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Don’t Smoke, Drink, Dance, and Chew or Date Girls Who Do

April 5, 2013 12:50 pm / 2 Comments

Well, I had a “Duh” moment the other day when someone mentioned ads that were showing up on this blog.  Why should I have been surprised since they show up on the blogs of others and endlessly on Facebook?  My wife confirmed that she, too, had seen them on my blog.  I was most bothered by the fact that sometimes it showed, I was told, movie ads that contained murders and violence.

Now, before anyone thinks I am going to tell them what to do or attempt to infringe upon their God given right to watch anything they want, let me assure you that I am not.  I decided, however, to pay the small fee necessary to make my blog ad-free, at least until I can have more control over the content of the ads.  So, hopefully no more murders, violent movies, etc. on this blog.

Growing up many years ago in the “old Texas,” ethical choices were simple.  In case you don’t know, the “old Texas” was before there was a Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex and before the sacred boundaries of the Rio Grande and Red River had been totally breached.  In particular, the Red River was breached by “undocumented Yankees.”  In any case, in those days it was hard to improve on the moral  compass expressed in the words of the summum bonum, “Don’t Smoke, Drink, Dance, and Chew or Date Girls Who Do.”  Since it was the “old Texas” most folk were pleased if you kept three of the four, and they didn’t really care which three you kept.

Since those young days I have tried to add some more specifically Christian contours to my values, even to the point of thinking about entertainment and the like, such as movies, movie ads, and song lyrics.  Consequently, I have found it helpful to ask myself, “What is there about this particular movie or current song that entertains me?”  We do, after all, call it entertainment, or the entertainment industry, or the popular show Entertainment Tonight.  Please, do NOT worry! I am not envisioning external judges, censors wagging their finger at you in criticism, or even a Bible-thumper hurling verses at you; no, just a question for reflection.  If you have chosen to step across the line in the sand and take your place where Christ stands, why and how does a particular piece of Hollywood or New York entertain you?  It’s just a question.  For a maturing follower of Christ there is hardly a better guide than the Scripture informed conscience “also bearing witness, thoughts now accusing, now even defending” (Rom. 2:15b) our actions and entertainment choices.

Interestingly, a Roman Stoic philosopher named Seneca, living during the reign of Nero, was candid enough to discuss the impact on his own life of exposure to excessive violence.  Here is a summary of this much discussed text from one of Seneca’s epistles to a friend,

Mosaic of unarmed man attacked by animal, from El Djem, Tunisa. Perhaps this victim was a criminal or a Christian.

Mosaic of unarmed man attacked by animal, from El Djem, Tunisa. Perhaps this victim was a criminal or a Christian.

I turned in to the games one mid-day hoping for a little wit and humor there. I was bitterly disappointed. It was really mere butchery. The morning’s show was merciful compared to it. Then men were thrown to lions and to bears: but at midday to the audience. There was no escape for them. The slayer was kept fighting until he could be slain. “Kill him! flog him! burn him alive” was the cry: “Why is he such a coward? Why won’t he rush on the steel? Why does he fall so meekly? Why won’t he die willingly?”

Relief of Roman gladiator, located in the Antalya Museum in Turkey. @ copyright holder of this image is Richard E. Oster, Jr.

Relief of Roman gladiator, located in the Antalya Museum in Turkey. @ copyright holder of this image is Richard E. Oster, Jr.

Unhappy that I am, how have I deserved that I must look on such a scene as this? Do not, my Lucilius, attend the games, I pray you. Either you will be corrupted by the multitude, or, if you show disgust, be hated by them. So stay away. (
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/seneca-letters7.asp
)

Relief showing mortal combat between gladiators. This relief is located in the Pergamum Museum, Berlin, Germany. @ copyright holder of this image is Richard E. Oster, Jr.

Relief showing mortal combat between gladiators. This relief is located in the Pergamum Museum, Berlin, Germany. @ copyright holder of this image is Richard E. Oster, Jr.

Detail of Gladiator mosaic, Römerhalle, Bad Kreuznach, Germany.copyright photo, attribution @www.flickr.com:photos:carolemage:8196070427 copyright holder carole madge.

Detail of Gladiator mosaic, Römerhalle, Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
copyright photo, attribution @www.flickr.com:photos:carolemage:8196070427 copyright holder carole madge.

This pagan Roman philosopher seems to have had more introspection and ethical integrity in this regard than some followers of Christ I have known (FYI, Seneca was the brother of the Roman politician Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and defender of Paul, Acts 18:12-17).

Marred and scarred though it be, the image of God residing in all humans seems to have still been working, at least on this one point, in the conscience of Seneca.

Try a Little Kindness

March 5, 2012 12:40 am / 1 Comment

GRANT
Graeco-Roman Antiquities & the New Testament
There were a lot of attributes of primitive Christianity that produced consternation and dismay among its onlookers.  This includes the early church’s insistence upon kindness, gentleness, and tenderheartedness.  Those early followers of Christ recognized that these virtues were incontrovertibly part of the message of God’s kingdom, to a degree that has been forgotten in the modern western church.  We modern western Christians, at our very best, would be uncertain if and why they should choose tenderheart over Braveheart.  In our workaday existence we would often prefer the excitement and adventures of a brutal, concupiscent, and deceitful gigolo rather than a tale that promotes kindness or tenderheartedness.
American popular culture has one foot firmly planted in the church of North America, and it has desensitized followers of Christ to gratuitous violence and the harsh mistreatment of others.  There are perhaps still some plots and scenes in TV or movies that would cause believers to flinch or blanch, but typically violence and cruelty produce kudos and applause.  Biblically conservative Christians in America are often known for their participation in the “culture wars.”  It is sin of incalculable significance that these modern “culture warriors” have neglected the weightier matters of Christian virtues, such as kindness, gentleness, and tenderheartedness (e.g., Hos. 2:14; 11:8; Eph. 4:31-32; 5:29; 1 Pet. 3:8; Matt. 11:29; Gal. 5:23; Eph. 4:2, 31-32; Phil. 4:5; 1 Tim. 3:3; 2 Tim. 2:25; 1 Pet. 3:4, 8, 15-16; NRSV).
Flavian Colosseum in Rome, with moon.
Wikimedia, Creative Commons.
When we 21st century Christians in the democratic West muse and ruminate about the contrast between the Christian virtues of kindness and tenderheartedness and the rule of brute force in Rome, it would be a mistake to imagine that brute force was only on display in the capital of Rome or in places like the famous Flavian Colosseum in Rome.
A few decades ago an important Latin inscription was discovered in a town in southern Italy.  For our purposes the importance of this 1st century AD inscription is the casual way in which it described extreme violence and execution.  It talked about the prerogatives of slave owners to summarily crucify their male or female slaves, what supplies the provider of crucifixions had to bring to the event, and the details of dragging the bloody corpse through the city to the place of disposal.  This Roman inscription was not found at the Colosseum in Rome, or in the graveyard of ancient gladiators, or the dumpsite for bodies of nefarious criminals.  In prosaic words this stone revealed some  of the most brutal and inhumane treatment of another human being imaginable; this display could occur in a normal day’s activities.  In what many have regarded as an advanced civilization, the men and women and boys and girls of Rome were sated and jaded with scenes of brutality, bloody flesh, and excoriated corpses.
Both believers and non-believers recognized that the Pax Romana was neither established nor held together by ideals such as tenderheartedness and kindness.  These early Christians knew, nevertheless, that such ideals and virtues had been spoken and lived out by Jesus, the ruler of God’s kingdom.  Such teaching flowed from the pens of Apostles, and from the lips of early Christian prophets, teachers, and martyrs.  Most importantly, the followers of the Lamb in John’s congregations knew that Jesus himself had been slain, without retaliation or resistance, and that the followers of the Lamb should not resist either: “If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints” (Rev. 13:10, NIV).
Take a survey of your own life and values and those in the culture surrounding you.  When given the opportunity [and it will be given to you daily] , do you take your stand with the kingdom values of kindness, gentleness, and tenderheartedness or do you prefer their antonyms?

God Hates Bloodshed

October 27, 2011 10:16 pm / 2 Comments

GRANT
Graeco-Roman Antiquities & the NewTestament
There are things you can tell about an entire ocean even if you have only one cup of water from it.  Naturally a scientist would like to have as many cups and as broad a sampling as possible, but even a single cup is of some help.  The same is true when investigating the world of the New Testament.  You can learn something even from one ancient document, though the explorer of the ancient world would like to have as many documents as possible. 
 
I hope once a week to present a small sample of information that mirrors some aspect of the ancient world surrounding nascent Christianity.
 
 
God Hates Bloodshed
Ezekiel 35:6
When Jesus (John 3:19, 7:7) and his followers (Gal. 1:4; Eph. 5:16) labelled the surrounding cultures and civilization with the term “evil,” violence and bloodshed cannot have been far from their minds.  Even more pernicious than the brute force wielded by the Roman military in its inexorable expansion and maintenance of its borders was the role of ubiquitous violence and bloodshed in the venues of games  and entertainment in the Roman Empire.  The Roman games were synonymous with bloodshed.  As Shelby Brown observed (“Death as Decoration: Scenes from the Arena on Roman Domestic Mosaics,” in Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, 1992, p. 184), “The immediate  purpose of a major portion of many games was for a stronger opponent to overcome a weaker and to stab, claw, gore, bite, or trample the loser to death for the enjoyment of spectators protected from the fray.”
 
To be sure there were occasions when even a pagan philosopher like Seneca would teach against the inhumanity of gladiator combat.  In Seneca’s 7th letter, to his friend Lucilius, the philosopher describes the brutality of the games and concludes “Do not, my Lucilius, attend the games, I pray you. Either you will be corrupted by the multitude, or, if you show disgust, be hated by them. So stay away.”  Another exception to the Graeco-Roman love affair with violence would be the pagan crowd’s protest against the excruciating abuses of the torture of Christians under the tyranny of Nero.
 
The commitment of the early followers of Christ to humility, peace, non-violence, and meekness stands in stark contrast to the glorification of brute force and bloodshed prevalent in the entertainment values of so many cultures, both ancient and modern.
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