Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Mind rental

This is from a book by Cornelius Plantiga "We ordinarily think of a prostitute as someone who rents her body. But a person can also rent her mind for a high hourly rate, and she perverts it if she rents it because she wants to feel superior to the people who bag her groceries and park her car." Whoa to us in our world ... doesn't the vast majority of America prostitute their minds for just these purposes? By foregoing any ambition to education of character, isn't this all that we are left to do ... educate prostitutes who will be willing to pleasure the modern day kings. Ok, the image is getting to graphic for a normal blog post.

God help us incredible creations to accept and understand our highest purpose ... serving the one and only King of the whole earth. May our minds and bodies and hearts be given to you and used for beauty, justice and right relationships. Arm us with prudence, courage and self-control so we might see justice done and thank you that because of Jesus there is faith, hope and love.

4 comments:

Cameron Lawrence said...

Jason, this is an interesting quote, but I think it may be a little vague without its context. Does Plantiga clarify what "renting" one's mind actually means? Within the given context, it's hard to tell if he means a 900-number operator, or something more general, universal or metaphorical.

This is also a little confusing: "Whoa to us in our world ... doesn't the vast majority of America prostitute their minds for just these purposes?"

Again, I'd be interested to know in what ways Americans prostitute their minds. Forgive me if I'm being dense.

jaypercival said...

Hey Cam,

I can see how it does sound pretty vague. In the context he is talking about the corruption of the gifts we are given. "For example, she might use her excellent mind and first-class education to extend the reach of the kingdom, but just to get rich. She wants to get rich not in order to support terrific projects in the world, but just to move up the social ladder. " This directly precedes the quote and it would have helped with the context for everything considerably. Sorry for missing that.

I guess I have had those thoughts about education for a while ...

jason

Cameron Lawrence said...

That makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying. I'll have to look into Plantiga's work sometime.

Rebecca said...

This is such an interesting way to look at it. It's so easy to write off a wandering mind as something that is expected to wander.