Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and
exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man
and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful
desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies
with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and
served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because
of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged
natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men
committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due
penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it
worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved
mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind
of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent,
arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their
parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know
God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not
only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice
them. (Romans 1:22-32)
Today is one of those days when I have
the honor of being hated because I profess something people don’t like: God
gives people their way, and the results aren’t good. If you reject the
direction the compass points, you won’t make it to the North Pole. If you
reject the truth, any lie will do. If you decided that you, rather than God,
are God, then anything you want not only becomes acceptable, but the mere
thought that someone might say “No” to you becomes intolerable.
In Mere Christianity, Professor
Lewis explores the question of whether our instincts guide us correctly. He
points out that if we see someone drowning, we may desire to help, but we may
also desire to keep out of danger. There is a third thing at work, which judges
between those two instincts. That third thing is morality and because it judges
between the instincts, it cannot be a mere instinct. Were those two instincts
alone in conflict, the stronger would win, but if the stronger always won,
there would be no heroes.
What seems more important to me than
these for today’s passage is his statement that if morality is nothing more
than instincts, instincts would always point to something good, and the result
would always be good. But instincts, whether mother love, patriotism, sex or
the fighting instinct can lead us to good, or to evil. If, for example, sexual
instincts are not restrained, it can lead to unhealthy obsessions, fetishes, attraction
to someone or something either harmful or harmed.[1]
A novel to which I’m listening touches
on this. Both the hero, Deucalion (AKA the monster) and the villain, Victor
Helios (AKA Dr. Frankenstein) have lived for more than two hundred years. Deucalion
has spent a considerable portion of his life restraining his instincts, first
in the humiliation of a carnival freak show, and then in a Buddhist monastery.
Victor has spent the time developing a master race and indulging his instincts.
He has grown bored with the normal. The woman he manufactures for his convenience
is the only member of the master race designed to feel shame, because her shame
amuses him. When he goes out for a good meal, he must eat it alone, because he
now enjoys such delicacies as two litters of newborn rats that he kills by deep
frying them. If you read or watch the books, movies and TV shows about the
undead, you find much the same thing. Those who have lived too long have seen
it all, done it all and found it all boring. Art imitates life, if not on a
personal level, then on a societal one. In that imitation, we find that in the
end, the choice is not life, but death for one or the other, or for both.
Keep
in mind that this genre is hugely popular, and the attraction – even of the
hero/heroine – is to the undead. People want to be vampires and live forever,
even enjoying the idea of doing so at the cost of life to others. We demand to
have our way, and God says, “Well, OK, if you insist, but there are
consequences, and once of them is death.” Then we go out and proclaim to all
that anyone who doesn’t let us have our way should be destroyed…and we pretend
that we are the heroes. There is nothing in the description Paul gave that hasn’t
been part of our society for as long as society has been.
[1]
For those who wish to claim that homosexuality is neither named nor forbidden
in the New Testament, this passage clearly points to it and clearly establish
that it is not considered acceptable. Now, it is actually demanded that
everyone either approve or at least keep silent. The same people who demand
approval or silence condemn silence as approval when they look at Germany
during World War II. But the Nazis weren’t harming anyone who didn’t deserve to
be harmed ….according to the Nazis, and if one didn’t approve of the Nazis or
keep very silent about it, one ended up among the dead or worse than dead.
Comments
Post a Comment