The danger of the camel's nose

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:

 

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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!
4. 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!

 The line is questioned, redrawn and the innocent suffer. It is every believer’s duty to engage in the dialogue, to speak graciously but courageously, and to fight for the age old boundary lines found in God's book.

The Circus

I can remember my first circus trip and the excitement together with the amazing smells of the candy floss stalls mixing with those of big animals I had never seen before. Elephants and lions, funny clowns and brightly coloured ladies. One thing I was not prepared for were the trapeze artists high in the canopy walking tightropes and hurling themselves between swinging bars. It thrilled my childish heart.

I don’t think I have witnessed greater aerial displays until these past years and months reading Christian articles on key biblical doctrine with leaders swinging on a strong hermeneutical principle suddenly launching themselves across a yawning chasm to miraculously end on the opposite side. So called Gay marriage, Evolution, Propitiation, heaven and hell to name but a few. Doctrine seen as some dinosaur, and those who peddle its wares as elephants attempting to cross the hire wire to the boos and ridicule of the media and sometimes the faithful. We live in the age of soundbites, tweets, and caricature which does not allow time for genuine dialogue and serious biblical exegesis.  Our churches are emptying and biblical exposition handed to the clowns or jugglers more interested to entertain than challenge.

So our society crumbles, the solid walls of marriage are cracking, the doors of privacy and intimacy wrenched from their hinges, and windows that allow God's light to enter are boarded up in the guise of political correctness, and people ask where will it all end? I believe it is to apostolic doctrine we must return to understand the true nature of our problems i.e. the foundations. Psalm 11 v 3, "when the foundations are being destroyed what can the righteous do?" The very beginning of every building and that which is hidden to human eye and costly to procure - foundations.

In the beginning God, (Gen 1:1), in the beginning was the Word (John 1 v 1), sin entered the world through one man (Rom 5 v 12), Adam was formed first then Eve (1 Tim 2 v 13), after He had provided purification for sins, He sat down (Hebrews 1 v 3)! The atonement with Christ the cornerstone, an immovable huge rock that trips us, stumbles all human pride and on which we either reject or build and shape our lives. We must get back to our roots, back to biblical beginnings, believing every human problem and evil is at root a theological issue. Genesis the book of beginnings trusted and built upon. The atonement, justification, and propitiation are doctrines to believe and kneel before rather than swing from the high bar of the latest circus and wow crowds in a triple hermeneutical somersault! 

I am longing for a generation that will say enough is enough, the Emperor has no clothes, for preachers who will begin with this age old foundation and cornerstone to build glorious churches with leaders who will turn from the fickle circus crowds approval and show themselves work men (and women) who do not need to be ashamed and who correctly handle the word of truth.