxer. Hollywood deemed fit to award best director, best actress, best supporting actress and best film academy awards to this work and I thought what the heck, it has to be half decent. Coming from Hollywood, I should have known better. What I ended up watching was a schmaltzy comedy.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

The film culminates in a celebrated defense of euthanasia, where Clint Eastwood's character is seemingly redeemed through rebellion against the church and is martyred for the cause of his trainee Maggie's wish for a "fight out of life, much as she got into it". The result is a twisted and deluded conception about what is valuable in life, who your life belongs to and about truly fighting to win.

My issue is not primarily here with the larger question of euthanasia, I have issues myself with the difference between killing and letting die, and the gnarly question of when to pull the plug is not really my point of contention. What I will talk about certainly leads into an anti-euthanasia stance, the main point of discussion however, regards a Christian attitude about life.

In the film there were some very clear and sad misconceptions about the value of life and what it means to have a quality of life. In my mind, one short monologue pretty much sums up the entire deluded story,

"I can't be like this frankie,not after what I've done, I've seen the world, people chanted my name, hell, not my name, some damn name you gave me, they were chanting for me, I was in magazines, you think i'd ever dream that happen? I was born pounds / ounces, daddy used to tell me i'd fight to get into this world, and i'd fight my way out, that's all i wanna do frankie, i just dont want to fight you to do it,I got what i needed..."

1. Your Life Isn't Yours.

Somewhere in popular culture we derived the myth, probably from champions of metaphysical free-will, secular existentialism, and generally speaking long before then, human pride and arrogance, that we are the champions of our own destiny, that our souls are ours to barter with, that we are the masters of our own domain. The truth is, the human soul is borrowed capital. Everything we own is borrowed. Our bodies are borrowed. Everything we are as human beings is borrowed,

Ezekiel 18:4 reads, "Behold all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die."

We have been loaned, and are responsible for, everything...including this planet, of which we are supposed to be stewards. Saying, "I don't want to live any longer" is fine, we all feel like that sometimes. Deciding to destroy yourself because you don't like the deal you have been dealt or more likely dealt yourself, is not an option. It is like a laborer complaining about his backhoe not working properly and summarily firebombing it. He's going to be fired. Literally.

Maggie fought to get into the world, certainly. But hypothetically speaking, God let her into it, and it wouldn't have happened any other way. You're here because somewhere down the line, God wants you here and cares about your existence.

2. Life Isn't About You

It's terribly disturbing and downright offensive to us human beings that as part of our subordinate position to God, that life isn't about us. In fact, contrary to the health and wealth gospel you commonly hear from televangelists, God really isn't primarily interested in your happiness. Happiness is a product of circumstance, God is interested in your joy, which is linked to an eternal satisfaction in Him, in His purity and eternal love. Jesus said "My peace I leave with you" I'm tempted to argue that we leave out the last part, "not as the world gives".

God cares about your dreams, but a great many of them that pass through the minds of the human race, He isn't interested in fulfilling. God isn't interested in your vision for a better world, or how you think you would best be of service, or what you seem to think your best talent in life is, or how perfectly situated you are to do this or that. He is interested in His plan. His is best.

Maggie's character recollects the joy of being famous, of having people "chanting my name" and being known as a great boxer. That's nice. Excel in something, great. But if the source of value in life has no derivative value in God, then it has no value at all. It is meaningless, and passes away like everything else. Nothing really changes. Solomon saw this years ago. (see Ecclesiastes).

Worse still, Maggie's despair over having once been famous resonates with the temptation of Christ from the devil. It was Satan who promised the world to Jesus if he would but worship him. Jesus refused, quoting scripture and saying "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." Jesus had his priorities straight, he was headed for eternity, and entirely uninterested in the false glitter of a world passing away in sin. Maggie said "I've seen the world" and despaired because as a paralytic she couldn't see it anymore. Jesus saw the world and pitied it.

The truly tragic aspect of the film is that Swank and Eastwood's characters have found a true father and daughter relationship, that could have continued. Many individuals would long for companionship, even from a person unable to walk or care for themselves, and the joy and life so evident in the relationship they had with each other was thrown aside by the callous request of Maggie to throw it away. It mystifies me as to how someone could script such a film based around the value of human relationships and the need for forgiveness and reconciliation, only to suggest in the end that personal fame and power are really what determine quality of life.

3. Perseverance & Fighting is About Adapting Through Defeat and Adversity

You can hear that Kierkegaardian despair in Maggies' voice at the start of the monologue,

"I can't be like this Frankie, not after what I've done, I've seen the world, people chanted my name"

Ah, yes, the despair of not wanting to be oneself. When we see ourselves with spiritual honesty we see a dead thing, an ugly and powerless creature, paralyzed by sin, and we have a decision to make- to despair and look away, living in ignorance, or to boldly approach Christ in humility and repent. Hilary Swank's character Maggie cannot face what she has become. She cannot accept her paralyzed condition, and opts to terminate her own existence. She claims that she will fight to get out of life: yes she is fighting, but out of despair. Her fight is now against the fight itself because she has given up. Her first words are "I can't"; it is the voice of a quitter, not a champion.

Hence what is supposed to be a heroic-tragic character becomes a comical one. The idiotic contradiction of a relentless prizefighter giving up on life is the only thing that really adds anything unique to the film. It's uniqueness is truly born out of stupidity.

How many people, how many films have we rightly praised as worthy of our admiration because a hero or heroine chose to beat the odds, even after grave setbacks? Is it unchained victory that makes the hero a role model, or is it his perseverance of character?

Imagine Arnold Schwartzenegger, at the prime of his powers, winning a thousand wrestling matches with drooling preschoolers; would this be worthy of celebration? Does he possess a heroic character?

Now what about a young shepherd boy, against the advice of his entire nation, faces a huge armoured giant with nothing more than a sling? That takes character. That is, at least at the level of personal character, heroic.

A hallmark of heroic performance is by dutiful necessity facing odds that are impossible with resolute determination. Human history celebrates and remembers better the defeated who stood with courage. The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae are proof of that.

I am not fooled by Maggie's initial heroic start: a girl, discriminated against and mocked for wanted to pursue her dream. The plot is engineered to at first create sympathy and genuine heroic interest for Maggie. But in the end, she proves a mediocre character, no better than any other man or woman.

It is easy to pursue relentlessly a dream when it is in our own interest, when we have a fantasy that is all about us, when we're all about getting our own way, when the knockouts keep coming with our efforts. But what makes a heroic character is what he or she does when things DONT go his or her way. When the battle goes against you, do you surrender? When you fail a test, do you leave the course? When somebody else beats you, do you quit? When you can't do what you want anymore, do you throw in the towel? When you can't work your way out of it, can you rely on grace? When you don't succeed, do you try again?

God is constantly calling us into situations which challenge our conception of who we think we are, who we think we should be and what we think we should be doing. The Christian believer, when rightly grounded, finds his or her meaning, purpose and joy in doing the will of God. These two facts combined make the Christian an impossible enemy to conquer. Islam, for example may conquer a decadent and godless west, that I can conceive. That Islam, or any other force on earth could conquer Christ or a Christian, that I laugh at.

Conclusion

In prison or in freedom, in a hospital bed or at the gym, on his knees or standing upright, the person grounded in God always has a reason for living, and for living joyfully. The pagan may fight for heroism, the heathen religious may fight for his salvation, but the Christian fights for God for the sheer pleasure of doing so; and I'm fighting to win.

"For a righteous man falls seven times and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of calamity." Proverbs 24:16

"...Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way as not beating the air; but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." 1 Cor. 9:24-27

Coming Clean versus Copping Out

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self indulgence! You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also." (Matthew 23:25-26)

1. This was Jesus Christ, speaking to the Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees about their preoccupation with all appearances of good and righteous conduct. Through a great many added laws and moral prescriptions these leaders thought they had achieved good standing in the eyes of God. They cleaned up the outer appearance, but the inner remained filthy.

Jesus denounced their blind rule following as not only the wrong way to righteousness, but also utter hypocrisy: the Pharisees frequently performed their man-made rules at the cost of true morality. Any honest or dishonest lawyer can tell you that simply the correct application of law does not at all necessarily entail morality or justice.

The Pharisees denial of Jesus as the Messiah, or the Saviour, came from their other commitment. They had a strong commitment to a standard of righteousness which had been invented by themselves and their forefathers the rabbis. It touched their conduct, true enough, but it did not result in morality and more importantly, it did not resurrect their souls from sin.

2. "And when Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of this Man's blood; see to that yourselves."

Pontius Pilate washed his hands of Jesus Christ, literally, as well as figuratively. When the Jewish mob threatened to riot (John 19:12) if Jesus were not crucified, Pilate gave in. He was unwilling to stir the Emperor's wrath nor have an unruly lot on his hands, so he knowingly condemned an innocent man (Matt 27:23, John 18:38).

Pilate knew that Jesus was no ordinary man, but his denial of Christ was a decision to remain agnostic. Jesus said to Pilate, "You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears My voice." In response to the living example of the "Way the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6), Pilate responded, "What is truth?" (John 18:38). In Christ's wrongful execution, as well as in response to Christ's claims to be God in the flesh, Pilate attempted to cast off the decision.

But there is no such thing as agnosticism with Jesus. The words, made famous by former president George W. Bush were actually spoken by another "tyrant" first: Jesus Christ. "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with me, scatters." (Matt 12:30)

Pontius Pilate did not wash his hands of Jesus, he denied Jesus.

3. "...There was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the heair of her head, and kissing His feet, and anointing them with the perfume." (Luke 7:37-38)

This unnamed "immoral woman" from the gospel of Luke had the gall to approach Jesus in the home of a Pharisee no less. This was most certainly not kosher. A great many things could be said about how this woman behaved toward Jesus: gratitude, tenderness, humility, submission; all of these certainly. However, the end result is what I am interested in here, and that is love.

As a result, Jesus tells the woman her sins are forgiven, that she is saved and she may "go in peace" (Luke 7:48, 50).

Conclusion

The Pharisees tried to clean themselves, as did Pilate; but the sinner washed Jesus' feet in humiliating repentance. The Pharisees were condemned, and Pilate executed Christ, but the woman was saved. There is another great washing in the New Testament I have not mentioned: Christ washing the feet of His disciples (John 13:5), and at first Peter is reluctant to be considered worthy of the honour.

The lesson I draw from all these washings is that Jesus is willing to wash me; if I would but only be willing to admit that He alone can make me truly clean.

A Communique from Zombieland

Zombieland (2009) is, suffice to say, not a family film; but I was struck by its surprising moral undercurrent. In the last ten years or so, the idea of zombie hordes overrunning the planet has achieved greater cultural interest in North America. The numerous films, varying in budget, have captured the imagination of especially teenagers and twenty somethings. I can't give you any great stats to back up this claim, its just something I've been noticing over the years and I am willing to bet you have too...if you at all have any interest in the horrific idea of undead zombie hordes devouring the living; and not just in film.

In fact, some books have detailed with meticulous interest and disturbing, albeit fictional, hypothetical accuracy, tongue in cheek scenarios for survival ("Zombie Survival Guide") and worldwide catastrophe ("World War Z"). Marvel Comics has released zombie themed issues, and Jane Austen's (1775-1817) Pride and Prejudice (1813) has been parodied in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009).

I'm not sure about this next claim, but it would seem to me that zombification of the entire world is being given far more careful attention, detail and marketing than the classic 'B' movies of yesteryear. Maybe you horror buffs can correct me if I'm wrong.

Zombie films I have seen have a strong moral (or rather amoral) undertone. A world overrun by zombies is a world that has totally lost its "humanity". Nobody is innocent, nothing is sacred, survival is everything. The moral dilemmas presented by wasting zombies who were formerly family members or those commonly regarded as "the innocent" of society is frequently an issue; (as well as an excuse to create some dramatic tension).

Ironically, the greatest threat to survival comes not from the zombie hordes, but from the fellow living. (SPOILERS AHEAD) George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) illustrates this by the scavenging gang of thugs which finally dismantle the relative safety and comfort of survivors holed up in a shopping mall. In Zombieland, betrayal is commonplace, though the zombies themselves pose marginal threat themselves to intelligent and sensibly cautious wanderers.

Concurrently, both films contain radical critiques of the stupidity and emptiness of material culture. Woody Harrelson's character craves a Twinkie snack cake but in a world of endless material goods he is willing to smash anything to curb his frustrations. In "Dawn of the Dead" the zombies putter stupidly around the mall doing as they had done as the living. What results is a thinly veiled but powerful critique of consumerism. In a world of survival, the stuff of great worth is utterly devalued and rendered comically meaningless.

The zombie phenomenon is worth great cultural examination: it is a symbol of the current 20th-21st century post-modern wasteland in which we live. It is the nihilism after the great failure of secular existentialism to re-value all values. It's cynicism is the bitter but sober and truthful disbelief of the humanist hucksters who would sell us false bases for our, or nature's supposed intrinsic worth.

The zombie wasteland takes no prisoners. There is no rank, no wealth, no great hero, but simply a tragic-comical waste of human life and existence combined with wanton bloodshed. The shotgun and chainsaw become the weapons of a generation frustrated, bored and only too eager to take up arms to a worthy cause- so long as it is not classified as murder (killing the living).

But zombie films are also about re-discovery - and redemption. In "Zombieland", "28 Days Later" (2002) and "Dawn of the Dead" we see people banding together. In a world that no longer has the blind optimism of modernism, but has seen the ugliness of blind postmodernism, human relationships and the spiritual moral law seem to pop up with new strength. One can bury the dead, but one can't bury what isn't dead. What isn't dead is the human spirit, absolute moral law and the drive to selfless deeds. Where "Columbus" in Zombieland formerly had a personal survival law to "Don't be a hero" he realizes that to save the emo-hot chick and forsake his "World of Warcraft" dominated life, he must adapt and overcome, he must "Be a hero". Where formerly the party knew only cutthroat cold indifference, they learned to band together as family.

No zombie film I know ends with a perfect fairy tale ending, there is one bloody awful mess left in the wake of the metaphorical "disaster" (postmodern death, nuclear annihilation, new world order etc.). This is an ugly world. It is bloody, it is sexually perverse and violating, it is horrific, and full of demonic threats.

The hard but necessary realization? We have done it. The good news? Not even the age of "non-supernatural" zombies (zombies resulting from viruses or some even more ridiculous nonsense than the occult explanation) can eradicate the supernatural order underlying all things.

The message is, don't let yourself be found as the walking dead; in the words made famous by one zombie smasher, "Hail to the King baby."

Instr. for Revolution 4: Get Intel

If you've gathered no intel and are already “shooting” you've adapted the ludicrous Hollywood-style strategy a friend of mine likes to call the “S.A.C.” or “Scream and Charge” strategy. I have news for you, this only works if you have some idea what is waiting for you on the other side. You might think this is pretty obvious for a battle, though it is far less obvious for human relationships. In attempting to win the friendship or good will of persons who have repeatedly repulsed your advances, spoken ill of you and have no respect for you; dropping by for a random visit or a giant bear hug are probably going to be heavy handed 'weapons' for winning them over. The result may be about as pretty as charging a machinegun nest across an open field.

What do we look for against our tyrannies? Vulnerabilities. The random drop by is only going to work on a needy person, a vulnerable person, a person willing to genuinely admit “defeat” (wrongness, illegal actions or what have you.). It is no coincidence that Jesus won souls from those who were willing to admit they were “sick”, He didn't come to heal the healthy (the self-righteous, the spiritually rebellious, the spiritually “undefeated”) but rather the sick.

It is necessary therefore, to be sensitive to persons, to listen to the data, hear the recon, listen to the reports etc and appraise where your enemy stands. Remember that you do not need to annihilate an enemy to win the battle. Seeking out vulnerabilities is not to destroy and enslave your tyrant, that would again, merely be to make oneself a tyrant in his place. Seeking out vulnerabilities in personal relationships is not for the purpose of exploiting them cruelly. Listening to information and using it to pull someone out of deception and delusion is one thing, listening to information and maybe embellishing it to everybody else is another.

Similarly, utterly destroying an enemy's army by means of tactical maneuver from good intelligence is not cruel, it is simply good fighting. Even a defeated soldier can respect, in principle, the superior strategem of his enemy (should it have been the genuine cause of defeat).

Gloating likewise, is worthless. Fighting for bragging rights is the stuff of unruly schoolboys, and even invites the judgement of providence. Superior strategem does not always win over time and chance, which are far more powerful. Khan's army sank before it reached China. Napoleon and Hitler were defeated by the Russian winter. A host of historical horrors should be enough to hold the haughty in humility.

The bottom line is this: get intelligence about your enemy and take it seriously. Don't let arrogance, sentimentality, emotions or memories of the past lead you into terrible defeats. Listen to everyone, even your opponent may give away a hint about his or her weaknesses. Take counsel and advice. Listen to everybody, but do not trust everybody. And remember, you are gaining knowledge to destroy tyranny, not to take it over.

Inst. for Revolution 3: Don't be Defeated Early

You will probably succumb at first to the temptation, in your moral outrage, to use the wrong weapons for the task. It is human to become angry for combat; but combat is best waged without the heat of emotion and rather with the coolness of calculation and cunning. For interpersonal relationships, anger against tyranny all too frequently results in an unwarranted escalation of force. Using the wrong kind of force has the potential to weaken or even destroy your cause, or at least to destroy its credibility.

For example, those wishing to impose a supposed moral Sharia Law upon a people, and these same people attempting to achieve this end by suicide bombings on women and children must be treated as fundamentally deranged in their thinking.

But just as some weapons are categorically wrong for the wrong kind of battle, so also can some weapons be unproductive, inhuman(e) or cruel. Strangely enough, even some weapons of physical warfare bear this stigma, such as anti-personnel mines (landmines) or chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, suicide attacks, torture. By contrast, in relationships these categorically 'cruel' weapons are used all the time: threats, insults, lies, gossip etc. In politics; blackmail, lies, smear campaigns. In spiritual battles; lies, intimidation, threats, temptations, accusations, discouragements and so on. If you resort to these weapons, you are perpetuating the tyranny. Life is full of combat, but there are ways to fight, and there are ways not to fight. Don't let your moral outrage turn into a vicious revenge. Even if you win, you have lost.

You will probably also succumb at various points to the temptation to despair. One of the best, most common, and most rotten ways evil uses to defuse attacks against itself is simply convincing others or the attacker himself that he or she is the evil one. One of the greatest ways of achieving this is to make pretences of peacefulness and then accuse the opponent of perpetuating the conflict when he or she refuses to accept a compromise with an untenably evil state of affairs. To word this again differently, the enemy will pretend to be your friend or have your interests at stake when really they have none, and when you refuse to compromise, they will attempt to make you look like the bad guy. Terrorists (Hamas), communists (Mao) and fascists (Hitler) have been pulling this for years, being diplomatic with one handshake and firmly clasping a dagger in the other hand.

I have always loved Ezra 4 as an illustration of how evil operates. The enemy will always try to identify his evil with your cause, appearing to put you on similar ground (destroying the purity of your values and thus attempting to undermine your will to fight). If that fails, they will resort to any amount of lies, intimidation, threats and fear mongering to destroy your morale.

This is why when one enters into combat with tyranny, the firmness of one's values must be continually remembered. “It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not good and clean, you will hesitate in the moment of truth.” as the foul mouthed Sergeant Hartman says in Full Metal Jacket. He's right. If you don't know why you're there, or your commitment is weak, you're already finished. The enemy will find its way into your mind, defuse your will to fight and you will fail.

Furthermore, if you start the fight thinking that it is merely a disagreement, and not combat, you are really in for a world of hurt (see: “The Little Black Book of Violence”). Your enemy has probably “killed” before, he's a tyrant after all. Don't lose your stomach when the fight isn't cordial or pretty anymore, when the enemy then accuses you of being the malicious monster “he always knew you were after all”. It is a scare tactic designed to throw you off your game, and you off his back. Your enemy is trying to “kill” you (control you, exploit you, enslave you, whatever the tyranny may be), don't kid yourself. Combat is not the time for hesitation. Bring out your appropriate and/or sanctioned "weapons", stand your "ground", establish your "beachhead".

Instructions for Revolution: 2. Choose Your Weapons Carefully

The sparks of revolution are predicated by moral outrage and/or despair. The unreasonableness and outright immorality of tyranny reach a fever pitch, provoking the oppressed and/or offended party to action. This is when “violence” begins.

In speaking about the kingdom of heaven and the tyranny of the Old Testament Law, Jesus said,

“...from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John (Matt 11:12-13, See also Luke 16:16).” Jesus was speaking on the one hand, about the pharisees, who had been trying to force their way into the kingdom of heaven through their personal righteousness, by trying to obey the prophets and the Law. But Jesus Himself denied that it was possible to reach the kingdom of heaven with the righteousness of the pharisees. On the other hand, Jesus was speaking about the violence with which His true followers were entering the kingdom of heaven. Martin Luther, the spiritual reformer, spoke of the aggression and boldness with which the Christian was able to enter the Kingdom of God due to the death and resurrection of Christ, the violence, he might say, of entering the kindgom of God by grace through faith alone. As Ephesians 3:12 states, “we have boldness and confident access through faith in Christ.”

The lesson here in particular is the kind of violence being used. You cannot access spiritual victory over tyranny by means of physical, emotional or mental labours. Just as you cannot be reborn or have a revolution into a new system by means of a likewise tainted source, neither will corruption overcome corruption. The project of the pharisees therefore would inevitably end in failure. Using the law to combat spiritual death was a lesson in futility. It is incomparably absurd, like literally trying to destroy a tank with a team of lawyers; what we would call a categorical error. Violence must be of the right degree, as well as the right kind if it is to end tyranny.

Jesus knew the right weapon against the power of death: Himself. When accused (unjustly) of being the 'rule of demons', Jesus simply stated that if Satan was casting out his own demons, his kingdom of death would not stand (Matt12:26). With His miracles and status as the incarnate God, Jesus indicated that He Himself was not just a force against the tyranny of sin and death, but also the only 'weapon' against such forces,

"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man's home and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters (Matt 12:28-30)."

If this were anybody but God in the flesh, I guarantee you he'd be another tyrant, amongst other not so good things. It's no coincidence that then Jesus stated the consequence of forsaking the Spirit of God as sure damnation (Matt 12:31). Crudely put, if you discard your only effective weapon against a deadly threat, annihilation is only a matter of time.

My point is this, you must accurately appraise the kind of threat being posed by the tyranny you face. Is it physical, mental, emotional, spiritual? Is it other or self or both? A tyranny may in fact pose a threat to all of these, but the tyranny itself, the source of the tyranny must be identified and uprooted. Sometimes it is necessary to uproot one tyranny before dismantling another. It is quite common that before spiritual, mental or emotional liberation can occur, physical safety or health is necessary. But this is not always the case. Once you know what you are destroying, then you know what to pick up, the pen, the Bible, the rifle, or a plate of cookies.

It is my belief that spiritual tyranny is the root cause of all tyranny. This kind of tyranny cannot be directly combatted by any other means than the gospel. However, there are now other moral challenges and realities we must face in a world devastated by human moral failure and rebellion against the rulership of God. Spiritual death has afflicted every part of human existence; there is now also a moral imperative that there are mouths to feed, broken hearts to nurture, minds shattered and helpless people to protect. To ignore one is to ignore another. But that's a topic for an entirely different post.

Hoped you enjoyed this slice. More to follow.

Instructions for Revolution: Part 1

After writing a post on tyranny, I thought it would be profitable to post something about how I thus far understand, in my inexperience, how tyrannies are destroyed.

I say "destroyed" because make no mistake, in order to stop tyranny in any of its corporeal or noncorporeal (physical or nonphysical) forms you will be engaged in battle. When I say "destroyed" however, I do not necessarily mean that the entire nation or person must be erased, but that it is reduced to a state in which it can no longer exert its malevolent control over your person or persons.

History illustrates that war is not a battle unto complete annihilation of one side. As John McCain recently aptly pointed out of the current war in Afghanistan and terror in general, war is "a battle of wills". When one side has lost the will to fight, the war is over. A nation may lose the will to fight because it cannot stand casualties or seemingly unnecessary expenses (which would seem to be our current situation), or perhaps it has lost the will to fight because its general has been captured or killed in battle (This was Alexander the Great's favourite tactic), or perhaps most commonly, the nation has lost the ability to effectively put up a fight and thus surrenders to avoid disastrous damage to its homeland (Partly the issue for Imperial Japan in 1945).

The first step to destroying any system of governance (Tyrannical or not) is to destroy its values, the values held in the hearts of the people or person it governs. This holds two functions, it destroys the ability of the governance to control and manipulate by what rewards it offers for compliance. Secondly, undermining or proving false the values of a system and replacing them gains a convert or converts to the new ideology which then has:

a) The will to fight against what it now recognizes as falsehood, and;

b) The resilience to reject bribes or settlements from the tyranny.

A sure sign that you are dealing with a tyranny is that its values are not centred around the value of truth. Usually this takes the form of appealing to humanity's dark nature: self praise, material possessions, self-gratification etc. It may not be so very obvious though, and deception wouldn't be deception if it didn't try to hide itself at least a little. At the end of my last post I gave some indication of where good governance stands. I argue that humanity does have an inherently dark nature (some political systems will attempt to make you place abundant faith in man's or a single man's/party's overall goodness, like communism or fascism or totalitarianism). What are the signs of good governance?

a)Where there are signs that a person or persons is/are working against the grain of their darker moral nature(s); When the values of the government, expressed by word and deed are in line with, and reflect a primary interest in inalterable universal moral principles.

For example, liberty should have been to all people in the United States from the moment the constitution (a reflection of a nation's values) stated “All men are created equal”. But racism, like any other human crime, is a neverending battle, the Civil War was a major turning point for the United States, and the seeds of that victory gave men like Martin Luther King Jr., the liberty to further demolish ingrained racist tendencies and structures in American Society.

King was able to do what he did because of the revolution in American thinking that men like Abraham Lincoln fought for so desperately. The point stands however, that the encapsulated moral values of the US constitution have made it the bastion of liberty (all cynicism aside) that it is today. Anyone questioning that liberty, at least as it stands today, needs to have a look around the world. Of course, liberty is not something one can leave to the vagaries of human nature lest it be lost.

b) The first sign of good governance was the 'easy' part. The real test is truthfulness; the truthfulness of its ideas. Even presuming that your personal or national governance tells the truth about its intentions, and thinks that its moral stance is best, its moral stance may not reflect truthful values. I have already argued that the best governance comes from universal objective moral principles, and a large part of my reason for doing so is the fact that these kinds of principles are the least susceptible to common human weaknesses. Moral principles are not physical substances, so they rely indirectly for false or truthful fulfilment. What I mean is that the payoff from moral principles is one step removed from say the reward of millions of dollars in illicit cash. It is terribly easy to be bought off by millions of dollars in cash, while manipulating based on moral principles requires more leg work.

The safety of moral principles as a system of value is that in order to achieve effective governance they must be believed by the people or person being governed/tyrannized. Simply put, it is harder to convince someone to your ideology than it is to just pay out some kind of direct bribe (wealth, health, etc.)

The dangerous and powerful aspect of moral principles as a system of value is that if adopted over and above those baser human desires, it produces an adherent (for good or ill) which will be far more likely to remain fanatically loyal to the principle, since the moral principle goes far beyond the individual interest and stretches to the universal.

For example, fighting for “freedom” can be a great and good thing wielded by a genuine leader and can spur political, diplomatic or military action, but wielded by a deceitful or self-interested ruler 'freedom' or 'democracy' can be code words for enslavement. The Nazi's did not call themselves fascists, they were called “National Socialists”. The murderous communist regime of Russia likewise called itself the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. Under less extreme conditions, some socialist ideas can produce compassionate social change. Unbridled faith in a communist or National Socialist ideal; does not.

What causes then, an unbridled faith in certain principles to lead to the very disaster the creator may have intended to avoid? Friedrich Nietzsche probably wouldn't have been thrilled to learn that key parts of his philosophies had been adopted in hearty approval by Nazi Germany. The key problem is not precisely the ideal scenario philosophy, it is the factors that we decide to put faith in to make the 'ideal scenario' a reality. An edifice planned to be invulnerable cannot be built with vulnerable parts. A pure glass of water cannot be poured using contaminated water.

If we allow that human beings are fundamentally flawed creatures which tend toward evil rather than good (I leave that to your examination) then a system of governance which places excessive faith in an individual (even self), a ruler, a party or even in fact many people (Plato called democracy the worst form of government! I don't, for the record.) we are bound to end up in disaster. Additionally, we must concede that the 'ideal' scenario or utopia, can never exist. As a corollary, or side point, we must also concede that excessive faith in any factor which can be manipulated by human intervention or dependent upon human satisfaction (eg. Technology, economic prosperity, disco robots) will also fail as a means of creating utopia.

The consequence of the above paragraph is that in order for faith or trust to be well rested in an idea, the idea must rest in a true appraisal of its objects of concern. That is a general philosophical way of saying that if you want to govern human beings, you have to have a realistic or truthful notion about who human beings are, what they need, how they interact, what they are, and are not capable of and especially, how they are flawed. Thus the lament of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 5:8, “If you see oppression of the poor and denial of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be shocked at the sight, for one official watches over another official, and there are higher officials over them.”

Solomon's disparaging message about human nature is a problem which evokes spiritual despair at the spiritual condition of humanity, at the condition of self before God. But politically speaking it is not something to cause us terrible anguish. Solomon's check and balance measure is just a few lines earlier in Eccl 4:9-13, where he expresses the power and survivability of a team working together. Although “one sinner can destroy much good” as Solomon said elsewhere, Eccl 4:12 tells us that “a cord of three strands is not easily broken”.

Although one cannot make an invulnerable armour out of that which is vulnerable, something very strong can be made out of many vulnerable parts. A kevlar vest is made of synthetic fibres woven together. It may not be invulnerable, but it has the power to slow or even stop a piece of pointed lead travelling at incredible speed.

The 'excessive' faith ideologies that I have mentioned are good examples of ideologies which, regardless of their moral stance, have failed the truth test of good governance. Promises are empty if they are based on a false sense of who we are as human beings; and they may even indicate a ruler waiting to exploit his advantage to create a tyranny.

I've already yakked long enough but maybe I'm making up for a couple month's posting. There's just one more thing. You don't really have to be a philosopher to weigh out all the ideas, in fact if you get caught up with just theories, you'll be lead astray. Perhaps the best way is to follow the guidelines that Christ gave when he said, “You shall know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they?” (Matthew 7:16)

The Pharisees had all sorts of moral rules for Jews but Jesus consistently saw through their hypocrisy and saw that although they “washed the outside of the cup” they did not wash the inner. The claims for morality did not match the inward reality of love for God and neighbour. The golden rule of treating others the way you wanted to be treated was the “Law and the prophets” (7:12), not the empty commandments of legalism.

It's kind of common sense that there's something fundamentally flawed with an ideology or value system that says one thing and does another; or claims to be good but all it does is oppress. That being said, its still easier said than done to ascertain the standing of a way of thinking. Tread carefully but decisively when it comes time to consider starting a war against tyranny. You may have to adopt an entirely new sight picture before you start shooting.

My idea in this first installment has not been to lay out to you the reader all the ways in which an ideology may be true or false. That is the task of a lifetime. You probably already have a good idea where I place my abundant faith, but that isn't really the point either. The truly difficult part of revolution is ascertaining the one's own values in relation to the values of the supposed tyranny, whether that tyranny is spiritual, mental, national, familial etc.

If one is not careful in this step, the project is misguided. An untruthful value system, no matter its promises of morality, will in the degree of its delusion, so also promote destruction and of course, tyranny. Just as demons can be cast out of a person and the demon return with seven worse than the first return, as Lenin replaced the self-centred Czarist system with murderous communism, so also can we be guilty of enslaving ourselves or others to an even worse conclusion than the first. Unbridled faith in an ideal can lead to tyranny. Unbridled faith in one's own revolution can be too.