I am not sure if this is really good advice or not. But it’s better than ‘get drunk as you can’ and ‘go kill someone’ so let’s say it’s good, ok?
The truth is, most of the time when we think we are in hot water, we aren’t, just like when we take a bath. We get in and it is HOT! But before too long it’s actually quite temperate. Bad events are often like that too. We see them as outrageous, unforgivable, irredeemable at first. Then we realize they aren’t as bad as we thought. It might take a while, weeks or months even, but eventually we find we will survive.
So, maybe the best thing to do when you are confronted with getting in trouble is to do exactly this, take a bath. Or a go for a walk, or a run. Or watch a movie. It doesn’t really matter what it is, just mellow out for a bit so you can calm down and see the situation through more reasonable eyes.
Then, if you are still in hot water, get a lawyer!
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote is a Chinese proverb
By the way, really great job on that letter you posted the other day about healthy Western appreciation and love vs. destructive white supremacy!
I wanted to ask, do you think postmodernism of last 50 years has diminished what you consider great about Western culture?
Thanks Austin, I appreciate that.
I don’t know that I would say it’s diminished anything as much as it’s reinterpreted many things. Post-modernism is not, in my mind, the bugaboo many Evangelicals make it out to be. It’s an easy target when condemning what we ‘lost’ in the West but I don’t think it’s as simple as that.
Post-modernism is a label put on a natural and organic progression that has occurred over the decades. It is about things being seen from multiple angles (read multicultural) instead of from just one angle. It also says that right and wrong are relative depending on the culture. Christians bristle at that idea because they think that denies the ‘absolute’. But they critique it while they interpret the Bible and culture from their own relative view point. Pretty ironic if you ask me.
What do you think?
I’m not quite sure what I think about post
-modernism. Both sides seem to have good points, but I need to explore the issue a bit more.
i think of Jesus as dogmatic (I am the way, the truth, and the life). Yet his dogma was so liberating. Ironically, here is a dogma that allows his followers to escape condemnation… from the world, and ultimately God’s condemnation of sin.
Wouldn’t a Christian dogmatic be like Jesus… both sure of the truth as well as loving, kind, and accepting toward his/her neighbor?
The definition of Dogmatic is ‘inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true’. The problem is that a contemporary dogmatic Christian is most often not focusing on the ‘loving, kind, accepting’ element you mention and is more focused on the ‘condemnation for not believing and acting as they do’ element.
For example, what if the person you are talking to does not believe there being a need to be saved from condemnation since they don’t believe in original sin? If you insist that they are wrong and are going to go to hell because of it, then you are being dogmatic, right?
In any case, this is the illustration I used to show a person being pressured (hot water). I think it is a far to common occurrence, at least in evangelical circles.
I’m more Calvinist in my understanding, so I don’t believe that it even helps to save people by berating them. The only hope for any of us is to encounter the Holy Spirit and to be born again.
In this sense, it’s out of my hands. I believe in praying for the lost, explaining to them my faith, and (hopefully) loving them as Christ loved me. This also gives me a sense of humbleness on the matter… I’m only saved because of God’s grace in my life, not because I was enlightened enough to see it. Anyway, I wish more evangelicals would approach evangelism more as relational and less like their trying to close a sale.
If you are going to be evangelical about your religion it definitely behooves you to be relational. Otherwise you are right, you are just a somewhat suspect cosmic salesman in my opinion.
What’s the Bible imagery supposed to mean in this drawing?
hi Austin, It is indicative of someone being condemned (hot water) for not believing something or behaving in ways that aren’t to the satisfaction of a zealot. That could be in many other areas besides Christianity of course. Most religions have dogmatic types who condemn. But I chose Christianity because it’s the faith and heritage I am most familiar with.