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(Just joshing, Sports Fans. We kid because we love.)
The following article is a prime reason why I finish books I don’t really enjoy — you never know if some worthwhile nubbins will squeak out by the end. After 180 pages of sub-stellar essays spanning twenty-five years of his output, Professor Robert W. Jenson gave us this not-too-shabby contribution in 1990 concerning three of our favorite topics.
I.
Nearly all American institutions that have in any generous or authentic fashion taught “liberal arts” were founded by the Christian church. Most of these schools are now much secularized. It is a question whether American colleges’ cultivation of the liberal arts can survive this development, except as provision of amenities for the most leisured or alienated among student constituencies. The evidence is not encouraging. The sense in which even the most elite schools can now verify their title as colleges “of” liberal arts is with rare exceptions decidedly attenuated. It seems likely that the liberal character of America’s colleges stands and falls with their ideologically and liturgically Christian character.
The alliance, of course, long antedates America. The liberal arts are the inheritance of Athens’ free polity, of the arts required for public debate of the good and in turn nurtured by the discourse thus constituted; they are, as old classicists like myself never tire of repeating, “the arts proper for a citizen to acquire.”1 The liberal arts, when vital, were not ornamental arts; they were the praxis of public life as different from private, economic life — they seem impractical to us only because we have made a political choice to restrict serious praxis to the private sphere.
So soon as the Christian movement, coming into the Hellenized world of later Mediterranean antiquity, encountered the liberal curricular inheritance, it appropriated these arts as its own. Vice versa, since the final collapse of pagan antiquity, the liberal arts have appealed and could appeal to no other protector or promoter than the church.
The question of my essay is: What can be the basis of this mutual attraction? Indeed, of this mutual dependency? “Athens and Jerusalem” are not in general likely allies. Greek religion is polymorphous; the Lord is a jealous God. Greece’s deity is eternal by immunity to death; Israel’s and the church’s God by suffering and conquering it. The free polis was indeed an unprecedented public space for those admitted, but excluded most of the population; in Christ there is neither slave nor free, male nor female. The Greeks were incurable elitists; Christ has chosen the lowly of this world. Athens seeks wisdom, whereas Jerusalem seeks righteousness; and the gospel slashes this already drastic polarity with the foolishness and offense of the cross.
Athens and the Christian movement had of course to meet and talk. When the mission of the gospel invades new cultural and religious turf there occurs always a mutual new interpretation: interpretation of the gospel claim that Jesus rules in light of the antecedent hopes and fears of the invaded culture, and vice versa, of the culture’s antecedent convictions in light of the gospel. So it went also on that branch of the mission that moved from Jerusalem and Antioch into the centers of Hellenized antiquity — and eventually to us. At the basis of specifically Western Christianity and the once-evangelized Western culture there are an appropriate baptizing of Hellenism and a reciprocal hellenizing of the gospel. By and large, however, the conversation between these partners — unlike, for apparent example, that in black Africa — has been a gloriously productive millennial agony. Why then the one area of peace and harmony?
II.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let me suggest: the gospel and the life of the free polis each perceive an intimate enemy, and it is the same on both cases. When the gospel is heard and not believed, or when freedom is frustrated or merely exploited, the specter of nihilism rises. Against this haunt, one can never have too many allies.
It is of course from the writings of Nietzsche that the word “nihilism” resonates among us, but for the purposes of this essay I will follow a usage less convoluted than his. By nihilism I will simply mean lack of hope. Or, what is the exactly same thing, I will mean inability to find reason for valuing human persons by warrants decisively different from those by which we value galaxies or cows or proteins or whatever. Perhaps I may best display the concept by pointing to its most massive historical exemplification: Hitler’s variety of fascism. Or by pointing to a trivial and momentarily benign case: the animal-rights movement.
The Hellenized world into which the gospel emerged from Judea and Galilee was a world staring into an abyss of anthropological despair and hypnotized by the returning stare. Christianity inherited from Judaism an exploration of the same abyss, wherein “All is vanity, and a striving after wind.” Each could thus share with the other the same fear and a dialectical but nevertheless real hope, that hope as such is not in vain.
Greece had drawn the great anthropological line to the contours of the polity: she had defined human transcendence as freedom in contrast to servility. Accordingly, for all Hellenism the possibility of political freedom was the possibility of specific humanity itself. Thus Greece always had difficulty knowing why the disenfranchised — slaves, the conquered, unwelcomed pre- or early post-partum infants, and in some respects women — should be treated differently than other animals. But what then if the suspicion arises, “Perhaps we are all, really, slaves?”
The possibility of such suspicion was always there in Greek experience. Since the rebirth of Greek civilization from the Dorian devastations, Greece’s energizing terror had been the fear of time’s mischances. That old Chronos eats all his children, that what time brings forth, time — and probably rather sooner than later — again devours, was for Greece a founding horrific experience. There had been a glorious, rich, and pious Greece, the Greece of Mycenae and its heroes; and in a moment it had been swept away. Two passages have always defined my understanding of Greece’s interpretation of reality. The second decrees that we may “call no one happy, until he has reached the end of his life without suffering misery.”2
For reawakening Greece, worth and beauty and truth — all together, “being” — could thus lie only in permanence; applied to personal beings, in “immortality.” It will be seen that, in Greece, love of freedom must therefore always be on the verge of self-refutation; for it is time that is the very horizon of freedom, of making choices than can make a difference, and it was precisely time that Greece feared above all else.
In her search for protection from time, Greece necessarily looked to the one permanence immediately obtrusive on ancient peoples, that of cosmic order. The heavens move, but their very movements exemplify unbending law and guarantee against all surprises. The splendor of the heavens can overwhelm even us, who so rarely attend to attending so, Greece thought she could see what she longed for, the timeless being in which our hastening times may find standing. We inhabit, she believed, a “cosmos”: we, fleeting as we are, may look out from our immediate world, fleeting as it too is, into an encompassing immunity to all time’s chances. We are housed within divine immutability.
But cosmic changelessness can be read two ways. Greece initially invoked it as just described, as footing for humanity daring to be free. But it can equally well appear as enveloping indifference precisely to freedom, as the body of a universal determinism. Within reality invoked as cosmos, we may be enabled to say, “There is no point in ventures, since all paths by iron necessity only return whence they came.” With the disappearance of actual free polities from the Hellenistic world, the latter reading replaced the former.
When Alexander and the Romans were finished, Mediterranean civilization had become “cosmopolitan”; all were citizens of but one great “city” of the great world as such. But can I be free, if I have the cosmos for my only polis? In what forum do I speak to its future? Where do they count the ostrakon I cast against its rulers? If the cosmos is my “city,” am I not then the inhabitant of a collective as indifferent to the choices of mortals as were any of the ancient local tyrannies?
It is into such Hellenism that Paul and the rest carried the gospel. “Greeks” like Origen who believed, and those like his schoolmate Plotinus who did not, were folk convinced that to be specifically human was to be free, and desperately afraid that freedom was a delusion. Those like Origen saw in the gospel new hope and rejoiced; those like Plotinus derided the new Pollyannas.
The religious and “philosophical” cry of declining Mediterranean antiquity was “Is there any way out of cosmos?” “Is freedom possible?” All the religions of the conquerors and the conquered, transmogrified into “mysteries,” answered, “You may indeed breach the iron heavens, by sacramental identification with our cult-figure, who has gone before you.” And all the “wisdom” of the “philosophical” ways answered, “Those in the know can find their way through the walls of necessity, to the freedom of pure spirit. We can teach you the secret.”
There was only one hitch: all these were indeed ways out of the cosmos, and those who followed them thus left behind also that human polis for which freedom was wanted in the first place. The freedom of the cults and of esoteric wisdom was a private freedom very different from a citizen’s freedom; and the cultic and esoteric arts were very different arts from those called “liberal.” If the one goal is to die and go to heaven, inwardly now and outwardly later, who needs politics? Or then its arts?
Americans should be familiar with the syndrome, if only in a secularized and therefore pusillanimous version. It is, we say, “a free country,” and thousands have dedicated their lives and sacred honor to keeping it so. Yet in that country we have come to interpret freedom as the very opposite of dedication to the community, as a commandeered private sphere of “rights” in which the community is not to meddle. By “a free country” we have come to mean a society with no very peremptory public sphere, a society that demands of us as little as possible. It is no accident at all that mystery-cults and esoteric wisdoms flourish in California or Minneapolis as once in old Corinth or Alexandria. Neither is it an accident that the liberal arts languish.
“Can there be freedom?” Also the gospel came with an answer, but one very different from that of the mysteries and wisdoms: “There is freedom, because the world is not in fact a cosmos, but instead a creation.” Inheriting the doctrine of Judaism, the Christians knew the encompassing world as itself again encompassed, in freedom, in the freedom indeed of a person, who can if he will speak to us and attend to our answer. The world, said Jews and Christians, is not a structure of indifferent law but the referent of an encompassing free purpose. The world, they said, is from its deepest reality hospitable to choice that makes a difference, since it is itself nothing but the referent of a great such Choice. Prayer is possible, and therein freedom.
Over against despair of freedom in the world to which it came, ancient Christianity thus made precisely freedom a chief slogan of its promises, of the “gospel.” The freedom believers proclaimed was, moreover, a freedom that could be, if there were a community to receive it, political freedom, the freedom of that community to choose its courses of action and set out to follow them.
Hellenists who persisted in the memory of free citizenship and — even if merely nostalgically — carried on with its arts, could hear the gospel as a message of hope. They could even see, in the community of the church itself, a restored place for the practice of freedom’s arts, for the cultivation of language and public discourse and for the interpretation of texts and of history, as once again communally necessary arts. And that is to say, they could hear the gospel as a promise that specific humanity, just as Athens had evoked it, was not a delusion, and they could see the church as a community in which specific humanity could occur.
Indeed, in the centuries after the final collapse of ancient civilization and the emergence of the new synthesis we have called “Western” civilization, the alliance of the gospel and the liberal arts was to create new free public spaces also outside the church. The great free cities of the medieval empire were democracies far more direct than any we now have in America. Or again, the “holy commonwealths” of Puritan New England provided the very pattern of democratic aspiration throughout the founding periods of this nation’s life.
Vice versa, believers could see in faithful Hellenists — which very soon was for most believers to say, in their own past selves — spiritual comrades in all but the identification of the Savior: as Israel had longed explicitly for Messiah, the “Greeks” had longed for the freedom he would bring. The “preparation for the gospel,” they decided, had been separate but equal in Jerusalem and Athens.
And as the church came to recognize that Christ had not returned so quickly as first expected, that she had to settle down for a longer historical haul, the church needed what all historically continuing communities do, appropriate education. What better curriculum could there be for a community that saw itself as the bearer of God’s own freedom than the arts of freedom?
This line of discussion has one more step. After long centuries of Western history carried by the conversation between Athens and the gospel, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, or rather its more popularized versions, dissolved the conversation, sending, as they superstitiously identified the parties, “reason” one way and “revelation” another — it is this dissolution that has, a bit later than elsewhere, now undone also American colleges of arts.
Thereby antiquity’s plight was repristinated: the indifferent cosmos was reinvented. The new prison is duller than the old one; in the meantime, Christian skepticism has made it impossible to see any creature as divine, so that the inexorable cosmos now appears merely as a “machine.” But the effect is the same: insofar as we have been taught about “science” by the seventh grade and by Public Television physicists, we again suppose we inhabit an adamant system of predictabilities, alien to freedom, indifferent to our choices and appeals.
III.
To compound our need, the alliance of Athens and the gospel has on the way conjured from the deeps a new nihilism, of its very own sort. It has been labelled “historical relativism.”
According to Judaism and the gospel, we live not in a “cosmos” but in an encompassing history. In this metaphysic, being has temporal sequence itself as its horizon, and consists in choice of what is not yet but is to be. The coherence of things is not, on this interpretation, lawlike regularity, but dramatic coherence of events across time. The sequence of history has plot, so as just thereby to be indeed history and not mere meaningless succession.
Most of Western intellectual and cultural history has consisted in the slow appropriation of this very unhellenic interpretation of reality. We may, for one quick historical instance, think of the Reformation‘s elevation of “faith” to the key position in human being, as faith is “the assurance of things hoped for….”
In this metaphysic, freedom is not problematic; but the point of freedom may become so. Where the gospel is heard but no longer believed, freedom may become absurdity. My life will be a tale told by a poet, signifying much, only insofar as it does in fact have plot, as it has complication, crisis, and resolution.
The problematic of this “insofar” is that it takes at least two to make drama, so that my life can be plotted only in community. And when the reference is made to community, the question of plot is repeated at a new level, for it is again dramatic coherence that makes a group of individuals into a community. But whose story is this common story?
As “Enlightenment” had been the spiritual event of the West’s eighteenth century, so “historicism” was the spiritual event of the nineteenth. Historicism consisted in the exploration, both theoretical and in political and religious practice, of the question just posed. The Enlightenment, then and still not “overcome,” made it seem hard to say boldly as did the Bible, “The common story is the story of God.” A series of philosophers unparalleled since Athens therefore attempted approximate assurance: “The common story is the story of absolute Spirit.” “The common story is the story of universal humanity.” But the slide once underway, someone eventually had to say: “All the common story there is, is the story of our community and its spirit. Other communities have other stories.” Or even, “How can there [be] any common story? Plot out your own life, even if such an undertaking is absurd.” Therewith the demon was out.
“We have our values, you have yours.” Or even, “I have my values, you have yours.” We are accustomed to this historicist sort of nihilism, but it is nihilism none the less. For of course, unshared “values” are no values at all, since “good” and “bad” refer — as we all really know — exactly to what we do with and for one another. A “morality” that I am unwilling to “impose” on anyone else is wholly illusory, and will give no shape to my life either, however privately that life may be conceived and lived. Most who will read this essay entertain in fact “no hope in this world”; or at least so they assure all inquirers, convinced as they claim to be that “values are relative.”
Historicist nihilism manifests itself most democratically as sheer inability to reason ethically. I choose an instance that notably infests the academic, reminiscently “liberal” community. A Minnesota Poll recent as of this writing reported that most Minnesotans believe (1) that abortion is the taking of personal human life and (2) that folk should have “the right” to abort as they freely choose. The evil to which I here call attention is not the number of abortions that Wade vs. Roe has produced, terrifying as this is. The subtler, more demonic evil appears in our ability simultaneously to entertain the two referenced opinions. The nihilism is the escape of “choice” from community. It is freedom that consists in excuse from responsibility for the other and for the storyline of my life so far, freedom that occurs on a horizon of sheer temporal sequentiality with no plot at all.
In the academy, of course, we expect also explicit ideological appearances of whatever is going; and indeed sundry ways of carrying historical relativism to its spooky end are now the chief menu at conventions of all disciplines but the natural sciences. I mention but one, since it is the currently favored way of displacing the liberal arts. It is, we are told, legalistically repressive — indeed “dualistic,” “hierarchical,” even “phallocentric” — to insist that any text can have its own sense, which it is a teacher’s task to defend against mistaken readings. Therefore it is supposed also to be an arbitrary imposition if we set up any particular set of texts as essential in the curriculum; for since any text can have any meaning, any text can serve wisdom as well as any other.
Where freedom is abstract and arbitrary, and needs no community, neither does it need arts. It is again no accident that where historical relativism rules, the liberal arts die.
IV.
There is hope for hope. The gates of nihilism will not prevail against the one holy catholic church — though they may, of course, prevail against particular parts of the church and have sometimes done so — and therefore the will be heard in the world so long as the world lasts, telling of the good for whose coming we may hope. And therefore also there will so long as the world lasts be in the world a community in which hope is practiced.
It is, of course, not guaranteed that Western civilization will last, or that its teaching and practice of liberal arts will last. Even less is it guaranteed that the Western part of the church will endure to the end, or even very long. But just because nothing along such lines is ever guaranteed, neither can we know that these things will not last or even suddenly be reinvigorated. In many ways, both surviving custodians of Athens’ arts and believers in the gospel find themselves thrown back into the situation in which they first made alliance. A mighty tree came from that inconsiderable seed; why may it not happen again?
The first step is simply the recovery, on both sides of the old alliance, of mere clarity about who we are and what we need. God willing, the Western church might yet remember that it is not an all-purpose volunteer religious society for whatever causes society currently defines as good. We can at any moment take instead to proclaiming the gospel. And if the church did that, then in the Western context its message would again as in ancient days be a word of hope for freedom, of hope for hope.
All the masters of the liberal arts have ever needed is a bit of such encouragement. And whenever we dare to cultivate our arts as more than decoration, as life-praxis of whatever little communities we can find for them, the mere practice itself becomes a spring of hope. Folk who labor on great inherited texts as if they matter liberate all around them to confidence that history does have some plot. Those who practice the arts of public discourse open little polities just by doing so, each time they break their silence. Those who discipline themselves to the outcome of experiment and observation, when they do it for the sake of truth, encourage all to faith that there is truth. To pursue beauty is to create it for all to see and hear. When we act as if human deliberation and decision could make a difference, they do make a difference. When we act as if community were real, it just thereby becomes real.
The gospel gives hope for the freedom that the liberal arts serve. The liberal arts give hope that the free person whom the gospel evokes can actually exist. And this circle is not vicious: we can be swept into its whirl catch-as-catch-can. Hope for hope is, after all, itself hope.
End Notes
1 Aristotle, Politika VII:2.
2 Sophocles, Oidipous Tyrannos, 1528-1530.
Bibliography
Jenson, Robert W. “Hope, the Gospel, and the Liberal Arts.” Essays in Theology of Culture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1995. p.180-189. Originally published in A Humanist’s Legacy: Essays in Honor of John Christian Bale, ed. Dennis M. Jones (Luther’s College, 1990).
In America today, we are all familiar with the term abortion. We hear about it on the news, in school, on television, at church, and in the public square. We hear the terms pro-life, pro-choice, and Roe v. Wade often as well, especially during last year’s election. Currently in my sociocultural class, we are discussing modern issues that should concern the modern Church (body of Christian believers). These issues include marriage equality, new forms of gender roles, right to privacy, infringement upon free speech, the ACA or “Obamacare,” college discrimination laws, and abortion. Although we are going over abortion’s effect on the country currently in class, I did some outside of class digging to uncover the history of abortion for myself to put my knowledge to the test. During this quest of discovery, I realized I knew very little about the subject.
Per Meriam Webster’s Dictionary, a “simple” definition of abortion is a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus. With that definition in mind, let us start at the beginning, the very beginning. Abortions have been practiced since ancient times. The first recorded abortion dates to 1550 bc in Egypt. The Ebers Papyrus, also known as Papyrus Ebers, is an Egyptian medical papyrus (a material prepared in ancient Egypt from the pithy stem of a water plant, used in sheets throughout the ancient Mediterranean world for writing or painting on, also for making rope, sandals, and boats) of herbal knowledge dating to c. 1550 BC. Abortions at its early points in history were performed through strange physical practices that were not very effective — jumping up and down, the drinking of strange herbal elixirs or potions, and the killing of the baby post-delivery. Overtime the science of abortion has evolved immensely. Since abortion is an old practice like homosexuality, murder, bestiality, etc., why is it within the last 41 years becoming legal in the United States of America?
Most of America 50 years ago would easily say the United States was founded on Christian/Godly principles found in Scripture. Why is this? The Founders were living in a Christian world. One of the big reasons America was founded was for religious freedom. Was this because the Founders wanted to practice witchcraft and such? No, the Puritans and Protestants wanted to live in a new land, free of religious persecution from England. Puritans and Protestants are Christians. They are not a part of the Church of Scientology, the Church of Satan, or Hinduism. They are indeed denominations of Christianity. If most of the world was Christian at this time in world history, that would then also mean many things would be considered horribly immoral. Abortion was included among these things. Psalm 127:3 (ESV) “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Now if most of the world believes children are a heritage or “gift” from God, how many do you think will rally behind those who desire to murder them in the womb? Not very many would. Furthermore, 1 Samuel 2:6a declares “The LORD kills and bring to life.” The Bible is full of Scriptures concerning all aspects of life in the womb and how it is divinely ordained by God. Abortion was doomed to be a forbidden practice in everyone’s eyes. With that said, how did we get to where we are today?
Because of sin — specifically Modernism — we now live in a Secular Western world. Secularism as a worldview is atheistic in nature believes mankind will only progress to something better, and relative/personal truth is what individuals are to be governed by. As American society has moved farther and farther away from Biblical standards of morality, it has become clearer and clearer the intentions of our government to make everything under the sun legal. However, our legal system is way more deceptive than just making something a law on no grounds. They instead have falsely laid abortion’s foundation in our new “living” Constitution. The premise upon which abortion lies in the Constitution is the “right to privacy.” This “right to privacy” was discovered by the Supreme Court in the 1920s in the 4th Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The 4th Amendment reads
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Reading this personally I see nowhere a direct claim to a “right to privacy” outside of the inability of government to come into your property and unlawfully search it. The argument used for the “right to privacy” is privacy itself is the underlying meaning of all the Amendments. Protection of beliefs, the home, property, personal information, etc. listed in the Bill of Rights are now considered private matters protected by the Constitution. Because of this perception of the Amendments, the Supreme Court named privacy as a “right.” Rights are defined as legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement. Entitlement is defined as the belief one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. The word entitlement is very key in understanding why people now believe privacy is a “right.” Entitlement implies one is deserving of it (the entitlement itself). If a right is an entitlement, and privacy is a right, then everyone is required to have their own personal “right to privacy.” This “right to privacy” is fine when it falls in alignment with what the Bill of Rights has clearly laid out in its text, but in the 1920s the Supreme Court applied it to things not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The first application of this new right was to a marriage and now has been applied to the practice of abortion.
The two cases leading up to the final decision made by the Supreme Court in 1973, legalizing abortion was Doe v. Bolton and Roe v. Wade. Doe v. Bolton was a case in which a married Georgia woman, Doe, claimed the reasoning behind her denial for an abortion under the current Georgia state laws in 1971 were “unconstitutional.” Doe claimed Georgia state law regarding abortions was in direct opposition specifically with the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 as a response to the emancipation of African Americans and their rights to all rights and freedoms Whites had from the Constitution. Now one can logically infer taking an Amendment aimed at protecting African Americans from injustice and applying it to a case concerning abortion is a stretch. In this case, the courts ruled in favor of Doe because of what would take place in Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade was a case brought to the Supreme Court concerning a single pregnant woman, Roe, who desired to be granted an abortion outside of the current abortion laws for Texas. Her defense claimed abortion fell under the “right to privacy” that had been discovered and applied to other rulings in recent years made by the Supreme Court. In a majority vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court changed the course of America by making abortion of any kind legal.
At this point in history, abortion was a procedure taken up until the end of the first trimester or first 12 weeks of pregnancy. As of today, abortion is legal up until birth. Matter of fact, partial birth abortions were banned in 2003. To better understand abortion in and of itself, we need to uncover the different types of abortion that must be taken dependent upon the different stages of pregnancy. During the first trimester one can have a surgical abortion: manual vacuum aspiration (MVA), or medical abortion: the abortion pill (mifeprex). After the first trimester, surgical abortions are the only option. Abortions have evolved a lot since ancient times, but no matter how it is done it is all murder one in the same.
Medical abortions are abortions in which a form of medication, a pill, can be taken to terminate a pregnancy. Surgical abortions are a surgical procedure must take place to physically remove the baby from the womb. Surgical abortions range from vacuum procedures in which the pregnancy is chemically terminated and the contents of the child are sucked out of the womb, all the way to partial birth abortions in which the child is killed after she has partially departed from the womb during labor, and her first breath has not yet been taken. Partial birth abortions were determined illegal in 2003; however, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was intent on legalizing it again.
We now know what abortion is, when it started, when it became legalized, and its different forms. But what are the two positions on this issue? Anyone who goes outside her door has heard the words pro-life and pro-choice. What do they mean? Without looking at specific statements made by both groups, we can decipher from the verbiage used “pro-life” means for or supporting life and “pro-choice” means for or supporting choice. Pro-life argues the unborn child is alive and abortion is a form of murder. Pro-choice argues a woman has the right to choose to terminate her pregnancy because she is in complete control of what goes on in her body. These are two very different arguments. One argues for life and the other for choice. Logically we can see why the two groups are at such odds and will never truly come to a decision on the matter. The two groups are arguing different things. They will always butt heads. To better understand how we as believers should feel about the subject, we need first to look at what God has said concerning this issue.
As Christians living in a very secular world, we are constantly hitting road blocks concerning ideas that make us nervous when in the public arena. Often Christians are faced with an opportunity to speak out on subjects of much controversy but do not out of fear or lack of understanding of what God has revealed in His Word concerning it. At the beginning of Scripture, we read God bringing forth life. He created all life known to man in six days. In 1 Samuel, we see Hannah go before God barren, pleading with Him for a child to whom she would dedicate back to Him. God answered her prayer with Samuel and she in return honored her promise to the Lord by giving him to Eli to live under the teachings of the priest. Because of David’s sin with Bathsheba, God took away the life of their son. Because of Pharaoh’s wickedness, the Angel of the Lord took away the first-born son of all the Egyptians who did not cover their doors with the blood of the lamb. Mary was impregnated by the work of the Holy Spirit and gave birth as a virgin to King Jesus. Throughout the entirety of Scripture, we see God is the giver of life and He is the one who takes it away. To affirm the doctrine implied by pro-life, life begins at conception. God granted Hannah the ability to have a child. God made Mary pregnant with baby Jesus. God declares children are His gifts to us.
Most Christians agree on this topic but many are shaken on the subject of rape. “What if someone is raped and becomes pregnant? Some people cannot bear to carry a product of a traumatic experience.” A lot of reasoning is given in support of abortion after rape by nonbelievers and believers alike; however, believers have no excuse to come to this terrible conclusion. Why? God declares in Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death for the sins of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” Rape falls under the category of “sin of their father.” When believers support the “rape argument,” they are going in direct opposition to God being the giver of life and a child is not to be punished for the sins of their father.
Pro-choice I believe is another struggle for believers to negate. The whole premise of a pro-choice believer is the body belongs to the woman and she alone has the right to control all things that occur. “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand” (Mark 3:25). When a believer who dresses inappropriately, uses foul language, practices fornication, constantly breaks God’s laws, etc. is observed by nonbelievers and then claims pro-choice is in direct opposition to the faith, on what grounds are they not to be judged by those who affirm pro-choice? By claiming the faith and then walking completely outside its principles and teachings when it is convenient for them, their witness/words are meaningless. They are a house divided. If we want women to understand our bodies are not our own, we as believers must walk out our day-to-day lives honoring our bodies as God would want us to. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.” This Scripture is not only applicable to abortion in negation of pro-choice but is to be applied in all domains of life on Earth. Our body should reflect God in how we dress, how we talk, carry ourselves, and even what/how we eat. We as believers must walk this principle out in every aspect of our lives so our words against pro-choice are stronger.
Talks about abortion are not few and far between in our society today. It is a divisive subject in which people are often afraid to speak out. Educators even encourage students not to write concerning this subject, because it is so commonly written about. However, I encourage everyone to do some digging about abortion. For this topic, unfortunately there are only two sides — for or against. There is no in between. Our society has lost its moral compass that was once the Church. Of course, there are many reasons why that has occurred. The most basic answer without pinpointing specific times throughout history is sin. Things are going to get worse before they can get better, but it is not our job as believers to retreat into our churches and stand by. We are called to consider the full counsel of the Word and apply those principles to our everyday lives. We are to be the moral compass of society. Therefore, it is so important the church be united on divisive subjects like abortion. For those who think they know about abortion and how they think they are supposed to feel, go on a journey of discovery to uncover the truths of what God says about it. Furthermore, discover what God has said in His Word concerning all divisive topics that burden believers today.
Bibliography
“Abortion: Legal Until Birth — Why Pro-Life?” Why ProLife. World Press, 16 Feb. 2016. Web. 01 Nov. 2016. By an Amendment to Her Complaint, Roe Purported to Sue. “Roe v. Wade.” LII / Legal Information Institute. Cornell University Law School, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
“Abortion in the Ancient and Premodern World.” About.com. Education. About Education, 28 July 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
“Abortion Procedures During First, Second and Third Trimester.” American Pregnancy Association. American Pregnancy Association, 02 Sept. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
“FindLaw’s United States Supreme Court Case and Opinions.” Findlaw. Find Law, 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Linder, Douglas O. “The Right of Privacy: Is It Protected by the Constitution?” Exploring Constitutional Conflicts, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
When you tell someone you go to community college, their face darkens a bit like they suspect of you Secretly Doing No Work and Having No Grand Plans. They awkwardly attempt to hide the judgment in their eyes with an averted gaze and a disinterested, “…Oh. I meant real college.” Little do they know, at their local community college is many a genius in disguise.
Yes, it is “lame” I still live at home. It is lame I go to a school with no football team and a school that actually has promotional TV commercials.
Do you know what’s more “lame” than that? Student loan debt, and bad grades. I don’t get to live in a dorm or have the “college experience,” but my experience has been profound nonetheless — and that experience has taught me many people, myself included, are not ready right away for the college experience, and that is perfectly okay. I don’t have crazy college weekends, but I have straight As and a safe place to come home to without distraction. I don’t have “that independence” of living on your own, but I have been able to have a job while in school to build up my savings. I don’t have to borrow money from my future self for each coming semester, or take out any loans at all, and that makes me feel secure. That makes me feel like I can study what I love and work in a field that excites me instead of absorbing the hereditary pressure to get a career, any career, marry rich, get a mortgage, stay out of debt. Those pressures are all very real and I’m not exempt from them, but I have been lucky enough to be in a situation where I can stave them off for a little while. That makes me feel gratitude, not shame.
Nobody has bumper stickers on their cars that say “Proud Parent of a Community College Student,” because the very words are synonymous with letdown. But my experience is that is definitely not so.
If anything, the majority of people I’ve met who go to community college (mostly who are older, that is) work much harder, and are much less entitled, than their four-year university counterparts.
Most of these people have full-time jobs and families, and they pursue schooling not as a diversion or as One Step Closer to Daddy’s Love but because they want to improve their lives. That genuine desire to learn commands respect not scorn.
Knowing these people has taught me:
1. To be thankful college was expected of me by my parents, cause it’s not by everyone.
2. The amount you work in life is not proportionate to the amount of reward you reap. In fact, it’s often the opposite — the most hardworking people are often in the worst situations.
3. You share more values with this myriad crew than with the predominately white suburban club of 20-somethings beginning university. You are more alike than you are different.
& 4. The world is big. Really big. Bigger than your hometown, bigger than your high school, bigger than your prospective field. It does not matter you check in all the boxes of Growing Up in exactly the right socially preordained order, it matters so much more that you make the most of what you have. You are fortunate, and you appreciate education so much more once you realize that fact. You value it — you choose it, instead of taking it for granted.
It is meaningful. It is your own.
I sit here filling out my Letter of Intent to Transfer to Christopher Newport University — the end of my stint with community college is now in sight, at long last. I am relieved to be moving on, yet I cannot say in entirety TNCC has done me wrong — they are as inefficient as the DMV on Planet Neptune, but they have taught me much and more (even the convenience and efficiency of university administration is an example of privilege — some places are designed to help you succeed, and some almost make you wonder the opposite). Though my crossing to the other side is still a year away, I am thrilled I am no longer stuck at TNCC.
Despite popular belief and our 11% graduation rate, a few of us students do get out. And let us have respect for the ones who haven’t “gotten out” yet — for we are waiting. All part of the plan, my friends. All part of the plan. We slither under the radar, ready to spring into full unanticipated glory of ourselves, and shame on you, naysayers, for not seeing it coming.
How many times have you as a teenager been told you are incapable of doing anything worthwhile simply because you are young? How often have you been looked down upon and told you will never be able to change the world for the better? Far too often in today’s society young people are discredited, and far too often today’s young people lower themselves to fit that image of them, choosing to give up or slack off because that’s what adults expect them to do. However, the youth of today, especially those that call themselves Christians, should set higher standards for themselves than those expected.
The Bible makes it clear you are never too young to be used by God in one way or another. 1 Timothy 4:12 states, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.” This verse makes it clear young people are called to hold themselves to the standards God has set, to the point people older than them can look at them and see God through them. This means being more than what has become expected of youth today. It means being young people capable of changing the world.
Youth changing the world and impacting it for the better isn’t a new thing. There are plenty of youth who have fought to change the world and just as many who have changed it unintentional just by staying true to their good morals, both today and in years past.
A perfect example of this is Anne Frank. Anne Frank was a Jew born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. She died in the March of 1945 during World War II at the age of 15 after her family was caught by Nazis. Most people have heard the story of this girl, told in her own words through the diary she kept while her family was in hiding. Anne Frank didn’t do anything that could be considered especially spectacular, other than hold a positive attitude even when her world was falling apart all around her. Her family went into hiding when she was 13 to avoid the persecution they were facing in Germany for being Jewish. Anne had to leave behind everything she knew — her friends, her home, and even most of her possessions — to move into an empty hidden room within the building of her father’s company. During the following two years, her family stayed confined to that room, growing accustomed to staying in the dark and having to be quiet out of fear of being discovered by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. Anne was a typical teenage girl; she had periods of hopelessness, but more times than not she kept her positive attitude through everything the world threw at her. Ultimately her family was caught, and everyone except for her father perished within concentration camps. Her father eventually found and published her journal, which is still highly loved today. Anne’s personality can best be shown through her own words:
It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart…. I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!
The girl wrote she wished to “keep on living even after her death,” and she successfully managed to do that through her diary, which will most likely be read by youth and adults for generations to come because of her inspiring and uplifting hope and unending joy.
Anne isn’t the only example of a young person who has impacted the world. In more recent times the world has been impacted by a boy by the name of Jack Andraka. He won a $75,000 prize in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his pancreatic cancer detecting tool in 2012 as a freshman in high school. Andraka partnered with John Hopkins University to complete his life saving invention. Abigail Tucker, a writer for the Smithsonian Magazine, states the following:
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers, with a five-year survival rate of 6 percent. Some 40,000 people die of it each year. The diagnosis can be devastating because it is often delivered late, after the cancer has spread. Unlike the breast or colon, the pancreas is nestled deep in the body cavity and difficult to image, and there is no telltale early symptom or lump. “By the time you bring this to a physician, it’s too late,” says Anirban Maitra, a Johns Hopkins pathologist and pancreatic cancer researcher who is Andraka’s mentor. “The drugs we have aren’t good for this disease.” But as the cancer takes hold, the body does issue an unmistakable distress signal: an overabundance of a protein called mesothelin. The problem is that scientists haven’t yet developed a surefire way to look for this red flag in the course of a standard physical. “The first point of entry would have to be a cheap blood test done with a simple prick,” Maitra says. That’s exactly what Andraka may have invented: A small dipstick probe that uses just a sixth of a drop of blood appears to be much more accurate than existing approaches and takes five minutes to complete. It’s still preliminary, but drug companies are interested, and word is spreading. “I’ve gotten these Facebook messages asking, ‘Can I have the test?’” Andraka says. ‘I am heartbroken to say no.’”
Andraka began working on his invention after a close family member of his died to pancreatic cancer. The teenager began researching the disease and its treatments, and he was devastated to discover the lack of successful ones. The boy decided he would take it upon himself to find a way of detecting the disease before it was too late for other people and their families, like it had been for his. He spent months on his design, partnering with John Hopkins University, and he ultimately went on to be one of the only freshmen to ever win the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Andraka saw a problem in the world and took the time to create a way to fix it.
Another modern example of a young person who has changed the world for the better is Malala Yousafzai. Most people today have heard of this girl and her fight for female education in Pakistan. The girl was born in Pakistan on July 12, 1997 and is currently 19. She began fighting for the right of women to gain an education, was threatened by the Taliban, and eventually shot as she was coming home from school one day. Though the girl was shot in the head, she managed to survive and went on to become the youngest person to receive a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17. Her fight began in 2008 after the Taliban began attacking girls’ schools. She began giving speeches and writing a blog speaking out against the violent and impressive acts being committed by the Taliban. In 2012 the Taliban issued a death threat against her, and later she was shot on a bus by a man who boarded and demanded to know which girl was Malala. Her injury left her in critical condition, and she was flown to England to receive better treatment. Though she had to have part of her skull removed to reduce swelling and surgery on her facial nerves to fix facial paralysis, Malala was fortunate enough to experience no major brain damage whatsoever. After she recovered, the girl began attending school in England and wrote a book that was published. She was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize and won it the second time she was nominated in 2014. The young woman still actively speaks out about the need for girls around the world to have safe and legal access to education and the positive effects it would have on society. According to biography.com:
For her 18th birthday on July 12, 2015, also called Malala Day, the young activist continued to take action on global education by opening a school for Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon. Its expenses covered by the Malala Fund, the school was designed to admit nearly 200 girls from the ages of 14 to 18. “Today on my first day as an adult, on behalf of the world’s children, I demand of leaders we must invest in books instead of bullets,” Yousafzai proclaimed in one of the school’s classrooms. That day, she also asked her supporters on The Malala Fund website: “Post a photo of yourself holding up your favorite book and share why YOU choose #BooksNotBullets — and tell world leaders to fund the real weapon for change, education!” The teenage activist wrote: “The shocking truth is that world leaders have the money to fully fund primary AND secondary education around the world — but they are choosing to spend it on other things, like their military budgets. In fact, if the whole world stopped spending money on the military for just 8 days, we could have the $39 billion still needed to provide 12 years of free, quality education to every child on the planet.”
In October 2015, exactly 3 years after she was shot, a documentary was released about the woman and all she had accomplished. It, as well as her book, are still incredibly popular today.
Malala was willing to give up everything, including her life, to stand up for what she believed in. She was willing to fight not only for herself, but for every other girl across the world who was experiencing the horrific discrimination she faced when the Taliban tried to prevent her access to an education. The young lady showed you don’t have to be old to fight for what is right; you only need to be brave enough to stand up against all odds, even when it seems as though there is no hope of success.
As seen through these examples, young people, whether today or from years past, are perfectly capable of changing the world and impacting it for the better. Teenagers can achieve things just as meaningful as adults, if they only choose to rise above the standards expected of them and abide by the principles God laid out for them. When youth fight for what is good and what is true and what is just, there is very little they will find themselves unable to accomplish. In the words of Anne Frank, “How wonderful is it that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Works Cited
“Anne Frank Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 08 Jan. 2016. Web. 05 Nov. 2016.
“Anne Frank Quotes.” Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
Kaiman, Jonathan, Amanda Holpuch, David Smith, Jonathan Watts, and Alexandra Topping. “Beyond Malala: Six Teenagers Changing the World.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 18 Oct. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
Kettler, Sarah. “Malala Yousafzai Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
Tucker, Abigail. “Jack Andraka, the Teen Prodigy of Pancreatic Cancer.” Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian, Dec. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
Why do people dislike mismatched socks? Socks don’t matter that much and they don’t define a person, so I don’t understand why people are looked at differently just because of the socks they chose to wear. Now, not everyone bases how they feel about a person on their choice of socks, but some do base their judgements off of other exterior things a person has or does. People are judged on the clothes they wear, the shoes they have, the house they live in, and many other worldly things. Characteristics can be forgotten in the examination of worldly things and too often, people change the way they look to please others. Some people are even told to change something about their outer appearance to be accepted by others. This thinking process doesn’t really match up to Scripture.
In this world, the importance of a person’s appearance seems to be increasing almost daily. There are advertisements for gym memberships, workout equipment, and diet plans all over television. Plastic surgery is more common than it used to be, with 15.9 million cosmetic surgeries and procedures in 2015 in the United States alone. On social media, mean comments are left on pictures of people, who aren’t wearing makeup. Many people get to be so concerned with the way they look and it tears them apart. Eating disorders are becoming more common and depression is overcoming a young population. It seems to be everyone is obsessed with changing themselves to make them look like a better person, but that doesn’t make sense if God only cares about what’s inside.
It is known God and man have different views, especially someone who isn’t a Christian. We don’t have the knowledge and wisdom God does and we are just overall inferior. We are imperfect, broken people and we have faulty views. One of those faulty views is we need to change our appearance to be desirable. Moreover, people think other people need to look a certain way to be friends with them. The “weird nerdy kids” are cast off and ignored because some people don’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t look like they came directly out of a magazine spread. Movies thrive with the storyline of some kid who didn’t have any friends until she changed her hair, switched her bulky glasses out for contacts, and got an entirely new and trendy wardrobe. These are all physical things and it makes no sense for someone to suddenly want to be friends with a person immediately after they change the way they look. It doesn’t align with God’s thinking and it just isn’t rational. People shouldn’t want their friends to look a certain way, they should want their friends to have certain characteristics and personality traits, which have nothing to do with one’s outer appearance.
Faith is what gets you into Heaven, not good looks. God said those who believe and have repented will be allowed to walk through the gates of Heaven. He says nothing about only certain people getting into Heaven because they meet a certain number of societal standards that have been set by those on earth. God doesn’t want us to be consumed with things of this world and that includes our image. Yes, we should take care of ourselves, but we shouldn’t want to change our physical features by excessive exercise or surgery. Changing our physical appearance is altering the image of God because we are all made in His image.
It is common to hear people say it’s what’s on the inside that counts. That statement is quite true. God doesn’t value how nice your hair looked today, but rather the content of your heart and mind. God looks inside of us to determine whether we get into Heaven or not. Many spiritual things happen inside of our hearts that are only seen by those around us if we tell someone or do something that shows the change that happened. Baptism, for example, is an outward sign of an inward agreement. The clothes you wear don’t even compare to how important these spiritual things are. God’s works are superior to man’s works, so we shouldn’t value some clothes over the thing God has done for us and in us. He works in mysterious ways we cannot fathom and the things He does are so great and powerful it is ridiculous how much attention we give to our doubts and worries. His works hold so much more value than our clothes ever will.
To go along with God not caring about your physical appearance, God doesn’t care about what you have. On social media, you can scroll through your feed and you are bound to find someone who is talking about something new they’ve gotten. People like to have content. For some, having all sorts of objects might help fill a void they have. For others, they might like to be the best by having the most things or the highest quality of something. It might seem like to be seen highly of in this world you must have a lot of money and a lot of things. In Heaven, however, that isn’t the case. We don’t need earthly things in Heaven because we will have the presence of God. God is greater than any shirt you could buy. There is a story about a man who was told by an angel he could take one thing to Heaven. That man decided to bring gold and lots of it. When he went to Heaven, those who were already there found it funny he brought gold saying he just brought some bricks. This story shows things of this world do not have great value in Heaven. They’re equivalent to bricks and last time I checked, God is better than any brick.
It is a regular occurrence for judgments to be made based on looks. In movies, we see the nerdy kids with braces and glasses being excluded from activities because they don’t look like the popular kids. We hear stories on the news about suicides and major cases of depression because someone didn’t feel accepted by those around them. In certain stories, the sadness the person felt was because exclusions were made to set them apart from others. People judged them based on their outward appearance and didn’t care to look further. A person is so much more than the shoes they own and the clothes they wear. Unfortunately, the world has tainted our view of what is important about a person. We care more about how we look than God does. God doesn’t judge us because we don’t have Adidas sweatpants, but some people actually make silent judgments based on the fact someone doesn’t have a certain piece of clothing, like Adidas sweatpants. Our looks do not define who we are, and it can be hard for some people to understand that. The whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” saying is forgotten when it comes to people. Someone could totally not be what society says is beautiful, but they could be the best person you have ever talked to in your entire life. They could be sweet and kind and have all sorts of other lovely attributes. Just because they don’t meet societal standards of beauty doesn’t mean they aren’t good people or they aren’t beautiful. They are beautiful in God’s eyes. Even so, their characters are more important to God than their physical bodies.
Whenever someone says they are fat, which they may not be, they almost always drift toward a diet or exercise. Some diets are simple while others are extensive. These changes in what they eat can possibly be a good choice for their health, but some diets are unnecessary and can actually be harmful to the body. The reduction in food intake is often seen as the most important part of a diet, but in reality the changes to the food you are eating is more effective. However, the aspect of switching out bad foods for good foods could be seen as less appealing and harder to do than eating less. It is more common for someone to decide to eat less if they want to lose weight than to change the foods they are eating. This doesn’t always work at first, because the body starts to eat at the muscles that have been stored up before it starts to eat at the fat.
Younger generations have picked up this knowledge about eating less to weigh less. They also have been influenced by the thought they shouldn’t like their bodies and the way they look unless they fit into certain criteria. These two combined do not have a good outcome. Statistics say that 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls have a desire to weigh less and be thinner. When you have thoughts and beliefs as a child, it can be hard to change them when you are older. The thoughts you have may stick with you and if young girls start to think they want to be skinnier in 1st grade then it is probable they will continue to think that when they are in college. Eating disorders are serious and can really hurt your body. Anorexia nervosa can cause you to have a weak heart, severe dehydration, fatigue, muscle weakness, reduction of bone density, and other weaknesses that aren’t good for your heath. Now this is just one eating disorder and doesn’t include others like bulimia or binge eating disorder. People try to ignore the downhill slide of their health just to be thinner and, in their minds, prettier. God wants you to take care of your body. Your body is a temple and if you do things that hurt it then you are not glorifying God. God doesn’t want you to hurt yourself to be “prettier.” He wants you to accept the way you look because He made you that way. God made us and created us to look exactly the way we do and we should be happy because God took time to care for us. He took time to make us a certain way, and we shouldn’t hurt ourselves trying to change that.
People are just people; what effect could they have on us? In all actuality, the opinions of others affect us quite a lot. It is common for the average teenager to care about what their peers think of them. Whenever there are class discussions about self-confidence, a large portion of the female percentage do not have very high levels of confidence. They want to find approval from others, not only on their characters but also with the way they look. Almost every person in the world talks to at least one person each day, so it is rational to want the people you have conversations with to like you. And in this day, a big part of you is how you look. First impressions mean practically everything and sometimes first impression don’t include any words being said. Some people have social anxiety disorder and analyze every little thing they do just to look or seem a certain way, even though they know it is irrational. A larger percentage of people have a lot of stress over meeting new people because of that. They want people’s approval and they want to be looked at as presentable along with some other attributes.
When you constantly worry about what other people think, it can handicap you from doing what you are supposed to do. It can prevent you from fulfilling your God-given purpose. Everyone has a purpose and it is greater than stressing out over what someone thinks of you. People will want to bring us down and cause us to be incapable of fulfilling our purpose, but God doesn’t. God wants us to care more about spreading the gospel than about if your locker neighbor will like the way you styled your hair. Spreading His Word is definitely higher up on the priority list. We shouldn’t focus so intently on things of this world, because they aren’t the most important things to exist. The things of God hold more value, so when we care deeply about how we look and how we will be perceived, we are being disrespectful to God. We shouldn’t focus on the opinions of other people on Earth, but on what God thinks of us and how to spread the Word.
If you keep doing something repeatedly, it becomes a habitual thing or process. After a certain amount of days, it just becomes a part of your regular routine. You might switch things up in your life so it can be easier to do that thing. If you continually worry about what other people think and how you can change yourself to make people like you more, it will become a habit. You will do things differently so you can stress about it. Your life might end up being dictated by the worry and stress your mind creates. The more you stress, the more control and power you give it. God wants us to be calm and serene in Him, to not panic and be alarmed. We need to trust God and get rid of the stress we create because God takes care of everything. We can’t let the need to be liked by other people control the way we behave. We need to let God take control and rule over the insignificant worries that are made.
People all over the world want to change you and make you different. It’s tempting to want to conform to what the world says is normal or perfect, but what the world says doesn’t always line up with what God says. God’s words and laws are way above manmade laws, so it sounds like our best shot is to obey God over man. As a whole, mankind wants you to change to be accepted, where God accepts you completely. We can’t let people make us stress out over miniscule things like being liked and looking a certain way that aligns with societal standards. Those things are so small compared to the plans God has created for you. God is so much bigger than other people’s opinions. Put your trust in Him and pay more attention to what your character is than to what your outer appearance is. So, I’m going to keep wearing my mismatched socks and when people tell me they would like me better with matching socks, I’m going to ignore the comments because I know God loves me, mismatched socks and all. I suggest you do the same.
Bibliography
“Get The Facts On Eating Disorders.” National Eating Disorders. NEDA. Web. 18 October 2016. www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-facts-eating-disorders
Lim, Teddy. “10 Clear Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Care What Others Think.” Lifehack. N.p. Web. 25 October 2016. www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-clear-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-care-what-others-think.html
Media is a big part of our world today. It has a significant effect on people, whether they realize it or not. People watch TV and change their beliefs or ideas based on what they see and hear. We are able to see this through the world and our friends. When we see the media, we might see all about a superstar’s family and relationships, how they look, what they are like, what they own, and occasionally about their religion. We as people are so wrapped up in the world of media we can often don’t see we are wasting time. God has calls us to be stewards of His world, and when we are using so much time on media, we are taking time away from caring for the world. We should be using this time to take care of the world we have been granted and enjoy it.
Media has many positive and negative effects. Even when we are just looking at the news, we are affected by it. Media can make us more aware of what is happening on local, national, and global levels. We can learn about local flooding, national elections such as the presidential election, and we can learn about global wars we are involved in like the war we are in with ISIS.
The media can help us spread the word of God. Billy Graham and Franklin Graham use the media to spread the Gospel. Through the media, we have heard about Franklin Graham’s exploits to have Christians stand for what we believe in. We have heard of how the Christians in Asia stand up to ISIS even though they know they will be killed ruthlessly. They are doing somewhat what God did. He stood up for what He believed in, just like what we believe in today and what those people in Asia are doing. We hear about all this through the media.
The media also has the capacity to affect us negatively. We see every day how people criticize each other and try and show how they are better. They brag about how they have the better things and how they have more money. They are trying to use social media to gain popularity and have more than the others. This isn’t necessarily what people intended media for. They didn’t want to have people be negative and to be non-esteeming to others. When people are using media, they don’t realize how life isn’t all about how much money and property they have and how much better than the others. They may like to think it is what life’s all about, but it isn’t.
Another bad influence of media on us is the fact it draws us away from God. It is quite obvious some people use it for their own recognition and to gain popularity. James 4:16-17 comments on boasting: “As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” This is saying to us we need to make sure we don’t boast. It says in the Bible it is evil, so the topic is addressed, and yet, we still do it because of our sin nature. We want to be the most famous and richest person, so we are going to boast. It is Satan driving us to do this, but we need to drive him out and not give in to his evil ideas. We should try to be as close to God as possible in our nature. We can never be God, but we can be as good as we can. It is also saying when we know of something that is right in God’s eyes to do, but then we don’t do it, we are sinning. This ties into media. When we are using media, we are choosing what we see and don’t see. We know what is right and wrong, and when we choose to let others do the wrong thing and we have a chance to stop it, we are sinning in God’s eyes. The same goes for us. If we have the opportunity to stop something wrong in our lives, but we let it sit and fester in us, we are sinning because we make no attempt to stop it.
We can’t go a day without seeing the effects of media. As we see almost anybody, they have their phones out and are using Snapchat, Instagram, or any of the other media apps. We use media every day and it affects us. We need to realize even adults are affected by it. The younger generation is even more affected by media because we were born into the digital age when all these new media apps and electronic devices are being created. Media has been tracked to numerous health concerns in youth. Some kids are prone to seeing media as a reason doing drugs, having sex, and doing other things we have been told not to do are okay to do. They aren’t. And media isn’t necessarily trying to paint that picture. Now, sure. Sometimes those things are put in to make the movie or show more appealing, and yes, it does happen in real life. But that doesn’t make it right. We are told by our parents it isn’t right and we shouldn’t do it, and they definitely are wiser than us, so I think we should trust them when they say it’s wrong.
I also want to make the point media affects our moral roots. For some people, it is believing in Jesus. For others, they don’t believe in any god. And still for others, there are other gods like Allah or Baal they believe in. Our morals as Christians are sex before marriage and drugs are bad, among many other things. Some people don’t see it that way, but in America, our morals are those things are bad, so we shouldn’t do them. In society, since we are quite often judged by what we have and what we wear; people use social media to show what they have and then they try and show how they are better than people who don’t have what they do. We think we absolutely have to have what all the famous people have. They have all the nice stuff, so that means we have to have the nice stuff too, right? Wrong. We don’t have to have all of that stuff if our life isn’t aimed at attaining those things. Our life should be focused on God and how we can show Him through us. Media portrays all these things as ones we must have. It praises selfishness, a virtue we know is not a good one to have. Media is telling us the possession of fame and fortune will make us a valuable person. Through research, it has been shown many youth have developed eating disorders, lower self-esteem, psychological complications, and have experienced other difficulties by taking negative ideas from television, radio, and other mediums for media. Negative media influences can warp the values and conducts we should have as teens that are supposed to steer us in the right direction.
In school, it has been shown kids who watch lots of TV have a smaller vocabulary of words and have lower test scores than that of kids who watch small amounts of TV. It has also been shown these kids cannot read as well as those who watch less TV. Watching lots of TV has also been shown to affect you later in life. People who watched less TV in their teen years of life were shown to have gotten higher college degrees than those who watched more.
Using media doesn’t just affect us mentally either. It also affects us physically. It has also been shown if you watch more than two hours of TV or use a computer for more than two hours a day, then you are more likely to be obese when you grow up. This goes to show media can affect us negatively even long after we see it or use it. When we spend our time looking at media, we are spending time looking at things that probably are just useless wastes of time when we could be out doing sports or doing something else productive. Why do we really need to know what is happening on the other side of the world with someone’s clothes? We really don’t because unless you are a clothes designer, we don’t need to know whether pink clothes are trendier than green ones. We may like to, but our lives don’t depend on it either. Lots of the things we do on computers and TVs are just for fun and are things we don’t have to do. Media just wants us to think all of these things on our screens are more important than other things we could be doing.
We see ads and commercials everywhere. We see them on the side of roads while we are driving, but we especially see them when we are using our screens. When we are watching TV, we see multiple commercials in between each segment of the shows we are watching. When we are browsing the Internet, we see ads on Web sites, and when we are using our apps, lots are sponsored, so there are ads there, too. All these ads greatly influence people and what they buy. Even though the consumers who buy the products are usually adults, the ads are often aimed at the kids of the parents. If the advertising is effective, then the kids will most likely ask their parents to buy it for them. Marketers have used media successfully to gain consumers through kids. They have especially targeted the 12 and under age group. They have found great success in this age group. They have gotten their parents to spend over $500 million a year on them.
Media also leads us to stereotyping. When you are watching a show, look at the characters and realize how much they fit together perfectly, just like puzzle pieces. In real life, not everybody is like that. Look around at school or work and see if everyone rarely ever has conflicts. All the people on ads are edited to erase imperfections. Even when we know this, we will still be affected by these because we think just maybe we can look like him or her. Maybe we will look just a little better than we are, just like they do. I don’t want to be a naysayer, but we probably will never be like them. Media also shows a lot of prejudice toward certain people. In video games, 64% of the characters are males. On TV, 74% of the characters are Caucasian. This all goes to show we are prejudiced toward people who are the majority of the totals.
Media also teaches kids being violent is acceptable. In video games, often the way to win is to knockout an opponent. In some video games, it even comes down to kill or be killed, or kill or lose the game. Often in movies, the way the good guy comes out victorious is by defeating the bad guy in a violent way. A study has shown young kids have a higher chance to be bullies in school if they watch violent movies and TV and play violent video games. Seeing violent behavior in the virtual world can translate into violence in our lives as humans, where it really can hurt people for life, not just in a game.
A study done by the RAND Corporation shows teens are twice as likely to engage in sexual behavior and acts if they see sexual acts or behavior in the media they look at. Many objects in media say sex as a thing most people do before we are married, and since everyone else does it, it is okay if you do it, too. Often, TV and movies display teens who have sex as the “cool ones,” whereas we as Christians think those people are people we don’t want to hang out with or even be around because they can and probably will negatively impact us because of what they saw on media.
There are many ways to use media safely and at acceptable times. When you are eating, don’t watch TV, but instead talk to others. Don’t watch TV while doing homework because it will distract you and you will not be able to accomplish anything you are trying to do. Set a time limit for media such as TV, video games, and social media. Once you reach that limit, do something that exercises your brain for at least a minute for every minute spent using media. You can keep your media in common spaces such as a family room or addition so you won’t be tempted to use them after your time is up. When you are with visitors, make sure they are aware of your amount of allowed media usage. When you are looking at an advertisement, think about who the ad is targeting, whether the ad could really be true, and what makes it appealing to you or others. Be able to separate the fake things from reality in media and use your judgment about what to use and what not to use.
I don’t want to make it sound like media is a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a great thing if we can just use it for the right purposes. Media is a positive thing that has been turned negative by people who are trying to one-up each other. It wasn’t meant that way. A little bit a day isn’t a bad thing unless you use it for bad purposes. Calling and texting isn’t bad. Playing video games isn’t bad. Using Twitter and Facebook and all the other social media apps we have today isn’t bad. It is when we let Satan into our hearts and let him take control and use it for those negative things that are out there. We need to learn to turn away from the sin nature we have as humans and follow God not just in reality but in our media life, too.
Bibliography
http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/bodyimage/media.html
How Does the Media Influence People?
Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy being a teacher. But we all enjoy a break from the rigors of academic life once in a while, and since the end-of-the-calendar year holidays are especially enjoyable, spending them at home away is always the way to go, if it can happen. Certainly we at Redeeming Pandora are grateful for and to the men and women in the armed services who spend the holidays (and months of the year and more) away from home, oftentimes in dangerous situations. Being a teacher has never yielded challenges such as those, no matter how much we may rail against certain excursions into the backwaters (or floodwaters) of rural Chesapeake. So I hope I have a proper perspective on the extremely blessed life I have lived, especially having usually been able to enjoy several weeks off each year during the holidays. Sure, some years have been better than others, but we all experience that.
We’ve covered just about every subject by now in these holiday tradition articles, so it may be about time next year to revisit some old topics and see how life and things have changed over the years (when we began this enterprise, my wife and I had a four-month-old daughter — now we have a seven-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son, so some things have changed indeed). For now, I’d like to wrap up 2016, a challenging year for a lot of people for a variety of reasons (some of them even real), with a few thoughts on one of my favorite holiday traditions: playing video games for hours and hours and hours and hours.
I believe I have mentioned once upon a time there was a decently-sized stretch of holiday vacations in which I played Illusion of Gaia to its completion on Christmas Eve. The tradition started even before that with annual year-end plays of StarTropics. Some of the best Christmas breaks, though, featured lengthy plays of my favorite video game of all time, Final Fantasy VI. Some day soon I’d like to get back into that game, but first I have an obligation to my children to finish ChronoTrigger. We started that a year ago, but things and time and such got away from us this summer, so I still have to finish that up. In recent Christmas breaks, I’ve been playing more PS3 games, such as the Uncharted and God of War series (nothing says Christmas in this day and age like slaughtering Greek gods). Some of the Batman Arkham series have also started to associate themselves with Christmastime. Two main reasons explain this phenomenon: Christmastime is one of the few times of the year in which I have the freedom (and life energy) to play videogames; also, popular videogames get very inexpensive if you wait a year or two after their release, and thus make excellent stocking stuffers, and what would Christmas be without playing with your new toys/games?
Moments ago I mentioned I didn’t complete ChronoTrigger this past summer with my kids (I do most of the playing, they sit back and enjoy the story; it works out well for everyone, really). This was because I got distracted by another trip down memory lane, which happens to be the main subject of this oddly-themed Christmas article: Final Fantasy XII.
FFXII is at worst my third-favorite game, behind FFVI and ChronoTrigger, and it has been making some ground on ChronoTrigger. I admit I have not completed the entire game, though I have spent a fair amount of time playing it (over 130 hours, if the internal chronometer is to be believed), but I have played enough to get a good understanding of it. I played it shortly after it first came out, a decade ago, but somehow life’s circumstances took me away before I could make it all the way to the end (I suspect our move from Virginia Beach had something to do with it). For some time, I had a desire to get back into it, and this past summer I just decided to go for it. And that’s mostly how I spent my summer vacation, and, hopefully, a fair amount of my Christmas vacation.
You know I wouldn’t spoil anything without warning you in advance, but one of the benefits of not knowing the ending myself is I can’t tell you about it, so I will focus on the basics. FFXII takes place on the world of Ivalice, possibly the most fully-realized world in Final Fantasy history, in that it has a rich, noticeable history and a palpable present, with all nations and races full and developed and interactive. Even the great FFVI suffers in this respect at times: you’ll show up in a new part of the world because the game wants to introduce a new character, not because this location has a meaningful connection to the places you’ve already been. This is not so in FFXII: all races, all nations, all cities are aware of the others — they don’t always get along, of course, but the world is connected very cohesively.
Ivalice, like all worlds, has various nations, some of which prefer to have more international political power than others. The Archadian Empire has fallen into unscrupulous hands, and it is starting to gobble up surrounding nations. The Rozarrian Empire on the other side of the world is not terribly happy with that. Caught in the middle of these two war-impending empires is the Resistance. This is basically where our heroes come in. Various survivors of previous wars and insurrections (and other economic considerations) have banded together to reclaim what was once theirs, to fight for the freedom of the people, and to make the world a safe place of justice and freedom once again. The usual stuff of great stories.
What makes FFXII different, though, from the typical rebels vs. empire stories is both how unobtrusive this main storyline is to the playing of the game as well as the very engaging past of the world, as our heroes spend a good deal of their time learning about the past and its relics to understand present-day conflicts and solutions (it’s a great lesson for us today, as well).
I say the main storyline is unobtrusive, but I don’t mean it’s dull or short—only that you can enjoy playing this game for hours on end on enjoyable side-quests and level raising and whatnot and the game will not punish you for taking so long between plot points. Yes, there are important plot points and cut scenes and “once you do this you can never go back to how it was” events that change the game, but the game gives you plenty of warning and opportunity to commit to them or come back later if you need to raise levels, upgrade weapons and armor, restock your provisions, or whatever. You do need to advance the story some times to get access to the better equipment and spells and things, but by that point in the game, you’re ready and eager for it, anyway.
Magic is a key part of all Final Fantasy games, but one of the reasons I like FFVI so much is the significant magic vs. technology subplot. It’s not just conjuring up dark spirits to tamper in God’s domain. Similarly, FFXII takes the idea of magic and connects it to technology and supernatural forces, but one is never given the impression your spells are aligning you with the forces of darkness. The more you learn about your world’s past, and the forces that have shaped it for good and ill, the more your understanding of the supernatural and magic grows (always a good thing). The game doesn’t give you the impression the divine is just aliens you can control or conquer — in fact, the many characters of religious faith are presented in the best light as anyone in the game.
On the journey to gather allies, learn about the world, and attempt to stop a war before it destroys the world, our heroes find out some forces within the Archadian Empire are also working toward peace — but other forces are working to make the magic even more dangerous (thanks to technology), and we must take a more active role in the conflict for the slam-bang finish. That’s where I am in the game: a few events away from the finish. I’ll let you know how it goes (I hope).
Once you get past a brief introductory scene that familiarizes you to the game mechanics and a bit of the backstory to the main conflicts involved, the game begins with our main character, Vaan, a refugee street urchin working odd jobs for a local merchant with big dreams of becoming a sky pirate (like a regular pirate, but on a flying airship). He has a lot of anger inside because of the losses he has suffered at the hands of the Archadian Empire, but on the whole he is an optimistic, energetic young guy who wants to see the world, treat people well, and learn (though he’s not yet so mature he knows it’s impolite to ask a woman her age). Even though Vaan has some significant connections to the major conflicts of the overarching story, he acts mostly as our advocate in the world, observing and learning, with little direct involvement in the present storyline itself (sort of like Nick Carroway in The Great Gatsby).
Vaan’s street urchin friend Penelo is the first other main character we meet once the present storyline begins, though she is the last to join the group. She, too, has suffered because of the Archadian Empire, but she, too, tries to keep her spirits up even in these troubled times. Part of the reason even the homeless are chipper at the start of the game is because the Empire hasn’t shown its true colors yet and material prosperity seems to be back again (odd how people are quick to ignore political morasses when personal economy seems healthy). Regardless, Penelo vows to keep her eye on her good friend Vaan for his own good. You’d think there’d be a bigger love interest story with these two, but there isn’t (and that’s not so bad).
The main story of our heroic rebels actually centers on Ashe (short for Ashelia), the young princess of our country Dalmasca who is leading the Resistance in disguise. It is her role to travel through the world, learn about her heritage and connection to the magical forces at work in the world (in her effort to destroy all magic once and for all), and restore Dalmasca’s freedom from the Empire (with or without destroying the Empire in the process). Her dominance in the ongoing storyline lends one to think of her as the main character instead of Vaan, but don’t let that bother you. Instead, think of it as a clever element of the game to give all the main group members a significant amount of screen time.
The brawn of the group is another loyal son of Dalmasca, Basch. We actually meet him in the prologue scenario, in which it seems his loyalty is a sham, but that is cleared up within about twenty minutes of playing the game, so I’m not spoiling anything, really. Plus, since he’s on the cover with all the other heroes, you know he’s got to be a good guy. He, too, has strong connections to the Empire and the overarching stories. Suffice it to say, despite his potential loyalty conflicts (I don’t want to spoil things for you, but let’s just say he has a brother who’s a high-ranking official for the Empire), he is a key member of the team, especially as his knowledge and experience guide the group during many side quests and even main plot events. Plus, as I said, he’s really strong against non-magical monsters, so giving him a war hammer or heavy axe and letting him have at it is pretty fun to watch.
Rounding out our main group (a comparatively miniscule group of six heroes, contrasted to the cast of fourteen in FFVI), we have a pair of real-life sky pirates: Balthier and Fran. Fran is a Viera (basically, a race of human-looking aliens … with bunny ears — but it looks far less silly than it sounds, believe me), and as such she has a strong connection to the magical elements of the world (called Mist), which makes her a strong magic user, though she’s also good with a bow. Balthier and Fran are basically the Han and Chewie of the team, if that helps, and, like Han, Balthier thinks he is the leading man of the story, adding a rather humorous element to a number of cut scenes and character interactions (and a lot of people seem to believe him, since Vaan oftentimes takes a narrative backseat to the other characters on the team). Balthier, too, has a strong connection to the Empire that causes him a good deal of pain, which he usually glosses over with charm and skillfully deflecting our attention to other things. He wants us to think he’s only helping the Resistance for the potential reward Ashe will give him when she regains her throne, but there’s more to it than that (yes, it’s that old story, but it comes off with enough differences that it’s not just a banal Star Wars rip-off). Fran, likewise, has outsider issues, being far from home and her race and having spent possibly too much time with the humans (“humes” in this game). I know that, too, sounds awfully familiar, but the game presents her character conflicts in fresh ways, even with the archetypal aspects to it all.
Along the way, our heroes gain temporary allies, travel the world, gain levels, make friends, restore order, learn lessons, raise levels, buy items, locate runaway cockatrices, save the world (I assume) and so much more. With a small cast of main characters this time, combined with the still-impressive cut screen (in-game movies) technology and voice acting, we really get to spend a good deal of time getting to know them, see them interact (which is usually the highlight of games and stories and such as this), and connect with them in multiple ways like any good characters from “literature.” Just because these characters and their story are in a video game does not make them any less meaningful or engaging as Hamlet or Walter Lee Younger or Nora Helmer or Anna Karenina or any of the highbrow gang. They are just as real, too. You can scoff, sure; I can take it. But if we live in a world that tells us people who transport a ball of air around a hardwood court or grass yard are heroes to be followed and emulated and lauded (and financially supported), I think it’s fair to say characters in a game with meaningful conflicts and needs and hopes and heartaches and dreams that resonate within us, characters with which we have a direct involvement through our decisions as game players, are just as real as literary heroes, historical heroes, and athletic heroes. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks that way. Plus, I’m a published author. You can trust me.
So what’s so special about FFXII? How can you play for hours and hours without advancing the story (and have fun doing it, more than just the RPG-requisite level raising)? Here are just a few of the many enjoyable aspects of FFXII that make for a great holiday (or summertime) vacation pastime.
The Gambit System — in most videogame role-playing games, you have to manually tell all your characters what to do during every encounter: you fight that monster, you cast that spell, you use that item, round after round after round. FFXII does away with all that button pushing with the clever gambit system: dozens and dozens of context-sensitive commands you can “pre-program” for your characters to handle virtually all encounters without you having to tell them what to do every single time. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes a real time and thumb saver. You’ll be tinkering with and adjusting it throughout the game, plus you’ll be telling your characters what to do plenty, so there’s no loss of interactivity or feeling of control/guidance of these characters. All that’s lost is the repetitive nonsense.
The Battle System — unlike most RPGs that feature random encounters with monsters to give you experience (to raise levels and attributes and whatnot) and money (to buy new armor, weapons, items, etc.), FFXII gives us the “open world” feeling of seeing where all the enemies are, just like you are there in the plains, on the mountain path, in the castle, or wherever you are — you can actually see where the enemies/monsters are in the world. This makes so much more sense, and combined with the gambit system, you can have fun raising levels by running around the world, watching your heroes act and react naturally, all the while enjoying the fantastic musical score by Hitoshi Sakimoto (seriously, many of the themes of the soundtrack are gorgeous aural experiences). Additionally, unlike the usual “you get 287 gold pieces for defeating those blue slimes” (as if monsters would carry human currency), FFXII eliminates that thematic discrepancy by having you pick up “loot” from the foes you defeat:, loot that makes sense: wolves drop pelts, for example; bats drop fangs; skeletons drop bones and iron swords they were carrying. You, then, take the loot you pick up from your fallen foe (just like epic heroes) and sell it all back in towns for money, which you can use to buy what you need from other shops. Plus, the game has bonuses for fighting similar kinds of monsters, developing “battle chains” that can result in better and better loot as you take the time to stay and fight and raise levels — the game rewards you in many ways for doing what the game effectively requires you to do, making the gameplay experience that much more enjoyable. Plus plus, it makes a lot more thematic sense.
Crystals, Travel, and Non-linearity — as convenient as it used to be in older Final Fantasy games to be able to save your game practically anywhere in the world (other than in dungeons or in the middle of certain levels or areas except for special save spots), the hassle of having to buy cabins or tents or staying at inns sometimes meant a good deal of precious gold pieces going to that. The save crystals in FFXII eliminate that problem (I know earlier entries in the series use similar objects, like FFX, but they make better sense in FFXII). True, you don’t get some of the great nighttime dream sequences or cut scenes like in FFVI, but that’s a small price to pay for not having a price to pay.
Another convenience of certain save spot crystals in FFXII indeed are the orange transport crystals that allow you to instantaneously travel to various parts of the world you’ve been to before in the game, at the small cost of one teleport crystal. These don’t cost very much gp, and soon enough in the game you’ll have acquired so many of them anyway through picking up loot from fallen monsters, rewards for special tasks you accomplish, and other events in the game you may likely go through the whole game without paying for a single transportation crystal. As much as I love FFVI (and IV), so much of the first part of the game is a niggling feeling of “boy, when I get my airship, I’ll be able to go anywhere, do anything…” and suddenly you realize you are exactly like Vaan in FFXII, waiting for the freedom of travel. The teleport crystals in FFXII eliminate that feeling of impatience and limitation almost immediately in the game (which is like, thirty minutes of game time, small potatoes considering how long you will be playing it). You’d think you’d have Balthier and Fran’s airship early in the game when they join the party permanently, but events in the game damage the ship so you are on foot for most of the game. This does require you to walk through large sections of the world until you get to the various teleport crystals, but this is more beneficial for you, since it gives you the opportunity to fight monsters, gain experience, gain loot, raise levels (all the nitty gritty of classic RPGs, though made more fun be all the developments enumerated above).
These teleport crystals are possibly the key enabler of freedom from the main story. I mentioned earlier the story is fairly unobtrusive for most of the game, and this is true depending on how you play Final Fantasy XII. With the teleport crystals, you can easily leave the main palace or dungeon or next key plot point before you enter it, transport yourself somewhere else in the world, and spend hours doing sidequests or level raising or whatever, then teleport back to where the game “wants” you to be without any of the AI characters any wiser or frustrated at your “dilatory” behavior. That is true freedom you want in a game like this.
Growth — raising levels is considered by some jackanapes a “necessary evil” of RPGs: as the game progresses, the enemies get harder, you have to get stronger, faster, you need more hit points, more magic points, et cetera et cetera et cetera. These same Tom Fool wastrels use unkind words to describe the process of raising levels, fighting monsters somewhat mindlessly for hours on end solely to gain experience and dosh to get your characters stronger and buy them better stuff. I admit, for most RPGs, the process of gaining levels can be somewhat tedious, but as we have already indicated, that does not apply to FFXII. The background music, the gambit system, the onscreen encounters all add up to the most enjoyable level-raising experiences in RPGs (surpassing even FFVI in this respect, yes). But that’s not the point here. The point here is in addition to all that, level raising in FFXII is more than just getting your characters to their programmed maximum attributes: similar to (but improved from) FFX’s “sphere grid” system, FFXII uses the “license board” to allow you to customize each character. You decide what spells they learn, what weapons they can use, what armor they can use, and other customizable elements. As indicated above, some characters are naturally better at some skills than others (Ashe and Fran, for example, are naturally better at spellcasting than Balthier and Basch, say, and it’s wise to give them some spell gambits, especially as their healing spells are more effective than, say, Vaan’s). This licensing board system gives you great freedom (that word again) to customize the characters differently each time you play the game. As I said, I like to give Basch a war hammer or battle axe and let him smash opponents. Penelo is “supposed” to stay back and hurl spells or long-range weapons, but she’s a tough, fast kid, so I like to give her strong spears or poles to jump into the fray. Balthier’s guns are strong, but I prefer to give him a katana or other ninja blades and give him accessories that allow him to strike multiple times per turn. The game gives you far more options than these.
Side quests — the meat and potatoes of the game’s freedom and fun come from the side quests. I told you there’s a point in the game in which you travel the world looking for runaway cockatrices. That’s just one of literally dozens of optional side quests available throughout the game. You can get a fishing rod and learn how to fish for as long as you want. In addition, the more you engage with the characters (regular townspeople and the like), the more the game rewards you. Even these people are realized characters who change and are aware of the main events of the story, and when you encounter them in seemingly throwaway moments, you will meet them again in another part of the world, and frankly, that’s awesome. I don’t want to spoil too much of the rest of the game for you, but suffice it to say this game gives you plenty of reasons to play it for a long, long time.
Hold on, let me tell you perhaps the most clever side quest: the Hunts. You have to join it early in the game as a required plot point, but after that early incident the rest is optional. The Hunts are this terribly clever side quest that lasts the whole game in which various citizens of the world are having various problems (a huge snake is preventing a spice trader from importing his goods here, a young child’s pet turtle has somehow transmogrified into a giant snapping turtle of destruction there — you get the idea), and only you and your friends are up to the task of setting this fiasco right again. It’s a great way to earn unique items (for some things, the only way to earn rare items), travel familiar territory for new purposes, and just have fun, as each hunt has different requirements and aspects to it (they aren’t just “go here and beat up this thing and come back for your reward”).
But it gets better. Once you start making a name for yourself as a great hunter, you get to join the clan of fellow hunters, which enables you to get other nice treats, info on elite marks, and gives more cohesion to the world. Later in the game, you get the chance to join a second, more elite Hunt Club, in which ultra-rare monsters appear only during these hunts throughout the world, enabling you to get more elite items. Yes, sometimes these hunts can be devastating if you aren’t prepared or playing wisely (which may have happened to me a couple times this past summer), but that can be true of the main game as well. This massive, complex but not complicated series of side quests is just one of the many clever ways this game presents a unified, believable world from beginning to (I assume) end.
The important thing about the many and varied side quests throughout FFXII is not that they are basically “necessary” to get the good stuff to win the game. You can play through the main storyline just fine without any of these optional elements, and that will be a rich, rewarding experience all its own. Yet, the greatness that is the side quests of FFXII lies also in how much they reward you playing them. They give you great stuff, sure, but that alone would be meaningless if they weren’t as fun as they are. I said before they make the supporting characters you meet somewhat incidentally come alive more meaningfully, and that point should not be ignored. Without descending into sounding maudlin, the characters (main and supporting) and the side quests really make you want to spend time in this world. Yes, the world has a lot of problems (impending war, gigantic monsters that want to destroy you, crumbling ruins of forgotten technology and civilizations, alien beings trying to pull the strings on the development of all races, the usual), but like the opening song to Deep Space Nine or Star Wars, you just get overwhelmed with the feeling of “yeah, I want to be here for a while.” And the side quests especially allow you to do that in meaningful, enriching ways.
No, it’s not “just a videogame.” Like the great works of art and literature, Final Fantasy XII causes us to look within and around and make ourselves and our world better. That’s what Christmas is partly about as well, isn’t it?
And, man, that musical score….
I’m very glad Christmas break is almost upon us again. I really want to get back to Ivalice and play more Final Fantasy XII. If you don’t have a PS2 (did I mention it is a PS2 game?), do not fear. Just in time for its 11th anniversary, I hear a remastered version is coming in 2017 to the PS4 (you have one of those, right?), complete with an even better licensing/customizing experience. If they keep the music and characters and story and other side quests in place yet improved with modern technology and whatnot, you will find this a fantastic experience.
Have a Merry Christmas 2016, everyone! Even if you don’t get around to playing Final Fantasy XII, we at Redeeming Pandora hope it will be a refreshing, leisure-filled time of quality family experiences, meaningful spiritual reflection and growth, musical memories old and new, tasty treats and savory snacks, nostalgic films, games and fun and shopping and games, and many, many days of lounging around at home for the holidays (preferably in your jimjams all day long — that’s my plan).
See you in 2017!
In 2011, Dave Thompson released a (to be generous) book featuring a litany of 1,000 songs that, according to the title of the work “rock your world.” To be fair to Mr. Thompson, the book seems intended to be a visual treasure trove of rare photographs, tour memorabilia, miscellaneous album paraphernalia and more, with a few diversely-organized lists, and thus the book is in nowise intended as a scholarly treatment of the history of pop music and/or what makes a song great. Fair enough. As our purpose here is not to treat on the book itself directly (I’m sure I’ll do that in a future book review collection), we shall simply introduce Mr. Thompson’s list of the best 1,000 rock songs (or whatever) of all time (as of 2011). This is not my list, but it has been an interesting experience trying to work through this list, especially as I have not heard of many of the artists and certainly fewer of the songs enumerated here. Feel free to join in my personal challenge to listen to these 1,000 songs and, perhaps, reflect on their merit and come up with your own such list.
As I said, I don’t have my identity wrapped up in this list, so if you disagree vehemently about anything, I’m sure I do, too. (No Men at Work? No Collective Soul? No “With or Without You”? Rubbish.) I don’t consider this list authoritative in any possible sense, but I have found it has told me of artists and songs I’ve never heard of, and even if I don’t treasure them like this fellow does, the experiences outside my rather diminutive personal preference bubble have been good for me. Thus I’m not saying I am recommending all these songs to you, certainly with far less certainty than Mr. Adler’s list of books, but we have never been ones to shy away from ideas in any medium (other than those obviously crazy ones, of course, like skydiving), so what do you say? Will you take the 1,000 song challenge? I apologize for the goofy WordPress spacing, which I couldn’t really adjust for all 1,000 entries. Feel free to download this and turn it into your own checklist.
As of this writing I’m a whopping 1% finished, not counting the songs I’ve already heard before discovering this list. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless. I’m sure we shall revisit this list in the future as I travel further along it. As always, we’d love to hear from you about this list, your list, or practically anything at all. Cheers!
Work Cited
Thompson, Dave. 1000 Songs that Rock Your World. Iola, WI: Krause Publications. 2011. Print.
“A list of books should not be regarded as a challenge which you can meet only by finishing every item on it. It should be regarded as an invitation which you can accept graciously by beginning wherever you feel most at home.” – Mortimer Adler
The late great Mortimer J. Adler, of whom I’m proud to be the most ardent living support, in likely his most popular yet least rightly understood book, How to Read a Book, concludes with an impressive litany of the Great Books, dolloped with a smattering (or smattered with a dolloping if you prefer) with a smaller list of (for him) contemporary Good Books that hadn’t existed long enough to fully warrant a place on the Great Books list. As he himself noted in the excerpt above, while he encourages us to read them chronologically, he is perfectly fine with us not reading the entire list, for the key is reading books well, not just widely reading poorly (quality, not quantity as we put it). The Great Books he recommends are listed numerically in mainly chronological order; the Good Books are enumerated second; the individual works indicated “especially” are Mr. Adler’s recommendations. Mr. Adler originally included publishers and series that made these works available in his day, but as most of those publishers and series are long out of print, we’ll just ignore that part.
Hot diggity, I’m excited just looking at those lists. I hesitate to tell you how many (few) of these I’ve read so far. People seem to think English teachers have read all the books in the world (strange how they never assume mathematics teachers have counted every number in the world). I’ll be content (so far) with saying I’ve heard of almost all of the authors Mr. Adler recommends. Of course, then come all the authors after World War 2…. Better get started on these.
If you need a break from reading, and sure we all do once in a while, turn the page for another list of sensory experiences that may tickle your fancy, as the kids say.
Redeeming Pandora 