Actors’ Sacrifices; Two Views on Forgiveness

I have two thoughts for today:

1.  Yesterday, I watched an excellent documentary called The Captains, in which William Shatner of Star Trek fame interviewed other actors who played captains on a Star Trek show or movie (Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, and Chris Pine), as well as shared his own reflections about Star Trek.

What particularly stood out to me in the documentary were comments by Scott Bakula and Kate Mulgrew, both of whom I love as actors.  Scott Bakula was saying that working on Quantum Leap essentially cost him his marriage, since he was working 12-hour days (at least), with rarely a day off.  Because he was a fairly new actor and thus did not have the leverage to negotiate his hours, he showed up when he was needed.  Kate Mulgrew of Star Trek: Voyager said that she was a single mother during the Voyager days, and she did not get to see her kids that much on account of her long workdays.  To this day, she said, her kids are not interested in the show—-they do not want to watch it—-for they resent how it took their mother away from them.  I can’t imagine not wanting to watch Star Trek: Voyager, but, of course, I enjoy it from a distance, without being exposed to all that it took to make it, or how that affected other people.

2.  Rachel Held Evans has a post, Ask a Seventh-Day Adventist.  As I discuss the issues of forgiveness and salvation in the comments section with Delina Pryce McPhaull and Nicholas, I am seeing more clearly the type of Christianity that I had growing up, and how that contrasts with the sort of Christianity that I encountered among evangelicals.

The type of Christianity that I had growing up (in Armstrongism) went like this: I accept Christ as my personal savior and my past sins are forgiven.  But I need to continue to ask God for forgiveness to keep my slate clean, and God forgives me continually on the basis of what Christ did on the cross.  But asking God for forgiveness is not enough for me to be forgiven on a continual basis, for I also need to repent (i.e., try not to do the sin anymore) and forgive others.

The sort of Christianity that I encountered among evangelicals went like this: I accept Christ as my personal savior and God then regards me as righteous and as a child of God, even though I still have imperfections.  I confess my sins to God, ask God for forgiveness, repent, and forgive others, not to keep my slate clean, for it’s already clean in God’s sight after I accept Christ.  Rather, I do these things to enrich my relationship with God and perhaps even to make myself feel better.

These are my impressions.  I can’t be absolute here, for I think that there were some elements of the second view in my religious upbringing.  But there was enough of the first view swimming around in my mind that, when I was in an evangelical small group and heard the leader say that one did not have to repent of every sin to be saved, I was shocked.

God of Borg

For my weekly quiet time this week, I studied Ecclesiastes 6. 

Is God the source of evil?  Qoheleth says that God is the source of at least one evil: that men attain wealth and honor, only for God to prevent them from enjoying their accomplishments (v 2).  What they have accumulated may fall into the hands of a stranger.  Or a man may have a bunch of kids, and his accumulations are swallowed up by the cost of taking care of them (v 3). 

In v 9, Qoheleth says that the sight of the eyes is better than desire.  Tremper Longman says that ‘The general idea of the proverb is that what is present in hand is better than what one only desires and does not have.”  Good advice!  But I don’t think that, here at least, Qoheleth is intending it to be good advice.  Rather, my impression is that Qoheleth is talking about people who only have desire, meaning that they don’t get to enjoy what is “present at hand.”  They work a lot, with little to show for it.  As v 7 says, people labor for their mouths, but their appetite is not satisfied.

But Qoheleth realizes in v 10 that God has fore-ordained these things, and that resistance to God (like resistance to the Borg) is futile.

In v 12, Qoheleth wonders if we can truly know what is good for human beings, when we don’t even live that long.  The Artscroll commentary says (based on the eighteenth century Jewish writing Metzudas David) that “only a small minority have the intellect to comprehend what is the proper course for a man to take during his short life”.  When I am older, I’ll have wisdom about what I should have done when I was younger.  But it will be too late then, for I’ll be older.  It’s like Ms. McCluskey told Bree on Desperate Housewives a few weeks ago: “Risks you don’t take will become regrets before you know it” (or something like that).

Some commentators I read noted that Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes 6 contradicts his sentiments in Ecclesiastes 3:11: that God makes all things beautiful in their time, implying that we should trust God.  In Ecclesiastes 6, by contrast, Qoheleth is saying that God is responsible for the unprofitable toil in life.  But commentators then say that we shouldn’t look for flawless consistency in Qoheleth: Qoheleth is musing.

Limited Government; My People

1.  In Rolf Rendtorff’s The Old Testament: An Introduction, something on page 44 stood out to me:

The problem of relationships between Israelite and Canaanite traditions also perhaps underlies the narrative of Naboth’s vineyard.  Ahab wants to buy a piece of land which the owner refuses to sell because it is the [nachalah] of his family (v. 3), i.e., the heritage assigned to it, which may not be sold (cf. Lev. 25:23f.).  Jezebel argues against this from a standpoint according to which there are no restrictions to the right of the king (v. 7).  She finally secures Ahab his ‘rights’ by the judicial murder of Naboth (vv. 8-16).

The IVP Bible Background Commentary says something similar:

…Israelites believed that all land was Yahweh’s land, while the Phoenicians would have seen the land as royal fiefdoms—all land was on grant from the king…Israelite kingship was designed to be less despotic than most monarchies—the king was not above the law.  Jezebel [(a Phoenician)] would not have been accustomed to such niceties. 

One would think that the idea of limited government originated with Israel, and was in marked contrast with her ancient Near Eastern neighbors.  Even Norman Gottwald’s “peasant revolt” model for the origin of ancient Israel contains that undertone: you had these oppressive Canaanite cities, and you had these peasants who revolted against them and formed a more just, egalitarian society.  These peasants became known as “Israel”.

Apologists have often argued that ancient Israel was unique, or at least better than other nations in the ancient Near East.  But I wonder if other ancient Near Eastern nations also had some notion of limited government.  I’m fuzzy on the details, but I remember reading in a Harvard class on ancient Near Eastern history that there were two models of kingship: one viewed the king as an underling to the gods, while the other thought that he had more power, as if the king himself had divinity.  Then there’s ancient Egypt, which required a king to uphold maat, a system of order and justice.  And, actually, all ancient Near Eastern nations claimed to believe in justice for the poor and the oppressed.

But I don’t want to say that there’s absolutely nothing to Rendtorff’s point, or that of the IVP Bible Background Commentary.   Monarchies could be despotic.  Where there are monarchies, there can easily develop the notion that a king is more special than everyone else, and has power over people’s lives and property.  Samuel wasn’t getting his critique of kingship out of the clear blue sky!

2.  Over the next few days, I’ll be posting my favorite quotes from Adam McHugh’s Introverts in the Church.  Most of them are concentrated in one chapter.  It’s the chapter that I was expecting to like least, but which I ended up liking the most.  It’s the longest chapter in the book, Chapter 7, “Leading As Ourselves.”

On page 139, McHugh shares the following observation about Moses:

Amidst ravaging supernatural plagues and pyrotechnics of burning bushes and smoldering mountains, I think that the most dramatic moment in the story of Moses centers around a shift in pronouns.  Throughout the story of Moses’ call, the exodus and the handing down of the law, Moses persisted in referring to the Hebrews as “your people”, God’s possession.  He was distancing himself from his kinsfolk.  But in Exodus 34, God showed Moses his glory, passing by him in an unprecedented theophany while Moses hid in a crevice in the mountain, his eyes sheltered from the fullness of God’s majestic holiness.  Moses then prayed to the Lord: “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us.  Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance” (Ex 34:9).  Go with us.  Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.  Moses finally came out of hiding: he claimed his people, his true heritage and identity.

Moses’ transformation demonstrates that a deep, intimate relationship with God is not exclusive of a profound love for people.  Indeed, when we behold the glory of the Lord, we claim his people as our own.

I almost missed this passage because my mind was wandering when I first read it.  Fortunately, I had enough sense to go back and read it again!

This passage reminds me of the importance (for me, at least) of reading the Scriptures in community.  I don’t have all of the answers by myself.  Other people can notice things that I may miss.  And I can even learn from people who may not have a scholarly background in the Bible.  It doesn’t take a degree in Hebrew and the ancient Near East to notice that Moses calls the Israelites “your people” for quite some time, before he finally starts to refer to them as “my people”.

(Of course, this isn’t absolutely correct, since Moses’ message to the Pharaoh was “Let my people go”, and this was before Moses’ experience of God on the mountain.  But, in a big-picture sense, I think that McHugh is on to something.)

I’m also reminded of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Inner Light”, which is one of my (and Wil Wheaton’s) favorite episodes from the series.   In this episode, Captain Picard is transported to another man’s life.  This man has a wife, and is part of a community that needs water.  For a while, Captain Picard obsesses over returning to the Enterprise, which is where he belongs.  But he eventually becomes a part of the community.  When Picard offers a governing official suggestions on how to handle the water supply, a friend remarks to him that this was the first time that Picard acted as part of the community.  At first, this community was somebody else’s people, and Picard was an outsider.  Now, it was Picard’s people.

I wonder how a people can become “my people”, since there are many times when I feel like an outsider.  There was a time when I tried to view evangelicals as “my people”, and I sought to arrive at this insight by spending time in prayer before God.  Hopefully, I would see evangelicals as the people of God, and come to love them.  Yet, while there were many evangelicals who were nice, I had a hard time conceptualizing them as “my people”.  This was especially difficult for me because I was encouraged to see other Christians as my “family”.  I didn’t feel particularly connected to these people, and I was supposed to see them as my family!

What’s interesting is that Moses saw the Israelites as his people, even though they could treat him horribly.  They complained to him.  They stoned him.  Yet, Moses could somehow accept them as his people.  And this occurred after his experience with God on the mountain.

 

Jean Simmons

I just read that actress Jean Simmons has passed away at the age of 80.

Yes, I thought she was a hottie on Spartacus and Elmer Gantry. But it’s her later work that made more of an impression on me. I remember her as the person who read the Bible passages on Mysteries of the Bible—in a dramatic, eerie sort of way. And then there’s her classic line on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where she played someone who conducted a political witch-hunt: “I’ve brought down bigger men than you, Picard!”

R.I.P., Jean Simmons.

UPDATE: I hope this link works. Jean Simmons interrogates Picard, who gives an eloquent speech on civil liberties. If it doesn’t work, you can search for the title on YouTube. Enjoy!

Lessons in Humanity: Habeas Corpus

My Issues with the New Star Trek

Don’t get me wrong…I love the new Star Trek movie. But, after doing some thinking in the shower, I came to understand why some die-hard Trekkies are having a problem with it.

Essentially, the movie undoes much of Star Trek. Because Nero went back in time and destroyed the planet Vulcan, much of what I’ve grown to know and to love no longer exists.

For example, I absolutely loved the Vulcan Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager. This is bizarre, because part of me sees all Vulcans other than Spock as Spock-parodies. But Tuvok has found a place in my heart, even though he is surrounded by other characters who are just as cold and rational as he is (Seven of Nine). Tuvok is not even unique on the Starship Voyager, but I still like him as a character.

And there are Tuvok episodes that are special to me. I think of the one that went back to his adolescence and explained how he became the way that he was. As a teen, he was struggling with his emotions, particularly towards a girl in his class (of course), and he found serenity through the discipline of logic.

Or the one where he was looking after a group of children, who were actually much older than they looked, since people on this planet reverted to childhood in their old age. My heart just melted when that little girl who was about to die said to Tuvok, “Thanks for spending time with us, even though we’re not as behaved as Vulcan children.” And Tuvoc stayed by her side as she died.

Or the one where Paris was on trial for murder, and Tuvok aggressively searched for the facts and proved him innocent. At the end of the episode, Paris reached out to Tuvok and asked him why he always sat by himself. “I do not need friends,” Tuvok said. “Too bad, you’ve already got one,” Paris replied.

Now, all of this is gone! Vulcan was destroyed, with only a few survivors. So there is a huge chance that Tuvok will not be born and have those experiences.

There’s also the Pon Farr issue. Under Russell Miller’s post on Star Trek, Aggie brings up the episode of the original series in which Spock had Pon Farr, which occurs when Vulcan males go into heat and desperately need a Vulcan woman. When Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant, light years away from Vulcan, Tuvok managed to get through his Pon Farr by creating a Vulcan woman in the holodeck.

But how will Spock handle his Pon Farr, when his planet has been destroyed, and the holodeck doesn’t even exist yet? Sure, he has a romance with Uhura, but she is not Vulcan. And, yes, there is a remnant from Vulcan, but the people Spock saved were old men, as far as I could see. I hope I’m wrong on this, since there needs to be at least one fertile female Vulcan for the people-group to survive, let alone for Spock to survive Pon Farr.

Maybe these issues can be addressed in a book or a sequel. I hope so!

Christmas Eve 2008

I just finished It’s a Wonderful Life on YouTube. To be honest, I think I appreciate it more this year because my TV is indisposed right now. I’m just grateful I got to watch it! I noticed that the Christmas Story is also on YouTube, so maybe I’ll watch that tomorrow evening.

Christmas was a hard time for me last year. I was alone with cabin fever. I watched lots of television, and I did lots of reading. But I eventually grew tired of TV and reading, so what do you do then? In the end, my Christmas was a pretty bitter experience.

So I decided that I need a game plan for this year. This year, I’m going to do a little bit of everything. I’ll go to church tomorrow morning, and to an AA meeting tomorrow afternoon. After the meeting, maybe I’ll go to a pizza place, if one is open. I don’t get pizza that often, and I want to spoil myself a little on Christmas (albeit not extravagantly).

I don’t plan to read a whole book this Christmas, as I did last year. But I’m reading some Martin Luther sermons here and there. I like Martin Luther because he focuses a lot on God’s love and grace, which led him to love Jesus Christ. I may also listen to the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe CD that I have from Focus on the Family’s Radio Theater.

This evening, I feel pretty good. I read some Martin Luther sermons while I listened to Rush, only Rush wasn’t on. Someone from Minnesota subbed for him. Then, I did an hour of my daily quiet time, as I prayed and read the Koran. I didn’t think about my Koran reading for the entire hour, but I spent much of the time simply telling God what was on my mind–the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In the process, I remembered a remarkable Christian I knew in high school: many of her classmates considered her fat and ugly, but she was a truly sweet person, with a really pleasant disposition. Her faith somehow enabled her to rise above her difficult surroundings and to have faith, hope, and love. I said a while back that there aren’t too many Christians I want to be like. Well, she’s one who deserves admiration.

Then, I went to an AA meeting. Unfortunately, I got stuck with chairing, but there was a blessing that came out of it. A while back, someone told the group that he couldn’t see his dying mother, since she lives in another state, and he’s stuck where he is because of his probation. But he told me today that his mom is now in remission, and he’ll be off of probation if he can pay his fine. He’s trusting God for the money!

One thing he said to me: he’s been mad at God, but now he’s decided to make amends with God because of all the good things that God is doing. I don’t know if God does that sort of stuff all of the time, since there is suffering in the world. But it is good when God helps someone out. I feel as if my prayers and those of others are not in vain. I was blessed to hear his story. And hopefully he felt blessed that someone asked to hear it. I hope to give this Christmas as well as receive.

As I watched It’s a Wonderful Life, I wondered to what extent each of our lives touches everyone else’s. I mean, that was a big point of the movie: George’s very existence and life of helping others had a ripple effect that benefited people he didn’t even know. He learned that when he got to see what Bedford Falls would’ve been like had he not been born.

But would the world really be all that different if I were not here? I think of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, in which Q let Captain Picard relive an event from his youth. Picard was worried that he’d dramatically change history, to which Q responds: “Look, the same wars occur, everything pretty much happens as it would have anyway. You’re not that important.”

I’d be tempted to dismiss It’s a Wonderful Life as idealistic, until I realize that it actually touches real people’s lives. I heard a person talk about it at an AA meeting I attended last week. Even idealistic movies can have real consequences on our outlook, or resonate with our day-to-day experiences.

So I prefer to think that God put me on this earth for a reason, meaning that my life plays some important role in the web of humanity. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll think about the significance of Christ’s coming to earth, since that is what Christmas celebrates.

Aggadic Stories Soothing the Soul

Source: H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume II (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1893) 623.

“The reigning distress offered no scope for the profundities of the Halacha, but furthered the study of the cheerful Agada, which, diving deep into the joyful and gloomy situations of past ages, poured the balm of consolation on fretted and desperate spirits, and lulled them with the magic of hope.”

I identify with this quote because entertainment is something that has gotten me through a lot. It makes me cry. It makes me laugh. I almost feel like I’m spending time with the characters when I watch TV. I’m becoming like Lieutenant Barclay on Star Trek: The Next Generation, with his holodeck addiction. There I go again–talking like these characters are real people!

I believe it was Mark Brettler of Brandeis who argued that some of the stories in the Bible served as comic relief. As the Israelites struggled with Moabite oppression, they could laugh when they heard the story of Eglon the “cowman,” which made its way into the Book of Judges (Judges 3). Comedy helped them through some real-life difficulties. That’s why I don’t feel guilty when my mind turns to funny stuff during my daily quiet time. Laughter is the best medicine!

Does TV offer me hope? Yes and no. A lot of television characters have lives that are far better than mine is. How many girlfriends has John-Boy Walton had? How many have I had? Do you see what I mean? In terms of family life, I’d say mine is more like TV sitcom families than are a lot of families out there, for my family is supporting, loving, and sometimes annoying, but in a caring way.

So TV can be idealistic. But many characters experience some of the same problems that I do, and I can identify with them. And they somehow make it to the other side. Does that give me hope? Perhaps it shows me what’s possible. I mean, stories must have some kernel of truth in them, right, considering someone from the real world wrote them?

I can understand how Agada could be soothing. I’ve taken rabbinic classes, and there’s something cozy about a nice rabbinic story. It has the same feel as sitting around the campfire and telling stories, which is something like what I get from my AA meetings, or even at my family gatherings.

But I wonder if the hope the Jews got from their stories was the belief that they may be true, historically speaking. In their minds, maybe Hillel (or Akiba–I don’t remember) actually did sit on the roof of the rabbinic academy for decades, before he was finally let inside and went on to become one of the most respected sages of all time. Historians would probably dismiss this story as legend, designed to teach a moral lesson. But did the ancients who heard it see it that way? Maybe they got hope because they thought something good indeed happened to a humble person in the past, and so it could happen to them in the present, provided they imitated such humility.

(Note: See Izgad’s comment.)

I don’t know.

Wil Wheaton, Sin and Salvation

I have some random thoughts today:

1. I was watching an episode of Highway to Heaven last night, “One-Winged Angels.” The angel of the show–Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon)–falls for a woman he’s trying to match up with another guy. The woman’s child is named Max, and he’s quite a rebel! Max looked so familiar to me. I thought it was Jonathan Brandis, but that didn’t seem quite right, since this guy was bigger and older than Jonathan Brandis on It, which came some years later. I found out that Max was Wil Wheaton, Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I saw this episode who knows how many times, and I never realized I was watching Wesley Crusher. I guess you learn something every day! I know that Jonathan Frakes also played on an episode of Highway to Heaven: “A Divine Madness.” I wonder if he and Wil Wheaton ever reminisced about Michael Landon.

2. I like to visit ex-Armstrongite sites, but there’s a view I encounter there that somewhat gets on my nerves. It’s the view that having the Holy Spirit automatically makes one desire to do good and avoid evil. If that’s the case, then why does Paul rebuke churches for immoral behavior? Also, I wonder if people who argue this way are grading themselves on the curve, much like non-Christians do when they say they don’t need a Savior. Can anyone point at himself and say that he is truly righteous–whether he has the Holy Spirit or not? We’re all mixtures of good and evil.

3. I read a sermon by Thomas Belote entitled “Are We All Bad Apples?” Thomas Belote is a Unitarian-Universalist pastor, and I went to Harvard Divinity School with him. He had quite a reputation as a provocative leftist and UU, and my Christian Fellowship group prayed for his salvation. I would have written him off as a closed-minded leftist had I not had an actual conversation with him. I found that his sermons were not just about political liberalism and the “there are many paths to the indefinable divine” spiel. He actually wrestled with profound issues, ones that confronted me as a Christian.

In this particular sermon, he wrestles with the topic of human evil. You wouldn’t expect UUs to believe in sin or total depravity, but he acknowledges that people can sink quite low, to say the least. He mentions the executives of Enron, who shut down California’s power and made fun of those who were suffering. Thom doesn’t end up upholding the doctrine of total depravity, but he sees that we need to account for human evil somehow.

Personally, I have problems with all sorts of perspectives on human evil. I think that Paul’s description of human sinfulness (Romans 1-3) goes too far, since I don’t think everyone is that bad. I think most people are a mixture of good and evil. As an AA friend once told me, “There is bad in the best of us, and good in the worst of us.” If any perspective makes sense to me right now, it is the Jewish one, which states that humans have a good inclination and an evil inclination, and we must decide which to yield to.

4. I’m reading through the apocrypha, and so much of it seems to advocate salvation by works. Wisdom of Solomon acknowledges the goodness of God, but it stresses that we attain immortality through righteous living. Tobit focuses a lot on alms-giving.

My problem with this is basically what an evangelical once told me: How good is good enough? I can take a homeless person out to lunch one day, but how often do I have to take homeless people out to lunch before God considers me righteous? How good do I have to be before I can have assurance of my salvation?

Evangelicals attract me and repel me on this issue. On one hand, they say that we need to be clothed with the perfect righteousness of Christ, since we ourselves are imperfect. On the other hand, I have problems thinking that God condemns non-Christians who live fairly decent lives.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Tomorrow, I’ll write a post on one of my papers. See you then!