The Louisiana Quaker eLetter

ISSN 1523-4924—Vol. 1, No. 9

"WHY WE DO IT  (PART II)"

[Part I: I now think that the most chilling of questions has to be "Why do we bother getting up in the morning?" We cannot get life's larger meaning from humanism, which inevitably leads to a type of existentialism. In a fallen world, separated from God, we will always be frustrated in our search for genuine meaning—for it is not there. Humanism must always give us mere facts, pointing to nothing beyond themselves. Only as a gift from God does our life derive its meaning.]

So what if life is absurd? We can simply make our own meaning through the many small natural purposes of a biological and social existence. Hunting and gathering, eating, building, marriage, trades and commerce, farming, conquest, drinking, music, dance, fashion, literature ... and so on. Is this not the history of mankind? Even religion has its place in this naturalistic scheme, for what is religion but "a complex form of individual and group behavior whereby persons are prepared intellectually and emotionally for the non-manipulable aspects of life positively by means of a total reinterpretation of nature and through the use of certain ritual"?

This is how we can end up with a relativism of values. Values that arise from culture can of course differ on the basis of time and geography. Where values are the same, this is somehow an expression of the genetic makeup that is peculiar to the human race. Where values conflict, this is the result of cultural differences. Thus saith humanism.

Alas, though, even while we are in the throes of the small purposes, we can run into cul-de-sacs of meaning, coming to the end of happy roads. This is the emptiness that prompts drug addiction, alcoholism, spending sprees, career changes, divorce, serial killing—anything, it seems, to get us onto another road, beyond this dead-end, onto the next dead-end. But we seek these small purposes because we want an answer to the question "Why bother getting up in the morning?" and more often than not the many small purposes do not add up to a more meaningful aim for our lives.

Okay, then, what we do not get from biology or society we can usually make up through creative reasoning. If we are persuasive enough, we can get others to believe as we do, too. Such is the stuff of gangs and cults and academic fashions. You may not get a date, or get the right price for the car you want, but you can sure find someone to believe that there is an alien spaceship hiding behind a comet, waiting to take us to heaven. Line them up—Madame Blavatsky, Werner Erhard, L. Ron Hubbard, Ayn Rand, Aum Shinrikyo, etc.—and just take your pick. (If you are especially inventive, or perhaps mischievous, you could mix them all together and call the product "New Age.")

Thus we have several sources for our beliefs and values—biology, culture, and creative thought. Add to this the workings of human imagination or fertile visions from drugs, whether vegetable or chemical, and now we have a rich cornucopia of sources for belief and value. I think this is like painting clouds on the ceiling and calling it sky.

If we have any joy as Christians it has to be because God himself has pierced this fruitless humanistic relativism by intervening directly in the world—through Adam, through the patriarchs and Prophets, and through Jesus Christ. We may be captured by the sheer number and magnificence of the Old Testament miracles, as evidenced by Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Daniel, and Jonah. We may be brought to our knees by the marvelous revelatory work of Christ. But the utmost in miracles has to be our personal salvation and our sanctifying contacts with the Lord through the Holy Spirit, for through this ongoing miracle we are able to continue the unbroken legacy of God's earliest contacts with fallen man. Indeed, should we desire any other purpose than this?

Christ said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." [John 14:6]. In this he spoke not only to what finally centers the relativism of human values and beliefs, but also to what anchors our tradition and convictions in a truth for which there really is dependable evidence. If we do not choose Christ, we are left with what we had before: death. Death is the final outcome of relativism, and so we can appreciate the irony in Pilate's words before he attempted to return Jesus to the Jews: "'What is truth?' he asked" [John 18:38].

Humanism teaches us that we can be noble in what we hope to achieve, if only after a fashion, but its larger lesson is that advocates of this faith end up going the wrong way. "This is what the Lord says: 'Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,' declares the Lord." [Jeremiah 9: 23-24]

—Merle Harton, Jr., The Louisiana Quaker

All biblical references are NIV unless otherwise noted.

BOOK for the month:

Jesus Freaks.  By dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs. Albury Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1-57778-072-8.

Earlier this year, 15-year-old Roy Pontoh was attending a Bible camp with other teenagers in Indonesia, when an angry Muslim mob broke up the meeting and, forcing the young man to stand before the crowd, threatened him if he did not renounce Christ. At his refusal, one of the attackers sliced him open with a sword and the mob threw his body in a ditch. This is Roy Pontoh's story. During China's Red Guard Era (1966-69) two Christian girls, Chiu-Chin-Hsiu and Ho-Hsiu-Tzu, were shot to death for refusing to change their faith. Their executioner was their own pastor, who was promised release from prison for killing the girls; in turn he was himself betrayed by his Communist captors and shot. This is their story. In England in 1555, Dr. Rowland Taylor, pastor of Hadley, was imprisoned and then burned at the stake for Protestant heresy. This is his story. In 1964 the Adventist pastor Boian of Ploiesti was released from a three-year prison sentence for preaching the Christian message. After being caught renewing his work, he was sentenced to another eight years in prison. This is his story. In Antioch, around 285 AD, Romanus was scourged with whips, cut with knives, and made to watch the beating and beheading of a Christian child. Still he would not renounce his faith in Christ. His tormentor, the Roman prefect Asclepiades, returned to torturing Romanus and then brought him back to prison and had him strangled. This is his story, too.

You will not likely find a more intense book on Christian martyrs than this. Cutting a wide swath through history and through geography, this is a compilation of new and old stories of real persons who suffered, were tortured, maimed, or killed, for their faith in Jesus Christ. You will also not find anything quite like this book on the market today. This is a book you may want to put down—it presents painful stories, some anguishing to read—but in the end you will pick it up again and again.

The whole presentation is most unusual. The binding is made to look old, worn, and arcane. The stories, all of them, are retold tales—some from secondary historical sources, some from witnesses, and some from living survivors themselves—but all are well written and all speak of a single theme: martyrdom. We tend to think that all the martyrs were ancient, but this book will go far in reminding us that we have witnesses standing firm for the Christian faith all over the world today. Although not overly graphic in detail, the stories are nonetheless gritty and disturbing. You will not like what our brothers and sisters of faith must endure.

At the forefront of the battle for the persecuted church is an organization called "The Voice of the Martyrs." This interdenominational nonprofit group was founded 30 years ago by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who was imprisoned in Communist Romania for 14 years for his Christian faith; its current US director, Tom Wait, is himself a survivor who spent 17 months in a Cuban jail for distributing Bibles on Castro's island nation. From another angle is the contemporary Christian rock band, dc Talk, whose albums (including the 1995 Jesus Freak) provide a musical side of the intensity of belief that strengthens the Christian martyr during trials and torments. Using historical sources and the oral and written testimonies of living friends and martyrs, these two groups, as the book's authors, have created a compelling, haunting treasury of Christian commitment in the face of enormous suffering. All told there are over 100 such stories, from Stephen's stoning death in 34 AD to several events that took place only months ago.

The book is not perfect, however, and many martyrs do not have their stories told here. Most glaring is the absence of Quaker witnesses—notably George Fox, who was insulted, beaten, whipped, imprisoned, and tormented throughout a good part of his life for his Christian message. But this should not prevent readers from reading this important book.

And it should be read. We need to know where and how we can assist those under trial, and toward this end the authors have assembled an action list and a summary of 42 countries where the persecuted church needs our aid. Indeed, even purchasing the book will help.

This book tells stories we need to hear. We need to be reminded that the Christian cause is vital and pertinent for this fallen world. After reading the book, even Scripture can take on a new relevance. Ephesians 6:12, for example, suddenly seems written for our century: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." But then Paul was himself a "Jesus Freak" and his story, too, is told here. - MCH

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Copyright © 1999 by Merle Harton, Jr.