In the timeless Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis speaks of what he calls “the three parts of morality” — the social, the internal, and the spiritual. He employs the image of a fleet of ships that must get all three things right in order to function effectively:
There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual — when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another. You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other. But there is one thing we have not yet taken into account. We have not asked where the fleet is trying to get to. However well the fleet sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived at Calcutta. Morality, then, seems to be concerned with three things. Firstly, with fair play and harmony between individuals. Secondly, with what might be called tidying up or harmonising the things inside each individual. Thirdly, with the general purpose of human life as a whole: what man was made for; what course the whole fleet ought to be on. (Mere Christianity, 58-59).
Secular ethics tend to focus on the social dimension. If it doesn’t hurt another person, it must be fine. This approach tends to ignore the question of the goal of human life, in Lewis’s image where the whole thing is headed. Sometimes there is also a neglect of virtue or the internal character of a person. It is common now to hear people say that a public leader can be a complete rat-bag in private life, so long as he serves well for the public good. This has not always been the case. There was a time when, for example, a leader’s marital betrayal was seen as reason enough for someone to step down from high office. This was not mere moralism. The logic was: If “faithfulness” and “discipline” are not inner qualities of this leader, how can the public have confidence that such virtues will guide wider social decisions? It is true this old-fashioned rationale can be oppressive and unfairly employed, but there is something to it.
Religious ethics have their own, equally problematic, flaws. They are often strong on the spiritual dimension, what we are made for. But they can very frequently go astray on both the internal and the social dimensions. Religion can promote mere external piety, divorced from genuine virtue and love for others. Hence our distaste for the “religious hypocrite” I have talked so much about in this book.
The Ten Commandments are concerned with all three parts of the ethical enterprise. We are urged to find satisfaction in our Creator and his blessings. Then we are guided to honour our family and our neighbours. And, finally, the strange tenth commandment drills down to the engine room of our soul and asks, What do we truly desire?
Robbed of a broader meaning to our lives, we appear to have entered an era of mass obsession, usually with ourselves: our appearance, our health and fitness, our work, our sex lives, our children’s performance, our personal development…. [We have created] a culture that gives [us] nothing greater than [ourselves] to believe in — no god, no king, no country.
These words were spoken 25 years ago by an Australian academic, but they still ring true today. If anything, social media and the internet has fueled that personal obsession. Now more than ever, our poverty is exposed: “nothing greater than ourselves to believe in.”
Dickson, is an Australian himself, and is a fellow of Ancient History at Macquarie University, the founding director of the Centre for Public Christianity, and senior minister of St. Andrew’s Roseville. He describes Eckersley’s essay as “a famous government report on Australian youth” and goes on to say: “I remember the report so well because it came out the year before my [book] A Sneaking Suspicion, an attempt to explain the relevance of Christianity for teenagers. The report helped frame some of my thinking, then and now” (A Doubter’s Guide, p. 161).
I want to share a longer excerpt from Eckersley’s essay, which I found is available online in a scan of the publication on Eckersley’s website, here.
Eckersley starts by recounting his reaction at coming back to Australia after several years in Africa, Asia and Europe:
My first reaction on flying into Sydney from Bangkok was one of wonder at the orderliness and cleanliness, the abundantly stocked shops, the clear-eyed children, so healthy and free of the cares of living. Later, however, this celebration of the material richness of life in Australia gave way to a growing apprehension about its emotional harshness and spiritual desiccation. By ‘spiritual’, I don’t necessarily mean believing in God (I am not myself a practicing member of any religion), but having a deep sense of relatedness to the world around us.
…I became aware of the cultural myths that define and support our society. For most of us in the west, the poverty of Africa and Asia is synonymous with misery and squalor; yet it is not. We see their people as crippled by ignorance, cowed by superstition, and oppressed by the harshness of their raw environment; we don’t see the extent to which we are crippled by our rationalism, cowed by our lack of superstition (spiritual beliefs) and oppressed by our artificial environment. (p. 3)
Eckersley goes on to paint a stark picture of the current age (in 1992). Later in the essay he gets to the section from which the opening quote above is taken.
When a society fails to imbue people’s lives with a sense of worth and meaning, then they must attempt to find these qualities as individuals. It is a task that many find extremely difficult, even impossible. People want to know what is expected of them; they need to have something to believe in.
This absence of belief in much beyond ourselves, and the consequent lack of faith in ourselves, are undermining our resilience, our capacity to cope with the more personal difficulties and hardships of everyday life.
Robbed of a broader meaning to our lives, we appear to have entered an era of mass obsession, usually with ourselves: our appearance, our health and fitness, our work, our sex lives, our children’s performance, our personal development.
The consequences of this loss of belief are more serious, I believe, for the young than for grown-ups… [They are] particularly vulnerable to the uncertain culture of our times. (p. 14)
He quotes a study exploring the state of Australia’s youth, and concludes:
But perhaps the most disturbing finding of the study concerns young people’s moral sense. Mackay found that they believed that moral values were in decline, and often found it hard to identify an accepted moral framework within the community — unless they were religious. Moral responsibility to ‘the group’ is much stronger than to ‘the community’, Mackay says:
“Thus the ethical sense is rooted in a social sense, but that social sense is very limited, very transient, and very fragile. Lacking a broader sense of ‘the community’, many young people have difficulty in establishing an ethical framework which has any application beyond the boundaries of their own immediate circle of friends.” [italics original to the article]
The picture that emerges from the Mackay study is of a youth culture that may be meeting the needs of its members in terms of providing them with meaning and an identity, but only just. It is of a culture that is barely holding together, certainly not enduring — a mass-media culture marked by frenetic fashions and polarisation between self-destructive recklessness and abandon, and a more insidiously debilitating cautiousness, social withdrawal and self-centredness. (p. 15)
He then turns to a July 1990 article in Time focusing on “a new generation of young American adults grappling with its values.”
…According to Time, a prime characteristic of today’s young adults is their desire to avoid risk, pain and rapid change. They feel paralysed by the social problems they see as their inheritance: racial strife, homelessness, AIDS, fractured families and federal deficits….
It may be, then, the greatest wrong we are doing to our children is not the broken families or the scarcity of jobs (damaging though these are), but the creation of a culture that gives them nothing greater than themselves to believe in — no god, no king, no country — and no cause for hope or optimism…. (p. 15)
Eckersley goes on to summarize the problems of society and looks for a cure in an optimistic embrace of science and technology — and, ironically, his hope rests ultimately in mankind = ourselves!
The growing crisis facing western societies is, then, deeply rooted in the culture of modern western societies: in the moral priority we give to the individual over the community, to rights over responsibilities, the present over the future (and the past), the ephemeral over the enduring, the material over the spiritual.
Our cultural flaws and confusion both reflect and reinforce our economic, social and environmental problems. They also undermine our ability to resolve them effectively. Unless we forge a new culture, then it is unlikely we will overcome these problems because we will lack the will, the moral courage, to confront them….
…I believe that the problem rests more with our immaturity in using a cultural tool as powerful as science, and I am hopeful that with growing experience and wisdom, together with advances in science itself, we can create a more benign and complete culture, and so a more equitable and harmonious society. (p. 19)
Eckersley explores physics and how “a more flexible approach” has arisen in “how we use science.” An approach he approves of that allows for finding “purpose — or ‘God’ — in the world described by science.” (p. 23). He hopes this scientific endeavor may:
allow us to create new concepts for expressing religious or spiritual beliefs, different from, say, the traditional notion of a supreme being ‘out there’ watching over us, and judging us — metaphysical metaphors more appropriate to our times and our understanding.
Even now, however, science and spirituality are not mutually exclusive. I think it is less science and the scientific view of the world that cripple us spiritually than it is the busyness and artificiality of our modern lives, the all pervasive manifestations of rationality — an environment that we have created through science. (p. 23-24)
He goes on to focus on environmentalism and how mainstream science is clarifying the need for care of the environment, a cause young people can rally around. His essay aims to change science too, but ultimately the solution is what we make of it. Believing in ourselves and our ability to create a better culture — that is all that people can cling to apart from a religious worldview, such as what we have in Christianity.
I share this long excerpt from this decades old article to make a point. The long decline of our culture has been happening for a long time. There is something missing, and Christians have found the answer in Jesus Christ.
We have a God, a King, and a Heavenly Country to believe in – and that gives us great cause for hope and optimism. We don’t ground our hope in creating a social and cultural dynamic that frees us from the self-obsession of our age. Our ultimate hope, instead, is found in the precious promises we have in Scripture — promises that our God-King, Jesus Christ pledges to fulfill on our behalf.
As citizens of a greater Country, we must resist the urge to focus our hopes only on this present age and our own country — whether Australia or America. We need to work for the good of our city, and shine the light of Christ as we brighten the corner where we are, but we must always remember our faith lies in Someone greater and Something grander. Our obsession must center on our God-King, Jesus Christ. He is the one who calls us to live out our lives with ultimate purpose and meaning as we journey toward our Heavenly Country.
This past Sunday I was privileged to fill in for our pastor at The Heights Church, St. Paul. The rapid cultural change and uncertain social/political climate formed the backdrop for my sermon.
The text is Hebrews 13:1-16, with special focus on verses 12-14, and the parallel passage of chapter 11:10-16.
I’m sharing the sermon here, and you can find all my recent sermons from The Heights Church, St. Paul, here.
If you don’t have time to listen to the entire sermon (60 minutes), please do look over my notes. May God bless this sermon to all who hear it, for His glory and by His grace.
A story of conversion to Christ is always refreshing and encouraging, but the story of Rosaria Champagne Butterfield is more than that, it is faith-restoring. Her story reminds evangelical Christians that the saving power of the gospel really is bigger than the contemporary “threat” of homosexuality. The book addresses the homosexual question from the inside out, and illustrates what an incarnated gospel ministry and a church full of people who have the compassion of Christ can accomplish through Christ.
Rosaria Champagne was a tenured English professor and chair of feminist studies, at Syracuse University. She was also an outspoken lesbian. She was up and coming and making a name for herself. But then, she was abruptly stopped in her tracks through an encounter with a kind Reformed pastor who took the time to interact with her on a column she had written in the paper. She didn’t know how to classify his letter, it didn’t fit in the fan mail category, nor was it hate mail. Eventually she was drawn into a friendly exchange with him and slowly he began to shatter her perceptions about Christianity. Over time, she was drawn to faith in Jesus Christ, and slowly came to reject her identity as a lesbian and found new life in Christ.
Her story is told with honesty and charm in an autobiographical account titled The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith. In her book, Rosaria Butterfield recounts her conversion and her growth in understanding the Scriptures. She recounts the struggle it was to be accepted as a redeemed lesbian in conservative Reformed circles. She shares her struggles and misteps in forming healthy relationships, and shares some of her steps on the way to marriage. She recounts her husband’s ministry and her involvement as a ministry partner and home-schooling mother. She also opines about problems she sees in Evangelicalism, including our modern obsession with our rights to sex. She also defends exclusive psalmody in worship.
This “unlikely convert” speaks with a disarming grace, that educates, inspires and aims to help us all change. She attacks the hidden part of us which may loathe the homosexual, and illustrates how genuine ministry will be messy and will prize making a difference above staying safe. Her story is a call to the church to come out of her cocoon and take the saving gospel of Jesus to the world around us.
I listened to the ChristianAudio production of this book. The recording was extra special in that Rosaria read her own book. The emotion and flavor of the audio recording was certainly enhanced with the author as narrator. The book is quite short, but profound. I highly recommend it. It will challenge and inspire, encourage and perhaps unsettle. Above all, it will magnify Christ.
Disclaimer: This book was provided by ChristianAudio.com for review. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a positive review.
About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.
It takes a great deal of courage to follow the Lord’s call and leave the only church you’ve ever known. When I shared my story of leaving extreme fundamentalism, I was trying to deal with the trauma in one sense, but I also wanted to find camaraderie and support from others via the internet. I had become aware that I wasn’t the only one experiencing the turmoil of finally seeing the world through different eyes.
Over the years, I’ve had numerous expressions of thanks as people have commented on my blog posts or contacted me via email or Facebook. I’ve also had my share of ill-will directed toward me, as people assume that our dramatic change was a cop-out and an excuse to live it up in the world. In truth, it was the hardest thing my wife and I ever did: we risked alienating ourselves from both sides of our family and ruining the only real friendships we had.
There are now a lot of ex-fundamentalist blogs out there. And there are a host of other “survivor” type blogs as well. Some exaggerate the problems of fundamentalism, others jettison any connection with Christianity at all. The internet is a mixed bag, for sure. But it has helped shed light on the beliefs and practices of any group. Mormons have found the internet and are starting to see the problems in their church’s historical dogmas. And countless others have been rescued from cults as they do their own secret internet research.
Like anything, the internet in the wrong hands can be bad. But the truth is not ashamed of honest inquiry: which is why Christianity has and will only continue to flourish in the internet age.
I say all this by way of introduction as I want to direct your attention to a new blog from a Facebook friend of mine. It is called Leaving the Village and describes his own exodus from a legalistic, controlling faith community. His story is very similar to mine, in some respects. And for those struggling to decide how to proceed in their own faith journey, reading his story may be a blessing. He doesn’t try to trash his former church but is sharing his heart and how it felt to go through the process that lead to his “leaving the village.”
In his message to me he shares his motivation for the blog:
Hey Bob, your blog and story were a huge help to me when I was walking away from ——. Just simply knowing I wasn’t alone was one of the biggest things I needed to see.
I just started a blog to try to tell my story and help young guys in the same way you helped me. I’m trying to get the word out about it, but I’m not linking directly through my own social media yet. I don’t want my former pastor to just dismiss the blog as a hit piece. I’m writing with a bit of anonymity, but not pulling any punches.
Anyways, I was wondering if you might consider reading the first post and possibly sharing it on your blog. No pressure, I just wanted to ask you to consider it.
Regardless of what you do, thanks again for the encouragement you gave me.
Go over and read his first post. Then bookmark his site, as it promises to be good reading.
Here is an excerpt to get you started:
It’s hard to imagine unless you’ve been there. One decision, one moment changing the whole course of your life and the life of your family. Regardless of your story, everyone faces life changing decisions at some point, but the feelings of angst and terror seem to be multiplied when those decisions involve leaving a religious cult.
I know, the word cult is a loaded term. It’s also pretty polarizing. Those within the cult never see it as a cult. If they did, they would leave. But those outside it look back in and, at least in my case, ask questions like, “How did I stay duped for so long?” or “Why do people stay?” Calling something a cult has far less to do with its message and far more to do with its methods. But again, that’s a subjective definition that someone inside a cult is bound to disagree with….
My goal is not… to correct misguided beliefs or point out the flaws of others. We all hold presuppositions, more than we care to admit, and attempts at correcting your presuppositions will only go as far as you allow them.
Instead, I want to share my story–a story of angst, a story of searching for truth, a story of a guy looking for a God who was there all along, guiding each step of the journey. I know my audience is small. Not too many people grew up in “a village.” But if you’re one that did and you’re reading this, then know this, you are not alone. Rather than try to convince you of one position against another, I simply want to meet you in the journey and share in the feelings and longings that can be down right terrifying.
My prayer is that you know the road you walk is not one walked alone. Leaving the village and embracing the mystery of a life of faith in Jesus was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Robbed of a broader meaning to our lives, we appear to have entered an era of mass obsession, usually with ourselves: our appearance, our health and fitness, our work, our sex lives, our children’s performance, our personal development…. [We have created] a culture that gives [us] nothing greater than [ourselves] to believe in — no god, no king, no country.
This past Sunday I was privileged to fill in for our pastor at The Heights Church, St. Paul. The rapid cultural change and uncertain social/political climate formed the backdrop for my sermon.
