Why else do we live?

I have been beyond impressed by Cry, The Beloved Country. While I enjoyed Things Fall Apart, Achebe does not write with the same passion as Paton. The richness of the plot in Cry, the language, the pace, the emotion all make this a most enjoyable summer read. At the same time, I have been listening to the much recommended The Shack. No comparison. The difference between the writing and theology in Cry compared to Shack is like the difference between a seminary class and a VBS. (I am only two hours into the eight hour recording, and I plan on posting about it soon.)

On to what moved me today:

Kumalo has returned from another journey to see his son’s girlfriend with the intention of taking her back to Ndotsheni. It has been a hard week, and Kumalo has been at the mercy and care of others many times. He seeks to impose again on the woman with which he and his sister are staying. 

…I do not like to trouble you mother.

—You would like to bring her here, umfundisi?

—Indeed, that would be a great kindness.

—I will take her, said Mrs. Lithebe. She can sleep in the room where we eat. But I have no bed for her.

—That would not matter. It is better for her to sleep on the floor of a decent house, than to…

—Indeed, indeed.

—Mother, I am grateful. Indeed you are a mother to me.

—Why else do we live? she said.

And I stopped reading, and for a few moments could go no further. 

Why else do we live?

Why do I live? For myself? Often—too often. Mrs. Lithebe chose to serve. She chose to take in another when she had no room. Another who could not pay. Another for who knows how long—until the umfundisi left Johannesburg and returned to his parish. until the trial for his son, the murderer, concluded. 

And I must take my eyes off myself. I must open my eyes to the needs around me, starting with my wife and children. I am too important to myself. And I have not been called by God to be important. I have been called to serve. Why else do I live?

The Conscience in Us All: Part II

In Things Fall Apart, after Okonkwo has been banished from the tribe for seven years after inadvertently killing someone, a friend of Okonkwo’s reflects,

Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently? But although he thought for a long time he found no answer. He was merely led into greater complexities. He remembered his wife’s twin children, whom he had thrown away. What crime had they committed? The Earth had decreed that they were an offense to the land and must be destroyed.

The tribe has tradition and rules and beliefs, yet here is a man who questions those beliefs, but he is afraid to not follow through with the killing of his own children out of fear of the consequences for himself and his tribe. His conscience tells him the truth. His culture screams louder. 

My culture screams as well—but not just in tradition. It literally makes noise: radio, TV, ipod, 24 hour news. We are bombarded by the noise which drowns so many other things. What is God trying to say that I just can’t hear? What is God trying to tell you that you just haven’t unplugged long enough to listen to?

Believing despite knowing

In The Village (a must watch for any Christian) the leaders keep the rest of the group in the dark about certain things in order to perserve their way of life. (Even though this is “Thoughts on what I am reading…,” it might be worth it at some point to discuss that movie.) No one seems to know the truth, and that is ok with the leaders. A different angle comes out in Things Fall Apart. During a ceremony when the spirits of the dead come out, Achebe writes,

Okonkwo’s wives, and perhaps other women as well, might have noticed that the second egwugwu had the springy walk of Okonkwo. And they might also have noticed that Okonkwo was not among the titled men and elders who sat behind the row of egwugwu. But if they thought these things they kept them within themselves. The egwugwu with the springy walk was one of the dead fathers of the clan.

Here, people know the truth, and yet they choose to believe a lie anyway. Indeed, even their conscience bears witness that their ways are wrong (a later post). Some accuse Christians of acting this way. They claim sufficient proof for discrediting Christianity, and then say, “See, it is clear you are believing a lie.” I visit atheist sites on a semi-regular basis. I find it usually strengthens my faith instead of causing me doubts as most have arguments that are based upon half-truths, strawman arguments, and personal experience. (Visiting atheist sites is not a practice I would necessarily recommend, especially if one is easily angered or easily led to doubts as some are quite vitrolic and others sound quite convincing.)

The tribe in Things Fall Apart act a certain way despite knowing a contrary truth. The longer I walk with God, the more I am convinced that He is the truth.

The Conscience in Us All

When Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, realizes that someone has been killed in Things Fall Apart, Achebe describes his reaction this way, “…something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a tightened bow. He did not cry. He just hung limp. He had the same kind of feeling not long ago…They were returning home…when they heard the voice of an infant crying in the thick forest.… Nwoye had heard that twins were put in earthenware pots and thrown away in the forest.…a vague chill had descended on him and his head seemed to swell….”

Why would Nwoye possibly have had this reaction? If tribal tradition had stated this for all of Nwoye’s life, and if he had no opportunity to learn anything different, why would he feel this way about these types of deaths. What’s the big deal about the babies being left in the forest to die?

What Achebe describes so well is what all humans possess: conscience. We know right from wrong. Especially at an early age, we experience the fundamental truth that somewhere a morality exists. As we grow older, we can suppress that truth, but Achebe has thrust it in front of us here for all to see. 

But where does this come from? Why would Nwoye feel this way? He feels this way because God created humankind in His image. Paul describes this truth in Romans when he says that even people who do not know God or His laws have a conscience that bears witness to the truth. Nwoye’s conscience was bearing witness to him about the truth that rose above tribal tradition. 

I don’t know if Nwoye will suppress this truth, fight against it, or embrace it. I do know that he does not experience these things in a vacuum. People from all over the world join him in their knowledge of the inhumanity of killing innocents. And we turn our heads and keep walking. 

The humanists would have us think that morality is based upon majority rules, but morality abides in our hearts, placed there by a loving God. We can choose to ignore that if we wish, but that doesn’t make it go away.

Throwing the baby out with the bath water

Okonkwo is the main character in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The first chapter deals with the dichotomy between Okonkwo and his father. Because his father lived a life of sloth and weakness, Okonkwo was determined not to. “And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion—to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved.” 

I have not read but a page beyond this, but here is a tragic flaw if ever I have seen one. I don’t know if this book is a tragedy in the vein of Hamlet, but Achebe has certainly given a thesis statement that I believe will be central to the book. I don’t know if redemption or failure awaits Okonkwo. I do know that if he throws the baby out with the bath water, this will end tragically. 

The church has taken this path numerous times: that belief, movement, ideology is wrong, so let’s make sure we don’t look anything like it in any way. For fear of being labeled, we run as fast and as far as we can in the opposite direction.

I realize exceptions to all examples may be found, but let me offer one. For fear of being labeled liberal, evangelicals have wanted nothing to do with environmental causes for years. Thankfully, that is turning around, but I wonder if it has more to do with them running from something else than embracing the God given mandate to care for the earth. I hope the latter is the case. Evangelicals should not be afraid of being labeled a tree-hugger if they are doing what they should be doing. And just because someone does desire to protect the environment does not mean they worship mother earth or that they care more about trees or the spot-footed lizard than they do people.

To be a Christian means to look at situations through a Christological lens. When we do that, each part of a situation must be examined. It may be that all of a movement or belief system or ideology is thrown out, but it also might mean that parts of it are embraced, regardless of the label that may come. Being Christ-followers requires us to use our brains. Let’s check the tub before we dump it.