Written by Bruce A. Little |
Monday, April 18, 2022
When individual Christians do involve themselves in cultural matters, they end up merely following the world and add nothing distinctively Christian to the issue except maybe on an obvious moral issue. So, in every way the Christian voice, if not lost, is very diluted, limp and the witness of Christ is muted. When or if Christians speak to the cultural corruption around them, there ought to be something that clashes with what the world is doing. The clash is in the difference between what informs the Christian’s mind and what informs the voice of the world.

Recently I was reading a brief essay by Sir Roger Scruton titled “The Pestilence of Pulpit Politics”. He speaks to the matter of the politics of religious leaders. The context of Sir Roger’s remarks focuses on a meeting of Roman Catholic bishops in the UK during the early 1980s. At that time, bishops were encouraged to get more involved in cultural affairs. Although Scruton’s remarks are directed to this group of RC bishops, his comments apply equally to the evangelical leaders in the Protestant tradition. He writes:
“We must remember that a certain kind of politics is, for a priest, an easy way out. It is far more agreeable to exalt oneself through compassion for what is anonymous and abstract–the working class, the victims of capitalist oppression, the Third World—than to work humbly in the ways of charity, which obliges us to help those concrete, knowable and often unlovable individuals whom Providence has placed in our paths. Not only is it more agreeable, it is also more gratifying to the ego. The attention of the world is more readily captured by the man with a cause than by the man who merely attends to his duty. There lies the origin of the modern heresy, which sees true religion in large-scale worldly enterprises and which exhorts us to fight oppression in Chile, racism in South Africa or nuclear weapons at home—in short, to perfect the unfinished work of Providence—rather than to save our own souls.”
Any evangelical watching with a modicum of insight witnesses this very same mischief-making in leaders in the evangelical world where having a cause overtakes the pursuit of godliness. In fact, in many cases, leaders think that having a cause is doing one’s duty. There is a convoluted notion that the church must be engaged in cultural causes as the way to demonstrate their Christian duty. This can be seen in how many church leaders allow causes such as the Social Justice Warrior Movement to shape their ministry and message.
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“Jesus smashes the empty cup of your felt needs”, but it is freedom! Freedom from constantly needing God and other people to satisfying every desire you have. Freedom from feeling angry or depressed when your felt needs aren’t met. And freedom to prioritize God over self and others over self, as Jesus laid out clearly when asked what the two greatest commandments were.

What do you need? Such a broad question has a number of answers. You might think “I need food to live.” Or perhaps you need respect from your spouse. Biblically, you need the Lord’s forgiveness in Christ. While some “needs” are legitimate biological needs (like food and water) or biblically-defined spiritual needs (like peace with God), a lot of “needs” you and I have on a given day could be put into a category of “felt needs.” They aren’t needs that come from explicit Scripture and they aren’t literally needed to keep us breathing.
How you and I think about felt needs has vast theological implications. It is very easy to assume that when the Bible talks about joy and satisfaction in Christ it means Jesus will provide for all of our felt needs. For example, perhaps you have a felt need of a romantic relationship. Did Jesus promise to satisfy that desire? When does that desire, even if it isn’t inherently sinful, become a sinful lust? I am currently reading through “When People are Big and God is Small” and a quote from the book helped me immensely when thinking through these questions.
“If I stand before (Jesus) as a cup waiting to be filled with psychological satisfaction, I will never feel quite full. Why? First, because my lusts are boundless; by their very nature they can’t be filled.
Second, because Jesus does not intend to satisfy my selfish desires. Instead, he intends to break the cup of psychological need (lusts), and not fill it.
“When People Are Big and God is Small” by Edward Welch
Most of our “needs” are really lusts in disguise.
This quote comes from an entire chapter where Welch seeks to distinguish between different types of “needs”. According to Welch, there are biological needs, spiritual needs, and what he calls “psychological needs”. The first two are self-explanatory but Welch spends a significant amount of time discussing psychological needs. Essentially, Welch makes the case that the prevailing view of humanity in the modern day it that we are empty cups that need to be filled. Humans have extensive longings that can either be fulfilled by sin or by God.
The problem with this model, according to Welch, is that oftentimes “longings” or “needs” are really just sinful lusts in disguise. They become idolatrous desires that you and I expect God to meet. You and I can desire even good things more than we desire God’s glory. Or you can desire the right thing for sinful reasons. For example, I was reflecting after reading this chapter that a “psychological need” I find within my own heart is a need to be respected by others. When people give me the respect I feel I need, I end up feeling pretty good about myself.
But what happens when my felt needs of respect and approval from others are not met? I end up either angry or depressed. Now, at this point I could address these felt needs by saying to myself “God has given me all the approval and acceptance I need in Christ.”
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Jesus tends to our needs in our ordinary lives each and every day. He blesses, protects, gifts, and comforts us. As we celebrate Christmas, remember that our ordinary lives are blessed with a divine benediction as those who love God and are loved by God—a most amazing gift.

In the Old Testament there are several occasions where God worked dramatically—and his work turned heads—including fire coming down on Sodom and Gomorrah, the ten plagues in Egypt, the defeat of Jericho, and the cloud that hovered over the Tabernacle. But there are also times that God worked behind the scenes, through ordinary and humble means, such as in the story of Joseph (brotherly jealousy, a corrupt wife, the mistakes of Pharaoh’s butler and cupbearer).
Considering the magnitude of Jesus’ coming into the world, it may surprise us that God came with limited announcement (only a small handful of people heard the angels, and only an isolated group of searchers followed the star). In fact, there was much surrounding Jesus’ birth that was very ordinary and humble. God’s use of ordinary and little things amid declaring his glory and bringing comfort to his people should not only be an encouragement but also a source of praise and delight for his people as we live out our faith every ordinary day at a time.
God comes quietly.
In Luke 2:1 we read: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” At the very beginning of Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, we are greeted with the pomp and circumstance of an earthly king who has “all the world” at his fingertips. This stands in stark contrast to the ruler of the universe who would be born naked and helpless, wrapped in rags, in a small insignificant village. John 1:3 states, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Yet, Jesus came quietly into this world, lacking the pomp and circumstance the world could offer. Luke 2 is startling as it recounts the ordinary, little ways in which God chose to come and dwell among us, as well as recounting the divine majesty that surrounded Jesus’ birth. We are reminded by this narrative that God is glorious, and that he is also quietly near to us in our daily lives.
God comes in ordinariness and humility.
The account of Jesus’ birth is full of not only the ordinary and humble but also the divine and heavenly. This mix of lowly situation and glory reminds us of the mystery of Jesus being truly God and truly man. Humanly, so much was ordinary or humble surrounding Jesus’ birth: A king gave a decree, as kings will customarily do, and the ordinary citizens obeyed. Joseph and Mary did what every other family would have been doing—traveling. They experienced not only the stresses of travel during late-term pregnancy but also the horrible (but ordinary) isolation that happens among family when you are seen as an outcast since Mary was known to be pregnant before she married Joseph. Nothing was outwardly special about this little family trudging to Bethlehem, nothing glorious. In fact, they would have been viewed as very unfortunate.
They would have struggled through their day, with Mary going into labor after traveling on a dirty and dusty road and Joseph scrambling to find any place for his pregnant wife to rest and deliver the child. Luke describes the scarcity of their situation: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Can you imagine? There are no extravagances, no extras. And yet, even in the most humble and, in many people’s eyes, shameful circumstances, the glorious God of the universe brought comfort to Mary and Joseph. He drew near to them in their sparse situation.
God reveals his glory, and comfort is shared.
While there is much ordinariness about the beginning of Luke 2, there is also great glory for we get to see the ordinary happenings of earth from God’s perspective.
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