Mon 24 Apr 2006
On Friday afternoons I have the privilege of leading a group study on Christian themes and virtues, as well as glimpses of Christ, portrayed in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. The youth leader of our church helped organize the meetings and is an eager participant, as are a college volunteer leader and three or four high school students who faithfully gather each week at a Christian coffeehouse. We are working our way through Following Gandalf, Matthew Dickerson’s insightful and thoughtful treatment of Christian values in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.
Several weeks ago we were discussing Gollum and, in particular, Frodo and Sam’s treatment of him. Frodo, you will remember, had little sympathy for Gollum at the beginning. Before Frodo has so much as set foot on the path outside his door to begin his quest, he learns of the ill-nature and evil-doings of the former hobbit-like creature; he says to Gandalf with alarm,
‘But this is terrible!’ cried Frodo. ‘Far worse than the worst that I imagined from your hints and warnings. O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’
“‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.’
“‘I am sorry,’ said Frodo. ‘But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’
“‘You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in.
“‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Frodo. ‘I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.’
“‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.’”
As Frodo and his companions make their way to Rivendell and then later to the Mines of Moria, there is little evidence that Frodo’s attitude towards Gollum has changed at all. In the darkness of Moria, however, Frodo gets his first “glimpse” of the creature: at first it is the hushed footfalls of Gollum as he follows the Fellowship; later it is two pin-pricks of pale green light peering at him over a ledge. Still, there is no tangible evidence of change or compassion on the part of Frodo.
It is not until much later when Frodo comes face-to-face with Gollum that pity begins to waft over the Ringbearer. While slowly and painfully finding their way through Emyn Muil, Frodo and Sam find an opportunity to capture Gollum and do so. A decision must be made whether to allow him to live or spare him. Fearful of what the creature will do to him and his Master, Sam is in favor of dispatching Gollum; Frodo, however, is not so sure:
He paused for a while in thought. Gollum lay still, but stopped whimpering. Sam stood glowering over him.
“It seemed to Frodo then that he heard, quite plainly but far off, voices out of the past:”
What Frodo heard was the voice of Gandalf (as quoted above), telling the then-merciless Frodo that pity and life are high and great values, the marks of wisdom. After replaying the conversation silently in his head, Frodo says:
‘Very well,’ he answered aloud, lowering his sword. ‘But still I am afraid. And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him.”
Someone has changed over the hundreds of miles of journeying southward, and it is not Gollum. Frodo now sees the wretchedness and misery of Gollum and cannot bring himself to kill him, even though he knows that in fact this vile creature might kill him. I say cannot bring himself, but it is obviously a choice that he makes freely based on the wisdom of Gandalf. Instead of killing him, Frodo chooses and Sam submits to make Gollum their guide on the way to Mordor.
Sam’s animosity towards Gollum grows as the creature leads them to a trap at the top of the stairs of Cirith Ungol. As Shelob the Great, “the last child of Ungoliant,” attacks Frodo, Gollum pounces on Sam, intending to kill the “fat, stupid hobbit.” He underestimates Sam, however, and soon it is Gollum, not Sam, who is in peril of his life.
Sam swept up his sword from the ground and raised it. Gollum squealed, and springing aside on to all fours, he jumped away in one big bound like a frog. Before Sam could reach him, he was off, running with amazing speed back towards the tunnel.
“Sword in hand Sam went after him. For the moment he had forgotten everything else but the red fury in his brain and the desire to kill Gollum. But before he could overtake him, Gollum was gone.”
But Gollum is not about to give up. At the foot of Mount Doom, he makes what seems to be his last attack on Frodo, only to be repulsed once again. Frodo goes ahead toward the Cracks of Doom and Sam is left at last with the opportunity to kill Gollum:
‘Now!’ said Sam. ‘At last I can deal with you!’ He leaped forward drawn blade ready for battle. But Gollum did not spring. He fell flat upon the ground and whimpered . . .
“Sam’s hand wavered. His mind was hot with wrath and the memory of evil. It would be just to slay this treacherous, murderous creature, just and many times deserved; and also it seemed the only safe thing to do. But deep in his heart there was something that restrained him: he could not strike this thing lying in the dust, forlorn, ruinous, utterly wretched.”
Assuming correctly that no one in the group had read the passage recently, I asked why Sam - who was ready to kill Gollum just a short time earlier - now could not bring himself to do so. Whether it was from memory or realization, the group gave the answer found in the continuing text for the sudden appearance of Sam’s compassion:
He himself, though only for a little while, had borne the Ring, and now dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again.”
Gollum had possessed the Ring for centuries while Sam had carried it and worn it only for a matter of hours. But Sam is changed by the experience. He suddenly understands the horror and power of the Ring, its crushing weight and seductive power. Where he had possessed no empathy or pity before, Sam now knows well enough what Gollum had suffered and was suffering still; knowing this, Sam is moved to exercise mercy rather than judgment, and his mercy saves his Master Frodo at the end.
As I wander deliberately around Christian cyberspace, I am dismayed by the lack of love, compassion, pity, and mercy evidenced at so many sites. It is especially prevelant among many - but by no means all - Reformed blogs; unfortunately, like a horrific, fatal accident on the side of the road, people cannot help themselves: they are inexorably drawn to the display of tragedy and sin.
Not so long ago, Pyromaniacs boasted of an imflammatory post (I agreed, to an extent, with the content of the post but struggled to get past the arrogant attitude so often on display by some of the writers there. If you’re looking for humility or compassionate treatment of others, you might skip “team pyro.”).
The post produced a “record” number of comments, too many of which were disrespectful and unloving. Christians attacked Christians with the same sort of red-hot fury that possessed Sam towards Gollum prior to his wearing the Ring. While not all participated, more than a few did what they could to fan the flames and keep the conflagration roaring on its record-setting pace. It was, sadly, an all-too-common display of the sort of behavior that brings disgrace to the Name of Jesus Christ and sows discord among the Body.
Elsewhere, Dan took a cheap shot at everybody’s favorite whipping boy, the dispensationalists. In handing out the fourth of his sarcastic, condescending Cowbell Awards, a significant number of believers in Christ were slandered as a group of “Hyperkinetic dispensationalism run amok.” Not hyperdispensationalism, which is a different breed of dispensationalist, but “hyperkinetic dispensationalism,” a brush broad enough to disparage a large segment of Christians.
(Dispensationalists are easy targets, I suppose, because they rarely fight back or defend themselves. I don’t think it’s because they are unable to fight back or lack the intelligence or wit to go toe-to-toe with their slanderers; I think they possess sufficient humility to understand that some of the criticisms are just and that those that are not do not warrant a similar, God-dishonoring reply. [I am a dispensationalist but it’s not something I think is worth dividing over or attacking others for: I find it to be little more than a hermeneutical tool to make sense of God’s work in history. Besides, the theological and hermeneutical alternatives are less satisfying and, to me, less consistent - although they are biblically defensible.])
All of this is to say that, for all the knowledge and so-called wisdom that attracts so many readers, there is a glaring lack of humility and decency on blogs like those mentioned above. Mercy is absent, as are compassion and wisdom. There is considerable knowledge but, as Paul predicted, a corresponding arrogance that renders the knower to be nothing.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” - 1 Cor 13.1-2
It is sad to see such zealous people possess so much knowledge but lack the understanding and wisdom that would transform that knowledge into love for other Christians. Why we feel the need to assail one another as we do baffles me at times; I have written about this elsewhere, both here and here. At the second site, I noted:
“Like the arrogant, secular philosophers and critics they so resemble, these blogging bullies’ ‘greatest joy is to be shocking, and their greatest fear is to be ignored’” (Peter Kreeft, p. 15).
I am not so naïve to believe that great numbers of people will stop reading these pugnacious blogs - it appeals too strongly to our fleshly lust for blood. But if only one person finds some compassion and, like Sam, can refrain from snuffing out a smoldering wick or breaking off a bruised reed, then some good will have come from this post.
Namárië.
April 27th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Dispensationalism that exists for no other reason than to put books on the Christian bestsellers list or to get people hooked on fear should be exposed as deviating from normative Christian thought. That’s exactly what I did in my post.
Did I slander all dispensationalists? No. I pointed out that Christians who get mired in conspiracy theories do the entire Church a grave injustice, whether they’re the one propagating the theories or running their lives by them.
Just ask all those people who read 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Occur in 1988 and euthanized their pets so they wouldn’t fall into the hands of Satan-worshippers. Ask them what that kind of lunacy breeds. Nothing Christian at all, frankly.
April 27th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Dan:
The term you used, as I pointed out, was ‘hyperkinetic dispensationalism.’ How might you react to the phrase, ‘hyperkinetic charismaticism’? Or is that redundant, since hyperactivity seems to be intrinsic to Charles Parham’s legacy? Or, since you brought it up, how would it feel to be the target of an attack on the lunacy bred by ‘that kind’ of Christianity?
You can say what you will - and who am I to say you can’t? - but the mockery of the ‘Cowbell Awards’ is hardly edifying: not for the people on the receiving end, nor for those who read, laugh, and thank God that they’re not like those Christians. As I said, it’s your blog - and thus your responsibility - but I don’t see how those awards manifest ’speaking the truth in love’ or seek to restore (rather than ridicule) such obviously misguided believers. But such dubious awards do keep people coming back and, as you have stated, numbers are important to you for reasons you believe to be legitimate. And so they may be.
But as for the condescension of the ‘CBAs,’ maybe that floats at your site, but it won’t float here. You want to take pot-shots at people in the dispensational - or any other - camp? That’s fine, but don’t whine when it comes back at you.
April 27th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
No one is taking potshots at dispensationalists! There are plenty of rational dispensationalists. I have no beef with them in my post.
Dispensationalists who make scary pronouncements (like the guillotine one in my post) and cause people to stumble with conspiracy theories are no better than out-of-control charismatics. Both need to be reined in. I am fully for reining in charismatic headcases, so I don’t understand why you are not for reining in dispensationalists who promote false warnings and pronouncements.
The “mockery” of the More Cowbell Awards is no different than Elijah’s mocking of the prophets of Baal. Those posts serve to call out the bizarre or unchristian practices within the Church and alert people to the problem. That it’s done in a humorous tone is what seems to bother you. Considering that 99% of what I post on Cerulean Sanctum is NOT in a humorous tone seems to have slid by. That I’ve taken four posts out of nearly four hundred and used humor to illustrate an issue doesn’t cast me as wanton.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Dan:
Possibly - well, even probably - you’re right: perhaps, in reading yet another slam on dispensationalists I threw you into a group to which you didn’t and don’t belong. So, if I was wrong and unfair, I apologize. I did notice, FWIW, that I didn’t draw a clear distinction between what you do (with the CBAs) and the puffed-up attitudes of those Reformed bullies I wrote about previously. You are not, as far as I know, guilty of that sort of thing. You’re not a bully. So, I apologize for that, too.
My point, though, still stands; actually, several of my points still stand, I believe. One, that I don’t think we do a lot of good by tearing down one another, whether in jest or not. There is little compassion shown to people on the fringes. If you want to point out their errors, that’s a good thing, but the manner in which it is done is, I think, as important as that it is done. We are, after all, dealing with people for whom Christ died and who still - as stupid as we may think them to be - bear the image of God.
I don’t think the comparison to Elijah at Mt. Carmel is a very good one: he was mocking a false god, not a false doctrine; he was opposing unbelievers who had rejected the truth, not believers who were off on a doctrine - albeit with serious consequences. A better comparison would probably be Amos telling the people of Israel to “go to Bethel and sin.” That’s directed at God’s people, albeit in disobedience, and is certainly mockery. You might sell that to me - if any of those people are reading your blog and hear what you are saying about their false teaching. But, somehow, I doubt that they are frequent flyers at your place - or mine, for that matter. After all, Bill Gates is the Antichrist, is he not? So anything involving computers has to be evil and I can’t image those folks on the internet - but maybe they are!.
Did I use the word wanton? It’s a good word but I don’t think I used it anywhere. But, regardless, it doesn’t matter to me if you do something four times out of four hundred or four times out of four million: if I think it’s wrong, I may say something. So the percentage thing is a red herring. You might note, too, that I didn’t trash your blog in general, just that one particular feature. If I thought your blog was worthless, I (a) wouldn’t read it, and (b) wouldn’t link to it, either in posts or in the sidebars of both my blogs. So calm down a tad, eh?
Re “No one is taking pot shots at dispensationalists!”
You’re kidding, right? Surely you must admit that there are people in the Reformed camp who like to take a swipe at dispensationalists at every opportunity. Now, if by that statement you mean that you are not taking pot shots, OK; if you mean no one at all is, well, you need to get around more.
BTW, I’m all for reining in false teaching. I just hadn’t run across any lately that was dispensational in nature. Tell me what it is and I’ll happily go after it, but dispensationalists are somewhat rare among Godbloggers and the ones I know and have read are pretty responsible.
Is there a “lunatic fringe” in dispensationalism? Sure. But they are as representative of dispensationalism as Rodney Brown is of Charismatics. Should I dragged the term “charismatics” through the mud when I expose Brown’s false teachings? Or should I be careful to identify him as someone pretending to represent or operate under the banner of charismaticism but actually being an embarrassment to and an aberration of that segment of the Christian community? Perhaps if I just call him a “hyperkinetic Charismatic,” that will be definitive enough.
I don’t take attacks on dispensationalism personally - I stopped caring long ago what others think of my beliefs: I know why I believe what I believe, and I’m aware of more difficulties and problems with dispensationalism than 99% (to borrow your figure) of those sniping about it. I just get tired of the apparent sense of superiority demonstrated by those who denounce them/us and treat them/us like bastard children in God’s family. If such “hyperkinetic dispensationalists” are not believers, then they need the gospel rather than mockery; if they are believers, then they need to be confronted and corrected with a view toward restoration.
Yes, it does bother me that it’s done with a
mocking“humorous” tone. Wouldn’t sadness be more appropriate? I suppose I could sit back and laugh, ridicule, and mock what passes for “sound doctrine” among Charismatics - “Charismatic theology? Now there’s an oxymoron for you!” - but what is the profit? Who is edified? Is this wholesome speech?If we’re going to laugh at and make fun of any group, it should be that group of which we are a member, be it a denomination, movement, or church. Otherwise, our conversations should be as serious as death because, after all, they are that serious: the consequences are eternal.
As far as CBAs go, we’ll just have to disagree about the inappropriateness of them. But don’t lose any sleep over it: I am a mere gnat among rhinos and other enormous mammals, and my opinion isn’t going to hurt you or anyone else. You’ll be around and teaching hundreds of people every day long after I’ve all-but disappeared from the Godblog radar.