The Game

Most children have played the game of musical chairs.

There’s one less chair than participants, and the child who cannot find a seat when the music stops is out.

Another chair is then removed, the music begins again, and the cycle repeats itself until one child is left as the winner.

The Adult Version

What if there was an adult version of this game?

What if there were only three chairs and that number never changed?

What if none of these three chairs was ever taken away when the music never stopped, trapping the participants in an endless, destructive game?

Let’s call these three chairs:  victim, villain, and hero.

And let’s call it the blame game.

And let’s say the point of the game is to never be left sitting in the villain chair whenever the music stops.

The Victim Chair

In the role of victim, we gain others’ sympathy and support.

We are the sinned against, the unjustly wronged, the one bearing all the pain.

In this chair we highlight our injuries and our injustices, and cry out for a hero to come to our rescue and punish our bad guys for us and right all of our wrongs while we stand safely by.

The problem is we never own up to our own wrongs, wallow in self-pity and irresponsibility, and are trapped in a perpetual, emotional dependency upon our emotionally needy heroes.

This is the classic role an enabled addict is in–their “helpers” are actually helping to destroy them and are manipulated into feeding their addictions.

The Hero Chair

In the role of hero, we gain affirmation and validation from the victims.

In this chair, we take up the causes, hurts, and grievances of victims and go after villains while victims cheer and applaud.

The problem is we are not qualified to be anybody else’s messiah and this role traps us in taking up others’ offenses, from which there is no release.

The victims feel great, but heroes are left burdened and in a state of ignoring their own problems, denying their own villainy, and trapped in their unhealthy need to be needed.

This is the classic role that enablers and co-dependent fixers play in a family–doomed to make it all better when they have no power to make anything better.

The Villain Chair

In the role of villain, we are stigmatized and punished by victims and heroes and play the role of the noble martyr.

Others–the whole family or group or society– place all of their badness on us and we bear not only our punishment, but theirs as well, so they can pretend to be perfect and above it all.

To be scapegoated is to be endlessly punished for things we never did so others can pretend to be perfect.

It’s a kind of death where others are free to abuse and slander us–to be villains with complete impunity and commit grave wrongs against those blamed for their misfortunes.

And even when we are guilty of what they say we did, there is no forgiveness, no release, no way to be reconciled.

For that would leave heroes and victims with needing to confront their own pain, their own guilt, their own choices and consequences, etc.

The Unreality of the Game

Notice that none of these one dimensional roles is based on a complete picture or upon reality.

Notice the game revolves around escaping responsibility and denying painful realities.

Instead, we shift them and concentrate them onto one person or group so the rest of us can evade and avoid our own guilt and unrelieved pain.

Notice that one side’s hero becomes the other side’s villain, as villains are victimized and become the victim, as the oppressed become the oppressors.

Then others rise up to play the hero on their injured party’s behalf and punish the first side’s heroes and victims for their villainy.

But they always take it too far and commit fresh excesses for the sake of their “righteous cause”.

We swap places and a new cycle of victim, hero, and villain begins.

Society and politics works this way.

Many families and social groups work this way.

Human history works this way.

Next time I’ll look at where this game originated and how we can escape it.

There is a solution!

Roots of Contempt

I recently read an intriguing essay by Arthur C. Brooks on a subject I had never given much thought about:   contempt.

You can read about it here.

Motive Attribution Asymmetry

Long story short, Americans are now as divided as Israelis and Palestinians are from each other.

We see our own side as motivated by love and the other side motivated by hate.

Where all the virtue is on my side and all the bad is on the other side.

And, most concerning, Americans are breaking off relationships with family members and friends over political differences at a rate and with an intensity not seen since before the Civil War.

To quote from the article, “Each side thinks it is driven by benevolence, while the other is evil and motivated by hatred — and is therefore an enemy with whom one cannot negotiate or compromise.”

It continues with the chilling conclusion, “Motive attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse: contempt, which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust. And not just contempt for other people’s ideas, but also for other people.”

Moral Inventory Exposure

It would have been easy, after reading the article, to conclude, “It’s all those fanatics on the Left and the Right!”

Which, again, is a way of shielding myself from exposure and deflecting the force of the truth.

Which is, to say, “That can’t possibly be me–it’s only them.”

So I did a fearless moral inventory, a self-examination exercise where I asked the Lord to reveal any areas of contempt lurking in my own heart.

Which began a two week process of exposure of some very soft-spoken, very subtle areas of unspoken contempt in my heart.

Because I know the Bible too well for anything overt, and because I’m cautious about saying things out loud, this wasn’t going to be a matter of looking at where I shot my mouth off in public.

It was going to be a tour through what I felt like saying but didn’t, and of locating the lairs where anger/disgust and its child contempt was born in my heart.

A Full Unsent Mail Box

Not surprisingly, I found two groups of people that I was angry with/disgusted by and thus held secret contempt for.

The first identified group were those who had authority over me in childhood, and how their beliefs failed me and/or directly contributed to some hugely traumatic experiences.

This would be the progressive beliefs of being soft on crime, justifying sexual deviancy, removing my mother from me via work and feminist ideology, etc.

The root was these past wounds, along with the current pain of seeing my oppressors views reemerge and hold a position of dominance again (as in the 60’s/70’s).

It was a hard go but, in the end, God heard me and gave me a miracle of serenity and fresh joy and a deliverance from contempt.

Here We Go Again

Several days ago, it clear I had another group that I had harbored secret contempt against:  intransigent, change-resistant rural people.

I was reading in our local paper how they were enjoying success locally on a broad array of issues and blocking all progress.

Which broke the serenity I was enjoying and evoked that familiar mix of emotions springing from contempt.

The reason why is how this very same demographic tormented our leadership team and scapegoated me without mercy over a period of three years.

Again, I was too well-versed to say what I felt at the time out load and now find myself sublimating this unresolved conflict onto other issues where this same group is at work locally.

So it was another time of confessing contempt this morning, admitting my powerlessness and slavery to contempt, and asking God for an intervention.

And, once again, He mercifully gave it.

The Truth that Sets Free

So I offer myself not as an example of perfection but as a struggler, as a great sinner who needs a great Savior.

I thank the Lord for His gift of healing and freedom, all the while knowing I’ll have a propensity for the sin of contempt that will need watching and many more times of repentance and healing.

Arthur C. Brooks concludes with some helpful words to those who are still tempted to justify holding others in contempt:

“As satisfying as it can feel to hear that your foes are irredeemable, stupid and deviant, remember: When you find yourself hating something, someone is making money or winning elections or getting more famous and powerful. Unless a leader is actually teaching you something you didn’t know or expanding your worldview and moral outlook, you are being used.”

“Contempt makes persuasion impossible — no one has ever been hated into agreement, after all — so its expression is either petty self-indulgence or cheap virtue signaling, neither of which wins converts.”

“You will be treated with contempt very soon. This is a chance to change at least one heart — yours. Respond with warmheartedness and good humor. You are guaranteed to be happier. If that also affects the contemptuous person (or bystanders), it will be to the good.”

Self Absolutism

When I was a younger man, there was still a sense of moral absolutes and right and wrong in American society.

These absolutes were outside the self, were true across all cultures and times, and formed the shared moral consensus for distinguishing right and wrong.

The Earlier Transition to Subjective Relativism

But even in my youth a transition was already happening.

These moral absolutes were being jettisoned for subjective, self-chosen beliefs, “What I say is right…”, “What’s right for me…, “What works for me…”

Situation ethics and moral relativism spread from the universities into society.

Each of us now busily designed a moral world that would best fit us while allowing society to largely operate according to traditional absolutes.

“As long as nobody else gets hurt” and “Live and let live” were its mantras.

The fastest way to settle an argument that was unanswerable, “Well, that may be right for you, but for me….”

The Current Transition to Self-Absolutism

Now there’s been a transition from relativism to a troubling and aggressive kind of self-absolutism.

What’s right for me (or my group) and how I/we see it is how everyone else in society should see it and must see it.

This self-seeing, self-rightness absolute that we hold must first be codified into laws and then all others in society must agree and comply with it.

Out of self-moralizing comes self-supremacy comes self-absolutism.

In self absolutism, I am the standard for all others.

My views are absolute and my will is paramount.

Battles of All Against All

Which sets off a power and dominance battles between all the other “selfs” of society and their self-absolutes.

Which makes it impossible to compromise without violating our very self and its existence and its identity.

We must therefore compulsively make all others agree and comply–it is a mandate because otherwise an absolute isn’t an absolute.

Life and politics and everything has thus become a zero sum game where, if anyone else wins or is allowed space to disagree and not comply, it’s a disastrous loss.

We end up acting and speaking as if our very lives depend upon winning every argument, silencing every other view, prevailing in every election, etc.

It’s what Donald Trump and his bitterest opponents share in common:   a narcissistic, self-absolutism!

It’s the war of all against all, which creates a paradox.

As our politics becomes increasingly authoritarian and increasingly obstructive, a kind of lawlessness and total lack of social connection and cohesion happens.

We ourselves are out of control in our private lives and our secret habits and our raging emotions, while, at the same time, we’re furiously trying to control everyone and everything else.

Sanity vs. Grandiosity

In what the Twelve Steps call, “being restored to sanity”, confused authority is straightened out, unrealistic expectations are let go, and smallness is embraced within a non-posturing, anonymous community.

We give up our grandiosity and our will to domineer others.

In other words, God is allowed to be God, the self takes primary responsibility for itself alone under God, and we devote ourselves to helping others as a helped person instead of trying to control others as a sanctimonious superior.

In shark contrast, in self-absolutism the self pretends to be God, loses control of itself and acts irresponsibly, and trying to domineer and control all others as a toxic busybody who evades and avoids the real issue.

The truth is its delusional to pretend we are God and to try an impose our will on all others–it’s insanity!

The Solution

What we really need most, and where the greatest comfort and relief from stress will come from, is to get off of God’s throne and stay off.

Here we deal with our own crud and take radical responsibility and do a fearless moral inventory.

Here we admit we are out-of-control, enslaved sinners with a fatal condition who have hit bottom and occupy a position of supreme vulnerability and powerlessness.

We therefore need a Messiah to intervene from outside and above us, and in mercy grant us a spiritual awakening and open us up under new management.

My advice to my fellow Christians is to challenge not the beliefs being foisted upon us but the unsustainable, underlying insanity of self-supremacy and self-absolutism.

And to model the beautiful joy and freedom of being under God’s management, being small but loved by Him in a caring community, and being vulnerable but graced and comforted and transformed by God.

Indoctrination

In education, the student is moved from a childish, “believe everything you’re taught”, naivety to an adult, “form your own views and test all truth claims” status of a life-long, discerning self-learner.

True Education

With all genuine education, students grapple with the views presented by their teachers and are given the tools by which they can test their teacher’s views.

They are expected to do original work, interact with first-hand sources, draw conclusions based upon evidence, state their views with originality, and interact with fellow students and teachers along the way.

Dissent and challenge are part and parcel of this kind of adult-forming education, and in producing the kind of citizen a representative democracy needs in order to thrive.

As I told my teens, “In high school, you’re taught to uncritically accept the viewpoints in the textbooks you’re assigned and then regurgitate them on a test.  In college, you meet the authors of these textbooks and quickly realize they are human.”

“You’ll soon see that they’ve been presenting you one view of many within their subject.  That they are fallible and prone to bias and must therefore have their views tested rather than unquestioningly accepted.”

At least, that’s how it used to be.

Indoctrination

Now, it seems that most liberal arts courses require unquestioning acceptance and parroting of the teacher’s ideology in order to receive high grades.

We have moved from education to indoctrination.

Education has been displaced by indoctrinating activism, and the propagation of “critical theory” and progressive and socialist ideology is paramount.

But far worse is the lack of equipping by institutes of higher learning of their students to first learn and then use a set of intellectual tools against the views being taught.

What do I mean by that?

What I mean is there is now no freedom to debate and dissent from the prevailing ideas of our times or that particular classroom.

Where are the robust discussions and rigorous mutual challenging that college used to all be about?

The Tools of Critical Thinking

When I was at UCLA, I learned about debate techniques such as “he who defines the terms wins the debate” and about various logical fallacies like attacking the person instead of their views.

I also learned this gem:  every world-view is founded upon at least one unproven, unprovable assumption.

One must therefore surface these unspoken assumptions and challenge them instead of blindly accepting them.

And if one fails to do so, then this is what will happen:

If you accept the teacher’s or ideology’s assumptions, you will inevitably find yourself accepting its conclusions and not even know why.

You’ll find no space for your former views and not even realize how that outcome happened.

In other words, most professors will tell you on the first day of class what their world-view is and even what assumed views they take as a given.

Taking careful notes, a student can then ask, “But is that assumption even true?  What are the flaws of that assumption? What are the holes in this theory?”

Then, armed with that knowledge, the student can guard him or herself from being indoctrinated, from being blindly carried along into accepting a set of conclusions based upon what can never really be proven.

And, in that way, gain a basis upon which to dissent, to challenge, to wisely interact, and, ultimately, to form one’s own views instead becoming a little parrot of the prof.

Cases in Point

I had two painful conversations the past weekend.

The first was with a father who is watching his high-school daughter accept beliefs and views in contradiction to her own faith, and then watching her move further and further away from it.

She was being indoctrinated into a social justice ideology by her teachers, and given a lens by which to view everything in her life and adapt it to her new ideology.

The second conversation was with a college student who was both young in their Christian faith and, at the same time, being bombarded with views leading him away from orthodoxy into conclusions that contradicted his faith’s core beliefs.

In both cases, the tragedy wasn’t so much that these students’ views were changing.

It’s that they were never given a set of critical, discernment tools by which to avoid being carried along and indoctrinated without their conscious awareness or consent by the ideologies of our age.

They had bought into a truckload of unproven assumptions without realizing it, accepted them wholesale, and were now blindly conforming everything in their life to fit with the conclusions of the prevailing ideology.

Like lambs being led to the slaughter.

Countering Educational Abuse

Indoctrination is a kind of educational abuse that locks one into perpetual childhood.

It is a form of educational malpractice preying upon the ignorant, the intellectually lazy, or, most often, upon folks too afraid to dissent courageously and face social rejection.

And until we Christians move beyond indoctrination ourselves, we will be unarmed and defenseless.

Until we equip our young adults with a set of discernment tools and a familiarity of the techniques of indoctrination, we will see case after case after case of avoidable losses pile up on our watch and see our own lambs led to the slaughter needlessly.

The Cancer of Self-Supremacy

There is a kind of supremacy that’s worse than white supremacy because it is the root of every supremacy on earth.

And because it behind every attempt by any group or human being to exercise dominance over others.

And because it is also behind intractable conflicts, polarization, and partisan spirit and hostility.

The Monster Within Us All

There is a master supremacy that lurks within us all.

It is rooted in a vastly overinflated view of ourselves and our own importance.

It is animated by a determination to control rather than be controlled.

It is governed by a passion to hurt those who have hurt us and put them in their place.

It desires above all else for all other people to bow down and worship us and obey our laws and satisfy our needs and end our pain.

I’m speaking, of course, of self-supremacy.

Hallmarks of Self-Supremacy

In self-supremacy, I will allow no one else to tell me what to say, what to do, what to think, how to feel, or where to go.

In self-supremacy, I require all others to say what I want, do what I want, think my way, feel what I feel, and go where I want them to go.

And in this contradiction we find eternal conflict that no human can solve.

If self-supremacy was a matter of ideology or conscious beliefs alone, it might be solved.

But our problem is our fallen human nature itself, and its underlying passion to “be like a god” and achieve god-like dominance.

Inescapable and Unsolvable

We therefore take this lurking self-supremacy with us wherever we go and cannot escape it.

Changing our environment is not enough.

And we are born with it so changing our genetics will not help.

It corrupts our thinking, our emotions, and our wills, so self-help and willpower cannot overcome it.

It defines our alliances and our enemies, our politics and our battles, so it will defy all governmental or market or systemic solutions.

Economics and political power will not heal it or change it, even if our group gains temporary political power and tries to make our self’s enemies comply with our will.

These others will, of course, resist our will and seek to counter-impose their own, being animated as well by a sense of wounded pride and thwarted self-supremacy.

A Deeper Surgery

Recently, I’ve written less because it’s been a season of soul surgery.

God has been rooting around inside my soul and has been uprooting roots of feeling like being a perpetual disappointment to my non-nurturing, absent parents.

He has been touching again my deepest wound, the molestation trauma and the psychological torture my abuser inflicted.

He has been surfacing bitter root judgments against my dominator and the inner vow to never let anyone dominate and humiliate me like that ever again.

He has been surfacing bitter root judgments against those who failed to protect me and who allowed injustice to go unpunished, and my vow to go after doers of petty injustices and punish them myself.

He has been showing me that a lot of intense feelings I am feeling over politics or certain issues are rooted in these vows to resist domination and fight against unpunished injustice.

He has made me worse temporarily and let these things flare up, so He can free me more deeply and make me permanently better.

Pursuing the Healing

Which means reversing the verdict of my bitter root judgments, forgiving at an even deeper level, and renouncing the vows that fuel self-supremacy.

He has reminded me that He alone is supreme, so there is no room or need for anyone to be that.

He has reminded me that He chose to be victimized, humiliated, and dominated as an offering for my sin, out of love and compassion for my plight.

So when I read about progressive Christians or conservative Christians engaging in dominance politics and marked by mass self-protection and reactivity against those they see as wanting to dominate them, I see myself.

And I want to gently say what God so gently has shown me, that the problem isn’t these others who disagree, it is our own thirst for supremacy disguised as fighting against injustice.

And I want to point them to the One who is reigns supreme and who loves us best, the One who slew our old nature on the Cross and moves us out from under the control of our wounded pride.

Crucifying Our Self-Supremacy

Self-supremacy isn’t a good thing to be gratified; it is a cancer that is killing us all and destroying us, our groups, and our society.

It is driving us mad and turning us all into punishing, sanctimonious monsters–and we don’t even realize it.

Thankfully, by dying to self and relinquishing the throne and handing all control and all of our wounds and our judgments and our vows over to Christ, we can be free from this worst of tyrannies.

There is a solution!

Supremacy and Equality

A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting of local government where I noticed a tug of war between leaders voicing two ideologies.

A Case Study of Dueling Equality

On one side, a leader that I count as a friend and fellow believer is defending the tradition of praying before their meeting.

Although I was in sympathy with that tradition, I noticed it made her counterpart bristle.

On the other side, another leader who is new to the governing body was really pushing for a declaration of equality and support of gay rights.

Unsurprisingly, both leaders opposed the goals of the other, and both saw themselves as defending a group they feel is being unfairly attacked by its opponents.

They see themselves as fighting against a wrong and defending a right.

Each of them would say they’re fighting against a kind of supremacy, and each of them would say their side does not wish supremacy but fairness and respect.

Gay or Christian Supremacy?

That meeting really bothered me.

It bothered me so much that I haven’t posted ever since and have pondered these matters instead.

After much thought, I believe one of the reasons for the yawning gap in our society is this lurking undercurrent of supremacy that is poisoning everything.

The one leader who hails from my faith community isn’t seeking Christian supremacy.

I know her.  I know her heart.   That’s not there.

But the progressive leader interprets her defense and advocacy of the tradition of prayer as just that.

The progressive leader would never describe his goal as gay supremacy, but equality and protection.

Yet what he advocates is definitely perceived as an agenda of gay supremacy by the Christian community.

The Passion for Supremacy

In supremacy, the perception is we want to ban the other side or the other side suspects that, if unchecked, we would ban them.

That our true goal is to put them in the closet and criminalize their opposing views.

That what we really want is to stigmatize their beliefs or practices, and go after them and make them see it our way, do it our way, and parrot our viewpoint at all times.

We require dissenters to offer eternal validation and affirmation, and forbid them their right to protest and dissent.

Which requires boatloads of control–social or legal or physical control–over other human beings and even over all of society.

Kinds of Supremacy and Counter-Supremacy

Rural areas see the urban areas as trying to dominate them–destroying their economic way of life and holding them in utter contempt.

And urban areas feel the same way in return about the Trump agenda.

Upper class, liberated women see uneducated, lower class men as enemies of feminism and holding up the equality between the sexes.

Blue collar men, in turn, see upper class women waving signs, “the future is female” and “girls rule” and take these messages with deadly literal intent.

My own people, the conservative Evangelicals, are convinced that LGBT folks are out to get them, would ban their faith if they could, and seeking to impose their immorality on them.

And, of course, the LGBT folks would point to what happened to them under a majority Christian society and say we are the real threat–even in areas we’re a small minority now.

The same is true of the fraught race relations between the poorest whites and blacks, between those who champion the vilified police and those who champion the people of color they shoot far too often, between the indigenous peoples and the descendants of the white pioneers, etc.

Everyone’s a Defender, Everyone’s an Aggressor

My thesis is this:  everyone thinks they are merely raising a shield against their oppressors, but everyone is also predisposed to view their opposition as raising a sword of oppression.

The self perception by the individual or group is they are merely defending themselves (or a group they champion).

Yet these same defensive measures are seen by other individuals or groups as arming themselves and going on the warpath.

So hardening opposition and increasing passions and growing fury begin to color everything

It is as if the only question left is “Who will be supreme?”, “Whose will will prevail against all other wills?”, and most simply, “Who will win?”

Which perpetuates the cycle and makes sure, in the end, we’ll all lose.

I wish our local governing body had the courage to say, “We’re not here to be used to further any ideological agendas that make one side or another feel like the other is gunning for supremacy.”

And I wish I’d had the insight to have seen it and warned all sides to cease and desist and focus on the many issues that sorely need local attention.

Next time, delving deeper into supremacy….

What WON’T We Do?

Of course the government shutdown is going to go on and on!

We live in a time and place where everyone loves to trumpet their morally superior views.

All virtue is held by our side, and all vice is on the other side.

There is an absolute certainty in our own (or our group’s) rightness.

It seems like everyone is both rigidly inflexible and boundary destroying at the very same time.

The True Test

How did we end up like this?  And how might we find our way back to collective sanity?

An older man once told me:  don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.  Instead, watch what people do and the fruit of what the do.

So here’s a self test:

What won’t you say about your enemies–no matter how provoked you might be or satisfying it would be to slander them?

What won’t you do to those you despise–however painful it would be to refrain or pleasureful it would be to harm them?

It’s in that “not for sale” moral center, that place where threats and punishments cannot touch and will not budge us from our integrity, that tell us what we really believe is the most important.

Situation Ethics

What I find the most disturbing is how both parties, and both leadership teams in both parties, are willing to dispense with all precedents and traditions and checks and balances and limits for the sake of prevailing.

The end justifies any and all means to get there.

And if no limit will stop them, no sense of decency, propriety, or morality can check them, what then?

If they give their word only to go back on it as soon as it is advantageous to do so, how can there be any basis for trust between them and anyone else?

If lying is OK so long as it advances the cause, then our given word means nothing at all.

If a deal isn’t really a deal, and any agreement can be broken at will, then why would your opponents bother to forge one with you?

Why compromise and give a little in order to get a little if the other party can never be trusted to give their little or takes it away at the first opportunity?

A World Without Integrity

Welcome to a world without moral integrity.

The sad and ominous cloud hanging over our entire political establishment is this:  ideologies give us unlimited sanction for lying and both the ideologies on the Right and the Left are live by the credo:  “the end justify the means.”

I say this because, based upon the last ten years of public actions in and out of power, both socialistic progressivism and populist conservatism have this in common:  they will stop at nothing to win.

And they want not merely to win and then govern, but to win and then use their power to dominate and crush the other side.

The raw “will to power” is all that’s left of our hollowed out, amoral elites and our aimless, enraged citizenry.

Only the Will to Power

Power for its own sake.

Power as the one moral absolute left and the one command which must be obeyed.

Power to impose one’s views upon all others and to silence all dissent by all means possible.

So, again, what won’t we do?

It’s an exercise worth taking, listing out our core ethics and morals we won’t sell for advantage or ditch when threatened enough.

Keeping in mind that ever-present moral line and not permitting ourselves to ever cross it and always choosing positively to live by it.

The Why Behind the What

But keeping in mind we need a why to live by these compromising absolutes.

For me, I find my core in an Absolute, Perfect, Infinite Person who has spoken a Word to us all.

He sits on the throne and tells me what is right and wrong–personifying it and living it out perfectly in the Person of His Son.

He intervened to dethrone my inner sin-monster and birthed a new person when I surrendered to Him.

His redeeming love, and the gratitude and thirst for intimacy with Him it created, now govern my soul and redeem all my sorrows.

If it drives us insane to seat ourselves on the throne of the universe and fight with millions of other wannabe gods and goddesses, then maybe we were wrong about God after all.

Maybe our collective insanity and moral dead end we find ourselves in–the frenzied partying hiding a profound emptiness–is a sign that we were wrong to jettison God and replace Him with our self.

Both paganism of old and biblical Christianity were in agreement on one thing:  hubris is inevitably followed by nemesis.

Our inconsolable misery and chronic fighting with each other is a sign we are cracking under the pressure of ultimacy, and more of self can never be the solution to the problem of self.

God is the solution!

Letting Go of Dominance

American society, even the most religious parts of it, is no longer shaped by Christianity.

The New Gods Nietzsche and Marx

On the right, America now follows the teachings of 19th Century German atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

On the left, America now follows the teachings of 19th Century German atheist philosopher Karl Marx.

God is dead, therefore anything is permissible.

It’s therefore it’s all about “will to power” and achieving dominance over others.

Dreams of Earthly Dominance

When I hear today’s journalists and politicians, when I observe today’s professors and commentators, I hear the competing utopian ideologies of populism or socialism.

Having given up heaven, it’s all about creating a strongly national or a justly progressive paradise on earth.

Having abandoned theology, it’s all about politics and gaining power at any cost.

The individual or the collective is supreme.

The self or the government is on high and at war with the other.

And each of these centers of dominance seeks to dominate their ideological opponents.

No dissent is allowed.

All compromise or pragmatism is seen as treason.

Not merely content to win elections or make a good society, the goal is now a perfect society that expresses the projected wishes of the self upon all others.

Controlling Yet Out of Control

The goal is to control the environment which necessitates the control of all other people.

Yet, despite these wishes, our populace is now more personally miserable.

The harder we seek control and dominance, the more out of control we behave and the more enraged we become at the defiance of others.

Gun control is passed, yet lawlessness, addiction, and crime increase.

Regulations on commerce are eased, then greed and exploitation in businesses are multiplied.

Speech codes are adopted, then racist and offensive speech mushrooms.

Having banished God and ditched the Bible, we find ourselves enslaved to our own independence and addicted to our props that hold us up in a chaotic world.

Religious Atheism

Even among my own group, Evangelicals, the will to power and passion for dominance in reaction to being dominated reigns supreme.

Our tribe, our region, our culture, and our values must be protected at all costs.

Whatever alliances are needed, whatever politicians we need to get into bed with, is done and is justified.

The moral absolutes which once marked us have been traded away for protection from our ideological enemies and victory over the other political tribes at war with us.

It’s dominate or be dominated.

Which is why Donald Trump’s rise isn’t the rise of the religious right, but the triumph of irreligious right-wing philosophy within religious groups.

The Devil’s Offer of Easy Dominance

Yet none of this is new.

Jesus, when He went into the desert to experience temptation by the devil, was offered dominance.

All the kingdoms of the world and dominance over all humanity could be His for the asking.

Just worship the devil once and it was a done deal.

Thankfully, He refused the temptations of cheap, false dominance and chose to go to the Cross instead.

And, in His refusal, is a way out of our mess.

Forsaking Control, Finding Peace

Ironically, it’s in laying down control that we enter into God’s good control.

It’s in becoming absolutely vulnerable to Him that we find freedom and peace.

Weirdly to our minds, leaving the false throne we occupy is when we can become our true selves, our new selves.

The great challenge of our times is to abandon this false hope of dominance.

To give up the fantasy of achieving absolute security or restored greatness or perfect justice or total equality on earth.

To give up the dream of making the people who threaten or hurt us the most bow down to us.

To give up the wish of making them validate us and comply with our plans for the universe.

Living With Tension By Faith

How do I know I’m progressing?

It’s seen most clearly in letting people disagree with me without reactivity.

It’s seen most clearly when I lose elections, when my preferred vision for America is in retreat, when things don’t go my way.

It’s in resisting the temptation to have the last word and to always win–for I no longer need to win earthly battles.

It’s marked by learning to live with unresolved tension, with unsecured threats, with painful realities one cannot change.

For the sake of “a better hope and an abiding one”, as the writer of Hebrews puts it.

Bringing Our Pain to God

Behind our will to dominate others is a deep core of woundedness and soul fright.

We need healing and comforting from our fears by Someone Supreme and in charge of all.

It’s admitting that our atheism has failed and we really do need God to function with any semblance of humanity.

That we have been proud fools and are incompetent as lords of the universe.

That we are out of control and cannot fix ourselves or make the world a safe place for our selves.

It’s letting these false dreams of dominance be shattered, then forsaken.

And coming lowly, coming vulnerable, coming as a sinner, to a God who offers mercy to sinners.

“You’re right, God.  And I’m the one who’s been wrong all along!  Forgive me!” is the idea.

There is a solution!

Peace and Goodwill?!

I was re-reading the angel’s announcement of “peace on earth, good will towards men” recently.

And it struck me.

Are you sure we’re talking about the same planet?

Are we honestly referring to the same human race?

The Same Planet? The Same Race?

The world I know is a tormented, conflicted, miserable place for most of its history and in almost all places for much of the time.

It is chronically filled with selfishness and greed, and awash in war and injustices.

I see little of peace on earth.

And the human race I know and you know is the source of the vast majority of this misery.

How could God ever be pleased with such a selfish, nasty, rebellious, idolatrous, violent, lustful, greedy lot like humanity?

What could possibly make Him favorably disposed towards us even a tiny little bit?

Especially when I look at the guy staring back at me in the mirror.

The Mystery of Christmas

It’s a mystery.

It’s hard to fathom what could be giving Him such good pleasure as He gazes upon the human race.

Is it some kind of joke?

It sure seems that way.

This announcement is made to the dregs of society–shepherds–outside a tiny, nowhere village called Bethlehem.

It is given in the midst of a society where the vast majority lived hand to mouth, grinding away in poverty.

And it is spoken in an era when the Jewish people are under the Roman boot and ruled over by a Roman-installed cruel despot, Herod the Great.

I can see little cause for celebration either in heaven or for the target audience hearing the heavenly messenger.

Bleak times in a bleak place.

Missing the Irony

What I’m trying to say is we modern readers miss the irony.

So we miss the real cause for joy and the real reason God is so terribly pleased despite all the above.

We have domesticated Christmas, and commercialized it to death.

It evokes a yawn instead of a gasp.

Despair instead of hope.

Weariness instead of energizing expectancy.

The truth is the angel’s message is purposefully given to the lowborn, the conquered, and the destitute.

For those with no stake in the present world order, and who can only look to God as those without anywhere else to look.

Somehow Connected to the Child

Whatever this peace on earth is, it is somehow related to the birth of this Child.

Whatever good pleasure and good will God has towards us, it is somehow tied up in whatever this Child was born to do and for whom He was born for.

To those who feel like the economic-political-societal deck is stacked against them.

To those who feel detached and despised by those above them.

To those who will never prosper under this present world order.

Christmas is about the birth of God’s universal King who overthrows the present state of affairs and who ushers in the reign of God.

Christmas is about grace–grace for sinners, help for losers, love for nobodies, raising up to heaven because God’s terms are satisfied by this Child.

The Basis of Peace and Goodwill

Righting every wrong, settling every offense, and removing every sin we’ve ever done, the Child will obtain the terms we need for peace with God on earth to happen.

He will so please His Father and so totally remove what displeases Him that God will view us through the lens of His Son’s all-lovely, all-satisfying life and it will take His breath away.

Because this Child came and died in our place and settled all our debts against God, goodwill now justly reigns.

God couldn’t be more pleased than He now is on the other side of the Cross.

The peace we enjoy with Him cannot be equaled or improved–it is a perfect and eternal peace at the ultimate level.

We who ought to expect nothing but richly-deserved condemnation are brought near, adopted as His own, and made alive with His life.

It’s the very bleakness and ridiculous impossibility of the context of this angelic announcement that makes it so astounding an outcome!

It’s the magnitude of God’s sheer generosity in contrast with the magnitude of our utter unworthiness and ruination that make Christmas, Christmas.

Christmas is for You

Feeling down?  No problem.

Feeling bleak?  You’re a prime candidate.

Feeling unwanted and unworthy?  That’s exactly who He’s looking for.

No other options and nowhere else to go?  You’ve been set-up in an unexpected way.

For you this Child has come.

For you this God who became Man would die on a Cross.

For you He has made peace with God.

For you He has secured the favor of God and, unlikely as it seems, made you the object of His perpetual goodwill.

All you need to do is trust His goodwill and dare to draw near and come to Him with empty, dirty hands.

And let Him love you there as a unlovable person chosen to know the greatest love of all.

That’s what Christmas is all about!

Lifting the Mood at Christmas

Is there something simple that can be done to keep our spirits bright?

Thankfully, there is. (pun intended)

Counting Our Blessings

In the holiday classic, White Christmas, Irving Berlin inserted a song into the tension-filled part of the story.

Bing Crosby sings to the female lead how, if we counted our blessings instead of sheep, we’d sleep better and be better off.

It sounds hokey.

It sounds like a cliche.

But it’s still true.

Cultivating a glad, thankful, blessings-noticing heart is good for our soul and our sleep at night, too.

Especially True for Christians

For those of us who know Christ and who have been lavished with undeserved grace, it’s even more true.

Gratitude is the surest way to stay in touch with the generous heart of God.

Gratitude is the best way to treasure the people in our lives God has put there.

Gratitude is the surefire way to maintain a grounded perspective when life is falling apart and when circumstances go negative.

Positive Effects of Gratitude

When we rehearse how overwhelmingly blessed we are, it tenderizes us.

When we recount all the good we enjoy that we really don’t deserve, it humbles our egos and makes us inclined towards compassion, patience, and active goodness towards others.

Counting our blessings is also blessedly simple.

Even a small child can do it, and a crusty old adult can easily begin it, too.

Questions that Help

What’s still right that shouldn’t be going right?

What material things do we still have and enjoy despite financial hard times?

What people do we still have in our lives?  Who are still alive and able to be loved and love us back?

What spiritual blessings have we been granted which can never be lost?

What’s went well that shouldn’t have happened but did?

Where has God been kind to us?

Where have we received mercy and love when we needed it most and deserved it least?

What far worse fate have we been spared from?

And what glories await us when this brief life in a fallen, unsatisfying world is over?

Repeatedly and Slowly

The key is to rehearse these blessings repeatedly and to take our sweet time.

To count them with all the relish that a miser counts his hoarded coins.

To savor each one of them with all the delight a gourmet tastes each bite of award-winning food.

I have found it sometimes takes 30 seconds, and at other times up to fifteen minutes before displacing whatever misery afflicts me with gratitude.

You see, the trick isn’t to end misery but to displace it with another, even more powerful emotion.

It’s to take us outside of our miserable fallen selves, and immerse us into goodness that’s outside of ourselves.

Negative Self Negative Loop

The mistake we all tend to make is to think that more self is the solution to the problem of self.

So we problem solve and obsess about our problems and feel sorry for ourselves and start to hate life and hate others and hate our selves.

Misery begets more misery when the self is relied upon to fix the self.

We’re in a negative, self-reinforcing loop in such a state.

Coupling Our “Self Pipe” Outward and Upward

When we decouple the pipe from our selves, and hook it into God through gratitude, it allows an outflow of misery and an inflow of fresh hope and fresh joy as our eyes see our blessed state again.

We count our blessings, and name them one by one, as the old songs says.

And the world has one less miserable, self-obsessed soul that withdraws or takes out its misery on others.

And the world has gained a grateful, full-hearted, generous soul that wants to share the wealth of blessing and that can afford to be generous with others.

There is a solution!