musings | Matt W Cook

March 10, 2010

Why I am not a Christian.

In Pakistan the third question new people generally ask after meeting you is, “What is your religion?” In the beginning I would tell everyone I was a Christian. But I quickly found out that this wasn’t the best way to describe what I am. In Pakistan Christians have the (mostly earned) reputation for being drunks, swindlers and promiscuous. I can remember walking into a video store and, once the owner found out I was a Christian, being offered porn. Something was wrong.

So I stopped saying I was a Christian and started saying that I followed Jesus. Same thing, right?

Maybe not.

In forcing myself to use different words to describe myself I found that my brain started noticing subtle differences between following Jesus and following Christianity. Or maybe, to be a little more fair, a difference between the brand of Christianity that was given to me and following Jesus.

The cry of Christianity is, “Obey!” The cry of Jesus is, “Love!”
Christianity says, “Hold these opinions, never let them go.” Jesus says, “Hold these people, never let them go.”
Christianity’s enemies are silly little things like movies, books,and people. Jesus’ enemies are serious things like sin, poverty, sickness and death.
Christianity has destroyed the lives of many. Jesus only fixes lives.
Christianity helps Christians. Jesus helps everyone.
Christianity offers you religious satisfaction. Jesus offers you your heart’s desire.
Christianity accepts you when you start looking good and helps you to look better. Jesus accepts you at your worst and makes you really better.
Christianity fills your life with religious rituals. Jesus fills your life with the omnipotent power of himself.
Christianity makes excuses. Jesus makes change.
Jesus suffers the little children. The children of Christianity suffer.
Christianity limits your options. Jesus gives you options.
Christianity damns. Jesus saves.
Christianity commands you to defend it. Jesus defends you.

Jaded? Maybe. But there is a time and a place to be jaded. Am I a Christian? That depends on what you mean. The word is so vague that I see no need to cling to it anymore. So I follow Jesus. Because following a living God is always better than following a religion.

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March 1, 2010

Library vs. Google

Okay, so imagine you are a high-school student. A big research project is coming up. How are you going to get the five pounds of pure information you need to write this thing?

Google.

Same situtation, but fifteen years ago?

Library.

Let’s face it. With Google you can get all your research done in an hour. There’s no need to drive to a library, search endless shelves or even stand up. So why, oh why, would you ever want to go to a library? Is Google a better source for information? Despite the nearly infinite resources and the radical ease, I honestly think that the library is a better place to get what you need. Here’s why:

With Google, you require absolutely no work to get what you want. This may sound like a good thing, but it isn’t. Without the mental discipline you get from searching through books for what you need, you are not going to have the ability to properly examine and discern and sift through it. You’ll end up copying and pasting. You’ll get decent marks, but you won’t learn the stuff as well as you could have.
With Google, your natural tendencies toward inaction are encouraged. We already live in a society of radical ease. Google approves of that.
With Google, it is more difficult to sift between quality articles and hacks. Any idiot can make a website. Heck, even I have one. And you don’t want to read anything I write on physics.
Google encourages isolation. At the library you are forced to see people and become a part of the community. And community, believe it or not, is a good thing. If Google is your best friend, though, you need never leave the house.
The quality of Internet articles are generally much lower than published books. Not always, of course. But it’s harder to get in print than it is to get on the web. Again, look at me.
Libraries will lend you real books for free. Google lets you watch silly YouTube videos for free. Which one do you think is better and (in the long run) more fun?

I love the library. Toronto has about a billion wonderful branches. I really hope they don’t go away any time soon.

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February 24, 2010

The Mangled Creature

I finally finished the Harry Potter series. I know that a lot of Christians are really upset about Harry Potter. I’m not. I’d tell you why, but this post isn’t really about that.

Something in last book of the series tickled my imagination. I’ll try to get it to tickle yours without too many spoilers.

At the very end of the series, Harry gets a glimpse of the world of souls. For a moment he thinks it’s the after life, but it becomes clear, I think, that it’s just a place where people exist in forms that are true to what the condition of their souls are. And in this place, Harry comes across the soul of the antagonist, Voldemort.

On earth, Voldemort is a powerful and fearsome person. The kind of person that no one could ever stand up to. His followers worship him as a god. But what is he in the world of souls?

He’s a mangled, raw, dying child. Thrown under a bench and abandoned. Anyone who goes near him is repulsed by him. His soul is so horribly disfigured, in fact, that even Dumbledore is forced to say that he sees no hope for it. And, even as Harry encourages Voldemort to repent, the reader is sure that it’s impossible.

This picture of the soul immediately registered with me.

Jeremiah considered the human soul to be deceitful and desperately sick. But not just the ones like Voldemort’s, who had maimed his soul through unspeakable evil deeds. But every soul.

Each of us had a broken soul. The image of God that separates us from the animals is maimed. Our souls are not just damaged by what we have done, but they are wrecked from the beginning. If it were not so we would have discovered and implemented a way to build a perfect society by now and I’d never choose anything that was bad for me.

So what Dumbledore uttered for Voldemort’s soul applies to everyone, then. “It is beyond saving.” Harry could never have convinced Voldemort to repair his soul. Heck, even if he tried, he wouldn’t know how to begin. And so when Voldemort was killed, his body was destroyed and he was left with nothing but his useless, pain-wracked soul.

Is it impossible to heal a soul? Of course. But it’s also impossible for a man four days dead to come out from his tomb. It is a good thing that Jesus enjoys doing impossible things, eh?

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February 22, 2010

Book of the Fallen

I just picked up the first book of a fantasy series written by Canadian author, Steven Erikson. The series is The Malazan Book of the Fallen and I’ve heard good things about it. I haven’t even started it yet. I opened the first few pages, though, and saw a forward written by the author. He was talking about how he and a friend had some great TV scripts they were trying to sell. He got nothing but rejection slips, it seems, and he reproduced one:

Wonderful! Unique! Very funny, very dark … but here in Canada, well, we just can’t budget for this stuff. Good luck. … Try something simpler. Something like everything else out there. Something less … ambitious.

Erikson’s response: “Well, screw that.”

That’s all I’ve read, and I’ve already fallen in love with this guy.

I’m not 100% sure, but I get the feeling that society generally rewards mediocrity. And it punishes wild excellence. Why? I think, perhaps, because most of us are unwilling to rise above mediocrity. Ambition is risky. Excellence is dangerous. If you bet all your chips on one hand, you just might lose. Better to not play at all, right?

Well, screw that.

We were made for excellence. We were made to reflect greatness. And we’re not going to be able to do that by running through the same motions we’ve always run. I think that people who love Jesus should be on the front lines of producing the greatest art, music, literature, business and products. But since we often try to marry Jesus to religion and money, most Christian products are unoriginal and shallow. I think this is because unoriginal work is both religiously safe and lucrative. Hurts, I know. But true.

What do you do? What do you want to do? Excel at it. If you refuse to do that, you dishonor the divine image stamped on your soul.

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February 3, 2010

Tell Me a Story

Stories are important to me. You want to know why? I’ll tell you.

Stories can hold a lot more meaning and truth in a shorter form than mere preaching and info-dumps.
Stories are an expression of the creative spark that God placed in every human.
Stories can preserve, proclaim and process Truth.
Jesus told stories. Much of the Bible is devoted to stories.
Stories, when properly enjoyed, are more fun than TV, movies and video games put together.
Stories are able to tell us many things about many subjects in a very short time.
Stories exercise our creativity.
Stories last forever.
Stories, when written well, can be a powerful force for good.
I like stories.

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January 27, 2010

Resist Resistance

I read a good blog post the other day. You should read it, too.

Have you ever had an idea? One of those, I’m-going-to-turn-the-world-upside-down ideas? One of those It’s-so-crazy-it-just-couldn’t-work-but-wow-if-only-it-could-it’d-be-great ideas? I did.

You’ve have one or two, too. You know you have. Hasn’t everybody, at one time or another?

My wife’s got one. She’s gonna share it in a little while. She’s moving forward with it. I find myself wondering, why? Why is it that my wife has started moving forward with her idea while most of us just tuck our ideas deep down inside and wait for them to suffocate and die?

That post I linked at the beginning has some good reasons. They’re all the reasons that I haven’t moved forward with my earth-shattering ideas.

But isn’t it better to just move forward with those ideas? I think it is.

You know who had a great idea? David. There’s this nasty giant guy who threatens the nation. That’s a problem. Ought to be solved. And the king’s offering his hot daughter to whoever solves it. Logic screams, “Be the one to solve it!” Resistance simpers, “They’re all going to laugh at you.” David takes care of business, saves the world and gets the girl. No one’s laughing at him now. They probably laughed at him when he started, but not when he finished.

Yeah, they’ll probably laugh at you when you start. They might laugh at you the whole way through. But it’s better to be laughed at and save the world, than to be ignored and…not.

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January 20, 2010

12 Years to be Pixar

One of the most encouraging videos I’ve seen in a long time.

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January 11, 2010

Turning the World Upside-Down

10 ideas that could turn the planet upside-down:

Conventions are almost always arbitrary and can be abandoned.
Quitting your job, moving to a developing nation and contributing to that society with whatever skills you have is not necessarily a bad idea.
Exciting things like TV, movies and video games scratch an itch, but usually don’t have a lot of value in themselves.
Poverty exists only because of evil in society (Deut. 15:5-6).
“When you possess the superfluous you possess what is not your own.” – St. Augustine.
World hunger is a solvable problem if those who are not hungry are willing to solve it.
Consumer cultures, like our, are characterized by the few producing for the many. This leaves the many without a great amount of practical skills or ambitions.
Sedentary living and poor diets are baaaad.
The above applies to the spiritual realm as much as it does to the physical realm.
The root of all human suffering and injustice and death and every other crappy thing you can think of is the underlying taint and flaw each human has on their inner being. Theologians call this sin. I like to call it soul-cancer.
Jesus cures soul-cancer. In turn, Jesus cures everything.

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November 23, 2009

Eliot’s Magi

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods
I should be glad of another death.

Thus wrote T.S. Eliot. He was taking the point of view of the Magi, after returning from the scene of the Nativity. The comparison of birth and death struck me.

Birth is painful and traumatic.
The same with death.
Birth is full of violence.
The same with death.
Birth is an event that comes against our will.
The same with death.
In birth we leave something familiar behind and go, for better of worse, into a deeper world.
The same with death.
Birth leaves us irrevocably changed.
The same with death.

Is death just another kind of birth? Sometimes.

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November 9, 2009

To Dance

Do you remember the ball scene in The Sound of Music? The children ask Maria, “What music is that?” She says, “Oh, that’s the Laendler.”

Oh, the Laendler. Silly.

And then the captain walks in. There’s no, “Hey captain, do you know the Laendler?” Of course he knows. It’s like saying, “Dude, can you hum the opening bars to Star Wars?” Of course I can. Silly.

Can you imagine living in a society where dances are as popular as Star Wars?

I was in Scotland once. They taught us folks dances. Actual dances that you can take from town to town and, when the right music is playing, people will know what to do. You can be cutting a rug in a pub with a whole bunch of strangers, and you’ll all be doing the same thing. A real, live musical.

What about modern western popular dance? I think it’s more of a bump-and-grind-rub-each-other-to-wild-music sort of thing.

Musicals and folk dances try to infuse everyday life with music.

Urban club dance tries to infuse everyday life with sex.

In our culture, I think music is a more precious commodity.

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Category: musings