Mirriam-Webster’s dictionary defines Mea culpa as meaning “‘through my fault’ in Latin, [which] comes from a prayer of confession in the Catholic Church. Said by itself, it’s an exclamation of apology or remorse that is used to mean ‘It was my fault’ or ‘I apologize.’”
So what do I have to apologize for? Well, nothing really. And why might that be? Because there’s method to my madness.
Specifically, I’m referring to my tendency to look at social and theological problems rather than what some might consider more uplifting themes. The glass is always half-empty. It’s negative, not positive. And it’s depressing too.
Back when I was in divinity school I took a second master’s degree in pastoral counseling. I thought that was what I wanted to do. But after 2 or 3 years serving a church, I decided that the church was where I belonged.
Starting out, people often would ask me, “Isn’t it awfully depressing to do counseling?” My standard response was that, yes, it is depressing when the people you work with are in pain and sometimes in despair.
However, in working with a “client” and getting at the root of his or her difficulties, I often witnessed positive and life-affirming growth. And there’s nothing depressing about that.
I would further explain that in counseling people know they have a problem and are willing to get help. In the church, in contradistinction, I spend most of my time trying to convince people they have a need. And how depressing is that?
To state the obvious, without first recognizing our problems, we can’t hope to change them. The purpose of identifying problems, then, is not to wallow in our despair but to find the means to a healthier way of being.
I used to play golf every Friday morning with a group of men from the first church I served. One of them, a medical doctor, once told me that he always asks people whether they’re a pessimist or an optimist. Which one are you, he asked?
I quoted the American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr: “I’m a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist.”
The implication is that we live in a fallen world which, by definition, falls short of God’s glory. We don’t live in a perfect world, in other words. But because of Christ, our long-term prospects are excellent. We shall one day live in paradise.
In the meantime, we exist as “strangers in a strange land,” exiles whose true home is in heaven, sojourners on the way. We live and move in the midst a broken world seeking to follow the intimations of the Spirit within and without. Our task while here is, in short, to adjust to the will of God, and not conform to the ways of the world.
Recently I heard a sermon that seemed to say all the right things. It expressed how important it is to be spiritually alive and to communicate that to others. It stressed the necessity for the church to be “on fire” for Christ, like the early church.
And even though I wouldn’t argue with anything that was said, it nonetheless left me strangely unmoved. Why? Because it didn’t seem to connect the gospel message to the everyday challenges modern people face. It encouraged us to live for Jesus but didn’t really seem to explain why.
Among other dire warnings, the pastor said that some church observers predict that within the next few years 100,000 churches will close their doors. 100,000! That’s not to mention the many thousands that already have closed over the last 50-60 years.
So why is this the case? Obviously, there are a slew of possible answers, but one main reason is that Americans, and the West in general, have become so comfortable.
Which is to say that our society, relatively speaking, is awash in wealth and the various distractions it affords. Video games, iPhones, and social media consume our waking hours. Besides, we live in peaceful times. There are no great existential challenges we must face.
So if people are as mollified and distracted as I’m suggesting, what incentive do they have to look for something else? Why do they even need Jesus?
Jordan Peterson has become a YouTube sensation. He is a University of Toronto psychology professor and best-selling author. Though not a Christian per se, he nonetheless mines religious themes in his books and lectures.
He opposes the secular drift of contemporary Western civilization and argues strenuously for a recovery of the transcendent in our lives, something missing from the secular religions of science and reason.
In a recent interview, Peterson was asked why he thought so many people, especially young men, are drawn to his online lectures. His answer was revealing.
He said (and I paraphrase) that people sense, deep down, there’s something’s missing from their lives. Whether they can articulate it or not, their souls are strangely dissatisfied with the comforts, distractions, and pleasures that Western society affords. They’re hungering for something more, as they wander aimlessly in the dark.
Years ago I saw in interview with a local pastor (a story I think I’ve told before). He was asked why the mainline churches are in such freefall these days.
“Simply put,” he said, “they tried to befriend the world and, in the process, became the world.” There’s much truth in this.
In essence, I’m a Christian social critic. Which follows from a long line of Christian “apologetics,” a branch of theological inquiry which seeks not to apologize for the gospel (as the English translation might suggest) but to explain it.
And part of explaining the gospel is to understand how it speaks to contemporary life. C.S. Lewis was essentially a Christian apologist, as is Tim Keller today. Each has sought to examine and unpack the often misguided thinking of contemporary culture in order to suggest a better way (the gospel), to provide, in essence, an alternate worldview.
As I look at our culture, and our churches, I see a confused admixture of the sacred and the profane. In our Christian-inspired, gone to seed culture, I see things that honor God and things that don’t. The problem is that they tend to get all mixed up together, all but indiscriminately.
As I see it, my job is to identify those things that honor Christ and those that don’t – and to be quite clear about it. Without such an analysis, or so it seems to me, we’re liable to accept wholesale, and uncritically, what the culture is trying to sell us. Without such clarity, the gospel gets blurred and loses its distinctive vitality.
In the end, if our secular culture is the same as the gospel, why should anybody listen to any pastor’s call to follow Jesus? Only when people see that the culture is failing them, as it always has and always will, are they open to the message of Jesus Christ.
In any event, that’s my story…and I’m sticking with it.