God’s Big Design

God’s big design is an excellent introduction to Genesis 1-2. At the outset, Roberts points out that Genesis is not setting out to answer the questions of modern science, and the book really avoids commenting on this issue much at all. Rather, there are five chapters, each dealing with important doctrines introduced in the first two chapters of Genesis.

In the first chapter we are introduced to the divine Creator. Genesis teaches that God alone is eternal, and thus philosophical materialism is wrong. In addition, accidentalism, the view that there is no guiding hand but chance alone is also wrong. Finally, Genesis presents God alone as sovereign, thus humanism with its lofty claims about mankind is also wrong. Flowing from these truths are implications for meaning, morality and worship. There is meaning to the universe, and we find that in living for God’s glory. There is fixed morality that derives from God’s eternal character, and the only right response to God the creator is worship.

The second chapter deals with God’s design for humanity. Here Roberts contrasts differing views that people have about humanity. Some see humanity as divine, others as worthless. Genesis shows that neither view is accurate. It teaches that we are created, physical and sexual beings. The implications are that God cares about our bodies as well as our spirits and that the gender God gives us is fundamental to our God-given identity. This matters more than how we view ourselves psychologically. In addition to teaching that human beings are created beings, Genesis teaches that we are made in the image of God. This sets us apart from the animals. What this actually means, is not spelled out in Genesis. But according to Roberts, “This is surely one of the reasons why he [God] has forbidden us from making images of him. God has already created an image of himself: human beings.” He then suggests some of the ways we reflect God. We reflect God in our rationality, our ability to make moral choices and our creativity among other things. We also represent God. In the context of being made in the image of God, Genesis has mankind ruling over God’s creation as his representatives on earth. Finally, we are designed to relate to God in a way that animals are not. The implications of this doctrine are far-reaching. Being made in the image of God, we have great dignity, and thus murder which includes abortion is a terrible sin. He concludes the chapter by reminding us that despite the fall, the image of God remains in us, and through Christ it is being remade.

Chapter 3 brings a fairly balanced approach to God’s design for the earth. Genesis teaches that the earth was created by God. It is not an accident which would give it no intrinsic value, nor is it divine. Rather it is distinct from God, lower than him, but has great value. Furthermore, in stark contrast to many philosophies and religions, Scripture teaches that creation is good. It is ordered, beautiful and is designed to bring glory to God. Genesis also teaches that it is unfinished. Yes it was made perfect, but God gave orders to people to carry on the work he had begun with creation by asking them to work the garden, to fill the earth and have dominion over it. The second major point of the chapter is that earth was entrusted to people. We are designed to rule over the world under God. This is not to be in a destructive way, after all, God has spent Genesis 1 declaring what he made to be good, so why would he give human being permission to destroy it in the same chapter? The two tasks humans are given are to work the earth and take care of it. In other words, to develop the resources God has placed in the world, but to do this in a responsible manner. Roberts helpfully points out the dangers of two common extremes – development without conservation and conservation without development. These both ignore the twin aspects of God’s mandate to humans. He concludes the chapter by reminding the reader that the earth will be redeemed by Christ. Redemption is not only spiritual, but physical, involving the putting right of all of creation.

God’s design for sex and marriage is the subject of the fourth chapter. Roberts begins by talking about some of the impacts of the sexual revolution. One interesting statistic he mentioned was the cost of family breakdown in the United Kingdom which is estimated to be £10 billion or 1% of GDP. Genesis teaches that God is for sex. Contrary to the stereotype that Christianity is against sex, the first two chapters of Genesis teach that God created sex as part of his good creation. In Genesis we see two principles in sex. First is complementarity. God made male and female, both in the image of God, yet different. Men and women complement each other so that, in God’s creation design, when we come together we are a perfect fit. But sex was created as the means of reproduction. God’s first command is basically, “Have sex! Propagate!” In addition, sex is for marriage alone. Marriage is a life-long God-given institution and the only proper context for sex. It is exclusive, and forms a deep unity. Ultimately it is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church.

In the final chapter, Roberts addresses what Genesis 1-2 teaches on the subject of work. Rather than being a corruption of God’s original design, work is a good part of God’s creation. Unfortunately work has been viewed as unspiritual, which is a hangover from a Greek view of the world. Some Christians took this view and decided there were two tiers of Christians. The first was described as the ‘perfect life’ where a priest, monk or nun dedicated their life to contemplation and spiritual things. The second tier was the ‘permitted life’, which was seen as secular. This was the realm of work, governing, farming, trading and raising a family. But this is not the Christian view. Roberts includes a brilliant quote from Mark Greene’s ‘Thank God it’s Monday’. “Work is not an intermission from the main action, something we do so we can then do other things: it is an integral part of the main action, an intrinsic part of our walk with God.” Genesis teaches us God is a worker and people were created to be his co-workers. God created Eden, but gave man the task of cultivating it. Thus work is itself spiritual. This, I think, is an important truth we of the laity need to grasp. We can serve God in day to day life. As a lawyer, or a factory worker, we do not need to feel ashamed that our job is not sufficiently Christian. We can serve God in whatever work we do! Nevertheless, work is not the goal of life. God rests from his work, and he wants us to enjoy his rest too. There is a little bit of discussion on whether the fourth commandment applies to us, and in the concluding section of the chapter, we are reminded of the tension between creation work and new creation work, and the importance of witness.

In summary, this is a very readable, clear and helpful unpacking of some of the core doctrines that spring from Genesis 1-2.

Can you trust the media?

For a long time I have struggled to have any real faith in the media. There does seem to be extensive bias in many areas. People are often dismissed with inaccurate labels such as climate change denier, bigot, and far-right extremist and their ideas are ignored. Stuff’s policy of not allowing comments denying anthropogenic climate change is probably just the tip of the iceberg in terms of narrative shaping.

Recently there has been a brouhaha over more than half a dozen police officers searching the house of Dieuwe de Boer, a conservative Christian blogger, while his wife and 3 small children looked on. Why? All for a now prohibited magazine fitted to a .22RL lever-action rifle. Dieuwe had written a submission against the Firearms Amendment Act in 2019 which featured a photograph of this weapon. It had not been handed into police, although he no longer has the weapon. Now let’s put aside for a moment the ridiculous overreaction of the police and the potential abuse of political power to silence dissent. What I want to consider is the reaction of the mainstream media. RNZ, Stuff, One News and The NZ Herald all had articles labelling this young family man as a ‘far-right activist’.

This is a serious label. What connotations does ‘far-right’ have? The label carries connotations of fascism and racism. It’s a serious charge. But it seems to be thrown around with increasing abandon. Would you call a Christian conservative family man with 3 young children, interests in mountain biking, target shooting, playing strategy games, classical music and programming a ‘far-right activist’? He runs a commentary site called Right Minds NZ, which describes itself in the following way:

Our editors, writers, and contributors range from traditional conservatives, to populist Tories, to right-wing libertarians, and anything in-between.

Right Minds NZ is a broad church right-wing movement for New Zealand conservatives, libertarians, traditionalists, capitalists, and nationalists: people who share our Christian values, believe in personal responsibility, and want to see government play a lesser role in our lives.

So far-right activist? Far-right of whom? Stalin? It seems likely that too many journalists have little understanding of people with differing political opinions. This is not a healthy state of affairs.

Come on mainstream media. Attaching derogatory labels to people to reduce sympathy or belittle them and their opinions as not worthy of consideration should be beneath you. Give us the facts and a little less spin please.

Serving God

We can serve God whatever work we do. That truth should also free us from guilt. It is especially common among parents. They are so busy feeding babies throughout the night and throughout the day, changing nappies and ferrying children here, there and everywhere that they do not have the time or energy they used to have to study the Bible or get involved in programmes at church, As they look at some of their friends who still read the Bible and pray for one hour every day and are at church meeting two evenings a week, they think to themselves: ‘I’m not doing enough for the Lord.’ But we are not only serving Christ when we are at church or have a Bible open in front of us. Parenting is Christian service; it is a job entrusted to mothers and fathers by God. That is true of all our work.

– Vaughan Roberts in God’s Big Design.

Your most valuable ministry

Children can be extremely inconvenient. Personal goals, career goals, exercise goals and even ministry goals are impacted by the advent of children. Here’s a little anecdote of how children impact life. I remember when I was single. If I wanted to go somewhere, I could be out of the house, in the car and on my way within the space of 5 minutes. Marriage impacted that. One does not simply walk out the door. So the new time was 15 minutes. Children? Forget getting out the door in a hurry. An hour could be cutting things fine. Just before you’re ready to go, it’s almost guaranteed there will be a poo explosion requiring nappy and outfit changes. And inevitably, when you do actually get everyone in the car, and start driving down the road, someone will remember they have forgotten their hat, shoes or favourite stuffed toy or some other essential item.

If that’s the effect on something as simple as getting out of the house, it’s not surprising that the impacts on other areas of life are going to be equally seismic. Small wonder then, that people are having fewer children, having them later, or deciding not to have children at all. In the age of self, children put a damper on things.

Children and God’s People

While it’s unsurprising to see these trends in the world around us, it is unfortunate to see them creeping into the church. More frequently we see both parents out working, while their children are in daycare. I work as a teacher, and one of the saddest things I hear is parents complaining about the hassle of having to have children home in the school holidays. Children are seen as a nuisance to be shunted out of the house as frequently as possible, not priceless souls to treasure. So now school holiday programmes are the order of the day. I’ve even heard committed Christians ponder whether they are going to have children because they are considering the impact it might have on their potential usefulness to God. The implication is that children might get in the way of ministry.

We’ve been captured by the empty and hollow philosophy of our age. Climbing career ladders and earning more will give us self-worth. We’ve believed the lie that the more we capture places of greatness, the more impact we have. If we have our leaders in politics, and huge institutional churches, if we control places of power, then we can impact the world for God. And while there is nothing wrong with these things, we are forgetting great principles of the kingdom. In God’s order, the one who is the greatest is the servant of all. In God’s order, children are set up as an example of how the kingdom of heaven is entered. In God’s kingdom, Jesus wasn’t too busy to spend time with children.

This negative view of children is in sharp contrast with the biblical picture of children and family. God’s first command to people was, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.” The earth was not to remain in an undeveloped garden state. God intended for people to develop agriculture, industry, commerce, music, education; a well-functioning society and civilization. And how was Adam to go about this duty? He needed a helper, and God provided Eve. How did Eve help Adam fulfil his purpose? Surely that is obvious. By having a family. We fulfil the creation mandate to fill the earth and subdue it by having children and raising families.

The people of God through Scripture understood the importance of family and children. In Psalm 128, the man who is blessed has a wife who is like a fruitful vine and there are little olive shoots all around the table! In Psalm 127, the man who has many children is described as blessed. Children are seen as a reward from God, and the way God’s people impact the world around them. In fact, throughout history, God has chosen to do his work in the world through families. In the covenant with Abraham, God promised Abraham ‘seed’, and that through his family, all nations of the earth would be blessed. And when God sent the great Messiah, to come and rescue his people, he didn’t send him into the world as a fully-grown adult unencumbered by family ties so he could more effectively get on with the business of his mission. No, Christ came as a baby born into a human family.

So the question is not, “How will children impact my ministry?” Children are the ministry God blesses us with. For most people, they will be the single most important ministry assignment God gives. Each child is an eternal soul, entrusted to us by the Creator. We are given the absolute privilege and weighty responsibility to mould and shape and send these souls, not only into the world to bless others, but into eternity to their own blessing or eternal sorrow. Children are not getting in the way of ministry. They are the ministry God gives!

Given this blessed God-given assignment, what should we do?

Parents

If we are parents, we should remind ourselves of the privilege we have been given at regular intervals. As parents, aside from our own walk with Christ, and our relationship with our spouse, the next most important calling given to us by God is our children. That being so, career must pale into insignificance. The pervasive cultural narrative that you find yourself in your career is not only anti-Christian, but it is also anti-family. Thus we regularly need an antidote to this poisonous falsehood.

Men need this reminder often. It is easy for men, particularly if they are the sole bread-winner, to spend more and more time at work and thinking about work. Yes, work is important. It helps us feed our families, and it is a God-given way of serving society, but it ranks below serving our wife and our children. We need to set in place strict limits that work cannot cross so that we can serve our families.

For women, there are perhaps more hurdles to cross. In the age where feminism seems to have carried the day, it is easy for a mother who stays at home to raise her children to become disillusioned and feel that what she is doing is not valuable. Women have been sold the lie that they are the same as men, and their goals and roles should be the same. Trying to both be good mothers and have careers makes many feel defeated. But since having a meaningful career seems to be how greatness is now defined, few would risk shunning that path.

Our world measures greatness quite differently from God. Recently in Disciplines of a Godly Family, I read this quote: ‘…many people are captive to a culture that defines self-worth and fulfillment in terms of contribution, name, education, and money. Society applauds the person who designs a building more than it does the one who attends to the architecture of a child’s soul.’ Dabney’s famous quote is also a helpful antidote to the view of this age that raising children is so insignificant that it can be farmed out to strangers.

Young Singles

For those who are young and thinking about life’s purpose and goals, think about how marriage and family may be a major part of that. Admittedly, not all marry. However, in a large majority of cases, God will give us the marriage and family assignment. In light of this, it is vital to make wise decisions in your late teens and early twenties that will aid your future self.

Think carefully about how to position yourself financially so that you can parent well. Avoid unnecessary debt. Consider whether tertiary education really is necessary, or if you are heaping up debt for no good reason. Debt will be like a millstone around your neck, preventing you from investing in the little souls that will come along in the not-too-distant future. Sometimes a university education is wise, but do not just assume this is what you must do because everyone does it. Question the typical narrative.

Is an OE really the best use of your finances and youth? Of course it would be a whole lot of fun. Yet, it may cause your future self a lot of headaches. Be aware that life is full of opportunity costs. I’ve heard so many of my contemporaries complain about how lucky house owners are, forgetting about the wonderful, yet expensive, OE they enjoyed earlier in life. Money saved earlier in life has the ability to grow far more than money saved in midlife. That’s just how interest works. So don’t cause your future self plenty of stress. If you spend up large now, you are highly likely to struggle to financially support your family in a world of high rents and low incomes. Either that or you may be forced to become a dual-income family or put off children until you are able to attain a more secure financial position. None of these options is ideal for your future children.

Save and get a house. In New Zealand, particularly in main centres, housing costs are difficult for single-income families, and unless you act with foresight in your first decade out of school, you can make life extremely difficult for yourself and family later. Buy a house earlier, pay down as much of the mortgage as you can, and your housing costs will be far lower than those paying rent by the time you have children and want to drop to a single income. For my wife and I, frugality, and the choices we made and opportunities we chose to forgo have enabled us to have a bigger family despite being on one teacher’s income. Getting a house and paying down debt really helped. To rent the house we are in now on a single-income would be impossible for us. But having entered the market earlier, we have very low housing costs per week. My purpose here is not to boast, for we were given wise counsel. Rather I am trying to encourage you, that even if your income outlook is below average, by acting wisely now, you can help position yourself well for future family life.

In addition, I urge you to develop a can-do attitude to finance. Too many people I know have looked at the huge hurdle of saving for a house and despaired. Rather than packing away the savings in a regular manner, they just see it all as hopeless and decide to take the opposite course and just spend. The truth is that a little bit here and a little bit there slowly but surely add up. You cut down a (carbon neutral!) forest one tree at a time.

Finally, while this may seem controversial and counter-cultural, young women should consider carefully their training and career options. Popular culture is a purveyor of the lie that you can have it all. You can’t. Spend years and years racking up debt and training to be a doctor will for most women make staying at home with children a difficult, if not impossible feat. Consider attaining skills that can be used to make money from home. Again, while not all will marry, and it is wise to be able to provide for oneself if that is the case, most women do in fact marry. Some career options are more conducive to raising a family than others. Whether in our age of equal opportunities we like this or not, it is true. Children are not accessories for our lives to make us feel good and complete. They are little souls, and research very clearly shows they need their mothers in the early years.

Churches and Church Leaders

Churches and church leaders including pastors should think about how they can support families.

Firstly, given that all members of a congregation have lived as children in families, many are living in families, and many will marry and begin new families, regular teaching in this area is essential. In my experience, churches are often willing to espouse hard truths about some topics – often finance – but are more reticent to talk about child-raising. But for most of us, working out our faith is in the context of family. We need to hear about this. We need our leaders to encourage us to be different. We are surrounded by a culture that demeans marriage and family, that espouses the lie that women find meaning in work and should escape the demeaning confines of home and hearth. We need encouragement to fight against this all-encompassing milieu. Help us take every thought captive for Christ. Help us develop a distinctly Christian way of looking at marriage and family and how these interact with work and finance. Help us see that some ways of raising a family are more helpful to our children than others. Help us critique the secular approach to family and children around us. Explain to the young the importance of preparing for marriage and family – not just from a spiritual perspective, but from a practical perspective. Encourage young people to save rather than just spend and give.

Secondly, churches should consider the impact of church calendars and activities on the family. Churches of various stripes are notorious for meetings. Cut them back to the essential. Working men have little enough time with their children as it is. Make sure your approach to meetings takes this into account. Do members really need to attend quarterly meetings for reading the Bible in church services? Expect less from your volunteers. Don’t act like a corporation demanding exacting standards. The church is not a corporation. It’s a body. It’s a flock. Care for it. Make sure that your get-togethers are family-friendly. Don’t always age-segregate activities. Encourage families to be together in your church services. Include children in your service planning, and make services shorter so the little ones can handle this.

There are many practical things churches can do to support families. One practical aid would be to somehow assist new mothers to transition into motherhood. Becoming a first-time mum can be very difficult. Going from the hustle and bustle and adult environment of work to being at home with a little baby in suburbs empty of adults during the day can be extremely lonely. Connecting new mothers with other like-minded mothers further down the parenthood path could be extremely useful.

I began by highlighting the inconveniences of parenting. But that’s not where we should end. God planned for family. It is his design. So there should be no surprises, that when we focus on performing this calling for his glory rather than avoiding committing ourselves to it, we will find joy and blessing.

Teaching Children About Money

In the last few years, my wife and I have invested small amounts of money in peer to peer lending. It offers far better interest rates than regular bank savings accounts. What an eye-opening experience! Harmoney, one of the companies we have loaned money through gives quite a lot of detail about potential loans. These details help lenders decide whether they want to loan to a particular person.

One that stuck out to me was a young woman who wanted to borrow thousands of dollars to go on holiday with her family. Apparently, the family had been planning a get-together for some time. Despite her good income, and the fact that she was living at home with parents, she had not been able to save for the holiday, and was asking to borrow the money instead at the exorbitant rate of 40%.

We choose only to lend to people who meet a number of strict criteria, so needless to say, this woman received nothing from us. However, it did get me thinking about the importance of passing on good financial sense to my children. How can parents help their children avoid the many pitfalls in managing money?

A great introduction to this is in the book Raising Financially Confident Kids by Mary Hunt. For me, the best part of the book was the salary structure she introduced to her family. When her children reached a certain age, they were given a monthly salary. This salary was designed to cover some of the items she and her husband used to buy for their children. Each year, the salary was raised. The raise would be commensurate with the child’s ability and the new responsibilities he would have in the new year.

There were a few simple non-negotiables. For instance, absolutely no loans. Even if the child had the money at home but not with them. 10% of the salary had to be put into long-term savings and 10% was to be given away. Purchases had to fit with family values. Aside from these few rules, Mary took a largely hands-off approach, and let her children make decisions and reap the consequences.

One disadvantage of the book was that there was no specific plan of attack for what a child would have to use their salary for each year. So this is something readers have to work out for themselves. For those of you interested here is a model first-year salary plan we have come up with for our eldest.

First Year Salary Plan 2020

Goals

The goal of this plan is to assist and teach Grace to grow gradually into an effective money manager who is not controlled by money, but rather uses money to provide for her needs and use it generously for God’s kingdom.

Commencement Date

The commencement date for this plan is January 2020

Salary

The monthly salary will be $35 per month. This will be reviewed annually, with the next review when Grace turns 11 in 2021.

Mandatory Disbursement

1. Giving: Every month Grace will take 10% of her salary and place this in her giving jar. When this jar reaches a total of $20, she will decide where or who to give the money to with guidance from Mum and Dad.

2. Long Term Savings: Every month, Grace will take 10% of her salary and place in her long-term savings jar. The savings will accrue throughout the year, and once per year be placed into the bank of Dad where she will receive a generous rate of interest.

Responsibility List

In 2020, Grace will be responsible for paying for the following things:-

Clothing

  • Footwear
  • Socks
  • Underwear
  • Hats
  • Hair ties

Presents

  • Birthday parties
  • Family presents

Entertainment

  • Non-family entertainment / treats

This list will be reviewed annually (or sooner if necessary) and added to.

Rules

While Mum and Dad will retain a hands-off attitude regarding spending choices, there will be a few rules that you must abide by.

  1. You must abide by the mandatory disbursements listed above
  2. You may not buy for yourself or anyone in the family anything that is against our family values for children. These items include, but are not limited to:-
    • Mobile phones
    • Other electronic devices
    • Immodest clothing
  3. You may never ask for an advance on your salary, nor are you allowed to borrow money. If you do not have your money with you, you will not be able to buy something.
  4. You must keep a written spending record of everything you spend money on.
Infractions

Failure to complete your family responsibilities (jobs), failure to abide by the rules for your salary, or disobedience and disrespect may lead to fines. Fines must be paid by the due date or reduction in salary may occur.

Graduation Day

Grace will graduate from her salary 3 months after she has completed her schooling.

Signatures

Mum and Dad: _________________________

Child: _____________________

Date: ___________________

The Value of Parenting

“The education of children for God is the most important business done on earth.  It is the one business for which the earth exists.  To it all politics, all war, all literature, all money making ought to be subordinated; and every parent especially ought to feel, every hour of the day, that next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God- this is his task on earth.“

Robert Lewis Dabney

Art and the Bible

Untitled by Cy Twombly
“Untitled”

I have always been very sceptical of what is often referred to as ‘modern art’. How can Cy Twombly’s “Untitled” be compared to the “Mona Lisa” or “The Hay Wain”? Being artistically challenged doesn’t, I hope, stop me from being able to appreciate true talent. Twombly’s painting honestly looks like something I could achieve myself, despite my artistic limits not extending much further than stick figures. However, I doubt I could demand the 46 million USD it sold for. It does seem that some of what parades itself as art is pretentious and over-priced rubbish. And yet at the same time, decent young artists can find it difficult to break into the art world and be noticed.

To stimulate my thinking on the subject of art I read Art and the Bible by Francis Schaeffer. The first essay deals with Art in the Bible. Schaeffer begins by arguing that evangelicals can be so concerned with seeing souls saved that they can forget that Christ is Lord of the whole man, body and soul. God made the whole man, and in Christ, the whole man is redeemed. For Schaeffer, the Lordship of Christ involves everything – total culture, and that includes the area of creativity. Indeed, one of the ways we image God is in the area of creativity. So he spends quite a bit of time detailing God’s interest in beauty, and the variety of art that is mentioned in Scripture.

In the second half of the book, Schaeffer gives 11 perspectives which he thinks are helpful in evaluating art. There is plenty here that is food for thought. Of note is his fifth perspective, the four standards of judgment: technical excellence, validity, intellectual content and the world view that is expressed, and the integration of content and vehicle. So, for example, we might be able to praise a work for its technical excellence, but critique the worldview that it espouses. Christians can often be tripped up on this point!

Another extremely interesting point is perspective 2: art forms add strength to the world view. Schaeffer argues that art can heighten the impact and effect of an idea even if it is false. Thus, “if something untrue or immoral is stated in great art it can be far more destructive and devastating than if it is expressed in poor art or prosaic statement. I think this explains that feeling a Christian might sometimes have in a movie, where one wants a character to leave their spouse, or otherwise commit or get away with what is forbidden in God’s Word. Art is powerful.

Another interesting perspective from which to evaluate art is ‘normal definitions, normal syntax’. What Schaeffer means here is that an element of art is communication. Some art (poetry, painting plays) can bend the rules of language and grammar or symbolism so much that communication is lost. He writes, “Totally abstract art stands in an undefined relationship with the viewer, for the viewer is completely alienated from the painter.”

I was also interested by the point he made regarding non-Christian artists who are able to produce art according to a Christian worldview. His explanation for this was that when a large number of people in society are Christians, they can bring a kind of Christian consensus, and non-Christians can write or paint within and out of this contextual framework. This was clearly the case in Christendom, where although individual artists might not necessarily have been Christians, they lived and breathed a Christian context in a way which we no longer do.

For Schaeffer, we never look at just one piece of art, we look at it in the context of the body of an artist’s work. He encourages Christian artists to produce art within the context of their time, place and culture, and reminds us that Christian art should have two themes. One, which he calls the minor theme is associated with the fall. We are in a sinful world, and outside of God there is a lack of meaning and purpose, and even within God’s family, there is suffering and sin to deal with. But the major theme of Christian work, which we could call redemption, is meaning and purpose in both metaphysics and morality.

How The West Lost God

I have had my eye on this book for some time, and when a friend kindly gave me money to purchase a book, I snapped this up quick smart. The central thesis of the book is that just as religious decline leads to a decline in the family, so too, the decline in the two-parent nuclear family contributes to the decline of the church. Eberstadt describes family and faith as ’the invisible double helix of society – two spirals that when linked to one another can effectively reproduce, but whose strength and momentum depend on one another.’

In the first chapter, Eberstadt turns her attention to whether there has been a decline in Christianity in the West. There are some who argue this decline is itself an illusion. Although I didn’t need convincing of this fact, she argues fairly convincingly that there really has been a decline.

Eberstadt moves on to outline the conventional views regarding how the West lost God. The first view she investigates is that people stopped needing the imaginary comforts of religion. She spends time reviewing this theory but dismisses it because the demands of Christianity do not make it some crutch that makes life easier.

The second view she deals with is that Science, the Enlightenment and rationalism caused secularization. This is an extremely widely held view, but it just doesn’t fit the evidence. Christianity does not wax and wane in the way this theory predicts it should. Interestingly, in this section of the book, she highlights some interesting research on education and faith. The Enlightenment theory teaches us to expect that the more educated and wealthy people are, the less likely they are to have faith in God. This is precisely the opposite of what we see in a number of cases, and ‘contrary to popular belief, literacy and money do not drive secularism.’

Next, she moves onto the theory that the two world wars caused secularization. This is the view of Peter Hitchens in “Rage Against God”. While admitting this theory is not totally wrong, she highlights the fact that nations with disproportionate burdens of wartime all experienced a decline – Switzerland along with Germany and Great Britain. Furthermore, she wonders why later generations have not returned to the faith since they have known nothing by postwar prosperity. The next theory she addresses is that material progress caused us to realise we didn’t need God any more. But this theory is contradicted by the fact that religion seems to increase as the social ladder is climbed as mentioned earlier. Furthermore, faith has existed with great wealth throughout the ages. Why should this change now?

It seems that the believers of the secularization theory assumed faith was on its way out. They didn’t believe religion could wax as well as wane. It clearly has and does, so a theory is needed that can take this into account. This leads Eberstadt to explore the circumstantial evidence for her theory in chapter 3. She points out that sociologists have assumed that secularization and human development impact negatively human fertility rates. But this is an assumption. Perhaps the relationship goes the other way.

She notes that married people with children are more likely to go to church and be religious than single people. But why is this? Does faith drive family, or does family drive faith? Again she points to a link between faith and fertility. Those who are religious tend to have more children than those who are not. Eberstadt argues that instead of this being a one way street with faith driving family, at least some of the time, family drives faith, and sometimes this makes better sense of the facts.

Next, in chapter 4, Eberstadt moves on to consider some snapshots in the demographic record. Here she shows that family decline accompanies religious decline. Secondly, she notes that the trends of industrialization and urbanization mesh nicely with the decline of the family and faith. Both of these trends led to family decline, which in turn caused people to reject faith. The third piece of data she points to is the clear link between the most irreligious parts of the West and those that have the smallest, weakest and fewest natural families. A final and most interesting piece of evidence she investigates is the link between ‘family boomlets’ and ‘religious boomlets’. One example she highlights is the post-war mini religious boom, which overlay the better known post-war baby boom.

In chapter 5, she demonstrates how her theory answers the problems that the current theories of secularization have been unable to answer. It answers the problem of ‘American exceptionalism’. Why is America so religious, despite being one of the most advanced nations on earth? In America, there are more families following the traditional model, more marriages, and more children per woman than there are in Europe. According to Eberstadt, it also explains the male/female religious gender gap. She speculates that perhaps ‘women who are mothers tend to be more religious because the act of participating in creation, i.e., birth, is more immediate for them than that of men. Perhaps that fact inclines women “to be more open to the possibility of something greater than themselves.” The family factor also helps explain why 1960s was a pivotal year in secularization. The birth control pill approval changed relations between the sexes – and thus altered the natural family. Extramarital sex became much easier, and that has had a seismic impact on family formation and strength.

The Church has not helped, and according to Eberstadt has participated in its own downfall by ignoring the family factor. Here she explores reformist efforts in the church which made divorce more acceptable and allowed contraception and homosexuality. She sees these efforts as undermining the very thing the church relies on – strong families.

Chapter 7 ties all that she has written together. She points out that the experience of the natural family drives some people to religion. In addition, the Christian story is itself told through the prism of the family – without family, it makes less sense. For instance, God himself is described as our Heavenly Father. But for those who have not had a dedicated and loving father, this makes little sense. Moreover, the Christian code ‘becomes a lightning rod for criticism’. None of us like to be told that the way we do things is wrong. In an age of non-traditional and anti-traditional families, more and more people will take offence at the Christian message and its teachings on the family.

The book concludes with two chapters on the future. The first is a case for pessimism. Here we see that fewer people are getting married and having children. Fewer of those who are having children sustain a two-parent home. This is bound to negatively impact the church. But in chapter 9, we are presented the case for optimism. In essence, great catastrophes often lead to religious revival. The situation of the Western world, might be the decline necessary for faith to rise from the ashes. Secure and wealthy societies have been able to bankroll the decline of the family, but this might not be able to go on indefinitely. 

A Theory of Secularization

Recently I’ve been reading “How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization” by Mary Eberstadt. The central thesis is that family and faith are the invisible double helix of society – two spirals that when linked to one another can effectively reproduce, but whose strength and momentum depend on one another. Below is a short quote from the book:

“As secularization theorists correctly point out, urbanization is closely linked with smaller families. Following the industrial revolution, many Western people started having smaller families, and more chaotic families on account of their moves into cities.

Then came another series of shocks that further weakened family bonds: the legalization of divorce, the particularly momentous invention of modern contraception, the consequent increasing destigmatization of out-of-wedlock births…Many of these changes were then given even more force by related changes in Protestant theology…that unwittingly amounted to more blows against an institution already being roundly battered. Thus the severly weakened Western family ceased to transmit Christianity among its shrinking generations as it once had.”

Continents or Muttonbirds?

In response to a recent study conducted by The New Zealand Initiative highlighting a possible knowledge deficit in New Zealand education, NZ Principals Federation president Whetu Cormick responded in the New Zealand Herald saying:

“For a child in Bluff who might be interested in muttonbirds, they are not going to be interested in the fact that there are seven continents in the world,”

“We need to continue to develop a curriculum that is relevant to the community and in partnership with the community.”

A press release from The New Zealand Initiative suggests these comments reveal a particular weakness in New Zealand education.

The New Zealand Initiative and Whetu Cormick represent two opposite ends of a spectrum in education on the role of knowledge. Is there a set body of knowledge children should be given? What should be the role of knowledge in education? To answer these questions is complex and much depends on personal worldview and one’s perspective of the purpose of education.

The New Zealand Curriculum

For those of you who are not clear on education talk, ‘curriculum’ is simply Latin for ‘course of study’. So what position does our New Zealand Curriculum take on the role of knowledge?

The current New Zealand Curriculum is very open-ended. To give you an idea of what this looks like, consider Mathematics, which in the New Zealand Curriculum is one of the more prescriptive subjects. For level 3, which equates to roughly two years of school (Year 5 & 6), there are 17 main achievement objectives. By way of contrast, the Stage 5 (just one year of school equivalent to NZ Year 5) Cambridge Primary Mathematics syllabus contains 98 learning objectives. It’s fair to say then that our New Zealand Curriculum rejects the older traditional knowledge-rich approach for what could be described as a ‘skills’ or ‘outcomes-based’ approach.

Potential Benefits

One of the main benefits of this approach is the ability of teachers and schools to have the freedom to decide how best to educate the children in response to the needs of their community. Not every community is the same, and a one-size-fits-all model of education is not going to suit every community, let alone every individual child. I think many parents desire that their children learn in a way that reflects their concerns and worldview. Having a government decide what every child should learn about every subject does sound rather Orwellian.

Potential Dangers

Nevertheless, there are a number of dangers inherent in such an open-ended curriculum.

Firstly, it ignores the truth that there is a body of knowledge that our children need to grasp to lead successful and useful lives. One classic example of this is in reading comprehension. More competent readers are better, not because they have acquired superior skills in reading per se, but because they have a better knowledge-base that allows them to understand what they are reading. Another reason we need to have a common body of knowledge is that it facilitates communication in civil society. In communication with others, we assume certain things. Communication becomes difficult and more likely to lead to friction in society when different groups do not have a large shared body of knowledge.

Secondly, this approach is likely to lead to the entrenchment of inequality in society. In a world where we teach children what we deem is relevant to them, we are in danger of depriving them of the knowledge they need to make socio-economic gains. Teachers know that some children come to school with a knowledge deficit. Others have had privileges that come with more educated and wealthy parents. Schools can have a role in reducing this knowledge gap, but only if they are willing to see education as taking children outside of their known world and providing them with the proven riches of the great past civilizations, cultures and thinkers.

Education should be about breaking down barriers and giving children wings, not making assumptions about what they deserve to know. We should bring the best of the past to our children so they can enjoy these treasures that may be outside their community’s immediate knowledge.

Thirdly, an open-ended curriculum such as the New Zealand Curriculum actually requires a very knowledgeable and educated teaching profession who can make sound decisions regarding what needs to be taught. It is doubtful that this is the case. While few would doubt the enthusiasm and diligence of most teachers, given that the entry requirements for a primary teaching degree are some of the lowest in degree courses it seems unlikely that teaching is attracting our most knowledgeable and educated talent.

A fourth concern is that an open curriculum is likely to be hijacked by the issue du jour. This is in fact already happening. The school climate strikes in 2019 are symptomatic of this. Well-meaning and passionate children missed school to protest against climate change. It does seem that very little balance is being provided by schools and teachers on this issue, and our children are being used as pawns in a larger political game.

Faulty Assumptions

Finally, the move toward an outcomes-based model and away from a knowledge-rich curriculum seems to be built on a number of faulty presuppositions. The first is that knowledge itself is unimportant. One does not need to read too widely to find educators arguing that knowledge is irrelevant in the age of Google, “because you can just look it up”. While this might seem a fair enough comment for an adult who has a relatively solid basic grid of knowledge from which to draw, for a child, it is often the case that they will not know the questions to ask. They don’t know what they don’t know! To become a skilled expert in any field, a comprehensive knowledge of your subject (and of course application of this) is always going to be a requirement.

A second faulty assumption is that education should follow the interests of the child. In the Herald article mentioned at the outset, Whetu Cormick is reported as indicating that the curriculum was right to let teachers choose topics that interest their students, because students could always find out other facts on the internet. But perhaps this thinking has things around the wrong way. Children will look up things in encyclopedias or get books out of the library or google them based on their interests at home. They will do this anyway. What they won’t naturally look up is what they may not yet be interested in or even know about. And some of this is the knowledge that a civil society requires adults to know for human flourishing.

A final faulty assumption is that there is no hierarchy in knowledge. Muttonbirds and continents. Are they are equally important? Does it just depend on what you are interested in? Perhaps we could think of knowledge as a jigsaw puzzle. When my children and I attempt a jigsaw puzzle, we always begin by putting the corner and edge pieces together. It would be very difficult to begin with picking a middle piece at random. Certain pieces of knowledge and indeed subjects are like the edge pieces of a jigsaw. They are essential if we are going to get our puzzle anywhere near completed. School, and particularly the primary years, should be about getting those edge pieces put together. This will help our children as they go through life and put in the pieces they are going to need in their particular calling.