American media outlets are having a lot of fun pillorying U.S. President Donald Trump because of his generalized statement about the Charlottesville, Virginia melee last weekend. The social media is also having a blast with it and the satire and comments continue unabated from all around the globe. Many of my fellow Canadians have also chimed in, both pro-Trump and anti-Trump, but mostly anti-Trump. As in the U.S., many are indignant over the fact that POTUS didn't lay the blame squarely on the white supremacists initially.
Well, as one who has a hard time staying out of a good argument, here are my two cents. To begin with, I would remind my countrymen that our Prime Minister also generalized blame and nobody is scourging him publicly. Justin Trudeau tweeted, "We know Canada isn't immune to racist violence & hate. We condemn it in all its forms & send support to the victims in Charlottesville." No specificity there. He essentially said what Donald Trump said, but maybe that's a small point since it isn't his country. By the way, this was reported from the American news site The Hill.
Second, Stephen Colbert, of late night TV fame, joked about Trump referring to the "Alt-Left" saying, "There is no Alt-Left". Ha, ha, big joke, audience laughs on cue. Well, actually, there is an Alt-Left. It's called AntiFa (Anti-Fascists). They are violent and they were in Charlottesville. Witnesses of this are many including New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg.
Third, Colbert joked about Trump favouring the anti-Semites in the crowd. A couple of things on this. Trump is no tacit anti-Semite and is no friend of the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville or elsewhere. This was proven by white supremacist Chris Cantwell who criticized Trump for giving his daughter to a Jew and later referred to Trump's son-in-law as that "Kushner bastard". Also, have you ever heard of BDS? It's an international organization that is fiercely anti-Israel (motivated by anti-Semitism) and there are bases in Canada, the U.S. and many other countries. The group was even endorsed here by the Green Party of Canada, though that party's leader, Elizabeth May, had the good sense to not do that.
To be sure, this issue is bigger than Donald Trump and he was right to say that America has a long history with racism. White supremacy and white privilege have historically been twin American idols. Meanwhile a majority of the American media is doing its level best to discredit the president with the over done questioning, the endless fever-pitch analysis and over the top reaction to his every word on the subject. The coverage has been glib at best. So much for journalistic impartiality.
Neo-Nazis banded together to chant their spew and with assault rifles, hand guns and tiki torches they claimed victimhood. AntiFa saw a bunch of skunks and started kicking them. Now, that was really smart. Rage from all around took over and a young woman lost her life in horrific fashion. Anti-hate protesters later assembled in front of Trump Tower and waved placards telling the president, "New York Hates You!" The hypocrisy of so many on this issue is palpable and it's really too bad that those who profess to condemn hate only ever see it in the people they don't like.
To be sure, the Trump administration has big problems and rage against the president seems to be all the rage. I think people of all political stripes need to look into their own hearts and honestly assess why they are so angry. Then I think we would all do well to re-read the story of The Good Samaritan and be reminded that true loving demands that we get over and rise above ourselves.
"You were made by God and you were made for God; until you understand that, your life is never going to make sense." Pastor Rick Warren, Saddleback Church.
Thursday, 17 August 2017
Saturday, 25 March 2017
Thoughts on The Shack
Though many Christians (and, I guess, curious non-Christians) were cautioned against seeing the movie The Shack, I went and saw it anyway. I just had to. After reading the book almost 10 years ago, I was curious to see how the movie was put together and, despite some obvious theological errors, I wasn't disappointed. The Shack is the fictional story of a man whose young daughter disappeared while on a family camping trip and was later discovered murdered in an abandoned shack in the mountains. The story recounts how sometime later the girl's father, Mack, was led back to the scene of the crime through a providential prompting by God. There, in a dream sequence, Mack meets the Holy Trinity - Papa (God), Jesus and Sarayu who was supposed to be the Holy Spirit. This "trinity" takes him on a journey through his pain and anguish and, ultimately, to a place of forgiveness and restoration.
To be sure, the story's author, William Paul Young, is no theologian. That much is clear. Here are some of the glaring errors: When "Papa" (the black woman playing God the Father) said she was with Jesus during His suffering on the cross, a red flag immediately went up in my mind. It is a cardinal tenet of Christianity that while Christ was dying on the cross He experienced hell, a total abandonment by His Father, taking on Himself what we deserve because of our sin. Also, I thought the centrality of Christ was minimized and there was the suggestion that no one in the Trinity had ultimate authority. That is to say, the Father had no more authority over the Son than the Son had over the Father. Again, this is wrong. Jesus's biblical identity is based on His perfect submission and obedience to the Father. His humanity was perfect because His Sonship was perfect. And the movie smacked of universalism, the idea that, in the end, everyone gets saved and goes to Heaven because God is love and wouldn't throw anyone into hell. Again, that's heresy and frankly, Young ought to know better given his background (Evangelical Protestant). Young's problem is he is trying so hard to not be a legalistic Pharisee-type that he ends up denying God's severity because of a misguided compassion. He may be well intentioned but it's been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
All that said, the movie was not without insight. I thought it dealt brilliantly with the very important related subjects of forgiveness and responsibility. The segment on "Wisdom" was especially poignant. In this part, Wisdom personified stepped down from her judgment seat and told Mack to sit in it and judge the world because every human being sits in judgment of his fellow man and of God. Wisdom asked Mack while he sat in the judgment seat, "Doesn't the legacy of brokenness go all the way back to Adam? And what about God? Isn't He at fault? He set all this in motion when He knew the outcome." There it is. Ultimately, we blame God for our wrongdoings and hardships. In this way, the movie defended God's honour. To make a long story short, Mack soon discovered that he wasn't up to the task of Judge. And neither are we, by the way.
This leads to my favourite part of the movie. It is when Papa confronted him with the awful truth that he (Mack) just didn't believe that God was good. We may say and believe that God is great but many doubt His goodness. Was God good when Mack's little girl was kidnapped and murdered? What about in the real world where people starve to death daily or are sold into slavery via human trafficking? Was God good while the Holocaust was going on?
Here is where we must learn the lesson of the Old Testament story of Job. Job was a man who lost everything yet refused to curse (blame) God, at least not at first. Because of that, He was more righteous than his dogmatic friends proving that theologians can be pretty useless when it comes to matters of the heart. The Book of Job ends with God pulling the carpet out from under everybody in the story (including Job) and calling all their judgments, questions and religious theorizing into question. All were struck silent before the King of the Universe who they saw, in the end, was very good - as well as great and mighty.
It's true that bad things happen in life, often to good people, but not because God is sadistic or vindictive. It is because people are sinful and all of creation has been affected by that. Why does God allow it to continue? No idea, but He won't let it go on forever. The Creator of everything from the billions of galaxies above down to the lowest amoeba below is more than capable of answering the thorniest of questions and making everything right in the end. A good lesson from The Shack is that God is good and is good all the time and before we ask Him why He allows bad things to happen, we would do well to remember that He could ask us the same question.
To be sure, the story's author, William Paul Young, is no theologian. That much is clear. Here are some of the glaring errors: When "Papa" (the black woman playing God the Father) said she was with Jesus during His suffering on the cross, a red flag immediately went up in my mind. It is a cardinal tenet of Christianity that while Christ was dying on the cross He experienced hell, a total abandonment by His Father, taking on Himself what we deserve because of our sin. Also, I thought the centrality of Christ was minimized and there was the suggestion that no one in the Trinity had ultimate authority. That is to say, the Father had no more authority over the Son than the Son had over the Father. Again, this is wrong. Jesus's biblical identity is based on His perfect submission and obedience to the Father. His humanity was perfect because His Sonship was perfect. And the movie smacked of universalism, the idea that, in the end, everyone gets saved and goes to Heaven because God is love and wouldn't throw anyone into hell. Again, that's heresy and frankly, Young ought to know better given his background (Evangelical Protestant). Young's problem is he is trying so hard to not be a legalistic Pharisee-type that he ends up denying God's severity because of a misguided compassion. He may be well intentioned but it's been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
All that said, the movie was not without insight. I thought it dealt brilliantly with the very important related subjects of forgiveness and responsibility. The segment on "Wisdom" was especially poignant. In this part, Wisdom personified stepped down from her judgment seat and told Mack to sit in it and judge the world because every human being sits in judgment of his fellow man and of God. Wisdom asked Mack while he sat in the judgment seat, "Doesn't the legacy of brokenness go all the way back to Adam? And what about God? Isn't He at fault? He set all this in motion when He knew the outcome." There it is. Ultimately, we blame God for our wrongdoings and hardships. In this way, the movie defended God's honour. To make a long story short, Mack soon discovered that he wasn't up to the task of Judge. And neither are we, by the way.
This leads to my favourite part of the movie. It is when Papa confronted him with the awful truth that he (Mack) just didn't believe that God was good. We may say and believe that God is great but many doubt His goodness. Was God good when Mack's little girl was kidnapped and murdered? What about in the real world where people starve to death daily or are sold into slavery via human trafficking? Was God good while the Holocaust was going on?
Here is where we must learn the lesson of the Old Testament story of Job. Job was a man who lost everything yet refused to curse (blame) God, at least not at first. Because of that, He was more righteous than his dogmatic friends proving that theologians can be pretty useless when it comes to matters of the heart. The Book of Job ends with God pulling the carpet out from under everybody in the story (including Job) and calling all their judgments, questions and religious theorizing into question. All were struck silent before the King of the Universe who they saw, in the end, was very good - as well as great and mighty.
It's true that bad things happen in life, often to good people, but not because God is sadistic or vindictive. It is because people are sinful and all of creation has been affected by that. Why does God allow it to continue? No idea, but He won't let it go on forever. The Creator of everything from the billions of galaxies above down to the lowest amoeba below is more than capable of answering the thorniest of questions and making everything right in the end. A good lesson from The Shack is that God is good and is good all the time and before we ask Him why He allows bad things to happen, we would do well to remember that He could ask us the same question.
Wednesday, 22 March 2017
Mice and Men
He was considered "yesterday's man" in a turbulent time and regarded as irrelevant in his political arena. He got a lot of attention among his peers, however it was mostly the wrong kind. He often went against the grain of popular opinion in the legislature, even opposing his own party publicly. He was viewed as an aristocrat who was out of touch with the common man. His colleagues couldn't understand how he kept getting re-elected because the general consensus was that he had very poor political skills, was an unattractive candidate and exercised poor judgment. He was unchurched and drank too much and was widely considered boorish and smutty and an embarrassment to be around. He was also thought to be opportunistic having switched from the Conservative Party to the Liberals and then, later, switching back to the Conservatives. So, it was a shock to the people of Great Britain when, on May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill was appointed Prime Minister.
At about the same time across the English Channel, an Austrian native and former army corporal was reviving beleaguered Germany, a nation in turmoil after its World War I defeat and harshly pinned down under the Treaty of Versailles. Unlike Churchill, Adolf Hitler had exceptional political skills. He knew how to make a put-down nation stand tall again. With a keen sense of his adopted nation's history and spirituality, the nation of Martin Luther after all, he quickly became the attraction of millions and a unifying figure. Even before World War II began, he enlarged Germany's territory by taking over his native Austria, all of Czechoslovakia and many of the demilitarized surrounding territories were re-militarized. The German economy soared, people were working (and marching) and the country felt very good about itself.
These are the two most talked about politicians of the 20th century. Much has also been written about them and many lessons can be drawn from their lives. History is replete with examples of outwardly shabby people stepping into greatness through acts of uncommon valour and service while outwardly attractive people bring ruin on themselves and others through nutty self-exaltation.
While the above examples are extreme by today's standards they still hold some stark lessons for today's politicians. New York real estate magnate Donald Trump captured the American public's displeasure with the status quo and won the presidency. It didn't matter what he said during the campaign because people were too frustrated to care about the truthfulness of his claims. They were fed up and Donald fanned the flames of their discontent. But now he's in office and what he says matters and if what he says publicly can't be substantiated, he's going to assassinate his own character. In Canada, the Liberal government wants to pass a motion against what it calls "Islamophobia". True, it's only a motion and not a law but getting official about such a thing gives it legs, ridiculous though it may be. It also reveals the tremendous shallowness and immaturity of the Trudeau government. What does the Prime Minister hope to achieve? That people's feelings can be legislated against?
While Churchill was jolted into reality in recognizing evil, his sinister enemy became more and more self-deceived. The awful lesson? Truth matters. Today's American and Canadian leaders, though more than two decades apart in age, seem to believe they can make their own ideas reality just by thinking them into reality. They also seem to think they are immune from the consequences of their words and actions. Well, truth and time walk hand in hand and neither leader is above truth or time. In the end, both will be remembered either for their hubris or their lack of it. What they think of themselves won't matter in the slightest but how things end up will depend on the choices they make now.
At about the same time across the English Channel, an Austrian native and former army corporal was reviving beleaguered Germany, a nation in turmoil after its World War I defeat and harshly pinned down under the Treaty of Versailles. Unlike Churchill, Adolf Hitler had exceptional political skills. He knew how to make a put-down nation stand tall again. With a keen sense of his adopted nation's history and spirituality, the nation of Martin Luther after all, he quickly became the attraction of millions and a unifying figure. Even before World War II began, he enlarged Germany's territory by taking over his native Austria, all of Czechoslovakia and many of the demilitarized surrounding territories were re-militarized. The German economy soared, people were working (and marching) and the country felt very good about itself.
These are the two most talked about politicians of the 20th century. Much has also been written about them and many lessons can be drawn from their lives. History is replete with examples of outwardly shabby people stepping into greatness through acts of uncommon valour and service while outwardly attractive people bring ruin on themselves and others through nutty self-exaltation.
While the above examples are extreme by today's standards they still hold some stark lessons for today's politicians. New York real estate magnate Donald Trump captured the American public's displeasure with the status quo and won the presidency. It didn't matter what he said during the campaign because people were too frustrated to care about the truthfulness of his claims. They were fed up and Donald fanned the flames of their discontent. But now he's in office and what he says matters and if what he says publicly can't be substantiated, he's going to assassinate his own character. In Canada, the Liberal government wants to pass a motion against what it calls "Islamophobia". True, it's only a motion and not a law but getting official about such a thing gives it legs, ridiculous though it may be. It also reveals the tremendous shallowness and immaturity of the Trudeau government. What does the Prime Minister hope to achieve? That people's feelings can be legislated against?
While Churchill was jolted into reality in recognizing evil, his sinister enemy became more and more self-deceived. The awful lesson? Truth matters. Today's American and Canadian leaders, though more than two decades apart in age, seem to believe they can make their own ideas reality just by thinking them into reality. They also seem to think they are immune from the consequences of their words and actions. Well, truth and time walk hand in hand and neither leader is above truth or time. In the end, both will be remembered either for their hubris or their lack of it. What they think of themselves won't matter in the slightest but how things end up will depend on the choices they make now.
Thursday, 23 February 2017
What is "Post-Truth"?
What a difference an evening can make. Late on Tuesday, November 8 of last year, it became shockingly apparent to the world that New York real estate magnate Donald Trump, reviled by many, was going to be the 45th President of the United States. Most people, with a few notable exceptions, thought his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would win it. Instead, Mrs. Clinton's quest for her dream job was denied by the people.
Another casualty from the election night was the credibility of the mainstream media. Outlet after outlet went public with the question, "How did we get it so wrong?" Shortly afterward came the pledges of soul-searching. New York Times publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., promised an examination of how they cover elections and he "rededicated" his newspaper to honest reporting.
Eight days after Trump's victory at the American polls, Oxford Dictionaries released its choice for Word of the Year. It was "post-truth". That's actually two words, but anyway. The term "post-truth" is supposed to designate the times we live in, namely, an age of relativism where truth is subjective, something that suits you - a kind of "You have your truths and I have mine" way of thinking. Absolutes and objective truth, we are led to believe, are so last century and are pretty much dead. Of course, truth cannot really die. It is not an object of power. If the whole world believes the Orwellian equation that 2+2=5, then the whole world is wrong. 2+2=4 and 4 exclusively. There is no "inclusiveness" of alternative answers to the sum of 2+2.
Disregard for the truth, however, is another matter. It makes media stars out of people like Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump. It came back to bite Trudeau, though. The evidence that truth is still very much alive presented itself, oddly enough, in Canadian media types. They recently mocked Trudeau's praise for Fidel Castro with their @trudeaueulogies tweets. Even Maclean's magazine called Justin a laughingstock. Everyone knows that the good things Trudeau said about Castro weren't true. The North American disregard for truth caused enough fed up people to elect Donald Trump as POTUS. His election has created a backlash from the alternative right (the "Alt-Right", it is called) and now people like Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute (the "Hail Trump!" guy) will get more attention. They and others will combat the lies of the Left with their own set of lies, the lies of the Alt-Right. Aside: according to the Toronto Star's political fact-checkers, Donald Trump lied 104 times during the presidential debates to Hillary Clinton's 13 lies. Some would call the Star's findings biased against Trump because that particular daily leans to the political Left. However, the point is, Trump didn't need to be truthful to win the election. He just had to get Fed Up America on his side and he did it by getting them angry, by being politically incorrect. That also works in a "post-truth" age.
If we really live in a "post-truth" world, why is everyone so upset with lies being told by Mr. Trump? If truth doesn't matter because we are past all that, then it simply doesn't matter what Donald Trump or any other leader says. So, if you want to believe that the world is now "post-truth", go right ahead. But if you keep getting upset by people who lie then you are declaring that the very idea of a "post-truth" world is just another lie itself.
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