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LIQUIDTHINKING IS: Stephen Zedler Jimmy Doyle Andy Mullins Current Sountrack
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Monday, May 09, 2005
Culture Course I don't hear my father speak ill of America often. He's one of those eternal optimists... the type of person who believes in the innate morality of the ideals that the American system was founded on. In a lot of ways, I agree with him. In a lot of ways, I wish I could, but I feel like I know too much. One day, when I was younger, he came home from a church meeting. He didn't say anything to us... the kids. But he talked to my mother in one of those conversations where you know it's something that's weighing on him, even though I couldn't really understand it. Later, I asked mom what was up. "Your father thinks that America might be the whore of Babylon." "The one in Revelations?" My youth group was obsessed with Revelations. It's all we talked about, mainly because all the kids in there got the same thrill out of hearing the typical fundamentalist interpretation of it that other people get out of having their palms read. When my brother and I graduated from high school, we'd gotten barely anything about the value system of the Kingdom of God from that group, but we sure knew that timeline of the "End Times." "Yeah... that one." "Why?" "Well... things are just getting so much darker." I heard it again on this guy's television show (I was waiting for Batman to come on on Saturday morning). "Our culture is becoming more and more course. Things are getting much darker. Even Christians are accepting lies in exchange for the truth." He had just gotten through teaching a group of people that Isaiah tells us that anyone who partakes in alcohol will burn in hell for eternity (I'm not exaggerating). It came up yet again in our Bible study last week as we looked at 2 Timothy. "But realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good." Someone mentioned that things seemed a good deal less moral today than they did even twenty years ago. I had agreed to hold my tongue. Then the guy leading the study asked, "I suppose everyone agrees with this.... Does everyone agree with this?" I piped up. "Well, I question it sometimes." "How so?" These people in my Bible study are all great people... honestly interested in different opinions. I just wish they weren't always seeming to come from me. I can be annoying. "Well, I mean, think about our history. As recently as 150 years ago, a lot of people... a lot of CHRISTIANS... thought it was okay to own people. We had the absurd notion that women would somehow be defiled by being allowed to vote. Think about Ancient Rome... I mean, talk about a culture that was obsessed with violence. When you think about the way people WERE, in a lot of ways, we've gotten a lot better. Sometimes I just wonder if we're simply trading sins." I still don't know what I think about this. Sometimes I'll be the first to admit that things are going down the toilet. But I think, to a lot of Christians, the only things they're thinking about when they say this are sexual issues and abortion. If I were to think that our culture is getting "darker", it's because it's getting a lot harder to even be nice to people. Kindergarten teachers are told not to hug their kids for fear of being sued. Teenage girls who want to hand out Valentine's cookies to their neighbors get fined for "scaring" one of the residents. We are so separated from the poor and the oppressed... those MOST in need of good news... that you practically have to become a social worker in order to even be around the people who scriptures tell us to be looking out for. It's gotten dangerous to even do nice things for people. Apparently, though, many Christians believe that the answer to our course culture is laws against sexually suggestive cheerleading moves, impeaching "activist" judges, and protecting marriage from gay people. But, like I said, I still don't know what I think about this. What do you think? Are things going downhill, or are we victims of the nostalgia bug?
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Jimmy Doyle is a dad, husband,
teacher, friend, and other things. Currently he's just trying to figure out what it means to follow Christ and be in community with others. He enjoys having conversations with fellow pilgrims on the journey.
Stephen Zedler has a wife and three kids who he loves very much. He has been called by God to study and teach history, particularly U.S.
history. He also believes that God has called him to reform the way children are educated in America.