dudemanflab's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dirty Today when I woke up to take a shower, I realized I'd had a washing dream the night before. In the dream, I had washed my hands and saw the dirt shade the water as it usually does. Then, I decided that I should give my entire I body a soap. The water bore that little change of tint you sometimes see as I washed my chest, my arms, my legs. Maybe I feel dirty. A small confession is that I didn't start using soap in the shower until college. It always seemed to me a bit ridiculous to need soap. And researchers like Simone Schnall have done studies suggesting that dirtiness actually sharpens the human sense of ethics, while perceived cleanliness dulls that same sense. Today I read Romans 1-2 again. Those famous words about God and the unrighteous. In Paul's words, God's wrath is on the non-Jewish people because they haven't recognized or worshiped God. Instead, they've worshiped creatures (birds and animals) or humans. BECAUSE they don't give thanks to God or honor God, God gives non-Jewish bodies over to be degraded in erotic desire and action--men having sex with men, women with women. Of course they want these things, Paul argues, because they've abandoned God. And BECAUSE they don't acknowledge God, God gives them over to "a depraved mind" : "wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful" (1-29:31) This passage is related to dirt and Schnall's study in that Paul is rhetorically setting up the non-Jewish believing audience who he writes. By mentioning sexual acts that are considered degrading and disgusting to his audience, he's whetting their ethical sense. His list of evil behavior, while not exhaustive, is exhausting. Which allows him to surprise his readers in the next verse: "Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, everyone who passes judgement, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things" So the mounting disgust is made reflexive--turned on the audience. How can you judge others when you do the same things? I have some questions about this passage: Not worshipping God, not being thankful to God, not honoring God, having idols instead of God are the grievances that initiate this gift-transaction. The gift given is depravity. Can a man love God and desire men? Can a woman love God and desire women? Even though Paul shifts the locus of evil away from those outside his audience and pointedly toward his readers, he is clear about God's judgment on all: "to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, [God gives] eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [God gives] wrath and indignation. Tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (2:7-10). What a book! To make one feel so ill-at-ease. 8:51 a.m. - January 08, 2009 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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