"People are drawn to your positive energy."

Tom Greaves has a message for you:

You have changed for the better.

You have a nice voice…

These are all messages from his compliment machine, an exhibit in an ongoing art project in Washington, D.C., that plays random compliments as pedestrians walk by.

People are drawn to your positive energy…

The *real* message of the project might not be so flattering. Joshua Zumbrun quotes Greaves as saying, "It's a response to how on kids' soccer teams… win or lose, everyone gets a trophy." Greaves refuses to unpack this statement any further, saying only "People can believe it [the compliment] or not." Zumbrun continues, "Will they believe it? If everyone gets the trophy, if everyone receives the compliment, does it really mean anything?"

No. No, it doesn't. As Amy over on the Stand to Reason Blog puts it, "… it's hard not to see the meaninglessness of endless, unmerited compliments, randomly dished out, unconnected to any real truth about the recipients."

You are on a constant quest for knowledge…

Like an inverted version of Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, the compliment machine invents a reality in which everyone is equally wonderful, equally worthy of praise. We like the compliment machine because it tells us what we already believe about ourselves. In our pride, we believe that we deserve the compliments it pays us, no matter how random or disconnected they are. We truly believe that I'm OK, and you're OK. We don't really believe that any of us deserve God's wrath; we can't imagine a god who isn't made in our own image, that wouldn't let us all into heaven for doing our best.

This is, I believe, why we have so much trouble believing the doctrine of total depravity. We can cope with the idea that we were bad enough that we needed a savior, but we still believe that the Father was obligated to send us one. We like the idea of having a choice between heaven and hell, but the thought that we are so wicked that we will always, in all circumstances, choose hell because it best suits our wicked and rebellious hearts is just too much. We can acknowledge that we sin from time to time, here and there, but not that, as Paul Washer says, we've "never done anything but sin!"

Your eyes are beautiful…

And so, our gospel becomes a spiritualized version of the compliment machine:

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life…

God desires for you to have total victory in your finances and in your health…

We end up with a gospel that doesn't take our sin seriously, addressing our "felt needs" without addressing our single greatest deficiency: our complete and utter wickedness before God.

Until we realize we are dead, we cannot be made alive. Until we understand the depths of our sinfulness, we cannot repent, that our sins may be blotted out (Acts 3:19). While this gospel keeps playing, we will never be made into something truly incredible: holy, blameless, children of God.