The social dynamics of our modern culture often feel like a strange new game with new rules that often invoke odd behaviors. I have heard many people lament things like our culture’s victim mentality, the weakness of our generation’s men, fragility of young people in general, and how lazy and unintellectual our culture is. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has studied cultural phenomena like these and does an excellent job of identifying and describing our modern cultural habits. He has terms to describe behavior that we typically only know when we see them.

Haidt laments with many of us over the state of fragile young people and blames a mixture of what he calls “Call-Out Culture” and “Prestige Economy“. I find his description to be the closest to reality that I have heard, but what is unfortunate is that his description of our culture includes some of the foremost in church authority.

First, his description: he says that with the rise of technology, social media, and over-protected children, it birthed a phenomenon he named “Call-Out Culture”. This is a generation who has been raised to feel rewarded for “calling out” others; that is publicly looking for, identifying, and bringing great attention to the moral and ethical failings of another person. In other words, this describes the iPhone justice we see so much of, where one person captures video of another in the act of some malicious behavior, broadcasts it to the world, and the malicious person receives the scowl of social media. And our culture has learned this behavior because we have, what Haidt calls, a “prestige economy”. This means that since our basic needs are typically met (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) the only thing we are in want of is prestige; recognition or notoriety. We get it from accomplishments and relationships, but also from public acknowledgement for acts such calling someone out on their failures. Many people enjoy the recognition of being a social justice warrior and like the feeling of defending the “oppressed” or “marginalized”. But we have created a culture that enjoys the means more than the ends.

This is why many people in public eye (or people who think they are) are so quick to publicly condemn immoral behavior. You can see it any time some story hits the national level, and it plays out like a script. Mass shooting — the senators, and principals, and pastors, and twitterers say “we condemn violence”. Sexual misconduct — “we condemn taking advantage of women”. Any story involving race — “we condemn racism”. “Virtue Signaling” or “Grandstanding” are more terms to describe this behavior. Its simply waving the banner of the correct ethical position in order to receive the prestige a person, or an institution, needs to maintain a healthy account in the prestige economy. It should be obvious, by this point, that the goal of prestige and recognition have no place in the Church and its people.

The recent story of students from Covington High School humiliating an elderly Native American tells the sad tale of when “Call-Out Culture” hits the Church. I won’t recount all the details, you can read a very detailed collection of accounts in this Atlantic article, but what seemed to be a video showing young men racially mocking an elderly man, became much more complicated. There were multiple parties involved,

Lessons from Screwtape is a series of posts based on C.S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters, in which a principle demon, Screwtape, converses with a lower demon about their tactics to prey on humans.

Our post-Christian era is defined by a diverse population with a plurality of ideas and values. One major obstacle to faithfulness for the modern Christian is our proximity to non-Christian beliefs and practices. Look around and we find a world that values selfishness, indulgence, vanity, lack of control, destructiveness, secularism, and individualism. But are we always quick to acknowledge when we come face to face with such anti-Christian sentiments? More importantly, do we realize when we are affected by people that lure us away from faithfulness?

If we can learn from Screwtape (C.S. Lewis’ fictional demon), we would see that the human will is such that it looks to be agreeable with those around us. Screwtape speaks about a Christian whom the demons are working on and the “new acquaintances” he has met. He shows that humans look to connect with people they meet, sometimes unaware of the effect of such connections:

Did he commit himself deeply [to his new friends]? I don’t mean the words. There is a subtle play of looks and tones and laughs by which a mortal can imply that he is of the same party as those to whom he is speaking.

Screwtape explains that the “new acquaintances” easily become an influence on the Christian, and that once he realizes the effects, he will try to maintain his friendships even though they oppose his faith:

No doubt he must very soon realise that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based. I don’t think that matters much provided that you can persuade him to postpone any open acknowledgement of the fact, and this, with the aid of shame, pride, modesty and vanity, will be easy to do. As long as the postponement lasts he will be in a false position. He will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent. He will assume, at first only by his manner, but presently by his words, all sorts of cynical and sceptical attitudes which are not really his. But if you play him well, they may become his.

Its funny how easily us Christians will try fit in with unbelievers. Like a school girl in front of her crush, we may shy about asserting truths regarding God, holiness, morals, and virtues. We may fear being seen as weird or an outsider; so we are silent when we ought to speak, and laugh when we ought to be silent. Screwtape says that we fool ourselves into thinking that we can balance two lives, pretending to go along with beliefs and practices that are not our own, until they become our own.

But how can we be so passive and blind so often when many of us were raised to be weary of the non-Christian world; to be “in but not of”?

Since the Enemy’s [God’s] servants have been preaching about ‘the World’ as one of the great standard temptations for two thousand years, this might seem difficult to do. But fortunately they have said very little about it for the last few decades. In modern Christian writings, though I see much (indeed more than I like) about Mammon, I see few of the old warnings about Worldly Vanities, the Choice of Friends, and the Value of Time. All that, your patient would probably classify as ‘Puritanism’—and may I remark in passing that the value we have given to that word is one of the really solid triumphs of the last hundred years? By it we rescue annually thousands of humans from temperance, chastity, and sobriety of life.

Screwtape helps us see our deep fear of being labeled a (gasp) Puritan. A prude or uptight. Maybe even “religious”!

As our culture gets more and more hostile toward Christianity, we should come to expect attacks on Christian institutions like Azusa Pacific University.

To summarize the last few months, in September, the Student Life department of APU changed its student policy. It removed a rule banning same-sex romance and relationships (not just sexual activity) which it has held for a while, and is based on its foundational statements regarding human sexuality. Then, in the beginning of October, the Board of Trustees reinstated the ban. They claim the board never approved the change in policy, saying that the removal was out of line with its views on human sexuality.

Then, early in December, two of APU’s board members resigned from the board. Some sources cited that the board members believed that APU is, in practice, out of line with their beliefs. I have heard similar charges about departments such as undergraduate theology — that they teach extremely liberal theology — so I can assume there is some truth to these claims.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a long-time employee and seminary graduate of APU, and I care deeply about the future of this institution. I don’t view the board members’ resignations as a crushing blow to the stability of the university, but perhaps a necessary catalyst to make APU reevaluate how it wishes to be faithful to its mission. It’s a Christian University, with a partially-Christian student body. They view their work in the lives of their students as missionarial to its non-Christian students and disciple-building to its Christian students. This is a difficult thing to balance, and its understandable that changes will be made from time to time.

What is not understandable is why APU works with activists like Erin Green, and her activist group, Brave Commons. Erin is a former APU student that has been working with APU and other Christian universities to address, what she calls “systems of oppression” at these universities. What she means by “systems of oppression” is that Christian universities teach students traditional Christian sexual ethics; that homosexuality and transgenderism are not God’s design for human sexuality and are sinful. At the least, she sees these teachings as harmful to LGBTQ students. At worst, she views Christian universities as institutions of hate that continue to marginalize an oppressed people and that they must be torn down or dismantled.

Notice her gloating at the resignation of two APU board members. You can sense the delight in her role (whatever that was) in tearing apart the university’s foremost decision-makers:

Big win for Queer students at @azusapacific. @BraveCommons is dismantling oppressive systems at Xian universities piece by piece. Click on this post to continue helping the LGBTQ+ students at Azusa Pacific U. #FaithfullyLGBT https://t.co/1hZUvcziIY

— Erin Green (@__runningerins) December 7, 2018

To be clear, activists like this do not want institutions like APU to remain the same institution. They might speak about things like “student safety”, “tolerance”, or “justice” for the “marginalized”, but these are diversions.

Back in September, Clemson decided on a change of quarterback, awarding freshman Trevor Lawrence the starting position. While fielding questions about composure in big games, Lawrence acknowledged Jesus Christ’s role in his life, saying:

“Football’s important to me, but it’s not my life. It’s not the biggest thing in my life. I would say my faith is. That just comes from knowing who I am outside of that. No matter how the big the situation is, it’s not going to define me.”

and…

“I put my identity in what Christ says, who He thinks I am and who I know that He says I am,”

Anyone who has listened to sports interviews knows that Lawrence’s words are a refreshing new take on the usual responses. Rather than the trite “I thank God for letting me catch that touchdown” or “Praise Jesus for letting me win this award”, a level-headed perspective on an activity like football is what we should hear more of.

As a culture, we put too much importance on leisurely activities like sports and entertainment anyways, and it is wakening to hear an insider basically say, “this isn’t that important”. This is perhaps the most Christ-like thing a professional athlete can say.

In the post-Christian era, a major difficulty to living faithfully is a culture that encourages you to chase your dreams no matter what the cost, and to believe that your dreams are the most important thing in your life. This is obviously completely at odds with the command to the follower of Christ to “deny himself and take up his cross and follow (Jesus)”.

Let us applaud this young man for proclaiming that the Christian faith is not simply an accessory to his football career, like many sports news writers want to make athlete’s faith appear. He made it clear that his faith in Christ is of primary importance, and others’ opinion of him are of little importance in comparison to how Christ views him.

It’s the 3rd day of Christmastide, and I’m sitting on a busy street in front of my parents place waiting for a tow truck. On this particular occasion, I had a lot of time to think. I often wonder about how my parents raised me, how I came to be who I am, and what I prioritize.

My parents were not bent on many specific traditions, although we did have certain patterns that I enjoy to this day. Christmases were simple, but festive. I remember always having plenty of decorations, church plays, music, and an emphasis on Christ. I’m very fortunate that I married into a family that has perhaps even more traditions.

There is something healthy, perhaps holy, about traditions. Especially ones that are sacred, meaningful, and communal. They have a way of binding the community together and inviting the outsider in. They have a way of instructing what one cannot explain, and enhancing what one already knows.

It is unsettling and a sign of danger that traditions and customs are being lost in our era. Not just in the United States, either. Read this article by American Brian Kaller, who now lives in Ireland, who laments the loss of Wren Day; a custom that dates hundreds or maybe thousands of years:

I realise that I’m complaining about the loss of a tradition I didn’t grow up with myself, but the same is true of local culture in my native USA. Songs of the Appalachians and Ozarks, the rituals of towns and clans, are more and more preserved in amber by aficionados or tourist boards rather than lived by children, while family traditions grow more homogenized and dictated by the mainstream media, more focused on buying things quickly and discarding them. The same process has happened across Europe and, I’m told, non-Western countries where children are raised now by screens rather than blood.

It should be clear that all around the world, local and sometimes ancient traditions are being lost or assimilating to popular culture and losing their distinctiveness. Pop culture – a mix of bad and lazy talent, mindless entertainment, and immoral content – draws people in because it is endless, easily accessible, and often feeds innate desires. Its fast food for the mind. It feels so good, but leaves one extremely malnurished. And its all the same! There’s no variety, no history, no distinction. Not even sentiment!

For Christians, tradition is just as important as theology and wisdom. Our repeated practices are exercises in communal binding and instruction. Our religious traditions reinforce the religious truths that many of us (especially Protestants) claim are essential to living faithfully. How can we really know love without habitual giving and sacrifice? How can one know patience and reliance without traditions like fasting? How can one know the mind and heart of God without rehearsing Holy Scripture? Traditions have a bad rap in Protestant Christianity – although even Martin Luther did not really condemn all Church tradition; only ones that violate Scripture – but we are speaking now more about habitual customs and patterns of spiritual practices.

For this reason, I’ve had my family embrace the liturgical seasons, like Advent. The liturgical seasons are useful because 1) they force us to consider an entire season sacred, not just a single day, and 2) they are rich in tradition. In addition to all the fun Christmas stuff we’ve done yearly – tamale making with the family, going to watch The Nutcracker ballet, lots of Christmas lights – we gather on Sundays to follow an Advent liturgy. The songs, the scripture, the prayers, the candles – they help reinforce the truths of Christmas that we believe. Our house is also filled with classic Christmas carols, Christmas stories, good food and friends.

“My marriages, they’ve been very successful,”

… starts Jennifer Aniston. That’s marriages, plural! She did an interview with eNews and was asked about her marriages and how she views them. In a few sentences, she manages to upend the sanctity of marriage and promote a self-centered version of marriage for all of eNews’s eager audiences to absorb.

After congratulating herself on her terminated marriages, she continues…

“And when they came to an end, it was a choice that was made because we chose to be happy, and sometimes happiness didn’t exist within that arrangement anymore,”

I won’t pretend to know what went on within Aniston’s marriages, but as a summary, “we chose to be happy” sounds like self-centered rationalization for ending a marriage. Think about it; is that the advice you would want your spouse to receive if your marriage was hitting a rough patch? “Choose to be happy“? It sounds like they successfully steered the happiness train; although they each had a train and ended up in separate directions.

“Sure, there were bumps, and not every moment felt fantastic, obviously, but at the end of it, this is our one life and I would not stay in a situation out of fear. Fear of being alone. Fear of not being able to survive. To stay in a marriage based on fear feels like you’re doing your one life a disservice”

This makes me wonder just how far YOLO works as an argument in the minds of some people. Also, is wanting to be married even though it sometimes leads to unhappiness the same as fear of being alone? Many of the married couples I know don’t persist in marriage — though it sometimes leads to unhappiness — because they are afraid, but because they recognize that marriage is good for a great many reasons; more than just making one happy.

And even if one does have a “fear of being alone”, is that necessarily a bad thing? I understand mature adults must have a certain level of independence and responsibility, but we are also social creatures. We were designed to crave relationship. Even introverts long for friendships and relationships, just not in the same way as extroverts. Doesn’t all the social and psychological sciences support these basic claims of our humanity? It seems perfectly logical to curb one’s own appetite for happiness so as to maintain having a partner to navigate life with?

Now, here’s the important stuff:

“When the work has been put in and it doesn’t seem that there’s an option of it working, that’s okay. That’s not a failure. We have these clichés around all of this that need to be reworked and retooled, you know? Because it’s very narrow-minded thinking.”

The crux of the matter for Ms. Aniston is the idea of a life-long marriage. In her words, its “cliché”.

Marriage in a Post Christian Era

Do you get that? Dear Brother or Sister in Christ, do you understand what she thinks of our faith? Do you see her contempt for God’s instruction that a husband and wife become “one flesh”, and the Lord’s admonishment that “what God has joined together, let no man separate”? Your sacred vows “until death do us part” are at best kitsch; at worst, narrow-minded.

For Jennifer Aniston, our views on marriage should be updated, “retooled”, for modern people who don’t want to admit to a failure, but can with a straight face say that their marriages were successful because they chose to be happy. Look, I get that marriages sometimes end for good reasons; violence, abuse, unfaithfulness, etc. But it is truly a modern notion to be able to define success however one likes. It seems to be a matter of simply not wanting to adm...