“If the sanctity of marriage is so important, where are all the people protesting adultery and divorce?”

“If the sanctity of marriage is so important, where are all the people protesting adultery and divorce?”

This was a poster / picture style question posed by someone on Facebook the other day.  And indeed it is an excellent question.   I believe it was probably intended to indicate that there may be some incongruities of behavior about what people are choosing to pick on in the defense of marriage as it is biblically defined.  It would seem /appear that no one is protesting adultery and divorce anymore.  Yep, the protestors are all gone; perhaps they were on that last train that left for the coast the day the music died.  Or, perhaps the conversation continues, but in a less pubic setting.

So here are my musings on why that is.  First, Adultery.  While there may be some laws still on the books regarding adultery, the executive and judicial branches of the government no longer pursue it with any passion since so many people now practice it.  It is interesting that the question does by being asked, inherently acknowledge that it is a wrongful action, but it also implies there is acceptance of it since it is so pervasive and unchecked. 

And while it might still be law in some places, for sure the thought that adultery is in any way wrong just is no longer culturally relevant.  Adultery is encouraged and even taught via sex education in schools these days.  Early teenagers are being given birth control products without parental consent and some with the help of parents. 

The media as well is very supportive and validating of it, and even elevates adultery / fornication to a recreational sport.  For instance “Big Brother” on ABC.  While it once was the “law of the land” that adultery was immoral, illegal, and punishable by the law, (and it may still be a not so needed “grounds for divorce”) it is now something less than J walking in MOST people’s eyes.  

Please notice that I have not even brought religious viewpoints into the conversation.  It really isn’t necessary.  The people have spoken and are speaking: the law has been and still is evolving away from an ethical system in pursuit of responsibility, justice, and righteousness to one of a more opinion based culturally popular morality of irresponsible unrestricted freedom with no consequences.

We are in a season of change where change has been accelerating in the last 20 years. It’s now like a runaway truck going down I-77 south in Northern VA with no brake ramps to run up.  There’s not much turning back now.  Everyone wants it to be like Woodstock, and no one wants it to be like the Walton’s.

As for divorce, it is a symptom of a decline in the value of family and the value of self as well.  Marriages have been stripped down to legal contracts that are easier to beat than filing chapter 11 bankruptcy.  I actually have a young friend who has a friend who got married recently and was a referring to that marriage before it was to take place as their first “practice marriage.”  Really?  Yes really.  

And then there is the crowd who says, “Why bother getting married?”  There is no sense of relational family, no value in family heritage, no knowing your ancestors, or having an identity that connects you with generations past.  Can the family Crest and forget about genealogy.    They are now a waste of time. Family reunions?  Well, who’s your daddy?  You need to know that first before you can go to one. 

Marriage is not predicated on lasting love anymore.  No more “’til death do we part.”   It is now predicated on whether the other person can keep you happy. If not, marriage is now easier to dispose of than the time it takes to get rid of plantar warts.  And it is a measure of the value of self too, because at least one of the parties who are giving up on a marriage aren’t willing to face their own issues.  They don’t want to face their own demons: it’s easier to live on their own or get a new victim.

Instead of having children as a married couple, single parenting is all the rage these days.  Just line up the sperm donors, the old fashion way or the more modern online shopping way. Can you imagine the night mare Ancestory.com must realize they have committed themselves to?  They will be absolutely belly up in another 20 years or less: too many dead ends and loose ends to chase after.  The family tree has become a wild forsythia bush.

Sociological evidence that growing children need a father figure and a mother figure?  Absolute rubbish in this generation.  Discipline and corporal punishment are grounds for incarcerating parents. Oh, excuse me, I mean guardians; more and more kinds don’t have a set of parents anymore.  Ask any social worker or counselor if the deconstruction of marriage is beneficial to society.

Now I take the occasion to enter the Christian religion into the conversation: formerly the majority popular ethical standard for healthy living in our culture but for sure now the former.   Western Culture is unquestionably Post Christian.

So one would think isn’t the church supposed to be speaking out against adultery and divorce?  Well to borrow a phrase not so concretely attributed to St. Augustine: "The church is a whore, but she's my mother.”  Meaning the church even back in his era has been selling out to the culture. And it’s still doing a great job of it even today.   Some say the divorce rate among Christians is actually higher than the secular world.  How can the Christian community speak out against divorce if it has a higher or even near equal divorce rate as the seculars?  Christians don’t even have credibility with themselves! 

And adultery?  That got swept under the rug a long time ago. There are probably just as many people in church not married having sex with somebody or worse yet having sex with somebody who is married but not to them.  The “church” at large is irrelevant to the world around it because it has lost its connectedness with the words “holy” and “set apart.”  It sells itself to the culture to look attractive (thus being the whore) and finds itself compromised in its ability to preach repentance and live holy because that might offend people and they might leave.  This is a major problem in the church of the western culture not in any one locale.   

The church welcomes all and confronts sin no more for fear they will lose someone.  That does not coincide with the gospel.  The gospel clearly does convey a message of love, reconciliation, hope, forgiveness, acceptance and redemption but not without a desperate recognition of personal depravity and a call to confession, repentance and declaration of Jesus Christ as Lord.    

So until the church of today finds its way back to being true to God’s word, I don’t think you’ll be hearing much in the way of long term objections to adultery, divorce, same sex marriage, the mass killing of unborn babies, suicide, cheating, stealing, or lying; all behaviors that culture used to call sin but no longer does. 

How does the church find its way back to being the voice that promotes a code of ethics to the culture that it based on objective Biblical truth and not based on self-aggrandizement?   By everyone who calls on the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior saying the words, “It starts with me.”

making space for the Holy Spirit

I’ve been reading a commentary preparing for the next men’s bible study focusing on the Acts of the Apostle.  Tonight I was reading on the power of the Holy Spirit and the conditions that existed on the day of Pentecost that may have been conducive to inviting the Spirit to come and move among men.

 First they were told He was coming.  Second, they were all waiting on the Spirit: expecting Him. Third, they were all of one accord:  in agreement with one another.  And fourth, they all had the common experience of a personal encounter with Jesus.  

The commentator describes these conditions as an invitation for the Spirit to come and do miracles among flesh and matter.  He describes the Spirit as, “. . . free not bound; flexible, not fixed; creative, not cruel; personal not impersonal.”

The commentator goes on to say,

“. . . it is the particular task of the church to present opportunities for the Spirit to break through.  If a church ties itself up with great wealth, becomes involved in vested interests so that it must compromise its principles, we know that the Spirit will never break through that church.  We know that the Spirit cannot break through the flesh that has been perpetually indulged and pampered.  Neither can it break through traditions that have become so fixed they are like a coat of mail encasing a body.  Nor can it break through the church that has become comfortable, settled in its own beautiful building, forgetting the heart rendering needs of the world, well fed and unconcerned.”

Yes, some churches focus on their buildings; some on placating their benefactors and keeping their members “happy”; some on attracting newcomers with a consumer mentality.  They are selling themselves out to worldly values and risking offending the Holy Spirit.

Some churches can be so structured and steeped in order and tradition.  While it’s a comfort to some people to have these things, citing that it brings them closer to God, it is in some respect man’s way of making sure that no surprises can break through the moment.   They are not expecting or waiting on the Spirit, they are instead practicing predictable ritual.  It’s comfortable.  It’s governable.

Back to the Commentary.  The author goes on to cite an illustration of a plane preparing to land at an airport; they receive instruction to fly past the airport because it is hemmed in by dense fog. 

“How many churches are there today (this was written about 60 years ago) over which the ground fog is so dense that the Spirit of God can never make a landing there?  That is a solemn charge to all church members.  On Pentecost we should ask ourselves this questions:  In a world in which it is possible for the Spirit to work in such mighty acts, what is preventing it now?  What is there in us that is blocking it?

That’ll preach!    How amazing that the Holy Spirt is still willing and able to come and work among us so abundantly and yet these same questions posed 60 years ago are so relevant to churches today.  )

Is your faith community in a fog or is it expecting the Spirit, waiting on the Spirit, of one heart and knows Jesus personally?

 (Quotes from P. 41 of Vol 9 the Interpreters Bible copyright 1954

Mrs Owen

This past weekend Mary and I journeyed back to attend an off year (44^th) reunion for my class in high school.  Before the activities started in the afternoon, we even got to spend a few hours visiting with three of Mary’s relatives in the morning for breakfast. It was great to go and great to see people who we had not seen in many years. That in itself was enough of a treat. 

On the way home we talked a couple of times about the friends we had conversations with and how they had or had not changed over the years.  We both found that it was a rich experience to hear how others had navigated over 4 decades of life.  There were some tender stories about children and grandchildren, some heartbreaking stories about tragedies along the way, some amazing stories of how people overcame those challenges, and a good handful (although not all) who in the process of telling their story or just having conversation with us, made reference to a faith in Christ in some way, shape, or form.    That in and of itself would have been sufficient enough to say, “What a great weekend!”   

I’m probably too analytical at times, but I’m convinced now that those great times were ancillary to why I was supposed to be there. Allow me to explain.  One of the  people attending the weekend was a classmate whose mother held a rather special place in my memories from growing up in my home town.  Her name was Mrs. Owen.  She was a lady full of grace, patience, encouragement and love as she taught music to students in our school system (Admittedly I have elevated her to sainthood).

I had her for about 3 years as a private instructor for violin (don’t ask, it’s a long story) coming out of grade school and beginning Jr High, and later as my instructor for music class and school chorus. The week before the reunion, I wondered if she might still be alive and what age she would be if she was still with us.

Well I got my answer rather quickly.  One of the first things Sue said to me was, “My mother was asking about you when she heard you were coming.”  The now 95 year old Mrs. Owen, still very much alive and well, was asking about me!  There was no doubt what I needed to do about that.  She still resides in the same house she did probably for the last 70 years and it was only about 4 blocks from where we were that afternoon.

We left the party early so we could go see this grand lady before dinner.  There she was waiting for us and all gussied up, I might add, since she knew we were coming.  Her granddaughter was there to welcome us at the door.  For the next 45 minutes we had a wonderful time listening to her talk about her life: where she grew up, how she got into teaching, the challenges she faced (that as a student I never knew about),  and she also shared some very kind words of how she appreciated my mom as a friend.

Mrs. Owen had also told her family that she remembered I had some “very serious intentions about a girl from Chemung;” (who was sitting right next to me).  We tried to figure whether she might know some of Mary’s family and she also inquired about our family we had raised. 

I knew I also had to go through confession so at one point I said, “You did realize I didn’t always practice didn’t you?”  It was met only with a gracious but silent smile. Trying to cover my sins, I went on to say that I picked up the guitar for a while in recent years which made her happy, but we really brought joy to her face when I told her nearly every day I sing to hospice patients who need to hear their favorite hymns for encouragement.  Her investment in me and countless others did not go to waste.   

Before we left I asked her if I could pray for her and she agreed with great pleasure.  When I asked her what the most important thing I could pray about was, she said, “Love: this world needs a lot more love.”  We prayed, we got up to leave, said our good byes and before we slipped out the door, she said, “I’ve prayed for you many times over the years.”  Wow: melt my heart and make me cry! 

You never know in this world who’s got you covered!  Yeah, I thought we were going back for a high school reunion, but I know better now.  Thanks Mrs. Owen for taking the time to share with us and be an encouragement to us even in this season of your life. 

Philippians 1: 3