Juxtaposition

You know what a cool word is?  Juxtaposition.  It looks cool, it sounds cool, and when it’s used in context, it usually means something pretty cool.  So imagine my excitement when I was reading through this week’s Sheep and I saw two articles that immediately made me think “juxtaposition!”  It was a good moment. 

Now that I’ve got all that crazy tension built up, you’re wondering what craziness I’ve got in store for this evening.  Well, let me tell you, we are all the way up to 1952 and boy is it obvious!  This is no modern-day vintage; this is no idealization of the early 50’s.  This is the real deal.  And what were people scared about in the 1950s (even more than letting women work outside their homes and Communism)?  Bombs!  Atomic bombs! 

But on the other hand, what do people love more than I Love Lucy and refrigerators in their kitchens?  America!  And who “discovered” America?  Christopher Columbus.  So, by association, they love him too.  But to us?  Or at least to those of us perusing history degrees?  Columbus was kind of a jerk.  He really wasn’t that awesome.  I would be pretty horrified to see his name come up in a missions magazine now. 

That was a really long way of getting around to what I’m actually trying to say.  The first article here, as you might have gathered, begins with the bit of information: “The cost of making the first two atomic bombs was $2,000,000,000.  This amount would have put 10,000 missionaries in the field for a period of a hundred years at the cost of $2,000 a year.”  Well, those numbers may not be totally correct anymore, but the fact that this Evangelical magazine is railing against the waste of building an atomic bomb that “destroys life and property” is certainly an interesting concept.  It seems that most of the religious right today would have very little problem with spending tax dollars on something easily held up as defense spending.

And then when we move on to the clipping titled “Absolute Truth” which quotes Columbus with the idea in mind that his words can be applied to the way scripture works in our lives.  Anyone with a hint of world consciousness, it seems to us today, would absolutely be shocked that a man so destructive to so many people groups (that needed saving!) would be held up in a publication as wise. 

I guess my point here is that some things would never be put in this publication today because they would be considered much too liberal, and other things would never be published because they were much too politically incorrect.  And yet, here we have these two little things, perfectly juxtaposed!