Month: November 2016

We live in and interesting time in human history- particularly in the Western world where “rugged individualism” and the profit motive are considered virtues which grease the wheels of enterprise, and by extension, make the whole world go round.   All of our marketing and advertising is an appeal to eg0- we should want to show off the nicest car, look sexy in a bathing suit, and enjoy the all of the luxuries we can get onto a credit card.

Unfortunately, the wisest of us have learned that just feeding an individuals ego creates only the most vain, shallow, and selfish monsters conceivable.   There has to come a time of reckoning for everyone when they have the epiphany that the insatiable ego is the chief problem in society, and the greatest source of unhappiness.   True happiness is only achieved by denying one’s ego-  by embracing the opposite-  a truly altruistic life.

Perhaps this was express by no one better than Albert Einstein:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical elusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein

The solution, Einstein says, is to expand our care and compassion to an ever widening circle.  We are capable of empathy in a way that no other living creature can.  We have boxed in our feelings of care and concern to primarily ourselves, and a few choice people around us, and we are poorer and more unhappy for it.   When we removes that restriction, and break through the “us vs. them” mentalities that are some prevalent, we can be free to experience the universe as it was created for us.

For those of us who frequent evangelical or Bible churches, we have a fondness to discuss the “Good News” of salvation. Rarely will a Sunday go by when we are not reminded of the once-for-all, salvific work of Christ upon the cross. It is the moment that mankind was redeemed, the payment of our sins was settled. The worthy died for the unworthy, purchasing our eternal salvation. As Isaiah says:

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18).

This was one of the first Bible verses I remember hearing when I converted to Christianity.

Although Christ’s work upon the cross, by itself, without anything we could add to it, did indeed effect our salvation, I would suggest that this text should never be divorced from its context. Although we frequently quote it as a proof-text Christ’s actions achieving our forensic righteousness before God, there is a verse just before it that needs to sink deep into the hearts and minds of believers of all persuasions:

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:16,17)

So much of Christianity has embraced only the “I got mine” aspect of the text. “I got my salvation– my free ticket”. And we ignore the emphatic mandate that righteousness- the living, breathing kind we are supposed to exemplify- acts on the behalf of justice. And the definition of justice in God’s estimation is exerting ourselves on behalf of the powerless and the disenfranchised.

It is not a matter of just ceasing from evil– it is actively hindering evil (reprove the ruthless), and aiding the less fortunate who are in need and unable to help themselves.