A culture adrift?
Our
local newspaper reported the story of a high school substitute teacher
who was suspended from his job for giving a student his Bible. Yes,
that’s all there is to the story. There’s no hidden detail, no scandal,
just a nice guy answering a kid’s question and handing him his personal
Bible. School policy banned distribution of religious material in the
pursuit of neutrality. I get the aim of that policy, but the application
of it in this case is absurd. Fast forward to today’s paper. The county
executives handed out grant money (tax money, yours and mine)
yesterday. Included in their largesse are two local churches, one
receiving $150k for a new roof, the other $100K for a stained glass
window repair. What? Yes, you read correctly; tax money going to
churches for repairs. I wish that they would have paid for our recent
new heating plant ($22K). No, actually I don’t. (But that is a thought
for another day.)
We
are a culture adrift, conflicted about religion. Many push it to the
side as an irrelevant relic of yesterday, not to be taken too seriously.
At the same time, some realize that becoming a purely secular nation
is a certain route to a cruel culture in which the power of the elites
is unrestrained and the rights of the poor and weak are trampled
underfoot. The terrible social experiments of the last century are proof
of that. The atrocities of National Socialism (Nazi) in Germany were
followed by terrible suffering that persisted for decades under
Communism that spread across the globe. Both systems officially
eliminated all things spiritual from public policy and descended into
horrific abuses of individuals by the crushing power of the state.
What
contemporary Americans have conveniently forgotten is that faith is not
merely a private devotion. What we believe about God and ourselves has
real consequence for both for the individual and for the society in
which we live.
500
years ago, a 34 year old priest named Martin Luther realized that the
Church was corrupt to the core. He re-examined the Scripture and renewed
the understanding that we all matter to God, that we each can
experience the power of the Spirit, and that all of our work can be done
to God’s glory. Out of those convictions came democracy,
constitutionalism, and religious liberty. He started a revolution that
has implications for all aspects of life even five centuries later.
Harold Berman of Emory University writes that "the key to the renewal of
law in the West from the sixteenth century on was the Protestant
concept of the power of the individual, by God's grace, to change nature
and to create new social relations through the exercise of his will.
The Protestant concept of the individual became central to the
development of the modern law of property and contract...." America was
born out of the religious ideas of the Reformation.
The followers of John Calvin, in the 17th
century, enumerated the theology on which rests the ideals of American
civil rights and liberties including freedom of speech, press, and
religion.
So,
why my opening remarks about a teacher and some grants? They reveal the
confused nature of the government, growing out of our abandonment of
vital faith. Religion is at once reviled and revered, but only for
perhaps one more generation. We need a revival! No, I am not longing for
the emotionalism that too often passes for spiritual renewal. I am
praying for a deep, well-thought faith, grounded in the principles of
Holy Scripture, from which grows godliness that nurtures life. While
demanding respect for the rights of individuals, it balances those
rights against responsibility shaped by the recognition that we will all
give account for the way we conduct our lives to a just God.
I do not pine for a Christian nation in which the church is wedded to the State. I pray earnestly for a
nation of Christians whose deeply held convictions about God and His
Christ once again shape and restrain the powers of the State.
"From
heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling
place he watches all who live on earth- he who forms the hearts of all,
who considers everything they do. No king is saved by the size of his
army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope
for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But
the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is
in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in
famine." (Psalm 33:13-19, NIV)
___________
Lord, send revival.
Start with me.
Amen.
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