INTRODUCTION
If
the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
- Psalms 11:3
I think that most
history-conscious people will agree that we are living in a post-Christian
era. While most of the
It is true that a call to repentance is being made to these nations, but it lacks a significant response. The prophet’s warning falls on deafened ears, the pastor’s homily with slumber. The evangelist’s plea is greeted with glazed stares.
There is much to be discouraged about our situation. And with the advent of plague-like diseases such as AIDS, it is not entirely certain just how far the present decay of society will go. Secular man responds to social chaos with the strong arm of the state. Still, in the face of massive world depopulation by natural (supernatural?) causes, God may crush that humanistic alternative, as well.
The context of the above scripture is the 11th Psalm. There, the Psalmist’s question is one of dismay. Its prompt response is an affirmation of God’s sovereignty and judgment. God still reigns in heaven and remains unthreatened by the assaults of the wicked. When there is no place to flee from the breakdown of social order, David says there is a refuge in God.
Sometimes, the Bible uses the analogy of a house or a temple to describe certain aspects of moral character and social relationships, whether it is of a private or public nature. The above scripture refers to society in architectural terms. Analogously, society is like a building, a structure built upon foundations. The institutions of society are its structure; the foundation is its source of faith, authority, and law.
This is the concern of the 11th Psalm: what can the righteous do when their countrymen no longer believe in God? What can they do when the people no longer fear Him enough to obey His law and listen to His spokesmen? What can they do to reverse social decay when there are no instruments (foundations) at their disposal to do so? No common faith, no common sovereign to appeal to for law? What can the righteous do when they become foreigners in the land of their birth?
Nothing. There is nothing they can do except to hide themselves in God and wait for Him to “rain fire and brimstone" (v. 6) upon the wicked. When the power centers of society are in the hands of the wicked, when the foundations are destroyed, the righteous must await God’s judgment to sweep them away before the righteous can lay new foundations for a new house.
Sodom’s sin resulted in Sodom’s judgment. Sodom’s judgment was a complete destruction.
I believe we have entered an era of Divine judgment. The conventional instruments of reform and reconstruction have failed to reverse the precipitous moral decline of recent decades. There is no hope, short of Divine intervention, that the America of yesterday can be revived through customary channels. The decay has gone too far, the under supports of faith have rotted out. Our civilization is fit for nothing except the manure pile. And that is where God is tossing it.
With this book, I am breaking company with other Christian reformers and reconstructionists who have concentrated their efforts in the areas of politics, education, the professions, and the church. For a good number of years, I too have been very active in many of these fields of ministry. I have been a lay preacher and pastor, campus and street evangelist, political activist, civics instructor, parochial school teacher, and so on. While I do believe all areas of life are appropriate objects of renewal and reconstruction, and are appropriate settings for the Christian witness, there is only one which offers the hope of being the institutional source of renewal and reconstruction. That source is the Christian Home.
There are many able ministries available today which set out to restore Christian family life. It has become a growth industry for professional meddling, both in and out of the church. It seems the more they try to help, the worse it becomes. At first, I thought I was imagining this oddity. But after working in the pastoral ministry - inside the veil, so to speak - I came to realize that the clergy exploit unhappy spouses to justify their idleness. The day in the life of a pastor has truly become a spectacle. It is filled with phone calls, gossip, public appearances, and delusions of grandeur.
In terms of the family,
the clergy have a truncated view. They see the home as an outpost of the
Christian body, an object of
reconstruction rather than the agent
of reconstruction. What I intend to do in this study is to introduce a
radically different agenda for Christian reconstruction and renewal: one which
views the
We need more than an institutional reconstruction of society; for an institutional reconstruction presupposes sound foundations. Unfortunately, the foundations have been destroyed. Remember? It is senseless to rebuild the house when the foundations have crumbled to pieces. We must lay new foundations before we can re-construct the building. In laying new foundations, however, we must come to a more precise knowledge of what they are and what it is they are supposed to do.
Our Lord declared His Word was the sure foundation. His teachings are the laws of life, and He alone is the true source of authority:
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
- Matthew 7:24-29
Where, then, can we find the teachings of Jesus? In the Gospels, of course: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We can find them in the Epistles, because the Apostles were inspired by the Spirit of Jesus (John 16:13-15; Revelation 19:1 0b). They are also in the Old Testament; for the same Jesus who gave the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount was the Yahweh who gave the Decalogue to Moses on Mt. Sinai (1 Corinthians 10:4). Therefore, in terms of final authority, the Christian must say Sola Scriptura (only the Bible) and Tota Scriptura (all of the Bible). Anything else obscures our access to the Word of Jesus.
Since the teachings of Jesus are found in the Bible, the Bible, then, becomes our foundation, both individually and socially. We must become Scripturalists for all areas of life.
That is only half of the question that must be answered. The crucial question in terms of societal foundations is who is the primary teacher of the Bible? To whom are these "keys of the Kingdom" given? It is premature for me to speak to the latter question. It involves the issue of interpretative authority, which will be addressed later. I can, however, speak now to the question of function when it comes to teaching Biblical truth.
We naturally suppose that
the institutional church is the primary agent in proclaiming the Gospel and
teaching the Word of God. That is the primary role assigned to the church in
our day. But it has not always been so. In early
In those times, worship and religious instruction were integral parts of home life. Of course, the people had their gatherings on the Lord’s Day. But these "services" existed only as an addendum to their spiritual life, not the principal part of it as it is today.
It is impossible to provide the basis for Christian character and spiritual experience in one or two hours a week. Constant contact with a Christian leader is necessary. That was why the "discipleship movement" was so popular in recent years. It recognized the inadequacy of the institutional church to provide even the basic spiritual foundations in a person’s life. However, even the discipleship advocates are beginning to realize that the best setting for discipleship is the home. During the historic periods of Christian dominance, we find the father, rather than the pastor, to be the spiritual leader in society. About a century ago, Charles Pequy, a French poet said with prophetic accuracy what will be the instrument of social change in the future:
The true revolutionaries of the twentieth century will be the fathers of Christian families.
I think he miscalculated by a century, but his observation is still valid. The future lies with Christian fathers.
Some people believe, as I
was prone to believe at one time, that if one wishes to do anything for God,
one must do it within the confines of the church apparatus. God’s work is done
primarily at church.
Actually, only a small part of life is taken up with religious activities in a church building. Even the work of evangelism, once thought to be the principal purpose of the pulpit preacher, is better done through the home. The most effective evangelist, as many men and women will with tender emotion admit, is that of a godly mother or father. Better than three-fourths of all conversions come through the work of family and friends.
That the home and not the church is the principal evangelistic medium to each new generation is supported by Biblical revelation:
For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments . . .
(Psalms 78:5-7)
The
father to the children shall make known thy truth.
(Isaiah 38:19)
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
(Proverbs 22:6)
Many preachers have smiled with satisfaction at the success of their soul-saving. Then closer examination often reveals the long-forgotten spiritual labors of a loving father and mother which have finally borne fruit in conversion. The spiritual power of the preacher and his marvelous sermons had little to do with it.
My belief remains that the family is the chief agent for the transmission of the Christian faith from one generation to the next. Christ’s teachings are the foundation stones of society. They are laid by parents in the lives of their children. Parents are the primary evangelists to their offspring:
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
- Deuteronomy 6:6-7
It is a personal faith which must be transmitted, not an abstract and institutional one. It is not the burden of the preacher or school teacher to spread the Gospel in a Christian land. Their mission is to the frontiers of Christian influence, the places where the truth of God is absent or in neglect. A Christian society requires a complex interlocking of strong Christian homes. If we cannot get enough Christian men to rebuild their family altars, there is no hope for a Christian renaissance in America or the Free World.
That is the term I prefer to use: Christian Renaissance. I do not think "reformation", "renewal", "revival", or "reconstruction" is descriptive enough or strong enough to describe what needs to be done. The true Christian faith and witness and order have been lost by this generation. It does not exist except upon the pages of God’s Holy Word, and in the yet unrealized visions of Separatists like me. But God is the God of the living, not of the dead. These visions shall become reality in our life-times, if we see them with the eyes of faith.
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