Listened to a three part
podcast, with Richard Beck (Abilene Christian University) speaking about how the fear of death is a driving force to evil in the universe. Beck was saying that it is common in the western church to believe that sin causes death.
However, we have had little understanding that death, it's very existence, and our fear of it, is also a
major driving force that
Causes sin.... (sin causes death-death causes sin) We do a lot of nasty evil things when faced with a fear something will die, will not continue, or will change.
Richard Beck, then gave this illustration of the preservation instinct that all created mechanisms have (Any Institution). When faced with injury, if there is any possibility, in the remotest possibility, that injury or death is on the horizon, lots of nastiness always results. It's a survival ethic, that kicks in when a drop of "death fear" creeps in.
"I can devote my life to.........this institution, and I can pull myself into it, and I get all these self esteem benefits, .....I'm getting blue ribbons, I'm getting promotions, I'm getting a pat on the back. But, at the end of the day, if my institution, or any business, kind of feels the Darwinian pinch, people get let go. Then they say, "Wait a second."
I think of this last recession. I just spent forty years working for this company, and, just like that, they let me go. And then you look back on it and ask, "Well, what was I serving?" Because, what you eventual realize is that that institution is governed by it's own survival ethic....... It's governed by the logic of death......
I was serving, in the language of Paul, another creature, another created thing, and it sapped my time and energy. But for forty years, working for the man, it made me feel like my life had purpose and meaning...... it's fragile. While it works, it gets you through the day. You can go through the day and be very busy, feel like you had a good day. But it's very fragile......."Podcast
I found this insightful, and see the power of death at work (causing sin) in me.
But, now I also understand that this fear of death works in the institutions I have been part of....
The Fear in both, causing us to sin.
Willing to let things die, rather than wrestling with it to keep it alive, help it survive, is probably a major advancement in our lives. When we give up the fear of something dying, we are given that very thing back, in a new way, a better way. John said perfect love casts out fear.....
John 12:24 "I
tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and
dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a
plentiful harvest of new lives."
I have some things to think about....
The Global Nomad.
AJ
