Point / Counter-Point ...

In the old days of Saturday Night Live (SNL), they used to run a skit entitled Point / CounterPoint during their weekend update news segment.  The humor came not from the topics they discussed, but from the incredibly rude and horribly anti-politically correct language they used to discuss them.  The name calling was most of the fun for viewers, and generally so distracting, that it was hard to pay attention to any real debate or substantive statements made during the verbal brawl.  Humor aside, for any point-of-view, you can bet there is a different point-of-view, a competing point-of-view.  And in the decades that have passed since this skit was in its prime, the name calling and personal attacks, have moved from a clear attempt to illicit laughter, to mean-spirited attacks meant to illicit tears, and break any thought of self-esteem in the other party.  What has changed is how we see each other, and worse, what motives we ascribe to each other.  And when one side believes it has the only truth, it is easy to see any other side as not only wrong, but evil.

This phenomenon did not start with us.  It began in heaven of all places.  God was truth, He is still is.  He has a way of doing things that works, it is also the best way.  It turns out, His ways, are the only ways, that can avoid pain, and even death.  These ways of God were not developed to be punitive.  They were developed because He loves us, He loves the entire universe.  And who would not want more joy, instead of more death?  It is rather a silly comparison.  But Lucifer did just that.  For every way God naturally followed, Lucifer looked closely and set up an alternative way of doing things.  Most of them involved loving self, instead of loving others.

As an example, God creates monogamy to foster intimacy, so that 2 people can come to know and love each other in a way so strong, no one else could come close to understanding it.  Within the bounds of this kind of intimacy and vulnerability and trust, procreation becomes a by-product.  Satan looks at all of this and offers instead his alternative, his counterfeit.  He offers the momentary high of biology.  Reducing others to meat sacks of mutual consent.  Not pursuing intimacy but destroying it altogether, until people mean nothing, and are only objects that can provide a moment’s pleasure.  To have children in this venue, is a risk to be avoided.  A punishment for not thinking ahead and being careful, while you pursue an endless line of self-worth-destruction in the form of others for a moment’s pleasure.  It turns out the “alternative” is not just “different”, it sucks.  It is not happiness packaged in a different way, it is pain, wrapped up to look like happiness, but with no fulfilling characteristics at all.  In short, it is a lie.  But then, when you choose to deviate from truth, where else would you expect to wind up, but in a lie.

And so what started in heaven, by no means ended there.  Satan has been creating counterfeits, and telling lies about God since the very beginning, with no intention of ever stopping, until he is stopped once and for all at the end of all things.  Satan ascribes his own motives on to God, hoping you will believe the worst about God, and nothing about the devil.  Where it comes to the Word of God, Satan has been lying about that since Moses first picked up a quill and parchment to begin writing it down.  Matthew, in his gospel to his contemporaries, in chapter 28 records one really significant case of “point / counterpoint”.  And honestly if I had been Matthew, I might have seen the wisdom of opening by talking to Satan, and saying something like the old SNL skits started … “Satan, you ignorant slut”.  Might still be good for a laugh, but in this case, it is also true.  Instead Matthew takes us back, picking up in verse 1 saying … “In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.”

The women of cast-iron-faith, are again first to go to Jesus, even though He is dead.  They have no reason to do this, at least no logical reason.  Dead is dead.  When a Messiah is killed, that is pretty much the end of it, at least it has always been so.  But for these women where love drives their faith, something naws at them.  They remember His words.  He predicted that He would rise again on the third day.  There is a nagging hope within them that defies logic, and will not go away, and will not be silent.  So women do what men continue to be too afraid to do.  They travel to his burial site, in spite of the fact they are sure to encounter the 100 Roman soldiers, and who knows how many temple guards sent as well.  These women of cast-iron-faith are sure to be surrounded by the enemy, and make no mistake, the enemy sure looks to be in charge.  They have the swords.  They have the spears.  And they have the anger that will not go away.

Matthew continues in verse 2 saying … “And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. [verse 3] His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: [verse 4] And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.”  Here is where a hundred Roman killers are made as scared as a flock of sheep.  All their spears and swords, and pent up cruelty, are worth nothing against a single angel of the Lord.  The stone which took several men to put in place, is rolled away like so many paper towels in a kitchen.  The seal is broken without so much as effort.  But this angel is not there to kill lost souls the Lord was sent to redeem.  The Romans keep their lives.  And the angel takes no threatening posture with his own sword drawn and ready.  Instead he hops up on the stone he rolled away and sits down like a teenager might do.  From here he casually begins talking to the women.

Matthew continues in verse 5 saying … “And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. [verse 6] He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. [verse 7] And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.”  The first evangelists of the Christian faith are commissioned.  The first preachers of the gospel are commissioned.  And they are ALL women.  This had nothing to do with a preference by God, for one sex or the other.  But it had a great deal to do with who faced their fears and went to seek Jesus, despite it not making sense or being logical.  When loves drives the motives, miracles happen.  When love is not in the motives, miracles are prevented.  Women were here.  So women were commissioned.  God works with whoever comes to Him.  He makes no distinction of the sex, or age, or color.  He loves us all.  He will work with us all.  Who of us, will come to work with Him?

The entire gospel message is summed up in what the angel has said.  Jesus is risen.  Go and tell, in this case his disciples.  These women must preach to the future preachers, because the future preachers are hiding allowing their fear to overcome their faith.  They heard the same words of Jesus regarding his resurrection at the same time the women heard them.  But nothing was nawing against the hearts of the disciples except the fear of self-preservation.  Fear can be drowned-out by love, and it cannot be drowned out without it.  When love is an after thought, fear can hold sway.  And so it did.  Love, as what men think of love, was in the hearts of the disciples.  But the Love of Jesus was not there just yet.  Later when that love of Jesus did enter the disciples, they feared nothing, and endured everything for the cause of Christ.  But now, the early adopters, were the women of cast-iron-faith, tempered by the furnaces of love.

Matthew continues in verse 8 saying … “And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. [verse 9] And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. [verse 10] Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”  And just in case you could doubt the word of an angel of God, we have his words reaffirmed by the Jesus they all knew, up close, and in person.  This was the point of the gospel.  This was the love of the gospel made manifest.  Jesus takes the time to personally greet His new evangelists, to appear FIRST to the women.  This was I believe a reward for their faith.  Faith that drove them to move, even when it made no logical sense at all.  Faith that drove them to hope, because they remembered the words of their Lord and trusted in His Truth.  The “Point” goes to God.

Now for the counterpoint.  Time for the ignorant slut to spin his lie.  Matthew continues in verse 11 saying … “Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. [verse 12] And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, [verse 13] Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. [verse 14] And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. [verse 15] So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”  The lie has teeth.  It spreads.  It makes common sense.  It is more logical, and therefore more believable, than say a miracle.  Occam's Razor would side in favor of the lie.  The soldiers risked their lives to spread it, for sleeping on duty, would get them placed on crosses of their own.  The priests vouching for them with Pilate, would be the only way, they “might” escape that fate.  Counterpoint goes to Satan.

And in this situation, ascribing evil motives to the alternative story to the resurrection is understandable.  After all, Satan is evil.  And he has nothing but evil intent.  God’s story is the story of your redemption, and re-creation.  It is the story of your personal reconciliation with God.  You get to go home.  You get to hang out with God, eat dinner with Him, listen to Him, talk to Him, laugh with Him.  God is not just about sitting on a distant throne in heaven, you are a thousand miles away from.  He is about getting close and personal with you, being with you.  God being God, He can do that with you, at the same time He does it with me, and so on, and so on.  Everywhere at once.  This is not a “thousand mile away” proposition.  It is about going home, to be “with” God.  Never parted again.

And what does the counterpoint offer?  Meaninglessness.  Your life is a random accumulation of circumstances that mean nothing.  You mean nothing.  You are all alone.  You will die alone.  And no one will care.  In a thousand years, or ten thousand, you will be a speck in a memory long forgotten.  Your pain, your joy, are all random, and mean nothing.  Your suffering means nothing.  In short, in the counterpoint proposal, you have no meaning to anyone, so … why live?  Take the yoke of morality off of you and swing for the rafters.  Be Hitler if it pleases you.  Or be Gandhi.  But no matter.  Both are dead now.  So what difference do either make?  Counterpoint has NOTHING to offer you, it is based on lies, that would rob you of infinite joy, and infinite life.  It is meant to deceive you, and distract you, to keep you from a faith that overcomes fear, because it is driven by love.  And love does matter.  In the here and now, and throughout the eons of time, love will always matter.  Do not let the lie, rob you of your meaning.  Do not let logic, rob you of the love you have coming, and the love you are capable of sharing.  There is no alternative to truth, only lies that lead to pain.

The gospel allows us to see each other, past the struggles with evil, and to what potential He would bring in our lives.  Instead of ascribing any motives to our brothers and sisters, what if we just loved them unconditionally instead.  What if our love for them, looked like God’s love for them?  Might that offer a reason to seek Jesus in the first place?  The Truth is revealed when Love is revealed.  The Truth is not revealed by debate, by words, but by love in action.  Because of Love, I care more about you than I do about convincing you of anything I believe – except to seek Jesus in everything.  My doctrines can wait.  If my doctrines are truth, then I can trust Jesus to reveal them to you in His time, in His manner, and in the way in which you will come to need to hear them.  That is a wildly different approach, than me trying to cram what I believe down your throat, all the while showing as little concern for you as I do the mosquito biting my arm.  And becoming frustrated if not angry with you, when you refuse to see things the way I do.  That kind of doctrine-based approach to evangelizing should go the way of the dodo-bird.  It does not work, and it does not last.  My beliefs are not as important as my love.  And how I can benefit you will be more determined by how much I love you, than what I esoterically believe about anything.

God has the point.  Satan has nothing.  You can see the truth of it, when you look at the life of Jesus Christ.

 

Preferences, Habits & Addiction ...

Can you tell the difference between a “need” and a “want”? Before you answer, consider the level of variations than could be proposed in any question regarding the two. For example, we all “need” to eat in order to live, however, do we “need” the food we are holding in our hands right now, or do we simply “want” this particular piece? Could it be that even more than our actions, our preferences are what defines us, makes us who we are? Is mankind simply a random collection of likes and dislikes, an amalgamation of what we want, translated into the lifelong pursuit of those goals? Perhaps. But that thinking is limited by the blinders of evil; there is a freedom beyond what we have imagined.

There is a reason why our enemy does not simply bribe everyone he wishes to turn from God with untold wealth and riches. It is not the attainment of these things that brings us any peace, or real happiness. So instead, he keeps us focused on attaining them, always in the journey towards the illusion, rather than arriving and determining how big an illusion it really is. We dream of wealth. We dream of riches. We fantasize about what it must be like to have money without end, fame around the globe, perhaps power from our vast resources. And in so doing, we idolize the material things of the world, and make ourselves slave to their acquisition. Never realizing, we will not attain them, we will die in the financial condition we were born to, and our chances of truly being different are only as good as those chances of winning the lottery – slim to none. But like the lottery, our enemy trots out a weekly “winner” making the argument that someone has to win, why not you. He masks the pain and emptiness of the rich, burying it in a flurry of activity, so that the poor see only what they wish to see, not the reality of life with the burden of wealth.

Though most of us will live lives denied the burden of the reality of wealth, we nevertheless seem to place a great deal of trust in our desires. While I may not acquire the mansion on the hill, perhaps I can still find a way to own my own home. While I may not drive the Maserati, perhaps I can find a used sports car within my price range. When disappointed in achieving our more modest goals, we attribute the loss to a lack of real spending money for the original purchase. The used sports car that does not drive how we would have liked, we blame on not having the cash to afford a better one. But what if the issue is not with our car, but with our thinking? What if the reality is … that there actually is NO better sports car out there. Perhaps every other one has even more mechanical failures, cosmetic issues, and engineering design flaws than the one we drive today. Worse yet, perhaps it is a flaw of ALL sports cars that ruins the lives of those who thought to crave them. The long and short of it is, we have been taught to want things that are likely not the best things for us.

So if I cannot trust me, who can I trust? Listening to advertisers is what will have gotten most of us in the condition we find ourselves in. And the theme of modern media makes the whole problems worse. How many times have you turned on your television set only to have the programming you watch be a life affirming drama who’s moral is … you can only rely on yourself? American culture and American media are equally grounded on the idea of self-reliance. The “American Dream” is a variation on a story about how through hard work, innovation, and perseverance anyone can achieve anything. Of course few people personally know someone who has truly achieved the American Dream, absent parental help, or a boost from others. But nonetheless the myth remains, and our culture deifies it.

But the best we have ever been able to say about achieving the desires of our heart, is that the fulfilling effects were temporary. We may want nothing more than to eat a piece of chocolate cake at the moment, but upon eating it, our appetite will grow again. Men put tremendous time, effort, and energy in attempting to make love to a particular woman; but having achieved the goal, they rarely spend as much effort to do it again. Most married men are tempted by the allure of something new, rather than wholly satisfied with what they have at home. Some of the blame can be placed on an incessant marketing media blitz that glorifies the myth, and trashes the truth. But rarely is there any thorough self-examination to see why the achievement of this kind of goal is rarely as permanently satisfying as the quest to achieve it would have indicated.

Perhaps it is collective insanity to believe the outcome will be different next time, when all the factors leading up to achieving our desires are identical to the times before. Perhaps our desires are nothing more than verbal admissions of our more deep seated addictions. Perhaps we believe ourselves to be in more control over our behavior than in fact we are. For if we know what we want will lead us to harm, and we choose to pursue it anyway, have we not lost all rationality? Helpless pursuit of behavior that will lead us only to harming ourselves is the very definition of addiction is it not. And yet we go through our lives, day in, and day out, doing exactly the same things.

So what do we do about it? Give up? Yes actually. But instead of just giving in to our desires and running hog wild until we invariably die from them, perhaps we should simply give our weakness to a Savior who has asked for nothing more than this “gift” from us. For us to escape the pain that is coming in our future, we must change what we want now. In order for the addict to fundamentally change his addiction, he must find outside help. This is our situation. We need our Savior not just to forgive what we do wrong, we need Him to stop us from doing it, and even more importantly to help us to not WANT to do wrong in the first place. Changing what it is we want, is the beginning of our Salvation. Nothing can force us to do what we do not WANT to do (short torture). Our problem is that when all is said and done, we still “want” to sin, and so we do. The only remedy for this is to change what we “want” to do, and the only hope to implement that change is from Christ.

Some hold to our analogy of comparing evil with poo. They would say that like poo, we will commit evil again simply because we do not have a choice in the matter as long as we are alive. As long as we live, we poo, and we commit evil. This is true, from a human perspective. In our own strength, we are as powerless to stop committing evil as we are to stop going to the bathroom. However, Christ is not bound by human limitations. He did not create us with the intention of having a waste disposal system, rather He enabled this when it became necessary for our survival in a world of evil. So too, now that we realize our condition, and come surrendered at the foot of the cross, we give Him our entire lives including our desires, and He changes them. It is a miracle in our lives that He performs. And while it is humanly impossible to stop going poo, with God all things are possible. We can cease to do evil, not because there is something special about us, but because there is something special about what Christ does in our lives when we let Him.

It is our pride that keeps us from experiencing these kinds of victories in our lives. We do not surrender fully to Christ because we believe we can do it on our own. After all, few of us will admit to being an addict of any kind. We cherish our cultural ideas of self-reliance and believe whatever short comings we have can be managed and worked out over time. Many believe they are in partnership with God, as if God needed our help in any way. He does not need our help, but does need our permission. If we have to rely on our own “faithfulness” to see us saved, we are surely doomed. Rather we can trust in His “faithfulness”, He has yet to break a promise. Everything He says is truth.

It is time for us to know the rest in coming to our Lord. It is time for us to know the peace only He can restore in us. It is time to enjoy a level of freedom we have not even begun to imagine. And it is time for us to allow Christ to do His work in us fully, trusting in Him to save us completely …

Fart Jokes ...

George Carlin once did a hilarious routine centered around one of the oldest sources of humor known to man, the fart joke. George had a unique ability to take human weakness or uncomfortable situations and by meticulously examining the strange behavior humans do, he could make humor from it. It is not so much that expelling gas is funny (though infants seem to find this the height of humor), it is the commonality all humans share when it comes to uncomfortable situations. What to do in a crowded office party when the urge suddenly strikes and there is no bathroom available. George postulated the idea of omitting what he called “a test fart”, just a small sample of what was to come, you know, to see how bad it might be, and judge whether allowing more would be acceptable or would melt the wall paper and cause permanent chemical damage to the folks standing nearby.

One of the chief ploys of our enemy is another tactic he likes called desensitizing the effects of evil. By making light of evil, we can sometimes gloss over the pain it causes. We can treat it less, like the chemical warfare agent it is, and more like simply an understandable social faux-paux [sp]. Much like finding the humor in something that is otherwise disgusting, we can elect to change our reactions to evil and begin to treat it on more a scaled system. Murder would top the evil severity list, Rape just under it, theft under that, perhaps gossip or lieing under that, and at the bottom of the list – George’s test fart; after all the impact of evil on us personally is scaled in this way. Our justice system treats offenses in this way, and is supposed to meter out punishments – to fit the crime. This is our sense of fair play at work. This is our sense of eye-for-an-eye that leads us to believe punishments should fit the severity of the crime. Only in backwards, third world countries, do they mete out the most severe punishments for least offensive crimes, right?

So why does our God see every evil on the same scale? Why is His punishment for evil always death, no matter what the severity of the crime committed? How can we call Him a fair and loving God, when only the slightest sin results in the penalty of death – even one – even something seemingly innocuous – if test farts were a sin, they would merit the death penalty the same as genocide does. How can this be?

The truth is, our justice system and God have very different ideas and agenda’s when it comes to “crime prevention”. Our justice system looks to insure compliance with the laws by widely publishing the punishments that will occur if the laws are broken. Yet despite the threat of these punishments, men and women still break the laws with regularity. Some believe they will not be caught. Some are not. Some believe that even if caught, they may get off on a technicality, or through the mercy of a judge, or through the overcrowding of our prison system. Some do. But some get punished anyway, they “do the time”, serve their sentence, return home – and many fall right back into criminal activity once again. How effective is a penal system in reforming the nature of a person? At best, the threat of punishment, is enough to deter the timid, and the satisfied.

Once could argue that God’s death penalty for every crime might do better at deterring crime. But states with death penalty laws seem to have per capita as many murders as those without them. In fact, in order to insure the guilt of those condemned to die, we often spend more money on death row inmates than on those sentenced to life in prison without parole; so even the threat of death does not seem to stop the determined murderer. Although one could argue, it might put a real dent in say shoplifting. And let’s be honest, having an executioner standing at the door of the Walmart, might give even the bravest and most skilled thief a reason to stay honest.

But there is a problem with looking at the penalty of sin as being something God instigated. God Himself is life. He is love. He is the source of all that is good. To deviate away from that can only lead to what is opposite of God. It is more like this, imagine sticking your tongue into the place you would normally put a light bulb inside a lamp, with the lamp turned on, and power cord plugged in. You would be electrocuted would you not? Is that the “punishment” for putting your tongue in a socket, or is that merely “the result.” When your toddler reaches for the hot stove burner, and you remind him that he will hurt himself if he continues on his present course, are you threatening him with punishment, or revealing to him the impending nature of his actions, and the results that will occur if he continues?

So in essence does every sin result in death? Yes. But the process must be understood a little better first. Take something we might call merely annoying on our scale of sin, say “pride” for example. A proud or arrogant person is at worst obnoxious right. We tend to avoid them if we can, put up with them if we have to. But they are generally not well liked, and have few true friends, as no-one really wants to spend time with someone who always reminds them how much better he is than them. How does pride result in death? Look deeper. In an effort to maintain the illusion of superiority over others, the proud person must take steps to prove his point. Ever been usurped at work for a promotion by that guy that only thinks he works harder than you? Ever been targeted by the “cool kids” in school and put down for being “less” than they were in some way? Ever been discriminated against because you belong to minority group, or hold a minority opinion? Wonder why? Because superiority or pride is only an illusion at best, so to be proven, actions that hurt others ensue. Sometimes those actions make enemies of those who are belittled, or robbed of their due. Sometimes the proud are the enemies, say Hitler for instance.

It does not take long for sin to escalate. It does not take long for the innocuous sins in our scale to move up to the next steps, all of them eventually leading to murder, and ironically enough eventually to suicide. Ever wonder why after a life of getting away with it, some serial murders are finally brought to justice? Most cops will tell you that they “wanted” to get caught. At some point they realize the monsters they have become and with that realization know they need outside help to be stopped. So while they will not surrender, they begin to make subconscious “mistakes”. And to reinforce the point of where pride can lead – Satan’s first sin was pride – it led him all the way to the cross of Christ putting our God on a tree of torture and death. That could not have been the first thought Satan had, when he turned from serving others and began to serve himself. But it is where those thoughts eventually led him to commit a murder of God Himself.

The biggest problem with poo, is that we are never really done producing it. The problem with sin, is that once we embark on it, no matter how seemingly small, it leads us down the scale of escalation until murder itself seems reasonable, and suicide as our only hope to end the pain. When tortured enough, every human will begin to crave death over pain. Most rational people never believe they would ask someone else to kill them, let alone beg for death. But those people have not endured torture without mercy, or without end. When hope leaves, the goal of death itself becomes plausible. And how funny is that? Where is the humor in our desire to cease to exist? The only one laughing is Satan himself, who alone finds joy in our demise.

This is the truth he wishes to cover up. He does not want you to know, that ALL sin results in death. He does not want you to see, that ALL sin is addictive and destructive and is only a mile marker on the way to the grave. He does not want you to believe that death is a RESULT but rather only a punishment by an angry God. So he lies about everything. He makes what seems disgusting look funny. He covers up the effects of our evil, and tries to mask the pain we cause, so we will feel freer to spread even more of it. The nature of evil is pain and death – having deviated away from God it had nowhere else to go but that.

This is why our hope is based on a Savior God who does the work of saving us from the monsters we have become. This is why allowing Christ to change our nature is so important. It is not just our deeds that need alteration – it is our thinking, our motives, and our desires that must be reformed. We must become new creations, of a creator God. We must die to what we are, and be reborn to what He intends. In order for this to happen, we must let go the illusions of superiority, and self-control. We must abandon the idea that we are capable of helping. We must learn to be still, and KNOW that He is our God, and our Savior. That His will alone can live in us, and that our will must die, if we are truly to be saved from slavery of evil. Our hope and our salvation rest in our Savior Jesus Christ. This is why only our religion and our God offer a plausible way of escaping pain and death. It is not a threat, but a singular ray of hope, that anyone is free to grasp and realize.

God's Funny Bone ...

Think He has one?  Do you?  Most people believe they have a sense of humor, though the truth of this may be up for debate.  But if we believe we can find things, situations, and language funny – isn’t it possible God can too?  Another huge myth about God is His perceived inability to laugh.  Of course this is a logical fallacy since if we His created beings are capable of laughing, our originator must also be capable.

When it comes to humor there are so many forms of it like understatement, exaggeration, slap-stick or physical humor, word play, puns, or intelligent questions about silly or common situations to name a few.  There is the humor we find in children doing ‘cute’ things, or pets doing ‘funny’ things.  There is the analytical humor of comedians like George Carlin who takes an in depth look at the language we use to describe common situations like pre-boarding an airplane – “how do you get on before you get on?”  Or “making sure we get ‘in’ the airplane, let Evil Kneivel get ‘on’ the airplane.”  I think George would make God giggle with this routine, particularly his entire section on airline security. 

In today’s day we find a new generation of Christian comedians who expound about life’s common situations and the funny things we find ourselves doing or saying.  Like music I find myself enjoying many forms of humor.  One in particular I enjoy is ‘dead-pan’ humor or asking very smart questions about common things, in a very dry monotone voice.  Steven Wright is a good example of this asking the question “why is the alphabet in that order?”  Or “what happens if you get scared half to death, twice?”  Others like comedian Demetri Martin ask questions like “isn’t a mobile home with a flat tire, just a home?”  I have to believe God is laughing out loud at this one, particularly since He knows all the real answers to these kinds of questions.

The humor of poking fun at yourself can be quite amusing and takes a fair degree of humility to do.  We find humor in impressions of others, the better the impression, the more funny it can be.  There can be humor in stereo-typing groups of people, but often this can degenerate into a series of offensive statements designed to illicit a laugh.  If it plays to the truth, and avoids playing to racist bias, it can still be funny.  When you start thinking about all these types of humor, and the literally hundreds of comedians who have been able to make you laugh, do you begin to wonder if God is not the author of humor as well?  Let’s face it, not everybody has the comic timing to tell a joke.  Still others think they are funny when they are clearly not.  The skill or ability to be a great comedian looks to me like a gift.  I know where gifts come from don’t you.

Making people laugh in this world is a precious commodity.  With all that evil has accomplished in diverting our attention to fixate on what would destroy us – comedians arise on the scene and ask us to re-examine what we take for granted.  They cause us to see the humor in our ruts.  They make us take a second and laugh at our strange behavior.  But beyond that, they make us think.  George Carlin talks with great humor about how business marketing takes advantage of us.  His routine is well-worded and articulate.  But beyond the immediate laugh, is the premise George uncovers – we are sold things we do not need, by people who do not care, for prices we cannot afford to pay.  If George were a preacher, I doubt his sermon, would have reached the millions that his routine has undoubtly been heard by. 

George may not be a Christian.  Neither is Bill Maher or Jon Stewart.  But the questions they ask, and the jokes they make about issues in the news of the day – cause people to sit back and think.  Given the goal of evil to keep our attention on anything but Christ, doesn’t it seem that thinking about what we see and what we are told causes us to look at a bigger picture for meaning.  The drive to find meaning in your existence is the earliest step on a journey that can ultimately lead to God.  I believe there is great value in what our comedians do for us.  I believe whether they realize it or not, they disrupt the routine of evil, and give us pause to think about our behavior.

One of the reasons I wrote this book is due to my admiration for Bill Maher.  It appears to me that Bill has been systemically poisoned by well meaning Christians about the character of God.  The myths we debunk in this book, shed a new, or more accurate, light on all the topics that cause an agnostic to question the character of God.  If Bill had not been programmed to believe all these lies about God, would he still be an agnostic?  Or would, as he eludes to on his show, he find that Jesus’ words embody the great truth of our existence.  I do not believe that intelligence, a common trait among comedians, is incompatible with a belief in God.  I believe the lies intelligent people wind up subscribing to, cause them to reason another way.  After all, I would be unable to reconcile the concept of a loving God with an ‘eternally burning’ hell designed for ‘bad’ people no matter what they did here on earth.  That would lead me away from God as well.  This logical fallacy is one key reason, why this commonly taught doctrine of hell is simply not true.

Some people are offended by the swear words comedians tend to use in their routines.  They consider this ‘offensive’ language to be unacceptable by God, and therefore something we should avoid listening to.  I agree with the concept of ‘offensive language’ being avoided.  However I find it in so many other places.  For example, when a homeless person asks us for a dollar and we say “no” – that is offensive to me.  When a sinner reaches out for love and support and finds only judgment and condemnation from us – that is entirely offensive to me.  When we blindly accept the lies evil tells and rationalize our words and our actions – that is offensive to me.  When a child asks only for a few minutes of time from a busy parent and the answer is “no” – that is offensive to me.  And most of all – when we use the name of God to justify our own ignorance and bias and inflict pain on others – that, is truly offensive to me – and to God.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not advocate using gutter language to express yourself.  To me some of the greatest comedians do not need the use of swear words to make their material funny.  Jackie Mason, Red Buttons, Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Carol Burnett, Demetri Martin, and Jim Gaffigan to name a few.  On the other hand, I try not to judge those who speak differently than I do, and I do try to listen to what it is they are actually saying beyond the words I may not enjoy.  After all, I’m sure some of the things I say may not always be the best, even if the words I use are longer or absent the expletives used in a comedy routine.

The wise man said “laughter does good like a medicine”.  I believe in that statement, both metaphorically and literally.  I think God gave us the ability to laugh, and to some the gift of being funny.  I think we laugh too little and worry too much.  Maybe we should turn that paradigm over on its head in our lives …