Thursday 31 December, 2009

Economy
UK
Family

By Charles Gardner

One of the chief symptoms of Britain’s post-Christian era can be found in the preponderance of idols and, in the case of the church itself, the regular input of false teaching.

Idol worship in Britain is obvious to those with spiritual eyes, with rank materialism, the god of money, cars, houses, TV soaps, football, screen idols and celebrities in general which have become such an obsession in today’s culture.

Then there is the ever-pervasive political correctness which has been used to gag free speech, especially when it comes to making moral statements based on the Christian faith, and to cap it all, the eco-friendly ideology of climate change which has the capacity to send politicians into raptures of ecstasy, but does nothing to address the well-being of a deeply troubled society looking for answers.

Now that these idols are less easy to come by, there’s a discernible switch towards more spiritual values, partly reflected in a rise in attendance at Christmas services along with an increase in demand for stamps and cards with religious themes.

The Apostle Paul must have confronted a similar situation when he came to Athens as Christianity first began to spread rapidly through the known world of that time. He too remarked on their many idols, but he had also noticed an altar with an inscription to an ‘unknown god’, no doubt reflecting dissatisfaction with the worship of false gods and a search for something deeper.

And the truth is that many people today are not satisfied with the materialism that has held Westerners in its grip for so long. We have too much of what we don’t need, which simply spoils us, and too little of what we do need – love, joy and peace in the home, community and in our personal lives. We rejoice momentarily over the new item of furniture we have bought, only to wake up next morning with an all too familiar emptiness longing to be filled. We throw our toys out of the pram, as it were, only to resume our search for the next fix.

Some rightly look to the church for answers, only to be disillusioned, for many who claim to preach Christ are in fact taken up with ‘another gospel’, like the church I attended over Christmas where the crib was surrounded by an exhibition stand with a series of quotes about the dire consequences of climate change.

And then there was the York vicar telling parishioners it was OK to steal from shops if they were desperate. It was better than turning to prostitution, mugging or burglary. Well, we have already dispensed with some of the other Ten Commandments originally given to Moses and upon which civilised nations have been built, such as ‘Do not kill’ (we abort babies for social reasons and are now considering euthanasia), ‘Do not commit adultery’ and, of course, idolatry itself. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below…”

Of course the vicar was trying to address the real problem of vulnerable people caught up in the worst effects of the recession, but his remedy amounts to tossing its victims from the frying pan into the fire. The Bible calls us to care for the poor, which means to share with them, not to encourage them to sin.

Shocking new statistics reveal that nearly half-a-million adults aged 35 to 44 moved back into their parents’ home in the past year. Devastated by the recession and rising rates of relationship breakdown, many had no option but to return to mother, the Daily Mail reports of the research conducted by the Abbey bank. In total nearly two million men and women living in Britain have been forced to go back home.

This is a real cause for concern, but the answer lies in a return to true values, and to the truth itself, rather than the dangerous options advocated by our Yorkshire priest. We need to seek Jesus, who claimed to be “the way, the truth and the life”.

It is interesting that Luke, the author of the account of Paul in Athens, made this comment in parenthesis: “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

But Paul proclaimed: “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men; that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”

All this is very reassuring especially for those who have been forced by the recession, or relationship breakdown, to return to their parents’ home – to know that God actually determined the exact place where you should live at any given time.

God has a plan for each of our lives; things don’t happen by accident; there is a purpose to it all – he wants you to seek him and find him.

We are approaching the time of epiphany when (rather than at Christmas) we actually celebrate the coming of the Wise Men (or Magi as they are also called). They were the perfect example of those who fulfilled Jesus’ teaching on prayer that we should ask, seek and knock. They asked where Jesus was, were correctly told by those who knew the scriptures that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, and made a careful search for him before knocking on the door of the house where he was – the family had moved from the stable by then.

Wise men still seek Jesus!