THE COURAGE TO STAND AGAINST EVIL

How can we stand against evil? The rewards of feeling good about ourselves in are fleeting at best. Enlightened self-interest will fail us, so too a morality based on pragmatic considerations alone.

The day before he died (February 24, 1791) John Wesley wrote to William Wilberforce, who had been leading the crusade in the British Parliament against slavery:

·       Unless the divine power has raised you to be as Athanasius contra mundum [against the world], I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American Slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it."

William Wilberforce had been standing against the world. Os Guinness had written:

·       "Championing abolition was a dangerous business. The slave trade occupied a position in the British economy (as a percentage of gross national product) equivalent to that of the defense industry in the United States today. At one stage, Wilberforce was the most vilified man in England. He was even threatened and attacked physically…" (Entrepreneurs of Life, 83)

In a speech before the House of Commons in 1787, Wilberforce confessed:

·       "So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the Trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition. Let the consequences be what they would, I, from this time, determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."

And Wilberforce, aided by his Christian colleagues, kept his vow, even to the day of his death, as Guinness wrote:

·       "On Friday, July 26, 1833, the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery passed… Wilberforce lapsed into a coma soon after hearing the news of his great success, and died three days later on Monday, July 29, 1833, aged 73." (89)

Wilberforce had travailed for almost 50 years. What gave him his fortitude? Certainly not moral relativism or simply what felt right to him! Instead, he was convinced that he was serving God.

How was Dietrich Bonhoeffer able to endure to his death in his fight against the National Socialists (Nazis)? He wrote:

·       "Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in the faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?" (70)

They are the ones praying over the Word of God.

THE COST OF NOT FINDING A PURPOSE IN LIFE

A worldview or philosophy of life is part of being human. On the most elementary level, we are bombarded by millions of sensory data every moment, and we need some way to organize these impulses and to make coherent sense out of them if we are to see and hear.

However, this tendency doesn’t stop there. We are required, as humans, to organize our perceptions and thoughts to produce a philosophy or worldview – a foundation on which to base our decisions. Regarding this inevitability, philosopher Os Guinness wrote:

• A key part of human living is that we all have a philosophy of life. Sometimes called a vision of life, a worldview, or a world-and-life view, this philosophy of life is the framework or road map within which we interpret all of our experience of life – how we see reality, how we view our own identity, how we decide issues of morality, and so on. (The Journey, 27) 

Our philosophy of life is either examined or unexamined, but it is nevertheless there and inseparable from whom we are, according to the late philosopher, Nikolai Berdyaev:

• No man can live without any basis of philosophy, however primitive, naïve, childish, or unconscious.

However, life is not just a matter of having a philosophy. It must be an accurate philosophy or roadmap in order to take us where we want to go, as Plato observed:

•  One must take the best and surest of human theories, and let this be the raft on which he sails through life – not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will surely and safely carry him.

Our road map must also be able to give us a meaning or a purpose for our lives. The late writer, Norman Mailer, confessed that he despaired when it seemed that his life lacked a purpose:

•  I think that we are healthier if we think there is some importance to what we are doing. I can only speak from personal experience, but when it seems like my life is meaningless, I feel closest to despair. I like life to have meaning. That is not to say you have to jump into meaning and find it where there is none, or come up with answers too quickly.

Mailer observed something very critical – “I like LIFE TO HAVE meaning.” He didn’t say, “I like to CREATE MY OWN meaning for life.” He also mentioned finding meaning rather than creating meaning. Why is this distinction important? If life doesn’t have an intrinsic meaning, then anything we might create is arbitrary and unsatisfying, like creating a virtual family for ourselves in our own minds.

CAMUS AND EXISTENTIALISM: Its Liberation and its Bondage

What is existentialism? Os Guinness defines it this way:

• The philosophy that sees no meaning in the universe and therefore puts a premium on human existence, action, and choice as the way to create our own meaning in life. (The Journey, 108. The following quotations come from this book.)

After all, if there is no Creator, and the creation simply came forth from a purposeless universe, then our lives have no purpose apart from the purposes we assign to them.

For many, this is appealing. It means that they are the captain of their own ship, and nobody can tell them how to navigate it. It means that we are free from the oppressive opinions of others and even from our hyperactive conscience. We are therefore free to navigate to the ports of our own choice, and no one can coherently tell us that we are wrong, since there is no objective wrong.

However, what looks like freedom might not be freedom at all. Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus had been the leading exponents of French existentialism. However, this didn’t make them friends. In Camus’ biography, Herbert R. Lottman wrote:

• Sartre said that Camus needed someone to accuse, and “if it’s not you, it will therefore be the universe.” To which Camus replied that everyone needs to be innocent at any price, even if “one must accuse humankind and the sky.”

Although Camus’ insight into his motives is very refreshing, it also reflects torment and a lack of freedom from his inner drives. It also reflects a bondage, a form of mental imprisonment. In “The Rebel,” Camus wrote:

• I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my own proclamation and I am compelled to believe, at least, in my own protest.

If Camus is “compelled to believe,” he is not free, and the freedom that existentialism had promised is, at best, fleeting. Instead, Camus and many atheists experience inner conflict. They don’t believe in any intrinsic and objective values, and yet they are “compelled to believe.” However, while the great majority of today’s atheists continue to insist that they don’t believe in anything, Camus honestly confessed his conflict, and it was dealing with this conflict that had made him a great writer.

However, being a great and esteemed thinker and writer and finding meaning in life are two different things. The French Minister of Culture, Andre Malraux, also confessed this conflict and absurdity:

• The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random among the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness. (The Walnut Trees of Attenberg)

Malraux confessed the same conflict as did Camus. Man is imprisoned within a meaningless universe but cannot tolerate the meaningless and is coerced into creating a meaning that they know to be non-existent.

Were Camus and Malraux able to resolve this conflict, their battle against absurdity? I don’t know, but it seems to me that, at the very least, we should seek a solution. If I have a pain that refuses to go away, I seek a cure, perhaps elsewhere, beyond my own limited resources.

This is one of the painful dilemmas that had led me to Christ and out of my rabid Zionism. Evening living in Israel, devoted to the land, history, and my people, failed to give me the meaning I so needed. Now, I delight in the limitations and boundaries set for me by my Redeemer. It’s like playing chess. The rules and limitations are necessary for a fulfilling game.

It is a great privilege to serve my God and to live within the freeing confines of His will. I also relish His words that chasten and correct me. For example, today I was reading:

• Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:13-18; ESV)

I cannot explain my joy in receiving His correction. His instruction shows me how unwise I can be and the nature of true wisdom. It reminds me that I must be humble and gentle with others, seeking peace and their welfare, something that I often forget to do.

Yes, it is a joy, even if I cannot explain why. Perhaps it is even another form of bondage. However, if it is, it is the bondage of a fish who knows that he must remain in his element - in the water - for his own good. God is my element.

A JOURNEY WITHOUT A DESTINATION WILL SOON GROW ARDUOUS

When we deny God, we also deny that life has a purpose. Therefore, we tend to want to discover our meaning – and everyone needs a meaning or a purpose in life – in the journey and not in the destination. Consequently, Os Guinness wrote:

·       To those who say, “The search itself is its own reward” or “Better to travel hopefully than to arrive,” followers of Christ see it differently. A journey is only meaningful if it has a destination. (The Journey, 218-219)

The late psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl, had observed that once the camp internee no longer had a destination in sight, he quickly despaired of the journey and deteriorated.

In The Outline of Sanity, G.K. Chesterton wrote:

·       Pioneers and empire builders were filled with hope and courage because…[they] were in search of something, and not merely in search of something. They consciously conceived an end of travel and not endless traveling… For it is a sin against reason to tell men that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive; and once they believe it, they travel hopefully no longer.

Life’s journey can be arduous and painful, perhaps inevitably so. It was for Jesus. Even He needed a goal or vision that took Him beyond the journey to His destination:

·       Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:2-3)

We too need to look beyond the journey so that we do “not grow weary.”