Comments on: They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Lack of Irony

By: peg

peg — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:24:30 +0000

I think it’s ironic that Mrs. Obama involved herself in awarding a film about the heroic government rescue of its endangered diplomats. Jimmy Carter seems a valiant and decisive he-man in comparison, and that is pretty funny.

By: Wade Burleson

Wade Burleson — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:56:49 +0000

Jon,

You wrote: “Christians have to step back from the world and even themselves, since they believe that the really real is not immediately apparent.”

Amen.

The question then becomes what is the canon or standard of truth for those things that are not as they seem (see Hebrews 12:11)? Opinion? Tradition? or Scripture?

We may always disagree on the intrepetations of Scripture, but to deny the inspiration of Scripture keeps everybody guessing in the dark.

By: Steve Billingsley

Steve Billingsley — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:40:35 +0000

2. We unbelievers don´t need an excuse. We need reason. And you still haven´t been able to provide us with one.

Sergio Mendez – plenty of reasons have been given. You personally haven’t accepted them (as is your right – but that is your own decision) – I can’t speak to the “us” (as in all unbelievers). I would think that each unbeliever has their own reasons for what they believe and choose. You should only speak for yourself.

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:40:03 +0000

The world does still allow transgression; it’s just changed the rules. Transgressive acts have been normalized so that to transgress against allowing these transgressions (i.e., to not be “tolerant”) is to break (i.e., transgress) the new rules. But of course, to break the new rules is not cool, and any humor derived therefrom is considered offensive. Oh, the irony.

By: Trent DeJong

Trent DeJong — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:37:01 +0000

You sure don’t understand irony in the same way I understand irony. Sarcasm isn’t a cousin. . . More like an illegitimate child. Irony is a wonderful tool for talking about life (God loves it, for the Bible is full of it). I love irony, and I didn’t love Seth, so I think something else is going on here.

By: SB

SB — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:28:21 +0000

To Jon Malesic: I think it’s a mistake to imagine that “sincerity” is conterminous with “flat literalism.” C.S. Lewis articulated well the kind of “total sincerity” to which we are called in The Weight of Glory:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. “

By: Sergio Méndez

Sergio Méndez — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:18:34 +0000

Two things:

1. Just because many things christians (especially conservative christians) find unaceptable are accepted now, doesnt mean ALL things are found to be acceptable in the world.

2. We unbelievers don´t need an excuse. We need reason. And you still haven´t been able to provide us with one.

By: Mike Melendez

Mike Melendez — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:32:24 +0000

And then there is 1 Corinthians 13:1.

By: Jon Malesic

Jon Malesic — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:07:48 +0000

I won’t defend Total Irony or even just Seth McFarlane (Family Guy isn’t very funny), but I do want to say that Total Sincerity makes Christianity equally impossible. The sincere person says, “What you see is what you get.” But a Christian priest or minister pouring water over someone’s head says, implicitly, “This isn’t what it looks like.” Christianity is always a bit ironic: Christians have to step back from the world and even themselves, since they believe that the really real is not immediately apparent. What could be more ironic than the Christian sojourner in the earthly city saying, “I’m not really here”?

The New Atheists’ chief intellectual vice may be their sincerity, their tyrannical insistence that things are as they seem.

By: Joshua Anderson

Joshua Anderson — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:10:45 +0000

This is very insightful; and I appreciate how you’ve given us some application there at the end. Since so much of Christian cultural engagement is imitation (often creating sub-par “Christian versions” of what culture is doing) it is nice to be reminded that we offer what the culture thirsts for.