Podcasts about situationism

This is an old episode of our friend Andrew's podcast that was recorded a few years ago. The podcast is now defunct, but we thought y'all deserved to hear it. In this episode Jason and Andrew watched and discussed Guy Debord's 1974 film version of The Society of the Spectacle.Enjoy and Happy New Year.Send us a textSupport the show

In the final episode of our three-parter on punk, Jeremy and Tim stick a pin through their ears and make their way down the Kings Road for the release of Anarchy in the UK. We hear about the mercurial Malcolm McLaren, Situationism, Symbolism and SEX in discussion with the Pistols project. We uncover why John Lydon knows what he hates but not what he wants, how a prime-time curse word scandalised Britain, and ask who wasn't at the Manchester Free Trade Hall the night the Sex Pistols played. Elsewhere in the episode we dig deeper into what constituted punk as a structure of feeling, contrasting authenticity with irony and asking: how serious really is all this? With Blondie, John Waters, Rimbaud, the Mercer Street Arts Center and Patti Smith. Never mine the bollocks, here's Love is the Message… Produced by Matt Huxley. Tracklist:New York Dolls - Personality Crisis Patti Smith - Horses Blondie - X Offender Books:Frith & Hall - Art into Pop

Things get weird on this Trip into Surrealism, a subject of great interest to ACFM and all historians of the weird left. Nadia, Jem and Keir follow a thread of off-kilter expression from Dadaism and André Breton's manifesto through to Situationism, punk and Afrosurrealism. The gang explore the importance of surrealism to socialist thought and […]

Things get weird on this Trip into Surrealism, a subject of great interest to ACFM and all historians of the weird left. Nadia, Jem and Keir follow a thread of off-kilter expression from Dadaism and André Breton's manifesto through to Situationism, punk and Afrosurrealism. The gang explore the importance of surrealism to socialist thought and […]

Todays 'Mind Deep Confusion' Session was all about the Deepness getting back to it with the new business and yes, what a session it was for sure with some low down deep dirty cutz. I really enjoyed making this session and the selection just flowed as I expected.I will say no more, other than it's time,Lets get some vibes up in here!!!Have a great week ahead,Peace n Love to all,Biopic.Track Listing:     | Num.  | Track List: HISTORY Session 257 Pressure  | Artist  | Release  | Label | 1  | Cotton Candy (Original Mix)  | Trust SA  | In Me.  | Infant Soul Productions | 2  | Beautiful  | Javonntte  | International Vibes  | Situationism | 3  | Deep Inspire (Phaze Dee Remix)  | Alex Michos, Nec SFS, Phaze Dee  | Deep Inspire  | Cyanide | 4  | I Sold My Soul (Saison Remix)  | Scott Diaz, Saison  | Reinterpretations, Vol. 1  | Grand Plans | 5  | Too Big (Atjazz Remix Extended)  | Kosmo Kint, Atjazz  | Too Big  | Toy Tonics | 6  | The Wind (Original)  | Processing Vessel  | The Wind  | Grin Music | 7  | Shishi (Vule vu couchez avec mon Tripmastaz Remix)  | DOP, Tamada, Nini Nutsubidze, Tripmastaz  | Shishi  | DOP Only | 8  | Sunrise [Watergate] (Original Mix)  | Kerri Chandler  | Spaces and Places Album Sampler 4  | Kaoz Theory | 9  | Colours (Original Mix)  | Sommerfeldt, Sigmund Floyd  | Colours  | Paper Recordings | 10  | Mogodu Mondays (Original Mix)  | Tennek  | Deep Inside  | Pasqua Records S.A | 11  | Favorite Place (Neon Transmission Remix)  | Demarkus Lewis, Neon Transmission  | Favorite Place (Remixes Part One)  | HOUPH | 12  | Can I Get A Bump  | Tom Esselle, 3Digits  | Praise Bes - EP  | Wolf Music Recordings | 13  | Make This Trip (Original Mix)  | Manuel Kane  | Make This Trip  | i! Records | 14  | The Drum (Mr. V House Masters Extended Variant)  | Mr. V  | House Masters - Mr. V Sampler  | Defected | 15  | The Light  | Marquinn Mason, Stefan Ringer  | Nitecap  | FWM Entertainment | 16  | Lift Me Up (The Sunday Mix)  | The African Sunset Project  | Lift Me Up  | Mange Le Funk Productions | 17  | Swell Sessions (Original Mix)  | Jazzy Eyewear  | We The People  | So Sound Recordings | 18  | Talk Of Hate  | Rudi'Kastic  | Body Of Work  | Groove On Records | 19  | Ten Wave (Original Mix)  | Kamosoul  | Fluorescent  | Deep House Cats SA | 20  | Nightshade  | KDY97  | Play It Loud!  | Stay True Sounds | 21  | 1520 Sedgwick (Eugene Glasgow Remix)  | Scott Diaz, Eugene Glasgow  | Reinterpretations, Vol. 1  | Grand Plans | 22  | The Gurner (Atjazz Remix)  | Justin Martin, Atjazz  | Ghettos & Gardens Remixes Vol. 1 (10 Year Anniversary)  | What To Do | 23  | Honey B  | Phil Weeks  | On Impact  | Robsoul | 24  | Days of Leisure  | Vernon Felicity  | Days of Leisure  | Days of Leisure

Today's 'Mind Deep Confusion' Session was all about the Deep, yes playing new business and even one of my own for the massive and crew.  Some serious tracks out there this week so get stuck in for sure....It's time...Have a great week ahead,Biopic.Track Listing:    | Num.  | TitleTrack List: HISTORY Session 243 Pressure  | Artist  | Release  | Label | 1  | Erde  | Iron Curtis, Johannes Albert  | Moon III  | Frank Music | 2  | Cold Sweat (Byron the Aquarius Remix)  | Specter, Byron The Aquarius  | Front & Center  | Second Hand Records | 3  | Deep Stack (Max Marinacci Remix)  | Street79, Max Marinacci  | Deep Stack  | Jazz In Da House | 4  | That Cowbell Track (Original Mix)  | Tooli  | That Cowbell Track  | Local Talk | 5  | Saranrom (Clean Is Good Remix)  | Funky Gangster, Clean Is Good  | Saranrom  | BALLLOOM | 6  | Illusion (Theo's SS translation)  | Tone Control, Theo Parrish  | Illusion  | Wolf Music Recordings | 7  | Lets Get It (Oscar P Roller Jam)  | Oscar P, Cris Herrera, Djmiketbrown  | Lets Get It  | Kolour Recordings | 8  | Makhenikha  | Aquadeep, Veesoul, TimAdeep  | Another Mile EP  | Atjazz Record Company | 9  | So Deep (Mo'Cream 22 Remix)  | Mo'Cream  | So Deep (Remix)  | i! Records | 10  | On The Tube  | Retrosynco  | On The Tube  | Quadriga | 11  | House  | BRS  | B-Sides, Rarities & Unreleased, Pt. 1  | Situationism | 12  | Let It Go  | Steve Bug, Cle  | Let It Go / Suitcase In A Box  | Nu Groove Records | 13  | Happy Alien (Original Mix)  | Giulia Caldarulo  | Happy Alien  | What You Like Black | 14  | Ancient Velvet  | Frederick  | Ancient Velvet  | Astral Arts | 15  | Come On, Baby (Original Mix)  | Mark Farina, Homero Espinosa  | Come On, Baby  | Moulton Music | 16  | The Revolution (Original)  | Post Cap Era  | The Revolution  | Plastik People Digital | 17  | Don't Wanna Let You Know (Original Mix)  | Babs Presents, Samiveda  | Record Box EP  | 4th Set Records | 18  | Return To Me (Original Mix)  | Lesny Deep  | Return To Me EP  | Groovebom Records | 19  | So Sweet  | Kevin Yost  | Perspectives EP Six  | TSOY | 20  | Track 34 (Dub Mix)  | Bizio Cool  | Track 34  | CATELE RECORDINGS | 21  | Evergreen  | Crackazat  | Evergreen  | Freerange | 22  | Plumpkin Sky (Original Mix)  | Demarkus Lewis  | Plumpkin Sky  | Legent Music | 23  | Mediator (Original Mix)  | Marlon Kirk  | Mediation  | Unprincipled Records

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In this episode, we talk with Christian Miller about studies in psychology that seem to show that our actions are more influenced by the situations that we're in than by our character or conscious willing. We also talk about how these studies relate to free will and moral responsibility, as well as Christian's own view.Christian's website: https://www.christianbmiller.com/Christian's book, The Character Gap: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-character-gap-9780197503805?lang=en&cc=us Twitter: https://twitter.com/thefreewillshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefreewillshow/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Free-Will-Show-105535031200408/

Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139670 Philosopher John M. Doris writes: * I regard this renaissance of virtue with concern. Like many others, I find the lore of virtue deeply compelling, yet I cannot help noticing that much of this lore rests on psychological theory that is some 2,500 years old. A theory is not bad simply because it is old, but in this case developments of more recent vintage suggest that the old ideas are in trouble. In particular, modern experimental psychology has discovered that circumstance has surprisingly more to do with how people behave than traditional images of character and virtue allow. * It's commonly presumed that good character inoculates against shifting fortune, and English has a rich vocabulary for expressing this belief: steady, dependable, steadfast, unwavering, unflinching. Conversely, the language generously supplies terms of abuse marking lack of character: weak, fickle, disloyal, faithless, irresolute. Such locutions imply that character will have regular behavioral manifestations: the person of good character will do well, even under substantial pressure to moral failure, while the person of bad character is someone on whom it would be foolish to rely. In this view it's character, more than circumstance, that decides the moral texture of a life; as the old saw has it, character is destiny. * Behavior is – contra the old saw about character and destiny – extraordinarily sensitive to variation in circumstance. Numerous studies have demonstrated that minor situational variations have powerful effects on helping behavior: hurried passersby step over a stricken person in their path, while unhurried passersby stop to help…The experimental record suggests that situational factors are often better predictors of behavior than personal factors, and this impression is reinforced by careful examination of behavior outside the confines of the laboratory. In very many situations it looks as though personality is less than robustly determinative of behavior. To put things crudely, people typically lack character. * When compared with advances in the natural sciences, psychology has exhibited little uncontroversial progress. Am I a laughing stock? The answer might shock you. (7-17-21) https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=141266 Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFVD7Xfhn7sJY8LAIQmH8Q/join https://odysee.com/@LukeFordLive, https://lbry.tv/@LukeFord, https://rumble.com/lukeford https://dlive.tv/lukefordlivestreams Listener Call In #: 1-310-997-4596 Superchat: https://entropystream.live/app/lukefordlive Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 https://www.patreon.com/lukeford http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.

The Power Of The Situation To Shape Behavior, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140115 Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139670 The Myth Of Voter Fraud, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=137198 Debunking the most common claims of voter fraud: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140096 "How claims of voter fraud were supercharged by bad science" https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140090 Kris Kobach's False Claims About Voter Fraud, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140070 ‘Trump's Claims About Illegal Votes Are Nonsense. I Debunked the Study He Cites as ‘Evidence.'' https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140088 'Trump And Allies Keep Claiming Republican Poll Watchers Were Banned—That's A Lie' https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140062 NYT: There's no evidence to support claims that election observers were blocked from counting rooms, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140057 'EXPLAINER: Why poll watcher complaints don't amount to fraud' https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140055 ‘No, Georgia election workers didn't kick out observers and illegally count ‘suitcases' of ballots', https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=140053 ‘Mail-in Voter Fraud: Anatomy of a Disinformation Campaign', https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=139307 No Evidence For Voter Fraud: A Guide To Statistical Claims About The 2020 Election, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=137683 OutsideTheBeltway.com: A Return to the (Lack of) Evidence of Significant Fraud, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=137612 Michael Anton Says He Does Not Know Who Truly Won The 2020 Election, But He's ‘Moved On', https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=137453 Who Is Hans Von Popofsky? https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=135307 Henry Olsen: How we can be confident that Trump's voter fraud claims are baloney, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=135305 Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFVD7Xfhn7sJY8LAIQmH8Q/join https://odysee.com/@LukeFordLive, https://lbry.tv/@LukeFord, https://rumble.com/lukeford https://dlive.tv/lukefordlivestreams Listener Call In #: 1-310-997-4596 Superchat: https://entropystream.live/app/lukefordlive Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 https://www.patreon.com/lukeford http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.

Paris Marx is joined by Richard Barbrook to discuss how the Californian Ideology illustrated the neoliberalism of Silicon Valley, whether it’s still relevant in the present, and how games can be used for political purposes.Richard Barbrook is the author of “Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village” and “Class Wargames: Ludic subversion against spectacular capitalism.” He’s a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Westminster. Follow Richard on Twitter as @richardbarbrook.

Last year during the unrest after George Floyd's murder, we read an article about recuperation and talked about the concept within the context of then unfolding paroxysms of rage against police brutality.Does every movement for social change eventually get recuperated? Yes. Is it still worth engaging in social movements? Also yes. The Recuperation of Authentic Outrage https://libcom.org/library/recuperation-authentic-outrage Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)

Content Warnings: Strong Language, Sexual Content Everyone who was in the Great Molasses Flood is dead. The location is now… Read more 03.04: The Great Molasses Flood – January 15, 2019 12:45 PM

There are many on the left who seem to be incapable of letting a momentary upturn in struggle, or a softening of policy by the ruling class, pass without declaring the end of Capitalist realism.The common ruin of the contending classes is all we have to look forward to unless we can find a way to assert our agency. Until we realize our world historic mission, capitalist realism and its devastating consequences are here to stay. On the Current Conjuncturehttps://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4954-on-the-current-conjuncture?fbclid=IwAR0ZSlfzCQnDc43oIjNEKOtnmgsa0i_9_M-D8JXiJybodVBPd5sPSwlGzL4 Capitalist Catastrophismhttps://roarmag.org/magazine/capitalist-catastrophism/?fbclid=IwAR1ui303CjXt0fvl19Z9iRZH-oOshL4NEUlJU1do-7Fzpb04nxHdYLJWMNE Coronavirus Is the End of the End of Historyhttps://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/03/coronavirus-is-the-end-of-the-end-of-history?fbclid=IwAR2iCYlYdPJHfdrXVH9nzGpBld7YU_w8hedK0FPWfEv2OLmpX1bfwSUdJ-Q Music: Good Riddance- After the NightmareSupport the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)

In this long, really long, lecture, the focus is on the chapter entitled, ‘Social Psychology' at the undergraduate introduction to psychology courses. I'm using the free, online text book from openstax.org, “Psychology” 2nd edition. This is one of my favorite fields of Psychology, mostly because I started my doctoral degree pursuit in Social Psychology, before switching to Counseling Psychology 4 years later. But I thoroughly enjoyed my deep dive into Social Psych concepts and research, and have taught undergraduate and Master's level Social Psychology courses previously.   Feel free to email me at PsychExplained@pm.me. Check out socialpsychology.org and understandingprejudice.org for deeper dives into social psych.  Content Index:   defining social psychology  Situationism v Dispositionism  Fundamental Attribution Error  Actor-Observer Bias  Self-Serving Bias  Just World Hypothesis  Social Roles  Social Norms and Scripts  Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Study  Defining Attitudes  Cognitive Dissonance  The effect of initiation  Persuasion  Foot in the Door Technique  Conformity  Normative Social Influence v. Informational Social Influence  Stanley Milgram's Obedience Study   Prejudice, Stereotyping, Discrimination, Racism  Self-fulfilling prophecy & confirmation bias  In-groups and out-groups  Bystander Effect (Helping behavior) Thanks again for listening!  Find me via email: PsychExplained@pm.me, or  via Twitter, @JACKBTEACHING (I know, that's clever, right?). Ways to Support my podcast: Use Anchor link below, choose a monthly amount, Or a single donation using PayPal to my username, @JACKYAC  Or my PayPal profile page: https://paypal.me/jackyac?locale.x=en_US All support received goes towards keeping Dr. Chuang caffeinated, and the coffee purchased will be from local, small roasters and coffee shops - so your support will help local small businesses! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jackbteaching/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jackbteaching/support

We read an article about recuperation and talked about the concept within the context of the contemporary social unrest that is currently gripping the United States. Does every movement for social change eventually get recuperated? Yes. Is it still worth engaging in social movements? Also yes. To hear the full episode, join our Patreon for $2 a month. Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)

Welcome back, friends! For this episode, we’re hooking up with our old friends in Columbus, OH, Chairman Moe’s Magic Contradiction, to discuss last week’s “mega debate” in Toronto, between Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Žižek, on “Happiness; Capitalism vs. Marxism.” Regular listeners to the show might remember we had Charlie Umland and Jim Calder as guests last year, in Episode 11, to talk about Situationism. That was probably one of the most fun shows we’ve ever done on this podcast and, given the spectacle of such an eagerly anticipated intellectual debate, I thought it would be a good idea to invite them on again, for a deep dive not only into the debate, but also what it means for the state of intellectual discourse today. Just to provide some context for this particular episode: I’m lucky to be part of an occasional reading group with Charlie and Jim, and I think I speak for us all that we were all pretty excited when we heard this debate was going to be taking place. We knew there would probably be a pretty intense online reaction to it, especially from elements of the left that are already antagonistic to Žižek’s style and brand of Marxism (see here and here, for just two examples). So we thought we’d do this show, as a way of thinking our way through some of that likely response, and also to explore some of the disagreements we have among ourselves on some of the issues arising from the debate, including the political priority of identity politics for the left. Special thanks to Darren Latanick, who graciously offered to step in as producer of the episode, on the Columbus side. Thanks for listening and, as ever, you can leave us a review on iTunes or reach out to us with feedback on Twitter @occupyirtheory.

Clayton Blackstone joins Ben and Pat to discuss Situationism.

Clayton Blackstone joins Ben and Pat to discuss Situationism.

In the years since Guy Debord wrote "The Society of the Spectacle" we have witnessed the utter triumph of said spectacle and have been thoroughly crushed under the jackboot of its mediocrity. We think that some of the ideas of the Situationists are even more relevant now than they were in 68 and are worth having a conservation about, so we did. https://www.patreon.com/theregrettablecenturyA Short List of Some of the Readings For this Episode:Society of the Spectacle (full text)https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm Revenge of the Spectacle http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/revenge-of-the-spectacle-this-time-its-personal Bringing Fuel to The Flames: Anselme Jappe's Guy Debord http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/bringing-fuelNotes on the Spectacle of Oppositionhttps://www.sayitwithpavingstones.org/news/2018/6/29/some-notes-on-the-spectacle-of-opposition Why Psychogeography?https://www.sayitwithpavingstones.org/news/2018/8/14/derive-0-why-psychogeography Background on 1968https://jacobinmag.com/2018/05/how-beautiful-it-was/ Support the show (http://patreon.com/theregrettablecentury)

This influential 1979 album combined art education with working class political activism to play with the meaning of pop music. We discuss the production of the record and the band's conflicts (or lack thereof) with their record label and the BBC. Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store: Entertainment! Additional Resources: Dettmar, K. J. H. (2014). Gang of Four’s Entertainment! New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. Gang Of Four Track By Track Andy Gill meets Andy Gill Jerky, punky, funky Gang of Four Anthrax Hoover, M., & Stokes, L. (1998). Pop Music and the Limits of Cultural Critique: Gang of Four Shrinkwraps Entertainment. Popular Music & Society, 22(3), 21. Smith, M. R. (2005). So Sweet. Remix, 7(7), 106.

The situationist movement has been an important inspiration for group foundations in Europe, including Group 66 in Norway, and is crucial to the Nordic aesthetics as it’s seen internationally. Through the seminar Art as Force on situationism in the Nordic region we want to establish an understanding of the Nordic tradition we come from. Part 3 - Situationism and performing arts: With contributions from Arnd Wesemand and Helena Waldmann. Moderator: Ine Therese Berg. The seminar was part of Positions - discursive program during the international dance festival Oktoberdans 2018 produced by BIT Teatergarasjen, and presented in collaboration with The University of Bergen, theatre studies and KODE.

The situationist movement has been an important inspiration for group foundations in Europe, including Group 66 in Norway, and is crucial to the Nordic aesthetics as it’s seen internationally. Through the seminar Art as Force on situationism in the Nordic region we want to establish an understanding of the Nordic tradition we come from. Part 2 - Situationism and Nordic popular art: With contributions from Knut Ove Arntzen, Marika Reuterswärd and Elsebet Rahlff / Gruppe 66 and the exhibition Bergensavantgarden 1966-85 at KODE (video). Moderator: Ine Therese Berg. The seminar was part of Positions - discursive program during the international dance festival Oktoberdans 2018 produced by BIT Teatergarasjen, and presented in collaboration with The University of Bergen, theatre studies and KODE.

The situationist movement has been an important inspiration for group foundations in Europe, including Group 66 in Norway, and is crucial to the Nordic aesthetics as it’s seen internationally. Through the seminar Art as Force on situationism in the Nordic region we want to establish an understanding of the Nordic tradition we come from. Part 1 - International Situationism: Introduction by Karoline Skuseth. With contributions from Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen and André Eiermann. Moderator: Ine Therese Berg. The seminar was part of Positions - discursive program during the international dance festival Oktoberdans 2018 produced by BIT Teatergarasjen, and presented in collaboration with The University of Bergen, theatre studies and KODE.

While on vacation last week, the Antifada crew decided to mix it up a little by each doing a standalone segment. For her contribution, Jamie spoke with her old friend Anna Barie a.k.a. Nora Singh of Los Angeles punk band Hit Bargain about life on the road, Situationism, and what it means to be the Gallagher of noise rock. Also: the naughty aughties, makin' babies, and is Lana del Rey a sign of the end times? music: Hit Bargain - Capitulate Hit Bargain - Quiet Streets Hit Bargain's debut full length Potential Maximizer is out now via Buzz Records. Stream and/or buy it here: hitbargain.bandcamp.com/album/potential-maximizer

Today, we are releasing Part 2 of our conversation with Jim Calder and Charlie Umland, on Situationism. In the last episode, we addressed some of the basic concepts and arguments of the Situationists, focusing largely on their critique of capitalist modernity. In today’s episode, we turn to question of strategy, and the way the approach of the Situationists to political engagement. We think this is a timely episode — coming to you as it is, right in the middle of the 50th anniversary of the student revolt in Paris, of May 1968 — an event with which the situationists are often associated, sometimes even being seen as among the key standard-bearers of its intellectual values! For those unfamiliar, the early weeks of May 1968 saw an major wave of student actions in Paris, protesting the closure and police invasions of University campuses at Nanterre and the Sorbonne. On Tuesday, May 14, the workers’ movements came out and joined the students, and a number of workplace occupations began, including at the Sud Aviation plant near Nantes, and at a Renault parts factory, near Rouen. By May 16, France was in the grip of a General Strike. The workers had occupied close to fifty factories, and hundreds of thousands workers were out on strike, across the country. By the end of the following week, ten million workers were on strike — a figure which amounted to about two-thirds of the entire French workforce. And its no surprise of course, just as with the 100-year anniversary of the Russian Revolution last October, that the 50th anniversary of May ’68 is a big topic of discussion among the left right now. May 68 is the theme of the latest issue of Jacobin, for example, and there’s a great piece on the Paris uprising in there by Jonah Birch, called “How Beautiful it Was’. Birch argues that, although de Gaulle was eventually able to restore order, and the movement eventually collapsed into infighting: …even now, May ’68 remains a potent political symbol of the Left’s hopes for a mass movement to challenge capitalism. Nowhere else in the Western world over the past half century was such a threat to capitalism posed. Listeners might was to check out Birch’s piece (I’ll add a link as soon as there is a web version available). Its a great primer for anyone who wants a bit more background on the May ’68 moment. He has a really interesting discussion the economic and social factors in France at the time, and the extent to which they might have served as triggers of the student uprising. But what’s interesting about Birch’s account is that it mentions the Situationists only once, and then only as a way of sort of flagging an incorrect way of remembering May ’68 — Birch cites the slogans and art terrorism of the situationists, as if by way of ascribing them a merely horizontalist politics, or a politics of everyday life. Similarly, in the latest episode of the Aufhebunga Bunga podcast, Catherine Liu also discusses May ’68 as nothing more than the sensational arrival of a performative and campus-based politics of everyday life — a harbinger, if you will, of the paradoxically vanguardist politics of today’s campus left; and, ultimately, a politics that is highly compatible with neoliberal managerialism. Early in the episode, she says: …when you have this very elite group of students who see themselves as extremely important and their colleagues in the media are also striking against these traditionalists, the gaullists, the rightwing, and the fascists, the transformation of everyday life gets elevated to the height of Hegelian world historical significance Listeners should definitely check that full show. As Liu says, while its a good thing for ordinary people to become aware of their political agency, its bad when people don’t see that agency in connection to the material and social relations of their lives. But I think what listeners might find interesting about this episode is that,

Welcome to Episode 11, of Fully Automated, an Occupy IR Theory podcast! Today, we have Part One of our first ever two-part episode, on the topic of Situationism! Joining me for this episode are two friends of mine from Columbus, Ohio, Charlie Umland, and Jim Calder. They are pretty sharp, when it comes to this topic. And, over the course of this two-part episode, they’re gonna help us understand just who the situationists were, and who they weren’t. Now, coincidentally, situationism has sort of been back on the radar, lately. In February 2017, the New York Times ran a piece by Robert Zaretsky, called ‘Trump and the ‘Society of the Spectacle’.’ In the piece, Zaretsky offers this very Situationist sounding line: Like body snatchers, commodities and images have hijacked what we once naïvely called reality. The authentic nature of the products we make with our hands and the relationships we make with our words have been removed, replaced by their simulacra.” In the episode, Charlie, Jim and I get into some discussion of this piece. One of our big points is that perhaps Zaretsky’s take is kind of off the mark. For him, the Trump is the master of the image, in a time when the very form of image itself, has hijacked our reality. Focusing on the image as the problematic form this way, however, Zaretsky’s Situationists resonate somewhat too cynically. Indeed, it could be said they bear a familiar resemblance with the work of another famous French scholar, Jean Baudrillard. Now, Baudrillard doesn’t hail from Situationism. But he is a critic of contemporary capitalism, and he is particularly preoccupied with the rise of what he terms ’hyperreality’ — an economic era dominated by the logic of the image, wherein humans have been seduced into a state of passive consumption. For Baudrillard, where older modes of capitalism were predicated on production of actual goods, society today is a simulation; we are a consumer society, but what we consume is nothing more than signs, or symbols. In such a society, even political resistance has sort of dissipated into a kind of moral relativism; we no longer fight for any particular group’s “code” — instead we adopt a stance of ironic “fascination.” This attitude of fascination, or what we might even call flanneurism, is exemplified in a scene in the recent Adam Curtis documentary, Hypernormalization. In this scene, we meet a young Patti Smith, giggling as she recounts the ironic prospect of poor people, watching movie trailers over and over, on a small screen outside of a cinema. Its as if she’s hypnotized herself, by the total surrender to passivity of the people watching the screen. She is overwhelmed by the cynicism of it all, and can only laugh. But in the episode, we make the argument that this is perhaps precisely the wrong way to interpret the Spectacle. Situationism is much more than simply a critique of seduction; the theory of spectacle is NOT simply that we have been reduced to the status of a mass of consumers, or that we are simply distracted by the ongoing barrage of the media’s meaningless images. To the contrary, a key concept that has come up for us in our discussions is that of “separation” — which is something like the alienation experienced by everyday people, not just in capitalism, but also in other highly bureaucratized technical systems, like the Soviet Union, when rationalities of expertise work to delegitimize any demand they might make, for true collective participation in the productive systems that govern their lives. And, we argue, it is in this sense that Society of Spectacle is still very much a Marxist project. One need only consider how frequently the topic of the proletariat is discussed, and the various tasks to which it must attend, if it is to survive. So, a little bit about our guests today. Both are from Ohio: Charlie Umland is a cook. He likes to learn about art and philosophy and communism, and he is an unapologetic D&D fan.

Continuing with Dave Pizarro on articles by Stanley Milgram, Philip Zimbardo, and John Doris about situationism, which entails that people's level of morality will vary by situation, as opposed to virtue ethics, which posits that how people will act in a novel situation will be determined by the quality of their character. Listen to part 1 first or get the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

On Stanley Milgram's "Behavioral Study of Obedience" (1963), Philip Zimbardo’s "Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison" (1973), and John Doris’s "Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics" (1998). Do difficult situations make good people act badly? Are there really "good" and "bad" people, or are we all about the same, but put in different situations? With guest David Pizarro from the Very Bad Wizards podcast. Don't wait for part 2! Get the ad-free Citizen Edition now. Visit MUBI.com/PEL for 30 days of free curated movies, BarkBox.com/PEL for a free month with a plan, hellofresh.com promo code PEL30 for $30 off your first week, TheTrackR.com/PEL for 20% off, and Squarespace.com for a free trial and 10% off with offer code EXAMINED.

In Minute 86 of The Whole Shebang, Mike and Jenny kick off a week of being joined by FANCY guest host Jen Melchert! Jen joins Jenny and Mike to discuss: Arthur's lovely down-to-earth response to the barrage of witty epigrams from the Flaming Creatures, the Flaming Creatures perhaps having read a book or two on fascism (last week's Big Brother reference) and Situationism, and whether Arthur's nonplussed reaction to their dimestore philosophy is a meta-commentary on the wilderness of queer theory, Mandy's mysterious appearance in the middle of a black void and how the movie overall poses people in situations like album covers, the silliness of Bryan Ferry's video for “A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall,” how the Flaming Creatures are not just a goth-glam tribute but also a tribute to the punk and postpunk artists who wanted to tear Bowie's legacy down in the late ‘70s, Brian's late-night recording session, his single melodramatic tear running down his cheek, and how it might be a tribute to Sinead O'Connor's iconic “Nothing Compares 2 U” video. We then pivot through Prince and the future Paisley Park Museum to talk about Jen's visit to the Bowie exhibit a couple of years ago and our SEETHING jealousy. Find us on the web at thewholeshebangpodcast.com, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon at wholeshebangpod.

John and Myself(Chris) join returning guest Nino Tuwhenaugh for our ongoing expose of the punk rock scene. Topics include: The Sex Pistols, Bill Grundy Today Show Interview, Siouxsie Sioux, Malcolm McLaren, Clifford Frith, Enigma Machine, Julian Huxley, David Livingstone, Transhumanism, Croydon College, Situationism, Situationist International, Discordianism , Kerry Wendell Thornley, Lee Harvey Oswald, Burning Man, The Occupy Movement, Ian MacKaye, UAWMF, Weather Underground, Herbert Marcuse, King Mob, Vivienne Westwood, Nihilism, Denialism, Steven Abrams, The Clash, Joe Strummer, Vegetarianism, Mick Jones, Strand School, Vince White, Stewart Home, Julia Callan-Thompson, Michael X, Gale Benson, Leonard Plugge, Malcom X, Temporary Autonomous Zone, Hakim Bey, Pedophilia, Bestiality, Musical Truths, The Kray Twins, Alfred Kinsey, I Could Puke: The Life and Crimes of Mr.� Ott, Serial Killers,Intro music "The Clash-Hateful" , Outro music "The Clash - Death Or Glory" hoaxbusterscall.com

Greg Curry This week Bursts speaks with Greg Curry, a prisoner serving time for alleged participation in the Lucasville Prison uprising of 1993 where prisoners took over the Ohio prison, leading to the death of 10 inmates and one guard.  For the hour, they speak about incarceration in the U.S., intersections of race and class, the prison strikes, capitalism and resistance. More on Greg's case can be found at https://gregcurry.wordpress.com/ Prison Strike, Week 2 Here is another roundup of week two of of the National Prison Strike. This information was pulled from Mask Magazine, It's Going Down, Support Prisoner Resistance, and the Incarcerated Worker's Organizing Committee. September 12th     Hunger strike begins at Lucasville and Ohio State Penitentiary, called by the Free Ohio Movement.     South Carolina prisoners release video of insects in their food.     Columbia, SC: Confirmed strike at Broad River Correctional Institution:     Florida: More prisoner uprising broke out on Monday night. According to the Miami Herald:     Florida's state prisons have resumed “normal” operations despite a disturbance Monday night at Columbia Correctional, the fifth inmate uprising in less than a week, officials said. About 40 inmates engaged in civil disobedience by refusing officers' orders and taking control of at least one dorm Monday evening. Columbia — one of the state's most violent prisons — remained on lockdown Tuesday.     Since Thursday, inmates have caused trouble at four other prisons, all in the state's Panhandle, including Gulf Annex Correctional, Mayo Correctional and Jackson Correctional. The most serious melee was at Holmes Correctional, where 400 inmates destroyed several dorms on Thursday.     Inmates involved in any incident have been moved to other prisons. September 13th     Chelsea Manning ends hunger strike that she began on September 9th. The army has agreed to grant her demands of gender affirming surgery. September 14th     Support Prisoner Resistance reports prison lockdowns in Arizona. Perryville, Yuma, Tuscon, Douglas, and Phoenix. It is unclear whether these are related to the strike, more information is forthcoming. September 16th     Merced, CA: Supporters report another block joins hunger strike. You can hear full coverage of this situation on the most recent IGD Cast here. September 17th     Holman Prison, AL: Free Alabama Movement issues press release calling for an end to the humanitarian crisis at the prison. They state through social media that many guards are not reproting to work and that much of the prison remains unguarded. This is from a press release which came out yesterday:     A serious humanitarian crisis is developing at Holman prison as correctional officers continue to walk off of the job amid concerns about safety and apathy from Warden Terry Raybon and the office of ADOC Commissioner Jefferson S Dunn, as violence, including deadly stabbings and assaults continue to mount.     Several officers expressed dismay and fear after learning that two of their fellow officers, Officer Brian Ezell and another officer, reported to Warden Raybon that they had knives drawn on them and their lives threatened, and that neither Warden Raybon, nor Commissioners Jeff Dunn and Grantt Culliver would take any action to ensure their safety. Both of these officers then quit.     Several other officers have also quit in the past three weeks after witnessing a stabbing of a fellow officer in the temple and who had remained hospitalized with life threatening injuries until he was pronounced dead earlier today. This after a former warden, Carter Davenport, was stabbed in March amidst back to back riots and other violence at Holman.     Now, after seeing Warden Raybon release approximately 20 people from segregation on September 13, 2016, most of whom were all in segregation for violent incidents (only to see several stabbing take place, including one critically injured and another losing an eye), a total of eight more officers have e ither quit or turned in their two week notices. Officers are expressing concern that the Commissioners of the ADOC are intentionally exacerbating violence at the expense of human life in efforts to push forward their plan to extort the public for 1.5 billion to build new prisons in next years Legislative Session.     Officers have began to express support for the Non-Violent stance of FREE ALABAMA MOVEMENT and their efforts to expose corruption, violence and other issues plaguing Holman and other Alabama prisons, and have went so far as to make repeated requests to Warden Raybon for the release of F.A.M. co-founder and organizer Kinetik Justice from solitary confinement, because officers now feel that he is being wrongfully detained and because he has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to conduct peaceful demonstrations at Holman prison to bring attention to issues within the ADOC and Holman prison.     We are asking that everyone call Commissioner Dunn and Warden Raybon and demand that they post daily reports of the staffing levels and incidents of violence taking place at Holman as a matter of public safety.     Warden Terry Raybon     Holman Correctional Facility     251-368-8173     Commissioner Jefferson Dunn     Commissioner Grantt Culliver     334-353-3883 (switchboard operator) We close with this update from inside prison walls in SC:     "Comrades up here having an inside meeting to critically analyze the Prison strike strong and weak positions. For many it didn't go far enough. Crucial points of resolution are not addressed. Certain regions didn't feel the love, so the fire didn't burn where they were at. Strong points, it was time. Unity was found on the outside. More people are talking about prison issues. Inside prisoners found unity in certain units or prisons. We too are talking more. These are just samples of what we need to start discussions around, particularly the prisoners. Because this will tell us how to add this moment in the movement, to the collective of prison rebellions to strengthen it, and toss the weak points.     Big UPs to the Prisoners thats always refused to comply. I'm one. For over a decade I've been punish with little privileges do to my insistent stance not to work. So the prisons close us off from the working prisoners. Its good to see others joining. But its not enough. They'll let the few of us lay. So to be truly effective, time to plan and prepare for the next phase." Call for solidarity from IWOC Meanwhile, the IWOC is making every effort to track the strike in the hopes of continuing this resistance and locating forms of solidarity and calls for assistance. If you would like to help in this effort, there is a comprehensive phone zaps list that includes a rundown of phone numbers, some context for the specific struggles, and suggested scripts to read if and when you get the pigs on the line. You can see this Google Doc here. Also, if you hear anything, or are able to call prisons and ask about lockdown status, please let IWOC know via email at: iwoc@riseup.net If you make calls for a given state and hear no lockdowns, please report that too. Stay tuned all around for updates on the strike. Love and solidarity!       Legal fund donations to AVL and ATL And finally (tho not lastly) just to plug, and to yet again express our love for our jailed NC and GA comrades, people here in Asheville and in Atlanta still need donations for legal funds. All of these folks were arrested  while expressing solidarity with the Prison Strike, and the folks from Atlanta are facing some insane felony charges. All of them are out of jail now, but are beginning the long, slow battle with the criminal injustice system and they need your support. To donate to comrades in Asheville, and to see a pretty sweet write up of the events of the day in our town, you can visit: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/legal-support-for-wnc-sept-9-solidarity-activists And to express solidarity to Atlanta, you can visit: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/bail-out-prison-strike-supporters Some anarchist audios not to be missed I'd like to share a few notes on recent anarchist audio and video media in english that I've been appreciating in hopes of enticing you, dear audience, into checking them out.         Crimethinc's The Exworker has begun rebroadcasting. This most recent episodes of the podcast focuses on the September 9th strike with a conversation with Azzurra of the ABC in Houston, TX, and Ben Turk of IWOC based in Wisconsin.  Episode 49 also includes a review of Captive Nation: Black Organizing In The Civil Rights Era, an interview with an anarchist in the UK about Brexit and other tidbits.  #50 also includes a segment mourning the death of Jordan MacTaggart, an American anarchist who died on the front lines in Rojava recently, a segment celebrating the death of former police chief and all-around king-bastard John Timoney and a rebroadcast of a Crna Luknja interview with members of DAF about Turkey after the attempted Coup.  These ExWorkers are well worth a listen and available at http://crimethinc.com/podcast/             Also, submedia's most recent episode on strikes, the DAPL pipeline and more entitled Burn Down The Plantation features a great interview with Melvin Ray of the Free Alabama Movement.  This sits alongside a second video installment explaining anarchist fundamentals, this time featuring the concept of Mutual Aid, short videos on continued struggles in France against the #LoiTravail, direct action against fascists in Athens.  These and more can be found at https://submedia.tv/stimulator/             It's Going Down is now producing the IDGcast which can be found at http://itsgoingdown.org/ and include thus far timely interviews on the uprising in Milawukee, words from the Red Warrior Camp at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access pipeline, the state of the alt-right or new white nationalist movements in North America and a discussion on communes and struggle with Morgan and El Errante. The most recent episode features an interview with a woman on hunger strike in Merced, California,  in solidarity with hunger striking prisoners against the deplorable situation in this poor and rural county's jails. The jails have witnessed abuses, deaths and injuries among those imprisoned in adult and juvenile detention at the hands of sadistic CO's. Find the IDGcast at http://itsgoingdown.org/podcast         Resonance Audio Distro, or RAD, is a source for radical and anarchist audio of zines, books and essays and, among other things, produced an awesome and lengthy interview with Sylvie Kashdan and Robby Barnes to give context to two plays by these rapscallions that Resonance put online.  Robbie and Sylvie are longtime anarchists living in the Seattle area who have been involved in The 5th Estate magazine for decades and have tons of stories and experiences to share.  Check out Resonance at https://resonanceaudiodistro.org/         Season two of The Brilliant Podcast has begun and is apparently headed towards a new format.  The most recent episode features a conversation with Isaac Cronin, curator of the Cruel Hospice imprint at Little Black Cart, talks about his experiences of Situationism, pro and post-Situ ideas and play in the U.S. since the 1960's.  Check this and more out at http://thebrilliant.org/             Finally, hip hop artist Sole is continuing to put out interesting discussions on his podcast SOLEcast.  Most recently, Sole talked to Franco "Bifo" Berardi on Capitalism, Mass Killings, Suicide & Alienation.  Episodes can be found at http://www.soleone.org/solecast More suggested media to come in the near future! Playlist: http://www.ashevillefm.org/node/17566

After discussing some listener feedback about the movie Swingers, Tamler and David talk about two classic experiments in social psychology: the Milgram Experiments and the Zimbardo Prison experiment.  They discuss the power of the situation, its influence on recent philosophy, and whether there is room given the evidence to believe in moral character and virtue. Also, Tamler admits to his former struggles with hard core street drugs, and Dave ponders which prison gang would be most accepting if he had to serve hard time.Links"Swingers," Directed by Jon Favreau [metacritic.com]The Milgram Experiment [Wikipedia.org]Video clip of a replication of the Milgram Experiment [youtube.com]The Stanford Prison Experiment [Wikipedia.org]Short video on Stanford Prison Experiment [youtube.com]Asch Conformity Experiment [youtube.com]Jon Doris "Lack of Character" [amazon.com]

[This is a link to the clip Pastor is referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIhWBO_5x2E]. Sometimes probably doesnt cut it. Youre ready to jump out of an airplane, Everything packed right? Is it good? Probably. You want to hear, Yes, its ready to go, 100 percent. Sure, everythings fine, before you jump out of that airplane because your life is on the line. Paul gives a stern warning to believers. He said, When you pass into eternity, you need to make sure that what youve put your hope and trust in is reliable. You need to make sure that its strong, that its true, that it will stand the test. So he says in Colossians 2:8 (page 1166 of pew Bibles), See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. He says there are some philosophies out there-there are some teachings out there-that will lead you astray, and the time when you need them the most-when you enter into eternity, you need to make sure that when you pull that ripcord, there is something of substance thats going to save you and deliver you on the other end. Dont be duped. Dont be careless with your soul. He gives us that admonition, so thats what were trying to do-go through some of the philosophies and traditions of this world and talk about them, examine them one by one. You may not have known some of the names or the labels that we attach to those world views, but youre learning them. Its helping us to go, Oh, thats what thats called, and you know that these are still very prevalent in our world today. We talked about antinomianism which means against the law. Its as old as the Garden. You do your own thing; be your own boss. Adam and Eve tried to set their own course, make their own rules. Judges said every man did that which was right in their own eyes in the dark days of the Judges in Israel, so that very much exists today-people who believe there are no moral absolutes, you and I make up our own rules as we go. Then we talked last week about a form of generalism called utilitarianism. Thats the end justifying the means; all is well that ends well. What is the greatest good is whats good for the most people. Thats what we need to do. Whatever is the right thing-there are no absolutes. There are no moral laws; just do what is right for the most people. This morning, were talking about a Third World view, ethical world view, called situationism. Situationism says that the decision that is right depends on the situation, and there is one guiding absolute. There is an absolute, but there is only one. Its summed up in this popular Beatles song. Were going to hear a couple seconds of it right now, so go ahead and play this song. Youll all recognize it. (Playing is All You Need is Love.) I like the song, by the way, but is that true? Is that true? Some of you would rather the song just continue. I understand that, but you know we have a job to do here. All You Need is Love, thats what the situationist says. Thats all you need. There is one moral absolute in the universe, and that is the law of love, so you do whatever the law of love dictates in a given situation-not just any kind of love. Theyre very specific that it must be agape love. In the Bible, in the Greek, there are three kinds of love. There is Eros, which is sensual love, and usually its concerned with your own pleasure. Then there is Phileo, love or brotherly love, and that is a mutual reciprocal love; and then there is Agape love, and Agape love is a selfless love. Agape love seeks the highest and best for another whether or not that is reciprocated, so the situationist says, We need to love one another with an Agape love. We need to seek the highest and best for other people and make sure that the golden rule is followed. It sounds really good, right? They say, Listen, people are never a means to the end. You dont use people. You use things. So people are preeminent, and we are called to love people. The Bible extolled the virtue of love. In 1 Corinthians 13 (page 1137 of pew Bibles), if you give your body to be burned but have not love, youre nothing. Didnt it also say that faith, hope, love-these things remain, but the greatest of these is love? Didnt Jesus teach that if you love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself, those are the commandments right there. So Jesus lifted up love. The Scriptures seem to lift up love, so what could be wrong with a world view that has this as its mantra, All you need is love. Even complicated situations are supposedly resolved by this. There was a situation in Wisconsin where a husband killed his ailing wife. She was terminally ill and was going to die, so out of mercy-he was tired of seeing her suffer-he took her life, so he was charged with murder for that; but a situationist would say he acted in love. Murder is not a universal law. Its love, so because he acted in love, thats okay. If we take a poll here and say, Well, is adultery wrong? pretty much every hand would go up; but a situationist would say, Well, there are situations where adultery is okay if love is involved. Theres an example the situationists liked to use in World War II where a German prisoner was held in a Russian camp. It was a woman, and she learned the law that said, If you are pregnant, you will be dismissed because youre seen as a liability. She had met a friendly guard, and she asked him to impregnate her so she could be released from prison and be united with her husband and her children. The situationist says, That's fine. That was love. A situationist would say, If two people love each other and want to just live together, do what they want to do-as long as they love each other, they can do what they want to do, so theres this freedom as long as youre loving. Its kind of a perversion of what Augustine said. Do you remember what Augustine said? He said, Love God and do what you will. In other words, if you love God, everything else is going to be fine. The situationist says, Just love and then do what you will. Its a good thing in that its one law. There are a lot of laws in here to know, so its less complicated if all I have to know is one law and live it, but there are some problems-just like these other world views weve talked about-there are some problems with this one too. What about when what is loving is not so clear? There is a movie clip we are going to watch right now of some parents who found out their little daughter has leukemia [This is a clip from the movie, My Sisters Keeper. Unfortunately, there isnt a link at this time.] What are they going to do? How are they going to save her life? Imagine the desperation of this mom and this dad knowing that their little daughter may have a year, two years at the most to live? What would you do in their situation? Lets watch this clip. Its a little more difficult, isnt it? An act of love, she is considering bringing a child into the world to be an organ donor to her living child. Whats right there? What do you do there? Is that ethically right to bring a child into the world simply to be an organ donor to save the life of your living child? Things get a little messy, dont they, if there are no other laws in the world, if there is only the law of love? The problem isnt love. The problem is you and me. The problem is sometimes our love is misguided. Lets go back to Matthew 16 where we talked last week about Peter. Lets look at it from just a little bit of a different angle this time. Remember Jesus asked the question, Who do you say that I am? Peter said, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus said, Youre right. Flesh and blood does not reveal this to you, but by My Father in Heaven. From that time on-Matthew 16:21 (page 973 of pew Bibles) says that He began to teach them that He was going to go to Jerusalem, He was going to suffer, be killed, and on the third day be raised to life. Peter takes issue with this, and he pulls Jesus aside privately and says, This will never happen to You. This isnt going to happen to You. Im going to see to that. Peter doesnt want that to happen for two reasons. Number one, Hes the Messiah. He has read his Bible, and he knows the Messiah abides forever. Therefore, what Jesus is saying apparently is against the Will of God because Hes talking about laying His life down whereas the Bible says He abides forever. His kingdom never ends, so Peter is correcting Jesus. Number two, Peter loves Jesus. Its personal. This is his friend, his master, his teacher. Hes living this adventure. Hes now discovered who Christ is, and now its going to end? Peter says, No, I will be your bodyguard. I will prevent that from happening. What was the motivation for not wanting Jesus to go to the cross? He loved Jesus. He loved his master and friend. He didnt want Him to suffer any more than youd want a loved one to suffer. Youd try to prevent it if it was in your power to do so. So he loved, but his love was misguided because if Peter has his way, then mankind-including Peter-is lost for eternity. If Christ does not go to the cross, He does not bear sin. If He does not bear sin, God does not offer it in the pardon of grace through faith in His shed blood. What Peter was asking was for the damnation of the entire human race, but he did so out of love. How many of you in this room have ever thought you did something out of love, and it turned out it was the wrong decision? Let me see your hands. A lot of you werent paying attention because half of you didnt raise your hands. Either you werent paying attention or you just have a really bad memory. Many times we do things that we think are loving. Parents do things for their children, trying to protect and help their children, and they end up hurting their children because their children dont experience the law of reaping what theyve sown. Spouses will help their spouses and try to protect them and cover up for them, and it ends up being a co-dependency, an unhealthy, dysfunctional situation. They think its love, but its actually not. Its actually hurting, so sometimes we love, but our love is misguided. Its like the Disciples in Luke 9. Would you flip there please? They are to prepare a place for Jesus to stay in a Samaritan village. We pick up the story in Verse 51 (page 1027). It says, As the time approached for Him to be taken up to Heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And He sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for Him; but the people there did not welcome Him, because He was heading for Jerusalem. There were ethnic differences; there were prejudices, so racial and religious prejudice existed between the two cultures of people. The Jews wanted nothing to do with the Samaritans, and vice versa, so when they find out that this person is going to the territory of their enemy-the headquarters of their enemy-they will not receive Him, and James and John are ticked off. They have a few unkind words to say. They probably said, Oh, you dont know who youre messing with. You have no idea who youve just turned away, but youre going to find out because were going to go back and were going to tell our boss that youre not going to let Him stay here, and you are going to get nuked. You are going to be gone. Youre going to pay. They go back to Jesus with this wonderful idea. They come back, theyre ticked off, and they have a solution. When the Disciples James and John saw this, they asked, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from Heaven and destroy them? This is our solution. Theyve rejected You, and because we love You, we want to destroy them. Thats their idea. Yeah, that will make it all right. Its not in here, so I cant say for sure, but Jesus probably went, What? What?? What do you mean-destroy them? See they were exercising their free will, and they had every right to do that. Just as the Disciples exercised their free will to follow Jesus, so could the Samaritans exercise their free will to reject them. He was not going to destroy them for that. If He was going to destroy them for not following the Will of God, Hed have to destroy the Disciples too because the Disciples were sinners just the same. There were times the Disciples did not do what Jesus wanted them to do. We cry out justice for the other guy and mercy for ourselves, right? Forgive me, nuke him! That's kind of how we do things. Jesus said, It didnt work that way. If I call down fire from Heaven for their sin, I have to call down fire from Heaven for your sin. These guys know Jesus can do anything, so theyre asking Him to reenact the miracle of Elijah on Mount Carmel. Instead of consuming a sacrifice, consume these people. We know You can do anything, and we believe. We have confidence. You just say the word, Man, and well be like Elijah, and we will call down fire from Heaven. Jesus rebuked them. Look at the footnote. Some of your Bibles will have this in your translation itself, and others of you will have it in the footnote at the bottom of the book. Some transcripts have this; some manuscripts dont. It says, And He said, Jesus, You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy mens lives but to save them. You dont know what spirit youre of. They loved Jesus. They loved God, but that was in violation of Gods moral laws. There are terrorists who blow themselves up on a daily basis because they love their god. They love their god so much theyre going to destroy people who dont serve their god. Theyll blow themselves up in villages, in shopping centers, on buses, and in hospitals because they want to show their love for their god and be received in Heaven as a martyr. Love can be misguided. Its putting way too much confidence in man if you think that we should be the judge and jury about how love looks and how love acts. Were going to learn in the next story that love does not negate the law, but love fulfills the law. Lets turn in our Bibles to John 8. In this Passage, Jesus is going to the Mount of Olives to teach. Verse 2 (page 1059 of pew Bibles) says, At dawn, He appeared again in the temple courts where the people gathered around Him, and He sat down to teach them. Notice Jesus sat down to teach them. That has nothing to do with the sermon, but I just wanted you to know that He sat down (congregation laughing at Pastors insinuation). The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. Because its just the woman, most scholars believe this is a setup because the mans not there; so wheres the guy? This is a married woman-where is the man she committed adultery with? Because hes not there, she was probably a pawn. She was probably used, taken advantage of for this very purpose. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. So shes there. Shes shaking. Shes afraid for her life. Shes ashamed, embarrassed, and crying. The law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do You say? They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing Him, so the woman and her fate really didnt matter. What mattered was this plan was fool proof. This would not be the first time they tried to trap Jesus. It would not be last, but, boy, this was a good one. Whoever came up with this plan got high fives. What if… He tells his plan, and theyre like, Obadiah, you rule. That is a killer plan. Its fool proof. High five, and everybody is cheering on this plan because we have Him no matter what He says, no matter what He does. If He says, Stone her, then theyll say, Oh, wait a second. Dont You teach love and forgiveness and all of that? Which is it, Jesus? Law or love? If He says that, theyll say, But you know Rome says we cannot kill people, so are you against Caesar now, Jesus? If He says, Let her go, they theyre going to say, Oh, so youre against Moses, ha? Youre against the law, ha? So no matter what Jesus does or says, they have Him. They have Him, and they know they have Him. Theyre excited because after they ask the question, the Bible says, …Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. We got Him. Hes stalling. He doesnt know what to say, so Hes doodling. Jesus is down, so they think Jesus is scratching, going, What am I going to do? Lord, help me out here. Im thinking. But, you know, the thing of it is in the Greek, we read it, and it says, Write, but in the Greek, it uses a different word. He uses the word katagraphin. Graphine means to write; and kata means against, so Hes writing a word to write a charge against someone. Hes not just doodling. Hes writing a specific charge in the ground, in the sand. Now you understand when He stands up that He probably points down to the ground at what Hes just written in the sand and says, The one who is without win, if any of you are without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her, and He stooped down on the ground and began to write against one more time. They looked down and they seen their sins, things that they were ashamed of that nobody knows about, yet somehow Jesus knows. Theyre embarrassed and ashamed. They realize they are just as guilty-if not more so-than the woman who they have accused. One by one, they begin to drop their stones and walk away. Obadiahs probably slapped in the back of the head, Stupid plan! To finish, Jesus stands up, and He says, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? Has anyone thrown a stone at you? No one, Sir, she said. Neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and do whatever you think is best. God loves you no matter what, so live anyway you want to live. Is that what He says? He has this perfect balance of law and love. He says, Go now and leave your life of sin. To sin means to miss the mark. He says, Stop missing Gods mark. Stop living in contrary to Gods law. She had broken Gods law, and that needs to change; so Jesus lifts up the law and extends love at the same time. In Johns Gospel, Chapter 14:15 (page 1068), we read this from Jesus, If you love Me, you will obey what I command. To me this is an assertion of deity. He doesnt say, If you love Me, you will obey what God commands. He says, Youll obey what I command. In other words, He is making it sound as though the Commandments of God and His commands are synonymous. Verse 21, Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. How will you show your love for God? By obeying His commands-plural. There is more than one law. Its not just the law of love. There are more laws that we are to abide by that are revealed in His Scripture. But love is the fulfillment of those laws. It does negate law, but it fulfills law. Same author, different book-the Book of 1 John 5:2 (page 1210), John says these words, This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands. How do we show love? By obeying laws-plural. Obeying His commands shows our love for God. It shows our love for our fellow men. So this world view is in direct conflict with Gods Word. Gods Word says, There are many universal laws. Live a life of love and you will fulfill them, but it does not negate them. We come to the point where we rejoice in the laws of God because they keep us from hurting ourselves, hurting others, or squandering our one and only life. We come to see that laws are our friend, and theyre a way that we demonstrate our love for God. Would you join me in prayer this morning? Father, it sounds so good when you hear it espoused. You know all we need is love. That's the one thing we need, and we dont need anything else; but when it comes down to it, life is complex. Ethical decisions sometimes are complex. As finite men, we sometimes dont know what love is and how it should be demonstrated. We need Your laws to guide us as we make decisions. Lord, sometimes weve come to see law as something that is against us when actuality it is something that is for us. Its there for our benefit. Its there for the benefit of others. It is a tangible way that we express our love for You and for our fellow men. If we will live a life of love, we will fulfill the commandments, not negate them. We thank You for the demonstration of this in John 8, this perfect balance of love and law that we see in Your example of the adulterous woman; so, Lord, might we take these teachings, these principles, apply them to our hearts and lives at the discernment and leading of Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen.

Good morning! I was driving home from Milwaukee. It was late at night. It was a week ago Wednesday. The sky was beautiful and clear-not a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful night. At about 10:15, I pulled off I94 and turned left on HWY 26 there in Johnson Creek to head home. All the sudden, theres this bright light in the sky. It was totally uncharacteristic because, like I said, there was not a cloud in the sky. Then I see this gray streak coming down fast to the earth diagonally. It was almost like the smoke of a large rocket or something. Then it turned into this orange flame, and again, it was picking up speed. Then it seemed like it started to disintegrate, and then it just disappeared before it hit the ground. Whatever it was, it looked like it landed on Culvers, which is where I was going, so I was a little concerned. I mean it looked like I could just get out of my car and find it. Im looking around like Im crazy; Im nuts. Im looking around at the people at the intersection thinking, Did you see that? In this age of instant information, you think, What was that? and you just punch in a few buttons and get your answer. I wanted to turn on the radio. I wanted to find somebody who could just tell me, What did I just see? My first thought was it was lightening or some sort of a bolt. I thought, Well, wait a second. It couldnt be that. Maybe it was an airplane or some debris from an airplane. It turns out it was a meteor. How many of you saw it that night or caught a glimpse of it? A few of us did. It was pretty cool, wasnt it? Id never seen a meteor before-at least that close, so I didnt know quite what I was seeing. Depending on your real view, it determines what you think that is. If youre an aviator, you might think its a plane. If youre an astronomer, you might think its a meteor, and there are also meteor chasers. They literally see that as money falling from the sky, so theyre trying to map out on the internet where that thing hit because one of those little rocks can be worth $1,000. Thats money, so theyre on the job. If youre one of these end times people, you study the end times, you were thinking, Man, this is it. This is Armageddon. War has come. Maybe youre a sci-fi person. You listen to The War or the Worlds or something. You thought, Oh, its an alien attack. This is it. Maybe youre a meteorologist, and you think its some sort of weather phenomena; but how we view the world colors pretty much everything we interact with. So as a small group and as a church, thats what we are doing. We are looking at World View. In our small groups during the week, were studying some material called, Wide Angle, from Chuck Colson and Rick Warren. Were going through a little booklet together, watching a short video and talking about it. What were doing on the weekends is supplemental. Its working in conjunction with it. Were not trying to replicate it or duplicate your teachings in your small group. Were trying to work in conjunction with it. What were going to do now since weve laid the framework-we talked about natural secular humanism; we talked about Christian world view-now were going to talk about in the real world how those world views affect our decisions of whats right and wrong. Were going to talk about ethics in the weeks ahead-so ethical world views. How were they formed? Do world views happen because individuals form them? Do you determine your own ethical world view? Are your ethics based upon absolutes that a Creator has given, established, and said, Here is right, and here is wrong. Heres what you should do, or heres what you shouldnt do? Some believe that ethics are determined by society collectively-that we have societal norms and codes of conduct that civilization establishes, so it varies from culture to culture. There are a lot of theories out there about who determines right and wrong and how we come about those decisions. You know what? Its not as cut and dried as you think as far as ethics are concerned. Those of us who believe that God has given absolutes where it says, Thou shall not kill; thou shall not steal; thou shall not lie, it just seems pretty clear. It seems pretty cut and dried. When we really start to look at it, sometimes life, its not that easy. How many times have I been beside the bed of somebody whose loved one has maybe been in an accident or has almost drowned? Maybe there was a heart attack, and they were on life support. Now all of the sudden, this family is making these life and death decisions-what to give, what to withhold. Do we pull the plug? If so, when? What do we do? And Ive got their lives in my hands. I didnt anticipate Id be in this situation, but here I am. What do I do? What do I do for resuscitation? What do I do to keep life going here? And all the sudden that verse, Thou shall not kill, what does that mean to me in this situation? What is right, and what is wrong? Thou shall not steal, pretty clear cut, right? Dont take what doesnt belong to you. I was listening to a video and reading an article about some children in Bogota, Colombia. These children have no parents, and theres no state-run orphanage for them to live in. To survive, they steal food. The merchants form these death squads. The death squads see these children as menaces, as disposable, and theyre executing to kill them. The children who survive have gone underground and are living in the sewers. Right now as we speak, there are children living in the sewers of Bogota. They come up at night seeking to avoid the death squads to steal food to survive, so they take the food because it wont be given to them. The death squads are still there, still looking for them. Many of the people in the death squad are in the law enforcement when theyre not on the death squad. For these children, its either steal or die of starvation, so is stealing wrong then? Is that wrong for them to take food when theyre starving? See, its not as clear as we would think. Thou shall not lie. Pretty straight forward-tell the truth. Its a moral absolute-pretty clear. When I was a little boy, my brother-in-law had an alcohol problem, and when he was drunk, he would be angry. He was an angry drunk, and sometimes he might try to harm my sister or her children; so when he was in a drunken stupor, it was not uncommon for my sister to escape and come over to our house. We got a knock in the middle of the night, and it was my sister with my two nieces, Macs drunk, and hes looking for me. My mom would say, Go hide in the closet. I would lay there in bed just nervous. Then came the knock on the door. My mom would open the door, and it was Mac. He said, Wheres J-J-Judy? Wheres my wife? I know shes in here. What would my mom do? My mom would say, Shes not here, Mac. I havent seen her. I dont know where she is. She would lie to protect her daughter, her granddaughters, herself and her son. Is that wrong? Is that unethical for her to do that? You see, its not quite as easy as we make it out to be. Sometimes there are ethical decisions that seem to be in conflict with one another. What were going to do this morning is lay the groundwork and lay the foundation for the rest of this series. Have you ever been watching a show on TV, and there is like five minutes left? You know the plot isnt going to be resolved in five minutes. You are thinking, I hope this is not one of those to be continued. Sure enough, 9 oclock comes around, and it says, To be continued. You go, Oh, rrrr! because we like things to be wrapped up-just wrap it up and put it in a ribbon for me. Normally when we do a series, everything kind of stands on its own. Even though its a series, I wrap it up. This week is not that. This week is one of those weeks that leaves you with that kind of to be continued feeling. Its kind of like, Ahhh. We just cant finish it all in one week, so what were going to do is introduce these ethical world views, talk about them briefly and just span them, look at them all briefly; and then each subsequent week, were going to put them under a microscope and Biblically look at it-from a Biblical world view. So what were going to do is find out how this ethical world view works. What I want us to do is to open our Bibles to Joshua 2. Were going to look at one of these ethical conundrums here. While youre turning there, I want to recommend a book to you. Normally when I preach, its just me. Theres nothing wrong with it. Now other pastors like to read books and so forth. I like to just have my Bible, or maybe a couple of commentaries I like. I really want the message to be my message-not taking other peoples thoughts and ideas. Theres nothing wrong with that as long as youre giving credit to the other person. Thats just how I like to approach my sermons. This week, with the subject matter, I did want to consult some outside sources. One book Id really recommend that Im using in this sermon-and Id recommend it to you-is a book called, Christian Ethics, by Dr. Norman Geisler. Its an excellent book, so if you want to do some further study on the subject, Id recommend that book. Also, I want to tell you in advance that Im going to be using some big words-some $10, $50 words along the line. I do that for the sake of those who are taking notes and who want to explore the subject matter further. Thats the beauty of this. Youre not in high school; youre not in college here. There isnt going to be a test or a pop quiz, so if you dont want to learn the titles, the terminology, let it go. Dont worry about it. Just say, Im here to grasp the gist of it, the content of it. Im not worried about specific terminology because Im not taking a test. Im not taking this for credit. Im just here monitoring this course. Thats fine, but were going to share some of those words for the sake of the people who want to dig a little bit deeper. We could focus on a lot of different ethical problems, but were going to focus on one, and that is lying. Is lying ever right? Is lying ever justified? Is lying always wrong? Thats what were going to focus on, and then were going to run each of these world views. Were going to run it through those world views and see what their conclusion is, so you can see how your ethical world view determines whats right and wrong in a given situation. Were going to take this one scenario-that will be our constant-and then were going to run it through these various ethical world views and see how it does. Thats our assignment. Its a little bit different-not your typical sermon, but I think its going to be beneficial. Heres the story: Joshua and the children of Israel are about to enter the Promised Land. Remember that Moses generation had not acted in faith. It acted in disbelief and disobedience. A hard heart, God allowed them to wonder in the wilderness for forty years. That generation died off. A new generation led by Joshua, who was a believing generation, is going to inherit the Promised Land. Remember land ultimately belongs to whom? God-not countries, nations, kingdoms, people. It belongs to God. No matter what country on the face of the earth-its temporary; God is eternal. His creation belongs to Him. So God in His sovereignty chose to give a portion of land to the nation of Israel. He promised it to them, but there was still work to be done. Just because God promises something to you doesnt mean you dont have work to do. They were still going to have to obey God and follow His directives as God would bring them into this Promised Land. So practically speaking, Joshua sends out 2 men to spy out the land. Remember Moses sent out 12? We knew their names; we knew their mission. This is not quite the same-similar, but not quite the same. We dont know their names. We dont clearly know their mission because he sends them out in secret, but it had something to do with probably finding out the lay of the land, learning the streets, learning about their defense, maybe even the moral of the community because they know that this attack could be imminent. Jericho is aware. Israel is on their radar. They have intelligence that Israel is on the move. They have intelligence that theyre going to try to take their land, so they are on high alert. There is a wall around the perimeter of the city. That wall is fortified. There are armed guards there. There are look-outs there at all times. They are on high alert for any suspicious activity or any entrance through those walls of Israelites. Along the walls are houses, and one of those houses belongs to a woman by the name of Rahab. What makes Rahab unique is though she is living there in Jericho, she is a believer. She very much believes in the God of Israel-that He is the true God. She acknowledges that she has faith in Him, and she acknowledges that she believes that His purposes will not be stopped. So she really believes that one day Israel will occupy the land that she now lives in. She and the whole country have heard the exploits of how God parted the sea and how He gave victory over the powerful Egyptians, and they are afraid of the Israelites. She is aware of this. In Verse 1 (page 208 of pew Bibles), we pick up the story. Joshua says, Go, look over the land, especially Jericho. So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. I do think we should note-do you notice the footnote there on the word prostitute in your Bibles. If you follow it down, it says on the bottom, an innkeeper. To me, thats quite a disparity between possible definitions for that word. Its one of those words that one time it meant innkeeper and came to mean prostitute. Its like the word gay used to mean something very different than it does now. Im not sure which one was first-if it was innkeeper and then prostitute or if had been prostitute and then became innkeeper; but its quite possible that she wasnt a prostitute, that she was an innkeeper in which case we owe her a big apology. She probably has quite a chip on her shoulder in Heaven, Oh, and this is Rahab. Oh, yeah, Rahab. Hey, wait a second! I was an innkeeper! So well leave that one alone, and well just say we just dont know. We do know they went to her house. The king of Jericho was told, Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land. So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land. So the intelligence is really sound. Its not like they are saying, Hey, there could be some people. We dont know where theyre from. We dont know what theyre doing here. Maybe they came to your house tonight. We dont know. No, its, We saw men. Theyre Israelites. They are here to spy out the land. Theyve come to your house. Send them out. The intelligence is that secure. Now Rahab has a choice to make. She really has to choose between two kingdoms. Is she going to be faithful to the king of Jericho, the city she lives in? Is she going to be loyal to the city, or is she going to be loyal to these Israelites that follow the God she believes in? Will she be loyal to them? Either way, she has to make the right decision because either way, her life is on the line. If she turns them in and Israel does invade the city and is conquered, shes a goner. If she lies to the king and the king finds out about it, shes a goner for betrayal; so she has a very difficult, ethical decision to make. Does she lie and cover up the truth-in which case she will probably die-or does she tell the truth and risk dying a little bit later? She is thinking in terms of survival as well, so she is weighing this. What is she going to do? Is she going to tell them the truth and turn in those men, or is she going to lie, cover up the truth, and hopefully spare herself and her family in the future? Whose side will she pick? Verse 4, But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. Lie. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. Lie. I didnt know which way they went. Lie. Go after them quickly, and you may catch up with them. Lie. She had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof. So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut. Their roofs were not like our roofs. They were flat roofs, and so the men were up on the roof. They were under some flax, and she tells several lies. Was that wrong? Did she sin right there? Because God says, You shall not lie. But she was trying to spare their lives. She was trying to spare her life because she ultimately believed that Israel would prevail. Was-it-wrong? Thats the question. What would you have done had you been in her situation? Now were going to look at some of these world views, and were going to talk about what they would say about lying in this situation and whether what Rahab did was ethical or not. Were going to look at some non-Biblical world views, and then were going to bring it around to some Biblical world views. Were going to see that even Christians would disagree on this subject. The first world view were going to look at is called Antinomianism. They would say this, Lying is not wrong or right-ever. There are no such things as moral laws. You make up your own moral laws if you want to have laws because there are no moral absolutes. There are no universal laws in the world. Its kind of like every man for themselves, and you simply use common sense. There are not objective laws that I must submit to. There are subjective experiences, and you use your best judgment. In this case, it is survival for her and her family, and because lying is neither right nor wrong, because there are no moral laws, it was fine. What she did was fine, and it was the right decision for her. You just do the best you can using reason and common sense, and in this case, survival; so they would say Rahab was not wrong in what she did. Lets look at a second point of view. The second world view says that lying is generally wrong, but there are no universal laws. This is a world view called Generalism. Lying is generally wrong, but there are no universal laws; so sometimes laws can be broken. What really matters is the end result. It all works out in the end. The end justifies the means. Youve heard that. You maybe have even said that. One thing that I found interesting-I was talking with one of our folks at the 8 oclock service, he said, Ive said things from every one of those world views. What he realized is that he has world views that are incongruent. They just dont mesh. Hes believing things in different world views that are at odds with one another, and he wasnt even aware of it. One of the things were trying to do is get us to have consistency in these ethical world views. The end is what counts. In the end, Rahab was rescued. Her family was rescued, so the generalist would say that was the right decision. There are general rules. There are no moral absolutes, so lying was okay because she had to survive. The end justifies the means. All is well that ends well. Thats their world view, so she was right. There is another world view that would say lying is sometimes right. Lying is sometimes right. There is one moral absolute, and its not truth. The moral absolute for the person whose view is of Situationism says that the one moral absolute in the entire world is love. They very much could sing the Beatles song, All You Need is Love. All you need is love. They just make a decision based on love. That is the only moral absolute. It sounds pretty good, doesnt it? Just do the loving thing. Whatever the ethical conundrum is, just do the loving thing, and its going to be okay. Now, well talk more about this view as we will the others in the weeks to come. In fact, well spend a whole week on it, but right now were just introducing it. The situationism says Rahab did the loving thing. She protected herself and her family. She loved Israel. She loved the God of Israel. Rahab acted in a loving way to protect that which was hers, so lying is sometimes the right thing to do because as long as that lying doesnt come in to conflict with the one moral law of the universe-which is love-[its okay to do]. Thats a very prominent world view in our society today. Many people make their ethical decisions based on this rule, Is it the loving thing to do? Now lets turn and look at some Biblical ethical world views. The first one were going to talk about is something called Unqualified Absolutism. These people believe that God has given many moral absolutes, and they never conflict with one another. There is no conflict, and theyre all to be followed, all to be obeyed at all times. God has given absolutes for all people, in all places, at all times, and these are always to be followed; and so Rahab sinned. Rahab did what was wrong even thought the outcome was good. God didnt ask her to lie. The soldiers didnt ask her to lie. What she should have done is told the truth and let the chips fall where they may-put her family and her care in the hands of God, put the spies from Israel in the hands of God, put Gods purposes ultimately in the hands of God. Rahab was wrong to tell a lie. She should have told the truth. Agustin-you might have heard of Agustin-was an unqualified absolutist. Agustin believed that the truth is one of the absolutes, and its never to be violated. If you violate it, its sin. When my drunken brother-in-law came in threatening my sister and said, Wheres my wife? She should have said, Shes in the closet. Wheres the closet? Its right up through this other room around the corner. Here let me show you. Thats what these folks would think. Now from World War II, this is very interesting. There were people who would hide the Jews from the Nazis because they didnt want to see them go to the death camps. If you held to this school of thought, you would not lie under any circumstances, Nazis would come knocking on your door and you would open up your door. Nazis would say, We have a report that there are Jews in the house. Are there Jews in your house? Yes, there are. Where are they? Theyre in the cellar. Can you show me? I can. So you better hope that whatever house youre hiding in is not one of those because man, woman and child would be hauled off to the death camps if you happened to be in the home of one of these folks. Have you heard of The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom? Anybody? What he did was pretty interesting because he had a secret compartment-like a basement hideaway-underneath the kitchen floor. Hed carved it out in such a way that when you put the floor back, you couldnt even tell it was there. You couldnt tell there was a trap door there. It was just totally concealed. The Nazis would come knocking on his door, Mr. Ten Boom? We have a report that there are Jews in your house. Mr. Ten Boom would tell the truth. He would say, Yes, I am hiding Jews. It is true. Theyd say, Well, where are they? Hed say, They are hiding in the kitchen. Theyre there in the kitchen. Where are they in the kitchen? Theyre under the table. Ah, got no time for your jokes today, Ten Boom! And theyd all be out the door. Where were they? They were in the kitchen under the table, but they were also under the floor. See, hes telling the truth, but yet he spared the lives of many-very cleverly-he spared the lives of those folks. These folks would say that you tell the truth under every circumstance. Truth is a moral absolute, and it is never right to tell a lie. You always have to tell the truth, so Rahab sinned. Now lets look at another school of thought. This school of thought is Conflicting Absolutism. It says that lying is wrong, but its forgivable. There are a lot of moral absolutes in the world, and sometimes they conflict. When they conflict, the Christian is responsible to do the lesser evil. You have a responsibility to do the lesser evil. Lets say a woman comes to you while youre walking home from shopping. Youre downtown and-do we still shop downtown? I dont know. Youre downtown-just work with me on this. Youre on your way to your car. She comes up to you, and she says, Theres a man whos chasing me, and he wants to kill me. Hes crazy! Im going to go this way. Tell him I went that way! The man comes to you a minute later, and he has a knife and hes crazy. Hes like, Where is she? Im going to kill her! Which way did she go? She went that way, so you say, She went this way. And so he takes off the wrong way. You just lied. This person would say, Yes, that was wrong, but it was the lesser evil, because if he goes this way, hes going to harm this person. Her being killed or hurt in some way was a greater evil, so you chose correctly. You still have to ask for forgiveness. You still have to say, God, Im sorry. I lied, but it was a lesser evil; so though lying is never right, these two issues were in conflict, and you did the right thing. The last school of thought were going to look at is called Graded Absolutism. Graded absolutism believes that lying is sometimes right. Its just like situationism. Lying is sometimes right. There are a lot of moral absolutes that God has given. Sometimes those moral absolutes are in conflict with one another, and when they are in conflict with one another, you and I as Christians have the responsibility to do the greater good, and its not a sin. To do the greater good is not a sin. If you lie in this situation, you dont have to confess it. The first absolutes would have believed that Rahab committed sin. The unqualified would say it was sin. The conflicting would say its forgivable, but it was sin. The graded absolutism would say not a sin. You dont have to ask for forgiveness, but they obeyed the higher law. Using the scenario of the crazy guy with the knife, he comes up to you in the street, and he says, Where is she? Im going to kill her! You deliberately send him in the wrong direction-you have not sinned. That guy has no right to the truth. He has no right to the truth because he was going to cause harm. When my drunken brother-in-law came to the house at midnight-sometimes wed have to actually leave the house and wonder the streets of Rockford out of fear of him. It was a very traumatizing thing in my family during that period. They would say he had no right to the truth because he was going to harm an innocent woman. She was totally justified in choosing the greater good, so she does not have to confess her sin. Maybe you saw yourself somewhere in one of those ethical points of view. Maybe you saw yourself in several, which is probably a problem. What we want to do from here on out, and see heres the to-be-continued part because were done, were going to start looking at these again next week and talking about it from a Biblical perspective. The goal when were done is to be able to think on our toes, process our world, and make Biblical, ethical decisions. Thats the goal of our series. So thats just kind of a panorama view of what is ahead, so next week well dig in to that first one and explore it a little bit. Lets pray together, Father, were grateful for Your Word that serves as our guide in these decisions. We want to be consistent with what Your Truth has said, so were going to examine these truths. Were going to explore these world views and these ethical world views. Were asking Your Holy Spirit to guide us along the way. At the end, we will have learned, and we will grow, and we will have a better understanding of right and wrong and the decisions that we need to make. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.