Russell Brand and Special Revelation

1. A Different Brand of Message

Even a loose cannon is right twice a day?

Along with thousands of other people online, I have been entertained by some of Russell Brand's viral posts (one on the existence of God, another on the problem of porn in today's society) which have circulated recently.
One can't help but wish the man was a believer, both for his own soul's sake and also in terms of the impact his native intelligence and charisma would allow him to have for the kingdom. (On the other hand, we see repeatedly in scripture and in life that God purposefully chooses the humble and unimpressive as His instruments to accomplish His purposes, for His greater glory.)

Mr. Brand is a man of... interesting beliefs, and an interesting background. If you weren't aware of his existence prior to those videos which are circulating to some extent in the Churchosphere, go searching for much of his other material and you might find yourself scrambling for the pause or back buttons. So understand that of course my post is in no way an endorsement of Mr. Brand as a good role model (he would insist that he is not, and we would all agree), or his opinions to be generally trustworthy. (He's a marxist, self-confessed heroin addict who enjoys transcendental meditation, for starters)

I'm not linking to the videos here because I'm not really interested in promoting Mr. Brand and his variety of other outspoken opinions on this blog; if you are a responsible adult feel free to find them on YouTube. ("Russell Brand", "Stephen Fry", "is there a God" will take you to the first. Take note, it includes Stephen Fry's arrogant, blasphemous little rant accusing God of being neither sane nor good.)

While Brand argues against the possibility of a literal interpretation of (any religion's) scripture, and says he doesn't like dogma or organized religion, he does argue enthusiastically that we live in a world where there is a sort of God behind everything, and whose image is reflected in us, and supports the basic idea of a sin nature. In the second video he argues that pornography is wrong, goes against conscience and warps our perspective of each other as human beings, and that both men and women (and he himself) should stop doing it.

The first video, though too vague to call support for a monotheistic concept of God, was also an effective refutation of Stephen Fry's disrespectful and unsubstantial proclamation of unbelief in a recent interview. Though lacking any logic and pretending perfectly good answers to his questions haven't existed for hundreds of years, Stephen Fry was rhetorically aggressive in his "assault" of theodicy, and millions of non-scientist science groupies, "brights," and god-denying, would-be intellectuals doubtless think it quite a devastating argument and the end of any discussion. (Ideological wars are reminiscent of the Bronze Age; most soldiers weren't particularly good at fighting and nobody liked dying, so it was often preferable to have two champions fight and each side could cheer theirs on.)

But Brand basically popped up unexpectedly and dismantled Fry's negative attack, and it's strange but compelling stuff. It's hard to think of an American equivalent, but it would be a bit like the countering argument to Bill Nye coming not from Ken Ham, but an excited Steven Tyler.

The strange thought occurred to me that, sadly, in some ways the videos are better than various sermons I've heard. I have sat through plenty of vaguely topical sermons, in churches both in America and in Taiwan. Honestly, watching those two videos of Brand's excited rambling probably made more of a difference in my life overall than listening to some of those sermons did.

2. Majoring on our Minors

How could that be? Because I'm a worldly Christian who needs dubious celebrities to say things on TV or the internet before I believe them? Because I'm not willing to search for some applicable truth to my life in every sermon I hear, even the bad ones? As Paul wrote, "By no means!" Much of what Brand says are simply purported truths he's personally noticed about our world that are misunderstood or purposefully obscured. One reason his words in those videos resonated with many people is that much of what he claims to be true is truth that can be seen from the world, what we would call general revelation. To borrow Paul's words again, from Romans 1, evidence for God can be plainly seen in what has been created. Those who reject that evidence are given over to depravity and sentenced to live out the consequences of the delusion they preferred to the truth.

Brand has indeed indulged in depravity, admits he still does a variety of wrong things when he can't stop himself, and can speak with sincerity of what results from it. In recent years, he has sought the path of becoming "a better person," and now apparently seeks to encourage everyone to be better people as well. It's a sort of secular gospel, with some truths we would recognize as scriptural mixed in there here and there, with a lot of hindu-ish mysticism and Brand's own randomness mixed in. It does come across as an interesting breath of fresh air in the addled chaotic mess that a culture of "do as thou wilt" has led us to. But clearly, it's not the gospel of Christ that brings eternal life, not the message the Church is on earth to proclaim.

Conversely, when the Church lays aside its unique identity and blessings, loses sight of a gospel focus and tries to copy what the World already specializes in, it fails almost every time. That extends all the way to the pulpit. If you just want to pick a topic and give a good talk, there's someone in the world who has more natural talent and can do it better than you. A gifted agnostic speaker could no doubt pick a Biblical topic and give a better talk on it than many preachers "sharing" a message. Many would be edified, (earthly) lives would be changed, etc. That's the power of a good speaker.

So what does the church have that the most positive, talented, morally-upright (in content, if not in life) speakers and encouragers don't have? We have the special revelation of God about Himself and His promises, accurately in the words of scripture and perfectly in the person of Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to proclaim that revelation and live it out in this world. That's "all."

The Church instituted by Jesus Christ to take the gospel to the ends of the earth and make disciples of all nations until He comes has been equipped by God to do exactly that, and no one else can do it. So we preach Christ resurrected, and a hope placed not in this world but in its Creator. Or at least we should preach that.

Whenever we stop preaching it, whenever we start trying to make people better, or use man's wisdom to achieve God's results, or desperately long for recognition from Hollywood, the media, etc. to validate our way of life and thought, we fail.

What Russell Brand demonstrates is that general revelation, truth anyone can observe which ought to lead them to seek out God, is out there, and those in the world with the motivation and willingness to do so can perceive it, at certain times and in certain ways. This kind of general truth is never a bad topic, but if that's all we're preaching, we're not sharing much that Mr. Brand can't say too, probably more interestingly. We have more to offer: the words of eternal life.

3. Κήρυξον τὸν λόγον (Preach the Word)

So then, why do we keep trying to major on our minors? I don't even know. There are probably a hundred reasons, not least of which is the constant clamor of the world around us. We live in the "loudest" age there has ever been, with more distractions than have ever been, being bombarded constantly by more information than humans have ever had to endure. Eventually, it seems compelling. The problems with which we are confronted by the world seem compelling for the same reasons. That's an external factor.
 An internal factor is that a lot of pastors are tired. Regardless of whether or not they've ever been trained to dig deeply into scripture and present the fruits of that labor to their flocks in an effective and challenging way (globally, most have not), sometimes they simply have too much on their plates for one human being.

This could be their own fault, for not saying "no" when they should, but more often it's because a lot of Christians "delegate up," assuming many of the spiritual responsibilities of every believer are really the job of "professional Christians." (Of course Christians should try to do it more, but you have to do it, it's your job. Even as a fairly new missionary I've heard that line a time or two.)

I have good news for the church: God trusts you with the job too. There are no professional Christians, there are only professing Christians. Want to change the church overnight? Convince those sitting in rows on Sunday morning, or maybe even yourself, that church is not an event, it's us. We are the Church, and every believer is a priest; we are, as one of my Hebrew professors at seminary wrote, a Kingdom of Priests. Christ is our heavenly mediator, and we are His representatives on earth. There's no one else to give that job to; no one else is doing it if we aren't.

Of course, it's true pastors do have a sacred responsibility to proclaim the word. And a nice homily on showing gratitude or being kind to others is great, but it doesn't provide vital spiritual nourishment any more than a cookie does. We live in a wrecked world, infected with evil. Evil men are systematically rounding up and murdering Christians as you read this, both in Africa and in the Middle East. If the roots of our faith are not deep, the winds of adversity or attacks of temptation will simply knock us down. A topical message with a couple relevant verses simply won't cut it. Believers need the spiritual protein from the meat of the Word to build the necessary muscles, or we'll be weak Christians forever. And that's not the kind of weakness the Bible is talking about when it says "when we are weak, He is strong," it's more like the weakness of Proverbs 24:10: "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." We must Preach the Word.

So in conclusion, if our faith is weak, and our understanding of the Word is weak, we cannot boldly proclaim Christ to the world. We won't even see why we should, let alone be willing to risk loss and embarrassment for it. Maybe we'll retreat to nice-sounding messages with "enough Bible" to be legitimate. Maybe we'll even retreat to "positive, morally-uplifting" messages that lack scriptural foundation altogether. At that point we're no more helpful than Mr. Brand; we've left our spiritual inheritance, and wandered into the domain where he speaks with more authority to many than we. How embarrassing would that be?

Chinese Religion, and the Excluded Middle

1. Intro - How we explain the World

Hello, tonight I'm writing about a topic that has been the source of much misunderstanding and miscommunication between Westerners (especially missionaries or those whose work involves them with Eastern religion one way or another). It's called the "Excluded Middle." (For those interested in more reading on this topic, here's a link to an essay by the late missiologist/anthropologist Paul Hiebert, to whom credit for the concept of the excluded middle is typically attributed.)

In the West, we have a more or less binary view of the universe/all-that-is:

Blue: Unseen/Supernatural world, dealt with solely in a religious context.
Green: Seen/Natural world, dealt with by science, etc. (Light Green: Mysterious, but not religious)

Notes:

1. I'm talking about 2015
It was not always so in the West; pre-christian/pagan Europe would have looked a lot more like the Chinese Religion chart we're covering later. Up until modern science, the light green area would have included things like alchemy.

2. This is the West as a Whole
I've drawn the blue section that small to demonstrate how for much of the modern-day West, religion is considered extraneous to normal everyday life. Those of us who grew up in the Bible belt sometimes don't realize how secular most of the West is. By the same token, yes there are a few westerners running around who espouse hinduism or some other non-western-origin worldview. But they'd probably be the first to tell you what a non-typical-westerner they are, so we don't need to consider that kind of outlier here.

3. This is Showing how We Explain Reality
As believers we know God is not separate from His creation, nor is He uninvolved in our day to day lives. However, this chart is referring to how we explain the world around us, not our teleology. (The "how," not the "why.") When you encounter repeated car trouble, you may pray about it and wonder what God is teaching you through it, and you may try going to a different auto mechanic, but you do not blame it on your deceased Uncle Joe who's angry you didn't put flowers on his grave this year, or a rival at work secretly stealing some of your hair and attacking you with voodoo.

4. Most People Do Leave Room for the Mysterious
I've included a little band for the "unexplained," those mysterious phenomenon which lots of people find fun to think about and talk about. Go out far enough into the American countryside to encounter folk culture, and this gap widens considerably. I did this to show that really in the West we have our own category here, the big difference is that we draw a firm line (represented by the thicker black line) between that kind of thing and anything religious. If, in certain churches, as I mentioned in a previous post, you start getting blurry lines there (believing in God but also carrying "lucky" tokens, putting a cross over your door not just as a sign of faith but also to keep "evil" out, etc.) then you are descending from orthodox doctrines into the slippery slope of folk theology, which typically leads towards an increasingly fear-based way of thinking with less and less resemblance to orthodox, scripturally-based faith.

So that's the West, in general. But in strict Modernism, and today for both atheists and the "science replaces god" people, you have the most simplistic possible view of the universe:

I could reduce it even further by simply writing "Synapses firing to no purpose."

Looking at this chart, perhaps it becomes apparent why it's so difficult to have conversations about the existence of God with those who hold to this way of thinking. To them, there is only the dark green part steadily filling up the light green part, no need for any blue at all. They must have life experiences or realizations of some kind that totally shatter this too-narrow illusion of reality to open up to the idea of a supernatural world, otherwise they simply ascribe anything "weird" to that buffer category as one more thing science will eventually explain. (This is what I call the "Science of the gaps" theory)

2. Chinese Religion - A Different View of the World

So that's "The West." When approaching "The East," a lot of Western people expect some mystery, some things that operate according to different rules than they're used to. Asia is that place where odd, inexplicable things can happen. However, and this is important, for westerners all those inexplicable things typically go into the "Mystery" category that is not religious and not really supernatural. Though it's not politically correct now, you've perhaps heard or read about various tribal/traditional religions described in older literature as "superstition," "mumbo-jumbo," and similar deprecating terms. The implication is that they aren't based in any kind of reality, that between the scientifically explainable world (creation, for believers) and God in heaven there is no "middle world" that civilized, educated humans need take into account.

Outside of many churches we might describe as charismatic, even Bible-believing Christians are usually very hesitant (in the West) to ascribe anything they observe to those kinds of spiritual forces the Bible clearly teaches exist, let alone those on which it does not comment.

Contrast this with how a typical Taiwanese person might view the world:

So here you can see, the world for a Taiwanese believer in traditional religion is a much more complicated place. The majority of Taiwanese would look at the world in this way to a certain extent, even if they do so by rejecting parts of it. ("I don't really believe ancestral spirits come into our world and bother people" is a statement only someone raised in and recognizing this worldview can make; a Christian Westerner does not believe that either, but they wouldn't ever say it because the question itself does not exist for them.)

Note the "Gates." In a folk/traditional religious world view, there are portals of various kinds between this world and the unseen/spirit world. Some of these may simply be natural objects of significance- a notable boulder, an impressive tree- that are "linked" to the unseen world (thinking of them as having spirit-wifi access might be a good analogy), as certain kinds of animals are considered to be as well (especially the "tricky" ones, like foxes). In Chinese traditional religion, however, there are "higher" portals or gates between this world and the spirit world that are open at various times or in various ways. One very notable example is during Ghost Month, when the gates of hell are said to open to let spirits of various kinds come into our world and potentially trouble the living in various harmful ways. (There is a long list of activities deemed "risky" during this time due to possible attack or negative influence from the spirits)

In the West, we might think of something like an Ouija board as a similar kind of "portal," and often Christians who lack a robust understanding of "spiritual warfare" -really just the wider reality the Bible clearly teaches that we live in- will instinctively revert to a very folk religious way of thinking when confronted with the occult. That might be the easiest way to visualize Taiwanese traditional religion for a Westerner, however- imagine if you lived in fear of the occult every day, and your culture lacked a "highest God" who could hear your prayers and who cared about you. Your only option would be to invoke what powers you knew of to protect yourself. Throw in the very strong mandate regarding ancestor worship, and that's basically how religion works in Taiwan.

Notes for the Chart:

1. This is a general attempt at contrast, not a highly accurate parsing of Chinese belief
It would require a hugely complicated chart to even begin to explain a vanilla version of the world according to Chinese folk religion, and to some extent it would be impossible because many people embrace multiple conflicting belief systems, feeling logic is inadequate to deal with the divine and it's better to be safe than sorry if one turns out to be true. This is a rough sketch, and if you want to find fault with it, it would be easy to do so. (If you feel I've really made a basic error, please leave me a comment and explain how so.)

2. "Grey Areas"
Another Western thing to do is place things in clearly divided categories. Things like Qi/Chinese medicine (somewhat related topics) and even business profit are not purely natural, scientifically explicable phenomenon, but are connected to the invisible/intangible and spirit worlds. More on this later...

3. I'm not clear on the Chinese pantheon, but few are, even adherents
What I have observed is that few people try to grasp the recognized hierarchy of gods and approach them accordingly. People in different walks of life and from different families and ethnic backgrounds worship different collections of big and small gods. There are gods associated with certain places/areas (The city of Taipei has a patron god, for example, every patch of rice fields has a little earth god shrine, and some say every house has a little spirit), gods associated with certain trades (the sea goddess Matsu, very important in Taiwan, is connected to anything that has to do with the ocean, like fishing, and much more besides), and gods associated with certain roles. (Guanyu is a warrior god of justice and protection, worshiped variously by those who wish for protection for their business, and by both police and triads/gangs)

4. Chinese "Heaven" is hard to explain
In Chinese thought, the idea of 天 (Tian, "heaven," but that's a misleading translation, it's not a place people go after death) is more like the divine order which maintains the universe, decides justice, decrees fate, and is over all things. Apparently Tian varied and still varies between being thought of more like a highest God (getting close to a transcendent monotheistic God, which some claim it originally represented), and more like an impersonal divine force, depending on the time period and the variety of Chinese religious thought/philosophy. "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world," might be getting a little bit closer to the idea for Westerners, if you imagine that the terms God and Heaven were identified closely enough to be interchangeable. But this all gets confusing because at the same time there's the diverse pantheon of gods, as mentioned above.
How those gods and Tian divide up responsibility for governing the affairs of men (not even to mention various Chinese flavors of Buddhism with Buddha/manifold Buddhas being present as well, alongside Chinese traditional religion) is far beyond the scope of this post, but I think I'm not entirely wrong in say it's rather like a Roman Catholic idea of the Saints and Archangels and Mary doing a lot of the helping, protecting, and blessing for individual people, while God can of course also be prayed to directly, but is farther away and less accessible, ruling and sustaining all, and taking care of managing the big picture. (I hope I have not falsely represented Roman Catholicism by that description, but that's quite orthodox compared to what I observed in Mexico...)

 3. The Excluded Middle

Now think of the conflict in worldviews we have. On the one hand, you have science handling the task of explaining anything we can reliably observe and a transcendent Christian God who cares about and engages in the affairs of men, and on the other hand you have a whole "middle world" of spirits and the spirit world which plays an intimate role in the affairs of men, with a Creator or Highest God far off and not practically involved. The Western worldview, based partially on the revelation of scripture itself but also on other secular factors, simply discards the "hidden" reality of this world and also any "lower" divine realm altogether. Most of the rest of the world does not. Sharing the gospel effectively in a traditional/folk religious culture may require understanding this fact.

Given this view of reality, by way of analogy, a "vanilla" western approach to sharing the gospel to a traditional religious adherent might sound similar to one janitor at an overseas Microsoft office telling another janitor to call Bill Gates and ask for a promotion (in a culture that doesn't reward such audacity). You are telling someone who believes in a whole tiered hierarchical system in which even dead relatives must be appeased and in which the gods, if they be willing, provide assistance purely on a transactional basis (worship and sacrifice, in exchange for blessings or protection), that the God higher than the entire hierarchy wants to have a personal relationship with him. If the Holy Spirit has not already been preparing their heart, it may take some time for them to wrap their head around that notion. They will be more interested in knowing whether your God is more generous or powerful than their current gods, what kind of benefits He's offering in exchange for their loyalty. (Thus, sadly, the prosperity gospel is rampant and popular in Taiwan. In one sense, it's simply monotheistic idolatry)

Western missionaries are often put into a difficult position, therefore, of being asked to explain how Christianity as a belief system handles situations which we have never previously acknowledged as existing in the world. And sometimes it can be unnerving. Exorcisms are already shaky ground for most of us, but at least any Biblically-literate Christian knows they were happening in the New Testament, though their life in the West is not likely to have provided them with experience in that sort of thing. But what happens when entirely alien scenarios unfold? "How will your God protect me from ancestral spirits bringing bad fortune to my business if I don't set out the spirit offering tables?" is probably not a question for which most American pastors have a quick answer. The knowledge does not fall into one's head the moment one lands in one's ministry field, I can tell you that much for sure.

Thus, the default quick answer, very often, is "I have good news: there are no: [ancestral spirits, gods, evil spirits, curses, etc...] who can harm you, because they don't exist." (Or worse, "because the Bible says they don't exist.")

"Ok, now let's figure out a culturally relevant way to share the gospel."

Even if it's true that no spirits of the dead are roaming around the town waiting to inflict misfortune on those whose rice offering is too scanty, this reply does little for the inquirer. That's because he wasn't asking you about his world, he was asking you about your God. If the question is whether God can and will protect him when he needs protection, the answer is yes, God can and will do that according to His will, and no spirit- evil, ancestral, or any other possible kind of spirit- is outside the will of God. Teach him to read the Bible for himself and he can decide whether his cultural opinions regarding the afterlife are reconcilable with Scripture. And it's likely he'll do a much better job of explaining the gospel inside his culture, having accepted it inside his culture, than you would. Taiwan is full of Christians who never understood the gospel until they lived in the West. There the gospel made sense, but returning to Taiwan, they find it difficult to share with people not similarly familiar with western ways of thinking. There are many reasons for that, not only the one we're talking about here. But it seems something must be done to share the gospel inside Taiwan's traditional culture that seemingly has not yet been done.

4. Then, What?

Must we avoid syncretism? Yes we certainly must. I am not advocating in any shape, form, or fashion blending Biblical truth with traditional beliefs or confusing the two. But we can recognize that everyone comes to Christ from where they are, not from where we are. A step towards Christ from within Chinese traditional religion, or any local religion or different world religion, will not necessarily look like a step towards Christ from within your own background.

As I shared in a previous entry, everyone comes to Christ within their own cultural context. So if we want to take the gospel across cultural divides, we have to go to them not only geographically, but step inside their context and point the most direct path to the Kingdom we can, not one that snakes back away through our own cultural context beforehand.

This is just the basic idea, there are vast arrays of subcultures from which people believe on Christ

If we need for a local person to be educated regarding our Western worldview so that we know how to share Christ with them, we'll never really take Christ into that culture, only take people out of it. We have to continuously point them to Christ from wherever they currently are, even if that means their walk towards Christ looks much different from what we saw in our home culture

That's much more challenging than just translating our favorite gospel presentation into their language. But we have the Holy Spirit, and we have discernment, we have Christ Himself and His life in us, we have special revelation in Scripture which can keep us in the right path if we keep it in heart and in mind, and we have a calling from God to reach every culture with the gospel. That's sanction enough to figure out a few things along the way.

I increasingly feel our job is not to educate, but to introduce.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego at Hogwarts

In a previous post I mentioned I would next deal with the topic of metanarratives. That's coming down the pipe, but first I want to deal with a subject that came up in that entry as well, that of the recognized tendency for young people to abandon or at least set aside their faith in college. There are lots of ideas about why this happens; today's entry is based on my observations working with various church youth groups, focusing more on those whose situation lets them go to good colleges and face the World's temptations of prosperity and success, as three young men did in the book of Daniel.

1. Why the Names?

Three young Hebrew men, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, were prisoners of war after a powerful empire invaded their small country, which was weakened after years of poor leadership and had all but totally forsaken the God who had delivered them so many times in the past. This time, He spoke through His prophets to announce the day of Jerusalem's fall was coming certainly, so much so that his people should go along with it, and make lives for themselves in the lands to which they were deported, for it was God Himself who granted success to their enemies and they would not quickly be returning to Israel, though someday they would.

This Babylonian empire was ruled not by a moustache-twisting villain or fearsome lord of darkness but a powerful, vain, and capable leader, who considered himself the hero of this story. (he learned better years later, eating grass in the field) Pragmatically, he sought to both remove the ruling class from the Hebrew people and also bring the best of them into his own service.

Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (along with Daniel) were found to be far superior to those already in the King's service, and were quickly drafted to join his team. It's hard to imagine what was going through their minds as they agreed to serve the king who had attacked their country and deported their people, but it seems clear they sought ways to honor God in the midst of this radically different environment and situation. They are our success stories; they succeeded at being in The World but not of it.


But before they got their high profile government jobs, they had to complete their Babylonian education. This began in an interesting way. The first chapter of Daniel tells us that the young men were given new names.

Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.

You may have studied Daniel at some point and know the meaning of these names, honoring Babylonian deities to demonstrate where their new loyalties were supposed to lie. But I think there's another way to look at it. Giving them new names as they enter the Babylonian royal school of magic is basically saying this:
"You're a wizard, Harry!" *cue the theme music*

"You're sure you won't eat the rich food from the king's table? Ah well, more for me."

2. Life in Hogwarts and what comes after...

"Your old life is behind you." "Maybe you had it easy back in Israel, not anymore." "The rest of your lives are ahead of you." "Welcome to Babylon, kiddies, the new capitol of the world." "This education is the key to your future success." "You're lucky to have this opportunity." "You're a long way from home, kids, you're going to make your own choices now." "Study hard if you want to make it here." "Ace this stuff, and Babylon's your oyster." "Here's a little taste of what might be in store:" (And a dramatic feast from the king's own table is unveiled. Intimidating music plays, and representatives from the royal magicians and astrologers are putting on an impressive little show)

I don't know if that's exactly what it was like for the young men, described in the book of Daniel as Israel's best and brightest, as they were placed under the court overseer who gave them the new names. But if so, I'm guessing most kids didn't stand a chance. And don't today. This is what heading to college is like for smart and talented kids. The world unfolds for them, with all the temptations and distractions it has perfected over the centuries. You put on the Sorting Hat, and it says "Anesthesiologist," "Bioengineer," "Fortune 500 CEO," "Future 'it' fashion designer" (or maybe:) "Slacker who somehow always does ok," "Stressed out math teacher," "Peace corp trust fund baby," "It's ok, the army will straighten you out," or the inevitable "Ah, now this kid is Going Places."

Of course, by the end of college and as the job search starts many of them will know just how tiny a slice of that world is actually available to them, but by then many of them will have made mistakes and spent years doing things that make them embarrassed to return to God or the church.

3. The Beautiful Lie

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. (1 John 2:16)

And beautiful it certainly can be...

The world has a thousand false narratives, and for middle-to-upper class American kids headed off to college, it might be recognizable: "What happens here stays here. Have as much fun as you can because after this it's nose-to-the-grindstone time, to see if you can cut it in the working world." A kaleidoscope of semester projects and crazy parties and staying up all night to drive to the beach to get drunk and high and then watching the sunrise and feeling 100% alive, having all the sex you safely can while you're young and at the peak of attractiveness, drinking in life deeply before packing away all the happy memories, saying goodbye to the birthplace of your nascent adulthood, and putting on the suit and doing what grownups do, according to the world's definition, working your butt off and getting the corner office, the killer ride in the company parking spot, finding a wife/husband and having a couple of kids, smiling sadly at a few more wrinkles in the mirror and reflecting nostalgically when you bump into old friends on what a crazy trip life is. There are dozens of variations on this, of course, but you get the idea.

It feels like a life lived well, beautiful in its own way, full of fun and drama and pathos and hard work and quiet satisfaction, and seems entirely complete without the gospel in there anywhere. (and for those who do try to wedge the gospel in there somewhere too, it will seem mysteriously extraneous and hard to relate to, less meaningful than those rich life experiences) The World can fulfill you physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, pretty much any way except spiritually, and it can do a decent job of pretending to do that too. "Religion" is not dangerous at all in this scenario. A bit of a spiritual experience on an Easter Sunday in the unfamiliar setting of a church or some sober reflection on life at a funeral is good for the soul, no doubt. A good way to round out life, not missing the deeper things, so long as one doesn't go overboard, of course. Can't become a fanatic and start giving up fun stuff and make the rest of us feel awkward.


After all that, the idea of actually devoting one's life to God, whatever it sounded like in youth group, comes across either as a nice fairy tale story, a beautiful dream of innocent childhood you left behind when you entered the real world, or perhaps as a noble and deep calling, for those saintly people who can hear a heavenly voice the rest of us can't, the monks and mystics who enrich life in their odd way and might have a bit of unearthly wisdom for those who are down on their luck or failing at life.

As Christians we're not allowed to refrain from showing God's love to someone just because their mistakes are observably their own fault. It's tempting, when they're not sorry but rather proud of them, but still wrong. The spell of confusion the world casts is the lie that when truth is in your mind you should listen to your heart's excuses ("It can't be wrong when it feels so right"), and when truth is in your heart you should listen to your mind's excuses ("Life's tough; I had no choice"), and after you've made the mistakes, to accept the world's consolation that your troubles are someone else's fault, and "making it" through life's struggles is not the default state of all human beings, but is somehow a noble calling, "far more so than those hypocrites in church could understand." So many will say- "Church is for good people, I'm just trying to get by, I figure God will understand." -and actually mean that they want the comfort they feel is within their grasp and not God. (George Muller kept an orphanage open solely through prayer and faith, so God is quite able to help you "get by" and far beyond that. But there are wrong excuses we are culturally conditioned to accept, especially when offered with humility.)

So the idea that living a life ignoring God and dealing with the consequences of your sin on your own is a struggle more "real" or authentic somehow than seeking your Creator doesn't actually make sense if you parse it out, but ingest enough of the world's propaganda and it can seem and feel very true. It's what the world is good at.

4. Is There a Solution?

I write to you, dear children,
    because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
    because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
    because you are strong,
    and the word of God lives in you,
    and you have overcome the evil one.
(1 John 2:14)

Yes. Lots of kids are going to college and coming out young adults strong in their faith and ready to serve God and live their lives according to His word, in whatever career they choose. How does this happen?

Students' faith is between them and God, and nothing can be done for them in that regard. But we can help, and indeed that is our responsibility, to prepare them. Let's look to our 3 heroes as an example. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego endured by being prepared in several ways:

A. Able to apply their faith and knowledge of the truth to an unfamiliar situation.
Though suddenly in Babylon, faced with situations they'd never encountered before, they knew the truths they learned were universal, and how to apply them to meet new temptations and challenges.

B. Banding together for support
We can't know for sure, but I suspect if there was only Shadrach, only Abednego, it would have been a much more difficult struggle. Would the overseer have permitted a lone boy to resist the command, where he permitted four (including Daniel) together? And in the story of the fiery furnace, the three could stand together and give a response to the king as one.

C. They were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their faith
Although they were surprisingly willing and able to adjust on cultural issues, when it came to honoring God, they were willing to die (again, together) rather than dishonor Him.

Now let's quickly look at how these apply to today's students:



A. Applying faith and God's truth to unfamiliar situations

 One word: discernment. If your Christian life as a student was a list of do's and don'ts, it won't survive the college transition, and you'll be left to muddle through on your own. My life was a bit along these lines, and although I didn't do the wrong things that are quite normal in college, it was a less fun and memorable experience than it could legitimately have been because I was very worried about doing something wrong. I don't believe this will be the problem for most students, rather the opposite. They'll find themselves doing things they definitely know are wrong after a chain of decisions they'd never had to face before. ("Whoa, how did I end up here? Well, no going back now...")

I'm not a parent, but I've been a kid and grown up. If kids, as they mature, are allowed the opportunity to make less damaging wrong decisions, they will have much better discernment by the time they're ready to head off to college. Try to remove all opportunities for wrong-doing is both fighting a losing battle (the sin nature is defeated in Christ but the sanctification process is a long one), and not preparing them to succeed when suddenly plunged into a multitude of opportunities for fun wrong-doing.

B. Standing Together, Growing Together

It takes more than once a year... though Passion was pretty great.

I mentioned in that previous post I mentioned at the beginning, the greatest factor I've seen in kids staying and growing in the faith while in college is getting plugged into active and solid christian fellowship groups on campus. The Christian life was meant to be lived in fellowship with other believers, and most students crave and need fellowship like oxygen. (I was both introverted and still figuring things out socially, but I enjoyed pretty much all the Christian groups I was involved with during college.) Also, practically speaking, they provide fun things to do that are often actually fun, and a real alternative to "let's play drinking games and strip poker because no parents are around to stop us anymore."

College is the time when a lot of kids find out what kind of adults they're going to be. It sets the stage for the whole rest of their life in some ways, and certainly the next phase of their life. That time needs to be spent in fellowship with other Christian students going through the same process. So for a Christian parent who wants to do the best to help their child grow and not lapse in their faith during college, I strongly advise you to steer (or send, depending on how traditional your parenting style is) your children to colleges that have strong Christian fellowships. Of course, they still have to choose to attend them. Which leads me to the last point:

C. Deep Conviction

(Note: Above I used the wording "prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice" and not "prepared to die" both a) in the exaggerated sense, as there are things students think they would rather die than do (death may seem like the easy way out when one has to forsake one's social group and be ridiculed by them in order to make a stand for God), and b) sadly in the literal sense, since for the many students silently suffering from extreme depression (I was one), the ultimate sacrifice for God may sometimes be the decision to keep living.)

It saddens me to say it, but it's very obvious to those of us who are or have been youth counselors: A lot of youth group kids aren't believers, even some of the ones whom the rest of the church (and their parents) assumes to be. Yes, they said the right things, yes they were baptized, but they don't have a vital and saving relationship with God through faith in Christ. Maybe they felt pressured, maybe they were impressionable as young kids but didn't really understand what they were doing, there are lots of different situations. I know it's soul-wrenching. Sometimes the more loving parents are desperate to know their child has accepted Christ, the more they push the child to make a declaration of having done so when it's not true. (It happens a lot in Taiwanese churches too, where parents often have more say in their children's lives even into adulthood) 

But some kids are bored to tears in youth group, aren't buying most of it, and are out the minute they get a car or have any other options. (One kid I knew was quite straightforward. "I don't really care about all this stuff. I want to make tons of money and live the good life." The sentiment is not uncommon, only the honesty) Other kids are the type to meet whatever expectations are placed on them, and so they'll play the youth group game as long as necessary, and seem genuine, but when college comes with a new and very different set of expectations, and friends, they'll morph into someone who matches those instead.

You can't give a child, or anyone else, deep conviction, any more than you can give them a patient heart or give them experience in resisting their own temptations. It's something that happens between them and God. But you can model it for them. Let them see that your life is a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, and that your relationship to God is loving and not legalistic. (Quoting angry scripture at them whenever they do anything wrong, for example, is not the kind of admonishment that leads them to love God's word. But neither is letting them do whatever they want and calling that love.) 

If children, or students, or maybe adults too, see that you are patient in suffering, joyful in affliction, hopeful in chaos, that you have something the World can't offer, then that example is something they can take out into the World as an alternative to what they typically see there. When the World presents them with bad choice A and worse choice B, they'll know a third choice exists.

5. Conclusion

 

So, when the new Christian student arrives at Hogwarts, and the World seems to be laid at their feet, and they are encouraged to abandon muggle religion and join the rarified air of the famous wizards-who-know-better or at least take the respectable road of a life spent in the rat race without looking up until retirement, the decision is up to the student. No parent, older sibling, role model, caretaker, youth counselor, pastor, etc. can make it for them. But they can go in with the preparation of discernment, the support of fellow believers, and the conviction that has been modeled for them by those who had the chance.

If we have prepared them well, we can stand back, pray, and trust God. Some will still make foolish choices, some cannot learn from warnings, only through the consequences of their mistakes, but God knows how to deal with His own. The greater danger is letting them go off to Hogwarts never having seen genuine faith modeled by those closest to them.

"The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever."