Couldn't Help Noticing

Social chaos in Russia

This CHN comes from a correspondent in Russia:

What we are seeing, in short, is a country with nuclear weapons that is enduring a slow motion version of the medieval Black Death.

Such is the alarming assessment of Russia's population decline by New York Times journalist, David Brooks (New York Times, April 28, 2005). He's not overstating the case. He points to a number of causes, the first being the crisis in the Russian family—Russia now has three divorces for every four marriages, an astounding rate of family break-up. The second is the falling birth rate: the average now sitting around 1.2 births per woman, while according to recent statistics Russia has about 160 deaths for every 100 births. Thirdly, people are dying younger in Russia. Life expectancies here are now approximately equal to those in Bangladesh and are below India's (average male life expectancy is about 57.5 years). Ruinous lifestyle choices, especially alcoholism, are the largest contributor to this.

Brooks continues with some interesting remarks:

The paradox of Russia is that as life has become miserable in many ways, the economy has grown at an impressive clip. We can look back on this and begin to see a pattern that might be called Post-Totalitarian Stress Syndrome. When totalitarian regimes take control of a country, they destroy the bonds of civic trust and the normal patterns of social cohesion. They rule by fear, and public life becomes brutish. They pervert private and public morality. When those totalitarian regimes fall, different parts of the society recover at different rates. Some enterprising people take advantage of economic recovery, and the result of their efforts is economic growth. But private morality, the habits of self-control and the social fabric take a lot longer to recover. So you wind up with a situation in which high growth rates and lingering military power mask profound social chaos.

So what does all this economic and social theory have to do with us? Let us illustrate with a recent experience. We were going around our bible study group sharing prayer points and getting very bland requests, but when the husbands went to one room and the wives stayed in another, the masks came off. With worrying regularity the women were sharing serious concerns about their family life and the struggle to persevere. Consistent with the statistics above, it is difficult to find models of functional family life in Russia, and it's even harder to find households built on God's grace. Indeed, almost without exception, the people we have gotten to know here have come from very broken families. Many don't even know their fathers, and those that do, might be ashamed of his alcoholism and violence. Every country and culture has its problems, but it is hard to comprehend the extent of Russia's social problems.

Understandably, our Christian friends are hungry for nurturing and direction. We often feel like we're struggling as we manage our household, and we know we could be a better Christian example. Yet many of our local friends comment on how our home is like a breath of fresh air for them; even our flawed efforts are being used by God to encourage and teach his people.

Please pray that God would continue to transform the lives of Christians in Russia, so that they may become “blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which they shine like stars in the universe as they hold out the word of life”. (Phil. 2:15-16a)

Flaws in the Diamond

Perhaps it's my Country Party ancestry, but whenever I hear the latest environmental activist bemoaning the state of the planet, warning of imminent ecological disaster and asking for donations, I find it hard not to snort and mutter something about getting a real job. I know that the situation is almost never as simple nor as dire as the prophets of doom pretend, and that there are lots of positive developments and signs (such as the steady reduction in worldwide poverty over the past three decades).

On the other hand, I'm sure there is an equivalent reaction of environmentalists to the claims of economists and business people that technology and market forces are improving people's lives, and that whatever environmental problems we may cause will be solved along the way by human ingenuity. They snort and mutter, and suspect that the ‘improvements’ are not really improvements, that the gains are not really gains, and that the damage to the environment and human culture far outweighs it all.

And so there are two sides in an increasingly shrill debate, shouting at each other from polarised perspectives. Jared Diamond's new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fall or Survive is on the environmentalist side of the argument, cataloguing in detail how four seemingly strong societies of the past declined and collapsed because of their mismanagement of the environment. Diamond's purpose is to analyse why these societies collapsed, and to draw inferences and conclusions about our current situation, and why we must change if we are not to follow these once flourishing societies into oblivion.

In a fascinating review of Diamond's book, Cambridge economics professor Partha Dasgupta argues that the problem with Diamond's book is not his analysis of the failed societies, which is detailed and largely convincing, but what he does with his analysis:

Diamond's rhetoric doesn't play well any longer [because] ... it presents only one side of the balance-sheet: it ignores the human benefits that accompany environmental damage. You build a road, but that destroys part of the local ecosystem; there is both a cost and a benefit and you have to weigh them up. Diamond shows no sign of wanting to look at both sides of the ledger?

Dasgupta goes on to argue that while Diamond's worries are legitimate, his analysis and prescriptions for contemporary society are simplistic and one-sided in a ‘nature good, technology bad’ kind of way. What we need to do, says Dasgupta, is to calculate realistically and accurately what our ‘wealth’ is, and how it can be passed on to the next generation (i.e. ‘sustainable development’). That ‘wealth’ certainly needs to include natural capital (such as ecosystems, minerals, forests), but it should also include manufactured assets, accumulated human knowledge, skills and technology, and the legal and civil institutions which sustain society.

From a Christian viewpoint, this makes sense to me. A Christian approach to the ‘environment’ will not privilege the natural over the technological, as if one is inherently more ‘creational’ than the other, nor see the preservation of natural assets as a good in itself. But it will wisely and prudently use and steward all the assets and resources God gives us, both natural and manmade, for the benefit of all. In love, we will want to ensure the health and wellbeing of others: including our children and grandchildren.

Moaning and groaning and why it’s good for you

In Romans 8:26, the Holy Spirit groans as he intercedes for us “with groanings too deep for words”. What do evangelicals do with this verse? Is this where we stop being people of the book and the Word, and in our suffering turn to wordless mysticism, or perhaps charismatic-style tongues speaking, but without interpretation?

Not really. First, notice that some other groaning has already been going on in Romans 8. In 8:22 creation itself has been groaning (it would be fair to assume that creation groans without the use of spoken words). Then in 8:23, Our “groaning”—the groans of those who “have the firstfruits of the Spirit”—is joined to that of creation as we wait eagerly for “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies”.

Notice also that though creation may indeed groan wordlessly, it is not a content-free groaning, as if creation were groaning quiet curses over a nasty stubbed metaphysical toe. It is a groan that the sons of God will be revealed. It is a ‘Lord's Prayer’ groan that God's kingdom would come and that his will would be done—that his reign would be established forever. It is a groan, ultimately, that only a Christian could give—that Jesus Christ would be honoured and revealed as Lord, and we would reflect his glory perfectly. In other words, it is a groan that is full of words, although at the same time “too deep for words” (the depth beyond words being creation's contribution to the overall groaning).

This word-filled-yet-too-deep-for-words groan is something that only a Spirit-led person would speak. No-one but a Christian would pray for the Lord Jesus to be established as king. No-one but a Christian would groan for the day when all the sons of God will reflect the glory of Christ perfectly.

So how is your groaning? Have you groaned the Lord's Prayer lately?

How Lavash and Lamb can stop you sinning

Why would Paul interrupt a rant about sexual immorality to talk about breadmaking? And yet he does just this in 1 Corinthians 5:6, saying

Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Two reasons are given for his recipe advice. The first reason is that like yeast in dough (Paul is arguing), tolerating heinous sin will work its way right through the church community.

The second and most important reason is that bread reminds Paul of lamb. Not just any lamb, but the roast lamb eaten with unleavened bread at passover (see Exodus 12). The blood of this lamb redeemed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The better blood of the better lamb—Jesus Christ—redeemed Christians from sin. If we belong to Jesus, Paul is saying, then we must stop sinning.

Unbloodied Mary

According to the Herald,

an international ecumenical body devoted to bridging the gulf between the Anglican and Catholic churches has reached a historic agreement about the role of Mary, Mother of Jesus: she is the Lord's handmaiden and sinless, but not the source of eternal salvation. (Source)

On the topic of Mary's “original sinlessness”, the committee found that certain papal teachings on the matter are “consistent with scriptural teachings”.

Consistent? What about “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)? Or “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12)? (Emphases mine.) Does Mary have no use for Jesus' saving death and resurrection? Is there another way to become acceptable to God on the last day?

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” said Jesus (John 14:6).

Perhaps he should have added, “Not even my mum.”