I’ve been reminded this past
month that our society operates on anxiety. From my morning commute to many of
my business interactions, anxiety reigns in place of thoughtful consideration,
in place of reasoned response, in place of long-term vision, and in place of
leadership. And what do we reap as a result of our collective and individual
anxiety? Fragmentation in all aspects of life – from the Eurozone crises to
road rage to reactionary domestic policy to broken families and other broken
relationships to poor business decisions. Anxiety also destroys truth for
anxiety pressures a society, a business, a family, an individual, to lie for
the sake of relieving pressure – the tyrannical and unrelenting pressure of
anxiety assaults the ethics and morality of society until spin and lies are
normative.
We no longer value reflection and
context, we value trivia, we value data – there is an underlying value assumption behind the
popularity of games such as Jeopardy – games that stress data over contextual understanding and thoughtfulness.
(After writing this sentence I read a letter from Dorothy L. Sayers to the BBC
in which she declines to participate in a Jeopardy-type show because of this
very problem – and the letter was written
in the early 1940’s!.)
The anxiety of society is to us
today as the floodwaters were to those living in Noah’s time – both engulf a
generation.
Isaiah writes: Behold a king will reign righteously and
princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind and a
shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade
of a huge rock in a parched land, (Isaiah 32:1-2). Am I a refuge in Christ
for those around me? Is the church a refuge from the anxiety that is sweeping
over our friends, families, neighbors and coworkers? Or, is the church
fostering and contributing to the anxiety? Is the church connected to the power
grid of the world – or are we resting in Jesus Christ?
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