Blaise Pascal "Fleshed" Out (Literally) - The Evil of Confession

Let's revisit the first quote and subsequent translation from my last blog:

Pascal: "..we want to lead an imaginary life in the eyes of others, and so we are constantly trying to make impressions. We strive to embellish and improve our image, and so neglect the true self. So if we are at peace, or generous, or loyal, we are anxious to let it be known so that we can attach these virtues to our imaginary existence. Indeed, we prefer to detach them from our real self so as to project them upon the other. Cheerfully, we would be cowards if that was the way we could acquire a reputation for bravery!"

Translation in the St. Gregory Vulgate: "Even when we try to aspire to do good, there is still inherent evil present - an evil that looks to attain righteousness through works, to justify ourselves apart from the grace of God, and to basely make us feel better about ourselves. Regardless of whether we want to admit this or not. And the minute you say or think - "Now, that time, I did it completely selflessly!" - you are in complete denial.

This holds true for confession as well. I know, I "fleshed" it out!

I had the recent necessity to confess my sin to someone whom I had been vilifying in my mind. And if I may say so myself, I did a damn good job of confessing! I showed the logical progression of how I had mentally worked my way into the sin following the logical conclusions until I arrived where I did. It was brilliant! I put so much lipstick on my sin that you could not even recognize that it was my sin when it was all said and done. I think ultimately I was able to inconspicuously pin the sin on my mind - it was my mind that had sinned, not me! Heck, it was such a work of art, I'm not even sure that the person I had confessed to felt like I needed to apologize. And I think I even talked myself out of proportional remorse for my sin (to a degree) and maybe even convinced the offended party to a lesser level of degree of needing to be asked for forgiveness. That's what it felt like whether this actually happened or not. Maybe I am being too hard on myself, but I think I understand even better what Blaise was getting at!

My cowardly attempt to acquire the appearance of holiness by showing my willingness to confess - and this in a way that would make me look good?

Blaise Pascal for Modern Day Saints

I've been reading "The Mind on Fire" lately which is an anthology of the writings of Blaise Pascal including the Pensees. Pretty "heady" stuff, but here are some of my vulgar translations of a few excerpts:

Pascal: "..we want to lead an imaginary life in the eyes of others, and so we are constantly trying to make impressions. We strive to embellish and improve our image, and so neglect the true self. So if we are at peace, or generous, or loyal, we are anxious to let it be known so that we can attach these virtues to our imaginary existence. Indeed, we prefer to detach them from our real self so as to project them upon the other. Cheerfully, we would be cowards if that was the way we could acquire a reputation for bravery!"

Translation in the St. Gregory Vulgate: "Even when we try to aspire to do good, there is still inherent evil present - an evil that looks to attain righteousness through works, to justify ourselves apart from the grace of God, and to basely make us feel better about ourselves. Regardless of whether we want to admit this or not. And the minute you say or think - "Now, that time, I did it completely selflessly!" - you are in complete denial.

I find this particularly interesting in a postmodern Christian culture where Martha is held in higher regard than Mary. In other words, in a Christian culture where "doing" is held in higher esteem than "being".


Pascal: "The aversion for the truth occurs at differing levels, but it exists in all of us to some degree because it is inseparable from self-love. It is this false sensitivity which makes those who have to correct others choose such devious ways and qualifications in order to avoid giving offense. They have to minimize our faults, pretend to excuse them, and to mix this with praise and marks of affection and esteem. Even then, such a medicine still tastes bitter to self-love, which will take as little of it as possible, and always with disgust. Often it will also have a secret resentment against those who administer it."

Translation in the St. Gregory Vulgate: "I need to tell you something that I think is wrong about you. I will try and be sensitive in conveying this under the appearance that I care about you, but I really care about me - specifically, you liking me. And even though I know that you will notice that I am doing this, I will go ahead and do it anyway. And even though I list enough things you are doing well before I tell you of the one thing that you stink at, you will hate me for doing it anyway even though I had hoped you wouldn't, but I won't know that you hate me for doing this because you won't come out and say it because you want me to like you."

I find this interesting in light of the current Christian culture's desire to be "understanding" and "sensitive". I do believe we can be more concerned with hurting people's feelings than speaking truth into situations. But if there needs to be a side to be erred on here, I would think it would be the side of truth. I would have to ask - "At what point do men need to become men again?" There is nothing evil or sinful about vociferous and/or heated disagreement or criticism. Only the way we deal with such - and this goes for both parties involved.


Pascal: "That is why the more promotion we seek to have on fortune's ladder takes us further away from the truth, because people become increasingly more wary of offending those whose friendship is deemed most useful and see enmity as most dangerous...This is not surprising. For telling the truth is useful to the hearer but harmful to the those who tell it, because they will incur such odium."

Translation in the St. Gregory Vulgate: "We typically will not speak truth to (or hack off) those who can assist us in increasing our power, our income, our sphere of influence, or our overall reputation, but especially those who already have alot of each of these things. For doing so would be suicide to us (or so we think). So we more often than not abandon truth for false peace and prosperity and hope that truth will come to light in some other way - by God working through someone else."

Do we take the easy path or the hard path when it comes to conflict that is created by reality and truth? Do we sacrifice the greater good (truth) that is on a path of greater conflict for the lesser good (false harmony, personal prosperity, etc..) that is on a path of lesser conflict?


Pascal: "Vanity is so deeply rooted in a man's heart, that a soldier, a criminal, a cook, or a porter will boast and expect to have admirers. Those who write against such will themselves want to enjoy the prestige of having so written, so that they too are seeking from their audience and really saying "I want the same thing, but this time from my readers".

Translation in the St. Gregory Vulgate: "Everyone is fair game when it comes to criticism, but especially those who think they know it all or are sure they know it all. These type of people think that they are God's gift to man."

I think this as well, but if you want criticism of me then start your own blog." ;)

Evangelism & Ministry: Having the _________ of Christ

I have blogged before about the postmodern church culture and how it seems (in it's "seeker sensitiveness") more focused on emotion as opposed to truth. In other words, we are much more focused on not offending a non-believer in hopes that his/her salvation might be won, than we are with focusing on truth and letting the truth offend where necessary and leading to repentance where spoken. It’s focusing less on the offending holiness aspect of God and focusing more on the friend and buddy aspect of God. There is a huge mentality difference here – one that I think is critical to the proper conveyance of truth – a truth that is “holistic” as opposed to “slanted” or “skewed”.

That being said, I completely understand the lack of evangelical involvement by the majority of those attending church. It’s not happening to a large degree. The question is why? And the unspoken answer that seems to be coming from the pulpit is “because we are not preaching it often enough and emotionally enough, we are not emphasizing it enough, because if people heard us preaching it enough and emotionally enough and emphasizing it enough, they would be moved to action.” What’s the old saying about trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

I heard a speaker at an Urbana convention sponsored by IVCF some (20) odd years ago talk about the need around the world for Christ. This was a missionary who had travelled the world evangelizing. She uniquely depicted the need around the world - not by describing individual accounts of pain and suffering that would evoke and well up emotion within us (that may last or may be fleeting), but rather she systematically laid out factual, statistical figures that were irrefutable and stood on their own regardless of what you thought about them: 800,000,000 million Muslims in the world who didn’t know Christ, 12,000,000 Hindus in the world that didn’t know Christ, 6,000,000 atheists who didn’t know Christ (these numbers are not exact – I cannot remember the exact figures, but you get the idea). And then so many millions of people who called themselves evangelical Christians who do nothing, go to church on Sunday, don’t engage the outside world, and seemingly turn a blind eye in the comfort of their own churches. Keep in mind that this sermon was given in a point in history where the postmodern evangelical movement was just getting its legs in reaction to the majority of American churches that remained (to that point) inwardly focused and, to a large degree, did not engage the world outside.

So what do you think her ultimate conclusion was as to why most evangelical Christians did not engaged the outside, unbelieving world? I was struck both by what her answer WAS and what it WAS NOT as well as how the answer relates to how we try to get the laity involved in ministry today! Her final conclusion as to what will move us into engaging the world around us in need:

“Having the __________ of Christ!”

Now, I am not going to fill in the blank for you yet. I want to see what your natural proclivities are here. What is the first thing that comes to mind here that would properly fill in this blank? Be honest!!! I could even give you a 50/50 multiple choice and I’ll bet most of you would still not guess correctly (but I can’t do this because now the 50/50 option would give the answer away). But seriously, shouldn’t the obvious answer be having the heart of Christ? It’s so obvious isn’t it.

Well, that’s not the answer. Her final conclusion was that we must have the mind of Christ – not the heart of Christ. The Scripture she used by the way was I Corinthians 2:10b-16 - "But we have the mind of Christ." And doesn’t this really make sense? Not that having the heart of Christ is not important, but rather that it comes and goes as our emotions come and go. Emotions are the basis for nothing. But truth – truth resides in the mind and is irrefutable. All proper actions must be based on truth. It is only when we completely comprehend this truth that we will act. Doesn’t sound very spontaneous does it? But rather like cold, calculating love (if it can be called love at all - right?). But is love an emotion? I don’t see where in Scripture it says that we are to feel good about His commands for evangelizing the world and caring for the poor, merely that they are the true Word and we are to obey. I’m not saying that emotions do not play a part, but they are a by-product and not the impetus by which we act.

Now, how do we typically try and get people involved in ministry today. I don’t know about you, but I hear sermons that are designed to draw and evoke emotion. A sermon that talks about little Mtubu in Africa that has to walk 20 miles a day to get to a well just to get water and he has no shoes. The pastor’s voice probably gets very pleading and weepy at this point. The intent is to engage people on an emotional level so they will become involved and care. But that emotion doesn’t last and is fleeting because, well….emotions are exactly that: fleeting and they do not last!

So it almost seems to me that when people do not become engaged that we try and preach to them more and more and emphasize more and more the need to do this, but again, all based on emotions. I see this appeal to emotion throughout the church service – not just for trying to get folks involved in ministry, but for evangelizing the unbelievers attending – that’s what we call being seeker sensitive. What seems to have happened is that the entire worship service has tended to become more of a vehicle for stirring emotion rather than speaking truth. So we are more prone to gain converts based on emotion than we are truth and we leave them right where they started – trying to constantly reproduce this emotion rather than discipling and training folks in truth to spiritual maturity. Sunday becomes a emotional recharge of one's batteries rather than a worshipping of the Almighty God.

So we seem to focus more on trying to give people the heart of Christ as opposed to giving them the mind of Christ.

It just seems that we are going about this the wrong way. Yes, more people should be involved in evangelism, but preaching this over and over again in my mind is a short term approach based on emotion. It seems we need a long term approach of teaching and discipling – basing what we do on what Christ commands and thinking the way Christ thinks. We need the foundational work of teaching and discipling before we can move people further down the line to evangelizing. It is more important for people to understand "why" they are doing "what" they are doing rather than "how" this should make them feel. Same with their Christianity. How God makes us feel is much less important than what God is trying to do and how. Proper acting and proper Christian living (this includes ministry and evangelism) will only come from a proper understanding of one’s faith and not how that faith makes them feel, and it just seems that there is a lack of Christian education being pursued which will enlighten the laity to what God is thinking.

Are we focusing way too much on people having the heart of Christ rather than them having the mind of Christ, and in doing so, really nurturing emotionalism? Are we neglecting our minds and proper thinking and theology that will lead to sustainable action? What is biblical and holistic here?