{"id":2618,"date":"2023-05-16T07:40:24","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T11:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2618"},"modified":"2023-05-16T07:40:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T11:40:25","slug":"now-thats-creepy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/16\/now-thats-creepy\/","title":{"rendered":"Now, That’s Creepy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
\u00a0
What profession creeps people out more than any other?
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We don\u2019t need a scientific study to confirm what we already suspect:\u00a0People are seriously creeped out by clowns.
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According to the digital news source Vox, more Americans are afraid of clowns than of climate change, terrorism, and even death.\u00a0
\u00a0
A few years ago, Dr. Frank McAndrew, psychology professor at Illinois\u2019 Knox College, conducted what he called the first \u201cempirical study of \u2018creepiness.\u2019\u201d His aim was to introduce \u201ca theoretical perspective on the common psychological experience of feeling \u2018creeped out.\u2019\u201d\u00a0The study asserts that feeling creeped out is related to vigilance.\u00a0 Are there particular kinds of people who make us feel we should be on our guard?\u00a0 McAndrew concluded that there are indeed certain individuals and professions that generate \u201cthe ambiguity of a possible threat.\u201d
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About 95% of the respondents thought men were potentially more creepy than women.\u00a0 No surprise there.
\u00a0
Clowns were far and away associated with the highest vocational creep factor.\u00a0 After that came taxidermists, sex shop owners, and morticians.\u00a0 This all seemed interesting to me in a kind of detached way until I noticed #7 on the creepy jobs list:\u00a0clergy.\u00a0 Then I noticed that writers came in at #11.
\u00a0
McAndrew asked the respondents to name a creepy hobby.\u00a0 Insect collecting came in first, but birdwatching wasn\u2019t far behind.
\u00a0
It suddenly occurred to me that I had hit a Creepiness grand slam:\u00a0I\u2019m a male pastor who writes for a living and enjoys birding. \u00a0
\u00a0
When I shared this news with my wife, she said, a little too calmly, \u201cIs this really the first time it\u2019s occurred to you how creepy you are?\u201d\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t exactly the word of reassurance I was hoping to receive.
\u00a0
Unsurprisingly, the Bible has nothing to say about being creeped out.\u00a0 Our posture toward other people \u2013 all<\/em> other people, no matter what their background, ethnicity, or vocation \u2013 is to be rooted in compassion and love.\u00a0
\u00a0
But doesn\u2019t Scripture also call us to a certain degree of vigilance?\u00a0 Aren\u2019t there some people out there concerning whom we should always be on our guard? \u00a0
\u00a0
The answer to that question is yes.\u00a0 And one of the places where that stands out is this statement by the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:2: \u201cWatch out for those dogs,\u00a0those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.\u201d\u00a0 Paul is railing against certain teachers who, according to their own authority, were telling young Christians they had to earn their way into God\u2019s favor by complying with all the ceremonial aspects of Jewish law.\u00a0 For male Gentile converts, that was going to mean circumcision.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
Eugene Peterson, in his biblical paraphrase called The Message<\/em>, captures the spirit of Paul\u2019s words: \u201cSteer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they\u2019re interested in is appearances\u2026\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
Does this verse mean that Paul was more of a cat person than a dog person?\u00a0 In truth, there weren\u2019t many dog lovers during Bible times.\u00a0 Canine domestication was still a work in progress, and in the ancient Near East dogs were essentially feral scavengers.\u00a0 If you wanted to slander someone\u2019s character, \u201cyou dirty dog\u201d was one way to go.
\u00a0
But what would prompt Paul\u2019s visceral put-down in this verse?
\u00a0
In his mind, the ultimate creeps were the people who taught that God\u2019s grace wasn\u2019t sufficient to provide spiritual security.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
Grace, according to Paul, is the idea that any one of us can be in a transforming relationship with God in which God provides all the power, all the meaning, and all the resources \u2013 if<\/u><\/em> we will abandon all our efforts to win God over according to some kind of performance plan.
\u00a0
Grace means that God\u2019s presence, God\u2019s love, and God\u2019s forgiveness cannot be earned.\u00a0 They cannot be deserved.\u00a0 They can only be received.
\u00a0
That means there is one and only one response we should have to anti-grace teaching in any form.\u00a0
\u00a0
It should seriously creep us out and send us running back to the Good News of Jesus.
\u00a0
Otherwise, some clown just might steal our joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0What profession creeps people out more than any other?\u00a0We don\u2019t need a scientific study to confirm what we already suspect:\u00a0People are seriously creeped out by clowns.\u00a0According to the digital news source Vox, more Americans are afraid of clowns than of climate change, terrorism, and even death.\u00a0\u00a0A few years ago, Dr. Frank McAndrew,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101],"class_list":["post-2618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2620,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions\/2620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}