HOW WE GOT OUT OF THE MESS — ONCE!
Are you one of those people who think America is about to collapse?
If so, let me tell you the sign you need to see to indicate the end is near.
There are many commentators who tell us that the USA is no longer a great nation, that financial irresponsibility has driven the value of the dollar down, inflation is rampant, and only the right presidential candidate will solve the problem.
If you’re like me, you’ve heard these challenging commentaries and predictions for many years. The present financial issues with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are an indicator, they say, that the end is nigh.
There are, of course, some parallels with the Roman Empire. It, too, collapsed from within. Excessive taxation, debased currency, and a social welfare system gone astray.
But there is one particular aspect of the fall of Rome that is not present in the USA or any other western nation –at least, not yet, anyway. It is this.
The “Golden Age” of Applied Christianity
The victors write the history books, it is claimed.
Yet history is being rewritten in our own age by a new breed of scholars who are telling us a different story about the “Dark Ages.” In this case, it is not only a different story, it is a better story.
With the rise of the Enlightenment and its rampant anti-Christianity came a view of the past called the “Dark Ages”. It referred to the period after the collapse of the Roman Empire, and covered the next few hundred years; for some people, the “Dark Ages” remained until the humanistic Renaissance appeared. Why? Enlightenment thought was so critical of Christianity it could not face the facts. The facts being that the Bible and Christianity were the cultural reference points that replaced pagan Rome.
Imagine this. You are the last Roman Emperor. Your area of jurisdiction is dissipating in front of you. You have insufficient money to wage war, even defensive war. The tax demands you have inherited have created such hostility among the citizens, they don’t care any longer. Anything is better than this.
Among this mess was a veritable army of Christian monks and citizens who had answers. In fact, your predecessor, Constantine, not only permitted Christianity to exist, but helped established the local priests and monks as a surrogate source of justice. The Roman courts were too expensive for justice, whereas the local church was not only a cheap alternative, it had some better answers to the problems of life. So magnificent was the result of their Christian answers, that one historian noted: “[T]he early Middle Ages represented the age par excellence of ‘applied Christianity’.” (Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, 2nd ed., Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003, p. 25, emphasis in original).
“All You Need is Love, Love, Love.” - The Beatles, 1967
The Romantic movement, following on the heels of the Enlightenment, brought a revitalized message about love. There’s not enough of it.
And Romantic art of all kinds – poetry, music, painting, etc. – indicates that the lack of love is the significant problem in the world. If only this girl or that man would love me, all my problems would go away. Romanticism in this vein, however, is even more likely to have the three-way love affair, with adultery mixed in the midst of it. There was a reason composer Richard Wagner used Tristan and Isolde as a key part of his operatic works with music designed to undermine Christian culture, for the story is a key representative of Romanticism. Hollywood, in our generation, perpetuates this belief about love.
Enter our churches and you hear an identical message called the gospel of love. “Honk if you love Jesus” was an old bumper sticker. Music, now the controlling influence in the contemporary church, is the music of the Romantic era. The use of melody and harmony are governed by the rules of the post-Baroque period, and when played on guitar and drums, the rhythm is highlighted and it becomes the dominant aspect of the contemporary worship service.
Now listen to the sermon that follows this kind of music.
What Would a “Spiritual” Revival Look Like?
Charles Hodge, in his history of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, written in the 19th century, was critical of the revival period known as the Great Awakening. Why? His opinion seems to cut against common acceptance that this was a mighty work of revival, and that the Holy Spirit manifested Himself in a particular way during this period.
Charles Hodge (no known relation to this writer) would not accept this view so readily. In his opinion, the church was in a worse state two years after the Awakening than it was two years earlier. Thus, he was not so ready to accept the Awakening was the work of the Holy Spirit.
His criticism, therefore, begs the question. And if you allowed yourself to dream for a few minutes, what would a spiritual revival look like to you?
I dreamed a dream. There was a spiritual revival under way.
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I was talking this week with someone about King David from the Bible. We talked about his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, the “murder” of her husband and the death of the newborn. Then we went on to talk about the violence and deception that you find among his offspring.
I have often talked about the Biblical curses being much more about learned behavior and attitudes that are passed down. This discussion drove the point home even stronger to me.
God didn’t come down to David and say, “Because of what you did, I am now going to curse your children” nor, in all likelihood, was there a gene for violence that was passed down. What David demonstrated and did with his own life was passed down. It was something the children learned from the father’s behavior patterns.
We teach our children how to deal with situations, not necessarily through our words, but through our actions. An alcoholic has a much higher percentage of alcoholic children than a non-alcoholic. The visual evidence of the addiction is most of the time nothing more than how an addict deals with and avoids life, including emotions and feelings. This same avoidance behavior is what the children learn.
This is just one example of what we teach our children. Typically it is so subtle we don’t even realize we are doing it.
The good news is it works both ways, healthy and unhealthy behaviors.
So what are you teaching your children?
If you leave out an important ingredient, your best cooking efforts are doomed.
This article was written while I was in Nova Scotia and had just returned from having supper with a local family.
This part of the world, Clare County, has several municipalities that are Old French culture and language. The schools in these municipalities hold their classes in the old Acadian language, while the municipalities either side are English. In the seventeenth century, the French living in the valley of Nova Scotia were forcibly relocated by the British. Some found their way to the western shores of Nova Scotia while others were settled in Louisiana. The Cajuns and the Acadians are linked culturally — and share an understandable attitude towards the British. In Nova Scotia, the Acadians have been promised an apology from the monarch of England, but it is yet to arrive.
This caused me to reflect on the turmoil of Europe at the time of their dislocation. The Acadians, French in origin, tried to remain neutral in the struggles between Britain and France. They were not permitted to do this.
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My observation is not the fact that Johnny can’t sing — it’s that he doesn’t sing. Or if he does, he does not do it very well.
I’m reading the book, Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal. It’s a good read on the problem of religious music today, and offers some relevant suggestions.
But in my observation it is not the fact that Johnny can’t sing — it’s that he doesn’t sing. Or if he does, he does not do it very well.
If the Roman Empire Collapsed Internally, What Brought About the Demise of Christendom?
The Medieval period in Europe, for all its faults, was a system of low taxes, local self-government, and a period of economic expansion.
This is in contrast to the Roman Empire which it replaced. it is also in stark contrast to those non-European nations that had not embraced Christianity.
We, however, no longer live in the medieval world. Instead, we live at the end of a period that has seen the rise of the nation-state that has effectively replaced localized self-government.
This change to the medieval world could only take place when three steps were completed:
1. The kings/rulers got control of the courts.
2. The kings/rulers got control of taxes (and money)
3. People were willing to abandon loyalty to family and church in favor of the state.
When Moses disappeared up the mountain to commune with God, the Israelites down below became restless. They approached Aaron to “make gods to go ahead of us.” The building of the golden calf and the worship of a false idol is well known. Ex. 32:1ff.
What is not so well known is Aaron’s proclamation to the people: “Tomorrow is to be a feast for ADONAI.” A feast to ADONAI – YHWH? Wasn’t this about a substitute for Adonai, represented in the golden calf, another god to lead them? Aaron, however, had a better idea. Why not take this essentially wrong idea about God and “baptize” it — make it legitimate — by placing an altar in in front of it and call it a “feast to ADONAI.”
Aaron’s proclamation tells us that the intention of the activities was the worship of God. This was not intended as a rejection of God, at least at a superficial level. The intention here was to worship God. It was, however, a rejection of the way God wanted people to worship Him. It was an attempt to add another |”feast” into the already-ordained feasts and festivals calendar prescribed by God.
What this accounts teaches us is that we are not free to worship God anyway we choose. In this instance, the people had adopted false practices and attempted to appropriate it for the worship of Adonai – YHWH. There the golden calf, and then an altar to YHWH in front of it. It was an attempted syncretism of two religious systems, also known as false worship.
If this account teaches us anything, it is this: we may not worship YHWH any way we would like. Nor does it seem acceptable to “baptize” pagan methods of worship, or pagan festivals, with a veneer of religiosity and proclaim that this is the worship of YHWH. Yet this is what the Israelites attempted to do, and Aaron was helping them do it. He not only helped them, he led the charge.
In the Christian era, this poses a problem for Christmas and Easter. At one time, the Puritan English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas because of its pagan and “popish” origins. The day has no actual reference to Christ’s birthday, which is unknown, although it presumed to be around the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. The celebration of his birth originated early in the Christian era as followers of the Messiah wanted to celebrate the occasion. In the 5th century the Western church adopted the date matching the winter solstice. This was a time of sun worship, since the date, December 25, was the first day of longer sunshine after the shortest day of the year. But is this not another attempt at syncretism, the fusing together of two religious systems, one from the Scriptures, the other from pagan religious practice?
Easter has its origin at Babel. Throughout man’s history, certain celebrations were undertaken to false gods and idols on this date. But apparently it is alright to overlay this pagan belief with an altar, and pretend that this is now the worship authorized by and acceptable to God.
Attempts were made to “Christianize” both Easter and Christmas and bring them into the service of YHWH. The account of the golden calf, however, indicates any such attempt to “baptize” festivals that originated outside of Scripture are a “corruption.” Meanwhile, on the mountain top God spoke yet again: v.7 “ADONAI said to Moses, ‘Go down! Hurry! Your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have become corrupt!’”
Despite Aaron’s best proclamations that these activities would be to the glory and praise of YHWH, God had a different idea.
It is true that most Christians do not credit divine power or authority at Christmas to anyone other than Jesus Christ. But neither did the Israelites appear to attribute any power to the golden calf;’ it was a representation only. This was Aaron’s point when he said, “Tomorrow is a feast for ADONAI.” This was to be a simple “people’s expression” of their adoration and love for YHWH. You could call it democracy at work or democracy in action.
You find the same attitude among Christians. Christmas and Easter are merely times to express a truth about Jesus Christ. In this sense, it’s a re-run of the Israelites’ vain attempts to take pagan golden calf worship and make it serve the purposes of YHWH. It could not be done, and neither can ancient Babel or solstice practices be made to fit. Thus, neither Christmas nor Easter can be “feasts for ADONAI”. If this passage in Exodus teaches us anything, it teaches us that syncretism in the worship of God is an exercise in futility.
Meanwhile, the feasts and festivals He has ordained — Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles or Ingathering) — are largely ignored. I have often mentioned that my hometown rural Baptist church, in Griffith, Australia, used to hold “Harvest Festival” every year in the Autumn (Fall). The front of the church would be covered with produce from the land, while the town dwellers added canned produce, or made and bottled their own. This special service of gratitude to God was an annual event, but I suspect it is no longer practiced. It’s origins were clearly biblical, and indicates that Biblical festivals in part were carried down to the twentieth century. But it was only one out of seven!
Easter has its roots in Passover, the death of the substitute Lamb of God, and to the extent that it is the biblical Passover, it meets the requirement. The problem, however, is that the dates do not coincide with the dates established in the Old Testament for Passover. And there are still six other festivals remaining.
There is clearly no Scriptural warrant for a change in the calendar or a change in the Festivals from the Tanakh – the Old Testament. That the New Testament church claims authority to make such changes is evidence of a bigger problem – the unity and equality of the two Testaments. The date of Christ’s birth may be unknown; but the day of his death is fixed to the Passover. So there is no excuse not to hold Passover at the right time of the year as one of the legitimate feasts of the year. Nor does there appear anything inappropriate by emphasizing it with the risen Christ, who has redeemed his people from slavery to sin.
Christmas, however, is different. While there appears to be nothing wrong with celebrating birthdays per se, you have to ask yourself why is it that in the Providence of God, the birthday of the Second Person of the Trinity is not recorded — anywhere. That’s probably a good indicator that we are not meant to make an issue of his birth, whereas we are to recognize his death, burial and resurrection.
God’s calendar provided the rhythm of life. If the seven feasts and festivals were followed as required, there would be no need to “add” to them, or make “substitutes” on the wrong dates. To the extent that Christmas and Easter conform to the Biblical calendar, they are legitimate. And the place to start would be getting the correct date in place.
When you add to this the required worship of YHWH by keeping one day in seven and one year in seven as periods of rest — Sabbath — you soon see a bigger problem. Outside of the universities, there is little attempt to keep Sabbath year as a year of rest. People have neither the faith nor the confidence to rest (i.e trust) in God for a whole year.
Perhaps we need to get our Christmas and Easter in order first, then we might find genuine rest on the Sabbath day and year.
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