Ok, you dads, let's say you have a teenaged daughter who borrowed the credit card for one purchase, then used it to run up a huge balance buying the "latest things" that she convinced herself she couldn't live without.  Once she got into the delightful rhythm of buying anything anytime, not really thinking about anything but the joy of spending, she didn't want to give the card back.  "Just one more day, dad!  I'll be careful!"  How could you refuse?  But after that first week the bills were staggering.  The second week balances that were only terrible turned astronomical, and you insist that she give the card back.  Now she won't.  Perhaps she can't.  What would you do?

There seem to be two schools of thought on how to proceed.  One way is to call the credit card company and stop the card.  Then, tell the girl that the only way to put things right would be to get TWO jobs and work until the balance is paid off, even if it takes a year or two.  The other way is first to go along, then ignore, then finally when your wife insists you do something, tell the girl that you'll make a deal with her.  If she will just begin to curb her spending -- not stop altogether, just make a reduction of, say, 2% a year -- you will call the credit card company and ask them to raise the limit on the card so that she can continue to spend.

Why would anyone choose the second course of action?  Perhaps we think the pain of the cuts will be too hard, and the daughter will have to suffer too much.  (was it a gift you gave her, or a right?  That will go a long way to helping clarify things.)  We might also think we dads are partially to blame anyway, because we didn't raise her right, or gave her the card before she was wise enough to use it.  (sound condescending?)  Or, we might be tempted to take this second route if we knew we were planning to divorce her mom and move away soon, leaving the girl and the debt with mom...

For him who has ears to hear...

I thought you'd like to see this interesting piece written by a friend of mine, Vishal Mangalwadi on the work and long-lasting influence of William Carey in India.  It speaks volumes about the importance of all we just discussed about "what is man?" at the Circe conference in Dallas: how the cultural aspects of the Faith take root in the lives and practices of a people, giving an Incarnational reality to teaching.  And notice that later even at a point when many no longer believed the Gospel, Indians still live and think according to the patterns of a Christian culture, and benefit from them (for example, no longer practicing sati or child sacrifice).

I am not advocating this approach because I give greater value to cultural influence in this world then to the state of souls, I am just pointing out that when souls are converted, they begin to consciously change language, literature, technology, politics, et c., in accordance with the innate nature and value of the human being.  The result is a culture that makes the Faith all the more reasonable, and harder to disagree with than it would be without it -- for example, when one Indian says to the other, "This Christianity cannot be true."  The other might say, "I don't understand all of it, and I don't much care for the whole 'death-to-self' that it teaches, but look at the more humane way of life we now have.  We don't starve while protecting cows, we no longer perform child sacrifice, our political system no longer withholds justice from the poor simply because of their poverty, we are safer on the streets, we have universities and hospitals, people live more hopeful lives, and government corruption is down, so we have more money.  It may be that Christianity is not true, but if it is a lie, it is certainly a helpful one.  Maybe we should give its beliefs a second look before we give up on it."

In the West today, it would be good to get a glimpse of what life was like before the Christian mind led the culture.  To do so, we would have to go back a lot farther into our own past than the Indians do -- perhaps back to Old Testament times to read how the Persians, or the Philistines, or the Cartheginians lived.  Or maybe not that far back - perhaps the Celts, Goths, Saxons or Vikings before they were converted. These cultures lacked more than just electricity or anesthesia (neither of those was available as late as the American Civil War), what they lacked was a view of the human that couldn't even imagine universities, hospitals, or statues of blind justice.

In a culture in decline, a Christian standing alone but calling on his cultural inheritance stands in the midst of a majority.  To cultures in ascent, the work may be to call barbarians to imagine what the culture might become, but today we are in decline, and dismissal of our own history and cultural inheritance will only make the Gospel less compelling.  In either situation, however, Christians are advocates of the "permanent things," not looking longingly back to a golden cultural past, OR hoping for a utopian cultural future.  Of course those things do exist.  The Faithful, simply living out belief in permanent things, generate times that in retrospect will seem golden, and contemplate a future that will actually BE golden.

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  James 2:10

Imagine that you are asked to sweep the porch, but you take one straw out of the broom you have been given and insist on sweeping with that.  It would certainly take you a lot longer.  No one could complain that you are not sweeping -- you are.  No one could complain that you are not using a broom -- you are, albeit a very small one...

This is what happens when a culture decides to remove one virtue from the bible to use to bring about good in the world.  No one can complain that you are not attempting to do good -- you are.  And no one can complain that you are not quoting from the bible -- you are, albeit only part of what it says.

It is no good trying to pull society in the direction of a particular virtue unless you are willing to call them to ALL virtue.  It is right and good to call the rich to care for the poor (the bible condemns the rich using their wealth to withhold justice from the poor), but not without also calling the poor to work for their employers as though they were serving Jesus Himself (Eph 6:7), or denying food to those who don’t work (2 Thess. 3:10).  And this doesn’t begin to touch on the call to sexual purity, soberness, and honor of parents...

Today, we hear each of the political parties claiming moral high ground for their positions:  “stop greed!” or “grant liberty!”  But it is no good removing these straws from the broom of what CS Lewis calls “the Tao” and attempting to sweep with them.  The only thing worse would be to remove two from the broom and pit them against each other.  Then even the sweeping stops, and the devil just laughs as we use our straw to beat each other.  "How can you be against us?  We are for liberty!"  or "Anyone who opposes us is in favor of greed!"  More than that, don’t we assume that only the rich can be greedy?  And don’t we really think that liberty only means the right to be left alone to do as you please?  Even the definitions of these virtues need to be drawn from the broom.  The broom offers far more benefit than great numbers -- each individual virtue is limited by and defined by the others in the broom, and only in the broom can they do the work they are able to do.  The broom teaches that greed is universal, and can be just as strong in the poor as in the rich.  Having money doesn’t make you greedy, being greedy just makes you focus on acquiring money.  Liberty is only meaningful if it is used to do the right thing, not anything.  So, not only do we need liberty, we need a definition of the right toward which we might exercise our liberty.

The reality is that anything short of the full person of Jesus is going to be short of true goodness.