In the movie Michael Clayton, George Clooney plays the title role, a lawyer who works for a big law firm in New York City, but more than a lawyer, he’s a fixer. At the beginning of the movie, he gets a call in the middle of the night that one of the law firm’s clients has had an accident, upstate. Michael Clayton gets in his car, drives upstate, meets with the client, finds out that the accident was a hit-and-run, and tries to make sure that the client has the best local legal representation he can arrange. The client gets very frustrated, because he doesn’t feel that the accident was his fault (and he has several justifications as to why this accident was not his fault), and Michael Clayton doesn’t seem to be ‘fixing’ the situation to his satisfaction. The bottom line is, the client wants Clooney’s character to simply make the hit-and-run go away; but there is no legal way to do that. He’s looking to Clayton to, not only protect him from any legal ramifications, but to assuage his guilty conscience. It simply does not work that way.
I think that many times we look to God in very much the same way. We get ourselves into a mess, and then repent, and pray about it, and expect God to just make it all go away. Don’t misunderstand me, there have been times when I have made mistakes so severe that I have gotten myself worked up into a lather thinking that my situation was dire, but God had already adjusted people’s attitudes so that my consequences were not nearly so severe as I had expected. Unlike a lawyer, God can soothe an aching conscience; even if the sin that was committed was one that we, as human beings, would probably deem ‘unforgivable.’ One sin is very much like another to God. There are unforgivable sins, but it is much harder to reach a place of being beyond God’s reach than one might expect.
“But I thought God was a loving God? Shouldn’t He absolve me of the consequences of my actions when He forgives me?” Let me ask you this: Didn’t your parents love you, when you were growing up? (and if the answer to that question honestly is ‘no’ then think about other kids that you knew whose parents loved them) Did they let you slide when you misbehaved, or did they punish you? If they really loved you, then they punished you because they wanted you to learn from your mistake. They wanted you to at least grow up to be a good person, didn’t they? Maybe they didn’t do everything that they could have or even should have, because they were only human, but didn’t they want you to grow to be more upright? Wasn’t that because they loved you? The Bible tells us that loving parents will correct their children. Let me hasten to point out that the Scripture has been used as an excuse to beat sons and daughters severely. Any correction should be meted out with love and compassion, while at the same time being severe enough to be memorable, but not scarring.
The Bible says that God punishes the ones He loves. He wants us to learn, and grow in Him, and to be all that we can be (more so than the Army does). He will try to teach us without chastisement, if He can, but if we don’t learn, and continue to act out, then He will get more severe. The severity of His punishment will always be in proportion to our actions, though (even if it doesn't seem like it at the time).
Showing posts with label George Clooney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Clooney. Show all posts
Monday, April 21, 2008
Friday, July 27, 2007
Reality
I have been curious as to what the brouhaha was about as far as the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ that is being proposed in Congress. The liberals want fairness in media, the conservatives have been complaining for years that the main-stream media is too liberal, but they are fighting the Fairness Doctrine. WIRED magazine reported on the fairness doctrine, and there, in the third paragraph, is the explanation. Conservative talk show hosts exposed the liberals attempt to grant amnesty to the illegal immigrants, even though the main stream media ignored the bill. People found out, and a lot of the members of Congress got a lot of angry communication from their constituents. I wonder what sort of E-mails and letters they would have gotten if they had actually gotten the bill to pass. It strikes me as particularly odd, since George Clooney’s movie, 'Good Night, and Good Luck' quotes the journalist Edward R. Murrow as saying that sometimes you just can’t present both side of an argument and still be fair to the facts. I guess this Congress hasn't seen that movie.
If the 'Fairness Doctrine' becomes law, does that mean that anytime Al Gore's movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth' is played, that the BBC's documentary, 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' will be played also? BTW, out of a sense of fairness (if you'll pardon the expression), I feel I must point out that I found out about the BBC's film because one of the scientists (perhaps the only scientist), Professor Carl Wunsch, has since said that his statements were taken out of context and that he absolutely believes in global warming, but that some things that have been presented as fact by the media are really just theories.
How would the 'Fairness Doctrine' play on the subject of honor killing? Newsweek ran an article on the Juha sisters, who were killed in Gaza, allegedly after having been found guilty of prostitution in a considerably less than formal court. Now there is a man being held for murder, but there isn't much hue and cry about three girls being murdered, because it was an honor killing. It's tradition. Newsweek quotes the man who found the bodies as saying that this is not their religion, but it is tradition. I am not familiar enough with Islam to know, one way or the other. I do know the Jesus talked about men making the law of God of none effect by their tradition...
Really, though, what's on my mind is this: People either think that once you become a Christian, then you become perfect, and you never have any more problems, or people think that Christianity is *obviously* not the true religion, because it has so many imperfect people in it. I guess that's really kind of the same thing, but neither one is true. People tend to be, whether Christian or not, generally those type of people generally referred to as human beings. We make mistakes. When you stop making mistakes, then you are no longer human. Human people have a hard time relating to people that are not human, so God leaves us human after He redeems us. Much as I would like to stop making mistakes...
Let me just throw in 3 quick links: Two for commentaries in Christianity Today magazine: one, and two; and one in Newsweek here.
Somebody told me recently that he had noticed a sign of political correctness creeping into the church: Where we used to talk about 'Saints and Sinners,' we now say 'Churched and Unchurched.' I don't think that it's got anything to do with PC, I think it's just a casting off of naiveté. We used to think that when people became saints, they stopped being sinners. We have come to realize that we still fall short. Apostle Paul wrote extensively about his own struggles with sin in Romans 7.
It has been pointed out that, during the early years of the United States, it was common practice for preachers to preach using passages of Scripture that talked about servants pleasing their masters to justify slavery. In retrospect, that was obviously wrong. On the other hand, who were the abolitionists? Do you know of any abolitionist that wasn't a Christian? We can look to the Spanish Inquisition, and see what a horrible thing that was, done in the Name of Jesus. We can even look to the stories in the Bible. Scripture tells us that David was a man after God's own heart, and yet David had an affair with Bathsheba, and then had her husband, Uriah, killed, to cover it up. Does that sound like something God would do? Of course not; but it shows that even the best and most blessed of us make mistakes. No wonder David said that he was shapen in iniquity.
I've commented before that we, as human beings, are capable of great monstrosities. Even those of us who call ourselves Christians sometimes make horrendous mistakes. I've known people that were 'unchurched' who lived better lives than some of us who are 'churched.' Why does God allow such things? God gave us free will. We are free to do what is good, or what is evil (as melodramatic as that may sound). The nice thing about freedom is that it makes it pretty easy to tell who does the right thing simply because it is the right thing, as opposed to those who do the right thing simply out of a sense of obligation. Unfortunately, it also makes it easy for some people to just not do the right thing at all. If you can come up with a system in which all human beings have free will, and yet no one ever wants to do anything selfish or just plain wrong, I'd love to hear it. Or better yet, explain your idea to God (but try not to talk down to Him too much).
If the 'Fairness Doctrine' becomes law, does that mean that anytime Al Gore's movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth' is played, that the BBC's documentary, 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' will be played also? BTW, out of a sense of fairness (if you'll pardon the expression), I feel I must point out that I found out about the BBC's film because one of the scientists (perhaps the only scientist), Professor Carl Wunsch, has since said that his statements were taken out of context and that he absolutely believes in global warming, but that some things that have been presented as fact by the media are really just theories.
How would the 'Fairness Doctrine' play on the subject of honor killing? Newsweek ran an article on the Juha sisters, who were killed in Gaza, allegedly after having been found guilty of prostitution in a considerably less than formal court. Now there is a man being held for murder, but there isn't much hue and cry about three girls being murdered, because it was an honor killing. It's tradition. Newsweek quotes the man who found the bodies as saying that this is not their religion, but it is tradition. I am not familiar enough with Islam to know, one way or the other. I do know the Jesus talked about men making the law of God of none effect by their tradition...
Really, though, what's on my mind is this: People either think that once you become a Christian, then you become perfect, and you never have any more problems, or people think that Christianity is *obviously* not the true religion, because it has so many imperfect people in it. I guess that's really kind of the same thing, but neither one is true. People tend to be, whether Christian or not, generally those type of people generally referred to as human beings. We make mistakes. When you stop making mistakes, then you are no longer human. Human people have a hard time relating to people that are not human, so God leaves us human after He redeems us. Much as I would like to stop making mistakes...
Let me just throw in 3 quick links: Two for commentaries in Christianity Today magazine: one, and two; and one in Newsweek here.
Somebody told me recently that he had noticed a sign of political correctness creeping into the church: Where we used to talk about 'Saints and Sinners,' we now say 'Churched and Unchurched.' I don't think that it's got anything to do with PC, I think it's just a casting off of naiveté. We used to think that when people became saints, they stopped being sinners. We have come to realize that we still fall short. Apostle Paul wrote extensively about his own struggles with sin in Romans 7.
It has been pointed out that, during the early years of the United States, it was common practice for preachers to preach using passages of Scripture that talked about servants pleasing their masters to justify slavery. In retrospect, that was obviously wrong. On the other hand, who were the abolitionists? Do you know of any abolitionist that wasn't a Christian? We can look to the Spanish Inquisition, and see what a horrible thing that was, done in the Name of Jesus. We can even look to the stories in the Bible. Scripture tells us that David was a man after God's own heart, and yet David had an affair with Bathsheba, and then had her husband, Uriah, killed, to cover it up. Does that sound like something God would do? Of course not; but it shows that even the best and most blessed of us make mistakes. No wonder David said that he was shapen in iniquity.
I've commented before that we, as human beings, are capable of great monstrosities. Even those of us who call ourselves Christians sometimes make horrendous mistakes. I've known people that were 'unchurched' who lived better lives than some of us who are 'churched.' Why does God allow such things? God gave us free will. We are free to do what is good, or what is evil (as melodramatic as that may sound). The nice thing about freedom is that it makes it pretty easy to tell who does the right thing simply because it is the right thing, as opposed to those who do the right thing simply out of a sense of obligation. Unfortunately, it also makes it easy for some people to just not do the right thing at all. If you can come up with a system in which all human beings have free will, and yet no one ever wants to do anything selfish or just plain wrong, I'd love to hear it. Or better yet, explain your idea to God (but try not to talk down to Him too much).
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