Our culture’s lies contain some truth, otherwise they’d be lousy lies. So what are those truths?
I get the Christianity Today newsletter emailed to me weekdays. It’s one way of keeping up on items of Christian interest that I might miss otherwise.
They sell downloadable bible studies. If you don’t feel confident enough to put together your own bible study curriculum, you can go through theirs. This provokes two side-rants, which I’ll summarize:
- Most of these are not bible studies per se. They are attempts to analyze one’s life or one’s surroundings with a “Christian” perspective. This presumes that the people in your study group have a Christian perspective, and they’re hardly going to develop one unless they study the bible, dammit.
- That being the case, I strongly disapprove of making money off the stupid or ignorant.
This one, which you can download free, is adapted from Charles Colson’s BreakPoint radio commentaries. (That’s right, another one of Colson’s ghostwriters strikes again.) Again, it’s not a bible study; it’s a worldview study, and stacks the deck in favor of Colson’s worldview by listing seven “lies” that go unchallenged.
I’m not saying they aren’t lies; but I think it would be better if such a study began by first asking people whether they thought these statements were true. If lies are going to be effective, there has to be some truth in them, and perhaps it would be a good thing to extract the truth first instead of rejecting everything in the statement.
For fun, here are the statements. For my fun, they’re followed by my comments.
1. We have the freedom of choice to be who we want and to do what we want.
Naturally, we have free will. (For those yutzes who say that free will is an illusion, I would argue that God isn’t in the business of creating illusions.) This includes many freedoms of choice, including the choice to choose one’s vocation, lifestyle, and hobbies.
There are some limitations. Since I am 176 cm tall and am horribly uncoordinated, I cannot be a professional basketball player. Since I am male, I cannot be a surrogate mother. Since I am Christian, there are certain vocations that I feel God objects to—things that prey on the weak or poor, for example, which is why I can’t work at convenience stores because I would have to sell lottery tickets. These limitations are actually so insignificant that there’s really no point in discussing them.
What Colson is talking about is lifestyle and behavioral choices he considers sinful. I don’t think anyone is going to object to that. Ask most people and they will near-universally tell you (unless they’re loony or unless they’re already in that vocation) that there are some things one simply can’t be, like heroin pushers and child pornographers. The rest of the debate is about what is sinful and what isn’t, and most of the time such debates are based on personal prejudices rather than the scriptures. But as I said, this isn’t really a bible study.
2. Marriage can be between any two people, and it lasts only as long as both are happy.
By “any two people” Colson is referring to gays. But by leaving it vague he could be referring to people of mixed race or ancestry or economic status or religion—all of which has been banned in the past, all of which is accepted now because we believe these things are irrelevant. (I would argue that religion is not irrelevant, but of course no one’s going to pass a law in the U.S. saying that.)
By “it lasts only as long” Colson is referring to divorce, which Fundamentalists say should never happen except for adultery. I would say there’s a scriptural case for divorce due to abandonment [1Co 7] which is, when it gets right down to it, an unloving, unhappy situation. What about that?
3. We’ll live in harmony if we tolerate the beliefs of others.
Of course we will. If we disagree with the beliefs of others, we won’t have fellowship with them, which is not harmony. If we debate the beliefs of others, that’s not harmony either. If (in countries where debate isn’t allowed) we try to destroy people who believe differently with guns and bombs, that certainly doesn’t result in harmony.
In the Middle East, there is no real freedom of speech; and as a result there are terrorists and suicide bombers. The reason we have troops there is because the fruits of their disharmony—which we have done nothing about—is spreading to our country. Their lack of tolerance has disintegrated into terrorism. And so has ours—look at the lynch mobs, race riots, gay-bashing, Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber… These people are definitely intolerant.
Besides, what are we as Christians supposed to be doing? Debating lifestyles or sharing Jesus?
4. Art should break traditional norms and challenge outworn beliefs.
Art should provoke thought. Sometimes, to do that, an artist may offend people. Sometimes, in order to sell art or gain notoriety, an artist will deliberately try to offend as many people as possible. These artists are no longer creating art for art’s sake, and shouldn’t be confused with artists who are simply trying to do what they’re supposed to.
Besides, isn’t it God’s job to break traditional norms and challenge outworn beliefs? Couldn’t art be a help to his cause? Colson’s problem is likely that art, as he sees it, is challenging his beliefs, which he believes reflect God’s. Well, this isn’t surprising when you consider the only Christian artist with any worldwide impact is Thomas Kinkade. Apparently the Christian message is that the world needs more paintings of lit-up houses.
5. Christian beliefs are a private matter.
Damn right they are. My Christian beliefs invade every space of my existence. (Not that I always want them to.)
But they’re also a public matter; and this is where I think a lot of Christians get it wrong. They forget that it’s both. This is why, publicly, they’re vocal, political Christians; but in their private lives their marriages suffer, their children are apostate, and when you watch how they interact with their staff, they’re the most egocentric, selfish, obnoxious bastards you’ve ever met.
As I recall, ministers (from
διάκονος , usually translated “deacon”) need to prove themselves blameless before they’re put into any positions of responsibility; and their families are to be in order. [1Ti 3.8-13] So, before anything else, Christian beliefs must be a private matter.Likely Colson’s talking about how people tend to hide or not discuss their Christianity. Well, sometimes that’s a sign of maturity. Is it a good idea for a selfish bastard to be widely proclaiming that he’s a Christian? But other times it’s cowardice, and God needs to deal with such people.
6. Entertainment is a vehicle to help us fulfill personal desires.
The only personal desire I’ve ever had fulfilled by entertainment is when I’ve had the desire to see a movie or TV show. I saw it; desire fulfilled; I moved on.
Perhaps Colson is referring to people who want to get in the entertainment business, or whose entire life revolves around entertainment. Maybe. I dunno. I don’t know how many people believe this statement anyway.
7. God accepts us as we are, and there are many ways to him.
Of course God accepts us as we are. If he didn’t, who then would be saved?
Now, after that acceptance point, God has a lot of work to do with our broken lives. God may accept us as we are, but he’s not satisfied with us as we are. We have to become perfect. That takes work. “As we are” is not meant to be a fixed thing. It never is, anyway. My dad once told me that people don’t change. I told him people always change—some of us just become more and more like the caricature of ourselves that we present to the world. Case in point: Compare the first season of a long-running sitcom to the last season. In the first season, the characters were undefined, and therefore more realistic. In the last season, they had catchphrases and very limited behavior patterns (partly because that predictability made the audience comfortable). And I find, too often, that the older people get, the more they develop their own catchphrases and behavior patterns because of that comfortability. That’s why older people make lousy new converts. God prefers to get us while we’re young so that he can keep us from getting settled.
As to the many ways to God… well, I would say there are many ways to Jesus. But beyond that, Jesus is the way to God.