Defeat to Victory

The Alamo, which you, no doubt, remember, became part of Texas and American history on March 6, 1836. About 4 a.m. that Sunday morning, Santa Anna’s troops breached the mission walls, ending a siege lasting almost two weeks.  The Alamo’s defenders killed during siege (sometimes referred to as “the thirteen days to glory”) or, perhaps, executed shortly after included William Travis, James Bowie, David Crockett, and about 200 others—Americans and Mexicans; men from Scotland, England, Ireland (about a dozen), Germany, and Denmark.  Most would “die like a soldier[s] who never [forget] what is due to [their] own honor & that of [their] country,” to borrow Travis’s famous and futile plea for reinforcements. 

In Texas they’re larger-than-life heroes so it’s easy to forget they lost.  But their loss helped Texas win the revolution.  The two weeks Santa Anna spent capturing the Alamo and the two weeks he delayed in San Antonio allowing his wounded and exhausted troops to recover, gave the Texian forces time to prepare for their ultimate victory at San Jacinto six weeks later.

Sometimes we must experience defeat before we can experience victory. 

A humiliating loss at tennis may prompt us to practice our forehand, backhand, and serve until we can win, at least occasionally.

A young Moses experienced defeat when he first attempted to help his people, the Hebrews.  He killed one of the brutal Egyptian taskmasters; then tried to hide his body.  As Ian Thomas suggests, with all that sand around him Moses must have left a toe sticking out.  But that failure led him to allow God to shape him into the liberator he would become.

Like Peter we may experience defeat until we learn victory requires relying on Christ for strength and boldness.

By God’s grace, our defeats may be a prelude to victories.

Almost exactly century before the Alamo’s fall (7 March 1736), John Wesley began his ministry in the budding town of Savannah in what would become Georgia. He went home in defeat: “I went to America to convert the Indians; but, oh, who shall convert me,” the failed missionary wrote.

But that defeat revealed his spiritual poverty and prepared him to finally “trust…Christ alone, for salvation.” He would help initiate one of the most influential movements in modern church history.

[If you regularly read this blog, I should mention I have just corrected an error in "October Madness," a post I wrote last year.  Sorry about any confusion it may have generated.]

Do You Believe in Marriage?

Emperor Claudius didn’t believe in marriage; marriage impeded his ambition. Claudius needed men for his army. But Roman law forbade conscripting married men. So Claudius forbade new marriages.

A Roman priest believed in marriage. He continued marrying young couples, often secretly.  His defiance discovered, he was beheaded on 14 February 278. The priest’s name? Valentine

Historians disagree over the details of St. Valentine’s story, but clearly he believed in marriage when influential people held marriage in disdain.

Since 1980 we’ve heard half of new marriages will end in divorce. That statistic is no longer true, and it is widely disputed; in fact, Sarah Jacoby suggests,  “if [the] current trend continues, the vast majority (about two-thirds) of marriages will never divorce.” (http://www.refinery29.com/2017/01/137440/divorce-rate-in-america-statistics. Accessed 3 February 2018.) That’s still a lot of divorces but it’s clear a lot of us believe in marriage, maybe more than in 1980.

If you believe in marriage, how can you make that marriage last?  A tricky question. 

Back in the day (my high school days, at least), any lessons on making marriage last began with a warning about “unrealistic expectations.” I think they were trying to tell us happily ever after wasn’t what we imagined.

After my father died, my mother used to say, “In forty-six years of marriage we never had a cross word.”

One doesn’t call one’s mother a liar but I wonder if her memory might have been a bit blurred. No arguments? Ever?

Doesn’t seem realistic.  I suppose most people hearing her realized she was looking at a past existing only in her dreams.  They forgave her because of her grief. 

Still, I wonder if some young couple heard her and feared for the future of their marriage because they had had such a battle just that morning over the empty toilet paper roll.

I don’t have a formula for a conflict free marriage.  But I will comment on some of the ingredients seemingly associated with successful marriages.  As you will see, some of these factors are more important than others.

Maturity

Under this heading, I am including two factors usually mentioned as characterizing those whose marriages have survived.

Age.  Couples older than 25 when marrying for the first time are less likely to see their marriages end in divorce.  The optimum age for avoiding divorce is 28 to 32, according to one recent study.  Of course, if you married at age nineteen, you don’t need to worry; as with all such statistics, these are generalities.  Still, if you know a twenty-one-year-old who can’t wait to get married (to anyone), you might urge patience.

By the way, the claim that living together before marriage increases the likelihood of divorce is still valid.  A Washington-state based family law firm says it can increase the chances of divorce as much as 40%.  Perhaps living together before marriage betrays the absence of a fundamental element of maturity: the ability to postpone gratification.

Education. For some reason, still not fully explained, those with a college or university education divorce less frequently than those without degrees. 

Wendy Wang, writing for Pew Research, breaks down the figures by gender.  She first explains how college-educated women have an almost 80% chance for their marriages lasting over twenty years, compared to the national average of about 50% and then adds:

 While more-educated women have the highest chances for a long-term marriage, college-educated men also stand out. Roughly two-thirds (65%) of men with a bachelor’s degree could expect that, if they marry, their first marriage will last 20 years or longer, compared with 50% of men with a high school diploma or less. (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/04/education-and-marriage/. Accessed 6 February 2018.)

Wang’s use of the questionable 50% national rate does not diminish the fact the marriages of college-educated people last longer.

Of course, we may assume young men and women who’ve had four years of college will know their needs and goals better than will the high-school sweethearts who marry while the echoes of pomp-and-circumstance are still bouncing around the auditorium.  But it is not as easy to explain why a twenty-five year old with a college degree is more likely to have a stable marriage than a twenty-five year old who doesn’t. One reason Wang suggests concerns financial stability: college graduates are more likely to have secure jobs than less-educated members of the workforce.  Increasingly, however, Wang’s suggestion will carry less weight as becomes clearer a traditional college education is no longer required if a young person wants a well-paying career; jobs in newer technologies, for example, do not always demands a degree.

There are, doubtless, reasons unrelated to preparation for a career that explain why an education should help strengthen marriages.  But this is not a place to explore them.

Location

I love visiting Austin, Texas. It’s a lively, interesting city. Though not as famous for its food as, say, New Orleans, Austin has some great restaurants and you can eat at many of the best without taking a bank loan.  Some of the best BBQ in the nation is available in Austin—I enjoy a place where I can also buy gasoline.  Being the capital of Texas, you can satisfy your steak cravings as well.  Of course, you can get fajitas and tacos everywhere. Looking for simpler meals?  One street has so many independent, non-franchise burger joints it would take two weeks to eat lunch at each of them. 

Even though Austin has a restaurant where servers wear shirts saying, “I didn’t get to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian,” the city also has many vegetarian and vegan restaurants. Bouldin Creek Café is my favorite—no kidding.

Don’t make assumptions about places on the map.

Still, some surveys link the likelihood of divorce to your location. 

Here are some statistics from a 2013 survey cited by Jacoby, “States have widely varying rates of divorce. Nevada and Maine have the highest rates (around 14%)…. Other states with higher rates include Oklahoma, Florida, Oregon, and Kentucky. On the other end, New York, New Jersey, Utah, California, and North Dakota have some of the lowest rates (between 8.7% and 9.7%).”  That’s right; California has a low divorce rate. 

I’m not sure everything those figures mean. They certainly don’t mean if you live in Oregon, you should start packing to move across the country to New York to save your marriage.  They do suggest living in a “red” state doesn’t protect you from divorce and living in a “blue” state doesn’t mean you are likely to divorce. In fact, George Barna found marriages in red states are more likely to end in divorce than those in blue states.

While such snippets of information might be useful for restarting stalled conversations at a wedding reception, where you live might not be relevant to safeguarding your marriage from divorce.

Perhaps the best location is a place where you have friends and a reliable support system. 

Shared Religious Life

Just how religion helps in making a good marriage is debated.  I found statistics claiming Southern Baptists are slightly more likely to divorce than atheists.  That’s disturbing but the claim may require a little honest tweaking.  And, since I am a former Southern Baptist pastor, I think I have the right to do that tweaking.

First, claiming to be a Southern Baptist does not necessarily imply a deep commitment to the church.  With some sixteen million members nationwide, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant group in America.  Yet, on any Sunday only half those members are in any church.  When I came to the first church I served, it was proudly pointed out that the prosperous businessman who lived across the street from the church was a member.  In his forties, married and the father of two children, he had joined the church when he was fifteen. Since the day he joined, he had never again come to a service.   

Southern Baptists spend millions producing some of the finest Sunday school literature.  Southern Baptist pastors spend many hours each week preparing to preach on Sunday morning.  That literature and those sermons will have no impact on those not present to hear the lessons or the sermons.

This points up a second issue. We Southern Baptists have not always been careful in spiritually vetting those coming for membership.  Some studies show the average age of those baptized in our churches has been steadily dropping; some of our churches have even reported baptizing four-year-olds. Phebe Bartlett, converted under Jonathan Edwards’ preaching, is probably the most famous child convert in the annals of American revivalism; her conversion seemed genuine but may have also been exceptional. While I believe we should remain hesitant about declaring who is and isn’t a believer, we need to admit that sometimes those “making a profession of faith” in response to invitations are doing little more than concurring, “This Jesus seems to be a pretty nice guy.”

Though a greater percentage of Southern Baptists may divorce than atheists, religion is not necessarily ineffective in supporting and encouraging healthy marriages.  As Jacoby says, “having a stronger connection to religion tends to keep a marriage more stable.”

In fact, important studies suggest the likelihood of divorce decreases among those who regularly attend church.  The greater the commitment shown to the local church, the greater the security manifested the marriage.

While I’d like to believe my preaching on the nuances of the parousia or the implications of Greek verbs helped keep marriages strong, I suspect it was something else.  A healthy church provides a support system (koinonia) where couples find encouragement and guidance from other, often older, couples who’ve faced and overcome challenges in their marriages.

Children

Having children also seems to be a safeguard against divorce. While “staying together for the kids” is sometimes maligned as a reason to eschew divorce, studies seem to suggest divorce is less likely when a couple has children.

The most doctrinaire Darwinist and the most unrepentant young-earth creationist understand the presence of children in the home says, “Not everything is about you.”

The common wisdom of centuries says a child needs a stable home and two parents, a mom and a dad. This doesn’t mean a single parent can’t raise a child successfully; it does mean an already tough job will be tougher.

Try as they might, moderns sociologists cannot escape this reality. Some are more honest about it than others. 

We might expect groups like Focus on the Family to defend the “traditional family,” but sometimes support comes from unexpected sources.  In 2008, the UK Daily Mail reported on a study made by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden. The study concluded not only that children need their fathers but also “… found that children who lived with both a mother and father figure had fewer behavioural problems than those who lived with their mother only.” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-513962/Dads-DO-matter-Why-children-brought-BOTH-parents-happier-successful.html#ixzz56GiEA5q8. Accessed 5 February 2018.)  Both boys and girls fared better if they had a positive relationship with both parents. The duration the study (20 years) is important since it predates the propagandistic furor surrounding the debate over same-sex marriage coloring many recent proclamations about the superfluous role of the father in child-rearing.

Couples staying together for the sake of their children are keeping the future in view. If the mother and father can maintain a fundamentally civil atmosphere in the home and demonstrate the give-and-take necessary to do the job of parenting, they will likely bless the coming generation. Christian couples who might have been considering divorce will inevitably realize their need for God’s help in accomplishing the goal of raising spiritually and emotionally healthy children.

At the same time, they may discover the issues feeding the impulse to divorce will recede and they will genuinely want to stay together.

Before moving on, let me offer two cautionary notes.

First, nothing I have said should imply a troubled couple should have children to forestall divorce.  That’s too risky and too unfair.

Second, several studies suggest couples with children are often unhappier after children arrive in the home.  As I read the remarks of young parents on Facebook, remarks suggesting their children are the brightest and cutest who ever toddled across the floor, those studies seem questionable to say the least.  Still, their findings are continually quoted. 

To be honest, children bring changes, sometimes stressful, changes.  The wife who accuses her husband of being infantile never really has to change his diaper.  That’s not true of the little bundle just home from the hospital.  Toddlerhood, childhood, and adolescence bring new stresses. But with time parents find those stresses diminishing or, perhaps, their skills in handling the stresses increasing.  Consequently, older parents generally can’t imagine ever feeling unhappy about having their children.

Of course, children can sometimes limit both the mother’s and the father’s opportunities for career advancement, though—to be honest—the mother is most often impacted.  But dealing with this disappointment challenges parents to carefully assess their priorities, to determine what is important.

Charles Swindoll has said, “Each day we are making deposits in the memory banks of our children.”  I certainly think that’s true.  It may also be that modeling a good marriage before our children will be the best safeguard against their own marriages ending in divorce.

This Valentine’s Day, as you gush over the candy, the flowers, or the cards, say a good word for marriage.  Let people know you believe in marriage.

What the Civil War Can Teach Us About the Bible

Today is Confederate Heroes Day in Texas; its juxtaposition with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day offends some. In fairness, Heroes Day was inaugurated in 1931, when King was two.  Many southerners once viewed Confederate soldiers not only as courageous patriots but as Christian knights defending a culture endorsed by the Scripture.

Evangelicals, northern and southern, quoted the Bible. But the pro-slavery side could muster more “proof texts” than the abolitionists. In time, evangelical abolitionists recognized we must differentiate behaviors and social structures the Bible prescribes and those the Bible simply describes. God does not necessarily approve the latter; so references to slavery usually regulated rather than condoned the practice.

Taking the Bible seriously involves reading the Bible thoughtfully.

I doubt any southern evangelicals today would insist the Bible endorses slavery.  Many might even question the wisdom of keeping a holiday like Confederate Heroes Day on the calendar.  I lived in Texas for almost two decades and never heard of the holiday.  It should be allowed to slip into the mists of best-forgotten history.

But its lessons for reading the Bible thoughtfully need to be remembered. In interpreting and applying the Bible we must consider the context of the passage and the author’s intent.  

It is unlikely Paul—who belonged to a people who had once been slaves—endorsed slavery.  He may be thought of as writing for the interim; we can imagine him looking ahead to a time when slavery was no more.  Clearly he felt slavery limited human potential.  Thus, he told Christian slaves to take the opportunity to be free should it arise (I Corinthians 7:21). Yet, he recognized an enslaved believer could still experience God’s grace and goodness, even in a less than ideal situation.  

If Paul opposed slavery, why didn’t he say more?  Telling Christian slaves to revolt would have seen thousands slaughtered; commanding Christian slave-owners to release their slaves might have led to resentment. Telling the Christian slave-owner Philemon to treat his former runaway slave Onesimus as as brother laid a foundation for a new attitude that would make Christian endorsement of slavery a contradiction.  This, combined with the declaration of spiritual equality found in Galatians 3:28, should have been enough to make any Christian take up the abolitionist cause.  Yet, southern evangelicals defended slavery, even to the point of laying down their lives.

To understand how this can be requires recognizing the power of cultural pressure.  The South thrived on slavery, slavery allowed slave-owners to imagine themselves morally and intellectually superior; it was hard to trump these factors.  To justify slavery, southern evangelicals used “proof texts” and ignored the implications of the good news brought by the One who came to set men and women free.

Again, had those Christians made a thoughtful difference between what the Bible commends and what the Bible reports (and tries to regulate), there might have been no Civil War; slavery might have never received tacit Christian approval.

Keeping the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive passages can help us in dealing with other matters.  For example, consider what was said to Eve after she and Adam fell.  God predicted there would be hostility between men and women, a constant struggle for the upper hand. Did God intend this for the crown of creation?  No.  Instead, God seems to be predicting what would happen, not what should happen.  As Christians we should strive to live as God intended, showing in our lives the transformation wrought by Christ.

For a New Year

Prompted by the two-faced Roman god Janus, for whom January is named, we usually spend awhile looking ahead and looking back as a year begins.

We’ll likely experience a mix of disappointment and satisfaction reviewing 2017; though some may feel overwhelmed with disappointment, few would claim to be completely satisfied.

Perhaps you believe in a God who so overturned the events of a day of death, injustice, and darkness we call that day, “Good Friday.” Because of this, several January’s from now you may be able to look back on some events of 2017 and say, “Now I get it.”

Eyes Open, Socks Washed

An old story tells of a little boy who misheard the lyrics of Nathum Tate’s classic carol, While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.  The boy was heard singing, “While shepherds washed their socks at night and hung them all around….”

The little boy’s innocent mistake makes the story funny, so does the notion of shepherds wearing socks.  According to fashion designer Ramsaa B, socks were known long before the first Christmas.  In the eighth-century BC, socks made of animal skins were often worn by actors in Greek comedies (some of us still get laughs with our socks).  Yet shepherds in New Testament times wore sandals without socks; they were into cool footwear long before Birkenstock. 

Corny as the little boy’s story may be, it suggests an important point.  Just like sheep need to be watched, socks need to be washed.

Had the shepherds been washing their socks, nothing would have been wrong.  The duties of everyday life are duties.  They must be done.  Only the super rich or the super famous might wear a pair of socks once and then throw them away.  Dolly Parton claims she never wears the same clothes twice but I hope that’s not true of Bill Gates.  Though I’m certain Bill doesn’t wash his own socks.

Be you rich or poor, famous or unknown, if you wear them your socks will need to be washed.

Like sheep need to be watched. 

The shepherds did a monotonous, sometimes thankless job that had to be done.

One night, while doing that job, they witnessed God at work in a wondrous way.  Our jobs may be monotonous, repetitive, unremarkable, even thankless but the shepherds experience reminds us we may witness God at work even in a most unlikely venue.

Seventeenth century Carmelite monk Brother Lawrence is famous for addressing God as, “Lord of pots and pans and things…” Lawrence who was not a gifted theologian had been assigned to the monastery kitchen.  Yet, in that noisy place of ceaseless labor, he enjoyed the presence of God.  That enabled him to pray for God to allow him to minister to others by “getting meals and washing up the plates.” At the same time, as he stood over the steaming, soapy water he had opportunity to witness God’s grace at work in the lives of others laboring in the kitchen and in his own life.

Because the shepherds were on those hills, doing their unglamorous work, they had an opportunity to see God fulfill ancient promises and initiate a work that would change the future.

In your workplace, be it a factory, an office, a classroom, a store, or a kitchen, you have the same opportunity.  You may see God keep his promises to comfort the grieving, encourage the fearful, strengthen the weak, and forgive the penitent.  And you may see the one who has been touched by God take the first steps toward a new future. But, like the shepherds, you have to stay awake, keeping your eyes open, your ears attuned to a heavenly voice saying, “Behold.”

The shepherds were taken by surprise. They weren’t expecting to see “a vast, heavenly army.” (Luke 2:13 NET) But now, because of Christmas, we can embark on each day knowing we might see God at work somewhere. We won’t see a baby in a manger but we might see a life changed by that Babe.