I'm not entirely sure that I'll end up changing my mind on anything after reading Randy Alcorn's, "If God Is Good..." Some of what Dave Lamb suggests is true - some of what Mr. Alcorn writes is opinion parading as fact. I don't wish to live in a Post Modern world where good and evil are decried as a result of situational ethics, but I strongly suspect that when education, religion, and science are prone to the meddling of politics, the TRUTH is no longer knowable. There is at least a relaxing comfort in having someone say, "This is it. It's right here in the Bible in black and white. Don't take my word for it... YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE!" Of course, much of what they're saying is their interpretation of what the Bible says, but their convinced of that interpretations veracity and their conviction is refreshing.
The other day I wrote on my Facebook update about the cost of food in Kenya - five meals for $1. One of the comments that befuddled me was someone who said, "Yeah, but the meals aren't nutritious." In America, a meal that costs 20 cents is very likely not nutritious. In fact, pretty much any meal under about $5 is probably not nutritious. But in a foreign country where most of the food is grown on farms, raised in nearby ranchlands, or picked from nearby trees - their food is probably MORE nutritious than most food bought here.
After all, how much does it cost to grow grain? You plow a field, drop in seed, water and wait. Plowing (other than the initial cost for equipment) only costs hard work. Water and sun are a free gift from God. Seed can't be that expensive - especially not versus the yield of such seed. The expense, it would seem, would come from things needed to sell such food (not consume it) - like packaging and fertilizer and preservatives and refrigeration and granary costs and delivery costs, etc... To grow food on your land to feed your own people, I can see a cost of about 20 cents a meal.
Do I think this person responded ignorantly? Were they just trying to cover up the fact that they don't want to give money to poor Kenyans? No, I don't think so. I don't think it was a question of race or indifference. I think it was mostly a question of perception. To their mind, sending a dollar to Kenya was only exacerbating the problem because these poor kids would be given bad food and poor nutrition wasn't something they wanted to pay for. Therefore, since they didn't trust the outcome of their benevolence, since they didn't trust that their money would be spent wisely to ease the suffering of the poor, they didn't want to waste their money at all.
This sort of attitude is unfortunately becoming widespread in this country. When there is no one person of authority that you can trust, then every proclamation is subject to suspicion and derision. If a scientist says that the world is getting warmer, you look outside and say, "Feels the same to me." Global warming is a lie. If a neighbor tells you that the bad economy is causing them to default on their mortgage, you say, "They never should have taken the mortgage in the first place if they couldn't afford to pay it back." If a new plan to fund health care for all people seems too expensive for the country, you say, "I've got my insurance and I don't want anything to screw that up." And on the flip side of those issues are others saying, "The World Is Going To Flood!" or "The Government Should Buy My House!" or "Free Health Care Is A Constitutional Right!" It's gotten to the point where nobody knows who's right or who's wrong, but we strongly suspect that we're right and they're wrong. And we strongly suspect anyone who disagrees with us of soft thinking or other moral deficiencies.
All of this is part of Alcorn's book and this part he gets right, because the one thing he returns to over and over again is C.S. Lewis's notion that deep down there are absolute goods and absolute evils that we don't want to admit to ourselves, but that we know. We can justify it anyway we want, but deep down we know that it would be GOOD to feed the poor, take care of the sick, and not kick people out of their homes. Very few people would ever disagree with these things. We all know that Greed and Murder are EVIL. But to have to confront these issues, to have to face the possibility that we've been complicit in them, even if we didn't do them directly, is not something we want to do.
No matter how much we complain, we want our bread and circuses a little too much - because the alternative means admitting that we're wrong.
4 comments:
Truth is unknowable only if one rejects reason and logic, the tools which God gives us to find it. I'm afraid the "unknowable" position is the cop-out of those who don't wish to be intellectually rigorous but prefer to bask in the security of what someone else tells them, not on their own investigations.
Cheers.
The search for Truth could go on forever and ultimately lead you to the conclusion that you will never know it. For instance, I can investigate an incident, take witness statements, do forensic analysis, and apply all sorts of science and speculation to that event, but still might never know what REALLY happened. That's not intellectual cop-out, that's just realizing the limitations of human experience.
A good example of this is the number of people that will tell you that they know what the Bible says - though scholars tend to agree on about 90% of it, its the remaining 10% that has caused all the schisms in the entire Christian church. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who is to say that none of these schisms are based on rigorous intellectual search?
I am finding it hard to accept post-modern thought, but I'm finding it equally hard to accept that any one person has all the answers. So if I can't trust that anyone I listen to knows the answers, then I am forced to rely on my own convictions and thoughts on the matter (shaped, of course, by my reason and logic - flawed as they may be) and therefore, I am right back in the post-modern trap.
What I am beginning to suspect, a la C.S. Lewis, is that there are certain unalienable truths in the world - truths that I don't necessarily want to acknowledge because of their inconvenience to my existence.
Will, I was baffled by that comment on your Facebook page as well. I'm not sure what to make of it either, although I tend to think that you're probably being a bit generous about her position, and I might take that statement further than I should...but I'm going to do it anyway.
I think your statement convicted her, and she was most comfortable reacting to that discomfort through a cynical statement. I think she inherently knows that your statement is true (with you backing it up with your upcoming trip) and she did not like being confronted with that very truth about the great amount of wealth we have here relative to a citizen of Kenya. You actually sum up her reaction quite succinctly in your closing paragraphs.
Western thought has become less about discussion of ideas and more about trading sound bites. And it's very easy to throw out a sound bite and focus on your comfortable ideology from behind your daily $3 latte - three bucks that could provide 15 meals in Kenya.
Andy, you must not be getting your lattes at Starbucks. Mine costs $4.50.
Will, you are a wise man.
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