Happy Friday,
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.
Psalm 95
Remember, gratitude is an acquired skill. Do not overthink this. Develop this discipline. Take out a sheet of paper and write down twenty reasons you have to be grateful. You can thank me later.
Staying Current: In I Cor. 4:3, Paul dismisses the judgment of others. I was going to say, “this was very 21st century of him,” but that would be misleading. Back in the early days of Postmodernity, it was common to hear people argue that we should not judge. Yes, they tended to be quite judgmental of those who disagreed with them, but at some level they thought judging was bad. In the last few years we have moved into a new version of postmodernity, and this one pulls no punches. It not only judges, it celebrates judging. If you are on “the wrong side of history” those in this group argue that you have no rights to say anything. Think Cancel Culture.
Paul’s Thinking: BTW, in I Cor. 4:3, Paul was making quite a different point. He was arguing that he did not care what others thought of him, he only cared about the judgment of God.
The Global Sex Recession: Given the historically low numbers of marriages and children, it’s not entirely surprising to hear that people are having less sex, but it made the news all the same. According to a recent AMA study, one-third of men between the ages of 18 to 24 did not have sex at all in the previous year. FWIW, while marriage and real sex are down, online porn is at a historic high. In 2019, more than five billion hours of porn were watched on Pornhub alone. Five billion hours. That is 500,000 years worth of time consumed in one year by one provider.
The Word of the Week: Even though I spotted civil war in three recent headlines, and although I was quickly drawn to bio-politics as a new and useful term, the word I believe best captures the last seven days is… fragile. This is my way of saying, not only does the Ambient Anger Index remain high, I think some things may start to break if we don’t learn how to dial back the rhetoric. (As an aside, Jesus promised we’ll be able to identify His disciples by their love for others, not their snarky tweets.)
Without Comment: 1) According to Gallup, 51% of Americans can’t think of a news source that reports the news objectively; 2) After just three weeks on the platform, the Korean series Squid Games is set to become Netflix’s all time most popular show; 3) In 1992, only 38 percent of Americans lived in a “landslide county” (i.e., a county in which one party wins by at least 20 points). In 2016, that number hit a record 60%; 4) Over 5 billion Prager University videos have been viewed; 5) The first season of The Chosen broke the film industry’s crowdfunding record.
Oops and My Apologies: As you likely noticed – and as some of you noted – last Friday we sent out the wrong Friday Update. Somehow, while doing a final edit, I forwarded an initial draft full of misspellings, duplications and half-baked thoughts. We are not sure how it happened. We are pretty sure Russia was involved. And Biden. And Congress. Perhaps Tim Cook and Elon Musk. We’re hoping to hold a congressional hearing.
Lewis & Foster Wallace: Last week’s comments by C.S. Lewis on praise generated enough feedback that I thought I’d run another favorite worship quote. This one is from the late David Foster Wallace – a noted author and professor who tragically ended his own life. Though secular in his worldview, Foster Wallace recognized our “worship orientation.” This is from his famous commencement address at Kenyon College back in 2005. “In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual type thing to worship – be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles – is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.
Jonathan Edwards versus Max Jukes: If you’re not familiar with the contrast between the descendants of Johnathan Edwards – famous Puritan pastor and architect of the Great Awakening – and Max Jukes, a contemporary of Edwards – you are missing out. While more has been written, the gist is, Edwards was a godly influence and Jukes was the opposite, and this played out over time. One-hundred and fifty years after their deaths, a comparison revealed that Jonathan Edwards’ descendents included: 1 U.S. Vice-President, 1 dean of a law school, 1 dean of a medical school, 3 U.S. Senators, 3 governors, 3 mayors, 13 college presidents, 30 judges, 60 doctors, 65 professors, 75 military officers, 80 public office holders, 100 lawyers, 100 clergymen, and 285 college graduates. Meanwhile, Jukes’ legacy included: 70 thieves, 190 prostitutes, 150 other convicts, 310 paupers, and 440 who were physically wrecked by addiction to alcohol. Of Jukes’ 1,200 descendants that were studied, 300 died prematurely.
Closing Prayer: Grant me, O most sweet loving Jesus, to rest in you above every creature, above all health and beauty, above all glory and honor, above all power and dignity, above all knowledge and subtlety, above all riches and arts, above all joy and exultation, above all fame and praise, above all sweetness and consolation, above all hope and promise, above all desert and desire, above all gifts and presents which you are able to bestow or infuse, above all joy and gladness which the mind is capable of receiving and feeling; finally, above angels and archangels, and above all the heavenly hosts, above all things visible and invisible, and above all you are not, O my God! Amen (Thomas a Kempis – 1380 -1471)