As A Man Thinks, So Is He

I once had a conversation that stands out in my mind. It was with a high school student, who was doing homework and having trouble with a question. I was looking in his history text at a map of the U.S., trying to understand the problem. As I looked, I realized the map was incorrectly drawn, and the question could not be answered correctly without contradicting the text.

Now, that’s not a huge issue for me. Books are produced by people and people make mistakes. Many textbooks have errors. But here’s the issue: No matter what I said, and despite my pointing out obvious discrepancies on the map, he would not accept that the book was wrong. It was, after all, a textbook. It was reliable. It was inconceivable that it could be wrong.

I have not forgotten the conversation, because the position he took scared me. It was my first encounter with someone who simply refused to think when data fell outside his predetermined parameters.

Later, when I taught college, I discovered that he was not alone. I encountered many products of America’s public education system who simply could not think. Their vaunted “critical thinking” skills were nonexistent.

Americans are far down the road to being a people of ignorance. Survey after survey has shown that Americans in general know little about their history or their government. We are now governed by popularity polls and sound bites, not leadership and statesmanship. Those who should lead are more concerned with showering money on the masses, securing their next election. Projecting this trend into the future is depressing, indeed. A free people must be an educated, responsible people.

How does this relate to the church? I’ll tell you: American Christians are no better off than the culture from which they spring. A great many of those professing to be Christians, to love and worship the God of the Bible, are notoriously ignorant of Bible. (From my contact with European Christians, I think they are no better off.)

Churches are in the main centered on themselves, and do little to serve the community in which they exist. "Worship" is very often listening to "Christian" radio, where the music is sometimes excellent, but more often is musically mediocre and theologically worse.

I recently visited a large, highly regarded church near here. In many ways, these folks are doing things right. But their music, the centerpiece of corporate worship, was entirely about thanking God — for what He has done for me.

Where are we when great numbers of Christians live a life focused on themselves and their desires, and thank God only as He is convenient for them and helps them achieve their goals? Where are we when the lives of those calling themselves Christians are indistinguishable from anyone else?

This is not a good thing. This does not honor the God we profess to worship. The religion of a people shapes their culture and way of life. American culture was in large measure shaped by Protestant Christian principles. Our system of higher education was started by the church. There was an understanding that education was important to a free people. The religion of America today is hedonism and worshipping at the altar of Me.

No people on earth have lived with the privilege and opportunity of modern Americans. And in recent decades, few people on earth have so radically turned to self interest and radical individualism.

Where are the Christians? Where are the people of God? Are they so busy chasing their own dreams and fantasies that they worship God in name only?

It seems so.

What happens when the church, which is supposed to be salt and light to society, is as insipid and as incapable of careful thought and action as the culture around it?