Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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my presentation is called in perfect perfection
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chasing perfection and falling into grace.
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Now you might be asking, how did I become a cop on a topic like this?
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Well, my identity is comprised of many things.
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I am a pre med student,
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I am a human
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and I'm a christian.
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While all these things may seem like normal good things, I failed them often.
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And so instead of capitalizing on my successes,
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I want to create a presentation that explored
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perfection and imperfection and the ideologies behind them.
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My thesis will state
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the in theology and in our world today there is an idea of a need for perfection.
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However, we are not meant to be perfect.
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We were made by God to be perfectly
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imperfect.
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Now let's go to the map. What are we going to talk about today?
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We're going to look at the idea of perfection and
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imperfection through a variety of lenses first and everyday life.
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Second in our underlying ideology or theology and last but
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certainly not least what God has to say about it.
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Now,
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the idea of perfection has invaded every area of our lives
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from grades to presentations like this one to how we look.
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And even social media accounts
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these ideas of perfection totally consume us.
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And while it may seem like a good thing,
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we're going to see that it always doesn't have good effects,
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perfection is defined by Oxford languages is refusal to accept any
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standard short of perfection or a doctrine holding that religious moral,
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social or political perfection is attainable,
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especially the theory that human morale or
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spiritual perfection should be or has been attained
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in a recent study.
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The pressures of
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multidimensional perfectionism has risen in the past few years.
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College students today experience more of multidimensional perfectionism.
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What exactly is this?
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Well,
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it's aspects of different types of perfectionism that invade our very lives.
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People that struggle with socially prescribed perfectionism is um,
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believe that others expect them to meet a certain standard.
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Other oriented perfectionists placed high demands on other people,
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and self oriented perfectionists expect themselves to be completely flawless.
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While this may seem like a good thing, perfection has many negative effects,
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It damages performance,
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it causes procrastination that totally did not happen with this presentation and
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it can lead to more serious things such as mental illness,
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anxiety, depression, and eating disorders,
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more than that, the underlying factors of perfectionism are very devastating.
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Dr Curran's research has found that when people fail,
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especially in the presence of other people,
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they feel a profound sense of guilt and shame for what they perceive to
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be a defective performance from a flawed self and also in social situations,
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people have a chronic need for other people's approvable
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while being extremely down on their implicit value.
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Now enough of what the world says,
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what are our underlying underlying theologies that we
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really believe our theology say about perfectionism.
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Well, if we look at the Bible for at a glance,
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it doesn't seem much better when I read the Bible as a kid,
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it seemed like God simply created humans and gave
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him his laws and left them on their own.
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If they keep all God's commandments, they would receive life, favor and happiness
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if they didn't keep God's commandments, it was not so good
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not to mention there were 613 commandments in order
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to be perfect in the sight of the Lord.
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This idea was carried on throughout the church even after jesus came.
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According to the whole in roman empire, justification was won by good works.
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You needed to have the sacraments of contrition,
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confession or absolution and then further works of
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sanctification.
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This all meant working to be perfect in the sight of God.
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Even after martin Luther came, these ideas still persisted into our modern day.
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Many people christian or non christian today believe
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that going to heaven is based solely on actions
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roughly 7 to 10 people to find heaven as
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a place where people are rewarded for good works.
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According to pew research.
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Now, this has not been very exciting or um, this has just been depressing.
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This is not good news and if we were left with this understanding,
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we may be stuck with all the negative effects of perfectionism.
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However,
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let's take a look at what the bible has to say regarding the perfection of humanity.
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The bible tells a story of a lot of mess of people who make a lot of bad decisions.
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Well, it may seem at a glance that it is simply if you do right, be rewarded,
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try your best and be perfect or fail.
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And yeah, you get the picture
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however, we see the underlying core of redemption throughout the bible.
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We are naturally inclined to imperfection.
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This is what Augustine refers to as original sin.
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There is no one righteous in the bible, not even one.
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And we are all born with an innate desire for evil and imperfection.
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Even when we try according to the bible, all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.
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While this may seem even more depressing on the service.
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When you take a deeper look at it, it can be comforting.
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As the verse says, he himself knows our form.
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He is mindful that we are nothing but dust.
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As Michael Himes points out, we accept our fact of restlessness or in other words,
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our need for God,
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it allows us to have a contentment and allows us to
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strive to be closer with God and stop the evil things we
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do accepting our creature leanness can be an empowering way and
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can be much better than attain trying to attain the impossible perfection
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further than that. We need to look at the problem of evil and perfection in our world.
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Jesus already took all those negative burdens I mentioned earlier on himself.
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How did God confront evil?
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Well, Jesus allowed all our imperfection, suffering and our failures to come on him
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by being defeated by it.
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He conquered death our imperfections and failures and
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all those negative burdens I mentioned earlier.
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Well, we don't have to bear them.
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We can live with Felix culpa or happy fall.
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We can use our failures for good and let his light shine through us.
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This is the good news.
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This is better than perfectionism, because when we live through him,
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there's no stopping us.
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Odd will perfect us.
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We shouldn't hold ourselves to unrighteous standard, unattainable standards.
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We should accept others with their faults,
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and we should realize that God is transforming us and making us a work of art.
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So continue on lean into him and let him use
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your imperfections for his work of imperfect yet perfect art.