The Vertical Self: How Biblical faith can help us discover who we are in an age of self-obsession by Mark Sayers

Mark Sayers is a new voice in Christianity who is confronting what is wrong with our culture with the truth of Jesus Christ. In his new book, The Vertical Self, Sayers illustrates the difference between the “horizontal self” (personal identity defined by culture) and the “vertical self” (personal identity as defined by God).

Sayers’ intentions are good and his underlying premise is correct: the culture of today, especially among young people, is too media-influenced. Too many young people are only trying to emulate celebrities or trying to be “cool”. However, I still feel that Sayers’ solution is missing the mark. His remedy is still to focus on ourselves, but to work on dealing with our desires and sins, using various techniques in order to make right what is wrong with you. I feel that is introducing these concepts (some even from other religions) as roads to holiness that Sayers has skirted around the idea that Jesus alone makes us righteous, not our own efforts.

I appreciate Sayers’ good start with this book, however, I would not recommend it to someone who did not understand the idea of God’s grace and how we find our true identity: by focusing on the Father and not on ourselves, by understanding we are sons and daughters and not servants trying to work to be holy.

Thomas Nelson Publishers has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.

St. Patrick preached the good news!

From the Confession of St. Patrick:
"And there I wish to wait for His promise who surely never disappoints; as He promises in the Gospel: 'They will come from east and the west and they shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob' - thus we believe that the faithful will come from the entire world.
For that reason we ought to fish well and with diligent care, as the Lord commands and teaches, saying: 'Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.'
This is why it was most necessary to spread our nets widely so that a great throng and multitude might be captured for God, and that there be clergy everywhere to baptize and teach a people who need and want so badly, as the Lord admonishes in the Gospel, saying: 'Go now and teaching all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have taught you; and see, I am with you all days, even until the end of the world.' And again He says: 'Go out therefore to the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned.' And again: 'This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the entire world for a testimony to all races of people, and then shall the end come.' And so, too, the Lord announces through the prophet, and says, 'And it shall come to pass, in the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and our young man shall see visions, and you old ones shall dream dreams. And upon my manservants and maidservants I will pour our my Spirit, and thy, too, shall prophesy.'
Finally, in Hosea He says: 'I will call those who were not My people, My people; and those who have not received My mercy, they shall receive My mercy. And where before in the place where it was said, 'You are not my people,' there they shall be called children of the living God.'
This, then, is how the people of Ireland, who had never had any knowledge of God, but until now had cults and worshiped idols and abominations, have lately been turned into a people of the Lord and are called the children of God."

A balanced response to Mark Driscoll...

Following is a great blog by Carolyn Custis James, author of "The Lost Women of the Bible." In it, she shares a link to a blog by Dr. Richard Beck, with his response to Mark Driscoll's efforts to masculinize the church. Very interesting. What do you think?
Carolyn's Reflections: Chickified or Macho Man?

You just gotta get out now and then...

Okay, I've never seen Avatar, but I love the following article. I'm not against movies in general, but I do think that life is a great adventure worth living. The following is written by Alex McManus:

"By now most of you have seen James Cameron’s blockbuster movie, AVATAR.
The night I saw it I knew this movie would strike a chord with large audiences worldwide. I tweeted that anyone who saw the movie was going to want to live on Pandora, the home planet of the 10-foot tall, blue skinned Na´vi.

The Na´vi people are tall, thin, tribal, handsome and fiercely brave. Pandora, their planet, is as beautiful as it is dangerous. The Na´vi live in a ubiquitous communion with each other and their world. The conflict arises when an evil corporation (surprise!) from Earth wants to exploit large deposits of a treasured mineral located directly under the Na´vi’s ancient home.

Interestingly enough, CNN reports that audiences are experiencing depression after viewing the movie, with some even entertaining suicidal thoughts. Others are experiencing an increased disgust with humanity.

I mentioned to a new friend of mine how I felt that many viewers would want to live on Pandora. He said that he asked his wife to paint herself blue. To me, these are totally understandable responses. The Na´vi live in community. The Na´vi are exotic, wise, fierce, and sexy. Their planet, Pandora, is filled with cool flora and fauna. Life there is an adventure.

Ok, so the fantastical Pandora is cool. What’s not to like?
But thoughts of suicide? Anger with the humans?

Many of us feel a slight sadness when we finish a great novel, or when a favorite television series ends. But depression?

Still, perhaps there is something here that we should pay attention to. Sometimes we minimize the distance between the world we live in, the world “as it is”, and the world we dream of, the world as “it could be”. The Na´vi live in the kind of dense community we long for but cannot seem to find. They are exotic, fierce, wise, and sexy. We are not blue, not fierce, often confused, and mostly look awful in thong underwear. Their lush planet and colorful lives are filled with adventure. Our lives seem gray in comparison.

Here’s where it all began to break down for me. The CNN article tells us, “Compared to life on earth Pandora is beautiful and glowing utopia”.

What?

This is a line written by someone who never gets outside. Heck, you don’t even have to go outside. Get the Discovery Channel for God’s sake.

Perhaps part of the problem is that while we wished we could live on amazing fictional planets, we’ve never taken the steps to really live here on this planet.

We are estranged from each other and our world, but not because humans suck and the “world is dying” (as one of the depressed said of Earth). Our problem is that we lack a mission worth giving our lives to, something worth defending, something worth dying for. Without this we often feel an emptiness to our lives and routines. Another part of the problem is that we spend too much time being heroes in fantasy worlds and games. We live action packed lives vicariously through television and movies. Since I adore movies and TV let me qualify this. “Too much time” is a relative. Some of us live before our screens to the exclusion of a real world that is filled with amazing adventures, vicious predators, and lots of opportunities to die doing something really daring.

Just a couple of days before I heard about the “Avatar blues” I was listening to a new friend of mine, Steve, tell of his experience on a hunt in Africa. He and a mutual friend of ours, Terry, had fired on a Rhino and the behemoth charged them. Steve tells me that you could feel the ground tremble as this angered beast ran at them. Terry, he said, took two steps forward at the Rhino, ground trembling beneath their feet, cocked his gun, and fired.

That’s not fiction. That’s adventure. Earth is as beautiful, as dangerous, as lush a utopia as Pandora. There is a difference. Utopia means “no place”. That’s Pandora - no place. It’s not real. Earth, however, is real. You just gotta get out now and then.

I wonder what would happen if some of us actually got to live on Pandora? Would we spend our Pandoran days playing fantasy games in which we were Earthlings like Steve and Terry who actually went out once in a while and had adventures?

For Christ following people, Avatar is a reminder that in Christ we have a mission, and on that mission we will have adventures a plenty. We live in a real world of real splendor populated by real residents who are under attack. The cause is real. The risk is real. Because the cause and the risk are real, the conditions for dense communion with others exist. It’s up to us to step into it. So put the remote down. Here’s the call: Heroes Wanted in the fight for humanity and for the quest to save the planet. Safe Return Doubtful.

what do you think?"