Archive for July 2007
In a recent Associated Press story, David Crary wrote:
The percentage of Americans who consider children "very important" to a successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal, according to a sweeping new survey.
The reader would undoubtedly think that the report was about what makes for a successful marriage. Unfortunately, as Wilfred McClay notes over at First Things, that’s not really what the report is about.
Skeptical as I am of all polling data, I found it hard to believe that Pew would have constructed a survey designed to show such a thing. I looked at Pew’s website and found that the study itself bears a radically different headline: “As Marriage and Parenthood Drift Apart, Public Is Concerned about Social Impact.” Quite different. At first I thought I must be looking at an entirely separate study. But I wasn’t. Astonishingly, I found only a mention, and no discussion, of “household chores” in the Pew Executive Summary. Instead, I found bullet points such as these:
• Public Concern over the Delinking of Marriage and Parenthood.
• Marriage Remains an Ideal, Albeit a More Elusive One.
• Children Still Vital to Adult Happiness.
In other words, the AP writer, and the headline writers (who were presumably following the writer’s or AP’s lead), seriously distorted the meaning of the report. And the distortion was intentional. Why else would so much attention be given to the matter of “household chores,” which are mentioned only in passing in the full report, and never discussed or analyzed? Why would there be so little indication of what Pew’s own headline fairly shouts: that the general public itself is uneasy about many of the phenomena here being described? Why no attention to Pew’s larger concern, that what we are seeing (particularly when one connects it with high rates of out-of-wedlock births) is a potentially momentous (and historically unprecedented) separation of marriage and parenthood? Why the need to reduce this fascinating, complex, and troubling trend to a “hook” built around the tiredest of 1970s feminist mantras—sharing the chores?
Why, indeed?
In Titus 2.11–14, the Apostle Paul summarized the Christian faith in this way: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”
Christianity, you see, is about what Jesus Christ did for us in the past (salvation, redemption, and purification), what he is doing for us at present (training), and what he will do for us in the future (appearing, and so fulfilling our “blessed hope”). Much of Revelation concerns the present age in which all Christians are “training to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.” But we must never forget the future orientation of our faith either, which looks to the second coming of Jesus Christ—an event narrated in the final chapters of Revelation.
To that event we now turn our attention.
Justice at Last (Revelation 19.1–5)
Many times during the Civil Rights struggle of the 1950s and 60s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded his longsuffering followers that the arc of the universe was long but it bent toward justice. In saying this, he was stating a uniquely biblical truth.
Atheists, you see, cannot guarantee that the world will ultimately turn out right. There is not, in their philosophy, any supernatural power that can restrain nature (“red in tooth and claw”) or evil men with a will to power. For the atheist, injustice is simply part and parcel of human existence and will always be so.
Older religions—such as the Near Eastern religions that flourished in biblical times—or the Eastern religious philosophies of the present day, envision history as an eternal recurrence of the rise and fall of justice. Like the passing of seasons, these religions see a cycle of times during which justice on earth waxes and wanes. But, again, there is no guarantee that the world will one day, finally, turn out right.
Biblical religion—Judaism and Christianity—teaches that history is linear, that God is shepherding human events toward a climactic showdown at which justice will once and for all triumph over injustice, evil, and sin, so that God’s will in fact will be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” and not just in our prayers.
Revelation 19.1–5 celebrates this climactic event in exuberant song. “Hallelujah!” the song begins, which in Hebrew simply means, “Praise the Lord!” Why? Because “salvation and glory and power belong to our God.” He is the source of the healing—i.e., salvation—of the world. He has the power to make things right and thus deserves the glory for doing so. But how do we know that such things belong to God? Precisely because of his judgment of Babylon—the City of Man, the urban incarnation of society organized in opposition to God. So, John reports the crowd singing, “his judgments are true and just, for he has judged the great prostitute [Babylon] who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”
God’s judgments are not arbitrary or spiteful, nor the result of some Hatfield-McCoy blood feud. They are true and just. In other words, when God judges Babylon, it is because that city has truly “corrupted the earth” and so justly deserves punishment.
And this judgment, I hasten to add, is something we ought to celebrate. It is sometimes hard for us, who live privileged American lives, to understand why anyone could celebrate the judgment of someone else for their crimes. It seems so bloodthirsty. But what if you were the person victimized by the crime? What if you were a Jew in Nazi-era Germany or an African American in Jim Crow-era America? Often, it takes the deep suffering of injustice to make us fully understand the exuberant praise that erupts when justice is finally done. If we have not been harmed by the world, as John’s readers had, we may not understand why the judgment of the world’s corruption comes as such good news.
Karl Marx once derided Christianity as “the opiate of the people.” Christianity’s “blessed hope” in the second coming and final judgment served, he thought, to make Christians so heavenly minded that they were of no earthly good in the present-day struggle for justice. Actually, it seems, Christians who long for justice in the future are more likely to long for justice—and work to achieve it now, just as Dr. King did.
God’s universe bends toward justice, and at our present point on the arc, we ought to bend with it.
According to Leadership journal, “85 percent of churches in the United States have plateaued or declining attendance.” That’s approximately 340,000 churches. Mine is one of them.
During our heyday in the 1980s, we had two services in an auditorium that seats 760 people. Today, we have one service and an average of 100 people in attendance. We’re almost 87-percent empty.
But I’m not worried for two reasons. First, I know that God wants us grow. Second, God has provided plenty of tools to help us grow.
One of those tools is Comeback Churches by Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson. It identifies five crucial issues in revitalizing your church: leadership, vibrant faith, lay ministry, intentional evangelism, and celebrative but orderly worship.
Church revitalization requires strong, change-oriented leadership from pulpit and pew. To make a comeback, your church needs the right people in the right jobs doing the right thing.
But leadership is not everything. Members of comeback churches must also have a faith that is characterized by personal commitment to Jesus and the church’s mission, a servant attitude, and strategic prayer.
In revitalized churches, pastors have limited roles, and they invite the laity to exercise their God-given ministries. And the whole church is involved in intentional evangelism, gradually incorporating unbelievers into the community and then into the faith.
Finally, comeback churches have celebrative (but orderly) worship services. More often than not, their musical style is contemporary, and they do everything with excellence.
If, like me, you’re the pastor of a church that’s seen better days, read Comeback Churches, and discover that your church’s best days are still in front of you.
Over at First Things, William Doino reviews Saul Friedlander’s recently completed two-volume history, Nazi Germany and the Jews. While appreciating and commending Friedlander’s scholarship at a general level, Doino takes sharp exception to Friedlander’s portrait of Pope Pius XII. Against the critical portrait of Pius XII created by Friedlander in his early work, not to mention that of John Cornwell and Daniel Goldhagen, Doino paints a picture of a man who condemned Nazis for their race hatred and who helped Jews escape their clutches. In a day and age in which atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens blast Christian believers for their alleged complicity in atrocities, it is important that the record be set straight–one case at time if necessary.
Josh Moody suggests an answer here.
“Rejoice over her, O heaven,” a voice cries out, referring to the destruction of Babylon. And not only heaven, but also “you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!” As I explained earlier, Christian joy at the demise of Babylon is not a grotesque example of Schadenfreude, but rather of simple pleasure at a world turned right side up. Gone are Babylon’s seductive religion, oppressive politics, and unjustly gained wealth, never to haunt the earth again.
Have you ever noticed how noisy life is? Oh, not only the annoying noises of alarm clocks and traffic and clacking keyboards and cell phones, but the necessary noises of living organisms. Breathing, eating, talking, humming, singing, laughing, crying. The first time I ever babysat my youngest nephew, I remember spending an anxious hour standing in his doorway just to hear the reassuring monotony of his light snoring. Life is filled with noise.
Death is silent. A mighty angel announces the complete devastation of Babylon by pointing out its silence: “the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters will be heard in you no more.” Well, of course not! Such music would be inappropriate to a lament. But the angel points out other silences: no “craftsman of any craft, no “sound of the mill.” The noises of a world at work are absent from a Babylon that has been judged by God.
Perhaps the most painful element of Babylon’s destruction is found in verse 23: “the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more.” From the first day of creation to the present, wedding sounds have signaled to one and all a commitment to lifelong love and the bringing of children into the world. Marriage is a commitment to the future, a statement of faith in God. In devastated Babylon, there are no love, no children, no future, and no faith. All is silent.
In the life of the Spirit, there is a time for silent meditation on the wondrous grace of God. But because God’s grace brings life, and because such life is noisy, the making of a joyful noise to the Lord is the duty of all Christians. Our life—in all its sounds—should be a symphony of praise to a just and gracious God.
This past weekend, I preached from Ephesians 3:14-21. The title of my message was "God Is Bigger than Your Box, but Small Enough for Your Heart." You can listen online here.
Another excellent review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows over at Christianity Today. Beware of spoilers!
Like all true Harry Potter fans, I purchased Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this Saturday morning and read it straight through. It was a fantastic book, and I was going to write a review of it, until I read Thomas Hibbs review, which says what I wanted to say, only far better than I could. Here’s the opening paragraph:
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” This passage, without a reference to its scriptural source (I Corinthians 15:26), appears nearly half way through J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, the final book in her hugely popular series. Deathly Hallows marks a satisfying completion of the series, more dramatically captivating and more effectively orchestrated than any book in the series since Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. As both the title and the scriptural reference indicate, the book is preoccupied with death. While addressing our peculiarly modern obsessions, the reflection on death and its possible overcoming is hardly morbid. Ultimately, it is not even tragic; instead, it is a comic affirmation of the triumph of life over death, love over hate, and community over isolation.
Read the whole review here.
Revelation 18.9–19 contains the laments of three distinct groups of people who interacted with Babylon: “the kings of the earth,” “the merchants of the earth,” and “all shipmasters and seafaring men.” At first reading, this might seem like a strange combination of people groups to mourn Babylon’s downfall, but if we remember that Babylon is simply a codeword for Rome, then the combination begins to make sense.
The Romans, you see, were a very practical people. As they extended their empire throughout the then-known world, they imposed order on the nations they conquered. Rather than oppressing the conquered groups, however, the Romans invited them to share in the empire’s growing prosperity by means of interlocking matrices of religion, politics, and trade. Rome included in its pantheon the gods of the conquered groups, and they in turn offered sacrifices to the genius of Caesar. Various notable families vied to become the client kings of the empire. And as Rome expanded, it built roads and established safe sea-lanes so that foodstuffs and other products could be profitably traded across long distances.
Now, from a purely materialistic point of view, Rome’s wealth seemed to be quite a good thing, at least to those on the right of the social spectrum. But John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, saw the sinister spiritual side of the Pax Romana: idolatry and luxury. The empire was not interested in the truth about God. It was concerned with religion only to the extent that religion helped advance its political, social, and economic agenda. That is why it could afford to be so religiously pluralistic. When it comes to making a buck, just about any god (or combination of gods) will do—as long as everyone is happy. And Rome’s luxury was neither equitably distributed nor justly gained. In Rome, the rich got richer—or at least those who were politically well connected. And whatever wealth Rome had was built on the backs of slaves. In verses 11–13, John lists the wares the merchants traded throughout the empire. At the very bottom of the list is “slaves.” But John, good Christ-follower that he is, sees slaves not as merchandise but for what they really are, namely, “human souls” that have been oppressed.
So, Rome’s truth-indifferent religion and slave-oppressing economy invited divine judgment. The laments of the kings, merchants, and sailors share four things in common: (1) As they uttered their laments, each group stood far off to observe the destruction of Rome. They had profited from her in good times, but they avoided her in bad. They were fair-weather friends. (2) Each group wept and wailed as they watched Rome’s fall. Why? Because they were sad to see their source of wealth dry up. (3) Each uttered a double woe for the great city: “Alas, alas.” And (4) each noted the suddenness of Rome’s judgment: “in a single hour.”
How do these three laments apply to us today? By forcing us to ask three challenging questions about ourselves. First, am I a pragmatist when it comes to religion, or am I an honest seeker of the truth? Rome was the former, using whatever set of religious beliefs that best served its economic interests. Christians, needless to say, should be the latter.
Second, is my wealth justly gained and charitably used? Christians should earn their wealth through hard work at an honest trade, and should be generous toward those in need.
And finally, am I investing my time, talents, and treasure in eternally worthy causes or in investments that can be destroyed “in a single hour”? It is, of course, both right and good to make a good living and to live well in this life. But it is far better always to keep eternity in our line of sight and use our best energies for the advancement of God’s kingdom.
