Our universe, even as Our Universe portrays it, compels worship, leaving us with the sense that we need to, as singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson put it, “thank someone.” Yet, in this series, created glory is acknowledged and celebrated with gorgeous animation, wildlife cinematography, and musical score, all without giving glory to the Creator behind it.
Jesus advised us in the so-called Golden Rule, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). He also taught us to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39, quoting Leviticus 19:18). Over the years, when I have followed his instruction, I have discovered this pattern: when I love my neighbor as myself, I love myself more. This enables me to love my neighbor more, which enables me to love myself more. And on the pattern goes.
But what if this pattern is not a coincidental product of chaotic chance but one dimension of our Creator’s design for us and our world?
According to the BBC, doctors in Greenland inserted contraceptive devices into several thousand local women without their knowledge or consent. This was not a once-off action by a few rogue doctors. Rather, this was the result of a decades-old policy of the ruling Danish government.
It is a tragic fact that our secularized postmodern culture has desacralized life from conception to death. It was once conventional wisdom that children in their mother’s womb were gifts from God to be cherished; now they are seen as inconvenient impositions to be disposed of as easily as possible. The elderly and infirm were once valued equally with the rest of humanity; now they are being euthanized more widely and efficiently than ever.
Last fall, cultural observer and former BuzzFeed writer Anne Helen Petersen published an e-book about the difficulties of motherhood during the pandemic. Based on interviews with 1,000 women, her conclusions were telegraphed in the title: The Moms Are Not Alright. I think most parents would agree that parenting during a pandemic is, well, not ideal.
However, according to scholars Brad Wilcox and Wendy Wang in a recent article in The Atlantic, married mothers fared quite well during the pandemic, including indicating a greater degree of happiness than their single counterparts.
In other words, democracy (“the power of the people”) requires that the people be worthy of the power entrusted to them. But the “will to power,” the perennial temptation to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5), is ever with us. And it undermines our democracy at every turn.
In a world in which everyone and everything is superficially connected online, where there are an estimated 30 billion more cameras than people, and where “influencer” is an actual job title, style is easily confused with substance and fame for faithfulness. It’s one of the many (and there are many!) forms of what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” Theologian J.I. Packer described it as the assumption that “the newer is the truer, only what is recent is decent, every shift of ground is a step forward, and every latest word must be hailed as the last word on its subject.”
What are critics of religion thinking about this national response to the collapse of NFL player Damar Hamling? According to Swaim, “They will consider the whole pray-for-Damar episode a mass expression of some irrational atavistic impulse. ... Let the fans ‘pray’ if that’s what gives them comfort, but it changes nothing.”
In one sense, I agree with them.
Today could be the most significant Christian holiday that Christians know about the least. Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas, was set aside in the Church calendar to remember the visitation of the Magi to the infant Jesus. The day’s name comes from a Greek word that means “manifestation.” Through these strange visitors, God’s gift of Himself to the world was first made manifest to the wider world, and we are given a glimpse of the fulfillment of God’s promise that through Israel the rest of the world would be blessed.
I’ll admit, my initial reaction when I realized that I would need to write about the second anniversary of the Capitol riots was somewhere between “not this again” and “I just don’t care.” That’s not to say that the breach of the Capitol lacked significance or was in any way an appropriate or moral response to the 2020 election. The truth is that most Americans think what happened that day was wrong, but far fewer think it is worth continuing to dwell on or investigate going forward. So, if that’s the case, why am I writing about it today?
In short, it’s because it provides a good opportunity to think about a larger cultural question that continues to impact all of us, regardless of our political affiliation: Why is it that we so often feel the urge to push views to the extreme?
