Caricatures

Every great novel is more than a good story. It is a tool to convey the author’s philosophy, ideas, or point of view.

In his book England, England, Julian Barnes asserts through one of his characters, Sir Jack, that on the whole people prefer replicas to the real thing. In museums, replica art tends to attract more people for longer observations than the real thing. People tend to prefer the reconstituted, even in ideas and history. History tends to be reduced quickly to caricatures of the original very quickly. Who was Julius Caesar really? Who was George Washington really? As human being we tend to subtly create new characters from the ashes of the real thing.

I see this when I perform a funeral. The caricatures begin within moments of the person’s passing. We remember this or that and others reinforce it. Pretty soon a person’s 80 year life is boiled down to: She loved her family, knitting, Thursday night bingo and taking care of the pets. Is this really what she was all about?

We also do this with the Bible. We fill our minds with suppositions about what the Bible says. We hear other people’s suppositions, and we make them our own. We accept cultural norms and read the Bible through the eyes of the world around us. In America we accept as fact things like: choice is sacred, democracy is a God ordained form of government, and the love of God trumps all of His other facets (i.e., His hatred, his jealousy, and His vengeance).

As an example of caricature, I had someone tell me after a funeral the other day after a funeral that I preached, “Well, she’s with God, and that’s where we’re all headed.” I thought, “Not necessarily all of us.”