Opponents in the Culture War Don’t Listen

Maybe you’ve experienced it. Surely you have at least witnessed it. Relationships have their ups and downs. Sometimes they deteriorate and sometimes they deteriorate to the extent that you don’t hear what each other is saying. The deterioration has a deleterious impact on your communication and it is so hard to recover. When you say something, the other person doesn’t hear what you are saying. Rather, they hear what they think you mean rather than what you actually are saying or what you mean. Sometimes your communication partner will even assign motive to what you are saying and by the time they process what came out of your mouth, it is nothing like what you actually meant. When you reach this state, you just don’t hear each other and it is hard to repair the relationship because you just don’t hear each other. You just talk past each other and the emotions heat up and you get angrier and angrier with each other.

This is where race relations are in this country. The different sides in the culture war are just yelling slogans at each other. People are yelling and not listening. The slogans used are employed to advance a particular narrative on race relations. Opponents are caricatured and very little listening is done.

Some chant “Black Lives Matter!” while others yell “All lives matter.” Some say “Make America Great Again” while others are infuriated by the slogan. The truth of the matter is, other than the rare exception, nearly all Americans would agree that black lives matter and that all lives matter. Nearly all Americans want America to be great. It is not the statement or slogans but it is the unspoken statements that make those on both sides of the culture war angry. It is the assumptions we are making about people when they use terms like “systemic racism” or “white privilege.” We aren’t communicating with each other. I feel like it is like the relationship that has reached that point where you just aren’t communicating. We just aren’t hearing each other. We are talking past each other and just getting angrier and angrier.

So, I am wondering if we have past the point of no return. How do we get to a point of where both sides can hear each other and listen to the legitimate concerns that both sides have in the race debate? Both sides have to be willing to listen.

Today’s cultural conversation is about police brutality against the black minority. One side of the cultural debate has a particular negative point of view about law enforcement. Is there anything that law enforcement can do in order to get the black community’s trust? Will the black community be satisfied with anything less than being freed of the shackles of police? Is there a way to move forward or will there be division in our society forever.

There is hope for our society. Change can happen but it won’t come through reconciling the two sides of the culture war. The change will happen through heart change and it must happen one person at a time. Hope is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ and nothing else will change the strife and division that we see. It ebbs and flows but it is always there. Sometimes it is below the surface and at other times it erupts like it is now. But the strife is always there. It can only be overcome with heart change. The heart change I am referring to is the change that Jesus bring to a heart that is dead in trespasses and in sin and He comes and gives a new heart. This new heart views the world in light of God’s laws and the fact that we have committed sins for which we deserve death as our punishment. It sees others as better than ourselves and places the interest of others above our own. It sees others as people that are loved enough that Christ would die and take the penalty for their sins. Without this heart change and the transforming power of the gospel, things will not get better. May the prayer of our hearts be, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Soli Deo Gloria

 

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Culture of Denial

For some reason our culture is now trying to deny or cover up what is sadly part of our history.  We want to pretend that there was no slavery in our country by removing the confederate flag and banishing it from every possible place.  We want to deny the fact that revered leaders of our country had slaves and that this great evil was ubiquitous in our country — in the south and in the north.  We want to deny the history of racism and segregation.  It is almost as if people think that if they cover it up so it is out of sight, we can pretend that it never happened. It happened.  Sadly, it is part of our history.  It is undeniable.  We should learn from the past and not just try to cover it up.

There is another part of our past that we try to deny.  We try to deny the fact that we are born a spiritually dead people in our trespasses and sin.  Yet our society tries to tell itself that people are inherently good.  They say that we are evolving into something better and they can do this without God.  The truth is that we have inherited Adam’s original sin.  We cannot deny it.  Even if we do, it does not make it any less of a fact.  Rather than denying our condition of sin we should face up to it and realize that God has provided a perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. May we not live in denial. May we, rather, turn to Christ our sacrificial lamb in repentance and faith.  Let’s not deny that we are sinners but recognize the truth.  We are sinners in need of a savior.   May we turn our eyes upon that savior and cast ourselves on Him.

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Youth Are Not Leaving the Church

There has been much made lately on youth leaving the church. I subscribe to a lot of podcasts where this has been a topic of conversation. This is not a conversation among just Calvinists or just Arminians but is a conversation that is taking place among Evangelicals of all stripes. There is apparently some kind of data, collected by someone like Barna, that supports this position. What the experts are saying is that American Evanglicals who are active in church as a youth have a tendency to leave the church once they graduate from high school, leave home, and go to college.

I am someone who was part of church youth in high school and left home to go to college and remained in the church. I experienced college as someone who was part of a local church and am still part of a local body of believers today. I now have children who are youth-aged. In fact, I am a parent of multiple teenagers. (Feel free to pray for me. I need it.) I sit watching the youth of our day praying that I don’t screw up as a parent and that my kids will have faith in Christ that will be their own and that their faith will continue to grow into adulthood and that they would be committed lifelong disciples of Christ.

What I see from so many youth today is that they are not part of the church as young people. Their parents take them to church and drop them off with the youth group. They hang out with a bunch of youth at church. They have Sunday School with their peers — which is positive since they are all experiencing the challenges of transitioning from childhood to adulthood. While at the youth group, they usually sit around on comfortable sofas because we all know that NOBODY would come if they had to sit in uncomfortable straight back chairs (gasp)! They listen to relevant music and not that boring stuff their parents listen to. And often times, they sit around and complain about how they are not respected because of their youth all the while remaining in their youth cocoon. After Sunday School, or Bible Study, they head off to the worship center for Sunday morning worship. And guess who they sit with during worship? That’s right: they sit with youth. After worship, they find their parents and ask to go eat lunch with the their friends in the youth.

On Sunday night often times the youth have their own get together for more fellowship and study — separate from adults. On Wednesday nights they are with the youth again. They may even have some other get-together on Friday or Saturday because there isn’t enough youth fellowship time already. Yes, I am being a bit sarcastic here.

So, I’ve mentioned four meetings at church: Sunday School, worship, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. How many of those times do the youth at your church integrate with the church body and how many times are they with just the youth? Your answer is probably that the youth are with just youth about 75% or 100% of the time, if your church is like most American churches. If this is the case, how can we say that’s youth are leaving the church? I don’t think we can say that. I submit to you that youth are not leaving the church. I say that they were never part of the church–at least not while they were in the youth group. What they were part of during their youth years was a para-church group called “the youth ministry” but were not really part of the local church. If your church is like this, here are some critical things that your young person is missing out on.

1. First and foremost, they are missing out on worshiping with their family — particularly their mom and dad. They need to see that mom and dad are serious about worship and that they are there to worship God; not just to take their kid to the youth group. They need to see that mom and dad take the sermon seriously by taking notes and not texting and checking Facebook during the preaching.

2. They miss out on the inter-generational nature of the body of Christ. By being with youth all the time they are hanging out with those who are facing similar problems. That is true. But why not hang out (sometimes) with people who have already experienced those problems and have come through them? Why not learn lessons from people who can encourage youth as examples of those who have been through those tumultuous years?

3. They miss out on opportunities to serve and to be the body of Christ. To be part of the church they should be plugged in. They have no right to complain about being disrespected by adults due to their age if they aren’t trying to plug in and serve. Let us not encourage our youth to be spiritual navel gazers but people who are committed to building up the body of Christ by serving!

So, why shouldn’t youth drop out of church when they go to college. They don’t know what it is like to be part of the church and how beautiful the bride of Christ really is. Don’t misunderstand me. Teenagers need teenage friends. They need to know how to build friendships and develop relationships and hold each other accountable in the Lord. However, I don’t think that their relationships should be limited to those with peers. I am praying for a change in the church youth culture and that this change would take place before all of the youth that were never in the church leave the church.

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