02 April 2024
The introduction to the final chapter points out how so very many American Christians take Jeremiah 29:11 out of context. It's the promise God made to Judah on their way into Exile. When their 70 years was finished, they could come back and reclaim the promises that began with Moses, and Abraham before him. That passage is not something you would wish on anyone, yet we see it printed on all kinds of swag given to college students, for example. So, going to college is like a lifetime in exile?
It's like a lot of other pivotal passages where God makes some promise that does not apply outside the context in which it is given. But Americans are more "me" centered than just about any culture in the world.
R/OB note that northern Europeans came for individual opportunity. In a footnote they remind us that people of color are almost universally collective in their orientation. Very few settlers came to these shores seeking to build a strong community of faith. It was always in terms of the individual who intended to spin off their children into their own isolated households. Pushing out the frontiers always weeded out collective people.
The authors mention Boomers as the generation that bought pet rocks, needing no upkeep or attention at all. They never made plans to give an inheritance to their children other than the cultural orientation of individualism and self-reliance. This is the generation that sanctified self-centeredness into massive churches with all the bells and whistles of entertainment. They gave to missions, sure, but the biggest missionary stuff they did was glamping "mission trips" to places that were fun to visit.
What happened to "take up your cross and follow" Jesus?
But Gen-X were the latchkey kids who were raised on globalist TV shows, telling them how special they were. In an attempt to overcompensate for Boomer "parenting" they became helicopter parents who smothered their kids. These Millennials became snowflakes, never denied anything and obsessed with self-improvement and self-expression. With several generations of self-centeredness in play, socialists now say that today's American religion is "moralistic therapeutic deism" -- religion is supposed to be therapeutic. God exists to lift up the individual; religion has nothing to do with serving the Lord. The Cross is just decorative symbolism. Most American churches simply reinforce the self-centeredness already dominant in American culture.
Underlying this brand of religion are two evangelical assumptions. One, the Bible applies to us today. Second, God never changes. True, but think about how those two ideas are applied. The Bible is pulled out of its historical context and the words become magic. And whatever God did in the past, He must do today because, if He were unpredictable, He wouldn't be "God" by American definitions.
In biblical times, people would encounter Scripture only in communal readings. The printing press made it something everyone could carry around on their person. A good thing, surely! But the bad thing is that it went from "God's Word for us" to "God's Word for me". Think about the implications of that. Today, it's "all about me." We are all snowflakes and God has a wonderful plan for each of us.
Jeremiah wrote about being chosen in the womb, and both Isaiah and Paul were called by name. "God made me special, too!" But all of those passages made the point that they were exceptions, not the normal mode of God's dealings with His people. Not of one of them sought this special-ness. Americans demand it; they try to warp everything to confirm to their own minds that God cannot possibly expect them to be part of a community. We call this philosophical approach "solipsism".
Thus, Americans emphasize all the passages that seem to speak to that snowflake identity and ignore anything that says, "No, you are not special. Stop trying to distinguish yourself above others." We look for relevance: What can I get out of this? So we love Acts but how many people know what's in Judges? Don't confuse application with meaning. The Scripture has a message that applies to Christ's whole Kingdom, not just those seeking a therapeutic jolt.
Psalm 37:25 has a context. When some verse in the Bible like that doesn't come true for "me", does that invalidate the message? No wonder we have so many people leaving churches today.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
A pastor I rather liked preached something similar, addressing a bunch of verses including the Jeremiah one. This sermon was when The Prayer of Jabez was super popular. He said "sure, God will expand your territory, but first you have to cause your mom a lot of pain, first."
This document is public domain; spread the message.