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"Nietzsche Was Right." So wrote Philip Yancey in an article by that name in Books and Culture in the fall of 1997, just before the turn of the millennium. In the article Yancey says that modern Western culture, and modern American culture in particular, is trying to do the impossible. God is dead for us, so we are trying to maintain order in society -- trying, in other words, to maintain a civilized society -- without acknowledging any authority outside ourselves for judging what is good and what is evil. Contemporary "evolutionary psychologists," Yancey says, argue that the way human beings behave is determined only by the genetic code each of us has been given. Each of us -- from Jesus to Herod the Great, from Mother Teresa to pathological killers -- behaves, they say, not according to some code of behavior external to himself, but only according to those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him to serve his own interests best. But unless one is an anarchist, there is a logical dilemma inherent in such a position, because, when those who subscribe to such a "morally neutral" explanation for human behavior are asked to defend their own views on particular laws or policies, when asked to explain why the laws or policies they support are preferable to others, they are, finally, forced to say that theirs are preferable because they are better. From abortion to euthanasia, from the slaughter of the innocents to the slaughter of the environment, when pushed to the wall logically and asked to explain why they support a law or policy that would force everyone to act as they act, they are forced finally to argue that the social behavior they propose is the way people should behave. But there is a fatal contradiction here -- a contradiction fatal to their argument and, if left unchallenged, fatal to civilization. For if there is no moral standard beyond one's self, how can the word "should" have any meaning? Some, for example, vigorously defend a woman's right to choose abortion. They defend a woman's right to act in accordance with that which seems to her to serve her own interests best, regardless of other considerations. But many of the same people who argue that abortion is, and should be, simply a matter of a woman's "right to choose" and that there is no moral authority outside the woman herself that can properly deny that right, some of these same people in western societies argue that it is "wrong" -- and that is the word they use -- that it is "wrong" for Indian women to choose abortions when the basis for the decision is the gender of the child. On what grounds, Yancey asks, can Person A claim that there is no external moral authority that applies to the decisions he or she makes about life, but at the same time claim that it is "wrong" for Person B to make the same decision if it is for a reason that Person A does not approve of? Since we worked so hard during the past century to remove any external moral standard as a basis for living, much of our life, Yancey concludes, boils down to our expressing what we call our "personal preferences." "Personally, I'm into animal sacrifice," says one person. And if there is no moral standard external and independent from ourselves to whom we can appeal -- no external authority such as God -- on what grounds are we reasonably to prohibit the person from practicing animal sacrifice other than to say that most of us do not prefer it? On what basis is it meaningful for us to say that such behavior is wrong, or that others should prefer what we prefer? Or another person says, "Personally, I prefer pedophilia for those who like it." Again, if there is no moral standard beyond the individual or beyond society, on what grounds can pedophilia -- or theft or murder or Herod's slaughter of the innocents or destruction of the environment or anything else -- be said to be wrong? On what grounds can it be reasonably prohibited? And another person says, "I prefer...." And on and on it goes. Unless I appeal to some moral standard outside myself, on what grounds can I claim that another person's discrimination against women or minorities or people of another race or political persuasion is wrong, and not merely a morally neutral "preference," while claiming that what I prefer is not just a preference, but is good and right or just? For if there are no external moral standards, above and beyond the reach of even society itself, how are we to be protected from the tyranny of a majority that would simply impose, by force, the preferences that received the most recent plurality of votes? Similarly, adds Yancey, at the same time that we have removed all grounds for judging what is evil or wrong, we have also removed all grounds for judging what is good or right. So far have we traveled down this road, Yancey claims, that we hear of situations like the Massachusetts teacher who attempted to teach "values-clarification" to her class of sixth-graders. The teacher's name was Christina Hoff Sommers, and "one day her canny students announced that [they had done their values clarification and that] they valued cheating and wanted the freedom to practice it in class. Hoist with her own petard [of "clarifying" values rather than teaching dishonesty as wrong, Ms. Sommers] could only respond that since it was her class, she insisted on honesty; they would have to exercise their dishonesty in other places." Courts, too, are forced increasingly to take pains to decide the merits of a case without any reference to either religion or natural law. Not long ago, for example, New York State passed a law prohibiting the use of children in pornographic films. The law was challenged in court, and the court found that it could not say that such behavior was wrong, because those who were challenging the law threatened to appeal any court decision rooted in religious faith or moral reasoning, claiming that such reasoning would violate the First Amendment, because it would amount to an establishment of religion. So the court protected its decision from challenge by specifying that its decision was not based on religion or morality, on what was good or bad, but on "mental health" grounds. The Twentieth Century, says Yancey, was the first "in which societies have attempted to form their moral codes without reference to religion." We have taken the world into our own hands, and "when representatives from the United States meet with their counterparts from China and Singapore to hammer out an agreement on human rights, not only do they have no common ground, they have no self-coherent ground on which to stand. Our founders, [using religion as a basis], made human dignity an irreducible value rooted in creation," a dignity that exists regardless of whether someone else prefers it another way. Eliminate God, or some other moral authority external to ourselves, and everything is on the negotiating table. This, Yancey concludes, is where we stand today in a world we have taken into our own hands, a world in which there is no center that can hold, a world in which there is no purpose beyond personal preference, and where everything is swirling apart. Consider how different the Biblical view is. God, the Father and Creator of the stars and of all that is, chose you -- chose you -- before he made the stars and the world. He chose you in Christ, St. Paul assures us, "before the world was made, marking you for himself beforehand to be his adopted son or daughter through Jesus Christ." That is stunning news! If it hasn't got your attention yet, someone should pinch you. "To be his son or daughter," says Paul, "is God's purpose and destination for you," and "he has let us know the mystery of his purpose -- that he would bring everything together in Christ -- everything in the heavens, all the stars themselves, and everything on earth" -- including you. And an angel appears to Mary and tells her that God has chosen her to bear his child. "But I don't prefer that," Mary could have said. Instead, she says, "May it be to me as you have said." And a star in the heavens appears to wise men from the East, and they follow it to Bethlehem. Not because they had planned to travel there, but because they saw the star as a sign of the purpose of God leading them to One who is worthy of worship. And Joseph has a dream. Not a dream of everything he always personally wanted in life, but a word he hears from beyond himself, a word from One who has authority over him, a word calling him to something more than what he personally wants. The angel tells Joseph that he is to pull up stakes and take the baby Jesus into safety in Egypt. And Joseph, like Mary, says, "May it be to me as you have said." And he goes. Joseph, like Mary, could have said, "That would be inconvenient. Who'll take care of business while I'm gone? Let's just not keep the child." But Joseph understood that whatever his personal preference was for his life, protecting this new child -- a child he had been given without his having had any say in the matter whatsoever -- was his vocation. He understood that One beyond himself, who had authority over his life, had chosen him for a responsibility, the responsibility of caring for and protecting the One who was destined from before the creation to be the Savior of the world. And Joseph got up and went. And Mary got up and went. Not because it was convenient, not because it was what they had planned for their lives, but because they understood God to have chosen them to do it. Theirs was no Freudian dream, no mere surfacing of the repressed desires of their childhoods. This was a word from beyond themselves, a Word calling them to act as God wanted them to act, not for themselves but for the sake of what was good, for the sake of what was of God. Neil Alexander says that he thinks he knows why churches are packed at Christmas. "I am convinced," he says, "that the family stuff is what drives thousands of people to church at Christmas." For some "we are talking about a time of high delight. Christmas is everything that is good and true and beautiful, a lovely time. The memories are good and the odors sweet. "For others the opposite is true; the family stuff is gut-wrenchingly painful. Christmas carries with it a sense of loneliness and memories of poverty or sexual or alcohol abuse, or all of the above. These have long since lost any sense of a silent night, much less a holy one. And for their own protection, some have decided to be single by choice. But most of them will still tell you," Alexander says, "that Christmas is about home and families, good ones, not so good ones, and downright bad ones." The altars are packed at Christmas, he says, because everyone is looking for a center that can hold, looking for home, for family, for something and someone beyond one's self. Not necessarily family or home in the Focus-on-the-Family sense, but in the sense of a household, a place to be where everything does not revolve around self, a place to come home to -- a friend, a companion, a lover, a dog. Somewhere where one's own self is not one's constant preoccupation, a place where one is not estranged from the rest of the world, where no one is ever really alone. Not home on our terms, but home on God's terms, where having been loved and died for is the only thing that really matters. Christmas is about that -- about a center that holds, about being loved and died for, about a truth that is more than personal preference. Christmas is about home. Not home on our terms, but home on God's terms, where there's no list, no checking it twice to see who's been naughty or nice, and where being loved and died for is the only thing that really matters. Wes Seeliger tells about the blind man he once saw. "The blind man was wearing a sandwich board which read, 'My Days are as Dark as my Nights. Please help me. God bless you. Thanks.'" A tin cup was attached to the sign, and as his dog led him down the street the man played hymns on an old beat-up trombone. And Seeliger followed the man a while and watched the passers-by. Everyone either looked away from the man or pretended not to notice. "My feelings exactly," says Seeliger. "The response is easy to understand. Pity is the first thing we feel, then guilt -- guilt for taking our own blessings for granted and guilt for being a poor neighbor. But this man was disturbing for another reason, too," says Seeliger. "He was disturbing because he wore openly the sign we all wear in secret" -- "My Days are as Dark as my Nights. Please help me. God bless you. Thanks." The child of Bethlehem comes into the world we have taken into our own hands, into the world we have made, where things are swirling apart and where the center cannot hold, and where we wear in secret a hope that would embarrass us to wear openly: "Is There any Light for this World where the Days are as Dark as the Nights?" And the child of Bethlehem wears openly God's response to the hope we wear in secret: "God, the Father and Creator of the stars, and of all that is, chose you -- chose you -- before he made the stars and the world. He chose you before the world was made, marking you for himself beforehand to be his adopted son or daughter. I come to help you. God bless you." And we flock to the altars at Christmas because in God we see a center that can hold and we hear a word from beyond ourselves that can point us to what is good, a word that points toward home. Not toward home on our terms, but toward home on God's terms, where there's no list, no checking it twice, a home where the weary, lonely struggle for personal preferences and rights can finally be put aside and where the only thing that really matters is being loved and having been died for. In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. |