CHRIST-APP by philtierneyblog

Discernment Matters: Goals and Ways to Accomplish Them

As I mentioned, Brothers and Sisters, America has had three Great Awakenings. Each of them gave birth to social reform movements. That was because leaders of the revivals discerned that it was important for newly awakened Christians to have a mission to serve as well as church fellowship to encourage their spiritual commitment. They emphasized social problems of their time to be solved. Some of those social reform movements succeeded. Some failed and some had very mixed results.

Some Ways Work and Others Don’t

The leaders of the First Great Awakening were led to believe illiteracy and ignorance were social ills that had to be corrected. They took positive steps to remedy the problem. Public education was expanded. Colleges and universities were founded. Wide swathes of colonial society were educated. Converts could read the Bible. Increasing numbers could read and write. The mission was blessed to succeed.

The leaders of the Second Great Awakening discerned that slavery was the most pressing social evil to be overcome. They took steps to pressure legislatures to outlaw the institution of slavery. Those efforts to stop slavery were resisted. Emotions intensified among slave holders and abolitionists alike. Impatience led to frustration. Frustrations led to hostilities. Hostilities led to animosity. Animosities led to violence. Violence led to warfare. Over one million Americans died in that war. Slaves were freed by law, but oppression and discrimination continued. The mission had very mixed results, which still affect Americans.

The leaders of the Third Great Awakening were led in two different directions. Some discerned that alcoholism was the most pressing evil to be reformed. Others were led to develop the “Social Gospel.”  

Those who saw alcohol as the main cause of poverty and domestic violence sought the power to outlaw it. They pressed the Congress of the United States to outlaw the consumption of alcohol. Since outlawing personal behavior was regarded as unconstitutional, instead, laws were passed to prohibit the production, importation, transportation, and distribution of alcoholic beverages. Those included the passage of the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution and the Volstead Act.

Alcohol production and distribution was outlawed in America from 1919 to 1933. Outlawing alcohol didn’t have the desired outcomes, though. Instead of curtailing alcoholism, the war on alcohol caused an enormous expansion of organized crime and criminal violence in America. In the end, prohibition was rescinded by the passage of the 21^st Amendment to the Constitution in 1933. That mission failed.

The second movement inspired by the Third Great Awakening sought to apply Jesus’s teachings and ministry to society through government programs. It was called the “Social Gospel” Movement. Whereas, the prohibition movement gave rise to a more conservative approach to reforming America by making laws to control people’s moral behavior, the Social Gospel was the foundation of a more liberal approach of using government programs to improve conditions that caused social problems.

The Social Gospel inspired the creation of most modern government programs, beginning with the Wilson and Roosevelt administrations. They sought to create remedial domestic economic programs and international organizations. For example, Woodrow Wilson was a chief sponsor of the League of Nations. Franklin Roosevelt created the government programs of the “New Deal.” Both presidents had been influenced by preaching in their churches and their education at school to integrate Christian social ethics with their faith and put it into effective social action. Their goals were to create conditions that would lessen dangers to Mankind, whether from international conflicts or domestic poverty, homelessness and hunger.

All of the American Christians involved in the aforementioned missions firmly believed they were doing what God wanted them to do. The goals of their missions were inspired. The question is whether their means were inspired by God, as well. Jesus taught us to look at the fruit, the results, to discern God’s ways from our own. Such discernment involves reflection on God’s Word, prayer, discussion and consideration of potential collateral consequences to arrive at a better sense of God’s guidance. While each of the missions may have been inspired, not all of the ways used to achieve them were. It takes discernment to determine God’s will. Likewise, it takes discernment to determine God’s ways of achieving God’s will.

Service vs. Force

Christian discernment involves the capacity to see the world through Jesus’s eyes, so to speak. One way to accomplish that is to ask the now familiar question, “What would Jesus do?” or, if you prefer, “How would Jesus do it?” Jesus demonstrated to His disciples and instructed them on how to accomplish God’s will in God’s ways.

John’s Gospel describes what Jesus did and said about it. “When he had finished washing their feet, Jesus put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. ‘You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.’” (John 13: 12-17)

Notice that the missions mentioned earlier had different results depending on their different ways they were approached.

Ending illiteracy succeeded because the mission was advanced by positive actions. Schools were built. Teachers were trained. Colonists were taught. People were served. That mission was accomplished by service.

Slavery was abolished, but in the process 1 million people died, equality is still illusive and resentments still fester beneath the surface. The approach used was less service than it was force.

Prohibition did not stop alcohol abuse. It drove it underground and promoted crime. The mission failed. Alcoholism was not ended. The use of force failed.

Both abolition and prohibition tried to use laws and force instead of service to achieve their goals. Widespread education and the Social Gospel sought to alleviate circumstances that hurt masses of Americans by providing government programs to serve Americans’ needs. They accomplished their goals for the times they were needed. Service succeeded, but force did not.

You see, discernment involves applying Jesus’s teachings and example to social needs. Following Jesus means serving others instead of forcing or dominating them. That has worked in America in the past. Efforts to correct perceived ills by legalism, dominance, punishment, control and force have not worked.

Just consider how effective the so-called “war on drugs” has been. That approach to drug addiction has continued for more than fifty years. Although there may be nearly universal agreement that drug addiction is a social ill to be reformed, the use of laws and force has been an abject failure. Drug use has only expanded. Force doesn’t work. Jesus never subscribed to it, but advocated for loving service instead.

Jesus’s Approach to Human Freedom

Jesus never used laws, coercion, control, force or violence to accomplish what He understood to be His mission from God, never. Why, then, do those who claim to call themselves by His name so often do otherwise? It may be because they don’t understand Jesus’s mission at all. Jesus did not come to make people different, but to provide the opportunity for them to choose to embrace the difference God can make of them. There is a deeper spiritual truth, here.

The 13th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel has many parables in it. Parables are simple stories that Jesus used to teach spiritual lessons. The problem is that parables are left open to subjective interpretations. People can infer what they mean for themselves.

According to Matthew, one day Jesus explained to the apostles why he spoke in parables. This is what happened and what He said:

“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.’

The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’

Jesus replied, ‘Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables’:

‘Though seeing, they do not see;
    though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’

‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
    you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people’s heart has become calloused;
    they hardly hear with their ears,
    and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
    hear with their ears,
    understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’” (Matthew 13: 1 – 15)

Jesus explained that He spoke in parables so that people would not be able to understand, to discern, what He meant on their own. It took spiritual receptivity on their part. Receptivity to what? It took receptivity to God’s inspiration.

Jesus understood something that ever so many Christians apparently don’t. Our Creator did not make us to be driven only by instinct, the way so many other creatures are. One of the things that sets us humans apart is that we have the capacity for volition. We have the capacity to choose, to a greater or lesser extent. Naturally, our abilities to choose are affected by our cultures, experiences, upbringing, genetics, the idiosyncrasies of our brains and habits as well as beliefs. And yet we can still use our minds, hearts and spirits to choose. God chooses not to override our abilities to make spiritual choices or else it would void the way God made us.

Freedom Vs. Force

Jesus understood that God doesn’t want to void our free will, such as it is. That’s why Jesus spoke in terms that could be understood in different ways. It left room for people to be spiritually receptive to God’s inspiration to understand what Jesus meant.

This is the way it worked. People used their freedom of choice to go to where Jesus was. They were free to choose why they went. Some may have gone because they were bored and had nothing better to do. Some may have gone to hear Him because they were curious about what He had to say. Some may have wanted to go to where the crowd went. Some may have wanted to be exhilarated by the event. Some may have heard that people got healed, and they wanted to be healed. Some may have carried a weight of guilt that they wanted lifted. Some may have wanted to see some spectacle. They had all sorts of reasons to choose to hear what He had to say.

While they were there, they had a choice about how they’d listen. We humans have different ways of seeing and hearing things. Some choose to hear and see with skepticism.  Some choose to take an analytical or critical approach. Some choose to look for hidden meanings. Some listen to hear what they want to hear or to confirm their preconceived notions. Some may have wanted to be inspired. They had all sorts of ways they could choose to see and hear what Jesus did and said.

Jesus had no intention of making people think or believe what He wanted. He didn’t want to violate their freedom and thereby delegitimize their own choices.

There was a spiritual pattern to Jesus’s approach. He’d perform some healing and that would catch people’s attention and then He’d teach.  Alternatively, there would already be a gathering of people to hear what He had to say and, after He spoke, He’d heal someone. In that context, people chose to pay attention to what Jesus had to say.

They’d observe and listen with their own chosen frame of mind. If someone’s frame of mind was receptive to listening for God, God would have room to use Jesus’s words to touch that person’s heart. If the person’s heart was touched, he or she could choose to embrace the message and perhaps continue to follow up with Jesus. Spiritual receptivity and divine inspiration were key components of the process. Choice was essential. The choice to be spiritually receptive to God’s inspiration is the process by which divine revelation happens. Force violates the way God made us and Jesus’s way of dealing with us.

Jesus’s wish for us is to pursue God’s will in God’s ways by choosing to serve instead of using force. That’s the way of love. Of course, it’s your choice. Isn’t it?