The Weekly Southern Blog

Monsters and God

8/22/2011

Mark,

I read your post on "Gods and Monsters" and enjoyed it very much. However (You knew there had to be a "however"!), it got me thinking about the relationship between God and man and, frankly, it seems to me that we are the monsters. I would love to be able to chime in with Flip Wilson and say, "The devil made me do it!" Unfortunately, that simply isn't the case.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I've had good men tell me of their struggles with various and sundry temptations and I know my own struggles with my personal weaknesses (Snap judgments on the evil motives of drivers with New York and Quebec license tags, the angry suspicion that all electronic devices are out to get me and will only work upon seeing me reduced to a seething, swearing, violent wreck, etc.). These may seem small, and they are but a sampling of my many failings, but they, in fact, hamper and limit my relationship with God and His creation all too often.

Jesus said, in Matthew 5:22, "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell."

I looked up the Aramaic definition of "Hell" the other day. At the time, I wanted to know what Jesus meant when He said that "...it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."

Hell is the English translation of "Gehenna," a place in the Valley of Hinnom, east of Jerusalem, where human sacrifices were made to ancient Canaanite gods and a place that, at the time of Jesus, was a garbage dump.

I don't think Jesus was telling us in either passage how to avoid an eternity in the local dump. No, I think He used the image of Gehenna to indicate to his audience of Jews the uncleanliness, the depravity of a place outside of God's blessings. It would be like us warning someone that, if they persist in their evil ways, they will spend eternity at a Michael Bolton concert!

True story: I was having dinner in Ft. Lauderdale about fifteen years ago. Our buddy, Jay, was playing drums with the house band at a long-gone place called "Mario's." His wife, Honey, was with us when in walks Michael Bolton with an entourage. Mr. Bolton got a table for his party out on the street-side veranda. Honey freaked because she thought he was a good singer. I told her that he was a hack, but she wanted to meet him anyway. She goes out to tell Mr. Bolton how much she thinks of his singing and he airily blows her off. Yet another reason to despise the man's irritating oversinging (along with having Ray Charles play piano for him as he sang "Georgia!" Were I God, that would warrant an immediate trip to Waste Management, but God, as they say, is merciful.).

Anyway, I have no idea whether there is an actual place known as Hell that has neverending fire and torment, there simply isn't enough information given in the Bible to be sure. But I do know that being outside of the presence of God, a situation that no one currently in this world has EVER experienced, is a horrible, horrible thing and a fate that I wouldn't wish on any human being.

At the end of the day, what I take from Jesus' words of warning is this: We are the monsters. We seek after our own way and, in doing so, whether wittingly or not, declare ourselves to be sovereign. In this act of impudence, we bring sorrow to ourselves and to our surroundings. Yes, the devil delights in tempting us to such rash thoughts and deeds, but we are the ones who ultimately choose our way. We really do have a choice, if only we take the time to consider it, and can choose the ways of God or the ways of man. The devil doesn't encourage us to choose the ways of the devil--he doesn't have to! It is enough if he can get us to choose our own path, for the moment that we do, we distance ourselves from God and His righteousness, holiness and grace.

Thomas A. Hall

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God and Monsters

8/3/2011

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I am always amazed by how many Americans have no idea of how their culture was shaped, or have any real grasp of its political foundation. America, like Christianity, is reduced to some good rules about abstaining from the bad stuff and keeping on the straight and narrow—making sure that the freeloader gets the boot and that the sexual deviants are kept at bay, like the Zombies in "The Night of the Living Dead"! If we don't stand against the angry hordes of liberal miscreants and their cronies, America, like every other great nation, will crumble from the cancer within!

This is the kind of rhetoric that I remember hearing as a kid in junior high from teachers weeping about America's decline in the face of the onslaught of the Viet Cong who would soon be rowing furiously to our shores in canoes armed with pitchforks and the Communist manifesto—and is in some ways still the culture of American conservatives. I say this as a conservative, not a left wing, New York pinko waiting for the Marxist revolution to begin, but a libertarian who believes in the freedom of the individual from the potential tyranny that a growing nanny state always represents. I also believe that we should be cautious in our eagerness to replace institutions that have a track record of success, substituting what works with a "hey, why don't we give that a try" approach that is too often the modus operandi of liberals.

Maybe we should set aside the fiery language that defines much of American politics and take some time to look at the facts. Even this proves difficult, since it depends on whose facts are being examined. With both sides looking for code words that convey the true intent of the insidious forces lurking in shadows, like the sharks on shark week, sniffing out one drop of blood in a million parts of water!

First things first, there is no such thing as a Christian nation. Christianity is a relationship between God and man, not God and the state, with the nature of God being revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, who was slow to anger, filled with grace and mercy for the poorest, most wretched members of society. He had a definite dislike for state-sponsored religion and rigid legalism. In fact by the time of his birth, the Mosaic Law (the constitution for Jewish life) had become burdened by law and interpretation, all in an attempt to govern the moral limitations of man, “making every man a criminal.” Tyranny, like your average serial killer, never comes right out and says, "I’d like to have sex with your headless corpse." It is veiled with a smile, always harboring bad intentions.

Jesus believed in a “spiritual” theocracy, not a political one, without priest or prophet—with God alive at the center of a man, and the morality of God written on the heart, not carved in stone or Constitutional parchment! This is evident when he says to Pontius Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world.”—as Stan Lee used to say, “Nuff said!”

Jesus didn’t come to replace one set of rules with another, but believed that God's law was mercy towards the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger—something understood by every school child in Israel since at least a thousand years before his birth.

The Apostle Paul is, unfortunately, credited or discredited, as the case may be, with bringing a kind of rigid legalism to the words of Jesus—something that I believe is a complete misrepresentation of Paul’s writing. Jesus spoke to those most in need of salvation. Salvation not meaning escape from “Hell”, but salvation from themselves and the choices that had corrupted their lives.

To the rich and powerful, Jesus had a certain disdain, as evidenced by his numerous sayings regarding the accumulation of wealth for one’s own benefit, without concern for the poorest, most helpless members of society.

This is where Liberal’s shout, “Amen brother, preach it,” forgetting completely that Jesus never meant for government to be the solution, or what he referred to as, “a form of Godliness, without God”! Meaning that government and politicians as gods is no different than the individual as god!

Paul, in his writing, speaks to the Church—believers who represent the body of Christ. A term used as a way of understanding Jesus’ saying, “When you do unto the least of these, the poor, widow and orphan, you do for them as though you were doing it for me”!   The body of Christ as the hands, eyes, ears and feet of the master searching for the lost sheep, who suffer.    When Paul writes his laundry list of sins, he is referring to those who have put themselves back under the bondage of slavery by choice, after having been set free—slavery meaning the things that consume your life which have now become your master, making you indifferent to the things of God!

Conservatism has unfortunately become rife with painfully obvious symbolism, an easy way of affirming one’s solidarity with likeminded travelers. Liberalism is no better, with a President elected on the basis of slogans like, “hope and change,” an idea as bankrupt of meaning as the worst tendencies of their conservative counterparts.

There is little doubt that President Obama was elected in part, because he wasn’t George W. Bush, but that would be like voting for Dracula because he wasn’t Frankenstein. We choose our monsters and we get what we deserve!

Mark Magula

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All Good Things Must Come To An End

8/2/2011

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It’s inevitable when the great ones are beaten or retire, that their legacy be re-evaluated in the light of the current lineup of champions and prospects. A little more than a year ago Brock Lesnar was regarded as the baddest man alive. Today when speaking about him, those same words are never used. A loss to the new up and coming baddest man alive has changed the landscape completely. With a group of new candidates looking to displace the old ones the first chance they get.

After getting pounded senseless by Shane Carwin for one round, Lesnar came out in the second, pulled off a submission against a completely exhausted opponent, and was then immediately hailed as the baddest man alive for having submitted such a beast! That Carwin was unable to compete after a single round of fighting due to fatigue should’ve been a hint. That Brock, after getting hit with a couple of punches to the face turtled up like I used to when my Dad got out the belt, should have been another one.

Maybe there’s a rush to judgment regarding who is the best after only a few big fights—or maybe we’re a little too comfortable elevating fighters with limited track records, who are often times competing against opposition with the same limitations. This was true in Fedor’s prime and still is today. No fighter was able to sustain an unbeaten record against the top level competition for nearly as long, regardless of the era. This included the best of the best. Sakuraba, Frank Shamrock, Tito Ortiz, Dan Severn and Minotauro Nogueira were all champions and considered pound for pound prospects, but were eventually beaten.

Dan Severn is a legend, who fought well into what is considered old age for any athlete and kept on winning. The truth is, Severn was past his best with his first cage fight at the age of thirty six. The question should be; could Severn compete against today’s top heavyweights if he were in his prime? It’s likely that if he did, he would be a completely different fighter, with a much broader skillset. He certainly didn’t lack size, athletic achievement or natural athleticism. He won thirteen national AAU titles, was a gold medal winner in the junior Olympics, a three time Olympic alternate as well as a Canada Cup gold medalist. His credentials are more impressive than all but a few of today’s best fighters regardless of weight class. But times change and it can be difficult for a fighter who has spent his life competing at the highest levels to suddenly alter the very things that may have gotten them where they are. In other words, if Severn were to fight against the best of today’s competitors, with only the skillset of his early years he wouldn’t stand a chance—but that would be unlikely. Severn was an innovator, a pioneer when there was no template. He helped to lay the foundation for the sport and every other athlete that followed—a better question might be, “how many of the current crop of fighters are game changers like Severn or Fedor”?

In the case of all elite level athletes, one thing remains consistent. Times change and athletes get better, not always because they’re bigger or stronger, but because competition forces innovation. Inevitably todays monsters will get old—or the sport will grow around them leaving us asking the same questions. Were they really as good as we remember them to be? The answer in Fedor’s case is "yes"! All we have to do is watch his extraordinary beating of Minotauro, who was widely regarded as the pound for pound best of his era.

Fedor established the model for what ground and pound could look like in the hands of a true master. He may have learned the basics by watching Olympic level wrestler, Mark Coleman at his peak, but Fedor took it to heights previously undreamt of. He was just as impressive in out striking the master striker, Mirko Cro Cop—at the time the most feared man in the sport.

MMA has been filled with great athletes from its beginning. However without a road map they were forced to learn on the fly, in the heat of battle. Mixed martial artists today have a far easier time learning their craft than the founders did. The competition is no doubt more fierce than ever before, but only because of it's pioneers having laid the necessary foundation, creating a level playing field.

Fedor was an innovator, as tough as they come—a small heavyweight, like The Manassas Mauler - Jack Dempsey, known as Jack the Giant Killer for his annihilation of men who were massive by comparison. Fedor was a quiet, humble man, rare in today’s sports world, he was also the most feared and respected mixed martial artist of our time, and we should remember that!

Mark Magula

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Monsters and God

God and Monsters

All Good Things Must Come To An End

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