3/27/2013
NON-COMMUNICATION
GOAFS II: #35
THE PRESENCE OF THE KINGDOM: 22
Chapter 4, the problem of communication
MARCH 27, 2013
The Bible, as the
infallibly inspired revelation of God to sinful man, stands before us as that
light in terms of which all the facts of the created universe must be
interpreted. All of finite existence, natural and redemptive, functions in
relation to one all-inclusive plan that is in the mind of God…all facts are
God’s facts because He is the Creator of all things.
Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith
What is the
reason for this situation from which it seems impossible to escape? There are a
whole number of facts which combine to explain it: first of all, there is the really extraordinary complexity of our
world. The more we advance and the more this world is formed of complicated
organisms overlapping one another, variable in quality, but all seemingly
equally important—the more impossible it is to know them all, or to grasp
them—so mankind wanders uncertainly through the maze seeking experts, even some
human messiah, with all the answers.
Then there is
the influence of the means of knowledge that
is placed at our disposal in order that we may meet these facts. The means
(mainly the press, the radio, television, and the movies) are essentially
mechanical in their nature, and presuppose considerable capital in order to be
put in action. In consequence we are obliged to rely on those with money,
whether private enterprise or the State. The mechanical character of the
process creates a sort of filter because the process demands we deal only with
the external aspect of the facts.
In the end,
the information we get is simplified, and selective, and almost always slanted
due to the agendas and biases of the people with the money who are driven
either by profit or power in their presentation of ‘facts’ to the masses. This
is deluge of information is all “one way” communication. It is not designed to
encourage dialogue or any other response than, “Yes, I will buy…”
In addition
to the complexity of the facts and the constraints of the means of mass
communication, there is the crushing
character of the means of knowledge which society puts at our disposal. We
can scarcely deny the flood information which comes at us every day, even if we
doubt it personally this does not hinder the general acceptance of the crowd,
which is evoked by the evidence of power.
There is no
discussion with the media. Today there is Twitter, but it is a long stretch to
call it ‘discussion with the media,’ it is just another poll boiled down to one
word answers or opinions. Their power over the masses is nearly absolute and
irresistible when it is employed in certain conditions (which specialized
institutions make it their business to control more and more fully. I bought
some underwear on-line from Ralph Lauren, three days later an advertisement
from them began to appear on my weather site—Google is ubiquitous!).
Finally, in
addition to the complexity of the world, the influence of the technical means
of knowledge, and the crushing character of the means of knowledge, there is
the matter of distraction (‘entertaining
ourselves to death,’ as Neil Postman would put it). Today everyone is
‘distracted’ by civilization itself: we might say our whole society, from its
games and sports to its serious business, has arranged everything to achieve
this distraction.
All of man’s
distractions, his lifestyle, his amusements, his work, his political parties,
even his religion, absorb modern man to such an extent that he easily falls
prey to these technical means of acquiring information. Their influence is
strengthened by the man who uses them, who becomes profoundly incapable of meditation or reflection. The images of
products pour out of TV commercials and directly into his subconscious where
they lie in wait for him to pass their product on the shelf, when they will
give him a poke. He is satisfied with these phenomena, these apparent
explanations because he is already ‘distracted,’ even before the latest
‘breaking news’ blasts out of his TV to help him be further distracted.
|
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his means
that the intellectual situation of modern man is extremely difficult; although
he knows more ‘things,’ and possesses more mechanical methods, than ever
before, and although in theory he may be more developed than at any other
period in history, all this development is due to inaccurate information and
hazy facts. This breezes by the man on the street but the intellectual needs to
think about things, so he tries.
The
intellectual can easily see through the stupidity of the explanatory myths and can
refuse to accept them. With them he can reject the terrible oversimplification
and wretched dogmatism of the present time. (“We just want the wealthy to pay
their fair share!”) But when he has gotten rid of this he is absolutely
defenseless when confronted by the mass of news which reaches him from every
quarter. He is capable, it is true, of rejecting the myth, but he is not
capable of attaining reality.
In the
current intellectual system he confronts a world that turns on an axis through
two poles—phenomena and myth—and at neither pole can he
touch reality. Finite man cannot get his
arms around the infinite number of facts (particulars) that make up the
phenomena, and he knows the myth is nothing but a big lie or illusion (the
dominant political narrative of the day). He must take a position so he goes
with the phenomena. But in so doing he is aware that he is only concerned with
an illusion. He can be perfectly clear about the reality that others believe to
be facts, but he still cannot grasp this reality.
At this point
the non-Christian intellectual may go in several directions: he can commit
intellectual suicide and accept one of the myths he knows to be wrong
(socialist utopia, communist utopia, fascist utopia, etc.) major in it, get a
job teaching his specialty at a mainline university, get tenure, and lead a
vast army of confused students into his special myth.
Or he may
become a professional agnostic, follow the same general path, but choose
teaching in the area of the History of Philosophy or Comparative Religions.
Or he may go
beyond agnosticism to become a professional atheist, write angry books that
give comfort to the large audience whose creed is “There is no god but one, and
it is Me.” This path is especially popular these days, a good way to get famous
and make a lot of money and appear on a lot of ‘talk’ shows.
We need to
stop here and take a deep breath because I suspect you are confused, probably I
am too. At the beginning of this post Ellul asks “What is the reason for this
situation from which it seems impossible to escape?” He has asked similar
questions before and I have a feeling some of you would wonder if he hasn’t
missed something.
Ellul’s focus
in this book is not theology or philosophy, rather it might be called the “Practical
Theology of Christian Living.” But there is sound Christian Philosophy and Christian
Theology underlying or assumed in all that he says. Go back and read again the
Van Til quote at the top of this post. Ellul would agree with this.
All facts are
Gods facts because he is the Creator of all things. Where Van Til speaks of
‘facts,’ Ellul talks of ‘reality.’ Francis Schaeffer called it ‘true truth.’
Ellul is spelling out the various ways fallen man, the man who chose to be
his own god in the Garden, has messed
things up. That is the fundamental ‘reason’ for all the dysfunction Ellul
describes. He has not taken much time to state what to him is obvious, because
the fall of man has been a fundamental presupposition of all he has said. I
hope this is helpful as we move forward and try to finish these last two
chapters.
Jerry Sweers
3/20/2013
SHADOWS AND ILLUSIONS
GOAFS II: #34
THE PRESENCE OF THE KINGDOM: 21
Chapter 4, the problem of communication
MARCH 20, 2013
Pope Benedict XVI (just
retired) was a man who “accepted the responsibility for leading and guiding one
of the few western institutions that have not caved in to the cult of the
imperial autonomous Self.” George Weigel, Benedict’s Legacy, National Review, 3.11.13
Modern man’s whole life is
taken up with trivia—and he is convinced that this is the natural state of
affairs, the normal condition of life.
Berkley Michelson, Interpreting the Bible
Americans have become the first
in history to live predominantly inside projections of our own minds…The role
of the media in all of this is to confirm the validity of the arbitrary world
in which we live. The role of TV is to project that world, via images, into our
heads, all of us at the same time.
Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of
Television, the first argument: TV virtually isolates us from unmediated
experience.
The camera not only can lie, it
always lies.
Malcolm Muggeridge, Christ in the Media
A lie gets
halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
Winston Churchill
In the sphere of the intellectual life, the major fact of our
day is a sort of refusal, unconscious but widespread, to become aware of
reality. Man does not want to see himself in the real situation which the world
constitutes for him. He refuses to see what it is that really makes up the real
world in which we live. Probably there is no time in history where men were so
busy trying to find themselves, and so terrified on the rare occasion when they
succeed.
This is true, especially of our intellectuals, but it is also
true of all the people of our day, and of our civilization as a whole. It is as
though we were confronted by an enormous machine, designed and equipped to
prevent man from becoming aware, for driving him into a corner, to an
unconscious refusal, or to a flight into the unreal.
The dramatic characteristic of this epoch, in this sphere, is
that man no longer grasps anything but shadows. He believes in these shadows,
he lives in them, and he dies for them. Reality disappears, the reality of man
himself, and the reality of the facts which surround him. He pursues reality,
if he cares at all, by watching endless hours of TV reality shows, (or
electronic games or fantasy football) where the only reality present is the
products being hawked, and even those are largely illusions and fantasies.
Ellul saw twentieth century man (perhaps for the first time in
history) oscillating unceasingly between the phenomenon and the explanatory
myth: that is to say, between two ‘shadows,’ both of which are extremes, and
are opposed to each other. The phenomenon
might be described as the external presentation of the fact. These external
presentations are mediated (explained) by the myths put out by the press, the
radio, the TV, various kinds of propaganda, and publicity.
The man on the street does not believe in or trust his own
experience, his own judgment, or his own thoughts. He leaves all of that to
what he sees in print or hears on the radio or TV. In his eyes, a fact becomes
true when he has seen an account of it in the media, and he measures the
importance of the fact by the size of the headline or the length of the story.
What he himself has seen does not to count, if it has not been officially
interpreted and supported by a crowd of people who are said to share his
opinion. (today, by the talking heads on TV or the smart phone in his pocket)
This condition is the basis of all propaganda. A fact is
untrue, it is printed in a newspaper with a circulation of a million. A
thousand people know that the fact is false, but nine hundred and ninety-nine
thousand believe it to be true. The false fact is repeated many times in many
places and eventually even the 1% who know it is a lie begin to doubt their
judgment. This is the essential message of Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New
World. They are very different dystopias, but in both, the big lie is the
predominant means of enslaving the people. Today, we call it spin, which falls more gently on our
ears as the politicians promote their own special big lies.
Phenomena, or shadows grasped by modern man make up the bulk
of what he ‘knows.’ Although he himself has a number –a very limited number,
perhaps, --of genuine experiences, he is so embedded in his habits he does not
even know it.
On the other hand, every day he learns a thousand things from
the papers, the radio, the TV, and today, the vast array of Apps on his ever-present
smartphone. These are very important, well-presented, bit-sized, sensational
things. Can he help it, that his little personal experiences, which deal,
perhaps with mundane things like a plum or a razorblade are drowned in a flood
of important illusions concerning Iran’s nuclear program, Dennis Rodman’s trip
to North Korea, or the latest financial crisis in Washington. These may be
actual facts, but they are ones the man on the street will never know in
reality, and they shift with the agenda of those in political power. And they
come and go with mind-numbing frequency.
But it is these ‘shadow’s which become man’s life and thought.
The result is that modern man, submerged by this flood of images which he
cannot verify, is utterly unable to master them. They are not coordinated, for
news succeeds news without ceasing—“BREAKING NEWS!!!” is the 24 hour a day 7
day a week headline on TV. The stories flow through the mind without ever
sticking, without ever causing a moment’s pause for thinking about them.
Modern man is used to living like this, without a present and
without a past. He gets used to living in the chaos of complete incoherence,
because all his intellectual activity is taken up with these fugitive visions,
themselves without a past or a future, and without any substance even in the
present. The politicians can change their lies on a daily basis, and it seems
normal.
In this reality, real facts, within the reach of everyone are
entirely hidden, they have no outward reality, so, of course, they do not
exist. To replace the simple facts, the ruling elite has always created an
explanatory myth. This is a simplified answer to all the chaos and incoherence
of the flood of superficial images and distraction of superficial emotional
propaganda. Man needs some logical connection, some key to coherence in the
flood of surface facts flowing past every day.
In Ellul’s time the Fascists had used the Jews to explain
everything. Today progressive Democrats have redefined liberty to mean
“absolute freedom to do what I please when I please, at the taxpayer’s expense”
and redefined “equality of opportunity” to mean “equality of outcome.” The
Bumper sticker version of this myth is “It’s only fair.” Today Ellul would
recognize in our “narrative” the essence of the myth that is the key to
everything. All to often politics boils down to a competing battle of myths, to
who can tell the biggest lie for the longest time in the loudest voice. There
is much more that could be said about this but we will move on from here next
week.
Jerry Sweers
cmudgeon@windstream.net
3/13/2013
THREE SIMPLE POINTS
GOAFS II: #33
THE PRESENCE OF THE KINGDOM: 20
Chapter 4, the problem of communication
MARCH
13, 2013
I appeal
to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do
not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect. Romans
12.1-2
It may seem
like we have spent a long time (this is the 20th posting) with Ellul
making and elucidating what might seem to be three simple main points:
1.
The
Christian’s unique purpose is to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of
the world,” and to be these things “as sheep in the midst of wolves.” (Matthew
5.13-14 & 10.16)
2.
This
mission is radically revolutionary because it relates to the Kingdom order in
the world willed by the Sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things. It is the
simple fact of living as a Christian, with all of its consequence, with all it
involves, which is the revolutionary act par
excellence.
3.
The
essential problem addressed in The
Presence of the Kingdom is that in our contemporary society the humanistic,
technological means of fallen man have absorbed or discarded the transcendent ends
of the Sovereign God.
Next week,
with Chapter Four, we begin to consider the problem of communications in this
environment of death. The need to understand God’s solution to the problem of
the end and the means and to communicate it effectively has always been with us
but it seems to be today more urgent than ever before.
Today huge
chunks of the earth’s surface are ruled by tyrants. The Muslim world sinks
under the darkness of Sharia. A single political party holds two billion
Chinese in its iron grip. In Europe the socialist experiment is being submerged
in a rising tide of national bankruptcies, with increased restrictions on the
basic freedoms of speech, conscience and religion. English and Canadian jurists
and law professors write confidently about the government’s need to abridge
free speech, in order “abolish hate.”
There is
neither time nor space get into what Christians face in America with an
Imperial President, who would like to be a dictator, who would agree with the
Canadian Professors, who speaks to the nation on television standing in front a
golden tapestry that looks like a harem curtain, and, if he had his way, would
give us a “Sharia compliant” public square. These are the wolves among whom
Christians are called to be salt and light. We need to constantly remember
Psalm 127.1:
Unless
the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord
watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
Almost every question the contemporary culture of wolves is
asking today calls for a simple yes or no answer. Though many of the
questions may seem to have a basis in reason, the answer sought is always an
emotional one. Whether it be a preacher or a politician, a pollster or a
pundit, the question is very seldom a “come let us reason together” question.
Essentially the answer sought is “I feel…”
rather than “I have carefully thought
this through and if you have a half hour to spare I will tell you what I
believe I know.”
These are the days of 20 minute sermons, 24” bumper stickers,
15 minute weight loss programs, 20 second commercials, and instant almost
everything. The people in the pews differ very little from the general
population in having developed extremely short attention spans and living their
lives in Utube clips, sound bites, and a constant stream of text messages.
This cyber-environment and mindset was beginning when Ellul
wrote but has come into full bloom with texting and twitter. In Chapter Four, The Problem of Communication, he begins
to deal with the situation and work of the Christian intellectual. This will
likely give a lot of Christians ‘the shivers.’
Christians do not ordinarily like the idea of thinking very much. Some
even quote 1 Cor. 1.19-20:
For it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of
the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has
not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
Ellul
suggests that Paul’s operative verses are rather in Romans:
I appeal to you therefore,
brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not
be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the
will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12.1-2
He further
clarifies that he will be speaking of the Christian intellectual in the pew,
the layman, not the preacher, the theologian, the seminary professor, etc. Off-hand
I can remember two preachers that I have heard regularly remind their
congregations that every Christian should know some theology. Both Stewart
Briscoe and Alastair Begg provide plenty of sound theology in their preaching
of the Word, but they have always been death on spoon-feeding predigested stuff
into the upturned mouth’s of a passive congregation. All of the best preachers take
the ‘renewal of your mind’ very seriously.
The Christian
intellectual Ellul speaks of is a layman, like other people in the church. But
as an intellectual, he has a somewhat peculiar function to fulfill, both in the
world, and in the Church. He cannot help thinking in theological terms, because
his vocation as an intellectual impels him to think out his faith; but he need
not be a specialist in theology, for he is a layman.
It is not his
task to study speculative theology, but because his work involves him in the
life and activities of the world, he has to evolve some kind of practical
theology. He must think carefully through his situation as a Christian in the
world. He must examine his faith in its relation to the world. What he seeks is
a clear understanding of the function he is to uniquely fulfill.
Further, in
this decadent civilization in which we are now living, this unique function of
the Christian intellectual has a very special mission to fulfill. His task is
to consider the layman’s presence in the world, and not the part he plays within
the Church. At this point Ellul sets aside all the problems connected with the
Christian culture and ‘professional theology’ and points specifically at the
Christian thinker as a person in the world through whom the presence of the
Kingdom is to be expressed. What is the ‘salt and light’ function of this
individual?
God does not
condemn intelligence, thinking or thinkers. But the transformation Paul speaks
of in Romans 12.2 is a transformation of the mind. The ‘new creation in Christ
Jesus’ involves a renewal of or metamorphosis of the mind. Paul repeats this
idea in Ephesians 4.21-23:
“assuming that you have heard
about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old
self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through
deceitful desires, and to be renewed
in the spirit of your minds…”
Ellul makes four points about this. First, That faith produces a renewal of intelligence. (not in the sense of raising our
I.Q, but of how we use our minds) Faith transforms our ways of
looking at facts, of understanding things, the very process of rational
argument. This affects the Christian’s understanding of the world, the things
in the world, of reality, and of man himself. He can no longer grasp these
things in the same way, nor see them in the same light. He is like a blind man
who has miraculously been given his sight. The Christian intellectual will
spend his time thinking and seeking to find out what this all means and how it
relates to his mission as ‘salt and light.’
Second, that this
transformation relates to the present period in which we are living. This is the point at which the
Christian view comes into conflict with the spirit of ‘this present age’; it
seems to be the decisive point at which the separation takes place. Because we
can no longer understand things in the same way, because our intelligence is
transformed, we find our conformity to the present world breaks down. In the
Church, Christian intellectuals can be models of separation from the world
because their separation is the product of a transformed mind, not just
obedience to a list of rules.
Third, that this
transformation takes place in Jesus Christ through the action of the Holy
Spirit. This is not simply an
intellectual process, the adoption of a new philosophy, or a change of denomination,
but a transformation of life, expressed in intellectual terms. So it is the
Holy Spirit who henceforth inspires our minds, and enables us to discover new
ways of thought, and new understandings of the world in which we live.
Finally, That
the aim of this transformation is that
we may discern the will of God, particularly in the ethical sphere, since
the text in Romans 12 speaks of that which is ‘good, acceptable and perfect.’ So
we are referring to a comprehension, not of the abstract or general will of
God, nor of the nature of God, but of His will for the world—a will which acts
in the midst of men, and on the other hand, of that which man can and ought to
do in the world in order to live according to that will of God.
Jerry Sweers
Cmudgeon@winestream.net
3/06/2013
TRUE SPIRITUAL LIFE
GOAFS II: #32
THE PRESENCE OF THE KINGDOM: #19
Chapter 3, The End and the Means
MARCH 6, 2013
The churches are children playing on
the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday
morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we
should be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should lash us to our pews. For the
sleeping god may awake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us
out to where we can never return.
Annie Dillard in Teaching A Stone to Talk
The Church is ‘neither a historical
entity nor an institution, but…’Christ existing as church-community.’
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, doctoral dissertation on “What is the
church”
Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it
remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
John 12.24
Sanctification is the process where itches the Devil
can scratch are systematically removed from my life through my daily obedience
to the Holy Spirit.
JTC
The true spiritual life Ellul suggests is essential for the
Kingdom to manifest itself in the world is described this way. Ellul can keep
up with the Apostle Paul when it comes to long sentences.
“It is a life lived by the
truths of the catechism whose living depths we can never fathom: Man created in
the Image of God; judged and condemned by Divine justice; pardoned and saved by
His love; a creature unique an irreplaceable (man has become unique because the
Son of God has died for each of His creatures; because each soul is called to
Christian liberty, in a life of holiness, and thus rediscovers a life which is
truly’ free,’ because it is lived to the glory of the Creator) called to be
renewed in his mind, and to bear within himself the truth of God: ‘Know you not
that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost?’(1 Cor 6.19) Called to judge
all things, for ‘we shall judge angels,’(1 Cor 6.3) and to
participate in the glorious coming of the Lord of lords. All this comes from the
life of the Holy Spirit within us; ‘We know that we have passed from death into
life.’(1 John 3.14) There is no other life, but we must live it, and we must not
allow ourselves to be dried up by the influence of the spirit of this world.”
We are greatly hindered because we can only conceive the action
in question in the rational form of mechanical means. And we no longer conceive
of it in the form which is constantly suggested in the Scriptures; the corn which grows, the leaven at work
within the bread, the light that banishes
darkness…Yet it is this kind of action which we can really have, because this
is how the Holy Spirit works.
So it is a fact of living, with all of its consequence, with
all it involves, which is the revolutionary act par excellence; at the same time this is the solution of the problem
of end and the means. In a civilization which has lost the meaning of life, the
most useful thing a Christian can do is live,
and life, understood from the point of view of faith, has an extraordinary
explosive force. We are not aware of it, because we only believe in
‘efficiency,’ and life is not efficient. But this life can break the illusions
of the modern world by showing everyone the utter powerlessness of a
mechanistic view.
Bringing this chapter to a close, Ellul reminds his readers
that “when I speak of ‘life’ I am not thinking of some esoteric mysticism or
vitalistic theory of hermetic philosophy. I simply mean the expression of the
Holy Sprit, working within us, expressing himself in our actual life, through
our words, our habits, our decisions. Thus what we need is to rediscover all
that the fullness of personal life means for a man standing on his own two feet
in the midst of the world, who rediscovers his neighbor because he himself has
been found by God. In the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit we receive the answer
to this work of God, and we are bewildered because we are no longer very sure
about the way forward, which no longer depends on us. The end, as well as the
means, has been taken away from us and we hesitate as we look at this way which
lies open before us, whose end we cannot see; we have only one certainty, and
that is the promise which has been made to us of a certain order, which God
guarantees; ‘Seek ye first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these
things shall be added unto you.’”
The bottom line then of the book so far is that all he has
been saying about the end and the means, about the eschatological character of
the union between the end and the means, about the fact that the results do not
depend on us, about the necessity for life and not for action: all this is only
the interpretation and application of this saying of Jesus above (Matt. 6.33).
Next week we will begin Chapter 4, The Problem of Communication—that will leave only one more chapter,
Prologue and Conclusion. Hang in
there, friends and relations!
Jerry Sweers
cmudgeon@windstream.net
Online:
www.crmudgeon.blogspot.com
