Remember Sybil
Our cultural moment tells us to affirm, affirm, affirm; when in reality we are destroying human bodies because the medical professionals have told us that this is the right treatment for this type of problem. Soon we will have our Sybil moment. Sybil was a fraud and eventually the egg on the face of society was exposed. According to a 2011 NPR article, “Shirley Mason was the psychiatric patient whose life was portrayed in the 1973 book Sybil. The book and subsequent film caused an enormous spike in reported cases of multiple personality disorder. Mason later admitted she had faked her multiple personalities.”
Orlando just had its Pride Weekend, complete with a fair-like atmosphere downtown, thousands and thousand of sexual tourists, a rainbow themed parade, and an evening of fireworks. The parade’s Grand Master was an 11 year-old boy who believes he is a girl. He was featured on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel and was being praised for knowing his true self and living his best life. He’s eleven. We ought to remember Sybil.
Remember Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)? The 1980 diagnostic manual called DSM-III defined MPD for the first time, but the psychiatric professionals in 1994 changed the diagnosis (in the DSM-IV) to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). According to Psychology Today the change was “to reflect a better understanding of the condition—namely, that it is characterized by fragmentation or splintering of identity, rather than by proliferation or growth of separate personalities.” (PT, 9.21). Splintering rather than separate.
In other words MPD was not real, although it was really experienced. The professionals realized that the condition was not truly different personalities, rather one identity (person) that was a “fragmented” or “splintered” identity. The professionals then amended their definition, diagnostic criteria, and the name of the disorder.
The psychological community knew about these symptoms as early as the late 1700s, but it was extremely rare. In 1973, the book Sybil was published and cases began to skyrocket. Daytime Television began featuring persons with MPD and the amount of personas and complexities increased. Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael, and even Larry King interviewed persons with the disorder. The more exposure the disorder got, the more popular it became. Eventually the Soap Operas were on board as well: All My Children; One Life to Live; Guiding Light, and others all featured characters with MPD.
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A Beacon of Hope
May God enable us to embrace the hope of the resurrection. May the Lord Jesus be an anchor for our souls in turbulent times, a source of comfort in sorrow, and a beacon of light guiding us toward eternal life. The resurrection of Jesus is not just an historical event but a transformative reality. The resurreciton offers hope to all who believe.
In the dim light of an early morning, two women embarked on a journey that would forever alter the course of history. Their destination was a tomb, their mission, to anoint the body of Jesus. What they found, however, was not the emotional closure they sought but the revelation that would ignite the flame of hope for all time. This story, found in Mark 16, serves as a powerful reminder that even in the darkest moments, hope can emerge triumphant.
From Despair to Amazement
Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, approached the tomb with heavy hearts. They were burdened by grief and loss. Their world had crumbled. The man they followed, loved, and believed to be the Christ had been executed. Fear gripped their souls when they found the stone moved. Fear siezed them again when they saw the tomg was empty.
But there, in the dark space, an angelic messenger greeted them. His words have echoed through the ages: “He is risen! He is not here.” In that moment, their grief was mingled with astonishment—Jesus had conquered death.
We are compeled to consider our own moments of despair. Whether it’s the erosion of societal norms, personal trials, or the shadow of death itself, we all face periods of profound sorrow. Yet, the resurrection of Jesus offers us a wellspring of hope. It reassures us that no matter how dire the circumstances, there is always light for those who belive.
Belief Against the Odds
The initial reactions to the news of Jesus’ resurrection were skepticism and disbelief.
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The God of Fun
We face several large obstacles to overcome the fun-ethic…our church cultures simply takes it for granted. It is the way we do things. Therefore, to question it is to disturb the way the machine runs. Object to the fun-machinery of modern ministry and you’re just a troubler of Israel who doesn’t know how to lighten up and have fun.
“Did you have fun?” smiles the parent as the child arrives from the Sunday School class. I wonder if Hebrew parents asked their children that question after watching the slaughter of the Yom Kipper goat on the Day of Atonement.
Fun, fun, fun. Fun is seemingly the unquestioned, undisputed right of children. Learning at school must be fun, and curricula are now judged on how much fun they make the learning process. School vacations must be fun, and a veritable industry of vacation activities and entertainments now exists. Sports must be fun, and it is the supposed inherent fun of beating others at games that I suppose makes sports so central to our culture. Eating breakfast must have fun pictures on the box, fun toys inside and fun sugary food to boot. Observe the mountain of toys in the average Western child’s bedroom. What he or she needs most is fun, and Mom and Dad will buy it. Brushing our teeth must be done with fun-shaped toothbrushes, and fun-tasting toothpaste. Bathing must include toys, so that fun may be had in the act of cleaning oneself. Pajamas must have fun pictures on them, and so must the blankets. And at the top of this fun-list is television and console games. Television producers and game developers have been masters at satisfying and creating the appetite for fun. Immediate, interesting, amusing, startling, comical, rambunctious images keep the fun going. And a child without a steady diet of TV or games has no fun, you see.
Perhaps I am not exaggerating when I say that our culture regards fun as the greatest good when it comes to children. Fun is the supreme goal for children.
I am not sure at what point this supreme value loses its centrality, but at some point, an abrupt course change is made. The bored young humans are heartlessly introduced to the truth, “Life’s not all about fun, you know!” This cynical statement is a rather cruel and violent encounter to reality, since nothing in all the child’s prior existence could have revealed this fact. From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the child is to have fun.
I don’t know all the origins of this fun-as-supreme-value ethic. I suspect much of it began with Romanticism’s idealizing of the child as the paragon of innocence and virtue, and therefore thinking it deserving of a childhood of uncomplicated play. Perhaps it is just the machinery of affluence: too much money, and too much spare time.
As a parent and pastor, I am concerned with how this idea will shape the religious imagination of my children, and the children in my congregation. I’m worried about how teaching our children to love fun above all else will become a major stumbling-block to their worship. Because the fun-ethic has not escaped church life.
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Wisdom from Above
We want to sow in our minds and in our relationships what we want to harvest in our lives. The seed we reach to scatter must be taken from the bag marked “wisdom from above,” not “wisdom that is demonic.” Both stand open before us.
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. (James 3:17, ESV)
Contrasted with demonic wisdom is wisdom from above (Jas. 3:15). James gives us a bio of genuine wisdom that has its source in God.
He begins by describing genuine wisdom as pure, even giving purity a position of first importance. We might think of purity in terms of chastity where we are fully and exclusively devoted to God. Everything about us is sacred, set apart as holy to our God. That’s how wisdom operates from the perspective of the fear of the Lord. Purity contrasts with what is defiled.
From the starting point of purity the operating system of wisdom works itself out in all the fruit of saving faith forged by the Spirit of God and founded in the person of Christ. Gentleness serves well as a trait of the tongue. Listen to how Paul uses gentle as a governor to our speech: “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2).
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