Hedonist in the Making
The other day I saw a young girl (about 6 yrs old) wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed: "It's all about me ME ME!"
This young girl is a hedonist in the making.
Little does she know of the prison she is building for herself.
Little does she know of Satan and his cohorts who are all too willing to help her.
The basic idea behind hedonistic thought is that pleasure is the only thing that is good for a person. Hedonism can be conjoined with psychological egoism - where people are motivated only by their self interest.
Isaiah observed this attitude in Israel: "Let us eat drink (and be merry)" you say, "for tomorrow we die!"
How sad that there is a real potential for this child to finish up like this:-
All this only reinforces the importance (and high calling!) of children's outreach in the church.
It was Bill Wilson of Metro Ministries and founder of Kidz Klub that said:
"It iseasier to build boys and girls then to repair men and women".
How true!
Comments
It is desperately heart breaking to see things like this, and I know exactly what you mean because I see it in my home town all the time. Something that has been brilliant in belfast to try and prevent this kind of thing has been the SOS bus. You can read about it at www.sosbusni.com It's so good im trying to bring it to Lurgan. There original idea came from a similar sos bus in norwich, which I'm sure is still around if you wanted to check it out.
blessings,
Chris
I have heard of SOS and do check it out from time to time - it is great work.
Neil
Any plans for mission coming up?
God bless
Neil
I'm actually hoping to travel in Asia for a few months starting in January. I've been asked by a missionary that I know to travel with her as her personal assistant. Right now I'm trying to figure out all the costs, and how I'd get the money. Obviously if God wants me to go, then He will provide the funds :-)
I feel that this would be a very challenging experience, but at the same time, very rewarding. I really do want to go...I'd appreciate your prayers. Thanks.
Sound like it will be an experience of a life time. Will pray that God releases finances for this!
God bless
Neil
ME, ME, ME is a huge part of Evangelical culture and why it is a form of Christianity well suited to modern or modernising societies (the latter at present undergoing the same demographic changes as afflicted late 18th and early 19th century Britain). The culture this brand of Christianity encourages is all about ‘me’. I rarely step into Evangelical bookshops – mainly because they seldom contain any decent books – only a plethora of penny-dreadfuls, which are often little more than capitalist life-coaching with a dollop of God. However a few weeks ago I did call in one such bookshop on Holborn Viaduct. I was struck by just how nauseatingly commercial these ventures have become – and the emphasis of many of the books was the cult of the self. I particularly noticed - in the twenty-five years I have been visiting such shops – how the section on finance has grown from a few paperbacks on stewardship to a whole corner of the shop dedicated to the worship of Mammon; though the ‘Christian Music’ section appeared to be successfully aping the marketing methods of mainstream popular culture – you rarely see an ugly, non-airbrushed Christian musician smiling from the cover of their latest CD.
Hence I find your post on the ‘selfishness’ of life rather ironic. Religion is always in a dialogue with its immediate circumstances and here in the West and in the urbanised centres of the developing world (esp. in Brazil, Ghana, South Africa, Korea and Nigeria) Christianity’s relationship with Western modernity and market capitalism has given rise to Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity. These are specific manifestations of religion, with a very narrow view of personhood and the notion of the self. Of course many of their adherents like to believe they are practicing something ancient (though few will have read any Christian literature pre-1970s – and usually much later) but in truth, as has been demonstrated, the roots of Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity lie with the roots of industrialisation, the breakup of rural communities and the ascendency of market capitalism. The communion of believers these modern day Christian movements extol is actually ideological in nature. The individual member of the communion is more concerned with his or herself or his or her salvation; the self can believe it is part of a whole, while virtuously concentrating on the needs – and wants – of the individual. The concept of ‘Church’ and its members is of a regulated, ordered body, with its rituals (and modern choruses and ‘free’ worship are steeped in their own species of ritual) – and probably far removed from the ‘ekklesia’ of the early Church. And within a ‘church’ we form relationships with people with either like, feel comfortable with, aren’t challenged by or wish to challenge; even our little martyrdoms have their purpose and their rewards. Oddly enough ‘Psychological egoism’ is a concept which has been applied to the psychological motivation for religious belief and basically suggests that the concept of ‘God’ is a means of appeasing our own vanity in that we attempt to live within ‘God’s Rules’ yet fail, therefore we require forgiveness from God, whom we believe will forgive us – at all points in this cycle the self is in the centre of things yet its motives can be disguised as virtuous, though in reality are narcissistic because they are always reflexive. Like it or not modern day Christianity and especially Evangelical Christianity is very much about ‘me’: a t-shirt with ‘It’ All About Me’ could be comfortably worn at Spring Harvest – and wouldn’t be theologically out of place!
I do believe there is a need to reach out to our youth, though I personally do not see what this has to do with Christianity. Yet the latter and your good-self do provide a means of demonstrating their is more to life than hedonism (or wilful detachment from the responsibilities of life) which I am sure with the addition of a well-rounded education can point a child in the right direction. However a worrying trend within the Muslim community is that although family values, religious instruction, an active faith community and a greater informal community regulation is in existence; there is a growing number of Muslim boys falling foul of the temptations of hedonism. Hence there is more to it than just ‘religion’ or the maintaining of ‘family values’. I believe our problems lie in the media and money driven society many are content to live in. Alas, as the Christian Bookshop illustration suggests above, along with the pervasiveness of Health and Wealth Teaching making in-roads in UK churches, is the Church able to offer an alternative or just a seemingly virtuous compromise...? Only time will tell.
Regards:
J-P
You will I am sure not be surprised that I disagree with on your main point/ accusation that Evangelical Christianity is all about ME.
It is very much about Him.
An evangelical Christian should believe and put into action the Bible when Jesus says:
'The most important (commandment)is this: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength. The second is this: love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
This is NOT all about ME.
When Paul speaks about love - he speaks of a sacrificial standard of love that clearly is not all about ME:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is NOT SELF SEEKING, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Where is the ME in this? It doesn't exist! And these are the standards Evangelical Christians should strive to achieve.
Now, we do of course fail and that is why we need forgiveness and precisely why Jesus died on the cross for our salvation.
For evangelical Christians it is because "whilst we were sinners, Christ died for us" that we have a different motivation to strive to love in the way that Jesus and Paul suggests we should.
God bless
Neil
Neil
Thanks for your reply.
This is one of the reasons why I said ‘Goodbye’ to the Evangelical Church many years ago. My main ‘point’ (which is certainly not an ‘accusation’, merely an observation) is that the role and nature of the individual and the emphasis on individual salvation and an individual relationship with God are the product of a Western culture and worldview. Societies and cultures are not static; ideas change and religion both absorbs and affects the culture around it. Evangelical Christianity is not some ‘true’ form of Christianity discovered after 1700 years of Christian inertia (as much as some of our more self-deluded and ego-centric brethren would like to believe). It’s evolution at the time of the Enlightenment with the contingent shift from rural to industrial/urban economies within the Protestant Western world is no coincidence. The Protestant (and here I mean pre-Evangelical, Reformed theology of say Calvin) notion that a worldly vocation could also be a means of expressing piety assisted in the ‘privatisation’ of Western culture; Evangelical theology built on this and was particularly attractive to the newly emerging working-class because it give a sense a dignity, self-worth and identity in the harsh and anonymous ‘new world’ of the factory and the town; likewise it appealed to the growing middle-class because it provided a distinct piety, not related to ancestry (i.e. the ‘Old Money’ of agricultural estates) and hence the pre-industrial worldview that wealth and power were somehow related to tradition and lineage. The success of Wesleyan Methodism among the working-class and Charles Simeon’s Middle-Class Evangelical Anglicanism serve as examples (St George’s, Leeds was established by the Charles Simeon Trust).
It is a quaint idea, but the belief there is, somewhere lost in the midst of time, a Christian society which was, is and will be the same until the Second Coming, is rather to negate the inherent dynamism of human culture. An example being the considerable change in the role of women in the Christian church in the last thirty years. Hence my point that Evangelical Christianity does, to some degree, reflect the values of the society of which it is a part. Individualism and ego-centricity are part of our culture and certain aspects of Evangelical culture and practice echo this – indeed in some ways are interdependent upon each other. Christian commercialism illustrates this point – much of the ‘tat’ (and there really is no other word for some of it) ‘brand-labelled’ as ‘Christian’ (such as music, books, software, insurance, leisure etc.) has little difference to the commercial products of the wider-world. Yes, they have been touched by the ‘virtuous stick’ and bear the appellation ‘Christian’ but this doesn’t take away the manner in which they are marketed, produced and (at least on occasion) used – you don’t see ugly-less-than-perfect-white-toothed individuals smiling out from Christian advertisements; earthly perfection is as much a means of selling produce (and making money) for many a Christian company (or charity for that matter) as it is for the glossy fashion mags of the Western world. Yet these are mere illustrations of where Christianity and particularly Evangelical Christianity is content to embrace the ‘me’ culture of Western societies.
I can’t quite fathom out why you have quoted Mark 12:29 or 1 Cor 13:5. I have not questioned the word of the Bible, rather the culture of modern churches. You can say ‘love is not self-seeking’ until you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t take away the fact people are self-seeking – and (having just glanced through the passage in its original Greek) and the word for love is ‘agape’ which is brotherly love, affection, good will, love, benevolence – possibly sacrificial, but the latter is an indulgent (and perhaps self-gratifying) translation of the word! Scripture, like it or not, can and does fulfil certain ideological functions – here my use of the word ‘ideology’ needs to be divorced from the popular or putative understanding of the word. My use of the word is more philosophical and is centred on the notion of consciousness and language: in this reading ideology is something which provides a solution to something in consciousness (i.e. what goes on in your head) to what is insoluble in actuality (external social reality) – it is one of the reasons why scriptural monotheistic religions are so successful, with literacy and ready available translations of the text, the individual has access to an immediacy of ‘communication’. But just reading or quoting the words isn’t enough – and I can assure you I can quote Scripture as well (and sometimes better!) than many an Evangelical – you must remember I was within the same fold for many years and was also a monk for several years, reading Scripture day in day out besides chanting my way through the entire Book of Psalms once a month.
As you rightly note at the end of your reply Churches are imperfect places and it is (in my view) dangerous to expect too much from them or their adherents – Churches are places for sinners: and we are all sinners. What I would caution is the belief that Evangelical Churches are somehow blessed with an immunity from this human malady or that they are not affected to the same degree or (worse) that its culture and understanding of Scripture is inherently superior to other Churches or other religions. Yet I am conscious we are of two opposite camps, your blog, to me, suggests it is your belief that the world should become a great big Evangelical church and everything would be okay – humanity would fulfil its vocation and await the Paruosia of Christ.
Over the Bank Holiday Paul (my partner) and I visited the Tutankhamen Exhibition at the Millennium Dome. It is rather moving to view objects that look only a few hundred years old yet were made around the same time as Moses is supposed to have lived. The pyramids themselves were as ancient to Tutankhamen as Westminster Abbey is to our culture, having been in existence for a thousand years by then. The effort of the ancient Egyptians to fulfil their religion is daunting. But the same could be said for the great monastic settlements of medieval Britain – remember these monks were the very ones who Evangelised a pagan nation; or the effort which built Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now a mosque); or the thousands of Methodist chapels up and down the country. The inspiration of each was the same and evidence that culture and economic will strove to live by the tenets of their respective faith and beliefs. The monks, Byzantium Christians, Methodists etc. each believing theirs was the true expression of Christianity, each believing their Creed would come to fulfilment and yet each, being a product of a society at a given point in history, grew, prospered and then waned and died when no longer pertinent or able to commune with the host culture. And the same will happen with Evangelical Christianity – this young (in terms of the history of Christianity) movement, in part a creation of the culture it tries to eschew will, one day, grow old and die. Such is the case for each expression of a given religion until that religion is no more and rest assured that each adherent of all those movements and sects which went before thought theirs was the correct one, the true one, the one which would endure and fulfilled the purpose of its Scriptures and faith. However I doubt you will accept this view, content to believe in the uniqueness of your Church, its specialness and its individuality as millions have done before you, with their own expressions of religion. To me, the origins of this phenomenon – people’s belief in the uniqueness of their religion – is part of both human pride and human frailty: an inability to accept the inconsequentiality of our individual lives; it is egotism and self-interest. Yet we have to agree to disagree, though (with the conceit even little humble me can be guilty of) I will add that the evidence rather points to my reading of religion and history than yours.
Every blessing:
J-P
As I P.S. I will add that reading back over the above does make me sound like a bit of an intellectual bully. Alas that is what I am sometimes, hence please forgive me. I am afraid this is partly because I cannot accept the glib answers religion (of many flavours) tries to give to difficult questions. Hence to infer secular western life is ‘all about me’ and presuming Christianity, esp. your own brand of Christianity is an answer to this issue, when it has been well documented that Protestantism is partially the cause of such a worldview, is the kind of thing which tends to set me into Victor Meldrew Mode (though as a fellow 40-something you too are perhaps finding Mr Meldrew is becoming a part you too play?).
There is within myself an adolescent that would like concrete answers, even though I know there aren’t any. Perhaps this is the reason why after several years within the Evangelical and then the monastic fold I have found myself gravitating to middle-of-the-road Anglicanism (and here I don’t mean touchy-feely Liberalism) where a community church is an expression of a faith community and there isn’t a well defined template for what constitutes being a Christian (after all such template doesn’t exist in Scripture – tho’ the pretence that to be a Christian you must believe X, Y & Z has sent many people to an early grave as heretics of one Creed or another). Anglicanism is a Catholic faith, with Scripture, reason and tradition being seen as foundations for belief, though I must confess I am finding it more and more difficult to believe in a personal God, who is wholly Good and wholly loving.
The answer I would have once given to this question is that there is no promise of an easy life in The Bible; however this doesn’t sit with the notion of a personal God who can manage the daily aspects of one’s life for a mutual benefit. There was some program on TV last night which dwelt on the Nazi’s Final Solution to the problem of The Jews, the disabled, mentally ill, non-Arians, homosexuals etc.; all were systematically starved, humiliated, tortured and eventually gassed. Yet it is clear you believe God will personally protect you, as you have said elsewhere when discussing some of the threats you have received in the course of your work/via your blog. How is the God, whom you believe will protect you, reconciled with the God whom allowed the Holocaust, or the women and children to be burned to death in a church in Kenya, earlier this year or whatever wickedness suffered by our fellow brethren? Or on a personal level, why will God protect you, even though a friend of mine (a priest in Liverpool in the mid-90s) was stabbed to death in the church yard? I don’t ask these questions to be offensive, I would just like to know how to reconcile belief in a personal God with the horrors of the world. Perhaps I have worked in Palliative Care for too long and seen too many people, from teenagers to the elderly die painful or senseless deaths. Part of my job has been preparing children for the death of a parent and I can assure you ‘Daddy is with Jesus now...’ makes less sense to me than it would do to a ten year old.
I hope one day my faith will return in its once, vibrant and all consuming manner. I do mourn the loss of certainty yet I cannot manufacture what I don’t feel and the more I study religion (and from January I will doing a PhD researching the role and purpose of faith based social work/social welfare organisations) the more I am forced to conclude it is as much, if not more, a human construction than anything else. Perhaps spirituality will become my own religion, but for now the pew and the pulpit occupied by those convinced of the exclusivity of their faith is an anathema to me and I regret that I am apt to be less than sympathetic to those who hold the latter view – as the above two entries suggest – please accept my apologies, though you can look on my posts as exercises in Evangelism!
I came very close to joining The Church Army (then at Blackheath) in the late 80s – perhaps it is a good thing I didn’t...
Every blessing:
J-P
You apologised for what you describe as 'intellectual bullying' and if that is what it was I fully accept your apologies. You have shown your true (loving!) colours when you describe your work and struggles in helping bereaved come to terms with their loss.
Barriers of course will always come down when people get to know about what moves us, when we are talking more about feelings than facts. I am sure you would agree that that doesn't excuse the need to consider and wrestle with facts.
Please forgive me if I have at any stage come across in a bullying way at all. Re Victor Meldrew:Yes I too can share some of his traits from time to time.
"there is no promise of an easy life in The Bible; however this doesn’t sit with the notion of a personal God who can manage the daily aspects of one’s life for a mutual benefit."
I can not answer this question with your eloquence or intellect, but hopefully by using my faith and experience and making sure that this coincides with the promises of the Bible.
You would certainly be correct in stating that "there is no promise of an easy life in the Bible" that goes without saying. However I disagree with your statement that this can not sit hand in hand with a "personal God who can and does intervene in life's struggles and gives protection."
My comment about being protected from those who have made threats, refer mainly to curses made against me in the spiritual realm - though I do believe God will always protect me from any physical harm that I can not cope with.
I also believe that He will allow me to fulfill the vision that He has given to me and before I die He will fulfill the particular promises that I strongly and sincerely believe he has given me. In this sense I feel protected by God and can declare "no weapon formed against me shall prevail."
I love Matt Redman's song "Blessed be your name":
Blessed be your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's all as it should be
Blessed be your name
Blessed be your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be your name
Every blessing you pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in
Still, I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord ...
If ever there is a sign of a true Christian it is when during their suffering they can sing: "Blessed be your name"
I also believe that 'sing when we're loosing', we are opening ourselves up to receiving a miracle (sometimes that miracle is for example miraculous healing - I have both experienced and witnessed this on a number of occasions, other times the miracle is the entering into the very presence of God, through 'death' made possible only by Jesus in his death and resurrection.
I used to work at St George's Crypt an outreach to homeless in Leeds. Once I got a phone call to say that one of the regulars to the Crypt was dying in hospital. David was both a drug addict and an alcoholic and to put it bluntly his body was blasted to bits. He was in alot of pain.
When I got to the hospital I told him that Jesus loves him (I'm sure this sounds trite - but it is also true). For the first time he said "I know Jesus loves me" ... and he continued, "And I am going to give all the mess of my life to him" and he struggled through a time of prayer.
When a colleague of mine visited David the next day, she was distraught to see the state of David and tears started pouring down her face.
But David turned round to her and prayed that she would receive peace. In his pain and in his agony David was 'singing' and was actually more alive then I had ever seen him before. On his death bed - having been filled with Christ like love, he became like Christ - not self conceited, not thinking about ME ME ME, but sacrificially, thinking about someone who was more distraught than he was.
When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother "Dear woman here is your son" and to his disciple, "Here is your mother"
Older and wiser now, but shaped by the experiences.
I come first. I have not sold everything I have (as Jesus commands His would-be disciples in Luke 14:33)
I do not go out of my way to help my enemies.
I do not go out of my way to help the poor, except maybe once in awhile out of guilt (that's a real gift, huh?)
I am pretty much a full blown sinner in need of a Savior.
And what a Savior I have! "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us."
What I do know is when we get it right and let others come first, show love to our enemy, help the poor etc we feel more complete.
Hope this finds you well...
Just to note, at work the other week I was duty social worker (I work in The City, a few minutes' walk from St Paul's Cathedral) when a guy came in the office whom everyone warned me was difficult (I usually work in the Barts and was just covering someone's leave that day). He was a guy our homeless worker had sorted out with accommodation etc. I went to meet him and immediately recognised him as someone I had worked with at the Crypt some 20 years earlier - he didn't know me, but remembered Don Paterson etc. I got on with him very well, despite his repuation for violence. I have always found that as long as you are prepared to listen (even if it is a pack of lies you're being told!) most people extend you the same curtesy in return. Must of the men I knew from the Crypt are dead (though when at the monastery we used to have the odd one turn up - but that is many years ago now), so I was pleased to see this guy.
Re: the above, have a look at my most recent post on my blog. It even surprised me!
http://jp-uk.livejournal.com/41181.html
Regards:
J-P
Thanks for this. I always think it is a gift from God when we 'bump' into clients from the Crypt. I did so the other day, and she told me that she was due to go to a nearby prison, so I was able to tell a 'listener' in that prison to look out for her.
Take care
Neil