What do you commend to the church to prepare for the cultural battle that is and the battles to come?
There is nothing new under the sun. There are, however, seasons. We forget the former when we grow comfortable in the latter. We like the season we are in, and in turn expect it to last forever. When the cold winds begin to blow, and the leaves begin their descent, we become Chicken Little not realizing we are merely entering the winter of our discontent.
Storm clouds are brewing in the post-Christian west as the broader culture has blown through its Christian capital like Congressmen at budget time. The scapegoats of the coming age are the joyful, the fruitful, the faithful. Which suggests they are coming for us. How then should we prepare?
When God’s enemies massed against God’s people there was one simple call- put behind you your idolatries, and serve the Lord. Which is just what we need to do. When we weep over the loss of our cultural position we show that we saw our privilege not as a weapon by which to press the crown rights of Jesus, but as an idol. We were cultural leaders, world shapers. Now we are becoming cultural pariahs, hated by the world we are called to preserve.
What are our idols? The need to be deemed acceptable, and normal by our neighbors. The need to be a feared voting bloc. The comforts and ease that our neighbors have enjoyed. In short, peace with the world. The good news is that God in His grace is the one destroying our idols. What looks like the kingdom of God in retreat is actually our Lord routing the idols in our camp. We do not weep at His iconoclasm, but ought instead to cheer Him on, joining Him in smashing to bits the mute witness of our folly, the blind totem of our ambitions. Weep not for Babylon the great, but look for the city whose builder and maker is God.
How then do we serve Him? The same we always have, by dying to self and visiting widows and orphans in their trouble. We serve Him by serving His body, loving the brethren. Ironically this is also how we love our enemies. As we live in the city on the hill, as our corporate lives are marked by genuine joy in our community, they might be drawn in by His Spirit. We serve Him by serving the least of these. Go into the very heart of the battle, where the wickedness of the wicked is at its most gruesome, where babies are torn limb from limb from their mothers’ wombs, at their parents’ requests. Go there with our one weapon, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Call on them to turn, to leave the darkness and come into the light. Call on Him to come, to descend from heaven on His chariot of war to defend the defenseless.
We feast, and we fast. We weep, and we cry for joy. We marry and build homes while the foundations all about us crumble. We still, as much as is possible with us, live in peace and quietness with all men, remembering all the while that in this world we will have trouble. They hated Him; they will hate us. We preach as He preached, knowing the fruit of that preaching- the death of the one so preaching.
All this we do in the midst of the war, in the heart of the storm, knowing that we have been given a peace which the world cannot understand, knowing that we are the very bride of Him whom even the winds and the waves obey. All of this we do, and we go to bed each night enjoying the sleep of the innocent. For in Him, so we are. Fight by dying. Rest by living. And be of good cheer, knowing He has already overcome the world.
Cyberspace is not only infinite, but eternal. No matter how silly, foolish, embarrassing our thoughts might be, they will be allowed to merge onto the information superhighway. But, all the off-ramps are closed. Believing the best defense is a, well, great defense, here are five things we ought to ask ourselves before posting anything on social media.
1. Ask yourself- if my father, pastor, spouse, were to read this, would they be ashamed of me?
The point is not that our calling in life is to be certain no one is ever embarrassed by us. Indeed your father, pastor, spouse, could be wrongly embarrassed, embarrassed when they ought not to be. The point is instead is to be deliberate. Don’t embarrass by mistake.
2. Ask yourself- where is this coming from?
Posts that are fueled by anger are almost never good. Posts fueled by pride never are. Both anger and pride tend to muddy our thinking, and to expose our own self-righteousness. Perhaps nothing should call us to hit delete instead of send more than those posts that combine pride and anger. That is, the really clever, snarky comeback that shows off my literary panache against someone who has made me angry is really just me smearing egg all over my face.
3. Ask yourself- have I practiced a judgment of charity toward the person I am writing about/responding to?
Practicing a judgment of charity is always a good thing. How much more so in the context of a medium that allows for virtually no non-verbal communication? Without facial expressions, tone, volume it is all too easy to misread. Emoticons will not solve this problem. Before writing a rant asking how a friend, or an enemy, could possibly believe x, why not first ask them, do you really believe x, or have I misunderstood you?
4. Ask yourself- am I seeking to serve Jesus with this post, or am I seeking my own?
There was, a few years ago, a great deal of heat on the interwebs, sparks spreading from the Strange Fire conference. The issue of continuing sign gifts is an important one. Someone is wrong on this. But if we could look into our hearts, chances are we will see less a concern that our brothers enjoy the blessings of biblical fidelity on the issue, more a concern that my feelings were hurt, or a concern that those who dare to disagree with my understanding be put in their place.
5. Ask yourself- am I casting pearls before swine?
Well that’s not a very nice question, is it? It is, however, a biblical one. Jesus Himself tells us not to do this (Matthew 7:6.) The NIT, New Interwebs Translation, of Matthew 7:6 is “Don’t feed the trolls.” Feeding trolls is bad for the food, bad for the trolls, and bad for you. Trolls are those who delight to raise our blood pressure, all the while not caring a whit for the issue at hand. To interact with them is to communicate, ironically, that you also don’t care about the issue at hand. Trolls are also tar babies. Once you engage, it’s tough to disentangle.
Okay, 6. Ask yourself- am I being a troll?
I’m not sure which is worse, self-conscious trolls, or not self-aware trolls. The former know they are being nasty, the latter don’t even know themselves.
Before you fire off a reply, please understand that I am not writing as one who has mastered these six questions. (Which reminds me, let’s make it ten- ask yourself, have I read the whole piece? Have I at least made an effort to read through the comments? Is the question I’m about to ask one that google can answer? Do I know the difference between to, too, and two, there, their and they’re? Arminian and Armenian?) I am, however, going to, by God’s grace, try harder. I hope you will too.
Bonus Suggestion– Every now and again my spiking blood pressure upon reading someone else’s wisdom on the web actually sets off a helpful alarm. I think, “Boy, I’m awful mad. Better be careful.” Though I ought to always do this, there have been times where I sat down, and asked myself this- are you able to write a reply that is both helpful and gracious? Let’s see how you can do. Those, in the end, are the posts I am most proud of.
Thesis 51 We must pray without ceasing.
One of the dangers of honoring the Reformation is that we can end up dishonoring the very principles that gave rise to it. If, for instance, we were to carry around bits of bones from Martin Luther and revere them, we would have badly missed the point. If, in like manner, our understanding of justification becomes so complicated that it takes a Ph.D. to understand it, we’ve missed the point as well. The Reformation did not happen because Martin Luther applied his prodigious intellect to a vexing intellectual problem, and came out with the right answer. It was driven more by courage than by raw intelligence, by fidelity more than finesse.
In like manner, while we want to be sound in our thinking, and while the things of God are infinite in depth, what we need if we want a new Reformation is not new information, but greater fidelity to the information we have already been given. Consider how much time and energy we devote to the question of prayer. If everything is already ordained, why pray? we ask. Does prayer really change anything? Should we pray in tongues? These are all legitimate questions. But we ought to be spending more time praying than asking questions about praying. We know this, and it is enough, we are commanded to pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians 5:17).
If we want Reformation, if we want to see the world changed, the church changed, our families changed, and ourselves changed, we need to change our habits. Reformation will come when we are obedient in the simple things. God calls us to pray without ceasing, and so we ought to do. As we obey this command we are changed, and the world around us is changed. As we obey this command we will in turn rejoice always. We will give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us (5:16-18).
One of the most potent elements of prayer is shame. That is, when we are not praying, we seem to believe that God isn’t listening. Prayer is, to our subconscious minds, opening the communication link with heaven. When we’re “on” we are less likely to dwell not only on those sins we nurture in the quiet of our minds, but we are less likely to dwell on the trivial and insignificant. Praying to the Lord of heaven helps keep our focus on heavenly things. This in turn will turn our efforts toward heavenly things. A person who prays constantly is probably not given to thinking all the time about their favorite football team. Neither are they busy trying to make sure their favorite team wins. A person in constant prayer is already working for the kingdom. But such a man is in turn far more likely to set his hands and feet to work on that which is not wood, hay and stubble.
Pray without ceasing, for God is at work in and for us, without ceasing.
One of the benefits that comes from age is learning from experience. One thing I’ve learned over the years is I don’t know as much as I think. Another thing I’ve learned is that there is often a deep disconnect between a person’s experience and a culture’s experience. Children contracting polio was a life changing experience for whole families. It did not, however, radically change the world.
At my age I have lived through the Club of Rome’s environmental apocalypticism, back when it was a global ice age we were supposed to fear. I’ve lived through the certainty that we would soon be buried under hyper-inflation. I’ve lived through the AIDs crisis. I survived the millennium bug. I have yet, however, to see the mountains melt and the stars fall from the sky.
Because there are disagreements over the dangers and spread of COVID, because governments rarely miss an opportunity that comes with a crisis, this illness is raising the specter of permanent totalitarian rule. They’re telling us if we can meet for worship, whom we can invite for Christmas dinner and if we can sing Christmas carols. It is all terribly draconian, no question.
What it is not, is new. Did you know, in the midst of the Cold War, there was a country where the national government made it a crime for any business to raise its prices, or to give an employee a raise? That this same country witnessed consumers lined up for block after block, hoping just for the chance to buy necessary goods? That, after a regime change the new head of state went so far as to forbid his comrades to heat their homes above a certain temperature? For decades this country has cut people off from educational opportunities if they don’t get vaccinated. To this day, in that same country, if you want build a shed in your backyard you must wait for a government bureaucrat to come and give his approval, which won’t happen if you don’t write a check.
That country, of course, is the land of the free and home of the brave. The intrusiveness would most certainly shock our founding fathers. We, on the other hand, have gotten used to it. Do I expect a seismic shift? Not at all. That is long behind us. Do I expect Big Brother’s mask to slip further? That I can see. He has been in power, however, across generations.
We are already deep into the bowels of institutional entropy, that law that says all institutions tend toward apostasy unless acted upon by an outside force. For the state, apostasy falls in two directions. One, the state falls to fulfill its calling, protecting life and property. We’ve had this for decades as police stand guard at public centers for the murder of the unborn. We have frequent Purge nights in our cities as the police are ordered to stand down while looting runs amuck. Two, the state intrudes where it does not belong. That camel has long since followed its nose into our tent and is now curled up in our sleeping bag, snoring to beat the band.
No, no seismic shift. Just more of the same.
There is, in a rather small subsection of the Reformed world, a rather curious conviction. Some otherwise sound folks take the true and sound notion that because God knows those whom He has not chosen, because it is a great sin against Him to not give thanks to Him, that it is wrong to speak of Him being gracious to those who were not chosen. Every time He sends them the rain, and they fail to give thanks, all that happens for those not chosen is that the thermostat in hell goes up higher still. These folks are right- He does send the rain, knowing they will not give thanks. He will heat up hell all the hotter because of it. But, contra this peculiar view, the rain is in fact grace. In fact, if it’s not grace the very conclusion we have reached, that they will receive greater judgment for their lack of thanksgiving, makes no sense. If God is in fact not being gracious toward them, why should they give thanks? You can’t have it both ways. You can deny that God is giving the reprobate unmerited (or de-merited) favor, or you can affirm the reprobate has a duty to give thanks. But you can’t do both.
There is, on the other hand, in the whole of the Reformed world, a curious lack of conviction. That is somehow we have come to forget that we too are the recipients of His grace, that we receive so much better than what we deserve, and that we have a solemn duty to joyfully give thanks. One of the ways this broader failure manifests itself is in what some might call the objection to “worm theology.” “Worm theology” is that pejorative term given to those of us who are eager to affirm the biblical reality of two things- first, we are by nature children of wrath. We are born the enemies of God. We are totally depraved. We would, in our natural state, if we could, commit deicide. Second, when we are given new hearts, and we embrace the work of Christ, as we grow in grace, moving toward our glorification, we have sin yet remaining in us.
It is true, gloriously true, that when we embrace the work of Christ on our behalf we have peace with God. The Spirit indwells us. We are made knew, and are deemed righteous by the Father who adopts us as His own children. We are promised eternal joy at His right hand, and that one day all the remnants of our sin will be washed away. We are promised that every sin, past, present, future, has already been covered by the blood of Christ. We become saints, beloved of Christ. None of which changes the truth that until our deaths, our glorifications, we still sin, often in the most grievous ways. We are still, in ourselves, worthy of His just wrath, of His displeasure.
The challenge is to keep all these truths in their proper places. Where we are in danger of doubting His tender love for us, we must needs remember that He moves us from grace to grace, that all His promises are yea and amen, that He allows us to be called His children. When, however, we are in danger of believing we deserve all the good that we receive, we need to remember our true nature, what we are apart from His grace. We should never despair of what we are because we are already His, and are being remade. We should never demand what we haven’t been given, because are still sinners, and are always already living in the very lap of His grace.
