a mishmash of reactions to watching Saved!

• I'm so tired of hearing people say "Hilary Faye". Can't they say "Hil" for short?

• I suppose the naivete of the main character is meant to be funny, but I also find it sad that innocence isn't a working strategy for life.
• Okay, the way the pastor uses "youth-speak" is great. Some forms and norms of communication are intended for differentiating social groups (e.g. by age). If someone is by definition excluded from a group, it doesn't matter how well he or she can adopt that group's language styles; he or she will just seem disturbing.
• If someone experiences a vision and/or is struggling with a moral dilemma, bringing in other believers to help advise or interpret should be a given. This is partly why isolating yourself is discouraged.
• Interesting choice in having one of the school's non-Christian outsiders also be a prickly rebel (and one who in actuality doesn't want to be expelled). For the movie to really portray judgmental attitudes as irrational, the outsider could have been a person who was in almost every way likable apart from being a non-Christian. But I suppose that making the outsider be defiant, mocking, etc. serves to underline just how much the outsider is "outside", and that this status is partly engineered by the outsider on purpose.
• I appreciate that it shows people smoking to rebel. I've always thought the extreme edge of adolescent rebellion, people doing something forbidden because it's forbidden, has tinges of absurdity. A rebel doing something stupid just to rebel thereby illustrates that his or her actions are still motivated and activated by rules. It turns out to be another subtle way of being controlled and not thinking for oneself.
• Good idea: evangelism to avert the eternal damnation of sinners like us. Bad idea: evangelism that isn't heartfelt, is by-the-numbers, and is so heavy-handed that it doesn't reach a person at a point of need.
• Y'know, private religious institutions, even schools, have the constitutional right to accept and reject participants for religious reasons. It's quite debatable whether the religious should remove themselves out of public society and instead isolate themselves into a self-selected alternative culture, but it's their right if they so choose. Sometimes I've heard Christians describe their childhoods as existing in a "Christian bubble" in which the "outside world" is kept safely at a distance. The undeniable problem is that the bubble prevents/dissaudes Christians from applying the gospel where it's needed most. It's notable that during his exceedling brief ministry, Jesus didn't "stay put" and wait for people to come to him.
• One of the more improbable aspects of the storyline is the fertility level involved.
• Oooo, the movie used some music from Jesus Christ Superstar. That'll now be in my head for a couple of weeks. I'm thankful it wasn't the "always thought that I'd be a disciple..."
• Tolerance is tolerance, and plain meanspiritedness is meanspiritedness. Yet it seems to me that it's at least partially a "two way street". Feuds escalate when people keep deciding to strike back instead of being the "bigger person" who defuses the situation by loving enemies and reaching out in a way that could be vulnerable.
• It can't be repeated enough: of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love. The two summary commands are loving God and loving people. Christians who see their beliefs as a set of social customs - don't do this, do volunteer there - and not as a transforming of self into a mold out of which lovable actions "overflow", are living a deficient Christianity. To state the obvious, one of Hil's primary missteps is that she doesn't practice the habits of examining her own motives and of empathizing with those she encounters.
  
• The communal correction of a fellow brother or sister (for we are all adopted in) can appear harsh. However, it exposes the lie that deep love is continually pleasant or blind. Allowing someone you care for to self-destruct is indifference, not love.
• Odd how the movie shows someone immediately going through a full-blown crisis of belief at the first hint of confusion or dissatisfaction. The more common experience is people realizing that they must accept some of their questions going unanswered, and keep steady. As I've read somewhere, it makes no difference what you profess, atheist or not: you'll have moments of serious doubt.
• The scenes between the pastor and the mother are sooooo infuriating. Look at all the pretty red flags each of them ignores! And if there's no physical contact, there's no need to worry! Puh-leaze. Examine your emotions, you simpletons. How can we dare to face God until we understand and reveal our true face even to ourselves?
  
• The pastor facilely explaining his circumstances as a divine judgment, and the mother's priceless response, are well done. A major peeve of mine is Christians who twist all they see into an egocentric picture of divine intervention.
  
• Nice ending, although the attempts to bar people from the prom are strange since my impression of those functions is that they're generally pretty loose and open-ended. On the other hand, letting in the people who broke specific rules in order to attend is a clear-cut example of awarding bad behavior, no?
  

drop the negativity

Negativity as an overall stance on life is part of what I tried to describe in my entry about a symptom of real despair. Such people will retort that negative expectations are more often, and more likely, right. They could also claim, quite self-evidently, that looking out for problems, mistakes, and flaws is a much better tactic for good achievement than merely shrugging one's shoulders and "hoping for the best". I'm not arguing against those points.

Nevertheless, acknowledging the negatives in every part of life is distinct from treating negativity as an "axiom" or core ingredient of perspective. For the mature, a state which some never reach, attitude and response aren't controlled by external events. Two people in an identical negative situation will feel persecuted; this is only natural. What separates them is the pivotal question "Now what?" The person who structures their beliefs with negativity will answer "I expected this all along. I can try to do something about it, but it probably won't work." The person who has dropped negativity will answer "This is a setback. My reaction to it defines who I choose to be. I refuse to assent to this, because that would mean I'm complicit in it. Even if I fail, I will do something about it."

You can be realistic without being negative. You can be prudent and shrewd without being negative. You can be skeptical without being negative. You can find faults without being negative. Badness is out there, everywhere you care to search. The negativity lies in pretending that badness is all there is.

two unconditional loves

As you might expect, the first unconditional love is from God to fallen creation, including us.

The second unconditional love is the reciprocation of love from us to God regardless of Him not being reliable in the common ways we define reliability in our everyday lives.

honest, courteous debate is not an inquisition

A Christian who questions widespread Christian beliefs or openly probes the foundations of Christian doctrine shouldn't expect his or her own statements to go unquestioned. Someone who takes a stand for a viewpoint that is incompatible with the rock on which others have built their entire lives shouldn't expect them to be immediately convinced. Nor should they expect everyone in the "conversation" (that word has undeniably better style and PR-value than "debate" or "argument", doesn't it?) to claim that contradictory statements can both be correct and therefore nobody is ever "wrong". In fact, it's even true that when people are discussing issues whose resolution determines what the very definition of "heresy" is, one or more of them just is a "heretic". (Of course, it's still terribly insensitive and dismissive and nonconstructive to apply the label to a fellow Christian who happens to think differently.)

It's simply unrealistic to talk or blog about extremely important ideas in a casual or, worse, intellectually sloppy manner. I have no problem with continual review of the traditional, time-honored stances of Christian thought. My contention is that when it happens, passionate dialogue inevitably "comes with the territory", and also that it's unfair to only allow one "side" (we're all on the same one, ultimately...) to apply critical thinking to the other, as if one side's statements are all sincere seeking after the truth and the other's are all reflexive narrow-minded defensiveness.

a raspberry smoothie defeats existentialism every time

Earlier this week, I was standing in a long, slow line at a grocery store in the evening, and my mind wandered for a while since I had no other options. I began to question the way I spend my life and what I want my future to be and possible changes to align the two. I pondered what characteristics and actions had most likely produced my current circumstances and habits. Eventually I made it out to my car with the groceries, still feeling pensive and swallowed by ennui.

On the way back I bought a raspberry smoothie at a drive-thru (no, I don't do this regularly). After about four drawn-out sips, all my prior misgivings evaporated. The questions were still there, but I was now floating untouched above them: consumption and aimless enjoyment victorious.

Now just imagine if I'd had the latest cell phone model with me when I was standing in the checkout line. I could've played some game or gotten caught up on my twitters, and completely avoided a slough of teleological sinkholes.

God is not reliable

Before beginning, I must reiterate that my writing consists of my personal beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and ideals (but does not always match, as I anonymously admit, my actual behavior). Also, neither my experiences nor doctrines nor biblical interpretations are necessarily similar to other Christians. In any case, I'm compelled to state a conclusion that I'm sure many Christians would contest: God is not reliable.

My meaning rests on to what "reliable" refers. In this case, I don't intend to assert that God is disloyal, or uncaring, or untrustworthy, or implacable (or that He won't eliminate evil eventually). My point is that God simply cannot be relied upon in any of the obvious ways that humanity relies upon other things. My secondary point, which immediately follows, is that it's despicably dishonest to say and/or pretend otherwise.

For clarity, I shall enumerate.

• God is not reliable like a machine. A machine's reliability is that, assuming the machine is fully intact and functional, it will carry out the same purpose in the same way. A calculator will reach the same answer for the same calculation (it doesn't "think", by the way - it routes electrons). An engine will convert fuel into work. A ramp will transfer between vertical and horizontal motion. God does not exhibit mechanical reliability. Confronted with an identical situation, God cannot be relied upon to act identically. Confronted with an identical prayer, God cannot be relied upon to respond identically. And so forth.
• God is not reliable like a saint. A saint's reliability is that, assuming the saint has sufficient integrity and self-control, the saint will make a moral decision in a predictable way. God does not exhibit saintly reliability. Hypothetically, if a saint had to make the same "tough choices" as God, he or she wouldn't do what God does. For instance, if one of two people must die, and the first person is unashamedly selfish but the second is generous, an "all-powerful saint" would select the first to die (again, given the lousy requirement that one of the two will die). This is emphatically not the constant outcome in reality, where God is all-powerful and holy yet the universe doesn't unfold as if a saint was "running things". And this holds for the meting out of both punishments and rewards.
  
• God is not reliable like money. Money's reliability is that, assuming the currency retains sufficient value and acceptability, money will enable someone to meet needs and, with the remainder, wants. God does not exhibit monetary reliability. People's needs aren't always met, regardless of what they believe, do, and pray. Admittedly, to some degree the needs of a person are negotiable; we few who are fortunate to live in the rich part of the world don't realize how little is necessary for painful survival. But even if only considering needs to the extent of this minimal baseline, not everyone who trusts God to provide will fare as well as those who somehow have money (or indeed anything tradable).
  
• God is not reliable like health care. Health care's reliability is that, assuming the treatment is done well, health care relieves and sometimes cures sickness and injury. God does not exhibit medical reliability. He does not heal everyone nor prevent all accidents. Prayer is no guarantee that He will.
  
• God is not reliable like natural laws. The reliability of natural laws is that, assuming the laws are correctly understood and applied, reality proceeds along the same patterns as before. God does not exhibit predictability. His responses, much less His initiatives, don't follow well-worn paths. No matter how much we learn about Him, we cannot reduce Him to certainties.
  

I believe that honest Christians have no choice but to reject the notion that God is reliable. Having rejected the notion, they shouldn't proclaim it. There are a number of plausible reasons and theories for why God is perfect and powerful while not being reliable (e.g. He knows better than us, His goal isn't to make life easy, He is simultaneously just and merciful, etc.). Perhaps Christians should conscientiously cease to trumpet God's reliability and divert their focus to explaining why He is not.

replace not negate

Previously I identified and commented on the scapegoat everyone can agree on: "American culture". Since then, it has remained a convenient, popular, invincible, and vague nemesis. Christians invoke it so very often in sermons, bible studies, etc. (And if a Christian hankers for an additional ever-trendy target for criticism and/or a rationalization for church ineffectiveness, there's always the "Christian subculture".)

In case this isn't clear: I'm tired of hearing it. As supposed residents of a new upside-down kingdom, we should do more than continually point out that the prevailing culture is defective. Each accusation against "the culture" should precede a counterpoint, an alternative, perhaps adhering to the format: "You have heard it said...but I say..." The replacement must be unambiguous and specific and either meet approximately the same set of needs or contain an explanation for why not.

Don't bother to establish the failure of culture unless providing something better.