Category Archives: Social Commentary
Get This?
I get it.
There are many professing Christians—or even those who market themselves under the moniker of “faith”—who possess an innate ability to repulse people. While I have met (and even know) people with this particular trait, it is inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible. If you claim to know Jesus Christ and practice Christianity, God expects us to act like his Son.
From a practical and anecdotal standpoint, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Judaism, and Atheism do not give Christianity a bad name; Christians do. Yet the spiritual element cannot be overlooked. While those who reject the idea or concept of an unseen world may find this statement self-serving, it nonetheless remains a fact.
What is done, the actions of people, do not occur in a vacuum. When there is a crime, investigators not only seek what was done but they look for why it was done—the motive. True, some may quibble over terminology and may reply the workings of the mind cause action, I aver while the mind may give reasons for the “why,” this explanation cannot answer from where the “why” originated.
The collective “a-ha” now builds, allowing for the “nature vs. nurture” argument to be applied. Yet this is unsatisfactory. Nature and nurture only allow for the responsibility of an action or actions to be placed elsewhere. This explanation seeks to indict those in the past, not making an argument for the action at hand nor providing a prima facie reason for an action to occur.
Do we ever ask, as a people, to seek the reason something occurs and desire to identify an individual or individuals who are responsible? To claim two brothers were raised in an abusive family environment still cannot assuage the curiosity of those seeking to find both a “why” and the place from “where” such an action originated as these two brothers killed their biological parents. Even in the Bryan Kohberger murder trial, his plea of guilt avoided the death penalty yet failed to provide answers for the families of those killed.
Again, I get it. From the Theo Bros on YouTube to people who assume if you don’t vote exactly like they do you ride the proverbial roller-skate through the gates of Hell, there are many annoyingly loud voices who claim Jesus Christ. Yet they do so as they manage to “annoy the Hell out of the people” they claim are going to Hell. Allow me to point out the Bible never resorts to such imbecilic methodology.
God’s Word (the Bible) is quite clear: every single person that has lived, does live, or will live is destined to spend their life apart from God from the moment they are conceived (Take a breath! Save it for another post). No one fitting the above-mentioned criteria knows for sure who belongs to God or who does not (beyond doubt). Those who belong to God, however, must live like they belong to him. Politics, group identification, personal preferences, clothing, housing, or geography must all take a back seat to what is most important: Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul, a man who endured incredible suffering through loss and pain for his Lord, wrote a small church in the city of Phillipi saying, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Nothing political, economic, national, or personal is more important or worth more than knowing Jesus Christ as Lord.
That people are sinful, selfish, spiteful, and treat things not religious as their religion demonstrates imperfection firstly, not whether they are known by God as his. Yet those who claim Christ—true and genuinely so—should possess the humility to own up to their error and sin. What a Christian has in Christ is not because they are better but rather Jesus Christ is.
I get it.
In all the grace-laden humility I have received from Jesus Christ, I ask those of you festering something akin to hatred for Christianity to consider this: do not look for an accurate picture of Jesus Christ in your fellow humanity. I ask that you see people with something rarely experienced in our society and culture: recognize them as people like yourself. Weak, inconsistent, imperfect, and prone to being a royal pain in the hind parts of many.
Because you can only see God when you ask to see Jesus Christ. If you find yourself moved to think and act this way realize it’s not you on your own desiring this. It is the Father pulling you toward his Son.
My desire is you get him. Grace! Jim
Seriously? Getting What We’ve Gotten!
While forgetfulness is a universally experienced bane of humanity, what is now being considered—and even demanded—by many in today’s culture has not so much been forgotten as it has never been learned.
To be forgetful is one thing entirely and is a forgivable problem. Those with family members who have dementia or Alzheimer’s disease understand the personal anguish associated with those who have lapsed into the terribly increasing nothingness of those diseases. These families would never blame their loved ones for forgetting; they only possess a deep longing for its cure.
Yet to not know, to be controlled by a veritable arrogance of this agnostic lack of situational awareness, often produces derision in the observers of those who refuse to know. The realization of those who witness this pandemic of ignorance is this: even if they had the opportunity to show those caught up in their blissful celebration, those affected would never desire to see the presentation of reality nor do they possess the mindset to appreciate what they would deem as an antagonistic view.
Their reaction would demonstrate the wisdom of not casting one’s pearls before swine; they would eat as food which should be digested as wisdom.
Ideas have consequences. Words have meaning. Meaning demands that absolute truth must exist. Truth ignored will bring consequences.
I do not believe in an esoteric version of truth; I believe truth is embodied in a Person. There exists One who is Truth. This Truth is absolute. This Truth exists. Someone may choose to not believe in Him, yet He cannot be dismissed or ignored; true, one may attempt to do so, but the consequences are profound.
If something in the wisdom presented by humanity—whether philosophically, scientifically, or practically—if such wisdom is true, the One who embodies Truth is the originator and the owner of such Truth.
Too many of the ideas being spread like nightsoil on a field are being seriously considered as viable options to consider. Are people forgetful? Yes, but that’s part of being human. Are people ignorant? Absolutely! Yet ignorance is an addressable weakness; yet to do so one must acknowledge their lack of knowledge and seek to overcome that lack with knowledge.
Today, because of the prevalence and overwhelming acceptance of postmodernity, everyone can determine their own truth. If someone speaks an idea into existence, then we are forced to accept it, unless the speaker is deemed to be unenlightened by those who “know the truth”—who know their truth—and then it is derided and rejected.
To get well when one is sick, it isn’t the fact a doctor exists somewhere and because there is a doctor “out there somewhere” the sickness will be cured. No, the one who is sick must admit they are sick. Then they must seek out a doctor who possess the “true” treatment regimen which will then make the one who is sick better or well.
Education, filling people with “knowledge,” will not cure the diseases which now wrack our society and culture; in many ways, unfettered knowledge possessed by those who lack wisdom, contributes to the turmoil we are currently experiencing.
The English, Franciscan friar, William of Ockham, invented what has been attributed to him as “Ockham’s Razor.” When a problem has more than two answers which address all the facts of the problem, the simplest answer will be the one most often correct.
The answer to the complex problems facing our world, our society and our culture, should not be addressed by complex and obviously recycled answers. It is time to set aside arrogance, to reject labels of unsophistication and patriarchy, and consider the One who is Truth, Life and the only Way out of our predicament. Jesus Christ is the only viable answer to the chaos we are witnessing and experiencing.
Unfortunately, many will reject this answer. Instead they will opt to once again keep doing what has always been done.
And they will keep receiving what has always been received.
Life. Seriously? Funny! 
Vivat Vita in Camera (Long Live Life on Camera)
Aug 15
Posted by Jim Grieme
Vivat Vita in Camera (Long Live Life on Camera)
The post Brit/Pop, alternative rock, pop group Coldplay has been active (according to Wikipedia, et. al.) since 1997. They originally called themselves Big Fat Noises, then Starfish before settling on the name Coldplay. For the sake of recent news and my blog, I’m glad they changed from their original moniker since “The Big Fat Noises” Kiss Cam would not be nearly as catchy.
The infamous Kiss Cam incident of July 15, 2025, quickly became the bane of the couple depicted before the world in this not unfamiliar technology. I’m certain this couple regretted attending such a well-known band with the following of Coldplay; I’m equally certain they attended this concert for the same reasons of that following.
There exists a strong attraction to the forbidden. One of the ancient texts I regularly study tells of a man and woman who had everything any of us could ever imagine (but not quite) yet they chose to do the very thing they were prohibited from doing. It was sadly the only thing they were told not to do. The “forbidden fruit” for this ancient couple was literally a fruit, unlike the couple on the Kiss Cam who were discovered during a secret tryst.
Even in a society and culture such as ours in the United States, which has come close to mandating never to judge anything as wrong, there are many activities even those doing them understand the impropriety. Interestingly, there exists something akin to a genetic attraction to the prohibited—even if that prohibition only exists within ourselves. The same text recounting the eating of the forbidden fruit by the progenitors of humanity testify to their attraction to what they knew to be improper, even though it seemed to be good in their sight.
This brings us back to Coldplay. Their song Viva la Vida (long live life, 2006) provides an interesting backdrop and context for the pain the Kiss Cam culture brought into the lives of this couple during an affair they desired to “long live.” The song Viva la Vida, co-written by Coldplay’s vocalist Chris Martin, tells of one who looks back on the glory of past days when “I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word.” Yet it is the perspective given in the song applying in the context of the Kiss Cam: “Now in the morning, I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own.”
The ancient text referenced earlier, the Holy Bible, records story after story in its Old Testament (so named for its age not its obsolescence) of the attraction and passion for sin. Again, our culture does not wish to label choices as sin; instead, they often seek to “cancel” that regarded as inappropriate. Whereas the Bible from in its beginning provides a means to gain forgiveness, many in our society seek to respond with destruction of those who choose what they deem as wrong.
Viva la Vida’s singer longingly recalls “feeling the fear in [his] enemy’s eyes” as he “used to roll the dice” and all played out in his memory “as the crowd would sing.” Just as the singer in this ballad realized “one minute, I held the key, next the walls were closed on me as I discovered that my castles stand upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.” Martin’s voice causes the listener to lose any perspective of time, yet in the context of this essay, when did this couple learn their “castles [stood on] pillars of salt and pillars of sand?”
Comprehension dawns on the singer amid memory’s reverie. Those days were “a wicked and wild wind [blowing] down the doors to let me in [and] shattered windows and the “people couldn’t believe what I’d become.” As quickly as the passion of those moments dissipated, the scene changes from the thirst found in moments to a swelling revolt rising from the smoldering ashes of a now public tryst. “Revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate, just a puppet on a lonely string.” The singer’s realized finale faces this new reality with resounding regret. “Aw, who would ever wanna be king?”
Humanity finds itself seeking solace and consolation when the passion of the moment is gone leaving only the tinnitus aftereffect belonging to a memory. The accusations begin—not from the crowds who have rendered their judgment’s desire for a head on a platter, but from the icy looks that once held the heat of a lover. Long forgotten memories on stories heard in a church grasp the coldness of what has been rejected. “For some reason I can’t explain I know Saint Peter won’t call my name.”
Jesus, in the Bible I mentioned, says “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Go to him.
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Tags: "Long Live Life on Camera", advice, castles, choices, Chris Martin, Coldplay, Come to me, forbidden fruit, head, improper, inspiration, Kiss Cam, labor and heavy laden, pillars of salt, pillars of sand, progenitors, prohibition, religion, rest, Saint Peter, silver plate, sin, Viva la Vida