The following is the eulogy I gave on September 9th, 2012 in the memorial service we held for my father-in-law, Richard L. Throckmorton, 1928 - 2012.
I first met Dick Throckmorton in 1975 in Colorado Springs. His claim to fame in my eyes was that he was the father of the woman I was falling in love with and whom I was soon to marry. He was a much different man than my father. I come from a family of nomads: my father was, for most of his life, an itinerant preacher, as was my older brother, and I was destined to be the same. I had already spent some of my childhood and most of my adolescence in a tiny travel trailer with my mother and father as they held revival meetings in little pentecostal churches across the country. Dick, on the other hand was a tradesman, a union electrician who had lived and raised his daughters in the same house in Colorado Springs for close to 20 years. His path was about as foreign to me as one could get, and our first conversations were marked with hesitancy and perhaps even suspicion of one another.
Yet despite those wary beginnings, it was Dick's path--the path of the calm dependable tradesman--that I ultimately followed, rather than my own father's. And so, while I still loved and respected my own father, it was more often Dick who served as my example of the craftsman, homeowner, financial planner, crew supervisor, and other roles that I was to take on in my life; roles that Dick filled before me, but none of which my own father did.
But of course no one's life is quite as straight-forward as it first appears. Dick's own father bore some similarity to my own in that he too was something of an itinerant: an oil-field welder who traveled from one drilling rig to another every few weeks. Their years in the West Texas oil fields in the depths of the Great Depression were hard ones in which Dick and his older brother, Bud, would trap quail and hunt rabbit and squirrel with a .22 rifle, providing the family their only meat. By the time Dick was 9 or 10 the family moved to Brazil for Dick's father to work in the oil industry starting there. When the family moved back to the states 5 years later, Dick was speaking Portuguese as his primary language and had to somewhat relearn English. Bernard, Dick's father, had always dreamed of owning a farm, so upon returning to the United States, he took the money he had saved from his Brazilian windfall, and purchased a farm in Fairbury, Nebraska.
In a few years Dick's mother and father took their youngest son, John, with them down to Caracas, Venezuela--once again to work in the oil fields of that country, leaving Bud, Dick's older brother, and Dick back in Fairbury where Dick finished high school. Bud joined the Army and soon found himself fighting for his life in the Battle of the Bulge. Dick finished school, then joined the Army himself just as the war was ending. He was sent to Korea and finished his 2 year hitch driving truck, and was honorably discharged just prior to the start of the Korean conflict.
When Dick returned to the states he joined up with his best friend whom he had met in the Army, Wally Windscheffel, and the two of them went through trade school on the G.I. bill to become electricians. After graduating Wally convinced Dick to go with him back to his home of Smith Center, Kansas where there was a great push to finally bring electricity to rural Kansas. Wally and Dick started their own business together--T-W electric, and thrived for a number of years wiring the homes and farms all around Smith County.
It was on Dick's first arrival at Smith Center that he met Wally's cousin, Norma Jean Beckman when he rented a room in the boarding house Norma's parents owned and ran. Within 5 months Norma and Dick were married. Their first 3 daughters, Brenda, Jane, and Nanette were born there in Smith Center. But once the houses and farms were wired in the area, the work dried up and T-W electric disbanded. Hearing that there was work in Colorado, he went to Colorado Springs, which seemed like paradise after Kansas, applied for and secured a job as a lineman for the city.
There were triumphs as well as bumps and interruptions along the way. An accomplishment of note: while general foreman of linemen for the city Dick proposed to coworkers that they start a credit union, which they did with Dick as the president--it was Colorado Springs' first credit union. Later he quit his job with the city and tried his hand at direct sales, selling Salad Master cookware for a short while, but soon went back to construction as a union electrician. A few years after Nan and I were married and I had moved us back to my home ground here in Oregon, the long construction boom in Colorado had finally ended and work was sparse in the Springs. Dick found out that work was plentiful here and before we knew it, they had sold their house in Colorado Springs and moved here to Oregon. Dick continued in his trade and prospered, ending his career before retiring in 1992 as general foreman for EC, the largest electrical contracting firm in the state of Oregon.
Those are at least some of the facts of Dick Throckmorton's life, but they in no way begin to tell the full story of the man, the husband, the father, the grandfather, the great-grandfather, the father-in-law, and the friend that we all knew and loved. So let me now turn from the mere facts of his life and try to recount the truth of his life.
He was a man of what these days we call the "greatest generation", infused with the values that shaped our country, that endured, with little complaint and considerable resilience, the hardships of the Great Depression, that fought and won two World Wars. He had a work ethic such that when he worked for the city of Colorado Springs and coworkers found him after he had fainted, upon medical examination, it was discovered that he had pneumonia--he had been working while sick because of his sense of obligation, his sense that the homeowners of Colorado Springs were counting on him to get their power back on. He was a man of great generosity. After he retired he spent many years giving his own time and spending his own gas picking up and delivering donated food and goods for the Portland Rescue Mission and he served as the Prayer Support leader for Good Samaritan ministries. He was a man of exceptionally good humor, always friendly and open. He told me once that he loved meeting new people, talking and joking with them. Though not a musician himself, as I am, he loved music. I'll never forget when I first met him the thing he seemed most proud of was his audio-file level (and quite expensive) home sound system and extensive and eclectic record collection. And I have a fond memory of going to the Portland symphony with him and Norma to see Mel Torme. He never smoked, and drank with great moderation--perhaps a glass of wine, or at the most two on a holiday; never hard liquor. I never once heard him utter a single profanity or a racial slur. He was a devoted husband who lived faithfully with the wife of his youth--as it says in Proverbs 5--for 54 years until her death from leukemia. And with the wife of his later years, Marjorie, until his own death. He was a loving father to Brenda, Jane, Nanette and Sondra, and the testament to the depth of his love for them, and their love for him, is this: I have heard not a single story of a harsh word, a hard feeling, a bad memory, or any hint of limitation or equivocation in their feelings for him. Consider how rare this is. He took great joy in and deeply loved his grandchildren. My son Nigel was his first.
And finally, though not raised so, he was a man of faith. He adopted his wife's Lutheranism, followed her into the charismatic movement, and back to Lutheranism until he remarried, then attended the Methodist church with Marjorie. All his daughters went through Lutheran confirmation. He served, on and off, on the board of Ascension Lutheran Church in the Springs, and his youngest, Sondra, he sent to an Evangelical parochial school in Canby, Oregon. I can tell you that he attended church on Sundays almost without fail, first with his wife and family, then, after Norma passed away, by himself at our Savior's Lutheran in Lake Oswego, and after remarrying, here [at the Oak Grove Methodist Church in Milwaukie] with Marjorie. But of course simply going to church is not really any indication of anything other than consistency to convention. I can't say with any specificity what his doctrinal beliefs were because he never discussed them. My real sense of his beliefs come mostly from his prayers at family functions. What I can say is that those prayers revealed his belief in a God with whom he was intimate in the same sense that is stated in Romans 8:15 "...but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father!'" Abba, being an Aramaic word for father that is a term of affection only used among immediate family. A genuine feeling of relationship with God was conveyed in those prayers, a relationship that I'm confident bore him upon his passing to the presence of his savior, his Lord, and his loved ones who made the journey before him. That relationship, that faith, will afford him a reward for the work, the honor, the steadfastness, the good humor, the generosity, the fidelity, and most of all the love he exhibited in his very well-lived life. And for that, we who loved him rejoice.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Sunday, July 08, 2012
The New Morality, part 2
Last month I dealt with the emergence of a "new" morality in American culture; one that has abandoned any sacred text or divine authority as its governing basis in favor of one central defining criteria: feeling. That this new morality based on feeling is ascending to dominance in our culture, and even in a growing percentage of Evangelical Christians--especially among the young--I would assert is unassailable. But what does this mean for the future of the country, and the future of the American Church?
Already great social changes have occurred in the United States as detailed brilliantly by Charles Murray in his recent book, Coming Apart wherein he analyses the behavioral, economic, and demographic changes in white America since 1963, just before President Kennedy was assassinated. The results are sobering and, in some cases, horrific, especially within what he calls the New Lower Class. In all the categories of what he defines as the founding virtues, industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity things have drastically deteriorated. Deteriorated to such a degree that Murray posits we may have already passed a tipping point, and certainly if present trends continue, we will pass a tipping point at which the American project will end. Not that we will no longer be a rich and powerful nation, but that the founding virtues that made America unique in the countries of the world and singular in human history will have deteriorated in the popular American culture such that that uniqueness will disappear and the American experiment will have been deemed a failure.
Looking at the founding virtues listed by Murray--industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity--it should be obvious that they all proceeded from biblical moral truth, and therefore much of their deterioration is due America's increasing abandonment of biblical morality and its acceptance of the new morality of feeling. But since I started this commentary in my prior post as a response to the question of same sex-marriage, and the normalization of homosexual behavior in general, let me focus on that particular.
Whenever the question of same-sex marriage comes up advocates inevitably ask opponents this question: "but how will it hurt your marriage?" And of course the answer is that it will not hurt my marriage, nor any other marriage already in existence that is already based on biblical principles. But if enacted it threatens the continued existence of marriage, and threatens to alter the way we look at many other essential elements of our culture and society--and here is how. First a brief history lesson.
As the first form of ethical monotheism in recorded human history Judaism was unique in its claims that God was distinct from nature. In the pantheistic religions the gods were immanent, a part of nature, and ethics was not part of religion, only sacrifice and worship. Yahweh, however, was transcendent to nature. He pre-existed nature, and nature was merely his creation. He demanded ethical behavior based on His own good and perfect character, which He called "holiness" (literally meaning separate, distinct, set apart). Almost all of the ritual law of the Torah (circumcision, dress, diet, food preparation, etc.) all exist to reinforce this concept of separation and distinction. There are other distinctions identified in scripture that predate even the law, first enumerated in the creation story: the heavens from the earth, the waters from the dry land, the plants from the animals, the human from the animal. But one of the most important distinctions is between male and female. The male/female distinction actually serves in many places throughout scripture, both Jewish and Christian, as a simile for the difference between and God and man: God as the husband and an unfaithful nation of Israel as an adulterous wife in several prophetic writings; Christ as a husband and the Church as his bride in numerous places in the New Testament.
But more than just metaphorical use is made of the male/female distinction. Different sets of behaviors and expectations are codified between the male and female all through scripture. Very clear roles and boundaries are delineated, all based on this distinction. And the Jewish and Christian cultures are by no means unique in this. Every culture in human history has recognized the male/female distinction and developed a plethora of differing forms of dress, divisions of labor, legal obligations, ritual and other social constructs based on this biological difference. Even in our present age of feminism, we still recognize this distinction in law and culture: we still bar our female military personnel from serving as combatants; we still have separate bathrooms for men and women and make it illegal for members of the opposite sex to use the bathrooms designated for the other.
The central identifying characteristic of marriage in every period of history and every culture on the face of the earth is that it's a bond between a man and a woman, a ritualized social connection with a host of attendant responsibilities and privileges encompassing the biological imperative of the unique function that only that bond can produce: creating children. If we recognize this truth at the heart of marriage, we can see that the concept has a teleology: in other words, when we use the word "marriage" we are not just using a word that we can define this or any other way, we are rather describing something that already exists in nature. In other words, the word "marriage" is descriptive not prescriptive, and therefore if we redefine the word, we are only changing the meaning of the word, and not the thing we first used the word to describe: you can call your grandma "Chevy", but that doesn't make her a car.
But of course this is what the present move in our culture--supported by the "new morality"--is trying to do. And the way this is being done--and the reason it has far greater destructive implications than just to marriage--is to eradicate this fundamental building block of civilization: distinctions. The core assertion of the same-sex marriage project is that there is no difference between men and women-- other than biological--and that the biological difference is so insignificant that it should be ignored. This is taken to such an extreme under this system of thought that proponents maintain that sexual identity itself should not be determined by biology but rather by--and if you're still skeptical of my initial premise of the "new morality", this should settle the argument--the feelings of the individual. As I've written before, this is why the misuse of the word gender has come into common usage: to disconnect sexual identity from biology. (To recap: gender is not an attribute of human beings, but rather of words: i.e., words--especially in the Latin-derived languages--are attributed with masculine or feminine gender, were as human beings are of the male or female sex.)
Consider the ways in which advocates of the "new morality" are trying to eradicate distinctions:
Dennis Prager has said that same-sex marriage is the most radical social experiment in which we have ever engaged. We simply have no idea what the implications could be on civilization of removing all these fundamental distinctions. But the possibilities are terrifying and seem bound to further disintegrate the connecting tissue of our social order, especially considering how the "new morality" has already deteriorated the American character. I don't know how effective the American Church can be in retarding this process, or in influencing the greater culture back to biblical morality, but one thing seems certain: we will have no effect and no influence if we too abandon biblical morality and, out of a sense of inclusivity, capitulate to the "new morality".
P.S. Let me give attribution to Dennis Prager for the argument of distinctions and Greg Koukl for the teleology of marriage.
Already great social changes have occurred in the United States as detailed brilliantly by Charles Murray in his recent book, Coming Apart wherein he analyses the behavioral, economic, and demographic changes in white America since 1963, just before President Kennedy was assassinated. The results are sobering and, in some cases, horrific, especially within what he calls the New Lower Class. In all the categories of what he defines as the founding virtues, industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity things have drastically deteriorated. Deteriorated to such a degree that Murray posits we may have already passed a tipping point, and certainly if present trends continue, we will pass a tipping point at which the American project will end. Not that we will no longer be a rich and powerful nation, but that the founding virtues that made America unique in the countries of the world and singular in human history will have deteriorated in the popular American culture such that that uniqueness will disappear and the American experiment will have been deemed a failure.
Looking at the founding virtues listed by Murray--industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity--it should be obvious that they all proceeded from biblical moral truth, and therefore much of their deterioration is due America's increasing abandonment of biblical morality and its acceptance of the new morality of feeling. But since I started this commentary in my prior post as a response to the question of same sex-marriage, and the normalization of homosexual behavior in general, let me focus on that particular.
Whenever the question of same-sex marriage comes up advocates inevitably ask opponents this question: "but how will it hurt your marriage?" And of course the answer is that it will not hurt my marriage, nor any other marriage already in existence that is already based on biblical principles. But if enacted it threatens the continued existence of marriage, and threatens to alter the way we look at many other essential elements of our culture and society--and here is how. First a brief history lesson.
As the first form of ethical monotheism in recorded human history Judaism was unique in its claims that God was distinct from nature. In the pantheistic religions the gods were immanent, a part of nature, and ethics was not part of religion, only sacrifice and worship. Yahweh, however, was transcendent to nature. He pre-existed nature, and nature was merely his creation. He demanded ethical behavior based on His own good and perfect character, which He called "holiness" (literally meaning separate, distinct, set apart). Almost all of the ritual law of the Torah (circumcision, dress, diet, food preparation, etc.) all exist to reinforce this concept of separation and distinction. There are other distinctions identified in scripture that predate even the law, first enumerated in the creation story: the heavens from the earth, the waters from the dry land, the plants from the animals, the human from the animal. But one of the most important distinctions is between male and female. The male/female distinction actually serves in many places throughout scripture, both Jewish and Christian, as a simile for the difference between and God and man: God as the husband and an unfaithful nation of Israel as an adulterous wife in several prophetic writings; Christ as a husband and the Church as his bride in numerous places in the New Testament.
But more than just metaphorical use is made of the male/female distinction. Different sets of behaviors and expectations are codified between the male and female all through scripture. Very clear roles and boundaries are delineated, all based on this distinction. And the Jewish and Christian cultures are by no means unique in this. Every culture in human history has recognized the male/female distinction and developed a plethora of differing forms of dress, divisions of labor, legal obligations, ritual and other social constructs based on this biological difference. Even in our present age of feminism, we still recognize this distinction in law and culture: we still bar our female military personnel from serving as combatants; we still have separate bathrooms for men and women and make it illegal for members of the opposite sex to use the bathrooms designated for the other.
The central identifying characteristic of marriage in every period of history and every culture on the face of the earth is that it's a bond between a man and a woman, a ritualized social connection with a host of attendant responsibilities and privileges encompassing the biological imperative of the unique function that only that bond can produce: creating children. If we recognize this truth at the heart of marriage, we can see that the concept has a teleology: in other words, when we use the word "marriage" we are not just using a word that we can define this or any other way, we are rather describing something that already exists in nature. In other words, the word "marriage" is descriptive not prescriptive, and therefore if we redefine the word, we are only changing the meaning of the word, and not the thing we first used the word to describe: you can call your grandma "Chevy", but that doesn't make her a car.
But of course this is what the present move in our culture--supported by the "new morality"--is trying to do. And the way this is being done--and the reason it has far greater destructive implications than just to marriage--is to eradicate this fundamental building block of civilization: distinctions. The core assertion of the same-sex marriage project is that there is no difference between men and women-- other than biological--and that the biological difference is so insignificant that it should be ignored. This is taken to such an extreme under this system of thought that proponents maintain that sexual identity itself should not be determined by biology but rather by--and if you're still skeptical of my initial premise of the "new morality", this should settle the argument--the feelings of the individual. As I've written before, this is why the misuse of the word gender has come into common usage: to disconnect sexual identity from biology. (To recap: gender is not an attribute of human beings, but rather of words: i.e., words--especially in the Latin-derived languages--are attributed with masculine or feminine gender, were as human beings are of the male or female sex.)
Consider the ways in which advocates of the "new morality" are trying to eradicate distinctions:
1. PETA, and many others are teaching that there is no hierarchy between human or any form of animal life.
2. There is ever increasing reluctance for adults to require children to address them with traditional honorifics of respect (Mr. Smith or Miss Jones) but rather by their first names, indicating an inexorable weakening of the distinction between child and adult.
3. It is rare to see any sort of even self-imposed dress code in an ever-expanding range of social situations--church, high school graduations, up-scale restaurants, even wedding receptions--indicating weakening distinctions between those social contexts and any other day or situation.
4. The pervasive use of even egregious profanity in public, men to women, and adults to children, indicate the fading of the distinctions of appropriate social context, private and public, sacred and profane.
5. Universities and colleges all over the United States are experimenting with bathrooms that have no sexual identifier--in other words, one bathroom for everybody.
6. The feminist movement has fought for decades in this country to remove all distinctions between the sexes in Federal and State law. They have also fought vigorously to overturn the US military proscription against female personnel serving in combat.
7. The fight for same-sex marriage, based as it is on the premise that there is no meaningful distinction between men and women, by implication also assert that there is no meaningful distinction between fatherhood and motherhood. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that either one of them (as long as the other is in place) can be viewed as completely unnecessary.
Dennis Prager has said that same-sex marriage is the most radical social experiment in which we have ever engaged. We simply have no idea what the implications could be on civilization of removing all these fundamental distinctions. But the possibilities are terrifying and seem bound to further disintegrate the connecting tissue of our social order, especially considering how the "new morality" has already deteriorated the American character. I don't know how effective the American Church can be in retarding this process, or in influencing the greater culture back to biblical morality, but one thing seems certain: we will have no effect and no influence if we too abandon biblical morality and, out of a sense of inclusivity, capitulate to the "new morality".
P.S. Let me give attribution to Dennis Prager for the argument of distinctions and Greg Koukl for the teleology of marriage.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The New Morality, part 1
In response to the state of North Carolina amending its constitution to preclude state recognition of any marriage other than that between one man and one woman, Christian author Rachel Held Evans published a piece on her blog which you can access here. In her piece she bemoans the fact that, as she puts it, American Evangelicalism is "winning the culture war, but losing a generation" of the young. Her basis for this assertion is, first, research done by the Barna Group in which they questioned Americans ages 16-29 what words or phrases best describe Christianity; the first response was "antihomosexual." Her second source is a couple of books by David Kinnaman, "unChristian" and "You Lost Me" in which he says that one of the top reasons 59% of young adults with a Christian background have left the church is because they perceive the church to be too exclusive, particularly regarding their LGBT friends.
Ms. Evans, I'm afraid, is completely wrong in her assertion that Christians are winning the culture war. The amendment to the North Carolina constitution may represent one small political victory, but it is only that--a political victory, not a cultural victory. The statistics she quotes regarding the opinions of young Americans are indicative that on the cultural front we are indeed losing.
Her second error can be found in this quote from her piece:
The greater question of the culture war and the appalling statistics of attitudes toward Christianity by young Americans (including those raised within Evangelical Christian homes) is a crucial issue faced by the Church today. My assertion that we are losing the culture war is to a large extent based on the statics that Ms. Evans highlights in her piece as well as the work of sociologist Christian Smith presented in his book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. A synopsis of his findings can be found here. Smith, after exhaustive interviews of American teens of faith found them, in the vast majority, incapable of articulating even the most basic concepts of the religion in which they were raised, and, regardless of the home religion, holding to a sort of vague concept of God Smith dubbed "Moral Therapeutic Deism." The gist of this “moral therapeutic deism” goes something like this: “God wants me to be happy and wants me to be good. He mostly leaves me alone unless I’m unhappy or in trouble, then he’ll sort of help me out somehow. Good people go to heaven.” These nebulous ideas are apparently consistent across most faiths in which American teens are raised including all forms of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hindu. Notice that within this concept no reference is made to any Holy text or transcendent system of ethics—just, “God wants me to be good.” And this raises the essential question: how do American youth define “good”?
Further work by the Barna Group points to the answer. Here is a quote from an article citing their research on American trends with respect to morality (you can access the complete article here):
Here we come to the crux of both the loss of the culture war and the loss of the youth generation to the Christian Church because of its identification with Biblical moral truth. What has happened is that starting with my generation--the Baby Boomers--and progressing--and intensifying--through successive generations of Americans, the country is abandoning traditional and Biblical morality and inventing a "New" morality. This new morality is completely detached from any guiding principles that informed Judeo/Christian morality or even other traditions of morality proceeding from Islam, Hinduism, or even Buddhism--namely sacred texts or a concept of morality emanating from divine command. Rather, this new morality is based on feeling, in essence the mood, whim, and sensations of the individual as they occur moment to moment. Not only is no reference made to any sort of transcendent code or ideal, many young people today seem incapable of making such evaluations, so bereft are they of such concepts. In a radio interview with a researcher studying this phenomenon, I recently heard him tell his host that when his young research subjects were asked when they last confronted a moral dilemma, they most often were confused by the question and would reply with a story such as being frustrated when they wanted to buy something from a vending machine and found that they didn't have enough change on them to make the purchase. Consider this shocking reality: they did not have the intellectual tools to even think in moral categories. Therefore their judgements are based on how their choices (or the choices of others) will make them feel. If an action makes them sad or angry or hurts their feelings, or the feelings of those for whom they care, that action is deemed "bad".
If this seems overstated consider the language used by Ms. Evans:
Even Ms. Evans seems completely unconcerned with Biblical authority concerning this issue, choosing instead to merely separate people into two groups who have differing views, and pleading for group A not to hurt the feelings of group B.
Dennis Prager, writer and long-time radio talk show host, has for many years gone to high schools and colleges to speak with young Americans on issues of morality and ethics. He often recounts how that for more than 20 years now he has presented his young audiences with the following ethical question:
Mr. Prager says from the beginning of when he began posing this question, the majority of teens and young adults answer that they would save their pet—because they know and love their pet; the stranger is just a stranger. Furthermore, Mr. Prager says the percentage of the young who answer this way has consistently gone up over the years.
This is where we now find ourselves: in the midst of a culture war whose battles may often be fought in the political arena, but whose real source of conflict is two opposing forms of morality struggling for ascendancy. The out-workings of this new morality in our culture, legal system, and society—as well as our churches—I will deal with in my next post.
Ms. Evans, I'm afraid, is completely wrong in her assertion that Christians are winning the culture war. The amendment to the North Carolina constitution may represent one small political victory, but it is only that--a political victory, not a cultural victory. The statistics she quotes regarding the opinions of young Americans are indicative that on the cultural front we are indeed losing.
Her second error can be found in this quote from her piece:
My generation is tired of the culture wars. We are tired of fighting, tired of vain efforts to advance the Kingdom through politics and power, tired of drawing lines in the sand, tired of being known for what we are against, not what we are for.Why would she, or anyone else for that matter, think that Christians believe they are advancing the Kingdom of God by voting to preserve traditional marriage? Jesus very clearly said that his kingdom was not of this world which is why his disciples would not engage in armed insurrection to save him. When I vote in favor of Biblical values, I do so not to advance the kingdom of God, but to preserve the social order of my country; because I understand that the abandonment of these values will--and has--lead to the debasement of is culture and the degradation of its community. This is a divine command, often called the cultural mandate; but it is not a command to advance the Kingdom of God, but rather a command by God to build a culture on Earth with the resources He has given. This cultural mandate is obeyed when we work at our jobs, when we raise a family--and when we exercise our political responsibilities to structure our laws and society according to Biblical moral truth.
The greater question of the culture war and the appalling statistics of attitudes toward Christianity by young Americans (including those raised within Evangelical Christian homes) is a crucial issue faced by the Church today. My assertion that we are losing the culture war is to a large extent based on the statics that Ms. Evans highlights in her piece as well as the work of sociologist Christian Smith presented in his book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. A synopsis of his findings can be found here. Smith, after exhaustive interviews of American teens of faith found them, in the vast majority, incapable of articulating even the most basic concepts of the religion in which they were raised, and, regardless of the home religion, holding to a sort of vague concept of God Smith dubbed "Moral Therapeutic Deism." The gist of this “moral therapeutic deism” goes something like this: “God wants me to be happy and wants me to be good. He mostly leaves me alone unless I’m unhappy or in trouble, then he’ll sort of help me out somehow. Good people go to heaven.” These nebulous ideas are apparently consistent across most faiths in which American teens are raised including all forms of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hindu. Notice that within this concept no reference is made to any Holy text or transcendent system of ethics—just, “God wants me to be good.” And this raises the essential question: how do American youth define “good”?
Further work by the Barna Group points to the answer. Here is a quote from an article citing their research on American trends with respect to morality (you can access the complete article here):
We are witnessing the development and acceptance of a new moral code in America," said the researcher and author, who has been surveying national trends in faith and morality for more than a quarter-century. "Mosaics [below aged 25] have had little exposure to traditional moral teaching and limited accountability for such behavior. The moral code began to disintegrate when the generation before them - the Baby Busters - pushed the limits that had been challenged by their parents - the Baby Boomers. The result is that without much fanfare or visible leadership, the U.S. has created a moral system based on convenience, feelings, and selfishness.
"The consistent deterioration of the Bible as the source of moral truth has led to a nation where people have become independent judges of right and wrong, basing their choices on feelings and circumstances. It is not likely that America will return to a more traditional moral code until the nation experiences significant pain from its moral choices.
Here we come to the crux of both the loss of the culture war and the loss of the youth generation to the Christian Church because of its identification with Biblical moral truth. What has happened is that starting with my generation--the Baby Boomers--and progressing--and intensifying--through successive generations of Americans, the country is abandoning traditional and Biblical morality and inventing a "New" morality. This new morality is completely detached from any guiding principles that informed Judeo/Christian morality or even other traditions of morality proceeding from Islam, Hinduism, or even Buddhism--namely sacred texts or a concept of morality emanating from divine command. Rather, this new morality is based on feeling, in essence the mood, whim, and sensations of the individual as they occur moment to moment. Not only is no reference made to any sort of transcendent code or ideal, many young people today seem incapable of making such evaluations, so bereft are they of such concepts. In a radio interview with a researcher studying this phenomenon, I recently heard him tell his host that when his young research subjects were asked when they last confronted a moral dilemma, they most often were confused by the question and would reply with a story such as being frustrated when they wanted to buy something from a vending machine and found that they didn't have enough change on them to make the purchase. Consider this shocking reality: they did not have the intellectual tools to even think in moral categories. Therefore their judgements are based on how their choices (or the choices of others) will make them feel. If an action makes them sad or angry or hurts their feelings, or the feelings of those for whom they care, that action is deemed "bad".
If this seems overstated consider the language used by Ms. Evans:
Most feel that the Church’s response to homosexuality is partly responsible for high rates of depression and suicide among their gay and lesbian friends, particularly those who are gay and Christian… We know too many wonderful people from the LGBT community to consider homosexuality a mere 'issue.' These are people, and they are our friends. When they tell us that something hurts them, we listen. And Amendment One hurts like hell… Amendments like these needlessly offend gays and lesbians, damage the reputation of Christians, and further alienate young adults—both Christians and non-Christian—from the Church.
Even Ms. Evans seems completely unconcerned with Biblical authority concerning this issue, choosing instead to merely separate people into two groups who have differing views, and pleading for group A not to hurt the feelings of group B.
Dennis Prager, writer and long-time radio talk show host, has for many years gone to high schools and colleges to speak with young Americans on issues of morality and ethics. He often recounts how that for more than 20 years now he has presented his young audiences with the following ethical question:
You are passing a body of water and see that a person who is a stranger to you and your beloved pet dog or cat are both drowning. You can only save one, either the stranger or your pet. Which would you save?
Mr. Prager says from the beginning of when he began posing this question, the majority of teens and young adults answer that they would save their pet—because they know and love their pet; the stranger is just a stranger. Furthermore, Mr. Prager says the percentage of the young who answer this way has consistently gone up over the years.
This is where we now find ourselves: in the midst of a culture war whose battles may often be fought in the political arena, but whose real source of conflict is two opposing forms of morality struggling for ascendancy. The out-workings of this new morality in our culture, legal system, and society—as well as our churches—I will deal with in my next post.
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