Grizzly Man and Gay Marriage

With the passing of California's Proposition 8, I have found myself reflecting on the homosexuality discussion. It seems to me that the whole debate is in orbit around anthropology, that is, how one understands human nature, for both sides of the debate appeal to nature. Supporters of gay marriage appeal to nature ("I was born this way"), citing desire as the determining factor. It is believed that a gay person's sexual desire for members of the same-sex legitimates homosexual practice or lifestyle. Opponents of gay marriage also appeal to nature, citing, not desire, but anatomical design as the determining factor. Humans, it is believed, are bound sexually by their design because two male parts (or female) simply do not go together sexually. The former speak of nature more subjectively and the latter speak of nature more objectively.

The homosexuality debate, then, should grapple with the trustworthiness of desires and the limits put on us by our own physical design.

Enter Grizzly Man. This Werner Herzog documentary has something to say about this discussion. The film follows Grizzly Man, Timothy Treadwell, and, with his own video documentation, his life among the Grizzlies in Alaska. Yes, Treadwell lived with Grizzlies, swam with Grizzlies, and talked to Grizzlies, experiences that provide stunning footage.

Herzog's interviews several Alaskans on Treadwell's decision to live with these bears which provide insight. For many interviewees, Treadwell was crazy. Sure, he may have had a desire to live with bears but actually following those desires was foolish, they said. They appealed to the limits binding individuals; humans do not and should not live with wildlife because it is just that, wild. On the other hand, other interviewees respected Treadwell as a man who had a desire to live with bears and went out to fulfill that desire. After all, Treadwell disregarded his detractors and pursued his dream.

Treadwell's longing to live with the bears did not correspond to Treadwell's nature. Unfortunately, Treadwell was bound and limited; he was a human, not a bear, and humans do not live with bears. In the end--and this is a spoiler for anyone that hasn't seen the film--Treadwell's decision finally caught up with him as he was killed by a Grizzly (along with his girlfriend). (If you do plan to watch the film, beware, for it contains lots of strong language. The film also contains coarse sexual references which, incidentally, shed some light on the homosexuality debate)

The film's tagline captures the point nicely: "In nature, there are boundaries." I am not suggesting that homosexuality is akin to seeking life among the bears. I am suggesting that Grizzly Man underscores an important point to consider in the homosexual debate: one's desires do not always correspond to their design. In other words, Treadwell's humanity (i.e. design) hampered his desire to live among the bears. Both design and desire did not correspond with one another and were not going to end in individual fulfillment. And this is the major offense to what I am suggesting: our personal--and corporate--fulfillment does not necessarily correspond to our desires. Understanding one's "nature" by turning to what one desires is wildly unpredictable. Our desires mislead, conflict, and evolve. And this is particularly true for sexual desires. The more reliable gauge for understanding one's sexuality is design, not desire.

"Suicide to Snickers"

"Postmoderns are remarkably nonchalant about the meaninglessness which they experience in life. Reading the works of an earlier generation of writers, existentialist authors like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, one almost developed a sense of vertigo, the kind of apprehension that one gets when standing too near the edge of a terrifying precipice, so bleak, empty, and life-threatening was their vision. That sense, however, has now completely gone. Postmoderns live on the surface, not in the depths, and theirs is a despair to be tossed off lightly and which might even be alleviated by nothing more serious than a sitcom." (from David F. Wells' Above All Earthly Pow'rs, 177)

Eurpoean reflections on the sense of meaninglessness engendered by the modern world tended to be dark. By contrast, Americans have remained more upbeat. Take the show Seinfeld which, with its bright colors and bouncy bass riffs, expressed the same meaninglessness, albeit with a smile. Wells says,

"By the 1990s, when we encounter the television series Seinfeld, for example, this sense of internal loss and disorientation had been turned into a brilliantly acted but completely banal sitcom. Seinfeld, Thomas Hibbs writes, was 'a show about the comical consequences of life in a world void of ultimate significance or fundamental meaning.' This show, he adds, was 'by its own account, a show about nothing.' The darkness of soul had lifted, though not its emptiness. Now we were no longer serious enough to do anything but smirk. The journey into the postmodern world, from the writers of this literature of bewilderment into television shows like this, is one from darkness in the depths to mockery on the surface, from suicide to shallow snickers." (188)

What is to remedy this heavy (or maybe not so heavy) sense of meaninglessness? For Wells, it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A good word from Dorothy Sayers

"Let us, in Heaven's name, drag out the Divine Drama from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it, and set it on an open stage to startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction. If the pious are the first to be shocked, so much the worse for the pious--others will enter the Kingdom of Heaven before them. If all men are offended because of Christ, let them be offended; but where is the sense of their being offended at something that is not Christ and is nothing like Him? We do Him singularly little honor by watering down His personality till it could not offend a fly. Surely it is not the business of the Church to adapt Christ to men, but to adapt men to Christ."

from Dorothy L. Sayers' Creed or Chaos?, 36.

The Soothing Glow of Colored Light

As soon as our daughter could see, she was fascinated by the soothing glow of the television (a sight we try to limit!). Humans have always been dazzled by the sight of colored light and have found resourceful and creative ways to enjoy its beauty. Consider, for example, churches laced with stained glass. In the last century, however, colored light has been ubiquitously linked to the cult of consumption. William Leach's Land of Desire picks up on this:

"'Coloured glass,' wrote German architectural utopian Paul Scheerbart, who influenced Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, among others, 'destroys hatred.' 'Light softened by color, calms the nerves.' By 1910, American merchants, in their efforts to create the new commercial aesthetic, took command over color, glass, and light, fashioning a link so strong between them and consumption that, today, the link seems natural. By the 1920s so many commercial institutions and people had exploited 'color' that, according to the The New York Times, the word itself had been 'worn to a frazzle.'" (9)

There is a limit on the power of colored light to soothe, something much of Los Angeles is finding out. NPR did a story today on the new LED billboards (think JumboTrons) that many feel are littering the landscape of L.A.

Gospel Coalition

I have encountered a series of good videos on youtube from the Gospel Coalition. It is made up of mostly pastors seeking to unleash the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Here is an introductory video:

Election aftermath

FYI: Between Two Worlds has a series of good contributions from evangelicals reflecting on the '08 election, including this one on Obama and the future of abortion.

Piper's comments on election '08

HT: Between Two Worlds

Chesterton's Platitudes Undone

I ran across a fun little book that I received during college called Platitudes Undone. During the 1950s a fan of Chesterton stumbled across a copy of Holbrook Jackson's Platitudes in the Making (1911). Within the text of Jackson's book were Chesterton's handwritten comments and quips on Jackson's platitudes.

Chesterton's comments capture nicely his ability to pack a pithy punch.

Here are some examples:

Platitude: A lie is that which you do not believe.
Chesterton's insert: This is a lie: so perhaps you don't believe it

Platitude: No opinion matters finally: except your own.
Chesterton's insert: ...said the man who thought he was a rabbit.

Platitude: Things done on principle are things done wrong.
Chesterton's insert: Only on the wrong principle; this last principle, for instance.

Platitude: A man is a ship: his religion a harbour. Few men sail the high seas.
Chesterton's insert: No men do, except to find a harbour somewhere.

Call + Response

This documentary on sex trafficking should be well-worth sitting through, and from what I understand it does a great job of not only creating awareness but moving the viewer to action on this horrific reality.



HT: Between Two Worlds

OBU selects new president

Oklahoma Baptist University selects its fifteenth president, Dr. David Whitlock.

Songs about God's Love are Cheap

Jonathan Dodson, pastor of Austin City Life, has a good post on why so many worship songs about God's love are weak, cheap, and could just as easily be sung to a girlfriend or boyfriend.

The Cycle is Broken!

By and large, humans, especially those of the ancient world, have tended to view history cyclically. In other words, history has often been conceived, not as a progression or linearly, but as a series of cycles. This view pervaded the ancient world for a couple of reasons. First, life follows a cycle. We come into this world utterly dependent, grow to relative independence, and finally shrink and wither to dependence again. A bumper sticker I have seen captures this reality nicely: "Take care of your children because they choose your nursing home". We go from dust to dust. A second reason many ancients viewed history as a repeating cycle is the agricultural life that profoundly shaped the ancient world's consciousness. The days, seasons, crops, and years all follow a cycle. It was assumed that history followed the same cyclical pattern. (for more on this see David Bebbington's Patterns in History)

Interestingly, the Bible does not present us with a cyclical view of history (although certain books, like Judges, follow the cyclical pattern). Instead, it presents a progression, a linear view of history: Creation. Fall. Redemption. It presents the move from a garden to a city. In this way, the Bible is an aberration. An oddity. Just as the Hebrews were bizarre for their monotheism, they were also odd in their view of history as being linear.

Of course, to see history linearly only makes sense in light of the cross. Touching upon this profound truth, G.K. Chesterton makes an interesting comparison between the Buddhist swastika and the Christian cross:

The cross is a thing at right angles pointing boldly in opposite directions; but the Swastika is the very same thing in the very act of returning to the recurrent curve. That crooked cross is in fact a cross turning into a wheel. Before we dismiss even these symbols as if they were arbitrary symbols, we must remember how intense was the imaginative instinct that produced them or selected them both in the east and the west. The cross has become something more than a historical memory; it does convey, almost as by a mathematical diagram, the truth about the real point at issue; the idea of a conflict stretching outwards into eternity. It is true, and even tautological, to say that the cross is the crux of the whole matter.

In other words, the cross in fact as well as figure, does really stand for the idea of breaking out of the circle that is everything and nothing. (The Everlasting Man, 134)

Redemption through the cross of Christ is not something we'd expect. Apart from the cross, we are enslaved to cyclicalness. We are like horses at the hot walker, shackled to the cycle of our sinful passions. Moving nowhere but to eventual condemnation. Not surprisingly, so many have taken the dark, cold cyclical view of history.

Thankfully, the cycle has been broken. The swastika, and all that it represents, has extended and become a cross. History will never be the same.