“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” - John 10:10

In talking about what is going on with young adults who are having trouble finding direction for their lives, here is something more to consider. “Since 1983, the percentage of licensed drivers in the United States under age 30 has dropped from 33 percent to 22 percent, while the percentage of people in their 20s who have a driver’s license has gone from 94 percent in 1983 to 84 percent in 2008, according to the study published in the Traffic Injury Prevention journal.” This loss of interest in getting a simple thing like a driver’s license has been linked with the growth of electronic media. Young people simply do not feel the need for a car to connect in person with other people as much anymore when the social media will do all that just as well if not better.

Why should we be so surprised then when we consider that electronic communications might just as well supplant the natural desires to form marital bonds and start families? This is especially true for men who are visually stimulated. The widespread proliferation of pornography has surely played a role in replacing the need for female companionship among young eligible bachelors. It has been the devil’s stock and trade to substitute the artificial for the real ever since the Garden of Eden. While most of us are a might uncomfortable in talking about sexual issues, this is a killer, and we all need to build some safeguards into our lives to protect both ourselves and our loved ones.

The internet is the primary source of unsuitable and degrading viewing. If we think that we or our children are above temptation, it is time to put this ill conceived thinking aside. Thankfully, there are any number of screening devices and safeguards readily available. But we know that across our culture today, there are few who will avail themselves of these protective measures. Children are taking smart phones to school and pulling up any and all websites at will and sharing them around. This is not a victimless crime. A searing of the soul will surely result with any number of resultant side effects. Is it any wonder that so many young adults are wandering aimlessly when they have a twisted view of life through viewing perversity or have been used and abused through careless and thoughtless relationships?

The whole sexual revolution has wreaked havoc on countless thousands of our young who think that they can indulge in licentious behavior without a thought and then suddenly exchange that for a monogamous married relationship when the right one comes along. The new morality has robbed those who fall prey to it of their innocence and left scars that sometimes never heal. Hugh Hefner, the poster child for uninhibited freedom, has shown himself incapable of successful marriage. Twice. That he has given up on it is good news for women.

The best guarantee for a successful marriage is sexual purity before marriage. We need to preach this to our children early and often. This is incredibly important for both young men and young women. God has not given his commands to steal our fun but rather to enable us to experience life to the fullest and to know it abundantly, even more than what we might ask or think. Bringing young people to the marriage altar unscarred is probably one of the biggest challenges we face today. There is no room, however, for compromise or winking at sin. We are either all in on this fight, or we have lost the battle before it has begun.

It is plainly wrong to assume that young adults who marry late in life have fallen victim to sin. There are other equally strong forces at play today that militate against early marriage. But it takes but little imagination to understand the correlation between immorality and stunted maturity. “Flee sexual immorality,” the Scripture says. And for good reason.

“…if ye find my beloved, … tell him, that I am sick of love.” -Song of Solomon 5:8

So we broke all the rules of modern day convention in marrying at the tender age of 20 and 21. We had no house, not a stick of furniture between us, not even a car, and Linda faced 6 more months of school while I was headed for an overseas deployment. Further compounding the madness, I went two years to graduate school immediately following the military. But we did it all together. And it was good. Very good. Marriage is a powerfully civilizing force especially for young men, and I was no exception. Young men all of a sudden stop hanging out with the guys all night at the local pizza palace and find jobs, fulfillment, and purpose. Grades go from B’s and C’s to all A’s. It is an amazing transformation, really. I was a case in point.

Marriage is a tremendously soothing balm to the tumultuous years of wondering and waiting for both young men and women. Single young maidens tend to live in endless anticipation of the appearance of their knight in shining armor astride his white horse. Young men waste a lot of time wondering if there is ever a woman out there who would ever find them the least bit attractive. The whole dating scene is rife with tortured anxieties, awkwardness, and disappointments. Who among us married folk would ever want to go back to those days again? While marriage brings its own set of challenges, it at least provides a firm foundation of certainty that gratefully displaces waiting for the phone to ring.

There are many forces loose in our society today that militate against early marriage. Fears of young people emerging from broken homes inhibit many. Economic uncertainties, the sexual revolution, an uncut parental umbilical cord, and post modernism all play their part. What is especially tragic from my perspective is to watch the active opposition of family and friends to early marriage for reasons that are either simply materialistic, unrealistically idealistic, or just sheer pragmatic. Pragmatism be hanged, I say. When God brings two people together in love and purity, I vote to get out of their way and support them. When it’s right, it’s right. Get married and get on with life.

To help counteract the fear factor amongst young people today, I am convinced that we who have lived and loved through secure and stable marriages need to hold the institution high. I encourage all my friends to use any and all milestones in a marriage as reasons to celebrate. Whether it be 2 years or 20, party hearty. Let the world know, and especially your children, that marriage is for real, that it works, and can be downright fun. No matter even if it is the second time around, any loving, married relationship is a powerful force for good. Celebrate it.

Whatever difficulties young married couples might face today, they are almost always better faced together than apart. Long engagements just create a moral minefield for young lovers. And weddings will take as long to plan as one allows. If given a year, it will take every bit of it to plan one. If given three weeks, it will only take that long. And no one should ever forgo marriage because it is somehow “unaffordable.” Simple ceremonies are sometimes the most memorable. And the church family is an immeasurable asset that Christians have in launching a marriage. Run an engagement up the church flagpole and watch the ladies of the church all line up to serve, sing, direct, and bake. Everybody loves a wedding.

Please know, I am not advocating your high schoolers run off and get married at the drop of a hat. That is hardly the problem we face today. Rather it is our troubled twenty-somethings taking ten years to figure out a direction for their future. It may be funny on TV, but it is quite another thing in real life.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone….” Gen. 2:18

We are looking ahead to the time when your children will be graduating high school, entering college, and hopefully finding themselves as mature adults in their early twenties. The real story right now is that so many of the twenty-somethings of today are having a hard time “finding themselves” and entering into responsible adulthood. Dr. Christian Smith is of the opinion that there is indeed something in the cultural drinking water of today’s world that is causing this. The first root cause he identified was the extension of educational pursuits well into the twenties. The second major phenomenon he identifies is the delay of marriage.

Rather than digress into a full discussion of the factors and influences at play in today’s culture, I will risk wearying you with my personal story. I do so because it highlights the differences between today’s cautious young adults and the way things were in our day. I met my wife to be during the second half of my senior year in college in 1966. She was a junior with one year yet to go. Love soon swept us along and during that summer we started thinking serious thoughts. Our engagement soon followed. But I was entering the army in September, and she would be going back to school. We sought and received the blessing of our family with a lot of unknowns in the wind. Linda’s Knoxville grandparents were so encouraging that they offered the use of their car and instructions on how to find the nearest justice of the peace just over the state line. Their generation was used to a more activist approach to marriage harking back to the day when congregations gathered in small country churches and the circuit rider would quiz his congregation to see if anyone wanted to get married at the end of the service. You could come down and get saved and married in one fell swoop.

We chose a family wedding, however. By then I was in the service stationed in Maryland while Linda was in school back in Illinois. I had a break in my training coming up in November so we planned a wedding. We were to either face periodic reunions over the next year or two as single adults needing a proper and respectable dating environment, or we could meet and live together as man and wife whenever time would allow. We chose marriage. I came home one weekend and was married the next. It was a simple church wedding with two attendants, and the ladies of the church pitched in and hosted a simple reception. It was a bare bones wedding but beautiful, and it got the job done. We had a one week honeymoon of sorts, and I flew back to Maryland. We were poor and did not even own a car between us. But we were happy and were able to spend Christmas together traveling unchaperoned to Philadelphia and Washington. Freedom!

I flew home that spring stopping for a few days on my way to Korea. After graduation, Linda flew to Korea right behind me having landed a job in Seoul working for Compassion. That began a several month odyssey where we lived separated by a two hour bus ride on weekends when the army was so inclined. Visits were confined to Saturday and Sunday. Linda had a room with missionaries and would occasionally spend an awkward weekend with me at my forward base where accommodations were crude and totally male. All total, it was a year and a half before we actually were able to live together under one roof as man and wife.

It was challenging, but we shared some incredible experiences together. Korea was rich in culture and adventure. We visited Japan on mid-tour leave and stopped through Hawaii on our way home. We would not trade that time together for anything. As a result, our motto is simply, “When it’s right, it’s right.” Marriage simplifies a lot of things and actually brings about the maturity that many today wistfully await before committing. We were 20 and 21 when married and even thought that kind of late compared to many high school friends. 47 years later it is still right.

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” -Luke 14:28

Emerging adults in their 20’s have been the subject of a good deal of examination recently as their lives have taken significantly different trajectories than those of their parents. These are generational observations which are generalizations at best, but they are significantly documented enough to cause us to pause and ask, “What is going on here?” To summarize it in most basic terms, today’s emerging adults are waiting much longer to marry, to have children, and to choose a career path than ever before. Historians in studying past generations have been common to link earlier average marrying age with greater prosperity. When times were good, young men could take on the obligations of marriage and start out on their own at an earlier age. Today we live in one of the most affluent times in the history of the world and yet just the opposite is occurring. So what gives?

Dr. Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at Notre Dame, primarily studies religion, adolescents, American evangelicalism, and culture. His latest book, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood, is a compelling examination of the cultural forces at work today that are shaping our adolescents into the young adults of tomorrow. We all know a few young adults who seem lost and aimless while their most fruitful childbearing years and career opportunities are evaporating in front of them. Whether they are college graduates who are now waiting tables or who are approaching thirty and are still having a hard time thinking about marriage, these precious years fill parents with great anxieties when they see their children wandering about without any clear direction or sense of purpose. Professor Smith has thought long and hard about these things, and it would behoove us as parents of teenagers to know something of the forces that are acting upon our children to produce this “lostness.” To be forewarned is to be forearmed. I will be taking the next few Thursday News articles to profile the leading causes of this phenomena in the mind of Christian Smith.

One of the first notable shifts in our society in the past several decades has been the growth of higher education. It officially began with the GI Bill following WWII when thousands of young men and women entered college in great numbers. The lure of a professional career became a common pursuit. The cheapening of a high school diploma has also made it almost a requirement to obtain some form of higher education in order to break into the job market. Today’s bachelor’s degree is yesterday’s high school diploma, or almost. As a result, young people find themselves thrown in with thousands of other young people in a university setting where no one has to think much about the demands of real adulthood for four more years. So, let’s party and enjoy it while it lasts. The trouble is that post-graduate education has now also become a necessity for so many careers, and the major life choices of marriage and family are put off even farther. Christian Smith, himself, was in school until almost thirty, a condition he now views as almost insane. It is true that advanced schooling is easier done without the responsibilities of family bearing down. Thus, parents often put pressure on their children to not consider marriage until their schooling is complete. But this can create a minefield for young men and women deeply in love who are told to shelve their passions until graduation that is possibly years away.

I would simply suggest we look long and hard at some of these modern preconceptions regarding education. Simply “going to college” is not a plan for a life. Clear goals for one day entering the job market should come into play before enrolling. A bachelor’s degree in psychology or British literature is a nice trophy for the mantel but a non-starter for feeding a family. And let’s not downgrade the skilled labor force where a plumber can out earn a college degree many times over. Also, marriage and college should never be that incompatible. Two can live as cheaply as one. Plus, my grade point average went up one whole point after marriage. Nothing focuses a man like marriage.

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe

Fear Not

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” -Luke 2:34

Is fear the most common and prevalent of human emotions? If you had said as much, I would be hard put to argue with you. It has long been a companion of mine, anyway. I remember as a pre-schooler watching a house burn in full ferocity and sensing the fear of fire in my young soul and, indeed, in all those around me. I later learned to fear trips to the doctor and sharp needles. Much later, I learned the fear of predatory peers and any kind of public exposure. And no matter what stage of life I found myself, I discovered that I had outgrown one set of fears only to discover another. The fear of marriage gave way to the fear of sudden injuries to my children which in turn gave way to the fear of injured grandchildren. We are riddled with fears of both life and death, success and failure, want or prosperity. Fear haunts all of us either high or low, rich or poor, strong or weak in some way or another. It is part of our frayed humanity that knows that in the end we do not control our own fates.

What better picture of mankind and its fears could we find than that of the shepherds sitting around their small fire, alone in the night, guarding a hard won existence against the unknown beasts of the wild. Man has always found himself gathering together in small clans trying to eke out his living among the hostile elements. And in a sea of darkness that surround them, men cling close to the small fires of hope in cheap gods or false ideologies.

But along comes pure light that splits the night of the shepherds’ blissful ignorance wide open. It is almost more than they can bear. And the very first words of the heavenly heralds of the Christ, the Son of God in the world, are first and foremost, “Fear not.” It is as if God knows and remembers how terrifying it can be living outside the gates of Eden. And truly, these words come at a most terrible time and place in history when Israel lies under the heel of a Roman army and a collaborating ego-maniac of a King. We could say more about the lack of health care, dental science, or any social safety net. It was a hard time to be alive by any chronological standard. But into that human meat-grinder of an age, God shouts His coming with, “Fear not.” Was God mocking our condition or sending a powerful message? I think the latter.

I can identify with poor shepherds living somewhere on the edge of a meager existence against a backdrop of a night of a thousand fears. The fears are real, not imagined. I still need God to break through my dimly lit world and say, “Fear not.” Somehow He is greater than any Caesar, cancerous disease, deranged shooter, or crushing beast of the unknown. Somehow He makes all the difference just by His coming and His presence and breaks the very power of fear. It was good news then. It is good news now. God came into our stable and straw lives and soon put into words the hope He raised: “He that would save his life shall lose it, and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.” In so doing, He raised our lives to a level of existence that no fear, real or imagined, can touch.

Most folks love Christmas for its beauty and charm. I am finding I need Christmas. It calms my fears and gives me hope. May it do so afresh for you and yours.

Adult Fairy Tales and Christmas

“This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel;
and for a sign which shall be spoken against.” Luke 2:34

Somewhere we will hear the alarm sounded about the efforts of retailers and civic officials to cleanse Christmas 2012 of any reference to its Christian roots. Holiday trees replace Christmas trees and the controversy is off and running in a blaze of yule log fervor. Pastors preach and politicians rail and the editorials grow vicious with counter accusations thrown up in reply. Is this just a recycled version of the old and traditional debates about ‘the real meaning of Christmas’? I am going to wade into the fray and say simply, “I don’t think so.” What we are witnessing is a conscious and deliberate effort to take a uniquely Christian holiday and sanitize it to make it conform to a new age in which no one should be remotely confronted with anything Christian. It is part of the culture wars and the overall effort to remove all religious voices from the public square. But herein lies the fairy tale.

I have heard Darwin’s theory of evolution described as simply a fairy tale for adults who want to determine their own sexual mores. We are seeing the birth of a new fairy tale. This is for those adults who want to believe that we can enjoy and maintain all the trappings of democratic forms and freedoms complete with the optimism and spirit of the religious impulse without the religion that gave birth to these very ideas. We can now believe that all men are equal without having any base for this bold assumption. Never mind the reformation and the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer or the Biblical assertion that all men are created in the image of God. Likewise, we can now believe that love and the spirit of giving can just spring up naturally this time of year apart from the unmerited and overwhelming gift of God to the world in the advent of Christ. It just springs magically from holly and mistletoe and mugs of hot chocolate.

The myth of a truly secular democracy or a secular Christmas is like a tent without poles. Yes, tent poles are, after all, restrictive to one’s freedom, cumbersome, and offer rigid obstructions to those seeking new forms and directions. But remove them and the tent settles slowly to the ground as the air steadily escapes. This new fairy tale is a story of a magical tent that stays erect and proud and keeps the elements at bay without any poles at all; no more restrictions, no difficult assembly, no rigid limits.

Do we protest? It has its place. Do we abandon the world and leave it to its own devices? There is nowhere to run and start again. Do we weep for the delusions that bind and blind? Always appropriate. But where can we fight this insidious fairy tale best? Is it not within our own homes with our own children? Let us not be afraid to link Christ’s coming with all that is glorious and good in life. The old carols say it best. With majestic imagery they describe how ‘the soul felt its worth.’ What a foundation for a civics lesson. ‘He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found.’ What a chance to talk about original sin and redemption. ‘The wrong shall fail, the right prevail.’ What a basis for hope and a future. This is the stuff on which our very way of life hangs. Now is not the time for timidity or embarrassment. Christmas is still the greatest story ever told. And the competition has nothing that even comes close to matching it. So feel the freedom to raise a voice and carry this story forth into the void of atheistic nothingness. It is still good news.

Seven Day Solutions

“Thus says the LORD, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength,” Jer. 17:5

Two of my grandchildren went venture capitalist this week. Their quest to go into business had been burning all summer but finally their mother concurred and gave them time and substance to embark. One of these fine afternoons we’ve been having, they set up a stand in their front yard after school and marketed lemonade and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies to the world. The excitement was Titanic as they rehearsed their lines (“Order up!”) and engaged the general public. The ambition of a five and eight year old to enter the marketplace is mostly just too cute for words but also laudable. Any impulse toward creative effort, work, and service deserves to be praised. From what I hear, there is an epidemic of twenty-somethings that could learn a thing or two from my Isabelle and Grayson.

“But on the other hand” (as our Fiddler friend Tevia is so famously wont to say), I can easily work up a case of pity for what I call “seven day people.” These are the folk that are either driven to the point of exhaustion by blind and furious ambition or else they are folks trapped in a cycle of endless labor trying to escape the wolves of indebtedness and poverty. You can find these “seven day people” living in both hovels and mansions. In either case, they are severely focused on either getting ahead or just surviving both of which entail seven days per week of constant toil and labor. While we can easily digress into broad questions of poverty, politics, and pride, I would simply like to point out that there are limits to man’s ability to fix his own dilemmas or accomplish his own dreams. There are other factors at play in our quest for prosperity and success that can be equally vital as any work ethic. Believers should know this well, but we can easily forget.

This week a new plan has been rolled out in five different states in another attempt to “fix” our problems in education. You will be proud to know that Tennessee is one of them. I find it dangerously close to being what I call a “seven day” solution. It is the mindset that says what we have been doing is just not working. Therefore, let’s do more of it. Starting in 2013, our state will join Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut in adding some 300 hours of instructional time to some pilot school programs. They will either lengthen the school day or the school year or both. We will call it an “expanded-learning program” and it will all be promoted in the name of “educational reform.” What is truly scary is that there are some radical voices out there who suggest that the only true fix for our educational woes is for our schools to be open six or seven days per week for eleven or twelve months out of the year. One of them just happens to be Arne Duncan, our national Secretary of Education. For some reason, I suddenly get this image of a “quarry slave at night, scourged to his dungeon”1 and see a dispirited child trapped in the chains of endless curriculum as day after day he claws at the rocks of calculus, chemistry, and a secular catechism.

We all confess that the only way to save some children is to just take them away from their parents. But theft is unethical. And to what end? To make our nation more competitive in the world? Are we to make our children the servants of national ambition? And just what is the good life? No one wants to talk about that. And so we have “seven day solutions” chasing phantom ends resulting in a treadmill existence.

Our school’s namesake chapter, Jeremiah 17, speaks to, nay, hammers at the issues of work, rest, poverty, and prosperity (read it slowly and often). Sin and a lack of trust in the living God can banish one to a stony waste in the wilderness as surely as any lack of a good education. And God instituted the Sabbath as His way of advocating for “six day solutions;” never seven. May we be resolute “six day” people in our “seven day” world.

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe 1Thanatopsis, William Cullen Bryant

Post Election, 2012

“The grass withers, and the flower falls away: But the word of the Lord endures forever.” –I Pet. 1:24-25

It is over. It is over at last. What was intimated by many to be the election of the century has now come and gone. Yard signs are disappearing one by one. Bumper stickers are being covered up with a new layer promoting innocuous causes like AYSO or Recycle Now. Prophetic voices are now calming themselves; the fever subsiding. Winners are exulting in visions of power and prestige. Losers are crestfallen, quietly looking for exits out of the public eye. And the media are counting their millions in advertising windfalls.

Reflective voices are now trying to make sense of it all. Why did we do what we did? For what reason and purpose were we drawn to this candidate or another? And what will be the effect of new or continued office holders upon life as we know it? Then there are those quirky ballot initiatives that threaten to usher in a brave new world in some of our various states. No one can possibly foresee the effects of these.

For those who rejoice at our national commitment to continue down the same path for another four years, it is definitely cause for some nervous humility even in the throes of victory. We are going down some paths we have not travelled before with our national dashboard flashing some serious warning lights. To claim that all is well and not to worry would be nothing but a brazen display of naiveté and hubris. To trifle with well worn traditions in our lust for continued self satisfaction is always an exercise in tickling the tail of the dragon.

For those who are cast down in the despair of defeat, it is time to reaffirm that kingdoms may wax and wane, but the Word of the Lord abides forever. Whatever notions of truth we may hold, if they are truly true, they will remain so regardless of what politicians and courts may decide. And eventually, all will have to admit to their universality whether they like it or not. Those who see truth clearly can simply take comfort in that they see it before most. Truth has this habit of making itself known, if not by declaration, it will do so through hard and costly error by those who fight against it. Kicking against the goads is never a good idea.

Nations rise and fall as they walk either in truth or error. And we have little choice as to when we are born into a particular people group whether it is at a time of ascendency and fruitfulness or a time of decline and loss. Solomon rode the wave of blessing in Israel’s glory days. Jeremiah, alas, experienced pain and suffering right along with the nation to whom he was sent; a nation who had deserted their God. Regardless of the cultural and political circumstances in which we find ourselves, our job remains the same: to be God’s people shining His light wherever we are. And even in the darkest hour of impending judgment about to be visited upon Israel, God gave Jeremiah a sign for hope. He was to buy a field in Anathoth in spite of the fact that he was prophesying that Judah would be forcibly removed from the land by the king of Babylon. It was a stark and public act of hope in the future in the midst of the looming winds of war which would soon overtake them all. He signed and sealed the deed, called in witnesses, and weighed out the silver on the scales.1 It was an act of total defiance to the disaster that was about to sweep over them.

We are called to be people of hope. We continue to plant and sow, cultivate and grow, all in expectation of a harvest. Regardless of the winds of fortune about us, we still move forward in faith that in so doing we are doing God’s work. Martin Luther once wrote, “Even if I knew that the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today.” Own a piece of the future and buy yourself a field in Anathoth today.

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe 1Jer. 32:10

Thanksgiving, 2012

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thess. 5:17-19

McDonald’s has drilled it into us that we deserve a break today, or any day. Pro-Active skin cream tells us that we deserve clear skin. TV lawyers tell us that if we or a loved one suffers from a host of ailments that we are entitled to certain benefits. Football fans feel they have a right to expect winning seasons from their alma maters. Banks and other businesses remind us regularly of our rights to privacy in all business dealings. College students feel entitled to certain minimum grades for showing up to class and warming a seat. If pressed, we all have expectations, rights, and privileges which we feel are coming to us as a result of either our status, age, sex, zip code, citizenship, or blood type. We exist! We are entitled!

There is one serious casualty with this kind of thinking. Gratitude gets totally pushed off the stage when entitlement shows up. If we feel we are owed the corner office, then when it comes our way we find it difficult to muster those gracious feelings of thanksgiving and gratitude which should accompany such a gift. If we “earned” it and “deserve” it, the whole concept of looking at it as a gift is gone. Compare that to receiving an unexpected blessing, a gift that we had no idea was coming our way. There is joy. There is this thrill of receiving something which we had not earned or was owed to us.

I was biking along a very remote stretch of highway up in some national forest lands one day and was turning around to head back towards home. I had not gone twenty feet when I spotted something by the side of the road. It looked suspiciously like money. Closer observation confirmed to my surprise that a clean, crisp, and totally unclaimed $10.00 bill lay there in the weeds for the taking. I claimed it as a gift, a totally unexpected blessing and reward for my biking exertions of the day. It did not make me a rich man. It would not even pay my gas bill home. But it was a truly unexpected gift. That made it so exciting. I could not wait to tell others about it. And it was a special joy to spend it that very day on some trivial lunch fare. I even had to tell the clerk where it came from. Silly, really, how much joy could come from such small change.

What if I were to sit down to my table every day and look upon my bowl of cereal in the morning and see it as a gift? What have I done to deserve this simple blessing when so many in the world go for days with little or nothing to eat? How many people have touched this product with their investment of time, fortune, and creative energies whereby I get to enjoy the simple pleasures of eating that which I could never create or make on my own? Oh yes, I earned the money to purchase the milk and Cheerios. But even this medium and system of exchange is so far beyond my understanding and remains complicated beyond belief. I am the beneficiary of a country that provides all this built on a sustained currency, a system of laws and government, and upon the spilt blood of thousands who have come before. There is no such thing as my money buying my food for independent me without touching a chain of events and people stretching coast to coast with a cast of thousands.

Even what health and strength is ours to get up and walk through another day is a gift, and we have no right to expect it to continue uninterrupted day after day. Every breath we take is a gift of life itself. Our miraculous five senses are an incredible gift from our creator that bring color, taste, music, texture, and sweet smells into an otherwise very, very bland existence. What would happen if we looked around this Thanksgiving at everything as an undeserved gift? I would suspect that it would be a sure way to drive off the Grinch of entitlement and multiply and magnify our joy. May your Thanksgiving be filled with joy.

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe

The Patriot

If there is one who does justice, who seeks truth, then I will pardon her. –Jer. 5:1

If Halloween is our cultural celebration of things that go “bump” in the middle of the night, here is my contribution. By this time next week, our general populace will have decided the fate of much of the direction of our nation for the next four years. The fact that such power rests in our own hands is both invigorating and thoroughly scary. Anyone who has seen Jay Leno interview people on the street can easily attest that democracy is a frightening exercise when placed in the hands of people who think that Europe borders the U.S., that the Panama Canal was named after the man who built it, that Florida fronts the Pacific Ocean, and that Africa is the largest country in South America.

I am not sure what is more frightening, however: these people who cannot answer the simplest questions about world geography actually voting or intelligent Christians who refuse to vote because of dissatisfaction with our two-party system? I know and have talked with some in both categories: those who should not be allowed anywhere near a voting booth and those whose voice desperately needs to be heard. It is these whose vote would reflect intelligent citizenship but decline to do so that are the hardest to understand. Add to these the well meaning citizens who have informed opinions upon the issues of the day but just can’t find the time to make it to the polls or who forget to register. Taken together, they could represent a sizable force for good in any local or national election.

What is not hard to understand are the reasons for discouragement when it comes to national elections. True voices of passion and vision rarely get even a fighting chance to survive the bruising primary process. Vicious truth twisters and mockers make short work of Christian candidates who dare to speak for righteousness. The expense of a modern media campaign make compromise with big money almost a given. Candidates shamelessly exploit and manipulate various voting blocks with promises and/or half-truths. And then after the election, as often as not, winners disappoint us with their willingness to make deals with the enemies of truth or they unleash their own hidden agendas. Yes, there are plenty of reasons for weariness or downright apathy.

For anyone disheartened by the cultural backwash around us, I recommend the Book of Jeremiah as relevant and bracing material. Jeremiah found himself living in a culture with a Godly memory and tradition but one which had lost the essence and purity of that faith. Compromise infected the nation from the top to the bottom. The prophets and priests preached superficial messages that proclaimed, “All is well, all is well.”1 The lying pens of the scribes mangled the law into lies.2 The kings and princes were intent only upon dishonest gain practicing oppression and extortion.3 The people themselves had forgotten how to blush.4 And in the face of false teaching at church, the people compounded their guilt: “the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and my people love it so.”5

Yet in the middle of all this decadence, Jeremiah continued to show a deep love for his countrymen and the nation of Israel. “For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken.”6 He mourned and confessed a temptation to flee to the desert.7 But for all of his brokenness, he did not flee. He continued to raise his voice to warn and rebuke even to the point of embracing imprisonment. Such love is the essence of true patriotism; a love of country that is not blind to fault but pleads for redemption. Hope lay in God’s grace which was willing to pardon even if one man could be found who did justice and sought truth.8

It is my sense that we also need to raise our voice through our vote for any man who shows even a semblance of respect for justice and truth. And as God was willing to reward even partial obedience, let’s not wait for the super pure candidate to rouse ourselves. God said to Jeremiah, “Do not be dismayed. Gird up your loins, and arise, and speak to them.”8 I say, “Gird up your loins, and arise, and vote.” Being dismayed is no excuse.

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe

1Jer. 8:11 2Jer. 8:8 3Jer. 22:17 4Jer. 8:12 5Jer. 5:31 6Jer. 8:21 7Jer. 9:2 8Jer. 1:17

Scientific Myths

“Buy the truth, and sell it not” -Pro. 23:23

Myth or fact? A woman swallows about 6 pounds of lipstick in a lifetime. Myth or fact? A junior high school student won a science fair contest by circulating a report about the dangers of “dihydrogen monoxide” (water). As part of the blessings of our internet age, we are regularly bombarded by newsy items that often fall into the category of “urban legends.” It has led to the development of websites such as snopes.com whose main purpose is to help sort out truth from fiction.
While the above items do not have much bearing on our lives one way or another (unless you despise eating lipstick), here is one that colors the way we view knowledge, science, and technology. Myth or fact? Scientific knowledge is the only reliable form of public knowledge. If you answered “fact,” you would be at odds with a new book by Steven Shapin entitled, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as If It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority. While it might be interpreted at first glance as some fundamentalist Christian’s attack on the credibility of science, it is helpful to know that Shapin is the Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard; hardly a bastion of Christian thought.

What Never Pure attempts to point out is that our modern cultural assumption that scientific knowledge is “real” knowledge because it is supposedly free of the biases and prejudices of flawed human beings is more myth than fact. While not an enemy of science per se, Shapin desires to lower the rhetoric that surrounds scientific knowledge and “bring some realism and humility to the very human practice of science.” Much of the god-like reverence to modern science we see today stems from a book written in 1874 by William Draper entitled, History of the Conflict Between Christianity and Science. In lofty tones, Draper declared that “science and religion were necessarily at war; the one representing the expansive force of the human intellect, the other obscurantism and dogmatism.” While many today are not quite as optimistic about the ever expanding beneficence of modern science, it still is assumed by governments, education, and social institutions that scientific knowledge is the only true and verifiable form of knowledge accepted without question in the public forum. What this myth overlooks is that science is still a very human undertaking and prone to all the passions and foibles of mankind. Even after “laboratory tests prove…”, the scientist must still establish the credibility of his claims and in so doing he calls upon the whole gamut of human expression and argumentation.

Modern man has also attributed a certain degree of infallibility to the scientific method. Shapin rightly points out that there is no one scientific method. Scientists do not even know how to quantify and define with wide agreement any singular method. Some use induction; others deduction. It seems that there is much more interest in and reverence for THE scientific method among artists, social scientists, and historians than in the field of the natural sciences.

In a week where we celebrate the mysteries and the power of science, it is well to remember that it yet bears the stain of human reasoning. It can still be twisted and manipulated for ideological ends and bent to serve our selfish interests. If nothing else, modern science has amply demonstrated its need for containment and direction by the soft sciences of philosophy, history, and theology lest it prove itself a destructive Mr. Hyde that comes out raging well beyond the control of its kind hearted host, Dr. Jekyll.

By the way, women do not consume anywhere near 6 lbs of lipstick in a lifetime. And yes, Nathan Zohner (14) of Idaho Falls did win a science contest by proving how many became alarmed at the dangers of water when cloaked in scientific terminology.

A Warning About Curious Wonder

“I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.” - Pro. 8:12

In the late 1600’s, a privileged young boy named Peter Mikhailovich lived a carefree life in the Russian countryside largely free to explore, learn, and play as he chose. Of royal birth, his immediate family was sidelined by a reigning regent who pushed them and the young heir out of the affairs of court and away from the seat of power. A restless and inquisitive youth, Peter, by virtue of his royal rank did away with his formal tutors and threw himself into a world of his own making. He gathered other youths as his playmates who took to the field to play army like any pre-teen is prone to do. The only difference was that he had access to the royal armory and could order up real muskets, cannon, and a steady supply of gunpowder. His war games grew to involve hundreds of youth and also a few hundred soldiers on loan for temporary duty. It was a boy’s dream life that was to prove immensely practical in his later days when he inherited the reigns to the entire Russian army.

A war in the Crimea interrupted his play as he turned 16. His soldiers and equipment all left suddenly to fight in a real war. Ever curious, the young Czar apparent turned to other interests as he had an insatiable appetite to see how things worked and to watch craftsmen create and build. Even at the age of 12, he had ordered a carpenter’s bench and mastered the use of woodworking tools of every kind. He became a master at the lathe and the hobby followed him all his life. He became a stonemason and a blacksmith. He learned how type was set and books were bound. Then, in 1688, he became fascinated with the sextant and soon obtained one that came all the way from France. Marveling how the sextant could measure distance to far away objects, he finally found a use for math, geometry, and ballistics which was a challenge for someone who could barely subtract and divide. A study of geography soon followed in which he saw the outline of his native country measured against the global world.

In this constant thirst for knowledge, he soon realized that the best tutors were from outside Russia where the west had far outstripped Russia in the arts and sciences. He found in a graying Dutch merchant named Franz Timmerman a ready companion and teacher. So it was that Peter and Timmerman spent some summer days poking around a rural royal estate and discovered an old storehouse. Ordering it to be opened, Peter discovered an old decrepit boat stored upside down. It was unlike the typical Russian river barge, and Peter was completely fascinated at Timmerman’s claim that it could sail with the wind and even against the wind. Ordering up a craftsman, they found another Dutchman who was skilled in boat building. The small lifeboat-like craft was soon sailing up and down the river Yauza with the future Czar of all the Russias at its helm.

So began Peter the Great’s lifetime obsession with access to the sea for his landlocked nation and his thirst for Western science and technology to lift backward Russia into the 17th century. Peter eventually called that small boat “the grandfather of the Russian Navy” which today is the proud possession of the Russian Naval Museum in St. Petersburg. Peter was to move heaven and earth and fight a protracted war with Sweden to win access to the sea and build his namesake, St. Petersburg, on top of a swamp on the Baltic. He knew that no country could achieve greatness without foreign trade which meant access to the sea which meant a modern navy.

Never underestimate the curiosity of a child. Feed it and you might be soon amazed where it ends up. We trust that this next week will be filled with curious wonder for you and your student as you depart from your regular assigned studies to follow your heart. Good sailing; even into the wind!

Boring School Policy

(part 4 of a 4 part series on literature)
Pity for a few moments your local neighborhood Christian school administrator who must preside over a curriculum which honors God but also prepares students for further academic pursuits with a first rate education that includes exposure to some of the “greats” of the literary world. It is a thin line which he must walk. Over the past few years as our school has entered the nether world of secondary education, quite a number of voices have made themselves heard over our literature choices for the high school classes. It has been an education in and of itself. Choices were made and defended. Choices were made and regretted. Through it all, several guidelines have emerged which are leading us through this literary minefield.

First of all, there must flow some general edifying theme that should lift up the human spirit to higher virtues or the heroic. It is certainly acknowledged that moral virtues can be taught through stories of the negative. Scripture records many such stories in which bad examples warn us of paths not to follow. A good Christian literature teacher can take just about any literary work and use it to teach virtue simply from bad characters following bad choices. This, however, places us in a very teacher-dependent mode. Not all of us are so trained or so inclined to search out positives in a jumble of negatives. There are enough literature choices out there that do include heroic themes or where virtue is discussed or portrayed in positive terms. This will rule out those works that are dark, severely depressing, or end in meaninglessness where life has no purpose. Modern literature especially is rife with such examples.

Secondly, it must not be full of gratuitous (unwarranted, unnecessary, unessential) violence or vulgarity which masquerades as realism. Much of modern literature goes out of its way to shock or describe in detail that which only serves to titillate the unsanctified parts of our imaginations. While acknowledging that some “acclaimed” literature does contain the vulgar or profane, it is not our part to drag our students through material that is plainly over the top with salacious scenes or vocabulary. We leave such highly controversial decisions in the hands of parents alone to make those choices.

Thirdly, there are literature choices that are commonly made for high school course work that demand a high level of literary criticism to understand the redemptive qualities of a particular work. We prefer to leave such study to a college level curriculum, again because this places high demands upon all involved to be able to delve into them and separate the wheat from the chaff. Highly teacher-dependent coursework at RECA leads to frustrated parents who must then operate in the dark guessing at direction and purpose.

Fourthly, we do wish to adequately prepare students for college by not avoiding some truly standard literature selections just because they contain some objectionable vocabulary or because certain adult themes are treated therein. They must first pass all the criteria above and be suitable for the age level of our students. Principle #3 of our Guidelines for difficult or controversial topics says it best: (students) are to become increasingly proficient in distinguishing between good and evil and increasingly inclined to reject the evil in favor of the good by learning to evaluate all with which they come into contact by the standards and examples contained in the Word of God. By doing so, they will develop the ability to reach others without sacrificing those habits of thought, attitude, and conduct which are distinctively Christian and necessary for true obedience to the Lord. (RECA Policy Manual, pp. 48-49)

In reading this portion of our policy manual again, I was impressed. You may want to do so as well.

Wading in Polluted Streams

“And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world,” - John 17:11

One of the lesser known credentials in my resume is the fact that I was once a state certified, grade 1, wastewater treatment plant operator. For close to 15 years I tended the small sewage treatment plant at my work among other duties as a chemical laboratory analyst. I became quite familiar with contamination in the biological realm as well as with toxic chemicals in the laboratory. Safe and sanitary practices were crucial in handling any of this material. So it is as Christians that we must learn to deal with the morally toxic materials in the world in which we live.

I wish it were not so, that we could live in a toxic free zone where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day. Unfortunately, we must live out our lives here on earth behind enemy lines where the prince of this world attempts to reign supreme with all the filthy and vile essence that he can possibly manufacture. As believers, we have renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil and seek the narrow path leading to salvation. Holiness is our goal. In the first few centuries after Christ, there were serious multitudes of individuals who fled to desert caves and the wilderness in an attempt to live apart from the temptations of the world. Some of these holy hermits became famous for their simple lifestyles and then had to cope with the adulation of the world they had attempted to shun. Others discovered soon enough that wherever the human heart is, there sin still stubbornly dwells and must be put to death daily.

To those who love literature, this is especially challenging today. How do we walk in a way honoring to God and still dwell with both feet on this earth, eyes and ears wide open? One thing should be clear from the outset. We should never expose ourselves to that which is not in the least edifying nor for which no good reason exists for us to do so. Good laboratory workers never go out of their way to risk exposure to deadly situations just for the thrill of it or to show off for their friends. It defies all sense.

Yet I was called to daily interact with serious biological agents and deadly chemicals all as part of my job which had enormous benefits to many, many people. I had a good reason to expose myself to these perils. But in so doing, I had received training in the proper and safe way to deal with them and was provided with the proper equipment to protect myself. Dealing with the less-than-wholesome that the world records in its literature is much the same. Whether it be exposure to the profane or the mind-twisting deviousness of godless philosophies which we must navigate, we need proper training and protections built into our lives in order to emerge unscathed on the other side. Parents and teachers should fulfill this primary role.

Paul took words from the memorials pagans had erected to open doors into their world and preach the gospel. If we are to be in this world and be salt and light, we must likewise be somewhat knowledgeable of the world around us if we are to be effective witnesses. This will periodically take us out of our own comfort zones to build a bridge to unbelievers. But having a good guide is crucial. I would never advocate learning about existentialism by jumping in and reading existentialist literature. Why reinvent the wheel? Others have spent lifetimes studying it and need to be listened to as trusted mentors before sampling these polluted streams for oneself.

Living in this world is risky. Some things are to be avoided at all costs. Other dangers we must learn to live with on a daily basis. Wisdom is to know one from the other and to learn the skills of coping with the latter.

So what is real?

“Shall vain words have an end?” -Job 16:3

Some lawyers spoke up the other week in New York state’s highest court and argued that dancers at a local strip club should be entitled to the same tax benefits as the Bolshoi Ballet or any other “artistic” group. Given the prevailing moral fog surrounding “artistic expression” and what constitutes pornography, they will probably win. Thus far at River’s Edge, we enjoy a much simpler set of rules that are uncluttered by the delicate discernments of elite legal minds. We still manage to know evil pretty much when we see it.

Yet there is a strong groundswell movement particularly in literature that began back in the 19th century and has vexed Christians for some time and still continues to be a source of debate, even here at RECA. It is simply called “realism.” It began as a reaction in the art world to the romantic idealization or dramatization of the previous era. Soon spilling over into the literary world, it focused on portraying “objective reality” of life as it really was even if it was sordid or ugly. Thus, we soon saw portrayals of the evils of industrialization and could read about the lives of common people be they high or low. It was as natural as night follows day that profanity and vulgarity of every kind should eventually find its way into artistic works of even the highest order.

It doesn’t take too much of a literary scholar to recognize that the wheels have come off this buggy of “realism” that we have been riding proving once again the old adage that what one generation tolerates in moderation the next will indulge to excess. If one wants to write “realistically” today, all you have to do is lace your manuscript with a rich assortment of profanities and vulgarities. It is your proof or prima facie evidence that you have been faithful to real life. Anything less than this is obviously a sanitized Hallmark-channel piece of fluff that merits no serious respect. This is nothing but flawed logic at several levels.

Modern portrayals of army life, especially, require navigating some of the most profane passages known to man; a steady barrage of expletives that continues with machine-gun rapidity. But I was in the army once; with real soldiers, real people. Shocking as it may seem, many did not talk like that. In fact, those whose vocabulary seldom included words of five letters or more were in the minority. So what is really real?

False also is the notion that one cannot write “realistically” without being offensive. The Bible contains some of the most realistic narratives ever put to paper. Biblical heroes are never perfect. There is always that mixture of ecstasy and agony such as is common to man. In fact, we see villains converted, the saintly fall, and plenty of just average people called to live out extraordinary lives in spite of themselves. Yet the Bible does not stoop to rubbing our noses in graphic detail we would just as soon not know. The scriptural authors all understood that our nature can be titillated by evil as well as repulsed by it and attempt to strike a wholesome balance.

If one wishes real “realism,” go to the book of Job to hear him cry out in the midst of his pain, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust him.” Go to Shakespeare where his distraught Hamlet broods, “now could I drink hot blood, and do such bitter business, as the day would quake to look on.” Go to Melville as he takes you inside the mind and heart of the ever vengeful Ahab who “sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.” By contrast, these reveal much of the coarse literature of our day to be mere collections of the cheap, the tawdry, and the gratuitous; the lipstick of pseudo realism upon the pig of shallow thinking and writing.