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“Celebrate bad things, c’mon!”
Imagine a place & time when you are required to celebrate “murder month” or “gossip week,” or the “year of theft.” The lyrics of Kool and the Gang’s 1981 hit are rewritten, and all people are expected to sing along to “Celebrate bad things, c’mon!” Of course, that sounds absolutely absurd! Yet as the progression detailed below illustrates, such moral entropy is far from rare. [This is a bit lengthy, but I have been repeatedly asked for my understanding of how humans come to celebrate evil.]
Sin’s slippery slope
Step 1 – A cultural sin movement posits that something God calls wrong has been misrepresented or misunderstood. The idea of behavioral choice is buried under a mound of rationalization as terms are radically redefined.
Response: About 75% of a wide spectrum in the society tries to disagree. Yet if the sin movement successfully changes word definitions, the movement advances.
Example: Thieves are not to blame for their crimes. They only steal because they weren’t read to enough as children. Thieves are redefined as “needy pre-owners” who have been treated unjustly.
End result: Wrong cannot be seen as objectively wrong & the wrongdoer is not responsible.
Step 2 – The culture then builds great momentum exonerating wrongdoers and demanding they have free and equal treatment. Real or imagined past mistreatment plays a big role here, justifying the cultural reversal as a kind of tit-for-tat.
Response: About 50% of the society tries to disagree, but they have already lost the battle for words and thus the sin movement continues.
Example: Thieves are granted carte blanche to steal and store owners who complain are cast as the real oppressors, denying pre-owners their due.
End result: Wrong is declared right & the wrongdoer justified.
Step 3 – Before long, the sinners demand to be celebrated. All the weight of the culture jumps on board, persecuting any bigots who won’t join in applauding the greatness of what formerly was agreed to be evil.
Response: God’s people, usually comprising 10-25% of the population in a western culture, are often the only remaining voice of protest. They tend to split: ½ go along with calling wrong “right.” ½ stand undaunted, voicing their objections in ways that range from reasonable and winsome to harsh and vitriolic.
Example: Theft is proudly fêted. Anyone who refuses to applaud thievery is marginalized or condemned.
End result: Wrong is to be celebrated & the wrongdoer worshipped. Dissenters are silenced to preserve civic unity.
A regularly occurring mess
But of course, you are responding, in your Vincent Cassell voice [He played the French thief in Oceans 12.], “Ah, I get your point. And that thievery example actually occurred in San Francisco, culminating in the 2021 burglary epidemic. But that only happens very rarely, and only in places like Northern California.”
Au contraire, mon ami…
Christians in the Roman Empire faced that exact situation when they refused to commit idolatry and pray to the emperor. The very Romans who persecuted the Christians knew that their forbears in Rome would have agreed with the Christians! For centuries, Romans had hated the idea of a king and steadfastly refused to worship any living human. But under the new, enlightened Empire, events rapidly moved through all three stages down the slippery slope. By the end of the 1st c. A.D., worship of the throne was viewed as a requirement for civic unity.
Christians in Spain were required by the Inquisition to renounce the Bible as authoritative and swear allegiance to the Pope. Those Inquisitors themselves knew that their Christian forebears would have disagreed with their message & method. But by the 12th c. A.D., allegiance to the papal throne was considered a requisite for civic unity.
Our missionary friends in Russia have recently shared distressing stories of persecution. In many of the reports, the Russian Orthodox church partners with the Kremlin and the state-controlled media to “out” Christians who had privately declared that invasion of Ukraine does not meet the biblical criteria for just war. Once exposed, these brethren face loss of jobs and occasionally jail time.
Christians in America can also experience the difficulties that come at the bottom of the slippery slope of sin. So, what is to be done?
How should we live?
Isaiah faced just such a cultural cesspool, and chapters 5-9 of his prophecies serve as an excellent guide.
- Know the lies cannot last forever. The shallowness and absurdity of demanding that “down” be termed “up,” makes longevity impossible. Later in that same Isaiah passage, God declares:
Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw
and as dry grass shrivels in the flame,
so their roots will become like something rotten
and their blossoms will blow away like dust,
for they have rejected
the instruction of the Lord of Armies,
and they have despised
the word of the Holy One of Israel. [Isaiah 5:24 CSB]
- Keep sharing God’s grace. Having established the horrible sinful context in chapter 5, God then arranges for the very next chapter to describe Him sending someone to faithfully share about how the Lord atones for sin. The ugliness of a culture’s sin does not provoke withdrawal. It is the exact opposite!
Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking:
Who will I send?
Who will go for us?
I said:
Here I am. Send me. [Isaiah 6:8 CSB]
- Don’t measure success by immediate numerical results. The end of chapter 6 seems rather depressing, as God tells Isaiah that the people won’t respond well. Rather than accept God’s healing, they cling to their mislabeled sin. However, God promises that a seed will remain, a stump that will shoot forth with permanent, positive change in an age to come.
- Don’t look for human answers or fall prey to human fears. Doing so will ironically take you onto a parallel slippery slope that disgorges into the same swamp into which your culture has fallen.
For this is what the Lord said to me with great power, to keep me from going the way of this people:
Do not call everything a conspiracy
that these people say is a conspiracy.
Do not fear what they fear;
do not be terrified.
You are to regard only the Lord of Armies as holy.
Only he should be feared;
only he should be held in awe. [Isaiah 8:11-13]
- Focus on Jesus. Remember that the answer to sin is Jesus, God the Son, who died and rose again to pay for sin and provide eternal life to those who receive Him. In the micro scope of each individual, Jesus is the solution. In the macro sphere of kingdoms and eons, Jesus is the answer.
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
a light has dawned
on those living in the land of darkness.
For a child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
He will be named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. [Isaiah 9:2, 6 CSB]
God bless,
Wayne