Returning From China
This was published in the Fall 1991 issue.
I just listened to an interview with the family of Konorak Sindrathopone. You remember him, the 14-year-old Laotian boy who was another one of the victims of Jeffrey Dahmer. The next-to-the-last one. He could have been alive today, save for human nature. “Human nature?” you ask. “That Dahmer is not a human, he’s a beast. And the police were incompetent.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, most people think human nature is good and that Jeffrey Dahmer is an anomaly. But I’m not convinced. Anyway, this article is about America, not about human nature.
Konorak’s mother said in an anguished voice, “We came to America for a better life, a better future. What is this? What kind of society is this?” Mrs. Sindrathopone, that’s one of the best questions of the year.
I just returned from two years in China as an English teacher. This gives me somewhat of a unique perspective on what’s going on in America. There’s a famous Chinese poem that goes, “If you want to have eyes to see 1000 miles, go up one floor higher.” Being out of the States for a significant period of time has given me that view from “one floor higher”—I’ll tell you what I see.
Frankly, I’m seriously worried about America. It seems that values and institutions that have been long-cherished are under attack, a systematic, wide-ranging attack unprecedented since the 1960’s.
I’m seriously worried about America. It seems that values and institutions that have been long-cherished are under attack, a systematic, wide-ranging attack unprecedented since the 1960’s.
Political Correctness
First, there is the “Political Correctness” movement that originated in the revolution of the 1960’s. Reading Dinesh D’Souza’s recent article in “The Atlantic” on that movement was distressing. It seems that in the academic community the concept of truth is no longer taken seriously. All opinions, however unconnected to the subject under discussion, are equally valid. Pluralism runs amok. From reading the assertions of the leaders of this movement, it appears that the name of the game is power, and whoever has the loudest voice has the power. Students opposing the teaching of a core curriculum at Stanford chant, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western culture’s got to go.” At a recent speech the voices of the protesters drowned out the main speaker. Their voices were the loudest that day, and they won out. Are their ideas compelling? No. But ideas are not so much the issue. Neither is truth.
Righting supposed wrongs is the issue. Western culture is by nature imperialistic, expansionist and repressive and the PC’ers are on a crusade to right the wrongs committed by Western culture throughout history. Why is truth not the issue? Because it hasn’t been the issue for many decades. All during my school years “the search for truth” was our grand pursuit. We were told there was no right, no wrong—but we were nonetheless supposed to search for them. But how to find something that doesn’t exist? So our present dilemma with the PC movement—the formal death of truth—is really no surprise, since truth has in fact been dead for a long time in liberal arts education. I never even heard of the notion of objective truth until I became a Christian. Then I suddenly understood that there were indeed some absolutes, there was “Truth.”
Decline of the American Church
The question of truth brings me to my second issue, the decline of the American Church. Today, I just heard a book advertised on the radio called “How to Succeed in the Christian Life.” Why do Christians need such a book? The apostle Peter gave us a formula for success in the Christian life: “Add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. But if anyone does not possess these things, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten he has been cleansed from his past sins.”
Why do we need a book on the subject of success in the Christian life? Are Christians afraid the Bible is not enough? I think they are, in fact. They have trouble believing it is “God-breathed,” as the apostle Paul put it. They have trouble with the objection that the Bible is a culturally-bound document, forcing us to decide which things are simply a product of the culture of first-century Palestine, and which things are timeless. But the Bible does not claim to be a culturally-conditioned book; rather, it claims to be the truth from God, and in all cases binding. Worst of all, this attack on the Bible comes not from atheists or other detractors of the faith, but from inside the church itself! Irony of ironies! The conflict is especially strong in the areas of militant feminism and homosexuals’ “rights.” And this in the face of the very strong, unambiguous language of the Bible. How can it be?
In fact, the apostle Paul said that the Christian has no business insisting on his or her supposed “rights”—when you become a Christian your rights are surrendered into the hands of a good, loving, and perfectly fair Judge. In the Book of Acts, facing strong persecution from the religious leaders of the day, the Christians “lifted up their voices as one.” Is there an issue on which the church has one voice? No. Not even on the virgin birth or the resurrection of Jesus Christ, two historic fundamentals of orthodox Christianity.
No wonder that in this increasingly spiritual age, the church has less and less to say. Mario Cuomo gave us a typical expression of characteristically American religious sentiment when he said at Notre Dame in 1984, in effect, “My belief is private; it has nothing to do with what I do as governor.” If we grant that, what should the difference be between my private belief and my preference for butter pecan ice cream, as far as their effect on daily life?
When Jesus stood before the Roman governor of Judea, that governor thought the issue was power. Seeing the Pharisees’ hatred of Jesus, Pilate sensed a political struggle. He asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Rather than denying his kingship, Christ took Pilate immediately to the real ground under dispute: “You are right in saying that I am a King. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this came I into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me” (John 18:37).
Jesus is King, Ruler of all, who tells the truth, and releases the world from the darkness it is wrapped in. Truth and only truth can deliver the world from the grip of its false ruler, Satan, or loosen his hold on the life of a man—even a man like Pilate. Jesus is conqueror because He exposes the lies on which Satan builds his kingdom, and directs each of us to a question we would rather not ask, which is “Am I willing to let go of what I want, to obey the truth?”
The truth has a way of interfering with our wants and desires, as we all know. Power is a tool to get what we want, and grasping for it is the opposite of what Jesus calls us to. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). Jesus makes each of us ask ourselves, “Am I on the side of the truth?”
The story ended badly for Pilate who, knowing that Jesus was innocent, washed his hands of the matter and crucified him in the name of political expediency. Pilate, with almost modern ennui, says to his prisoner, “What is truth?,” and gives in to the crowd calling for blood. But his biggest mistake was in avoiding the place of confrontation. Are you and I willing to stand in that unpleasant place with Jesus and ask, “Am I on the side of the truth?”
Mike Packevicz