Clear Light of Day

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?-Matt. 5:13

In 1933, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his grandmother, “The question is really: Christianity or Germanism? And the sooner the conflict is revealed in the clear light of day the better.” Bonhoeffer was able to see in those very early days prior to the maelstrom of the Third Reich that there was a creeping effort afoot to co-opt the German church to serve the rabid purposes of Nazi ideology. Later that same year, over 80% of the audience that turned up for a key church conference wore the brown shirts of the Nazi party. From then on, true Christians were forced underground. The church was thus effectively silenced through intimidation, pressure tactics, and overt political action and made to further the ideology of Hitler’s perverse dreams.

We have witnessed this again and again when oppressive forces seek to make religion subservient to the wishes of a secular state. During the French Revolution, church leaders were at one point forced to take an oath to the Constitution under penalty of losing their positions and were to be prosecuted as disturbers of the public peace if they continued to lead worship in any way. This new Constitution had completely destroyed the role of the church in public life and was opposed by the overwhelming majority of church leaders. On 5 February 1791, all priests who had not taken the oath were banned from preaching in public. Thousands of priests, nuns, and bishops suffered dismissal, deportation, and death as a result.

In the wake of the Communist revolution in Russia, “believers were never officially attacked for being believers, but they were officially attacked for perceived or invented resistance to the state and its policies.” We can read in a document entitled Separation of the Church from the State and the Schools from the Church: Decree of the Soviet of People's Commissars, 12 January 1918, “the free performance of religious rites is granted as long as it does not disturb public order.” In China today the government has a policy for religious management that requires Christians to join the strongly politically-charged National Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement or else their various religious activities (including congregation, worship, ceremony, formation of church, construction of church buildings, and evangelism) will be severely restricted and suppressed by various governmental management departments. Totalitarianism always seeks to silence any opposing voice and does so in the name of preserving the public order and the public peace. Despotism never likes to be disturbed.

At the risk of being alarmist, I am seeing some very uncomfortable developments here at home. Christian organizations on university campuses across our land are under attack. At stake is their right to conduct their fellowships according to historic Christian doctrine. Forty one different universities are contemplating challenges to student organizations according to the latest prayer letter from Intervarsity. The Obama administration is in the midst of a serious fight to impose birth control and abortifacient provisions on Catholic schools and charities under the name of health care. Protestants and Catholics alike are rallying to challenge this serious threat to religious freedom of conscience. Presently, our courts are intense battlegrounds arbitrating the rights of Christians to resist the imposition of politically-correct definitions of diversity and marriage.

What I think we are witnessing is an effort to bend Christian doctrine to serve the interests of secular dogma or to silence it altogether. Strident voices are coming out of various closets which have never been heard in public before. Unfortunately, Christian doctrine is proving to be disturbing to the public order. I agree with G.K. Chesterton that, “We do not need a church that is right when we are right. We need a church that is right when we are wrong. We do not need a church that moves with the world. We need a church that moves the world.” Maybe we should be saying, the sooner the conflict is revealed in the clear light of day the better.

History

“Let them bring forth, and declare unto us what shall happen: declare ye the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or show us things to come.” -Isa. 41:22

I do not believe that I have yet to see a pithier job description for a historian than Isa. 41:22. It is in the context of a mock challenge that the Lord issues much as Job was challenged to answer if he had comprehended the earth in its breadth or could number the clouds. As daunting a challenge as it is, the true historian attempts to do just that, to look closely at the former things and declare what actually happened and from there make predictions on how nations and peoples will follow in suit when like conditions mature in the same order. The book of Proverbs is a collection of prophecies based upon observations of past behavior that indicate probabilities of outcomes from future behavior. We have that ability to learn from the past in order that we might not repeat the same mistakes. But human behavior is bewilderingly complicated and conditions rarely ever recreate themselves exactly. Then there is the Lord who can interject His hand at any point and turn the events of man to serve His eternal purposes. These things taken together make the job of a conscientious historian incredibly challenging.

We should never underestimate how important that job is in laying down paths for future generations to follow. Solomon’s Proverbs declare his purpose from the outset to “instruct in wise dealing, in righteousness and justice and equity” (Pro. 1:3). These things can be taught, he maintains, but not without a foundation of knowledge based upon past history and insightful observation. I was thrilled to pass by a quote in our History Fair from William Penn, the American pioneer of religious freedom in Pennsylvania, who said, “Men must be subject to God or ruled by tyrants.” How interesting that way back in the late 1600’s this man had such insight into human nature and History that he could make such a bold pronouncement. There is no more relevant truth for our age than this. We are in the middle of a flood tide of effort to take liberty to the limits of license and time will tell if the wheels will all come off of our society with the only remedy, despotism, not far behind.

It was a joy to see our school reveling in the stories and costumes of bygone eras. We must cherish these stories both for our inspiration and the dire warnings they contain. I look to Abraham Lincoln to see the power and beauty of self-deprecating humor utilized to teach and lead others. I read the story of Theodore Roosevelt to see a lust for life in both robust action and scholarship. I thrill at the hunger of Peter the Great for knowledge of things great and small, the new, and the unexplored. I am humbled by the wisdom of Alexander Solzhenitsyn gained almost exclusively through suffering. I am amazed at the grace of Booker T. Washington in handling disadvantage and discovering the joy of work well done. I shudder at the history of Lenin to see a man so twisted and bent beyond recognition by hate and bitterness. I wince at the story of Robespierre to see what enormous wreckage that could come from a man of simple tastes, steely discipline, and total dedication to the law. All these and more are my teachers. No one could ask for greater.

I trust your students found something this week to inspire admiration or horror, inspiration or pity, comprehension or incomprehension in the lives of those they studied. I learned that the actual name of the famous Cherokee Indian Chief, Sequoyah, was George (something or another). “Sequoyah” actually was a nickname gained through a hunting accident and means “pig’s foot.” My, my, how names that now have the ring of such reverence and sophistication actually comes from such humble origins. I doubt that all our friends living in Sequoyah Hills, one of Knoxville’s oldest and most prestigious neighborhoods, would be thrilled to know they live in “Pig’s Foot Hills.” Nor would “George” be a very memorable name for the Cherokee’s most celebrated chieftain. It is a reminder that it is the man that makes the name and not the other way around.

Dignity III

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:” -Genesis 1:26

If you wondered if there were any fresh questions regarding the dignity of man out there today, you need look no farther than the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. It is not a journal I subscribe to or keep up with regularly but you need to hear the rich and imaginative language with which two highly educated doctors have come up with in justifying the taking of human life. The article which ran in the December, 2009, journal has a title which says it all: “An ethically justified practical approach to offering, recommending, performing, and referring for induced abortion and feticide.” My guard goes up immediately anytime I read about an ethically justified practical approach to anything. It is almost a sure give-away that someone is going to rationalize something horribly wrong.

Sure enough, the authors, Frank A. Chervenak, M.D., and Laurence B. McCullough, Ph.D., have created a very high sounding argument justifying the practice of abortion by redefining when human life takes on value and meaning. According to them, “the fetus lacks the capacity to generate a perspective on its interests” due to “the immaturity of the fetal central nervous system.” Did you get that? In other words, human life that cannot reflect upon its own self interest has no inherent value or meaning. The authors go on to insist that we have obligations to the fetus only “…when the fetus is reliably expected later to achieve moral status as a child and person” which is “…established only by the pregnant woman's decision to confer the status of being a patient.” They talk about some concern for a fetus who has viability outside the womb but after all this talk of “perspective on its interests” and the conferring of personhood only by the mother, we can envision only a muddled life ethic perched precariously on the most slippery of slopes.

If you were not confused already, catch this surefire guide to directing the limited role for a doctor’s “individual conscience.” One needs to be careful because “…in contrast to professional conscience, individual conscience is variable because of the striking heterogeneity of the sources of morality that form individual conscience.” There you have it. The conscience of the individual is inherently untrustworthy because it is formed by who-knows-what source of inspiration. It might even be contaminated by religious views which we all know are oh-so personal (read “arbitrary” and “capricious”) in nature. We who have amateur consciences are to leave these choices of life and death to those trusted souls who can exercise a more “professional conscience.”

We do not have here some diabolical evil geniuses out of a James Bond movie or some sci-fi tale twisting logic and language to cover their perverse schemes. These are pre-eminent scholars and medical minds of the highest order who are conjuring up this Brave New World now on our doorstep. The dignity of human life is under attack simply because our new leaders have abandoned the ground of being that has for centuries defined western civilization. They search desperately for another rock of understanding but can only come up with “the capacity to generate a perspective on its interests” or simply, the ability to choose. Just how will this kind of thinking hold up in situations of despair when a parent, a spouse, or the state questions the practicality of caring for a life that has become burdensome? I thought so.

You have an opportunity to stand with others this weekend upholding a Biblical standard for the dignity of all human life by attending the Right to Life prayer service at Calvary Baptist Church, 3200 Kingston Pike, at 2:00 PM, Sunday, Jan. 24^th, featuring Mr. Jim Wood of Wears Valley Ranch. What a great field trip for you and your children. They need to know that being little is not necessarily safe anymore.

Dignity I

Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same; ASV Heb. 2:14

For all you word fans out there, Christmas is a time where we celebrate the Incarnation; God with us. Like no other, our God chose to come near and inhabit our world with us in human form. Incarnation literally means “in flesh.” It derives from the Latin word, caro, from which we derive all sorts of words such as carnal, carnivorous, and even carnival which harks back to the celebrations that would take place before the “doing away with meat” during Lent. The Incarnation of Christ in our world has been the source of much holiday meditation of mine and is a concept that both appalls me and thrills me.

On the appalling side, I can get quite queasy when I dwell on the weaknesses of the flesh. I could never be a doctor or especially a surgeon. Once the body is opened up, I am easily sickened by the sights of quivering, bloody tissue. I prefer to picture each of you as freshly washed and groomed persons in your Sunday best beaming smiles from your Christmas pictures. That you are spirits wrapped in flesh that is subject to a thousand corruptions and quite capable of emanating the foulest of substances is a fact I choose not to dwell upon. And our Lord stooped to take on this mantle of weakness? It is hard for me to imagine a more bizarre scenario. How could he do this?

On the thrilling side, the very fact that Christ did take on the form of human flesh with all its concomitant weaknesses and frailties is incredibly ennobling. Christmas forever puts a stamp of extreme value upon all human flesh as God himself chooses to take it on for the purpose of redeeming all humanity. He shares in our universal weakness, our suffering, and our pain to accomplish His plan of salvation for a broken and lost creation. But not for all, not for the plants, the animals; just for man alone. All creation stands as a mere backdrop for this drama of redemption for people such as you and I.

This is what changes everything when we look at creation and all the world. Mankind has a dignity and worth because of the price tag God put upon it. This idea has previously infected all of western civilization through the ages but now is in grave danger. Our modern world is attempting to maintain the old values regarding the dignity of man apart from the underpinnings of Christian faith. Pity on those who try for it is hard to do. Many hang their hopes on focusing on the rationality of man and his free will to choose. This is a threadbare hope at best and one which will wither away, but surely it will never resist the onslaught of a determined attack. Even now there are those who talk about defending new born life only when a certain “viability” is attained. “Choice” is, in fact, championed as a supreme act of the free will in terminating the unborn. And the loss of rationality is becoming dangerously close to justify the ending of “unmeaningful” life.

When we talk of critical thinking as a worthwhile and virtuous activity, I would urge you to examine with your children this whole idea of the dignity of man as we have traditionally come to presume upon it. It is in poor health in our society, and we Christians are the only folks that have the gold standard antidote. Do your children know what is at stake here? I would plead with you to take time and effort to discuss and teach them in very concrete terms the ramifications of the incarnation. This can be a Bible lesson or one seen in literature or History. The stark test of it is to visit a nursing home and wade into rooms full of the feeble, the broken, the incontinent, the mentally absent, the less than sweet smelling, and to touch their translucent skin in a way that says that they have great value because God said so. The fate of our society as we know it depends upon it.

Allan Bloom

“I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.” Ps. 119:99-100

Before writing about the Declaration of Independence last week, I pulled down a few old works to refresh myself, among them being my well underlined copy of The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom*. It should be required reading for every college or pre-college student or for those who hope to be parents of college students someday. Before investing $80,000 or more and four years of blood, sweat, and tears into a college degree, this book will help parent and student alike distinguish between chaff and solid food. Navigating the educational channels in a way that is actually profitable has never been more challenging than it is today. Bloom described the educational system in 1987 as “a technical smorgasbord” that is characterized by a “…utter inability to distinguish between important and unimportant in any way other than by the demands of the market.” Little has changed.

While he is best remembered for his scathing indictment of the impoverished world of academia, he does not spare the family for its failure to instill “a basic element of fundamental primary learning: religion.” It is not the unhappy broken homes he takes to task. It is the failure of relatively happy ones where parents are devoted to their family but have “…nothing to give their children in the way of a vision of the world, of high models of action or profound sense of connection with others.” By religion, he speaks openly of the influence of the Bible which transmitted “the wonder of the moral law” and made it possible to “raise” children, not merely “educate” them. He laments how people “sup together, play together, travel together, but they do not think together.” In this setting, “educational TV marks the high tide for family intellectual life.”

It is the Bible that used to furnish our culture with a uniting sense of common belief for rich and poor, young and old, simple and educated. It was “the very model of model for a vision of the order of the whole of things” and a key to all of Western culture, art, and literature. Without knowledge of that book, Bloom pictures a world where the very idea or hope of truly integrated knowledge and order is lost. Without the Scripture, parents lose “the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise – as priest, prophets or philosophers are wise. Specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.”

He blames the invasive and overwhelming influence of media that comes to control the atmosphere of the home, wresting it away from parents who have even “lost the will” to control it. Instead, we desperately need lives based on “the Book” that will provide us with access to the real nature of things, great revelations, a sense of the epic, and the human condition. Without a firm and real moral education that imparts a “vision of the moral cosmos and of the rewards and punishments of good and evil,” education otherwise “becomes the vain attempt to give children ‘values’.” Bloom characterizes the “values-clarification” classes springing up as little more than propaganda pushing values that will inevitably change as public opinion changes. As a college professor, he seems to weep over the ensuing result that “there is less soil in which university teaching can take root….” Far less, indeed.

It is interesting reading that gives a whole world of meaning to what most of you are presently doing. It will make you feel the earth move beneath your feet the next time you do family devotions.

*Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, Simon & Schuster, 1987

Declaration of Independence

I handed out some free copies of The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution this week to 4th grade and up. To teachers, I stressed the importance of the Declaration as something we need to hold onto and cherish. With reflection and further study, I now lean towards characterizing the Declaration of Independence as at once the most precious and most dangerous of documents in our American heritage.

No doubt that the Declaration has suffered seriously from attacks of all kinds from many sources over the years. The whole idea of ‘natural rights’ and the relevance or existence of a creator have either been seriously questioned or totally debunked. While I am uncomfortable with defining just what are the “laws of nature,” certainly our society is treading on thin ice in trying to posit any secure grounds for the dignity and freedom of man other than our Western tradition of European Christianity. Evolution tells us we are a freak accident of nature and a predatory menace threatening the whole world’s ecosystem. That is hardly a comforting starting point in arguing for the inalienable rights of men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. One of nature’s laws is the principal of survival of the fittest. That is a totally abhorrent basis for founding a social system that protects the weak and insures their survival. It is only our Christian tradition that tells us that man is the crown jewel of creation, made in the very image of God, and standing apart from all the rest of creation.

The basis of our Constitutional law is the Declaration of Independence. The hinge pin of the Declaration is that our dignity and rights come from our Creator who sits above governments and kings. Government then must be subservient to greater truths and not the source of truth. Our Protestant tradition of the priesthood of the believer is the pure gold standard in enunciating the value and dignity of each human individual as they stand equal before God. To try to build a base for either liberty or equality apart from this is an exercise of the most arduous and difficult kind. We, as Christians, stand firmly in the tradition of these bridge builders to the American concepts of liberty and equality. No other philosophy or methodology has been to this point able to bear that weight.

Yet these unquestioned values of liberty and equality are also very dangerous concepts that, if allowed to run unchecked, will feed upon themselves until they descend into total chaos and destruction. These high flown words served well in inspiring a revolution but were ill defined and vague at best. Jefferson, himself, was a slave owner and could not see the implications of his own writing. Our idea of liberty finally evolved to the point of ridding us of slavery, but it continues to morph into further and further notions of radical individualism free of all social, moral, and religious constraints. Unchecked, liberty seeks to knock down all the walls of restraint upon personal freedom until society’s ceiling finally crashes down around it in swirling winds of chaos. Egalitarianism, likewise, is an animal that will grow and grow if left unchecked until it eats us out of house and home. Economic disparity is now characterized as inherently unfair and unjust pushing us towards socialism. Hierarchies are ridiculed. Age is grounds for suspicion. Representation must be engineered to insure ‘fairness.’ The only power capable of insuring this is that of government which must become more and more intrusive at the behest of elites who understand correctly the goals of a “just” society.

The Declaration of Independence: a dangerous and precious document. Handle with care.

Thanksgiving

“In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

In a recent issue of Christianity Today, Cornelius Plantinga Jr. made a chilling observation by commenting, “It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular.”[1] We have all just witnessed plenty of that, I am sure, with last week’s national Thanksgiving holiday celebrated by Christians and atheists alike. Any tally of the mention of “God” verses the mention of “turkey” in our daily media would have shown a great imbalance in favor of the bird. Plantinga pointed out, however, that being thankful “in general” is very odd. “It’s a little like being married in general.”

Before dismissing for the holidays last week, my Spanish teaching wife brought out in her class that Thanksgiving is a truly unique American holiday. No other country has anything quite like it. With that said, she ventured out onto thin ice and asked her class who the first celebrants were thankful to. There was much awkward silence followed by timid expressions of pilgrims being thankful to the Indians for bringing food. Yes. That was it. The pilgrims were thankful to the Indians for bringing food. This was the sage consensus of high school sophomores and juniors from a rural area of Knox County in the heart of the Bible Belt. It was enough to make a grown teacher cry. She went on to remind them of the Jamestown and Roanoke colonies, two failed experiments with which they were at least familiar. Can anyone say, “survival?” The survivors of Plymouth Rock had a lot more on their minds than a mere harvest feast and Indian game. They were thankful to an almighty God for their basic existence after their first devastating winter of this new land was behind them.

One of the first declarations regarding the day of Thanksgiving comes from the State of New Hampshire in 1782 and reads, “The United States in Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many instances of divine goodness to these States:[...] Do hereby recommend to the inhabitants of these States in general, the observation of THURSDAY the twenty-eight day of NOVEMBER next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to GOD for all his mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to their gratitude to GOD for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience of his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.”[2]

No ambiguity there. Clearly, such a clear-cut and stark statement of religious faith today would send deep shivers across our sophisticated sensibilities that have demonstrated here-to-fore impossible capacities of tolerance for the bizarre and profane but not, indeed, for “the practice of true and undefiled religion.” We have the zealous promoters of a “secular” and “inclusive” society to thank for that. They have waged a carefully articulated war against the mixing of the sacred and the secular seeking libertine license for themselves while denying that morality has anything to do with “the foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.” Not content with their victory in judicial and political precedents, they have moved to expunge even the memory of our religious heritage as a nation. How do you do that? History is subverted to tell us that Pilgrims were thankful to Indians for bringing food. Evidently they have done their job well.

The telling of our nation’s history is critical to our sense of identity and the continuance of our values. It is the front line of our culture wars. Don’t assume anything. Question everything. Beware of strangers bearing texts published after 1970. Don’t drink the cultural water. We are in a fight, and the enemy takes no prisoners.


[1]Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “Assurances of the Heart” Christianity Today, Vol. 39, no. 13.
[2]Thanksgiving Proclamation State of New-Hampshire. In Committee of Safety, Exeter, November 1, 1782

Total Depravity

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. - Psalms 51:5 NIV

Starting points are so important. And so we stand at yet another one. As much as we wish at times that time would stand still, that our children remain children, that their cuteness and innocence be preserved forever, they will continue to grow and press on to maturity. Each school year is a recognition of life and growth pushing us on into new territory where we have not been before. As you prepare to lay down another large stone in your children’s lives, I pray you may be at peace with that and that we all may be equal to the task. We are moving on. God help us. Amen.

Another starting point that matters in a huge way is our concept of human nature. We start from a viewpoint that says that all of us have sinned and have gone astray. There is none perfect, no not one. Romans tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We believe in the absolute necessity of regeneration by the Holy Spirit for Salvation because of the exceeding sinfulness of human nature. This comes straight from our statement of faith. It is known as the doctrine of total depravity; that man in his natural state is totally depraved. This language may be frightening but simply means that our natural bent, our original condition upon birth, is sinful. We are inclined from birth to selfishness, slothfulness, deceit, and defensiveness, among other things.

Our founding fathers, acting from a Christian consensus, believed this and so created a Constitution that did not entrust power to any one person or branch of government. This is the foundation of our system of checks and balances. The French Revolution fell sway to another way of thinking; that man in his natural condition was good, but that man’s weakness and corruption was due to society and all the damage it inflicted upon the young from birth. Rousseau and others popularized this viewpoint and attempted to build systems of government upon it. They failed. Ours is still here, though this optimistic viewpoint of the nature of man keeps returning in the wishful minds of people who are extremely uncomfortable with the whole concept of sin.

I spoke last week about the travails of our public school system. I believe what we are witnessing is an attempt to bring about a system that will produce upon command students that will learn, absorb, and graduate. Failure is not an option. It must be the system that is wrong: not the student or the home from which they came.

It has been said that never was there more evidence for any Christian doctrine than the natural depravity of man, but never was there a Christian doctrine that was more unpopular and despised. We love your children and think they are sweet, but we also believe that they will require training and discipline to develop the potential within them. Their natural bent is not to be studious or organized or even respectful of those who wish to teach them. This may be a dour perspective, but it is a huge advantage in beginning any educational adventure because it happens to coincide with reality. We enter this arena of struggle full knowing that it is an uphill fight from the start. In order to win it, we must be armed not only with God’s love which sees the potential in each life but also the rod of truth, the word of God, which is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit…a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12). Add in the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit and you have a potent mix for success. Marshalling these, we have a great starting point for a great year.

Brave New World

I am also including a piece I have submitted to our local newspaper in response to a fellow who wants to legalize assisted suicide for the elderly. It might not make a whole lot of sense if you have not read his, but I include it at no extra charge. Feel free to respond anytime. Thankfully, your rotten tomatoes cannot travel through cyberspace.....

Al Westerfield is not alone, unfortunately, among those who in a fit of Brave New World mentality propose suicide as a surefire cure for the ills of old age. No, there are no laws against suicide. Prosecution poses serious problems. And suicide certainly meets all the criterion of purely utilitarian reasoning. I have a great book for those who are enthralled with such thinking entitled The Nazi Conscience by Claudia Koonz. It details all sorts of utilitarian solutions for social ills, all imposed with great ulterior aims and braced by philosophic arguments of the highest order.

Anyone making a case for legalizing suicide must first dismiss the antiquated values of the Christian faith. Westerfield does this, as many before him, by hiding behind the flimsy veil of the doctrine of “separation of church and state.” No one, we are told, should be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on all. In one fell swoop, he dismisses all Christians from participating in the Democratic process because they are tainted with religious belief. Effectively disenfranchised, we evidently should be content with allowing only atheists and agnostics to form the laws of our nation. However, slavery could very well still exist if it were not for the abolitionists who led the fight to impose their Christian morality upon the South.

The idea of legalizing assisted suicide seems so innocuous when confined to discussions of the terminally ill. This animal does not observe nice fences, however, and quickly invades the body politic creating all sorts of malicious mischief. Eager heirs are always standing ready to jump the gun. The medical profession can easily be corrupted to make decisions of life and death based upon the bottom line. Our culture can soon be seduced to evaluate life in terms of “meaningfulness” versus “cost to society.” It is a slippery slope leading back to the Spartan culture of old where babies were inspected upon birth and the weak thrown off cliffs.

Most insinuating of all, this talk of the “nobility of suicide” becomes a black hole that sucks those suffering from depression, no matter what age or medical condition, into its irreversible grasp. I have lost three friends to suicide already. Only one was suffering a terminal illness. Depression is a disease of worthlessness, a feeling that one is a burden to family, friends, and society. I am glad my 93 year old mother did not read Mr. Westerfield’s article. She is making a valiant effort to cling to her dignity and sense of worth through her declining days. The last thing she needs is a voice telling her to end it and save us all a lot of trouble. How cruel.

Assisted suicide and the mentality supporting it puts man in the role of playing God. That is a burden no man was meant to bear. We aren’t doing all that well at running a County Commission let alone take on the task of deciding who is meant to die and when.

Manchester

“When I was my father’s son,…he also taught me, and said to me…” –Pro. 4:3-4

One of my 25 cent books from the Friends of the Library sale grabbed my attention and imagination last week and ended up to be an engrossing read. Goodbye, Darkness is a memoir of the Pacific campaign during WWII by William Manchester, an author I had grown to admire for his biography of Douglas MacArthur. In the 1970’s, Manchester revisited the places he had gone ashore in battle against the Japanese as a young Marine. It was on Tarawa, known to many as “Terrible Tarawa,” that he pondered as to where the courage, dedication, and steely discipline came from as he recounted how wave after wave of U.S.Marines suffered terrible casualties in taking that small but well fortified island. His conclusions staggered me especially as they came from a man who was not naturally inclined to patriotic flag waving or righteous grandstanding.

He had to admit that the America of WWII was different from that of today, and there was no way of understanding the way its sons threw down their lives so willingly and almost carelessly without understanding the culture of that time. He describes the United States of pre-WWII as a tightly disciplined society with rigid standards and where “counterculture” did not exist as either a word or a concept. And here is the lengthy quote which came so unexpectedly:

“The bastion of social stability was the family. Children were guided, not by radar beams picking up trends and directions from other children, but by gyroscopes built into their superegos at home. Parents had a tremendous influence on them. If adolescents wanted to read pulp magazines, or smoke, or listen to Ben Bernie or the Lucky Strike Hit Parade on the radio, they needed parental permission; if they wanted to see ‘The Philadelphia Story,’ their fathers decided whether or not it would be bad for their morals; if they made money shoveling snow or cutting lawns, their fathers, again, told them whether they should save it for college, or, if it was to be spent, what they could buy. There was no teenage ethos; indeed ‘teenage’ meant ‘brushwood used for fences and hedges.’ Young people were called ‘youngsters,’ and since the brooding omnipotence of the peer group had not yet arrived, children rarely felt any conflict between their friends and their families. No youngster would dream of discussing familial conflicts with other youngsters. An insult to either parent had to be avenged. …Fathers had always ruled like sultans, but the Depression had increased all family activities over which patresfamilias reigned; a study of over a hundred families in Pittsburgh discovered that a majority had increased family recreation – Ping Pong, jigsaw puzzles, checkers, bridge, and parlor games, notably Monopoly. There was also plenty of time for the householders, the doughboys of 1918, to explain to their sons the indissoluble relationship between virility and valor.” (p. 247, copyright 1979; Little, Brown & Co.)

There; a long quote but one which so many of you should find encouraging. I see you doing these very things today; instilling those “gyroscopes,” attempting to shield your children from the “brooding omnipotence” of modern teen culture, instilling “absolute” notions of truth and morality, and keeping your families together at all costs. Some of you may have thought you were alone and bordering on the bizarre. Take heart. You stand in the grand tradition of those who raised what Tom Brokaw has labeled “The Greatest Generation.” I grow increasingly impressed with what those young men did who pushed back the forces of evil in WWII at such great expense. I have high hopes for our young people, as well, in standing against the Evil One who comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy. Keep up your good work.

Poisonous Roots

If there was one thing that Francis Schaeffer tried to teach us, it was that ideas have consequences. It was a short step from Rousseau’s desire to follow nature to the Marquis de Sade and his treatment of women because nature had made men the stronger of the sexes. After Darwin burst his idea of survival of the fittest upon the world, many quickly bent it to their purposes and thereby justified all sorts of inhuman treatment of their fellow man. And when one convinces himself that he speaks for the proletariat, the suppressed masses of the world, no crime becomes unthinkable.

Schaeffer was quixotically tilting against powerful windmills, however, for his message matured just as the West was in the process of dumping the very idea that truth existed in a relativistic, post-modern fit of righteous self-cleansing. Tolerance replaced truth as the supreme virtue. All would have lived happily ever after except for the inconvenient truth of 9-11. We were rudely shown that there are still some very powerful and dangerous ideas running amok out there for which many would gladly sacrifice their lives in balls of flaming death falling from the skies.

It should be no surprise that our leaders and the elite of our society seem powerless and ill-equipped to deal with this threat. They were raised on the pabulum of tolerance as virtue and can’t understand why all men of reason do not respond in kind. But fight they must, and so they have committed us to a war of weapons and treasure with some lip service given to freedom and democracy. But we are up against a people that are interested in neither freedom nor democracy. There is not enough money to buy them nor can we force them to be free, a very un-democratic action, indeed.

There is a missing component in this war, and it is that of ideology. Compare our behavior in Iraq with that of our forces in Japan at the end of WWII. Gen. MacArthur entered Japan with near dictatorial powers and with a clear vision for going down in history not as a great general but as someone who brought “the solace and hope and faith of Christian morals” to the land of a vanquished foe. Japan was a tradition-directed culture where the individual was subsumed into a collective mindset not seen in the West since the middle ages. The Emperor was divine, women were inferior beings, peasants were sharecroppers shackled to the land, and Shintoism promoted martial virtues and the inferiority of other races. There were no civil rights or liberties and power was wielded by the gumbatsu (militarists) and the zaibatsu (11 industrial families). Japan was a totalitarian society more akin to ancient Sparta than any modern nation.

MacArthur suspended the Emperor’s functions, brought freedom of the press, instituted civil liberties, released all political prisoners, demanded women’s suffrage, and informed the public of Japan’s war crimes. Most importantly, he sought to turn their idolatry for the warrior class into hatred and contempt by removing all militaristic propaganda from school textbooks. He established academic freedom, forbid all discrimination, and opened schools to women. In a new constitution he virtually dictated, the armed forces were abolished and war was renounced as a sovereign right of the nation. Dozens of other drastic changes were made, far too many to mention here.

As a result of his cultural meddling, the national income surpassed pre-war levels in just 5 years, 90% of land ended up in the hands of people who farmed it, cholera was wiped out, and the life expectancy of men increased by 8 years and women 14 years. Most importantly, the Shinto, militaristic, and totalitarian mindset disappeared. Eight years after VJ Day, Theodor Geisel (“Dr. Seuss”) visited Japan and conducted an extensive survey of Japanese children who were encouraged to draw pictures of what they wanted to become. Every profession was noted from doctors to wrestlers, but only one child drew a soldier. And he wanted to become a MacArthur.

Contrast this to our war in Iraq which targets Al Qaeda fighters but not the philosophy and mentality that propels them. For every one we kill, there may be two or three willing to take their place. Our troops have to wind their way through dangerous streets while mosque loudspeakers boom forth anti-American tirades over the heads of those sent there to protect them. We dare not enter a mosque where they are busy inculcating another generation with the poison of anti-Israel venom and Arab imperialism through Jihad. Terrorism is not a deviant of misplaced Islamic fundamentalism. It is part and parcel of Jihad which is clearly understood in the Arab world as holy war, not an internal struggle.

While Christianity suffered from the hands of extremists in the middle-ages, witch burning and the inquisition were doomed from the start because they were so against the grain of Christ’s teaching. These practices pale against the crimes of Jihad today which sanctions the killing of infidels and glorifies the assassins with sainthood: all this very clearly consistent with the teachings and practices of Islam’s first and greatest prophet.

The main goal of much of Arab education is to instill a rabid commitment to destroy Israel. Everything from nursery rhymes to textbooks teaches children about Jews being pigs, dogs, and devils out to steal their land. “May God bless us with shahada (martyrdom)” is their prayer. A totalitarian control grips their lives with fear used to direct blind vengeance against the Jew and the forces of modernism that come from the West. The Muslim faith is assured through fear, shame, intimidation, imprisonment, or death. Women lead second class lives, fatalism is endemic to the culture, personal responsibility is a foreign concept, and lying to protect family or culture from outsiders is considered a virtue. Preserving family honor is more important than happiness or a healthy life. Hate speech pervades Arab TV and the mosques. Contrary to common perception, Islamic radicalism is not a product of ignorance and poverty even though Arab lands boast some of the highest illiteracy rates in the world. The majority of the radicals are coming out of the upper classes and medical schools. These zealots are simply acting out what they have been taught from childhood: kill infidels, Americans, Jews, and Christians and gain the rewards and honors for those who die in Jihad.

Unfortunately, our state department does not want to get involved in ideological warfare. They have been educated in America where we do not want to make judgments involving cultures or religions. Our president has called Islam a “religion of peace” and said that he worships the same god as they; two statements which are greeted with incredulous unbelief in the Arab world as hopelessly naive. But in this wishful thinking, he is well at home among the campuses of America where non-judgmental relativism reigns.

We are caught on the horns of a terrible dilemma. We have engaged the most radical believers of Islam in armed conflict but do not have the heart or conviction to tell them that they embrace a false and horribly self-destructive world view. Without curing the cause, we are condemned to continue the conflict with no end in sight. As someone has said, “We have the means to destroy them but not the will. They have the will to destroy us but not the means.” The possession of those means, however, is only a matter of time.

The answer is not to destroy them first. We can, however, address the cultural imbalance that exists between us and the Arab world. We can demand access for access, freedom for freedom as the price of doing business with the Western world. We grant them religious freedom here. It should be matched by equal freedom within their nations. My friends can’t even take their personal Bibles with them when traveling to Saudi Arabia. For every mosque built in America, they need to permit the building of churches in Mecca and around the Arab world. If American wealth and blood are being spilt to renew Afghanistan, we should insist that they guarantee Christian believers the right to life and limb and make freedom of religion a foundation of their law.

Secondly, we need to challenge Islamic clerics and intellectuals to save Islam through reform. They will either reform it or risk starting WWIII. The Jihad needs to be renounced for the relic of the middle-ages that it is. On that point of belief we could easily discover who our friends are in the Islamic world. Without that renunciation, we face an intransigent foe. If Islam is the religion of peace promoting understanding as many of them say, it needs to be taught to their own children. That is the proof we need.

MacArthur realized we needed to change Japanese culture from the ground up and the ideas it was built upon; not just defeat them in battle. Without that change, the death dealing pilots of 9-11 could just as well have been the descendants of the kamikaze suicide bombers of old. Ideas do have consequences.


Sources: American Caesar, William Manchester, Little, Brown and Co, 1978.
Now They Call Me Infidel, Nonie Darwish, Sentinel, The Penguin Group, 2006.

Prosperity

"By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.” –Pro. 22:4

Last week I left you with a question to ponder: what does the inclination of humans to forget God in the midst of prosperity have to do with families and children? One answer can be found in a book entitled, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids (HarperCollins) written by Madeline Levine, a practicing psychologist in Northern California. Her target study group were families enjoying 6 figure incomes, but what she learned is applicable to all. She discovered that: a) 30 to 40 % of affluent teens experience significant emotional problems (3 times the national average), b) depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse and psychosomatic disorders are higher among affluent teens than among teens in any other socioeconomic group, and c) affluent kids feel less close to their parents than any other group of teens. Levine concluded that these parents are trying to fill their children with the wrong things – material goods, super achievement, worldly success, and status. At the same time, the importance of values, character, unconditional love, and a work ethic are neglected or short-changed.

Betsy Hart, who reviewed the book (News-Sent. 1-26-08), argues that “too many of our kids have been abandoned to a secular culture and have little or no transcendent spiritual values being imparted to them.”Both highlight the need for balancing the need for academic achievement with the experience of success and satisfaction that comes from being a contributing member of the family group and acquiring a strong work ethic. The inference is that instead of a steady diet of soccer, violin lessons, ballet, and little league all on top of honor-roll level homework, there should first be a substantial portion of taking out the garbage, digging flower beds, washing dogs, vacuuming under furniture, and mowing lawns. From these things, they learn the value of good deeds, the ability to cooperate and be a contributing member of a group, and the accumulation of daily living skills.

There was a day when I did not look so kindly on those ideals. My experience growing up on a farm included any number of daily chores many of which I found highly odious. But we knew that our living was directly tied to the strength of Dad’s back and Mom’s arms. To not assist them would be nothing short of criminal. And when the barn was filled with hay at the end of a summer and when the corn cribs bulged, there was a sense of pride, satisfaction, and security that touched even my often dulled, teen-aged mind. I also learned how adversity could be overcome every time the decrepit old, family hay-baler broke down in the middle of the field. Dad found a way to fix it even if it took the rest of the day and several trips to town. We learned to endure adversity when the market prices plummeted. And we learned to share the joys of fresh strawberries in season topped with mountains of whipped cream from the milk of our own cow, the same cow I herded up from the fields every day after school.

I am always thrilled when I see our CFC families working together as teams, where each child lends a hand in some capacity or another. It is a valuable part of their education. Levine backs you up on this but also stresses letting kids work through frustrations and adversity instead of us constantly solving all their problems for them. Add to this a lesson in letting them know that parents have needs, too. But above all, love the kids you have, not the ones you are trying to create. In so doing, we can avoid the traps created by excessive prosperity. No, affluent kids do not have it all. And we certainly do not need to emulate their dysfunctions. Work, teamwork, affection, life skills, adversity, and eternal values are time tested ways to remove the poison from the prosperity in which we stand knee-deep.

Haiti

“I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen.’” –Jer. 22:21

Several weeks ago, a riveting photo was run in the newspaper of Haitian women making mud cookies for their hungry children. Scarcity and inflation were pushing these poor to turn to a mixture of mud, salt, and vegetable oil, baked on a hot roof, to satiate the hunger of themselves and their little ones. I cringed with that photo burned in my mind as I stood and scraped leftover food into the garbage can after our Wed. night church dinner. The disparity between our two countries is beyond belief. How can this happen? I think the more appropriate question is, “How did this happen?”

Anyone at all familiar with the history of Haiti knows of its dance with satanic voodooism. When the sugar plantation slaves rose up in rebellion against the French, the rebels actually met and made a pact with the devil telling their dark lord that their new country would serve him for two hundred years if he would help them throw off the French yoke. They were successful, and the French sailed off leaving them to their ways. Cultural anthropologists tell us that if you want to know what Africa looked like 200 years ago, travel to Haiti, not Africa. They have preserved all the raw and primitive practices of that formerly “dark” continent.

Jeremiah says that those who turn away from the Lord will be like a bush in the desert and will not see prosperity. Their dwelling place will be a stony waste and a land of salt (Jeremiah 17:5-8). If that is true, Haiti is exhibit “A” with the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children, generation after generation. They stand in marked contrast with the other half of their same island, the Dominican Republic which boasts a decent standard of living by comparison and a modern economy. I am convinced that Christian values and morality bring prosperity in their wake regardless of the blessing or curse of natural geography. For that reason, the gospel is the most radical form of economic aid we can give.

The trouble with this is that once affluence abounds, we become self-satisfied and our hearts grow cold. We have no needs. Today, the church of America tortures itself with trying to find new strategies to reach the lost; a source of endless debate and huge investments. Family life centers, seeker-friendly services, contemporary music, electronic wizardry are tried in endless variety to entice the un-churched to come in and to make them feel comfortable. The ironic truth coming out is that while we are trying everything new under the sun to make church attractive, the persecuted Christian church in China and the Sudan is growing exponentially. In the midst of Southern Sudan, a predominantly Muslim country, there are, by some accounts, four times as many Christians today as there were before persecution broke out 20 years ago. World Magazine published a photo of a thatched hut where 500 people were now meeting at Daga Post where only 5 years before there was no church at all.

In the midst of pronouncing blessings and curses upon those who either followed or rejected the Lord, Jeremiah also complained about speaking to his generation in their prosperity but they said, “I will not listen.” Let’s see, now. The gospel brings prosperity, prosperity brings unbelief, unbelief brings suffering, suffering and persecution bring people to the Lord. When will we ever learn? (Need to write a song about that.) What has this got to do with families and children? I am going to deliberate a little before going there. But for now, I would invite you to consider the question and see where it leads you.

Internet

“For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive…” 2 Timothy 3:1-7

Up until now, I was under the impression that pornography was the gravest threat that was posed by the internet. No longer. For any parent who watched “Growing up online” on PBS in late January, I now share your terror of raising children in this brave new world. This was not a battle I had to fight in raising my children. But then, we had to fight things my parents never had to face. Each generation faces new challenges unique to its age. Unfortunately, the computer revolution has happened so quickly that many parents today are only vaguely familiar with what is happening on-line and are easy victims of a techno-generation gap. Some cannot even email while their children can surf the complexities of the internet with ease. For those of you who are not aware of the dangers on-line and who did not see this PBS horror show, I offer you a glossary of terms and worries that you can add to your anxiety closet. Sorry.

Internet addiction – the internet can be highly addictive to teens. When this occurs, they will spend every spare moment of time on the net surfing and conversing with thousands of other friends and perfect strangers. Removing computer access is difficult because of access through cell phones, friends, and public libraries. Symptoms include withdrawal, sleep deprivation, 3 syllable sentences, and secrecy.

Alter identities – teens can create alternative identities for themselves on-line. New names, new personas are adopted to fulfill fantasies and compensate for perceived weaknesses. Costuming and photography can portray images totally foreign to friends and family. Beware strange clothing (feather boas, leather collars, etc.) and the family digital camera showing up at the same place and same time.

Cyber bullying – internet communication can be an incredibly easy avenue to receiving threats and demeaning trash talk both from known and unknown sources. Boy-girl relationships offer great potential for humiliation and total destruction when treated with malevolence and maliciousness on-line. Anonymous messaging can be totally brutal and untraceable. Symptoms include ‘spontaneous’ fights at school, loss of self-esteem, ruined reputation, depression, and suicide.

Cyber assassination – a terrific and easy way to attack or destroy others. Similar to cyber bullying but done with greater creativity and designed for a wider audience. Most commonly done by posting photos and text in target-person’s name. Most effective ones are usually quite viciously humorous. Results can be total defamation and humiliation with occasional lawsuits or prosecution.

Virtual friends – through sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com, teens can collect “friends” who may be known or unknown. Some try to make a contest out of it to see who can collect the most friends which, at times, can number in the thousands. This is often a fantasy world where teens have little or no assurance as to the validity of a “friend’s” age or id, their character, or their trustworthiness. This world of friends can be sealed against parental knowledge through a password known only to your teen. Symptoms include following bad counsel, intensified peer pressure, loss of desire to make real flesh-and-blood friends, rebellion, and knowledge of new and creepy websites.

Parental denial – a willful and intransigent belief that all is well in cyberspace. Even when receiving warnings about their teen, some parents continue to allow full, unsupervised internet access without questioning. This is usually accompanied by an unwavering faith in the internet as a good thing which promotes learning and technological prowess that could lead to a good job someday. Usually results in surprise and shock at later manifestations of deviant behavior.

Britannica.com – an innocuous website which techno-savvy teens can pull up and display when they see that a parent is monitoring their computer from another source. They can then continue to surf or chat while the proud and self-satisfied parent thinks junior is researching penguins for school.

Sparknotes.com – website which allows students to “read” most any work of classic literature in 5-10 minutes. Invaluable source for time-pressed teens in satisfying homework assignments or passing tests.

Secret lives – teens can live and explore a secret life on-line. Bulimics and anorexics can network with others of their ilk and surf websites dedicated to their compulsions. They can rapidly become an experienced pro with group support all without parents having a clue. Similar networks exist for those preoccupied with death and suicide, the occult, or simple terrorism. Symptoms for parents vary from blissful ignorance to head-line grabbing scandals.

Termpapersites.com – quick resource for plagiarizing material to satisfy all sorts of homework assignments. Symptoms include high proficiency with ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ options on their computers and generally good grades with some occasional, glaring exceptions.

Cyber predator – largely a bogey-man invented by adults to scare kids. Teens seem quite able to identify and delete those making inappropriate approaches. Any who actually agree to meet someone are considered ‘stupid’ or ‘extremely needy’ by their peers. Still, the existence of predators is real, and they regularly troll the net looking for the weak and unsuspecting. Most troubling aspect is that teens seem to value their anonymity above all. This is a world where intimacy is combined with anonymity.

On-line voyeurism - an added blessing of digital photography. Teens can trade revealing photos of themselves in a largely anonymous fashion. Photos are password protected but can turn up in various places and times in embarrassing fashion. YouTube.com allows for transmission of videos of all sorts. Cell phone footage of school fights is especially popular. Symptoms and results too diverse to mention. Biggest danger is that once a photo is “out there,” it becomes property of the whole world.

Opportunity Loss – the hidden cost of spending countless hours in on-line games, texting, and recreational gabbing. Symptoms include dullness of mind, fear of eye-to-eye contact with real people, and the possible realization that one’s teen years have been spent in shallow flirtation with empty amusements at a high cost of skills not acquired, books not read, and real friendships not made.

The teen culture has always been a very real and powerful voice in the lives of our young. Through the internet, however, that voice can be powerfully amplified and transmitted in unlimited quantity directly into homes around the world, all without parental knowledge of any kind. The danger is real, but except for the means of delivery, should not come as a surprise. Paul warned that “…in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” ( 2 Tim. 3:1-7) We just marvel at the manner in which these voices are now able to creep into houses and lead the shallow and the silly away. On-line access should be treated like a license to drive a 2000 lb. automobile down a public street. The potential for damage is incredible. Instructions should abound, safeguards built in, and responsibility rewarded accordingly. May God equip you to do so with all discernment and wisdom.

Reading

“…whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” -Philippians 4:8

Liz Brabson, a Tennessee middle school teacher, recently lamented the decline of the literary aspect of our modern American culture in an editorial in the News-Sentinel (1-12-08). Quoting a study by the National Endowment for the Arts, she mourned the fact that less than one-third of American 13-year-olds are daily readers. While this is admittedly sad, I suspect that the daily reading habits of adults in this country sag even below that. The decline of the printed word is well documented as we watch the number of daily newspapers steadily shrink with some questioning their future existence all together. While some are simply switching to on-line sources of news and stimulation, ours is becoming an increasingly oral and visual culture. Attention spans have shrunk drastically (watch an old movie and try not get impatient with the pace) and our vocabularies have withered to Reader’s Digest standards (6th grade?).

As an indicator of where we are today compared to over 100 years ago, try picking up and giving “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” a quick read. Here was a penny novelette, written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886, designed and destined for the pop-fiction rack at the local train station and newsstand. It quickly was selling out edition after edition at a shilling a copy in the everyday marketplace. I daresay most of us with college educations would struggle with Stevenson’s wide-ranging language (‘amities’-‘distained’- ‘troglodytic’) let alone be patient enough to follow his in-depth ponderings of human nature that comes close to the book of Romans in profundity. No publisher would touch it in today’s action-saturated and word-challenged culture.

For those of you who have read the letters of even the simple and uneducated persons of the 1800’s, one can scarce escape notice of the grace and eloquence that so often typifies their language. There was a simple beauty there which echoed the stylish long-hand script with which they wrote. Contrast that to the newly evolving language of text messaging and its butchered spelling, and one can easily work up a case of despair and despondency.

Yet Ms. Brabson’s complaint also lashed out against Christians who would keep books such as the newly controversial “The Golden Compass” from their children’s hands. She claimed that it would be irresponsible for anyone to discourage reading of any kind (‘within reason,’ she adds, but whose?). How easily does reading become an end in itself which is demonstrated again and again by the garish and provocative offerings of our school and public libraries. Our literary elite have come to justify most any fare if it will “get them to read.” Following this mantra, we find horror novels and the occult promoted in our public school libraries along with such uplifting periodicals such as Rolling Stone, GQ, and Cosmopolitan dealing every sex secret known to man into the hands of curious teens.

We forget so easily that our forefathers came to this land and quickly started schools and colleges teaching their children to read for one over-arching, Protestant obsession: that each person would be able to read the Bible for themselves and direct their lives accordingly. There lies the rub of cultural slippage. It is so easy to divorce good Christian values from their Christian base, and then the mischief begins. C.S. Lewis writes repeatedly of motherly compassion as a very damaging force when taken to extreme and not constrained by other equally important truths and values. Communism is essentially a Christian heresy where concern for the poor and downtrodden morphed into the most bloody and destructive movement of the 20th century.

The object and end view which Ms. Brabson and others so easily overlook is that reading is a skill that enables us to more efficiently and easily search for wisdom. Reading is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The Bible says it quite simply, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.” Yes, searching and questioning are good tools in the toolbox which periodically involves examining even opposing points of view. Yet, we are the adults. If we have any sense at all as to what constitutes true wisdom, any notion whatsoever of truth as distinguished from error, of good being distanced from evil, we would be most foolish and most horribly negligent not to pass that skill along as well as the skills of reading and questioning. We are the keepers of our children’s souls and minds. From us they will get their first inclinations as to what is the true and the beautiful.

“The Golden Compass” is a no-brainer. While I will not forbid it, I choose to believe its author’s open intent and declare it not worth the reading. There are too many other good books out there that it would be a foolish waste of time to purposely steer my children down that detour. And that is what the Catholic League and other groups are simply doing: alerting us to the dead-end destination of Philip Pullman. Wisdom is essentially a matter of discernment. I want my children to be discerning, discriminating consumers in the welter of the public square: a place where the coarse, the false, and the evil are offered up in quantities far surpassing the good, the true, and the beautiful. Discernment is an ability to be taught and demonstrated by parents first of all, followed by librarians, teachers, schools, and all the gate-keepers of society. It is a shame that so many have abandoned their posts or stand so compromised by moral ambiguity and intellectual relativism that they can no longer tell the difference between the sheep and the wolves. Or they are silenced by a paralyzing fear of disrupting our cultural ease with a simple cry of alarm.

All said and done, if I have to use the Sport’s Illustrated swimsuit edition in order to interest my son, or yours, in reading, something is already dreadfully wrong. I have my limits, and surely Ms. Brabson has hers as well. She would be well served by being less churlish with those who draw the line further back than she.

Revival 2

Here is the latest and greatest. It represents a departure from the norm as I engage one of our readers in a dialogue regarding the last issue. I received some feed-back last week from my friend Dr. Jesse --, a professor of music at Malone College, who prays and weeps regularly for revival. I thought his heart-felt fervor worth printing:

All that you write about how we as individuals affect the world around us is true, but I still think that a small impact is, nevertheless, still small and that we should be VERY uneasy about the impact question. But I don't think the answer lies in cleverly devised human programs. What would happen in our communities if even 2 or 3 believers met regularly, fasting, on their knees, desperate before God, openly saying, "Lord, we see so little impact, so few hungry for You. Is there nothing in us that makes them want to 'taste and see?' Does my flesh obscure your Spirit in me to such an extent that I am not reflecting your image? Lord, we hear about thousands getting saved every day in Uganda. Why not here? Lord, make us desperate. Wake us up. Draw others to join us in seeking you. We can't manufacture anything on our own. We need your Wind to blow life into these dry bones." I believe we are in a time when the only "programs" we need are intense, corporate worship and tearful intercession. Nothing polite, nothing dignified. Nothing running on a strict schedule. At church and in our homes, on our knees, weeping, noses running, a no-holds-barred, "I don't care who hears me" cry for mercy for ourselves and for our neighborhoods. Revival is not the end goal here, it is but step two. (Step one is to realize we are dying on the vine, a refusal to live in the town of Status Quo any longer.) Revival is God's Intensive Care for patients whose spiritual breath can hardly fog a mirror, and I fear that is a pretty accurate description of most churches and church members, including myself. How can we expect to impact our communities when we're as sick and poor and needy as the unsaved? Revival is God mercifully bringing the spiritual and emotional healing we can not possibly bring about ourselves. Like the defibrillator paddles, revival is a jump start to get our heart beating again. What we want is transformation; transformation of communities, schools, churches, commerce, and government, where in our towns the works of Christ are more evident than the works of the Enemy.

Mr. Moe responds:
Thanks for the response. You are, of course, admirably right in wanting more than just the average, the good, and, surely, just the mediocre impact on the world in which we live: a self-satisfied, sophisticated, prosperous, society that is super-saturated with entertainments at every hand (unlike Uganda). We pray, or should be praying, for the eruptions of Pentecost to once again break forth in our midst. Yet, in the meantime, we must not despair, because to remove the salt-of-the-earth people we rub shoulders with every day from this present society would surely bring chaos and collapse of unimaginable proportions. So, there are two truths here. We both inform and sustain society to a level of humanity and justice we presently see (which we should not underestimate and for which we should be thankful). But then we live with the knowledge that, in many ways, we could be doing that a whole lot better if we could only purify ourselves to live a more Christ-like life (What would happen if all Christians suddenly stopped doing commerce on Sunday? Or voted?). And, like you mention so clearly, we have no idea what effect we could have if we were to don some appropriate form of sack cloth and ashes in repentance for our communities. But the Spirit blows where it will, and we can do little to command it. Revival comes sometimes in the midst of chaos and seeming defeat and other times when good people seek it eagerly. I hope I can be a balanced servant who prays for revival on one hand and with the other reaches out for my lunch box and goes to work in the full faith and knowledge that simple faith and obedience goes a long way in steadying the societal ship.

Responses and dialogue welcome
How selfish of me to not invite and welcome a “letter to the editor” response from all faithful readers to Mercy and Truth. I hope this will inspire others to respond. No such response will be printed without your final permission. Address all inquiries, rebuttals, praise, and hate-mail to the comments section.

Here are some final tidbits from the Jesse – Moe exchange:

Mr. Moe writes: Many folks seem to stand at the brink of despair and doubt when faced with the question of what difference they are making in the world. When it is a plague of doubt and depression from the evil one, it is a bad thing. When that is a holy dissatisfaction with the status quo coming from the Holy Spirit, it is a good thing. We need to speak to both. I talked to the first last week. You are talking to the second.

Jesse responds: Thank you for reminding me of sack cloth. I should have had "heart-rending repentance" at the top of my list of "programs." To obey is better than sacrifice. No, in the meantime we must not despair, but we MUST become desperate for godly change, desperate enough to turn off the TV and gather our Christian friends to meet regularly to intercede for our city, with the understanding we will not let up until transformation is evident.

Manners

Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right. Pro. 20:11

I frequently shudder at the work of my generation. We conducted a devastating assault on the norms of society back in the sixties and were quite successful. Universal truth claims were denied and morality became a matter of private, personal choice. What was left was a radical individualism that is still in the process of running itself to exhaustion. As an example, dress codes of all sorts were destroyed so that casual dress became the norm and downright outlandishness is now the mark of authentic self-expression. While most of us find some comfort in this free and laid back culture we live in, we also must acknowledge that common place manners have been sacrificed and laid aside in the process.

Now that we are free to stake out our own individual moral high ground, we can now decide where and how to defend it caring not how it might affect others. And in an odd twist of affairs, our age now allows self-righteous claims to individual moral visions to trump public conceptions of manners and etiquette. We tell our friends they are fat because we want to be honest. We can scream at people for wearing fur because it hurts animals. We can wrap all sorts of churlish behavior in a smug morality these days. Refusal to send thank you cards is justified if one “hates to write” or is seen as mere “slavish submission to convention.” Failure to attend funerals is okay if you want to “remember a person just the way they were.” And there is always the great, standby excuse for not saying the polite and gracious thing, “You wouldn’t want me to be hypocritical, would you?”

Unfortunately, manners are the oldest and most basic presuppositions of any society and precede the law in restraining lawlessness. The idea that the wishes of others do not matter is exactly what public manners and etiquette are designed to contradict. Even primitive societies many times have elaborate codes of behavior for showing respect and deference. A proper understanding of what constitutes good manners is essential for any classroom to have success. Our public schools are being overwhelmed with children who have not been taught to show respect for authority and one’s elders, to understand what constitutes rudeness, or what comprises salacious speech or dress. How is learning possible in the midst of a chaotic classroom where common courtesies have been successfully vanquished?

Many of you have insisted that your children speak when spoken to, to greet when greeted, to say thank you at every opportunity even if they do not have any sincere feelings attached to the words. I salute you and am growing ever more convinced that you are helping re-build a virtuous society by recognizing the legitimacy of manners. This is the front line in the battle against lawlessness and rabid individualism. I confess that I once wondered if requiring our students to stand when an adult entered a classroom was an antiquated custom of little value. I no longer do. And I now notice a sense of pride on the part of students when they do this spontaneously. I notice also that children made to say “Thank you” and even “I love you” become more thankful and more loving. Excusing a child’s uncivilized conduct in the name of “self-expression,” a “creative spirit,” or mere “personality” undermines the ties that bind not only families together but society itself.

Proverbs talks about a generation that curses their father and does not bless their mother and yet are pure in their own eyes. Could this be a picture of a world without manners? Lord, save us from that, I pray.

For more, see “The World’s Oldest Virtue,” Judith Martin, First Things, May 1993

The War

I had not planned to write this tonight but it just sort of flowed out. Since many of you may have been watching PBS this past week, I thought I would send it out fresh from the pen/keyboard.

“Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: to deliver thee from the way of the evil man.” –Pro. 2:11

You may have been captivated as I was by the week long series by Ken Burns on PBS entitled simply, “The War.” Much of it was familiar territory to me from a historical point of view. But the personal vignettes and eye-witness accounts were riveting. Tonight was the end point. I was affected by each segment but now at the end I sit quietly mulling over the utter gravity of it all. It did not end with a punch but rather as a long, tedious tale; much like a gripping novel would. It was a story where I identified with the characters through thick and thin, but now the tale finds a quiet finish where there are no winners, simply survivors. To see these young warriors come home from scenes that rival anything out of Tolkein’s tortured, middle-earth imagination and watch them step back into the routine, the normal, the trivial pursuits of everyday life, brings an agonizing hush to the heart. For those who had seen the most ragged edge of war, it had to be hard to relate to the silly and banal concerns of normal living. And who could know their stories? Who could understand the horrors they had witnessed or perpetrated upon an intransigent foe? Or should anyone even want to know?

The answer in part has to be a resounding, “Yes!” No, the gory details of battlefield life and death need not be played and replayed to satisfy our voyeuristic curiosities. Don’t misunderstand; the history of pain written across countless cemeteries and broken family trees is important less anyone get a misguided and romantic view of war. But I would rather focus on the ideas and convictions that so gripped the enemy that they were just as willing to die for an evil cause as we were for a just one. This did not garner much of Mr. Burns penetrating attention, but the unmistakable portrait of the enemy was there. You did not have to look far.

Many G.I.’s went to war not really thinking or realizing just what was at stake. No American could imagine the horrors of the death camps discovered only late in the war in 1945. It was only when we entered the foul nests of the enemy’s dens that we saw the ghastly results of an idea taken to its logical conclusion. And to witness the unquestioning discipline of the Japanese whose culture had bred a race of the most formidable soldiers the modern world had ever seen was frightening even at a distance of some 60 years. Their capacity for cruelty knew few bounds. Wherever they went, they treated their victims with utmost contempt. A real warrior would have rather died fighting than to surrender. Therefore, by simple and logical extension, these who somehow survived and found themselves captive were less than human beings, objects not of pity but of derision. Then there were the kamikaze pilots who turned their planes into human bombs. An American sailor told how a pilot would strap on the head scarf of suicide for the emperor sincerely believing that he would earn an automatic place in heaven. Then, after a slight pause, he added with a firm sense of conviction, “Of course, he was wrong.”

In that simple phrase, so much is summed up. Ideas are important. The right ones can evoke selfless humanitarianism that spreads comfort to the sick, food to the hungry, and justice to the oppressed. The wrong ones can enslave whole peoples, spread death and destruction at unimaginable levels, and create a mindset in which the unthinkable becomes thinkable, even commonplace. Not all cultures are created equal. What happened in Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan was no accident, no political aberration, or the work of a mad few. These plagues upon man were carefully engineered over generations, injected into the very young, and willingly spread among every level of society. They were wrong. They were evil. And they were deadly. I only pray we may be alert to the viruses of the soul at loose in our society.

Renters

“…the soul of the diligent is made fat.” - Pro. 13:4

I have been trying to rent an apartment these last few weeks. It is discouraging business. Not because there is no interest. On the contrary. One ad in the newspaper makes my phone ring for days. But then the dreary business begins. One showing after another introduces me to the flotsam and jetsam of human wreckage washing up on my little piece of shore. The stories unfold with sickening familiarity.

I hate to disparage my own sex, but far too many tales involve a delinquent father who has abandoned his wife and child or has left some woman shipwrecked with ruined credit and bankruptcy. But, yes, occasionally I will encounter a middle aged dad trying to raise up young children by himself for loss of a wife for one reason or another. The result is the same: a single parent trying to start over, a homeowner reduced to a tenant, and pleas for mercy in the face of ruined credit. I take phone calls and when they tell me they just went through a nasty divorce or somebody abandoned the family I tell them that makes me mad. I am not sure how that comes across on the other end of the phone from a perfect stranger, but someone should be upset. I figure they get enough people telling them that they are probably better off and that everything will be okay. No, someone should be angry at the resulting ruin.

And then there are the fools. This Christian(?) lady was “living with” a former addict who went back on his drugs and now she was set adrift with ruined credit. I was heartless. I reminded her in so many words that she had asked for it. She agreed. And how about the woman who wanted an apartment for herself, her husband, her daughter and fiancée, and a dog? She worried about the dog being a problem. She seemed shocked that the unmarried daughter and fiancée was more of a problem than the dog. No clue.

I have come to take great boldness of late with the unmarrieds after being advised of my rights as a landlord. A sweet and fresh young voice informed me that she and her fiancé were looking for a place to rent. I told her that as soon as they get married I would be glad to talk with them. I am always assured that they are planning on it soon. I offer to get them a preacher and a cake. Well, not that soon. A young man called for a place for his girlfriend and their child. I explained my belief in marriage and told him that his little girl needs a dad, a legal one, and that this wonderful girlfriend deserves a commitment. I can’t believe I am preaching to these phone-ins. Somehow, he was not angry. I am angry at the loss of shame in our society; and angry that after dozens of offers, no one has taken me up on a free wedding.

Then there are the married folk who look good in person and on paper but whose credit check reads like a police blotter with accounts in collections, deceitful references, bankruptcies, repossessions and $6000 in abandoned credit card debt. Why did they even bother? The stories of bad luck do not reconcile with defaults on cable TV bills, prolific smoking habits, or the fancy sports car they drive up in.

In comparison, I feel almost guilty in my affluence and secure relationships. But the House of Nordmoe was not given or inherited or won in some fluke of luck. It was built over a lifetime, mainly by honoring the promises we made as a young couple. We were not the beautiful or the well-connected. It was a story of simple God-inspired diligence. Real, steadfast lives don’t “just happen.” They are built, brick upon brick, stone upon stone, precept upon precept, until the “fatness” comes. There is no substitute for diligence, no shortcut to a secure and stable home. And if you are presently experiencing blood, sweat, and tears, you are probably on the right course. Faint not for in due season you shall reap.

Blacksburg

“if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Gen. 4:7

More bad news. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does. Blacksburg has now put itself on the map as the latest and worst of anger gone amok. I am thinking of you with young children. How do you relate this news to them? Some are too small to even ask. Others are terribly perplexed. How is it possible to feel safe anymore? I struggle to think of anything comparable when my children were small.

Security is a deep felt need in us all. Yet events like this reveal how vulnerable we all are to such pointless and random violence. This is terrorism of the worst kind. There seems to be no agenda, no ideological grievance or injustice to blame or to try to understand. It appears to be pure fury unleashed from the troubled soul of a madman. But even worse, it could turn out to be not the rage of a madman in the sense of some deeply deranged lunatic. It could be that he was just an angry man.

Angry young men have been with us ever since Cain slew Abel. But the circles of violence have grown, the means more available, and the precedents established that break old barriers of civility with callous impudence. These cause us to question our society, our culture, and our values as a nation. And so they should. These events do not happen in a vacuum. They are symptoms of forces deep, dark, and disturbing within our civilization as we know it. Hundreds of opinions will be forthcoming shortly reflecting upon causes and solutions by philosophers and columnists alike. It is becoming a tiresome task, however, as we seem to be revisiting this deep, dark well with increasing frequency. Despair at finding an answer is, in itself, a symptom of our arrival in some perplexing new age.

My nominee for an explanation to this deadly scourge of disasters upon our national stage of horrors is simply that we have forgotten God, which Solzhenitsyn once said propelled Russia’s slide into Communism’s dark age. How many of these mass killers are children of the age; aimless, detached from normal families, seekers of meaning in a material culture, suckled by the exciting panoply of virtual media violence, and most significantly, totally devoid of sexual mores which lead them into destructive relationships that collapse of their own dead weight? I vote that lesson one is that there is no such thing as victimless sin. Somewhere, someplace, bad choices will bring forth bad fruit that kill and destroy and stink up the neighborhood with the smells of decay. It is true for our culture and true for us as middle class Christians. Secondly, ideas have consequences. Moral relativism breeds a revolution whose offspring will self-destruct and take the innocent with them. Sin destroys and the resulting destruction can ignite anger that knows no bounds.

The reports I am hearing indicate that our younger generation is playing at sin with frightful ferocity especially in the area of intimate relationships. This is true within the church and without. I continue to believe that God’s laws were planted in our midst for our own protection and not simply to spoil our fun. It is our duty to testify to that truth, uphold the law without embarrassment, and name sin for what it is. We must share the bad news before the good news of God’s love and forgiveness makes any sense. I am becoming convinced that this is an important step if we are to reach a generation which has lost its sense of shame. In the meantime, living in this increasingly insecure world demands we stay prayed up each day and rejoice in each day’s blessing of life. Life is worth living, and death only promotes us to glory.