Why We Can't Make Friends and Influence People

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Deut. 6:5

"The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any who did understand and seek God. They have all turned aside; they have all become filthy. There is none that does good; no, not one." Ps. 14:2-3

"Jesus said unto him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.'" Matt. 22:37-38 (c.f. Mark 12:30)

"There is none righteous; no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seek after God." Rom. 3:10-11

Our "best" is dull anarchy.

To love God, to seek Him with all that you are, to desire Him above all others, saving yourself only for Him, obsessing yourself only over Him---that is the pinnacle and peak of all morality. If we are to be perfect (Matt. 5:48) and holy (I Peter 1:15-16), then that is the road we must take. And yet Scripture declares that "none do good," an absurd statement from our point of view. We see good deeds all the time. We may even have done a few ourselves. That, however, is our problem. We define "good" as doing "good things," any and every good thing, as many as we can as often as we can. Our view of morality is scattered and fragmented, with "good deeds" being a cobbled together collection of equally-sized stones that we pile upon the ground. Maybe if our pile is big enough, we'll be all right in the end.

God has a very different view of morality, however. It is not fragmented and scattered but hierarchical and structured. It is not like equally-sized stones piled upon the ground, but rather like unequally-sized stones built fitly together into a solid structure, like an arch. And just like an arch, there is a keystone, a singular prime good atop the hierarchy that holds the whole edifice together: love God, with all that you are and all that you've got.

Morality as hierarchical art.

This is one of the most offensive (and thus most easily forgotten) truths of Christianity: the "golden rule" is actually the silver rule. What we thought and have taught to be the first and greatest commandment is actually the derivative of another one greater still. And why shouldn't we have made such a mistake? To "love others as yourself" is easy enough to believe. It makes sense and has a certain emotional satisfaction about it. It is also easy to identify and easier to appreciate because it is very practical: it produces results that can be measured, and so we can quantify its success.

Thus, the so-called "golden rule" has become a cliche, an idol, a golden calf and sacred cow all across the world. And as with all idolatry, the truth brings the sword to it and leaves everybody outraged, for what is more outrageous than loving God first, above all others? Above your neighbors, above your guests (Luke 10:38-42), above the poor (Matt. 26:6-13), above your parents (Matt. 8:21-22) and all your family (Mark 3:32-35) including your spouse and children and all other relations (Matt. 10:34-38; Luke 14:26-27), above all your possessions (Luke 14:33, 18:22-25), and even above yourself and all your realization and fulfillment and discovery and aggrandizement (Matt. 10:39; Mark 8:34-35; John 12:25)? In any and every case, we are left with only one conclusion: God first, God only, and God always.

That is why we can't make friends and influence people, why we can never be respectable or fashionable. It is also why "none do good." Loving God is the perfection of all morality, the solid and sure foundation of all goodness and decency. To try and "be good" by "doing good" without this prime good is like trying to build an arch without a keystone, or trying to win a spelling bee without even knowing the alphabet. You may accomplish an impressive scattering of stones or string of gibberish, but it all falls short of the glory of God. You have forgotten the vital piece, the glue that holds the whole structure together and erect. You have forgotten God, and that  is what reduces your morality to rubble, and your righteousness to filthy rags.

 

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Legalists and Shades of Grey: Why everyone is wrong (as explained by an orthodox rebel)

The following is a comment I dropped over at another blog. My comment was in relation to a discussion about legalists and literature, viz., how they usually approach all literature from a very narrow point-of-view that prevents the literature from having any positive growth and/or change in their life. I agreed with most of what was said, up until a certain paragraph. That was where the fun began.

"For every [legalist], plot can be boiled down to these elements: Someone is right. Someone is wrong. And Someone is bound to be damned if they keep it up. That's all that matters. Insight into things like life, love, pain, greed, sacrifice, hate, bravery, desire, and the common human condition are just so much window dressing [to them]." (by "Darrell," the site director for the blog)

I take issue with this statement, Darrell, though not for the reasons that you may think.

I am an English major (having just received my Masters last year) and an aspiring author (I'm working through my first novel even as we speak), and I completely agree with your main premise: [Legalists] do not get out of books what they're supposed to get out of books (viz., an enlightenment and enlargement of the mind and soul) because they come to every book with a narrowly constructed box that they try to jam everything into kicking and screaming. The world is larger than they suppose, and God larger still. This, we agree on.

However, I disagree that that box is simply "someone's right and someone's wrong and the latter will be damned if they don't turn around." Rather, I think the box is more "someone's right in my specific way and someone's wrong in my specific way and the later will be damned if they don't turn around in my specific way." [Legalists] have their man-made preconceived notions about what is "holy" and what is "damnable," and that is their error: their moral compass has been tinkered with by human hands, and only an act of God can blast the thing apart and rebuild it correctly. In short, their moral compass is skewed and cramped; that is their flaw. I know that you (and everyone here [on your blog]) would soundly agree with that.

Your actual statement, however, seems to imply that the [legalist's] flaw is not that their moral compass is skewed, but rather that they have a moral compass at all. Though I am sure that that was not your overt meaning, I still feel the need to caution against such implications.

Shades of grey do serve a dramatic purpose (both in novels and real life), but our world is not simply shades of grey anymore that it is simply black and white. In fact, if there were no "black and white," then the very concept of "shades of grey" would lose all meaning.

Simply put, "Someone is right [and] Someone is wrong [a]nd Someone is bound to be damned if they keep it up" may be simplistic, but it is still true, at least in this regard: "Except you repent, you will all perish" (Luke 13:3). The truth is that there is someone who is "right" and someone who is "wrong": God is right, and we are wrong; and unless we repent, we will perish. It is either-or. There is no middle ground.

I write this knowing full well that ninety-nine percent of everyone here will agree in some degree with what I am saying, but I still see this as a necessary caution. In correctly pointing out the suffocating claustrophobia that passes for [legalist] moralism, we must not turn and commit the opposite yet equal error of jettisoning black and white morality in its entirety. Shades of grey do exist, and thus we must approach others with compassion and understanding; but black and white exist too, and thus our compassion must include Jesus' warning: without repentance towards God, there is only damnation.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Homily 15: Life as Art (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not...." Daniel 1:8a

Life is like art: it involves drawing the line somewhere. The construction of ourselves and the shaping of our souls entails making true choices that result in solid stances. Going "with the flow," as an ultimate principle of life, is never a good idea. We can "flow" with peripheral issues, but at the center we must be stable. Without that central stability, we are no better than a wave caught in the winds (James 1:6).

Now, by "peripheral issues," what is meant is circumstances. In one sense, we can and should "flow" with circumstances in that we have no control over them: only God does. He constructs what we go through; what is left to us is how we go through it. It is that latter part that is central: when it comes to our environment, we must be as easy as a breeze; when it comes to the moments of choice, of character and holiness, of Christ-likeness (especially in the moments that we do not expect), we must be as solid as a rock.

Look at Daniel: He flowed with the peripherals of life. When the Babylonians came and took him as a child, he did not resist, nor did he fuss at being made a part of the king's court. However, he was solid on the essentials: "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself." This instance is not unique. Look at Joseph: He did not resist his servitude and imprisonments, but he still fled from Potiphar's wife. What we see in these stories is a very difficult yet liberating truth: being a man or woman or principles does not mean a life of paralysis and petrification. On the contrary, without sure and settled principles, choices and actions are impossible. Without a fundamental understanding of where you stand and where you will and will not go, there is no possibility of any movement whatsoever. If the basic lines of your life are not set and stable, the there is no possibility of a picture.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

On Proper and Cowardly Pacifism (as explained by an orthodox rebel)

"Ye that love the Lord, hate evil..." Ps. 97:10a

Pacifism, though still purported as something unquestionably good, can turn into a very serious kind of evil. Proper pacifism believes in fighting. It believes in fighting because it believes in good and evil. It has a moral vision, and as such believes that the good should be fought for and the evil fought against. As a result, it never believes in fighting for its own sake or for crooked or vain causes. It stays out of and condemns any fighting that was irresponsible and unjust; not because of the fighting, but because of the irresponsibility and injustice. Many famous thinkers of the early 20th century (like G.K. Chesterton) where such pacifists. For them, there was good in the world, and it was worth fighting for against evil. They were warriors who knew when to war as well as how.

Today, however, the case is reversed. Most pacifists stay out of and condemn all fighting because it is fighting. They don't believe in fighting anymore, for anything or any reason. This wimpy and cowardly pacifism (which is rampant today in most antiwar protests) is a direct result of losing a moral vision. An insidious relativism has eroded away any vestige of a moral center. Right and wrong become an issue of individual subjectivism, and now we dare not "impose" "our" morality on another (even while they terrorize and kill others). Ps. 97:10 contains a rebuttal to this mentality: a love of God necessarily entails a hated of evil, because you keep the vision of the good before your eyes. Consequently, everything that is evil, everything in deviation of the vision, becomes more clear and glaring in the light of that vision. A hatred of evil is the only healthy hatred there is, and it is only possible when we walk in the light of the holiness and righteousness of God. Once lose that and you will grow blind to evil and lose all incentive to fight against it for the sake of the good.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010