You are browsing archives for

Category: Articles

The Church Will Prevail

February 28, 1995Written by Rick Shrader

The Church Will Prevail

by Rick Shrader

The modern man found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex; he found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy. The man who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on entrees. The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. And surely if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it was in the trousers, not in the simply falling robe. If there was any insanity at all, it was in the extravagant entrees, not in the bread and wine.

G.K. Chesterton

If I wanted to arouse animosity among many Christians and Christian leaders today I might say something like, ‘‘Let it be clearly stated that there can be no service acceptable to God in this age that does not center in and spring out of the church.’’ And I might surprise many of them by noting that I had just quoted A.W. Tozer, a renowned Alliance Church pastor. Such statements, earlier in this twentieth century, were easily received and practiced by believers of varied denominational stripe. At the end of this century, however, many Christians cringe at such a forward statement.

In 1994, David Briggs wrote an article for the Associated Press titled, ‘‘Study: Americans spurning their religion.’’ He began by saying, ‘‘In the high-stakes game of denominational musical chairs, the big winner of the 90’s may be no church at all . . . It’s become quite acceptable these days to be nothing throughout your life . . . It doesn’t really matter what you are anymore.’’ In a telling admission Briggs noted that liberal Protestant denominations, to stop the attendance decline, ‘‘can’t go out beating the bushes with the old-time Gospel.’’ Why? Because, of course, they don’t believe it! He called these ‘‘inherited religions’’ because church life is handed down, not accepted by faith. The point of the article was that to keep these ‘‘inherited religions’’ going, churches were ‘‘updating’’ statements of faith and church policy to ‘‘a new kind of realism’’ in an attempt to ‘‘keep its culture strong.’’

This is not new, of course. In 1990, Newsweek ran an article titled ‘‘A Time To Seek,’’ in which churchgoers said, ‘‘Instead of me fitting religion, I found a religion to fit me;’’ ‘‘Unlike earlier religious revivals, the aim this time is support, not salvation, a circle of spiritual equals rather than an authoritative church or guide.’’ No wonder a Gallup poll reported that two in five unchurched adults say they have ‘‘made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ,’’ but not, obviously, to the church which He built. Louis Harris said that religious faith ‘‘is contained within the individual rather than reflected in slavish loyalty to church attendance or to the letter of the dogma of a particular religion.’’

It is becoming increasingly difficult for churches to keep a local church emphasis without feeling the squeeze put on by both the Christian and non-Christian culture. We have been familiar with ‘‘para-church’’ organizations for a long time but it is not so much an issue of ‘‘para’’ as it is ‘‘multi’’ and ‘‘dis’’ as in multidimensional, multifarious, multifaceted and diversity, diversion, divarication. I find myself coming back to this often in my reading and thoughts. Our generation is busily ‘‘celebrating diversity’’ but has little to no clue about what it is that unites people (whether a belief in God that unites human beings or a common intellectual doctrine that unites Christians). It is no surprise that an emphasis on a unified local gathering seems out of sync with today’s view of the church.

The supreme example of balance between unity and diversity is the Godhead. Ravi Zacharias recently wrote, ‘‘A proper understanding of the Trinity not only gives us a key to understanding unity in diversity, but also brings us a unique answer to the great struggle we face between races, cultures, and–for that matter–even genders.’’ It should also help us to keep a balance and not go overboard in one direction or the other. The pendulum has swung to both extremes for sure but now it seems to be swinging away from the gathered emphasis and far toward the scattered.

The one group, the one method, the one picture of believers we find in the New Testament is the church. It cannot be everything our culture wants it to be nor should it. Yet, it is truly amazing what we can find in the New Testament to qualify as business of the church. And the more it takes us away from a simple, unified gathering the more popular it seems to be. Somehow our gatherings have come to be seen as a boring tradition which, because it is biblical, we must continue to perform. But we can’t wait to get away from that assemblage and on to more exciting and diverse things!

Now if you know me you know I don’t advocate turning the clock back nor ignoring all new ideas or methods. If we have let our assemblies grow cold and stale we need to recognize that and deal with it. No doubt, it is easy to keep our churches from being diverse enough in ministry and make-up. It is our mission to take the gospel outside the walls of the church but in the process we cannot abandon the most common and obvious biblical model we have. We don’t abandon the car when it runs out of gas. We fill it up again.

One thing is sure in this present cultural climate–if an alternative can be found to the local church assembly, people will take it! If problems can be solved in a psychologist’s office rather than at a church altar, if service can be performed at a coffee shop rather than in a classroom, if character can be learned in a stadium rather than in a pew, if learning can take place with entertainment rather than with concentration, then there is no further ethical mandate needed than that! Even for God to ask otherwise would be recalcitrant.

In C.S. Lewis’ second Screwtape Letter, Screwtape (the master demon) says to Wormwood (his nephew), ‘‘One of the great allies at present is the Church itself. . . All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. . . Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in the next pew. . . Your patient, thanks to Our Father Below, is a fool. . . He will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. . . Keep everything hazy in his mind now, and you will have all eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords.’’

The catch is, of course, that it is not the gates of hell that will prevail!

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

Vision and Revision

January 29, 1995Written by Rick Shrader

Vision and Revision

by Rick Shrader

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart

Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art;

Thou my best thought, by day or by night;

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Irish hymn, c. 8th century

Vance Havner said, ‘‘A leader is a person with a magnet in his heart and a compass in his head.’’ We are living in a day when prominent leaders seem to be people with one index finger on a statistics manual and the other held up in the wind. In a day when a proper and precise vision is vitally necessary, there seems to be as much muddle as mettle.

The information age puts at our finger tips the goals and dreams of nearly all the world’s prominent leaders. We can access the vision of Sears, Penney, Walton, and Iacocca or any number of Christian leaders as well. Now, it seems, everyone has his own unique vision statement modified slightly from everyone else’s. One author even advocates getting alone with God and praying that He will reveal a vision tailor made for your ministry. The few dozen or so that I have read seem to be general statements that often could be translated, ‘‘We believe in doing what the Bible says,’’ which, I am about to argue, is what we ought to plainly say. (Let me insert here that I know we need to have better focus. My point will be that we cannot maintain focus without maintaining the large, constant vision which God has already revealed.)

One of the greatest steps in my Christian walk was taken years ago reading (as a textbook) Alva J. McClain’s Greatness of the Kingdom. McClain proposed that the two-fold theme of the Bible is the King and His kingdom. The goal of our personal character is to be like Christ, the coming King and the goal of our stewardship is to emulate the coming kingdom in the age in which we live. In Philippians three, Paul says, ‘‘that I may win Christ;’’ ‘‘that I may know him;’’ ‘‘I am apprehended of Christ Jesus;’’ and at the same time says, ‘‘I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead;’’ ‘‘I press toward the mark for the prize;’’ ‘‘For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.’’ This way of looking at the whole scope of God’s revelation gives us the Christian vision to which we put our hands constantly to the plow. The Lord commanded us to ‘‘Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.’’

We have seen the effect of the Christian vision in history. Western civilization is a history of Christian principles lived out by society. From the Reformation to the Great Awakening, industrious changes and progress were made because the Christian work ethic was eternally (kingdom) based. Self government and individual moral behavior were the norm because the Christian individual goal was the righteousness of Christ. The present resistance within us to Eastern mysticism and African spiritism is not a resistance to people who look and sound different. It is a resistance to a non-Christian world view that has proven to be disastrous economically, politically, morally and spiritually. Human efforts to build anything worthwhile without the Christian vision will eventually fail.

G.K. Chesterton painted it this way. The naturalist (or antitheist as Ravi Zacharias calls him) sees no meaning or life beyond the world in which we live. To him, this earth is his only vision. It is large and awesome, acting as his mother, his instructor and his spiritual advisor. The supernaturalist on the other hand, sees this world as a waiting station to the next world. It is smaller and secondary. It is at best his sister instructing him of its Creator who is waiting to meet him beyond the world’s limits. To the naturalist, the world is his vision, constantly changing and being updated. To the supernaturalist, the world is the canvass and God is the vision.

When an artist paints a portrait he expects the subject to remain constant throughout the process though he himself may change or destroy many canvases. His vision is his subject and that must not be changed but the canvas necessarily changes until it is the best the artist can make it. Now if the artist has a different subject every hour, what is the use of starting anything on the canvas? His vision changes too often to produce anything. So the naturalist sees the latest product of evolution as the latest and only vision. There is nothing to emulate beyond that. It is no wonder that such artists reduce their vision to defeated abstractness where the only vision is within themselves.

If our analogy squares with our theology, it makes sense that our job is to make continued and varied efforts to paint a picture of a constant vision, the King and His kingdom. It is because our vision remains forever the same that our efforts must constantly be scrutinized and sharpened. We may change a method or a brush stroke, but to change visions every hour is to admit that we have no vision. In that case we will begin to produce abstract Christianity that resembles only ourselves.

Are we not painting this picture so that others will see a true presentation of what is eternal? It is not our concern that they see themselves. They have mirrors for that. It is not our concern that they see us. We don’t need a vision for that. It is not our concern that we make a name for ourselves in the art of ministry. The fact is, we were employed by the Subject of our picture to bring glory to Him. Rembrandt was only ‘‘successful’’ because he represented his subject as no one else could do.

Gutson Borglum was the sculptor who carved the massive figures of four American presidents on Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. When asked how he produced such an amazing work, he replied, ‘‘Those figures were there for forty million years. All I had to do was dynamite 400,000 tons of granite to bring them into view.’’ So it is that our King is the same yesterday, today and forever and His kingdom is forever!

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

Come, Let Us Adore Him

December 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

Come, Let Us Adore Him

by Rick Shrader

Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. William Shakespeare: Hamlet

With no irreverence intended to the season of our Savior’s birth, I think today Shakespeare would have had to conclude, ‘‘so shallow’d and so avaricious is the time.’’ While once again Christian eyes are turned toward the holy birth of our Lord, we will not help but spy the ever encroaching secularization of the season called Christmas. It is not always what we may consider blasphemous. At least blasphemy takes a subject seriously. The secularization of Christmas robs the Saviour’s birth of its religious significance.

Gene Veith, in Postmodern Times, wrote, ‘‘Traditional symbols, such as those of religion, are not repudiated; rather, they are trivialized. Statistics reduce beliefs to opinions and moral standards to personal preferences. Technological reproduction and ceaseless visual representation work against any concept of mystery or the sacred.’’ And so the ‘‘season’’ has become a technological production of color schemes, attractive products and personal pleasures; things that, of themselves, are not harmful but as a substitute for the sacred surely become.

In his Letters to an American Lady (29 December, 1958), C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘‘Just a hurried line . . . to tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the Nativity and all this ghastly ‘‘Xmas’’ racket at its lowest. My brother heard a woman on a bus say, as the bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, ‘‘Oh Lor’! They bring religion into everything. Look–they’re dragging it even into Christmas now!’’ What is sad about such a comment in the 1990’s is that I don’t believe my neighbors and many of my acquaintances would get it! They probably would agree with the lady. After all, this is the generation that will, at Christmas, buy a music video called ‘‘The Immaculate Collection’’ by a woman who calls herself ‘‘Madonna’’ and will never make the connotation.

For a long time now we have seen the secular set side by side with the sacred. As the years went on Christmas became more secular than sacred until the sacred was found only in churches and private dwellings but certainly not in any public setting. Recently, however, the secular is using the sacred as a productive marketing tool the fruit of which is just beginning to be reaped.

This process of secularization is snowballing due to this society’s lack of respect (much less reverence) for anything religious. This year in London (according to the AP) Pepsi-Cola got in trouble when their advertisers beamed its logo onto the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool as a marketing tactic. To the offended parishioners Pepsi said, ‘‘It was never meant as any offense. It was a light-hearted stunt.’’ McDonald’s came under similar fire in Britain for printing a burger bag with the flag of Saudi Arabia including a passage from the Koran. Apology was made. In this country there is a commercial for Hebrew National Frankfurters which, at the end claims to surpass federal standards because (the camera shifts toward heaven) ‘‘We have to answer to a higher Authority.’’ Where once a clear distinction was maintained between the secular and the sacred, now we see a slow erosion of the border, a trivialization of the things once thought too sacred to tread upon. We shouldn’t be surprised this year to see marketers turning the manger of Christ into a den of thieves.

Twentieth-century Christianity cannot dodge all the blame. We have spent a lot of time ourselves scaling the secular city (as one title puts it) in search of slogans, sounds, styles and other similitudes from a secular society. It never bothered us when we were the ones crossing the line and bringing back the secular into the sacred. It seemed to make our worship more realistic and a lot more up to date. British theologian J. S. Whale put it best when he said, ‘‘Instead of putting off our shoes from our feet because the place we stand is holy ground, we are taking nice photographs of the burning bush from suitable angles.’’ Well, that was all right for us but not for the world? Perhaps we only see the vulgar when we see it in others.

I have written these lines with a distaste for the negative, especially at Christmas. My prayer is that they may have a farthing of positive effect and that we should not be, on December 26, as Franklin Pierce Adams who once said, ‘‘Christmas is over and business is business.’’ We should rather be as Charles Dickens when he wrote, “I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys . . . And so as Tiny Tim said: ‘A merry Christmas to us all, my dears, God bless us, every one.’”

Come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant;

Come ye, come ye to Bethlehem;

Come and behold Him, born the king of angels;

Come and adore Him, come and adore Him,

Come and adore the Lord. (St. Bonaventure)

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

For Glory And For Beauty

November 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

For Glory And For Beauty

by Rick Shrader

I wish that the young men might have something to rid them of their love ditties and wanton songs and might instead of these learn wholesome things and thus yield willingly to the good; also, because I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the Gospel, as some bigoted persons pretend, but would willingly see them all, and especially music, servants of Him who gave and created them.

Martin Luther, Wittenberg Gesangbuch

I am no artist nor artiste but I do know nonsense when I see it. As when a group of ‘‘artists’’ near Pinedale, Wyo. were found painting words on cows (funded by a $4,000 grant) and calling it ‘‘art’’ since the cows are going to ‘‘randomly reorder the words for us and make new meanings.’’ Or when Joel-Peter Witkin (funded by a $20,000 grant) had a pathologist saw a human head in half, turned the halves toward each other, photographed it and called it ‘‘kiss.’’ Or when Peter Hutchinson attached each end of a rope to garbage bags full of rotten food, tossed it into the ocean, waited for the rotten food to expand and rise under water thus lifting the rope in a bowed fashion. He photographed it, called it ‘‘arc’’ and sold it to the Museum of Modern Art.

Ten years ago George Will wrote a column titled ‘‘The Shocking Bourgeoisie’’ in which he wrote, ‘‘There will be an abundance of fine art if you declare that fine art is anything that anyone calling himself an artist calls fine art. If I call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog got? Five? No, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.’’ And calling cows with words painted on them ‘‘art’’ doesn’t make it art. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. confessed, ‘‘Today’s art is fashioned, for the most part, by quacks and the occasional fool.’’

No people should grieve to see the destruction of the fine arts more than the people of God. We are in the unique place of understanding divine truth and its illumination in the created world through things that man can make, i.e., art. But Christianity (especially conservative) has too often flinched at the overt atrocities in the art world and has, at the same time, consented to mediocrity in the rest. There is a type of art known today as ‘‘kitsch.’’ It is the poor quality ornament or ‘‘knickknack,’’ Elvis on black velvet or dresser-top souvenirs sold at tourist traps. Calvin Seerveld says, ‘‘it is hard to talk to Christians about kitsch because those who love it are naive about it, unaware that they are identifying with something fake and inferior.’’

As Luther (quoted above) points out, we are apt to present divine truth this way and become a religious knickknack shop. Take a stroll through the local Bible book store and ask yourself, ‘‘Do Christians love kitsch?’’ But don’t stop in the knickknack aisle, browse through the Christian fiction section, play the latest Christian video game and listen to the popular tune coming none too softly over the speaker system and don’t forget your free ‘‘Honk if you love Jesus’’ bumper sticker on the way out.

It was Sir Arnold Toynbee (A Study of History) in the 1940s who called this sort of thing ‘‘promiscuity . . . an act of self-surrender to the melting pot . . . in Religion and Literature and Art as well as Manners and Customs.’’ Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There wrote, ‘‘Christians should stop laughing and take such men seriously. Then we shall have the right to speak again to our generation.’’ But Christian kitsch prevails in most of our lives. In the books we read (or don’t), the things we watch, the music we play, the decor of our homes and churches and even our vocabulary all mark us guilty of this promiscuity of God’s creation.

I confess to being guilty and am sorry for it. I am the worse off for having succumbed often in my life to the spirit of the age. A few of my ‘‘friends’’ (as Dr. Harju often calls them) have brought me a little closer to reality. There are some past ‘‘friends’’ such as Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer, and some present ‘‘friends’’ such as Gene Veith, Cal Thomas, and Neil Postman. They are helping me be an iconophile rather than an iconoclast. The following thought was induced by Gene Veith in State Of The Arts (reviewed this month).

Adam was told to ‘‘dress’’ the garden of Eden and ‘‘keep it’’ (Gen 2:15). After the fall he must struggle with nature and labor by his sweat to survive (Gen 3:19). To do that, man must depend both on the resources of nature and his own creative abilities. Food comes from God’s earth but man must apply the art of farming to get it. Every honest occupation is an art because it is a God-given craft. Dishonest occupations (robbery, fraud, embezzlement) exploit other’s artful labor to get gain without work. All honest work, the talents and gifts from our Creator, is art.

‘‘Fine art’’ is developed ability to make beautiful things that honor the Creator (painting, music, oratory). In Exodus 28, twice God commanded (vss 2 & 40) the tabernacle to be built for ‘‘glory and beauty.’’ Fine art has a two-fold nature: it is to have meaning (‘‘glory’’) and form (‘‘beauty’’). God is interested in both. A Sunday School picture of Jesus may be compared to a Rembrandt painting of Christ. In meaning they are nearly the same, both referring to God Incarnate. In form, however, they are worlds apart. The photo-copied curriculum picture cannot compare in form to Rembrandt.

In our churches, as well as in our personal lives, we should strive to honor God by the best ‘‘glory and beauty’’ possible. And we should be tolerant when we try our best but fall somewhat short (I’m not sure how tolerant we should be when we don’t try). When I hear a song sung that glorifies God both in words (meaning) and music (form), it blesses me. When someone introduces a song with ‘‘listen to these words,’’ he may be preparing me for good meaning but poor form. So I try to appreciate the meaning. Another may sing a song that misses meaning altogether but has beautiful form. So I try to appreciate the form. I think God desires both ‘‘glory and beauty.’’

Of course, this line of thinking could (and should) be followed further. A lost world usually grieves God in form and meaning (can we seriously doubt that in our day of erotic art, MTV and slasher films?). If our generation of believers succumbs to the artistic kitsch of the day, we will fail to honor God in either form or meaning. The church of Jesus Christ must take the lead. We have the meaning given to us in His Word, and we have the form being created in Him unto good works. We should strive to do the best in both areas. As one kitsch expert says, ‘‘Anything less would be uncivilized!’’

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

A Virtual Reality World

October 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

A Virtual Reality World

by Rick Shrader

Men seek stronger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense . . . They try to stab their nerves to life, as if it were with knives of the priest of Baal. They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares. G.K. Chesterton

The February 8, 1993 issue of Time magazine introduced us to ‘‘Cyberpunk.’’ It is ‘‘technology with an attitude.’’ The word describes the growing world of ‘‘Virtual Reality,’’ the fusing of humans and machines. ‘‘Cyber’’ is taken from ‘‘Cybernetics’’ and ‘‘Punk’’ from the idea of an antisocial hoodlum. This technological underworld is a labyrinth of hypertext such as cyberspace, interzones, synaesthesia, cryonics, dystopia and rants. Thousands of otherwise bored souls are exploring worlds that only exist in the mind and a computer link. According to Time, during WW II, Norbert Wiener of M.I.T. designed systems for antiaircraft guns and found that the critical component in a control system is a feedback loop that gives a controller information on the results of its actions. He called this type of study ‘‘Cybernetics’’ (from the Greek word kubernetes), the science of communication and control theory.

In the New Testament, kubernetes means the ‘‘master’’ (Acts 27:11) or the ‘‘shipmaster’’ (Rev 18:17). It was a person linked together with the rudder (from a word signifying hardness) that controlled the ship. Whereas I might call this device a ‘‘steering wheel,’’ my kids would most likely call it a ‘‘joystick.’’

The concept of virtual reality grows out of cybernetics. It is the ability to contact and control a situation without actually being there and without actually suffering negative consequences for inappropriate action. As Neil Postman writes in his 1992 book Technopoly, ‘‘Putting on a set of miniature goggle-mounted screens, one may block out the real world and move through a simulated three-dimensional world which changes its components with every movement to one’s head.’’ Gene Veith, writing in his 1994 book Postmodern Times adds, ‘‘When this technology is perfected, we will be able to take part in multi-sensory fantasies, as if we were the main character in a science fiction movie. Some people are even looking forward to virtual reality body condoms which will offer pre-programmed sexual fantasies.’’ The fact is, according to Time, magazines already exist that are user guides to ‘‘everything from virtual reality and wetware to designer aphrodisiacs and techno-erotic paganism, promising to make cyberpunk’s rarefied perspective immediately accessible.’’

We should not be overly negative nor alarmists. There will also be amazing educational tools developed from this technology. Students may be able to travel to foreign lands or take a simple field trip without leaving the classroom. I may be able to go fly-fishing along a mountain stream but never leave the office. But human nature being what it is, the dangers will overshadow the benefits. That is why the market is already flooded with attractions to the flesh while the classroom sits empty. And I am not sure I am willing to give up the real thing for what is virtually real anyway. I can see my old professor Noel Smith, who wouldn’t drink coffee out of a paper cup and disdained clip-on ties, thanking the Lord that he ‘‘checked out’’ when he did!

We may, however, be witnessing the inevitable outcome (coupled with the technological know-how) of a long infatuation with the unreal. My first trip to a theme park was to Disneyland. I loved it and always have. I could be Tom Sawyer riding a raft down the Mississippi, a star fighter in outer space or Pinocchio inside a giant whale. Now, almost every town has a mall which creates the idea of being outside while you are really inside. Some, like Minnesota’s Mall of America takes you virtually anywhere else you want to go. We can go to Mexico to eat Mexican food at Chi Chi’s or to the great outdoors to buy a fishing rod at Bass Pro Shop. We can even jump from dangerous heights to experience the sensation of falling to our death only to be yanked back to reality by a bungee cord. Of course, we may add to this the theater, television, video arcade and computer.

‘‘The problem,’’ says Veith, ‘‘comes when the mind-set of the malls and theme parks becomes confused with Christianity.’’ Witness, for example, Rev. Tommy Barnett, pastor of Phoenix First Assembly with its $500,000 special-effects system (copied from Bally’s casino in Las Vegas), as he ascends into the auditorium’s ceiling after finishing a Sunday sermon (Wall Street Journal, 12-11-90). Does such miraculous simulation make real or virtually real believers? Can we turn such faith on and off like a television set? Do we exit the game by exiting the auditorium? Robert Wenz in Room For God? writes, ‘‘The marketing church has led to dangerous application of church growth principles to the ‘now’ generation that demands instant gratification or at least instant feedback.’’ Exactly like being at the controls of the latest video game.

To gain our bearings we might download a bit of information from Webster. We might conclude, for example, that ‘‘virtual reality’’ is a bit of an oxymoron. Virtual is from the Latin virtus meaning ‘‘being in essence or effect but not in fact.’’ Virtu is a noun form describing an art lover ‘‘especially of a curios or antique nature.’’ Art, after all, is a representation but not a reality. Virtue is a derivative which means ‘‘conformity to a standard of right’’ but never attaining the real perfection. On the other hand, reality is from the Latin Res meaning fact. Real is to be ‘‘fixed, permanent, or unmovable.’’ It is ‘‘agreement between what a thing seems to be and what it is.’’ That is why we call a piece of land ‘‘real estate.’’ So what is virtual reality? It is unreal reality. Nonreality. Nonsense.

Christopher Meyer, a cyberpunk himself, said that cybernetics is ‘‘all data. It all takes up the same amount of space on disk, and a lot of it is just plain noise.’’ But we must remember that we all have a kubernetes, a pilot over our body and soul. Seneca said, ‘‘No man is free who is a slave to the flesh.’’ Hermes said of Christ that he is the ‘‘kubernetes ton somaton hemon,’’ the ‘‘Pilot of our souls.’’ That is not virtual reality but reality that is virtuous.

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

Worshiping Worship

September 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

Worshiping Worship

by Rick Shrader

We who defend Christianity find ourselves constantly opposed not by the irreligion of our hearers but by their real religion. Speak about beauty, truth and goodness, or about a God who is simply the indwelling principle of these three, speak about a great spiritual force pervading all things, a common mind of which we are all parts, a pool of generalised spirituality to which we can all flow, and you will command friendly interest. But the temperature drops as soon as you mention a God who has purposes and performs particular actions, who does one thing and not another, a concrete, choosing, commanding, prohibiting God with a determinate character.

C. S. Lewis, Miracles

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who said, ‘‘If Socrates would enter the room we should rise and do him honor. But if Jesus Christ came into the room we should fall down on our knees and worship Him.’’ Perhaps it is for that reason that we often find ourselves entirely uncomfortable in many of our fundamental or evangelical ‘‘worship’’ services today. A. W. Tozer wrote (in God Tells the Man Who Cares), ‘‘In the majority of our meetings there is scarcely a trace of reverent thought, no recognition of the unity of the body, little sense of the divine Presence, no moment of stillness, no solemnity, no wonder, no holy fear.’’ I think if Jesus Christ entered the sanctuary of most churches today He would get a standing ovation. It would be an atrocity!

But as soon as this lack of reverence is mentioned we hear the pleadings of the defense mounting. In reality, they say, we have recovered worship. We have opened new doors for the expression of the spirit and created new ways in which to meet the needs of each participant. Our singing is made easier by electronic power so that it takes the least effort possible to ‘‘make a joyful noise.’’ As a matter of fact, any average person can now be ‘‘special music.’’ We have lessened the difference between the view inside and outside the sanctuary so that one may enter without realizing he has come to church. The times of services are shorter and much more convenient, the attire is totally unassuming and the message is tailor-made for the lowest common denominator. And to seal the defense, we have only to observe how comfortable the average person is and how good he feels being in our services which is evidenced by the numbers on the attendance board (‘‘I object!’’ Sustained. Scratch that last remark.).

Some time ago, I heard that a music professor in a SBC seminary had studied contemporary church services and concluded that, in his opinion, most congregations were ‘‘worshiping worship rather than worshiping God.’’ When I heard that (from one who was in his class) I thought to myself, that’s it! That’s the description of what I have experienced. In a worshiping worship service, everything is in the right place, carefully orchestrated, moments of wide-eyed laughter mixed with moments of closed-eyed sobbing, each mood change perfectly timed by the chorus leader to lead one moment to the next. But when it is finished, though you have stepped off a worshiping roller coaster, you are the same as before. But at least you are out in time to catch the kick-off (‘‘I object!’’ Sustained.)

I am simply saying that to many people today it does not matter what the doctrine of the church is, what the church covenant may or may not ask, what the words of the music may actually say or even what the preacher preaches. If the mood is right and the feeling is good then the head can take a rest. And someone reading this right now may ask, “What’s wrong with that?” Because, then, worship is only for the worshiper’s sake, not for God. In that case we have no object to our worship other than ourselves. We become our only audience and we hope that God will find a way to enjoy it.

Paul told the Athenians in Acts 17 that they were ‘‘ignorantly’’ worshiping. They were worshiping! They were as sincere as any people could be. But they weren’t worshiping God. The same is true of the woman with the spirit of divination in Acts 16 who followed Paul for three days crying, ‘‘These are the men of the Most High God who show us the way of salvation.’’ A truer act of worship could not be had but she was not worshiping God and Paul cast a demon out of her. She was a pagan involved in Zeus worship originating at the oracle at Delphi. Pagans worship worship! They make statues out of wood and stone and devise more elaborate services than Benny Hinn could dream of in a life-time. And people are moved to tears. And offerings (‘‘Objection!’’ I withdraw the remark.)

Modern pagans usually center their worship on happiness. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the son of a Unitarian minister and a product of literature’s enlightened period, said, ‘‘the happiest man he is who learns from nature the lesson of worship.’’ Similarly, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, ‘‘Do not forget that even as ‘to work is to worship’ so to be cheery is to worship also, and to be happy is the first step to being pious.’’ I say that these two, though literary giants, were content and happy to worship worship, but they were far from worshiping God. A speaker today, however, will impress more modern men by quoting Emerson and Stevenson than, by contrast, John Milton who, two centuries prior, wrote for a ‘‘fit audience, though few.’’ Gene Veith, writing about our post-modern age said, ‘‘When writers (or speakers!) give their readers exactly what they want, the readers are seldom enriched. They hear only what they already know; their prejudices are confirmed, their weaknesses pandered to. The audience is entertained, but not challenged nor instructed. This is the weakness of so much postmodernist fiction. It may be scintillating, but it is ultimately trivial.’’ But worshiping worship worshipers are happy in this modern triviality. Tozer wrote, ‘‘The Bible was written in tears and to tears it will yield its best treasures. God has nothing to say to the frivolous man.’’ He is not listening anyway, he is too busy worshiping.

It is unfortunate that the word ‘‘orthodox’’ has gained a negative connotation in regard to our services. Almost every time the word is used to describe a modern service it is with the prefix ‘‘un.’’ The style is ‘‘unorthodox.’’ The music is ‘‘unorthodox.’’ The message is ‘‘unorthodox.’’ But the word ‘‘orthodox’’ simply means ‘‘correct praise.’’ Jesus insisted that we must worship God in orthodoxy, in ‘‘spirit and truth.’’ It was because they had learned this lesson well that Jesus’ followers insisted that they must ‘‘please God rather than man’’ when faced with worship (‘‘objection!” Overruled!).

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles, Featured

Leave a Comment

The Earth Is Satisfied

August 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

The Earth Is Satisfied

by Rick Shrader

It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and appearances of nature. Our Saviour expatiates on a flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, and be, at the same time, alive to the charms and loveliness of nature. Thomas Chalmers

Psalm 104 says, ‘‘Bless the LORD, O my soul, O LORD my God, thou art very great; (vs 1) . . . He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works’’ (vs 13). In a sin-soaked culture it is easy for God’s children to forget that this world was made the way God wanted it to be made and it is a mistake for us to let the fallenness of it block our sight of God’s handiwork.

Perhaps it takes a week such as this one, waking each morning to the song of the Lark Bunting and the crisp air of the Colorado mountains (and the constant distant roar of the most ferocious of beasts: 200 junior campers), to see such testimony as pine trees, growing from every angle of ground, all pointing like a million church steeples toward their Creator; or stars of the big dipper, brighter than temporal lights, still pointing to the North Star with Divine consistency as my father showed me years ago.

It was the first Adam who saw most dramatically the contrast of the perfect and fallen worlds. He was brought into a world of perfect harmony and peace. The function of every star and season and tree and stream worked together more smoothly than the most expensive Swiss watch. Adam’s work and trade, thoughts and ideas, blended precisely with God’s created purpose, enhancing its melody. Man’s purpose for existence and labor were never in doubt or regret.

Adam had a simple stewardship. It was overwhelmingly positive with only one negative. The inability to live with the restriction and the prompting of the Evil One cost Adam the perfect environment. Now his life would be one of recapturing, as best as possible, the former glory where God’s presence was so clearly visible. His vocation would be in danger of clouding rather than enhancing God’s created purpose for man. The culture formed by his descendents, who never walked with their Creator in the cool of the evening, would quickly digress to a newly accepted norm of ‘‘every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart’’ being ‘‘only evil continually.’’ And after thousands of years his descendents would need, periodically, to retreat to the mountains from such a culture in order to readjust their human priorities.

The second Adam, Jesus Christ, also saw the contrast between fallen and perfect worlds. But unlike the first Adam who mostly regretted an old world, He anticipated as well a new world where the breeches of sin would be repaired and man would again live in harmony with his Creator. During His brief time on earth, the Savior opened the windows both of the lost world of Eden and the coming world of a new heaven and earth. C. S. Lewis, in his marvelous book, Miracles, called these works of Christ miracles of the old nature and miracles of the new nature.

In miracles of the old nature Jesus repaired what the first Adam broke. By turning water into wine he quickened the vine that distills the dew and rain. By multiplying the fish in the nets he momentarily fulfilled the Creator’s command to fill the earth. By turning one loaf of bread into many he became sower, reaper and baker in an instant. Should not God’s own children see the mountain stream that produces the Brook Trout as a multiplying of fish? Should we not see the wheat fields of the plains as huge bread mills where God continues to multiply the loaves? Should we not see the Concord grape vine as a divine press turning water into wine? By doing so we are not minimizing the interruptions of nature we call miracles, but we are attesting to their purpose as Christ showed.

In miracles of the new nature Jesus advanced the creative clock and gave man a glimpse of a future world. Walking on water never has been a normal part of this life. The laws of the old nature dictate against it now but not in the future life. Jesus knew Nathanael’s whereabouts and the disciple’s thoughts in ways only a future life will know. Foreshadowing the greatest miracle of the new nature, the Lord reversed the process of death itself, brought on by the first Adam’s disobedience, by making death come back to life instead of the other way around. Bruce Lockerbie wrote, “Faith in Jesus of Nazareth recognizes his sovereignty as Lord of time and space . . . He is the focal point from which all being takes its meaning, the source of all coherence in the universe. He is the reality for which Newton’s laws and Einstein’s theory are approximations. He is the fulcrum, the keystone; in T. S. Eliot’s phrase, he is ‘the still point of the turning world.’ Around him and him alone all else may be said to radiate. He is the Cosmic Center.”

So what are we doing here? First of all, we are testifying of the original creation by living life the way God created us to live. Our vocations and vacations recognize and are in harmony with the original creation as if it were still untainted by the disobedience of one. The construction of a machine that enhances our productivity or the moonlight stroll under the canopy of God, are all our created business. Second of all, we are inviting people to view the new creation through the miraculous means of the new birth, when a person releases the present sinful world to make reservations in the next. The old creation groans as an old windmill in the night breeze to be released from the present struggle. ‘‘Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. . . (for we walk by faith, not by sight).’’

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

Were The Reformers Wrong?

July 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

Were The Reformers Wrong?

by Rick Shrader

Unless I am convicted of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of pope or of councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning I stand convicted by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God’s word, I cannot and will not recant anything. For to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us. On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen. Martin Luther, 1521

The Roman Catholic Church has always looked on the Reformation as the antics of wayward children. Sooner or later, they believe, children come home. That is why the Church does not rebaptize a Protestant, but consecrates his baptism. In 1961, Msgr. John J. Dougherty said in a New York conclave, ‘‘Let no one be deceived that reunion is just around the corner. Great doctrinal chasms separate the Catholic and the Protestant churches, the greatest being the concept of the church itself.’’ But their outlook has always been ‘‘reunion.’’ And when it comes, they say, it will be on their terms.

On March 29 of this year, in New York, forty prominent Evangelical and Catholic leaders signed a declaration titled ‘‘Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium.’’ It is a result of a coalition launched in 1992 by Charles Colson (an Evangelical) and Richard Neuhaus (a Catholic Priest) to have Protestants and Catholics put aside their differences and call one another brothers in Christ. The document is signed by such Evangelical leaders as Colson, J.I. Packer, Pat Robertson, Bill Bright and Michael Novak. In true ecumenical spirit, the document says, ‘‘As Evangelicals and Catholics, we dare not by needless and loveless conflict between ourselves give aid and comfort to the enemies of the cause of Christ . . . We together, Evangelicals and Catholics, confess our sins against the unity that Christ intends for all His disciples.’’ I guess that means that they are apologizing to God for Luther’s words (quoted above) and the resulting Reformation movement! It is one thing to join a Catholic in a voting booth, it is quite another to call him born again!

Even two agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Home Mission Board and Christian Life Commission endorsed the document (Baptists, of course, were never Protestants). And this after the Pontifical Biblical Commission on Bible interpretation said, ‘‘The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life.’’ And, ‘‘Fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide.’’ The Commission espouses the historical-critical (rationalistic) method of Bible interpretation.

Charles Colson, in his 1992 book The Body, spends the first section arguing for accepting Catholics as believers. ‘‘Who are we to question, let alone know, whom He calls? He has the people of His own choosing in every nation of every color and political persuasion and from every confessing tradition’’ (p. 89). ‘‘I’ve been enriched deeply by my fellowship with those who hold different, but equally strong doctrinal convictions–particularly my Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and Lutheran brothers and sisters’’ (p. 99). On p. 104 he cites a survey that suggests that more Catholics than Protestants claimed to have a personal relationshipwith Jesus Christ. On p. 87 he presents Mother Teresa as an obvious believer with a ‘‘single-minded devotion to Jesus as Lord and Savior.’’

The rest of the book is a plea to the ‘‘church’’ for action but without committing what he calls ‘‘the sin of presumption’’ (p. 86) i.e. presuming to know who is really in the faith and who is not. That is why the March 29 declaration condemned ‘‘proselytizing’’ and ‘‘sheep-stealing.’’ In other words, we must stop treating Catholics as if they are not Christians and stop trying to win them to Christ! I know that Colson and others want to clean up America and that it takes all Americans with moral values to do it. But to ask that we ignore the view of personal faith apart from works is too high a price. How can we call spiritual darkness light for any purpose?

John Calvin, the great Reformer, asked that all people ‘‘make confession and render reason of their faith, that it may be ascertained a) which accord with the Gospel, and b) which prefer to be of the kingdom of the Pope rather than of Jesus Christ.’’ I am surely not Reformed in my theology, but the Reformation was a reform of soteriology (salvation) with which I, as a Baptist, am in agreement about personal faith. ‘‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’’ Do we remember? Perhaps we, as people of faith, are just tired of the strife that contending for the faith brings. Colson writes, ‘‘Harmony and oneness in spirit can be achieved only when Christians put aside their personal agendas’’ (p. 107).

Vance Havner wrote in 1955, ‘‘Some Christians who once championed sound doctrine beat a retreat once in a while and from stratospheric heights announce that they ‘do not stoop to controversy.’ When a man contends for the faith in New Testament style he does not stoop! Some assert that they have become mellow in later years, but one must remember that some things become mellow just before they spoil.’’ Where would Luther have been if he decided that peace was more valuable than freedom? Of Romans he said, ‘‘This passage of Paul became to me a gateway to heaven.’’ Yet the fight for the truth of Romans cost him his life and that of many others who loved truth more than peace.

One cannot read an Evangelical periodical today without being urged to ignore soteriological differences for the sake of peace. From Tony Campolo uniting Irish Catholics and Protestants in Belfast to Alexander Solzhenitsyn uniting Russian Orthodox with Russian Evangelicals to Bill McCartney leading the pep rallies, all we seem to want is freedom from contention even over the mode of salvation. In 1958 A. W. Tozer wrote, ‘‘The Bible is a book of controversy. The Old Testament prophets were men of contention. Our Lord Jesus while on earth was in deadly conflict with the devil. The Apostles, the Church Fathers and the Reformers were men of controversy. They fought the devil to the death and kept the torch of truth burning for all succeeding generations. Is our contribution to history to be the ignoble one of letting the torch go out?’’

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

Ministering To Our Culture

June 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

Ministering To Our Culture

by Rick Shrader

Who cares how many boxes of cereal can be sold via television? We need to know if television changes our conception of reality, the relationship of the rich to the poor, the idea of happiness itself. A preacher who confines himself to considering how a medium can increase his audience will miss the significant question: In what sense do new media alter what is meant by religion, by church, even by God? Neil Postman

Arthur Hugh Clough once wrote, ‘‘Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market.’’ I doubt if anyone would wholeheartedly agree or disagree with that statement. If the goods sold at such a market are the expressions of a contemporary culture, most Christians would realize that some expressions are good, some are very bad and many are simply neutral. Good cultural expressions can be made bad. Neutral things can be used for noble or ignoble purposes. Bad usually remains bad.

The church remains in a dispute over where one category ends and another begins. Like the colors in a rainbow, we all see different colors but it becomes difficult to tell where they change. Where does music cease being a good cultural expression and become merely neutral? And where do we insist it is simply bad? Where do we change from being fully clothed and ‘‘modest’’ to being unclothed and ‘‘immodest?’’ We could add similar analogies from art, theater, literature, refreshments and entertainments.

We could further complicate the question by asking at what time in history such evaluations would be made and though cultural expressions change with time, should our definitions of good, neutral and bad change? Allan Bloom points out that the very concept of culture, as we speak of it, began with Immanuel Kant to evaluate the motivations of the bourgeois and from this came our definitions of moral and immoral. ‘‘Honesty is the best policy. Thus he corrupts morality, the essence of which is to exist for its own sake.’’ He is asking, do we have a solid foundation for morality or does it float with the culture?

If you have stayed with me this far, I can proceed to my purpose (for which you are grateful, I know). I have noticed that the way one answers these questions about culture largely determines how he goes about ministering to the culture in which he lives. Many have noticed the same thing. Leith Anderson wrote, ‘‘If your answer is that culture is the enemy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will become a separatist. If your answer is that culture is the friend . . . you will become a contextualist.’’ He is the latter. But, then, as I pointed out, saying that culture is an enemy or friend is not so clear cut. It may be easier to turn the procedure around. Observing the way you go about ministry, reveals how you have actually defined such terms. I see three definite approaches to ministry related to our culture.

1. Infiltration. This is the ‘‘User-friendly’’ and ‘‘Seeker-friendly’’ method, or the ‘‘Contextualization’’ of Leith Anderson. This approach sees culture as amoral, neutral and basically friendly. The infiltration method, therefore, will build strategy on the latest polls and market studies and strive to adapt to the cultural norms. Ed Dobson asks, ‘‘Who are we trying to reach? What kind of service is most likely to reach them?’’ He further preaches, ‘‘To reach the nonevangelical generation of our day, we must break out of our tradition-bound isolation and relate the gospel to people where they are.’’ In an infiltration ministry, you would see dress, hear music and even visit a building seeming more like the local mall than a traditional church.

2. Dissociation. I do not mean simple ‘‘separation’’ from the world while being in the world. Dissociation is to see almost every aspect of culture as bad and therefore to be avoided. Some, like the Amish, are extreme in their dissociation and leave their generation altogether. Others may choose to stay only one generation behind or to stay permanently in a comfortable place like the Fonz who said, ‘‘If I had my way it would be 1955 forever.’’ Gene Edward Veith sees dissociation as a viable alternative for believers in a postmodern culture and calls it the ‘‘ghettoization’’ of Christianity reminiscent of the Jews retreating from the Nazis to the ghettos for their own preservation.

A more thoughtful kind of dissociation is theological in nature. There has been a revival of Reformed thinking which emphasizes elective grace and the inability of man’s will. In many ways these men have been a blessing in writing about the Charismatic movement and related things. But the dissociation is seen when, for example, John MacArthur said on the radio of his Lordship Salvation position, ‘‘I’m not concerned about getting the elect saved. I’m concerned about keeping the non-elect from thinking they are saved.’’ This produces a more guarded procedure for evangelism often emphasizing dissociation from the culture.

3. Confrontation. This approach sees culture as basically neutral but highly expressive of that generation’s attitude toward God. This view is often expressed by secular educators such as Allan Bloom, Neil Postman, Gene Veith, who are in a hostile environment and by men like the late Francis Schaeffer who traveled into those environments. Schaeffer criticized Christianity in the 1960’s for dissociating themselves, on the one hand, from the culture and for accommodating the culture on the other hand. Either position, he said, ‘‘Leaves the destructive surrounding culture increasingly unchallenged. It is easy to be a radical in the wearing of blue jeans when it fits in with the general culture of wearing blue jeans.’’

MacArthur, criticizing the infiltration method said, ‘‘Instead of confronting the world with the truth of Christ, the market-driven megachurches are enthusiastically promoting the worst trends of secular culture.’’ Schaeffer would say, ‘‘The evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of the age.’’ To confront the culture, therefore, is to insist on the highest levels of its expression seeing that all things come from God. Music, art, literature and oratory expressing cultures that have glorified God should be emulated while not capitulating to cultures that have expressed an anti-God message.

So what? A bumper sticker that so aptly described our generation said, ‘‘It Don’t Matter.’’ Many are concluding the same and their speech usually betrays them as well. Sadly, our churches and our pulpits often give the same message. You may find yourself in each of these categories to some degree or strongly attached to only one. Personally, I travel in approaches two and three and I have friends in each of them. But I think it is wrong of us to suppose that culture doesn’t matter or to think that the expressions of that culture are harmless. That’s why we all draw the line–somewhere!

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment

Reaching The Postmodern Man

May 29, 1994Written by Rick Shrader

Reaching The Postmodern Man

by Rick Shrader

I searched for America’s greatness in her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. I searched for America’s greatness in her halls of Congress, and it was not there. I searched for America’s greatness in her rich and fertile fields and teeming potential, and it was not there. It was not until I went into the heartlands of America and into her churches and met the American people that I discovered what it is that makes America great. America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Alexis de Tocqueville

It has been over one hundred and fifty years since Tocqueville wrote those words as French Minister of Foreign Affairs, searching for the key to a cultural foundation for his country which was collapsing due to the French Revolution. He came to America when Samuel Morse had, through strange impulses over an electrical wire, uttered the words, ‘‘What hath God wrought?’’ Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had just passed off the scene (both dying on July 4th, 1826). The population in the 1840 census was just over seventeen million, the telephone did not exist, neither did television nor any modes of horseless transportation except steam.

We look at the change in the world since those days and marvel at what man has been able to accomplish. Knowledge and technology have exploded to such a degree that the days of Morse seem like ancient history. And in a way they are! But the question we find ourselves asking as we enter the twenty-first century is, are we really advanced or are we simply able to build the tower of Babel faster?

In the same age Walt Whitman said, ‘‘To have great poets, you must have great audiences.’’ But, of course, as the level of the audience decreases, so does the quality of the poets. Great societies, like great rivers, said George Will, run naturally downhill. This poses a unique problem for the church living in the times when the river’s currents are almost impossible to manage. I have paddled a canoe valiantly against the current only to realize that though I was pointed upstream I was only slowing my advance downstream. And even at that, to the world of the current, I was only making a huge commotion. Sometimes the commotion is necessary and sometimes it’s merely due to a lack of skill. Oh, for the wisdom to know the difference!

Philosophers and observers are calling our present age the postmodern age. It is an age beyond what we called modernism. About the time we thought we had identified the enemy and learned how to fight him, he has taken a different form. When we fought modernism we had to choose between Atheism and Theism, Evolution and Creation, Rationalism and Supernaturalism. Now, in the postmodern age, neither are true and both are true. Nothing is moral and nothing is immoral. There simply are no absolutes because what we call truth is only someone’s idea. History itself is a manipulation of words by those who wanted to gain power over the oppressed in society. And so there are no great poets because the present audience refuses to hear poetry.

In describing this postmodern age, Gene Edward Veith writes, ‘‘The age of literacy is over. Reading has become obsolete. The written word is giving way to the electronic image. Reading demands abstract thought, the connection of sequential ideas, and an inner life. Once reading goes, the anti-intellectualism, relativism, and shallowness that already characterize postmodern society will accelerate out of control. To a degree, this is happening. The electronic media is the supreme postmodernist art form, both aesthetically and in its all-pervasive influence.’’ And Gore Vidal admits, ‘‘Music remains the most powerful of the art forms, whether it’s heavy metal or Verdi.’’

With our old friends the modernists, we could reason and fight over ideas and concepts. We could argue objectively that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He may scream, yell and disagree but at least we understood each other. To the postmodernist, however, the only truth is that there is no truth (an apparent contradiction, I know) and such concepts matter little to him. If it works for you it is true for you. That doesn’t mean it is true for me. This is dangerous to a person who must accept a verbal proposition in order to be saved! He can say yes to whatever is asked of him, being entirely sincere, without mentally consenting to any ‘‘truth.’’

To the postmodern, the distinction between reality and non-reality, truth and non-truth is impossible (and unnecessary) to tell. This has to be a great concern for any evangelistic believer. A good example is postmodern art. Traditional art found meaning in representing reality. Modern art found meaning in the mind of the artist. To the postmodern artist, however, meaning is found in the reaction of the audience (since truth is only what you perceive it to be). If the audience is shocked, art has occurred. The more bizarre, the better the art.

Postmodern architecture also creates a semi-fantasy world. Theme parks make you feel you are in frontier days but in reality you are not. Malls make the inside feel like an old city street but it is not. Buildings are turned inside out so that you see elevators, heating ducts and beams on the outside of the walls. One doesn’t quite know what is real about this place and what is illusion.

But the most profound fusing of reality and non-reality is the electronic media. Television can present a ‘‘documentary’’ about an historical character but mix it with fictional story lines to keep interest. News, on TV and radio, is often a ‘‘commentary’’ on the way the reporter sees it. Commercials present a fantasy world as a reward for buying a product. Music videos present pain and death as a normal (but drab) part of life. Movies present cartoon characters or alien beings as real as humans. The viewers are pandered to, entertained and given what their weakest will wants. And all of this through the most amazing, exciting and creative medium this world has ever seen. If Samuel Morse could only see us now!

Reaching our generation for Christ will take more than merely using the art, architecture and media of the postmodern man. We must keep the proposition of God’s truth distinct from the non-reality of the world in which people live today. We cannot win postmodern man by turning the clock back because it won’t turn back. We must investigate every legitimate means the postmodern world offers us to evangelize. But we must do more than entertain and amaze. We must ask people to think.

Accepting truth is a cognitive process. If we only present Christianity as a more exciting alternative, postmodern man will readily acquiesce until the excitement wears off and then he’ll quietly vanish. Jesus offered the truth to set men free. Regardless of the mode in which it comes, if the receiver doesn’t understand it to be fact and not fiction, he is not free.

Click here for more “Senior Saints & Sensibility” articles.

Articles

Leave a Comment