Stoicism, Gnosticism, and Spirituality

It has been a while since I have shared any thoughts, almost 2 months exactly. However, as I drove home this evening I was having a bit of a droopy mood, which was kind of odd because I heard a rather invigorating and compelling sermon that makes one think about one's true allegiances. Which got me thinking about my emotions. I'm a man who historically has struggled to understand my own emotions. I have come a long way in this, but I still bear some of the burden of my past being raised in a culture that highly values stoicism. This eventually led me to thinking about the different parts of a human being. In the Bible and North American culture(though subculturally and across cultures the distinctions sometimes are blurred or not recognized at all) we generally categorize the human into 4 parts that interact in various ways, the body, the mind, the soul, and the emotions.

I got to thinking about these distinctions and what it means to be spiritual. What does it mean to be fleshly? Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3:1 says, "But I, brothers could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ."(ESV) This is somewhat dangerous territory as the Gnostics show is historically. The temptation is to conclude that everything of the flesh is evil and only things that are spiritual are right and just and holy. This led to heresies concerning the nature of Christ on earth. So what was the gnostics' mistake? Well, its really one of degree. They took something to its extreme end. Well, if these fleshly things are bad, then all flesh must be bad right? Therefore we should have nothing to do with the flesh. And we still have many of those kinds of thoughts in North American culture.

But things of the flesh are not always in conflict with things of the spirit. Is our desire for companionship and fellowship a fleshly desire or a spiritual desire? Its both. The problem comes when they are in conflict. We can't always have agreement between the mind, the spirit, the emotions, and the body. So what does it mean to be spiritual? It means to choose the spirit above the other aspects of ourselves when they are in conflict. When the body tells you to gawk at the girl across the room, but your spirit tells you it is sin you have two choices. You can be fleshly by gawking, or spiritual by not gawking. Whichever of the two is the impetus for your decisions is what you are. For Stoics, the idea of emotions is like the gnostic idea of the flesh. It is to be avoided at all costs. If a person makes all their decisions based on emotions, we would call them an emotional being. And I myself often find my emotions in conflict with other parts of myself, especially my mind and spirit. But not always.

We have some pretty deep roots in North American culture concerning both gnosticism and stoicism. We highly elevate the mind and the spirit, even within Christendom, and consider emotions and flesh to be evil. Though I might still even say that I would consider the mind and spirit to be more motivating factors for my decisions, to consider the emotions and flesh to be evil is wrong-headed and sometimes dangerous. Here is my problem with it all. If you consider the emotions and flesh evil, what do you do when your whole being is in accord with something? What if something that you decide or are considering or experiencing resonates with all of you mind, spirit, body, and emotions? If emotions and the flesh are evil a priori, then you would likely choose against it just because of their involvement in it. Now I don't think anyone holds to this particular extreme of decision making, but I want to use it to highlight our general misconceptions about everything God has given us as humans. He has made us in the flesh, with a mind, with a spirit, and with emotions.

So a spiritual man is someone who considers the spirit to be the top priority. An emotional man considers the emotions the top priority. A fleshly man think first of the body. And a logical man(though this is not exactly accurate for logic is only one mode of thought, but is usually used generically to refer to things of the mind) considers the mind to be the highest. So ask yourself, are you spiritual?

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

Evidence that speaks for itself. . . . . .

I really don't like that phrase. Evidence doesn't speak for itself. Evidence requires interpretation. I spent this past semester doing ethnography. Towards the beginning we were asked to remove ourselves from the situation, so to speak, and be a completely objective observer. We should assume we know nothing about the situation. That we are a complete outsider and simply describe what we see. We were asked to do this so we could see the complete ridiculous nature of that assumption, that we can take ourselves out of the picture. Part of human existence is interpretation, and we can not live without it. Simply the manner in which evidence is presented is involved in interpretation. What do you show people? Simply choosing what is relevant information and what isn't relevant is interpreting it. Deciding what angle to look at something as opposed to another angle is interpreting it. I understand that its an idiom and they almost never mean what the sentence blatantly seems to. When someone says, "the evidence speaks for itself" they mean that the conclusion they have drawn from interpreting the evidence is what they think everyone will interpret it as. Sometimes people are right, most times they're wrong. Evidence without interpretation is meaningless. Evidence without meaning is purposeless. I wouldn't want to live life without purpose, so I choose to not "let the evidence speak for itself."

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

Marriage is not commitment.

Whoa, what a statement right? How can I say such a thing? That sounds very postmodern, liberal, and, well. . . . wrong, right? Marriage is something that people are supposed to be devoted to. They don't give up on it. They see it through. Isn't that the definition of commitment? Yes. . . and no. I think the word commitment is too weak.

I was listening to a conversation at CanIL where some friends were talking about marriage and dating. One didn't like the idea of dating because it didn't fit well with marriage in his mind and isn't enough of a commitment. The other made the point that commitment has variable definitions depending on context such as being committed to the downfall of some communist government. When that commitment is fulfilled, then its over. And many people have a similar view of marriage. Marriage is a commitment to love and cherish one another, but what happens when we don't "love" each other anymore? The commitment is not longer valid in many peoples' minds. Thats why I think commitment is too weak, we can throw it away like used trash.

So then what do I say marriage is if it isn't commitment? Well, lets consider what the Bible has to say about it shall we? It calls marriage a covenant. Covenants are much deeper and permanent than commitments. You can't throw a covenant out. It is still there even if we ignore it. When God made a covenant with Abraham he made an arrangement that neither could back out of. God made promises that he upheld regardless of how Abraham acted on his side of the arrangement. In a covenantal marriage, regardless of what your spouse does you honor your side of the agreement, to love, cherish, and be devoted to your spouse. It makes those vows on wedding day more sobering but also more wonderful. They actual mean something. So I seek to be like Christ, like God, who has made covenants and followed through regardless of the transgressions and failures of those he made a covenant with. He has been faithful to his promises and to those he loves, and I am eternally grateful.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

I am a simple man

I imagine that such a statement will sound the opposite of true to many who know me. That is simply because I have a complex mind. I am always thinking, and today a class in Ethnography has given me many lifetimes worth of material to think about. It is a class that I both love and hate because of this.

So how can I say I am a simple man? Because of the complexities of thought and reality all around me that is all I am capable of being. I think until exhausted and never come to a concrete conclusion because there is always another angle, another perspective to be considered. There is always something I'm not aware of or some argument that contradicts my perspective, and I have no way to refute it. I look at my life and using the metaphor of a house it is a broken run-down shack in need of repair and attention, but do not have the means to do anything. I say I am a simple man because ultimately I must strip away all the complexities and return to the basics. I can only start with Christ. He is my rock and my salvation, without Him my house would be built on sand and whether I had myself all together or not, that house would fall. So I start there, with one simple fact, one truth that I must construct my life around. What is the greatest commandment? Love God, and the second is like it, Love others. When life gets complex and I realize my incapability of holding it all together, I need to return to my simple roots. Its ultimately all I can do.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

Sales

I'm on the Cross Country & Track teams at Trinity Western University. As such there are expenses for the program to run, which is to be expected. Therefore fundraisers are also to be expected. My problem is when those fundraisers require us to do sales. Ultimately in some form or another every fundraiser does sales, but I'd rather be on the service end of things than the sales end of things, its just not in how I was made.

I once had a sales position for a week. It was one of the most awkward things for me ever to do. I sold knives no less! To be sure they really were great knives and believing in a product you're selling is supposed to help right? Not for me. Thats why I quit after a week, I couldn't do it. I can't handle the concept of trying to convince others to give me their money.

Enter me into missionary work. The work itself is almost always service oriented and that suits me just great. But the support has to come from somewhere. Either you are self-supporting with a job or inheritance or some other way like Paul(although to be honest later in his ministry there were times when he was supported by churches as well) or you are supported by others. The problem is what I intend to be doing, namely Bible Translation and related things, will be something that takes up all my time. I won't be able to work in another capacity to support myself and my family. So that only leaves me with asking for help from individual Christians and the Church, which brings me to the same problem I've always had. It is definitely something different than sale proper, but it still has some of those same aspects that make it hard for me, asking other people to give up their money for my benefit. Its a tough one for me to swallow, but I must. This is something I believe in with every fiber of my being. Its not like the knowledge that the knives were good knives, but so much more knowing that I will be a part of God's plan to be glorified among ALL NATIONS. It has a completely different nature to it, so I think I can overcome this apprehension. But it won't be easy. Its a good thing God never promised it would be.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

Impersonator

How do you measure the fame of someone? What tools do you use to compare the fame of one person to the next? I was thinking about this not too long ago and thought of people that were Elvis impersonators, or Arnold impersonators. There are some people that are really good at impersonating those famous people, and the more of them there are the more famous a person was. What about Jesus?

Well, using this measure, Jesus was most definitely the most famous person to ever have lived. There are so very many Jesus impersonators. Thousands. Hundreds of Thousands. Millions. And the number keeps growing. But not only that, there are some pretty decent impersonators out there! I've seen some amazing men and women of God in my few years that help to point us toward Christ. That is how amazing He is. Some carpenter(actually, the Greek word could also mean stonemason, which seems to fit better with the parables he tended to use in my mind) from a backwater town called Nazareth, who lived and died while countries rose and fell, politicians controlled the world, and it seemed so easy to miss Him. And yet, He has had the biggest impact on the world we could ever imagine, or rather bigger than we could imagine. Its really truly amazing. In fact, I'm trying to be an impersonator too! Who knew I'd be trying to impersonate a famous person.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

Making Plans

This coming weekend is going to be pretty huge for me. And as such I find myself wanting to plan every detail. I never really knew I was that kind of person. I'm generally a laid back person and just go with the flow, but when it comes down to the most important things in my life I find I try to plan for every contingency and make sure everything is okay. Thinking back I see thats what I did when planning for both of my trips to Tanzania. Everything was fairly meticulously categorized and accounted for.

There is a problem though. Everyone with even just a little bit of maturity and experience walking in this world (especially a mature Christian) knows that plans do not pan out. The harder and more meticulously you plan something, the less likely it is to go as you plan it to. And there is a reason for that. When we plan, we are trying to control. We are trying to control circumstances, ourselves, others, life. The problem is that we aren't in control, and every time we try to act like we are we get into huge trouble. Proverbs 16:9 says, "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." Its not in our hands.

So then are all the people who don't plan for anything right then? Are we, by planning, just fooling ourselves and trying to usurp God's authority? Should we just let everything fall as it may? I don't think so. There is value in planning. There isn't value in assuming things will go according to plan. If nobody ever planned anything, nothing would ever get done. Look at that proverb again. Does it say anywhere that we shouldn't plan? No, it doesn't. It simply contrasts the plans of man and how things actually turn out. Things turn out according to the Lord's will. Sometimes our plans match up with that, and the closer in line with Him we are, the more likely that is to happen. Sometimes they don't match, and then our plans go astray. It is in those times that things don't go according to plan that our motives and character truly come through. That is when we discover whether we were being wise or foolish in our planning. We'll see how God test's my heart this weekend, and I welcome it either way. Not to mention (wonderfully odd phrase that is, on a side note, have you ever considered saying "Not to mention" and then not mention anything?) the great joy I will receive in spending time with Brenda.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason