PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “The Chief and Only thing wrong with the world”
(By: Ron Woodrum)
Several years ago, Ted Koppel, the anchor of ABC’s Nightline for over 40 years, spoke at a commencement ceremony at Duke University. His address was not well received. This is what he said, “We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is no! Not becauses it isn’t cool or smart, or because you might end up in jail or dying in an AIDS ward. But no because it is wrong, because we have spent five thousand years as a race of rational human beings, trying to drag ourselves out of the primeval slime by searching for truth and moral absolutes. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach. What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the ten suggestions!”His words were not welcome. He was ridiculed and reproached…and for what? Trying to tell the truth. That was then. This is now. Those words are now considered border line hate speech!
The truth is there is something deperately wrong with the human race. We all know it inherently, personally, and culturally. It is not only Christians who are speaking about this issue. After reading a local newspapers inquiry about what is wrong with mankind today- G.K. Chesterton wrote a two-word reply-to the editor-“I Am!” and signed his name. Thomas Hardy wrote, “If there is a better way to be-it lies in taking a full look at the worst” Albert Camus, in his book The Fall, has his main character Clamence journey from a vague disquiet within himself that something is wrong, to a full understanding of man’s fallen nature as the source of all that is wrong, but maintains a “bad faith” that lives life in total denial. Camus would later add to this theme with another novel called The Plague. Camus was not a Christian author, but was quite accurate at diagnosing man’s condition, though he had no answers for a cure. Psychiatrist and author Carl Gustav Jung summarized man’s problem accurately when he said, “The chief and only thing wrong with the world is man!” Mark Twain said that man is missing something, and “You don’t quite know what it is…but it makes your heart ache you want it so!” Even Bertrand Russell, the agnostic/athiest said, man’s problem is “in our hearts that the evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out”. Augustine said, “My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner”.
The New Millenium has made things even more complicated for us. We have turned away from our Christian definition of life and re-defined everything. God has been gagged. His Word is no longer relevant in our world. He needs to remain silent! Our day reminds me of the Days of Elijah and King Ahab. You can read the story in I Kings. Ahab had married Jezebel. He had embraced all her pagan gods and made all the sensual worship of those gods and godesses the norm for the people of God. Ellijah, the man of God would not keep silent. He spoke the truth. That truth was not accepted by Jezebel and Ahab. When Ahab first encountered Ellijah face to face he addressed him as the “one who troubleth all Israel”. His criticism, evaluation, and admonition to the king and the nation was “not welcome!” He needed to “keep silent”. Ellijah would not, and Ahab called him the “troubler of Israel” (I Kings 18:17). When Ahab joined forces with Jehoshaphat to go into battle together they sought the word from the prophets to quide them. Jehoshaphat asked if there were any other prophets to get a word from? Ahab was at least honest-he said there is one other prophet. His name is Michaiah. But I hate him because he never tells me what I want to hear. He only predicts evil and failure and defeat for me!. In other words “his words were not welcome”. (I Kings 22:7-8). That is an accurate description of anyone today that attempts to speak the truth about the condtion of man. We are like a man that goes to the Doctor, and we are accurately diagnosed with a cancer or some other serious disease. We are offended with the diagnosis, even though there is a cure. Rather that being grateful for an accurate diagnosis, and embracing the cure enthusiastically we deny the diagnosis, and watch with worried eyes as the disease ravages our own body and souls, and all those around us! Psychoanalyst Otto Rand, in The Denial of Death clearly describes our modern predictament,
” The neurotic type suffers from a consciousness of sin just as much as did his religious ancester, without believing in the conception of sin. This is precisely what makes him neurotic; he feels a sinner without the religious belief in sin for which he therefore needs a new rational explanation.” This plight, according to Ernest Becker is “the modern man is a sinner, and knows it, but is a sinner with no word for it any longer!” Becker goes on to describe the symptoms of this new dilemna: “disharmony with others; always trying to create their own world from within themselves; blowing themselves up to a larger than true size; refusing to admit their cosmic dependence”. So even though we have succeeded in doing away with sin; redefining it. Denying God’s accurate diagnosis. We are cutting ourselves off from the one and only cure! Augustine spoke of the only cure for the human problem. He said, “What can save us, but your hand remaking what you have already made!”. That is the good news of the Gospel message!