They aren't written from a Christian (or specifically Christian) perspective, but the argument can be formulated in a Christian way. The second video reminds me of the beginning pages of various Christians books.
For example:
John Piper's classic book "Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist" (surprisingly it freely available HERE!)
Piper wrote: This is a serious book about being happy in God. It’s about happiness because that is what our Creator commands: “Delight yourself in the LORD" (Psalm 37:4). And it is serious because, as Jeremy Taylor said, “God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.”
Smith wrote: I was once talking on the subject of religion with an intelligent agnostic, whom I very much wished to influence, and after listening to me politely for a little while, he said, “Well, madam, all I have to say is this. If you Christians want to make us agnostics inclined to look into your religion, you must try to be more comfortable in the possession of it yourselves. The Christians I meet seem to me to be the very most uncomfortable people anywhere around. They seem to carry their religion as a man carries a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but at the same time it is very uncomfortable to have it. And I for one do not care to have that sort of religion.”
And other Christian books. Having said that, I don't deny that there's also a place for sorrow, grief and tears in the Christian life too. There's a balance and we Christians often tend to lean toward one side more than the other.
At a Student Volunteer Convention which I had the privilege of attending, we.............were confronted over and over again, through one speaker after another, with a rather uncomfortable question, "Is your kind of Christianity worth sending to the non-Christian world?" Not, "Is Christianity worth sending?" There is no question as to that. But what about your kind? - the kind that you showed by your life this morning, yesterday, last week, last year. Is that what the non-Christian world is waiting for, what is needed to revolutionize lives there?
“I do not think that the life of Heaven bears any analogy to play or dance in respect of frivolity. I do think that while we are in this ‘valley of tears,’ cursed with labour, hemmed round with necessities, tripped up with frustrations, doomed to perpetual plannings, puzzlings, and anxieties, certain qualities that must belong to the celestial condition have no chance to get through, can project no image of themselves, except in activities which, for us here and now, are frivolous.
For surely we must suppose the life of the blessed to be an end in itself, indeed The End: to be utterly spontaneous; to be the complete reconciliation of boundless freedom with order–with the most delicately adjusted, supple, intricate, and beautiful order?
How can you find any image of this in the ‘serious’ activities either of our natural or of our (present) spiritual life? Either in our precarious and heart-broken affections or in the Way which is always, in some degree, a via crucis?
No, Malcolm. It is only in our ‘hours-off,’ only in our moments of permitted festivity, that we find an analogy. Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were place here to live.
But in this world everything is upside down. That which , if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”
–C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 92-93.
Or these quote from that spiritual giant George Mueller:
According to my judgement the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord's work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life. This has been my firm and settled condition for the last five and thirty years. For the first four years after my conversion I knew not its vast importance, but now after much experience I specially commend this point to the notice of my younger brethren and sisters in Christ: the secret of all true effectual service is joy in God, having experimental acquaintance and fellowship with God Himself. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god
I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god
Above I forgot to indicate that a paragraph was a quote from the beginning of Charles G. Trumbull's book Victory in Christ.
Let me quote it again:
At a Student Volunteer Convention which I [i.e. Charles G. Trumbull]had the privilege of attending, we.............were confronted over and over again, through one speaker after another, with a rather uncomfortable question, "Is your kind of Christianity worth sending to the non-Christian world?" Not, "Is Christianity worth sending?" There is no question as to that. But what about your kind? - the kind that you showed by your life this morning, yesterday, last week, last year. Is that what the non-Christian world is waiting for, what is needed to revolutionize lives there?
Good video. I also enjoyed videos from the same YouTube channel:
ReplyDeleteAre People Born Good?
Why Be Happy?
They aren't written from a Christian (or specifically Christian) perspective, but the argument can be formulated in a Christian way. The second video reminds me of the beginning pages of various Christians books.
For example:
John Piper's classic book "Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist" (surprisingly it freely available HERE!)
Piper wrote:
This is a serious book about being happy in God. It’s about happiness because that is what our Creator commands: “Delight yourself in the LORD" (Psalm 37:4). And it is serious because, as Jeremy Taylor said, “God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.”
Hannah Whitall Smith's book God of Al Comfort:
Smith wrote:
I was once talking on the subject of religion with an intelligent agnostic, whom I very much wished to influence, and after listening to me politely for a little while, he said, “Well, madam, all I have to say is this. If you Christians want to make us agnostics inclined to look into your religion, you must try to be more comfortable in the possession of it yourselves. The Christians I meet seem to me to be the very most uncomfortable people anywhere around. They seem to carry their religion as a man carries a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but at the same time it is very uncomfortable to have it. And I for one do not care to have that sort of religion.”
The last chapter of Charles G. Trumbull's book Victory in Christ.
And other Christian books. Having said that, I don't deny that there's also a place for sorrow, grief and tears in the Christian life too. There's a balance and we Christians often tend to lean toward one side more than the other.
At a Student Volunteer Convention which I had the privilege of attending, we.............were confronted over and over again, through one speaker after another, with a rather uncomfortable question, "Is your kind of Christianity worth sending to the non-Christian world?" Not, "Is Christianity worth sending?" There is no question as to that. But what about your kind? - the kind that you showed by your life this morning, yesterday, last week, last year. Is that what the non-Christian world is waiting for, what is needed to revolutionize lives there?
Or C.S. Lewis' statement that "Joy is the serious business of Heaven"
Deletehttp://tollelege.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/joy-is-the-serious-business-of-heaven-by-c-s-lewis/
“I do not think that the life of Heaven bears any analogy to play or dance in respect of frivolity. I do think that while we are in this ‘valley of tears,’ cursed with labour, hemmed round with necessities, tripped up with frustrations, doomed to perpetual plannings, puzzlings, and anxieties, certain qualities that must belong to the celestial condition have no chance to get through, can project no image of themselves, except in activities which, for us here and now, are frivolous.
For surely we must suppose the life of the blessed to be an end in itself, indeed The End: to be utterly spontaneous; to be the complete reconciliation of boundless freedom with order–with the most delicately adjusted, supple, intricate, and beautiful order?
How can you find any image of this in the ‘serious’ activities either of our natural or of our (present) spiritual life? Either in our precarious and heart-broken affections or in the Way which is always, in some degree, a via crucis?
No, Malcolm. It is only in our ‘hours-off,’ only in our moments of permitted festivity, that we find an analogy. Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were place here to live.
But in this world everything is upside down. That which , if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”
–C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 92-93.
Or these quote from that spiritual giant George Mueller:
DeleteAccording to my judgement the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord's work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life. This has been my firm and settled condition for the last five and thirty years. For the first four years after my conversion I knew not its vast importance, but now after much experience I specially commend this point to the notice of my younger brethren and sisters in Christ: the secret of all true effectual service is joy in God, having experimental acquaintance and fellowship with God Himself.
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god
I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god
More of my favorite quotes of Mueller HERE.
TYPO CORRECTION:
DeleteAbove I forgot to indicate that a paragraph was a quote from the beginning of Charles G. Trumbull's book Victory in Christ.
Let me quote it again:
At a Student Volunteer Convention which I [i.e. Charles G. Trumbull] had the privilege of attending, we.............were confronted over and over again, through one speaker after another, with a rather uncomfortable question, "Is your kind of Christianity worth sending to the non-Christian world?" Not, "Is Christianity worth sending?" There is no question as to that. But what about your kind? - the kind that you showed by your life this morning, yesterday, last week, last year. Is that what the non-Christian world is waiting for, what is needed to revolutionize lives there?