We return to the compound life of the Christian. It is a compound that unites two contextual factors, one natural and one supernatural. It is sometimes a difficult life because it has many ramifications that are paradoxical and more sophisticated than either element may be defined in its own meaning. It is the combination of oxygen and hydrogen into a water compound. Two gasses are made a liquid. Such is the way of Christian life, if it is lived out in the biblical pattern revealed for that life. Many persons try to live one or the other life without regard that both exist at the same time, and will continue unless or until they are changed. Simplistic men and women may try to be purists. In this context they perceive the other element to be misguided, perhaps so wrong as not to be acknowledged in any substantive way. Whichever it is, the other side is seen as bigoted, or misguided, unworthy of serious consideration. One must, in a free society, put up with each other, and accept nearly anything if they don’t frighten the children or set the house on fire. Some persons insist only on the elemental life, refusing the compound – physical/spiritual.
Persons not knowing how to make friends with mankind and God, even separate from the story of redemption, press their way. For the theological purist, judgment (meant for God) is taken on. Nothing is good enough, fellowship and business are poisoned. The rim of the horizon is dark. The stern humanist finds even the mention of God something of a threat to freedom and environment. The limited Christian, or other faith religion, sees the world’s sin embodied in the non-believer, the persons whose motives relate to wholly human, sometimes devilish, concepts that are generally related to human pride. Wealth, power, popularity, achievement, even decency that accomplishes good becomes a civic religion. These persons negotiate features of God’s common grace, so may do rather well in the courses of their lifetimes.
In some ways, civic believers may create some oddities that make them feel they have accomplished a joining of the spiritual and natural dimensions. This may be illustrated in the lives of many persons well known in life and history. At this writing a well-known entertainer, Cher, has opened her home to the media. The cost of the home was in millions of dollars, and offers what even the writers perceive as contradictions to a person who prides herself on her honesty. Her bedroom, we are informed, has a large Madonna and Child with the implications of faith direction. But, Cher is engaged in a new show Burlesque with her usual scanty costumes, more suggestive than full nudity might provide. The suggestive gyrations, the noisy music that screams to audiences, and the accouterments, all suggest something entirely different from what a Madonna and Child presence would intimate. The show is raunchy. One would have to go farther than the critics have gone to find out how the two are formed into a compound of new life that finds God making life better with his grace allowances. The critic has a feeling that either the subject is using religion to justify an irreligious life, or that the person does not understand hypocrisy. Cher admits to men intimate to her life, the inability to parent well, a struggle with transgender of her daughter who is now identified as a male. The daughter may be a man by their definition, but she/he can never be a male in fact. Any change in style, in surgery shifting, in name choice, and the like do not change what biology gave, even if the original biology is interpreted in other directions than the creator’s order gave.
The Christian is called to accept both nature (dust we are: to dust return), and heaven – the presence of God the Creator, Redeemer and Father changing things for benefit (presumed) of persons. God promises immortality to those who relate to Christ in confession, humility and love. The genuineness of experience is found in the God-accepted person seeking a righteous life as guided by Scripture. This witness is strengthened in balance for natural/spiritual life. All this takes some doing, but as millions of Christians have proved during passing centuries, it can be done with a faith of great benefit – even by the most simplistic individuals in a population. The message of this Gospel is the legacy of Christ to the world, and the first duty in the service of Christians to the population of the world. It is the Christian mission. We can mix well in the compound of nature/super-nature, but not as oil and water – separate. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020