What Scares Me
I am afraid. I am afraid for my children and the children of our church. I am afraid for them because they are growing up in a culture that is increasingly hostile to their faith. It is not that I fear that they will be overtly persecuted. Rather, I fear that the culture will suck the life out of their faith and seduce them away.
The world my children are growing up in is very different from the one of my childhood. That is even more true of the culture in which they will live as adults. I grew up in the South during an era where most people went to church. Even those who did not go to church were respectful of Christian values and probably had some level of biblical literacy. Those who sought to walk faithfully with Christ in my high school stood out, but not like they do today. Being a Christian did not put one on the outside. Being a Christian was perfectly acceptable, even respectable.
Today, that is not the case. It is not that Christians are persecuted, or even directly ridiculed for their faith. Rather, our faith seems totally irrelevant to the people of the world. We no longer share the same values with our culture in regard to marriage, sexual purity, or other moral issues. People actually think it is strange—not just wrong, but weird—that Christians believe that sex is reserved for marriage. I have counseled adults in dating relationships who were considering marriage. When I told them they should not sleep together until they were married, they looked at me as if I was crazy. They thought I was joking. Our values make no sense to the culture around us. This is the world in which my children live.
I am afraid that my children’s hearts will be lured away by a world that tells them that their faith is irrelevant and out-of-date. I am afraid the culture might get them. I have reasons for this fear. I have seen it happen to good kids from good families who were well-grounded in the faith. I am not a Nervous Nelly. This danger is real.
I am currently reading a book on worship by Reggie Kidd called With One Voice. Reggie sums up the problem (and even prescribes a solution) in his first chapter with these words:
Disbelief today is not a funciton of logic; it stems from a loss of imagination. When a college student is told by her professor that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John cannot be read as literal truth anymore, it's not the supporting evidence he offers that does her in. . . It's the professor's imperious tone of voice--and the fact that when our student looks around the classroom she sees no hands raised in dissent. She doesn't know anybody whose life is governed by the Gospels. . . This is what theologian David Kelsey means when he says that faith is faltering because "plausibility structures" have decayed: "authoritative community" has been in decline, and a culture of disbelief has taken over. The facts haven't changed. The things that make the Christian hope thinkable have changed. (Kidd, Reggie, With One Voice, Baker Books, pp. 22-23)
That is what scares me. My kids are growing up in a world where the plausibility structures for the faith are decaying and a culture of disbelief has taken over.
As if that were not enough, I am afraid that if the culture doesn’t get them directly, then some form of passionless Christianity will. I am afraid that they will go to church on Sundays, maybe even teach Sunday School or lead a small group, but live for the world the rest of the time. I am afraid that I will raise daughters (and that our church will raise children) that will follow Christ as long as the path is comfortable and doesn’t demand too much. This is the sort of Christianity that sings, “All to Jesus I surrender . . .as long as I can still have my DirecTV, cell phone, nice car, eat out twice a week, and it doesn’t affect my schedule or require me to move out of my comfort zone.” In other words, it is the type of Christianity that adds a little religion into an already full-life. What scares me about this danger is that I am afraid that they will learn it from me.
I know that I (we) need to make sure that our kids are well-grounded in the faith. They need a solid grasp of the gospel and Scripture, a robust Christian world and life view, and good models in their parents. Yet, even if they get all that, I am still afraid. Ultimately, what they need are my prayers. Only God can steer their hearts. So, my prayer for my kids (and, by extension, the kids of our church) is that they will have a strong, robust faith that will enable them to say to Him with joy, “Wherever you lead, I will follow. Whatever you ask, I will do.” The result will be, at the end of their lives, they can say with David Livingston (quoted by Piper);
“Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”
The world my children are growing up in is very different from the one of my childhood. That is even more true of the culture in which they will live as adults. I grew up in the South during an era where most people went to church. Even those who did not go to church were respectful of Christian values and probably had some level of biblical literacy. Those who sought to walk faithfully with Christ in my high school stood out, but not like they do today. Being a Christian did not put one on the outside. Being a Christian was perfectly acceptable, even respectable.
Today, that is not the case. It is not that Christians are persecuted, or even directly ridiculed for their faith. Rather, our faith seems totally irrelevant to the people of the world. We no longer share the same values with our culture in regard to marriage, sexual purity, or other moral issues. People actually think it is strange—not just wrong, but weird—that Christians believe that sex is reserved for marriage. I have counseled adults in dating relationships who were considering marriage. When I told them they should not sleep together until they were married, they looked at me as if I was crazy. They thought I was joking. Our values make no sense to the culture around us. This is the world in which my children live.
I am afraid that my children’s hearts will be lured away by a world that tells them that their faith is irrelevant and out-of-date. I am afraid the culture might get them. I have reasons for this fear. I have seen it happen to good kids from good families who were well-grounded in the faith. I am not a Nervous Nelly. This danger is real.
I am currently reading a book on worship by Reggie Kidd called With One Voice. Reggie sums up the problem (and even prescribes a solution) in his first chapter with these words:
Disbelief today is not a funciton of logic; it stems from a loss of imagination. When a college student is told by her professor that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John cannot be read as literal truth anymore, it's not the supporting evidence he offers that does her in. . . It's the professor's imperious tone of voice--and the fact that when our student looks around the classroom she sees no hands raised in dissent. She doesn't know anybody whose life is governed by the Gospels. . . This is what theologian David Kelsey means when he says that faith is faltering because "plausibility structures" have decayed: "authoritative community" has been in decline, and a culture of disbelief has taken over. The facts haven't changed. The things that make the Christian hope thinkable have changed. (Kidd, Reggie, With One Voice, Baker Books, pp. 22-23)
That is what scares me. My kids are growing up in a world where the plausibility structures for the faith are decaying and a culture of disbelief has taken over.
As if that were not enough, I am afraid that if the culture doesn’t get them directly, then some form of passionless Christianity will. I am afraid that they will go to church on Sundays, maybe even teach Sunday School or lead a small group, but live for the world the rest of the time. I am afraid that I will raise daughters (and that our church will raise children) that will follow Christ as long as the path is comfortable and doesn’t demand too much. This is the sort of Christianity that sings, “All to Jesus I surrender . . .as long as I can still have my DirecTV, cell phone, nice car, eat out twice a week, and it doesn’t affect my schedule or require me to move out of my comfort zone.” In other words, it is the type of Christianity that adds a little religion into an already full-life. What scares me about this danger is that I am afraid that they will learn it from me.
I know that I (we) need to make sure that our kids are well-grounded in the faith. They need a solid grasp of the gospel and Scripture, a robust Christian world and life view, and good models in their parents. Yet, even if they get all that, I am still afraid. Ultimately, what they need are my prayers. Only God can steer their hearts. So, my prayer for my kids (and, by extension, the kids of our church) is that they will have a strong, robust faith that will enable them to say to Him with joy, “Wherever you lead, I will follow. Whatever you ask, I will do.” The result will be, at the end of their lives, they can say with David Livingston (quoted by Piper);
“Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”
Labels: Christian Living, Culture
posted by Mark Bates | 9:46 AM
2 Comments:
Mark,
Very good thoughts indeed. It makes us scared as Christians to see that we've been overwhelmed. Nevertheless, I look back in time and the early Christians were just in the same if not worse situation. The Romans were pagans and Paul even warned the Corinthians (1 Cor 5:1) about their immoral ways. Many empires have come and fallen but our hope is the word of God will stand the test of time.
BTW, I attend Orangewood and still remember the great sermon you preached on Daniels about 4 summers ago when I visited.
The words of "Jesus I my Cross Have Taken" also come to mind as being rather irrelevant to our American Christianity:
Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come disaster, scorn and pain
In Thy service, pain is pleasure,
With Thy favor, loss is gain.
How many among us truly sacrifice our comfort, safety, and luxuries? Even when we do, how many of us consider that "pain" to be pleasure -- all things for the Kingdom? If we waste our lives on pluming ourselves via closets overflowing with clothes and shoes, on always using the latest gadgets and technology, on sports, entertainment, and other distractions, how can we expect our children to do differently?
We have synthesized faith in Christ with the religion of the American Dream, consumerism. Comfort and collecting, entertainment and distraction, power and pleasure -- sure, we look in God’s general direction for our ultimate salvation, but we trust in these other things to get us through the here and now. We see what brings the ungodly success, and we want to emulate it, much like Asaph in Psalm 73.
Yet, self-denial is not always call to asceticism (though I would only have respect for someone who took the path of self-denial for the right reasons by living in the ghettos at Desire Street Ministries, for instance) or for a monkish separation from the world to maintain purity. On the contrary, I believe the Lord provides good things for us to use and enjoy temperately and with pure hearts, and, contra the cenobites, we are to be in the world.
I can at least understand why we so often fall either to syncretism or asceticism-cum-withdrawl: It's just that living a holy life -- that is, the Christian life -- is so more lifestyle-disrupting, paradigm-inverting, priority-changing, and, let’s be honest, life-ruining than it is often made out to be. If things only get better (humanly speaking) when someone becomes a Christian, they probably checked their cross at the door.
We are all called to sacrifice and suffer, not ease our way through to the pearly gates as comfortably, stylishly, and amusedly as possible. As Calvin says in that passage that I apparently never get tired of citing in your blog comments, when good things are longed for too eagerly (in modern parlance, when we think we owe it ourselves to buy something, or that we "need" or deserve a bigger house or bigger TV, for example), the gifts of God are defiled by our materialism.
On the other hand, perhaps that the culture no longer shares our values can be seen as a boon: it's easier to tell who is Whose.
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