It's kind of my "kick" right now to be cynical about our government. I don't like it (the government). I don't like either party. I don't like any of our candidates for president either. I am too old-fashioned for any of our present politicians to interest me.
Our Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution are based on something called Natural Law. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights from their Creator..." The government of our country did not see themselves as granting any man freedom. Re-read that....they did not think they were GIVING anybody rights. They believed they were merely allowing them to have the rights they had naturally by virtue of being created "human" by God Almighty. The government was a caretaker over the rights of society, not the granter of rights.
Our government today believes and behaves by the premises of Positive Law. This view says that whatever the government "posits", or declares, becomes law by virtue of the power and authority of our government. So the government grants rights to its citizens. Infants do not have the right to live until they are granted that status as "alive" (which is why our morally bankrupt government allows abortion). The child has no "natural" right to live until the government says it is alive. That is why many state lawmakers in California think they can tell homeschooling parents how to raise their children. They believe they can force parents to send their children to a public school where they will become indoctrinated with the ideas they want them to believe, not the ideas the parents believe.
As long as our government continues to operate under the basis of positive law, they will continue to tread more immoral ground regarding the issues of infant right to life, genetic engineering, etc. As long as they see themselves as the granter of liberty and not the caretaker of inalienable right, they will bear my reproach. I will obey them, because unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. But I will pray for short terms...whoever wins.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Opera and Glory
Someone showed me one of the best videos I have ever seen on YouTube. Here's the link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=DelJrP3P7tA
Here's the synopsis:
The guy comes on stage and is a little nervous. The judges obviously are not expecting much. Then he nails the piece and blows the whole crowd away. British people are crying! That is saying a lot.
I think it is interesting that every single person in the audience recognized two things: beauty and excellence. Something can accidentally be beautiful. It can be beautifully constructed, yet not by the skill of excellence, but just by chance or beginner's luck. A two-year old can paint a beautiful picture, but it comes from accidentally not mixing all the colors together in an attempt to eat them. Real beauty is accentuated by excellence. When a disciplined, skillful painter combines all the colors and textures on a canvas to make a picture, a different sort of beauty emerges. Beauty becomes compounded and intensified by excellence. Like this opera piece, people can all recognize beauty. C.S. Lewis, and many ancient philosophers thought it was morally upright to look on beauty, and be moved by it.
I believe they were correct. If we are not moved by beauty, something is amiss morally inside of us. Now, if we are not crying "Encore Paul! Encore!", I do not think that is a sin. But if we are not moved deeply by beauty (natural, moral, and aesthetics/art) that deadness of heart betrays the numb condition of our moral affections. We are trivial, banal, conceited, and irreligious of God's glory displayed in creation and through mankind's natural talents for creativity. (Just on the flip side, there are many people who would cry at the Opera and still be as ruined morally as those who cannot recognize beauty, this is merely one diagnostic, not the only).
At the root of our hearts, we are not moved by the beauty of the Person of Christ. "He has no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." We do not applaud for his excellence, we do not stand for his skill, we do not notice the innate beauty of the one who created all capacity for artistic beauty to be a small reflection of his self-possessed majesty. Why? Because our hearts are trivial, banal, conceited, and irreligious of God's glory in the person of Jesus Christ. Many religions notice the beauty of Jesus in his morality and treatment of people, but they do not worship Him. The sacrilege of that mindset is like walking up to the judges of "Britain's Got Talent" after Paul Potts performance and waving a drawing your two-year old made of your pet cat. It is out of place to appreciate the subjective beauty of your child's artwork (however genuinely precious to you), in a place where the objective beauty of music is being applauded. How wrong-headed for us to appreciate the subjective beauty of ourselves over the objective beauty of God's glory in this; the theatre of His existence.
Here's the synopsis:
The guy comes on stage and is a little nervous. The judges obviously are not expecting much. Then he nails the piece and blows the whole crowd away. British people are crying! That is saying a lot.
I think it is interesting that every single person in the audience recognized two things: beauty and excellence. Something can accidentally be beautiful. It can be beautifully constructed, yet not by the skill of excellence, but just by chance or beginner's luck. A two-year old can paint a beautiful picture, but it comes from accidentally not mixing all the colors together in an attempt to eat them. Real beauty is accentuated by excellence. When a disciplined, skillful painter combines all the colors and textures on a canvas to make a picture, a different sort of beauty emerges. Beauty becomes compounded and intensified by excellence. Like this opera piece, people can all recognize beauty. C.S. Lewis, and many ancient philosophers thought it was morally upright to look on beauty, and be moved by it.
I believe they were correct. If we are not moved by beauty, something is amiss morally inside of us. Now, if we are not crying "Encore Paul! Encore!", I do not think that is a sin. But if we are not moved deeply by beauty (natural, moral, and aesthetics/art) that deadness of heart betrays the numb condition of our moral affections. We are trivial, banal, conceited, and irreligious of God's glory displayed in creation and through mankind's natural talents for creativity. (Just on the flip side, there are many people who would cry at the Opera and still be as ruined morally as those who cannot recognize beauty, this is merely one diagnostic, not the only).
At the root of our hearts, we are not moved by the beauty of the Person of Christ. "He has no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." We do not applaud for his excellence, we do not stand for his skill, we do not notice the innate beauty of the one who created all capacity for artistic beauty to be a small reflection of his self-possessed majesty. Why? Because our hearts are trivial, banal, conceited, and irreligious of God's glory in the person of Jesus Christ. Many religions notice the beauty of Jesus in his morality and treatment of people, but they do not worship Him. The sacrilege of that mindset is like walking up to the judges of "Britain's Got Talent" after Paul Potts performance and waving a drawing your two-year old made of your pet cat. It is out of place to appreciate the subjective beauty of your child's artwork (however genuinely precious to you), in a place where the objective beauty of music is being applauded. How wrong-headed for us to appreciate the subjective beauty of ourselves over the objective beauty of God's glory in this; the theatre of His existence.
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