Western thinking is rooted in a Hebrew/Christian and Greek Worldview. It’s like a house of two stories. The second story is “reality.” “God, first principals, objectivity” and abstract ideas like “society,” “perspective” “worldview” and “social justice” occupy the second story.
The first story is everyday life. This is where people live. On the first story Western people experience “examples” of the “real” stuff in the second story. Of course the mundane is a kind of “reality,” but it is experienced “subjectively.” Westerners believe that, by developing abstractions and thinking within them they may “transcend” the first story and “subjectivity.” I believe that this is the fundamental Western way of thinking. Two story thinking. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, the authors of Scripture and virtually all Western philosophers and intellectuals reflect this kind of thinking in what they propose about “reality.” This is also how I think.
In Chinese cultures (in the tradition of the “Three Ways” – Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) people occupy only a single story. Everything that is “real” is right here, all around us (whether or not we are aware of it). This is what I have been studying and observing here in Vietnam.
I used to think that the two story way of thinking is essential to thought; that it underlies Scripture. “Principals” were more important to me than “stories.” (But Scripture is mostly stories.) St. Paul seems to make this distinction: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator…. ” That is, they worshiped the “creation” (first story) rather than its Creator (second story). But he also wrote, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” So God exists within His creation. Everyone everywhere knows about Him!
Of course one story thought includes “abstractions.” First story “abstractions” are inductions; second story thought deducts the first story from the second. For example, “heaven” is central to Confucian ethics. (Some translate it “God.”) But it’s not “up there;” it’s right here!
I think in two stories. My ideas are so abstract that often people have no idea what I am talking about. This is how I do it. (1) I observe the phenomena surrounding me and try to summarize my experience with abstract concepts. (2) I take the abstractions I’ve induced (like “two story thought”) and try to figure them out. This may take moments or years. (3) When I’m satisfied with my analysis, then I apply what I’ve discovered back to the mundane. (4) Some of my explanations won’t work. So I try to discover why they don’t, and begin the cycle again. I have written it as a linear process; in reality I do all of these “steps” at the same time. This paragraph is an example!
What might work for thinking is devastating for moral calculation. If “Christians” are indeed the people of the Truth, then why do they behave so badly? I believe that it is because virtue must have only a single story. In this culture there is no such thing as “virtue.” There are only virtuous people. I’ll write about that next time.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
I think I know
I think I know why I’m unable to communicate with Americans.
The older I grow, the less I know. When I know nothing at all, then I will know everything there is to know. “Knowledge” is just baggage. Losing baggage may seem inconvenient at first, but traveling free of baggage is truly traveling!
In America it seems that everyone has major problems living their lives; so did I, for a long time. I always knew that my number one problem was me. Now that I have put them (America, me) behind, the quality of my problems has improved immensely!
People who post their problems on websites that I visit seem to think that they “know” their problems. Their lives aren’t working out the way they expect them to. (That, of course, is the problem – “expect”). From time to time I try to reach my hand toward them in a gesture of compassion and empathy. My hand is usually ignored; sometimes slapped. How puzzling; they appear to ask for help but they are unable to see help when it’s offered.
So I conclude that people do not really want to know. They have grown so accustomed to misery that they can’t leave it behind. It earns them sympathy from people who share that condition. When I peep into their mind, they slam the door shut – most of them do it immediately; some connect for a little while, but then cut me off. For a long time this was puzzling, but now I must conclude that people take pleasure in misery. At least I did.
I want to help but I cannot. So I think I’ll just get on with my life. I am surrounded here by people who love me and appreciate me. Why would I ever want to return to America? Why do I continue attempting to connect with Americans? “Christians?”
I want to help them because I love them. But I can’t.
I want to help but I’m just human. If they are unable to receive me – a fellow human – then how can they receive Christ?
I like the way Mr. Peterson puts it (from John 1):
9-13The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn't want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
Are you “one of God’s kids?” Do you know what it means to be one? That’s knowledge worth knowing. I try to explain, but no one listens. The “Life-Light” is also trying to explain, but no one listens to Him either. It's easier to seek sympathy from those who don't know what to do than receive actual knowledge.
When will you get the ears to hear? The eyes to see? At least ask…
The older I grow, the less I know. When I know nothing at all, then I will know everything there is to know. “Knowledge” is just baggage. Losing baggage may seem inconvenient at first, but traveling free of baggage is truly traveling!
In America it seems that everyone has major problems living their lives; so did I, for a long time. I always knew that my number one problem was me. Now that I have put them (America, me) behind, the quality of my problems has improved immensely!
People who post their problems on websites that I visit seem to think that they “know” their problems. Their lives aren’t working out the way they expect them to. (That, of course, is the problem – “expect”). From time to time I try to reach my hand toward them in a gesture of compassion and empathy. My hand is usually ignored; sometimes slapped. How puzzling; they appear to ask for help but they are unable to see help when it’s offered.
So I conclude that people do not really want to know. They have grown so accustomed to misery that they can’t leave it behind. It earns them sympathy from people who share that condition. When I peep into their mind, they slam the door shut – most of them do it immediately; some connect for a little while, but then cut me off. For a long time this was puzzling, but now I must conclude that people take pleasure in misery. At least I did.
I want to help but I cannot. So I think I’ll just get on with my life. I am surrounded here by people who love me and appreciate me. Why would I ever want to return to America? Why do I continue attempting to connect with Americans? “Christians?”
I want to help them because I love them. But I can’t.
I want to help but I’m just human. If they are unable to receive me – a fellow human – then how can they receive Christ?
I like the way Mr. Peterson puts it (from John 1):
9-13The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn't want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
Are you “one of God’s kids?” Do you know what it means to be one? That’s knowledge worth knowing. I try to explain, but no one listens. The “Life-Light” is also trying to explain, but no one listens to Him either. It's easier to seek sympathy from those who don't know what to do than receive actual knowledge.
When will you get the ears to hear? The eyes to see? At least ask…
Strange Fruit
What do “Christians” look like? How should they behave? St. Paul very clearly spells it out. The Christian lives by and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
“16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”
The Hebrews lived under law for a long time, but they never seemed to measure up to God’s requirements. Paul makes it very clear that no one can. The law cannot produce righteousness. “18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”
So the source of righteousness is not law, but the Spirit.
How does a believer know if he or she is actually living by the “sinful nature” or by the Spirit? Fortunately it’s not a mystery. We are now given two lists of observable behaviors for evidence. (I don’t want to get into “judging” just yet….) Let’s be “scientists” doing a study of how Christians live.
The acts of the sinful nature
“19The acts [behaviors] of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Some of these are so over the top that believers have no problem identifying their abstinence: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, drunkenness and orgies have few promoters in the church. A closer look, though, reveals that they are not so foreign in Christian circles after all.
It is difficult to find many people who defend sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery as healthy behaviors. We have our share of sex scandals in the Church, but the fact that they still are “scandalous” indicates that they are not very acceptable. Nevertheless, based on considerable experience, I have no reason to believe that sexual sin is any less frequent among Christians than in the larger population.
Idolatry is simply worshipping other gods. A good synonym for “worship,” I believe, is “pre-occupation.” A person is preoccupied with what he “worships.” I believe that if a person is honest with himself, he will discover that “God” is probably not at the top of the list of his common, everyday preoccupations.
15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.
In the seventies and eighties many books and articles were written about idolatry. (The ones by Bob Goudswaard and Schlossberg were a couple of my favorites.) I wrote one as well. I was struck by the idolatry of the “Christian family” as promoted by James Dobson and others. All around me I saw Christians preoccupied with something other than God. And loving the world. And boasting about how “spiritual” they (or at least “christians” as an abstraction) were.
Times change; the interest in idols seemed to fade away.
I concluded that, 1) idolatry is as common among Christians as others. 2) Christians seemed blind to their own preoccupations. 3) Rather than a being a horrible heathen practice, idolatry is just a “work of the flesh.” Christians were not casting their babies into the fire of Moloch, but they sure seemed interested in patriotism and material prosperity more than they were interested in doing God’s will as the Scriptures describe it, and loving one another. 4) Idolatry is what the pagans do. We don’t. So our “christian” teachings focus on what not to do. Life is not meant to be defined by what you “don’t do.” Think about it.
Witchcraft: Put simply, it’s the ability to influence fate, similar to sorcery and magic. In recent times Wiccans have managed to clean up the somewhat sleazy public image of witchcraft. But that’s a pagan religion. New age folks call it “The law of attraction” or “visualization.” Christians use different terms like “prayer,” “Name it and claim it,” “Prayer of Jabez,” and so on. My closest relative is a “witch” (she says “psychic”). While she is adamantly not a Christian, she is an exemplary righteous person.
Drunkenness: For ten years I attempted to drink myself to death. There were two pastors in my local AA group. One of the “secret sins” we don’t discuss in polite company.
Orgies: I have no experience with sex orgies; I know where they occur, but they are so clearly immoral that I have never sought them out. Nevertheless, if we remove “sex” from the concept, and just look for masses of people working themselves up into ecstatic emotional release, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble locating orgies all around us. I wrote my Masters’ Thesis – Subterranean Saturnalia – on the ecstatic collective behavior in the night clubs where my band put me through college. In that thesis I wrote a chapter on the similarities between the clubs and churches. I was not a believer then.
So if we can observe that these obvious “works of the flesh” commonly occur among believers, then how can we see the gentler ones?
Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy: Your eyes are as good as mine. And I have seen virtually no difference in the way most Christians and the general population behave. Except possibly with dissensions and factions. If it weren’t for these Christian people might actually look like a “church” was supposed to look: brothers dwelling together in unity and love. Instead we find, in Ken Taylor’s words, “the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group.”
The fruit of the Spirit
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control.”
Love
“God is love.”
All of my life love has been the way that I naturally relate to other people. I don’t know if it is genetic, the way my mother socialized me, or some special connection with my Heavenly Father. It’s not that I’m better or more virtuous than anyone else. I am not “good” at all. My sinful nature is just as nasty as anyone’s. But I cannot help loving the people around me; I just do it. (I drank because I was forbidden to love.)
So while the list of the “fruit of the spirit” is meant to describe a person controlled by the Holy Spirit, there seems to be a “natural” side to it. I have experienced this in myself as long as I can remember. Like my niece (the “witch”), I have always had an instinctive desire to “do the right thing.” Ever since I can remember; long before I met Jesus Christ.
Confucian Virtue by Example
Arriving in Vietnam, I immediately sensed that there is something very special about the Vietnamese people. I wrote many times back home, “These are the kindest, gentlest, friendliest and most humble people I have ever met.” But have only recently come to understand it since studying Confucius, and growing very close to several of my Viet students. This is what I discovered about how they practice virtue.
In Western, Judeo-christian culture, “virtue” begins as a list of ideals that people are supposed to practice if they want to become “virtuous.” Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control is a good list of them. But these grate against the naturally selfish sin nature. So how can people become virtuous? They “try really hard” to emulate these things in their lives. But they fail, and when they fail, they feel badly and often ask forgiveness from those that they have offended.
So, the story goes, Jesus Christ the perfect man was put to death in our place to pay the price God requires to forgive our sin. When we understand and identify with His sacrifice, then we too are “forgiven,” and no longer have to sin. But we just go on sinning anyway.
What can a sinner do? Perhaps they pray a lot to a God they cannot see, go to the altar and pour their hearts out to a God they hope is listening, go to mass every day and participate in the sacraments, line up to be “slain in the spirit,” etc. And keep on asking for forgiveness. But it never worked for me.
Confucius knew that such a system is always doomed to failure. People cannot be made good by following rules. He said, "If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good."
In contrast to the West, in this (Confucian) culture, “virtue” is right behavior (rén), not an abstract ideal to which a person must aspire. For example, “kindness” is not an ideal; it’s simply what one does. But how do you learn to do it? You emulate the behavior of kind people. Your goal is not to please God or fulfill some abstract ideal. It’s to become a person worth emulating. And you simply do this through public practice until you develop the habit (rite) of kindness.
What happens when you fail? You don’t “ask for forgiveness;” this makes no sense in the culture here. Instead you become very ashamed at your failure, and when the intense pain passes, you step up and try again. People are watching. "Guide them by edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the common people will stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue, keep them in line with the rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves." (Analects II, 3) This has already happened to me, and going through the process has helped me to understand it from the inside. I’ll never make that mistake again!
For the system to work you need emulatable people, and here they abound! The Vietnamese tower over Western people in the “fruits of the Spirit,” and they don’t understand – nor do they think that they need – the Holy Spirit. Just look at how Western people behave. Why would they aspire to be like them?
Unlike many of my former American associates, my friends here don’t claim to be the “good people” in contrast to those “bad people” over there. Today Hang told me: “I’m a good person and a bad person.” We discussed it for awhile. She fully understands sinful vs. virtuous behavior. This is a young woman who studies very diligently, tutors children to pay for university education, and in another year will graduate, get a good job, and begin to support her family. She doesn’t think that she will get married; her family needs her. I never met a single student like this among the hundreds I have known in the American Christian institutions where I have taught, and she is not exceptional. This is what they are doing because, in this culture, the family (“brothers” I think) is sacred. Duty to your family comes above everything else. “16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers [here – family]…. let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
The Viet Family
Vietnam is one huge family. There are few pronouns in the language; instead everyone is addressed by their first name and a relationship term (grandfather/mother, older brother/sister, father, mother, younger brother/sister, aunt). There are no “social status” distinctions like in European languages – tu vs. vous (Fr.) or usted (Sp.). The maid who cleans the house in Peru would be “tu,” like a child or pet. Here she is “auntie.”
They “share” – i.e. use each other’s stuff without asking. (Once my students become my “children” they just go through my belongings and raid the refrigerator with great glee!) Everyone drinks from the same glass. Traffic (tight swarms of scooters with cars and huge trucks mixed in) here was incomprehensible to me (they drive both ways on both sides of the street) until I realized how it works: everyone is looking out for everyone else. Now I do it too.
Apparently the sharp distinction made in the West between family, society and state is very fuzzy here. I still don’t completely understand it, but I suspect it originates from Confucius as well.
Love – I immediately realized that my students love me, long before they told me. This is possible because Vietnamese society is ordered like a huge family. I am “teacher,” a kind of “father.” Yen tells me, “I love you like my father or my grandfather.” (I suggested “uncle,” and that was ok too.) She was clear, “not like my boyfriend.” But I already knew this, and it was her love that began to open my heart in a way that I have never experienced before. Finally I can freely love everyone around me, and rather than freaking them out (as in America), they just love me back!
“12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” Virtue by example.
Which gives me great JOY.
I could continue on down the fruit list, but I’m not sure it would add much to what I have already said. These “fruits” are here everywhere in abundance. And they seem to hinge upon self control; human effort to emulate the teachings of Confucius. But it seems to work.
“29If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.” “He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil…. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” Virtue by example.
The difficult part: we were told that the “law” and the “Spirit” are in conflict. Either we obey the sinful nature, or we allow the Spirit to control us. The evidence for our allegiance is how we behave. How can such loving and virtuous people evidence the “fruit of the Spirit” and, at the same time, not “know” God? And how can my former American “christian” friends behave so badly while they claim to have “Jesus in their hearts” and be “walking in the Spirit?”
Even more puzzling: Viets do say that they have “Uncle Ho” (Ho Chi Minh) in their hearts. He is their messiah, a holy man who delivered their nation (family) from foreign domination (the French and the USA). Although his portrait is everywhere, it’s not like “Uncle Joe” in the USSR or dictators I’ve seen around the world. They love him!
Conclusion
Finishing up, St. Paul concludes, “Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
So to “live by the Spirit,” we must “have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” The evidence is in; my conclusion must be that American Christians live by the sinful nature because they have not experienced the cross; they are glad that their sins are forgiven, but they are still controlled by the ego, the self, the “sin nature,” the “old man.” It’s not for me to judge whether or not they are Christians; but one can observe by their behavior that they are not living by the Spirit.
The Cross
I think that “the cross” is deeply misunderstood by Protestant America. I believe that, when Jesus was put to death on the cross, so was I. My “sin nature” was crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20). (While I’ve believed in Jesus for 36 years, I only found out about this six months ago.) This is the antithesis of the Wesleyan doctrine of “entire sanctification,” which amounts to the “re-habilitation of the self.” The self – the “sin nature” – cannot be improved or “set apart and dedicated entirely to God”; it must be put to death. After I understood the cross in this way, Scripture took on a whole new meaning. Some of my friends think I’ve become a “Buddhist.”
The Vietnamese people behave with far more virtue than “christian America” does, but how can they “live by the Spirit” when they don’t even know what that means (much less the cross)? How can “human effort” produce such fruit in unbelievers while believers who are “filled with the Holy Spirit” (at least the ones I have known) behave so badly? The Buddhist foundation of Viet culture probably holds the answer, but I don’t understand it yet. I’m confused.
14"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10)
Maybe I just think too much.
“16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”
The Hebrews lived under law for a long time, but they never seemed to measure up to God’s requirements. Paul makes it very clear that no one can. The law cannot produce righteousness. “18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”
So the source of righteousness is not law, but the Spirit.
How does a believer know if he or she is actually living by the “sinful nature” or by the Spirit? Fortunately it’s not a mystery. We are now given two lists of observable behaviors for evidence. (I don’t want to get into “judging” just yet….) Let’s be “scientists” doing a study of how Christians live.
The acts of the sinful nature
“19The acts [behaviors] of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Some of these are so over the top that believers have no problem identifying their abstinence: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, drunkenness and orgies have few promoters in the church. A closer look, though, reveals that they are not so foreign in Christian circles after all.
It is difficult to find many people who defend sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery as healthy behaviors. We have our share of sex scandals in the Church, but the fact that they still are “scandalous” indicates that they are not very acceptable. Nevertheless, based on considerable experience, I have no reason to believe that sexual sin is any less frequent among Christians than in the larger population.
Idolatry is simply worshipping other gods. A good synonym for “worship,” I believe, is “pre-occupation.” A person is preoccupied with what he “worships.” I believe that if a person is honest with himself, he will discover that “God” is probably not at the top of the list of his common, everyday preoccupations.
15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.
In the seventies and eighties many books and articles were written about idolatry. (The ones by Bob Goudswaard and Schlossberg were a couple of my favorites.) I wrote one as well. I was struck by the idolatry of the “Christian family” as promoted by James Dobson and others. All around me I saw Christians preoccupied with something other than God. And loving the world. And boasting about how “spiritual” they (or at least “christians” as an abstraction) were.
Times change; the interest in idols seemed to fade away.
I concluded that, 1) idolatry is as common among Christians as others. 2) Christians seemed blind to their own preoccupations. 3) Rather than a being a horrible heathen practice, idolatry is just a “work of the flesh.” Christians were not casting their babies into the fire of Moloch, but they sure seemed interested in patriotism and material prosperity more than they were interested in doing God’s will as the Scriptures describe it, and loving one another. 4) Idolatry is what the pagans do. We don’t. So our “christian” teachings focus on what not to do. Life is not meant to be defined by what you “don’t do.” Think about it.
Witchcraft: Put simply, it’s the ability to influence fate, similar to sorcery and magic. In recent times Wiccans have managed to clean up the somewhat sleazy public image of witchcraft. But that’s a pagan religion. New age folks call it “The law of attraction” or “visualization.” Christians use different terms like “prayer,” “Name it and claim it,” “Prayer of Jabez,” and so on. My closest relative is a “witch” (she says “psychic”). While she is adamantly not a Christian, she is an exemplary righteous person.
Drunkenness: For ten years I attempted to drink myself to death. There were two pastors in my local AA group. One of the “secret sins” we don’t discuss in polite company.
Orgies: I have no experience with sex orgies; I know where they occur, but they are so clearly immoral that I have never sought them out. Nevertheless, if we remove “sex” from the concept, and just look for masses of people working themselves up into ecstatic emotional release, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble locating orgies all around us. I wrote my Masters’ Thesis – Subterranean Saturnalia – on the ecstatic collective behavior in the night clubs where my band put me through college. In that thesis I wrote a chapter on the similarities between the clubs and churches. I was not a believer then.
So if we can observe that these obvious “works of the flesh” commonly occur among believers, then how can we see the gentler ones?
Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy: Your eyes are as good as mine. And I have seen virtually no difference in the way most Christians and the general population behave. Except possibly with dissensions and factions. If it weren’t for these Christian people might actually look like a “church” was supposed to look: brothers dwelling together in unity and love. Instead we find, in Ken Taylor’s words, “the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group.”
The fruit of the Spirit
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control.”
Love
“God is love.”
All of my life love has been the way that I naturally relate to other people. I don’t know if it is genetic, the way my mother socialized me, or some special connection with my Heavenly Father. It’s not that I’m better or more virtuous than anyone else. I am not “good” at all. My sinful nature is just as nasty as anyone’s. But I cannot help loving the people around me; I just do it. (I drank because I was forbidden to love.)
So while the list of the “fruit of the spirit” is meant to describe a person controlled by the Holy Spirit, there seems to be a “natural” side to it. I have experienced this in myself as long as I can remember. Like my niece (the “witch”), I have always had an instinctive desire to “do the right thing.” Ever since I can remember; long before I met Jesus Christ.
Confucian Virtue by Example
Arriving in Vietnam, I immediately sensed that there is something very special about the Vietnamese people. I wrote many times back home, “These are the kindest, gentlest, friendliest and most humble people I have ever met.” But have only recently come to understand it since studying Confucius, and growing very close to several of my Viet students. This is what I discovered about how they practice virtue.
In Western, Judeo-christian culture, “virtue” begins as a list of ideals that people are supposed to practice if they want to become “virtuous.” Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control is a good list of them. But these grate against the naturally selfish sin nature. So how can people become virtuous? They “try really hard” to emulate these things in their lives. But they fail, and when they fail, they feel badly and often ask forgiveness from those that they have offended.
So, the story goes, Jesus Christ the perfect man was put to death in our place to pay the price God requires to forgive our sin. When we understand and identify with His sacrifice, then we too are “forgiven,” and no longer have to sin. But we just go on sinning anyway.
What can a sinner do? Perhaps they pray a lot to a God they cannot see, go to the altar and pour their hearts out to a God they hope is listening, go to mass every day and participate in the sacraments, line up to be “slain in the spirit,” etc. And keep on asking for forgiveness. But it never worked for me.
Confucius knew that such a system is always doomed to failure. People cannot be made good by following rules. He said, "If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good."
In contrast to the West, in this (Confucian) culture, “virtue” is right behavior (rén), not an abstract ideal to which a person must aspire. For example, “kindness” is not an ideal; it’s simply what one does. But how do you learn to do it? You emulate the behavior of kind people. Your goal is not to please God or fulfill some abstract ideal. It’s to become a person worth emulating. And you simply do this through public practice until you develop the habit (rite) of kindness.
What happens when you fail? You don’t “ask for forgiveness;” this makes no sense in the culture here. Instead you become very ashamed at your failure, and when the intense pain passes, you step up and try again. People are watching. "Guide them by edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the common people will stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue, keep them in line with the rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves." (Analects II, 3) This has already happened to me, and going through the process has helped me to understand it from the inside. I’ll never make that mistake again!
For the system to work you need emulatable people, and here they abound! The Vietnamese tower over Western people in the “fruits of the Spirit,” and they don’t understand – nor do they think that they need – the Holy Spirit. Just look at how Western people behave. Why would they aspire to be like them?
Unlike many of my former American associates, my friends here don’t claim to be the “good people” in contrast to those “bad people” over there. Today Hang told me: “I’m a good person and a bad person.” We discussed it for awhile. She fully understands sinful vs. virtuous behavior. This is a young woman who studies very diligently, tutors children to pay for university education, and in another year will graduate, get a good job, and begin to support her family. She doesn’t think that she will get married; her family needs her. I never met a single student like this among the hundreds I have known in the American Christian institutions where I have taught, and she is not exceptional. This is what they are doing because, in this culture, the family (“brothers” I think) is sacred. Duty to your family comes above everything else. “16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers [here – family]…. let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
The Viet Family
Vietnam is one huge family. There are few pronouns in the language; instead everyone is addressed by their first name and a relationship term (grandfather/mother, older brother/sister, father, mother, younger brother/sister, aunt). There are no “social status” distinctions like in European languages – tu vs. vous (Fr.) or usted (Sp.). The maid who cleans the house in Peru would be “tu,” like a child or pet. Here she is “auntie.”
They “share” – i.e. use each other’s stuff without asking. (Once my students become my “children” they just go through my belongings and raid the refrigerator with great glee!) Everyone drinks from the same glass. Traffic (tight swarms of scooters with cars and huge trucks mixed in) here was incomprehensible to me (they drive both ways on both sides of the street) until I realized how it works: everyone is looking out for everyone else. Now I do it too.
Apparently the sharp distinction made in the West between family, society and state is very fuzzy here. I still don’t completely understand it, but I suspect it originates from Confucius as well.
Love – I immediately realized that my students love me, long before they told me. This is possible because Vietnamese society is ordered like a huge family. I am “teacher,” a kind of “father.” Yen tells me, “I love you like my father or my grandfather.” (I suggested “uncle,” and that was ok too.) She was clear, “not like my boyfriend.” But I already knew this, and it was her love that began to open my heart in a way that I have never experienced before. Finally I can freely love everyone around me, and rather than freaking them out (as in America), they just love me back!
“12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” Virtue by example.
Which gives me great JOY.
I could continue on down the fruit list, but I’m not sure it would add much to what I have already said. These “fruits” are here everywhere in abundance. And they seem to hinge upon self control; human effort to emulate the teachings of Confucius. But it seems to work.
“29If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.” “He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil…. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” Virtue by example.
The difficult part: we were told that the “law” and the “Spirit” are in conflict. Either we obey the sinful nature, or we allow the Spirit to control us. The evidence for our allegiance is how we behave. How can such loving and virtuous people evidence the “fruit of the Spirit” and, at the same time, not “know” God? And how can my former American “christian” friends behave so badly while they claim to have “Jesus in their hearts” and be “walking in the Spirit?”
Even more puzzling: Viets do say that they have “Uncle Ho” (Ho Chi Minh) in their hearts. He is their messiah, a holy man who delivered their nation (family) from foreign domination (the French and the USA). Although his portrait is everywhere, it’s not like “Uncle Joe” in the USSR or dictators I’ve seen around the world. They love him!
Conclusion
Finishing up, St. Paul concludes, “Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
So to “live by the Spirit,” we must “have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” The evidence is in; my conclusion must be that American Christians live by the sinful nature because they have not experienced the cross; they are glad that their sins are forgiven, but they are still controlled by the ego, the self, the “sin nature,” the “old man.” It’s not for me to judge whether or not they are Christians; but one can observe by their behavior that they are not living by the Spirit.
The Cross
I think that “the cross” is deeply misunderstood by Protestant America. I believe that, when Jesus was put to death on the cross, so was I. My “sin nature” was crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20). (While I’ve believed in Jesus for 36 years, I only found out about this six months ago.) This is the antithesis of the Wesleyan doctrine of “entire sanctification,” which amounts to the “re-habilitation of the self.” The self – the “sin nature” – cannot be improved or “set apart and dedicated entirely to God”; it must be put to death. After I understood the cross in this way, Scripture took on a whole new meaning. Some of my friends think I’ve become a “Buddhist.”
The Vietnamese people behave with far more virtue than “christian America” does, but how can they “live by the Spirit” when they don’t even know what that means (much less the cross)? How can “human effort” produce such fruit in unbelievers while believers who are “filled with the Holy Spirit” (at least the ones I have known) behave so badly? The Buddhist foundation of Viet culture probably holds the answer, but I don’t understand it yet. I’m confused.
14"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10)
Maybe I just think too much.
Just wondering
If anyone will ever come here.
I will post something on my Vietnamese experience soon. Meanwhile, there is the other thing to comment on.
I will post something on my Vietnamese experience soon. Meanwhile, there is the other thing to comment on.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
What IM didn't post
About 6 months ago, in the most intensely confusing hour of my life, I saw myself on the cross, and my “ego, old man, self” died with Christ. Since that time I have experienced Gal. 2:20 24/7. When one understands death to self as the true meaning of the cross, then one sees that the whole NT teaches precisely that.
American Christianity mostly teaches the re-habilitation of the self. It never worked for me. So far this works, but I have paid a huge price for it; the loss of “everything.” When it happened I prayed that Father would send people to me who saw me as I really am. 10-15 people “saw,” beamed at me with love, but soon rejected me. (I still don’t understand.) (BTW I’m 67, a teacher; most of my friends are in their 20s-30s.)
So with nowhere to go I moved to Vietnam. Everyone here does “see” me! I am surrounded by people who love me, and I am free to love them wholly and completely. One of my friends wrote: “A better future is waiting for you. The most important thing is that the Vietnamese people love you very much. I and my friends are an example."
I tried and tried to share what I have experienced with Americans with little success; I’m not expecting any different on this blog. A few of my American friends think I have become a Buddhist; one of my Viet friends said, “you look like a Buddhist.” (I still don’t understand.)
I don’t have “answers” for any of you but I don’t mind sharing my experience with people who have ears to hear it.
soctom@gmail.com
American Christianity mostly teaches the re-habilitation of the self. It never worked for me. So far this works, but I have paid a huge price for it; the loss of “everything.” When it happened I prayed that Father would send people to me who saw me as I really am. 10-15 people “saw,” beamed at me with love, but soon rejected me. (I still don’t understand.) (BTW I’m 67, a teacher; most of my friends are in their 20s-30s.)
So with nowhere to go I moved to Vietnam. Everyone here does “see” me! I am surrounded by people who love me, and I am free to love them wholly and completely. One of my friends wrote: “A better future is waiting for you. The most important thing is that the Vietnamese people love you very much. I and my friends are an example."
I tried and tried to share what I have experienced with Americans with little success; I’m not expecting any different on this blog. A few of my American friends think I have become a Buddhist; one of my Viet friends said, “you look like a Buddhist.” (I still don’t understand.)
I don’t have “answers” for any of you but I don’t mind sharing my experience with people who have ears to hear it.
soctom@gmail.com
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Welcome visitors from IM
I created this blog for something else, but since I don't speak much Vietnamese, I can't make a new one for you. So this is how you can contact me if you want to.
Or just use the email link (right click for address).
Or just use the email link (right click for address).
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