Some biographical information about An Wang. An Wang was a prolific inventor, a computer engineer and entrepreneur. He founded the company Wang Laboratories. In their heyday they were one of the biggest computer technology firms of the 70s and 80s, rivalling the likes of IBM for importance. The field in which Wang Labs specialised was word processing technology, then a developing field of computer technology from which now ubiquitous personal computers would emerge. An Wang, in addition to his invention – he invented an early type of digital memory technology – was among the first to note that the digitization of information would have far-reaching consequences for society. A good source of information concerning An Wang is this Asianometry video which tells you a lot about his industry and character in general.

Wang, as a key factor in the digital/electronic revolution which began not long after WWII, was as far as research can find, not a Christian. The connection to the headline of this post may not be clear. As such Wang and people like him are examples of the real prosperity gospel. To live with integrity is the gospel that bears fruit. Jesus uses the analogy of salt. What good is salt and why his disciples are like salt. Salt was in the ancient world a preservative of vital importance. It preserved meat and fish in a world without refrigeration, it added savour to food and made it good to eat. It had a multitude of other uses too. If Jesus likens his followers to salt, what is he trying to suggest?

As a companion metaphor to “yeast”, that in the same way that a little yeast leavens the whole loaf, Jesus’ disciples, as sparse or as numerous as they were in the first century, each one of them has the capacity to add something special to their community. Without their active participation in the wider world their communities will flounder. Just as without salt meat quickly becomes rancid. An Wang was salt. His saltiness drew in people attracted to the savour of his company which made it successful. But there is a warning attached to the declaration made by Jesus to his followers. For if you are the salt of the earth, and you are good for a great many things, what good is it if you lose your saltiness?

Jesus says, salt that has lost its saltiness is good for nothing. The warning of how to lose your saltiness is not explicit. If there is one thing that destroys salt it is hypocrisy. Religious hypocrisy has been relevant since Jesus. Even before Christ, God was calling people to a higher standard which they could not meet. Now “After Jesus” everyone who is similarly called must examine their conscience carefully to see if they are not living double-lives. The call to live in integrity is in fact universal but the stigma of the appellation Christian is to be an example of this and fail at it.

For it to be transparent to others that you don’t resemble whom you profess to worship is the stigma. While all have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) not every critic even believes in God. So to Christians, i.e. the followers of Jesus, of whom his contemporary critics must have whispered in their heart – “What’s the dirt on you? (Jesus! Someone who is just too good to be true)” – will find the same accusation levelled at themselves. In contrast to his detractors, people who wish to learn from Jesus find that his qualifications for being Teacher are incomparable and that he lives out his truth without hypocrisy. The quality of being an incomparable Teacher with a capital T means that Jesus does not remove the stigma but rather that he covers us in his immaculate righteousness.

“Imputed righteousness” in a phrase. Christians taken down a notch for their hypocrisy can only consider another hypothetical. The other hypothetical question is if you judge how will you withstand judgement?(Matthew 7:1) And that is how you lose your saltiness and are thrown out and trampled underfoot.Although Jesus never says “I am the salt of the earth“, that is what he is, everyone else who is salt that is good for something gets their saltiness from him. And we who have no intrinsic righteousness of our own understand Jesus is our righteousness.

An Wang, as one of the founders of the digital revolution, may have foreseen one particular thing. The past now exists in the present for forensic examination of one’s personal life. History is being digitised as it is being made. This piece was edited in an online Word Processor, thank you Mr Wang.

Jesus’ crucifixion is significant because it is the means by which God saves. The meaning of Jesus is “God Saves”, but Jesus – a Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua – was a common name in the 1st century, the key is the particular man who was crucified as there were many who were put to death by Roman occupation in that time.

Jesus is inseparable from the title “Christ”; Christ is another Greek translation (of the work Messiah). The Messiah was to be a future King of Israel, messiah is derived from the word to-anoint, as in to rub or rub-in the holy oil that Jewish Kings received on their heads to signify their kingship. The Christian claim is then that the prophesied Jewish King who was to lead the nation was put to death on a cross.

The question is why should the empire’s instrument of death, designed to make a public display of its victims by Roman power, should be the means by which the Jewish King was killed. How does this save?

Remember Jesus said whomsoever believes in him has eternal life (“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16). – St Paul spoke of the cross being a foolishness to those perishing and the power of God to those who are to inherit eternal life (1 Corinthians 1:18). The person who believes in Jesus believes not simply in a person, but the manner of his death. The reason for the saving power of the cross is that God himself was put to death.

If you connect up the dots from the above, The Jewish King was crucified/killed and he was God himself. It isn’t too far removed to see why John 3:16 is a touchstone for Christian belief, it is Christianity in a nutshell but you have to unpack what’s in the nutshell and that is the essence of a God who saves by sacrificial love.

God is love [1 John 4:8] but to what extent God loves is shown by the cross. He loves us to the limit – up to an unjust tortuous death. As St. Paul says – “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:7-8 ]. The assumed fact is that God’s motive is always love, for that is who God is.

The clearer it is seen that God is love the clearer it is seen how far our own motives are from God’s own. Catholicism is a sin & salvation religion, if sin does not have a precise definition outside Catholicism, then loosely put, it is sin that puts self-interest above sacrificial love for others. Since the best a sinner can do is “enlightened self-interest” – the altruism which sees personal benefit without personal cost, then Jesus’ example is the opposite.

What Christians are called to do, to metaphorically take up their cross, can be argued that no-one can humanly imitate Jesus in this day and age, Christians are given the Holy Spirit at baptism and confirmation to help, nevertheless it is difficult, and it is easy to see it as an insurmountable task. This only highlights the necessity of a merciful God who does indeed save and the sign of this is his crucifixion [“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32]

By the sign by which God was put to death points to God The Father, by pleading with The Father to forgive us – “‘Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”’ Luke 23:34. From the very place of the cross is the mechanism of salvation. This is why the particular man Jesus because none other than a God would give forgiveness from such a place.

Jesus is the Son of God by nature but he is also completely human except in sin. He shares common humanity with every other human being, why he saves is out of love and this is why his cross is worthy of worship.