Friday, December 13, 2024

Well, do we live in an increasingly secularized society or not? Is the world moving in a more secular direction or not? Well, I ask the question because even as the answer appears to be obvious: Yes, we’re living in a more secularized age. The world appears to be moving in a more secular direction. The reality is we have to talk about it as Christians with a bit more insight than that.

First of all, when you look at the world’s population, most of the population of the world is resolutely not secular, absolutely not secular, totally not secularized when it comes to, say, abandoning their religious beliefs and their religious habits and traditions. You go to much of the world. Much of the world outside the Christian world is an Islamic world, and that Islamic world is inherently not a secular world.

That’s not to say there aren’t secularized people in it. People have a more secular worldview. It is to say that the overarching culture is overwhelmingly marked by Islam, not only as a theistic religion, but also as a way of life, a Quranic rule. It is very much an Islamic civilization or a collection of Islamic civilizations. Then you have other parts of the world where there are different religious systems that also are to a greater and lesser extent combating or confronting secularism. There are other worldviews that are more compatible with secularism, especially non-theistic forms of religion. So as you look at Confucianism, you look at certainly variants of Hinduism and Buddhism, more compatible in one sense with secularism and with a society that can be at the one time Buddhist or Hindu to some degree, and secular to another degree, especially when it comes to Confucianism and Buddhism.

It is also true that when you look at, say, Hinduism and Islam, the headlines there would’ve to be, well, say, look at much of the world and certainly in the Indian subcontinent and the surrounding area where the main conflict is not just India versus Pakistan or India versus Bangladesh. It is instead Hinduism versus Islam and Islam versus Hinduism in terms of the allegiance of the people. So theology is not gone from the headlines. In most of the world, theology is the headline, but if you do talk about living in a more secular world, well, you might be talking about living in much of Europe or in North America or in civilizations produced by Europe and North America, such as what you have in Australia and New Zealand, for example.

But in the Anglosphere and in the larger European context, yes, the elites have been secularized now for a very long time and the elites are by definition more influential and thus you look at many sectors of American society, you look at higher education, you look at the professions, you look at, say, the metropolitan areas and all the rest, increasingly secular, genuinely secular. But it’s also true that from time to time the secular press has to deal with decidedly non-secular issues. Sometimes that’s very interesting to observe. An example just in the last few days comes from the New York Times coverage of a calamity, a tragedy there in Haiti. The headline is this, “Haitian gang leader orders massacre, nearly 200 left dead in capital.” That is the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. And the headline here, which is a big headline, multi-column article, tells us about a massacre that was ordered by a gang leader who is one of those gang leaders largely in control insofar as there is any control there in Haiti.

Now, just to take a step backwards, Haiti is, of course, a Caribbean nation and it is one that has been falling into greater and greater, deeper and deeper chaos for a long time. We have observed, you see here, the breakdown of civilization. Frankly, the civilization there was fragile to begin with, but now it is mob order. You have the abandonment in the main of the authority of government. You have civilizational breakdown. It is like the Lord of the Flies becomes a horrifying national picture, and it is gang leaders who are now increasingly in control. And so you have criminal gang versus criminal gang and you also have atrocities such as this order of mass murder of 200 people there in Haiti. But I said the big issue here is the fact that the headline is decidedly not secular.

Now, you wouldn’t know that from the headline, but let’s look at the story. Here’s how it goes. “‘More than 180 people were killed in a massacre over the weekend in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Haiti’s capitol,’ the United Nations Human Rights Chief said on Monday.” That’s the Monday of this week. “A leading Haitian human rights group described the killings as the personal vendetta of a gang boss who had been told that witchcraft caused his son’s fatal illness.” So remember the date. We’re talking here about an article that was published on December the 10th of the year 2024, and we are told that this horrifying atrocity, this mass murder that took place in the Western Hemisphere, after all, in Haiti took place because this gang leader had become convinced, had been told that witchcraft had caused the fatal illness of his son.

The story continues, “‘The slaughter began on Friday in a section of a sprawling slum in Port-au-Prince,’ according to the National Human Rights Defense Network, a civil rights group based in the capitol. Older people who practiced voodoo appeared to have been targeted according to the group.” That assessment was backed by another rights organization and a resident. So now we have witchcraft being mentioned and voodoo. Well, if the New York Times is going to mention voodoo, it just might feel that it has to define it. Later in the article, and I mean much later in the article, the New York Times tells us, “Voodoo, which originated in West Africa, is one of Haiti’s official religions. Its practitioners believe that all living things have spirits including animals and plants. Brought to Haiti by enslaved people, voodoo coexists with Christianity as one of several recognized faiths. It is largely misunderstood in Western popular culture.”

I just want to argue that it is not so much the case that voodoo is misunderstood in Western culture. It is that a secularized section of Western culture doesn’t know what to do when it’s dealing with something so inherently theological, indeed, in this case, pagan and superstitious tied to witchcraft as voodoo. Because after all, they just reported, “It’s practitioners believe that all living things have spirits including animals and plants.” They don’t go on to talk about what is involved in the practice of voodoo, but they do explain that this one gang leader there in Haiti came to be convinced that voodoo was responsible for the death of his son and he ordered a massacre of the adherents of voodoo who had been at least he believed or alleged involved in the situation.

I just want to come back to this. If you don’t worship the true and living God, you’re going to worship something. The religious impulse, which is a part of the Imago Dei, is going to work its way out one way or the other. And there is only one God, but there are endless misapprehensions of him. There are endless forms of idolatry, and idolatry and its derivatives will inevitably turn into darker and yet darker variants. And here you see just a hint of how dark it can go. So do we live in an increasingly secular age? Yes, on America’s college and university campuses, just to take one example, it’s a much more secular age. But then ask the question again, are we living in a secular age? Not when you pick up a secular newspaper like the New York Times and find yourself in a story so filled horrifyingly enough in this case with this kind of theology in a headline about a massacre. It does matter and every once in a while you have a very horrible picture of why it matters.

All right, next, we’re going to turn to questions. And I will admit right up front, I have privileged questions coming from young listeners to The Briefing. I want to tell you, I’ve privileged them for two reasons. Number one, I’m just incredibly honored that young people listen to The Briefing. And secondly, I want to tell you, they often ask the best questions and coming from a young voice, the questions take on an even deeper urgency. Okay, so listen to this. A 13-year-old boy asked this question. “Number one, why do most of your podcasts and some other podcasts related to yours talk more about the bad things that happen in the world and why don’t you normally talk about the good things that happen? And another question I have, is the Bible the only proof that God exists? And if that’s the only evidence, then why does he not give us more?”

Okay, you got to love the way the mind works here. Number one, why on your podcast do you talk about so many bad things rather than normally talk about the good things that happen? Okay, so I’m not going to use the young man’s name. I’m simply going to say I want to speak to you personally and say I feel the urgency of this question. I feel the importance of this question. And so I want to say what I do in The Briefing is different than what I do when I am preaching in a church doing biblical exposition. It’s different than what I do when I teach in the classroom teaching Christian theology and Christian doctrine or apologetics. It’s different because what I am intending to do in this particular part of my ministry is to help Christians think through the issues that the world is throwing at us.

And I want to say to this 13-year-old young man, most of the issues the world is throwing at us in terms of recent developments, they turn out to be headlines that are mostly about something that, well, just to categorize them here, more bad things than good things. In other words, no one writes an article about two cars that passed each other safely on the highway. They write an article about an accident and, who caused the accident? What’s the meaning of the accident? No one writes an article by the fact, yes, today an update, peace still prevailed on the border between Canada and the United States. Instead, they write about civil war in Syria. And so I want to say that in the main, no apology for the fact that most of what we have to talk about is in some sense evidence of sin in the world and a conflict of worldviews and a confusion of truth.

But it is just such a good thing to be asked a question like this because I want to say, not only to this young listener, but to all listeners, the most important thing is that what doesn’t make the headlines is the fact that a husband and a wife are faithful to one another, that parents are raising their children in the nurtured admonition of the Lord. It doesn’t make headlines when a mom sets a child on the counter and lovingly puts on a bandaid on a scraped knee. None of that makes headlines. None of it makes headlines when a person just goes to work and does his or her job and does it well and does it to the glory of God and comes home and has dinner. That’s not headline news. And I love this question because it affords me the opportunity to say, in the grand scheme of the cosmos, it is the things that don’t make the headlines that matter the most.

But it’s also important that Christians have to understand how to speak to and think about the issues that are pressing on us by the world in the headlines, in the decisions being made around us, in the work of courts and governments and all the rest, even in the rising and following of nations. There are big issues that are being to us and in this context that’s what we generally talk about. But you ask a very good question. I want to thank you for the honesty in asking it, and it does give me the opportunity to say, just one Christian doing the right thing to the glory of God is more important in the cosmic scheme than the things we have to talk about in the headlines. But there are things in the headlines we have to talk about and think about. And so thanks for your question, but you are also sneaky because you didn’t really ask a question. You asked two without a break, which is also great. All’s fair. You ask if the Bible’s the only proof that God exists, then why does he not give us more?

I’ll simply say, the Bible never says the Bible is the only evidence that God exists. As a matter of fact, the Psalms tell us, “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” Creation itself is crying out the existence of the Creator and, as human beings made in God’s image, we have evidence for the existence of God in the structure of our own thinking because we can’t not think without reference to God precisely because he made us in his image and he made us to know him. So even if we don’t know the truth about him, our minds know that we should. So sneaky and asking two questions, but I’ll just tell you again, the Bible is not the only evidence that God exists, but I will tell you the Bible is the authority for our understanding of who God is. And it’s because he speaks to us. We didn’t find him out, we didn’t discover him. He revealed himself to us. And the Scripture is that authoritative revelation. It is his word to us and we’re thankful for it.

Okay, I also love the fact that young people come up with such smart questions. This is another 13-year-old boy. He asks, and he says, by the way, “I love listening to The Briefing in the car with my three siblings.” Well, how encouraging is that? Thank you for that encouragement. But he says, “Lately, there’s been a question on my mind concerning Matthew 24:36.” Okay, you just got to love the fact that there’s a 13-year-old out there with a question. Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show used to say, “It’s praying on my mind, paw.” Well, there are questions that pray on our mind and for this young man the question has to do with Matthew 24:36, he quotes it. “But concerning that day and hour, no one knows. Not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only.”

And again, remember this is a 13-year-old asking the question, “Would this mean, A, Jesus is lying to the disciples and is omniscient, which would mean he can’t be trusted, or, B, Jesus is not omniscient. Could that mean he is not qualified to be God? I would love to hear your thoughts about this. Thank you.” Well, I thank you for the question and I want to change the question up just a little bit just in terms of say, let’s get the categories straight. That’s one of the first issues of right-thinking, is to get the category straight. So let’s just look at the text first, Matthew 24:36. Again, we are told that no one knows the hour, that is the hour of Christ’s coming, that is in glory, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, speaking of himself, but the Father only. And then you give two alternatives. The problem is we’re not limited to these two alternatives. The first alternative you say is, A, is that Jesus is lying to his disciples and really does know the date and the hour.

Okay, I’m going to just tell you that’s incompatible with what we know of Jesus as revealed in Scripture. Jesus doesn’t lie. He can’t lie. God can’t lie. Okay, we’ll save time by going to B, Jesus is not omniscient, could that mean that he’s not qualified to be God? Here, again, let me just state that we have to tie everything we believe to the Scriptures. And so you’re asking a big question in Trinitarian theology. I’m not going to get into the weeds here. I’m simply going to say that when you look at the Scripture, we are told that Jesus is God. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God.” Jesus is God. God the Father is omniscient. The Son shares in that omniscience. But the Scripture tells us, Philippians Two helps us a lot here, that Jesus the Son humbled himself in obedience to the Father. But there were certain dimensions of the fact that Jesus is truly God that were not so visible or operational during the time of his earthly ministry.

We’re told in Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus humbled himself during this period. We’re also told at the end of that passage in Philippians 2, therefore, because of his obedience, God has highly exalted him and given the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus. “Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” So is this a mystery? I want to say to this the 13-year-old, who is a budding theologian, I just want to say, yes, it is a mystery. We have to affirm everything the Scripture teaches. We have to deny everything that contradicts scriptural teaching and we have to deny ourselves too much imagination about filling in the gaps of this knowledge. We’re not to speculate. We are to believe, we are to obey, and we are to preach.

So a great question, and I have to tell you, I love one of the aspects of a question from a 13-year-old, and that is that there are no extra words and he gets right to the point.

But as the final question for today, I want to go to a husband and father who, by the way, is also a youth and college pastor and he’s a seminary student, and boy does that encourage me. He says, “My role as a husband and father is my greatest joy. It is an honor to serve a healthy church with growing Gospel centered ministries.” He says, “The seminary studies are making me a better husband, father, and pastor. All together,” he says, “I feel like I’m living out what I was created for.” And here comes the question. He finds himself sometimes tired, stressed, or in his words on empty. He says at times he’s just not able to even evaluate how he’s being faithful, the degree to which he’s faithful in all these various responsibilities. He said it sometimes leads to anxiety.

He says, “I don’t want to give my family the leftovers of a long day at work or study, nor do I want to cut corners as a pastor. What advice,” he says, “can you offer a young pastor about tackling a full schedule to the glory of God while also finding times to rest in Christ?” Okay, young pastor, young seminary student, young husband and father, I’m encouraged by your question and I just want to say there’s no magic answer. There’s no magic formula. I just think it comes down to the fact that it’s good that we understand that there’s certain times in life where just because of the circumstances of life, we find ourselves at times feeling like we are never everything we want to be in any single dimension of that life. And I just want to give you some good news and bad news. The good news is that is a particularly acute experience among young men. I just want to give you some bad news. You don’t get over it when you’re older, but I will tell you it’s not so particularly intense.

And I want to tell you here, it’s one of the most interesting things, God gives children to young couples for a good reason. And I see that every time I have the glorious experience of being with my grandchildren. I realize that I am not in the same position of energy or the same position of responsibility as I was with children when I was a young father with very young children, where with my wife, we were a young father and a young mother, a young husband and a young wife with not only one baby, then two babies, and then everything just happens because the job, the vocation, the calling just gets broader and more intense at the very same time. And the responsibilities of doing everything, from changing diapers and cutting the grass to fulfilling the ministry and growing in the word and continuing your studies and making sure the kids are in bed, that’s all to the glory of God.

I just want to honor you telling you that, even though at times you wonder if you’re faithful and all these different dimensions, here’s the bad news, in no given day will you be absolutely faithful. Here’s the good news. Over time, you’re more faithful than day by day. You can be more faithful in a week than you are in a day. You can be more faithful in a month than you were in a week, and you can do the math. I’ll just go on. I think at times we just have to recalibrate and make certain that we’re doing what God’s called us to do and we’re trying to be faithful in every dimension of our lives. And you in partnership with your wife, can figure out a lot of these things better than you can alone. And you as a member of a church, even as a pastoral team, you can help each other to figure these things out with your own life and ministry. I just mean to encourage you. I will tell you that I don’t think there is a young pastor without the same trials.

And frankly, it’s not just young pastors. It’s especially young people who are engaged in work as young Christians, as fathers, and as mothers. It can be very difficult to know just how faithful you are in any one dimension. And in any given day, we may feel acutely that we’ve come up short in something like two out of three, but that’s why we come again the next day and try to live it to the glory of God fulfilling all these responsibilities and, frankly, finding joy in these responsibilities. You also may at times just have to recalibrate. You may also have to tell people, “Right now there’s an urgency at home,” and at times you have to say at home, “There’s an urgency on the field.” And here’s one final humbling understanding. Moses, King David, the Apostle Paul, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter James, and John Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, just go down the list, and you and I have the same 24 hours in a day.

I think that’s part of how God humbles us. He gives us only a certain amount of minutes, only a certain 24 hours in a day. We’re responsible for that, but then we have to go to sleep and then wake up and live another day to the glory of God. And so it goes until the Lord calls us home. All right, thanks so much for your questions and we’ll turn to more next week.