The more connected, the dumber?

July 21, 2010

Silva Culture, Foundations, relationships Leave a comment

I make it a habit to listen to a weekly podcast called the Whitehorse Inn.  This year’s theme has been “recovering Scripture,” or to put it another way, they are systematically dealing with biases in the church and the culture that keep us from seeing the beauty and usefulness of the Bible.

A recent podcast is called “Distracting Ourselves to Death.”  Host Michael Horton is interviewing college professor T. David Gordon.  Dr. Gordon has written a number of books like “Why Johnny Can’t Preach” or “Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns” (great books that play on the theme of the bestseller “Why Johnny Can’t Read” by Rudolph Flesch).  These books take the unfortunately ubiquitous church phenomena of poor preaching and poorer worship and unpack its source material.

This particular podcast regarded distractions.  Specifically the same theme about which author Nicholas Carr wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in 2008 in his article “Is Google Making us Stupid?” We are distracted, it seems, by more than simply our commitments to ease, comfort and the satisfaction of the senses: our thinking may be in the process of being remade in the image of our connectedness.

Years ago, I exhorted a group of young single people to fight against the temptation to live with mediated communication.  In other words, that they would not be satisfied with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.  Instead, they’d want to be personal.  In this podcast, Dr. Gordon mentions that we have “plastic neurology.”  He said something like we make tools and then they make us.  He has observed in his college classroom that while students bring in laptops ostensibly to take notes, they are in fact using them to surf the web, send email or chat.  Nevermind, says Dr. Gordon.  What really bothers him is his theory that the students would not be able to function without all of this.  That if he told them to check their computers at the door, there would be a mutiny.

(Where would you be without your text plan?  What about your Facebook page?  How about internet connectivity?)

Plastic neurology is our God-given neurological malleability.  Check this quote from Mr. Carr’s article:

The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information [i.e., the internet] are many and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded.  “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired‘s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.”  But that boon comes at a price.  As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information.  They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.  And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplations.  My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.

We come close to the line of responsibility in all of this.  Who exactly is responsible for our behavior?  We are – we do what we want to do all the time.  This is the clear conclusion of the Bible.  Yet, as we engage in what we love and welcome and use in technology, that medium may be exerting an influence back on us.  The effect of which makes other things harder.  I think we are in trouble in two areas: thinking and relating.

First, thinking.  More able writers can and have unpacked this concept of distractedness or plasticity (The Shallows, RAPT are book titles; www.roughtype.com is Nicholas Carr’s blog and there are titles that can be found there).  Consider this ancedotally: do you find yourself willing and able to wade through old writers, Puritans or poetry, perhaps?  In reading, do you bore quickly and find you need to get up or that you need to do something else?  Can you sit down with a passage of Scripture and study it: word study, history, grammar and connections to other books?  Must you always have music on?

Consider also recent political actions: health care, financial reform, or bail-outs.  Did you remember hearing that those bills were 1000′s of pages long and our representatives didn’t even read them?  (They should’ve; check this: Preventive Care Mandate.)  What was astounding to me was that this was never an issue with the majority of people.  None of us would blindly sign some document that had serious and grave implications on our family’s lives, would we?  But they did.  Maybe their brains are so effected that they can’t read, but did the populace give them a pass thinking, “Man, who has time to read all of that anyway?”

Biblical Christianity is a thinking religion.  Of course, it is a whole-person religion, but not before it presents to us truth claims that must be considered.  If we have lost our ability to think through things, then we are going to see our churches move more and more away from biblical Christianity.  Our people will move away from what it means to be people of grace and truth.

Second, relating.  Relationships take time and effort.  Facebook and its annoying clones and predecessors are not facilitating social connectedness.  That used to mean (rightly) time together.  Voices heard, expressions seen and analyzed, misstatements challenged, rebukes and forgiveness exchanged.  Not anymore.  Now, we believe it is adequate to rail against someone slanderously via an email.  Google might be making us dumber but it has certainly made us more cowardly.  The medium of pop-ups, broadband, multiple-tabs, and chat has reshaped our relationships so that we want them just like those other things: exciting, fast-paced, multiples, uncommitted and surface.

Who can really solve this by turning things off, you know?  That will hardly do.  Instead, at some point, the church will have to recognize we have discovered a new country with new joys and new sins.

The Day of Small Pains

June 2, 2010

Silva Bible, Foundations, Life, gospel 1 Comment

We don’t often have a good handle on context.  When we read stories, we forget where we have been and facts start to blend into a meaningless background.  We spout off with some kind of uber-inappropriate word or phrase because we’ve lost our sense of the company we’re in.  We lose sleep over a bill, a supervisor’s word or an upcoming presentation because our apprehension of time has slipped from us.

We live in relationships often without context; in the middle of bonafide trouble, we don’t ask the questions that would make a difficult or tense or uncertain situation bearable.  We live in the weeds of life and we see nothing but weeds.

We certainly parent without context.  A bowl of spilled milk, a muddy track through the carpet, a dog eating a box of egg noodles – God forbid!  More significantly, a teacher’s troubling report, a neighbor’s testimony of  a broken window, a persistent rebelliousness – how fast do these things wreck our days?

I was telling some friends the other day about the Sears Tower (is it still called that?).  It seemed that no matter what part of Chicago you’re in, you can see that thing.  From Wheaton to the Wisconsin border to the smelly side of Chicago, that monument towers above all else.  It was always possible to get an orientation from that landmark.  Is it possible that this is a valid symbol, useful for us in our daily, weedy lives?  Yes.

Parents out there:  “Weedy Life” is a good descriptor of the daily in’s and out’s of life as a parent, isn’t it?  There are wonderful blessings and grueling trials – all before 9:00 a.m. – meals, laundry, bill-paying, dirty rooms, smelly breath, stain removal, soccer practice, piano lessons, murmuring and the constant question-asking. Oh my is it easy to consider each of these things as nails in the coffin where your joy is kept!

There are weightier matters which, of course, you know.  Foremost and specifically, what will my child say when he has to give a report of his life to God Almighty, will he try to lay out his list of achievements, people he “friends” on Facebook or the amount of money he gives to charity?  Maybe he will.  What will keep him from thinking those are sufficient answers?  (Since they aren’t.)  Parents living with context.

When the weeds seem to rise around us: the rancor and disagreements increase the volume level in the house and you just want to poke yourself in the ear drums, we have to remember what one author calls the “day of small pains.”  The Day of Small Pains is our Weedy Life at home with our little (or not so little) cherubs.  If you were to look around with the eyes of faith you would see the Cross towers above all the weeds.  Like the Sears Tower for all who look for it, the Cross of Jesus Christ reminds us that there will be another Day;  potentially a Terrible Day for our children.  Though our days might be filled with troubling childhood behavior, there will be a day when our children will be out from underneath the cover of our homes.  If we neglect to have some context like this, and it results in our deficient or lazy parenting, then the Days of Small Pains for them will transition into Days of Personal Agony.  This same author says:

If we don’t discipline our children, God will.  Either we will use the rod on our children, as God commands, or someday God might use our children’s miseries (divorce, bankruptcy, inability to hold down a job) as a rod to discipline them and even us for our failure to take him seriously.  (William Farley, Gospel Powered Parenting, 171)

What will keep this from happening?  Parents living with context.  What is that context?  The Bible tells us in the New Testament book of Hebrews (12:11):

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later is yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Our day-in and day-out attention to the details of our children’s hearts, our faithfulness in using the rods of correction upon their sinfulness, our prayers that they would “get it” and start to act like it is our work of keeping context.  We must always be looking around for the Cross to remind ourselves that though this is a hard season, there may be a much harder one for us and for our children.  You may think it base to parent with this kind of fear present in your heart, but think again.  The prospect of suffering teenage and adult children simply because we were either too stubborn or too lazy to do the spade work in their hearts when they were young should frighten you.

The Days of Small Pains are a blessing to us.  Take advantage of them while they persist around your homes.  Pray that in them and by your diligence God would save their souls, teach them how to live and commission them on the road to bringing Him honor.  Of course unspeakable joy is found here, too.

Fairness Meters In Our Heads…They’re On!

April 7, 2010

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We all say, at some time in our lives, “that’s not fair!”  Parents can count on hearing this all the time from their children.  Even those who are the most obsessed about keeping their kids from uttering the words, like infant-sized temper tantrums, the impulse to judge is hard wired into who we are.  (Those same obsessive parents will then be saying, “Hey, this isn’t fair!”)  Oh, for a dollar for all the conversations where the originating comment was “that’s not fair!”

Let’s talk about fairness, then.  If you sat down with a pen and paper to answer the query, “What in your life, in your judgment, isn’t fair?” the chances that you’d be staring at a blank piece of paper after five minutes are close to nil.  From the shape of our bodies to the size of what’s in our bank accounts; from the cars we drive to the phones we carry; from the promotions we didn’t get to the taxes that we have to pay.  Our fairness meters are very active.

Is this on your list of unfair things “I’m going to heaven”?  If you’re a Christian, it’s likely that you’ve considered the patent unfairness of that statement.  If you haven’t, you should.  I was reflecting on these words from William Farley’s book, Gospel Powered Parenting (pg. 75):

The Father’s love for his Son is intense: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).  It is not a common love.  It is holy.  He loves his Son with omnipotence, which means all power, with infinite intensity.  He loves his Son with omniscience – all knowledge.  His gaze penetrates the infinite perfection of his Son’s deity.  Since the Son’s glory is infinite, only an infinite intellect can fully know and love him.  He knows the Son exhaustively, and what the Father knows and sees is the infinite perfection of the Son’s divinity.

But here is the stunning truth: such is the holiness of the Father that when the Son bore our sin and transgressions, God separated himself from him.  “My God, my God,” Jesus cried from the cross, “why have you forsaken me?”  (Matt. 27:46).

The holiness of God, His utter uniqueness and separation from all that’s not like Him, at that time demanded that He turn from His Son.  The very One with Whom He’d spent eternity in perfect harmony and relationship.  Why on earth would He ever do such a thing? Jesus’ quote of Psalm 22 about being forsaken is surely among the most stunning and breathtaking statements ever written.  Do we not see just what has taken place?

Add this to your paper (under a new heading, “Really Not Fair”),

  • I was born in sin (Psalm 51:5)
  • I sin because it was my nature (Ephesians 2:1-2)
  • My sins will lead to my death – justly and fairly (Romans 6:23)

Drumroll….

  • They don’t (Romans 6:4)

They don’t.  But why don’t they?  They must!  I am the man!  I am the angry man; I am the thief; I am the adulterer; I am the one who rages against the rule of God!  I am the one guilty of my sins.  Why on earth do we read of the blameless Holy Son walking the streets of Jerusalem soaked in blood carrying a cross?  Why is He the one who’s been nailed to it?  Why?

Don’t talk yourself into the good news until you’ve come to grips with the cosmic truth that what happened at Calvary wasn’t fair.  All that is or isn’t fair is judged in light of that event.  Those events weren’t fair in ways that we can never really grasp – larger ways that should scare you.  Do Paul’s words in Romans 8, stun you?

What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?

Shocking truths that we must consider.  This leads to what we must also talk ourselves into: the truth that in Jesus Christ, having been covered in His blood, we appear before the throne of God.  And as He looks to you and me, affection and welcome and rest are given in abundant measures.  Wow.

I am scarcely able to lift my head to gaze upon them…But, I don’t have to, He reaches down to all those who call upon His name and He lifts our heads (Psalm 3:3).  His grace never ends.  Alleluia.

Gospel and Whirlybird’s

March 3, 2010

Silva Bible, Family, Fidelity, Foundations, Life, gospel , , 1 Comment

The King and the Whirlybird

Over the last few weeks, as you know, I’ve been teaching about the gospel: Christ for us, us in Him; Him in us and us living for Him.  I have suggested that dwelling on the historical, external and objective facts of God’s actions in Christ is the key to joy, certainly to parenting (see Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23!).

I’ve personally struggled to overcome the idea that “all that’s not very practical.  How can it possibly work?”  I’m not sure where that question comes from.  Maybe the church has become so obsessed with doing.  As I’ve been reading in the New Testament – especially the letters – I see that doing always followed believing.  The writers regularly give us the “indicative” (the facts) before they give us the “imperative” (the commands; see for yourself: Ephesians 1-3, then 4-6).  Jesus Himself tells us to “abide” before “obey”; in fact, the former is the key to the latter (John 15:4ff).

Something decisive happens to us when we are converted.  Paul says we are buried, raised and seated with Christ (Romans 6, Ephesians 2).  But we are also indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  That indwelling means something grand: He has brought power and all the resources of heaven to prosecute His will for us, namely, our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3).

Yet, our regular testimonies to each other are of worry, depression, sexual sin, failures to give or serve, anger, bitterness, etc.  Why is that? What are we missing?  Well, marrying up, as I did, means many things.  One cool thing has been interesting additions to my library.  Kim, since she was an infant, has had this book called “The King and the Whirlybird” by Mabel Watts (1969, Parents Magazine Press).  It has been especially interesting for me these days.  It opens:

Once there was a King who owned a wonderful kind of flying machine called a whirlybird.  He had a pilot who could fly it, by the name of Joe.  But the King would not fly.  The whirlybird has its very own hangar.  And its very own whirlyport.  But the King would have nothing to do with any of them.  “Flying is for the birds,” he said.  “And I’m not a bird!”  “There are other ways to travel,” said His Majesty the King.

And he traveled quite a lot.

“Fetch the royal coach!” roared the King.

“The ancient old coach with the wobbly old wheels?”  asked Joe the Pilot who was also Joe the Coachman.

“That’s the one,” said the King.

“The coach that goes careening down the hills?”  asked Joe.  “The coach that throws you down into a heap upon the floor?”

“You know perfectly well which one I mean!” said the King.

“The newest way to travel is by whirlybird,” said Joe.  “It’s the modern way for going round about!”

“Flying is for the birds,” said the King.  “And I’m NOT a bird!”

Now, Joe was more than a faithful pilot, the man was a jack of all modes of transportation.  More importantly, each time the King would choose something other than the whirlybird, he would subtly remind the King that whatever mode of travel he used, it paled compared to the whirlybird.  Here’s a sample:

Every day Joe showed the King all the wonderful things the whirlybird could do.  He spun it right straight up in the air, which its engines buzzing and its rotors turning.  He spun it right straight down, the same way.  He made is shuttle sideways.  And backwards.  And full speed ahead.  He made it hover above the King and waggle its tail…like a hummingbird over a honeysuckle bush.

“There’s very little traffic in the air,” said Joe.  “Besides, it would do Your Majesty good to try something new!”

Miss Watts takes us through several modes of transportation that the King chooses instead of the whirlybird.  Each time, Joe would faithfully challenge him, but we read:

… the King would not fly.  He was a regular old king-in-the-mud!

Consider whether or not you are like the King.  Here’s what I mean.  Those who are in Christ are co-heirs with Him (Romans 8:17); we are kings and queens just as our parents Adam and Eve were created to be; we rule as God’s representatives.  Just like the man in the book, we are blessed with position and power.

Secondly, in Christ, God has given us tasks to do – a mission.  We each have a vocation and family (provinces of the kingdom) from the Lord that is our duty as kings and queens to “rule.”  Reading in our little book, you’d see that the King was a very busy man with much to do.

Thirdly, in Christ, Paul tells us something outrageous, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He also not freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)  All things: the Holy Spirit (see Luke 11:13).  For us, He is just like Joe – someone who reminds us that we have whirlybirds and don’t need to use coaches that leave us in heaps on the floor.

So, like Joe reminding the King of the whirlybird, this most exalted and glorious Person living in us strengthens us to do our work by reminding us of the gospel.  Jesus did say that the content of His ministry would be the same message of Christ when He walked the earth (John 14:26).

Lastly, however, the King ignores Joe and his message and goes about his work his own way.  We are like regular old kings-and-queens-in-the-mud: we ignore the Holy Spirit and the gospel and choose to do the mission of God (jobs, families, or relationships) in our own ways.  Like the King, we prefer coaches, running-by-foot, horses or trains.  We quickly and regularly run out of the steam we need to obey Christ and we do not (which is serious because He says that if we love Him we will obey Him; John 14:15).

The King knows he has the whirlybird; he listens to Joe extol its virtues and sees its wonder.  But, he stubbornly refuses and sets off to do it his own way.  We, too, know the gospel and have seen the glory of its work, but we stubbornly refuse to dwell on it, think on it, pray about it, or depend on it.  “It’s got to be more complicated than that!”  The book finally takes the King into a situation where nothing and no one can be of any help.  So, you know what he does?  He calls for the whirlybird.

Joe made the whirlybird hover over the palace, like a puppet on a string.  He made it really whirl, like a windmill with wings.  And the King was delighted, “Flying is for the birds,” he said.  “And it’s great for people, too….There are many ways to travel,” said His Majesty the King.  “And the whirlybird is best!”

Delight yourself in the Lord and the work He has done for you in Christ and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4)!

Pastor Gabe

God: Our Greatest Gift

February 21, 2010

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Part II.

Previously on 24…I was making the point that we all live with goals in life.  Those of us who believe in Christ include in our goals spiritual ones: less of this, more of that.  That we would put on more goodness and put off more yuck.  These are not bad in any universe. Until…

Until we arm ourselves with the incorrect tool.  I was talking about Radio Man Stan and his commitments in Lent.  Once again, to buckle down to more Bible study is a good thing.  To use Lent as a means to spur one on to that end: good thing.  What struck me at a visceral level was both how charming he thought he was being in doing so and the fact that it might be true that his (our) failures had more to do with him (us) than with God.

So, in that universe of thinking, God is a tool: the means to a better you or your best life now.  In that universe of thinking, what’s most important is that I be better.  We aren’t actually living for His glory but for our own ever increasing glory (or happiness).  We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do and be better.  We watch other parents and spouses and co-workers and etc. and tell ourselves that we should and can be better.  We even see others who serve more and love more and die-to-self more and we tell ourselves that we should and can be better.  (And we’re probably right.)

Then we realize (quickly) that we aren’t.  Or, if we are, we might’ve picked the ones against whom we stack up pretty nicely.  In this universe of being better we are always looking for tools.  Of course we need them because without them (i.e., status quo) we aren’t better.  According to the laws that we set down for ourselves, we fail to keep them at best or we regularly break them at worst and God as our tool to better selves doesn’t work too well.  We end up still screaming, pouting, failing, manipulating and getting caught.  So the problem must be God – He’s just not enough.

Now, I don’t know anyone who actually talks that way, but, I do know a whole lot of people who are disgusted with the regularity of their sin and they don’t know how to stop or change.  (Hint: They’ve “used” God and it hasn’t worked.)   Suggest to them something simple and they get the glazed eye look.  I once had a seminary instructor who was livid after a guest chapel preacher mimicking James 5 told folks that if they are sick, they should confess their sins and see if it is related.  He was blathering on about how simplistic and stupid this man was!  The thought that sin and sickness could be related (even though it’s clearly in the passage).

I’ve seen something shocking in the faces of believers who are desperate for something different: gospel boredom.  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ means little.  It means a lot when we talk about eternal address, but parenting?  Communication?  Mercy ministry?  Forget about it.

We have become a people who demand something complicated.  How is that so when folks are typically clamoring for the books and teachers who have the easiest and most practical messages?  They are the ones who say citing simplicity and relevance, “Sermons must have applications that are relevant!”  These balk at those who beckon them to something more mysteriously complicated (they think) because we want it complicated not simple. We’d never say that though.

Check your heart: is the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Christ where you turn when bombs start exploding in your marriage?  If I were to tell you what Paul tells us in the Scriptures, you would be skeptical.  You’d accuse me of oversimplification.  You’d tell me that maybe that works in seminary but not here.  Really?

The greatest gift we could ever have is a perfect life, an atoning death, a completed resurrection, and an assurance of an exorbitant inheritance, right?  Do we not see that in Christ that is exactly ours?

For us, in Him; in us, for Him.  It’s all done.

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