Adjusting to a Meaningless World

Maybe your back doesn't itch, but mine does sometimes, and I've got spots I can't reach.  Right hand from below, right hand from above, left hand below and then above, twisting, bending, and finally recognizing I'm not getting there.  After a few of those you learn, not every itch is worth going after.

What was once obvious isn't obvious any more.  For you in the Midwest, we have very few flies out here in California.  You can leave the door open and have zero of them in your house.  Our spiders are bigger, but we don't have the mosquitoes and flies.  In high school, we had a student teacher, who was an older married man.  He was really serious about his teaching.  When a fly landed on his face, he wouldn't do what seemed normal, that is, brush it away.  One landed on his lip and there it sat, right at home.  I'm having a hard time with something similar today, even worse.

I think you'll know what I'm talking about.  When you first saw someone wearing his pants hanging mid-thigh, it got a reaction out of you.  Even the world didn't like that one, and it's still not allowed at certain public schools.  Ed Sullivan wouldn't show Elvis from the waist down.  Parents wouldn't let their kids listen to rock music.  Teenagers would hide out in their rooms, listening to Wolfman Jack under their blankets with their transistor radios.  The Bible doesn't say any of this is wrong.  You could still judge that it was though.  BUT not anymore.  What's wrong now ... is saying it's wrong.

Can a child give you a dirty look?  Does rolling the eyes mean anything?  A smirk?  A snort?  Let's be consistent.  I'm having a hard time adjusting to a meaningless world.  This hasn't just struck the secular world, but include Christianity in it, and it's worse really.  The world still thinks that the bare thigh of a woman means something.   The world doesn't have a problem with it -- it can be tasty eye candy for the world -- but it still means something, something scrumptious to behold.  For Christians, on the other hand, it's a convenience not to be criticized.  If you do say something, you're the bad guy.  You are.  There are so many different ways that you are wrong to say that a bare thigh means anything in public.  You've got a choice.  You can go ahead and say something, and get a worse reaction than the bare thigh itself, or just be quiet.  Keep it to the gospel, they say.  You've got a handful of things to talk about beyond the weather without getting in trouble with them.   Are they worth trying to itch?

I've been thinking about my adjustment to a meaningless world in the last few weeks.  Growing up, when my dad really wanted to get a point across to me, he would poke me in the chest with his index finger.  He did it a lot.  (Today you'd get fired for that.)  I hated it though.  I would often put my hand up when I sensed it coming, so I wouldn't get it in the sternum.  Is it possible that you are connecting more and better with your audience when they react like you've poked them in the sternum?  Probably so.  I don't try to get a rise out of them, but it happens the most when I deal with music and dress, those two subjects.   I get way more out of people when I deal with those issues.

Four posts have been written about me in the last two weeks because of two that I wrote, the one that mentioned the rock music at MacArthur's Shepherd's Conference and then the essay on the orthodox Jewish understanding of Deuteronomy 22:5 and designed distinctions in dress.  My own personal most looked at post ever, still getting weekly hits, is the one about deleting your facebook account.  Know this though, those things aren't important, and you can tell by the reaction.  No one.  Thinks.  They're important.  THEY'RE NOT, YOU DISHONEST, LYING JOKE!!!

I haven't really said how I'm going to adjust to a meaningless world.   I'm not going to agree to disagree.  I'm not going to keep my mouth shut.  How dare a teenager give you a look?!?  People are very tuned into what offends them, still.  President Obama said the female attorney general was good-looking.  That became a bigger news story than massacring at least seven babies in Philadelphia.  I made two observations about the Shepherd's Conference music.   One, they used rock music for worship.  Two, I saw pastors swaying.  I was actually making a major application from that in the post, which was ignored.  It wasn't geared for a fifth grade audience.  The answer to that post was that I was a dishonest, lying Cretan IFB, akin to Jack Schaap and Jack Hyles, trying to gain momentum for a national following.  And that was not the worst of it.  Then when I tried to challenge that assertion, I was mocked repeatedly before the comments were closed down.  I do see these people like I did the teacher with the fly on his lip, except worse.

Rock music isn't wrong.  Rock music is great.  Pop music is fine.  Modern art is beautiful.  Offering God the rock music in worship is super.  It's genuine.  It's very good.  You want it.  God loves it.  It's what He prefers in worship.  That's what you get to say.  These people were close to God.  They got close to Him through their rock music.  If you criticize it, you're bad.  You're horrible.  You're a hater.  You're a heretic.  You think you're always right.  You should be fired as a pastor.  You're a moralist.

You can't point out the obvious, that someone's got a fly on his lip.  You're the bad guy if you do.  Some people like flies on their lips.  It's an acquired taste.  Something you can get used to.  You'll even learn to enjoy it.  You really have to keep your opinion to yourself.  Sit and enjoy the rock music.  Appreciate the Great Rock of Inner Seeking.  Touch base with love as viewed through chain link fence.  If you stare at it long enough, you'll realize the genius in it.

I said I saw men swaying.  I saw it on a close-up on a live stream.  I didn't report it with animosity.  It didn't surprise me a lot, just a little.  I didn't think they did that at Shepherd's Conference, only to contextualize to the youth culture at the Resolved Conference.  At least they're being right up front with it.  (I can't help it -- I'm getting this vision right now of shepherds leading sheep to the pelvic rhythms of hip hop, sheep break-dancing with their shepherd -- don't judge me, you haters.)  Now, my viewpoint was sitting behind the first base dugout.  Someone else had the obstructed view with a super 8 from the grassy noll behind the center field fence.  They're saying I'm lying.  Not just that, I'm a liar.  And then extrapolate from there.  Can you see why I see the man with the fly on his lip?

By the way, here's the person, Fred Butler, the picture he posted of himself on his own twitter page, who has written two of the posts.  He's in charge of volunteers at Grace to You.

Here's how I'm going to adjust.  I'm going to write what I think, but I'm done defending myself with a bunch of kooks.  And they are kooks.  They're people who expect you to be fine with pants hanging down the rear end.  They don't think rap music is wrong. (I really like the hip-hop '$' for the letter 's,' very effective communication with your hip-hop crowd that likes to wear it's 'bling.'  What was ironic here was the second of the comments about Shai Linne, the Calvinist rapper:  "I totally agree with is poem about false teachers, too many churches are using worldly entertainment to get them in the door & then promise a good time & more. They're using our Savior like He is some kind of bargaining chip, it is so sad to see."  He's rapping about other people using worldly entertainment.  Huh?)  It's effective.  It's fine.  It's for God....and the cat-and-the-hat crowd.  Be edified; you don't know what you're talking about.

I'm not going to try to see it their way.  Their way is wrong.  I'm fine being hated by them, mocked by them.

A recent blog post against my recent pant-skirt post attacked me for being "certain" about everything.  Ouch.  That really hurts.  You get how bad that is, right?   He said that I found "comradery with Pharisees" because I "sited (sic) some Orthodox Jews" (sited:  past participle, past tense of "sit," adopt or be in a position in which one's weight is supported by one's buttocks rather than one's feet and one's back is upright.).   Jesus said the following in Matthew 23:2-3:  "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:  All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not." (By the way, they were "sited" in Moses' seat...hahahahaha...[many won't think that's funny].  And in this case, Jesus actually "sited" them.  I guess I'm in good company "siting" orthodox Jews.)   Jesus' problem was when the Pharisees didn't practice what they preached, not when they actually practiced what scripture said.  When they tithed of mint and cummin, Jesus didn't say, "Stop that!  That's bad!"  No, He said, "Don't leave that tithing undone, just make sure that you do everything scripture says."

My dad worked as a security guard when going through college.   He worked at a very large home for the mentally disabled.  When he went to work every day, he didn't expect to see normal behavior.  He saw young men with replica NFL football helmets talking to no one on walkie-talkies.  I'm going to stop expecting normal from abnormal.  It's when you start fitting in with morons that you need to be concerned.  The large home for the mentally disabled has spread out to the culture at large.  Now you need a home for normal people, because the world is turning looney.  And I'm not giving in.  That's how I adjust.

********
Addendum 1

Above I had linked to Phil Johnson's parallel of Shai Linne's rap music with his upcoming Strange Fire conference.  I just got back from jogging, and while I was out, it surprised me that I hadn't immediately noticed the irony of this.   You do know what the "strange fire" was?   Strange fire was the personal homebrew of Nadab and Abihu, mixing up a taste of incense that appealed to themselves.   Two teenagers with soul patches having fun in the garage.  God struck them dead for the disrespect.  And rap music as worship isn't strange fire?  Lust trumps sacrifice.  That music is strange fire, and the poetry isn't far behind.

John MacArthur and cohorts will expose the false worship of the Charismatics.   There is a lot I have respected about him, but he's the man who said that the Jesus movement, kicked off by Lonnie Frisbee and Chuck Smith, was a genuine revival.   MacArthur has some of the best material against Charismaticism, but how does he not see the connection?  This hurts a lot.

I drove to Morgan Hill, CA on Saturday and there was a billboard for the hemp convention.  I could see the parallel with that smoke.   I smelled some drifting from one of the houses I jogged by tonight.  The burning of the leaves akin to the incense that is rap music.

I'm just adjusting.  More.

**********
Addendum 2

Not much worse can be said about me than has already been said, but I'm expecting some heavy bashing to come.  I don't anticipate people allowing this to go, but as I said, I'm not planning on scratching that itch.  If you can't reach it, don't use your energy to scratch.  And I understand why I can't reach it.  You reach and you reach and your reach.  They're not interested.  Think walkie-talkies.