A Review – “Revolt in 2100” by Robert A Heinlein

Introduction

If you love liberty, science, or good stories, you’ll love “Revolt in 2100”. What a ride! Great characters, compelling situations, great imagination and predictive ability (especially for being written in 1940). And in case you haven’t read my other book reports, SPOILER ALERT!

The setting is an America has become a (roughly) Protestant Theocracy that is oppressing the people. The protagonist is a naïve soldier who loves his country and his church who becomes disillusioned with it rather quickly as the book progresses, eventually joining the rebellion.

Reading the book was downright fun. Secret societies, military tactics and strategy (using military units that don’t yet exist), intrigue, betrayal, passwords, propaganda. It was a blast! It was able to communicate a message that, in the end, was contrary to my own opinion, but that didn’t stop me from having a good time hearing about it. This is the best of rhetoric, the best of persuasive writing. I hope to write someday like Heinlein. So I must say I enjoyed the book, despite the core message of the book being that people like me are what’s wrong with the world.

I must admit I really love the imagery of the “Church Militant” as GK Chesterton describes or in CS Lewis’ words the Church that is, “…spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.”; the victorious Church which is able to go out like sheep to the slaughter in the first few centuries AD and the Church that is able to keep its doctrines despite the multitude of challenges throughout the centuries. Heinlein, intentionally I think, made me start with some warm feelings about his imaginary state, and then crushed them by showing how terrible a thing it would be when humans rule the earth in God’s name without His guidance.

Philosophy

One thing that surprised me throughout the book was how much I agreed with him. His criticisms of the corruption, the greed, the wickedness of the church in that imaginary world (and in this real one) are valid. Like reading Ayn Rand, I felt like I was in an ignored observer. Where was the rational Christian in the story? But I will admit that we’re not very common, and it might be possible for Heinlein not to have met one of us.

Nevertheless, there is much I agree with. I am ever growing in my support for a libertarian ethic of governmental non-interference. It seems that this is a good and effective way to run a government. And this is one of the dominant themes of the book. People should be allowed to live however they like so long as they don’t prevent others from doing the same. I think the sacrificial nature of the characters, the utmost respect for personal dignity and decision, and the value placed on individual human sovereignty were wonderful.

Relativism
Heinlein argues for an agnostic faith and morality. No one has any access to God, and so anyone claiming to have it is probably lying. Therefore, all one can do is live one’s own life and not pass judgment on others. This is a pretty common conclusion, but Heinlein was actually able to build a world around it and communicate it freshly even to my mind. The only bad thing in the world is the one thing which I, a Christian, do: believe in objective morality.

Heinlein’s viewpoint here helps me understand some of my friends a lot better. It makes clear to me why public religion is so bad in their minds, and why evangelism is such a no-no: because, without revelation, it’s based entirely on the pride of those evangelizing. The trouble is that people with this mindset are especially hard to argue out of it. They believe that discussion itself is irrational, and so will tend to avoid it. And they think that every attempt to talk about it is some sort of power-grab or trick. Heinlein’s is a very well-insulating doctrine. This also may prevent relationships: you are the scum of the earth, the only real sinner. Relativism can incorporate all except the man who asserts Relativism is wrong. He is anathema. He is a heretic. And so, in the minds of many, I am anathema, a heretic. The same disgust that a Bigoted Southern Baptist has for a gay couple, Relativists have for me.

Religion, Sex and Nakedness
The idea that intrigued me the most was his views on public religion. His assertion is that one cannot know the mind of God, and so ought not speak publicly about what one believes. Though he makes a big point of defending the age-old doctrine, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” Zeb, his model Libertarian, gets really pissy when he’s asked about his religious beliefs. They’re private and should be kept covered.

But people shouldn’t be covered. Nakedness is something that should be public (or at least more public). Heinlein is unable to see any reason why we should cover up physical nakedness. Or for that matter, why we should be jealous about sex. And this helps me understand friends who are in Zeb’s position.

It is ironic that he reverses two things which have been pretty close to universal in human civilization: chastity (marriage and public modesty) and religion. For some reason, humans have decided that there are some parts of the body that should not be seen in public. There is a universal shame. There is a universal limitation on who one may sleep with and who one may not sleep with. And humans have decided that there must be some public way to worship God or the gods.

Heinlein doesn’t see any reason for these two things which are so close to the core of human identity. I think both of these stem from his disbelief in an invisible world. There is no invisible, mystical connection between man and woman in marriage. And there is no real being in Heaven that can be known. Essentially (as far as I can tell), because boobs are visible and God is not, the former should be uncovered and the latter should be covered. This explains the embarrassment or flustration (noun version of ‘to fluster’) when I share my religion with the non-religious. I’m dropping my metaphorical pants. I’m exposing to them the one and only thing that really should be kept private. And that’s just not OK in public settings.

These topics interested me, but I can’t say I’m persuaded. I’ve been thinking for some time about what marriage is (ontologically) and trying to (if it’s possible) translate that into something a Humanist could make sense of. And though it makes perfect sense on a Christian worldview, I have not been successful in translation. I think the God issue, on the other hand, is easy to respond to. Heinlein believes there is nothing to base a rational belief in God on. If God never spoke, then He’d be right. The question is: do we have any evidence that God spoke to us? There are a handful of contenders, but only one of them, the Bible, has sufficient evidence to verify the claim. The presence of explicit and confirmable prophecies and the inexplicable cryptographic features of the text show its supernatural origin. And this can form the rational basis of public religion. It has formed the rational basis of a public religion and has done so for nearly two millennia.

CS Lewis and Robert Heinlein

The most interesting thing about reflecting on this book was how many of the themes overlapped with writings of CS Lewis. With a bit of Googling, I realized they were contemporaries. They wrote on a lot of the same topics. They used fantasy to communicate their points. They were critical of totalitarianism. And perhaps the most intriguing difference is that they each thought the other’s philosophy would lead to totalitarianism. In both minds, the Great Sin is pride. Lewis believes it is pride before God; Heinlein believes it is pride in claiming to speak for God. Heinlein thinks there is no such thing as Justice, and so rehabilitative punishment (i.e. curing people of their neurosis that caused the wrongdoing) is all that can be justified; Lewis believes that there is Justice in the world, and retributive punishment (i.e. paying people back for what they did) is good and prevents the State from ‘curing’ dissidents.

They both presented their views of how society could degenerate in dystopian novels, Lewis in “That Hideous Strength” and Heinlein in “Revolt in 2100”. Lewis feared a calculating, bureaucratic, hyper-rational elite who would sterilize the world and conform all thought; Heinlein feared a corrupt, superstitious, power-hungry church who would proselytize everyone and conform all thought.

One of the most striking similarities between Heinlein and Lewis is their shared belief in 1940 and 1945 (in Revolt and Hideous Strength, respectively) that hypnosis and psychology will be able to be used by malicious parties for mind-control. It’s hard for someone today to see that as even plausible, as Psychiatrists have very little impact on anything today. I suppose it was an exciting time in Psychology, with the discoveries of the behaviorists and bold predictions about the expansive abilities of such practitioners. But it is shocking how wrong these predictions were. Usually sci-fi authors make mis-predictions, but it’s strange that these two would make the same wrong prediction for no good reason. It makes me want to read more about the expectations and accomplishments of psychology in the 1940’s.

Conclusion

Overall, I loved Revolt. First and foremost, it was truly a fun sci-fi book with interesting characters and a colorful world. Most importantly, it made me think about philosophy, justice, religion and politics. That’s what good literature should do, and that’s what it did. I think I agree with Heinlein’s politics almost entirely: a Libertarian government is best. But his metaphysics (or lack thereof), ethics and philosophy I think are based on false premises and so come to wrong conclusions. Nevertheless, his premises are common, and he was able to clearly communicate why I (and Christians) are seen in a bad light, all the while not making me want to punch him in the nose. And that, my friends, is what great writing is all about. So bravo, Mr. Heinlein, for this wonderful book. Thank you for sharing your vision for the world in so delightful a fashion.

On Wizardry and Bigotry: Why Minorities Should Chill Out (1 of 3)

Background on Wizardry

In ages past, we have been told about the power of the great wizards. In battle, they would wield tremendous power and be an incredible (though sometimes uncontrollable) asset to any king’s army. They would work through spells, spoken words that had magical power far beyond the simple air vibrations of normal speech.

One set of wizards I want to tell you about is the Illusionists. They were all, like great wizards, able to cause incredible pain with a single movement of their lips. Their enemies, sometimes in the millions, were cut to the heart, immediately experiencing fear, rage, and pain. As if playing with marionettes, they squeezed the adrenal glands, releasing stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine. As if with a million electrodes, they zapped the fight-or-flight centers of the brain, activating the autonomic nervous system. Then the real power of these wizards began. The wizards’ words summoned memories. The victims relieved experiences of oppression and weakness from their lives; some even experienced the oppression of strangers, dead ancestors, or fictional characters. Under the powerful spell, the pitiable victims rehearsed thoughts of weakness and fear, again and again and again. These wizards are Illusionists, so their power is not over the physical world; these are just illusions. But those who frequently fall under their spell would begin to believe their charms are irresistible, and so stop resisting; they would believe that the illusions are reality, and so they become reality. Thus is the power of the Illusionist.

Kings and rulers coveted this power. They could command men by force, coercing their bodies, but they could not control men’s mind. The Illusionists, it seemed, could do even that. In actuality, they could do no such thing. A man’s mind cannot be controlled, but only persuaded. And so when he is persuaded that the Illusionist can control him, he behaves like it does. It’s a subtle point, but an important one, especially for a person trying to resist Illusionists.

Why this background on Wizardry? Because there have been a few cases of Wizardry recently that have upset a lot of people, so I thought it important to give you a recent history on the subject. In the past few months, there have been two very notable Sorcery incidents that have really got people upset.

The wizards who caused the disturbances (or more accurately, the Illusionists) were Kobe Bryant,  Alexandra Wallace and most recently, the SEAL team that killed Bin Laden. All of them used their magic to inflict terrible pain on untold millions of Gay, Asian, and Native American people, respectively. 


For those of you who don’t know, Kobe Bryant made a ‘homophobic’ remark. He’s been fined $100,000 by the NBA, and has made public apologies. The Lakers are now getting involved in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community to show they really do care (i.e. as penance for Kobe). Alexandra Wallace made a video making fun of Asians in the UCLA library. She caused so much pain in the Asian community that it provoked death threats and her ultimate withdrawal from UCLA. In discussions I had on the subject, a lot of people believed that the reactions against her were just: she hurt Asians, so she deserves to be hurt. And last but not least, the SEAL team that killed Bin Laden codenamed the operation "Geronimo." As reported in the ABC News Blog:

On Facebook, on Twitter, on Native American websites, in local newspapers, and in what appear to be countless conservations on reservations and in schools across the country, Native Americans are genuinely hurt and puzzled by the choice of “Geronimo” as a code-name for either Bin Laden or the mission to take him out.

Part 2 - Power Over Minds

Part 3 - The Way Forward

Fairy Tale Romance - Real Life

Part 4 of 5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Now we come to the heart of the matter. And while I might be very good at skipping across the theoretical, here in the grit of reality, my naiveté will likely become apparent. But I will write, even though I am not sure the following is true. I am attempting to build up a true idea like a tower. Perhaps what I build here will be torn down for errors that others find in it. But even then, I hope that it will give some hint at what a solid idea on this subject would be. But enough philosophizing! It is time for brass tacks!

I’ve recounted the story of Jacob and Rachel to several female friends, and asked them to interpret it in light of their own experiences. It seems that Genesis 29 is in the same category as Jonah and the fish: some sort of wonderful, miraculous event that perhaps happened, but not one that is practical. They fawn over Jacob’s romance, but then tell me stories of how they themselves have utterly rejected every guy who expressed love like his. What ought to be the beginning of a wonderful romance turns out to be the end of one.

Guys, especially “good” guys, apparently don’t know this. They have strong Jacob-ian feelings of love for women which compel them to make promises, give compliments and, in general, be romantic. Woe unto them! How do girls respond? With feelings put up to defend against another broken heart: “He just wants my body,” “He doesn’t know me,” “I have commitment issues,” “It just turns me off” (these are direct quotes from girls I’ve recently talked to on this subject). And it is the same with my male friends. They won’t let themselves fall for a girl because, “It’s too risky”; it’s much more prudent to, “Keep options open.” Men and women have both hardened their hearts, or probably more accurately, their hearts have become calloused from repeated injury. 

But every girl grows up believing in fairy tales. No matter how much social conditioning or porn or pessimism have ruined sexuality, little girls love stories of romance. Disney princesses still sell, no matter how non-PC gender roles are. Women still love Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice. They still, even as grown-ups, want to hear fairy tales of Twilight’s Edward. Yet I don’t know of any of my women peers who still want to hear professions of love or promises from men. Men must be doing enormous damage to so utterly displace this deep and universal hope in nearly every modern woman. And the men now are equally cautious. How many of them would ever make such professions? Women seem to have developed an urge to vomit or flee (usually both) when hearing them, so why bother? And even if it were romantic, such constriction of options would be dangerous.

I think one of the problems is that we still have the passion of Eros but we lack the integrity of Jacob. We are driven by our Eros to make promises, but then we don’t actually have to keep them. And so we break them, and with them, the heart of their object. In the West, we allow a category of relationship, “dating” or “boy/girlfriend,” to go with implicit promises that will almost certainly be broken. And so today, it seems that nearly every woman has been lied to, implicitly or explicitly, by a man, and vice-versa. There are a precious few survivors who, out of nerdiness, ugliness, or dumb luck, have made it through this onslaught. For everyone else, when another promise is made, instead of romantic excitement, it brings memories of pain, or reflexes to avoid the pain. A conviction builds, starting from our first high school sweetheart and gaining strength with every broken heart, that fairy tales are for children, after all. Marriage isn’t a wonderful thing for princes and princesses, but an increasingly irrelevant contract of convenience.

I think CS Lewis in the Four Loves exactly describes our predicament:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

We have locked away our still-beating heart in a black coffin. The passions of the living heart seep out of the coffin like a vapor and drive Twilight sales into the millions, while the thick lid prevents any real corporeal Romance in. Perhaps it is irony that Edward, the great romantic hero of our age, is dead. Mr. Darcy has been replaced with a pale, cold, lifeless, blood-sucking, sun-fearing creature of the night (with really sexy hair).

So we are left with a deep philosophical question: are the romantic fairy tales real? Certainly when we disbelieve in them, we make them unreal. But what if we really believed in them? What if this desire for men to promise ridiculous things a short time after meeting women, and women’s urge to believe them, are truly God-given? What if all that love-activated dopaminergic brain circuitry was for something (besides making drugs fun)? What if Thomas Aquinas was right when he said, “No natural desire is in vain”? Is that even a possible world?

Sex!!

As if in honor of Stanford's second years studying the reproductive health block right around now, a big sex study was published a month ago: the "National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB), a nationally representative study of the sexual and sexual health related behaviors of 5,865 adolescents and adults in the U.S." How I didn't hear about it until now given how Facebookable this is, I don't know. Here are some of the interesting findings:

1. Single people report using condoms ~33% of the time; 14-17 year old boys are highest (80%), and white women are lowest (20%).
2. Male orgasm correlates with a consistent partner; female with sex variety (i.e. vaginal/oral).
3. 8% of men, 7% of women identified as being gay; between 8-15% (depending on type of sex, age, male/female) have ever tried it.
4. In 16-17 year old boys/girls, 30%/32% have ever had sex, 79%/54% have ever masturbated; in 18-19 year old boys/girls, 60%/61% have ever had sex.

This was pulled from Time's webpage here: http://bit.ly/cUZFu8
I intend to go through the primary literature here (Stanford med proxy): http://bit.ly/d021WR

Of the Kingdom

Jesus Example

Was Jesus’ work on earth spiritual or physical? It was certainly spiritual, but nothing in God’s kingdom is ever purely spirit. Even God, who is Spirit, takes on flesh. The demons of pride and domination were cast out, so to speak, of the first century religious institutions, but so too were literal demons cast out of individual people. Christ preaches against greed, particularly amongst the religious, but he also makes a whip to drive out the money changers from the Temple. Jesus conquered spiritual sin on the cross, but did that in parallel with His conquest of physical death in the Resurrection. We are spirits indeed, but we are spirits clothed in flesh. The church is the spiritual body of Christ, but it is ones whose purpose is to effect physical change in this world. After all, the arguments the body parts have is over which is more effective in the physical world.

Why did Christ come? As it turns out, He had a lot to do. He came to “bear witness unto the truth,” (Jhn 18:37) so that “they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly,” (Jhn 10:10) so they “might have my joy fulfilled in themselves,” (Jhn 17:13) to “seek and save that which was lost,” (Luk 19:10) to call “sinners to repentance,” (Luke 5:32, 1Ti 1:15) to the “lost sheep of Israel,” (Mat 15:24) to “save that which was lost” (Mat 18:11) to be the “Saviour of the world” (1Jo 4:14), that “we might live through him” (1Jo 4:9).

But His mission was not just preaching. Though salvation was certainly a theme and major part of his commission, it was not all of it. The longest passage discussing His purpose for coming to earth was read by Him in Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry. He reads, “The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). Certainly there is a lot of preaching involved. But there is also liberation, deliverance, and healing. His commission was not simply to preach and convert by means of healings; they were independent parts of his commission. Of course, this could be spiritualized if isolated from Christ’s work. But interpreted by the life Christ then set out to live, and considering the sorts of things He spent most of His time doing, it would strain the text beyond its breaking point to think of this as being exclusively spiritual.

Jesus taught about the living bread, but he also fed 5000 people because they were hungry. He cleansed lepers for compassion sake. When he healed ten lepers, and He knew that only one of them would return. I do not think Christ would have withheld healing on the ten even if he knew that none would return. Truly, none did return. On the night of his arrest, His ministry collapsed as, “all forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50). The 5000 he fed. The 10 lepers he cleansed. Every single person for whom He did a miracle and to whom He preached left Him. At the time of his crucifixion, Jesus ministry was an utter failure in terms of evangelism. He had zero remaining converts. But had Jesus’ work up to that point been completely destroyed? Would the only value of His ministry come from His Resurrection?

The Prophets’ Mission

Such is the story of many of the prophets. Most ended their ministries killed in Jerusalem by those to whom they preached and demonstrated the Kingdom. The most pious tended to be the most rejected (compare the success of Jonah to Jeremiah). Does their only value, and that of Christ, lie in their ability to win souls?

I would answer emphatically, “No.” Christ showed the Kingdom of God while on earth. Every demon that was cast out was a picture of the coming Kingdom. Every cleansed leper, every full belly, every kind word and beautiful act Jesus did was a picture of that which was about to dawn. The feeding of the 5000 was a physical prophecy of the coming Kingdom; it taught about how hunger was a fleeting thing, something which would have no place in the Kingdom of Heaven. During His ministry, Christ sends out His disciples and tells them, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give” (Mat 10:8). Their commission was not

Eternal Value

But how could any of these physical works have any real value? Would not any earthly deed be far out-shadowed by even the smallest eternal deed? Certainly helping the poor is good; but the poor, along with their slums and villages, hunger and disease; will rot and decay, or else be consumed along with all other things in the end times. Wouldn’t even a single salvation, a single person going from mortal to eternal, outweigh any amount of conversion-less charity?

The answer depends entirely on your view of eternity. If you see heaven as a place containing only souls, then evangelism is really the only important thing. All charity must become a means to that end. But did Christ heal, cast out and feed purely for the purpose of conversion?

All Things New

But what if Christ was serious when He promised to, “Make all things new” (Rev 21:5)? What if “all things” meant more than human “souls”? What if there were more to God’s redemptive work than the human element?

Will David’s Psalms be forever consumed when the elements melt away? Or will they too have a Resurrection? Perhaps the echoes of God’s glory which we hear of in the Psalms will be given new life, unclothed of the cloak of human language, and we can hear in their full beauty the melodies which David’s soul so imperfectly expressed. Will the judgments of Moses pass away? Maybe these earthly shadows will become the pillars upon which the new Temple will stand. Will Nehemiah’s Jerusalem be destroyed by the New Jerusalem? Or will the New be built upon the eternal part of the old?

When we see the glorious appearing of the New Heavens and the New Earth, will see what God has prepared for us, using our hands to achieve his purpose? Will the Holy Place contain living paintings of the ending of the Slave Trade, of the great Christian compassion on those with the Black Death, of the steadfastness of Martin Luther, of the sacrifice of missionaries? Will the courtyard of the Temple contain sculptures of the apostles and prophets and teachers? After all, are we not the clay and He the potter?

Art and Justice and Industry and Order are all real things, or at least they are as real as we are. And though canvases and courthouses and stones will pass away, the work of Man, or at least that part of Man’s work which was on God’s behalf, will be Resurrected like Man will be (or at least that part of Man which has gained eternity). For our God is not a destroyer of the Good; will He abolish just laws, burn beautiful paintings, smash efficient machines and tear down cathedrals? No, for this is the job of another. When He comes again, it will be to make all things new, not to obliterate all things. Humanity is His tool, His paintbrush, his violin. For whatever glorious reason, He has chosen to bring about His Kingdom in us and by us.

God never rebuked the tax collector for being a tax collector (3:13) nor the soldier for being a soldier (Luke 3:14). Paul never gave a universal command for believers to leave their jobs and become missionaries. Indeed, he talked of the variety of the gifts, about the beautiful diversity of the body. Moses judged. David sang. Nehemiah built. All by God’s power and at His command. Paul didn’t judge, or sing, or build; he evangelized. But whose work will survive into eternity? Certainly the souls that were saved by Paul’s word. But are we to believe that only some of the work commanded by God will endure? Will Paul’s work endure and that of Moses and David and Nehemiah pass away? Or will all of God’s work endure, even if we cannot conceive of how?

But isn’t this a much more consistent picture of the world? Doesn’t it help make the picture of Christianity more reasonable? If salvation is the only eternal thing, then anyone not actively engaged in evangelism is wasting his time. Everything becomes wholly consumed with that. Poetry, art, business and medicine all become means to an end. God would only delight in them insofar as they were able to bring about salvation, not as things in themselves. But this is not the God who inspired the Psalms, who gave light to the stars, who designed the Temple. God cares a great deal about many other things.

It seems to me that we have simply lacked the creativity to conceive of how this might be. But we must overcome the temptation of thinking that our vague conception of the Resurrection of humans is all that really matters. We need to look forward to the glorious dawn and take Peter’s advice: “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless” (2Pt 3:13-14).

We certainly need to seek moral perfection of ourselves and others in Christ, but we must also do a different thing. We must “look for such things.” What things? We must “…look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” God is commanding us to see the bits of His Kingdom which are now visible. We should bits of this righteousness dwelling in Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, Notre Dame, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Newton’s Theory of Gravitation or Algebra. The righteousness, the dikaiosynē, the part of a thing which conforms to and glorifies the Father, ought to be sought after by us.

Then comes the really exciting part. In whatever capacity God grants us, we should be his agents in bring His Kingdom to earth. This includes evangelism, but also art and poetry and social work and government. We need to first pray to God, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as [it is] in heaven” (Mat 6:10). Then we must do the harder thing; we must take the advice God gave to Joshua when Joshua knew what he should do, “Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?” (Jos 7:10). We must get up off our knees and bring God’s Kingdom to earth, by word and deed, by pen and hammer, by paintbrush and guitar, by law and contract.

A Far Cry From Communities

We have forgotten the community. We think of problems as either being solvable by governments (through public policy and politics) or by the individual (microfinance, ‘grassroots’). We don’t think much about the community, but it is the location and society where most of humanity has its existence. What is a community? Many a debate can be had on this, but I’ll give a practical definition. I mean the people you will reasonably run into at the grocery store or pass on a sidewalk. This is your community. Sure you live in Los Angeles, but the 10,000 or so people in your immediate vicinity have a bigger impact on your life than the 3.8 million others.

Sure you’re an American, but there’s vastly more variation from West LA to East LA than there is between “America” and “Britain.” Your community, not your country and not even your race, is more predictive as to whether you’ll get diabetes, graduate from high school, or get killed by gang violence.

In light of that, how many of us vote in our local elections? We think about changing America or the world, but how many have thought changing the community a valid ambition?

When we think about Global problems, we think of it in terms of governments and individuals. I can’t name you a single village or town in Africa. But I know that Zimbabwe is suffering from Cholera, and that Malawi is dealing with HIV. I know that DRC has unstable governance and that Sudan has a refugee problem. We pass laws and give aid to governments and countries. We don’t care about communities.

Also, I’ve seen pictures of a starving child, or an AIDS patient, but I can’t tell you a thing about the community from which they came. We give microloans to individuals and sponsor individual children. But what about their communities?

But what has been shown to be effective? In banking, much expert opinion is suggesting locally administered financial institutions (not the huge mega-global banks). Centralized administration in education, government and even taxation has been shown to be far less effective than local administration, closer to the community. Why have we ignored so crucial a part of our human experience? Why do we think solutions lie in a single individual (the Republican ideal) or in governments (the Democratic ideal), when we live and work in communities?

I propose we bring back the community. We, as a community, work with others in communities to change the world. Let us remember how we, humans, operate. Let us hear the call of our community, far away and faint, and let think rightly about what kind of creatures we are.

The Fountain of Youth?

Medicine isn’t a fountain of youth. In America, we spend more and more and more on medicine and it’s not making us any healthier.

Scholars evaluating ‘health outcomes’ have begun to see this and are getting scared. After all, what will they have to do when more medicine amounts to giving people sugar pills. I read a paper by a scholar I respected on the availability of MRIs. The conclusion was we use them more when they’re available (in a direct linear relationship), but there is a considerable question as to whether we are any better because of it. He suggests that we may need to start looking for non-health based outcomes. In other words, we need to ask how it made people feel.

We saw another study that showed that doctors in New York visit a certain population of their hospital patients three times as many times as doctors in San Francisco. They also keep them for thrice as many days in the hospitals. “Good for them!” you may say. But when you compare outcomes, there is no difference. Those who stayed 10 days in San Francisco had the same outcome as those who stayed 30 in New York. Zero difference.

“You get what you pay for,” we say to ourselves. If we pay more for healthcare, we get more life out of it. But we’ve maxed out on medicine. There’s no more life that can be purchased for most of us. There are certainly some people who need new breakthroughs to live as long as everybody else. But for most of us, throwing more money at body scans and vitamins is just like throwing money down a toilet. Staying an extra day in the hospital. Getting that X-ray for a rib you knew was broken. Will that make us healthier? Will that add years to our lives? No.

Why do we? Because we think it will. Somewhere in our psyche is the thought that we can buy eternal life. Like Simon the Sorcerer who when he “…saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power…” (Acts 8:18-19a). We think life is for sale, and doctors are the vendors. I’ll let you in on a secret that, if everyone knew about it, would save us from financial ruin: Doctors don’t hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Giving us money just makes us rich. Save your money. Or better yet, use it to save others. Extension of your life cannot be purchased; but that’s not true for at least a billion people around the world. Buy for them the health you already enjoy.

How to Really Care About Others

We don't really care about other people. We know so much about their friends, their hobbies, and their education. We seem to have the idea that these things are what make a person who they are. We care about their environments, but we don't care about them.

Why don't we value others' ideas? It's exactly what they value most. Have you ever tried to ask somebody's opinion on something? They're almost always elated to give it to you. They're thrilled that you think them important enough to ask their opinion on anything. We spend so much time with other people, but how rarely do we actually care about what's really important to them. How rarely do we care about what really defines them, about the thing which made Frederick Douglass a hero, about the expression of our humanity.

If you really want to make someone your good friend, ask them who they really are. Ask about the most important choices they've ever made: their beliefs. "What do you think about..." could be the harbinger of a renaissance and deepen our ever-shallowing relationships. End the sentence with 'success,' 'beauty,' 'politics,' 'God,' 'purpose,' 'truth,' 'choice' or 'science.' The deeper, the better.

And don't even try, "I'm no philosopher," because that's just another way of saying, "I'd rather have old guys who sit in musty rooms decide what the purpose of my life should be." And indeed, that's what most of you have done. Be Courageous. Liberate yourself and your friends from the terrible slavery of such unquestioned compliance. Build an underground railroad to intellectual freedom, one question at a time.

We’ve fought so hard for the freedom of thought. We've achieved it. Nobody's going to level a rifle at you for thinking or expressing your thoughts. But now that we have the freedom to express our ideas, nobody cares. Indifference is crueler than any bayonet. At least the soldier pressing your face to the dirt with his boot sincerely cares about your ideas; he would like very much that you not express them. Now that you’ve escaped the soldier, exercise your freedom to ask questions of your friends.

But what about, "Don't talk about God or politics?" Those who express such an opinion must be afraid that you might actually get to know somebody. It is exactly those things, the things which are most important to who we are, that we should talk about. The conflict comes because we behave like children when "discussing" God and politics.

"Republicans are warmongers!" "Christians are mindless!" "Muslims are terrorists!" Even if you are actually dumb enough to believe one of these statements, you can still have good conversation. Imagine hearing, "I believe in God." Would you respond as a child with a rehearsed insult ("Sheep!")? Don't be surprised when civil discourse crumbles under the great weight of your immaturity. Or would you respond in maturity and ask, "Why do you believe in God?" As a mature questioner, you could ask question after question without even expressing your own belief, let alone getting upset at your Theistic companion. You can get to know that person better in an hour of such conversation than a month of our status quo friendship.

We're so out of practice with thinking together that great progress would be made simply by starting our conversations with "What do you think?"

So, what do you think? I'd love to know: TheEngineer@gmail.com.

Really Free Thought

I wrote the following and submitted it to the Daily Bruin Viewpoint section on Thursday, February 28. It was not published.

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Reading the article by Ms. McGough entitled "Class doesn't preach, stresses the literary," on February 27, I really started thinking about the state of affairs at UCLA. The article discussed a class I was enrolled in about the Bible as literature. The professor has asked us to assume, for the sake of the class, that the Bible, "…was written by human beings in a specific historical context for human-driven purposes."

I have been successful at adopting that assumption and have done rather well in the course. I am a Christian, and I affirm that the Bible was written by humans who were inspired and guided by God; taking on a contradictory assumption has been an intriguing experience, particularly because of my familiar with the text before the class.

As a religious person, I took it upon myself to seriously investigate another viewpoint; I have chosen to think and argue like an Atheist in my papers for the course. I can read the Bible as an Atheist reads the Bible. I can argue like an Atheist. And I can do it well enough to get A's in a UCLA English course that demands it. I have done this so that I can better understand Atheists.

Thinking from another's perspective is something that I have always striven to do; it shocked me to realize that my efforts were rare enough to be newsworthy.

We like to think of ourselves as open-minded and free-thinking. We speak often of the virtue of tolerance and the goal of coexistence. I hate tolerance and I reject the notion of coexistence.

Tolerance has come to mean a cessation of fighting and an end to disagreement by means of disengagement. We can accept that those people believe differently, and we have made it our goal not to do them violence. I have not been tolerant of Atheist views of the Bible; I have become an Atheist. I have not coexisted near them; I have lived with them.

It is tragic that we have settled for tolerance and not sought understanding. We ought to do the work of engaging with others' ideas and learning exactly what it is they think. And it is hard work. It hard to honestly get to, "We agree to disagree;" it requires that you understand the other, and know precisely where and why you disagree.

Christians, have you ever thought about the world like an Atheist? Have you ever considered the vast age of the universe and the unstoppable march of the blind watchmaker, Evolution, by means of the Selfish Gene? Muslims, have you ever meditated on the wonderful love of God in his sacrifice of His incarnated Son? Atheists, have you ever stood in awe of the beautiful sunset, a precious gift from an almighty and loving Father to you?

Have you ever cared enough about another group of people to do this seriously? I'm not talking about a 5-minute thought experiment, but a serious engagement with another viewpoint. Have you ever really immersed yourself in another's worldview?

This is free thought. Coexistence is fine for warring tribes to settle on, but for the future intellectual leaders of this world, we can do better. As leaders, we should contend for intellectual integration and fight against "tolerant" attempts to keep ideas separate but equal. We ought to be an epicenter of liberal thinking and intellectual understanding. We should be open-minded enough to actually and truly open our minds to others' beliefs.
I hope that one day such intellectual maturity will be so commonplace that it will be unworthy of the front page.

Christmas Sweater and the Gospel

I was invited to a party last Saturday night. In deciding what to wear, I settled on a kitten Christmas sweater. That is, I decided to wear (over a tan collared shirt), a child's medium sweater that had a large white kitten in the middle surrounded by candy canes and gumdrops. Needless to say, I looked ridiculous.

Why I made such a decision is an entirely different conversation, but the fact remains, I wore a kitten sweater to a party that I expected to be very out of place at.

Normally I go to parties, find someone to talk to, and then get into as deep and philosophical a conversation as I can with that person. I'm normally near the edge of the room and it's normally awkward.

With the kitten sweater, I was popular.

For a nerd like me, being popular was a new and exciting experience. I've been respected (or feared) while in FISH, but by no means was I ever popular. That is, I could tell people to do things, but few people would ever want to spend time with me.

Normally, I could never break into a tight circle of conversing people. During the party, things were different. I simply had to approach the edge of a closed circle, someone would point out the lurking kitten at the periphery, and I'd be in. My attire (which everyone complimented) would be the center of conversation for the group for a few minutes.

The things that I said mattered greatly to the group. One person was discussing Messianic Jews. I said something like "Messianic Jews are lots of fun," and the mostly group (most of whom I'm sure had absolutely no idea what either of those words meant), decided I was right. After a few more minutes, the group of agnostics and Catholics literally wanted to go to a Messianic synagogue. If I'd been on my toes, I think I could have actually gotten a few of them to go. I've never had that kind of influence with people. I normally have a hard enough time getting people who are my friends to go to church with me, let alone semi-intoxicated secular strangers at a party.

Application
I've recently started going to parties and doing evangelism. I would talk with someone, shift the conversation to spiritual matters, and share the Gospel as best I could over the music. This time, I was preaching Christ from a position of (what seemed to be) social authority. I was no longer a social beggar, barely holding on to the few minutes of attention I could steal. I didn't beg for a glace at a flyer or signboard (or worse yet, a 8' sign with "REPENT" on it). People wanted to give me their attention.

Learning the language and dynamics of a culture is essential in effective evangelism. Paul in Athens spoke the language of the Greeks, and made a masterful argument for Christ that was relevant to what Greeks valued: Reason. Today in college, we make our decisions based on what our social leaders are doing. For example, tonight there will be more than 5000 people running through UCLA in their underwear. Why? Because a few people with immense social authority did the same thing a few years ago and told their friends. Why are they running in their underwear and not to Christ? Because Christians do not have any social authority.

Perhaps Christians ought to re-learn the language of those around them to win them for Christ. We continue evangelizing with the outdated language of reason to a culture that no longer understands or cares.

Social authority, like money, is not inherently evil. If the analogy between social capital and capital capital holds, then the parable of the unjust steward applies:

Luke 16:8The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.9And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

For perhaps the first time, I believe I learned a few words of cool. I intend to continue learning the language and maybe one day, I'll be able to translate the Gospel to so many lost people.

Real Unifying Faith

The following was submitted to the Viewpoint section of the Daily Bruin and published on October 3, 2006:

Real Unifying Faith
“Religion is a personal thing… it is a choice for each individual to make.” Those of us who’ve spent any time at UCLA have heard that over and over, and you could have read it in the Viewpoint on Sept. 24, 2006 under the title, “Amid religious diversity, belief an individual choice.” This is the highest and most universal moral of on-campus religion. To a majority, faith is like hating carrots or loving broccoli: it has nothing at all to do with true or false, right or wrong. True and false are the realm of science; religious statements are not subject to uncompromising rules of logic as are scientific theories like gravity. But let’s consider the implications of a faith that is purely personal.

If faith is nothing more than a personal choice, you are alone in the world with your faith; by definition, no one else can share it with you. Faith then becomes a solitary cloister that none else can enter; no one else can experience, identify, or agree with you on matters of your personal faith because they can’t share it.

If faith is solely a personal opinion, then it has no real significance to others. It is meaningless to discuss your preference for broccoli with a carrot-lover. If faith is a personal preference, then “discourse” devolves into a meaningless expression of groundless preference. Such are children’s arguments: “Broccoli is better,” “Carrots are better,” “Nuh-uh,” “Ya-huh,”

But what if faith wasn’t like broccoli? What if it was more like gravity? Have you ever seriously considered it? Before zoning out, humor me for five minutes; it might be funny. What if faith was reasonable? Not a physical science, but subject to laws of logic and reason, like science. Consistent with the law of non-contradiction, such a faith would be universal. Faith would then be a common thing, something that could be experienced the same by different people. Such a faith would be a transcendent thing, existing above the individual, guiding the behavior of all humanity.

Thank you for your consideration. I didn't notice the new guidelines for length (last year was 800 word submission). I've edited it for length and it's now 600 and does cite the Registration Issue. Sdfkjl sdlk

Only when faith is common can it unify us. With common faith, we can be a member of a community that includes others with whom we truly share faith, not just colliding, on a weekly basis, with others of similar personal preference. Then we would not be isolated by our faith, confined in our own souls, but we can genuinely be a member of a society that has common belief, able to really empathize and connect with our fellows on a deep and intimate level.

But who can say what is “True Faith” and what is not? We all can, as rational beings. Reason is the common denominator of Man: black or white, Buddhist or Muslim, we are all rational beings, equal because we are all constrained by the same laws of logic and reason. This is the universal language we can converse in. We cannot speak to each other in our own private language of our feelings, but we can speak to all humanity through reason. “I prefer broccoli” is meaningful for only one person; “Broccoli is nutritious” can speak to all of humanity.

Only with a common faith can we truly be freed from the solitude of our own souls. Only with a reasonable faith can we be liberated from personal language, and gain freedom to speak to all of mankind. Someone said it a lot better than me: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Faith is far more beautiful when we can be unified by it in Truth, giving us true community, real goodness, and meaningful discussion.