What I Believe Trumps What I Do.

A while back someone I follow on Twitter tweeted or retweeted something along the lines of "It doesn't matter what I believe, only what I do."

I don't recall who it was, if they were attempting to quote Bruce Wayne from Batman Begins, if they were serious or not. I went back and looked but gave up after going a couple weeks back. All I really remember about it (other than that it was supposed to be some kind of commentary on Christian life...I think) is that it didn't quite sit right with me, but I couldn't put a finger on why.

One the one hand, Batman said it. Actions speak louder than words, and so on. But still...my gut told me there was something off here.

Fast forward to this past Sunday when my friend Ben was filling in as pastor at my old church. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was great. Not only did the sermon reach me right where I needed it to, it also provided me with a solid reason why this tweet bothered me.

Christ tells us very plainly in Matthew 7:21-23 that deeds are not what are going to get us into Heaven. Verse 22: "Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’" And Christ says, effectively, "Who are you? Step back, fella."

Wow. So you mean I can do all kinds of signs and wonders, and still miss the boat? It doesn't matter, in the end? "I never knew you" says Jesus as he shuffles us off to the other place.

So actually, it doesn't matter what I do, only what I believe.

I can already hear the protestations, the quotes from James, the cries that what we do does matter.

And I agree, to a point. How we treat our fellow man is absolutely important. And you'd be hard-pressed to convince me of the sincerity of your belief in Christ if it didn't lead to a change in the way you live your life and interact with those around you. Faith without works is dead indeed.

However, when you consider that this life is a mere speedbump on the way to eternity, you cannot convince me my actions in this transitory life trump my belief in Christ and the sacrifice He made for me.

If I don't know Christ, it really doesn't matter what I do. And once I do know Him, what I do is just icing on the cake.

I Don't Want Justice

This was initially posted on www.johnhanan.com on February 26th, 2012. I've relocated it here in an effort to consolidate posts.

A friend recently shared on Twitter that feminism was basically just about women having equal rights, a concept so simple that even kids could get behind it. And if that's true, I guess I'm a feminist. In fact, I'd say I have been for about as long as I understood that people were people and should all be treated the same.

But then there's a glut of new blog posts and articles on feminism, like it's no longer Black History month and has become Feminist February or something. So I'm learning all kinds of new things about this concept that I've taken for granted, and I'll be honest: something's not sitting quite right with me. The people writing are talking about justice and the inequalities in society and across the globe and how Feminism is really about making everything right.

Sure sounds nice, right? So what is it about this that's bugging me so? Justice. That's what's wrong. Any time someone says, "That's not fair!" I want to scream that life isn't fair, and it's a good thing too, or we'd all be Harrison Bergeron. Any time someone cries out for justice I want to ask them how often they speed, and if they're willing to be ticketed for each instance, because if all things are supposed to be equal, then justice should be dispensed equally as well.

Fairness and justice are great concepts, but they don't exactly work in reality. And for the Christian, they're really bad ideas. Because we believe that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that the wages of sin is death. If we really want justice, we must submit to death. The glory of God though, is His grace. His grace that saves us from the law of sin and death.

Let's look at the concepts and apply them to Scripture real quick. John 8:3-11 tells the story of a prostitute brought before Jesus by the Pharisees. In it, we see the failure of both fairness and justice, and the triumph of grace. If fairness wins out, not only is the woman stoned, but so are her accusers. If justice wins out, she is killed, and each of her accusers are convicted of their own crimes. Only when grace wins out do we see forgiveness of sins, and a complete lack of condemnation.

Justice also fails because it must be the final word. There can be no justice, no equality if it is not evenly applied to all, regardless of station or circumstance. And in attempting to be the final word, it must necessarily leave God out. Because if you and I apply justice to the world around us and get it wrong, then it's not true justice. The only true justice can come from the all-knowing God who gives us chance after chance to find grace in His son.

I don't know about you, but I don't want justice. Justice condemns me, and rightfully so. I am a sinner, there is no denying it, and if justice is to be served I must face the consequences of my sin. It is only by grace that I am forgiven and set free.

I am not advocating a society free of law or consequence. There can be no such society, because anarchy would rule. And I'm not saying that a philosophy grounded in grace will be free of consequence. I am advocating for a philosophy that recognizes the deep need of all people for grace, and the willingness to follow our Father's example in extending it to everyone around us equally.

We can work towards more equality between all people, but the only way we're going to get around the fumbles and failings of the condition known as humanity is by giving each other grace as we struggle towards becoming better people, not by seeking justice for inequities between people.

So if your feminism requires justice for all, I'm out. I can't hack it. If grace is your goal, sign me up.

What are you passionate about?

Blizzard released the Mists of Pandaria expansion to World of Warcraft a week and a half ago, and it has consumed most of my play time. There's so much new content, and it's so beautifully done that it's easy to just sit in the world and stare at things.

Of course the point is to get your character out into the world and get to the new level cap, experiencing the results of Blizzard's hard work in the process. So I made my way to level 90 and discovered a ton of things I can spend my time doing even after I've gotten to "the end" as some might see it.

Along with the new artwork and music, there are many new systems in place as well. Designed to keep players from rushing through things too quickly and reward those who put in the time, there's also a bit of a problem that arises. I wrote a big long post about it on the official forums (you can read it if you like) but suffice to say that I was complaining. Justified or not, constructive or not, that's essentially what it boiled down to.

Complaining? About a video game? You mean griping about a relatively small aspect of something that you overall enjoy because you don't like it? Yeah, it seems silly, I know. And it's not the first time either.

I was thinking about this and I realized it's kind of similar to the situation the NFL dealt with recently, with the referees being temporarily replaced by folks who...shall we say weren't the best at the job?

The similarity isn't in the problems, but in the fact that fans who enjoy something became vocal about something they perceived to be a problem. We got passionate and made known our displeasure with the way things were.

Did you know God wants us passionate in the same way?

Revelation 3:15-16 gives us a pretty vivid image about it. Christ is talking to the believers in a place called Laodicea, saying that He'd rather be sick than deal with these non-commital people. He wants their hearts involved. He wants them to be passionate!

(BTW, there's some really fascinating stuff you totally miss if you're not familiar with the context of the area. I highly recommend looking it up if you're interested.)

Being passionate about football or a video game isn't the same as being passionate about God and His plan, but it's closer than you might think. Our minds and emotions are invested in something that matters to us, which means that our hearts are working. We care.

I don't claim to have a magic formula for redirecting that passion. I'm not certain there even is one. I'm sure that many folks out there wish there were. What I do know is that God can change a heart, and a nudge in the right direction is going to be far easier on us than Him having to jumpstart an apathetic heart.

And who knows? Maybe God wants to use your passion for something to benefit His kingdom and the people He wants in it.

Where does your passion lie? Can God use that? Have you asked Him?

To Live is Christ

I went to the doctor's office earlier this week.  My throat was feeling a little weird and it had for a couple days, so I thought I'd get it checked out.  Turned out to be nothing, but you can probably imagine how my mind was racing about the possibilities before I heard it from a professional.  I mean, spend some time on WebMD and you can go from "scratchy throat" to "OMG terrible fatal illness why haven't I written a will yet" in just about thirty seconds. 

The whole experience seems silly in retrospect, but it made me think about how precious life is.  I remember thinking to myself, "What if it really is something terrible?  It's probably not, but what if I don't have much time left?"

I thought about this again today as I learned of the tragedy at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado early this morning.  A few years back, I worked across the street from where this happened.  Today, I live only a few hours away.  So you might imagine that this hits home a little.  Once again, I thought about how precious life is.

Some might argue that video games have desensitized us to death.  That either the killing of enemies in games, or the death of the player's character have cheapened it.  It's easy to see where they're coming from, actually.  I mean, what happens when I die in a game?  Nothing.  It's really just a temporary state on my way to completing the game.  There's no true consequence.  It's an indication that I've failed somehow to master the mechanics of my chosen game, but that's it.  A learning experience for the next try, nothing more.  (Anyone who's watched the recent Battlestar Galactica series knows what I'm talking about - the Cylons "die" only to be reborn in new bodies.)

That seems like a terrible way to think of death, don't you think?  To think of it as something so...uneventful.

But what if it's the correct way to think of it?

Paul gives us a hint in Philippians 1:21.  "To live is Christ and to die is gain"?  See, for the Christian, life doesn't end at death.  Death is merely a temporary state on the way to eternal life with Christ.

This is not to say that death is uneventful or does not impact lives in any way.  Ask any of the family members of the victims in Aurora and they'll tell you just how much the death of a loved one has impacted them.  Anyone who's lost someone knows that death impacts those left behind.  But imagining that those who lost their lives this morning, those that believed in Jesus Christ as their savior, are now getting to be with Him?  I can definitely see how to die is gain.

Yet to live is Christ, and so also a good thing.  Paul goes on to say in verse 22, "If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me."

It's kind of an interesting conundrum.  Feels a bit like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, but in a good way.  I take it to mean this: as wonderful as it will be living eternally with Christ, we've still got plenty we can do here on Earth for Him.  Life is precious, and not only for the things we might do or experiences we'll have, but also for the opportunity to introduce others to Jesus and the abundant life that He promises.

We don't know what's coming next, as much as we might like to think so.  How does that change the way you're living your life today? 

I loved how one young man said it on the news this morning - one of the survivors of the shooting.  "I wasn't worried about dying.  I was worried about where I was going afterwards."

The Bigger Picture

I try to be mindful of what and how I'm playing at all times.  Either looking at the design of encounters and trying to figure out why they were built in such a way, or digging into the lore of a world and trying to learn what captures me about the story.  Every now and then, though, something comes along that really makes me sit back and take notice more than usual.  It's kind of rare, but this happened a couple of times within the last few days, actually.

First up, the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC.  I was, to put it mildly, unhappy with the way that Mass Effect 3 ended.  I went so far as to write a rather lengthy letter to Bioware about why that was.  Bioware, being the awesome people that they are - and under pressure from several other like-minded individuals as well, decided to fix it.  The Extended Cut fixed everything else that I considered to be broken about the ending.  It didn't give me the "happy" ending that the press seemed to think would be suicide for the company.  In fact, it didn't change the endings at all.  It simply built upon them, clarified some of the questions and confusion.  By simply adding context and some supporting material, Bioware changed the ending from "I can't bear to play it again" to "I can't wait to play it again".

How often in our lives is it the details that change everything for us?  The surrounding facts?  If I told you I sat down and ate twenty cheeseburgers at once, you'd think me a gluttonous slob and shoot funny looks my direction.  If I told you I did it at Youth Group, with friends, at a hamburger eating contest which I won by a single burger, the story changes, doesn't it?

How much of the context, the richness of the story, is lost when we boil Christianity down to "Jesus died to save you from your sins.  He wants you to be good.  Do you accept Him?"  If that's the whole of the story, we could print up a tri-fold pamphlet, make it nice and pretty with pictures and caligraphy and call it done.  There's a reason the Bible is such a big book!  There's so much wisdom and detail, so much more to it than we often give credit for.  The story becomes something far more grand when we'll dig into it some more and get the supporting information that we need.

The other thing is related, but a little backstory is appropriate here.  There's a fire and fireworks ban that's been in place where I live for a while now, which means there were no fireworks on the fourth of July.  Blizzard does a fireworks display in World of Warcraft however, so I thought I'd log on and see what it was like.  Better computer generated fireworks than none at all, right?

I play WoW on a rather under-powered Mac Mini.  It gets the job done, but everything is on the lowest setting as far as graphics are concerned.  To really do the fireworks justice, I cranked things up a bit and everything changed.  Normally when I play, I have a very limited draw distance - how far I can see in the world.  By changing my video settings, suddenly the world of Azeroth was an actual world, not just this little sphere within my character's proximity.  The difference is like living your life looking through almost closed eyelids.  Sure you can see everything around you, but you don't really know what you're missing until you fully open your eyes.

In the same way that Mass Effect's Extended Cut gives context to the ending of the game, seeing the whole world in WoW gives new context to the game.  In both cases, it's the bigger picture that was missing.

I found myself praying a lot yesterday as I worked, and it occured to me that while the entirety of the Bible provides nearly all the context we need for Christianity, God's really the only one with the true big picture on our lives and faith.  How much time are we spending with Him, trying to see what He sees rather than living with "good enough"?

Believe The Best

I really want to talk about the new Tomb Raider game.  As pumped as I am to play Halo 4, Black Ops II, and many other games shown at the E3 trade show, nothing stands out in my mind quite like Crystal Dynamics' reboot of the franchise.

Now, I'm probably not what you would consider to be a long-term, hardcore fan of the Tomb Raider series.  I had seen the first couple games, but a combination of factors led to me never really caring about them.  I didn't get interested in the games until Crystal Dynamics took over with Tomb Raider: Legend.  I had watched the series crawl further and further into mediocrity with each passing title, but the promise of a fresh take - as well as the freedom Crystal D was given to make changes to the franchise - caught my attention.

After enjoying Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld, you would probably consider me a fan.  So I was pretty excited to discover that Crystal Dynamics was given the green light to do a full-on reboot of the series.  Given the (consistent) quality I've seen come out of there, I think it'll be really cool to see what they do with the franchise.

And then there's that trailer....

This thing has created more controversy than anything I've seen in games in a while.  Which is saying something when Warren Spector, prompted by the showings at E3, calls for an end to the ultraviolence on display.  Far Cry 3 certainly sold me on this idea.  And while the new Tomb Raider could be considered one of the ultraviolent games Spector was referring to, it caused a stir all its own.

Effectively, people are complaining that Crystal Dynamics is making rape a theme in the game.  It's all over the internet, go ahead and search and you can find multiple different takes on it.  Here's one I actually like.

I personally think the whole thing's being way overblown - and even detrimental to the "games are art!" concept.  But, I'm also a white guy in the target demographic for the game, so (depending on who you read) my opinion doesn't count.

Anyway, I wanted to look at this from a Christian perspective and see if there's anything we can learn, and what principles we might apply.

The scene in question is about two thirds of the way in.  It shows Lara, a captive of what appears to be rough, violent individuals, tied up and trying to escape.  One of these bad guys finds her, and drags her out of hiding.  Being a bad guy, he tries (for about two seconds) to take advantage of her and Lara takes him out.

I'll be honest, I didn't see it as anything more than Lara turning into the tough chick she's known to be until the internet cried "rape!"  Even now, all I see is a bad guy about to do a bad thing (which they are known for), and a strong girl kicking his butt despite being at a disadvantage in most every way. 

So, as near as I can tell, the problem is not the scene itself, but one of perspective.

The assumption out there seems to be that either A) Crystal Dynamics is trying to trivialize rape by including it in a video game, B) players somehow get to play out a rape fantasy, or C) the character of Lara is weakened by being assaulted, even if it's only attempted.

I disagree with each of these ideas.  The key to look at is not one of the options I provided, but the word "assume".  People are assuming the worst in each of these scenarios.  Philippians 4:8 encourages us to think about good things, not bad.  The story of Job shows us characters making wrong assumptions about the reasons behind Job's suffering and causing more harm than good.  And we've all heard the old saying, "what do you do when you assume" right?

What if we believed the best about things instead?  What if believed that Crystal Dynamics and the players they are entertaining had pure intentions instead of evil?   We might believe that, instead of trivializing rape, Crystal D is showing us how extreme things have to get for Lara to really fight back.  We might believe that players, instead of identifying with the bad guy, identify with Lara instead and are both terrified and outraged that someone might try something so evil.  We might believe that, instead of weakening the character of Lara, we're witness to that which causes her to become strong.

Assumption pre-supposes the truth about something or someone, without bothering to actually see if that's accurate or not.  We can chose to believe the worst, or the best.  Christ tells us in John 13:34 to love one another as He loved us.  1 Corinthians 13:7 is talking about love protecting, trusting, and hoping.  When we put these things together, I think it has to mean that we believe the best.


How do your assumptions influence your perspective?  How do you correct a wrong assumption?  What do you think of the trailer?

Dream

With E3 going on this week, developers and publishers have spent the largest chunk of their marketing budget outside of the actual launch of a game.  The Big Three, in hopes of keeping people talking about their console, spent quite a lot of time and money producing "press briefings" that showcase what they feel are the best hot-ticket items coming out this year.  They want to get you excited about what's coming - to think about it, talk about it, write about it.  They want you to dream about all the exciting things to come.

Did you know God wants you to dream as well?  It's easy to sometimes feel like Christianity is the religion of "no" because folks can get caught up in all of the things that the Bible tells us we're not supposed to do.  But God didn't come tell us "no", and then leave.  In Jeremiah 29:11 He tells us that He has a plan for us, and wants to give us a hope and a future.  In John 10:10 (NASB) Christ tells us that He's come to give us life.  And not just any old life, but abundant life!

If Microsoft showed Halo 4 to all the fans out there, then told them to be quiet about it, do you think they could?  Do you think people could keep from talking about it, thinking about it, and writing about it?  (We're assuming no NDA here.)  Microsoft wants Halo 4 to be on everyone's mind, they want us to dream about it.  And so they let us all know what's coming.  In the same way, God has told us His plan for us.  He wants us to think and dream about it even more than Microsoft wants us to think about Halo.

And it's a good dream.  Matthew 7:11 and Luke 12:27-28 are just two examples of many where God shows us how good He is.

God's got a plan for us.  It's a good one.  Go ahead and dream about it.