The Deathly Deadly Clockwork Oranges

Sad to say, the idea that weakness is strength is counter-intuitive. So there are many men and women who enter into Christianity, who are strong and go on to become wrong.

They go forward at the “alter call,” and they “accept Christ,” and “Christianity” and get baptized, and attend the all meetings, and read the Bible, and learn every doctrine there is know, and conform their behavior to that of the other Christians around them -- but they do it all at the front door of their minds.

I have read enough biographies to know that there are people who naturally like to live a disciplined, straight-laced, and self-controlled life. They enjoy such a control over the front door of their minds that it amost never occurs to them that they even have a back door to their minds. Yes, they can feel things bumping at the back door, but their front door part is so naturally strong they can unrelectlively suppress those thumps when they come. Many times they find their life’s work in professions such as being a military person, a police officer, an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, clergy, or any other profession requiring extreme self-discipline. Discipline, let alone self-discipline, does not cause them to break a sweat.

Novelist Anthony Burgess wrote a novel called A Clockwork Orange. In that novel, Burgess wrote about the life of a criminal anti-hero. This criminal was given a radical behavior modification therapy that caused him to become ill whenever he even thought about committing a crime.

Burgess was asking a question by putting this character of his into this situation. The question was: Is this criminal still a criminal even though his external behavior has been brought under control? And the answer is yes, he is still a criminal. Even though he his actual behavior had been brought under control, he still has the underlying impulses to committ crimes. When technology is used to control a man’s behavior instead of changing the man himself, the end result is a mechanically controlled organic being. A Clockwork Orange.

I bring this up because it appears to me that these strong minded ones who take up Christianity with the front of door of their minds seem to be a lot like Clockwork Oranges. They can unreflectively control their behavor so well that they might never tumble to the fact of their need to control their behavior, which speaks infinte volumes about their need for visits from Christ at the back door where their heart is.

They can take up all the disciplines of Chrstianity, including that of prayer, in a superficial but outwardly impressive way that leaves their basic Adamic nature untouched. They are prefectly happy if prayer seems like stuffing a suggestion box that no one ever opens, because to them prayer is just another scheduled, disciplined event like every other thing they do in their lives, Christianity-related, or not. They feel so at home with their self-controlled lives that they may never feel a need for succor from Christ at the back door, at their hearts.

It is a given that Christ will rarely have mastery over their lives. They do not have enough of a consciousness of bad behavior to push them into that kind of desparate collasp into Christ’s arms.

And that all makes them very dangerous people, both to themselves and to the Christians that fellowship with them.

They are a danger to themselves, because it is possible that for all their outward taking up of Christianity, they might well have never met Christ or He, them. With that much self-control and unreflectivity going on in their lives, it’s possible for Christ to be completely “out of the loop” as far as they are concerned.

They are also a danger to their fellow Christians because their outwardly disciplined behavior, apparent conformity to Christian things, and ability to spout back everything they’ve learned - with the front door of their minds - tends to make Christianity assemblies look to them for leadership (of all things!) This is dangerous because:

1.) Even putting aside Christianity, the fact that they are not very in touch with their back door - their heart - means that they are going to be people of limited compassion and feeling.

2.) The fact that they are receiving few visits from Christ at the back door (if any!) means that they are not able to comprehend the truths that only come from those visits. Overtime, these kinds of people tend to be reservoirs of very faulty ideas about Christianity. They are often prey to the Galatian error of thinking that Christianity is about keeping a bunch rules, rather than having a relationship with the risen Christ. And they often have their own little set of special rules that demostrate to themselves that they are a higher grade type of Christian person - if not nearly sinless persons. They are often prey to “sinless perfection” doctrines because their extreme self-control causes them not to see what Christ can see in them.

3.) Their outwardly moral behavior can cause Christians who are struggling (and thereby making true progress) feel as though they are doing something wrong, or somehow less of a Christian. A diasterous situation can then be made worse if a struggling Christian mistakes this pseudo-paragon for a guide to his or her own perplexity. The struggler who thus enquires of such a pseudo-paragon may find him or herself not only put on the wrong path by the pseudo-paragon’s bad ideas, but also disrespected in a very hurtful and off-putting way by the distinct odor of vain human comparision that can emanate from such a person..

This is the danger of the deadly and deathly Clock-work Oranges.

It there a remedy for such a person? Well if they can recognize this problem in their lives, the solution is for them to stop treating prayer as if it were a suggestion box that is never opened, and start praying concretely and with a passion for receiving answers. Importunance and persistence here is especially necessary because the person has for so long been cold to Christ and independent of Him. And correspondingly, the Bible reading of such a person must stop being confined to a set block of time. This person must learn to “sit and listen” for as long as it takes.

If this is persued, the person will eventually become more aware of the back door that is his or her heart. That alone will start to reveal to the person how much his or her being has been separated from Christ most of the time. And he or her will really see the need for those vital visits from Christ. And by His own grace, Christ will visit and be welcomed with tears.

But this advice may be in vain for a person like this because they may take up this advice with the front door of their minds as yet another discipline to be added to their arsenal of Christian rountines to be gone through!