Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Heroes should be expelled from Sunday School

This article on what is wrong with Sunday school is getting a number of thumbs up (over in the FaceBook department) from a number of folks who should know.

As I understand it (leaning once again on Kierkegaard's stages of life) the category of the "hero(ine)" belongs to the lower spheres, primarily to (1) esthetics, where art, poetics, myth, etc., find a home; occasionally, making forays into (2) the ethical sphere where the hero's action imparts a "moral" example of good conduct; in the hands of blurry syncretists like Joseph Campbell, the heroic is inserted gratuitously into (3) the sphere of the (pagan) religious. But without question, the category of the heroic is altogether foreign to the paradoxical religious (i.e., Christianity) where one must die to be reborn, not just get up again after having one's lights punched out by the "villain," and then giving him what for; and where salvation comes by way of — not the "justice league" — but "a perversion of justice" (Is 53:8) which God willingly suffers in order to rectify and redeem a depraved human race and bring about a new creation in the God-man.

That's my take, anyway. Stick with Jesus.

No comments: