Chickens, Earworms and the Good Life

Here's my article for August:

In my article for August 2013 I wrote about holidays saying “it's very hard not to hear that word without thinking of the song by Madonna (and 'The Chicken Song' by Spitting Image – but that's a different article!)”  Well, it's almost ten years on and so I suppose the article on “The Chicken Song” is well overdue!

“The Chicken Song” is a novelty song that topped the charts in 1986.  It is a parody of the summer hits with actions like “Agadoo” and “Do the Conga”, and though the lyrics are mostly nonsensical, they do talk about the all-pervading nature of these types of songs.  Not only will you hear them wherever you go (even Mars!) but as the last chorus says “Now you've heard it once, your brain will spring a leak, and though you hate this song you'll be humming it for weeks.”

This is a trivial example of the ways our 'nature' can be at odds with our 'wills'.  The Apostle Paul wrote “When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway” (Romans 7:19 The Living Bible), or as Jesus put it “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).  As Paul thought about this paradox he saw that no matter how hard we try “there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me” (Romans 7:23 TLB.)  Try as we might we can never live the good life that we want to and that we know we should.

This leaves us with two options.  We could just shrug our shoulders and say that as failure is inevitable we might as well give up and just do the best we can.  We can then absolve ourselves of blame, saying “it may be wrong but it's just the way I am”, or we could even turn the fault into a virtue or source of pride or part of our identity:“I am a short-tempered person, and if you don't like it, that's your problem!”  But this option is ultimately unsatisfactory because it involves constantly suppressing that inner voice of conscience, the voice of God within us, that is telling us what we ought to be doing.

Paul has an alternative option: cry out “Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature?” (Romans 7:24 TLB).  But this is not a cry of despair, because Paul already knows the answer - “Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free” (Romans 7:25 TLB) and “destroyed sin’s control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins. So now we can obey God’s laws if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us.” Romans 8:3-4 TLB.)  That doesn't mean that we will never sin again, but that by belonging to Jesus “the power of the life-giving Spirit...has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death” (Romans 8:2 TLB).

So if, like an annoying but catchy tune, you seem to be stuck in a loop of bad choices and actions call out to Jesus for freedom and life.

What does it mean to be human?

Here's my article for the August magazine:

A lot of magazines at the moment will be giving advice on how to get the perfect beach-body, although it might be a bit late for this year! We often have a love-hate relationship with our bodies and both those attitudes have their down-sides.

On the one hand our society tends to idolise the body. Body-worshippers, both male and female, can be found at the gym, in the beauty salons, and strutting the streets in their designer clothes. Beauty and physical fitness are seen to be the ideal; we are judged on both and if we fall short of the standard we are deemed less worthy, less love-able than others. At its extreme this leads to designer babies and aborting children with disabilities, but it also shows itself in the social media pre-occupation with selfies, 'likes' 'ops' and 'rates'. Idolising the body leads not only to vanity but also to body shaming and self-esteem issues.

On the other hand there can be a despising of the body where the 'spirit' of a person is seen to be the only authentic 'person' and the body is merely a vehicle for the spirit. In Christian Theology this is known as the heresy of 'Gnosticism' but it is a common belief of Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and the New Age beliefs inspired by them. This separation of body and spiritual means that the body can be used and abused in any way particularly if it will 'enhance' the spirit's well-being.

Christianity, however, gets a different perspective on the body from the Bible, and in particular from its key doctrines of creation, incarnation and resurrection. The Creation story in Genesis teaches that God made humans, male and female, as 'ensouled flesh' i.e. as physical bodies infused with his living spirit. Our bodies are essential to our being, so much so that God says that he forms us in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5) and the Psalmist speaks of God knitting and weaving us in our mothers' wombs so we are wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-16). There is no separation between our bodies and our spirits: we are our bodies as much as we are our spirits.

The incarnation reminds us that not only did God make us to be flesh and blood, but that in Jesus he became human, complete with flesh and blood. Another heresy in the early church said that only Jesus' body was human, while his mind was divine. However, Jesus was like us in every way, flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14,17) and mind too (Hebrews 4:15). Body and spirit together make up a human being and God affirmed the value of human beings by becoming one!

The resurrection accounts of Jesus make it very clear that he was raised physically and spiritually. Jesus even says to his disciples “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). This tells us that we're not waiting for death to release our spirits from our bodies but that we're waiting for our bodies to be renewed to be imperishable, glorious and powerful (1Corinthians 15:42-44). So, whether you're beach-ready or not: love your body, care for your body and worship the God who created your body.