Remembering Ellie

This week my husband and I remember the birth, life and passing of our first child and daughter, Ellie.

It’s strange to think that it’s been a year. Recently my husband reminded me of something that Mark Thompson, the principal of our theological college wrote to us at the time: “Take hold of the God you know and who has hold of you both.”

I know that God is good, wise and faithful. And it has been humblingly comforting to watch him shower us with his love and kindness, through his people, in the months and year since Ellie left us. I am grateful. 

But despite this, I know that God is good, wise and faithful because of his son, Jesus. His love is shown in action in history – through Jesus’s life, and ultimately at the cross. And this is a statement of love that is definitive: it is how I know God loves me. His goodness towards me, his wisdom and his faithfulness are all shown there. 

I know from my own life how he has been faithful – holding on to me through various ups and downs. We may say ‘God is good’ when we feel his material and circumstantial blessings, and it is true that all things – including the beautiful goods we enjoy – come from him. But if we limit our understanding of God’s goodness to just the material goods we enjoy, then we will be unprepared to perceive his persisting goodness when times of testing and calamity strike. And I know that in his wisdom, our God sends times of hardship to discipline and refine his people – because he is a father who loves us.

And Ellie has been a blessing. 

Because of Ellie, I understood grief first hand, and how to better support others in such times.

Because of Ellie, my husband and I could connect with other couples who had suffered various griefs of their own – especially the lack of children. 

Because of Ellie, we were made vulnerable, and were blessed by our brothers and sisters in Christ who then had the opportunity to practically care for us – and through whom, we were reminded of God’s love.

And there is so much more.

So I am thankful for the gift of our daughter Ellie. 

And this year, the first anniversary, we have started to form our own family traditions to remember her with. Everyone grieves in different ways, but there is something joyful to having a fry up in honour of a loved one, and I look forward to future children enjoying this and remembering her through it too.

Media consumption: Practical tips for moderation.

Last week we considered our attitude to media. You cannot take the right actions without first having the right attitude. Laws and rules don’t help without a renewed heart and mind. So implement change in your mind before you implement change with your hands. One follows the other but what you do follows very closely on what you think. First, have the right attitude toward media and the garden of the mind.

But what about some practical tips for media consumption. Well let me share with you what I do to help me manage what I watch and therefore manage what I think about.

Firstly, I limit the time I spend watching video streaming services, and of the given video streaming services I only have Netflix. That’s to say, there is only a limited amount of media I can watch because I only subscribe to one service and what it offers. I don’t want to endlessly watch shows. I want to read and write, and spend time in community. I want to game, and exercise and do a range of other things. So I limit myself to one service and its limited content. And even then, I don’t use it a lot. I basically never use it alone, but always watch shows with friends and mostly with my wife. In one sense this is because I don’t want to eat my whole birthday cake on my birthday. I want to enjoy the cake for the next week or two. I want to pace myself and get the most out of it. So I only have Netflix and even then I manage the time I spend watching it.

Secondly, and most importantly, I pre-emptively screen every TV show/movie that I watch on IMDb’s parents’ guide. I have a list of shows and movies and they only make the list if I’ve screened them beforehand for any sexual contact (particularly). I’ve been practising this meticulous process for some time now and it’s basically become second nature to me. I don’t at all trust the tags or content ratings provided by the shows themselves. They are too general. Nudity might be forensic nudity and not sexualised nudity. Sexual references might not be sex scenes, but they can be so vivid and perverse regardless, very little is left to the imagination. Some shows say they only contain strong violence. But as I look at the IMDb parents’ guide, so much sexual content passes through the radar seemingly undetected. The IMDb parents’ guide also has different levels; mild, moderate, severe. If anything makes it into the severe category, it is immediately out. I’m not going to watch it. Even if it’s just one scene in one episode, the whole series doesn’t make the cut. If it says it’s moderate, it’s not going to make the cut. These scenes are often, “implied sex.” Contributors might say, “you can only hear them but you can’t see them”, “it’s happening in the background but it’s out of focus”, “they start undressing each other but the scene only lasts for a minute until it cuts away”. It doesn’t make the cut. The director knows exactly where your mind is going and what its thinking. If the IMDb parents’ guide says the content is “mild”, then I have to read it carefully. Because these are just ordinary people who are filling out the parents’ guide. They have very interesting ideas and very different standards at times to myself. What is “mild”? I like to watch a lot of anime, so “mild” might be, “every female character has large breasts and tight clothing”, “some characters grab females breasts, but it’s only for comical effect”, “a shot of a fully nude lady from behind, but you don’t see any breasts.” This sort of stuff is not going to make the cut, but it is still considered “mild” by many. So I would be reading it carefully. Other times I can put up with “mild” content such as, “two people kissing”, “two people kissing passionately”, “crude sexual humour”, “scene with a naked woman’s silhouette in the shower, although nothing explicit is seen”. I have to make a wisdom call on these things. And I have to consider the genre of the show or movie. Action movies tend to be more liberal with their sexual content, leaning towards the side of eye candy. Crime shows tend toward a tense atmosphere, so sexual content may not necessarily be sexualised content. These are the kinds of considerations that I want to be making before I watch any show or movie.

Finally, I am experimenting with Netflix and limiting the content it shows me to Australian ratings M+ and below. I am not sure how long this will last, as some MA+ content is rated as it is due to action violence more than anything else. Nevertheless, I am curious to see how this goes and it’s actually quite an effective way of limiting content of a sexual nature. But it’s still crazy to see what kind of sexualised material is only considered M+. (As a side comment, I’m particularly talking about sexual content obviously. You might apply what I am doing to violent content, or supernatural content etc. Generally speaking however, I think action is more permissible than sexual content. But that’s a whole other discussion.)

Perhaps that seems rather dramatic to you. But I, “Do [not want to] conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [my] mind.” (Romans 12:2). I’ve set high standards for myself because God has set high standards for me. And I’m better for it; a clean and clear conscience, peace of mind, better relationships with people, and most pertinent to the topic, greater enjoyment of what I watch. Isn’t that the whole point? Only watch the best stuff. If you only watch the best stuff (the cleanest stuff, the most well thought out stuff, the most story rich, ingenious writing), then get this, you will be watching the best, more well thought out, story rich, ingenious shows and movies. Isn’t that what we want? The answer is not always an obvious “yes” given what people watch these days. Consumer culture churns out algorithmic violence and sex. And then consumers wonder why the fast-food gives them colon cancer, diabetes, constipation, and a range of other undesirable conditions. But for the person who moderates what they watch, eating only the best food for thought, will you not reap the benefits? Moderating your own content with particularity will pay dividends.

However, it does come with some drawbacks. Besides the obvious amount of work you have to put into considering what you will watch, there is the fact that you will miss out on some critically acclaimed and renowned shows and movies. There will be conversations that you are not able to engage with because you are ignorant – and that, intentionally so. In fact, I was looking for some crime-dramas/detective stories recently, and heaps of the highly ranked and recommended shows contained explicit nudity and sex. I’ll be missing out on some of the best crime fiction/detective shows there are. And if you adopt higher standards, then you will too. At first this will be annoying, and it will continue to be annoying (although less as time goes by). But consider it a badge of honour. You have a higher calling, you have high standards. Don’t put up with trash, throw it out. Better still, don’t bring it into the house in the first place.

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:5–6)

Related posts

A Summary – Competing Spectacles by T. Reinke – Part 1: The Age of The Spectacle
A Summary – Competing Spectacles by T. Reinke – Part 2: The Spectacle

Media consumption: Thoughts about our attitude to media.

Tell me if this is a familiar situation for you. You were watching a movie or a TV show which apparently everyone else has watched, thus necessitating your viewing of it for fear of contracting the dreaded FOMO disease. However, at the end of one or another episode or in a scene in said movie you see something you can’t un-see, or hear something you can’t un-hear. Perhaps it was a sex scene, a scene with nudity. Or a scene of particular violence and gore. Even “mature themes” in a show can take you into territory you wish you never trod, leaving you questioning “what kind of ‘mature’ person should think on these things?” Once these scenes find a place in the hippocampus it’s not leaving campus. It has moved in. It is messy and stinks. The smell of its unpleasant abode soon wafts throughout the mind. Vivid recollections come back to haunt and you can’t get rid of them. I have no doubt that you can recollect some of these scenes. Even as I asked the question, they come back to haunt you.

What do you do? You can’t remove those disturbing recollections from memory, a task that’s basically not possible. But there is a degree of peace found in prevention. It’s a battle for the mind in this media saturated world. We don’t enter neutral territory when we enter the kingdom of Netflix. So come prepared.

First, be prepared with the right attitude.

I want to keep my mind free and clean (as the word of God and my informed conscious dictates). The matters on which we set our minds on matters. It’s not as if life is consisted merely in what we do with our hands and feet, or what we say. It’s also very much a matter of what we watch and therefore at a very basic level what we think on. Think on that. How much are we thinking? Lots. We think about all sorts of things. But what dictates my thoughts? Again, lots. I feed my mind lots of food for thought. A portion comes from my Netflix subscription. Other portions from Gods word, or friends, podcasts, video games, books and time alone on a walk. I must be aware of this. The more I play a video game, the more I think about that video game. Is that what I want? Well I must ask myself. How much do I want to be preoccupied with that game? It seems so obvious to state, but you think about the things you watch. Yes it is obvious, but we are not always conscious or aware of this fact. Much like breathing. Rarely do we think about breathing, until a diesel train goes by, or until the dog farts. Once triggered I’m very aware of my breathing. I’m actively supressing it. But it’s not so obvious when you work on a diesel train, or work in a dog pound. So it is that modern graphic content is all too “normal”. What we might even say to ourselves is, “it’s just one scene, I’ll put up with it.” Let me ask, what are you willing to “put up with”? It’s a trick question. If you have to ‘put up with it’, doesn’t that already say something?  An attitude shift is needed. Inform your conscience, inform your mind with the word of God. Let it dictate your standards and apply those standards with wisdom. Consider this important passage from Romans 8.

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5–8)

You cannot take the right actions without first having the right attitude. Laws and rules don’t help without a renewed heart and mind. So implement change in your mind before you implement change with your hands. One follows the other, and what you do follows very closely on what you think. But first, have the right attitude toward media and the garden of the mind.

Next week we will consider some practical tips for managing media consumption and moderation.

Related posts:

A Summary – Competing Spectacles by T. Reinke – Part 1: The Age of The Spectacle
A Summary – Competing Spectacles by T. Reinke – Part 2: The Spectacle

Sleep and Holiness

Changes in life don’t always occur by addressing something directly. Change can happen by addressing auxiliary or associated areas. So your house is freezing cold, turn the heater on. The heater isn’t fixing the problem! How is this possible? We must first close the windows and doors!

Sleep is much like closing the front door and making sure the windows don’t let a draught in. Perhaps your life is a little frosty. You always seem to be sick. Energies on the lower end (not that you remember what the higher end looks like). You can’t remember what memory even is (something to do with making a computer work?). To address all these problems you are taking lots of vitamin C, drinking lots of coffee, and making sure you have a good catalogue system so you never forget things. This is like turning the heater on and leaving the doors open to the dark, cold world outside. That is, if you’re not getting enough sleep.

Now, we think that those matters above are rather important (health, energy, mood etc). Certainly they are important. But what if you put holiness in that category too? What if we were exerting ourselves to be holy people, godly and righteous people, as our Lord has called us to be, yet for some reason we keep stumbling into foul moods, we keep doubting God’s goodness in our sufferings, and we have no energy to go about his mission? We can’t just call it a matter of “personality,” saying to ourselves, “God must have just made me this way and there’s nothing I can do about it.” It might not simply be a “thorn in the flesh” inflicted upon you by God. What if it was a thorn in your mind inflicted upon you, by you? Specifically, your lack of sleep. Perhaps it is the case that your holiness is hindered by your sleeplessness. That’s cause for alertness.

Here is Geoff Robson quoting Don Carson, “…If you are among those who become nasty, cynical, or even full of doubt when you are missing your sleep, you are morally obligated to try to get the sleep you need. We are whole, complicated beings: our physical existence is tied to our spiritual well-being, to our mental outlook, to our relationships with others, including our relationship with God. Sometimes the godliest thing you can do in the universe is get a good night’s sleep – not pray all night, but sleep. I’m certainly not denying that there may be a place for praying all night; I’m merely insisting that in the normal course of things, spiritual discipline obligates you to get the sleep your body needs.” (p.74)

What a challenge! The moral obligation to sleep is tied to our embodied nature. Let this shape our perspective on sleep. It might be that we think sleep is a luxury in a busy world. This is task oriented thinking and erroneous. To live in the world is not just a matter of doing, but of being. The amount of work you do or the amount of experiences you accumulate will pale in comparison to the kind of person you are. You are to be a holy person. And if you struggle to be a holy person because of your lack of sleep, then this area of your life needs addressing. If your sleeplessness causes you to sin then ‘cut off’ your sleeplessness.

Robson questions us, saying, “Are doubts more likely to creep in when you’re overworking? Then get more sleep. Do you get angrier and more irritable when you’ve had too many late nights? Then get more sleep. Do you find it harder to be patient with others when you’re tired? Then get more sleep. Does life just seem harder and more overwhelming when you’ve been burning the candle at both ends? Then get more sleep.” (p.76)

Chances are that if you’re convicted by these challenges, you already know that you need more sleep. It’s not that you need better education about sleep (although that never hurts). Simply having more information isn’t going to change your life nor your sleeping patterns. It’s more likely a matter of wisdom and willpower to act accordingly. Sleeplessness might not merely be a thing to see your doctor about. Perhaps it’s something that you need Christian accountability for, and Christian support in. Because it’s not merely a matter of bodily health. In a very serious way, it could be a matter of holiness.

Perhaps it’s fitting to end with a prayer from the Valley of Vision titled, ‘Sleep’.

Blessed Creator,

Thou hast promised thy beloved sleep; Give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil; If dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil. Let thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of his holy presence.

May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grave, the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing. Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to thy presence. Weaken my attachment to earthly things. May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender; As pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I not shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth. I retire this night in full assurance of one day awaking with thee. All glory for this precious hope, for the gospel of grace, for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity. Withhold not thy mercies in the night season; thy hand never wearies, thy power needs no repose, thine eye never sleeps.

Help me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties.

Show thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; thou hast a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, a peace for all disquietude. Permit me to commit myself to thee awake or asleep.

Robson, Geoff. Thank God for Bedtime: What God Says about Our Sleep and Why It Matters More than You Think, 2019.

Bennett, Arthur. The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2002. p.298-299

Sleep – Creatureliness and Dependence

A little slumber, a little folding of the hands. Yes, hello darkness my old friend. Sleep is a friend. For some it is a friend who visits regularly. For others, not as regularly as we’d like, and for others, we kick them out of the house too early to our own peril.

In much the same way that we need friends, we need sleep. Except sleep is more immediately necessary. You will die sooner for lack of sleep than for lack of friends. But just getting the “bear essential” to function is also not good enough. Much the same as seeing our friends only the minimum required amount will not benefit the relationship. No, it will strain it. So it is that we need sleep, and we need good sleep.

What a thought – that we are intentionally made to sleep. God has made us this way. He made us so that we would be incapacitated for 7 ½ to 8 hours a day (yes that’s the standard for 98% of people, and no, you’re probably not one of the 2%. In fact there is only a 2% chance that you are!)

Why has God made us this way? We cannot answer that entirely. But we can say it highlights a significant difference between us and our Creator. As Geoff Robson points out, “There are many [differences between us and God], of course: the Lord God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, perfectly holy, and perfectly loving, to name just a few of his attributes. But how about this one: God never sleeps.” (p.15) So it is that our creatureliness is displayed in the very fact that we repeatedly must sleep yet God our Creator never sleeps. Now take a moment to consider how every night we are being reminded by the very nature of our necessitated rest that God never sleeps. Rather, He is tireless. No doubt, this rarely (if ever) crosses our minds as we place our brain capsules to the pillow and enter into the palatial darkness.

Because God’s sleeplessness is never much pondered by us, we can take this for granted. God has often used the most mundane aspects of our lives to speak into our lives. In much the same way that God uses food, friendships, work, or leisure to teach us, God uses sleep to teach us.

God uses our daily need for sleep, to teach us about himself. He needs no sleep because He never tires and His power never wanes. Which is good news for us. Robson puts it this way, “God never disregards his people – not for a second – and our ways are never hidden from him. Why? Because he simply never gets tired. He never sleeps. We may say we agree with this and understand this, but do we? When every task we set ourselves, every fibre of our being, is in some way tainted by our propensity to get worn out, how can we understand someone who literally never gets weary?” (p.18) Our earthly existence is woven with weariness. In the same way that we cannot fully grasp God’s sovereignty due to our limited sovereignty, we cannot fully grasp at his tirelessness due to our tiresome frame. But what we can know is that God is not like us. God uses this contrast, between him as creator and us as creation, to further show us what he is like. This ought to lead us into greater praise of him, and a greater trust in him and his power.

God also uses the difference between ourselves as creation and himself as creator to teach us about dependence. I think this is one of the greatest things about sleep, one of the best lessons it holds for us. We are dependent. In our lack of power to affect that which we want to with efficiency, we must be reminded that God is at work and he always accomplishes that which he purposes without ever diminishing his efficiency or effectiveness. This never changes for God. But how different the story is for us. I plan to do 10 things on my to-do list. I end up doing one. And it’s generally a patchy job. How will I ever get the other nine tasks done? Work myself down to the bone? Here’s what Robson says, “Most of us know the difference, right? We know the difference between an occasional late night or early morning because something important is on our plate or something urgent came up, and ignoring God’s sovereign care and thinking the world (or our little corner of it) depends mostly on us. It’s living the difference that’s hard. Because God’s work is decisive and ours is not, it is folly and vanity for us to stay awake longer than we should. All the extra effort in the world isn’t going to push our project over the line of success unless God blesses our efforts and enables our work to succeed (whatever ‘succeed’ might mean in each situation). But it’s hard to accept our limitations and leave things in God’s hands. Yet as hard as it is – and I may really be stretching the friendship to say it this way – staying up late may be worse than folly: it may be sinful. It may be a sinful attempt to wrest back the control that should gladly be relinquished into God’s hands, a sinful denial of our God-given human limitations, and a sinful failure to trust God.” (p.35) Robson’s words ought to be an insightful challenge to us. People aren’t going to be able to look from the outside and tell you the thoughts and intentions of your heart. And we ourselves can find it difficult to unravel our own motivations. But take Robson’s thoughts as an opportunity to pray through the attitudes you have regarding work (whatever that might be). Do you approach life knowing your own limitations, and resting in God to bless your efforts? Or not? Does the world rest on your shoulders?

Consider Psalm 127:1-2, “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves.” (Psalm 127:1–2 NIV)

Robson, Geoff. Thank God for Bedtime: What God Says about Our Sleep and Why It Matters More than You Think, 2019.

The Battle of the Dandified

There was a mood about the air – lingering, subtle. All because the two chaps who’d taken their order of coffees – a long black cold pressed single origin bean from local rooftop pot grown shrubs, the other, a drip filtered expresso with “your best biodiversity fair trade organic beans available (but not the same beans as that guy’s coffee)” – were in this war for attention. The rules were tedious. It was the rule of the inner city dandy, it was the war of the dandified. To look like something yet not to draw the eye too much. Just enough to capture attention for a time and then let the eyes continue on their way. But what complexity when two engage for the same limited resource in the same limited space – an artistically shabby coffee hut on the precipice of a cave-in yet on the edge of modernity’s aesthetic all at once.

The battle was fierce yet nobody could say as much, though all knew as much. The surrounding patrons were intimately involved. Theirs was the battle field. Theirs the attention – the targets, yet not the opponents.

The ornamental soldiers wielded their weapons – one, perfectly styled bed hair, the mixture of belligerence with the pillow and sword-art from the comb. A month-long cultivated ‘week-long’ beard at 3mm growth with even distribution from cheek to mid neck. Australian floral patterned unbuttoned button-up shirt with a shabby singlet which overrides the jeans. Precision torn denim leg bags and cork sandals. Accessorised with a swarthy leather satchel to holster the moleskin and fountain pen. The other – an overall aura of the supercilious poodle with his tight curling locks that spoke volumes as it encompassed the globe of the scalp. To magnify the facial activity was one pair of neutrally powered Perspex glasses functioning only as a symbol of stolid intellectualism. Below a clean shaven chin wrapped a neck bandana which accentuated the poodle-esc aura with its typical canine red colouring. The bandana contrasted in style to the dull matte green suit jacket worn as an abnegation of conventional office-chair chairmen. This sentiment was furthered by a plain black t-shirt holstered in jean shorts rolled slightly above the knees. After a decent journey down the mild foliage of leg hair were a pair of black boots, the mixture of the polished corporate and scuffed hipster with yellow stitching and white lacing.

As they sat at the table speaking to each other in mildly excited tones accompanied by slightly exaggerated laughs and gestures, they elicited the occasional yet consistent glances of new patrons and old. The occasion, a casual catch up over fine individuated coffee. The situation, a deeply subtle battle for the approving eye.

A Summary – Competing Spectacles by T. Reinke – Part 2: The Spectacle

In the last post we ended with the question, “What are we going to give our attention to?” There is an endless array of spectacles to gaze at. This, of course, is a big part of the problem in contemporary society. Social media, video games, media, ads, all mining for the precious resource of your attention in this attention economy. Amongst the menagerie of these attention seeking creatures shines the altogether glorious gospel of Jesus. In part two of his book, Reinke wants to encourage the Christian to gaze at the glory of Jesus, fixing our attention on him when there are forces pulling us toward other objects.

First Reinke notes that we don’t live in a world with mutually exclusive spectacles, where either we can look at one thing or look at another thing. Rather in our wisdom we must decide what to give our focus and attention to (which may differ for us as we figure it out). It may not be an easy decision, black or white, hence we live in an age with ‘competing spectacles.’ (p76) The competition for our focus and attention is between worldly spectacles and the spectacle of God’s glory.

However, giving our attention to spectacles of worldly beauty is not innately evil. It’s not so much that we must never gaze upon the infinite scroll, or enjoy (or not) the aesthetics of modern art, or stop funding the growing tycoon Netflix. For there is most definitely a place for the enjoyment of beauty in life, for leisure and laughs, for the rest of idleness even. But beyond the minor light of enjoyment these give, there is a grander spectacle to see. It is the Glory of Jesus in the Gospel.

In part two Reinke is writing about the need for the Christian to gaze upon Christ through hearing the gospel. In hearing the gospel we see the glory of God. But in doing so we must be aware that there are competing spectacles. Reinke spends time in this section painting a picture of the Glory of Jesus, God, the Gospel and even the Church. It is against these heavenly glories that worldly spectacles are competing.

Hopefully you’re aware this is happening, the battle for your attention. Perhaps you can easily recall ways you’ve been pulled away from focus on the Lord and instead sucked into focusing excessively on things of this world. For those of us who have a desire to fix our eyes above, we still struggle to do so with consistency. So it is that we look to the Lord with much backsliding. Into this battle Reinke wants to offer some practical reflections and applications. 

1) Reinke first of all calls for awareness, self-awareness and sober judgement about the task at hand and our own weakness, writing, “In Christ, we now aim to kill and root out every earthly sinful desire that remains inside our hearts. The world wants to feed those desires with its own spectacles. So I guard my attention not with asceticism but with awareness, caution, fasting, and selective withdrawal based on my own appetites and weaknesses. A sobered sense of my internal susceptibilities to sin must inform my media consumption and self-imposed limits. Until I can say, ‘I am weak’, I will be overconfident in my spectacle intake.” (p89)

2) When it comes to rooting out every evil desire that remains in our heart, Reinke wants us to have high standards, not to throw fuel on our evil passions. Reinke challenges us, asking, “Are we willing to consider that one explicit sex scene can wreck an entire movie, and one explicit episode can wreck an entire television series. Christians are too familiar with the feeling that our culture’s greatest spectacle makers perpetually let us down.”  (p128) They do let us down, but we are often too sympathetic towards their content. Let us raise the bar in our own lives. Don’t be sympathetic towards them. Be holy as God is holy, not worldly like, well, the world. As Reinke insightfully remarks about its standards, “Rating systems are set in place for adults to nurture their juiciest fantasies on screen while attempting to protect their children’s eyes from those same lewd desires.” (p133) This kind of double standard is an indictment upon our culture.

3) They say ‘you are what you eat’, but how about what you watch? Reinke (quoting Piper) makes the point, “The soul’s capacity is adaptable, and it forms itself to the object of its joy. A ‘steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul,’ says theologian John Piper. ‘You get used to it. It starts to seem normal. Silly becomes funny. And funny becomes pleasing. And pleasing becomes soul-satisfaction. And in the end the soul that is made for God has shrunk to fit snugly around triteness.’” (p129) Piper’s comment here is a sabre strike. Have you seen the world around you becoming more and more ‘trite’, more and more disposed to trivial and frivolous memes, 6 second clips, Haiku length posts, and endless ‘action’? I bet you have. I bet you’ve even wondered about it and said to a friend or colleague, “how trite is everyone now day’s aye…?” Yes, we are trite, because all we ever do is consume ‘trite’ media of no substance – we are what we eat. But let us not just look around us. Put the critical eye to your own life. This kind of living is not just taking our attention, but taking our joy with it.  Reinke obverses (as I’m sure is no surprise to you) that, “We are now more media obese than we are physically obese. And we are not happier. We are lonelier. We are more depressed.” (p134) Might we elaborate and say that superficial media gives us only superficial joy. The story of our inner selves is a chilling tale of atrophy and decay. But the story doesn’t have to be this way. To gaze upon the glory of Christ is to be transformed into him, to be conformed to his image. This is a worthy tale to behold. It is a journey of growth as the Christian is transformed by the renewal of their mind. All because of the gospel of Christ applied to our hearts and minds by the Spirit.

4) In light of all the above, there is still no hard and fast rule. Each individual will have to make a call in their own lives as to where they will draw the line when it comes to media consumption. And that means, “…we must learn to show charity to brothers and sisters when we disagree. There are no easy fixes or filters. The decision is not simply adopting everything rated TV-14 or PG-13 and under. Any given cultural spectacle must be weighed for its value. And whatever spectacles are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable-those are spectacles of substance to be potentially embraced.” (p135) That been said, we don’t just make up our own minds in our own little bubbles. God hasn’t only given you wisdom from the one Spirit. God has given his church wisdom from that same Spirit. Listen to your brothers and sisters around you. Ask them how they have made decisions in their life regarding media consumption. This is especially important when it comes to raising our children. Ask other parents what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. But when it comes to drawing the line on these matters, perhaps the first problem we might think of (if we’re particularly zealous about this topic!) is that the brothers and sisters around us are too liberal with their consumption. This, I believe, is certainly going to be the most likely position for many of us in the West. I don’t think many of us will have an overly conservative stance towards media (that’s just my opinion of course). For those who are more “ascetic” in this regard, they will probably invite ridicule (even correction!). Not just from the world, but from their brothers and sisters of a more liberal persuasion. Reinke gives a helpful corrective to this kind of perspective saying, “Some Christians will withdraw from many cultural spectacles. And can we blame them? Can we chide them for having an awareness of their own hearts? Or can we become Christians of maturity, who don’t mock but admire those who withdraw themselves from the boldest spectacles of culture, and who postpone their senses for a future glory?” (p136) It’s a very challenging question he poses us. Are we able to honour those who truly have their eyes fixed on a future glory, not just trite worldly spectacles? I hope so.

To end the book Reinke gives a final thought. It doesn’t get a big mention, nevertheless I think it carries great weight with it. Reinke says, “In sum, all my concerns are dwarfed by this one: boredom with Christ. In the digital age, monotony with Christ is the chief warning signal to alert us that the spectacles of this world are suffocating our hearts from the supreme spectacle of the universe.” (p143) His observation is astute. Can you think of a sign more damning and dangerous than a Christian’s boredom with the most glorious object our affections could ever be set on? It’s a strong warning, one we must heed and watch for within ourselves. Let the Christian never ceased to marvel at the depth of God as seen in the scriptures. Taste and see that the Lord is good. While the world offers us sugar-coated lollies with artificial flavouring, the Lord beckons us to a rich and glorious feast.

Reinke, Tony. Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age. Wheaton: Crossway, 2019.

A Summary – Competing Spectacles by T. Reinke – Part 1: The Age of The Spectacle

We live in the age of the image, the age of entertainment. Or as Tony Reinke would put it in his book, the age of the spectacle. A spectacle “…is something that captures human attention, an instant where our eyes and brains focus and fixate on something projected at.” (p14) Now if the spectacle is about grabbing our focus and attention, what would you imagine a possible consequence to be? It shouldn’t surprise us that because of the sheer abundance of spectacles to endlessly gaze at, we are distracted (perhaps we might rename it the age of distraction). Our attention flits from one object to the next, from one spectacle to the next. This is shaping who we are (negatively). In one sense we are what grabs our attention. In more familiar terms, we are what we eat (with our eyes – see p19)

One especially defining aspect about our society is that the image is everywhere. But more than that, ‘image’ is everything. We are an age, a people, concerned with our image.

To this end we are constantly looking at ourselves in social media (with the occasional glimpse at another – mostly for purposes of comparison). We are continually experiencing and even seeing ourselves play video games. We have this strange simultaneous experience as we game. We are at once playing the game and at once watching ourselves play the game. At the same instance we are glued to the image, and also we are the image. No wonder gaming is such a captivating spectacle.

Then there is television. What can be said about television? Probably not much… But somehow in a book about what we can see with our eyes, TV made the cut. Reinke wants to point out in his book how television put the world – which was so far away – at our disposal at any point in time. We can see so much of the world in an instant. Now we can’t help but be concerned about a globalised society. It’s not just me in my little town with my little garden patch. It’s me in my little town with my little garden patch looking at a great big world out there, which I am now suddenly concerned with a lot more (and a lot more regularly). This is a sizable shift in our experience of the world. Our concern grew (unlike my tomatoes!). No longer just local concerns, but global concerns. Once I was anxious about my garden growing good tomatoes. Now I am anxious about a global catastrophe that might eradicate all tomatoes for all time if Russia doesn’t sign on to some sort of nuclear demilitarisation deal with some other super big and powerful country (like Australia?….), or alliance of countries (Like Australia and New Zealand?…..). Which, do you think, causes more anxiety – my local tomato patch or the fate of mankind? I don’t know but I guess it depends on how good I think my tomatoes are.

With TV (and screens more generally) comes the wonderful advertisement. Certainly advertisements existed long before the TV. But really, did they? Ads on the screen verses ads before the screen is like comparing my mother’s tomatoes to my tomatoes. I am but a worm. And so too ads before screens.

But what I really appreciated in this section on advertisements was how Reinke points out the nature of advertisements. He makes the point that we are all watching the same advertisements. In one sense we are privately watching ads (that’s if we are just looking at our phones or surfing the net alone). In another sense we know that a lot of other people are also watching the same ads in their own privacy. But there is also something to an advertisement which everyone sees publicly. Reinke quotes Alastair Roberts, “Seeing an ad privately is nowhere near as powerfully effective as seeing an ad in the Super Bowl coverage, as in the latter case we know that everyone else has seen the same image and it has registered in the public awareness.” Reinke comments, “The most prominent ads imprint a specific good as universally meaningful to us all. If I buy this marketed thing, I can assume that the whole culture will view me in a certain light.” (p37) I particularly appreciated this point. It makes me more conscious of what is happening when I see an ad. I am able to better safeguard my mind when I am prepared for what is coming and what to look out for. For example, I can ask myself, ‘What does this ad want me to feel? And what does it want me to make my friends think of me?’ Something along those lines. The book prompts this train of thought by educating me about what ads do. They inform/shape the public conscience or the public awareness.

Similarly, television (and media more broadly) is able to change the public conscience because of how widespread it is. Reinke makes this point on page 49ff. He goes on to talk about how terrorists could have killed more people some other way aside from bombing the World Trade Centre. But it wasn’t about killing the most people, it was about creating a spectacle which spread the most fear to the most people. And of course they could do this because television and media informs the public conscience – in this case it is informing us to be afraid, or if we hear the president respond, he is trying to inform us of American power – do not be afraid. Reinke insightfully comments on this point, “Both sides increase their power by grabbing eyes.” (p51) They both spread propaganda (whether for good or ill) on their own sides. But the way they did that is through grabbing attention, it was the attention economy at work.

It’s an important example to demonstrate his point. Reinke is trying to show us what is happening when media is been used in such events, but it also demonstrates what is happening more broadly.

So far Reinke has spent his time painting a picture of the landscape. But an important part of the landscape is the church. It is seeking both to be seen (that is, display the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to a lost world), and it is seeking to see (the glory of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ). Reinke makes a great point about the church in the attention market, “This culture-wide attention grab is a challenge to the church in two obvious ways. First, in our attempts to reach the lost we compete with the fragmented spectacles that drain life of its sober attention and focus. Second, we lose the ability to disconnect from culture in order to flourish in communion with God. Prayer requires a divine centred attention.” (p66) He continues, “Prayerlessness may be the fault of my media. It is certainly the fault of my heart. In the little cracks of time in my day, with my limited attention, I am more apt to check or feed social media than I am to pray. Because of my negligence, God grows increasingly distant from my life.” (p67)

There is a certain kind of observational wisdom in this book. Reinke lays before us the scene, and it speaks for itself. It calls us to be wise, wise with our attention. Our economy is fuelled by the consumption of our eyes. Reinke is asking us, what are we going to give our attention to?

Reinke, Tony. Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age. Wheaton: Crossway, 2019.

Comparing our Sufferings

When we go through suffering we often compare our suffering to someone else’s. We do this for a few reasons I think. Sometimes we are just trying to be polite as we confront someone who has suffered what we perceive as ‘more’. Sometimes we think it can help us get a perspective on our suffering by comparing it to others. Sometimes it’s a matter of pride, other times it’s a matter of self-pity.

Generally speaking, in the instances I mentioned above, this practice has been used as a kind of coping mechanism. We compare to cope. With a little bit of self-awareness I think we could all acknowledge that this is what we do – again, generally speaking. Having been reminded recently of our tendency to do this I thought I would revisit a quote by Paul Grimmond in his book, Suffering Well. For the Christian, we tend to compare ourselves to those who are suffering physical persecution overseas. This happens quite a lot in my experience. But listen to what Grimmond says here,

 “It is right for us to stand beside those who suffer greatly for Christ in other countries. But we do not serve each other when we say we don’t suffer, because it reinforces the idea that suffering for Christ is always about physical persecution. As a result, we fail to teach each other to live without shame in the face of the more subtle pressures in our culture. Secondly, because Western culture has become obsessed with general suffering, we find ourselves spending much of our time defending how God can allow cancer and natural disasters. We spend much less time teaching each other from the Bible that God calls on us to live such godly lives for Jesus that people will dislike or even hate us for it.” P.98

Grimmond is building his argument off a bible passage from Mark 8, pointing out the relation between Jesus’ call to “cross-bearing” and being “ashamed” of Jesus. Here is what he says:

“Even in the greatest of all discipleship calls – Jesus’ call to take up our cross – the emphasis is not on physical hardship but on the danger of being ashamed: ‘And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”’ (Mark 8:34–38).” p.95

With all this in mind we would do well to remember that our sufferings can be a means of encouragement to others. Not the kind of encouragement that says, “cheer up, things aren’t so bad when you think about…(insert comparison).”  Instead of minimizing (by comparison) our suffering, let us embrace our suffering with full acknowledgement of the Lord Jesus’ lordship over our lives, as our moments of trials and tribulations are opportunities to stand for Him firmly in the gospel. In our sufferings we have the opportunity – perhaps we might even say the platform – to speak the gospel into the lives of those who are watching us, whether Christian or otherwise. We would do well to speak the gospel in our suffering. In fact, if we were after a comparison, we would do better speaking the gospel in suffering, then comparing suffering to suffering.

Grimmond, P. (2011) Suffering well: the predictable surprise of Chrsitian suffering. Kingsford, N.S.W.: Matthias Media.

The Invisible Man – What we would do…

Recently I listened to the book by H.G Wells, “The Invisible Man.” Imagine yourself in this fellow’s shoes. That’s obviously what we all instinctively do. And what is it that we think we would get up to as one who is invisible?

Perhaps we think ourselves better than he. For in the end he murdered and stole and terrorised. Sure he started well-intentioned, seeking progress for progress sake as it were. But at some point he gets derailed. We could say that it wasn’t his fault and instead look upon his circumstances and everyone that pushed him and broke him. But that’s not good enough, and I don’t think it would do this book justice.

When I think about this story, when I instinctively put myself in the shoes of the invisible man (not that he wore shoes!), of course I realise I’m not at all very different.

My first thought is how much mischief I would be able to cause if I were invisible. I daresay that would be your first thought too, or amongst your thoughts at any rate. I must confess I’m not naturally inclined to think of all the good things I might do – such as become some sort of military spy on espionage missions saving captives, or fighting crime on the streets like some sort of vigil auntie always watching from her window through the curtains.

This brings me to my point, and what I see is one of the points of Well’s book ‘The Invisible Man’ (even if it was unintentional). Given the right motive and opportunity we would all act as the invisible man acted in his circumstances. Our natures are such that we have an inbuilt propensity to wreak havoc. Whether we think we’re justified in our actions or not is beside the point.

Reading (or listening) to a book like this is just another reminder of this fact. But it reminds me to cast myself upon the mercy and grace of God again and again. There are lessons to be learnt even from such books which seem like mere thought experiments. None of us will be turning invisible any time soon. But all of us have that invisible side to us.