"YOUR NEGATIVES DEFINE YOU"

Column: "Your Negatives Define You"

It was during a long lecture, which I will review at a later stage, that I heard this thought-provoking statement. And the more I think about it, the more I see the accuracy in it.

I often am confronted with writings, articles, responses and so on, containing the words "positive" and "negative". No, I'm not an avid reader of electricity manuals. And I'm not involved in photography either.

We're speaking about material related to my Christian faith and spirituality. Religion, if you will or must. "Positive" and "Negative" have become code-words in what is generally known as "Christianity", and especially inside the circles of western evangelical Christianity.

I often speak out against the so-called "Christian Industry", and especially it's "Reggae" branch. The Christian faith has become a product and the faithful turned into merchandize. Sure, all very negative stuff.

As acknowledged by the Industrialists and their minions in whom I am sometimes having a discussion or confrontation with, that is. They will agree with me that my speaking out is very negative indeed.

But that's where the agreement stops. For many seem to think that "positive" and "negative" are standards according to which we must conclude our statements and beliefs and expressions. We must be "positive", "stricktly positive" as one organization advertises their products, eer, message...

Some might think in their ignorance, that "positive" and "negative" are just other words to express "good" and "evil", or "right" and "wrong".

But is that really so?

According to the Christian Industrialists and their minions, speaking out against the merchandizing of the Christian faith, even speaking out against the false teachings that that they preach to an often ignorant "public" or flock, is "negative".

But is it wrong? Is it evil?

Throughout the entire scripture, you will not find the words "positive" and "negative". But you will find a lot of positivity and a lot of negativity.

You could say, that "positive" is everything that can be agreed with, anything that can be embraced, and "negative" is everything you should not embrace, you should deny it and disagree with it.

But you cannot say, that not embracing a certain philosophy, or being in disagreement with the theological statements of certain self-proclaimed "preachers" and "teachers" and "pastors", in short: being negative, is therefore wrong.

The Most High Himself told us to have discernment. He Himself is negative a lot of times. But is Jah "evil" or "wrong"? I would not even dare thinking such a thing.

So we can simply conclude, that being negative does not mean being wrong or evil.

But it's very difficult to be negative in a dictatorship of alleged "positivity". The word is a keyword for a lot if not most people who profess themselves to be "Christian". Being brainwashed into somehow equating "good" and "right" with "positive", they have been conditioned to see "negativity" as "wrong" or even "evil".

Their alleged "positivity" (which in reality is really not that positive) is in reality a word to express their own chosen ignorance. It is a word that describes their comfort-zone. Their critical thinking faculties are not challenged, and in the same time they can follow their fleshly lusts for even more comfort (calling it "blessings" or "being anointed") under the guise of "good": it's "positive".

You can't speak about differences, you can't expose false teachers and preachers, you can't speak out and try to wake up those who profess to be Christians because they believe in "positivity" rather than Truth.

The result?

They have lost their identity, they have lost their foundation, they have lost their uniqueness with which they were created. That is because they never bother to deal with negativity. Everything that people do which enhances them in their "comfort zone", will drive them further away from being an individual and more into becoming a mindless slave of the political correctness of the day.

And then there came that statement.

"Your negatives define you".

And it's true!

The positivo's (I didn't make this one up, it's a national Dutch joke) don't have any identity. They could just be the next man. The Christian could be the Muslim. They don't deal with negativity, remember?

So their "positiveness" doesn't define them.

In fact, they don't want to. They call that "negative". It's "negative" to say that you do not believe Buddhism is the truth. It's "negative" to say that Christian Reggae Artists should not put themselves into their own little ghetto where they can safely make the Christian Faith into a product in a self-proclaimed "Christian Industry".

And with that, they even expose their own illogic. For the positivo's are often very, very negative.

When I read sometimes what certain people write about me, for example, just an example, is very negative too. And of course, it cannot be different. It identifies them for what they are: principal rejecters of critique, whether it truth or not. It defines them, for they do not love the truth as the truth is not their standard.

And when you look to the things I speak out against, the things where I am negative about, you will get a pretty good description of me too.

Of course I have positivity too. I think very positive about Reggae Music as a music, for example. And so I positively review music, even of artists where I do not agree with their own chosen spirituality or religion if you will or must.

So that doesn't really define me...

On the other hand, I speak out against Babylon. I speak out against "Hippieness" and other forms of Post Modern weakness. I speak out against false teachers and preachers who in the Name of my Saviour make my faith into a product in their Industry which they even named after the Lord to complete their list of sins with using His Name in vain! I speak out against those doctrines that the Bible calls "doctrines of devils".

And these negatives do indeed define me. They identify me as part of a group of people who are being negative about a certain thing.

The very word "Church" which proper use is to describe all those who know themselves to be born again through the Holy Spirit in Yesus' Name from all times and places, means: "group of people who are being called out of something". The real Christian Church is negative by it's very nature: it is a group of people that steps out of something.

This stepping-out defines the Christian Church.

So I tend to agree with the statement. Sure, I know there are some flaws in it, but as a general rule I think it's true and it can be of a tremendous help to see this statement working in reality as well.

(march, 2007)