(The Bible:) Too Offensive?

So, yesterday I posted several pictures of explicit LEGO scenes depicting sex, decapitations, childbirth, and various other violent situations. I asked if they were too offensive, if you would want to read or allow your children to read a book filled with these images. Now, here's the thing. The book that I got these images from is "The Brick Bible," a graphic novel style Old Testament Bible completely illustrated using LEGOs. The images each depict a Biblical situation.

• The first is Sodom and Gomorrah after God destroys them with fire.
• The second is when Lot's daughters get him drunk and sleep with him.
• The third is Rebekah giving birth to Jacob and Esau.
• The fourth is Samson killing the Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.
• The fifth is David beheading Goliath.
• The sixth is David having the messenger who killed Saul killed.
• The seventh is David looking at Bathsheba bathing.

I didn't include it, but every image is captioned with the Bible verses that describe it. There are many more images as well. Some are happy and appropriate, others are even more disturbing. There are images of rapes, dismemberments, drunkenness, massacres, circumcisions, human sacrifice, diseases, etc... basically, you name it and you can find it. I must admit that reading through it I was both shocked and amused. I was disturbed by the images, and the fact that they were LEGO kinda made it better, but also kinda made it worse. However, what I found most amazing was the fact that the entire Bible is depicted, not just the major stories, not just the popular stories, and not just the pretty stories, but everything.

I started to do some research on "The Brick Bible" and I discovered a few interesting things.

1. "The Brick Bible" was actually pulled from the shelves of Sam's Club for being too offensive.
2. The creator of "The Brick Bible" The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith is actually an atheist who is non too fond of God, and has quite a few derogatory things to say about Him and the Bible.
3. "the goal of The Brick Testament is to give people an increased knowledge of the contents of The Bible in a way that is fun and compelling while remaining true to the text of the scriptures." (from http://www.thebricktestament.com).

So here's my question. Is this too offensive? Does depicting the stories in the Bible, in all their beauty and all their hideousness make it more or less acceptable or appropriate? Does the fact that a man who does not believe in God and (yet) views God as angry, vindictive, hateful, etc... created this book make it any more or less offensive or acceptable?

I actually really like "The Brick Bible" because of the fact that it displays the stories of the Bible, many of which most Christians don't know about or gloss over, and if you go on the website www.thebricktestament.com, there are many more stories depicted. The depictions on the website betray a bit more of the The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith's atheism in the title's for the image collections as well as a few of his own words inserted in bubbles in the images.

The fact of the matter is that the Bible is not G rated, or PG or PG-13. Some parts of it are for sure, but the Bible as a whole is definitely R, if not NC-17. It displays the story of humanity in all its glory and all its despicable filth, and it displays the story of God's love through it.

I have been reading through the entire Bible, something which I have never done before in my almost 24 years as a Christian, and I am amazed at what I am reading and discovering. I am seeing new insights, lessons, and truths in stories I've read dozens of times before, and I am reading stories I have never read before. Some of these stories are really cool, and others leave me very upset and questioning why God would have allowed the events to happen, but all are revealing more about God, about humanity, and about the relationship between the two.

So what do you think? Do you think it is appropriate or acceptable to depict all of the Bible stories in this format? Furthermore, do you think that something created by a man who is antagonistic toward God can be used for good? Or, do you think that this is too offensive and Sam's Club was right in pulling it from their shelves?

Too Offensive?

I recently came across a book. This book has thousands of scenes, all created using LEGOs. Below I have included a few of these images. Now I want to ask you, what do you think about these images? Are they offensive? Are they ok because they are LEGOs? Is this something that you would want to read or allow your children to read? What do you think?

Fight or Flight

FEAR

I've been thinking about this a lot in the last couple weeks. It seems to be popping up in various forms all around me, and God has been revealing some pretty cool things to me about it, so I thought I would share.

Fear is a very natural and very powerful emotion. In fact, I would argue that fear is potentially the most powerful emotion (potentially, because I believe love can potentially be the most powerful emotion, but these two are at odds with each other and only one can reign in your life). We have all experienced fear in some form or fashion in our lives. Sometimes this comes in the form of being scared of the dark, or clowns, or dogs, or spiders, or whatever. If I asked you to share what you are afraid of everyone would have a whole list of things, and most likely it would be filled with these sorts of things. Then there is fear of heights, crowds, public speaking, small spaces, things of that nature. Your list may be filled with several of these as well. Finally, there is fear of things like failure, rejection, shame, being alone, death, etc... Every one of us has these fears as well, but most often they will not make your list of things you are afraid of. They are very personal fears, and they have the capability to determine the direction of your life.

Fear has one extremely powerful attribute. It is capable of paralyzing. You've heard the expression "frozen with fear," and this is exactly what fear does. It freezes us, as least for a moment. This is obvious from life, from movies, etc... How many times do you see yourself or someone else get afraid and just freeze, or curl up, or hide, but you don't move. You get quite and still. You see this in the Bible as well.

Peter, after Jesus called him out onto the water, became afraid of the water, and instead of continuing to walk toward Christ. He froze and began to sink. Later, after Christ was arrested, Peter, who was brash and zealous by nature, became frozen with fear, hiding, and refusing to even admit that he knew Jesus. In the Old Testament you see the Israelites become fearful of the people in the Promise Land, and that fear caused them to stop following God, to stop moving forward, and resulted in them, literally, walking in circles for 40 years.

Fear paralyzes, but the natural response to fear is the complete opposite. This post is entitled "Fight or Flight." I'm sure you do, but in case you don't know, that is the body's natural response to fear. We are flooded with adrenaline, and we are prepared to either fight the danger that is scaring us or flee from it and protect ourselves. Either way, out bodies overcome fear by preparing us for action. What's interesting is that we can all see this with certain fears, such as if someone is attacking you, a tree limb is suddenly falling above you, someone is in a car accident, even with fears like bugs and dogs, but the concept is true for all fears.

Fear is overcome by action. When Peter began to sink, he reached out for Christ. He moved toward Him and was saved. In response to Peter's three denials of Jesus, Jesus, three times, called him to action "feed my lambs," "take care of my sheep," "feed my sheep." And, the Israelites, after 40 years, emerged from their fear induced wandering to widespread action, entering the land God promised and fighting those they were once afraid of.

How many times in our lives do we let fear paralyze us, and I'm talking about that last set of fears, the personal ones. How many times are we afraid of failure so we never try, afraid of being hurt so we refuse to love or open ourselves up, afraid of rejection or ridicule so we don't share God's love with those around us? I've seen it in my life many times. I let fear dictate what I will (or really what I won't) do, and many times it is something that God is calling me to do, but I don't because I let fear reign instead. But, just like fight or flight, living in that state of fear is not good for anyone, and the only way to break out of it is to act, and often that action is to do the very thing your are afraid of. Face your fear.

When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, God told Joshua, on many occasions, "Be strong and courageous." Courage, interestingly, is not necessarily being free of fear, but it is acting and pushing on in spite of fear. So be courageous.

Finally, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the two most powerful emotions that I see are fear and love.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment." -- 2 Timothy 1:7

"There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear..." -- 1 John 4:18a  

God makes it clear in Scripture that we are not meant to be fearful. He has not designed us with a spirit of fearfulness. Rather, we are given a spirit of love, and where there is perfect love (Christ), fear is driven out. This gives new meaning to "with God all things are possible." With God (perfect love) all things are possible because He drives out fear, which paralyzes us, and invites us to action with Him.

What is God calling you to do in your life that maybe you are afraid of? What have you been frozen from doing because of some fear? Take the time today to ask God to drive out that fear and to help you to act in His love! 

*If you want to read a good fiction book that deals with fear and love. I suggest Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee.

 

Young Examples

Over the weekend we went to a play at The Adobe Theater entitled "Is Life Worth Living?" I wrote a blog Monday about this play and some of the lessons and questions that came from it. Today, however, I am writing about a different experience we had at the play.

We had gone for my mom's 50th birthday so there were a lot of us, 14 to be exact, and the theater, which is pretty small, it only seats about 90, was completely sold out. From the moment we got there the lady taking the tickets, who was, I guess, in charge of the place, was complaining about how large our group was and how she had no idea how we were able to get such a large group in, and we had no idea how difficult it was for them to accomodate us. This was quite confusing because: 1) We weren't sitting all together taking up entire rows in the theater. No more than 4 of us were sitting together in any one place. 2) We just called and bought 14 tickets...I'm not sure what was so difficult about that. Would it have been easier if 14 people had individually bought the 14 tickets? I mean come on. We were not that difficult...

Anyways, the 2nd thing that this lady did was immediately pull Manda and I aside and tell us that this was an adult play and she was not worried about what Mallory was going to hear, but what the 90 paying customers were going to hear from Mallory, and the moment she started to make any noise we would have to leave the building. Now I can understand letting us know that if Mallory was loud we may be asked to leave, but the way she approached it was like Mallory was a horrible intrusion and the paying customers shouldn't have to endure her. I think she kinda forgot that Mallory was one of those paying customers and 13 other paying customers were with us... So this was a little annoying, but it got worse. She then came up to us on 2 more occassions and told us that Mallory should not be there, that she should not have been invited, that there were so many things wrong with our reservation, and got upset at us because we told her that an empty seat next to us was Mallory's seat. She told us Mallory could not have a seat, even though we had paid for it, and she should not be at the play. Keep in mind, this whole time, Mallory is being perfect. She's not crying screaming, being loud in any way. This lady is making much more of a scene than Mallory was.

Anyways, we got to stay in and the play started, and continued for 3 hours. During that time, Mallory watched intently. She loved it. She loves plays. She never made a single noise. In fact, she was the quitest one in the whole place. She was perfect.

This whole thing got me thinking about a lot of things. One of which is how people just assume that because a kid is young they are going to be disruptive and annoying. Kids, of any age, are human beings, just like the rest of us, and their age has nothing to do with whether or not they are disruptive. It is said that children only have an attention span the same number of minutes as their age, so Mallory should only have a 2 minute attention span, yet she sat still, intently watching the play, for 180 minutes. Also, the play didn't start till 8:00pm so by the time it was over, it was well past her bedtime, and she was tired, but she was still paying attention and enjoying it.

So here's the lessons I learned from it.

1. In life, don't look at kids as some annoying group that must be tolerated until they grow up. They are people with likes and dislikes. Maybe a kid is throwing a fit cause they genuinely don't like what is going on, and if they do like it, they are capable of paying attention and participating. Children are people, so treat them as such.
2. As Christians, there is an important lesson, that is outlined in 1 Timothy 4:12 "Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity." There is an important lesson here, regardless of which side of the "age line" you are on. If you are a younger Christian, be an example. Age is not an excuse to slack off, falter or fail, just because a lot of people think you will. You have a responsibility to be an example, not only to younger Christians, but also to older Christians. Your calling to follow and obey God in EVERYTHING is not dependant on your age. If you are an "older" Christian don't be like the lady at the play. It may be easy to dismiss younger Christians as immature or inexperienced, and this can have a variety of results, from "think[ing] less of" them to patronizing them, disregarding what they have to say/teach, not learning from their examples. However, the Bible is clear that younger Christians should, and therefore CAN be examples for ALL believers, so allow them to be.

In the end I was very impressed with and proud of Mallory, she was fantastic, and there were so many people that came up after the play to tell her how amazed they were at how well she did. It was a good feeling. However, I would love if people weren't amazed and shocked when kids did well in situations. I would love if people recognized that children can do things more than they are given credit for, and on the other side of things, we are often amazed/inspired/impressed when young people do big things, are examples of what a true Christian should be. I would love to get to the point where we are not impressed, because young people are consistently being and setting examples and older people are consistently expecting young people to be and set examples.

Is Life Worth Living?

Over the weekend we saw a play at The Adobe Theater entitled, "Is Life Worth Living?" It was a good play, a comedy, and yet quite depressing at the same time. The basic gist of the play is that an acting group comes into a small quiet town in Ireland and puts on these serious plays that tackle deep/dark issues, which in turn reveal all the problems and issues in the town that no one acknowledged where there. They compare it to moving a stone in a grassy field and revealing all the creepy crawlers, worms and bugs. As a result of this, people start going nuts, killing themselves, killing others, all because they start to realize how messed up everyone is, and they start to ask the question "Is Life Worth Living?" and for many, the answer is "No." The play ends with the town kicking the acting group out before the cause more problems, and replacing them with a circus, where people can go and simply enjoy life. They relate it to putting the stone back over the worms and bugs. It is meant to be a happy ending, but I think it was one of the most depressing parts of the play. You see, everyone's eyes were opened to the fact that they had problems, that deep down they didn't find any purpose or meaning in life to validate continuing to live, and rather than seeking some answer or trying to fix what was wrong, they pulled the wool over their eyes again, plastered on a fake smile, buried their doubts and fears, and went to the circus.

This was an interesting play because it touched on a topic that so many people struggle with. Is life worth living? What's the point? It's so sad that so many people truly cannot answer this question, and w/o an answer, what is to keep them from ending their lives? This is something that people have struggled with since the beginning of time. In Ecclesiastes 1: we see Solomon say, "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind." This was Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, and he questioned whether there was any purpose or meaning to life, if it was worth living.

So I ask you, is life worth living? What do you think? If you say it is, why? What makes life worth living? What gives life meaning and purpose? This is a philosophical question, but a vitally important one. I recently heard a story of a man who had lost his wife, job, career, and because of it, because of the loss and the shame, he killed himself. He had asked someone close to him if he could give him some direction, some meaning, and this person told him he didn't know. This lack of hope, lack of meaning, lack of worth, resulted in absolute loss of life, which is devastating.

Some say family and friends give life meaning. Some say love. Some say helping others. Some say their jobs. Some say possessions/toys. Some say a purpose or cause to work for. Here's the problem though. All of those things can be taken away. If all of those things are taken away and you are stripped bare, what gives your life meaning. What makes life worth living? What makes it more than futility?

Solomon said that everything is futile, and for 12 chapters he goes on about how literally everything anyone does is meaningless, but in the final verses he comes to this conclusion: "When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is: fear God and keep His commands, because this is for all humanity."  It all boils down to this. Is life worth living? Absolutely, but it's not worth living because of love, family, friends, pets, causes, jobs, money, possessions, health, helping others, etc... Those are all benefits of living, but they are not what makes life worth it. Life is worth it because God created you. He created your life and loves you. Our goal, our purpose should be to honor, love, and obey Him, and in and through that we find meaning and worth in life. Paul stated in Acts 17 "From one man He has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 28 For in Him we live and move and exist..."

In and of ourselves we are messed up. We have worms and bugs crawling beneath the surface, hidden by the makeup of a circus clown, but no matter how much laughter and enjoyment we use to cover up our problems, to place the rock over our issues, they are still there, and will eat us alive from the inside out until we are nothing more than a hollow shell that is easily shattered. We have nothing left inside, and in that place, life is not worth living. However, God supplies us with hope, with purpose, with meaning, with worth. He removes the rock over our lives, exposes all of our nasty worms and bugs, and rather than cover them back up, he gets rid of them. He removes the rock and allows that filth to be replaced with grass, flowers, life. We are emptied, but are not hollow shells, we are filled with His life and our worth is not found in the fleeting pleasures of this life, in the circus, but our worth is found in Christ! In Him we LIVE and MOVE and EXIST! He is LIFE and He gives us that life, and in and through Him, life is definitely worth living!