God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.

Life is about changes and learning to enjoy the adventure of journeying in life with Him. I can't see what's ahead and have no way of controlling how things will go. I can only trust Him, that He makes all things beautiful in its time.

Friday, February 08, 2008

The New Holy Trinity

We live in an age in which we have all been trained from the cradle to choose for ourselves what is best for us. We have a few years of apprenticeship at this before we are sent out on our own, but the training begins early. By the time we can hold a spoon we choose between half a dozen cereals for breakfast, ranging from Cheerios to Bran Flakes. Our tastes, inclinations and appetites are consulted endlessly. We are soon deciding what clothes we will wear and in what style we will have our hair cut. The options proliferate: what TV channels we will view, what college we will attend, what courses we will take in school, what model and colour of car we will buy, what church we will join. We learn early, with multiple confirmations as we grow older, that we have a say in the formation of our lives, and within certain bounds, the decisive say. If the culture does a thorough job on us – and it turns out to be mighty effective with most of us – we enter adulthood with the working assumptions that whatever we need and want and feel forms the divine control of our lives.

Intoroducing the new Holy Trinity. The sovereign self expresses itself in Holy Needs, Holy Wants, and Holy Feelings. The time and intelligence that our ancestors spent on understanding the sovereignty revealed in Father, Son and Holy Spirit are directed by our contemporaries in affirming and validation the sovereignty of our needs, wants and feelings.

My needs are non-negotiable. My so-called rights, defined in individually, are fundamental to my identity. My need for fulfillment. For expression, for affirmation, for sexual satisfaction, for respect, my need to get my own way – all these provide a foundation to the centrality of me and fortify my self against diminution.

My wants are evidence of my expanding sense of kingdom. I train myself to think big because I am big, important, significant. I am larger than life and so require more and more goods and services, more things and more power. Consumption and acquisition are the new fruits of the spirit.

My feelings are the truth of who I am. Any thing or person who can provide me with ecstasy, with excitement, with joy, with stimulus, with spiritual connection validates my sovereignty. This, of course, involves employing quite a large cast of therapists, travel agents, gadgets and machines, recreations and entertainments to case out the devils of boredom or loss or discontent – all the feelings that undermine or challenge my self-sovereignty.


Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book (p31-32)


postscript:

In many Asian cultures, the common good is given much more value than the individual needs, wants or feelings. Thus there is tremendous pressure to conform and not stick out. Add to that, it is a taboo to offer a dissenting view or to look critically at tradition and culture. We know that one of the biggest threat to individuals in any given society is to be ostracised or treated as an outcast. While this is true of human socieities at large, it is particularly poignant in Asian communities. While this may keep the new un-holy trinity at bay, what really happens is the needs, wants and feelings of the group takes the place of the individual and forms the alternative un-holy trinity. The needs, wants and feelings of the group is sovereign. At times, this can result in deep inner conflict when the needs of the individual are in conflict with the needs of the group and the individual's desire to remain part of the group.

In Asian churches, this pressure to conform is translated into teachings that emphasise on the unity of the church and concern for our neighbour. As a result we baptise our culture and this creates cultural blindspots in our theology and teaching. We use the Bible to coerce members to conform to certain (culturally acceptable) patterns of behaviour or get them to align with the leader's (or leaders') agenda. We manipulate and control people and forget that we are all unique individuals created in the image of God.

It is important to know our own cultural blindspots and be careful that we do not baptise our own culture but need to learn to look at ourselves critically. This applies to Asian communities as well as Western ones. Only then can we see what is needed in our theology and teaching to challenge our cultural assumptions and values that are in conflict with Scripture. Asian churches that emphasise on our uniqueness as individuals may be accussed of bringing in western values. The fact is we are called to be counter-cultural and we need each other to help read and understand the Bible more faithfully. while the emphasis may differ from one culture to another, it is not because any particular culture that is superior or that we should seek to emulate.

However what we strive for is the Christian perspective and to emulate Christ. The call for Christians is to give up and hand over our individual's needs, wants and feelings, not in exchange for the group's, but for His will. We are to submit to Him as our sovereign Lord, trusting Him to meet our needs as He sees fit. This does not mean He will ignore our desires, wants or feelings, because, at a deeper level, even these desires are given by God. However we are not to take things into our own hands and be preoccupied with meeting them by our own means. We are called instead to surrender them to Him, submit our wills to Him and allow Him to mould our feelings, to align with His will. We are respondible to do our part and work to meet some of these, but if this is the goal of all our efforts then they become our idols. No, then we become our own gods. But in submitting to Him, He does call and enable us to live beyond ourselves, to love others and consider others more than ourselves. Not because the other, or the group, is more important and valuable than we are, but because He is sovereign and Lord over all. It is His kingdom and plans that He is committed to bring to pass according to His good and perfect will. It is for us to align ourselves with His agenda, by His grace. We ask the wrong question when we ask whether God is on our side. Our concern should be whether we are on His side because in the end, it will be the only side left standing and victorious!