In large measure, man creates his own world. Which is to say that the world-view of an individual, or of his covenant-affinity group, largely shapes and calls into being (reifies) the world so that he actually experiences his imaginations and finds it to be the way he thought of it in the first place. Life mirrors back to us according to what we think life is like.
So, at a basic level, if a man harbours bitterness in his heart toward his neighbours, he almost certainly will experience strife, disputes, and bitternesses in his relationships with them. The world feeds back to him what his heart tells him the world is like. Pop psychologists talk about the “power of positive thinking”. We are what we think. The proverb tells us that it is the friendly man who has lots of friends. These are expressions of the same general concept.
Obviously, there are limitations to one's ability to shape the world. We will be confronted soon enough with physical limitations and natural laws. While I may view myself to be a man who can leap buildings with a single bound, disappointment is sure to follow.
Behind all this, however, is the covenantal governance of the Living God. What we mean by this is that God governs over the world and the affairs of men in such a way that generally men reap what they sow and inherit what they invest. The covenantal governance of God has blessings and curses attached. If you keep God's commandments and laws (whether self-consciously or unconsciously) you are likely in God's ordinary governance of life to experience the blessings of the covenant. If you break God's laws you are likely to experience the curses and bad consequences of your actions.
This is what is happening when we say that a bitter man experiences bitternesses. He has harboured bitterness in his heart, and consequently treated others in bitterness; he will experience bitterness at the hands of others and in his future circumstances. Such is God's covenantal governance of the world. No-one can escape this fundamental social patterning because it is the Lord Himself Who ensures that men will experience the world as they conceive it to be—which is to say that they will reap as they sow.
There is nothing magical in this: we see it working out all the time. It is so commonplace that oftentimes we do not think about it. But we should, because it is critically important.
The divine modes of governance have two components: the first is intrinsic and is what arises from me and as a consequence my actions; the second is extrinsic and comes out of the blue, as it were. When we speak of God's judgment and causing people to reap as they have sown we often reflexively think of the second mode—the extrinsic. We imagine notoriously evil people being struck down by lightning or some other catastrophe. We think of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Noah's flood. We think of war, pestilence, or famine.
The Scriptures clearly teach that extrinsic judgments occur, leading to radical disjunctions of life, culture or nation. But ordinarily they occur at the end of a very long process of degenerate, inveterate wickedness and rebellion. This is clearly the case with the Canaanites, for example. Abraham was told that his descendants would be taken out of the land down to Egypt for four hundred years before they would be brought back under Joshua as God's army to execute judgment upon the Canaanites, for, said the Lord to Abraham, “the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” (Genesis 15:16) When Noah was commanded to build the ark, God gave the human race another 120 years opportunity to repent under the preaching of Noah, before the judgment fell (Genesis 6:3).
Thus, extrinsic judgments of calamitous proportion, are rare and take a long time coming, such is the longsuffering of our gracious God. But intrinsic judgments, where individuals and groups are constantly reaping according to the way they have sown, happen all the time, constantly. This is how it pleases our Lord to keep evil restrained, weaken the influence of the Athens, and strengthen His people.
The dynamic of intrinsic judgment is so common and obvious that we do not often think about it. An individual is conditioned to think and act through his family life—whatever that might be. His family life will be reinforced through the covenant-affinity group of his family—which represents the basic motif of “birds of a feather flocking together.” As he grows to adulthood, the conditioned individual will enter covenant-affinity groups which reflect his own conditioning. These groups will reinforce his view of the world. They will powerfully call his world-view into actual experience. So, for example, if his world view is a bohemian or hedonistic “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” his covenant affinity group will practise the lifestyle accordingly, and the whole world as they know and experience it will be a realm of living for the appetites of the moment.
Change does happen, but it is rare and isolated. Genuine conversions also occur and people are saved out of the realms of death to life. But this is not the normal pattern, apart from a special outpouring of God's grace.
The Lord allows the world-view to be worked out through the next three or four generations. By that time, if the people have not repented and turned to the Lord, their line is likely to have died out.
The example above is extreme (although common enough in our day) to illustrate the point. However, many Athenians, by God's goodness even to unbelievers, are shaped in families where there remains a respect for the basic institutions of life: of families; of marriage, parenthood and children; of respect for authority, life, and property; and so forth. Because of a vague or general outward conformity to God's covenant law, they benefit from the good consequences that flow. They, too, reap as they have sown. This pattern of Athenian unbelievers who in their lifestyles are relatively more conformed “naturally” to God's commands through their social conditioning and who, therefore, are allowed to enjoy some of the blessings of the covenant (albeit it superficially and partially) is the mechanism that the Lord employs to keep human society intact and functioning. This is critical because it allows Jerusalem to be nurtured and to grow in the meantime.
Our Lord's parable of the wheat and the tares is vitally instructive on this point. The tares are to be left to grow in the field, lest if they were torn up, the wheat likewise would be destroyed. The social fabrics, essential to life upon earth, would be torn apart. (Matthew 13: 34—30)
So far the general construct. The Living God is a covenant making and keeping God. His Covenant with man shapes His governance over mankind. As a result of His Covenant, men reap what they sow. People who live in greater conformity to God's Law are allowed to enjoy some of the blessings that come from (even outward) obedience. Those that set their hearts against God and imagine a totally contrary world are afflicted with the consequences of their foolishness. The most extreme and overt expressions of rebellion against God usually have the consequence of a line dying out by the third or fourth generation.
In his book, The Unheavenly City Revisited, (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974) Edward Banfield provides a striking example of this divine governance at work. Banfield is analysing socio-economic classes and the potential of families to move from the underclass to higher socio-economic categories. From his analysis of New York throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, together with the observations and research of others, he argues, firstly, that the factors which are most important in moving people up or down the socio-economic scale are one's world-view—one's perspective upon life—and, secondly, within one's world-view the most important variant is how one regards the future. In particular, it is critical whether one apprehends the future in a short term or long term time frame.
People that prosper, that move up the socio-economic scale, are likely to be those for whom the long term future is vitally important. By long term, Banfield means not only the considerations of one's older age, but also, and equally importantly, those who contemplate their children and the grandchildren, and shape their lives out of concern for them, even though they may not yet exist.
Those who are moving down the scale to the underclasses, or who are already part of the underclass and will stay there until their line dies out, are those whose view of the future is very short term, who are seeking gratification immediately.
Banfield describes the two “ideal types” as follows: firstly, the “upper class mentality”
The the most future-orientated end of the scale, the upper-class individual expects a long life, looks forward to the future of his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren (the family line), and is concerned also for the future of such abstract entities as the community, nation, or mankind. He is confident that within rather wide limits he can, if he exerts himself to do so, shape the future to accord with his purposes. He therefore has strong incentives to “invest” in the improvement of the future situation—i.e., to sacrifice some present satisfaction in the expectation of enabling someone (himself, his children, mankind, etc) to enjoy greater satisfaction at some future time. Future orientated culture teaches the individual that he would be cheating himself if he allowed gratification of his impulses (for example, for sex or violence) to interfere with his provision for the future.
(Banfield, p. 57)
Then, he describes the “lower class mentality”:
. . . the lower class individual lives from moment to moment. If he has any awareness of the future, it is of something fixed, fated, beyond his control: things happen to him, he does not make them happen. Impulse governs his behaviour, either because he cannot discipline himself to sacrifice the present for a future satisfaction or because he has no sense of the future. He is therefore radically improvident: whatever he cannot use immediately he considers valueless. His bodily needs (especially for sex) and his taste for “action” take precedence over everything else—virtually over any work routine. He works only as he must to stay alive, and drifts from one unskilled job to another, taking no interest in his work. . . (H)e “doesn't want much success, knows he couldn't get it even if he wanted to, and doesn't want what might help get him success.” Although his income is usually much lower than that of the working-class individual, the market value of his car, television, and household appliances and playthings is likely to be considerably more. He is careless with his things, however, and even when nearly new, they are likely to be permanently out of order for lack of minor repairs. . . .
The lower-class individual has a feeble, attenuated sense of self; he suffers from feelings of self-contempt and inadequacy, and if often apathetic or dejected. . . . In his relations with others he is suspicious and hostile, aggressive yet dependent. He is unable to maintain a stable relationship with a mate; commonly he does not marry. . . .
(Banfield, p. 61,62)
There are many observations that can be made from this characterisation. However, here are some immediate reflections.
1. Notice how in both cases the “upper” and “lower” classes are reaping what they are sewing. Their lifestyles are bringing into existence the very things about life in which they believe. This is a vivid example of God's covenantal governance at work.
2. The description of the “world-view” of the lower class reads like a present day description of many communities in New Zealand now. Thirty-five years after Banfield was writing, we see the lower class mentality growing in number and place.
3. No amount of money or social welfare or grants or education is going to change the lower class mentality—unless it is met head on and confronted—and even then the prospects of success are not high. Our firm belief is that it is only the Gospel of God's saving mercy extended in the Lord Jesus Christ that can change the hearts of people who have been brought so low. Throwing money at the lower classes only confirms them in their destructive world-view.
4. Jerusalem is by its animus and nature reflects a true upper class mentality—more closely approximating mankind in his nobility, as God created him to be. Jerusalem has an ethic of self-denial, of service, of considering others more important than oneself. Jerusalem has a time horizon that stretches out through many generations to come. Jerusalem has a commanded obligation to live one's life for the good of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Therefore, the present is relatively unimportant in comparison with the future. Therefore Jerusalem denies itself and invests and works for the long term good of the future and the generations to come.
Consequently, Jerusalem inherits the blessings of God and the favour of the Lord. But, as always, the doors of the Great City are open, always open, to any that may come.
No comments:
Post a Comment