For the third consecutive year, Norway was announced to be the happiest country in the world, according to Forbes’s “The World’s Happiest (and Saddest) Countries” list. This list is based off of The 2011 Legatum Prosperity Index, which determines the happiest countries according to eight factors they claim contribute to a country’s overall happiness: economy, entrepreneurship, governance, education, health, safety, personal freedom, and social capital. With all these ingredients for a happy and prosperous nation taken into account, the top five countries were listed to be Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden. The common factor among the recurring top countries over the past few years was the fact they were Scandinavian countries. What makes these Nordic countries so happy, and is their happiness truly greater than other countries around the world?
Truth be told, I was not entirely shocked when I first saw Norway was ranked number one on Forbes’s list. The reason for this is because I have grown up in a family with strong ancestral ties to “the old country,” which refers to not one but two countries, Sweden and Norway. Some of my earliest childhood memories have been centered around Scandinavian smorgasbords, traditional Swedish Christmas carols, and immigration stories from my grandfather, who has managed to trace our ancestry back to the 1500s. Not only this, but my grandparents are genuinely happy people. I do not think I have ever seen either one of them become angry or distraught during any of our multiple visits to Wisconsin. All this taken into account, my perception of Scandinavia and Scandinavian people has largely been shaped by my grandparents, including their traditions and stories.
Therefore, when I first saw Norway was ranked the happiest country in the world, my initial reaction was mere amusement. After all, what other country can eat the smelliest fish and cheese in the world and still sing and polka dance about it? After researching the matter on the 2011 Legatum Prosperity Index, I discovered several things. Firstly, Norway has the highest social capital in the world. This basically means Norwegians have high levels of trust and societal interaction among other Norwegian citizens. According to this Index, 74 percent of Norwegians say other Norwegians can be trusted, which is the highest rate of national trust in the world. Not only this, but 43 percent of Norwegians had donated money to charities within the month prior to the survey, and 38 percent had participated in volunteer work. Some other statistics revealed Norway to have the second-highest ranking safety and security, the third highest for personal freedom and economy, fourth for health and education, eighth for entrepreneurship and opportunity, and twelfth for governance. All these statistics combined have given Norway bragging rights for being the happiest country in the world.
Despite all these facts and survey results, the question must be asked: What determines the overall happiness of a country? If you were to ask an American who delights in hunting on the weekends, he or she would probably say happiness is determined in his or her opinion by the right to own and use guns. If you were to ask a small, self-sustaining village in central Africa that faces problems such as famine and sickness, the members of this community would probably answer happiness is derived from a satisfying dinner and their family’s health. Therefore, happiness is dependent upon the values an individual or a community holds in priority.
Since this is the case, it could also be argued the religion a country or community holds to be true overall can influence its happiness. For instance, women living in countries where women are believed to be inferior to men might say they are not happy because of their community’s societal expectations on women. Perhaps one Muslim woman in Saudi Arabia may feel oppressed and therefore discontent because she must wear a burqua every day, while another Muslim woman may feel happy because she is bringing honor to Allah through her submission and modesty. So in this case, happiness depends upon an individual’s outlook on life in accordance with society’s perceptions of what is correct and good. Either way, Saudi Arabia did not make the happiest countries in the world list at all.
From a Christian perspective, on the other hand, happiness comes as a result of pursuing a personal relationship with God. Psalm 144:15 says, “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!” (NKJV). Depending on the translation of this verse, “happy” is used interchangeably with “blessed.” The Beatitudes in Matthew 5 say,
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Those considered blessed in this passage are those who display Christ-likeness through their actions and glorify Him through their faith in Him. From this perspective, then, can a country truly be considered happy if it is an overwhelmingly godless country? This is where determining true happiness becomes dependent upon its definition. The world, as well as the Legatum Prosperity Index, seems to define happiness by economic factors and societal structure, while the Biblical perspective of happiness depends upon a relationship with Christ as Lord and Savior.
As previously mentioned, my family’s Scandinavian heritage runs thick in our veins. Therefore, as a result, Norway was a guaranteed stop during our Lang European Tour of 2009 after my dad retired from the Air Force. We spent time visiting my dad’s extended family outside of Oslo for the better part of a day, after soaking up the Nordic beauty of the valleys and fjords. What I remember most about this visit was our cousins talked about God as if He had no effect on the humanity of this generation. To them, Christianity and reliance on God is a thing of the past, with faith no longer needed because humans can support themselves and determine what is best for the rest of humanity. As disheartening as it was to hear their views on religion and faith, the reality is the majority of Norwegians share the same set of beliefs. In fact, Norway has the sixth-lowest religious attendance in the world, with only thirteen percent of Norwegians attending a religious service of some kind. In May of 2012, the Norwegian parliament voted unanimously to abolish the national church, formerly known as the Lutheran Church of Norway.
Another thing I remember vividly from our stay in Norway was when we had decided to visit a stave church in one of the valleys in southern Norway. Stave churches date back as early as the twelfth century and were once prominent places of protestant worship across Scandinavia. Due to fires and building collapse, however, hundreds of these stave churches cease to exist today. The majority of those still standing can be found primarily in Norway. In this particular stave church we visited, a young Norwegian woman had been assigned to our family as a tour guide, and she proceeded to tell us the history of the church throughout the years.
I will never forget going up into the attic of the church, where there were statues of pagan Norse gods carved into the supporting beams of the church’s structure. Our tour guide explained the Christians who had originally built the church carved likenesses of gods such as Thor, Loki, and Odin into the woodwork as tribute to their pagan past, just in case Christianity turned out not to be true. They did not have complete faith in God and wanted a back-up plan of paying tribute to the old pagan gods if God ended up not existing after all. I found this to be incredibly appalling and unnerving. After all, it appeared as if idol worship would have been a part of each church service held in that stave church because of the church’s foundation that was lacking in faith.
In response to my views on the church’s lack of faith I shared with the tour guide, she said this type of a back-up plan is still very much a part of Norway’s religious cultural mindset today. She said many Norwegians identify themselves as being members of a Lutheran church, but few of them actually attend church or lead lifestyles that reflect the Christian faith. She included herself in this broad statement as well. In her opinion, religion is a nice way of paying tribute to her nation’s history, but she did not see the need to actually have a personal relationship with Christ or see the need to demonstrate Christian values through her lifestyle.
So what does this say about Norway’s overall happiness in relation to a Biblical perspective? Psalm 144:15 intimates it is not possible to experience authentic happiness apart from a personal relationship with God. This demonstrates how happiness defined by the world does not match our view of happiness according to the Bible. Therefore, keep this in mind next time you see the latest Forbes issue containing a “Happiest Countries in the World” article displayed on the magazine stand at your local grocery store. Do not develop an attitude of discontent because the world tells you another country contains the secret to happiness. Instead, be aware of a need for Christ to attain true happiness.
If the question of what you thought about slavery arose, your initial response would be, “It was, and still is, wrong.” But consider this: Slaves were only property, not humans. They weren’t a life, merely things; no conscience, no life, no breath. A slave was an “it.” They had no voice in court — they were used and seen as nothing. The masters, or, if you will, the ones who had the choice, were important. They were the ones who mattered.
Abominable thought process, yes? Now, listen to today’s argument: It’s my body, it’s not a human, and it’s not a life. It has no voice. They don’t have a voice in court; and women have the right to do what they want with their bodies, or property.
What difference do you see between the white man’s 1800s perspective and today’s perspective? The issues may be very different — in theory. Realistically, though, they’re the exact same. Back then, slaves were not seen as humans; neither are fetuses. They aren’t humans, they don’t have a voice in court, and they belong to their “owners.” They are allowed to be killed, and no one is stopping it.
If you were appalled at the thought process of Southerners, then you were very right in reacting that way. It was appalling: Man, God’s glorious creation, was being treated worse than a dog. They were being abused, mutilated, and thrown away like trash. Now, ask yourselves this question: How are the aborted fetuses any different than those slaves?
The answer to that question is simple: they aren’t. Let’s take a look at what the Bible has to say about the subject. Psalm 51:5-6 says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place” (NIV). What David is pointing out here is we are the same — we have the exact same identity from the moment we are conceived; we are sinful beings. He’s also pointing out God desires relationships with the unborn children as well. The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines relationship as “a state of affairs existing between people having relations or dealings.” Key word: people. Merriam Webster also defines people, or, persons, as human beings.
Now, let me guess. You’re thinking the verse from Psalms is an Old Testament verse, and therefore doesn’t apply to today because it’s not under the New Covenant. Well, you’re wrong. Luke 1:41 states, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (NIV). Relevance? Hold on, hold on. I’m getting there. Luke 18:15 says, “People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them” (NIV). The interesting thing here is the same word in Greek for “child” is βρέφος, meaning “infant.” Kind of interesting how babies and children are translated into the same word. The point is no matter whether they’ve been born or they’re still in the womb, they’re still considered children, who have a life.
One of the greatest commandments is “Do not murder.” Even if you don’t believe the Biblical reasoning, it’s one of our laws as a nation, which you can’t deny. And granted, to murder someone, he or she must be alive. The scientific evidence is quite overwhelming.
At the moment when a human sperm penetrates a human ovum, or egg, generally in the upper portion of the Fallopian tube, a new entity comes into existence. “Zygote” is the name of the first cell formed at conception, the earliest developmental stage of the human embryo, followed by the “Morula” and “Blastocyst” stages. The zygote is composed of human DNA and other human molecules, so its nature is undeniably human and not some other species. The new human zygote has a genetic composition absolutely unique to itself, different from any other human who has ever existed, including that of his or her mother (thus disproving the claim what is involved in abortion is merely “a woman and her body”). This DNA includes a complete “design,” guiding not only early development but also even hereditary attributes that will appear in childhood and adulthood, from hair and eye color to personality traits.
It’s also blatantly evident the earliest human embryo is biologically alive. It fulfills the four criteria needed to establish biological life: metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.
Another question that frequently arises: is the human zygote merely a new kind of cell, or is it a human organism, a human being? Scientists define an organism as “a complex structure of interdependent elements constituted to carry on the activities of life by separately-functioning but mutually dependent organs.” The human zygote meets this definition easily. Once formed, it initiates a complex sequence of events to ready itself for continued development and growth.
The zygote acts immediately and decisively to initiate a program of development that will, unless uninterrupted by accident, disease, or external causes, proceed seamlessly through formation of the definitive body, birth, childhood, adolescence, maturity, and aging, ending with death. This coordinated behavior is the very definition of an organism. In contrast, while a mere collection of human cells may carry on the activities of cellular life, it will not exhibit coordinated interactions directed toward a higher level of organization.
The science speaks for itself: at the moment of conception, a new entity comes into existence that is distinctly human, alive, and an individual person — a living, and fully human, being.
Some of the most influential pro-choice activists have dug their own grave on this subject too. For example, pro-choice feminist Naomi Wolfe argued in her article in 1996 the abortion-rights community should acknowledge the “fetus, in its full humanity” and abortion causes “a real death.” Another example is Kate Michelman, long-time president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who said “technology has clearly helped to define how people think about a fetus as a full, breathing human being.”
Many pro-choice people will throw out arguments, regardless of the scientific evidence. For example, “It’s unfair to bring a child into a world where they’re not wanted.” No. Just stop. That is by far the stupidest argument ever to cross someone’s lips. Every child is wanted by someone — thousands of couples can’t conceive a child on their own and can’t afford the medical procedures to get pregnant. And on the adoption note: every hospital, police department, and fire houses fall under the Safe Haven statutes. These statutes ensure any child left there will become a ward of the state; no mother is ever required to raise a child on her own.
Oh, and my favorite, “if abortion is made illegal, tens of thousands of women will die from back alley abortions.” Please. Decades before its legalization, 90 percent of abortions were done by physicians in their offices. Even then, tens of thousands of women weren’t dying from illegal abortions. What people fail to realize, is that yes, women did die from back alley abortions, and yes, the procedures nowadays are a million times better than an old coat hanger; but, women still die today from abortions.
“Abortion is a safe medical procedure — safer than full-term pregnancy and childbirth.” Although the chances of a woman’s safe abortion are now greater, the number of suffering women is also greater because of the huge increase in abortions. Even if abortion were safer for the mother than childbirth, it would still remain fatal for the innocent child. Abortion can produce many serious medical problems, such as breast cancer, and tears in the reproductive system that prevent a woman from getting pregnant again in the future.
Something people don’t realize is the statistics on abortion complications and risks are often understated due to the inadequate means of gathering data. The true risks of abortion are rarely explained to women by those who perform abortions, a good majority of whom are in it for the money.
And what about the hard cases, like rape or incest? What is the difference between the child conceived by rape (which is extremely rare) and the child who was a planned baby? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The child’s worth is not lessened because of the circumstances; as I have already proved, a child is a living human being at the moment of conception. The child can’t be blamed for simply existing! We all believe we have a destiny of some sort to fulfill, and that’s right. God had a plan laid out for us since before we were born: “Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God” (Psalm 22:9-10).
Now, I am strongly pro-choice … in the sense it’s your choice to have unprotected sex. If you consider yourself adult enough to be sexually active, then you need to be adult enough to handle the consequences. Having an abortion isn’t a consequence, it’s a quick fix. Life is a beautiful gift we have been given by the Creator of the universe. He created each “cluster of cells” that is a human being. Our own Declaration gives us the right to it: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” How dare we take anyone’s rights away from him or her? And on top of that, how dare we institute the God complexity into our society? What gives us the right to determine who should or shouldn’t live? All children conceived have a glorious path for their lives, and it’s not up to us to decide whether or not they should walk that path. We aren’t God, and we need to stop acting like it.
“Citius, Altius, Fortius.” The Olympic motto translates as “Swifter, Higher, Stronger.” The famed Olympic Games have a creed to supplement the motto. The Olympic Creed states, “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.” Many countries embody this Olympic creed. Some countries bring less than ten athletes to the Olympic Games. In the 2012 Summer Olympics, 104 of the 205 countries participating brought ten or fewer athletes. The Summer Olympics features over 35 sports, but many countries only participate in one or two (Olympic). Why discuss the Olympics? The Olympics not only feature the best athletes in the world but also bring our world together in a sense of camaraderie. In 2012, the women of the world took the spotlight.
One major milestone was achieved at this year’s Olympic Games: for the first time, Brunei, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia sent female athletes to the Olympics. Qatar went one step further. Not only did Qatar send a woman to the Olympics for the first time, but female sharp-shooter Bahiya al-Hamad carried the flag during the opening ceremony. For women in the Middle East, this is a milestone that took a while to achieve. The traditions and beliefs of the Middle East have kept women from participating in the Olympics for years. The reality that Saudi Arabia sent a woman to the 2012 Games is particularly interesting. Saudi Arabia bans athletics in most girls’ schools and often prohibits women’s athletic events. If a woman participates in athletics, she is publicly disgraced (Pillow).
The struggle for women participating in the Olympics has not only been an issue for Middle Eastern countries. Women as a present force participating in the Olympics in any country did not become a reality until fairly recently. The Middle Eastern countries held on to their traditions longer than other countries, however. The Olympics originated in Ancient Greece, where men participated naked in the games. In the late 19th century, the Olympics were revived by Pierre Fredy, Baron de Coubertin. Fredy did not condone the participation of women in the competitions, most likely in observance of the traditions held in Ancient Greece. The Olympics were brought back in Athens in 1896, without the participation of women. Four years later, in Paris, however, the International Olympics Committee allowed women to compete. Female participation in the Olympic Games was small and scarce, and women were only allowed to compete in sports considered “light.” In 1912, one Olympic official resigned due to the “indecency” of the females participating in the swimming and diving competitions. The First World War actually opened the door for women to participate in more Olympic sports. Since the world war required women to be hired for jobs previously limited to men, women gained more civil and employment rights. Women used this reality to insist upon greater participation in athletics. This request was made possible in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. Unfortunately, women’s participation in the 1928 games was considered a burden because many fainted in the 800-meter race in track. The women’s 800-meter was canceled for the next 32 years. However, in the 1932 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, women began to prove themselves. United States of America’s Babe Didrikson won two gold medals, one in javelin and the other in 80-meter hurdles. She also won the silver for the triple jump. United States of America’s Dorothy Poynton Hill won two gold and two silver medals in the 1932 and 1936 Games for diving. The 1948 London Olympic Games brought female sports into the spotlight. Dutch sprinter Fanny Blanker-Koen won the gold in the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter sprints, as well as in the 80-meter hurdles. Blanker-Koen was the first woman in history to receive four medals (Alshabrawi).
Political and social developments took place regarding women in the Olympics following the Second World War. Not only did Blanker-Koen make history, but the Soviet Union sent its first female athletic team to the 1952 Games. Its members won many gold medals, and Soviet women dominated track, field, and gymnastics competitions for decades. It wasn’t until 1984 women were allowed to participate in the marathon, and, in that same year, Moroccan sprinter Nawal El Moutawakel won the 400-meter track race, becoming the first Muslim Arab woman to win a medal. The 1992 Barcelona Olympics allowed women to participate in all games, including Judo. Women were only allowed to compete in all Olympic sports twenty years ago, the equivalent of only five Summer Olympic Games (Alshabrawi).
A more recent battle the United States of America women have been winning is the battle between the USA and the Jamaicans in track and field, particularly in the sprinting area. The Jamaicans and Americans usually go head-to-head when it comes to sprinting. In the 2012 games, the American women prevailed against the Jamaicans, while the American men were once again defeated. In the 400-meters, the Jamaican women were bumped all the way down to 5th place. Sanya Richards-Ross of USA won the gold, DeeDee Trotter of the USA won the bronze, and Britain won the silver. Bianca Knight, Allyson Felix, Carmelita Jeter, Jeneba Tarmoh, Tianna Madison, and Lauryn Williams of the USA set the Olympic and world record for the 4×100-meter race, beating the Jamaican team by .59 seconds for the gold. Carmelita Jeter won the silver in the women’s 100-meters, while the Jamaicans won the gold and bronze. Tianna Madison and Allyson Felix finished 4th and 5th, respectively. Allyson Felix of the USA took the gold in the women’s 200-meters, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica received the silver, and Carmelita Jeter won the bronze, beating Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown by .24 seconds. USA’s women’s 4×400-meter relay won the gold and beat the Jamaicans (who received the bronze) by 4.08 seconds. Overall, the women of the United States succeeded in prevailing over the Jamaican giants in the sprinting department of the Games (ESPN).
Ah, gymnastics. The sport the United States of America, China, Romania, and Russia dominate. This year, Virginia Beach, Virginia’s very own Gabby Douglas received gold in the women’s individual all-around. The silver and bronze medals were taken away by two Russians, and USA’s Allie Raisman received fourth. In women’s vault, the gold was taken by a Romanian, while America’s McKayla Maroney took the silver. A Russian took the bronze. In women’s beam, Allie Raisman acquired the bronze, while two Chinese women received silver and gold. America’s “Fab Five,” consisting of Gabby Douglas, Allie Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Kyla Ross, and Jordan Wieber, received the gold medal for the women’s team competition, whereas Russia received the silver and Romania received the bronze. Allie Raisman got the gold medal for women’s floor exercise, beating out a Romanian (silver) and a Russian (bronze). The “Fab Five” had an incredible Olympics, beating out the other world powers in gymnastics (ESPN).
This year, the primary foci in the swimming department included whether Phelps would win the most medals of any Olympian in history, whether Lochte would meet expectations, and how phenomenal the women would do, particularly up-and-comers Missy Franklin and Rebecca Soni (ESPN). Not only did USA’s women dominate gymnastics and track and field, they did some serious damage in the swimming department. Rebecca Soni received gold in the 200m breaststroke. Caitlin Leverenz won the bronze in the 200m individual medley. USA’s team for the 4x200m freestyle relay won the gold. This team featured 16-year-old Missy Franklin, as well as Dana Vollmer, Allison Schmitt, Alyssa Anderson, Lauren Perdue, and Shannon Vreeland. Australia and America tend to go head-to-head in swimming, and America pulled out ahead of the Aussies for the gold, leaving Australia the silver. Allison Schmitt won the silver in the women’s 400m freestyle. The US team received bronze in the 4x100m freestyle, featuring Franklin and Schmitt, as well as Lia Neal, Amanda Weir, Natalie Coughlin, and Jessica Hardy. Franklin, Schmitt, Soni, Hardy, and Vollmer, as well as Rachel Bootsma, Claire Donahue, and Breeja Larson, won the gold in the 4x100m medley relay. Vollmer pulled out with gold in the 100m butterfly, while Franklin won the gold in the 100m backstroke. Schmitt received gold in the 200m freestyle, and Elizabeth Beisel took away the silver in the 400m individual medley. Missy Franklin and Elizabeth Beisel won the gold and bronze (respectively) in the 200m backstroke. Rebecca Soni received silver in the 100m breaststroke. Katie Ledecky won gold in the 800m freestyle, and Haley Anderson took silver in the 10km freestyle. As a whole, USA’s women swimmers did a phenomenal job in the 2012 Games.
Volleyball is another US dominated sport at the Olympics. The US won the silver in women’s indoor, a close second to Brazil. Perhaps slightly more popular is beach volleyball. The dynamic duo Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings had a goal to not lose one set. In volleyball, sets make up matches. Not only did these women defeat their opponents in all of their matches, they also prevailed in every single set but one. Misty and Kerri took away the gold, as expected. The battle for gold and silver was interesting. Two US teams battled in the finals: Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings battled Jennifer Kessy and April Ross. Kessy and Ross received silver. Brazil prevailed against China for the bronze, after both teams were defeated by the US powerhouses (ESPN).
Watching the men and the women is very different in beach volleyball. Both teams possess the skills necessary to win; however, it is much more enjoyable to watch the women. Misty and Kerri show elation, nervousness, sorrow, and camaraderie while playing every set and every match. When the camera zooms in on their faces during a break, they are encouraging each other and smiling, even if the match isn’t quite going their way. On the contrary, Philip Dalhausser and Todd Rogers appear either concentrated or bored during their matches. Encouragement is not obvious between this team, nor is emotion in facial expressions present. This makes for a less interesting experience for the observer. The women are filmed and run during prime time television, more-so than the men as well.
At the 2012 Olympic Games, the entire buzz was about the women. In 2012, the women are embodied the Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” As the USA women get swifter, rise higher, and grow stronger, the men seem to be fading into the background. The controversy over the Middle Eastern countries sending their first women to the Olympics forces women to be front and center. The United States of America placed their focus on the women, possibly in response to this controversy. Our country’s women certainly rose to the occasion. The Middle Eastern countries that sent women who did not medal still embodied the Olympic creed of participating and giving the Games one’s all, the most important thing being the struggle. In 2012, the women of Qatar, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia overcame the massive cultural struggle of not being permitted to participate. Whether these women will be able to participate in the future is another matter. However, in 2012, the women certainly rose to the occasion and put on a glorious show for the world. What will the 2016 Summer Olympics bring?
Works Cited
Alshabrawi, Mutaz. “Women’s Participation in the Olympics…an Ambitious Dream Comes True.” http://www.twocircles.net. N.p. 6 Aug. 2008. Web. 18 Sept. 2012.
Pillow, Andrew. “Muslim Women Participation in 2012 London Olympics is the Start, Not the Goal.” http://www.bleacherreport.com. N.p. 27 July 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2012.
Whatever Happened to Good Ol’ Meat-and-Potatoes Christianity?
A little over a decade ago in his book Kingdom Education, Dr. Glen Schultz quoted Barna Group research indicating something like 88% of kids growing up “in the church” leave it shortly after high school graduation (for several reasons, not just college experiences). In 2011, the Barna Group summarized five years of research with six reasons the youth are leaving the church: 1) the church is too overprotective, 2) their church presents Christianity as something shallow or irrelevant, 3) the church comes off as antagonistic to science, 4) the church communicates issues of sexuality poorly, 5) the church is too xenophobic and exclusive, and 6) the church seems unfriendly to those who doubt (some wording has been paraphrased).
Later last year, the Barna Group supplemented that research with five “myths” people erroneously believe why the youth are fleeing the church: 1) people lose their faith when they leave high school, 2) dropping out of church is a natural part of one’s spiritual journey, 3) college experiences are a key factor in leaving the church, 4) young Christians are becoming increasingly Biblically illiterate, and 5) young people will return to the church as always happens.
That list is not entirely helpful, since the Barna report elaborates on those ideas more specifically beyond what our present focus is here (readers are certainly encouraged to check out both of those articles), and not every point is relevant to our present inquiry. Some of these ideas are pertinent here, though, and since the following article was conceived before I read the Barna reports, it is somewhat comforting to be supported by such a reputable source (though “comforting” is perhaps an inappropriate term for such a distressing subject).
Our focus here is not just about why young adults/near-adults leave the church, though that is part of it. The Barna research concludes the church is somewhat to blame, but it is perhaps too lenient (perhaps because the main thrust of both articles is to get you to buy, and maybe read, the latest books by the president of Barna Group) and too narrow in its focus. Our purpose here is to broaden our vision beyond polls and standardized surveys. Some may consider this article a petty rant about personal grievances, a tirade against things I don’t particularly like. Admittedly, some of the initial items in the list may seem somewhat petulant, but that was not my intention in including them (the latter items should be overtly significant issues, at least). I consider them all valid contentions in an overall effort to encourage the church to examine itself and its practices. It’s time we are open to the possibility the church is (at least in part) responsible for the mass exodus of young parishioners. Perhaps the church deserves to lose the children.
1. Quiet Time
Admittedly, this is not a corporate church issue, but it can possibly be one part of the overall problem (why kids willfully reject the church and Christianity). As an aspect of Christian experience, the “quiet time” has undergone a diverse life of favor and disfavor. Is it Biblically supported? Some would look to Jesus’ example of leaving the disciples early in the morning to pray fervently for protracted periods of time as the basis for the “quiet time.” Others seem just to declare it to be an important, almost necessary, component of daily Christian life, based on nothing more than a fabricated aura of spirituality surrounding an atypical human act. The problems with basing one’s conception of the value of the “quiet time” on Jesus’ behavior are twofold: 1) we don’t have Scriptural evidence Jesus did this on a daily basis, 2) the verses usually indicate Jesus went away to pray for a long period of time. I have never heard those insisting on the “quiet time” call it a long period of time. Instead, those who advocate the “quiet time” make it a simple, brief, self-serving activity. It is never advertised as a half-hour or longer activity; most make it out to be a 10-minute activity necessary for one’s daily wellbeing or authenticity as a Christian. Jesus didn’t get away by Himself to make Himself feel better for praying to His father. “Quiet time” advocates tell you it is for your own good, that it will refresh you and give you energy for the day, like it is some sort of spiritual caffeine supplement. See the self-contradicting irony: it is both a necessary ritualistic component to authentic spiritual maturity as well as a convenient, unobtrusive make-yourself-feel-better/pick-me-up/start-the-day-off-right little treat. 10-minute “quiet time” devotionals are all about checking off Bible reading from a daily checklist, enabling the quiet timer to feel good about himself without having done anything substantial. True, reading the Bible can benefit people even without their will, but reading the Bible a few minutes a day just to do it is not genuine spiritual maturity. Advertising spiritual growth as a convenient, fit-it-into-your-schedule supplement certainly does not give an accurate view of the Christian life to the kids. Why maintain an allegiance to a faith that requires nothing more than 10 minutes of your day? The “quiet time” is not real. Christianity is not about making you feel better.
[Editor’s note: the above paragraph was written before this year’s Retreat. Mrs. Lane’s enjoining to spend 45-plus minutes of quiet, solitary Bible reading and meditation, with actual interaction with the meaning and implications of lengthy Bible passages is clearly different from what most people advertise the “quiet time” to be. By all means, spend a great deal of time regularly praying and studying and meditating on the Word of God free from distractions.]
2. Altar Calls
Part of the danger of altar calls is the notion of “Seeker Churches.” What part of Romans 3:11 is unclear to people who administrate the functions and operations of local churches? As will be addressed later, evangelism is not a corporate church function. The church gathers to glorify God and grow mature. Messages designed to communicate the importance of becoming born again, directed primarily to the unregenerate visitors who may or may not be present in the (for lack of a less accurate word) audience cannot be the sole presentation from the pulpit/stage.
Not that I am denying the importance of people learning for the first time the importance of regeneration — let’s not be ridiculous. Likewise, let’s not be ridiculous by looking to Acts 2:41 as some sort of permission to do this. I’m not denying the Spirit can convict and seal 3,000 souls today, but Peter is not addressing a church meeting, either. He is speaking to an audience of all unsaved people (except for the 10 other Apostles). Paul and Peter both rail against churches spending too long on basic doctrine without moving on to more advanced spiritual substance (1 Corinthians 3:1, 1 Peter 2:2). I don’t understand why churches think ending each message every week with a “now that you’ve finally been convinced of the truth of the gospel thanks to this one message and the peppy music you heard, come up and prove how you are now saved” call to the audience is a sign of genuine conversion or rededication. Shouldn’t actual discussions between those who are spiritually mature and those who are apparently coming to Christ occur before any public display is made? How do we know it is genuine conversion and not just an emotional response to the many emotionally-driven elements of the contemporary church service? I am not outright denying the possibility anyone could ever “get saved” in a church service, especially in light of Acts 2:41 as we have just referenced, but we should also acknowledge the Bible makes it clear genuine conversion is known by the fruit in the life of the person now saved and being saved, and that takes some time. The problem is the pressure altar calls make on people to react immediately the way the church people want them to react, and despite the many times Jesus encourages those hearing Him on the Sermon on the Mount to “do their business with God the Father” in secret, altar calls demand an immediate, public display of nascent righteousness. It is often difficult to accept the validity of these — and I have been to two Promise Keepers conventions. Certainly baptisms are to be public displays of justification, but altar calls are not “come up and get baptized,” but rather “come up and get saved” most of the time.
Concerning the altar calls that aren’t justification related, I am frequently confused by these as well. Admittedly I am personally averse to situations of embarrassment. Not that those who heed the call are concerned about looking embarrassed, especially if they are actually being moved by the Spirit to seek immediate counsel, but just as churches should never do an “open mike response session,” enjoining spontaneous public displays of repentance, rededication, or just plain outbursts of catharsis could hardly be what Paul had in mind when he wrote on the importance of structured worship meetings done decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:26-40).
Altar calls are not doing things “decently and in order.” Children who grow up in the church and never experience something those around them consider worth going up to the altar may feel their experience of Christianity is inferior, and thus maybe they aren’t “doing it right.” Instead of pressuring people to respond in such an emotionally-charged way and have these dramatic experiences, perhaps churches should encourage those so moved to seek out one of the multiple leaders of the church for authentic discussion and verification, and then the church can be notified in an orderly manner about the great ways the Spirit is moving in the lives of those in the local body. Everyone is benefitted/edified that way, which is partly why the Church exists in the first place, and the kids are not awkwardly pressured to leave their seats week after week (before they leave their seat for good).
3. Kids on Stage
Similarly, some churches seem to take a perverse pleasure in embarrassing the children of their congregation. I’m not just talking about the annual, painful to anyone whose child is not on the stage at the moment (and even to some whose are), Christmas Pageant (which may or may not be Biblically accurate), though that is part of the problem. I’m talking about the entire practice of bringing the children on stage to sing some songs, do some skits, or whatever other nonsensical reason old people give for wanting to make young people cry. Sure, some kids have real talent at an early age. Let them be the ones who sing for the grownups. Let the gifted actors do the plays (written by actual, professional playwrights, please — never any skits). Don’t make all the kids in the nursery or children’s care wing come up and “sing” for us. Most aren’t really singing, not well. Most are shouting. Others are not paying any attention. Some are scared out of their minds. Some are crying. Are the adults doing anything to soothe these poor children? No. No, the grownups who have been given charge of the wellbeing of these children by God are sitting far away, laughing at their misfortune. Perhaps the parents think the kids will not remember these experiences, since they are just kids. Take it from me, kids remember these embarrassing and painful situations. If you don’t want kids to leave your church when they grow up, stop putting them in embarrassing and painful situations. Stop doing stupid things in general.
4. Gym Night
I have enjoyed some quality Gym Nights over the years, don’t get me wrong. The problem is not with gym nights ontologically — the problem is akin to some of the reasons the Barna Group found in their surveys over the years: if “Christianity” is solely about fun, without any doctrinal substance, the church is not a relevant or important aspect of life. Clearly this is not true: Christianity and corporate church life are integral (i.e., necessary) for life to be done correctly. Churches, then, need to stop advertising it as a meaningless garden party. It’s one thing to appeal to the “video game crowd,” but another to appeal so much the experience is nothing distinct from their normal video game habits. Churches would do well to remember the old adage: “what you win them with is what you win them to.” If Gym Night has an equal balance of athletic/hobby activities and authentic worship/devotional/purposive sanctification activities, keep the Gym Nights coming. If, however, as seems to be the case too often today, Gym Night is nothing more than a “hey, we do those things, too” open house with no Biblical message or teaching involved, shut it down. Christianity does not need to be “cool.” The kids are choking to death on “cool” in the unregenerate world. Christianity needs to offer the Word of Life. As the Barna Group found, the kids have nothing substantial upon which to ground their ephemeral faith. Give them authentic experiences and sound, doctrinal content. If our message of the cross is not a stumbling block, it’s not an accurate message. Don’t water down the gospel just so you have enough bodies for Scavenger Photo Hunt Night.
5. Small Groups
As with Gym Nights, the problem is not “small groups qua small groups.” The danger is the growing dependence on small groups as a substitute for corporate worship church meetings. If a church is so large it needs to advertise small groups as the way to get to know people and build relationships instead of at corporate meetings, it’s probably time to break off and form a new local church or two.
Small groups can serve very useful functions in the development and maturity of the individual Christian and the church body as a whole, but not if it is just “Gym Night for Adults.” I’ve been to planning meetings and informational sessions in which the whole point of starting some men’s small groups was to give men an opportunity for a social club and pretend it was somehow authentic Proverbs 27:17 in action. Concerning the recent trend of sermon-based small groups … blerg. I acknowledge my personal experience of Christianity is quite distinct from most people’s experience. Sermon-based small groups aren’t my idea of a useful time, but for some perhaps it is — so I don’t want to just tear them down wholly.
Small groups need to be purposed for spiritual growth and maturity. I’m obviously not saying grownups aren’t allowed to have fun as Christians, nor am I saying every moment of small group time has to be super-spiritual and ultra-sanctified. Fellowship is a necessary component of Christian/church life, clearly, but if we proclaim the point of corporate church life is solely to sing a few songs together and hear a topical sermon in the same room together, and maybe taking the Lord’s Supper once a quarter (if time permits), our conception of church life has become woefully distorted. If the adults can’t model healthy, genuine mature Christian community for the kids, it’s no wonder they feel no need to continue with church life once they become adults.
6. Worship Leaders
Again, I’m not here to excoriate the entire group of this newly-created entity called the “worship leader.” I know a few members of this group, and they are not in question here. Clearly we are in a bit of a crisis of terminology, symptomatic of the larger epistemological crisis of why the kids are fleeing the church. Frequently we will hear speakers remind us “worship is not just singing,” but in our programs (I’m sorry, “bulletins”) we look down and see “Worship Leader” for the name of the person who leads the band (excuse me, “worship team”). If we want the kids to know and worship accurately, we should probably start using terms correctly, especially in the literature we hand out to everyone who comes into the church (pardon me, “church building”).
I’ve visited local churches in which the worship leader spent nearly all of the time with his eyes closed, engaged in some secret business to which none of us were privy. I certainly don’t begrudge a Christian from worshipping and experiencing God privately, but if a person is supposed to be a leader of other people, even for only 20-some minutes a week, it’s not too much to ask that the person keep an eye on the people he is supposed to be leading.
You can always tell the worship leaders who spend a great deal of time listening to live albums of their favorite Dove Award-winning professional bands, since they try to recreate the mood and audience reactions immediately and on nearly every song, even if the congregation in front of them is wholly unprepared for it. Then they will tell us to spend a few minutes with the Lord individually, right where we are. This may sound like a good idea, but aren’t we gathered for corporate worship? Why are we supposed to do individual things in a corporate church meeting? Can we not effectively worship God solitarily at home, or does your musical accompaniment make it more authentic?
Similarly, you can also tell the worship leaders who are really frustrated preachers. During the super-spiritual quiet part of the song, the worship leader will go off on a ten-minute mini-sermon, usually motivated by his frustrations with the congregation and why they aren’t spiritual enough. Worship leaders: stop talking. The kids wisely do not connect “being talked down to” with “worthwhile Christianity.” Stop being part of the problem. Stop telling us to “make this our prayer this morning.” It’s not a prayer, it’s a song. Why are you telling us we sound great? and why are you demanding we sing louder? You aren’t the judge of our worship; we aren’t singing to you. And you can stop going to the a cappella bridge every time and stop singing, telling us to do all the singing for you. Leading by abstention isn’t really leading. Oh, and worship leaders: the words to the song are being projected up on the screen. You don’t have to keep telling us what words are coming next.
7. Accompanied/Extemporaneous Prayers
It’s quite possible the most annoying things worship leaders do is accompany prayers, whether from themselves or someone else (like the preacher). Are we supposed to be listening to the words being prayed over us (or at us, depending on the temperament of the person doing the praying) or the music being played? Stop with the sensory overload. First you rail against the kids’ constant digital music obsession (while you tell them to go have a quiet time), and then you put music to the prayers, as if they must be more palatable or entertaining for the congregation. Let’s try to avoid hypocrisy if we want the kids to remain active within our ranks.
The more time I spend in Virginia, the more I tend to agree with C.S. Lewis concerning the value of traditional, planned-out prayers, such as are found in the Book of Common Prayer. Extemporaneous prayers are not, as everything under scrutiny in this article, naturally and wholly repugnant, especially when occurring in a Breaking of Bread service, but the practice of it needs improvement. An emotive background score is not going to salvage a theologically spurious and structurally disorganized prayer. Rambling is one of the things Jesus specifically warned against concerning prayers: don’t use too many words like those who want to be noticed, He said. If you are going to pray, great — I’m certainly not discouraging prayer; just try to be accurate and coherent. Especially if you know you are going to be leading an official leading prayer in the forthcoming service: there is nothing unspiritual about planning your prayer out in advance. Certainly we in the congregation benefit more from orderly, planned out sermons; why do we think prayers have to be spontaneous in order to be spiritual? A good planned-out prayer can be quite beneficial, perhaps even more so than a heartfelt, impromptu “thank you, Father, for dying on the cross for us, and as the preacher comes to give us Your word, Lord, we ask that your Son be with us during this meeting.” Poor doctrine, no matter how heartfelt, is not really beneficial or spiritual. Not that I’m disagreeing with the Bible, which clearly says the Spirit helps translate our oft-times feeble and erroneous prayer, but why not do our part and pray accurately and preparedly when we have the chance? As mentioned above, chaotic disorganization is not appealing to adults; it certainly isn’t appealing to the youth struggling to overcome their own internal near-adulthood chaos.
8. Contemporary Christian Music
Little needs be said here, surely. Churches should really stop treating the singing of hymns like some sort of special treat or palliative to the older generations, as if they need to be coddled or appeased once in a while. You certainly don’t need me to tell you the depth of theological content in songs of the church has steadily decreased over time to its current abysmal state of emotive shash. While that is an unabashed generalization, it is more accurate than not in most cases. Perhaps your experience is different. Send me the address and meeting times of your local church. The blatant rejection of the worship-musical output of the history of the church connects to the next point.
9. Rejection/Ignorance of Church History
I suggest to you kids would not leave the church so quickly if they 1) knew God accurately and 2) knew the church accurately. Assuming these kids who leave the church are actually born again Christians (not to open up a whole other can of worms), if they knew God increasingly more accurately, why would they possibly walk away from Life itself? And if they knew what the church was, its history, its musical history, its theological and doctrinal history, its heroes and shapers and martyrs, would they really be so quick to walk away from a history that truly belonged to them in substantial ways, both emotional and intellectual? if they truly considered themselves members of an integrated Body? Doubtful.
It’s bad enough preachers throw down volumes of systematic theology as some sort of anathema to genuine Bible study, but to keep the congregation ignorant of the life history of the organic organization to which they are declared a vital part (either unintentionally or willfully) is inexcusable. Even if it is a supplementary “Sunday School” class on Church History, or a small group that meets to read and discuss key works of theologians or missionaries or martyrs of the faith throughout history, do something to make the kids and the older people aware of the history of this thing called the church. Too many Christians go around thinking the church exists solely for them and their particular weekly needs. The church is far older and more important than that. I’m not saying every local church has to have a lending library, but each church should make awareness of the history of the church (the one Body of Christ) a priority. Clearly this cannot happen in “seeker-friendly churches” designed mostly for evangelistic outreach. Apparently the purpose of those sorts of groups is to “get people into Heaven.” However … that’s not what the Body of Christ is about.
10. Governing Structure
This may seem out of place, since it isn’t an aspect of in-service church experience, but it is quite possibly an important aspect of church life whose impact is generally ignored. Related to the significant issue of mega-churches, if the local church is not enabling and encouraging the regular use of each member’s spiritual gifts, given to them by the Holy Spirit Himself, the church is not functioning properly.
How this relates to governing structure and the children fleeing the church may seem tenuous, but it is connected. As boggling to the mind as it may seem, despite the clear governing structure indicated throughout the New Testament (especially the Pastoral Epistles), a significant number of churches have, for all intents and purposes, one person at the top called the “head pastor.” Where is this position in the New Testament? That’s right: nowhere. The church is not a feudal organization. Perhaps the head pastor talks about how great the board of elders is, but if he is the man doing all the teaching virtually every week, things are not right.
Added to this confusion, American churches in the 21st century seem to be in the habit of advertising for new pastors and leaders across the country. What does this tell the kids in the congregation? There is no future for you here, basically. If we want new help, if we have positions (new or old) to fill, we will find them from the national marketplace, not from within. In total contrast to Paul’s direction for the governance and promulgation of church leaders, solely through one generation discipling the next, churches would rather steal from one another. So the kids see no future in the church. If anyone else in the congregation has the gift of preaching, he certainly can’t use it here, since the head pastor is responsible for 40-some sermons a year. And we wonder why the average length of the pastorate in America today is about 18 months. Maybe if churches operated more Biblically, with a multitude of teachers and preachers under the governance of elders, supported by a multiplicity of deacons, the leaders wouldn’t get burned out so quickly, kids would see value in staying loyal to the local church (since the local church is actually loyal to its members), and the church would more likely be growing spiritually and not just numerically.
11. Topical Messages
Topical messages have their time and place: holidays, kairotic moments, seasons of that sort. However, if the kids get nothing but topical sermons week after week, year after year, we should not be surprised the kids walk away from the church. A steady diet of topical messages gives the kids the impression the Bible is a disjointed, unconnected encyclopedia. Spiritual maturity does not come from an ignorance of the Bible as a connected whole. Advertising the annual “preaching through a whole book of the Bible!” as if it is a rare delicacy is not terribly impressive, especially since the “preaching through a whole book of the Bible” means the preacher covers multiple chapters in one sermon while talking about only a couple of verses. This is not a rigorous commitment to the Apostles’ teaching. Without a commitment to systematic, expository preaching, the church is not going to grow spiritually.
Perhaps you will think that is too bold a claim to make. The New Testament, however, disagrees: read Hebrews 5:11-6:2 and 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 as key examples of the importance of maturing from basic principles of the faith to maturity. Maturity — genuine knowledge, in fact — comes from understanding truth, reality itself, in terms of relationships (see The Idea of a University by Cardinal Newman). Knowing the flow of the Bible, God’s providential work through history, does not come from a few verses here and a few verses there. Jesus’ extensive knowledge of the Old Testament did not come from a topical survey of some pertinent messianic prophetic passages. To consider Paul’s use of the OT as a topical approach is to misunderstand him completely. Viewing Hebrews as nothing more than a pastiche of unrelated verses or concepts is bad hermeneutics (to put it nicely). Topical messages cannot be the only approach to Bible preaching. The congregation may enjoy topical sermons more, preachers may enjoy giving them more (since they are easier to prepare — and by “prepare” I mean “download from some other pastor’s website”), but I’m quite certain the Bible actually condemns giving messages to people just so they will feel better. Something about ear tickling, as I recall.
For you pastors out there who will respond “I don’t have time to prepare expository messages each week,” I refer you to the previous reason kids leave the church. The reason you don’t have time to do your job accurately is 1) being an elder has become a salaried position (this could have been addressed earlier, but it is such a mind-blowing notion to me I don’t have the heart to talk about it at length), and 2) you are trying to do too much. Follow the Pastoral Epistles and develop multiple teachers and preachers capable of effectively dividing the Word of Truth to the people. If multiple teachers and preachers are on the rotation, including all of the elders, all of you will have time to prepare systematic expository messages. Everyone wins. And more importantly, the church operates correctly, the children grow and will more likely find no reason to leave the church; most importantly, God will be more glorified through it all.
12. Matthew 28:19-20 vs. Acts 2:42
Finally we have the crux of the issue, at least as far as I see it. The Barna Group and others view this issue differently, and that’s fine — I’m not saying I’m more right than they are. The point of this overview was to present other potential reasons why the kids don’t stay in the church after they grow up. The absence of doctrinal truth is most likely the main reason — since the church has not given them an accurate understanding of who God is, what the church is, who they are in Christ, the purpose of life, and all the rest of the key answers to existence available only through God’s revelation, we shouldn’t be surprised they don’t stick around for more of the same. The main issue, as I see it, then, is on what fundamental principle or idea the local church functions: Matthew 28:19-20 (the so-called “Great Commission”) or Acts 2:42.
Some of you are already antagonistic, since I had the audacity to call the revered “Great Commission” “so-called.” Others of you will say something akin to “the church has had a long history dating back to Genesis 12 and YHWH’s covenantal promise to Abram, and though Matthew 28 occurs before Pentecost it is still part of the lengthy outworking of God’s single-yet-multifaceted plan to return mankind to the Tree of Life and full relationship with Him.” Obviously. I’m not denigrating either the importance of Matthew 28:19-20 or the validity of its connection to Acts 2:42 (and their origin in Genesis 12 and even Genesis 1-2). What I am saying here is in the practical operations of local churches in America in the 20th-21st centuries, noticeable differences exist between churches grounded upon Matthew 28:19-20 and those grounded upon Acts 2:42, and the churches driven by Acts 2:42 seem (to me, at least, and feel free to rebut) more Biblically authentic.
In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus is talking directly to the Apostles. As you know, the debate is whether Jesus’ words to them also apply to the people who later become disciples of Christ after Pentecost. The Apostles are unique to the church, which sounds painfully obvious, but many people tend to forget that simple truth. Few Christians seem to grab hold of the several diverse commands Jesus gave His followers before His crucifixion, though many are quite eager to glom on to Jeremiah 29:11, since it makes them feel so good. What is it about Matthew 28?
The parallel passages have significant contributions to the notion of going into all the world and making disciples. Luke 24:48 says “You are witnesses of these things.” Part of the reason Jesus sends the Apostles out to the world is they actually saw Jesus, His sufferings, and His resurrection. We are not witnesses of any of those things. Mark 16, most of which is somewhat suspect, adds quite unusual aspects to the effects of evangelism according to the Great Commission: “in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents by their hands and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17-18). If these things are supposed to accompany evangelism as prescribed by the Great Commission, not too many people in North America have been recipients of the Great Commission. John 20:23 adds Jesus saying “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness for any, it is withheld.” Do non-apostles have the same authority? Effectively, by claiming the Great Commission for all Christians, one is claiming every Christian has the ability to pick up snakes and drink poison with impunity, forgive the sins of everyone or not at their own discretion, and every Christian actually witnessed the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
We can’t just take one version of the Great Commission and not the others, can we? Some would say we could, arguing since the Matthew account is outside, and Mark, Luke, and John are inside, the different gospels aren’t really talking about the same particular event, in that Jesus was spending His post-resurrection forty days with the Apostles talking about many important things. But since they are so similar, can these different versions really be talking about different sendings? How many times is Jesus commissioning His disciples? Especially since they are to wait around until Pentecost, it doesn’t make much sense to say Jesus is really giving them different commissions. Acts 1 also emphasizes the people who receive the “Great Commission” are eyewitnesses to Him: “you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (verse 8). Once the hundreds of people listed in 1 Corinthians 15 and everyone else who actually saw Jesus were dead, clearly no one else who took up the mantle of the Great Commission could be following it literally.
The New Testament emphasis on evangelism is actually more on personal lifestyle than actual departure from one’s location. Paul says some evangelists are given as gifts to the church, but others are given different gifts, so not everyone has the “gift of evangelism.” The Great Commission is not the same thing as 1 Peter 3:15’s “ready defense,” and Peter is certainly addressing members of the church. Paul’s oft-used Romans 10 passage about the importance of evangelists going out into the world also includes the oft-overlooked reminder these people are sent out by the church, in that most people are actually staying behind in a supportive role.
All of this to say I’m still a bit skeptical the Great Commission is literally for every Christian to follow, since only a limited number were actual witnesses to the content to be spread by the recipients of the Great Commission, and the New Testament epistles emphasize personal lifestyle evangelism more than actual packing up and going somewhere else for most Christians. Evangelism is not a corporate church function, since it exists as an entity for the growth and maturity of itself. “Now,” as Bill Cosby said, “I told you that story to tell you this one.”
Churches built on the “Great Commission” seem to be essentially the kinds of churches described throughout this article: their main focus is not on the actual Christians within the congregation but everyone else in the community. Their definition of success as a church is increased attendance. Of course I’m not saying it’s bad for churches to grow or care about people not on the attendance roster. I would be ecstatic if everyone in the world became an authentic Christian. But success for the Body of Christ is not solely numerical growth, especially if numerical growth is based solely on statistics of numbers of people who walk in the door, with no knowledge of whether these people are actually Christians or not. Success for the church is identical to success for the individual Christian: conformity to Christlikeness. This is spiritual growth, not just numerical growth. Transfer from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light (justification) is crucial, obviously — but purpose does not cease there. If it did, the church would not exist at all: Christ would just call us home immediately upon regeneration, and the sealing work of the Holy Spirit would not occur.
In contrast are churches built on Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.” Here we have the conduct of the original church in clear, concise language. These are the activities of the church. The rest of the New Testament corroborates this so evidently it needs no elaboration here. Churches built on Acts 2:42 exist for the spiritual growth of the Body of Christ. Obviously visitors are encouraged and welcome — it’s not like non-Christians are banned from coming through the doors — but sermons are not directed at them. Acts 2:42 churches value evangelism, they send out and support missionaries, and they equip and encourage those in the congregation to be prepared with a ready defense for the hope found within them. They regularly celebrate communion and strangely enough never run out of things to say about Jesus and what He has done. They know personal lifestyle evangelism is far more effective in reaching lost souls than altar calls — perhaps they got that from Jesus’ example in the gospels. They are governed by a plurality of elders, supported by a plurality of deacons, and disciple the successive generations in the intellectual content of the faith, the history of the church, and the use of their spiritual gifts. Instead of trying to make church fun for the kids, giving them nothing substantial upon which to base their faith as they grow, churches founded on Acts 2:42 focus on the Head of the church as the source, reason for, and purpose of life itself.
Meat and Potatoes
The purpose of this monograph was not to rant against the things American Christianity enjoys which I personally dislike, though it may have seemed like that. I didn’t say much at all about a great number of things that irritate me, which I admit is probably small comfort. Likewise, my intent was not to set up a straw man argument, making Matthew 28 churches all bad and Acts 2:42 churches all good, and while I admit it could be interpreted that way, it would be dishonest to reject the position outright: the distinctions are real. I have seen them in many churches across the country. Churches are geared either for those who aren’t there yet (Matthew 28) or those who are (Acts 2:42).
Matthew 28 churches, despite their claim they exist to make disciples, rarely do that very thing. In an effort to always be appealing and entertaining, they rarely go beyond the elemental things (if spiritual matters are ever discussed at all). God’s wrath and justice are never mentioned, and the kids must always have a good time (especially at Trunk-or-Treat). Missions trips are often undertaken, surely … but hardly ever (if even then) are they advertised for the sake of those who haven’t heard the gospel. They are something to make you, the Christian, feel better about yourself, as if missions trips exist solely to make you feel like a better Christian, to get out of your comfort zone, and check off the “short-term missions trip” from your Pillars of Christianity checklist, like reading through the Bible in a year, going to that super-spiritual youth retreat every summer, and, of course, making sure all of your radio presets are set to music both positive and encouraging. Matthew 28 churches are eager to declare the time for Bible study is over: now’s the time for action. Since the emphasis is always on going away to feel better about yourself, it is bemusing they are irritated the children actually heed that message. It is quite possible these churches deserve to lose the children.
Acts 2:42 churches, whose reason for existing is not just to get larger numerically so they can afford to hire more staff but instead abet spiritually maturation of the Christians within the congregation, are more likely to retain the kids as they grow older, since they aren’t trying too hard to be fun and relevant. Instead of fun and games, these churches provide truth and life. That’s what the kids want. That’s what the kids need. That’s the Christianity we all need.
Pass me the meat and potatoes, please. The children and I are hungry, and we wouldn’t mind staying for dinner.
References
Barna Group. “Five Myths about Young Adult Church Dropouts.” 19 September 2012.
—. “Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church.” 18 September 2012.
Schultz, Dr. Glen. Kingdom Education: God’s Plan for Educating Future Generations. 2nd ed. Nashville: LifeWay Press, 2003. 1998.
For years, Chick-fil-A has been one of the most popular fast food restaurants in the United States — especially in the South. It was formerly an exclusively southern fast food chain but has recently begun expanding into the West Coast and has experienced great success there as well. Part of Chick-fil-A’s general appeal is its uniqueness. It sells only chicken, is a Christian-based company (and as such, remains closed on Sundays), and is open about its affiliation with certain political/religious associations, which has recently brought the chain as a whole into the media’s bright and critical spotlight. But how did Chick-fil-A become the corporate giant it is today? Where and how did it begin? Who began it? How has it grown? How has it affected the community? What obstacles has it encountered?
The corporation has very humble beginnings. Truett Cathy, its founder, was born on March 4, 1921 in Eatonton, Georgia. Three years later, his family moved to the city of Atlanta. As a young boy, and into his teen years, Cathy displayed his business savvy and entrepreneurial potential through a series of activities and jobs. He ran small drink stands, sold magazines, and worked for the town’s newspaper company, selling subscriptions to The Atlanta Journal. Soon after, following his high school graduation, he was drafted into the army, where he worked until his discharge in ’45.
Almost immediately following his return home, Cathy and his brother Ben opened their own restaurant in ’46. The Dwarf Grill, later named The Dwarf House, opened its first location at 461 South Central Avenue in Hapesville, Georgia. Unfortunately, Ben died in a tragic plane accident two years after the restaurant’s opening; Cathy continued the business himself. A couple of years later, he married Jeannette McNeil, who was extremely supportive of his work in the restaurant business and encouraged him to continue in it. So all Chick-fil-A lovers should be extremely thankful that this woman came into his life, because it was at The Dwarf House that Cathy began experimenting with what is now Chick-fil-A’s most famous meal item: the delectable, mouth-watering, boneless chicken fillet Chick-fil-A sandwich. However, The Dwarf House’s beginnings were very humble — the first day, sales were less than $60.
The experience Cathy gained at his first restaurant set the tone for the current operation of Chick-fil-A. For example, The Dwarf House was only open six days a week — Monday through Saturday. This does point to his religious background, but he says that he “never intended to make a big issue out of being closed on Sunday.” He also focused on word of mouth for business rather than excessive advertising. As business began to grow, Cathy opened the restaurant’s second location in Forest Park. Not long after the opening, however, a fire destroyed it, forcing Cathy to make a rather important decision. In ’97, he said, “I faced some tough questions. Do I take a giant step back to just one restaurant, which would mean having to lay off employees? Do I incur more debt and rebuild the restaurant as it was? Or is it time for something new? I was convinced it was time for something new.” And so the ideology of the fast food chain of Chick-fil-A was born.
After a mildly unsuccessful opening of his first fast food restaurant, Cathy decided to return to his first restaurant idea. He began to work more diligently with the idea of the chicken sandwich at this time. He started serving fried chicken breasts on buns and progressively perfected the frying and seasoning processes. He also made the addition of the pickle to the sandwich, which remains a Chick-fil-A staple to date. As they began to outsell burgers, Cathy gave these chicken sandwiches an official name: the Chick-fil-A sandwich.
Before Chick-fil-A became a chain, Cathy made the decision to sell his sandwich at other restaurants. But because he soon became nervous that another restaurant would steal his idea and use it as its own, he formed the restaurant chain in ’67. The first Chick-fil-A chain store opened in the Greenbrier Mall in Atlanta and was massively successful, because it was one of the first restaurants to establish itself inside of a mall. It was a sort of revolutionary idea at the time, bringing food to shoppers. And so, as malls began to grow in popularity, so did Chick-fil-A. The end of 1967 saw seven restaurants throughout Georgia and the Carolinas. Cathy developed four major aspects of the company’s business philosophy at this point:
(1) the company would grow not by selling franchises, but by forming joint ventures with independent operators
(2) they would operate exclusively out of shopping malls
(3) financing would come not through debt, but primarily from the company’s own profits
(4) people would be the primary focus of Chick-fil-A.
These have all remained core ideas, save the second, because restaurants became extremely popular in shopping malls after several years, and Cathy wanted to expand. The first tenet, concerning individual operators, is what is most unique among them all. When a new franchise is created, Chick-fil-A searches for an individual operator to run that specific location. This operator only has to invest $5,000 of his or her own money into the franchise, which is quite a small sum compared to the total cost of building and advertising it. Said operator is then trained for six weeks, during which time period he or she is paid, and is then guaranteed an annual salary of $30,000, in addition to gaining half of the franchise’s net profit after fifteen percent is given over to the corporation.
As if this wasn’t enough incentive to work for Chick-fil-A, there’s more. There is an annual business meeting for which all operators (and their spouses) are flown to a certain location for one week — all expenses are paid. Even just working as an employee, or a Team Member, has many perks, the biggest of which are having Sundays off and being eligible for a $1,000 scholarship for working twenty-hour work weeks as a student.
Though Chick-Fil-A experienced explosive growth throughout the ’70s, 1982 was a difficult year for the corporation. Due to economic issues, Cathy decided not to take his salary that year. He wanted instead to have enough money to give all of the chain’s team members their paychecks without lowering their wages. After calling a meeting of the restaurant’s board members, they soon created a purpose statement, which reads, “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us; To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.” All of the board members were and are Christians and seek to incorporate their religious beliefs into their everyday lives, including decisions regarding Chick-fil-A.
While this religious dedication is admirable and appreciated by Christians all around the states, it has also caused a few publicity problems for the company. Most recently in 2012, an interview surfaced in which Chick-fil-A revealed it supported a company against gay marriage. The store, and Dan Cathy (Truett Cathy’s son and current head of the corporation), were both immediately thrown into the spotlight for their monetary donations to such companies. Though Chick-fil-A was pounded by the media, it also received much support from its more conservative customers. In fact, on August 1st, massive quantities of its supporters turned up to show they still backed the company and all it stood for.
Even though the controversy has only recently come into the spotlight, the interview that caused it actually took place in 2009, and WinShape, a charitable branch of Chick-fil-A who did all of the donating, gave over $1.7 million to different anti-gay marriage groups in 2009. These groups include Marriage & Legacy Fund, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, National Christian Foundation, Focus on the Family, Eagle Forum, Exodus International, and Family Research Council. In 2010, it donated over $2 million to the above-mentioned groups and more. Chick-fil-A has never been shy about its religious foundation, but due to all of the recent commotion, there are rumors it will stop donating to anti-gay marriage groups.
One of the company’s real estate directors said, “The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas.” In addition to this, sexual orientation was included in their anti-discrimination clause quite recently. With all of this, Chick-fil-A hopes to restore its good standing regarding the media.
All of this being said, Chick-fil-A is certainly not only one of the best tasting fast food restaurants around but also a company which holds a lot of integrity and uses sound, Biblical values as its foundation. Through the years, Truett and Dan Cathy handled all of the obstacles that came their way — the burning down of the restaurant, economic difficulties concerning the growth of the franchise, political troubles — in a graceful manner true to the religious values they claim to possess. So don’t worry about getting obese for eating Chick-fil-A all the time — grab some of their delicious noms and just consider it your Christian duty!
I had been dreaming of participating in an exchange to France for years. All throughout high school, my weekends involved researching the most cost effective exchange program I could afford. And although I had managed to find several that would have been incredible, nothing was really within my price range. So I had accepted the fact I would just have to wait until college when I could spend a semester or year abroad in France.
What I did not anticipate, however, was that a military family had just moved in two doors down from my house. My mom and I initially went over to invite the family to a neighborhood Oktoberfest party at our house, and we found out the mother was actually from France. She had met her American husband while he was stationed in Germany, and they eventually were married and moved back to the United States.
Not even a few hours into our neighborhood party, the mother asked me if I was available to babysit in the near future. This was an ideal family to babysit for, as I could practice French with their three bilingual children and just walk two doors down to get to their house. As the months went by, our families became very close, spending holiday parties together and talking about various European experiences and cultural differences. I had also become a regular babysitter for them, allowing them to go out on date nights and get some shopping done in preparation for the birth of their fourth child.
The times I spent over at this family’s house are truly unforgettable. Sometimes, I would go over to make French desserts or sample imported Swiss cheese while looking at pictures of the Franche-Comté region where the mother grew up. It was wonderful to be able to witness the three children embracing their bicultural home life, speaking both in French and English. Going over to their house was almost like entering another country. It was a fusion of French and American cultures, with pictures of both the Alps and California all over the house, and French desserts fresh from the oven to sample in the kitchen.
Around Christmas of 2011, I started talking to the mother on one particular instance about my interest in doing an exchange in France for several weeks to improve my French. Within the following week, I started to receive e-mails from her saying she had already written to several of her relatives in France, and they had said they would not mind hosting an American exchange student one bit. Now the only thing left to do at the time was to select a family to stay with, and then try to convince my parents to let me go alone.
So, several months and lots of planning later, I found myself on my first international flight without my family to Geneva, Switzerland. My stomach had been in knots for a few days at that point, because I was so nervous and excited to be starting my own French adventures at last. So as the plane took off, the questions and anxieties began to resurface, such as … “What if my host family forgets to pick me up from the airport? How do you say ‘I need my inhaler’ in French? What if customs doesn’t let me into Switzerland? Boy, I would be really angry if the plane crashed on the way over and I never got to see France….”
Needless to say, I did not get any sleep on the overnight flight to Geneva. Instead, I spent almost the whole seven hours listening to Edith Piaf on my iPod and cramming new useful French phrases into my mind … just in case. And it didn’t hurt one bit that the elderly man sitting next to me was actually from Egypt and was trilingual. He was on his way to Lausanne, Switzerland to visit his mother who only spoke French. He was so nice I forgot about being so nervous and practiced some French with him before he fell asleep.
After landing early the next morning in Geneva, clearing customs, and picking up my luggage, I met my French host mother and her daughter named Floriane, who is the same age as me. Immediately, they began asking me questions about the flight, my family, and school in rapid-fire French. It certainly didn’t help matters I had barely slept in two days. They were very nice with me, however, and understood I was pretty drained from the trip. So they didn’t seem to mind too much when I just mumbled “uhhh… oui…” to virtually every question they asked.
After a thirty-minute ride across the Swiss-French border to Vétraz-Monthoux, or simply “Vétraz” as the locals say, I promptly fell asleep in my shared room with Floriane after a brief tour of the house. A good five hours later, I awoke to whispering and giggling from Zoé, the youngest child in the family. At four years old, she was looking for someone to play with her and was curiously looking me up and down as if she had never seen an American before. She had come to wake me up and let me know that my lunch was waiting downstairs for me if I felt like eating anything. My lunch was comprised of fish sticks and Mac and cheese. How’s that for a first French meal?
The rest of my first day in France went very well, although I was still trying to recover from jetlag. The nice part about immersion programs in this sense is you are so physically and mentally drained from speaking and translating a secondary language all day long you are exhausted at the end of the day and can more easily adapt to the time change by not staying up all night. I had met all the six children in the family as well as both of the parents and had even managed to find time to play their upright piano in the living room. Two of the daughters played piano, so we were able to exchange sheet music and teach each other new songs.
In the days that followed, I began to settle into my temporary French lifestyle, attending school with Floriane and Anthony, the oldest son. A typical school day in France, on average, is much longer than in the United States, often with three-hour long classes at a time and an enormous exam called the baccalauréat (or just “le bac”) that determines a student’s academic fate during the eleventh and twelfth grades concerning plans for universities. And for good reason, the students who were preparing for their bac (Floriane included) had to study for hours per day in order to achieve high marks on their diplomas.
This meant I had a lot of downtime during my three weeks in Vétraz. I didn’t mind necessarily, though, because I had plenty to read and could always watch Disney movies in French or practice piano when things got dull around the house. During my stay, I managed to read the first Harry Potter book en français and an entire Belgian comic book series about American cowboys. Needless to say, these comic books, or “bandes dessinées,” were full of stereotypes about the American Wild West and about American culture overall.
When asked what Americans thought about the French people, I really only had two stereotypes to tell them — that the French don’t shower often and that they are snobby. Both of these sound quite ludicrous once you experience authentic French culture. By this, I mean if you go beyond Paris to see “la vraie France,” you will meet some of the nicest, most hospitable people in Europe.
Yet when I asked about the stereotypes the French have about the Americans, I was instantly met by close to fifteen or twenty stereotypes about Americans. Some of these included: Americans are fat (which I could not truthfully deny), Americans are narrow-minded, Americans are not environmentally-conscious, Americans are very emotional, and Americans think they are better than everyone else. Honestly, I could understand where many of these opinions were coming from, but there are also many things about American culture the French people I talked with could simply not understand given their own cultural backgrounds.
For example, I was explaining one night to my French father all of the men in my extended and immediate family had previously served in the military or were entering into some type of military service. He was shocked to hear how supportive I was of our military and the need for American presence in the Middle East. In France, he explained, the military is seen as being a necessary evil. The only support the military in France gets occurs once a year on the French national holiday on the fourteenth of July because of military parades in Paris. He also said military officers in France are usually those who did not do well enough in school to attend universities or obtain well-paying jobs. Coincidentally, however, he is a huge fan of American war movies and television shows.
Other interesting topics that arose when talking with my host family included the French socialist system and gun control. They seemed to be very content with their socialized health care, saying it was well-organized and met all their family needs. When I tried to tell them how socialism might work well in France in some aspects but could not work as effectively in America, they could just not understand how the government providing for people of every income and circumstance could ever be a bad thing. And when it came to talking about guns, there was almost no way I could reason with them about why it is a good thing Americans have the right to own weapons. According to them, guns should only be used when hunting animals. There is no need beyond that to own a gun as a civilian. I concluded there were just some things we would have to agree to disagree about.
All in all, my stay in France could not have been any better. I was able to make a home away from home among a family that called me their daughter and sister, eat the most delicious cheese and bread day after day, and wake up amidst the beautiful French alps each morning. I miss my French family very much and think about my experiences in Vétraz every day. In fact, I have already been invited to go back and go skiing this winter. And hopefully, Floriane will be able to stay with my family here in Virginia next summer and have her own kind of foreign adventures in America.
For those who are considering doing an exchange to a foreign country, I would deeply encourage you to pursue your options to spend a few weeks or even a year abroad. The more time you spend abroad, the more comfortable you will become using the language and grow more accustomed to the daily life of your host family. I hope to return to France next summer and stay with relatives for six to eight weeks in order to improve my French even more. Once you get over the initial homesickness and jetlag, you will discover how to make the most of every opportunity where you are at the moment.
Most importantly, do not be afraid to take some risks and step out of your comfort zone a bit. Remember spending time abroad experiencing another culture is not something you get to do every day. Making mistakes while practicing another language is completely natural and unavoidable; therefore, just be prepared to laugh at and learn from your mistakes. When you decide not to let your shyness or self-consciousness get the best of you, I guarantee you will make some of the most incredible memories of your life and have some great stories to tell for years to come.
After World War II, the USA initiated Project Paperclip in order to keep Nazi scientists out of Soviet hands, so that America could maintain a technological advantage. Project Paperclip is known for bringing over about six hundred rocket scientists to America, but what is not as well known is that several hundred scientists that worked in the Nazis’ mind control program were also brought over. These mind control scientists were recruited by the CIA for a top-secret program called MK-Ultra in the early 1950s.
The semi-synthetic drug LSD had been invented in 1938, and it would later attract the attention of several major superpowers for its strange properties. In the early 1950s, the CIA came to believe the Soviet Union was developing a truth serum. In response to the perceived threat, the CIA decided to hire scientists to search for and experiment with psycho-active drugs. Originally the program only experimented on people with their consent. The CIA finally had MK-Ultra officially established in 1953 and started broadening its scope of research. MK-Ultra grew and had operations in about 80 universities that served as fronts for the project. Unfortunately, the CIA decided they didn’t have enough test subjects and began to experiment on American and Canadian citizens without their consent.
Shortly after its official sanctioning and establishment in 1953, MK-Ultra began to pick subjects for unwilling experimentation. The project began to choose citizens in situations where they could be drugged, tortured, observed, and would be unwilling to tell the tale. The project would even hire prostitutes to drug their clients who would be embarrassed by their actions. The victims would often illegally go through several kinds of tortures. These tortures could be physical, verbal, sexual, or emotional. The tortures were severe enough to cause permanent damage to the victim’s psyche. The person was damaged in an attempt to see if it was possible for someone to become like a Manchurian Candidate. These weren’t terrorists or traitors. These were ordinary people who were often just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The project took a darker turn when a Canadian psychologist named Donald Ewen Cameron was hired to practice concepts like “psychic driving.” In psychic driving, first he would talk with the patients and find out their fears and what they felt guilty over. Later, he would lock his victims in isolation, often on a psychoactive drug and have the worst parts of the confession replayed to them extremely loudly. These experiments of his were the basis for the invention of the two-stage torture. Dr. Cameron often would take his patients, some of whom suffered from nothing more than a mild depression, label them as schizophrenic, and then hospitalize them so he could perform his government sanctioned experiments. Dr. Cameron would take normal shock therapy and increase the shock by up to fifty percent. The doctor would also occasionally put his patients into drug-induced comas. Some of his victims forgot everything, including how to eat or speak. Dr. Cameron was paid to develop methods designed to destroy a person’s mind, and he was very good at it.
The entire project was about six percent of the CIA’s budget but remained a secret until 1975, when Congress informed the people of the project after the Church Committee’s investigation. MK-Ultra was not the only illegal experimentation the United States Federal Government has committed against its own citizens. It is also known the U.S. Army during the MK-Ultra time period experimented with biological weapons on the citizens of Savannah, Georgia and caused serious medical conditions across the city, including stillbirths, encephalitis, respiratory problems, and typhoid. The U.S. Government has a record of illegal experimentation on its own citizens.
MK-Ultra has often been cited in many conspiracy theories since it is such an obvious show of government powers being abused. Many conspiracy theorists of today believe the government has continued illegal mind control experiments under another name. One of these supposed projects is thought to be called Project Monarch, but the only support for its existence is the word of a psychic. That fact rightly causes Project Monarch’s existence to be doubted. But is it really unimaginable the government is conducting some nightmarish experiment now? It is very possible. In this day and age, with new technologies and with information being carried around the world in a faster and easily accessible way, many postulate that such a project’s existence would be found on the ’nets. It would only be found if people happened to be looking for it. About 91,000 terabytes of information exist on the Internet, but Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines only retrieve the same 167 terabytes of the Internet. The remaining leftover information is called the Deep Web. Most people will only check the first ten or twenty results on the search engine of their choice. However, despite that, a new mind control conspiracy theory arose from the primordial depths of the Deep Web. The conspiracy theory dragged up something that might have been a long-forgotten operation of MK-Ultra.
The new theory stems from an experiment from the same time period, but instead of illegal experimentation of drugs on people, this other line of research dealt with electromagnetic low frequency (E.L.F.) microwave radiation. The concept first reached public attention on March 21, 1979, in the Los Angeles Times article entitled “Man Hallucinates, Says Microwaves Are Murdering Him.” The story was about a man named Kille who previously had brain surgery (without his consent) that involved him getting 20 electrodes implanted in his head for experimentation, and later was known to wear an aluminum foil hat to try to stop the signal reaching the electrodes and shocking him. The psychologists who said he was hallucinating had not been told about the electrodes in his head. The story had been brought back up when people started to report they were being gang stalked with the addition of several types of technological harassment including the use of E.L.F. microwave to torture them from a distance. The FBI has stated they have begun a search for these gang stalkers but still haven’t made any progress in the investigation. The E.L.F. is supposedly used on the targeted individuals from a distance and can supposedly torture them by causing involuntary movement, electroshock, and just plain old pain. Although these claims are disputed, it should be noted that E.L.F. microwaves have been studied and have been shown able to drastically change people’s moods. Depending on the frequency, the person under the influence of the E.L.F. can be made to hallucinate and show signs of a major psychotic breakdown, simply feel depressed, or act like someone with a mania. The E.L.F.s have also been shown able to have an effect on weather if it is broadcasted into the sky. One targeted family used common scientific instruments to search for the microwave radiation and found it came from their neighbors’ house. In an attempt to block the radiation, they put sheets of aluminum between the two houses and found an immediate improvement to both their mental and physical health.
The FBI’s inability to track down the supposed gang stalkers has sparked some more controversy. Some people have begun to think maybe the FBI isn’t really investigating the source of these reports and is actually just covering up for another MK-Ultra-type project. There is always the possibility that might be the case. MK-Ultra sets up a perfect example of how the government has done similar things in the past. Also, to support the idea of a modern-day government conspiracy to control people’s minds is the fact there is never any trail left behind by the gang stalking. One instance of gang stalking reported and investigated by Federal agents involved a break-in at the targeted individual’s house. Inside the house, the dishwasher had been reduced to its core pieces, the safe was drilled into and opened, all the clothes were out of the drawers, and the doorknobs were taken apart. Several witnesses claimed it could not have been a hoax because the house was untouched just before the victim left to go to the grocery store. No one saw anyone enter or exit the house. Even with all of that, there were no fingerprints, nothing was stolen, and law enforcement officers remained baffled. Another family daily experienced threatening calls on their phones that would tell the victims what every single member of the family was doing at the moment, even after they moved and changed all their phone numbers. Again, the gang stalkers still haven’t been found. Maybe that is because the government does not want them to be found. The family histories of targeted individuals have been studied, and in many cases their families have all had grandfathers who were openly against programs like the Manhattan Project. Although the correlation does not necessarily indicate a similar cause for the targeting, it should be noted coincidences tend to be just pieces of a bigger picture left behind because they either conflict with one’s beliefs or because one is simply too lazy to try to look at the bigger picture. Pawns in the game are not victims of chance. The evidence in these cases lacks a trail, but that in itself just points back to the Federal Government. Prior to the hearings that exposed MK-Ultra to the Congress, the director of the CIA ordered the destruction of all MK-Ultra documents in an attempt to destroy the trail. Even though he failed, almost 90% of the MK-Ultra data was destroyed. The CIA had made the mistake of holding on to most of the paper trail until the last minute … would they make the same mistake twice? Probably not. The almost perfect lack of evidence seems to point to experience and power.
Overall, it is known the United States Federal Government does have a criminal record when it comes to human experimentation. It is always a good idea to be cautious and pray you won’t be added to the list of victims. And if MK-Ultra could stay a secret for so long and after being declassified still is widely unknown…. The atrocities of another nation are an outrage, but the atrocities of “our” side often go unheard of and are dismissed by many who hear of them. The history surrounding MK-Ultra should cause one to pause and consider that maybe your government is not as benevolent as it seems. Although the theories are not “proven,” maybe it would be best to be on the safe side and make oneself a nice sturdy aluminum foil hat, because tin foil doesn’t work.
In the introduction to this thesis, I declared my purpose here is not to describe Babylon 5 as a Western epic in allegorical ways, as if the main characters must be precise representations of Achilles or Odysseus, or that its plot must be a war story or a journey tale. Instead, I demonstrate Babylon 5 utilizes the foundational elements of the Western epic analyzed in part one to tell a new epic story with heroes that strive to gain a transcendent understanding of themselves and their universe. Since the Odyssey is markedly different from the Iliad, while still being an equal epic, it is reasonable to allow for variation within the epic concept, in both characterization and story construction, as long as a connection to that foundation still exists. The most significant element of the Western ancient epic genre, how the characters make choices to understand themselves and the nature of their reality, is also the most important element of Babylon 5. Though most of the main title characters throughout the series are exemplary individuals and perform different functions on the station, the two human leads of the series, Commander Jeffrey Sinclair and Captain John Sheridan, demonstrate Babylon 5’s reinvention of the Western epic hero. Just as the Homeric heroes are made more impressive by their counterparts, two key alien characters, Ambassador Londo Mollari and Ambassador G’Kar, exemplify the nature of Babylon 5’s complementary characters to its heroes.
Commander Jeffrey Sinclair
Jeffrey Sinclair is the first commander of the Babylon 5 station from its initialization in the Earth year 2256. Season one begins after the station has been operational for two years. Throughout the season, Sinclair expresses occasional surprise that he was chosen for such an important position, in charge of an interplanetary peacekeeping station housing the advisory council of representatives from the five dominant species in the galaxy. Part of his surprise over his position comes from his comparative low military rank as only a commander in the military structure that owns and operates the station, Earthforce. Other officers perhaps more qualified and higher in rank come to the station at times and express their disgust that Sinclair has such a prestigious command. It is soon learned that Sinclair got the post because the alien race who helped build the station, the Minbari, until recently Earth’s main enemy, demand he get it. Why they want him specifically is a significant first season plot thread.
Descended from fighter pilots, Sinclair is a warrior before he is a diplomat, even though he represents Earth on the Babylon 5 Advisory Council with the other four major races. As the man in charge, Sinclair could easily be an Agamemnon-like character, letting his military background and ruling position go to his head, but series’ creator and co-executive producer J. Michael Straczynski dispels that connection: “the character of Sinclair is not a jingoistic military leader. He’s a very thoughtful man” (Back to Babylon 5). Unlike the group of warriors in the Iliad who are only loosely unified but mainly concerned with self-interests, the main crew of the Babylon 5 station is cooperative and cohesive (mostly). Sinclair rarely has any need to coax or threaten his command staff members to do their jobs; the Earthforce military in which they serve is more dedicated than Agamemnon’s motley group of polis chieftains. Instead, Sinclair spends most of his time during the pilot movie and first season growing into his diplomatic role and taking responsibility for his choices and his crew’s decisions, facing their consequences head on. The episode “Eyes” intentionally deals with the ramifications of the choices Sinclair makes during the season prior to that episode. He is clearly not an Agamemnon type, interested only in his personal gain.
The first season, aptly titled “Signs and Portents,” reintroduces the series beyond the pilot movie The Gathering, familiarizing the audience with the major characters and conflicts in the Babylon 5 universe, giving many of the command staff individualized episodes to flesh out their characters; the major plot arc of the series is foreshadowed as well. The major mysteries and extended plot lines of the first season revolve primarily around Sinclair, however. In addition to why the Minbari want him to command the station, his personal epic quest begins at the end of The Gathering. Sinclair is missing a twenty-four hour period of his life from the conclusion of the recent Earth-Minbari war. As the Minbari are about to overcome Earth’s final defenses at the infamous Battle of the Line, Sinclair watches his fellow pilots be destroyed until he decides to ram the lead Minbari ship with his own fighter. On his attack pattern he blacks out and wakes up the next day, only to learn the Minbari have surrendered, minutes away from complete domination of Earth. In the ten years since the war, Sinclair never discusses his experience with anyone until now. At the end of the movie, a Minbari assassin declares to Sinclair “there is a hole in your mind.” This, plus other incidents throughout the first season, motivates Sinclair to find out what happened to him.
Sinclair’s motivation, then, as an epic hero, is self-understanding. Unlike Agamemnon whose self-knowledge is limited by material possessions, Sinclair’s ability to know himself is incomplete because he is missing part of his memory and thus a portion of his identity. In this sense he is like Odysseus, and his warrior heritage and isolation from his society by the end of the season also make him like Achilles. Furthering his connection to the epic heroes is his moral ambiguity; he manipulates and lies at times to achieve (in his estimation) some higher good — not simply to be deceitful or wicked. In one sense he does this because he believes it is part of the nature of life: “Everybody lies,” he declares. “The innocent lie because they don’t want to be blamed for something they didn’t do. And the guilty lie because they don’t have any other choice” (“And the Sky Full of Stars”). The characters do not inhabit the same amoral universe as the Homeric heroes, since the Babylon 5 heroes all contend for transcendental values of service and good, regardless of their individual beliefs. Sinclair’s background of three years of Jesuit training help enable his personal freedom to lie and manipulate for a greater good, such as saving life and solving crimes. In “The War Prayer,” an episode about the burgeoning hate group Home Guard interested in eradicating the growing alien presence and influence on Earth, Sinclair declares he hates the hate groups, yet he is not above pretending to be like them in order to infiltrate and bring them down. In the same episode, he threatens violence against Ambassador G’Kar so he will agree to his peace proposal with another race. In “And the Sky Full of Stars,” Sinclair lies to his friend Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan) of the Minbari once he realizes she has been lying to him about his missing twenty-four hours. In order to forestall a workers’ strike on the station in “By Any Means Necessary,” Sinclair manipulates a government representative into allowing him to use “any means necessary,” which to Sinclair means redistributing budget allocations, infuriating his own government superiors in the process. His morality is flexible, in part because he does not fully know who he is and what his role in the universe is. Once he fully understands himself and regains his missing hours, he fully commits to the steadfast unity of the epic hero character — but not until then.
In the epic tradition, Sinclair’s flexible morality is only part of his characterization: he is not just a liar trying to discover what happened to him during that missing day. Sinclair, like Achilles for much of the Iliad, is internally lost. His two closest friends both recognize this: Delenn though she sometimes deceives him, does so because she is actually watching him for her government, believing him to be a fulfillment of prophecy, and so she lies to protect him. She gives him information at times and also keeps him ignorant of certain things for his own good, she believes, knowing that he will take any risk for his friends or for the right thing, because, she says, “[h]e’s looking for a purpose” (“A Voice in the Wilderness” part two). Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) arrives on the station with Sinclair and has known him for several years. Garibaldi knows he must do well in this position or he will probably lose his military career because of several mistakes in his past, including alcoholism. As Sinclair’s oldest friend, Garibaldi does not want to fail him or let Sinclair fail himself. After Sinclair unnecessarily risks his own life for the third time, Garibaldi confronts his reckless behavior, suspecting it has something to do with Sinclair’s experience during the Earth-Minbari War and now having to work side-by-side with his former enemies. Perhaps Sinclair is looking to find “something worth dying for because it’s easier than finding something worth living for” he tells his friend in the episode “Infection.” Garibaldi wonders if that is the definition of being a hero, and in part he is correct. Epic heroes need to find something worth living and dying for. Achilles knows he must die if he is to be a hero in his culture and finds it is worth the price, committing the rest of his life to heroism and glory. Odysseus, by rejecting life with Calypso to return to Penelope, rejects immortality for mortality, favoring humanity and death over an eternal static life. Returning to his family, growing old and dying, in an ironic way, are worth living for to Odysseus because he values humanity with all its defects over all else. Life itself becomes Odysseus’s purpose, just as it becomes Sinclair’s, after he knows who he is.
Though he learns what happened in his missing day before the end of the first season, Sinclair takes two more years to fully understand its consequences and his purpose. This all occurs behind the scenes, since he is transferred off the station at the beginning of season two and sent to the Minbari as Earth’s ambassador. Like Achilles, Sinclair is only able to learn what he needs to learn as an epic hero while he is separated from his society. Toward the end of season three at the turning point of the series in the two-part “War Without End,” Sinclair returns to the station to resolve plot threads and his maturation as a full epic hero, finally knowing himself and his role in the universe. He tells his friends “All my life, I’ve had doubts about who I am, where I belonged. Now I’m like the arrow that springs from the bow. No hesitation, no doubts. The path is clear…. My whole life has been leading to this.” His self-understanding is clear, and he is ready to perform the actions of a fully-realized epic hero now that he has learned what he must learn. He knows that he will not return from this mission, but he does what he must because he is an epic hero, choosing to do what only he can do. For Achilles and Odysseus, following their heroic impulse leads them to personal glory and the restoration of order. Sinclair’s heroic impulse is different, since Babylon 5 refashions the Western epic into something new. Sinclair’s heroic impulse and newfound self-awareness lead him not to the self-centered goals of the ancient epic heroes, but instead to sacrifice himself and leave his friends and society in order to save them all, transforming the epic hero into a more munificent, selfless character. In this way, Sinclair salvages the better attributes of Hector from the Iliad, validating personal sacrifice in a new kind of community no longer defined only by battlefield victory. Achilles returns to society because it is the only community he has, however much he may want to change it. Odysseus restores his society because it is his home and family, clearly a self-interested goal. Sinclair, however, saves his society by leaving it (what Hector could not do) because it is worth saving, not just because it exists; he values humanity and its continued existence more than his own life and place in it. Through his sacrifice he achieves the eternal renown sought by the ancient epic heroes, but his motivation and method are quite different in Babylon 5’s refashioning of the Western epic genre.
Captain John Sheridan
Jeffrey Sinclair is not the only epic hero of Babylon 5. He plays a pivotal role in the series, yet after the first season, the main character becomes Captain John Sheridan, Sinclair’s replacement on the station. Like Odysseus, Sheridan is a traveler, coming to Babylon 5 after years exploring the outer edges of known space. His quest is to learn the true nature of his universe in order to save it and remake it, which he does in an archetypal journey that follows Campbell’s path of the Western epic hero.
Departure
Sheridan’s call to adventure occurs at the beginning of season two, when he is transferred from his life as a deep-space explorer captaining his ship named, ironically, the Agamemnon. Sheridan is also nothing like the Homeric Agamemnon. Sheridan’s departure from the life he has known and enjoyed for so long signifies his gaining of freedom and distance required to better understand the society and universe the hero inhabits. The station is the epicenter of the important activity in the series; while Sinclair must leave it to find himself, Sheridan must board it to understand reality and become an epic hero. Though Sheridan goes through a realistic period during the first few episodes of season two in which he regrets his decision and questions his ability to be a diplomat and station manager, he soon realizes the value of the opportunities and unique life possible on this significant interstellar port.
The next phase of the epic journey, according to Campbell, the advent of supernatural aid in the form of a protective figure, comes from Vorlon Ambassador Kosh (voiced by Ardwight Chamberlain). The Vorlons are an ancient race shrouded in so much mystery that they even hide their genuine appearance from other species, preferring to interact with others (which is quite rare) in encounter suits, masking their features and even true voices. Kosh’s arrival on the station is the instigating plot of The Gathering. Yet, during his first two years on the station, Kosh spends almost no time performing his ambassadorial functions; he is rarely seen during the first season except in mysterious, inscrutable circumstances. It is not until Sheridan replaces Sinclair that Kosh becomes an active and involved character. Keeping in line with his inscrutable nature, Kosh first appears to Sheridan as a protective figure through a telepathic dream while Sheridan is being held captive on an alien ship. The vision motivates Sheridan to seek out Kosh’s assistance. Kosh agrees to teach Sheridan about himself and, ultimately, to become an epic hero by understanding the nature of the universe — as Kosh puts it, “[t]o fight legends” (“Hunter, Prey”). The legends Sheridan learns to fight are the misconceptions the Vorlons have been perpetuating about themselves as they manipulate other races over the centuries. Kosh also prepares him to fight the legends of the Vorlons’ enemy race the Shadows, which, at the time Kosh becomes his supernatural aid, Sheridan does not even know exist. He still has much to learn under Kosh’s tutelage. All but one of Kosh’s lessons occurs off screen, but Sheridan becomes more adept at understanding the universe because of Kosh until events lead Sheridan to cross what Campbell calls the threshold of adventure. As with Telemachus, epic heroes are not made in the classroom.
Sheridan’s crossing of the threshold is his encounter with Mr. Morden, the Shadows’ covert emissary (and spy) to Babylon 5. Sheridan’s connection to Mr. Morden is complicated but crucial: Sheridan’s wife Anna (played primarily by Melissa Gilbert) supposedly died three years earlier when her science ship disappeared. Morden, however, was on that ship, and he is still alive. Sheridan engages in morally dubious behavior to investigate why Morden is alive but his wife is not. Virtually every character enjoins Sheridan to release Morden for various reasons, including Ambassador Delenn and Kosh. His choice whether to release the emissary of his enemies without finding out the truth about his wife is the end of his departure phase in what Campbell calls “the belly of the beast.” Sheridan chooses to release Morden so the Shadows will not suspect their presence in known by the Vorlons and other races. With this decision, made freely as a sacrificial hero, Sheridan’s self-understanding is changed. Kosh and Delenn tell him more about the Shadows and the true conflict raging in the universe among the superior races, furthering his progress as an epic hero. Cementing the change in his identity and his journey, Sheridan asks Kosh to change the nature of his instruction. Instead of just fighting legends, he wants to know how to literally defeat the Shadows. He is even willing personally to take the fight to their homeworld, Z’ha’dum (the same planet upon which his wife met her death and Morden did not). Kosh warns him of the serious nature of his transformation and the possible occurrences if he continues on his epic path: “If you go to Z’ha’dum, you will die,” he explains. Sheridan, with Achilles-like resolve and acceptance of his fate, is now sure of his role in the conflict: “Then I’ll die,” he replies. “But I will not go down easily, and I will not go down alone” (“In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum”). He fully crosses the threshold of his epic quest of cosmic understanding.
Initiation
Just as Odysseus’s initiation is what Campbell calls “a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials” (97), Sheridan’s journey is against the seemingly ambiguous mythical inhabitants of his universe, and like Odysseus, Sheridan needs more than physical strength to overcome millennia-old races engaged in a “war without end.” Sheridan’s journey to understand the two sides of the conflict, the Vorlons and the Shadows, with the younger races caught in the middle, occupies most of season three. His biggest trial is uniting the younger diverse alien races against the Shadows; he eventually succeeds, but the victory is costly — Kosh is killed. Without his mentor, Sheridan turns to the next phase of his quest, Campbell’s Mother Goddess. For Sheridan, this is Ambassador Delenn. Babylon 5 continues its re-envisioning of the Western epic by changing the Mother Goddess into a romantic relationship for the hero. The more Delenn and Sheridan work together to understand the universe and save the races in it, the more their romance grows until Sheridan’s next phase of his initiation, the confrontation with the Temptress.
Sheridan’s Temptress, in a typical Babylon 5 twist, is the unexpected return of his wife Anna, apparently back from the dead. As the Temptress, Anna entices Sheridan to return with her to Z’ha’dum; there, she claims, he will complete his quest and learn the truth (though from the Shadows’ perspective). Much like Circe the Temptress directs Odysseus to the Underworld to learn what he must, Anna directs Sheridan to the Underworld of the Babylon 5 universe, Z’ha’dum. Sheridan’s journey to the underworld furthers his connection to the Western epic hero, but unlike Odysseus, Sheridan is actually killed as Kosh warned. His willing descent is intentional by the series’ creator and episode writer Straczynski. “The journey of John Sheridan is the classic hero’s journey. The hero often ends up going into darkness, dying, being reborn, and coming back in a newer, better form” ( Introduction to “No Surrender, No Retreat”). Straczynski clearly understands the path of ancient heroes according to Campbell, incorporating it into the major plot of the series, providing a helpful context from which to analyze the show as an intentional rebirth of the Western epic.
Odysseus’s “atonement with the father” phase of Campbell’s path brings him the wisdom and advice he needs to complete his restoration of his home and identity. Sheridan, though, already knows who he is — he must learn the nature of the external reality and how to live in it. Sheridan dies at the end of season three in his attempt to destroy Z’ha’dum, but when season four begins, he is apparently alive in an underground cave devoid of any context. Here Sheridan meets Lorien (Wayne Alexander), the first sentient being in the universe. Lorien considers the Vorlons and Shadows his “children,” since their races came after his and he essentially reared them. In turn, the Shadows and Vorlons have been rearing the humans, Minbari, and other younger races, but have now lost their way. Sheridan’s atonement is metaphorical — by meeting the ultimate father, Lorien, he can finally understand the nature of the universe, the conflict raging in it, and his purpose. His sacrifice for this atonement includes not only his misconceptions about what he thought he knew of the universe including the war itself, but also his misconceptions about himself and his reason for being. He must accept that he is dead.
Lorien explains Sheridan is dead, but because he has not yet accepted it, he is stranded in a Dante-like limbo state of the underworld. Before Sheridan can resume his quest, he must accept his death and fully learn what epic heroes must learn. Lorien’s words parallel Garibaldi’s advice to Sinclair three seasons earlier:
You can’t turn away from death simply because you’re afraid of what might happen without you. That’s not enough! You’re not embracing life, you’re fleeing death. And so you’re caught in between, unable to go forward or backward. Your friends need what you can be when you are no longer afraid. When you know who you are and why you are, and what you want. When you are no longer looking for reasons to live but can simply be (“Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?”).
Sheridan’s zealous, yet naïve, willingness to die in destroying the Shadows is not enough — knowing how to fight is only part of the epic hero’s nature. Sheridan was unwilling to have Kosh teach him about himself, and his ignorance returns to him here at his death, but Lorien gives him a second chance. Lorien’s advice to no longer be afraid of death is the opposite of Calypso’s offer of immortality, but the results are the same: Odysseus and Sheridan embrace life. “It’s easy to find something worth dying for,” Lorien continues. “Do you have anything worth living for?” Sinclair needs two years of self-discovery before he can answer Garibaldi’s question; Sheridan, though, knowing himself, has an immediate response for Lorien. “Delenn!” is his declaration as he yields to his death. As Odysseus abandons immortality to regain Penelope, Sheridan embraces his mortality so he can return to his love Delenn and be the epic hero she needs him to be. Living the human life, with its failings and brevity, is valuable to the epic hero and so it should be for us all, as Lorien’s caution that life should not be lived just to avoid death rings true for the epic heroes of Homer and Babylon 5 as well as the audiences of these stories. Because death awaits us, life is valuable and should not be squandered; it must be lived wisely and well, with accurate self-knowledge and proper understanding of the universe.
After yielding to his death and accepting the nature of his reality, Sheridan is revived by Lorien, finally prepared to be the epic hero he must be. He knows that his wife and past are truly gone, despite the Shadow’s machinations and deceptions, and he is prepared to embrace his new life with Delenn and win the Shadow war, now that he fully understands the nature of the conflict.
Return
Campbell refers to the onset of the completion of the hero’s journey as the “crossing of the return threshold” (37), in which “[m]any failures attest to the difficulties of this life-affirmative threshold” (218). Despite returning from the dead, Sheridan experiences many failures as he nears the completion of his cosmic quest. In his absence, the younger races disband again, and, worse, the Vorlons begin attacking them as well in an effort to eradicate all traces of the Shadows and their influence. The young races have no chance of surviving a war against both the Vorlons and Shadows, let alone winning it militarily. Sheridan eventually rallies the races again to renew the fight.
The penultimate sub-phase of the hero’s return, what Campbell calls the “Master of the Two Worlds” (37), applies to Sheridan as it does to Odysseus. He not only has the knowledge to complete his quest, he has the understanding of life and death to do what is necessary to win the war. Since his ultimate boon is knowledge not weaponry, and since his quest is philosophical and cosmic in nature, Sheridan’s conclusion to the war is also philosophical in nature. Through Babylon 5’s reinvention of the epic, Sheridan finishes what Achilles started. Having no desire, for a time, to follow his heroic impulse, Achilles returns (somewhat reluctantly) to his only mode of earning glory, having no power to eliminate the gods or change the culture of society in any substantial way. Sheridan, however, ends the ultimate war by understanding it, sending the gods of his universe away. In doing so he reinvents the hierarchy of the universe itself, and transforms the heroic impulse from glory and pleasure seeking into a clearer, more accurate philosophy, discussed in further detail below.
In completing his quest, Sheridan allows everyone to understand the nature of the conflict by showing them what the Vorlons and Shadows really are, bickering parents. The Vorlons and Shadows want the younger races to choose which of them is correct in how they rear them, but the proper choice is not to choose at all. Under their manipulation, no one could truly make any significant choices. When Sheridan sends the Shadows and Vorlons away, all the people, not just the heroes, can make their own free choices. Without guiding or manipulating races over them, the younger races have all the choices and all the responsibilities. By conquering his enemies by understanding the nature of the universe and humanity’s place in it, Sheridan completes his journey and enjoys Campbell’s final sub-stage, the freedom to live, though with the freedom to face the consequences of his choices with responsibility.
As the major epic heroes of the Babylon 5 universe, Jeffrey Sinclair and John Sheridan depend heavily on the Western epic hero bases of Achilles and Odysseus, while also transforming the character type in new directions. Like the Homeric heroes, Sinclair and Sheridan do not change much as characters. Sinclair learns who he is and what his life’s purpose is, but this does not transform his sacrificial nature or his valuation of all life. Sheridan learns the true nature of the universe, but he is still a stalwart leader and passionate defender of justice and right. What these epic heroes learn, instead of changing them internally, refocuses their pre-existing natures into epic heroes with more defined purpose. Babylon 5 transforms the Homeric epic hero by adding selflessness and sacrifice to the heroic impulse, yet it never strays too far from its most important foundation. The fundamental message of the show, the importance of choice, is consistent with the Western ancient epic as embodied in their epic heroes.
Unchanging epic heroes, as discussed above, are complemented by important characters that provide contrasts to the natures of the heroes. Hector and Telemachus provide notable juxtapositions for Achilles and Odysseus, highlighting the particular elements that make the heroes superlative in their poems. Similarly, Babylon 5 surrounds its heroes with significant, developed counterparts to expand the universe and reflect the singular achievements of Sinclair and Sheridan. Part of the series’ reinvention of the Western epic genre, however, is that, while traditional epic heroes are surrounded by static characters, the epic heroes of Babylon 5 are complemented by dynamic characters that grow and change over five seasons. Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari and Narn Ambassador G’Kar, the remaining two members of the Babylon 5 Advisory Council, demonstrate Babylon 5’s use of character development based on choices and their consequences made by these characters.
Ambassadors Londo Mollari and G’Kar
Much like Achilles has a comparative equal in Hector to add to his greatness, Sinclair and Sheridan are set against powerful representatives from other races. As Ambassadors to Babylon 5, speaking for their peoples, Londo and G’Kar begin the series with great significance. The Centauri Republic, however, have recently diminished in power and importance. Londo spends most of the first season drinking and gambling, bordering on a buffoon. In a poignant moment of the pilot movie, Londo laments that he is only there to grovel before the magnificent Earth Alliance, to try to attach his fading people to the humans’ destiny. He yearns for the glory days of his once-proud and expansive Centauri Republic, which has now become a tourist attraction.
G’Kar of the Narn is more dominant at the beginning, often reveling in the fact his people have recently broken free from under Centauri rule, though by a devastating war. G’Kar exerts sway over Londo early on, parading around the station with a single-minded pomposity. The audience soon learns his behavior is a façade when he cautions Sinclair’s visiting girlfriend Catherine Sakai (played by Julia Nickson) that “[n]o one here is exactly what he appears,” not even him (“Mind War”).
G’Kar and Londo reveal who they truly are at the onset of the series by their responses to Mr. Morden’s question “what do you want?” in the first season episode “Signs and Portents.” The Shadows are looking for new allies. All pomposity aside, G’Kar’s response lucidly shows his anger: “What do I want? The Centauri stripped my world. I want justice!… To suck the marrow from their bones and grind their skulls to powder.… To tear down their cities, blacken their skies, sow their ground with salt. To completely utterly, erase them.” G’Kar has no dreams or ambitions beyond Centauri destruction. As long as his people are safe, he does not care about anything else. Such a narrow vision does not satisfy Morden or his Shadow superiors.
Londo’s response, however, is precisely what the Shadows are seeking:
I want my people to reclaim their rightful place in the galaxy. I want to see the Centauri stretch forth their hand again and command the stars. I want a rebirth of glory, a renaissance of power. I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to look back or to look forward. I want us to be what we used to be! I want … I want it all back the way that it was.
Londo commits to “the good of his people” at any cost, even his self-respect, and by the end of season two, the Centauri re-conquer the Narn, and G’Kar is subordinate to Londo.
While most complementary characters of the Western epic make few choices but suffer the consequences of the heroes’ decisions, the complementary characters in the Babylon 5 universe face the effects of the heroes’ choices and eventually their own, but it takes time. G’Kar, desperate for assistance against the Centauri re-occupation of his homeworld, does not fully accept the responsibility for his first season vitriol: “But what else could I do? When you have been crushed beneath the wheel for as long as we have, revenge occupies your every waking thought. When everything else had been taken from us, our hatred kept us alive” (“Acts of Sacrifice”). He is unwilling to acknowledge his choice of anger and vengeance, separating himself from the heroic. In the same episode, Londo laments the repercussions of his earlier actions. “Suddenly, everyone is my friend. Everyone wants something. I wanted respect. Instead, I have become a wishing well with legs.” Though he acknowledges more of a connection between his choices and their consequences than G’Kar does by this point in season two, he is not at the heroic level of facing those consequences with responsibility. They both, however, are being changed by their choices and soon realize this.
By the start of the third season, Londo better realizes the terrible consequences of his alignment with Morden and the Shadows and tries to sever those ties; he is still concerned solely with the good of his own people regardless of what happens to anyone else. G’Kar, however, learns the importance of valuing all life, not just one’s own kind. Assuming the form of G’Kar’s prophet in a vision, Kosh teaches him that he
cannot see the battle for what it is. We are fighting to save one another. We must realize we are not alone. We rise and fall together. And some of us must be sacrificed if all are to be saved. Because if we fail in this, then none of us will be saved, and the Narn will be only a memory…. You have the opportunity, here and now, to choose. To become something greater and nobler and more difficult than you have been before. The universe does not offer such chances often, G’Kar (“Dust to Dust”).
G’Kar rises to the challenge of being better and different than he was, finally acknowledging the reality that people make choices and now he must start to accept the consequences with responsibility. The nature of his choice, linking him to the heroic while also distinguishing him as a dynamic character, is to sacrifice for the good of others. No longer does he care and act solely for his own people’s safety, like Londo does; instead he regards the epic valuation of life itself as something worth fully embracing, flaws and all, regardless of race or species. Londo, though willing to sacrifice himself, is still limited by his narrow focus and value only of his own people.
G’Kar demonstrates his new understanding and sacrificial nature throughout the third season, most notably when he rallies the Narn on the station in support of Sheridan when they are attacked by Earth forces. He also demonstrates how far he has changed as a character mid-way through the series when Delenn tells him in “Ship of Tears” they had to let the Shadows conquer the Narn homeworld so the Shadows would believe they were still working in secret. G’Kar accepts the news with such equipoise Delenn is moved to tears. He has “come a long way,” since she first met him, Delenn admits. But he is not fully realized; someday he might be able to forgive her, he says, “but not today.”
By the end of the series, after making many more choices too numerous to discuss here, Londo finally accepts the consequences of his actions in the fifth season episode “The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari.” In order to survive a heart attack brought on by years of hidden guilt, he finally faces G’Kar and apologizes for what he has done, for the first time in his life. Even so, an apology does not clear him from his responsibility, and his years-long commitment to the good of his people at any cost catches up to him. As he ponders his final moments of freedom, he tells G’Kar, “Isn’t it strange, G’Kar … when we first met, I had no power and all the choices I could ever want. And now I have all the power I could ever want and no choices at all. No choice at all.” His comments fully illustrate how far his character progresses through the seasons. From a drunken buffoon lamenting the loss of an empire to a hardened puppet emperor, Londo makes many choices and at last faces the consequences with responsibility, even though it leads to his destruction. From first to last, Londo is motivated by one thing, the good of his people. He goes to Babylon 5 for his people, he aligns himself with the Shadows for his people, and he sacrifices his freedom for the good of his people. This single-mindedness connects him to the heroic by establishing his function as a suitable complement to the heroes Sinclair and Sheridan; yet, because he changes and develops as a character, he is a new element in the epic genre.
In his response to Londo, G’Kar similarly encapsulates his own character growth from the beginning of the series: his people can never forgive the Centauri nor the Centauri forgive the Narn for what they have done to each other, “but I can forgive you,” he says (“The Fall of Centauri Prime”). From hated nemeses and pawns in each other’s plans for revenge, they progress to the point where Londo can ask for forgiveness and G’Kar can grant it. More than just having a refocused purpose, they are new people.
While most Western epic complementary characters want to be epic heroes, most fail. Londo and G’Kar, however, have no desire to be heroes; they connect Babylon 5 to the Western epic by providing foils for the heroes, and they distinguish the series from its epic foundation by expanding the possibilities of characterization within the genre. Given the focused development of the series as an epic narrative, Babylon 5 shows the logical growth of its characters based on the choices they make and their consequences.
Chapter Four — Structure, Plot, and Theme
Having examined four of the central characters that create the story of Babylon 5, the well-defined structure, plot of historical significance, and theme of transcendent understanding remain to analyze the series as a refashioning of the Western epic genre.
Structure and Shape
Much of the reason characters such as G’Kar and Londo have cohesive developments and characters like Sheridan have significant personal journeys over multiple seasons comes from the planning done by Straczynski. Before the series went into production, Straczynski established its overall content and direction. Kurt Lancaster, in his work analyzing the series from the fans’ perspective, recounts Straczynski’s anecdote about the program’s origin:
In 1986, while taking a shower … [Straczynski] received a flash of inspiration for a new kind of science fiction series with a five-year arc. Straczynski explains: “In the shower at the moment of this revelation, I dashed out and hurriedly scribbled down what would become the main thrust of the series before I could lose the thread of it…” (5).
As one of the executive producers and writer of ninety-two of its one hundred ten episodes, Straczynski maintained great control over the series, ensuring its connection to his original vision.
As noted above, the first season, “Signs and Portents,” is the exposition that introduces the universe, diverse inhabitants, and political and religious institutions that provide most of the conflicts in Babylon 5 throughout the remaining seasons. Season two, “The Coming of Shadows,” is the rising action in which the characters discover forces beyond their current level of understanding are at work in the universe. The complication comes in season three, “Point of No Return.” The command staff of Babylon 5 separates from Earth, and Sheridan commits to his heroic path. Season four, “No Surrender, No Retreat,” acts as the falling action, ending in the climax of the major plotlines developed in the previous seasons. Season five, “The Wheel of Fire,” is what Straczynski calls the “denouement. It shows the consequences of what the first four years [developed], now being brought down to human form” (Introduction to “The Wheel of Fire”). With an intentional beginning, middle, and end, Babylon 5 distinguishes itself from typical television programming while aligning itself more to the literary realm. Its structure furthers its connection to the Western epic genre in more ways than one.
Like the ring composition that unites the episodes of the Iliad, Babylon 5 has a similar cohesion. The series begins with The Gathering as the final complement of the station’s crew and Advisory Council arrive. Assemblies initiate many epics: the Iliad begins with a gathering of Achaean leaders; the Odyssey begins with a gathering of Ithacan elders. Completing the ring structure, the series ends (excluding the epilogue “Sleeping in Light”) with a new command staff replacing the old, departing crew in “Objects at Rest.” Each character fulfills his or her purpose on the station and moves on to new ventures. The series begins with the completed construction of the station; the series ends with the destruction of the station in “Sleeping in Light.” Ring composition is symbolic but cohesive, and Babylon 5 implements it well: one story ends while a new story begins. In addition to classical ring composition, the series also incorporates other epic narrative structures.
In one sense, as indicated by the shape of the series and season titles, Babylon 5 has a typical plot arc, beginning with the pilot movie, climaxing with the two part “War Without End” in the middle season, and culminating in the final episode. In another sense, as the ring composition indicates in the series’ ending marking a new beginning with a new crew as the old crew disbands to new opportunities, the series tells its story through what playwright Bertolt Brecht and other critics call “epic theater.” Contrasted with Aristotelian or dramatic theater, epic theater for Brecht instructs the audience so they not only experience the story and understand the world but are moved to change it. The characters in epic theater are shown in process and development, not as fixed. Certainly this kind of “epic” diverges from the Western epic of unchanging heroes such as Achilles and Sinclair, but it accurately applies to characters such as Telemachus and Londo Mollari. Dramatic theater moves the audience’s emotions, whereas epic theater demands decisions: Babylon 5 does both. It moves the audience partly by the loss of several key characters, and it demands the audience decide on how to live, ideally as people with transcendent self-awareness. By tackling pertinent issues of the time, such as the nature of parenting in “Believers” or the role of the citizen in a government that limits personal freedoms, Babylon 5 demands the attention and awareness of its audience, to both the series and reality itself. It does this through Brecht’s epic theater narrative structure. Perhaps the most significant element of this, as Lancaster emphasizes, is the development of the story itself as a process, just as the characters are in process. Scenes and episodes “thematically progress toward an ending — but not in a rising climax …, but rather through the depiction of historical moments. Straczynski shows the five-year history of Babylon 5 as a historical process” (16). Lancaster comments further that the audience does not watch Babylon 5 to find out what is going to happen at the end, since the series spends a great deal of time telling the audience what will happen to the characters in prophetic episodes like “Babylon Squared,” “Point of No Return,” and “War Without End.” The purpose, as its epic theater structure makes clear, is to find out how the series arrives at its destination, much like how Achilles’s anger will be resolved in the Iliad or how Odysseus will eliminate the suitors in the Odyssey — the audience does not wonder whether these events will happen. The focus is on the course, not the finish, highlighted by the fact the characters still go on even as the series ends and the station is destroyed. By emphasizing its progression as dictated by the choices and developments of its characters shown over the spans of entire episodes and seasons, Babylon 5 refashions the epic narrative structure, utilizing both traditional ring composition and modern epic theater techniques.
Plot of Historical Significance
In addition to the personal journeys of the series’ two main heroes for personal and cosmic understanding, Babylon 5 covers a vast scope of intergalactic events that profoundly affect the universe of the series, describing the rise and fall of empires and the effects of wars and their aftermaths.
The Narn race, as described above, begins the series having won a pyrrhic war of attrition against the Centauri Empire, enjoying freedom for the first time in one hundred years. The Centauri, by contrast, are a waning people, no longer as expansive or powerful as they once were, now a tourist attraction, as Londo says. By the end of the second season, these empires’ fortunes are reversed again, as the Centauri re-conquer the Narn and expand out into the galaxy. Toward the beginning of the fourth season, the Narn are free once again and the Centauri descend into obscurity until the end of the series when the Narn exact final vengeance upon the Centauri, virtually destroying their civilization. The Centauri turn away from the rest of the galaxy in self-imposed isolation and stagnate for twenty years until Londo and his allies are finally overthrown. Though G’Kar learns the importance of sacrifice and understands the universe better, his people do not listen to his teaching, despite their efforts to make him a king and a prophet. He leaves his people to their willful ignorance, for his sake and for theirs. As Kosh predicts early in the first season, both the Narn and the Centauri are dying people, consumed by their short-sightedness and vengeful attitudes. The didactic message is clear: those who focus only on their own interests and ambitions have no substantial future.
The human race, however, is predominantly on the rise throughout the series. That is not to say the series posits humanity as flawless and superior. On the contrary, a strong faction of humanity acts egregiously for much of the series, eventually forcing the Babylon 5 crew to break away from Earth control in season three and motivating Sheridan to lead an armed liberation to Earth in season four. On the whole, however, humanity is depicted as an improving, admirable people. In the pilot movie, Londo claims he is on the station to try to attach his people to the humans’ rising destiny. Delenn is also on the station to learn more about the human race and their potential. One of the reasons humanity sets itself apart from the others is because mankind forms communities, a rare and admirable trait according to Delenn. The Minbari are divided by social castes; the Centauri care only for appearances, power, and prestige; and the Narn are concerned only with freedom and revenge. Only humanity seeks to bring diverse peoples together for mutual protection and understanding, and thus are the people with a destiny and a future, another clear lesson from the series. The choices of a people, as well as individuals, bear great significance in Babylon 5, either to abet an empire’s downfall or to ensure a people’s rise to prominence.
Besides the rise and fall of peoples, the plot significance of Babylon 5 is depicted through many wars, despite its initial premise as a gathering of ambassadors to one location to end intergalactic hostility through peaceful diplomacy. The Earth-Minbari war is the main progenitor of the “Babylon Project” that leads to the construction of the station, and its ramifications are still felt throughout the first season, especially in the character of Sinclair. Approximately a decade before the Earth-Minbari war, many of the main characters’ fathers fight in the Dilgar War, the aftermath of which helps establish Earth’s interstellar prominence and the League of Non-aligned Worlds, the amalgamation of the other, less powerful races who have a collective voice on the Advisory Council.
Season one’s two-part “A Voice in the Wilderness” witnesses the Mars Rebellion, which is portended in previous episodes; earlier, the Mars Food Riots bring together many of the main characters so they know each other before reuniting during the course of the series. Season two features the latest incarnation of the Narn/Centauri conflict as well as Earth’s growing military expansion onto other, minor worlds. Season three concerns the present version of the millennia-old “war without end” between the Vorlons and the Shadows. After the conclusion of that war, the fourth season proceeds to the Minbari Civil War and Sheridan’s War of Earth Liberation.
These wars do not happen for no reason; they all proceed from the freewill decisions made by the characters and how they face the consequences of their choices, as well as how they react to the free choices made by their enemies. “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars,” the final episode of season four, shows a war between Earth and the Interstellar Alliance, the new diplomatic council Sheridan creates after the Shadow War; this war occurs five hundred years after the events of the series, but it is not the only future conflict foreshadowed in the waning episodes of the series. Throughout the final season, which culminates in the climactic Centauri War, many characters presage a forthcoming Telepath War between the growing, powerful Psi Corps of telepaths on Earth and the non-telepathic populace. Episodes such as “Rising Star” and “War Without End” indicate a coming war against the allies of the Shadows who resent losing to Sheridan, whose son will play a significant role in that battle. Thus, the story of the station sees a great amount of militaristic action before, during, and after the five years of the series: it confronts the aftermath of earlier wars, engages in many wars, and sets up many future conflicts all because of choices characters make and how they understand their society and place in the universe. The characters fight epic battles both cosmic and personal; they uncover, solve, and participate in assassinations, affect “the rise and fall of empires,” and learn the true nature of the universe. Some sacrifice their wellbeing and freedom for the good of others and live to tell the tale like Odysseus; some sacrifice their lives like Achilles, though again, for the good of others, unlike Achilles. Much of its significance comes, as well, from Babylon 5’s theme of transcendent understanding.
A Theme of Transcendent Understanding
Religion, as one means of attaining transcendent understanding, plays a crucial role in Babylon 5. The Western epic displays religious elements, obviously, in the form of the Olympian gods and how the heroes relate to them, but Babylon 5 also explores a diversity of religious beliefs. One of the earliest episodes, “The Parliament of Dreams,” showcases the dominant religious beliefs of the Centauri and Minbari. The word “dreams” in the title is not derogatory, as if to say religious beliefs are insubstantial. The episode, as well as the entire series, validates the beliefs of people without commenting on their accuracy or utility. Instead of showing a dominant Earth belief in that episode, Sinclair gathers one person each from dozens of belief systems and introduces them all to the alien ambassadors, giving each equal worth and significance. A Roman Catholic stands next to an atheist; a Muslim stands next to a Jewish man. In the future, declares Babylon 5, mankind will still have a diversity of religious beliefs, and they are all valid beliefs to have. Later, one form of Narn religious belief is shown in “By Any Means Necessary”; another race celebrates a powerful religious event in “Day of the Dead.” Many races are polytheistic in the Babylon 5 universe, though some also believe in a “Great Maker” (cf. “Infection”). The Centauri are both polytheistic and believe in the Great Maker. Sinclair, mentioned above, has three years of Jesuit training. Executive Officer Susan Ivanova (played by Claudia Christian) is a non-practicing Jew, but she eventually sits shiva for her deceased father in “TKO.” Garibaldi, despite being raised Catholic, is an atheist for much of the series, believing only in what he can see, which accounts in part for his deep-seated antipathy toward telepaths. G’Kar’s religious beliefs help his character development as noted above. As the head of the religious caste of the Minbari, Delenn performs many religious ceremonies throughout the series, always valuing other peoples’ beliefs, especially “true believers” — anyone with a sincere faith. She even forces Sheridan to take a break from strategizing against the Shadows to attend a gospel meeting in “And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place.” Sheridan spends time with the Dalai Lama in his youth. Many missionaries from various races come to the station in season three; a group of human monks even take up residence onboard.
As a narrative component, religion is never portrayed as a negative or foolish thing, though sometimes belief systems come into conflict. In “Confessions and Lamentations,” an entire race is wiped out by a plague, though they believe it is a divine punishment. Possibly the most thought-provoking stand-alone episode of the series is the first season episode “Believers,” in which alien parents do not want Chief of Staff Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs) to operate on their child, even though it is the only way to save his life. More than a simple materialist doctor, Franklin is a Foundationalist, believing that all life is sacred, whether human or alien. During the Earth-Minbari War, Franklin quits his government job when he is instructed to give his Minbari research over to the military. Franklin contravenes the parents’ wishes and operates because “a child deserves a chance of life,” he says. His fellow doctor confronts his apparent religious inconsistencies: “You don’t disapprove of superstition, if it’s your superstition…. Your god is medicine, and you can do no wrong in his service.” Sinclair is not happy that Franklin countermands the parents’ wishes, but he appreciates Franklin’s concern for life. Life itself, lived well, is an important element in the religious universe of Babylon 5. It does not make judgments on which belief system is right; it simply shows religion as a possible, meaningful component of life and one valid way by which to understand reality.
More than the simple existence of supernatural beliefs, how the ancient heroes deal with the transcendent elements of reality around them, such as the Olympian gods and destiny, is a key theme of the poems that establish the Western epic genre. The ways the heroes interact with the divine distinguish them from the other characters. Achilles questions the gods and comes to understand his society and place in it better than those who simply acknowledge the gods and follow them without question. Babylon 5 likewise features the conflict between mortals and immortals, but in its refashioning manner, the conflict becomes something else. The deities of the Babylon 5 universe are not the various entities in which diverse races believe; instead, the real deities in this epic universe are known as the First Ones: Lorien, the Shadows, and the Vorlons.
As Sheridan discovers during his cosmic quest, the “gods” with whom the younger races interact in the Babylon 5 universe are loosely akin to the amoral deities of Achilles’s and Odysseus’s world, but instead of simply being personifications of ultra-powerful character types, the Shadows and Vorlons are personifications of philosophical ideologies, each represented by a question. The Shadows, through their emissary Morden, ask the question “what do you want?” The Vorlons, through their inquisitor Sebastian, ask “who are you?” Lorien asks Sheridan the third important question, “why are you here?” These questions not only represent the nature of the interaction between the mortals and deities in the epic of Babylon 5 as a philosophical conflict but also demonstrate the series’ emphasis on knowing oneself and the nature of the universe. Only through understanding do the heroes accomplish their goals — just like the epic heroes of the Western tradition. Babylon 5, as an epic, asks the important timeless questions of life and humanity. Such metaphysical questions of identity and purpose cannot be explained by scientific inquiry and so are answerable only through other means such as literature and artistic works like this television series. By asking the important questions of meaning, Babylon 5 urges its audience to find sufficient answers, just as its heroes find sufficient answers to accomplish their goals; through emphasizing the importance of choices and consequences in addition to asking such crucial transcendent questions of understanding, Babylon 5 unites itself to the Western epic. Like with the various religions depicted during the series, Babylon 5 does not offer any easy answers to these questions. It gives the responsibility of finding the answers to the audience.
As personified ideologies, the Vorlons are beings of order and light; they demonstrate this by appearing to most races as angels, though this is part of their manipulation. When Sheridan finally confronts them in the climactic “Into the Fire,” their representative appears as a veiled woman in a block of ice. The Vorlons are frozen. They do not like change; they represent unchanging order. The Shadows, in contrast, are agents of chaos and conflict; they live to serve evolution and constant progress. Such is their message in that episode: serve evolution. Constant change, progress through conflict is their ideology, made clear by Morden and others in “Z’ha’dum.” Representing angels/light and shadows/dark, the symbolic interpretation of these races is informative.
Northrop Frye’s archetypal and mythological interpretation in Anatomy of Criticism presents the conflict of light and dark as “two contrasting worlds of total metaphorical identification, one desirable and the other undesirable” (139). Babylon 5 in its characteristic way modifies Frye’s general archetype in that both the Shadows and the Vorlons, despite being overt metaphors, want to be the “desirable” metaphor. They each want Sheridan and thus humanity at large to choose one of their options, their way of life: choose order or chaos, they demand. The Western epic is driven by choice, but Achilles and Odysseus do not have a choice of which transcendent ideology to serve.
Babylon 5 is not about conforming to an intrinsic or extrinsic model of behavior — the best ideology is proper self-understanding. Once one rightly understands oneself and the true nature of the universe, then one can live freely. Sheridan combats his deities by asking them their own questions. The Vorlons, though, do not know who they are, only that they believe in order. Similarly, the Shadows do not know what they want, only that evolution must be served through chaotic conflict. Because they cannot answer their own questions, Sheridan knows that their two options are not enough. Instead of choosing between the order of the Vorlons and the chaos of the Shadows, Sheridan chooses not to choose. Sheridan rejects both of them. Without their allegiance the Vorlons have no purpose; without conflict, the Shadows are lost. Lorien provides the solution: join the rest of the long-gone First Ones beyond the rim of the galaxy and let the younger races develop on their own. Sheridan agrees and ends the cosmic conflict through transcendent understanding. As an epic hero representing humanity itself, Sheridan interacts with his deities differently than Achilles and Odysseus deal with theirs. Achilles and Odysseus want the freedom to transcend their cultural limitations and define their own fate, but that ultimately cannot happen. Even by embracing life and restoring order to his home, Odysseus does what Zeus wants. Sheridan and Babylon 5 take the Western epic in the direction its foundational heroes want to go but cannot. By sending the gods away, mortal humans are free to live and rule the universe their own way. Babylon 5 clearly emphasizes the importance of understanding oneself and the universe. By understanding the nature of the conflict, Sheridan allows humanity to become what it needs to be without the external manipulation of the gods. The epic series confronts transcendent reality and gives humanity the central place. No longer are heroes and others subject to the whims of the gods as Achilles lamented. Sheridan the epic hero empowers humanity with the knowledge of the nature of the universe, and so everyone has the ability to make their own choices with responsibility. In one sense, we are all epic heroes now. In order to live well, everyone should gain an accurate self-understanding and know their place in the universe. We all have the responsibility to face the consequences of our actions. This is the message of Babylon 5, the rebirth of the Western ancient epic genre.
Conclusion — The Importance of Choice
Having examined the four major elements of the Western epic genre, 1) a lengthy narrative with a defined structure and shape; 2) a developed central hero; 3) a plot of historical significance; and 4) a theme of transcendent understanding, as well as the texts of the epic poems, many of the series’ episodes, and critical secondary sources, this inquiry had endeavored to demonstrate that Babylon 5 not only utilizes the original elements of the Western epic but also refashions those elements in new ways.
Further research into this area should certainly be done. Given more time and space, an exploration of each episode and its contributions to the series as a Western epic would provide further insight than this initial survey can supply. More archetypal critics and theories, such as those of Northrop Frye and Carl Jung, could also provide pertinent interpretations of the series. Further quotations from cast and crew members, especially creator J. Michael Straczynski, would supplement an analysis of the series. Additionally, since Babylon 5 re-makes the epic genre, contrasting the series with other, non-Western or non-Homeric epics such as the Aeneid, Argonautica, or Kalevala, would only enhance an understanding of the value and literary merit of the series, thereby increasing the limited body of scholarship on science fiction, especially televised science fiction. More work could be done from a literary perspective such as comparing the Aeneid as a written epic with Babylon 5 as a literary epic from predominantly a single author (unlike the oral narrative nature of the Homeric poems that this investigation has purposefully avoided). Finally, since this thesis focuses on the pilot movie and five seasons of the series, further research could incorporate the additional telefilms, novels, comic books, and the spin-off series Crusade, all of which are considered canonical by the series’ creator.
The Homeric poems set the foundation not only for the epic genre but also Western Civilization’s literary heritage. Babylon 5 transforms that foundation for a new medium of storytelling, serialized television. The audience and method of narration are also different. Yet, fundamentally, both the ancient epics and Babylon 5 have similar messages: life is meaningful and important because individuals matter and have choices, consequences, and responsibilities that help guide their lives. Individuals have the ability to change their world — they are not just caught up in the impersonal forces of time and history. Sheridan’s actions in “Into the Fire” clearly show this. Humanity, even with its flaws, even with its brevity, is worth fighting and dying for. Life, regardless of species and gender, is valuable because of its brevity and because living well is challenging. Because of this message, Babylon 5 is intrinsically worthwhile as a literary/televised work of art. That it is a modern refashioning of the Western epic with the same message secures its place as a meaningful narrative on par with the ancient epic poems.
Odysseus’s key moment is not the destruction of the suitors or the reunion with his family; instead, his key moment is his renunciation of immortality proffered by Calypso. Beye sees that renunciation as an acceptance of “human life over anything else. … Having affirmed human life over everything else, Odysseus is fully prepared for the suffering that Calypso has forecast. It is part of living” (177). Odysseus demonstrates clearly that normal, mortal, human life is more desirable than the amoral, changeless immortality of the gods, even with the concomitant pain, suffering, and eventual death. “Odysseus represents a love of life so extreme that every experience of it, including suffering and finally death, is valuable and desirable,” continues Beye (178). Odysseus chooses to return to mortal life, furthering the emphasis of the importance of choice.
Similarly, Sheridan’s key moment is his acceptance of his mortality so he can be more fully human, more fully alive by not being afraid of death. By embracing life and love, acknowledging the fleeting nature of them both, Sheridan can truly be what he needs to be. Certainly the series proclaims that message to its audience as well. Life is valuable because it is brief — but it must be lived wisely. Living simply not to die denies the importance and purpose of life, to live meaningfully, accepting the consequences for choices, sacrificing oneself for the wellbeing of others, daring to love and be loved.
Lorien makes this clear to Ivanova in “Into the Fire.” As an immortal being, he is without love, joy, and companionship. These traits are what the Vorlons and Shadows miss as well. Since they are also virtually immortal, they have grown lonely and sad. Mortality, Lorien explains to Ivanova, is a gift from the universe so mortal races can appreciate life and love. He urges her to embrace the illusion of love’s immortality as only mortal humans can. Love, experienced only by mortals such as Sheridan and Delenn, is worth living and dying for.
Delenn thoroughly understands the ephemeral, yet hopeful nature of life. “All life is transitory. A dream. We all come together in the same place at the end of time. If I don’t see you again here, I will see you in a little while, in the place where no shadows fall,” she tells Sheridan in “Confessions and Lamentations.” Though she knows life is brief, it has the utmost value to her, which she makes clear at her ultimate testing point by Sebastian, the Vorlons’ inquisitor: “If I fall, another will take my place,” Delenn claims. “This is my cause! Life! One life or a billion — it’s all the same!” (“Comes the Inquisitor”). Because she recognizes the importance of all life and is willing to sacrifice hers “[n]ot for millions, not for glory, not for fame [but for] one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see,” she proves herself to be the right person “in the right place, at the right time,” says Sebastian. Life is Delenn’s cause, as it is Odysseus’s, Sinclair’s, Sheridan’s, and the epic genre’s itself. Like the epic heroes, Delenn is freely willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of life, a commitment she chooses to make.
The Iliad does not portray the Trojans as villains or the Achaeans as champions in any significant way. Both races have flaws and admirable traits. Though the text favors Achilles, Hector, too, is fully human, even as the enemy of the epic protagonist. All life is valuable in the epic genre. As G’Kar learns, it is similarly not just one race or one kind of life that is valuable in the Babylon 5 universe. For the inauguration of the new Interstellar Alliance, G’Kar writes in his Declaration of Principles that “[w]hoever speaks for the Alliance does so with the understanding that it is the inalienable right of every sentient being to live free, to pursue their dreams” (“No Compromises”). The hate groups on Earth and the station are obvious antagonists in the Babylon 5 universe because they do not appreciate life in its many forms. As G’Kar’s principles make clear, sentient beings have the right to disagree with us, except when they act in opposition to life. The Narn and the Centauri fade into isolation and obscurity because they are only concerned with their own selfish ambitions. Humanity is on the rise in the universe because it values cooperation and peace with all races in the universe.
In his resignation speech at the close of season four, Sheridan emphasizes the significance of life and its connection to choices, encapsulating the epic genre itself:
Now, the time I spent on Babylon 5 I learned about choices and consequences and responsibility. I learned that we all have choices, even when we don’t recognize them, and that those choices have consequences not just for ourselves, but for others. And we must assume responsibility for those consequences. I and my fellow officers had to choose between what we were told was right and what we believed was right. And now I take full responsibility for those decisions (“Rising Star”).
The crew of Babylon 5 choose to do what they believe is right for the good of all life, not just themselves or their own kind. Babylon 5 demonstrates the importance of choice not just from the characters, but for the audience, as life has meaning in part because of the choices real people make — not just characters in a television program. Even though this life has pain and sorrow and is indeed transitory, the responsibility of choosing to live well is not unbearable. Londo is told by prophetess Lady Morella (Majel Barrett) in “Point of No Return” that “there’s always choice. We say there is no choice only to comfort ourselves with a decision we’ve already made. If you understand that, there’s hope.” Hope is why we should not fear or hesitate in accepting responsibility for choices or living life fully and well, despite the struggles and risk of pain involved.
It is little wonder that the only on-screen lesson Kosh teaches Sheridan is that beauty and hope exist, even in unexpected places and during the darkest times, even though we have to sacrifice and struggle to enjoy them (“There All the Honor Lies”). We must choose to live well, to understand ourselves and our place in the universe, taking comfort from the fact that there is still beauty and hope in the world. Ivanova echoes this idea in the waning moments of the series finale “Sleeping in Light”:
Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don’t who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings. Even for people like us.
If we accept that all life is valuable, that our choices affect not only ourselves but those around us, and we are willing to face the consequences of those choices with responsibility, we need not fear living sacrificial lives for others. That is what the Western epic intended, though the ancient poems and heroes are limited by amoral gods and the heroic impulse of self-satisfying glory. Babylon 5 takes the ideal qualities of the epic and transforms the genre, becoming what Straczynski calls a series “about hope, to a large extent. If you boil down the series to its very finest points, it says that one person can make a difference; one person can change the world. You must choose to do so. You must make the future or others will make it for you” (Back to Babylon 5). Accurate self-knowledge and right understanding of the universe allow the ancient epic heroes to complete their quests. Likewise, accurate self-knowledge and right understanding are the ultimate good in Babylon 5, not just for epic heroes, but for everyone. With honest answers to the central questions of life such as “who are you,” “what do you want,” and “why are you here,” individuals and humanity as a whole has hope for itself and for the future. With proper understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe, we can make choices that allow us to live wisely and well. This is the lesson of Babylon 5 as a rebirth of the Western ancient epic genre.
Works Cited In Part Two
“Acts of Sacrifice.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 22. Feb. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. David Eagle. PTN Consortium. 14. Oct. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“And the Sky Full of Stars.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 16. Mar. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
Babylon 5: The Gathering. Dir. Richard Compton. 1993. DVD. Babylon 5: The Movie Collection. Rattlesnake Production, 2004.
Back to Babylon 5. Behind-the-scenes feature. Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2002.
“Believers.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. David Gerrold. Dir. Richard Compton. PTN Consortium. 27. Apr. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
Beye, Charles Rowan. Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil with a Chapter on the Gilgamesh Poems. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc., 2006.
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans. John Willet. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964.
“By Any Means Necessary.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. Kathryn Drennan. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 11. May. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 2nd Edition. Bollingen Series XVII. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968, 1949.
“Comes the Inquisitor.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Laurence Vejar. PTN Consortium. 25. Oct. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Confessions and Lamentations.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Cremin. PTN Consortium. 24. May. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Day of the Dead.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. Neil Gaiman. Dir. Doug Lefler. TNT. 11. Mar. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Deconstruction of Falling Stars, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Stephen Furst. PTN Consortium. 27. Oct. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Dust to Dust.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. David Eagle. PTN Consortium. 5. Feb. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Eyes.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. Larry DiTillio. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 13. July. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Fall of Centauri Prime, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Douglas Wise. TNT. 28. Oct. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
Frye, Northrup. The Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.
Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1951.
—. The Odyssey. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. New York: Harper and Row, 1967.
“Hunter, Prey.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Menachem Binetski. PTN Consortium. 1. Mar. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. David Eagle. PTN Consortium. 10. May. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Infection.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Richard Compton. PTN Consortium. 18. Feb. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Into the Fire.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Dobson. PTN Consortium. 3. Feb. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
Introduction to “No Surrender, No Retreat.” Behind-the-scenes feature. Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. DVD. Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc., 2003.
Introduction to “The Wheel of Fire.” Behind-the-scenes feature. Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. DVD. Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc., 2003.
Lancaster, Kurt. Interacting with Babylon 5. Austin: U Texas P, 2001.
“Mind War.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Bruce Seth Green. PTN Consortium. 2. Mar. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“No Compromises.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. TNT. 21. Jan. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“No Surrender, No Retreat.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 26. May. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Objects at Rest.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. John Copeland. TNT. 18. Nov. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Parliament of Dreams.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 23. Feb. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Point of No Return.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 26. Feb. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Rising Star.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Tony Dow. PTN Consortium. 20. Oct. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Ship of Tears.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 29. Apr. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Signs and Portents.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 18. May. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Sleeping in Light.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. J. Michael Straczynski. TNT. 25. Nov. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“There All the Honor Lies.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. Peter David. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 26. Apr. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“TKO.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. Larry DiTillio. Dir. John Flynn. PTN Consortium. 25. May. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Dobson. TNT. 28. Jan. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Voice in the Wilderness, A” Part One. Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 27. July. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Voice in the Wilderness, A” Part Two. Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 3. Aug. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“War Prayer, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. D.C. Fontana. Dir. Richard Compton. PTN Consortium. 9. Mar. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“War Without End” Part One. Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 13. May. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“War Without End” Part Two. Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 20. May. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Dobson. PTN Consortium. 11. Nov. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Z’ha’dum.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Adam Nimoy. PTN Consortium. 28. Oct. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
No, not really. But this does seem like a good place to finish our nearly year-long journey through some elite-level forgotten gems of the musical realm with an appropriately titled and themed album from one of the most underrated bands of the twentieth century, The Moody Blues. Adaptability is not a sign of weakness: it is a sign of strength, especially when it is not Vichy-like. The Moody Blues survived the musical fads and fashions of more than four decades, which is something only a select few bands can say with anything remotely resembling self-respect. Sure, they have had line-up changes over the years, since their main reconstruction in ’66-’67, but other than U2, who hasn’t? Their creative hiatus after this album allowed the band to grow in better ways than numerically, and we are much richer for it as listeners, with their solo and duet works as well as the great output from ’78-’03 (not to mention all their live shows and albums and compilations in the last decade), including my two favorite Moody Blues songs, “Your Wildest Dreams” and “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” (though, since the latter is a sequel to the former, perhaps we could call them two parts to one ultra-elite magnificent song). The band clearly needed and benefitted from a break after this album, just like we all need a break after this school year and season of fantastic journaling. Even so, this album is a great album from beginning to end, with no real weak links (despite what some people say about “When You’re a Free Man”). Though tensions were high and emotions were frayed, The Moody Blues produced some of their best work here, and we should always have Seventh Sojourn handy in our music playing machines (whatever they look like in your home and/or automobile).
“Lost in a Lost World”
The album, demonstrating its over-taxed circumstances of construction, begins with a borderline pessimistic song, though it gains a great deal of optimism for most of it, and this song is more accurately disconsolate than sheer pessimistic, since this opening number at least recognizes the potential and only source of hope. “I woke up today, I was crying / Lost in a lost world” — that’s about as disconsolate as any of the songs we’ve explored this year. In a sense, though, it is how we should react a fair amount of the time as Christians: “So many people are dying / Lost in a lost world.” It’s true. The world is full of people “living an illusion,” whether it is tethered by racism, classism, or just generic atheism. Revolution is not the answer; it’s just another threat, “another form of gun” used to do wrong unto others what was wrongly done unto them. Mike Pinder, fortunately, points us to the way out of this mess: “Love will find us in the end … / We’ve got to bend / Down on our knees and say a prayer.” Genuine communion with spirituality is the only way out of this physical mess, since the mess is not physical in origin: the ultimate problem is spiritual disharmony with God, and thus with Love and Reality. The music throughout the song maintains the disconsolate tone, with its march-like syncopation. The music feels like it is a band playing the wrong kind of venue, sort of like the concert band is forced to do the parade instead of the marching band. Things are out of place, sounds are out of place (without being discordant or harmonically off). Even the hopeful bridge can’t escape the overbearing music, since the people are not yet where they need to be, even though salvation is possible and near. Sometimes songs don’t have to be happy to be worth hearing (and heeding). “Lost in a Lost World” is one such song. Mike Pinder’s lyrical and musical contributions should likewise not be forgotten in the great history of The Moody Blues.
“New Horizons”
“New Horizons” is a quintessential example of The Moody Blues’s ability to create complex songs. We knew that from the very beginning, with Days of Future Passed, but they never lost that possibly-genius ability. The lyrics are fledglingly optimistic, to neologize for a moment. Justin Hayward presents us with that painful moment of transition during the ending of one phase of life and the beginning of something new and better, yet still experiencing the lingering memories and sensations of mistakes made and regrets unforgotten, coupled with the bolstering hope of the good memories and sensations available to provide future comfort when the other sensations have been accurately accounted for, quantified, qualified, and compartmentalized. It’s the “someday” line/word that evokes the most emotion, I think. He knows (not just thinks or guesses, he knows) he will “find my own peace of mind” — there will be comfort and love and joy and contentment to be experienced. He’s “never going to lose your precious gift” (the “your” being the lady love he has to leave, most likely, or whatever situation in life on from which it is time to move). It will always be with him; he is “beginning to see” what this new life will be; he will find that peace of mind … someday. The music mirrors this borderland realm — it is always trying to move forward, it is very willing to do so, but it is not fully prepared to get there just yet. It’s a bit difficult to explain — listen to it and find out what it’s much better than can be accurately described here.
“For My Lady”
Flautist Ray Thomas has created quite the impressive sea shanty with “For My Lady.” I’m not certain he was going for a sea shanty with this thoroughly beautiful song, but he did it. Though this and “New Horizons” were written lyrically by different people, they form a good pair on this album. “For My Lady” embraces the outright gentleness and peaceful resolution to life’s changes and challenges not fully attainable in “New Horizons.” It’s certainly one of the most optimistic and encouraging songs in my admitted limited musical experience: “Oh I’d give my life so lightly / For my gentle lady / Give it freely and completely / To my lady” says the sweet chorus. Unlike the current trends of mixing lyrics with antagonistic musical accompaniment, “For My Lady” is both lyrically and musically sweet (not in a syrupy way, either — not that there would necessarily be anything wrong with that if it was). Not surprisingly, the flute dominates the melodic line and musical interlude, which fits well for the ideas of the song: “Set sail before the sun / Feel the warmth that’s just begun / Share each and every dream / They belong to everyone,” says the final verse. Admittedly the flute is associated with rather shady characters in myth and lore around the world, but the archetypal notion of the flute, the warm summer day, sailing the breeze-driven sea, dreaming the day away (for a time, not for ever), being in love — a selfless, self-sacrificial love, and thus Biblically accurate — all make for a superb song. More songs should sound and speak like this.
“Isn’t Life Strange?”
Furthering the album’s increasingly overt theme of questing for identity, understanding, and finding one’s place in the world, John Lodge’s first of two songs on the album (strangely enough, the only two single releases from the album, this and the closing “I’m Just a Singer…”) continues to ask penetrating questions: how do we know who we are? who are we supposed to be? how does the passage of time connect to our understanding of who we are? Though these are not the questions he asks verbatim, they are essentially what his lyrics imply: life is strange, love is strange, both are hard to understand yet both are essential. There is a sense of the return to despondency with this song, as the narrator seems to be lamenting lost love reminiscent of “New Horizons” in contrast to the optimistic togetherness of “For My Lady.” Even so, the chorus remains optimistic in its zeal, supported by the musical uniqueness of its accompaniment: “Wish I could be in your heart / To be one with your love / Wish I could be in your eyes / Looking back there you were / And here we are.” The force of the music makes me think there is great hope underlying these potentially melancholy lyrics. The verses add to the theme of redeeming the time: “Isn’t life strange? / A turn of the page / A book without light / Unless with love we write,” says the first half of verse three (by my count). Life is meaningless without love — as this has been one of the main themes of the entire run of Redeeming Pandora, it’s nice to realize we agree with The Moody Blues.
“You And Me”
With a flip of the record, we realize what we thought initially was a tone of despondency was in fact simply the main theme of the album: The Moody Blues are simply asking the questions we are all asking about life, its purpose, its meaning, and they have been telling us all along they have just as few answers as the rest of us have. They are no more despondent than we should be — optimistic, in fact, as we should be. Just as we saw in “Isn’t Life Strange?,” questions abound … but so, too, does love.
The Moody Blues are certainly a product of their time, even though a vast majority of their great songs have lasted in an ageless quality (with or without the synthesizer) because of their timeless content. “You and Me” is a fine example of how The Moody Blues can transcend their time while being very much dependent on the time: without any coaching, those of us who may have missed the Nixon Administration (and those flanking it) would not have been able to tell this is a protest song against the Vietnam War. The opening line, “There’s a leafless tree in Asia,” sounds innocuous enough to me, leading me to think about the general ecological concerns people have, especially since the opening stanza is replete with geological thoughts: “Under the sun there’s a homeless man / There’s a forest fire in the valley / Where the story all began.” Experts tell us, though, the opening line alludes to Vietnam. Allowing the accuracy (not to be precious) of such an interpretations, as stated before, the song has outlived its contemporaneity and transformed in the intervening years to be a still-relevant cry against general ecological and sociological mismanagement (to put it in overly-kind and apolitical terms).
The chorus of this impressively up-tempo protest song disabuses the interpretive misalignment upon which most of us operate (at least through our initial listening-through of the album): “All we are trying to say is / We are all we’ve got / You and me just cannot fail / If we never, never stop.” They aren’t trying to plunge us into despair by claiming we are all lost in a lost world; they aren’t telling us to forsake the past and seek new horizons. They are just “Singing all [their] hopes and dreams.” They are just as mystified about life as the rest of us. Of course, as Christians, we have a stronger grasp on purpose and direction, and though it is somewhat painful to disagree with The Moody Blues, we know we are not all we’ve got, which is the quintessence of why we don’t have to be disconsolate in this lost world — because we once were lost but now we’re found. The encouragement they offer (“never, never stop”) is potentially futile unless it is coupled with alignment with Ultimate Reality, with the God Who is Love. Once we have done that, and the “you” becomes “You,” this song becomes as authentically Christian as anything out there (perhaps more so).
“The Land of Make-Believe”
I like this song. Maybe I’m in the minority, but that’s quite all right with me as you know by now, if you’ve read other articles in this very issue. Since we are not here to spiritualize things, which we all know is bad hermeneutics (you are missed, Dr. Dave), it wouldn’t do any good to say “they are really singing about Heaven and the life to come.” It’s possible The Moody Blues are just imagining a utopia in which “heartaches can turn into joy,” since that doesn’t happen in this present incarnation as much as we would like. Regardless of whether they are truly singing about Heaven or just a fairy-tale land reminiscent of the underworld in Final Fantasy IV, the fundamental message of the song is true: “Love’s the only reason why” we exist, “Only love will see us through / You know what love can do to you.” This life is all about love, indeed. Perhaps the “make-believe” of the title is not as serious as it at first seems, and they are ironically reminding us “it’s only make-believe because not enough of you live this way yet.”
“When You’re a Free Man”
Like the previous song, Mike Pinder’s “When You’re a Free Man” imagines a utopian society, but the musical accompaniment this time makes us think we are in a sort of Kafkaesque utopian society (if we can use such a word without being cliché … which isn’t an adjective, anyway, people). The song is about the quick passage of time, but the music is slightly slower than if you paused the album (but I kid The Moody Blues — as I said earlier, I like this song, even if most think it is the weak link on the album). We shouldn’t be too surprised this song is another tribute to Timothy Leary, though why The Moody Blues are so keen on referencing him is somewhat beyond me. Fortunately they seemed to have outgrown him by the time they regrouped after their hiatus following the album under present examination. Again, we don’t want to spiritualize the album, and we would be straining that notion if we tried to “rescue” this song too much from its original intention, but again, if something is true, it’s true, regardless of who originally said it or why. When The Moody Blues enjoin us with “Let’s be God’s children and live in perfect peace,” it’s still a pretty excellent idea (if you’ll allow the expression), even if they meant it not as well as we would have liked. I’m rather skeptical we will see Timothy Leary again when we are all free from the sin which so easily entangles us … but I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still singing The Moody Blues songs then.
“I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)”
One last time (before a five-year hiatus), The Moody Blues remind us they are no experts on life — they are just a rock and roll band. Don’t look to them for answers — go out and live your own life. Fortunately for us, we know where the answers for life are located. Fortunately as well, we can enjoy great music like Seventh Sojourn from The Moody Blues, especially when we have the answers to the questions they ask. They ask the questions better than most bands do, and by this time in their diverse recording career, they were polished, poised, and, well, petered out. This song musically mirrors the band precisely this way: full of energy, being themselves (not what people expect them to be), asking intelligent questions all the way … eventually they run out of steam and it all comes crashing to a halt. Fortunately again, they picked it all up again soon enough (with some rather impressive solo and duet work in the meantime, especially Blue Jays, which we all know should have ended with “Saved by the Music,” but that’s a story for another time), and we can enjoy it all today. This is probably one of their most recognizable songs, and certainly one of their better numbers, which is saying a good deal considering their vast, diverse output. It’s a fitting end thematically to the album: what appeared to be pessimistic despondency was just sincere appraisal and confusion of a world out of tune — something is not right (totally depraved, in fact, in a lost world), and sometimes moving on means letting go, but hope still exists (as evidenced by this very journal’s raison d’être)and love will see us through. In the meantime, don’t go searching for answers in the wrong places. Just enjoy the music.
Music is the Traveler Crossing Our World
From Days of Future Passed (you aren’t counting The Magnificent Moodies, are you?) to December and everything else in-between, The Moody Blues have given us a thoroughly enjoyable output, with Seventh Sojourn one of their most enjoyable albums from beginning to end with no real weak links. For those who know only the ’80s synthesizer oeuvre of The Moody Blues (which, don’t get me wrong, is one of my favorites, since I’ve already admitted my favorite MB songs come from then), it’s time to go back to the band’s early era. Check out all their early albums, and though you’ll probably find some of their early stuff rather strange (after DFP, which is the most melodic and brilliant orchestral concept album ever made), you will find Seventh Sojourn is a gem that should not be forgotten. Don’t just take my word for it — listen to them for yourself. I’m just an editor for a scholarly journal.
Goodnight and Good Listening
We hope you have enjoyed our brief look at some of the forgotten gems of our recent musical past; I know I have. If you have been encouraged to listen to any of these albums and discover an enjoyable musical addition to your appreciation for life in its multifarious beauties, or rediscovered an old musical gem of a friend you had forgotten, then our work is done for another season. We at Redeeming Pandora wish you a continued delightful musical journey, whatever your tastes and fancies. Continue to seek out new horizons and enjoy the best of what is being made today, but don’t forget the gems of days gone by. You’ll be glad you kept them with you all of your days. Goodnight and good listening, friends.
Last Friday [May 4, 2012] David Lane presented a chapel message about foundations. In this article I hope to expand on some of his points, but there is a different main point. My story and testimony has parallels to David’s, but it is different. The point of this article is not to justify any of my actions. The point of this article is to point out one of the most overlooked qualities in leadership and Christianity, which is honesty. I don’t mean the honesty in terms of just keeping a clean public image; I’m talking about the honesty that involves admitting your struggles. All Christians and especially Christian leaders need to be open about their struggles in order to help other Christians dealing with the same issues; it is part of being humble. Please do know I didn’t come to learn about the importance of accountability from good experience but rather from my own mistakes.
I started smoking marijuana at the very end of 10th grade. Realistically, my life was good. I had a loving family, I was getting good grades, and I was starting on two sports teams. Despite all of this I still felt a deep-seated depression. I can’t say why, but it came out of issues with self-confidence; there was always a feeling of never being good enough. I felt a feeling of guilt. This guilt was so overwhelming I didn’t feel like I could trust anyone; I believed if I had told anyone my thoughts, I would be judged. I didn’t trust anyone. This feeling made me feel like I was putting on a “good boy” image I was growing sick of. I wanted to get rid of it; I wanted to be “myself.”
Prior to starting to be “myself” I was a worship leader both in school and in “NOW Night,” and I had just signed up to be a ministry team leader. This feeling of being a leader also contributed to not trusting anyone. A sin that often comes with leadership is pride. The pride I felt made me want to be strong for everyone around me and not show any weakness at all. So the main reasons I started smoking was a feeling of not being a real person. I’m not saying this to justify my actions, just to explain my flawed logic behind my actions.
I continued on and off for two years. I still didn’t really trust anyone. I would tell people part of how I felt; I would share different parts with different people in order to scatter the truth, because I still didn’t trust anyone with the full truth of my thoughts. It was this broken version of accountability that left me feeling like multiple people. On one day I was a good ministry team leader, altar boy, church goer, then the next I would be partying and smoking. I was split right down the center; and I thought I was making myself happy when really I was just adding to my misery. This feeling of having a split personality was driving me crazy.
Finally in January of this year everything came to a standstill. David texted me the most dreaded words at the time, “I’ve been caught.” My heart literally skipped a beat. I hoped that it wouldn’t come back to get me, but I knew that was a fantasy. A week later Mr. Lane called my dad. My dad came in and asked me if I had done it, and at first I kept denying what I had done. Finally a clear thought came in my head: earlier that week I had prayed to God to guide me to change my life for His glory. At the moment what I needed to do was so clear I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I confessed.
I was mad and depressed, and then I was kicked off the basketball team. I felt nothing but pure rage for a week. I was mad at everyone and everything. After that week though there was an odd feeling of relief. I could finally be honest with everyone. Still there was a feeling of guilt, and this feeling had more to deal with being a leader.
I wanted to quit being a ministry team leader. I felt as though I had let all my guys down. I started to write my letter to resign from being a ministry team leader, but about halfway through I got a sudden desire to do my devotions. My devotions lead me to 2 Samuel chapter 11. 2 Samuel chapter 11 tells the story of King David and Bathsheba. I decided to keep reading and finished the story of King David. I read fully into the redemption King David received. The lesson I learned was that God doesn’t always pick perfect people to lead.
One can look at the story of David and Bathsheba; one can also look at the story of Peter and Paul. Peter denied Jesus three times and had struggles with some serious anger issues. Paul persecuted Christians but was then called to lead the church. We seem to have this idea today that leaders need to be clean cut and perfect. What we need to accept is the idea of a perfect human leader is a false one.
I don’t write this to make myself look good in any way; I write this to help others who attend Summit in order to become strong Christian leaders who have struggles to be more open about their struggles. Oftentimes a Christian leader can use the struggles he or she has to deal with to help people. Christian leaders can’t just put everything they’ve done wrong under a bush and only keep the good things in the light. The important thing we all as Christians, but especially Christian leaders, should always have with someone is accountability.
If leaders share their struggles with the people they are leading, those people view the leader as “more approachable.” Being open is important, absolutely fundamental to the Christian faith. Peter and Paul were both open about their sin. Paul even said in 1Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners, of whom I am worst.”
In order to be a good Christian leader you must be humble, but something people often overlook about being humble is that it means you must be able to put yourself forward and admit your mistakes in order to help others: not just admit you’ve done some wrong things in the past, but truly use specifics to help others. It is something I continue to struggle with. I hope this article showed people the dangers of not having someone there to hold you accountable. It not only hurts your ability to lead but also just to be a good Christian. If someone is not there to hold you accountable you will fall deeper into sin, exactly like I did. I didn’t trust anyone, I didn’t humble myself to go to another person, and it ended in me building a huge pile of sin from which I could not break out. I am not a good example of how to use an accountability partner; I only try to show you what not having one at all will lead to. So please, for your own sake, find someone to hold you accountable, and if you’re a leader, don’t be afraid to be open with those who follow you. God uses the mistakes of leaders to teach lessons, and just because leaders slip up doesn’t mean they’re not leaders, and the mistakes don’t define them, it is their response that defines them.
James 4:16 —“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
Redeeming Pandora 