Category: Canada
Nearly a decade ago, the National Post had a section called ‘Holy Post’ edited by Charles Lewis. He kindly published this little article I wrote on Saint Patrick:
Green beer sales mark the globalized celebration of St. Patrick’s Day and for many who are only Irish once a year little more is thought of. But it may be time for St. Patrick’s Day to become an occasion of global awareness for something more than the taste of Guinness, namely the problem of human trafficking.
Patrick was only 16 when he was seized by human traffickers. Removed from his family and home in Roman Britain, he was transported across the Irish Sea to the foreign surroundings of Dalriada in what is now Northern Ireland. The traffickers sold Patrick to a local warlord who exploited the young Briton for six years of forced labor.
Patrick escaped and fled Ireland, yet his conversion to Christianity while a slave gave him a mission to return to minister to his former captors. From that point Patrick’s ministry in Ireland became so significant that his identity and the country’s are difficult to separate. Yet it is easily forgotten that Patrick’s early experience of his adopted country was as a victim of human trafficking.
Today when people think of slavery they rarely think of a modern problem, but rather something belonging to earlier centuries. But in the transnational world that is ‘flattened’ modern slavery can take many different forms than those associated with plantations or estates in the Caribbean or American South.
In one scenario, traffickers will promise jobs in foreign countries only to put the victim in a permanent indebtedness so that they must work without rights and without hope of freedom. With no advocates in a foreign land of foreign language the victims are forced to rely on the traffickers for their survival. Long hours of demanding work in unsafe conditions become the desperate reality for these victims that had been promised a job in a land of opportunity.
Another scenario has traffickers offering the allure of marriage or glamorous jobs in modeling or acting in order to force young women into prostitution. Such exploitation occurs at local levels in every city of the world but for victims of sex trafficking, the removal from one country to another isolates them further. Without the language skills to communicate in the foreign country, the sex trade victim cannot seek help even if support services are available locally.
Another horrific product of the globalized sex trafficking economy is the enticement offered to parents to sell their children into prostitution. The demand to stock child prostitutes for sex tourism destinations such as Thailand is great. In sex trade economics, an unthinkable act by a parent becomes all too commonplace.
Human trafficking is a global and local problem. In order to fight it we need to admit its existence. Maybe on this St. Patrick’s Day we could take up the challenge by caring less about all things green, and a bit more about the life of Patrick himself. If we could imagine what life was like for St. Patrick we may have greater empathy for the plight of victims of human trafficking in our communities.
Charles Spurgeon saw the effects of the plague during his ministry in London. Reflecting on the ninety-first Psalm he noted the comfort and security of the words:
no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.
(Ps 91:10)
He told a story about seeing these verses in a shop window. My friend Paul Martin wrote about this incident recently.
With the COVID-19 virus pandemic requiring people to be “socially distant” it is a good time to consider where our security lies.In Spurgeon’s commentary on Psalm 91, he addressed the question:
Get into God and you dwell in all good, and ill is banished far away. It is not because we are perfect or highly esteemed among men that we can hope for shelter in the day of evil, but because our refuge is the Eternal God, and our faith has learned to hide beneath his sheltering wing.
Treasury of David, Psalm 91.
This is the response of anyone in calamity. They get into God. They seek him, pursue him, and find refuge in him. Although they may be socially distant from others, they are secure “in Christ”.
As Spurgeon explained, there is a beautiful way that God gives comfort in calamities and security for those who are sick. Spurgeon said:
It is impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord; the most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is no ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honour, death is his gain. No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him, for everything is overruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure where others are in peril, he lives where others die.
Treasury of David, Psalm 91.
If you are home from work, self-quarantined, or otherwise unable to fellowship with other believers, then take this opportunity to get into God.
I drove through the Siksika Nation recently and saw the cemetery named after Paul Little Walker. He was a Christian believer whose testimony of coming to faith in Christ showed the power of the gospel to save and transform a life. I wrote about this transformation before in An Indigenous Testimony to Gospel Transformation.
As I saw the cemetary, I was reminded of Paul Little Walker, or Pokopi’ni’s testimony to the gospel. One of the evidences of Little Walker’s conversion was the way that he discarded the sacred objects, and identifiers that connected him to the false worship he had been immersed in before his conversion. Hugh Dempsey, the historian, writes about Little Walker:
And just as Small Eyes–Paul Little Walker– had turned away from his old religion, so did he now reject the objects that went with it. He quit the Horns and the warrior socieities, gave the marten flag to Bishop Pinkham, and turned the thunder arrow, painted staff and the other holy objects over to his wife.
Pretty Nose (Little Walker’s wife) was aghast at the reactions of her husband. She had joined the Horn Society with him and had taken part in many of the ceremonies. She became angry when he started to give things away, but no amount of arguing would change his mind. She reminded him of the power of the holy objects and the misfortune that had come to others who had desecrated them. But he remained steadfast in his devotion to the new religion.
The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories, 229.
Although many calamities fell on the new Christian, Little Walker did not forsake the Christian faith. When his wife died and his painted tepee was hit by lightning, others interpreted these disasters as signs that Little Walker should return to the native spiritualities. But he refused and continued on zealously as a Christian.
Later, as an older man, respected as a churchman, but also for his growth in graciousness (in contrast to his naturally harsh temperament), he showed that his faith in Christ was a true conversion as he persevered to the end. Dempsey wrote:
His chest still bore the scars of the self-torture ritual [i.e. Sun Dance], and the joint of his finger was missing because of his Native religion, but ever since that night in 1898 when his vision had taken him to God, Little Walker had pursued only two goals in life– to be a Christian, and to bring others to his church.
Ibid, 233.
Like any Christian convert, Little Walker was not instantly sanctified but needed to grow and change. His natural pride, combined with his single-mindedness meant that he could lack grace in dealing with others, even as he was passionate about the truth of God’s word in the midst of his people’s need. But God progressively refined Little Walker to hold fast to truth while at the same time, extending grace to sinners.
There is much to learn from the Christian testimonies of Indigenous people, but what is clear is that Christ’s power to save in the gospel is always the same— a miracle.
This is a list of resources that you may find helpful. It is a curation based on my own choices, like any curation. Let this be a sieve for you to drain and collect what is useful.
captive by philosophy
There are some philosophies entering into the church which Christians need to be aware of. The philosophies are in a cluster composed of Critical Theory and Intersectionality.
intersectionality
Rosaria Butterfield, the former lesbian university professor, now Christian believer, has written about intersectionality for Table Talk at Ligonier ministries. She says:
How did we get to a place where it makes sense for a person to reject truth not because it’s false but because it hurts? How did we get to a place where we label people—image bearers of a holy God—as knowable primarily by their political and social group, as if that is their truest and most indelible virtue? Under what worldview could my words cause suicide but the genital mutilation that allows a biological man to masquerade as a woman cause celebration and affirmation?
READ THE REST: Intersectionality and the Church
critical theory
While I was at the Immanuel Network conference hosted by my friend Ryan Fullerton and his church, I was given a booklet by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer titled, Engaging Critical Theory and the Social Justice Movement (you can download a copy for the price of an email here).
Shenvi says that Critical Theory is a worldview that is antithetical to Christianity. He writes:
The story of critical theory begins not with creation, but with oppression. The omission of a creation element is very important because it changes our answer to the question: “who are we?” There is no transcendent Creator who has a purpose and a design for our lives and our identities. We don’t primarily exist in relation to God, but in relation to other people and to other groups. Our identity is not defined primarily in terms of who we are as God’s creatures. Instead, we define ourselves in terms of race, class, sexuality, and gender identity. Oppression, not sin, is our fundamental problem. What is the solution? Activism. Changing structures. Raising awareness. We work to overthrow and dismantle hegemonic power. That is our primary moral duty. What is our purpose in life? To work for the liberation of all oppressed groups so that we can achieve a state of equity.
READ MORE from Shenvi’s blog series
The current spirit of the age involves these variations of a cultural Marxism which has morphed into Critical Theory. It relates to issues of ethnicity (Critical Race Theory), gender and (LGBTQ+ advocacy), politics and more.
I have written about cultural Marxism, and the helpful analysis of Albert Mohler and Robert Smith, here.
Paul’s warning to the Colossians is very applicable here:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Colossians 2:8
idealized cultures
Some more articles in this vein are Leonardo De Chirico on Pope Francis and his new statement Querida Amazonia. :
Querida Amazonia tends to have a very positive view of indigenous cultures – at times somewhat naïve – and in so doing it lacks biblical realism. According to the Bible, cultures are not to be idealized nor demonized: they are mixed bags of idolatry and common grace in need of redemption. Pope Francis tends to idealize native cultures, seeing them as already infused by the grace of God.
READ THE REST
This seems to derive from a similar philosophy to the intersectional/cultural marxist ones mentioned above.
What Does the Bible Say About…
Lust, Homosexuality, Transgenderism? Owen Strachan and my fellow pastor Gavin Peacock have written a trilogy of books that address simply what the bible says about three areas of hot contention. In these areas, some of the philosophies mentioned above are deeply embedded. Highly recommended.
This article is published at 9Marks.org
The key takeaways are:
1) GALATIANS TEACHES US TO BUILD OUR LIVES ON A RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THE GOSPEL
2) GALATIANS CONFRONTS OUR DRIVE TO COMPARE OURSELVES TO OTHERS
3) GALATIANS TEACHES US THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST
9 Marks is a great ministry that has helped me immensely. I highly recommend their massive journal on Complementarianism.
Like many people, I have been trying to learn more about the trends and philosophies that are blanketing society like a freezing blizzard of unbelief.
The search has lead me to find a surprising amount of consensus from different sources. On the one hand, I would expect to find Albert Mohler’s commentary ably exposing the latent philosophies which are opposed to a Christian worldview. Yet I’ve been surprised to find non-christian voices like Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, and many others making observations that resonate with elements of the Christian worldview.
Who would have thought a decade ago that the New Atheists would ever be siding with Christians. But now they both affirm the scientific verity of binary sexes, making them outlaws together! Darwinists and Christians together! These are strange days indeed.
The swirl of discussion centres around social justice, racism, sexism, class warfare, and the general ‘oikophobia‘, or disdain for one’s own oikos, household or country.
Although concern for equity is great in the Scriptures since God himself is called, Jehovah Tsidkenu, ‘The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jer 23:6), there is also the concern that mankind does not subvert God’s intent. It is easy for man to ascribe to himself the role of ultimate lawgiver, casting off the bonds of God’s law in favor of his own (cf. Psalm 2).
This casting off of the bonds of God is ably summarized in Robert Smith’s exposition of “cultural marxism”. His essay in Themelios is a rare combination of thorough background study, sound synthesis and a useful application to the leading issues of our own day.
Some observations about the article, as it relates to Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory:
The disdain for Western civilization
Smith writes regarding the Frankfurt school’s philosophy:
the general consensus of its members was that Western civilization was effectively responsible for all the manifestations of aggression, oppression, racism, slavery, classism and sexism that marked post-industrial society. Marcuse even went so far as to call democracy “the most efficient system of domination.”
3.4. Assessing the Work of the Frankfurt School
The philosophy of minority elitism aiming to suppress majorities
Smith quotes from Charles Taylor, the Canadian Roman Catholic philosopher:
“It is also profoundly elitist, for it ultimately forces Marcuse to see the majority of people “not as semi-rational human beings … but rather as irrational objects of manipulation … The majority must be liberated from themselves by the Marcusian minority which alone is rational.”
Smith, quoting Taylor fn 130, Charles Taylor, “Marcuse’s Authoritarian Utopia,” Canadian Dimension 7.3 (1970): 51.
The intent to undermine institutions based on Christian morality
Smith has a summary here:
While majoritarian systems always have the potential to become tyrannous, and the track-record of Western civilization is far from unblemished, to demonize the key elements and attainments of Western culture—e.g., Christian morality, family, hierarchy, loyalty, tradition, the rule of law, sexual restraint, universal suffrage, property rights, patriotism, capitalism, and technology—is both myopic and ungrateful. Furthermore, criticizing an imperfect system when you have no idea how to build a better one is more than idealistic; it is irresponsible.
3.4. Assessing the Work of the Frankfurt School
Evaluation of philosophies impacting the contemporary scene
Smith summarizes:
Nevertheless, as ongoing interest in their work testifies,149 there is no denying that the first generation of the Frankfurt School (in general) and Marcuse (in particular) have played a significant role in shaping the contours of the current Western civilizational divide. Political correctness,150 the new intolerant-tolerance and ever-increasing erotic liberty are part of their legacy.151 Similarly, Gramsci’s ideas have also borne very real (and not particularly appetizing) fruit—not least in the arena of identity politics, intersectionality and the rise of victimhood culture (today’s versions of “class consciousness”), as well as in the fact that, in the fields of media and academia (and politics too), the “long march through the institutions” is virtually complete.152
4.1. Cultural Marxism: Fact or Fiction?
Being careful about using the Cultural Marxism label, yet without discarding it.
Smith cautions:
Given the existence of conspiratorial explanations of the nature and goals of Cultural Marxism, is there a case for avoiding the term and using an alternative (e.g., neo-Marxism or Critical Theory)? In my view, there is no inherent problem with the label, but Christians ought to be careful with how (and to whom) it is applied.
4.3 This Calls for Wisdom
The structure of an alternative to God’s order (cf. ‘stoichea tou kosmou’ Gal. 4:3,9;Col. 2:8,20)
Here is the alternative structure which Smith points out:
For this reason, Marxism, whether in classical or cultural form, can be viewed as a corruption or parody of the gospel—replete with its own false prophet (Marx), false Bible (Das Kapital), false doctrine (dialectical materialism), false apostles (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Marcuse), and false hope (a communist utopia).162 Therefore, the fact that Cultural Marxism is a real ideology making a real impact on our world is not good news.
4.3 This Calls For Wisdom
Speaking up, graciously but clearly
Smith quotes Albert Mohler:
While we have solid biblical reasons for seeing ourselves as “strangers and exiles on earth” (Heb 11:13), “we must not exile ourselves, and we certainly must not retreat into silence while we still have a platform, a voice, and an opportunity. We must remind ourselves again and again of the compassion of truth and the truth of compassion.”
fn 170, [170] R. Albert Mohler, We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong (Nashville: Nelson, 2015), 151.
Closing thoughts
This article is long on philosophy, so it makes for technical reading. However, it is the kind of summary article which provides an introduction to the background of many cultural currents in the West today. The benefit of the article is that it finishes with Christian wisdom, highlighting the need to be charitable so as not to presume people’s motives, yet clear-thinking to apply biblical truth to “take every thought captive” (2 Cor 10:5).
Read the whole article here: Cultural Marxism: Imaginary Conspiracy or Revolutionary Reality?
Photo credit: Members of the Frankfurt School. Photograph taken in Heidelberg, April 1964,by Jeremy J. Shapiro at the Max Weber-Soziologentag. Horkheimer is front left, Adorno front right, and Habermas is in the background, right, running his hand through his hair. Siegfried Landshut is in the background left. (wiki)
The Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:
Imperceptibly, through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West has ceased to be seen as anything more lofty than the “pursuit of happiness” a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short lived value. It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system. Yet it is not considered shameful to make dally concessions to an integral evil. Judging by the continuing landslide of concessions made before the eyes of our very own generation, the West is ineluctably slipping toward the abyss. Western societies are losing more and more of their religious essence as they thoughtlessly yield up their younger generation to atheism.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Godlessness: the First Step to the Gulag”. Templeton Prize Lecture, 10 May 1983 (London).
Most of us have never been in a landslide. I know I haven’t. So I needed to look up “how to survive a landslide“. There are only three options:
- Run at a right angle and try to get to the outside of it
- Get to the rooftop
- Cover yourself with something strong
Solzhenitsyn said there was a “landslide of concessions” being made in the West (in 1983!). Those concessions to godlessness or “secularism” as it is more politely known have only multiplied since then. The tremors are unmistakable
The Trees are Tilting
One of the warning signs for a coming landslide is that that trees tilt. Normally, the stability of the ground is able to uphold tall trees, utility poles and any other high structures. When a landslide is going to come the earth beneath the trees shifts and the trees begin to tilt.
Living in a commuter community you can expect that the tremors of change in the cities may take a long time to reach you. But I’ve found that the trees are tilting. An example of this is how I was informed that the public library in my ultra-conservative town is hosting the drag queen storytimes for children.
I cite this, simply to note that in every sphere of public life, reaching beyond the dense urban centres to the family-laden enclaves of the suburbs, an ideology is being promoted that undermines biological nature and the responsibility to protect children from sexualized grooming.
The modest mandate of the public library (to lend books) inflates with ideological purposes foreign to it. So we have to conclude that manipulation of the foundations is sweeping through. The trees are tilting.
Alarmism and Anti-Alarmism
In any natural disaster, whether it’s impending or engulfing you, there is a temptation to panic. Fear of a landslide can cause people to think irrationally. They may see the cracks in the foundations or hear the rumblings, but instead of staying calm and using the time that they have to make a wise plan of action, they shout and scream and rail against the coming landslide. This is the alarmist response. It wastes precious time and energy decrying reality, not dealing with it.
The anti-alarmist impulse can paralyze a person. Since the landslide is so large, and so horrible, a person simple escapes into a false reality. We know that one of the great challenges during wildfire disasters is convincing people to leave their homes. Often, they have let themselves have escapist fantasies that the danger is not that bad, and the alarmists are exaggerating. What they don’t realize is that the danger is real, and their ignorance of it puts them in danger too.
If we take the categories of alarmist and anti-alarmist, they can helpfully clarify how many people are responding to the landslide. For example, there are Christians who see the landslide coming, but their response is to angrily decry it without giving too much thought to how to respond wisely. Their alarmism is not constructive. Their alarm scales up in its confirmation bias as the landslide gets bigger and bigger, but the only positive conclusion they offer is “I told you so”.
Likewise, the anti-alarmist impulse is prevalent among Christians. This has happened among pastors I know. Recently, after hearing a talk on the landslide issues of our day– sexuality and ethics, a pastor confessed that he had been intentionally ignoring the landslide all around him. He was afraid to bring up the reality of how bad things really were. And he was also afraid that his anti-alarmist church would view his attempts at pointing to the landslide as so much hysteria.
So we have to recognize that both the alarmist and anti-alarmist impulses are either misdirected or escapist. For Christians, when parachurch ministries engage in polemics for entertainment, they are merely alarmists who distract from constructive preparations by cleverly shouting the obvious. At the same time, evangelical denominations and institutions tend to be anti-alarmist in bent. They are so quick to tsk-tsk the alarmists, that act blissfully unaware of the landslide, and trust their own self-righteousness as a clever enough solution to any disaster that may come. Sadly they are hopelessly deluded.
Failed Emergency Plans
Not everyone has responded to the landslide in thoughtless ways. Yet many of the emergency responses people have had are flawed or failed.
When you think about a landslide, one failed emergency response might be to run away from the landslide, thinking that if you can just stay ahead of the landslide you’ll be okay.
When it comes to our modern-day, the two groups who are gripped by the “keep ahead of the landslide” plan are the Boomer generation and the corporations (and their politicians of course). Both of these groups (with lots of overlap between them), have successfully run ahead of the landslide up until now. They have been alarmed at the rumblings, but have had false confidence in their ability to outrun it.
If the landslide undermines monogamous male-female marriage, then Boomers and corporations will start with accepting divorce, then move to a series of what Solzhenitzn called, “concessions”, such as co-habitation, then abortion, then intentional childlessness, then gay relationships, then gay marriages, and then gender-fluid ‘unions’. At each point, the Boomers and the corporations have been swift enough to run ahead just enough.
But you can’t outrun a landslide.
This is why noted lesbian activist, the former tennis star Martina Navratilova is being overwhelmed by the transgender movement. She thought she could run ahead of the landslide, but her lesbianism is no longer enough. Her panic is expressed when she hastily offers obeisance and apology toward the trans movement lest she be consumed. Examples are accruing, but a common theme is how Boomers or corporations have successfully run ahead of the landslide, but now are getting completely run over.
Another failed emergency plan is the person who runs toward the landslide, like a child can run into a small wave and hop over its height. This is typified in the bombastic culture warrior who assumes that the good old days are just beyond the shifting ground under his feet. The nostalgia for lost pasts drives a person to irrationally seek to run into the slide, thinking that they have the ability to withstand the wave or to keep their heads above it and exit on the far side relatively unscathed.
The hubris of this approach appeals to many people and might be exemplified the most in the populist movements of Trumpism, Brexit and others around the world. Often the idea is that if a person can only muster up enough resistance to the wave, that person will be able to stand against it and prevail.
But since the landslide is more than a small political wave that laps the beaches of our day, resistance to it is futile. It is a wave of a zeitgeist that is deep and broad that can’t be hopped over, you’ll only be crushed.
What to Do in Disaster
There is no sense wasting breath decrying the landslide endlessly, or acting as if it’s all much ado about nothing. It won’t help to try to stay a few paces ahead of it, nor can you run at it with your fist raised in foolish rage. So what to do?
As the wiki informed me, you can run at 90 degrees from it, get to the rooftops and wait it out, or you can hide under something strong and hope you don’t get crushed or suffocated.
The 90 Degree Run
The first option seems to be the best. Evacuate the area of the landslide with a realistic view of its scope and danger. Run at 90 degrees and try to get somewhere in your life, your church, your society where you can have peace and rest again.
This first option recognizes that things will never be the same again in landslide’s path. This might be the most frightening dread of all for people. When they realize that they must leave everything behind and get away, they become displaced refugees, socially, ideologically, and even perhaps physically.
I spoke with someone who was contemplating leaving his country because of the landslide of social and political changes that are happening. He said that his great-grandparents left their country to come to a better one. Why wouldn’t he consider uprooting and moving too?
Yet even if a person remains in their country, in the same society, they have to make radical decisions about their lives. The 90 degree run must take place in the church they join, the job they do, the schooling they give, and the priorities they hold.
History is full of people who had to make these 90 degree runs. From the earliest days of the Christian church, persecution resulted in martyrdoms, yes, but also in radical flight. The Christians left their homes and in the case of the Jewish Christians, their societal networks, in order to reform them in new ways and new places. Whether it was refugees moving to Calvin’s Geneva, the Huegenot flight from France, or the Pilgrims departure to the Americas, there have been many people who have made radical choices to try to get to the outside of the landslide.
The Rooftop
The second option in a landslide is to get to the rooftop. If you’ve ever seen pictures of people who have been caught in a landslide, the survivors remain on their roofs for long periods of time, while all that is around them lies devastated by floods and mud.
In the landslide of our time, there are people who know there isn’t time to get out. They are trapped. They have either ignored the warning signs, or they have acted irrationally and are now caught.
People who are caught in our landslide are those who tried to ‘manage’ what Albert Mohler has called, “the sexual revolution”. Often people who are caught are those who are Boomers with career capital tied to institutions that are already engulfed in the landslide.
If your salary or pension is tied to one of those “tilting trees” then you likely will be hesitant to flee until it’s too late. However, some people will realize the danger, and all they can do is cut ties with their previous security (salary, pension, career status), and try to survive.
Survival on the rooftop, like all survival will involve a great restriction of life to the bare essentials. The Christian believer will become focussed locally, on their own growth in Christ, their family’s training in the faith, their local church’s order and faithfulness, and a sustainable vocation that meets their basic needs.
Like anyone who is in this position, the rooftop survivor of the landslide is not in a position to flourish. But they can survive. What they need to prepare for is to take enough provisions with them so that they can last through the initial devastation, and also the enduring aftermath. This is similar to what Rod Dreher has advocated as The Benedict Option.
It can be difficult for comfortable Western Christians to imagine a society in the aftermath of the landslide. But history is the best guide. Whether the biblical history of Israel and its fall, or the collapse of the Roman Empire, or more recently, the capitulations under Nazism or the landslide of the Russian Revolution. In each case, the aftermath of the landslide was utterly different than life before it swept through. Christians must use the wisdom of history, and the recognition of the common, fallen nature of mankind, to anticipate the possibility of a landslide that defaces all we have known in our lifetime. Getting to the rooftop might be an option that is still available to us.
Hide Under Something Strong
The most desperate measure is still better than none at all. For the person in a landslide, they might be completely caught off guard. They might be totally unaware of how engulfing the landslide will be. And when it comes, they are swallowed up.
In those brief moments, a person may be able to hide under something strong. Maybe they can have just enough of an air pocket to keep from suffocating. Maybe they can have just enough protection to keep from being crushed. But their hope is that someone else will find them and rescue them.
Thankfully, the gospel message is the strongest shield that anyone can hide under. In our cultural moment, we already see how people who have been engulfed by the landslide have found rescue from the only One who could possibly do so, Jesus Christ. Who are the survivors? The formerly gay, or trans or racists, or exploiters or adulterers. Or as Paul put it:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
1 Cor 6:10-11 NAS
Already in gospel-shielded churches, there are people entering who had been swept up in the landslide, who had only survived its devastating perversions by a miracle, the miracle of faith in Christ.
Constructing an Emergency Disaster Plan
If you hear the rumblings, feel the tremors and see the cracking foundations, you may still have time to act wisely and make realistic plans to survive and hopefully thrive.
A constructive plan will involve the following:
- Seeking after the Triune God, according to the Word of God.
- Catechizing yourself and your family with the Scripture, theology and song.
- Investing in the local church and it’s biblically mandated mission. Support biblical soundness in pastors, and promoting the training of new pastors.
- Believe in God as Creator, and the nature which he has assigned to mankind.
- Uphold the unity and distinction of male and female created in the image of God.
- Preserve and promote fathers in families.
- Protect and prioritize mothers in families.
- Untether yourself from institutions or structures that have given you security, but are being engulfed by the landslide.
- Develop parallel networks for trade and service which are not dependent on the infrastructure that may be wiped away by the landslide.
- Pray for miracles of deliverance from the landslide, and in its aftermath.
May God have mercy on us all.
Categories
Heart Highways
I’ve seen lots of highways. If you live in Canada it’s likely that you’ve seen lots of highways too. Our country is so large that we need highways to see each other.
Though highway trips are long and possibly filled with car-sickness, flat tires, radiator leaks and bad hotels, the destination is worth the hassle. The people at your destination stir an affection that motivates your heart. It’s as if the highway runs through your heart. It’s a heart highway.
For the ancients, they understood how the heart highways developed. The psalmists who were from the line of Korah recorded their heart’s destination: Zion. They wrote:
The go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion” Psalm 84:7.
Like many musicians, the Korah-sons knew what it was like to be on the road. Their goal was so good, that it kept them pounding the pavement. Imagine how the longing was met with overflowing delight! They would go from, “Are we there yet?” to “We won’t wander anymore”. To be in God’s special place, Zion, welcomed with grand hospitality to be with God himself. Such a meeting would require the language of poetry and the joy of singing!
The believer is strengthened for the journey by the delight in the destination. The goal of being with God provides the strength they need to go through valleys of tears and trials (84:6). God builds into the soul his own roadworks that lead the believer to himself. The believer’s longings, desires, affections, motives and goals are so many mile markers laid in the heart that is on pilgrimage toward God.
When the believer finds strength inside, in their heart, in the inner man (Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), it is because they have had the highway paved there. Even as they meet sorrow and trial, they are merely passing through. Their delight and joy is in a destination, just around the bend, over the hill and around the corner.
It is the destination of being with God forever, resting at home with Him, never needing to travel again.
Today is election day in Canada. By this evening it is likely that we will learn who will be the governing party taking on the responsibility to lead our nation.
Choices will be made and consequences rendered. But the one thing that is clear in this unclear political scene is that the consciences of Canadians are conflicted.
The Darkness of Sunny Ways
In a troubled world, many people welcomed the brightness of Justin Trudeau’s retrieval of Wilfred Laurier’s “sunny way” approach. Though lauded among celebrities, Trudeau and his circle have shown the darkness of man-made designs. It has become difficult to view the message of ‘sunny ways’ as sincere when influence peddling and strong-arm tactics against dissenters came forward. Trudeau’s effervescence still signals the wish of many world-weary Canadians. But sadly the darkness of his sunny ways has left their hopes as mere wishful thinking.
Conserving Good and Bad
Andrew Scheer, the Conservative leader offers low-key middle-class stability as his appeal. His aim is to conserve the good of sound principles for fiscal management along with a slightly more ‘sunny’ approach to public relations than his predecessor Stephen Harper. Yet for all of its attempts to conserve the good, it cannot be overlooked that Scheer will aim to conserve the bad as well. There is no intention of legislating to restrict abortions at any stage of pregnancy. Such views would be extreme even among pro-abortion groups in other countries. This is the glaringly conflicted platform which Scheer’s Conservatives offer.
Collective Anxiety
The NDP and Green parties have argued in varying degrees for more collective approaches, and environmental concerns at top of mind. Each offers their own version of the sunny ways that sad citizens are desperate for. Suspicious of big business and desiring to keep the pristineness of Canada’s beauty undeveloped, they offer a vision of protection for ideals that many wish could be achieved. Yet sadly as they offer their plans for protecting the welfare of citizens alongside the welfare of our natural environment, they really offer dreams, rather than wisdom. This mystical ‘sunny ways’ approach has been heightened with the contrasting threat of climate change judgement and the 10-20 year countdown before a planetary crisis. Voters are offered utopian dreams or collective anxiety either way.
I am the light of the world
As citizens of Canada, Christians will feel conflicted. As participants in a democracy, they have the right and responsibility to make choices. Yet their citizenship belongs to a different kingdom, even heaven itself (Phil 3:20). Our Saviour offers to us sunny ways that are true and right and undimmed. He said of himself:
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”
(John 8:12)
That is the most important ‘vote’ of all, and one to which every Canadian is urgently summoned.