Drifting Toward Dumbness

Part One

Access to technology precludes the need to develop thinking. The attitude among many of today’s youth is, “Why take the time and effort to memorize when I have immediate access to the answer? You do not memorize the answer to 96 times 84, so why should I memorize nine times nine? I have machines that give me the immediate answer to both questions. I can easily ‘Google’ any question I want answered.”

People do not wish to think deeply about subjects; they do not perceive they have the time to do it, and society creates the impression that it is not necessary. In talking with the headmaster of a private school, he said that the faculty has difficulty motivating the students to concentrate on a subject for the fifty minutes of class. Education has been replaced with entertainment. The “gadgets” available to them easily distract students, and evidently they cannot discipline their minds to focus on a subject for even fifty minutes.

The New York Times recently reported, “As more people do their reading on e-readers and smartphones, some publishers are specializing in works that are longer than a typical magazine article, but shorter than the usual novel.”

As entertainment replaces reading, children develop virtual relationships via texting. Email is being replaced by texting, while writing letters is a thing of the past. Constant interaction via texting has replaced relationships, and the result is young people have lost the art of interpersonal communication and relationships. The lack of attention span also affects their ability to develop relationships with one another.

I hear people say, “I am a visual learner in the sense that I have to see images rather than words in order to learn. If I can see it happening, then I can focus and give it my attention.” If we assume this to be the case, then what difference exists between learning and being entertained? Exacerbating this problem is the fact that people do not see reality clearly. This is why four people can observe an auto accident and each of the four give a different report on what happened.

If you read a page from a book, you can set the book aside, think about what you have read, and then read it again. Words have meanings, and the meanings communicate concepts. People who insist on substituting visual learning for reading have limited ability to reflect on what is learned. Add to this that such people do not perceive that they have the time (and often the ability) to watch the visual image over and over again; their confidence in being able to comprehend a visual image upon one viewing only multiplies their limitations.

This tension between the visual image and the written word is not a recent phenomenon; scholars wrestled with the relationship between the two at least as far back as the Protestant Reformation. It is true that people can learn about God by studying the world He created. “…for the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity.”1 However, observing creation cannot teach doctrine, such as the Incarnation, Justification, and Propitiation. Theology requires careful thought.

Today, however, the velocity of life aggravates this tension. Velocity tends to be destructive – for at least four reasons:

1) It destroys your margin for error. If you fall off your bike riding at three miles per hour, you have one kind of problem. If you fall off the bike going downhill at thirty miles per hour, you have an entirely different kind of problem.

2) It creates a false sense of accomplishment. Go, go, go, does not mean grow, grow, grow. Most of the time the opposite is true. Still, I have a sense of being more productive if I am climbing on an airplane than when sitting behind my desk.

3) It destroys your perception of reality. I was riding with a young friend in his pick-up to the airport as he was travelling 80 mph on the interstate highway with one arm on the back of the seat while he looked back and forth between me and the road. I thought, “This man has no idea what is happening. He has lost the sense of the danger we are in.”

4) It is addicting. The faster people go in life, the more intoxicating speed becomes. People do not wish to sit and think. They want to be active, doing something.

My wife and I have a modest DVD library and one evening we were watching an episode of “CSI Miami.” The editing and speed in which the scenes took place made the sequence nearly impossible to watch. I asked my daughter why they do this, and she said so that people will not get bored. People do not want to sit through long, thought-provoking dialogue. The day of families sitting around the dinner table talking for a protracted period of time is a thing of the past.

The problem is not new; in Phaedrus by Plato (born c. 428 BC, died c. 348 BC), Socrates saw this and warned of the dangers to be found in cultural complacency, of the difficulty parents have in motivating their children when culture is distracting and robbing the young of their passion for learning: And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality 2.

As Socrates notes, people do not want to think deeply; they enjoy reminiscing on past experiences. They love reliving their time at Disneyworld, the cruise they took, or the wonderful time skiing. They do not like to reflect on their purpose for living and where they are going with their lives.

An awareness and development of the soul is why we are here. Yet we have created a culture that denigrates the soul in the pursuit of passion. Happiness is meeting my expectations; holiness is my meeting God’s expectations. Since happiness is the goal of life, we are destined never to be holy. Information becomes knowledge when you apply it; knowledge becomes wisdom when it becomes part of your soul. “Where is the wisdom we lost in knowledge; where is the knowledge we lost in information,” T.S. Eliot noted in his poem “The Rock”.

In the world there are lesser and greater goods. The temporal is a good, but a lesser good. The eternal is the greater good. Christ is the greatest good. Christ motivates me to seek the greater good, and thus the greatest good. The profit motive in Scripture is not because God is obligated to reward us for doing what He wants, but rather because He knows He created us to be motivated by profit and, by His grace, gives us the promise of rewards in eternity. This is the only true way men learn to love Christ. None are noble enough to learn it any other way.

Christ converted my wretched soul at age 19. Prior to my conversion I failed to see any purpose for existence, and thus did not apply myself to my studies. A few years later, while in graduate school, I awoke one morning reflecting on the fact that no one can think without a vocabulary. This obvious truth had never before occurred to me, and when it did, I wept and begged God to forgive me for my stupid neglect. I realized then that I would never fully recover from what I had done.

Some mistakes in life are irrevocable. You will take their consequences with you into eternity. So I ask myself, “How do I get my grandchildren to see this? How do we motivate them to take the time to think and grapple with the issues of life? How do we get them to pay the price so they have the tools necessary to think?” We have to make a conscious effort not to allow technology and velocity to crowd out the most important things in life. Most of what a person becomes is caught rather than taught. It is for this reason I am terrified over the future.

Thirty to forty years ago men were willing to spend protracted time studying Scripture. Coveys of men across the U.S. were willing to memorize a chapter of the Bible and spend twenty hours seeking to master the material, and then meet once a month for four hours with the other men to discuss what they had learned. Rarely do I find men willing to do this today. They do not see the need and they do not have the time. I cannot tell them that God requires this kind of discipline; the Bible does not command it. Never-the-less, their failure to do so tends to impoverish the soul.

In contrast to Scripture, culture is heading towards self-gratification and temporal good, a path that is now encouraged by the emergent church. People no longer go to church to learn about God; they go to experience God. Psalm 103:7 notes, “He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the children of Israel.” Israel witnessed the deeds of God, while Moses was able to understand His ways. Most Christians want to see the deeds of God, while few wish to understand His ways.

Happiness is good, but holiness is our reason for living on earth. Therefore, happiness should be the byproduct of our pursuit of holiness. Can the people of God be motivated to pursue holiness instead of happiness? I believe they can. However, if a person does not see the need, if he does not want to take the time and effort to think carefully about the ways of God revealed in Scripture, I am dubious that others can help him.

In Revelation 2-3, after calling attention to the sins of the church, our Lord Jesus makes some promises to the “overcomer.” I pray that our children, our grandchildren, and we will finish the race of life as overcomers.

1 cf. Romans 1:20

2 Plato, Selections, “Phaedrus,” Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1927, pp. 147-233

Part Two

In the last issue we looked at an excerpt from Phaedrus by Plato in which Socrates addressed the importance of proper learning. In another book by Plato, his seminal work The Republic, he speaks through the philosopher Socrates. Using the dialectic method of teaching, Socrates explores how to create utopia. To do this, he proposes that what we have on earth is an image of the ideal. The non-material abstract forms (also called ideals), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. For example, our lives are governed more by the idea of justice or fair-play than they are by the tangible jobs we go to each day. We will quit the job if the job infringes upon our sense of justice. This being the case, the ideal state exists in the world of ideas, and our job is to discover what it looks like and then create it.

History teaches that people naturally assume all men are motivated by their own interest. “Justice is the interest of the stronger…in all states here is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government.”1 Socrates argues that the ideal state cannot be created on such an assumption; rather, rulers must be properly trained to create utopia. Altruism is the ideal in any ruler, and to create utopia the state must select the brightest and the best of its young men and rigorously train them to act in an altruistic manner. This includes teaching:

1) The philosophical mind always loves knowledge…not varying from change and corruption.

2) The true lover of learning must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth.

3) He must be temperate and the reverse of covetous.

4) There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can be more antago-nistic than meanness to the soul.

5) …he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and reality.2

Having developed the perfect pattern of justice, beauty, and truth, these philosopher kings then are ready to take upon themselves the affairs of the state.

Socrates’ vision has captured the imagination of intelligentsia through the centuries and has translated into an attitude that “if [the intelligentsia] were in control, we could create a perfect world.” Through the years academia has developed the conviction that their job is more than educating the students in the various disciplines; they are to inculcate into their students a proper worldview. Once shaped, the students will see the wisdom of allowing the philosopher kings to make the decisions on the role of government in people’s lives.

This is the same reason that most educators are against homeschooling. They perceive that the state should mold the thinking of students, conforming them to the agreed-upon philosophy of life. Liberals are broad, tolerant, and accepting, while conservatives (and especially evangelical Christians, those who typically prefer home-schooling) are narrow-minded, intolerant, and bigoted. Regarding morality, earlier this year, Ohio University announced a new pilot program for gender-neutral housing, which has become all the rage on college campuses. The program allows people of all sexual preferences to live together in the dorms.

A recent article by Janice Shaw Crouse shows how the intelligentsia desires a separation between the child and parent for the express purpose of academia controlling the child’s thinking solely within intelligentsia’s environment. She noted:

This week, the New York Times advised parents of incoming college freshmen to drop their kids off, ‘back off,” “walk away,” and “move on” so that their “students can develop independence.” In the article, parents who don’t hop in the car, return home and consider their parenting over are dismissed as “super-involved” or “over-involved” and are described as “velcro parents,” “helicopter parents,” or “baby-on-board parents.” Some colleges join in the derogatory attitude toward parents, going so far as to advise limiting phone calls and text messages. Some provide not-so-subtle indications that parents are not to “meddle.” According to the New York Times, the University of Minnesota holds a separate reception for parents so that their sons and daughters can meet their roommates and negotiate dorm room space without the parents around. Grinnell College has the new students sit on one side of the gymnasium and the parents on the other with all speakers talking to the student side – a symbolic way of putting parents in their place.

To correct the ills of society, the philosopher kings must train people on how they should look on life and then provide for their needs so that they will happily divide the common good with the common man. If the government guarantees your standard of living and provides for your retirement, then you have no reason for resisting their desire to control your income.

Dostoevsky clearly saw this when he wrote “The Grand Inquisitor,” a chapter from his book The Brothers Karamazov. One of the brothers, Ivan (who is a skeptic) tells the story of Christ returning to a marketplace in Spain, only to be arrested and jailed by the Grand Inquisitor. In the following passage, the Grand Inquisitor is talking to his prisoner about why Christ is no longer wanted or needed by the Church:

Judge Thyself who was right – Thou or he who questioned Thee then? Remember the first question; its meaning, in other words, was this: ‘Thou wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread – for nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barren wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though for ever trembling, lest Thou withdraw Thy hand and deny them Thy bread. But Thou wouldst not deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that freedom worth if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst reply that man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sake of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, “Who can compare with this beast? He has given us fire from heaven!” Dost Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? “Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!” that’s what they’ll write on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new tower and have cut short the sufferings of men for a thousand years; for they will come back to us after a thousand years of agony with their tower. 3

In my lifetime we have moved from agreeing that young people should abstain from satisfying their appetites to condoning promiscuity and accepting homosexual behavior as normal. I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but you will soon see people affirmed in the practice of bestiality.

The intelligentsia, who wish to rule the people, believe that the masses wish security more than freedom. Dostoevsky’s story perfectly displays the modern attitude, where the Grand Inquisitor argues for giving men the freedom to sin, but allowing the institution to determine everything else. As long as men are well-provided for, they will be happy. Brainwash the people into believing that they exist for the common good, so long as the philosopher kings are allowed to define what that common good looks like. “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” (President John F. Kennedy). For this reason, people are not challenged to think critically. Entertain them and allow the philosopher kings to do the thinking; offer them distractions rather than quiet reflection.

I am old enough to remember the Great Depression of the 1930’s. As a young boy strangers came to our home begging food. My mother would invite them in to sit at our dinner table and then give them a bed for the night. The next morning they would move on elsewhere. My sense is that such a thing cannot happen today for two reasons: First, people do not feel safe allowing strangers the freedom of their homes. Second, if the same unemployment and poverty existed today, the people would riot. Look at how the Greek populace rioted when the government tried to move the age of retirement from 60 to 62 in order to address their bankruptcy! In the past 70 years we have shifted from assuming that individuals are responsible for themselves to believing that their problems are the fault of the government.

I both grieve and fear a great deal these days. I grieve because of the pain people take upon themselves when they refuse to train their minds to think biblically. I fear because if the Bible means what it says, many who are secure in their disobedience will find that they face the awful Judgment of God. And I fear because we may have already entered upon the “road of no return;” it may be too late to do anything about it.

Scripture clearly teaches that God does not want man to solve his problems; by His grace He will not allow man to create utopia. The Lord insists that His people be just, but this must be done in an unjust world. God never commissioned His people to correct the ills of society or to fight for the cause of justice. To the degree that man perceives that he is making progress in solving such problems, to that degree he drifts further and further from God.

In the last book in the Bible, Revelation, the nations do not fear and worship God as the result of gradually coming to Christ, nor by social action and solving the temporal ills of the world, nor by legislation and clean government. The nations worship because of Judgment. They have to: “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (Isaiah 45:23) – those knees will bow whether they want to or not. This is the only solution for the fallen condition of the world.

Refusing to believe this, the philosopher kings insist that if the people will allow them to meet their temporal needs and control their lives, thereby freeing the masses to pursue their appetites any way they wish, they will create utopia.

We do well to remember that entitlement destroys gratitude, and ingratitude is the source of all sin, as Romans 1 so graphically teaches. When we look to any source other than God for the meeting of our needs – whether it is parents, spouse, the church, or government – we guarantee ingratitude, and from this flows all manner of sin. For example, why do people steal, fornicate, and divorce? Obviously it is because they do not believe their needs are met, and seek to step outside the parameters of God to meet them.

A person cannot learn to think biblically on these matters without protracted time studying and meditating on Scripture. If he learns it from his parents and the milieu in which he is raised, his culture will soon conform him to its way of thinking. It must come from hours in the Word of God, begging the Holy Spirit to “transform him by the renewing of his mind.”4

1 Plato, The Republic, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1926, pp. 19-20

2 Ibid, pp. 231-234

3 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov, “The Grand Inquisitor,” Great Books of the Western World, Adler, Mortimer, Associate Editor, Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago, 1952, pp. 130-131

4 cf. Romans 12:2

Part Three

In this third and last issue dealing with our Drifting Towards Dumbness I call attention to what is perhaps the saddest and most discouraging aspect of this drift: What it has done to most of the church in the western world.

In past issues of the Dear Co-Laborer letter I have called attention to the way the Emergent Church has captured the imagination of evangelical Christianity. By way of review, the Emergent Church is not an organization but a movement. For this reason, there exist as many variations of what they believe as there are adherents.

The movement has in common, however, the belief that God’s revelation is dynamic rather than static. Just as how God led His people in the Old Testament differs from how He led the New Testament church, so also how He leads today differs from the New Testament. In the Old Testament He required dietary laws, sacrifice of animals, and special feast days. In the New Testament this was replaced by correct doctrine and commandments governing behavior. Today, however, God is leading His people differently. No longer is He concerned with dogma and behavioral restrictions. In their place He is saying that He wants tolerance, social justice, care of the less fortunate, and world peace.

For example, I find it ironic that the God of Scripture warns that all men face an eternal Judgment, while today Christians argue that God does not send people to hell. Instead, such people insist that God wants His followers to ensure temporal justice in the world – the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches.

According to the Emergent Church, in our post-modern world the “old-time religion” is irrelevant; people no longer live with that worldview. If we wish to reach these disenfranchised people, we must change the method and the message. If God is love, and if He wants His followers to emulate Him in loving others, then what is wrong with loving relationships involving fornication and homosexuality?

For example, Philip Yancey, an editor at large for “Christianity Today,” writes regarding his homosexual friend:

I don’t agree with some of Mel’s choices, but they are Mel’s choices, not mine, and thus between Mel and God. I think back to Jesus and how offensive he must have found the people he dealt with; yet he treated them with respect, compassion, and love… Do I believe that gay people can be committed Christians? Absolutely. I know far too many of them to doubt that. I also believe that alcoholics and prideful hypocrites can be committed Christians. In short, sinners can, and I’ve stepped back from ranking other people’s sins… It would be more accurate to say that I intentionally don’t take sides on this issue… Do I agree with gay Christians’ interpretations of the six passages in the Bible that may or may not relate to their behavior? No. They may be right, but so far I’m unconvinced. I also disapprove of sexual promiscuity, whether of the hetero- or homo- variety…

Jesus calls into question such muddled thinking when He says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments… He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:15, 21). God will not relate to a willful person!

In emergent churches doctrinal teaching is out and narrative is in. People wish to experience God, not be told they are sinners in need of repentance. “Do not bore me with your doctrine, show me your love!” Of course, such people insist on defining what love looks like. Thus, the church conforms to the expectations of the philosopher kings,1 so evident in academic institutions today.

Returning to Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor,” Ivan continues the monologue the Grand Inquisitor gives to Christ. I say, “monologue,” for at no time in the chapter does Christ respond to him, other than to kiss him at the end:

They will seek us (the church) again, hidden underground in the catacombs, for we shall be again persecuted and tortured. They will find us and cry to us, “Feed us, for those who have promised us fire from heaven haven’t given it!” And then we shall finish building their tower, for he finishes the building who feeds them. And we alone shall feed them in Thy name, declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us!… They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful and to rule over them – so awful it will seem to them to be free. But we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in Thy name. We shall deceive them again, for we will not let Thee come to us again. That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to lie… Know that I fear Thee not. Know that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving to stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting ‘to make up the number.’ But I awakened and would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy work. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of the humble. What I say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will be built up. I repeat, to-morrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock who at a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile on which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if anyone has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. Tomorrow I shall burn Thee.

The church ignores the commandments of Christ, His apostles and all of His teachings with which they disagree. I hear people say things like, “That biblical command simply does not speak to me.” They jettison biblical commandments not affirmed by conscience and reason, claim for themselves all the promises, and consider the propitious death of Christ “divine child abuse.” Gone are the days when children were expected to memorize Scripture and become biblically literate.

In return the church affirms the agenda of the intelligentsia, for after all, it sounds reasonable; the job of the church is to correct the perceived ills of society and to clean up the mess created by God when He unequally divided to people gifts, abilities, and opportunities.

According to the Bible, God never commissioned the church with such a task. For the Christian, the only reliable revelation of God is the Bible. If the believer is free to decide what parts of the Bible are true for him, then God becomes the creation of his own desires. Left without the precious promises of God, for after all we cannot rely on them anymore than we can rely on the New Testament for leadership regarding His will for our lives, that individual eliminates any reason for believing anything except what he wants to believe. Such a person is better off believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Fairy Godmother.

G.K. Chesterton, in his provocative book Heretics, notes that yesteryear people were doubtful about themselves, but undoubting about truth. Today the opposite is the case; they are filled with self-confidence while being “intellectually helpless.” To call homosexual behavior wrong reveals intolerance, for each person defines truth for himself. Such people are exactly what the philosopher kings are seeking to create.

Pink Floyd has a famous song, in which the key line is “I have become comfortably numb.” In part, the lyrics read,

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown,

The dream is gone.

I have become comfortably numb.

Paul, in his famous dissertation on love in 1Corinthians 13, notes some of the characteristics of love, such as, “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” and then adds, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” Children tend to be easily distracted and preoccupied with trivia.

Contrast this with the words of Pink Floyd’s song: The man, no longer a child, insists on acting like a child, dealing with adulthood by becoming “comfortably numb.” The Apostle Paul says that true men put away “childish ways” and begin thinking and acting like men.

It seems to me that the tragedy in all of this is, “We have become comfortably numb.” As long as we are fed, clothed, and free to pursue our appetites, we do not really desire to think. Happiness rather than holiness, experience rather than learning, feeling rather than thinking, entitlement rather than responsibility – this is what we crave.

A sense of entitlement is the enemy of gratitude, and ingratitude is the source of sin. Without gratitude, we cannot properly relate to God. It is dangerous for the soul to think we are owed anything in life. God is looking for a broken and contrite heart and a willingness to obey. Without these elements as the focus of our lives, from a biblical perspective, what hope do we have?

1 You will remember that the philosopher king is Socrates’ solution to solving the problems of the world.