In a recent Newsweek magazine article entitled, "Marriage Is Hard: The religious right admits it" (Oct. 19, 2009), writer Lisa Miller begins by drawing a contrast between the convictions and conduct of two professing Christians: Billy Graham and Senator John Ensign (R-NV). In describing the Reverend Billy Graham she writes:

Billy Graham had a rule. He was a powerful man, away from his wife and children more often than he was with them. Aware of the significance of his reputation and convinced of the moral value of the Gospel message, he took precautions to guard against his own human weakness. He gave his ministry colleagues explicit instructions: never leave me alone in a room with a woman who is not my wife.

By contrast, Senator Ensign admitted to an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer and wife of a top aide in his office this past June. Of Senator Ensign, Miller writes: 

If only someone had given John Ensign similar advice. Or if someone did, that he'd heeded it. The Ensign story continues to reverberate not because of its delicious best-friend's-girl plotline (for who among us is surprised anymore that politicians sleep around?), but because he said he stood for something else. He is a "family values" Republican who voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton and in 2004 lent his support to a constitutional amendment defining marriage, saying, "Marriage is an extremely important institution in this country, and protecting it is, in my mind, worth the extraordinary step of amending our Constitution." 

It isn't my intention to vilify Senator Ensign or pile on to man who is suffering the effects of his own sin. I am truly sad for him and his family. We all suffer from the destruction of a single family and Miller adds a painfully obvious point by saying, "Ensign has become the latest example of what so many see as the failure of the right to retain any credibility on the marriage question." 

However, as Christians our foremost concern is not the political right or left but the Christian church that is called to bear testimony to the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is why marriage both as an ideal and in reality should matter to the church, because its condition within the body of Christ either serves or opposes the gospel of the kingdom. We are simply called and empowered to live according to a higher standard—lives that should bear witness to a people who have been changed by God.

Of course the world has every right to expect this, especially when we assume the authority to speak on any moral issue. Ms. Miller echoes this expectation specific to marriage when she writes, "Of course, every person who utters ‘till death do us part' and then separates is, in a sense, conceding defeat. But when evangelicals are leading the charge in the marriage movement (and now, the anti-gay-marriage movement) arguing that sacred unions between one man and one woman are good for society because they're good for children, one would hope that they'd have worked out the kinks a little better than the rest of us."

Again, secular Newsweek magazine makes the ugly but all-too-apparent point, "No one denies that conservative Christians have a marriage problem, a dizzying gap between their articulated ideals and their success in achieving them." Miller points out that "according to the Pew Forum, evangelicals are more likely to be divorced than Roman Catholics, Mormons, the Eastern Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and atheists." Linda Malone-Colon, Ph.D., a conservative advocate of marriage and director of the National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting gets straight to the point by saying, "It's as true with Christians as it is with other religious groups. They don't live by what they're talking about." Ouch!

Returning to our contrast between Billy Graham and John Ensign, one must ask, "What was the difference?" The immediate response might be, "Well, of course, Billy Graham is simply the better Christian." But Billy Graham, as wonderful as he is, isn't the recipient of more particular grace than anyone else. Granted, Billy Graham likely understood something about himself that Mr. Ensign did not, namely his own sin nature. Rev. Graham didn't think he was above temptation; he placed no confidence in the flesh. Quite the contrary, he didn't trust in himself at all, which is why he took the added precaution of asking others to help protect him—not from seductive women—but from himself. Billy Graham was perhaps wiser than Mr. Ensign, but he wasn't supernaturally immune to temptation.

More importantly, the Reverend Billy Graham understands the value of the larger Christian community and its rightful relationship to his life. At the very least, we are far more vulnerable to sin and destruction when independent and isolated than we are under the care (and accountability) of a loving community. Further, the Christian life is not an event in which we compete for the "individual gold medal" but a corporate life in which we seek the spiritual growth and restoration of the whole community. This is not happening on the scale that it should within the American church. Too many Christians remain individualized, isolated, alienated—and subsequently the church fails to flourish in its mission and purpose. My days are frequently filled counseling those who have found no support within their churches.

Furthermore, this "life together," as Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued, is not about "good experiences," but rather concerns real relations as we abide together in Christ—who is and who becomes present in the life of the body. Neither is this life together to be confused with a romantic sense of community, nor is it to be exclusively self-serving. The Christian community exists in Christ for the sake of the world, and when this common life together is not seen, both the church and the world suffer. It is the difference between actually being the church and simply doing church. Life in the body involves loving, sustaining, and supporting one another, in practice and in prayer, through the vicissitudes of life.

Because we all too often fail to foster the relationships essential to true Christian community, we cannot abide together in Christ. Consequently, we remain relatively indifferent to both sin and sinner in the church. We are reluctant to confront when necessary, seeking to arrest sin's destructive effect and restore the sinner. The result? Sin reigns within the church; marriages unravel and families are destroyed and the body of Christ looks no different from the world.

It is not enough to respond to the marriage crisis within the church by saying, "My marriage is fine!" If we abide together in Christ, then we together must prepare and care for marriage generally, and intervene specifically when any marriage is endangered. Practically this means we become more transparent in our struggles; we ask for help! It means we seek to restore sinners and thus we stop "shooting the wounded" when they share their weakness. Finally, we must engage in the spiritual warfare of which Paul speaks in Ephesians 6:10-18, setting captives free, fighting against the sin (not the sinner) that destroys, divides, and weakens the body.

In conclusion, we must take seriously our life together in Christ, bringing the abiding love of Christ to bear on each other and stop ceding the body's matrimonial and familial ground to the enemy.

© 2009 by S. Michael Craven

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S. Michael Craven is the President of the Center for Christ & Culture and the author of Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturalized Christianity (Navpress, 2009). Michael's ministry is dedicated to equipping the church to engage the culture with the redemptive mission of Christ. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture and the teaching ministry of S. Michael Craven, visit: www.battlefortruth.org

 

 

It has become all too easy for Christians to fall into a state of pessimism—even despair—over the state of our culture today. This is in some way understandable in light of the last fifty years. The once Christian character of the nation seems to have all but disappeared. While Christianity remains a visible presence in American life, clearly its influence on the culture is negligible.

Large segments of the church have become apathetic, conformed to the culture, or completely at odds with historic orthodox Christianity. While most Americans describe themselves as Christian in some way (77 percent), closer examination indicates that this is grossly overstated in terms of representing historic orthodox Christianity. Many simply describe themselves as Christians because they happened to be born into that tradition or they aren't consciously and admittedly atheist.

Despite the widespread veneer of religiosity (or spirituality), religion in general and Christianity in particular finds itself increasingly shut out from the public square, stripped of any real social and cultural significance. Christianity remains tolerated (for now) but the course of our society no longer finds itself under the guidance of serious Christian thought. And the evidence for this abounds in everything from widespread moral decay, changing values relative to human life and dignity, to the rise of Orwellian scientific ventures, and shifting economic and political theories. In short, there is scant evidence indicating that we are headed toward a better future; our historic social, economic, and spiritual gains are suffering a sharp reversal.

So is it easy to despair? Sure. Is there reason to hope that anything will change? Can the tide of immorality, paganism, and general debauchery that threatens to swamp us even be arrested, much less reversed? Can the moral character of the nation—once rooted in a vigorous Christian faith—be recovered? I believe history offers numerous examples where God, in his providence, has done so—and clearly this goal would be in keeping with God's character. The record of Israel throughout the Old Testament testifies to this cyclical pattern of blessing and prosperity followed by unfaithfulness, which led to spiritual and sometimes real captivity, only to be repeated once the nation repented.

More recently a notable rescue of the church and the nation took place in Great Britain during the latter days of the eighteenth century. This might surprise you. Eighteenth-century England was pagan, debauched, and ungodly? Yes!

There is a tendency to think in linear terms relative to the course of history and the church. In other words, we assume that things were once good, especially in America. But there has been a continuous and gradual descent to a lower condition. To be sure, many things were probably better in some ways in the past, but some things were also worse, and the complex course of redemptive history defies such simple and categorical explanation.  History confirms the more cyclical pattern indicated above, in which we see both the blessings and judgments of God poured out on the nations.

My good friend Eric Metaxas underscores this very point, relative to an overly romanticized view of eighteenth-century England, in his outstanding biography of William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace:


These deplorable social and moral conditions, which Eric's book reveals in much greater depth, began with the loss of what Wilberforce called, "real Christianity." Following his own conversion at the age of twenty-five, Wilberforce would write about the state of the church in Britain saying, "With Christianity, professing Christians are little acquainted. Their views of Christianity have been so cursory and superficial that they have little more than perceived those exterior circumstances which distinguish it from other forms of religion. These circumstances are some few facts, and perhaps some leading doctrines and principles, of which they cannot be wholly ignorant. But of the consequences, relations, and practical uses of these principles, they have few ideas—or none at all." This same statement could easily be applied to the church in our own day in America.

This point is reinforced by Eric Metaxas' in-depth exposition of eighteenth-century British culture. Eric writes:


In essence, the moral decadence of eighteenth-century Britain was the result of a process similar to our own. A nation once characterized by its Christian faith had gradually become unfaithful. The church retreated from its mission and the increasingly secularized culture was all too willing to hasten its departure. Christian ideas and values were replaced by secular humanistic schemes and utilitarian values. To the faithful Christians of that era, the situation must have seemed as hopeless as our own.

However, history records that William Wilberforce—buoyed by the spiritual movements of John Wesley and George Whitefield—would live to see his nation and the world utterly changed by God. Not only would the most evil institution in the history of the world be abolished—human slavery—but the world's superpower, Great Britain, would experience extraordinary moral, social, and spiritual reform that would last for nearly another century. The faithfulness of these few followers who took the Bible seriously and who refused to lay down and die in the face of what seemed impossible would serve to bless the whole world. Beyond rendering slavery an unacceptable evil, the unprecedented missionary activity of the nineteenth century and the formation of countless missionary and relief organizations (some of which still exist) stand as a reminder to Wilberforce and his faithfulness. 

© 2009 by S. Michael Craven

IF YOU ARE IN THE DALLAS-FT. WORTH AREA, I INVITE TO HEAR AND MEET ERIC METAXAS

This Thursday evening, October 22nd at 7:00 p.m., you are invited to Trinity Presbyterian Church in Plano, TX, and hear Eric Metaxas as he illuminates this remarkable period in history. You will be inspired and encouraged as we are reminded that our God reigns and he is often pleased to bless the nation on behalf of a few faithful followers.

For more information on this free event visit our website.

For those you of you outside the Dallas-Fort Worth area I would strongly encourage you to read Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas. This is unquestionably the best biography that I have ever read!

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S. Michael Craven is the President of the Center for Christ & Culture and the author of Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturalized Christianity (Navpress, 2009). Michael's ministry is dedicated to equipping the church to engage the culture with the redemptive mission of Christ. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture and the teaching ministry of S. Michael Craven, visit: www.battlefortruth.org
 

A recent study reports that rock and pop stars are "more than twice as likely to die an early death." According to research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, "When compared with the rest of the population in the UK and the US, rock and pop stars were around twice as likely to die early and even more likely to do so within five years of becoming famous." Names like Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, and most recently Michael Jackson immediately come to mind.

While the aforementioned study focused on pop and rock stars, fame in general seems to exact a heavy toll. The dissolution of Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage, Lindsey Lohan's infantile recklessness, Heath Ledger's tragic overdose, and Owen Wilson's suicide attempt in 2007 reminds us of the frequently high price of celebrity. The news continually invites us to follow the parade of depressed, addicted, and reckless celebrities into rehab, which has become a burgeoning industry in its own right. In fact, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, which launched in January 2008, has become popular entertainment.

Yet despite the ample and never-ending evidence that fame, fortune, and beauty fail to bring lasting peace and satisfaction—in fact, often quite the contrary—Americans are more celebrity-obsessed than ever. I am not making light of the suffering of those who happen to be famous. I am saddened for the lives of those who have come to ruin in such a public way. What caring human being cannot be troubled by the public destruction of Jon and Kate's family, the tragic course of Michael Jackson's life, or even the morally vacuous Paris Hilton, who is as much a victim of irresponsible, over-indulgent parenting as anything else? We should be deeply concerned for a society that has elevated mere celebrity to hero status and for a church that has been flaccid in asserting the true virtues of heroism.

In his excellent book, True Heroism in a World of Celebrity Counterfeits (NavPress, 1995), Dick Keyes writes that:

Throughout history, most generations have passed their values on to their children not by giving them lists of rules and laws to follow, but principally by telling them stories that embody the values of their culture.


Keyes adds, "Our fascination with heroes comes from a hunger for excellence. Without heroes the whole source of imaginative motivation is disengaged from life. Without heroes, what will inspire us to go beyond mediocrity and cynicism? What will keep us from becoming bored and boring?" And what do bored people do? They seek after the idols of amusement, food, and things to assuage and/or medicate their boredom. This might account for the plethora of giant screen TVs, the epidemic of childhood obesity, and rapacious consumerism so rampant in our culture.

Jonathan Swift, the Irish cleric and author of Gulliver's Travels wrote, "Whoe'er excels in what we prize, appears a hero in our eyes." This might explain, in part, the cultural shift from true heroes to the celebrity-as-hero phenomenon. What we prize has changed! Whereas we once prized honor, integrity, virtue, courage, and the like, we now prize fame, fortune, and beauty. The celebrity serves as the ideal "hero" in such a culture, despite their apparent moral failures and lack of any real virtue, because even in their worst moments, they often still retain their fame, fortune, and beauty. With the jettisoning of biblical values (i.e., virtue), celebrities have become the default heroes of the age and these are the "stories"—along with their bankrupt values—to which our children are subtly encouraged to aspire.

Even within Christian circles we have begun to see the infiltration of the celebrity-based valuation. There are a growing number of pastors, authors, and public figures who are lauded not for their substantive teaching and theological knowledge but because they have achieved some level of fame. Churches frequently rely on the "celebrity-testimonial" to attract audiences. Why? Because it works! I have heard a number of these good people and I've often been shocked by their inability to articulate a coherent faith. Being famous seems to be all that matters.  

MTV, that great creator and purveyor of false heroes, commissioned a study on youth from the research firm Social Technologies. Researchers reported that "Youth, especially younger people, fantasize about fame …" Nearly one-third said they wanted to be famous. Being famous has become their career goal! The tragedy is that these young people simply aspire to fame and riches and not to any sort of moral excellence or virtue.

We have allowed the culture to redefine heroism and human excellence based on what the world values. Dick Keyes is here again helpful:


The answers to these questions are ultimately found in Christ. True heroes are not always "the visible winners in our society." Such was the certainly the case with Jesus, whose earthly ministry appeared to suffer the ultimate defeat but in the end he was the ultimate hero in all of human history. Jesus Christ—fully God and fully man—embodies the highest aspirations of love, moral virtue, self-sacrifice, and courage. Christ, the true hero, engages our imagination and motivates us to try to make that virtue—those kingdom values and principles—our own. Granted, we must be aided in these efforts by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit but for those whose souls have been quickened by His grace, the choice to "seek first the kingdom" remains ours.

The church must seek first to embrace and live out these seemingly upside-down virtues of Christ and his kingdom. We must recover the belief that Jesus Christ is the standard by which all heroes are to be measured and the church must pass these virtues to its children in more compelling ways than feeding kids pizza and treating them to video games!

Our failure in this area has resulted in changed cultural values, which in turn has changed our "heroes." Subsequently our stories have changed. Instead of inspiring a generation to excellence in moral virtue, we are increasingly indoctrinating children in secular humanist propaganda over and against biblical truth. Perhaps offering schoolchildren the story of the Good Samaritan would better serve the needs of society than the story of Heather Has Two Mommies!

(DISCLAIMER: The subject of this article is NOT about Elvis Presley nor is it a condemnation of Elvis Presley [or any other celebrity figure] so please do not write to me and tell me that I have maligned a "great Christian man" by including his name among the notable famous whose lives came to tragic ends.)

© 2009 by S. Michael Craven

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S. Michael Craven is the President of the Center for Christ & Culture and the author of Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturalized Christianity (Navpress, 2009). Michael's ministry is dedicated to equipping the church to engage the culture with the redemptive mission of Christ. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture and the teaching ministry of S. Michael Craven, visit: www.battlefortruth.org

 

In my last commentary, I argued that the prevailing lack of distinction between Christian and non-Christian marriage serves as a barometer indicating a serious lack of spiritual depth and theological understanding within the American church.

Reaction to this article overwhelmingly confirmed this suspicion. That is not a condemnation of those so afflicted, but rather an indictment of those who have been called to teach and lead them. Clearly we have failed to make disciples who know their God, his Word, and themselves to such a degree that they are able to navigate the challenges of life from a consciously biblical worldview.

To all of you who responded with your particular situations and generously shared your very personal and painful struggles, I do not, in any way, mean to minimize the depth of your suffering and sorrow as you endure what are clearly difficult marital situations. I have been struck with grief by the accounts of so many families suffering through severe pain and heartbreak. Sadly, so much of this suffering is attributable to unbiblical decisions, including those made prior to marriage, such as being unequally yoked. There are misguided expectations in which one spouse seeks from another that which only Christ can provide, not realizing that this is a form of idolatry. And, of course, there are the false expectations that being Christian will somehow insulate you from trial and tribulation.

I received hundreds of responses to my "Jerk" article that began with every form of qualifying statement imaginable. In an effort to justify their desire for or choice to divorce, many wrote things like, "What if my husband…"; "But my wife doesn't…"; or "I can't believe my God wouldn't want me to be happy…"; and on and on. This personal, almost Gnostic god drawn from their own wants and desires rather than Scripture was particularly troubling; this attitude can serve to justify just about anything we feel or want to do.

There were also many who were desperately seeking answers to questions related to complex relational issues such as spiritual, emotional and financial abandonment; adultery; sexual addictions; abuse; and many more. I corresponded with many of these dear brothers and sisters and in so many cases the local church was completely uninvolved. This seemed more common than I would have ever imagined. Too many churches and leaders, it seems, are disengaged from the spiritual warfare raging through families in the church. In many instances, it was clear that church leaders were simply out of their depth, lacking the biblical knowledge and skill necessary to intervene and counsel these families through their crises. Marriages within the church are under attack and yet too many of us seem to stand by, concerned no doubt, but basically doing nothing!

I only heard from one person out of these hundreds who indicated that any kind of biblical church discipline was undertaken in her situation. In most cases, the offending spouses (professing Christians, mind you!) were never even confronted. The church simply wasn't involved. I was also shocked to hear from wives of pastors, men who simply abandoned their marriages. In essence, sin is being allowed to reign unchecked in the church—and we wonder why Christianity has become marginalized in America!

Granted, there are good pastors and leaders that still take sin seriously; they understand the nature of spiritual warfare that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6 and that such warfare occurs within the home. Thus they take their stand in defense of these families working tirelessly toward reconciliation through the mess that sin creates. These pastors are able to recognize the schemes of the devil who comes to destroy that which God has created, including the family. May there be more of these and less of the former!

As I wrote previously, so much of this mess unfolding in the church is, I believe, attributable to a privatized understanding of the gospel. Ultimately this translates into the "Jesus came to make me happy" proposition. I believe this misunderstanding is often at the root of what enables Christians to so easily tear apart what God has joined together. In essence, we are committing vandalism on God's creation—and we appear to do this without any fear of God.

Practically speaking, under the privatized or reductionist gospel paradigm, Christianity tends to become what researcher Christian Smith terms, moralistic, therapeutic, deism (MTD). Under this notion, the focus of the Christian life remains fixed largely upon the self. Christianity tends to be seen primarily as means to becoming moral, an activity one seeks mostly on one's own effort through what could be described as "sin management" and for which the reward is heaven, i.e., do more good than bad and you'll be okay. Second, according to MTD, the Christian may view Jesus' primary purpose in this world as being to extricate him from trouble when life goes bad. Here again, the emphasis remains on our wants and our needs (which have little to do with becoming holy) and treats suffering as a condition to be avoided, rather than a means God uses to develop our character. Finally, the deistic element treats God and Jesus as distant realities, not really involved in our daily affairs, which ultimately strips the Christian of any real authority or purpose in this world. This is Christ-less Christianity that has no power!

As for suffering, we know from Scripture that suffering will be present in the life and maturation of the Christian. However, what is becoming apparent is that so many of our marital sufferings are due to our own bad choices, made worse by our lack of trust in Christ to heal the situation.

There are two issues before us. First, the church is not doing enough to prepare couples for covenant marriage. In other words, we are not "making disciples" as we have been commanded. This is simply one more symptom of the reductionist gospel in which we are focused only on achieving "conversions" rather than fulfilling the Great Commission.

Second, the church—everyone one of us—must be prepared to intervene and work to rescue those marriages that come under assault. This means that those of you struggling in your marriages need to engage your church family and your leaders. There is no biblical mandate to suffer in silence. You have been joined to the body of Christ and this body is called to "bear one another's burdens," working together to resist the effects of the fall and to restore sinners. 

Finally, once engaged, the church must resolve to wage war against the sin that threatens its families, using the weapons of spiritual warfare outlined in Ephesians 6:10-17. There can be no equivocation in this battle; either we will take up arms in service to our King or we will find ourselves vanquished—not by the culture but by our own sin!

© 2009 by S. Michael Craven

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S. Michael Craven is the President of the Center for Christ & Culture and the author of Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturalized Christianity (Navpress, 2009). Michael's ministry is dedicated to equipping the church to engage the culture with the redemptive mission of Christ. For more information on the Center for Christ & Culture and the teaching ministry of S. Michael Craven, visit: www.battlefortruth.org