BLOGGER



Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Monday, March 07, 2005
MARX & CHRIST

Have you ever heard people say that Jesus was the first communist?

people who have said that would no doubt be referring to the time when Jesus spoke with a rich young man who led a pretty upright life. this dude thought he had it all to qualify for the kingdom of heaven until Jesus told him to...

Mark 10:22
...sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

and this guy, disappointed, left the scene knowing he didn't have what it took.

so, sell your posessions. is Jesus a communist? well, that's an inadvertently ironic comment, since communism rejects God and Jesus is God Himself, but if you can look past that one glaring inconsistency, and humour yourself a little, you might start seeing communism under a pretty different light.

yes, in most parts of the "rest of the world" (and by that i speak of the world as opposed to america), communism has had a pretty healthy ground to introduce itself, let itself be known and evaluated by people, and almost, so to speak, given a shot. ok, so if that coats a lot of maple syrup over our histories of communist guerrilla wars, killings in the night, and less than savoury attempts made by the powers that be to get rid of such reds, forgive me. but i dare say that most parts of the rest of the world have had some real and tangible experience with communism. so, is it such a bad thing? if it is, why is this Jesus freak writing so lovingly about it?

when marx wrote the communist manifesto, he was of course reacting to an economic climate distinct to his time. it was the industrial revolution! people were being oppressed in factories while the bourgeoise fat cats fattened themselves to no end. marx predicted that communism was the natural progression of the history of economic power relations. well, no doubt he got that wrong. we're not here to talk about the authority of marxism.

i like the similarities between christ and marx. apart from the fact that one man was God incarnate and the other was a mistaken philosopher (ahahaaa!), both were revolutionaries in their own right. both kickstarted moves in history that affected and forced the rest of the dulled world to wake up and make a stand. but my greatest interest in them is that both men are interested in utopia. marx envisioned a lennon-esque/imagine-esque world (or rightly so, lennon imagined a marxist world) where "there's no heaven, no hell, no countries, no hunger, nothing to greed or die for and no religion too". surely, at some level, this must have appealed to the masses in an era such as marx's. what relevance was the church to them at a time when widespread oppression and exploitation in the workplace ruled the day. did the proletariat have time to even go to church? could they keep the sabbath? was God not there?

well of course God was there. but i sidetrack, i'm sorry. in a different way, Jesus was interested in a utopia, but His utopia was heaven, and He came from there. and apart from the reality of heaven and hell, the rest of lennon's utopia isn't too different from the idea of the biblical heaven (note especially, no more religions). it's again ironic, therefore, that in his pursuit of a so-called heaven on earth, marx took God out and everything stopped happening. it seems that without its opiate, the world - not just the masses - held no future for this mistaken well-meaning philosopher.

i like it that they were rebels. i love it whenever i read about how Jesus used to go into temple courts and turn the tables over and scold people for turning His Father's house into a marketplace. i love it when Jesus repeatedly says to the highpriests and the Romans that He is King of the Jews, even if it meant inching himself closer to the hurt of the cross. marx caled for a similar kind of rebellion, requiring that change can only take place with revolution, overturining the superstructure. it's the kind of wholesale change where all the people at the top get killed off. it's the kind of wiping out that reminds me of Israel in the old testament, and how God used to ask them to kill off everything and everyone of their enemies.

you know, Jesus always tells us to relinquish our will for His. to submit our desires unto Him and let His desires be ours. why does He want this? because He knows better, knows that we don't know better, and in the process of relinquishing our wants to Him, we build a relationship of trust and faith with Him. interestingly, marx called for a similar kind of sacrifice. he called for the people to relinquish their private property and give it up to the state. marx's state is a christlike body that gives generously "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs". what awesomeness! does it mean that i can do what i'm good at - no matter what - and i'll be taken care of, no matter how? wow! that sounds like our ministries when we go to heaven!

they are more similar than we normally think. and as a christian, i am proud to be a marxist. so i don't agree with marx on the point of God but he meant well and his core ideas are definitely closer to the truth than descartes, nietschze, and a host of other modern thinkers. i won't wear my CCCP tshirt to church, but by golly, if you think Nike is selling a Just-do-it worldview that is in any way closer to the heart of our Father, you are dead wrong.

sell your posessions! give to the poor! give up your will and hand it over to a higher body. you will be looked after. you will be free. you will no longer live in the bondage and oppression of the wicked. this is the inevitable progression of our historic timeline! this is the portion of he who goes against the grain of the world and moves headlong towards a brighter future! this is freedom to the slaves! good news to the weary! salvation to the downtrodden!

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Genusfrog [ 3:37 pm ]

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