In part it talks about how foundational our desire to 'preserve life' is.
and said:
"We do it all to diminish the likelihood of our own demise"
"Life is the most precious thing" and "Both civilization and civility stand or fall on this simple agreement".
These comments were all in the context that 'life' means physical life, and all that sounds profoundly correct from a Westerner's perspective.
A Major Assumption
But there is a major assumption occurring here - that there is only one kind of life - physical life.
In our part of the world, physical life is important to some degree, but there is something greater.
Physical death and demise is not feared as much as another kind of death and demise - psycho-social death and demise!
We are not only physical beings. We are also psycho-social beings.
Even our physical beginning is inextricably linked to the most intimate of all 'social' relationship interactions of two people - our mother and our father. (Yes I know we westerners with our technology have tried to turn it into a biological only issue through IVF, donor sperm etc, but I'm talking about how God meant it to be)
Another type of life preservation - another type of death
Psycho-social or 'relationship' death is of higher priority here than physical death. In fact it has actually been said to me that 'we as Africans don't really fear physical death as much as relational death'. You see for an African physical death doesn't end relationships.
Ancestors are very much treated as part of the family still - to be consulted, pleased and honoured. In fact it elevates a person's position to become an ancestor - its a place of even greater power. So relational death of rejection and ostracism is greatly feared.
If you read a previous blog post in which Monica Lewinsky speaks about shame, you will see that intense shame is intense 'death' - separation, rejection, demise. It is the end of one's identity. One becomes a 'nothing', - even less than a 'nothing'.....despised and rejected.
Pastor Charles Price quoted a statement by Pastor Stuart Briscoe in a podcast I heard not long back which said
"When God created Adam, he created an individual. When God created Eve, he created society".
Or as the old proverb says 'no man is an island'. Our identity is not solely based on our individuality.
Relational Identity
Even in the West we have this inherently in our names - we have our individual name (what we call our 'christian name') and we have our family name (what we call our 'surname').
Our life is defined by factors that go beyond our own skin. Firstly, even in our 'individuality' we are meant to relate to our Creator, but on an earthly level we are also designed to relate person to person and thus part of the functionality of our design is that our identity is partly gained by our place in society. Our Western 'physical' emphasis culture often forgets this reality even though it continues to function all around us and influences so much of our lives.
In fact as the West loses its 'God perspective' on life, instead of a person's primary relational identity coming from their relationship with God, and only secondarily from relationships with people, one's sole 'relationship' identity is drawn from other people. So if that 'horizonatal' relationship level breaks down, a person has nothing else by which to gain relational identity.
Interestingly the Pilot of that crashed Germanwings aircraft is said to have suffered from depression for many years and was almost unable to complete his training because of it. He was also the brunt of ridicule from workmates and nicknamed 'tomato Andy' for being a flight attendant before becoming a Pilot. His honour/dignity/identity was being eroded. He was still suffering from depression and had a 'sick note' to take the day off on the day of the crash, but was hiding his ongoing problems from his employer. I read in another article that he had told a former girlfriend he would do something to make people "know my name and remember me".
This young man didn't just suddenly have an idea to end his life and the life of others. He felt the reality of 'death' already, and felt that others were to blame for it. Psyco-socially he already felt 'dead'. His name was no longer Andreas to his co-workers but 'tomato Andy'. So though some may not understand his logic, he felt that the way to get his 'life' back (ie be remembered as a 'somebody' with power instead of a despised 'nobody' in the world of Pilots) was to be someone who's name would be remembered forever. He would be infamously 'famous'.
The problem is that Satan's lies never bring long term good, and now he has inflicted upon his family and girlfriend the same ridicule that was inflicted on him.
Though we may read in horror and point the finger because we feel he broke humanity's 'most foundational agreement' to preserve physical life (as the blog post said), other members of humanity broke their 'most foundational agreement' with him long before that - to consider his life and identity as a psycho-social relational being.
A local christian friend was walking to the bus stop here recently and got into conversation with a man also walking to the bus stop. As they walked, a reckless speeding car whizzed past them. My friend made a comment to the man about how dangerous that action was. The man replied with "what's wrong, if he dies, its just his time". There was neither a belief by the driver or the man, that preservation of physical life was a high priority.
An 'All Humanity' Issue
As Christians highly influenced by Western mindsets we can think that the only form of life the world is concerned about is physical life.
It's not true. And what might be extreme here in Africa , is also present in the Western world.
Actually it's present wherever there is humanity.
And its not so extreme - misplaced maybe, but not extreme.
When relational life is most important, physical life isn't the priority.
When relational life feels already dead, physical ife is unimportant.
When relational life is dead, a person will be willing to lose their physical life.
And deep down, no matter who we are in our world or what culture we come from, relational life is actually what is most important.
We look at a man who's relational life was limited to other human beings and when that ended among those he desired recognition and acceptance and honour from, he counted himself as already dead and was willing to lose his life for a 'cause' --the mis-placed preservation/elevation of his own name.
Living for an earthly name or heavenly name...
But lets look at our own lives - God calls us to die to self and all its earthly desires for relational acceptance, earthly honour and a name for ourselves.
We must count our relationships with other people as 'irrelevant' or 'dead' in comparison to our relationship with God (ie as extreme as 'hate' is different from 'love' Luke 14:26), and die to the need for affirmation from people. Then there will be a natural outflow of a willingness to lose our earthly 'relational' life that will result in a willingness to also lose our 'physical' life if need be. Yes we will value the life God has given to us and to others - BOTH physical and psycho-social/relational, but we will not elevate it to a position God never intended it to be.
In a rightly placed way we will be willing to lose our own life (both relational and physical) in regards to the horizontal (person to person), when we have found the fulness of true abundant LIFE on the vertical level (us to God).
When we have assurance of our identity in Christ and our name is recorded for eternity in the Lamb's Book of Life, we don't have to be in bondage to seeking identity on this earth and a way for our name to be remembered and recorded 'forever' on an earth that will pass away.
But as we relate to those around us, whether its in the West or in Africa, we must never forget, that life is more than preserving this physical body. People are more than a physical body and live for more than just preservation of their physical bodies. The gospel is far more than just giving hope in the midst of physical death. If we don't apply the gospel to the whole person, as scripture does - both physical and psycho-social, we will prevent people from coming to understand the truth of the gospel in all its fulness.
Here's the challies.com blog post in full if you want to read it......
The Way the World Works
The world only works when life is held as precious. Each of us wants to live more than we want to die. We are overwhelmed by the longing to not die, and consumed with the desire to go on living.
A thousand times a day we make subconscious choices that preserve our lives. We brake when we come to a stop sign. We replace the battery in the smoke detector. We hold on to the handrail. We fasten the safety belt. We double-check the dosage. We do it all so we can continue to live. We do it all to diminish the likelihood of our own demise.
And it is not just our own life that we regard as precious, but all life. Just as we make decisions to protect our own lives, we make decisions to protect others'. We tighten our children's seatbelts. We put the knives up high. We pay the salaries of police officers. We stop and help when we spot even a stranger in distress.
Life is the most precious thing. The world only works when we maintain this tacit agreement that life is precious, that I will do all I can to preserve both mine and yours, that you will do all you can to protect both yours and mine. Both civilization and civility stand or fall on this simple agreement.
The alternative is unthinkable. The alternative is cars swerving to meet oncoming traffic, bicycles drifting out of the bike lane, toddlers roaming at will, hospitals empty and unstaffed. The alternative might even be a pilot setting his aircraft so that it gradually coasts straight into the ground.
The world reacted with horror—justified horror—when they learned that Andreas Lubitz had deliberately crashed Germanwings flight 9525, taking his own life and the lives of the other 149 passengers and crew members. The reason for our shock is that he violated the agreement. He chose to take life instead of perserve life.
There are a hundred explanations for this desire to protect and preserve life. But the only one that really makes sense, and the only one that is compelling enough to believe, is that God is the creator of life, and that he has given life intrinsic value. He has made us this way, and deeply ingrained it within each one of us. To recklessly endanger life is to reject both the giver and his gift.
This, then, is why we react with such utter horror to what Lubitz did. He chose to diminish the value of his life, and the lives of each of those 149 people. We know intuitively that this is an outrage, the deepest kind of transgression. And it scares us. It terrifies us. It is unfair, unjust, unconscionable, unthinkable. And yet there it is, emblazoned in the headlines: He did it, and he could have done it to us. He rejected the most basic information, and broke our most foundational agreement.
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