Authority born of fear or love?

I’ve been engaged in a couple of interesting discussions about religion and politics, two subjects sure to ruin your appetite, two subjects that proper ladies should probably never participate in, not because we aren’t qualified, but because we should be smart enough to just avoid stepping in the muck and spend our time out delightfully trilling with the forest creatures instead. That’s a bit of wry humor. I am frequently reminded that I actually do need to leave the muck behind and get out and smell the roses once in a while.

There is this on going theme however, about authority, is it rooted in love or fear? Why do we obey? Do we drive the speed limit because we fear getting a ticket or do we drive the speed limit because we love the law? Or, as the atheists like to say, you just follow your “imaginary” sky-God because you fear punishment and hell! If this weren’t such a tragic and painful issue, born of such suffering and misery, I would be vastly amused. Amused, because some of those lunkheads have no idea just how defiant I am. I chose not to speed because I love the law. I love Christ because He first love me. It is always love that motivates me. Always. John 14:16 says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.“ Not if you fear me, but if you love me.

I don’t respond to fear well at all. I’m aware that I probably should, that common sense should lead one to, but the best I can muster is some pseudo-compliance, play acting really. When people try to use fear or intimidation to control me, I sometimes strategically comply, but in my heart I have just revoked your moral authority. It is like switches going off in my head, unqualified, unworthy, unacceptable. I am actually damaged goods, or I once was, “once was” because God is so good at healing what is within us, at fusing those broken bits with gold and creating a new creature, handing us beauty for ashes.

So in my mind authority is always born of love. I will comply like crazy of I can feel the love. That is a genuine desire to please. My heart is there, that is authentic submission. Anything born of fear, threats, force, however, like mandates, legal penalties, punishments, etc, and my heart will just reject it. Your authority is simply revoked, determined unworthy. Any compliance there is just pseudo-submission, strategic and temporary compliance.

Really ironic, because this same kind of defiance I have, is what motivates many non believers. They can only see authority born of fear, hence the accusations that the only reason I believe in Jesus Christ is fear of trouble, fear of hell. Well shoot, I’m laughing here, but I am so far beyond that, I actually am the trouble. It’s a good thing then that I’m in good hands, the best Hands really.

Translated politically, this idea of authority being born of fear becomes even more scary, because everything must now be mandated, forced, for your own good of course. Conversely however, those who believe we comply with authority out of fear, happen to drive like bats out of hell, with no respect for speed limits. So, so much for complying with authority out of fear! Apparently these policies, mandates, laws, punishments, people wish to bring into existence are only going to be for other people.

Children who are still emotionally immature, sometimes perceive authority as fear, at least fear of getting into trouble, or fear of displeasing their parents, but ultimately the goal there is to get them to a place where they eventually understand the rules, where they control their own selves, where they obey when no one is watching. Authority, now born of love. It can’t happen without discipline however. Love simply demands it.

There’s a really interesting dynamic in the culture right now, this idea that discipline and love do not go hand in hand. The two must be totally separate as if they are opposites. That seems like a broken idea that comes from abuse and wounding to me, this inability to perceive authority in a positive way, this unwillingness to see discipline and love as tightly entwined concepts. Discipline is simply rejected as abuse in some people’s minds. Authority is perceived as fear based power over others. Love does not exist in that equation, love is the other part, having only to do with feeling good, some mysterious chemical bliss hit. The world is wrong however. Hebrews 12:6 tells us, For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth….. Take it from a much loved daughter of a Most High God, it’s true. Love and discipline go hand in hand. Scripture is right, the culture is wrong.

Let me just end on a note of praise here, how amazing God is, how wise He is to know each one of us so well, to tailor His pursuit of us to our individual personalities. God knows me well, He knew the only way to reach me was going to be with love, to sneak in under my radar of defiance and earn my trust, my loyalty. God is worthy of all authority in my mind because of His love, love that has pursued one such as me for as long as I can remember.

How truly miraculous that is, because I understand defiance so well, I empathize with those fear based responses that revoke authority outright, and yet God didn’t leave me there. I have that same defiance within, that same refusal to submit to fear that many non believers have. I get it, threaten me with punishment and hell and I’ll just reject you outright, declare you unworthy. Or worse yet simply say, fine, bring it on! 

I cannot abide bullies and abuse. It causes me to revoke authority. That is not the God I know however, the God I know patiently rebuilt my trust, gently enticed me in, so steadfast and reassuring. Oh yes, He is quite powerful, and a fear based response is more than justified, but there is another side to Him, one that is gentle and kind, one that will leave the entire flock to pursue just one little bleating  lamb.

“The Rational Atheist”

A few years ago Vox Day wrote a book called the “Irrational Atheist.” It is the most disjointed, disconnected, tragic argument against atheism I’ve ever read. It is devoid of love, devoid of theology, and devoid of logic, too. It is so nihilistic, cold, cruel, it had me thinking for the first time ever, if that is God, I don’t want him. Needless to say, choosing to reject a Supreme Being, all powerful, all knowing, simply because you disapprove, is a non rational act. Conversely however, embracing such a God who has no capacity for love and mercy, is even more non rational. It’s also immoral.

Then God quietly asked, why are you allowing someone who calls himself the Voice of God and a Supreme Dark Lord  define what is rational? And in that moment I realized that atheism really is quite rational, logical, and reason based. It is actually Vox Day who is emotionally driven, irrational, his broken bits cloaked behind a mask of intellectualism, moral superiority, and reason. Trapped in a deception he cannot even see. Irrational, emotional, rhetorical.

Yes, indeed, non believers really are  the reality based community. It is my faith that is irrational, illogical, devoid of reason. It is my faith that flies in the face of what I know to be true intellectually. God is a God of impossible things who doesn’t give  a wit about what we think is “rational.” God says, step out in the midst of a storm and walk on water. God says, here’s a talking donkey, here’s a burning bush, here’s a disembodied hand writing on the wall, now suspend your disbelief. You do not know what you think you know.

To truly know God requires a leap of faith, surrendered disbelief. It is irrational, illogical, devoid of reason, a bit like falling in love. It demands intellectual surrender, complete humility, the removal of self, in order to truly hear Him, to draw close. Crushed, broken, “delusional” even, no longer firmly rooted in reality. Everything is an idol that gets in the way of that relationship, our faith in our own ability to reason, our faith in our perception of reality, our faith in our own intelligence, our confidence in our own perceptions. We must die to self, surrender all, slowly, painfully, a totally irrational act.

Peter had great faith when he stepped out of that boat, but he had greater faith in the in the laws of physics and quickly began to sink. Oh ye of little faith…

Scripture does not say,  greater reason and logic hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Scripture does not say that because that is a lie and scripture does not lie. The verse is, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.“ Love! The ultimate act of non reason. Let me tell you, if you want to do something unprofitable, painful, that will cost you everything, try love. I can make absolutely no reason based argument for it. A few misfiring pheromones might give a partial explanation for romantic love, but sacrificial brotherly love, just defies all reason.

So atheists really are part of the reality based community, secularism being based on human logic and reason. It is rational and reason based to weigh the cost effectiveness of having a child and to chose abortion. It is rational and reason based to divorce a good man, in favor of one who offers you something better. It is rational to do a cost benefit analysis and determine that healthcare should be rationed. It is rational and reasonable to redistribute the wealth and to than enforce mandates so people are compelled to serve your cost effectiveness plan. It is rational to speak of banning sugar, of assigning sin taxes to anything that might harm human health, that might hurt the bottom line. Reason leads us to perceive human beings as nothing more than commodities, to assign worth and value to people based on their cost effectiveness, their ability to produce, or their ability to benefit our own perceived praxology.

These are all things devoid of love too, things that do not take human dignity into account, a bureaucratic nightmare that soon becomes immoral, heartless, disconnected from the human experience. There really is no sanctity of human life, there is only the sanctity of God. Perceiving people as  bring created in His image manifests itself as our own respect and consideration for human dignity, the worth and value we assign to human life. In the absence of love we become commodities, having even less value than  animals and the pets we actually admire because they show loyalty and need for us.

So, I am a firm advocate of the non reasonable, the illogical, the emotional, the Spirit led. Love. Our human ability to place undo value on our own capacity for reason and logic is what got us kicked out of the Garden of Eden in the first place. All it costs one to truly know God is to surrender pride, surrender the god of reason, and let go of what we think we know.

Atheists are quite rational. To worship at the foot of human reason however, is a recipe for disaster.

the Ghomeshi disaster

For those who don’t know the Ghomeshi disaster was/is a sexual assault trial in which Jian Ghomeshi has been acquitted creating a great deal of controversy and discussion. Men’s rights advocates are outraged, this poor, innocent man was allegedly framed, targeted, and very nearly had his life ruined. Many feminists are outraged too, there is no justice in the world, we must change the entire system, the law has failed, etc, etc.

I just keep thinking, sheesh, the rich and famous have such melodrama in their lives! How come sex scandals never happen to the little people? Well, for one nobody cares, but for another, we just aren’t this bloody stupid. Also, on the bottem there just isn’t this same investment in trying to protect our own perceived virtues.

Here’s the first article I wish to address,  “Lucy, the actress and Air Force captain speaks out about the crushing aftermath of the Jian Ghomeshi trial.” The jist of the story is that Lucy waited a decade before reporting that Jian allegedly choked her, an incident that was followed up by her sending him flowers and a love note of a sexual nature. Needless to say, her post incident response to him after the alleged assault did not go over well at trial becasue it tends to scream sexual confusion and a woman that does not even understand the nature of herself. In this interview she says things like “I don’t know what my motivation was, I don’t know. I’m doing pop psychology on myself, I don’t remember, I’ll never know why I wrote that letter. This is all a wild guess, right?  But it’s me guessing on my own psyche...“

I don’t wish to be unkind here, but women really need to not be in a position of trying to “guess” their own psyche. Know thy self! Seriously, one simply cannot be a victim of their own psyche, their own psychology, their own motivations, their own sexuality. Ghomeshi is a real lunkhead, but several of these women are clearly pursuing him, ….while expressing confusion over the fact that they are pursuing him.

The second article says “If you want the legal system to protect you, you better be a good victim” and proceeds to lament how “The message this ruling sends is unambiguous: if you want the legal system to protect you, be a good victim. Take detailed notes of your assault, ideally while it’s happening. Don’t laugh, don’t joke, don’t try to normalize the situation. Be consistent: don’t have complicated feelings, don’t contact your assaulter…”

Well, yes. Seems rather logical to me, but before we condemn a man, lunkhead or not, we must first make sure we have an actual victim. Laughing, joking, sending intimate emails, flowers, not quite being clear on how you feel or what actually happened, normalizing the situation, these are all problematic issues that should make anyone hesitant about revoking a man’s freedom.

It would be a bit like loaning your car to someone and a decade later deciding it had been stolen, so you send flowers to the thief….before turning him in for grand theft auto. So was you car stolen or not? I’m not really sure, I can’t be expected to know my own psyche, I don’t remember, etc etc, but this guy should go to jail becasue I have no idea what I’ve gone and done with my car.

People out in the culture like to speak of the rabid right, of alleged conservative Christian sexual repression and the opppression of women, and while there are pockets of this to be found in various places, we never speak of the harmful and repressive messages coming from feminists and progressives. For all their alleged language around sexual freedom and female sexual empowerment, the truth, the reality is quite a bit differant and it presents some genuine paradoxes that can truly mess with your head. Sometimes I think we have created this kind of cultural stockholm syndrome, where women have become so confused trying to rationalize two conflicting ideas at the same time that we no longer have any idea what is going on within us.

There is the paradox about how sexuality is something you are born with, written in stone, but also conversely, so flexible, such a social construct that your very gender can now be chosen at will. There is the paradox about the strong, empowered woman whose only path to womanly success is to imitate  and copy the perceived sexual behavior of men, completly denying her own femininty in the process. There is the paradox about how all sex with men is rape, about how men are tools of the patriarchy, so pursuing one is literally like sleeping with the enemy. There is the paradox of how we now possess full moral agency enabling us to make “choices,” which then leads us to have sex with people we don’t even like, for reasons we can’t even fathom, causing us to question our very moral agency itself.

Entwinned in all these crazy making paradoxes is also relentless feminist shaming, causing one’s very psyche to bounce about like a pinball trying to discern what is expected, what is normal, what is even going on? For example, one living in the midst of progressive feminism does not cheerfully announce, look at me, I aggressively pursued a complete thug who treated me poorly and than went back for more! Isn’t that fascinating? I wonder what that might say about the things lurking in the dark recesses of my heart? Perhaps I should explore my own motivations here, become acquainted with my own psyche, evaluate my own sexuality? But see, women cannot do that under this progress  system, becasue women must be far, far, more virtuous then the allegedly virtuousity imposed upon us by the far right, by the conservative Christian side of things. Women must never desire the enemy, women will never lie, not even to their own selves,  women are always right, women always perceive things correctly, etc, etc, this huge burden of virtuousity that is enforced and policed with a venegeance on the feminist side, on the progressive side. Also, I h0pe you don’t actually eat animals or use styrofoam cups, becasue those things are bad, too.

And so, under the guise of feminism, of progressivism, genuine rape victims are once again tossed under the bus in this trial that has made a disasterous mockery of sexual assault, and the message has been sent once again that women are not to really possess any moral sexual agency of their own or to own it themselves, and that one must stay in their feminist place, contemplating their perpetual victimhood. Now that will make you crazy.

It’s somewhat interesting to me, virtue, pride, and perpetual shame, are heavy burdens to bear and I don’t see that dumped on women so much from the non feminist, non progressive, more Christian side of things. There is something to to be said about being able to quip rather delightfully, what virtue? I’m a sinner! Ah yes, washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb for sure, but no longer forced to try to carry a burden of perpetual virtue signaling, endlessly trying to prove one’s own goodness, a never ending need to hide from one’s own shame…..

… and to attempt to off load all that shame on an innocent man, a lunkhead in this case, but one no more confused and disoriented than anyone else in this ugly little story.

Even “virtue” can be built on a house of cards, wrapped in layers of deception, choking off the very life within us.