Discussion for 30 June 2019

The Challenge of Atticus Finch

Few challenges are as great for novelists as crafting a believably good character. Our native preoccupation with darkness often casts virtue in a light that is less than plausible. Perhaps most damning of all, however, is the deep-seated assumption that goodness itself is boring while the allure of badness remains magnetic. Poets and critics have long pointed to the character of Satan as the runaway hero of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Though this certainly wasn’t Milton’s intent, it is difficult to dispute that Satan stands out in the roster of characters as arguably the most dynamic, compelling, and relatable. A contemporary example would be the late Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. It’s not just that we find darkness more interesting than light, it’s that we find it more believable. Many have received the details from Harper Lee’s novel Go Set a Watchman as disheartening news once it became clear that the book was going to cast a shadow over the beloved character of Atticus Finch. This man who has stood for many as a champion of truth, justice, and human decency may turn out to be more of a fiction than his readers ever realized. Dramatic as it sounds, America may be losing one of her icons. In the words of Sam Sacks in his Wall Street Journal review, “Go Set a Watchman is a distressing book, one that delivers a startling rebuttal to the shining idealism of To Kill a Mockingbird. This story is of the toppling of idols; its major theme is disillusion.”

Though Harper Lee may force us to reconsider the character of Atticus Finch, I find it deeply encouraging that our sorrow regarding his possible moral compromises shows a clear hunger for genuine goodness. True, disillusion may be an all-too-common theme in our imaginative landscape these days, but if we feel betrayed by Atticus Finch (or his author), that sense of betrayal is surely motivated by a conviction that true men and women of integrity exist, and that their example, strength, and leadership are much-needed. Moreover, that goodness is not only plausible, but foundational to reality. In other word, not only is goodness real, but there is a goodness that sets the clear standard against which we measure all else, including Atticus Finch and his shortcomings.

When a rich young man approached Jesus with a question about his possessions, he began by addressing Jesus as ‘good teacher.’ Jesus responded to the young man’s queries with a question of his own: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One; that is, God.” Coming from the lips of one who soberly commanded his followers “to be perfect as your Father is perfect,” his response here may be peculiar, but it is also immensely freeing. On the one hand, we may not all have criminal records, but all of us harbor secrets that, if exposed, would likely put us in Atticus Finch’s current shoes. As C.S. Lewis shrewdly observes, we have “inside information” on moral failure.(1) None of us will remain on pedestals for very long. But Christ’s question to the rich young ruler resounds as much with hope as with urgency. There is one who is good, whose very life embodies the standard of our perfect Father in the very hopeful form of a fellow human. Christ is the person of goodness by which our very standard is informed, who meets us as a believable, perfect character and beckons us to be changed by him, to take hold of goodness by taking hold of him.

Believably good characters don’t just present a challenge to poets and storytellers. If goodness has a plausibility problem in our world, it falls to each of us to offer a firm explanation. You might say this is Atticus Finch’s challenge to each of us now. If we recoil from his failures, we ought to do more than just grieve; we ought to wonder if we are any different; we ought to inquire after this sense of goodness as a standard and trace a believable source. The Atticus Finch who graced the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird wouldn’t have it any other way.

Discussion for 23 June 2019

Creation and Destruction

The capture of one of the most notorious drug loads—leader of the Sinaloa Cartel—El Chapo, Joaquin Guzman made global headlines. Guzman was captured without the firing of a single bullet. This was quite a feat given that he kept an arsenal of weapons around him at all times: semi-automatic rifles, hand-grenades, rocket-launchers, and other weapons of mass-destruction. Yet, he was completely caught off guard when police arrested him in his home in the early dawn of 2014. He escaped not five months later by creating a tunnel from his shower. While the media hailed his capture and re-capture in January 2016 as well as his recent trial and upcoming sentencing as huge successes in the fight against drug trafficking, most citizens in Mexico are less sure. There is little confidence that Guzman’s capture will slow the traffic or violence of the drug trade and its cartels, which for many seems an intractable feature of Mexican life. The moral depravity of the real-life drug cartels has often been fictionalized in television and film. Whether the popular television show Breaking Bad or the 2007 film No Country for Old Men (adapted from the novel by Cormac McCarthy), the violence intertwined with the illegal drug trade has often been used as a metaphor for exploring the underbelly of evil just below the surface of ‘civilized’ life. Specifically, it is a force that seems to advance without end or solution. The recent news about heroin epidemics and overdoses in typically “middle-American” towns is a chilling example. Given the chaotic elements inherent in addiction and violence, it is understandable how a kind of nihilistic despair can take hold. As the sheriff laments in the film No Country for Old Men: “I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. You can’t help but compare yourself against the old-timers. Can’t help but wonder how they would have operated these times. The crime you see now, it’s hard to even take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don’t want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He’d have to say, ‘O.K., I’ll be part of this world[emphasis mine].'”(1) When I read the headlines or encounter some of the ways in which these realities are depicted in film, television, novels, and other artistic media, I wonder with the Sheriff in McCarthy’s novel how to make a difference in the kind of world most would be terrified to enter. Is there any hope for redemption, transformation, and justice that goes beyond simply punishment? As a Christian, I wonder what difference the good news of Jesus can make in a world of drug lords, traffickers, and violence? Victor Hugo, The Mouth of Darkness, 1856, Private Collection, Paris. In the face of these kinds of questions, I learned about the work of the artist Pedro Reyes. His musical project titled “Disarm,” transformed 6,700 guns that were turned in or seized by the army and police into musical instruments.(2) The guns came from Ciudad Juarez, a city of about 1.3 million people that averaged about 10 killings a day at the height of its drug violence. In 2010, Ciudad Juarez had a murder rate about 230 per 100,000 inhabitants. Reyes remarked of the guns he used that this is “just the tip of the iceberg of all the weapons that are seized every day and that the army has to destroy.” But rather than succumb to the despair, Reyes took the very instruments used for violence and created instruments for music. Reyes already was known for a 2008 project called “Palas por Pistolas,” or “Pistols to Shovels,” in which he melted down 1,527 weapons to make the same number of shovels to plant the same number of trees. Reyes stresses that his work “is not just a protest, but a proposal.” His proposal is to take objects of destruction and transform them into objects of creation. It is not by accident that Reyes’s creative work hearkens back to the ancient vision of the prophet Isaiah when on the great day of the Lord “they will hammer their swords into plowshares.”(3) It is not by accident that the Gospel of John hearkens back to the chaos of the primordial creation: “In the beginning was the Word…In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters…All things came into being by Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”(4) John’s gospel presents Jesus as the one who brings order from chaos, light from darkness, just like God’s action at the original creation. Out of what was formless and void order and meaning come forth. The light that comes does not simply banish the darkness; it is re-worked and re-ordered by the light. Light transforms the darkness. The creation of music from the violence of the drug cartels takes a similar cue. “To me at least,” Reyes says, “the concept is about taking weapons that are destructive in nature and chaotic and trying to make them for something else. So instead of objects of destruction, they become objects of creation.”(5) Art, for Reyes, is about transformation; about shining light into the darkness. Could God take the chaos and destruction we often see in our world and transform it with our deceptively simple, seemingly small acts of creative engagement? For those who follow Jesus, that kind of engagement with the destructive forces of the world gives witness to the reality of Jesus Christ, the Creator of life, light, goodness, and love. For the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington. FOR CONSIDERATION The quote from the sheriff about facing something he does not understand suggests one would have to put "their soul at hazard" by being a part of this world. What is the sheriff missing. Can we be part of this world, live without fear of losing our souls and shine light in the dark?

Father's Day 2019

My Father’s World

A Father’s Day Reflection from Ravi Zacharias.

I’m writing this in Moscow as I prepare to speak here three times over the weekend. I recall an incident that moved me deeply when I was here three years ago. It was at the break of dawn as I was getting my bags packed to leave for the airport. There was a knock on the door. Rather mystified, I called my colleague to come and check who it could be at that hour. A man who felt quite convicted the night before wanted a few minutes of my time before I left. He said two things.

First, he had a small bag of food. “I knew you were leaving early and wouldn’t have time for breakfast, so I prepared some breakfast for you to eat in the car.” An amazing gesture. I gave him a hug. But then came his story. I had shared in my message that I’d had a troubled relationship with my dad. But God had changed my life and my father’s life, and God saw fit that I was the last one with him before he passed away at the age of 67. We were at peace for what God had done in healing our hearts. 

This man told me that he had the same issue, except he was the father. He had wronged his son. Hearing God’s voice the night before, he was heading straight to his son’s house to ask for forgiveness and rebuild that relationship. 

That took a lot of courage to admit. The restoration of a relationship is a miracle God offers. Few things in life are as beautiful as that. Going through a valley together makes the mountain air more inspiring. Being a father is not easy. Every one of us has a dad. We all need that arm of fatherly encouragement and motherly nurture. Life has a balance of disposition providing for our every need. 

Proverbs chapter 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The next verse says, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.”

These two beautiful verses take you from teaching to worship, from knowledge to the adornment of a life. It is always in that sequence, from the head to the heart. Inner worship must precede outer splendor. 

Seeing that verse afresh reminded me of a prominent leader in our country who said that when he was young, he wanted so much to be like his youth pastor who wore a cross around his neck. He kept asking the pastor to get him one. One day, he got a most fitting reply. “You must have it in your heart before you wear it around your neck.” That changed the young man’s life. 

The heart is the bedrock to all adornment. The cross is the most beautiful gift we can offer our children. When the cross has conquered the heart, the heartbeat connects to the father’s rhythm. In a world dizzy with hate and confusion, the last hope we have is the home. 

In our home in Delhi, we had a plaque on the wall that read,

Christ is the head of this home,

The unseen guest at every meal,

The silent listener to every conversation. 

As a Hindu friend of mine kept looking at it, he said, “That is not quite right. If he is the head of the home, he can’t be a guest. It should say, ‘The unseen host at every meal.’” He was right.  

May God on this Father’s Day move from being a guest to the host in our homes. The father of our fathers. We must teach our children to whom we really belong.

Two very unique persons showed me a father’s heart before they passed away. Nick Charles, the first sports anchor on CNN (in 1980), was a dear and special friend. I officiated at his wedding. Suddenly stricken with cancer, he died in 2011, five days shy of his 65th birthday. As we had our last dinner together in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his biggest concern was his daughter who was just five years old at that time. He was in anguish as to how she would make it. The same concern was expressed by my colleague Nabeel Qureshi. He died at age 34 while his only child, a daughter, was still a little one. In the last lunch we had in Houston before his passing, his biggest heartache was how his daughter would do without her father.

A father’s heart is often not as transparent as a mother’s. But when life hits its last milestone, the father can no longer mask any emotion. 

This is a reminder of life and of how much we need our heavenly Father. On this Father’s Day, may I call upon all dads to love our heavenly Father and to love our children and their offspring as our heavenly Father would have us love them. Only in the gospel do we have both the Father and the Son working together to bring us into God’s family through the power of the Holy Spirit. That miracle reflects the splendor of why we exist and how a relationship with God is at the heart of God’s call.

The Welsh poet R.S. Thomas said it best in “The Coming”:

And God held in his hand

A small globe. Look, he said.

The son looked. Far off,

As through water, he saw

A scorched land of fierce

Colour. The light burned

There; crusted buildings

Cast their shadows: a bright

Serpent, a river

Uncoiled itself, radiant

With slime.

On a bare

Hill a bare tree saddened

The sky. Many people

Held out their thin arms

To it, as though waiting

For a vanished April

To return to its crossed

Boughs. The son watched

Them. Let me go there, he said.

The songwriter, almost in response, says,

This is my Father’s world:

Oh, let me ne’er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

Our heavenly Father’s invitation to us is to receive the Son He sent to us to rule in our hearts. From the beginning, God was and is a Being in relationship. That is how He has made us to be. It’s time for fathers to take a stand and be counted as those in a God-ordained relationship. That is their defining identity.  

Happy Father's Day

Ravi

Discussion for 9 June 2019

What It Is

by jill Carattini

Through winding, trash-strewn roads and poverty-lined streets we made our way to another world. Clotheslines hung from every imaginable protrusion, a symbol of the teeming life that fought to survive there, and a contrast to the empty, darkened world of night. The only light in otherwise pitch-black alleys came from the glow of cigarettes and drug pipes, which for split seconds illumined faces that lived here. It was late and I was sick, discovering after a long flight that I had not escaped the office stomach flu after all. Our van was full of tourists, their resort brochures a troubling, colorful contrast to the streets that would bring them there. Strangers who only moments before wore the expressions of anticipation of vacation now rode in expressionless silence. One man broke that silence, just as the taxi turned the corner seemingly into an entirely new realm and resort. With pain and poverty now literally behind him, he said quietly, “Well… It is what it is.”

These words rung in my ears all weekend, most of which was spent crumpled on the bathroom floor, unable to participate in the destination wedding we had come to “paradise” to enjoy. In the end, it seemed a metaphor for thoughts I wanted to remember physically and not in mere abstractions. You see, typically, when the drowsy, comfortable world I have come to expect is jarred awake by visions of people reeling in discomfort or injustice, the upset that is caused is largely conceptual, immaterial, abstract. Sure, I am momentarily both deeply saddened and humbled by the comforts and rights many of us take for granted in the West. I am aware again of the need to stay involved with humanitarian and relief efforts and perpetual global injustices that take place daily right under our noses. But for the most part, my angst, my theology, my reactions are all abstract, observed mentally, not physically. That is, they remain deeply-felt issues, but not concrete matters of life.

Of course, I am not suggesting that abstract, philosophical ideas are the problem—clearly my vocation is dedicated to the notion that ideas carry consequences, that reflection on questions of truth, beauty, hope, and love are indeed matters vital to the development of fulfilled and finite human beings. What I am suggesting is that the abstract is both hopeless and of no use without the concrete (inasmuch as the concrete is a desert without the infinite).

This is made especially clear in the biblical story where from the beginning we find a God who descends the heavens like a ladder to be among us. Many of the most stirring theological pronouncements Jesus would later make in person were, in fact, not statements at all—but a life, a death, a meal shared, a daily, physical reality changed, a new possibility realized.

And this is precisely why those simple words “It is what it is” are a coping mechanism that should sicken us every bit as thoroughly as the scenes that make us want to utter them in the first place. Far from a mere collection of abstractions about another world, the Christian life is an active declaration that all is not as it appears. While other worldviews and religions offer an explanation for why and how this world “is what it is,” Christianity offers something quite different. With the prophets, with the Incarnate Christ, the God-Man among us, every story and parable and interaction declares: “This is not the way it’s supposed to be!”

Professor of theology William Cavanaugh notes that this vital difference in perspective takes form from the very beginning, starting with the way the book of Genesis tells the origins of the world. Instead of telling a creation story like the Babylonians, for instance, where the circumstances of creation are awry from the start, the Hebrews tell a story where all is inherently good from the beginning, but then something goes terribly wrong. What this tells every hearer of the story thereafter is that things are not the way they are supposed to be. As Cavanaugh notes, “There is a revolutionary principle right there in the Scriptures which allows us to unthink the inevitability of sin, to unthink the inevitability of violence, and so on.”(1) The very first story God tells provides a framework for walking through a world enslaved by poverty and violence, sin and deception—a framework that provides both profound meaning (this is not the way it’s supposed to be!) and a concrete call to live daily into other, redemptive possibilities—possibilities Christ himself embodied and set in motion.

For anyone plagued by the signs of an inevitably despairing world, the story Jesus embodies affords us a language far beyond impotent coping mechanisms or naïve delusions that ‘we’ can save the world. Rather, we unite ourselves with one who has already set in motion the work of new creation. Here, it is an inherently Christian task to actively work at unthinking the inevitability of the way things are and to labor accordingly at changing them. Any reflection of truth or goodness or beauty, however abstract, if truly lived out by those who believe them, will ultimately address the concrete matters of life as well. For the Christian, this is a world where nothing merely unfortunately is what it is. Imagining other possibilities, working to unthink the divisions, deceptions, and frameworks that keep us bound to creation’s fall and not its redemption, we join the work of Father and Spirit. We join the Son who takes the abstractions of truth and beauty and declares concretely, “Behold, I make all things new.”

FOR CONSIDERATION

- In the 5th paragraph Ms. Caratinni mentions "Active Declaration." What does she mean by this?