Civil (ization)

                                               

 ^{A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.Proverbs 15:1}

The word civility shares the same root word as citizen. Citizens of a common nation survive largely because they enter into an implied contract that they need each other. Individual citizens have a role to play for the collective benefit and laws are created to balance mutual responsibilities to one another. 

These are interesting times in our world. Almost without exception, every topic, every issue has two sides. Yet, I continually see an erosion of the ability to discuss them in a rational non-angry way. Putting “civil” back into civilization is the basis for our society to function smoothly.

In 2009, Mark DeMoss founded the Civility Project. He asked 585 members of the U.S. Congress to pledge to use only civil rhetoric in public discourse.  The pledge required a person to be respectful of others whether or not you agreed with them, and to stand against incivility when it occurred.

After 2 years, only 3 had signed up, and the project was disbanded. Instead of getting positive responses, DeMoss received emails from both sides that were vitriolic and profane.   

That was 12 years ago. It’s not hard to trace how we got here.  Much of our incivility today comes from a Marxist movement which, at its center, desires to divide us by race. That one theme is the center of much controversy. 

Antonio Gramasci would be proud – he was one of the early Marxist thinkers who changed the original Marxist idea of creating cultural divisions through the exploitation of economic classes.  Instead, Gramasci realized that the western world lent itself to creating divisions based on ethnic or racial issues rather than economic ones.

His thinking can be seen in Prairie Fire, the 1970’s manifesto of the Weather Underground, a designated domestic terrorism group. It is available on Amazon today. I detailed its contents  here, and they are worth a look. Many Weathermen leaders were prosecuted, and many more dropped from public view and returned to academia where they have had an impact over the past decades. 

One convicted alumni of the Weather Underground – Susan Rosenberg – currently sits on a board that raises money for the Black Lives Matter movement. The 1619 Project and current Critical Race Theory is part of the new ideology which is more theology than ideology, making it hard to counter. 

The point is that academia has been instrumental in creating racial tensions, and it continues today with a vengeance.  It has poisoned the minds of the next generation into accepting a doctrine which is based on historical fallacy and is anti-God, anti- family and not biblical. 

I recently spoke to a friend who is the sole white woman in her office. She feels isolated and is openly scorned because of her race, something she has no control over. She doesn’t know how to respond to criticism, fearing any pushback will only blow up and escalate. 

While I don’t have magical solutions, I thought I would tackle how we inject civility in a very uncivil culture.  One key is being polite – exercising grace to those around you even though they may not deserve it. For Christians, being filled with grace is a good witness. 

The second suggestion is to disagree without showing disrespect.  One of the great lines from The Gambler, a country and western song is: “Know when to hold them and when to fold them.”  Sometimes disagreement may require turning the other cheek. Put another way, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

As a believer, you have the right to your opinion. Jesus didn’t bend on essential truths that He asked us to live by.  Conflict is unavoidable, but combat is a choice.  Before we move into combat, one might want to try and have an opportunity to understand the differences. That might mean building bridges, not blowing them up.

The racial controversy is a difficult topic even between Christian brothers who actually love each other. I attend a bible study on mornings which is composed of about 20% minority participants. They are all my brothers. Last year, we asked them to speak about their personal experiences of discrimination.

It was heart-wrenching, and many tears were shed. We just listened and lamented with them. Their experiences should never happen in a country that was designed to provide freedom to all races.  My own daughter in law is Asian and has endured discrimination over her lifetime as well. It shouldn’t happen, but it does. 

Recently, Marvin Olasky profiled a chapter from a book titled “Why Didn’t We Riot” by a black professor at Davidson College which is located in North Carolina. The book is World Magazine’s runner up for book of the year in 2020.  The chapter is worth a read because it is one man’s story of his experiences – similar to what we heard on a Friday morning from my black friends.

Clearly, I am sympathetic to the injustices that have occurred to blacks and minorities over time. But the narrative being pushed that it is all the white race’s fault and that they are oppressors and blacks are victims is not a bridge but a battle. As Tony Dungy says, “God wants us to build bridges, not walls, wherever possible”.

The next generation have been steeped in these racial narratives to the point of indoctrination. They don’t know history and favor socialism which is the goal of Marxism.

There are difficult discussions ahead, but ones that will have to happen and hopefully, grace and civility will be the centerpiece.  As Christians, you can understand past injustices, but you also know that the solution is civility leading to bridges not division.

MENTOR TAKEAWAY:  Mentors are in the perfect position to dial into these kinds of issues by providing a correct historical and biblical solution to race.  

FURTHER READING:  Antonio Gramasci: The Godfather of Cultural Marxism

Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism

The Crazy True Story of the Weather Underground

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World – Mouw

Why Didn’t We Riot: A Black Man in Trumpland –  Isaac

The Child Soldiers of Portland – Rufo

WORSHIP:  Grace Flows Down – Nockels

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Identity

And he [Christ] himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Ephesians 4:11-13 (NET)

I wrote on this topic 5 years ago based on millennials finding their identity based on what they did, as opposed to who they were. Finding your identity is largely self-definition according to Zygmunt Bauman in his 1996 essay titled “From Pilgrims to  Tourists – A Short History of Identity.”

Bauman’s essay makes some interesting points. In the rural culture of villages before the industrial revolution, no one really worried about their identity. He writes: “The modern ‘quest’ for identity is a response for the inability of people to clearly project who they are to others.”  

Bauman describes the post-modern identity in the late 20^th Century. He described the ‘Pilgrim’ who had fixed boundaries and direction, but that the new moderns were “flexible, mobile and unattached”. Thus, moderns would not be tied down to old anchors such as “fixed addresses, professions or relationships (like spouses and children).”

Bauman created with four types of identity:  tourist, stroller, vagabond and player. They all had one thing in common – they all resisted traditional values of investing in “daily work of building a resume, a business, a family” according to Richard Gibson. 

Bauman’s tourist and the stroller are both observers – they are passively involved in the world, just taking it all in. The vagabond was the bane of modernity – he has no set destination in a world defined by what you do. He is always out of place and a maverick.

The ‘player’  is in the game to win and there is “no room for compassion, commiseration or cooperation.” A player lives from game to game – no long term goals involved.

Gibson critiques Bauman’s work and says, among other things, that he finds there are a lot pilgrims with traditional values around. Thank goodness. But Bauman, in 1996, couldn’t see what the digital age would do to his identity types.

Gibson adds the ‘I-Marketer’ who is building a digital brand on social media. “Life is now a [media] marketing campaign in which the product is you.”  Self-promotion is “in”. 

Gibson replaced Bauman’s ‘stroller’ with a ‘strider’. A stroller is an observer, or as Bauman notes, a stroller is “in the crowd” but not “of the crowd”. A strider, on the other hand, does everything intentionally and is part of the show. Going to church or entering a race for a cause or charity is not just for exercise but to have a public witness to the crowd.  

These characterizations are superficial.  They continue the trend of defining yourself by what you do, not who you are. They also lack any spiritual component which was present in the original Pilgrim.   The post-modern goal is to “find out who I am” without a broader inquiry of values or a spiritual context.

No doubt, in another decade, sociologists will come up with newer identities, not just ones shaped by recent technology. I pray that more Pilgrims will surface. 

I read these kinds of essays to get a look at how a post-modern, post-Christian views the world. This is where the millennials and Gen Z are, so I see these as insights into their worldview and mindset.

A recent survey showed that 43% of millennials “don’t know, don’t care, [and] don’t believe in God.”  Less than half of millennials believe that you treat others as you want them to treat you. That’s down from 90% four generations ago – the “silent” or “builder” generation – who were born after World War I. 

I am now 38 years after my own faith experience.  My identity before was a lawyer trying to earn a living for my growing family. When I became a Christian, I learned that God had given me a purpose and had gifted me in certain ways for the benefit of the Kingdom, not for my own purposes.

When I came across the above passage in Ephesian 4 (plus others in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12),  I found my gifting which pointed me in the direction God wanted me to go. 

Early on, I struggled with my new perspective. God put me in leadership positions both in my church and my law career that I had shunned before. I also struggled with becoming the spiritual leader of my household, a role I didn’t know I had.

The identity issue, from a Christian standpoint, is not so much “who” we are but “whose” we are. We have an identity in Christ – in all that we do. That is what unifies us. We are sons and daughters of the King. 

While our paths and careers are different and diverse, we all have roles to play in the Kingdom. We have been gifted differently but we have the same Kingdom purpose. Realizing those gifts and talents can help us find what God was up to when He made you.   And the bible is clear that we are gifted not just for the here and now, but also to reach future generations.

The next generation has a singular postmodern focus on determining “who I am” as opposed to the modernist focus on “what you do”.   They need models to show them that they have a larger purpose in life than just finding an identity. That’s where mentors can come alongside and help guide them.

MENTOR TAKEAWAY:  Mentors can help a mentee realize his strengths, gifts and talents, and also to provide a spiritual context for finding his or her identity and purpose.

FURTHER READING:  From Pilgrims to  Tourists – A Short History of Identity – Bauman

From Pilgrim to Tourist to….. ?   Gibson

Analysis of History: The Story of Premodernism, Modernism and Postmodernism –Kalan

43% of Millennials “Don’t know, Don’t care, Don’t Believe God Exists – Christian Post

WORSHIP: When God Made You – Natalie Grant

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Agon

Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. 1 Corinthian 9:24-26 (NLT)

No, that’s not a misspelling. Agon is the Greek word for race in the above passage.  It is also the root word for agony.  It signifies a race where endurance and determination have to overcome times of difficulty which occur in any race.

If you have ever been a runner, that will make sense to you. I started running in my 30’s as a means of staying fit.  Every now and then, I would try some local races – a 5K or 10K, for example. If you are just running for exercise, you often don’t press, but a race is different, and training for one requires a different mindset.

The first race I ever ran was in Raleigh called, aptly, The Great Raleigh Road Race.  It was a 10K race which was a challenge to someone who had  never run a race before.  My goal was simple: I wanted to finish.  

I remember running at a pace which would easily enable me to get through the race.  As I approached the last part of the race, I felt I had enough stamina to speed up for a fast finish.  As I started to kick it, I passed a racer who was lying on the ground and looked blue – he had obviously overtaxed himself. 

One look was enough, and I slowed back down.  I did finish, by the way, standing up.

Paul, in the above passage, says run to win.  For me, it was a run to finish, but that was a “win” in my mind. Running was a new sport for me, but one that served me well over those years when I traveled a lot and other forms of exercise would have been difficult. 

Some modern educational philosophies run counter to the idea that competing at sports has a goal of winning.  Instead, win or lose, children are given participation trophies with the idea that it helps their self-esteem. I think that is misguided.

Being competitive has benefits  because learning about winning and losing develops resiliency in the long run. That is an important lesson that only can be learned through the personal experience of facing adversity (like losing a race or a game) and committing to improve.

One of the traits of the next generation is that many parents have tried to protect them in bubble wrap so that they don’t experience failure.  The “helicopter parents” come to mind. They hover over their children, so they only have positive experiences and live live in a risk-free environment.

Another is the “lawnmower parent” where the parent literally mows down every obstacle or bump in the road in their child’s way. Unfortunately, this leads to unintended consequences. Their children don’t face adversity, and thus do not learn to be resilient.

Many in the next generation are struggling emotionally and mentally with the pandemic and isolation. They have faced little failure or adversity and are often unprepared for events like this. They are the most scared of COVID, even though they are the least at risk. 

A friend of mine wrote a blog where he described his 90 year-old mother and the lessons he learned from her. One quote caught me:  “She made us laugh and believed that into each life some rain must fall.”  A child protected from all adversity doesn’t know how to react when it rains. 

Paul takes the race metaphor of running to win to a spiritual level when he describes the race of life to be a quest for the eternal prize. In a post Christian world, that is a message that has been lost to the next generation. Many are often too self-absorbed to see the larger picture.

What better place to take our God given talents and gifts to pursue kingdom goals to reach others?  What does that look like?  Well, it is more than just showing up in church now and then.  That would be like an easy jog in the park. 

To me, it means “running” with discipline and perseverance in serving those who need our help. It means accepting those different than us, loving those who disagree with us and yet never compromising our Christian values.  It might mean giving ourselves away sacrificially, or just doing little things that shows our character when nobody is watching. It might also mean being a mentor.

The next generation needs to learn to run with excellence. It is a path to a life fulfilled. They may need a coach or mentor to come alongside to encourage them when they face life issues or bumps in the road.

MENTOR TAKEAWAY: Your mentee is a gem in the rough who might need some encouragement or edges smoothed in order to attain what God has in his or her future.

FURTHER READING:  Helicopter Parenting: From Good Intentions to Poor Outcomes – Gottman Institute

The “Lawnmower Parent” is Destroying Future Generations – Mel

WORSHIP: Glorious Day – Passion

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Sex (Or Not)

 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.  1 Corinthians 7:2

This is not going to be about the gender debate, which is a separate issue. I have long watched trends and values of millennials and the next generation – actually the trends started with the Boomers from the days of the 1960’s where young people threw off biblical values when it comes to sex and marriage.

There are several trends at play. One of them is that the birth rate in the past year has dropped to the lowest levels since 1979, which was over 40 years ago. The birth rate has been trending down before COVID, but the pandemic and other factors played in. 

One of the other factors is that millennials have had a hard time finding their financial foothold since the recession of 2008 and are playing catch up. 

The low rate of births is not just a U.S. phenomenon – it is worldwide issue based on a Lancet Study.   “They [Japan and Italy] are two of 23 countries – which also include Spain, Portugal, Thailand and South Korea – expected to see their population more than halve.”

That’s a very sobering long term trend. It will upend the social order in countries like Japan which has an aging population. Japan’s economic base of an increasingly younger population will be insufficient to pay for social services that will be needed by the larger retired population.

Professor Murray, in the Lancet Study, also notes that unless women start deciding to have more children, “eventually the species disappears, but that is a few centuries away.”  

Which leads to my second trend of increasing cohabitation among supposedly “Christians” prior to marriage. Is this the new norm?  A Pew Study in 2019  showed that half of American Christians think that casual sex is “sometimes or always” morally acceptable.  I checked with my international friends, and this seems to be not just an American trend. 

While Evangelical Christians were less likely to accept casual sex, a new study shows that Evangelicals have a wider acceptance of cohabitation, rather than casual sex. In other words, as each generation goes forward, mores and biblical views  of the marital institution are being slowly eroded. 

A Pew study in 2019 showed that 58% of white evangelicals approve of cohabitation if a couple plans to marry. In another study, forty percent of Evangelicals in their 20’s thought cohabitation was acceptable without an intent to get married. 

Our media and Hollywood have been complicit for decades in portraying sex outside of marriage as normal behavior. In most romantic shows on television or movies, a couple sleeping together is a shown as normal step in a relationship.  

As one of my astute friends commented, whatever is being portrayed as normal in the media, movies and on television today will result in a cultural change to that “new” normal in 10 years.  One only has to look back on television reruns to verify that observation.

I think that portrayal actually is a disservice to the institution of marriage because it places intimacy outside of marriage as “normal, expected and problem free”, according to Tony Dungy. 

It is an idealized and distorted picture, but one that even Christians seem to accept.

The goal of dating is friendship first – that’s the way it worked for me with my wife some 55 years ago. We became best friends (and we still are) who then became soul mates, leading to marriage. And then sex. We have lived through ups and downs, grown three children and have 9 grandchildren.

All I can say is the formula worked for us. She completes me in ways that is hard to express, just as God made Eve to complete Adam.

Changing the order by cohabitating before marriage can have long-term consequences, and according to the research, those consequences are not good ones.

Studies show that those who cohabitate were more likely to become less satisfied with sex over time. George Bernard Shaw warned that strong sexual attraction may exist between two people so incompatible in tastes and capacities that they “could not endure living together for a week, much less a lifetime.”

Other consequences: A study in 2018 by the Journal of Marriage and Family showed that couples that cohabitated before marriage were at greater risk of divorce. Given that the divorce rate hoovers around 50%, that means that only a small minority of those marriages will survive. Not good odds. 

How can this cultural assimilation be slowed?  The answer is for parents and mentors to emphasize the sacredness of marriage as a norm and worth preserving. That’s probably simpler said than done, but regular instruction by parents, ministers and mentors in the biblical model of the institution of marriage is a key. As I said, Paul’s formula, if followed, actually works.

They need to be taught not just the “what” (what the Bible says), but the “why”,  and  be shown “how” it is to be lived out. To many in the next generation, the Christian view of sex and marriage is like a foreign language, and the wider culture is winning the battle.

Paul is very clear in his letter to the Corinthians what the biblical view is on marriage and sex.    Christians should not be afraid to speak up about this cultural issue which is not beneficial to the long term survival of our species nor the creation of healthy long lasting marriages.

MENTOR TAKEAWAY: Mentors and parents need to stand in the gap for the next generation who have been lulled into thinking cohabitation is acceptable. 

FURTHER READING:  Birth Rate Slumps to Lowest Level Since 1979 – WSJ

Fertility Rates: ‘Jaw Dropping” Global Crash in Children Being Born – BBC News

Is Christian Co-habitation the New Normal – Christian Post

Half of Christians Think Casual Sex is Acceptable – Pew Research

Marriage and Cohabitation in the US – Pew Research

WORSHIP: When God Made You – Natalie Grant/Newsong

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