The scale of suffering and the magnitude of the disaster in Southeast Asia defy the imagination. Sitting comfortably in our own homes and offices, we can look at the images, video segments, and computer simulations, knowing all the while that, in the nations that encircle the Indian Ocean, the death toll continues to mount.
This much is clear—the direct death toll from this disaster is likely to reach 250,000, and subsequent deaths related to the disaster may drive the total number of deaths to well over half a million. Those numbers are hard to take, but the video images are even harder to see. Satellite pictures taken before and after the massive tsunamis struck unprotected coastlines tell the story. Before the tsunami, a thriving region is clearly visible. In the aftermath, entire towns, villages, and cities have been wiped off the map. A wall of water traveling several hundred miles an hour and reaching the height of a multi-story building slammed into Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka with devastating force. At least nine nations were affected, with some of the waves bringing destruction as far away as Somalia on Africa’s eastern coast.
The magnitude of this disaster is multiplied when we realize that these very areas most devastated by the tsunamis are among the most impoverished and helpless regions of the earth. On December 26, families were washed away, children were ripped from their parents’ arms, and suffering beyond description settled upon the earth. Why?
That question comes immediately to the mind of any sensitive person, and any individual whose mind is allowed to rest for even a moment upon the magnitude of this disaster. At the first level, the scientific explanation seems clear. A massive earthquake, registering over 9.0 on the Richter scale, occurred more than six miles beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean, just off the Indonesian island of Sumatra. In an instant, one of the most beautiful parts of the world became one of the most deadly, as successive mountains of water radiated from the epicenter of the quake and headed for some of the earth’s most densely populated coastal areas. The sliding of tectonic plates beneath the surface of the ocean led to massive devastation and a tidal wave of grief and questions.
How do Christians explain this kind of suffering? What do we have to say about the meaning of an event like this? In short order, questions like these found their way to the front pages of the newspapers and the front lines of our cultural conversation. All too soon, confusion was evident, as various religious leaders offered advice and counsel.
Writing in The Guardian, reporter Martin Kettle put the problem in clear form: “Earthquakes and the belief in the judgment of God are, indeed, very hard to reconcile. However, no religion that offers an explanation of the world can avoid making some kind of an attempt to fit the two together.” As Kettle asserted, “As with previous earthquakes, any explanation of this latest one poses us a sharp intellectual choice. Either there is an entirely natural explanation for it, or there is some other kind. Even the natural one is by no means easy to imagine, but it is at least wholly coherent.”
For the atheist or agnostic, the natural explanation will suffice. Those who hold to a naturalistic and materialistic worldview will simply see this disaster as one more meaningless event taking place in a meaningless universe. As British philosopher Bryan Appleyard concluded, “The simple truth is what it has always been: nature, uncontrolled, unbidden, unpredictable, can still humble our pride and wreck our schemes in an instant. We are a thin film of thought confined to a narrow band around an undistinguished planet orbiting a pretty average star.” In other words, this is just one more accident taking place in an accidental world, observed by accidental human creatures.
The challenge to the Christian faith is clear, even as it is often crudely put forth by secular critics. If God is both omnipotent and benevolent, how can disasters like this happen? This question was stated concisely by playwright Archibald MacLeish in his Pulitzer-prize winning play, J.B. Through his character Nickles, MacLeish poses the theological challenge: “If God is God, He is not good; if God is good, He is not God.”
An example of how not to give a Christian answer was provided by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Williams said this: “Every single random, accidental death is something that should upset a faith bound up with comfort and ready answers. Faced with the paralyzing magnitude of a disaster like this, we naturally feel more deeply outraged—and also more deeply helpless. We can’t see how this is going to be dealt with, we can’t see how to make it better. We know, with a rather sick feeling, that we shall have to go on facing it and we can’t make it go away or make ourselves feel good.” The newspaper headlined the archbishop’s column, “Of Course This Makes Us Doubt God’s Existence.” After the article was published, the archbishop protested the headline, and his spokesman claimed that the paper’s characterization of the archbishop’s article was “a misrepresentation of the archbishop’s views.”
In response, the paper acknowledged that while it may have misrepresented the archbishop’s argument, nevertheless, “he himself must accept much of the blame.” Surely speaking for the paper’s readers as well as its editors, the paper observed, “His prose is so obscure, his thought processes so hard to follow, that his message is often unclear.” In exasperation, the paper simply concluded, “If Dr. Williams hopes to teach and inspire his flock, he really must learn to express himself more clearly. Otherwise he will be forever doomed to be the victim of his own erudition.”
In Australia, much closer to the tragedy, the Anglican Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen, explained that natural disasters are a part of God’s warning that judgment is coming. Jensen was right of course, as Jesus Himself pointed to natural disasters as a warning to human beings of our own mortality and of the coming judgment of God. Nevertheless, this was too much for more liberal churchmen in Australia. Neil Brown, Dean of Saint Mary’s Cathedral [Catholic] described Jensen’s comments as “a rather horrible belief when you begin to think about it.”
Well, that’s orthodox Christian theology, when you think about it. Jesus clearly warned His disciples that famines and earthquakes, along with wars and other ominous phenomena, would be the “birth pangs” of coming tribulation and judgment [Matthew 24:7-8].
This is no time for theological hand-wringing and evasion. A great tragedy like this is often the catalyst for bad theology offered as soothing counsel from religious professionals.
A faithful Christian response will affirm the true character and power of God—His omnipotence and His benevolence. God is in control of the entire universe, and there is not even a single atom outside His sovereignty. And God’s goodness and love are beyond question. The Bible leaves no room for equivocation on either truth.
We must speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Scripture is silent. Christians must avoid offering explanations when God has not revealed an explanation. Finally, Christians must respond to a crisis like this by weeping with those who weep, by praying with fervent faithfulness, by offering concrete assistance in Christ’s name and, most importantly, by bearing bold witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the only way to bring life out of death.
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The tragedy unfolding in the Indian Ocean demands the world’s attention—and calls for a clear Christian response. In the aftermath of the disaster, some religious leaders suggested that God was simply unable to prevent the tsunamis that destroyed so many lives. Some secularists jumped on the opportunity to argue that the tragedy was further proof that God does not exist. Others simply blamed the earthquake and tidal waves on fate or claimed that God had sent the destruction as punishment for the victims’ sins.
How are we to deal with this? What approach will affirm the full measure of Christian truth while taking the disaster into honest account?
First, a faithful Christian response must affirm the true character and power of God. The Bible leaves no room for doubting either the omnipotence or the benevolence of God. The God of the Bible is not a passive bystander, nor a deistic Creator who has withdrawn from His creation and is simply watching it unfold. Just as creation itself was a trinitarian event, so also the triune God reigns over His creation. There is not one atom or molecule in the entire cosmos that is not under the sovereign rule of God. As the Christian tradition has always affirmed, God’s active lordship over the universe is the sole explanation for why the cosmos even holds together.
At the center of this universe is the fundamental fact of the supremacy of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul argued in Colossians 1:15-17, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Jesus Christ is the explanatory principle of the universe, and any effort to understand the creation apart from its Creator can lead only to confusion.
Liberal theology attempts to solve this problem by cutting God down to size and removing Him from the equation. Having established a truce with the naturalistic worldview, liberal theology simply accommodates itself to the secular temptation by denying God’s active and sovereign rule. In other words, God’s goodness is affirmed while His greatness is denied. Process theology does this by putting God within the created order, struggling along with His creation toward maturity. At the popular level, this theological approach was turned into a bestseller several years ago by Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. The rabbi simply asserted that God is doing the best He can under the circumstances. He would like to prevent tragedies like cancer, hurricanes, and earthquakes from happening—He is simply unable to do so.
This is not the God who revealed Himself in the Bible. God’s omnipotence is clearly revealed and unconditionally asserted. At the same time, God’s goodness is equally affirmed. Christians must point to these conjoined truths as the very basis for our confidence that life is worth living and that God is ultimately in control of the universe.
Second, we must avoid attempting to explain what God has not explained. In the end, the Christian knows that all suffering—indeed every experience of life—is meaningful. We understand that God is revealing Himself in every moment of our existence. We also know that all suffering is ultimately caused by sin. That’s about as politically incorrect an assertion as we can now imagine—but it is profoundly true. Even so, we must be very careful in how we present this truth. In the Gospel of John [John 9:1-7] Jesus and His disciples were confronted with a man blind from birth. His disciples, posing the conventional question of their day, asked Jesus: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus responded that it was neither the sin of this man nor the sin of his parents that explained his blindness; rather, “It was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” In other words, Jesus boldly explained that this man was born blind so that in the miracle Jesus was about to perform, his restored sight would be evidence of the dawning of the Kingdom and of the glory of God.
Armed with this knowledge, we must be very circumspect in assigning blame for natural evil. Were the people of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India more sinful than all others? Did God send this tsunami because of the paganisms so prevalent in South Asia? Martin Kettle posed an interesting observation: “Certainly the giant waves generated by the quake made no attempt to differentiate between the religions of those whom it made its victims. Hindus were swept away in India, Muslims were carried off in Indonesia, Buddhists in Thailand. Visiting Christians and Jews received no special treatment either.”
We are in absolutely no position to argue that there is no link between human sin and this awful tragedy. The Bible makes clear that God sometimes does respond to specific sin with cataclysmic natural disaster. Just ask the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. Nevertheless, in the Bible’s book most centrally concerned with the issue of suffering, it is Job’s friends, who tried to offer detailed theological explanations, who end up looking foolish—and worse. Job himself was censured by God for “darkened counsel by words without knowledge.” In the end, Job is vindicated by God’s grace and mercy, and Job can only respond, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. . . . I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Job’s humility should serve as a model for our own.
As the Apostle Paul reminds us, the judgments of God are unsearchable and unfathomable [Romans 11:33]. Unless God reveals the purpose of His acts and the working of His will among us, we would do well to affirm His sovereignty and goodness, while holding back from placing blame on human agents for disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
At the same time, the Bible is clear that sin is the fundamental explanation for these awful disasters. Not sin that is immediately traceable to one individual or another, or even to a specific culture, but the sin that is so clearly indicted in the biblical account of the Fall. According to Genesis chapter 3, Adam’s sin had cosmic implications and effects. The effects of sin are evident all around us, most clearly in the undeniable fact of death. This is why the redemptive work of God in Christ points to a new heaven and a new earth as coming realities. As Paul explains, “We know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” In Revelation 21, we are told of a new heaven and a new earth and of a day when God will wipe away every tear from the eyes of the redeemed, “and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
Third, Christians must respond with the love of Christ and the power of the Gospel. Jesus is our great example in responding to such crises. When confronted with the man born blind, Jesus healed the man and showed the glory of God. In response to the death of Lazarus, Jesus brought life out of death, even as He had mourned with Lazarus’ sisters.
While Christians are not empowered to perform similar miracles, we are called to be agents of Christ’s love and mercy. Following our Lord’s example, we must first mourn with those who mourn. The unspeakable grief and incalculable suffering experienced by literally millions of persons in South Asia should prompt every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to fervent prayer, concern, generosity, and sympathy.
Relief efforts are now under way, and Christians should be at the forefront of this response. Churches, denominations, and Christian agencies are sending support in the form of food, medical care, reconstruction programs, and other forms of humanitarian assistance. In offering concrete help and assistance, Christians are doing nothing less than following the express command and example of Jesus Christ.
Beyond this, Christians must seize this opportunity to confront this awful disaster with the life-changing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christians are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and clothe the naked in the name of Christ. This is a powerful testimony, but acts of compassion must be accompanied by words of conviction. Our answer to this reality of unspeakable tragedy must be witness to the gospel of unfathomable power—the power to bring life out of death.
Furthermore, we must indeed point to this disaster as only a hint of the cataclysm that is yet to come—the holy judgment of God. On that day, the tidal waves of December 26, 2004 will be understood to have been one of the warnings all humanity should have heeded.
This is no time for Christian equivocation or cowardice. In the face of tragedy and suffering on this scale, we must answer with the full measure of Christian conviction and the undiluted truth of Christianity. In this life, we are not given all the answers to the questions we might pose, but God has given us all that we need to know in order to understand our peril and His provision for us in Christ.
So, let us weep with those who weep, pray for those who suffer, give and go in missions of mercy, and bear bold witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, not only in South Asia, but right here at home.
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The death of an infant or young child is profoundly heartbreaking –
perhaps the greatest grief a parent is called to bear. For Christian parents,
there is the sure knowledge that our sovereign and merciful God is in control,
but there is also a pressing question: Is our baby in heaven?
This is a natural and unavoidable question, calling for our most careful
and faithful biblical study and theological reflection. The unspeakable anguish
of a parent’s heart demands our honest and humble searching of the Scriptures.
Some are quick to answer this question out of
sentimentality. Of course infants go to heaven, they argue, for how
could God refuse a precious little one? The Universalist has a quick answer,
for he believes that everyone will go to heaven. Some persons may simply
suggest that elect infants go to heaven, while the
non-elect do not, and must suffer endless punishment. Each of these easy
answers is unsatisfactory.
Mere sentimentalism ignores the Bible’s teaching which bears on the
issue. We have no right to establish doctrine on the basis of what we hope
may be true. We must draw our answers from what the Bible reveals to be
true.
Universalism is an unbiblical heresy. The Bible clearly teaches that we are born in sin and that God will not
tolerate sinners. God has made one absolute and definitive provision for our
salvation through the substitutionary atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Salvation comes to those who believe on His name and confess him as
Savior. The Bible teaches a dual destiny for the human race. The redeemed –
those who are in Christ – will be raised to eternal life with the Father in
Heaven. Those who have not believed in Christ and confessed Him as Lord will
suffer eternal punishment in the fires of Hell. Universalism is a dangerous and
unbiblical teaching. It offers a false promise and denies the Gospel.
The Bible reveals that we are born marked by original sin, and thus we cannot claim that infants are born in a state of
innocence. Any biblical answer to the question of infant salvation must
start from the understanding that infants are born with a sin nature.
The shifting of the focus to election actually avoids answering the
question. We must do better, and look more closely at the issues at stake.
Throughout the centuries, the church has offered several different
answers to this question. In the early church, Ambrose
believed that baptized infants went to heaven, while unbaptized infants did
not, though they received immunity from the pains of hell. His first
error was believing in infant baptism, and thus in baptismal regeneration.
Baptism does not save, and it is reserved for believers – not for infants. His
second error was his indulgence in speculation. Scripture does not teach such a
half-way position which denies infants admission to heaven, but saves them from
the peril of hell. Augustine, the great theologian of the fourth century,
basically agreed with Ambrose, and shared his understanding of infant baptism.
Others have taught that infants will have an
opportunity to come to Christ after death. This position was held by
Gregory of Nyssa, and is growing among many contemporary theologians, who claim
that all, regardless of age, will have a post-mortem opportunity to confess
Christ as Savior. The problem with this position is that Scripture teaches no
such post-mortem opportunity. It is a figment of a theologian’s imagination,
and must be rejected.
Those who divide infants into the elect and non-elect seek to affirm the
clear and undeniable doctrine of divine election. The Bible teaches that God
elects persons to salvation from eternity, and that our salvation is all of
grace. At first glance, this position appears impregnable in relation to the
issue of infant salvation – a simple statement of the obvious. A second glance,
however, reveals a significant evasion. What if all who die in infancy
are among the elect? Do we have a biblical basis for believing that all persons
who die in infancy are among the elect?
We believe that Scripture does indeed teach that
all persons who die in infancy are among the elect. This must not be based only in our hope that it is true, but in a
careful reading of the Bible. We start with the biblical affirmations we have
noted already. First, the Bible reveals that we are “brought forth in iniquity,”(1)
and thus bear the stain of original sin from the moment of our conception.
Thus, we face squarely the sin problem. Second, we acknowledge that God is
absolutely sovereign in salvation. We do not deserve salvation, and can do
nothing to earn our salvation, and thus it is all of grace. Further we
understand that our salvation is established by God’s election of sinners to
salvation through Christ. Third, we affirm that Scripture teaches that Jesus
Christ is the sole and sufficient Savior, and that salvation comes only on the
basis of His blood atonement. Fourth, we affirm that the Bible teaches a dual
eternal destiny – the redeemed to Heaven, the unredeemed to Hell.
What, then is our basis for claiming that all those
who die in infancy are among the elect? First, the Bible teaches that we are to
be judged on the basis of our deeds committed “in the body.”(2) That is, we
will face the judgment seat of Christ and be judged, not on the basis of
original sin, but for our sins committed during our own lifetimes. Each will
answer “according to what he has done,”(3) and not for the sin of Adam. The imputation of Adam’s sin and guilt explains our inability to
respond to God without regeneration, but the Bible does not teach that we will
answer for Adam’s sin. We will answer for our own. But what about infants? Have
those who die in infancy committed such sins in the body? We believe not.
One biblical text is particularly helpful at this point. After the
children of Israel rebelled against God in the wilderness, God sentenced that
generation to die in the wilderness after forty years of wandering. “Not one of
these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give
your fathers.”(4) But this was not all. God specifically exempted young
children and infants from this sentence, and even explained why He did so: “Moreover,
your little ones who you said would become prey, and your sons, who this day
have no knowledge of good and evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to
them and they shall possess it.”(5) The key issue here
is that God specifically exempted from the judgment those who “have no
knowledge of good or evil” because of their age. These “little ones”
would inherit the Promised Land, and would not be judged on the basis of their
fathers’ sins.
We believe that this passage bears directly on the issue of infant
salvation, and that the accomplished work of Christ has removed the stain of
original sin from those who die in infancy. Knowing neither good nor evil,
these young children are incapable of committing sins in the body – are not yet
moral agents – and die secure in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
John Newton, the great minister who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace
was certain of this truth. He wrote to close friends who had lost a young
child: “I hope you are both well reconciled to the death of your child. I
cannot be sorry for the death of infants. How many storms do they escape! Nor
can I doubt, in my private judgment, that they are included in the election of
grace.”(6) The great Princeton theologians Charles
Hodge and B. B. Warfield held the same position.
One of the most eloquent and powerful expressions of this understanding
of infant salvation came from the heart of Charles
Spurgeon. Preaching to his own congregation, Spurgeon consoled grieving
parents: “Now, let every mother and father here present know assuredly that it
is well with the child, if God hath taken it away from you in its infant days.”(7)
Spurgeon turned this conviction into an evangelistic call. “Many of you are
parents who have children in heaven. Is it not a desirable thing that you
should go there, too? He continued: “Mother, unconverted mother, from the
battlements of heaven your child beckons you to Paradise. Father, ungodly,
impenitent father, the little eyes that once looked joyously on you, look down
upon you now, and the lips which scarcely learned to call you father, ere they
were sealed by the silence of death, may be heard as with a still small voice,
saying to you this morning, ‘Father, must we be forever divided by the great
gulf which no man can pass?’ Doth not nature itself put a sort of longing in
your soul that you may be bound in the bundle of life with your own children?”
Jesus instructed his disciples that they should “Permit the children to
come to Me; do not hinder them; for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as
these.”(8) We believe that our Lord graciously and
freely received all those who die in infancy – not on the basis of their
innocence or worthiness – but by his grace, made theirs through the atonement
He purchased on the cross.
When we look into the grave of one of these little ones, we do not place
our hope and trust in the false promises of an unbiblical theology, in the
instability of sentimentalism, in the cold analysis of human logic, nor in the
cowardly refuge of ambiguity.
We place our faith in Christ, and trust Him to be faithful to his Word.
We claim the promises of the Scriptures and the assurance of the grace of our
Lord. We know that heaven will be filled with those who never grew to maturity
on earth, but in heaven will greet us completed in Christ. Let us resolve by
grace to meet them there.
Endnotes:
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is President and
Professor of Christian Theology.
Daniel L. Akin is Vice President
for Academic Administration, Dean of the School of Theology, and Associate
Professor of Christian Theology.
==============================
Nobel laureate James Watson suggests that it is high time we face up to the meaning of genetic engineering. Watson, it will be remembered, was one of the co-discoverers of the DNA molecule—the achievement recognized by the Nobel Prize.
Watson promises that there will be an infinite array of issues and options presented by new technologies such as genetic mapping and genetic engineering, along with germ-line therapies. In addition, he advised that the technologies should be able to identify genetic links to everything from schizophrenia to homosexuality.
The famous scientist published his advisement in The Times [London]. His British readers were scandalized at his suggestion that mothers who discover that their infant in the womb has a pre-disposition of homosexuality, might well choose to abort. Of course, it was not the morality of genetic manipulation that became the issue, rather it was the morality of targeting homosexuality as the focus of the manipulation that raised this censorious debate.
The Culture of Death represents the
ultimate degeneration of the entire civilization, and it represents nothing
less than total opposition to God and his authority over the spectrum of life
and death—indeed over every dimension of morality.
The late Walker Percy—a physician as well as one of America’s chief men of letters—said this in answer to an interviewer’s question: “I am scandalized by the fact that in my own profession—medicine—American doctors have the dubious distinction of being the first generation of doctors in 6,000 years to accept abortion with hardly a murmur. Abortion has been something absolutely disallowed by the medical profession in the entire western world since the oath of Hippocrates. We are talking 2,500 years ago. That’s on the Greek side. For 6,000 years before that in the Jewish tradition. Yet we in the last two generations—judges and doctors—have not only made it legal but have done it willingly. There has been no outcry, not one letter of protest in the august, New England Journal of Medicine. I off hand can think of only one doctor, a Jewish doctor, who keeps saying this is wrong.”
This was the impulse that led Percy to write his novel The Thanatos Syndrome, indicating the ultimate end result of the Culture of Death—death itself. In another interview over ten years ago, he was asked the question, “What are the signs of death that you see in America in the l980s?” He answered: “Last night, I was listening to an interview between Bill Moyers and Associate Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Supreme Court’s decision that legalizes abortion. Obviously, Blackmun is a decent man, a thoughtful man, who was trying to do the right thing. Yet, what did he do? He helped to legalize the murder of 30 million unborn human beings. That, by the way, is not a theological, Catholic statement. Any doctor can tell you that an unborn child is fully human. There is no difference in a child five minutes before birth and five minutes after birth. What about a month before birth? Same. How about eight months? How about one day after conception? Sure, it’s a separate organism. Any doctor will tell you that it’s all standard biology: the fetus is a separate genetic structure, a separate immune system, a separate organism, a separate creature. So, we have this great situation where for the most humane reasons we kill more people that the Nazis did in all their death camps. In times like these, that is enough to give a novelist a cause to write.”
Just before he died, Percy said that what would come next was what he called “pedothesia,” the killing of children who are perceived to have no future.
Of course, we not only speak of the Culture of Death, but of the death of culture, which is the necessary product and parallel to the Culture of Death. In the time span of the last fifty years, we see the devolution of our moral discourse and of our moral actions from modern manipulation and death to postmodern chaos and even greater death.
John Howard, the former president of the Rockford Institute, gave a speech a few years ago looking back at the end of World War II. Speaking of his own experience, he intimated that those fifty years appeared as though it were a “whole civilization ago.” What happened at the end of World War II? The West won. Freedom won. Democracy won. And what did they win? They won the opportunity to build, to develop, and to devolve into the Culture of Death. The West defeated Hitler and Japan, only to institutionalize, in a scientific and therapeutic sense, so much of what was represented by those regimes.
We have seen in the last fifty years a series of decades marked by moral decomposition—decomposition that is difficult to quantify and almost impossible to take into the mind. We have seen the breakdown of the family, largely performed on ideological grounds. We have seen the rise of the divorce culture, which yields complete destruction of the family structure. As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead says, “Divorce is now part of everyday American life.”
We have seen the rise of alternative lifestyles openly intending to reverse centuries of civilization in the name of liberation. We have seen homosexuality, which was forbidden by God through His Word and censured by societies throughout history, now made an openly celebrated part of American culture with successful calls for political equality and special group rights.
We see the revolt against authority: the authority of God, the authority of the state, the authority of the church, the authority of parents, the authority of the Constitution and law, the authority of teachers, the authority of every segment of society, which provides order and protection. We have seen the breakdown of order at every level in such a way that we now have no control over many of our streets and have no control over much of what out children see and hear. We have no control; all in the name of liberation.
We see decadence in the arts, and the celebration of artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, who are unusual not because of their unique decadence, but because of their unique popularity and publicity. In the last fifty years, we have seen the artistic community celebrate what was once marginalized and scandalized.
We have seen the breakdown of the political system aided and abetted by every branch of government. We have come to the place where there is no common moral discourse. There is no such conversation, and legislation is intentionally, publicly and officially divorced from any moral consequence. We can read statistical indicators, and can see the inexorable march of our culture’s destruction. We can see that our conversation is reduced to nothing more than “rights talk.” Our conversations center merely on what our rights are and should be. We have come to what the philosopher Jeffrey Stout has referred to as the “perfect babble of confusion.” Animal rights, for instance, are posited in such a way that the entire structure of creation is offended.
Issue after issue represents not merely a tinkering with the moral code, but the usurpation of the entire moral system. Joseph Epstein, long-time editor of the American Scholar, recently asked if the future has a future? How did this happen? It is all rooted in rebellion and in the decomposition of our moral discourse. Sociologist Daniel Yankelovich has suggested that it all comes down to the clash between individual choice and social and familial obligations—a question of responsibilities or so-called rights.
But in biblical terms, what it means to be human is to be submitted to biblical norms. How did all of this happen? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked the same question, and he answered, “Men have forgotten God, that is how all of this happened.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky explained this loss of faith and resulting nihilism in The Brothers Karamozov: “Without God anything is permissible and everything is now permissible.” And yet what is the means of recovery? What are we to do? What should the church do in the midst of the degeneration, devolution and disillusion of the culture? And what should the church be in the midst of the Culture of Death and the death of the culture?
Very simply put, we are to let light shine in the darkness. A simple and urgent and uncomplicated command is brought into sharp relief when there is so much darkness surrounding us. This means, though, that we must understand ourselves in the midst of this culture as a cognitive minority—standing out in our minority status against a majoritarian decadence.
We must let light shine in darkness. This means, in part, that the church must be a Culture of Life, in the midst of the Culture of Death and the death of the culture. The church must contend for life—life in the biblical sense—at every level. This means contending for life in the womb and in the nursing home, in the hospital ward and on the streets. Everywhere, we must be those who stand for the culture and sanctity of life, for we know that the Culture of Life can never be predicated upon the authority of man, but only on the authority of God.
In the same sense, we must also contend for the life of the culture. That is, we must be engaged and not disengaged, even as we are a cognitive minority. Even as a moral minority, our method must not be to turn entirely insular and inward, but instead to engage the culture in such a way that we bear open witness to life. And calling for the life of the culture means that the church must be the people of the truth, representing, bearing witness, and contending for the truth of the living, holy, sovereign, transcendent God. For this self-revealing God has spoken to us through His Word, revealing a pattern of life to us with commandments and principles for living. We must bear witness to the truth of God’s wrath against sin and to the wondering glory of His grace in the redemption of sinners. We must be a people of truth, and this means bearing witness to the sanctity of life and to our living hope. This should be our proper mode.
To despair is atheistic, but to be optimistic is hubris. We live in hope—biblical hope—because we know in whom our hope is placed, and we know that He is able to keep all that we have committed to Him against that day.
How are we to live in such a society as this? What is the church to be and what are we to do? In the midst of the Culture of Death and the death of culture we must get our own house in order. We must recover our own moral authority, which can only come when we are submitted to our Savior’s moral authority. And we must share the light.
I am reminded of what the Romanians in 1989 referred to as the “night of the candles.” It was that night in Bucharest when those who contended for freedom and for life and for dignity stood against totalitarian oppression and stared down tanks and soldiers, when all they had in their hands were unlit candles. One person lit a candle and the flame passed from one candle to another in the hands of those who stood for life and freedom and dignity, as they stood against those who stood for death and for oppression, for manipulation and totalitarian regimes. The Culture of Life stood against the Culture of Death and passed the light from candle to candle. That is an apt metaphor for us. Let us pass the light from candle to candle—and let us pass it well.
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