Reversing the Decay of London Undone
(Part 2)
By JONATHAN SACKS
There are large parts of Britain, Europe and even the United States where religion is a thing of the past and there is no counter-voice to the culture of buy it, spend it, wear it, flaunt it, because you're worth it. The message is that morality is passé, conscience is for wimps, and the single overriding command is "Thou shalt not be found out."
Has this happened before, and is there a way back? The answer to both questions is in the affirmative. In the 1820s, in Britain and America, a similar phenomenon occurred. People were moving from villages to cities. Families were disrupted. Young people were separated from their parents and no longer under their control. Alcohol consumption rose dramatically. So did violence. In the 1820s it was unsafe to walk the streets of London because of pickpockets by day and "unruly ruffians" by night.
What happened over the next 30 years was a massive shift in public opinion. There was an unprecedented growth in charities, friendly societies, working men's institutes, temperance groups, church and synagogue associations, Sunday schools, YMCA buildings and moral campaigns of every shape and size, fighting slavery or child labor or inhuman working conditions. The common factor was their focus on the building of moral character, self-discipline, willpower and personal responsibility. It worked. Within a single generation, crime rates came down and social order was restored. What was achieved was nothing less than the re-moralization of society—much of it driven by religion.
It was this that the young French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville saw on his visit to America in 1831. It astonished him. Tocqueville was expecting to see, in the land that had enacted the constitutional separation of church and state, a secular society. To his amazement he found something completely different: a secular state, to be sure, but also a society in which religion was, he said, the first of its political (we would now say "civil") institutions. It did three things he saw as essential. It strengthened the family. It taught morality. And it encouraged active citizenship.
Nearly 200 years later, the Tocqueville of our time, Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam, made the same discovery. Mr. Putnam is famous for his diagnosis of the breakdown of social capital he called "bowling alone." More people were going bowling, but fewer were joining teams. It was a symbol of the loss of community in an age of rampant individualism. That was the bad news.
At the end of 2010, he published the good news. Social capital, he wrote in "American Grace," has not disappeared. It is alive and well and can be found in churches, synagogues and other places of worship. Religious people, he discovered, make better neighbors and citizens. They are more likely to give to charity, volunteer, assist a homeless person, donate blood, spend time with someone feeling depressed, offer a seat to a stranger, help someone find a job and take part in local civic life. Affiliation to a religious community is the best predictor of altruism and empathy: better than education, age, income, gender or race.
Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives. Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent. Alexis de Tocqueville saw it then, Robert Putnam is saying it now. It needs religion: not as doctrine but as a shaper of behavior, a tutor in morality, an ongoing seminar in self-restraint and pursuit of the common good.
One of our great British exports to America, Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, has a fascinating passage in his recent book "Civilization," in which he asks whether the West can maintain its primacy on the world stage or if it is a civilization in decline.
He quotes a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tasked with finding out what gave the West its dominance. He said: At first we thought it was your guns. Then we thought it was your political system, democracy. Then we said it was your economic system, capitalism. But for the last 20 years, we have known that it was your religion.
It was the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave the West its restless pursuit of a tomorrow that would be better than today. The Chinese have learned the lesson. Fifty years after Chairman Mao declared China a religion-free zone, there are now more Chinese Christians than there are members of the Communist Party.
China has learned the lesson. The question is: Will we?
—Lord Sacks is the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Can an Unraveling Society Be Rescued?
Like many of you, I have a longstanding interest in our parent nation. So it was with some astonishment and with huge sadness that I observed in the media the rioting in London a couple of weeks back. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but naively thought that perhaps the British were just too sophisticated and too appreciative of their heritage for such behaviors as we saw in France two years ago. This morning I read a piece by Britain's chief rabbi on the moral disintigration of England, in which he delivers some important warnings for all of us in the West. I present it for your consideration in two parts.
Reversing the Decay of London Undone
By JONATHAN SACKS
It was the same city but it might have been a different planet. At the end of April, the eyes of the world were on London as a dashing prince and a radiant princess, William and Kate, rode in a horse-drawn carriage through streets lined with cheering crowds sharing a mood of joyous celebration. Less than four months later, the world was watching London again as hooded youths ran riot down high streets, smashing windows, looting shops, setting fire to cars, attacking passersby and throwing rocks at the police.
A priest and an imam join with the local community to pray as they begin to clean up the damage in the London borough of Hackney. In the 1800s, in Britain and America, religious and community organizations 're-moralized' those countries.
It looked like a scene from Cairo, Tunis or Tripoli earlier in the year. But this was no political uprising. People were breaking into shops and making off with clothes, shoes, electronic gadgets and flat-screen televisions. It was, as someone later called it, shopping with violence, consumerism run rampage, an explosion of lawlessness made possible by mobile phones as gangs discovered that by text messaging they could bring crowds onto the streets where they became, for a while, impossible to control.
Let us be clear. The numbers involved were relatively small. The lawkeepers vastly outnumbered the lawbreakers. People stepped in to rescue those attacked. Crowds appeared each morning to clear up the wreckage of the night before. Britain remains a decent, good and gracious society.
But the damage was real. Businesses were destroyed. People lost their homes. A 68-year-old man, attacked by a mob while trying to put out a fire, died. Three young men in Birmingham were killed in a hit-and-run attack. While it lasted, it was very frightening. It took everyone by surprise. It should not have.
Britain is the latest country to pay the price for what happened half a century ago in one of the most radical transformations in the history of the West. In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. The Judeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you. The Ten Commandments were rewritten as the Ten Creative Suggestions. Or as Allan Bloom put it in "The Closing of the American Mind": "I am the Lord Your God: Relax!"
You do not have to be a Victorian sentimentalist to realize that something has gone badly wrong since. In Britain today, more than 40% of children are born outside marriage. This has led to new forms of child poverty that serious government spending has failed to cure. In 2007, a Unicef report found that Britain's children are the unhappiest in the world. The 2011 riots are one result. But there are others.
Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women—91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data—is practically absurd and morally indefensible. By the time boys are in their early teens they are physically stronger than their mothers. Having no fathers, they are socialized in gangs. No one can control them: not parents, teachers or even the local police. There are areas in Britain's major cities that have been no-go areas for years. Crime is rampant. So are drugs. It is a recipe for violence and despair.
That is the problem. At first it seemed as if the riots were almost random with no basis in class or race. As the perpetrators have come to court, a different picture has emerged. Of those charged, 60% had a previous criminal record, and 25% belonged to gangs.
This was the bursting of a dam of potential trouble that has been building for years. The collapse of families and communities leaves in its wake unsocialized young people, deprived of parental care, who on average—and yes, there are exceptions—do worse than their peers at school, are more susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse, less likely to find stable employment and more likely to land up in jail.
The truth is, it is not their fault. They are the victims of the tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement.
What has happened morally in the West is what has happened financially as well. Good and otherwise sensible people were persuaded that you could spend more than you earn, incur debt at unprecedented levels and consume the world's resources without thinking about who will pay the bill and when. It has been the culture of the free lunch in a world where there are no free lunches.
We have been spending our moral capital with the same reckless abandon that we have been spending our financial capital. Freud was right. The precondition of civilization is the ability to defer the gratification of instinct. And even Freud, who disliked religion and called it the "obsessional neurosis" of humankind, realized that it was the Judeo-Christian ethic that trained people to control their appetites.
END OF PART I
Reversing the Decay of London Undone
By JONATHAN SACKS
It was the same city but it might have been a different planet. At the end of April, the eyes of the world were on London as a dashing prince and a radiant princess, William and Kate, rode in a horse-drawn carriage through streets lined with cheering crowds sharing a mood of joyous celebration. Less than four months later, the world was watching London again as hooded youths ran riot down high streets, smashing windows, looting shops, setting fire to cars, attacking passersby and throwing rocks at the police.
A priest and an imam join with the local community to pray as they begin to clean up the damage in the London borough of Hackney. In the 1800s, in Britain and America, religious and community organizations 're-moralized' those countries.
It looked like a scene from Cairo, Tunis or Tripoli earlier in the year. But this was no political uprising. People were breaking into shops and making off with clothes, shoes, electronic gadgets and flat-screen televisions. It was, as someone later called it, shopping with violence, consumerism run rampage, an explosion of lawlessness made possible by mobile phones as gangs discovered that by text messaging they could bring crowds onto the streets where they became, for a while, impossible to control.
Let us be clear. The numbers involved were relatively small. The lawkeepers vastly outnumbered the lawbreakers. People stepped in to rescue those attacked. Crowds appeared each morning to clear up the wreckage of the night before. Britain remains a decent, good and gracious society.
But the damage was real. Businesses were destroyed. People lost their homes. A 68-year-old man, attacked by a mob while trying to put out a fire, died. Three young men in Birmingham were killed in a hit-and-run attack. While it lasted, it was very frightening. It took everyone by surprise. It should not have.
Britain is the latest country to pay the price for what happened half a century ago in one of the most radical transformations in the history of the West. In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. The Judeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you. The Ten Commandments were rewritten as the Ten Creative Suggestions. Or as Allan Bloom put it in "The Closing of the American Mind": "I am the Lord Your God: Relax!"
You do not have to be a Victorian sentimentalist to realize that something has gone badly wrong since. In Britain today, more than 40% of children are born outside marriage. This has led to new forms of child poverty that serious government spending has failed to cure. In 2007, a Unicef report found that Britain's children are the unhappiest in the world. The 2011 riots are one result. But there are others.
Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women—91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data—is practically absurd and morally indefensible. By the time boys are in their early teens they are physically stronger than their mothers. Having no fathers, they are socialized in gangs. No one can control them: not parents, teachers or even the local police. There are areas in Britain's major cities that have been no-go areas for years. Crime is rampant. So are drugs. It is a recipe for violence and despair.
That is the problem. At first it seemed as if the riots were almost random with no basis in class or race. As the perpetrators have come to court, a different picture has emerged. Of those charged, 60% had a previous criminal record, and 25% belonged to gangs.
This was the bursting of a dam of potential trouble that has been building for years. The collapse of families and communities leaves in its wake unsocialized young people, deprived of parental care, who on average—and yes, there are exceptions—do worse than their peers at school, are more susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse, less likely to find stable employment and more likely to land up in jail.
The truth is, it is not their fault. They are the victims of the tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement.
What has happened morally in the West is what has happened financially as well. Good and otherwise sensible people were persuaded that you could spend more than you earn, incur debt at unprecedented levels and consume the world's resources without thinking about who will pay the bill and when. It has been the culture of the free lunch in a world where there are no free lunches.
We have been spending our moral capital with the same reckless abandon that we have been spending our financial capital. Freud was right. The precondition of civilization is the ability to defer the gratification of instinct. And even Freud, who disliked religion and called it the "obsessional neurosis" of humankind, realized that it was the Judeo-Christian ethic that trained people to control their appetites.
END OF PART I
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
East Coast Earthquake: A Minor Shakeup with a Divine Message?
About 1:50 p.m. yesterday, I felt and heard a tremor run through the floor and walls of our house. At first I thought it was someone walking heavily on our less-than-rock-solid floor joists. Then, a few seconds later, I felt it again, this time longer and more intense. After a few more seconds passed, there was an unmistakeable and more powerful shaking which made me realize that, here in sleepy central Pennsylvania, we were indeed playing host to an uninvited natural guest.
As news of the East Coast Earthquake of 2011 spread yesterday, as friends, relatives and co-workers jammed the cell phone networks, it became obvious, to everyone's relief, that this seismic event, though widespread, was relatively mild as earthquakes go. Still, it gave news commentators something to talk about for a while, though by last evening they - and talk show hosts as well - were making jokes about it. But for those who have never experienced the heaving of the earth beneath their feet, it was a pretty scary experience. California folks are used to such things; here on the East Coast, not so much.
But today, the trains and planes, delayed yesterday for safety checks, are back on schedule, and most East-Coasters have moved on with their lives. Yet, upon closer examination, it is clear that there was indeed some residual damage, even in our nation's capital, where things are supposedly built to withstand such events. I find it curious that there was, through this relatively mild movement of tectonic plates, significant damage to two of our most treasured national symbols: the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral. And I am left wondering if God, who claims sovereign control over all creation, might have been sending us a message. If so, what message would it be that He is conveying, and was there a reason He might have put His divine crosshairs on these two symbols of things which, in our past, have always been best about America?
As a student of history, I believe I am on safe ground in saying that America has always stood for freedom. And who epitomizes our national struggle for independence more than our "founding father," for whom the 555-foot obelisk on the National Mall is named? And what place - at least in concept - more eloquently communicates by its very existence our national declaration that our freedom is both limited under the authority of our Divine Creator and Judge, and that it is also a gift from His hand, upon Whom we depend for our past, present and future success as a witness to the world of the benefits of that freedom?
Yet, lately we seem to be increasingly content to go our own way, even trivializing the essentiality of religious faith in general, and of our Christian heritage in particular. The public mention of Jesus is out of vogue, and people who would hold to biblical principles are increasingly labeled as "haters." The historic and God-ordained nature of one-man, one-woman marriages is routinely challenged, and God's notion of "family" has been so distorted in our national psyche as to allow that virtually "anything goes" in domestic arrangements. We have devalued human life - the centerpiece of His creation - to the extent that as of this posting, the blood of nearly 50 million helpless, unborn human beings is on our collective, if not individual, hands, even as we spend millions in precious dollars to preserve various animal species from encroachment. It seems clear that not only have we failed to "love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our minds, with all our souls, and with all our strength," but we have outright ignored - if not mocked - His prescription for living in community, and forgotten His just place in the founding and sustaining of this great nation.
If we are to put any confidence in the Bible as the expression of God's intentions for humankind, the Almighty cannot be pleased with all this. So when the earth shakes the East Coast a little, and our national symbols corrupted as a consequence, I can't help but wonder if perhaps our Sovereign is rather gently but firmly reminding us that we are not self-sufficient, that His laws are not to be ignored, nor His people oppressed, lest He shake us more violently, or even reduce us once again to servitude and humiliation. He has done it to nations in the past. Yesterday He made it clear that He can do it at will.
Just some musings this morning. I welcome your thoughts.
As news of the East Coast Earthquake of 2011 spread yesterday, as friends, relatives and co-workers jammed the cell phone networks, it became obvious, to everyone's relief, that this seismic event, though widespread, was relatively mild as earthquakes go. Still, it gave news commentators something to talk about for a while, though by last evening they - and talk show hosts as well - were making jokes about it. But for those who have never experienced the heaving of the earth beneath their feet, it was a pretty scary experience. California folks are used to such things; here on the East Coast, not so much.
But today, the trains and planes, delayed yesterday for safety checks, are back on schedule, and most East-Coasters have moved on with their lives. Yet, upon closer examination, it is clear that there was indeed some residual damage, even in our nation's capital, where things are supposedly built to withstand such events. I find it curious that there was, through this relatively mild movement of tectonic plates, significant damage to two of our most treasured national symbols: the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral. And I am left wondering if God, who claims sovereign control over all creation, might have been sending us a message. If so, what message would it be that He is conveying, and was there a reason He might have put His divine crosshairs on these two symbols of things which, in our past, have always been best about America?
As a student of history, I believe I am on safe ground in saying that America has always stood for freedom. And who epitomizes our national struggle for independence more than our "founding father," for whom the 555-foot obelisk on the National Mall is named? And what place - at least in concept - more eloquently communicates by its very existence our national declaration that our freedom is both limited under the authority of our Divine Creator and Judge, and that it is also a gift from His hand, upon Whom we depend for our past, present and future success as a witness to the world of the benefits of that freedom?
Yet, lately we seem to be increasingly content to go our own way, even trivializing the essentiality of religious faith in general, and of our Christian heritage in particular. The public mention of Jesus is out of vogue, and people who would hold to biblical principles are increasingly labeled as "haters." The historic and God-ordained nature of one-man, one-woman marriages is routinely challenged, and God's notion of "family" has been so distorted in our national psyche as to allow that virtually "anything goes" in domestic arrangements. We have devalued human life - the centerpiece of His creation - to the extent that as of this posting, the blood of nearly 50 million helpless, unborn human beings is on our collective, if not individual, hands, even as we spend millions in precious dollars to preserve various animal species from encroachment. It seems clear that not only have we failed to "love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our minds, with all our souls, and with all our strength," but we have outright ignored - if not mocked - His prescription for living in community, and forgotten His just place in the founding and sustaining of this great nation.
If we are to put any confidence in the Bible as the expression of God's intentions for humankind, the Almighty cannot be pleased with all this. So when the earth shakes the East Coast a little, and our national symbols corrupted as a consequence, I can't help but wonder if perhaps our Sovereign is rather gently but firmly reminding us that we are not self-sufficient, that His laws are not to be ignored, nor His people oppressed, lest He shake us more violently, or even reduce us once again to servitude and humiliation. He has done it to nations in the past. Yesterday He made it clear that He can do it at will.
Just some musings this morning. I welcome your thoughts.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Kiss the Rod?
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
He rescues those whose spirits are crushed."
Ps. 34:18
It occurs to me that those moments when we grieve the most are propitious moments, because in those times of pain, God in His great care moves toward us in ways most personal and intimate. So there is in our grief great opportunity to experience the Lord in ways we cannot in times of earthly comfort. We have only to look to Him and pour out the contents of our broken hearts, and He will fly to our aid.
The previous verse says:
"The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.
He rescues them from all their troubles."
Though He wound us, yet He as quickly comforts, like a father who lovingly disciplines his child. Hebrews 12:10 says that "he disciplines us" with this in mind, "that we may share his [very] holiness".
In earlier times, after being disciplined by the schoolmaster, children were required to "kiss the rod" in order, through discipline, to learn appreciation for even the harsher aspects of instruction. Though outward conformity does not guarantee inward submission, the hope was that wills would be broken and hearts surrendered.
Moving toward the comfort of an afflicting heavenly Father might be something like that - an act of faith which brings the reward of greater intimacy with the One who only desires our very best.
He rescues those whose spirits are crushed."
Ps. 34:18
It occurs to me that those moments when we grieve the most are propitious moments, because in those times of pain, God in His great care moves toward us in ways most personal and intimate. So there is in our grief great opportunity to experience the Lord in ways we cannot in times of earthly comfort. We have only to look to Him and pour out the contents of our broken hearts, and He will fly to our aid.
The previous verse says:
"The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.
He rescues them from all their troubles."
Though He wound us, yet He as quickly comforts, like a father who lovingly disciplines his child. Hebrews 12:10 says that "he disciplines us" with this in mind, "that we may share his [very] holiness".
In earlier times, after being disciplined by the schoolmaster, children were required to "kiss the rod" in order, through discipline, to learn appreciation for even the harsher aspects of instruction. Though outward conformity does not guarantee inward submission, the hope was that wills would be broken and hearts surrendered.
Moving toward the comfort of an afflicting heavenly Father might be something like that - an act of faith which brings the reward of greater intimacy with the One who only desires our very best.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The Gift of Work
My good friend, Bill, is an avid reader. One of those rare guys who finds really good stuff to read, not necessarily what's trendy, but what matters. Lately he's been reading a good book on the subject of work, entitled, "Work: The Meaning of your Life," by Lester DeKoster.
Bill shared with me one thought-provoking tidbit from the book that I thought I'd pass along:
"Work connects us with people and gives us opportunity for relationships, allowing us to come alongside others and help them discover who Jesus is, and learn to follow Him."
I couldn't agree more. Too often we view work as something we have to do in order to do the other things we want to do. Seems to me to be a pretty sad way to spend the bulk of one's waking hours. The Bible teaches us that this is just not so. Rather, the Bible presents work as a gift from God, given to mankind before Adam and Eve blew it in the garden. So the idea of work is pre-Fall, pre-judgement, and pre-curse. Work actually gives us the opportunity to operate within our design as beings created in God's own image.
For people of faith, work provides opportunity for creativity, honest labor, initiative, enterprise and satisfaction. Granted, we have all had bosses who were, shall we say, trying, but God can and does even use less-than-ideal bosses to mold and shape our responses, and to mature us. And sometimes He uses these people to redirect us toward something else He has in mind for us to do.
But most of all, work provides us opportunity to be, as Jesus said, "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." As people get to know us and observe our lives, those of us who claim to follow Jesus should demonstrate a winsomeness - as He did - that causes people to reexamine their own lives, their own perspectives, and their own relationships - or not - with their Creator. This, and the events that normally attend life - births, deaths, stresses, strains, relational issues, raising kids - provide opportunties for Christians to provide loving friendship and to share a bit of relevant truth.
Work is not a curse, but a blessing - not something we have to do, but something we get to do, for the glory of the One who gave it to us as a gift.
Bill shared with me one thought-provoking tidbit from the book that I thought I'd pass along:
"Work connects us with people and gives us opportunity for relationships, allowing us to come alongside others and help them discover who Jesus is, and learn to follow Him."
I couldn't agree more. Too often we view work as something we have to do in order to do the other things we want to do. Seems to me to be a pretty sad way to spend the bulk of one's waking hours. The Bible teaches us that this is just not so. Rather, the Bible presents work as a gift from God, given to mankind before Adam and Eve blew it in the garden. So the idea of work is pre-Fall, pre-judgement, and pre-curse. Work actually gives us the opportunity to operate within our design as beings created in God's own image.
For people of faith, work provides opportunity for creativity, honest labor, initiative, enterprise and satisfaction. Granted, we have all had bosses who were, shall we say, trying, but God can and does even use less-than-ideal bosses to mold and shape our responses, and to mature us. And sometimes He uses these people to redirect us toward something else He has in mind for us to do.
But most of all, work provides us opportunity to be, as Jesus said, "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." As people get to know us and observe our lives, those of us who claim to follow Jesus should demonstrate a winsomeness - as He did - that causes people to reexamine their own lives, their own perspectives, and their own relationships - or not - with their Creator. This, and the events that normally attend life - births, deaths, stresses, strains, relational issues, raising kids - provide opportunties for Christians to provide loving friendship and to share a bit of relevant truth.
Work is not a curse, but a blessing - not something we have to do, but something we get to do, for the glory of the One who gave it to us as a gift.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Productive Thought Or Navel-Gazing?
So now I have a Kindle. I thought for a long time that for reading to be authentic, it had to be from an actual, paper and ink book. Never thought I'd succomb to the notion of "digital ink." Then I picked up my daughter's new contraption from Amazon.com, and, sure enough, got intrigued by its light weight and enormous capacity. Since I travel a lot, the conveniences were obvious. So, when my birthday rolled around, guess what?
One of the cool things about the Kindle is all the free books you can download. However, since these books are digital, their length is not readily apparent. So, without much thought, I eagerly downloaded several classics, including Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, which I began reading. And reading. And reading...
Didn't realize this book in print is, like, 1250 pages long! And, sure enough, I've got the unabridged version! So now, Les Mis has turned into a Summer project. Having never read it before (no, it was not required of me anywhere along the way to a doctorate), I am amazed at the grand social commentary it contains. Hugo had to be one of the most educated guys on the planet by the time he wrote this book! His knowledge of world and French history, literature, culture, politics and sociology is downright astonishing. So is his vocabulary. Every page contains some word of which I've never really learned the definition, or a word I've simply never known was in the English lexicon. So I am very thankful for the built-in dictionary that comes with the Kindle. All you have to do is put the cursor on a word, and voila! You have the definition. Pretty sweet! (Rather, indispensable for Les Mis.)
Occasionally I actually understand a little of what Hugo is saying, and once in a while I find something that really sticks with me. Today, I came to VH's comparison of "thought" versus "reverie." Thought, he says, is mental work; reverie is more like day-dreaming. OK, I get that. There's a difference between mentally working out a plan, or a philosophy, a sermon, or even a blog post, versus just watching clouds go by, pondering fanciful thoughts of world peace, vanquishing imaginary foes, or vainly pursuing the lost loves of one's youth.
VH says that thought is productive, while continued reverie tends to be destructive. Thought is actual human labor, that which sets us apart from the animals, and which tends toward a purpose. Reverie is more instinctive, more like self-centered navel-gazing. It is thought that leads to progress, whether progress in personal growth, or progress of a society. Reverie, on the other hand, accomplishes nothing but to give one permission to be personally preoccupied, narcissistically obsessed, inclining toward the imaginary and the sensual. A profound difference, a critical distinction sadly lacking among a large portion of today's American society, beginning with today's American youth.
"Now there is something to think about," says I to me. Productively, I hope!
One of the cool things about the Kindle is all the free books you can download. However, since these books are digital, their length is not readily apparent. So, without much thought, I eagerly downloaded several classics, including Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, which I began reading. And reading. And reading...
Didn't realize this book in print is, like, 1250 pages long! And, sure enough, I've got the unabridged version! So now, Les Mis has turned into a Summer project. Having never read it before (no, it was not required of me anywhere along the way to a doctorate), I am amazed at the grand social commentary it contains. Hugo had to be one of the most educated guys on the planet by the time he wrote this book! His knowledge of world and French history, literature, culture, politics and sociology is downright astonishing. So is his vocabulary. Every page contains some word of which I've never really learned the definition, or a word I've simply never known was in the English lexicon. So I am very thankful for the built-in dictionary that comes with the Kindle. All you have to do is put the cursor on a word, and voila! You have the definition. Pretty sweet! (Rather, indispensable for Les Mis.)
Occasionally I actually understand a little of what Hugo is saying, and once in a while I find something that really sticks with me. Today, I came to VH's comparison of "thought" versus "reverie." Thought, he says, is mental work; reverie is more like day-dreaming. OK, I get that. There's a difference between mentally working out a plan, or a philosophy, a sermon, or even a blog post, versus just watching clouds go by, pondering fanciful thoughts of world peace, vanquishing imaginary foes, or vainly pursuing the lost loves of one's youth.
VH says that thought is productive, while continued reverie tends to be destructive. Thought is actual human labor, that which sets us apart from the animals, and which tends toward a purpose. Reverie is more instinctive, more like self-centered navel-gazing. It is thought that leads to progress, whether progress in personal growth, or progress of a society. Reverie, on the other hand, accomplishes nothing but to give one permission to be personally preoccupied, narcissistically obsessed, inclining toward the imaginary and the sensual. A profound difference, a critical distinction sadly lacking among a large portion of today's American society, beginning with today's American youth.
"Now there is something to think about," says I to me. Productively, I hope!
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Mission as an Idol???
The following article by Skye Jethani is so compelling that I wanted to post it here in its (lengthy) entirety. Kind of wish I'd written it! Please think it over.
Larry
Larry
“There is a first-rate commitment to a second-rate mission.” That is what Roger, a leader in global church planting, said as he looked at the rock climbers ascending a cliff in the Alps. Many of us called into ministry feel the same way. Rather than giving our lives to climbing a rock, building a business, or amassing a fortune, we are committed to what really matters; a first-rate mission--advancing the Gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ.
But what if we’re wrong?
Roger spent decades serving Christ and planting churches on four continents. But after reflecting on his labor for the kingdom of God, his confession surprised many of us. “I’ve given most of my energy to a second-rate mission as well,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. Church planting is great. But someday that mission will end. My first calling is to live with God. That must be my first commitment.”
What Roger articulated was a temptation that many in ministry face. To put it simply, many church leaders unknowingly replace the transcendent vitality of a life with God for the ego satisfaction they derive from a life for God. Before exploring how this shift occurs in church leaders, let me take a step or two backwards and explain how I have seen it within the Christian college students I’ve worked with in recent years.
Is impact everything?
The students I meet with often worry about what awaits them after graduation. This is a reasonable concern for any young adult, but for many of them the worry extends far beyond finding a job with benefits. They fixate, and some obsess, about “making a difference in the world.” They fear living lives of insignificance. They worry about not achieving the right things, or not enough of the right things. Behind all of this is the belief that their value is determined by what they achieve. I’ve learned that when a student asks me, “What should I do with my life?” what he or she really wants to know is, “How can I prove that I am valuable?”
When we come to believe that our faith is primarily about what we can do for God in the world, it is like throwing gasoline on our fear of insignificance. The resulting fire may be presented to others as a godly ambition, a holy desire to see God’s mission advance--the kind of drive evident in the Apostle Paul’s life. But when these flames are fueled by fear they reveal none of the peace, joy, or love displayed by Paul. Instead the relentless drive to prove our worth can quickly become destructive.
Sometimes the people who fear insignificance the most are driven to accomplish the greatest things. As a result they are highly praised within Christian communities for their good works which temporarily soothes their fear until the next goal can be achieved. But there is a dark side to this drivenness. Gordon MacDonald calls it “missionalism.” It is “the belief that the worth of one’s life is determined by the achievement of a grand objective.” He continues:
Missionalism starts slowly and gains a foothold in the leader's attitude. Before long the mission controls almost everything: time, relationships, health, spiritual depth, ethics, and convictions. In advanced stages, missionalism means doing whatever it takes to solve the problem. In its worst iteration, the end always justifies the means. The family goes; health is sacrificed; integrity is jeopardized; God-connection is limited.[1]
What I have witnessed in the lives of many college students is the early symptoms of missionalism. The virus had been introduced to them in childhood and incubated by well-intentioned churches, ministries, schools, and the wider evangelical subculture. And with graduation looming the students were feeling the pressure. It was, after all, their first opportunity to actually prove their worth through achievement.
When meeting with or counseling a struggling church leader, one of the questions I’ll ask to diagnose whether missionalism is present is: “Assuming you’re not engaged in some kind of disqualifying sin, why not?” The answer I often hear, the answer most posters have been conditioned to say, is: “I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my ministry.” That response often reveals where a leader’s true devotion is. Sadly I rarely hear a pastor say, “I wouldn’t want anything to disrupt my communion with God.” So few of us have been given a vision of a life with Christ, and instead we seek to fill the void with a vision for ministry--a vision of a life for Christ.
Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, was raised in a “life for God” environment. His experience reveals how the fear of being insignificant is implanted into young people. He said the heroes his community celebrated were “the Rockefellers of the Christian world;” those who were enterprising, effective, and who made a huge impact for God. They launched massive ministries or transformed whole nations. This led Vischer to conclude that impact was everything. “God would never call us from greater impact to lesser impact!,” he wrote. “How many kids did you invite to Sunday? How many souls have you won? How big is your church? How many people will be in heaven because of your efforts? Impact, man!”[2]
But after losing his company in 2003, Vischer began to question the validity of the “life for God” values he had inherited and which had driven his early career.
“The more I dove into Scripture, the more I realized I had been deluded. I had grown up drinking a dangerous cocktail—a mix of the gospel, the Protestant work ethic, and the American dream…. The Savior I was following seemed, in hindsight, equal parts Jesus, Ben Franklin, and Henry Ford. My eternal value was rooted in what I could accomplish”[3]
A professional crisis made Vischer pause and reexamine his posture with God, but for others the nagging discontent of a life lived for God manifests much more slowly. Consider what one pastor in his late 30s wrote: "The church is growing, and there's excitement everywhere. But personally I feel less and less good about what I'm doing. I'm restless and tired. I ask myself how long I can keep this all up. Why is my touch with God so limited? Why am I feeling guilty about where my marriage is? When did this stop being fun?"[4] This leader is not alone. Studies show that approximately 1,500 pastors leave the ministry every month due to conflict, burnout, or moral failure.[5] Others have shown how ministry rooted relentless achievement for God actually contributes to addictive behaviors. When the accolades that give pastors a sense of significance cease or never come at all, some begin to nurse secret pleasures on the side to numb their pain.
When church leaders function from this understanding of the Christian life, they invariably transfer their burden and fears to those in the pews. If a pastor’s sense of worth is linked to the impact of his or her ministry, guess what believers under that pastor’s care are told is most important? And so a new generation of people who believe their value is linked to their accomplishments is birthed. If the cycle continues long enough an institutional memory is created in which the value of achievement for God is no longer questioned. Leaders may be burning out at a rate of 1,500 per month, young people may be riddled with anxiety, and divorce rates in the church may be rising and families falling apart, but no one stops. No one asks whether this is really what God intended the Christian life to be. No one asks, at least out loud, because that might slow things down. Remember, the work must go on. Impact, man!
Mission is good, not ultimate.
You may be thinking, “But we are called to do things for God. And what’s the alternative--continuing to allow the people in our churches to be self-consumed Christians seeking only their own comfort?” That is a very fair concern. And I completely concur with the consumer posture that is choking much of the modern church both in North American and increasingly around the globe.
But the prescribed solution I hear in many ministry settings is to transform people from consumer Christians into activist Christians. The exact direction of the activism may depend on one’s theological and ecclesiological orientation. For traditional evangelicals it’s all about evangelism--getting believers to share their faith, give to overseas missions, and grow the church. For many younger evangelicals it may focus compassion and justice--digging wells and eradicating poverty. But what the traditional and younger evangelicals agree upon is that we are to live our lives for God by accomplishing his mission however we may define it.
The “life for God” view makes mission the irreducible center of the Christian life. And everything and everyone gets defined by some great goal understood to be initiated by God and carried forward by us. An individual is either on the mission, the object of the mission, an obstacle to the mission, an aid to the mission, or a fat Christian who should be on the mission.
Please don’t think I am trying to dismiss the importance of the missio dei or the church’s part within it. Like other church leaders, I greatly desire to see more Christians hear God’s call and engage in the good and life-saving work he has given us. And I am incredibly grateful for my friends in ministry who have awakened the church to the theological and practical necessity of mission in our age. But as Tim Keller has deftly observed, “An idol is a good thing made into an ultimate thing.” The temptation within activist streams of Christianity is to put the good mission of God into the place God alone should occupy. The irony is that in our desire to draw people away from the selfishness of consumer Christianity, we may simply be replacing one idol with another. This is the great danger of endlessly extolling the importance of living for God--it put can place God’s mission ahead of God himself. Paul, the most celebrated missionary in history, did not make this mistake. He understood that his calling, to be a messenger to the gentiles, was not the same as his treasure, to be united with Christ. His communion with Christ rooted and preceded his work for him.
Few passages of Scripture illustrate our present dilemma better than the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. If you recall, the young son did not value a relationship with his father but only his father’s wealth--a poignant example of the consumer Christian. He took what his father gave him, left home, and wasted the gifts on fast living. Eventually he was penniless and desperate. But when the son returned home to seek his father’s mercy and a job as a servant, he was astonished to find his father overjoyed--running to embrace him with open arms.
But that’s only half of the story. The father also had an older son who was very different than his swinging sibling. He was reliable, obedient, and lived to do his father’s bidding. But when the older son heard that his wayward brother had returned, and that his father had welcomed him and was throwing a party, he became incensed. In fact, when he heard the music and dancing in the house he refused to join the celebration. Instead he held his own pity party out in the field.
True to his character, when the father discovered that his eldest son was not home he went out to find him. There the father begged the older son to come to the party. But the son was furious. “Look, all these years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15:29-30).
Notice where the older son roots his significance: “All these years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command.” The older son lived for his father. And for his service he expected a reward. In this way he really is not that different from the younger son. Neither boy was particularly interested in a relationship with the father, instead both were focused on what they might get from him. The younger son simply took what he desired while the older son, being a more patient and self-disciplined person, worked for it. Their methods were night and day, but both sons desired the same thing and in neither case was it the father. In other words, both sons sought to use their father. Both were jerks, one just happened to be of a more socially-acceptable variety.
Jesus told this parable at a gathering with Pharisees and scribes--very devoted religious leaders; men who drew a great deal of significance from their service for God. Was Jesus trying to say to them that there is something wrong with serving God or faithful obedience? Of course not. The problem comes when we find our significance and worth in it. Jesus is not diminishing the older son’s obedience, just as he is not endorsing the younger son’s immorality. Rather he is showing that both a “life from God” (the younger son) and a “life for God” (the older son) fail to capture what God truly desires for his people. Pouring our lives into a mission that we believe pleases God is not the center of the Christian life. It is not what is going to remove our fears or unbind our captivity to sin. In order to discover what God cares about most, we must look more closely at the father’s response to the older son in Jesus’ story.
“Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this brother of yours was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:31-32).
What brought the father joy was not the older son’s service, but simply his presence--having his son with him. This is what the father cares about most, not his property or which son receives more of it. While the sons are fixated on the father’s wealth, the father is fixated on his sons. This is what they both failed to understand, and it is what both Christian consumerism and Christian activism fail to grasp. God’s gifts are a blessing and his work is important, but neither can or should replace God himself as our focus.
Like the younger son, believers in our churches often build their identity around what they receive from God. Or like the older son we find our value in how we serve God. And a great deal of effort is expended in faith communities trying to transform people from younger sons into older sons. But this is a fool’s errand. Because what mattered most to the father was neither the younger son’s disobedience nor the older son’s obedience, but having his sons with him. And so it is with our Heavenly Father. Reversing the rebellion of Eden and restoring what was lost can only be accomplished when we learn that at the center of God’s heart is having his children with him.
While a vision for serving God is needed, and the desperate condition of our world cannot be ignored, there is a higher calling that is going unanswered in many Christian communities. As shepherds of God’s people, we must not allow our fears of insignificance to drive us into an unrelenting pursuit of church growth, cultural impact, or missional activism. Instead, we must model for our people a first-class commitment to a first-class purpose--living in perpetual communion with God himself. As we embrace the call to live with God, only then will we be capable of illuminating such a life for our people.
But what if we’re wrong?
Roger spent decades serving Christ and planting churches on four continents. But after reflecting on his labor for the kingdom of God, his confession surprised many of us. “I’ve given most of my energy to a second-rate mission as well,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. Church planting is great. But someday that mission will end. My first calling is to live with God. That must be my first commitment.”
What Roger articulated was a temptation that many in ministry face. To put it simply, many church leaders unknowingly replace the transcendent vitality of a life with God for the ego satisfaction they derive from a life for God. Before exploring how this shift occurs in church leaders, let me take a step or two backwards and explain how I have seen it within the Christian college students I’ve worked with in recent years.
Is impact everything?
The students I meet with often worry about what awaits them after graduation. This is a reasonable concern for any young adult, but for many of them the worry extends far beyond finding a job with benefits. They fixate, and some obsess, about “making a difference in the world.” They fear living lives of insignificance. They worry about not achieving the right things, or not enough of the right things. Behind all of this is the belief that their value is determined by what they achieve. I’ve learned that when a student asks me, “What should I do with my life?” what he or she really wants to know is, “How can I prove that I am valuable?”
When we come to believe that our faith is primarily about what we can do for God in the world, it is like throwing gasoline on our fear of insignificance. The resulting fire may be presented to others as a godly ambition, a holy desire to see God’s mission advance--the kind of drive evident in the Apostle Paul’s life. But when these flames are fueled by fear they reveal none of the peace, joy, or love displayed by Paul. Instead the relentless drive to prove our worth can quickly become destructive.
Sometimes the people who fear insignificance the most are driven to accomplish the greatest things. As a result they are highly praised within Christian communities for their good works which temporarily soothes their fear until the next goal can be achieved. But there is a dark side to this drivenness. Gordon MacDonald calls it “missionalism.” It is “the belief that the worth of one’s life is determined by the achievement of a grand objective.” He continues:
Missionalism starts slowly and gains a foothold in the leader's attitude. Before long the mission controls almost everything: time, relationships, health, spiritual depth, ethics, and convictions. In advanced stages, missionalism means doing whatever it takes to solve the problem. In its worst iteration, the end always justifies the means. The family goes; health is sacrificed; integrity is jeopardized; God-connection is limited.[1]
What I have witnessed in the lives of many college students is the early symptoms of missionalism. The virus had been introduced to them in childhood and incubated by well-intentioned churches, ministries, schools, and the wider evangelical subculture. And with graduation looming the students were feeling the pressure. It was, after all, their first opportunity to actually prove their worth through achievement.
When meeting with or counseling a struggling church leader, one of the questions I’ll ask to diagnose whether missionalism is present is: “Assuming you’re not engaged in some kind of disqualifying sin, why not?” The answer I often hear, the answer most posters have been conditioned to say, is: “I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my ministry.” That response often reveals where a leader’s true devotion is. Sadly I rarely hear a pastor say, “I wouldn’t want anything to disrupt my communion with God.” So few of us have been given a vision of a life with Christ, and instead we seek to fill the void with a vision for ministry--a vision of a life for Christ.
Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, was raised in a “life for God” environment. His experience reveals how the fear of being insignificant is implanted into young people. He said the heroes his community celebrated were “the Rockefellers of the Christian world;” those who were enterprising, effective, and who made a huge impact for God. They launched massive ministries or transformed whole nations. This led Vischer to conclude that impact was everything. “God would never call us from greater impact to lesser impact!,” he wrote. “How many kids did you invite to Sunday? How many souls have you won? How big is your church? How many people will be in heaven because of your efforts? Impact, man!”[2]
But after losing his company in 2003, Vischer began to question the validity of the “life for God” values he had inherited and which had driven his early career.
“The more I dove into Scripture, the more I realized I had been deluded. I had grown up drinking a dangerous cocktail—a mix of the gospel, the Protestant work ethic, and the American dream…. The Savior I was following seemed, in hindsight, equal parts Jesus, Ben Franklin, and Henry Ford. My eternal value was rooted in what I could accomplish”[3]
A professional crisis made Vischer pause and reexamine his posture with God, but for others the nagging discontent of a life lived for God manifests much more slowly. Consider what one pastor in his late 30s wrote: "The church is growing, and there's excitement everywhere. But personally I feel less and less good about what I'm doing. I'm restless and tired. I ask myself how long I can keep this all up. Why is my touch with God so limited? Why am I feeling guilty about where my marriage is? When did this stop being fun?"[4] This leader is not alone. Studies show that approximately 1,500 pastors leave the ministry every month due to conflict, burnout, or moral failure.[5] Others have shown how ministry rooted relentless achievement for God actually contributes to addictive behaviors. When the accolades that give pastors a sense of significance cease or never come at all, some begin to nurse secret pleasures on the side to numb their pain.
When church leaders function from this understanding of the Christian life, they invariably transfer their burden and fears to those in the pews. If a pastor’s sense of worth is linked to the impact of his or her ministry, guess what believers under that pastor’s care are told is most important? And so a new generation of people who believe their value is linked to their accomplishments is birthed. If the cycle continues long enough an institutional memory is created in which the value of achievement for God is no longer questioned. Leaders may be burning out at a rate of 1,500 per month, young people may be riddled with anxiety, and divorce rates in the church may be rising and families falling apart, but no one stops. No one asks whether this is really what God intended the Christian life to be. No one asks, at least out loud, because that might slow things down. Remember, the work must go on. Impact, man!
Mission is good, not ultimate.
You may be thinking, “But we are called to do things for God. And what’s the alternative--continuing to allow the people in our churches to be self-consumed Christians seeking only their own comfort?” That is a very fair concern. And I completely concur with the consumer posture that is choking much of the modern church both in North American and increasingly around the globe.
But the prescribed solution I hear in many ministry settings is to transform people from consumer Christians into activist Christians. The exact direction of the activism may depend on one’s theological and ecclesiological orientation. For traditional evangelicals it’s all about evangelism--getting believers to share their faith, give to overseas missions, and grow the church. For many younger evangelicals it may focus compassion and justice--digging wells and eradicating poverty. But what the traditional and younger evangelicals agree upon is that we are to live our lives for God by accomplishing his mission however we may define it.
The “life for God” view makes mission the irreducible center of the Christian life. And everything and everyone gets defined by some great goal understood to be initiated by God and carried forward by us. An individual is either on the mission, the object of the mission, an obstacle to the mission, an aid to the mission, or a fat Christian who should be on the mission.
Please don’t think I am trying to dismiss the importance of the missio dei or the church’s part within it. Like other church leaders, I greatly desire to see more Christians hear God’s call and engage in the good and life-saving work he has given us. And I am incredibly grateful for my friends in ministry who have awakened the church to the theological and practical necessity of mission in our age. But as Tim Keller has deftly observed, “An idol is a good thing made into an ultimate thing.” The temptation within activist streams of Christianity is to put the good mission of God into the place God alone should occupy. The irony is that in our desire to draw people away from the selfishness of consumer Christianity, we may simply be replacing one idol with another. This is the great danger of endlessly extolling the importance of living for God--it put can place God’s mission ahead of God himself. Paul, the most celebrated missionary in history, did not make this mistake. He understood that his calling, to be a messenger to the gentiles, was not the same as his treasure, to be united with Christ. His communion with Christ rooted and preceded his work for him.
Few passages of Scripture illustrate our present dilemma better than the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. If you recall, the young son did not value a relationship with his father but only his father’s wealth--a poignant example of the consumer Christian. He took what his father gave him, left home, and wasted the gifts on fast living. Eventually he was penniless and desperate. But when the son returned home to seek his father’s mercy and a job as a servant, he was astonished to find his father overjoyed--running to embrace him with open arms.
But that’s only half of the story. The father also had an older son who was very different than his swinging sibling. He was reliable, obedient, and lived to do his father’s bidding. But when the older son heard that his wayward brother had returned, and that his father had welcomed him and was throwing a party, he became incensed. In fact, when he heard the music and dancing in the house he refused to join the celebration. Instead he held his own pity party out in the field.
True to his character, when the father discovered that his eldest son was not home he went out to find him. There the father begged the older son to come to the party. But the son was furious. “Look, all these years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15:29-30).
Notice where the older son roots his significance: “All these years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command.” The older son lived for his father. And for his service he expected a reward. In this way he really is not that different from the younger son. Neither boy was particularly interested in a relationship with the father, instead both were focused on what they might get from him. The younger son simply took what he desired while the older son, being a more patient and self-disciplined person, worked for it. Their methods were night and day, but both sons desired the same thing and in neither case was it the father. In other words, both sons sought to use their father. Both were jerks, one just happened to be of a more socially-acceptable variety.
Jesus told this parable at a gathering with Pharisees and scribes--very devoted religious leaders; men who drew a great deal of significance from their service for God. Was Jesus trying to say to them that there is something wrong with serving God or faithful obedience? Of course not. The problem comes when we find our significance and worth in it. Jesus is not diminishing the older son’s obedience, just as he is not endorsing the younger son’s immorality. Rather he is showing that both a “life from God” (the younger son) and a “life for God” (the older son) fail to capture what God truly desires for his people. Pouring our lives into a mission that we believe pleases God is not the center of the Christian life. It is not what is going to remove our fears or unbind our captivity to sin. In order to discover what God cares about most, we must look more closely at the father’s response to the older son in Jesus’ story.
“Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this brother of yours was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:31-32).
What brought the father joy was not the older son’s service, but simply his presence--having his son with him. This is what the father cares about most, not his property or which son receives more of it. While the sons are fixated on the father’s wealth, the father is fixated on his sons. This is what they both failed to understand, and it is what both Christian consumerism and Christian activism fail to grasp. God’s gifts are a blessing and his work is important, but neither can or should replace God himself as our focus.
Like the younger son, believers in our churches often build their identity around what they receive from God. Or like the older son we find our value in how we serve God. And a great deal of effort is expended in faith communities trying to transform people from younger sons into older sons. But this is a fool’s errand. Because what mattered most to the father was neither the younger son’s disobedience nor the older son’s obedience, but having his sons with him. And so it is with our Heavenly Father. Reversing the rebellion of Eden and restoring what was lost can only be accomplished when we learn that at the center of God’s heart is having his children with him.
While a vision for serving God is needed, and the desperate condition of our world cannot be ignored, there is a higher calling that is going unanswered in many Christian communities. As shepherds of God’s people, we must not allow our fears of insignificance to drive us into an unrelenting pursuit of church growth, cultural impact, or missional activism. Instead, we must model for our people a first-class commitment to a first-class purpose--living in perpetual communion with God himself. As we embrace the call to live with God, only then will we be capable of illuminating such a life for our people.
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