A Ramble About the Blue Pill

I rewatched "Matrix" again recently (yes, the title is actually just "Matrix" and not "The Matrix"). This time, the concept which has stuck in my mind is that of the "Blue Pill." This is in reference to a scene where Morpheus offer Neo the choice of either forgetting any of his contact with Morpheus and his group, and everything going back to the way it was, represented by a blue pill; or of continuing on with his pursuit of the truth and his answer to the question of "what is the Matrix?" This latter being represented by a red pill. Neo takes the red pill, and his world is turned inside out and upside down.

A little later in the film, after Neo wakes up in the real world and has the truth explained to him, another character, Cypher, says to him, "I know what you're thinking. 'Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?'" At which they both have a knowing chuckle, because the real world is a hard place to be and a hard life to live. They both paid a heavy price for knowing the answer to the question. At one point, Neo says to Morpheus, "I can't go back, can I?" To which Morpheus responds, "No. But if you could, would you really want to?" Later, the film's action revolves around Cypher's choice to try and abandon the real world for the more comfortable life of illusion found by being hooked into the Matrix. He is so desperate to do this that he kills several of his friends and betrays the rest to their enemies to do it.

The path of Jesus Christ is one where we too are given the choice of either red pill or blue pill. We aren't given this choice right away. But there comes a point in our walk when we're told that to go any farther in our growth and pursuit of union with God through Jesus Christ we have to commit to our pursuit, or turn back and be satisfied with the illusions of this world and the pretense of faith and religion. Sometimes that point is clearly defined. Most of the time in our lives it slips by unnoticed by us. We get to a point when we know and have experienced the Truth, its joys and glories, and its pain and stress, and then the blue pill starts looking pretty good when the reality of the Truth and its hardships in this world surrounds us. We experience hunger, persecution, poverty, attacks by our own minds and bodies, attacks by demonic powers, attacks, intentional or not, by our friends and families. Yep, the blue pill starts looking pretty good by that point in time.

But by that point, the time for the blue pill has long since passed. We know the Truth. To try and turn back then would be to deny that Truth and accept the lie that the illusion of security and stability that this world offers is somehow the reality, even though we plainly know and have experienced that it is not. It would be to intentionally turn our back on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to call Him a liar. It would be to attack the faith of those not willing to turn back, and possibly drag them into insanity with you, much like Cypher. The end result would be worse than if we had never started on the Path at all.

The Path of Jesus Christ calls us to trust in the reality of the Truth which God has shown us through His Son Jesus Christ. This Path, when the person takes the red pill and fully embarks on it, will turn your reality inside out and tear it to shreds before He puts you back together. As you are asked to stretch your trust in Him more and more you may find yourself hungry, and then still told to trust Him. Not to trust Him necessarily that your hunger will be immediately satisfied, but to trust Him that He loves you and that He has your best interests at heart. You may find yourself ridiculed, humiliated, and outcast, and still told to trust Him. You will find your very thoughts screaming at you "What are you doing?!" And you will still be told to trust Him. You will be told to trust Him even when your very senses are telling you to pull back and walk away, run away, do whatever it takes. There are times when God allows all of these things to scream at you to the point where you feel your sanity slipping away. He may allow it for days, weeks, or even months at a stretch, depending on the person. Then He makes it back off for a time so you can get your bearings, rest, recover, and then it starts up again. Once again, our thoughts scream at us, "you idiot! Why didn't you take the blue pill and turn back when you had the chance?!" Once again, we must be silent, and do nothing but focus on trusting Him.

As He does this with me in various ways, I know I've passed the point of no return. I can't go back, even if I wanted to. And there are times when that blue pill seems real friendly, even though I know it's worthless now. I know the truth that everything comes from Him. All provision, all blessing, all discipline comes from Him and for His purposes with me. There is no stability or security in this world which He doesn't allow, and the idea that I would or could have control over that is only a pleasant but arrogant delusion. That doesn't mean it isn't tempting, though. And that's the honesty of the situation. Until I comes so much closer to the goal, or until I reach the goal, it will remain tempting in this life, and in this world. I will always be flashed with advertisements for returning to the illusions of this world trying to get me to walk away. I can't ever say that it won't remain tempting, because when I begin to think that way is when I will begin to turn back and deny Him.

The Truth will indeed set you free. But the truth is that not everyone really wants to be free, and those that are struggle to remain that way against a powerful system that wants to plug them back in and keep them there.

A Review of "The Voice New Testament"

How do you gauge a Bible Translation? I have not seen a preface or introduction to one yet that doesn't describe itself as “accurate and faithful” to the original text. There are literally hundreds of translations of the Holy Scriptures into English and the goal of those responsible for each one of them was to accurately and faithfully render the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts into the English language in a way which was understandable and readable. The fact that there are hundreds of such translations indicates though that translation is, in fact, more of an art form than an exact science. Do you adhere to the original form of the words and sentences, or do you try and use your understanding of what it means instead, and how far do you stray from the original forms to get at the meaning? These are questions which plague the Bible Translator. For this reason, it can't be said that there is only one, right way to translate a certain text. In some respects, Bible translation can be likened to Quantum Physics where you can know either the position or the speed of an electron, but never both because, to measure one, you interfere with the other. The best you can do is to come up with probabilities and leave it at that; thus the hundreds of Bible translations into English.

The one thing which should never be done by a translator, as he or she wrestles with how to express the text in front of him into English, is to believe that what you're producing is your own work, or that you're free to add or subtract whatever you feel is either meaningful or meaningless. It must always be remembered that you are rendering someone else's writing, someone else's art, or someone else's message. You are just the translator. The message is someone else's and you have been entrusted with the task of making it understandable; no more, and no less.

“The Voice New Testament” is a production of the Ecclesia Bible Society which is closely affiliated with the Ecclesia Church in Houston, Texas, and published by Thomas Nelson. In a more general sense, it is the production of the Emerging Church movement. It is self-admittedly the work of artists, writers, poets, and musicians (over seventy or so) as well as twenty seven Biblical scholars. It is a self-professed “contextually equivalent” translation, as opposed to a modified literal or strict paraphrase.

After a reactionary posting of mine online about this translation (based on a few examples I went through found online) I have been challenged to look through this New Testament with the eye of both a translator and a pastor. I have been studying and using New Testament Greek for over twenty years, and have made private translations of almost half of the New Testament as a part of those studies. It is a language with which I am comfortable working in. I have also been in pastoral roles in churches in California and Tennessee.

Before I begin a criticism of the text, let me first say that I do not wholly disagree with the approach to Christianity which is taken by the Emerging Church movement and by the Ecclesia Church specifically. I find much that I agree with especially in terms of necessary dialogue, mutual respect and willingness to learn between Christians of different traditions. I also find many of my own sentiments which I have expressed in my own writings echoed in the sentiments of the Emerging Church movement.

There are some translation choices in “The Voice” which I don't wholly disagree with. One of the most obvious is the translation of the Greek “Christos” as “The Anointed One” rather than the transliteration “Christ.” I first saw this done in “The Unvarnished New Testament” by Andy Gaus, and thought it wasn't a bad idea then. While translating “logos” as “Voice” wouldn't be my first choice as a translator, it isn't wholly unjustified as an interpretation either because of all the meaning the Greek “logos” is impregnated with. The translation team also chose to include in-text commentary in italics to explain or clarify certain terms or passages. There are many places where this only explains a term or concept such as in John 1:36, where John calls Jesus the “Lamb of God”, and the addition of “God's sacrifice to cleanse our sins” was made. While the Greek text doesn't justify it, the inclusion of this explanation in italics of the term neither adds to nor subtracts from the meaning of the term. It only clarifies what the term means, something which someone who has not studied the Scriptures may not immediately know.

This being said, the word which best characterizes this translation for me is “reckless.” While many might associate this term in a positive light, this is not my usage. The translator within me has conniption fits when comparing the text of “The Voice” with the Greek text. The first issue which presents itself is the inclusion of material in the Biblical text itself which isn't justified by either the Greek text or the context. Many of the additions are explanatory or clarifying materials that don't necessarily change meaning and are marked out in italics. However, there is a good deal of material, words here and there, which is not marked off in italics, which changes the meaning of the text, and has no justifiable purpose for explanation or clarification. Further, there are some verses where text, which is present in the Greek, is omitted from the English translation. A good example of these additions and omissions is John 1:1-18.

The translation makes no attempt to be consistent throughout, but rather is militantly periphrastic in some places (James 1:6-8) and more traditional in others (see John 15:1-7) with explanatory additions in italics sprinkled throughout both. Notes, which in other editions of the Scriptures are placed in margins or beneath the Biblical text, are placed in between paragraphs and sections of the Scriptural text.

In researching the translation approach where “The Voice” is concerned, it appears that the Greek scholars and translators did not have the final say on the Biblical text, but rather the artists, poets, musicians, and writers who contributed. To me, this explains much about the text's inconsistency, and it tends to support my characterization as “reckless.” It is my humble opinion that people who do not understand Greek, however gifted they may be in other fields, shouldn't be the final authority on how a Greek text should be rendered any more than someone who doesn't understand Arabic should be the final authority on how an Arabic text should be rendered.

I do not hold to the “Scripture Only” Christian tradition, but there are a great many Christians who do hold to, and are taught from the beginning that they are to only derive their doctrine, theology, and faith from the Holy Scriptures regardless of what has been taught previously. The issue which this presents is that they then must rely on either their own judgment or a Bible instructor as to what a particular passage means. For most people, this amounts to their own judgment. The argument will be made that the Holy Spirit will teach them everything they need to know through the Scriptures. This can be true enough, but only if the person is actually paying attention to the Holy Spirit, and not their own inclination, fantasies, fears, or desires. The Christian who is new to the faith, or who only reads the Scriptures on the rare occasion tends to be less likely to even know how to listen to Him or discern His voice from their own internal fantasies. They simply don't have the experience with Him to do this reliably. It isn't impossible, but it doesn't appear to be in the majority of cases either.

This brings us back to my criticism of “The Voice.” This is a translation which will likely be used mostly by non-denominational Christians from the post-reformation traditions, who are taught “Scripture Only”, and is specifically targeted at those who are unfamiliar with the Scriptures. It is my concern that the translations and interpretations by the translators and editors will be taken as absolute Gospel (being what they are translating), when the text itself doesn't reflect the meaning (much less the form) of the original language in many cases. Further, there is a tendency to translate new English versions, especially dynamic or periphrastic versions, of the Bible into other languages. A good example of this is the Spanish translation “Dios Habla Hoy” which is the translation of the Today's English Version into Spanish. Similar things have been done with the New International Version into Spanish, French, and Russian as I understand. Given the propensity for doctrinal innovation and misunderstanding, it would be a dangerous mistake doctrinally to do this with “The Voice” for use by “Scripture Only” Christians who are unfamiliar with either the Greek or a traditional Biblical text.

As a member of the clergy of a traditional, Sacramental Denomination, I can't see any way I could, in good conscience, recommend “The Voice” to a layperson, young or old, who is unfamiliar with the Holy Scriptures. I can see a pastor, or a Biblically educated layperson, perhaps turning to it among other translations, as many do, to get a different perspective on a passage during Bible study and sermon preparation. I might even do this myself. I can't recommend it as ever being otherwise suitable for serious study, teaching, liturgical or worship purposes.

Does this mean that God can't use this translation to reach someone? No, of course not. It could be very possible that someone, an unbeliever or unchurched person perhaps, could pick up this translation and be introduced to Jesus Christ without all of the religious terminology. I remember a very similar experience with “The Book” (an edition of the Living Bible) when I was a teenager. And if this is the true target audience, then perhaps this translation might be suitable for that kind of a beginning of the journey of faith, as long as there is a pastor overseeing it, and that pastor knows when to ween the person off of “The Voice” and to put them with a more sound translation for further growth and study.

A Ramble About Dandelions

There was a man who had lost his job and had run out of food. There were no jobs to be found and his cupboard became empty. He prayed and asked God for just enough food for tomorrow, because he was hungry. The next day, dandelions sprung up all over his yard. The man became angry because of the dandelions ruining his lawn and so he took out his lawnmower and cut them all down. He went to bed that night hungry, not understanding why God didn't provide for him. So he prayed and asked God for food for the next day again. Again, he woke up the next morning to find his lawn, front and back, completely overgrown with dandelions. He was hungry and angry and tore through them with a vengeance. He practically yelled at God that night, "you know I don't have any way of getting any food! Please, I'm starving!" The next day, the dandelions had doubled in size and number from the previous day. No grass could be seen in the yard. His gas can for his lawnmower had run dry and he was livid with anger at God, and then became depressed because he couldn't cut them down, and didn't understand why God had cursed him with all of these dandelions, and had refused to give him any food. He went to bed angry, starving, and depressed, not bothering to pray. The next day he just sat on his porch and looked at his front yard, covered with lush green dandelion leaves and small yellow flowers. As he sat there, an older poor woman was walking by. She stopped and asked, "Oh, you have so many dandelions, may I pick some for a salad I'm going to make later?" The man asked, "A salad? These are weeds! How can you make a salad out of weeds?" To this the woman replied, "they're only weeds if you're worried about how your lawn looks. But you couldn't ask for a more nutritious vegetable!" The man looked at his lawn and realized that where he had only seen a curse, God had made a feast grow for days on end. It's true about dandelions, they are either a weed or a great source of nutrition depending on how you look at them. God answers our prayers according to what He knows we need, and what is best for us, not what we think we need. What we may think are weeds growing in our perfectly manicured life are actually the best thing for us, and sometimes it takes Him bringing us to poverty and starvation to see it.

A Ramble About Good and Evil

There is popular sentiment that the ability to decide good from evil is one of God's greatest gifts to mankind, and that it is what separates us from the animals. The problem with this sentiment is that it ignores a basic truth of Holy Scripture which is spelled out in the very beginning of the Bible. It isn't an ability we were created with, it is the consequence of an act of disobedience. This fact alone should give someone pause to consider. God considered us “good” without it, and gave explicit instructions to prevent its occurrence, and made clear what the consequence of disobeying those instructions would be. Now the question that should be asked is “why?” The answer should be clear: because it would cause us and everything else harm if it occurred.

The thing we must understand and come to grips with about this ability is that it isn't an ability. It is a malfunction which creates an illusion of ability. In its original, natural state, the human psyche had no need to anchor itself in it's own perception of good and evil because it was already anchored in the continuous present Reality of God. This fulfilled all the foundational needs of emotional and psychological stability and security which in turn fostered and fulfilled the higher needs as well.

When the disobedience occurred (which God gave instruction to prevent) that security and stability was abruptly disrupted, and the human psyche could no longer immediately sense Him. It was plunged into a kind of blindness which causes it to panic, in the same way that a sudden loss of one's most important senses would cause a person to panic. This panic caused it to launch into “survival at all costs” mode and caused it to reach out for “anchors” to keep a hold on what reality it could sense and comprehend. These anchors were the information which it could know immediately about the world around it and itself from the five physical senses. The human psyche, because of this malfunction, had an absolute need to hold on to different concepts and perceptions as either right or wrong, good or evil. It uses them as anchors to keep itself stable, and itself as their arbiter. As a result of the malfunction, unless it is conditioned otherwise, the psyche's first consideration, whether the individual is conscious of it or not, is its own survival (or the survival of anything it sees as necessary to its own survival) and anything which contributes to this is seen as “good”, anything which is seen as working against this is seen as “evil”.

The reality is that the human psyche has no actual idea what is truly good and what is truly evil (being what is best or worst for everyone and everything inclusive of all and exclusive of none), and cannot determine this for itself. There are too many factors that are unknowns to any one individual human being to make that determination, and it doesn't have any natural access to those factors. It's making a best guess based on its limited perceptions and understandings which is why it changes from person to person and even within the same person it changes over time as that person's perceptions and understandings change. Like the person's life is constantly in flux, so also the anchors they use for good and evil are also in flux, whether they choose to admit it or not.

The human perception of good and evil is therefore a product of the sin disorder, which is this blindness to the all consuming, pervasive presence of God. As a result, all of the judgments which we make are subject to our own flawed understanding of good or evil, and are themselves flawed for this reason. This is why it is so important to let go of all our judgments concerning other people in particular, and to only judge ourselves based on who He is. The human psyche tends to see difference as a threat to its survival. If someone does something different from the way the individual in question does it, the psyche reacts and says that they're doing it wrong. Why? Because it must then come to terms with the possibility that it, the arbiter of right and wrong, may be wrong or flawed, which leads it to paradox. Movement through and past the paradox is achieved only by conscious effort.

“I, the psyche, know what is good and am myself my own standard of good and yet by this new information I must define myself as flawed which I am incapable of doing because I must be the arbiter of what is good therefore I must myself be good, but if this new information is correct then I must be flawed and therefore not good...” And on and on it wrestles with itself either submitting to the conclusion (which it doesn't want to do), or rejecting the new information (which it desperately wants to do but may be unable to reconcile with the undeniable reality presented to it).

The malfunction itself is functionally amoral, inasmuch as any psychological disorder is functionally amoral. It is neither moral nor immoral. It just is. The psyche can produce words and actions according to its own standard of good and evil which can be either generally considered moral or generally considered immoral (by majority consent), and feel fully justified in its own reasoning that it is making the “right” decision based on all the experiences and evidence which it has at hand. This is why even actions which can generally be considered moral can be just as much “sin” as are actions which are generally considered to be immoral, because they both stem from the same malfunctioning psyche. It is the malfunction which is the root problem, not the actions, words, or thoughts themselves. For this reason, every human being born since Adam, except One, has been born with the malfunction, and therefore has been born “sinful”. Every decision made, and thus every action performed, is flawed because it is based on the malfunctioning psyche. It is neither morally good nor morally evil per se, it is simply malfunctioning; but it is the fact that it is malfunctioning which causes so much harm even if no harm is intended.

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and our being joined to Him through baptism, was meant to treat this malfunction of the psyche and start us on the long road to normalizing our ability to relate with God and sense Him, with the ultimate goal of union with Him once we shed this physical body which inherited the malfunction from its ancestor. The psyche must be reconditioned to not trust itself and to trust only the Presence of God with whom it has been joined. Anything we do or say which does not originate with trusting Him originates with our own malfunctioning psyche (Romans 14:23). If it isn't reconditioned in this way, it will continue to only trust itself and it will remain in a self-imposed blindness regardless of its being joined with Him.

The implications of this are profound. First, it is hypocritical for any human being to judge another as evil when every human being, except One, has the same malfunction which produces the same flawed reasoning in everyone. The only difference is how it manifests in each individual. Second, there is no “good” action which a human being can take on his or her own which will correct this most fundamental malfunction. We simply can't fix it on our own, and any attempt to do so is only exacerbating the problem, not correcting it. Third, we simply can't trust our own judgment about what is best for us or for anyone else no matter how “good” our intentions are. Similarly, the further away we get from trusting our own judgment and the closer we get to trusting God's, the better off we will be. Fourth, we must cooperate with Him. This is an absolute. We must learn to trust Him on a real and fundamental level and we won't do that if we refuse to cooperate with Him. If we refuse to cooperate with Him, then we are judging Him to be flawed and ourselves not (1 John 1:10). This is the ultimate delusion.

A Ramble About Training Wheels

What is the darkness that God allows us to face? It is a part of our maturation process as His children, and it is as necessary as it is disorienting and disconcerting. The darkness feels like absence and abandonment. Like we have lost all sense of His presence that we have come to know and have gotten used to. But what is it?

The darkness is absence. It is not His absence, but it is the absence of everything which we have come to associate with Him. The hundred and one little ways which He chose, in the beginning, to communicate with us and commune with us through our senses. We are used to using our senses to gather information about the world around us, this is how we operate in the physical world. God knows this and He gets our attention in the way we will most understand, in the "language" we most understand. He communicates with us, and He shows us something of Himself through information passed to us through our senses and thoughts.

But then, somewhere along the way it all begins to vanish. Sometimes it's very abrupt, sometimes it fades slowly depending on the person. But eventually, it ceases. And we are left without our "training wheels" so to speak. God may use a song on the radio at first to get your attention. But the song is a tool. It is not God Himself. He may use a billboard, a book, a T.V. show, or a favorite scripture. But while these might be His tools and hold special meaning for us. He is not any one of those things.

His objective for our lives is that we would know Him, as He is. And He is completely other than the created world around us. When we look to know Him with our five senses we find a void. A big gaping void that makes no sense. We find a darkness instead of a lit object. We find an absence of anything tangible that we can relate to as we normally would anything else. This is Him as He is, and not as we have perceived Him to be. Not the image that we have constructed about Him, but the Reality which is so totally other than our senses cannot cope or hope to describe Him to us.

This is why this darkness is so important, and yet so disturbing. This is why it is so important to understand what is going on, and that it is not His absence, rather the absence of every "object" we had associated with Him. This is the meaning of the second command in the Ten Commandments,

“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6, WEB)

It is easy to get comfortable with God coming down to our level and talking to us in a way we understand with our flesh, but this isn't where God wants us to stay. His goal is to bring us closer to Himself and union with Himself. His goal is for us to move past our physical senses until we trust Him regardless of what those senses are telling us.

It makes it harder when the enemy attacks us when we begin to experience the darkness. They know it's when we're disoriented and frightened that we're at our weakest. This is when it is most opportune for them to try and get your attention the way He was doing and get you to do "something", anything except for be still and direct your love and trust into the void. And they hammer and hammer at you.

Sometimes God pulls you back from it. He gives you a break so you can get your bearings again. But He doesn't intend for you to stay there. It's only a breather. In order for you to make the kind of progress He intends, He must put you back into it, and you must understand that it's the norm. It's the next level of the process of becoming one with Him. He knows how much you can take and how much you can't. He's not going to move you any faster than you're ready for, or any slower.

When we first learn to ride a bike, we use training wheels. This makes us feel secure enough to keep practicing. But eventually, a good parent knows that it's time to take them off, or else we won't ever really know how to ride a bike the way it was meant to be ridden. We'll be confined to the street around our house and sorely limited in our mobility.

The training wheels eventually have to come off. We'll wobble and fall and skin our knees a few times, but if we get back on the bike and keep practicing we'll eventually get it. God knows this, which is why He keeps throwing us back into it even when we don't want to go.

God is always where you are. You cannot run from Him because all creation depends on Him for it's existence, including you. He loves you more deeply than you can possibly fathom. What seems like His absence is anything but. It's Him pulling the training wheels off and teaching you to do this for real.

A Ramble About the Darkness

"God, it's so dark. I can't see. I can't hear You. I don't remember where everything is. Why has everything changed?"

"I haven't changed. I don't change. The room has always been dark as you've moved through it. I haven't gone anywhere."

"I don't understand. Why does everything seem so different, so much less certain. It feels like You're not here."

"I am always right where you are. I haven't changed."

The darkness is hard to take. It's hard to comprehend why we go through it or why we need to go through it. The feeling of being alone with no points of reference. The feeling of abandonment. And all the while we haven't been abandoned, but we can't sense Him. It's disorienting and frightening, and you can feel like you're slipping into depression or worse.

The best advice I've ever read (I think it was Watchman Nee) for going through the darkness is to do nothing; to wait and be still and to trust that God hasn't abandoned you, and that He's right where you are, wherever you are, right now. Sometimes the darkness lasts for a long time. Don't move. Just be still. The temptation is to do "something." Anything. It's to do something on your own, outside of faith. Remember that whatever is not from faith is working from the disorder. It may not be morally wrong, but it is still from the disorder. It wouldn't have been morally wrong for Jesus to have turned stones into bread to feed Himself, but it would have been Him doing "something" when He needed to be still in the darkness of His hunger and wait. He knew that. It's when we start moving around the darkness on our own without Him that we start tripping over things and running into walls and hurting ourselves because we don't know where we're going.

When you find yourself in the darkness, your first instinct will be to panic and do something to get yourself out of it. This is the wrong response and will only cause more problems. Do nothing. Wait and be still as He is still and unmoving. Don't let your fear and panic drive you to try and turn as much rock to bread as possible. The consequences will be worse than if you just let yourself go hungry. Physical needs will cause you to panic. Emotional needs will cause you to panic. This is the time when you must not panic even if every survival instinct you have is telling you to. You must do nothing and stay still.

God hasn't left. He hasn't gone anywhere. The darkness is a part of the maturing process. It's a part of reaching beyond your physical, soulish being and trusting in His presence even when you can no longer sense it or recognize it in the way you have become accustomed to.

A Ramble About Governments

My kids were having a serious discussion about a Star Wars themed RTS game called "Empires at War." They were discussing which side was the best one to play. My son tends to favor the criminal or Imperial sides (not boding well for his future), while my daughter was passionately arguing against the Empire in particular because she believed that they were the true bad guys and wanted nothing more than to dominate and enslave the galaxy, and they betrayed each other and did very bad things. This got me thinking about the Empire. Over the last several years I've gotten to really enjoy fan films, the short movies that are made by fans about their favorite sci-fi or fantasy characters or "universes." One of these fan film series is called I.M.P.S. (Imperial Military Personnel Stories), and has become a family favorite. Told with a sense of humor, it's life from the perspective of a squadron of Imperial Storm Troopers on patrol, and is done in such a way as to humanize them. The Imperial soldiers in these videos don't see themselves as the bad guys, but peacekeepers, law enforcement, and doing what they perceive is the right thing.

One of the things which we Star Wars fans tend to forget, is that the Empire, regardless of its actions or motives, was the legitimate government of that galaxy. It's emperor had been legally and duly elected initially as Chancellor of a republic, and later confirmed as Emperor for life by the Republican Senate. The Emperor and Imperial Senate made the laws, controlled the taxes, kept the peace, and kept order among hundreds of worlds. Regardless of what the Emperor's motives may have been, they weren't the motives of everyone involved in the Imperial government or military. Most of whom probably thought they were doing the right thing.

During the life of St. Paul the Apostle, he lived under the rule of a notorious Empire as well, and through several successive Emperors, each with varying degrees of depravity and sanity or lack thereof. The Emperor ruling at the time St. Paul was executed was Caesar Nero. This is a man who burned a large portion of the city of Rome itself and then blamed it on the Christians who were a misunderstood minority religious group at the time. He rounded up Christians and conceived of new and fresh atrocities with them to amuse himself, such as using them for torches to light his gardens with. The Emperor prior to Nero was Claudius, who, while a capable administrator and governor, was also responsible for many assassinations of other members of the Roman government in order to stay in power. Prior to this was Caligula, a man noted for his sexual deviancy, perversion, atrocity, and insanity. He actually appointed one of his horses as a consul, threw a crowd of spectators to the lions in the arena because he was bored, and committed incest with his sisters and prostituted them to other men. Next to these men, Emperor Palpatine looks like a competent, rational, moderate, devout statesman.

This is what St. Paul had to say about people, including these men, in government:

1 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the same, 4 for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesn’t bear the sword in vain; for he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil. 5 Therefore you need to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For this reason you also pay taxes, for they are servants of God’s service, attending continually on this very thing. 7 Give therefore to everyone what you owe: taxes to whom taxes are due; customs to whom customs; respect to whom respect; honor to whom honor. (Romans 13:1-7, WEB)

Rebellion against the established government may be a traditional American value, but it is not a Christian one. Jesus Christ Himself pointed out the flaws and hypocrisy of the religious leaders, but He pointedly said nothing about the secular governors (except perhaps Herod whom He called a "fox"), and submitted to their ruling, even when it meant His unjust execution. There would have been much He could have said about the Roman Government and it's rulers, but He didn't. Most of His direct rebukes were aimed squarely at those religious leaders who were supposed to know the Truth and teach it to others.

If we are to follow Jesus Christ, then we must follow His example. If we are to look to St. Paul for guidance, then we must accept the guidance he gives. If we are to be American, then we must not do it at the expense of being Christian. Being Christian means that this world is not our home, our nation, or our government. We are told to pray for those in authority over us, and more than this, Jesus told us to pray for those who persecute us and abuse us. Nowhere are we told we don't have to pray for someone we consider to be evil or perverse. These are the people who need more prayer, not less.

Sometimes we may feel as though we have Sith governing us. I thought this too about our former Vice President. I then got a call from my dad asking me to pray for him for his heart transplant. It turns out that he knew him personally from several years ago under another administration, and he considered him and his wife very good, nice people. The Lord used this to force me to rethink things. I prayed for the man I once considered "Darth Cheney." I prayed that his surgery would go well and that he would fully recover. I don't know him, only what I've heard from others, and perhaps that is the point.

I should wonder what St. Paul's response would have been if it had been Palpatine instead of Nero. I doubt it would have been any different.