Akshay Rajkumar's Blog, page 2
April 21, 2013
Let There Be Thought
The Bible is a hard book to sell. It may be the best-selling book in history, but its content is often controversial, offensive, distasteful and provocative. I've been reading it since I was eight, but only began to understand it nine years later. I often had to excuse God for his indecency, constantly give him the benefit of the doubt and sometimes skip over the squirmy details of the Bible, before I could come to terms with its content, understand its context, recognize its coherence and finally trust in its Author. I wrestle with questions even today, but doubt no longer lingers.
After more than two decades of reading the Bible - reflecting, chewing, meditating and thinking long and hard - I've discovered that the most difficult things about the Bible give me reason to believe, not doubt, its testimony.
When people are put off by the pervasive violence, abuse of women, moral failure of spiritual leaders, social chaos and civil war, it simply goes to confirm that many elements of the biblical story do not invite people to believe. In fact, a thinking person would be repelled by them. Even Jesus' teaching was so self-centered that it drove more people away from him, than towards him. He paid for it with his life.
No one in his right mind would be drawn to religious literature that uses graphic sexual imagery to reveal God as a jilted lover of two sisters, representing two halves of a nation, who have abandoned him for cheap sex with unworthy lovers. No one should be intrigued by religious literature that reveals one of its spiritual giants, David, as a polygamist who lures a married woman into bed, gets her pregnant and orders her husband to be killed so that he can cover his tracks. Later, the same man is described as a man after God's own heart. A major world religion rejects the Bible as the "Word of God" for this very reason - it cannot accept that God would speak so poorly about his own prophets.
When it comes to winning an audience, whoever wrote the Bible, seems to have done everything wrong. They tell stories that can't be read out loud in polite company, whose protagonists are guilty of the sort of moral failure that would disqualify them from work in any Church in the world today.
When the Bible reads so badly and often makes us feel morally superior to itself, we must wonder why the writers chose to tell these stories. Unless they actually happened. Unless the Bible values the truth more than our feelings. Unless it isn't God who owes us an explanation for His words, as much as we owe him an account for our lives. Unless God doesn't want people to read His book without applying their minds and using the reason that He gave us to dig into his Word until we strike gold.
The Bible wasn't written for children. It can be explained to them and understood by them, but it wasn't written for them. The Bible was written for grown-ups, who are expected, even commanded, to use their minds.
When it comes to reading the Bible, thinking isn't optional. It's a mandate. But reason and the mind are often frowned upon by the Christian. We can take reason to be an adversary to its more noble cousin, belief, so that faith is mandatory but thinking is optional. In the minds of many Christians, faith is the firstborn son but reason is the unwanted girl child - tolerated but never honored, accepted but never loved.
But reason and morality are rooted in God, so that there is no goodness or reason outside of Him. In the Christian worldview, no matter what we believe, all of us are thinking, moral beings because we were made in the image of Him who is completely moral and reasonable. In Corinth, every Sabbath, Paul reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks, for a year and a half. God invites us to reason with him and trade our guilt for his forgiveness. Thinking is a command. It's one of the ways we love God and when we reduce it to a competitor to faith, we are not thinking well.
The difficult things about the Bible demand the best of our thinking and invite serious readers to see for themselves that judgment is never desirable, but sometimes necessary (Eze 18:25-32); leaders may fail, but they always prevail (Ps 51); the abuse of women always leads to disorder and chaos (2 Sam 11), godlessness leads to lawlessness (Judges 21:25) and God is happy to work with the worst of us, without ever asking for a resumé (1 Tim 1:15-17).
The Bible isn't meant for people who judge it by its cover, read it like a comic book or dismiss it on a whim. It's meant for people who will wrestle with God all their lives and find their strength in that dastardly exercise of thinking and seeking revelation from Someone whose thoughts are always higher than our own. He has spoken to us about earthly things and we do not understand. How will we understand if he spoke to us about heavenly things?
Reason and revelation are twins, joined together at the hip, intertwined and inseparable, so that thinking without believing and believing without thinking have no place in the life of a Christian. God has married the mind to the heart and the body; and what God has put together, let no man put asunder.
"This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Give careful thought to your ways.'"
Haggai 1:7
After more than two decades of reading the Bible - reflecting, chewing, meditating and thinking long and hard - I've discovered that the most difficult things about the Bible give me reason to believe, not doubt, its testimony.
When people are put off by the pervasive violence, abuse of women, moral failure of spiritual leaders, social chaos and civil war, it simply goes to confirm that many elements of the biblical story do not invite people to believe. In fact, a thinking person would be repelled by them. Even Jesus' teaching was so self-centered that it drove more people away from him, than towards him. He paid for it with his life.
No one in his right mind would be drawn to religious literature that uses graphic sexual imagery to reveal God as a jilted lover of two sisters, representing two halves of a nation, who have abandoned him for cheap sex with unworthy lovers. No one should be intrigued by religious literature that reveals one of its spiritual giants, David, as a polygamist who lures a married woman into bed, gets her pregnant and orders her husband to be killed so that he can cover his tracks. Later, the same man is described as a man after God's own heart. A major world religion rejects the Bible as the "Word of God" for this very reason - it cannot accept that God would speak so poorly about his own prophets.
When it comes to winning an audience, whoever wrote the Bible, seems to have done everything wrong. They tell stories that can't be read out loud in polite company, whose protagonists are guilty of the sort of moral failure that would disqualify them from work in any Church in the world today.
When the Bible reads so badly and often makes us feel morally superior to itself, we must wonder why the writers chose to tell these stories. Unless they actually happened. Unless the Bible values the truth more than our feelings. Unless it isn't God who owes us an explanation for His words, as much as we owe him an account for our lives. Unless God doesn't want people to read His book without applying their minds and using the reason that He gave us to dig into his Word until we strike gold.
The Bible wasn't written for children. It can be explained to them and understood by them, but it wasn't written for them. The Bible was written for grown-ups, who are expected, even commanded, to use their minds.
When it comes to reading the Bible, thinking isn't optional. It's a mandate. But reason and the mind are often frowned upon by the Christian. We can take reason to be an adversary to its more noble cousin, belief, so that faith is mandatory but thinking is optional. In the minds of many Christians, faith is the firstborn son but reason is the unwanted girl child - tolerated but never honored, accepted but never loved.
But reason and morality are rooted in God, so that there is no goodness or reason outside of Him. In the Christian worldview, no matter what we believe, all of us are thinking, moral beings because we were made in the image of Him who is completely moral and reasonable. In Corinth, every Sabbath, Paul reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks, for a year and a half. God invites us to reason with him and trade our guilt for his forgiveness. Thinking is a command. It's one of the ways we love God and when we reduce it to a competitor to faith, we are not thinking well.
The difficult things about the Bible demand the best of our thinking and invite serious readers to see for themselves that judgment is never desirable, but sometimes necessary (Eze 18:25-32); leaders may fail, but they always prevail (Ps 51); the abuse of women always leads to disorder and chaos (2 Sam 11), godlessness leads to lawlessness (Judges 21:25) and God is happy to work with the worst of us, without ever asking for a resumé (1 Tim 1:15-17).
The Bible isn't meant for people who judge it by its cover, read it like a comic book or dismiss it on a whim. It's meant for people who will wrestle with God all their lives and find their strength in that dastardly exercise of thinking and seeking revelation from Someone whose thoughts are always higher than our own. He has spoken to us about earthly things and we do not understand. How will we understand if he spoke to us about heavenly things?
Reason and revelation are twins, joined together at the hip, intertwined and inseparable, so that thinking without believing and believing without thinking have no place in the life of a Christian. God has married the mind to the heart and the body; and what God has put together, let no man put asunder.
"This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Give careful thought to your ways.'"
Haggai 1:7
A Greater Law than Ours
She was five years old.
Her body was unprepared. Her mind was uninformed. Her soul was still naive. She couldn't have provoked the crime with her "western" ways. She can't be blamed for forcing his hand by her unbridled sexuality. She wasn't drunk or partying. She wasn't an indecent woman, who had forgotten her identity and lost the right to be called an Indian. She was a victim, plain and simple, in the truest sense of the term.
She was a child who was raped by a demon.
There ought to be silence among the philosophers who say that evil and morality are man-made ideas. There ought to be regret among the politicians who blame the west for its evil influence on women. There ought to be sobriety among theologians who are too quick to confront the sin in the city, without reflecting on the evil in their own hearts. There ought to be restraint among citizens who rail against the government, without asking questions about the way they perpetuate the patriarchy that breeds depravity.
She was a girl.
It was a miracle in itself that she made it out of the womb. It isn't the uneducated, the illiterate and the poor who perpetuate sex-selective abortion in India. Researchers have found that women from higher-income, better-educated families were far more likely than poorer women to abort a girl, especially during a second pregnancy if the firstborn was a girl, according a recent study.
India's middle class breeds two conflicting groups of people: protesters who fight for women's rights and couples who secretly abort daughters. Only a son can take over the family business, keep property in the family and skip the dreaded dowry.
She wasn't the only one.
Over a decade, 48,338 child rapes were recorded between 2001 and 2011. There was a leap from 2,113 child rapes in 2001 to 7,112 in 2011, a 336% increase, according to National Crime Records Bureau statistics. The unspoken, unreported cases of child rape may never be numbered.
It isn't any ruling government.
Political opportunists blame the government. People blame the lawmakers. Perverts blame the victims. But the government didn't invent depravity, laws can't change a person and the victim is always innocent. Always.
It isn't the laws.
Laws are like mirrors. They can tell you that your face is dirty, but they can't clean it for you. The laws we need aren't the kind of laws that govern a man's actions. We need a law that transforms the very desires of a man's heart, "…For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander."
She ought be the last one.
We can't afford to reflect on crimes of this nature and simply think to ourselves, we need better laws. We must be bold enough to confront ourselves and recognize that we need better people. Laws are needed to govern the lawless. But integrity is it's own law. It doesn't need independent legislation. Where people are depraved, laws can restrain (although they failed to restrain her rapist), but they cannot change a person.
God is powerless in India.
We don't need a better view of women alone. We need a better view of God. This is India. God is sought, taught, used and abused in more ways than can be numbered. But he hasn't made a dent in our hearts, although our wallets may be a little lighter. The most religious country in the world is coincidentally one of the most depraved and corrupt. Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) gave us the 94th rank out of 176 nations this year. Denmark was in first place.
Somehow, all our religious fervor hasn't translated into rightness of action. But I still think God is a better lawmaker than our leaders, a better King than our kings and a better Man than our men. He governs the heart of a person with the force of a sacrificial love, not the fearful threat of imprisonment, castration or death.
There's a Higher court than our own
Only godless men rape children, both inside and outside the Church, because their hearts refused his love and his laws. He grieves over those who use the freedom he gave them against him, but he warns the religious to beware of their religiosity: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 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?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" If religious do-gooders will not escape their judgment, it's safe to say that rapists, religious or otherwise, are in a fair bit of trouble.
There's a Greater law than our own.
We can't blame the darkness for not being the light. There is no better way to expel darkness than to turn on the light. Darkness is not the sole domain of the depraved. It has a place in all our hearts, until we see the light. When Jesus walked into a public ministry, his first words were "The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!" His kingdom isn't political, geographical, cultural or religious. It's the rule of God in the hearts of people. It's a better law than any that our leaders can draft. It doesn't shift with a change in political seasons. It doesn't bend for the sake of the powerful. It isn't beyond the reach of the neglected. But it demands that we repent - literally, turn our hearts around - to trust his love and obey his law.
In his own words, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness…Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, people of Israel!"
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people"
We can't obey what we don't believe. Our laws can command us but they can't transform us. India needs the sort of God who creates in us a new heart, with new laws, so that we live to love in a way that makes governance obsolete. The only law that matters is the law that is written on the heart. But for that to happen, we'll have to turn around.
Her body was unprepared. Her mind was uninformed. Her soul was still naive. She couldn't have provoked the crime with her "western" ways. She can't be blamed for forcing his hand by her unbridled sexuality. She wasn't drunk or partying. She wasn't an indecent woman, who had forgotten her identity and lost the right to be called an Indian. She was a victim, plain and simple, in the truest sense of the term.
She was a child who was raped by a demon.
There ought to be silence among the philosophers who say that evil and morality are man-made ideas. There ought to be regret among the politicians who blame the west for its evil influence on women. There ought to be sobriety among theologians who are too quick to confront the sin in the city, without reflecting on the evil in their own hearts. There ought to be restraint among citizens who rail against the government, without asking questions about the way they perpetuate the patriarchy that breeds depravity.
She was a girl.
It was a miracle in itself that she made it out of the womb. It isn't the uneducated, the illiterate and the poor who perpetuate sex-selective abortion in India. Researchers have found that women from higher-income, better-educated families were far more likely than poorer women to abort a girl, especially during a second pregnancy if the firstborn was a girl, according a recent study.
India's middle class breeds two conflicting groups of people: protesters who fight for women's rights and couples who secretly abort daughters. Only a son can take over the family business, keep property in the family and skip the dreaded dowry.
She wasn't the only one.
Over a decade, 48,338 child rapes were recorded between 2001 and 2011. There was a leap from 2,113 child rapes in 2001 to 7,112 in 2011, a 336% increase, according to National Crime Records Bureau statistics. The unspoken, unreported cases of child rape may never be numbered.
It isn't any ruling government.
Political opportunists blame the government. People blame the lawmakers. Perverts blame the victims. But the government didn't invent depravity, laws can't change a person and the victim is always innocent. Always.
It isn't the laws.
Laws are like mirrors. They can tell you that your face is dirty, but they can't clean it for you. The laws we need aren't the kind of laws that govern a man's actions. We need a law that transforms the very desires of a man's heart, "…For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander."
She ought be the last one.
We can't afford to reflect on crimes of this nature and simply think to ourselves, we need better laws. We must be bold enough to confront ourselves and recognize that we need better people. Laws are needed to govern the lawless. But integrity is it's own law. It doesn't need independent legislation. Where people are depraved, laws can restrain (although they failed to restrain her rapist), but they cannot change a person.
God is powerless in India.
We don't need a better view of women alone. We need a better view of God. This is India. God is sought, taught, used and abused in more ways than can be numbered. But he hasn't made a dent in our hearts, although our wallets may be a little lighter. The most religious country in the world is coincidentally one of the most depraved and corrupt. Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) gave us the 94th rank out of 176 nations this year. Denmark was in first place.
Somehow, all our religious fervor hasn't translated into rightness of action. But I still think God is a better lawmaker than our leaders, a better King than our kings and a better Man than our men. He governs the heart of a person with the force of a sacrificial love, not the fearful threat of imprisonment, castration or death.
There's a Higher court than our own
Only godless men rape children, both inside and outside the Church, because their hearts refused his love and his laws. He grieves over those who use the freedom he gave them against him, but he warns the religious to beware of their religiosity: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 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?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" If religious do-gooders will not escape their judgment, it's safe to say that rapists, religious or otherwise, are in a fair bit of trouble.
There's a Greater law than our own.
We can't blame the darkness for not being the light. There is no better way to expel darkness than to turn on the light. Darkness is not the sole domain of the depraved. It has a place in all our hearts, until we see the light. When Jesus walked into a public ministry, his first words were "The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!" His kingdom isn't political, geographical, cultural or religious. It's the rule of God in the hearts of people. It's a better law than any that our leaders can draft. It doesn't shift with a change in political seasons. It doesn't bend for the sake of the powerful. It isn't beyond the reach of the neglected. But it demands that we repent - literally, turn our hearts around - to trust his love and obey his law.
In his own words, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness…Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, people of Israel!"
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people"
We can't obey what we don't believe. Our laws can command us but they can't transform us. India needs the sort of God who creates in us a new heart, with new laws, so that we live to love in a way that makes governance obsolete. The only law that matters is the law that is written on the heart. But for that to happen, we'll have to turn around.
April 15, 2013
Slaves & Masters
India is rushing online. Mobile technology and the internet are rapidly drawing Indians to themselves, empowering everyone from artists and activists to vegetable vendors and women in rural areas. But as India gets more virtual by the second, the consumption of pornography has become a pervasive habit that comes without a price tag, but not without a cost.
India is now the third-largest and fastest growing Internet market in the world, with over 137 million users. In 2015, it is poised to become the largest, with more than 300 million projected users. More than 900 million people have mobiles, most of whom are in rural areas, making it a life-transforming technology for the country.
In an article for The Guardian, Kavitha Rao says, “Mobiles are being used to funnel demand for services and products to small farmers, vendors, plumbers, electricians and housemaids. In remote areas of India, they are used to distribute health information to rural women. In urban areas, they are being used to help sex workers and other marginalized people.”
But despite it’s work as a good servant, technology can turn into an ugly master; and the Internet is quickly turning its masters into slaves, feeding our eyes with lies that threaten our children, our marriages and our minds. The Church is needed to lead a new exodus out of an Egypt that refuses to let its people go.
According to statistics reported by India Today, Google searches for the word "porn" doubled in India between 2010 and 2012. Seven Indian cities are among the top 10 in the world to search for “porn” online. Over 47 per cent of school students in a survey said they discuss porn every day. Sunny Leone, one of the top five global porn stars, says 80% of her web traffic and 60% of her "high six figure" revenue comes from India.
The adult entertainment industry is valued at USD $12 billion. Nearly 90% of pornography is created in the US, almost all of it in the San Fernando Valley, California. Seventy percent of porn is consumed in the window of the 9-to-5 work day. Twelve percent of all websites, 25% of search requests and 35% of internet downloads are pornographic in nature. Every day, nearly 300 new porn sites are created. Every second, nearly 30,000 people are visiting a porn site.
The largest group of internet porn consumers are 12 to 17 year olds. Ninety percent of children between 8 to 16 have viewed porn. “Sex” and “porn” are in the top 5 search terms for kids under eighteen. In India, in a survey of 300 children under the age of 13, 67% admitted to accessing porn sites, most of them by their cell phones.
With the advent of smartphones, the age of anywhere-anytime pornography is here. Thirty percent of cellphones sold in India, every month, are smartphones. Soon that number will rise to sixty. According to an IMRB survey, one out of five mobile users in India wants adult content on their 3G-enabled phone, a trend that will only rise with more than half of Internet users getting online with their phones. In 2010, for the first time in India, there was more exchange of data on cellphones than voice calls.
The internet and smartphones have worked together to make porn so easily accessible, they have replaced the uncomfortable obstacle of paying for porn at the counter and even wormed their way into parliament, what with two politicians recently caught poring over pornography on their phones.
Not only that, they’ve given teenagers the tools to create their own sexually explicit images and experiences. It’s increasingly common for teenagers to record their sexual experiences on a smartphone and brag about them with friends. According to The Indian Express, more than 50% of Indians surveyed, admitted to “sexting,” which involves sending sexually explicit images and texts between mobile phones. It’s related to cyber-bullying, for which India ranks third in the world, with over half of children surveyed, having been bullied online.
The knee-jerk reaction of our parents and politicians might be to impose bans on technology and censor the internet, but that would be impulsive and unproductive. As with philosophy, no technology should be judged by its abuse. Moreover, it reinforces our cultural habit of preferring ignorance to information and avoiding honest conversations that train our children to be masters of technology instead of being mastered by it.
The all-pervasiveness of pornography means that we can no longer live under the illusion that the Church is immune to its charms. According to statistics in Christianity Today, 51% of Pastors say porn is a possible temptation and 37% admit to struggling with it at present. Pastor and Sexual Educator Ted Roberts told Christianity Today: “No matter where I travel in the world men have the same problem, but no one talks about it.”
A universal plague is furthered and empowered by universal silence. Mark R. Laaser, Author of Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction says, “Silence is the greatest enemy of sexual health.” Laaser believes anger is the primary reason Christian men commit sexual sin. "They are angry at God, angry at their spouse, angry at church,” he says. “They feel abandoned.” He feels there is an often an ‘entitlement factor’ - “Many men minimize the sin because they believe they are overworked and under-appreciated”, he says.
India and its Church have a heightened sense of moral uprightness that quickly turns into a weakness when it comes to dealing with sexual addictions and temptation. But with the recent protests against the brutal gang rape of a young girl in Delhi, the nation is going through a moral awakening that gives us a unique opportunity to be honest and forthright about our patriarchal heritage, innate gender discrimination and secret sins. It is an opportunity that requires us to depart from denial, desperation and depravity; before the hype is over and the nation returns to its slumber.
Pornography has been found to be more addictive than cocaine. “Sexual addiction” is being increasingly recognized as a controlling condition that has enslaved men to the cravings of their bodies. They are unable to confess their addiction because they think they are the only ones struggling with it, they don’t know anyone they can trust or they fear their confession will be met with condemnation and uncomfortable social repercussions. The silence on the subject, lack of education and scarcity of treatment mean that millions of Christian men, and even women, suffer with their addiction in secret - plagued by guilt, self-condemnation and lack of confidence.
An obscure passage in the book of Chronicles describes the sons of Isaachar as “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Ideally, the Church in India needs to lead the conversation on sexual wholeness. But it appears that most churches are ill-equipped, ignorant or unwilling to address the issue. We don’t seem to understand the times, nor do we know what to do.
India is yet to get off the ground in its efforts to respond to the influence of pornography in the Church. It will take more than a judgmental, self-righteous condemnation of all things sexual, to ignite a meaningful conversation about sexual wholeness, something about which the Bible has a lot to say.
Before we can develop initiatives that focus on improved sexual education, structured accountability, relational support groups, counseling or psychiatric help and advanced treatment of sexual addictions, we need to begin by having creative, meaningful conversations about sexuality - in schools, in church and at home. Our doctrines of sin, grace, sanctification and the power of the Holy Spirit need to translate into loving communities that invite confession, operate according to grace, employ strategies for change and equip people to walk in the power of the Spirit.
As pornography runs rampant in India - affecting everyone regardless of age, faith, gender, race, ethnicity or cultural background - parents, educators and the Church are uniquely placed to tell the truth about sexual wholeness. But if we do not unlearn our fear, ignorance and denial, the cost of our silence could be more fatal than we can imagine.
Published in Christian Trends Magazine
India is now the third-largest and fastest growing Internet market in the world, with over 137 million users. In 2015, it is poised to become the largest, with more than 300 million projected users. More than 900 million people have mobiles, most of whom are in rural areas, making it a life-transforming technology for the country.
In an article for The Guardian, Kavitha Rao says, “Mobiles are being used to funnel demand for services and products to small farmers, vendors, plumbers, electricians and housemaids. In remote areas of India, they are used to distribute health information to rural women. In urban areas, they are being used to help sex workers and other marginalized people.”
But despite it’s work as a good servant, technology can turn into an ugly master; and the Internet is quickly turning its masters into slaves, feeding our eyes with lies that threaten our children, our marriages and our minds. The Church is needed to lead a new exodus out of an Egypt that refuses to let its people go.
According to statistics reported by India Today, Google searches for the word "porn" doubled in India between 2010 and 2012. Seven Indian cities are among the top 10 in the world to search for “porn” online. Over 47 per cent of school students in a survey said they discuss porn every day. Sunny Leone, one of the top five global porn stars, says 80% of her web traffic and 60% of her "high six figure" revenue comes from India.
The adult entertainment industry is valued at USD $12 billion. Nearly 90% of pornography is created in the US, almost all of it in the San Fernando Valley, California. Seventy percent of porn is consumed in the window of the 9-to-5 work day. Twelve percent of all websites, 25% of search requests and 35% of internet downloads are pornographic in nature. Every day, nearly 300 new porn sites are created. Every second, nearly 30,000 people are visiting a porn site.
The largest group of internet porn consumers are 12 to 17 year olds. Ninety percent of children between 8 to 16 have viewed porn. “Sex” and “porn” are in the top 5 search terms for kids under eighteen. In India, in a survey of 300 children under the age of 13, 67% admitted to accessing porn sites, most of them by their cell phones.
With the advent of smartphones, the age of anywhere-anytime pornography is here. Thirty percent of cellphones sold in India, every month, are smartphones. Soon that number will rise to sixty. According to an IMRB survey, one out of five mobile users in India wants adult content on their 3G-enabled phone, a trend that will only rise with more than half of Internet users getting online with their phones. In 2010, for the first time in India, there was more exchange of data on cellphones than voice calls.
The internet and smartphones have worked together to make porn so easily accessible, they have replaced the uncomfortable obstacle of paying for porn at the counter and even wormed their way into parliament, what with two politicians recently caught poring over pornography on their phones.
Not only that, they’ve given teenagers the tools to create their own sexually explicit images and experiences. It’s increasingly common for teenagers to record their sexual experiences on a smartphone and brag about them with friends. According to The Indian Express, more than 50% of Indians surveyed, admitted to “sexting,” which involves sending sexually explicit images and texts between mobile phones. It’s related to cyber-bullying, for which India ranks third in the world, with over half of children surveyed, having been bullied online.
The knee-jerk reaction of our parents and politicians might be to impose bans on technology and censor the internet, but that would be impulsive and unproductive. As with philosophy, no technology should be judged by its abuse. Moreover, it reinforces our cultural habit of preferring ignorance to information and avoiding honest conversations that train our children to be masters of technology instead of being mastered by it.
The all-pervasiveness of pornography means that we can no longer live under the illusion that the Church is immune to its charms. According to statistics in Christianity Today, 51% of Pastors say porn is a possible temptation and 37% admit to struggling with it at present. Pastor and Sexual Educator Ted Roberts told Christianity Today: “No matter where I travel in the world men have the same problem, but no one talks about it.”
A universal plague is furthered and empowered by universal silence. Mark R. Laaser, Author of Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction says, “Silence is the greatest enemy of sexual health.” Laaser believes anger is the primary reason Christian men commit sexual sin. "They are angry at God, angry at their spouse, angry at church,” he says. “They feel abandoned.” He feels there is an often an ‘entitlement factor’ - “Many men minimize the sin because they believe they are overworked and under-appreciated”, he says.
India and its Church have a heightened sense of moral uprightness that quickly turns into a weakness when it comes to dealing with sexual addictions and temptation. But with the recent protests against the brutal gang rape of a young girl in Delhi, the nation is going through a moral awakening that gives us a unique opportunity to be honest and forthright about our patriarchal heritage, innate gender discrimination and secret sins. It is an opportunity that requires us to depart from denial, desperation and depravity; before the hype is over and the nation returns to its slumber.
Pornography has been found to be more addictive than cocaine. “Sexual addiction” is being increasingly recognized as a controlling condition that has enslaved men to the cravings of their bodies. They are unable to confess their addiction because they think they are the only ones struggling with it, they don’t know anyone they can trust or they fear their confession will be met with condemnation and uncomfortable social repercussions. The silence on the subject, lack of education and scarcity of treatment mean that millions of Christian men, and even women, suffer with their addiction in secret - plagued by guilt, self-condemnation and lack of confidence.
An obscure passage in the book of Chronicles describes the sons of Isaachar as “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Ideally, the Church in India needs to lead the conversation on sexual wholeness. But it appears that most churches are ill-equipped, ignorant or unwilling to address the issue. We don’t seem to understand the times, nor do we know what to do.
India is yet to get off the ground in its efforts to respond to the influence of pornography in the Church. It will take more than a judgmental, self-righteous condemnation of all things sexual, to ignite a meaningful conversation about sexual wholeness, something about which the Bible has a lot to say.
Before we can develop initiatives that focus on improved sexual education, structured accountability, relational support groups, counseling or psychiatric help and advanced treatment of sexual addictions, we need to begin by having creative, meaningful conversations about sexuality - in schools, in church and at home. Our doctrines of sin, grace, sanctification and the power of the Holy Spirit need to translate into loving communities that invite confession, operate according to grace, employ strategies for change and equip people to walk in the power of the Spirit.
As pornography runs rampant in India - affecting everyone regardless of age, faith, gender, race, ethnicity or cultural background - parents, educators and the Church are uniquely placed to tell the truth about sexual wholeness. But if we do not unlearn our fear, ignorance and denial, the cost of our silence could be more fatal than we can imagine.
Published in Christian Trends Magazine
February 3, 2013
Pen to the Paper
The writing life is a merciless one. It demands that you step outside the system and operate according to rules that don't work in the real world. It denies you the freedom to settle for less and choose a life more ordinary. It wants the best of you and knows when you've sold yourself short.
It grips you with conviction and won't let you play to the gallery, until you've told the truth in all its dirty bitterness. But it won't take responsibility for the words that it gives you and won't apologize when it's left you all alone to bear the brunt of the consequences.
It will give you minutes of joy for hours of despairing and still convinces you that it's a fair trade. It will make you distance yourself from the fruit of your labor and delights itself in your second guessing. It will make you fall in love with it, but won't return your affection. It will tease and taunt you until you keep pining for more of it. The writing life is addictive and vindictive, crippling and liberating. It will take you in with promise, but it will never let you leave.
It grips you with conviction and won't let you play to the gallery, until you've told the truth in all its dirty bitterness. But it won't take responsibility for the words that it gives you and won't apologize when it's left you all alone to bear the brunt of the consequences.
It will give you minutes of joy for hours of despairing and still convinces you that it's a fair trade. It will make you distance yourself from the fruit of your labor and delights itself in your second guessing. It will make you fall in love with it, but won't return your affection. It will tease and taunt you until you keep pining for more of it. The writing life is addictive and vindictive, crippling and liberating. It will take you in with promise, but it will never let you leave.
December 31, 2012
The Curse of Caesar's Crown
Rome was ruled by the gods. At least, that’s what they want us to believe. Once they had the throne, the Emperors of Rome felt it only natural to take a step into the heavens. In some inscriptions, Augustus is known as Caesar Divi Filius, meaning Son of a God. Caligula was the first emperor to demand to be worshiped. Domitian took the title “lord and god” and ordered people to confess the same as a test of loyalty. The Emperors of one of the greatest civilizations in history could not escape the allure of deification.
It’s in this setting of men pretending to be gods that the story spread of how God had become a man. Jesus lived in Israel under the rule of Caesar. The irony can’t be lost on a Christian. It was often declared in Rome that “Caesar is Lord”. It was customary for military evangelists to go through the streets and proclaim the Gospel or the Good News of Caesar’s latest conquests in battle. The language of the New Testament was first heard in the streets of Rome.
The Gospel writers caught on to the political rhetoric of the Romans and used it to tell the story of a greater kingdom than Rome and a better King than Caesar. A new breed of evangelists proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ that death had been conquered and that Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord. But it was a story that was too subversive for Rome.
One after another, its rulers responded with an iron fist. Men were thrown to lions. Women were sent to the grave. Under a handful of Caesars, persecution followed Christians over a period of three centuries because they gave their worship to Christ alone. They were willing to die for Him because they believed He had risen from the dead - something no Caesar had ever done. Death was the one territory that refused to submit to Rome. But it was also the weapon that was used against its dissidents.
Christians were persecuted because they lived in Rome as citizens of heaven, under the lordship of Christ. Rome was ruled by Caesar and the Church was ruled by Christ. Yet today, the glory of Rome is a memory and the once persecuted church marches on towards eternity. But not without conflict, from within and without.
Some of us remain under the curse of Caesar. We still want a throne to give us a name and a title to give us our worth. The corruption that comes with a crown still has the power to seduce the servant and turn him into a tyrant. But our instinct to rule is not contrary to the will of God. In fact, He designed Adam to rule over creation; in harmony with His character and purpose. The trouble is that we have the first instinct but we’ve lost the other.
To be made in the image of God is to be made in the likeness of a righteous Ruler. In the Genesis story, when God's work is over, Adam's work begins. He was God's sub-lord over creation, the ruling representative of God's character. But he traded the honor for a treat. To be sons of Adam is to be children of rebellion. It's in our nature to serve ourselves because our parents did the same. Adam and Eve were tricked into swapping a crown for a craving. We don’t seem to have learnt from their mistakes. We're still falling for that serpentine trick. We're still trading a treasure, for many a trivial thing.
The Proverbs tell us that “a ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor”. It makes sense then that so much of our human condition is the natural result of nations, homes, offices and communities under the rule of men without understanding. The Proverbs also tell us that “a wicked ruler over a poor people is like a roaring lion or a charging bear”. All of us have met that sort of beast. Whether it's a corrupt politician, an ill-tempered boss, an authoritarian leader or an alcoholic father; we have seen what it looks like when a leader forgets how to rule.
The trouble with humanity is not that we are sinful. No doubt, that’s the present state of our being. But once we were rulers. Once we were regents. Once we named the animals. Once we were the image of God, blameless and without fault. The trouble with humanity is that we have forgotten who we are. We are rulers living as slaves to our cravings - unfit to rule the world because we cannot even rule ourselves. We are fallen rulers that need to be restored, so we can be people who bring the righteous rule of God into every corner of human existence.
But no one is meant to rule over everything and no one is meant to submit to everyone. We are made to rule over things entrusted to us, but we are also made to submit to those who rule over us. To be made in the image of God is to rule and submit in the likeness of Christ. This is why it's significant that Paul describes Jesus as "the image of the invisible God". He is a visible, tangible reminder of who we are meant to be. Christ is the ruler we were created to be like, who submits perfectly to the will of His Father, washing even the feet of His disciples. His submission doesn’t weaken His rule. In fact, it solidifies His lordship and tells us what it looks like when a ruler is truly secure in Himself.
Christian leadership comes with a sobering summons to rule in the image of God and submit in the humility of Christ. To this we are called. In the Gospel of Mark, the first words of Jesus are, "The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the Good News.” To repent is to turn around and redirect the course of our lives. We are invited to enter a kingdom more glorious than Rome and to follow a King more righteous than Caesar. When we repent, we are restored to our true identity - adopted children of God, who rule the earth and submit to one another, in the likeness of God.
The measure of this rule and submission is the order that it brings. By their fruits we shall know them. In a manner of speaking, the Genesis story presents God as the Creator who makes something out of nothing. In similar terms, man is presented as a creator who makes something out of something that God has made. Adam names the animals and works the garden to preserve its creative life force. But if God created order out of disorder, our Edenic parents managed to bring disorder out of order. The creative force turned destructive. The submissive nature of man turned self-serving. To be restored is to become agents who reverse this movement towards disorder, wherever our rule may reach.
When Jesus says that the kingdom of God is here, He's telling us that God's order in Genesis is being restored and we are invited to be agents of that restoration. We are now meant to bring order of disorder: in relationships, families, finance, law, time management, the environment and everything else. The privilege to tend the earth, that was lost in Eden, is restored to us in Jesus.
But there's more. It's a long way from self-centeredness to Christlikeness. The adoption papers are signed but we have yet to learn the Family business. Our present history with rule, authority, power, dominion and submission is not without wrinkle and stain.
India is a lot like Rome. We idolize our leaders and they deify themselves. A Sri Lankan Pastor once told me that when the legendary cricketer Sanath Jayasuria walks into a coffee shop in Colombo, people smile at him and perhaps greet him politely. But when he went to a mall in India, he was mobbed by unruly fans. There’s something in the Indian sensibility that has conditioned us to put people in power on a pedestal that does not belong to them. It’s true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but in India we have a habit of feeding the corruption.
As a young Christian, I remember witnessing a disturbing favoritism for western leaders and a distasteful attraction to the pulpit, the stage and the microphone. Sometimes the trouble with Christian leadership in India is that it is marked by personality but not character, charm but not wisdom, eloquence but not substance, control but not authority, busy bodies but not rested spirits and good intentions but not fervent prayer.
Leaders and followers need a better pattern to imitate. In the book of Acts, the Bereans were not intimidated by Paul. In fact, they took him to task and brought him, too, under the authority of the Word. Fortunately, he was a leader who would have it no other way. India needs leaders who rule in the humility of Christ and followers who aren’t seduced by Caesar.
A leader who takes more honor than he deserves is as lost as the person who gives him the undeserved honor. They are people who have the God-given instinct to rule and submit, but they have forgotten the spirit in which they were made to rule and the Person to whom they must submit. The relationship takes on cult-like dimensions. Authority turns authoritarian and submission turns into fanaticism. Pride takes the place of humility. Money takes the place of God. Eden is reborn and Rome is revisited.
The rule of God brings life wherever it is honored. When we rule in His image and submit to His purpose, we will see integrity at work, truth in the financials, justice in society, faithfulness in marriage, leadership at home and order in the private life. The single greatest act of leadership in history was a Man’s mission to lay down his life for his friends. On the weight of this act of submission, all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him. When we begin to submit to the will of God, we begin to rule in the likeness of His Son. All other kingdoms will crumble. All other thrones will fall. But we will be given the crown of life, if we cast our own crowns to the ground.
Written for Christian Trends Magazine
It’s in this setting of men pretending to be gods that the story spread of how God had become a man. Jesus lived in Israel under the rule of Caesar. The irony can’t be lost on a Christian. It was often declared in Rome that “Caesar is Lord”. It was customary for military evangelists to go through the streets and proclaim the Gospel or the Good News of Caesar’s latest conquests in battle. The language of the New Testament was first heard in the streets of Rome.
The Gospel writers caught on to the political rhetoric of the Romans and used it to tell the story of a greater kingdom than Rome and a better King than Caesar. A new breed of evangelists proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ that death had been conquered and that Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord. But it was a story that was too subversive for Rome.
One after another, its rulers responded with an iron fist. Men were thrown to lions. Women were sent to the grave. Under a handful of Caesars, persecution followed Christians over a period of three centuries because they gave their worship to Christ alone. They were willing to die for Him because they believed He had risen from the dead - something no Caesar had ever done. Death was the one territory that refused to submit to Rome. But it was also the weapon that was used against its dissidents.
Christians were persecuted because they lived in Rome as citizens of heaven, under the lordship of Christ. Rome was ruled by Caesar and the Church was ruled by Christ. Yet today, the glory of Rome is a memory and the once persecuted church marches on towards eternity. But not without conflict, from within and without.
Some of us remain under the curse of Caesar. We still want a throne to give us a name and a title to give us our worth. The corruption that comes with a crown still has the power to seduce the servant and turn him into a tyrant. But our instinct to rule is not contrary to the will of God. In fact, He designed Adam to rule over creation; in harmony with His character and purpose. The trouble is that we have the first instinct but we’ve lost the other.
To be made in the image of God is to be made in the likeness of a righteous Ruler. In the Genesis story, when God's work is over, Adam's work begins. He was God's sub-lord over creation, the ruling representative of God's character. But he traded the honor for a treat. To be sons of Adam is to be children of rebellion. It's in our nature to serve ourselves because our parents did the same. Adam and Eve were tricked into swapping a crown for a craving. We don’t seem to have learnt from their mistakes. We're still falling for that serpentine trick. We're still trading a treasure, for many a trivial thing.
The Proverbs tell us that “a ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor”. It makes sense then that so much of our human condition is the natural result of nations, homes, offices and communities under the rule of men without understanding. The Proverbs also tell us that “a wicked ruler over a poor people is like a roaring lion or a charging bear”. All of us have met that sort of beast. Whether it's a corrupt politician, an ill-tempered boss, an authoritarian leader or an alcoholic father; we have seen what it looks like when a leader forgets how to rule.
The trouble with humanity is not that we are sinful. No doubt, that’s the present state of our being. But once we were rulers. Once we were regents. Once we named the animals. Once we were the image of God, blameless and without fault. The trouble with humanity is that we have forgotten who we are. We are rulers living as slaves to our cravings - unfit to rule the world because we cannot even rule ourselves. We are fallen rulers that need to be restored, so we can be people who bring the righteous rule of God into every corner of human existence.
But no one is meant to rule over everything and no one is meant to submit to everyone. We are made to rule over things entrusted to us, but we are also made to submit to those who rule over us. To be made in the image of God is to rule and submit in the likeness of Christ. This is why it's significant that Paul describes Jesus as "the image of the invisible God". He is a visible, tangible reminder of who we are meant to be. Christ is the ruler we were created to be like, who submits perfectly to the will of His Father, washing even the feet of His disciples. His submission doesn’t weaken His rule. In fact, it solidifies His lordship and tells us what it looks like when a ruler is truly secure in Himself.
Christian leadership comes with a sobering summons to rule in the image of God and submit in the humility of Christ. To this we are called. In the Gospel of Mark, the first words of Jesus are, "The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the Good News.” To repent is to turn around and redirect the course of our lives. We are invited to enter a kingdom more glorious than Rome and to follow a King more righteous than Caesar. When we repent, we are restored to our true identity - adopted children of God, who rule the earth and submit to one another, in the likeness of God.
The measure of this rule and submission is the order that it brings. By their fruits we shall know them. In a manner of speaking, the Genesis story presents God as the Creator who makes something out of nothing. In similar terms, man is presented as a creator who makes something out of something that God has made. Adam names the animals and works the garden to preserve its creative life force. But if God created order out of disorder, our Edenic parents managed to bring disorder out of order. The creative force turned destructive. The submissive nature of man turned self-serving. To be restored is to become agents who reverse this movement towards disorder, wherever our rule may reach.
When Jesus says that the kingdom of God is here, He's telling us that God's order in Genesis is being restored and we are invited to be agents of that restoration. We are now meant to bring order of disorder: in relationships, families, finance, law, time management, the environment and everything else. The privilege to tend the earth, that was lost in Eden, is restored to us in Jesus.
But there's more. It's a long way from self-centeredness to Christlikeness. The adoption papers are signed but we have yet to learn the Family business. Our present history with rule, authority, power, dominion and submission is not without wrinkle and stain.
India is a lot like Rome. We idolize our leaders and they deify themselves. A Sri Lankan Pastor once told me that when the legendary cricketer Sanath Jayasuria walks into a coffee shop in Colombo, people smile at him and perhaps greet him politely. But when he went to a mall in India, he was mobbed by unruly fans. There’s something in the Indian sensibility that has conditioned us to put people in power on a pedestal that does not belong to them. It’s true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but in India we have a habit of feeding the corruption.
As a young Christian, I remember witnessing a disturbing favoritism for western leaders and a distasteful attraction to the pulpit, the stage and the microphone. Sometimes the trouble with Christian leadership in India is that it is marked by personality but not character, charm but not wisdom, eloquence but not substance, control but not authority, busy bodies but not rested spirits and good intentions but not fervent prayer.
Leaders and followers need a better pattern to imitate. In the book of Acts, the Bereans were not intimidated by Paul. In fact, they took him to task and brought him, too, under the authority of the Word. Fortunately, he was a leader who would have it no other way. India needs leaders who rule in the humility of Christ and followers who aren’t seduced by Caesar.
A leader who takes more honor than he deserves is as lost as the person who gives him the undeserved honor. They are people who have the God-given instinct to rule and submit, but they have forgotten the spirit in which they were made to rule and the Person to whom they must submit. The relationship takes on cult-like dimensions. Authority turns authoritarian and submission turns into fanaticism. Pride takes the place of humility. Money takes the place of God. Eden is reborn and Rome is revisited.
The rule of God brings life wherever it is honored. When we rule in His image and submit to His purpose, we will see integrity at work, truth in the financials, justice in society, faithfulness in marriage, leadership at home and order in the private life. The single greatest act of leadership in history was a Man’s mission to lay down his life for his friends. On the weight of this act of submission, all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him. When we begin to submit to the will of God, we begin to rule in the likeness of His Son. All other kingdoms will crumble. All other thrones will fall. But we will be given the crown of life, if we cast our own crowns to the ground.
Written for Christian Trends Magazine
