The story is told of an Arab on a
freezing cold night huddled inside his small tent with his camel outside.
Towards midnight the camel complained to his master of his discomfort which
could easily be rectified if only his nose could be permitted inside the tent.
Compassionately the master agreed. An hour or so later the shivering creature
asked if his head and neck might be permitted to enjoy the warmth of the tent. ‘Fine,’
said the disgruntled owner. Another hour passed and the camel this time asks
for his front legs to be permitted entry and by the time it reached 4 o’clock
in the morning the camel’s owner sat shivering outside the tent whist the camel
slept soundly.
This parable helpfully illustrates
the dilemmas we all face in accommodating the needs and desires of those around
us - friends, family and work colleagues. A visitor wanting a bed for the
night, a relative needing financial help, or a relationship stepping over a
moral line. But what about Christians engaging with the secular worldview of
our nation? Nuclear power, pornography, immigration, abortion, conservation, medical ethics and most recently so called gay
marriage to name but a few. It’s tempting for most of us to retreat into our
shell, or up drawbridge and hide in the security of our church castles. Here we
can find family, comfy surroundings, nice music and only the distant sound of
the enemy guns. But this surely is to
forget the lesson of the Arab and his camel. Powerful forces and spiritual
powers work on the hearts and minds of men, and every believer is called to
engage intelligently and prayerfully in hope to bring freedom to the captive
and sight for those blind. Let me suggest a number of ways of how we might do
that:
- Avoid caricatures. Our struggle is not against flesh
and blood - Eph 6 v12. A caricature is to take one feature of a person or
argument and stress it above all else. A politician is portrayed as two
faced, a bank manager a greedy pig, the Muslim a terrorist, and the
policeman as twisted as the proverbial cork screw. We fear such images and
fail to see such people as lost and love them.
- Remember the puzzle box lid. Life can seem like a giant
jigsaw and our lives one little piece that does not fit. God has saved us
in this generation for his good purpose. God has a good pleasing and
perfect will for your lives.
Finding our place is not in passive abdication, but passionate
engagement with the grand narrative of the bible, a renewal of our minds.
A biblical worldview is the believers high calling and the gospel our hope
for our nation.
- Beware professionalism. John Piper’s words to pastors, “brothers
we are not professionals" should help us not be intimidated by the
proliferation of academic letters after the latest guru writing on the
family or ethics. Laws are being
passed that have taken the obvious and common sense out of everyday life
and instructed us that we need academics to tell us what is as plain as
the noses on our faces, i.e. breast is best, smoking kills, and exercise
brings well-being!
- Watch our language. The devil speaks lies, it is his
native tongue. Mainstream TV, our daily newspapers, and the internet seek
to blur the lines on issues such as marriage, abortion, euthanasia etc. by
using language that exaggerates exceptions to make them the norm. We are
religiously told we are animals, the selfish gene, and products of nature
not nurture. Language changes, words and meanings change and with them a
rabid political correctness that searches out those who won't sing their
tune.
So beware the camel’s nose. Marriage
between one man and one woman in an exclusive commitment for life may end up
being called evil (Isaiah 5 v 20). Paedophilia now appears the last bastion of
national consciousness but already the cracks are appearing. A recent main
stream paper suggesting we change our
language from calling paedophilia evil to now ‘different opinions’ or ‘people
born with those leanings’ -apparently one in five men are meant to be turned on
by a naked child!
