Christendumb down

“Our culture today in 2013 has suffered a radical direction change, fundamental at the core,” warns Jordan. “When we talk about civil religion, and the civil religion of the western world for 500 years, that’s been Christendom . . . but that’s dead! It’s gone; it’s over!

“Quit trying to rebuild something that’s gone! ‘If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?’ It’s gone, I’m sorry. What you’re watching is it crumbling down over your head.

“The reason that’s important is you’re not gone. You’re still here. So what are you going to do? There are a lot of new challenges going to be facing us. Problem is the western world, Christianity the church, doesn’t even recognize it. Most of you (in this congregation) don’t even recognize it and I beat you up about this all the time! When you don’t recognize it, you don’t know what’s happening and you wind up being unprepared.

*****

“For 500 years, since the Protestant Reformation, you’ve had what sociologists would call the ‘Christian-civil’ religion.

“The dominant course driving culture in the western world has been what is called ‘Christendumb.’ I’m not talking about what we would think of as redeemed, justified, members of the church the body of Christ.

"We’re talking about the culture that comes from the Judeo-Christian ethic. And Christendumb is the result of the application of the Protestant view of religion to a culture.  In sociology that’s called a ‘civil religion.’

“That is, you’re not required to believe everything that’s in it; it’s just that it’s going to set the thinking pattern. With Christendumb, as the civil religion, the basic Judeo-Christian frame for ethics is there to provide the basic social morality for the masses of people to use to be made into a great civilization.

“If you’re going to have a great America, you’re going to have some basic underlying thinking, a common morality. In the west, in Europe and America, that has come from the Judeo-Christian ethic. The reason they call it that is Genesis is written to the nation Israel.

“The stuff about God’s purpose and plan, and intent for man, and the society man was to have in the earth, comes out of Judaism. You’re talking about that basic Judeo-Christian framework of thinking that is used as the basis for social morality; setting up what the society is going to think about in terms of what’s right and wrong. The social structure is based on a Christian consensus. And that would be, if you go back to Genesis 1, there’s a right and there’s a wrong.

“What is marriage? It’s a male and a female come together in marriage. So you define marriage based on Genesis 1. You say marriage is designed so you can be fruitful. Children are a blessing, not a curse.

"Children are to be raised in a loving, protective environment by a dad and a mother so they can have passed on to them the values that mom and dad. Where’d Adam and Eve get their values? From God; they passed them on to their kids. And when you have that family unit, what’s it for? It’s to go out and serve others.

“And so you have this system where you value marriage and that means you value some things that make marriage marriage. That means homosexuality doesn’t fit. You couldn’t have families if you have homosexuality.

"People say, ‘Well, gays and lesbians have families.’ They don’t produce them; they steal them! You say, ‘Well, they adopted abandoned ones,’ but they still didn’t produce them. They weren’t fruitful! You see, what nature, the way you were created tells you, is that isn’t it the way it works!

“So, when you value marriage you define it the way God defines it. It came right off the drawing board of heaven: ‘Here it is, you want to be involved in it, that’s the way it is!’

“Children are a blessing, not a curse. So all of a sudden the issue of abortion doesn’t come up in this framework. That’s over there. So there’s a way of thinking that dominates the culture. There’s a right and there’s a wrong."

*****

(Editor’s Note: I’ve got an article for tomorrow and I’m putting together another one on Billy Graham.

Just getting back to things after being at my brother’s for Thanksgiving. I’m having a bit of the post-holiday blues, but seeing Ohio State beat Michigan gave me a boost.

This was only the third time all of us have been together at my brother’s since my sister’s death. The memories are very strong since Thanksgiving 2010 was the second-to-last time (Christmas 2010 at my mom's being the last) some of us ever saw her, including me and my brother and all his family.

She was in quite the mood, too, displaying the manic-depressive-like symptoms she was suffering from on and off through her last year of life.

I know I wasn’t alone in this sadness brought out by another Thanksgiving at my brother’s without Rita. Only an hour or so after her husband Jesse and daughter Christine arrived on Thanksgiving eve, I saw Jesse very uncharacteristically bury his heads in his hands while sitting at the kitchen counter. When my mom inquired as to what was wrong, he said he had a bad headache.

The next morning, Christine, who just happened to be celebrating her 19^th birthday Nov. 29, came to the breakfast counter looking real sad (she is known for being so upbeat and easygoing, always cracking a joke of some kind). When asked what was wrong, she had my sister-in-law feel her head for a fever and then reported she had a headache and felt nauseous.

The thing I remember most about that last Thanksgiving with my sister is that she gave me a very rambunctious pep talk in front of the whole family. It was about me losing weight, finishing my book and getting on with life in general. It was almost like she knew it would be her last chance to try and have some kind of impact on me.

Out of the whole family, Rita’s been the one to consistently show a sincere interest in my book. She would often ask me on the phone how it was coming and the Christmas before her death she even gave me a Bible reference book she expressly thought would lend inspiration/guidance for my writings and it has. I keep it in my bookshelf so I don’t forget—the book actually gave me the idea for the title of mine.

Inside the book is a crisply folded copy of Rita’s obituary. It starts out:

“Rita Carsey was a ‘people person.’ Much more than a WalMart greeter, Rita befriended the customers and pursued friendships with many people. Her background as a certified special education teacher and as a home health aide equipped her with ‘people skills.’ The woman who was tirelessly helping others passed away Tuesday April 12, 2011 in MedCentral Hospital. She was 48.”