The World Gives No Quarter: Vigilance for Christian Families

 

[Image courtesy of Nadine Doerle, open source]

There was a time when American Evangelicals thought it would be possible to run our institutions parallel to their secular counterparts. We have established Christian schools, Christian universities, Christian businesses, Christian banks, Christian health shares, all in an effort to live in ways that align with our values and commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. 

But modern technology renders it nearly impossible to reduce or eliminate the influence of the world on Christian families. Your children can spend every waking moment inside of Christian institutions, but if they have an internet connection, they will be assaulted by the world. That assault will come through channels we've considered before, such as TV programming or music. But much more likely, and far more spiritually (and at times physically) dangerous, it will come through social media. 

For worse, social media today is the single greatest influence on our country, on the social and moral formation of our children, and on cultural development. And that influence is profoundly negative and depressing. 

Now I am aware of the irony of this situation. I write this on a blog, and most of my readers will read it by following a link shared via social media. Such is the reality of modern life. You have to fight the battle on the battlefield where the fighting is taking place. 

The point is it is nearly impossible to shelter your children. Yes, you can restrict what they watch (and you should do so). You can limit the places where they spend time. But unless we prohibit entirely their contact with social media, we cannot eliminate the worldly influence that WILL come through it. 

By "worldly influence" I don't predominately mean popular movies, music, or even advertisements. I mean social media culture. Social media culture is a distinct subculture, if not the dominant subculture, of American life. And it will enculturate you and your children into an irrational world of emoting, randomness, superficial relationships, and disconnectedness. It will give the illusion of emotional connection to others while making the reality of such connection impossible.

I write this based on experience. I routinely have young men tell me they have "girlfriends" they have never met, and are in "relationships" mediated entirely over social media. And I think these relationships are substantively different than the long-distance relationships of the past carried on via letters. Neil Postman famously argued you cannot separate the medium from the message. We are trying to use the medium of social media for messages it is incapable of truly conveying. The result is a severe disconnect between intent and reality. The more people depend on social media to convey messages it is not capable of conveying, the greater that disconnect becomes and the more harmful to our psyche the result. 

Social media, in its essence, is a denial of the human soul. It effectively says the message can be divorced from the person conveying it and the person to whom it is conveyed. It says there is nothing more to the message than what is written or filmed or photographed, and it says this by promising a level of connection that it simply cannot deliver. Remember that websites like Facebook are designed, and they are designed for certain purposes. What is that purpose? According to Mark Zuckerberg, “We want to help 1 billion people join meaningful communities. If we can do this it will not only reverse the whole decline in community membership we’ve seen around the world… but it will also strengthen our social fabric and bring the world closer together.” This stated purpose, however, is self-defeating; social media doesn't reduce social isolation and may actually increase depression and anxiety. 

I'm not saying that you should never let your kids on the internet or use any form of social media. Being conversant with technology is necessary to function in our broader society. I am saying we need to exercise careful vigilance with respect to how our kids use social media, what apps they have on their phones and other devices, and how much of their life is mediated through a screen. Further, we must carefully watch what effect all of this is having on their heart. Jesus said where our treasure is, there our heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). 

What I am really saying is the most concerning impact of social media is how it enculturates us. What does it teach us to think about relationships, about communication, about entertainment, about what really matters in life? Social media is answering those questions for your children, and the answers it is teaching are not good. Social media lies to us about human nature, about what it means to relate to one another, and about what is ultimately important in life. And it doesn't tell this lie with explicit banners or nihilistic memes (though those exist). It tells this lie by teaching us to behave in a certain way, by teaching us to crave likes, notifications, and attention. It tells this lie by consuming time that should otherwise be spent in vigorous activity, in face-to-face relationships, and in true communion with God and with one another. 

My parting thought is this:  Social media often makes us think it is the most important thing in our lives. Yet it provides no means of relating to God, and indeed it *cannot* do so. If we aren't careful, unmitigated and thoughtless social media use leads us to practical atheism. 

Why Classical Theism Matters

 In recent history, theological discussions that might otherwise be relegated to the ivory tower have spilled over to the popular level. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is how blogs, social media profiles, and podcasts influence subsequent social media interactions. Now, at both the academic and popular levels, there is a clear line of demarcation between classical theism and theistic personalism.

Even this terminology raises questions. Most theistic personalists do not self-identify as such. And many people have no idea what a term like "classical theology" means. 

For simplicity's sake (pun intended), classical theism refers to the view of God widely shared over the course of history that sees God as simple (not composed of parts) and immutable (unchanging in His being). This leads to many further assertions, such as God is pure act, the unmoved Mover, being itself, etc. In contrast, a relatively recent view has quickly attained consensus among many modern scholars. That view is theistic personalism, which holds God must be personal in some sense in the same way we are personal, and this typically results in either denying or reformulating classical views of simplicity and immutability. Subsequently, questions are raised about the very nature or possibility of natural theology, apologetic method, and ultimately the nature of fundamental reality itself. 

While my paragraphs above are gross oversimplifications of the relevant issues, I don't want this post to focus on the academic debate but on why this matters on the popular level. Why should the average Christian care about what seems like such a distant scholarly concern? Or, stated differently, why does classical theism (or its denial) matter in the day-to-day pursuit of Christ? 

There are more answers to this question than I can list here, but I want to cover a few in summary form. 

First, classical theism inspires our worship. In The Knowledge of the Holy A. W. Tozer wrote that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Our worship is a response to who God is and what He has done. Classical theism bears directly on the question of what we think about God, and thus on our response to who He is. Classical theism preserves God's greatness, His holiness, His justice, His love, without reducing them to a mere creaturely understanding of these words. Classical theism doesn't give us a complete understanding of God, in fact, it affirms we cannot attain that. But it still allows us to understand the truth about God in a way that inspires our worship with reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:28). This is especially the case when we consider how entirely holy God is in light of the fact the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). This is not to say theistic personalists cannot worship God, but the more creaturely we envision God the less of a mystery things like the Incarnation become. 

Second, many modern objections to the Christian faith simply don't exist given classical theism. One of the key mistakes the New Atheists made was critiquing a version of theism that for the majority of Christian history wasn't actually upheld by the Church. For a Cartesian dualist the problem of interaction becomes a significant challenge to belief in the soul. On classical theism, someone can raise the problem of interaction but it's pretty easily answered given a solid understanding of form/matter. Similar things can be said with respect to objections to the Trinity, where the distinction between essence and person becomes crucial. 

Third, classical theism has a certain consistency and comprehensiveness that is unrivaled by theistic personalism. This plays out on questions of ethics, the nature of reality, culture, and the meaning of life. What is the good life? How do we live it? Why should we bother even thinking about it? Again, it is not that theistic personalism cannot answer such questions, but that the answers end up necessarily disjointed and (at times) contradictory because theistic personalism lacks an integrated understanding of essential reality tested over millennia. Classical theism gives compelling answers to questions of abortion, sex and gender, the dignity of the person, and the value of the family. Theistic personalism is only raising those questions in reaction to the depravity of the culture around us. It's not that their answers are wrong, it's that we don't even know what the consensus answers will be on theistic personalism. 

We could go on, but I hope this is enough for people to consider the importance of the topic. Whatever one thinks of the debate between theistic personalists and classical theists, I hope we can all see the important nature of it. Nothing less than the essence of Christian theology and discipleship is at stake. 

Fortuitous Friday - Communism as a Failed System

 

[Photo of a mural in Havana, Cuba; C/O Yerson Oliveres, open source]

President Joe Biden is making headlines for calling communism a universally failed system. He further noted that socialism is not an attractive substitute.

This is just too delicious to pass up. On the one hand, many of Biden's critics and supporters view him as a stepping stone on the path to socialism. For Biden to say what he did will no doubt delight conservatives who see the gaping fracture within American liberalism. It will also isolate the far left of his own party, including the so-called "Squad." 

However, we should not take this commentary with too much optimism. Biden was none too quick to strongly denounce the repressive and tyrannical regime of Cuba and his denunciation now is undoubtedly a political calculation. It has taken the near-collapse of the Cuban regime for US Democrats to awaken to the reality they need to stop flirting with communism. And so far many Democrats still have not recognized that reality. Bernie Sanders and AOC seem to think the US embargo on Cuba is to blame for the suffering of Cubans. This is a firm reminder that the people screaming most loudly about oppression have no idea what it is, where it comes from, or how to deal with it. 

This is also a real opportunity for us as a country to transcend political division and re-articulate the principles of government for which the people of Cuba now protest. It is an opportunity to remind ourselves and our fellow citizens of the natural law. The people of Cuba are created equal, equal to their government officials, and equal to all other people. The people of Cuba, like all people, are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Those rights have been infringed upon by a tyrannical communist government for far too long. In other communist states, like China, the rights of even more people continue to be brutally infringed upon. And the specter of communism or socialism remains a grim possibility of our own political future in the USA. We must remind ourselves that our republic is not self-sustaining, it must be purposefully maintained. We must know our principles and ideals, and we must deliberately pass them on to each new generation. We have too often failed to do this, and the result is a generation that doesn't know if we should support the Cuban protests or why we should do so. 

At the end of the day, it's nice that a Democratic president called communism a universally failed system and Cuba a failed state. But it's not enough. The real work is to be done in raising each generation up to fulfill its civic duty; and as Christians, we must do that in a way that honors Christ above all. We are watching the failures of communism before our very eyes, let us not waste the opportunity. 

Thomism Thursday - Can Anything Happen Outside of God's Government?

[Photo of St. Peter's Basilica, C/O Chad Greiter, open source]

"Reply to Objection 1. There is nothing wholly evil in the world, for evil is ever founded on good, as shown above (I:48:3). Therefore something is said to be evil through its escaping from the order of some particular good. If it wholly escaped from the order of the Divine government, it would wholly cease to exist." - St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 103, a. 7, ad 1

Time forbids us from considering the totality of this point. However, I want to point out the Angelic Doctor is addressing whether anything contingent can happen and ultimately if anything can happen outside of the Divine Government (aka - Providence). Aquinas affirms nothing can resist God's will, though some things do happen which evade *particular* goods. Why is this the case? God so governs the world that if something happened completely outside of God's will, that thing would simply cease to exist. 

How does this apply to us today?

First, it seems our society is in some respects in total rebellion against God. However, as sinful as our society indeed is, it cannot completely escape God's will. God governs all things, and all things depend on God for their existence. The desire to completely escape God's will is self-destructive, and I mean that literally! To completely escape God would be to completely cease to exist. 

Secondly, following from this, the arguments of the sort "You are on the wrong side of history" are absurd! People aiming at and wishing for the complete cessation of existence have no business appealing to history. Period.

Third, and finally, this reveals that the difference between theological liberalism and conservatism is not simply on paper or rhetorical. What it ultimately reveals is a completely different metaphysic, a completely different religion, a completely different theology. People often ask if Christianity and Islam worship the same God. We should also ask if Christianity and liberalism worship the same God? The answer is a resounding "No!" They think I'm on the wrong side of history. I think their position (if it were actually attainable) would render humanity nonexistent. We don't have the same system, we don't worship the same God.