A Voter's Dilemma

From that political questionnaire I mentioned a few posts back, the question was asked whether voting in elections was a required qualifier for the status of "good citizen." It was presumed by several that such was the case. I, however, take a different view.

I think that I am a better citizen for the fact that I don't generally vote. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a hard time believing that it is responsible for me to make an active decision on an issue that I haven't spent uncounted hours researching, on whose outcome (either way) the fruit I cannot predict. How is it responsible for me to contribute to decisions that will affect the lives and welfare of others if I don't understand how those people will be affected? How could that possibly make me a good citizen?

A vote for George Bush is an easy example. Many voted for him solely for his ostensible stand against abortion. Yet his presidency has not (to my knowledge) diminished the rate of abortion or affected its legality and has instead ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. How am I supposed to choose between the two: a possibility (some would say slim) of saving hundreds of thousand or perhaps millions of infant lives vs. the probable saving of hundreds of thousands of lives that we are ending in addition to abortion? Now, not being versed in politics, news, probability, and the realistic casualties attributable to a yea or a nay vote in regard to Bush, how can I be expected to decide? How dare somebody suggest that I have to choose who dies in order to be a "good" citizen?

I am not competent to vote and neither are bulk of the teeming hordes that do.

To this, I've been asked whether I don't trust myself (a spirit-led follower of Christ) to make better decisions than the uninformed pagan on the street—whether I don't think my vote is a better vote than the non-believer's vote.

Actually, no. I don't trust myself to make a better choice than the equally uninformed person on the street. It has been said to me that "the ones who vote, get their votes counted and the people they vote for are elected to office." I completely agree and that is why I cannot in good conscience take part. By voting my ignorance, I am actively deciding on something I should not be deciding. It's for this reason that the PCA (my church denomination) isn't congregational in its government. As a church, we recognize that some people aren't qualified to be the deciding vote on matters of doctrine; doesn't it make sense that there are people who are equally unqualified to be the deciding vote on matters of state?

I am not, in fact, saying that "Christians are being good citizens by letting elections be decided by people who more than likely spend even less time than they did." I am saying that two wrongs do not make right and that for me to vote out of my ignorance just because other people are doing so would fly in the face of that very cliché.

Politics is the only realm of life I can think of in which the unknowledgeable are encouraged to act as experts—and chastised if they don't. Chemistry? Auto repair? Financial management? Theology? Psychology? Medicine? In none of these areas is ignorance given a pass. And the political realm may be even more intricate and complicated than the majority of other fields, and yet we treat it as if its something in which anyone should engage. That just strikes me as irresponsible.

Wincing at What?

A typical response one may hear (and by this, I mean I do hear) to the concept of attending a film that contains less wholesome aspects is that one shouldn't take enjoyment from evil. This kind of expression might be found in conversation like:

"So, The Dane, what's your favourite movie of all time?"

"Well, it's pretty much a toss up between Snow Falling on Cedars and Fight Club - with Seven Samurai trailing in a close third."

"Oh really? They're that good, huh? Maybe I'll have to check them out. What are they rated?"

"Hm. Well, both Fight Club and Snow Falling on Cedars are rated R. And Seven Samurai predates the MPAA and is Japanese, so it's not rated."

"Hm. Rated R, huh? For what?"

"Well, Fight Club is pretty violent and there's quite a bit of foul language, and..."

"What about the sex? Nudity?"

"Well, Fight Club has a pretty surreal sex scene and nudity. And Snow Falling on Cedars doesn't have any nudity but there's a pretty steamy love scene in there. I wouldn't want to watch it with my mom*, if you know what I mean."

"And those are your favourites? I don't know, I just don't think that we should be entertained by sin."

And yes, I have actually had some form of that conversation many several times with many several people. And it always baffles me. I never understand it.See, the thing of it is this:

One doesn't have to approve of every motive, action, or event in a film to find it worthwhile anymore than one has to approve of every motive, action, or event in the Bible to find it worthwhile.

It is not a just criticism to declare that I find the reading of Scripture repugnant because it contains salacious passages like Ezekiel 16:25 ("At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, spreading your legs to any passerby and multiplying your whoring"). It would be like asking in astonishment after someone proclaims that they love the Word of God: "What?! You love whoring?"

Simply put, the presence of sin in something one enjoys does not mean that it is the sin that one enjoys.

Another old stand-by is the admonition: "I just think that we should dwell on whatever is true and noble and just and lovely and of good report."

Again, if this is to be used as broadly as one might use it, we rule out the reading of Scripture, for Scripture is filled, stem to stern, with all manner of things that are neither true nor just nor lovely nor of good report. And yet, we declare the Bible good - even as it declares itself to be good.

The crux, then, is not in the presence of fouls thing in the make-up of the which we find worthwhile. It is elsewhere. It is, perhaps, in the reading of the thing. In the individual's reaction to the thing. As an adult, I could watch Schindler's List and be properly overwhelmed by the horror and folly of mankind. As a seventh grader, I most certainly would have been thinking: Bοοbs!

The fact of the matter is that in either Fight Club or Snow Falling on Cedars, there are parts and pieces that - if one were to cull out and focus all of one's attentions and enjoyment upon - would be considered unhealthy. That is why we rate these movies with an R rating. It is our way of saying not that the movies are bad, but that we are warning off those with immature sensibilities. It is our way of saying: "Look. This movies contains material that you, as the childish (in mind or faith or motive), will not be able to properly appreciate. Come back when you're older."

And really, if you're an adult, processing things in an immature fashion, please hope for better for yourself. If you walk into a movie like 300 or Black Snake Moan or Cinema Paradiso and you are titillated as my seventh-grade self would have been, that is really just sad. I'm not saying that you should go out and subject yourself to a deluge of stuff that you have a certain weakness for; I am saying that you do have a weakness and should seriously consider why you have this weakness and how to overcome it.

*note: Yes. I did indeed watch Snow Falling on Cedars with my mom. But it wasn't as uncomfortable as you might think. At least not for me.

These Were the Ashes They Lent Me

Ah, 'tis the season to be lenting. Fa la la la la, la la la lah. As remarked elsewhere, I'll be celebrating Lent this year by giving up Lent. I know, I know. It'll big a big sacrifice, but I like to think I'm up to the challenge. Last year, for Lent, I gave up not commenting on Scott's site while he gave up the internet for forty days. I almost made it too, but I got lazy near the end. Isn't that always the way with us Lenters.

When I was again considering what I find so deeply distasteful about Lent (and at root, unchristian), I thought of a number of issues related to the topic, but I won't share those. Well, not all of them anyway. I treated one aspect last year. Here's another.

Lenters announcing their fast strikes me as something quite akin to trumpeting one's prayer or offering. The Lookatme-Lookatme aspect is almost inescapable. Everybody is happy to announce what they are sacrificing oh-so-noblely this year. What are you giving up? Oh for me? The internet. For me? Chocolate! For me? Caffeine! For me? RSS Feeds! For me? Pornography! For me? Boasting in artifice!

Making time in one's schedule to contemplate with sobriety the life, obedience, death, justification, and ascension of Christ is a great thing. We should do it all the time. And constantly be reminding ourselves to think thusly. But so much of Lent-practice strikes me as Hey everybody! Look what a sacrifice I'm gonna make for Jesus!

Look. Our entire lives are to be a sacrifice. A living sacrifice. And we are to submit ourselves humbly before our God, neither parading our deeds nor trusting in our own covenants to merit us good. If you want to participate in Lent as a personal reminder to spend more time with and in the Word, than please do so. Only don't parade it. Don't lift it up as if it is some Holy Thing.

But! Just so you guys won't think I'm a total Grinch, here's a picture from a couple days ago on Ash Wednesday with a little Ash on my forehead:

Honour the Emperor

After an interesting run of comments on a particular post over at Memoirs of a Samurai Barber, it seems the comment system broke. And try as I might, I could not fix it. So, in a fit of sentimentality, I'm going to post a blog all old-school, like we did back in the day. For those of you who weren't traversing across the consolidated bloginalia in the year 2000, it was common for one blogger to write a post and for other bloggers to respond to that post on their own sites rather than in the original poster's comments. Since, well, blogs didn't have comments back then. And in light of technical difficulties, I'm going to do just that.

In his original question, Johnny T asks for clarification on the Christian ethic in times when one's government is, well, evil. He uses the example of Nazi Germany, but inevitably draws us back to the inadequacies of the current administration in America. He asks about actions such as assassination, sabotage, espionage, defection, and the hiding of Jews. I think his questions have merit and will briefly outline my outlook on matters before answering his final question (which was posted after the system broke and hence, is only visible to me).

So then, essentially, the believer's interaction with the government that rules over him is this:

Though we are to regularly submit to even the most oppressive government, I do believe we are to break laws that prohibit us from doing good so long as we are willing to accept the consequences. Conversely, I believe we cannot actively seek the dissolution, through illegal means, or harm of said government.

I do not think we are to actively prevent the government from doing evil by ourselves doing evil (a la assassination of evil leaders), for that would clearly go against our command to "honour the emperor." Pretty much everything on John's laundry list seems inappropriate to the believer with the exception of hiding Jews; only offering succour to the enemies of a government seems to break the law because it prevents one from doing good.

While Johnny expresses his frustration with the difficulty in balancing something like the Golden Rule with our mandate to accept the authority of the government that God has seen fit to place over us - for whatever reasons are his - I don't see as much difficulty in the question. To this, Johnny responds:

The conflict will be clearer if we consider other areans of life besides war.

Immigration: in some states harboring an immigrant has become a felony, yet there are many churches in those states that break the law in order to take care of the immigrants. The same can be said in our state, though it isn't a felony here. You have a white family so this doens't come up much for you, but with my Wife's Philipino family, there is a lot of family here illegally. Yet I feel like taking care of family and not betraying family is more important that obeying the law.

Contributing to Pro-Palistinian charities. Now, contributing to many of these charities can be considered contributing to Terrorism, even though the Palistinians are the ones being constantly terrorised. This can be serious stuff. The last thing you want to do these days is get the Feds looking at you as an illegal enemy combatant -- you'll land yourself in the most terrorising interigation system in the world. Yet the Palistinians are in grave need.

I could think of more examples, but I hope you are getting my point. Submission to the governing authorities and helping our fellow humans are often in conflict.

To go back to the war examples, why would sabatoge be wrong for the defector to do but not wrong for soldier to do? Both acts destroy and kill in an attempt to give victory to one side of the war. Why doesn't the soldier have to love his enemy? It would seem that if we took that commandment as an absolute, all soldiers would be in sin. I don't think many conservative Christians are going to be absolute on this one.

If I was a German in Nazi Germany and I loathed what the Nazis were doing, I don't think my concsience would greive me too much for blowing up a gas tank at the ammo depot, or sniping commanding officers off duty.

Do you think that is wrong? Becuase now that I say it, I guess I'm not totally sure I could do that in good concisence. But for sure, it would be a tough decision for me either way.

I can't speak to the laws of the states and of felonies and misdemeanors, but what I can say is that if you run across a man in need and you are able to help him and yet you do not, you are not a good person. If the punishment for feeding and clothing your fellow man is that you be locked up for two or three years, then you will be locked up for two or three years. You did not sin in violating a law that would prevent you from loving your neighbour or enemy as yourself.

While I think the view you present of the Palestinian plight here is vastly simplified and perhaps a little naive, I believe you are free to give charity as you see fit. This example doesn't exactly fit - as I don't believe that Palestinian charities are yet illegal, but regardless, if you are giving to Palestine, I would suggest doing it through the church or through some organization with which you have firsthand experience. Charities, after-all, may be far from what we would expect them to be.

As for the comment that submission to authorities and helping our fellow man are often in conflict, I guess I can only shrug and say, "So?" I don't see this as a problem, as I've outline above how I, personally, reconcile the difficulties.

When Johnny referenced my stance on war, he's referring to the fact that I believe that governments have the right to wage war - though individuals do not. I also believe that, as there is no suggestion to the soldiers in the tyrannical Roman army that they should cease their service post-conversion, that contemporary believers may join themselves to the military if they choose (though I would not recommend it). As agents of the governing authority, the operate with the authority of their government. Therefore, Christians may go ethically into battle and kill the enemy of their government should their government command it (again, I would not recommend military service as the killing of men must weigh heavily on the soul of the believer). Further, I state that as an operative of a government, one make engage in espionage and sabotage - and yet, that an individual who is not deputized by the government under which he sits, bears no such privilege.

At this point, Johnny asks Why doesn't a soldier have to love his enemy? My answer: he does. I don't see a conflict here (after all, we always hurt the ones we love *kidding*). Really, though I think the balancing act would probably weigh heavily on one's soul across the years, I do think its possible to love your enemy even while you kill him. I also believe that a Christian has the privilege of rejecting that deputization - so long as they are happy to engage the consequences.

Now you should be able to ascertain why I believe that it would be wrong for a German citizen and believer to snipe commanding officers while they are off-duty, yet acceptable for a British soldier to do so. Essentially it comes down to the authority with which they are vested.