The LCMS Doctrinal Study of Social Media

Last updated on: June 11, 2019 at 7:45 am By Gene Veith

The Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is charged with studying and coming to conclusions on theological issues. Its latest report is a discussion of social media. You might wonder, how is the topic of how we use social media technology theological? But it is.

The CTCR, which took on the assignment at the behest of the synodical convention, released the 30-page report entitled A Snapshot of Trending Tools: Christians and Social Media. (You can access the report by clicking the link.)

CTCR Executive Director Rev. Dr. Joel Lehenbauer said of the study,

“Lutherans have always been open to the constructive use of new technologies for sharing the never-changing truths of God’s Word — think of Luther and the printing press! At the same time, Lutherans are clear-eyed about the power of sin, the world and Satan, and are therefore realistic and necessarily critical about how such technologies can be twisted and misused.”

The report emphasizes that Christians have always used the various media technologies in productive ways. Lutherans, in particular, have pioneered using new media to proclaim the Gospel and to proliferate God’s Word. The report discusses Luther’s use of the printing press and its role in the mass production of Scripture. It also cites the work of the LCMS in the early days of Christian radio.

The report does not make the mistake of blaming the tools for misuse of the tools. But it also shows the problems that are coming with social media. Drawing on a range of scholarship, including Lutheran writers Trevor Sutton and Bernard Bull, the report shows how social media has detrimental effects when it comes to the following areas, each of which is treated in detail:

community;
trust;
“trolls” and “fake news”;
knowledge and authority;
the capacity of social media for influencing thought, both negatively and positively;
social media’s propensity to turn people inward and provide occasions for sin.

Here are some insights from the report (with the sources of the quotations given at the link):

People connect on social media; they also search there for answers and for spiritual comfort and insight. They may not always find what they are seeking, because some connections cannot be found through a digital device. The more we become connected online, the less we may be connected personally. “People awash in social media can’t get past the paradox that the best salve for loneliness is properly applied alone. They look for answers in added connections, and more-emotional ones, but God isn’t acloser contact and better friend. He transcends the social, and you must seek him beyond the medium of ‘share’ and ‘like.’” [quoting Mark Bauerlein] (p. 6)

[Robert] Putnam explains that technological trends today “are radically ‘privatizing’ or ‘individualizing’ our use of leisure time and thus disrupting many opportunities for social capital formation.” Due to this trend toward individualization, a trend encouraged by social media, people are less inclined to be active in existing social communities, including the church. (p. 7)

Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, comments that, instead of bringing people together, the popular social media platform drives them apart, and online advertising benefits financially from the divisions. “The use of algorithms to give consumers ‘what they want’ leads to an unending stream of posts that confirm each user’s beliefs. … The result is that everyone sees a different version of the internet tailored to create the illusion that everyone else agrees with them. Continuous reinforcement of existing beliefs tends to entrench those beliefs more deeply, while also making them more extreme and resistant to contrary facts. Facebook takes the concept one step further with its ‘groups’ feature, which encourages like-minded users to congregate around shared interests or beliefs … the larger benefit goes to advertisers, who can target audiences even more effectively.” (pp. 7-8)

In his book, Digitized, Bernard Bull asks, “Where do people go when they have a faith question? While many still turn to their pastors or a learned family member or friend, countless others are literally googling God. They are typing questions into the most available search engine and exploring what appears at the top of the list. The question is, of course, what will they find there?” Should we trust the internet and social media as sources of religious knowledge and spiritual insight? How can we provide knowledge online that is firmly grounded in the truth of God’s Word? (pp. 10-11)

The array of opinions and knowledge (both accurate and inaccurate) available online encourages the idea thatthere is no absolute truth, no single, overall perspective for understanding our purpose, life and death or the world around us. Many “truths” exist, many of which are more likely to have their origins within the ideas and opinions of individuals rather than in the Word of God. The information available online brings a wide variety of religions and worldviews into our homes and hearts and minds. (p. 12)

Yet technology does exert its daily influence in our lives. “It changes the nature of our relationships, our sense of community, how we live out our various vocations, how we organize our thoughts and lives, how we spend our time with family and friends and even how we think and talk about what it means to be human. It’s short-sighted to believe without question that anything with so much power to shape who we are and how we live is a spiritually neutral force.” [Bernard Bull, in Lutheran Witness] (p. 15)

The report discusses the sinful use of Social Media under the categories of Idolatry, Slander, Disrespect for Authority, and Lust (pp. 23-24).

I especially appreciated the report’s use of the traditional Lutheran practice of examining ourselves by means of the Ten Commandments, running through each of them to show how they can apply to our misuse of social media (pp. 25-26).

And I really appreciated how the study concluded with a whole section on “Vocation and Social Media”! (pp. 27-30)

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay, Pixabay license

Premium Content

Catholic Conservatives vs. Evangelical Conservatives

Last updated on: June 7, 2019 at 7:16 pm By Gene Veith

0 Comments

In our post about the controversy over the direction of conservatism between Sohrab Ahmari and David French, I raised the question about whether the debate might have something to do with the theological differences between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals. Ahmari is a Catholic, who says that conservatism needs to be about the moral improvement of society, whereas French is an Evangelical, who says that conservatism needs to be about individual freedom. Those two goals, which are not necessarily incompatible, do reflect some historical differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.

So I was interested to see that Michael Brendan Dougherty–a Catholic who defends French–raised the same issue in National Review in a blog post entitled Catholics and Evangelicals:

The predominant anti-liberal voices on the right are traditionalist Catholics. There is a tradition of anti-liberal thought in the Catholic Church that is as old as modernity. The prominent pro-classical liberal voices are Evangelical Protestants, some confessional Protestants, and agnostics. And I wonder if a great deal of the attitude toward the present isn’t informed by the political and theological trends in these religious bodies.

It is certainly true that, historically, the church of Rome has sometimes opposed “liberal” ideas such as democracy. In the Middle Ages and in the ensuing conflict with the Reformation, the papacy claimed political authority over secular rulers, helped build up an absolutist Holy Roman Emperor, and opposed many of the social, economic, and political changes associated with the rise of free societies. This “illiberal” attitude would change with more recent papal pronouncements, but I can see that “traditionalist Catholics” would still have a certain orientation towards that way of thinking.

Conversely, evangelical-equivalent Protestants played an important role in the rise of political and economic liberalism. The Reformation emphasized the equality of all Christians before God, what Luther called the “Freedom of the Christian” made possible by the Gospel, and resistance to papal theocracy and the Imperial state. English Puritans like Milton crusaded for freedom of the press and opposed monarchy, culminating in their victory in the English Civil War, in which they overthrew and executed the King. With the Restoration of the monarchy, many of those revolutionaries fled to America, where they would foment a revolution of their own. Protestants also were instrumental in the rise of free market capitalism and in the experiments in self-government that characterized the trading cities of northern Europe.

Dougherty suggests that the pessimism evident in Ahmari’s call for political warfare and in other Catholic critiques–such as Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed–may be shaped by his fellow-Catholic’s malaise over the church’s current woes, from the sex scandals to their liberal pope.

I would say, however, that there are orthodox Catholics who hold to the “liberal” values of democracy, freedom, and human rights. There are also orthodox Protestants who hold to the values of moral reform, social solidarity, and a government dedicated to shaping “the common good.”

Recognizing the different theological strains may not resolve the controversies any more than recognizing the different strains in conservative ideology. But they might be clarifying.

As a confessional Lutheran, I feel pulled in both directions, while thinking that there may be a framework–“Two Kingdoms” theology?–that might bring together the strong points of both.

UPDATE: I posted this in the comments:

A Lutheran “Two Kingdoms” theology would differ from both the Catholic (the church rules over society) and the Evangelical (stressing the liberty of individuals). According to the Lutheran view of society, the Law DOES apply in the state in a way it doesn’t in the spiritual realm, which is governed by the Gospel. Christians are still subject to that Law (the first use) as long as they are in the world, and enforcing that first use of the Law–restraining sin and punishing evildoers–is a primary purpose of the state. Furthermore, God is already active, though hidden, in the secular realm, working through vocation, including the vocation of the state’s governors (who themselves are subject to God’s law and, if they are Christians, as they are called to love and serve their neighbors). So, yes, Lutherans are likely to be sympathetic to Ahmari’s position, but they would want to take the Catholicism out of it, retaining the spiritual freedom of the Gospel, which is easily stamped out by anything resembling theocracy.

I’d appreciate your help in formulating a Two Kingdoms approach to these issues.

(By the way, see this definitive response to the debate by Rich Lowry and this definitive response by Alan Jacobs.)

Illustration: Portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach; portrait of Pope Leo X by Raphael. Public domain.

Premium Content

Death of a Great Australian Christian Poet

Last updated on: June 4, 2019 at 6:32 am By Gene Veith

0 Comments

Les Murray, one of Australia’s greatest writers, died a few weeks ago. He described himself as “a subhuman redneck who writes poems.” Others have called him “the patron saint of misfits” and “amongst the greatest English-language poets since Yeats.” It is said that he “sang the nation’s landscape, culture and vernacular into being.” (Quotations from the BBC obituary.) He was also an outspoken but jovial conservative, a battler against postmodernism, and a devout Christian.

To give you an idea about Murray, his poetry, his wit, and his wisdom, consider his poem “The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever.” It also showcases his ability to capture the essence of Australia, as the Australian Tourism board recognized when they made this video of him performing part of that poem:

Australia has a tradition of “bush poets”–the sort that gave us “Waltzing Matilda”–and Murray is something like that, living in the outback and writing about distinctive Australian topics with that distinctive Australian language. But his poetry can also be enigmatic and complex. Imagine T. S. Eliot as a bush poet (if Eliot could have embraced his Missouri birthplace and been a “redneck”).

I was talking about Murray with Tom Pietsch, a Lutheran seminary professor, who said that most of Australia’s population lives on the coast and has had the habit of looking outward–to Europe, to the United States–with the vast desolate interior often associated with horror (think Mad Max, Picnic at Hanging Rock). Murray, though, is among a group of Australian writers who has been encouraging their countrymen to look inward–not inside themselves but to the interior of their country to what they have as Australians. Murray and others have been showing Australians and the world how to appreciate the seemingly endless red desert, which seems to be the epitome of emptiness but which is really teeming with strange life.

Murray writes about the exceedingly odd animals and plants of Australia–to the point of writing poems from their perspective–the unearthly landscape, and the aboriginal people. Their culture, he observed, had been “carried by a vast map of song-poetry,” and his own poetry emulated the aboriginal concept of “dreamtime.” He said that his poetry was an “integration of the body-mind and the dreaming-mind and the daylight-conscious-mind.”

Above all, Murray was a Christian, a Catholic, who dedicated his poetry to “the glory of God.” From “Poetry and Religion“:

Full religion is the large poem in loving repetition;

like any poem, it must be inexhaustible and complete

with turns where we ask Now why did the poet do that?

I love these lines from “Church” on the difference between the true God and idols, beginning with an evocation of trench warfare, as in World War I when Great Britain used Australians as cannon fodder at Gallipoli and elsewhere:

but naked in a muddy trench

with many thousands, someone’s saying

the true God gives his flesh and blood

Idols demand yours off you.

HT: John Kleinig

Photo, Les Murray at his farm in Bunyah, New South Wales by Bjenks (Real name Brian Jenkins) [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)] via Wikimedia Commons

Premium Content

“What’s a Lutheran?”

Last updated on: August 16, 2019 at 5:38 pm By Gene Veith

0 Comments

Dawn Bornemann posted on her Face Book page a link to something on a church website that I wrote a long time ago and tagged me. In the piece, I tell about how I, personally, have benefitted from Lutheranism, which I stumbled across after a long period of church shopping, theological study, and spiritual searching. In doing so, the essay pulls together what it means to be a Lutheran and what Lutheranism means, particularly in the context of the rest of Christianity and everything else that is out there.

For the life of me, I couldn’t remember when I wrote this and where it first appeared. Google didn’t help with that, for some reason, though it linked to some other churches that also have this on their website. I suspect it came out in the aftermath of my book Spirituality of the Cross, which goes into more detail about all of this.

UPDATE: I found the answer: It’s the concluding chapter in the 2010 CPH book Lutheranism 101.

Anyway, here is the article, “What’s a Lutheran,” in full, taken from the website of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Trumbull, CT.

From Lutheranism 101 © 2010, 2015 Concordia Publishing House. Used with permission. for more information on this publication, please contact Concordia at 800-325-3040 or visit them online at https://www.cph.org/p-28066-lutheranism-101-second-edition.aspx.

WHAT’S A LUTHERAN?

Putting It All Together

By Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

As a refugee – or casualty – of many different kinds of churches and religions before I became a Lutheran, I find the Lutheran Church uniquely satisfying. It has the good parts of all of the other kinds of Christianity. And its distinctive qualities zero in on what is most essential in the Christian faith.

One of my relatives said, “You Lutherans are just like Catholics.” Well, not really, but sort of. Like Catholicism, Lutheranism is sacramental. Lutherans really believe that this material world can convey spiritual reality. In Baptism, physical water effects a spiritual cleansing. In Holy Communion, we really believe that Jesus Christ is there and that when we eat the bread and drink the wine we are receiving His body and His blood. (Yes, that is a mind-blowing concept, and my mind is blown every Sunday, to my great benefit.)

Like Catholicism, Lutheranism is historical, in solidarity with the Christianity that goes back throughout the centuries. This means that Lutherans, like Catholics, tend to worship with some version of the ancient liturgy. We do not have to, strictly speaking, but in my case, once I got used to it, I found it more meaningful and even more emotional than any other kind of worship I had previously experienced. (The words of the liturgy are pretty much all taken from the Word of God, so no wonder.)

Also like Catholics we draw on the rich spiritual heritage of the Church through the ages, including the church Fathers of ancient Rome and medieval writers such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux. We keep denying that we “broke away” from Rome, insisting that we were just trying to reform things, only to get kicked out! What needed reforming are things like the papacy, ritualism, indulgences, legalism, and extra-biblical add-ons to Christianity. But Lutherans do not throw out the baby with the holy water.

Yet my Catholic friends consider us Lutherans arch-Protestants. And indeed, Lutherans possess everything distinctive about Protestants also. For example, Lutherans emphasize the Bible as much as any Baptist preacher or evangelical Bible study leader. Orthodox Lutherans believe the Bible is inerrant, the ultimate authority, God’s personal revelation to human beings by means of human language. We even ratchet that up: the Word of God is also sacramental, conveying God’s grace to those who hear or read it, scaring us to death by the severity of God’s Law (bringing us to repentance) and comforting us to life by the love in Christ’s Gospel (bringing us to faith).

Speaking of that Gospel – the Good News that Christ died for our sins and offers salvation as a free gift – Lutherans preach it and cling to it, just as evangelicals do. (The word Evangelical comes from the word evangel, meaning “good news,” which is what Gospel means. The term Evangelical originally meant “Lutheran.”)

Again, as with the Word of God, Lutherans ratchet up the concept. Many Protestant Evangelicals today see the Gospel mainly in terms of their conversion, that is, when they first became Christians. Having accepted the Gospel a long time ago, they now assume that Christian life is about following God’s Law. Lutherans, though, see the Gospel as something that we need every day and every moment, so that we are always repenting and experiencing Christ’s forgiveness, receiving Christ every time we encounter His Word or receive His body broken for us and His blood poured out for the remission of our sins in Holy Communion. Our response to the Gospel is faith, and the Christian life has to do with growing in faith, which, in turn, bears fruit in good works and love for our neighbors. But Lutherans are, indeed, Protestants (a term also first applied to Lutherans.)

We are different, perhaps, in our emphasis on the freedom of the Gospel, so that we do not get hung up on extra-biblical pieties and moralisms that characterize many conservative Protestants. For example, some evangelicals are shocked and scandalized to find that Lutheran congregations may well serve beer at their church dinners! Other Evangelicals find the “Lutheran beverage” refreshing, especially because instead of feeling guilty about it, they can enjoy it as a gift of God.

Lutheranism exhibits the best parts of the different varieties of Protestantism. When I was in college, the Evangelical campus ministries that I fell in with were torn with controversies between Calvinists, Arminians, and charismatics. For me, Lutheranism fulfills them all. Like Calvinism, Lutherans believe that we are saved by grace alone, that God does absolutely everything for our salvation; but whereas Calvinists push that notion into the logical extremes of double predestination and limited atonement, Lutherans, understanding the Word and Sacraments as Means of Grace, believe that potentially anyone can be saved because Christ died for all. Like Arminians, Lutherans emphasize God’s love and the universality of Christ’s sacrifice; but whereas Arminians focus on the role of the human will in both salvation and in the possibility of moral perfection, Lutherans, with a more radical view of both sin and grace, stress the role of God’s will rather than our own. Like charismatics, Lutherans expect a direct experience of the supernatural and direct contact with the Godhead. But finessing the dangers of spiritual subjectivity, Lutherans find God’s charisma (the Greek word for “gift”) in His gifts of the Word – in which the Holy Spirit is present – and the Sacraments, in which Christ is miraculously, supernaturally present.

For me, Lutheranism represents a wholeness of Christianity, embracing the most salient features of Catholicism (including Eastern Orthodoxy) and Protestantism (including its various sects). This, of course, means that Lutheranism will be attacked from all sides (Catholics condemning it for being protestant, Protestants for being Catholic, Calvinists for being Arminian; Arminians for being Calvinist; charismatics for being dead). And frankly, it means that Lutherans will attack all of the others for what they leave out. Part of the unattractiveness of Lutheranism for some people is its theological combativeness. But it isn’t that Lutherans have the only truth, though some may seem to act that way. Lutheranism has actually helped me to appreciate other kinds of Christianity. But the Lutheran synthesis depends on a delicate balance that must be defended at every point.

Lutheranism, of course, has its own distinctive elements that can pretty much be found only in Lutheran churches. These could be held in other churches, but they usually cannot be found among non-Lutherans, even though they go into the depths of the Christian mysteries.

One is the Lutheran focus on Christology. Martin Luther said that we ought not to think of God apart from His incarnation in Jesus Christ. We often think of God the Father as an abstract idea or as an amorphous being far above the universe who looks down on human suffering. But God has become flesh. Not that Lutherans deny the transcendence of the Father or that we believe in the Son of God only at the expense of the other persons of the Trinity. But God the Father has revealed Himself fully in Jesus. To see the Father, we must see Jesus. As Jesus told Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) So our knowledge of God must be mediated by our knowledge of the man Jesus.

One of the main reasons some people do not believe in God at all is the problem of the evil and suffering in the world. How could there be a God who looks down on all of the world’s evil and suffering and does nothing about it? Notice the assumption: God is a transcendent being who “looks down.” What if God actually enters this world of evil and suffering? What if, somehow, he took all of that evil and suffering into Himself? What if this incarnate God suffered the just penalty for all the world’s evil? What if this allows for a cosmic forgiveness?

This, of course, is what all Christians believe that Jesus accomplished on the cross. But few Christians, oddly enough, apply Christology to the problem of suffering. This brings us to another Lutheran distinctive: the theology of glory versus the theology of the cross. We would expect God to come down as a mighty king to be victorious over His enemies, to answer all of our questions, and to solve all of our problems. Instead, God came as a baby to an unmarried mother who laid Him in a cattle trough; he was homeless; He was executed by torture. The incarnate God set aside His rightful glory for a cross. In doing so and by rising from the dead and then ascending to His glory, he redeemed us. By the same token, we want the way of glory – and so we expect all of our questions to be answered and all our problems solved – but we, too, have to bear our crosses. Ironically, in those times of our own weakness, suffering, and need, we find that Christ has taken up our crosses into His.

It has been said that American Christianity has no theology of suffering. Consequently, we assume that suffering is meaningless, and if we suffer we cannot bear it, to the point of thinking we must be outside of God’s favor or there must not be a God at all. Lutheranism, to its great credit, has a theology of suffering.

But it also has a theology of everyday life that brings satisfaction and joy. One of the most helpful things I have learned since I became a Lutheran is the doctrine of vocation. To realize that just being a husband, a father, an employee, and a citizen are all callings from God, that the day-to-day tasks that all of these entail are holy before God – that was a revelation to me. Not only that, but God is working through human beings to bestow His gifts: he gives me my daily bread through farmers, bakers, and cooks; He protects me by police officers; e heals me by doctors, nurses, and pharmacists; He proclaims His Word and gives me Christ’s body and blood through my pastor. And somehow, He is working through me. He created new life through my wife and me when we had our kids. He has taught young people to write through me in my job as an English professor. All of these vocations have the same purpose: to love and serve the different neighbors whom God brings to us in each of our multiple callings.

I used to think that I served God when I did church work and that everything else was just living or making a living. Now that I am a Lutheran, I know that in church God serves me through His Word and Sacraments and that He sends me out in my different vocations to live out my faith in love and service to my neighbors. He is still present, though, even in the mundane, ordinary routines of life, working through me and serving me through others. That gives my life purpose and a meaning that I never realized before.

One more distinctive: Lutherans talk about “the chief article,” “the doctrine upon which the Church rises or falls.” That refers to the teaching of justification by faith, or to be more technical, justification by grace through faith in the work of Christ – in other words, the Gospel, the Good News of salvation through Christ. In Lutheran theology, everything goes back to this. Baptism is Christ saving us. Holy Communion is Christ giving us His broken body and His poured-out blood for the remission of our sins. The Bible conveys God’s Law, which brings us to repentance, and His Gospel, which brings us to justifying faith. The Trinity is a unity of three persons, which enables us to say that God is love, and because He loves us, He saves us. Jesus is true God, because only God could bear our sins and save us like He did. In vocation, we are, to use Luther’s words, little Christs to our neighbors as we sacrifice ourselves in love and service, just as Christ did for us. This “chief article” holds Lutheran spirituality together. It also holds life together. I never realized that until I became a Lutheran.

Illustration: “Luther’s Rose” via Pixaline from Pixabay, Pixabay License. For the history of this image and its symbolism, go here.

Premium Content

Why “Spiritual but not Religious” Doesn’t Help Much

Last updated on: May 20, 2019 at 3:19 am By Gene Veith

0 Comments

Most of the “Nones” who have no affiliation with any particular religion do hold religious beliefs. But they claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” They often believe in a deity of some kind (only 21% don’t believe in God), and they may even pray and do other religious exercises, but they reject “organized religion.” For them, religion is a purely private, internal affair, and they cannot stand the “institutional” dimension of the world’s different religions. But research is showing that the “institutional” and corporate dimension of religion is exactly what makes it so beneficial, both to individuals and society.

As the number of these “Nones” increases, now numbering some 23% of the population, as many as evangelicals (23%) and Catholics (23%), social scientists can start to see the effects. Ericka Anderson reports:

The rise [of the “spiritual but not religious”] is contributing to a concerning pattern. It’s concerning not only because people are losing faith, but because of what faith represents as a component of civil society and how it contributes to our lives as a whole.

Numerous studies and polls provide evidence that the faithful are generally happier and healthier overall. Religious devotion contributes to stronger marriages, families, friendships, and what appears to be significant protection from depression or addictive behaviors. . . .

But it’s not simply the hope found within a “higher power” that makes the difference. The social community, rituals, and practices found within the context of faith—no matter the religion—are the cornerstones that help individuals and society most.

These “organized” parts of religion that so many “nones” claim to despise are actually invaluable pieces of our lives. As “organized religion” has decreased, rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction have increased comparably.

Not only are people happier and less likely to sink into isolation and despair personally, but research also points to some fascinating numbers regarding charitable giving, volunteering, and participation in a number of civic duties.

In their data-packed book “American Grace,” Robert Putnam and David Campbell found that Americans who attend church regularly give more than double to charity than their unchurched counterparts, and volunteer in even higher numbers for both faith-based and secular causes.

The authors posit that “communities of faith seem more important than faith itself,” because of the social engagement, neighborly support, and likelihood that one will extend himself or herself for others in a variety of ways.

Thus saith the social scientists.

But I would have to take issue with the notion that “communities of faith” are “more important than faith itself.” Also that the “benefits” of religion have to do with mental and social health. The only reason to believe in a religion is the conviction or faith that it is true, whether or not it makes us happy or not.

And yet, religion–I speak particularly of Christianity–does have a corporate dimension. That is, it involves other people. It has to do with “love,” which, by definition, entails a relationship with someone else, both with God and with one’s neighbors. The Gospel calls us into a “church,” an assembly of other believers who, together, constitute “the body of Christ.” Though Christianity entails personal beliefs, it is never purely “private.” Worship, the sacraments, good works, vocation, and the Christian life in general connect us with other people.

There have been and are highly individualized and internal kinds of spirituality that purport to be Christian–both in radical Catholicism and radical Protestantism, which have much in common, with desert hermits and “me and Jesus” evangelicals. But these are highly truncated and problematic versions of Christianity.

So it is true that Christians, in being involved with other people, do have a support system and social interactions that are highly beneficial. And such support and interactions have become increasingly hard to find in today’s society. “Virtual communities” are not actually communities–being more likely to tear you down than help you–and the virtual “friends” on social media are not the same as having actual friends. The church is one of the few places these days where one can find healthy interpersonal interactions. (Another, I suppose, is the workplace, which is why work plays such an important role in people’s sense of well-being, while being the occasion of problems of its own.)

Being “spiritual” in an internal, mystical, privatized, highly-individualized way is not going to give you these benefits. Rather, it uses spirituality as yet another means of escaping from the external world ever deeper into one’s own self. That kind of religiosity is isolating, with the potential of intensifying our loneliness and lack of connection with the external world.

We need institutions, with their rituals we can participate in with others and the obligations and relationships they impose. Not only for religion to give us better lives, but, I would add, for our religion to be true.

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay, Pixabay License

Premium Content

Victories through Tools

Last updated on: May 10, 2019 at 11:14 pm By Gene Veith

0 Comments

Have you noticed that victories in the Old Testament are often won not with weapons but with tools or other unlikely implements?

Andrew Wilson draws attention to this fun fact in his essay Bringing a Tent Peg to a Sword Fight in Christianity Today. In the first battle at Armageddon, the mighty general of the Canaanite army, Sisera, is done in by Jael, a woman with a “workmen’s mallet” and a tent peg (Judges 4:17-22; 5:26). Shamgar slew 600 Philistines with a cattle prod (Judges 3:31). Gideon and his 300 men defeated 135,000 Midianites by means of trumpets and jars (Judges 7:19-23; 8:10). The false king Abimelech is slain when a woman drops a millstone on him (Judges 9:53).

In other examples, the Israelites bring down the walls of Jericho by means of musical instruments (Joshua 6). Samson slays 1000 Philistines with the “fresh jawbone” of a donkey, not a tool, but an object from the life of a herdsman (Judges 15:15). Young David has the opportunity to use sword and armor against Goliath, but he chooses instead to use his shepherd’s sling (1 Samuel 17).

There was a good reason why the Israelites didn’t have weapons while they were under the domination of the Philistines:

Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.” But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle,and the charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads. So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and Jonathan his son had them. (1 Samuel 13:19-22)

We might see parallels with the Second Amendment. The Philistines would not allow the Israelites to have blacksmiths who could forge metal weapons. This allowed the Philistine metalworkers to have a lucrative trade in sharpening the Israelites’ farm instruments, which they evidently used in their uprising. The new Israelite king Saul and his son did have actual weapons. As would King David and his “mighty men of valor,” who eventually defeated the Philistines once and for all and turned the kingdom of Israel into a military power.

But as Israel became a conventional kingdom they began to trust in their weapons, military prowess, and foreign alliances rather than the Lord. Thus prophetic words like these from Isaiah:

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help
    and rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
    and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
    or consult the Lord! (Isaiah 31:1)

Wilson sees the victories by means of tools rather than weapons as teaching dependence upon God as opposed to relying on one’s own strength.

I see traces of vocation. God acts, and He does so through human beings. That He accomplishes such great actions of deliverance by means of the ordinary artifacts of ordinary life underscores their importance. The care for His people shown in miraculous ways in the Bible continues today in His providential care for us. He delivers us from hunger by means of farmers and their tools; He delivers us from sickness by means of doctors and nurses with their surgical implements and medical technology; He delivers us from evildoers by means of police officers, our military–both of whom use actual weapons as tools of their trade–and the legal system; He delivers us from spiritual bondage by means of pastors in their pulpits and studies.

Wilson ends his essay by showing how this theme plays out, startlingly, in the greatest victory of all, citing connections that I had never thought about before but that now I can’t get out of my mind: Jesus the carpenter defeating sin, death, and the devil with the tools of His trade–wood and nails.

Image by kai kalhh from Pixabay, Pixabay license

Premium Content