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March 10, 2017Hugh HefnerPlayboy Mansion16236 Charing Cross RoadLos Angeles, CA 90024Dear Hugh,
Today I want to talk to you about the first chapter of Romans. I read a very interesting article about you by JOSÉ DE SEGOVIA and it was called: Playboy: Just a magazine? Hefner built an empire on the basis of an alternative version of reality, creating what you might call a religion. Written by José de Segovia on NOVEMBER 20, 2015. Let me quote the closing part of the article:The director of Playboy remarried at the end of the eighties, after having been rushed to hospital following a stroke. That spelled the end of the continuous partying in his mansion. He tried to lead a family life with his two sons, but his philosophy of eternal adolescence had by then become established in our culture. No one under the age of fifty will be surprised by this. He presents us with an alternative version of reality, creating a kind of religion. As he says at the beginning of the series of his essays: “Playboy is a religious magazine, though I will admit I have a peculiar understanding of the meaning of the word”.It is religious because it “tells its readers how to get into heaven. It tells them what is important in life, delineates an ethics for them, tells them how to relate to others, tells them what to lavish their attention and energy upon, gives them a model of a kind of person to be. It expresses a consistent world view, a system of values, philosophical outlook”. That image of an “ideal man” creates a universe of its own for the eternal adolescent, without making demands or imposing responsibilities. It is a masculine fantasy, where women become mere objects, because when we distance ourselves from God, man does not become more but less human – as seen in the story of Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel in the Bible–.
“Religion was a very important part of my upbringing – Hefner has said – in terms of ideals and morality”. He does not think that he has rejected it, only that when it comes to sex, he thinks that it is hypocritical and harmful. The director of Playboy considers himself to be a spiritual person, but he does not believe in the supernatural. “I believe in the creation,” he says.” And therefore I believe there has to be a creator of some kind, and that is my God. I do not believe in the biblical God, not in the sense that he doesn’t exist, just in the sense that I know rationally that man created the Bible and that we invented our perception of what we do not know”.In the first chapter of the book of Romans, the apostle Paul shows us what has happened. By leaving God, we have turned to idols. We have replaced the Creator with his creation. This has tragic consequences. It sets in motion a vicious circle which makes us spurn the only unconditional love that exists, given that God is the only one who loves us without expecting anything in return or expecting us to appear to be anything other than what we are.
His sacrificial love (Ephesians 5:23-32) surprises us, because we do not understand how low we have fallen or the wonder of his love. As C.S. Lewis says in his book “The four loves”, we have locked our hearts up in the casket of our selfishness, to avoid being hurt, when we need to be vulnerable in order to experience love, given that “the only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell”.
“We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour.” That is when we can get to know God. We can have a personal trusting relationship with Him, based on his faithfulness, which leads us to experience a deep, spiritual and eternal communion. The Playboy culture sees our body and material reality, as the only thing that exists. Life passes – like Hefner’s years – but God’s love remains.“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”, Jesus says in the Gospel of John (17:3). The director of Playboy says sarcastically that he was saved a long time ago, but true salvation is to know God and to receive eternal life from him, whose glory exceeds our present reality. He elevates and transforms us, giving us hope. Because Christ is the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), the best is yet to come.
___Francis Schaeffer noted:
In about A.D. 60, a Jew who was a Christian and who also knew the Greek and Roman thinking of his day wrote a letter to those who lived in Rome. Previously, he had said the same things to Greek thinkers while speaking on Mars Hill in Athens. He had spoken with the Acropolis above him and the ancient marketplace below him, in the place where the thinkers of Athens met for discussion. A plaque marks that spot today and gives his talk in the common Greek spoken in his day. He was interrupted in his talk in Athens, but his Letter to the Romans gives us without interruption what he had to say to the thinking people of that period.
He said that the integration points of the Greek and Roman world view were not enough to answer the questions posed either by the existence of the universe and its form, or by the uniqueness of man. He said that they deserved judgment because they knew that they did not have an adequate answer to the questions raised by the universe or by the existence of man, and yet they refused, they suppressed, that which is the answer. To quote his letter:
The retribution of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known of God is evident within them [that is, the uniqueness of man in contrast to non-man], for God made it evident to them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived by the things that are made [that is, the existence of the universe and its form], even his eternal power and divinity; so that they are without excuse. [Roman 1:18ff.]
Here he is saying that the universe and its form and the mannishness of man speak the same truth that the Bible gives in greater detail. That this God exists and that he has not been silent but has spoken to people in the Bible and through Christ was the basis for the return to a more fully biblical Christianity in the days of the Reformers. It was a message of the possibility that people could return to God on the basis of the death of Christ alone. But with it came many other realities, including form and freedom in the culture and society built on that more biblical Christianity. The freedom brought forth was titanic, and yet, with the forms given in the Scripture, the freedoms did not lead to chaos. And it is this which can give us hope for the future. It is either this or an imposed order.
Romans 1:18-32 English Standard Version (ESV)
God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[a] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221
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Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning Hugh Hefner that Hefner’s goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” I have made the comparison throughout this series of blog posts between Hefner and King Solomon (the author of the BOOK of ECCLESIASTES). I have noticed that many preachers who have delivered sermons on Ecclesiastes have also mentioned Hefner as a modern day example of King Solomon especially because they both tried to find sexual satisfaction through the volume of women you could slept with in a lifetime.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10 The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”
Featured artist is Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo was born in 1958 in Bogotá, Colombia. Salcedo earned a BFA at Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (1980) and an MA from New York University (1984). Salcedo’s understated sculptures and installations embody the silenced lives of the marginalized, from individual victims of violence to the disempowered of the Third World. Although elegiac in tone, her works are not memorials: Salcedo concretizes absence, oppression, and the gap between the disempowered and powerful.
While abstract in form and open to interpretation, her works serve as testimonies on behalf of both victims and perpetrators. Even when monumental in scale, her installations achieve a degree of imperceptibility—receding into a wall, burrowed into the ground, or lasting for only a short time. Salcedo’s work reflects a collective effort and close collaboration with a team of architects, engineers, and assistants—and, as Salcedo says, “with the victims of the senseless and brutal acts” to which her work refers.
Her awards include a commission from Tate Modern, London (2007); the Ordway Prize, from the Penny McCall Foundation (2005); and a Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Grant (1995). Her work has appeared in major exhibitions at Tate Modern, London (2007); Castello de Rivoli, Turin (2005); and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2002); among others. She has participated in the T1 Triennial of Contemporary Art, Turin (2005); Documenta (2002); and the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art (1999). Her work is included in many museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Doris Salcedo lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia.
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The Daily Hatch 