![]() ![]() Rather, it’s a reference the reality that Jesus came to bring to earth the glorious heavenly sub-culture filled with God’s glorious presence, where His love and ethics reign supreme, that we’re called to interlace and intersect with the world. Whenever Jesus talks about the “Kingdom of God” (or, “the Kingdom of Heaven” if you’re reading Matthew, since that was a gospel written by a Jew for Jews and they were reluctant to say the same of God) it’s not a reference to a postmortem paradise that we go when we die. Ps, I think if the young man did what Jesus asked, Jesus would have given him more commandments until he gave up on the idea of keeping them all. ![]() "for man it is impossible, but for God all things are possible" Abandoning the idea of justifying himself. So to me, Jesus giving him another commandment was so that he could fail at it and realize he can't do it himself. It is there so we can fail at keeping them, get completely disillusioned with our own efforts, give up on them and abandon ourselves to God's grace. Reading Romans it seems like the law isn't there to show us the way to get into heaven. Instead of correcting him and pointing out sins he commits Jesus makes up an arbitrary command. The young man says he has kept them, but still asks what is missing (why wasn't Jesus's answer enough for him?). Jesus says you need to keep the commandments. The context is the rich young man approaching Jesus asking how to have eternal life. It is about giving up on the idea that you can justify yourself. Observe how Bradbury repeatedly highlights not only the ghostly qualities to the shadowy figures in their homes, but also the ‘tomblike’ aspect of those houses: these people, Bradbury is implying, are already dead, and now merely waiting for their bodies to catch up with their minds.I don't think this is either pro Universalism or against Universalism. And by ‘life’ here we should include not only survival (as in, for instance, ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’, where everyone is wiped out by nuclear war) but living: the quality of life which gives our existence meaning. Indeed, if we had to identify the main theme of Ray Bradbury’s writing, it would be the threat that technological advancements pose to human life. Fear of technology and the ways in which it robs us of what it is that makes us human is a recurring theme of Bradbury’s fiction. Leonard learns that the car is empty: the voice speaking to him was automated, presumably some sort of robotic machine programmed to detect suspicious persons at large on the streets at night and stop and interrogate them about what their business was being out.Īs in many Ray Bradbury stories, technology has tried to recreate nature at home: the police car which arrests him makes it clear that, if he wants to take the air, he can do so at home by having some air-conditioning system installed. Crime, it turns out, has been largely eradicated, because everyone remains indoors all night, glued to their television sets.Īfter a brief interview with him by the side of the road, in which we learn that Leonard is unmarried and is a writer, the police car tells him to get in the back. ![]() We are told that this is one of only two police cars in the whole city of three million people there had been three police cars until an election the year before, when it had been decided that there was no need for so many as three. A police car stops to ask Leonard who he is and what he does for a living. As the story progresses, it emerges that this sort of behaviour – staying in all night, every night, and consuming hours of television without ever venturing out – has become not only common, or normalised, but, in effect, the law. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |