William Petruzzo

A friend of mine and I were just getting ready to call it a night when we decided that we were in the mood for a movie. We decided a thriller of sorts was in line for the evening, so we made our way to the Redbox and rented P2. You may never have heard of it. It certainly didn’t win any awards or anything.

The gist is basically a young woman is working late on Christmas eve and while trying to leave is captured by a parking lot security guard who has a sick obsession with her. You can imagine where the movie goes.

Through the course of the movie the security guard attempts to win the woman’s affection in some less than conventional manners. For example, killing one of her coworkers who she had an altercation with. He’s obviously deranged and a murderer, among other things.

By the end of the movie, the woman has managed to turn the tables through a series of pretty clever decisions. She’s been through quite a lot. Been drugged, handcuffed, locked in the trunk of a car, crashed a car, tazered, and bitten by a dog. Finally, she has her assailant handcuffed to a car which is leaking gasoline. He’s now unarmed, blind and nearly unable to walk. But he’s still crazy, and can’t understand why the woman won’t have anything to do with him.

As she walks to safety, he gets upset and calls her an unsavory name. In her anger, she turns and lights the car on fire which burns her attacker alive, and she walks out into the street.

For the record, if I had the choice again, I would likely choose not to watch the movie. It was simply too much gore and not enough suspense.

But, my emotional response to the movie’s ending reminded me of some scripture.

Romans 12:19 says:

“Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, " VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.”

The movie painted the picture of one individual as being pure, good and righteous. 100% victim. Obviously, in real life that doesn’t exist. But in a movie the ideal can. Then, opposite her, we have one who embodies, selfishness and evil. He was a murderer and the entire movie the viewer wishes he would come to justice.

But, in the end of the movie when she burns the man alive, I got a glimpse into the meaning of that verse. Her opponent was incapacitated and completely subdued and defenseless. When she killed him, she liquidated her righteous standing as established in the beginning of the movie. She no longer fulfilled the ideal that was painted for her. She too was a murderer and was equally deserving of a fiery death as he was.

When we intentionally execute revenge when we have been wronged, we join our injurer in his camp of unrighteousness. We become guilty of the same sins as him. Although it feels good to press revenge, the truth is, we are descending into unrighteousness and it will always produce adverse and often painful results.

That also reminds me of a tidbit of scripture which I read this afternoon and although the context isn’t a perfect match, I still think it applies:

1 Peter 2:20:

“For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”

Today, I discovered Second Life.

I know a lot of people are already familiar with Second Life, but there a whole lot who also aren’t. Second Life is kind of a like a gigantic online version of the computer game The Sims, crossed with a chat room sporting some pretty cool graphics.

The schtick though is that basically, anything you might like to do in real life, you can do in this virtual world (including fly). In a way, you get to reboot your life. Of course you still have to deal with your first life, you get a second life to do whatever you like with. It’s weird, I know.

In the virtual world, it’s free to move about, visit different places, meet people, talk about things, and so on. But, if you wanted to, you could purchase land. On the land you could build your dream home, a bar, club, restaurant, marina, pretty much whatever you like. Even a church.

That’s what provokes me to write today.

Now, I’m not much of a gamer. I just don’t have the time. But, since the software was free, I thought I’d give it a shot. When I found out just how much real-world like stuff there is in Second Life, I thought I’d go and see if there’s anyone planting churches in this virtual world. And what do you know? There is.

These folks did. I decided to make a trip over to the church. I was pretty surprised at what I found.

The ALM CyberChurch property is pretty much everything you’d expect in a modern day mega-church. Huge panes of glass, lots of grassy fields. Interesting designs and lots of seating. Of course with one pretty important difference. This church doesn’t exist in real life. Well, in tangible life anyways. It is real. Just not exactly tangible.

Almost every facet of the CyberChurch mirrors what you’d find if you ventured out to your local brick and morter spiritual establishment. It’s kind of eery actually. When I visited, although there was no mistaking the cyber-nature of the place, it still had that be-quiet-your-in-church feel to it.

And, like any quality mega-church, the CyberChurch even had a coffee shop decked out with couches and espresso machines.

Upstairs in the coffee shop you can find where the church meets for virtual small groups, or at least I assume, based on the arrangement of the chairs.

The main sanctuary looks like anything you’d find in most churches. When you visit the virtual church, you can either attend their weekly service at 11:00am on Sunday mornings, or you can go at any time and listen to a recording of the last service.

Scattered all around the virtual facility, are signs alerting people to their need to believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And this, I think above anything else, created questions in my mind. As I explored the area, there was a certain novelty to seeing what was built. But when I came across these notices, I realized something interesting. I wasn’t seeing the words as reality. Some how they were merging into my subconsciousness as part of the virtual reality I was experiencing. If I began to see the call for repentance as a virtual stimulation, how likely is that to translate into actual, spiritual repentance in my heart?

I won’t pass judgement on whether or not these virtual ministries are effective, right or even good.  It seems likely only time will tell. But I will say, it’s an awfully fascinating turn in church history. Unprecedented.

If you frequent the world of Second Life and would like to visit the church, you can “teleport” there from this link.

I had a short conversation tonight about whether or not all sins were equal in God’s sight. I know becoming a Christian and growing up in my faith, it’s a popular idea. It makes for an excellent way of easing someone’s distress at the onset of their sin (although perhaps that’s not a good thing?).

But, I don’t think this is the correct way to look at sin.

All sins are not equal in God’s sight. All sins will result in death, but not all sins are seen as equally wicked by God. I think you can see this illustrated in the language used in numerous places in scripture. One of which is 2 Chronicles 28:13:

"You must not bring those prisoners here," they said, "or we will be guilty before the LORD. Do you intend to add to our sin and guilt? For our guilt is already great, and his fierce anger rests on Israel."

You can see the the idea that while they are already guilty, their guilt can increase which could result in a greater degree of God’s wrath. But, I think there is a more obvious illustration in the new testament where Jesus grieves over the unbelief of Korazin and Bethsaida. Luke 10:13:

"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths.^"

Jesus’ woe is not a condemning woe, it’s a pitiful woe. He is distressed at their unbelief and wishes they would repent. He references God’s wrath poured out on Tyre and Sidon, whose wickedness was very "great".

Then he goes on to say something fascinating. He says that had Tyre and Sidon had the benefit of seeing the miracles that Jesus performed they would have repented. So, we see that in the case of Korazin and Bethsaida as well as Tyre and Sidon, unbelief was a chief sin.

But, because Korazin and Bethsaida had the benefit of seeing Jesus’ miracles, their sin of unbelief was much worse!

I think that a lot of the time people have trouble with that idea because it looks like a slippery slope. If we say that some sins are worse than others, then we must also acknowledge that some sins are not as bad. That sounds bad.

But, it’s the truth.

To steal a loaf of bread is a sin. To kill a man for sleeping with your wife is worse. But here’s the clincher. The perpetrators of both of these sins are going to hell, unless their sins are atoned for by Christ. So in an ultimate sense, the delineation between sins and sinners is irrelevant.

But even so, truth is truth and we must honor it.

I’ll keep this short and sweet.

I just watched Iron Man on a PS3 in high definition blue ray. It was pretty sweet. Sounded awesome. Looked really clear. Definitely a sweet set up. But, if I may interject my personal opinion: this new wave of high-definition entertainment is an excellent example of the vanities described in Ecclesiastes.

We are always craving more and more. Somewhere deep down something says, “just get this… just gain that… if you only had this…”. But the deception is in that that voice never goes away. No matter what you attain to, there will always be something more to reach and desire.

Some people take that line of logic and say we should simply renounce everything material. But I think the more reasonable response is vanity management. Settle for what you have until something better is given to you, or becomes outrageously affordable (i.e., DVD players go for under $40).

Long story short, don’t pant after the new blue ray technology. It’s cool, but it isn’t going to satisfy you. At least not any more than a regular old DVD player will.

* for the record, I’m speaking of temporal satisfaction. Not that good eternal stuff.

I remember when I was younger, like middle school, and it seemed I heard a lot about the debate over whether or not children are deeply influenced by the music they listen to. Like, do kids who listen to gangster rap end up killing people. Or, do songs about suicide lead kids to commit suicide.

Well, being a kid in the demographic under discussion I obviously considered their ideas absurd. I didn’t listen to Eminem and consider raping my girlfriend. In fact, the thought wouldn’t even cross my mind. Like a brain washed person rejecting the idea that they’re brain washed, I wouldn’t even think of taking the influence of music seriously.

Well, yesterday I was driving to church and happened to not have my iPod with me. So, I attempted to tune the car’s radio to something worth hearing. There isn’t much, by the way. I settled on a local rock station which eventually played the early 00’s hit “Last Resort”, by Papa Roach.

Frankly, the song was stupid when it first came out and it certainly hasn’t aged well. But I can remember so many of my class mates thinking it was the coolest song. Here’s a little excerpt:

Cut my life into pieces
I’ve reached my last resort
Suffocation
No breathing
Don’t give a f**k if I cut my arm bleeding
Do you even care if I die bleeding
Would it be wrong
Would it be right
If I took my life tonight
Chances are that I might
Mutilation outta sight
And I’m contemplating suicide

I know, it’s a beacon of beautiful modern poetry, and while I’d love to discuss it further, it would diverge from our more pressing discussion at hand.

Hearing the song again, it gave me a more sober look into the adolescent time in my life and it made a lot more sense. No youngster was going to hear Papa Roach’s hit and think to themselves, “Papa Roach is committing suicide, I think I will too.” It just doesn’t really happen like that. At least not much.

However, what is far more likely is emotional conditioning, creating a predisposition for certain behavior. Not based on isolated lyrics in any one song, but in the whole of music, or even music genres. The music is simply depressing. Before long, people will feel depressed. The suggestions therein don’t follow far behind.

For this reason, I begin to think it’s awfully important that we consider carefully how we allow our emotions to be manipulated.

But, on the flip side, it also creates an interesting window to peer through. How might music be used to manipulate our emotions in a positive way toward the Lord? Where is the line? When is our spiritual integrity compromised?

One thing is for sure: music is an incredibly powerful thing and shouldn’t be ignored in any spectrum.

Years ago when I was leading a small group I can remember several debates in which someone would say, “God can’t… something, something”. It doesn’t really matter what was said. Maybe, “God can’t lie,” or “God can’t be in the presence of sin”. It was irrelevant. What bothered me was the idea that God can’t something. I saw in it people placing restrictions on God.

Who are we to say what God can or can’t do? I preferred to say, “God won’t”.

Today, I understand things quite a bit differently; more correctly. What I was seeing was a box. A structure around God that dictated what he could or couldn’t do. It would be wrong for us to create such walls around him. It’s not our place, and frankly, even if we wanted to, it wouldn’t work. So, in that sense of the phrase, I still agree. We cannot put a box around God.

But still, I always cringe a little bit when someone says “I don’t want to put God in a box”. Because when someone says this, they’re usually saying, in a subtle way they they don’t want to believe in any kind of concrete theology.

But I see now in hind sight that this reveals something about our faith in God. When someone says, “I don’t want to put God in a box”, what they’re often revealing is that they don’t truly trust God’s word. That’s what the Bible is. God’s word. If God has said he “cannot be tempted” (James 1:13), then he can’t be tempted. If my theology then says, “God can’t be tempted”, I haven’t placed God in a box, God has place God in a box (so to speak) and he will not leave that box.

If you see theology as a box man places around God, then there is a good chance you don’t trust that God’s word is his word. And if that’s true, then there’s a good chance you won’t experience the benefits therein.

Jeremiah 28:8-9:

The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent the prophet.

I think this generation of God’s people ought to be more spiritually discerning. I hesitate to use the word skeptical, but that is exactly what I mean.

Albert Mohler (in his recent book Atheism Remix), while discussing Alister McGrath’s rebuttal to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, made one of the most interesting points. Perhaps not a new point. But in a realm where Richard Dawkins seems to be considered reasonable, it really is quite a thought provoking statement.

He writes:

“God is not ‘improbable’ in any sense greater than humanity itself is improbably on Dawkins’ own terms—for Dawkins himself makes the point that the emergence of humanity is itself highly improbably.”

Dang. That’s a pretty stellar point.

Okay, so the existence of God is improbable. But is my existence really any more probable than his? I don’t really think so.

Here in Maryland, we have this thing called the Beltway. Well, it’s not just Maryland. It’s Virginia too. It’s basically one long road that goes in a circle around Washington DC. It’s main purpose is to get commuters around the city and between its suburbs without actually having to go through the city. It also serves to help out-of-staters get thoroughly lost.

The Beltway is one of those roads with a weirdly low speed limit which common understanding holds that it should be dramatically broken at pretty much all times. At any given time, cars will be flying around the Beltway going between 80 and 90 miles per hour (keeping in mind, this is a 55mph road).

During rush hour, things only get more intense.

Well, every once in a while, you’ll come across a pace car. Maybe it’s an elderly person. Maybe its a new driver. Maybe it’s an out-of-stater who hasn’t learned to drive yet. But regardless of who they are, they’re always the same driver. They’re the folks who sit in the left lane, holding up traffic. They’re not necessarily going slower than traffic, they’re keeping up perfectly, causing hugely annoying flow problems.

Because they’re not going slower or faster, no one can pass them. So right in front of you might be a Subaru and right next to them is a Jeep and they’re both going the same freakin’ speed! You’ll see a long line of cars backed up behind them just hoping they notice how annoying they’re being. Finally someone gets anxious and scoots all the way to the right lane and passes that way. The rest will soon follow.

In all the universe of highway driving this has to be the most annoying. More annoying than the bikers who fly by between lanes. More annoying than someone driving too slow. More annoying than a whole cluster of cars quickly slowing down for a speed trap that they had plenty of time to anticipate. This takes the cake.

Well, tonight I came across the mother of all pace car experiences. A triple pace car. That’s right, three pace cars all lined up together. Absolutely no way by. I had no choice but to sit there fuming about their totally annoying driving habits.

It wasn’t long before my obstacles became a kind of nemesis in my mind. My mission emerged… I had to get passed them. If nothing else, simple for the principle. Frankly, it was weird. Every lane shift and change they made, I began to interpret as if they were actually coordinating with each other to be the worlds most annoying set of motorists. Attempt after attempt to pass them were continually thwarted. It seemed almost calculated.

I was so annoyed I actually thought of giving one of the cars the finger. I know, it was weird trip from reality.

But in the midst of my epic encounter, I started thinking about Ecclesiastes. I’m in Ecclesiastes now and Solomon’s sentiment about the vanity of life is potent on my mind. But here it was, staring me in the face. I was fighting these cars for preeminence on the road, but for what? To get to my exit 200 feet before they did?

It was with these thoughts that I calmed down and stopped paying attention to them.

All life begins the same, with birth. All life ends the same, with death. No man has power of either and all are subject to both. Nothing I achieve here will matter then, so why chase with such vehemence, such vanities? All that matters is the grace of God and how it is stewarded.

I’m quite confident that it’s not in fighting the pace car.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

How much do we know about being a cord? How much can be deducted from the Word?