Happy Friday,
“Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.”
Jesus, Luke 4
Some mistakenly believe that God demands our worship because He needs it. The creation accounts of other religions suggest as much. In those, humans were created to serve the gods. But the God of Genesis needs no servants. Indeed, He is perfectly perfect, lacking nothing. But if this is true, why is the command to worship God repeated so often in the Bible? The answer is simple: it is there to protect us. As you may have noticed, people worship. It is what we do. We fawn over beauty, cheer our teams and celebrate heroism. Consequently, we are never commanded to worship, what we are instructed to do is to make sure our worship is directed towards God. Why? Because if we do not rightly order our loves, we are diminished. St. Augustine was spot on when he prayed: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Speaking of Worship: I had dinner last week with a high school classmate of David Foster Wallace, whose brilliant 2005 Kenyon commencement speech focused on worship. I have shared Wallace’s speech before, but it deserves repeating. You can find the whole thing here. The part I want to underline is: “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible 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 own 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 plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness.”
The View from 30,000: In Dr. Charles Malik’s 1982 book, A Christian Critique of the University, he argued that there are seven institutions in society – the family, the church, the state, business, education, the professions and the arts. He then claimed that the university was the most important of the seven because it shaped the leaders of the other six. I was not fully persuaded by Malik’s argument forty years ago – nor was I convinced that “the professions” was its own category – but I do think his book is worth revisiting if only to make this observation. During the last forty years, the state and business have gained influence, but the family and church have lost it. And on the whole, I think that’s a bad thing.
No: I heard this week that children need to be taught to hate. I think that’s crazy talk. In fact, in the words of Dr. Peter Kreeft – long-time philosophy professor at Boston College – it’s one of those ideas so stupid that “only a PhD would believe it.” (And in this case I would add, only a PhD who has not spent much time around children.)
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FWIW: In the past few weeks, I’ve participated on several search committees. After a couple years of ugly revelations concerning high profile Christian leaders, be encouraged. There are a number of impressive, thoughtful, competent, humble and high-capacity young evangelicals out there. In fact, I’m glad I’m not looking for a job right now.
TikTok: This WSJ article notes the growing number of TikTok stars who are earning more than America’s top CEOs. It’s persuaded me to pick up a new side hustle. As soon as I find where Sheri hid my skinny jeans, I will start posting dance videos.
Quotes Worth Requoting: “Create a throw-away consumeristic civilization, break families into ever smaller units, add a tech revolution, online addiction, economic precariousness, breakneck social change, endless work, and the collapse of religion and meaning, and yes, people will go a bit nuts. They’ll become depressed; they’ll seek out escapes through opiates or meth; they’ll disappear down rabbit holes of online fanaticism; they’ll seek meaning through work or fame; they’ll tear each other down with glee; they’ll lose the skills for family, friendship, constancy, discipline, and love.” Andrew Sullivan
Word of the Week: “Attention,” is this week’s winner, having popped up in this Christianity Today piece – which notes that there is no such thing as time management, only attention management. It also appears in this John Mark Comer quotation – “In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave your attention to.” Allow me two quick attention related comments: 1) Thanks for sharing a bit of your attention with me on Fridays; and 2) Now would be a good time to ask yourself, to what – or to whom – should I direct my attention today?
Without Comment: 1) 80% of New Year’s Resolutions have already been broken; 2) In 2021, the percentage of Americans who self-designated as atheist, agnostic or of no particular faith rose to 29% of all U.S. adults; 3) Year-over-year inflation hit 7 percent in December, the largest annual price increase since June 1982: 4) This Gallup report notes that the average number of books read per person, per year is down from 15.6 in 2016 to 12.6 today, with the steepest decline coming from college graduates.
Closing Prayer: Lord, while cynicism and apathy attempt to drag down the public discourse, we may be tempted to be discouraged regarding the moral and political foundations of our country. Yet, regardless of our societal challenges, You still rule and reign from the throne room of heaven. You represent true justice coupled with mercy. Help us to lift up our eyes to where our help comes from. Our help comes from You. Today we invoke Your name, Your presence, and Your guidance. As we gather today, may our diversity spur unity, may our collective humanity invite compassion, and may our experiences produce creativity for the many challenges we face.” (Indiana Statehouse Chaplain, Matt Barnes)