In the last article in this series we looked at the concept
of “presuppositions.” Presuppositions are ideas we believe or accept without
proof. Everyone has them. Even in mathematics we have things called postulates
which are statements that are accepted as true without proof. I remember a math
class I had once where we assumed that the number 1 existed. We also assumed
that the next number in a counting series could be found by adding the number 1
to the previous number. Every other “truth” that we used in the course had to
be proved from these two postulates or assumptions or presuppositions.
So what does this have to do with our discussion of truth
and how we know it? Let’s take the Creation vs Evolution debate for example. I
worked in the public schools for 42 years and have seen the nuances that this
debate has taken. When everything is sorted out through the legal system it
usually comes down to this: Creation is a religious, faith-based idea and
therefore has no place within the science curriculum. Evolution however is a
scientific truth and therefore can and should be taught within the science
curriculum.
I realize that I am probably not going to change many minds
in this short article, but this is how I see it in light of our discussion
about truth and how we know it. Scientific knowledge and truth come from
proposing an hypothesis and then designing a controlled experiment to test that
hypothesis to see if it is true. In the case of the origin of life, it seems
obvious to me that there can be no experiment designed that will duplicate the
conditions, time span, and forces needed to create and evolve life by random
processes. Every attempt so far has involved a high level of human thinking and
planning involved to set up conditions favorable for the creation of life. The
true condition of randomness and chance events were not duplicated. Even so, life has not been created by those
experiments.
On the creation side, there is no one alive today who saw
God create anything. All we have is ancient documents within various religious
traditions describing how God did it.
My point is that those who claim evolution is true are
actually proposing something just as faith-based as a creationist is.
But the evolutionist says, “No, that’s not true. You
creationists are bringing God into the mix. We are providing a natural and
scientific explanation of how life began and evolved.” The problem here is with
the assumptions or presuppositions that underlie what we believe. In order to
fit the definition of science, God must be left out of the equation. That is an
assumption. All of the study and investigation that takes place looks for
explanations that leave God out. It is assumed that God either does not exist
or does not play any role in any way in the natural world. But suppose God
actually exists. If God actually exists, isn’t it madness to try to get at the
explanation for why things are the way they are without including him in the
mix?
“But”, they say, “we don’t know if God exists or not and
therefore, we choose to leave him out of our assumptions regarding science and
simply look for the natural causes of things.”
OK. That’s fine. But don’t call your explanation of origins
totally scientific because you are basing your “science” on the belief that
certain things are true. There are a set of beliefs or assumptions upon which
the entire system is built. That makes it a faith based philosophy.
A scientist who includes the belief in a god or supreme
being in his foundational assumptions will also build a faith-based science.
But he, when he looks at the order and apparent “design” in the universe, will
come to the conclusion that there is a designer behind it.
It’s interesting that in normal life we do this all the
time. If you’re walking through the woods and you come upon a group of similar
sized stones lying in the dirt forming the shape of a circle, you assume
someone of intelligence placed them that way. You don’t assume that they just
fell there randomly. And yet when some scientists look at the brain or the eye,
they don’t see a designer at all, but millions of years of random circumstances
producing it. So we attribute a simple circle of stones to an intelligent
designer, i.e., a human being behind it, but something as complex as an eye
evolved with no intelligent activity involved in it at all.
When trying to determine the truth, everyone begins their
investigative reasoning with presuppositions or assumptions. Mathematicians do
it and scientists do it. We all do it. We need to be careful to recognize that
we are doing it. When you make statements of truth or believe what someone else
says, look for the presuppositions that underlie those statements. Second, make
sure that when you are discussing what you believe to be the truth, acknowledge
your presuppositions. Don’t hide them. Finally make sure your presuppositions
are logical and consistent. Only in so doing will you be able to get at the
truth whether it is in the field of science, politics or religion.
In the first article in this series we talked about the fact that in normal daily life we come at truth in very informal ways and yet in ways that work at the practical level. When we build our homes, we conform them to certain truths about how the construction needs to be done so our homes are safe and function well. We learn these truths by applying what we receive on good authority. This approach seems to be thrown out the window when it comes to discerning, believing and proclaiming religious truth.
In the second article we expanded more on the methods we use
to discern what truth is. Here again we discussed the fact that most of us
haven’t come in contact with the truth first-hand in most cases. In other words,
we don’t learn to build a house by trial and error. We usually learn from
somebody who already knows. We weren’t there when historical events took place
and we aren’t privy to the information that forms the basis for political
decisions. Most of us are not involved in the working out of mathematical
equations or scientific principles. We learn these things and base our
decisions on them based on good authority. But it’s interesting to recognize that
different people accept different authorities. Why is this so? Why, when the
President, any President, announces a decision, do some people assume it is a
wise and truthful decision whereas others claim the decision is faulty and
dishonest? Why do we gravitate to one news source over another or one religious
leader over another? Most of these propensities to lean in one direction or
another are not driven by facts that we know firsthand.
There are usually unproved and sometimes improvable
assumptions, called presuppositions, that move us in one direction or another
when we search for truth. The point I would like us to think very seriously
about is that there is no guarantee that these presuppositions are directing us
toward the truth. Our feelings tell us our sources are true, and we believe
they are, but there is no guarantee. I may listen to a particular news source
because I feel that it is a truthful source of information. But what makes me
think that? And just because I think it, does that make it true? I watch with
fascination as CNN fans put down Fox News for presenting a slanted view of the
facts. At the same time, I hear Fox News followers cut down CNN for painting a
false picture of causes and events. Since CNN and Fox present rather different
perspectives on events, they can’t both be giving the true and complete picture.
One or the other or both are presenting shaded views of the truth. Our
presuppositions drive us to listen to and believe one over the other … or
neither. Why is that?
The same thing occurs in religious discussion. Some people
do not believe that the Bible can be historically accurate and truthful in the narratives
about Jesus Christ, because it describes events which people have never seen
with their own eyes. These miracles are described as though they are facts, but
some people dismiss them out of hand because of the presupposition that such
things cannot and therefore did not take place. Think of the implications if
the resurrection of Jesus actually did take place. In other words, if we take
it out of the realm of a religious teaching and put it into the same realm as
the assassination of Julius Caesar or any other historical event, what would
that mean? Think about it. If this man really died, his heart stopped beating,
and his brain stopped functioning, someone put him into a cold cave, and then
three days later he was alive again, wouldn’t such an event warrant a place in
the history books? But somehow it has been relegated to a religious teaching,
and the thought that it actually happened has pretty much disappeared. Has this
happened because the history of it has been shown to be faulty or because of
presuppositions coming into play?
Our presuppositions tend to move us toward some information
sources and away from others. We believe some people who purport to be
authorities and we reject others. In most cases we haven’t and usually can’t do
the research required to independently verify these authorities. This situation
shouldn’t drive us to the conclusion that the truth doesn’t exist or that it
can’t be known. We don’t do that in normal daily life and we shouldn’t do it in
philosophical, political, or religious areas of life. However, we do need to
recognize that our presuppositions may not be pointing us to the truth. If we
really want to know what the truth is, we sometimes need to work against our
natural presuppositions and give other sources a fair and reasoned hearing
because it may be that the truth lies in that direction.
VERSE 1 I will glory in my Redeemer Whose priceless blood has ransomed me Mine was the sin that drove the bitter nails And hung Him on that judgment tree I will glory in my Redeemer Who crushed the power of sin and death My only Savior before the holy Judge The Lamb who is my righteousness The Lamb who is my righteousness
VERSE 2 I will glory in my Redeemer My life He bought, my love He owns I have no longings for another I’m satisfied in Him alone I will glory in my Redeemer His faithfulness my standing place Though foes are mighty and rush upon me My feet are firm, held by His grace My feet are firm, held by His grace
VERSE 3 I will glory in my Redeemer Who carries me on eagles’ wings He crowns my life with lovingkindness His triumph song I’ll ever sing I will glory in my Redeemer Who waits for me at gates of gold And when He calls me, it will be paradise His face forever to behold His face forever to behold
How do we know what is true and what is false in everyday life? Isn’t it true that most of us don’t know things from firsthand experience, but rather we learn them through other people who tell us or teach us about truth? For example, where was Abraham Lincoln when he was shot? Or was he shot? Maybe he died of a heart attack. How do we know these things? We don’t know any of this by having seen it with our own eyes. We don’t even know because we personally did hours upon hours of research to find out. Most of us know because someone, probably a teacher in school, and the textbooks we used, told us what happened to Abraham Lincoln.
Most of us who use math at the every-day level don’t know
the truths underlying the math, although we probably could. For example, most
people don’t know from personal investigation how fractions and common
denominators work. But if we use them at all, we were taught how to work with
fractions, and we know that the methods work, and that is good enough for us.
But my point is that we didn’t learn it from personal investigation and
discovery. We believe these principles because people we trusted, and who we
assumed were authorities, taught us, and what they taught us works.
What is interesting to me is how and why we choose the
people we decide to believe. In elementary school and probably through most of
high school we believed what we were told by our parents and teachers. But as
we grew older, we began to distinguish one opinion from another, and we began
to argue and debate whether what we were being told was true or not. What matters
to me is how we decide who to believe when we receive conflicting messages. Politics
is a good case in point. Someone on TV says that the reason we are in the
economic mess we are in is because we are spending billions on unnecessary
wars. (This article was first written in 2013.) There are really two messages
there: 1) the economic mess is caused by the wars, and 2) the wars were
unnecessary. The purpose of this article is not to delve into the politics, but
to observe that people on each side of the argument will rant for hours on
their point of view. How do they know the economic problems are caused by the
war expenditures? How do the people on the other side know that it was not the
wars that caused the economic problems? Have any of these people looked at the
numbers, compared the graphs, and analyzed all of the factors? No! We mostly
listen to what people tell us. For some reason each one of us has a propensity
to believe one explanation of events rather than another. In this particular
example, some believe war caused the mess and some do not. These beliefs are
based on who we have decided to listen to and who we believe. Why do we believe
one source rather than another? Do we have any factual reason for doing so, or are
we going by feelings?
I think the current debate over the Coronavirus is another
similar situation. Some say the President and his team are doing a great job in
handling the crisis. The other side says he should have started earlier, he
shouldn’t have shut down the economy, etc. Here again, I think that very few of
us actually know. We have chosen which news sources we believe because we are
drawn to their arguments, but it’s hard to actually get to the truth. Most of
us don’t analyze the graphs, we aren’t epidemiologists, we don’t know how
viruses work. Truth is out there, but it is hard to get at.
Shouldn’t we be interested in truth? What is the truth? In
many cases we could know if we took the time to do the research. Take
historical events for example. I brought up Abraham Lincoln a moment ago. How
does one know he was assassinated? I’m not a philosopher nor a historian so
this is not a rigorous academic treatise, but it seems to me that to verify
historic events, which no one living now witnessed, we need to go back to
original documents, news reports, photographs, etc., and put together the best
scenario we can as to what actually happened. This takes a lot of time – more
time than we have if we are trying to determine the truth about everything we
hear. So, we decide who we will believe and base our opinions on what they say.
These methods of determining truth pretty much work for day
to day living. But the possibility exists that we have chosen to believe things
which are not true simply because of who we listen to. We need to be open to
the possibility that what we believe might be false. We need to be ready to
discuss our ideas, and to probe other people’s ideas, and to give and receive
facts and arguments in order to get at the truth. The problem is that today
several things stand in the way of discussions of this sort. We’ll discuss
these in more detail later, but basically discussions of truth end because 1)
People don’t really care what the truth is – it doesn’t matter; 2) Truth is
felt at the emotional level and so if it feels correct, it must be true no
matter what the facts say; 3) Truth can’t be known so why bother talking about
it; and 4) Truth doesn’t exist.
My main focus in these articles is to focus on religious
truth, specifically the truth of Christianity and the implications. But, as I
do that, I also want you to begin thinking about all truth claims you hear,
whether in the realm of politics, advertising, advice about health, etc. Why do
you believe what you believe and how do you know you’re listening to the people
that are telling you the truth? But, in future articles I want us to think
about how we as Christians get at the truth of Christianity, and why we believe
it is true. I want us to think about the implications of saying that it is
true. I also want us to see how the four hindrances to seeking truth even
impact our understanding of the Bible and the differences of opinion among us.
Several years ago, I listened to an interview of Dallas
Willard by Ken Meyers. Dr. Willard is a professor of philosophy at University
of Southern California. The interview was part of Volume 100 of an audio
journal series published by Mars Hill Audio. (http://www.marshillaudio.org)
In the interview, Dr. Willard compared “profession”,
“commitment”, “faith”, and “knowledge”. What interested me is that he said that
in religion, we often emphasize profession and commitment without the foundation
of faith based on knowledge. This might all seem too philosophical, but I think
there are some important things for us non-philosophers to think about here. In
normal pursuits of life there is such a thing as truth which can be known.
In virtually every area of normal life we know that there
are some truths which can be known and taught. Then, when these truths are
believed and acted upon, individuals, workers, and organizations can be
committed to the policies and procedures that are based on this knowledge, and
they can then profess that they can accomplish certain goals.
All of this normal thinking has broken down, however, when
it comes to beliefs about religion, morals, and the like. We are told that
there is no truth that can be known. Everyone’s opinion is as good as anyone
else’s. Does this even make any sense?
I believe we need to think through all truth claims. For example,
I saw a bumper sticker once that said, “The earth does not belong to us. We
belong to the earth.” Is this true?
How could we know? Does someone
really believe this? It is certainly
a profession of some sort. I wonder
if the people who own the car are committed
to this statement in their everyday life.
Every day of our lives we and others make statements about
things we believe are true. In some cases, it doesn’t matter if there is truth
behind our beliefs or not. In other situations, it’s crucial to know the truth
that underlies our beliefs. If I’m going to have brain surgery to remove a
tumor, my life depends on whether those who are going to operate know that
there is a tumor there and know how to get to it and remove it safely. I
certainly don’t want them to operate on me if they just profess that they know how to do it without actually knowing
how. Similarly, if someone is going to rewire my home, I want them to know how electricity works and the facts
that govern the proper wiring of a home.
Everything seems to change when it comes to religion and
religious belief and profession. In our day, truth and knowing are under
attack. For some, the whole concept that there is religious truth is absurd.
For others, the problem is more the question of how one can know what is true.
For these people, it’s not the existence of truth that is the problem, but that
it seems impossible to them that we can know what the truth is. Both thinking
there is no truth, and thinking truth can’t really be known, generate a level
of skepticism that makes it almost impossible to have a normal conversation
about religion and religious truth.
As a Christian, I was intrigued by Dr. Willard’s idea that
often within Christianity we have begun to focus on profession or commitment
without these being based on knowledge of the truth. In earlier times, churches
grounded their members in what was at least purported to be the truth. They
taught these truths to their constituents so that they had a knowledge of them,
could believe them, develop commitments to them, and as a result, profess them.
These days, in many religious congregations, the idea that there
is truth that can be known and believed has almost disappeared. In some other
congregations where the idea of truth undergirds their teaching, the grounding
and reinforcement that these things are truly true is lacking. When we simply
have as our goal commitment and profession and put them first without the
foundation of knowledge of truth, those commitments and professions will not
last long. In addition, without the belief that there is such a thing as truth
or that truth can be known, it’s impossible to subject one’s own belief or the
beliefs of others to any sort of scrutiny or discussion. Personal growth and
communication with others are stifled. As a result, the idea of sharing the
gospel with others in order to bring them to faith in Christ seems more and
more antiquated, because we’re trying to say we believe in something that is
true. Many people don’t have any idea what that means.
Let’s go back to the narrative I presented at the beginning.
Is it true that “the earth does not belong to us but rather we belong to the
earth?” I might propose a bumper sticker that says, “The earth is the Lord’s.”
Is one bumper sticker true and the other one false or are they both false?
Maybe they are both true. Could they be? Does it matter? Maybe they’re just
words and they don’t mean anything. If there is no truth, or truth cannot be
discovered, then we can say whatever we want, and all statements are equally
valid … or equally invalid.
However, if truth exists and it can be known, then
what we say does matter. We can have discussions or even arguments about what
is true and what is false. We can make decisions as to what beliefs to abandon
and what beliefs to adopt based on their truth or falsity. When leaders try to
lead us in a given direction, we have the foundation we need to discern truth
from error. Otherwise we are just lead around like dumb animals babbling feelings
and platitudes that mean nothing.
We are going to discuss this further in upcoming posts, but let me encourage you to apply the same principles in religious discussion as you do in the rest of life. There is truth. You may not know it all but it’s there. Some religious statements are true. Some are false. You need to find out which are which because your future well-being depends on knowing the truth.
My devotions have taken me into the book of Ezekiel. Without question this is one of the strangest and most difficult books in the Bible to read and understand. There are descriptions of wheels within wheels with eyes all around. The words create the image of flying saucers in my mind. But it is obvious that the main point of the book is that God is fed up with the sinfulness of His people.
In Ezekiel 9, the prophet sees a vision of some men, one of whom has an inkhorn. God tells him to go into all the city of Jerusalem and put an ink mark on the forehead of all those who “sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done” within the city. So he obeys and marks the foreheads.
Then other men are told to basically go out into the city and kill all of those who do not have the mark. It reminds me of the Exodus where God rescued all those who had the blood on their doorposts.
A couple of things struck me right away. First, this kind of incident is not going to sit well with people of the 21st century. The killing of all these “innocent” men, women, and children seems gross and excessive. But on the other hand, we Christians have always taught that the wages of sin is death. Do we really believe that?
But wait! What was the sin of these people? The people who were slain were those who were not sighing and crying over all of the abominations being done within the city of Jerusalem. Not sighing or crying over wickedness is a sin? I thought sins were things like murder, rape, and other forms of brutality. But what does it mean when the Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”? God laments the sinfulness of people and all of the abominations that mankind does, especially if these deeds are being done by His own people. If we were godly, we would sorrow too, … wouldn’t we? I was struck by how very far short I fall below God’s standard of holiness!
What keeps God from going out now and executing all of us who are lacking in our sorrow over sin in our country or in our churches? Isn’t this where the gospel comes in? Jesus came here and died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. That’s what we preach, right? But what does that mean? It means that Jesus took my sin of not sighing and crying upon Himself. In effect that means that Jesus was blamed by God for not crying or sighing over the sins of our cities and churches. And because of that guilt, God executed Him on the cross, just as the men in Ezekiels’ time were executed for that very same crime.
What about me? When we trust Christ as our savior, God gives us Christ’s righteousness in replacement for our own meager and sometimes phony efforts at righteous living. When God looks at me, He sees me as having been perfectly mournful over the sins of my city and my church. Why? Because Jesus is perfectly mournful and I have been given credit for that righteous attitude.
We can’t look at someone who has been brutal and violent and feel superior. We all are guilty of capital offenses against God. But God in His mercy and grace offers us a free, unearned pardon through His Son Jesus Christ. I’ve taken Him up on that offer. It was too good to turn down. What about you?
Who has held the oceans in his hands? Who has numbered every grain of sand? Kings and nations tremble at his voice All creation rises to rejoice
Behold our God, seated on his throne Come, let us adore him Behold our king, nothing can compare Come, let us adore him
Who has given counsel to the Lord? Who can question any of his words? Who can teach, the one who knows all things? Who can fathom all his wondrous deeds?
Behold our God, seated on his throne Come, let us adore him Behold our king, nothing can compare Come, let us adore him
Who has felt the nails upon his hands? Bearing all the guilt of sinful man God eternal, humbled to the grave Jesus, Savior, risen now to reign
Behold our God, seated on his throne Come, let us adore him Behold our king, nothing can compare Come, let us adore him
As Christians we believe that the Bible is God’s word to man, and a Christian man who is trying to be faithful to his Lord will try to govern his life according to God’s will as given in the Bible.
The purpose
of this series of articles has been to examine the relationship between
technology and the Christian. In this last section I want to look at the issue
of technology and sexual temptation. However, I think that in order to explain
the sexual implications of technology I need to lay the groundwork of a few
principles from the Bible that I’m assuming in this discussion.
The first
thing we need to remember is that God created sex and sexuality. Sex in itself
is not a dirty or vulgar thing. It is a God-given gift. Next, we need to
remember that God has told us in Scripture that sex is to be enjoyed, but that
enjoyment is to be within the relationship of marriage between a man and a
woman. All through the Bible the rightful sexual relationship within marriage
is praised and held up as a joyful thing, not as a vulgar thing.
After Adam
sinned, man’s nature became sinful in all areas of his being and strong
desires, which the Bible calls lusts, began to have a dominant force in a
person’s life. The Bible says that the strong desires of the body (or the flesh
as the Bible describes it), the strong desires coming through our vision, and
the pride of life, are not from God the Father, but are part of the world
system. (I John 2:16) These strong
desires are very difficult to overcome, and without the Spirit of God at work,
it’s almost impossible.
When a
person comes to Christ, God gives him His Spirit and divine power to enable him
to overcome these desires and to live a life that pleases God. We need to
recognize that God has given us commands and directives because He is the one
who created us, and He knows best what is good for our well-being. We should
never look at the commandments of God as though they were meant to spoil our
fun. When we buy a product, a manufacturer will enclose a list of instructions
that show the proper way to use the device. For example, we are perhaps not
supposed to use the device in the water. It may cause damage to the device or
injury to us. These are rules written by the ones who know best how things are
supposed to work. The same is true of God’s rules for us.
The Bible
describes sexual sin with several different terms. One term, porneia, is
used for any sexual sin that is outside of the norm and standard that God
designed. The Greek word I referred to
here you will recognize as the root word for our word pornography. Another
Greek term is translated adultery and usually refers to sexual sin
committed by a married person. Another couple of terms refer to sexual sin as uncleanness
or lewdness. God uses all of these words to describe sins whereby we
violate God’s standard for our sexual behavior.
Let’s look
at some of the descriptions the Bible lays out. Let’s start with what Jesus
actually said. In Mark 7:21 Jesus, speaking about the fact that sin comes from
within a man, says, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil
thoughts, sexual immorality (porneia, fornication),…adultery,
…sensuality (lewdness, sexual excess). All these evil things come from
within, and they defile a person.” Notice a couple of things here. First of all,
they come from within. The Bible says that the heart is deceitful and
desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). So the source of our difficulty is not from
the outside, but is from within. James writes that “each one is tempted when he
is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived,
it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
Next we see
that Jesus describes these actions as evil. Most of what happens sexually in
our culture is not considered evil by most people. The Bible has a different
approach. It makes a clear-cut statement
that sexual immorality is to be avoided and shunned. Lastly, we notice that they defile a person.
We defile ourselves from what comes from within ourselves. Defilement means we
make ourselves dirty and unfit for service for God
Paul,
writing to the Romans in 13:13 says, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime,
not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality (free and easy sex)
and sensuality.” In the next verse he
tells us to make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” In other words, we should not make it easy to
serve our lusts. Paul writes similar things to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians
12:21.
To the
Ephesians in 5:3 he writes, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or
covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let
there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of
place. Be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who
is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ
and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things
the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” In other words, God’s wrath is coming because
people engage in these behaviors. Why would we as Christians want to be a
participant?
Finally,
let’s look at what the Apostle Peter wrote in his first letter. In 4:2 he says
that we should live “no longer for human passions but for the will of God. The
time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in
sensuality (lewdness, sexual excess), passions, drunkenness, orgies,
drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.”
He is basically saying that we need to put our past behavior behind us
and live for God from here on out. And the life we live for God is different from
the description of our past life. Christians don’t behave the same as
non-Christians when it comes to sexuality.
With that
background in mind, how does technology fit into the picture? Technology,
whether it is TV, video, or Internet based, can bring us realistic portrayals
of sexual situations that in turn trigger the strong sexual desires that are
built into us. With men, the strong desires that are aroused through what we
see can be very powerful. The Bible calls these lusts. These lusts then can
give rise to sin if not dealt with.
Jesus tells
us that, “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:28. From this simple statement, we
can see that Jesus’ standard is very high. If we are to avoid this kind of
potential sexual sin, we need to take precautions. Jesus’ very next statement is to say that if
our eye offends us, we should pluck it out. Now we could debate whether he was
serious, or whether he was using hyperbole to prove a point, but nevertheless,
it’s obvious he takes this very seriously, and we should take whatever
precautions we can to avoid this sort of sinning. The Apostle Peter wrote to
his readers, “I beg you to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the
soul.” (I Peter 2:11) Peter knew that lusts and strong desires can actually
make war against our very souls. We are to abstain from such lusts. They can
harm us deep within our psyche. Paul told Timothy to flee from such lusts. So
the admonition for us is to do whatever we can to avoid situations that produce
these self-destructive lusts and enable them to flourish.
The problem
with lust is that it is never satisfied. Sexual immorality of all kinds
promises that it will meet the inner longings of our souls, but it never does.
We are trapped into an ever-deepening desire for more, and the satisfaction we
derive from our sin becomes less and less. God’s secret to happiness is what
Jesus taught the people in the Sermon on the Mount—Happy is the man who hungers
and thirsts for righteousness. While
this seems totally foreign to the modern mind, it is God’s way of finding
satisfaction. Do we believe God or the world system? Our direction and focus
need to be toward a life of righteousness.
In
Ephesians 5:10, Paul tells us that we should find out what pleases the Lord. In
verse 11 he tells us not to have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, and then in verse 12 he explains that it is shameful to even speak
about things which are done by them in secret.
In other words, there are things that displease God that people do in
secret, and it’s shameful for Christians to even speak about these things. But
isn’t this what happens when we view certain scenes on TV or over the Internet?
Aren’t we looking in on what people are doing or talking about in secret?
So let’s
take these ideas and put them together. We as Christians are to avoid the
immorality that is initiated in our minds by the things which we see, and we
are to not even talk about the kinds of things that people do under the cover
of darkness or in secret. Focusing our attention on these things can trigger
strong desires that war on our souls and do great spiritual damage.
So what
does that tell us about TV viewing for example? Doesn’t this mean that we
should take every precaution in our viewing to avoid those programs and
commercials that either trigger immoral thoughts in our minds, or display or
discuss immoral activities in detail? In
this case, I’m not even talking about pornography. I’m just suggesting that we
take great care not to become careless and accustomed to immorality and casual
sexual content because in doing so, our own minds can become fertile ground for
imagined sexual activity that Jesus condemns.
If these
things are true, then what does that say about actual pornography? There’s no
question that exposure to graphic sexual material will produce strong sexual
lusts in our minds and in our bodies that we cannot legitimately act upon from
God’s point of view. This being the case, we as Christian men need to take
every precaution to avoid getting ourselves into the trap that pornography
represents.
Technology
itself can be addicting as we have discussed before. When you add pornography
to the technology, you have a powerful mix. The Bible often speaks of diligence
when it comes to the Christian life. It takes a great deal of diligence to
avoid the entrapping nature of pornography. What are some of the things we can
do to avoid the trap?
First, I
think we need to look at our lives to see if we really have the desire to live
a life that is honoring to God no matter what the cost. This is where a lot of
it falls down. We may claim that we are Christians, and we very well may be,
but we don’t really want to sacrifice the time and attention that it takes to
live a consistent, biblical, righteous Christian life. We may enjoy our sin too
much! We may believe that God isn’t really interested in our good if He would
withhold all of these things from us and ask us to live such a narrow life. So
we need to make up our minds. Do we want a God-honoring life or not?
Second, we
need to look at our personal spiritual disciplines carefully. Are we regularly
taking the time to pray? Are we reading, studying, and meditating on the
Scriptures regularly? Are we regularly involved with other Christians in
fellowship, prayer, and ministry? If not, we are making ourselves vulnerable in
many areas including our sexuality. If you are weak in any of these areas, take
immediate steps to improve. Start today by getting in the Word and taking time
to pray. Don’t make any excuses to miss church on Sunday. If there’s a church
prayer meeting going on somewhere near you, be there.
In addition
to making sure our Christian life is being supported the way it needs to be,
here are some other steps you can take to increase accountability and provide
protection for yourself and your family.
1. Make sure TV viewing is open and public within the home.
Children should not have televisions in their rooms where they can watch what
they want without supervision.
2. If you live alone and can’t control what you watch, get
rid of the TV. If you can’t handle the Internet, have it disconnected (Remember
Jesus telling us to pluck out our eye or cut off our arm?)
3. Computer use should be open and public within the
home—for everyone. Children should not have computers with Internet access or
DVD capabilities in their rooms. They may fight you on this and tell you what
every other child gets to have, but that’s ok. We are Christians who desire to
please God, and so we have different procedures.
4. Husbands, give your wife complete access to your
computer, your browsing history, your Facebook passwords… everything. Ask
your wife to keep you accountable.
5. Establish an accountability partner who has your
permission to ask you anything he wants about your viewing and browsing habits.
6. If necessary, sign up for a filtering service that will
email your browsing history to your wife or an accountability person.
7. Under no circumstances should teenagers have a smart
phone. That sounds radical, I know, but why do any of us have to have access to
the Internet 24/7? Do you honestly think a 16-year-old boy can keep away from
pornography if he has Internet access on his phone wherever he is? Think about
it! If your son wants to know why you don’t trust him, explain that you don’t
even trust yourself.
In conclusion, we realize that developments in technology
will continue. We have no way of knowing what the future will bring, and what
kinds of devices we will have to adjust to in the years ahead. But know this,
we must live for the glory of God in all areas of life, and technology is one
of those areas that needs to be brought under the Lordship of Christ. We need
to be discerning, and we need to pass on discernment skills to our children, so
they won’t be overwhelmed by the alluring, addicting devices that are sure to
come. Let’s pray earnestly and ask God for the wisdom we all will need to live
lives that are pleasing to Him in all areas.
I think all
of us have seen the bizarre sight of a man and woman across from each other in
a restaurant each texting or talking to someone else. I saw something similar
to this on a beautiful evening while walking down the sidewalk. Toward me came
a man and woman walking side by side. Both of them had a phone up to their ear
talking to someone elsewhere. It seemed to me that in so doing they were
missing both the potential communication with the other person as well as all
of the interesting sights and sounds of their actual location.
Why do we
do this to ourselves? What is it about remote contacts that is more appealing than
those we are with? There is a danger
here that I don’t think many people think about. If the person you are with is
someone near and dear to you such as a wife or a child, and if you repeatedly
move yourself from attending to them to attending to someone else (or something
else), the relationship changes and is ultimately harmed in some way. It may
not be damaged over night, but in time the relationship will not be as strong
as it should be.
We are
already familiar with the jokes about the husband who is distracted by a
newspaper or a ball game when his wife is trying to talk to him. Think about
how much greater the barrier is when there is an actual person on the other end
of a conversation who is getting precedence over one’s own spouse. This kind of
thing will certainly happen from time to time, but let’s just imagine the
scenario that every evening one spouse is texting some invisible person to the
neglect of the person right there in front of him. Doesn’t that have the
potential to break down the communication and put distance between the two of
them? What if they both are doing it? They are each receiving some sort of
fulfilling input from a source other than their spouse. Over time, this has to
have a damaging effect on the relationship.
Read what
one anonymous reader posted on my blog in response to a technology article:
I read through what you
wrote……my comment combines a few, as I am having jealousy issues with my
husband’s cell, FB usage, iPad etc. Mostly it is the cell phone usage with
access to FB. We have only been married a short time *less than a year* and
this is a big issue for me- as it takes away from our time together whether at
home, at restaurants, the mall, even at times, at church. Lately I have been
praying for patience and understanding…. understanding as to why he chooses
it over me. We also, btw, have 4 kids with us at any given time. I am going to
read through some of the other postings for enlightenment. But, my stance is:
these pieces (cell, iPad, FB) can hurt a person or a relationship just by
sucking up the TIME it takes away from a loved one.
Let’s
consider another scenario. A family of five is home for the evening for a
change. Dad and mom decide to watch a movie. The children don’t want to watch
that particular movie, so the first child goes to his room to watch something
he’s interested in on his computer. The next child props his feet up in the
family room and listens to his favorite playlist on his phone. And the last
child texts back and forth with one of her friends from school. In some homes
this is normal. It happens every day. Do
you see a problem here? The family is together, but not communicating.
Next
consider the fact that self-centeredness is fed by this scenario. No one has to
learn to appreciate the other person’s taste in music or movies. No one has to
learn to share. Everyone can have what suits himself. Sister is not required to
talk to brother if she doesn’t want to. While this might seem like a reasonable
thing in today’s world, for the Christian it is not the direction we want to
go.
I’ve
discovered that living the Christian life is an extremely difficult thing
especially when it comes to our relationships with others, especially when
those others are members of our family. If we are to become the kind of people
God wants us to be, don’t we have to learn the skills that He values?
Let’s look at some relevant scripture passages:
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the
church and gave himself for it. (Emphasis mine.)
Philippians 2:3 In lowliness of mind let each esteem others
better than himself.
Romans 12:10 In honor giving preference to one another
Galatians 5:13 Through love serve one another.
Deuteronomy 6:7 You shall teach them (God’s words)
diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,
when you walk by the way, when you lie
down, and when you rise up.
Romans 15:1-2 Let each of us please his neighbor
for his good, leading to edification.
After
reading passages such as these, I learn that my role as husband and father is
one that is supposed to be other focused. I am to be attentive to the needs of
my wife, not only giving preference to her, but making sure that she is built
up spiritually and emotionally. I am to esteem her as better than myself when
it comes to preferences in the use of time, money and activities. I am not to
be focused on pleasing myself but on her good so she can be built up in her
faith and character.
In
addition, I am to spend time at all times of the day instilling in my children
the words and commandments of God. My focus personally and for my family is one
that is to have a God-ward direction. I’m to make sure that I am teaching my
children to be focused on the needs and interests of others rather than the
natural tendency to focus on self.
However,
when I make arrangements for each of my children to have his/her own electronic
entertainment, I am teaching them that they don’t have to learn to cater to the
desires and preferences of others. I am teaching them that each of us can have
what we want. Some may argue that such arrangements are not taking away from
the preferences of others because they too get to listen to or watch what they
want. But the issue is in learning to communicate and to submit to one another.
It’s difficult to let another person have the choice of the music that I have
to listen to or the movie we’re going to watch. Why should I have to watch a
movie my sister picked out?! My selfish self rebels against this. If we all
have to watch the same movie or listen to the same music and share the same
space, we learn to put others first and to share. This doesn’t come naturally,
but it is what God wants from us. And as parents we need to make our daily
instruction an integral part of our dialogue throughout the day’s activities.
Our decisions about how we use technology impact that daily instruction. If
everyone including parents is distracted with their own movie, playlist,
Facebook page, and text messages, where are the opportunities going to come
from for sharing the Christian life with one another?
It takes
time to build and nurture relationships. It takes time for me to nurture the
relationship with my wife and children, and it takes a lot of practice for
children to learn to relate with each other in the way I’m describing. The fact
that our technology has become ubiquitous and personal has worked against us in
the area of personal relationships. In fact, just this week as I was working on
this, (January 2012), CNN had an article on how multitasking hinders young
people’s social skills. http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/tech/social-media/multitasking-kids/index.html)
We need to
take steps to reverse the trend and nurture the personal relationships in our
lives the way God intended. As parents we need to make sure we are fulfilling
God’s desire for us to train up our children in the way they should go. As
spouses, we need to fulfill God’s design for marriage by being all there for
our spouse throughout the moments of every day.
As I was
thinking through the thoughts I shared last time, I was thinking through the
difference between the way we interact with technology and the way we used to
interact with newspapers or books. We’ve all seen the older sitcoms where a
woman would be trying to speak to her husband, but he would be hiding behind a
newspaper. He was shutting her out of his world during the time he was reading
the paper.
My dad was
a pastor. He loved to read, and so he almost always had a book with him. When
we’d go on vacation, as soon as he had a chance, he would sit down somewhere in
the shade and read his book. This would sometimes perturb my mother because she
often had other ideas of what she would rather have him do with his time,
especially time she considered to be family time.
In both of
these scenarios, it’s important for a husband to learn to be attentive to the
needs and desires of his wife and family. It was still possible to be withdrawn
and separated from those around us even when the technology consisted of paper
and ink.
But I’ve
been asking myself the question as to whether our issue today is just another
version of the same thing, or is it fundamentally different? On the surface
there are some of the same issues. I can be reading the daily news on my phone
when my wife wants to get my attention about something. A phone isn’t as big as
a newspaper, and so she can easily see my face.
Or, I can be on vacation, and when I think I have a good opportunity, I
can go off somewhere and read a book on a Kindle. Is this different or the same
as what happened in previous generations?
On another
level, the two media pose completely different circumstances that I think we as
Christians need to look at very carefully. With print media, one is normally
locked into one task. When I’m reading a book, everyone around me knows I’m
reading a book. If I decide I’d like to check on the yesterday’s sports scores,
I will put down the book and go pick up the newspaper. If my son is reading the
sports page, I have to wait until he’s finished. I don’t know how other people
are, but very seldom, if I had five minutes of free time between getting
dressed and leaving for work, would I go find my book, pick it up, and read a
page. Because I wasn’t used to so much distraction and multi-tasking, my brain
didn’t think it needed to find some little thing to do during every quiet space
in the day.
How do
things differ now with technology? Let me use myself as an example. I have a phone
that I use for just about everything except typing. I mean I can study my
Bible, check the weather, read the news, read any number of different books,
play games, text people, send out tweets, check on Facebook, etc. Because I am
older, I tend to use this tool more like I would the device it replaces. In
other words, when I read, I tend to read it the way I would a book. Younger
people tend to be much more distracted and multi-tasking than I am. But having
said that, I have noticed some tendencies that automatically come with this
type of technology.
I may be
reading my Bible and meditating on it, but then wonder what today’s weather is
going to be. So almost in mid-sentence I may switch over and check the weather.
Then I’ll wonder what the 10-day outlook is and so might check that out.
Needless to say, this breaks my train of thought. I may be reading another book,
when I wonder if anyone has posted a response to a grandchild’s picture I
posted on Facebook, and so might switch over there to see what’s been
happening. Someone there may have referenced a cute YouTube video, and so I
might check that out and chuckle as I see the inane antics of some 2-year-old.
Meanwhile, the thoughts evoked by the book I was reading are long gone.
All of the
previous events can take place while I’m “reading” a text. But what about all
of the other snippets of time that are spread throughout the day? We have a tendency to check in with the
technology in almost every spare minute. There is a pull there that was not
present in the newspaper and book. I’m not saying there is anything innately
wrong about that, but it has a pull. Can’t you feel it? You have a few minutes
while your wife is putting dishes in the dishwasher, and so you check out the
sports scores. She comes in the living room to find you looking at your phone.
It was just a few seconds, and you found out what you wanted to know, and so
you put it down. Later on, there’s a lull in the conversation, if you ever got
started in a conversation in the first place, and so you check to see if anyone
has updated Facebook. In a few more minutes you remember that you had put a bid
on Ebay, and so you check your email for a minute to see if there’s a message
there regarding your bid. Again, you set your phone aside, only to hear the
familiar tone that tells you someone has texted you. It would be rude to leave
it until tomorrow, so you quickly check to see what that was about. Oh, it was
only Culver’s restaurant telling you you could get a buy-one-get-one free
Sundae on Thursday between 4 and 5 pm. That was important, wasn’t it? Through
all of this you are pulled aside from conversing with your wife or distracted from
what your children are doing. Rather than talking to or playing with them, you
are fiddling with your phone.
Another
difference I’ve discovered about technology media compared to print media is
that it tends to hold our attention more. Often that’s because a video is
somehow involved, or because the communication is fluid. That is, it’s
changing. There are new postings and responses all of the time. It used to be
when a person was reading a book, and another person in the room wanted to say
something, it wasn’t too difficult to pull the attention away from the book to
listen to the other person. When that happened to me, I would usually put a
finger down where I had left off and then listen to what was being said and
reply back and forth if that was called for. Now, when someone interrupts a
person using a computer or phone or other device, it’s hard for the person to
break away. There’s a tendency to keep looking back at the device that has
grabbed our attention. This leaves the other person feeling like they are not
as important as whatever it is that’s showing on the screen.
One other
related issue is that it used to be that when family gathered in the living
room after a meal or whatever, they would easily carry on conversations. Even
if someone was browsing a magazine or knitting or something like that, the
conversation could continue. When there were normal lulls in the conversation,
someone would bring up another topic, and the conversation would continue.
What’s happening now is that we feel the tug to keep doing something
“profitable” during those lulls, and so we pull out the phone or computer so
that we can keep tabs on something else, other than what’s going on in the
room. The problem is that it is not as easy to return to the conversation again,
and people don’t know whether to interrupt or not. Some people even plan ahead
so that they have their device ready for those lulls. When they do this, it
looks to others like they are prepared for the conversation to be uninteresting
and unimportant. It sends exactly the opposite signal from the one we should be
sending.
God is
interested in interpersonal relationships. The members of the trinity have
loved each other since eternity past and have been carrying on a loving
communicating relationship forever. When God created us, he created us in his
image. One of the things that means is that he created us as communicating
beings. He gave us faces so that we could see one another as we communicated.
We could read each other’s facial expressions, point of focus, eye movements,
and so on. Proverbs 15:30 says the light of the eyes rejoices the heart.
In his book
The Next Story, Tim Challies explains that before the fall, God and man
had direct communication. (page 93) He calls this immediate
communication. The prefix im means not, as in immature,
meaning not mature. So immediate
communication is communication that is not mediated. In other words, it is face
to face with no intervening medium. Challies contends that this is God’s
preference and ideal. He writes, “I would argue that it [mediated
communication] is, in fact, a lower form of communication, one that is intended
to be a mere supplement to our lives. The best relationships we can have are
not those that rely on mediation, but rather the ones that allow for unmediated
contact and communication.” By unmediated contact he means face to face
communication. I agree with this assessment. We thank God for means of
communication that allow us to be in contact with family and friends that are
far away. Sending a letter or email or text message allows us to communicate
with those with whom we cannot have immediate communication.
When we
were first created, God had face-to-face communication with us. After the fall,
God basically turned aside in a way, and Adam, for his part, hid so God
couldn’t see him. Ultimately God sent Jesus Christ to be the mediator between
God and man so that fellowship and communion could exist. God wants immediate
communication with us, and he desires that we have immediate communication with
one another.
But what’s
happening now is that we turn our backs on the immediate communication we could
be having with family or friends who are right with us and communicating in a
mediated way with others. We are neglecting what is arguably the ideal method
of communication and substituting an inferior type of communication on purpose.
Besides switching to an inferior mode of communication, it is often
communication with someone who is further removed from us relationally than
those right around us.
In her book
Distracted, Maggie Jackson writes, “Moreover, a boundary-less world
means that coming home doesn’t signal the end of the workday anymore than being
on vacation is a time of pure relaxation, or being under one roof marks the
beginning of unadulterated family time. We rarely are completely present in one
moment or for one another….To cope and to keep up with our pulsing personal
orbits, we live in worlds of our own making, grazing from separate menus,
plugged into our own bedroom-based media centers, adhering to customized
schedules. … Seventeen percent of the families in the UCLA study consistently
ate dinner together. On weekdays, the parents and at least one child came
together in a room just 16 percent of their time at home. True, hours together
don’t automatically translate into intimacy. But if we can’t be bothered to
keep coming together in the fullest, richest sense of the word, we lose the
opportunity to form those deeper bonds. … Are we losing our willingness to
wade down into the painful, soulful depths of human relations? ‘When you can
have a face-to-face conversation, do you? When you’re right in very close
proximity, do you bother?’ asked Ochs. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to wake up and
think, “Oh my gosh, we could have been having a conversation.”’”
My hope is
that as Christians, we will not be absorbed into the world’s way of thinking
about these things. Relationships are important to God. Satan would do all that
he can to disrupt and destroy relationships because good relationships are an
image of God and he hates that image to be portrayed with all of the love and
self-sacrifice that is an accurate portrayal of God.
Our
technologies, as helpful as they are, have the capacity to disrupt and break
down the most crucial and intimate relationships of the home and family. We
must not be naive about this. We must be on the alert and take active steps to
counter the communication breaking aspects of our technology. It makes no sense
to use less than ideal communication media to communicate with people who are further
removed from us, when the people we should be caring for are right there, and
the means to communicate face-to-face is immediately available.
So what are
some steps we could take to counterbalance the tendencies we’ve discussed? Two
choices are not really possible. The first is to throw our hands in the air and
say we can’t fight it. It’s too hard, and we can’t make any progress. The other
choice is to say that the good old days were better. Let’s get rid of all the
technology and return to a previous life. That is not going to happen. So, what
can we do?
Realize
and accept the fact that you do have the power to control the technology
and to manage it for the glory of God.
On the
personal level, make the conscious decision that “wherever you are, be all
there.” (Jim Elliott)
Based
on the previous decision, refuse to take cell calls, look at text messages
or emails during times that call for your participation listening and
interacting with others. That would mean during mealtimes either at home
or in restaurants when you’re with others.
Be
careful even during group events such as watching a movie or ball game
together. I have discussed the implications of multi-tasking on the brain
as well as the importance of being involved socially with others, and so
if you are involved in a shared experience, participate in that experience
without being distracted by your technology.
If
you’re in the kind of setting where reading a physical magazine, book or
newspaper would be appropriate, you should be able to read any of these on
an electronic device as well. But beware of the tendency to jump from
thing to thing. Control your self. Do not allow yourself to be controlled
by the technology. Stay tuned to those around you so that you can be
involved. If there are conversations going on around you, pay attention to
one of them and join in. You don’t want to hear, “… isn’t that right,
Roger,” and not know what they are talking about. It is not only
embarrassing; it’s rude.
Whether
you’re with others or not, control the urge to flit around the internet,
hitting links in an almost mindless way. Your brain will become less able
to focus. If you find yourself doing this, find something constructive to
do either with or without technology, but find something you can focus on
for a long stretch.
If you
are a parent, this and the following suggestions are for you. Restrict
cell phone use. Children do not need to be in communication with their
friends at all hours. Perhaps they have a cell phone for safety reasons
while away from home, but all phones go on the recharging table when they
are home.
There’s
no good reason for children and teens to have smart phones. The Internet
is not a safe place. As a young man told me just yesterday, “There is no
good reason for a 15-year-old boy to have unlimited and unrestricted
access to what’s on the Internet.”
Children
and teens shouldn’t have TV or computers in their bedrooms. Everything
done on a computer should be out in the open in public.
If you
allow your children to use Facebook or other social media, you must be
their friend online and read through what gets posted both to and from
them. Be disciplined about this. It is part of your job. When they have
new friend requests, ask them, “Who is that?”
Teach
your children electronic etiquette – No phones during meals; don’t
interrupt a conversation with a friend to take a call or check a text
message; etc.
References:
Bauerlein, Mark. The
Dumbest Generation. New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2008.
Carr, Nicholas G. The
Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton,
2010.
Challies, Tim. The
Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 2011.
Jackson, Maggie. Distracted:
The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Amherst, NY: Prometheus,
2008.
“There is a higher throne Than all this world has known, Where faithful ones from ev’ry tongue Will one day come. Before the Son we’ll stand, Made faultless through the Lamb; Believing hearts find promised grace— Salvation comes.
REFRAIN Hear heaven’s voices sing; Their thund’rous anthem rings Through em’rald courts and sapphire skies. Their praises rise. All glory, wisdom, pow’r, Strength, thanks, and honor are To God our King, who reigns on high Forevermore.
And there we’ll find our home, Our life before the throne; We’ll honor Him in perfect song Where we belong. He’ll wipe each tear-stained eye As thirst and hunger die. The Lamb becomes our Shepherd King; We’ll reign with Him.”
