The War Inside

This clip comes from the movie The Fountainhead, with a screenplay written by Ayn Rand.  I consider the speech shown in the clip to be one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard.  It is also indicative of the constant struggle going on inside of me.

You see, I desire to be like Howard Roark, the man in the clip - I desire to defend man's right to live for his own sake.  I want to be a creator and not a parasite.  I look at the man Howard Roark - both in the words of this speech and in the book of the same title - and see an ideal to which I should strive...

But at the same time, Howard Roark is incompatible with my faith, with my desire to become like Christ.  In many respects, Christ is the exact antithesis of Howard Roark - a man who lives not for his own sake at all, but exclusively for the sake of others.  And this is the ideal to which I am called..

So one can see how there is a tension within me between these two noble ideals.  I say both are noble because I don't see this as an "old man" vs. "new man" debate or as Roark being exclusively bad.  There are parts of Roark's speech that are perfectly at home within my faith.  Christians should, for example, resist the attempts of any "collective" to destroy individuals.  One could argue that the call upon a Christian is to surrender to the collective that is the church...but this is not true.  Rather, the call for the Christian is to surrender to that which is Jesus Christ.

Further, who can hear these words and not want to be a creator and not a parasite:

"The creator stands on his own judgment; the parasite follows the opinions of others.  The creator thinks; the parasite copies.  The creator produces; the parasite loots.  The creator's concern is the conquest of nature; the parasite's concern is the conquest of men."

In short, I think that there is much in the speech of and the character that is Howard Roark that is admirable and should be striven toward.  However, Roark is not Christ.  Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of what Roark is describing, though.  For in Christ, we see a man who, though he appears to live exclusively for others, does so not out of a sense of duty or because someone has forced him.  Rather, Christ lives for the sake of others because it is precisely in him to do so.  It is the "work" of Christ.  It is Christ's identity.  It is the life of a man who, although he does not recognize the "right" of anyone to make claims on  him, chooses freely to allow and fulfill the claims of others.

I want to be like Howard Roark.  I also want to be like Jesus the Christ.  A little tension between the two may not be such a bad thing.

jB