I finished reading How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer this week. Basically, Shaeffer starts with Ancient Rome and traces the effect of Christianity on philosophy, art, music, and culture until the mid-1970's (when the book was written). The first 10 chapters are historical in nature, and are quite interesting. Starting in Chapter 11, though, Schaeffer starts to critique our own culture; the result is convicting.
In Chapter 11, Schaeffer asserts that "As the more Christian-dominated consensus weakened, the majority of people adopted two impoverished values: personal peace and affluence." The values of personal peace and affluence are everywhere. We don't want to do anything that will "rock the boat", whether or not it is right or Godly. We will do anything to make sure that we are "comfortable". I am afraid that many political decisions these days are made with reference to making us comfortable and happy and have very little to do with Godly values.
Affluence as a value is all around us. It is becoming expected that we will have a large home, new cars, and lots of cool toys. But, God calls us to a deeper life than just having "stuff". Jesus didn't even have a home. As a society, we have developed social structures just so that we can keep up our level of affluence. It is the norm for families to live on two incomes. Kids are sent to school when parents would prefer to homeschool because of the financial implications. [Of course, it is easy for me to talk about this right now since we haven't actually been forced to live on just Mr. Math Teacher's salary yet.] Our family has started down the road of becoming less dependent on our stuff. Our current home has only one bathroom and no dishwasher. We just gave up cable (ouch!). We now have the chance to spend more time on relationships - with family members but also with our neighbors.
The message at church this morning was the beginning of a series called "Architecture of a Movement" in which the pastors will be teaching about the Church - it's beginnings, where it is headed, and where our local church should be headed. One of his main points today was that Christianity is not "safe". In this country, we experience very little persecution for our faith. This is in serious contrast to many other countries. Check out Voice of the Martyrs for some stories of modern day martyrs and people who are currently imprisoned for their faith. If our faith is "safe", then we aren't really living it out. We should be willing to risk our "personal peace" and "affluence" (as Schaeffer puts it) in order to make a difference in our world.
What does this mean for me and my family? It means that we need to get more aggressive about getting our debt paid off and using our money in a Godly way - supporting missionaries and ministries right now. It means taking my kids to the nursing home and/or nutrition center regularly to minister to others in our community. It means a more concerted effort to get to know our neighbors and be a blessing to them - even at the expense of schoolwork or housework. It means daily reassessing our values - how does this action further the kingdom of God? Is this the best thing for me to do today/right now? How can I model love and giving to my kids? How can I be the love of Jesus to my neighbors?
In summary, I highly recommend that you read Schaeffer's book. Chuck Colson has written How Should We Now Live? which is supposed to take up where Schaeffer left off. I'll let you know what I think when I'm done with it. In the meantime, I have found plenty to chew on from Schaeffer's book.
P.S. Check out "Me and Becky" by Chris Rice. It's a musical treatment of leaving our comfortable Christian confines to really impact the world.
1 comment:
C and I took Chuck Colson's Bible study on How Shall We Now Live and it was great! C reads alot of books on political/religious topics so much of it was review for him, but I found it very educational! When you read through it, you will find that we, as Christians, are actually getting persecuted in this country for our faith in Jesus Christ. Not physically like you read about in Voice of the Martyrs , but in other ways. We are trying to be silenced and told that our faith has nothing to do with the founding of this country. C has read a good book called Persecution by David Limbaugh and I've read The Name by Franklin Graham---C and I talked about both of these books and they seem to cover alot of the same info---here in America, Christianity is under attack and most Christians don't even know it (because you don't hear about it in our mainstream media). Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcy do a great job of sharing how to counter the claim that "creationism" is religious by providing proven scientific facts! Ironically enough, weeks after C and I finished this Bible study, I was talking with my cousin's wife here in GA. Come to find out my cousin is an aethist and she wasn't sure there is a God. I was able to share some "scientific proof" that was talked about in this book which really made her think that there is an "intelligent designer" (as she put it). This initial conversation has prompted many additional talks about the Christian religion (only with my cousin's wife though). It's amazing how God will use us when we don't even know it!
I also watched the Coral Ridge Hour yesterday since I'm not able to sit in church now. Dr. Kennedy's sermon was titled "Returning to Your First Love" (who is Christ). Great sermon----really convicted me! But after the sermon, there was a 20 minute clip on "Censoring the Church". It mainly talked about how Christians who stand up for what's right(protesting gay rights, abortion, etc.) are getting put in jail because they're quoting the Bible, which is viewed as hate speech (not freedom of speech anymore). Very disturbing stuff! This has apparently happened more than once and is becoming a pattern. We're going to get a copy of this DVD "Censoring the Church". Another great DVD we got from Coral Ridge is America's Courts Progress and Peril with Alan Sears and Alan Keyes. It's an awesome DVD which speaks about how our constitutional rights are being taken away by the judges in America. We're showing it to everyone we know because it contains such vital information. We, as Christians, need to step up and stand up for what's right----God's values not our cultures! Jesus tells us to stand up for Him and so many Christians are sitting back, taking a backseat and letting these things slide. Financially supporting the Christian ministries is certainly one way to fight the fight, but this also raises the point that Christians need to be very aware of who they put into office, including judges because they seem to be taking more power than they're entitled to, according to the U.S. Constitution. I highly recommend this DVD!
There's also a great song you may have heard by Nicole Nordeman called Legacy. It's one of my favorites. It talks about leaving a legacy to our children, as godly examples. To us, that's what this whole parenting thing is about----showing our children how to love Jesus and pointing them to Him! I was fortunate enough to hear Nicole live in concert this past September at the annual MOPS convention and she talked about this before she sang the song. It has so much more meaning to me now.
Post a Comment