Taking every thought captive

Blandianity is the religion beloved of the public square, and of the BBC. It allows discussion of all points of view as if all were equally valid. It facilitates the search for truth, without declaring the truth. It searches, but never arrives, since many of its practitioners believe this to be a futile exercise. It enables experience without truth and feelings without faith. So, if it feels good you may do it, and no one may tell you it is harmful.

But it is not true Christianity. It is not true to the message of Jesus. For that declares God’s point of view: that we are all sinners, deserving God’s wrath, and will, if we do not repent of our sin, experience that wrath for all eternity. It declares God’s truth: that Jesus is the only way — “the way, the truth, and the life”, in his own words (John 14:6) — by which we may experience God’s forgiving grace and escape the wrath to come. It constrains our experience by The Truth, enabling us, by God’s grace, to live lives pleasing to him. And it gives prominence to faith over feelings, so that we have a sure guide to life in all its varied experiences, and live it to the full and to God’s glory. For our faith is in the True and Living God, our Maker and Redeemer, who alone is fit to guide us, and who alone knows what is best for us.

Why settle for the bland when you can have the real thing? It’s easy to be bland, but better to be real, despite the difficulties it entails, since we live in a world addicted to mediocrity and scared of reality.

There’s always a temptation when reading Bible genealogies to skim them, or even to skip them. For many, they’re just lists of unfamiliar names. But always tucked away in odd places are little surprises. Matthew’s genealogy of our Lord has the four “questionable” ladies (questionable, not because they were women, but because of their background, and we can learn a lot from them, but that’s a whole other post).

Nehemiah 11 has a gem in verse 17. Mattaniah is described as “the leader of the praise, who gave thanks”. In modern ‘evangelical’ terminology he might be thought of as the ‘worship leader’, but I suspect his role was much less ostentatious. The Hebrew says he was “the beginning of the praise” and while the word is literally “head”, I wonder if he was not rather precentor. As precentor, he would have started the praise in a generally unobtrusive way, aiding the people of God in their praise by getting them started on the right note, rather than drawing attention to himself, and keeping them going. Nor would he have had those endless, timeless, mindless guitar introductions, so beloved by many ‘worship leaders’ I’ve encountered, where the congregation knows not when to start singing.

But whatever his function or how he performed it, this thing is clear — his main task was to give thanks. Perhaps he would be called ‘Minister of Thanksgiving’ today in certain churches, though somehow I doubt it would be a priority appointment to the pastoral staff. Giving thanks seems almost a dying practice. Praise is in; big time. Petition is commonplace, especially when we’re in dire straights. But thanksgiving is lacking. We need Mattaniah to begin it and keep us going in it.

In my youth and early adult years, growing up in a brethren assembly, thanksgiving was a major focus of the Sunday morning meeting, as we sat around the table and men would give thanks to God for his Son. Often today at the Lord’s Supper I hear little thanksgiving in depth, and much more petition and prayer to apply the pastor’s sermon. Not that these things are bad, just inappropriate at the Lord’s Supper. And thanksgiving gets minimized.

And what of our prayer meetings? I remember many men giving thanks to God for all his mercies before they presented petitions to God. Are we often too busy petitioning God to give him thanks? Do we consider the petitions the important thing, and when time is limited we ought to concentrate on that.

And what of meal-time grace in the home? Or in our favourite restaurant? If that isn’t too embarrassing to contemplate. It seems only my generation and older practice this, and even then it is dying out.

Have we little to thank God for?

It is more than a song to sing “My heart is filled with thankfulness …”. God’s mercies are fresh every day. Should our thankfulness not be as fresh as his mercies? Or have his mercies become sale by the time we have woken up to them? How stale is Calvary? Stale enough that the Lord’s Supper is an optional extra, infrequently partaken.

Is it perhaps time we read a little genealogy, and learned a big lesson. The people of God in Nehemiah’s time saw the danger of giving up on giving thanks, so they appointed Mattaniah as Minister of Thanksgiving to make sure they were always giving thanks. Would that we have the men and women in our churches today who would lead us in such thanksgiving.

So don’t skip the genealogies — you could miss a big lesson from a bit player in the unfolding drama of redemption. Where are the ministers of thanksgiving in the contemporary church? Where are Mattaniah’s understudies today?

I’ve just finished reading a couple of articles that deserve wider exposure. Bryan Appleyard wrote in The Times on 20 July 2008 “Stoooopid … why the Google generation isn’t as smart as it thing: The digital age is destroying us by ruining our ability to concentrate.” Nicholas Carr wrote an article earlier in The Atlantic Monthly for July/August 2008 entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains.”

Like both writers I’ve found myself less able to read deeply in a sustained manner over the past few years. And like them, I would attribute this to the effects of the Web.

Two weeks without Internet access on holiday threw me back to reading from dead trees almost exclusively. Only almost exclusively because I brought my laptop with me. Extremely limited television viewing for the past month has also reinforced my use of print. I think I’ve read more thoughtfully, even though I still read at a fast pace of knots. (During the fortnight, I managed to read Dorothy Sayer’s novel The Nine Tailors, Sinclair Ferguson’s The Pundit’s Folly, David Wells’s The Courage to be Protestant, and Ravi Zacharias’s The Grand Weaver. Some reflections may follow.)

Over the past year or so I’ve increasingly printed out Internet articles I wanted to read, initially because of deteriorating myopia, but now more because I can interact with them the better. I usually scribble objections, agreements and thoughts, tangential or otherwise, in the narrow margins, continuing onto discarded sheets previously printed, but still containing valuable white space. I might scream at the screen, but would rarely put pencil to paper unless I am reading from paper. Somehow the screen encourages only screams, but the catharsis of writing reflections on my reading seems altogether more satisfactory, and much easier when you have the printed paper before you.

And the very act of writing also helps clarify my thinking (though much muddle undoubtedly remains). Even if my scribblings lie in my ever ascending Tower of Babel, I seem to retain much more of their logic and reason than when I just skim on-screen. Our modern day fountain of knowledge seems like it has devastating consequences like the ancient tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of a clarity of thought, there is a great muddle of unconnected and rapidly fading factoids.

It is gravely concerning to see British government blithely pursuing an educational policy of seeking to provide ever more computer and Internet access to cure falling educational attainment targets (as reported on a recent BBC news broadcast). It seems like trying to cure an inveterate gambler’s addiction by providing free chips for his local casino. But then, education is following health policy — provide free methadone for heroin addicts. That will surely cure their drug problems.

Once we get online voting for local and national elections, Parliament and local councils will be little more than Big Brother where we eject the party of housemates we no longer favour.

Are we fast approaching the point where the undoubted benefits of the Internet for serious research will be outweighed by its debilitating side-effects? Or have we passed the point of no return already? Are we simply Googling ourselves to death?

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Update (18 Aug 2008): I see from Scott Karp (How Newsrooms Throw Away Value By Not Linking To Sources On The Web) that Nicholas Carr has listed his sources for his article in detail on his blog.

Yes, I admit it, I watched the Thunderbirds movie recently on television. I know it’s been out for several years, but that was my first opportunity to see it. Good clean fun — something of a rarity in today’s smut-ridden, foul-mouthed cinema. And, for a change, a good modern adaptation of a classic. (I am old enough to have watched the first run of the original television series.) The technological update was convincing, at least superficially — I’ll leave the Physics of Star Trek boys to pronounce definitively.

There was plenty of subtle humour which poked a little fun at the original series. But then if you can’t laugh at yourself, you aren’t really a complete human being. (I should know, I’m Irish.) And, of course, it is complete fantasy, so the characters are larger than life — and that’s as it should be.

But, fantasy or no, like all stories it has its own theology, philosophy, or worldview. It was refreshing to see evil in the midst of the Garden. Not that I find evil refreshing or ultimately attractive, but it’s not often Hollywood tells us we are bad at heart. But, then, again, that wasn’t really the message. Alan had his flaws. He was susceptible to the lure of the Hood. But ultimately good triumphed over evil and Alan redeemed himself by sheer force of will. And flawed Alan saved the evil Hood, though it definitely was a struggle. And in saving the Hood he ultimately saved all of the world.

Stirring stuff. A real ripping yarn. But flawed theology.

True, there is evil in Paradise. There is a tempter. And we can succumb to temptation and evil. But it’s not just the odd person who is susceptible. We all are susceptible, and all have succumbed. All we like sheep have gone astray and turned every one to his own way. (Isaiah 53:6)

As for saving ourselves? Forget it. It’s not mission impossible, it is impossible. None of us is good enough to pay the price of sin, he only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in (as Mrs Alexander put it). Our situation is not so precarious we need International Rescue — it is beyond even them. We need divine rescue. But when that divine rescue was being accomplished there were no awestruck crowds at the scene, or enthusiastic school boys crowded round the television. There was no applause when the rescue was finished.

Sure, there were crowds — it was a spectacle. But there were no cheers, just jeers. And as they echo down through the centuries, instead of dying echoes they are swelled by millions more. We just don’t want to be rescued. We can do it ourselves, if we feel we need it at all. But, frankly we’re not that bad. We have our weaknesses — that’s just being human. But rescue? We’re well short of needing that,

The truth, however, is we are well short — well short of God’s glory, his absolute standard of holiness. And help is available through trusting in Jesus Christ, God’s divine rescuer. Would that we would all come to repentance. It’s only then that life begins, the life that is life indeed.