For this date, the 1st of December in the month of Advent, I have stayed with the concept of Day Without Sun. There is an implication of mortality in it, a vital division of the world of mankind into two massive populations, those who see mortality as the beginning and end of human life, and those who see human mortality as a bridge (transition) to immortality, either blessed or condemned. The orientation, either way is a serious one, with everything hanging in the consequence. It takes faith to believe or disbelieve. In a review of a two part TV presentation of the life of Woody Allen, best known for his acting and directing in well-known films, Nancy deWolf Smith writes about the Brooklyn, N. Y. childhood of Allen: . . . he grew up, happily until around the age of five. That’s when, he says, ‘I became aware of mortality – it ends, you vanish forever. And once I realized that, I thought, deal me out, I don’t want to play in this game.’ Even now as in his movies, Mr. Allen nurses the notion that the certainty of death makes life a cruel joke. We all know the same truth and our lives consist of how we choose to distort it. (WSJ 11/18/2011, pg. 8) The implication is that whatever the individual may do as an aging person, it is a distortion because meaning has been lost in the ending, the death of one’s mortality. One goes into the darkness of unconsciousness and nothingness. Meaning of any consequence is lost. Life is a joke. Joke is not here defined, even though we feel what Allen means. He did write jokes for Johnny Carson, the eminent TV personality, before he (Allen) became famous for his own recognized work.
In the same issue of the paper there appeared, on the editorial page, an article about a Church in California that sponsored a creative project to provide meals for hungry persons for Thanksgiving Day without the persons waiting in a food line. The writer, Aaron Betz, pointed out that the Church had a Calvinistic orientation which: . . . is committed to Reformation doctrines such as total depravity (every person is born sinful, (in nature) and limited atonement (salvation is available only to the elect). These beliefs are typically regarded as ugly and inhumane by American culturati. The surprise, as noted in the article, is that the church remains interested in feeding the hungry, even the non-elect. The implication of the article is that in spite of limitation doctrine, the church has contributed, partly through largess, to a growth from 500 to 1500 members. (Calvinistic doctrine of election is related in some way to God’s foreknowledge.)
What is the point? What if one interprets death as not an end, but a transition – as birth is a death from the womb to the world of nature? What if the womb of nature yields to the place of heaven? There may be something beyond that. Who knows? What if the election of God can be chosen by any person hearing the redemptive story and believing it to personal application so to break into God’s elect? May there be some misunderstanding of the theology of election? What if, instead of attaching the depravity doctrine to the reformation movement related to John Calvin, that it be understood more simply in the light of Scripture that acknowledges the human being is imperfect for God’s acceptance? What if acceptance is gained by acknowledgment (repentance) for the condition, and placing faith in Jesus Christ to include the adopted person in his, Jesus’, resurrection life – as Scripture from God explains and defines spiritual processes?
The above might well be extended through other items in this edition of the newspaper. It seems that the Church has not made fully clear to the world what the gospel is, in theological terms, or in humility of presentation attractive to the currently popular culturati. The point is not in the variant details of theologians, but in the redemptive life gesture of Jesus Christ on the Cross, and in the resurrection. It is not sectarian, or demanding of education in the variables of the knowledge factors of man. It is in an act of faith in God, to be followed by a search for God’s education of the mind and soul through righteousness in and to God with service to mankind. The gospel is an elected story for any person, in Jesus Christ, to gain what is needed for hope – immortality. The acceptance of God’s plan for a person’s safety and hope for life beyond the grave is misunderstood without God’s fairness and generosity. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020