Paid exactly the right amount

 

Cristiano Ronaldo during the friendly match Portugal-Argentina, in Geneva, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Aren’t the Euros fun? No, not that pile of coins that’s soon going to be swapped back for the currencies they originally came from, I’m talking about arguably the best football tournament in existence. Where the World Cup has some better teams in it (O! The joys of Brazil and Argentina) it also tends to have some really weak teams to fill in the space, so the Euros can be far tighter, and more enjoyable for that reason.

But something that’s more frustrating than fun is the way that it highlights how horrifically wealthy it’s possible to get based on the equivalent of rolling a dice or tossing a coin. If you’re a boy born in the right area to the right parents and pull off the right football move at the right time in front of the right people you might end up playing Premier League football; if any one of those is missing, there’s no chance.

Let’s take Cristiano Ronaldo as an example. There’s no denying the fact that he is a phenomenally gifted footballer. He’s fast and delightfully skilful, which is a joy to watch until you remember that this guy is paid more in a week than most people earn in a decade. And he doesn’t even come across as a nice (or even grown-up) person, which makes the whole thing worse!

But in our capitalist society this is fine, isn’t it? I remember seeing an interview with David James several years ago in which he said that he didn’t think football players were overpaid because that was simply the way that the money in sport was apportioned; a receptionist at Manchester United should get paid a similar amount to receptionists elsewhere, and football players’ salaries are simply reflective of the money they bring into the club through tournament victories, ticket sales and advertising. It might not be ‘fair’ in terms of the financial amount, but it’s fair in terms of the concept. Thank you, Capitalism.

This isn’t just me going on about communism again, I want to highlight that for Christians this should be an encouragement. In eternity our wages will not be the wages of sin (death) but the wages reflective of who we are in Christ: perfect in every way. Actually, it’s not ‘fair’ that we should receive the reward designed for the Son of God but that’s the whole point, it’s called grace!

So I’m going to continue enjoying the spectacle of men acting like boys and being paid millions to do it because it reminds me of the grace I am to receive.

And, also, it is very entertaining.

Judging and discerning

Portal of the Church of Pilgrims, in Washington, DC, with a LGBT banner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having an opinionated blog like this one really opens you up to other people’s strong opinions when they disagree with you. It’s all part of the fun really.

In particular because of the content, which often touches sensitive topics like abortion, pornography and homosexuality, people can, and have, ended up feeling like this is a soapbox for judgmentalism.

And perhaps it is.

But perhaps there’s a fine line between judgmentalism and discernment, and the real challenge is to determine where that line sits.

A while ago now I posted one of my most visited posts about homosexuality. I probably communicated there better than on other occasions how it’s important to say when sin is sin while at the same time accepting people as they are and offering infinite grace to people who actively embrace sin.

So judging in the form of discernment is important and good, but judging in the form of judgmentalism is bad, and a sign of deep-rooted pride. So, without feeling judged, why not ask yourself the following questions which I’m plagiarising from Chris Simpson to see if you’re more judgmental than discerning:

1. Do you find it difficult to forgive others quickly?
2. Are you quick to judge others but slow to take criticism yourself?
3. Do you tend to blame others more than you take responsibility yourself?
4. Do you often feel judged by others?

If they made you feel more condemned than convicted, here’s a lovely summary of the difference between judgmentalism and discernment from a self-proclaimed Reformed Baptist:

Without love it’s only a hair’s width.

Thank God it’s all of grace.

The power of predestination

Getup Get God (Photo credit: prettywar-stl)

Christians tend to enjoy having discussions about theological issues; one of the most famous age-old questions is to ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We’re happy to acknowledge that the answer doesn’t really matter in terms of the way we live our lives, but to discuss it is stimulating and provides an entry into the study of God.

One such topic for debate is predestination. Put simply, do humans choose to become Christians (each person’s eternal future is in their hands), or does God choose individuals to save (and, therefore, choose individuals to torment for eternity)?

If you’re a Christian it doesn’t really matter which of these camps you side with, because you’re in God’s camp either way. But if we’re going with the pro-predestination side, this verse is probably one of the most comforting in all of Scripture:

Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. (Romans 8:33)

If it’s God who justifies, thennothingcan prevent us from receiving the eternal joy of salvation. And that’s cause for joy right now!

Will you open the casket?

Emmett Till’s Mother (Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Images)

Last Friday a story ran in many newspapers about the fact that the Chinese government had aborted a child because the expectant mother couldn’t afford the £4,000 tax on second children. My immediate response was: if a foetus isn’t a human being then what’s the fuss about?

Well, the same day Justin Taylor blogged a quote from a book which pretty much highlighted what needs to happen to show a world that what it’s doing is simply wrong:

In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14 year-old black youth, traveled from Chicago to visit his cousin in the town of Money, Mississippi. Upon arrival, he bragged about his white girlfriends back in Chicago. This was surprising to his cousin and the cousin’s friends because blacks in Mississippi during the 50s didn’t make eye contact with whites, let alone date them! Both actions were considered disrespectful. Later that day, Emmett, his cousin, and a small group of black males entered Bryant’s Store where, egged-on by the other males, fourteen-year-old Emmett flirted with a twenty-one-year-old white, married woman behind the counter. After purchasing candy, he either whistled at her or said something mildly flirtatious. (Reports vary.) The cousin and the others warned him he was in for trouble.

A few days later, at 2:00 A.M., Emmett was taken at gunpoint from his uncle’s home by the clerk’s husband and another man. After savagely beating him, they killed him with a single bullet to the head. Emmett’s bloated corpse was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River. A cotton gin fan had been shoved over his head and tied with barbed wire. His face was partially crushed and beaten almost beyond recognition. The local Sheriff placed Emmett’s body in a sealed coffin and shipped it back to his mother in Chicago.

When Mamie Till got the body, she made a stunning announcement: There would be an open-casket funeral for her son Emmett. People protested and reminded her how much this would upset everyone. Mamie agreed, but countered, “I want the whole world to see what they did to my boy.”

The photo of Emmett’s mangled body in that open casket was published in Jet magazine and it helped launch the Civil Rights Movement in America. Three months later in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus when ordered to do so. She said the image of Emmett Till gave her the courage to stand her ground.

It’s time for pro-life Christians to open the casket on abortion.

We should do it lovingly but truthfully. We should do it in our churches during the primary worship services, comforting those who grieve with the gospel of forgiveness. We should do it in our Christian high schools and colleges, combining visuals with a persuasive defense of the pro-life view that’s translatable to non-Christians.

But open the casket we must.

Until we do, Americans [or anyone for that matter] will continue tolerating an injustice they never have to look at.

Virtual friends, and what dying actually means

Just Friends (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How many Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin/Pinterest ‘friends’ have you got? Ok, now how many of your ‘friends’ are your real friends? And here’s the killer: how many of your ‘friends’ have you actually met?

The proportion of my ‘friends’ whom I have never met is pretty small, but they’re definitely there, and their existence on my ‘friends’ list raises some odd questions. Like the one asked in this article: Should one attend the funeral of a virtual friend?

A popular Christian blogger known as the Internet Monk died a while ago, and many of his regular readers were moved to express their sympathy, despite the fact that he’d met hardly any of them…yet he had still left a little space in their life in a similar way to that the writer of the article experienced.

Which begs the question: what does death actually mean? For the Internet Monk’s followers, his death meant that he would no longer write articles on his blog. For the author of the article, it meant he would never ‘meet’ him in an online chatroom again. But both of these outcomes would have been met if a virtual friend simply decided not to log onto the internet again…is there such a thing as virtual death?

I wonder if we’re in danger of reaching a stage where we can create online personas for ourselves which we like but can kill off whenever we want to. I could become a bully for a bit, just to see what it was like, then if that didn’t work out create a new personality and join a niche discussion board, until I found the one that brought me the most joy.

Or…

I could find my identity not in who I can try and become, but in someone whose personality is guaranteed to be eternal and perfect, and who will never die.

This is what the Bible means when it says that Christians are ‘in Christ’! We are not our own, for we were bought at a price; we have ‘put on Christ’ and are co-heirs with him. In Christ we are children of God. In Christ we have a perfect relationship with God. In Christ we are God’s ambassadors, bearing his name to this temporary fallen world.

That’s pretty fantastic.

Adrenalin junk mail

I robbed a PC-Game Bank (Photo credit: Preshit)

I enjoy computer games. Quite a lot, really. And I think I’m pretty safe saying that a lot of other guys also enjoy computer games.

But are they bad? They’re clearly pretty addictive seeing that so many people are so into them, but does that make them sinful?

Well, the answer is either ‘yes’, anything that begins to control your behaviour is by nature bad, or ‘no’, it’s just like having any other hobby.

Or is it, as I’d suggest, more along the lines of ‘it depends’?

I think that computer games as a recreational activity are harmless; they can genuinely bring a sense of relaxation (particularly to men, who have the ability to think of literally nothing and still breathe), and they’re also fun as a group activity.

But one thing they do is provide a sense of adrenalin and excitement without any real effort, danger or responsibility. With a computer game I can hit a hole-in-one, play in the World Cup, and fight in a war without even standing up. And is that reallya good habit to be building in men?

My next watch

Well.

A bit ago my mate Toby wrote about his prediction for the future of the Google Goggles. Turns out his idea for Bluetooth connectivity might be pretty much here already.

Here’s my prediction: whatever I end up getting as my next phone/watch/glasses/brain implant, I’m guaranteed to be left feeling like I’ve missed out on whatever the next Big Thing is.

But it does look cool.

How many shades of grey until everything becomes black?

English: Symbol of the “New York Society for the Suppression of Vice”, advocating book-burning. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m not sure I should even admit this, but Fifty Shades of Grey came up as recommended reading on my Amazon page the other day. If that means nothing to you, please feel free to click off this page right now.

Fifty Shades of Greyis apparently an erotic novel. Basically, porn written down. The reason it came up on my list is because someone on Facebook had written about enjoying it on their status, and as a naive guy I then went and Google-searched for it. Thanks, Amazon, for tracking my history. Recommendation removed, now it’s back to geeky gadgets and Bible commentaries.

Anyway, I want to recommend something to you, the rest of the world: please don’t read this book, or anything like it. I’ve never read it, will never read it, and hope never to find out anything more about it, but I don’t think you should either. And I have good reasons for it, which I’ve shamelessly plagiarised from Girls Gone Wise:

1. It violates God’s design for sex
2. It violates the biblical concept of authority
3. It violates the biblical concept of submission
4. It encourages the sin of sensuality
5. It promotes sexual perversion
6. It glamorizes pathological relationships
7. You won’t get it out of your head

Celebrity-endorsed charity

English: Pamela Anderson attending “The 6th Annual Hollywood Style Awards” Beverly Hills, CA on Oct. 10, 2009 – Photo by Glenn Francis of http://www.PacificProDigital.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From memory, I’ve never quoted Pamela Anderson before, so this is a new experience for me. Not as special as I thought it would be.

Anyway, at a recent rainforest charity reception at the House of Lords she said:

Sometimes I wonder if I am making it worse, or making it better…Am I legitimising these causes? Or the opposite? Who knows?

Well, luckily for you, the UK Public Opinion Monitor carried out a survey asking that very question, and it turns out that:

50 per cent of respondents indicated they take no notice of the message presented when celebrities promote charities and organisations and 14 per cent were put off their message.

…At the same time, 55 per cent felt that others pay more attention to such campaigns than they do themselves.

So it would turn out that when you’re watching Children in Need or whatever, and you think ‘if these celebrities genuinely supported this surely they’d give a whole bunch of cash, but I’m sure someone else will give instead of me,’ you’re pretty much thinking the same as most other people watching.

What was more interesting for me to find out, however, is that there are actually awards for celebrities who make a big difference in charity work – A Good Thing, you might say. Of course Angelina Jolie’s won five gongs.

But do the actual charity workers get anything like that? Of course not.

I wonder. In our celebrity-saturated post-modern culture, how do we balance the ethical issues of capitalism, not-for-profit charities, sports stars earning more in a week than many will earn in a decade, with simply ‘how much should I give’?

A whole pile of Chesterton

1898 photograph of G.K. Chesterton. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some Christian authors are just quotable, aren’t they? One of them is G.K. Chesterton, who seemed to be an absolute legend (I never met him). But here is a selection of quotes published recently over at Thabiti Anyabwile’s blog. Enjoy.

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.

Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

If there were no God, there would be no atheists.

Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.

It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.

Dear Sir: Regarding your article ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ I am. Yours truly, G.K. Chesterton.

It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man’s terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God.

The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.