The Good Shepherd.7

"I am the good shepherd who gives my life for the sheep.

The hired hand is no substitute.

He does not care for the sheep as if they were his own;

and when the wolf comes he runs away,
leaving the sheep unguarded.

The wolf catches them, and they are scattered."

--Jesus

Are the Wolves at the door?

David French, senior editor at the National Review, observes: 

"In my travels around the country, one thing has become crystal clear to me. Christians are not prepared for the social consequences of the profound cultural shifts — especially in more secular parts of the nation. They’re afraid to say what they believe, not because they face the kind of persecution that Christians face overseas but because they’re simply not prepared for any meaningful adverse consequences in their careers or with their peers." (emphasis added)

Author Rod Dreher has dedicated an entire book, The Benedict Option, to describing the challenges facing Christ followers in a post Christian world and offering insights from how the church has responded to similar challenges in times past.

"I have written The Benedict Option to wake up the church and to encourage it to act to strengthen itself, while there is still time. If we want to survive, we have to return to the roots of our faith, both in thought and in practice. We are going to have to learn habits of the heart forgotten by believers in the West. We are going to have change our lives, and our approach to life, in radical ways. In short, we are going to have to be the church, without compromise, no matter what it costs.... 

In the first part of this book, I will define the challenge of post-Christian America as I see it. I will explore the philosophical and theological roots of our society's fragmentation...I will consider the critical importance of believers thinking and acting radically in the face of the two most powerful phenomena directing contemporary life and pulverizing the church's foundations: sex and technology."

As an example of the kind of forces at work that Christ Followers are facing: the company I now work for recently held its annual in service day to address the issues affecting us in the coming school year. One of the presenters was a lawyer discussing changes in the federal statute known as "Title IX", a law implemented in the 1990's attempting to force equal sharing of resources for boy's and girl's sports. This "law" has metastasized to include many identity groups under its legally protected umbrella. Most recently "Trans-genders" are now included as a "protected class" under Title IX!

I was aghast! Now federal law is used to protect an entirely made up idea of social behavior!  

With that experience in the background, we recently took some of our grand-kids camping. For a devotional I read Psalm 19

1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. 

2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 

3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard." 

I explained that the foundational structure of our society and our governance is based on the Laws of Nature and Nature's God. It is good to immerse ourselves in God's Biblical revelation and in His Natural revelation so that we have a firm foundation on which we can depend to know what is real and true. I talked to them about this very dangerous concept emerging in our culture called "transgenderism": the idea that a person can choose whether to be the opposite gender they were born as, and can "transition" into another sex through drugs, surgeries or government mandates. I pointed out that there is nothing in nature that is "transitioning" into another species or gender. It is an entirely made up idea being recklessly advanced in our society and is destructive to the highest possible good for which we are created. We ought to resist it on the basis of God's word and His work in creation. 

Later that night at the campfire, a friend of our three teenage grand-kids brought out her IPhone and started taking pictures of the adults using a feature of the popular app, Snapchat, that can convert a person's image into the opposite gender. We all shared a good laugh about it (some of the guys actually made attractive females!) But it was a chilling reminder of what the next generation has to deal with in combating the powerful impact of "virtual reality", i.e., the fantasy world of one's choosing, verses the Natural Order of God's creation.

Dreher sights numerous examples of companies, under pressure from LGBQT groups, to ally themselves and their employees with the LGBQT political agenda or risk negative social media retaliation. And, shockingly, many are going along to get along!

I can cite examples from my own family and friends who are dealing directly with the impact of a crumbling culture where companies are opening "Inclusivity Departments" to ensure that no "hate crimes", i.e., having contrary and/or biblical opinions to the company line, are committed on the company clock; or a friend's grief that his step daughter abandoned her sixteen year marriage and three children to take up with a "transgender" male purporting to become a female; or the inability for even state governments to protect the religious convictions of business owners against the wolves of moral morass.

Clearly Jesus' warnings are chillingly relevant today: when evil becomes so suffocatingly difficult to avoid then relationships falter, hearts grow cold, and people betray one another.

What will you or your children do when, in order to keep your job, are required to sign a pledge supporting unbiblical and unnatural behaviors? Lose your job or "go along to get along?" What if your spouse or family don't support your biblical/natural views and pressure you to keep the paychecks coming? Cities across the country are criminalizing "offensive" speech; are you willing to go to jail for speaking God's self-evident truth? Lawlessness is becoming the new normal...

The Benedict Option is a reference to St. Benedict, who as a young man, saw the demoralizing of a culture when the Barbarians seized control. For a while he hid himself away living the life of a hermit. But God called him to form communities that adhered to a strict lifestyle aimed at preserving faith in God, practicing His commands and being a light to a dark world.

Forming similar communities to combat the darkness, pass on Godly values to the next generation and supporting each other in these trying times, is what Dreher believes is the proper/historial response to this social upheaval.

Our "hired hands" -politicians who are either running away from the mess they've helped create or are being exposed as wolves themselves- are not the answer for our preservation. It is in forming tightly knit, loving communities that rely on the Chief Shepherd's protection and grace to see us through.

"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Psalm 11:3








Now you know!