A few months ago, my wife and I attended a seminar at Duke University featuring John Lennox, a noted mathematician and philosopher from Oxford. For about two hours, he laid out the reasoning behind his Christian faith and how his science and logic are only validated through a Christian worldview. Ironically, his most compelling story had nothing to do with math or philosophy at all, but was rather a portrait of the gospel told through marriage. Just in time for Christmas, here is a loose paraphrase of his personal take on the gospel offered by Jesus:
Imagine if, when you had first met the woman you desired to marry, you said to her: "If you cook all of my meals for the next fifty years, and do all of the cleaning and raise our kids, and love me perfectly, then after all of that I will decide that you are worthy to get married to me." Any self-respecting woman would likely slap you in the face if you had such stringent and life-long requirements before you even deemed her worthy of marriage!
And yet, how many of us seem to view a relationship with God in this way? Too many people, often even self-proclaimed Christians, seem to think that God requires us to live a righteous life before He could ever accept us. Nearly every religion raises a standard we have to live up to before we are seen as righteous in the eyes of God or others. And yet our very hearts seem to cry out for the opposite. Going back to the marriage example, John Lennox pointed out that it was BECAUSE he decided to marry his wife up front and love her unconditionally that she feels the desire to love him and serve him back.
It is the same way with God, thanks to the grace offered to us through Christ. Through Christ's perfect life and sacrifice for our sins, we are seen as righteous in the eyes of God regardless of our past, present, or future sin. It is a gift of unconditional love and acceptance. And it is BECAUSE we are already loved and accepted by God that we feel a sincere and joyful desire to love Him and our neighbors with our whole hearts.
Merry Christmas Eve!
Monday, December 24, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Some thoughts about why school shootings happen
Yesterday 26 people, including 20 young children, were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut. In addition to being the second worst school shooting in American history, behind only the massacre at Virginia Tech, the shooter's choice of an elementary school (as opposed to the more typical high school or college setting) was particularly shocking and saddening.
Already a common theme in both the media and the general public is the question of "how could somebody do this?!" Indeed, whenever an American citizen performs an unspeakably horrific act to his peers, I have noticed a general trend to immediately dismiss the perpetrator as insane because they cannot think of a single answer to this question. This conclusion would make sense if every shooter had a clinical history of schizophrenia or severe psychological impairment, and perhaps it will come to light that the current shooter did indeed have a medical condition. But from previous shootings, for example Columbine in 1999 and Aurora in 2012, we know that very often the perpetrators came from normal two-parent families, were very intelligent academically, and had no mental condition whatsoever (in the clinical sense).
Therefore it seems very dangerous to me to dismiss all shooters as clinically insane. It may be a comforting thought to many that no sane person could ever shoot innocent people, but I believe we have very clear historical evidence to the contrary. To pass off these perpetrators as merely crazy is to ignore the underlying societal problems and worldviews that cause some people to act like this in the first place. A somewhat related example I can think of is the tendency for many to similarly dismiss Hitler and the terrorists behind 9/11 as insane, when in reality those people were very intelligent and in control of their faculties and simply operating under a very different set of values and worldviews.
If insanity is out of the question for many of these cases, it brings us back full circle to the question: "what could cause somebody to do this?" In this post, I argue that there are 3 things that modern American culture has forgotten about our society and human nature, and only by relearning them can we truly confront the underlying problem.
1) Humans are not intrinsically good beings
I have noticed a recent trend, particularly among secular humanists, to consider all humans as inherently good. To me, this is not only a dangerous worldview to hold, it is laughably out of touch with the reality of the world. Consider just a smattering of evidence. Every civilization in the world, until the past two hundred years, has endorsed slavery. Most superpowers in world history have felt entitled to pillage, kill, and rape indiscriminately upon conquering a new nation. An estimated 1.6 million children are currently being sex trafficked right here in America. I could literally go on for hours, but honestly I think you all get the point. I mean just read the news every day and it gets pretty obvious that we have a selfish and twisted nature. To those who still think that humans are fundamentally good in nature, let me ask you this: if America's entire police force announced it would stand down for a single day, and no laws were enforced, what do you think the American people would do to each other? We need to confront our sinful and selfish nature before we can successfully restrain it. And on that note...
2) Humans need accountability
Because humans have evil tendencies, we need accountability from our family and communities to help restrain our wickedness. An excellent example is pedophiles such as Jerry Sandusky. What many fail to understand is that nobody becomes a pedophile, or even a more conventional adulterer, overnight. It takes years for a person's moral state to gradually decline to the point where even an affair or molestation can be self-rationalized to gratify selfish desires. What is crucial to note here is that this self-rationalization typically only makes sense to the perpetrator when they are able to isolate their thoughts and actions from society. This is why Tiger Woods was so careful to keep all of his affairs secret from absolutely everyone, he instinctively knew that isolation was the only way he could ever continue to justify his actions. As long as everything remained personal and a secret, he continued to act in increasingly debauched ways, it was only when things came to light that he was able to self-acknowledge and confront his demons. The point here is that if people valued openness and accountability from their family, friends, and church, I think we would find a lot less people on a long-slippery slope. I know that I personally have benefited enormously from the accountability given by my wife, my friends, and my church, and seeking out and welcoming this accountability has fought back a lot of personal demons created by my selfishness and sinful nature.
3) Humans need to worship something
I am not just referring to religious people! My point here is that no matter what your worldview is, everybody chooses to worship something in their lives as the ultimate or most important thing(s). The Christian argument, which I firmly believe, is that even good things, when elevated to "God" things, become bad things. Besides the lack of accountability, a major problem in American culture right now is we are worshiping a lot of things that were never meant to be worshiped. For example, many teenagers idolize social popularity and acceptance, to the point where it feels like their life is over if they are socially marginalized. This was likely a key point related to the Columbine shootings, in which the shooters were bullied and social outcasts. If your entire purpose depends on this popularity, then why not end your life if you cannot achieve it? Why not kill those who have socially shunned you? If sexual gratification is the ultimate goal in life, then why not have affairs or engage in prostitution? My point here is that if you idolize worldly things such as popularity, money, power, or sexual gratification, this can actually lead you to horrific acts such as school shootings or sex trafficking even if you are a clinically rational person. It is not insanity that has led people here, it's their idolatrous worldview! We were not designed to worship worldly things: they are not only inherently unstable (how easy it is to lose power, money, and popularity!), but also unable to lastingly fill the God-hole that is in all of our hearts. For that we need Jesus, and I will post a series on the need for grace over the Christmas season.
Already a common theme in both the media and the general public is the question of "how could somebody do this?!" Indeed, whenever an American citizen performs an unspeakably horrific act to his peers, I have noticed a general trend to immediately dismiss the perpetrator as insane because they cannot think of a single answer to this question. This conclusion would make sense if every shooter had a clinical history of schizophrenia or severe psychological impairment, and perhaps it will come to light that the current shooter did indeed have a medical condition. But from previous shootings, for example Columbine in 1999 and Aurora in 2012, we know that very often the perpetrators came from normal two-parent families, were very intelligent academically, and had no mental condition whatsoever (in the clinical sense).
Therefore it seems very dangerous to me to dismiss all shooters as clinically insane. It may be a comforting thought to many that no sane person could ever shoot innocent people, but I believe we have very clear historical evidence to the contrary. To pass off these perpetrators as merely crazy is to ignore the underlying societal problems and worldviews that cause some people to act like this in the first place. A somewhat related example I can think of is the tendency for many to similarly dismiss Hitler and the terrorists behind 9/11 as insane, when in reality those people were very intelligent and in control of their faculties and simply operating under a very different set of values and worldviews.
If insanity is out of the question for many of these cases, it brings us back full circle to the question: "what could cause somebody to do this?" In this post, I argue that there are 3 things that modern American culture has forgotten about our society and human nature, and only by relearning them can we truly confront the underlying problem.
1) Humans are not intrinsically good beings
I have noticed a recent trend, particularly among secular humanists, to consider all humans as inherently good. To me, this is not only a dangerous worldview to hold, it is laughably out of touch with the reality of the world. Consider just a smattering of evidence. Every civilization in the world, until the past two hundred years, has endorsed slavery. Most superpowers in world history have felt entitled to pillage, kill, and rape indiscriminately upon conquering a new nation. An estimated 1.6 million children are currently being sex trafficked right here in America. I could literally go on for hours, but honestly I think you all get the point. I mean just read the news every day and it gets pretty obvious that we have a selfish and twisted nature. To those who still think that humans are fundamentally good in nature, let me ask you this: if America's entire police force announced it would stand down for a single day, and no laws were enforced, what do you think the American people would do to each other? We need to confront our sinful and selfish nature before we can successfully restrain it. And on that note...
2) Humans need accountability
Because humans have evil tendencies, we need accountability from our family and communities to help restrain our wickedness. An excellent example is pedophiles such as Jerry Sandusky. What many fail to understand is that nobody becomes a pedophile, or even a more conventional adulterer, overnight. It takes years for a person's moral state to gradually decline to the point where even an affair or molestation can be self-rationalized to gratify selfish desires. What is crucial to note here is that this self-rationalization typically only makes sense to the perpetrator when they are able to isolate their thoughts and actions from society. This is why Tiger Woods was so careful to keep all of his affairs secret from absolutely everyone, he instinctively knew that isolation was the only way he could ever continue to justify his actions. As long as everything remained personal and a secret, he continued to act in increasingly debauched ways, it was only when things came to light that he was able to self-acknowledge and confront his demons. The point here is that if people valued openness and accountability from their family, friends, and church, I think we would find a lot less people on a long-slippery slope. I know that I personally have benefited enormously from the accountability given by my wife, my friends, and my church, and seeking out and welcoming this accountability has fought back a lot of personal demons created by my selfishness and sinful nature.
3) Humans need to worship something
I am not just referring to religious people! My point here is that no matter what your worldview is, everybody chooses to worship something in their lives as the ultimate or most important thing(s). The Christian argument, which I firmly believe, is that even good things, when elevated to "God" things, become bad things. Besides the lack of accountability, a major problem in American culture right now is we are worshiping a lot of things that were never meant to be worshiped. For example, many teenagers idolize social popularity and acceptance, to the point where it feels like their life is over if they are socially marginalized. This was likely a key point related to the Columbine shootings, in which the shooters were bullied and social outcasts. If your entire purpose depends on this popularity, then why not end your life if you cannot achieve it? Why not kill those who have socially shunned you? If sexual gratification is the ultimate goal in life, then why not have affairs or engage in prostitution? My point here is that if you idolize worldly things such as popularity, money, power, or sexual gratification, this can actually lead you to horrific acts such as school shootings or sex trafficking even if you are a clinically rational person. It is not insanity that has led people here, it's their idolatrous worldview! We were not designed to worship worldly things: they are not only inherently unstable (how easy it is to lose power, money, and popularity!), but also unable to lastingly fill the God-hole that is in all of our hearts. For that we need Jesus, and I will post a series on the need for grace over the Christmas season.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The practicality of sexual morality
I know that including the word "practicality" in a post about sexual purity is somewhat ironic. Waiting until marriage to have sex can feel like anything but practical from the point of view of a young and single person. So when I talk about the practicality of sexual morality, I am not referring to the ease of demonstrating this virtue, but rather the broad and important impacts that it has on society.
First things first, what exactly is meant by sexual morality? As CS Lewis puts it in his book Mere Christianity:
"There is no getting away from it: the Christian rule is, 'Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.'"
A 2002 survey found that about 95% of people in America had premarital sex. Interestingly, 73% of Americans identify as Christians. Clearly, there is an apparent contradiction here. I believe that part of the underlying problem here is that for too long, many churches have painted sexual morality as a purely spiritual matter. This is a problem because it creates the illusion that waiting until marriage does not have any actual benefits besides promoting your own spiritual well-being. This will not be a convincing enough reason for most young people to endure sexual repression for years on end.
In this post, I argue that the Christian call to sexual morality was not solely due to spiritual well-being, but equally motivated by Christ's call to love others and to combat suffering. To illustrate my point, I will briefly summarize all of the changes that would occur if everyone only pursued sex in the context of a loving marriage. Please keep in mind that I am NOT saying that we will ever live in a world where everyone actually does this, I know that is impossible. I am just giving the reasons why sexual morality is a loving thing for people to strive for, as it would greatly reduce human suffering and misery.
1) No more unwanted children - If everyone waited until they were in a loving and stable marriage to have sex and have children, there would not be any unwanted children. This would completely eliminate abortions, kids living in foster homes, and children living with parents who don't really want them. I don't have to explain any further how this would significantly reduce the amount of suffering and problems in the world.
2) No more children born out of wedlock - For the first time in American history, more than half of all births are out of wedlock. This means that it you were to go into a maternity ward and point to a newborn baby at random, there are better odds that this baby does not have a married mother and father. As the husband of an elementary school teacher, I can personally attest that children that don't have the stability of married parents have more emotional issues, lower self-esteem, and poorer academic performance compared to children in traditional family units. Obviously children would not be born out of wedlock if there was no sex out of wedlock, solving this problem that is crippling the education system and America's social stability.
3) No more prostitution, sex trafficking, and pornography - There are untold millions of people who are currently in sex trafficking and prostitution, many of them children. What is driving the demand for all of these industries is the immense market for sexual gratification and exploitation outside of the context of marriage.
4) No more STDs and AIDs - At least 30 million people currently are infected with HIV. Roughly 1 in 3 adults in America have an STD and shockingly 1 in 4 teenagers. Many high schools and even middle schools are reporting large outbreaks of herpes and gonorrhea amongst the children. It is impossible to obtain or spread an STD if people waited until marriage to have sex, this is the best and only surefire way to prevent STDs and their vicious spread.
In conclusion, try to imagine a world that had no abortions, foster homes, kids born out of wedlock, prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography, or STDs. All of these are impossible when the only context for sex is marriage. The difference this would make in people's overall quality of lives is so large as to stagger the imagination. I would even go so far as to say that this would completely remove at least one half of all human suffering and poverty on the globe. This is why I argue that sexual morality is far more than just an emotional or spiritual good (although it is that too). Everyone who strives to live by it will do their part to love their neighbor and eradicate human suffering. We cannot force others to follow sexual morality, but the responsibility is on each of us to live it out in our own lives and to encourage it in our communities.
First things first, what exactly is meant by sexual morality? As CS Lewis puts it in his book Mere Christianity:
"There is no getting away from it: the Christian rule is, 'Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.'"
A 2002 survey found that about 95% of people in America had premarital sex. Interestingly, 73% of Americans identify as Christians. Clearly, there is an apparent contradiction here. I believe that part of the underlying problem here is that for too long, many churches have painted sexual morality as a purely spiritual matter. This is a problem because it creates the illusion that waiting until marriage does not have any actual benefits besides promoting your own spiritual well-being. This will not be a convincing enough reason for most young people to endure sexual repression for years on end.
In this post, I argue that the Christian call to sexual morality was not solely due to spiritual well-being, but equally motivated by Christ's call to love others and to combat suffering. To illustrate my point, I will briefly summarize all of the changes that would occur if everyone only pursued sex in the context of a loving marriage. Please keep in mind that I am NOT saying that we will ever live in a world where everyone actually does this, I know that is impossible. I am just giving the reasons why sexual morality is a loving thing for people to strive for, as it would greatly reduce human suffering and misery.
1) No more unwanted children - If everyone waited until they were in a loving and stable marriage to have sex and have children, there would not be any unwanted children. This would completely eliminate abortions, kids living in foster homes, and children living with parents who don't really want them. I don't have to explain any further how this would significantly reduce the amount of suffering and problems in the world.
2) No more children born out of wedlock - For the first time in American history, more than half of all births are out of wedlock. This means that it you were to go into a maternity ward and point to a newborn baby at random, there are better odds that this baby does not have a married mother and father. As the husband of an elementary school teacher, I can personally attest that children that don't have the stability of married parents have more emotional issues, lower self-esteem, and poorer academic performance compared to children in traditional family units. Obviously children would not be born out of wedlock if there was no sex out of wedlock, solving this problem that is crippling the education system and America's social stability.
3) No more prostitution, sex trafficking, and pornography - There are untold millions of people who are currently in sex trafficking and prostitution, many of them children. What is driving the demand for all of these industries is the immense market for sexual gratification and exploitation outside of the context of marriage.
4) No more STDs and AIDs - At least 30 million people currently are infected with HIV. Roughly 1 in 3 adults in America have an STD and shockingly 1 in 4 teenagers. Many high schools and even middle schools are reporting large outbreaks of herpes and gonorrhea amongst the children. It is impossible to obtain or spread an STD if people waited until marriage to have sex, this is the best and only surefire way to prevent STDs and their vicious spread.
In conclusion, try to imagine a world that had no abortions, foster homes, kids born out of wedlock, prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography, or STDs. All of these are impossible when the only context for sex is marriage. The difference this would make in people's overall quality of lives is so large as to stagger the imagination. I would even go so far as to say that this would completely remove at least one half of all human suffering and poverty on the globe. This is why I argue that sexual morality is far more than just an emotional or spiritual good (although it is that too). Everyone who strives to live by it will do their part to love their neighbor and eradicate human suffering. We cannot force others to follow sexual morality, but the responsibility is on each of us to live it out in our own lives and to encourage it in our communities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)