Hot Faith, Cool Faith -- FPC sermon excerpt
Consider the case of Michael Vick, a talented quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, arrested for running a dog-fighting operation in rural Virginia.
Or Lisa Nowak, the married NASA astronaut who makes a marathon drive from Houston to Orlando to confront her romantic rival.
Or Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York, meeting a high-priced prostitute in the Mayflower Hotel in DC.
What were they thinking? Were they out of their minds? Taking crazy pills?
Well, yes — in fact, they probably were temporarily insane.
They went nuts because they were hot.
According to The Washington Post (August 6, 2007), an enormous mental gulf separates “cold” emotional states from “hot” emotional states. When we are in cold emotional states — cool, calm, and collected — we find it difficult to empathize with people who are taking actions based on hot emotional states. If we are not hungry or thirsty or jealous or sexually tempted, we find it very hard to understand the power of these feelings. “Those people are nuts,” we say to ourselves. “I’d never go crazy like that.”
But watch out — when your emotions get hot, you can go a little loco.
“We tend to exaggerate the importance of willpower,” says a professor who has studied the power of cold and hot emotional states. Example: Most health resolutions are made when people are in a cold emotional state. Avoiding junk food and shedding a few pounds seems like a reasonable thing to do. But then, you know what happens — you get stressed or hungry, and suddenly a bag of potato chips becomes completely irresistible. You go temporarily insane and eat the whole thing. Many diets have been blown by people in a hot emotional state.
The Jewish leaders on the council in Jerusalem are burning hot in today’s Scripture lesson from Acts. A Christian named Stephen has been brought before them on a charge of blasphemy, and he proceeds to lay out for them the history of God and his chosen people — emphasizing, in particular, the sad and sordid story of human disobedience. Stephen concludes by accusing the council of being “stiff-necked people” who are “forever opposing the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51).
Through it all, Stephen is cool, calm, and collected.
Or Lisa Nowak, the married NASA astronaut who makes a marathon drive from Houston to Orlando to confront her romantic rival.
Or Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York, meeting a high-priced prostitute in the Mayflower Hotel in DC.
What were they thinking? Were they out of their minds? Taking crazy pills?
Well, yes — in fact, they probably were temporarily insane.
They went nuts because they were hot.
According to The Washington Post (August 6, 2007), an enormous mental gulf separates “cold” emotional states from “hot” emotional states. When we are in cold emotional states — cool, calm, and collected — we find it difficult to empathize with people who are taking actions based on hot emotional states. If we are not hungry or thirsty or jealous or sexually tempted, we find it very hard to understand the power of these feelings. “Those people are nuts,” we say to ourselves. “I’d never go crazy like that.”
But watch out — when your emotions get hot, you can go a little loco.
“We tend to exaggerate the importance of willpower,” says a professor who has studied the power of cold and hot emotional states. Example: Most health resolutions are made when people are in a cold emotional state. Avoiding junk food and shedding a few pounds seems like a reasonable thing to do. But then, you know what happens — you get stressed or hungry, and suddenly a bag of potato chips becomes completely irresistible. You go temporarily insane and eat the whole thing. Many diets have been blown by people in a hot emotional state.
The Jewish leaders on the council in Jerusalem are burning hot in today’s Scripture lesson from Acts. A Christian named Stephen has been brought before them on a charge of blasphemy, and he proceeds to lay out for them the history of God and his chosen people — emphasizing, in particular, the sad and sordid story of human disobedience. Stephen concludes by accusing the council of being “stiff-necked people” who are “forever opposing the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51).
Through it all, Stephen is cool, calm, and collected.
posted by Henry Brinton | 12:06 PM
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