CHRISTIANITY 101: WHY DOES IT MATTER?
“Protestant churches are losing young adults in sobering numbers,” a recent survey declared. An organization called LifeWay Research found that seven in ten young people between the ages of 24 and 30 – who went to church regularly in high school – dropped out of the church by the age of 23. Another research outfit called The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently declared that for the first time in American history, Protestant Christians make up a minority of the U.S. population. As recently as the 1990s, Protestants represented 60% of the population. Today, they represent 48% of the population. One could make that statement that America seems to be losing her faith. And of that statement, perhaps we should ask: Why does it matter? Why does it matter that a nation loses its faith? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
Insanity is euphemistically defined as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. For example, a woman named Donna was talking to her therapist about her boyfriend’s compulsive overspending. Donna said on more than one occasion, “I tell him all the time that if he doesn’t stop his overspending, I’m going to quit bailing him out. But does he listen to me? No! He just keeps spending and spending, and I have to keep giving him more and more money all the time just so he can pay his bills.”
Donna and her boyfriend were caught in a vicious cycle of his overspending and her bailing him out. Was she insane? Probably not, but she was definitely doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. In an effort to help this poor woman, her therapist read her a poem by Portia Nelson entitled, “There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk.” The poem is divided into five chapters, and it goes like this:
Chapter One:
I walk down the sidewalk.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost…I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find my way out.
Chapter Two:
I walk down the same street.
There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three:
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in…it’s a habit now.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault…I get out immediately.
Chapter Four:
I walk down the same street.
There is a big hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter Five:
I walk down another street.
After she heard the poem, Donna smiled and said, “I see what you mean. I keep falling into the very same hole. Maybe I need to walk down another street.” Experience can be a wonderful teacher. We need to learn from our past mistakes so we can avoid them in the future. In the words of 20th century philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those words were certainly applicable to the nations of Israel and Judah in Old Testament times. Allow me to give you a brief history lesson. God made a covenant with Abraham around 2000 B.C. He was to become the father of a great nation. His son Isaac became the father of twin boys named Jacob and Esau. Jacob’s name was later changed to Israel, then he had twelve sons, and that’s how the history of the twelve tribes of Israel began.
In a time of famine, the twelve tribes of Israel were forced to enter the land of Egypt. They were ultimately enslaved, then led out of Egypt by Moses around 1300 B.C. That’s when they received the Ten Commandments, and God promised to be their God as long as they remained faithful to God’s law. They became a nation governed by judges until they decided they wanted a king. Against his better judgment, God sent Samuel to anoint Saul as the first king over Israel. When David succeeded Saul around 1000 B.C., they were the most powerful nation in the world. Because of David’s faithfulness, God blessed them and promised to bless them forever.
In 922 B.C., however, Israel became a divided nation. Israel was to the north with its capital in a town called Samaria. Judah was to the south with its capital in a town called Jerusalem. Each nation had its own king, and many of them led their people away from the ways of God. That’s what seemed to get them into trouble.
In 732 B.C., a man named Hoshea became king over Israel. As it says in the second book of Kings: “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” While the king himself was not terribly godly, the Bible essentially holds him accountable for the bad things that were occurring in the nation, as well. What bad things were occurring in the nation? As Professor A.B. Rhodes put it in his book, The Mighty Acts of God:
A class of wealthy traders emerged, many of whom were unscrupulous in their business practices. There was a great gap between the rich and the poor, and the poor were at the mercy of the rich. It was a time of flagrant idolatry, greedy luxury, idleness, immorality, and lawlessness. It was a time not unlike the twentieth century A.D.
Then the king of Assyria invaded the nation of Israel, and in the year 721 B.C., the nation fell. As it says in II Kings, “This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God.” In other words, the people of Israel turned from the ways of God, and God removed his protective hand. Now you would think that the people of the nation of Judah would have been paying attention. You would think they would have taken note of what had occurred just to the north of them, and clung to God for all they were worth…but they didn’t. Ah, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
In the year 597 B.C., a man named Zedekiah became king over Judah. As it says in the second book of Chronicles, “He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Are you starting to pick up a theme here? Later in the second book of Chronicles our author writes, “The Lord sent prophets to them because he had compassion on his people…but they kept mocking the messengers of God – despising his words, scoffing at his prophets – until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy.” Then in the year 587 B.C., the nation of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians.
The Old Testament attributes the collapse of Israel and Judah to the wrath of God. The Apostle Paul explains what the wrath of God is in the first chapter of the book of Romans. In chapter 1, he writes: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against the ungodliness and wickedness of those who – by their wickedness – suppress the truth. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts…because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped the creature rather than the Creator.”
The Greek words translated “wrath of God” here are orge theou. This refers not to some irrational vengeance God plans to take out on his people, but rather, the wrath of God implies that God simply gives people over to the folly of their sin. Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best in his book, The Screwtape Letters. He wrote, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’” So the wrath of God isn’t God lashing out at his people in vengeance. The wrath of God is simply God leaving people to their own devices. And that is exactly what the nations of Israel and Judah found in the end.
So what has this got to do with us? There is not a nation on earth that could withstand the military might of the United States of America. We could probably hold our own if the rest of the world turned against us. Besides, our organist Kevin Dill – who is himself Canadian – has assured me that no matter what…Canada’s got our back. Thus, in spite of our ever-more godless society; in spite of our mocking the words of the prophets; in spite of our worshipping the creature rather than the Creator; we have nothing to fear from the wrath of God…or do we?
Is it possible for a nation to fall without a single shot being fired? At the time of this writing, our national debt stood at $16,168,966,510,703.00. Each taxpayer’s portion comes to $141,208.00. Total U.S. debt stands at $58,497,462,733,899.00. Total debt per family comes to $701,180.00. I ask you again: Is it possible for a nation to fall without a single shot being fired?
And all the while, our nation is engaged in political gridlock as both sides propose what they believe to be viable solutions. Mind you, my goal here is not to be political; my goal here is to be prophetic. Thus, without mentioning any political party by name, allow me to tell you a couple of intriguing stories. Listen closely.
An urban legend speaks of an economics professor at Texas Tech who tells the story of how he once failed an entire class. The class insisted that socialism worked – that no one would be poor, and no one would be rich. It was the perfect equalizer. So the professor conducted an experiment in the class on socialism. All the test scores would be averaged so that everyone would receive the same grade.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who hadn’t studied were elated, but the students who had studied were not. Thus, when the second test rolled around, the students who had studied little studied even less, and the students who had studied hard decided that they wanted a free ride, too. The average score for the second test was a D.
By the time the third test came, no one was studying and the class average was an F. No one would study for anyone else. Bickering, blaming and name-calling emerged. The experiment in socialism failed because when the reward was taken away, no one was willing to try to succeed. So much for socialism as a remedy to our economic woes.
On the other hand, I have a friend who runs a tool shop. He recently interviewed a man for a job. He said to the man, “You seem to be perfect for the job. When can you start?” To which the man replied, “Well, my unemployment doesn’t run out for another six months, so…I’d kind of like to wait until then.” Ah some people are simply conditioned to not want to work, even when jobs “trickle down.” But when such government benefits are taken away, a friend of mine with forty years of experience in the probation office assures me…crime greatly increases.
Our nation seems to be at an impasse and political solutions are not entirely convincing. Add to that the fact that David Myers, a professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, believes that we as a nation are growing more and more unhappy and depressed. He writes, “Today’s youth and young adults have grown up with much more affluence, slightly less overall happiness, much greater risk of depression, and a tripled teen suicide rate. Never before has a culture experienced such physical comfort combined with such psychological misery. Never before have we been so free or had our prisons so overstuffed. Never before have we been so sophisticated about pleasure…or so likely to suffer broken relationships.”
Maybe what we have is not so much a political problem as it is a God problem. Maybe the only one who can keep us from suffering the same fate that befell Israel and Judah is God. Maybe the only one who can solve all the problems we seem to have…is God. Yet all the while – in ever-increasing numbers – Americans are turning their backs on God and trying to go it alone. When will we learn to remember the past that we not repeat it?
When change swirls and anxiety looms, our temptation is to look for an assuring path and simply ask God, “God, what are we supposed to do?” But maybe that’s the wrong question. Perhaps the question should really be, “God, who do you want us to be?” Because in the end, history reveals that our faith in God matters. It matters a great deal. Amen.
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