Fight Club

I was watching this excellent movie for the second time a few nights ago, and it struck me that it's actually a movie about male initiation.  I haven't read the novel so it's possible that the film version is a complete reinterpretation of Chuck Palahniuk's original story, but after doing some reading on male initiation and the effects of its massive deficit in Western culture, I could instantly recognize some of the major themes present here. 

I especially like this clip, where Tyler Durden gives the narrator an unexpected chemical burn and then goes on to explain why.  WARNING!  There is some strong language here.

"First, you have to give up.  First you have to know--know, not feel--that some day you're going to die."
"You don't know how this feels!"
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

One of my favorite authors lists the following as the five central tenets to male initiation:

1) Life is hard.
2) You are not important.
3) Your life is not about you. 
4) You are not in control.
5) You are going to die.

More men need to figure this out.  If they all have to have their condos blown up, get beat up night after night at underground fight clubs, get ceremonially burned, and face down their criminally insane alter-egos to get there, so be it.

Doing What Jesus Did

"The time is ripe for men and women to create a new type of community for which there is, as yet, no single name.  To get a notion of what I mean, add together this family of words: hearth (a nuclear area, a vital or creative center), hospitality (the cordial and generous reception and entertainment of guests or strangers), charity (the kindly and sympathetic disposition to aid the needy or suffering), celebration (to honor by engaging in religious, commemorative or other ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business), community (a body of individuals organized into a unit with awareness of some unifying trait)."
~Sam Keen, Fire In The Belly


This is what Jesus created.  Lately--with the intimate involvement of the believers I'm connected to--we've been discussing, praying over, and attempting to live out a set of values that we think are central and vital to the ministry of Jesus.  We have defined them as follows:

• Intimately obedient to the Father
• Inclusive to outsiders
• At work for Justice and Peace
• Intentional discipleship

I like what we came up with (with the help of some really smart people who are much more intelligent and more experienced than we are!).  But then there's Sam Keen.  I was reading Fire In The Belly this afternoon. Keen's vision of a world where men and women are reconciled, with the vitality of the family unit as the top priority--and an eye towards development of a new model of healthy and sustainable manhood and womanhood--struck me as elegant and profound.  I think it captures the essence of the life of Jesus Christ, as well as the Church in Acts.

To me, the hearth is a symbol for the dwelling place of God; like the tabernacle or the sanctuary, it is a sacred space where we find rest, peace and new life.  What the dinner table is to a family or the mountaintop is to a guru, the hearth is to a group of believers.  It is sitting at the feet of Jesus.  It is worshipping God in a sacred and familiar space, amidst peace and rejuvenation.  

The next three, hospitality, charity and celebration, are trademarks of Jesus' life on Earth, and perhaps the most misjudged and misunderstood aspects of His ministry by the accepted religious establishment of His time.  He spent time with those who had nothing to offer society, who were criminals, sinners, unclean, social outcasts, and oppressors.  He ate with them, he gave himself to them, he served them, and he partied with them.  Does the modern church do this?

Community is a framework that undergirds all of the above.  Our inter-dependent relationships with like-minded believers are what allow us (with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit) to remove the barriers in our lives that prevent us from approaching God, from receiving His gifts, and from giving ourselves generously to the poor and needy people all around us.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

A few days ago, the Supreme Court ruled on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as 'ObamaCare.' As far as I can tell, the 5-4 vote ruled in favor of most parts of the law, including the most shocking part (to me), which would force uninsured Americans to buy health insurance. However, their reason for upholding that part of the law was unexpected. Their decision stated that, in fact, the federal government can't force people to buy things they don't want under the 'interstate commerce' clause, which is what many liberals and Democrats were planning on. Instead the Court approved it as a part of the federal government's power to tax American citizens. The NY Times puts it this way: "the federal government is not permitted to force individuals not engaged in commercial activities to buy services they do not want. That was a stunning victory for a theory pressed by a small band of conservative and libertarian lawyers."

I'm a fan of that small band of conservative and libertarian lawyers. But I don't like the fact that the Supreme Court found some other reason to let the federal government tell me what to spend my money on. I don't think they should be able to force me to pay for insurance premiums if I don't want to. How is that a tax? A tax is "a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits." Taxes are meant to allow the federal government to do the following things, according to the U.S. Constitution: print money, declare war, establish an army and navy, enter into treaties with foreign governments, regulate commerce between states and international trade, establish post offices and issue postage, and make laws necessary to enforce the Constitution. It's actually ludicrous and rather comical to argue that the federal government needs to levy a 'tax' in the form of mandatory health insurance for everyone based on the problems with overspending that have been created by the current Medicaid system combined with a lack of affordable health care. I would argue that the federal government has already stepped far over the boundaries prescribed to it in the Constitution by attempting to mandate, orchestrate and subsidize ANY nationwide healthcare system.

Unfortunately in the big picture this ruling was a significant decision in favor of federalism. It reduces the power of individual states to custom fit their policies to their own populations, and I think it undermines the representative and independent nature of American government. The reason why Bill Clinton's Welfare Reform act was so successful and so widely accepted in the 90's was because it returned the power of policy-making and representation (and therefore true democracy) to the state level. Welfare is one of those public goods created by the federal government that can easily become bloated, inefficient, and abused. Allowing individual states to control the size and shape of their own welfare programs is bound to reduce unnecessary spending and keep the program focused.

The bottom line for me is that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is largely unconstitutional. It allows the federal government to infringe on the rights and liberties of individual states AND individual citizens, it contributes to unnecessarily large federal government, and it continues the vicious cycle of excessive government spending which will eventually destroy the U.S. economy.