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MODERN REFORMATION VOL.29 | NO.5 | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2020 | $6.95

Giving Discretion to the Youth

MODERN REFORMATION WEEKEND. C H O O S E F R O M F O U R L O C AT I O N S . Join Michael Horton and the Modern Reformation team for a special weekend experience as we delve deeply into the topic of justification. Registered participants will receive materials to read and prepare in advance. Our guests will spend the weekend listening to stimulating lectures and engaging in lively conversation, challenging them to grow in their understanding of the doctrine of justification, and encouraging them to live in the light of what God has done for them in Christ.

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FEATURES 22

The Age of Entitlement: A WHI Interview with Jean Twenge 32

Parenting Through Puberty B Y DAV I D J. AY E R S

Education and the Transcendentals: Orienting Our Kids to Goodness, Truth, and Beauty BY GINNY OWENS

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE RIFKIN

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DEPARTMENTS

The Assault on American Excellence REVIEWED BY JOSEPH MINICH

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FOCUS ON MISSION

Assurance in Prayer

Martyr Witnesses, No Matter What

BY HYWEL R. JONES

B Y B A S I L G R A FA S

The End of Youth Ministry? Why Parents Don’t Really Care about Youth Groups and What Youth Workers Should Do about It REVIEWED BY

CAMERON COLE

64 GLOBAL THEOLOGICAL FORUM

BOOK REVIEWS

Coronavirus, Crisis, and the Church: A Message from India

Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality

B A C K PA G E

REVIEWED BY

The Mental Gaze

B Y PAU L S WA R U P

L A R R Y D. PA A R M A N N

MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Editorial Director Eric Landry Executive Editor Joshua Schendel Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick

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LETTER from the EDITOR

sexual practices of their teens. Bringing us up to date on the Center for Disease Control’s massive National Survey of Family Growth and the National Opinion Research Corporation’s similarly large and prestigious General Social Survey, Dr. David Ayers, assistant provost at Grove City College, gives us the hard facts in “Parenting Through Puberty,” our second article in this issue. Here, Dr. Ayers encourages us that this perennial parental challenge is best countered by parental example—that as parents, we can model a sexual ethic for our children that exalts the glorious, faithful love of Christ for ne of the reasons for the wisdom literhis church. ature in the Old Testament, we are told It is no secret that education in our Western in Proverbs 1:4, is “to give prudence world is changing—and this change, accordto the simple, knowledge and discreing to many, is on a downward trend. Ginny tion to the youth.” The discretion that wisdom Owens, a teacher at Petra Academy in Bozeman, bequeaths to those who take up abode with her is Montana, argues that education remains funnot simply a bare knowledge of right and wrong damental in shaping young people into human (though it is not less than that). It is the practibeings who love truth, seek goodness, and pursue cal ability to traverse—patiently, courageously, beauty. In our third article, “Education and the astutely, rightly—the sometimes Transcendentals,” she offers a delightful, sometimes perilous, somebracing vision for education. It times banal terrain of one’s own time is not simply about job training, and place. Modern Reformation has nor is it merely about personal “O GOD, FROM been thinking this year a lot about our fulfillment or esteem. It is essenMY YOUTH time and place, our secularized and tial to the process of maturation. THOU HAST secularizing culture. In this issue, we In this issue, we do not shy ask how we can give discretion to our away from pointing out the chalTAUGHT ME. ” youth, who find themselves en route lenges our youth face and the in precisely such terrain. ways they are falling short. This Our first piece is taken from a is not meant to berate. It is simply White Horse Inn interview that Michael Horton an honest description. We do not intend, howconducted with Jean Twenge, professor of psyever, to leave it there. Let us so pray and endeavor chology at San Diego State University, just that when they are older, our young people will be after the release of her book The Narcissism able to say with the psalmist, “O God, from my Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. youth thou hast taught me, and I still proclaim In this interview, Dr. Twenge, who has carried thy wonderous deeds” (Ps. 71:17). out extensive research on issues of youth and culture, identifies some of the strong cultural forces that are currently shaping our youth (and ourselves) in very self-centered ways. Although we all know it to be true, many parents would rather turn a blind eye to the JOSHUA SCHENDEL exec utive editor

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PA R T F I V E O F A S I X- PA R T S E R I E S

Assurance in Prayer by Hywel R. Jones

We are delighted that Dr. Jones has agreed to expand this current study of 1 John from four parts to six, helping us to dig even deeper into this Epistle for the remainder of 2020. n his First Epistle, the apostle John drew an identikit portrait of the Christian to enable his “little children” to recognize themselves as possessors of eternal life. He used three interconnecting lines of character to do so—namely, faith in Jesus as the Christ of God, obedience to his precepts, and love to fellow believers. These are divine graces and not human virtues. To some degree they are all present in believers as a consequence of their having been born again by the Spirit of God. Having given attention to the opening verses of John’s

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letter and surveyed its contents in the light of this declared purpose, we will now consider its conclusion. This will be done in two parts under the titles of “Assurance in Prayer” and “Assurance Is Knowledge.” In this article, we look at the former.

FIRST JOHN 5:13–17 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life. And this is the

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confidence we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (vv. 13–15) If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. (vv. 16–17) To be assured of one’s salvation is indeed an immense blessing. It imparts a “confidence before God,” even with regard “to the day of judgment” (see 3:19–20; 4:17). But it should not result in anyone becoming otherworldly (much less proud), and John makes this clear by connecting it with “asking” in prayer. As no one makes a request for what they already possess, this means that divine help is still needed by assured believers who do not live in a rarefied atmosphere but in an imperfect church and a fallen world. They have duties to perform and burdens to carry. Being assured is therefore an immense help in living the “ordinary” Christian life. It provides an extra stimulus for faithful obedience to what has been heard, over against the danger of being deceived, and also for caring for one another (see 2:1; 2:24–29; 3:4–18). This “confidence toward” God should be translated into requests for themselves and for others, so that they may receive cleansing from sins (1:9), make

spiritual progress (2:12–14), and be granted recovery from sinful waywardness when appropriate (see 5:16–17). The Greek word that is translated as “confidence” (parresia) is an important term in the New Testament. As the apostle Paul used it to identify the difference between the Sinaitic covenant and the new covenant in writing to the Corinthians (see 2 Cor. 3:4), it is the hallmark of new covenant spirituality. The noun is a compound of pas and rhema, which mean “every” and “word,” respectively. It is “the right of free speech” of a Christian kind, being used in connection with proclamation and testimony to other human beings (Acts 4:13) and also to God in prayer (Eph. 3:12). John uses it in connection with bold approach and explicit address to God (see 3:21; 4:17; 5:14) and appearance before Christ at his return (see 2:28). The verses from 1 John 5:13–17 focus attention on prayer in connection with supplications being made and favorably answered. This is done from a general perspective and then with reference to a particular circumstance, as set out above. That is how we will consider them.

IN GENERAL: VERSES 14 AND 15 The matter of prayer has been mentioned twice before this final declaration. First, it is implied in what John wrote about confession of sins and God’s response with forgiveness and cleansing based on Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice on earth and his consequent ministry in heaven (see 1:7–2:2–3). Second, in a statement that

Divine help is still needed by assured believers who do not live in a rarefied atmosphere but in an imperfect church and a fallen world. They have duties to perform and burdens to carry. 6

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anticipates the verses under consideration he wrote, “We have confidence before God, and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him” (see 3:21–22). The open-endedness of those statements encourages the petitioning believer to make requests in the expectation of receiving favorable replies. They echo the Lord’s words to his disciples in the Upper Room (John 14:13–14) and also more generally in the familiar words, “Ask and it shall be given you” (Matt. 7:7). As everyone is all too aware, however, there is some limitation to be factored into the positive picture John describes from three different angles. In the Gospel, such prayer must be “in Christ’s name”; in the Epistle, it is associated with obedience on the part of the one who prays, and then lastly with the request being “in accord with God’s will.” Two things need to be asserted about these variants. First, they interrelate harmoniously, because to “ask in Christ’s name” means to request what is in keeping with his character and glory (see John 5:43), and that is inseparable from a life of obedience or “pleasing” him, which cannot but be in accord with the Father’s “will” (1 John 5:14). There is no conflict between them. Second, they do not introduce such a severe condition as to discourage requests being presented and so should not be used (misused really!) to exclude urgent and even daring petitions. But John adds something that means more than that such praying is never futile. He says, “And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we asked of him.” This is a statement about what those who live to please the Lord may know in the course of their praying. The verb “to know,” which is twice used here, can mean “to perceive” as has been suggested in earlier studies. Since it is unavoidably subjective in its reference, it means that suppliants not only have their requests conditioned by God’s revealed will, but that they are also given an intimation (by the indwelling Spirit) that those requests will be answered. The verb “to have” is in the present

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“And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we asked of him.”

tense. This is “the faith that moves mountains” (see 1 Cor. 12:9; 13:2; Matt. 21:20–22; Mark 11:20–24). It is connected with a life of obedient communion that is a million miles from “live as you please” and “name it and claim it.” It is the prayer of faith (James 3:15).

IN PARTICULAR: VERSES 16 AND 17 In these words, a circumstance is envisaged in which the kind of praying that John has just described is appropriate. He has already called for an open-handed response to the basic needs of other believers (see 3:17–18); and now, when they sin openly, he calls for something similar but in the spiritual realm. Christians should not therefore be preoccupied with their own joys or sorrows, much less with the assurance of their own salvation. If one “sees” that someone has sinned, the spontaneous reaction should be to “ask” for “life” for that person in the expectation that God will grant the request. But a reservation is again introduced, because of the two sins designated; one is excluded from such a prayer. It is the “sin that leads to death” about which John says, “I do not say that one should pray for that.” The identity of this sin has been a longstanding question in the church, and

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some comment will be made on it below. But first it should be noted that what John says about it is by way of confirmation of his main message. His readers are well aware that there is a sin unto death (and what it is, unlike modern day readers). He therefore says that he is not including that sin in his exhortation to intercede, so that they should not let it hinder them in their praying for one another. Taking note of this should prevent undue prominence being given to “the sin that leads to death” in any study of this passage, especially as John mentions it only once whereas he refers to its opposite three times! Loving intercession is therefore the standing order of the gospel day—both prompt and persistent. This focus on the two sins is reminiscent of a solemn statement Jesus made early in his earthly ministry. When the Scribes and Pharisees attributed his exorcisms to his being in league with Beelzebub, Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—for they were saying he has an unclean Spirit. (See Mark 3:28–30; Matt. 12:31–32; Luke 11:22–46) Both John and Peter heard that statement, and given the Lord’s promise of the Spirit’s ministry of recall (John 14:26), it is the most helpful statement to bear in mind on what John refers to here and what Peter also mentioned (see 2 Pet. 1 2:20–22). This connection is far more helpful than the classification of venial and mortal sins in Roman Catholic dogma and certainly of any allusion being made to the Seven Deadly Sins. But “the sin that does not lead to death” is something alarming. Having said that “sin is lawlessness” (3:4) and now that it is “unrighteousness” (KJV), the essence of “the sin not unto death” is rebellion and transgression. The difference between the two sins lies, therefore, in result, not character. Although it is not “the

sin unto death,” it resembles it enough in that it stems from a deadening influence with regard to spiritual realities and results in a deadness or dullness to them. Sin always has a toxic effect. In a comment on James 1:15, George G. Findlay wrote that “sin is the daughter of lust and the mother of death.” Hence the need for an intercessor to ask for “life” with the expectation of its being given to the offender in answer to such prayer on the offender’s behalf. John attributes the life needed to the intercessor, although it is of course impossible to exclude God from the giving of the answer—and John has said that twice in his previous statement. James says something similar at the end of his letter. So how might this work out? Christians are to walk in the light with God and in love with one another. Open sin brings a cloud into the fellowship. It raises the awful possibility that the sinning “brother” is not a true believer after all (see 2:19). This sounds an alarm and fuels the need for reproof (Matt. 18:15; 1 Cor. 5:1ff.) and more. But none of this is to be undertaken without the kind of praying that John urges here (see also Gal. 6:1ff.). Recovery is much to be preferred to even the least measure of church discipline. Intercessors are better than investigators. Secret prayer in love can hide a multitude of sins, and prayer can be answered in a thousand ways. As Findlay wrote, None of us can tell how much of the life that is his in Christ has come through the channel of his own faith, and how much he owes to the intercession of others. There is a profound solidarity in the co-operation of believing prayer; this communion is of the inmost life 2 and mystery of the Body of Christ. And the Day shall declare it. HYWEL R. JONES is professor emeritus of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido. 1. Also relevant are Num. 15:22–31 and Heb. 6:4–6; 10:26–29. 2. George G. Findlay, Fellowship in the Life Eternal (London: Hodder & Stoughton, n.d.), 405.

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Coronavirus, Crisis, and the Church: A Message from India by Paul Swarup

his past spring, we watched the coronavirus pandemic hit the world around. At the time of this writing, the globe has seen over 7 million people affected by this pandemic and over 400,000 have died. My own country, India, has crossed the 200,000 mark of cases and over 6,000 people have died. America has almost 2 million cases and over 100,000 people have died. Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other parts of Europe have also been badly affected by this pandemic. Death seems to be all around us, and the fear of death seems to have gripped the hearts and

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minds of almost everyone. People are anxious and afraid of what will happen to them if they are infected by this virus. This plague has also affected the lives of millions of daily workers in India who have had to try to return to their villages, fleeing the cities since there is no longer any work or money there. Some have been successful, some were stopped on the way, and some died from this arduous journey by foot. What we see all around us is death, fear of death, and anxiety about the lockdown and how long it will last. It is like the end of the world. In India, there are several fronts this pandemic has greatly affected. In his article â&#x20AC;&#x153;The

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Darkest Hour,â&#x20AC;?1 Indian historian and economist Ramachandra Guha identifies six crises, which we will discuss below.

A MEDICAL CRISIS First, we see that this pandemic has brought about a medical crisis that has exposed the raw underbelly of the healthcare system in our country. Even though the government of India claimed that adequate arrangements had been made during the high tide of the first wave of the pandemic, the on-the-ground realities proved differently. News reporters in Bombay showed that almost ten of the COVID-19 designated hospitals had no beds available for new patients. There were also medical providers who were complaining of the lack of PPE kits, and many have now contracted the virus. At the time of this writing, the virus is steadily increasing rather than decreasing.

AN ECONOMIC CRISIS Second, it has also been an economic crisis. Because of the virus, the entire nation had to go into a lockdown mode. The small to midsize

Millions of daily wage earners are out of jobs, and their companies are paying them nothing during this lockdown period.

enterprises (SMEs) have taken a big hit. People in these industries could not sustain themselves, as they did not have large reserves. They were not able to sustain the wages of their workers beyond a month, and many closed down and laid off workers. Subsidiary units that provide auto parts all took a major blow, as hardly any cars were sold during the lockdown period. This led to many people losing their jobs and having to sit at home with little or no reserves.

A MIGRANT CRISIS Third, we have a migrant crisis. Millions of daily wage earners are out of jobs, and their companies are paying them nothing during this lockdown period. Most of them had migrated from different villages in India, coming to the cities for better living conditions and to send some money home. When the lockdown began, there was hardly four hours given for its implementation. Migrant workers were stuck in their cities with no money or food, so they decided to march home. Millions of them took to the roads because all vehicular traffic, buses, cars, trains, and flights had come to a grinding halt. Many lost their lives trying to walk the journey of 950 to 1,250 miles. There were also heroic stories, such as that of fifteenyear-old Jyoti, daughter of Mohan Paswan, who took her father on a bicycle from Gurugaon (near Delhi) to Dharbhanga (Bihar), covering 2 a distance of over 800 miles. But there were also many tragic stories of people dying on the road. Some died in accidents when they got on trucks carrying essential goods into the city. Others died on trains that had finally, though inadequately, been arranged for migrants. Many died out of exhaustion and starvation as they took this journey. There were deeply disturbing pictures of the migrant laborers packed in like sardines into any form of transportation they could find. Many were stopped at the border and not allowed to pass.

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A PSYCHOLOGICAL CRISIS A fourth crisis is the psychological crisis caused by numerous factors. The virus first and foremost has caused a deep sense fear, anxiety, and stress in most people. A twenty-two-yearold nurse from Kerala who tested positive for 3 COVID-19 attempted suicide. Many people who lost their jobs and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what to do next end up depressed.

Christians are called to witness in times like these, not just through our words but also through our service.

THE WEAKENING OF INDIAN FEDERALISM AND A DEMOCRACY CRISIS The fifth crisis Guha cites is the weakening of Indian federalism. Under the Disaster Management Act, the Center (the central government) arrogated to itself extreme powers, and in the initial period, the States (the various provinces) were hardly consultedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;everything was a top-down model. Thankfully, the Center realized that the States and their chief ministers needed to be consulted, and greater freedom has now been given to the States. The final crisis Guha mentions is the weakening of Indian democracy. Under the guise of the pandemic, the Center has arrested many intellectuals and activists under the Unlawful Assembly Prevention Act, and ordinances are being passed without any discussion in Parliament.

HOW THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY CAN RESPOND In such a time as this, what can the Christian community do? I would like to suggest five ways to engage: (1) provide medical help, (2) participate in social action and intervention, (3) work toward reconciliation, (4) speak out against injustice, and (5) pray for their nation. Although all religious institutions have been closed due to the lockdown, Christians are positioned in all walks of life: bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, educators, judges, and so on. Wherever

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God has placed us, we are called to engage. Christians have always been in the forefront of medical missions in India. The Christian coalition of hospitals, which represents a network of over 1,000 hospitals, has offered 60,000 beds 4 for COVID-19 cases, and many of the people in nursing are Christians. Christians are called to witness in times like these, not just through our words but also through our service. We need to reach out to the economically weak within and without our community. The church can make arrangements for people to receive a substantial number of dry rations for the poor people in and around their locality, or it can put money into their accounts so they can survive through this difficult period. Migrant workers have been one of the biggest crises in this pandemic, and the church needs to come together to address this issue. Whatever has been done so far has been on an individual

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basis or by the effort of a local church. To address this issue, there needs to be a concerted effort at the church leadership level, and churches across denominations need to come together. Whether it be to provide food for migrant workers waiting at the interstate bus terminus or around railway stations, we need to map a clear path of how to help them. This kind of social action comes with its fair share of trouble, however, particularly in the present context. In India, all social action by the Christian community is viewed with suspicion, as though their only agenda for helping people is to convert them. In fact, Christians in Andhra Pradesh have recently been accused of large-scale conversions because of the help they offered during this crisis. Engaging with the poor and supporting them in times like this is part of the mandate to which God calls us in and through Jesus Christ. When Jesus was in Palestine, he broke down social barriers and formed around himself a community drawn from the marginalized of that society. The outcasts Jesus befriended experienced God’s extravagant love and acceptance. Many of these were virtually “untouchables” of that time and not very different from the lowest castes in the Hindu social system. Similarly, we too are called to show God’s love to the poorest of the poor and to the outcast, particularly in this time of crisis. A third area where the Christian community can engage is in being reconcilers between communities. When rhetoric against the Muslim community plays over and over again in our media, we are to build bridges between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Because we are children of God, we are to be peacemakers. We cannot be idle spectators, watching while a particular group of people destroys the secular nature and fabric of our country. A fourth area where the church is called to engage is to be a prophetic voice. We are called to speak out against all the injustice that is happening around us. When flights were arranged for stranded Indian migrants from

other countries, very little was done for them. Adequate trains were not provided, which led to a large-scale reverse migration that is unprecedented in the history of India. Women carrying huge trunks on their heads, with children as young as five or six following them, were the graphic scenes we witnessed. We need to speak up for the underprivileged, the poor, the migrant worker—those who are not being taken care of. We must also speak up against the government when it hastens to arrest intellectuals, activists, and students who raise their voices against the government’s policies. A fifth and final area is for Christians to pray for their nations. There is tremendous power in prayer. As followers of the Lord Jesus, we can turn to God in prayer and plead for our countries. God has promised us, saying, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14). As followers of Christ, we are called to be the light of the world. Even as our world moves through this dark and dreadful period, may we as followers of Christ help everyone to move from darkness to light. And may God help us to be active intercessors for our nations, so that we will see positive change and the blessing of our lands. REV. DR. PAUL SWARUP is Presbyter in Charge of the Cathe-

dral Church of the Redemption, Diocese of Delhi, of the Church of North India.

1. Ramachandra Guha, “The Darkest Hour,” https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/coronavirus-a-six-fold-crisis-confronts-india/ cid/1775032?ref=author-profile. 2. https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/coronavirus/news/ lockdown-15-year-old-girl-rides-1300-km-on-cycle-with-father-onpillion-from-gurugram-to-darbhanga-cfi-offers-trial/articleshow /75922965.cms. 3. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/gurugram-22-yearold-kerala-nurse-attempts-suicide-after-testing-covid-19-positive. 4. https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/coronavirus-outbreakchristian-hospitals-offer-help-to-prime-minister-narendra-modi/ cid/1759561.

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FOCUS ON MISSION

Martyr Witnesses, No Matter What by Basil Grafas

n Evangelism in the Early Church, Michael Green highlights three Greek words used with the expansion of Christianity: martureo (and related words meaning “witness”), euaggelizomai (“telling good news”), and 1 kerusso (“proclamation”). Of the three words, Green spends the least amount of time and attention on “witness.” This is understandable since the other words are used far more in the New Testament and dominate the narratives of Paul and other apostles. Importantly for us, they also dominate our understanding of contemporary missions. Books and papers dedicated to missions outreach have for some time debated between the merits of a classic proclamation of the gospel

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and the emerging embrace of “incarnational” missions. Both address going out with Christ, but they function in different ways and have different presuppositions. My study has led me to advocate for terms in the aggregate, which is less common in Western missionary circles. The terms I would like to flesh out are “witness,” “warrior,” and “exile.” While these three receive less attention in contemporary missions literature, they dominate key biblical texts that address the missions of the church. Biblical witness makes no sense without these terms. In this article, I want to focus on that biblical term and concept of “witness.” First, however, a provisional note. It helps to understand the purpose of this. Having worked

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in global missions for over twenty years, I have become convinced that our common practices on mission fields differ significantly from those evident in the early church. By saying this, I am not idolizing the early church, nor do I believe we have finished learning. The early modern explosion of missions through to the present has produced remarkable fruit. My concern, however, is that we have forgotten earlier lessons and may have failed, paradoxically, to keep up with the world as it is now. I want to rediscover our past and connect it to our present—not the present of 1970 but 2020. I am concerned that the approaches we champion as postmodern Americans move us farther away from most of the developing world. I believe that recovering and embodying a sense of these three identities—witness, warrior, and exile—will connect us more effectively to the non-Western church. These churches are experiencing much greater expansion than the Western church, and I suggest we have a lot to learn from them as well as from our own past.

UNDERSTANDING WHERE WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE While we do not have space to give a detailed history of Western missions leading up to this point, a little background information will be useful in order to understand the current state of missions and pinpoint changes that need to be made. A place to start is understanding

who we are as twenty-first-century Christians, because twenty-first-century churches send out missionaries who reflect the milieu that raised and nourished them as believers. Having trained missionaries for many years, I can attest that a missionary is neither a race of humans nor an ethnicity. Missionaries come up from the ranks of ordinary Christians, and the only thing that sets them apart is their calling. People raised from infancy to be missionaries become them only when God calls them. So, speaking specifically of Americans now, what kind of people are being called into the missionary vocation? How would we sum them up? There are several ways in which to describe them. Carl Trueman describes people in 2 our time as “plastic” and “psychological.” Individual identity is not fixed but fluid. This fluidity and rapid shapeshifting are, according to Zygmunt Bauman, characteristic of our late stage of modernism; and he describes twenty-first-century Western culture as “liquid modernism.” He summarizes this as “a swift and thorough forgetting of outdated information and fast ageing habits can be more important for the next success than the memorization of past moves and the building of strategies on a foun3 dation laid by previous learning.” Liquid modern people, including Christians, admire science and experimentation. They discard old practices and institutions; and structure, even as a concept, is suspect. Trueman’s plasticity makes sense in this context. People

I am concerned that the approaches we champion as postmodern Americans move us farther away from most of the developing world. 14

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want to keep their options open regarding who they are, how they describe themselves, and so forth. This has important implications for missions. Late twentieth-century missions and evangelism has tended toward harmonizing with this plastic understanding. Insider movements and other heavily contextual missionary approaches attempt to “incarnate” Christ into other cultures and, crucially, into other religions. One can become a Christfollowing Muslim if one thinks it best. In such a case, you customize your religious identity to suit yourself. Two intellectual streams flow into this plasticity. One stream is psychology. Philip Rieff, in a seminal study of the gradual dominance of the therapeutic ideal, following Freud and others, describes the relentless assimilation into a reli4 gious life of therapeutic values and categories. In his view, religion was outmuscled by psychology. To survive, therefore, established religion, to include Christianity, became therapeutic. Counseling pursues therapeutic ends, and so eventually do sermons and the description of doctrine. Therefore, perceived self-benefit drives religious choices and identity. The second stream is capitalist consumerism. The point is not that we shop; it is rather that consumers are what we are, not just what we do. In a liquid modern age, customization is the rage. The confluence of the dominance of psychology and rampant consumerism has spilled the banks, forging new ways of thinking about evangelism and anthropology. We can see this plasticity in every dimension of Christianity: theology, ethics, anthropology, evangelism, sexual identity, and missions. This ethos pervades everything we do.

KNOWING OUR PAST AND OUR FUTURE As Christians, we know who we are and how we got here, because the Bible tells us. We learn of our creation, fall, redemption, and future; and it introduces us to our redemptive, covenantal

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We can see this plasticity in every dimension of Christianity: theology, ethics, anthropology, evangelism, sexual identity, and missions. This ethos pervades everything we do.

identity as a people of God. These things play a critical role in shaping our understanding as Christians—followers of Christ. In Matthew 28:19–20, we learn of the Great Commission; and in Acts 1:8, we learn about the mission of God and how it commissions the church. Historically, Paul received his apostolic calling directly from the risen Christ and set out to take the word of life, the gospel, to the nations. His work focused on the Gentiles above all, and his letters are full of references to the proclamation of the word. Seemingly fearlessly but at ultimate cost, Paul took the word outside of Israel, beyond the boundaries of the church, and his example set the pattern for future missions expansion.

FOCUS ON MISSION

The missionary boom in the colonial period saw proclamation, education, and mercy move out from the West into new lands that had little or no Christian presence. Colonialism carried a cost when it merged with the brutality of imperialism and institutional racism. The late modern period—whether we refer to it as postcolonial, postmodern, or liquid modern— concerned itself, sometimes obsessively, with divesting itself of institutional colonial vestiges in missions. Positively, it has recognized the shift in gravity toward the non-Western church, already far larger than its Western predecessors; and there have been many initiatives to empower non-Western Christian leadership for national churches. Negatively, the church’s expansion at home and away has often come at

the expense of the global church’s oneness, holiness, and catholicity. This fragmenting of the growing global church comes as a consequence of liquid modernity. If we endlessly customize the Christian message, and Jesus himself, then the Christianity planted around the world loses its cohesiveness. It also means that Christians in the West have to work out their own problems without gaining perspective from Christians elsewhere. What sort of problems do Western Christians need help with? I suggest we need a great deal of help with the idols we have made of our consumerism and therapy. We need to revisit what the Bible says about who we are, about what should define and characterize us. For the moment, let’s take a brief look at one word that plays a powerful role with regard both to our own identity and to the church’s calling in missions.

“AND YOU SHALL BE MY MARTYRS”

If we endlessly customize the Christian message, and Jesus himself, then the Christianity planted around the world loses its cohesiveness.

This is a phrase drawn from Acts 1:8. Our English translations take the Greek word martures and render it “witnesses.” It is a key word in the book of Acts, occurring thirty-nine times, and it is integral to the description of the church’s expanding witness of Christ. The word martyr is a legal term. It occurs in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, where it refers to “one who bears witness before a judgment is made, especially the witness for the 5 prosecution.” It brings attention in the Bible to courtroom dramas. Only later with persecution does this word refer to the idea of suffering and even dying. In The New Testament Concept of Witness, Allison Trites discusses an added dimension to “witness” that Luke brings out in the book of Acts. For Luke, “witness” is a living metaphor. Christians take Christ’s side in real courts of law when his claims are in dispute and when their 6 loyalty is being tested by persecution. True witnesses maintain their testimonies to Christ’s life and resurrection, no matter what. There is

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a merging of character and words, providing authenticity to the witness itself. Nothing shows the no-matter-what dimension of Christian witness better than the book of Revelation. We see it with the characterization of Jesus as “the faithful witness” in 1:5, in the testimony of the Christian martyrs huddled under the altar in 6:9–11, the two witnesses in chapter 11, the new song of the martyrs in chapter 14, the new song of Moses in chapter 15, and so on. Revelation shows the vital connection of faithfulness to witness after the manner of Christ himself. These are durable witnesses who are part of durable communities that suffer persecution but who do not abandon 7 their testimonies. We can see the traditional connection of durable, character-based witness to the gospel everywhere in the early church and beyond. Tertullian noted that martyr-witness was just the normal state of affairs for ordinary 8 Christians, living as they did in a hostile world. Clement of Alexandria, writing in the late first century, saw martyr-witness as the perfection of love that fused the words of truth with the practice of them. In doing so, they could distinguish Christians from those, such as the gnostics, who would rather resort to clever 9 wording that masked them from persecution. Consider also the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne in AD 170. Eusebius, copying a letter from Christians in Vienne and Lyons (modern-day France) to Christians in Asia Minor, noted that true believers’ testimonies climaxed in every case with “I am a Christian.” Neither torture nor imminent death could dissuade the martyr10 witnesses there. The same can be said of the medieval period, as Andrea Sterk has shown. In her study of the testimonies of Christians captured by the Persian Empire during its wars with the eastern Roman Empire, she in particular focuses on the testimonies of Christian captives and the impact their witness had on their captors, whether or not they died for their open expression of faith. While this history is full of executions and torture, it

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Tertullian noted that martyr-witness was just the normal state of affairs for ordinary Christians, living as they did in a hostile world.

also speaks of an unstoppable witness this side 11 of the grave. This same sort of unintimidated witness encapsulated by “martyr” was integral to the expansion and life of the church. It is crucial to note that the contemporary fascination for liquid or plastic identity, shaped by therapeutic needs and consumer choices, is a new thing. We, however, often find ourselves prisoners to the present, suffering from acute historical amnesia. Our own past, wedded to the testimonies of millions of martyr-witnesses in non-Western Christianity, provides us with “Ariadne’s thread” through our contemporary maze.

FOCUS ON MISSION

[Revelation] is an intensely practical book, because it instructs Christians how to live in the real world of struggle, suffering, and persecution.

or mirrors to the world. In this book, seven churches are evaluated on the presence or absence of faithful, multifaceted witness. While no book has ever been the subject of speculation more than Revelation, let me make yet another bold proposal. Since Revelation comes canonically last, it is the last book in the Bible and it has the final word. While a plausible reason for its placement might be its dating, a better reason is that it ushers in the return of Christ and eternity. I would add a third reason: It is an intensely practical book, because it instructs Christians how to live in the real world of struggle, suffering, and persecution. It brings us back to who God created us to be: reflections of him in the world he created. How can we go about our calling as missionaries without remembering who we are—unintimidated, faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God the Son—no matter what? BASIL GRAFAS is the pen name of an American missionary

working overseas.

“YOU MUST BE MY MARTYR-WITNESSES” What Acts, Revelation, the men in the fiery furnace, the Christians of Lyons, the North African Scillitan Martyrs, and myriad others testify to ultimately is our basic Christian identity. In his groundbreaking article “The Image of God in Man,” David Clines returned to the context of the Bible to grasp the significance of the 12 “image of God” in Genesis 1:26–27. According to Clines, the image of God in humans is not to be found so much in common characteristics or qualities that human beings share with God. Rather, it consists relationally in humans mirroring God and his rule in his creation. To be an image therefore is to reflect him, to witness. This is how humans are described vocationally in the first book of the Bible and it is how the Bible ends. The purpose of Revelation is to exhort the church to be what God created it to be: witnesses

1. Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 70. 2. Carl Trueman, “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: And How the Church Can Respond” (February 25, 2020), https://www. thegospelcoalition.org/article/rise-triumph-modern-self-church/. 3. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Times (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 3. 4. Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, 40th anniversary ed. (Wilmington, DE: ISI, 2006). 5. Allison A. Trites, The New Testament Concept of Witness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 16. 6. Trites, The New Testament Concept of Witness, 153. 7. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997), 208. 8. Joshua J. Whitfield, Pilgrim Holiness: Martyrdom as Descriptive Witnesses (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009), 28. 9. Clement of Alexandria, “Stromata, or Miscellanies,” in Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 2 (repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 411. 10. A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337, ed. J. Stevenson, new edition revised by W. H. C. Frend (London: SPCK, 1987), 37. 11. Andrea Sterk, “Captives in Late Antiquity: Christian Identity Under Foreign Rule,” in Sources of the Christian Self: A Cultural History of Christian Identity, eds. James M. Houston and Jens Zimmermann (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018). 12. David Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” 1967 Tyndale Old Testament Lecture, noted and expanded by Gerald Bray, “The Significance of God’s Image in Man,” Tyndale Bulletin 42.2 (November 1991): 195–225.

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AS A SOCIETY, WE NEED TO TRY TO MOVE AWAY FROM EMPHASIS ON THE SHALLOW VALUES OF MATERIALISM AND VANITY, MOVING TOWARD WHAT EVERYBODY ACTUALLY KNOWS IS IMPORTANT: CHARACTER VALUES AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS.”

THE AGE OF ENTITLEMENT: A WHI INTERVIEW WITH JEAN TWENGE

PARENTING THROUGH PUBERTY

EDUCATION AND THE TRANSCENDENTALS: ORIENTING OUR KIDS TO GOODNESS, TRUTH, AND BEAUTY

A G E OF ENTITLEMENT A WHI INTERVIEW WITH JEAN TWENGE

THE

23 I L LU ST R AT I O N BY N I C O L E R I F K I N

ean M. Twenge is professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the author of more than 130 scientific publications and numerous books, including iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy— and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood; The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement with W. Keith Campbell; and Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable than Ever Before. The following is an excerpt from a WHI interview by Michael Horton on Dr. Twenge’s research.

the individual are not limited to just one generation. This really goes across people of all ages and, more importantly, across our whole culture. That’s where we figured out that we had a book on our hands. Although there are changes in individuals, these are reflective across many aspects of our culture in the way people behave and in the way they use media, which shows up in vanity, materialism, relationships, and so on. Even people who aren’t particularly narcissistic have gotten sucked into this materialistic and vain culture.

WHI: Please talk about the overlap between your books Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic. Generation Me received a lot of press with major magazines and interviews. Why, first of all, did you become interested in this topic as a psychologist, and how did that lead to the second book?

J M T : Narcissism is an inflated sense of self. Now, you can be narcissistic at a clinical level, which is called “narcissistic personality disorder” (NPD). But you can also have narcissistic traits at a more normal personality level. In the book, we concentrate mostly on this second type, because it’s so much more common and thus potentially even more harmful. It’s kind of a garden-variety self-centeredness. There is a difference between self-esteem and narcissism, which we see in relationships. People can be high in self-esteem—proud of themselves in individual achievement areas—but they also really care about others. Narcissists are missing that piece about caring for others. They tend to have high self-esteem; they’re not particularly insecure, unlike some myths out there about that, but they have that one big hole in their personality.

JMT: Generation Me summarized the research I’d been doing since graduate school. When I was twenty-one, I noticed that the students who were filling out a questionnaire I gave them looked a lot different in their scores than students from the 1970s. I found that self-esteem and individualistic traits in the younger generation were higher, but so were anxiety and depression. This helped me put together the book with various topics, although everything came back to the focus on the individual. This is why I came up with the title Generation Me, as there’s so much more emphasis on feeling good about yourself for these young people. The potential downside, however, is that you’re focusing so much on yourself, you let your relationships go—which may be one of the reasons you put so much pressure on yourself and end up with more anxiety and depression. With the second book, The Narcissism Epidemic, Keith Campbell and I cover generational differences in narcissism. We realized, however, that narcissism and the overfocus on

WHI: Before we go any further, it might be help-

ful if you defined narcissism. Although people may be familiar with the Greek myth of Narcissus, how did we get this term?

WHI: I’ve seen one international study in which South Koreans came in the highest on actual test scores and the lowest for self-esteem, while Americans came in lowest on the scores and highest on self-esteem. Is that what we’re talking about? JMT: You’re talking about math performance. Yes, the Korean kids did really well on the math

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test; but when you ask them if they’re good at math, they’ll answer, “Well, sort of, not really.” On the other hand, the American kids didn’t do well; but if you ask them if they’re good at math, they’ll say, “Yeah, I’m the greatest!” That’s the problem, which shows up within the American culture as well. There are all different kinds of interesting research findings on this. One shows that there has been huge grade inflation at both the high school and the college level. But when you look at actual performance over time, either it hasn’t changed or it has gotten worse. What we get is a whole generation who has been rewarded in education and sports—everybody gets a trophy for just showing up—when the actual performance just isn’t there. This is one of the roots of narcissism—an overinflated sense of self; not just confidence but overconfidence; not having a realistic picture of yourself and your abilities.

WHI: Tell us more about “narcissistic personality disorder” (NPD). What is this disorder, and is it caused by nature or nurture, social conditioning, or what?

THIS IS ONE OF THE ROOTS OF NARCISSISM— AN OVERINFLATED SENSE OF SELF; NOT JUST CONFIDENCE BUT OVERCONFIDENCE; NOT HAVING A REALISTIC PICTURE OF YOURSELF AND YOUR ABILITIES. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

JMT: NPD is the clinical form of the trait. At one time, psychologists talked about only one percent of the population having it, so it was considered not that common. But a recent study done by the National Institutes of Health looked at how many in the big sample (they had 35,000 people) fit the definition of having experienced NPD at some point in their lives. They found that almost 10 percent of those in their twenties had already experienced symptoms of NPD, while only about 3 percent of people over sixty-five had that experience. Now, you would expect those numbers to be flipped. Somebody who is sixty-five has had forty more years to live than somebody who is twenty-five, which means they have forty more years to develop any psychiatric disorders. It’s therefore a really shocking number that almost 10 percent of people in their twenties have already experienced it. This is one strong indication that there are these cultural effects going on. Like any psychiatric disorder, there are some genetic roots to it. But that big of

a change between those two age groups, and the changes we find over time among generations, suggests that there is definitely something cultural going on here.

W H I : What are some other big indicators of

this trend? J M T : I was one of the researchers on a study looking at college students and how they scored on the narcissistic personality inventory, which is one that looks at the narcissistic personality among a normal population. It has a whole range: you could score zero on it, or you could score 40. If you score toward 40, you’re probably more in that range of NPD. Anywhere in the middle—a score over 20, where you’re answering the majority in the narcissistic direction—you may have somebody who’s pretty narcissistic, although not at the clinical level. We found that scores on the scale went up significantly between the 1980s and the present. We have now found this in a nationwide sample from one campus in Alabama (my coauthor has some data) and one campus in Northern California. We see increases in narcissistic personality across the board. For the school in Alabama, where we have the most recent data, from just this year (2009), one out of three college students answered the questions in the narcissistic direction. It used to be about one out of five.

WHI: So, we’ve come a long way from what Tom

Brokaw called the “Greatest Generation” of the World War II era. As you discuss in the book, how much of this is due to historical factors? For example, people didn’t get everything they wanted growing up in the Great Depression; their plans didn’t turn out the way they had hoped when they had to sacrifice everything, even their lives, during the war years. What effect does that have? JMT: In the book, we identify what we think are four major causes of this problem of an

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epidemic of narcissism. One is parenting. This is when parents give their kids not only the material things they want, but also an unrealistic sense of self by saying, “You’re special, you’re a princess,” and praising everything they do. I saw a T-shirt the other day that read Daddy’s Expensive Princess, which takes it even to the next level. Then we have the celebrity culture in the media. Celebrities obviously have a higher level of narcissism than the rest of us, but they are the people we follow as examples—especially the reality TV stars who are even more narcissistic than most celebrities. There was actually a study that proved this. It draws in the people who want to show off and who want the attention. But what bothers me is that those are the shows that are really popular, especially among young people. They’re supposed to show a slice of “real life” and “real people” behaving in “real ways,” but they are actually showing cases for narcissistic behavior. They make narcissism seem normal. To a whole generation, this highly narcissistic behavior seems normal. So that’s another possible cause. Another cause is the Internet. My coauthor and his grad student did an interesting study that showed that narcissists thrive on Facebook. They have more friends there, and they post more attractive pictures of themselves. Of course, there are plenty of people on Facebook who are not narcissistic, who use it to keep in touch with friends. But if you spend time on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you see that there are a lot of people getting attention here.

my cool friends and here I am looking hot.” It’s those particular aspects of identity that happen to line up with narcissism.

WHI: Let’s talk about technology. What do you think about the new culture of expression? Not only technologies such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and so on. But, for instance, kids who text each other while they’re with their parents or grandparents, which means they’re not really talking to their parents or grandparents. Or what about the sort of effusive free-for-all in our culture, where people express themselves as if they’re an expert—regardless of their knowledge of a particular issue—because everybody’s an expert?

time actually talking to friends and having to listen to their problems.

JMT: I’ll use blogs as an example of this. Some blogs are great, while for others you wonder why they’re telling you this. It’s clear that it’s all about the blogger, which is why it’s interesting (to the writer at least). A lot of Twitter is the same way. Everything is a trade-off. The Internet is a fantastic example of that. It’s great that we have this more democratic culture and that you can have people who are not professionals posting things. We can see the great benefits of this. But there’s also a downside, which is that a lot of people don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. They think that everybody’s opinion is just as important as everybody else’s. Well, the problem is that this is not really true, because there are some people who have expertise and have actual information, and there are others who don’t. This causes a lot of problems, and it plays into the narcissistic culture of “I’m important and I know everything, and that journalist might have been doing this for thirty years, but he’s wrong, because my sister’s hairdresser said . . . ”

J M T : It doesn’t really get to the in-depth, emotionally close relationships you would have in person or on the phone. It also tends to emphasize the more narcissistic parts of people’s identities. On social media, nobody talks about how much they like history class. It’s always, “Here I am at the cool party with

WHI: So, technology isn’t necessarily bad, nor does it necessarily generate narcissistic personalities. But we also have at our disposal technology as a vent for our narcissism, which could even help promote or become a vehicle for these narcissistic tendencies.

WHI: Especially if you’re not spending that same

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JMT: Right. Technology per se is not necessarily narcissistic, but the way many people use it ends up being more narcissistic.

idea now is, well, you just show up and you get the trophy. People tell kids, “You’re special just for being you.”

WHI: You mention Christopher Lash’s famous book,

WHI: Which is the subtitle to your book, Living in the Age of Entitlement. We don’t really ask, “Why do you think you deserve this?”

The Culture of Narcissism, first published in 1979. How have things changed? Evidently, things have not improved along these lines. Was he observing an overall phenomenon that was just starting? J M T : That’s what we think, as far as we can tell. In our book, Keith Campbell uses graphs to trace narcissism in the popular press and in academia. This trend first started in the 1970s, but it only really got going in the past decade. Lash’s book is brilliant. At the time, however, there was basically no research on narcissism in terms of knowing how narcissists behave, if they are insecure, or the real symptoms behind it. In 1979, there was very little research, but Lash did see the beginning of this trend. This is the big difference now. We have all this great research, and we know so much more about what narcissism really is and its consequences.

WHI: In your book, you observe, “For most of our

history, Americans have adhered to a work ethic postulating that hard work demonstrates one’s worth in the eyes of God and others, but the current ethic of self-admiration in contrast declares that it is not necessary to do anything to be special or to like yourself.” Are you saying that we’ve lost something of an objective criterion for right and wrong, for good and bad behavior, for excellence and baseness? J M T : Yes, that seems to be what has happened. Let me clarify that having a basic sense of self-worth—believing that you’re one of God’s children, that you belong here, that you’re worth having someone love you—is not what we’re talking about here. That is a basic sense that every person should have. But when you’re talking about objective things—like you deserve a trophy regardless of whether you won the game—this is what has really shifted. The

JMT: Right, that’s the problem. One of my favorite examples is in a survey of college students that just came out. One of the items said, “If I attend most of the classes for a course, I deserve at least a B.” A third of college students agreed with that. There were other items such as, “If I explain to my professor that I’m trying hard, he/she should increase my course grade.” Twothirds of college students agreed with that one. So, this is the problem. Grades, raises, and pretty much all the real rewards in the actual world are not given just for trying or showing up. Trying is a good first step, but it’s only a first step. You have to actually perform and learn the material or do the work to get the reward. Yet we’ve lost sight of that with some of these attitudes.

WHI: A lot of us were raised with the Dr. Benjamin Spock child-rearing movement, and then the selfesteem movement in school. Is that basically what we’re reaping right now? JMT: Much of the focus on self-esteem began with good intentions. The idea was that if you increase children’s self-esteem, then it will lead to all kinds of good things. They’ll feel good about themselves, they will be better relationship partners, less likely to get pregnant when they’re teens, or less likely to commit crimes. The problem is that it didn’t work. In the relationship between self-esteem and teen pregnancy, it actually goes the other way. The high self-esteem people are the ones out there getting themselves in trouble, because the low self-esteem girls are sitting at home and don’t have the courage to do anything. It’s the same for the low self-esteem boys. It’s the overconfident narcissists who are out there doing all kinds of stuff.

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GRADES, RAISES, AND PRETTY MUCH ALL THE REAL REWARDS IN THE ACTUAL WORLD ARE NOT GIVEN JUST FOR TRYING OR SHOWING UP. TRYING IS A GOOD FIRST STEP, BUT IT’S ONLY A FIRST STEP. YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY PERFORM AND LEARN THE MATERIAL OR DO THE WORK TO GET THE REWARD. YET WE’VE LOST SIGHT OF THAT WITH SOME OF THESE ATTITUDES.

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WHI: So, it was a hunch that didn’t exactly have

a lot of data underneath it? JMT: Exactly. It didn’t really have much data at all. It felt good, and it sounded good, and it was easy. But now we know that this didn’t really work out all that well. I don’t want to say it’s too late, because we could still do some things; but for a lot of people, it is a complete given that you have to feel great about yourself to succeed. When I tell young people that they don’t have to be narcissistic or even have high self-esteem to succeed, they’re absolutely shocked by this. This is the bedrock of the cultural belief they’ve been raised with.

WHI: In 1941, Mortimer Adler wrote that one of

the biggest reasons why American education is so “frothy and vapid,” as he put it, is that both parents and teachers “wish childhood to be unspoiled by pain.” He said, “Childhood, it is thought, must not be made to suffer the impositions of discipline or the exactions of duty which, of course, are painful. Rather, Americans have come to believe that it must be filled with as much play and as little work as possible.” Learning had to become fun and exciting, and if it wasn’t, then it wasn’t worth it. What does this teach us about some of the most important things in life—marriage, child rearing, friends, commitments, work, church, whatever—things that are not always fun or exciting but incredibly valuable and important? JMT: If Adler thought that we were coddling kids back in 1941, I wonder what he would think now! Back then, you had to actually do something to get a trophy. You had to accomplish something, really learn and work hard to get an A. But now we have this idea that we want to completely protect kids from failure. And that isn’t such a great thing. Yes, we want to praise them when they do well. But no, we don’t need to praise them when they do nothing. We do, however, need to give them some realistic perspective on how the world works—that you need to know and learn when you mess up. What we’re missing is the idea that we can learn from

failure and we can learn from our mistakes. Protecting kids from this does not help them. It’s doing them a disservice, because when they get older, it’s going to be much harder for them to adjust to the realities of life—like the fact that marriage is not going to be romantic 100 percent of the time, work is not going to be fun all the time, especially when they have to do what their boss says. This comes up over and over. There is this high expectation that everything is going to be wonderful and perfect. When it isn’t, that’s when they become anxious and depressed and their world crashes down around them.

WHI: I’ve noticed how often I see advertisements for educational tools for children that promise fun and excitement. Right from the get-go we’re telling them that if it isn’t fun, if it isn’t exciting, then it’s not worth the time. JMT: Since I’m a college faculty member, I have to walk the line on this, because I’m the first to say that if we can make learning fun, then that’s good. But we need to keep the standards and still teach the same things, and not just give the B for skating by and just showing up. I’ve dealt with this over and over. It’s easier to just say to the student, “Fine, I’ll change your grade just because you asked.” This is an attitude I’ve run into a lot. “I got a 77, and I really need an 80 because I need a B-minus. Can you change my grade?” No. It’s a simple, two letter answer. No, because you didn’t earn it. This is what’s been left behind with massive grade inflation—the idea that the student doesn’t have to do a whole lot to get rewarded.

W H I : Do you think that important practices that used to give a depth to Christian belief and character—through catechism and training up our children in church and school—are now considered too much work and too challenging, and as a result have become part of the narcissistic complex? JMT: I think one of the reasons the self-esteem movement caught on is that things have become so easy and fun. It’s a lot easier to pass everybody

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IF YOU REALIZE HOW MUCH YOU HAVE, THIS FEELING OF GRATEFULNESS MAKES YOU HAPPIER.

in the class, even if most of them aren’t doing the work. It’s a lot easier to praise all the time and not to criticize, so some of those character traits have fallen by the wayside. But what about character, responsibility, and consideration for others and empathy? What’s ironic is that those traits and character values are actually more likely to lead to success than being a narcissist. The kid who has social skills and empathy for others instead of being self-centered is going to be more popular, have more friends, get along with the teacher better—everything.

WHI: What are some of the prescriptions for this

epidemic of narcissism? JMT: In the last chapter of our book (and also scattered throughout), Keith and I focused on what we can try to do about this problem. We’re both parents. He has a six-year-old and a oneyear-old, and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old and another baby on the way. So we thought a lot about starting young. We think that one of the best solutions is for parents to recognize that they don’t have to tell their kids that they’re special, that they don’t have to worry so much about their self-esteem, and that it might not be the

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best thing for them to always get praise and a trophy. You don’t have to put them on a pedestal and call them a princess. Parents ask, “Should I tell my kids that they’re not special then?” No, just say, “I love you.” That’s probably what you mean anyway, and it’s a much better message. It promotes connection. Even if you’re not a parent, there are plenty of things you can do. It gives you perspective when you learn about narcissism and realize that focusing on yourself is not the be-all and end-all our culture has made it out to be. You can realize that there’s a better approach, and that it’s important to recognize how your actions affect other people. This is tough to do, especially in this culture, but we need to try to do this more often. As a society, we need to try to move away from emphasis on the shallow values of materialism and vanity, moving toward what everybody actually knows is important: character values and relationships with others.

WHI: One of the other prescriptions you mention

in the book is gratitude. Why gratitude? JMT: There’s some great research on gratitude. Somebody who is narcissistic really doesn’t have a whole lot of gratitude. They’re thinking about how they can get that fancy car, how they can get attention, how they can look better. Not only do they want all this stuff, but they think all the stuff should just come to them. This fascinating research on gratitude basically says that if you realize how much you have, this feeling of gratefulness makes you happier. It also makes you less narcissistic, because you can step outside yourself to put things in perspective. It’s always a good technique when your life is going badly to realize the sad fact that there are a lot of people for whom it’s even worse, and to think about all the wonderful things that you do have, and concentrate on those. You’re going to be happier, and you’re going to step away from those “I want” messages all the time. Listen to the full interview, “The Narcissism Epidemic,” at https://www.whitehorseinn.org/show/the-narcissism-epidemic/.

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ost of us recall the recent defection of former “Young, Re s t le ss, a n d Refo r m e d” (YRR) author and ex-senior pastor Joshua Harris. A homeschool movement leader’s kid who went on to become a leading figure of the evangelical sexual purity and “courtship” movement with his 1997 monster best-seller I Kissed Dating Goodbye, followed by Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship, and Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is), he went on to renounce his approach to promoting virginity and his rejection of dating in his 2018 documentary I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye and a number of public statements. The following year, Harris repudiated Christianity, announced that he and his wife Shannon were divorcing, and apologized for his previous “bigoted” views on sexuality, including teaching that gay marriage was wrong. There was a great deal of shock and discouragement among many of those who had followed his teachings. A veritable cottage industry of articles sprung up analyzing what went wrong. Many of these focused on explaining Harris’s fall from the faith. The usual reasons given included that he had been entrusted with too much too soon while he was too young, along with spot-on rejections of the “media star” ecology of “Big Evangelicalism.” More relevant here was the analysis focused on what had been wrong with sexual purity teaching itself, echoing longstanding biblical critiques of Harris’s teaching as well as allied movements such as True Love Waits, the Silver Ring Thing, and the like. The best criticisms were from evangelicals who continued to stand for the historic Christian sexual ethic, but who found serious problems in many sexual purity methods and teachings. Excellent examples include The Gospel Coalition’s Joe Carter, evangelical and former National Review writer David 1 French, and World magazine’s Janie Cheaney. Although he probably had the best of intentions and did accomplish a lot of good, Joshua Harris damaged the church in both his original abstinence and courtship teachings, as well as through his public—dare I say “evangelistic”— rejection of Christianity. One rarely mentioned

WE EVANGELICALS HAVE FOLLOWED THE WORLD IN OUR SEXUAL VIEWS AND PRACTICES. WE HAVE LOST SIGHT OF THE HONORED PLACE OF MARRIAGE IN GOD’S ORDER AND A DEEP, THEOLOGICALLY GROUNDED UNDERSTANDING OF WHY AND HOW HE CONNECTED SEX TO IT. VOL.29 NO.5 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

impact of his actions is that Harris made it more difficult for those who have been trying to help young believers understand and practice chastity through wiser and more biblical means. Joe Carter noted that critics of evangelicalism used Harris’s downfall to push the idea that “abstinence before marriage is an outdated concept.” In reacting to errors of the sexual purity movement, we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It was Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount who condemned sexual lust not only in action but as we harbor it in our hearts (Matt. 5:27–30). Those who would serve and glorify God are still called to pursue holiness in all aspects of their lives, including sex, and should desire the same for their children. But we can do better than virginity pledges and rings, legalistic courtship requirements, or mass movements trumpeted by Christian rock stars and hip preachers at glitzy conferences.

TWO “BAD NEWS” BUT NECESSARY STARTING POINTS A fine Reformed pastor told me he likes to see topics such as this arranged in terms of the law and the gospel—the bad news preceding the good. So, before we get into some concrete steps toward improvement, let us look at two sobering starting points. First, we must acknowledge and reject the errors of the sexual purity movement. These include relying on snake-oil gimmicks such as pledge rings and commitment cards, wrapping up calls to virginity in emotional events fueled and led by celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, many of whom, like Cyrus, then spectacularly 2 crashed. This includes not creating extrabiblical rules and treating the violation of them as sin, focusing too much on sex to the exclusion of a wholistic approach to holiness and integrity. It means not advancing a grossly impoverished view of God’s grace that leaves those believers who failed sexually seeing themselves as permanently damaged goods. It requires that we present a scriptural and realistic understanding of that messy process known as sanctification.

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And it means avoiding false or tragically inflated promises that those who follow prescribed methods are almost guaranteed great marriages filled with amazing sex. These errors have led to deep disillusionment and despair among many for whom Christ died. The sexual purity movement too often focused on pushing young people to triumph in contests with their sexual drives and over our culture’s sexual infatuations, rather than on helping them to be whole Christians struggling to humbly know, love, please, obey, and glorify the Lord. Second, and on the other hand, we also need to acknowledge the level of sexual unfaithfulness that the professing, evangelical church is guilty of, just as the sexual purity movement did. We evangelicals have followed the world in our sexual views and practices. We have lost sight of the honored place of marriage in God’s order and a deep, theologically grounded understanding of why and how he connected sex to it. We are a long way from embracing the biblical teaching that John Calvin summarized in such an earthy way in his commentary on Genesis: “God intends the human race to be multiplied by generation indeed, but not, as in brute animals, by promiscuous intercourse. For he has joined the man to his wife, that they might produce a 3 divine, that is, a legitimate seed.” We should want to see Christian young people truly striving to reserve sex for marriage. We ought to be disturbed by the fact that not only do most fail, but that they increasingly do so boldly, promiscuously, and without any sense that they are sinning. This should be not because we are rigid legalists, but because we love God and we love them. Relevant Magaz ine is a popular, edgy Christian publication directed toward younger evangelicals. The September/October 2011 issue featured a piece by Coalition for Campus Outreach (CCO) minister Tyler Charles, which received a lot of attention at the time, though not as much as it deserved, titled “(Almost) 4 Everyone’s Doing It.” That “everyone” referred to evangelical Christians and “doing it” to sex outside marriage. The article documented not only that the majority of unmarried professed

evangelicals were sexually active, but that an alarming percentage of the women were getting pregnant and even having abortions. The only silver lining at the time, Charles asserted, was that the vast majority still considered sex outside marriage to be morally wrong. The article was filled with quotes of familiar prescriptions that evangelicals start coming to grips with reality and stop teaching abstinence-until-marriage. A quote from evangelical theologian Scot McKnight—who does not advocate premarital sex—noted that the Bible was written at a time of arranged and young marriages and is hard to live by in a time when people routinely marry in their late twenties. Though the article clearly affirmed orthodox views of sex despite these quotes, and encouraged positive action to turn around these trends, things have declined since. In my book Christian Marriage, I lay out detailed behavioral statistics from the Center for Disease Control’s massive National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and look at attitudes and some behavior from the National Opinion Research Corporation’s similarly large and prestigious General Social Survey (GSS), along with other professional sources. I updated many of these in a blog and a research brief for the 5 Institute for Family Studies just last year. The data is awful. Among those categorized as “fundamentalist” (which refer overwhelmingly to those we would regard as “evangelical”), in the years 2008 through 2018 combined, 86% of never-married evangelicals aged 18 through 29 had at least one sex partner in the past five years, and 54% had three or more; 83% had engaged in sexual intercourse within the past year; and 66% were doing so as often as two to three times per month or more. Since these included adults who were as young as 18, this actually underestimates the percentages among young adults, as the numbers get worse the older we go. For the two waves done between 2013 and 2017, the NSFG show that one-quarter had sexual intercourse at least once by ages 15 to 17, and about two-thirds by ages 18 to 22. Again, the inclusion of the younger ages actually depresses the percentages. Of course, there are other forms of sexual activity as well. If we

include oral and anal sex as well as intercourse among 15- to 17-year-old evangelicals, well over 40% have engaged in at least one of those sexual activities, as have three-quarters of those ages 18 to 22. Meanwhile, among 15- to 17-year-old evangelical females who had become sexually active, 36% reported having two or three sex partners, and another 32% reported four or more. For males, those figures were 19% and 35%, respectively. Without reciting more ugly statistics, the percentages with multiple partners gets much worse for sexually active single 6 evangelicals 18 to 22. As for attitudes, the GSS for 2010 through 2018 combined shows that most professing evangelicals no longer hold biblical views on sex before marriage, if they did even when the Relevant article was published. When asked about the morality of a man and woman who are not married engaging in sexual relationships, only 38% overall said it was “always” wrong, and another 9% it is “almost always” wrong; 40% replied “not wrong at all.” Among those 18 to 29, those percentages were 28%, 8%, and 48%, respectively. For those 30 to 39, 33%, 10%, and 46%. It gets worse. As I discovered in a recent research project, the NSFG for years 2011 through 2017 shows that 43% of evangelical teens 15 to 17, and 45% 18 to 22 said they would definitely or probably live with someone out of wedlock in the future. Only 22% and 30%, respectively, said they definitely would not. Houston, we have a problem. And we have to face it realistically if we hope to bring our youthful crew back home safely.

POSITIVE SOLUTIONS ROOTED IN NORMAL CHRISTIANITY So, where do we go from there? I would like to lay out some things that are scriptural and logical and that reflect the data. There’s nothing earth-shattering here. It’s time to stop looking for the big splash and return to relying on things embedded in what should be the normal, day-today reality of living out faithful Christianity in healthy churches with good and godly leaders.

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THE SCRIPTURES ARE CLEAR THAT CHRISTIANS NEED TO BE FREQUENTLY ENCOURAGED AND ADMONISHED IN THE LOCAL CHURCH, WHILE ALSO RECEIVING THE GRACE GOD MAKES AVAILABLE. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

There’s nothing “sexier” than that, except maybe doing a survey or two. First, we need to strongly promote regular, weekly, committed involvement by those believers who wish to be communicant members of our churches. The parents and the children, the single and the married, and the divorced and widowed. The positive difference between those who attend church regularly and others, in terms of whether they have begun engaging in sexual activity, are substantial. For example, just among single females who attend church weekly, 20% ages 15 to 17 and 59% of those 18 to 22 have engaged in some kind of sexual activity, compared to 36% of those 15 to 17 and 82% of those 18 to 22 who never attend church. These statistics do not suggest that church attendance is a panacea. Obviously, there are still serious problems among those who assemble regularly. But it certainly helps. Sadly, according to the NSFG for 2011 through 2017, 9% of evangelical teens ages 15 to 17 say that they never attend church, another 20% do so less than two or three times per month, and 58% attend weekly or more. Attendance drops off even further during the college years. For those 18 to 22, those figures are 12%, 27%, and 49%, respectively. The Scriptures are clear that Christians need to be frequently encouraged and admonished in the local church, while also receiving the grace God makes available through corporate worship and prayer, the preaching of the word, the Lord’s Supper, and the like. Reaching out to early believers facing terrible persecution, the writer of Hebrews admonished, And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb. 10:24–25) There is no doubt that coming together on the Lord’s Day was assumed among believers in the early church (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2). The Lord Jesus inhabits the prayers of his people (Matt. 18:20). Meanwhile, like a lion the devil hunts

them down (1 Pet. 5:8), and we all know that means picking off strays. By modeling consistent church attendance and insisting on the same, pastors, elders, and parents quietly demonstrate their commitment to Christ and their dependence on his body. How should parents who can’t even find time to participate in weekly public worship expect their children to be committed to something much harder—namely, resisting both their own sexual urges and the powerful cultural tides that encourage them to act on them? Regular church involvement also exposes them regularly to the support and teaching of fellow believers, including their appointed shepherds. I have taught Sunday school classes and often noticed that the majority of those who needed this teaching were never there! Moreover, problems are picked up quicker and remedied before they become intractable when we are regularly in fellowship within healthy churches filled with people who care about our souls. The church as a whole represents a greater variety of experience and insight than can be found in our families alone, and parents can be equipped there to effectively lead their households. Next, church leaders and parents must model good marriages and sexual self-control, as Paul makes abundantly clear in his requirements for elders and deacons (1 Tim. 3:1–8, 12; Titus 1:5–9). This does not mean perfection, but substantial holiness coupled with ongoing sanctification and the humility to confess and repent, while guarding themselves from temptation (1 Cor. 10:12). Laxity in maintaining high standards for elders and deacons is widespread in the church. I know of one situation where a pastor was caught in adultery with a married woman, and then left his spouse to marry his lover, all without missing a day in the pulpit. I can recount another where an elder who was seriously abusing his wife was allowed to continue on session and even teach Sunday school. How can we expect young people exposed to such examples to take biblical calls to chastity seriously? In addition, many pastors struggle 7 with pornography. On the flip side, those who have confessed and dealt with such failures

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have experienced not only healing but also positive impact on the lives of those to whom they minister, not to mention their own marriages and homes, whatever their church’s response. If evangelical leaders and parents don’t take sexual sin seriously, neither will evangelical young people. Third, whether from the pulpit—even in the course of faithful expository preaching—or through Sunday school classes, youth groups, workshops, and so on, our churches need to make sure that biblical teaching on sex and sexuality is taught clearly. This teaching should not be of the type too often seen in the sexual purity movement, with almost lurid promises of great sexual experiences for those who marry! It needs to be sober, honest, and realistic. It should include not only Scripture but also hard facts (taught by those who are well informed) about such problems as sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, the negative marital impact of premarital promiscuity and cohabitation, and the like. As it is in the Bible, this needs to be grounded in a proper fear of God and regard for his glory. For we modern Christians, typically God is too little and man is too large. “Everyone is doing it” is a frequent defense of sexual activity given by single believers. But as Peter declared, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Moreover, all teaching about sex must be placed within the context of marriage, its place within God’s covenant order, and all it means to God and to the human race: Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding (John 2:1–12); the church is the betrothed bride of Christ awaiting the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6–9); and marriage represents the union of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:21–33). Throughout the Old Testament, God likens Israel’s faithlessness to adultery and prostitution. All of this loads sex—which God united to marriage—with powerful theological significance. It is only with reference to marriage that we can properly declare to our children the essential goodness of our sexual natures. All sex outside of marriage dishonors marriage, and to degrade marriage is to treat with contempt the One who created it. Sins such as

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fornication and adultery tell God and others that his provision for us in marriage is not adequate and not good enough for us, and that doing all we can to honor marriage and protect our own present and future marriages is not a priority for us. Outside of a proper, doctrinally rich, covenantal understanding of what marriage is and its purpose and place within God’s plan for the human race, teaching about sex degenerates into sterile rules and hand-slapping. “God says no, and if you do this, he will punish you.” Confronting moderns, even evangelical ones, about sexual sin is tough and getting even tougher. I highly recommend the recent Barna 8 Report, Faith Leadership in a Divided Culture. Among other things, the Barna Group learned from pastors where some key pressure points were in their teaching ministries—areas they knew their congregations wanted them to address issues in which, in a classic Catch-22, they faced the possibility of serious blowback if they did so honestly and biblically. In the top ten list were issues such as homosexuality, marriage, sexual morality including cohabitation and sex before marriage, abortion, and the like. While pastors need to show compassion, understanding, and grace, they also must not avoid these topics or shave off the hard edges of Scripture. Fourth, we need to create places and opportunities for honesty, where wrong ideas can be corrected, where wrong actions can be forgiven, and real help provided. Young people learn very quickly how to tell us what we want to hear. Creating this type of honesty is difficult, although it is easier if we are open about our own failings and our youngsters see that. This means that they need to have access to trustworthy people who are capable of communicating with them effectively and maintaining their confidentiality. That can be tough, especially for parents when they know their kids are sharing struggles with a trusted pastor, for example, but are not yet ready to talk to them about it. Another tool that can be quite useful is the anonymous survey. It is best to use questions and response items gleaned from proven sources. It is much harder to write a good poll item than most people realize. Where churches are small,

combining efforts with other compatible local churches can help in a youth survey project. Some may want to draw on expertise at nearby Christian colleges or from members involved in marketing research. As a sociologist, I would welcome calls from our local churches for help conducting such a study. Regardless, it is easier to tailor your ministry to correct error and sin if you know specifics, which a well-designed survey can uncover quickly, accurately, and efficiently. Fifth, we often forget the role of communicating the aesthetic loveliness, the desirability, of God’s best for our lives. Truth about God and his perfect will is beautiful, and the way we talk about sex should help the younger generation to envision the splendor of godly marriage and sexuality. This is not the “someday you are going to have a hot wife and you’ll be glad you waited” promises made by too many youth pastors. This is not an unrealistic claim that leads only to disappointment. This is beauty grounded in the ordinary. If I were going to think of ways to capture it, it would not be by getting teens to imagine two great looking, popular people enjoying free access to powerful sexual gratification. I would rather have them think about two older people who have weathered life together, blessed many others, had children and grandchildren, and are still best friends whose sexual relationship involves a lot more bread and butter than filet mignon, but is deeply rooted in binding, covenant love. We must inspire if we want our youth to aspire. Not with false expectations or with Christianized versions of the same shallow things modern Western culture increasingly pursues, but with a life of deep meaning, lived with integrity before God and, for most of us, a fit companion at our side who stands by us in plenty and want, health and disease, until death. Sexual integrity is key to realizing this, and unrepented sexual profligacy destroys it. We have to help young Christians see this, through modeling and didactic teaching but also through their imaginations, planting images in their mind of a better way, a superior life they can know. The US Marine Corp advertises for recruits with images that are realistic about the sacrifice involved but that also help them visualize

the reward. Pictures of those who have persevered and earned the right to be called Marines, standing straight, disciplined, strong. People of honor. They want these recruits to aspire to something that is wonderful but achievable only through hard sacrifice, so they inspire them with images they can relate to and aspire to become. Done honestly, this is not a gimmick. It is an effective presentation of truth. It doesn’t lie about the challenges, and it doesn’t cheapen 9 the destination. Before we can communicate to young people about the discipline necessary for Christian growth, we need to practice this ourselves. Prayer, studying Scripture, applying the Bible to our own sins (at times ruthlessly), being open to the correction and rebuke of loving friends and family while cultivating humility. One of the problems with too much of the sexual purity movement was its emphasis on singular events, such as altar calls during deeply emotional revivals. Sometimes God uses such means. But the next morning, the next week or month, those vows must be kept, those truths must be lived, after the glow and excitement are gone. There will be disappointment, failure, the need for more repentance, to get back up and try again. There will be the need for others to walk alongside and struggle with them. Our youth need us to model that and be honest about it. As the late Jerry Bridges emphasized so well in his magnificent book The Pursuit of Holiness, sanctification is hard work. The Holy Spirit provides enabling grace, encouragement, motivation, and hope directly and through various means; but in the end, it takes effort. This is especially true in young people trying to exercise self-control over powerful, exciting, often newly awakened, and unfamiliar sexual desires. Finally, as this last point implies, we must communicate grace and forgiveness to young people during their inevitable failures and sins. Their eyes should not be on themselves or their sexual desires, or even on wonderful but lesser things such as human marriage and family. Their eyes should be turned continually to Christ and all he is and is for them. This includes what he has accomplished for them at the cross for each and every one of their sins,

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interior and exterior, past, present, and future. As David French said so well, the worst thing about much of the sexual purity movement was the constant messaging that “sexual sin stained young persons, even though Christ forgave 10 them.” That is a lie. Those who truly repent deeply regret what they have done and realize it would have been better never to have sinned. True repentance never says, “Great, I got to enjoy the pleasure of sinning and I got forgiven too!” We can help those struggling, but who have not yet fallen, to see the rewards that lie on the other side of successfully resisting sin, without driving those who do ultimately yield to it to fall into despair. To our young people and really everyone who falls into sexual sin, we need to say without reservation,

off one side or the other. Scripture and the Holy Spirit, however, apply God’s word equally to both errors. We must learn to do the same, for ourselves and for the youngsters we hope to nurture and guide through the storms of puberty. All I have described here is within the scope of the ordinary life of the church, pursuing goals God has called us to using the basic means he has given his people through all of Christian history. There are no shortcuts, no razzle-dazzle. It is the steady teaching, modeling, and application of Scripture, prayer, and wholesome Christian discipline in the power of the Holy Spirit, with our eyes firmly fixed on Christ. This will not turn us into supermen and women untouched by the declining culture; but if we are faithful, then we will see substantial growth that sets us apart from the world. It is my prayer that we can all move together in this direction, taking it seriously and encouraging one another on the journey.

Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. (Isa. 1:18)

DAVID J. AYERS (PhD) is professor of sociology in the Department of Economics and Sociology at Grove City College, Pennsylvania.

He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (Mic. 7:19)

1. See Carter’s article at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/ faqs-know-purity-culture/; French’s at https://www.nationalreview. com/2019/07/whither-evangelical-purity-culture-thoughts-onthe-legacy-of-a-lost-pastor/; Cheaney’s at https://world.wng.org/ content/a_double_divorce.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:13–14) When our children fall into sexual sin, do we really want them to feel that they can no longer have a godly marriage? That they are now secondclass citizens in the kingdom, unable to be pure and whole before God? That they are forever tarnished spouses and parents? When it comes to sin, especially sexual sin, we struggle to find the balance between presumption and cheap grace versus harsh legalism, which produces nothing in the long run for those who practice it except hopelessness and hypocrisy. Like lumberjacks in a log-rolling contest, we struggle not to fall

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2. See, for example, https://www.christianpost.com/news/miley-cyrusfrom-purity-ring-to-perversion.html. 3. See https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom01/calcom01.vii.i.html. 4. See https://issuu.com/relevantmagazine/docs/sept_oct_2011. 5. See https://ifstudies.org/blog/sex-and-the-single-evangelical, and https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/final-ifsresearchbriefayers-evangelicalsandsex8819.pdf, respectively. 6. In A Tribe Apart, journalist Patricia Hersch went undercover as a student in a high school in northern Virginia. What she found out about the teens there, including those in active evangelical churches, was truly disturbing. The pattern of evangelical teen sexual activity, often in the context of church activities and almost willful parental ignorance, was shocking. See Patricia Hersch, A Tribe Apart (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999). 7. See, for example, the report from Barna at https://www.barna.com/ the-porn-phenomenon/. 8. See https://shop.barna.com/products/faith-leadership-in-adivided-culture. 9. The Puritans are excellent models for handling topics such as sex with honesty, realism, grace, aesthetic beauty, and even a reasonable dose of humor. For a great introduction, see Leland Ryken’s Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), Edmund Morgan’s The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), and the chapter “Marriage and Family in Puritan Thought” in J. I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 259–73. 10. See https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/whither-evangelicalpurity-culture-thoughts-on-the-legacy-of-a-lost-pastor/.

BY GINNY OWENS

ORIENTING OUR KIDS TO GOODNESS, TRUTH, AND BEAUTY

T R A N S C E N D E N TA L S :

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e true to yourself. Follow your heart. Believe your truth. Love yourself. Don’t let someone else stand in the way of your dreams. Speak your truth. Take care of yourself first so that you can best care for others. Cut from your life negative people who cause emotional stress. Live the best life you can, work hard, and success will follow. Be yourself, own your flaws, and if people don’t accept you for who you are, that’s their problem. We don’t have to spend much time on social media before we encounter at least one of these proverbs of the twenty-first-century urban American. Indeed, this kind of advice has found its way into circles more permanent and personal than social media; it represents some of the defining wisdom of a culture currently set on attaining self-fulfillment, self-actualization, and self-love. But of course, as appealing as these might sound, the problem with these contemporary adages is that they’re all only partially true. We can imagine scenarios in which each of these statements could be the right advice, given the right circumstances. Yet often they are not offered as negotiable counsel but instead as predications by which to operate if we are going to live a fulfilled life. And they sound attractive, so we want them to be true. To a frazzled mother of small children, “Love yourself, care for yourself first so that you can take care of your family” could sound like sweet words of liberation. To a young college graduate just embarking on life, “Be yourself, own your flaws, and if people don’t accept you for who you are, walk away” can sound empowering. Yet underneath their attractiveness, these packages of current wisdom harbor a pernicious core of self-orientation. Do we recognize it? Are we equipped to discern truth from error, to recognize what is truly good from what is merely baptized in social endorsement? Contemporary culture is replete with distorted versions of truth, goodness, and beauty. Therefore, our ability to sift truth from error is critical, and this requires discernment. We’re being sold these imitation goods every day, and adults— Christian adults—often fall prey to their allure.

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If we buy into this pseudo-wisdom of self-fulfillment, then how much more likely is it that our young people will cash in as well? How can we help our children grow in discernment so that they recognize partial truths like these for the traps they are? These kinds of adages are merely indicators of our culture’s wholesale saturation in subjectivism. And with subjective definitions of what ought to comprise a culture’s core values comes an attending self-orientation: goodness is conceived as what makes my life better, truth becomes what I prefer, and beauty is no more than what I like. How can we help our young people aim at something higher than what merely pleases them? It’s difficult to accomplish this when we are the heirs of sentiments like “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” a slippery assumption that makes it easy to reject Beethoven on the grounds that his symphonies are too long and difficult to digest and therefore not worth pursuing. Beethoven might be good for some people to listen to, the logic goes, but we need music we can connect to. Music we can relate to is good music. While we might be comfortable with this subjective treatment of music, subjective evaluation of the arts can easily trickle into other realms as well, a point C. S. Lewis makes in The Abolition of Man. The result is an effect we might (rightly) find problematic, for dismissing Beethoven on personal grounds can make it easier to likewise surrender ethical boundaries on personal grounds: “I wouldn’t get an abortion myself, but if that’s what you need to do in order to keep your life balanced, I can support you in that. You ought to do what you think best.” In theology, it might sound something like, “A lot of people interpret the Bible in different ways. I’m not here to tell you what is true or not. That’s something you need to determine for yourself.” These positions can sound healthy, fair, mature, and humble. And yet they walk away from objective truth, a practice that has never done anyone any favors. But this is the pulse of contemporary culture. Current wisdom says that it’s good to deny concrete goodness, true to relegate truth to opinion, and beautiful to endorse expression as art. Truth is made, not

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found; identity is built, not given. In a world that enshrines these concave virtues as necessities for civil life, how can we gain a solid footing on truth that doesn’t change? How can we help young people hold on to truth and equip them even to be lovers of truth? If we want our children to stand rooted in objective truth and work for the betterment of others over self, and to seek truth that doesn’t originate in themselves, how do we accomplish this when the culture they find themselves in aims in the opposite direction?

EDUCATION AS CHARACTER FORMATION One answer is education. Given, however, the wide variety of educational approaches available today—public, private, classical, classical Christian, faith-based, Montessori, home school, Charlotte Mason—we have to conclude that these methods diverge in critical and significant ways, creating a healthy marketplace of educational choice for parents, but also offering a diverse set of options that lead to diverse outcomes. This means that the end goal of a faith-based school will likely look quite different from the end goal of a public school, just as the end goal of a charter school will differ from the end goal of a classical Christian school. So, how do Christian parents choose the right educational model for their children? In some ways, the goal of education is rather simple: we want to train the next generation to lead successful lives as they find their places in the world. It seems like multiple educational paths can lead to this goal. Yet our definitions of critical terms within this stated goal vary as widely as the educational aims that grow out of them, and for good reason. If “successful life” means getting into a good college and securing a stable job to provide comfortably for one’s family, then the educational trajectory that defines a student’s years at a given school will take on a certain shape. Likewise, if “successful life” means integrating into a community and helping it flourish because it is grounded in knowing and loving Jesus and the liberation afforded by the gospel, then the educational process for that student

will assume a different shape. Every educational system has some vision of a desired product in mind for which it aims, whether that vision is explicit or not. So, when we think of choosing the best educational focus for our children, we have to start here, at the goal. What are we aiming for? As Christians, we want our young people to become wise, discerning adults who know and follow Jesus. Solomon writes that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10 NASB) and that “the Lord gives wisdom” to those who seek it (Prov. 2:6 NASB). This wisdom that is rooted in knowing God helps us read our culture, sift truth from error, and pursue what is worth pursuing, even when culture runs in a different direction. Wisdom is being able to see past immediate gain—achieving increased pay at work, earning a place in a social circle, enjoying the security of a relationship—to what is truly good. What if that increased pay means sacrificing time with family? What if gaining entrance into that social circle means sharing in destructive behaviors? What if the safety of a romantic relationship requires sacrificing core beliefs? We can make prudent decisions in complex situations when we are pursuing God, when we know his character and love what he loves. In other words, wisdom is using what we know to be true outside of a given situation to help us read specific scenarios and chart an appropriate course of action. Gaining wisdom is part of spiritual growth. But gaining this kind of wisdom is not merely about knowledge, at least not about knowledge as we often think of it in our day. It’s about character formation. If we are after character formation, then it seems that mere data transfer won’t achieve this goal. Plato, whose works have shaped educational practice for centuries, offers some valuable insight. He famously declared that education’s goal is not just to train the mind, but to train the heart to love what is beautiful. To some, this might sound dangerously reductionistic (where does STEM fit here?) or even pagan (isn’t the goal to love God, not beauty?); to others, perhaps it sounds perilously detached from reality (why focus on loving beauty when

the world is filled with so much suffering, and shouldn’t we devote our attention to helping the needy?). But of course, Plato—into whose works “God and his word keep slipping”—has more in mind here than mere aesthetic appreciation or sentiment; his quest for beauty is rooted in the divine (Augustine, Confessions, 8.2 [iii]). He is after the development of a certain kind of person whose heart has been shaped to respond to the reality of beauty. And importantly, loving what is beautiful then opens the door to character formation, the shaping of the soul to desire what is worth desiring. Therefore, Plato’s vision of education has as its goal a person oriented toward a certain set of values, loves, priorities, habits of discipline, and virtuous characteristics—a person with a particular vision of the good life, a vision that includes self-denial, wisdom-seeking, and truth-following; a person who has learned to discern truth from error and deep from shallow. This is the kind of education our young people need to help them avoid the traps of modern subjectivism. A virtue-focused educational approach like this is not widespread today. The ancient and medieval thinkers who shaped education prior to our modern era understood that certain transcendent realities should ground our actions, desires, habits, and character development. These are the three transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty that hang together in a triunity: If something is true, then it is also good and beautiful. Beauty will contain truth, and goodness will point us to beauty. Denying the objectivity of one (say, beauty) can lead to denying the objectivity of another (say, truth). They are intertwined. And they are transcendent; they are not grounded in specific cultural and geographical loci, applicable in some times and places but not in others, or real to some people and not to others. Rather, they persist despite time and place and preference. This objective evaluation was common in the premodern era, but it is not often how we think as Americans today, even as Christians who believe that God is the source of truth, beauty, and goodness. We believe that these transcendentals are rooted in God’s nature, but we don’t

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THE BEST EDUCATION SHOULD FOCUS ON HELPING YOUNG PEOPLE LEARN TO SIFT THROUGH EVERYTHING A CULTURE OFFERS AND SEE THROUGH THE PACKAGING TO RECOGNIZE LASTING, VIRTUOUS WORTH WHEN IT APPEARS. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

always operate as if this is the case. Instead, we have been trained to traffic in subjectivity, comfortable with compartmentalizing truth, beauty, and goodness. But this tendency leaves us less able to discern partial truth or corrupted beauty. It can also handicap us when it comes to training our young people. Education that aims at character formation, then, must target both the head and the heart. Students need to grow in both knowledge and virtue. Indeed, at the core of Plato’s educational philosophy in the Republic is the belief that if education should be aimed at the heart and loving what is worth loving, then it should also target the mind and develop the student’s ability to recognize what is truly worth loving, what is truly good. The end result of this kind of education should be discernment; the best education should focus on helping young people learn to sift through everything a culture offers and see through the packaging to recognize lasting, virtuous worth when it appears. It should also cultivate self-discipline, the willingness to resist immediate gratification in order to pursue a longer-lasting good. And ultimately, it should produce young people who hold fast to the truth of the gospel as they help their communities flourish. I am suggesting that if we want to best equip our young people to live for something higher than what is available on their Instagram feed, to desire a life of pursuing God and the good things he has given us, and to resist the pull of modern subjectivism in multiple areas—the fine arts, ethics, literature, lifestyle choice—then education offers one of our best strategies. But not just any education will do. Education that stalls out at mere data transfer will shape our young people, but not into the kind of culturemakers we hope they will become. Helping our children see into the realities of their hearts, pointing them to the One who can change their hearts, and equipping them with the tools to fight their self-gratifying cores gives them the kind of education they need to be the kind of people they should be. This is why a quest for truth, beauty, and goodness is such a sound educational goal. Truth,

GRANTED, EDUCATION IS NOT THE FINAL ANSWER TO THE SIN THAT SO EASILY BESETS US. BUT A GOOD EDUCATION SHOULD TARGET THE HEART—WHAT IS LOVED, WHAT IS PURSUED, WHAT IS CHASED AFTER— MORE THAN WE OFTEN GIVE IT LICENSE TO.

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beauty, and goodness as transcendent, formative realities exert a powerful call upon us as individuals. Rather than let us create our own spheres of meaning and value, they call us outside ourselves, challenging us to align our conceptions of beauty, goodness, and truth with what is objectively beautiful, good, and true. In other words, they require us to submit ourselves to them, to rework our own allegiances and desires when they run up against these objective realities. What modern culture offers us today, however, is profoundly different. Western culture today prioritizes individual definitions of happiness and identity, and it offers a life in an entertainment-saturated world that sets a premium on ease of access and ease of consumption. Our young people find themselves in a world that increasingly operates by preference—we can easily shape our entertainment, our communication platforms, our career choices, our relationships, our identity, our diets, and our body types according to what we prefer—we are groomed to maximize happiness and minimize effort. What we need, then, is an educational focus that prioritizes character formation, guided by and grounded in the transcendentals, over information acquisition and retention. We need curriculum and learning environments and teachers who are selected with hearts in mind, not just heads. This also means that we probably need different methods for assessing progress and learning: a student who can explain Alexander the Great’s Persian campaign better than anyone else in the class, yet secretly watches porn on his smartphone at night, is missing something critical in his education. Granted, education is not the final answer to the sin that so easily besets us. But a good education should target the heart—what is loved, what is pursued, what is chased after— more than we often give it license to.

WHAT DOES THIS KIND OF EDUCATION LOOK LIKE? This kind of heart-focused, character-shaping education can take multiple forms, but aiming

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at these transcendent realities as lodestones really calibrates education to expose what is at the core of every one of us: a treacherous heart that wants to run away from truth and that needs the gospel. Thus aiming at truth, beauty, and goodness becomes one of the forces of cultural opposition available to us. It gives students a way to think about themselves, the world around them, and their engagement with the world that inverts our current paradigm. It can help them see past the logic of self-fulfillment that runs rampant today. This kind of education will include hard but good things: things that run up against students’ desires, that plant roots deep inside them. Take for instance the study of literature. When I encountered Beowulf in graduate school, we read the poem culturally and comparatively: culturally, as a means by which to understand not just how Anglo-Saxon culture functioned but also how the Beowulf poet purportedly wrestled a pagan past into suitable garb for a Christian audience; comparatively, how Beowulf informed Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Our discussions were interesting, engaging, informative, and helpful in honing literary critical skills. It was only when I began teaching the text myself, however, that I began to see what was truly worth discussing in the poem, what really mattered. I started to see the deep moral truth woven throughout the lines. It’s not just that Beowulf is clearly written as a Christ-figure throughout the entire poem, including a descent into the Anglo-Saxon image of hell when he swims to Grendel’s mother’s underwater lair to emerge victorious, holding death’s head, rising to the surface to claim victory before a small number of loyal followers who remained by the water’s edge in hope, despite Beowulf ’s seeming death. The significance and lessons are much more personal, and much deeper. The corrupt thane Unferth, for instance, attempts to tear apart Beowulf with his words upon their first meeting in the mead hall, just as the not-quite-human monster Grendel later attempts to tear apart Beowulf with his teeth and claws in the same mead hall. A monster in human form, Unferth tries to use

his words as a weapon: “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21 NASB). A soul-shaping education asks students, “How are we like Unferth? How do we use our words to destroy others?” “How does Beowulf’s response give life?” Granted, education that aims at the heart shouldn’t merely seek to reduce great literature to a list of moral lessons, nor should it ignore the historical, cultural, and textual elements of a work of literature. But it certainly should take advantage of those moral lessons when they are present. When we get farther into the poem and realize that the story’s central monster isn’t Grendel after all but rather the monstrous human heart that seeks bloody revenge in rampant blood feud, we see the disastrous results of harboring an inner monster, failing to recognize the monster within when it is so easy to recognize monsters without. We see our need for a savior to rescue us from our inner monster. The discussions that ensue, even among eighth graders, are wisdom-forming, soul-searching discussions that leave behind changed minds and hearts. A moral reading of a text, like this one, is largely absent in secular educational environments that prioritize data transfer over heart transformation. Asking a question such as, “Who is the central monster of the poem?” and expecting as the answer, “The Danes, the Frisians, and the Geats” is not safe—questions like that expose the darkness of the human heart and point to our need of a rescuer to come from another land, defeat the monster that besets us, and show us how to live a different kind of life. (All of that is in Beowulf!) Our academic temptation is to read literature “safely” (read, subjectively) and to avoid asking the hard questions that peel back protective layers of the self and expose what lies beneath. But it is precisely these “dangerous” questions that challenge students to see themselves for who they are and to therefore long for the truth, goodness, and beauty rooted in God. C. S. Lewis’s classic novel Till We Have Faces offers another example of what this kind of moral reading of literature—borne of a desire to pursue goodness, truth, and beauty—can accomplish in students. Read “safely,” Lewis’s myth

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retold can become yet another exercise in comparative study (how does Lewis alter his source material and why?), fiction-writing strategies (why does Lewis have one of Psyche’s sisters narrate the story, and what does this add to our understanding of the plot?), or even understanding the interplay between faith and reason (though this would take us to the border of what is “safe”). But, of course, Lewis wants us to see Orual’s devouring love and its horrific ramifications; and he doesn’t just want us to see it in her—he wants us to recognize it in ourselves. And, of course, he wants us to feel exasperated at Orual’s jealous, willfully blind destruction of Psyche’s happiness; but he also wants us to understand that we too reject what should constitute certain evidence of God’s goodness and what motivates us to do so. Furthermore, he wants us to see the connection between Orual’s twisted love and her denial of the gods: that until she believes in the goodness of the gods, she will never be freed from her selfish love that devours those she cares for most deeply. Read this way, Till We Have Faces produces soul-revealing discussions aimed at finding truth to guide students through the maze of their own hearts. The quest for transcendent value does not stop with literature: it moves into every discipline, math and science included. (In fact, Plato argues in the Republic that a student well-trained in mathematics will learn to see what is truly good and acquire the will and discipline to pursue it.) In the fine arts, teaching students to evaluate art objectively protects them from interacting with it along the lines of “I like this, so therefore it’s good” or “I don’t understand this, so therefore I don’t like it.” For instance, teaching students to evaluate music on the basis of what is lasting and beautiful—not merely pleasing, available, and relevant—helps them recognize what is shallow, misleading, banal, and self-focused in much popular music today. Doing so can shape them into discerning seekers of beauty, rather than indiscriminate consumers of trends. Since our culture prioritizes popular music, classical music no longer occupies the cultural space it once did, and so it can be especially difficult to convince young people to include

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Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, or Copeland in their playlists. But if we believe that beauty is a transcendent reality worth knowing, pursuing, and loving, then we should help our children (and perhaps even ourselves) hear the beauty in a Beethoven symphony or a Mozart sonata. Exposure to this great art is a first step, and there are plenty of platforms that make good classical music easily accessible. A second step is helping students understand not just why classical music is so much more complex than pop music, but how that complexity is tied to its value, meaning, and beauty. If we’re after shaping a certain kind of person who loves the right things, then these are crucial steps. Education done well can help students love truth, seek goodness, and pursue beauty. It can shape students’ hearts so that when given options, they will choose well. When given the choice to spin through YouTube videos for an hour and a half or pick up a John Steinbeck story, they have the self-control and love of something more than ephemeral pleasure to choose the book. They recognize that the book offers lasting value, that time is a treasured commodity, and that their hearts and minds need Steinbeck more than they need TikTok. If we want our young people to impact culture in transformative ways—not march to the beat of the consumerist drum, or the self-care drum, or the politically correct drum—then we need to look for ways to shape their hearts now to be discerners of what really matters, so that they can be lovers of what really matters. The prophet Jeremiah, indicting Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian conquest, declares, “For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for gain. . . . Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you will find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:13, 16 NASB). As we endeavor to train our young people to love the right things and see past the distractions of modernity, the answer may be—to paraphrase The Hobbit’s Gandalf—to “look behind.” GINNY OWENS lives in Bozeman, Montana, where she teaches humanities, rhetoric, and music at Petra Academy.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews 54

Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality

The Assault on American Excellence

The End of Youth Ministry? Why Parents Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Really Care about Youth Groups and What Youth Workers Should Do about It

by Anthony Kronman

by James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky

by Andrew Root

REVIEWED BY

Larry D. Paarmann

Joseph Minich

Cameron Cole

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BOOK REVIEWS

Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky Yale University Press, 2018 312 pages (hardcover), $26.00 n what do we base our concepts of morality? With the rise of the Enlightenment, there was a commitment to discovering a secular foundation for morality. While Christianity in the West had built its morality upon biblical revelation and church authority, secularists increasingly rejected that foundation and looked for one based on science and reason alone. How successful has that quest been? In Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality, James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky strive to answer that question. James Davison Hunter is the LaBrosseLevinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia, founder and executive director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, and senior fellow of the Trinity Forum (a faithbased, evangelical Christian organization founded by Os Guinness). Paul Nedelisky is assistant director and fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. In his review of their book on The Gospel Coalition website, Scott B. Rae notes,

The book is full of insightful commentary on the historical figures and the current evolutionary and neuroscientific bases for morality. The authors maintain that the neural or evolutionary basis for particular traits or virtues may be interesting but tell us nothing about whether they should be 1 adopted or rejected. In the National Review, M. D. Aeschliman comments on the book,

In their painstakingly fair-minded analysis, Hunter and Nedelisky ultimately document the truth argued by a distinguished contemporary philosopher whom they do not quote, Charles Larmore: “Basically, Plato was right,” he argues; “moral value is something real and nonnatural.” . . . Thus Hunter and Nedelisky conclude that the dominant schools of contemporary academic philosophy and social science (and the popularizations of natural science in “evolutionary” everything) logically terminate in “moral nihilism,” 2 Crocker’s “nihilist dissolution.” John Bombaro, who is a regular reviewer for Modern Reformation, writes on The Mod, With ample quotes and comparative research, the findings of socio-biologists, philosophy professors, publicists, neuroeconomists, neuro-psychologists, and social psychologists are called into question and found to be not only exaggerated, but some3 times absurdly so. In the preface, Hunter and Nedelisky provide “The Argument, in Brief” where they note, Traditional religious beliefs and medieval philosophy had not only conspicuously and tragically failed to bring order and peace to an increasingly pluralistic world but had made such hopes ever more elusive. (xiii) It was the perceived failure of the church to put forth a universal morality that all could buy into that led to a secular pursuit for a universal morality. But the authors write, After four hundred years, the ideal of understanding moral reality scientifically through observation and demonstration— in the way that truths in astronomy and medicine were understood—continued to confound. . . . In the end, the new moral

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science still tells us not hing ab out what moral conclusions we should draw. . . . [T]he idea of morality—as a mindindependent reality—has lost plausibility for the new moral scientists. They no longer believe such a thing exists. . . . Despite using the language of morality, they embrace a view that, in its net effect, amounts to moral nihilism. (xiv–xv) For the remainder of the book, they expand and justify these statements. Chapter 1 indicates the importance of the quest for universal morality, that it is much more than mere academic exercise. Is there an issue of public policy or foreign policy that is not morally fraught? Immigration, health care, racial inequality, care for the elderly and for the poor, education, aid to victims of natural disaster, international trade, and war are all laced with difficult moral questions that have no easy answers and that more often than not lead us to fundamental disagreements over what is right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust. (5) It is critical to note that the real issues are not about facts, but rather about philosophy and religion. Those who argue that science is or should be the foundation for morality are generally making an epistemological claim about the superiority of science over other forms of knowledge. . . . What is at stake here is the viability of a certain comprehensive view of reality called naturalism. . . . Naturalism is in competition with perspectives that

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look to other, often nonscientific and nonempirical bases for truth, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. (9) What perhaps needs to be expanded upon is that naturalism is also based on certain usually unstated presuppositions. Part II consists of a historical overview of how we in the West got to where we are now in terms of our view of morality, and part III summarizes what the scientific quest for a universal morality has achieved thus far. The fact that it starts from an Enlightenment (naturalistic) point of view dooms it from the star t, and the authors discover a good deal of nonscientific overreach and ignoring of facts along the way. Their conclusion: After five hundred years of scientific inquiry into the nature of morality, the most noteworthy scientific findings at best achieve Level Three status [the lowest level of scientific finding]. . . . [T]here are no scientific findings that present claims of either Level One or Level Two status. (116–17) In part IV, the authors consider some of the “enduring quandaries” of this quest, and they show that the naturalistic quest for the foundations of morality “leads the new moral science to moral nihilism” (168). “Within a disenchanted naturalism, there can be no irreducible ‘oughts’; there is no fundamentally moral normativity. . . . What had long been a suspicion in modern philosophy has now become a creed: morality isn’t real” (173). Take, for example, Alex Rosenberg’s cold admission: “In a world where physics fixes all the facts, it’s hard to see how there could be room for moral facts. . . .

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Why bother to be good? . . . We need to face the fact that nihilism is true.”4 The authors make the point that the failure of determining a naturalistic foundation for morality has consequences as well for other areas of naturalistic study. “This logic of disenchantment threatens much more than morality. It separates the scientifically pure concepts from the unclean ones such as consciousness, intentionality, life, free will, and the like” (197). There was a time when theology claimed a privileged epistemic authority. Its claims to truth were embedded within institutions that could protect the power and advantage of the people making those claims. To contradict its assertions or challenge its authority was an act of transgression. (203–4).

The effort over the centuries to establish the foundations of morality based on naturalistic science to which all could appeal has failed.

The tide has turned, and it is naturalistic science that claims a privileged epistemic authority. To question it is now an act of transgression. Without such awareness, one is vulnerable to the Promethean temptation to overreach. In this case, it is a temptation to turn science from a method into a metaphysic—from a set of tools, a set of rules, and a discursive orientation into the ground of all being. (209) The effort over the centuries to establish the foundations of morality based on naturalistic science to which all could appeal has failed. Nevertheless, the quest goes on. Near the end of the book, Hunter and Nedelisky state, The question of the moral foundations of a good and just society is certainly one of the central philosophical, social, and political puzzles of the modern world since the Reformation. For us to propose an answer in the last pages of the book would be folly. But the urgency for a solution is palpable, made all the more so by the sense that we are in new territory; that our philosophical and political theories and our procedural tools for adjudicating disagreement are proving inadequate to the challenges we now face. (212–13) Two observations should be made here in assessing the value of this book. First, I think criticisms of this book for not presenting a solution may be inappropriate. This is not a book of Christian apologetics. Surely, Christians will affirm the biblical understanding that God is the author of moral law, and that all naturalistic attempts to find a foundation for morality are bound to fail. But the fact that Hunter and Nedelisky do not directly address this Christian understanding or develop it carefully is not really a criticism of the book, as this was not their purpose. To address the tragic quest for the naturalistic

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“It is in the deepening of the quality of our public discourse on those matters that divide us so profoundly that we have any hope of finding common ground.”

foundations of morality as carefully, generously, and thoroughly as they have done is commendable in itself. Building on their thesis, it should be noted that the fact that there is no naturalist foundation for morality doesn’t mean that there isn’t a foundation for morality, just that there isn’t a naturalistic one. To espouse that there isn’t any foundation for morality, to believe in moral nihilism, is dangerous. The denial of reality is always dangerous. Second, the authors were not as concerned with the religious, or metaphysical, truth of the foundations of morality, or of discovering what we may think of as real morality. Instead, they were primarily looking at the historical quest for foundations of morality. In other words, they were not investigating personal morality, but rather moral foundations to which societies and nations could appeal. In such a context, simply making our differences intelligible to one another would be a start. The reason for this, of course, is found in one of the fundamental premises of democracy itself, namely the agreement not to kill each other over our differences, but rather to talk through them. It is in the deepening of the quality of our public discourse on those matters that divide us so profoundly that we have any hope of finding common ground. (214)

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This is more of a pragmatic quest than one of metaphysical truth. To that end, I am in agreement with Hunter and Nedelisky that progress can be made, must be made, through dialogue, through diplomacy, through international organizations, and so on. But I think it goes without saying that such means provide only partial solutions. From a Christian perspective, the only real solution that can be hoped for is the rule of God. That awaits the second coming of Jesus Christ, the consummation of the ages, and the kingdom of God, whose citizens have been redeemed and cleansed by the blood of Christ. Come, Lord Jesus! LARRY D. PAARMANN has a PhD in electrical engineering

and has taught at three universities. He is the founder and coordinator of the Evangelical Christianity Special Interest Group of Mensa.

1. Scott B. Rae, “Morality Is Not Scientific,” The Gospel Coalition (February 1, 2019), https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/ science-good. 2. M. D. Aeschliman, “James Davison Hunter and the Inadequacy of Naturalism,” National Review (March 2, 2019), https://www. nationalreview.com/2019/03/james-davison-hunter-book-scienceand-the-good. 3. John Bombaro, The Mod (June 4, 2019), https://www.whitehorseinn. org/2019/06/the-mod-science-and-the-good-the-tragic-quest-forthe-foundations-of-morality-by-james-davison-hunter-and-paulnedelisky. 4. Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions (New York: Norton, 2011), 94–96. Quoted in Science and the Good, 180.

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The Assault on American Excellence By Anthony Kronman Free Press, 2019 288 pages (hardcover), $27.00 nceasingly inundated as our civilization is with transparently partisan moralizing, I’d wager that the average American intellectual has developed the unenviable habit of being reflexively cynical and numb in the face of any moral screed. We’re constantly on the lookout for “the angle.” The rhetorical difficulties of speaking with moral gravitas into this cultural space are legion. But, in The Assault on American Excellence, this is what Anthony Kronman attempts to do. Certain to provoke, Kronman nevertheless cannot be dismissed. Contextualized by the campus controversies over free speech, safe spaces, memorial statues, building names (etc.) of the last decade, Kronman argues that the contemporary university is at risk of losing its reason for being. Behind this, argues Kronman, is a deep-seated suspicion of aristocracy. By this, the former dean of Yale Law School is not referring to what is commonly associated with the name. He constantly affirms his acceptance of political democracy, and he criticizes the kind of prestige that is automatically tied to being wellborn. Rather, claims Kronman, “men and women can be distinguished according to their success not in this or that particular endeavor . . . but in the all-inclusive work of being human” (7). Although this claim stands in tension with the generally democratic ideals of American civilization,

in our democracy it is essential to preserve a few islands of aristocratic spirit, both

for their own sake, because of the rarity and beauty of what they protect, and for the good of the larger democratic culture as well. (8) Kronman here (in concert with John Adams and Alexis de Tocqueville, among others) signals the tension between any democracy’s tendency to mob rule and the necessity that any civilization be governed by virtue. Since such virtue and excellence are uncommon, the university has always played a role in crafting moral leaders who diminish the consumptive effects of the mob. He grants that there is no direct link between education and virtue. Real merit—the kind a society requires in its leaders if it is to be well governed—does not presuppose a college education. But the two are not randomly connected. The one conduces to the other. It tends to promote it. (37) Or at least, that is what it was originally supposed to do. Increasingly, under the bureaucratic reduction of education to the acquisition of marketable skills, the tensions in college life reflect a deeper fracture over the purpose of these institutions as such. And it is precisely here where Kronman makes his case. It is about institutions of higher learning that he argues. These play a unique role in the development of extra ordinar y persons whose development as humans (through engagement with the humanities) serve to give them a vantage point on the world that will presumably equip them to make tough decisions in a complex democratic nation. To the extent that universities cease to aim at this, they lose their reason for being. He argues that American universities are

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losing themselves in three areas: speech, diversity, and memory. Concerning speech, Kronman claims that debates over the invitation of controversial speakers, for instance, fail to distinguish a college community from a political community. The norms that govern the latter are and ought to be democratic and egalitarian. The norms that govern the former are best seen by witnessing the norms that govern a college seminar. To wit, “the participants in a seminar . . . are obliged to try and have a common conversation,” and this conversation, argues Kronman, is meant to be adjudicated by argument and reason (81). He anticipates a host of cynical retorts to this, and unlike his more juvenile counterparts, he does not dismiss appeal to feeling and offense. Rather, he argues that these are ideally transformed into conversation rather than invoked as intrinsic sources of authority, transubstantiating one’s wound into a reason why others should defer to one’s argument (91). Kronman is palpably inspired by Socrates’s community of conversation, and he imagines that any university governed by this ideal would expand (rather than limit) the imagination. He is well aware of the concern that this might risk legitimizing dangerous ideas, and his responses to these objections are nontrivial. Concerning diversity, he is especially insightful about the legal history of the role that diversity has played in campus life. Originally motivated to “promote social justice,” the justification for diversity has progressively shifted to be framed in terms of the “enrichment of instruction” (123). Kronman is quite open to the role that affirmative action might play in helping to ameliorate the effects of past systemic racism, but he is deeply opposed to instrumentalizing these students in the name of a norm whose proper sphere is (once again) political rather than academic. The consequence of this is (ironically) to foster ideological solidarity and group identity rather than individual distinction. And

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The goal of the academy is to pursue truth, to sit comfortably with ambiguity, and—in a word—to educate.

indeed, inasmuch as the focus of one’s education becomes exegeting the significance and meaning of one’s group identity labels, so education takes on an “anti-humanist thrust” (155). And precisely in this, the university progressively loses its classical focus on the “scale of distinction in the work of being human” (161). This distinction, once again, is not racial or economic or gendered, but concerns humanity itself. Despite its rarity, our civilization depends upon it. And it would consequently (in his judgment) be a tragedy if the university sacrificed such an ideal on the altar of “democratic negation” (a frequently invoked phrase). Concerning memory, Kronman makes an especially thorough case for a conservative attitude about renaming campus buildings or removing statues that have offensive connotations for some students. Once again, he claims that current trajectories on this score confuse political with academic ideals. The goal of the academy is to pursue truth, to sit comfortably with ambiguity, and—in a word—to educate. Drawing upon Hannah Arendt and others, Kronman is able to make a distinctive case: Moving memorials around or removing them altogether is not a crime against our ancestors. Architectural considerations, for

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example, often warrant changes of this kind. But where a particular memorial has become controversial because it is thought to reflect a view or value no longer shared by the faculty and students, the reasons for leaving it in place are stronger, not weaker, than they were before. It now serves an educational purpose that most memorials do not. . . . It is a text in ambiguity and ought to be especially valued for that reason. (182–83) Remarkably, Kronman anticipates all the objections to this and deals with them sympathetically rather than dismissively. And precisely in doing so, he avoids superficiality. What unites all his retorts is the distinctive character of the university as a community, with its own distinctive norms, the protection of which is (again) urgent for modern civilization. Modern trends sacrifice “a deeper form of solidarity for a more comfortable and superficial one. That is always a loss” (211). Kronman’s tome is sure to receive reflexively cynical detraction from some quarters, and that is a shame. But this is not to imply that there aren’t some principled lines of critical feedback. It is unclear, for instance, that he has exhausted the options for relating our political and academic values. As written, it would seem that the ideal mediation would be a kind of benevolent paternalism of sages who help guide the mass of humanity (in whatever form of leadership) toward the good. Perhaps. But one would be forgiven for the suspicion that the university’s role could be overdramatized here. Moreover, the ideal university he describes is too spectral.

Certainly, some universities are better than others, but it is unclear that most have achieved any manifest claim to actually producing better humans than many other civilizational forces. The republic of letters has always transcended institutions and is sometimes in tension with what universities actually produce. Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure might be read as a story of a developing human (directly ingesting the humanities) trying to make his way among a class of persons who were cultivated to instrumentalize them. Of course, this tendency can be transcended, but this is unlikely to be the achievement of any institution qua institution. Finally, Kronman’s argument would be aided by a discussion of excellence and even of human maturation through labor and craft. Arguably, the life of the mind is one particular mode of a more primal human relationship to craft. Living well is as much about cultivating practical habits as it is about cultivating mental habits. These reciprocally influence one another, of course, but precisely for this reason, expertise in being human can and frequently does come from surprising places, prompted by surprising “texts.” A satisfying account of the humanizing effect of education needs to consider the diversity of modes in which humans are “educated.” None of this is to complain that Kronman didn’t write a book that he didn’t set out to write. These questions are directly relevant to his university’s imagined role in the civilization it presumably serves. JOSEPH MINICH (PhD, The University of Texas at Dallas) is

a teaching fellow with The Davenant Institute and author of Enduring Divine Absence (The Davenant Press, 2018).

Certainly, some universities are better than others, but it is unclear that most have achieved any manifest claim to actually producing better humans than many other civilizational forces. 60

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The End of Youth Ministry? Why Parents Don’t Really Care about Youth Groups and What Youth Workers Should Do about It by Andrew Root Baker Academic, 2020 240 pages (paperback), $22.99 ndrew Root, a leading voice in the academic study of youth ministry, has published a timely book for many struggling youth workers. While this book does not explore per se whether youth ministry as a part of the church is going extinct, Root does examine a frustration that many youth workers presently feel. In the rat race of sports, school, and ACT tutors, youth groups (and church) seem increasingly secondary to American families. Many youth pastors experience the disappointment of seeing Sunday night gatherings, Bible study, or the mission trip lose out over and over again as a lower priority than other developmental options, such as travel soccer or tutors. Root asks the question, “What is youth ministr y for?” In exploring this question via conversations with parents, youth workers, and students, Root identifies trends and themes in the values of parents. He uncovers changes in our culture over the past forty years and how youth ministry has failed to adapt. Root contrasts the parenting paradigms of the 1980s and 1990s with those of the last twenty years, which provides valuable insight for youth workers about why parents don’t seem to care much about youth ministries. In the 1980s and ’90s, parents generally took a handsoff approach, and kids had massive amounts

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of free time. The problem that arose was that kids were growing up too fast. Using Fast Time at Ridgemont High as an emblem of the time, Root says that society became concerned that kids got into sex, drugs, and alcohol too early. As a result, youth ministries served to slow kids down and keep them out of trouble. Given that kids had so much time, these were the heydays of youth ministry. In this young century, parents have taken a different approach and now closely manage their children, almost like personal coaches. At the bottom of it, Root claims, parents hope to help their children find their “thing,” which translates to discovering their self-constructed identity. Given that so many options exist, parents closely monitor and strategize how to lead their children on the most conducive path to discover their authentic identity. Root found that parents consider the highest good among kids to be happiness— sustained happiness. They believe that if their children find their identity and then remain faithful to this selfconstructed self (no matter what that self may be), then they would be happy. While trying to help kids find this identity, parents also exert endless effort to protect their children from any pain or difficulty. Since happiness is the summum bonum, pain and suffering undermine the goals of the parents. Most parents have not deemed youth ministry an instrumental part of this identity formation, as compared to travel sports and academic endeavors. As a result, youth ministers around the country are experiencing flimsy commitment from teenagers. The first and perhaps most valuable contribution of the book is that Root helps youth workers make sense of this frustrating lack of priority

BOOK REVIEWS

they observe from families, helping them find language and causes for the decline. In addition to this, he shows how present-day models are geared toward 1980s social realities, which might lead youth pastors to reconsider their models in light of these cultural shifts. Second, Root provides a valuable description and critique of parenting paradigms. Based on the whole of his interviews, Root depicts three parents who are composites of families from evangelical, mainline, and secular backgrounds. The remarkable reality is that the parenting philosophies and behaviors of the Christian families compared to the secular families differ very little—if at all. Happiness for the child constitutes the highest aim. All the families believe that identity comes from self-construction through various activities. The parents all believe that pain is an enemy to be avoided and that they have a central role in protecting their kids from it as much as reasonably possible. The parents, he insightfully observes, are essentially operating within a theology of glory.

Self-constructed identity is unreliable and volatile, and it leaves kids empty, unfulfilled, and resentful.

Root counters these beliefs with three valuable insights. First, he asserts that Jesus Christ—not happiness—is the highest aim. Happiness is fleeting and not sustainable, but joy in Christ can be found as a gift from God through Christ’s redemption. Second, using the theology of the cross, the author shows how valuable pain and suffering are for the spiritual development of children. Root gives one of the best applications of the theology of the cross that I’ve read in a youth ministry book. He posits that when we come into relationship with Christ by faith, we intrinsically enter into the pattern of the life of Jesus: death and resurrection. Maturation in faith flows from death—painful and humbling experiences that lead us to deeper dependence on and faith in Christ. Rich joy results from the resurrecting work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as God meets us in and transforms us from death. Root voices the need to help kids enter into the death-resurrection pattern of life. Finally, one of Root’s main emphases is that Christianity has better tools and value in helping kids find true identity. Selfconstructed identity is unreliable and volatile, and it leaves kids empty, unfulfilled, and resentful. Harkening back to Galatians 2:20, Root shows that through faith in Jesus, our identity becomes Christ. Churches can communicate to parents the true, stable nature of identity “in Christ” and participate in this identity formation. The only shortcomings I would point to in the book relate to the practical solutions for the problem, although I do not sense that Root is trying to offer a concrete model but rather a frame for the general problem. Root primarily recommends that multigenerational storytelling take a central place in youth ministries. He believes that we can better assist in identity formation and demonstrate the death-resurrection arc of the Christian life through shared narrative. In making this argument, the author deemphasizes the significance of theological propositions in identity formation. He writes,

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Too often youth ministry has tried to forge identities in Christ by offering propositions, statements that young people consent to believe, and get proof of their belief by participating. We called this faith. This is not how identity is constructed, and this is not what faith is. Faith is not trust in propositions or commitment to participation but the identification with personhood in and through story. (166) I do not think Root, however, is saying that theological and biblical training have no place or value in youth ministry. Elsewhere in the book, for example, he observes how a flawed Christology and anthropology undergird the parental paradigms (cf. 126), and he recalls how the stories of the Bible helped a struggling mother make sense of the movement of God in her life (cf. 147). Given that youth ministers historically do not naturally tend toward theologically rich ministries, my concern is that a young youth pastor will read the applications and come away thinking, “If we just gather around and tell stories, then our kids will grow in Christ.” While assent to theological propositions alone will not help kids mature spiritually, stories disconnected from a well-shaped theological framework have limited value. Current youth ministry research demonstrates a theological crisis among young people. Root’s book reflects this in the views of the parents who live under a theology of glory that conflicts starkly with the metanarrative of Scripture and the gospel. I would have preferred that Root encourage storytelling alongside teaching the story of God via theological education and biblical teaching as a two-pronged approach. One practical recommendation I take from the book is the importance of the youth workers partnering with head pastors in the discipleship and equipping of parents. The book exhibits how highly involved parents have become in the development of young people. As a result, rather than simply watching parents function

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While assent to theological propositions alone will not help kids mature spiritually, stories disconnected from a well-shaped theological framework have limited value.

as academic and athletic wranglers, churches can give parents tools to disciple their children. At the same time, as the book glaringly reveals, parents must themselves be well instructed in the gospel. The parents depicted in the book demonstrate little to no ability to connect their orthodoxy to the orthopraxy of parenting— which is a discipleship failure of the church, not the parents. Root’s book shows that now, as much as ever, we must invest in and equip parents spiritually to lead their kids. CAMERON COLE is the director of children, youth, and fam-

ily at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the founding chair of Rooted, a ministry that fosters gospel-centered youth ministry, as well as the author of Therefore I Have Hope: 12 Truths That Comfort, Sustain, and Redeem in Tragedy (Crossway, 2018) and coeditor of Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry: A Practical Guide (Crossway, 2016).

B AC K PAG E

The Mental Gaze by Joshua Schendel

n the book of Proverbs, we are instructed to “pay attention” to the words of the wise and to “give our attention” to wisdom (Prov. 4:20; 5:1), to which many of us will, if we are honest, respond with the words of Augustine, “Behold, my life is a distraction” (Confessions, 11.29.39). In the same passage, Augustine describes distraction as a kind of “stretching out” over things that have been and things that may be. He says that this “stretching out” makes us thin. Sort of like “butter scraped over too much bread” (to quote the Augustinian hobbit, Bilbo). And then, beautifully, Augustine contrasts his distracted life, pulled in many different directions, with the one God, who is rich in mercy.

But because your mercy is far greater than my [distracted] life . . . and because your right hand has gathered me up into my Lord, by the Son of Man, the Mediator between you, the One, and we, the many . . . I press on, not as stretched out over those things past and future, but as stretched forth toward things present; I press on, not distractedly but with attention toward the prize of my heavenly calling. For Augustine, not only is the one God the solution to the multiplicity of distraction, but the one God’s grace toward us in Christ is the remedy for the sin of distraction. In the Christian tradition, our distraction is traced back to the sin of

sloth. Distraction is a kind of mental laziness, where we fail to do precisely as the proverb instructs: “Pay attention to wisdom.” Elsewhere Augustine describes this kind of attention, using the common experience of squinting in order to focus on an object of sight. We’ve all had that experience: noticing something in the distance that is not entirely clear but piques our interest. So, we lean in a bit and squint. Attention is like that, he says. It is a kind of mental squinting, when we intentionally narrow our focus, shade the peripheral, and make ready our minds. It prepares us for action, for learning, for growth. To remain in a state of distraction is to remain a mental couch potato. We live in an age of distraction. This is not a new problem, as the passage from Augustine attests. But it must be admitted that we are really good at it. We’ve streamlined distraction. We carry it around with us in our pockets. In this issue, we’ve considered various challenges that face our youth. Surely, we ought to add distraction as among the most serious of those challenges. But as we have discovered, these are challenges for us adults as well. Let us therefore pray for courage and perseverance that we might lead our youth by example. Let us put down the phone. Let us turn off the tablet. Let us practice the act of mental squinting, so that having given our own attention to wisdom, we will then be able to say to our children, “Pay attention to my words.” JOSHUA SCHENDEL is executive editor of Modern Reformation.

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JUSTIFICATION. “ T H E D O C T R I N E U P O N W H I C H T H E C H U R C H S TA N D S O R FA L L S .” For thirty years, White Horse Inn and Modern Reformation have stressed the importance of knowing and understanding Christian doctrine for the life of the Christian as well as the life of the church. As we approach Reformation Day 2020, remember to support the work of White Horse Inn, Modern Reformation, Core Christianity, and the Global Theological Initiative with a gift of $50 dollars and get a volume of Michael Horton’s Justification. Donate $100 and get both volumes!

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WE MUST INSPIRE IF WE WANT OUR YOUTH TO ASPIRE. NOT WITH FALSE EXPECTATIONS OR WITH CHRISTIANIZED VERSIONS OF THE SAME SHALLOW THINGS MODERN WESTERN CULTURE INCREASINGLY PURSUES, BUT WITH A LIFE OF DEEP MEANING, LIVED WITH INTEGRITY BEFORE GOD. DAV I D J . AY E R S