Fake Manliness and the Lost Generation
Your manliness does not come from these outward qualities or commitments. It comes from a deep love of the Savior who bought you with a price. Taking seriously the calling of Ephesians 6:1-4 to raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, listening to Ephesians 5 and loving your wife as Christ loved the Church, by leading her and being a Man for once. All these things are a helpful way to start thinking about the way to get the young men interested in being the kind of person God has called them to be, not fake society, or domesticating them into women.
Our topic today is a little bit out of left field, and may seem a bit strange, especially since it may appear to only apply to half of you. Most of you know that my dissertation for my doctoral degree was on reaching white working-class men for Christ. The least “churched” people group in the United States are young white men without a college education. No one knows that because most people don’t care. They are not high on the list of agenda items at most church plant conferences nor is there really anything being written about them. When I was doing research the only resources I could find were all negative. In other words these men who don’t actually go to worship on the Lord’s Day were being blamed for all kinds of societal problems with their evangelicalism coming along for the ride. Outside of the white working-class not really having any actual political power the bigger issue, at least for me as a minister of the gospel, was trying to figure out why they weren’t going to church, and the reasons I found were not exactly groundbreaking. For our prayer and worship help we are going to think through this for a little bit, and try and find a solution, or at least just complain about it.
First of all the men I talked to who were under fortyish all had one thing in common: they do not have fathers, and in many cases even grandfathers, for which meeting with Jesus on the Sabbath was any kind of priority. Even if they did attend on the odd Sunday they looked and acted like a conscientious objector through the whole service. Didn’t sing, didn’t really pay attention, was quiet, but completely uninvolved in the happenings around them. They might as well have been Helen Keller for all the good it did them to be there. Why should a younger man put any effort into being at the Lord’s house if the men in his orbit didn’t? It’s a good question, and one I don’t really blame them for. They just acting how they was raised.
The second big reason given to me was the church was full of hypocrites. Imagine finding sinners at a church. But that wasn’t really what they was talking about. These men may not be Christians, but one doesn’t necessarily need to be to put two and two together. People acting one way on Sunday morning and then another the rest of the week has a habit of putting a damper on you thinking it makes any difference how dolled up you get for Sabbath School and morning service if you just going to go roll around in the mud when Monday comes.
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Jesus the Zealot
As the Temple housed the ark of the covenant containing the law of God so too Christ is the incarnate Word and consummate revelation of God. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1). As the temple was the meeting place between God and man where his people would come to worship, so we meet God in Christ Jesus and only through Him is our worship made acceptable.
In 1516, Johan Tetzel was dispatched by Pope Leo X to raise money for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by selling indulgences. According to the Roman Catholic Church, when one purchased an indulgence, the Pope would remit the punishment of their sin by applying the merit of Jesus and the saints. Tetzel told the poor peasants whom he preyed on, “When a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” This blasphemous greed sparked the righteous indignation of a German monk named Martin Luther, who on Oct. 31, 1517 nailed a document to the cathedral doors of Wittenberg, listing 95 complaints, or theses, against the Roman Catholic Church. Luther insisted that God alone, not the Pope, could remit the guilt and penalty of sin; that the sale of indulgences was a crime against humanity and heaven for the merit of Christ alone, not of Mary, martyrs and saints, was able to save the soul. The Lord used Luther’s zeal to ignite the Protestant Reformation. And as the Roman Catholic Church still sells indulgences, we are still protesting Protestants.
In John 2:12-22, we read of another infinitely greater zealot, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was so incensed by the greed and corruption that had infected the church, his Father’s house, he broke out in holy fury to reform it, for Jesus is zealous for pure worship and we should be too.
First, Jesus displays his zeal. From the wedding in Cana, to Capernaum, Jesus “went up to Jerusalem because the Passover of the Jews was at hand” (John 2:13). Passover was 1 of 7 feast days instituted by God in the Old Testament, whereby the church would celebrate his past faithfulness. Passover honored the Lord’s mercy when the angel of death killed all the firstborn of Egypt but passed over Hebrew homes which bore the blood of the lamb. Since proper Passover observance required a sacrifice, the faithful journeyed to Jerusalem every year.
See the zeal in Jesus religious observance. Despite the cost, danger and difficulty of the journey, he was committed to observing the holy ordinances of God. Can you say the same? Though Christ fulfilled and abolished the feast days of old, “there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9), on which the Lord has commanded his people to cease from all worldly employment and recreation to rest in the finished work of Christ chiefly through corporate worship. But all too often we are not zealous in our observance of God’s holy day. Consistent church attendance is interrupted by work, school and sports. We easily forget how desperately we need to be sanctified through the truth of God’s Word. We forget that we who are members vowed to support the church in its work and worship. We forget that God promised the one who “calls the Sabbath a delight and honors it” (Isaiah 58:13-14) will delight in the Lord, and ride on the heights of the earth, and feast upon the heritage of Jacob. Jesus was willing to travel three days, on foot, through the wilderness, uphill, because he remembered and believed God’s promise to bless the means of grace. May Christ’s zeal burning in us, joyfully drive us to the same observant faith… remembering all the while that it was Christ’s observance, not ours, that saves us!
Recently, a headline caught my eye: “Florida man banned from ocean after being arrested in human-sized hamster wheel off Tybee.” Sadly, this was Ray Baluchi’s 4th attempt to cross the Atlantic in his “Hydro Sphere.” He made it an impressive 70 miles across the 4,000-mile span between continents. We laugh because it’s absurd. How much more absurd to think that you could span the infinitely greater distance between earth and heaven in your hamster wheel of good works, spiritual discipline and church attendance. Christ’s righteousness, no ours, that has the power and perfection to saves us.
But we also see Jesus zeal in his objection to the profaning of religion: “In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there” (John 2:14)
Jerusalem’s streets would have been flooded with pilgrims; her air would have been electric with anticipation. But what Jesus found when he came to the temple broke his heart. Instead of saints singing psalms he heard the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep. Instead, the sweet aroma of burning incense, he smelled the septic stench of animal dung. Instead of a people bowed in prayer he witnessed all the commotion of commerce and trappings of trade. What may have begun as a sincere service to travelers by offering a one stop shop where they could exchange foreign currency and acquire lambs necessary to participate in the feast, had devolved into a feverish flee market. Blinded by greed, the priests and merchants were profiting from Passover! The sacred had been profaned and the temple tainted. And Jesus would not stand for it. While the other gospels record Jesus’ second cleansing of the temple two years later, John alone records this first cleansing. And John alone includes Jesus’ whip. Some commentators suggest that Jesus used it to drive animals only, but that’s not what the text says. John wrote, “And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade’” (John 2:15-16). Malachi spoke of this day in Malachi 3:1; the day the Lord would “suddenly come to his temple, to purify the sons of Levi,” asking “who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.”
What do you do with this side of Jesus? Our sinful hearts predispose us to approach scripture like a buffet line: picking and choosing only what we like and leaving the rest. We like the thought of gentle Jesus, meek and mild, healer, teacher, servant, and friend of sinners (and he is!) But what about King Jesus, the man of war in blood-stained robes who treads the wine press of the wrath of God? What about the demon slayer who came to destroy the powers of darkness? What about the serpent-stomping Seed of the Woman? What about the all-terrible Lamb of God in whose presence the beast and his followers will burn in the lake of fire forever? What about this table flipping, whip-wielding zealot? If you’re embarrassed by Jesus, if this passage makes you feel a tinge of shame, could it be that you are not sufficiently offended by the pollution of God’s worship? Could it be that we aren’t sufficiently zealous for pure worship? Let us never be ashamed of Christ! Let us own him and praise him for his courage and zeal.
In one of the iconic scenes of C.S. Lewis’, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Beaver was telling the children about Aslan, the king of Narnia, and Lucy asked, “Is he a man?” Mr. Beaver replied, “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond- the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion…” Susan asked, “Is he – quite safe?” “Safe?” asked Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” So too, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of Judah isn’t safe. But he’s good. So, may we be gripped by the ferocious goodness of Christ who was willing to stand alone to defend the honor of God.
As the disciples watched Jesus clean house, they didn’t withdraw from him or make apologies for him. Instead, they remembered the words of Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” In Greek, to be zealous is to be jealous over something that belongs to you but is being threatened… like the loving wife who is jealous for the eyes and desires of her husband. So, you see, this was no sinful outburst. Jesus was consumed with zeal because pure worship in the splendor of holiness was being withheld from the Lord to whom it was due. So, like Josiah and Hezekiah, King Jesus purged the temple of its idols; in this case the idol of money.
Paul warned Timothy, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10). So, you elders and deacons must vigilantly guard your own hearts and the hearts of our people from the love of money. Should the church be engaged in commerce of any kind? Pew taxes, book tables, gift shops, or fund raisers? Is it safe to say that if you need a cash register at church, you’re doing it wrong? Shouldn’t the needs of the church be met by the Lord himself through the faithful tithing of his people?
But this passage speaks more deeply to the spiritual mission of the church. The tragic error of the church growth movement is that it looks to Starbucks instead of Scripture to determine it priorities and strategies. Today, many churches are built to look and feel like a coffee shop or a concert hall instead of a traditional meeting house, built for preaching and singing. Everything from the music to the message is geared towards the comfort of the consumer. While all Christians should long to see the church filled, we must remember that the mission of church is not firstly our comfort but the glory of God. Richard Phillips said, “Our success in worship is measured not in the amount of money we take in, not in the number of people we attract, but in the purity and truth with which we worship God and cause his name to receive glory.” So let us burn with Christ-like zeal for pure, holy, and biblical worship that pleases God, the true consumer of our worship, the true seeker, seeking those who would worship him in Spirit and truth.
Having displayed his zeal in observance and objection, Jesus defends his zeal. Why do you think nobody tried to stop Jesus? Where was temple security? I mean, he was throwing furniture! I suspect it’s because the righteousness of his cause was so undeniable, and the hand of God was so evident in his work none could object. Instead of attacking his actions the Jews attacked his credentials, demanding a sign: “So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:18-22). Jesus defended his zeal by appealing to his future resurrection. And his cryptic language did exactly what he intended: it veiled the truth to those outside the kingdom while revealing it to those inside.
Jesus was speaking figuratively, it’s true. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t saying something spectacular that we must hear. Why does he refer to himself as the temple? Because he is! As the Shekinah glory cloud of God rested upon and filled the temple, so too the Spirit of God descended and remained upon Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews marveled, “He is radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3).
As the Temple housed the ark of the covenant containing the law of God so too Christ is the incarnate Word and consummate revelation of God. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1). As the temple was the meeting place between God and man where his people would come to worship, so we meet God in Christ Jesus and only through Him is our worship made acceptable. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). As the temple was the place where priests made atoning sacrifices to expiate the sins of God’s people and propitiate the just wrath of God, so too Jesus, our great high priest offered himself as our substitute upon the cross to satisfy the demand of divine justice, put away the guilt and shame of our sin forever, and reconcile us to God.
As the Passover pilgrims had to enter into the temple so too you must enter into the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you done that? Or are you still on the outside looking in, thinking to yourself, “Oh I would! I would enter into Christ if only I knew how! Where is the door by which I may enter into Christ and be saved?”
There is an ancient church in Bethlehem which some claim was be built upon the sight of Jesus’ birth. Though the church is grand and its walls are made of great stones, the door is small, just four feet high. It is called “the door of humility,” because to enter in you must bow down. So must we to enter into Christ… we must bow down in humble adoration, repenting of our sins, and putting our trust in him.
This you must do, for one day the Lord Jesus will come again, like a thief in the night he will suddenly appear riding on the clouds of glory, to sift the wheat from the chaff. Even now, he stands at the door, his winnowing fork in hand! Those who have rejected him and his overtures of love and forgiveness will hear the most dreadful words: “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). And they will be cast into the furnace of the fury of God. But those who have entered into Christ through faith as their soul’s refuge, hiding place, high tower and temple can rest secure behind the stone walls of his steadfast love and unassailable righteousness, beneath the waving banner of God’s favor, which bears these words, written in the blood of Christ, “Well done, good and faithful servant…Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21). So warns, and so promises the sweet psalmist of Israel: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:12). Won’t you come and take refuge in Christ!
Jim McCarthy is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Trinity PCA in Statesboro, Ga.
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Jordan Peterson, Jung, and Hope for the Faint-Hearted
Jordan Peterson seems to be a genuine seeker after truth, with an insatiable appetite to put the world together in a coherent worldview. Much of what he says is very “Christian friendly,” but his coherence breaks down when he finds inspiration in Carl Jung, one of the most powerful creators of today’s post-Christian, neo-pagan culture.
In our angry, divided, and polemical society, young Christians, eager for measured peace, encourage us to accept the good things our society brings. Do we always have to see culture wars? This is a laudable desire. Nevertheless, Christians enamored of modern culture run the risk of ignoring its underlying anti-Christian ideology and diluting the unique truth of the Gospel.
Some have so adopted cultural norms that they are no longer even Christian. In my recent review of Brian McLaren’s The Great Spiritual Migration I quoted his statement that God must no longer be understood as the separate “omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent” (GSM 92) Creator and cosmic Ruler, and that Christianity must lose its monotheistic notions to embrace a “grander, inclusive [non-dualistic] God who demonstrates solidarity with all” (GSM 101). Once identifying as an evangelical, McLaren has followed our contemporary all-religions-are-one culture right out the door of Christianity: “Religions…will not survive if we believe that our religion is the only one true religion” (GSM 102). His version of Christianity is just an echo of a progressive social justice gospel. It defines itself as pure from anti-Semitism, rejection of women, racism and religious bigotry. The church should work to heal climate change by installing “solar panels” (GSM 172−3) or a “community garden” (GSM 173)—for “the common good” (GSM 168). I have solar panels on my house, but I don’t quite see it as mandatory for eternal salvation. With little exaggeration, McLaren’s “migration” could be called The Great Spiritual Apostasy.
John Seel’s book, The New Copernicans has a creative strategy to save the evangelical church: the Millennials’ love of the culture’s intuitive, “right brain” thinking, and its affection for pagan religious mysticism will deliver us from dead, “left-brain” theology. But we must not forget that Millennials have lived in the newly-minted version of pagan thinking that invaded the West in the Sixties. Do they now hold the key to spiritual revival? Should they be given authority to redefine genuine Christianity, as Seel believes? Not if the pagan, mystical culture serves as their norm for understanding biblical wisdom.
Young evangelicals eager for a truce in the culture wars have a new hero: Jordan Peterson, a charming, brilliant and entertaining Canadian professor with a myriad of fascinating things to say. I have listened to a good many of his lectures myself and stand in admiration of his ability to lecture for hours without notes, keeping his audiences in rapt attention. But I wish to issue a warning. Peterson’s fresh view of “faith” involves admiration of (at least) one dangerous thinker—Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist (d. 1961).
True, everyone is made in God’s image and we can learn things from unbelievers! Nevertheless, a great ideological conflict exists between biblical truth and the anti-Christian thinking of our culture. A naïve embrace of the spiritual usefulness of Carl Jung, [1] may give you a reputation of open-mindedness and sophistication. But you may also be in danger of unwitting and deep theological compromise.
Jordan Peterson seems to be a genuine seeker after truth, with an insatiable appetite to put the world together in a coherent worldview. Much of what he says is very “Christian friendly,” but his coherence breaks down when he finds inspiration in Carl Jung, one of the most powerful creators of today’s post-Christian, neo-pagan culture. Jung has been described as “the father of Neo-Gnosticism and the New Age Movement.”[2] Jung himself stated: “The possibility of a comparison with alchemy, and the uninterrupted intellectual chain back to Gnosticism, gave substance to my psychology.”[3] Gnosticism, as you may know, was the great apostasy opposed by the early Church Fathers. According to Jung, you could not call yourself a Jungian without being a Gnostic. According to the Fathers, you could not be a Gnostic and a call yourself a Christian.
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How Tech Tempts Us to “Play God” with Birth and Death
Eating the forbidden fruit was nothing if not Adam and Eve’s attempt to live on their terms rather than God’s. Technology is making it ever easier for us to live with this “on my terms” posture. Optimize-everything tech fuels our delusions of the world’s controllability, tempting us to eliminate all threats and inconveniences. Other technologies tempt us to violently subdue nature—life, death, even our own gender—when it doesn’t suit the whims of our pleasure.
The beginning and ending of a life are the most sacred moments in existence. They’re mysterious miracles. God’s domain. A soul is born out of a void of nothingness and begins a story of being. And at the moment of death, a life’s physical reality ends, yet the soul doesn’t return to nothingness—it continues to exist in another place.
Life’s origin and ending are so sacred, so powerful, so profound that fallen humans can’t help but be tempted to control them. One of the great—and oldest—temptations of our flesh is to “play God” by assuming for ourselves what is the Creator’s prerogative.
Our Insatiable Desire for Control
Our high-tech modern world amplifies the ancient human impulse to achieve Godlike control over uncontrollable circumstances (especially those we perceive as threatening, harmful, or inconvenient).
This impulse isn’t all bad. We can’t control inclement weather, but we can minimize its harm through creative interventions like durable shelters, insulation, indoor heating and air conditioning, and weather-appropriate garments. Likewise, we can’t control myriad viruses, sicknesses, and ailments that affect our bodies, but we can reduce pain and preserve life through the wonders of modern medicine. There are good, God-honoring ways to employ technological tools as part of our “subduing the earth” obedience to the cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28).
But as William Edgar points out, the word for subduing (kabash) isn’t meant to be violent but gentle. When we gently intervene to bring order to some chaos in the world, we honor our calling. But when we violently, recklessly, or unnecessarily intervene—especially in ways that might help us but harm others—we fail in our task.
Modern technology conditions us to bypass gentle subduing in favor of reckless, convenience-first control. From smartphones and “app for that” culture, to one-day Amazon shipping, to the instant answers of Google searches and AI prompts, we’re becoming trained to believe we can get what we want when we want it. While none of these things may be problematic on its own, the cumulative effect is that we start to think everything can be optimized and efficient, that all vestiges of inconvenience, discomfort, and uncontrollability can be eradicated from our lives.
Playing God at Life’s Beginning and End
This expectation of control leads us to use technological interventions to “play god” with the beginning of life and end of life. We start to believe a new life can be created on demand in a laboratory or ended on demand via abortion. We start to believe that the circumstances of death can be planned and controlled via euthanasia, that dead loved ones can be brought “back to life” via AI seances or other “digital resurrection” technology, or that death itself can be defeated with enough data monitoring, supplements, and algorithmic tweaking. But this is folly.
In his short book The Uncontrollability of the World, Hartmut Rosa argues the modernity is structurally driven “toward making the world calculable, manageable, predictable, and controllable in every possible respect.”
On birth, for example, Rosa argues that even though “there is still something palpably uncontrollable about the emergence of new life,” modern reproductive technologies (including IVF and surrogate motherhood) have “made children more ‘accessible’” as well as more “engineerable” (e.g., embryo screenings and other tests that “allow us to determine, even before birth, whether a child meets our expectations”). Yet he wisely asks, “If whether or not I have children, and what kind, lies entirely within my own power and that of my doctors—does this not change my relationship to life overall?”
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