Archive for November, 2008

This weekend has been full of things that ought to be a surprise, but aren’t.  The latest addition to this ever-growing roster comes in the form of study results detailing what most have suspected: teenagers these days are quite at peace with shoplifting, stealing from each other or their parents, cheating on their schoolwork, plagiarizing at will, and lying through their teeth… while seeing themselves as being quite the upright young citizens.  Interesting how that works out.

This comes as no genuine news.  We have a generation raised on the gospel of situational ethics, actions minus consequences, and self above all (thank you, President Clinton, for showing the way).  Naturally they’re trotting down this path despite any teachings to the contrary that may have come their way.  Why?  This is the easiest way to go.  And just as naturally today’s educators are recoiling with horror at the study’s insinuation that the little darlings under their tutelage are in any fashion bear responsibility for their own state of being.  A quote from a news article about the study frames this quite nicely:

Nijmie Dzurinko, executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, said the findings were not at all reflective of the inner-city students she works with as an advocate for better curriculum and school funding.

“A lot of people like to blame society’s problems on young people, without recognizing that young people aren’t making the decisions about what’s happening in society,” said Dzurinko, 32. “They’re very easy to scapegoat.”

Peter Anderson, principal of Andover High School in Andover, Mass., said he and his colleagues had detected very little cheating on tests or Internet-based plagiarism. He has, however, noticed an uptick in students sharing homework in unauthorized ways.

“This generation is leading incredibly busy lives — involved in athletics, clubs, so many with part-time jobs, and — for seniors — an incredibly demanding and anxiety-producing college search,” he offered as an explanation.

Riddle, who for four decades was a high school teacher and principal in northern Virginia, agreed that more pressure could lead to more cheating, yet spoke in defense of today’s students.

“I would take these students over other generations,” he said. “I found them to be more responsive, more rewarding to work with, more appreciative of support that adults give them.

“We have to create situations where it’s easy for kids to do the right things,” he added. “We need to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the right answer.”

Let me roll that last paragraph around for a moment.  Quote: “We have to create situations where it’s easy for kids to do the right things.  We need to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the right answer.”

We have to create situations where it’s easy for kids to do the right things.

Really.

I mean, really.

Really?

Pray tell — public educators, kindly pardon my using any form of the word “prayer” — how exactly would one propose to do this.  Create a situation where it’s easy to do the right thing.

Interesting.

Given how humanity has proved throughout all its generations that man apart from God has a natural predilection for not only performing that which is evil but denying itself to be evil, how would one go about making it easy to do the right thing when not only is it human nature to do the wrong thing it is also impossible for man to define what is good and what is evil?  What man-made measuring stick can be used for such a purpose?  If, as the teaching of the world goes, all are equal and all have validity what is the deciding factor when conflicting definitions of the right thing exist?  To an Islamic extremist, murdering what by their definition of their beliefs are infidels is good.  How do we then declare it to be evil?  Do we have a vote where the majority rules?  If so, who can vote?  You can see the problems with this arrangement.  In absence of a universally agreed on code stating what is right and what is wrong, how can anything be declared to be either?  Unless there is a clear definer of right and wrong, good and evil, there can be no establishment of an environment where it is easy to do the right thing because there is no genuine definition of the right thing.

Okay, one may reluctantly say, we’ll go with the Ten Commandments as our definer.  Problem solved?  Hardly.  If it is accepted that the Ten Commandments are a definer, therefore there is a definer, said definer being God’s Word as communicated through the Bible, how then can the definer be accepted as having the authority to be a definer unless along with it comes acceptance of the source having authority?  All right, fine, there’s something to the Bible.  Can we get on with this?  No, not even close to it.

If the Bible has “something,” the tenets and teachings about God and man as contained in the Bible have “something.”  If this is true, you’ve got a real sticky wicket on your hands.  Why?  The definer says there can be no establishment of an environment in which it is easy to do the right thing because it is not easy to do the right thing.

More on this tomorrow.

There are many things in this world I make no claim to understand.  I know they exist; I have no issue with accepting their reality.  But understand?  Not there yet.

One of these things is the desperately wicked nature of humanity.  We see it daily in events large and small.  Currently we are witnessing the horror of the terrorist attack in India, as much an assault on Judaism and Jews — witness how the Nariman House, site of the Chabad-Lubavitch Center in Mumbai (the Chabad-Lubavitch Center is an international outreach of orthodox Judaism; it also promotes Kabbalah which it refers to as the Jewish mystical tradition), was targeted along with hotels and restaurants frequented by tourists to the city formerly named Bombay — as it is on behalf of apparently Islamic extremists.  Then there is the small, at least as defined by the world at large, such as a recent incident in a company I know involving affairs among several co-workers, all married, with some participants indulging themselves in more than one illicit partner.  Apparently when they were asked to increase their work output it was interpreted to mean increase their putting out.  But I digress.

Another fact of life that constantly surprises me but shouldn’t is how consistently I am caught unaware by such things, especially the participants’ identity.  Terrorists I can grasp.  However, referring to the aforementioned office hijinks I have a casual business knowledge of all those involved.  Never ever ever would have suspected any of them as being capable of laying pipe with anyone other than their betrothed.  One would think at nearly half a century on this planet I’d be at least somewhat removed from the naïve side of life.  Obviously, not always.

There is an understandable element of a believer not seeing the capability for evil in others.  Cognizance of the light and shadow within oneself leads to understanding not only how this is true for all but the additional knowledge of how God works through us despite our sinful nature, therefore works through others as well.  I’ve often used the illustration of Samuel and Kings as compared to Chronicles.  The same time period in Israel’s history is covered in both, yet while Samuel and Kings are stuffed to the gills with tales of failings and foibles by Israel’s leaders Chronicles gives scant attention to these things, instead focusing on the good done by said leaders when there was any upon which to be focused.  Samuel and Kings are history from man’s viewpoint.  Chronicles is history from God’s viewpoint.  It’s not that He is unaware of or ignores the evil that men do.  However, He is in the sin-forgiving profession on behalf of those who profess both their evil and repentance thereof.  He also gives credit where credit is due to those who do His will.

The question is how does one deal with the evil done by others.  There has been an alarming misinterpretation of how a believer is commanded not to judge another believer for they too are but sinners saved by grace as somehow meaning a believer should never confront another believer entrapped by their own sinful actions.  Far too often “if any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” is parroted without the slightest reference to Jesus’ final words to the woman caught in adultery: “Go now and leave your life of sin.” You can’t preach the former and backpedal the latter.

It’s a mite odd that in Paul’s letter to the Galatians which primarily consists of ripping them a new one for getting off track one finds these words:

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.  But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.  Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  Each one should test his own actions.  Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.

“Gently?”  After everything he said earlier?  Ohhkay then…

Seriously, not telling someone who’s messing up the truth out of fear of appearing judgmental does them no favor.  Or yourself, for that matter.  Most everyone suffers from some form of lumpy theology disease, the symptom of which is being virtually unassailable in one area of temptation while in another putting up less resistance than overwatered Jell-O.  The person who wouldn’t steal a crust of bread if they were in the last stages of starvation can’t keep their clothes on.  The person for whom honesty is the only policy will do whatever it takes to make their bank account swell.  And so forth.

Part of this whole body of believers deal is the thought that those who are strong in Point A but not strong in Point B can help those not strong in Point A but strong in Point B and vice versa.  If we immediately sound retreat and hide behind our private castle walls, scared to death to say or do anything for anyone as part of getting them back on track, what good are we to them?  Or to ourselves if we allow wrongdoing to go unchallenged?  Or to God?  There is no witness when sin is met by silence.

No, I don’t often understand how or why people do what they do.  I do understand the obligation we who are believers have to deal with it.  Namely, we do have to deal with it.  Directly.  In and with genuine love.  There are no other options.  Not throwing stones is a good thing.  But leaving it at that?  Not so good.