The Highest Form of Hope

You know when you've written a post, and you press "publish", and then you get this kind of sick feeling like - I'm not sure I really meant that... Well, that's happenned far too often lately.

Furthermore, I think that I've started to write about things I should be talking to people about, there's not enough accountability in cyber space.

Lastly, I have found myself checking my email daily just to find out if certain people liked what I wrote, and I think to myself... What can I write that will make me look intellegent or even godly?... Not healthy.

So this is it, I'm signing off, at least for a time.
Maybe I'll be talking to you face to face more often now.

Millet: The Sower

Part of the benefits of being an art student is learning to evaluate images. And now more than ever, we are an image-infatuated society. We are able to view images live from around the world. We view images for entertainment in movies, magazines, and on the internet. Images are more accessable than ever, but we no longer understand how to evaluate them.

Over the weekend I watched a movie starring Bruce Willis called Tears of the Sun. First, I would like to apologize to anyone who really enjoyed this movie, or found it powerful - in no way am I trying discredit your experience. My only aim is to explain the power of images.
The movie is about an American platoon ordered to evacuate an American doctor (with a low cut tanktop) from Nigeria as the country slips into bloody "ethnic cleansing". The doctor will not leave without the refugees under her care, so the Bruce Willis (the commanding officer) and his gang decide to help evacute the refugees as well, trekking through the jungle to reach Camaroon. On the journey they completely disregard the rules of engagement and Willis sacrifices half of his platoon for thirty refugees
AS IF! This would NEVER HAPPEN!!!!! When have American interests in Africa ever included evacuating nationals? Any Western country for that matter??!!!
If any American officer ever did this this he would be court marshalled!
Okay, the plot has serious flaws and is designed to create a myth about America's role in third world countries - not an uncommon problem with Hollywood blockbusters.
The BIG problem I had with this film was its use of images to bring across its point.
We've all seen the images that came out of Rwanda - news footage showing people getting getting hacked or shot to death; bodies strewn throughout city streets; mobs and piles of burning tires. This movie practically recreated these exact images - it makes me think that this movie was an answer to the Rwandan genocides saying that America and the West DO get involved and help nationals and not just evacuate its own citizens. This is a lie. By using the exact type of images that were seen in Rwanda, subconsciously we can make the conclusion and justification that the West did its part.
For me, images of dead or dying people (especially children), rape, and dehumanizing nudity are sacred. Films like Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda, and others have effectively used images of violence in order to humanize large scale suffering. Images such as these should not be thrown around indisciminantly like they mean nothing. This is the third problem I had with the movie. It used repeated images of violence, rape and even of a dead newborn in order to stir the emotions of the audience, not to do something about the problems in third world countries, but to blame the people who live there and to again justify and support the myth that the West is bringing peace and democracy to these third world countries.

Lindisfarne Gospels - Carpet Page

Universalism: The doctrine of universal salvation.
Flirt: To deal playfully, triflingly, or superficially with.

I don't have a real head for traditional theology. I like to think "big picture", and often I find myself looking at things from perspectives that sometimes shock and disturb others (or just confuse them). Sometimes this is an asset. And other times I think that I might be flirting dangerously if I don't talk to others about my thoughts on theology - I have a tendancy to follow my thoughts down the garden path to who knows where.

Particularly, I've always struggled with hell. I'm sure that I'm not alone. It just seems to me that God's mission and purpose has always been and always will be to reconcile all humanity to Himself. It seems like hell can't really fit with that plan - at least not in the way I've understood hell. Yes, we have free will. But there's no denying that some of us have more of a chance to make a decision to follow Christ than others (from an evangelical perspective). I certainly can understand the need for a hell. This world is full of evil - people do horrible things to each other. Reading The Great Divorce was very helpful, but I almost came out of it with more questions than answers. For one, it was from a Eurocentric point of view - the assumption that everyone had at least heard about the gospel (or Jesus) in some shape or form because all the characters come from a Christianized society. Secondly, the idea that we are eternal and that our choices exist outside time and space bordered on Calvinism, predestination and such. I'm not sure I agree with this.

Other than The Great Divorce, I've never heard an explaination of hell that has really satisfied me. What I do know is that this issue is very closely associated with our understanding of salvation and how we view those of different religions and even different cultures.

I DO believe that Christ is the truth - that it is not Buddha or Mohammed who will save humanity. I also believe that there are truths in every religion: that all human striving for truth reflects the truth of Christ (including our own faulty understanding of Christianity). I just cannot believe that our salvation hinges on our understanding of God. Understanding is good, it can lead to a change of heart - but it is the change of heart that is the decision to follow Christ - NOT the acceptance of a certain theological facts. Yes theology is important. But it does not save us.

More and more I am leaning toward the idea that those who practice different religions or no religion at all, but have decided to follow the way of Christ without even knowing who Christ is will be saved. These are the righteous Gentiles like the centurian and others Jesus encountered outside the Jewish faith. These people are blessed because they believed without seeing. Jesus had high esteem for these people, yet, they had not heard the "good news". Otherwise the gospel as we have understood becomes intrinsically eurocentric and even racist. If we believe that God has chosen to reveal the gospel to only to people in certain people groups and cultures and all those who have not heard are not given any choice in matter (they just go to hell), what does this tell us about God? That's not the type of god I see in Jesus.

So here's where I'm going. Maybe the "good news" is not the oppertunity to accept or reject Christ. Maybe the good news is the oppertunity to enter the kingdom of God and take part in his work of reconciliation. Everyone does have the choice to accept or reject Christ, even though they may never hear his name. Thus, our mission as the church is not to bring salvation (Christ did this already) to people, but to make disciples of them. Our mission is not to get people to accept certain theological facts, (though theology is part of discipleship, it is not the goal of discipleship) but to introduce Jesus.
Still not sure how hell fits into all this....

Am I way out there? Am I just flirting with universalism?
Let me know your thoughts on this - maybe I need a theological kick in the teeth.

1. Night at the Roxbury
2. Braveheart
3. Cool Runnings
4. Fight Club
5. The Godfather
6. Karate Kid
7. The Little Mermaid
8. Matrix
9. Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail
10. Snatch
11. Star Wars
12. Top Gun
13. X-men

Well, no one won. But don't be disapointed, you're all winners for trying!