The contemporary issues of theological trends Vol.1

Nowadays, almost all christian groups have been suffering from the serious decreasing of its members. If this movement would not be dealt with, the entire population of the believers might be tremendously shrunk. Some reports say that within few decades, the number of Muslims around the world would surpass that of Christians because of their high birthrates.

It is necessary for us to discuss why the rapid collapsion has been seen in the christian society these days. There would be a few candidates for that. First and foremost, the betrayal behaviors of some Chiristian scholars can be pointed as the major contributors for the great crisis. Among the ambitious theologians, it is very common to criticize the Biblical contents or traditional concepts. However, these accusations sometimes damage the credibility of the christian organizations or the main principles.

What is the most disgusting thing for this is that those people who blame their own religious community could gain a lot of benefits like academic positions or book sales as a results of their overly exaggerated theories.

Election results of Austria and Czech. Part.1

The other day, the important election results which might influence on the future of the European Union turned out. The choices of the two eastern European countries really astonishing and instructive ones that clearly suggest that some citizens participated in the great group have the latent angers against the the center-oriented system.

For one thing, it would be safe to say that this suprising results were caused by the fact that the big countries like Germany and France which have lead the EU underestimated the small countries like Austria and Czech as their subordinates.

Those defiant countries have long been forced to accept the decisions made by a few of those leading countries. Among them, especially, the plan of the open-border theory must have baffled them so much. Many small countries have been coerced into dealing with a unprecedented number of outsiders by themselves.

Refugee Crisis in European Crisis -2-

In addition, the election result of Austria a few day ago was really astonishing. I suppose everyone never imagine the landslide victory of those right-wing parties. I wonder what kind of meanings this outcome could possibly have.

For one thing, there are definitely outrage in some of the European people who have felt abandoned or ignored by the major EU dominants like Germany or France. Those people might think that those superpowers are the main invitors who accept the immigrants both from Middle East and African continents.

Also, some point out that those rich countries just throw those poor people into relatively small European countries in order to avoid undesirable mayhem caused by them. In any case, the bond of the EU unification seems to become rapidly fragile. If the leaders in EU could not reconsider their sticky idea, the consequence they will face would be catastrophic.

Refugee Crisis in European Crisis -1-

One thing that I could not figure out about refugee problems is why people in those countries where many foreigners have been coming tend to accept their situation like Germany or France.

Conservative media always insist that the social stability in those countries have been hugely corrupted because of those tremendous influx of unwelcome immigrants.

If those accusations are true, why the local people publicly criticize them or vote against those politicians who try to accept many people from outside?

The other day, in German's election, the big refugee supporter "Angela Merkel" won the race. Even though her party lost a few seats, she is still the iron leader who represents the EU's most powerful nation. This result clearly shows that many citizens in the country want to keep the course which this angel woman has suggested so far.

Some people say that this is because some of the people do not know the situation they are facing with. Wealthy or normal Germans do not live in the poor area which are fill with low income immigrants including refugees. Therefore, I assume that they could not realize the potent threats their country is in.

Much Ado about Nothing -Claudio-

In my opinion, Claudio is a fool, a happy fool, who is the most important character in “Much Ado about Nothing”. He might be “a pure person”, but we should not regard him as “a good man” when it comes to taking into consideration of his dreadful silliness.

The author of this tale “Shakespeare” often use this kind of stupid persons to make his stories more attractive and more complicated. Therefore, we would be able to assume that the jesters are indeed the indispensable icons for his creations. For example, in “Romeo and Juliet”, the friar plays the role in order to cause unnecessary trouble between the infamous families. In addition, the gifted novelist created the sensitive simpleton “Roderigo” in “Othello”. Without his foolishness and naive mind, Iago’s notorious scheme would have failed at the very beginning. Likewise, Claudio is the jester who greatly contribute to the comedy in various ways. However, unlike the other two, we can say he is really a happy fool because his ignorance did not take his loved ones’ life.

One of the most distinctive traits for those Shakespeare’s clowns is that they tend to jump to conclusions without deep consideration. For example, Claudio stupidly believed Don John’s story that Hero, who is the Claudio’s fiancé, had relationship with other man and cheated on him, even though he had been deceived by this bastard before. His foolishness severely tormented the innocent girl who did nothing wrong. This stupid man’s carelessness clearly remind us of Othello’s Roderigo. He is also quite gullible and Iago used him for money and plans against the moor. In terms of a false accusation, the situation, with which Hero had to face, is quite resemble to the one in which Desdemona in "Othello" was trapped. Interestingly, there is a prominent difference in the fate of the two female characters. One could survive, but the other could not. The Hero’s fame was threatened by her fiancé like Desdemona, but saved by a wise friar. “Come, lady, die to live. This wedding day perhaps is but prolonged. Have patience and endure.” (Act 4, Scene 1,252-253)

All in all, Claudio is a fortunate one who could amend his terrible failure. In addition, he luckily has many good and smart friends around him, which enables this story to become a comedy. One thing that we can learn from this play is that wisdom is always superior to cunning. Also, it is suggested that our minds are so weak that sometimes a tiny thing breaks our daily life completely. When there are many choices, some people, who have no confidence in themselves, tend to believe the more pessimistic one. I think the descriptions of those characters’ complicated psychological transformation evidently show Shakespeare’s acute insight into human nature.

“The Perspective of Death of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost” Part.2

When it comes to talking about Emily Dickenson, we need to look into her unique worldview in order to understand the true intentions her masterpieces have. Moreover, there is no doubt that she was greatly influenced by the doctrine of the Second Great Awaking movement which was led by Calvinists. The Protestants strongly believed that our life destiny is already determined by God even before we are born. Therefore, those people who were belonged to this community always feared their own fate. In fact, this kind of theory is well known as “Predestination” in the theological field. However, there are many opinions that this ideology do not reflect the proper teachings of Jesus because the main principle of Christianity is to forgive, not to punish. According to those who oppose the Calvinism, it significantly deviates from the way that the authentic theology should follow. Also, they say that it is not a good thing for the shepherds to dominate the people's mind by giving them the fear of the hell. We can assume that Dickinson also found the same contradictions in “Predestination” of Calvinism and tried to criticize them. 

Dickinson wrote a lot of controversial poems which are often regarded as an accusation against Jesus or God. For instance, if we read “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died”, some people might find some Monty-Python-like black jokes in it. Maybe other people think that she tried to ridicule the traditional concept of Christianity. But, the most important thing to grasp her true purposes of those defiant poems is to understand the situation she was trapped in at that time. Among her family members, she was the only person who refused to accept the Calvinism theology. This meant that there was a possibility she could not go to heaven with her family after she dies. Her action should not be evaluated as the resistance to the Jesus. On the contrary, it has to be understood as the faithful protest for the true Christianity. She probably knew that the true Christianity must give the people the peace, not the fear. Therefore, Dickinson’s poems are sometimes quite aggressive because she wanted people to realize which way they should go.

Dickinson mentioned about heaven in her verses many times. Especially, she emphasizes that heaven is not above us. Some people may think this notion is clearly against the teachings of Jesus. However, actually it is not. Jesus never said that the kingdom of God is “physically” above us. As proof of this, he taught the followers the exact location of heaven. “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21)” Simply speaking, Emily Dickinson’s conception of heaven was much closer to the genuine place than those ambiguous theories. Sometimes, even now, some arrogant theologians create their own weird theological ideas and propagate them as Jesus’s theories. What is worse is that once their contradictions are pointed out, those people try to pass the all buck to Jesus. If Jesus is asked “Is heaven really above us?”, he would reply like this “You have said so.” This poem seems to show her real thought.     

WHO has not found the heaven below

Will fail of it above.

God’s residence is next to mine,

His furniture is love.

(*I could not confirm whether this poem is actually Emily Dickinson’s work or not.)

Some scholars say that Frost’s poems are not religious compared with Dickinson’s verses. Partially, it would be true that we can't find many biblical jargons or quotes from bible or implications for Christian cultures in his works. However, among his works, there are some lyrics which use Christian identities. The prominent example is “The Road Not Taken”, which would be one of the most beloved and famous his legacy. This instructive story seems to be affected by the bible words; “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy[a] that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14)” The interesting point of the Frost’s narrow path narrative is that, unlike bible, it never says that the grassy and worn road always gives us good things. It is just saying it makes our life different.  

              All in all, reading through some of the poems written by great poets who are representative of the U.S. was quite useful experience. Also, it is found that the efficient instructors are necessary to enjoy the true intentions of the verses because they are quite difficult to realize or translate into modern expressions especially for the non-native English speakers. Those cultural backgrounds we can see in the works were so intriguing.

“The Perspective of Death of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost” Part.1

What would be the most influential element which affected the view of death of the two great poets “Emily Dickinson” and “Robert Frost”? One thing is for sure that they had different mindsets for the universal subject. In other words, for Frost, the concept of the death was always related to his loved family. Likewise, for Dickenson, the fear for the uncertain future was linked to the religious ideology. In this paper, we scrutinize some poems written by them which show their inner complicated psychology on this matter. After that, the brief comparison between their writing styles is also being conducted.

Among many Frost’s master pieces, “Out, out--” and “Home Burial” clearly tell us about what kind of obsession on death he had. In addition, this two poems imply how he spent his life. Frost had to face with a lot of tragic events involving family members’ deaths throughout his whole life. First of all, he lost his both parents when he was still young. Moreover, his beloved young sister Jeanie had a severe mental illness which seems to run his family genes. He had to force her to hospitalize into a mental clinic, which must have definitely tormented him. However, the talented poet’s hardship was not limited to those. His children also were destined to get into various difficulties. Among six children, only two could outlive their parents and the rest died young because of either committing suicide or serious diseases. It is reasonable to assume that those harsh experiences affected his attitudes toward death and those verses he created.

The poem “Out, out--” is a short story about a boy, who cut his own hand by “the buzz saw” and died. It seems Frost tried to describe how pitiful a young man, who had a bright future, must die all of a sudden. The same mercy as the one given to his lost children can be seen in this work. Furthermore, it is quite interesting that Frost emphasized how indifferent other people are to the tragedy. This sad story ends with this line; “And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.” The reaction of the onlookers in this scene would be similar to the people’s behaviors towards the deaths of Frost's children. Hence, from this verse, we can also feel the strong “Out-cry” against the hypocrites, who pretend to worry about others but actually they do not care about a little bit.

“Home Burial” is a short novel which depicts parents who lost their child. In comparison with the previous one, this poem focuses more on the bereaved people, who are struggling with the unacceptable heavy fact. In addition, we can also sense that this story was based on the author’s own experience. Frost and his wife had to embrace the consecutive calamities, which stole their loved ones. It is not hard to imagine that the bitter life situation assumedly affected the couple’s relationship quite badly. Those dirty words used in the play must have been exchanged truly in the quarrels between Frost and his wife.