The Depth of My Depravity

Last night I watched a German movie, Sophie Scholl: The Last Days. Made in 2005, it confronts the nation's Nazi past by telling the story of a 21-year-old woman who was executed, along with her brother and some others in the resistance group 'The White Rose,' for publishing leaflets critical of Hitler.

As the father of a twenty-one-year-old daughter, I found it simultaneously tragic, inspiring, and terrifying. It was tragic because a beautiful life, just like my daughter's, was snuffed out for no reason other than exposing such darkness as would not tolerate being brought into the light. It was inspiring because of her bravery and conviction and unadorned faith. It was terrifying because these evils were born in one of the most civilized societies in human history.

Evil is perhaps never so successful and insidious as when it is wrapped up so convincingly in a package which has something to commend it. This is why it can and does flourish in that pride we treat as a virtue and label "national pride." When God and volk (people, race, national identity) are fused, darkness is not far behind. Germany discovered that eighty odd years ago. Other nations are learning (or need to learn) the same lessons in modern times.

But national evil is only possible and successful because it is systemic "down the ranks." Evil flourishes in the saber-rattling of nations, in the venomous insults of campaigning presidential hopefuls, in the jealousies of academia, in the bullying on the playground, in the gossiping at church. . . simply because it is in the fabric of the human heart and we cultivate it like the addiction it is.

Evil thrives because the human heart is depraved. I mean yours. I mean mine. That is the most terrifying revelation of all.

Perhaps that's why Jesus said pray this way:

Our Father, which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come. 

Thy will be done in earth, 

As it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive them that trespass against us. 

And lead us not into temptation, 

But deliver us from evil. 

For thine is the kingdom,

The power, and the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen

Cultural Superiority: Good or Bad?

When, if ever, is pride a virtue? When is it a vice?

We recognize and condemn it in arrogant individuals (other people, of course, not ourselves). We recognize and condemn it in the destructive nationalism of a Nazi Germany or a xenophobic Japan.

But does our sense of "American exceptionalism" (the decline of which I have heard lamented repeatedly since Obama's election) ever cross the line from appropriate self-awareness to hubris?

What about the nationalistic pride of other nations?

Whatever the answer, it is clear from the following that geographic and demographic boundaries do little to foster humility. A new study by the Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project reveals that nationalistic superiority complexes, though robust, might be in decline. Commendable? Or lamentable?

The report:

About half of Americans (49%) and Germans(47%) agree with the statement, 
“Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others;” 
44% in Spain share this view. In Britain and France, only about a third or fewer (32% and 27%, respectively) think their culture is better than others.
While opinions about cultural superiority have remained relatively stable over the years in the four Western European countries surveyed, Americans are now far less likely to say that their culture is better than others; six-in-ten Americans held this belief in 2002 and 55% did so in 2007. Belief in cultural superiority has declined among Americans across age, gender and education groups.

For more go to: http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/11/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Values-Report-FINAL-November-17-2011-10AM-EST.pdf

Don't Canonize Steve Jobs

Yeah, I've confessed to wishing I had some Apple products (all donations gladly accepted!). So it might sound like sour grapes (or apples) to point you to this very excellent article from Gawker.com titled, What Everyone is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs. It provides enough realism to temper our sadness, our adulation, and our near-deification of this remarkable, but deeply-flawed man. I think it's well worth a read, so here's an excerpt with the link afterwards:

It's the dream of any entrepreneur to effect change in one industry. Jobs transformed half a dozen of them forever, from personal computers to phones to animation to music to publishing to video games. He was a polymath, a skilled motivator, a decisive judge, a farsighted tastemaker, an excellent showman, and a gifted strategist. 

One thing he wasn't, though, was perfect. Indeed there were things Jobs did while at Apple that were deeply disturbing. Rude, dismissive, hostile, spiteful: Apple employees—the ones not bound by confidentiality agreements—have had a different story to tell over the years about Jobs and the bullying, manipulation and fear that followed him around Apple. Jobs contributed to global problems, too. Apple's success has been built literally on the backs of Chinese workers, many of them children and all of them enduring long shifts and the specter of brutal penalties for mistakes. And, for all his talk of enabling individual expression, Jobs imposed paranoid rules that centralized control of who could say what on his devices and in his company.

The article (perhaps unintentionally) raises a very important question for all of us: What price are we willing to pay for success? What virtues or relationships or principles are we prepared to incinerate on the altar of achievement? Jobs was uniquely successful. He's been compared to Edison and Einstein and called the greatest innovator of the last century. But as this article demonstrates, the cost was exceptionally high.

Here's where you can read more:
 http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-steve-jobs

An Unfortunate Juxtaposition

Normally, I try and avoid political commentary for a couple of reasons. First, I'm a Kiwi. Second, I've found that there are way too many Christians who automatically presume their political sensibilities are God's.

But today the following two statements came at me in such close proximity that I couldn't help but notice, and mention, the contrast.

I was reading from James 4:13-16 in preparation for this Sunday's message: Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes.

Then I took a brief break to catch up on the news. In his first public comments on the credit downgrade announced by Standard and Poors Credit Rating Agency, the President said,
"Markets will rise and fall. But this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country." (Source: Associated Press)


James tells us that hubris is never a virtue for an individual presuming to control his financial future. Scripture repeatedly condemns the same attitude at a national level. The consistent testimony of history, seen in the rise and fall of all great empires, is that God seems to delight in humbling any and every nation that prides itself on . . . itself.

None of us likes to lose money. None of us likes the pain of a struggling economy, especially when it impacts the rest of the world, which is a whole lot more needy than we are. But perhaps something else is going on. Perhaps, in addition to learning how to balance our national checking account, we will end up learning something even more valuable: a little more national humility.