February 13, 2007

The Secret

Posted in church, Current Events, movies, spirituality at 9:00 pm by jimazing

I was unfamiliar with The Secret until a friend asked about it tonight. I just did a quick search and my first inclination is to say “SCAM” Here’s what I read on Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

…As put forth in the film, the “Law of Attraction” principle posits that our feelings and thoughts affect real events in the world, from the workings of the entire cosmos to interactions among individuals in their physical, emotional, and professional affairs. The film also suggests that there has been a conspiracy to keep this central principle hidden from the public.

. . .

The movie is advertised on the Internet using tease advertising and viral marketing techniques in which “The Secret” and the specific details of the film are not revealed. In advance of the film’s release, trailers were released revealing clues about the film and its “secret”. Current preview videos on their official site describe “The Secret” as being passed down through millennia, hidden from the general public and only now revealed to the world through the film. Included are very short visual scenes suggesting “The Church” and elite groups participated in keeping the law of attraction hidden from the masses

After checking another site or two and watching the movie trailer, I have several thoughts.

1. Mama said, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” There is no secret that will magically give anyone the keys to happiness.
2. This idea that the church is out to hide good things from the masses is silly. First, why would we do that? Jesus gives us all free will to choose or reject him. Period. Not only that, but the Church that I see in this world today is not nearly organized enough to be able to keep a secret 🙂 If we could realize that kind of power, we could change the world (and I don’t mean by using “the secret”).
3. The need for flashy teasing advertising alone leads me to believe that they are offering empty promises. They don’t need to make us feel like we are missing something. We are. Most of us feel something missing in our lives and they are playing on that.
4. We feel things because we have desires and beliefs about our world. The world is not about our feelings. Our feelings are about the world.

Frankly, I think they are capitalizing on our society’s attraction to spiritual things, and their rejection of Christianity. We want a sensational story that captures us and makes us think there is more to life than what we see. The reality is that there is more to life than what we see, but it is not in a movie. It is in a relationship.

(As I write those words, I cringe because I know the image that the Church displays.  I know the unattractiveness of the hypocrisy, self serving, arguing with one another when Jesus said that they would know us because of the love we have for one another. I know intimately how we have thumped people over the heads with our Bibles instead of loving them where they are.  We have made it about “winning souls for Jesus” instead of loving people and letting the Holy Spirit do the heart stuff.  We are more about fixing behavior than healing hearts.  When I say that it is in a relationship that life can be more, I mean what Jesus meant, not what Christians like me have represented.  You know what’s really funny–not ha-ha funny–is that He loves us in spite of ourselves)
You could spend a lifetime trying to refute these trends and fads using scripture. I choose not to. They can come up with more angles faster than we can refute them. The bottom line to me is that these fads are devoid of the Love of Christ and they will not last. They are all about gaining personal control and getting ahead.

I believe Jesus is calling us to self-sacrifice, to a life of selfless giving to others. The Christ life is not glamorous or sexy. It isn’t about me, but it is real and dangerous and good.

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