“Life rumbles on,” as my uncle says, which my friends and I are appreciating as we face our final semester of law school at the University of Cape Town. UCT’s high standard is notorious among other law schools. Over the last three years, a solid legal foundation has been laid in us by world-renowned lecturers, and for this, we are deeply grateful.

The word university, like universe, stems from the Latin universitas, meaning ‘the whole’ or ‘entire’. Universities should be institutions of free speech, critical and creative thinking, and rigorous debate - they are meant to be whole. They should teach us how to think more than what to think.

However, at UCT and most universities today, we are told exactly what to think. Many lecturers teach us highly politicized ideas as a matter of fact, with no room for debate. We are given a thin slice of the whole.

We are taught that truth is relative, that tolerance is the supreme virtue, and that diversity is our greatest strength. We are told that we can create our own identities, that autonomy is more noble than obedience, and that self is God.

Christianity is seen as a colonial tool of the white man. Capitalism is seen as inherently racist, and socialism as progressive. Marriage is considered dispensable and malleable.

We are taught that the destruction of Apartheid can never be healed. The thieving ANC is hardly blamed for our current inequality crisis - Apartheid and colonisation are considered the only culprits.

Perhaps the idea that is worshipped most in our hallowed halls is equality. Everyone must receive equal treatment all the time.

The best of these ideas have an element of truth - they are half-truths. They partly address injustices and partly describe reality. Capitalism can be racist, but that does not mean it is intrinsically racist. These ideas are gross and convenient oversimplifications used to support an ideology. Reality is not so simple, and I think most people know this.

Without even saying what I think of these ideas, teaching them as unquestionable facts is morally wrong and pernicious, everywhere, but particularly in an institution that claims to be liberal.

The way that these ideas are fervently taught and defended can only be described as indoctrination, and even more fundamentally, as worship - worship of strange gods.

The consequences of this indoctrination are numerous, from seemingly benign to destructive impacts. Students become highly proficient at copying down what the lecturer says verbatim. We are training to be scribes and minute takers. Words go from the lecturer’s mouth right onto our paper without engaging our brains. And then we regurgitate these ideas in exams. Most students use laptops, which uses the brain even less. The skill of listening and recording is, of course, important, but of all the things a university should teach us, it is at the bottom of the pile.

We therefore struggle to problem solve, think critically and independently, and make coherent arguments. But ask us exactly what the lecturer said, and we will tell you, backwards if you like.

This gap in our learning is exposed when we engage with a lecturer who thinks critically. They quickly pick up that we are arguing with someone else’s words, and not logic. This is the main reason why many students do not last in legal practice. A lawyer is not a note-taker. A lawyer is a problem solver.

Students cannot entirely be blamed for thinking this way, as our judges do the same. The courts routinely use words like dignity, equality, and freedom, which supposedly have objective meanings, to mean whatever they like in support of their decision. Language has been corrupted.

The second, more serious consequence of ideological teaching is that it creates disharmony between the races and sexes.

Children so easily make friends and enjoy themselves in any situation because they see other children first as people, and not first as a black boy or white girl. They assume the best of people and do not assume that a white man is racist or a black woman is incompetent. Children want to have fun more than they want to be right.

Here are three encounters to illustrate the third consequence of ideological teaching: ideology trumps reason, every time.

In jurisprudence (the philosophy of law), we were forced to endure two weeks of bizarre and confused lectures on the Anthropocene, with the central message being that humans have destroyed the planet beyond all hope, and it is too late to do anything about it. Besides being anti-human, what this had to do with the philosophy of law, none of us knew. This is textbook radical climate change ideology.

Last year, there was an ‘open’ panel discussion on the legalization of sex work. Naturally, most of the students and academics argued that prostitution should be legal; however, one brave first-year man stood up and challenged this. He coherently countered their position on legal grounds, questioning how legalizing sex work empowers women and promotes their dignity and freedom. I was not there, but I heard that he was eviscerated and chastised for his ignorance. This is textbook radical feminism.

In environmental law, one lecture was titled “The Sentience of the Chicken.” The lecturer argued that many animals experience emotion and are sentient like humans, and they should therefore receive the same legal protection. Astonishingly, chickens have personalities.

When I challenged this with science, I was met with a barrage of retorts that made any meaningful dialogue impossible. The lecturer supports the ‘eco-centric’ belief that humans are not superior to nature, but are a part of it, and even subordinate to it. Nature was viewed as some pathetic and broken entity that desperately needs our help. The idolization of nature was borderline paganism.

Overall, the lectures so highly prized the environment that human worth and the joys of being human were all but forgotten, or worse, vilified. You got the feeling that everything we do is bad, and that the pinnacle of human existence is to be sitting at home in the dark eating kale chips.

Leo Tolstoy said that foolishness comes from education, and the above stories show it. The most foolish man is the one who thinks himself most right, and it is this intellectual pride that grips academic institutions.

With such arrogance comes the guise of morality and righteousness. The ideologues truly believe they are being progressive and breaking free from archaic and oppressive ways of thinking. They truly believe they are virtuous. They are Pharisees with red pens.

The most impressive thing is how well-drilled these ideologues are, like an international secret service. Students at liberal universities all over the world think the same. They have specious ideas, they are intellectually arrogant, and they act with piety. This all leads to the conclusion that the issue is more spiritual than intellectual. The irony is that if you were to tell them this, they would laugh.

When Satan tempted Eve in the garden, when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness, and when he tempts us, he does not provide us with compelling arguments to sin. He does not invite us to think critically because then we would see the truth. Rather, he tells us half-truths. He plays at our emotions. He oversimplifies. He tells us that we are right and we deserve it. We gradually become like him and truly believe that we are right and righteous. But Jesus said, “And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”1

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote of this long ago in his macabre and tragic masterpiece, The Devils. The novel is eerily prescient in how it accurately predicted the Russian Revolution and today’s political climate. The overarching message is that atheism leads to society’s destruction.

Dostoevsky’s inspiration for the novel was Matthew 8:28-34, where Jesus casts demons out of two men and sends them into a herd of pigs, who then rush down a steep bank into a lake and are drowned.

In the novel, the protagonists represent the devils, as they are vehement promoters (worshippers) of atheism, nihilism, socialism, rationality, intellectual egoism, and self-reliance. They are enlightened liberals. They have no identity and so they fill it with these ideas, which are not merely intellectual; they are spiritual, and the ideas spread like a disease. Underlying their ideas is the same belief underlying communism: society can be built on reason alone.

The devil’s ideas enter the public, the herd of swine, and cause chaos and death - drowning. They murder and wreak havoc throughout the story, but they all ultimately end up dying themselves, mostly by suicide. The chief message is that Satan wants us to abandon God because he knows that this leads to death.

At the conclusion of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the protagonist, Raskolnikov, dreams about a plague of microscopic creatures that burrow into people’s bodies. These creatures are spirits endowed with intelligence and willpower, and they cause widespread anarchy, anxiety, and senseless murder. People forget what is wrong or right. In response, everyone advances their own solutions, but there is no consensus. The world is engulfed in fires and famine, and everybody and everything perishes, as the plague spreads.

Never before has it been clearer how false ideologies spread like viruses and cause pain and death. There is compelling evidence that Karl Marx was a Satanist. Think of the destruction that his ideas have caused.

But in Raskolnikov’s dream, some survive… “In the whole world, there were only a few who were saved – a pure, select group, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had ever seen these people anywhere, or heard their words or voices…”

I started a Bible study at UCT a year ago. The response from the students has been immense, as most sessions have had about fifteen students present, who have enjoyed speaking freely without fear of rebuke.

God’s Spirit continues to move in these desolate spaces. We are far behind enemy territory, but God is building His resistance. Whatever space you are working in, I encourage you to bring Christians together. I encourage you to raise Christ’s name.

The main reason why students come back every week is because our God is not strange. His ideas do not infect, spread, and kill; they lead to life itself.

He does not demand that we be ashamed and guilty; He has taken on our guilt. He does not demand that we deal with all the woes of the world; He promises to do so Himself. He does not demand that we achieve holiness through our deeds; He is Holy.

He is not a God of confusion but of clarity. He is the One Truth, and He tells us to love others and to love Him. He leads us to lofty and beautiful things like humility, hope, faith, fortitude, repentance, joy, and salvation. He leads us to heaven.

God created us in His image, and we therefore have an unassailable identity in Him. He alone is what we should worship, because worshipping anything else leads to death.

Let us put away the strange gods, and incline our hearts unto the Lord God. And if these strange gods cannot be put away, then let us come together and worship the true One.

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I recently heard of a young couple who were engaged to be married. In getting into the wedding spirit, the bride and her bridesmaids planned to converse with married people about marriage. They spent the day at a romantic destination, a wine farm, and randomly asked couples about their marriages.

The intention was of course to create excitement, however, quite the opposite was achieved. Out of all the couples, there was only one who had anything good to say about marriage. They said that their marriage has flourished when Jesus is at the centre of it.

Everyone else warned the young ladies not to get married so young. They went on about the sorrows of rearing children and something about enjoying life while you can.

The bridal party sought excitement but was met with boredom. They sought congratulations but were met with warnings. They sought adventure, love, and romance. Why didn’t they find it?

As I have never married, I will leave this question to a man who has married twice, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and his haunting novella, Notes from Underground. ‘Underground’ refers to the underground of the human psyche – the dark recesses of our minds. Dostoevsky initially named it “A Confession.”

In the first part, a bitter and lonely man sheds light on his underground – his evil and depraved thoughts. In the second part, we see how these thoughts become his actions.

When Dostoevsky wrote the book, many progressively liberal ideas, such as determinism and utopianism, were spreading through the intellectual circles of Russia. Today, these same ideas continue to infect many circles, including the marriage ring.

The main thrust of the novella is an assault on determinism and utopianism. Determinism is the idea that everything, including human personality and will, can be reduced to the laws of science, and therefore, that everything is ultimately determined by forces external to human will. There is no free will, everything is inevitable, no one is responsible. 1 + 1 = 2.

People nowadays try to do all that they possibly can to determine that their marriage is a utopia. Use dating apps, live together before marriage, have sex before marriage, etc. These are all common efforts to turn marriage into 1 + 1 = 2.

If he doesn’t snore, then he’ll be a dream husband. If he has been intimate with many women, then he’ll be intimate with me. If she knows how to get the attention of men, then she’ll be a dream wife.1

Dostoevsky firstly critiques determinism for attempting to quash free will: ‘Everything will be so exactly calculated and explained that there won’t be any more initiatives or adventures in the world.’

Our free will is inextricably linked to adventure, excitement, and romance - all of which are beautiful and elevated ideas that humans fundamentally need. He says, ‘What is man without his passion, without will and without desire, if not a stop in an organ pipe.’

Determinism is an audacious idea… ‘But a man is so prone to systems and abstract conclusions that he is prepared to distort the truth on purpose, prepared to deny the visible and the audible just so he can justify his own logic.’

Dostoevsky then attacks utopianism, mainly because it attempts to remove suffering, when, as he argues, suffering can sometimes be needed for happiness. Removing suffering can also remove freedom, and it is freedom that humans truly need (more than happiness). He says, ‘Maybe suffering is equally advantageous to him as well-being… Suffering well, it is the sole determinant of consciousness.’

Furthermore, at a psychological level, humans will always rebel against artificial and utopian paradises - because of our irrationality. Take Adam and Eve for example. Take you for example.

Determinism and utopianism are straw castles. They tragically remove responsibility. They ignore the basic human need for adventure, excitement, unpredictability, and even certain levels of chaos… ‘So there it is – there it is at last – an encounter with real life.’

Humans, most of all with love, do not want absolute certainty. We do not want a 3D printer to make our perfect spouse. That is boring. That is not romantic. That is not love.

Marriage is not a utopia, and thank God that it isn’t, as it has been shown that the best marriages have a certain degree of tension. We don’t like doing things that are too easy.

In the novella, there is a scene where the protagonist, the underground man, promotes marriage to a prostitute…

“But there’s another thing, Liza: man only loves to count his woes, and never counts his happinesses. But if he counted them as he should then he would see that there is enough of each reserved for him.

Well, and what if everything goes well for the family, God blesses it, the husband turns out to be good, loves you, cherishes you, doesn’t leave you! Good to be in that family! Even when its sometimes mixed with grief, it’s good; is there anywhere, after all, where woe is absent? You will, maybe, get married, and then you’ll see for yourself.

And, at least in the very first part of marriage to the one you love, there is happiness, how much happiness sometimes! It’s nearly always that way. In the early days, even arguments with your husband end well.

And how good is it to make peace after a fight, to recognise her errors or to forgive him! And how good is it for both, how good it suddenly becomes, just as if they were first meeting again, marrying again; love begins anew between them.

And no one, no one should know what happens between a husband and wife if they love each other. And whatever quarrels emerge between them, they shouldn’t even call on their own mothers to judge it or tell things about each other to others. They themselves are the judges.

Love is a divine mystery and it should be closed from the eyes of all others, whatever happens in it. It is more sacred this way, and better. They respect each other more and much is based on respect.

And if there was once love, if they married in love then why should it pass? Should it not be sustained? It’s a rare incidence when it can’t be sustained. Well, and if the husband is a kind and honest man, then how can love pass? The initial love of marriage will pass, it’s true, but then an even better love comes along. Then they unite in soul, all their dealings have common dealings; there won’t be any secrets from each other.

And children will come, and then even the most difficult of times will seem happy, as long as they love and are brave. Then even work is a joy; then even when you sometimes forego bread for the sake of your children it will also be a joy. Indeed, they will love you for it afterwards; you are, that means, accumulating.

The children grow, and you feel that you are an example to them, that you are their support; that you will die and they will carry your thoughts and feelings on themselves, since they received them from you; they will take on your image and likeness.

And so, it is a great duty. How could a father and a mother not unite in this? They say, rightly, that having children is hard. Who says this? It is a heavenly happiness! Do you like little children, Liza? I like them awfully. You know, when a little pink baby boy suckles at your breast, which husband’s heart doesn’t turn towards his wife when looking upon her sitting there with his child? The little baby is pink, chubby, it sprawls out, luxuriates; juicy little hands and little feet, clean little nails, tiny, so tiny, that it’s funny to look at them, and little eyes which seem to understand everything.

Yes, is that not a happiness when the three of them, husband, wife, and child, are together? Much can be forgiven for the sake of such moments. No, Liza, one must first learn oneself how to live, and only then blame others!”

After beautifully saying this to Liza, the underground man, out of pride, later takes it all back. It was a moment of truth and inspiration, but ultimately, his underground prevails.

The underground man is a ‘little coward to his depths.’ He takes pride in his diseases. He enjoys the pleasure of despair, and he is intoxicated by spite. He keeps count out of habit. His laziness is the mother of all vices. For him, love means to tyrannise and to morally dominate. He is a despot in his soul. The underground man’s only virtue is in confessing all this.

Dostoevsky asks all of us: ‘Can one be completely open with oneself and not fear the whole truth?’ Marriages remain dark because people will not venture into their undergrounds. They fear the foul truth. Can one be completely open with one’s spouse? Can you tell her everything?

The underground man answers: ‘It’s not just that you won’t remake yourself, you simply won’t do anything at all… And for what, one wonders, have you spoiled your life?’

Dostoevsky teaches that thoughts become actions. Worldviews become worlds. He says, ‘Habit counts for a lot. The devil knows what habit will make of a person.’ Habit largely means mental habits.

The story ends by touching on something that corrupts all human institutions, our mother tongue, sin. Dostoevsky says that we are ‘estranged from what is alive… We are all unused to living, we are all crippled, each one of us more or less.’

We are crippled, and on top of that, we are lost without a compass… ‘Why are we fickle, what are we looking for? We ourselves don’t know what… Man only does mischiefs because he doesn't know his real interests.’

And this is where the couple from the romantic wine farm comes in. I could’ve ended this after their words “Keep Christ at the centre of your marriage.”

Jesus has put torches in our undergrounds. He has dug great tunnels, and He is mining.

After being crucified, Christ went three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.2 He went and preached to the spirits in prison.3 He descended to the lower, earthly regions. He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.4

Jesus shows us how to live. He shows the cripples where to run, where to fly.

Jesus and His word are the only chance that we have at a romantic marriage. He is our only chance to experience all that is beautiful and elevated.

‘Together we would have really lived!’

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I was in my flat awaiting the return of my two sisters and mother from hospital. They had gone to receive the medical results of a lump in my older sister, George’s, neck. My mom flew down that day with the feeling that she had to be there.

Minutes turned into hours, and hours turned into darkness. They had still not returned. Quite suddenly, something in me changed. I knew that it wasn’t a sore throat.

On the 28^th of May 2024, my sister was diagnosed with lymphoma – a highly aggressive cancer of the lymphatic system. We were shell-shocked.

After first feeling the lump in April, George couldn’t bring herself to pray away the fact that it might be cancer. She felt it inauthentic to ask God to take away that possibility. She could only pray for the grace to handle whatever was coming. It was distressful for her not to be able to face the scariest outcome with prayer. But our parents continually reminded her that many people were interceding for healing.

The night of her diagnosis, George opened her Bible to John 9:1-3:

‘As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”’

This verse gave her acceptance and direction of what was to come. George felt challenged not to ask, “Why me?” but rather “What are you trying to teach me, God?” To not ask “Why me?” because then you have to ask, “Why not him… why not her?”

George celebrated her 28^th birthday with a chemotherapy drip in her arm. I arrived at the hospital with my dad and a cake, meeting my mom there. We cut the cake with the rest of the cancer ward.

Quite unexpectedly, one of the other patients broke out into song with a rendition of happy birthday that no one else was familiar with. But we followed our brave leader. It reminded me of the US Marines neck-deep in cold mud in the middle of the night, singing.

Before we had to leave, I prayed for George, and the ward was still. One of the women thanked me afterwards with a poignant expression on her face. It occurred to me that many people have never heard about ideas like healing, hope, or victory. It occurred to me that many people are hopeless.

My younger sister, Katherine, told me that when George first heard that her hair would fall out, she said, “I can think of worse things.”

George finished her last round of chemo on the 23^rd of August, and as I write this, she is facing at least two weeks of radiation. She describes her cancer journey as a period of gratitude and victory.

George was grateful that she detected the lump early, that we are blessed with private health care and top-quality professionals, and that she received conclusive results and wasn’t forced to wait.

This year, George and I have been living together with Katherine in the flat below us, and our parents have been able to spend a lot of (too much!) time with us in Cape Town. We routinely had Bible studies together on the Psalms and Proverbs. This gave us all the peace and wisdom to get through those days.

Cancer is a lonely journey because most people haven’t had it, and even those who have, likely had different experiences.

One of our cousins, Grace, who is a two-time cancer survivor, flew out from America to spend two weeks with us. She was a champion. She was understanding and empathetic of George to a degree that I have never seen. We were grateful for family and truth.

We were grateful for community. There were many prayer groups and bible studies that prayed for her and the family without ceasing. Everyone played a specific and invaluable role, no matter how small. The body of Christ was full.

We felt this fullness from the miracles that happened during the process. To name one, George was able to change her medical aid scheme after her diagnosis!

She learnt that community was not a brick-and-mortar church, but it was rather family, colleagues, and friends coming over to pray and share meals.

She has learnt that our expectations of people must be appropriate. God, after all, doesn’t expect too much of us. Some people were there for her, and others were not.

She appreciated people who were honest with their capacity to help her. People who said, “I can do this, but not this.”

George said that cancer is infantilizing. She had a recurring image that she was a baby being swaddled by the heavenly father. She knew that God had allowed the cancer, but she also knew that He knows how it feels. “He has been here, and He will protect me against the enemy and the schemes of man.”

In God’s arms, George felt like she was in a forcefield. She was secure. She knew that God wouldn’t allow her to endure more than she could bear. She had a great acceptance that God is sovereign and eternal.

It became clear to her how precious life is, and how fragile, finite, and unpredictable it is.

George aimed to glorify God through this process. She was charged with the responsibility to make God’s name famous. She wasn’t exactly sure how to do this, but I can say that she achieved her aim.

She said that it is dangerous to enjoy pain. We have agency and the responsibility to extract the good from pain. With God’s Holy Spirit, something beautiful can come out of suffering.

Cancer was a refining period for George. It made her priorities absolutely clear. The way that she loves and interacts with people has changed. Her perspective on life has changed. She has been blessed with eternal perspective. This was maybe her greatest blessing.

When faced with a decision, she now tries to ask, “How does this fit into His plan?... Is this God’s will or my own?” She tries to trust rather than control.

George felt that life had been a play until she was diagnosed with cancer. Right then, she had been pulled backstage, and the director was shouting at her: “This is real!” … “What have I been doing this whole time?”

There is a good chance that everyone will directly or indirectly encounter cancer in their lives. George said that the best way to handle someone with cancer is to not look at them with ‘cancer eyes’ and pity them from afar. We must look at them through God’s eyes and love them up close.

We must rather lean in too much than too little. We must ask the uncomfortable questions… “What is it like to lose your hair? Are you feeling alone?” George felt seen and acknowledged by honest questions. We must strive to have hearts like Jesus had for the sick.

Of course we can ask why George got cancer. But we can also ask why she was able to get treated so effectively, while others wait in queues. Why did she have a treatable cancer, while others get given no chance to live? Why did she have loving family around her, while others have never heard of hope?

George knows now more than ever that He is a loving and good God. He is a victorious God. She thought that she could never get through those long days of suffering. But now that she’s won, now that she’s beaten cancer, she has courage that any future trial will be easier because He has conquered death. We must not fear. We must be encouraged!

We are not able to get through these trials alone. Jesus carried George through, as He carried the cross to Golgotha. Jesus allowed her to feel what she felt. He is not scared of those emotions. She poured them out at His feet, just like Mary did with the expensive perfume.

God is not scared of emotion. He made us that way. He knows how we feel. God comforted George through the dark and broken moments. Through the times of mental weakness. Through the times when she felt revolting in hospital. Through the times when she thought that a headache would kill her. God comforted her. God swaddled her. God loved her. God didn’t look at George through cancer eyes.

He still sees her as beautiful as she has always been, as beautiful as He created her to be.

Here’s to you George. You suffered with dignity. You suffered with honour. You brought glory to God. You made His name famous. We love you.

Thank you, Father.

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I have only ever cried once from a movie, and that was The Green Mile (The Notebook was a close call). The closest I have come to crying from a book was Washington Square, but those would’ve been tears of boredom. This changed after I recently finished Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The Russian got to me.

Crime and Punishment is often cited as the greatest novel ever written. I therefore write about it knowing that I tread a well-trodden path - perhaps a path too treacherous for me. Academics have dedicated their lives to this book, and countless papers have been written on it. But I cried, and that must mean something.

The protagonist, Raskolnikov, is a destitute drop-out law student who lives in a suffocatingly small room in the chaotic and dusty St Petersburg. He is constantly anxious, depressed, sleepless, and stifled in his minute abode. He has no friends. His only family, a mother and sister, live far away. Life for Raskolnikov is not good.

But he is a dreamer. He drinks beer to ‘put out a fire in his belly.’

He is intellectually gifted, and he knows it. He thinks that hardly anyone ever says anything new. And so, he writes an article for the local newspaper about an idea that forms the central message of the book. Raskolnikov argues that there are, and have always been, two types of people: ordinary and extraordinary.

Ordinary people uphold and obey the laws of the land. But they also ‘demand a total lack of personality… they’d rather do with other people’s ideas… they’re not alive – they have no will of their own: they’re servile and won’t rebel.’

Extraordinary people break the law, not for arbitrary personal gain, but for the betterment of humanity. They are ‘those who possess the gift or talent to say something new.’

Raskolnikov posits that ordinary people are masters of the present, and extraordinary, of the future. The former despise the latter, yet both are essential for society. But it is of course the extraordinary person that keeps Raskolnikov up at night.

He ponders over the extraordinary people of history and concludes that all of them were, to varying degrees, criminals. These great souls see, like everyone else, that the system is failing, but they then do something about it – they change it. To change the law, the law has to be broken, so these people are, by definition, criminals. They create a new law by transgressing an old one. Napoleon spilled much blood in achieving much greatness.

Where the ordinary man spills blood and then repents of it, the extraordinary man has no remorse because he knows that it is for the greater good. Stepping over a few bodies on the treacherous path to Eden is a small price to pay.

Extraordinary people lead ‘the destruction of the status quo for the sake of a better world’, and Raskolnikov argues that they are therefore morally justified in committing crimes. After all, no one else will do what they do.

Raskolnikov is an atheist, but at one stage he prays to God to lead his steps. Soon after, God gives him the chance to test his grand idea.

He knows a pawnbroker who is sitting on a fortune. She is a horrible old woman. She lives with her much younger mentally challenged sister, Lizaveta, whom she treats as a servant. She ruthlessly charges high interest rates. She is cut-throat and tight-fisted.

The first coincidence happens when Raskolnikov is sitting in a pub, and he overhears a conversation between two men. The one man proclaims his foolproof idea to the other, which is to murder and rob the horrible old woman. She is rich. She is old. She is a thief. We are all poor. We are all young. We are honest and hard-working. Murdering and robbing one bad person would be good for everyone else.1

But these men are ordinary, and so they do nothing. It is only talk. Raskolnikov, on the other hand, is extraordinary - at least he thinks so. The idea therefore haunts him.

The second coincidence happens when Raskolnikov overhears another conversation between Lizaveta and her employer, who says that she must work overtime on a certain day. Raskolnikov can therefore be sure that she will not be at home with the old woman at that time.

He has coincidentally, miraculously, been given everything he needs to commit the murder. God gives him the freewill to live out his grand idea.

Raskolnikov kills the old woman with an axe. He kills Lizaveta too, as she comes home after work and witnesses the crime because Raskolnikov accidentally left the front door open. He robs them and hides the money and possessions, but doesn’t spend a cent of it.

This happens early on. The rest of the book tells of his gradual mental and spiritual unwinding. It answers the murderer’s question: am I a monster, or a victim?

Raskolnikov genuinely believes that he is extraordinary, to the extent that he didn’t think he was committing a crime. But to be truly extraordinary, he must continue living without remorse. He must support his ‘good deed’ wholeheartedly…

‘Those (extraordinary) men possessed the strength to carry on, and therefore they were in the right.’ However, right after he murders, he wants to confess. His conscience convicts him. He acted, but his heart is divided.

Raskolnikov represents a concoction of the most pernicious philosophies in Dostoevsky’s Russia: nihilism, rationalism, and utilitarianism, which are embodied by the squalor and wretchedness of St Petersburg.

Raskolnikov is in continual rebellion against himself, society, and God. Dostoevsky predicted that utilitarian ideas like Raskolnikov’s would wreck humanity on a large scale, and they then did, shown most clearly by Nazi Germany. Since then, these philosophies have not waned in popularity.

Although Raskolnikov is an extremist, a murderer, critical of people, arrogant, lazy, and a recluse, he has echoes of a good heart. He once ran into a burning building to save two children. He fiercely protects his sister from a suitor with evil intentions.

He says, ‘I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a real row with someone and then dashed back to make it up.’ He gives the last of his money to a family in the throes of poverty. He is kind to Sonya, the daughter in this family who has resorted to prostitution to provide for her starving siblings.

Sonya loves Raskolnikov with a pure and deep Christian love which brought me to tears. She introduces Him to Jesus. The murderer and the prostitute read the Holy Scriptures together. She prays with him, and afterwards, Raskolnikov exclaims, ‘There is life! I was just alive now, wasn’t I?... I’m drunk, but drunk without a drop to drink!’

Being convicted by the truth, Raskolnikov’s mental and spiritual anguish eventually becomes too much for him, and he confesses his crime to Sonya. Lizaveta, whom Raskolnikov killed, was Sonya’s friend. But Sonya forgives him because she knows that she herself doesn’t deserve forgiveness.

He says, ‘You’re such a strange girl, Sonya, to be hugging and kissing me when I’ve just told you about that… how could you ever love such a vile character?... A long and unfamiliar feeling flooded his heart, immediately softening it.’

… ‘He looked at Sonya and felt the sheer force of her love for him.’ He says, ‘But why should they love me so much, if I don’t deserve it!’

Sonya tells Raskolnikov to go to the crossroads and to kiss the earth in confession to all creation. She says, ‘Shout out to everyone “I am a murderer!” and then God will give you a new life.’ She leads him to repentance so he can redeem himself through the acceptance of suffering.

He goes to the police station and turns himself in. In prison, the protagonist reflects…

‘I wanted to be a Napoleon, that’s why I killed… through that stupid action I only wanted to achieve independence.’ It was never about the money. It was about staying true to an idea above all else. It was pride.

Raskolnikov quickly realized that, while he had the boldness to act on his idea, he was not ‘strong’ enough to support it. He couldn’t overstep the law without regretting it. In trying to do so, in trying to ignore his God-given conscience, he hurt himself. It was his wounded pride that made him ill. Raskolnikov didn’t kill an old woman. He killed himself.

He had to admit that his idea was flawed, but more simply, that he is flawed. Raskolnikov is not a victim, but a monster. A monster with a conscience.

Through it all, Sonya never leaves his side. She tells him, ‘God has prepared a life for you.’

At the prison grounds, the narrator reflects: ‘There was so much unbearable suffering and so much infinite happiness lying ahead of them! But he had been raised from the dead, and he knew it – he felt it in all of his resurrected being.’

Jesus Christ arrived on earth when the world was in a bad way. The law wasn’t working, and so Jesus changed the law - He broke the law. He made many enemies in the process and was widely considered a criminal. He died with a criminal on His left and His right.

Jesus broke the law and gave us a new one so that we don’t have to. We don’t have to conceive great ideas to be extraordinary, because He has given us every great idea. We are all extraordinary because we are made in His image: ‘I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.’2

But as Christians, Dostoevsky calls us in a real sense to rebel against the status quo of the world. To think of ambitious Godly ideas, and to pursue them. To not get others to do our thinking - including our pastors. To rebel against our prejudices. He calls us to unremorsefully step out and do Christ’s difficult and radical work. Jesus calls us to be prepared to die for an idea.

Dostoevsky gives us a brutal reminder of the importance of humility, and of the severe dangers of false philosophies, which are like diseases. Raskolnikov was the epitome of intellectual pride, the chief sin of Satan.

The truth is, we do not know best. Doing what we think is best and following our lofty ideas leads to suffering for everyone. God’s truth is the foundation and springboard for every good idea. We are otherwise lost…

‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.’3

More than anything, Dostoevsky shows us the sheer beauty of Christian love. Before being liberal, conservative, protestant, or catholic, we must be loving – especially to those with the wackiest worldviews, especially to great sinners, and especially to the unlovable.

Sonya and Raskolnikov ‘were regenerated by love – one heart held infinite springs of life for the other.’ Through Sonya’s love, Raskolnikov was born again.

He was a dreamer, but she gave him a heart.

With the current pandemic of evil, expedient, false, and specious philosophies, let us hold ever stronger to the truth of Jesus Christ, for only from Him can we find joy, peace, and life itself.

Only from Him can we truly dream.

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The intensification of entertainment at sports events is widespread and ever-increasing. Go to the rugby and you’ll get gymnastics. Go to the cricket and you’ll get pyrotechnics. Go to the football and you’ll be a gambler before half time.

This is obviously to ensure that people keep coming back. If cricket stadiums only offered five-day test matches without the pyrotechnics, many people would stop going. This incessant focus on entertainment has infiltrated the bulk of human institutions, from football to faith.

Many churches, too, are hell-bent on ensuring that people keep coming back. The goal to ‘make disciples’ is often just about drawing as large crowds as possible.

In achieving this goal, churches utilise a variety of seemingly Christian practices, which in reality have tenuous or no Biblical support, but are rather for entertainment. As a result, rich doctrinal teaching is neglected. Entertainment replaces truth, and no one realizes. But Jesus was no entertainer. Christ was no clown.

I attended a church in Cape Town for some years, and most services, someone would go up and say that they have a God-given image. These images would always be nostalgic pictures of beaches and sunsets, where God told them some banality, like He has been with them all along.

God speaks to His people with images, but is He going to do it every Sunday evening? Are the images always going to be heartfelt? Is it not more likely that these images were often entirely fabricated? If God is truly sending images to a church, He will surely also send some challenging ones about salvation or repentance. But people don’t want to hear that.

When someone claims that they have an image from God when they do not, spiritual forces will take that opportunity with both hands. It is a formal invitation for opportunistic evil, and it won’t go begging.

People come to church mourning the death of loved ones or struggling with their faith. God knows what needs to be said to them, and He will say it. He does not operate on our schedules. Praise be to Him whether He sends an image or not. The ‘gaps’ shouldn’t be filled for the sake of uniformity or entertainment.

I once heard a Godly image at another church. The woman said that there is a small white door with peeling paint that someone needs to open, because behind it is what they fear. This would’ve spoken to someone specific. It could’ve changed their life. It wasn’t used to entertain everyone.

People often prayed for healing over the whole congregation. I could only find one example where Jesus healed more than one person at a time.1 It was otherwise always a personal affair. Christ and a broken body.

Crowds came to Him, but He saw individuals. He went to the pool surrounded by cripples, healed one man, and then slipped away.2 He could’ve prayed for healing over all of them, but He didn’t. He could’ve attracted much attention, but He didn’t. It could’ve been a performance, but it wasn’t.

Large-scale healings happen when God leads them. Not when a ‘high-profile’ pastor with the gift of healing tells everyone to pair up and heal their friend.

People had tears in their eyes believing that they had been healed, and maybe they had. But maybe, with the pressure of the whole congregation waiting with bated breath for you to say that your neck pain has gone, it starts to feel better. Maybe it feels worse, but you couldn’t bear to disappoint everyone.

This practice paints Christianity as a patent medicine. It paints the Holy Spirit as a tool to be used. It sets up a false standard for closeness with God: if I get healed then things are good between Him and I, which leads to despair when not achieved. It is contrived and misleading. But it is entertaining.

The pastor would often, with cathartic music playing, ask everyone to close their eyes and raise their hands if they want to give their life to Jesus. He continuously reminded us not to be scared because no one is watching.

To decide to follow Christ should be a public display of celebration, not a secret ballot. Is not the pastor seeing how many souls he has saved? Would it not be better for him to encourage those earnestly seeking Jesus to come for prayer and conversation afterwards, instead of embarrassing them? Is it the Holy Spirit you are encountering (as the pastor insists), or is it just the music?

Jesus called people to do life with Him. It was a personal invitation, not a broadcast message. It was exciting and daring, and not the offer of a desperate salesman. But it’s easier to ask people to raise their hands.

The worship sessions often got out of hand, even for an evangelical church. The pastor once asked everyone to open their mouths and drink the Holy Spirit. I had regretfully brought friends to that service.

Worship has predominantly become the singing and dancing to music. But we are told:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”3

“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth.”4

‘But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”5

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”6

Worship is obeying God’s truth by honouring Him with our bodies, and thereby drawing near to Him with our hearts. It is not a performance of acts or sacrifices that we have been taught. Throughout the Bible people of course sing to God in worship, but it is always in tandem with this underlying obedience.

I often witnessed people acting insane under the ostensible influence of the Holy Spirit. Once at another church, we were all forced to run laps around the hall in worship to God. Imagine an inquisitive non-believer arrived on the scenes? I felt sorry for others running with me who thought that is what Christianity is. We are told to run with perseverance, but not in circles!

When encouraging this behaviour, which also includes hysterical laughing, fits, and rolling around on the floor, pastors substantiate it with King David’s words, when he said that he was willing to look foolish to celebrate the Lord.7 This happened after God led David’s army to defeat the mighty Philistines. David was celebrating a great victory surrounded by His fellow believers. Are these people at church celebrating the Lord? Are they surrounded by fellow believers? I think often not.

The pastor would invite the Holy Spirit to manifest Himself. He would then wait for something to happen. And eventually someone would start loudly singing or speaking in tongues. Anything to fill the silence.

We read of the Holy Spirit coming over crowds of people in the Word, but only when God drives it. When the pastor drives it, people feel uneasy. Is God’s Spirit a spirit of uneasiness? If it were truly Him, people would surely feel His joy or strength.

Someone once started a sermon by praying in tongues. No one knew what to do. Scripture says that tongues should always be interpreted, and if it can’t, then ‘the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.’8 We are also told that God is not a God of confusion or disorder.9

The pattern is clear now. There is a church practice with some or no grounding in scripture which is taken out of context and done incorrectly to entertain.

I never grasped the dubiousness of these practices at the time. What happened seemed fine under the guise of “the Holy Spirit is moving.” But if I had stopped and asked first order questions, I wouldn’t have been able to validate the acts.

Why are we doing this? Where is it in the Bible? How is this bringing me closer to God? Asking this would’ve made me realise that the church wasn’t exactly leading me closer to God.

These widely employed practices cause inquisitive observers to either build their faith on half-truths, or to run. It was often said that these practices were uncomfortable but at least they aren’t portraying a diluted Christianity.

I think of Jesus’ reluctance to perform His first miracle at Cana of Galilee.10 He was awaiting instruction from His Father. Christ never used miracles or spiritual practices to gain followers, impress people, or to prove something. His miracles brought glory to God. It is Christ’s teaching and character that has inspired His followers more than anything.

The sermons preached over my two and a half years there could be summarised on a page. They were aimed at non-believers, they were anecdotal and repetitive, and they seldom mentioned things like salvation, repentance, or wrestling with God - such ideas being indispensable for young restless minds.

We would always be subjected to a barrage of announcements, and it often took up to forty-five minutes for scripture to be read. The pastor once spent an entire sermon telling us about the plans for the church’s new venue.

Christian couples were once advised to utilise the “Christian pillow” when sleeping together. If not misleading, such as this, much of the content was simply irrelevant to a truth-thirsty audience. Superficial sermons are a waste of everyone’s time at best, and a spreader of lies at worst.

I don’t remember ever feeling spiritually challenged. We were always told what we wanted to hear. But we all know that truth often isn’t nice to hear. It’s not a money spinner or an ego tickler. It stings and challenges, but it then motivates. It heals, and healing is painful.

There has never been and there never will be a perfect church, but the closest mankind came was with Christ and His disciples. In that sacred circle, the focus was not entertainment. The disciples could walk out whenever. There was nothing forcing them to stay – in fact they had compelling reasons to go. Jesus endangered their lives and made them integrate with the lowest of society. But they had truth, and that’s why they stayed.

The next best example we have is the early church in Acts, and it could never be described as a place of entertainment. They didn’t care about drawing big crowds. They operated with very little. They were constantly on the run. But the truth of Christ was so present that they laid the very foundations of Christianity and changed the world forever.

Let us be content with a group of people meeting up to hear Jesus’ truth. Sometimes miraculous things happen, but not often, and that’s okay. We have an eternity of miracles to look forward to.

Different churches do things differently, and that’s good, as long as Christ and His Word are centre stage. It’s another story if a showman takes centre stage.

Churches must stand out as the one institution which doesn’t prioritise entertainment, but truth.

Perhaps there is no greater entertainment than truth.

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It cannot be denied that every human follows a religion. To believe in Jesus, nature, luck, money, sex, or nothing at all, are all religions, for religion is merely the belief in something – it is what we put our hope in. Everyone therefore worships something.

Someone’s religion reflects what they think the meaning of life is. This can be a conscious or subconscious belief. Someone whose religion is to believe in nothing obviously believes that there is no meaning in life.

Some of the leading subconscious religions today are consumerism, hedonism, and individualism. Followers of these ideologies of course believe in consuming, pleasure, and pride.

I recently read two books, one after the other, which could not be more different on every possible metric. The first was Hunter S. Thompon’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the second, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.

Fear and Loathing tells the story of a drug-addict journalist and his debauched attorney’s visit to Las Vegas in search of the American Dream. It can be summarised in a few words: alcohol, narcotics, women, police. The two men did not deny themselves any pleasure.

I wouldn’t be giving Thompson due credit if I didn’t name him as the father of hedonism and the brother of consumerism. The protagonist, Mr. Duke, says ‘Every now and then when life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas.’

Mr. Duke and his attorney, Dr Gonzo, believed that the meaning of life is to extract as much pleasure out of it as possible. But they were searching for the American Dream, for meaning, for purpose. And it is safe to say that they didn’t come close to finding it, because hedonism and consumerism never satisfy. They never rest. The dream cannot be found.

Everything drug addicts do is a challenge. The men were often ‘in the grip of a serious fear.’ Thompson quotes someone who said, ‘He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.’ Beasts are always running or hiding. What true meaning is there in being a beast?

Thompson encapsulates individualism when he says, ‘there was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.’ He speaks of shark ethics, which is the strong eating the weak in a world where its every man for himself.

And this is exactly what we are taught at liberal universities today, that we should live for ourselves: for our careers, for our money, for our pleasure, for our power. I am right and no one can tell me otherwise. But are we often right? Does pride lead to true fulfilment?

Man’s Search for Meaning is about Frankl’s experience in Auschwitz. Upon arriving at the concentration camp, absolutely everything they owned was taken away: their families, possessions, clothes, sense of worth, and hair. Frankl had his lifelong scientific research heartlessly destroyed before his eyes.

The only thing that could not be taken away from the prisoners was their free will - their choice to act in any way despite the shocking circumstances… ‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’

Frankl’s experience proves that humans can transcend their surroundings. Our spirits can transcend hopelessness. Our inner strength can rise above our fate. Our decisions outweigh our conditions. We are not automated machines.

He says, ‘The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action… he may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp… whoever was still alive had hope… after all we still had our bones intact.’

Frankl speaks of an old woman who knew she was about to die, and yet she was cheerful. She said death made her take spiritual accomplishments seriously. He knew a man who said, ‘I broke my neck, it didn’t break me.’

Frankl posits that ‘it is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.’ The harsh reality is that life became meaningless for those prisoners who didn’t see meaning in suffering. Meaning asks, “What can be done?” Many prisoners answered “Nothing.”

Experienced prisoners could predict with great accuracy whether a new prisoner would last. The survival variable was simple - it was purpose. Muscular men without purpose wouldn’t last long. But a man with a wife to go home to, with a scientific problem to solve, with a comrade to look after, with hopes of the war ending - he could survive anything.

… ‘Prisoners died less from a lack of food or lack of medicine that from lack of hope; of something to live for.’ Nietzsche famously said that if you have a why you can bear almost any how. Prisoners who lost a why were doomed.

But even when their dreams came true, many prisoner’s hopes were shattered… ‘Woe to him, who when the day of his dreams finally came, found it so different from all he had longed for.’ Woe to him who had fixed his hopes on someone who had died.

Frankl created logotherapy. This psychological technique treats patients by helping them find meaning in life, or their ‘primary motivational force.’ He says, ‘Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.’ Logotherapy ‘tries to make the patient aware of what he actually longs for in the depth of his being.’

He argues that human life never ceases to have meaning. And when asked what this meaning is, Frankl said, ‘I doubt whether a doctor can answer this question in general terms. For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day, and from hour to hour.’ I will return to this later, for it is where I disagree with the great man.

It is therefore clear that the current mental illness pandemic stems from a widespread dearth in meaning and purpose, which Frankl calls the existential vacuum. Meaninglessness leads to the commonalities of today: addiction, aggression, anxiety, boredom, depression, frustration, and the worship of money. These fill the gap where meaning should be.

Frankl says, ‘Mental health is based on a tension between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being… What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.’ The inner tension from searching for meaning is essential for good mental health.

The anxious and depressed must not be told that they are a result of biology, psychology, and sociology. Tell them that they can take a stand against such conditions… ‘Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.’ We are self-determining. We all have the freedom to change at any instant.

… ‘Once an individual’s search for a meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering.’

Frankl speaks about individualism and apathy being one of the deadliest mental states in the camps. Isn’t this so prevalent today. People are too concerned about achieving their own happiness, and the second they aren’t happy, the walls cave in. But Frankl points out that humans can’t directly pursue happiness. To attain happiness, we must pursue things that invoke it.

This is the psychological phenomenon where you cannot get the thing you are so fixated on. Focus on being happy the whole time, and you won’t. Focus on having a good first impression, and you won’t. Focus on falling asleep, and you won’t. But as soon as we forget about being happy, affable, or sleepy, they happen by themselves.

… ‘Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfil or another human being to encounter.’

As Christians we believe in one God, in one objective truth, and in one meaning to life which is to come to know this God. All of us have different purposes which stem from this meaning, but the one meaning remains at the centre.

The first thing that Christians quickly learn is that we do not know best. ‘There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.’1

God teaches us to trust and to be fully devoted to Him. ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’2 He knows that left to our own devices, we are chaos, we get lost, and we get hurt. We do not know the right way to go - how could we? We must put all of our hope in Him. The only thing that deserves our worship is our creator.

The second thing that Christians learn is that life is not about us. It is not about our pleasure, happiness, or our good deeds. We are told that ‘If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.’3 And ‘seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’4 We are taught to be humble. We are taught to think of others.

CS Lewis said, ‘Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.’

The most obvious thing we learn is that God wants us to be free from addiction, aggression, anxiety, boredom, depression, and frustration. He wants us to be free. The psychological state of the Christian should be God-like. This is because He has given us all the opportunity to take part in the one true meaning of life.

Frankl said that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire, and that the salvation of man is in love and through love. What greater purpose in life than a relationship with the creator of the universe, with Love Himself? Where we get to know Him, where we get to know ourselves, and where He equips us to go out and be a force for good in this fallen world.

With this purpose, there is quite literally no space for anxiety, depression, and boredom. Pursuing God and His purpose indeed brings everything good with it.

Frankl advises us to live as if this is the second time after we all failed miserably the first. Is this not the Christian principle of being reborn, of dropping our nets and following Christ? Let us follow Him this time, for we might not get another chance.

Woe to Christians who put their hopes in a God who stayed in the tomb. Woe to Christians who put their hopes in their own knowledge, strength, and wisdom.

But those who put their hopes in the resurrected King, and who daily lean on His knowledge, strength, wisdom, and purpose - they are unstoppable. Their hopes will not be put to shame.

How beautiful the world could be if we never forgot God’s meaning in all of our lives.

That dream can be found.

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Since time immemorial, a significant reason why people have rejected Christianity is because they think that God is absent, distant, and invisible. The average human accepts that there is a higher power, but struggles to accept that this power is personal. We are naturally agnostic. We are naturally wrong, too.

Christianity claims to be a set of facts - to be the truth. It isn’t an auspicious agreement that you make after God reveals Himself to you. The creator of all doesn’t try to prove Himself.

Where did we get the anthropocentric idea that God is obliged to reveal Himself to us? He didn’t tell us. On the contrary, the Bible makes His unseen nature perfectly clear.

God is often called invisible.1 ‘Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father2… You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form3 … God, who alone has immortality, whom no man has seen or can see4… No one has ever seen God.’5

And Job laments, ‘Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; Were He to move past me, I would not perceive Him.’6

Mankind has the false expectation that God should reveal Himself to us. But He is under no obligation to do so. How incredible is it that He still does.

We also have an expectation of the manner in which God should reveal Himself - something dramatic and supernatural. In the Old Testament, God met with people like this, and Jesus of course did too. There’s no reason to assume that He has stopped.

We all know people who say they have radically experienced God. There is a huge body of this anecdotal evidence. Perhaps even we have met Him and have forgotten or didn’t recognize Him. Madmen claim to encounter God, but it would take the maddest man of all to argue that only madmen encounter God.

The radical encounters with God in the Bible were the climaxes of epic stories. God met with the Israelites to save them after 430 years of slavery. Jesus healed the crippled man by the pool who had been there for 38 years.7 For someone with no relationship with God to expect the same is like walking into a packed theatre expecting the orchestra to immediately play the final cadenza.

These supernatural encounters are of course the exception. God is always waiting to meet with us through the beauty of nature, people, art, and everything else. He is there in the love we have for our friends, in that unknown feeling of longing.

He is there in the everyday miracles; that birds sing, that grass is green, and that clouds float. ‘For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.’8

The book of Elijah teaches us to listen for the ‘gentle whisper’ of God.9 His voice was not in the earthquake nor the fire. How often are we not listening for that whisper, but rather for a roar.

It is mysterious that the creator of the universe would whisper to His subjects. And this is what we forget, that God is enigmatic. His thoughts and ways are different to ours.10

There is no greater adventure than a relationship with this invisible God, for we will never understand Him fully. It takes faith to follow something invisible… ‘Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.’11

It is mysterious when Jesus says, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’12 And that God hides great mysteries from the wise but reveals them to little children.13 Only the humble, joyful, loving, and those with wonder will see God. The arrogant and lofty will not.

Perhaps the greatest error that humans make is to assume that if they saw God, they would believe in Him. The Israelites saw God part the sea and rain down bread from the sky, but they still ultimately rejected Him. Pharoah saw the ten plagues, yet his heart was hardened against God. Judas saw Christ perform many miracles, and He betrayed Him to death. The psalmist says, ‘In spite of his wonders, they did not believe.’14

The Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign from heaven. Many people ask God for a sign. Jesus replies to them, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.’15

The Pharisees’ mindset was sceptical. They wanted Jesus to prove Himself. And our mindset is often the same. Perhaps if we changed our minds - if we changed our hearts - Jesus would change His appearance.

Many people have of course come to Jesus by seeing Him. And yet Christ says, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.’16 I think most people fall into this latter category, and we are blessed.

All this talk of seeing God forgets that He ‘dwells in unapproachable light’17, and that He can be terrifying and dreadful.18 People in the Bible died from just seeing Him. God says, ‘You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!’19 We should not jump into the furnace to get warm…

Till We Have Faces is CS Lewis’ final novel, where he explores the invisible nature of God by retelling the tale of Cupid and Psyche. It was considered by Lewis and JRR Tolkien to be his best piece of work.

(I am about to wildly summarize and undersell this true masterpiece, so I therefore urge you to read it yourself).

The protagonist of the story, Orual (Psyche’s older sister), accuses the Gods of being blind, deaf, and indifferent to human pain. She says, ‘If they had an honest intention to guide us, why is their guidance not plain?’ She longs to know what the God’s expect of us… ‘They would give no clear sign, though I begged for it.’

Orual wants the Gods to face mankind honestly and tell us what to do… ‘What sort of God would he be who dares not show his face?’ She wonders if they know what it feels like to be human.

Orual says, ‘The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing – to reach the mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from.’

At the end of the novel, God reveals Himself a second time to Orual after many years. And by then, ‘the voice of God had not changed in all those years, but I had.’

God reveals Himself, and thus shows her where the beauty comes from. In pursuing God, she had changed. She is silenced by joy.

And He was indeed right with Orual all along. He can clearly be seen even in His invisibility. Moses saw Him who is unseen.20 We see Him when we love others. We see Him in ourselves when we are pursuing Him. Why should ‘our hearts not dance’ to know that He never leaves us?

God often doesn’t answer us or reveal Himself to us because we don’t know what it is we are asking. How can He face us when we do not have faces?

‘I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You yourself are the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?’

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The protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The idiot, is his portrayal of the perfect Christian - of the positively good and completely beautiful human being. This man, prince Myshkin, represents true Christian love in contrast to Russian society and the world at large.

Dostoevsky wrote the novel in 1867, having fled Russia to escape his creditors. He was living with his new wife Anna in extreme poverty, largely because of his alcohol and gambling affiliations.1 Financial circumstances were so dire that Anna apparently pawned her underwear.2 Dostoevsky knew well what perfection does not look like.

The Idiot tells the story of the prince’s life when he travels to Russia over his 27^th birthday. It maps how the prince responds to the world, and how the world responds to him.

The novel piqued my interest because I heard that it is about a perfect Christian, yet he is called an idiot. Is this not one of our greatest fears, to realize that all I have been striving for turns out to be in vain, or worse, to my detriment? To realize that I am far from the party. If I do the absolute best in my mind, am I just an idiot?

I initially had a page of adjectives to describe the prince’s character. It is easier to rather say this: the prince possessed all the obvious Christian virtues that come to mind. A friend of his says, ‘Prince, you are the ideal of nobility! What are other men beside you?’ The less obvious Christian virtues that he possessed are, however, worth focusing on.

The prince laughs easily. He says, ‘you can still laugh like a child, you know?’ On many occasions he was ready to laugh at anything. And what comes with this is his ability to have a ‘rollicking good time’, to be ‘drunk with happiness’, to be garrulous, and perhaps often a little too calm. Others say, ‘He was so happy that one could not help feeling happy looking at him.’ And he says, ‘what do my grief and my troubles matter, if I have the power to be happy? … Every blade of grass grows and is happy!’

The prince is childlike. He is drawn to the company of children, and in his troubles, his help is to remember his childhood. He says, ‘it is through children that the soul is cured.’ Being with children, he forgot all about his hardships.

He is never afraid.

The prince has an extraordinary craving for solitude. He desires to run away and to be alone, but he knows not where. His place is not in society. ‘What banquet was it, what grand everlasting festival, to which he had long felt drawn, always – ever since he was a child, and which he could never join?’ He is aloof. No one knows what he’s after. He’s not all there. He doesn’t belong.

The prince is a deep thinker. ‘A great thought, as great as the universe, dwells in his eyes, his face is sad.’ He has never been able to cope with the cravings of his heart. He longs to find his motherland.

He is self-effacing, unselfconscious, and he doesn’t take offence. He’s not so simple as people make him out to be. Someone describes him as the cleverest man in the world. People want to be friends with him.

And yet in spite of these admirable qualities, the prince is an idiot. He is described as clumsy, ridiculous, strange, inexperienced, and simple. He gets cheated by most characters in the book… ‘anyone who wished could deceive him, and that whoever deceived him, he would forgive afterwards, and that is why I fell in love with him.’ The prince’s closest friend steals his bride on the wedding day. Many of his friends end up turning against him.

But he doesn’t mind being called an idiot. He doesn’t mind being cheated.

Dostoevsky communicates many of his philosophical ideas in the novel. The prince thinks that beauty will save the world. I understand this as the beauty of a family eating dinner together, of two lovers walking by a river, of a long-awaited sunrise, will save the world. In a deeper sense, the beauty of Christ’s character and truth has already saved the world.

In one scene, the prince sees a painting of Hans Holbein’s. It shows Jesus’ body in the tomb.

There is no trace of beauty. The prince says that looking at it could make one lose their faith. ‘How could they have possibly believed that that martyr would rise again? … I mustn’t be too quick to condemn a man who has sold his Christ.’ Another character, who represents atheism and nihilism, posits that the painting represents the triumph of a blind natural force over everything, including the perfect and beautiful.

Christ’s eyes and mouth remain open. No one bothered to close them. Perhaps this is Holbein’s message to us that Jesus still speaks and sees through death.3 Perhaps he was emphasizing the brutality and finality of a crucifixion.

Dostoevsky saw this painting in 1867, and Anna had to drag him away from it.4 He saw in it the fortitude that Christians must have in facing the realities of nature and death - in facing real challenges to our faith.

The novel’s melancholic themes are trumped by optimism and hope. At one point, a character suffering from a fatal illness exclaims, ‘whose fault is it that they are unhappy and do not know how to live, though they have sixty years of life ahead of them? … He is alive, so everything’s in his power! Whose fault is it if he doesn’t understand that? … I cling to life, and I wanted to live come what may.’

Like many today, Dostoevsky thought that people have ‘grown flabby.’ What would he say now! The prince says, ‘show me an idea that binds mankind together today with half the strength that it had in those centuries.’ His advice to us is to focus more on less ideas, instead of loosely following many ideas. The prince focused on one idea, and that was Jesus.

Reflecting on the prince’s character, I conclude that while he appeared to be an idiot, he wasn’t one in reality. The Biblical heroes often appeared idiotic. Moses in front of the Red Sea, Daniel in the lion’s den, David in front of Goliath, and lest I say, Jesus on the cross.

But they were by no means idiots. The fact that people saw Jesus as an idiot says nothing about Him, but only about them. Perfection, Holiness, Humility, and Greatness might well be called idiotic by imperfection, sin, arrogance, and smallness.

Christ calls us to be as wise as serpents.5 He doesn’t call us to be idiots. But we are told that we will be persecuted if we live a Godly life in Jesus Christ.6 Christ was born in a stable. He grew up in a farming village. He was rejected by His own people. He was cheated to death by His best friend. He died alongside criminals.

But Jesus lived the perfect life. He was ‘one with God.’7 He is the most influential person and the greatest ‘thinker’ to ever live, despite what people thought of Him. Jesus’ life shows Christians that we will appear to be idiots, and we will suffer for His name. But that is very different from being idiots.

Either Jesus was the Messiah, or He was a madman. He could never have been just a spiritual teacher, because what spiritual teacher would proclaim to be God?

Christ’s life reveals the paradox of Messiah appearing as madman, of ultimate wisdom appearing as idiocy, of ultimate surrender appearing as weakness, and of ultimate life leading to death.

We acknowledge the inevitability of death. We acknowledge that Jesus was, in the realest sense of the word, dead. But that was all that this blind force could do to Him. God took death’s most powerful weapon and turned it into the greatest force for good on record. Jesus is, in the realest sense of the word, alive.

Indeed, beauty will save the world. It already has. And we all have a main part to play in this beauty: ‘my worthless life, the life of an atom, may simply have been needed for the completion of some universal harmony…’

We are all personally invited to the grand everlasting festival. Jesus has welcomed us to our motherland, and it is in His presence.

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The topic of moral perfection often came up in our men’s Bible study - probably because we were all hopelessly far from it. The room would always be divided between those who thought it impossible, those who thought they had attained it, and those who were very comfortable well short of it.

The public opinion on perfection seems to be that it is the enemy of good, or to quote the trite saying, that excellence is as far as we will get in the pursuit of perfection. Another widespread belief is that goodness and perfection are whatever we want them to be. Jesus unsurprisingly had other ideas.

In history’s most famous speech, Christ said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”1 The Hebrew word for perfect is Tamim, which means blameless, whole, complete, sound, and healthful.

The bar has been set unbelievably high. We must aim for perfection and nothing less. And we have no excuses, because our Captain has been to the other side. Jesus became a lowly man and lived a blameless life to show us that it is possible.

The Bible unfortunately has lots to say on perfection, or the lack thereof. Noah and Job were described as perfect. This surprisingly indicates that Biblical perfection doesn’t mean flawlessness, because we all know that Noah holds the title of the first man to get drunk. The meaning is closer to devotion, loyalty, and obedience to God.

God commanded the Israelites to be blameless,2 but this was accompanied with the command to not emulate the detestable practices of other nations.3 Throughout the Old Testament, the word perfect is used to describe those who undividedly worshipped and obeyed God.4

In the New Testament, things don’t get any easier for us. The authors never hesitate to remind us how far we are from perfection, but in the same breath encouragement is always given.

If we want to be perfect, we must sell our possessions and give to the poor.5 We become perfect by purifying ourselves of things that contaminate us, out of reverence for God.6 Anyone who keeps their tongue in check is perfect.7 Loving one another covers many sins.8 Jesus was made perfect through what He suffered.9 And we are mysteriously told that through Jesus’ crucifixion, we have already been made perfect.10

In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis takes a swing at this topic. He says that the main thing we learn from a serious attempt to practice the Christian virtues is that we fail. But this should then lead to an honest place where we admit that we can’t live a righteous life without Jesus’ help…

“We have not got to try to climb up into spiritual life by our own efforts: it has already come down into the human race… The son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God… The man in Christ rose again: not only the God.” Jesus will indeed help us if we ask Him, and if we truly desire to be helped. He has already helped us more than we could ever imagine.

On this journey of trying to “be perfect”, as Christ casually puts it, the obvious pitfall is imperfection. But the less obvious pitfall is an obsession with perfection. Dostoevsky speaks about a satanic pride that comes from incessant rule following. Christianity is a relationship and not the general ledger. It is more about boxing than box-ticking.

Lewis says that God cares more about what we are than about what we do. He wants you to be a certain kind of creature - a new kind of person. God cares more about the heart posture behind our actions than blind obedience. He wants us to follow His Holy Spirit rather than a list of rules.

We must be striving to live righteously in a less conscientious and worried way. Lewis says, “Christianity starts off as rule following and it leads to a new world.” He says that we were made for more than mere morality, and that “we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing God means to make of us.” Lest we forget Psalm 82:6: “I said, ‘You are gods’; you are all sons of the Most High.”

GK Chesterton also took a jab at the topic. He said, “the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.” A man is not free if he can do whatever he likes and go wherever he wants. That man is lost. A truly free man is told where to go, and there he finds freedom.

Chesterton refers to Christianity as a dance or a romance, and Lewis says that it is more like painting a portrait than obeying a set of rules. And another time he refers to Christianity as a fighting religion. This reminds me of Jacob fighting the angel, where our relationship with God is accurately compared with wrestling.11

Perfection is doing the best we know. “Simply put, if disciples are earnestly doing their best to live the gospel of Jesus Christ—including repenting as often as they need to—they are perfect.”12

Let us never forget that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”13 We must be vehemently against sin, but simultaneously quick to get back on the horse when we fall. If we stay down after we fall, we put ourselves above Jesus’ sacrifice.

I often think that sin will impact me negatively somewhere far down the line. But the reality is, based on our decisions at each moment, life is either becoming more like heaven or hell. Obedience and disobedience lead to instant realities. My last Lewis quote: “Virtue – even attempted virtue – brings light; indulgence brings fog.”

Following the Christian morals shouldn’t be constant drudgery and labour, because Jesus tells us that his yoke is easy and His burden is light.14 The real difficulty with living a righteous life is surrender. When we are fully surrendered to Christ’s will, obeying Him is easy and light. But if we are constantly straddling the line between surrender and rebellion, son and wanderer, His will becomes hard and heavy. It becomes unbearable.

A great practice is to question the Christian morals. We must ask God why he doesn’t want us to get drunk, or to lust, or to covet the possessions of others. When we question the morals and test the boundaries, we see that His ways do in fact lead to life itself, to freedom itself, and to love itself, and that our ways do not.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”15

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Upon starting Fyodor Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, The Idiot, I have been reminded of his great insight into the human soul and his unmatched ability to show Jesus’ truth through rich rhetoric. At one stage in the novel, the protagonist, prince Myshkin, tells a story to a group of hard-to-please women. The story came from Dostoevsky’s own life.

In 1849, Dostoevsky was sentenced to death by Tsar Nicholas I for being a part of the Petrashevsky Circle. This was a Russian literary group of progressive intellectuals who were dissidents of the tsarist autocracy.

Dostoevsky and co were staring down the firing squad, bagged and tied, when at the last minute, a messenger interrupted the proceedings with a letter reprieving the prisoners. It turned out that the entire execution was staged as a form of psychological torture.

Dostoevsky then wrote to his brother… “I am being reborn in another form… when I turn back to look at the past, I think of how much time has been wasted, how much of it lost in misdirected efforts, mistakes, and idleness, in living the wrong way; and, however I treasured life, how much I sinned against my heart and spirit—my heart bleeds now as I think of it. Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute could be an eternity of bliss.”

In The Idiot, prince Myshkin tells the story… ‘He was dying at twenty-seven, a strong and healthy man; taking leave of his comrades, he remembered asking one of them quite an irrelevant question and being very interested indeed in his answer. Then, after he had bidden farewell to his comrades, came the two minutes he had set aside for thinking of himself; he knew beforehand what he would think about: he just wanted to imagine, as vividly and as quickly as possible, how it could be that now, at this moment, he was there and alive and in three minutes he would merely be something – someone or something – but what?’

‘All that he thought he would be able to decide in those two minutes! There was a church not far off, its gilt roof shining in the bright sunshine. He remembered staring with awful intensity at that roof and the sunbeams flashing from it; he could not tear his eyes off those rays of light: those rays seemed to him to be his new nature, and he felt that in three minutes he would somehow merge with them…’

‘The uncertainty and the feeling of disgust with that new thing which was bound to come any minute were dreadful; but he said that the thing that was most unbearable to him at the time was the constant thought, “What if I had not had to die! What if I could return to life – oh, what an eternity! And all that would be mine! I should turn every minute into an age, I should lose nothing, I should count every moment separately and waste none!” He said that this reflection finally filled him with such bitterness that he prayed to be shot as quickly as possible.’

Once the prince finished telling the story, one of the women, Alexandra, then asks him, ‘All this is very laudable, but tell me what about that friend of yours who told you all those terrible things – his sentence was altered, wasn’t it? – which means that he was granted that “eternity of life.” Well, what did he do with that wealth afterwards? Did he count every minute separately?’

The prince replies, ‘Oh, no, he told me himself – I asked him about it – he didn’t live like that at all, and he wasted many, many minutes.’ Alexandra then says, ‘Well, let that be a lesson to you. It seems it’s impossible actually to live “counting every minute separately.” Whatever the reason is, it’s impossible.’ ‘Yes, whatever the reason, it’s impossible,’ the prince repeated. ‘I thought so myself. And yet I somehow can’t believe it…’

Alexandra is correct in saying that it is impossible to live counting every minute separately. We have no chance of truly living life to the fullest. Our feeble efforts will never last more than a few days. We all have graveyards of abandoned dreams and buried inspiration. It is a paradox to suggest that an execution can bring one closer to life, because executions end life.

But there was a man who survived an execution. There was a man who did live counting every minute separately - He wasted none. He turned every minute into an age. He saw life as a gift, as happiness, and He saw each minute as an eternity of bliss. And because Jesus lived like this, with His help, we can too.

At the heart of Christianity is this very paradox. Christ said, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it”1 and “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”2 This is the Biblical theme that we must die before we live. We must die to sin, to our own desires, and to mediocre lives, before we truly live.

GK Chesterton, the Prince of Paradox, said “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave.”3

Let us give thanks to Jesus because through surviving an execution, He has granted us an eternity of life which can start right now. He was executed so that we could survive the execution which we deserved. We must therefore live like one who has survived an execution.

In the book of Job, the young man Elihu says, “I sinned, and perverted what was right, but I did not get what I deserved. He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I shall live to enjoy the light. God does all these things to a man - twice, even three times - to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him.”4

Luckily for us, we do not have to go through the trauma of a fake execution to have a greater appreciation of life. Let us take Dostoevsky’s word, and truly appreciate this great life that we all have the ability to live fully. Let us take Jesus’ word, and lose our lives pursuing, serving, and loving Him, for that is where we will truly live counting every minute separately.

That is where we may merge with the light.

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To anyone questioning Christianity or needing more inspiration and clarity in their faith, I would highly recommend the renowned Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. Even if you’re on top of the world, I encourage you to read it. Lewis writes about our faith in such a way that makes it seem too good to be true. He portrays Christianity as an adventure – as a dance. I feel like doing something outrageous after reading a chapter.

In the book, Lewis explores an idea which speaks to people who are feeling unmotivated in their relationships. He says, “The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

And the same is true with God. “Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.”

This idea is inherently human. Mothers speak to their babies as if they understand, and then the babies one day do understand. Humans treat their pets as equals, and then the dog eventually becomes like a son. Children pretend to be adults and then grow up.

Lewis then gives us a harsh perspective… “God sees before Him in fact a self-centred, greedy, grumbling, rebellious human animal. But He says, ‘Let us pretend that this is not a mere creature, but our Son. It is like Christ in so far as it is a Man, for He became Man. Let us pretend that it is also like Him in Spirit. Let us treat it as if it were what in fact it is not. Let us pretend in order to make the pretence into a reality…’ God looks at you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you into one.”

This idea of being like Christ is another great theme from the book. Lewis says, “He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has – by what I call ‘good infection.’ Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.” But how often would we get this answer if we asked Christians what the whole purpose of Christianity is?

This powerful simplification of Christianity makes one think what it looks like to be a little Christ. The beauty of Jesus’ character and truth is that we all know what it looks like. We know how we need to act. But I still find myself failing to fully appreciate what Christ did with what He had in the era in which He lived.

Jesus didn’t write a blog. He didn’t post scripture on social media. And He definitely didn’t organise fundraisers. While these deeds of course have their contemporary place, I will often view things like these as the extent of loving our neighbours, of being like Christ, and in the process negate what Jesus focused on.

There is a strong element of serendipity and spontaneity in Christ’s ministry. Jesus loved the people that He encountered. He went to the well and loved the woman who was there. He went to the fountain and healed the man who was there. These aren’t contrived situations. Jesus knew that God had brought these people into His presence for a reason: they needed to be loved.

And God will do the same with us. The man in the elevator, the woman in the aisle, and yes, the Uber driver who won’t keep quiet about his girlfriends - Jesus would engage with all of these people. So must we. He will help us.

And when we don’t feel like it, why not pretend? We are fickle beings. If you only spoke to the beggar when you felt like it, that window would stay up. If you only prayed when you felt like it, those hands would stay down. And this is where Lewis’ brilliant definition of faith comes in.

Faith is not believing in Christ in the face of contrary evidence. It is not looking up at God and saying, “There are no good reasons to believe in you, but I am so full of faith that I will.” That is lunacy.

Faith is believing in Christ when life changes and gets hard, based on how you once felt, thought, and acted when times were better. Lewis says, “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods and circumstances. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes.”

After all, let us never forget that Christian love is more about doing than feeling. “Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will… He will give us feelings of love if He pleases… But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not.”

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A sure way for a father to incite excitement in his children is to say to them, “I have something to show you…” It is the same with our Heavenly Father.

There was only one political party who voted against the 1996 South African Constitution. It was the African Christian Democratic Party. They did this because the Constitution is placed above the Bible as the highest law in the land. God’s 2000-year-old word is subjugated by a nascent manmade document. In addition, the Constitution does not provide sufficient safeguards to protect the family as the cornerstone of society, and so the ACDP could not support it.1

Learning about this history inspired me to start doing volunteer work at the ACDP this year. After reading manifestos, it became starkly clear that this is the only party who actively defends and promotes Christian values. God showed me something exciting.

Our ACDP team’s first task, acting under the member of parliament Marie Sukers, was spreading awareness of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill which is currently being drafted. It has many contentious points, such as casually expressing that alcohol should be sold at schools. But the ACDP stands alone as the only party opposing clauses which seek to enforce radical ideologies at South African schools.

In order for this bill to become law, it has to go through public hearings. It was my job to contact churches and encourage them to attend these hearings, so that Godly voices could be heard.

Most people don’t know about this bill - I certainly didn’t, and I likely wouldn’t have if I didn’t join a political party. This is of course because people are generally averse to politics. And after speaking with the churches, it was clear that they too are not interested in political matters, and their congregants are therefore uninformed. Furthermore, I noticed that there is no political alignment between churches.

Yet it is true to say that for the last many decades, great good or great evil has prevailed on the political battlefield. Many Christians don’t like to hear that. And I think it is because we are so comfortable in our holy bubbles. I read the Bible, go to church, do some serving at the soup kitchen, and that’s me being a Christian. But what real good does this do when much greater evils are afoot? It is like a soldier fussing about the flies on his food when he is surrounded by the enemy.

We largely live oblivious to the evils at work in the world, and as a result, we live oblivious to the huge amount of Godly fighting that needs to be done. And so, we miss out on the adventure and excitement of real-world Christianity.

I used to think that voting for the ACDP is futile because it is a minor party with only four members of parliament. But after learning about South Africa’s proportional representation voting system, I have realised that this view is flawed. No votes are wasted because every vote goes to getting a man or woman a seat in parliament, and one more Christian mind at work in the National Assembly is indeed a force for good. Every vote counts, as they say.

I therefore encourage you to seriously consider voting for the ACDP. They are truly the only party who represent Christian values. But more than this, I encourage Christians to at least enter the political battlefield. Jesus tells us to be as shrewd as snakes as He sends us out into a world of wolves.2 In our current context, the most voracious wolves are surely politicians, and so Christians are compelled to equip themselves politically.

It was once a ground rule among my beer drinking friend group that we mustn’t speak of religion, money, or politics. I have come to see that if this was all we spoke of it would’ve indeed been a force for good, as well as a source of worthwhile conversation.

Jordan Peterson has got me thinking about this idea of being a force for good. The greatest tool for Christians to be a force for good is prayer, and the need for prayer has never been so dire. But what difference will it make if we are praying for our own inane problems when true evil is at work? How can we know what to pray for and how can we know what to fight against if we don’t know who the enemy is or where the battlefield is? We can’t. We need to be an informed people. And today, that means being politically informed.

God is saying to each of us, “I have something to show you.” Don’t ignore the call, for He is leading you where you are most needed. Woe to those who thought they were fighting and serving when in reality they were hiding.

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I started studying law this year, and on many occasions, I have felt like one walking through a familiar wood.

We learnt about horizontal legal relationships between person and person, and vertical relationships between person and state. But we have always known about loving our neighbour and looking up to God.

We learnt about the separation of powers between the executive, legislature, and judiciary which together make a government, but we have always been perplexed by the separate yet one Holy Triune.

We learnt about the Rule of Law and the accountability between the president and parliament. But the Apostle Paul once said, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”1

We learnt about Constitutional supremacy which places the Constitution as the first and last law in the land, but we have always known about God’s supreme word given to us in the Bible. And it is at this exact place, just where man’s law and God’s law seem so similar, that they could not be more different.

As a loyal legal student, I would be slow to diminish the force for good that the courts are. Yet it is starkly clear to any reasonable person that our law is not perfect. After thousands of years of developing, our law is incomplete, biased, and unjust. It is labyrinthine, expansive, and ever-changing.

How easy would it be for me to now proclaim the perfection of God’s law. Indeed, it would be easy. But easy claims must be made when they are true. And how true is it to say that when we read of Christ in the Bible, we are reading of perfection.

Let us rejoice that we don’t have to agonize over what is just and true because God has already shown us in His perfect law. “Just and true are your ways, king of the ages.”2 “… a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth…”3

Let us rejoice that God is the only true judge and adjudicator. “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy…”4

Perhaps the greatest reason to rejoice is that God has promised to inscribe his truths on the front of our hearts. “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”5

A brilliant legal scholar will have the Constitution in his hand, but a man of God is free, for his constitution is in his heart.

The Apostle Paul speaks of a letter of Christ written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, and not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart.6

God’s law shouldn’t be seen as a law. It is a letter to be opened written in strange handwriting. And this letter is easy to understand:

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbour as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”7

Many of law’s forefathers were devout Christians, such as the great Hugo Grotius. He is arguably the most influential thinker on private law ever. Grotius famously said, “By understanding many things, I have accomplished nothing.”

Let us rejoice that we don’t have to toil all of our days to understand what is just, true, and good, because God has shown us. Let us rejoice that we don’t have to search for what love, justice, and victory is, for Christ showed all mankind on the cross.

I end with a beautiful description of God’s law from a man who knew Him well, David.

“The law of the Lord is perfect,
    refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
⁸ The precepts of the Lord are right,
    giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
    giving light to the eyes.
⁹ The fear of the Lord is pure,
    enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm,
    and all of them are righteous.

¹⁰ They are more precious than gold,
    than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
    than honey from the honeycomb.
¹¹ By them your servant is warned;
    in keeping them there is great reward.
¹² But who can discern their own errors?
    Forgive my hidden faults.
¹³ Keep your servant also from willful sins;
    may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
    innocent of great transgression.

¹⁴ May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
    be pleasing in your sight,
    Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”8

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In this age of distraction, humans have never had to fight so much to maintain relationships, especially our relationship with God.

“This prayer isn’t being answered… I’m not seeing breakthrough here… God is feeling distant… why did this happen?” Many of these common issues would evaporate if we spent more time in prayer.

But we know this. It is a platitude, yet it somehow doesn’t translate into action. We tolerate a superficial relationship with Him, and so, nothing changes.

Mankind once had an enthralling relationship with God in the Garden of Eden, but we have since been distracted. Jesus was deliberate about not being distracted.

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”1

“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”2

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”3

On a daily basis, Jesus went into the bush to be alone with God. Not in his room. Not just outside while the disciples remained talking inside. He withdrew to lonely places and prayed for a long time. And it was there that the unbreakable friendship with his Father was forged.

I find that this deepest intimacy is found away from the crowds, phones, work, traffic, and flat mates. We go to the beginning of time when we are alone with God in the bush. We go to how things used to be.

The beginnings of everything great was God and man alone in the wilderness. Adam in Eden. Moses and the burning bush. Jesus in Gethsemane. Mary in the garden just before she embraced the resurrected Christ.

I have started emulating this practice by walking and praying in a nearby forest. I get everything on the table. I can honestly say that there hasn’t been a routine which is more beneficial to my faith, and life generally.

I see other people walking and wonder where they go to receive guidance, encouragement, and joy. I see them listening to music and wonder what comfort it gives them.

I see children at play lost in their imaginations, and I realise that they aren’t dissimilar to someone deep in prayer. Both are walking and speaking. Both are dreaming and longing. Both are at play.

No one had to teach us this practice. We were doing it before we could read. And I often find this, that many of the essential practices of the Christian life are inherently human. We don’t need to embark on a deep exegesis of scripture or to consult the clergy about how to improve things with the Big Man. He made us to be in a relationship with Him. It should be second nature. It is what we have always known.

Let us go back to how it was in the Garden of Eden when we were with God in every way. Let us relive the days in our own gardens when we spoke out loud, and dreamed. When we were one with God, even though we didn’t know it.

"'Return to Me', declares the Lord of hosts, 'that I may return to you...'"4

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."5

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The website’s founding principles:

• Acceptance of scientific discoveries about our universe and earth.

• Acceptance of our Universe and Earth being billions of years old, not thousands.

• Acceptance of evolutionary processes in nature.

• Acceptance of the Bible as our ultimate authority in matters of faith and doctrine.

• Acceptance of creation as another ‘Voice of God’ speaking to our generation.

Mike has written on a broad range of topics from free will to miracles to the resurrection account of Jesus. He recently published a book which critiques Richard Dawkins’ theory of the selfish gene → “Selfish Genes in ICU? New proposals emerging from a ‘melting pot’ of discoveries.” Check it out on Amazon and Kindle.

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Returning home after a long time and realizing that nothing has changed is a great comfort. That room still smells like that. That bird still calls in the evenings. That second stair still creeks.

Seeing an old friend after a long time and realizing that they haven’t changed is a great comfort. He still laughs at that story. He still wears those ridiculous pants. He’s still an idiot.

Returning to a movie or book that you once loved only to now see its stark shortcomings and insipidity is certainly uncomfortable. The book has changed.

The greatest comfort is that God has never changed. An afflicted man pours out his lament before the Lord: “But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”1 The author of Hebrews says, “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.”2

Jesus calls us to take uncertain and treacherous paths that ultimately lead to greater places. He calls us out onto the water, as He did to Peter. He inspires us to pray about bigger things. He teaches us to trust Him.

And on the beginning of this path, we are strong because our legs are fresh and the inspiration is still ringing. But then time goes on. Things don’t go the way we expect. Maybe tragedy strikes. We start to question Him and lose faith. We abandon ship.

But what has changed?

God is still God. He is still Love.3 His promises are still His promises. Upon closer inspection, it appears that nothing has changed.

While sailing for Rome, Paul and 275 other men were caught in a storm that lasted fourteen days. Luke writes, “When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.”4

Paul tells the men, “I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.”5

On the fourteenth night, the storm starts driving the boat into a rocky island, so they “dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight.”6 In an attempt to escape, the men then lower the only lifeboat down into the sea. But Paul is having none of it:

“‘Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.’ So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it fall away.”7

After encouraging the men to eat, Paul reminds them that “not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.”8 Luke continues: “When daylight came, they did not recognise the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach…”9 Every one of them reached land alive.

God told Paul that none of them would die. This claim is too good to be true. It therefore takes Paul great faith to believe it; especially because the storm did not cease after he heard the promise. The same is often true with us.

The storm clearly tests our faith, but so do other more inconspicuous things, like reason. We are all going to drown after being dashed to pieces on the rocks, so we better get away on the lifeboat. But Paul, still believing what God said, tells the sailors to cut the lifeboat away. Not to hoist it back up, but to drop it into the raging water.

Paul cuts off any back-up plans and safety nets to show God that he fully trusts Him. And for this reason, none of them died. I posit that if Paul let them use the lifeboat, if he did what seemed reasonable, none of them would’ve survived.

This story shows that trusting God leads to life. It shows that the storms don’t change God or His promises.

He is the same God who parted the Red Sea and who sustained Jesus in the wilderness and on the cross. God hasn’t changed since He made that promise to Paul and the 275 men. And He hasn’t changed since he made those promises to you.

I recently heard someone say that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but surety. To be uncertain yet heading into the arms of the Father is the best place we can be.

The daylight will come, and with it the sandy beach. Don’t be surprised if at first you don’t recognize it.

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“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”1

On our daily journey of trying to walk like Jesus, it is encouraging and enlightening to look into the lives of those who were great imitators of Him. One such man was St Francis of Assisi whom I recently read about in GK Chesterton’s biography of the same name.2

Chesterton’s portrayal of St Francis’ life provides a lucid example of what it practically looks like to imitate Christ.

St Francis loved humans and not humanity. He loved Christ and not Christianity. He had an “abstract ardour for human beings” and “he especially liked those whom everyone disliked him for liking.” “For he treated the whole mob of men as a mob of kings.” He had an “unearthly love.”

The Assisiani was “carelessly hospitable” … “he was above all things a great giver.” Chesterton names St Francis’ home “the home of the homeless.” And he speaks of him displaying the best kind of giving which is called thanksgiving.

St Francis was emphatically “a man of action” flowing with spontaneity and audacity. “His life was one riot of rash vows; of rash vows that turned out right” … “a certain precipitancy was the very poise of his soul.”

After his father disowns him, his plan to rebuild a church miserably fails, and he loses all his possessions, St Francis is believed to have strolled into a nearby forest and “burst suddenly into song.”

The Italian was led by faith. He took “leaps in the dark.” He was “free from the world” and “as free as the wind; he was almost wildly free…”

He had an undying childlike wonder. St Francis looked at the world as if it were just created. He was “curiously young and clean.” “He was always going home.”

Chesterton repeatedly praises St Francis’ manners - his “impetuous politeness.” St Francis thought of equality as “camaraderie actually founded on courtesy.” “He acted out of an unconscious largeness.” He was a vivacious man and he “never knew the nature of scorn.”

A fascinating trait of St Francis was his spiritual blindness or his “brilliant blindness.” He didn’t see his own virtue. There was “something to which he was blind that he might see better and more beautiful things.”

St Francis was enigmatic, unusual, and a “challenge to the modern world.” “He had made a fool of himself” … “there was not a rag of him left that was not ridiculous.” He threw “a new supernatural light on natural things.” St Francis was “going his own way and doing what nobody else would have done.”

He was “a furnace of glowing gratitude and humility.” Chesterton speaks about a great discovery of “an infinite dept.” “The whole world is hanging on a hair of the mercy of God” … “For there is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset.”

St Francis was content. He was “intensely individual and simple” and “a man satisfied with small things.” He had a “passion for simplicity.”

He was patient. We often think that there’s something great we have to do, but sometimes the best thing we can do is nothing. St Francis often had “nothing to do but wait for what should happen next.”

He was self-controlled. His “self-denial was not merely in the sense of self-control.” “He devoured fasting as a man devoured food.”

St Francis was a man of reason.

He was a “soldier and a saint.”

St Francis was “huge and happy.” He walked through the forest, “and behind him was the break of day.” When he lay down and died, “the stars looked down upon a happy man.”

Perhaps St Francis of Assisi’s greatest quality was that he was human. “It is only when we look at him as an ordinary young man, that we realise what an extraordinary young man he must be.” And he displayed the great paradox of being human: “His limitations made him larger.”

One of Chesterton’s main themes throughout his works is the romance of religion. He says, “there is a direct divine relation more glorious than any romance.” And when speaking of the secular world: “They will not believe that a heavenly love can be as real as an earthly love.”

Why do we struggle so much today to be like Christ? Why do we battle to be close to Him? It’s because we don’t view Him as a partner in a relationship, let alone a partner in a romance. A love affair is greater than any theories of God.

How did St Francis act the way he did and remain so close to Jesus?

“He will do these things when he is in love.”

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“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.”1

The strongest man ever is not Eddie Hall, The Mountain, or that ex-bodybuilder in your gym. His name was Louis Cyr, but many people knew him as the Canadian Samson.

Cyr was born in 1863, and first showed his strength while working as a lumberman in his teenage years. His mother one day said, “He should let his hair grow, like Samson in the Bible.” She apparently curled it regularly for him.2

At 17 years old and 104 kgs, Cyr beat the strongest man in Canada by lifting a 220 kg boulder. At 22, he won a Strongman competition in Boston by lifting a 680 kg horse off the ground.

During his career, Cyr lifted a 242 kg weight with one finger, he back lifted a platform with 18 men on it weighing 1967 kg, and before a crowd of 10 000 people, Cyr resisted two draught horses on either arm. He also wrestled a giant who was 2.5 meters tall and 166 kg, and won.

Now of course Louis Cyr exercised to increase his strength, but the majority of his power can be attributed to genetics. He was strong before he knew he was strong. And God knew he would be strong before it all.

In the same way, every Christian is strong. God has given us unique skills, placed us in unique social circles, exposed us to unique experiences, and as a result, there is something very specific that you are the best at in God’s kingdom. There is someone very specific that you have the best chance of bringing into God’s kingdom. That’s one reason why you’re in the kingdom.

This might put pressure on one, but I fancy that it instils a great sense of pride. You have an integral part to play in the most important competition ever.

New Christians will join a church and then be given the option of being on the welcome team, worship band, etc. This can leave people unfulfilled and uncertain of their place in God’s house.

Contemporary churches have homogenized man’s services to God. We are told to serve God and love people in the same way.

Let us pray to God to reveal our specific talents to us, and as a result to reveal His purpose for our lives.

Speaking truth to a homeless person or telling that unbelieving group of friends what Jesus has done for you are both comparable to lifting 242 kg with one finger.

If lifting 18 men inspired a crowd of 10 000, imagine how many we can inspire, how many we can lift, if we use our unique God-given skills.

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I recently read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years on the recommendation of a reprobate friend of mine. Miller speaks about his early years of adulthood being a time of sedateness, comfort, and fear.

He then discovered the idea that we all have the ability to live a better story. Miller says that a good story is when a character wants something and will overcome conflict to get it… “I was a character who wanted something, and, well, that’s half the battle.”

The main point he makes is that it is up to us to lead lives that will one day be told as great stories to excited grandchildren. “Good stories don’t happen by accident, I learned. They are planned.” Throughout the book, Miller refers to God as the master storyteller.

I recently read Peter saying this in the book of Acts: “You killed the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead.”1

Of Jesus’ many names, author has to be one of the most enigmatic and beautiful. He is called this on two other occasions in the Bible:

“… it was fitting that God… should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.”2

“… let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”3

When I think of the giants in the Bible who lived great stories – Moses, Abraham, David, Esther, and Christ Himself – I can’t imagine them sitting down and saying, “I need to plan a good story.”

While I do agree with Mr Miller that we need to plan great stories, I think that they arise more from a closeness with God. If we are close to the Author of Life, our stories will be written in His book. If we are close to the Master Storyteller, our stories are bound to be riveting.

Miller says, “The ambitions we have will become the stories we live.” These giants had giant ambitions to love God, and this led to great stories.

I have recently been praying for serendipity in my life. I pray this because the Bible is full of great stories, and Jesus is the author of life who wants us to run the race marked out for us. The word race invokes something of a great story.

I often look at my own life and the lives of other Christians and wonder who we are inspiring with our lives. Who is looking at us and thinking, “I want to know how they do it… I want to know what drives them… I want to know what they onto.”

Our desire to live greater stories should stem from our desire to bring glory to the Author. We must want to show others that life with Him is a greater story.

Miller says that the real challenge in living a great story is overcoming fear. When I pray for a good story, God will show me a path which invariably is scary. But according to Miller, the most repeated commandment in the Bible is ‘do not fear.’

People live small and comfortable lives because living great stories is scary. But if we have the living God, the Great Protector, and the Master Storyteller on our side, what do we have to fear? “The mountains themselves call us into greater stories.”

I pray that we as the community of Christ will desire to live great stories. That we will have the courage to live great stories. And that through our stories, we might bring others into the Author of Life’s book.

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Perhaps the most ubiquitous human trait is that we dream of greater things. Adam dreamed to be like God, Cain dreamed for Adam’s approval, Abraham dreamed for a son, and Christ dreamed for us to be His sons.

Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, poet, and theologian. He is considered the father of existentialism,1 and because of this, I recently started one of his prominent philosophical works, Fear and Trembling.

Kierkegaard speaks of a man (likely himself) who descends into insomnia after reading the story of Abraham and Isaac. “There were countless generations that knew the story of Abraham by heart, word for word. How many did it make sleepless?”2

Scripture has only ever made my sleep soundly. While the Bible’s truths are a deep source of comfort, they are also a deep source of discomfort. And it is this divine discomfort that is avoided at all costs.

How often do I hear a sermon, mull it over for a few minutes, and then forget about it? How often will God’s truth inspire and challenge me, only for me to ignore it?

“For we have the living Word of God, which is full of energy, like a two-mouthed sword. It will even penetrate to the very core of our being where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet! It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts.”3

The Word of God will only penetrate, interpret, and reveal if we let it. And we let it by thinking on it.

But today we read of Abraham making the three-day journey to Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac and will hardly bat an eyelid. We read that Jesus calmed a storm and yet won’t even think of Him when actually in a storm. We have become too comfortable with Biblical stories because we don’t truly think about them.

I have recently come across these verses:

“I said ‘You are Gods’; you are all sons of the Most High.”4

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these… You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”5

These verses can be read as if reading an Instagram caption, or they can be read as Kierkegaard did – with deep thought and without dilution. He said, “For my own part, I don’t lack the courage to think a thought whole.”6

The surest step to greatness for any Christian is to have the courage to think verses like these wholly. To actually think what it means to be Sons of the Most High, to think that we can do greater things than Christ, to think that He will give us anything we ask for in His name, and then to believe it and act accordingly.

It is this last part - acting accordingly - that is our greatest challenge.

Kierkegaard said, “The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”7

Søren Kierkegaard acted accordingly. He is called the father of existentialism and Abraham the father of faith because they didn’t shirk from the discomfort of God’s truth. They had the courage to think about it and act on it. They met with God authentically, and so they became great.

Thinking and acting authentically stems from a love of God. “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”8

“For he who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all.”9

Let us be sleepless thinking of God’s truth, and yet still be dreaming.

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