LeBron and the Weight of Expectation

Nike has been on fire with their recent advertising. Their latest triumph comes in the form of a very dark and intimate look into what superstar LeBron James has been going through these past few months. For those of you in the dark, NBA superstar LeBron James left Cleveland, his longtime home, in favor of signing with the Miami Heat. Since high school, LeBron has been considered the savior of the NBA. His name has become synonymous with a messianic figure: up-and-coming baseball star Bryce Harper is referred to as "LeBryce" by nearly everyone in sports. His move to Miami in some ways revealed his desire to escape this burden, choosing instead to play basketball with his friends and fellow superstars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.

The caption for this commercial reads, "This isn't about what LeBron James has done, or hasn't done. This is about the difference between the expectations others may have of him versus the expectations he has of himself." If this commercial is truly a glance into James' psyche, which I believe it is, it shows the weight that he has borne all this time, and his desire to escape this burden. LeBron is only human; he can't live up to his own expectations, much less the expectations of the world.

The Exposed Lies of "Saints"

This month's issue of Christianity Today has an interesting piece on William Wilberforce, and, in particular, the dark side of the abolitionist that has just recently come to light. It turns out that Wilberforce, a 19th century politician best known for bringing down the slave trade in England, was the very same politician who sanctioned the use of apprenticeship (thinly-veiled slavery with a different name) in Sierra Leone.

To be honest, I'm pretty glad this sort of story hasn't caught significant national attention. It has parallels to "Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith" from Time a few years back, only on a smaller scale, as Mother Teresa is a far bigger name than Wilberforce. While one exposé (Wilberforce) deals with hypocrisy in his actions, the other deals with internal doubts Mother Teresa feels while living the life of a "saint". Despite this difference, a similar public reaction occurs: scandal. We are told to feel betrayed, not only by the individual on trial, but also by the religion they espouse.

In the case of MT, we have Christopher Hitchens coming out of the woodwork with some pretty harsh words: "She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself." We are supposed to hear these stories and think that religion can't possibly be true, because of what horrible things these heroes have done or thought.

I don't know about you, but I come out of these articles thinking the opposite. I see people that are as screwed up as me doing so much good in the world, whether it's abolishing slavery or caring for the impoverished people of the world, and I think about how amazing it is that God can work through anybody, including those with imperfections that are so glaring that the whole world scrutinizes them. In fact, it makes God that much greater. Our anthropology, and the level of credit we give to humans, is inversely proportional to our Christology, and the credit we give to God (words originally coined by PZ, I believe). There are countless stories of God bringing about good through blubbering idiots, in the Bible and everywhere else. If you need proof, look at everything Peter says in the Gospels, and then his speech at Pentecost. The more we realize the lowness and ineptitude of the humans God works through, the greater we realize our God, and our need for Him, to be.

The Law and The Gospel in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress

This one comes to us from new Mbird contributor Davis Gouldin:

After finding an old copy of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress in a thrift store for 25 cents, I had to add it to my summer reading. Here's a beautiful passage depicting the effects of the law and the gospel on one's heart. The image he uses is just so good that I don't think I can add anything by way of a preface.

Then he took him by the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which after he had reviewed it a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost therewith been choked. Then said the Interpreter to a damsel that stood by, "Bring hither water, and sprinkle the room," which, when she had done, it was swept and cleansed with pleasure.

CHRISTIAN. Then said Christian, What means this?

INTERPRETER. The Interpreter answered, This parlour is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the Gospel. The dust is his original sin, and inward corruptions, that have defiled the whole man. He that began to sweep at first is the law; but she that brought water, and did sprinkle it, is the Gospel. Now whereas thou sawest that so soon as the first began to sweep, the dust did so fly about that the room by him could not be cleansed, but that thou wast almost choked therewith: this is to show thee, that the law, instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, doth revive, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it doth discover and forbid it; for it doth not give power to subdue.

Again, as thou sawest the damsel sprinkle the room with water, upon which it was cleansed with pleasure: this is to show thee, that when the Gospel comes in the sweet and gracious influences thereof to the heart, then, I say, even as thou sawest the damsel lay the dust by sprinkling the floor with water, so is sin vanquished and subdued, and the soul made clean through the faith of it, and consequently fit for the King of glory to inhabit.