Frightened of a Changing Culture?

Cruising at thirty-thousand feet and intensively absorbed in my work, I was startled by the sudden outburst of fearful crying from a three-year-old little girl frantically running down the aisle of the big jet. Her brown eyes were wide with fear, and her face was wet from the tears cascading down her cheeks. Somehow she had managed to leave her seat without her mother’s notice.

Disoriented and scared, she stumbled past row after row of strangers, unable to find her mother in the sea of unfamiliar faces. As a father of three daughters and the “pawpaw” of grandchildren, my heart went out to her. Although prudence dictated otherwise, I wanted to leap from my seat and pick her up to comfort her.

My heart also goes out to teachers and school leaders who, like that little girl, find themselves disoriented, perhaps intimidated and frightened by a strange and constantly changing world. Everything seems to be turned upside down politically, socially, morally, technologically, and economically. Nothing seems normal, in fact, normal is being redefined faster than we can absorb the changes.

The normal and the predictable have given way to uncertainty with an unprecedented increase in stress, anxiety, and depression. The relentless tsunami of change has touched nearly aspect of our schools. Whereas schools have historically been islands of relative tranquility, teachers and school leaders are not feeling certain about their roles and methods amid the changes invading their schools. We feel the seismic vibrations of shifting cultural norms beneath us.

Like the girl on the plane, we can become disoriented by these changes, feeling overwhelmed, frightened, and even angry. The familiar is giving way to the new and the strange. That which once seemed like bedrock—steady and predictable—now feels like an earthquake or like quicksand.

Our students are growing up in a world literally hell-bent1 on rejecting biblical norms across nearly every sphere of life and replacing them with ideologies and behaviors abhorrent to the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.2

How should we respond as Christian educators? I suggest that we should respond with courage, not fear; with optimism, not pessimism; with confidence and hope, not dread; with a vision for the future, not with a nostalgic longing for the past.

Carpe diem!

This is not pollyannaish happy talk. The ability to seize the day, to courageously and creatively adapt one’s teaching and leadership to the challenges and opportunities before us and to the needs of our students is firmly rooted in God’s sovereignty, His commands, and His commission.

God’s Sovereignty

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will (Proverbs 21:1).

When thinking about change, one of my favorite passages is a short epitaph to King David: “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers” (Acts 13:36). This epitaph reflects the relevant leadership of David. David did not serve the previous generation; he served his generation.

We can serve optimistically and confidently when we learn to rest in God’s sovereignty, recognizing that He has determined when and where we are to serve and the conditions under which we serve.

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “In him we live and move and have our being” … “For we are indeed his offspring” [emphasis added] (Acts 17:24-28).

We don’t get to choose when or where we are born or the circumstances and conditions under which we serve.

We do choose how we are going to respond.

In the movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, the wise wizard Gandalf responds to Frodo’s dismay and fear.

Frodo: “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

That is how we should respond to the disruptions and changes around us—with the confidence that God has placed us here at this time, under these circumstances, so that we might serve His purposes in our generation. It is not for us to decide when and where we serve, only how we will serve.

God’s Command

Christians ought to be optimists, positive and excited about life. There is plenty wrong in this world—there always has been, and there always will be until Christ returns. But Christians, of all people, are to be optimists, and this optimism should shine as a bright light of encouragement and as a model to our students and a watching world. The last thing our students need is hesitant, pessimistic, fearful, depressed, and anxious teachers and administrators.

Optimism is defined as hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something. Should that not describe Christians who place their confidence in Christ, who redeemed us, who gives us eternal life, and who will give us glorified resurrected bodies? This same Christ will ultimately redeem this world, and at the close of history, God will descend from heaven and live with redeemed humanity on a beautifully restored earth no longer marred by, nor laboring under, the devastating effects of sin!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new” … And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations (Revelation 21:1-5, 23-26).

This bright ending had a bright beginning—a beginning that is still to guide our lives and work. It is interesting that in Genesis, everything that God communicated to man was positive, with the one exception of not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God created man in His image, made him an eternal embodied soul, gave him the world, and told him to go forth, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Man was not to stay in his comfort zone—the Garden. He was to venture out and to create as an imitator of the Creator whose image he bore.

This is still our primary mission. We are to build, develop, create, innovate, and progress. Sin has not removed nor diminished this calling. It has made it harder, but it has not destroyed it.

Christian teachers and administrators, of all people, should model this perspective, and it should animate our teaching, our leadership, and our response to a changing world and culture. We should be the consummate innovators and builders of culture under the Lordship and for the glory of Christ. We should lead the way for others to imitate—believers and unbelievers alike. By doing so, we fulfill Christ’s command to us: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Our anxiety, fear, and depression hides the light of the gospel.

God’s Commission

When we think of God’s commission, we think of the Great Commission of Christ—to make disciples of all nations. This is certainly the Great Commission, but it is founded on the First Commission:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day (Genesis 1:28-31).

The Great Commission is the work of reclaiming and redeeming people to progressively and righteously fulfill the First Commission. This truth is reflected in Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21, the two bookends of history. The Great Commission is the restoration of the work started in the Garden, which was corrupted, not destroyed, by sin.

The little girl on the plane was scared. Suddenly, after leaving her mother—the place of safety and comfort—she found herself lost and surrounded by strangers. Fortunately, a flight attendant saw what happened and quickly picked up the little girl and returned her to her mother. She stopped crying. Everything was OK.

For Christians, everything is OK. It is not necessarily easy or comfortable, but in Christ, everything is OK—even change. Christian educators do not need to fear changes nor be preoccupied with condemning what is wrong, although that must be done.

Instead of condemnation and fear, we should be biased toward positive living with a positive message for our students—the message of the hope-filled gospel. Andy Crouch, in his excellent book Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, asks some probing questions that we need to answer:

Why aren’t we known as cultivators—people who tend and nourish what is best in human culture, who do the hard and painstaking work to preserve the best of what people before us have done? Why aren’t we known as creators—people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful?

Rather than wringing our hands in despair, let’s go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, guided by God’s Word, and with confidence in a sovereign God who has called us to serve our generation under today’s circumstances.

I’m reminded of Spurgeon’s advice to fellow pastors:

Some men attempt to excuse their own negligence by blaming the times. What have you and I to do with the times, except to serve our God in them? ... The benefit of railing at the times would be hard to discover, for railing does not mend them. What have you to do with the times? Do your own work. "Let God take care "for the times," let us take care of our calling and work. It is not for us to decide when and where we serve, only how we will serve [emphasis added]. 3

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1. This is not a curse word or expression, it is an expression of stubborn determination to promote that which is reckless, crooked, and perverted. For more information, see https://www.etymonline.com/word/hell-bent ↩︎

2. See this article for the theological basis for this concept: https://journal.rts.edu/article/the-laws-of-nature-and-of-natures-god-the-theological-foundations-of-modern-science/ ↩︎

3. Spurgeon, C. H. (1983). An All-Round Ministry, Addresses to Ministers and Students ↩︎