In response to last week’s newsletter and Post(erity) Post retracing my history of being social online, here’s an insightful note from a friend in Texas who has known me from (and was a part of) said inglorious beginning:
“As a fellow member of your particular Internet cohort, I recall the heady days when dinosaur blogs dominated the Internet landscape. Though there was certainly no shortage of trolls, the format itself tended to ‘reward’ those who could articulate their points with something a bit more substantial than a vulgar meme or an animated GIF of a scene from ‘The Office.’
Oh, that still occurred then as now, but it wasn't the dominant life form of the day. I can recall our own initial encounters via the TwentySomeone blog. While there was certainly no shortage of passive-aggressive snark and sarcasm to go around, it was the exchange of competing propositions that drove the conversation. Had I tried to make my points about Covenant Theology, N.T. Wright, or Lauren Winner by some silly image macro of a church sign, the conversation would have amounted to little more than a virtual eye roll on your part. And deservedly so. ;)
Commencing virtual eye roll…engaged!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not just a grumpy old man complaining about ‘kids these days’ and shaking my fist at clouds. I fear we’ve lost something profound, and we can see it in the way we interact with each other. In our clumsy lurch to become more ‘connected,’ the disconnect has become more apparent than ever.”
Dude nails it. His comments remind me of what Neil Postman wrote in his prophetic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death:
“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, and commercials.”
Postman wrote that in 1985!
Here’s a note from a reader in response to last week’s Hot Take on a New York Times study that potentially misreads transgender success:
“The revelation found in the bible shows us the truth about God and mankind. Our sin continues to pervert reality as we exchange the truth for a lie. I get the impression that so many of the ‘trades’ we see today are derived from the first chapter of Genesis. As so many people now ask, ‘Does life have to be this hard?’ we can emphatically answer that question from the remaining pages of the Bible, and gaze upon the Solution.
‘So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’’ Genesis 1:27-28 NIV
It seems many are obsessed with perverting God's truth...after all, we’re all sinners. The LGBTQ movement has taken the rainbow as its sign. (‘I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.’) The movement has taken pride, the thing that crushed Satan, and made it their motto. (Gay Pride). I'm sure there are more, but the next one I've picked up on is ‘male and female he created them.’ Boys are becoming girls and girls becoming boys and everything in-between. Schools, parents, teachers, lawmakers, the Internet, and administrators are pushing it across the land and seeking to exchange the truth with a lie. And, they’re actually doing it very successfully.”
Indeed, the ways of God are targets, and if Satan is anything, he is one to twist them for his purposes. As Christians, we have to do a better job of presenting what the originals mean, why they matter, and how they work in real life.
I always appreciate hearing from readers. Thanks for writing and for reading Second Drafts.
Craig
Let Battle Be Joined
Thanks to my friend, Ginny Owens, for always taking and sharing good outdoor pictures, this one from Peet’s Hill of the Bridger Mountains under the Big Sky.
In case you haven’t checked your calendar recently, we’ve reached a time of year that tends to bring with it various and sundry causes for rejoicing. The weather has changed (even in Montana, we’re finally into full-blown Spring) and the later light and warmer sunshine have caused green grass to grow and budding blossoms to bloom. It’s as if all of God’s creation is celebrating, and we as His human creatures—who tend to take our best cues from nature—are mimicking the hoopla with graduation ceremonies for courses completed and marriage nuptials to secure love’s commitment.
In the Dunham family, we’re celebrating two graduations—our final one from high school and our first one from college. Millie will walk the stage on June 2 and graduate from Petra Academy, heading to Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, George, in August; Maddie was due to graduate from Montana State earlier this month, but due to an unfortunate snafu in their advising program (read: her advisor), she found out a month before graduation that she lacked three credits to do so. She’ll take an online nutrition course this summer to complete requirements for her English Literature and Writing degree, but we’re celebrating now nevertheless.
Maddie and Millie, 2022 graduates. (Photo: Chloe Dunham)
Our second-born, Chloe, is “graduating” of sorts and is soon to transition out of her manager role for both Cold Smoke Coffeehouse locations after three-and-a-half faithful years helping grow the business. She’s also a year away from finishing her business and marketing degree from Southern New Hampshire University, which has been a tremendous amount of work on top of a more-than-full-time job. Katie, our third-born, just finished her first year of college at Montana State, has one more semester at home before she transfers to the University of New Mexico at the end of the year to continue her art history studies, and is basking in the glory of free evenings while she works day shifts slinging coffee for her older sister.
Megan will complete her fifth year teaching at Petra, and she and I are planning a week-long road trip to northern California mid-June to celebrate 25 years of marriage (our anniversary was in December, in case you missed our commemorative podcast). And Peaches is looking forward to some good hiking and camping this summer, as well as digging into some good fiction (though she hasn’t decided which books yet).
Lastly, after almost 20 years since publishing my first one, I have a new book coming out on June 7 (see below for details), a project just one week shy of being a year in the making, with another one possibly on the horizon. It’s turned out better than I hoped, and I can’t wait for readers to read it.
With the infamous Mako in our Hawaiian shirts.
For all of the above, I rejoice and give thanks to God. And yet saying that can seem trite at best, insensitive at worst. After all, with everything that’s going on in the world—in other places where it’s also Spring—wouldn’t it be better to keep our good news to ourselves in light of the horror so many have seen and suffered even this past weekend?
You may have heard that violence is up, but it’s not just of late. Here’s an interesting chart tracking homicide rates that doesn’t even include the first five months of 2022:
Data for 2020 and 2021 are estimates. Sources: Jeff Asher; F.B.I.
Blame for the violence is everywhere, but that’s a topic for another newsletter. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of hate and hurt in our country, but America’s murder rate is only a small sample of Sixth Commandment breaking when compared to what else is happening in the world—the war in Ukraine, for example, or the genocides going on in Burma, Ethiopia, China, and Syria. And what about the other nine Commandments? When I taught Christian Ethics to 10th graders, one project I assigned was to catalog news stories—one keeping and one breaking—each of the Ten Commandments. Sadly, when it came to finding stories of people trespassing God’s Law, students never lacked for material.
Then there’s the news that nobody reads about because, well, very few write about or report it. Apart from this piece in Get Religion, I read next to nothing about pro-abortion activists interrupting and vandalizing Catholic churches on Mother’s Day. In addition, from the rumblings being made about the so-called “summer of rage” (sounds like a bad music festival; actually, I wish it were only a bad music festival), I’m assuming things are going to get worse before they get better, especially since it’s not even officially summer yet.
Depressing, isn’t it? Compared to how I started this week’s feature, it certainly is; in fact, it’s a major buzz kill (which, of course, I have been accused more than once of incarnating here). The classic question always comes to mind: “How should we then live?” when things may be going well in our little corners of the world, but not so much (or at all) out on the streets of the world? Do we disregard the good and become preoccupied with the evil so as not to seem insensitive or tone deaf to others in their struggles? Or, do we ignore and close ourselves off from the evil and instead only concentrate on where we are and any good going on with us?
The right answer to both, of course is, “no.” But that doesn’t make navigating a third philosophical way easy, especially if we’re trying to go beyond the philosophical in order to (gulp) make it practical.
Not an Either/Or Command
In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul’s treatise on the Christian faith, after taking time to expound on all that God has done for us in Christ, he gets as practical as anyone serious about answering my question could want. Maybe you’ve read the text before, but don’t skip through it now; read it slowly in answer to my question:
“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:9-21 ESV
Paul starts with love, which comes from God and is His most defining attribute. Out of this love, Paul makes a distinction between evil and good—the first of which is to be abhorred but not ignored; the second of which is to not only be recognized but clung to—but he doesn’t give us an out to only have to deal with one or the other.
Paul goes on, sharing more righteous recommendations before coming to his exhortation to “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” This is not an either/or command; we don’t get to pick and choose which option we prefer. While the directive speaks to our responsibility to celebrate and empathize with others in their joys and their sorrows, it can logically be inferred that we don’t need to hold back our own versions of either as well.
Of course, tact and tone matter in how we present our successes and lament our losses. Paul isn’t saying we should just emote all over everyone; as far as it depends on us, we are to live in peace with others, and sometimes that means not trying to one-up one another with how good or how bad we’ve got it. We’ve all been around “that guy” or “that gal”; if we’re not sure we have, “that guy” or “that gal” has probably been us.
Finally, Paul says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” To obey his command, we have to deal with both—evil and good; we don’t get to ignore what’s going on the world, nor do we need to feel guilty about what good might be going on in ours. On the contrary, to deal with evil will require good, so why try to diminish God’s good to us in the face of evil? What else do we have to fight evil with?
Overcoming Evil with Good
Douglas McKelvey, in “A Liturgy for Feasting with Friends” from his Every Moment Holy series, writes:
“To gather joyfully is indeed a serious affair, for feasting and all enjoyments gratefully taken are, at their heart, acts of war.”
Gathering, feasting, and all enjoyments as acts of war? McKelvey continues:
“In celebrating this feast we declare that evil and death, suffering and loss, sorrow and tears, will not have the final word.”
And then:
“All will be well! Nothing good and right and true will be lost forever. All good things will be restored. Feast and be reminded! Take joy, little flock. Take joy! Let battle be joined! Let battle be joined!”
We join the battle by rejoicing in God’s goodness to us and others. We join the battle by weeping with those who have experienced evil that we are not willing to ignore.
Don’t hold back! Boldly fight the evil that seems to prevail upon our world by humbly sharing the good that God is doing in your own life. All will (one day) be well!
Post(erity): “Advice on Teaching Attrocities”
Each week, I choose a post from the past apropos of something in the newsletter.
One of far too many mass graves in the history of the world.
This week’s Post(erity) post, “Advice on Teaching Attrocities,” is from March 2013. I received a short email from a teacher asking for help in preparing to teach the history of some of the world’s most horrific events, so I offered a few thoughts. An excerpt:
“The biggest thing to think through is your own personal preparation; that is, understand that the kids will take their cue from how you present and process with them, so if they see you being ONLY objective, then anything truly awful will seem shocking because we as humans shouldn't be unemotional when it comes to these things. In other words, students need to see you deal emotionally with the grief and not just the facts of these atrocities.”
In addition to ordering now (which helps our Amazon rankings), please encourage others to do the same via social media and old-fashioned word-of-mouth. Then, when the book comes out (and only if you like it), please leave a good review on our Amazon page (note: if you don’t like it, you can send that feedback to me).
For those in Bozeman, we’re planning a book reading/signing with Mako in June or July and would love if you came and brought a friend (or ten). Details to come.
A year in the making (and just in time for summer), Mako’s World is almost here!
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