This Page is being written on April 12, 2011. The date, a week ahead of the above date, is prompted by my reading of a book review in the Wall Street Journal, with the byline of Andrew Stark. He reviewed a recent book, Obliquity, authored by John Kay. I was highly impressed by the analysis. (I tend to follow, in ensuing years, the topic text of the same date in previous years. This one fits here.) Anyone knowing my intellectual/spiritual bent knows that one of my preoccupations is with issues related to paradox and contradiction. (Similar preoccupation weighed on Einstein, who did not posit God for resolution.) This book is an excellent illustration of how we, as human beings, may gain or miss the fulfillment of a happy life, as we would prefer to have order and fulfillment, by understanding the patterns in human existence. Kay moves forward in a pattern that was advanced by Jesus that the secret to gaining what mankind needs, and really wants, is found in becoming servants of others. Obliquity appears, in this review, not to have acknowledged the spiritual principle of the Bible, and the large meaning of the principle of life stewardship that leads to happiness. What Kay finds in his evidence is, in reality, a divine pattern form applied to common grace in human conduct – for good for all. It has been an open secret for millennia.
In the total biblical story of Christian faith the principle leads not only to happiness, but to joy – so that if other applications are in order, and taken together become an immortal possession. God is forming us. Although I am pleased to find secular sources (and there are many) expounding truths found in the common grace of God, I am usually disappointed that there is seldom so much as a nod about the initial instruction from Christ and his followers. The documentation of the Judeo-Christian Scripture of concepts that are millennia old, and applicable in the modern world – comes from Scripture. These are principles that will never change. However, they are at odds with the selfish and proud mind, but demand humility of self if they are to work. Basic humility is realization and acknowledgement that we can do nothing of lasting value without dependence upon God. Study of the Bible relative to mankind is also a study of the genuine humility that should characterize the human being. Jesus illustrated the principle in referring to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Genuine humility, related to divine grace, in context with common grace, connects to faith in God. Without that faith, the person may find a secular humility, a shadow of the genuine, but it fades in the course of time and events. In common grace there are samples of the lasting product. To serve rightly is to serve God. This pattern is vital in God’s evaluation of humankind.
Obliquity points out that when leaders of corporations (and by extension to others, like government leaders, or even families) are interested primarily in profits, they will tend to fail, whereas to be interested in the benefit to their customers (others) and their employees (families) will lead to success. The employees may give 110 % (not possible, but more than expected) to the employer who is interested in others, but they give less of themselves to an employer seeking first to enhance profits, likely for his own benefit. So employers, to gain genuine financial achievement, must approach the goal indirectly or, put it another way, obliquely. He or she achieves an important purpose (profits) by not making it the most important in a list of values. The reviewer calls the author’s (Kay’s) proposal an insight. He implies that it has some originality in it that needs to be considered. The point for this Page is that it is an ancient insight, well developed in sermons from the Bible, teachings from Jesus. In matter of fact, Obliquity reflects history, perhaps rediscovery. From human history, even from living practitioners, the book provides illustrations of the application of God’s main point that mankind finds fulfillment, happiness, and the good of society in aiming life to concern and care for others. We assume that as respect for God’s creation. The secular world recognizes some of the meaning in extolling altruism, which is to do well without thought of personal aggrandizement. A careful study of factors admired in human conduct has a debt to Scripture. Secular society often finds other words, titles, contexts to do what God informs mankind to perceive and do. The secularist wants to drop the divine out of the principles or events. Currently Merry Christmas has become for many a distortion – Happy Holidays. For the Christian the substitution does not express the original meaning or the current Christian interpretation. Christmas is Christmas. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020