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LIFE MEETS THEOLOGY:
I'm No Shallow Hal, But ...
by Greg Williamson (c) 2010
COPYRIGHT RELATED INFO
UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS
ARE
FROM THE
New
American Standard Bible.
NOTE: HOVER POINTER OVER BIBLE
REFERENCES FOR POP-UPS
LIFE:
Recently I happened across "Shallow Hal," as it was being aired on network
television. It immediately piqued my curiosity, and so I sat through the
entire thing. Here is part of
the Wikipedia article on the movie:
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Hal
Larson (Jack Black) is a superficial man whose fixation on physical
beauty gets in the way of seeing women for their inner beauty. Hal and
his equally shallow friend Mauricio Wilson (Jason Alexander) spend
most of their nights being obnoxious at nightclubs and being shot
down. By a twist of fate, Hal becomes stuck in an elevator with famous
American life coach Tony Robbins, who hypnotizes him into seeing
people as their inner beauty instead of their external selves. Hal
meets and is smitten by his boss's daughter, Rosemary Shanahan
(Gwyneth Paltrow). Rosemary is actually obese, but appears to him as
slender and beautiful due to her kind and generous nature. Used to
being overlooked by men due to her appearance, Rosemary initially
interprets Hal's interest in her as mocking and insulting, but later
realizes his feelings for her are genuine, and the two begin to date.
Mauricio becomes worried about Hal's new taste in women, and he
convinces Robbins [to] give him the trigger phrase to undo the
hypnosis. Mauricio calls while Hal is on a date with Rosemary, and
says the trigger phrase, "Shallow Hal wants a gal," which breaks Hal's
hypnosis. Discovering that his own sight had misled him, Hal, with
Mauricio's assistance, begins to avoid Rosemary ... |
The movie is steeped in irony. Obsessed with physical appearance, Hal
focuses entirely on beautiful women completely "out of his league."
Thus without fail, Hal -- himself a first-rate specimen of a sofa spud -- finds
his efforts at romance rejected. Following his encounter with Tony
Robbins, however, Hal cannot believe the miraculous turnaround as suddenly
all sorts of gorgeous women
are attracted to him. And then he happens across one especially
attractive lady whom he falls for in a big way -- until,
that is, he discovers that he had been operating under hypnosis. Eventually Hal discovers that while his vision may have returned to
normal, his perception has been permanently altered. No longer shallow, Hal now prizes
"inner beauty" over outer beauty. THEOLOGY:
Beauty
Webster defines "beauty" as: "1 the quality or aggregate of qualities
in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably
exalts the mind or spirit; 2 a beautiful person or thing;
especially: a beautiful woman; 3 a particularly graceful,
ornamental, or excellent quality."
[REF] As one source helpfully
notes:
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Beauty is first of all an aesthetic quality that
names what we find attractive, satisfying and excellent in an object
or person. With visual art and music, this beauty is perceived through
the senses. With a work of literature, beauty is perceived by the mind
and imagination. While it is possible to define the specific
ingredients of artistic beauty -- such as unity, balance, symmetry and
harmony of parts -- the references to beauty in the Bible do not take
us in this analytic direction. Instead the biblical writers are
content with beauty as a general artistic quality denoting the
positive response of a person to nature, a person or an artifact. ...
Modern English translations give us approximately a hundred biblical
references to beauty
and beautiful,
and the overwhelming majority of these references are positive. Beyond
the appearance of the word itself are pictures of things or persons
that biblical characters and writers find beautiful. The impression
that these references leave is that beauty is something of great value
in human and spiritual experience.
[REF] |
Within the Bible "aesthetics and
ethical qualities are inevitably interrelated; the Bible knows nothing of
beauty that is not integrated into the larger purposes of God for his
people."
[REF]
Every Christian is to strive to live an attractive (= beautiful)
life: " ... obedience to God and God’s Word leads to a
life which is meant to display beauty as well as goodness. Good works (the
Greek word used in the New Testament can also mean 'beautiful works') are
to characterize our lives so that people will glorify the Father who is in
heaven (Matthew
5:16)."
[REF]
Notice the tangible connection between goodness, truth, beauty, and peace:
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There
are deep connections among goodness, truth, and beauty (e.g., goodness
is a kind of moral beauty; Philippians 4:8).
The full meaning of the Hebrew word
shalom conveys this rich biblical picture. More than merely
"peace,"
shalom is the uniting and
flowering of truth, goodness, and beauty in the wholeness of life.
However, the fall has broken
shalom and as a result sin
has introduced ugliness into the world. Evil is not only false and bad
but ugly (for instance, pornography is an ugly distortion of God's
beautiful created context of sexuality). Thus our experiences of
beauty are often distorted -- and even dangerous, when we worship
beauty instead of God (Genesis 3:6; Romans
1:21-25).
Each of us needs beauty in our lives,
relationships, work, and worship. We are made for it and we long for
it. Our hunger for beauty is an expression of our fundamental human
longing for shalom -- ultimately for shalom with God
(Romans 5:1).
Beauty has value for apologetics in the sense that it is part of
the common ground we share with all people, since we are made in the
image of God and live in a God-created world. Beauty points beyond the
physical cosmos to the Creator. Like goodness and truth, beauty is not
a physical property, measurable by science, and its reality indicates
that the physical world is not all there is. The beauty of the world
points to the nature of the Divine Artist whose handiwork it is. And
the fundamental human longing for beauty, for shalom, is a
hunger that cannot ultimately be satisfied in this fallen world -- it
is a clue that we were made for more than this life
(Ecclesiastes 2:11).[REF] |
Judging Others
Is it right to judge a person based on his/her physical appearance? It
depends on our motivation. If a man looks upon a woman as an assemblage of
body parts designed for his viewing pleasure, then of course that is very
wrong. The situation is very different, however, if/when our chief concern
is the health and well-being of someone who is dangerously
overweight.
William Barclay offers some solid counsel in his commentary on Jesus'
words regarding judging others (see Matthew 7:1-5):
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There
are three great reasons why no man should judge another.
(i) We never know the whole facts or the whole person. ... In
one set of circumstances a person may be unlovely and graceless; in
another that same person may be a tower of strength and beauty. ...
There is a kind of crystal called Labrador spar. At first sight it is
dull and without lustre; but if it is turned round and round, and here
and there, it will suddenly come into a position where the light
strikes it in a certain way and it will sparkle with flashing beauty.
People are like that. They may seem unlovely simply because we do not
know the whole person. Everyone has something good in him or her. Our
task is not to condemn, and to judge by, the superficial unloveliness,
but to look for the underlying beauty. That is what we would have
others do to us, and that is what we must do to them.
(ii) It is almost impossible for any man to be strictly impartial
in his judgment. Again and again we are swayed by instinctive and
unreasoning reactions to people. ... Montaigne has a grim tale in one
of his essays. There was a Persian judge who had given a biased
verdict, and he had given it under the influence of bribery. When
Cambysses, the king, discovered what had happened, he ordered the
judge to be executed. Then he had the skin flayed from the dead body
and preserved; and with the skin he covered the seat of the chair on
which judges sat in judgment, that it might be a grim reminder to them
never to allow prejudice to affect their verdicts.
(iii) But it was Jesus who stated the supreme reason why we should
not judge others. No man is good enough to judge any other man. Jesus
drew a vivid picture of a man with a plank in his own eye trying to
extract a speck of dust from someone else's eye. The humour of the
picture would raise a laugh which would drive the lesson home.
Only the faultless has a right to look for faults in others. No man
has a right to criticize another man unless he is prepared at least to
try to do the thing he criticizes better. Every Saturday the football
terracings are full of people who are violent critics, and who would
yet make a pretty poor show if they themselves were to descend to the
arena. Every association and every Church is full of people who are
prepared to criticize from the body of the hall, or even from an
arm-chair, but who would never even dream of taking office themselves.
The world is full of people who claim the right to be extremely vocal
in criticism and totally exempt from action.
No man has a right to criticize others unless he is prepared to
venture himself in the same situation. No man is good enough to
criticize his fellow-men.
We have quite enough to do to rectify our own lives without seeking
censoriously to rectify the lives of others. We would do well to
concentrate on our own faults, and to leave the faults of others to
God.
[REF] |
While Barclay's comments contain a tremendous amount of wisdom, we need to
remember that Jesus also said we should first remove the "beam of
wood" from our own eye and then help our neighbor remove the piece
of straw from his.
[REF]
"The sentiment is, that the readiest way to judge of the imperfections of
others is to be free from greater ones ourselves. This qualifies us for
judging, makes us candid and consistent, and enables us to see things as
they are, and to make proper allowances for frailty and imperfection."
[REF]
"He only is fit to be a reprover of others who jealously and severely
judges himself. Such persons will not only be slow to undertake the office
of censor on their neighbors, but, when constrained in faithfulness to
deal with them, will make it evident that they do it with reluctance
and not satisfaction, with moderation and not exaggeration, with
love and not harshness."
[REF]
While a certain amount of judgment is necessary, we should seek to be as
generous as possible in our judgment and always be willing to offer "what
would be appreciated and beneficial."
[REF]
What we are to avoid at all cost is the ugly habit of harsh criticism combined
with a refusal to help.
Sources
(click on title for more info)
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible
The Apologetics Study Bible
The Daily Study Bible Series
The Bible Knowledge Commentary
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity
Dictionary of Biblical Imagery
Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary
NET Bible notes
Wikipedia article:
Shallow Hal |