Posts tagged ‘Religion’
Sneaky Polytheism
One of the most startling religious claims made by the ancient Israelites was that their God was the only true God. God Himself argues for His singularity when He says through the prophet Isaiah:
I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from Me there is no God. (Isaiah 45:5)
This echoes the command God gives to the children of Israel through Moses:
You shall have no other gods besides Me. (Exodus 20:3)
In our religious milieu, unlike in the ancient world, the majority of people of faith are monotheists – that is, they believe there is only one God.
Yet, even if monotheism is common to believe, it is much harder to practice. Isaiah explains why when he speaks of the fall of Babylon:
Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure, lounging in your security and saying to yourself, “I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or suffer the loss of children.” Both of these will overtake you in a moment, on a single day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells. You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, “No one sees me.” Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, “I am, and there is none besides me.” (Isaiah 47:8-10)
God’s judgment on Babylon feels horrifyingly harsh to us. But notice what God’s judgment is in response to. It is in response to those who say of themselves:
I am, and there is none besides me. (Isaiah 47:8, 10)
Sound familiar – like what God has just claimed for Himself two chapters earlier in Isaiah?
It turns out that the Babylonians were not just worshiping many gods, they were putting themselves in the place of God, claiming, “We are all who matter! We are all we need! There is no one else who can do what we do!”
Even if theological polytheism no longer appeals to many of us, sociological polytheism is just as prevalent in our day as it was in Isaiah’s. We are incessantly tempted to believe that our moment in history is the pinnacle of history. We understand what those who have gone before us did not and could not. We can solve the problems of the world – and, indeed, must solve the problems of the world – because our forebearers were too doddering to do so. We are quick to quip: “I am, and there is none besides me.”
This kind of arrogance is what leads Isaiah to say: “Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you” (Isaiah 47:10). Our forbearers were not as incompetent as we can sometimes think they were, and we are not as smart as we can sometimes think we are.
So, what do we need? We who declare “I am” need to humble ourselves before the true and great “I AM” (Exodus 3:14). We need to realize that having “none beside me” is not desirous, but disastrous. We, in short, need to know our place. We are under God and beside each other. That’s right where we’re supposed to be. And that’s a great place to be.
King Jesus, King Herod, and “Three Kings”
One of the most beloved sections of the Christmas story is when wise men come to visit Jesus and His family:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd My people Israel.’” Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship Him.” After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. (Matthew 2:1-12)
Part of what makes this particular section of the Christmas story so compelling is the evil king who serves as a foil to the so-called “three kings” who are looking to present gifts to Jesus. King Herod feels threatened by Jesus and wants to slaughter what he perceives to be the competition. This kind of ghastly plot comports with what we know about Herod historically. Herod was the king who had his wife Mariamne and his sons Alexander, Aristobulus, and Antipater all executed because he suspected they were trying to usurp his throne. Herod’s conduct toward his own family was so gruesome that Caesar Augustus, who was the Roman Emperor at this time, is said to have quipped, “I’d rather be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son.” The first-century historian Josephus once wrote that Herod’s “character had nothing human to recommend to it.” And yet, if you would have asked him, Herod would have self-identified as a religiously observant Jew. After all, Herod was the one who expanded the temple in Jerusalem into a glorious showcase of Jewish religious sensibility and sacrifice.
Herod’s willingness to build a monument to Jewish religious rituals while acting so depravedly in his relationships with his own family is manifestly hypocritical. The fact that wise men who were not Jewish would gladly worship Jesus as the Messiah while a self-identified Jew would fearfully despise Jesus because he thought He might be the Messiah just further confirms how spiritually blind Herod really was. As Andreas Köstenberger and Alexander Stewart put it in their book The First Days of Jesus:
Herod powerfully illustrates the fact that it’s not enough to identify outwardly with God’s people. It’s not enough to give sacrificially of your funds and your energy to build God’s house (or temple) and to help others worship. It’s not enough to learn about God and His plan through His Scriptures. Every one of us is confronted with a choice…Who will we serve? For whom will we live?
These are questions that still come to us. The Christmas season is not merely about favorite carols, idyllic nativity scenes, and warm religious observances, as wonderful as all these things may be. This season is about a newborn King. And trusting in and living for this King cannot be captured in just one holiday. It is God’s call to us every day. May this Christmas be a time to renew our commitment to this call.
What Does God Ask of Us?
Parable of the Father and his Two Sons, Georg Pencz, c. 1525
In Matthew 21, the religious leaders are becoming increasingly incredulous toward Jesus. He has just ridden into Jerusalem triumphantly, receiving the praise of adoring throngs. He has also wrecked the temple’s shadow economy by driving out those who were buying and selling there. And He has outwitted and outsmarted the religious leaders after they tried to question Jesus’ authority. Now, Jesus moves on to tell these same religious leaders a story:
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. (Matthew 21:28-31)
Jesus tells a story about a father who has two sons. The first son initially verbally spars with his father, but ultimately does what his father asks. The second son pays lip service to honoring his father, but refuses to do what his father asks.
This story is meant to be about the religious leaders, for, although they pay lip service to God, they do not do what God asks. The question that is still hanging in the air at the end of Jesus’ story, however, is this: what does God ask? Jesus’ answer, as He explains His story to the religious leaders, is fascinating:
Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. (Matthew 21:31-32)
This, Jesus says, is what God asks: to believe. Jesus puts it this way in John’s Gospel: “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent” (John 6:29). And yet, this is what the religious leaders refuse to do – to believe in the One God has sent. The religious leaders are so busy following religious rules that their righteous looking actions become the sum total of what they think God wants from them. But God does not need their righteous actions, for He already has all righteousness. So, He simply asks for faith – to stop believing in ourselves and to start believing in His Son. But this is what the religious leaders refuse to give. Faith is the one thing the religious leaders do not do.
The tax collectors and prostitutes to which Jesus refers know they can’t trust themselves, for they have already destroyed themselves. So, instead, they put their faith in One they hope can rescue them from themselves. Thus, they, and not the religious leaders, are the ones who, though they may spar with God, ultimately do what God asks them to do.
Where is your faith? Do you do what God asks of you? It turns out that what God asks you to do is not something you do at all. It’s Someone you trust.
In Christian circles, we will often talk about pointing people like tax collectors and prostitutes – the so-called “broken” and “bad” people of society – to Jesus, because they need Him. This is most certainly true and this is, in fact, something we should do. But let us not forgot that, in Matthew 21, it’s the tax collectors and prostitutes who are pointing religious people like us to Jesus, because, as it turns out, anyone can point someone to Jesus because anyone can have faith in Jesus.
My prayer is that you do.
Faith on Trial
Credit: wp paarz / Flickr
A few weeks ago, Ross Douthat of The New York Times argued that those who are portending the collapse of American Christianity are vastly overstating their case:
Lukewarm Christianity may be declining much more dramatically than intense religiosity … Recent Gallup numbers indicate that reported weekly and almost-weekly church attendance has only “edged down” lately, falling to 38 percent in 2017 from 42 percent in 2008 … And long-term Gallup data suggest that any recent dip in churchgoing is milder than the steep decline in the 1960s – and that today’s churchgoing rate isn’t that different from the rate in the 1930s and 1940s, before the postwar religious boom.
Mr. Douthat argues that though there is a definite statistical decline in those who have marginal faith, those who have committed faith remain strong and steady in their faith. The Christian faith, when it actually shapes one’s life, is incredibly durable.
But now, this past week, Timothy Beal makes the contrary case in The Wall Street Journal when he asks: “Can Religion Still Speak to Younger Americans?” Mr. Beal opens:
The fastest-growing population on the American religious landscape today is “Nones” – people who don’t identify with any religion. Recent data from the American Family Survey indicates that their numbers increased from 16% in 2007 to 35% in 2018. Over the same period, there has been a dramatic decline in the share of the population who identify as Christian, from 78% of Americans in 2007 to 65% in 2018-19, according to a report by the Pew Research Center released this month. The rise of Nones is even more dramatic among younger people: 44% of Americans aged 18 to 29 are Nones.
Mr. Beal argues that the decline in the numbers of Christian faithful is acute. Nevertheless, he does suggest that this trend may be reversible. His prescription for revitalizing faith, however, is interesting, to say the least:
Questioning religious teachings and positions has always been an essential part of religion. No faith is fixed or changeless. On the contrary, reinterpreting inherited scriptures and traditions in light of new horizons of meaning is critical to the life of any religion. Think of Jesus or the Buddha; think of the Baal Shem Tov, the 18th-century founder of Hasidic Judaism, or Dorothy Day, who helped to create the Catholic Worker Movement. Religion’s ongoing vitality depends on those who question and challenge inherited teachings and positions. Without such engagement, any religious tradition will die from the inside long before it begins to lose adherents.
Mr. Beal argues that in order to revitalize the Christian tradition, we must begin by questioning it. And he is is partially correct. There have indeed been those “who question and challenge inherited teachings and positions,” sometimes with great success and to the great benefit and betterment of humanity. But it is also important to note that, according to an orthodox Christian worldview, “inherited teachings and positions” are not so much questioned in order to change the Christian faith as they are in order to rediscover it. The message of Christ, properly understood, does need to change, for it is the revelation of a perfect God who does not need to change. Instead, the message of Christ is meant to change us. This is why people who once held slaves in 18th and 19th century America were called to let these people go, even as God once called a pharaoh to let His people go. This is why a society steeped in legislatively enshrined racism as recently as a few short decades ago was called to love its neighbors instead of separating from them. This is why a world that is plagued by violence today is called to long for a day when swords and spears will be beaten into plowshares and pruning hooks. These calls are thousands of years old. But they still challenge us to change to this day.
Mr. Beal is a professor of religion at Case Western University where he recently, according to his column, “conducted a ‘trial’ of the Bible on the charge of being responsible for our environmental crisis.” Maybe it would have been useful, if, after this trial where his students questioned the Bible, Mr. Beal put his class in a trial where the Bible could have questioned them. After all, it may just be that our questions of the Bible aren’t the only ones that need to be asked. It may also just be that the Bible has even better questions of us than we do of it, such as, “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’” (Proverbs 20:9)?
Mr. Beal concludes his column by revisiting those who have left and lost their faith – the Nones. He writes of them: “When it comes to religion, Nones are almost never nothing at all.” About this much he is certainly correct. The Nones believe something. They have some faith, even if it is an ad hoc faith. The question is: Is it the true faith?
Maybe before we ask questions of faith, we ought to first ask this question of ourselves.
A Tenuous Time
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. As Christianity faded from prominence in the West, a secularized culture was supposed to emerge to take its place that was more tolerant, more enlightened, more harmonious, and less politically polarized than any other society in the history of the world. But as Peter Beinart explains in an excellent article for The Atlantic, what has emerged as Christianity’s western influence has waned is nothing of the sort:
As Americans have left organized religion, they haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between “us” and “them.” Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.[1]
Beinart goes on to explain how the traditional battle lines between conservatives and liberals have shifted in the wake of this irreligious surge. Specifically, with regard to the spiritually skeptical alt-right, Beinart notes:
They tend to redraw the boundaries of identity, de-emphasizing morality and religion and emphasizing race and nation…
The alt-right is ultra-conservatism for a more secular age. Its leaders like Christendom, an old-fashioned word for the West. But they’re suspicious of Christianity itself, because it crosses boundaries of blood and soil. As a college student, the alt-right leader Richard Spencer was deeply influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously hated Christianity. Radix, the journal Spencer founded, publishes articles with titles like “Why I Am a Pagan.” One essay notes that “critics of Christianity on the Alternative Right usually blame it for its universalism.”
It turns out that as faith allegiances have crumbled, a universal concern for others in the spirit of the Good Samaritan has too. Christianity’s cross-ethnic, cross-cultural, and international appeal has proven too much for the self-interested – or, perhaps more accurately, self-obsessed – spirit of our age.
As Christians, we must think through this irreligious political surge and provide a faithful witness in the midst of it. We also must be prepared to live in a very tricky tension because of this surge. As Rod Dreher explains in his newly released book, The Benedict Option:
Faithful Christians may have to choose between being a good American and being a good Christian. In a nation where “God and country” are so entwined, the idea that one’s citizenship might be at radical odds with one’s faith is a new one.[2]
Dreher’s analysis of the tension between being a citizen of a nation and being a child of God is true, but it is also somewhat amnesic. He is right that there is indeed an increasing tension. But he is wrong that this tension is anything new. Tensions between God and government have been longstanding, even in our society. And these tensions should not surprise us. It was a Roman governmental official, after all, who approved the request for Jesus’ crucifixion. Government has, for a great portion of history, had a problem with God, especially when people put Him before it.
The New Testament understands that this tension between God and government will never be fully resolved, at least on this side of the Last Day. While we may give to Caesar what is his, God also demands what is His, and when what Caesar wants contradicts what God wants, conflict ensues. Just ask Daniel, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or the apostles. Our calling, as Christians, is to resist the urge to comfortably resolve this tension, whether that be by condemning this world and cloistering ourselves off from it or by compromising our faith for the lucrative perks of political power. Our calling is to live in this tension both faithfully and evangelically – holding fast to what we confess while lovingly sharing with others what we believe.
Beinart concludes his article:
For years, political commentators dreamed that the culture war over religious morality that began in the 1960s and ’70s would fade. It has. And the more secular, more ferociously national and racial culture war that has followed is worse.
Yes, indeed, it is worse – which is why we, as the Church, need to offer something better. We need to offer something loving. We need to over something hopeful. We need to offer something reconciling. We need to offer something that continually and conscientiously questions our nation’s nearsighted political orthodoxies for the sake of a time-tested theological orthodoxy. We need to offer Jesus, unabashedly and unashamedly. This is our mission. I pray we are up to it.
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[1] Peter Beinart, “Breaking Faith,” The Atlantic (April 2017).
[2] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option (New York: Sentinel, 2017), 89.
Is Being Christian the Same as Being Religious?
Last week, as I was going for my morning run, listening to music, a song with this lyric started playing on my Pandora station:
I still hate religion. Why you think I’m a Christian?
I’ve heard this distinction between religion and Christianity used before used by pastors, pew sitters, and Christian artists alike. This Christian artist explained the distinction between religion and Christianity as he continued:
The peace between God’s been broke for my sinning.
Religion is man using his good deeds tryin’ to close the distance.
But we could never reach Him,
Only Jesus came to get His men.
Religion, according to this artist’s definition, is people trying to reach God by their works. Christianity, on the other hand, is God reaching people in Christ.
Now, it is most certainly true that trying to reach God by means of your own works – regardless of your religious affiliation – is a futile effort. And it is true that the hallmark of the Christian faith is that rather than waiting for us to reach up to Him, God has reached down to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Still, exegetically, this kind of distinction between religion and Christianity troubles me because religion is not so widely panned in the Bible like it is in this song. If you ask the brother of Jesus what he thinks of religion, he will tell you:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)
If you ask the apostle Paul about the importance of religion, he will explain:
If a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. (1 Timothy 5:4)
In both instances, religion is cast in a positive light. Religion, at least according to Scripture, is not always bad.
But my concern with the distinction often drawn between religion and Christianity is not only exegetical. It is also missional.
If a non-believer asks a Christian whether or not he is religious and he responds by saying something like, “No, I’m not religious; I’m a Christian,” he is really doing little more than pulling a bait and switch in his witness. Here’s why.
For most people, the word “religion” carries with it particular connotations. People who attend worship services are religious. People who read holy books are religious. People who pray regularly are religious. And Christians do – or at least should be doing – all these things. So for a Christian to claim that he is not religious sounds like little more than a verbal sleight of hand to an unbeliever. To say that you are not religious because you are a Christian probably sounds to someone who is not a Christian like a distinction without much of a difference.
Rather than quibbling over whether or not Christianity is a religion, perhaps it’s time for us to explain to people who are not religious why we are religious in the way that we are. After all, Christianity, even as a religion, is utterly unique. Most other religions are generally concerned with making people better by means of their own efforts. Christianity, by distinction, is concerned with making people righteous by the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection. The difference in Christianity is not found in whether or not it can be classified as a religion. The difference in Christianity is found in what it confesses about God and His Son, Jesus Christ. This is what we ought to be emphasizing.
Allow me to offer one additional thought on the uniqueness of Christianity. Jesus was clear that people would know who His followers were not because of some semantic game that distinguishes Christianity from religion, but because of their love (John 13:35). Unfortunately, whether they are called “religious” or “Christian,” people who claim to follow Jesus are not always known for their love. They’re known for their self-righteousness. They’re known for their hypocrisy. They’re known for their raging fury at our secularized culture. If this is what believers in Christ are known for, it matters little whether people think we are “religious” or “Christian.” People’s opinion of us, no matter which word is used, will remain negative.
In some instances, a person’s opinion of Christianity may be negative simply because he doesn’t like Christ and His teaching. Jesus Himself taught us to expect hatred from others when He said to His disciples, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first” (John 15:18). Sometimes, we are hated through no fault of our own. But let’s do everything we can to ensure that a person’s opinion of Christianity is negative because of Christ and not because we are acting foolishly, selfishly, arrogantly, and sinfully. Let’s do everything we can to instead be known for our love. Because then, whether people think of us as “religious” or “Christian,” they will ultimately move past us altogether and look to Christ Himself. And that’s the goal. He’s the goal.
The goal is not a game with words. The goal is to point people to the Word.
Why I Don’t Read The Bible Literally (But I Do Take It Seriously)
It never ceases to amaze me how misunderstood the orthodox Christian belief concerning Holy Scripture is. Even The New York Times can’t seem to figure it out. Take Charles Blow, an op-ed columnist for the Times, who stands stunned at the views of many Americans on the Bible. With a mixture of disbelief and disdain, he reports:
One Gallup report issued last week found that 42 percent of Americans believe “God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.”
Even among people who said that they were “very familiar” with the theory of evolution, a third still believed that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.
It’s not clear what the respondents meant by being “very familiar” – did they fully understand the science upon which evolution’s based, or was their understanding something short of that, as in, very familiar with it as being antithetical to creationist concepts?
Whatever the case, on this issue as well as many others in America, the truth is not the light.[1]
Blow goes on to cite people’s opinions on the Bible itself according to this same Gallup pole:
Nearly a third of Americans continue to believe that the Bible “is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.”
Furthermore, nearly half believe that it is “the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally.”
About a fifth of Americans said they believe the Bible is “an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man.”
The questions Gallup asks concerning the nature and character of the Bible frustrate me. Gallup wants to know, “Do you believe the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word?” Personally, I would have to answer “yes” and “no.” Do I believe the Bible is “the actual word of God”? Yes. Do I believe it is to be “taken literally, word for word”? No. But this is not because I want to discredit the Bible’s veracity, authority, or inerrancy. Rather, this is because I follow the Bible’s lead when it interprets itself non-literally in some places. The Bible is full of metaphors, symbols, and other figures of speech as even an elementary reading of it will uncover. One need look no farther than “The LORD is my shepherd” (Psalm 23) to find a metaphor – and a beautiful metaphor, I would add – of Scripture. Thus, I would find myself more at ease with Gallup’s second position: “The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally.”
Blow, however, summarily dismisses this second position:
I am curious which parts would get a pass from most of these respondents and which wouldn’t. Would the origins of the world fall into the literal camp? What about the rules – all or some – in books like Deuteronomy?
Perhaps Blow has not yet discovered the difference between reading something literally and reading something contextually. Just because I don’t practice, for instance, the sacrifices outlined in Deuteronomy doesn’t mean I don’t understand them literally. It just means that I read them in light of Hebrews 10:10: “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Christ’s sacrifice for sin put an end to all those Old Testament sacrifices for sin. For me to try to follow those laws would be like me taking a ticket for an Elvis concert, going to the venue listed thereon, and expecting a concert usher to let me in! Though I may read the ticket “literally,” that ticket’s time is past. So it is with the Old Testament sacrificial system. Its time too is past because it has been fulfilled by Christ. But that isn’t me reading the Bible non-literally. That’s just me reading the Bible contextually.
I suspect part of the reason Blow disparages option two when it comes to reading and interpreting the Bible is because, for him, only option three, which says the Bible is “an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man,” is viable. He writes:
I don’t seek to deny anyone the right to believe as he or she chooses. I have at points in my own life been quite religious, and my own children have complicated views about religion. As my oldest son once told me, “I’d hate to live in a world where a God couldn’t exist.”
That is his choice, as it is every individual’s choice, and I respect it.
What worries me is that some Americans seem to live in a world where facts can’t exist.
Facts such as the idea that the world is ancient, and that all living things evolved and some – like dinosaurs – became extinct. Facts like the proven warming of the world. Facts like the very real possibility that such warming could cause a catastrophic sea-level rise.
Ah yes, facts. Facts like the Bohr model of the atom or the rallying cry of biogenetics: “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” Oh, wait. Those “facts” turned out to be not quite as factual as we once thought. Contrary to Blow, I’m not so sure that a great uprising of people who want facts to not exist is the problem. The problem is there are people who disagree with him on what the fullness of the facts are and how the data that form the facts should be interpreted. Now, I’m not saying these other people are correct on the facts. I’m just saying these other people with other thoughts on what the facts are that contradict Blow’s thoughts on what the facts are not necessarily rejecting facts themselves.
Blow says he is “both shocked and fascinated by Americans’ religious literalism.” I don’t think he even understands what “religious literalism” is. Nor do I think he understands that many serious people of faith understand and trust the Bible theologically, morally, and historically without always reading it literally. No wonder he’s so shocked and fascinated. He simply doesn’t understand. Then again, I’m not so sure he wants to.
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[1] Charles Blow, “Religious Constriction,” The New York Times (6.8.2014).
Wisdom That’s Not So Wise
Credit: wired.com
It was G.K. Chesterton who said, “It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob.”[1] There just seems to be something about one’s own age the dupes those living in it into thinking they are living in the best age – they are living at the pinnacle of human achievement, intelligence, and insight, unsurpassed by anything that has come before it, or, for that matter, anything that will come after it.
Case in point: Albert Schweitzer, in his seminal work The Quest of the Historical Jesus, opens by touting his credentials:
When, at some future day, our period of civilization shall lie, closed and completed, before the eyes of later generations, German theology will stand out as great, a unique phenomenon in the mental and spiritual life of our time. For nowhere save in the German temperament can there be found in the same perfection the living complex of conditions and factors – of philosophic though, critical acumen, historical insight, and religious feeling – without which no deep philosophy is possible.[2]
At least Schweitzer doesn’t have a confidence problem.
The ironic thing about Schweitzer’s opening paragraph is that on the back of this very book is this review: “Schweitzer’s … proposals no longer command endorsement.” In other words, Schweitzer, who thought his age was so wise that the people, and specifically the Germans, in it could in no way be mistaken, were, in fact, mistaken. Perhaps his German pedigree wasn’t as intellectually impenetrable as he thought it was.
Whether or not we are as unabashedly arrogant as Schweitzer, we all, to one extent or another, use our age as the measuring rod for all ages. We project the sensibilities of our age back onto the past and even forward into the future.
Greg Miller of Wired Science recently published a pithy little post, “Here’s How People 100 Years Ago Thought We’d Be Living Today.”[3] Ed Fries, the former vice president of game publishing at Microsoft, shared with Miller a fascinating cache of vintage European postcards that offer a glimpse of how the people of yesteryear thought we would be living in our years. For instance, there is one postcard featuring a prop plane with a spotlight and luggage attached to the top of the cabin ushering a group of tourists to the moon for “just another weekend trip.” The year, according to the postcard, is 2012. Are any rockets needed? No. And the people on the aircraft seem to be blissfully unconcerned with the fact that their cabin is not pressurized. Another postcard features a videophone, projecting its picture onto a wall, just like the movies of the early 1900’s did. Apparently, those at the turn of the 20th century simply could not envision the hand-held screens we enjoy today. Perhaps most comically, the people in all of these postcards are decked out in their early 1900’s wears. As Miller wryly notes, though everything else underwent radical evolutions, “fashion stayed frozen in time.”
For all the fanciful things these postcards envision, they are embarrassingly transparent products of their time. No one would mistake these as accurate or modern depictions of our age. The people of the early 1900’s, it seems, were stuck in the early 1900’s.
We would do well to remember that just like the people of the early 1900’s were stuck in the early 1900’s, the people of the early 2000’s are, well, stuck in the early 2000’s. We too are products of our time. Not that this is all bad. Our age has much too offer. But our age cannot lead us to disparage other ages – especially past ages. For the wisdom of the past that we discount as foolishness in the present may just be the wisdom of our present that will be discounted as foolishness in the future. In other words, we should take the wisdom of our age with a grain of salt.
One of the wonderful things about Scripture is that it self-consciously bucks the human tendency to jump on the bandwagon of whatever zeitgeist happens to be popular at any given moment. Indeed, it sees past learning as key to present wisdom. As the apostle Paul says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). This is why, according to one count, the Old Testament is cited in the New Testament some 263 times.[4] Wisdom, according to Scripture, cannot be confined to just one age. It needs many ages.
When you look at your present, then, don’t assume that your day is the greatest day and your generation the greatest generation. Or, to use the words of Moses, “Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past” (Deuteronomy 32:7). Wisdom is not just when you are. It was before you. And it will continue after you. Wise, therefore, is the person whose memory and vision is long.
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[1] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1908).
[2] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 1911), 1.
[3] Greg Miller, “Here’s How People 100 Years Ago Thought We’d Be Living Today,” wired.com (5.28.2014).
[4] “New Testament Citations of the Old Testament,” crossway.org (3.17.2006).
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Lives!
Apparently, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” didn’t die in our Armed Forces, it just moved to our marriages. Recently, Redbook published a part-confessional, part-apologetic exposé titled, “How Affairs Make My Marriage Stronger.” The author, who, not surprisingly, chose to remain anonymous, opens salaciously:
It’s a Wednesday night, and my boyfriend and I are drinking wine and making out in the back booth of a dimly lit bar. It feels like nothing else in the world exists…until my phone vibrates.
“It’s my husband. The kids are in bed,” I say, then put my phone in my purse and pull my boyfriend toward me. I spend half a second staring at the diamond on my engagement ring before hiding my hand from my sight line. It’s not a secret that I’m married, but it’s also not something I want to think about right now.
Am I a horrible person? Without context, I know I sound horrible. But in my marriage, having affairs works. My husband and I don’t talk about it. But I’m certain our don’t-ask-don’t-tell rule is what has allowed our marriage to last as long as it has.
Notice that I didn’t say we’re in an open marriage – we’re not. An open marriage is transparent, with agreed-upon rules and an understanding of what both parties will and will not do with others. My marriage is opaque.[1]
What a sham of a marriage – full of affairs and cover-ups. It should be a soap opera. Instead, it’s real life.
What I find most striking about this apologetic for adultery is how kitschy it is – even according to the author’s own admission. In a telling line, she concedes, “The more I think about it, the less okay I am with our lifestyle, so I’ve become pretty good at shutting down that part of my brain.” If there ever was a line that affirmed the inescapably reality of natural, moral law, this is it! No matter what she may claim about she and her husband’s affairs, she can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right. As the apostle Paul explains: “The requirements of the law are written on [people’s] hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them” (Romans 2:15).
As much moral ire as this article raises in me, it raises even more sympathetic pain. It’s hard to listen to this woman divulge her deeply held fears without having my heart broken:
Truth be told, I do worry that Dave might fall in love with someone else. That’s why when I see his secret smiles or notice him spending tons of time texting, I step it up on my end, asking him to be home on a certain night and initiating sex. I remind him how much I love him and how much our marriage means to me.
What’s the title of this article again? “How Affairs Make My Marriage Stronger”? What a lie. So let’s try some truth:
I take you to be my wedded beloved, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy will; and I pledge to you my faithfulness.
You took the vow. You made the promise. So keep it. You’ll be better for it. Your heart will be filled with it. And you’ll please God by it.
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[1] Anonymous, as told to Anna Davies, “How Affairs Make My Marriage Stronger,” Redbook (5.18.2014).
#Blessed
Credit: socialmediaexaminer.com
I don’t know how many times I’ve received the prayer request. But it’s definitely more times than I can remember. “Pray that God will bless my…” and then fill in the blank. “Finances.” “Job Search.” “Move.” “Golf Game.” “Baby Shower.” And the list could go on and on.
Now, on the one hand, I have no particular problem with these kinds of prayer requests per se. Indeed, when people come to me with these kinds of prayers, I gladly oblige. But on the other hand, even though we pray to be blessed, I’m not so sure we always understand what it truly entails to be blessed, at least not biblically.
The other day, I came across an article by Jessica Bennett of The New York Times chronicling all the blessings she has stumbled across on social media. She opens:
Here are a few of the ways that God has touched my social network over the past few months:
S(he) helped a friend get accepted into graduate school. (She was “blessed” to be there.)
S(he) made it possible for a yoga instructor’s Caribbean spa retreat. (“Blessed to be teaching in paradise,” she wrote.)
S(he) helped a new mom outfit her infant in a tiny designer frock. (“A year of patiently waiting and it finally fits! Feeling blessed.”)
S(he) graced a colleague with at least 57 Facebook wall postings about her birthday. (“So blessed for all the love,” she wrote, to approximately 900 of her closest friends.)
God has, in fact, recently blessed my network with dazzling job promotions, coveted speaking gigs, the most wonderful fiancés ever, front row seats at Fashion Week, and nominations for many a “30 under 30” list. And, blessings aren’t limited to the little people, either. S(he) blessed Macklemore with a wardrobe designer (thanks for the heads up, Instagram!) and Jamie Lynn Spears with an engagement ring (“#blessed #blessed #blessed!” she wrote on Twitter). S(he)’s been known to bless Kanye West and Kim Kardashian with exotic getaways and expensive bottles of Champagne, overlooking sunsets of biblical proportion (naturally).[1]
Apparently, Bennett has a lot of extraordinarily “blessed” friends. She even tells the story of a girl who posted a picture of her posterior on Facebook with the caption, “Blessed.” Really?
The theology behind the kind of blessing Bennett outlines is shallow at best and likely heretical in actuality. The so-called “god” who bestows these social media blessings is ill-defined and vacuous, as Bennett intimates with her references to “god” as “s(he),” and the blessings from this divine turn out to be quite petty. Frocks that fit, birthday wishes on Facebook, and financial windfalls all qualify to be part of the “blessed” life.
All this leads Bennett to suspect that these “blessings” are really nothing more than people cynically
… invoking holiness as a way to brag about [their] life … Calling something “blessed,” has become the go-to term for those who want to boast about an accomplishment while pretending to be humble, fish for a compliment, acknowledge a success (without sounding too conceited), or purposely elicit envy.
That sounds about right. “Blessed” is just a word people use to thinly disguise a brag.
True biblical blessing, of course, is quite different – and much messier. Jesus’ list of blessings sounds quite different from what you’ll find on Facebook:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. (Luke 6:20-22)
Poverty, hunger, mourning, and persecution all qualify to be part of the blessed life. Why? Because true blessing involves much more than what happens to you in this life. It involves God’s promises for the next.
All this is not to say that the good gifts we receive in this life are not blessings. But such blessings must be received with a proper perspective – that they are blessings not just because we happen to like them, but because it is God who gives them. Indeed, one of the most interesting features of the Hebrew word for “blessing,” barak, is that it can be translated either as “bless” (e.g., Numbers 6:24) or as “curse” (e.g., Psalm 10:3), depending on context. What makes the difference between whether something is a blessing or a curse? Faith – a confidence that a blessing is defined not in terms of what something is, but in terms of who gives it. This is why when we are poor, hungry, mourning, and persecuted, we can still be blessed. Because we can still have the Lord. And there is no better blessing than Him.
Put that on Instagram.
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[1] Jessica Bennett, “They Feel ‘Blessed,’” The New York Times (5.2.2014).
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