Choosing Our Battles

The days are too short for me to get everything done that needs doing. I have a job to do, a family to love, a church to be, a God to serve, a dissertation to write, and a weird desire to read and write a lot.

The reality is that we can’t have it all. We can’t get everything that we might want to get done in life finished.

Used by creative common license from http://ow.ly/WJygb

In fact, if you’re able to get through your to-do list in a year, it’s probably a reflection of low aspirations and not effective use of your time. If you are okay with that, then I’m okay, too.

The negative side of this is that I have to make choices not to do things that I would really like to do more of.

I have to balance learning a language with working out. I have to weigh the value of getting my dissertation done a little faster versus playing with my children. I have to consider the cost of writing another blog post against the possibility that it might help someone or I might become a better writer through the process.

I have to make choices and limit myself in order to do what I have time to do reasonably well.

The positive side of my finiteness is that I have to make choices not to do things that I really shouldn’t be doing anyway.

There are some crazy people running for President; I don’t have time to research every stupid thing everyone said. There's already enough information to know who the train wrecks are.

In other news, public figure got drunk, got arrested, and said some awful racist things. A movie was lewd and misrepresented Christianity. Some people said some theologically stupid things and some other people tried to explain it to them (or really to the people that already agreed with their disagreement). I can’t really make a difference by focusing on any of those things.

I have to make choices and so I’m learning to let some things pass me by. This is a good thing, I think.

There is only so much life to live. I’ve got to figure out how to use it as well as I can. I’ve only got so many bullets to fire and the enemy is surrounding me. I’d better shoot well and have some ammunition to last me through the battle.

The same thing is true with all of us. We only have so many bullets to fire. So what kind of shots are we taking?

Are we focused on promoting the gospel or are we focused on justifying our perspective on everything? Sometimes our perspective lines up with the gospel. At other times our perspective is consistent with the gospel, but the gospel can march on even if we don’t get our way.

EXAMPLE: GUN CONTROL

Take, for instance, the issue of gun control. The Constitution is a good thing because it limits the governments power. Lord Acton was just about right when he said that thing about power corrupting. However, the gospel will march on whether the government respects the second amendment or not.

Do I think that increasing federal gun control laws are going to be helpful for reducing crime? Probably not. Sin permeates the human heart and there are many other ways to kill people singly or in groups.

But I do think I might alienate someone and keep them from hearing the gospel because I’m shouting too loud about something that really won’t matter for eternity. Heaven will stand whether I carry a pistol in this life or not.

These few statements will lead some to argue that I’m forgoing my responsibility as a citizen. No, that isn’t quite the case. I still vote. I periodically write letters to elected representatives. There are civil issues on which I may take a public stand yet.

The question is whether the present issue, whatever it happens to be, is worth a bullet. I’ve only got so much time to read, think, and write. There’s only so many times someone who disagrees with me will consider my opinion, unless we have a really special friendship. So I need to make my disagreements matter. I need to make my research and writing matter.

CONCLUSION

Basically, this all comes down to my realization that life is short and I need to make sure I get the important things done before I meet Christ face to face.

My suggestion is that the world might be a happier place and the gospel light might shine a little brighter if more of us remembered why it is that we’re here and what really matters for eternity.

Now and Later

We err as humans in placing either too much or too little focus on money. On the one hand, we can spend recklessly and damage our futures by locking ourselves in a cycle of debt. On the other hand, we can hoard money and focus on always having a growing savings account.

Both positions are errors. Both positions place a person under the lordship of money. Both extreme positions must be avoided by the Christian, though likely there are a range of positions between the two poles which are acceptable.

Instant Gratification

Money by bfishadow, used by Creative Commons license. http://ow.ly/4n6FxR

The tendency to err on one side of a balanced approach is part of human nature. As recent history seems to indicate, human nature is biased toward instant gratification rather than the delay.

No doubt an anthropologist could explain to us that such a bias toward immediate gratification is a result of evolutionary heritage. No doubt our ancestors, they might argue, lacking refrigeration must have gorged themselves on meat before it spoiled. This natural and explicable urge would explain in logical terms the human bias toward immediate consumption.

I struggle to accept such an explanation. First, I doubt some of the basic allegation that such social behaviors as inherited instinctively rather than largely learned. Second, I see a stronger explanation in the psychological reward of receiving something or consuming something. It simply feels good to get something now.

Whatever the reason for the quest of instant gratification, it has deleterious results for many people in contemporary culture.

Financial Struggles

A recent article in the Atlantic provides a testimony of someone who has decent earnings, but still lives from paycheck to paycheck. A week by week approach is reality for many more than just the working poor or the poor of any kind.

Neal Gabler, who penned the article, rightly points to his own choices for his family’s continued struggles. At least mostly.

Gabler notes that when struggling, his family failed to downsize. They made the choice to send their children to private schools, to live in New York City and later Long Island though his work could have been done anywhere. This led to his being in the large group of Americans who would be unable to cover a relatively modest $400 emergency. His choices paid a large part in the problem. In most cases, there are reasonable justifications for these decisions, but they led toward a state of seeming perpetual financial struggle.

But some of his decisions were made by using an expectation of the economy that differed from reality. Gabler notes that the economic conditions have changed since his childhood. The economy has not seen the robust growth in wages of earlier days. In fact, as he notes, the hourly wage has largely stagnated since 1972. Despite this, the value of benefits has grown significantly. This historic expectation colored Gabler’s vision of future potentialities.

Most of us expect to make more next year than we make this year. We expect to see our salaries grow due to cost of living increases and due to merit increases. But Gabler’s article shows the danger of counting on a particular future outcome.

Predicting the Future

Before going on, I must submit two qualifications. First, I am not condemning Gabler for his errors. Given past history, expecting growth in income would be a fair prediction. Many have made the same mistake. Second, some sort of reliance of future income is reasonable. Otherwise very few people would take a mortgage of any length. The trouble is not that Gabler and others count on future earnings, but that they are too optimistic about the future.

We do not know what tomorrow holds. However, we have pretty good evidence there will be a tomorrow. Put those two things together and we should, it seems, make reasonable and unassuming predictions about the future.

Such cautious predictions about the future are what make the difference (often, not always) between a week by week budget crisis and a path to financial solvency. We cannot know the future so any expectation may be proved wrong, but it is easier to adapt to a brighter future than we expected than to rely on future growth in earnings.

God’s Control of the Future

James cautioned his audience against expecting too certain a future.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Some traditions have taken this passage and created a pattern of speech that adds the proviso, “Lord willing,” to every futuristic statement. That may be a helpful didactic tool to remind people that the future is depended upon God, but I don’t think it is necessarily the intended result of James’ instruction.

James is teaching people to depend on God and not to rely on their own wisdom and plans for the future. This should lead us to be cautiously optimistic. When it comes to managing money that we have stewardship of today, it should lead us to ask whether God is providing for future needs with money that he has given us today.

There are certainly many applications of the principle that James is teaching here. However, one of them should be that we should be cautious about spending tomorrow’s dollars today. God controls the future. He may choose to grow our income in a way that outpaces inflation. Or, he may choose to move us to a different vocation with a lower salary. In the end, we can trust in his providence to meet our daily needs, but we should not presume that his providence will include funding our present desires.

As we steward the resources God has allotted us, we should be generous toward the Lord, but more cautious toward our own desires. God will meet all our needs, but he may not give us whatever we want.

Procrastination and the Christian Life

Are you a procrastinator? 

You don't have to answer right now.

The reality is that most of us tend to procrastinate about some things at some times. For example, even an individual that files taxes on the first possible day may put off getting health screenings. Or, the person that starts and finishes every task at work early may delay making other decisions in life.

In a humorous TED talk, blogger Tim Urban describes the mind of a procrastinator and makes an important point that should resonate with Christians. 

Put off whatever else you were doing for 15 minutes and watch him describe the mind of the procrastinator. But make sure its okay if you laugh, because you probably will at some point.

If you've watched his talk, you should recognize the big point here. We only have a limited number of weeks, so we should avoid putting off the important things.

Urban would likely arrive at a different set of important things than a Christian would (or should), but the principle is generally the same.

Who have you not shared the gospel with? What important work are you putting off? What progress toward sanctification are you neglecting?

Redeem the Time

In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul writes:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

We should accept that the will of God for us is, in general terms, for us to become holier and thus glorify him through everything we do. There may be more particular things that we are called to do, but everything in God's will should fall into the category of things that increase our sanctification and bring him glory.

But there is a key phrase here, which should convict all of us. Paul tells the Ephesians to walk carefully, "making the best use of the time."

He doesn't recommend making a productive use of the time or just not doing bad stuff in the time.

In fact, the reason that Paul gives for making the best use of the time is because the days are evil. This means that procrastination--and the instant gratification monkey--are things that we need to fight against. They are part of the world and flesh that we need to overcome.

Conclusion

Like everything else in life, we can err by fighting procrastination to an extreme degree so that we fail to enjoy our lives. 

We shouldn't be afraid to enjoy free time in our lives and to take pleasure in playing with our children. However, most of us fall on the procrastination side of the spectrum, so there is a lesson for us here.

Finding Purpose

Q. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

This is where human purpose is found. Not in our sex lives, our hobbies, our careers, or our citizenship. Human purpose is found in our position relative to a holy, just, and powerful God.

Our purpose is not to find greater success in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While we are blessed to live in country that reasonably enables the opportunities to pursue prosperity, economic and physical well-being is not the purpose for our existence.

FINDING MEANING

Francis Schaeffer helpfully reminds his readers of this truth. He writes,

“Today, people constantly ask, ‘Does man have a purpose?’ In some areas of the world man is told that he has meaning only in reference to the state. In other places he is told that he has meaning only in his sexual life. . . . But all of these turn into sawdust in his hands. The Bible gives us a quite different answer: The purpose of man—the meaning of man—is to stand in love as a creature before the Creator.” (Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time)

Modernism encouraged pursuit of objectivity to a fault. The idea was that a human could absolutely know what was objectively true.

Post-modernism rejects the notion that humans can know objective truth, and in its more virulent forms it rejects the idea that there is objective truth. The first rejection is warranted, because a flawed, finite human can never know truth fully and objectively. The second rejection is cause for despair, because never will there be opportunity to firmly plant ethics on something that matters.

More, by Vern. Used by Creative Commons License. http://ow.ly/ZDEFL 

When I say “ethics” many think of the ability to evaluate situations to determine what should be done or should have been done. That is certainly part of the ethical task, but it falls far short of a robust understanding of the role of ethics, particularly in the Christian life.

Ethics is worship. It is the way that we evaluate future and past decisions to determine what we should do and whether it will fulfill our main purpose, or our chief end, of glorifying God and delighting in him. It entails assessing decisions, but even more significantly it requires comparing them to a standard.

WE NEED A STANDARD

When it comes to our perception of the world, we can recognize that we always have a bias, which usually entices us to redefine truth to our advantage. On the other hand, in order for that sentence to have any meaning, there must be a truth to be redefined.

Humans need a purpose in life that they can be oriented toward. When humanity rejects the objective truth of the Creator, they reflexively invent something else to judge themselves.

As John Calvin notes in his Institutes,

Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.... Man's mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God.... To these evils a new wickedness joins itself, that man tries to express in his work the sort of God he has inwardly conceived. Therefore the mind begets an idol; the hand gives it birth.... Daily experience teaches that flesh is always uneasy until it has obtained some figment like itself in which it may fondly find solace as in an image of God. (1.11.8)

When humans abandon the idea of a Supreme Being against whose justice our lives our judged, we will find purpose or meaning in something else. Schaeffer includes sex on the list. He also includes the human relationship to the state, by which is is not simply indicting excessive nationalism, but also socialism that sees all human rights as granted by the state.

We were made for more than that. However, when an objective moral order in the created order is abandoned because the idea of their being a Creator is rejected, humans cannot live with the void that is created. They create something new to anchor their hopes and aspirations in and to judge their actions and the actions of others.

The human heart is an idol factory. When God is rejected, the void must be filled by an undefined notion of “love” or the good of the state. There is always something in reality.

Philosophers may claim that there is no objective truth, but human reality demands an external reference point. When we reject the true objective reality, the human heart or society will create another.

CONCLUSION

As an apologetic, this essay will fail. It isn’t an apologetic, but a reminder of where most people live—with a false reality—and what we need to resist as Christians.

The world will constantly pull us away from our chief end. It is the task of the Christian to continually come back to the central purpose of our lives: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Raising Faithful Kids in a Skeptical World

It’s a lot easier to raise a skeptic than a child with a mature faith.

This is not a statement about behavior, but about true fidelity. That is, faithfulness that includes both a profession of faith and a solid foundation for that faith.

It is much easier to teach a child to poke holes in the ideas of others than to hold fast to cogent, explanatory truths.

As a result, there is a constant temptation to build buttresses of truth around our kids without exposing them to challenges to the faith. This is good when they are young, because it prevents confusion. It is a dangerous thing over time because it builds a false sense of confidence.

The Place for Honest Doubt

Comprehensive, absolute certainty is a dangerous thing. There is little doubt about that.

Being entirely certain about every detail of one’s own understanding of Scripture, the veracity of the traditions of one’s youth, and the methodology appropriate to determining truth can lead to pain and difficulty over time. Much of that is unnecessary.

There is a fundamental difference between holding a position with absolute certainty and holding it in faithful confidence.

This is because being faithful does not require abandoning the intellectual task of asking questions and considering alternatives. Issues such as the proper mode of baptism, the right style of worship, the way the salvation is explained are all points where legitimate questioning is warranted. After all, a lot of faithful people in the history of the Church have stood on each side of those questions.

Photo used by CC license: Hans Splinter, Parenting, http://ow.ly/10gV84

But there is a place for asking even more significant and sensitive questions. Is there a God? Certainly, a fool says in his heart there is no God (Ps 14:1). However, this doesn’t mean that kids shouldn’t ask the big questions and honestly pursue truthful answers. Helping kids ask those in a space where they have the emotional and spiritual resources to struggle through the mire of doubt is important.

It’s also much easier to teach fideistic adherence to dogma than to teach kids to think through doctrine rightly.

In the end, fideism presents an anemic form of Christianity that skeptics can punch holes through with ease. Then, when faced with intelligent, cogent challenges to their faith, an untried faith system will fall apart.

Always Another Question

As I said, it is easier to raise a skeptic than a faithful child.

Much of contemporary culture trains children to expect a higher degree of certainty and a greater volume of proof for questions of religious significance than anything else. For example, people choose their presidential candidates without knowing everything about them and whether everything in the candidate’s worldview meshes. People take jobs without knowing in gross detail every possible work responsibility, the date of future promotions, and whether the company’s corporate office in Paris might have spent too much on cognac last year. Folks use electricity without understanding where exactly it came from or how it was generated.

In contrast, some critics of religion seem to expect an unassailable record in all of history from the religion itself and also each adherent of the religion. They demand that every possible question be asked and meshed with every other solution offered for all of time. Variety in such responses over history—even to secondary and tertiary questions—is considered evidence that the central truths cannot be true.

Many of these questions are fair to ask and Christians should be prepared to discuss them, even if in general terms. Christians need to be prepared to admit that the history of every religion is tarnished by error and insincerity. Christians need to be willing to communicate that there are some doctrines about which reasonable people can debate.

The reality is that every religion, even Christianity, has open questions about some aspects of it. This is a function of the human conduits of the religion and our finiteness. Every religion has a checkered history with abuses. This is because religions have humans involved and humans tend to be self-centered and imperfect.

This means that for someone looking for objections, there are always additional questions to be asked. If the standard of acceptance for religion is that every question is answered, that standard can never be met. There is always one more question to be asked.

The world is training children to be skeptical, if not agnostic. The Church—especially the parents of children—need to be prepared to help develop a curious, cautious, but not incredulous demeanor in their children.

We need to teach our children to seek the best answer, not the perfect one. We need to demonstrate the power of the gospel to transform and redeem. Once a child understands the reason for the hope within us, they will be better able to ask questions without losing their faith.

We need to teach and demonstrate to our children that the Christian faith has integrity and is founded on the absolute objectivity of God not the absolute certainty of our positions. We can have a high degree of certainty about what we believe without dismissing questions. We can demonstrate confidence in our faith by chasing down answers to difficult questions and admitting when we have more investigation to do.

Retooling Parenting

In some day gone by it may have been possible for kids to pick up enough of a basis for their faith by osmosis. Probably not, though, since the failure to present a credible, cogent faith for generations helps to explain the radical rejection of the trappings of a Christian ethic.

The present culture is one that will not accept Christianity without a great deal of explaining. It also will not allow Christians to live consistently with a robust Christian faith without challenging every inch. We do disservice to our children if we do not equip them and assist them to wrestle with the core doctrines of the Christian faith.

Parenting will look different in our present age than it has in the past if we are to give our children what they need to live as faithful pilgrims in the world. That isn’t to say that it will look different than what it always should have been. In fact, the external pressure on the Church may be a benefit to our sanctification as it forces us to return to our proper responsibilities.

Did God Break the Law?

Recently a pastor of a megachurch declared that “God broke the law for love” when our sins were atoned for on the cross. The preacher's motives were good—he wanted to express the wonder of the gospel in terms people can understand—but his theology is terrible. In fact, there is direct biblical evidence that undermines his claim. Additionally, even without the direct claims of Scripture, God breaking the Law would undermine centuries of orthodox understanding of the nature of both God and the Law.

More significant than knowing who made this theological blunder is understanding why it is incorrect. It is easy to bash someone for being in error. It is more important to explain why they are in error, because it is much more likely to edify the body. The purpose of this post is to explain how we know that God did not break the Law.

Biblical Evidence

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that action did not break the Law. He fulfilled the Law by bearing the punishment for the sins of others. He paid our insurmountable debt as a substitutionary sacrifice once and for all. Taking the penalty for others did not, in itself, violate the Law.

Where do we get this in Scripture? For one, Jesus himself says in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Assuming we accept that all three persons of the Trinity are equally God, we have pretty good evidence here that the God did not break the Law.

Rather than breaking the Law, Christ fulfilled it. Failing to keep the Law is sin. We know that Christ was tempted just like we are but he did not sin.

He did this in his life and ministry by keeping Law in every way, though he sometimes kept the Law in a manner that confused many of the religiously wise of his day.

In some cases, the way that Jesus lived out the Law was different from the way that it had been interpreted by the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were the religious elite of his day. Thus, they got upset when he healed on the Sabbath and had contact with people that were taboo.

In these cases, Jesus points to the Law and explains how he is fulfilling it. In most cases, he points to the principle behind the particular expression of the Law. For example, when Jesus’ disciples pluck and eat grain on the Sabbath, they are accused of breaking the Law. Instead of telling his accuser that the law didn’t matter, he explained that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:27)

In other words, Jesus explains that the Law still applies, but that the practices built around the Sabbath had a different function than what was commonly understood. The point of Sabbath was not to enforce inactivity, but to offer rest and remind the Jews that their financial well-being depended on God. The Sabbath was a gift from God, it was not meant to be an onerous duty.

Looking back at Matthew 5:17-20, we get a fuller picture of the relationship between the Trinity and the Law and it does not point to God breaking the Law but to the continued force of the Law for true worshipers:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

We know simply based on the words of Christ that God did not break the Law, because heaven and earth have not passed away. Until that happens, Christ calls his followers to teach and follow the Law, though how that is fleshed out in contemporary Christianity is a topic for another post.

God Can’t Break the Law

The clear evidence of Scripture shows us that God did not break the Law when Christ paid the penalty for our sins. But we didn’t need that evidence (though I’m glad we have it) because the very nature of God and the Law prevent God from breaking the Law.

This goes back to a famous philosophical dialog in Plato, which is referred to as the Euthyphro Dilemma. I’ll leave you to read that on your own.

To summarize the dialog, however, the two horns of the dilemma are whether the Law is good because God declared it to be good or whether the Law was given because God recognized it as good. In both cases, there is a good God and a good Law.

However, neither explanation of the goodness of the Law and the goodness of God is sufficient.

In the first case, if God arbitrarily declared certain things to be good, then the Law is no longer grounded in the moral order of the created order or in God’s character. In other words, there is little reason to expect that obeying God would naturally result in better ordered societies and greater peace with universe. At some point in the future God could change the Law so that a new set of things is good.

For example, though God has declared not murdering to be good, by this logic he could have just as easily declared murder good. If this explanation of the relationship between God and the Law is accepted, then the Law is arbitrary and God may be capricious.

In the second case, if God merely recognized the Law as good and chose to communicate it to his people, then the Law precedes God and God himself is bound by the Law. This is problematic because it implies that there was something that exists prior to God. Additionally, in this understanding of the relationship between God and the Law, the Law becomes the supreme norm of the universe instead of God. In theory, God could sin in this second understanding. Indeed, according to the megachurch preacher’s statements, God did sin by violating the moral order of the universe. (However, it is unlikely that the preacher actually believes this implication.)

Both of these explanations fall short of orthodoxy. Neither describes a God who is worthy of worship in the way that Christians recognize. Thus, a third explanation of the relationship between God and the Law is needed.

This third option is that the Law is good because it reflects the character of God. In this solution God is self-existent, logically and temporally prior to all else, and wholly good. The Law reflects his character, in part. By conforming to the Law, the Israelites were communicating something about God to the surrounding peoples and to each other. Thus, the Law was never about earning salvation it was about worship and evangelism.

There’s another way to explain this. God is the ultimate good in the universe. He is essentially good and there is no mixture of evil in him. God wants his creation to be good, like him. Therefore, he tells his people to be holy as he is holy (Lev 11:44-45). To show how to do this, God gave his people the gift of the Law. The Law reflects his character, so that by obeying the Law—by embodying the Law—his people were acting consistently with God’s character.

Based on this logic, then, God cannot break the Law. To break the Law would be to deny his very character. It would, so to speak, unGod God. He would cease to be good and thus cease to be worthy of worship. The view that God can break the Law is questionable. The view that God did break the Law draws close to blasphemy, if the speaker rightly understands the import of his words.

This third view of the Law is consistent with the Reformed understanding that has been passed down through the ages. It is part of the foundation of argumentation from Natural Law in other traditions, as well. There is nothing new under the sun, so in this case, being aware of historical theology could have saved confusion for many.

Conclusion

As I began by stating, the bad theology that God broke the Law was proclaimed for a very noble purpose: to illustrate the astounding reality that the God of the universe took action on our behalf to redeem us. This is part of the gospel message, and an important part. I am thankful that the earnest preacher is trying to communicate that message.

However, logic and sound theology don’t become unnecessary when we try to preach the gospel. It is important to preach Christ and to preach Christ rightly. Understanding the relationship between God and the Law is important, and particularly important because this third understanding requires stability in moral norms throughout history. It is, in fact, the basis for the claim to objective morality within Christianity.

Obviously, there is more to be discussed about the relationship between the Mosaic Law and Christianity. However, that is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say that there are reasonable answers to that question. In the meanwhile, we should never say that God broke the Law because that is logically impossible and contrary to Scripture.

Christian First, Not Republican

As we try to figure out just what is going on with the political right and the GOP implodes after what should have been a layup to nominate a true political conservative for President of the United States, Francis Schaeffer’s political analysis from the early 1980s offers some explanations of our present situation.

Even four decades ago, Schaeffer saw the fractures in the political right. The stress of the ongoing election process is revealing the fault lines just about where Schaeffer predicted them to be. In light of this, his advice for the faithful Christian to hold political relationships loosely is sound.

A Profile of the Silent Majority

Schaeffer’s argument was basically that the political right, which included the so-called “silent majority” was really a complex confederation of loosely affiliated segments. Although there was some cohesion, there was little commonality between the various segments of the “silent majority.”

[One] factor to take into consideration as we look at shifts in the culture is what in the 1970s was called “the silent majority.” That silent majority, we must understand, can still in the 1980s elect to office anyone it wants to elect. But it is imperative to realize that the silent majority is divided into two parts—a minority and a majority. Unhappily, today’s politician who wants to get elected has pressure on him to appeal to both.

The minority of the silent majority are, first, Christians (and therefore have absolutes and real principles on which to base their actions and judgments) and, second, those who have at least a Christian memory and still believe in absolutes, even if their basis for those absolutes is inadequate. However, the majority of the silent majority are those who really live in a post-Christian world. They may or may not go to church, but they have no real absolutes in mind and they have only two values—personal peace and affluence. Personal peace is not to be equated with pacifism. Rather, it is the attitude: “Let me alone; don’t let trouble at home or abroad come near my door. Just give me peace, personal peace.” And then there is the affluence: the more of everything the better. So with the majority of the silent majority, what we have is not a theoretical materialism but a practical materialism.

The calculation has shifted in the thirty years since Schaeffer wrote, but his analysis is still helpful. Now, in the minority of the silent majority are the Christians, who we see voting for legitimately conservative candidates in the 2016 Presidential primaries. Most of these folks recognize bluster when they see it and understand the cancerous danger of a lack of integrity, so they look for a candidate who has firm values, demonstrates character, and represents himself reasonably.

The other sliver of the former minority, are the sort-of Christians, many of whom identify as evangelical—a term that seems to have lost meaning—but rarely attend church. This second group has some Christian memory and usually a belief in absolutes of some sort, but has little basis for it. Therefore, when a candidate promises, however disingenuously, to serve their interests, they claim Christianity and deny the principles of their supposed religion in pursuit of their own interests.  This group has become a part of the majority of the silent majority. In many cases there is a conflation of nationalism and pseudo-Christianity among this group, which leads to a civil religion that inspires allegiance but often falls short of orthodoxy.

The largest portion of the so-called silent majority lack an absolute standard grounded in an infinite God. However, they feel economic pressure, perhaps due to foreign trade, and are concerned about safety due to immigrants and radical terrorists. For these individuals, the key is to gain power in order to stem the tide of compromise and the maintain a rough status quo that will allow for a continued prosperity or recapturing the sense of prosperity from a few years ago. The slow creep out of the economic slump of 2008 has fueled a continued dis-ease and desperation in this group who really just want personal peace and affluence. This group is more concerned with gaining power than being faithful to principles.

As I see it, this coalition has been shredded by this recent presidential election. One group has sought a compassionate, conservative vision for the future of the nation. Another group has sought rigid adherence to principles, not always recognizing that the expression of those principles may change somewhat when the surrounding culture changes. A third group has sought a strongman to bring them power so that they can return to a former sense of well-being; the principles of conservatism are of little consequence. And thus the political Right is fractured by potentially irreconcilable factions.

The Mushy Middle

Somewhere in the middle, between the political Left and the so-called silent majority there is another pool of unpredictable voters. These are the former rebels who, having found continued unrest and revolution unsuitable for long term prospects have settled down to seek affluence and personal peace, much like the people in the majority of the “silent majority.”

Although these individuals may vote for the political right at times, Schaeffer argues that they do not have values consistent with traditional forms of conservatism. Instead, they are simply seeking comfort, ease, and rest after the turbulence of their youths.

They are not really “conservatives”; they only want their piece of personal peace and affluence. If they do not get what they want in regard to these, there will be a swing of the pendulum. Neither the majority of the old silent majority (the old bourgeois), nor this New Bourgeois (nor the two together) is a base for a stable society.

They may for a time be cobelligerents with the Christians (the minority of the silent majority), who base their votes and their discussions on absolutes, on biblical principles and values. But we must not confuse either the old majority of the silent majority (the old bourgeois) nor the New Bourgeouis as true allies, or as those who can, or will, provide a base for a stable society.

 Essentially, as far as the sociological realities of the time in which we not live are concerned, the New Bourgeois substantiates and reinforces the old bourgeois. Of course, often they do not like each other, and there are and will continue to be tensions between the two; but as far as their sociological results are concerned, there is no essential difference between them.

The New Bourgeois usually couldn’t care less where the affluence comes from. Many would just as soon get a job from 9:00 to 5:00 to pay their bills. So long as they can do whatever pleases them, that’s enough. The utopian visions of Henry David Thoreau and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have disappeared.

Here in the mushy middle, this group is again pursuing comfort, though typically in a different manner than the majority of the silent majority. However, principle is not the clear driver for this group either, unless it is the principle of self-interest.

When the consensus of culture points in a vaguely biblical direction, this group can be expected to support it as long as they are basically left alone. However, when social pressure is exerted, they will quickly abandon contested positions for another position and join in criticizing those who adhere to some sort of absolutes.

Cobelligerents, Not Allies

The willingness of the mushy middle to bolt when the winds of consensus appear to be shifting explains why, in The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, Schaeffer writes:

Christians must realize that there is a difference between being a cobelligerent and an ally. At times we will seem to be saying exactly the same thing as those without a Christian base are saying. If there is social injustice, say there is social injustice. If we need order, say we need order. In these cases, and at these specific points, we would be cobelligerents. But we must not align ourselves as though we are in nay camp built on a non-Christian base. We are an ally of no such camp. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is different—totally different; it rests on the absolutes given to us in Scripture.

My observation of many young pastors and others is this: suddenly they are confronted by some two camps and they are told, “Choose, choose, choose.” By God’s grace they must say, “I will not choose between these two. I stand alone with God, the God who has spoken in the Scripture, the God who is the infinite-personal God, and neither of your two sides is standing there. So if I seem to be saying the same thing at some point, understand that I am a cobelligerent at this particular place, but I am not an ally.”

The failure to understand that allegiance to a party should be held lightly in comparison to allegiance to the persons of the Triune God explains much of the handwringing among conservative evangelicals over which president campaign to support, if it comes down to a choice between two nearly equal evils, or whether a third party candidate is an option.

The so-called silent majority has fractured as the culture has shifted. The biblical memory of the culture is fading or entirely lost. The faithful Christian must now choose, and the choice in this election may well be to cast a protest vote. Such a vote in some cases may be naïve idealism, but faced with a choice of two significant evils, Schaeffer is right to argue that it may be necessary to pick a third alternative.

CONCLUSION

It is eerie at times how Schaeffer’s diagnosis from three or four decades ago seem to be playing out in real life. His predictions of the so-called culture of death are a reality. No less prescient are his premonitions about politics, particularly in the U.S. In many ways, we are where he thought we would be. In the face of that, Schaeffer’s continual hope in the goodness of God should encourage us to live life faithfully.

The hard choices of this time are nothing new under the sun. However, this is largely uncharted water for the cultural memory of orthodox Christians in the U.S. If the choice in November is between two nearly equally corrupt individuals, then a third party may need to be an option. We can be cobelligerents with the world, but never allies.

Note: Since I wrote this, Trevin Wax has posted along the same lines. His is, no doubt, better. It is certainly worth reading: http://ow.ly/ZNTfv 

Our Focus on the Cross

For Christians, this is one of the most religiously significant weeks of the year. This Sunday we will celebrate the Messiah’s victory over sin, death, and hell. Along with that, we will celebrate our participation in that victory by the grace of God.

The truth and power of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection for the world is the most important reality that Christians have to communicate to the surrounding world. My hope for myself is that I will allow myself to live in this moment of remembrance and demonstrate the truthfulness of the most significant fact of available redemption for all of creation, including those who believe. The challenge is to keep the cares of the world from choking out this all important message at this very focused time.

The Superlative Reality

Doorway to Holy Week, used by CC license, Alves Family. http://ow.ly/ZNSc8 

Many pastors begin their weekly sermon by commenting why this week’s passage is “the most important” or “my favorite” more than occasionally. No doubt after the pastor has labored over the text that week, there is a sense of familiarity and appreciation for it that makes a regular lapse into superlative language forgivable. Likely the label simply means that the pastor is excited by the content or that this is a truth that should press home to the congregation. This is a foible that can be quickly passed over.

However, when the apostle Paul, who was not prone to abuse the superlative, declares something to be of first importance it should cause us to sit up and listen.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. I Cor 15:3-8

Paul’s message that is of first importance is simply that the atonement has come and that due to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection humans can be freed from the penalty of their sin.

The Trap of Complacency

For those of us that have been in church, the Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday (maybe), Good Friday, Easter Sunday pattern can seem mundane and repetitive. In fact, if a congregation is not careful, the celebration of these events can become mundane. Complacency is a real human danger, where we fail to recognize the importance of what we are doing.

In the years that I worked in nuclear power, complacency was a constant enemy and a visible concern. There were signs posted around the training building that declared, “Complacency will kill us.” Working in an industrial environment, and with powerful technology like nuclear power, made that truth especially valid. But everything becomes routine when we become familiar with it.

At times, we have to intentionally focus on the special nature of a particular truth so that its power comes home to us once again. That’s what the week leading to the celebration of Easter is supposed to do.

Making it Special

Leading up to this Easter season, our family has been focusing on the names of Jesus using a series of daily devotionals that my wife wrote. This has helped keep Christology at the heart of our discussions for the past weeks.

We will likely read and watch parts of the Jesus Storybook Bible in the coming days. We will read passages of Scripture from the passion accounts. All this to make the season memorable and worshipful, as much as we are able.

Even these things can become another flourish in an already-too-busy life, though. The challenge for all of us is to find a way to make the celebration significant and focus on the powerful reality of it without making it just another thing to do.

Avoiding Distraction

The world seems to seek ways to distract from the gravity. This week already, we’ve seen a terrorist attack. There is an ongoing political spectacle that has dragged on for eternity and seems like it will go on forever. If history repeats itself, there will be a well-timed controversy over religious revisionism—both through articles rejecting the historicity of Scripture and from voices seeking to protest traditional Christian morality on some hot-button topic.

The pattern of these events is all too regular for them not to be timed, if not by humans, then perhaps by some of the spiritual forces that we forget about sometimes.

Whether these are simply more notable distractions because they occur during a time of more intentional religious devotion or somehow orchestrated is irrelevant. What is significant is their power to pull our gaze away from the cross, its power, its meaning, and its historicity.

The reality of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is of first importance according to Paul. Do not allow anything to tear your focus away from pondering that profound truth this week.

The Adventure of Christianity

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. – Thoreau, Walden

If Thoreau is right, and some have argued so, then many people walking the earth and living their lives routinely with no hope of change. We dream great dreams and long to do great things, but often allow ourselves to be satisfied with our normal responsibilities.

A Trip to Antarctica

Recently I had reason to reconsider an adventure that I have long dreamed of taking. I’ve always wanted to make it to the South Pole.

Antarctica, by Ronald Woan. Used by CC license. http://ow.ly/YQUSY 

This weird, masochistic idea was birthed by my reading of Mind over Matter by Ranulph Fiennes when I was in high school.  He and a partner crossed the Antarctic continent in 1992-93 without any outside support. They hauled sledges that started at nearly five-hundred pounds each for more than 1,000 miles.

Unless you are still in high school, you will likely wonder why someone would attempt this, much less why they would actually follow through with it.

In the case of Fiennes and Stroud, the answer is a resounding “Because.”

The reason they wanted to undertake such a grueling and miserable trip was simply because it had never been done before. They did raise quite a bit of money for people suffering from MS, but one does not simply cross Antarctica to raise money. There has to be something else in play to get someone to do that.

But for Fiennes, the answer really seems to be that he wanted to do something no one had ever done before. The book is a detailed account of how that adventure took place.

I had reason to think about this journey again, twenty years after I first read about it because I was looking for something to read. Since I am rather tied up in normal human responsibilities in addition to my dissertation, reading about adventure is about as close as I can get to it.

My body tells me, however, that it is highly unlikely that I will ever attempt anything as grueling as a trip across Antarctica. There are too many grinds, bumps, and creaks in my joints. When I get up and move around they get louder.

Longing for Adventure

Although I may not have an opportunity for such a lavish adventure in this life, I appreciate that some people have. But reading the book, including the account of the absolute misery of the trip, it makes me consider why adventure is so appealing.

Most people that have adventures did not set out to have them. It is one thing to be swept into an adventure and another to seek one. It seems to me that having adventures is good, while seeking adventures is a bit vain. Perhaps I am experiencing early onset curmudgeonity.

Of course, from a Christian perspective, even a life of quiet desperation is one of great joy. It may be that we simply do not require adventurous thrills to feel fulfilled. As Christians, we have the hope of the resurrection and the knowledge of the significance of our actions even in the mundane things of life.

However, setting aside that vision of grandeur for a moment—and it may be helpful to do so, as a thought experiment—we can see that most of us do live in a rather routine sort of way and rarely do we do something truly adventurous. It is good occasionally to consider adventure and what may come of it. According to Bilbo, they tend to make one late for dinner.

Christian Adventure

When I read Christian biographies, as I often do aloud to my children for their benefit and to myself for my own edification, I am often struck by the fact that many Christian heroes got sucked into adventures while simply trying to live for Christ.

Corrie Ten Boom got taken to the Nazi concentration camps because she was faithful in being hospitable to her fellow humans who happened to be Jewish. William Carey started a university, a printing press, and did many other things in India because it was how God allowed him a platform to preach the gospel. Francis Schaeffer lived in the mountains of Switzerland for decades and welcomed hundreds of young people into his home because it was the simple task that God gave him.

Indeed, while Carey may have called for his audience to attempt great things for God and expect great things from God, his adventure was built around living faithfully for the Lord by fulfilling his vocation. In other words, he didn’t seek radical adventure, though he embraced what came his direction.

This sort of faithfulness, I think, is the way we Christians ought to live our lives. We should be joyful in the mundane. Faithful in everything. In the end, who knows what adventures will come our way.

The Myth of Big Church Success

There was recently a flap in the Evangelical world over a mega-church pastor castigating parents who attend small churches. Although he has since apologized for his baseless and offensive rant, he is not alone in holding the idea that bigger is better. This is, in fact, a common misconception particularly in the American life, and it isn’t a new fault.

In many ways a prophet, Francis Schaeffer was not silent on the temptation to believe that bigger is better:

Nowhere more than in America are Christians caught in the twentieth-century syndrome of size. Size will show success. If I am consecrated, there will necessarily be large quantities of people, dollars, etc. This is not so. Not only does God not say that size and spiritual power go together, but He even reverses this (especially in the teaching of Jesus) and tells us to be deliberately careful not to choose a place too big for us. We all tend to emphasize big works and big places, but all such emphasis is of the flesh. To think in such terms is simply to hearken back to the old, unconverted, egoist, self-centered Me. This attitude, taken from the world, is more dangerous to the Christian than fleshly amusement or practice. It is the flesh. 

This is a failure that many churches and Christian institutions fall into. Sometimes we believe that if we are doing things right, then our organization will grow.

There are times that is a helpful perspective to have. If right doctrine is well preached, healthy community outreach happens, and personal evangelism is faithfully practiced, then it stands to reason that in many cases a church will grow. However, that may not be the case at all times.

The Future Winnowing

In fact, it may be that in the very near future there will be little the local church can do to grow, humanly speaking. The Holy Spirit may move through churches for revival. May it be so! Shy of that, many churches will likely continue to see declines in attendance as nominal Christians fade away. Although we are certainly a long way away from straight out persecution, the social advantages of being Christian are fading and will continue to fade for the foreseeable future.

As that reality takes hold, pastors who have founded their self-worth on the size of their congregation will find themselves in despair. That fleshly part of their heart, which was so fed by continued growth, may be pinched when numbers dwindle due to a changing society.

It is at this point that the temptation to view bigger as better is most dangerous. Facing the discouragement of shrinking crowds with an internal pressure to grow, then one of the options may be to make the “church experience” more palatable. This may occur through doctrinal compromise in some cases. More often, it will likely be reflected by adding more lights, widgets, and other attractions to entertain folks away from more docile worship services. This is a sort of competition between local outposts of the Kingdom of God that can be decidedly unhealthy.

The Bigger Pond Mentality

A second way that the desire to seek a bigger crowd demonstrates itself is the progression of churches that some pastors go through in their careers. They start small in an entry level church and work their way up toward a bigger church with a larger facility, more services, and a bigger paycheck.

Of course, it does not help that many congregations presently foster this unhealthy progression by requiring years experienced with demonstrable success in a previous pastorate for their pastoral candidates. There is little doubt that in the end, larger congregations will get better, more practiced preaching, but the downside is that it treats smaller churches as a minor league system to feed the staffs of larger churches.

In this sense, recent criticism of small churches has a point. Many smaller churches may indeed have poorer preaching with pastors who are just doing their time until they can move to a bigger field of service. However, having been to seminary with many small church pastors, I believe that most of them, even the ones hoping to move to a congregation that can pay their bills, are doing the best they can with the skills they have in the situation they are in.

It’s not the men that I find fault in, it’s the system that is flawed. The most recent critic is just a man giving voice to what so many believed anyway, but weren’t saying.

The Prosperity Problem

What Schaeffer doesn’t call out in his quote, however, is the connection between the Prosperity Gospel and the attitude that spiritual success results in more dollars, people, and whatever.

Of course, there isn’t really so much a connection as a unity.

This is what makes the “bigger is better” attitude so dangerous for the contemporary minister. It is the Prosperity Gospel. This means that setting out to simply get bigger because you believe that it means God is blessing can be an indicator of practical heresy. The doctrine preached from the pulpit may be sound and not reflect the egregious errors of the prosperity preachers, but the staff meeting may reflect a flawed celebration of growth for its own sake.

This leads to the simple caveat, which I won’t elaborate on, that small is not necessarily better, either. I’m partial to a smaller congregation, but the practical heresy of small church asceticism is no less deadly.

A Possible Solution

The best solution for the problem is to seek to do ministry better by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s a truism but worth pondering.

Instead of worrying about doing ministry with numerical growth goals, it will be more practical to do them with the hope of growing the depth of the disciples. That and being true to the context that God has placed the ministry in. That seems like a trite solution, but it is the best general solution that there is.

God may well grow your ministry, but if your goal is for the size of your ministry to grow, then you may need to check your heart. Of course, that should be a regular practice for all of us.