Glorifying God in Our Lives

[Rosehip]

I was thinking about this recently: should our every action glorify God? What about involvement  with secular activities which are frivolous and not Christ-centred, if we could instead be doing something which literally glorified Christ? Say we are a musician, but instead of singing to the audiences about Christ, our messages are secular, worldly, carnal, or even directly opposed to christian values? Is this wrong, is it a sin, is it wasting an opportunity to tell others the good news?

[Dismas84]

You remind me of a joke we had in high school: rappers go out and make albums about killing cops, shooting up other people, treating women like sex objects...then when they win an award for it they go up and begin with, "I'd like to thank God..."

One might argue that yes, our every action should glorify God, and some have found subtle ways to do this. For example if I do a piece of artwork that is tasteful but perhaps not religious, but I think it turned out well, I thank God for giving me the ability to make such a piece. Certainly men like Isaac Newton believed that their secular work, in one way or another, glorified God.

Though when you say our message is "secular, worldly, carnal, or even directly opposed to christian values," it makes me worry about the singer. Granted, at the same time, I have Pink Floyd's The Wall album in my CD collection and on my computer, and I'm sure there are many ways you can point out that it's not exactly "Christian." I suppose this also relates to the recent controversy over the Miss America contestant who was also a professing question - while many faithful sympathized with her, they also questioned if Miss America was really a Christian contest to join.

[PeterTheAleut]

You remind me of a joke we had in high school: rappers go out and make albums about killing cops, shooting up other people, treating women like sex objects...then when they win an award for it they go up and begin with, "I'd like to thank God..."

One might argue that yes, our every action should glorify God, and some have found subtle ways to do this. For example if I do a piece of artwork that is tasteful but perhaps not religious, but I think it turned out well, I thank God for giving me the ability to make such a piece. Certainly men like Isaac Newton believed that their secular work, in one way or another, glorified God.

Though when you say our message is "secular, worldly, carnal, or even directly opposed to christian values," it makes me worry about the singer. Granted, at the same time, I have Pink Floyd's The Wall album in my CD collection and on my computer, and I'm sure there are many ways you can point out that it's not exactly "Christian." I suppose this also relates to the recent controversy over the Miss America contestant who was also a professing question - while many faithful sympathized with her, they also questioned if Miss America was really a Christian contest to join.

Professing question?

[Dismas84]

You remind me of a joke we had in high school: rappers go out and make albums about killing cops, shooting up other people, treating women like sex objects...then when they win an award for it they go up and begin with, "I'd like to thank God..."

One might argue that yes, our every action should glorify God, and some have found subtle ways to do this. For example if I do a piece of artwork that is tasteful but perhaps not religious, but I think it turned out well, I thank God for giving me the ability to make such a piece. Certainly men like Isaac Newton believed that their secular work, in one way or another, glorified God.

Though when you say our message is "secular, worldly, carnal, or even directly opposed to christian values," it makes me worry about the singer. Granted, at the same time, I have Pink Floyd's The Wall album in my CD collection and on my computer, and I'm sure there are many ways you can point out that it's not exactly "Christian." I suppose this also relates to the recent controversy over the Miss America contestant who was also a professing question - while many faithful sympathized with her, they also questioned if Miss America was really a Christian contest to join.

Professing question?

...*bangs head* professing CHRISTIAN...sorry.  Lemme see if I can fix that... 

EDIT: Well I can't any more, phooey. Ah well, my fallibility is there for all to see!  Glory to God for my humbling experience, heh heh.

[Rosehip]

Thanks, Dismas, for your posts! I appreciate what you have said.

Any other thoughts?

For instance, I find it so hard to understand how so many on this board are keen on what seems to me very, very upsetting and unchristian metal etc. music. It seems like such a contradiction to all that Orthodoxy stands for. It boggles my mind that people can listen to this music without feeling contaminated-and then to go to Church and listen to sublime, very godly music???

Just trying to understand!!

[Heorhij]

I don't know, Rosehip... I was brought up on secular culture, literature, art, music, and I have always, always found so much beauty there, quite regardless of the religious beliefs of the authors of these beautiful pieces.

Hemingway - a very sad and bitter man, a drunkard, married and divorced several times, changing religion while changing wives, obnoxious, unbearable in his final years (boasting that he will kill himself in such a way that his last wife would have to work very hard to wash the blood off the staircase, which he actually did, eventually...), a total pig, one might say - but has he not glorified God? The power of his writing is, to me, just colossal, overwhelming. As long as I live, I will re-read and re-read and re-read his Nick Adams short stories, his "The Sun Also Rises," "Farewell to the Arms," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "The Old Man and The Sea..."

Or another favorite of mine, Gabriel Garcia Marquez... He is my most powerful anti-depressant.

Beauty is a complex thing, I guess. Hard to define, hard to confine to some human judgmental moral systems. May be present everywhere though, and I am always looking for it and I always rejoice wherever I find it.

One place I always find it is the Orthodox Divine Liturgy. But I do not find it at all when I am driving and tuning my car radio to one of our local Mississippi "Christian Music" stations. Bland, boring, totally un-beautiful. If the creators and performers of this music think that they glorify God, - so be it, but I just don't want to listen to that...

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