Civil Disobedience and the challenge to Islamic Nationalism in Turkey

Did you know, Turkey has been a secular republic for almost a century? Governmentally, they are a Republic ruled by the people. Nevertheless, the country is being pulled in opposite directions by powerful forces. On one side are secularizing pressures, which have led many in Turkey to look increasingly westward toward Europe. When I was in Adana the cultural divide was visually represented by Nike hats and blue jean skirts sported by the young and older women still sporting the enveloping outer garment called a ‘burka’. Only, five years ago (2005), Turkey formally applied for full membership in the European Union, a process that has still to run its course. As one would expect the EU is calling for Turkey to liberalize many of its political, social, and economic policies, including full implementation of freedom of religion among Turkish citizens. Strangely religious freedom is a concept enshrined in the Turkish Constitution but has yet to take root in the minds and heart of the public.



On the other hand, the historic orientation towards the Muslim Middle East, facilitated by Turkey’s 99% Islamic population and the influence of Turkey’s Ottoman past, has provided a competing set of pressures, especially over the last two decades. In November 2002 the Islamist-based Justice and Development Party won a landslide election victory, cooling interest among some Turks in the European connection and reinforcing ties with certain Muslim nations of the Middle East.The Turkish government officially recognizes three minority religions: Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Judaism. Western Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism) is not considered a religion but a state recognized sect with even less freedoms and more restrictions. To understand how western Christianity can be considered a sect you have to understand their cultural bias formed by the crusades. This is a powerful cultural image that can turn people against W.C. and form their thought around the idea of a cultural jihad. The rise in Islamic consciousness has led to an increase in discrimination and persecution directed against religious minorities. Here are several manifestations of that problem:



1. Turkish identity cards, a government prescription, stipulate the religious affiliation of each citizen of the state. These expose individual non-Muslims to discrimination and harassment, including lack of access to careers in state institutions.(1)



2. “Religious minorities [report] difficulties opening, maintaining, and operating houses of worship.”(2) Unfortunately, this accords with public sentiment: In a 2009 survey of a sample of Turks, 59% of respondents considered that non-Muslims should not be allowed to hold open meetings where they can discuss their ideas. Furthermore, 54% of respondents believed that non-Muslims should not be allowed to publish literature that describes their faith. (3)



3. Violence against Western Christians is on the rise. In 2006, a Catholic priest was shot and killed in Trabzon, Turkey. That same year, five assailants knocked unconscious and severely beat Protestant church leader Kamil Kiroglu (my old roommate when I lived in Adana). One attacker with a knife threatened to kill Kiroglu unless he renounced Christianity. Kamil was hospitalized as a result of his injuries. In April 2007, three Christians were bound, tortured, and killed by young Muslim radicals at a Christian publishing house at Malatya in southeastern Turkey. (4)



4. In August 2009, a Muslim held a knife to the throat of a convert to Christianity, denouncing him as a “missionary dog,” who had betrayed Turkey by leaving Islam and evangelizing others.(5)



This 2009 incident perfectly represents the mindset described by Ziya Meral, a London-based Turkish scholar and activist: “To be a Turk is to be a Muslim, thus to leave Islam is to betray the Turkish nation.”(6) This same mindset prompted retired Turkish general Veli Kucuk to observe, in testimony at the Malatya trial, that the state lumped Christian missionary activity in with Muslim extremism, both seen as a threat to the nation.(7)



How sad and strange that Christians are abused today in Turkey. It is the homeland of the gospel. Most of the New Testament was written within the borders of this great country. It is the land of Paul’s first missionary journey, of his epistles to Galatians and Ephesians, of Peter’s letter to the saints in “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia”(1 Peter 1:1), of Revelation’s letters to the seven churches, and of early Church councils in Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. The rolling hills of Turkey have seen much light and yet now it is dark. The darkness of the western American Pop-culture is crashing into the deeply entrenched Muslim ideology.



In Greek there is a word for a moment in time that is fated, a moment of opportunity, a time the Greeks called “Kairos”. Turkey is clearly at a hinge point in its history, with the next decade likely to reveal whether the country moves closer to Western Europe or the Muslim world to the east. Turkey is in a Kairos moment. The culture will go the way of the west or fall back into the ways of its Islamic past. That decision will significantly impact Turkey’s fledgling and beleaguered Christian community.



Out of such tension life can spring forth. One career missionary told me that the only action necessary to shift the balance is for Turkish believers to challenge the cultural taboos infecting turkey. They must stand on the Turkish Constitution calling the government to make real concessions and bringing awareness to the real laws of Turkey. I agree with his wisdom. Turkey needs it’s on “Martin Luther King”, it needs people who will take off their shoes and make a street corner into a pulpit; Bold ones invoking a holy moment of civil disobedience. Only when an army of saints call the government to obey its fundamental principles will the people take notice of the freedom afforded them under their own constitution. Only then will “Joe Turk” in Istanbul see past Islamic taboos. The culture war between Islam and western culture will make a distinctive shift towards the west. Such action is not just for the sake of political freedom but given the influential nature of Turkey as a flag ship of Islamic democracy such a little shift may hide within it the fate of the future global conflicts. In the clash between the secular western culture and traditional Turkish Islamic culture, the decay of Turkish social morality could be blamed on a Christian influence. If such a distinctive step is not taken by the Turkish church, nationalism will take the unholy aspects of western culture and call those cancerous lesions the fruit of a Christian culture. This is why a clear sound and radical measures must be undertaken in the next five years. We cannot miss the opportunity!



For the Turkish church, this Kairos moment, this specially ordered time means opportunity through suffering. But through it humble greatness is incarnated into the world and radical examples of grace and truth will bring forth light. The cost will be high but the gain will be a nation set free – to live by the freedoms it already possesses.– Pray for Turkey – Pray for the believers within its borders. Pray God would rise up preachers willing to invoke moments of holy “civil disobedience” for the sake of the religious freedom and the glory of God’s gospel.



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Footnotes



1.)“Turkey: International Religious Freedom Report 2009,” United States Department of State Website, October 26, 2009, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/130299.htm (accessed May 14, 2010).

2.) Ibid.

3.) “More than Half in Turkey Oppose Non-Muslim Religious Meetings,” Compass Direct News Website, December 4, 2009, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/turkey/12322/ (accessed May 14, 2010).

4.) Tony Carnes, “Jesus in Turkey: After 550 Years of Decline, a Bloodied Church Is Being Reborn,” Christianity Today Website, January 3, 2008, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/january/12.25.html (accessed May 14, 2010).

5.)“Assailant in Street Attack in Turkey Ordered Released,” Compass Direct, February 12, 2010, http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/turkey/15153/ (accessed May 14, 2010).

6.) Ziya Meral, “Muslim-Majority States and Human Rights: From the UDHR to Durban Conference”, Religion Compass 3/5 (2009): 879.

7.) “Turkey”, International Religious Freedom Report 2009, US Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, And Labor, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/130299.htm (accessed May 14, 2010).

Holywood Theology?

Some interesting comments on pop-culture and consumerism

A Slow Death one drip of Stupid at a Time

In the poison world, one stands out like Jordan in a pick up game, it is name thallium. In the 1800’s it became a smooth way to bump off someone. Thus gaining the nicknames "The Poisoner's Poison" and "Inheritance Powder." Saddam Hussein was in love with thallium. In the 1980’s Saddam, and his secret police, were fond of using Thallium to dispose of their enemies. They poisoned quite a few people in London with it, and he even poisoned some of his senior military men. It is all about the little things, like poison.

Why all the talk about poison? Because, thallium is much like anti-intellectualism, both are silent killers, both are highly toxic and both in there own way have changed the course of nations.  Anti-intellectualism is a prevailing Bias in our culture and it is more than just stupid is as stupid does. It is a deadly poison killing the church today.

What is anti-intellectualism? Os Guinness defines anti-intellectualism as, “a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind.” [1]  Anti-intellectualism helps support the bad belief that what is good are the “simple people”, the “common people”, who are supposedly more honest and “real” than so-called “ivory tower” intellectuals. The good life is in following God’s will not in some idea about the simple life of the common people, a view of such a life with romantic and nostalgic blinders. Many in Christianity hold anti-Intellectualism as some what of a virtue. If truth be told it is a vice. “Anti-intellectualism is quite simply a sin. Evangelicals must address it as such, beyond all excuses, evasions, or rationalizations of false piety.” [2]   

Owen Barfield would say people given to this disposition have a “dashboard knowledge” of the faith. By this he parallels the knowledge people have about their faith to the knowledge they have about their car. All they know is what the dials on the dashboard panel tell them. People with a dashboard knowledge of the Christian faith, have only a simple and superficial understanding, even though many may think it profound and deep because they are able to know when things are not running right, and when it is time to get a tune up (repent).  Biblical Knowledge is viewed by Christians as a means to “stay right with God” or “Know his love” but not as a knowledge system through which one views life and makes choices. The outcome is a church that does not value truth as much as the fleeting experiance of truth. Napoleon was reported to tell a certain story to stir his soldier’s patriotism.

Once, while visiting a province he came upon an old soldier in full uniform but with one sleeve hanging empty. He proudly wore the coveted Legion of Honor. Napoleon asked, "Where did you lose your arm?" The soldier answered, "At Austerlitz, sire." Napoleon asked, "And for that you received the Legion of Honor?" The man said, "Yes, sire. It is but a small token to pay for the decoration." Napoleon continued, "You must be the kind of man who regrets he did not lose both arms for his country." The one-armed man asked, "What then would have been my reward?" Napoleon answered, "I would have awarded you a double Legion of Honor." And with that, the proud old fighter drew his sword and immediately cut off his other arm.

What a wonderful story of patriotic duty! It was apparently effective in stirring up in Napoleon's men a desire to sacrifice for the cause of France! Yet there is one problem with the story. Maybe you have already noticed the inconsistency. Maybe you asked your self the question. "How did the soldier cut off his arm with only one arm to do it with?" It is a nice story, very stirring, moving, motivating, but it wasn't true. And it's possible for the same thing to happen to us in a religious sense. We can get all "fired up" without much thought as to the truth of what we're getting excited about. We may enjoy ‘Napoleon preaching’ (heat without light) but it does us little good. Paul said of those who were motivated in such a way: “They are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.” (Romans 10:2) Now, zeal is good. We all need more of it. But we need to make certain that our enthusiasm is firmly based on the Christian knowledge of God. Zeal without knowledge has shrunk the intellectual life of the church to such a degree that Mark Noll’s calls it a scandal. He wrote, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” [3]   

In Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth, Pearcey tells a story of a new convert named, Denzel. Denzel became a Christian as a young man. Driven by curiosity and the commands of his new found faith, he began to look for ways to grow in his faith. As Denzel sought to grow and understand his new found faith, He asked a lot of questions, as people do when they love the subject being discussed. Sadly, many of His questions fell on deaf ears; He was hindered by leaders who could not answer his questions. Others who saw it fruitless to help him seek out answers to questions they saw as just ‘heady’. He was told to just have faith in the plain truths of Scripture. Later, Denzel got a new job where he met those of other faiths. He was confused by the way they seemed to have answers for people's questions. Denzel felt cheated and did not understand why only the Christians choose not to defend themselves from cynics, skeptics and other faiths. Eventually, He changed jobs and found work at a Christian bookstore.  There he found some books that gave him the answers he was seeking. It was a search not helped by the church but hindered. Denzel learned not only do most Christians not like to think, they don’t believe in thinking. Harry Blamires believes this drift is because the church has been infected by secular ideas. “The Christian Mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness unmatched in Christian History” [4]  Denzel’s experience shows us very clearly how deep our present culture has influenced the church.

Empirical evidence of this can be drawn from the youth culture. Sociologist, Christian Smith shows how this aspect of culture is affecting teens. Many teens label themselves as believers, but a short investigation into what they believe will reveal their belief to be shallow and lacking in way of content. [5] They confess God but know little theology.  Further the gospel of the modern teen is a far cry from the real gospel. They hold a legalistic gospel of a passive grandpa God. [6] The substance of theological training is vaporous at best. Such statistics are not only tragic but telling of our sinful mindlessness. Os Guinness again reminds us:

At root, evangelical anti-intellectualism is both a scandal and a sin. It is a scandal in the sense of being an offense and a stumbling block that needlessly hinders serious people from considering the Christian faith and coming to Christ. It is a sin because it is a refusal, contrary to Jesus’ two great commandments, to love the Lord our God with our minds. [7]

All these facts point to the present condition of the church as deeply anti-intellectual. It could be said that the church now has a kind of "Spiritual Anorexia." The term anorexia is of Greek origin: an (α, prefix of negation), and orexis (ορεξις, appetite), thus meaning a lack of desire to eat. Anorexia is a psychiatric illness that describes an eating disorder. Anorexics have an intense fear of becoming fat. The comparison between Anorexia and anti-intellectualism in the church is telling. Anorexia is a complex condition that involves, psychological, and sociological components just like the anti-intellectualism problem. The similarities don’t stop there; anorexia and the anorexic church both have a fear of becoming fat. The church sees the use of the intellect as the way one’s faith becomes fat and ineffective. So they fear what could happen as a result of using the intellect. It functions similarly to what William James named as the “Agnostic veto”. It is when the fear of the unknown or thought of a possible outcome can paralyze one from some action. 

 The fear of becoming religious intellectuals leads them to not seek spiritual food and they spiritually starve. Moreland puts it this way, “The contemporary Christian mind is starved, and as a result we have small, impoverished souls.” [8] Overtime the anorexics become weak and develop brittle and thin skinned, irregular heartbeats, and shortness of breath. Just like the complications to anti-intellectualism are weak Christians that can be easy offended, confused in their passions, and often shallow to the ways of the Spirit (breath). And just like anorexia all the complications lead to inhibiting the normal growth process.

What the church has sadly forgotten is that it is the mind that has the more direct affect on the spiritual life. [9]  If we wish to regain a healthy vision of God we must first take some baby steps towards clearing our thinking up. The first step to be undertaken is repentance for the sin of anti-intellectualism. Then we begin the long prayerful journey of regaining a hunger for the deep riches of theology and faith.  The writer of Hebrews was familiar with this impoverished disposition of the soul. He describes the condition of the Hebrew Christians: 

You are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.  (Hebrews 5:11-14)

The anti-intellectual disposition was among the Hebrews Christians. So what does the writer of Hebrews suggest? He thinks they should dig deep into the things of God and not just swim in the shallow side of the faith.

Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so. (Hebrews 6:1-3) 

Second, we need to value of knowledge for its own sake. One day, while home for the weekend from collage I thought I would mow the lawn for my dad. So, I brought the mower out of our shed and attempted to try to start it.  I tried at least 12 times. I saw dad go into his shop and I called out to him. "Hey, what Do you know about lawn mowers?" In classic jerry style he clamed "I know more than you less than Jesus!" Wishing I kept my mouth shut he walked over looked that the spark plug and then pressed a small red button to prime the mower. The mower started right away! A little embarrassed, I was so simple.  I didn't even know to prime the machine. Sometimes prayer is not enough, sometimes we need to come to knowledge and utilize the knowledge with His wisdom. Yet if we lack knowledge, we will be caught in our foolishness. Just as the prophet states, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). But this need not happen, if we value knowledge, value learning, we can avoid the fate handed the recipients of Hosea denouement.

Without Knowledge your faith would be about as useful as signing to the blind. Consider this, if being a person that loves others as virtuous then without understanding that comes from good thinking such love has no direction, no moral imagination, even no wisdom. Thus such a weightless person can be easily manipulated by others. Over time the result is a religion of sentimentality. Or consider this, if a religious ritual or sacrament is a symbolic action pointing to a divine truth then when one’s action is done from an empty head the ritual is meaningless. The meaningful symbol in the action is lost in the lack of refection. Over time the result is only ritualism.

Third, we need to begin to individually cultivate a Christian view of the world. Christianity is the true frame from which all our truths flow. Dorothy Sayers aims at this loss when she wrote “We have rather lost sight of the idea that Christianity is supposed to be an interpretation of the universe.” [10]

Os Guinness in his work, ‘Fit Bodies, Fat Minds’ gives us the antidote to this Evangelical anti-intellectualism. He calls his readers, “thinking christianly.” He defines this way of thinking as “thinking by Christians about anything and everything in a consistently Christian way – in a manner that is shaped, directed and restrained by the truth of God’s Word and God’s Spirit.” 

Guinness offers further guidelines[11] for Christians engaging their minds:

1.        Count the cost – that is, be willing to endure ridicule, slander and abuse – for some academics for example, the cost of speaking against the “prevailing wisdom” may be damaging to one’s career.

2.        Commit to “thinking christianly” as an act of obedience, requiring concentrated, long-term effort.

3.        Avoid certain pitfalls on the journey:

a.        It’s not a “head trip”, we are not promoting a new “intellectualism” – rather, it involves the whole self, mind, body and spirit

b.        It’s not a solitary trip – rather it requires the correction of other Christians

c.        It’s not a purely human activity – rather it is based on the ‘fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom’

d.       It’s not about uniformity - rather it reflects the diverse cultural backgrounds, personalities, and perspectives that we bring to the task

4.        Acknowledge that Christian knowing brings with it the responsibility for acting on that knowledge

Endnotes

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[1] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), p. 9.

[2] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), pp. 18-19.

[3] Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 3.  Here Noll’s investigates the modern intellectual lives of evangelicals and its origins. 

[4] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004)

[5] Jamie Dean, “Classroom Christianity,” World Magazine, January 27, 2008, http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12617 (accessed March 24, 2008).

[6] Smith clams Teen’s hold five beliefs. One, God created and watches over human life. Second, God wants people to be nice and fair. Third, life’s ultimate goal is for each person to be happy and to feel good about yourself. Fourth, God does not need to be intimately involved in anyone’s life—He is just there for emergencies. Fifth, good people go to heaven. Christian Smith, “Is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism the New Religion of American Youth? Implications for the Challenge of Religious Socialization and Reproduction,” in Passing on the Faith: Transforming Traditions for the Next Generation of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, ed. James L. Heft (New York: Fordham University, 2006), 65.

[7] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), pp. 10-11.

[8] J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1997), p. 80.

[9] J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1997), p. 80.

[10] Dorothy L. Sayers, 1937-1944: From Novelist to Playwright, vol. 2 of The Letters of Dorothy Sayers, ed. Barbara Reynolds, preface P. D. James (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998),158.

[11] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), whole last chapter

God at the back of the Bus

In 1955 the rule on the buses in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, was that ‘coloured’ passengers must sit at the back of the bus when a white passenger wished to sit in the front seat. On the evening of December 1, 1955, woman in her forties named Rosa Parkes, declined to go to the back of the bus when a white passenger wished to sit. Her action was not premeditated as she explained it “I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home.” first, she asked if she could stay clamming that her feet where tired. When her request was denied her she refused to move. The driver again, commanded her to move, and upon her second refusal the bus stopped. She was arrested and fined $14. She was not going to be escorted to the back of the bus! In the end, her arrest sparked the civil rights movement; beginning with a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system that led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.

Montgomery has many comparisons to the spiritual life of modern America. In 1955 the human rights of Parkes was ignored so to in our day the divine right of God has been trivialized. God in his mysterious wisdom has allowed himself to be pushed to the back of the bus. So it can be asked, how and in what way was God relegated to the back of the cultural bus? What has caused the spiritual segregation of our day? I believe it is rooted in a basic reversal of perspective. With the rise of secular humanism, the entrenchment of autonomous individualism, the pervasive influence of the therapeutic movement, and the modern focus on pragmatism as a test of truth, God has diminished in our sight as we have perceived ourselves more and more majestic than we really are. Out of this bubbling brew of cultural confusion two cultural dispositions have a profound influence on our vision of God. The two are anti-intellectualism and materialism.

A. W. Tozer on the danger of an entertainment culture

It has been said that the holy trinity of American spirituality are comfort, consumerism and entertainment. In A. W. Tozer’s day the same was true. Tozer was a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor who preached thirty-one years at the Chicago’s Southside Gospel Tabernacle. He saw the selfishness that flooded the streets of Chicago wash into the church. The waters of the world were in the church, ankle deep and rising.

Aiden Wilson Tozer (yes that’s why people called him A.W.) was not shy in confronting the church with the risk of it slowly drowning in the waters of celebrity, and the worldly tide of pragmatism. Sermon after sermon he paled bucket after bucket to save the gospel ship from sinking. He would also with prevocational prose place water logged church practices that embraced secular methods, and the love of individual choice that caused godliness to go belly up, in the drying light of truth to show how withered and dehydrated they really were.

In the 1950’s Tozer spoke out boldly against the blessed virgin “entertainment”. A little -g- god that was muscling in on the territory held exclusively for the worship of God. Tozer’s warning is clear, Christians are to be wary of the seductive nature of a culture saturated with idols of entertainment. When the means of worship eclipse the object of worship, the great god of entertainment has flooded the church of Jesus Christ. He writes:

. . . the present inordinate attachment to every form of entertainment is evidence that the inner life of modern man is in serious decline. The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no spring within his own breast, no inner strength to place him above the need for repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to go on living. He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment, unable to live a day apart from the stimulation which society affords him. . . .[1]

If [a] sense of need and a feeling of dependence are at the root of natural religion it is not hard to see why the great god Entertainment is so ardently worshipped by so many. For there are millions who cannot live without amusement; life without some form of entertainment for them is simply intolerable; they look forward to the blessed relief afforded by professional entertainers and of psychological narcotics as a dope addict looks to his daily shot of heroin. Without them they could not summon courage to face existence. . . . [2]

The growth of the amusement phase of human life to such fantastic proportions is a portent, a threat to the souls of modern men. It has been built into a multimillion dollar racket with a greater power over human minds and human character than any other educational influence on earth. And the ominous thing is that its power is almost exclusively evil, rotting the inner life, crowding out the long eternal thoughts which would fill the souls of men if they were but worthy to entertain them. And the whole thing has grown into a veritable religion which holds its devotees with a strange fascination, and a religion, incidentally, against which it is now dangerous to speak. [3]

For centuries the Church stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognizing it for what it was—a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attention from moral accountability. For this she got herself abused roundly by the sons of this world. But of late she has become tired of the abuse and has given over the struggle. She appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great god Entertainment she may as well join forces with him and make what use she can of his powers. So today we have astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called sons of heaven. Religious entertainment is in many places rapidly crowding out the serious things of God. Many churches these days have become little more than poor theatres where fifth-rate “producers” peddle their shoddy wares with the full approval of evangelical leaders who can even quote a holy text in defense of their delinquency. And hardly a man dares raise his voice against it. [4]

The great god Entertainment amuses his devotees mainly by telling them stories. The love of stories, which is a characteristic of childhood, has taken fast hold of the minds of the retarded saints of our day, so much so that not a few persons manage to make a comfortable living by spinning yarns and serving them up in various disguises to church people. What is natural and beautiful in a child may be shocking when it persists into adulthood, and more so when it appears in the sanctuary and seeks to pass for true religion. [5]

End Notes
-------------------
[1] A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1955), 30-31.
[2] A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1955), 31.
[3] A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1955), 32.
[4] A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1955), 32-33
[5] A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1955), 33.

Virgin Capital

Natalie Dylan, 22, is an average gal from San Diego, California, she is attractive, smart, with good hair and a practical head on her shoulders. She has a Bachelors in Science in Women's Studies from California State University in Sacramento and wants to get a Masters Degree in Family and Marriage Therapy. Natalie is a giver, you know one of those people that wants to make a difference in this world, but like all aspiring counselors she needs money to pay for college. So she is selling, or actually auctioning off, her virginity to the highest bidder? (Yes, I am not joking, see here). Her offer of a one-night stand with her has persuaded 10,000 men to bid.

Miss Dylan is a woman of many ‘ists” as in capitalist, pragmatist and realist. She is not a hooker like Elliot Spitzer's call girl, Ashley Alexandra Dupre. She is a capitalist but I don’t think Reagan would be proud or that this falls under His theory of trickle down economics. She states, “We live in a capitalist society. Why shouldn't I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?" Forget the record number of foreclosures and the escalating rate of unemployment. Here's the best example yet of the current economic climate: Virgin real-estate for sale! Talk about supply side economics!

Natalie Dylan is also a realist, “I don't think auctioning my virginity will solve all my problems, but it will create some financial stability," Last September, when her auction became public knowledge, she had received bids up to $243,000 but since, it has made it to 3.7 million. So we are not just talking financial stability. We are talking about Her virginity making her a millionaire.

She could be called a moral pragmatist. Nappy Dylan claims no moral qualms about this choice. "I don't have a moral dilemma with it.” Further, Natalie claims a certain will to power in her talk of choice. “My study is completely authentic in that I truly am auctioning my virginity but I am not being sold into this. I'm not being taken advantage of in any way.” The 22-year-old Sacramento State graduate continues, “I'm ready for the controversy... I'm ready to do this.” To accentuate the obvious “glaucoma” of her moral vision, she added her own moral commentary: “It's shocking that men will pay so much for someone's virginity, which isn't even prized so highly anymore.” Sadly, like most of her generation, she knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The idea came in part from her sister Avia, 23, who paid for her own degree after three weeks of being a prostitute. (And we wonder why giving to the Salvation Army is down??) Some may think that she is not the real deal yet Miss Dylan claims she is as authentic as Donald trump’s toupee. She is even willing to place her clam under medical scrutiny and undergo medical tests for any doubters.

With great irony and profound lack of any moral impulse, she says what must be considered the understatement of the year.

“I think me and the person I do it with will both profit greatly from the deal.”

What is a single Christian guy think of such a girl?

I think first, Valuable, we are to think valuable. In spite of her poor choice and public celebrity over it, she is made in the image of our God and for that she has inherent worth that cannot change, no matter what she does with her sexuality. And, I want to think she wants such a value. Think about how she got to be 22 and still a virgin. Someone in our day does not spend 22 years in “Cal-i-fornication” no less, and not have to fight to keep such a beautiful aspect of her womanhood. So we see below the bills and greed, below the flippant way she talks of her virginity, is a woman that wants to be valued.

Second, compassion, seeing her as an product of modern thinking, we should hurt for her. What is to her empowered womanhood is to me a confused and twisted value system. She claims value in the devaluing of herself as long as she owns the choice. The virgin real-estate of Miss Dylan is the capital she will build the rest of her life on. And one day, she will look back and see that gold rusts and degrees can't make you righteous nor personal choice make you valuable. One day, she will grow to hate the fact that she placed a "for sale" sign on her womanhood, claiming purity to be a commodity. For that day I hurt for her.

Third, jealous, we should be jealous for her, as God is jealous for her. If I had the money I would outbid all the sexual capitalists out there. I would just give her the money and tell her keep her virginity. Where are the Hosea’s of this world that would do such a thing. Where are the Christian men that have the means to be a parable of the gospel?
I know where…

They are at the strip club helping other young ladies pay for community college.

And

In their office bidding for the virgin capital of Natalie Dylan.

Woody Allen and the modern moral life.

In Crimes and Misdemeanors, Woody Allen knocks a homerun, for those that want to think when they eat popcorn. It is one of my favorite movies of all time and never fails to make me sad and illuminated all at the same time. In this movie, he shows the moral lives of two men, Cliff Stern and Juduh Rosenthal. Highlighting the place of conscience in modern life and humanity.

In the main plot of the movie, the part I will let you watch without much commentary. Judah Rosenthal is griped with guild over the blood on his hands and has to deal with present guilt and a past full of atheist aunts and orthodox fathers. Allen uses flash backs to show Rosenthal’s inner turmoil. His inner dialectic is made visible (which ironically and unknown to alien is a apart of conscience itself.) in Rosenthal’s dilemma. Deep questions about love and meaning are asked contrasted by nihilistic ideas like, Is there a soul? Does god exist? In these moments the movie gets as dark and serious as Bulgarian chocolate yet never looses its charm.

In the story of Cliff Stern, Allen gives us the more common account of conscience. Allen knows that today’s world system is not arbitrary. The structure of culture today rewards those that play the game. It is understood from experience and theory that life the does not reward certain people and gladly rewards those that play by the culture’s rules, and pander to society’s desires. People are forced into a dilemma of guidance. The choices are between a life guided by a modern pragmatism or principle, authenticity or celebrity, convention or commitment (vows).

This is seen in the contrast between Stern and Lester and the love triangle between Stern, Reed and Lester. The contrast between Stern and Lester runs deep. Both are producers both seek to make great movies. Stern is a reflective person with a sense of moral grounding and Lester an egocentric man of little reflection and even less conscience. In Lester and Stern’s interaction the issue of truth is raised in the form of authenticity. The only form of truth honored as a virtue in postmodern society. As the story unfolds, Cliff is forced to compromise and take the job he hates because, let’s face it, money is important. Cliff tries to be “true to himself” and gets fired by his wife’s brother. In this way Stern is depicted as the tragic hero. This is further accented in the Love triangle between Lester, him and Reed, Mia Farrow’s character. Stern is in a bad marriage so when he meets Reed, He must choose the path of cultural convention or marital commitment; he chooses the former, rejecting the dictates of his conscience in going after Reed. Reed must chose also between a man that can further her career (Lester) or a man that cares for her (Stern). She chooses the checkbook, and stern is left holding the bag.

Over all, the story line deals with the domestication of the conscience by modern life. It is clear Allen thinks conscience is dead weight, which we need to get over. Such moral courage (acting on principle to the point of suffering) is much more of a hindrance than a help. We see the role of conscience and understand it to be useless in the real world. The uselessness of conscience is seen in Stern following his conscience and gets fired, and then denying his conscience and justifying it through convention yet his attempted romance is killed before it begins when reed rejects him. Allen’s point seems to be following your heart and things are not all roses and sunshine, life is not like the movies it is not a matter of the good will prosper, but more the cunning and ruthless make out in the end.

What is shown to pay is Being an opportunist (Reed) or a egoistic pragmatist (Lester). Things will go well for you, for your playing the world’s game. Choose a way of the heart and conscience and there is a good chance life will not be rosy but in doing so you live a life that is “true to your self”. Displaying an authenticity that is still held with honor in a postmodern world. Sadly, this authenticity can change by the deeper desires of emotional connection (or is it the lust of a new thrill?) Either way, authenticity is a subjective standard so such “below the belt” urges can freely change moral vision.

In this way, a man who chooses a moral life is at best destined to be the tragic hero. His principle may lead him but only so far, for to remain authentic he had to change his principle to follow his desire. In the end, He loses the girl yet he was true to himself. In Allen’s view the best aspiration of man is the tragic hero.

If we look around we can find such tragic heroes. In the real world such people become rich in regret, deep in depression and hiccupping from a heart full of little betrayals. A great example of this is found in the philosopher, who Stern was doing a documentary on. A man that spent his life plumming the depths of meaning and could articulate such ideas with great beauty, yet ending it all by suicide even though he had it all figured out. So we see, knowing a truth and experiencing the meaningful bliss of a truth are two different things.

For the Christian, God is the sources of ultimate meaning, He is one's ultimate consern, He is the stenth in our moral courage. The soul centered on God is open to life as a sacramental reality, a grace to be enjoyed with gratitude.

For Allen, such meaningful bliss is non-existent but the moral joy of following your heart is real and can carve out a meaningful pleasureful existence from void.

Here are two guided videos for your exploration into this issue.

Do people have a moral center?

Do people have a conscience or are we just kidding ourselves and the universe.
Woody Allen spent most of the 1980s and '90s veering between comedy and drama, and he rarely combined the two with greater success than in Crimes and Misdemeanors. In the movie he weaves together two stories lines about the same serious issue, morality; More specifically the question of conscience. After Freud the consciences took a hit. Most today, following Freud’s lead, see the conscience as a social sensibility that is more or less something comparable to social engineering.

In crimes and misdemeanors woody Alien goes head to head with Fyodor Dostoevsky. Allen admittedly clams that Crimes and punishment was in part the antagonist for this piece. Allen and Dostoevsky works both beg the same question of audience, “Can man get away with murder and still live with himself? In both, the issues of the role of guilt and the existence of God and the soul are raised. In crime and punishment, Dostoevsky argues that we cannot escape the judgments of our conscience no more than we can the escape air. Such an argument may have been a strong one in Victorian Russia but in post-Freudian modern America this idea does not have a chance, (comrade!). Allen clams the opposite is true. With wit and pessimism, Allen weaves a drama that regrettably shows the modern truth, “you’ll get over it.” You may need to resolve some meta-ethical issues first like Oh say, the “existence of God!” But you will get over it. Allen holds that Freud was right the Russian was wrong.

In crimes and misdemeanors, Alien’s tells the story of modern man’s battle with conscience where two parallel accounts of the conscience are presented. One common and recognizable, the other is more foreboding and rich. In the story, Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is a documentary filmmaker working on a pet project, a documentary about philosopher Louis Levy. As we all know, films about philosophers don't pay the rent! So Cliff's wife Wendy (Joanna Gleason) arranges for him to make a documentary about her brother Lester (Alan Alda), a famous TV comedian whose vapidity is exceeded only by his arrogance. While reluctantly making the film he meets Halley Reed (Mia Farrow) and find himself infatuated with Reed.

The other story line is about Dr. Judah Rosenthal, (Martin Landau) a prominent ophthalmologist with a successful practice, a loving family, and a reputation for generous charity work. But Rosenthal also has a secret: his mistress, Dolores (Anjelica Huston). What began as a casual fling has become uncomfortably intimate, and as he tries to break off the relationship, Dolores threatens to expose his infidelity to his wife and some “unorthodox” financial arrangements to his colleagues. His brother Jack has Dolores murdered at the request of Rosenthal and Rosenthal is left with a guilty conscience over the murderous affair (imagine that!). Allen seamlessly weaves the stories into one film with the comedy and drama only he is known for.

I will leave you to dialog with Judah yourself. And encourage you to watch a good movie and do some unpacking but I warn you when you stair into the abyss you find something starring back. Siskel and Ebert discussion is rich with ethical questions and shows the problematic and provocative nature of this movie. Watch them here.


This movie is a classic of from Woody Allen. Some of classic clips from the movie are at the bottom of the page.


This first clip is a powerful look at the inner diologue of Rosenthal





Concluding doxology

Does being sexy mean that life is financially easier? One girl goes on a mission to find out...

Personally I think - the truer proposition is "Girl's can firt there way though life. A flinty personalities will get you for the most part what they want - the sexy factor is just like adding steroids to the mix. I would take contention with her method a bit, As the sexy girl she flirts more, and thus gets more. But this little clip does show the power of estrogen and the clay like nature of men. I have read article after article in journals of sociality and psychology stating the same thing. Attractive people are hired more often, promoted more often, even trusted more. We are a visual culture and this is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to our visual tendency. Only the man that looks on things with a critical degree of equality and seeks to value all people with consistency will over come this modern trend. But prepare yourself, it is likely you will be marginalized for the pretty people are in control and don't like to have there glory diminished.

Value all people - for they are created in God's image. Help people, all people who are in need. Have an equal opportunity act of the soul, where you seek to help people base on the promise that in the presence of the truly needed and poor we will find the person of Christ with you as you are with them and maybe even find him in there eyes looking back at you.

The Truth is out - Hot covers a multitude of sins. Beautiful people do have it easier in life. Better stated the "B P" of this world can if they learn how to work people (manipulation) make there life easier. So to the woman out there rise above use your influence and favor for good, graciously take what is given you. Do not hate your beauty do not hide it or play it up. Just be yourself in God. God made you for others by making you the way you are. Live for others and you will be as beautiful on the outside as you are on the in.

why marriage?

In today’s divorce-ridden society, do young people still want to get married? This pod, from the producer’s of the Emmy nominated documentary “Song of Songs,” travels to colleges across the country asking students about their take on long term commitment.