Just Imagine, John Lennon

In the world’s hagiology, it seems that untimely demise bestows a scent of secular sanctity, that those who die before their time are endowed with the status of saints. Take for example the untimely death of Princess Diana. Despite some remarkably unfortunate life choices (such as Dodi Fayed), she was instantly hailed as “the people’s princess” after her death in a Paris tunnel and paired with Mother Teresa (since they died within days of each other), some speaking of them walking hand in hand in heaven like two saints. Serious comparison of the lives and choices of both Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, of course, does nothing to lend support to the pairing, nor to the idea of Diana being the sort of saint that Mother Teresa was. But untimely death brings with it an emotional response that often overwhelms moral discernment.

          We see this in the case of John Lennon, who died at the age of 40 in 1980, gunned down as he and Yoko Ono were returning to their New York apartment. He died of his wounds and was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital on December 8 at 11.07 p.m. John Lennon was known for his advocacy of world peace, and became something of a poster boy for its cause. As Wikipedia relates, “Lennon and Ono used their honeymoon as what they termed a ‘Bed-In for Peace’ at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel. At a second Bed-In three months later at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal Lennon wrote and recorded ‘Give Peace a Chance’. Released as a single, it was quickly taken up as an anti-war anthem. In December, they paid for billboards in 10 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, ‘War Is Over! If You Want It’. ”

          It is hard to escape Lennon’s perennial message: every year at the Christmas season we are treated to his rendition of “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”on the radio airwaves. It always makes me think of his other perennial favourite, “Imagine”,which opens with the lyric: “Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us; above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today. Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace.” Lennon’s disdain for religion is here combined with his generation’s enthusiasm for peace, and the combination has found great resonance in the minds and hearts of many. Lennon’s untimely demise has served to place his life and views beyond the pale of cultural criticism. “Saint John” may not be easily contradicted.

           The question may be asked however: what did John Lennon actually know about the true causes of peace and war, and about why nations wage war on one another? More importantly, why are nations sometimes dissuaded from going to war? It is unlikely that anyone was ever dissuaded from their own war-like impulses because John and Yoko famously allowed themselves to be photographed in bed together, or by reading their billboards announcing “War Is Over! If You Want It”. It is also unlikely that abolishing religion and countries would do the trick, for people sharing the same country and possessing no discernible religion still engage in war against others. Of course when this occurs within the same country, it is called not “war”, but “crime”, but the interior war-like impulse is the same nonetheless. War exists in the human heart, and neither bed-ins nor slogans can eliminate it from there. Is there anything that can?

           If John Lennon had been able to truly imagine and think outside the politically correct box of his generation (or perhaps if he had read some Christian theology), he would’ve found that there is something which can remove war from the human heart and allow all the people to live in peace. It is mentioned by St. Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho. In this work St. Justin writes, “We who were filled with war and mutual slaughter and every wickedness have each throughout the whole earth changed our weapons of war—our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks—and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.” In other words, the religious impulse which Lennon disdained as the cause of war was actually the only thing capable of overcoming it. The secularized scenario that John Lennon bids us “imagine” has never produce the longed for peace, however much some people may have wanted it.

          It is, of course, a bit much to expect that Lennon would have been familiar with the writings of St. Justin Martyr, which is admittedly a bit out of his field. Closer to home for him however is the song “Snoopy’sChristmas”by the Royal Guardsmen, which they performed in 1967 as a follow up hit to their previous popular song “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”. In this Christmas song, the Red Baron is about to shoot down Snoopy in a World War I aerial dogfight when he hears the bells ringing from the churches below announcing Christmas Eve. Touched by this and its implications for peace on earth, the Red Baron decides not to shoot down his adversary, but instead forces him to land behind enemy lines. Though Snoopy expected that this was the end, he finds instead the Red Baron wishing him a merry Christmas and offering a holiday toast. The song ends with them both flying off in opposite directions, refusing to fight on Christmas Eve.

          The song is not entirely fanciful. It is based on the historical 1914 Christmas Eve truce. On that evening, German soldiers began to sing Christmas carols and were joined by the “enemy” soldiers singing a few hundred yards away across No Man’s Land. Soon they left their respective trenches and met in the middle, conversing, sharing drinks and cigarettes and personal tokens, and showing each other photos of loved ones left behind. Some even played a game of soccer together. The generals of both sides were emphatically not amused, and several soldiers were later court-marshalled for their part in the camaraderie. You can see why: it is difficult to persuade men to shoot others with whom moments before they were sharing a cigarette and swapping personal tokens. It is difficult to persuade soldiers in the trenches to make other soldiers’ wives into widows and their children fatherless when moments before they had seen pictures of those wives and children. Now, thanks to their common celebration of the birth of Christ, the other soldiers across No Man’s Land were not simply “the enemy” or dehumanized monsters, but simply men like themselves. War had broken out in 1914 when healthy patriotism degenerated into unhealthy and fevered nationalism. Peace broke out all along the front lines shortly afterward in 1914, when men remembered the origin of their Christian Faith and their common love for Christ. Devotion to peace as a political abstraction played no part in this. Devotion to the newborn Saviour did.

          Here is the only real hope for peace and for war being over. True and lasting peace can never come from politics, from bed-ins and slogans, from plans and policies, for man is not fundamentally a political animal, and politics cannot heal the human heart. Man is a spiritual animal, and healing for the human heart can only come from spiritual causes. Only Christ can heal the human heart, and the birth of Christ announces the only hope for all the people living together in peace. St. Justin Martyr knew that. Even the Royal Guardsmen and Snoopy and the Red Baron knew that. John Lennon did not know that. Just imagine if he did.

The Mystical Theology of the Western Hat

It used to be the norm in western culture for men to wear hats, and there was a common and recognized etiquette regarding the wearing of the western hat.  One did not wear it, for example, when in someone’s home, or in a house of worship.  One would remove one’s hat when the dead were carried out in one’s presence.  One would also remove one’s hat in the presence of one’s sovereign (or, in America, when the National Anthem was being played)—and significantly, when greeting a woman (see inset picture). 

            Common to all these occasions of hat removal (called “doffing one’s hat” for the historically-minded) was the desire to show honour to someone or something.  (It was often coupled with the equally-ritualized act of standing up if seated.  Thus, if a group of men were sitting down together at a table and their King happened to approach, they would all rise as a sign of respect.)  It was part and parcel of a universally-recognized way of being civilized, and refusal to doff one’s hat would have been taken as a deliberate act of defiant disrespect and insult.

            It almost goes without saying that such ways have vanished almost without a trace.  When I remove my hat now in the presence of a woman (or rise to my feet when she enters the room) I am often regarded with either studied incomprehension or perhaps befuddled amusement, as if I had said something anachronistically medieval like, “forsooth” or “gadzooks”.  A generation or two of feminism has all but swept away such special treatment.  If I hold the door open for a woman (another anachronistic act of masculine honour), the woman is often surprised.  And sometimes, not pleased.  “Thanks, but I can get my own door”, say the spiritual children of Betty Friedan. 

I’m sure they can.  But the door was not held for them because I thought them weak.  On the contrary the door was held open (and the hat removed and the relaxed seated posture abandoned) because I recognized in them something strong.  That is, like all persons whose roots are sunk into what is left of Christendom, I recognize that a woman is worthy of honour simply because she is a woman.  God has shared with womankind a secret He has not shared with the men—namely, the ability (all things being equal) to bear life and to function in the world as His co-creator, with all that this entails.  Through childbirth, a woman becomes the unique instrument of God as He continues to create the world.  That is one reason (among others) why men should honour them.  Certain tasks are the specific tasks of men in society, and certain other tasks pertain especially to women.  On this binary, the world has been built, and on it the world continues to spin.  One can express this by saying, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, or one can say, “In the beginning God created male and female”.  But however it may be expressed, this non-interchangeable binary is the basis for everything that is precious, healthy, and strong in our society.  (Our current re-defining of gender and preoccupation with “transgender rights” threaten to undo this.)

Two groups of people recognize this binary ordering of the world instinctively:  children and classical love poets.  Children know that mommy and daddy are not interchangeable.  When there is burglar in the house or aliens on the roof or spiders under the bed, it is daddy who gets the call.  When there is a hurt to be kissed or a wound to be bandaged, that is a job for mommy.  This was brought home vividly to one dad, who watched his little boy fall off his bike, skin his knee, and go running past him into the house to find mommy.  He thought with some hurt perplexity, “Why did my child not run to me?”  He need not have been so perplexed:  the child loved his dad, but knew that mommy was the one to find for that specific task, not daddy.

The other group that understands this dynamic are the love poets.  Most men understand this spiritual binary, at least when they are in love.  Whether or not they manifest their love in poetry, they all know that when a man proposes to a woman, he is the one who goes down on one knee.  Having her go down on one knee and kneel before him would not only violate historical custom, but something more basic.  He is honoured by recognizing in her something worthy of veneration.  That is why he kneels to her—and doffs his hat, and rises to his feet, and holds her door.  Nowadays such behaviours are sometimes considered gallant, or perhaps quixotic.  They used to be considered as simply civilized.

None of this masculine behaviour, of course, is logical.  It is something deeper than merely logical.  It is mystical.  Mysticism (as I here use the term) taps into the deepest roots of what it means to be human; it expresses the inner tao of the way we were made.  Some deny that there is anything mystical about gender and say that recognizing validity in any specific gender roles is hogwash or worse.  In this view gender has no transcendent significance; but simply describes anatomical or biological differences.

It seems therefore that a great abyss has opened and now separates those who regard womanhood as something special, precious, and worthy of honour from those who regard it as simply one of two anatomical options.  But there are losses involved when a culture embraces the second view as thoroughly as ours has.  In a previous generation, everyone acknowledged that in event of catastrophe, one must save the “women and children” first.  Now it is every man (or woman) for himself.  The world has grown more dangerous for women, and darker for everyone.  When a culture denies its mystical roots, everyone is the loser, regardless of their gender.

A Merry Hipster Christmas!

If you haven’t yet purchased a Hipster Nativity Set, you might be too late—despite their $129.99 price tag, they are flying off the shelves, even at a limit of three to a customer.  The set includes the traditional figures, but all in a distinctly hipster form.  Joseph has a man-bun and is taking a selfie.  Mary is holding a Starbucks latte in one hand, making a peace sign with the other, and is making a duck-face.  (The selfie, when she sees it, will reveal that her sweater has slipped off one shoulder, revealing the top of her bra.)  The Magi are arriving on Segways with Amazon gift boxes under their arms.  The shepherd is working his iPad.  Even the cow and sheep (edged out of the tiny manger-stall) are doing their bit:  the sheep is wearing a hand-knitted sweater and the cow, eating gluten-free feed, bears a “100% organic” seal.  The figures are, appropriately, plastic (sorry:  make that “handpainted polyresin”).  A merry Hipster Christmas to you!

            Given all this provokes the question, “What exactly is a hipster anyway?”  Help from the oracles at Google reveal that “Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20’s and 30’s that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter…‘hipsterism’ is really a state of mind, also often intertwined with distinct fashion sensibilities.”  Note please the last bit:  “fashion sensibilities”.  That about says it all.  I would suggest that hipsterism is all about self-absorption and a desperate desire to appear cooler-than-thou.  Like all fashions, it is fleeting and quickly dated.  History textbooks will one day refer to them, if at all, in the same footnote as the Hippies.  But while they last, they provide a large and easy target for satire—which is of course the whole point of the Hipster Nativity Set.  Nervous Christians should not imagine that the Hipster Nativity Set is targeting them or their faith.  The real targets are the hipsters and hipster Christians.  If it has any theological point to make (which is doubtful) it is that hipsterism does not easily combine with Christianity and that a Hipster Christian might even be a contradiction in terms.

            Does the Hipster Nativity Set offer any lessons to the Orthodox and to Christians of a more traditional mindset?  I think there is one lesson to be learned from this odd faddish gift before it passes into history—namely that holy things should not a co-opted for purposes of satire.  I appreciate the desire to satirize the hipsters, and to generally let the air out of anything too over-inflated with a sense of pretentious self-importance.  But Christian symbols should not be dragooned for this task, for the symbol is more significant and holier than the task it is called to perform.  Using a Nativity Set to satirize a social movement would be like using a Bible as a door-stop, a priestly vestment as an oil-rag, or an icon as a drink coaster.  Door-stops, oil-rags and drink coasters are perfectly wonderful and necessary, but holy things should be spared such tasks and not put to uses which violate their holiness.  The seasonal Nativity Set, though perhaps humbler and less holy than the pages of Scripture and the colours of an icon, are still nonetheless symbols of the Faith.  To an outsider at least, a Nativity Set represents the Christian Christmas; it is a kind of three-dimensional icon.  As such, it possesses its own kind of holiness, and ought not to do service for something as ephemeral as social satire.

            For that is the problem with the Hipster Nativity Set—what is satirized is ephemeral and passing, (as is therefore the purpose of the satire), while Christian symbols refer to things transcendent and everlasting.  Those symbols cannot be used for lesser purposes without diminishing them and offending their sanctity.  Piety will instinctively recoil from the Hipster Nativity Set, just as it will from the use of icons in political memes, and for the same reason— something holy is being high-jacked in the service of something secular.  It is perfectly acceptable to satirize the hipsters, or to poke fun at politicians, or at any group badly needing a healthy dose of reality.  But Christian symbols should be above such uses.  They refer and transport us to another realm altogether, a place beyond passing fashions and passing politics.   They speak to us of a timeless Kingdom, and take us into a land where things requiring satirization cannot enter.  A Nativity Set brings us from our world to Bethlehem, and from there gives us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.  And with that vision to nurture and inspire us, who needs satire?

Holy Hatred

          Lately I came across an interesting bit of theologizing.  The author (who shall remain nameless) spoke of his love for Psalm 139 (“one of my absolute favorite psalms”).  In it he said that “right smack dab in the middle of this Psalm, King David calls for God to slay his enemies and declares that he has nothing but hatred for them”.   He refers, of course, to verse 21:  “Do not I hate them that who hate You, O Lord?  And do I not loathe them that rise up against You?  I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies”.  The author contrasts this attitude with Christ’s words about loving one’s enemies, and characterizes the voice of David in this verse as “the sinful voice of a human”.  Though he says we ought not to “throw the Old Testament out, nor read it flatly without any discernment”, and though he asserts that though “Psalm 139 is full of inspiration”, he still says, “David’s own paradigm comes through.  It’s all [David] knows in his time.  He can’t yet apply the awareness of his divine belovedness [sic] to his enemies”.  The upshot is that we must “pick and choose in the Bible.  Always pick and choose Jesus”.  That is, for him some bits in the Scriptures are devoid of inspiration or authority, and ought to be jettisoned since they are merely the voices of sinful humans, men incapable of rising to a divine standard.  If something in the Old Testament mirrors the Gospel counsel in the New Testament, it may be allowed to stand.  If not, out it goes.  It is not the sinful Old Testament author’s fault however; “it’s all he knows in his time”.  It is an extraordinary bit of exegesis, worthy of the heretic Marcion himself—or perhaps of the Biblical sceptics that made German theological liberalism so famous in the last century.

            It is difficult to deal with the author’s exegesis in any depth, since his thought is not clear.  Since he may or may not be capitalizing pronouns referring to God (e.g. “David calls for God to slay his enemies”), it is hard to be sure of his meaning:  does he assert that smack dab in the middle of the Psalm King David calls for God to slay David’s enemies, or God’s enemies?  The immediate contrast with Christ’s counsel to love one’s own personal enemies would suggest the former, in which case his exegesis is simply wrong.  King David declares his hatred not for his own foes, but for God’s foes—that is the point of saying that he regards them as if they were his own enemies.  If he was talking about his own personal enemies, the verse would make no sense—of course one regards one’s own foes as foes.  The point was David’s zeal for God, which impelled him to make God’s cause his own.  Though those men were not David’s personal enemies, he regarded them as if they were in his zeal for God.

            This bit of confused theologizing is significant because many people fall into the same trap of regarding bits of the Old Testament as unworthy, unspiritual, immoral, and (frankly) as rather embarrassing.   No less a thinker than C.S. Lewis looked at the cursings in the Psalter as something unfortunate, embarrassing, and to be explained away (in his otherwise wonderful book Reflections on the Psalms).  But a view of Old Testament Scripture which declares that “Whoever relaxes one of the least these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of heaven”, and that “it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void” (Matthew 5:19, Luke 16:17) will not so easily jettison chunks of those Scriptures.   Neither ancient Marcionism nor modern Biblical liberalism are live options for the Orthodox.

            And make no mistake:  the offending bits are indeed large chunks.  Our unnamed author spoke of his favourite Psalm 139, but similar citations could easily be multiplied.  Many other parts of the Psalter extol holy hatred of unrighteousness and disgust at those who promote it.  Take for example Psalm 119, so valued by the Orthodox that it is constantly used in Matins.  Look at verse 53:  “Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who forsake Your Law”.  Or look at verse 113:  “I hate double-minded men, but I love Your Law”.    Or verse 136:  “My eyes shed streams of tears because men do not keep Your Law”.    Or verse 139:  “My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget Your words”.  Or verse 158:  “I look at the faithless with disgust because they do not keep Your commands”.  Such an abundance of antipathy in a psalm which has won such a place in the liturgical tradition of the Church cannot be so easily dismissed by simply suggesting that “it’s all the Psalmist knows in his time” as if the Holy Spirit found the task of inspiring a sinful Psalmist too daunting.  We cannot jettison it as unworthy.  The solution to our perceived dilemma must lie elsewhere.

            One thing the unnamed author never did was to inquire what the word “hate” meant in the offending verse.  He apparently assumed that it meant “to plan to hurt, to retaliate, to strive to inflict pain and misery, to slay”.  Christ indeed forbids such a lust for revenge and for gleeful infliction of pain upon one’s personal foes.  We must not try to hurt our personal foes—bashing them over the head or keying their car—but simply pray for them and commend them to God.  But there is no evidence that the Psalmist in Psalms 139 or 119 was talking about that kind vengeful action.   

We may begin by asking what the word “hate” actually means in its Biblical context.  Briefly, it means to categorically and emphatically reject.  Thus Christ tells us to “hate” our father and mother and wife and children and even our own life if we would truly be His disciples (Luke 14:26).  Obviously He does not mean one should entertain personal loathing for our family or try to hurt them.  He means that if it comes down to a choice between family and Christ, we must categorically and emphatically reject all the members of our family and their appeals to family loyalty, and choose Christ instead.  To hate=to reject.  That is also the meaning of God’s declaration in Malachi 1:2-3 (quoted in Romans 9:13):  “I loved Jacob but I have hated Esau”.  God did not loathe Esau personally.  He “hated” him in that He rejected him as bearer of Abraham’s covenant, and confirmed that covenant to his brother Jacob instead.

Understanding this allows us to return to the Psalter with fresh eyes.  David (and the author of Psalm 119) were not declaring that they personally loathed wicked and evil men and wanted to hurt them so much as they decisively rejected their evil ways.  David was declaring his decision to shun their wicked ways however attractive they might have been and to choose righteousness instead.  That is why immediately after saying that he hated God’s foes with perfect hatred, he went on to say, “Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts and see if they be any wicked way in me and lead me in the everlasting way”.  He hated wickedness when he found it in wicked men, and also when he found it in himself, which is why he asked for God’s help to root it out from his heart. 

The odd exegesis with which this blog began provides a cautionary tale.  We do not have the liberty to “pick and choose in the Bible”.  It is all God’s Word and must be accepted as “inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).  If something seems to be unfortunate and embarrassing that is almost certainly a sign that we are missing something and not understanding what it is really saying.  The Psalter contains many examples of holy hatred (as do the letters of St. Paul—see for example 2 Corinthians 11:13f, Galatians 5:12, Philippians 3:2, 18f).  Let us imitate this holy hatred and reject decisively the wickedness that abounds in our world.  Such a wicked way may also lurk in our own thoughts and hearts.  Let us pray that God may search us and root it out.